On Professional Envy

This morning, Delilah Dawson asked a really thought-provoking question.

Hm. The answers on the “How do you deal with pro jealousy?” Q are mostly from folk who’ve found peace with it. Who is struggling? I sure am.

— Delilah S. Dawson (@DelilahSDawson) July 21, 2016

I think a certain amount of professional jealousy is healthy, just like a certain amount of fear is. Not the amount (or kind) of either that makes you act like an asshole, but a normal pricking of self-applied spurs, to push one to evolve. To finish more books/short stories/novellas/poems/whatevers. To hone one’s craft. To have more fun on the page.

It’s okay to feel “bad” emotions. It’s like alcohol, sex, or juggling–practiced in moderation, it’s good for you. Fear can keep you from stepping on a venomous danger noodle, and great things have been written with a gnawing sense of god DAMN it all, I’m going to show you how to REALLY DO THIS.

Fear, discomfort, professional envy, these are all part of a full emotional spectrum. You can feel however you want, and plumbing those feelings can help you write more evocatively and, incidentally, become a more compassionate person. Imagine trying to write someone who’s furiously jealous if you’ve never felt the green sting; it can help you understand, and understanding brings not only depth to your writing but kindness to your daily outlook. Now, please note that compassion is not–and should not be mistaken for–admiration or the condoning of asshole behavior, whether one’s own or anyone else’s. It is also not weakness, though people might mistake it for such, and then it’s time to have a big stick handy.

Feeling some amount of professional jealousy is normal. Accepting a certain measure of it robs the feeling of a great deal of shame, just as setting the timer and telling my kids they could swear as much as they wanted until it finished robbed cursing of a large measure of its “forbidden fruit” draw. Certainly you can set a timer and wallow in jealousy, too. (It might even be therapeutic, as long as one gets back to work afterward.) I think a lot of writers have the idea they’re not supposed to feel envious at all, which loads the emotion with all sorts of shame-weight and drags you down.

So how do you tell how much is healthy, and how much is toxic? Two simple metrics:

1. Are you using it as an excuse to act like an asshole?
2. Are you using it as an excuse not to write or finish your works?

IF the answer to either is “yes”, back up. Take a deep breath. Of the two, #1 is the most short-term critical, because one moment of nastiness can–and will–be dragged behind your name in publishing like an anchor, lo, yea, until the end of times. Other people have written at length about how to know if you’re acting like an asshole, so I won’t add more here.

#2 is the more insidious, and the one that you can mistake for actual effort. There are millions of excuses not to write, and the deep cultural narrative we have of the “tortured creative” actively helps to feed them and make them monstrous. I, too, have felt the seductive call of “my career is crap because it’s not as ‘successful’ as someone else’s, therefore I will watch YouTube videos instead of writing.” This is where the habit of regular writing is crucial. The discipline–ideally, or writing every day, even if only for ten minutes–will do more to get you over that hump than any amount of short-term effort.

Humans don’t like uncomfortable feelings. They’re, well, uncomfortable. Frantically shaming yourself and spending a lot of mental and emotional effort pushing those feelings away easily becomes counterproductive. Drawing their venom by letting them be what they are and continuing with the work anyway is a path of, if not less resistance, certainly more wordcount.

Over and out.

Mermaid Doesn’t Wait

This morning’s been all about soaking up the weird dreams I spent last night having while listening to Blue October. I still remember where I was the first time I heard Hate Me, they lyrics staying with me long enough that I got home and fired up my old Windows laptop (good God, that was a long time ago) to search for them. Approaching Normal is one hell of an album, and one that I’ve never felt the urge to write any books to just because it is so raw. It forces me to listen instead of write.

The mermaid short story will be finished today, I think. Then it’s into revisions for The Marked. Getting that done as soon as possible and through the copyediting and formatting is the priority now. Once that’s finished, I may look into the genie story again. It would be nice if a publisher would show some interest in that or in Afterwar, but I’m not holding my breath.

On that note, every once in a while, I’m going to quietly and politely ask that if you liked one of my books, you head on over to Amazon or Barnes & Noble or wherever you like, and at least leave a rating. Ratings and reviews get books pushed up in the algorithms, and that means more books sold, which means I can afford to write more books for you. (It also means I can pay my mortgage. I’m a big fan of that.) If you have the time and the inclination, I’d appreciate it.

There’s another short story pressing on the back of my brain to be told–the Fifteen Wings one–but that’s going to have to wait. It’s not finished marinating yet, and in any case, short stories are just not a good use of my working time unless they’re already sold. If the mermaid would wait, that would be nice. But this mermaid doesn’t wait, I think. Especially when she’s hungry.

The Princess is playing Chopin in the living room, which marries uneasily to the music playing softly through my desktop speakers. It makes me smile. As soon as I finish this I’m off for a run, and then it’s work, work, work. As usual. I feel like the year’s turned a corner, which would be nice if it hadn’t taken over half of it to do so. Of course the news is still terrible, but I have a faint glimmer or two of optimism welling up inside my tiny, shriveled, blackened little heart.

I’ll take it.

Muse, Exercise Vengeance

The Muse has decided that I need to write short stories after finishing revisions on Cormorant Run. I finished a 7K short for an upcoming anthology, and it made me feel almost frantic with loathing. Not because the story is bad, though it could very well be, but because it’s Perry. If there’s a single character that makes me want to scrub myself with hot water, bleach, and a wire brush, it’s him. If I didn’t feel like scrubbing myself raw after a scene with him, I went back and did it again, over and over. Trying to do justice to a hellbreed’s disgustingness is no small order.

So it’s leaving that zero draft to soak in itself for a little bit, while I write the carnivorous mermaid one–alternately titled Fish and The Sea Has Time, though I suspect in the end its title will be a third choice–and then it’s straight into revisions for The Marked. I know Cormorant Run will need another pass, because it’s just that type of book.

So it’s all short stories all the time over here, for at least the next couple of days. While I wouldn’t go so far as to say I dislike writing them, I do find them difficult in different ways than novels. A full-length book is an endurance contest, and I am particularly fitted for those. Short stories are a sprint, an iaido cut instead of a drawn-out slugging match, and they require that I know the arc already before my hand even moves for the hilt. It’s an entirely different set of mental muscles, one I don’t use naturally. So, short stories are hard, and I prefer not to work in that vein.

Which just makes it ever so much more ironic that the Muse is serving them up now. “Here,” she says, “is the entire arc, I already did it for you, now write me this.” Serving up what she thinks I need, dammit. It doesn’t help that short stories aren’t very financially viable, either. Not a good return on my investment of working time. Although I should put together a collection of them, one of these days.

It doesn’t matter–my job is to swing for what she pitches, no matter what brand the spinning globes are. But I really would prefer it otherwise. I think maybe she’s getting back at me for exercising her in new ways. Cormorant Run was probably the strangest thing I’ve ever written to date, and Afterwar, the next big project, is similarly complex, new, and terrifying.

So maybe the Muse is just giving me her version of a breather before we go into the trenches for Something Different again. it’s a version that’s twice as much work as regular work, of course, because the Muse is a bitch and wants me to despair.

*sigh* Off I go to write a mermaid. Enjoy your Monday similarly, my chickadees.

The Madhouse Reopens

After two years, the Madhouse fan forum is back open! It had some significant teething troubles, but I think it’s at least workable now. Enjoy.

We’re also coming up on the release of Wasteland King, the third and final installment of the Gallow & Ragged series. It drops on the 27th, and people are already emailing me with questions and begging for ARCs. I’m sorry, but I have no ARCs to give. (The Madhouse also has a dedicated Gallow & Ragged forum.) I should also say, if you liked the series, please leave a rating or review on the online bookstore of your choice. It really does help, and the more it helps, the more books I can write for you!

Okay, that’s all the shilling I’ll do for today. I know I have to do marketing stuff, but I always feel like a jerk when I do.

The kids have roped me into playing Pokemon Go. The Princess chose Red Team, the Prince chose Blue, so I had to choose Yellow as to keep things fair. (I kind of wanted blue, but alas.) I can see why it’s so popular, but the kids are not allowed to go hunting alone. The risk of walking into traffic or something similar is just too high. On the bright side, I’ve found it can be up while Runkeeper is logging my run, so I can grab a Pokestop or two on my morning sweat-and-stride. I do not catch Pokemon while running, though I will admit to thinking, maybe I should double back and get that one when I’m finished.

So the kids have to buddy up or go with me, and we did a nice long walk last night. We all three bagged a Clefairy, which is good, I guess? I still think someone is going to get badly injured or God forbid killed while doing it, and that dulls any enjoyment a great deal as well as making me somewhat of a wet blanket to go on expeditions with. But the kids are all agog and it’s something we can do as a unit, so there’s that.

And now it’s time for me to go get some of these short stories out of my head, including one told from Perry’s POV for an upcoming Urban Enemies anthology. It’s going to take a couple stabs before I get that one out whole, and there’s the carnivorous mermaid one, as well as one titled Fifteen Wings I need to take a running start and bounce off from before it will settle down. I have no idea why my brain is suddenly turned to short stories; they are viciously difficult for me and I don’t really enjoy them as much as, say, fresh wordcount in a novel. That’s what the Muse wants, and what she wants she gets, at least while I’m in that magical, fairy-dusted period between deadlines.

Still Kicking

guc4 I’m still alive, I swear! This is totally not a ghost playing with electronics to send a message from beyond the grave. Totally not.

Okay, so I might just be a little tired. Cormorant Run revisions are finished and sent off. I’m bracing myself for another round, and also for a bit of trouble getting my brain to SLOW DOWN DAMMIT YOU DON’T NEED TO GO THAT FAST ALL THE DAMN TIME. No, my brain never listens. I have to wear it out before I can get any sleep, just like a dog. A meth-crazed, needy dog who will scratch at the window and howl if you take your attention away for more than two minutes.

The good news is that the Princess returned from her multiple-week trip to Germany! The group had a layover in Iceland, and got to visit hot springs there. (Apparently the water looked like bluish milk and smelled like sulfur.) She credits that stop with staving off the usual Plane-Trip Crud, and arrived home tired but full of happy stories. A big shout-out to Frau L and her family, the Bs, for being such kind hosts, and another shout-out to our friend Frau AMB (you know who you are!) for being willing and able even in the midst of Big Life Changes.

There were church bells and statues and gardens and schlosses–schlossen? Is that the plural? (ETA: I am told it is “Schlosser, with an umlaut.” Thanks!) ANYWAY, lots of fun things, lots of pictures, and my God but I am so glad to have her home. This is by far the longest she’s been gone, and it about wore my nerves down to nubs. She was fine, I was a wreck. But now she’s home, home, home, and I can hug her and see her smiling face.

I can also do some filing and administrative work in my office, since revisions have eaten my head to the point that I have a towering stack of paperwork to figure out. I’m going to play the “shred, burn, or eat?” game with some of it, I can already tell. But that’s for the afternoon. Right now there’s the cavy cage to clean, prep work for dinner…and trying to get the meat inside my skull to stop chewing itself. Letting the flywheel slow down a bit so I don’t wear everything out. I often wonder what and who I would be without writing to keep the hamsters in my head occupied. I suspect there would be a lot of jittering and hair loss. Not to mention semi-tamed squirrels…

Over and out.

The Chewing Tree

Gnaw gnaw gnaw.
Gnaw gnaw gnaw.

Something is masticating this very large fir tree. Miss B has to investigate the marks thoroughly each time we pass. It’s set alongside an elementary school, but the marks reach way higher than even the most steroidal sixth-grader. The tree itself seems to still be healthy, so I’m hopeful.

Try to be kind to yourself this weekend, dear Readers, so you can be kind to others. We all need it a little more than usual.

Over and out.

In Which I Enjoy a Problematic Movie

So yesterday I played hooky after a doctor’s appointment and went to see Legend of Tarzan. It was serviceable–I have a thing for the Tarzan story, even though Burroughs is problematic as fuck. Margot Robbie was a decent Jane, and the CGI was great. Skarsgard looked fluid and very lithe, and clearly liked Robbie a lot. Their pairing had chemistry. It was Samuel L. Jackson and Skarsgard who had the most screen time together, and their chemistry is pretty brilliant. I would love a Jackson/Skarsgard buddy movie. HOLLYWOOD, GET ON THAT.

As for the rest of it, well, it’s a Magical Honky[1] Film based on a huge series of Magical Honky Books, so it’s not going to be anything other than–you guessed it–problematic. And oh, that source material! Before going in, I skimmed the original Tarzan one and two, and rolled my eyes in all the usual places.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a film about the early stages of Tarzan and Jane’s relationship, with Skarsgard and Robbie on deck. That’s what I’m really into the Tarzan thing for, and while I got a bit of it here, there was much more roller derby and not a lot of girlfriend. Which is okay, I like roller derby.

All in all, it did exactly what I wanted it to do, even though I winced at all the Magical Honky tropes.

So today it’s back to work. I’m glad I listened to my writing partner, who said, “THIS IS TOTALLY YOUR NARRATIVE CRACK, GO SEE IT AND ENJOY IT FA CRY-EYE.” I have been hitting the “work work and nothing else” button a little hard lately. Sinking back into the Cormorant Run world is…strange, and a little disconcerting. It came out of my head in such a rush, all its sharp edges tearing, and those places inside my skull are still tender. I keep flinching, having to force myself to look at what happens next, because I know things just get worse for pretty much every character, and now I’m really slowing down and describing the “worse.”

I needed a little restoration, and a little time off from the discomfort. Now it’s time to get back into the fray.

Over and out.

[1] This is the trope where a white boy is Better and Faster and Braver and More Super than any of the darker-skinned people he’s raised by/rescued by/comes into contact with, and ends up ruling them. The darker-skinned people are often, in this trope, conflated with animals/savagery somehow, which makes the whole thing patronizing as well as racist.