Lilith Saintcrow

Long, mostly-sleepless night. Since I’ve started the exercise regimen, I haven’t had too many of those, even with all the Other Stuff going on.

I finished reading DeBartolo’s God-Shaped Hole, Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, and am about to start reading erotica. (For RESEARCH. Jeez.) I will probably mini-review those and Chelsea Cain’s newest tomorrow, but today I am so tired.

I got up late and didn’t have the house to myself for an hour. I have quickly grown to depend on that time, because it’s the only space during the day when I don’t have kids poking at me just to see what I’m doing. I barely managed to get in my treadmill time, and no shovelgloving at all, waah. But tomorrow I don’t have any treadmill time, I can still get up early (if I sleep tonight) and do my shovelgloving, thereby making sure I have four days of exercise and one of rest this week for BOTH forms of exercise.

This is what’s taking up all my bandwidth today: little questions of scheduling. Tiny annoying things about Everyday Life. I think I probably shouldn’t have been reading a book on the subject of absent/dead/found mothers and abusive fathers while I was already tired and upset; it probably had something to do with it.

Plus, the book is heating up. Four or five scenes away from the end, and I’m reaching that jittery stage where there’s nothing going on behind my eyes but the bloody book.

Argh. I’m going to go wash the sweat off and start obsessing over lunch. Then I’m going to turn off the wireless and sink into the book. If I can distract myself with the words it will make the day go faster and I will get to bedtime sooner.

Slight aside: has anyone else reached a point after over a month of steady working out where they up their intensity (I’ve been upping the intensity of the workouts every two weeks, FWIW) and suddenly had a sweat-drenched detox experience near the end of a particularly hard session? Anyone? Bueller?

It’s a funny thing. I saw over and over in massage school and in my practice, how the body holds memories. The remodeling of the body with exercise is naturally going to work with that sort of thing. I am detoxing, I think, not only on a physical level but also on an emotional level. One cannot separate the two. And the facing of some childhood demons while the body is getting stronger and more flexible…well, it’s not a comfortable process, but at least I have some idea of what’s happening and I’m not completely at sea with it.

The heavy bits of me–the fat–wasn’t just my feelings about food. It was also a protective cushion between me and the world. Getting strong enough to take on the world without that cushion is a scarymaking process.

Argh again. Eff it. I’m just going to write today. Screw everything else. At least on the page, I know where I stand.

Until the Muse jags another left turn on me, that is…

Over and out.

Well, Chapter 18 of Selene is up this morning. This is the last week of the serial–Chapter Nineteen and an Epilogue to go, and then I take my sabbatical. It’s not that I don’t like the Interwebs. It’s that I like them too much, and the current book is boiling.

Which means I just have three projects on tap when I finish this one–initial revisions on a finished romance, and books 2 and 3 of Strange Angels.

Heh. Only, I say. I only have three books (four if you count The Demon’s Librarian) to finish up. If you count that one it’s two to revise, two to write. Then there’s Flesh Circus (working title, don’t hold me to it), which is in its albatross phase.

*headbonkety* No wonder I’m freaking out all over the place. That’s a lot of work I’m looking at.

You know, I’m sitting here grinning stupidly. Of all the problems to have, these are Damn Fine Ones. I would rather have these problems than just about any other.

All right. I’ve got a hellbreed hunter to beat up and a showdown at a circus to do. Wish me luck, I’m going in.

G’morning, everyone, and welcome to the regular Friday writing post. First, though, Chapter Seventeen of Selene is up. Next week will see the grand finale–chapters Eighteen and Nineteen as well as the Epilogue. (And after that I’m taking a sabbatical, I swear.) There’s also the Page 99 test for Hunter’s Prayer.

You might also want to pop over to John Scalzi’s and take a look at his Candidate For The President of WTFistan. Trust me, it’s worth it.

And now, to the point.

I get a lot of mail that runs like this: “Hi Lili, love your work. Can you tell me the name of your agent? I’m an aspiring author/the author of a work named ______ and I wonder if…”

There are two reasons anyone might send one a letter like this. The more charitable explanation is that the person honestly wants some advice–that they’re awash in the fog of confusion that can be submitting your work. They want to know what worked for me, in my search for the Grail of Getting Published.

Since most of these letters come with attachments–samples of the work in question–I can only assume they fall into the other category. Which roughly translates out to this:

(more…)

To List:

* A new chapter of Selene is up. We’re getting close to the end of the book! I still remember writing it with my heart in my mouth. Funny thing–Selene actually predates the Valentine books.

* Today is my day off from the exercise plan. It’s good to work the body, but one must also give the body a chance to rebuild. And frankly I’m in such bad shape that I need to take things in baby steps. The added fillip to this, of course, is that baby steps mean I will make more of a habit of working the body, and it’s that habit that’s going to help me keep fit for a longer period of time (hopefully). I am still (go figure) getting the Title Nine catalog, and it is helping feed my determination. The cool thing is, three weeks of the walk/run/working up to running is already starting to change the way I look. *is excited*

* Psst! CE Murphy has a COMIC BOOK out! Is that not totally awesome? GO! BUY! READ! LOVE!

* I so need to watch Equilibrium again. It’s like craving Twinkies.

* Roger Ebert’s Glossary of Movie Terms makes me want to write a story/script that breaks all of them.

* I am positively drooling over Persephone Books. Yeah, like I need any more books, given the state of my TBR bookcase. (Yes, it’s no longer a pile, it’s a bookcase.) But the Persephone books are so pretty.

* Plants make aspirin. I’m thinking I’m needing some today–the body is not happy about me demanding things of it.

* Kurt Vonnegut’s Eight Rules for Writing Fiction. I especially like #3–Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water. Truer words never spoken.

* Want to spend a lot of hours getting angry? Start at the beginning of Slacktivist’s dissection of the Left Behind series. He rather neatly uncovers the things that make premillenial dispensationalism so dangerous, and the worldview it fosters. I’ve been reading this in bits and pieces for days. Slacktivist spent years of his life (he’s not going to get those back) analyzing this crap for us, and it’s pretty awesome reading. If you want to understand the nutty-ass brand of evangelicals trying to hijack our country and culture these days, this is a good place to start reading.

* And to round out the good reading, Mark Morford on the $700-billion payout for Big Business and Irresponsible, Greedy Rich Peeps. AGH. It’s enough to send me running to the medicine cabinet for MORE aspirin.

* I have finished Chelsea Cain’s Sweetheart and shall review it soon. I am working slowly on the latest Captain Alatriste. I am trying to read it slowly so I don’t have a long long time of jonesing for another Perez-Reverte. But we all know I will last until about halfway through the book, then swallow it whole in an orgy of enjoyment.

Oh well. At least I have Ivanhoe to keep me company. Rebecca kicks major ass, and I’m really not seeing where Ivanhoe is such a cool dude. Locksley, Gurth, Rebecca, Bois-Guilbert, and Cedric are all more active and interesting that Wilfred of Ivanhoe, the paragon.

Note to self: the bad knight should, every once in a while, get the girl.

Over and out…

I just fell in love with xkcd all over again. Seriously. No, I wasn’t out of love with it…but dayum. Talk about a short story that is full of win.

There was fog this morning. Thick cottony fog. It burned off as I was on the treadmill. I am beginning to love the feeling of sweat drying on my skin. This is why I always hated gym classes–changing in front of other people when you have serious body/abuse issues? Forget it! *shivers* But now it’s all good. I can do the treadmill, shovelglove a little (don’t laugh, it really works for me), and then I can go take a shower in my own bloody bathroom.

It may not sound like much, but it’s good enough for me.

I’ve pretty much decided that as soon as the serial ends (at the end of next week) I’m going to take a short hiatus. I really need a break. I realized the sheer amount of work I’ve pumped out this year without really thinking about it, and further realized I hadn’t taken a real break in a long, long time, and decided well, to hell with THAT. Plus, I really need to spend some quality time with the FC manuscript. It’s jelled, certainly, but it also needs me to poke at it with a finger until it decides to bite back.

I actually tried outlining this book a little, but I got to the point where even a vague outline was like a straitjacket, and the Muse ran in circles yapping before throwing the entire thing out and taking the book in a new direction. Still, the outline was useful. I am such a pantser that I tend to think of an outline as only useful for prodding the Muse and then throwing out once you really know what you want to do. (YMMV, I know other writers work differently.)

Eh. I’m scattered and disconnected today. Probably time to close before I end up sporking myself in the forehead. Thank goodness it’s getting into autumn–as a winter writer, I really start to wake up around now.

Catch you on the flip side!