A Teaser, For Reasons

Already this morning I’ve cut a PDF teaser for Finder’s Watcher. The full book’s been sent to the publisher and I’m hoping to hear back from them once the holiday crunch is over. There’s no reason why subscribers–both newsletter and otherwise–shouldn’t have something nice for the holidays as well, though, so I decided to do a up a little taste for you. Every subscriber–newsletter, Patreon, or Gumroad–will get the teaser. I’ll do my best to make sure they all drop at the same time, too.

And don’t worry. The book is finished, so if the publisher doesn’t want it (for whatever reason) it can be edited, cover art can be found, and it can be released otherwise. I just wanted all the Watcher books to look the same, especially if I want to write another one.

Just to keep my hand in, I suppose.

It was a chilly night. Sir Boxnoggin did his level best to wriggle under the covers with me. It’s hard out there for a slick-coated dog, I guess. Miss B, of course, has enough of a coat that she gets up several times a night to lie on the cool tile of the loo floor, but poor Lord van der Sploot has to make do with cuddling the human. He’s also very terrier, which means he likes enclosed spaces. He’s somewhat catlike–if there’s a box, he’s checking it for fit, and whether or not it fits, he sits.

I awoke in a very specific mood, one that can only be served by coffee and listening to Florence + the Machine. She’s like Jandek, I have to be in just the right space to listen, but when I am, absolutely nothing else will do. So it’s the Ceremonials album this morning, after which the itch should be scratched enough to draw blood and let it recede.

I have coffee, and drinking it means I get to cross an easy item off my to-do list. Today’s the day I make some decisions about Haggard Feathers, too. I think, going into the New Year, I’m going to hive off some writing about writing and let there be a subscription. I might even set up a dedicated mailbox for that, but I haven’t decided yet. God knows I get enough mail otherwise. Going through old writing posts for the second volume of Quill & Crow is a good idea, too.

In all my copious spare time, of course. I should also get together a book of collected short stories.

ANYWAY. I’ll invent all sorts of things to keep myself out of revision today, it seems. Which is why I must make a list, check it a few times, and settle into working through.

It’s Tuesday. Let’s punch the day in the throat together, my friends.

Soundtrack Monday: If I Ever Lose My Faith in You

The Demon's Librarian

If The Demon’s Librarian were ever to be turned into a movie, Sting’s If I Ever Lose My Faith in You would be playing over the credits. It’s largely Ryan’s song.

Who am I kidding? It’s only Ryan’s song. Chess is a very musical creature, though, and her tastes are pretty eclectic. She might even turn this up on the radio while the two of them are on vacation. (That’s what happens in The Lawyer and the Demon, Chess and Ryan are heading off for vacay in Hawaii, leaving Charlie to keep the city together.)

I’m sure that if Ryan heard this particular song he’d freeze, trying to figure out what that feeling in his chest is. You know the one–when a song is speaking directly to you, when an artist has managed to pierce the last veil between two human beings and articulates secrets you’ve kept even from yourself.

Anyway, Ryan’s found the battle he doesn’t mind fighting for the rest of his life. The Order and the Malik have lost him for good; his division-of-one has its banners flying for only one thing, and that’s Chess. Of course, he’s been around a while, and seen some history go bad. Never seen no miracle of science/ That didn’t go from a blessing to a curse…

Which reminds me, I should dust off the quarter-draft of The Lawyer and the Demon and perhaps do some kind of halfass outline. I might have a space on next year’s working calendar to stick that, and it would be nice to work on something I enjoy right down to the ground. Ryan thinks that if Charlie starts showing signs of Phoenicis talent, the two sisters might well turn the city into a smoking crater, and Ash agrees.

You haven’t met Ash yet, but if I get that damn book done, you will. I think you’ll like him. Anyway, though, his song is different, and we’re talking about Ryan.

Enjoy your week, my dears. I hope you have something to have faith in.

Relative Distinction

Well, it’s Monday, and back to work. I sent off the submissions draft of Finder’s Watcher late Friday night, and then had to catch up on everything I let slide during the push to finish that revision. On the bright side, a tonne of housework got done. The Princess arrived home from work exhausted to find good smells and plenty of snacks, and the Prince remarked that it was nice to see me taking a weekend off, for a change.

Little did either know I’m about to start on another, far more difficult and hazardous round of revisions. (Insert evil laugh here.) So will begin about a month of revising, cross-checking, muttering to myself, and wondering why on earth I made such a complex, fragile world.

I can see why gods are cranky most of the time. There’s always something that needs doing.

In any case, there’s the dogs to walk, a morning run to get in, prep, more prep, and a daily goal or two to set. If I try to look at the entire revision mass I’ll go mad; much better to break it into tiny chunks and chew on each in turn. It’s the Mouse Theory of Revising–each bite mannerly indeed, like the girl who ate the whale in the Shel Silverstein poem.

There’s also a Soundtrack Monday post to get done, since I took last week off. And I probably should have worked on the monthly newsletter, but the engine inside my head’s been in the red for so long things were starting to melt. I’m on a long course now, where I can–and should–take the curves a little more slowly.

That’s me, beating a metaphor almost to death. Sometimes I wonder if I ever experience anything directly without filtering it through the writer in my head, or without comparing it to a screen of other things. Then I think everything is relative, and living is only a matter of distinction.

I also need to finalize next year’s writing schedule. It would be nice if trad publishing would get off its ass and return decisions in a reasonable amount of time. I’ve already had to pull Sons of Ymre from submission to trads because they were sitting on their hands; that’ll probably be a self-pub title this upcoming year. If I can fit in The Highlands War I think I might; that’s been hanging fire for long enough. I at least want to get Kaia back to civilization in Antai before bringing that to a close.

I probably won’t write her and Darik’s return to G’maihallan; piracy continues to rob readers of things they really love. Each time I find the books pirated, I know it’s because some asshole just wants to hurt and violate, and it feels like someone’s spread offal on my bed. The next time one of your friends proudly trumpets that they don’t pay for books, that authors are rich and charge too much anyway, well, there it is.

Anyway, I need to figure out a prize big enough to reward myself at the end of this revision. Which will have to be a doozy, since I go straight into Book 3 of the trilogy after I’m done. And I’ll be revising Season Two of HOOD at the same time. Spaceships in the morning, preindustrial court espionage in the afternoon, evenings and weekends for things that make me feel human again.

It’s not a bad schedule. If I can keep it up for a month or two–Yule notwithstanding–I might feel as if I’ve caught up.

Might.

Enjoy your Monday, my dears. A Soundtrack Monday post is coming up around 2pm PST, for your delectation…

Quasi-Surprise Week

Well, this week is… not going the way I thought it would. First there was Quasi-Surprise Jury Duty (not a surprise, but I’d forgotten about it entirely until my phone reminded me, which happens for Certain Things I Don’t Like Thinking About) and then I slept for twelve hours and woke up with body aches, a full nose, and a mild fever.

The cold I’ve been fighting off knows that yesterday was high-stress, and it has chosen to put up its banners and ride to war.

So it’s going to be that kind of week. Of course.

Edits for the second book of the epic fantasy trilogy are underway. Today is for setting up the workspace and cleaning, as well as getting myself back into that headspace. If my language acquires a certain formality, we all know what to blame now.

Of course, I am often a formal creature, when I don’t know someone well. Those manners are built to keep everyone in the room on an equal footing and make sure I don’t overstep; they are a comforting way for me to show respect and be careful of other people. I know manners can be deployed as weapons when punching up, and I like doing that, but I also like using them just as a matter of course.

Anyway. I had plenty of things planned for today, including writing some thoughts about Bede (oh, my GOD, but Christianity is a TRIP) but that’s just… not gonna happen. I’m knocked off-center and hideously out of breath.

I will say, however, that I’m looking at moving away from Twitter. Not entirely, but there was a conversation this morning about deleting tweets past a certain age, and it resonated with me. There were a few options I considered; one was Semipheremal, which needs some programming know-how to deploy, and the other, recommended by a couple fellow authors, was TweetDeleter.

I loved the idea of Twitter when it started, and I’ve made some relationships there I am loath to lose. But… honestly, it’s a hellscape, full of bad-faith actors and unregulated shittery. I’m pretty sure I’m going to set TweetDeleter to erase everything over a year old. Right now I have it set between one and a half to two years, just because I like to ease into things.

The major draw of Semipheremal is that you could choose certain parameters–a tweet with more than a hundred likes, frex–and keep those while deleting other old tweets. But then I started thinking… you know, if a post of mine gets over a hundred likes, it’s a sure bet that the asshats looking to troll, hijack, and harass aren’t far behind. Plus there will inevitably be accusations of “deleting to cover things up”, which are par for the course with Photoshop and screencaps running around nowadays.

And of course I’m only a semi-public person, not a government official whose words and boosts should be recorded for posterity and for the people the government is claiming to serve. So I’m feeling like it’s an ethical choice to use the service in the first place, and to set a time limit on how long those things stay active in the second.

So I’ll probably drop the time limit down to a year. Of course, I’ll keep stuff on my Mastodon, where most of my microblogging goes anyway.

In any case, I should get moving. Waking up full of snot and body aches was not quite optimal, and I’m going to be drinking ginger and lemon in hot water by the bucketful to try to get this crud washed out of my system. Some searing hot curry wouldn’t go amiss, either.

And with that sorted I can step back into a preindustrial society, take a look at the architecture of a book, and start trimming, tweaking, and expanding. thank the gods nobody’s going to be in the office until after New Year’s, that means I have a reasonable amount of time to get this beast into better shape. 150k now, 200k by the time I’m finished, I’m sure.

…even just typing that made me tired. Maybe I should schedule a nap, too.

Monday Plan

Lord Boxnoggin, in protest against winter, has taken to bed. My bed, to be precise, and he isn’t pried loose without a groan or two, even for walkies. I don’t know what he’s complaining about–he’s a different dog than the one we brought home. For one thing, he’s several pounds heavier. He has more than enough insulation now to get through a chilly day, the lovable chonk.

Of course, he is a Dog Not Allowed to Catch Squirls or Even That Cat, which means he is poor and put-upon, and he cannot believe the things I make him endure. Like waiting until dinnertime, only bacon grease on his kibble, and getting out of a warm nest made of my coverlet and down comforter in order to pace the neighborhood and pee in his regular spots.

Even the ham from Thanksgiving hasn’t changed his loud grumbling and groaning. Nothing makes him happy, this dog–or, rather, he groans and grumbles until he gets ear-skritches and cooing who’s a good boy. Then all is right with the world again, until I make him get off my bed.

Miss B would like to complain, I’m sure, but she’s an old dog now and doesn’t have the energy. She settles for waiting until after dinner, then pounces on Boxnoggin for post-prandial playtime. Having a companion keeps her young; having a companion keeps Boxnoggin on his toes. Really, they’re made for each other.

Let’s see, what can I tell you about the long holiday weekend? There was ham, there was dream pie1, there was “window weather”2, and there were 5-6k days trying desperately to finish Finder’s Watcher.

I did clear the 50k NaNo benchmark (easily) but the zero isn’t done yet. I’m probably going to take another week to put it to bed, then it’s into Poison Prince revisions. After all, publishing is shut down until new Year’s, if I turned the latter in during December it would just sit on someone’s desk. Somewhere in there needs to be a weekend of working on a Short Sekrit Projekt, and this is the week I need to go back to running.

In short, the working vacation is over, and now it’s back to just-plain-working. I have Beth Hart playing and a half-full cup of coffee, and this blog post is almost finished. A few hundred words on Finder’s, then the dogs get dragged out on their rounds and the daily stretching has to be performed. I can no longer crouch over a keyboard for ten hours straight without Consequences of the Muscular Sort.

I’d feel bad about not finishing Finder’s on time, but… the guilt would get in the way of actually working, which means I need to pack it away until the zero’s done. Then I could conceivably keep working until I expire, putting off the guilt over and over and finally escaping it when I flee laughing through the portal into What Comes Next.

It’s as good a plan as any, I suppose. Especially for a Monday.

Over and out.

Needs More Coffee

I had to add “coffee” to my to-do list this morning just to give myself something to cross off. But I haven’t been able to cross it off yet.

This is, I suspect, how Monday will go. Especially since there’s a holiday and I’m off running for a week to give my plantar fascia plenty of rest. Which means I’m going to be at sixes and sevens during the holiday itself, though I’m sure I’ll be too busy to notice. And there will be ham, so that’s good.

I did finish the zero draft of HOOD‘s Season Two before the weekend. It happened all at once, with very little pain, but the reverberations inside my head are a little unpleasant. I was probably due for a book that finished before I was really set for it, having always had to lunge after a retreating enemy so often. Catching the opponent’s army before it gets a chance to escape is a nice Cannae, so to speak.

Middle books in trilogies are always difficult. They get easier when I tell myself if the reader hasn’t read the first book, they’re going to expect to be a little at sea, let them be. I know a lot of editors want you to make every book in a series the first in terms of info-dump, but that’s never been the way I’ve rolled. I never expect to know everything when I read a series out of order, and I write for such sharp elves as myself.

I have always found it’s better to never underestimate one’s readers. My constant refrain when an editor asks me to dumb something down is Readers are smart, they’ll figure it out. I’m no cryptographer, but I like thinking through a puzzle on my own, and I suspect most–if not all–readers do as well.

Anyway. I had interesting things to say, I’m sure, but they’ve fled into the retreating fog of under-caffeination. I’ve to go looking through old book soundtracks for something nice. it’s Soundtrack Monday, after all, and there’s so much music out there. Maybe I’ll do a Viral Agent tune. (I always wanted to go back and do Fray and Bay’s story. They’re a fun pair.)

But first, coffee needs to be finished. I might even go back to the well for another jolt; today feels like it’s gonna need it. We’re in the home stretch for NaNo, after all, and there’s a food coma approaching on Thursday to get ready for.

Over and out.

Distinctly Non-Optimal

Woke up with The Sky is Crying inside my head, which is one of the songs I’d play to get reliably into Harmony. For some reason, Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Ray Vaughn were the go-to tunes for that book, along with some Alison Krauss and Joey Fehrenbach’s The Prophet.

I’m kind of sad a YA publisher didn’t pick up Harmony, but then, they would have wanted me to change things so Owen saves Val, and they would have wanted me to make “finding a boy” instead of “survival” the protagonist’s goal. So, it’s not so bad. I would have refused and fought, of course, and that would have taken a lot of energy I didn’t need to spend.

Anyway. Yesterday was distinctly non-optimal. I thought I was recovered from the food poisoning over the weekend, but on my way up the stairs with a huge load of laundry I felt like the DVD of my life started skipping in the player. I came back to myself half-lying on the stairs, clutching the laundry basket and distinctly woozy. I had to go up one stair at a time without standing, hauling the laundry basket up with me. Fortunately there were only about five stairs left, then the dog-gate at the top, at which both Boxnoggin and B were anxiously awaiting my return.

Once on level ground I managed to get the laundry into the living room and toddle to bed, where I passed out until the Little Prince texted to say he was on his way to a D&D session hours later.

Needless to say, dinner was leftovers. I just didn’t have the strength, and only stayed awake long enough afterward that I wouldn’t be up at 4am. Then it was back to bed with a raging headache, and I remember nothing until waking up this morning.

It’s funny, how when you get physically miserable you can forget what health feels like. I’m ever so much better today. Those salad rolls packed a wallop; I wonder what contaminated them? I probably don’t want to know. In this singular case, I can let ignorance be bliss.

I don’t think I’m too far behind. My Week Three of NaNo post will drop on the Substack today, so that’ll be good. I had thought to prep Week Four yesterday, but it looks like that’ll be today’s task. If, of course, taking the dogs on their daily ramble doesn’t wipe me out. I have high hopes, but apparently recovering from anything takes me three times as long as I think it might. No matter how I pad out recovery time, it’s never enough. The body takes what it takes, I suppose, and the mind’s not far behind.

The dogs are overjoyed that I’m back up and moving around. They spent yesterday attending me closely, and I still have somewhat of a crick in my neck from being wedged between them most of the afternoon and all night, too. Little furry stoves, helping me sweat out the illness. Boxnoggin in particular is very solicitous, probably because he likes salt; he was licking my forehead at intervals yesterday. No doubt I was producing enough good ol’ NaCl to season his dinner.

Today’s going to be better than yesterday. Once I finish this coffee, no power in the ‘verse will be able to stop me.

Or so I keep telling myself…