The reading rent, that is. Haven't managed to read more than 20 pages in the last week. I suspect that will change in the next couple of days, since I'll be on a plane and then house-guesting with my brother- and sister-in-law and the nephew. (I suppose I'd get my anglophile license revoked if I called him a nevvy, no matter what my intentions.)
I'm doing that thing where I pick up four or five books consecutively over the course of a week and read the first chapter and then forget to pick them back up. It says more about my state of mind than my reading material, I swear. Usually. My plan for this weekend is to get in one non-fiction book, one re-read (The Blue Sword shall be packed!) and to finish another book. I think I could finally get back to the Ash series if I tried. I suppose a short story collection wouldn't hurt anyone, either.
I'm supposed to bring my laptop, so as to write, but I am suddenly hit by this brainstorm imagining of the near future, in which I do not bring my laptop and concentrate on the reading instead. If I did that, I would inevitably be struck by an enormous brainstorm of greatness and have no easy way to record it. If I bring the laptop, I will ensure that doesn't happen. Ah, the horns of a lemming.
I did restart "Breakfast at Antigone's" today. Shakespeare showed up at the start, and that made all the difference. Byron tried to show up first before, and he was not helping things. I dig the characterization I've started for Nina, as well, which is cool, because I feel like I've managed to spin enough plates to make this look good. Let's just see if I can keep them spinning throughout.
What I utterly failed to do was to get chapter one of BRoC in shape for the WisCon writing workshop. I may have to send them a short story. Of course, I don't have any shorts that I can stand that haven't already been workshopped with the OWW... I feel pretty happy about those stories, and plus, they're already snugly tucked away with editors, and it makes me nearly crazy to try to rewrite stuff that's out malingering in a slushpile. I do have one more day, though I also have to pack, do a few chores and attend Harn. And I really should go spend my soon-to-expire 50% off thingies and buy new underthings. My lunchtime tomorrow may get seriously busy. And Harn may be be multi-tastic.
The only other news is no news. I was expecting a bounce from F&SF today. I suspect tomorrow. And no, I've stopped hoping for the best with regard to getting out of slushpiles. I spent a long time learning how not to get my hopes up, and sort of clenching whenever I got the mail. Then I realized I was living a joyless existence in which I never once allowed myself to dream of the big time. And a couple of times, I did let my hopes get up a smidge too far... so now I've settled on quiet resolve in actuality, and daydreams in the abstract. It seems to work a little better that way. In any case, I neither dread nor welcome my trip to the mailbox tomorrow out of hand.
I have no actual proof that I write in threes, but my mind parses things in threes, so I may as well indulge myself in a little mental exercise here and now.
I wrote "Huntswoman," "Bound by Spells" and "Sun's East, Moon's West" in a month-longish fit of productivity last year. They are inextricably linked in my mind, and it's not obvious how they would be other than the grew out of the same mental state. "BbS" and "SE,MW" both have snappy first-person narrators. "Huntswoman" and "Sun's East" are both fairy tales. They are all three fantasy, and all three feminist, and they are (still) the three stories I have the highest hope of 3-for-3 publication on--even though I thought "Huntswoman" was the weakest of the trio when I was first sending them around. (I'm not sure of that any longer... I have the most doubt about "Bound by Spells" right now.)
They are all three hard stories in one way or another. I never intended to write about Snow White, but I did want to write about a hard woman at a hard point of life. And, given my stepmothering issues, I can't imagine a harder topic than stepmothers, or a better base of operations for dealing with stepmothers than Snow White. That story sort of just came to me out of nowhere--I could see the huntswoman's boots and gloves and I could see her walking through the forest, and I knew there was a story there, a mystery.
As for "Sun's East"--without saying too much, to me it's about infidelity, which is the second hardest meta-subject for me (next to "bad parents"). I've always loved the east of the sun, west of the moon fairy tale, for its similarities to Beauty and the Beast, but also because it's got a bear in it. But for all that I love, say, McKinley's Beauty and Rose Daughter, the B&tB story seems almost too simplistic, too innocent. I liked the fact that the east of the sun fairy tale has the complicating factor of troll-brides, and that it's a more direct throwback to Psyche and Eros... there's something both erotic and disturbing about not knowing the face of your lover. On the disturbing side, it even works for me as a metaphor for infidelity. Do you really know the face of your lover if s/he has lied to you? Conversely, what does the cheater really know about the person they commit infidelity with? They may very well be blinded by lust... Anyway. Lots of issues there.
The third story is about fat. And that's a hard issue, too, 'cause I'm fat, and while I'm fairly comfortable, and know it's better to be fit than caught up in appearance and all of that jazz, I still don't really like it. "Bound by Spells" isn't based on anything except a wacky dream I had one night, so that madness is all mine... though people may believe it's derivative of Buffy, though I'd call it an homage at best. I don't honestly know if it works as a story or just an extended, therapeutic rant about fatness and misconceptions thereof. The story has been out on extended leave in a slushpile somewhere...
Anyway, my point was about threes. I see how those three work together, but the completionist in me says: I gotta have three stories about stepmothering. I gotta have three stories about infidelity. I gotta have three stories about fat. I gotta have three fairy tales. I gotta have three stories that are urban fantasy. It's just the way my brain is working right now.
I don't know if it's because I can't decide what to work on--"Thaw" and I aren't getting along. I'd like to know why. I think it's because I know what has to happen, and part of the joy in writing is not knowing what happens. Silly, no? For starters, things could change as I write it. The other problem is, I have to introduce a character for Anusia to fall in love with (btw, abbreviating that name in my notes has been fascinating), and it seems particularly burdensome to make someone love-worthy. Romantic heroes are the worst, unless they are sarcastic and Byronic. Which, I suppose, he could be.
Of course, Byron himself is giving me fits in "Breakfast at Antigone's." Ok, he's shown up and rescued the calligrapher from suicide. And I'm frozen, trying to write Byron. Perhaps I should chose a much less well-documented poet. Perhaps Byron can just be at the bar later on.
I can't make any of my comedies work at the moment, either, and I don't know why. Maybe I need to read more Connie Willis. More Jane Austen? Who else is comical enough and in the right ways? I have a screwball comedy and a comedy of manners that refuse to get up and go. Maybe it's because I don't have a third comedy--except I do, "Bound by Spells" is comedy.,
Oh, I give up.
Well, Merlin the Cat just closed my browser before I could post the entry I'd just written. Man, censorship from your cat is harsh.
It mostly read, "Blah, blah, blah, self-doubt, blah, blah, blah, resolute resolve, blah, blah, blah, now let's get axiomatic."
The only actual information it imparted was a weekly update of this variety:
2 rejections, 0 acceptances, 1 catastrophic harddrive failure from a 'zine (resubmit)
"The Regency and the Roman" is a casualty of war, and has landed on the shelf until such time as I can see fit to turn it into a novel. "Sun's East" is right back out the door, but I am dismayed by how much less cool the story seems now than even back in January--but at the same time, that's what the evolution of one's eye will do. If only I can get my craft to keep pace with my eye, eh?
I am reconsidering "The Ill-boded Blade" as too obscure in its coolness. The concept is there, but the execution lacks. Story of my life, I suppose. Today, for example, in the shower I could think up nothing redemptive in the story "Sticks and Bones" except the concept. So, I'll huddle on that one like it's penguin egg, and probably "IIB" too. ("IIB" has the lovely loveliness of having a Beowulf connection, it being about Unferth the Brother-killer and his sword Hrunting, but I don't think anyone has gotten that connection so far, and just thinks irritatedly of my choice of names: "Unferth? Hrunting? Is this bad Tolkein-pastiche?")
I've only gotten this far in my entry because I stuffed Merlin under the covers where he has, by now, regressed to kittenhood. For the record, it's longer than the other entry, and no longer has an extended bit about the "Writing is hard" axiom.
Axiomatically, in fact, this entry is a bust.
Arrow's Fall by Mercedes Lackey (16) [fantasy]
I can't think of the last time I read this book, but I know it was before I actually had an adult, romantic relationship with someone. Because, in the old days, I used to think, yeah, Dirk was pretty romantic, and isn't life-bonding cool?
Casting aside all the other things you might say for or against Mercedes Lackey in general and this series in particular, let's focus just a minute on how I, an old, old lady of 29 years, cannot fathom what in God's name Talia is doing with a jerk like Dirk. He's moody and cranky and jealous and jumps to conclusions and drinks too much, and anything redemptive we know about him is something some other character told us, not something we see for ourselves, except maybe for how he's pretty ok with Griffon the Firestarter at a few key moments.
Kris, early on (back in Arrow's Flight) sort of pissed me off by doubting Talia, but that was, essentially, one stupid miscommunication/mistake, rather than a whole slew of miscommunication idiocies. Kris, let's see... is vain, but not unbecomingly so, and overall, seems particularly sensitive, kind, generous, caring, smart, stable, and keeps his head in a crisis. Plus, he loves that idiot Dirk like a brother. Yeah, Kris looks like a winner, and the sort of person I'd like to build a relationship with.
I... I... Oy! I don't think there's anything really left to say about it. Except... wow, when you write about mystical life-bond wossits, you better be damned careful how the character stacks up outside of said wossits, or at least come down with some Anne McCaffrey style pragmatism (yeah, characters have this whole thrall thing going on when their dragons have sex, but it in no way makes anyone think that the thrall-bonded partner is necessarily good and worthy and stuff. Remember how Lessa dreaded the thought of F'lar's bronze not covering her queen? etc).
Well, I am. Officially, that is. It was meant to be a break of two days, but last night ended up being part of the break as well, and heck, I may be gunning for another day of break tonight.
Either way, the break won't continue past this weekend. I have half of an itch to do something tonight, but with only half an itch...
Yeah. Home sick. I think I'll read. The cats don't want me to go get my juice refill, but I may have to insist.
I feel like I just jumped through a hole in space-time and it's the 90s again, and now the pudgy kid from Stand by Me that grew up all sexy is staring at me, very confused-like.
Stephanie Burgis posits: what if rewriting were fun?
The world has opened up.
And I did not not just make a Sliders reference to describe that feeling.
Managed to write fewer words than the number of hours I spent trying to write said words.
I did manage to shove a couple stories out the door, and made some brain-case headway on another story, but it's kind of been a bust around here. I'm going to do a massive decluttering of my home workspace and hope that jumpstarts some positive feelings--preparatory to painting the room anyway, so even if it doesn't, I've been productive in some regard.
I bought a ceiling fan, cream paint and mauve-cranberry paint that matches a mauve-cranberry pillow I bought in France 3 years ago. Time to make the magic happen. There's got to be a comforter for sale in the world that is somewhere between cornflower and turquoise to go with the pillow (it's shimmery fabric, and the sheen is cornflower/turquoise)... between that and some antiqued brass switchplates, I'll have a new workspace before spring has sprung.
Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within by Dennis Palumbo (15) [non-fiction, writing]
This book's subtitle should actually be: "kicking your ass, but gently."
I particularly like the chapter, "Three Hard Truths," in the middle of the book. I think that it should be at the beginning, and there should be a warning that if you can't at least read this very brief chapter and realize there is some value in it, then you can't ever complain about writing. You can write--you just got your bitch-about-it card clipped.
Beyond that... I read this book because I felt like I was having psychological blocks. *grin* Turns out, yep, I was. (I mean, I assume...) And probably still have. It's a gentle ass-kicker, this book, but it also affirms what I'd already expected--writing is tough, on occasion, and the selling of it is tough, always. It basically says, "Shut up and keep writing." But nicely. Therapeutically.
Arrow's Flight by Mercedes Lackey (14) (re-read) [fantasy]
When I was a kid, I never fully realized that the main character's loss of magical control is a metaphor for depression. Hey, look. Now I do.
'Twas a fast read, but it doesn't quite hit the comfort buttons of Arrows of the Queen.
My little plan of keeping a notebook to track the daily fluctuation in my goals is, uhm, in action. I can't tell you if it's working, mind you. I see that my goals fluctuate daily. There's not much to it beyond that.
Today I brought my laptop to work with I-don't-even-remember-what-goal in mind. I think I thought I would take it off into the depths of the library during lunch, if I didn't find someone to eat with. That didn't happen. I found someone to eat with, for one thing... but I did stop by the corner coffee house on my way to the car, and wrote for about an hour and a half. And by "wrote," I mean, of course, stared at some stuff, poked some documents, half-edited what I've already written of "Thaw," entered some new titles in the "some day I will write a story with this title" file, and found some excellent techno on my iPod to cover up the less excellent techno blasting from the speakers of the coffee house.
My work was interrupted by a couple of frat boys who were apparently really excited about coffee and had to do the frat boy/sports fan "whoo!" at the top of their lungs, and a man-boy who couldn't decide if he was more invested in pacing around the coffee house while talking on his cell phone or standing at the fixin's counter while listening to his MP3 player. I'm not quite sure what his deal was, but man, the energy of a campus coffee shop is not conducive to my work habits.
I came home to The Madness. My husband and his cohorts tend to go all out during March Madness. They eat poorly and take days off work and buy the big satellite package with all the games... I can't even begin to explain how horrifying the food choices get, but the phrase "meat sweats" has been used in regards to my husband's reaction to some of the food choices...
I retreated to clean my office and fill up my aunt's iPod (I don't think I can explain what's up with that in 50 words or less, so I won't bother), and theoretically to write--but the writing that's happening now is merely preparing the office to start writing like a fiend tomorrow. I'm at that point where things have to leave my head, and I will no longer take no for an answer. I'd like to finish something before I pick up my aunt at the airport tomorrow and deliver unto her an iPod full of the Beatles, New Age music and audiobooks. I'd like to finish something else after I wave a fond farewell to her. And then I'd like to finish something else tomorrow evening, after my walk.
We'll see.
Sometimes a body gets so dedicated to their brand of crazy that it's damned hard to get past it. But tomorrow, I am going to make every effort to do so.
Turns out, Locus mentioned Stephanie Burgis's and my recent efforts for Strange Horizons favorably in the blurb-review in the March edition.
I ran through two libraries (only sometimes figuratively) to find a copy and see for myself.
Not a bad day. I've also managed to get up the gumption to send out "Tertio" again (deciding that sure, writing a different story set in this world is an option, but not one I'm going to pursue before I give "Tertio" a chance). Also sent out "The Lonesome Dark"--finally having tweaked and tightened it so much it squeaks. Sort of.
Good news. Confidence rising.
Did another rewrite of "The Lonesome Dark" and sent it off to my faithful correspondent in Northern California (Catherine, for those of you playing at home, who's going to earn pride-of-place in the acknowledgements section the first time I have one, even if she doesn't read that particular work).
By morning, I had rethought a lot of the stuff I put into "LD" last night, and Catherine, interestingly, had much the same reaction. So. Maybe the things that need to be fixed in this story can't be fixed, and oh, yay, I wrote myself into a corner yet again.
On the other hand, I threw down another section of "Thaw" last night, and was somewhat pleased by it.
I've been discussing something related to this (how writing and rewriting can be separate processes) with my friend Joe, who is a musician... we're trying to map our arts onto each other, for some reason, and I think it's because we're both People Who Don't Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. I argue that writing is composition and rewriting is performance. Joe isn't sure. We're going to discuss it in person. But for now, I'm pretty convinced of my metaphor.
Oh, magical weekends,
which make me forget
all about blogging about writing--
I smite thee.
Though it's not
as if I had progress
to report
anyway.
(Please come back tomorrow when, I promise, there will be no deplorable pseudo-poetry.)
Peace-Weavers and Shield-Maidens: Women in Early English Society by Kathleen Herbert (13) [nonfiction, history]
I read this as part of the preliminary (gestational, one might say) research for the fantasy novel I'm going to write in a few years. (Maybe one year. I'm not sure when this book will get written, but it hangs around the front and back of my brain at random times, and has for several years--it's not actually going anywhere.)
The first part was my favorite--a down-and-dirty linguistic assessment of the words for "woman" in Anglo-Saxon. "Weaver-person" is actually the most likely provenance of the word "woman"--"man" merely meanging "person"--and "weapon-person" was the world for male human.
It's a fine distinction, and Herbert goes on to discuss why weaver-persons could be men (scops--word-weavers--were traditionally male), and there are many fine examples of women who were weapon-persons by action, if not gender. The blurry lines of gender identity, I suppose... only, the Anglo-Saxons didn't seem all that confused. Of course, they had about fifty words for "person" on top of mann, so. (shrug)
Anyway, a very interesting historico-linguistic analysis, just the way I like 'em.
Adriana by Catherine Moorehouse (12) (re-read) [romance]
I only spent the past five years looking for this book! I read it first when I was about 15, didn't really think on it again, but then was suddenly struck by a desperate desire to reread it--only, I couldn't remember the title and had most of the relevant details wrong, so Google yielded nothing.
Of course, it turns out that in my fractured mind, I'd completely amalgamated it with another book, so I remembered a hybrid of the two (to my credit, they have very similar plots... though I couldn't tell you what the second book was--at least my guesses on title on this one were close). Not that rereading this was disappointing, or anything; I climbed into the tub with it at 8:30 after swearing I'd get out at 9, but didn't exit until there were two chapters left and it was bedtime. I finished today on break at work, and am writing this on my afternoon break.
In any case: a fast-paced read that has held up well in the intervening 15 or so years since it was published. It's a classic girl-disguised-as-boy plot; a few moments that stood out clearly in my memory were less exciting during my reread, but other moments that I'd glossed over during my tunnel-visioned youth turned out to be really quite charming. All things considered, a nice rediscovery. I suspect I'll want to reread it in another decade or so.
"Thaw": +500 words
BROC: +1,000 words (not good!)
"The Library Seed": almost fully rewritten
"Sticks and Bones": up at the OWW
and the real news... I'm now a volunteer part-time slush reader for Lenox Avenue.
A wise woman or three once told me: the best way to learn more about your own writing is to read slush. Five submissions later... I think they might be right.
In other news, while waiting for my aesthetician (yes. I wax my eyebrows. Wanna go?), I decided to give something new a go... that before and after I sit down and write every evening, I write down my current list of goals. Not just goals for the evening, but for the week/month/year. I want to watch the evolution of said goals, and see how (and when) I switch gears. I've no idea if it will be revelatory or merely interesting. But I have the notebook all primed and ready.
Now, if I could just figure out who has been stealing my good pens.
I'm reading Writing from the Inside Out: Transforming Your Psychological Blocks to Release the Writer Within. I'm sort of dipping in here and there and letting platitudes and questions wash over me ("Are you rushing the endings because you're afraid inspiration will leave before you finish?") and thinking about them. It's helping kill what ails me. Or, uh, cure what ails me. Whichever.
I"m also reading, concurrently, a book on the climatic change at the end of the age of dinosaurs and a couple books on ice ages in general, and I'm doing it for pleasure, not for the value of researching for "Thaw." "Thaw," indeed, proceeds on apace.
Thanks to the folks at the workshop, I'm rewriting "The Library Seed" with some very clear notions in mind. And some notions on how to be more clear, as well. I feel like this story is one where I'm hunched down in the Bushes of Conspiracy and plotting with the Abstract Muse, whispering loudly, "Ok, just this once, we're going to try to be clear about what's going on." It might be working. What really kicks me right where I live is the fact that the people critting me are good at this. I'm starting to worry about the quality of my critiques.
I'm also about ready to rewrite "Sticks and Bones." I have had a few dozen ideas for improvement, including adding another character... but I just got a good crit from Stella that made me think that subtracting is the true path to glory here. Tightening, anyway. I'll take another week or so to think on that, since I'd like to finish "Thaw" and I have my goals for BROC I'd like to hit this week, though I think my overall structural insecurities are ruining my plan to write non-sequentially.
Crazy dreams about acceptances last night. That almost assures a rejection, doesn't it?
In attendance at the new Borders café were Julie, Eric and myself. The new seating arrangements are not optimal. We may have to return to B&N.
As for work... I got all the snippets of BROC together and put them in one file and it came out to about 10k, which means that I've actually managed to be about half as productive as I hoped, which is still twice as productive as I feared. 10k is one-tenth done, after all. Uh, maybe. If I'm not actually just writing two books bam-bam with no stopping in between.
I suppose it's problematic that I could be writing one 100,000 word book, or maybe two books totalling 180,000 words, and that I really just don't know. I have no idea how to explain this right now... but, it's like this: I know the ending of "the first book" (nebulous concept that it is--is it really a book or a convenient 90-100k-word resting place?). I know some of the things that happen in the second book--about half the things, as it happens. I think I may just keep on writing when I get to the end, right on into the next book, without even really noticing. So.... Yeah, ok, I can't explain it. I knew that sentences ago. Sheesh.
Ok, so--once I finished doing that I needed something else, and turned over to "Thaw" and wrote the opening scenes of that. They went very nicely. I think it might be an epic. That was a nice realization, after wondering how to write one in 5k since first reading the guidelines to >Twenty Epics. I doubt "Thaw" can be finished in time, but it was very pleasurable to figure out how I could rise to the challenge--none of my other ideas were quite doing it for me.
Yes, so. Progress. None this evening--I was at Harn.
Wizard and Glass by Stephen King (11) (re-read) [fantasy]
Sadly, I'm not as intrigued by Roland's childhood as every other freaking person on the freaking path to the freaking Dark Tower. I don't know why. Maybe because I liked it better when I had a very dim picture of his childhood in my head--it made him more a creature of myth, an archetype, and that's how I like my gunslingers: archetypal. A cross between The Man With No Name and the Pale Rider, and heck, even Shane didn't seem to have much of a past--just an ever-present now where the fighting happens.
Well, actually--I just summed it up right there, didn't I? I feel like I could eke a mighty fine essay about the Western vs. the Dark Tower, some day when I've finished the books and think it all through. But... not just yet.
I find the best moments in this book to be the ones outside of the flashback. I think going through the world of The Stand is creepy and fun. I enjoy the trip to Oz. The ending of Blaine is satisfying. I like how Jake and the others grow. And I'm way, way ready for the next book, which I hope has fewer flashbacks. Sorry!