Chalk Punkin

This cheerful fellow showed up on my run yesterday. It means it’s finally my favorite time of year again.

I woke up this morning, looked at the news, gasped, and now I have stress hives. It’s probably only going to get worse from here, but at least I have a D&D session tonight and maybe, if I sink myself in work all weekend instead of resting, I’ll have a finished zero to show for it.

I can’t decide. Maybe I’ll wait for the coffee to soak in before making any plans. The prickling painful itch from the hives can’t be treated with antihistamine until after I run, but maybe said run will purge a little of the stress.

At least I can hope, and at least there will be pumpkins and skeletons everywhere. It’s the one time a year my aesthetics are reflected in the larger world, and for that I am grateful. Heaven knows we need something in this benighted year.

Be kind to yourselves this weekend, my beloveds. Turn off the news if you must, take deep breaths, hydrate and rest all you can.

What’s that? I should take my own advice? Oh, you know I’m not good at that… but for you, I’ll try.

Like I keep saying, survival is a victory. May we be victorious as fuck.

Zeno’s After-Times

In the before-times, I would be finishing up a zero this week. I would be pushing from dawn to dusk, dumping out 8-10k a day, swinging from handhold to handhold as an epic fantasy spikes to a finish. Even yesterday’s agonizing over who pours the damn tea during a fictional imperial banquet wouldn’t have slowed me down much.

But these are the after-times, and I barely got 4k in yesterday. So maybe there will be an October surprise; maybe this monster of a book will finally be finished next week.

Or maybe I’m caught in a hell of never being able to finish this damn story. Zeno’s Paradox in book form.

The Zeno’s feeling is a common one at this point in the process, a familiar friend. It rarely lasts this long, though, because as soon as I start feeling it all my internal engines bend to the task at hand and all else falls by the wayside as I hunch over the keyboard.

Unfortunately, so much of my energy is going towards simply staying afloat on a day to day basis, I’m only operating at about forty percent capacity. Which means I’m going to be in Zeno-land for a while yet, and that’s terrible because I hate it and it wears my nerves well past bare.

But the Banquet of Death is done, we’ve reached the bloody endgame of the succession struggle, the northern armies are on the move, the barbarians have almost reached the capital, the southern army is just about to get underway, every character has something they want badly at this stage, and we’re about to have huge battles in the pouring autumn rain or smoke-filled fog while smaller personal battles play out inside a besieged city.

That will be fun. I know exactly what happens, I just have to get there.

I hate not being able to work on more than one project at a time. I hate that most of my energy is going to just barely keeping my head above water. I absolutely loathe the feeling of being helpless to protect those I care for. And then there’s the nightmares I can’t even turn into stories.

*sigh*

I know I’ll finish this book eventually. It’s bloody well personal now, and stubborn endurance is my trademark. Part of the problem is that I had to ask for an extension to get it done, and I hate being behind. I do my best to hit all my deadlines, if only because missing them jacks up every fear I have about my career to eleven–hell, to bloody fifteen.

At least I have new running shoes; my back will thank me for that after today. And at least it’s a lovely misty morning that doesn’t reek of smoke but instead of autumn. The rains will come, and eventually this zero draft will be done.

I have to believe that, or walking into the sea becomes a real option.

Happy Thursday, everyone. I have some neat stuff on tap for subscribers today–thank you, all of you, for your wonderful support. I always worry I’m not giving enough for the various tiers, but I suppose if I wasn’t, nobody would sign up, so I try to tell myself that and lay the worry to rest.

It doesn’t want to go down, but like with zero drafts, if I just keep stabbing eventually it’ll die. And with that cheerful thought, my beloveds, I shall embark upon dog-walking, a nice relatively easy six kilometers of running while I plan the day’s work, and returning to the aftermath of the Banquet of Death.

See you around.

Coffee, Cats, Banquet

My goodness, I get mail. Do I ever get mail.

In response to several recent questions, no, there is not a projected date for The Highlands War, which is book 4 of Steelflower. The ongoing piracy means I can’t afford to take time to write it, frankly. Yelling at me because you want to download it for free off a torrent site is not going to make me work on it, either.

Just sayin’.

Anyway, it’s a Tuesday, and the only thing dragging me out of bed was the prospect of coffee. Well, that and the fact that the dogs needed a loo break after a hard night spent trying to get under me to sleep. They both long to be as close as possible, though Miss B is, like many elderly beings, a light sleeper and is up and down several times a night to seek the tile floor in the loo when she gets too warm.

Boxnoggin, however, picks a spot and stays there, at least until B moves and he can get into a better spot. He’s a great believer in patience winning the battle of location. Although he rarely uses said patience for anything else in his canine life. Especially cats.

Man, does he ever want to catch a cat or two. Even the rabbits down the street don’t fill him with as much frustrated longing, although you’d think a terrier would be more into rodents than felines. But no, it’s a big juicy cat Boxnoggin wants, to love and lick and SHAKE.

I’ve tried explaining to him that they’ll last longer if he just cuddles them, but the terrier in him is absolutely baffled by this chain of logic and insists shaking is the proper way to show affection to small things. So, no cats for him, just toys.

It will frustrate him, but better that than the alternative.

Today I have a Banquet of Death to write in the epic fantasy. All sorts of stuff has been boiling away, and it’s about to bubble over. I realized last night I could cut a planned sub-arc and that will save me around 15-20k words, although the arc can be added in later if the rest of the book isn’t hanging properly. But I think it’ll be fine.

If I can turn in another few 5-6k days like yesterday, I might even finish a messy, hole-laden zero this week, which would be ever so nice. There’s a whole lot of brackets in this thing, though, since the entire last half of the book has been laboring under pandemic stress.

I suppose I’d best get to it. Tuesday is marshaling its forces, and I’d really like to get this particular Big Goal off my plate. All I need is to draw a line through the zero; that’s all I’m asking out of this week. We’ll see if it happens; be kind to yourselves today, my beloveds; remember, survival is the victory.

Slightly Beside, Running

I am standing slightly beside myself today; I took half the weekend off even though The Bloody Throne is itching under my skin, desperately trying to gather enough momentum to lunge for the finish. This week will probably see the zero draft done if I can just work hard enough.

All this has taken such a toll on my productivity. I’m used to a bare minimum of two projects at once, three is where I’m most comfortable juggling, but now I can barely manage one at a time. The shifting between projects, usually so effortless, is like stripping each gear in a manual while you’re trying to get on the freeway.

In other words, it’s terrible and I hate it, hate it, hate it.

At least there’s no smoke. Rain has cleared the air and the local fires are out, I think. I have a bit of a cough and some nasal drip left over–at least, I’m blaming it on the smoke instead of the plague, because the latter is just too terrifying to think about even if I am in generally good health and taking my vitamin D supplements.

It would be nice to live in a functional country, but… here we are. I read a piece this past weekend about how America is already in collapse, and rather than sending me into the doldrums, it was the last piece I needed to sort of come to terms with all this. The thought “well, I did everything I could, I warned everyone who would listen, but now we’re strapped onto the rollercoaster and there’s no getting off, so I’d best make sure my seatmates are buckled in as well as I can make them,” is oddly soothing.

I was waiting for things to settle into the new normal, no matter how much I hate calling it that. Or, to be more precise, I was waiting for my emotional response to get through the few weeks that hit once I have scraped the bottom of my energy barrel responding to a crisis. The unsteady, gas-fume feeling of just waiting for a spark or a lit match has drained away to a deep, flinty determination to survive and carry those I love with me, so at least there’s that.

Grim determination in the face of disaster is definitely not my jam, but it’s familiar and I’m good at it. At least as a lifetime sufferer of anxiety and panic attacks, I feel relatively well equipped for all this bullshit; it’s somewhat soothing that for once my emotional response to events is absolutely not an overreaction.

…I had more to report, I suppose, but I’ve finished my coffee (I had to stand in front of my stove whispering “oh please, please give me caffeine” at my Moka pot this morning) and the dogs need walking. I long to jump straight into work, but I also need a run. This delicate emotional balance requires exercise endorphins to keep it afloat.

I even ordered new running shoes, since my old ones are getting worn and my back’s beginning to inform me I need more cushioning. (Some parts of getting old are less pleasant than others.) Which is a sign that some part of me believes there’s a future. Either that or I’m just swimming blindly until finality strikes.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other, I suppose. And since the air is all clean now, I might as well do a deep scrub on my lungs by hauling my weary self through another six kilometers or so. At least it feels good when I stop.

I’ve a dynasty-ending battle to write, not to mention a junior prince making a bid for another empire’s throne, and maybe a lady in waiting apologizing to yet another prince for a princess’s death. It’s going to be a long day, and I hope someone else in the house has an idea for dinner. I made cocoanut chicken curry last night, and it was marvelous, but there’s very little left and I suspect it’s going to be a week of “get your own supper because Mum is exhausted.” Fortunately, after fifty-plus books (I’ve decided to quit counting) the kids are used to that, and both are old enough to cook.

Happy Monday, everyone. Make sure your own mask is on before attending to your neighbors’, and take a deep breath. We’re still here, we still endure.

It will have to be enough.

Driven Me To

Yes, my darlings, this is what lockdown and fascist coup have driven me to: sobbing into Keep Calm and Carry On tissues while drinking my emergency can of wine. (This was last Friday, if I’m being strictly honest.)

This week, we do have a D&D game. I have a murder himbo to hire, a date between our ranger and a dwarf named Gracie to cheer on, and a party to attend. My cleric has a new dress, the rogue’s gnoll toddler has a babysitter, our half-orc barbarian has a new zoot suit, and our paladin has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.

So instead of sobbing I’ll be laughing maniacally, chewing on a burrito, and maybe downing an edible or two while being the in-game equivalent of a chaos generator. I’m looking forward to it, and I hope you have a nice Friday evening planned too, my beloveds. But first I’ve got to get through the work day. Dogs need walking, there’s a run in the pouring rain to get done, and if I work myself to the bone today I will feel absolutely no guilt about knocking off early to play with my friends.

Take what joy you can. We’ve survived another week. I think we all deserve a pat on the back and something fun.

Fellini Dreams

I dreamed I was in a restaurant with very large fishtanks full of jellyfish, arguing/discussing/critiquing Fellini with Henry Cavill. I have no clue why my subconscious picked that particular actor, maybe because his nose reminds me of Marcello Mastroianni’s. But I do know I was drinking whiskey while discussing La Strada and Nights of Cabiria, and now I have the urge to take the day off and watch Fellini and Antonioni films. The two directors are somewhat indissolubly linked inside my head, more because I discovered their work in the same timeframe than for any other reason.

Anyway, I have coffee, and have had the morning French lesson. I was trying French, German, and Turkish at the same time, but then… lockdown happened, and the fascist coup is accelerating. At this point I’m thinking we’re due for twenty years or so of authoritarian rule unless the military removes that orange blivet from the Oval Office after the election, which will cause problems of its own.

Staring at what feels like the approaching end of the world (but is only the fall of a colonialist empire, I suppose) is playing havoc with my productivity. I’m trying not to read the news before a certain point in the day so I have at least a chance of some uninterrupted working time, but it filters in anyway.

Yesterday’s rains have washed sky and earth clean, at least. The air smells wonderful, cleansed of all smoke, though I still have a drilling pain in my lungs during extraordinarily deep breaths.

I know we got off lightly with just a few days of smoke; I’m grateful and yet feel guilty at the same time.

There’s the coffee to finish and the dogs to walk, a run to get in, and the day’s work is laid out before me. I keep chipping away at The Bloody Throne, expecting it to break loose and slide for the finish any… day… now. I’m in the phase where scenes I had planned fall by the wayside because they don’t fit the shape and momentum of what’s already been done, or I realize I already solved the problem approached by said scenes earlier in the book and just didn’t realize it. There’s also a lot of Clannad and Kpop on the writing playlist now, which goes together better than you’d think. Not quite PB&J, more like PB and banana on really tangy sourdough bread, which happens to be a particular favorite of mine.

The weekend is early enough for Fellini, despite me wanting to kick everything over and settle in for a mini film-fest today. Plus I’ve got to work enough that I can justify knocking off a tad early tomorrow for D&D–there’s a certain murder himbo my cleric is planning to hire as a meat shield, and I’ve been looking forward to that for a solid month now. I’ve got to get the paladin a date, and our ranger has a rendezvous with a dude who looks a little like Aidan Turner, so it’s going to be a really awesome session that will probably end in murder when we bust up an owlbear-fighting ring on an offshore rig.

…look, this is what happens when you have writers in your group. We start arguing over owlbear relocation projects and end up searching for himbos and catfish to seduce with a side of murder.

Or maybe that’s just D&D in general. In any case, I’d better get underway. The book isn’t going to write itself, more’s the pity. Although it’s nice to be needed to transmit said book, and fun to have a brain that serves up film critique and whiskey while I’m safe in bed.

It almost–almost–gives one hope.

A JoCo Day, Calloo, Callay

A half-pony, half-monkey monster would be a distinct improvement over a lot of what’s happening right now.

…maybe I should back up. I’m listening to Skullcrusher Mountain this morning, since I woke up with Code Monkey playing inside my head. (Long story.) Pretty sure the day’s going to be all right, especially with that soundtrack.

It’d getting more and more difficult to crawl out of bed in the morning. The dogs need brekkie and loo breaks, of course, and that’s pretty much the only thing that dragged me forth this morn. It just doesn’t seem worth it to resurrect on my own account; suffocating myself with my pillows has rarely seemed so enticing.

Life goes on, of course. It could hardly do otherwise. There are books to write and a box of author copies arrived yesterday; I should open it today and see what lurks within. The dogs have had breakfast and a loo break, but they need their walkies like I need a daily run. The children need their mother, no matter that they’re adults now–and isn’t that strange?

I thought motherhood as a job–not an emotional state, which is constant–would be over once the kids reached a certain age. It’s somewhat of a relief to find out they still need their mum, albeit in different ways, as they embark upon adulthood. More relief springs from the fact that they actually seem to like their mother, and are not frantically attempting to escape me by chewing their own limbs off as I did at my son’s age.

Finding out I’ve raised a brace of adults who actually like their parental figure and actively want to spend time with me is a deep gift, one I’m absolutely grateful for. I suppose there really are things to get out of bed in the morning for.

Go figure.

Maybe it’s time for a rousing rendition of Re: Your Brains to get the day truly started. Boxnoggin has interrupted the typing of this post at least four times now, excitedly informing me of such things as a leaf blowing down the street or someone walking a trio of dogs near our mailbox. Both events send poor ol’ Lord van der Sploot right over the damn edge.

He needs a walk; I suppose one wouldn’t do me any harm either. At least the smoke has cleared out again, and we’re looking at enough rain to extinguish the local forest fires. Small mercies; eventually, the rain always comes.

Exeunt, humming Code Monkey think maybe manager want to write goddamn login page himself“, pursued by politics…