Lilith Saintcrow

I haven’t even had any breakfast yet. But it’s so quiet here–all the kids are sleeping–that I am taking the opportunity to touch a keyboard while I can finish whole thoughts without being interrupted.

Shocking, isn’t it? I write with chaos occurring around me all the time. It’s weird to have peace and quiet.

The next chapter of Selene is up. I spent some part of the weekend scheduling further posts, and making sure they’re formatted correctly. I am kind of nervous about Wednesday, because that’s when the huge smutte scene debuts. For some reason this makes me feel…no, not unclean. Not upset. What’s the word?

Ah, yes. Trepidation is the word. I have vast amounts of difficulty writing sex scenes anyway, despite all my good advice. And every time I have to revise/edit a smexxor scene I’ve written, I end up internally cringing. It just seems so…personal.

I know, I’m an idiot. I am not violating the privacy of imaginary people, no matter how much I feel like I am. Jeez.

The weekend was nice. Everyone was out of the house, either at the beach or hanging out with friends, and I had a chance to just be alone. I am a solitary person by nature, and I find it endlessly ironic that I am apparently the linchpin of this little commune/family. The Muffin is completely gregarious–he’ll start conversations with anyone–but me, I prefer to be holed up writing. And yet I’m the one who is socializing our wild little humans. Apparently they’re well-adjusted, but I can’t help thinking that’s a fluke.

I did see plenty of unsocialized (or improperly socialized) children this weekend, though. And it wasn’t at the bookstore, for once. I did grocery shopping and popped in to Target for some Princess essentials (apparently she NEEDS a certain type of tie-dyed retro shirt), and I saw a lot of parents ignoring obviously hungry and cranky children, or being physically threatening/borderline abusive to their little ‘uns. Five out of the six really egregious offenders were too busy yapping on cell phones to notice their kids were hungry and tired and DONE with this shopping thing.

This makes no sense to me. When I take my kids somewhere, I realize that they may get overwhelmed, especially the 6-year-old. I plan it very carefully–making certain the kids have enough sleep and food in them to make it easy for them to behave well. I ALSO do not talk on my cell phone while I’m driving, and only occasionally while I’m in a public place.

Here’s the thing: my cell phone is for emergencies or for imparting necessary information. “I just found _____, do we have any at home?” “What time are you going to be there?” or, “Is this something you would need for ____?” I can’t imagine why people apparently want to yap about NOTHING in the middle of a freaking GROCERY STORE while their three-year old is obviously wet, tired, and hungry. WTF?

Granted, I have a phone phobia, so that could be part of it. But really–when I’m out in a public place with my kids, I am In Charge, I am Paying Attention, and I am Keeping Track of where my little ones are. I am not engaging in a long chew-the-fat session with Aunt Fanny on the frickin’ phone. I am too busy paying attention to where my kids are, what they’re doing, and what I need to get at this store so I can go home.

What ices the cake is these people speaking ever so LOUDLY. I do not want to hear their conversations. I could care less about who is sleeping with who, what rap song you adore, how the trailer’s doing, or what the state of your thong is. (Lest you think I’m being tongue-in-cheek, these were actual subjects. I kid you not.)

The other thing, the thing that makes me so angry I can’t even see straight, is “parents” (do they deserve the name?) yanking around or shaking their kids in public. WTF? These are little people, goddammit. Would you treat another adult that way? No, because another adult would either kick your ass or call the police. Why is it okay to physically abuse your kids in public?

Maybe I’m oversensitive. I have never found it necessary to spank either of my children. I rarely even have to raise my voice. (Before you ask, yes, there are consequences for their actions. It’s not that I don’t punish. It’s that I don’t beat. I was on the receiving end of that enough as a child to remember what it’s like.) And my children are NOT little demons. They say please and thank you. They walk and do not run in public. They do not scream or stage fits in stores.

When I see someone picking on a kid literally a fourth their size, it shocks and saddens me, and makes me furious. You do not bring your four-year-old to the store without a proper snack or nap, yap on your cell phone endlessly while looking at CDs, and then shake or slap your four-year-old when she starts to cry because she’s overstimulated, bored, being ignored, and hungry. You just don’t. You spawned it, you’re supposed to be an adult and TAKE CARE OF IT now, and part of taking care of little human beings means sometimes you can’t stand around yapping on your frickin’ phone. Grow UP.

*sigh*

I really didn’t mean for this to devolve into a rant. But I am so proud of, and happy to have, my little ones. I can’t imagine treating them the way I saw several “parents” treating their kids this weekend. It just breaks my heart.

On a funny note about cell phones: I was in my regular Thai restaurant this weekend, and had occasion to observe a trio one table over eating with their BlackBerries out on the table. All three would stop their conversation with the people they were with the instant the cell phones buzzed or tinkled.

Can you imagine? These people were ignoring their lunchmates to BlackBerry, for Chrissake. When I go out to eat with someone, it’s because I want to have a conversation with them, not get interrupted by someone who isn’t even physically present. I can’t imagine, say, the Selkie putting her phone on the table and giving a higher primacy to its boops and whistles than to our conversation. I just can’t. Now, I can see her checking in with her Boy Scout about when she’s going to be home, but it’s obvious when we’re at the table that our primary focus is our conversation.

Oh yeah, and the food. I doubt any of the BlackBerry Trio even tasted their phad Thai. Which is, in my humble opinion, a damn shame.

So. It’s Monday and soon the house will start to stir. I’d better get breakfast in me. I can hear someone moving in the hall. It’s a little person.

I’m going to go hug whoever it is.

Over and out.

Welcome to another Friday writing post, my dears. Before we go further, I’d like to point you toward this post by Jeaniene Frost, about money. She demystifies a lot of it.

Look, it does take a couple years to get paid at this line of work. I was talking to the guy who’s going to reshingle our roof last week, and telling him that when one writes, one gets an advance one has to make do with until the royalties come in. IF they come in, and IF the book earns itself out to repay the publisher for the advance, and IF the book keeps selling, and IF you can wait six months between royalty checks which may or may not be worth a piddle in a rainstorm, as my grandpapa used to say. (About the rainstorm, not the royalties.)

A lot of writers get a rude shock when they realize just how infrequently this career is economically stable or viable. There’s no health insurance, no safety net, Dog willing and the creek don’t rise.

I don’t particularly like this state of affairs, but there’s nothing to be done for it. I write as much as I do largely because the Muffin has a Day Job and I am home with the kids all day, every day. Writing is my method of financially contributing, mostly because I can’t earn enough to even pay for daycare nowadays. (Don’t get me started, that’s another rant.)

Which is partly why I view writing the way I do–as a hack. The art to it is solely to please myself.

As long as I’m playing link salad, I should add a couple posts by my LJ friend Kaigou, who writes eloquently on what authors often miss when it comes to people trained for violence and mayhem and (a more useful and thoguht-provoking post) what authors get wrong when they write about life on the street.

The latter error bothers me the most. I can’t count how many books I’ve read, YA and others, that make homelessness “romantic”. Or that gloss over the danger of it. Or the fact that when you are on the fringe, everything has a price and nothing is free. I get a little buggy when I read something that to my mind glorifies street life. The streets are hard. Nobody ends up there because they’re well-adjusted or special. If you’re going to write about street life, please don’t think it’s glamorous or fun or “edgy”.

I am drained and nerve-sparking today (as if you couldn’t tell) so I’m just going to close with one piece of observation/advice. Please, for the love of God, if you want to write, learn your possessives and contractions.

Like it’s is short for it is, and its is a possessive–”belonging to it”. Along with they’re and their, this is the thing that made me chuck a manuscript in the “reject” pile quickest when I was reading slush. I still see it sometimes, especially in blog posts, and it makes me cringe and make that “GUHNAAH!” sound each time.

This is such a basic rule, it gets overlooked a lot. I wish it wasn’t.

And now, dear Reader, having spastically gone all over the board, I take my leave, preparatory to taking some ibuprofen and stretching to kill this headache. Wish me luck.

Cross-posted to The Midnight Hour

Good morning. I hope you’re comfortable? Good, good. Have a cuppa, settle in.

This last week I was informed that my writing advice was utter crap and nobody wanted to hear it because I am a hack.

As my friend Neutronjockey pointed out:

I believe the word “hack” is derived from the horseworld. A hack being a reliable, trustworthy, hardworking — I believe it was specifically referring to a horse used for work rather than pleasure.

While I won’t deny you pleasure-use … there is certainly nothing wrong with being a hack.

Damn skippy. There is nothing wrong with being a hack. And to that end, dear Reader, here is my Hack Manifesto.

My advice on writing is geared pretty specifically toward people who want to make a living at it. It’s also geared to people who love language and want to tell a ripping good story. It is not for Artistes or for fragile speshul flowers who want only squeeful strokes for their delicate, heart-shattering, mindstopping genius. Go read Annie Dillard or Natalie Goldberg if you want to hear how haaaaard writing is on the Delicate Flower. Here in my writing world, we work, and we work hard. We get our hands dirty. We take our goddamn rejection like adults, we buckle our belts tighter, and we get on with producing the best manuscript possible on several fronts.

That’s what being a hack is–taking pride in your craft, taking pride in producing something people can use and love. This is the heart of hackdom–creating things people can enjoy.

You can write utter crap and get away with it. But that’s not what the true hack does. Writing fiction that is supposed to show how smart you are or how you’re treading the path of High Litrachur is a fool’s game–literature disappearing up its own asshole, so to speak. The hack’s purpose is twofold:

1. To produce the best writing possible; clear, vigorous, and working prose that is easy for the reader to understand. And capable of carrying hundreds of pounds of theme, symbolism, plot, characterization, and all the workings of a good story effortlessly–WITHOUT BORING THE READER BY HOW F!CKING SMART YOU THINK YOU ARE.

This is very important. The best writing is not hard to understand. It is deceptively simple. We are in this business of writing to communicate. That’s what writing is, communication. Your communication is dead on the vine if you’re not looking to be clear and reasonably concise.

There is a fair degree of art in being reasonably concise and as clear as possible. Clarity is not just using the appropriate word–it is using the appropriate sentence length, giving enough detail to build the scene but not enough detail to choke the unwary reader in a morass, pacing appropriately, and pruning away all that lovely writing you’ve perpetrated without a clear idea of what it’s for.

There’s another aspect to this: consistently producing what a reader will enjoy reading. Now, I’m not saying you have to stick to hackneyed trends because that’s what Everyone Else Who Has Succeeded In The Genre has done. I’m saying you need to understand why a genre is the way it is, why myths and fairytales work, the rules of the form you’re working in. You have to know HOW the engine works before you can go tinkering with it to make it work better. You can’t just slap crap on the page and expect people to worship you. If your business is to tell stories, you need to know how stories work so you can pick the appropriate parts to jam in their engines to make them run without sticking and backfiring.

2. The second purpose of the hack is to have fun.

Yes. Fun.

Look, if you’re not enjoying writing, or not enjoying WHAT you write, what the hell are you going to do it for? This is not a line of work where it’s possible to dink around and make a living. Precious few writers, even hacks, do this for the money. IF you want to make a living doing this, you MUST enjoy some part of it or you’re going to end up with a serious ulcer and bitter, bitter nastiness in your soul.

Plus, there is that indefinable quality of joy in some work. If I’m not having fun on the page, how the hell can I expect the Reader to? And I don’t just mean the shallow fun of explosions and titties, nice as those are. I mean the soul-deep joy of creating something that’s as good as I can make it. I mean a ripping good yarn, a story that the Reader gets emotionally involved in. I don’t care if the Reader laughs OR cries OR gets angry OR suffers with the characters OR gets angry at the characters. I’ll take ANY of those, or ANY other strong emotional reaction. If the Reader has that emotional reaction, that kick from the story, I have done my job and created something useful.

That, my dears, is my idea of FUN.

The hack understands that people are not going to consistently fork over their hard-earned cash to read mental wanking that doesn’t work for them. The hack wants to create something people will use. If it’s a romance novel that makes a Reader sigh, if it’s a Western that makes a young girl smell gunsmoke, if it’s a doorstop of fantasy that makes a fanboi happy inside, if it’s a novelization that draws a Reader back into the world of a movie or a telly series they loved so much–all of these are noble, worthy pursuits. These are things worth doing well for the Reader’s sake. Without the Reader, a writer is just shouting into the wind–and while a certain degree of shouting into the wind is good exercise, there comes a point (sooner than you think) when that shouting is just sound and fury signifying nothing but an overblown ego.

Part of being a hack is being professional. A hack comes in on or under deadline, understands that an editor really just wants to make a story better, knows that critical reviews (even the ones that are just sour grapes from a jackass who chooses to review instead of writing his* own crud) are valuable in their own way, and is constantly looking to make their work better. A hack understands the fine balance between obeying the conventions of a genre and slipping a hand under genre’s skirt to tweak ever so gently at those conventions–all to provide an enjoyable experience. (*snickers gently*)

A hack can engage in stunt-writing, as long as s/he has a clear idea of why/how to break the rules. But a hack will not expect others to bow down to their Deathless Genius. A hack takes pride in the work. A hack does not take pride in the size and firm plumpness of his or her ego.

And here’s another statement some people are going to take issue with. I firmly believe that each and every artist who deserves the name is a hack. An artist has a hack’s work ethic and a hack’s understanding of the form they’re working in. Those without the work ethic, those who do not expend the effort, are artistes, dabblers, dilettantes.

There is nothing wrong with artistes, dabblers, and dilettantes. They’re just fine, they’re okay, and there is nothing pejorative in those terms as far as I’m concerned. I simply save my admiration for the hacks because I understand how hard they work. And I am proud to be called a hack–the same way I’m proud to be called a bitch. A bitch works hard and takes no crap from anyone, is assertive, and has self-esteem. So does a hack. (Which, tongue-in-cheek, beggars the question of whether I’m a bitch hack. *snerk*)

Dickens was a hack. So was Dumas. So was Shakespeare–his funky butt got PAID for the work he produced, and he understood WHY the plays worked. (He still gave off some stinkers, but given the political climate he was working in, no wonder.) Zane Grey is just as valid as Jane Smiley, and I think they’re both hacks because they both figured out something that worked and kept/keep refining, reinventing, and and making it work still further. Louis L’Amour? Edgar Rice Burroughs? Alice Hoffman? Edgar Allen Poe? Barbara Kingsolver? Anthony Trollope? Jack Kerouac (even in his more nutty stimulant-laced moments)? Stephen King? Others too numerous to list?

Hacks. Proud hacks. Hacks I’m proud to read. The quirk that considers some of them “fine litrachur” and others “damn hackdom” is merely an accident of media taste. Or the taste of some hoity-toity reviewers.

So. Yes, I’m a hack. A hack is dependable, responsible, faithful, hardworking. A hack is in love with language and determined to produce the best story they can. A hack is enjoying herself to the hilt while churning out good prose. So, goddamn hell yeah, I’m a hack.

And I really would not want it any other way. Now excuse me. I’ve got writing to do. Tune in next week for my rant about how genre is just as good as highfalutin’ litrachur. I expect to wax just as rhapsodically bitchy about THAT, too…

* Or her. Gender bias, thy name is English.

I took the Princess to see Prince Caspian last night. The movie held up amazingly well on the second viewing, and I amused myself by spotting CGI, looking for the indicators that the centaurs were people on stilts, and taking notes on Ben Barnes, since he looks so very much like what Tristan d’Arcenne looks like in my head. (Especially during the temptation scene. Whoo. *fans self*)

So that was a good time, and the Princess loved it. She’s still talking about it this morning. We had the discussion about hubris, and about how war is a horrific waste. God, kids are COOL.

So, random Thursday. Which means a bullet list, since I’ve got a serial to revise and Weasel Boy to work on.

* Speaking of Weasel Boy, I’ve broken 35K and got everyone to their first kiss. SCORE.

* Over at FFF, there’s a discussion about teen protagonists and immortal love interests (more specifically, teen girl protags and immortal, much-older love interests.) I am kind of squicked out by that dynamic in a YA unless it’s handled pretty carefully. But I also remember being fifteen and wanting very much to date men twice my age from books I’d read. (Like Harlan from Anne McCaffrey’s Restoree, for example. Or Mr. Rochester.) I’ve always been attracted to people much older than I am, mostly because they have a greater chance of being mature and a lesser chance (statistically speaking) of young bullsh!t. So I can see why the books mentioned in the thread are popular with teen girls–who are, let’s face it, the majority of the YA audience. Which leads me to wonder:

* What are the stats on when boys stop buying books? I’ve noticed that boys and girls tend to buy (or ask for) books pretty evenly until the 14-16 age group, when girls pull ahead and women tend to be the largest consumers of books. So what stops the boys from buying?

* And now for the first thing that righteously torques me off today, the right-wing pundit flap over Rachael Ray’s fricking scarf. GOD. The stupidity of conservatives apparently knows no bounds. They’re barking about this crap because they can engage their base this way–and that’s the sad thing, that there is a significant portion of the population who will view this as News and who will send Ray hatemail calling her a terrorist.

Those of us in the reality-based community, however, will just shake our heads at how stupid Michelle Malkin has proven herself to be AGAIN, only this time over a stupid paisley scarf.

* And now, for the grand prize, the Thing That Makes Me So Mad I Can’t Even See Straight.

The banished child is 5-year-old Alex Barton, who is in the process of being diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning type of autism. Not uncommon to his condition, Alex has had some behavioral issues and as a result, spends a lot of time in the principal’s office.

After returning to Ms. Portillo’s classroom after a recent visit with the principal, his teacher decided to punish him with humiliation. She had Alex stand at the front of the class while his fellow students listed off what they didn’t like about him. After informing him that they found him “disgusting” and “annoying”, the class was instructed to vote on whether or not Alex should be allowed to stay in the class. By a 14 to 2 margin, they voted him out. Parentdish

HOW IN THE HELL DID THE TEACHER EVER THINK THIS WAS APPROPRIATE? (By the way, those two kids who voted not to kick him out of class are more mature than their so-called teacher.)

Now, kids are kids, and kids are cruel. I remember elementary and junior-high and high school, and I KNOW kids are cruel. Adults are supposed to have better impulse control and rationality, but apparently this teacher has none. It was the teacher’s job to keep things sane in the classroom, not to turn it into a f!cking Survivor episode. I am JUST BOGGLED.

The thing that hurts my heart is a quote from the mother, saying she’s heard her kid–already having a tough time because of Asperger’s, which is no picnic–repeating “I’m not special, I’m not special,” over and over again.

GodDAMmit. If we spent a fraction of what we spend on “defense” (i.e., killing people) on education instead, we’d be able to attract the best and brightest to teaching jobs–people who would presumably have better impulse control, people who are less likely to scar a FIVE-YEAR OLD for LIFE by treating him like a piece of meat on a “reality” show.

Jesus. Can you imagine your kid–who you’re already dealing with significant emotional issues with, as a result of Aspergers or something similar–being treated like a reality-TV spot? Can you imagine your kid coming home crying and repeating “I’m not special”? Can you imagine how sick and furious and hurt and terrible you might feel? How you must beat yourself up because you weren’t able to protect your little one when he was–five years old, for Chrissake–put up in front of a crowd of his peers, as if he was a “class enemy” in Mao’s China, and yelled at for a considerable period of time? Five years old–THIS IS KINDERGARTEN, FOR GOD’S SAKE! Not a television show!

That “teacher” needs to be severely disciplined. There’s still a chance for her to say, “I was wrong” and to teach the other kids in the class that the way to deal with people you have problems with is not humiliation and the rampant abuse of power. (Christ, maybe someone could teach the Bush Administration that.) She could, for example, apologize to the kid she’s wronged and his family, and spend a while talking with her class about why she was wrong to do what she did. She could invite the kids to think of better ways to handle whatever problems they have with the little guy they just emotionally maimed.

It’s a damn ugly world when teachers treat their classrooms like those frocking “reality” shows–and this is yet another reason for me to home-school my kids. At least here I’m certain they’re not being emotionally abused.

In case you can’t tell, this seriously curdles my nurnie. I feel for that little guy and for his mother, who sounds just about at her wit’s end. Personally, I think firing and the revocation of a teaching license is too good for the “teacher” who allowed, encouraged, suggested, and presided over this. I’d like to grab that “teacher’s” lapels and give her a good shake and a smack upside the head to boot.

But that would be the sort of behavior I’m taking issue with, wouldn’t it? It wouldn’t be very adult of me. So, erm, I’ll settle for blogging. And for inviting discussion. Dear Reader, what do you think?