Monday, Avec Subtext

Recently, I was hanging out in my Discord server and someone asked, “How much thought do you give to the subtext of your novels? (With the knowledge that ~75% of people are there for a plot and won’t pick up on the subtext)”? Which was super interesting and I typed up a long reply, but the question’s been bouncing around in my head since.

I don’t think most people are reading for plot. I think most people are reading for an experience, an exercise in empathy; plot is often a component of that, and characterization is a very important overriding factor as well. But subtext, hmm. My answer boiled down to, “I don’t think about it at all in the zero and first draft. If there’s subtext, I only recognize it in revision–and most of the time the editor sees it, I don’t.”

A story is a living, breathing organic thing for me. In the zero and first draft my concern is only getting the damn thing out whole and undamaged as possible. Any subtext happens almost despite the writer; the story itself chooses what it’s about and its undercurrents. This is not an abdication of responsibility, just a feature of how creativity often works; many’s the time an editor has said, “I love how you put in X as a theme/subtext,” and I’ll go all shifty-eyed and reply, “Yes, haha, absolutely!” before digging frantically in a former draft to find out what the hell.

When I write, I’m concerned almost entirely with just getting the damn thing finished in as undamaged a fashion as possible, getting myself out of the way so the story can come through. Anything else is the Muse’s concern and purview, not mine.

Now, in revision, once I’m alerted to themes or subtexts (which is part of the advantages and services an effective editor provides), I made decisions about highlighting or redirecting, accentuating or burying. And of course, other writers no doubt have different processes; I’m sure there are those who naturally think about and handle the subtext as they’re drafting or even while outlining. So this is not a one-size-fits-all answer by any means, and if you have a different experience while building your own stories, awesome! Go with it. Do what works for you. That’s the entire point.

Moving on! The time change (Daylight Savings, for the curious) is highly unpleasant, as usual. There is a persistent myth that it was instituted for agricultural reasons, like summer vacations in American public schooling, but that just ain’t so. Factory owners wanted to squeeze more productivity out of their caged employees, so the time change was instituted, and proved a little profitable so there’s a great deal of resistance to scrapping the whole thing. It’s all about control and a few more cents squeezed from workers, like so much else. It’s deeply unpleasant and the sooner it’s abolished the better.

…I could also be cranky because the caffeine hasn’t hit yet and there’s a whole lot to do today. That’s a distinct possibility.

Said coffee has been finished but Boxnoggin hasn’t stirred from his first daily nap yet. He was thrilled to have dinner “early” yesterday, even though he’s largely a social eater and sometimes refuses his kibble unless someone will sit at the table and pretend to be snacking as well. Of all our dogs he’s the one who handles the time change best–though he does start lobbying for dinner an hour before the official moment–more out of duty than anything else, I think. He appears utterly convinced the humans will forget to eat if not reminded by their faithful canine supervisor.

Of course, going outside for his first bathroom break happened in predawn darkness, which meant Deathwish BunBun appeared in the ferns along the back fence, giving me a filthy look for invading what he considers as his domain. Amazingly, Boxnoggin was too concerned with peeing and getting back inside to the warm bed to even notice the snackable bit of rodentia nearby, a mercy I am devoutly grateful for.

I love this dog; also, “smart” and “observant” are two deeply inaccurate descriptors for him. He is loving, committed, sometimes cunning, goofy, and energetic, and it’s enough.

Onward to Monday. I’m in a bit of a mood, and unwilling to sugarcoat much if at all today. It’s oddly liberating, like trimming my own hair–another thing which happened this weekend, and it went as well as can be expected. The split ends are gone, I can throw it in a braid for sleep or exercise, and when it warms up a little more the bees will be able to hitch a ride. More doesn’t really concern me at this point.

I’ve got subtexting to do, after all.

For Different Elves

We’re on the downward half of the week, and I’m very close to the point where everything is funny again. That’s the stage right before I crawl into the cave for shelter and only reappear once a book is finished; considering there’s 50k (at least) left to write on the serial and way more than that on the Sekrit Projekt this does not bode well. Of course, it could be the urge to retreat into fictional worlds and never come back out, since there’s so much truly heinous shit going down outside.

I’m sure some Internet Rando will sneer that escapism doesn’t help anything, but I have ol’ JRRT on my side. Tolkien drew an explicit line (in an interview) between escapism in fiction and the duty for a prisoner of war to attempt escape in any way possible; I think about that a lot. I also think about his insistence, in at least one famous letter, that he was creating a mythic sandbox he desperately wanted other people to play in.

That last bit helps with the hatemail I’m starting to see now. I knew it was only a matter of time before some neckbeard or another got mad about me getting my girl cooties all over “Real” Epic Fantasy™, by which they inevitably mean White Male Power Trips. It was so expected as to be hilarious, actually arriving a little bit later than I thought it would. So far the dudes seem really upset that the protagonist isn’t the Valkyrie analogue in the book, that said Valkyrie isn’t banging one of the werewolves, and that the actual protagonist prefers sewing, negotiation, and peace to just about anything else.

They’re going to be real mad when the third book hits.

Those bemoaning the fact that the writing is dense, the language is sometimes archaic, and the narrative moves in ways they didn’t expect were also anticipated; I was asked several times to water the language and the complexity down, and largely refused. I will be precisely as recondite and playful as I wish in this particular trilogy. I’m not writing for those who cannot handle or suss out implications, or those who claim confusion when a character thinks one thing but says another. (It’s called lying. Shockingly, both real and fictional people are capable of it.)

No, I have created this for different elves, as the divine Austen might mutter.

The good news is, Boxnoggin’s completely fine. Indeed the dog’s only problem now is my insistence that he not scrabble-run crazily down the hall or engage in calisthenics all over the living room furniture to reinjure himself. He is most annoyed at the short, very easy daily rambles, too, even though I allow double the usual generous allotment of sniffing time. Fortunately the weather has been filthy enough to keep other dogs inside most mornings, which means he does not exert himself proving his chivalry by acting a damnfool and needing close harness-hobbling. Plus he gets to sprawl on a heated bed for the majority of the day, which does him a great deal of good and will probably cut recovery time down a bit. Small mercies.

The Muse is demanding a steady diet of manga and Donnie Yen movies at the moment. I have no idea, I just give her what she wants. Personally I’d prefer to go back to the stack of history books waiting at my bedside, but she’s voracious and I need her kept happy. Plus there’s the Gamble revision looming, and one for Chained Knight when the editor sends it back. I’m considering a Roadtrip Z series sale next month, too, but that’s a whole lot of setup and I’m not sure I have the hand free to juggle it.

There are also some reader questions hanging fire; I really ought to do a post from the mailbag soon-ish. I do read everything sent, my darlings, I just don’t have a lot of time to respond. It’s either reply to all your lovely missives or write the books you all want, and only one of those pays my bills. I do what I can, yet am perpetually behind the eight-ball, so to speak.

In any case the morning mist is lifting, the coffee is down to dregs, and I should gnaw some toast before the ramble and shamble, the first for Boxnoggin and the second for my silly mental and physical health. There’s an army to get moving in the serial, and actual flying monkeys to unleash in the Sekrit Projekt. I have been looking forward to the latter for weeksnow and have a shot at getting to actually write it today, which provides me with a great deal of anticipatory glee.

Best to get started, then. Excelsior, and all that…

RELEASE DAY: A Flame in the North

It’s here. I have alternately longed for and dreaded this day! For lo, today is the day the Viking Werewolves are set free.

Well, Book 1 of the trilogy, at least. That’s right, my beloveds. The very first salvo of The Black Land’s Bane is now released into the wild!


An elemental witch and her shieldmaid leave home…

The Black Land is spent myth. Centuries have passed since the Great Enemy was slain. Yet old fears linger, and on the longest night of the year, every village still lights a ritual fire to banish the dark.

That is Solveig’s duty. Favored by the gods with powerful magic, Sol calls forth flame to keep her home safe. But when her brother accidentally kills a northern lord’s son, she is sent away as weregild—part hostage, part guest—for a year and a day.

The further north Sol travels, the clearer it becomes the Black Land is no myth. The forests teem with foul beasts. Her travel companions are not what they seem, and their plans for her and her magic are shrouded in secrecy.

With only her loyal shieldmaid and her own wits to rely on, Sol must master power beyond her imagination to wrest control of her fate. For the Black Land’s army stirs, ready to cover the world in darkness—unless Sol can find the courage to stop it.

They thought the old ways were dead. But now, the Enemy awakens…

Now available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, and independent bookstores.

(The series soundtrack is available here.)


These books are very much a love song, and before anyone asks (again), yes, this is a trilogy, Amazon simply refuses to list the third book yet for weird reasons that have no basis in reality. (Book 2 is out in June.)

Anyway, I fought like hell to write these books against what felt like a tidal wave, and a huge heaping helping of thanks goes out specifically to beta readers K.A., J.P., and K.W. (you know who you are) who read Book 1, assured me it was good when many told me it wasn’t, then read Book 2 and did the same thing. A few dedicated people can absolutely help one fight the good fight. I don’t know if I would’ve made it if not for the small but persistent cheering section who absolutely got what I was trying to do and backed me to the hilt.

I’m extremely nervous on this release day–yes, I know, that’s nothing new. I set out to do something very ambitious here and hope it sticks for the people who like what I was aiming for. In the end, that’s all a writer can ask.

And now I’m going to go stick my head in a bucket. It’s going to be a long day, full of nervousness. But I’m very, very grateful to have gotten this far; my dear Readers, I hope you enjoy Sol and Arn’s first adventure.

Whipcrack and Switchboard

Normally I blog with the first jolt of coffee, but today I fell into Cain’s Wife, cleaning up the first 15k or so of text and making sure things are situated correctly for the revenge heist which sets off a potential apocalypse. A pleasant departure from the norm, all told, and the twig of intransigence that bloomed with me deciding to stop streaming (due to the bot and harassment comments clogging the works) has branched into an entire tree of no, I fucking won’t, and you can’t make me spreading in various directions.

Childish? Perhaps. Useful for protecting my working time? Absolutely. I suspect the whole “writing an entire portal fantasy in two weeks” thing was partly a result of that upheaval. There were other factors, naturally–trad publishing, being nasty yet again–but I think the relief and freed-up bandwidth gave a whipcrack and off I went to the races. Also, my dreams have been even more vividly coloured than usual lately, my subconscious passing messages along like a goddamn switchboard.

Anyway, Cain’s Wife is humming along and Highlands War turned in an unexpected direction yesterday. I was pacing from my office to the living room, wholly occupied with a separate plot tangle, and the solution to one I hadn’t even noticed popped into my head, whole and entire. It’s a good sign, meaning the work is growing to please itself. I don’t know how other writers do it, but I’m of the opinion that the work knows what it needs and genre designations, let alone marketing, can come later.

A lot of publishing tries to put the marketing cart before the horse that is the work itself, and then wonders blankly at the resultant shoddy mess. Any attempt from downstream to meddle in the creative process or force a writer to make something more “palatable” or “marketable” is merely attempting to dilute for the lowest common denominator, and the effects are rarely if ever positive. Now, maybe there’s a place for said denominator, sure, just not in my own equations. I’ve never seen the utility of truckling.

Anyway, Boxnoggin got a long ramble today while I worked on the last bits of the heist inside my head, as well as the escape on a high-speed train that ends with a kelpie chase. Well, not exactly chase since the protagonist tells me that in her world, very little is as fast over water as a kelpie. I’m going to trust her, since she’s the one driving this train. If I can get to the tango with the vampire boss who’s about to have a Very Bad Week Indeed, I’ll call today a good bit of work. There’s also this week’s subscription drop (I’ve opened up the Latte’s Worth tier on Patreon temporarily, though it stays open on Gumroad year-round) to get out the door, and I want to get Kaia and her troupe to the Shakespearean-tinted woods as well.

It feels marvelous to be working at this pace again, instead of wasting energy on providing supply for plagiarist bots and narcissistic harassers. Asking myself, “if nothing about this situation changes, how long are you going to stay in it?” has done nothing but good lately. Now it’s time for a shower, a fresh pot of caffeine, and letting a protagonist do some shopping in a magical boutique.

Can’t wait to get started. Over and out.

Tricksy Hobbitses and Sweet Deals

Today will supposedly see the visit of an electrician for the outlet and switch running the garbage disposal; the problem (thankfully) doesn’t seem to be in the breaker. It’s taken nearly a month and several exquisitely polite phone calls and live chats with the home warranty company to get this sorted, and I look forward to it being over–if, in fact, it will be over. The gust of wind you just heard was probably an echo of my heavy sigh.

Cain’s Wife 1 continues apace. I knew I wanted to write this trilogy, and the first book’s definitely not disappointing. I had thought the explanation of just what the big vampire in Belgium is selling needed to go in the first few chapters, but the story felt otherwise. It needs to come after the revenge heist, part of the rising stakes but before the trip to desert sands. We’re gonna have so many The Mummy references in this bad boy, and as many Romancing the Stone ones as I can fit in. So, yesterday was good wordcount on that front. I’m doing at least the first 50k of it for NaNo, so if you’re doing it too, courage, my friend, we’ll get there together.

Highlands War was being shirty with me. I had to toss about 800 words or so of throat-clearing that will no doubt end up as a deleted scene for my subscribers. I finally figured out what the book wanted was Kaia spider-monkeying on a Skaialan giant’s back while trying to wrestling-choke him out of a berserker fit, which was hilarious enough, but then the whole shebang fell on top of poor Redfist. Who, truth be told, rather deserves it. He’s been a giant asshole since he returned home. The thing where going back to a parent’s house turns one into a kid again gets even worse when one is a seven-foot warlord with a grudge and a giant axe.

The storm seems to have mostly blown itself out. The yard is full of downed crap, but at least we aren’t in the position of some poor soul who was running a chainsaw in the cul-de-sac behind us last night. There was a concurrent half-hour of a car alarm going off; both saw and alarm halted at roughly the same time. I can only hope it wasn’t Mike (of Mike’s Deck fame, and if you guys remember that one you are long-term readers of mine indeed) because Pam (not her real name) really doesn’t need the stress.

Anyway, today I write a witch’s uncomfortable call to one of her mothers as well as some shopping for magical supplies, which will serve the dual purpose of worldbuilding, ramping up suspense with the news of just who else is after the thing our protagonist’s going to heist, and the ceremonial leavetaking. (For Belgium. Which makes me giggle.) Then I shift gears to yesterday’s berserker/wrestling combat scene, because I knew even while dumping out 2k of text that trimming would be needed.

Combat scenes, like sex scenes, are tricksy hobbits. The parts need to be in the right place, and the rising tension needs a payoff somewhere. Frankly, I was just so glad the story was moving again without throat-clearing I may have tossed every single detail into the pot and said fuck it, we’ll fix it in revise. Which is a sure way for Past Me to piss Present Me off to no end, but what am I going to do? Past Lili had her own problems.

The older I get, the more I can look back and say that bitch did the best she could, and I should maybe leave it at that. Now there’s some wisdom for a Tuesday.

Coffee’s almost done and Boxnoggin needs his walkies, especially if we’re going to have a tradie here today. Box will be desperate to make the electrician’s acquaintance, but will be barred from doing so because his enthusiasm can be rather…disturbing. And someone brought home two boxes of Pop Tarts last night, graciously dropping into house chat that they are for the delectation of all instead of just the buyer–this ‘having adult children with their own jobs’ thing is rather a sweet deal. (Get it? I’ve been on a real dad joke run lately…)

Off I go.

Double-Barreled Today

We’re getting closer to the second Sons of Ymre being out in the world (Nov 17!), which is a pleasant thought though will be nerve-wracking as all release days, world without end, amen. I’m glad I took a few days’ worth of hiatus; it was spent doing a hot revise on the portal fantasy, which is now resting with the agent and a beta reader. I know it’ll go out into the world, the only question is when. Maybe a Kickstarter?

…yeah, like I have time for that. Hrmph.

Hell’s Acre is also resting with a certain publisher–thankfully indie, not trad. I’m frustrated by how the duology has been treated by the latter; I should have just put it into the self-pub pipeline once the edited ebooks for subscribers were cut, but I wanted to experiment. There were other considerations, true, and of course it’s not really an experiment if there isn’t the risk of things going badly, so I suppose I chalk it up to a learning experience and move on.

Lots of that going around lately.

It’s a new month, which means the Monthly Sales page has been updated. (Remember to check the dates!)

What’s left on deck is the first in the Cain’s Wife trilogy–doing that for NaNo, since the portal fantasy decided it wanted to be born before All Saint’s Day–and Highlands War, where I had a throat-clearing of about 800 words that I had to throw out since it was pretty and worldbuilding but did nothing for the plot. It may make it as a deleted scene for subscribers, at some point. And taking the third spot on the docket is the Ragnarok book, though that’s super difficult to make headway on.

I mean, I don’t know what I expected for a series that ends in a literal apocalypse, and am trying to be philosophical about the whole damn thing.

At least it’s raining. A lot. Every drop renews my soul, and frankly after last summer I needed a deluge or five. Boxnoggin is currently, and very dramatically, Not Having This Rain Bullshit; the poor fellow believes that since I provide food, treats, and all structure to his existence that naturally I also control the weather. He will adjust and consider liquid sunshine the new normal soon enough, losing his entire shit when the dry season comes around next year, but that’s the very definition of we’ll cross that bridge when we arrive.

Today I’ve got to get a wilder witch and her vampire friend aimed at a revenge heist (Cain’s Wife told me what the problem was while I was in bed last night, as books tend to do) and a duel between giants finished without anyone getting killed (though I am pretty sure that’s going to be impossible, and a very tired sellsword is going to be even more irritated). Maybe I can just have someone’s hand lopped off in the latter? I suppose I’ll have to write and see, always my favorite state of affairs. At least Highlands War is behaving like an organic creature now, growing according to its own desires instead of mine. A sign that I’m on the right track.

There appears to be a short break in the rain, which means brekkie and at least the first bit of walkies is a good idea but only if I bolt the rest of this coffee and get going. No rest for the weary or the wicked, and apparently I’m double-barreled today.

See you around.

Good Folks’ Goblet

A tiny goblet, for sipping dew…

The damp chill has been very good for mushrooms, and the Princess snagged a shot of this one earlier in the week. Just a wee little cup, minding its own business.

I’m still consumed by the portal fantasy, and resenting anything that takes me away–even caring for the meatsack carrying me around. I might even have to pick another project for NaNoWriMo, since this one seems determined to finish a zero as soon as possible.

There are worse problems to have. And I’ve cleared the weekend for working on this, so we’ll see how long my wrists hold out.

Have a lovely weekend, my dears.