I took this picture before Samhain. Pretty soon, we'll be seeing Yule decorations as soon as July 4 is over.
If all decorations were like this, though, I wouldn't mind. May all the gods bless Archie McPhee.
Fog, Cobbler’s Bench
Sometimes the stars align, and my once-monthly insomnia (no doubt a hormonal thing) rouses me not at 2am or at 3am, but at 5:30am and I can lie in the dark, thinking, and roll out of bed early because the urge to write is filling me from toes to scalp with raw tingling.
The Muse is a bitch, but sometimes that’s useful.
So I got up, fed the dogs, swallowed my porridge while grumbling about the injustice of having to feed my own meatsack, and made some very, very strong tea. And now I am typing, which is where I longed to be ever since opening my eyes.
It’s quiet outside because of the fog. It’s not quite a pea-souper, wrapping its fingers around each leafless branch; the wind earlier in the week stripped most of Autumn’s finery and hurried her home. Now all I’m waiting for is the rains. Cold, dark, damp, that’s when I’m most productive, lighting a candle to keep the night at bay.
Of course, lying in bed, I knew what the Friar Tuck on a Spaceship scene I was struggling with yesterday needed. The answer arrived on little cat feet like the fog itself, and is one of the reasons I’ve rolled out of bed. And, of course, the storm king and the witch are finding their feet. The witch needs kidnapping, of course, just so I can write the scene with her beating the shit out of thugs in a van and eventually bursting out of the vehicle on a puff of flame and shrapnel, dusting off her motorcycle jacket as the daimon and the storm god arrive to “rescue” her and find out she’s rescued herself, thank you very much, and when’s dinner?
Of course, there’s revisions on The Maiden’s Blade to deal with, too, but those are proving troublesome. I need a certain lord to do something, but he’s proving cagey. Plus, plenty of that book rips my heart out, and I’m already feeling a bit sore and tender in the cardiac area.
So today’s work is cut out for me, and I bend over my cobbler’s bench, cutting and stitching, my fingers pricked and bleeding. Friar Tuck needs to understand just what sort of snake-pit Prince John’s court is, and his crisis of faith–already well underway–needs some higher stakes. I was trying to write it yesterday, but Robin and Gisbourne kept intruding, and I finally had to write a conversation between the two of them. I wanted to do it while they sparred with lightsabers, but I think they need to have a different convo while they do that, an exceedingly male “let’s punch each other and then go for drinks” one.
Dawn has strengthened. Everything is grey, though the cedars are black lacework blots. They’re not whispering this year, having gone to bed early; all the trees round here are determined to sleep deeply. It’s like they sense something coming.
…dear gods, I hope they’re wrong, but they’re trees, and as such, it’s not likely. But for today, there’s work to be done.
Over and out.
Hope, Despair, Work
I attended the Cedar Hills Crossing Powell’s yearly Authorfest on Sunday right after Orycon, and got to see a lot of lovely people, from fellow authors to regular Authorfest readers. It was nice, and the drive out there and back settled some plot points inside my head.
Driving’s good for that. Tires on paving and the hum of the engine shake all sorts of things loose.
Now I’m back home with no event looming on the horizon, but I think Orycon con-crud hitchhiked on a bunch of people and found a congenial home in my sinuses. Hydration, ginger, and vitamin C are all called for.
Season One of HOOD proceeds apace for NaNo, and there’s revisions on The Maiden’s Blade to get done before the end of the month too. Plus, there’s Thanksgiving, which means I’ll throw a ham in the oven, make some mashed taters, and call it good. At least the Little Prince will be home from school and the Princess has some holiday time off work, so that’s nice.
I’m just…drained, and fighting off the crud is exhausting. It’s a good thing I only do the one event a year. Otherwise the loss of working time would be a bigger problem. Plus I’m recovering from the midterms. Hope is almost as exhausting as despair.
The cure for both is work, I guess. Which means it’s time to get out the door with the dogs, then come home and settle into a long day of revisions and grinding. If I do well, I may get to play hooky with the storm-king-and-witch book, which I’m using to make other projects jealous so they behave.
It’s a fine juggling act, and if I can just fight off this hitchhiking crud I might even pull it off.
Over and out.
On My Feet
After a run, Sir Boxnoggin, Lord van der Sploot, is tired and wishes to curl up upon his bed. But if the human moves, he will groan, and when the human bends to pet him, he will spill out of the bed and onto her feet, looking up reproachfully.
Don't go, he'll moan. I just got comfortable. Stay here and pet me.
Poor fellow. I can pet him for a while, of course, and make much of him, but eventually I do have to go shower. But for those few minutes while he's on my feet and I'm telling him what a good boy he is, he's content.
Better Than We Deserve
I feel somewhat like I’m wandering in zombie-infested woods with a crossbow, really–no sooner is one slain than another appears, and by the gods I’m hungry, tired, filthy, and irritated. Current events are bad for my state of mind, not to mention my health.
I really wanted to feel hopeful. I did! But instead, the historian in me is looking at my febrile country, and taking a deep breath.
It’s hard to work under these conditions. I lost a couple days’ worth of working time, poking along and adding a mere hundred words or so, here and there. Thank goodness for Viki; since DramaFever went under it’s my go-to for Kdrama. I’ve been watching Ghost Detective and Hwayugi, both are fine storytelling and I like the stars.
The dogs don’t understand why I’m so upset. After all, their dinner comes at exactly the same time, even if the humans have changed their own to an hour later. They still get walkies and pets and treats, they are still barred from going down the stairs to commune with the cats. (Or eat them, in Boxnoggin’s case.) The only thing they’re unhappy about is the weather, and only Boxnoggin is upset about that.
He may need a little jacket or two, if it gets colder.
When the panic attacks try to overwhelm the medication, the dogs sidle up and require pets and love. The distraction is often enough to calm me. Dogs, you know? Much better than we deserve.
I’m shutting off social media (except for Mastodon) for a little while, so I don’t have the firehose of bad news constantly pouring down my throat. I understand I am privileged to have that option, and I’ve got to work or we don’t eat.
Be gentle with yourselves today, dear Readers. I have very little else to say.
Over and out.
If You Want More…
People have finished reading the latest Steelflower, and I’m starting to get emails. Most of them are lovely. There are the usual asshats thinking that being nasty over my decision to release first in print will somehow change my mind, but they’re few and far between, for which I am grateful.
Many of you have asked when the next Steelflower is out, including one despairing soul who pleaded, “please tell me I don’t have to wait another year!”
I…I can’t tell you that, my friends. But if you want to make it easier for me to write these things you love, there’s a few things you can do to help me out. The list starts with, of course, buying my books instead of torrenting them, since the more royalties I lose from people stealing my work, the less I can afford to work on things that don’t pay me up-front–like the Steelflower books.
If you’re one of those kind folks who does buy my books, and likes them, a few moments spent giving a review–even just a star rating–on the distribution platform (Indiebound, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, etc.) of your choice helps more than you think. Once the star ratings/reviews reach a certain threshold, the books get bumped in algorithms, and more people get to (possibly) experience the deadly lunacy that is my brain.1 And if they enjoy it and dip into my backlist, that means I get paid to write more.
I also offer a variety of subscription options, where you can get peeks at stories in progress and free ebooks of the serial-in-progress. The subscriptions give me a steadier monthly income, which frees me up to write more of those things you love but a publisher won’t (or can’t) initially invest in. Gumroad’s best, but I know a lot of you folks like Patreon, and that’s okay too.
As it is, The Highlands War has to take its place behind the epic fantasies I’m working on, and the next serial (HOOD) and maybe Dolls and Tower of Yden too. I know exactly what happens (and who dies) but getting enough paid working time down so I can afford to write more labor-of-love stories (like Steelflower) is the trick here.
I’m sure I’ll be inundated (again) by the usual trolls telling me that I shouldn’t write for the money, that I’m a sellout, and that it’s their gods-given right to steal my work. But for the non-trolls, these are the things that will help free up more of my time so I can tell you what happens to Kaia, Darik, Redfist, and the troupe in a brutal winter insurgency, and how that all shakes out. Funny thing, I’ve always known Kaia’s story is a trilogy, but it ended up that the last book was so massive I had to split it in half, which is why Steelflower in Snow ends where it does.
Anyway, more than one person has asked about The Highlands War, and that’s the answer. I’ll be moderating replies pretty thoroughly to weed out the bloody trolls–you’d think these people would have something better to do, my gods–but as long as you’re not yelling at me for not being a vending machine, your comment will get through. It just may take me a little while to weed through the queue.
Now I’ve got to run the dogs, and settle into the day’s work.
Over and out.
Poor They
Sir Boxnoggin and I found this unlucky bundle of feathers while out running. The crows have already been at them, and Boxnoggin was extremely interested, but I did not let him give more than a token sniff.
Poor birdie. Nature’s cleanup crew has already recycled most of them by now, I reckon. Such bright plumage, on such a grey day.