Lilith Saintcrow » Neato Keano

The Damndest Questions

Lili — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 18:49:01 +0000

Morning. (Insert yawn, gap, and stretch here.) Links first! There’s an interview (10 Favorite Things) with me over at Book Chick City, as well as a giveaway. And decluttering your life. (Been doing a lot of that lately.) You can make jelly out of Mountain Dew. But if you want something a little less jet-fuel and a little more tasty, gingerbread pancakes are probably a good bet. (Thanks to Reader Kathy McC for that last one!) Last but certainly not least, tolerance in two stories: New York Mayor Bloomberg’s recent speech, and a piece on Abd el-Kader and the Massacre of Damascus.

Whew. That’s a lot of links.

Every once in a while, I like to work some retail to keep my hand in. Being on-call on a volunteer basis for that certain local used bookstore suits me fine. Yesterday I opened and closed the store, and as usual there was a certain amount of craziness. The owner calls it “the Vortex” because the weird swirls around and around, and sometimes funnels through with a gurgling noise.

I tried to warn her this was the rule more than the exception in working retail. She didn’t believe me, having been stuck in the corporate hell of a cubicle job for years.

Now she believes.

Anyway, yesterday I got called “Peggy”, was sized-up by a cologne-dunked man buying mythology, found textbooks online for a half-drunk college student, drank and made a lot of coffee, took in a lot of books, hand-sold some of those same books less than an hour later, explained why Clancy hardbacks just don’t sell, and just generally chuckled and meandered my way through the day. If one must work retail, a bookstore isn’t a half bad place to do it.

One funny side effect, though, is that people wander in with the damndest questions.

* “Where’s the liquor store that used to be here?” Answer: “It’s moved about a block and a half up the street, and that was over twelve years ago. You can see it from the edge of the parking lot. Good luck.”

* “Do you have a phone book?” Answer: “Yes.” Then a long beat of silence. Finally, the second question will come up, which ranges from “Can I borrow it?” to “Can I look something up in it?”

* “Do you have maps?” Not heard as often as just a plain, “Where’s X?” X can be the local museum, any other local business, any business in Portland, a random street number, an address, or (on certain memorable occasions) someone specific’s house. Usually, the people asking for someone’s house are pupil-dilated, disoriented, and have to learn to live with “I don’t know. Are you all right?” for an answer. People just think that when you work in a bookstore, you Know More, and will disperse that information rather like a search engine.

* “Where’s your bathroom?” OK, a lot of retail places hear this. It becomes time for a judgment call as soon as the words are uttered. Because for some reason, the loo of a bookstore is apparently second only in desirability to pub or music-store loos as a place to shoot/snort/whatever. So the answer ranges from “We don’t have one” to directions.

* “I’m looking for a book…but I don’t know the title or the author.” Answer: “Well, what do you remember about it?” Between what people remember of the cover or (less frequently) the story, we can usually find it. The owner used to laugh when I told her she would get this question and soon develop an encyclopedic knowledge of cover art people are likely to remember, as well as a finely-sharpened intuition about what title people are really looking for based on what they remember of the story.

* “Do you sell…magazines?” Answer: “No. Especially not those kind of magazines. Check the gas station down the street.” Which really, they don’t have any either, but it gets the men who come and ask this particular question out of the store. I mean, occasionally a dude will come in looking for a Ladies Home Journal or something, but that is by far the exception. Mostly they’re looking for Playboy. (For the articles. Yeah. Right.)

* “Oh…damn…where’s the bar?” Answer: “Right next door.” Yes, there’s a bar next door. Sometimes drunken patrons are sent over with trivia questions so we can settle the bets made over shots of something-or-another. Plus, their karaoke comes throbbing through our walls at night. It’s…interesting.

* “Where’s your fiction?” Answer: “What genre?” And a quick list: litfic here, mystery and spec fic (sci fi and fantasy) and horror and romance around the corner there, suspense and spy fiction in this room here, westerns up front…and nine times out of ten, the questioner will simply look at you bug-eyed and repeat, “Where’s your fiction?” Which generally means they have rarely been in a bookstore before and want a recommendation, because they don’t know what the hell they want, but they want something, dammit, and it’s YOUR job to see they get it.

* “Are you hiring?” Answer: “No.” Bookstores are pretty desirable places to work, either because the questioner thinks we’re edgy and snarky a la music stores, or because they think it’s easy. Just drink coffee and read all day! They have no idea about the customer service, the answering questions, the art of buying books and weeding the shelves to make sure they can breathe and tempt consumers, the little maintenance tasks…I could go on.

* “Do you buy books?” Answer: “We do, for in-store credit. We do not pay cash.” Around the end of the month we get this question about twenty times a day over the phone at least, and a few times in person. It’s amazing, though–98% of the questioners then say, “Oh, thanks.” And hang up. Or just hang up without the thanks. Sometimes they try to argue. “But I have pristine hardbacks!” (I am not kidding.) The most fun, however, came when I was working in new bookstores and people wandered in to ask this…

Every bookstore I’ve ever worked at (they’ve mostly been used bookstores, natch) has a board set up in the employee area with variations of these questions in different boxes, and some way of marking them off. It’s just like Bingo, only with retail and caffeine. Days when you get a bingo used to mean drinks after work for everyone on shift. Nowadays they’re more likely to spark a flurry of emails, mostly variations on “Guess what happened THEN?”

If you get a blackout on that board, though, it always means drinks after work.

I’ve worked a lot of jobs in my life, and a good proportion of them have been service or retail oriented. You get to see the best and the worst of humanity. I have a special place in my heart for working in a bookstore, though. Even on blackout Bookstore Bingo days, the regulars and your fellow employees more than make up for it. The joy of matching the right book with the right person, too. Those times that someone returns and says, “You recommended X to me, and I LOVED it!” make one happy to be alive. Plus, geeking about Litrachur with the oddest people–people you wouldn’t think twice about talking to if you saw them on the street, or people you would simply never meet because their slice-of-life is so different from your own–has to be one of the most sublime acts of social and intellectual connection I think I’ve ever experienced.

The greatest thing about it, though, is that working in a bookstore provides such awesome material. Nothing is as absurd as real life, nothing. Fiction has to obey rules. Reality is far zanier than anything a writer can come up with, but you can strip-mine it for the telling quirk, the tiny detail, the internally-consistent eccentricity.

I don’t get paid for any of the volunteer hours I put in. I have to tell you, though, the experience of the daily Vortex spin damn near pays for itself. At the very least it provides me with hilarity I don’t have to watch on a screen. And it reminds me that people are the most strange and wonderful oddities the Universe has going at the moment.

So if you’re working retail today, I salute you. I hope you’re getting great material. And I hope you’re only crossing off a few of those bingo squares…

More Release Madness!

Lili — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 18:55:35 +0000

Drawing closer and closer to the Jealousy release! I’m excited and nervous all at the same time.

Thanks to everyone who came by the Bitten By Books event yesterday! It was incredible fun. Also, over at the official Strange Angels website, there’s a chance to win all three books in the series! There’s all sorts of speculation going on over at the fan forum–guys, go easy on the spoilers, OK? Thanks.

And now I have another announcement to make. Longtime readers may recall that I volunteer for a local indie bookstore. Cover to Cover Books has graciously agreed to support Strange Angels (and me!) by offering signed/personalized copies as soon as Jealousy releases! That’s right. Contact Cover to Cover, they’ll tell you how much for the book and shipping (shipping’s pretty reasonable, considering, and they can send it almost anywhere), and once you’ve paid I’ll sign/personalize your very own copy of Jealousy! (Hint: they do carry plenty of my other books, too, and I can sign those as well.) You get to support an indie bookstore AND get signed copies! How cool is that?

And now I am going to take my release jitters and try to put them in the traces so they can pull a new story along. All that nervous energy has to be good for something, right? Right?

You’d think doing this over 20 times would make it easier. *snort*

Over and out.

Zero Draft, Jealousy Giveaway, And Snapback

Lili — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 21:56:50 +0000

How can I have a cold when it’s a hundred degrees outside? I ask you, how? Maybe it’s the mosquitoes. Several people have mentioned how the little buggers seem to be particularly bad this year. I believe the term used was “MUTANT ZOMBIE MOSQUITOES FROM HELL, Jesus!” And I heartily agree. I’m welted up all over.

Anyway, I have great news and some links.

I’ve officially finished the zero draft for Strange Angels 5. This is the end of the series, and I cried like a baby last night when I wrote the last few chapters. My laundry pile is threatening to eat the living room and I just spent a couple hours weeding through email correspondence that I literally haven’t had time to touch for the past week. The race to finish the book meant dumping 4-5K out every day for the past four days–not that I’m under serious time constraints, because the first draft isn’t due for a couple months at least, but the story had taken me over and it wanted out.

It’s called a zero draft because it needs work before it turns into a reasonable first draft that I can send to my editor without cringing. Of course, I’ll cringe anyway. That’s just how it works–the instant I hit the “send” button, I am assailed by the “what if they don’t LIKE it?” tsunami. But before I can do that work and regard the zero draft as just raw material, I have to set it aside. I’m thinking this book needs to be completely out of my head for at least a month before I will have enough emotional distance from it to go back and see some of the flaws enough to correct them.

Now I’m firmly in the snapback phase, which is what happens to me after I’ve focused all this emotional, mental, and physical energy on finishing a book. I’m pretty much exhausted on all three levels, but the engine in my head is still whirring and pulling. It hasn’t calmed down yet; I’m still feeling the reverberations. So I’ll need a day or so to let the force bleed off and return my brain to normal. (Yeah, I know. Or as close to normal as my brain ever gets.)

The other news? Guess what arrived the other day. Go on, guess.

Some shiny new copies of the third Strange Angels book, Jealousy, due for release on July 29! Which means tomorrow there will be a giveaway for two signed copies on my Deadline Dames Friday writing post. Plus, I’ll be sending out a newsletter soon (I haven’t sent one out in months–sorry, Dark Siders! It’s been a bit crazy here.) And, because my faithful Dark Siders are so awesome, I’ll be running a giveaway for signed copies through the newsletter as well. Exciting, no?

Now for the links:

* Mario Vargas Llosa on why literature isn’t dead yet.

*Chapman/Chapman on failing harder.

* And in honor of Jealousy coming out, Graves appears on a list of hot boys over at Suzanne Young’s excellent blog. There’s also a Facebook release e-party gearing up.

That’s all I’ve got, dear Readers. My brain is mush. See you tomorrow.

Independent Chains

Lili — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 17:48:51 +0000

The smoke has cleared and everyone I see looks like they have a hangover. Yes, the Fourth is over.

I spent Independence Day down at Fort Vancouver with the kids. There were vendors, stages, all sorts of booths, enough greasy food to make all of us gleefully sick, and the old fort itself was a wonderland for the little ones. The blacksmith’s shop was the hit of the day, with the carpenter’s shop a close second. I particularly enjoyed the guy in the carpenter shop talking about 19th-century water transport, but then, I’m a geek.

We got home well before dark and had an all-American meal of burgers and fries. Well, chicken burgers, and fries nobody wanted because we’d already had a bunch of them downtown, watermelon, tortilla chips and salsa, enough ice cream to float a boat. Then there was a long slow wait for it to get reasonably dark, and time for fireworks. Nobody lost any appendages this year, and we were finished before the entire neighborhood began to come under what sounded like an artillery barrage. The kids enjoyed it mightily until the mosquitoes bravely rallied through the smoke and sulfur, so we went inside. Everyone was tired and happy. I was actually mellow for the first time I can remember on the Fourth, but that might have been the consequence of two glasses of red wine and a bit of Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream.

I put the kids to bed, wrote out a list of things I’m declaring my independence from, and toddled off to sleep. All in all, it was a grand day.

This week I’m pushing to get the zero draft of Sacrifice done, so I might not be around as much. I’m in that stage where I want to finish the damn book and everything that keeps me from doing so is an annoyance at best. My patience, never a quality much in evidence even at the best of times, must be carefully husbanded so I don’t snap at people who are Just Trying To Help, or who Actually Live With Me And Don’t Deserve Crap. It will be a great relief when I finally bring Dru’s adventure’s to their natural endpoint.

Hope your Fourth was as fun and relaxing as mine, dear Reader. And now, back to the grindstone. That’s one thing I haven’t declared independence from. I’m glad to have the luxury of largely choosing my chains.

Short Story Madness, and Updates!

Lili — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 18:15:43 +0000

Yesterday was pretty productive. I know what happens in the entire rest of Dru 5 now, all that remains is to buckle down and see how it shifts in the actual writing.

I posted an excerpt of Dame Devon’s Magic At The Gate. I encourage you to go take a gander, it’s pretty awesome. Dame Devon posted the only excerpt of Jealousy I will be giving before the book comes out. You can also read the first chapter of Jealousy on the official Strange Angels website; there will be quizzes and lots more cool stuff showing up on that site before long, so stay tuned. And please, if you want to know about excerpts, read this.

I also updated my FAQ (new stuff about Selene and Nikolai, the Kismet series, and Strange Angels) and updated the fan forum. If you want spoilers, the place to look is the forum; I often give tidbits there. Plus, there’s now preorder information for Heaven’s Spite on the Kismet page.

True to form, once I updated everything about Selene and Nikolai, new news came in. I am pleased and proud to announce that the Selene and Nikolai short story Just Ask has been accepted for the upcoming Mammoth Book of Hot Romance. I don’t know exactly when it will be released but the official acceptance has arrived. Just Ask deals with Selene’s return to Saint City, and as soon as I have more information I’ll share. I can also share that I’ll have a story in the upcoming Dark & Stormy Knights, titled Rookwood & Mrs. King. I am also proud as punch to announce that a YA short story, titled Say Yes, has been accepted for the upcoming Eternal: More Love Stories With Bite, also featuring the awesome PC Cast.

I’ve been sitting on the news about the short stories for so long, it’s just about killed me. You just don’t know. There’s yet more news that I can’t share just yet (oh, how I tease) but it’s so totally exiting I can barely sit still. Anyway, once I get all the details, you’ll hear more.

Now, it’s raining and I have a dead body and a burned-down Schola, not to mention a kidnapping and an epic battle, to commence. Sorry to throw the links and run, but that’s what I’ve gotta do.

Over and out!

Dame Smackdown Winner!

Lili — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 22:21:37 +0000

I am proud as punch to announce the winner(s) of the Dame Smackdown!

You read that right. There’s winners all over. Actually, everyone wins, because as Dame Devon says…we have a tie!

That’s right. The readers stepped up and made their voices heard–they love both Dame Devon and me equally. This is very good, because it means ALL the readers win!

Because tomorrow, I will be hosting an excerpt of Dame Devon’s Magic At The Gate, and Dame Devon will be hosting the only excerpt of Jealousy I’m going to be able to give before the book goes on sale.

Now I’ve just got to choose which excerpt to tease you with. That will require some heavy thinking…

See you tomorrow!

And Really Bad Eggs…

Lili — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 17:19:22 +0000

First off, some really cool news: I can now announce the official Strange Angels website! I think it looks ultra-ducky-cool. The peeps at Penguin are very excited about this, and I am too. Soon there will be quizzes and other super-fun stuff, so stay tuned. You can also hang out on my forum (NOT at Penguin, on my own personal site, there, disclaimer done) and share theories about Jealousy with other fans, as well as hang out and have fun chatting about other series.

We have no word about who’s won the Dame Smackdown yet. The last we heard, Dame Devon and I were tied. Which may mean, if we’ve finished on a tie, that BOTH of us have to post excerpts. *evil laugh* But we’ll see. I’m on tenterhooks.

Otherwise, this morning has been very quiet. It’s one of those mornings that smells like baking bread; I felt like I could run forever on the treadmill. Just point me at the horizon and let me go, let me breathe and run and stretch. It’s nice to feel that way, even if I know it’s just the endorphins talking. I’ll take it. I spent a long time trapped in a very tiny box. Now that I’m out, well, I like the idea of going as far as I can, under a wide-open sky.

Which makes me feel like Jack Sparrow. “Bring me that horizon…”

Oh yeah. I’ve got my ship, my compass that points to my heart’s desire, a song to sing, the wind in my hair and a cutlass at my side.

Bring it.

My Excitement, It Is…Not So Exciting

Lili — Thu, 06 May 2010 20:56:57 +0000

Today is an overcoming-dragons type of day.

I hate driving in Portland. It’s really not Portland’s fault, even though I swear to God the streets change, especially at night. No, most of my stress comes from the fact that I rarely have access to a reliable car, so on top of the navigational stress (which I handle with the GPS that came with my cell phone, thank you God) there’s also the will-my-vehicle-blow-up-on-me stress.

Today, however, I had a reliable car (thanks to Subaru Shawn, who rocks) and the GPS, and plenty of time. So I made it out to the Cedar Hills Crossing Powell’s–remember, I’m going to be there on May 25th, signing with Ilona Andrews and Devon Monk–and, to put whipped cream and a cherry on the whole day, I navigated successfully to Deek & Bryan’s Next Adventure for climbing gear.

It was worth trying to find parking around Grand Avenue in the middle of the day, because the staff are so helpful and nice. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone having a bad experience there. Once I found the climbing section and actually opened my mouth to ask questions (sports supply stores always make me feel lazy and underachieving and shy) I got the help of a very nice young man who took me patiently through buying my first pair of climbing shoes and my very first harness. (My one moment of caviling? “No flowers on the harness, please. Just…no flowers. I’m not a flower type of girl. Unless it’s a flesh-eating monster flower…oh my God, did I just say that out loud?”) I didn’t catch the young man’s name, but his mother must be very proud of him.

Now I’m home and I’ve bolted lunch and I have to get dear, sweet, stubborn Dru in more trouble. I feel refreshed and renewed, instead of wrung-out and panicked. Which is a big change. A reliable vehicle does indeed make all the difference. I know, it sounds boring and pedestrian. But little by little I’m doing things I’ve never done before, and my life is getting so much better. The process of breaking out of the chrysalis proceeds apace, and it’s nice out here. It’s like all the work of the past year, and especially all the very intense work of the last six months, has suddenly started to pay off. Where before it was just a slog, now I’m seeing actual results.

I like that. I’ll keep it.

And now for chaos, panic, and vampire attacks. Catch you later, gator.

Lucky Day

Lili — Wed, 05 May 2010 17:45:43 +0000

Just had a surprise visit from a very nice young man from the cable company. He found the source of the persistent problem I’ve been having, and fixed it in under twenty minutes. That was nice. Between that and the absolutely fantastic run I had this morning, today is apparently going to be lucky. Maybe I should buy a lotto ticket. *snort* Nah, I’ll just settle for getting my wordcount and errands all done in today.

Here, have a link: Ilona Andrews explains further about ebook pricing and distribution.

I have to admit I was naughty yesterday after I finished wordcount. I watched Dracula 2000 again–mostly because my hairdresser friend texted me about Gerard Butler and once I started thinking about it I was helpless and HAD to watch that movie. They don’t let him talk much, which is a good thing. He’s so pretty and brooding. Then I actually picked up smoke and reread it. I don’t do that often, and of course I see glaring errors in the book and Rose irritates me almost to tears, and I want to absolutely strangle Michael every time. But I think it’s time for me to schedule in some work on avatar.

So, yes, naughty. But I got my wordcount in, and it felt good to relax a little bit. I am slowly relearning the skill of actual relaxation. I haven’t had much call to practice it in the last twenty-eight years or so, and my fumbling attempts at taking a chill or two are probably hilarious to watch. That’s okay. At least I do it at home, where looking ridiculous is sort of expected.

That being said, I’ve got more words and appointments today. So it’s back into the fray, dear ones, where I shall harvest what luck I may. Catch you later.

Two speeds. One I use way more than the other.

Lili — Mon, 03 May 2010 15:23:44 +0000

Good morning! It’s a rainy, windy day here. I like wind and I like rain, especially if I’m snuggled up nice and safe inside. My writing location has shifted to an office chair and a tiny laptop holder situated where I can see out my front windows. The street is endlessly interesting, and I can see a good chunk of sky and trees. Most of this move has been made necessary by some hip irritation I’ve been experiencing. For some reason, losing seventy pounds through diet and exercise has aggravated a small piriformis issue; I’m using my body differently and I’m sure both the piriformis and my iliotibial bands are unhappy with me. Nothing will solve it but rest, stretching, and taking care of how I use my body. Grrr.

I also need a massage. Dayum. Anyway.

Sean Ferrell has a great post up about his writing process. Being who I am, this little chunk of it particularly stood out to me:

I write every day. Especially when I don’t feel like it. Especially when it’s not working. I can always choose to not use something that I wrote and that I realize later is the wrong tone, doesn’t fit, contradicts other parts. I can’t decide to use something that isn’t written. I can’t use something that is still in my head. Better to have something come out half right than have all of it perfectly in my skull.

I’m glad Sean mentioned this. I happen to think disciplining oneself to write every day, even if it is in very small chunks some day, is critical. (But we all know how I feel about that.) You can’t edit when you don’t have raw material, and better half right than not done at all. True, true words.

The other half of the coin is taking care of one’s sustainability, filling the well inside your head and making sure you have enough emotional and physical energy to run on. This is the difficult part for me. I tend to mortgage bits of myself and run until I hit a breakdown, which is not healthy. I’ve learned several tricks to compensate for that little tendency of mine, all of them directed at making me take care of myself. I felt bad about this until someone said, “Why? They’re strategies for self-survival, and they sound like workable ones. Quit wasting time feeling bad about them and focus on bolstering them. Self-care means you’ll write longer.”

Amen.

Anyway. Enough of my lecturing. I had my first rock climbing class this weekend. It was a belay certification, and I have my belay card now. Part of the class was climbing so everyone else could get practice belaying. We each took several climbs and “falls”, some intentional and some not, to learn to trust the rope and our belayers.

It was awesome.

I don’t like heights. They don’t terrify me the way small airless spaces do (if you ever meet me in an elevator, just be prepared for the fact that I’m not going to talk until I’m outside the metal cube. There’s no AIR in there.) but I still don’t like them a whole hell of a lot. Yet when I’m clinging to a rock wall, I don’t think about the space underneath me. I think solely about the next hold and how to hug the face of the rock. My concentration narrows to a single physical point, and for someone who tends to chew mental leather until the flavor’s all gone, that is a relief. I can tell that climbing, for me, is going to be one of those blessed activities like running, where my brain stops eating its own tail and focuses outward.

I can’t wait for the next climbing session. There’s also a bouldering class; after you take it you can go in and boulder on the bottom of the rock wall anytime there isn’t a class. I hear this gets you into great shape for climbing. I can already tell I’m going to be working out plot problems while clinging to holds. Awesome.

After the belaying class, one of my classmates looked at me. “You know, for someone who’s so nervous about climbing, you sure didn’t hesitate much.”

I thought about it for a second. “I don’t tend to hesitate.” At least, I thought, not when I’ve got a bunch of people looking at me and a wall to climb. All my hesitation comes before, while I’m looking at the wall and wondering whether or not I should do this. “Ive got two speeds,” I finally said. “Full stop or dead ahead. Mostly dead ahead.” And it’s true. Once I put my hand to the first hold, it’s like drawing the sword. You make your cut. You commit fully. Once your hand grasps the hilt, it’s too late to back out. You’d better be ready to tango.

Writing taught me that. I’m not sure it’s good for climbing, but in the interim, I’ll take it.