Lilith Saintcrow

“What is that?” the Little Prince asks.

“It’s apple juice. Drink up.” I’m focused on the next thing: a cup of blessed coffee to wake me up. I’ve got chili to make, because we’re probably having company for dinner. And it’s tango night, too.

“I have to smell it.” Which he proceeds to do.

You’ve been drinking it for years, kid. “It smells good.”

“It smells like blueberry.” Thoughtful pause. “I drink it.”

Kids. Priceless.

We’re snowed in again today. School is canceled, though the DHM tells me the roads are okay once you get out of Vancouver. The cold I’ve been fighting off is responding well to a bit more sleep than I usually get–I’ve been going to bed, dog-tired, before midnight each night. I’m writing in a sort of fevered state I recognize from Dead Man Rising.

Two and a half thousand words yesterday. Yay! I’m not measuring progress merely by word count; the story’s moving. Japh’s about to get battered all to hell. And Danny? Let’s just say she’s beginning to have some serious anger management issues.

I love messing with my characters.

Meanwhile, the kids are looking forward to hot chocolate and snowman building (the Prince and Princess) and a day spent moping around the house with a book or two and a sketchpad (the Surly Teen.) Later on, of course, the Teen will be staring at World of Warcraft before I ask him for help with dinner.

All in all, this will be an enjoyable day. I just hope the mail comes through, finally.

Stay warm out there, Readers.

Uttered by Yanniconny in another friend’s locked post this morning:

Don’t let arbitrary rules get in the way of actually getting writing done.

This is so true, and so timely, because yesterday four thousand words slid out of my head and onto the fifth Valentine book. I was having some “this is not working for me”* trouble, you see, barely slogging through 700 words or so a day. That’s about a tenth of my usual average production speed when I’ve got a project. Something was wrong.

Then, in the shower Sunday morning I was startled by a thought. “What if,” the Muse whispered in my ear, “the White-Walled City could be anywhere, not just where you’d like to put it?

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. Finally, yesterday I sat down, and the world exploded.

I’d been so determined to keep to the plot outline I was strangling the story. As a pantser, I should know better than to outline; it NEVER works well for me. Instead of the White-Walled City being at the END of the book, it wanted to be in the MIDDLE, and I was not cooperating.

Voila. 4K, sliding out of my head on greased skids.

Never let “rules” distract you from your primary purpose as a writer, which is to have your bum in the chair and your fingers on the keyboard. (Or pen, for the technophobes among us.) Rules include a plot line, or how you think the story should go, or how you think or hear the writing process is for another writer. Just sit, and write. Everything else takes care of itself a ridiculous amount of the time.

I woke this morning and pulled back the curtains to see a good two inches of snow on the gorund and more coming down. The weather report says two to four inches, which means everyone will be home today, getting cabin fever and wanting snackies and going out into the snow only to track dirty water and pinecones in.

That’s okay. I’ll be writing. It’s finally working again, now that I’ve gotten out of the way. No matter how long one has been writing, one still needs to be reminded every now and again.

Don’t let arbitrary rules get in the way of actually getting writing done.

Word.

* I have to tell this story. When the Princess was very wee and just starting with wearing knickers, she had some topology problems. One morning she came into the bedroom, where the DHM and I were sitting drinking coffee. “Minnie hurts me,” she announced. We both looked at her blankly. She pointed to her knickers, where Minnie Mouse, supposed to be right-side-up, was actually laying on her back. Both the DHM and I tilted our heads in confusion, at exactly the same angle. The Princess had her waist in a leg-hole, and one of her legs through the waist hole.

Then the Princess informed us, “This is not working for me.” Thus was a catchphrase born.

We did eventually get her out of the mismanaged knickers. The DHM took that phrase to work, and now engineers who’ve worked with him will often look at something and sigh, “This is not working for me.”

As no doubt some of you are aware, Peter Beagle (one of the greatest writers alive today in my humble opinion, next to Tanith Lee and Sean Stewart) was royally screwed out of royalties (to the tune of hundreds of thousands) by a certain Granada Films.

Now, Lionsgate Films (a distributor) is mad about this and wants to help, so they’re digitally remastering and re-releasing The Last Unicorn in a 25th Anniversary Edition. If you buy the film through Conlan Press, Mr. Beagle gets some royalties. And despite being the author of famous and classic books, he’s needing the ka-ching. Because, you know, we writers don’t do this for the money but it’s nice to be able to eat once in a while.

I met Mr. Beagle at DragonCon last year. He took the time to listen when I wanted to tell him how much his books meant to me, and was very sweet when I told him The Last Unicorn and The Innkeeper’s Song, in particular, helped to instill a love of story in me that led directly to me writing. Next to Anne McCaffrey, Stephen King, and Tanith Lee, Peter Beagle is one of the major reasons why I’m writing today. He’s a wonderful human being and a fantastic writer, and deserves to make a living from the work he’s done.

SO…if you can possibly spare the cash, pop over to Conlan Press and get yourself a little bit o’ movie magic. The movie is worth it, being faithful to the book and full of beautiful bits–Mia Farrow as the Unicorn and Jeff Bridges as Prince Lir, and Alan Arkin as Schmendrick, one of my favorite characters ever. (My kids love the film, even the Surly Teen.) You can get a DVD with the slipjacket signed by Beagle, or one without, and nearly half the proceeds go to help an author who Really Needs It. If you don’t buy the remastering from Conlan Press, the author doesn’t benefit, so please please, if you think this is a good deal, buy it here.

Okay, I hereby return you to your regularly-scheduled blog.

Props to Cavalaxis for pointing this out on the Mighty F-List this morning. Bless you!

Big weekend, lots of news. Where shall I start?

Friday night I ended up going out dancing with Christopheles Sweetcakes, who is very depressed since her paychecks for her last job bounced. She’s considering all sorts of employment things now, but she just needed to get out and forget about everything for a while. Since she’s legal for smokes but not yet for beer, the only place possible was That Certain All-Ages Club, where this time the bouncer was polite but there were only twelve people there. And the music SUCKED, if you will pardon my French. I don’t expect every song to be a cult classic, but when I’m listening to a techno remix of Journey it’s awful hard to dance with a straight face. And the requests board is there for a reason–I wish the DJ would have at least pretended like he was looking at it.

Anyway, we brought that to a close and I took Christopheles home through the icy wastes our city has become. We had snow one night, but it rarely has been above freezing since, so anything that melts as a consequence of man’s design or driving over it re-freezes every night. At least it’s been dry, which is a boon for my sinuses.

Because the world revolves around my sinuses, you know.

Anyway, I was so tired I could barely speak straight Saturday, despite mass applications of caffeine. I was wanting to go see Casino Royale or Curse of the Golden Flower, but no dice. (Tonight might be better.) Of the two, I think I shall see Golden Flower first, as I am a sucker for a good Zhang Yimou flick. I thought Hero was stunning and loved House of Flying Daggers. He’s no Ang Lee, but he’s more visually interesting than Lee. So they’re two great tastes, and I wonder if they’re ever going to be good together.

Saturday night was a bust for other reasons–they were playing American football instead of COPS and some sitcom instead of America’s Most Wanted. Now, as frequent Readers will know, I love me some COPS and some AMW on a Saturday night. Yes, I am sad and pathetic. No, I do not care. It irritates me when the NFL interferes, as they are not even playing proper football and they insert so many commercials and time-outs that two minutes can literally last a half-hour.

At least the male quotient in the household was happy to watch padded Neanderthals.

I went to bed mostly-early and was up bright and mostly bushy-tailed because Sunday was MUSEUM DAY, where the Selkie, Boy Scout, and Martian Mooncrab accompanied me to the Egyptian exhibit at Portland Art Museum. It was fantastic despite the crowds (Sunday is when everyone goes to Get Their Culture On). My wrist-tat–the Eye of Ra–wakes up every time I come around the corner and see the statue of Sekhmet. *shivers* It was great to download with Martian Mooncrab, for she is a fount of knowledge about all things ancient Egyptian. And it was fun to pour knowledge in the Selkie’s ear. She always listens patiently when I geek out. If you possibly live within driving distance of Portland, do not delay, pay the cash and see this exhibit. Like the Tut exhibit a while back, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

We went to Newport Bay Grill near Lloyd’s Center for dinner afterward, and I must go back and revisit their sushi with the Mooncrab. And speaking of the Mooncrab–you just know a girl is a good friend when she brings you two bags of kitschy chopsticks and a Boondock Saints rosary. The lady kicks major booty, that’s all I’m saying.

Home again, home again, where the DHM had cooked udon; the Little Princess and Surly Teen had spent all day cleaning the house in preparation for my arrival. The sunroom and the Princess’s room were neatened, and the Teen had folded ALL THE SOCKS.

All of them. He even put the orphans away in the proper dresser drawers, on the theory that they hadn’t respawned out in the laundry pile, so maybe they needed a quiet dark space. So I walked in the door and did a double take.

No laundry pile. Just a big empty space on the carpet in front of the big teak altar.

*boggle*

Those of you that are aware of what a bane to my existence laundry is will understand. *grin* So mad propz to the Princess and the Teen for their hard work. Plus, the DHM folded a bit and had tasty noodles made when I got home, despite me being so full I could not possibly eat another bite. We settled down to watch Fall Guy, a very sweet little Japanese movie about a stunt man who has to do one last stunt because his wife is pregnant and he needs the money. Oh, but the baby isn’t his–and he knows it…

I ended up watching some Monty Python afterward and going to bed early because I’m feeling a bit under the weather–the constant freezing and the flu I’m fighting off conspiring to bite me. But the weekend ended satisfactorily–especially since I got the news that Working For The Devil has been nominated for a Romantic Times Book Club Award. Elizabeth Bear and Whitemunin let me know (thanks, guys! squeeeeeeee!) and I got an email from my editor letting me know too. Whoopee! I’m in the same category as Kim Harrison and Charles de Lint, who are of course going to leave me in the dust, but it’s so fabulous to be nominated in such glorious company. I am so excited I could just bust. *boggles again*

Last but not least, I took the Muppet Personality Test. I feel more like Miss Piggy some days, and have an embarrassingly soft spot for Gonzo. “It’s Not Easy Being Green” is one of my FAVORITE songs. But guess who I ended up as?

You Are Animal

A complete lunatic, you’re operating on 100% animal instincts. You thrive on uncontrolled energy, and you’re downright scary. But you sure can beat a good drum. “Kill! Kill!”

Huh. Just…huh.

Hope your weekend was warm and wonderful, Dear Readers. I think I may need an aspirin to recover from all the excitement of mine…

I just ordered Elizabeth Bear’s New Amsterdam. I mean, a forensic sorceress? Dirigibles? The British Empire? I am so there. Yes, I’m paying full price for a hardback sight-unseen.

But come on. Dirigibles.

I just stripped out and replaced a lot of stuff in the fifth book. I can’t keep the Paradisse skyscraper-flinging self off-demon rescue-winged hellhound scene, though I wanted to with a fierce and fiery passion. So the bad news is that we’re back at about 38K. The GOOD news is that it’s moving, and I’ve finally gotten them to Chomo Lungma and the Temple. Where a betrayal awaits. Or maybe even two betrayals. Do I hear three? We’re going to find out why the human character has been dragged along and I’m going to get all three players (L., E., and J.) involved in a rumble. mmmmmh. It’s going to be GOOD.

We’re going to have to cut scene there and show up in Paradisse, and from there…it’s a toss-up. I like the idea of Antarctica. Though with climate change I’m not sure how much of it would be left. But are there any other candidates for the White-Walled City? Maybe in Peru somewhere. Gah. Don’t think about it, Lili. Just keep your head down and write.

Yesterday school was canceled, mostly because of ice. The DHM got through to work, going very slowly and carefully, and during the brightest and warmest part of the day (no real warmth to be had, though, it was about 32 degrees) I took the kids for a VERY short trip to Sunrise Bagels. It was nice to get out of the house. I like staying home, but I get cabin fever when I can’t leave.

I also found the revisions for Steelflower in my spambox this morning, after a very nice editor sent me a little email saying, “Um, did you get that yet?”

Which mystifies me. Spamboxen seem to have a mind of their own lately, swallowing things they have no right to even sniff. Just one of the varied mysteries of life.

Last night I popped out for a walk a bit late, since we must take shifts with childcare and the DHM had some errands to run. It was cold, but I had my fingerless chenille gloves and my cashmere scarf, plus my Ravenclaw scarf (yes, I am teh sad and LAME.) I believe Orion was out, or at least the constellation I’ve been calling Orion for years. And I managed to identify the Big Dipper too. I am dismal at astronomy despite my love for the sky. The cold was immense; I was glad to have a nice warm nest to retreat to and was ever so glad of my long dark coat, which kept me quite nicely warm. There were patches of ice everywhere, and quarter-melted snow had refozen so it crunched like tiny bones underfoot.

Oh, I almost forgot: I finished Barbara Ehrenreich’s Bait and Switch recently. It wasn’t as wrenching as Nickel and Dimed, (mostly I suspect because I’ve been that poor, so N & D hit home for me) but she makes an excellent point about how corporations treat jobseekers, and how our work culture has turned so poisonous that even white-collar workers who have done everything “right” can be taken advantage of, fleeced mercilessly, and driven to suicidal despair by corporate uncaring.

You’d think businesses would learn that workers (whether blue, white, or pink polka dot collared) are a necessary ingredient to their success. You can have the most profitable business in the world, but without employees, where are you? Screwed, that’s where. Yet corporations of a certain size view people as another disposable resource, largely because we’ve had years of rich Republicans smoothing their way and allowing them to behave improperly with no real consequences. I mean, let’s face it. The forty-hour work week didn’t come about because of the charity of magnates. It came about because people kicked and hollered until they got it. Same for the eight-hour day and child labor laws, not to mention mostly-equal opportunities for women and minorities.

I know unions have a reputation for being ridden with organized crime (On the Waterfront is one of my favorite movies, after all) but you have to admit that on the whole unions have done better for working folks (both blue and white collar) than the mercy of corporations has. And I wonder just how much of that “organized crime” reputation is bad PR from those corporations whose profits the union in impinging on a little by demanding decent treatment for workers–and how much of it is the deliberate miseducation or noneducation of workers in the corporate culture, meant to keep them docile, anti-union, and willing to put up with shovel-loads of crap?

To extend this theme, I suggest a few books: White-Collar Sweatshop by Andresky and Crittenden’s The Price of Motherhood, both of which detail a toxic corporate culture creeping into every workplace in America. Oh, and let’s not forget Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation, which looks at the betrayal of schoolkids and nutrition by the grasping after the bottom line. Then, if you feel like a bit of Wal-Mart, try on some In Sam We Trust.

And in case that leaves a bad taste in your mouth, you can watch Office Space and laugh while some part of you thinks, “Christ, it really is this bad–it’s not satire, it’s a documentary…”

End rant. I really didn’t intend to get sidetracked, I just wanted to note that I’d read Bait and Switch and enjoyed Ehrenreich’s writing as well as being amazed by the crappy ways businesses of a certain size treat their employees. After reading about the corporate workplace I’m utterly glad to be writing and incidentally, utterly glad to be working in a small indie bookshop, where the pay isn’t all that but I get to cherrypick books I want and “bookstore family” is the way we refer to employees and a few cherished customers.

Take that, corporations! Yeah!

I should note that I’ve put in my wage slavery time like everyone else. I worked at a grocery store and at a sandwich chain. I’ve worked in major insurance companies and for temp agencies, not to mention for a nationwide bank. The list goes on and on. I’m here to tell you, each one of those jobs felt the same–like trying to retain a little bit of one’s soul against a gigantic monster determined to suck it out through any pore it could reach.

Ugh. Is it wrong of me to be really, really glad I don’t have to do that anymore?