Back to Scratching Itch

I’m settling down to my blog post a little late this Thursday, mostly because I’ve been fighting with print distributors. Well, fighting is a strong word. I’m simply being very clear about expectations and deadlines.

*sips tea*

I tested a new-ish print distro with four books, and have seen a 75% failure rate. Certainly not ideal by any measure, and let’s not even talk about people not bothering to read an email before they cut-and-paste a reply. To be fair, I know the reps are quite probably overworked–which is why I try to make it easy, giving all details for maximum clarity in every. single. email.

To be even more fair, the matter has finally escalated to the level where something has a chance of actually getting done, so that’s a good thing.

Had I been in publishing less than almost two decades (my, how the time has flown) I would probably just have given up on all four editions, but I know when to be stubborn by now. I have been treading the edge of Karen as this thing wears on, because by the gods, I will not be undone by a bureaucracy.

I will say the irritation was great fuel for the morning’s run. I woke up with grandson’s “Oh No!!!” in my head at high volume, so that was on repeat for a nontrivial number of kilometers. I’m still a bit sore (and dotted with various bruises) from the swift and complete moving job we did for a friend Tuesday, too. Stretching, a tonne of hydration, and going to bed early tonight will probably make me right as rain.

Today I get a burrito for lunch, some fun subscription stuff drops for my beloveds, the dogs are relatively calm, and while very warm the weather is not overly awful. And I get to throw both a heroine and her suitor into a Very Dangerous Situation, with bullets flying.

It feels good to be writing again, instead of dealing with distribution hassles, formatting, edits, or proofs. Just scratching the itch for twenty minutes or so on a day when I’m exhausted juggling other chainsaws is not optional. For the rest of this month I’m back to producing new words instead of dealing with the ones I’ve already written, and it is marvelous.

I wish you a lovely Thursday, my friends. May we all get a chance to do something we like today, instead of enduring what we must.

Over and out.

Puzzled By Cruelty

Yesterday was all about line edits; Sons of Ymre #1 is inching that much closer to publication. (Yes, as soon as there’s preorder information, I will absolutely let my beloved Readers know.) I was up what passes for relatively late last night–the dogs went to bed without me, and are bright-eyed and fresh this morning while I drag.

I am a night owl by temperament, but years of having to get the kids ready for and delivered to school have left a mark. Now that’s over, the dogs are still on a schedule and creatures of habit who view All Change as Very Very Bad do not take kindly to schedules shifting. Left to my druthers I’d be up around 1pm, work until 3-4am, and fall into bed around 4-5am, depending.

Alas, it is not possible, and my body’s protests must be listened to though they change not a whit of what must be. Ah well.

The news from Texas yesterday put a dent in me, as well. I know a certain proportion of people just plain enjoy cruelty; it is a fact of existence on this planet, like gravity or nitrogen. Still, it’s puzzling. Why spend all your time being a racist, misogynist asshat when there’s a literal infinity of other things to fill one’s earthly time with? These people could go touch grass, learn how to unicycle, write songs, watch some movies, or even just take a goddamn walk.

Instead, they apparently want to be nasty little fascist dipshits. Why spend that kind of effort? It’s absolutely and literally easier to just…not, to simply be kind or at the very least leave other people alone.

I suppose that’s part of why I write. Not deepest, most overarching reason–I am, quite frankly, unable to stop, and have been ever since second grade–but an important one nonetheless. The addiction of some people to cruelty has baffled me literally all my life, starting with childhood caregivers who hurt me apparently just for funsies. It made no sense to Child Me and makes even less to Adult Me. (For whatever value of “adult”, I suppose.)

I wish I knew why. Attempting to understand might be the writer’s curse or just a function of empathy, I haven’t decided. Yes, I’ve written villains; I’ve even written characters who enjoy cruelty for its own sake–Perry in the Kismet series, for example, or a few of the antagonists in Afterwar, not to mention Summer in Gallow & Ragged.

Now that I think about it, “comfortable with cruelty” is a hallmark of many of my villains or antagonists. Yet those characters, foul as they are, cannot hold a candle to the petty, nasty, apparently endless brutality and mendaciousness of real-life authoritarians. Even Perry, and he was dead set on killing the entire world if it got him what he wanted from Jill.

Fiction has to make sense on some level. Real life, alas, does not.

I wish I understood. It’s long been my fervent belief that understanding breeds compassion, and while I’m fully aware sociopaths and narcissists view compassion as weakness it’s still integral to me, I will keep it that way, and it doesn’t mean I’m unprepared to enforce my boundaries. I can even view the understanding as a way of anticipating the behavior of those who like cruelty for its own sake, so I can protect me and mine from their depredations.

I suppose the only hope is to keep writing. There’s finicky little changes to go over in Ymre now that the bulk of the line edits are done, I just approved a shiny hardback for Moon’s Knight, and today is subscription day. The next major project is revisions on The Black God’s Heart diptych, but there’s a fellow writer’s book to beta read and an article to copyedit for another friend in the queue, so those will be loaded to the cannon first.

Not to mention walkies with a pair of excited, bratty, furry toddlers and a run to get in. The latter, at least, will help me concentrate and get through the rest of the day. I will mull over the mystery of why some people are cruel goddamn dipshits during both, I’m sure, and arrive at no answer other than, “They like it, and the best we can do is protect ourselves from them.”

It is not a satisfying explanation, but at least it grants some succor. It will, as I often say, have to be enough.

Over and out.

Week of Mondays

Someone in the neighborhood has been roofing since Monday. Or several someones. The nail guns and staple guns are going like a fusillade. I’ve just made my peace with the fact that Monday’s happening all week.

And it’s been kind of a dilly so far, frankly. Maybe just considering every day Monday is how it’s gonna be from now on, I dunno. But I’ve had a new release, line edits for Sons of Ymre #1 landed, I still have the HOOD omnibus to fold in proofreader changes on, the Black God’s Heart diptych has edits lingering, plus there’s a lot of Hell’s Acre to write.

And Guilder to frame for it, as usual. I’m swamped.

There’s a lot of stuff I’ve crossed off my weekly to-do list–CEs for The Bloody Throne, a contract for some new Ghost Squad books, arguing over the phone with an insurance company (always big fun), and fixing the (not so pleasant) results of the print distribution experiment for Moon’s Knight, not to mention the release day proper for the latter. (For the curious, the print edition is currently available through Amazon; other channels will have it in due time. I have pretty hardback plans, too.)

Yet I feel like I’ve done nothing, and it makes me want to weep.

The only cure is putting my head down and working like a demon though the weekend. Revisions won’t get accomplished, of course–but I think it’s very likely I can get the omnibus proof sorted this weekend and Season Three prepped for September release, which is just within the schedule I set earlier. Which means the omnibus can get sorted for October-November.

That’s the thing about book releases. By the time they happen, the book’s already probably a year (if not multiple years) old. I’m already juggling a brand-new set of chainsaws, and flinching every time I look at the old one(s).

But it’s a nice cloudy morning, it smells like rain though I think that’s a polite petrichor fiction, and the chattering of roofing equipment isn’t quite soothing but it does (hopefully) mean someone’s getting paid for their work on a relatively pleasant day. The heat seems to have retreated a bit, and we’re no longer miserably sheltering in any AC we can find. There might even be tomatoes in a short while, because the plants are looking very happy indeed.

Of course, I probably won’t get out to harvest them, being head-down in a whirlwind of work being my preferred state. I suppose a week’s worth of Mondays is a small price to pay for getting a new book out into the world and making a dent in the massive to-do list. I guess all that frantic work I did during lockdown is sort of paying off? At the time, I was just trying to keep my head above water.

Whomst among us in 2020 wasn’t, though. *sigh*

All right. Thursday also means subscription stuff to get out the door, and I suppose I should start the proof changes today if I’m going to work through the weekend. No rest for the weary or the wicked, and a writer definitely qualifies as both.

Or maybe just this particular writer does.

See you around, beloveds. Be gentle with yourselves, mask up, get your shot(s), and keep holding on.

Even a week of Mondays has to end sometime.

Monday Irritation

Well, trying a new print distribution service has not been going well, but that’s why we test things–to see if they will. I’m *thisclose* to yanking the book and sending it through another print distro, but I’m giving the company one final chance to make this right. If they choose not to take it, I yank the book, go with a previous print distributor, and chalk it up to a failed experiment.

Oh, and tell everyone I know not to use this particular print distro. There’s that, too.

In any case, I’m swinging wildly between “nobody will read the damn thing, chillax” and “it’s going to be the most hated book in the world FOR NO REASON so you’re going to feel bad, why not just feel bad now and avoid the rush?” I suppose plenty of that is normal; at least, it happens with every single blessed book release. I probably shouldn’t have told anyone about the book, just dropped it on the sly.

Of course, the cover is so good I couldn’t resist. It’s just so damn beautiful, and perfect for the story.

In any case, I’ve finished a morning’s worth of work, and now it’s time to finish absorbing coffee and walk the silly fur-covered toddlers as well. They are beside themselves, both because I did not share my brekkie (it was not toast, it was doughnuts, and they were mine) and because they know the next step in the routine is me tying my shoes (with their close supervision, of course) and brushing my teeth, preparatory to buckling them into harnesses and dragging them around the block.

They can’t wait.

Josephine Baker is finally being laid to rest at the Pantheon. It’s about damn time. I wish the news articles wouldn’t say “First [Minority] to X.” I wish they’d say, “First [Minority] Finally Allowed by Bigots to [Do the Thing]”. Because that’s what it is. It’s not the first person in a particular population to do extraordinary things, it’s just the first time existing power structures have deigned to be forced into noticing, and that needs to be highlighted. The back side of exceptionalism is just as damaging as front-facing racism.

It’s like not “noticing” women until they’re safely dead and can’t messily, personally agitate for their rights anymore. The sops thrown to memory are supposed to be mistaken for progress, and it irks me. Every time I see a “lifetime achievement” award for a woman, I know that she should have won twenty others decades earlier but wasn’t allowed to because some goddamn white man wanted a trophy instead–and, quite probably, stole her work to boot.

In any case the coffee cup is dry, which means now I have to push dog snoots out of the way as I tie my shoes, and the morning may proceed apace. I’m not looking forward to yanking and redoing print distro stuff, but that’s part of the cost of self-publishing. The print edition was supposed to be out a full week before the ebook, but the distributor put paid to that, and I suppose I am a wee bit justifiably irritated with the whole thing. Ah well, at least it happened on this book and not another.

Silver lining, that. And so we’re off for a walk. Happy Monday, my beloveds.

Insomnia and the Knight

The weekend was a nightmare of heat, being unable to sleep because of said heat even with the air conditioning on, hives from the heat, and the underwater sense of too much insomnia. My eyelid didn’t start twitching until late Sunday, so at least there was that.

On the bright side, Moon’s Knight is releasing before the end of the month. PLEASE NOTE: If a retailer link on that page doesn’t work, it’s because that retailer has the book but isn’t listing it just yet. I have literally zero control over when they get their databases updated, and distributors like Amazon don’t allow preorders if you’re not using their (heavily weighted against the author) proprietary service. (That’s why I offer .mobi versions through my Gumroad store.) And yes, there will also be a print version. I’ll do an official announcement later, probably on the formal ebook release date, which is August 24, 2021.

Along with the insomnia I’m deep in the pre-release “everyone will hate this book” weeds, helped along by the fact that I wrote Moon’s Knight to literally escape the worst and darkest of last year’s lockdown and am bringing it out only because beta readers and my agent were very insistent that it needs to be out in the world. I’m trying to take deep breaths and remind myself that the book’s gonna do what it’s gonna do, people are gonna do what they’re gonna do, and I have little to say about it either way.

I did get some sleep last night, since the heat has (temporarily, I’m sure) broken, and this morning is actually quite pleasantly cool. It looks like it’ll be only mid-80s instead of in the hundreds, so I suppose that’s a blessing. I’ll be able to run, at least, and that shall set me right.

Or, if not quite right, at least well on the way to becoming so.

Even the dogs got some good rest last night, so they’re bright eyed and relatively bushy-tailed. They’re wanting walkies with a vengeance, but I think they’ll need another tour of the yard before they’re ready. Boxnoggin has a distressing habit of wanting to squat in oncoming traffic unless he’s previously offloaded. Apparently emptying his bowels on concrete in front of fast-approaching cars satisfies some deep instinctual need.

I don’t even know. All I do know is hauling him out of the way gets old real quick. Little weirdo.

So. Walkies, a run, a chapter of Hell’s Acre, a hundred or so pages of copyedits, and and chewing my nails about Moon’s Knight are all on the docket today. Sounds like a reasonable day’s work, all told.

I’d best finish the coffee and get to it.

Uncorking With Jealousy

I did manage to brush up against copyedits yesterday…but then a cover draft landed for Moon’s Knight and getting that book moved up in the queue took precedence. A final proof pass has been finished, and now the cover is the last piece before I can send it out into the world. It’s a relief–I wrote it last year during the darkest days of lockdown, it utterly possessed me, and just getting it out and away will represent a victory of sorts.

And boy howdy did the cover draft make me happy. My cover artist is amazing, you guys.

I’m still feeling like a hopeless, burned-out hulk, though. Four years of increasing fascism crowned with a coup1 added to a bloody pandemic for the last year and a half is apparently my limit.

I suppose, to be absolutely fair, it’s not the pandemic per se but the ongoing fumbling in response to it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to have adults in charge again, and yet I could wish they weren’t so beholden to corporations whose entire goal is keeping a serf class too sick and scared to organize and resist their metastasizing.

Anyway, I’ve hit the wall bigtime. It was nice to reread the portal fantasy though; the sense of escape, even though I was proofing, was extremely welcome. And of course days when I can run, the stress chemicals are purged and I get a few hours of tenuous harmony before the discomfort mounts again.

Today is for forcing myself through walkies and a run, then back to the copyedits. I’m sure something will land in my inbox that needs attention; the best way to uncork something in the work process is to throw up one’s hands and focus on another task that needs doing. I call it “the jealousy principle”, because if a book is giving me trouble I often shift to the next one in the queue and let the first know it’s basically being ignored.

The Muse, like certain movie psychopaths, will not be ignored, thank you.

I know there’s reason for hope, but my supply is barrel-scrapings at the moment. And years of hoping, only to be kicked in the teeth, have left their mark. Sinking myself in work seems like the best option, as usual and even though it might contribute to the burnout. It’s still vastly preferable to the alternative.

What’s getting you through, my beloved? Drop them in the comments if it pleases you; I could use some nice things to get excited about.

I suppose it’s time to finish my coffee, choke down some toast, and get the dogs strolled around the block. Running before the heat mounts is also a good idea; the last thing I need is to pass out at the fifth kilometer or so. I’ve had enough of being flung to the pavement; the dogs are responsible for roughly eighty percent of all the time I’ve spent picking gravel out of my own flesh.2

Off I go for Tuesday. Maybe it’ll be less ugh than Monday. If not, well, I’ve work to do, and that will keep me occupied, if not quite sane.3

And I’ve got the machete, too.

Over and out.

Habit’s Wake

I suppose one could describe my current state as “in a mood.” The business of publishing is fit to drive one to distraction, and a particular neighbor is running a pressure washer for hours at a time while the noise goes right across my nerves, dragging spikes and sandpaper.1

It could be that I need a win, however small. It could also be that I’ve hit the limit, so to speak, in many a way. Living with extreme empathy, while great for pouring myself into a character’s skin and figuring out their motivations, is a distinct drawback under current conditions. The number of people who seem to have precisely none while I got a quadruple measure is heartbreaking.

I seem to have reached the limit of even my quadruple measure, to be honest. It pains me to feel that perhaps the bigots who were screaming “fuck your feelings”, refusing to mask up and take the pandemic seriously, are in effect reaping what they have sown. If it weren’t for the collateral damage–the innocent caught in their plague-bearing fire–I might even think it a wee bit justified.

We could have been done with this by now. A few weeks of paying everyone to stay home, vaccinating, and masking afterward could have fixed it. But no, some greedy corporations had to have their serfs kept sick and terrified, and some racists just had to have their fix of propaganda-laden cruelty.

I need a rest in the worst way, but if I take one work piles up and all I do is circle the house aimlessly, wishing I was working so at least I could peek into another world since this one is proving so unsatisfactory. And publishing, festina lente as it is, with the ones at the bottom producing everything the entire edifice depends on–the writers, in case there was any doubt–treated as embarrassing afterthoughts to be abused instead of the jewel of the whole system, well. It’s enough to drive one to distraction.

There’s coffee to swill, and walking the dogs to be done. The minutiae of daily life goes on. Maybe a run will help me feel better. Copyedits have landed, and at least accomplishing those will push a book (and a series) another step towards the finish line. But oh, I’m so tired; I just rolled out of bed under protest and I am already exhausted.

If not for habit dragging me along in its wake, I might decide to simply crawl in a hole and close it up after me. The thought holds a definite attraction.

What’s getting you through the day today, my beloveds? I hope it’s something pleasant. In any case, any way of getting through the day is acceptable. The important thing is to reach the evening somewhat intact.

Suppose I’d best get started. See you around.