Achievement, Unfulfilled

There are now not one, not two, but three very rotund squirrels who take it as their personal mission to taunt Sir Boxnoggin whenever the opportunity arises. I’m pretty sure one is Batgirl, and though Olsen Twins is much rounder these days he’s just as nervous and his tail is a sad, sad little crooked thing. The third might be Preggers, but I’m not exactly sure.

Yesterday one scuttled up the fence by the remaining cedars and Boxnoggin went up after it. It’s a considerable board fence, but he still gained enough air–multiple feet, I tell you–to make me seriously concerned. That dog would rock an agility course, once he settled down and decided to seriously work it. As it is, he’s too young.

They said “three, three and a half years old” at the shelter, but if that dog was a day over two when we brought him home, I’ll eat every hat I own, without ketchup even. He’s old enough that running on pavement won’t damage his joints, thank goodness, but he is otherwise chewy and bouncy and full of the energy of youth.

Right now he’s prancing up and down the hall, ready to get out the door and go. We have a middling run today, and no doubt he’s eager to stick his nose in everything we pass. It will take him some time to calm down and actually work on our runs, but that’s okay. Gods know it took Miss B a few years to grasp the concept.

But those goddamn squirrels. They dangle their tails over the fence, chittering with amusement, and Boxnoggin goes absolutely mad. He head-butted the fence at high speed the other day, because Olsen Twins had vibrated right through it to escape him. If he ever catches one of those fuzzy bastards, it’s not going to be like Miss B’s infrequent achievement, where she freezes with the squirrel dangling in her mouth and looks at me, clearly asking now what? No, Boxnoggin knows what to do when he grabs a tiny bundle of fur–shake it until it’s limp, then disembowel it.

I kind of hope he never gets one. As much as I despise the nasty little arboreal rats, that seems a terrible fate for even their ilk. And then there’s the cleanup. Getting Boxnoggin into the bath isn’t the all-day event it was with Odd, but it’s still an undertaking, and carrying a wriggling boxer-terrier covered in squirrel guts into the house might manage to put a dent in even my zen.

I’m going to finish the first HOOD book for NaNo, which means I need to get Atlanta Bound revised posthaste in order to shove HOOD into that daily work slot. I’m only halfway through. Maybe tomorrow I’ll splurge and finish it in a candy-fueled haze. Thank goodness neither the squirrels nor Boxnoggin have access to sugar.

It’s the little mercies that keep me sane. Or, relatively sane.

I hope your Samhain is fun and fruitful, my friends. May the turn of the Witch’s Year usher in the fulfillment of hopes for us all.

Except Boxnoggin. I hate to break a dog’s heart, but I want the squirrel guts to stay firmly inside the damn beasts…

Crawl, Resurrect

I resurrected at a crawl this morning. Both dogs are eager, anxious, and dancing; I am none of those things. I’m heavy, blinking, barely moving from one sentence to the next. I can’t imagine how I’m going to run. Maybe I’ll just let Sir Boxnoggin pull me along wet pavement.

I did have a nice weekend. I met up with the stellar April Daniels and had a lovely time nerding about the Eastern Front and various other things. That was pretty much the highlight; I also scored a couple books I’ve been wanting for a while like Caroline Kepnes’s You. Sunday was full of housecleaning and thunderstorms, as well as a trip with the kids to pick out their pumpkins. The month of no-added-sugar is going to end in a blaze of corn syrup, pumpkin guts, and glory.

What I did not do was work. Oh, sure, I added about 200 words in revision on Atlanta Bound, but my heart was not in it. I worked just enough to to turn down the itch under my skin, which means I am nervy this morning. The need to write has been physical for most of my life; if it ever ends I’m going to be seriously at sea.

The news is a dragging weight on every finger, toe, limb. The stories are ships upon an angry sea. I can feel the panic attacks waiting outside the charmed circle of medication, body and brain trying to respond to the danger. The worst is knowing I’m somewhat protected–only a little–and people I care for are in far deeper danger.

As soon as the coffee sinks in I’ll grab my running togs from the dryer. Sir Boxnoggin will dance and prance, Miss B will moan and yip at being left behind. I can’t take her today, it’s a slightly longer run and her elderly puppy self is not fit for it anymore. She’ll get praise and pets upon our return, and her daily exercise will come from wrestling with Boxnoggin. He is still young and chewy, and can run with me and play with her all day. It wears him out, she gets worn out as well, and with them amusing each other I can attend to work.

At least the rains have moved in. This is the most productive time of the year for me, and I’ve got a glut of work to take advantage of it. If I can just lift this crushing weight enough to breathe, I might be able to get some speed.

Let’s hope.

A Strange Repast

I came out Wednesday morning with the dogs to find out someone had left a half-eaten crabapple and part of a ginormous mushroom on our deck railing, snugged into a corner for ease of snacking. I'm sure whoever left it will return–once the mushroom wears off, that is.

All that's missing is a sign saying "EAT ME"…

Rain, Again

I had set aside today to do a big writing post, but after about six minutes of sitting and staring blankly at the screen, I decided to hell with it. It’s not that I can’t think of a subject–there’s a million of them–it’s that I just plain don’t have the spoons.

So today will be for a nice easy but long-ish run with Sir Boxnoggin, figuring out what to make for dinner, and getting into revisions on Atlanta Bound. We’re getting near the end of Roadtrip Z, and the next serial will be HOOD instead of Tower of Yden. Mostly because the latter requires a whole bunch of research I’m not going to get to for a wee bit, what with the second pass of revisions on Maiden’s Blade arriving in my inbox as well as two short-story solicitations. Add to that the revisions and formatting for the Roadtrip Z box set, the preliminary setup and thinking about the Dolls book, and zeros of both HOOD #1 and Tower of Yden

Jeez. I’m tired just looking at all that. It’s a good thing I have a habit of doing lists, or I’d be floundering.

Oh, who am I kidding? I’m already floundering. You’d think that breaking each book I’ve ever published down into manageable chunks would comfort me now, but each damn time a spate of work arrives I have a couple days of flailing and thinking oh dear gods I will never be able to finish all this, I’ll lose all this work and the sun will go out and we’ll all staaaaarve.

It’s not very pleasant, but at least I know it’s part of the process. So to speak.

Yesterday was a bit awful, but the panacea for my dread and despair is work. So I’m going to throw myself into it, biting off small chunks and chewing them until the flavor’s gone.

It helps that the rain has returned. Maybe yesterday’s flailing had to do, in some small part, with the sudden huge shift in barometric pressure as the weather moved in. I’m most productive during the rainy times, but each time the shift happens, I’m left clutching my head and feeling despair. Which isn’t helped by current events.

Anyway, time to prep for a run and get the day’s work straight in my head so when I come back I can start nibbling and chewing. The little mouse will eat the candy house, one bite at a time.

Here’s hoping your Thursday goes smoothly, my friends, and that I don’t drown under an avalanche of words…

Let Me Be Wrong

Afterwar

I’ve talked before about how difficult and draining  Afterwar was to write, and how bumpy the road to publication was. The pain is still somewhat ongoing; I feel an ignored Cassandra, shouting into the wind. I fucking told you so,

*sigh* I was prepared for the book to be ignored, but I was not prepared for the feeling of…well, I feel like I did my best and it still wasn’t enough. It’s a common, creeping little feeling, lying in wait for any unsuspecting (or even suspecting) writer.

I just keep looking at current events and shaking my head. I saw this coming in 2015, I think, and the weight of seeing ahead, along with the weight of witnessing my country descend gleefully into totalitarian filth, wears on me daily. I can barely stand to look at the news. My heart aches.

Our midterm ballots arrived last week. The Princess and I (the Prince has not yet reached voting age) sat down at the dining room table, shielding our ballots, and passed the state voter’s guide back and forth, reading campaign statements and filling in little boxes. She’s hopeful.

I…don’t know.

History tells me what comes next. The camps and dehumanization are already here, and growing worse daily. The “Fuhrer worship” of that small-handed orange shithead grows, racists and nationalists cavort openly with their fascist buckles jangling, and our major journalism is supine. The police are full of rage, hatred, and military surplus; they are the Mango Mussolini’s private army now.

I know it’s always been bad. Even Eisenhower saw where the military-industrial complex and its pursuit of more profit by fear and murder would end. There’s been no shortage of warnings. America was a genocidal slave state from the start, and refusal to look at that plain fact lets exceptionalism, fascism, and murder grow like rank weeds in rich soil.

I just…I am in despair. I poured my heart and soul into a warning cry, and suspected it would be ignored. The small hope that it wouldn’t is thoroughly crushed.

So I continue writing. What else can I do?

I just finished a romance because after  Afterwar and the epic fantasy, I wanted something lighter. Now I’m struggling with guilt because how dare I write something I enjoy, knowing what I know?

The enjoyment is necessary. We’re not just fighting to halt evil, but also to preserve what is precious and joyful and good. Intellectually I know this.

I just have a hard time convincing my heart that it’s not a waste of time, that I’m not fiddling while Rome burns.1 I already feel like no matter what I do, it won’t be enough. Nobody will be saved, nothing will be preserved, the horrifying things will come to pass and all I’ve ever accomplished is dust in the wind.

I have to believe that it is the attempt itself that matters. I have to believe that daily decency, kindness, listening, boosting marginalized voices, and refusing to let the despair paralyze me matters.

Some days, though, heartsick and sore, I can’t bring myself to. Some days I have very little faith in anything other than humanity drowning itself and the planet in its own blood. Some days, like today, I am not even furious, just exhausted, terrified, and sure that nothing matters.

Please, dear gods, let me be wrong.

Please let me be wrong.

Know This Song

I finished the zero of Incorruptible on Friday, and consequently have spent the last two days trying to avoid working. I’ve thrown myself into housecleaning that didn’t get done with a release and a zero finishing at the same time, and it was still almost physically painful to not-write.

I watched a lot of documentaries. I obsessively played a lot of Summoners War. I took the dogs on very long rambles, which means I have an interesting blister and Sir Boxnoggin is all but dancing in place wanting a proper run but not as energetic as he would be if we’d simply stayed home.

I should be feeling rested. I should be ready to tackle a fresh round of work–Atlanta Bound needs a revision once I prep the last chapters for the serial, the full Roadtrip Z box set news a top-to-bottom revise once I finish that, and concurrently there’s the Robin Hood in Space and the portal fantasy to decide about. I’m also hearing rumbles that the epic fantasy might be coming back to me with an edit letter, so I’m not short of things to do. I’m not even short of the order to do them in.

What I am short of is patience and focus. Two days of aggressively not-working only made me short-tempered and silly. I know that I always need more downtime than I think, I know that the irritation is just a phase and I’ll try to work, run up against a wall, take another day off to watch movies and cry thinking my career is over, and finally wake up the day after that ready to work and wondering why I started sobbing for no reason.

I suppose it’s good to know my own decompression process, but it never gets any bloody easier. The only question is one of degree.

Maybe I’ll start work on Dolls instead. Watch some Wong Kar-wei movies, always a joy and delight. Play yet more Summoners War. Run twice a day instead of once. Go to the grocer’s.

Well, maybe not the last bit. Having to leave the house and be pleasant in public will be like pouring lemon juice on a mass of paper cuts. But in any case, I know this song, I’ve heard it before, and in a little while I’ll be all right again. At least finishing *mumblemumble* books and going through however-many releases means I know I’ll survive this. I have every other single time before.

The suspicion is still painful, but again, I know this song. I’ll hum along, and wait for it to end.

Over and out.

Synchronized Sleeping

What you can’t see to the left is Miss B’s own super-fancy office-bed. She and Sir Boxnoggin have reached the stage of acquaintance where they will bask in sunlight with their hindquarters touching, or synchronize their sleeping positions. By the time winter arrives fully, I’m sure they’ll be happy enough with each other to sleep in a pile of limbs and fur, especially since Miss B has the lovely long coat and Boxnoggin runs warm.

It’s a good thing, to have a buddy.