A Writer's Paradise

Uh, crap

So, sometime between testing my new site redesign of several months ago and, uh, now, Explorer and the site stopped getting along.

I know it worked when I first designed it.

But right now, it looks like my sidebar dives down to parallelitize itself with the bottom bar.

My face is so eggy and red right now...

STILL sick.

But Merlin-cat is really happy about it. Warm body to cuddle with all week is a bonus in his book. Except now I know he talks in his sleep, just like me. Random "meow" every half-hour or so.

*

It's very easy to call in sick to your dayjob. It is much less easy to call in sick to writing.

You know...

Being sick and cranky, I may not be in any state to wax nostalgic for how much I wish Sheila Simonson and Marion Chesney were still writing Regencies and Doris Egan was still writing anything that was able to be held in my hand... (When favorite authors of mine appear to stop publishing, I prowl those big volumes of Contemporary Literary Biography at the library looking for noms de plumes that I might have missed, that's how desperate I get.)

This is not like lamenting the fact that there are no more Burroughs Tarzan books to be read, or that Patrick O'Brien died. This is just my Entitled Modern Reader lamenting the economics of the situation.

For, AFAIK, Sheila and Marion and Doris are still capable of writing those things, insomuch that they possess fingers and brains. My Entitled Modern Reader Brain likes to pretend they have stacks of unpublished novels moldering away, held down by the cruel machinations of the publishing system. And to that vision I say, FIE. Seriously. I would spend double-to-triple the cost of a normal book to get even a lulu.com version of anything those three authors put out in the right genre.

Which is not to say that they should. It's just saying I would.

My Angry at the Entitlement Gnomes Modern Writer Brain thinks quite differently, of course. But I'd like to think that if the Big Show comes... and then goes... that I'll go ahead and throw my hare-brained ideas onto lulu.com or the next iteration, devil may care. 'Cause, hopefully, there'll be at least one person out there sitting around muttering imprecations and wondering why is there no other Regency as good as Lady Elizabeth's Comet, or why are there no more light-but-deep science fiction about folklorists? And hopefully also waving their checkbooks.

But that's a lot of ifs and a lot of suppositioning. The reality is, I'm stuck in a world where I nearly bounced off the wall to discover a short story by Sheila Simonson I didn't know about. But once that's read... back to the Shack of Infinite Sadness for me.

The next best thing, of course, would be to just write a variety of homages to these ladies.

So I'll probably do that.

Productivity? (Question Mark Firmly In Place)

I'm fighting a nicely nasty bout of Probably Strep, and I'm not really doing much but lying very still and trying not to swallow.

Last night, however, I did manage--in the course of theoretically opening up any file I could find and poking at it--to open up "Sticks and Bones" and tumble my way into a rewrite that I had been dreading for the best part of a year since March 2005. (Am in awe of my procrastinatory ability. Plus my time dilation ability to equate 1.5 years with 9ish months.)

And I did manage to read another book.

The Devil's Heiress by Jo Beverley (66) [romance]

I don't think there's any point in trying to claim any longer that I'm not a real romance reader. My favorite authors have won me over so entirely that I don't have an ounce of breath for denials anymore.

To be certain, I've become a much choosier reader of romances, and at this point, I've gone into highly selective mode. But am I any different now with fantasy? I certainly will not read any old crappy fantasy anymore. The main difference was that a crappy fantasy was just as good to me as a pretty okay fantasy during the height of my fantasy reading, whereas a crappy romance didn't really satisfy anything.

But I suspect age has as much to do with it as anything. I was a non-selective fantasy reader from about age 11 'til 18. I read anything that looked even remotely readable. I didn't come to romance in any real way until much later, when I'd already learned to be selective.

So.

It's something of a personal revelation, I guess. Never mind! Carry on. The Devil's Heiress was quite good, satisfied me just right... Though sometimes I feel as though Beverley is juggling her Rogues and going, "Egads. Look how many of them I made!"

Rejection. Sickies. Books: Blink and To Rescue a Rogue

Rejection from Clarkesworld. Second rejection on this story that indicates it would be a better novel than a short story.

I'm doomed, I tells ya. Doomed.

I am about *thees* close to pulling the story, but--no. A firm no on that. It probably would be a better novel (it was from an idea for a novel I had when I was 16, in fact). And my recent revisions might have left it a weaker story--the last two editors have mentioned questions about things that were sort-of answered in the too-long introduction that I chopped. Which makes me think I should rewrite it. Again. But a no on that, too.

This is the dark tea-time of the writing soul, right here. I've got to be stubborn enough to print it out again, pick a market, and send it off. Without fiddling, without pulling it so it can become a novel, without self-doubt, without waiting two weeks... Sure, it might be the wrong thing to do for that story, but it's the right thing to do for my career.

There you go. I take my own advice, and here it is, in action.

*

I think that was a pretty good speech, given that I'm full of mucus and aches. (My cat stares at me right now: why aren't you lying down, Sick Human, so that I can nest atop thee? Is that not what Sick Humans are for? Quit playing with that computer.)

I was sick yesterday, and I'm sick today, and I honestly can't see that I'll be well tomorrow, though I'm crossing my fingers for it. It's not that I'm at that bored stage of sick, it's that I'm at that miserable stage of sick. But I can't stand in a hot shower all day, which is about the only place (besides sleep) that I feel relief.

Anyway. Between naps yesterday I managed to finish reading:

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell (64) [non-fiction]

Which was entertaining and fine, but was more anecdotal than anything helpful. I'll sum it up for you: intuition is actually a thing, but be careful that your intuitions aren't based on too small a sample. Okay then. Carry on.

Nah, I simplified it a bit much, but at the same time, I coulda gone for some science. And more practical applications.

The day before that, I finished off:

To Rescue a Rogue by Jo Beverley (65) [romance]

I've been on a Beverley binge lately. Well, I'm still on it, actually, as I've another in hand.

I was deeply impressed by this book. The premise nearly threw me completely off--a woman falls for a man who's trying to kick opium. I thought that there was no good way that could be sexy, but Beverley handled it with a great deal of finesse, and it was, astonishingly, very not-oogy. Even more cleverly-handled was the heroine, who at first I thought I was not going to like, but who won me over in an Emma or Cher from Clueless kind of way (how can anyone stand a rich, happy, popular girl whose biggest problem is that she's a little bored and can't get what she wants?).

Anyway. It was a refreshing read in a year in which I've had to make a rule to sit down with a new book only when I have a free hour, as if I don't make it thirty pages in, I'm probably never going to pick the book up again. Weird rule, but it's helped me want to keep reading things...

Now, excuse me. My throat hurts, and the cat has finally settled down, and my latest Beverley is calling to me.

At my current rate...

...I should finish up thirteen different novels just about simultaneously.

Today I notecarded Heroes of the Cold Island, which I'm so delighted by in premise that I couldn't not keep poking at it. Whereas, I'm utterly stalled by certain other books, being at their "hard parts"--i.e., the muddle that is the middle.

Ugh.

I'm going to make a new running start at Arcana (or whatever it's going to be called) somewhat soon, and I have two point five short stories clamoring for attention, one of which may be doable in 4,000 words or less. (I know. I've made such rash claims before.) The one point five comes in because I have three-fourths of two perfectly good short stories set in identical twin universes, and once I commit to one story, the other one will shrivel up and die. It's complicated. I someday hope to explain everything about it. In a way that won't bore everyone to tears.

The other story--the 4k or less one--is called "Greater Than or Equal Two," actually uses the line "Cool math guys were the worst" and came to me while I was thinking about emotional intelligence, parenting, and the SATS. It's basically American Pie with social politics. I have no idea how I'm going to pull it off.

Late entries from the title file...

Not surprisingly, I keep a title file. Just in case.

Because:

Sometimes a title comes blustering in at the same time that a story does, and that's all kinds of good.

Sometimes a story shows up, and the title comes skulking in a few pages in, late but still in good time.

Sometimes the story shows up with the wrong title, but you can't break them up because well, what kind of jack-ass breaks up a couple on purpose, even though they're so clearly not right for each other?

And sometimes the story shows up, doesn't have a title, and then a tri-state manhunt has to be organized just to find something so that the story doesn't have to go to the Van Gelder Cotillion without a date.

But far more often, the title shows up, and the story is missing in action, and the storyless titles need to go where someone will love them.

Last week I came up with "The Law of Unanticipated Nepots." Which I like a lot. But the story that made the title is an anecdote from Real Life, and just not storyable.

And I've been trying to shoehorn a story into "Gesundheit, Nantucket" for... three or four half-drafts now. With no success, I might add. (It's migrated from roman à clef to Charlotte Brontë scholars duking it out in Haworth to time travel. It's just not happening.)

I've had a recent success from the title file... the story for "Almanac for the Alien Invaders" finally showed up. Triumph! But for all of that, there's still nothing for "The Golden Trout of Vaudeville" (one of those titles that was on the tip of my tongue when I woke from a nap) or "The Gat of Ivory" (I just don't have sufficient Mafia-pantheon of gods fuel in the pun-drive to make that work).

And of the great titles I've found in spam, only "The Wedding Dress Tea Parties of 2443" ever really managed to become a story. (A story I love, as it happens, but I'm no longer certain that the original inspiration should actually remain the title.) Not so much luck with the provocative "Starka, Under a Fence" or the totally awesome "Watts Egotist Colony, Solstice Oncoming."

And yet, as I've sat here and typed about how dead-end some of those titles are, I have a little spark here and there that makes me think there could be something, if I sat with it all a bit longer... the golden trout of Vaudeville certainly has some legs to it. Story-legs, of course. Though a trout with legs could certainly tap-dance...

Hm...

Books Update

I have been remiss in a big way, so I'm just going to list my conquests, er, recently finished books:

Glasswright's Apprentice by Mindy Klasky (58) [fantasy]

The Dragon's Bride by Jo Beverley (59) [romance]

Lady Rogue by Suzanne Enoch (60) [romance]

Reading by Starlight: Postmodern Science Fiction by D. Broderick (61) [nonfiction]

Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead... But Gutsy Girls Do: Nine Secrets Every Working Woman Must Know by Kate White (62) [nonfiction]

I should have read the postmodern science fiction book with a handful of notecards to write down everything I should still read, but mostly, I think I just need to read LOTS and LOTS of Samuel Delaney.

I feel like I'm forgetting a book, but I'm not... mostly because I did a skimming re-read of Elizabeth and Mary and read about half of Get Off the Unicorn, plus most of two cookbooks, several copies of Interzone and Locus and listened to the podcasted, condensed version of Dramatica.

Actually, that last one took up a lot of brain space, and I did download the book for free, skim it, and peer at all the diagrams, so:

Dramatica: A New Theory of Story by Melanie Phillips and Chris Huntley (63) [nonfiction]

I will say a word about that one:

Phew.

It's certainly interesting. It certainly has some ways of looking at story that I'd never have come up with on my own. I appreciate the term "storymind" and the discussion of archetypes alone is worth the time. But phew. It's so inorganic feeling, and I can't see how it always fits the kind of stories I want to tell. Maybe I'm not getting the big picture.

Here cometh the Anthropologist in Exile

Brit Marschalk of The Town Drunk informs me that "One Million Years B.F.E.: Diary of an Anthropologist in Exile" will be up at her publication on November 18th. Yay!

Brit is teh cool; we worked together on the erstwhile Lenox Avenue, where Brit was the web wizard who made a very cool submissions system, and where I learned how much I don't want to read slush for the rest of my life. I've never met her in person, but someday... she seems like good people, and not just because I've been longing to have a light-hearted but not necessarily punny market available to me and my kind.

In any case, if you just can't stand to wait until November 18th... (I write this as deadpan as possible. Just so you know.) ...you can check out the audio form of "One Million Years B.F.E." at Escape Pod.

And if that's still not enough, check out these hilarious LJ icons made by splash_the_cat:

Okay, so the Binford one is probably only hilarious to anthropologists who know what a Mary Sue is...

Discipline?

I am having a damned hard time nailing myself down to any one project, and I'm having an even harder time feeling guilty about it. Score one for the home team, I guess.

Tonight, my brain is all distracted by the shiny medieval fighting women book--more to the point, I got terribly distracted by the Merovingians. And the Carlovingians, which is a cooler (well, rarer) version of Carolingians. (Cooler for my purposes.) I have a cunning plan, you see...

I'd actually wonder if something were wrong with me, given my lack of settle down and work on one project-ness, but for the fact that I've never once had trouble buckling down to a real deadline, and I can't think of how my scattershot approach would be detrimental if I were able to write more than just an hour or two a day.

Tomorrow, I need to remember to take my stuff to work and get some lunchtime writing in. Something about lugging the laptop in doesn't seem too compelling, so maybe I just need to drag in a research book and some note cards, and get a few things off my desk. As it is, the Writing Cat can't find a place to sit in order to press his little body up against the warmth of the laptop, and it's not like he gives up... far from it. He'll knock everything off the desk before he gives up.

I foolishly left the laptop on over night, and came back to find everything reset to Cat Standard Lappiness. Which is to say--the most random settings possible. I can't believe he sleeps on my keyboard. He's a little warmth hog, that's what he is--tonight I caught him running out of my stepdaughter's room, and I'm sure he magically pried her door open to get in there and cuddle next to her. But the lure of a warm laptop and a desk lamp were too much, and he came to visit... Now he's chewing on the corner of my file card box and purring with his mouth open. How gauche.

Writing, Apples, Guns

I've been working on my rewrite of "Almanac for the Alien Invaders" this afternoon, and I think I've maybe finally made the ending work.

One of the hardest kinds of stories to write is the kind where the main character has a slow realization about decisions that she's made early in the story. Coming to acceptance of a situation without a sudden epiphany doesn't necessarily make for good story. I honestly don't know if I've made it work here, but the rest of the story is so complex, I didn't feel like I could have a traditional sort of conflict.

And honestly, I only wrote this story to clarify some things that happen before the beginning of a book I'm writing. The mere fact that it's turned out interesting and plausibly saleable is icing.

I'll have time to think on it more while I'm at the apple orchard with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law and stepdaughter and husband. I am not having my usual struggle with autumn this year--didn't have it last year, either--and it's wonderful. I'm looking forward to an autumnal activity for the first time in... ever? Well, ten years or so. I never minded autumn in the least in North Carolina, in part because there wasn't much to mind.

And if there's time after the apple orchard, my friend Jason is taking me shooting... because nothing clears the mind in quite the same way.

Plus, when a character picks up a gun, I feel I should know what that feels like, and every so often, I need to remind myself of it.

Yes, Elvis, There Really is a Santa Brain in this Building

...I'm just not sure where to find it.

I am utterly convinced that there's a rejection in my mailbox. (The one at the end of the driveway, not the one on the internets.) Somehow, the thought of going to look for it doesn't appeal. And it has nothing to do with the bachelor party going on in my living room.

(It is a low-key, geeky sort of bachelor party. When last I saw them, they were contemplating which gaming console to break out--Xbox, PS2, or GameCube? Also? Having realized that I've easily logged over a hundred hours in nearly every iteration of Final Fantasy games, I should never, ever, ever, ever pick up a game controller again. Not if I want to have a writing career.)

Anyway. I'm overdue on a rejection (or an acceptance, whatever--jinx it by thinking positively, make a self-fulfilling prophecy by thinking negatively, whatever) from Lady Churchill's, and I expect to hear from Clarkesworld any day now. I've been hearing good things about the rejections from Clarkesworld--fast and helpful. But since I have about, uh, one story that fits their word-length limit, I'm not going to have a very big sample pool...

Which is neither here nor there.

I've either got to learn how to write *short* stories again, or just go for broke and make everything a novel.

I'm sensing a recurring theme...

On the Hunt for Advice

There was a period of time where I would read any and all writing advice and find a huge percentage of it useful. Now I feel like it's late autumn, just before the snow is about to fall, and I'm the last squirrel in before the storm, trying to bury one last acorn before hibernation.

So, today my writing advice quest took me past the web pages of Kate Elliott, who wrote Jaran (and many other books, but Jaran is a long-time favorite). Kate's even got a page of writerly advice.

I also cruised past Matthew Stibbe's site (and finally added it to my blogroll) and liked the post I just linked to rather well. Different kind of writing, but the advice is still killer.

So, anyway. Two today--that's all you get!

Rejection Junction

Just dug through my SpamBox folder to find a rejection from Interzone. I read the first line--"I'm sorry but we won't be taking..."--with my usual "stiff upper lip, buck up little camper" false complacency, and waited for the disappointment to fade off before steeling myself for the feedback portion of the show. That can always be so... rough. Even when you welcome it, realizing just how badly you've flubbed something is never easy. For me, anyway. Maybe you all are made of different stuff.

But! Gosh, but. It was such a warm fuzzy rejection, I hardly know what to say. I almost feel a little embarrassed that such care was taken of my feelings--"we reject pieces, not writers," and (my favorite part) "while this story did not
win us over, we would definitely see more of your work," and such.

Alas, but since this lingered in my SpamBox for a couple days, I had no chance to resub to them while e-subs are still open. Not that I have anything ready for them. But they've moved to the top of my list through this whole process. WAY to the top.

I loff the loffly Interzone...

Compassion

Every once in a while, I hit a weird point of anxiety about not doing enough. Not finishing enough stories, not working hard enough on novels, not having enough stories in circulation, not being close enough to seeking out an agent, not taking writing seriously enough, I guess.

I feel a little strange that I haven't had one of those in a while. Not since, oh, "Rampion in the Belltower" was finished. That's a good month, possibly more.

It could be that I'm in a goodish place right now, where I feel like progress is being made--I sold "Bound by Spells" (even though its name got changed)! At a professional rate, no less! And in print!! I've been held over for third reading at Interzone! I made it into Surreal Botany! I got the Honorable Mention for "Huntswoman!" There is not utter silence from the Land Beyond the Transom!

Even though I still occasionally dump into a trough (JJA still rejects me, not GGV! I still get Blue Forms of Death! I can't get this story for Ideomancer right! I only seem to have written/sold one story of true literary merit, by my own exacting standards! No one wants my novelette! My dayjob is sucking my will to write!), I notice that these troughs are less perilous when

wait for it

I have compassion for myself.

Now. I once would have said that I have peee-lenty compassion for myself, probably too much. I let myself slide on ALL kinds of things I shouldn't let me slide on. But that's false compassion right there--that's the false compassion that raises bad kids and lets employees hang themselves with too much rope. That's the false compassion that comes from poor supervision. I'm a manager, after all, and at least a partial parent, so I think I know whereof I speak.

I'm going to address this in middle management terms because to do this as a dual metaphor would kill me.

In short, a good manager: sets guidelines, deadlines, and expectations, and makes clear, deterring-but-not-punitive consequences for when guidelines, deadlines, and expectations are not met. Discipline, not punishment, is the watchword.

I've run into the theory that you should reward yourself when you finish a story (or sell a story, or both). And it seems nice, though I have to say it mostly doesn't work for me, in part because I forget all about my reward. (Perhaps if I set up a schedule of rewards. Finish a story, take one reward less than or equal to $10. And so on. But it would have to be written down, because I'm forgetful like that.)

But honestly, rewards are not part of my make-up. Not for small things, not for when I do things I should be doing, anyway. I can see having a celebration to mark milestones--ten years of service, 100 rejections, whatever--but rewarding myself (or the others who work for me) for getting the monthly report in on time? Nah, not so much.

(Is that less compassionate? I don't think so. After all, I'm a Northerner of Swiss and Prussian descent, from a family with a stricter-than-Puritan work ethic. We have Expectations, like early is on-time, and on-time is already too late.)

So, anyway. In spite of the previous paragraph, and thanks to my mom's reminder that compassion for oneself is as imperative as having compassion for others, it has recently become clear that I'm doing okay. No, I haven't started writing a story a week or anything, and no, I'm not going to win the Campbell award next year, or even be in the finalist group, but those weren't actually options. No one should have ever had those expectations for me. (And no one did, except myself.)

My guidelines are clear: write every day, except when the well is dry--refill well before writing again. Don't watch too much TV. My deadlines are clear: send stories out when they're ready. Keep momentum going on novels. My expectations are clear: write the best that I can. Write the stuff that amuses and excites me. Write the stuff I'd write even if I weren't trying to get published.

The rest of it?

The rest of it--the selling and the awards and the pushing myself to do more than I comfortably can do with the job and the family that I have/need/want--the rest of it is just a lot of thunder and lightning without any rain. The rest of it can go take a flying leap off Mt. Compassion, in fact.

And that's where I am today.

Books: Dream Maker's Magic, Have Spacesuit

The Dream Maker's Magic by Sharon Shinn (56) [young adult]

I believe this is Shinn's last book in the Truthteller world. I felt sort of set at sea while reading this one, and I don't know why... I felt like I was reading a cross between Cynthia Voigt and some other author that's on the tip of my brain. There was some trademarky Shinn-ness not in evidence here. I also couldn't tell you what it was.

Regardless of this vague disquiet, I found this linked trilogy to be profound, with a deep sense of metaphor.

Have Spacesuit, Will Travel by Robert A. Heinlein (57) [science fiction]

A ripping yarn, this one. Kip was endearing, PeeWee more so.

Here a Thud... There a Bonk....

*thud*

"An Almanac for the Alien Invaders," presumably complete in 6,500 words. I will try to subtract a full 1k from this before sending it out. I don't necessarily expect to be successful.

*bonk*