Book Update

Needing Recovery

It was a mildly eventful weekend.

I finished the zero of Atlanta Bound, Season 4 of Roadtrip Z. Since Season 3 is finishing (and is up for preorder, my how time flies), I’m busy with all things Ginny & Lee. Subscribers get the original, zero-draft, raw chapters, then an ebook of the first draft (likewise raw, but less raw) when the season ends, and the finished, edited, and prettified ebook before it goes on sale, so they get to see how the book changes during the process as well as two free ebooks.

Halfway through pushing to get the last chapter written, the Princess texted–some jerk had stolen her bike seat while she was at work. I ended up taking the one off my own bicycle to replace it, since her bike won’t fit in the car. It was infuriating–bike seats? What the fuck? Who does that? I hope whoever took it gets a suitable karmic vengeance delivered in an extremely timely fashion.

Anyway, a case of bookus interruptus, but once I got that emergency handled and sorted, I came back and found out the scene wasn’t going to end the way I thought anyway. So it was probably a blessing I got called away. It was definitely a blessing that I used the trip away to stop and pick up some milk and a bottle of wine. Not for consuming at the same time, of course.

Taking that first sip of cabernet after finishing a zero draft was immensely satisfying.

I took Sunday off, but only from work since Sunday is Chore Day. Housecleaning, more housecleaning, and as a bonus not only washing Odd Trundles, but giving Miss B one of her infrequent baths. She doesn’t need them often, because an Aussie’s coat is one of the wonders of the world–stuff just dries up and flakes off, and too much bathing can strip it of natural oils and cause problems–but she did need one, and suffered it only through her vast love for her hoomins.

She also tried to escape multiple times. Love only stretches so far.

Anyway, once she was scrubbed, rinsed, and dried as far as towels could make her, she got treats but spent the rest of the day mournfully reproaching me with big doggy sighs, stares, and not-so-subtle angling for more treats. Odd, since he gets a bath pretty much weekly, forgot about the occurrence almost as soon as he got the ritual treats afterward. But B? No, she was in a mood for the rest of the day, and is still a little miffed.

The idea behind taking a day off was to slow down the decompression sickness that shows up every time I finished a zero draft. I tend to work on multiple projects until one heats up and races for the finish, and bending all my resources towards that finish line means after I cross, the momentum is still there. I have to wait for the flywheel to wind down a bit before I can harness it to the other projects again. Bleed off the pressure, so to speak.

So I finished up yesterday by watching Met opera stagings. I have one of Netrebko singing Lucia di Lammermoor I want to watch, and maybe I’ll do that today. Recovery always takes longer than I think it will, even when I give myself a day completely “off.” (Which means only about 200 words in a single project, really.)

If there’s a single most frustrating thing about writing, it’s needing recovery. I want to work. I need to work. Scheduling in recovery time and sticking with it so I don’t work until collapse irritates me almost past bearing. Which surprises exactly no-one, I’m sure. But it’s necessary, dammit, and faster in the long run.

At least there will be some time for Latin today. The urge to read aloud, going back and forth with the translation on the opposite page, is almost like the fidgets that drive me out the door to run.

Over and out.

Crawling Along

I’m backing down from eight shots of espresso in the morning to four. So far, it’s not going well. I feel only half awake. I’m sure restless sleep has something to do with it, though, since Atlanta Bound is heating up and I had to drag myself away from the book last night. It wants to be done, but it keeps wriggling for a dark cave while I crawl after it, stabbing.

Graphic? Perhaps. Accurate? Completely. I need to weaken and bleed out the story to the point where I can finish it off in one last convulsive effort.

The entire corpus of Roadtrip Z is coming up on 200K words, and after Season 4 is finished, there will be a re-edited omnibus/box set. Which means I’m not going to be saying goodbye to Ginny and Lee all at once, but in stages. Which is nice, with a project this large and time-consuming. I’m already tossing around ideas for the serial I want to write after RZ is finished. Current contenders include Hell’s Acre and the Robin Hood in Space story. But we’ll have to see.

So Ginny, Lee, and the gang are almost to their final destination–in more ways than one. The zombies have grown desperate, and like most desperate creatures, much smarter and more ferocious. That’s the thing with a zombie story–the stakes must raise, and you’ve got to leave them room to do so. Fortunately, I’ve known from the beginning what the endgame is, as usual, and just had to throw enough obstacles in their way to make them really work for it. A couple beloved characters are going to have to die, too. And I’ve got to figure out what happens to Traveller-the-Hound.

So my work is cut out for me. Ideally, I’d like to get this zero out by the weekend so I can turn my attention to Hostage of Zhaon, which is currently languishing with an editor. I need feedback, and not getting it in a timely fashion is part of the great dance of publishing.

*time passes*

Typing that reminded me that nobody at the publisher knows what I’m thinking unless I tell them, so I wrote a quick email asking for an update. It costs nothing to ask where the process is at, and may be a gentle reminder that I am PATIENTLY WAITING, DAMMIT. (My agent would be laughing at me now, because she knows the exact dimensions of my professional patience.)

The house is quiet, a band of rain moved through earlier, and the wind is warmer than I expected, given the weather reports. I have to run, then open up Atlanta Bound and crawl along the story’s bloody trail, clutching a knife of words and hoping to at least slow the beast down so I can finish it off in a few days’ time.

Over and out.

Unsocial

I just need a few days where I don’t physically speak to anyone other than the kids. Oh, and the dogs. I mean, I do have to go to Goodwill to drop off a huge bag of the Princess’s old clothes and a bunch of stuffed animals the kids don’t want anymore, but that won’t take long. I just…have been very social lately, and I need to lock myself in my office and lunge for the end of Atlanta Bound. It’ll take some time to finish, but I can feel the fourth and final season of Roadtrip Z gathering steam for the race downhill to the end. Unfortunately, we still need a few deaths, at least one zombie bite, the death of a vehicle, and a run-in with some more not-very-nice survivors before we get to Atlanta, let alone the end.

It will be nice to get to the natural resting-place for the story. Roadtrip Z is one of the longer projects I’ve ever attempted, and there’s a certain amount of “Jesus Christ, why won’t this story just DIE?” going on. It’s a step above a traditional series in complexity, mostly because I have the hard deadline of a chapter each week. Because the working timeline is so compressed, I feel like it’s ONE HUGE 200K BOOK instead of four 50-60K books, and the perception of effort is waaaaay different. I don’t have the cooling-off and incubation period between seasons that I generally have between novels in a regular series. Which means everything’s fresh in my head for a longer period, but it also takes up braincycles I could use for things like, I don’t know, showers and remembering to eat? Maybe?

I guess my work’s cut out for me. Before that, though, there’s a run and some ebook formatting to get through.

Last week was full of Socializing In Person; now I need at least two weeks of closing my office door and not really talking to anyone in meatspace unless they’re my kids or writing partner. Online socializing is fine, because I can control my interaction speed and shut down if I get overwhelmed. Right now I’m in a particular sort of introvert hell, twitching while my energy juices replenish. I hope the poor person on duty at Goodwill doesn’t mind me simply grunting “No receipt, thanks,” and basically running away.

On the bright side, spring cleaning means lots of fresh new space downstairs. If more bookcases become necessary (please, dear gods, let it not be necessary) at least there will be space to shoehorn them in.

So. The second jolt of coffee has been downed, Odd Trundles is snoring contentedly, Miss B is eyeing my running clothes and pointing her nose down the hall, snugged across the office door so I can’t possibly attempt to leave without her, and I’ve a little formatting to poke at before I go run as if zombies are chasing me instead of my characters.

Over and out.

Lemon Glaze

I did not want to get out of bed today. I mean, I don’t ever want to, but this morning’s wanting was in a class all its own. Fortunately there was lemon poundcake left over from yesterday, which was even better today. Maybe it’s the sort of thing one has to make the day before, stick in the fridge, and try not to eat until the next morning.

The best thing about said cake was the glaze–sugar dissolved and heated in fresh-squeezed Meyer lemon juice, then poured over the hot and toothpick-jabbed poundcake, wait ten minutes, brush remainder of glaze over poundcake surface, let cool. The recipe said to take it out of the pan and brush it all over with the glaze, but I decided “fuck that” for two reasons: one, a tide of lemon syrup all over my counter is just asking for trouble, and two, I doubled the poundcake recipe to make a 13×9.

Because when I poundcake, dammit, I GO FOR GOLD.

Anyway, I can only guess that the glaze soaking in overnight, nestling in nooks and crannies, made for super deliciousness the next morning. For those interested, the recipe’s from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cake Bible–the basic poundcake recipe, lemon-poppyseed variation, only without the poppy seeds because I hate the little buggers between my teeth.

So, leftover poundcake with eight shots of espresso, I have a run to get in, and three projects on the burners now. Atlanta Bound is heating up; I have all the pieces in place for the season (and Roadtrip Z series) finale. I’m still going gonzo on Hostage of Zhaon–the first half of it is with a sensitivity reader now, so I should hear back soon whether there are giant fucking holes or the whole thing is just a bad idea. If it’s the former it’s probably fixable, but if it’s the latter, well, that’s 60K down the drain. Better that than being an asshole, though.

I’ve also been playing around with Hell’s Acre. I like both the characters, but I think the last scene I wrote needs to have its setting changed out in order to set up Breakbridge the Orphanage Director. Who is a very decent fellow doing his best.

No, I didn’t want to get out of bed today. Since I’m here and caffeinated, though, I might as well work. Miss B is pointed down the hallway, twitching every time I shift in my chair. She knows I have my running togs on, and that means motion.

Over and out.

Iceberg Fiction

It’s raining, just in time for me to get out the door for a run. The garden is already thrilled, Odd Trundles has retreated to his Fancy Bed in protest, Miss B will complain all the way through our soggy sojourn, and at least there won’t be very many people letting their dogs offleash in this weather.

Small mercies.

I blame the sunshine for yesterday’s slowness. I could not settle for the life of me, and as a result only barely got wordcount on Atlanta Bound and only half of what I needed on Hostage. It’s probably the echo from the one really intense scene in the former that robbed both of the requisite pressure for forward impulse, and there’s no cure for that but time and stuffing the artistic well to its accustomed level. Ginny and Juju need to have a talk about grief, Lee needs to suffer some pangs of conscience, and Duncan Harris (a new character) has secrets. Not to mention in Hostage I need to figure out the etiquette for a new crown princess to visit her father-in-law’s concubine.

Even if the etiquette doesn’t make it onto the page, I need to know it. The vast bulk of worldbuilding rests below the surface, like an iceberg. The reader only sees the very tip, but without the mass underneath, it’s merely pasteboard and doesn’t convince.

So if I am a very focused writer and get a scene in Atlanta Bound plus finish the introduction to the lonely concubine in Hostage, I can write the scene in Hell’s Acre where the Rook meets Miss Dove as a reward. And yes, I do reward myself for work with…more work. If I could just download the stories whole and then revise–but no, I have fingers that must translate, and an entire body behind them that needs to be cared for as well.

Which means it’s time for a run to shake all the cobwebs loose and plan out each scene. Or I might just run with my brain tuned to an expectant humming, letting the engines below my conscious floor arrange things to their liking. Whichever happens will be welcome, as will sweating out leftover stress.

Over and out.

Looking Up

Odd Trundles complained that he wanted his walk, complained that I was not moving quickly enough to get to his walk, complained that he had to go down stairs to get to his walk, complained that it was raining during his walk, complained that his walk was too long, complained that he had to go up the stairs at the end of his walk, and is now complaining that his walk is over and he has a mouthful of chew toy.

It’s hard being a bulldog. Especially when there’s an Australian shepherd nipping at your hind end to quiet you down or boss you around, and the human won’t throw the chew toy the precise amount of distance you require.

The rain was unexpectedly warm, though. Plum trees are beginning to wear their fleece decorations, cherry trees waking up in droves instead of just the odd sentinel here and there. The ones who woke early are whispering with contentment, the newcomers singing a beat late but full-throat. The crocuses have their yellow hearts on display, jonquils and daffodils nodding cheerfully…and the hellebore, as usual, is watching this with a great deal of amusement.

I am finally possessed of a day where I don’t have to leave the house, and plan to spend it right here, occasionally stretching or looking out the window to see the remaining cedars dance on a wet spring wind. I’m sure Miss B wants a run, but she’ll have to make do with walkies. I have the fallout from an incredibly emotional scene in Roadtrip Z to write, and last night’s prince-and-general conversation over drinks to look through, tweak, and layer description into. Hostage is now 50K, and I’m only halfway through what I need it to be. Plus I should get started on revisions for Steelflower’s Song if I intend to release it later this year. And there’s the little matter of Jozzie & Sugar Belle to revise, as well as edits for Rattlesnake Wind coming down the pike at some point. In short, there is more work than even I know what to do with, and that is my preferred state.

Still, I am going to take a few minutes to enjoy some well-earned, nourishing solitude. And the fact that I don’t have to leave the house today.

Things are looking up.

Hapless Fruit

News! There’s news! Season 3 of Roadtrip Z—Pocalypse Road–is now up for preorder. (Yes, there will be a paperback version, too.) Also, I hived off my editing, cover copy, and formatting services to a separate site. 1

I’m kind of waiting for that email address to start receiving the email equivalent of cold calls. There’s been a rash of them lately, people wanting me to stick links to something or another in one of my blog posts. I’d almost be willing to do so if their content was reasonable…except for the informality of their address. I’m much more likely to consider a request kindly (or at all) if the stranger making the request doesn’t start their email with “Hey Lili!” Or “Hey Lillith”, or “Hi Lilly”, or some other version of the same. Strike one is acting like you know me; strikes two and three are misspelling my name. 2 Some days the offers on tap even amuse me, like the “anti-piracy service” that wants me to give them my phone number.

Mostly, it’s the hapless and transparent that amuse me. There’s a line between that and insulting my intelligence, and some days my drawing of the line is dependent upon my mood.

Consequently I’ve been having fun consigning things to my spam folders. True to form, I have a little song I often sing when I have the time and the inclination and a few things to heave into the spam pile. It’s basically just me repeating “You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead to me,” to the tune of whatever music I heard last. (It gets really fun when I’ve been on an opera jag.) Since today is apparently all about Depeche Mode, you can well imagine.

Yesterday I also wrote 7K of a weird steampunk-y romance, but I don’t think it’ll go anywhere. I feel so bloody liberated at not having to keep forcing myself to write the one book that was prompting heaving and all sorts of internal damage, I’m just slopping over with creativity. Unfortunately, today I have a million things to do that do not involve wordcount. In between the grocer’s, baking, and paperwork, I’ll have to steal away for a few forbidden sentences.

That’s the most satisfying kind of writing, and sometimes I think I fill most of the day with trivia in order to make the writing feel like stolen fruit. Other times, I’m sure that it’s the trivia that provides grist, or that I simply amuse myself until my most creative time–from about 3pm to 10pm–rolls around. Interestingly enough, 3-4pm is the doldrums, that time during which i am most likely to feel that my life has no meaning and I might as well walk off a cliff, so I begin writing to force away the urge to find one.3 When I’m allowed to pursue the schedule my body wants–rising about noon, at work between 1-2pm, a long walk/run in the evening, more work and going to bed between 3-5am) the doldrums don’t occur, but my internal clock is at variance with the rest of the world, including children’s school hours and the dogs’ stomachs.

Adapt and make do.

Anyway, this has taken an hour, since I am distracted with lists of things to do today and dogs who need petting and cooing such a good girl, such a best boy. The coffee has soaked in, and it’s time to embark upon Monday.

Over and out.