Lilith Saintcrow

Well, I finished the zombies-and-cowboy trunk novel last night. At least the zero draft. It weighs in at 65K, which is a little large for a zero draft, and means it’ll be closer to 80 after I revise it into a reasonable first draft. That’s not going to happen for a while, though, since I’m going right back to proof pages for Bannon & Clare (due the first week of 2012, I weep for my sleep schedule) and another round of revision on the new YA (after the first of the year) plus the drop-dead date for starting the zero draft of the next Bannon & Clare is New Year’s Day. Begin the year as you mean to go on, I guess.

So last night, sweating and excited, I typed finis at the end of DAMNATION. There’s a sheriff with a hidden past, a schoolmarm with a secret, a gold claim, and zombies. Lots of zombies, and some bonus vampire action. I need to go back and layer in a lot of stuff now that I know the shape of the finished work, and it may be a crappy trunk novel nobody will ever buy, but at least it is no longer a crappy unfinished trunk novel nobody will ever buy. Plus, it features a death by skillet and the immortal line “He ain’t gettin any fresher.” Also, horses, and a group of “frails”–saloon whores–who want to learn to read and figure so they can open their own fancy houses OR stop being cheated by the saloon manager.

…Yeah, I had fun.

I am also thinking of getting bids for help in putting some of the SquirrelTerror saga into, say, a nice thin trade paperback. It would need editing and copyediting, and perhaps an index, and I’m sure I would want to add some footnotes. And a map. So editing, CE, and formatting/design. I’m not sure if it would be viable; I’d probably spend more on the editor than I’d ever make on the damn thing, but it would please me. At the moment, it’s just a thought.

I have further decided I’m not going to run until next Monday. I’m told that every once in a while you have to stop beating on the flesh and give it a slight rest so you can shock it more effectively when you restart. I am sure my body will appreciate this, though the rest of me will be cranky.

And that is all the news that is fit for something, I guess, or at least all the news I can give right now. Next year promises to be very exciting. Maybe another trunk novel will fall out of my head?

*shakes Magic 8 Ball*

Ask again later? What kind of crap is that?

Over and out!

*clears throat*

Angel Town, the last of the Jill Kismet series (for now) is now shipping from Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, and Amazon.

She wakes up in her own grave. She doesn’t know who put her there, she doesn’t know where she is, and she has no friends or family.

Jill Kismet.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be hunched in a corner shaking, as is my usual wont on release days. You’d think they would get easier to handle, but no–I feel the same fierce anxiety each time.

Over and out!

So the new YA is gathering steam. I’ve reached the point of excavating the world instead of feeling my way around in the dark, and I can tell the long dark slump of picking at the book like it’s a scab is just around the corner.

I have, over the course of writing a few books, become pretty comfortable with how that process usually works for me. Familiarity, while not getting rid of the frustration factor OR the sheer amount of work necessary, does help one plan, and it does help one get through the more uncomfortable parts of writing a book with something resembling grace. (Or at least, you can stumble through without stubbing your toes too much.) Being able to say, “Oh, this is the slump part of the project, I can just keep chipping and eventually I’ll get to the dead heat phase,” is a lot easier than saying “OMFG this book is going to kill me WHY AM I DOING THIS?” Note, however, that one can say both at the same time, and the former does help to ameliorate some of the sheer ARGH of the latter.

For me, writing a book goes somewhat like this:

(more…)

Yesterday I was out of commission for a variety of reasons. Today I’m back on the horse while recovering–well, sort of. Sort of back on the horse, not sort of recovering. Recovery is going just fine.

Argh. I can already tell stringing words together is going to be fun today.

I’m at that stage with a new series–too far into the first book to back out, not far enough along that I can see that I have a chance at finishing it–where every single word I put down seems wrong. The world the characters inhabit is opening up, slowly but surely, and everything I wrote up until I felt the first click in the lock of the story seems dead wrong. It’s not, it will just need tweaking. The biggest danger now is going back and getting caught in the death spiral of reworking the beginning so many times one doesn’t finish the rest of the damn book. Which I frankly can’t afford.

I know the solution is just to push through, that this is a part of the process, that I go through this every time, that it will get better as I gain momentum. Unfortunately, all the calm soothing self-talk in the world will not make the feeling of panic any smaller. The only thing that will help is lowering my head and diving right through. Maybe I’m a freak, I don’t know. I just know that the process does not grow any easier. It grows more tolerable with experience, but not easier.

There might be a lesson in that. *sigh* Maybe it builds character or something. When I build enough character, maybe I won’t feel like tearing my hair out and weeping when I start a new series. Won’t that be nice.

Over and out.

This morning’s earworm: Pumped Up Kicks. Hope the rest of Foster the People‘s album is this good.

I’ve been AWOL, dear Readers, because I’m six scenes or so away from finishing The Bandit King. Yesterday I dumped 4K out of my aching head and made structure-notes for the last few scenes. Hopefully I can get this all done before Saturday. (A vain hope, yes, and Saturday is an arbitrary metric. Still…I can dream, right?)

This morning my neighbor said, “Hey…you can use my ladder if you want to get those Frisbees down from your roof.”

“Actually,” I said a little ruefully, “I kind of leave them up there sometimes. Because as soon as I get them down, the kids throw them back up.”

“Well, I thought you wouldn’t have any trouble getting up to get ‘em–I saw your rock climbing videos.”

I laughed, we talked about how we were both uncaffeinated (it was pretty early this morning) and we both trundled back to our respective domiciles to get some java. It made me think.

I’m afraid of heights. Getting up on the wall is a victory over my own fear each time. There’s an arete at my regular climbing wall that freaks me out, and whenever I do corner-climbing it’s claustrophobia and acrophobia all at once. Good times.

I don’t like to run away from things that scare me. If you run, the thing you’re scared of is now behind you where you can’t watch it, and you’re only exhausting yourself. So every time I clip in, it’s a victory. Every time I touch the wall it’s another. And every time I make it even halfway, it’s yet another.

I had vague thoughts of rock climbing making it easier for me to get on ladders. I was wrong. I fear and loathe being on my own roof. (Cleaning the gutters multiple times in fall/winter is always incredibly FUN.) It is not any easier now that I’m climbing multiple times a week–just like slogging through the Slough of Despond part of writing a novel never gets easier. At least, it hasn’t for me–or if it has, the easing has been in recognizing the Slough as part of the process, an obstacle instead of a barrier. I could start viewing the shaking nervousness on ladders as just part of the process. It’s hard to do when your body’s high on chemical fear.

There are things to run away from in life. (Gunfire, abusive relationships, and restaurants that epic-fail their health inspections spring to mind.) Sometimes avoidance is a valid solution. Just be very clear on what you’re avoiding/running from. And that is my deep thought and possibly-useless advice for the day.

Maybe I should get the Frisbees off the roof today. *sigh*