Lilith Saintcrow

First, check out Nathan Bransford’s excellent post on tropes and originality. This is why I tell new writers “be honest and the originality will follow”. The ring of absolute honesty will shine through a tired old story and make it new again; when it comes through your uniqueness as a filter it will be unique.

If you’re bored with posts about weight, body image, and food, you might want to skip this one. Just warning you.

Last Labor Day I started an exercise regimen. Slowly and carefully, I’ve dropped almost five sizes. I’m shooting distance from a size 16; 14 is my eventual healthy goal. It’s taken me months, mostly because I don’t want to yo-yo. I want to steadily get into the habit of being healthier and more fit. And because, well, I love food and see no reason to set up the nasty boomerang of denial and binge. I have enough to feel bad and guilty over, I don’t need binge to add to it.

I suppose that I could cook low-fat. I really could. But why? Real butter, real vegetables, real cream, all these things satisfy in a way ersatz doesn’t. A very small bit of the “real” will satisfy more than a ton of the ersatz. For example, a small square of high-quality, very dark chocolate will satisfy me more than three or four Snickers bars. A small serving of pasta with this roasted red pepper sauce made with heavy cream (Oh. My. God. Worth the work, I SWEAR) will satisfy me more than a pound or two of fettuccine alfredo from that chain Italian place down the street. The real may be chock-full of Bad For You fat, but I end up eating less–and less chemical preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, etc. etc.

But this is only working, I suspect, because of the other half of the equation. It’s hard hauling my ass up on that treadmill every weekday. The weeks that I get in five whole weekdays of workout are few and far between. I get three or four days in every week, and my energy level has risen to the point where I’m also getting in a lot more playing with the kids and going for longer evening walks. Five days a week of treadmill and shovelgloving is the goal–but like the Pirate’s Code it’s more of a guideline.

Some days I hurt. Some days I’m sick or there’s an Event or some kid is throwing up or having a Bad Day. Some days it’s the story burning up inside my head. Some days I just plain don’t wanna.

But most days, I do. When I’m ill and I can’t get the exercise in, I feel it. I suppose I’ve reached the point of being addicted to running. And addicted to swinging a sledgehammer around for fifteen minutes or so.

Now, I am never going to be a supermodel. I love food far, far too much and I have a sedentary job. Besides, have you seen supermodels these days? They look like shit.

I’m sorry. I really am. But “starvation” is not something I find attractive. I like a girl with a little flesh on her, just like I like easygoing men with a little flesh on them. And I have all sorts of problems with the persistent message from mass media that women need to starve themselves to paper-thinness. Our place in the world is already small enough, for Christ’s sake.

The more I don’t watch television, the less I find I have in common with a lot of advertising. I never realized how pervasive this crap was until I took a year and a half off the telly (way back when I was first dating the Muffin, lo those many years ago) and found I didn’t miss it. Not only did I not miss it, but my sense of proportion (ha ha) came back in a big way.

Another thing that’s dropped by the wayside: fast food. Cheap fast food…isn’t. In terms of community cost, health cost, and my pocketbook, cheap fast food isn’t. Once in a great while I’ll take the kids to a local burger chain, and the little dears are always very excited. But burger-and-fries doesn’t taste as good, and even the fries–I have such a weakness for fries, you would not believe–don’t move me the way they used to. It’s like soda–once I was off it for a long while, all I could taste were the chemicals when I tried it again.

This is turning into a foodie post instead of a weight post. Which probably means I’m avoiding the subject.

So, I’m spitting distance from a size 16. Dropping steadily through clothes sizes has meant getting new clothes, which I absolutely hate. If there’s anything I hate with a flaming fiery passion it’s clothes-shopping. Just the thought of it makes me shiver. I will buy six of something at a time just so I have a “uniform” and I don’t have to pick clothes every day OR shop for them again. I mean, why spend time on that when I could be reading? Or cooking? Or playing with my kidlings?

Along with the steady weight loss has come an unpacking of hurtful assumptions and trauma from growing up. Food has been an anodyne most of my life, and grazing on trash-cooking full of preservatives and corn syrup was the only thing keeping me reasonably sane during a large proportion of my young years. Food didn’t mock and it didn’t judge, and when I felt empty inside it provided a type of fullness. Like any substitution, though, it had to be paid for. And I did. Over and over again.

I’m also beginning to unpack the sense of security having a fat layer gave me. You can hide inside a mass of yourself, you know. For a girl who equated fisticuffs with attention and any attention, good or bad, with the only approval I could get, the extra poundage was a blessing. It absorbed much more than punches.

Which means that, as I’m slimming down, I’m having to face parts of myself and my life I frenetically ate to avoid. It’s probably no accident that I’m writing YA through all this and really remembering what it was like to be young. On the one hand, I wouldn’t be between twelve and twenty-five again if you PAID me. There isn’t enough money in the world to put myself through that again. But on the other, I can’t hope to achieve any sort of peace within myself without looking hard and long at these things and Dealing With Them. Dealing is better than Drugging Yourself With Food or Frantically Avoiding Dealing With Things By Chopping Off Bits Of Self Or Engaging In Crazymaking Behavior.

I console myself with the thought that the most awesome and stunning people I know had Bad Young Years and didn’t Find Themselves until their late twenties. Being forced to find resources within yourself pays off, if you survive long enough and intact enough. The layers of fat were a survival mechanism, one I am trying to teach myself not to need. It was good while I needed it, but now I don’t–and the price of poor health, acceptable while I needed the fat to preserve some kind of psychic integrity, is no longer one I can continue paying.

It was a good cocoon. It kept me safe and it kept me sane, and I’m grateful. But now I’m almost out of it, and spreading those papery, wet wings. Sooner or later this girl is going to fly.

That, dear Reader? Is the very best revenge at all. I wish I was a bigger person and didn’t need that for motivation. But I realized a long time ago that I wasn’t. And I’m taking what I can get. There’s a certain amount of freedom in recognizing that you may not be a bigger person, but you’re going to do what you can with what you have.

Over and out.

I hate summer colds with a passion. Thankfully, the exercise regimen does seem to mean I fight them off with a little bit of buckled swash instead of pulling a Camille. And it’s going to be eighty degrees today. *cries* ANYWAY.

My writing partner, the Selkie, is also known as Nina Merrill. Her newest novelette, Scarred, is out. I love me some erotic gothic suspense. It’s a hot little number, and I enjoyed it from start to finish. So, check it out if you like that sort of thing.

Also, Pharyngula has Battle of the Biology Bands, which is so, so awesome. Here’s a little taste:

Oh, man. There’s also a hair-rock ballad. Go forth and check it out.

I have a shameful secret: I love me some old-fashioned hair rock. Especially ballads. So, before I close down my Internet connection for the day and get some wordcount in, here’s an old, old fave:

Okay, okay. It’s not classic hair rock ballad. You’re right, that was kind of the last gasp of Hair Rock in the early 90s. Here is that video with the chick on the car.

You can thank me later, you know. Really. You can.

Over and out.

Cross-posted from the Deadline Dames, where you can find more writing advice, giveaways, and cute kittens! (Okay, I’m lying about the kittens.) Check them out!

There’s a fairy story Speshul Snowflakes like to tell themselves. It goes a little something like this:

Once upon a time, Arte was Pure and Preshus. Suffering Artistes had no thought of Filthy Lucre; they slaved away over their Precious Werks. They Wrote with Snow-White Quills dipped in their own Preshus Blood, and they starved Gracefully to Death on their Lilybeds of Grief, Watered with pure Preshus Tears. Now They are in the Afterworld and their Werks are Classics, and they are Much Gratified.

But we have Fallen from this Golden Age. Now the True Artistes suffer because Hacks and Agents keep them from the Editors, and the Readers have not seen the Deathless Werks of Genius and Prefer to read Crappe. Filthy Lucre rules because the Readers have Fallen Too, and read Chick Lit and Genre. The Artistes who refuse to Compromise, who Slave Away over Works of Staggering Delicate Genius, don’t Succeed. There is Nothing for a True Artiste to do but Scribble Furious Screeds on the Internet about woe, woe, woe, the Terrible state of the Artes Today.

Despite being complete and utter horseshit, this fairy story has deep roots. We have this cultural vision (and once again, I’m paraphrasing from Julia Cameron’s excellent The Artist’s Way) of The Artist as a substance-abusing, ill-adjusted fragile flower who starves to death rather than change one word of their Deathless Geeeeenyus. The well-adjusted hack who pays the rent with stuff people actually want to read is somehow less “pure” than the Speshul Snowflake who buys into the fairytale.

Which brings me, believe it or not, to Queryfail.

Queryfail was an Internet phenomena where a few agents live-twittered their responses to queries. They told us in excruciating detail what made them throw queries in the “no” pile. They spent their time giving us a window into the minds of working agents, and showed us EXACTLY what didn’t work.

And some precious, fragile little flowers took offense.

Yes, your writing is personal. It can’t help but be personal. It’s your baby. But you have to be a good parent. You’ve got to make it as pretty and well-prepared as you can before it goes out into the cold harsh world. If you do not prepare yourself and your work for rejection, it’s going to be needlessly painful.

I was amazed when I heard about Queryfail. Here is a gold mine of valuable information for new writers. Here are the things that will get your manuscript set aside on a real live agent’s desk. This information–which you used to have to get by trial and error, by whispered conversations with other authors, or by just plain dumb luck–was completely free. You could avoid years of trial and error and learning just by clicking your mouse and reading some Twitter. FOR FREE. I was utterly bowled over. This was awesome for new writers. Hell, it was awesome for hacks like me, too!

Then the Speshul Snowflakes got involved and started moaning about how it hurt their feeeeeeelings and how, if an agent ever dared tweet some of their precious work, there were going to be COPYRIGHT LAWSUITS, by Gawd!

I shouldn’t have been surprised. “Never actually work on your writing if you can moan (preferably on the Internet) about how you’ve been abused,” that’s a Snowflake motto. Some of them tried to put together an AgentFail day, and have since been getting their knickers in a twist. (The most egregious example of this is The Militant Writer, who I refuse to link to. Go Google her and see her current post on “The Talent Killers”, and be amazed.)

And once again, I was amazed. Here are these people getting priceless advice for free, advice I’d've given my left arm for back when I was submitting, and they have the gall to get angry and moan about it.

Look, if you write for publication you are going to get rejected. Agents and editors and publishers are in the service of the Almighty Reader, looking for things that are going to give the Almighty Reader value for their cash. The Almighty Reader wants to be entertained, moved, affected, and seduced. They don’t want to be bullshitted (bullshat? I should look that up, but where?) or talked down to. (Which is, incidentally, where a lot of Speshul Snowflakes go wrong, since they have no other mode but “declaim from on high”.) Of course agents and editors want sellable fiction by reasonable people who will not be complete and utter boneheads to work with.

A lot of queryfails are as a result of people thinking the rules don’t apply to them. Submissions guidelines are the first test–can you follow simple rules like doublespace, twelve-point, Courier, send it to this address with this subject line? Can you send just the three chapters/paragraphs/one-page letter the agent has asked you for?

If you cannot follow even those simple rules, how will you deal with a complicated revision letter?

If you cannot follow even the simplest of submission guidelines, you will quite probably be more trouble than it’s worth to train^[1]. You are not appearing like a good investment. And since a publisher shells out the cash for advances and for actual publishing (which is not free, you know), they are looking for good investments.

A lot of Speshul Snowflakes are under the mistaken impression that The World Owes Them Something. This impression bleeds over into their work, and they do not see rejection as a chance to get better and try again. They are baffled because they think they are missing out on what they’re owed–a chance in the limelight, plaudits and fame for Just Being Their Speshul Snowflake Selves. They are also under the mistaken impression that making a living by art is easy, hence the world owes them a living at it. And not just any living, a red-carpet celebrity living.

You can just guess what I think of that.

There’s another QueryFail going on today, as QueryDay. Once again, editors and agents are telling you in great detail, for free, what sends a manuscript or query straight into the slush pile. If you’re interested in hard work and free advice, go on over.

If you’re not, well, this isn’t the blog post for you. But you probably knew that in the first few moments.

^[1] I was going to say “housebreak”.

So, good morning. It’s a bright sunny one out there. First though, the sad news. Comics creator Frank Frisina’s young niece has disappeared. (Hat tip to Neil Gaiman for the link; he tweeted about it and everyone promptly crashed the site. So if it’s not up, please be patient and refresh, or go to this alternate.) I mean, Christ. This is a parent’s nightmare. I just can’t imagine. I mean, you wonder about it as a parent, and it’s always a fear. But to have it actually happen…words fail me. So if you could please, especially if you live in Colorado or neighboring states, spread the word? Hopefully she’s safe and will be returned to her family soon.

On the lighter side, all three cats this morning were in a tizzy. We have three: the Ferret (he is long and lean), the Duck (he quacks when you pet him) and the Tuxedo (who is the sweetest of all, but he drools). The Ferret and the Duck contented themselves with dashing around the house as if something invisible was chasing them, while the Tuxedo earnestly drooled all over me, rubbing and miaowing and just generally making a fool of himself.

So I said, “Show me!” to the Tuxedo, and of course he led me self-importantly to the food bowls out in the sunroom.

Which were–brace yourselves for the shocking truth–only half-full. I rolled my eyes and refilled them, and all three cats were suddenly rubbing my legs, purring and making fools of themselves. I am no longer certain it is the cats who are domesticated in this household.

In other news, a couple of AmazonFail links. Yes, I know you’re sick of that by now. So am I.

But author Francine Saint Marie has evidence of Amazon deranking GLBT stuff on Kindle since January ’08. (ETA: A reader just notified me that this page had been taken down. But Meta Writer has now reposted it, plus the original link works again.) I haven’t cross-checked her account yet, but it certainly sounds plausible–especially the part where she tweaks the category data for her books to ordinary romance instead of GLBT and gets sales rankings restored within 24 hours. Hmmm. I’m interested in knowing how many authors had this experience.

And the ABA warns bookstores who might think of “boycotting” Amazon. They have a valid point. However…jeez. I’m just gonna stop there.

Last but not least, Candy Tan’s signing at Powell’s last night for Beyond Heaving Bosoms was a total scream. Meljean Brook was there, as well as yours truly and Jay Scott, doing reporter at large duty for Bitten By Books. (Hello, Rachel!) Not to mention the very awesome Fiveandfour, the Martian Mooncrab, my good buddy Red Argyle and so many of Candy’s friends that I’d only heard about. (Lord. Some days my journal is full of so many privacy-protecting pseudonyms it feels like the Witness Protection Program.)

Candy read from the “Choose Your Own ManTitty” section (if you ever get to that part, the paranormal option is so hilariously filthy even Candy didn’t want to read it out loud in public, and Candy? I SEE WHAT YOU DID THAR.) and there was much laughter and heckling. The Q&A was also marvelous. What I love so much about Candy and Sarah is that they are both frighteningly, extremely smart. Those who do not look beyond the adult language miss out on very well-thought-out analysis. I always prefer my funny with a heavy dose of smart.

Anyway, was exhausted when I got home, and this morning the whole house is coming down with a cold and the cats are insane. But I have a whole day to write, which I’m going to start on in about two minutes or so.

After I go hug all my kids. Hard.

Good morning, hello, and thanks to the new readers who dropped by as a result of AmazonFail coverage. Thanks also to old readers for your comments, support, links, and just general awesomeness. And that’s all I have to say about that. (Go ahead, heave that sigh of relief. I’ll wait.)

It’s tax day. I will feel a great surge of moral cleanliness when I drop my return in the mail. I suspect the feeling will not last. Feelings of moral cleanliness never do, for me. It’s a dirty dirty world we live in. (My tongue is so far in my cheek I’m surprised I don’t look like I’ve got mumps or something.)

I did start the new Jill Kismet book yesterday, and more pieces of the new YA’s plot are falling into place. (If my editors are reading this…I’m trying, but no, I have nothing for you yet.) Sekrit Project has opened up the floodgates, so it’s either time to prioritize or to juggle three books. That repeated thumpity-thump you hear? Is me hitting my head gently on the desk, because it feels so good when I stop.

This morning I got a chuckle out of I Married A Novelist. Nothing in the world could induce me to have a lover’s relationship or a marriage with a fellow writer. If only for the reason that I know how crazed and eccentric I am around deadlines, and two of us in the same house might be too much for the physical fabric of my universe. (“Chaos! Screaming! Dogs and cats living together!!1!“) It’s bad enough with a budding graphic artist (the UnSullen) actively submitting to contests and going through the elation-and-rejection cycle. (We have refrained from strangling each other by only the thinnest of margins, due to the fact that I’m older but still smarter and quicker.)

I’ll be at Candy Tan’s signing at Beaverton Powell’s tonight, and I expect hijinks and a lot of fun. (I am so boring–this is my only event for a long while, because I’m mostly too poor to travel and conventions don’t want me. Except for the excellent OryCon.)

Other than that, today is for quietly getting back in the swing. It’s going to take turning the damn router off so I’m not tempted to surf, but that’s worth it. I feel the need to get back in the saddle and achieve some heavy-duty wordcount.

It’s not moral cleanliness, but it is what I was made for and I’m damn happy to do it.