Lilith Saintcrow

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.

Crossposted to the Deadline Dames. Check out Readers On Deadline and Dame Toni’s excellent post this past week!

Writing is a lonely job.

Yes, you have to deal with people. You have to be personable and professional. You do have to know how to deal with editors, agents, fellow writers, and fans. You go to conventions, you go to signings, you use social-networking because marketing means you must. But that’s only a small (albeit significant) part of a writer’s career. The icing on the cupcake, as it were.

The rest of that cupcake is you and the words. You, sitting in front of your typewriter or keyboard, you with the pen in your hand and the blank paper in front of you. You, you, you.

Nobody else.

This is why I say writing is a lonely job. Even while collaborating, YOU have to do YOUR part of the work. It doesn’t get done by itself. YOU need to carve out time to get YOUR work done. You need to make sure you have the emotional and physical resources to spend on the writing–because writing, like any other activity, takes energy. You must fill the well you’re drawing on, or you’re courting burnout. Which is no fun.

Writing, like any creative endeavor, requires a certain amount of solitude.

We all know about the lone, creative artist. Solitude is an important route to creativity; indeed, research on creative and talented teenagers suggests that the most talented youngsters are those who treasure their solitude. However, the artist in all of us must risk disconnection, for forging a happy and worthwhile life—and navigating through that life fully and gracefully—is itself a creative act. –Ester Buchholz, Psychology Today

Yes, I have a point. I am edging my way toward it, because you’ve all heard me say this before. Here it is:

If you want to have a long-term sustainable career as a writer, a critical component is prioritizing the time you need not only to write, but to be alone with your thoughts, alone with yourself. Solitude is not a luxury, it is a necessity and prerequisite. The responsibility for getting it is yours.

Writers, especially women writers, are used to mortgaging bits of themselves. There’s the day job, and the kids, and the Significant Other, and the bills, and the minutiae of daily life. It’s easy for writing to get lost in the shuffle, to fall through the cracks, for you to say “I’ll get around to it when…” When the dog gets better, when the kids grow up and don’t need me, when the grass doesn’t need mowing, when the groceries don’t need to be picked up, in a little bit, tomorrow, not today, some other time.

These are the little nibbles that eventually end up killing our souls. Or less dramatically, killing the strength and time we need to write.

Did I feel guilty when I ignored the laundry so I could finish a book? You bet. Did I feel terrible each time I was interrupted during a crucial scene by a diaper emergency or some other damn thing and I felt a flash of resentment? Yes. Do I even now sometimes feel like a bad mother/person because I do things purely to keep myself awake and alive (in Peter Gabriel’s words), when I should be sacrificing every moment and every waking thought to someone else’s needs? Sure. Do I feel bad that I’m apparently such a selfish bitch that I sometimes need ten minutes to myself? Oh, hell yes.

I’d feel even guiltier if I let the writing slide. I don’t have the luxury of stopping now, because I’m a single mother and this is how I support my kids. In order to work effectively and turn out books some people (apparently, so far, knock on wood) want to buy, I need certain things. One of those things is a certain measure of solitude. I have skirted the edge of burnout and found out it’s not a place I like to be; it interferes with my ability to meet deadlines. So, even if it takes barricading the bathroom door (and since I’ve had toddlers and I still have neurotic cats, actual barricading is sometimes necessary) I’ve learned that taking some solitude is a necessary evil.

Bukowski once remarked that he needed solitude the way other men needed bread. I am not nearly the misanthrope he had the reputation of being, but I understand the principle. I have had to fight not only against the needs of people I’ve lived with, friends and companions, but against my own feeling of selfishness when I say, “No. I need time for myself.” I engage in the battle because writing matters to me, and having the time and energy to write matters to me. (Not least because it’s how I pay the rent.)

No day is so busy you can’t set aside ten minutes to write. Ten minutes of effort every day is better than saying “I’ll write for hours tomorrow, or the day after, or when this crisis is over, or when I have time…” Don’t weekend-warrior it. Little chunks of daily effort will help send the signal to yourself that you are serious about this writing thing, and that you have a right to be serious about it. That you have a right to do something you love for a small amount of time each day. This can be a stepping stone to larger chunks of time, or you may find out that you’d rather weave baskets or something during those ten minutes.

I should probably warn you about this, too. Treating writing as a priority (and getting in the habit of not getting derailed) has a funny way of helping you enforce healthy boundaries in other areas of your life. In sick systems, including some relationships, you’re not supposed to set boundaries. You are supposed to be ever available, a resource to be thoughtlessly used and discarded. Setting boundaries and enforcing them may have unexpected consequences. Someone who has depended on you to be available and self-sacrificing 24-7 may see this tiny slice of time for yourself as a direct threat. It happens, and it’s not pretty.

Not every writer’s situation is so dire. Your true friends will understand when you occasionally say, “Not now,” or “Not today.” They will feel a momentary disappointment, but then they’ll go on to star in their own lives for the rest of the day. Most of the time, pretty much everyone you say “no” to on a daily basis will get over it. Your own feelings of “I should, I should” are much more insidious, much harder to deal with, and much more dangerous.

In the end, you are the only person who can decide how much solitude you need, how important it is, how to get it, and what the consequences are likely to be. You are the only person who can decide if it’s worth the price, the work, and the effort. This is a lonely job, but at bottom it’s not really any lonelier than the choice you make to keep getting up in the morning and going into an office or to any other job. It’s just that the independent-contractor aspect of writing lays that choice a little more starkly bare.

This is all up to you.

It is indeed a lonely job. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Even if it is–slowly, grudgingly, fighting through my stubbornness–teaching me how to live.

But that’s (say it with me) another blog post.

Over and out.

This book is trying to kill me. Yes, it’s Dru 5. I even have a tentative title: Sacrifice. Chills the blood, doesn’t it? This morning I realized I had to answer a thorny question about What Happened To One Particular Character, and internal consistency demanded I go for a transfusion instead of an aesthetically-pleasing biting scene. *sigh* Plus, I’m in the “this book sucks so hard nobody will ever want to read it, woe is me” phase. The only cure is completing the damn thing and putting it in a drawer for a couple weeks to a month while I work on something else.

So, while I’m bashing at the book and muttering “die, die, DIE!” under my breath, here’s a few links:

* Maggie Stiefvater on Death By Ham. She makes the point that a good book has a good chance.

I never said that what they were writing was good.

I also never said that these people researched the market, read Writer’s Digest, and figured out how to write query letters and where to send them to. I never said these people were voracious and critical readers and worked constantly on honing their writing craft. I never said that these people sat down and wrote four books and then wrote a fifth book and said this is the one, this is finally getting good.

Because I would venture to say that if we were talking about the publishing odds of that population, those people who live in that paragraph right above this one, we’d be having a different conversation entirely.

And that conversation would go like this: if you write a good book and follow the rules of submitting manuscripts and stick to it, you will eventually find someone who loves that book and will put it between real covers. The statistics might not be 100%, but I’m going to go with at least over 90%. Good books get found. Good books don’t languish in agent slush piles. –Maggie Stiefvater

I agree completely. The initial stages of the process of trad publishing are to largely to winnow out the Speshul Snowflakes and find out whether you can turn in a decent book, follow directions, and act like a professional human being. If you can do those things, you stand a very good chance of getting published.

* Mike Duran on “When does self-promotion become Too Much?” (via Jess Hartley). My own rule of thumb is that my site and blog (not to mention Twitter stream) must be 80% crunchy content (that is, actual content I feel has value instead of being a cheap shill-cry for “mememememe buymybooks buybuybuy!”); 10% marketing, and 10% random WTF. (The last ten percent is just for my own amusement.) Even then, I try to shut up about the marketing unless I honestly have something to say: a book launch, an interview, announcements fans have asked me for, that sort of thing.

Part of this is that I’m highly uncomfortable with hard-sell tactics. (Yes, I’ll link that post about why the hard sell doesn’t work again. It’s still relevant.) I was always uncomfortable with them, as a customer and even while working retail. I point-blank refused to engage in aggressive selling on quite a few of my retail jobs, and I never had any trouble meeting any quotas. Customer service does not have to mean high-pressure; it means being responsive and offering choices. I figure one has a better chance of building a loyal fan or customer base if you don’t insult their intelligence, which is what constant self-promotion basically is. (With a heavy helping of arrogance. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to.)

The 80-10-10 rule isn’t hard and fast. Sometimes I have a LOT of stuff to announce, and it feels to me like I’m shilling. And I’m sure a lot of people would say my idea of “worthwhile content” is lame. But oh well.

* And just to fulfill the 10% quota of random WTF, here’s a Snickers cocktail recipe, courtesy of Laura Anne Gilman. I love that woman.

It’s taken me a couple hours to finish this post, mostly because I zoomed out the door to catch an open climb midway. After yesterday’s utter triumph, today was a comedy of falling off the wall and swearing under my breath. Oh well–win some, lose some.

Now I’ve got to go get closer to the end of this book. See you around.

I have three scenes to get through today to set me up for the Epic!Battle! at the end of Dru 5. I am going to kick this book’s ass today, I swear. So this will be short.

* The Copenhagen Declaration on Religion in Public Life. I take this as a step forward. I have a close personal relationship with my gods, but I don’t like other peoples’ gods shoved down my throat, I do not require anyone else take my word for the existence of my gods, and I am still undecided on the question of whether or not gods actually objectively exist or are just psychological processes. (That’s reducing a complex ongoing philosophical argument I have with myself to a nutshell; I’m not going into all of it here. Suffice to say I think undecided is a good place to be when contemplating such questions.)

I consider the declaration a step forward. Secular societies have a better human-rights record than religious ones; organized religion is probably the most effective con game ever invented. I’m comfortable having my own religion/spirituality be just one of my many little personal quirks, rather like my preference for Havarti and my belief that mateless socks in the laundry are actually the larval form of wire clothes hangers. All in all, if one must believe in the unbelievable, I think that’s the healthiest route.

* New York Times on resources about bullying and cyber-bullying. I’ve been bullied and stalked, I’ve seen people I care about bullied and stalked. It’s not pretty. I am undecided whether bullying is actually on the rise or just more visible now with the technology we have. It seems people are pretty steadily nasty all through history, and a great deal of that nastiness is overlooked for one reason or another. Anyway, that doesn’t mean anyone should be bullied, or that parents or educators should stand for it. ‘Nuff said.

* An interesting piece about Harriet Wasserman, a literary agent who absconded with some of her clients’ royalties. (Hat tip to Victoria Strauss for the link.) This should not be construed as a case against agents; Wasserman is an anomaly, much like Ted Mooney representing himself effectively is an anomaly. Still, “trust but verify” is a business practice I wish more new and aspiring writers would practice. This is a business, and checking the math and doing your research doesn’t stop once you’re published. Get used to doing it before you’re published, and save yourself a lot of grief both before and after that blessed event.

* The ever-thoughtful Issendai returns to the subject of sick systems, exploring why they are so tenacious. (Be sure to read parts one and two of this series; they’re highly useful.)

There. That’s done. Now I’m going back to getting Dru in trouble. Lots of big, big trouble.

See you around.

I don’t care how “less acidic” it’s supposed to be, I’m not drinking coffee that came through a civet’s rump.

Oh. Hi. Good morning. I had a fab weekend–for one thing, I visited the Ballard Farmer’s Market and ran across Adam Hurst quite by chance. I’ve been a fan of his for years now, ever since he played before a show at Cinetopia. He’s having a concert (that is being taped for OPB ArtBeat, go Adam!) on July 1 in Portland at the Old Church, and if you’re a fan of cello music, I highly recommend you go take a listen. If all else fails, he’s got several CDs available. I often listen to his stuff while writing Watcher books or while cooking; his first two albums also played quite a role in writing Japhrimel.

This weekend we also visited the Ballard Locks and got to see several sailboats go through to Lake Union. This led to a long involved science geekery conversation about how the locks work, the density of water, deep-ocean currents, fish spawning, and sodium chloride. Add in lunch at Lombardi’s and some Cupcake Royale, and it was a very happy, full, and tired Lili who embarked on the long drive home. The Little Prince and Princess were absolutely fascinated by the sailboats and couldn’t stop talking about it.

We had great weather (overcast but warm, which meant we didn’t get sunburnt while we were out scampering around) and a relaxing drive both ways. All in all, it was a rest-and-recharge weekend, and I actually got some work done too. Everyone won.

How’s your Monday, dear Reader?