Lilith Saintcrow

Okay. Get ready for serious weirdsville, kids.

So back in May, near my birthday, I got a card with what appeared to be weird squiggles on it. Looked to be Sumerian, but no dictionary I had access to would make it make sense. So I immediately figured, “Huh. Could be my sister’s stalker. He’s enough of a moron to send actual physical mail as well as electronic hate mail.” and put it in a Ziploc baggie for the next time the moron tried to contact me. The postmark was a Stamps.com number, which isn’t entirely out of the question if you really want to try to cover your tracks.

Couple of weeks ago a plastic bubble-envelope with the same postmark shows up. This time it’s a test tube.

It’s something called TruBlood.

Now I can take a joke just like everybody else. But then there’s the phone calls that started at the end of May when the card showed up. From an unlisted number that seems oddly familiar. When I pick up there’s no answer, just the sound of someone breathing. And it’s the oddest thing, but Squeaker mentioned seeing someone messing around near the tree at the bottom of our yard a couple nights ago, at about one AM. The tree where I hung that mirror.

Hey, it seemed like a reasonable thing to do at the time. I don’t write what I write because I’m NORMAL.

The trouble is, Squeaker swears he saw someone crouching up in the tree. Right before they disappeared.

Of course, the thing to do when any weirdness strikes is to take to the Interwebs. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it sooner.

I found Bloodcopy.com. Apparently I’m not the only one.

Now, some of you may have already guessed that I’m no stranger to weirdness. I’ve sent an email to the Bloodcopy guys to try and start figuring this out. (Like HOW THE HELL someone got my BLOODY ADDRESS, no pun intended, because I don’t give that out to JUST ANYONE.) But there are Other Ways of Finding Out, one of which I’m going to try tonight. It’s waning moon, which isn’t the best for this sort of work…but I didn’t get my stripes by letting a little thing like that get in the way.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

Reading about writing is really kind of a dangerous thing. I say this because I had a stunning realization this morning when my YA editor called me.

I really don’t mind hearing from my editors, even when they have “you-need-to-rewrite-this-book” news. In fact, I like hearing from my editors. I like hearing their voices. I like hearing what they think of the books. Sure it’s occasionally painful, and I have to schedule in a week or so of “OMGWTFBBQAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!” for each edit letter I receive, but that’s my failing. It’s not my editors’ fault.

I’ve read a lot of Writing About Writing where the editor is pilloried, and that’s really not fair. Sure, I’ve had my share of, um, uncertain quality when it comes to editing. (Like, something I call a Revenge Edit, where an editor had a personal problem with me and took it out on my work.) But that’s by far in the minority and to be ABSOLUTELY HONEST it was my own damn fault for engaging in a too-personal rather than a business-friend relationship. A great, great majority of the time editors are Good People and they’re invested, emotionally and financially, in making the book the best it can be. Their jobs and livelihood largely depend on work someone else–the writer–does. They have to deal with the writer, with the institutional bureaucracy of the publisher, with the fickle tastes of the public, and with all the minutiae of getting a book published. They work HARD.

I like to make my editor’s job as easy as possible. I like to be on deadline or a little before, I like to turn in work that’s as good as I can make it, and I like to send my editors little presents. I also like to tell new writers to appreciate their editor, if they’re lucky enough to have one.

Anyway. I had a phone call from an editor this morning that made me very happy. It’s great to hear when fans like your work, and it’s great in a different way to hear a compliment from someone in the industry. Both are like Christmas. With cartwheels. And chocolate. And dancing.

After a busy weekend–you know, I USED to sleep in at least one day a week, but that’s not happening for a long time now, I can just tell–it was just the pick-me-up I needed. I never thought I’d live to see a Monday become a cause for celebration.

I think I just might have more coffee.

* First, there’s an interview with me over at the Midnight Moon Cafe. I almost forgot I’d done it. I talk about paranormal romance, my reading habits, my sexiest hero at that point, and a whole lot of other stuff.

* Selene and Nikolai fans, rejoice! There’s a story (Brother’s Keeper) featuring your favorite Nichtvren duo in the upcoming Hotter Than Hell, edited by Kim Harrison and going on sale by June 24. Speaking of anthology stories, there are another two coming out in the Mammoth Book of Vampire Romance–a hard-boiled story featuring Jack Becker, and (ta-da!) the debut of Liana Spocarelli in a short story titled Coming Home. (Psst-Lucas Villalobos makes a reappearance in that story, too.) The Mammoth anthology comes out in late July/early August.

* Four days until Night Shift is officially released! *bites nails*

* I have more Selene and Nikolai news that I can’t share for a little while. But it’s awesome and I’m hoping it will make some fans very happy.

* It’s official–I’m going to be at the San Diego Comicon! I’ll be on a panel and doing some signings, both booth signings and a Mysterious Galaxy one. Big thanks to the folks from Mysterious Galaxy for inviting me!

There’s some other exciting stuff I can’t announce yet, which just about kills me. Stay tuned…

Cross-posted to The Midnight Hour

I woke up this morning with a serious case of the crankies. So if I seem a little bloody-minded, dears, that’s why.

I had a whole post about genre planned, but it would probably devolve into a huge slaughter of innocent verbage, full of recondite brimstone and unfounded combative assertions. Such is my mood. So I’ll content myself with two small things this Friday and go vent some of my spleen in fiction.

First, I’d like to make a small observation. An overwhelming number of what we consider “classics” today were seen as “genre” or “trash” fiction in their time. Novels were considered women’s reading (and hence, unSerious) for a very long time; plenty of novelists were supposed to feel ashamed of their success. Lots and lots of things we see as classic (because they have survived) started out as, for want of a better word, schlock.

This hinges on a theory I have that lit fic–the “highfalutin litrachur” genre is supposed to be the redheaded stepchild of–is actually a pretty recent invention. The Selkie and I were talking this over last night and she observed that lit fic is actually so diffuse it can’t be pigeonholed into a genre. There’s a fair amount of accuracy in that observation. I wonder if that diffuseness makes it easier for critics and reviewers to drown it in academese and impress each other, therefore making lit fic “serious” and genre “unserious”.

This is still a foggy idea of mine, so I want to invite other people into the conversation. I’m going to be thinking all week about what genre means, what lit fic means, and where I think the two differ. I don’t think it’s just in shelving or cover art.

Further bulletins as my thoughts coalesce. What do you think, dear Reader?

The second thing I’m going to mention is artistic compression. I use this term to describe the sense of pressurization I feel right before I dive into a big project–in this case, the fourth Kismet book. The outside world becomes an irritation and chores are something to be rushed through so I can get to the real work, which is the boiling of the book inside my head until it’s ready to slide out at varying speeds.

Ugh. That’s a nice mental image, isn’t it.

The sense of compression often returns, as Caitlin Kittredge so aptly describes, near the end of a book. (She calls it “Hibernation Mode”.)

A lot of the creative process seems to involve varying feelings of pressure. There’s the pre-boil of a book, the stages of writing (including the MY GOD THIS BOOK WILL NOT DIE slog halfway to three-quarters of the way through) and the sudden decompression after a book is finished, which involves a lot of spinning aimlessly. There’s a sense of pressure in revisions too, and sometimes after a particularly intense round of revisions I feel drained and bug-eyed as if I’ve just rewritten the goddamn novel.

It is really, really important to think about those feelings of pressure and to identify one’s own creative process, so it isn’t a huge deadly thing each time. A lot of writers seem surprised each and every time by the intensity of the feeling and the emotional drain. No doubt it is surprising, but not analyzing the feeling and reminding oneself that it’s normal can lead to a whole lot of inefficient flailing.

And while I enjoy a good inefficient flail as much as the next person, there’s always the timesuck factor involved. Figuring out your emotional reaction to your artistic process is one of those things that can make you a better writer–or at least, a more productive one. If you’re not blindsided by the compression, if you can take a deep breath and remind yourself that this happened the last few times you worked on a project, the physiological effects (mine include sweating hands, headaches, backaches, feelings of crankiness only rivaled by PMS, and a great deal of synesthetic irritation*), while not receding in intensity, can at least approach the realm of something you can deal with instead of a Huge Fricking Unworkable OMG Problem.

I tend to view the creative process as a technician. If I can figure out how this engine works for me I can get, if not standardised, then at least consistent results out of it, which is what I want. I know a True Artiste is supposed to wait in agony for the numinous descent of the fickle Muse, but I don’t have time for that. I’ve got books to write NOW, dammit.

So, fellow writers, how does your (if you feel it) artistic compression work? Any strategies, tips, tricks to get yourself through? I’m curious, and hoping I’m not utterly batzoid nuts.

Of course, the way I feel this morning, I just might be despite all my hope.

* I use this term loosely, of course. Most of the time my borderline-synesthesia is a happy fillip to daily life, a source of joy and creative connections. But there comes a time in the compression cycle when it just gets to be too much input and I get seriously frazzled, feeling like a delicate sensory instrument being mercilessly whacked by reams of static and messy data pouring in. GAH.

Finishing a massive pile of revisions is like answering a knock at the door and having an underwear gnome hand you your own brain, wrapped in SaranWrap and pulsing slightly. You stand there, staring gape-jawed at the gnome. Who turns a backflip, winks, and scurries away, vanishing into the dawn mist. You’re left holding your own brain in both hands, cold because you answered the door in your sleeping-skivvies, and then the age-old thought occurs to you:

If this is my brain, what am I thinking with?

Yeah. It’s kind of like that.

So I finished the revisions on Redemption Alley and I’m in that strange in-between phase–where I’m gearing up for another Kismet book and the deep submerging in a world not my own it will entail. But it’s a nice sunny day and somehow I know I’m not ready to go down yet. I’ve got a chicken in the crock pot and two loaves of bread dough rising in the oven–more on that in a second–and I’m really not finding that internal tickle that tells me now’s the time to get a character in some more trouble.

So I suppose I’ll work on something else–Weasel Boy, perhaps, or tinker with something solely for my own pleasure today. Part of being a responsible creative is knowing when to break a rule or two. *grin*

About the bread: I like coffeemakers. No, these ARE statements that go together, I promise.

The best way I’ve ever found to proof bread is to run water through the drip-coffeemaker half of my espresso machine while I shape the loaves. I put the loaves in the oven and put an empty pan right below them. When the coffeemaker finishes burbling I pour a goodly amount of that water into the empty pan, close up the oven, and forget it for about an hour, at which time I usually have lovely proofed loaves.

Now, this doesn’t work so well with a banneton, since the wicker/basket material tends to soak up the steam and getting the loaf out, no matter how well you’ve dusted the whole thing with flour, gets problematic. But for loaves shaped in pans, it’s AWESOME. Perfect proofing, every time.

I also did a bigger, better ciabatta that actually turned out, with shiny strands of chewy goodness inside and a nutty, caramelized crust to die for. (The problem was, I didn’t keep the dough wet enough.) I tell you, Peter Reinhart is a GENIUS. His bread books–especially Crust & Crumb–are so, so easy to understand, with the reasons for why the dough behaves the way it does clearly set out and tons of tips and tricks. My baking, she has never been so happy.

I’m currently working on mastering a buttermilk-started sourdough. I’ll have results by the end of the day.

And that’s all. Enjoy your Thursday, everyone.