Lilith Saintcrow

Steel-toed boots. Eyeliner. A good-quality trenchcoat. A Zippo, just in case. A pocketknife, a handkerchief or two, electrical tape, and a tiny first-aid kit. These are the things no girl should be without. You can, I suppose, substitute duct tape, but a roll of that is kind of hard to stick in a pocket. Though I have. Once or twice. Just to be sure.

“You need chains,” the Selkie told me, and proceeded to equip me with such. They go in the back of the car, along with the two first-aid kits (softcover survival and hardcover medical), the gallon of distilled water (great for washing the floormats after Sir Pewksalot gets excited), some rolled-up towels, bungees (you can never have too many) and granola bars, the roll of toilet tissue and the extra plastic bags knotted up and stuffed into a milk crate. Antibacterial handi-wipes and extra ibuprofen in the center console, a Sharpie, a tiny tub of Carmex (even if it melts, it will be okay, unlike a tube) and a multi-tool that can break a car window and slice a seatbelt…just in case. Ice scraper. Extra dog leash.

In the garage: the axe handle, the heavy bag, canned supplies and water, extras and just-in-cases on shelves next to the decorations and the boxes of author’s copies. (Maybe I could chuck them at an intruder. That might work.) In the house: bokkan scattered about, the linen closet stocked with first-aid and cold medicine and light bulbs, cleaning supplies, and a weapons check every day. Going through each room and making sure that no matter where I am there is a weapon within easy reach. It doesn’t have to be anything someone else would think of as a weapon, just something I can use for self-defense. Even the souvenir rocks from road-trips can be chucked at a poor soul who won’t know what hit them until too late.

Baby wipes. Sleeping bags. Extra umbrella. Go bags by the front door, both for paranormals (haven’t had a client in years, but still keep it packed and ready) and for emergency/disaster. Important paperwork stashed. Extra pens. Scarves hanging on pegs, gloves in a bucket just in case, flashlights checked and batteries tested. Charcoal, tealights, another survival kit, spare sheets for God knows what, a stack of rag-towels for sopping up spills or ripping into bandages. A stack of old cloth diapers, because they are useful. Cat litter, not just for the cats but also for cleanup of who-knows.

I was told, all during my childhood, that I was flighty. That I’d never make it in the real world, because my head was in the clouds. Instead, I’m the one with a stick of gum, the aspirin in the bottom of the purse, the pocketknife, the GPS or the candle or the cigarette lighter. Motherhood taught me some of that, but my instinct, even while living rough, has been to prepare, as far as possible, for whatever.

I am either going to be in great shape when the zombie apocalypse hits…or on an episode of Hoarders. It’s anyone’s guess which.

The weird thing is, I still think of myself as stupid and flighty. I still have the knee-jerk “oh, I’m a mess, I’m never prepared,” even when I’m the one with the spit and baling wire. I am rarely caught-without in any major way, which is probably helped by the fact that I’ve lived in this house for a good decade now. Which is another thing–even after that long, I’m ready to move at any moment. Ready to pack and torch and flee if necessary. I always have been, but if it hasn’t been necessary for the past ten years, well.

My point (and I do have one) is that readiness is a process, and that I am rarely as helpless as I am afraid I might be. As life lessons go, it’s a good one. I just wish I could get it into my skull so I could relax. Well, at least fractionally. But until that happens, it’s the trenchcoat and a pocket check before I leave the house. It’s checking the go-bags every month and eying the linen closet weekly. It’s packing for just in case and hauling what I might need if disaster, either physical or otherwise, hits. It’s getting ready, being ready, as a state of mind.

What do you do to get ready, kids? I’m interested. I’m always looking for readiness tricks to shamelessly steal borrow. Yeah, borrow. That’s it.

Crossposted to the Deadline Dames, where there are giveaways. And advice. And pie. Check us out!
I was raised to (by and large) obey unquestioningly.

Jesus. Stop laughing. I’m serious.

(more…)

First of all, we have a winner in the contest for a signed Flesh Circus! Random.org helped me pick a comment number. The winner is comment #11, kara-karina! Kara-karina, drop me an email with your snail mail address and I’ll send you a signed, personalized copy of Jill’s latest adventure.

Also, I am over at SciFiGuy’s place today, with an interview and a chance to win a copy of Betrayals. I will be answering questions in the comments all day. Come on by and say hello! Plus, I’ll be at the Cedar Hills Crossing Powell’s this Sunday for the SF/F Authorfest. Come by and see me, fellow Dame Devon Monk, Barb & JC Hendee, and a bunch of other cool people, including the 501st Cloud City Garrison (Vader’s Fist). Good times will be had by all.

And now, my dears, for my Friday writing post. Are you all settled in with a tasty sandwich and frosty beverage? Good enough.

If I’d listened, none of this would have happened.

You see, I grew up being told that I was a quitter. That I never finished anything, that I had no discipline. I was told that I had my head in the clouds, that I was unreliable, that I might be booksmart but I would never be smart in any other way. I was just too dreamy. I always took the easy way out.

Part of the work I’ve been doing on myself lately has been taking a look at some of those core assumptions I was raised with. A big core belief is that I’m unlovable. Only slightly less huge is the belief that I’m a quitter, that all my success has been a fluke and that I have to live in constant fear of being exposed as, well, a fake.

I may know intellectually that this makes no sense. But the real work comes in when it’s time to change that sick heart-thumping feeling of danger, the feeling that you might be found out at any moment, that you are an imposter in a world of Real People.

I have two beautiful children I’m raising mostly-alone. I am making a living by writing, not the easiest task. I have over twenty books out. And just this week my editor at Razorbill called and told me Betrayals made the Times list for Children’s Paperback Fiction.

It was about twenty minutes later, when I was squeeing on the phone with my agent, that the ugly core belief came out.

“Do they ever make a mistake?” I asked her, anxiously. “I mean, will they find out they’ve been wrong and take it away? Does that happen?”

She reassured me that no, it did not happen, and we went back to squeeing. But later, after I hung up the phone, I wondered why I’d even thought that. It’s the New York Times list, for Christ’s sake. Why could I not accept and believe that I’d worked my ass off, day in and day out, and might deserve some part of the honor?

Because of that core belief that I’m a quitter. It was said to me so often for the first twenty-odd years of my life that I’ve ended up internalizing it, believing it–and it taints even the best news a writer could hope for with the sullen, gut-clenching feeling of being a faker.

But there’s hope. (There’s always hope.)

I pretty much accepted failure was going to be part of my professional life when I set out to get published. Rejection and failure happen every day, and sometimes multiple times a day for a writer. But total failure wasn’t an option. I decided to keep writing until someone, somewhere, liked what I did and offered to publish it. Sooner or later, I reasoned, if I kept working at it, I’d get on somewhere.

Lo and behold, it happened. I got my first break, and I kept writing. I networked like a mad bastard and kept writing. I got an agent and I kept writing. I got my first New York publishing contract and I kept writing. Other contracts followed and I kept writing. Foreign rights, requests for short stories, requests for other books followed–and I kept writing.

Do you sense a theme here?

The thing about challenging a core belief is that it requires that you take a look at the empirical evidence, not just how you feel. I am supporting myself and my kids with words I pull out of thin air. I do my best to hold up my end of the bargain with my Readers–to tell the truth–and you, my dear Readers, respond.

I made an effing NYT Bestseller List, for God’s sake. This is not something you get just by sitting back and smelling roses. It took hard work and a refusal to quit.

That refusal to quit makes me not a quitter. It means whenever that nasty little voice speaks up inside my head I can meet it with evidence in the real world that I am measuring myself by a broken yardstick. That’s the first step to replacing the yardstick with one that works–and not so incidentally, one that won’t stab me in the heart every time I’m down and a little low.

If I’d listened just to that voice, though, this would never have happened. I would never have even gotten published the first time. I would have quit when I got my fiftieth rejection slip, or even earlier.

Some part of me must have known it wasn’t true. Some part of me set its shoulders, lifted its chin, and said to hell with you and what you think, this is what I’m doing. That part is the real me, and it deserves to come out into the sunshine. This is the first jackhammer I’m going to take to that edifice of the core belief. I’m going to break that f!cker up and turn it into rubble, and build something better.

If I had listened, I would have stopped before I got published. If I’d listened, I would have stopped before I got an agent. If I’d listened, I would have stopped and accepted defeat years ago. I did not. I kept going, even while believing myself a “quitter” down in the secret chambers of my heart.

How’s that for crazy?

So, my dear fellow writers (and Readers), let me tell you this. You are not what other people tell you. You are not what other people say. You are what you do. Don’t stop. Don’t give up. Get that jackhammer, get that wrecking ball, and start the process of being kind to yourself by chipping away at those voices in your head that judge you and tell you you’re Worth Less. Look at what you’ve done so far. Imagine, if you’ve done all this while believing those awful things about yourself, what could you do if you were not chained? How awesome would that be?

It’s not easy work. But, as my sister once so memorably said, “They call it life because it’s hard.”

I won’t give up. And if I can refuse to give up, so can you. Let’s go kick some ass, you and me.

Over and out.

Today’s writing post is another oldie–from April 27, 2007. For various reasons, once I reread it this morning I started crying. I still believe, very strongly, that art saves lives. I have made it through two marriages now, and the Infamous Vampire Novel I refer to below has been sorta-published. But I still hold to everything I say here.

At my blog today I wrote about how deciding not to engage can save one’s life. Here, because I am feeling both introspective and ambitious, I want to talk about writing saving one’s life. Really, any art can save you, but writing’s what I know. So here goes.

I got my first intimation of the power of art while I was a teenager. I was dating a man seven years my senior, who had a taste for very young girls and using his fists on the same. Yes, I was stupid–but what fourteen-year-old isn’t? I had no means of measuring the threat this predator represented, and I had no other benchmark for affection other than abuse. As a matter of fact, the kid my own age I dated before that was so nice I got nervous and broke it off with him, because he didn’t hit me. It just didn’t feel right if someone wasn’t whaling on me.

So there I was, getting it from both ends, and I discovered alcohol. I’m sure I was drunk through most of my junior-high and high-school. I still pulled a respectable GPA–academics were, at that point, still a fun game for me and I have never lost my taste for learning. But I was desperate. There was literally nowhere I could turn. I had grown used to keeping secrets by then, and staying on top of this pile of things I couldn’t talk about was wearying, to say the least.

This was also the time I was reading (please don’t laugh) Uncanny X-Men. A LOT. Especially when Claremont was writing and Lee was drawing. The idea of being a mutant, with these fantastical powers and loneliness, was very appealing.

So I did what any redblooded junior writer would.

I started writing fanfic in spiral notebooks. Obsessively. I even cut back on the drinking so I had more time to write. It started out so innocently, a story about Wolverine and a mysterious assassin who seemed to heal just as fast as he did. Then there was the Colossus-Storm mix, because I thought Forge was a wimp and Ororo deserved someone nice. Then I started interjecting my own characters–Mary Sues and Gary Stus, to be sure, but they felt good at the time.

Things crept into my writing. Descriptions of punches I’d recorded in my diary, things I noticed about the world, snippets of conversation I’d heard. I cut back on the drinking even more to have more time to write. I wrote in the bathroom in the middle of the night, my heart in my mouth, sneaking out of my boyfriend’s parties to write on the porch, hiding my notebooks in my locker because my mother went through my diaries at home once or twice and administered a whuppin’ because of what she found.

The writing was always there. I could take almost anything because I was thinking, when I get by myself I’ll write about this. Fixing my attention on that was a disassociative trick to be sure, but it worked. It gave me a future to look forward to.

Eventually, the fanfic stories grew thin. I wanted other characters, I wanted other settings. I had this idea for a book…a fantasy book. And with my heart in my mouth, I tried writing it. Took me years. And I started not writing the X-Men stuff so much, and started writing other little slushy snippets of things. Here and there. Bit by bit.

I moved away from home and in with another boyfriend. That didn’t work out so well. I bounced around different homes, different relationships, writing all the while. An old friend died and I cried with my notebook in my lap, struggling to put the hurt into words so I could get some sort of handle on it–any handle would do, I just needed one.

I found it in the first few paragraphs of another novel–the infamous vampire novel, of course. Which, like the First Fantasy, will never see publication because it’s so sloppy and uneven. But my God, it felt good to write, and it felt good to bleed off some of the pressure of guilt and grief into the structure of a story.

I’ve gone through a marriage and a half since then, and the birth of two children. And several other life events. Writing has been there all the time–the friend that gives me strength to go on when I don’t think I can. The way of transforming the world to make it reasonable, or at least a little less scary.

A few Decembers ago I was in a bad car accident. (Twisty road, nighttime, a deer on its way home and me trying not to kill Bambi.) Hanging upside-down in the truck’s cab, one part of me was screaming in hysterical fear. The largest, Mommy-based part of me was calmly saying, first let’s get this seatbelt off and kick out a window.

Another part of me, the writer, was considering all of this and taking notes. So that’s what this feels like. Damn, it’s good material.

I was fairly calm, all things considered.

It all started with me and a notebook, the pen in my hand and my heart in my mouth, daring to do that most subversive of acts–tell my own story. To honestly and simply tell any story is an act of magic, an act of liberation. It is a lifering when you’re drowning, a way to scramble for higher ground when the water rises. It is sorcery, a way of remaking the world. I felt like a mutant when I was scribbling in those spiral-bound notebooks. Dangerous, lonely, and socially sneered-at–but with a secret power, a talent I could use for good or for evil, something I could do.

And each one of those words saved my life, over and over again. Each was a step up out of the abyss of believing myself worthless, a waste of skin and breath. Even today, each word, over and over, saves my life. It is a net when I’m falling, a rope when I’m drowning, a reminder to be calm when I’m in the middle of smashed metal and glass, smelling gasoline and so scared I can barely breathe.

I once received a fan letter from a woman who rescues elderly cocker spaniels. She said that some of my books had given her hope, that sometimes when she was feeling down about the plight of these poor dogs abandoned by their owners she could read them and forget, or read them and get a little bit of hope. Just a tiny sprinkle.

I cried.

Because if writing can save my own life, and if it can give someone else a little bit of hope, then I consider it one of the greatest acts of magic I’m capable of. Getting paid for it is nice, sure–I have kids to feed, after all. But if something that saved my life can also give someone else a little bit of hope…that’s damn precious. If even one person feels the world is a better place because of this story I’ve told as well as I’m able, I consider my time on earth well-spent.

And that’s really all this writer asks for.

Crossposted from Deadline Dames

I’m being asked about writing Young Adult fiction a lot. (Go figure.) I can point to this post, where I could finally announce that Strange Angels had sold and went on to talk about YA, bullshit, and low expectations. That was a year ago, it’s probably time to revisit the subject.

I’ve mentioned in a few interviews lately that I never thought I would write YA. I knew, even starting out waaay back when, that I was not going to be very, well, PC as a writer. I write dark little stories full of violence and profanity. This would seem to preclude going into any genre where “won’t someone think of the CHILDREN?” is not just a sarcastic tagline. It just never occurred to me such a career move would be possible.

I mean, I had drabbles and finished novels where the protagonist was between the misty rocks of 13 and 20. I don’t care how old a character is, if they serve the story, fine. They’re in. The problem with those drabbles and novels (issues of first-draft quality aside, thank you) is that the kids in them cursed and bad things happened to them.

In the “young adult” fiction I read growing up, the kids weren’t allowed to cuss and the “moral” was always evident like the shape of a body under a blanket. The classics that could be trusted to tell the truth–like, say, The Outsiders or Judy Blume‘s stuff–were good, but they were so few and far between. I started reading adult fiction at nine years old, with (I will admit this) James Clavell’s Shogun.

I’ll just let that sink in for a second. Let me tell that story. It might be instructive.

I was nine. There was a wooded path to some small shops behind our back yard. The shops were a sort of 1980s rural British version of a strip mall or a stop’n'rob–one sold what I’m sure was lingerie and other, ahem, erotic materials (I never went in, being uninterested in lace knickers), one sold tchotchkes and cheap commemorative tea services, and the most popular sold candy, I think cigarettes, small figurines of animals^[1], comic books, and racks of mass-market paperbacks. I didn’t have much money and I was tired of kid books, so I hied myself down to the store and bought the thickest book I could afford. I figured more for my money, right? I took it home, hid it, and had eye-opening reading material for WEEKS. The book starts out with scurvy and shipwreck on the coasts of Japan, a peeing-on-main-character-to-humiliate-him, political skullduggery, lots of fisticuffs and swordfights and muskets, and (gasp!) a Romance. With actual smexxors, or what passes for them in a Clavell book where the favored euphemism was “pillowing.” (Historical or linguistic verisimilitude aside, I found that hysterical and STILL DO.)

To my uncritical nine-year-old self, this was the Best. Thing. Ever. (I can trace my obsession with katanas to this one unfortunate childhood moment.) It was a Real Book. With Real People doing Real Things I knew grown-ups did, like sleeping in the same bed and cussing. From that moment, I read adult fiction and very rarely, if ever, trundled over to the YA section of the library or bookstore. I had found a brave new world of people who spoke the way I knew real people spoke, and very little was off-limits. (God bless the librarians who gave me curious looks but never stopped me. Librarians RULE.)

Things changed in the very late 90s-early naughts. I was well past high school but I found myself reading more YA, and not for nostalgic reasons either. It seemed to me there was a sea change in the YA slice of the publishing industry, and suddenly taboo subjects–obsession, drug use, even cursing–became a little more okay to talk about. I came across this with LJ Smith, whose Forbidden Game series I ate like candy. It featured an obsessive, stalking otherworldly male (sound familiar?) after a confused teenage girl, and there was real risk–dude, Smith killed a character in the first book! Sure, she brought her back later–but it was heady stuff in a YA.

I started reading other young adult titles after Smith reintroduced me to the genre, and YA seemed a lot better. The new books that were coming out had risk, rewards, the occasional bad word. They were a lot truer to the experience I remembered of being that age, under the strictures of school, hormones, and the crushing non-perspective of youth.

For example, I read Sarah Dessen’s Dreamland in 2000, when I was *mumblemumble24*, and was stunned at a young adult author taking on the subject of teen dating violence^[2]–something I had suffered, but that I had never seen directly addressed in a book before. It was like someone had reached back into a trauma of my youth and said, someone else dealt with this too. Your feelings are normal, you’re not alone.

I’m not ashamed to admit I cried.

It could be that the “sea change” I perceived in YA was just a result of my own limited experience, but I don’t think so. I was an omnivorous reader, hungry for just about anything that rang true. If YA books that spoke directly to my own experience would have been available, I think I would have found them. I think those books–the true speakers–have become much more common and have an easier time getting published as the YA genre has loosened up a bit. It could be kids getting more buying power, or the effect of MTV (back when it used to play music instead of Jackass) and a youth-obsessed culture, or publishing following the loosening of certain social constraints. I’m just grateful it’s happened, as a reader.

As a writer, though, I still never thought I would write YA. It took an editor point-blank asking my agent if I’d consider it before it even occurred to me as a possibility, and even then I made very sure the publisher knew what they were getting into. Particularly in the matters of violence and profanity. You’re not going to get a sweetness-and-light story out of me. It just ain’t gonna happen, honey, so you might as well not try. I can do certain limited short stories with a bit of light humor and happy endings, but there’s still the gore factor.

I write from a dark place, and I’m okay with that.

Profanity, too, is something I’m okay with. Like it or not, it’s how people talk. The trick in profanity is to use it appropriately.

People asked me if I was going to stop cursing when I had a kid. I really thought about it, and my answer ended up being, “F!ck, no.” In the privacy of my home I will cuss if I want to. But how to make sure my kids didn’t end up being filthy inappropriate little bandits without being a total hypocrite and saying “do as I say, not as I do?”

My answer: timers.

Here’s the deal my kids under 13 get: “Certain words are Big People words. They are used appropriately (and sometimes not) by Big People. Little People probably shouldn’t use those words, but I know you’re curious. Whenever you want to use those words, you let me know, we’ll set the timer and I’ll leave the room, and for two minutes you can say whatever Big People words you want.”

Then comes the pause and the Mommy Look. “I know you’re going to cuss when you’re out of my sight. Be careful with that.”

And you know what? Having an avenue to express those words takes all the fun out of the forbidden-fruit of saying them. We’ve only used the timer once or twice, and each time the kid in question actually didn’t want to cuss because it wasn’t fun anymore. I’m told how remarkably good-mannered and clean-mouthed my children are in public or social situations, and I just smile. The timer–and watching me clean up my language in certain situations when I’m on duty to be appropriate and reasonable–teaches the little ones all they need to know about how and when to use the Big People words.

Kids aren’t stupid. They’re hungry for answers, and they will find them wherever they can. I’m glad of young adult books taking on a wider range of issues more true to children’s experiences. I’m glad that I told the publisher “this is what you’re going to get from me” and they replied, “We’re behind you.” At the end of the day, whether I’m writing for adults or young adults, I’m seeking to tell the truth. The truth is that being a kid can be, and often is, just as dangerous and profane as being an adult. I’m thankful for the chance to tell the sort of story I wanted to read when I was fourteen.

I hope to do so again.

^[1] I bought so many of those. Wow. And now I have not a single one. It’s amazing. I wish I could remember what they were called–little ceramic animal figurines available in Britain during the 80s.
^[2] Please also check out Loveisrespect.org.