Peace, Despite Sunshine

Took a while to lever myself out of bed today. I meant to spring forth as soon as the alarm chirped, but that…did not happen. Yesterday wore me the fuck out, and even retreating early to finish a history book didn’t help. Strange dreams–including one about escaping a cult run by a particularly terrifying individual who has haunted a corner of my consciousness for a while, part of why I wrote Harmony–were less than helpful as well.

The morning’s news is that Facebook, Instagram, and Threads are all down, which must account for the sudden sense of peace in many corners. It’s too much to hope for that Meta has finally choked on its own toxicity, so I’m just going to enjoy it while it lasts. (Probably will be back up before I finish writing this post, but ah well.)

The weather app says we’ll have some sunbreaks today. It doesn’t look likely from the office window, and indeed I’d prefer a solid grey ceiling. But I suppose a lot of other people like the big yellow day-eye, and in any case there’s nothing I can do about it but hide in my cave and hiss. It’s not that I dislike sunlight, precisely, it’s just that I enjoy rain more. I am continually baffled by people who move to this part of the country from drier climes and proceed to complain endlessly about falling water. Of course, what with climate change and the collapse of certain ocean currents we might be looking at drought soon.

…I am a regular bundle of cheer today, aren’t I. Might be because I had to spend yesterday doing a great many things, none of which were writing, and am consequently a little tetchy. I just want to crouch on my strange little office chair, type my weird little stories, and pay my bills. It should not be so bloody damn difficult.

Anyway. Here’s something fun, I didn’t need to hear this song again (ever) but the choreography and the dancers’ precision are amazing. Plus the costuming is A+.

I have the day’s work all set up; I meant to talk about subtext today (due to a discussion in my personal Discord) but that’s just not gonna happen. I’d best finish my rapidly cooling coffee, choke down some toast, walk the dog, and shamble my own corpse before the day gets nay older. A great deal of plot tangles and whatnot will work themselves out while I do so; all I have to do is shut everything external down, turn inward, and let the stories take over once more.

Can’t wait. Have a nice Tuesday, everyone.

Boxnoggin’s Badonkadonk Sunday

Boxnoggin scared the absolute stuffing out of me Sunday evening, so I spent that night and all yesterday in a rather anxious state. Turns out to be a simple muscle strain; he pulled something in his leg while scrabbling down the hall to get a toy early Sunday afternoon, then napped in such a way as to stiffen up. A little rest and a dab of muscle relaxer later, he’s absolutely fine. In fact, he spent most of yesterday zoned on medication and sleeping, which did him nothing but good.

I, however, was checking every quarter-hour to make sure he was still breathing, and agonizing over what we’d do if it wasn’t muscle strain. He was eating, drinking, and eliminating with no trouble, his gums were the proper color and I was 99.9% certain he simply needed rest…but that last .01% is a real doozy. I’m glad to have made the right call, glad it wasn’t more serious, and though my nerves are shot from the worry I finally got some sleep last night.

I had planned to spend the long weekend doing something other than fretting myself dry over a furry toddler, but such was not meant to be. I’m just relieved it wasn’t nearly as bad as I feared. And I did get a lot of reading done–although why my current idea of “comfort read” is Junji Ito horror manga, I do not know–as well as a thorough watching of several very violent yakuza films, mostly Beat Takeshi’s Outrage trilogy.

Boxnoggin didn’t flick a single ear at all the gunfire or yelling. That’s normal, though; he and I both love action movies. Well, I love them, he really likes being snuggled while I watch and laugh at the special effects, or gasp at good fight choreography. Since I’m watching on tablet or desktop the sound is never loud enough to distress either of us. In fact, I’d go so far as to say action movies are Lord van der Sploot’s favourites, because of all the cuddles and occasional popcorn.

Since I was giddy from lack of sleep yesterday, I also took the plunge and moved my business email off Google. Some while ago my website host offered free Gmail-hosted email, and I signed up for it. Years and several rounds of Google enshittification (not to mention sudden charging, then sudden price-gouging) later, it was time to let go, so I did. Archiving everything since 2011 was Big Fun, especially since Gmail had changed to accentuate bloat by never actually getting rid of spam or trash (so they could charge for “storage”), but it’s all done now. Nothing left but the exit interview, and since the MX records all appear to be changed over I can do that at something approaching leisure.

In publishing news, Findaway Voices walked back their egregious rights grab (Writer Beware has a great rundown), which is good news BUT I would not ever trust them again. As Michael Lucas points out, they’ve shown who they are and what their endgame is, and the minute the public looks away they’ll be quietly changing terms once more. It also doesn’t speak well of Findaway that they literally disabled the “delete” button so authors could not pull their audiobooks as the backlash got underway. Their behaviour is so rancid it made even Audible look better, and that’s saying something.

Also, the 2023 Hugo Awards mess just keeps getting deeper. I don’t think we’ve seen bottom yet; there are other rumbles, but nothing I’ve seen reporting on so I can’t say for sure.

In any case, I should get some breakfast and take Boxnoggin for a short, careful walk, watching his left rear leg like a hawk. Mild movement and sniffing at every bush will tire him out, though he’s going to be disappointed at the length of the ramble. I’ll probably be so busy staring at his hind end I won’t have time to toss peanuts to the crows, which is kind of hilarious. “Sorry I can’t feed you guys, I’m too busy eyeballing Herr von Titzpunch’s badonkadonk.”

How is this my life? At least I can probably get to the flying monkeys in a certain Sekrit Projekt today, but in order to arrive there in timely fashion I’d best get started now.

See you around.

Exhilaration, Trepidation

Tomorrow is a release day, so true to form I’m nervous as a long-tailed cryptid in a room full of rocking chairs. I spent last night largely sleepless reading Junji Ito manga, especially his adaptation of No Longer Human, and watching bits of 80’s Hong Kong action flicks. Consequently my head is in a rather interesting space right now. Today’s going to be an endurance contest, and I hope to reach the end thoroughly exhausted–or at least tired enough to sleep.

I did a list of history books I found useful for writing Western epic fantasy over at Shepherd, if you’re interested in that. Oh, and the Monthly Sales page has been updated, since I was notified of a few other price drops over the weekend.

At least Boxnoggin wasn’t restless last night as well. In fact, he snored rather gently into my armpit or ear for almost the entire duration; it’s kind of outlandish to be reading horror manga while 65+lbs of deeply relaxed canine predator burbles moistly against one’s skin. I mean, I’ve had far worse insomniac events, and every time my nerves spooled up I could at least glance over at the dog and think, well, he’s unconcerned, it can’t be all that bad.

Small mercies, indeed.

Part of the problem is the difficulty this series has had getting through the publication process. I feel like I’ve been fighting alone for so long, there’s no possible way to relax. The third great push is still before me, and it’s going to be the most arduous one by far. The exhaustion goes soul-deep this time around; I’m damn near numb, which is hardly a cause for celebration. Of course, choosing to have this be the Year of the Real contributes, and I had to laugh when I found out we’re in Year of the Dragon again as well. I was born in a Dragon year, so hello, let’s pour jet fuel on the burning coal seam!

Jacking into the universe’s flow and riding the wave is great, really. It’s just that when the wave is a monster, the exhilaration is almost as exhausting as the trepidation.

In any case, there’s a few more odds and ends to prep for tomorrow, an entire unrelated to-do list to address, and I think I’m going to let the novella sit and think about what it’s done even though I have a solution for the problem it presented me late Friday evening. I want to get the pitched battle in Highlands War at least settled, so the bulk of today’s writing time can be spent on the Sekrit Projekt. Powering through the mess on that last one will take what limited priority energy I can scrape together.

Boxnoggin isn’t stirring even though I’ve chewed on the dregs left in my coffee mug, probably because I decided not to stay in bed and brood so we’re technically up early. (Technically.) If we get out the door for walkies soon we’ll see the dawn come up together, and he’ll have fun lunging at the feral rabbits who have worked their way up the hill–climate change means we’re seeing territory changes for both them and coyotes.

Monday beckons. I suppose I’d best get started. There’s a long way to go until I can toss myself in bed again and hope for some rest.

Switchback, Lightning Rod

The Year of the Real continues. We’re not even out of January and I already have a form of psychological whiplash, though I’m trying to look at it like the Very Large Unpleasant Thing was a wicket to run through, or a struggling out of a chrysalis, or a phoenix burning down in order to burst into fresh flame–you get the idea. An uncomfortable necessity, a forging to make me stronger even if I would prefer something a little less, uh, red-hot and hammer-y.

My second husband had a theory of enlightenment–he had theories for everything, naturally, it was part of his charm and his downfall, but I digress. “There’s two paths,” he would say. “One switchbacks up the mountain, where you get the howling wind, the falling rocks, the avalanches, the lessons administered time and again. That’s how most poor motherfuckers do it.”

“Heard of that one,” I’d say. “What’s the other?” I rarely minded playing the straight man to his comedian. Part of my charm and downfall, I suppose.

“Well, the other starts in the parking lot. It’s a big lightning rod that goes straight up, all the way to the peak, and there’s a forest of warning signs around it saying DO NOT LICK.”

At that point, I’d repeat what I said the first time he ever expounded upon this theory in my presence. “That sounds more efficient. Where do I sign up?”

Ninety-nine percent of the time, that did him in. He’d laugh until tears streamed down his face, and I’d be pleased to have done my part. The one percent it didn’t was the first time, when he stopped and gazed at me for several seconds, brow furrowed, and finally said, “You know, that doesn’t surprise me at all, babe.” (And then began to laugh.) It was somewhat of a mystery to him, how I didn’t mind the pain all compressed into a few blinding instants if it got me up the goddamn mountain. I was equally mystified by his apparent pleasure in switchbacks and frostbite.

He was about the journey, I was about getting the bitch to Mount Doom. For a long while our relationship worked because of those contrasting commitments. It failed for other reasons, certainly, but I still remember the parts which didn’t rather fondly. And that image–the different ways to enlightenment–has stuck with me ever since.

Even people who leave one’s life change one somewhat. Getting older hopefully means putting uncomfortable changes in proper perspective, and thankfully that process gets easier once one has some Life Experience socked under the mattress. Which could be an argument for the switchblade route, I know.

But I’ve always been a lightning rod girl. So I’m choosing to view the recent unpleasantness as one of my trademark tongue-stuck-to-electrified-metal moments.

Of course the joke is really on both of us. Once the peak is reached, one gets a better view…and discovers that there’s an infinity of mountains, each higher than the last, each with a path (or two, or fifty) and a lightning rod festooned with warning signs in the parking lot. Sure, nirvana probably arrives once one gets rid of the mountains or realizes they’re all in one’s mind, et cetera, but I like learning new things even when the lesson is somewhat painful. And I already committed to sticking around until all other beings get through that particular door first, since the universe interests me and (more importantly) I’m not leaving anyone behind in this mess.

Not if I can help it. Enlightenment’s rather useless, after all, unless one helps others up the mountain–in whatever way they prefer. I do tend to discourage the lightning-rod method, but the sort of people who choose it aren’t the type to be discouraged by my warnings. (Guess how I know.)

So I hit the lightning again, pick myself up on the peak, shaking my head and frowning at the crisped bits in my hair. Stagger away from the pieces of chrysalis, my wings drying to catch the wind afresh. Sing while I scrape the ashen remnants of my old self into an egg of myrrh, and feel the fresh fire in my vitals. Shift my grip on the croquet mallet and eye the next wicket, not worrying about how far into the weeds I’ve been sent.

Pretty soon I’ll arrive in another parking lot, and I might take the switchback route next time…

…oh, hell, who am I kidding? We all know what I’m gonna do.

See you at the top, my beloveds.

Almost to Laughter

I’m almost at the point where I break out in laughter. (Almost.) Generally, once I start laughing I’m okay, and it would be a nice improvement.

Anyway! Things are ramping up for the release of A Flame in the North. The series has had an extraordinarily difficult birth–almost as nervewracking as Afterwar, wherein everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. And there’s a whole lot of work to catch up on, from juggling three books (I’m back to three, hallelujah) to updating book pages to scheduling releases to thinking about covers for a few different things and and and…you get the idea. Just putting my head down and plodding through is the name of the game, I guess.

The weather is finally cooperating. No more freezing rain coating every surface with slippery clear death–it was pretty, especially when the sun broke through for a few moments and dipped the entire world in glaze, but I’d just as soon not do that ever again. Instead, the firs are dripping and when it’s not actively raining mist hangs in a gentle haze over their dark swords, especially at dawn. I love that mist; it’s like a soft filter on the world. It’s not so quiet as during Recent Icepocalypse, but even the hum of traffic seems friendly today. The wind has veered, bringing the ratcheting and occasional blaring of the trains late last night, which half-woke me and I thought, wind’s changed, we’re past the worst.

Gods grant it be so.

I’m still reading The Stand, just reaching the failed appendectomy interlaced with Fran’s “diary”, so it’s about halfway or so. I think what I wanted most was the description of things falling apart, which I did in my own way for Roadtrip Z, and it’s like lancing a boil to a certain degree. (For obvious recent-historical reasons.) Some of it holds up astonishingly well, but what really struck me in this reread (so far) was Larry Underwood “coming out the other side”. King really shines when it comes to describing a personality fraying under the load of awful soul-killing stress.

Yesterday was amazingly productive, between Highlands War–Past Me acted up in the notes, so Present Me put in a vagina dentata joke because I can–and the second Cain’s Wife, which doesn’t have a name yet but is trying to gel under Kaskadia Blues. I also made the best chili of my life, which was a grand achievement I look forward to repeating, and after dinner stole some time for a Sekrit Projekt.

Sometimes protecting the work means shrouding it in secrecy, covering tender shoots so a killing frost can’t interfere.

I must be heading for a spike in some fashion, since every sentence I write has to be redone four times. I’m doing a lot of editing in my head, which generally means I’ve reached the end of a plateau, writing-craft-wise, and am about to make some sort of advance. New skills are being bolted onto the bicycle or old ones updated, I can’t quite tell yet, and the change in balance and speed means I’m wobbling a little. Still, it’s an encouraging sign.

Yep, the sooner I get to the “it’s all absurd, let’s laugh” part of the whole thing, the better. I almost can’t wait for the internal snap and the resultant cascade of giggles. I suppose that’s my own fraying, but it’s better than some other coping mechanisms I could name–or have employed, frankly.

Boxnoggin’s glad to be back in the routine of walkies, and I hadn’t realized just how much those rambles help me get things put together for a day’s work. I suppose I should thank him, maybe by letting him stay nose-down in something rancid for a little longer than I’m comfortable with. Dogs do dog things, yes, but they also don’t make very good choices sometimes, necessitating a “please do not eat that, good gods, let’s move on.”

If only all problems were so simply solved. Tuesday awaits, my dears, let us embark upon it.

Ice Glass Globe

Rough ice, smooth heart.

This is a glass gazing globe in the garden (try saying that quickly ten times) and normally it’s completely smooth. The texture you see is from a few hours’ worth of freezing rain a few days ago. The sight was so arresting I had to stop, Boxnoggin investigating one of the deck’s iced-over support struts, and take a snap before going back to pleading with him to please just pee, it’s very cold out here and I’m worried for your paws.

We were supposed to be melted by now…but that hasn’t happened. The street was a solid sheet of ice with liquid water running over it at several points yesterday, then the temperature went back down and the rain turned back into–you guessed it–freezing rain. Boxnoggin hasn’t had walkies in a few days; we’ve made do with many circuits of the yard, trying to break the ice-crust and gain traction on snow underneath, and a whole lot of playing indoors with his many and various dog toys. On the bright side he’s finally figured out one of the easy canine puzzles left over from Bailey’s tenure. It took her five minutes, he’s been working on the damn thing for months. To be fair we never let him struggle for very long, patiently showing him how it works and waiting for a spark to bridge the gap. We’re ever so proud he’s finally grasped it.

The past two weeks have been sort of awful, to the point of losing weight from stress. At least it stopped before the hair-falling-out portion of festivities, though I suspect I may have acquired a few more grey strands. At least I have the consolation of knowing I’m not the problem; being able to go to trusted friends for a quiet word and hearing, “No, you’re right, this is fucked up and you’re being gaslit” is damn near priceless. For the record, these are the same people with carte blanche and encouragement to smack me right in the kisser should I ever Actually Be the Problem, so it’s nice to know that I remain unsmacked.

I may do a sort of self-publishing roundup next week, since I have hit my limit dealing with a couple corporations’ bullshit, but we’ll see. At the moment I just want all this to be handled so I can get back to work. Significant progress has been made–amazingly, once I stop taking any shit at all, many institutions which have been serving said faeces discover that they are in fact capable of acting otherwise in my direction. Funny how that works.

I’ll leave more Chaucer for next week as well, though I am now in the Pardoner’s Tale. I suspect I have acquired momentum and will be finished with ol’ Geoffrey soon. It’s been a marvellous ride.

See you next week!

…Are We Back?

Apparently I found the limits of my patience last week. Or at least, the limits of my body’s patience with stress.

For literal years I have been fighting alone on behalf of a certain series. It’s been positively nightmarish, both for reasons unavoidable (pandemic, corporate nonsense) and completely avoidable (contempt displayed for the work by those who should be its advocates, etc.). I’ve tried to be flexible, professional, resilient, calm. And finally last week, a straw landed upon the camel’s back.

The resultant snap probably registered on the Richter scale. And it happened after nearly a week of trying to resurrect the final book in said series while being unable to sleep plus suffering the worst case of stress nausea I’ve ever had the displeasure of. Which is saying something; morning sickness, sertraline adjustment, even buying the house was nothing compared to this. I still can’t really eat unless I disassociate, and sleep has been rather an impossibility. I hyperfocused on getting Chained Knight revised during the day for most of the week, with breaks to try opening the master file for the series in question, and each time I did the latter produced fits of nausea so intense I had to eventually keep a bowl next to the desk. At night I lay in bed and trembled, too nervous and vomitous to sleep. By Friday I was entirely shot, and that’s when the whole thing broke.

The hell of it is that I do want to write this book; I long to finish the series. These are books of my heart and what I consider masterworks. But certain issues in the publication process have been so nightmarish my very body has revolted, and there’s been no help in sight. I’m utterly alone in this fight, and it’s beginning to wear a bit. I usually try not to say anything at all, for publishing does its mightiest to convince writers that any faint complaint or refusal to toe even the most abusive of lines will be met with swift blacklisting–or worse.

I just want to write my stories and pay my bills, dammit. And that’s all I can say about the whole goddamn thing.

A winter storm moved in Saturday, after threatening for several days. Lots of powdery snow blowing while the wind gusted and rattled, which suited my mood. I settled on the couch with Boxnoggin and crawled into a paperback of ‘Salem’s Lot–about the third one I’ve owned, since I’ve read two to pieces. (It’s not the only King I’ve read to pieces; I think I’m on my fourth Rose Madder paperback?) I don’t know what it says that my comfort read ended up being Writer vs. Vampire, but it felt…good, to have another world to inhabit and a situation one could at least take action in, instead of simply waiting helplessly for the worst. Unfortunately the book only held me for about a day, but by then I could concentrate a little better and went back to Chaucer.

I had left in the middle of the Wife of Bath’s tale, and now I see why she’s so famous. I love her, even if she’s written by somewhat of a misogynist, and she seems to be an example of what Cleolinda Jones calls “meta-characters”–those who seem not to be created by the author so much as hailing from some other place and springing to life on the page whether the author will or no. One of the hallmarks of meta-characters is that while the author might make them say or do certain things, the characters themselves have a genius for arranging things so that the reader’s overall impression may be far different than what the author intends. A prime example of this is Tolkien’s Eowyn, who shines even through the Jackson movies’ betrayal of her character. (That’s a rant for another day.)

I found myself smiling despite the nausea at certain of the Wife of Bath’s sallies, even while I wished she would get to the damn point. And when she did finish her tale I felt like cheering.

The storm has settled into relative calm and subzero temperatures, with freezing rain in the near forecast. I’ve also read the Friar’s and Summoner’s Tales, and was in the fourth bit of the Clerk’s Tale last night when I felt like I could sleep again. Even across centuries I can see the Wife of Bath’s expression as the Clerk starts listing Griselda’s many patiences. To be fair Chaucer gave the Wife space to be heroine in her own story, and inserts some sly observations in the Clerk’s that make it clear he’s drawing a deliberate contrast and doing it with the Clerk’s own tools of rhetoric. I actually cocked my head last night at a passage and thought, “Why, Geoffrey, I see what you’re doing, you magnificent bastard.”

And Boxnoggin snored wetly against my shoulder at that point, for he was dreaming. He was perplexed by the snow, now hates the cold on his tender paws, yet has forgotten any other weather exists, for lo! he is a dog of Very Little Brane and Very Much Instinct.

I have The Stand (unabridged) queued up for when Geoffrey is finished, and after that Pekka Hamalainen’s Lakota America. Or I might decide to go with the Hamalainen first, or something else entirely. It’s all up in the air. I’ve been unable to work since sending the Chained Knight revision off, and that bothers me a great deal as well. Fortunately a couple friends have been keeping me on the rails, so far as I can be kept–you know who you are, and thank you.

So. Everything is shut down for the holiday and the weather. Boxnoggin will get only half a block’s worth of walkies, just enough to make a nod to habit while keeping his paws from freezing. I’m going to try some actual work today, but if that doesn’t happen it’ll be right back to the Clerk while imagining the Wife of Bath rolling her eyes.

At least I have that.