weather eye

Fever and Rain

Well, it had to happen. Since we mask pretty religiously around here, we haven’t had much in the way of respiratory illness since March of 2020, when the Princess brought back what might have been the very first strain of plague just before the airlines shut down. She and her bestie had spent years saving up for that vacation, and managed to get home right before lockdown. At the time we thought it was just travel crud…but now I wonder.1

Anyway, the weather has shifted. We went from dry 90F days to mid-60s and rainy, and at first I thought the Prince and I were simply adjusting to the change. Then came the fever, the coughing, and the need to go looking in the medicine cabinet for a box of Mucinex2. We’re still not sure if it’s Covid, RSV, flu, or just an opportunistic virus taking advantage of stress and weather change.

Yesterday was the worst, and it aligned with pushing to finish the copyedits on Sons of Ymre 2. Thankfully this copyeditor is one of my very favorites, since she does not attempt to rewrite my book(s) in her own voice as some have. Don’t get me wrong–CEs are unsung heroes 98% of the time! It’s just that the remaining 2% can be…rather a doozy, and sooner or later statistics bite everyone. So it wasn’t that bad, but I had other things planned for the day as well and had to put them off in order to get the most critical stuff out the door.

There’s also rather good news about the Ymre books I can’t share yet, though I can say that the first two Ghost Squad ones are about to go live in audiobook. (All four Roadtrip Z seasons are available in audiobook too!) And of course The Dead God’s Heart is in audio form as well, if that’s your jam.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about John Scalzi‘s excellent point that “the failure mode of funny is asshole”, especially on social media.3 Yesterday saw someone I quasi-respected go full-on defending the theft of author/artist labor for so-called AI, and since they solicited my opinion on the point I gave it though I was pretty sure the request was disingenuous in the extreme. I was right, and remarked upon it on social media…and of course, along came a troll.

A few years ago I might have granted some grace, or simply muted. Now? Blockity-block-block, motherfuckers. Blocking is self-care, and if you’re trying to be “funny” but the vibe hits me the wrong way, out the airlock you go. I had a moment of, “is this person just trying to be amusing, and failing dreadfully?” Then I realized I didn’t care, between my current physical misery and the need to ruthlessly curate my life and space.

Life is too short to do emotional labor for jackass randos.

At least there’s rain. Someone in the neighborhood has a wood stove going, too, which would be pleasant if I wasn’t hacking up a lung. Boxnoggin isn’t going to like a short ramble rather than a long one today, though perhaps the damp will change his mind. Each year when the rains roll in he is dead convinced I have changed the weather just to spite him personally, and gives me long-suffering looks while lifting his paws as high and delicately as possible. Poor fellow, to him we are incomprehensible gods, dispensers of good things but also torments.

I’ll give him a bit of yesterday’s bacon when we get home. That should salve the sting.

The world looks rather underwater-funny, since I’m still rocking a mild fever. But so much has to get done today, and I can’t put much of it off. Being where the buck stops means one can arrange things to suit oneself, certainly–but also means that there is no last resort or backup. I’m just enduring until I can return to the relative comfort of horizontal, whether it be on couch or bed. Vertical rather sucks right now, and even coffee isn’t helping.

Time to get Thursday cleaned up and ready for the merry-go-round.

  1. And the utter failure of public health in the US means we literally can’t tell if we’ve had plague or…something else. ↩︎
  2. Guaifenesin is WONDERFUL, especially if one’s lungs feel a bit congested. ↩︎
  3. Scalzi’s comment policy was also a model for my own, when I allowed such things. ↩︎

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!

Tinderbox Season

Peering at the end of summer.

I got a snap of morning glories a few days ago while wildfire smoke was passing high over us, making the sun an orange smear and the light very odd indeed. Fortunately that has passed, though we’re still in tinderbox season.

A storm cell moved directly overhead this morning; heat lightning is still rumbling in the distance. I’m glad for the water from the sky, but holding my breath and hoping the electricity hasn’t touched off more fires. I scoffed at my writing partner’s favorite weather forecaster who predicted rain-and-booms earlier this week, and have consequently apologized for my lack of faith. Boxnoggin is highly displeased with this Very Loud Nonsense. Consequently he did not faff about when it came time for his first loo break of the day–he chose a patch within seconds, unloaded, and nearly dragged me back inside.

Wise dog.

It reeks of petrichor and ozone outside; inside, the coffee I just made adds its own note. There’s a chance of rain next week as well, and I am hopeful. First we have to get there, though, and the path lies through the weekend.

See you Monday, my beloveds.

Pre-Rain Doldrums

Each day brings us closer to autumn. At this point I’m waiting for the rains, longing for them with every parched fibre. Maybe soon I’ll have dragged myself out of this hole of “both books I’m working on are awful, I am a terrible writer, this will never end and I should just walk into the sea now.” The instant water starts falling from the sky I’ll feel revived.

I just have to hold on that long.

The summer hasn’t been as bad as others in recent memory, far from! I’m just…tired. And being at exactly the same place with two different books is a recipe for the doldrums. Right now I’m telling myself “this can all be thrown out in revision”, but it’s not been the panacea or the spur I’ve hoped for. Suspect I’ll have to cut some things rather savagely–the pole-dancing class scene in Gamble, much of the initial intrigue in Highlands War–but that’s a question for when the zero drafts are finished and have rested a bit.

I’m also telling myself this artistic discomfort is a sign that I’m about to make a leap forward. Generally, one tends to plateau, feel increasingly uncomfortable, then break the surface with a shattering jump like a moon-silvered fish. I’m also refocusing stuff in other areas, a rather unpleasant duty even if it does lead to a feeling of liberation when the shift is done.

Technically neither book is bad, or if it is, it’s the type of bad that’s fixable once I get the damn zero done. I simply can’t see the forest for the trees and I can’t use them to jostle each other. If I added a third book to the working schedule I could probably swing it, but if I am to be Responsible and Adult the only prospect is a finishing volume to a trilogy everyone hates and I don’t feel like swimming against that additional tide at the moment.

I just want to write my weird little stories and not have to worry about rancid ebook thieves, is that so much to ask? Apparently it is.

Anyway. The only real cure for this is buckling down, letting spite take the wheel, and finishing something. Whether it’s a short story (the Pocky one really needs more attention than I’ve given it) or an actual-factual book (Gamble will be done first, since Highlands shows every sign of becoming rather a 150k-word beast), something has got to be pinned to the wall of “that’s a wrap.” And maybe I could be a right snot and give the third slot on the schedule–assuming I can scrape together enough energy for said third slot, which will mean something like livestreaming will have to give–to something written just for me, since I don’t want to deal with certain pressures at the moment.

We’re back to spite as the only real fuel for getting through *waves hands* all this. You’d think I’d learn, and stop trying to make joy or even honour the main impetus. When either runs out, when both abandon me, there will still be spiteful stubbornness, lo unto the end of the world. It’s just how I’m made; time to work with the grain instead of against it.

At least, for a little while.

Corner to Harvest

A corner has been turned into harvest season; the clouds this morning are not summer’s citizens anymore but visitors from impending fall, spray before the autumnal wave. The differences are subtle–a tint here, a shade there, a particular shape against a sky losing its dusty dog-days blue–but they add up. We may have a bit of heat if more wildfires put us under a smoke-lens, but the balance has shifted.

I woke up with a song (Public’s Make You Mine) and the opening line to a story (Yes, there was a war in Heaven, but it hasn’t happened yet…) coexisting uneasily inside my head. The coffee will probably put an end to nonsense, even if I haven’t discovered the new coffeemaker’s name yet. I have discovered I can take the carafe out and pour, then return it with no stray drips or other foolishness. I was ready to risk any amount of mess to get caffeine.

It’s nice when engineering solves an entirely expected problem.

I managed to clear proofreader queries and a copyedited sample chapter yesterday, gutted through wordcount on both projects, and another copyedit–this time of an entire book–landed in my inbox. Which isn’t bad, this particular copyeditor “gets” me and doesn’t try to rewrite someone else’s book, so it will actually be a joy to go through, accepting and stetting with abandon. That’s for this weekend, though. I have too much else to do and, in the immortal words of that meme, must put some battles back.

Boxnoggin is pleased with the impending change of seasons, though I suspect he’s forgotten it means rain. We still have a month or so before the first real damp can be expected, so he has some angst-free enjoyment. The instant the first rains arrive he’s going to be irate, lifting his paws extra high and eyeing me sidelong. Naturally, he assumes I have complete control over the weather (as well as everything else), so for some incomprehensible reason I will be making water fall from the sky just to spite him.

I wish I were half the goddess my dog believed.

Today I might do a bit of rereading. Highlands War is going to be a big chonky book, since I by all indications won’t be able to write the trilogy that comes after it. Consequently we haven’t even gotten to the first army yet, or the warrior women, or the Battle at the Ford. And I’m sure some of the scenes subscribers are seeing will be cut from the final version, so we’ll see. Gamble has reached the “find out” portion of FAFO, and I think the heroine is smarter than she wants anyone else to guess. Which makes her a fitting match for the “hero”, naturally, though I don’t think she’ll ever guess what his original plans were.

Maybe most of my problem was summer. It’s not the most pleasant or productive time of year for me, and enduring this one has been rather awful. There’s a cool breeze and the promise of eventual rain, though, which means I’m almost through. I know a lot of people love the long warm days, the sunshine, the heat. My own feelings are otherwise, even if I’m glad for anyone’s joy; I’m halfway through the first cup of coffee and there’s a few things to do before brekkie and walkies.

Time to get started on the day.

Good Signs Abound

I had work scheduled for the weekend, but body and brain informed me recovering from heatsickness took precedence. It wasn’t so much the heat itself as having to leave the house for multiple hours during the worst of it, and not enough coolness at night (despite air conditioning, a truly modern marvel) for recovery. I hit bottom on Friday, and the following two days were a lot of hand-over-hand struggling out of the pit.

Still exhausted and a bit shaky, but temperatures are reasonable for sleeping again and I should be able to get some easy morning running, which will do me no end of good. The bluejays are screaming before dawn, too, which they don’t manage when it’s indecently warm. So, good signs abound. Especially the cool breeze flooding my office window at the moment.

I finished Zygar’s The Empire Must Die; there were a few things I hadn’t heard before in there as well as plenty of context. The footnotes describing parallels in Putin’s rise to power as well as the repeating mechanisms of repression were interesting too. It was refreshing in particular to see both Rasputin and Lenin treated without sentimental horror or hagiography. Next up is the third volume of Elric stories.

It was good to spend some time just…reading, even if I’m nearly mad with the desire to get back to work. Several scheduled things are having to shift as a result of illness and the Chihuahua of Real Life humping my ankles, both metaphorically and otherwise. The high-level wildfire smoke moving overhead is beginning to fray, which will cut down on mucus membrane irritation; tonight should be even better for decent sleep.

What I want to be doing today is getting the army together in Highland War and a major suspense-turn written in Gamble. Both have been hanging fire for a couple days, with only 200 words apiece. Plus there’s that short story I want to start building, based on Mel Tillis’s Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town (probably the Kenny Rogers version), as a companion piece to Jolene, Jolene. Those stories might have to go in a self-published anthology since I don’t have time to chase submissions in ill-paid short fiction markets, but we’ll see. I had plans to finish the collab story (the Pocky one) during last week’s canceled Friday Night Writes, so that’s another bit of work impacted by stupid corporate-fueled climate change.

The frustration will (hopefully) fade as soon as I’m able to run again. Worst of all is the feeling of working so hard and getting precisely nowhere, which is damaging for anyone. It’s been…difficult, lately. Even my patience is beginning to get a bit moth-eaten at the edges.

Coffee is soaking in. Boxnoggin is beginning to stir; he’s adapting to the new drip-instead-of-espresso routine, and has been very understanding of my need to stop and rest during walkies. I try to time it while he’s interested in sniffing something particularly fragrant, so he thinks he’s getting the better end of the deal. The very heart of negotiation: letting the other side think they’re getting the best bargain.

Monday might have me catching up entirely, but I wouldn’t bet on it. The best I can hope for is amelioration. In that case, I’d better start soon.

See you around.

Keeping Watch

Keeping watch, near dawn.

Earlier this week Carl and one of her brood kindly stayed put long enough for me to get a snap; the rest of the crew (including Sandra and yes, Jerry) are out of frame in a nearby yard looking for delicacies brought to the surface by sprinkler-water. They aren’t frightened of Boxnoggin at all, and flew away laughing when he couldn’t stand it anymore and yelled “HI FRIENDS!”, lunging to the end of the leash.

I’m glad I got the picture.

The heatwave appears to have broken, but now I am very ill from its knock-on effects. I’m going to wait a couple hours to see if I can muster through, but I might have to cancel Friday Night Writes and spend Friday bathing in ice water, not to mention writing longhand in a notebook to at least get some wordcount. It will have to be typed in over the weekend, assuming recovery doesn’t take longer than a day, and I already had that time set aside for proofreader queries.

Bother. The brain proposes, the body disposes, and all that. I feel dreadful about possibly canceling, but given that I can’t be upright for longer than ten minutes without dizziness and cold sweats, it’s probably for the best.

Have a wonderful weekend, my beloveds.