Yesterday I put the Princess on a plane. She’s part of a German-American exchange–remember Frau L? Now it’s the Princess’s turn to visit a strange land. (So far this morning she says, “Seen a KFC. Distinct lack of pickup trucks. Also, no turn signals.”)
It’s amazing that we can communicate virtually instantaneously over such distances. “We live in the FUTURE,” we keep saying to each other. I was able to track her flights in realtime, waking up every hour or so and reaching for a tiny computer on my nightstand that also holds my calendar, contacts, photos, email, games, social media…and a flashlight! Not to mention Neko Atsume.
Sometimes I forget just how amazing this all is, and how lucky I am to be born in a time and place and socioeconomic bracket where I can utilize such things. The internet isn’t ubiquitous, as I often say, it just feels like it when you’re surfing.
So my girl is half a world away, in the care of very nice people, and once she gets some sleep she’ll have the time of her life. It will be the longest and furthest we’ve ever been separated. I miss her, the Little Prince misses her; the Mad Tortie is dimly aware that one of her usual complement of slaves is AWOL and has begun to voice tiny complaints in between demanding skritches from the remaining ones.
She packed for a week before she left. Ferociously organized, that girl. Not sure where she learned that, since I function best in a sort of regulated chaos. (You should see my office.) Both her carryons were well below the weight limit since she’d planning to bring back a dirndl, and I keep thinking, wait, did I remind her to take that? I should have told her to do this. Or I should have arranged the other.
Learning to let go is also a part of motherhood. You wake up one day and realize that if something happened to you, the tiny squalling bundles you’ve been worrying over 24/7 for almost twenty years could make it just fine in the world. It’s…sobering. Terrifying. If you’ve done your job, they can survive without you. Which rudely whacks at a pillar of one’s identity, with a baseball bat, no less.
So while she’s learning all sorts of young-adult things about travel and the big old world, I’m learning to pry my worry loose and let it go. That’s another thing about kids–they never stop teaching you how to be a better person.
So if you want me, I’ll be rocking back and forth in the corner, checking my phone obsessively in case she sends me photos. Faking handling this gracefully is going to be my new norm for a few weeks.
A ramble with Miss B (whose leg is doing fine, though I am still chary of taking her running) always shows me something interesting. I’m not sure this tree will survive the hole at its base, but while it does, I think about what could live in such a space.
Stories are everywhere. You can’t escape them, ever.
It’s tremendously uncomfortable to be highlighting all of those things at once. I try to stay away from marketing and self-promotion as much as possible, being allergic to the whole thing and wary of saturating the airwaves with a whole bunch of “OH HEY BUY MY SHIT.” But really, one has to do a little of that in this job. (Well, one has to do a LOT, but I keep trying to get away with the minimum.)
ANYWAY. Hello, dear Reader. How are you? I’m…fine. Really. Really I am.
The bellows clamp holding the seal on the front door of the washer failed last night. Today I have to find a new one, because if there is one appliance that sees daily use around here, it’s the dishwasher BUT the washer is a close, close second. Plus there’s water all over the utility room floor, and publishers aren’t paying me.
JOY.
That’s pretty much where I am. Fortunately, there’s the zombie apocalypse book and the alt-history series to keep me occupied, as well as revisions on Cormorant. I know the publisher isn’t in love with the title for the last, but I may dig my heels in a little, because it’s the right one. That book tore itself out of me so quickly I’m still feeling the twinges, the scar tissue is still delicate enough to tear again if I really force it. Maybe that’s why everything in me is resisting and the zombie apocalypse story is pouring out instead.
So today I find out who in town has a bellows clamp so I can repair the goddamn washer, I write the slow realization in a conference room that everything is fucked and the zombies are coming, and I snuggle my dogs and my kids as much as I can because the news is still dreadful.
This past weekend, the Princess graduated from high school. (Good Lord, I feel old.) Yes, I cried. That seems the only appropriate response when you’ve successfully managed to get a tiny dependent being through the eighteen years of childhood and early adolescence. The ceremony to mark such a thing, while boring, is still important because it’s a ritual, drawing a nice bright line between the phase of “public school” and the entry into young adulthood. I rarely have the patience for communal rituals, but I recognize their import.
My baby, growing up. *sniffles a bit*
She’s handling the transition better than I am. You get into the habit of feeding, caring, listening for their breathing, constantly blocking traffic for them, guiding, watching, loving them so hard your very bones ache when they’re in any kind of pain. It leaves an imprint. Learning to let go, bit by bit, as they grow, is hard. You wake up one day, and they’re doing things like BEING ALL GROWN-UP. And the feelings get so big they leak out of your nose and eyes and mouth.
The other thing I did this weekend was run a writing workshop for teens. It was interesting. I have often thought of running online writing workshops, and it was fun to do sort of a dry run and see what kinds of questions people ask, how a workshop is structured, and how to keep an audience interested. I think it went rather well.
Still, all the emotion, and the public speaking, left me drained down to a bare shadow of myself. I suspect I’ll need another day or so to recover, then it’s on to Cormorant Run revisions. I planned to start them at the beginning of the month, but the zombie apocalypse story grabbed me and wouldn’t let go. I think I was using the zombies to decompress, or just plain to escape.
…yeah, my wiring is weird. But then, if you’re reading this, you quite probably knew that already. I’m retreating, also, because the news is so terrible, and I am old enough to realize it’s very likely nothing will be done. People simply love their fear and their hatred too much to change; it terrifies me that my children will be going into such a world.
So I’m off to refill my creative well, and to go back into a world I built a while ago. If there’s hope, it lies in creating. Or at least, so I tell myself. It’s all I have to fight the fear.
Written music is a code, and breaking it is easier with a teacher. Since mine headed off across the continent, I’ve been tooling along on my own. Audible cryptography isn’t something I ever thought I’d be interested in, but there it is. Despite the frustration, I like it. It gives my brain something else to chew on (other than itself) and the only problem is, now I’ve started trying to figure out music instead of just listening to it. So, it gives surcease with one hand, and takes it away with the other.
Like most things in life.
Anyway, Bach is getting tricky. The minuet itself is simple(ish), but working with my hands so close together and figuring out what precisely he means when he wants my right thumb there instead of over here was frustrating as fuck. At least I have the internet and can look up other performances, and crack the code that way. Not a bad way to spend an evening, all told.
So there I was, at the back door, clutching the famous Sekrit Weapon and–
What? The Sekrit Weapon? Oh. It’s a golf club. They’re pretty good for home defense. I found this out during the Great Corn-Pops War. It’s far more maneuverable than the Shovel of Serious Business, and the bent part at the bottom is good for poking and lifting things you don’t want to touch. (Like roadkill. Or a sombrero left in one’s front yard. DON’T ASK.) I have learned my lesson: I will not willingly go near a squirrel unarmed. Even one that might be dead.
Miss B was curious, of course. If I was going outside, she wanted in on it too. However, I have also learned my lesson concerning her and squirrels-that-may-be-dead. So she had to stay inside, and the heat was such that I don’t think she minded much. Odd Trundles, of course, was still dozing in my office. The noise of SquirrelThings Five doing whatever it was they were doing had abated somewhat, and I think it functioned somewhat as white noise for him.
I checked a few times to make sure I was wearing shoes. I shook the Sekrit Weapon, assuring myself of its free play and that no part of it was going to come off. I crossed myself, muttered a prayer, told Miss B to sit her fuzzy ass down, and stepped outside.
From the deck I could see the Five–wait. The Four, for one of their number was still lying on his back at the foot of the pine, splayed out a little indecently, were still at their game. I couldn’t quite tell who was who, because the mating attempts seemed to have stopped, and now they were just chasing each other and losing bits of fur.
THING 1: YOU BASTARD! THING 3: CHARGE! CHARGE! THING 4: POOOOOOOOOOP! THING 2: *singing* I’VE BEEN WORKING ON THE RAAAAAILROOOOOAD–
“This is a bad idea,” I muttered, and checked my shoes again. Still there. I swung the Sekrit Weapon a little, and edged down the deck stairs. From the landing, I could see the, um, victim, still splayed out. The poor fellow had landed on a rock, and was somewhat draped over it. Did squirrels get paralyzed? A paraplegic squirrel, perhaps? I was considering how to rig up a squirrelcart so a semi-paralyzed squirrel could get around–look, my brain, she runs away with me sometimes, especially under stress.
It’s why I write books.
ANYWAY. I could almost hear the wheels of the imaginary squirrelcart as I slid cautiously down the last set of stairs. This put me pretty close to the ring of rocks around the base of the fir, and I crouched at the foot of the stairs, just to take everything in.
Look, you take cover wherever you can in a situation like this. I’m just sayin’.
THING 2: *singing* AAAAAAALL THE LIVELONG DAAAAAAAY! THING 4: SOOOOOOOPER POOOOOOOOP! THING 3: YOU GONNA DIE! YOU GONNA DIE! THING 1: ACK! JESUS! HELP! MEDIC!
The, uh, fur-fall seemed to have slacked off. They were still scratching and screaming above, and bits of bark were pattering down in random bursts. The squirrel on the ground just lay there.
I unfolded and crept closer, the Sekrit Weapon held before me, low and ready. (You can almost hear the Carmen Sandiego music, can’t you. I mean the music from the old PC game, when you ALMOST managed to catch her…Christ, I’m old.)
Now, I would like to mention that the concrete walkway there is tilted. The fir’s roots have lifted some parts of it, dropped others, and after a few years of living here I no longer trip on the seams. (Much.) That’s somewhat important. I had to step half off said walkway to extend the Sekrit Weapon and–gently, gently–prod the supine squirrel.
Honestly, I thought he was dead, and I was already thinking about where to bury the fallen warrior. (The rose garden’s getting a bit full.) Shovels were in the shed, I could prep a grave and take him there on one of said shovels–maybe by the mustard-and-ketchup bush. I didn’t know this little fellow, so the graveside service was going to have to be brief–
The Thing, whatever number he was, exploded into motion. He grabbed the end of the golf club, perhaps thinking it one of the combatants stills screeching and scrabbling above. Or he thought it was a branch. In any case, my combat reflexes are still quick, because I whipped said Sekrit Weapon up, hard.
And yet.
And yet the squirrel did not fly, for once.
No, the little bastard let go.
I ask you, my friends and Constant Readers, have you ever almost hit yourself in the face with a squirrel-wrangling golf club? I don’t recommend it.
I went over backward, and the Unnumbered Thing (let’s call him Five, we might as well) howled his fury at resurrection. (Sort of like a naked Hugh Jackman.)
He was indeed just resting. Or stunned, or something. He didn’t head for the fir but for the back fence, a little gray streak still howling like a scruffy, clawed berserker.
Remember the tilted concrete walkway? The one I’d stepped off? Well, my asscheek met it. Hard. And yes, I say asscheek singular, because of the tilt. My teeth clicked together, I tasted blood, and that pratfall was the only reason the Sekrit Weapon didn’t take said teeth out.
Friendly fire, my darling friends, isn’t.
“SONOFABITCH!” I yelled, and other things. The golf club flew behind me and landed neatly on the deck with a clatter, missing windows, potted plants, and patio furniture as well as my teeth. Miss B began to bark, but she did not throw herself at the door, for once.
Small mercies.
The end result of this was a breathless, hot silence in the backyard. I looked up, my eyes watering from the pain, and saw four small squirrels hanging off the fir and looking at me, their beady little gazes glowing with something suspiciously like awe. Five, of course, made it to the back fence and vanished into the cedars, the little bastard. I haven’t seen him since, nor have there been any more fur-flying battles in my fir.
I’m not sure I could survive another one.
And that, my friends, is how a squirrel gave me a bruise on my ass and a headache that lasted for days. The only lesson I can draw from this teachable moment is to never, ever, EVER assume a squirrel is dead.
They are, only and ever, just fucking taking a breather before the main event.
Awful things happen. Sometimes you’re left alive, but it leaves a Mark. They aren’t tattoos, and they express your hidden powers—and your hidden desires. They grow as you use them. And someone wants them very, very badly…
A winding road, a freak storm, and a lightning strike. Jude Altfall’s life, just beginning to coalesce after her divorce, is shattered afresh. Dazed with grief, she’s not sure if the weird things happening around her are hallucinations…or something more. And there’s the mark on her hip—a tattoo she can’t for the life of her remember getting.
Preston Marlock left a shadowy government agency two years ago, to hunt a killer. Each time the bastard strikes the trail goes cold, and not even Marlock’s more-than-natural abilities are helping. Now the killer’s taken one of his very few friends, and there’s a surviving witness. The Altfall woman is now that most precious and fragile of targets, newly Marked. All Marlock has to do is dangle her like bait, and the killer will eventually show up.
The Skinner knows some people are different. Special. He has a collection of stretched skin and pretty pictures, each harvested with care. The trick is to take them while the victim is still struggling, still alive, otherwise their power is lost. He is careful, methodical, and precise, but chance robs him of a prize. Once he realizes Jude Altfall has what he covets, and has possibly seen his face, her fate is sealed. And just to be cautious, the Skinner might swat at the annoying fly who has buzzed along his trail for two years.
Sometimes you survive, and you bear a Mark.
And some things are worse than death.
Not only that, but I’ll be running a workshop for young authors this upcoming Sunday.
(PDF version for downloading.)
I don’t normally do events, but the local Barnes & Noble has supported me over the years, and I love them deeply. So I’ll be practicing my own inimitable form of writing kung-fu this Sunday. Even if you’re not a teen writer, you can help out by printing out and using the vouchers to make a purchase that weekend. Please do, because it benefits the regional library system.
And that’s all the news for today, my dears. Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about the SquirrelThings Five, and why I still have a bruise on my tuchus.
Yesterday I put the Princess on a plane. She’s part of a German-American exchange–remember Frau L? Now it’s the Princess’s turn to visit a strange land. (So far this morning she says, “Seen a KFC. Distinct lack of pickup trucks. Also, no turn signals.”)
So 