Pennyworth Advice

Developments, Good and Otherwise

What a weekend. Whew.

The big publishing news swilling around right now is the fuckery surrounding Hugo Awards given at Chengdu Worldcon. Aidan Moher has a good breakdown; so does Jason Sanford. I have zero skin in this game, being absolutely not an awards writer for a variety of reasons, so I feel it’s reasonable to make a few observations as well.

Namely, that from out here it looks like authoritarian political considerations were allowed to taint the voting process, which is unconscionable and a full investigation, as well as apology plus restitution, must be made.1 Furthermore, perhaps it’s not a good idea to have such a prestigious award at the mercy of a system that can be hijacked with such astonishing regularity. (How many of these have we had now?) The effort needed to change the Hugo process so it’s insulated from such things appears prohibitive, so the solution might well be another award less prone to being co-opted by fascist assholes gaining that prestige.

Either way, SFF publishing and fandom needs to take out its trash. This is ridiculous.

In publishing news closer to home, I’ve pulled the self-pubbed books I was distributing directly through Kobo, since their nonsense reached a pitch I couldn’t handle anymore. It took years, but they finally drove me away; come next month I’ll be using a third-party aggregator to distribute those books to that particular sales platform instead. So don’t worry, I’m still making them available, I’m just putting a layer of insulation on this end. I didn’t want to shift, because I like my eggs in different baskets in case a platform enshittifies and I know other authors have been blessed with much better treatment from Kobo. But sadly, my experience has been vastly different and this makes the change necessary.

Readers will often ask, “Where’s the best place to buy your books, the one that benefits you most?” I am always touched at the care evinced by the question–the overwhelming majority of Readers want their artists remunerated fairly! Honestly, my darlings, it’s best for you to buy in a way that’s convenient for you. The biggest thing a Reader can do under current conditions is rate a book they liked in order to give the silly algorithm a bump or two, and even that pales in comparison to telling your other reading friends when you liked something. Authors work very hard to give Readers a range of options and to make books available despite nearly insurmountable obstacles such as Amazon’s predation and rampant, outright theft; these are problems which must be solved by regulation and social disapprobation of art/content thieves like torrenters and “AI” grifters. In other words, where you buy the book isn’t nearly as important as the fact that you do buy it (or check it out at your local library!) and hopefully leave at least a rating to make it harder for the algorithm (programmed by human beings for profit, don’t forget) to hide.

I also had to take a company I’ve recommended in the past for good premade covers off my list and will be recommending them no more, since when I wrote to ask for clarification of their stance on “AI” image theft in their covers I got a snotty response boiling down to, “We’ll use theft-driven ‘AI’ for our covers and if you don’t like it, fuck you.” Which is sad, but that means more business for my very favourite cover designer, who is 100% “AI”-free and has a lot of beautiful premades for sale too.

The ice is gone, so I can run this morning. This is a marvellous development; I haven’t been able to purge stress in that fashion for nearly two weeks and it’s told on me. The endorphin rush will no doubt take the top of my head off and restore all things to their proper proportions. Also, it’s been a couple days without stress-vomiting and I’m getting a few solid hours’ worth of sleep at night, and both things are providing an almost obscene sense of wellness. There’s a lot on the to-do list springing from my decision to lean much, much harder into protecting the work. I keep muttering to myself a form of Louisa May Alcott’s determination to “take Fate by the throat and shake a living out of her”, and it’s rekindling the protective fire.

I finished the Chaucer early in the weekend, and it was fabulous. The Wife of Bath was still driving the bus, last I saw, and despite the misogyny and antisemitism there’s a lot to enjoy in the work, not least the phrases like “murder will out” which are apparently much older than I ever imagined. It got a lot easier once my brain did a version of that little “switch” it does when I read Shakespeare–the neurons suddenly begin to anticipate the rhythm, the text has taught or reminded me how to read it, and instead of going word by word I begin to pass smoothly through whole phrases.

I was going to dive into a history book afterward, but needed a little more insulation for my nerves so King’s The Stand–unabridged edition–jumped the queue. I still think the 90s miniseries is one of the better King adaptations–Jamey Sheridan is hands-down the best Randall Flagg, notwithstanding McConaughey’s oozingly chilling turn as sorcerer-Flagg in the recent Dark Tower movie–and may do a rewatch once I knock off the book this time around.

Boxnoggin has gone back to bed, but the prospect of proper walkies will roust him soon as I start moving towards the toaster. So much to do today, including getting through an awkward found-family dinner in the serial and setting up the second Cain’s Wife book. I’d best get started.

Happy Monday!

No More Tied Hands

A very long time ago, I ran across this article by Jenny Crusie, about taking out the garbage and protecting the work. Since then, the phrase “Protect the Work” has been knocking around in my head, on various Post-its stuck to several different laptops and desktops, and is a truth I return to over and over again.

Toxic person throwing a tantrum? Protect the work. Publisher starts behaving nonsensically? Protect the work. Distribution platform enshittifying? Protect the work. Bad-faith reviews, trollery, reviewbombing? Protect the work. Online ruckus? Protect the fucking work.

The fact remains that nobody will protect your books if you do not. Publishing, especially trad, is a business full of exploitation, arcane holdovers from a literal century or two ago, grifting, greed, and ego. Prioritizing your own work, your own health, and your own time is crucial to any sort of success or longevity in the field.

I will be the first to admit that I have let my caretaking instincts and my willingness to bend drive me to deprioritizing my own time, health, and effort to a distinct fault, especially over the last few years with A Certain Series. My commitment to the work itself has never wavered, and at least I can rest assured that I have only very rarely allowed what I knew was best for my own work to be overruled. (My mistakes in that area can be counted on one hand, fortunately.) Yet having to go into battle for my books with one hand tied behind my back has had increasingly deleterious effects on my physical health, and that has been my biggest mistake.

Each time I have finished a fight, I’ve come back to the simple, stark phrase, Protect the work. It’s taken almost two decades in the biz for me to reach the point of snapping, and there will be no more tied hands in battle. Nor will I feel bad about what’s necessary to advocate for my work or my own interests. Our society would prefer women not to do that, publishing would prefer writers not to do that, and exploiters as a whole will use every trick in the book to make you feel bad advocating for yourself, to undercut your confidence so you’re more easily taken advantage of. Perhaps it’s a function of age that I find myself singularly unwilling to entertain that folderol any longer.

Along with this, how I spend my daily time is changing. I can’t be as accessible for certain things during working hours, and I have got to find a way not to feel guilty over the fact. That will be the next life skill I work on.

I’ve once again put PROTECT THE WORK on a Post-it, and stuck it to the desktop. I’ll apply the reminder as many times as it takes.

Moving on! The Chaucer read continues apace. I’m in the weeds of the Merchant’s Tale now, and my loathing of January (who has married poor May) knows very few bounds. I can’t quite tell where the story is heading, and I think it’s marvelous that so much of this corpus hinges on the Wife of Bath’s Tale. It seems like she decided to talk about what she felt was the problem with the Knight’s Tale–indeed, with every tale before she got her chance to speak–and now everyone is reacting to her. She’s driving the entire damn bus, not the Host and certainly not Chaucer himself. The more this goes on, the more I find her the meta-character at the heart of the entire endeavour, and this pleases me even if I sometimes felt she was being a bit long-winded. Of course her culture rarely gave women the chance to speak, and she’s forced to do so through a male writer, so…maybe she had reason to yell while she had the mic.

Seeing the traces of paganism (filtered through Roman versions of Greek classics) throbbing under the constant hum of medieval Catholicism is interesting as well. Plus there are former versions of sayings we use to this day, trapped in amber, smiling like old friends. Now that I have the rhythm of the language–it really is like Shakespeare, teaching one to read it as one goes along–everything is much, much easier.

In fact, I couldn’t wait to get back to it this morning, and stole a little time in bed with Boxnoggin snoring next to me, breathlessly reading Hades and Persephone beginning to argue about January, May, Damian, and the whole situation. I can’t wait for Persephone to bonk her husband on the head and point out he’s certainly no paragon of marital behavior.

And my scheduled time for blogging is over. It’s a wet, icy mess out there, “slicker than gooseshit” as some of the locals say, and the dog might not get the walk he wants unless we set out after more of the hazardous ice-sheets have washed away. But the back of the freeze is broken and it’s disintegrating bit by bit.

Hopefully that’s a sign. Onward to Thursday.

Next Year’s Work

I should know better than to post while cranky; things tend to go semi-viral and then my mentions are a mess for some time afterward. Still…some things are worth getting visibly irate about, I reckon.

Anyway, I finally managed to get everything out of the way and sink back into Cain’s Wife yesterday, to the tune of 2.7k words. It was lovely, especially since things in the story are jelling at a rapid pace. I was a bit sad that I might not be able to to do the train chase, but then things took a turn in the middle of the rooftop scene and I realised just how I could get the protagonist on the damn train. Which was a splendid relief.

Technically it’s not a “train” but a chain of floating cargo-cars in an industrial flightlane, but that’s beside the point. The point is, she’s going to be on the roof, going pretty fast, fighting off a king sorcerer, when the quasi-angel appears (again) and things go pear-shaped (again). Fortunately, this protagonist has a good way of looking at her own limitations–her greatest power isn’t sorcerous ability or her flawed abilities as a witch, but her mind and how she uses it. She’s generally a hop ahead of everyone else–but only a single hop, and honestly she’s more like Aeon Flux in Goodchild’s Habitat, a cat loose in a lab experiment.

Sometimes one just needs a cat loose in an overly regimented environment, though.

Plenty of things I had planned for the back half of the book have turned out to be unnecessary, though I’m glad they were there to provide weight and heft to the incubation period. The old paradox–no plan ever survives contact with the enemy, and yet planning is indispensable.

I’m even managing to forget how awful publishing is now, what with the sheer joy of creation. And let me tell you, I sorely need that. When the dust settles in December I’ll be revising Gamble and will have two more zero drafts to do things with; by that time I should also know about Hell’s Acre. If it goes to the publisher it’s resting with now, great, if it doesn’t it’ll go into the self-pub queue. By the time that’s sorted I’ll have an answer on the portal fantasy that tore its way out of my head in two weeks, and by the time that’s done I should have an idea of whether or not Cain’s Wife is going to sell. I’m not going to sit around waiting for long; if trad wants to leave money on the table, fine, let them. I’ll be busy bringing out the books myself.

Anyway, that’s next year’s releases sorted, along with the next two Cain’s Wife books and the serial in there somewhere. Always assuming the dystopia and failing empire don’t take me off the census first.

I am full of cheerful thoughts like that lately. No matter, Boxnoggin desires his walkies (he was a right little brat yesterday, my gods) and I should run my corpse at something above a fast walk afterward. Then it’ll be all train scene, all day. I’m considering whips of sorcerous chain, not to mention several narrow escapes. I do rather wish this protagonist believed in carrying something rather larger than a knife, but she’s philosophically opposed to such things and in any case doesn’t need them. (Much.) Especially not with the mercenary crew following her around, armed to the teeth.

But first I’ve got to get there, and in order to do that I need to finish this coffee and perhaps swallow some breakfast. So much to do before I can burrow back into another world. Sure, it’s escapism, but don’t we all (as ol’ JRRT himself pointed out) have a duty to escape in times like these?

Off I (and Boxnoggin) go.

Miles to Go

Woke to the sound of rain on the roof and it was so lovely I dawdled a bit, scrubbing at Boxnoggin’s tummy and telling him what a good boy he is. The demand for morning snuggles has been met tenfold. Now he’s busily ignoring his breakfast, having braved the damp outdoors to unload his bladder and returned to bed for a snooze. When I have toast crusts he’ll condescend to haul himself forth and demand a toll, then it will be time for walkies.

Formalities must be observed.

It’s been a little rough lately, between the news cycle and events closer to home. The thing about being the person known for showing up in emergencies is that sometimes it’s the only reason one is called upon, and later when the emergency is done one is a living reminder of a stressful time in another person’s life, so they avoid one. Both are entirely natural outcomes of being reliable, and if the former is a bother the solution is to have very strong clear boundaries about what constitutes a proper emergency deserving of aid.

The latter…well, there’s nothing to be done for it. Thy good deeds shall be punished, yet still thou must do good deeds. This is never truer than when one knows one will be a reminder of something awful in someone’s life even if one’s entire goal, focus, and interaction was geared at getting a person to safety. That does certain things to a relationship, and one had best be prepared for as much. If one is expecting pats on the back for being Reliable, one will inevitably be Disappointed.

In any case there’s no reason to bemoan the (emotional) weather, just dress for it and get on. Yet another reason I wouldn’t be young again, not even for a significant sum of cash. It simply isn’t worth the wear and tear on the nerves, even if the body is significantly chewier and bouncier.

So onward we go. I think I can finish Gamble in six-seven scenes. Those of you familiar with the process will know that it will take me at least ten and I will be bitching about Zeno’s Paradox of Finishing A Goddamn Book as I knock off one after another. Highlands War has left the plateau, and next comes a death or two, then the warrior-women who are part of an extended Macbeth reference. (I didn’t realize Redfist was very Malcolm until recently–thanks, Past Me, that’s lovely. Really.)

The Ragnarok book continues to boil. I was struck last night by the idea that I could fracture time and narrative both in the book, and do it, structurally speaking, very differently. I don’t know if it’s a Good Idea or the kind of idea that strikes when one does not want to commence writing the damn book, so I’m giving it a day to sort itself. The biggest thing at the moment is how the protagonist recovers from the pond-dumping incident. I knew she had to be tossed into the damn thing, that was its entire purpose from the Beginning of the World, but how she gets over the event is significantly more fuzzy inside my head.

This is the problem that will probably accompany me all through walkies and the morning run. The rain means a lot of jackasses who let their dogs wander offleash will remain (prudently?) inside, which will make everything just that much more pleasant and less stressful for Yours Truly. Yet another benefit to the season of damp.

It’s almost dawn. Time to finish the dregs of coffee and get bread in the toaster. I’m already looking forward to dry socks at the end of morning games, but there are quite literally miles to go before I achieve that rest.

Onward to Tuesday, then.

Tapping the Sign

A very odd weekend was had by all, or at least by me. Fortunately most of it is resolved now and I can get back to work. Bringing down the blade on anything attempting to keep me from said work is becoming more and more attractive as a strategy, especially considering health concerns and the fact that my energy is finite.

Gamble is just about finished incubating, and the prospect of an extended series of dick jokes in Highlands War delights me. (Well, I suppose technically they’re more testicle jokes, but that’s neither here nor there.) The third spot on the daily writing wheel goes to the Ragnarok book, and that’s the one giving me the most trouble now. It’s very difficult to attempt a massive, ambitious epic fantasy trilogy under these conditions.

Regardless, I guess we power on. At least I got the damn protagonist out of the pond, so that’s something.

The theme lately seems to be, “Operating from a place of kindness and trust does not make one weak or stupid.” I’ve had to repeat that to at least three different people lately. I’ve heard a lot of, “I was so stupid, how could I not have known?” And each time, I get a little irate. Or maybe just very definite and intense, pinning the person with a Lili Stare and tapping the sign.

Don’t make me tap the sign.

At least the coffee is very strong this morning, and Boxnoggin is letting me absorb it in peace. After a few days of unseasonable warmth we should be back to usual October weather, and this week might see our annual pilgrimage to a local Spirit Halloween pop-up for more interior decorating items. It’s the one time a year the outside world matches my aesthetics, so I save up to get a glut of regular household items.

It’s always spookytimes here at the Chez.

I think being unable to get much mileage due to weather conditions and illness is really doing a number on my patience. I should do a post on protecting the work as well, but this morning I have neither time nor energy. Toast must be gnawed and the dog rambled, and I’ve got to get the cabin shot up in one book, the dick jokes brought (ahem) to conclusion in another, and the third needs…I can’t tell, but it’s probably going to be a Valkyrie in love and the death of (yet another) king. (They’re dropping like flies around this particular protagonist; she’s called doom for a reason.)

Really looking forward to getting all the plot points sorted while my body moves, then coming home, getting a fresh jolt of coffee, and getting into it. In order for all that to happen, however, I’d best get started. If Monday doesn’t impede me, I’ won’t impede’ll return the favor.

Let’s see how this turns out…

Tiny Sorcery

So much depends…

“Oh look,” my son said yesterday, while we were taking out both the rubbish and the dog (though for vastly different reasons). “Mushroom!”

They’re older now, but my kids are still the same. Look at the world, Mum. Isn’t it wonderful? It’s the same principle that makes us all yell, “Cow!” when out driving in rural areas, or “Horsie!” Or even, when we are exceedingly fortunate, “Llama! There’s a llama!”

Little drops of dew clinging to the rim of a mushroom’s cap. A thin stray knife of sunshine touching the side of a house. A single leaf falling. A child’s wondering cry. Even in the backyard there is magic. It lingers, asking only that we notice for the briefest of moments.

Have a lovely weekend.

New Roasty Toasty

There was nothing unreasonable amid my inbox this morning, and Throne of the Five Winds might still be on sale in ebook if one acts swiftly. (Check the Monthly Sales page, as well–and mind you check the dates!) Boris the new coffeemaker just finished burbling and gave his ending signal, so in a few minutes my cuppa might be cool enough to gulp instead of to sip with plenty of air to cool the liquid at the same time.

Slurping is not very polite, but I am burrowed into my office and one of the lovely things about working from home is that I don’t have to dress up or care about little things like the noises made when I get my coffee in as quickly as possible.

The proofs for Sons of Ymre 2 were sent in yesterday morning, and I honestly meant to dive right into working for the rest of the day. Unfortunately the Muse, my body, and my brain all rose up in revolt at the notion and forced me to take at least a half-day off after faffing around with some stories that will never be seen by anyone else.

I call those “strictly for home consumption”. Not everything needs to be on display; the bulk must reside below the waves.

The sun has moved as the axial tilt shifts, and lingers behind a well-placed fir. I miss the cedars; they were keeping my office shaded on summer morns and I’m annoyed to lose that. But oh well, it’s an invitation to plant something just as nice and wait while it grows. Patience is necessary in gardening, publishing, child-rearing…it’s a shame I have so little of the quality and must force myself to work around it. Gaming oneself is the sign of adulthood.

Anyway, I woke with Boxnoggin’s nose pressed to mine. It’s a little disconcerting to open one’s eyes and see a 60+lb predator regarding one with deep interest, but he just wanted his morning ration of snuggles before beginning daily rituals. My heated mattress topper (nicknamed Operation Roasty-Toasty) largely conked out a while ago, but summer was here so that wasn’t a big deal. I finally broke down, took advantage of the price-gouging letting up for a moment or two, and got another. (Three-year warranty my ass, the first one barely lasted two.) This made Lord van der Sploot incredibly happy despite his being locked out of my room while I was turning the mattress and getting the new topper (washed and air-dried, the anticipation has been intense) on, as well as fresh bedding.

He hates a closed door. Like the Rum Tum Tugger, he’s always on the wrong side. Plus, he could not supervise and render aid, which is his goal in life whenever there is any sort of excitement. He was forced to linger outside my chamber, moping up and down the hall in the hope that my daughter would take pity on his poor abandoned self with treats and attention. She did, of course, but then I had to be shown the error of my ways when I finally finished and opened up the construction site to the public again.

Boxnoggin gave me about ten minutes of heavy sighs, collar-shakings, and Very Disappointed Looks until I won him back over with praise, pets, and a promise that he would sleep in royal comfort. Which brings us to this morning. His side of the bed was nice and toasty due to the new arrival, and all the work paid off because I wasn’t shivering either. So, that’s why he put his nose in my face and demanded snuggles.

The only small blemish upon my enjoyment is the fact of no rain yet, but I can wait. So can Boxnoggin; he will be miserable for about a week as the weather shifts, but then it will be as if we have always lived in grey mist and he’ll be disturbed by sunlight.

There are two books on the docket right now and I might have enough bandwidth to add a third once the new editor is in touch. After that there’s Cain’s Wife to get started, since I’m already building the soundtrack for it. I’d really like to get some portal-fantasy action going–the recent massive Elric read means I have thoughts upon variations. But that’s all for the future.

Boxnoggin would very much like toast and walkies; the weight of his expectant gaze has become most intense.

I suppose I’d best get started.