Lilith Saintcrow

First, the obligatory self-pimpage: don’t forget the RECKONING contest! The May 31 event grows ever closer!

Things I did today include:

* Dropping off people at the airport without killing, maiming, or screaming at anyone. Banner occasion.
* Staring at a weird pale growth in the front yard until I realized it was a mushroom.
* Saying very loudly, “Jesus Christ, don’t eat that, what’s WRONG with you?” to my dog, then looking up and realizing a woman and her toddler were staring at me round-eyed.
* Wondering just where the J. Peterman Company got my address from. I mean, I’m not mad. I’m just curious.
* Realizing my current TBR stack includes five books on psychopathology, two books on forensic pathology, and six books on World War II.
* Admitting to myself that I find China Mieville‘s brain disturbingly hawt. (WHAT? I paid for Embassytown in HARDCOVER, thankyouverymuch.)
* Spending serious time while walking considering just how best to set up shots of Gilbert the Zombie Gnome at the May 31 event.

Things I looked up today include:

* Mining in the 1800s
* How to say “you magnificent bastard” in German
* Rapiers. RAPIERS ARE COOL. Actually, medieval fencing manuals are interesting too. I should totally get someone around here to put on a couple rapier fights for me…
* Prostitute slang in Victorian London. ^o.0^

Things I wrote today include:

* A mentath, an assassin, and a mad Bavarian go into a mine.
* A REALLY BAD joke. (If it ain’t baroque, donna fixit!)
* An entire email based on a sleeping tapir. (I love saying “TAPIR TOES!” at random moments.)
* A scorching letter to the Entitled Stalker Of The Week. Which I promptly deleted. Because I am an adult.
* An email beginning “Dear Mr. Jones,”. No lie.

And a couple of links to round things off:

* Jill Filipovic on accusing the accuser.
* And the BEST THING IN THE WORLD TODAY is this vlog, where a lovely young lady calls out Beyonce for being a liar-liar-pants-on-fire, and does it with such clarity and grace it leaves one breathless.

Over and out.

I have very little to say for myself, being occupied in sorting out the tangle that Angel Town wants to turn into. So, three random things on a Thursday:

* Note to self: don’t ever buy cheap Q-tips again. You will regret it for MONTHS. It’s worth a couple extra cents to get the cottony goodness. Apparently Q-tips will be joining the short list of Things I Try Not To Skimp On, which also includes toilet tissue, coffee, and enrichment materials for the kids.

* I am at the stage where I just have to keep repeating, “You always feel the book is total crap at this point. Work through it. Put your head down and go through. You can’t fix what you don’t write.” Of course, the signs that I’m at this stage include staring blankly at the monitor, a sudden overwhelming urge to do housework, frequent rounds of whispered cursing, the urge to listen to the book’s soundtrack over and over while I’m running, and the frequent despairing thought that perhaps I should change careers. Go back to school and be a plumber or a paralegal or something. That thunking sound you hear is me hitting the desk with my head. Repeatedly.

* Our cats have gone insane. It’s like they’ve never seen rain or squirrels before, though this is impossible because they’ve lived in the Pacific Northwest all their lives. I can only surmise that they are two-marble beasts–they can only hold two marbles in their head at once. For example, the locations of the food bowl and litterboxes. If you try to shove something else in–like the idea that there is, yes, a screen that is ALWAYS pulled to at the sunroom door, or that windows are solid–one other marble, say the location of the food dish, will fall out, and crazed leaping and OMGWTFBBQLLAMA will occur. Therefore, the only marbles EVER in their furry little heads heads are the food bowl and the litterboxes, and anything else is a perpetual surprise.

I consider this an exciting, if terribly nervous, way to live. And I know I shouldn’t laugh at them, but I can’t help it.

Anyway. I’m going back to slugging away at Angel Town. One of the cats is perched in the window right now, staring at a squirrel in the front yard and making that throaty little oh please oh please sound in the back of his throat. He’s going to leap in a few minutes, hit the glass, slide down, then give me a filthy look as if I’m to blame.

Of course, I will be laughing too hard to care.

Peace out.

Three things this Wednesday, because there’s no time for more:

* I’d done about three miles on the treadmill this morning when a grayish blur caught my eye. It was a squirrel hurtling from Heaven. Or more precisely, hurtling from a rooftop. It fell through several whippy tree branches, somersaulted, hit the fence, bounced and twisted, then hit the ground and bounced again. I thought for sure the little guy was a goner. Instead, he leapt to his feet, glared at me, and scampered off. I gasped and almost fell off the treadmill. I am now told squirrels are tough little mothers, and this one was obviously a ninja. I am torn between the desire to go check the plum tree and see if he’s licking his wounds, and staying as far away from a Terminator ninja squirrel as possible for my own well-being.

* Today was, incidentally, the first day of school. The house is very, very quiet. I keep starting up from my chair, because it is too quiet, then sheepishly remembering that it’s not the silence of Children Up To No Good. I think I’m more nervous than the Little Prince and Princess were.

* I have two books fighting for the right to eat my brain first. Right now I’m settling back and seeing which one wins. They’re both under tight deadline, so I might have to send Necessity in with a baseball bat to restore order and cudgel my gray matter into behaving. That shoudl be fun to watch. *gets popcorn*

Huh. I wonder. Necessity vs. Terminator Ninja Squirrel. A fight for the ages, no doubt. I leave you with that hilarious little visual.

See you ’round!

Five things this Monday morning!

1. I know I’m supposed to give my body a day off to rest and repair itself. The trouble is, I’ve grown to need my daily running fix, and I get cranky if I don’t have it. Yesterday was my rest day. I woke up angry this morning, bounced through my morning run, and hit the climbing wall. That anger is great fuel, but I don’t like it. I have a healthy fear of the destructive power of my own rage. Thankfully, now that I’ve sweated and hauled myself around like a piece of baggage (seriously, I threw myself at the wall today, it was epic) I am reasonably serene. Now I just need to settle down and steady myself for the task at hand.

2. I had this urge to get a CD playing thunderstorm sounds. So I’ve been playing this since Sunday. What the Muse wants, the Muse gets, and I’m apparently needing to hear thunder and rain. At least the Muse isn’t requiring Eddie Rabbit. You know, I used to have Alvin and the Chipmunks doing I Love A Rainy Night on vinyl. I’m old-skool, yo.

3. I knew, when I walked away from my email this weekend, that I would rue it come Monday morning. *glances at inboxes, weeps* I suppose it’s better than coming back to dead silence…but still.

4. Today’s Girl Genius made me about pee myself laughing. This webcomic saved my life about eight months ago, and it continues to throw in a chuckle or two every week. Nicely done, Agatha and crew!

5. I really need to write some fight scenes. Or, more precisely, I need to go out to the heavy bag and work it a little to get some fight scenes clear in my head. I’m in the mood for writing some old-fashioned fisticuffs. In a bar. Or something. Hey, it’s better than actual fisticuffs in a bar, right?

That’s it, the Monday five. Welcome to my brain this afternoon. It’s a weird place to be.

Over and out…

Crossposted to the Deadline Dames, where there was RT madness all last week! Go check it out!

It’s Friday again! And I’m home. Which means a Friday writing post, right? Except I got nothin’. My brain is dry and bare as old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. My wordcount has shot up now that I’m not scraping the bottom of the barrel for emotional energy, and the current novels are in shoving matches over every spare neuron they can find. So this week I’m going to serve up three random things about writing. Your mileage may vary, of course, all standard disclaimers apply.

Ready to get random? Let’s dig in.

* Know the rules–and when to break them. Language has rules. That’s what stops it from being meaningless grunting. People agree on those rules so we can communicate clearly to each other. Communicating clearly is a writer’s job. So keep brushing up on your knowledge of your language.

I keep four dictionaries and three thesauri (of differing sizes), two visual dictionaries, the Transitive Vampire, the Well-Tempered Sentence, the Writer’s Reference, Eats, Shoots, & Leaves, a Bartlett’s Familiar, the AP stylebook, the Little, Brown handbook, three Strunk & White’s, and several baby name books on my reference bookshelf. (I should also have a Chicago Manual of Style, I just haven’t picked one up yet.) I refer to them all. I still frequently make mistakes. (Thank God for copyeditors.) When I come across a word I don’t know, I spend the time to look it up. I love AWAD. I flat-out love language and the arcane rules of grammar.

Words are your tools. But most of the joy in writing comes from breaking rules effectively or using words and language in fresh ways. Without a thorough understanding of the rules, you absolutely cannot break them effectively. It ends up looking like an uneducated mess. Even the most talented writer in the world absolutely NEEDS to keep studying language and refreshing their memory or finding out new things.

So, get curious about language. Look up the rules and get to know them, buy them a drink and take them out for dinner. Then when it’s time, you can slip your hand up the skirt of language and produce something wonderful.

* Want to get good enough to be published? Write every day. Haven’t I learned my lesson? I always get flak when I post this. But I keep saying it, because I believe it’s important. No day is too busy that you can’t find ten or fifteen minutes to write. Plus, getting into the habit of doing it every day will help on those days when you Don’t Wanna Butya Hafta. It also makes the point, to yourself and to others, that writing is important. I won’t go through the entire list of why I give this advice and why I think it’s critical. I’ll let Sean Ferrell make the most important point here.

I write every day. Especially when I don’t feel like it. Especially when it’s not working. I can always choose to not use something that I wrote and that I realize later is the wrong tone, doesn’t fit, contradicts other parts. I can’t decide to use something that isn’t written. I can’t use something that is still in my head. Better to have something come out half right than have all of it perfectly in my skull. (Sean Ferrell)

You can’t revise what doesn’t exist. ‘Nuff said.

* Realize someone is not going to like it, no matter what. An agent might not like your submission. After you get an agent a publisher may not like the piece. After a publisher likes it an editor might not like it unless you revise x, y, and z. After the editor’s happy a Reader might not like it; even if a Reader likes it a reviewer may pan it. Someone, somewhere, is going to be unhappy with your book/short story/poem/song/painting/grocery list/whatever.

Deal with it.

Look, you can print out negative reviews and give them funerals or bonfires in the back yard. Pile up your rejection slips and swear at them as foully as you like, make a voodoo doll just for rejections. You can stamp and scream all you want in the privacy of your home. But in public (and the Internet is public, folks) DO NOT ENGAGE. Don’t bitch about how an agent/publisher/editor/reader/reviewer/fellow writer doesn’t get your geeeeeeeenius. Don’t sockpuppet Amazon reviews or get involved in Internet slapfests. It is not worth it. You end up rolling around in sh!t with a pig; you’ll get dirty and perhaps catch a filthy disease, while the pig will still be grunting and happy. It’s not worth it.

Instead, spend your time writing. Let every rejection, bad review, hard edit, or misunderstanding be an invitation do do better. Anything else is a waste of your time. (This is partly why I don’t respond to reviews, positive or negative, ever.)

Besides, the time you spend keening and moaning or engaging in Internet slapfests is time you could spend writing and getting better. That is the real point of this game, not level-pegging with someone who has decided they don’t like your work. You will not be able to convince someone to like you with pleading or threats, you will always come off looking like the asshole. Don’t do it.

And that, my dears, is a random Friday three. It’s all stuff I’ve said before, but it bears repeating. Now I’ve got to get that werwulf’s teeth out of the supermarket manager’s throat. I suppose I should add that: enjoy your work. Write what makes your socks roll up and down. Write, in other words, what you love.

Why else would we do this, anyway?

Over and out.