the goddamn muse

Lemon Glaze

I did not want to get out of bed today. I mean, I don’t ever want to, but this morning’s wanting was in a class all its own. Fortunately there was lemon poundcake left over from yesterday, which was even better today. Maybe it’s the sort of thing one has to make the day before, stick in the fridge, and try not to eat until the next morning.

The best thing about said cake was the glaze–sugar dissolved and heated in fresh-squeezed Meyer lemon juice, then poured over the hot and toothpick-jabbed poundcake, wait ten minutes, brush remainder of glaze over poundcake surface, let cool. The recipe said to take it out of the pan and brush it all over with the glaze, but I decided “fuck that” for two reasons: one, a tide of lemon syrup all over my counter is just asking for trouble, and two, I doubled the poundcake recipe to make a 13×9.

Because when I poundcake, dammit, I GO FOR GOLD.

Anyway, I can only guess that the glaze soaking in overnight, nestling in nooks and crannies, made for super deliciousness the next morning. For those interested, the recipe’s from Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cake Bible–the basic poundcake recipe, lemon-poppyseed variation, only without the poppy seeds because I hate the little buggers between my teeth.

So, leftover poundcake with eight shots of espresso, I have a run to get in, and three projects on the burners now. Atlanta Bound is heating up; I have all the pieces in place for the season (and Roadtrip Z series) finale. I’m still going gonzo on Hostage of Zhaon–the first half of it is with a sensitivity reader now, so I should hear back soon whether there are giant fucking holes or the whole thing is just a bad idea. If it’s the former it’s probably fixable, but if it’s the latter, well, that’s 60K down the drain. Better that than being an asshole, though.

I’ve also been playing around with Hell’s Acre. I like both the characters, but I think the last scene I wrote needs to have its setting changed out in order to set up Breakbridge the Orphanage Director. Who is a very decent fellow doing his best.

No, I didn’t want to get out of bed today. Since I’m here and caffeinated, though, I might as well work. Miss B is pointed down the hallway, twitching every time I shift in my chair. She knows I have my running togs on, and that means motion.

Over and out.

Iceberg Fiction

It’s raining, just in time for me to get out the door for a run. The garden is already thrilled, Odd Trundles has retreated to his Fancy Bed in protest, Miss B will complain all the way through our soggy sojourn, and at least there won’t be very many people letting their dogs offleash in this weather.

Small mercies.

I blame the sunshine for yesterday’s slowness. I could not settle for the life of me, and as a result only barely got wordcount on Atlanta Bound and only half of what I needed on Hostage. It’s probably the echo from the one really intense scene in the former that robbed both of the requisite pressure for forward impulse, and there’s no cure for that but time and stuffing the artistic well to its accustomed level. Ginny and Juju need to have a talk about grief, Lee needs to suffer some pangs of conscience, and Duncan Harris (a new character) has secrets. Not to mention in Hostage I need to figure out the etiquette for a new crown princess to visit her father-in-law’s concubine.

Even if the etiquette doesn’t make it onto the page, I need to know it. The vast bulk of worldbuilding rests below the surface, like an iceberg. The reader only sees the very tip, but without the mass underneath, it’s merely pasteboard and doesn’t convince.

So if I am a very focused writer and get a scene in Atlanta Bound plus finish the introduction to the lonely concubine in Hostage, I can write the scene in Hell’s Acre where the Rook meets Miss Dove as a reward. And yes, I do reward myself for work with…more work. If I could just download the stories whole and then revise–but no, I have fingers that must translate, and an entire body behind them that needs to be cared for as well.

Which means it’s time for a run to shake all the cobwebs loose and plan out each scene. Or I might just run with my brain tuned to an expectant humming, letting the engines below my conscious floor arrange things to their liking. Whichever happens will be welcome, as will sweating out leftover stress.

Over and out.

Looking Up

Odd Trundles complained that he wanted his walk, complained that I was not moving quickly enough to get to his walk, complained that he had to go down stairs to get to his walk, complained that it was raining during his walk, complained that his walk was too long, complained that he had to go up the stairs at the end of his walk, and is now complaining that his walk is over and he has a mouthful of chew toy.

It’s hard being a bulldog. Especially when there’s an Australian shepherd nipping at your hind end to quiet you down or boss you around, and the human won’t throw the chew toy the precise amount of distance you require.

The rain was unexpectedly warm, though. Plum trees are beginning to wear their fleece decorations, cherry trees waking up in droves instead of just the odd sentinel here and there. The ones who woke early are whispering with contentment, the newcomers singing a beat late but full-throat. The crocuses have their yellow hearts on display, jonquils and daffodils nodding cheerfully…and the hellebore, as usual, is watching this with a great deal of amusement.

I am finally possessed of a day where I don’t have to leave the house, and plan to spend it right here, occasionally stretching or looking out the window to see the remaining cedars dance on a wet spring wind. I’m sure Miss B wants a run, but she’ll have to make do with walkies. I have the fallout from an incredibly emotional scene in Roadtrip Z to write, and last night’s prince-and-general conversation over drinks to look through, tweak, and layer description into. Hostage is now 50K, and I’m only halfway through what I need it to be. Plus I should get started on revisions for Steelflower’s Song if I intend to release it later this year. And there’s the little matter of Jozzie & Sugar Belle to revise, as well as edits for Rattlesnake Wind coming down the pike at some point. In short, there is more work than even I know what to do with, and that is my preferred state.

Still, I am going to take a few minutes to enjoy some well-earned, nourishing solitude. And the fact that I don’t have to leave the house today.

Things are looking up.

Enforced Rest

I could finally run again this morning! It was chilly, nasty, and damp; Miss B kept trying to kill me, but I persevered. Taking a week off while my body fought a book I shouldn’t have been writing and a furious cold caught at a train station might have been good for healing, but I was tied in several knots by this morning.

I’m still tense, but not entirely murderous.

Over the weekend I used the enforced rest to finish revisions on Sparked–the first book of the YAs my agent wanted me to write just for her. I believe she has plans that involve shopping them to publishers, but that’s outside my field of vision right now. I’m still not sure I want to get involved with YA publishing again. But may gent knows best, and in any case, I wanted to write something just for her. My version of a gift, since I find present-giving (and receiving) utterly charged circumstances unless my children are recipients. Anyone else, anxiety kicks in. So I write books for people I love, and it doesn’t seem to turn out half bad.

Anyway, Miss B is finally calm, with all her week’s worth of fidgets worked out. I am not nearly as calm, but I can tell I’ll sleep tonight. What I’ll do when may body decides it can no longer run, who can tell? I might expire of insomnia and sheer irritation at that point. Today, though, the plan is red sauce (the beginnings of said sauce are beginning to smell divine) and laundry–and moonlighting with the nutless kangaroo story. Said story choked up 2K yesterday, while I was supposed to be resting in a post-revision blur.

They never do what you want, stories. They twist and turn and sometimes bite. I swear I will NOT turn this story into a book, it’s a novella at most. (The characters trying to crowd in to get their POVs heard are laughing at me.)

Odd Trundles is exhausted from his weekend too. It involved a thorough washing, never one of his favorite things. It also involved irrigating his sore paw with hydrogen peroxide. If it takes bathing his toes in that shit daily, that’s what I’ll do. It’s a good thing I love his cranky, creaky, snoring little self.

So. I have a tankard of hot Earl Grey, my favorite sweater, and the smell of oregano-heavy tomatoes is wafting through the house.

Over and out.

Liberation Adorable

So after a lot of back-and-forthing, and desperate attempts to write a dead book even though it made me physically ill…I no longer have to write the dead book. I don’t even have to attempt it. Instead, I can work on something that doesn’t make me stress-vomit each morning.

Needless to say, this is a welcome development, and when I got off the phone with my agent yesterday after making sure this was the case, I almost collapsed. My knees haven’t been that rubbery since I heard from my lawyer that the divorce was final. Pure relief and liberation tends to knock me right over, whereas pain just makes me more stubborn. (This, I’m sure, surprises none of my regular readers.)

As a result, this morning I feel liberated. Like the prison doors have opened and I’m free. The relief is intense enough to make me a little silly. Along with more snow dumping last night and both dogs deciding to be EXTRA adorable today. They’re always super adorable, but some days Miss B puts her paws on my chest and sneezes, and Odd keeps bringing me toys in order to bribe me to get out the door for walkies, and the adorbs is turned up to eleven. Especially when Miss B rests her chin on my knee and deploys the Big Doggy Eyes of “Yes, drink your coffee, I’ll just wait here. Patiently. See how patient I am? I am REALLY patient. Just waiting for you, Mum.”

Like that.

I’m excited to get to work today, which I haven’t been for a while. I’m flat-out gleeful to go into a book that won’t make me retch with stress.

But first, yes, finishing the coffee. And walkies. Before liberation, walk dog and drink coffee.

After liberation…walk dog and drink coffee.

Zero Drafts

I finished the zero draft of the first Combine’s Shadow book last night. So today is kind of an off-day, though I still have to get out the door for a run. God knows I’m feeling the pressure to get a whole chunk of Beast of Wonder out of my head today, too.

Every once in a while I get a rash of people asking “what’s a zero draft?” so I thought I might as well do a whole post on it, since I just finished one and I’m pretty sure I’m going to have another soon. (Beast of Wonder really, really wants to be written now, and I need it out of my head.)

It’s been said that all good writing is rewriting, and like all old chestnuts, it contains a grain of truth. Certainly there are occasions when a chunk of text falls out of my head and needs only minimal polishing before it’s ready for primetime, when I fall into a fugue state and churn out something beautiful. (The Muse does have to give me random rewards in order to keep me addicted, after all.) Those gifts are Easter-egg sprinkled through every draft, hidden hinges and visible ones for the story to hang on.

Zero draft means the work is done. It has the beginning, middle, end, there aren’t any places saying [[shit happens here]] or [[why isn’t this working, figure out the muppet here]] or [[jesus christ I have to kill this character soon]] or, one of my favorites, [[sex scene here?]]. It’s in recognizable book/short story/novella form; the corpse is whole and laid on the table. Celebrate, get a beverage of your choice, soak up the congrats of all your writer friends. You’ve given birth!

Now comes the hard part. Nobody else sees this draft. Oh, no. Are you kidding? It’s not even ready for my writing partner or beta readers yet.

The zero draft is the raw steaming lump of creativity. I set it aside, for at least a week. More difficult works sometimes have to marinate for longer. This serves two purposes: it helps ease the snapback, and it gives some slight but critical emotional distance from the big, messy word-baby you’ve just laid. You need that distance in order to make the word-baby better, prettier, more appealing, truer to its shape and intention.

Once it’s marinated for a little bit, you can go back and do the initial revision pass. You can fix typos, you can trim and craft better sentences, do continuity checks–basically, the initial pass is for arranging the corpse prettily on the table, embalming it, fixing structural problems, changing your dialogue tags to action or description tags, and the like. After that pass, it becomes a first draft.

Now other people–writing partner, beta readers, etc.–can see it. Now you can let it marinate for a little while longer before another revision pass if you can tell it needs more. A zero draft is the skeleton; a first draft is that skeleton with padding and clothing added. (Yes, I’m gleefully abusing metaphors here to make a point. You’d think I was a writer.) Work doesn’t stop at a first draft–I know writers who get to at least the third before they even consider letting an agent or editor near it. I tend to work hot and lean even in my first drafts, so I need agent/editor feedback on where the lacunae are, those things I can see so clearly in my head I forget the reader doesn’t have that image as well. It’s rare that I keep a book until the second or third draft.

Why don’t I call a zero a first draft? Because it’s finished, yes, but it’s not quite arranged, painted, or aesthetically where I want it. The brute work of typing is done, but it’s the cut and polish that makes it better. Still, the zero is a thing to celebrate. You’ve got to give yourself a break and a reward or two for finishing the damn story before you can gather the energy to make the corpse ready for the viewing.

It doesn’t mean the work is over, but you’ve got to take the good things where you find them.

Up for Air

Finished the copyedits. It took four passes, one of which was a page-by-page compare-collate with the actual final draft. By the end, unwashed, glaring, exhausted, and ready to kill the next person who tossed a semicolon where it didn’t belong, I sent the entire package off.

That was my weekend. I know some people have weekends that are actually relaxing, but mine are for catching up, especially since salaried publishing folks (not the writers, never the writers, give them a salary and they might be able to pay their bills, forsooth!) tend to clear things off their desks on Friday, dumping them into freelancer laps. Which wasn’t how the CEs landed on me, but I’ve gotten in the habit of the weekend being just like the work-week.

I did manage to get some housework done, and of course, Odd Trundles got his bath. Have you ever seen umpty-scrump pounds of bulldog practicing Gandhi-like passive resistance in the face of warm water and soap? It’s as amusing (and as hard on the lumbar spine) as you’d imagine. I have to carry Odd from his hiding place to the bathtub, scrub every crusted inch of him–oh, the crusts? Well, bulldogs are yeasty, and I can only wash him once a week or he gets skin problems. So, there’s a daily session with a sponge and a warm washcloth to get creases and folds cleaned out, as well as baby wipes (and, let’s be honest, hemorrhoid wipes) to deal with the more delicate valleys. Things have gotten way better since we switched to a sulfur shampoo, but still, every morning there’s various secretions to be worked free of his surprisingly sensitive skin.

I’ve talked several people out of getting bulldogs just by detailing Odd’s vet bills and the daily routine that keeps him clean and unscabrous.

Anyway, today is for rest and renewal, coming up for air. Knitting. Finishing my meander through Antonioni’s trilogy. An easy run with Miss B at my side. Looking through the projects I have left on my docket and arranging them. I’m not supposed to work today, I’m supposed to rest so I can be more efficient and energetic tomorrow.

But I’m sure I’ll steal a few minutes to write on Beast of Wonder. Or something else. If I go without writing for a day I’m uneasy; two days and I’m uncomfortable; any more and the urge becomes actual physical pain, fingertip to hair-end to toes. I have never understood writing as a hobby; for me, it’s an outright need.

In any case, today is for being gentle with myself. And, possibly, for dancing around the office a bit. Needs and projects are good, yes. But dancing is another matter entirely.

Happy Monday, my friends.