Lilith Saintcrow

You guys. Let me tell you what my brain is like.

I dreamed I was an intern in a museum. In my dream it was called “the Metropolitan” but I am very sure, having visited the Met once, that it was nothing like this shambling pile of secret passages and crammed-together dusty antiques. (Well, at least, not the parts I visited.) Anyway, that wasn’t the important thing. The important thing was the chili.

You see, there was a mummy-zombie thing roaming the back halls. The top front third of his head was gone and his teeth were stumps; there was just a hole and the hindbrain left, plus the ruined caverns of his sinuses. Which probably explained why he was shambling around with his hand-things in front of him, spindly fingers waving. He could smell the chili, but he couldn’t find it.

You see, it was the interns’ (I was one of a crew of six) job to find the mummy and feed him the chili so he would stop roaming, so he would settle down and wouldn’t upset the patrons with his fleshless self. The trouble was, we were new interns, and nobody had bothered to tell us. So we had to figure it out, which we did, but somehow the security guys were new too and hadn’t gotten the memo. So we had to save the poor mummy from the rent-a-cops in order to feed him his chili so he would quiet down. The problem was, we had to catch him first.

So I woke up, with a cat snoring in my ear and a dog snoring near my feet, and I thought it was the mummy. There was this moist breathing on my ear, and all I could think was, where’s the damn chili? Followed by, dammit, I can’t make this a book, there’s not enough tension structurally to build it. Maybe a short?

So, yeah. Here. Go read Chuck Wendig on why writers are bugfuck nuts. I’ll, um, just be locked up in my house. Alone.

Looking for the chili to feed to the museum mummy.

Yeah.

I find myself hesitating to write what happened next in the Saga of SquirrelTerror. I don’t know if I’m ready. *looks thoughtful* It’s a sad tale, but I guess I should have thought of that when I started writing about the little fuzzballs.

Anyway. It’s Friday, and I haven’t done a Five Things post for a while. Here’s three things I wish aspiring authors wouldn’t do on social networking, and two I wish they would. All usual disclaimers and mileage-may-varies apply. Let’s start with the DO NOTs. (They’re more fun.)

Please, for the love of Crom, don’t:

* List yourself as “Author” in your name field. When I get a Facebook/Goodreads friend request from JANE SMITH, AUTHOR, or AUTHOR JOHN SMITH or JANE SMITH, WRITER, I wince and die a little inside. It has everything to do with my experience of 95% of those requests that I approve inevitably end up with me being spammed, repeatedly and at great length, with desperate self-promotion. It’s unprofessional and just plain annoying. So you’re a writer? Great. You’re newly-published? Double great. You’re self-pubbed? Okay. You don’t need to put it on that particular billboard. Put “writing” in your interests, put a link to your website in your profile, and start interacting like a human being instead of a marketing machine. Hysterical insistence that everyone call you AUTHOR X is not going to gain you an audience or endear you to other professionals. Interacting like a human being and sharing neat things takes you further in the long run.

* Hard sell or spam. I’ve covered this before, but it can always be said again. Spamming me with fifty links during the day about your NEW BOOK OMG, especially when I’ve just approved a friend request, is the way to get yourself unfriended in a hurry and put in that little mental drawer of “Oh, God, I never want to meet this person IRL.” I try to keep to 5-10% marketing at most on my social networking streams, with the rest being interaction and fresh content. I am willing to say one can go as high as 15% without driving away potential readers and professional acquaintances screaming. The trouble is, I see a lot of new/aspiring authors reversing those percentages, and then getting frustrated when they don’t see a return from all this effort. When it comes to this sort of thing, bigger is not better.

* Monopolize the conversation. This falls more under interpersonal faux pas than marketing disaster, but I’ve seen it so much I figure it counts. Even if you’re excited to be in a Google+ hangout or a Twitter conversation with another author, one you might be a fan of or who you might think is a potentially good contact, try not to make everything about you. Do not keep bringing the conversation around to You And Your Hobbyhorses. Don’t try to one-up with better stories. Don’t, for the love of Henrietta, talk over other people who might be shyer than you. Do not lecture, and do not get invested in “getting the last word.” Interact, certainly, but try to interact on the principle that you are interested in what the other people have to say. Not only will this make you look good, it gives you a higher chance of people wanting to talk to you more than once. They won’t run the other way when they see your name pop up onscreen. You will acquire precious reputation as someone who is actually fun to interact with, and that goodwill is worth GOLD.

And now, the Two Dos!

DO:

* Start as if you are a professional with a reputation to lose. From the very instant you step into the wide carpet of kittens and rainbows that is the Internet, you need to be prepared for the fact that it is public. Not only is it public, but if you make a misstep, it lingers. Everything you have written on the Internet is on someone’s server somewhere, and you do not have any goddamn control over it. Solution? From the very beginning, act as if you’re a professional, and think before you hit “send.” There may be things you feel strongly enough about to risk offending people over, but you want those things to be chosen with care and thought, not just mushrooming because you opened your stupid mouth one day and something fell out. If you have Silly Internet Things in your past, it’s never too late to say mea culpa, tighten your belt, and make the commitment to act like a reasonable professional from this moment forth. Also, remember: pseudonyms do not make you anonymous. You are NEVER really anonymous on the Internet, most especially if someone really truly wants to find you.

* Chill. You’re going to find things all over social media and the Internet that make you want to vomit. People will say things that make you want to scream. There will be so much stupid your eyes will bleed and it will BURN. But if you get all het up over every little thing, you will burn out your emotional insulation, your emotional energy, your stomach lining, and quite possibly fuse a couple synapses. There is stupid and nasty and bigoted all over the Internet, and you will not be able to slay that hydra. Plus, sooner or later someone is going to get pissed off and troll you. It is unavoidable, especially if you are a “public” person. Your best defense is to chillax and practice the art of Just Not Engaging, with a side order of Banning Where Possible. Not only will it save you a pretty penny in ulcer medication, but it also makes you look like the Bigger Person and makes the trolls writhe in agony because they’re Being Ignored. And really, what better revenge is there? (Answer in comments. Cheap story prompts FTW!)

There it is. Three and two make five, and I’m done dispensing Possibly-Useless Advice for the day. (Well, not really, but it sounds good.) Stay cool, my chickadees.

Over and out.

Hello, dear Readers. I’ve been visibly neglecting the blog for a while–I hit a burnout stage with the Friday Writing posts, and after my personal life fell apart in flaming fragments, well, the time and inclination was seriously lacking. I had very little energy, and what I had I had to spend on deadlines. (Speaking of deadlines, you can find an announcement about Bannon & Clare here.)

But things are a little better now. I was out at 7AM with Miss B., ran a respectable three miles in just a few minutes over a half-hour. Running outside is very different than slogging away on the treadmill–harder on the knees and lower back, certainly, and I wouldn’t be running outside if I didn’t have the dog. The companionship and protection factor is not inconsiderable at all.

While I ran, I was putting together the Ride of the New Guard, which is to say, a particular piece in the book I’m working on now where I want the rhythm of a gallop to come through the words. It’s going to require some specific music, and some breathing, and some reading things out loud to get it right.

I am always amazed by people who say they don’t read their dialogue aloud to check for rhythm. Often, problems with dialogue or the “scan” of a piece can be fixed by looking for rhythm and breathbreaks–those places where one runs out of air and naturally take a breath. Reading is most often a silent personal activity, but the flow and ebb of speech is still the most natural framework for a story. Emphasis and stress, the upward inflection of a question, the cadence of education or dialect, all these things are a richness just begging to be used, as well as a forensic tool. Often, when you can tell a sentence isn’t right, saying it aloud will show you where the catch is. (Diagramming the sentence sometimes works too, but only in a small number of cases. YMMV, of course.)

Reading your work aloud to yourself (I add the “to yourself” because reading aloud to others is a special sort of hell for me personally, one I avoid whenever possible) also helps with immediacy–feeling it in your own corpus, and therefore being able to bring it to a Reader.

So, while running this morning, I was thinking of the cadence of a gallop, and how to bring that through. Which will mean a lot of muttering as I stare at my screen today, fingers tapping, and my body remembering what it was like to ride a horse. Of course I’ll look crazy, but that’s beside the point. Crazy’s pretty relative if it pays the bills.

Or so I keep telling myself.

This is what the end of a zero draft looks like:

* Every piece of silverware in the house is either dirty or in the dishwasher, which I have not unloaded. The sink is piled high with dishes. Good thing tonight’s pizza night. Except we won’t have plates if I don’t deal with the kitchen.

* Three baskets of laundry are behind my writing chair. I don’t remember putting them there. I think the last time I did laundry was…Wednesday? No, it had to be before that. It was while I was writing the cave scene. In other words, who the f!ck knows?

* Just ate two slices of leftover cake. I NEEDED THEM. Now I feel slightly sick, but my brain is yelling MORE CAKE! I WORKED HARD, I NEED GLUCOSE! I am resisting valiantly. Plus there’s no cake left.

* Found myself bent over this morning, hairdryer in my hand, staring blankly at my toes while I forgot I was drying my hair. Thankfully, nothing was too scorched. Well, at least some of my hair covers the bad bits.

* There is a stabbing pain between my shoulderblades. Need to figure out the memory foam padding in the chair. Also, should stretch more. Yeah. Will get right on that.

* Was in bed before 8:20PM last night. Informed my darling children that I was tired, therefore THEY were turning in early too. They wisely did not quibble.

* Miss B. is shedding. Drifts of white undercoat everywhere. Even if I hoovered every day it would build up. I haven’t hoovered since last weekend. You’ll have to send in the Saint Bernard with the little cask of rum around his neck to find me in the White Wastes.

* My TBR pile looks like a tornado hit it, teetering dangerously on the small table next to the couch. The research books are scattered around, all open to different pages, dog-eared, underlined. The series bible is torn, coffee-stained, stepped on, and generally ragged.

* Only decided to go to post office and bank today once I figured out that due to automated tellers and the automated postage kiosk, I did not have to speak to a single living being.

* Forgot to put my shoes on twice this morning. Only realized it once I had taken a few steps outside. Okay, fine, half a block.

* Woke up this morning and was unsure if I had really finished the book or just dreamed it. Had to check. (This happens far more often than you’d think. I’ve never been wrong, but the idea that I MIGHT be makes me check each time. What? Neurotic? Me?)

* Bedroom is strewn with clothes, for the simple reason that I would be dressing and suddenly drop every article of clothing to run to the keyboard and vomit up another chunk of text. Then I would start shivering and try to figure out why I was cold, and realize I was just in a tank top and one sock. It’s a mercy I work from home, and that I have an alarm on my phone reminding me to be decent before everyone comes home from school.

* I had to ask my daughter what I’d made them for dinner last night. It was waffles. And bacon. Thank God. I’ve never forgotten to feed the children, but I worry.

* Realized yesterday that I could not remember showering at all for the past day or two. Leapt in the shower. Had the shampoo in my hand before I realized I had indeed tried to shower an hour and a half ago, but I had turned off the water and wandered out to get more of the book set down. At that point another chunk of text appeared, so I turned off the water and…yeah. Two hours later, wrapped in nothing but a towel, I wondered why my teeth were chattering.

* The inside of my skull feels like it’s been scraped clean by an enthusiastic Baskin-Robbins employee. With a really cold scoop.

I am proud to report, however, that the zero draft of the first Bannon & Clare book is finished, and buried on my hard drive to age a little bit before I polish it and turn it in. One down, two to go before the end of the year.

God help me.

You know, dry pants do help to civilize one.

This morning I ran several errands with Miss B. along. She still isn’t too sure about car rides, but one of the errands was a 2+ mile walk in the rain, and she was glad to get back into the car after that and spent the rest of the errands snoozing.I did not think of myself as the type of high-energy person who could wear out an Australian shepherd, but apparently, I am. My vision of myself as a sedentary, ambitionless lump is taking rather a hard knock or two.

However, breaking up the errands with that walk meant that for about an hour and a half I was wandering around soaked from mid-thigh down. My feet were okay–wool socks and combat boots, so my toesies were damp but not cold–but my jeans were absolutely dripping. I’m sure I left a trail of moss behind. I have to say, peeling out of wet clothes and into dry is one of the most sensual, civilizing experiences I’ve had the pleasure of encountering. It’s right up there with hot tea, good Thai food, a glass of Sangiovese, and the ability to press a button and hear Beethoven.

Ahhhh.

Anyway, it’s Friday. I’ve grown away from doing Friday writing posts. It’s not that I ran out of things to say. Far, far from. There just hasn’t been a lot of bandwidth available, what with three books due this year, another few books in revision and proofs and copyedits, gah, plus the constant chaos of two kids, now with extra dog.

*time passes*

I wrote all that this morning, then left for afternoon errands. Now I’m here trying to pick up the train of thought that derailed when I looked at the clock and thought oh, dammit, almost late! It was very White Rabbit of me. In any case, I have limited time now before the set of evening tasks rises up to gnaw at my ankles and demand my attention, so let’s get on with it.

To quote Stephen King: Let’s talk, you and I. Let’s talk about fear.

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