Topographical Lunacy

Yesterday I developed the burning ambition to learn crochet, since there’s a sweater pattern I want to try. Despite being told this is madness and only topographical lunatics set out to do such things, I am undeterred. The kids, of course, never miss an opportunity for a craft store visit, so off we went. Now I’m learning magic rings and half-doubles; it’s been a long time since I tried something like this.

We’ll see where it all ends up.

There have been some changes else-web, too. I’ve had to turn off YouTube comments for a number of videos, and also take a number of them unlisted. The queue caught most of the awful stuff so most viewers never saw it, but I am tired of getting death threats and harassment for sharing my nerdy love of books. I don’t want to grant more oxygen to this particular issue, save to note that I dislike being on camera and I was doing these things as a fun service, not to make myself a punching bag for toxic neckbeards. If you wonder why I’m not doing more of certain things, the likeliest answer is, “I need to be writing instead, since that’s how my bills get paid”, but the second-most likely answer is, “I got tired of getting threatened, harassed, and yelled at.”

Anyway. The week has arisen; the weather is supposed to start getting better and there are intimations of actual rain soon. The next few days are all about copyedits for Sons of Ymre 2, and a pronunciation guide for the audiobooks. Which is weird because Ymre is a nonsense-word, the Sons do not use the Mad God’s name aloud even though they–and the awakened lirai–know it as a matter of instinctive sorcery, and also because plenty of the monster names are loving tributes to Lovecraft, Derleth, and Chambers so pronouncing them is a bit of a fool’s game.

But, like Gomez Addams, I am that dumbass. Heh.

I spent the weekend working on Gamble, and am about to dive into the escalating chase part of the suspense. Next comes a cowboy-themed casino, which will probably be set ablaze because that’s the Ghost Squad‘s method for dealing with certain problems. It reminds me of the casino scene in Hunter, Healer, which in my head was always set to Franz Ferdinand’s Take Me Out. I’d’ve loved to do more Society stories, but that would require a couple characters I’m quite attached to perishing, alas.

If all goes well, tonight I might begin the front panel on that sweater. It will require a lot of unraveling, cursing, and sobbing, but that’s all part of the fun. Especially with the weather shifting, which will mean I’m able to get back into my accepted level of yarn games. Fortunately I’m not in the mood for macramé…

…at least, not yet.

Happy Monday!

Rain, Transitory

Little transitory jewels.

The weather has shifted; no more glorious rainy days for a while. But the windows can be open to air out the entire house and the nights will become longer, so it’s not entirely bad. I wish the plague of mosquitoes was abating a bit more quickly; still, they’ll be food for bats and dragonflies, both of which I like a great deal.

It’s stressful right now. Of course that’s what one should expect, being a freelancer. And yet, if people would just stop stealing and exploiting–or if they suffered real consequences for doing so–things would be ever so much better for everyone.

I know, it’s a naive little dream. I have reached the stage of disliking hope, since it only leads to being kicked in the teeth. I have contracted in self-defense, and only wish to write my weird little stories, drop them into the queue, and retreat into my shell. (Or bog cottage, as the case may be.) Could’ve done without living through interesting times, and I don’t need Gandalf to chide me about deciding what to do with the time I’m given. Let me have a fuckin’ moment to breathe, Mithrandir. It’s absolutely reasonable to be discouraged once in a while.

Eventually, the rain will return.

I was going to do some Orwell for this week’s Reading with Lili, but that might be a bad idea. I’ll see if anything else in the library calls to me…but after coffee, and walkies. The day’s gears are slipping and I need a bit of caffeine and motion if I’m to engage.

Have a good weekend, everyone.

Preference, Edged Laughter

The backyard crows–Carl and Sandra, with occasional visits from poor Jerry and a few more kin–have been very vocal the past few days, mostly because there’s a hawk in the vicinity. I’ve seen their acrobatics as they attempt to drive the other predator off; both the hawk’s wings have a bright spot in the middle. I’m sure it dives for the feral rabbits who have been working their way up from the river over the past decade. The widening of the freeway has gotten rid of vast banks of blackberry tangle where the bunnies used to hide, which just accelerates the process. The hawk will find good hunting at the school field, not to mention one or two parks with open grass, but why pass up other chances?

Except the crows are having none of this business. Which I wouldn’t mind letting them sort out on their own, except for the corvids’ uneasiness spilling over into constant alerts and warnings when Boxnoggin and I are out. I know they like to torment the dog, partly because he’s always willing to play and partly because he’s in-harness whenever he’s outside now, but this is a little ridiculous. Even Jerry gets in on the ruckus, which isn’t usual at all; I think he still remembers getting caught in the fence. Maybe they’re even attempting to warn me to stay inside, as if the hawk represents a danger to me or to sixty-odd pounds of fuzzy destruction on a leash.

Revisions on Riversinger and Minnowsharp continue apace. I made it through the sack of the elvish city last night after dinner, but had to stop because I suspected I was becoming ineffective. For a zero draft, speed near the end may not be essential but is, according to my experience, a given; rare is the zero that I have not finished in a breathless scrabble. But in revision, especially near the finish line, more haste makes less progress. I need to take care, even if I am itching to have this done.

Fortunately I have found I like this book, and think it serves its purpose well. It’s frustrating to be the only one in the room who believes in the work, and swimming against others’ dismissiveness or dislike makes the whole process much harder than it has to be. It’s also hard to keep my frustrations under decorous wrap. Bitching to one’s writing partner only goes so far, and I’m beginning to sound like a broken record.

Ah well. One book left after this one is put to bed, I can endure. I’ve done harder things in publishing.

I should do some more memes on Canva. ‘Tis marvelous therapeutic, especially if I get swear-y. There’s just something about stringing a necklace of blue words I find wonderfully life-affirming.

I bounced off a Norman Mailer book recently, and am considering doing the next Reading with Lili on Bukowski as a type of protest. Because if I’m going to read a deeply problematic and misogynistic writer’s work, dammit, I should at least have some fun with the deal, and since Bukowski hated himself so much more than anyone else–including women–it grants his work a deeply mordant hilarity. Mailer on the other hand is deadly serious, the type of obscenely self-satisfied honker who has you cornered at a frat party and isn’t even a funny drunk.

I prefer the laughter, however edged.

Besides, I can just hear the fanboi cries of outrage, how dare someone with ovaries speak about ol’ Hank Chinaski like that! The thought makes me near-snort with glee. I really shouldn’t, it’s not nice to taunt…but one must take one’s fun where one can, in this benighted world.

Boxnoggin’s snores from his early-morning nap have paused. Next will come the jingle of his collar as he stretches luxuriously, then a small thump as he hops off my bed and the familiar noise of him padding down the hall. It is Time for Mum’s Breakfast, according to his internal chrono, and after that comes preparation for walkies. There are things to sniff, crows to bark at, and attempts to crap in oncoming traffic for him to accomplish; he’s busy, busy dog. After that I haul my weary corpse through a run while I cogitate on the last plot problem this book needs solved (Past Me, the bitch, left it for revision), and settle to a day of getting the subscription drop out and the rest of this book handled until it’s fit for the next stage in its parturition.

Off I go.

A Glut of Blossom

Blue bells, bluebells, as far as the eye can see…

We’re well past the turning point. Spring is gnawing winter’s bones; no doubt germinating is hungry work. The honeysuckle is growing again, the chestnuts smell like pipe tobacco when the afternoons warm up, cherry and plum blossoms are falling, the magnolias are shedding waxy petals, the hyacinths are in full vigor, the grass is growing again, so on, so forth. Every day brings new evidence that I’m not allowed to give up yet–surprising, as it is every year.

It’s only intermittently warm enough for bees; the weather nerds say that will change in the next few days. When it does, this bank of bluebells will be alive with subtle buzzing and several different species. Boxnoggin might try to catch one or two sky jalapeños, but while he is eminently equipped for the capture of, say, rabbits or unwary cats, he doesn’t have the depth perception necessary to grab a bumblebee. (He can’t even catch a toast crust on an easy arc, poor thing.) Which is all to the good for everyone involved, including Yours Truly.

I’ve a busy Friday–Reading with Lili, Friday Night Writes, and revisions–so I’d best get started sometime soon. But the coffee is hot, it’s not so chilly as it has been outside, and maybe I can take a deep breath or two before the ruckus begins. And maybe on walkies today we’ll meet a tiny new friend or two.

Not a bad way to end the week, all told. Off I go.

Revision and Non-Paragons

It’s been One of Those Weeks. Taxes, Amazon being shirty over things, ebook theft and techbro plagiarism apologists clogging my mentions, and I have got to get these revisions sorted, fa cry-eye. Turning off the wireless and sinking into the second Cthulhu-tinged romance seems like a grand idea, if only I wasn’t waiting for time-sensitive emails.

The big series reformatting I did instead of spending time in recovery is pretty much finished. Some of that effort may well turn out to be wasted; I’m seriously looking at getting every remaining title I have left through KDP (it’s not a lot, mostly paperbacks that were done through Createspace) the hell outta there. Which will be a multi-month endeavor to make everything go smoothly, but I’m almost, almost at the point where it’s worth it. Ease and convenience are heavily outweighed by the asshattery at this point, and the instant I get a few more ergs of energy to spend thinking about the whole thing I suspect I’ll start moving.

Anyway. The revision proceeds–not apace just yet, but I’ve gotten a chunk cleared and all I need to do now is cleanup, altering some of the villain’s behavior to achieve a slightly different state of frustrated desire as one of his motivating factors, and seeing if I can’t get the “hero” stabbed (or bitten!) in the ass a few more times. I promised my editor I would make the guy pay for his behavior in the first book, especially since in this one we see what was going on inside his head while he was (admittedly) doing his best to fight off the whispering of an old mad god.

Redeeming one of my “heroes” takes work, because by and large they’re not very heroic. Mostly because I enjoy a good problematic male lead in fiction so much I can’t help but write them often. In real life it’s very different, naturally, but in fiction? Give me the worst, most questionable stone-faced jerk, put him through hell, make him crawl for the heroine’s forgiveness, and I am a happy cupcake chowing down on handfuls of popcorn while I yell at the screen.

We all have our particular tastes. I’m a sucker for a bad-boy-made-good redemption story, even though I know in reality one doesn’t touch that shit with a ten-foot pole.

I do actually like a paragon every now and again, sometimes as a foil, sometimes as a palate cleanser. And I occasionally write heroes who are good guys in most senses of the word. Just…not often.

In any case, the coffee is almost done and there’s a run to get in today, the subscription drop to put finishing touches on, and stuff to prep for tomorrow’s Reading with Lili. I might do Stuart Neville’s Ghosts of Belfast, which I just read so it’s very fresh in my mind. Plus a pair of boxes full of author’s copies arrived t’other day and I might open them on-stream for the very first official unveiling of Spring’s Arcana.

The virtual launch party for that book is listed here, it’s gonna be fun. Nerve-wracking for me, but fun nonetheless. (Oh, and there are new sales listed for the end of April.)

So it’s off I go. The honeysuckle is full of leaves, the hop vine is going great guns, the clematis is budding, and I’m even seeing traces of green on apple and chestnut trees. Looks like we get another springtime, always a surprise. My jury is out on whether it’s a pleasant one, but that could just be the doldrums talking.

We’re almost to Friday, my beloveds. Hang in there…

Art or Prank

Can’t decide if it was accidental or on purpose, either.

Boxnoggin wasn’t perplexed by the appearance of a giant rootball on a water fountain, because it was well above nose-height for him. I, however, stood and stared for a few moments, trying to imagine the chain of events leading up to…this. The problem wasn’t a lack of possibilities, quite the opposite. There’s a variety of ways this giant chunk of roots and dirt could arrive in this situation, and all are through no fault of its own.

The absurdity only makes a burl more blameless.

It’s been rather an odd week, hasn’t it? I’m still not sure they didn’t fish some kind of small rodent out of a hadron collider, provoking the timeline to start healing itself. I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see. I plan on a really cool Reading with Lili today, and of course there’s the Friday Night Writes to round everything out. And if all goes well I just might finish a zero draft (or two!) soon.

Weirdness levels noted, fingers crossed, and all that. We’re almost to the weekend, my beloveds. Let’s finish as well as we can.

Flood-Time, Back Into Joint

Working through the weekend means Monday arrives a little before one’s ready. Though I did take half Sunday off to do chores, bake bread, and get a coq au vin in the oven–which made the house smell glorious indeed. An evening on the couch listening to gamelan music and reading the back half of a Murakami novel (Kafka on the Shore, the subject of last week’s Reading with Lili and Great Chapters) was exactly what I needed, too. I hadn’t visited that particular book since 2014, and a lot of temporal water has gone under the bridge since. It’s been a recuperative experience and I’m looking forward to polishing it off entirely tonight.

But first I need to get through a full day’s work, what with the serial and Cold North revisions. The latter need the bulk of my time now, since I should turn them in before the new year.

In the “very good news indeed” column, the recuperative period for running injuries has passed and I can start building mileage again, which is a gat-damn blessing. I need those endorphins. It’s the dark half of the year and holiday strain is mounting; balancing all that out with some sweat and purging of the unpleasant stress chemicals will help me keep my footing. Plus it’s nice and grey and gloomy, so the sidewalks and road-margins are largely mine again.

Oh, there are other people out even in the worst weather. Some dog walkers, plenty of other runners, the occasional bicyclist or seven1. But the aggravations of summertime–ambling middle-aged men taking up all the space and attempting to stop me to chat about the weather, assholes with unleashed dogs making problems for everyone, Karens sashaying from one side of the space to the other while yelling into their phones–go elsewhere when the rains descend. Every year I breathe a gusty sigh of relief when the weather turns, and not just because it’s my most productive time but also because the road clears.

There’ll be a glut of new exercisers on the path just after New Year’s, slowly trickling down to those who have managed to make an actual habit somewhere near the end of March. But for now, as the year wends to its darkest point, I’m often alone while running.

And I like it.

In a few days we’ll haul out the tree and decorations. I have not been Whamageddon’d yet, but when I go for last-minute feast prep and to pick up some cheap crockery for smashing2 I run the risk. Either I’ll get to Boxing Day having won Whamageddon or Whampocalypse3, so it doesn’t matter. My writing partner and daughter are already well in the latter, and enjoying it muchly.

Speaking of Boxing Day, the Winter Portal Fantasy Sale is still ongoing. After that I’ll take a break from sales for a wee bit.

I’ve had a great deal of synchronicity lately; it seems like the universe and timeline are attempting to heal, plucking at seams and Franken-stitching stuff together. Another blessing, frankly. I don’t think I could handle much more of everything being out of joint, as it were.

The coffee is at its dregs, my office is cleaner than it was before the weekend, Boxnoggin has not yet trotted down the hall to roust me for breakfast but that will certainly happen before much longer. I suppose I must embark upon the week. It will happen whether or not my coracle is caulked, so I might as well commend my soul-craft to whatever gods look out for weary writers and push away from shore.

Here we are, my beloveds, and time floods onward. Let’s check the wind, set our sails, and get to it.