I’m getting ready for Orycon and preparing the house for a weekend without me. If you’re going to be at Orycon and want to say hello, here’s my schedule. (If that doesn’t work, choose me in the drop-down box here and you’ll get to the same place.) My reading has been moved to Sunday morning in the Salem room, and I think I will bring some Jill Kismet and some of the upcoming YA and let whoever is there choose what they want to hear.

That is, of course, if anyone shows up. *cringes a little*

The big sci-fi/fantasy event at Powell’s last night was completely awesome. I got to sit between Devon Monk, who is smart and funny, and Barb Hendee, who I got to tell how much I love Leesil the half-elf assassin. Between that and a glut of Tanith Lee I didn’t already own, it was a smash occasion. (Except for the traffic getting there. Ugh.) Many thanks to everyone who came, especially Marne, Kristin, and Aimee. (You guys rock.)

All right. I’ve got forty-eight hours worth of work to fit into three hours or so. Wish me luck–and see you at Orycon!

Now…the news! I’m going to be at the Sci Fi Group Signing at Cedar Hill Crossing Powell’s on Thursday, Nov 20 (that’s tomorrow) at 7pm. Other awesome folks like Barb Hendee, Timothy Zahn, and ZOMG my buddy Devon Monk are going to be there. Much fun will be had by all, so come out and see me.

And…ORYCON! This should take you to my program schedule. (Note that the Friday reading has, however, been canceled. Sorry about that.) If it doesn’t, go here and choose me from the drop-down menu to see what I’ll be doing while I’m working at the convention. (Jeff S., how about that drink? *wink*)

I’ll be doing a signing, and I’m hoping that it won’t be like other signings where a tumbleweed could roll across the non-line in front of me. I don’t ask for huge lines, but a couple of people would be nice. *grin*

Anyway, if you’re there, come see me at Orycon! It’s bound to be a big ol’ ball of fun. While I’m preparing for the signing and getting my wordcount in for the weekend ahead of time, I don’t think there will be a Friday writing post. I may throw an old one up there, because there’s lots of older ones I read and I think, huh, that’s true. Forgot I wrote that.

Such is the life of a wandering writer.

Anyway, it’s time for coffee. And for the coolest news of all–yesterday the nice FedEx lady stopped by and gave me an ARC of Strange Angels, my first YA due out in June of ‘09. SO EXCITED. Next year will be a good one, with a couple of books that I’m really proud of (like Redemption Alley and, yes, SA) premiering.

Man, I really like my job some days.

Back to the old wordstone…

PS: Tami, they were just regular ol’ chocolate chip cookies.

“That’s all very well, dear,” I reply abstractedly, “but I’ve got to kill him. It just won’t work otherwise. Want a cookie?”

My life is so made of awesome sometimes. And tomorrow I get to send fresh cookies to my agent.

Hee. MADE OF WIN.

* This is what my life is like this week. Picture is definitely worth a thousand words.

* I don’t know what’s up with my forum. It just died. I didn’t touch it, I didn’t do a thing with it. We’re all poking at it trying to make it respond. It just won’t. ARGH.

* There’s a signing this week, and Orycon. Stay tuned!

* When I get a bit fitter (and since I’m going to be upping the time I run pretty much weekly or every two weeks, it’s not that far away) I want to get myself a flapper dress full of fringes. Because I want to, and also because I’ve been listening to the Bangles this morning.

Look, just don’t ask. Just let me have my dream.

* The book isn’t as bad as I thought. I took a little break from it yesterday–the Selkie and I met Candy from Smart Bitches for brunch (Candy and I compared our shovelgloving muscle gains. She wins best all-around bulging, I win on the deltoids. I am apparently a specialist.) Then we ambled to Powell’s, did a blazing run through (I think that’s the shortest half-hour I’ve ever spent) and then Everyday Music. I did find the Callas Tosca, used, for $8.50. Much rejoicing was had by all. Then I came back and filled in some holes, making wordcount by the skin of my teeth.

* Last but not least…you asked for it, if you read this far. Tell me, can you…WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN?

You’re welcome.

I am now in that part of the novel–a quarter to a third through, basically–where I realize I have been wrong for 20-odd thousand words and now I know the real way everything should go. This feeling is deep and panic-laden, and it is the bane of many a good writer.

The seduction, of course, is to go back over what you’ve written and rewrite it according to the New Shiny Idea. This is all very well, but it doesn’t get one any further toward the finish line.

My solution is to just start at that point, assume that I can fix the front end of the book later, and write the rest of the story according to the New Shiny Idea. A zero draft does not have to be perfect, and it’s a lot easier to go back and tweak the initial 20K than it is to rewrite the first 20K five times and then get discouraged and toss the whole work, which usually ends up happening.

Constantly reworking the front of your novel according to the New Shiny Idea is 98% of the time an avoidance tactic dressed up as something you could conceivably think is good writing habit. It feels like you’re making progress, you end up writing 70-100K or so, but you do not have a finished work to show for it. You have an overchewed piece of steak. It is a trick to keep you from finishing, because finishing is scary.

Finishing is scary because it is only the first step in submitting, getting rejected or published, etc. It represents a whole new set of problems, chief among them is the ever-famous Internal Censor screaming you finished this and it’s still a piece of crap! Who told you that you could do this!

I can’t say it often enough. Do yourself a favor and get the whole corpse up on the table before you start operating on it, trimming and tweaking and making it pretty enough to bury. (Hey, all metaphors break down sooner or later. So sue me.) Do not worry if you get a great idea of blinding flash of light a third or a quarter or half of the way there. Incorporate that idea at the point you get it, and keep forging ahead.

Believe me, you will revise a finished work often enough to get sick of it, and enough times to fully meld that shiny idea seamlessly with the beginning.

Just don’t obsessively rework the front end of the story. Of all the avoidance behaviors new (and even experienced) writers display, this is one of the worst and most seductive because it feels like you’re doing actual work when you’re really…not.

It’s hard just to keep on keepin’ on. Believe me. I am right now trying my damndest not to go back and fiddle with a few important things that ABSOLUTELY MUST go in the front of the story–but if they ABSOLUTELY MUST, I will catch them in revision. So will my beta, and my editor, and my agent. There will be no shortage of opportunities to shoehorn. Right now, though, my job is to get this whole thing out of my head and onto the page.

Time to get back to work.

The second 20-minute run occurred today. I did not die, explode, collapse, or anything.

It was a wee bit anticlimactic.

But I still feel that glow of accomplishment, thinking that I can run for twenty whole minutes. (And a big thank you to everyone who commented encouragingly the other day!) I mean, sure I run slow. And I’m sure my face looks funny at times, because I’m thinking while I’m running, putting together plot arcs or just letting my brain take hurdles at its own pace. That sort of focused daydreaming is, I find, integral to keeping the creative engine running. I wonder, if they hooked me up to an electroencephalogram, which brain waves those would be. Probably alpha. Time does funny things while one is in that state.

I love dancing for that reason–it gets you into that timeless state. I suppose if I get my fitness level a little higher I might sign up for ballet again with the Princess. I think we’d both like that.

NaNo continues to go well. The book is taking shape, and I know there will be ugly stuff I have to trim or tweak later. But I think I’ve hit a rhythm.

Still, I’m tired today. There’s been a lot going on at Casa Saintcrow. The emergency footing is over, but I’m feeling the frustration of rebound and not being able to do more for someone in need. So maybe I’ll work on the gargoyle story instead.

But first, I’m going to just sit here for a minute and beam. Because I can run for twenty minutes.

It’s not a huge achievement, but it’s mine, and I’m gonna feel good about it.

Those are indeed famous last words. But I did it, and apparently the body is okay with that because other than a little bit of workout soreness last night while I was stretching, I feel fine. Today is the midweek rest day, so I just shovelgloved a little, and it’s amazing–I feel okay.

I feel rather like I’ve won a bet with myself, in a good way. Accomplished something, even.

I have not run for 20 minutes in my life, EVER. I was always told I wasn’t physical, and having people mock me during team sports was horrid. So it’s quite a pleasant shock to find out that I am, indeed, capable of *real* physical effort.

I also hated team sports in school because it was just another popularity contest, and those irritate me. Plus, for Chrissake, gym class gives bullies golden opportunities for f!cking with people. And that irritates me too, it always has. A fair fight between equally matched forces? Mmmkay, I don’t condone the violence but I’m willing to let them fight it out. But a bully picking on someone else half their size or disabled in some way?

I see red. Actual red.

It’s been pouring down rain for a while now, and I love it. This kind of weather seems to make the words come easier. So, it’s off to get out wordcount. If I am good and get my NaNo count in, I will reward myself with working on the short story about the gargoyle and the WalMart checker…

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate… this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness — this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness — share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” –Keith Olbermann

I could not agree more. The world is indeed barren enough.

One of the reasons I do not identify myself as Christian is because of this very issue–no, not gay marriage, but the underlying hypocrisy. People cherry-pick quotes from the Bible to justify whatever hate they feel like slinging today. They quote the Old Testament’s jealous, insecure god (with a need for praise greater than an adolescent male’s, as Ruth Hurmence Green so memorably put it) and conveniently forget that Christ hung out with the hookers and the lepers, the people he wasn’t supposed to even touch as a good Jewish boy. Those Christians who do espouse love (pun definitely intended) are so few and far between, and they usually meet bad ends at the hands of the established hierarchy. The religion (as most monotheistic religions do) relies on a division of Good vs. Evil, Us vs. Them, Kill Them First, Hate Hate Hate.

Then there’s the threat of hell if you don’t toe the line. Look, the divine love that engenders all is not going to send you to Hell. You can (and probably will) create your own hell while you live and after you die; that’s well within your purview as a human being. But God(s) doesn’t need Hell.

What parent WANTS to torture their child endlessly? A very, very bad one. And I cannot believe the Divine is a bad parent. A sarcastic one sometimes, a parent with an adolescent sense of humor sometimes, but not a bad one. Not a sadistic one, to punish us over and over again for choices made with “free will”. The fiction of eternal punishment is a lie told to keep us paying, praying, afraid, isolated, and powerless.

The world is indeed so very barren enough. Every chance of love and commitment should be cherished. Not bashed in the head by hypocrites (and let’s not even talk about the Mormon church, those who brought us polygamy and the Mountain Meadows Massacre, bankrolling this hatred and hypocrisy about the “sanctity” of marriage). It constantly amazes me that so many so-called Christians, as well as others who consider themselves “religious” or “spiritual”, have entirely forgotten the “do unto others” and the “love thy neighbor” parts of their holy one’s teachings.

I guess it must be easier to hate. But isn’t there ENOUGH hatred in the world already? Can we not add to it? Please? The fire is large and it will take so long to burn itself out. We don’t need to fuel it more.

I’m following the “when in doubt, attack” method on this one. As in, whenever it bogs down, I throw a vampire attack or a plot twist at the poor heroine. She’s going to be in an awful state by the end of this. Of course, that’s the point–the second book in a trilogy needs to bash at the characters and make everything snarled and tangled.

I finally feel like I’m over the flu. The week off did me good. I think it’s the first time I ever actually slowed down and took care of myself while I was sick, and the difference is amazing. Instead of a month of relapses I had a week of feeling miserable, then a little less miserable, then crisis-miserable, and then slowly getting better. I was aching to get back to my workout this morning, and it didn’t seem to have cost me a whole lot in terms of fitness capacity. So that’s nice. The real test will be how sore I wake up tomorrow morning, though.

I can hardly wait. *makes sour face*

It was great to move again. I feel better, certainly more tranquil. The new treadmill will take some getting used to and a little fine-tuning, but that’s fine too. It didn’t drive me into a state of total exasperation.

Anyway, natter natter, I really have very little to say today. I’ve got to start a couple fights on the page and show the effects of my heroine getting the news that one of her proto-boyfriends may have betrayed her whole family.

Hee. I love this job.