The Physical Act of Writing
Current mood: amused

A fresh chapter of Selene is up this morning!

I was on the treadmill this morning, and I started thinking about the physical act of writing.

Let me back up a second. I started an exercise regimen on Labor Day. Mostly because I am sick of my mother's voice in my head telling me I'm ugly and running my body, and partly because I have let myself go a bit. I want to be healthy and fit. I want to be able to keep up with my kids and live to a ripe old age to see what they do next. (They are interesting little buggers.) And I've got that treadmill in the sunroom, why not use it?

So I've been exercising. About a half-hour on the treadmill and a longer walk at night at the track, just to get me moving, gauge my current level, and give me a base to start from.

And the funniest thing happened. My wordcount started going up.

Now, I feel like an idiot, because I knew this about myself--I think best when I'm moving, and I plot way better when I'm up and moving around. The track near my house has seen many, many late-night sessions with me walking in circles, a knotty problem revolving inside my head and finally working itself out. Plus, when I exercise I feel better and the work doesn't seem like such an uphill slog.

It all got me started thinking about the very physical act writing is.

There's the brute work of typing a novel, of course. That's sixty (YA/novella) to a hundred thousand (or more) in the finished work alone, and that doesn't count drafts, excised bits, false starts, or anything else. It's a lot of words, and a lot of work for the fine muscles and structures of the wrist and hand, not to mention the forearm.

Then there's some things that don't get counted--research, and mind over matter.

I often tell people they need to swing a weapon around or actually fire a gun if they truly want to fix their combat scenes. There's nothing like kinesthetic learning to give your craft that ring of truth. The physical cost of research can be tremendous--I'll just leave that to your imagination. Which leads us to the second thing: mind over matter.

There was a story I read somewhere about a guy in prison, who spent all the time playing golf in his head, refining his swing. When he got out, he found his game had gotten so much better it wasn't even funny. Visualization is used by athletes and in therapy, not to mention martial arts and education; it's a powerful, powerful tool.

So why don't writers talk more about it? We spend hours visualizing things and putting them together for our characters.

I know a lot of writers who have, for example, chronic fatigue or autoimmune disorders. One writer I know has Crohn's disease, another has lupus. For these writers, sinking into a story can be a pain-management mechanism--another one of the time-honored benefits of visualization. Sometimes the story can pull you away from real physical pain, or you can make the story hold the pain instead of your body. I firmly believe this is a GOOD thing. Hey, whatever gets you through the night, the pain, or the hellish experience is good. (There's a fine line to walk between drugging yourself with fiction and taking care of yourself, though--which is outside the scope of this little essay here. Hey, you wouldn't be reading this if you didn't expect me to digress at some point.)

Visualization is an awesome skill to have as a writer, but there's also a cost. I don't know how many times I've gotten stressed out over the story, or felt a character's physical reaction to violence or pain in my own body*. The cortisol and adrenaline starts to flow, because I'm not just writing the story, I'm experiencing it.

This is good for immediacy in the work, but hard on my old corpus. Exercise helps purge some of that stress hormone backwash; strenuous exercise gives me a way to disconnect from the story for a few minutes and purge it. It also helps me handle the brute work of sitting down and writing better, evens out my temper, and detoxes me on a physical and mental level.

We think of writing as a sedentary (and solitary) pursuit, and to a large degree that's true. But even such a sedentary pursuit takes a toll on the body, just like a solitary pursuit such as writing has its social aspects. The toll can come from typing (Back, demon of carpal tunnel syndrome! Back!) or from stressing out over rejection, or the stress of a character's woes, or from the cost of sitting for eight hours without even a bathroom break because you're so into the story. (I've done that. It's not comfortable. Then there's the forgetting-to-eat thing. Ugh.)

I like to encourage writers to take care of their bodies. Even something so simple as deep breathing for five or ten minutes a day can help destress you and make it easier for your body to tolerate the demands placed on it by writing. Exercise is a good thing (ritual disclaimer: talk to your doctor, don't overdo it, better to start small and get into a habit than weekend-warrior it and break something, etc., &c.). Just because you "just sit and write" doesn't mean there's not a cost to your physical and mental systems. Helping to minimize that cost means you can write longer.

It also means you have a better chance of writing higher-quality stuff. A longer professional life and healthier body means more chances to overcome the constant round of rejection that is a writer's life, and more chances to produce something that will eventually sell. Think of taking care of your body as a necessary investment in your writing life.

It's not the only reason to exercise, but sometimes it's the only reason I can drag myself through another round. When all else fails, I can whip myself with plot and characterization.

Hey, man. Whatever works.

Over and out.

* Interesting side note: I should mention that reading Somatic Fictions before bed has given me a new grasp on the whole subject. If literary criticism and analysis is up your alley, check it out.

10:41 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Twilight, Or, The Sparkly Alpha Mormon Vampire
Current mood: thoughtful

Good morning, everyone. I have news: pump-driven espresso makers are a little louder than steam-driven ones. But they do make a lovely cup, with nice crema. And what happened to my old steam-driven one, you might ask?

Don't ask. Please. Just let's call it "the poor thing gave its all for years and finally, gave up the ghost." While almost giving me a heart attack, I might add.

So. I did read Twilight recently, and lots of people have asked me for my opinion. I think I might best give it by giving this link--Smart Bitches Sarah, on Edward Cullen as a standard romance alpha hero. For what it's worth, I completely agree. I feel profoundly conflicted about the alpha hero anyway, even when I write him.

Now, I did go and do a Breaking Dawn event recently for the release of the fourth book in the series, but that was because I was asked and I like doing release events (even if they're not my book, kaff kaff). I was amazed at the energy of the mostly young and mostly female fans; but I held off reading the books because, you know, I'm writing YA too and I didn't want to contaminate the well, so to speak.

It took Cleolinda's blow-by-blow of Breaking Dawn (Part One of it is here) to convince me that perhaps, maybe, I should just read this and see what all the fuss is about, contamination or no. I picked up Twilight this last weekend and finished it in a couple days, in between laundry and writing and other stuff (like eating).

It was a hard slog.

Now, Meyer's obviously onto something. Her fans are legion and very excited, and the Readers, of course, always know best. But I had a couple problems with the book, most of which spring from being an adult reading a YA book and others that spring from external influences.

Let's take the external influences first. First, Stephanie Meyer is a Mormon*, and my feelings about that corporation are, shall we say, less than charitable. Don't get me wrong--I would fight to the death for their right to lawfully follow the religion of their choice, and I feed all the Mormon kids who come to my door on mission. (That's part of my own vows, thankyouverymuch.) But I had the bad fortune to read Orson Scott Card's panegyric to Meyer (in Time magazine) right after I read his horrid little jerkwad anti-gay-marriage screed, and the two became uneasily conflated in my brain. Not to mention that I've been following Warren Jeffs and the other branches of the FLDS through the news for years now, and am sickened and disgusted both by the child abuse, murder, spousal abuse, and polygyny; AND by the mainstream LDS church's refusal to both give some of its billions (raked in through tithes and things like Deseret) to help the victims of the FLDS OR to speak out loudly against the abuses perpetrated by their fanatical co-religionists. So, knowing that about the author did color my perception of the book, and I'll admit that openly. Mea culpa; but I was willing to give it a chance.

However, (and here's where we get to the nitty-gritty) this is not a book I'd ever recommend to my daughter.

We have a reach-and-read-it policy in our household. "If you can reach it, you can read it, and if you cannot reach it, get a stool!" I am not in the habit of censoring books for my children. If I find something objectionable, I discuss it with the child reading it. We talk about how I feel, how the kid feels about it, and the kid is free to read it as long as we've discussed it. That's reasonable, and if my daughter finds Twilight on the shelf and wants to read, more power to her.

But you bet your sweet bippy I'm not going to recommend it, and if she find it and wants to read it we're going to have a talk about how your life does NOT need to revolve around some boy. Especially some boy who stalks you, tries to control your life, and sucks blood/energy. (I find the bloodsucking to be a big metaphor, but we all knew that.)

That's the crux of my problem with this book. Is Bella an appropriate role model for young women?

Now I know you might remark, "Would you even care if you didn't know the author's religious choice?" That's a fair question, and I don't know. I do know that the religious bent of the author, and the Mormon church's dismal record when it comes to female rights or even emancipation (this is still a church that educates women only in order to make them better housewives, as a friend of mine so memorably remarked not too long ago), SQUICKS ME RIGHT OUT when added to Bella's absolute inability to say no or even to enforce her own boundaries when it comes to Edward. And Edward's violation of Bella's boundaries added to his refusal to stop when she does tell him "no" because "he knows best"? Ugh. No thank you.

I have less of this problem when reading alpha-hero romance intended for an adult audience, and I can really see the attraction of Edward Cullen for teenage girls. It's great to think that there is someone out there--someone handsome, brave, sparkly, "ethical"**, smart, rich, and fantastic in all senses of the word--who will find your klutziness engaging, who will be head over heels with just you as a person. Believe me, I'm thirty-two frocking years old and I still see the attraction.

But that does not mean I would ever give up pieces of myself and let someone trespass over my boundaries and take over my life ever again.

I say "ever again" because I've been there. I've been in abusive relationships and I've been stalked, and some (okay, most) of Edward's behavior skeezes me out to the max. I know it's supposed to be Romeo and Juliet-esque, and believe me I have my problems with that play too, nevermind that it was my favorite childhood Shakespeare I can still quote by the ream. (I like to think that my choice of Richard III now shows a certain maturity. Or maybe not. *snerk*) What really skeezes me is that Bella thinks Edward's behavior is appropriate and downright fuzzy romantic, and the author placed her parents in the book as nonentities. The book could just as easily be titled "Edward Saves Bella From Absent Father And Flighty Mother, Ushering Her Into Teh Perfekt Nuklear Fam, In Which It Is Okay To Suck Blood Because Our Wimmins Are In Their Place And Everyone Is Sporty/Pretty And Camps A Lot."

Which, when added to the image of a perfect family noised about by the Mormon church, just sends me into twitching spasms. The fact that I know where the series ends up--with a teen marriage and pregnancy, Bella not going to college because she "wants to be with Edward so much" etc., turns me RIGHT OFF.

This begs the question of whether or not I think some other aimed-at-teen-girl series are appropriate role models for young women. Like, say, Gossip Girls or even the American Girls series (on the younger end). I'm not speaking to those because the phenomena isn't as huge and widespread. The Twilight thing is, to me, a perfect storm. I cannot separate the fame of the series from my feelings about the author or from my feelings about the book, and knowing that the series ends up with the protagonist getting hitched and knocked up instead of going to college because of a hormonal glow of first love just makes me cringe.

Edward's behavior in book one--he even STAYS THE WHOLE NIGHT IN HER ROOM when her dad doesn't know about it--and Meyer's subtle comment on the parenting styles of Bella's mum and dad just make me so uncomfortable. And opening up the book with a heavy-handed quote from Genesis about the Tree of Knowledge? Man, I was probably lost the moment I read that, to be absolutely honest.

I do know I'm not going to be buying/reading the rest of the series unless my daughter finds the first one on her own, reads it, and falls utterly in love. Then I'm going to have to, and I'm going to have to discuss them with my little girl. Which will be all flavors of fun for her, I'm sure. I can just see her now. "Mom, it's a book. I know this isn't real. It's just fun to read. Sheesh!"

Which is probably the best reaction she could have.

I wish Ms. Meyer all the best--publishing being what it is, we will probably cross paths sometime in the future, and she seems like a cool person. She's made a lot of Readers very happy, and that's awesome. I respect the hell out of that, and will probably go see the Twilight movie when it comes out. I suspect I will be the median age in the audience, too, given the size of the adult Twilight fanbase. I'm even going to go so far as to say I read something way outside my comfort level, and I'm glad about that. Not only am I glad, but I'm happy to see the books being discussed and analyzed by people like the SBs. This just underscores the power of fiction to bring people to the table and give them a chance to talk about all sorts of things--gender roles, religion, equal rights, social expectations--without getting into a war over it.

Or at least, let's hope. Bear me out here by being decent to each other in the comments section, okay?

* I am fully aware my own religious preferences, stated openly, have driven some Readers away too. That's a chance one takes with being a public personality, and a choice I made when I sold my first books dealing with the material I deal with. 'Nuff said.
** Much is made of the Cullens' ethics, as in not hunting humans. When conflated with Edward's controlling behavior toward Bella, the cognitive dissonance is jarring.

6:04 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

The Jewel of Medina

The Jewel of Medina, a novel about the Prophet Muhammed's third wife Aisha, was dropped by Random House earlier this year because of "fears" that it would incite a small radical proportion of Muslims to "violence". Salman Rushdie expressed concern over Random House's move, saying it was "censorship by fear". I happen to agree, but that's beside the point.

Thankfully, Gibson Square has the stones to publish the novel. I have to say I'm gratified, mostly because a religion that can't take novelizations/art without threatening authors/artists with death is hardly something I think the reasonable Divine in any facet would approve of. I'm fully aware that some of my own subject matter could have gotten me burned at the stake not so long ago, too. So, huzzah for Gibson Square. It's nice to find out someone isn't scared of wild-eyed fanatics with threats and agendas.

Let's hope the bravery spreads, shall we?

10:24 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

A Few Things
Current mood: chipper

Dear Readers, you are smarter than me.

* Several of you have caught that Glocks don't have hammers. Yes, this is true. In my defense, I thought that in a world with Weres, scurf, and hellbreed, a slightly-altered gun design wouldn't be the hardest thing for the Reader to accept. I thought other problems were bigger. I was wrong, wrong, wrong. I wanted a hammer for dramatic effect, Jill wanted a Glock because she likes them. I struck a bargain.

I'm only glad it wasn't with Perry. *grin*

I just wanted to tell you guys that yes, you're smarter than me. But you deserve to know I'm not a total idiot. Timeline issues and picking the wrong word in That One Notable Instance? Oh yeah, that was all me. Especially the occasional timeline burp in Hunter's Prayer, because I wrote that book first and Night Shift afterward. I'll own that.

* Another thing people are writing to me about in great numbers is "why is Dante believing Eve in Saint City Sinners?" I guess a few folks are reading that book now, and seeing clearly that Eve is, shall we say, a touch unreliable.

You know how you see your friend doing something, and you know it's a bad idea, and you can see so clearly where it's going to go wrong--but you can't say anything, because you've tried and your friend bit your head off, and you just want them to be happy and hope like hell it'll all turn out?

Even though, probably, it won't? So all you can do is worry and hope?

I felt that way with Dante. A LOT. Part of the trouble with writing in first-person is that you have this tight focus. You have to pull off the hat-trick of showing the reader without showing the character. Maybe I succeeded with Eve. *preens slightly* Or maybe not, since Readers are frustrated Dante doesn't twig to Eve's basic nature.

Part of the arc of the Valentine series was this deconstruction of Dante's personality. Because she is so stubborn and so dead set on what she wants and how she thinks the world is, I literally had to take her apart and destroy her before she'd listen to reason. She was such an extreme personality (I am reminded of what Janet Fitch said about the character of Ingrid in White Oleander) I perhaps erred on the side of wanting the reader to understand her.

Of course, that extremity of character is partly why Japh falls in love with her, and partly why she can put up with his lying, manipulative demon self, so I suppose there's tradeoffs. There always are.

Anyway. That's all I've got for today. I did finish reading Stephanie Meyer's Twilight and am going ahead with Ivanhoe, since the Selkie and I are reading it together. I also (celebration!) received author's copies of Steelflower yesterday!

I was paging through one of them and realized, holy crap, I had so much fun writing that book. It's probably about time to do another one. *grin*

I do love this job, even if I get up some days and really feel I'm not too good at it. *beams*

6:18 PM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Small Update
Current mood: anxious

The folks over at Making Light have a comment thread etc. up about the harassment and arrest of protesters in Minneapolis/St. Paul. Interestingly enough, a couple other people don't buy the story about anarchists with human excrement and caltrops. I happen to agree that it's exceedingly suspicious, and given the MO of the authorities...I wouldn't be surprised if this was a smear that will be quietly dropped and buried afterward, a true Rovean tactic.

I just find the whole thing suspicious in the extreme. As one of the commenters notes:

a) It's a gradual erosion of our rights, IMO. We've now got preemptive searches and seizures, "free speech zones" (thought the whole COUNTRY was a free speech zone!), arrests on trumped up (and later dropped) charges until a meeting/convention is over, etc, etc. Every time one of these happens, it gets a little bit of newsplay ... and then forgotten in favor of what Hollywood celebrity is banging who this week. (Making Light commenter John L.)

1:44 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Happy Labor Day
Current mood: calm

I know, a day late but not a dollar short. Yesterday was Labor Day and I freaked out thinking it was Sunday. Various hilarious hijinks ensued which nobody witnessed, because I was ALONE. It doesn't happen all that often and I am a person who craves solitude, so I was a happy camper. I love my kids, but every once in a while I need a break to be a better Mummy. They came home from visiting Oji-san last night, tired and very happy to see me too. Bless them.

The thing that's concerning me most right now is the lack of mainstream media attention to the raiding and arresting of peaceful protesters in Minnesota. "Conspiracy to commit riot"? OMGWTF? What kind of lameass charge is that? Searching without warrants? Menacing protesters with assault rifles? It's blatantly unconstitutional. It's like (and the Muffin actually said this first) 1968 again, only the news won't report it. I think it's because Rupert Murdoch owns a huge chunk of the news and his political slant is such that he doesn't care if a few liberals get hassled, as long as it keeps a large-corporation-and-rich-people-friendly government in power. Talk about not respecting the Constitution--how much further will it get shredded before ordinary people realize they are living in a nightmare police state rather than the one our Founding Fathers set up?

I know someone will mention the WTO demonstrations in Seattle. But this is apples and oranges, people, and don't fall for that kind of sloppy thinking. This is a federal crackdown on law-abiding peace protesters--pacifists, for Christ's sake. If you're going to say they deserved it, let me ask you this: do YOU deserve to live in a police state under a totalitarian regime? If you feel you do not, then the harassment of people attempting to exercise their right to free and peaceful assembly is something you need to be concerned with.

Speaking of things to be concerned about, how about Joel's Army? (gacked from Pharyngula, my new favorite time sink. If PZ Myers and I weren't both married, I'd SO be his groupie.)

It's enough to make one want to crawl through that newly-discovered portal to the Mayan underworld. I can't think of Xibalba without thinking of The Fountain, which totally kicked ass. I love that movie. I hated one of the director's first efforts, Pi, but I loved The Fountain.

And that about finishes me up for today. I have more to talk about, but it can wait for tomorrow. I've got some writing to get in.

5:51 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Linear Or Not, The Story’s Going DOWN.
Current mood: amused

It's Friday again, which means another chapter of Selene is live. And it's time for another writing post. This time I have a subject I promised to treat--the irrepressible Fanbot*, this last week, asked me if I work on stories in a linear fashion, or in a non-linear fashion. (I did type "non-linearly" but my inner editor twitched and foamed at the mouth pretty hard on that one, for some effing reason.)

The answer is, it varies. Before I get started, though, check out this news item about a Japanese movie dealing with the idea of "cruel art". I found that fascinating--but let's stay on target, shall we?

Let's assume that I'm under deadline for a piece of writing. This is a good assumption because the overriding objective I have (especially when under deadline) is to finish the damn piece. (Please note that I'm not talking about my trunk novels, or about pieces I poke at solely for my own gratification.) To that end, I generally have a daily goal of wordcount; I don't care where the words go in the story as long as I get enough of them out on a daily basis.

I also do not care if those words are GOOD according to the censor in my head. At the point of sheer brute production, the point where I am creating a whole story, I don't give a damn whether they're good or not, I just care that they're there.

I should back up and explain this a little. I do care about producing quality work. But in the fever-heat of creation, it is so easy for the internal naysayer, that Internal Censor, to kill a work stone-cold dead or trap you in timesuck and ongoing masturbatory revision by the simple feat of saying these words aren't good enough. During sheer creation quality is not my problem, it's the Muse's problem--and things go better when I leave it to that bonbon-eating bitch.

When I talk about "submission to the work", this is what I mean. You have a story to tell, you just have to get it out. You can fix technical burps and fiddles later, but you absolutely must have a whole corpse of raw footage before you can edit it into a reasonable work of art. That's why it's called a "work" of art.

Now (bringing us back to the subject at hand) sometimes the work decides it's not going to come out in a linear fashion. Sometimes the ending comes first or there's false starts, I have to do the middle and build the story around one scene (like smoke, actually, which started with the vision of Rose looking into the alley and combat boots twitching from behind a dumpster). Most of the time the book starts with the hook, like Dante Valentine's very first whispered line (My working relationship with Lucifer started on a rainy Tuesday.) Sometimes it's the end that I get first, like the crucifixion scene in mirror or the words exchanged between Dante and Lucifer at the very end of To Hell and Back ("Here I stand, Lucifer, and not all the hosts of Hell shall move me"/"Not all the hosts of Hell are necessary, Necromance. Just one.")

When that happens, it's horrible for a pantser. Yes, I am a pantser. I write by the seat of my pants. I am not a plotter; a plotter has an outline for the book. (Note that this is a continuum, writers fall in varying points along the continuum. I tend to fall near the pantser end. This is not a value judgment, it's just an observation.) There is nothing as freaked-out as a pantser who has to trust that all these disparate chunks of text will somehow turn into a coherent book. If I do indeed have an ulcer, I am sure worrying about the chunks of steaming text I have to fit together is a small but significant part of its inception.

I talk sometimes about "submission to the work" (especially when I have had one too many glasses of wine and get misty-eyed). Strictly put, it is my job to show up each day, every day, and be ready to do the damn work. It is the Muse's job to provide the story and the thematic elements; at the point where I am writing the zero draft, it is not my problem to worry about whether or not the story is Good Enough.

When I have the whole zero draft, then I can start worrying about Good Enough. And a funny thing happens--when I submit to the story and let the Muse worry about the goddamn quality control during the heat of creation, I go back to that draft weeks later when my eye is fresh and I find stuff I didn't even know I'd written.

Herein lies the miracle of creativity: Most of that stuff is actually okay, if not pretty good.

I find that the story hangs together in a coherent fashion (most of the time). Sure, there's defects, both large (structural) and cosmetic, but those are far more easily fixed and stitched together once I have the whole corpse. I can even get you a brand-new ending (my editor for the Valentine series can vouch for this) and tweak the entire level of darkness in a book with relative ease--once I have the whole frocking book out.

It took me a long time to get to the point where I could tell myself not to care about quality while I was creating**. Because while you're creating, worrying about "quality" is just another way of giving the Internal Censor carte blanche to eff you up bigtime. At the point of actually getting the zero draft out there, don't worry about whether or not it's a good story. Just worry about getting the goddamn thing out of your head and onto the paper. As Stephen King had a character say in IT***, it might be a terrible novel, but it will no longer be a terrible unfinished novel.

But I'm drifting again. I do a lot of the work of plotting inside my head, and I work on whatever scene is "hot"--the one I'm "seeing" most clearly inside my noggin at the moment. Sometime the book builds itself from the beginning to the middle and then on to the end, but more often it doesn't. For example, the current Jill Kismet book is leapfrogging itself in time as thematic elements assemble themselves, and I am still struggling with just getting the work out there and not going back and deleting while I work. (See? Even after eighteen books published and twelve or so unpublished, I STILL struggle with this. It never gets easier, the problems just get more interesting and stubborn.) Either way of working on a piece is fine, as long as I'm making progress toward getting the damn thing done.

The daily goal of wordcount helps me with that. I know a lot of people say, "Well, but focusing on wordcount just creates more stress! It actually blocks me/scares me/makes me avoid writing."

To which I reply, honey, if that goal scares you, maybe you should find another career. I know a lot of people don't agree with my "do it every day" ethos, but I'm looking at this problem as someone whose money for rent and my kids' groceries largely depends on me producing work with reasonable efficiency and quality. Once one reaches a certain point of practice and technique, the quality is there--it's hard NOT to get better if you keep writing and listening to your editors/beta readers/readers. But you have got to produce before you have any chance of getting better--really, it's like sex. You stand a vastly better chance of getting some and getting good if you freakin' show up in the first place. Consistently showing up on the page in the first place is critical to any kind of getting better.

So, my advice to the writers who ask me whether the order you write the story in matters is...don't worry about that, just worry about the story getting written. Any road you use to get there in a reasonable amount of time is fine. At the risk of trotting out a hackneyed cliche, there is no right way to write a novel. There is only the right way of writing this particular novel, and finding that way can be a matter of trained instinct, dumb luck, or trial-and-error. Let the Muse worry about the order, the thematic bits, the quality control, and the story itself.

That bitch needs to earn those bonbons, dammit.

Over and out.

*Who does the best thrifthorror, and who was kind enough to send me a pair of kung fu kitsch figurines.
**Note that I am still not fully there. It is a process, and one you never get to the end of.
***Which has an amazing number of little tidbits about the creative process in it, by the way.

7:44 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Beginning to jell...
Current mood: relieved

Oh, thank God.

I've finally reached the point at which the book has begin to "jell" together--as in Jell-O setting. The sudden shock of "rightness" when the thing finally pulls together in a coherent fashion instead of a thousand little tiny things zooming off in several different directions...it's awesome. There is pretty much nothing like this feeling, unless it's the relief of the last set of revisions sent off, or the first time an editor says, "I like it!"

I know I've been bitching a lot about this book, but it's mostly because the interconnected vignettes are hard for me to write until I get that sudden jolt of rightness. It's like the train backing up to push the couplings together*, then jolting forward, one car at a time, slowly building until the critical threshold is passed and the momentum forward starts to pull the whole thing along. So it's a train instead of a lump of disparate metal parts. The motion has given it a new character.

Moments like this aren't what I write for--I do it because I've got no choice--but they sure help.

* The Muffin told me about this. Isn't it a great metaphor?

11:31 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Ye Olde Bulleted Lyste
Current mood: scattered

First: Steelflower and Hunter's Prayer are both shipping through Amazon! Huzzah! I hear Steelflower is shipping through Barnes & Noble too. This means they're out, O-W-T spells OUT! *grin*

And nowe, Ye Olde Bulleted Liste, againne, for I finde I hath brainpower not enoughe to smooshe a flea with thee Booke eatyng my tyme.

* Yeah, can you tell Chaucer Hath Blog has a new entry up? A hilarious new entry that deals with Blazing Man. I particularly hooted with laughter over the buying of pardons. I'm also reading Ivanhoe with the Selkie. Merry Olde Misspellings (that were perfectly acceptable and even standard in their own time), ahoy!

* I expected the most recent installment of Selene to create more of a stir since it has filthy pretty-much-noncon smexxors. But maybe I just didn't pull it off well enough. Or maybe I was just an idiot when I worried it might shock people. Maybe I'm a prude? I didn't think it was possible, but...

* I really wish more people knew about Sheila Simonson, particularly her Regencies, which I think are just the most awesome Regencies around. I know a lot of people love Georgette Heyer, but she (and most other Regency authors) leave me cold. Simonson, however, I LOVE with the flaming passion of a thousand suns. I just got out A Cousinly Connexion the other day and pretty much enjoyed myself wherever I opened the book up, which is rare. I found out Uncial Books is re-releasing Love & Folly soon--consider me a happy, happy camper.

* Speaking of books I wish more people knew about, I loved Midori Snyder's Oran Trilogy (first book here) and was thrilled to find out they'd been re-released with new covers. I loved the old covers but I'm gladdened by the re-release more than I can say. I was looking for them about a year ago and could not find them anywhere, which made me a Sad Panda.

* I am thinking of decommissioning the Penguin Love cups. The person I had that tagline with (because penguin love is the sweetest love, delivered in a Cartman voice) is no longer a part of my life. It used to be a tagline we just trotted out whenever something flat-out didn't make sense; it was out way of commemorating the absurdity of the world. It is no longer. I'm going to have to put together some new cup designs.

* Last but not least, oh holy hell, can I just please write this circus book in sequence instead of in little weird bits needing to be held together by wire? This is beyond a doubt the sloppiest-looking half a draft I've ever worked on, and it's mine. *headbonkety*

I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming...

10:34 AM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

I Love My Children
Current mood: thoughtful

I do. I love my children.

But sometimes I just want muzzles. Or a cone of silence. Oh sure, it's okay for them to play their music/cartoons/games at top volume, but the instant I try to sneak off to a quiet corner and watch some Musecrack for Perry the hellbreed, sent by the lovely Selkie?*

Of course they have to get progressively louder and louder so I can't watch what I want. Because they want my attention. Even now the Prince is hanging on the arm of my chair, watching me type and making little clippity-cloppety horse noises.

And people wonder why I've learned to shut out distractions and just write. It's self-defense. I'd never get anything done otherwise. A few moments of "yes, I see you, you're lovely, now let me work," goes a long way.

I'm in that itchy stage of creation where I just want to be writing, thank you. I don't want to be interrupted for anything, which makes me a cranky Lili. Getting dinners and housework out of the way puts me in a lake of sharply-controlled frustration. It's going to be this way until I hit the three-quarters slump--that is, when the book is three-quarters done and becomes the Book That Will Not Die, Stabbity Stabbity. Thankfully, I've been able to go on long walks--part of the fitness regimen**, I suppose, but also a very necessary part of the creative process. I think best when I' moving, and I think doubly well when I'm alone. I really, really understand Bukowski's constant harping on solitude, even if I deplore his misogyny and alcoholism.

Hey, nobody's perfect.

So I'm off to get a few more words out. And the kids, well, they are still buzzing around. Fed, watered, and cosseted, now they are watching Looney Tunes.

It's close to a perfect day already.

* She's making up for sending me all sorts of sweaty medieval action that woke up Tristan.

** Because I think it's about time I took my body back from my mother's constant calling me ugly, thank you. More on that later.

10:30 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment