Stubbornness and Experience

Just a short note today, since I am so close to the end of Damage I can almost taste a few days off. Usually I have a long doldrums in the center third to four-fifth of a book before lunging to the end; this particular story began gathering steam at the halfway point and is full speed, arm the torpedoes, pass the butter and devil take the hindmost, amen.

Which also means I’ve had the usual “this book is shit, I am shit, and everyone who depends on me will starve to death because of it” in fast-forward, compressed into a smaller length of time but not at all ameliorated. Instead of the usual endurance match it’s a battering on the ropes.

Fortunately, I’ve stubbornness and experience on my side. And icepacks for my damn heel; I’m going to have to get some dixie cups and ice my forearms after this as well. Taking care of one’s hands is de rigeur for a scribe, and my fingers are a little tired. Normally I break in the middle of the day, shifting between two projects; spending all my time focused with white-hot intensity on one is giving me aches I could do without.

I might be pushing so hard on this book because I can’t run for a short while–plantar fasciitis is a bitch–and I need something to keep my brain from eating itself. Yoga sadly doesn’t cut it.

So it’s ice, and ibuprofen, and swearing under my breath every time I have to get said icepack out. This draft is extremely lean; that’s all right, I think it’s more a category romance than anything and the leanness of the draft will give me plenty of room to add the necessary touches and still be under wordcount limit.

Of course, if the category publishers don’t get off their rear ends and move in a reasonable amount of time, it will no doubt grow to a different proportion and be brought out through my own inimitable services. Either way a reader wins. I’m getting less and less willing to wait for trad publishers to, in my grandfather’s pungent phrase, shit or get off the pot.

Also, it’s subscription day, and I should really get the monthly newsletter out. If I get the denouement done this morning, that will be a lazy afternoon’s work.

Meanwhile there’s coffee to suck down, ice to put under my heel until it stings and grows numb, the dogs to walk while I wince and step carefully. The rain has retreated for now; the sunshine is unpleasant but at least it’s not gasping-hot anymore. Summer’s spine has broken and autumn has ascended the throne.

It’s got to be enough.

Only Moderate Pain

The Society

It’s a dark morning, a nice thick cloud layer shielding us. The rain has brought greening at the bottom of summer-yellowed grass and the trees are lifting their arms again, turgor pressure rising. Miss B is philosophical–her coat is wash and wear, and she’s a fan of chilly temperatures.

Boxnoggin, however, is from the South, and this cold, damp bullshit is not at all to his liking. Plus, he’s got a lovely slick coat that doesn’t bulk up like B’s. Consequently, he goes out in the rain and his first act is to crane his head over his shoulder and look at me mournfully. Clearly I am a vengeful goddess who is making water fall from the sky for the express purpose of inconveniencing his four-legged self.

B’s just happy summer is over. She gets warm, even with the air trapped in her coat.

As for me, I am delighted with the rain. Already my productivity’s spiked; 4k on Damage yesterday alone. I’m in the space where I hate the book, I loathe it, nobody’s going to want to read it, and we’ll all starve to death because I’m a terrible writer.

So, just as usual, then. I wish I could escape that terrible feeling for at least one book, but it hasn’t happened yet after fifty-plus, so it’s probably just one of those things. Like death, taxes, and the stupidity of rich white men.

This morning requires some walking in the rain. I know exactly what happens next, but there’s two gory combat scenes I need to block out, and since the injury running is out of the question for a while. Fortunately I can still walk with only moderate pain, and I need to be moving.

Also fortunately, I can swing the sledgehammer. I sense a lot of that in my future.

Oh, hey–we’re also a week away from Incorruptible‘s launch! Remember, you can download the first six chapters for free; you can also preorder just about everywhere.

And now, the shilling of my wares done, I need to get a jacket on and get the dogs out the door for walkies. At least when it’s raining Boxnoggin keeps up a brisk pace, wanting to get back to shelter as soon as possible. I don’t blame him, especially since it’s good exercise.

But first, there’s coffee to be absorbed while I blink frowstily at yesterday’s work, trimming just a few words and getting back into the rhythm. It may be a terrible book, but it will not be a terrible unfinished book. One can work with a whole corpse, after all, much better than one can work with fragments.

Happy Tuesday, my dears.

Blank, Pointy-Tooth Screens

Cormorant Run

The weekend passed in a blur, between chores and getting wordcount in on Damage. The best thing about it was the rain moving in. It is now officially autumn, and I couldn’t be happier.

I always work best when the rains settle like an inverted grey bowl, tip-tapping the roof and window, hissing between leaves beginning to turn, plopping into puddles. Maybe it’s all the negative ions being thrown up, maybe it’s the ambient white noise, maybe it’s the petrichor, maybe it’s the cleaning of the air. Maybe it’s all of them.

I also watched Wes Craven’s Dracula 2000 and its two “sequels”, the latter only loosely related to the first movie but starring Jason Scott Lee. I don’t quite uncritically love them, I’m aware of how bad all three movies are. The first one played with some extremely interesting themes and the third had the right ending1 instead of an action-movie Gary Stu vomit-fest, so all in all, they’re not bad.

Vampires are a blank screen we use to project a number of anxieties onto. I know–I’m guilty as charged, between Selene2 and the scurf in the Kismet series.3 Both had their uses, and I might be ready to write Tarquin’s story. Or even Imprint, the Beguine vampire smexy-story I’ve been adding chunks to over literal years.

But first I’ve got to finish Damage and get the Season 2 zero of HOOD out of the way. Now that I’m in the productive half of the year, that might even happen in a hurry. And of course there’s running, running with dogs, walking with dogs, parenting, and making sure my meatsack doesn’t give out under the pressure.

It feels like juggling chainsaws, complete with the risk of lopping off a hand when one grabs the wrong way. Tiger by the tail, and all that.

I should also get the monthly newsletter out of the way. Incorruptible goes on sale later this month, too, so there’s housekeeping to do for that.

It’s a good thing the rainy season’s long in these parts. I’d probably never get anything finished otherwise. Time to finish absorbing my coffee and get with the program; it might be dangerous to stay in one place.

Over and out.

Highlands Thoughts

Steelflower

I’m considering doing an Indiegogo or a serial run for The Highlands War. It would be nice to get Kaia’s story to a natural resting place before I walk away from it for good.

Originally, there were only three books planned–Steelflower, then her adventures in the Highlands, then her return (with Darik) to G’maihallan. The rash of piracy–not to mention small publishers going under–put paid to that plan; the former is a curse and the latter a mixed blessing since it allowed me to stretch out and tell the story of Antai and the journey to the North in the proper fashion.

But I think the G’maihallan book(s) will never be written. Kaia’s return (less triumphant than fated, and full of the secrets of those she’s learned with such effort to trust) will have to stay in my head, unwritten. I know what happens, and it has to be enough.

It’s a constant struggle to go back to Kaia’s world now, because I flinch at the thought of the work being stolen again and again. People stealing these books in particular drains away the energy needed to complete more of them. And people arriving at my website searching for “torrent”, “free”, and “PDF” don’t help.

At the same time, it bothers me to leave the Highlands part of the series unwritten, because Redfist’s arc really needs its completion and Gavrin begins to come into his own. The minstrel is slowly becoming a hero in his own right, and it’s fun to see him in the background, learning from Kaia and her friends. He’s going to have an interesting life.

I just haven’t decided whether I’ll put together a fundraiser so I can take some time off and write the story, or if I’ll put together a short-term serial. The latter would require having at least the zero done so it can be scheduled. When I make the decision I’ll get to work.

Unfortunately, that might have to wait a couple months. I need to finish Damage and Season Two of HOOD is taking up all my emotional strength right now. Parl Jun’s costume party is beginning to take on a different character indeed, and we’re going to see just how far Giz will go to protect Marah.

And even that will have to wait for a run, for the dogs to be walked, for coffee to finish soaking in, and a battle with a turkey. Some days I–

–what? Oh, the turkey.

Uh, I’ll tell you later. Because it really deserves a post or two of its own.

Over and out, then. For now.

Every Permutation

So far this morning I’ve spent an hour in the car, walked the dogs, and swallowed a few correspondence toads. As a result, I’m somewhat at sixes and sevens, and longing for more coffee. I just can’t tell if more caffeine will help or hinder, given the amount of fog brewing in my head.

It’s a continual amazement to me that so many people will put off responding to one’s communications but expect one to drop everything and leap upon theirs. I’m getting better at shrugging and filing things for later reply, and it would be inaccurate to suggest I feel no pleasure in doing so. I’m also getting better at dead-eyeing entitled little brats (of any age) into behaving better while out in public.

The end of summer is always a strange flux time, especially when one has children in American public school. Three months off is just enough time to settle into much slower habits, and the scramble to organize and prepare in August makes me long for year-round schooling. It seems a much more humane way to do things, but of course, America won’t implement the humane way of things until we’ve tried every. other. possible. choice. and failed at each and every one.

I suppose that sounds ill-tempered, but I’m *mumblemumble* years old and have earned a little temper by surviving as long with a brain (and in a country) that wants to erase me.

In any case, yesterday’s grey skies and rain did good things all over. The trees are much happier; I could feel my soul expanding with every drop hitting the ground. Consequently, today is much better than I expected, even as I was rudely (and somewhat early) dragged from strange dreams.

Even my open window, full of cursing and hammering from numerous last-minute construction and renovation projects in the neighborhood (as well as a particularly musical storm of cursing at random intervals as a hammer strikes a thumb or some other disaster occurs) provies just enough backdrop noise to make things interesting. Yesterday’s scene in HOOD needs its guts torn out and rearranged, too–sometimes one can’t do a scene properly until one’s taken a trial run and found out what doesn’t work.

At least I don’t have to try every permutation. Once is enough.

The romance–Damage–is also coming along well, though I’m far enough along on the first third that a few days of tender care situating the entire thing just so is necessary before I can settle into the long middle doldrum. It will be nice to hit the end, especially since I know pretty exactly how the book wants to swing and stretch. It doesn’t even matter that it wants to be written piecemeal, because the signposts are so large and the structure so easily discerned.

In other words, I have my work for the day cut out indeed. Here’s hoping for more rain (though the weather app tells me such hope is in vain) and for whoever’s currently cursing a blue streak to get a bandage and some better luck. (It sounds like there was a slight mishap with a staple gun; I’d curse too.)

Over and out.

Busy Meatspace

The past few weeks have been hell on my daily writing time. If it’s not the stress it’s family events, and if it’s not family events it’s back-to-school arrangements, and if it’s not any of that it’s scrambling to catch up with stuff that fell by the wayside because of stress, family events, and back-to-school arrangements.

It’s enough to make me wish for a cave in the woods. A cave with an electrical outlet or two, of course, so I could work in peace.

Single mothers are superheroes. No co-parent to take the pressure off even for a moment, as well as a constricted choice of jobs (so as to be available for childcare) and seventy-odd cents on the dollar a man would make besides. It’s surprising that any woman would choose to reproduce under these circumstances, which is, of course, why birth control and abortion are consistently made unavailable.

The State, you see, needs warm bodies, and there’s only one way to make those.

I finished Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain last night; it was like finishing one of the large, hearty sanitarium meals he describes so lovingly. Poor Settembrini, and poor Joachim. And poor Ellen Brand, taken advantage of by that damn doctor. Hans I have less than no sympathy for, even though he’s the reader’s entry into the tale. It was a lovely meal nonetheless, and while I’m sad it’s over, I’m sated and can push away from the table. I do like it better than Death in Venice; this book came along at just the right time.

I’ve still got an hour to spend in the car today, all told, and a good half-hour taking care of various things once I reach my destination. I’d best get started, especially if I want to get in wordcount. Subscription stuff needs to be sent out today, too–I could have taken the weekend to get a few weeks’ lead time set up, but instead I spent it taking care of life out here in meatspace.

The disconnect between how long it takes to write a book and how long it takes to read, let alone buy, one is huge. Related: I’ve noticed another spike in piracy lately, and there’s been a concomitant spike in people getting shitty with me in email about my request that people not steal my work.

This is why we can’t have nice things, like more Steelflower books in a reasonable time. (If you know someone who torrents, let them know they’re stopping you from getting more books from me.)

Anyway, the only thing I need now is breakfast to settle so I can run. I need the zen more than ever, from now until September.

Over and out.

Meat, Grit, Other Forms

Viral Agents

I’m contemplating going back into category romance for a while. I like writing them–the very narrow strictures mean one has to be extremely creative and I’m at my best when there are rules to subvert. I might even extend the Viral Agents series with Project Psyche.

Another thing I like about working categories is that Harlequin pays on time. There’s never been a problem with them meeting their end of the financial contract, unlike some other trad publishers I could name.

Mostly, though, I want to write a few things that please me. I’m exhausted by Afterwar and the cold reception my warnings received, as well as a few other things. If people don’t want the meaty, gritty stuff unfiltered, fine. I’ll put the meat and grit in other forms and serve it with a smile.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I’d love to tell a few stories that have unalloyed happy endings, too. They do exist, and right now they’re at the front of the line, having waited patiently for several years.

Often, I sense the stories that want to be told in a line out my office door. They shift slightly, cough politely, and wait their turn. The line’s fluid; some are beckoned out early and some move forward only to halt when an insoluble problem appears, some plow through all other waiting before them and run through me at high speed, leaving everyone gasping.

It’s like that scene in Ghost with the ghosts lining up to hop into Whoopi Goldberg.

Anyway, it’s a Thursday, there’s a run to accomplish, the dogs are frisky with wanting their own exercise, and I have coffee to absorb before anything else is even possible. HOOD‘s Season Two just passed 40k words yesterday, too. It’s going to be a long weekend, and one of the few bright spots is going to be time I can use for putting stories together inside my head while my body is otherwise occupied.

At least it’s a cloudy morning, so I won’t expire of heatstroke the moment I step out the door. Small mercies, my friends.

Onward to Romancelandia, my friends. Over and out.