Lilith Saintcrow

Regular blogging will commence shortly. I know I haven’t been popping in much to say much of substance here. Deadline hell looms, as always, and I’m getting everything situated for another school year, as well as cleaning house emotionally, so to speak.

BUT, things are calmer. Summer is winding down, which means the publishing world is picking up speed again, thank goodness. Tomorrow I’ll be writing about my path to publication, since that’s the theme of the week over at the Deadline Dames. (You can read Dame Devon, Dame Jackie, Dame Rachel, and Dame Keri from earlier this week!)

But today, I’m sending in a first draft (gods willing, if I get this done) and heading out to Beaverton for my 7pm signing at the Cedar Hills Crossing Powell’s. I will be reading from Defiance, book 4 in the Strange Angels series. (I am hard at work on the fifth and final book as we speak.) I will also be bringing prizes to be raffled off!

That’s about all the news. I’m going to dive back into this draft so I can hopefully give an editor a pleasant surprise before the weekend.

Hey, it could happen.

See you around!

Today is just turning out well all over. The Little Prince is thrilled with his new rock climbing gear, my friends are happy little bandits, I saved an online sale for the bookstore by remembering where a specific book came from, and the big news…I can’t share the big news just yet, but it’s a weight off my mind and it means I get to do something completely new that I’m so excited about, I can’t even tell you.

The heat’s also broken today. It’s a comfortable almost-eight degrees instead of over-ninety-heading-for-a-hundred-and-my-God-humid. I still feel a bit logy and slow and swollen from the heat wave, but that will fix itself. Plus I’ve been climbing, and consistently reaching the top of even challenging 5.9s. The Prince attacks the rock wall like it’s personally insulted him, shimmying up like he’s part monkey. It’s awesome to see him figuring out where to put his hands and feet, and every time he gets down off the wall he’s wearing this huge grin.

There’s just all sorts of good things happening. Last weekend was bizarre, yes, and I’m still spinning a bit from it…but I am reminded, once again, that there are good things and if I’m patient, the good things outweigh the bad.

So. Tomorrow at 7pm I’ll be reading from Defiance at the Cedar Hill Crossing Powell’s. I’ve posted the event on Facebook and Goodreads if you want to spread the word; I’ll also be bringing a few signed books to raffle off, so that’s good. ALSO, there’s an Amazon preorder link for my upcoming Harlequin Nocturne, Taken. (Thanks to Tez Miller for the link!)

Now I’ve got to go run off some of this excitement. And, oh yeah, get some work done. If you hear someone shouting, “YAAAAY!” today, don’t worry. It’s just me.

Over and out.

It’s Monday, and another scorcher. I spent my Sunday putting together an Ikea dresser. I triumphed, but just barely. Between the dresser and rock climbing, my knees look like hamburger. I could, i suppose, stop using my knees to brace myself as I clamber up the wall…but I doubt that’s going to happen.

Anyway. There’s an interview with me over at the Book Mogul. And this Thursday at 7pm I will be signing at the Cedar Hills Crossing Powell’s! Come on by, if you like. I will be reading from Defiance, the Strange Angels book that won’t be released until spring 2011. So now’s your chance to hear a little of What Happens Next with Dru and her (occasionally) merry crew.

Things have calmed down immensely. There’s a sense of the storm being past. When you decide to no longer deal with someone who creates drama like a thunderstorm creates lightning, there’s a certain relief. I can deal with the guilt of not being able to help –I did literally all I could, and not only am I at a loss to figure out what more I could do, so is everyone else involved in the situation. In other words, things didn’t go belly-up for any lack of work on my part.

Cold comfort, maybe, but you take it where you find it.

And with that, I’m out. See you later, alligators.

Recently I’ve been asked about writing advice that isn’t geared specifically toward new writers or those looking to “break into” print. It’s not often I write about those further along–because careers, like people, are pretty unique, mostly, and any advice I’d be able to give might backfire terribly in someone else’s arena. But I figure what I’m about to say is Reasonable Life Advice as well as Publishing Advice.

My Friday the 13th started about 24 hours early. The 12th was one of the more bizarre days I’ve ever had in my life, and that’s saying something. I’ve found myself today having to say no, in both personal and professional (albeit completely unrelated) situations.

This is not easy.

In the first place, I was raised not to say no when someone pressed an emotional hot button–something like “I need you now.” My only value was how compliant I was, and I was trained well and thoroughly that compliant was what I needed to be to survive. For years it has been extraordinarily easy for anyone I cared about to get pretty much anything they wanted out of me, just by appearing needy or in-crisis enough. Now, taking care of your friends isn’t a bad thing–but you need to be cautious who you call “friend” if that’s a commitment you want to make.

If it’s very distressing for you to say no, you can bet a certain type of person will sense that. And a series of painful games may begin, with you trying to make this type of person happy and avoid saying no. And it can’t be done. You will be sucked dry like an orange slice, and they, flush with stolen vitality, will find another victim. It’s wreckage waiting to happen, and it happens every day.

As a female, too, it’s presumed that I don’t say no. It’s difficult for me to outright refuse someone, especially in high-stress situations. There’s a huge weight of cultural disapprobation involved in a woman saying “No.” Over and over, in many implicit and explicit ways, women are told that it’s necessary to play along, be gentle, be nice, spare everyone’s feelings. And God forbid you should say “No!” and stick to it, or listen to the inner voice that warns you of danger. Then you’re a bitch.

When it comes to working in publishing, another layer of uncertainty and pressure is added. If you say no, there’s always a chance you won’t be invited back. To be a writer is to be a freelancer, and to be a freelancer is profoundly unstable. Every “no” must be weighed against the damage it could do down the road.

You’re beginning to see why a “No!”, whether diplomatic or not, is an act sometimes fraught with danger.

Most often, my “no”s are part of a long process that involves me taking several barometric readings. In the case of a personal no, I usually discuss things with a friend I can trust. I tend to “chew it until the flavor’s gone” and agonize over how hurt someone will be if I say that dreaded single syllable. It takes a lot to make me close up and stop giving.

When it comes to saying no in the writing world, I have to balance the prospect of possibly not getting paid against the trouble the job will take, and how I interact with the editor, and a whole host of other issues before I even get close to saying no. I also often run a prospective “no” past my agent, partly to check in with the longer-term plan for my career and also to get her opinion on the best and most diplomatic way to refuse. It takes a while.

A great deal of my life lately has been saying no in small ways with people I trust. Just to check out what happens when I do so.

And you know, I’m discovering the damndest thing: most of the time, a no given in those situations isn’t really a big deal. The person you say that dreaded single syllable to shrugs and goes on to star in their own life movie. It doesn’t make the sun go out or the world end.

But in the last twenty-four hours, I’ve had to say no in a personal situation where I’ve felt unsafe to refuse, and yet compelled to do so. All my emotional hot buttons have been pushed, and the fact that I was also agonizing over saying no in a professional situation just made it worse. (I should stress again, the two events were in no way related. Except temporally. Bad luck, that.)

It’s been incredibly difficult. I’m fighting against my conditioning, my upbringing, and fighting in the face of a very real fear to say “no” and stick with it. My friends–those I can trust, those who I’ve practiced the little tiny “no”s with–have closed around me like a protective wall, each in their own warm way. I am told over and over again that it’s OK for me to draw my boundaries, that I am not, in fact, crazy, that I have a right to protect myself, and that they love me just as much as ever.

But it’s still tremendously difficult. And the fact that I care for and want to protect the person I’m having to refuse is extraordinarily painful.

Saying no professionally has consequently been more upsetting than usual. It may mean I don’t work with a particular editor again, but it’s a chance I have to take. I pride myself on giving my editors what they need, and I try very hard to be reasonable to work with. Having to refuse, especially when it’s really nobody’s fault and just a mess-up, is utterly crazymaking, and contributes to a round of professional second-guessing and doubt that makes a hurricane look like a teapot tempest.

Which leads me, in a roundabout way, to my advice. If you want to make a career of writing, sooner or later you will have to say “no” to something. Spend some time thinking about saying no. What it means to you to refuse, if you can do so with little angst or if it’s a hot-button issue with you. Figure out how to do it gracefully, figure out if you need backstops and people to talk to before you actually utter the dreaded syllable. Cultivate those habits and the comfort with that one little word now. Being unprepared when the time comes to say it is very uncomfortable. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. I can only imagine how badly I’d feel if I hadn’t been working on this very issue for months.

Now I’m going to go do some deep breathing. And, my dear Readers, if you can, help me out here. What helps you say no? Have you found a trick to it? Do you agonize over it, or is it no big deal to you?

I had one of the weirdest anxiety dreams I’ve ever had last night. In it, I ate a whole king-size bag of crisps (Ruffles, for those of you wondering, the really thick ones) while looking for my car. I kept pressing a little button on my key fob that would make the car chirp so I could find it, and each time it chirped it was in a different direction. I finished the whole damn bag of crisps, found the car, and woke up feeling sick and sweaty because I’d been sleeping over a pillow.

Yeah, that’s pretty much how this entire day’s been going. It’s been weird from one end to the other, and I’m running out of time on this blog post too. You know how long it’s been up in a window? About six hours now, and counting.

So, is Mercury retrograde or something? Because the weirdness factor, OMG.

All right. Off I go. Wish me some normal soon. I mean, weird’s pretty much comfortable for me right now…but I’ve got the singing willies, you know, and I’d like them to quiet down so I can get some real work done.