Lilith Saintcrow

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.

It’s been a rough year. To say the least. Major Life Changes, some I talk about here and some I don’t, have come thick and fast. Eight months ago I wasn’t sure I’d make it. Three months ago I saw light at the end of the tunnel. A month ago I decided I was, in fact, okay and going to stay that way.

I’ve been writing all the while.

On Wednesday I finished the zero draft of the fifth Strange Angels book. I never leave the keyboard after I finish something, whether it be a chapter or a whole piece, so I opened up the next Jill Kismet book and tinkered on it a bit. Then I dragged my weary self to bed, nerves jumping and the flywheel that was powering the story still sparking and fizzing inside my head. Finishing a book is like that, for me–there’s a nervous sense of all that energy and focus bleeding away but not nearly fast enough to let me rest, everything in me raw and quivering. It’s kind of like the adrenaline aftermath of a crisis, before your body gets the memo that everything’s over and it can collapse.

I lay in bed, and I realized with a start that I’d actually finished three books since my life began to implode last May. I was afraid during each one that I wouldn’t be able to get to the end, that the crises would rob me of needed energy to finish or that without the fuel of adrenaline and pain I wouldn’t be able to write something good. This is a perfect example of the irrationality of severe stress, because I was afraid of contradictory things at the same time. Telling myself it was irrational did not help, because then I felt crazy. The only thing that helped was the habit of looking at what needed to be finished first, putting my head down, and plowing through. Breakdowns, crying jags, and dealing with the minutiae and paperwork of a life undergoing massive changes was all very well, but I had wordcount to achieve.

I was so afraid I wouldn’t make my deadlines. There’s no shame in admitting I was terrified. Would I lose my edge or my empathy for my characters if I wasn’t miserable? Would I have to find another job because the writing would suddenly fail? Would my editors look askance at the manuscripts I turned in and gently tell me, “This is unpublishable…just go away”?

I was afraid of all that, and more.

Yet I finished three books. My editors liked the first two as much as they’ve liked anything else, revisions were just the same as they always were. The third has to rest before I can make any judgment, but I suspect it will be no worse than any other messy, terrible, hole-filled zero draft.

Time and again I keep coming back to the simple fact that writing is what I was meant and made to do. I can’t imagine living without it. And writing keeps saving me long after it feels like the rest of the world’s given up. All I have to do is show up, and the Muse is there. As long as I suit up and start swinging, she keeps feeding me the balls. My end of the bargain is simply to make writing a daily priority, and writing takes care of the rest. It is my life-raft, my safety line, my rope, my net, the way I make sense of the world and the way the world makes sense of me.

At the rock wall on Thursday, one young man could barely get four feet off the ground. Shaking, sweating, but grimly determined, he would clip in and climb those four feet. The belayer on duty encouraged him each time. “It doesn’t matter how high you climb. It just matters that you get on the wall. It’s okay. Take your time. It’s not a race or a contest.”

Watching that, I thought of where I was months ago, too frightened to reach the top of the wall. Clinging, terrified, to any hold I could reach, despite marked routes. Just getting into my harness and clipping onto the rope was a victory. Just putting my hands on the wall was another. The actual climbing? A series of small victories. And I thought, as I dusted my hands with chalk and glanced at my belayer, real courage isn’t fearlessness. It’s trusting yourself despite the fear.

I keep coming back to this essential fact, over and over again. Writing has taught me this much, and writing keeps patiently reteaching me when I forget, as I frequently do. Sometimes I feel like an idiot when I realize that once again, I’ve proven to myself that all I have to do is show up and be ready to work, and the writing takes care of the rest.

I suppose I’d feel a lot more idiotic if I actually quit.

So here’s what I have to say this morning. Do that thing you love. Don’t stop. It doesn’t have to be writing. It’s whatever your thing is. But do it. Show up and swing. Get into the habit of doing it during the good times, so it can carry you through the bad. I can promise you that you will surprise yourself. You will eventually get to the top of the wall. You will eventually get to the end of the book. You will eventually get to wherever you need to go. That thing you love, that thing you do, it’s endlessly faithful. As long as you’re in there swinging, the Muse or whatever else will be right there with you. It’s not a contest; it’s not about winning. Or if it is, winning might not be what you think it is.

To me, right now, the winning is just showing up. It is looking back and realizing that once again, writing has saved my life, because I cared enough to show up every damn day. Even when I was half-dead of heartbreak, even when bathing or feeding myself seemed like an insurmountable obstacle, even when I didn’t know how I was going to get through another five minutes without the pain eating me whole, the writing was always there. The writing, for me, will always be there.

I kind of feel like a goober for doubting it.

Over and out.

Or actually, NOT over and out. I promised a giveaway of Jealousy, due to release on July 29. So here’s the rules: comment over at the Deadline Dames, by midnight PST on Sunday, July 11, (do NOT comment here!) and with the help of Random.org I will pick two winners to receive signed copies of Jealousy. I can only ship to those in the US; sorry about that, but that’s the way it is.

Good luck!

How can I have a cold when it’s a hundred degrees outside? I ask you, how? Maybe it’s the mosquitoes. Several people have mentioned how the little buggers seem to be particularly bad this year. I believe the term used was “MUTANT ZOMBIE MOSQUITOES FROM HELL, Jesus!” And I heartily agree. I’m welted up all over.

Anyway, I have great news and some links.

I’ve officially finished the zero draft for Strange Angels 5. This is the end of the series, and I cried like a baby last night when I wrote the last few chapters. My laundry pile is threatening to eat the living room and I just spent a couple hours weeding through email correspondence that I literally haven’t had time to touch for the past week. The race to finish the book meant dumping 4-5K out every day for the past four days–not that I’m under serious time constraints, because the first draft isn’t due for a couple months at least, but the story had taken me over and it wanted out.

It’s called a zero draft because it needs work before it turns into a reasonable first draft that I can send to my editor without cringing. Of course, I’ll cringe anyway. That’s just how it works–the instant I hit the “send” button, I am assailed by the “what if they don’t LIKE it?” tsunami. But before I can do that work and regard the zero draft as just raw material, I have to set it aside. I’m thinking this book needs to be completely out of my head for at least a month before I will have enough emotional distance from it to go back and see some of the flaws enough to correct them.

Now I’m firmly in the snapback phase, which is what happens to me after I’ve focused all this emotional, mental, and physical energy on finishing a book. I’m pretty much exhausted on all three levels, but the engine in my head is still whirring and pulling. It hasn’t calmed down yet; I’m still feeling the reverberations. So I’ll need a day or so to let the force bleed off and return my brain to normal. (Yeah, I know. Or as close to normal as my brain ever gets.)

The other news? Guess what arrived the other day. Go on, guess.

Some shiny new copies of the third Strange Angels book, Jealousy, due for release on July 29! Which means tomorrow there will be a giveaway for two signed copies on my Deadline Dames Friday writing post. Plus, I’ll be sending out a newsletter soon (I haven’t sent one out in months–sorry, Dark Siders! It’s been a bit crazy here.) And, because my faithful Dark Siders are so awesome, I’ll be running a giveaway for signed copies through the newsletter as well. Exciting, no?

Now for the links:

* Mario Vargas Llosa on why literature isn’t dead yet.

*Chapman/Chapman on failing harder.

* And in honor of Jealousy coming out, Graves appears on a list of hot boys over at Suzanne Young’s excellent blog. There’s also a Facebook release e-party gearing up.

That’s all I’ve got, dear Readers. My brain is mush. See you tomorrow.

I do have errands to run. I’m not going to run them. As a matter of fact, I am in full-fledged revolt against the idea of leaving the house today, not least because I suspect I will hurt someone if I go out. I am incredibly cranky today. I suspect I may be coming down with a cold, which only adds. So, today is short but sweet.

There’s an interview with me and giveaway for Strange Angels over at Tynga’s Reviews. Also, Issendai posted a followup to the sick systems post, in which s/he points out that it’s our virtues, not our vices, that keep us trapped in sick systems. Which is a good point.

There’s also a cranky agent cherrypicking the worst sentences out of his/her slushpile and putting them anonymously on Tumblr. I won’t lie. This amuses me mightily because I worked slush for a while. There will no doubt be another queryfail tempest in a teapot over this. We already know how I feel. In addition to being comedy gold, this is valuable advice, offered for free, about what NOT to do on a query. Nuff said.

I’ve got wordcount and proof pages to kick ass on today. One thing about being incredibly cranky: it makes me awful productive. Off I go, then. If you hear screaming, it’s just the Muse as I throw her in the traces and get out the whip. We’re taking no prisoners today.

Over and out.

Crossposted to the Deadline Dames. Check us out!

I’m on Formspring now, if you want to ask me questions. I can’t promise to give spoilers, but between that and the fan forum, you can find out a lot. Tempty, tempty.

I am currently in the doldrums of Dru 5. It’s the end of the series, which means I have a lot of threads to tie in. Plus, there’s always this spot near the end of a book when I’m physically and emotionally exhausted by the damn thing, everything feels like it’s pure crap, nobody’s ever going to like the book, and the desire to just give up wars with the stubborn angry urge to kick the book’s ass and wipe the floor with the Muse’s knowing little grin. Every time I hit this point, it’s the habit of writing every day that carries me through. Well, that and chocolate. And bitching to my writing partner about the damn book.

Add to that the fact that my novel-writing process for the last four books has required me to throw out a chunk of 20K or so at this point because the book’s decided it wants to go in a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT DIRECTION, THANK YOU, and you have crazymaking all over.

I have two things going for me at this point. One is the habit of writing every damn day, no matter what. This is where all that daily effort pays off–it becomes more comfortable to do the damn work than to break the habit. The other is the fact that I’ve done this a few times by now, and the process is familiar. At least, as familiar as a process that changes each time you undergo it can get.

Someone once said, “You never learn how to write a novel. You only learn how to write the novel you’re writing NOW.” It’s very true. The process is also highly individual, which makes generalities even more dangerous. But having gone from a cursor blinking on a new white page in a freshly-opened file to a completed manuscript over 35 times (I had to go back and count, good Lord) and getting over 20 of those finished efforts published, I think I’ve got a fair handle on how the process generally works for me.

It’s like climbing the corner at the rock gym. Each time I go up that particular route, I do it differently. I still use the same skillset and the same tools. And sometimes I get into a difficult spot and have to hang there for a moment and think how the hell am I going to do this, now? Or finishing a long run–I face a different set of psychological and physical “problems” each time, and I solve them differently. Maybe I feel “heavy” and I don’t want to run, or maybe my brain is so busy chewing over something stressful I have to keep bringing myself back to pay attention, or what-have-you. The main idea is to keep running until I’ve finished.

Of course, I have a graveyard of unfinished pieces, or bits that didn’t make it into the finished work. There’s between six and eighteen of those for every finished piece. Sometimes I get myself into an intractable dilemma while climbing and I have to start again. An injury may force me to back off on or briefly stop running; a crisis elsewhere may mean I get off the treadmill without finishing. None of this means that my ability to finish has been jeopardized, or that the process of finishing despite the don’t-wannas is significantly, ontologically different each and every time.

This is why I say it’s so critical for new or aspiring writers to celebrate finishing their first piece and then start writing something else. One time around the merry-go-round doesn’t teach you even a tenth of what you need to know to make it to publication. I consider anyone’s first finished novel a sort of throat-clearing. It’s meant to prime the pump. Only rarely does it result in something usable or salable. After you’ve finished two books you have a better idea of your process. After you’ve finished five you have a much better idea.

But an idea, sadly, is all you get.

I do not mean to imply that finishing a set number of books will make the process more than vaguely predictable, or even significantly easier. It becomes easier only in the sense that one knows one has done it before, which is very good but not guaranteed to make the next effort any less backbreaking.

There’s the same learning curve on submissions, which is why I advocate finishing and submitting as much as possible. Dealing with rejection doesn’t get any easier. It’s still rejection. It still hurts. Nobody likes to be rejected. It’s human nature.

But enduring the merry-go-round of bringing a book to completion and enduring the merry-go-rounds of submitting, revising, undergoing editing, and critique (not to mention reviews) will give you valuable information on how the process affects you. So instead of being lost in a sea of OH MY GOD THIS NOVEL IS GOING TO KILL ME, you will be lost in the sea of THIS NOVEL MAY KILL ME BUT I’M GOING TO GIVE IT A GOOD FIGHT, STABBITY STAB STAB. There’s an inch’s worth of difference between the two.

Sometimes, that inch is all you need.

Which is why, as soon as I finish this post, I’m going right back into the fray. Twenty minutes of tweaking and trimming and I’ll have the book on a totally new course, 20K or so put in a graveyard file for going back to later should I need any good bits of it, and then I’m shifting to the next Jill book while I cool off. I’ve learned that this is how things generally work best for me–first you do major surgery, then you stitch it up and leave the book to convalesce while you go dally with another book to make the first one jealous. Your mileage may vary–but that’s what works for me.

Focus on what works for you. You won’t know until you’ve finished a few books, but that’s OK. You don’t have to know for a while. You just need to be balls-out stubborn enough to keep going.

Good luck.