P.J. Fox's Blog, page 8

Book of Shadows on WATTPAD!

For the first time, I’m releasing an entire book in serialized parts and for free.  On Wattpad.  Hooray!  The book is Book of Shadows.  Follow it, and me, here and if you’re writing, too, I’ll follow you back and read your stuff.  I am really, really excited to be doing this and think it’ll be a lot of fun.  The great beta reader experiment!  Plus, who doesn’t like free?

Book of Shadows: First Chapter

ONE

She heard the car pull up behind her, and knew she should’ve been frightened, but she didn’t care.  About this new intruder or about anything.  Let whoever it was rob her, and then preferably shoot her so she wouldn’t have to feel this pain.  Rob her of, she thought, the five dollars in ones and the hair tie shoved into her wallet.  Which also contained a license that she couldn’t use, because she didn’t have a car.  She didn’t have anything.  A particularly fat raindrop hit the back of her neck and slid down, underneath her collar.  It felt like a slug.  She shivered.

Well, what did slugs feel like?  Did slugs, for that matter, feel anything themselves?  She bet they liked this rain.

Another great, hiccoughing sob racked her body.

A door slammed.

She stared at the tank in front of her.  An M-4 Sherman.  She thought.  But she wasn’t sure.  The parks of New England were full of such things, tanks and cannons and who knew what else.  She’d read a story awhile before about a cannon that had been sitting in one park since the Civil War, all that time loaded with a live round.  City workers had dutifully filled the muzzle with concrete, not bothering to check the breech.  Thus creating, she supposed, the potential for some terrifying shrapnel.  Another way to die, that she was missing out on.

Patton Park, which she could scarcely believe was a real place despite sitting in it, had been hailed by town worthies and local newspapers alike as the ideal green space.  There were multiple athletic facilities, including a skating pond—or, rather, a duck pond that sometimes froze—and, of course, there was this playground.  Which included, for extra age appropriate fun, this tank.

There was a crunch in the peastone.  Loud, even in this rain.  She tensed.

Someone sat down next to her.  On the park bench, thousands of which could be found just like it all over America.  She snuck a quick look, not wanting to be seen doing so, and her heart sank.

She hadn’t realized, until that moment, how much she’d hoped that the person would be Tom.

Not until she saw that it wasn’t.

The door hadn’t sounded like Tom’s stupid Jetta.  Tom, who’d claimed all this time that he was about to trade it in for a Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat.  And oh, why did it matter what Tom drove?

She was, quite possibly, about to be more than robbed by a complete stranger and all she could think about was someone else’s car choices.  She hated herself.  She should have left when she’d had the chance.  But of course she hadn’t, because she’d thought it was Tom.  Maybe if she stared fixedly ahead and didn’t move, this new person who wasn’t Tom would go away.

Without raping her, or dismembering her.

Because, really, who pulled over, in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere, in rain like this, to pickpocket?

The rain stopped.  She looked up to see the faintest outlines of an expensive plaid, lit by the ambient glow from the nearest streetlight.  An umbrella.

She turned, facing her companion.

Her breath caught.  She swallowed.  It was her neighbor.

At least, she thought it was.  She hadn’t seen much of him before.  He was older than she, and moved in different circles.  The circles of adults, not students at Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School.  He wasn’t old old, wasn’t really…now that she looked at him, old at all.  She blinked the rain out of her lashes.  She hated to think how she looked right now.  He, on the other hand, looked like he’d just climbed out of a hatbox.  Her grandmother’s phrase.  Clean and fresh and pressed.

The hand holding the umbrella was strong and square and gloved in black.  It extended from the sleeve of an expensive trench.  More of the same plaid at the upturned collar.  Not flashy, just a lining.  He was buttoned up against the rain, the belt tied in a casual yet somehow glamorous knot at his waist, but she could see the lapels of a suit.  Gray.  A blue tie with white polka dots.  Small and understated.  The sort of thing a librarian might wear.  And a white shirt, as crisp as the rest of him.

He was pale, with dark hair cut into a sophisticated but somehow old fashioned style.  One that reminded her, this time not so much of librarians but British schoolboys who were up to no good.  Dark, almost black.  But maybe that was just the light—or lack thereof.  He had a strong jaw and a long, patrician nose.  And he was clean shaven.  His eyebrows were nicely shaped, but naturally.  Not like those of some of the boys at school, who’d taken to plucking them.

His lips, which were full and with a bit of a cupid’s bow, neither smiled nor frowned.  But it was his eyes that arrested her.  There was something wrong with his eyes.  They were so pale and so…intent.  Expressionless, just like his lips, but they bored into her.

Flustered, she looked away.  She hadn’t meant to stare.  She swallowed again.  What must he think of her?  And why, again, was he here?

He’d done nothing wrong.  So far.  She had no reason to be afraid.  And yet some low, animal part of her told her to run.  To run, and to keep running.  The part of her that remembered crouching in the shadows, heart hammering out of her chest, as she prayed for the greater predators to pass her by.  The part of her that understood why squirrels froze in headlights.

But the part of her that had been raised in Larkspur and, until the year previous, attended Redwood High School had better manners.  Girls from Marin County didn’t run screaming from chivalrous neighbors.  Or any neighbors.  They thanked them politely as the rules of society dictated.

Even girls from horrible Hamilton, Massachusetts didn’t act on the knowledge that men were fat, or short.  Or creepy.  At least, not girls older than five.

So instead she stared even more fixedly at the tank.

“You’re unwell.”  His voice had the slightest trace of an accent.  She realized that she’d never heard it before.

She shook her head.  But she was crying again.  And God, she wished she were alone.  If Tom wasn’t coming back, that was.  Which he very clearly wasn’t.  Was probably warm and dry, at this exact moment, at the house of some other girl.

A flash of white in the corner of her eye and she turned, startled.  To see that her neighbor was offering her a handkerchief.  Not a pull from one of those little tissue packs but a real live handkerchief.  She took it, and blew her nose.  Sounding like a dying rhinoceros.

This was so embarrassing.  But the harder she tried not to cry, the harder she cried.  That she had an audience, and this audience, made things exponentially worse.  She’d wanted to contemplate the end of life as she knew it alone.  But this…this was like being caught making out with your Edward pillow by your dad.  If your dad were a crazy serial killer.

“I…thought you were Tom,” she said lamely.  And wondered in the next minute why she’d told him.  And wondered, especially later on, why she’d talked to him at all.  He who’d set off every alarm bell that could be set off.  Who was much scarier, that same small part of her claimed, than the events which had led to her being on this bench in the first place.  Events that even now she could scarcely credit but for which, nonetheless, she was certain that she was to blame.

“And Tom is…?”

“My boyfriend.”  She shook her head.  “My ex-boyfriend.”

“And you thought I might be he.”

“No.  Yes.”  She blew her nose again.  “I don’t know.”  Her laugh was a sharp, mirthless sound, a bitter tonic taken entirely at her own expense.  “I was preparing myself,” she said, “to accept an apology.”  Except she hadn’t realized that until after he’d sat down.  “Because maybe he had a good explanation and maybe….”  Her composure, as brittle as it was, cracked.  “And because I had so much invested in this relationship.  I…I loved him.”

He waited, in silence, as her tears took their course.

Tears and rain, both seemed never ending.

And then he spoke.

“I apologize,” he said quite formally, “that I am not Tom.  And that he is not here, indeed, to do as he should.”

The handkerchief was now thoroughly used.  She could never possibly give it back to him, that would be too disgusting.  She wondered if he had another one.  “That’s okay,” she said.  And this time she managed a smaller laugh but one that didn’t feel quite so much like a knife to the gut.  “He’s…not who I thought I was, I guess.  Not who I wanted him to be.”

“Clearly.  As here you sit.  No gentleman should ever abandon a lady to the rain.”

And to other hazards, came the unspoken words implied by his tone.  She turned again, her eyes meeting his for the second time.  Her eyes puffed up when she’d been crying and she was certain that she had mascara halfway down her face.  “That one’s not his fault,” she said.  “I jumped out of the car.”

A pause.  “Then you must have had good reason for doing so.”

She twisted the handkerchief in her hands.  “He wanted…we were further down the road.  He wanted to go park at Appleton Farms, where no one ever is this time of night, and….  But I wasn’t ready.  I told him I wasn’t ready.”  She thought she might rip the handkerchief apart.  For some reason, Tom thought being from California had made her into a sexual wonder woman and he hadn’t believed her.  Had, in fact, become quite certain during that brief interchange that she’d put out for the entire football team.  Because nothing said slut like not wanting to venture much beyond second base.  And certainly not score her first home run in the backseat of a Jetta.

Like, oh, let’s go out for ice cream.  And then we can stop for a quick sex.  “He tried to make me, so I jumped out of the car.”  She could still feel his hands on her wrists, still smell the stomach turning mixture of Fierce and rank sweat.  He’d always smelled so good to her but in that moment he’d suddenly become repellent.  So she’d wrenched her right hand away, fumbling for the door handle as she fought him off, and in one swift motion opened the door and pitched herself out backwards.

Landing on her butt on the asphalt, her legs sticking straight up in the air.

She’d recovered herself quickly, preparing to turn and run as he’d gunned the motor and sped off.  Leaving her shocked and trembling, as uncertain of herself as she was of whether she was in danger or not.  Thankful that she was in flats, she’d turned and started to walk home.

And gotten as far as this bench.

The sense of unreality that had entered her in the car had, it seemed, stayed with her through the present moment.  Which explained why, instead of running from him as she should have and Emily Post be damned, she was revealing her most intimate thoughts to a perfect stranger.  And one whose own perfect manners made him all the more terrifying.

“It’s not because I’m religious,” she said.  In truth she probably considered herself an atheist.  She blew her nose again, but this time only to clear out old garbage.  She was beginning to feel a little more like herself.  Something about repeating the story helped to clarify it, in her mind.  “It’s that…I mean, I’m seventeen.”  Almost eighteen, truthfully.  Just a few more months.

“He told me that if I loved him, I’d do it.”

She returned her gaze to the rain.  And the tank.  And the gazebo, on the other side of the duck pond, that she hadn’t even tried walking to.  Because she hadn’t, quite frankly, had the strength.

Which was how, ten minutes later or an hour, she wasn’t sure, her neighbor had found her here.  Hair plastered to her scalp and looking like a drowned rat.  And shivering, because even though it was only September it was cold.  And windy, each gust heavy with the promise of the sea change that would soon strike the New England coast.  If it wasn’t at this moment.  From summer’s balmy trade winds to the arctic blasts driven down through Canada, bringing vibrant fall leaves and then snow.  And what seemed like perpetual dark.  She wrapped her arms around herself and wished that she were elsewhere.  Like back in California, where nothing this humiliating had ever happened.

“You did the right thing,” he said.

If he turned out to be one of those religious nuts, she’d scream.

“True love waits.”  He paused.  That gaze, so intent, was still fixed on her.  But then, what he said next surprised her.  “A man who tries to trick a woman into acting against her better judgment doesn’t truly love her.  But is, rather, attempting only to ensorcel her with promises of love.”  He paused.  “Love is about accepting one’s partner for who she, or she, truly is.”

“Oh.”

“All of us deserve that love.  True love.  But, sadly, not all of us are capable of giving it in return.  As grieving as this experience might have been,” he continued, in that same calm, measured tone, “you also have cause to feel fortunate.”

Her brow furrowed.

“That your Tom has outed himself, now, as a cad.”

She was struck both by his insight and by his peculiarly old fashioned turn of phrase.  She half expected him to accuse Tom of base calumny, or start marveling over iron horses and kinetoscopes.  But he was right, of course.  People who loved each other didn’t pressure each other into doing things they didn’t want.  And they didn’t leave each other stranded in the middle of a downpour.

It felt strange, hearing herself referred to as a woman, rather than a girl.  As an adult.  She found herself wondering how old he was.  Maybe late twenties?  If he was in his thirties, it early thirties.  She wouldn’t have said thirties at all, even as a possibility, except…there was something around his eyes.  His strange, piercing eyes.  A tightness there.  He wasn’t, like, wrinkly.  In fact, his skin was quite smooth.  Flawless, even.  He just didn’t look young.

“Is there someone who can come and fetch you?”

She shook her head.  “My mom is out on a date.”

“Surely she’d be grateful for the interruption.”

She shook her head again.  “You don’t know my mom.”

Lorelai did not want to be interrupted.  Ever.  Especially not during promising first dates with fair-haired dermatologists.  She was a woman who, more and more since the divorce, saw her only child as little more than an annoyance.  She wasn’t cruel, precisely, but nor was she…interested.

“Allow me to escort you home, then.”

“I’m fine.”

He arched a single eyebrow, the barest movement, but said nothing.

“Really.”  She dropped her gaze to the handkerchief.  “I…I’m sure Tom will come back.”  Although he wouldn’t, of course.

“I don’t think that getting into a car with him would be a terribly good idea.”

“Well….”

“You’re upset.  You shouldn’t be alone and shouldn’t, either, be left to the dubious mercies of ungallant men.”

“I shouldn’t….”  She trailed off.  God, she felt so stupid.  And rude.  Even though she was only being normal.  “I shouldn’t get into cars with strange men.”

Especially not strange adult men who had reputations around town.  They might not have spoken before this night, but she knew generally who he was.  And knew too that some of his, ah, habits had drawn attention.  She’d heard her own mother talking about him.  She knew, now, because she recognized the description.  Lorelai had told her friend, on the phone, that he looked like some British actor.  British or Irish or something.  He’d played some king with personal problems in some dreadful soap but who cared about history.  That was Lorelai.

She’d gleaned, though, from this conversation that her companion didn’t get out much.  At least during the day.  No one knew precisely what he did for a living, either, to afford his nice house.  But he gave generously to local causes and so most residents overlooked his possible ties to organized crime.  Or organ trafficking.  Or Hollywood.  Or something.  And his lawn was always nicely manicured.

“I agree,” he said.  “You shouldn’t.”

“I don’t have my key.”  The realization that she’d forgotten it on the hall table was, among others, what had led to her giving up.  And while she might feel a little better than she had before, she still felt extremely sorry for herself.  And frightened.

“You can wait at my house, until your mother is done with her date.”

“You’re very strange.”

“I promise not to hurt you this night.”

Maybe it was how he’d said it, but she believed him.

She’d only really consider later that he’d said this night.

He hadn’t promised not to hurt her forever.

Adventures in the Wrong Cover

A major premise of this blog is that I humiliate myself so you don’t have to.

An ongoing problem I’ve had has been marketing The Price of Desire.  The book that, according to whom you ask, is either brilliant or the worst drivel ever written.  It’s certainly not…easy to categorize.  When it first came out it sold well, but then we discovered that the average science fiction fan was really turned off by a) the romantic sub-plot and b) the inclusion of so many non-white people.  POD being, you see, essentially the British Raj in space.

I’ve talked about the alienating problem of romance here and here.  Some readers prove more resistant to romance than others, but the question of whether it “belongs” is universal.  Which in turn begs the question, is it because romance itself is seen as so revolting or because readers balk at the necessary inclusion of a female protagonist?  Most of the time, women are acceptable in this genre only if they’re a) pretending to be men, b) indistinguishable from men, or c) providing window dressing.  The inclusion of Aria as both a) a protagonist and b) a woman, who is perfectly content to be a woman and who, indeed, expresses disgust with the patriarchy is…problematic to many.

Our first reboot was from spaceships to abs.  And, in so doing, traded one problem for another.  The first group thought there were too many abs in their spaceships; the second group thought there were too many spaceships in their abs.  They wanted less, you know, world building and more relationship.

And more traditional relationship.  Bringing me to the second, really entirely different axis of problem: while there is a strong romantic sub-plot, this is not a romance.  At least, certainly not according to the accepted definition.  It’s not one-dimensional.  It’s not escapist.  It’s not glorifying a the kind of simple, formulaic “relationship” that currently seems so fashionable.

People who want romance, as it turns out, do not want politics.  Or despair.  Or deep seated issues.  Or a navigation of the in’s and out’s of polyamory.  They want, well…abs.

What to do?

We settled on this.

Convey the gravitas of the series (and this is no light reading), and let the blurbs speak for themselves.  As for where to shelve it, that’s another matter entirely!  I think though, that in the end, if one can’t fit squarely into a genre then it’s best not to attempt to do so at all.  And really, for the most parts, covers are–or usually seem to function as, at least–advertisements in that fashion.  There are “romance covers” and “space opera covers” and so forth…none of which may be any good but I’m not sure that that’s really their function.  Successful advertising is, after all, connecting the right audience with the right product.  Whatever that product may be.

Will There Be More Audiobooks?

I just received, this morning, a lovely email from a fan asking if the rest of the books in The Black Prince Trilogy would be coming to audiobook.  And I’m pleased to announce that they are!  I answered this fan’s email personally, of course (I love hearing from everyone), but on the off chance that anyone else has the same question I thought I’d post something here.

The White Queen is currently in production with the same team, which produced The Demon of Darkling Reach.  If you haven’t listened to it yet, I highly suggest that you do (and you can, for free, if you sign up for a 30 day free trial of Audible and select TDODR as your free book).  Then, once The Black Prince comes out, it, too, will become an audiobook.  Or, rather, I should say that each part will become its own separate audiobook.  This having turned into, quite unexpectedly, a four book series.

I, myself, don’t have any dates for when TWQ might be released as an audiobook.  Because authors are the last to know everything!  One thing I can tell you is that a book’s sales, and overall reception (read: reviews), do largely determine whether it’s made into an audiobook.  Producing an audiobook being a highly expensive endeavor, much more so than producing an actual print book.  The powers that hold the purse strings (i.e. not me) need to have that confidence that the investment will, you know, bring a return.

So far, I’m also pleased to report, TDODR has done pretty well on Audible.  Which means I owe a big thank you to everyone who’s so far who’s downloaded it!  If you’re interested in learning more about what goes into the creation of an audiobook, there’s a wonderful interview with our narrator, Shiromi Arserio, here.

Don’t Drink the Tea

It should go without saying that nothing in a fantasy novel (or any sort of novel) should be construed as medical advice.  Medical advice comes from your qualified medical practitioner.  And does not, in any way, involve strapping a dead lizard to your head.

The Black Prince Trilogy is, to the extent that any fantasy series can be, historically accurate.  But the high middle ages were not medicine’s golden era and I, I cannot stress this enough, am not a physician.  I am a writer.  An entertainer.  Yes, some ancient treatments–like giving willow bark (today’s aspirin) to heart patients–have been adopted into today’s modern medical canon.  But even sound, science-based medicine can be lethal if practiced at home.  Remedies like foxglove (digitalis) can kill, and easily, and should only be administered by a qualified, board-certified cardiologist.

Yes, I mention a number of different remedies, herbal and otherwise, in all four books.  And yes, these were, many of them, popular in their time.  A time when many women lived to the ripe old age of “died in childbirth” and fully one third of all children died before age five.  The mean lifespan, for otherwise healthy men and women alike, was about forty-eight.  I discuss tinctures and treatments, along with a number of other things, for the purposes of world building.  But again, I cannot stress enough that medieval concepts of medicine should serve as no one’s blueprint.  For anything.

From The Demon of Darkling Reach:

Isla used her own hair care products that she’d made herself.  She didn’t trust the products available in the village.  Especially the pricey ones, which were the most useless and frightening of all.  Her father had been sold a potion, ah, tincture, to re-grow his hair by his personal physician.  The recipe involved boiling together a still-living lizard with the just-shed skin of a snake, preferably a highly venomous snake, until the unfortunate lizard has gasped its last and turned black.  Then one added three cut lemons—where one was supposed to get something as exotic as a lemon in Ewesdale, Isla could scarcely fathom—and boiled the whole revolting mess together for another hour.  After which one strained the results into a flask and combed it through one’s hair every night before bedtime.

That same physician also recommended massaging the scalp with bacon grease.

I share this particular passage because this recipe, while perhaps one of the more revolting, is also probably (I think) one of the safest.  And certainly one of the more popular to try among my fans, if the discussions I’ve come across online in various message boards, etc are to be believed.  And it’s not safe.  If you’re having trouble with your hair, then please, visit a salon.  Or a board-certified dermatologist.  Do not handle, or attempt to handle, venomous snakes.  Or go near them at all.  And please, for the sake of animal lovers everywhere (including me), please, please do not boil anything alive.

Listen, I love that so many of you love this series.  You guys, my fans, mean the world to me and I owe you all a nigh on unfathomable debt of gratitude.  Which is why I want you all to be safe.

The Black Prince Update 7

This is the LAST update you’re going to get–barring something really unforeseen–before I announce the release of the book.  Which is still slated for December 1.  Hooray!  While completing The Black Prince: Part II, my kitchen was torn out and remodeled, I suffered a terrible bout of stomach flu and was bedridden for the better part of a week (and am still recovering, if I’m completely honest), and a few other exciting things happened as well.  Writing amidst distraction took on a whole new meaning.  And now, as I do my last editing pass on the final chapters, my very strange new kitten inside my sweater where she’s decided she lives, I can honestly tell you that I’m exhausted.

Indie Success is out now, so that’s exciting.  Read that and its companion volume and you know pretty much everything I have to say about writing: as a craft and for a living.  If I get enough feedback on what other issues people would like to see covered, I’ll consider doing a third volume in the series.  Which has been a lot of fun to write and which I’d like to continue because, quite frankly, there’s always more to say.  But I’d like what I’m saying to be of most value to you, my readers.  I mean, I know what I find interesting in terms of what’s going on with this industry and what challenges writers–aspiring to established–are facing.

I’m really, really happy with how The Black Prince has turned out.  This whole series is maybe a little more grimdark than some readers initially anticipated, building as it does on a single relationship.  But being, at the same time, assuredly not romance.  At least, not in the traditional sense.  Which discovery was also a disappointment to some, I think.  And made this series extremely hard to categorize.  Yes, there are feelings in my horror.  But isn’t that what makes any story good: the human element?

Or, in the case of this series, the not so human?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Why NaNoWriMo Is a Bad Idea

Look, this post is going to read like a humble brag but it’s not.  It’s a discussion of why, from someone who does this as a full time job, treating writing a novel as some sort of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire-type challenge is dooming your book to failure.  Your book, which under normal circumstances might be really good.  And you, yourself.  Who under normal circumstances–if you allowed yourself to give yourself the proper encouragement–might be a truly outstanding novelist.  If you went about things the right way.

Because yes, how you approach a project matters.  People ask me all the time about my sources of inspiration, writing schedule, etc.  And, 95% of the time, their response to what I tell them is the same: some version of wow, you treat this like a job.  And why yes I do.  As it is, in fact, my job.  But, more importantly, for writing to have become my job I had to start treating it like my job long before it actually was.  Books, contrary to popular belief, don’t write themselves; and they aren’t written by the sort of “I’m not inspired right now”-type magical thinking in which we all, including me, sometimes allow ourselves to engage.  They’re written by hard work.  The same hard work, according to the same schedule, day after day.

That’s the unsexy truth…that NaNoWriMo discourages you from considering.

I, as I love to point out, had to write over 800,000 words of crap before I wrote anything I thought was even remotely good enough to publish.  My husband, meanwhile, just sat down and wrote a book.  Neither of which happened in a month.  My approach took a couple of years; his took about six months.  But both were built on a lifetime of writing.  Richard Laymon was once asked, how long does it take to write a book?  His response was: “Twenty-five years and six months.  Six months to produce a manuscript, and twenty-five years to learn how to write.”  I was about twenty-five when I finished my first book and I can tell you, I still don’t think I know how to write.  Mr. Laymon, who I was pleased to count as a mentor from my so-called “real” life and who is now sadly lost to us, operated on a steeper learning curve than most.

My advice (doled out in long-form in I Look Like This Because I’m a Writer) is to approach writing like you would running: a little at a time, recognizing that by starting you’re at least flirting with the idea of a lifelong commitment.  No one wakes up one morning and just starts writing a 500, 1,000, or more words per day of quality prose without training.  Sure, maybe, when inspiration strikes, but six days a week?  Being able to summon the muse on command is a skill that takes years to develop.  Years of hard work.  Because daydreaming about writing doesn’t prepare one to successfully complete a novel any more than daydreaming about running qualifies one for  the Boston Marathon.

The comment I’ve made on Facebook, which has really ticked some people off, is that writing only 1,600 words per day (about what you have to do, to complete NaNoWriMo) sounds like a vacation.  I typically shoot for twice that and, while I was wrapping up work on The Black Prince, I was writing to deadline so I was averaging close to 4,000.  Seven days per week.  And people felt like I was humble bragging, and I get that; but the truth is that this is my job, it took a long time for it to become my job (read: year after year of failure), and I should really be doing something all day.  I’m not sure why it’s “bragging” to say, I work hard at my writing job when it was never bragging, before, to say I worked hard as an attorney, but there you go.  When it comes to the arts, there’s a whole lot of magical thinking going on.  And a whole, whole lot of ego.

I do the equivalent of a NaNoWriMo every month.  Now.  But when I first decided to pursue this whole writing thing, really struggled to get anything onto the page.  Or, I might have a good writing day one day and be so exhausted from that that I couldn’t even string two words together for the next three days.  Getting teeth pulled, in comparison, would have seemed like a joy.

The difference between me then and me now is that I kept at it.  I make no promises about the quality of my writing–opinions on that certainly vary!–but the role of hard work in developing any talent simply cannot be overstated.  No one gets successful at anything, because they woke up one morning and tried it on a whim.  A career–again, in anything–is not pickup baseball.

NaNoWriMo is to writing, therefore, what one really spectacular gym day is to weight loss.  Or what run-walking around the block is to training for the Boston Marathon.  A really good start.  Yes.  Start.  I mean, I suppose a person theoretically could confine their weight loss attempts to a month, or their marathon training attempts to a month, and they might even get somewhere.  But it’d be by wrecking their body.  Moreover, simply by their very nature, whatever gains they made, and however impressive those gains seemed, they wouldn’t be lasting.  And isn’t the point, with any training, lasting gains?

A foundation upon which to build true, lasting success?

ILLT is my least successful book, probably at least in part because books on the actual craft of writing don’t sell that well.  Books on how to become a famous author in a month do.  No one wants to hear long, boring lectures filled with sports analogies (so if you’re still reading this, congratulations).  And honestly, my biggest beef with NaNoWriMo is that it encourages the very sort of gimmicky approach–based on more of the same magical thinking that seems so prevalent in our industry–responsible for so many writing failures.

Failures that didn’t have to happen but that were engineered, at least in part, by unrealistic expectations.

Which is what this comes down to: I am not trying to discourage you.  I want you to succeed, whether you follow my advice or no, or think I’m an idiot or no.  Whether you, the reader, are secretly the next James Joyce has nothing to do with whether NaNoWriMo is the best means of you discovering your talent.  Which I’m sure you have.  “Write a novel in a month” is a completely unrealistic expectation, for anyone.  Write fifty thousand words of a larger project, which has previously been outlined and will later, after completion, be thoroughly edited?  Maybe.  After years of practice.  Or not ever, if you turn out to be one of the many brilliant writers out there who takes a year or more to produce a manuscript.

Moreover, who says you need to wait for November?  Writing isn’t something you “just pick up,” and it certainly isn’t something you do for one month out of the year.  Writing, like anything you want to get good at–and certainly make even a partial living from–is a daily commitment.

Success doesn’t come from throwing all your other commitments out the window and subsisting on nothing but coffee and Skittles while you type furiously into the wee hours.  You may have 50,000 words of–something–at the end but what’s the point?  What have you actually gained?  Are you really better off than you were, before?  Has your life–you know, your real life, full of family and friends and hobbies–been enriched?  Are your relationships stronger, and deeper?

Let me know your thoughts, along with your own experiences, both positive and negative, with NaNoWriMo, in the comments.

What Does Darkling Reach Look Like?

I had, held in my mind, a very specific sort of place.  A place that was and is, indeed, based on the United Kingdom.  But a very specific United Kingdom: a gloomy one, as yet full of beauty and a dark, brooding sort of wonder.  A place that’s been captured perfectly by Tomas Szatewicz of Land of Light Photography.  All image credits are to him and all of the images shared here are purchasable as prints (or digital files) through his website.  Please give it a look.

Indie Success

Is FREE to download today, and through the weekend.

Online Harassment and You

It’s astonishing to me how many people seem unable to remember, or even to acknowledge in the first place, that there is another person behind the computer screen. A living, breathing human being just like them. Reading messages like, “you’re making me cry” and pleas to “please stop” should have an impact. I’ve joked before that a good many internet exchanges, if translated into so-called real life terms, would resemble something more like Peter Griffin v. The Chicken than an actual conversation. But the truth is, it’s not funny. Harassment isn’t funny. Hurt feelings aren’t funny. Being “right,” according to some arbitrary standard–which usually means proving the worth of one’s own point of view–isn’t more important than treating other people with respect.

A point that most of us, in the abstract, would agree with.  And believe we understood.  And yet the internet is awash in hurt feelings.  Because, at the end of the day, it’s the easiest thing in the world to throw out your thinking cap when you’re angry.  People, because they’re, to all intents and purposes, alone with their thoughts, say terrible things.  Cause terrible things.  How many people, in every age bracket, have committed suicide to stop the torment?

People who claim they’re good and decent people, people who like to think they’d talk someone down from a bridge rather than push them off, do the verbal equivalent every day online.  Because they don’t see the connection between their actions, and the possible consequences of those actions.  Because, in some fundamental way, they’re disconnected from the pain they’re causing.  With no tear-stained face directly in front of them, with no toes nudging the edge of the concrete, they can pretend that they’re the ones being bullied.  That that person who’s daring to be hurt, and to protest that the hurt needs to stop, is only doing so to spite them.

We all want bullying to stop but that starts with us.  But because I can’t teach self awareness to bullies everywhere, I’m going to focus on what YOU can do.  The bystander, or the potential victim.

If someone messages you to talk about another person, don’t engage.  Support them emotionally if you think that’s appropriate, depending on the nature of your relationship, but refuse to become a participant in tearing down another person.  We can all discuss our own feelings without reference to the supposed faults of someone else.  Remember, too, that the person messaging you has an agenda.  They want you to agree with them, for whatever reason.  Maybe it’s a good reason, maybe it’s not; it doesn’t matter.  Be strong-minded enough to form opinions about others for yourself, and on the basis of what you, yourself have experienced.  Don’t let others do your thinking for you.
If you see inappropriate conduct, then say something.
If you are being harassed, then REMEMBER: you have the right to assert boundaries.  No one who refuses to respect your boundaries deserves to be in your life.  The people who matter want what’s best for you and, thus, value your insight into how they’re making you feel.  The person who has you in their crosshairs, obviously, wants you to stay there; so they will say whatever they can to keep you from moving.  You do not have to listen and you do not have to agree with their assessment of you–your motives, your character, or your worth.  Love yourself enough to block them, or do whatever else you need to do in order to feel safe.  You have the right to feel safe.
Part of what’s so frightening about online harassment is that it follows you home.  To your living room, your bedroom and, sometimes, even into your bed.  That voice of rage and shame, whoever’s behind it, can thus begin to feel internal.  Recognize that this is happening and that, rather than a comment on your own worth, it’s a phenomenon that sociologists the world over are studying.  This is not your voice and this is not you.
Ask for help.  Reach out to a friend, or trusted counselor.  Tell them how you’re feeling.  Don’t be ashamed of being hurt by something that’s “only on the internet.”  We live in an internet-based society and the fact is, feelings are feelings and pain coming from your computer screen is no less valid than any other kind of pain.  Let the people who love you guide you, and reassure you.  Use them as your touchstones.

And remember: you are not responsible for anyone else’s conduct.  Whatever you may have done wrong, or whatever the person in question thinks you’ve done wrong, being imperfect in no way sentences you to be hurt.  We are all imperfect and yet we are all worthy of respect.  You cannot “cause” a person to harass you, or indeed to do anything.  Regardless of what they might claim to the contrary.  That energy comes from within them and their choices, like yours, are entirely the product of their own character, ethics, and perspective.

They are in control of their choices, just like you are in control of yours.  So make the choice to believe that you deserve better, because you do.  And don’t let anyone into your brain, your heart, or your life who hasn’t earned a place to be there by consistently enriching all three.