novel madness

A Shoe, Any Shoe

The new year has started out with good news and the stove being fixed, yet I’m a little caddywumpus. I’m ever braced for disaster–all my life, really, but especially since 2016–but am hardly prepared for things to go well. So my nerves, while re-wrapped a bit from the time spent from Boxing Day to New Year’s, are fraying in an entirely different way. Just waiting for a shoe, any shoe, to drop.

I suspect this isn’t healthy. In any case, it’s a relief to get back to real work. There are sample chapters for House of the Fan to brush up and send to the agent, subscription stuff to get out the door (including the first bit of Tomb of Night for my subscribers’ delectation), Boxnoggin to walk (eternally), and yoga to do since I’m on a recovery break from running. Of course recovery is my least favourite part of the process, since I devoutly desire the endorphin hit from hauling my weary corpse along at just above a shamble, but needs must.

Fortunately, it’s raining. It feels like I spent forever in drought–all the way through last October–and have just now shaken off the parched sensation. Boxnoggin is irate every time he has to go outside, even if walkies are the joy of his existence, but after a while he settles down. I would hope he’s beginning to grasp that the weather does as it wills, but I know he considers it my fault and doing specifically.

I wish I had even a tenth of the power my dog attributes to me. So many things would be sorted in a right bloody hurry.

I also want to get the discovery of a few bodies written in Highlands War as well as an assassin’s practice with her shiny new weapon in House of the Fan. taking time away from actual writing to deal with Other Stuff is always upsetting. I just want to goddamn well create, for fucksake. I feel like yelling at the world to settle down so I can go back to telling my weird little stories, but alas, that’s on the same level as Boxnoggin wishing the weather would cooperate with his preference for dry paws.

At least the coffee tastes very fine this grey gloomy morn. Oh, and I should mention that the Battle of Crunchy Discord seems to have convinced Trashmouth!Squirrel that the way to gain access to a magical pile of peanuts is to play chicken with vehicles upon a specific piece of road.

I’ve seen him playing in traffic twice now. Boxnoggin has not lunged for him, seeming instead rather puzzled that a fuzzy, ambulatory snackable has taken it into its head to Frolic Upon the Road, which is a behavior Box himself gets scolded for. So he’ll peer past me as we walk along the fence and the boulder embankment, glancing up every few steps to check my expression like a toddler who sees another kid about to get in trouble.

Maybe he even misses ol’ Trash screaming from the top of the fence, who knows? I have not scattered any peanuts on that particular slice of paving since The Incident1; Mugshot and her crew now clock us before and after that part of walkies, hoping for the two-tone alert whistle and a handful of treats. I keep the rewards relatively random so they do not grow dependent or importunate, and the corvids have largely left off taunting Boxnoggin in the hopes that peaceable conduct will gain them more crunchy calories. Some of them, especially the Littlest, will even hop from one foot or the other, or do small fluttering tricks to catch my attention.

All in all, the year’s started out rather well. I’m hoping the trend continues, and taking deep breaths while I can. Now it’s time to get started on Thursday. There’s a lot to clear before I can get to what I really want to do today.

See you around.

Stove to Squirrel to Work

The stove might–might!–be fixed by noon, and She-Wolf and Cub is a Kindle Daily Deal. There, in one sentence I’ve done the marketing for the day. (Hardly. ‘Tis a chore that ne’er ends in late capitalism.)

I’m ever so glad the holidays are over. I don’t mind saying they were stressful as fuck, and being startled awake by fireworks several times as the year circled the drain was unpleasant at best. Poor Boxnoggin shook and drooled until I let him under the bedcovers, at which point he promptly curled up, nose and haunches both attempting to snuggle into my armpit, and passed out without a single further care in the world. Even the big booms got barely an ear-flicker. I suppose by that point he was exhausted from all the feasting and excitement too.

Unfortunately, with the dog under my armpit and artillery going off, it was not a restful eve by any stretch of the imagination. Even last night there were a few pops and booms elsewhere, but Box decided those didn’t matter since he was busy lobbying to weasel his way under the covers again. I gather that dark cave is seen as safe, especially if he can get his nose into my axillary region.

All that aside, the first of the year was a success. I did a little work on a paying project (the serial), something that pleases me (House of the Fan), and a little revision (Chained Knight). I did a few year-beginning tasks that soothe me with their habitual nature, busted out an old yoga app, and finished up the day with a bit of Chaucer on the couch as well as a few episodes of Word of Honor, which I am giggling my way through. (Wen Kexing is 110% That Bitch, and I love it.) Begin as one means to go on, I suppose; Boxnoggin and the kids had their own rituals to observe, and we all went to bed as early as possible.

The holidays were exciting for everyone else here too.

I have very little to report, other than being back at work and yesterday seeing Trashmouth dart across the road in front of another car–this time a white SUV instead of a black one, and the driver was (hallelujah) not absorbed in their livestreaming this time. I did stop and stare, heart in my mouth, though the damn squirrel was never in any danger and made it to the bushes across the street from his usual fence in good time.

I decided to walk on a little further to give the call for Mugshot and the FedExers to come get a few peanuts. No use in provoking the SquirrelTerror.

Oh, yeah, and since it’s a new month as well as a new year, the Monthly Sales page is updated. See, I told you marketing is eternal. *sigh*

In any case, I’ve got to get Boxnoggin settled before there’s a chance of appliance repairman. Like toddlers and very tired writers, dogs need to be set up for success. The good thing about the appointment so early in the day is that it gives me plenty of time for a knife fight (in the serial), a duel (in House of the Fan) and maybe a couple chapters’ worth of revising later, and I’ll be in just the mood for the first two events.

Welcome to the New Year, my beloveds. May it be better than the last…

All This Ruckus

It’s no secret I dislike this time of year. Oh, the weather is great–the rains are here with a vengeance–and the trees are well abed, slipping into dreamland. Some of the lights are very pretty, and the chill breezes mean a lot of the jackasses who let their dogs run unleashed in the park(s) stay inside.

No, it’s “the holidays” I loathe. Normally any opportunity to take half a day off from work and eat some good food is right up my alley, but November-December is chock-full of fake-smiling faces on advertisements designed to make one feel inferior, progressively more stressed parents desperate to buy what the TV tells them is the year’s hot toy and taking their fraying tempers out on kids who really just want care and attention, performative “good deeds” by people who act shitty the rest of the year, and retail workers forced to endure the worst conditions since last holiday season from a public trained to treat them like shit even at the best of times. And the lights, decorations, music, and smells all remind me of my childhood “caregivers”, boiling away under the pressure of putting up a good front for extended family and coworkers while violently taking out their frustrations on already-battered children behind closed doors.

Some years I deal with the reminders better than others. This one’s not going too well, as you can probably sense; 2023 has been pretty stressful in its own right, and these few weeks feel like the final fuck-you on its way out the door. I mean, it’s not 2020, but that’s a faint blessing at best. And at least I have the portal fantasy, the first Cain’s Wife, Highlands War, the new romantasy, and The Dead God’s Heart to make me feel like I’ve accomplished a few things this year.

I’ll take what I can get. Today will be all about Highlands and House of the Fan, especially the latter since last night I figured out a super important piece of the heroine’s backstory that soups up the central conflict of the book. I had thought the conflict would be them getting to the big duelist academy in time for the entrance exam, but instead it’s going to be about the assassins’ syndicate our heroine burned to the ground being a little more robust than she thought.

I mean, naturally, they’re used to keeping their real strengths hidden. But she’s about to get a series of surprises ranging from almost pleasant (the hero has secrets of his own, though nothing like hers) to the exceedingly nasty (the central conflict). Some of that will be built out today, but the bulk of my time will be spent giving Kaia Steelflower a few unpleasant surprises as well.

Anyway, the rain should fall off a bit after dawn, and Boxnoggin will complain once we’re out in it but he needs walkies in order to act reasonably the rest of the day. I suppose I’d best finish the coffee-dregs, slap some bread into the toaster, and think about how I’m going to do the next combat scene. If I keep my head down and my gaze focused on work, I can ignore a lot of the holiday folderol.

That’s the plan, at least. And if you enjoy the holidays, great! Try to enjoy them a little more for my sake, I encourage that. Someone should have some pleasure out of all this ruckus.

Off I go to embark upon Tuesday…

Paring Down, Limping Along

The firs are wrapped in rainy mist, I didn’t sleep much, but today I swing back to spending time with Kaia and the gang. I might even make it a goal to get the bulk of Highlands War‘s zero done before the New Year, though I don’t think that’ll happen–there’s too much other work to be done, and the entire book is probably going to be somewhere in the 150k zone. It will take all of next year for subscribers to get through it.

I love Kaia’s story and had a whole ‘nother trilogy planned for when she returns to her homeland. Unfortunately the scale of ebook theft on this series in particular prohibits such grace, so I’m faced with the quandary of whether or not to answer certain questions–like D’ri’s scar, which did not happen in the way he has told a certain sellsword–and how to bring a few loose ends to at least a resting point since they won’t be given the entire last trilogy to live and breathe. I’m ever grateful that I can at least write this book with the help of subscribers, otherwise Steelflower in Snow would have been the last Kaia book ever. I did think that if subscriptions got to a certain point I’d commit to writing the follow-on trilogy, but that hasn’t happened.

Ah well.

Looking back over the year I can see the damage done by livestreaming. I’m just not that sort of person, and the behavior those platforms endorse and prioritise is exhausting and toxic to me. I’ll probably record stuff for patrons once I’m over the nastiness, but the whole thing bled off a lot of energy necessary for books and sanded my nerves down to bare wires. It’s a shame because I love talking about books and talking about why certain things work in certain books, deconstructing sentences and telling you all about strategies the writer employs. But the avalanche of hate-comments, bots, and threats, the time investment for absolutely zero return, and the breathless jump-cut nonsense prioritised by “the algorithm” are just not worth engaging with.

I suppose I’m in a taking-stock mood, near the end of the outside world’s year. And the quiet mistiness of the morning as I have a nice Moka-pot jolt–drip coffee just isn’t doing it, alas–makes me both philosophical and ready to cut a few things loose. I’ve been slowly paring away things that do not serve the work since about, oh, July-ish? And I’ve been in somewhat of a dark place the past few days; the exploitation in publishing is terrifying.

I mean, I’m supposed to be resting, but to hell with that. This recovery phase has been full of deep brooding on how awful things are at the moment, and that is poison.

Boxnoggin will nag for his walkies until he realized those require going outside into the damp, and I will laugh since we are between atmospheric rivers at the moment so really, we’re damn near dry. He will throw a hissy fit until we reach the first clump of greenery requiring thorough sniffing, whereupon he will be amazed and eager for the next. I’ll be planning the day’s work while we stride, so at least there’s that. Between Highlands and the sample chapters for House of the Fan it will be a busy few weeks before New Year’s. Come January I’ll be thinking about a cover for Chained Knight–even if the book is shit, at least it will reach the people who need it. (And the third one will probably tear itself out of my head next autumn, since that seems to be where we live now.) At least I’ve made my peace with the epic fantasy series the publisher’s killed, and can move on gracefully with others.

Small mercies. I’m grateful for the mist, and the coffee, and that I’ve survived at least a little longer doing what I was meant and made for. Coming home and firing up the Moka pot for another round will be a gift. And oh hey, there’a chance that today’s work will involve at least one messy decapitation–that’ll be Highlands, and House of the Fan will see a combat scene between a courtesan-assassin and another assassin who’s been hanging out on the side of a mountain, regretting his choices.

There are things to look forward to, at least. I suppose I can limp along a few days longer, so long as there are more stories to write.

Maybe Three For Three

I am thisclose to finishing Tomb of Night. The carnivorous scarabs and giant tentacle-infested rats have shown up, the villains are about to reach the tomb, and the quasi-angel isn’t far behind. It’s going to be fun.

I want this zero done by the time I go to sleep tonight. It probably won’t happen, but at least I can get closer, and my irritation at several other things–the damn stove, the bloody mortgage company, publishing in general–can be poured into supernatural combat and the sinking of an entire tomb older than prehistory. Because if I’ve learned nothing else, it’s that a city falling into the endless sands is good for the plot.

Come tomorrow the bulk of my time will have to go into revising Gamble, but I might steal a day or so (since December’s starting so close to a weekend) to really put this one to bed. The decompression on two zero drafts in as many months is going to be a doozy, but maybe it can be ameliorated by revision? (Famous last words…) There is rather a lot to revise, especially since I’ve gotten some…well, I don’t know if it’s bad news but it’s certainly unpleasant and hard to hear. Giving myself time to absorb and just sit with things would probably be best, but there’s work to be done instead.

So the schedule to the end of the year includes revising Gamble, getting a workable zero of Tomb of Night, getting close to zero-draft territory on Highlands War (if I pull this off it’ll be three in three months, though technically Highlands is at its midpoint already), thinking about the next serial (a problem for 2025, but I need to start planning now), and getting a few sample chapters of a romantasy together for my agent. That last will likely be what I spend Friday Night Writes on, and it will feel like playing hooky, I’m sure. Oh, and the Monthly Sales page will need attention tomorrow, there’s a whole tranche of holiday discounts and the like to highlight.

Once the year turns over, there’s Hell’s Acre to think about, and whether or not I want to bring the portal fantasy out. The betas like it, and I should probably hold to that above all else. No need to decide right away, and it won’t do the book any harm to sit on my hard drive if that’s the way it’s got to be.

And now, for somewhat of an announcement.

There’s a lot going on in the news cycle, and I should take this chance to reiterate: Just because I don’t say something publicly does not mean I do not notice or care. Sometimes I’m not qualified to give an opinion, so I keep my damn mouth shut. Sometimes I feel very strongly, yet it’s not my place to speak, so I don’t. Sometimes the risk of harassment and death threats if I say something is one I’m not willing to run at the particular moment. Sometimes–and I know this may sound strange–I just do not have the time or energy to get into it with a bunch of randos and Reply Guys, so I refrain and focus privately on the things I can do as well as my own goddamn work.

So, coming at me with a, why haven’t you said something about X, do you not even care? is unhelpful, unwise, and will only earn a big juicy block. I am not here to service random strangers’ emotional needs.

For one thing, there’s a Boxnoggin who needs walking instead, though he will be quite irate at the weather. There’s supposed to be rain, and the poor fellow holds me entirely responsible for that. I wish I had even a fraction of the power this canine attributes to me. A whole lot of things would be sorted Right Quick if I did.

Onward to Thursday, then.

Scaling Cliffs

It’s chilly enough that the slug population is taking a hit–don’t worry, happens every year, there will be plenty more of them once the spring rains show up. Right now my hellebore and I are both heaving a sigh of relief, even if Boxnoggin is trying to figure out how to get into the northern garden boxes to pee on a few of the former. I don’t know why this is suddenly his ambition, but…I guess I live here now.

A lot of work on the docket today–the agent wants a further sample of Temple of Night, which is what Cain’s Wife #1 has decided it wants to be called. And we just reached the titular temple–or we will as soon as I get this one stitchery scene out of the way, and figure out just how the nasty auction vampire (can’t believe I wrote those three words in juxtaposition, but here we are) tracked them down. Plus my agent wants to see some “romantasy” from me. “With how fast you write, you’ll have no problem!”

I nodded, smiling, and my wrists began to ache just thinking about it. Still, there’s Chained Knight, which is romantasy up the wazoo (after a manner of speaking) and I have a couple other things lying about–Xie’s Shadow, for one, and Magekiller and Source, which I think has the best legs out of all of them. I sort of want to do that assassin-and-swordsman-walk-into-a-bar book, but that will have to take its place in the queue. So maybe I’ll make more than one sample.

Not as irritable as I was yesterday, though plenty still lingers. I realized I was truly cranky when I finally slithered into bed, opened my Norton Critical Tale of Genji (I’m having more success with this edition than with previous ones, I think it’s the footnotes), and snarled, “I hate this protagonist and want to get to the part where he’s suffering.”

Boxnoggin, busy settling on his half of the bed, looked faintly alarmed. It took me a little while of explaining the lady of the cicada husks and the dead lady and Genji’s just all-around assholery before the dog decided it wasn’t worth being anxious about and started snoring, and by then I was wishing I’d picked up Chaucer instead.

There’s another bit of hilarity–me wandering around the library yesterday mumbling “where’s my fuckin’ Chaucer at? COME OUT, GEOFFREY. COME OUT AND FACE ME.”

Anyway, I think this time I have a chance of actually scaling Lady Murasaki’s cliffs, and I am grimly determined. Her sly asides make the journey worth it, indeed. But first I have to get through the day’s work, including walking poor ol’ Box, who does not like the cold but likes staying indoors even less. He will be full of energy and eager to sniff the greenery once it warms up a bit and the frost is turned to water-jewels instead of ice-knives.

At least there’s coffee to be had, and I might even be able to stomach brekkie in a bit. No stale croissants survived yesterday, alas, but not every Tuesday can be perfect…

Bread-and-Butter

Made 50k words on the NaNo book, but not sure if it’s going to be done before the end of the month. The world of the series has opened up around me, and true to form I’m only figuring out certain dimensions of the place and characters now. I think I had to earn the protagonist’s trust before she would really talk, so that’s nice to see happen. The first book will probably end with that smoking wasteland I envisioned for the beginning of the second, or maybe with the undead assassin learning about the brave new world that hath such people in it.

His first interaction with smart tech is going to be fun, though naturally he’ll be more interested in weaponry. I have his own weapons lying about here somewhere, an image I came across online and said, that’s it, that’s the one, what the hell do you call those and how do you use them?

Fun times.

Anyway, I’m going to try and get a zero draft of The Temple of Night sorted by December 1 (ha!) and then it’s a quick scan of the first two Ghost Squad books before revising Gamble. Pretty sure that’ll be the last romantic suspense for a while, though I’d really like to write Grey’s book. Jackson’s would come after that, but I’m not fond of him and would prefer not to go to his part of the world. We’ll see what happens.

I did hope, before the end of the year, to get some news back on the…let’s see…five books out on submission? Of course, three of them will no doubt end up being put into the self-pub pipeline and another is the one I’m working on now, so technically it’s more like four and three-quarters books out. You see, the problem isn’t with my work ethic, and the problem isn’t that readers don’t want the books. (For just one example, I am getting daily mail from people who want to see Hell’s Acre out in the world.) The problem isn’t even with small publishers, since the reputable ones are very transparent about their schedules and have reasonable timeframes.

No, the problem is (as usual) trad houses. Overworking and underpaying the people actually doing the damn work–mostly the writers creating what their entire industry is built on but also folk like the production editors who make sure things are arranged neatly between the covers–is a strategy only profitable in the extreme short-term. Eventually it ends up with the writers thinking, “Well, I won’t hear back from a trad publisher about a submission for over half a year and even when I do they’ll pay less than pennies, hand me to an editor who hates the work, do less than zero marketing, and then blame me when the thing sinks–wait, why on earth am I doing this again?” And then off we go to small, indie, or self-pub, unless we decide to throw up our hands altogether and leave the biz entire. It’s not hard to see why good authors are fleeing and readers’ favorite series are dying on the vine.

What is particularly galling is the fact that money is literally lying on the table for trads. Midlist authors–the bread and butter of any publishing house–with proven records have completed books that readers are eager for. But trad publishing simply won’t pull their heads out of their nether regions and pay even half a decent pittance for the books, let alone bring them to market for said chump change; they’re too busy giving “content CEOs” golden parachutes and selling off legacies to the same assholes who hollowed out and destroyed Toys R Us. At this point I’m amazed anyone’s submitting to the Big Four/Five at all, even though I understand why certain slices of the writing field are. The reasons range from new writers just not knowing better to agents hoping that this time someone at a major house will remove cranium from rectum long enough to take a breath and see what’s being offered, because traditionally publishing has come up for air at random intervals and as any gambler knows, there’s nothing so addictive as random rewards. There’s also old seasoned writers giving beloved editors one more chance to straighten up and fly right because the alternative is a lot of fucking work and we’re so, so tired.

So tired. My gods, you have no idea.

The market correction, when it hits, is going to be really painful. Unfortunately the greedyguts allowed to poison our entire publishing ecosystem will be allowed to saunter away from the mess, whistling, hands in pockets full of their ill-gotten gains. There will be no consequences for the writers they drove out of the industry or the books/series they murdered, just fourth and fifth yachts while they send their kids to private schools to become the next generation’s boot-on-neck problem.

Anyway, I keep working. A couple places are on their last chance with me, and I can already see they’re determined to squander even that faint hope. Still, formalities must be observed, I guess. I’m taking the high road, but eventually it’s going to be a case of taking my toys home instead. The new year will see some changes around here, but before then I’ve got to get this zero draft done and Gamble revised. And before that, Boxnoggin would very much like his walkies, since in his opinion I’ve been mutter-swearing at the glowing box while slurping coffee for entirely long enough.

Let’s hope the walk improves my mood…