Transitioning into Full Time Writing, Pt 2

I've now been a full time writer for a little over three weeks, if you ignore my son's wedding and then going to Canada for a week.

Weird incidentals:
The indoor dog, Chase, is flipping out. She's now realizing that I'm going to be home all day (for the most part, except shopping excursions), every day, and it's turning her into a hyperactive maniac who now races back and forth wherever we go. Going to the garden? She runs the ever-shortening distance a dozen times to my one, ears laid back for extra streamlining, mouth open for more air, tongue inside mouth to reduce drag. Going back in the house? It's up and down the stairs and then back and forth across the deck and then she leaps and bangs her feet against the sliding door because it needs to be opened! Oh, and she scratches at the door not only to be let out, but to let me know that one or both of the cats need to be let in.
Because apparently that's why I'm staying home. To play with her and the cats and to let everyone in and out. It's Chase's job to make sure I stay on top of that.

I'm organizing stuff at home to make things more efficient so I can maximize my writing time. It's true! Weird example: now that I'm home I scoop the litter boxes at least once, if not twice a day. It makes the house more pleasant and makes the litter last longer. (I have decided this is true. Don't burst my bubble!) I realized it would be so much less tedious if I had one of those flip-top garbage cans, just a wee one, right next to the litter box. Then when it's full, I can take the used litter out. Found one with a little bucket inside, handle and all. Mine! Litter stays clean, and I can scoop right after I feed the chickens (and steal their eggs) without having to hunt for a garbage bag. Now I know why some housewives are so organized. It's not necessarily because they're OCD or obsessed with cleanliness. It's because having things unorganized is super, super annoying when you have a lot of things to do.

When our kids were little and I was a stay-at-home mom, I didn't have a lot of things to do except keep up on laundry and make sure that there was food, a lack of medical emergencies, and minimal squalor (was not super good about that last part.) Now that I no longer have a day job and I have no kids, my expectation is that I'll have all kinds of time to write, right? Well, except that clutter is distracting, and dealing inefficiently with the clutter is annoying, and laundry and dishes still need to happen, as does shopping and cooking, and I have to feed the farm animals and get the garden ready for spring and all at once I became aware that TIME IS LIMITED, even when, in theory and barring accidents or illness, you have lots of it. And when it comes to chores, I want to minimize them to maximize this work time thing, and you know, we all know, that if I let things pile up deeper and deeper I won't write, I'll dabble at writing and fret and putter. Which is awful and inefficient. Besides, if I ignore chores too long, suddenly I'm looking at six weeks of solid cleaning and zero writing time to get my environment to the point where I stop looking over my shoulder to see if the laundry is sneaking up on me, preparing to leap and then smother me. This versus an hour or two each day for a couple of chores, which I rotate through, and maybe I can squeeze in a little extra once a week so that you make overall headway (it can be done! I'm proving it to myself!)

When I started this journey I thought I'd be writing all day and writing all night with the occasional foray into book and cover design. Then I ran out of underwear. Which might not have mattered except that all my most comfortable jeans were also dirty. And I ran out of bowls. And suddenly taking a break to have a meal turned into a travesty, and showering in the morning and getting into real clothes turned into a chore, and so I wore pajamas until I had to feed the farm animals and I did that in sweats with a sweater over my sleeping shirt and I thought this is not what I envisioned my dream job to be, where I have to take over an hour for lunch because I have to clear the counters and wash a bowl first. People posted that image of a writing nook with the huge windows looking out at a winter scene, with the comfy chair and the floor lamp aimed just right, and a tidy bookshelf and I thought there is no reason why I have to put up with drifts of dog hair on the floor and stacks of papers that need to be filed all around my computer that I have to shove aside (guiltily, worrying that I might forget to pay that bill there) so I can take some quick notes which I'll immediately lose. No more! No more. I will take time to tidy. I will have my desk set up so I can find things. I will.

I'm getting there. Happily, more writing is getting done. And happily, my house is cleaner. Except I have no bowls again, but that's okay. I'll take care of it tomorrow before I start to write. Easy peasy.

Transitioning into Full Time Writing, Pt. 1 (sort of)

I'm waiting for the ferry at Tsawwassen, on my way to Victoria, on Vancouver Island, BC. I'm feeling the Vancouver going on. Coming from east of Vancouver, WA, not going to Vancouver, BC but to Vancouver Island. It's weirdly like I'm not actually going anywhere, even though I'm no longer in the same country as I was when I started my journey this morning.

Abandoning a perfectly good day job and writing full time feels like that too. I'm not on anyone's payroll anymore, yet I'm doing most of the things I've always done. It's been six days and I still have the same to-do list as before. I have a series to finish, an outline to finish, emails to go through, etc.

Just a couple of things got added on, and those derailed any sense of actually having nine more hours a day to work.

First off, my son got married. (Yay!) That translated to quite a few hours on facebook coordinating with everyone. Also, that made January 6 and today, January 7, completely disappear from the writing schedule. I might sneak in a few paragraphs tonight after we've settled into our new environment, but making serious progress is not going to happen. So of the (almost, the day is not done yet) six days I've had since my last day of work on January 1, I've had four actual work days. One of those was spent cleaning. One I spent catching up with email and communicating with writers, convention organizers, as well as doing some business stuff.

What kind of business stuff? Writers contemplating full time writing for-reals might want to know!

I had to finalize health insurance stuff. We actually started the process in December, with a landing date of January 1 for our insurance to begin. Well, that worked out, but after they approve you in Washington they want proof, including former tax returns. So about the time we thought we were all set, we had more to do.

•  I had to start a new, fresh action list and prioritize it.

•  I had to clean up a backlog of paperwork and file a large to-be-filed pile that I'd allow to build up for too long because I felt like I never had time to work on it. Found bills. Paid bills.

•  I had to update my freshly-written action list and reprioritize it as I discovered notes buried in the to-be filed pile.

•  I had to go through my business email file to make sure I hadn't promised anyone any stories 'as soon as I retired'.

•  And I had to update my freshly-written action list *again* and reprioritize it as I added stuff I found from my emails.

That ate, as you can imagine, a huge amount of time. I'm still sifting through emails, though most of them are older now.

An immediate pitfall I found with being home all day was that now that I *could* be on Facebook and check my email all day long, I did. In lieu of writing. "I would never do that," you might think. "I'd have my designated time during which I'd be online, and the rest of the time I'd be putting sell-able words on the page." I thought so too. The temptation isn't to socialize, but to hunt down business and networking opportunities. Danger! Danger! When I get back from vacation I'll have designated online hours for real. There's no other way to manage it. With Facebook sending little notifications all the time, it's almost impossible not to check in for 'just a minute.' I have to be able to tolerate those missed opportunities, the ones I'd been missing all along because I was at a day job, and get the real job of writing done. Which is writing.

So this is day six. I'll keep reporting on this process as I sink deeper into writerly despair. Joy. Whichever comes first. Both at the same time, I'm sure.

The value of a blink

I'm definitely one of those people who believe that writers should write every day, and painters should paint every day, musicians should play music every day, etc. Even if it's just a few minutes. I think that the reason that many don't is because they decide, either consciously or unconsciously, that because those few minutes feel shallow and they can't really get under the surface of things before they have to stop, there's no value to a fifteen minute art sit-down or the addition of a single paragraph to a manuscript.

I think there's a lot of value. I haven't tried to put this into words before, so I hope you'll be patient with me while I thrash it out.

Probably the least important part, and the part that is a focus of programs like Nanowrimo, is that those individual paragraphs add up. And they do. But this is super-easy to shrug off, because if you feel like you don't get to go deep, they're probably lousy paragraphs anyway. I think they always have the potential to be just as good as anything else you might write, but we're discussing writer mentality here, and even I wonder if I might not be writing stupid crud when I sit down for fifteen minutes before work and tap out a quarter of a scene.

I think it's more important to look at it as mental exercise. At first it might be true that those paragraphs written in stolen moments are probably not worth much, but with daily practice, you can't help but get better at dropping in and making quick additions.

Ooo, here's a good one: I don't stop thinking about my books when I go to work, and I get some great ideas there. Or maybe while grocery shopping I'll pick up a can of olives that are on sale and I'll think oh, oh! the contrast of salmony pink/red with purple-y black! and I'll dash home and splash some colors onto a new blank Photoshop screen. I might not have time to do anything more than that, but it's there for me to riff off of when I get some more time. And for those who rely on inspiration, having that inspired moment captured is a good and precious thing, even if they didn't have time to see it through to completion. And an incomplete gesture of inspiration is the norm, unless you're one of those rare people who completes an entire project in a single day. Even then, wouldn't it be nice to have something small and perfect and good every day?

Speaking of incomplete gestures and notes of inspiration, there's no rule that says that when you sit down and write, it has to be on the prose within the manuscript. Especially for books but also for short stories and art, I take notes which end up scattered on all different sizes, shapes and colors of paper all around my desk. Note-taking and planning is also creative time, my friends, and very valuable creative time. That is definitely part of the writing every day rule, and shouldn't be undervalued.

These are all good and true things. So, no more excuses. Write every day, even if it's just for a blink. After all, if we didn't blink, our eyes would dry out. So it is with the arts.

How to Get on Convention Panels & Generally Impress Folks

I just reread someone's application letter for a convention. I reread it because he resent it, most likely because he didn't get a reply the first time. There's a reason he didn't get an immediate response.

Here's the deal, all y'all who want to be panelists on conventions, or want to include creds in a bio, etc. People aren't dumb. They can see right through the very thin veneer of vague to your lack of applicable experience. Trying to gloss over a thin or non-existent qualifications does a lot more harm than good. Trust me! Especially when it comes to hitting up a convention committee for inclusion on their panelist list. This goes double for cover letters for submitting writing to a publisher.

Here's a classic: twenty years of experience. That particular number irks me because it's used so often by people who are trying to sound impressive, when really they've been part-timing or hobbying for that twenty years. Which is cool to do, and extremely valuable time spent while learning your craft, but trying to make it sound like you've been doing something full time for twenty years seems to say one of several things. I'll mention two here:

A) You've been struggling to break through for twenty years and yet can't point to a single, specific, wow-worthy example of the fruits of your labors in your letter? Ouch.
B) You're seriously going to make me Google you instead of giving me something exact and definable so I can gauge your skills?

This person may be amazing. I can't say one way or another, and that's the problem. I feel like I'm being lied-at, even though the words may be true. I've had this happen to me before, quite recently*, actually. Most of us have. I would be far happier if, say, this person said that they've worked on this movie or that script or published in this magazine or through Cute Micro Press than try to sound all important about how they've been in the biz for twenty years.

My mood was not improved when I did Google this person and found some stuff that could have been easily included, and would have sounded a lot more appealing than the generic, hand-wavy references made in the letter. In fact, it wasn't a lot of accomplishment for twenty years. He did, however impress me with what he'd done. If I hadn't known it took him twenty years to do that, I might have said, kewl, this is nifty and worth exploring further. Instead, perhaps unfairly, I had the feeling that it wasn't a lot to show for the time expended.

So please, dear persons trying to impress folks with your creds:

Time spans aren't as important as specifics. Look at Stephen King's cred list sometime on his books. For the man who seldom needs an introduction, there's a mention of number of total books so far and a couple of current ones. For someone who hasn't been writing prolifically and famously for that long, a couple of specifics are fine, or even none. Yes, I said none. If you're working on a novel, say you're working on a novel, not that you've been writing for twenty years. If you have written a novel based on your experiences at a Space Camp, that's awesome. I want to know more about the Space Camp and maybe other folks want to hear about it too! If you're writing a cover letter and this is your very first short story, let the short story speak for you and just write hey, I wrote this thing and I hope you like it. Thanks for your time. I did that on cover letters for years, and it works just fine. If you want to be a panelist at a convention, think about the things that people might want to hear about, and if you have something to offer, mention that. Say, that you worked for three weeks with script writers for a movie produced by Twentieth Century Fox ... that might not sound like much compared to twenty years of something if you look at it one way, but from where I sit, I don't feel like someone is trying to deceive me, and that's something specific and true that I can consider.

Besides, as much as you might want to be at a specific convention or sell at a specific time to a magazine or whatever, it's better to look at the long term than the immediate pay-off. Maybe you don't have quite enough going for you this time, or this specific story doesn't fit in with what the editor wants right now. Selling it harder isn't going to make it happen. Living well and working hard is going to help you achieve your goals. And as you achieve them, you won't have to write vague letters anymore. Maybe they'll even hunt down your email address to invite you to conventions and anthologies and all kinds of kewl stuff.

*I was trying to work with a guy on a design and during the hour-long conversation he kept bringing up the fact that he'd been working in the biz for fifteen or twenty years or whatever. All I could think was, how is this relevant to getting the job we have to do done right now?

Animals

I've probably written about this before, but it's petting my peeve again, so forgive me while I go on about animals in fiction.

As fun and terrific as talking animals, telepathic animals, anthropomorphized animals, and were-critters are, I have to say that I'm ready for some more actual animals to turn up in fiction. It's all over the place in non-fiction. James Herriot (James Wight: Herriot was his pen name) is one of my favorite authors, and I reread his stuff over and over again. Animals and people make an intoxicating combination for a lot of readers, not just me, and a good writer will not only recognize that but understand how it works.

I think anthropomorphizing or giving human voice and/or human dialogue to an animal can be charming, but it takes something away, maybe even more than it gives to the story. The challenge of communicating with an animal, working with an animal, even just taking care of an animal on a basic level is an almost magical interaction in and of itself, and requires no embellishment.

For example, I feed hummingbirds. At the moment I have three, or four, maybe more. It's hard to tell. They go through a lot of sugar water, enough that I don't have to worry about it spoiling before I have to make another cup of it. (One cup of water microwaved for one minute, 1/4 cup of sugar (plus I add a smidge. It's not like they have teeth to rot) and left to cool, covered, on the counter until it's room temp. Spoils in about three days, less in very warm weather and/or if the feeder isn't kept scrupulously clean.) Although they keep their distance and are very wild, we communicate through the feeding. They watch me take the feeder, and bring out a full one. (It's hard to say if they know it's the same feeder.) They're growing used to me, though they still don't trust me. And they have very full, at times stressful, social lives. I've watched them defend territory, build nests, court, feed, and I've watched them watch me. Turning them into an aggressive, vain companion with lots to say about my choice of husband takes away that odd and enchanting relationship that I and many others have had with their wild birds. I've held a hummingbird in my hand. I've had wild birds land on me and fly away without an 'oh shit' moment because they understood somehow that I wasn't a threat, despite the fact that many people are.

It's the same thing with cats and dogs. We tend to take them for granted and put words in their minds for them, and that's all good. I don't mind seeing that on the page at all. But how much deeper and more awesome it feels when an author captures that sense of 'other' in the dogs and cats they describe. I especially like it when they capture the feeling one gets when approaching a large, strange dog they don't know and the careful maneuvers both dog and human make to determine if they're going to be friends or enemies or whether they're just going to go their separate ways because the trust just isn't there.

Life of Pi captures this well. I was relieved to see that the animals remained animals, even though they were also symbols, and in many ways mystical. Animals are just as mystical and fascinating as humans just as they are. And this can extend to fantasy animals as well. I enjoyed Smaug's dialogue in The Hobbit, but honestly, non-speaking dragons that display cunning and intelligence in many ways are more frightening. The creature in Cloverfield never speaks a word, but it is utterly terrifying ... and fascinating. Creatures that don't speak and yet display intelligence equal or greater than ours in non-verbal ways are even scarier, and more awesome.

I think, too, that the more we pretend to know, the more we steal from the mystique of animals and monsters. One of the reasons the Godzilla remake didn't work for me was all the explanation and science they put on the screen. Not knowing has so much more power. And, though we can predict with fair accuracy that the purring cat on our lap will sit contentedly and knead our thighs with sharp claws until we shove it off, as a visiting friend found out, they may also unexpectedly, after a few minutes of mutual enjoyment, give a little love nip, or as another friend experienced, a not-so-loving swat from a claws-extended paw and a rapid, raking departure. For reasons unknown. For reasons unknowable, if we want to be honest about it.

And not-knowing can be good. We don't have to be know-it-alls. We can just appreciate and experience without claiming them. They, along with all other living and non-living things in our universe, are our companions in existence, and that existence at its core is mysterious, mystifying, and fun (and harrowing and painful and full of grief) in part because we don't own it. We're a part of it, within in, together. And because we don't truly own our animals or communicate as effectively as we communicate with each other, though we take responsibility for them and take care of them (or kill them or torture them) there's always that edge in any relationship with an animal.

Attraction

Why are so many characters in fiction attractive? You only have to look at the word attractive and you'll know.

Writers write about attractive characters because they attract. They attract readers, and they attract the authors themselves. Authors don't generally have an immunity to beautiful people (although some will sneer and believe that beautiful people have easy success or that a beautiful person is always vain, etc.) While conceiving a character concept, especially when generating a love interest, they'll reach for that low-hanging fruit. Although not everyone finds the same things sexy, there are characteristics that most people reliably find attractive. Muscular characters suggest strength and stamina. Long hair has been a symbol of virility and an object of envy since ancient times. Strong chins, clear eyes, perfect skin, physical symmetry, upright posture, smoothness that suggests a healthy layer of fat without hiding too much of that coveted symbol of power, muscle ... these are symbols of perfect health and suggest genetic fitness.

But a character doesn't have to be beautiful to be attractive.

Chicks dig scars because scars imply strength and good survival traits. They also lend a sense of danger or imply that the person engages in risky behavior, which suggests a wild and uninhibited nature. Such a person might not necessarily be ideal for a stabile home life, but they could be passionate lovers, intimidating protector figures, and they might be wiser and more fit than someone who has never tested their limits to the point of failure.

Certain expressions of intelligence are very attractive. Knowledge of other languages or cultures suggests worldliness and self-reliance. Engineering skills can represent good planning, measuring, estimation, and thoughtfulness, all good things in a mate. Many skilled crafts are extremely attractive, and quite a few of the cliche lover-trades (blacksmith, for example) combine strength with a sensitive eye and long practice. Extended practice at anything difficult requires loyalty and devotion, which might be bestowed upon a lover. Even if it isn't, the suggestion is that there will be a level of care and attention to detail that might extend into sex and maintenance of a relationship.

Above-average height and weight can be powerful symbols of strength, intimidation power and success while simultaneously suggesting an appealing softness and heat. Weight has lost some of its glamour as the poorest members of society have gone from skeletally unhealthy to sugar drink (my mom calls pop hummingbird food for a reason) and factory processed food health problems. But a careful writer can still appropriate the traces of remaining admiration for certain kinds of fatness if they tap the source and head-off the negative stereotypes associated with fatness such as lack of hygiene, low intelligence, slowness, laziness, and lack of discipline. How? As writers always have, by showing the character engaging life with intelligence, nimbleness, discipline, etc. and describing them in appeal terms in regard to their physical traits including scent and strength.

I can go on, but by now hopefully it has become clear that in order to make a character attractive, you don't have to make them into some sort of supermodel cardboard cutout. In fact, some of the most attractive traits in a human being are their ability to provide and care for others. Students of writing know this and utilize this by revealing charitable, courageous, self-sacrificing or other kinds of behavior to show how good a character is. We care about people who care about others and who contribute to society rather than leech off of it.

Besides, fashions come and go, markers of health change from lean to fat to skeletal to huge, or muscle-bound to super-flexible, but the core traits that make humans appealing, like the capability to think, protect, act with decisiveness, care about others, and to weather adversity mentally, emotionally and physically, haven't changed and probably never will.

Fitness and Fiction

I think there are a couple of destructive attitudes that exist out there about fitness that get in the way not only of realism but also are missed opportunities for character depth and development.

Attitude One: It's good genes, is all.
Um, no.
A very good friend of mine a very, very long time ago gave my DH a dirty look when he mentioned something about physical fitness and said, to paraphrase, "Well it's easy for you. You've got good genes."
It's never easy, even with good genes. As the years have gone by, my DH and I have to work harder (and eat less) to stay in reasonable shape. And we are not in particularly good shape. I try to look at my workouts as tricks I'm training my body to do, rather than view it as a routine, because routines are boring and never, ever end. For example, the latest trick I'm trying to teach my body is to be able to push up with my hands under my shoulders, flat-backed, from a position where I'm flat against the floor. There's not much leverage from that position. I can do it once if I arch my back a little initially, but that's cheating. After my morning attempt (failure) I usually do some plank exercises in hopes that the next morning, I'll be able to do a real one. And after I've done a real one, I'd like to do, say, five, and then I'll make up some other weird goal for my upper body. For abs, I'm working on a full body belly roll. And for my dex/aerobics, I'm learning how to jump rope again. I used to be pretty good ... when I was eight years old. Now, not so much.
Anyway, even those of us with decent genes can't slack off, so neither can our fictional characters. And many of them don't have gyms to go to, or even a culture that embraces exercise. So either they're going to be engaging in some sort of physical labor, or walking or horseback riding everywhere, or doing some other sort of practical training where there's an obvious pay off.* It's not going to be auto-magic. And by practical, I mean life-saving training where the goal may not necessarily be to look buff, but to stay alive. As the beautiful quote in Zombieland goes, "The first rule of Zombieland is cardio."

Attitude Two: Well, fictional characters have all their off screen time to get into shape and stay in shape, or they can do it with a montage.
Yes, but if it's a daily thing, and there's a lot of variety or a ritualistic quality to it, there's opportunity to show what your characters are made of. Some of them may be the equivalent of gym bunnies and work on their bodies all day, while others could do a short stint of intense exercise and then they're done for the day. Either way, it doesn't have to be some automatic thing to blow off. They should work hard, and be punished or rewarded accordingly. (Don't forget your overuse injuries!) By the way, new research shows that ten minutes of intense exercise a day has the same benefits as hanging out on the treadmill for hours reading a magazine. Sweet! But it has to be intense. So give them an excuse to do something intense every day, or make it part of their training routine, and create some consequences and characteristics that carry over to your story, and see what happens. Three letters. MIB. His fitness and spirit carries through the whole first movie. It's a beautiful thing.

Failing that, consider giving a character an average or even overweight body. Why not? They can still be attractive. In The Ladies' Number One Detective Agency, the main character is 'of tradition build' and is very desirable. We can celebrate health in all different sizes, a full range of capabilities and disabilities in our characters, and have it make sense. Which reminds me, remember, a lot of folks in wheelchairs are athletes too. It's not all about the chair. It's about the person in the chair.

There's a huge variety of awesome humanity out there. If the Phantom of the Opera can be seductive, than anyone can be.

I guess what I'm suggesting, ultimately, is that realism doesn't have to be a drag, any more than real exercise has to be a drag. I love my exercise time (when I get around to it. Ahem.) That's me time. And for those that don't ... you don't have to be Arnold or Demi to be sexy, healthy, happy and effective. Neither do your fictional characters. Give the reality a chance on the page and see what happens, just for fun. There are zillions of sexy long-haired whatevers out there in fiction who get their sleek, fit bodies for free. Dare to be different. Dare to be closer to life, and see what truths you reveal in your story that might not have turned up if you hadn't thought about physicality beyond a description of height and eye color.

And that super-fit guy with the lightning reflexes? There are few things that will gut him faster than not being strong enough to succeed when he's the strongest thing around. Then we'll get to see his real strength, and that's powerful stuff to see on the page, and in real life.

*One of the most painfully laughable scenes I've ever seen on exercise was in Cave Dwellers where the characters had rigged up a weight machine with rough rope, pulleys and rocks. WTF? He's a sword-slinger! You don't think his arms would be strong enough just from that? And he can't afford to be muscle bound. Oh for pity's sake ... but at least they were trying to explain why he looked like a body builder, I guess. Still. Oh. My. Gawd. That was so silly. Conan the Barbarian? Way better. Just saying. Although, it would have made more sense if that wheel wasn't in the middle of nowhere. It would have made more sense if it was in the middle of town or at least near a town and they were grinding wheat or something. Still, better than rock weights. A lot, lot better.

Learning From the Worst

I took my first creative writing college course in 1986. I had a really bad teacher. He could be described by many of the clichés as far as bad instructors* go, and yet I learned a lot from him. Some of the lessons he taught were unintentional, but much of his good advice had a solid foundation and he had some idea of what he was talking about.

So, even if you happen to end up in a really cruddy class or you pick up a book on writing and it's, let's say, almost completely wrong, you can still get a lot out of it, and not just the right parts.

For example, that really cruddy teacher? He told me that my writing was outstanding (yay!) and he suggested that I not waste my time in 'genre fiction.'

Though I was a rather impressionable young thing at the time, I silently disagreed. I also didn't argue with him. I did, however, learn that I had talent from someone who disdained my subject matter. Normally writers can't hear praise and focus on the negative, but in this situation I didn't hear the message that my story was crap because it was fantasy. Instead I heard the message that he loved my writing even though he didn't like the story. That was a very valuable lesson, though I didn't realize its importance at the time. I also learned that no matter what anyone said, I would write fantasy. I might have suspected that about myself, but I didn't know until this instructor applied pressure.

I try not to say bad things about books, so I won't name names, but I'm reading a book about writing technique that had a lot of muddy and poorly-illustrated examples to support flimsy points that weren't helping me learn more about writing. I persisted and now I'm in chapters of that same book that are fantastic and will hopefully improve my writing game.

This book inspired this post because the author admitted that he gave very bad advice in previous books and during creative writing courses he taught for various universities. (No, he wasn't my instructor, although that would have been fun if he had been!) I'm learning a lot from him, despite the fact that he's flawed, is occasionally unclear, and has admitted that he (potentially) led impressionable young writers astray. And that's important to realize and accept when we learn anything from anyone. Not everything someone teaches will work for us. And some of the instruction will be absolutely wrong for everyone, including the person doing the teaching. That person, like my first college creative writing instructor, might be working on an insipid, self-absorbed piece of so-called literature aimed at a small section of society he feels nothing but contempt for (this really happened, and as far as I know that thing was never published, thank goodness) but he may be the right person at the right time to talk about the use and abuse of adjectives and adverbs in writing, or active voice, or economy of language, or any of the gizillion things that need to be in a writer's brain working in the background while we take a roller coaster ride on the chemicals zipping between synapses in our brains.

You can learn just about anything from any instructor. Even the worst ones. It may not be the lesson they're intending to teach, but you'll learn just the same. And, there's always the chance that what you think is wrong and awful is actually right and good. You might not know enough yet to tell the difference. So it's important not to rely on one source for learning. More importantly, it's a good idea to look beyond the instructor and focus on the material itself. After all, it's not the teacher who is the focus of your work. Your work is the focus of your work, and the teacher is there to help you decide how to accomplish it, either by way of good example, or sometimes, by bad example.

*The bad college creative writing instructor cliché is as follows: has never published except perhaps a thesis or academic paper, worships 'literature' and disdains all other forms of prose, is ostentatiously well-read and reads all the correct literary magazines (preferably ones you haven't heard of with very small distributions,) helps edit or is senior editor of the university's own literary magazine that no one reads except the contributors, has a small stack of form rejection slips from the New Yorker that collect dust because the writing goes very slowly, and is very sure of self despite limited or zero credentials. Optional: has a substance abuse problem, is involved in an adulterous relationship or a relationship with a student, believes s/he is disliked because s/he is too intelligent to be understood by the common person, and consciously or subconsciously dislikes the characters about which s/he writes (which leads to a rather unpleasant form of writing where the author tortures or destroys that unlikeable character for no apparent purpose).

Thrones

Another amazingly gorgeous sunny day in the Pacific NW.
I will, of course, be at my day job. I have to laugh. Well, I'll have a walk during my lunch, and sometimes I have to do stuff outside, so it won't be a total wash.

About leadership as depicted in fiction and film:

Rewatching The Hobbit always does this to me. Why are revered leaders sitting on their asses on thrones? Good, evil, doesn't matter. What exactly made their flat butts worthy of sitting in such an exalted place?

Let's ask this another way. What do good leaders do?

I have a good leader at work. If it weren't for his snappy dialogue, the look in his eyes, and the big red vest, you wouldn't necessarily peg him for the leader if you came into the store in the middle of the day. He stocks shelves and helps customers same as the rest of us. A customer interrupted him as he was answering yet another call (probably from someone needing leadership advice–he fields such calls all day–or from his boss) and he stopped and helped them. Didn't just tell them what aisle something was on. Led them to the product, asked them if he could summon additional help for them as he was on his way to answering a call. Excellent customer service, just like he drills into our heads every day. Leading by example. Working by our sides. Relentless in his mission to make us the best store in the system, and demands more of himself than his employees. This, from someone who will retire in less than two years.

Contrast that to the great orc chieftain, sitting on his ass, barking out orders. Even his ride sits on its ass when the killing of a subordinate is required. I wasn't filled with a sense of dread. I thought, this dude makes his lackeys do all the dirty work, and criticizes them when they get it wrong without any investigation whatsoever. He's got nothing. He's not a badass, he's the kind of bad manager/war cow-er-leader who gets his people killed. Why are they even following him?

The goblin king was even worse. He was comical, pathetic, lazy, self-aggrandizing ... he must have oversnacked and overslept his way to the throne somehow, because he sure didn't get there through leadership or even prowess. He fell over without a fight when he faced his enemies. I couldn't wait to get through that scene because watching that bad guy made me groan in sympathetic embarrassment for whoever designed and executed that scene. If his people had been insubordinate, if there was danger to him and he was barely holding on through bravado, I would have bought it. But no, his minions cheered on their weak, useless leader without sneers or sarcasm, and without backstabbing attempts to take advantage of enemies in their midst to finally get rid of the idiot.

Watch Band of Brothers if you want to see creative non-fiction depict a real leader. Major Dick Winters was so famously good at being a leader that despite his long years of quiet retirement and his death early in 2011, he still inspires the people he led.

One thing  The Desolation of Smaug got very right is the sense of decay, frustration, and misery that comes with bad leadership. (Can't wait to watch that part again!) The kingdom of the wood elves still has splendor–there are those that still care, and passionately–but many are self-medicating, there's the ever-present threat of insubordination, and the leader, terrified of what he sees coming, is barely holding it together. He clings to his throne because it's the only thing he has left. Without that symbol, he's got nothing to keep his people together with anymore. That's drama. That's awesome. I'll watch that all day. That's real leadership, not at its best, but compelling and real and I even sympathized with the king who is slowly, painfully losing everything he holds dear and doesn't know how to save it. And, perhaps not surprisingly if you think about it, I feared the King of the Wood Elves because I could tell how desperate he is.

How much more powerful and dangerous would the orc leader seem if he led by example, praised his troops when they did well, rewarded success, gave them working strategies and tactics to succeed when they failed to succeed on their own, and swore to avenge them when they died? He could still kill his own people, but not for failing him, no, for failing their own brethren and getting them killed through bad strategy, cowardice, etc. What makes evil leaders evil is not their thoughtless savagery. Thoughtless savages don't become leaders. Thoughtless savages need leaders to accomplish anything of any real scope beyond serial killings. Evil leaders can ramp up a sense of rabid devotion like no one else, because they can reward with things that good people would rather die than allow to exist. And evil leaders don't have to feel bad when they employ scapegoats, tap into addictive tendencies, publicly give rewards to undeserving scum to give the star players a little more motivation to prove their worthiness, betray a good soldier to establish a better one for the good of the organization, throw weak and underperforming minions under the bus, etc.

Perhaps the most painful moment in The Hobbit though, from a leadership point of view, was the telling of Thorin's history with orcs. Seriously. Stand on the edge of a cliff and brood while someone sings your praises and tells of your sorrows? Gawd, every real leader I know would be shaking their head and either insisting that it's ancient history and we've got real problems to deal with now, or they'd walk away in embarrassment. They'd protest, don't build me up to the newbie, please. Or, that's not how it happened (because from their pov they were scared spitless and not heroic at all at the battle that cost just about everyone they know their lives. Can we say survivor's guilt? Can we say, thinking over and over about what he could have done instead so that just about everyone didn't have to die that day?)

So, please, writers, get your fictional leaders off their butts and into the action. Even the bad guys. Maybe especially them, so that they don't just fall over at the climax of your big confrontation scene. Thanks!

Sexy Tears

After four rainy days off, I go back to my day job ... on a spectacular sunny day. I think my work schedule is more accurate than the weather man as far as predicting sun and rain.

On to today's topic.

I rewatched Star Trek: Into Darkness, and I have some observations that I hope will be useful. Forgive my wee preamble, please: I actually like this movie a lot, and I'm sure I'll watch it many times. I don't want anyone getting the idea that I thought it was painfully bad and in dire need of shredding.

Uniformity of reaction:
One of the tougher things to do as a writer is to characterize. I mean seriously characterize, as in define and express character. To use a great example of characterization, every one of the Avengers has their own way about that. Part of that is great acting, but acting is restricted by dialogue, the situation, and correction–which means that some of the fault falls onto the shoulders of the writers and director. Into Darkness had characterization problems.
Writers are people (I know, I know, that's just crazy talk but let me finish) and have their own personal reactions to situations. They have verbal tics, like saying "this rocks!" when they like something (or "awesome" or whatever) and they may cry readily ... or stifle sobs rather than go into full cry mode whenever possible. Their own responses are what they know at gut level. The difficulty is to then write characters who react in imagined ways to imagined situations who are not only different from oneself, but different from each other, but still fall into what the writers and director classify as worthy of admiration. In Star Trek: Into Darkness, there's a monotone. Just about every major cast member sheds a sexy tear, including Khan. Khan? Really? Khan the Ice Rage Machine? This very specific, fairly rare, delicate emotion becomes so repetitive that it could be turned into a drinking game.
Characters need to react to emotional situations differently from each other, especially in film where it's all visual and the internal stuff is harder to define and differentiate between characters. In writing, the difference between characters should be crystal clear. Which means, if a writer wants to have any range to her or his cast of sympathetic, admirable characters, that writer has to imagine, before a word is written, how a hothead can express grief and passion in an admirable way, how a genius creative can express grief and passion in a different way, how a cunning, savage mastermind can express grief and passion ... you get the idea. And that's true for every emotion characters express.

The homage:
I was on board with the re-envisioning of the original Spock/Kirk death scene from Wrath of Khan, right up until Spock cried out Khan's name. The original Kirk, yes. New Spock, no. Spock could have gone animal (and I loved how the actor went into enraged gorilla mode on Khan's ass in the following fight scene) right there, total predator. He could have lost it in any number of ways. But the Kirk echo didn't work for me. Wrong character. Not the way Spock would have expressed rage ... with a word. Howl? Maybe. Or total silence, or a growl .... lots of choices. None of them taken. I'm not sure why. Because they went a different route with the New Kirk. I'm scared? Gorgeous. Beautiful. Human. Very unlike the composed and calm Old Spock in the same situation. So why not give New Spock the same option–to be Vulcan-ish, but in the way we don't see Vulcans very often because it's so rare for that primitive side of them to escape? And what is a primitive Vulcan? I propose it's the mindless gorilla with the looping fist strikes that will smash an enemy to unrecognizable pulp before it gets its mind back, and that sort of critter doesn't have words. Yes, yes, Spock is half-human, but that's not what makes him different from Kirk and the other characters. It's his Vulcan nature, a nature so volatile that as-a-race they have tied themselves up and caged themselves because they fear it so much. So, writers and directors of Star Trek–show us why they're scared of it. Maybe there's something even scarier, something truly alien in there that Spock would have revealed. Lost opportunity.

The take-away:
Working out who characters are is something writers like me, who don't outline, discover as we go along (and then sometimes we have to go back and make changes, which is annoying! but necessary.) During the formative period, characters may sound and act the same. Usually they sound and act like whatever idealized heroes we have in our heads. If the writer has been at the game a long time, they may have their go-to archetypes and have some variety in the beginning. Some writers rely on what they've seen and read, so they'll have a cast that strongly resembles, say, the Avengers, or the Fellowship, or Griffindors .... I think that's better than having characters that are all Dirty Harry, but still. Characters are the heart of great stories, and some attention ought to be paid to the important details. Those details aren't in hair and eye color, or shallow details like whether they're a clothes horse or like curry (unless they take it to radical extremes–then it becomes really important!) The details are in the devils, and angels, inside of them. Every scene that evokes powerful emotions in characters is an opportunity to express the uniqueness and beauty of living creatures when they're at their best, or their worst. I hope more writers take advantage of those opportunities, because I want to see what happens when they do.

Weight and Self-Image, Part 2

There's a lot of fantastic stuff in the comments in the last post. I'd like to continue thinking out loud in an actual post rather than writing vast blocks of text in the comments. I tried to be succinct, but I got carried away, so, here we go.

During a writing course, one of the things the instructors hammered home is the idea that most writers can't hear positive things about their work. Even when they do hear it, they often dismiss praise. I was taught in the class to write any praise I receive down and study that part of my writing *more* than the negative. The aim is to reproduce success rather than try to eliminate failure.

I try to extend this to the rest of my life, too. I try to hear praise like Rory gives, and see myself how he sees me. That way I keep fighting to 'stay in shape' or to work on physical goals that have some other payoff than a number, like to be able to run a certain distance, achieve balance in a yoga position or be able to stand on my hands. I think that's healthier than 'get in shape,' which doesn't work from a premise that I'm okay where I'm at too. I also try to avoid aiming for a certain number of pounds (up or down, thank you Regolith for reminding me that some people think they're too thin), or to 'look good in a bikini' – I have to repeat over and over that Rory likes the way I look in a bikini right now, rather than listen to the self-revulsion of the thought of myself in a bikini (or LBD, or whatever.) And if he didn't like the way I looked in a bikini, why in the world would I strive to try to look good in one? As if that would make him love me more ....

I'm sure he'd be pleased if I had the flexibility of a gymnast and less excess in certain areas, but he's not unhappy with where I'm at right this second, either. I don't have to do a damned thing if I don't want to, and that places the things I do in the arena of my choice for my own purposes, rather than trying to satisfy some idea of what I think he might want me to look like instead of the way I look right now. My DH has the power to make me feel overweight, underweight, ugly, old ... and he has more power in my mind than society. He's not just my friend and lover and husband, but an ally in my mind when I battle self-image monsters.

If I remember to listen to his loving words, hear them, and believe them.

If he wasn't an ally, well, why would I listen to him? But that's a whole 'nother post about relationships.

It's still there, of course, the self-talk that emphasizes the negative. And it's tricky. Working from this paradigm seems to say, be happy with yourself the way you are, The End, and that's not a concept anyone will buy, for sensible reasons. We don't want to lose our drive to constantly learn, improve, to grow. If we're satisfied with the way everything is, from the state of the housekeeping to the mechanical soundness of our vehicles, what's going to motivate us to get off the couch?

But that's not what being happy with yourself actually does. Time moves on. We can be happy with the mechanical soundness of a vehicle, but it's going to need an oil change in X number of miles, and tires need to be rotated or replaced entirely, and inevitably there will be a crack in the windshield bad enough that a new windshield will be required, etc. I can love my car as it is, but I still need to take care of it.

I love my car, therefore I take care of it. If I'm okay (see, I can't even say if I love myself–ugh) with myself, that doesn't mean I stop doing all the things I always do. Nor does it mean I'll lose all motivation to try new things, or to get better. I will paint that old pick up truck, not because I don't love it the way it is (and I really do! Scratches and all!) but because I do love it. I want to play with it. I want to express my love for my truck by turning it into an art project, and of course I want to maintain it too so that it runs as long as possible. Would I fuss with the truck if I didn't love it? Of course not. I would let it languish or ignore it.

So if I didn't love myself, would I be motivated to take good care of myself? Would I only take care of myself because I'm supposed to, or because there's a tiny hope that if I take care of myself maybe in some distant future I'll be lovable? That's working from a place of pain and despair. That's less motivation, not more. And some people, because they don't love themselves, let themselves die or even speed their deaths.

Self-love also seems to mean vanity, arrogance, hubris, and other nasty things that we can safely agree are bad. I love Steve Barnes' approach, though I have to say this is my read on it and may not be his actual words or thoughts. We've known each other a few years, so what he's written and taught are tangled up with my own thoughts. Anyway, one of the lessons I've learned from Steve on this subject strips away all the bullshit, negative, backward-thinking societally-reinforced garbage we allow to rot in our minds.

Most people want to nurture children, love their friends, etc. If you saw yourself as a child, would you want to protect that child? If your friend was in pain, would you want to comfort your friend? If your favorite cousin needed help to survive, would you give it? So, assuming you say yes to these things, and assuming you consider this a positive aspect of yourself, can you see your self as your own child, your own friend, your own favorite cousin who you love? Sometimes I picture myself as a little girl and give her a big hug and tell her I haven't forgotten her, and that I love her. That's easier for me and reaches deeper than looking in the mirror. In the mirror, the whole world seems to see my flaws along with me through my own eyes. But when I picture my child self, the little blond, fragile, creative, loving, sensitive, horse-adoring, kitten-nurturing non-stop reader who loved playing by the water and building miniature architectural wonders with child-made ponds and rivers, I adore her with all my being and if the world wanted to hurt her I would destroy the world to save her.

Is it a trick of the mind? I don't think so. Looking back, there are things that hurt so bad and I wish I could go back and tell her that she's loved. So I do. I go back and hold her and tell her it's all right, I'm there for her. I'm her friend and ally, her mother and sister, her dragon if need be to fight her monsters and turn them into bits of charcoal. I don't want her to be so sheltered that she never grows up and never becomes strong, but by the blessed world she deserves to know she's loved and that she's not alone!

It's harder, maybe too hard, to extend these feelings to my grown self. I don't know if there's value in trying, when there's so much power in embracing the child within and honoring her. It's hard to see myself as Rory sees me, but I don't know if there's value in that either, when there's so much strength and joy in not just hearing the words, but accepting his love.

So that's where I'm at. By hearing and accepting praise, we let ourselves be loved, and can love ourselves. If we love ourselves, we're more likely to take care of ourselves, nurture ourselves, and grow. We can't always be stronger, or wiser, or more beautiful. Disease, age, genetics and all kinds of other stuff stand in the way. But the only thing that stands in the way of accepting love, loving ourselves and taking the best care of ourselves that we can is ourselves. I see nothing to be gained with self-loathing, and everything to be gained by being a friend to myself and help myself achieve my goals.

Maybe someday it'll be easier to do that. Even now, after all I've written and knowing it's true, it's hard to accept that liking myself isn't narcissistic horror. And maybe that's a check-and-balance within ourselves, to keep from become self-centered monsters that don't give a crud about anyone or anything else. But negativity and self-doubt should be just that, a thing to help keep balance, not the only thing in our minds. Ever.

Public Face: Who's it all about?

Recently I spend some time investigating some writers I'd never heard of for a friend who is handling the programming for a convention. Two websites and a few blogs later, I noticed a pattern of not-goodness. I'm keeping this super-generic because I don't want anyone assuming (wrongly or otherwise) that it's them. I don't want anyone to go hunting for a rock to crawl under. Nor would it be any fun if people assume I'm talking about them and get all defensive and decide that they're an exception for whatever reason.  I just want to offer some advice that hopefully everyone can use.

There are a lot of writers who blog about writing out there. Writers write, and writers obsess about how to write, when to write, why to write, who or what to write about, what music to write to, where to write, etc. I went in with that knowledge and expected that a writer's blog will involve writing on some level. So that's fine. It's natural for writers to obsess about writing on their blogs.

But.

Assuming that a writer blogs because they want to connect with their audience, it seems to me that it might be a good idea to make the blog about the audience. Impart useful information, write teasers, talk about cats [because the interwebs were created for cute cat pictures, instant information (right or wrong might not matter as much as getting it right away) and porn, as we all know] or whatevs. Get excited about the latest book coming out, or report on the awesome that's the convention, book signing, movie that came out, fab new writing haunt, etc. But I would suggest avoiding what these authors did, which was make it all about themselves. I don't mean, don't make it personal. Personal is fine. But there's a difference between sharing and narcissism. These websites seemed very narcissistic to me.

Most readers tolerate promotion so that they can find out the latest about the writer's new work. There's the work, which readers like to read about so they can snag the latest info about the story they love, and there's the author, who is the respected creator but not the focus of the reader's interest.

The posts had nothing to do with me as an interested party who wanted to know more about the author's work, and the author themselves. I didn't care about how hard it was to write the synopsis for the person's latest work, though I've been there and it does suck. Discussing an imagined slight of The Author's craft by some unwashed, unworthy fellow author or a critical reader or whoever–I wanted to bounce off the site but I was doing research, so I reluctantly read on. I do enjoy reading about stuff like that sometimes, but usually only if the author is a celebrity and is misbehaving. In other words, I read about that at their expense, usually through a third party. (See the Anne Rice example coming up shortly.) I also like to hear about famous authors being awesome, but again, through a third party.

I did actually want to know about the authors. And I found out plenty, though probably  not what the author intended. Reading between the lines, the authors sounded more interested in themselves as authors than they were their own work, or anything else going on in the world for that matter. They may be perfectly fine writers, but I'll never know because their web presence didn't inspire confidence in their writing. I'd expect that their books are in keeping with the level of self-awareness and insight into the wider world expressed in their blogs. Which is to say, they seemed to be using really tiny windows to look out at the world, and there were a lot of mirrors outside those windows.

I think an author-focused blog can work very well. Jay Lake famously blogs about his cancer journey. In fact, he's stated that he has more hits on his blog from others wanting information about his battle with cancer than his books. I think it's valuable to study how Jay talks about his cancer and how people respond, especially others who are facing cancer or have family with cancer. The information he gives helps people feel less alone, and prepares them for the things they'll have to face and decisions they'll have to make. This is valuable (and generous, and courageous.) I've also enjoyed author blogs when the authors discuss their trips to foreign countries, antics with their pets (again with the cats!) and stuff they've learned through research.

Contrast that to talking about how mean someone was when they offered unsolicited criticism of the author's work. If there was some insight, humor, something to entertain me, as a fellow crazy writing person I might have felt a connection. I've certainly had my share of weird, cruel and off-putting critiques. But as a reader, a potential buyer of the author's books, those posts turned me off more than anything. And, sadly, even as a writer sympathetic to the plight of other writers, my main reaction was to wonder if the author had a thick enough skin to survive in the business. That, and I had a flashback to Anne Rice's reaction to a bad review on Amazon. I still get a chuckle out of that. As entertained as I was by that whole debacle, it didn't endear me to Anne Rice, no matter how much I can sympathize with how hard it can be to deal with a bad review. She looked terribly unprofessional.

And these websites and blogs were just that. Unprofessional. It's not about the author. It's about the work.

And cute pictures of cats.

Novel In Progress: an excerpt

I don't usually put up excerpts on my blog, much less a rough draft's excerpt, but I thought today I'd make an exception. For fun. And because it's scary. Every once in a while it's good to do a fun, scary thing.

And this will help me finish it. Because right now I'm in that stage where I want to tear my hair out and I'm worried that my climax isn't going to be climactic enough and I just need to give myself some motivation. Negative comments won't slow me down (I do not mean that as a challenge, people! We don't have to be mean!) and putting it up will make me feel obligated to complete and publish it. Why? I'm not really sure. Something about putting up an excerpt feels like a promise to publish it so that the people who like it can read the whole thing, I guess.

So here it is, in all its imperfect glory. In the story so far, we've learned that one young lady, Caitlin, is obsessed with the fear that she might be a giant. Another young lady, this young lady, has the Sight which she calls sixen. She just lost her job for being late for the umpteenth time. She saw a stranger in the park in need of help, and found out that stranger is an alfr, or elf, who they themselves prefer to be called gless.

And here we go:

Amaranth slowed way down as they got close to the Fox’s gravel driveway that came off the regular road. It pitched down the downhill side of the road at a scary angle that ran almost parallel to the road and steep enough to make a good sledding slope. They’d walked to the house from Amy’s a couple of times, but she’d never driven down there, and she’d never approached the house on her own. She checked her phone. Still no text back. Shit. Well, it was way before lunchtime, and Cait might not turn on her phone between classes. She wasn’t hooked on it like most people.

The gless just sat there, staring out the window. What if she died? At least the tears had stopped.

Maybe that was a bad sign.

“Shit.” Amaranth pulled into the driveway. It had just enough room for two sets of wheels. An uneven strip of grass grew in the middle, and blackberries mixed with grape vines grew in from the sides from up way high. The vines scratched and scraped her car as she drove down. On the uphill side it made sense that they’d be up high, but the downhill side of the driveway it was just as high. Maybe a fence was buried underneath or something. 

The driveway widened out after about a hundred feet in front of a small barn, a huge shed, and off to the right, a light green two-story house with a weird soft orange and white trim. It was a really pretty place, old-fashioned, with all kinds of decoration around the roofline, and stained glass in places. The garden looked like a scary maze with hidden rooms and what she hoped were birds moving in the shadows, but it was beautiful at the same time. Peach roses grew through rampant blackberries and some thorny bushes with thorns over an inch long. There was a tree with baby rose-like flowers all over it next to a gate, vines with huge purple, white and bluish flowers crawling up statues and fences and trellises, and mirrors hidden in the bushes. Past the rose tree thing, a huge pink crystal rock on a stand in the middle of a tiny pond had water flowing onto it from a marble pitcher held up by a statue of some sort of goddess made of green stone. Normally her brain said big money when she saw stuff like this, but this time her brain thought big mysteries, scary, run away before the garden eats you. Luckily, there wasn’t much growing right next to the house. The plants there looked like they belonged to Heidi. They were all pretty and perfect and trimmed with bark dust all around.

The gless got out of the car. Amaranth was going to stay, but then she remembered that the gless wanted to protect her, so she got out and stayed close, but not too close as the gless walked, um, not toward the front door but farther into the garden.

“Hey, um, shouldn’t we ring the–shit.” She hurried to the front door and rang the doorbell. It made a weird three-ring chime instead of a normal noise.

The gless came back from whatever path she’d walked down and settled next to Amaranth.

“What’s your name?” Amaranth asked.

“Mist will do.”

She wondered if Fox had always been named Fox, or if Heidi named him. Did they have names where they came from? Maybe not. They had to, though, didn’t they? They couldn’t just always be like, hey you. No you. The other you. Yeah, you. Whatcha lookin’ at?

She started to smile, but the gless looked about dead on her feet. Amaranth rang the bell again.

Heidi finally showed up and opened the fancy door with its fancy stained glass, some sort of purple flower with white and blue. She took a long look at Mist before she took a quick look at Amaranth. “What’s going on?”

“I found her in the park next do the mill.” All at once Amaranth felt bad for bringing her here. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. She’s hurt.” 

Heidi didn’t look very sympathetic. If anything she seemed even more nervous. “Fox.”

Heidi called his name like he was just in the next room, but the gless turned a bit and lowered her chin and Fox came out from the barn. He had a machete in one hand, and looked extra sexy in torn-up jeans, work gloves and bare feet. Amaranth had never seen him wear shoes. He looked like a guy, a really gorgeous guy, but he was extra-pale like the sun couldn’t tan him, and he had light green hair down to his waist. Years ago when she peeked at him with her sixen he had a green, fiery aura–so bright she could barely see him because of it. 

Mist’s probably should have been just as bright.

He smiled his not-good smile and walked over all casual-like. Something in his stride made her hair prickle up and gave her serious goosebumps. “I know you.” He pointed the machete at Amaranth. “You go in the house with Heidi. You, I don’t know.” His smile brightened. “I’m a little surprised that one of your ilk would come here without invitation.”

“I invited her. I’m sorry,” Amaranth told him. “She was hurt, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Fox.” Heidi’s voice sounded weird. Firm, like she’d talk to a dog that was thinking about misbehaving, but warm, like she liked how he was acting. “My world, my rules.”

Mist said something in the gless language and Fox’s eyes narrowed. “In English. Their world, their rules.”

A tear slipped along Mist’s cheek, and that made Fox’s smile go away. “I promised my protection to her,” Mist whispered.

“Protection from what?”

“The Queen.”

Fox gave Amaranth a look that made her shiver inside her skin. “Get in the house.”

Amaranth didn’t dare move. It felt too much like if she moved, it would set one or both of them off. “Fox,” Heidi warned again, but she twitched her hand for Amaranth to go ahead and go. Amaranth felt something shift between Fox and Mist, and she took the few steps she needed to make it just inside the door.

Fox seemed to relax, but that only made him look more dangerous. He swung the machete in a small, casual loop like he wanted to loosen his wrist, or just play with it. He did it so smoothly, it was obvious he’d played and worked with the machete a lot. “Why would she need protection from the Queen?”

“You must not have been home–”

“I have no home, thanks to you.” Fox started to smile again, but this wasn’t a bright, happy smile. It was a Mona Lisa, just a hint, full of secrets. “You need to leave.”

“I think you misunderstand.” Mist hadn’t moved except for little breaths and she turned her head a little, or like now, lifted her chin just enough to look more proud than submissive, though she was obviously trying her best to act all low-man and not piss him off. “The Queen has betrayed my King and joined the … Rose.” Another tear trailed down, and her breath caught. She hissed and put her hands over her wound.

“Damask,” Fox said. When Mist didn’t say anything, he said, “not Rose. Damask.”

“Damask,” Mist whispered.

“Step back off the porch, very slowly.”

Amaranth didn’t want to see Mist chopped up right here in front of them. “Will you guys please explain what’s going on?”

Fox, who’d been all ‘I’m gonna machete this bitch with a smile on my face’ started to look a little less sure of himself. “I’m willing to hear you out. Give it. Mist.” 

He spoke her name so mean–and Amaranth got it, that Mist was a stranger and dangerous and Amaranth didn’t know her, no one knew her–but Fox had stepped over the line somewhere from being the hero and into being an asshole toward a woman. That pushed all of Amaranth’s buttons. “Hey, she’s done nothing to me and she’s had plenty of chances. Give her a break.” When Fox whipped a look in her direction Amaranth’s bravery crawled deeper than the place she’d stuffed her sixen. She was about to apologize and run for cover when Heidi took over. Actually, in a way, it felt like she’d been in charge all along.

“Why don’t we all sit down and have some tea?” Heidi opened the door wider.

“You don’t trust me?” Fox turned off all that creepy-smile stuff when he looked at Heidi. His weird, gorgeous eyes had narrowed again, and his lips stayed parted and he ducked his head.

“I took you in. Remember?” Heidi held out her hand to him. After a childish, pouty, mean glance toward Mist that made Amaranth shiver, he stopped playing with his machete and let it hang limp as he walked up onto the porch and took Heidi’s hand. He leaned in close to Mist and took a whiff, straightened up all proud, and then walked into the house with Heidi. He passed by close to Amaranth. His sweat smelled like fresh tree sap and the scent in the super-cold air that blew into town after the first big winter storm in the mountains east of town.

Mist finally came in, measuring each step, hardly making a sound when she moved except a little catch in her breath now and then. 

“Have a seat on the couch,” Heidi suggested. “Fox?”

“Tea,” he growled. She kissed his cheek as he went toward the kitchen and it made him smile an almost human, perfectly-at-peace smile.

Their house was one of those with the kitchen by a big family room. The family room had a tiled-around red enamel wood stove. The kitchen had custom countertops in that cement stuff with rounded corners, paint-stained a pale gray. Cream-colored leather furniture looked really fancy with the blue-gray walls and cream cream trim. The high ceilings, light-reddish wood cabinets with beveled glass panes, the pot rack with copper-bottomed pots hanging all organized on it, the huge stove and fridge all screamed money money money. They probably had closets bigger than her bedroom. She caught a whiff of the chlorine from their indoor pool. That was in an addition connected to the house by what they called the glass breezeway, which was more like a greenhouse than a hall. When Cait had taken her to visit they got to swim in it. But mostly the place smelled like those eco-safe cleaners with edible smells like mint, lemon, and orange.

Mist sat down. “The Damask have long waged a destructive but fruitless war against the King and Queen, in which I have fought for peace,” Mist told them. “Three days ago that all changed. In the midst of what I thought was a rough but minor skirmish of a few hundred all told, we have lost the war.”

Fox had started to reach for the water faucet, a red enamel tea kettle in hand. He lost his balance somehow and banged the kettle into the faucet. 

“The Queen sent her best soldiers out all at once, we few but mighty, to drive the Damask from Amber Lake. We had been meeting fewer and fewer of them, so we thought it would be an easy task. She came with us, to observe, she said, and to fight if needed. The King she convinced to remain behind.” Mist whispered something and she sobbed and braced her arms over her gut. “I should have known something was wrong. She commanded her forces to take us. Perhaps a dozen at most among our ranks obeyed her, but their betrayal was so unexpected, so fierce and so close that combined with the Damask already on the field and the fresh force of Damask that charged out of the Lake into our flank ….” 

Amaranth wasn’t sure what a gless battle would look like, but Mist didn’t have to spell it out for Amaranth to imagine the slaughter. 

“I doubt that the trap encompassed the sum of her plot,” Mist whispered.

“How did you escape?” Fox’s voice had gone soft and nice.

“I didn’t escape.” Fresh tears trickled down her face.

“You’re dying.” Fox sounded breathless. 

As if he hadn’t known. How could he not know? “Duh, genius.” Amaranth should have kept her mouth shut, but he didn’t seem pissed at her for saying it, so she kept talking in hopes that she could smooth things out before he decided to take offense. “Can you help her?”

“Three days. You should have healed from it by now.” Fox approached but Mist help up her hand, and then let it sag down like she wasn’t strong enough to hold up her arm for long.

Mist shuddered. “She made a weapon especially for me. I won’t heal from this.”

“Why did she single you out?” Heidi asked.

Mist pressed her lips tight.

“I think she’s said enough. Speaking is stealing too much of her strength,” Fox told them. “There’s someone I know who might help. Amaranth, will you take me there?”

“Fox–” Heidi began.

“Will you stay with her?” Fox walked to her as Heidi stood. He stroked her arm. “She shouldn’t be alone, and you, you do well with our kind.”

Mist bowed her head even more than it already was, like she was starting to slip.

Amaranth had seen a lot of bad shit, but she hadn’t seen anyone die in front of her. She’d found her brother, dead, but he was already gone and as horrible as that had been, she had a feeling that watching it happen would be even worse. “I’ll take him.”

“Sweetie, you’ve done enough,” Heidi said. “I can call the neighbors.”

“It’s okay. My day is shot anyway.” She couldn’t just get on with normal life after all this, not that she had much of a normal life. Anyway, it would be quicker if she took him. “I’m here and we shouldn’t wait on this.”

“Thank you.” Fox started for the door.

“Shirt and hat, Fox,” Heidi called after him.

He made a little growl and headed into the back rooms, places she’d never seen.

“I’ll get my car turned around,” Amaranth told Heidi.

“Fox won’t let anything happen to you.” Heidi got some glasses out of a cabinet and began filling them with water. “You’re Caitlin’s friend. That makes you his people.”

She wondered what Heidi was worried about. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know. But Fox wouldn’t have asked you to take him if he thought it wouldn’t be safe for you. Well, it might not be safe, but he’s sure he can protect you.”

“Great.” 

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Heidi set one of the glasses in front of Mist and then took a deep drink from her own.

“Yeah.” When her friends accused her of being a drama queen, this was why. She knew it. But she couldn’t be any other way. It wasn’t that she looked for trouble or anything. She just couldn’t leave shit well enough alone. The difference that made her look slightly less stupid than most drama queens, she hoped, was that she didn’t go tearing people down, and she didn’t make a big deal when she felt sick or hurt or whatever just so she could feel alive or noticed or why-ever they did it. She tried to make things that sucked not suck as much. If that created drama, then whatever. Guilty as charged.

Hence her getting into her car, starting the engine, turning the car around, and not taking off when she saw Fox come out of the house loading a revolver with multi-colored bullets. He had a shirt and a blazer jacket with a shoulder holster that hid the revolver pretty well when he put it away, and a ballcap that made his green hair look short and blond. His eyebrows were still green but at least he didn’t look quite so otherworldly.

Amaranth waited until he buckled in before she drove up the driveway toward the road, scraping through the grapes and blackberries again. “Where to?”

“Beaverton.” 

“Shit.”

“Problem?”

“You have money for gas?” she asked.

“I have plastic. Much better than the coin of the realm.” He smiled.

“Mmm hmm.” She turned westward onto the road and drove on the edge of her comfort zone. She didn’t know how long Mist had, and Beaverton was a long ways away.

Nanowrimo is Eating My Brain! (Ongoing)

I must be in the midst of Nanowrimo because:

Today I subsisted on peanut butter and marionberry jam sandwiches and peach turnovers.
While I worked on fixing up the chicken coop, I plotted my next move in my novel.
While I stabilized the fuel in our lawnmowers, I plotted my next move in my novel.
While I put tarps over our pickup truck and the shelving next to the shed, I plotted my next move in my novel.
While I talked with my DH on the phone, we discussed how close we are to be able to subsist on our writing, so that I can write full time.
We also discussed upcoming literary conventions.

And now that it's getting dark outside and I've gotten most of my outside chores done:

I restarted my computer because it was moving too slowly and backed up my novel.
Put dinner in the oven, a ham and sweet potatoes, because they're quick to put in, low maintenance and I can let them roast while I do other stuff (write)
And last but not least, I decided I'd better blog, and what better to blog about than how Nanowrimo has eaten my brain!

I have one more day off before I return to my job tomorrow. It's the perfect storm for (possibly) reaching 50,000 words before the end of the week.

Oh, and eek, I'd better get my garbage out tonight. Don't want to interrupt my early morning writing session, my most productive of the day, by having to go take the garbage to the curb before the collectors show up.

Happy writing, all!

Nanowrimo 2013!

Quiet day off. Good timing. Orycon 35 is coming up fast (this weekend, eek!) and this time let me get my head together. I still don't know what I'm going to read. It'll be fantasy, fiction, probably a piece from a novel. I promise I won't yammer on with a big lead-in. I'm not sure if I should read from a book that's out, or from a book that's coming out early next year. My DH suggested After, so I'm going to comb through that tonight and see if I can find something that will make a good fifteen minute read. Suggestions are welcome if you've read the book!

I'm well into my Nanowrimo project, working title The Blood of Old Oak Hill. You can check up on my progress here. I'm going to try to put up a widget on the side bar so that you can cheer me on or taunt me or send me a little pep talk if it looks like I'm falling behind. Right now I'm a little ahead of the game, and at the same time, a bit behind. I'm going for 80,000 words. 50,000 is required to win. Now before you start calling me bad names, remember, this is National Novel Writing Month, and my goal is a short but professional-length novel, which starts at 80,000 words. 50,000 is still a great accomplishment and bravo if you take on the challenge and make it. But this is my 9th year and I've been writing for a while. I already know I can achieve 50,000. In fact I've made over 100,000 in a month before ... but I wasn't working a day job full time at the time. So we'll see. I'm definitely not going to be all cocky-strutty-cake-walky-attitude.

Not unless it's really funny. I might talk a good game, but deep inside I'm shivering at the memory of my office flooding right in the middle of Nano one year and falling about a thousand words short because it took so long to clean out my office (where the computer was, of course). What time I did spend writing I spent on the floor in the family room. Brrr. No, I'm not going to assume this is going to be easy. No way.

To make my goal I need to write 2667 words a day on average. Based on that, I'm behind. I'll definitely put on my writing cap and go for an hour or two before bedtime tonight. Wish me luck!

For more posts on Nanowrimo, some of them quite old, just click on the labels under the post and the magic of Blogger will hook you up. You won't see all of them because I was really sloppy with labels early on, but you should get a nice selection.

Words and Rain

The rains have come.

I've been working on a particular book cover for a while now. It's making me crazy and stretching me to the limits of my abilities. It seems like every time I start to work on it, I run into a problem that I'm not sure how best to solve, and I end up watching a bunch of You Tube videos on Photoshop to figure out how to fix it.

The deck is all shiny. The rain-cleansed wind is pushing, pulling, making me want to explore. Beneath the trees next to our house, the air is full of the scents of ripe grapes, clean, musky mulch, and wet hay.

I've been copyediting too. I start to get involved in what I'm reading and I have to stop, go back, and look hard at each individual word. It's really hard to copy edit, and I'm not as good at it as I want to be. I know I'm missing things. I just have to keep going over and over and hope the stuff I do miss, everyone else will miss too as the story transports them into other worlds.

I've missed the clouds. Later I'm sure they'll feel gloomy and heavy, but right now they remind me of silver jewelry, campfire smoke, early mist on a mysterious lake, of winter days spent curled up around hot apple cider or hot chocolate.

The rains have come, and like the wanderlust the weather brings with it a drive to write. But I can't write yet, except for a few stolen minutes during breaks and lunches at work. I have this cover to finish, and copyediting to do. I have tomorrow off. I hope it rains. I want to get up early and write, and hike in the rain sheltered under an umbrella that the wind uses to play tug-of-war with me, and write some more, write until I can hardly keep my eyes open.