Travelin' Man

Drew has now been to four states: Colorado, Arizona, Minnesota (our layover this weekend), and North Dakota. He's not even six months old. Pretty cool. I've got a longer post in the works for the weekend and some others that have been brewing since January, but the DDJ became the Frackin' DDJ this week and I use my free time to remind myself to breathe. To tide you over until I have a moment for more interesting posts, check out Drew's latest photos.

Five Generations in One Room

I was going to write tonight. Honestly. Then the fracking car accident on Tuesday kept me up way past my bedtime. Then my brother called late last night and kept me up past my bedtime (of all the reasons to lose sleep, this comes in second to comforting Drew and taking care of him at night, meaning I don't mind). Then Northwest cancelled our later in the morning flight for one leaving at 7:30 tomorrow. And we live an hour away. And DIA is not an airport to chance getting there only an hour before your flight. Do the math. I will be crashing as soon as we are packed tonight.

Where are we going? Grand Forks, North Dakota. Drew will meet his great-great-grandmother and renew his acquaintances with his great-grandmother and his grandmother. He will dazzle them with his ability to smile at the least provocation, to babble excitedly at his pacifier, to grab his toes and roll onto his side, to roll onto his tummy, and to sit up all on his own for long periods of time. And we all get to watch as he experiences a swimming pool for the first time. Stretch-marked Momma will be covered from shoulders to knees and dangling her feet in the pool. (Actually, I really don't care too much what a bathing suit would reveal about my postpartum bod; I just don't feel like trying to squeeze the time and money in to buy a suit that I won't use again before I have lost the last bit of my pregnancy weight. Lemme clarify: I don't care what a one-piece bathing suit would reveal. Ain't no way in hell I'll be wearing a two-piece for a bit.)

Watch for fun pictures on Tuesday.

OK, Murphy, the Well is Full

I've got enough experience at the moment to keep the well of my creativity quite stocked, but Lady Luck and Murphy think that I could stand to use more, apparently. It wasn't enough to give me the surprise of unexpected proceedures at the urologist yesterday. ("Oh, they'll just do an ultrasound of your bladder" turned into "Now we'll do this quick five minute procedure with a catheter and some tubing".) Last night as I was coming home from my fabulous critique group, I got into a very minor accident. It was on a stretch of road that is notorious for drivers thinking they have more room and turning rather than waiting that the curves of the road aren't tricking them (which they almost always are). I've been driving this bit of road for five years. It's the shortest bit of road on my commute, really on any drive to and from our apartment, but it's the one on which I'm always the most vigilant. More than once that vigilance has paid off as I honked or braked or swerved out of the way to avoid an accident. No such luck last night. The snow didn't help. Neither did the car in the other lane help, cutting off my other escape route as someone tried to make a left turn in front of me. I couldn't swerve without potentially having a head-on with another car. I had to slam on the brakes, which turned into an ice skating adventure, and ended with a minor bumper crunch.

Everyone was fine, it was just me and the other driver involved, Drew was safe and sound, asleep in his crib at the time. And the accident wasn't my fault, so we won't have to do the Deductible Crunch on top of the Bumper Crunch.

I was mighty tempted to just dissolve into tears or hysterics, but I kept it together for the hour it took for the cops to get there and write up the report. I even managed to find the positive. It helped that the other driver was just a kid, (read: 16; I remember the horror and terror of my first accident, also minor; hard to get mad) and his family was very nice to both him and me. It also helped when a car with fireman's plates pulled over and made sure we were OK with a quick thumb's up gesture. And I was listening to Rachmaninov's "The Isle of the Dead" which is a beautiful, haunting piece that does wonders for SoZ inspiration and kept me calm, oddly enough. I think I would've lost it had the radio been on and something cheery and bubble-gummy had come on.

Sigh. When it rains, and all that.

Writing Update

I've been very bad at updating my word counts in the sidebar. I usually remember to update the counts on a Monday or Thursday, when I'll be writing that very night. So I don't update, knowing I'll be changing those numbers in a few short hours. Today I remembered, and I won't be changing those numbers again until Thursday, and then only the Carson's Learning ones (I revise CL Thursday nights, work on SoZ every other writing night I get). And seeing as how I finally came up with a title for this first Velorin book that I like and that lends itself to a pattern for the other Velorin titles, I figured I'd post a writing update and update the darn sidebar.

First big news is that I renamed Strings of Discord (originally Strings of Betrayal) to The Shadow of Zehth. This fits much better with the big problem facing the characters and is a phrase used several times in the book. I won't be changing this title unless those who decide to represent and/or publish it tell me to. Feels good to finally have that settled. I have never enjoyed the titles I gave this project in the past. Now I do. Oh, and the draft creation is moving swimmingly. I had hoped to break 50k this past weekend, but Saturday night was a date night for me and Mark (our third since Andrew came along) and Sunday night I could barely keep my eyes open despite taking two naps during the day. We're going to Grand Forks this weekend, so breaking 50k will have to wait until next week unless I can find some time at work or squeeze it in elsewhere.

The next big news is that I have really enjoyed and seen a lot of success with the alternating works-in-progress I've been doing. I hope to finish my CL revisions on Monday (taking that day off from work, mainly just in case we have trouble getting out of Grand Forks on Sunday, but I'm planning on it being a hefty writing day). I'll leave that project alone for a couple of weeks, do another (hopefully much less extensive) round of revisions, and then submit it to this anthology. While the majority of my writing time will still be spent on SoZ draft creation, I intend to keep Thursday nights as non-Velorin writing. I'll work on the novel that continues the events and characters from CL (it's in The Masque's universe, and I do intend to revisit that novel, but if CL makes it into the anthology, I'd like to have the "follow-up" novel ready to go by the time the story gets published. I'd also like to have SoZ finished then, too, so I have two novels to submit to agents and editors with my "Oh, and I've published a novella" query letters. (Damn, I said if in there. I suppose that's OK for specific publishing opportunities, but if doesn't belong in my general publishing goals.)

That's the State of the Writing as of today. Consistent progress and a submission on the horizon. That'll work.

The Upside

A lesson I started to learn when I was unemployed but didn't fully get until I held Andrew while having my c-section incision packed is that there's always a silver lining. Sometimes it's very small compared the huge-ass cloud hanging around, and sometimes you don't see it until the cloud is gone, but it's there. I went through a lot last year, but I got a beautiful baby boy out of it. That's a fairly obvious silver lining. Very strong, very clear, very visible. And while I was going through that pregnancy, I had his kicks and punches inside me. Obvious again. I think there's a reason why all my morning sickness and sleeping ickiness stopped when I started to feel his movement. It gave me that extra boost I needed to push past any mental blocks keeping the first trimester yuckiness entrenched.

Recently, I've been having some more medical problems. Again, nothing too crazy, just some fairly severe abdominal cramping about once a month and some minor cramping more frequently. Add in the fact that my bladder hasn't been "normal" in over a year and a skin lesion that's been hanging around just as long, and we've got a recipe for more medical poking and prodding.

But hey, at least that damn root canal is done.

After reading Tess's post about refilling the well, I've realized that I've got more of an upside to this than the usual (my health is still basically fine despite these few blips--and I've got excellent health insurance, I've got the basic neccessities and then some, I've got time to write, I've got my bouncing baby boy--who just mastered rolling onto his tummy--and I've got Mark and lots of supportive family and friends). I'm just adding to the a ton of unusual experiences I can bring to my writing. And I get to meet a lot of different people in the process (Urology seems very specific for a part of the body that I didn't think would need a specialist; shows what I know). This is just another of my many adventures. Granted, I'd rather stop having adventures that involve my health, and I might go verbally postal at the next phlebotomist who tells me they could draw my blood better if I'd drink more water (I drink 3 liters a day, my veins just aren't easy to find), but it's still a large glom of new experiences waiting for me. And I say this knowing I've got a biopsy of that lesion in my future with the bonus weight of my father's and uncle's recent malignant skin tumor removals to manage. (Excuse me while I take a moment to do some strutting for how far I've come in this particular arena of life. OK, the Snoopy Dance has ceased.) New experiences and new people equals more to draw from every time I sit down to my writing.

Tess goes to Libya, I go to the urologist.

Everyone's Talking Shop

Well, that's not entirely a bad thing. Maybe a tad overwhelming, though. PBW gathered questions from her readers and started a sort-of meme to get the answers, and started to answer them herself. (This post has the best "what to do when you get The Call" list I've read.) Tam weighs in on the meme. Tess tracks the insanity of her latest book's title. And then Scalzi reports his numbers.

Did I mention my head hurts? And I think my jaw is still sagging after reading Scalzi's numbers. But it's a great article for aspiring writers, because, yes, he does make $100k/yr, but he does multiple projects to get that. He doesn't just push out a book a year and let the dough roll in, which is what a lot of people think writers do.

These are such great essays about the business of writing that I may actually print them out and keep them in a binder somewhere handy. For that day when I will need it. (I think I might eliminate "if" from my vocabulary when it comes to my writing. :))

The Business of Writing, Or "Ow, My Head Hurts!"

Tobias has a great post about writerly self-promotion, and Tess puts a different spin on work-for-hire contracts that many writers need just to survive. I like it when I find articles like these because it reminds me that I have to consider the mechanics of publishing as well as of writing.

And then there's Anna Louise's post about the business of publishing (part of her demystifying publishing campaign), and my head starts hurting. I think I should've read a post a week, not all of them at once. This is good information, good perspectives, good things to keep nattering around in your head as you move beyond the step of getting the darn book written. (By the way, it's frustrating when you know you can complete that step faster but have to go off and do something ridiculous like earn money for forty hours a week. It's even more frustrating when you get a great critique, read some great advice, and have your instincts start screaming, "This is it! This one is going to make it!" but you know you're at best eight months away from submitting your current WIP, and that's assuming you'll be able to finish the draft and revise it in those eight months. Oh, and you'll be moving to a new state sometime in those eight months, buying a house, etc. I'm remarkably more patient than I used to be, but there are days....)

There's a lot to know about publishing after you get that book finished and polished. The author's work does not end with "The End". This is hard for an as-yet-unpublished writer to deal with, though. The primary goal for those of us trying to break into publishing should be to write the best book you can. But you also have to be ready for that fabled moment when you get The Call--with absolutley no guarantees that it will ever happen. So if you're someone like me, whose current definition of multitasking involves plotting while pumping, you'll probably be inclined to hold off on learning the business of writing in favor of just writing, dammit. You'll wait until the business of publishing becomes something relevant to your limited time--usually meaning after you get The Call from an interested agent or editor, and by then you're playing catch-up for the rest of your career. In some ways it feels a bit like preparing to win the lottery, read: a bit of a waste, but probably vital should it ever happen. OK, so I've exaggerated a bit there. But it makes the point: not only is it hard to just write the damn book, it's doubly hard to be prepared for the off-chance of getting published both in the sense of everything you have to know to keep yourself in the game and in the sense of finding the time (which is usually always pegged toward writing the damn book) to learn it all.

That's why it's nice that we have folks in the biz who take the time to distill vital information into easy to read and understand bits and pieces to at least give you enough background that you won't be flying blind when The Call arrives. Yes, I said when again. No ifs today either.

Field Research

Between the general cataloging of my books after the busted pipe and Jenny Cruisie's cover design lecture, I got to thinking about how I buy books. I do buy a lot of books. I never really used to, and I often swapped books out at used books stores to save and still get new-to-me reads. I even dabbled in the local library while I was unemployed, but I found that my SF&F selection was pretty much limited to hardback releases, thus drastically winnowing the genre pool. So I started finding bargain deals and eking out wiggle room in my budget to regularly buy books (it became necessary as my critique group meets in Borders once a week; I have a lot of willpower, but I'm going to cave and snag a book at least once a month given that temptation). I buy books for two reasons: publishing research and pleasure. The books I buy purely for pleasure are new titles from authors I know, and most of the time I grab them as soon as they are placed on the shelves. Those are the books that I bounce around about, eagerly anticipating their release date, scheduling time to bury myself in them as soon as I have them in my hot little hands.

The books I buy for research purposes are another matter entirely. Into this category fall: books that were recommended by authors I like; books that were recommended by my writing family and friends; books that were recommended by non-writing family and friends; books that I've heard have similar elements to my ideas; books I snagged simply because the cover drew me; books I picked up in a bargain bin that seemed marginally interesting and were only a buck or something; books that got good industry buzz; books that had a unique marketing approach; etc. Now that I've budgeted for it, I tend to buy a lot of books for all the reasons the publishing folks say sell books. And then I assess how well each method works in a very anecdotal, memory of patterns sort of way. I don't keep tallies, don't keep notes. I just kind of go with my gut, wing it, get an impression, and file the information away for my use later. (By the way, I tried this with the music industry once and only once. I find that I'm willing to risk the $7--or less with the deals I tend to find--on a book that I will end up not liking, but I'm unwilling to risk $12 on a CD that I will end up not liking. This is because I can still learn a lot from a book I didn't like and put that $7 to use in a very tangible way, but that $12 is gone unless I can find a used music store willing to take the CD for anything close to what I paid for it.)

All this translates to a spectacular To Be Read pile. Or not so spectacular, depending on whichever book I pull out of the stack. It's all very haphazard, but I really like it that way. Sure, I could make science out of this, catalogue each book by reason I bought it, note my impressions, etc. I could create very pretty spreadsheets and such. Talk about sapping the fun right out of everything. And it seems to be a bit contrary to the reason I do this. Instinct can't be quanitified. Reactions can't be measured. This is something I do purely to get a sense of the market, the industry, what readers are actually looking for and drawn to. It's already paid off in that it keeps reading as a fresh hobby for me (I never know what I'm going to pick up next and why sometimes), and I think it will pay off when I have to start thinking about things like cover copy and covers art and such. And, yes, I said when. No ifs today.

What SF & F Mean to Me

A while back, Tobias had a great post about the fun and relevance of SF. He talks a bit about how he came to love SF and maps the history of his reading adventures. That got me thinking about my own journey to reading SF and fantasy and to writing it.

Before we moved to Germany, SF&F would've been right up my alley. I used to play "V" on the playground, orchestrating who got to be the aliens and who got to be the resistance and who would be captured. I think there was often a queen alien involved, though I don't remember if that was a part of the show. The game often devolved into a lot of running around and screaming and kids pretending to rip off their faces to reveal the alien underneath. Then there was the really cool set of trees in the play area across the street from my house, where we made a little gathering area in the center of the trees (I think they were really dense weeping willows; they would have been right behind that lighter colored pavilion-looking thing not too far from the center of this shot). In addition to the generic playing of "house" in this nifty spot, I created some sort of fantasy world with magic and some dire problem we all had to fix, but the tree place was "safe." I remember playing that particular game until dusk, and the willows looked especially ethereal then.

We moved to Germany in the midst of a family crisis, and I buried a lot of my creative instincts, thinking that they wouldn't serve the needs of the family. Still, I managed to do a lot of day-dreaming that I kept entirely to myself. It helped living in neat little villages--sort of hard not to let the imagination run away every now and then. Our first house in Germany had been the local pub haunt of Schinderhannes, the German Robin Hood. Our second house was at the edge of town, right before farmlands that sloped into a forested valley where a very old castle ruin sat (four walls, that's about it). I could get lost in the stories I would spin while climbing the cherry trees at the edge of town or while hiking through the valley around the castle ruins. Our third house in Germany was also at the edge of a village, overlooking yet another valley, this one a bit steeper. There was a lot of mystery buried in that valley, but no castle. (Actually, the castle in this town was perched on top of the hill, rather than buried in the valley; also, the castle had undergone extensive renovation to be some sort of resort/hotel-like thingy.) No, in this valley, we'd sled down at a breakneck speed during the winter, dodging the fences of animal pens; and in the summer we'd run down the valley as fast as we could without breaking our necks and then go tearing down the lane that led to someone's hidden cottage. After this fun spot, we moved into the housing on the military base, but we were still at the edge of the base and had ample forest to wander through before bumping into the barbed wire fence marking the base boundary, thus making up for the drastic lack of imagination one could find in base housing itself.

What does this have to do with reading and writing SF&F? Well, all that day-dreaming and those unique surroundings kept my creativity going despite my efforts to squash it. I didn't read anything beyond the standard bubble-gum pop-ish fare for my age group, and that didn't bother me--reading heftier books was for school. I watched a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and that added a lot of fuel to that creativity thing I kept telling myself I didn't have (I was a scientist, dammit). All of those experiences mished and mashed and melded until I got to my senior year of college and realized that I had periodically been starting a story or a novel a couple times a year while at school. And I discovered that the fluff I was letting myself read was distinctly boring and not doing much other than annoy me in the precious little down time I had from classes and research. I can't remember why, but I felt the pull of the SF section of the bookstores in South Bend. And I started wandering through them, trying to figure out which were the gems and which were the sparkly poo. I picked up Anne McCaffrey's Freedom series (she was one of the few names I recognized; I think my mother had read the Pern novels at some point when I was really young and the covers must have caught my eye), devoured it, and found myself disappointed in its lack of detail. I wanted more. So I went back to the bookstore and found the thickest damn book in the section that caught my eye. It was Melanie Rawn's Exiles.

I. Was. Hooked.

Since then I haven't come up for air, trying to make up for all those years that I read only Sweet Valley High or The Babysitter's Club and so on. In some ways, I'm glad I waited to discover SF&F all on my own after my formative years. It makes me feel like a kid again everytime I'm in that part of the bookstore, dazzled by genre, comforted by it, belonging to it. It's my own, something I went and found after I worked my way through a bunch of crap growing up.

Writing SF&F is another matter. I first started writing because I had a Point. Yes, the awful, dreaded lecture was the impetus for Human Dignity. That's the main reason that it might be quite some time before I go back to it. I have a Point in all my other projects, but it is always secondary to the Story. Or, rather, the Point is reflected in the Story instead of the other way around. And because SF&F as reading material was my own discovery, it felt natural to stick with that genre when I discovered writing as my own dream--not anyone else's, not what I thought anyone else wanted my dream to be.

Science Fiction and Fantasy unlocked something in me, or it was there when I unlocked a part of myself I hadn't realized I had been shutting away. Other genres are fun to read, and I certainly enjoy including other genre elements in my writing, but I don't think I'll ever leave SF&F or let another genre into my life as completely as this one.

Done.

Nearly a year ago, I had a fairly nasty toothache--on top of all the joys of morning sickness. That toothache turned out to be decay so bad, the tooth needed a root canal. So at 12 weeks preggers, I prayed my stomach would tolerate the hour and a half under the dentist's drill to clean out the tooth. I did well. Very well. Then came the next appointment to get the tooth ready for the crown. I didn't do so well. I tried again to get the whole business over with. No luck. One last time, I scheduled an appointment--and cancelled when I came down with shingles (I think I was around 27 weeks pregnant at that point). At that point, I gave up hope of finishing the tooth business while I was pregnant and scheduled an appointment for a couple of weeks after Andrew was born. Had to cancel that appointment when they told me my c-section incision was open and infected. Finally in December I scheduled this appointment again--only by this time, I had to switch dentists because my old dentists had stopped taking my insurance somewhere in all of this. And a new dentist meant getting approval from my insurance company to go forward with the procedure. On Valentine's Day, I finally got that damn tooth prepped for the crown.

And yesterday, finally, at very long last, I got the permanent crown cemented to the piddly remains of my molar. It wasn't without a bit of insanity. The only way I can tolerate the drill at the moment is with a nice dose of valium. So yesterday, I went home early (not actually for the dentist, but to be there for flippin' FedEx--long story), curled up with a book for a bit, took my valium, and walked over to the dentist. It shouldn't have been an issue. I've taken this drug before and it didn't affect my motor skills at all. But I had forgotten to eat lunch yesterday. Hey, what can I say? The book was engrossing. I didn't actually start to stumble until I was in the dentist's parking lot. And it made for some fun maneuvering to get me in the that stupid dental chair, but I didn't fall once. I must say, though, that I was remarkably chilled when they went to drill out a cracked filling after cementing the crown and discovered they hadn't numbed me quite enough. My bite's still a little off as I've been chewing pretty much on only one side of my mouth for nearly a year. It feels wierd to chew on the other side--I have to consciously move food over there for mastication.

But no matter: the Root Canal from Hell is DONE.

Happy International Embarrass Yourself as an Artist Day (Belated)

A while back, Elizabeth Bear challenged other writers to post "the awfullest, grottiest, ancientest piece of juvenilia you still have a word processor that will open." You see it's taken me some time to embolden myself to accept this challenge. I know I have older and far more retched pieces than this, but this is pretty darn awful. So much so, that I can only bring myself to post the first paragraph (it goes on for 20 pages...ouch). I still remember what I was thinking when I wrote this and why I wanted to write it and a good deal about what I was trying to do--enough so that I might revisit it one day (after having printed these 20 pages, shredded them, and fed them to a fire or let the cats use them as litter or something else equally satisfying).

Without further ado, here is the first paragraph of In the Frame of a Golden Sunset (and excuse me while I gag again at such a soap-opera-ish title, blech).

Missing. Missing. Missing. A funny mantra. But his own, his creation, or lack thereof. The business of his life seemed to meet the socially acceptable requirements. Successful job. Respect from his peers. A loving family, mother and father and sister, no wife, of course. After unsuccessful attempts at this world’s pathetic excuse for relationships, he had buried himself in that successful career of his. He had found himself attracted to a number of shallow women. He often wondered how he found them. Seemed to migrate toward them. One rather painful episode triggered him to embrace his work. It filled his life then. But no longer. And now that damned mantra. Missing. Missing. Missing.

I can find problems not only with each sentence, but nearly every word. The POV wanders, slips and slides. I've managed to create a character that, as written here, I already want to kick off a bridge--maybe that's a sign of latent talent to accomplish that in a paragraph? And I love that "no wife, of course" bit, how it seems to qualify the "socially acceptable requirements" of his life. Gag, gag, gag. I even somehow managed to give this ponderous oaf the name of a rather recognizable celebrity without realizing it at the time. That gaffe is the only thing that makes this piece even remotely entertaining (my character is a satirist, writes books and columns and such; the poor man I accidentally named him after does nearly the exact same thing). To think that I wrote this very early in 2000. I've come a long way in six years. A VERY long way.

Now please excuse me while I go scrub my fingers and eyeballs for ever having written and read this.

And Even More Pictures

Finally got the scanner back up and running and the last batch of photos from Ye Olde Point 'n Shoot are up. And since it was such a beautiful day yesterday (and will be again today), we went to a nearby rec area for a nice walk and, of course, took some pictures with the spiffy digital camera we got for Christmas.

Helping Another Writer

Many aspiring writers think that getting published equates to getting a bunch of canvas bags with big dollar signs on them. Get that Great American Novel into the publishing houses, and get busy moving into your mansion, buying your fancy cars, shopping at Cartier, etc. That only happens for a very small percentage of writers. I'd say less than one percent, but that's a SWAG (Scientific Wild-Ass Guess). Most writers slug it out every day to earn enough money to keep them solvent for the next year, or even month. And, in the case of an amazing woman who manages to write a ton as well as run Forward Motion, Vision, and a host of other writing-related things, she's down to getting enough money to make it through the next day. I'd like to wave a magic wand and give Zette those canvas bags with dollar signs--filled with the green stuff, of course. I'm going to do the next best thing in this mundane world: direct interested folks to buy her e-book and do so using her HollyShop affiliate link, and not mine. Just click over to Zette's site, and then click on the Shop.HollyLisle.com sidebar box. I tried to figure out how to give you her affiliate link directly, but I don't want to do anything that might screw up her comission stats and whatnot.

While you're there and giving a little commission to Zette in addition to royalties for buying her book, check out Hunting the Corrigan's Blood by Holly Lisle. It's a e-book reprint that starts out with the MC in close quarters with a corpse. Talk about a hook.

All told, you'll spend less than $14 for two books that are both non-traditional (and, if you ask me, worth checking out for that reason alone for market research purposes), one by an established print author, and another by an established electronic author. And you'll get those warm fuzzies for helping out an author in serious need.

Where's the Conflict?

Here's Andrew helping me puzzle out a plot point. He's concentrating harder than I am, but it obviously helped. I passed 40K in SoD last week. I celebrated by buying myself new pants that 1) aren't maternity pants and 2) actually flatter my current figure, but 3) aren't my original size, but the next one up. While I'm still irked that I can't fit back into my regular pants, I'm VERY happy to have put away all of my maternity clothes now and actually feel something other than frumpy in work clothes. Progress.

Anyway, I found myself asking about conflict the other day as I prepared to keep chugging on SoD. The chapter was just a bear anyway as I had to fully transition into the middle of the book (never my fave), write toward a later scene without really knowing what's going on in this one, describe a new subset of Velorin society, keep some tension going about a subplot, and do all of this in Raynal's POV, which is my hardest POV to write. I forced and stumbled my way through getting everyone to an oasis, introducing the problem at the oasis, setting up camp, and dealing with the problem a bit. I was set to write a scene about a lively campfire dinner and dancing in order to introduce the cultural subset and reveal some backstory of another character. But it just all seemed so flat. Mainly because I had no idea what the conflict was. Rayn has come to some sort of peace with the new insanity in his life, the nomads he's with are nice people, the problem I've introduced has been dealt with for the moment (it'll bite him in the posterior later), and everything's pretty peachy-keen at the moment.

As Tam so elequently noted, that just won't cut it.

So I tried to figure out where there could be tension. I thought there might be something in the backstory I needed to trot out, but it wasn't there. At all. I toyed with the idea of skipping the chapter and writing the scenes beyond it, but I need the information that I know I can beat out of my mind to make the next scenes easier to write. Finally, I figured there might be some conflict if I had Elaynor (Rayn's traveling companion) decide to blather on about The Plan to Rayn while he's trying to listen to a campfire melody that may contain new information about a history he's trying to write--and he doesn't understand the singer's dialect unless he concentrates. Not the craziest conflict, but it was the best I could do. I set out to write it, pulling each word from my fingers, wincing at just about everything, knowing that my next major rewrite was going to start right at that scene.

Then Rayn surprised me. He dropped a clue about himself. As he was taking in the sights, sounds, and smells of the campfire celebration, he remarked about how wonderful the laughter sounded and how it had been so long since he had heard any. I had to stop and look at those words for a while after they fell out of my fingertips. I tried to pester Rayn with questions, but he didn't want to talk after that. I kept writing, hoping he would drop a few more morsels. And he did. I now know a ton about his outlook on life and what he wants, why he's hunting for history and what he's avoiding with that hunt. I know his internal conflict. Can't really use it in the scene much right now, but damn is it going to make his POV scenes easier to write. It'll make the eventual rewrite of this putrifyingly bad chapter easier.

And following the meager conflict I was able to determine would be in this scene, the natural progression led to a very tense moment, rife with conflict that led naturally into the next chapter. Nice when it all comes together. Helps to know which questions to ask. Helps when your characters actually deign to respond.

More Pictures

Before the day gets away from me and I forget again, we've posted some more pictures of Andrew. There are more coming, but it requires updating the driver for our scanner for the last roll of film before we got the digital camera. In the meantime, these are cute.

It's Only a Model, Part 2

Sigh. Everything is finally back in it's proper place. Well, except for the stuff we had to pitch, which wasn't too much. A lot of wrapping paper and gift bags, a few magazines--and all six of my Cabbage Patch Kids dolls. I had never meant to keep them as the collector's items they've apparently become, but I did hope to pass them on to Baby the Second, should it be a girl. All the remaining damage is to our books. The humidity generated in blowing the carpets dry warped over a hundred books. I've cataloged everything. Now I have to research their replacement costs. Fun.

But having renter's insurance has certainly paid off. We'll get reimbursed for everything. The folks upstairs aren't so lucky. No renter's insurance, and they're getting the bill for all the damages since they caused the break by turning off their heat. Ouch. So a move designed to save them a few bucks on their energy bills turns out costing them several grand at the very least. If they had renter's insurance, they'd have a small deductible to pay.

Now's a good time to talk about lessons learned. First lesson: always have insurance, especially if you're going to leave the heat off in an apartment during a record-breaking cold-snap. Second lesson: maintain an inventory of the items you own that you would not want to lose forever (side lesson: it may be wise to transfer all your pictures to digital data). Third lesson: back up your data someplace away from your property. I cannot begin to describe my horror when I thought there was a fire in the apartment above us and I realized that the quickest thing I could grab (my flash stick) would only have my two current works in progress. Grabbing my laptop would've saved nearly all of my typed writing, but all my paper-only notes, all my critiques of HD, The Masque, and SoD, all of my research would've been gone. I have remedied some of this situation by making sure I have multiple back-ups of my Word docs, and I will be researching off-site data storage. But I have to impletment a better habit of typing up my writing notes on a more regular basis and scanning what I can't type. Means a lot of extra time, but I can't ignore that punch to the gut that I experienced last Saturday.

And the final lesson of this ordeal: we need a clearly defined emergency response plan for our little family. We may have had one before Drew came along, but we certainly haven't put one together since. And it was painfully obvious as we scrambled to get ourselves safe. We will fix that.

All in all, as far as disasters go, this was minor, and it taught us a lot for a rather small price. Granted, it would've been nice not to have experienced this and to have done everything this taught us without the direct lesson. But lemonade from lemons, and all that.

It's Only a Model, Part 1

The following is a post I wrote up on Sunday. There's more to the story, but I haven't been able to write anything up yet. Stay tuned.

I was all set to hop on-line Saturday evening and type up a quick writing update post. My company, for some reason, decided to give us President's Day off, and I realized that I would be able to get a decent chunk of draft creation done for SoD on Saturday and Sunday and then spend Monday revising Carson's Learning (a novella set in The Masque universe) for submission to an anthology. Seemed like a great plan. Just a few minutes before I was ready to write said post, I heard an alarm coming from outside the apartment, but close by. At first I thought it might have been the tornado siren (it being the only outside alarm nearby I could think of), but a quick reminder that not only was it below zero outdoors, there was also a good few inches of snow out there too. A tornado seemed a bit unlikely. So Mark went checked and discovered an alarm on our apartment building was going off. I immediately thought "fire" and go into a panic trying to bundle up the boy, bundle me up, and figure out how to grab what I could of my writing before it went up in smoke.

That's when I heard the water.

Standing in the nursery, I hear what sounds like a lot of water dripping, and not just going through the pipes like you can hear when the folks upstairs flush. I'm holding Andrew and his jacket and Mark is half in a shoe and half out of one as we try to figure out just what the hey is going on. Then water starts pouring from the lights, vents, and sprinkler in the bathroom off the nursery. Drew goes into his bassinet in the living room as we dive for towels and get everything off the floor in the bathroom. Then it starts coming through the sprinkler in the nursery and the living room and the light fixture in the hall. By this point, someone from the office is helping us move shit out of the flood.

That's when I remember the closet in the nursery also has a sprinkler--and that's where I keep ALL OF MY PAPER ONLY WRITING NOTES AND MY TWO BACKUP COMPUTERS.

Cue Andrew crying inconsolably unless Momma's holding him.

I go to the master bedroom with The Boy, keeping him from going nuts, while everyone else dashes around the place like mad rescuing my notebooks, our videotapes, the computers, etc.

That's when I remember that my wedding dress is also in the now-flooding closet.

At this point, I just hug Andrew and stop thinking about everything, waiting for the water to stop and for the insanity to ease to a low boil. I watch as maintenance men arrive with buckets and wetvacs and hear pounding feet in the apartment above ours. The lady from the office tells me that they forgot or just plain didn't set their automatic thermostat to stay above 64 before they left for vacation, which wouldn't have been a problem until we hit frickin' 13 below that day. She hands me a key, telling me we can stay in the complex's model apartment, which is pretty much our same layout.

So I bundle up Drew and manage to find shoes for myself before heading over to the model across the drive, and Mark begins making multiple trips with stuff we'll need for a couple days and nights out of our place. This includes two very irate cats. We get Andrew bathed, fed, and to bed and then finally we order some take out and pour ourselves some rather strong margaritas.

The tequila helps us as we discover that our temporary digs is most certainly a model: maximum looks, minimum function. The plentiful TVs and stereos are all plastic. The master bed has a ton of pillows, none of which are suitable for sleeping. The king-size bed has a gorgeous bedspread--and nothing else but the crazy 80s fabric of the mattress itself. There is not a single square of toilet paper. The stove isn't hooked up. And so on.

But we have my laptop and Battlestar Gallactica Season 1, so we snuggle under the bedspread, trying to convince ourselves that the slippery feel of the mattress is kinda like satin and therefore luxurious, and settle in for some tipsy viewing of good SF.

We're one episode in when Andrew starts to cry. Poor little thing is congested and keeps waking himself up to breathe. Cue yet another trek back to the now extraordinarily humid apartment with many industrial fans blowing under the carpets so we can get the "What to Expect" book, a humidifier (yes, the irony is appreciated), and Drew's Little Noses Saline Drops. By the third episode, we think we've managed to get Andrew breathing well enough to sleep somewhat longer than an hour at a stretch.

Most of today has been spent keeping The Boy occupied as he is fussy after his night of so-so sleep. He's slept on Mark. He's slept on me. Hopefully he'll sleep better tonight. And tomorrow he goes to daycare so Mark and I can check out the apartment for damage, start the cleanup process, and get much needed naps.

A Valentine's Day First

For our first Valentine's Day, Mark proposed. Not at some swanky restaurant, not over champagne, not with flowers in one hand and chocolate in the other. I was teaching a developmental biology lab course and had several projector slides to show examples of chicken organ tissue. The last slide was supposed to be the final example of a particular region of the liver. Instead, up popped the words "Kellie, will you marry me?" Mark, who was my "assistant" TA for this lab section, got down on a knee and held up a ring. My first thought? Honest to God, I looked at that slide and, even though we had already decided to get married a couple weeks before and even though we had even picked out the ring together that weekend, I frowned and thought, "That's not the liver." My students thought it was a joke. Mark and I had been living together for the entire course to that point (OK, so it was a whopping four weeks), but they had no idea we were even dating.

Now here we are five years later. We've done the fancy dinner thing, the flowers thing, the chocolate thing, the "naughty undergarment" thing, and the jewelry thing. (Actually, Mark gives me jewelry for just about every birthday, anniversary, and holiday he can afford to. Not so much because he thinks he ought to give me jewelry or even because he wants me to have it, but more because he loves geology and gets a big kick out of looking at unique stones. Last night he gave me a beautiful pink rhodocrocite slice.) Last year was very low-key as I was suffering through morning sickness and the idea of chocolate was enough to make me green at times. This year was set to be low-key as well since the Drewmeister's around and we don't exactly have a long list of baby-sitters. But this V-day took a unique turn even for us.

I'll be going to the dentist, hopped up on valium, finally taking Step 2 in the root canal from hell--the seating of the crown. Step 3 will be two to four weeks from today when they actually screw that sucker into my jaw. I'm sure there are less romantic things than spending a Valentine's Day evening with your numb-lipped, drooling, spaced-out-on-drugs sweetie, but I can't think of them at the moment.

Aspiring Writers Take Note

Tobias Buckell has a great promo idea for his new book, Crystal Rain. It's sort of like the bonus features of a DVD. If you've got a copy of the book, you can access goodies such as short stories with the characters and universe of the book, a sneak peak at Tobias's next title, and author commentary on what it was like to write a scene or why it was written the way it was. This is a very neat idea, one that I'll put in my toolbox for that glorious day when I get published. Not only does it give buyers more bang for their buck, but it gives Tobias and his book an edge over the crowd as this is a new thing (or I think it is...have I been missing out on cool extras for other books?) and grabs the interest and attention. I know I'll be visiting his site often to see what new features he's added (there's a "coming soon" spot for deleted scenes). Maybe this is the writer-geek in me just going "squeeeeee!!!!" but I think this is something that even the casual reader will find interesting. Go. Buy. Get the goodies.

Drew's Quirks

My son is quite the grinning fool. Honestly. He just finds the pre-flash light of our digital camera to be fascinating, which is why I have a ton of serious pictures of Drew and not a whole lot of him smiling. His face was probably all scrunched up in a joyous grin just seconds before I took this picture. I mean, this is a boy who will go from passed out asleep to a full-face grin quicker than you can blink. It's very rare that he doesn't wake up with a huge smile. Well, make that a huge smile as soon as he sees Momma or Daddy peering into the crib. This kid likes to grin so much that we have to be careful while he's eating because he will try to suck on the bottle AND grin with obvious results.

Speaking of eating, The Boy can put away 6oz every two hours, but he's the skinniest thing (as far as babies go, Drew is in the 17% weight-wise). Conversely, he's ramarkably tall for four months (84%). Guess he's working on beating Daddy's height of 6'2" as soon as possible. I'll be the shrimp at 5'8" before he turns five, if he keeps this up. :)

I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but Drew continues to despise being on his stomach. He likes to kick around on his back (loves the changing table), and he's even perfected a half-roll onto his side. I'm waiting for the day when he completes the roll and realizes he just put himself on his tummy. That ought to be a very fussy moment.

More than laying on his back, Andrew loves to stand. He's almost able to stand on his own by gripping something for support instead of just standing in Momma or Daddy's lap while we hold him. He enjoys standing most of all when he's in front of a mirror. And he thinks it's even better if he's in his birthday suit, just before his bath. By the way, he gets the biggest kick out of his baths. We have one of those detachable showerheads, and everytime it gets close to his face when we're rinsing him off, he opens his mouth to try to drink some of the water. It's very cute.

And then there's the Mutant Eyebrow. Sometime in his first couple of weeks, I noticed what looked to be a stray hair on his temple and brushed it away. A few days later, it was still there and I thought it was just another hair and brushed it away. Two days after that, I thought I was going crazy with this damn hair and tried to pick it off his face and toss it away instead of just brushing it. The darn thing was attached! It's this very long, curly thing now. He gets it from his father, who also has mutant eyebrows, although his are white and never stop growing unless he clips them.

So those are Drew's quirks of the moment. I'm sure he'll abandon some of these and acquire others as the months march on, but I thought it would be fun to share a quick snapshot, sort of a day-in-the-life thing. For my own memory if nothing else.

Writing Space

A while ago, there was a sort of blogging meme going around the blogosphere about posting pictures of your writing space. I had meant to post, but, due to image uploading issues from my home computer, never did. So here it is now, Kellie's Writing Space.

This is where I used to write, looking at the space from within the room. Comfy chair, inspiration board with lots of fun cartoons and quotes and pictures, nice big desk with room for scented candles and such, and easy access to my bookshelf with a ton of reference books.

Here's a shot coming into the room. If you look at the items on the right, you'll see assorted toys that make it clear this is now a nursery. I do miss this spot. It was quiet, it was comfortable, it was me. But now it's Drew, and he deserves his own space, even if he can't stand on his own yet.

Since Drew showed up, this is where I do my writing. Glorious isn't it? When I'm done, I close up the laptop and store it on top of the electric keyboard just out of frame to the right. I keep a couple writing notebooks stashed there, too. Must be mobile until we move and I (hopefully) get a space of my own again. I know Mark also wouldn't mind a better spot for his big scope. I wouldn't mind either. It kinda dominates this area, which is supposed to be just for eating. Ha.

Writing: The Hunting Metaphor

Lynn Viehl (aka S.L. Viehl, aka Jessica Hall) is an extraordinarily prolific writer. She routinely writes at least five books a year, all for paying markets. Last year, she wrote nine. Did I mention that she also has rheumatoid arthritis and has to dictate her novels? No, I'm not kidding. As a former moderator of the Forward Motion think tank, on-line class instructor, yahoo writing group leader, and blogger extraordinaire, Lynn has spent a lot of time helping aspiring writers learn and improve their craft. Me included. Now she's written an e-book to help writers improve their productivity.

Way of the Cheetah is a quick read, full of helpful, easy-to-apply hints, and it's as entertaining as Lynn's voice always is. In addition to the basic tips that are standard fare in many general writing how-to books (how to develop a schedule and stick to it), Lynn also blends in some of the emotional/mental analysis that make Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way such an amazing book. But Lynn doesn't stop there. She also provides a chapter on how to maintain writing equipment and how to store your writing for a minimum of data loss headaches. She finishes up the handy advice with a chapter on physical health maintenance and its impact on writing. At the end of each chapter, she has several exercises to help incorporate the her advice into your writing world. These exercises range from the simple to the advanced, depending on where you might be at in your writing journey and in life in general.

I enjoyed Lynn's no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is look at writing beyond just getting the words on the page. While not every tip she has may be applicable to every writer, I found that all of her advice helped me analyze my own process and gave me ideas for improving it. This great resource for maximizing your output is available for download here.

January Lessons Learned

I made some general goals at the beginning of the year: Lose weight, stay sane, and write more. I put a few specifics to those goals, but I really kept everything vague. "Finish a draft of SoD" instead of "Write 3000 words a week" or something. I had a good reason for that. Andrew doesn't really allow for as structured a home life as I'm used to. Gotta go with the flow, roll with the punches. So I resisted putting together a real schedule as I knew I would be more likely to get depressed, discouraged, or monumentally frustrated with The Plan when I kept having to abandon it because Drew decided he didn't want to take a nap on Sunday like he did on Saturday, and so on and so forth. But I also decided to review my goals and my steps toward them on a regular basis. Here's what I learned in January.

In the staying sane department, I learned the hard way that I'm not going to get good sleep--at least, I'm not going to get what I used to consider good sleep. A good night nowadays is one in which Drew only wakes up wanting his pacifier and will go back to sleep. This still means that my days of six or seven straight hours of sleep are gone, or at least very rare. And in the month of January, I had a hard time with that. It didn't help that The Boy decided at Christmas that sleeping twelve hours straight was cool and did so consistently and then suddenly decided it was uncool two weeks ago and likes to start whimpering loudly every three hours or less for his pacifier, sometimes waking up fully for more food. My bod did not appreciate the sudden reminder of what good sleep felt like followed by the abrupt shift back into the normal operating procedures of caring for an infant. I drank a lot of coffee, tried to catch extra snatches of sleep by playing the "snooze button" game, and just generally went a little nuts. I learned that focusing on being tired and on the sleep I'm not getting makes the sleep I do get suffer. And sleep-deprivation of this sort (not the first six weeks of baby sort, which is entirely different, mainly because I wasn't working full-time then) turns me into a deranged Super Woman. I know I'm not getting sleep, and I know I have so much to do, so I go crazy trying to get everything done, and then my brain never really shuts off at night, and the cycle repeats the next day, and my brain keeps this constant stream of babble going that drives me crazy.

Luckily I realized what I was doing after only a week and a half, went home early one day, left Andrew in day care (hey, we're paying for a full week's worth; why waste the money?), plopped myself in bed and read Jenny Cruisie. I tried to nap, but couldn't (might've been the coffee I had had that morning), but by the time evening rolled around, I actually felt tired, not overworked and overstimulated and overwound in general. I've been sleeping better and feeling more productive ever since. Now I can objectively look at my goals, what I did right in January, what I did wrong, and how I can improve.

As for weight loss, I did manage to lose three pounds. Four more to go before the docs consider me healthy, twelve more before I'm back at pre-Drew numbers. The Monday morning treat and Thursday night take-out pattern went well, though the sleep issue made me cheat things and buy more snacks and such. But at least I know this plan will work. Again, the sleep issue kept me from doing weekday workouts, but I did manage my Sunday morning one well. That will work, and working out the sleep stuff will help for February. Something else I learned about my weight loss goal: I absolutely CANNOT try on my pre-Drew pants and skirts until I'm at least within five pounds of my pre-Drew weight. I can't conceive of them fitting me until then, and trying them on beforehand gets me very, very depressed. I don't need that craziness right now.

Regarding writing, I did not do myself proud in January. I did OK, but I know I can do better. It was that damn sleep thing again. I often decided not to write when I could have because I was just "too tired". And I learned that it's hard to forego time with The Boy in favor of writing on the weekends. Especially when he was only taking naps when I was holding him for a while. That's why I really, really need to put together some sort of schedule, something to help me manage my time better, particularly on the weekends.

January wasn't a bad month, but it was certainly a learning experience. I needed that month to figure out a few things about life with Drew and the DDJ. I needed to see how my goals worked in my day-to-day. I certainly did make a lot of good steps toward my goals in January, but I know I could have done more. Now, armed with the lessons of last month, I should get closer to my goals in February and hopefully learn more to close the distance faster in March.

A New SF Adventure

Crystal Rain by Tobias S. Buckell reminded me of a Tootsie Pop. While the hard candy coating isn't bad, you know it's covering the gooey chocolate center you'd rather be eating. Which is why I always bite into those things instead of waiting for the candy coating to be licked away. I know, that's a strange comparison to make, but let me explain. We're given a strong hint of the fascinating SF backstory on the back cover flap, and then only vague or fleeting references until two-thirds of the way through the book. While the adventure story is well-written and certainly enjoyable as it vividly describes a blended Caribbean culture under attack from an Aztec-like society, it didn't hold my interest as much as that frustratingly brief and rare glimpse of the backstory did. And, just like the Tootsie Pop, once we were thick in the backstory, it was over much too quickly. But I'm certainly invested in the primary characters now and am already looking forward to the next book.

One of those characters is Pepper. As I struggled to get to the gooey SF goodness of this book, Pepper's chapters kept me hooked. Buckell did an excellent job of making him a distinct and enjoyable voice, even if the subject matter of Pepper's thoughts wasn't so pleasant. While Buckell creates a fabulous and compelling conflict toward the end when John deBrun recovers his memory and must marry the two distinct lives he has lived, Pepper is the more complex and natural of the two. I'd recommend this book for Pepper alone.

Even though I wanted the last third of the book to be drawn out more, to delve more into the information and emotion and detail once the backstory is revealed, I still enjoyed the read. Maybe not as much as I could have, but enough to get me drawn into the Buckell's world. Should be a lot of fun to read more adventures in the setting that Crystal Rain introduced.

This book will be released in hardcover next week. If you'd like to read the first third fo the book before you commit to the $25, click here.

UPDATE: For unique DVD-like bonus features (author commentary, deleted scenes, short stories in the Crystal Rain universe), click here.

Academic Freedom and Catholic Character

Several days ago, I received an email from the Notre Dame Alumni President regarding a series of discussions that had recently occurred on the Notre Dame campus. The new president is considering instituting a policy that would limit student access to material that is inconsistent with Catholic doctrine. One example of this policy already in place is that The Vagina Monologues, a theatrical piece that has been performed in a campus-wide setting for the past four years along with a publicity campaign and auction to end violence against women, has been relegated to a classroom setting only and the concurrent campaign and auction cancelled. The president's address to the faculty explained the reasoning and invited discourse as he begins the process of creating a broader policy on Notre Dame's Catholic character and how that relates to academic freedom. The following is my response.

I've debated how best to frame my response to the concern of academic freedom and Catholic character, how best to relate my position on these matters as a Notre Dame alumna, a Catholic, a wife, a new mother, and a woman. I can share my experiences of Catholicism both within and beyond the grounds of Notre Dame. I can share my difficult journey to accepting my own sexuality--a journey that might have been easier had there existed a forum anywhere in my life for frank and open discussion. I can express my profound grief at how matters of sexuality are handled by the Catholic church and at how such a remarkable institution as Notre Dame is continuing that mishandling.

Instead I'll pose three simple questions that should be considered before any long-term policies are made: Where does sponsorship end and censorship begin? Why deny a community of scholars and students such perfect forums for conversations about significant issues? Who does the University truly serve? I'll focus on The Vagina Monologues as I am familiar with it and was unsure of the exact trouble surrounding the Queer Film Festival and of its potential fate.

Several times in the faculty address the distinction was made between censorship and sponsorship. Censorship is the deletion of, among other things, morally objectionable material from media. Sponsorship is the vouching of an event, usually by monetary means. I can understand the need for the University not to be seen as supporting an event that is not compatible with its Catholic character. What I can't understand is when such a need turns into the deletion of such objectionable events from media. In other words, there are many ways to make it clear that Notre Dame does not endorse the elements of The Vagina Monologues that run counter to Catholic doctrine. Denying the broader venue of this performance and its surrounding publicity is the most dangerous and damaging of those ways. It shuts down public discourse about important issues. It sends the message, however unintentional, that a public, frank, and open discussion of sexuality is not allowed at Notre Dame. It leads to limitation of freedom as students, faculty, and even alumni are bound to wonder if elements of their next performance or publication will be found objectionable and thus be removed from its intended campus venue.

Setting aside discussions of slippery slopes and fine lines between censorship and sponsorship, the greater disservice of denying the public performance of The Vagina Monologues is to the soul of the University. If we are truly about maintaining Notre Dame as an intellectually rich and vibrant university and about forming students' character, then we should not hide things that we find objectionable but rather bring them fully into the light and examine publicly why they are objectionable. The Notre Dame student body is exceptionally bright, containing many future world leaders. They should be exposed to as much information as possible so that they can make their own decisions about the values they choose to incorporate into their lives. Quite simply, if Notre Dame chooses to limit what the student body is exposed to by removing from public view that which is inconsistent with Catholic doctrine, Notre Dame is depriving its students of the necessary tools to reason in the world. I always understood faith and values as concepts to be exhaustively examined and actively chosen, not blindly followed and forcefully accepted. What sort of Catholic character are we instilling in the future if we do not trust young adults to determine what to accept and reject in a performance that contains both a positive message about sexuality and a graphic description of deviant behavior? I hope that The Vagina Monologues will be performed in a broader venue next year with the concurrent V-day publicity and auction. It is the perfect forum for initiating a conversation about societal expectations and views of sexuality and how that differs from Catholic doctrine. It is a remarkable way to allow the young adults of Notre Dame to respect their sexuality and make informed decisions about their bodies. This is something that should not be limited to the classroom.

Even should it be decided that The Vagina Monologues is too loaded a piece to ever again be performed in a campus-wide setting, Notre Dame's first obligation should be to its students, not to the perceptions of those outside the university. We cannot simplify, restrict, and otherwise limit the Notre Dame experience because some may not understand the distinctions between engendering a vital discussion of human sexuality and endorsing non-Catholic viewpoints.

With the precedent set by the removal of the The Vagina Monologues from a public forum, I must ask what is next? Will Elton John and the Indigo Girls no longer be able to perform at the Joyce Center? Will this weekend's Student Union Board showing of the movie Rent be cancelled? And if these things don't come to pass, why not? What sort of message does it send to our students that it is acceptable for Notre Dame to seemingly sponsor a movie with strong homosexuality themes or a concert by artists openly living a lifestyle counter to Catholic teaching, but it is not acceptable for Notre Dame to seemingly sponsor a theatrical production designed to end violence against women and encourage women to accept and celebrate their sexuality? If the Notre Dame administration wishes to acknowledge its Catholic character by limiting student access to various viewpoints and denying avenues for public discourse about significant issues, then it must be prepared to take such a stance to its fullest interpretation or risk confusing the student body even more.

I have never agreed with the stereotypical alumni threat of withdrawing monetary support as a means to change university policies. I see no reason to engage in an action that would result in penalizing the student body for the actions of the administration. However, should the thinking that relegated The Vagina Monologues to a classroom setting be applied to a broader policy, I will no longer be able to serve as an advocate for my alma mater. I will no longer be able to encourage my son to attend the institution that helped shape my character. I do not support the view that, in order to create a Catholic value system, our young adults must be limited in exposure to secular media that may run counter to Catholic teaching, and I cannot in good conscience promote an institution that does support such a view.

Ugh

My body is fighting off some bug. I've been exhausted since I don't know when (not surprising, given Andrew), but add to that a mildly sore throat, a mildly bothersome ear ache, and general mind-body disconnect and I'm not the happiest of campers. I keep trying to get more sleep, and either Drew axes that plan, or my body needs even more than I'm giving it even with the naps and early bed times. I'm tolerating this for the moment as I haven't actually gotten miserable sick. And if this is what it takes to keep me from getting so, then I guess I'll deal. But so much for my evening writing times.... I get home, play with Andrew, eat, put The Boy to bed, then pretty much collapse into bed myself (and I can't quite go to sleep right then as I have to pump to make sure I don't wake up at 3AM with painfully engorged breasts). I'm going to try to work with my laptop tonight after Drew goes to sleep to see if I can comfortably rest in bed AND bang out a few words. Should be fun.

Another Writing Resource

Lynn Viehl has written a book on improving your productivity. It's called Way of the Cheetah and it's available for download at HollyShop. I bought it on Monday, and the book is a great way to help you make the most of the time you have to write and the way you write. I doubt I'll ever come close to Lynn's stunning nine novels in a year output, but any improvement is a good thing. Check it out!

And Still More Organic Writing!

Tam's often talked about her inability to write to an outline. She's especially bemoaned it recently while she works on some proposals for future books. But in this post, she describes organic writing rather well.

Character Resource

Holly Lisle has been putting together an on-line shop for e-books by herself and by other authors. I've been helping to beta-test the shop, and it'll be going live tomorrow. Right now, you can buy Holly's Create a Character Clinic as part of the preview of the shop. And if you click the HollyShop link on my sidebar to get there and decide to buy the CCC, then I'll get a small commission. And if you like the shop and its concept, you can start earning a commission as well by becoming an affiliate.

The CCC is something I would've linked to and recommended anyway as Holly's writing advice as always been very helpful to me, but it's nice that she gave me and others a chance to make a buck of said recommendations. This shop looks like it has the potential to offer a lot of great writing resources and even some e-fiction. Check it out.

Whee! More organic writing!

John Scalzi's not into the outline thing either--for his fiction pieces, at least. And that's a great distinction that I haven't noted for myself. When it comes to nonfiction, I live by an outline. When it comes to fiction, I die by it. One interesting thing about what Scalzi reports: he's got the actual lines of the ending. I'm sure they're subject to the same revision as the rest of the book, but wow. Actual lines. For me, my endings are general ideas when I start writing. Sometimes I may have a few images that I know belong there, but generally no dialog.

By the way, the comments at the end of the post are interesting, particularly the one about serialized stories. One commenter thinks standalones are better, or at least wants better transitioned sequels, multi-volume stories, etc. This is something that concerns me, seeing as how all my projects are multi-volume series. (Well, not all, but the majority.) The good news is that I have story arcs for each book, as well as each trilogy and for the entire series. And my goal is to make each book have a satisfying arc so that I don't end up with the cliffhanger-out-of-nowhere syndrome you get in some TV shows.

It's Not Just Revisionist History...It's Notre Dame Revisionist History!

I love The Onion. Notre Dame Football Announces Improvements to Its Storied History. My personal favorite is the adjustment to what happened at the USC game this year, although perhaps killing Matt Leinert might have taken it too far. Maybe. :) And they should have done a bit more research for their 1943 entry and had the women of Saint Mary's College take up the football fight while the Notre Dame men were in the war, seeing as how women weren't admitted to ND until 1975-ish.

When Plot is Driving

Teresa Nielsen Hayden discusses inefficient writing when it comes to cool plot points and character motivations. Great advice, neat insight, and it really rung true for me as I recently read a book that was plot-driven rather than character-driven. This was a best-seller, a neat concept book that wasn't exactly bad, but every single plot "twist" could be anticipated because the scenes leading up to it only existed to make the twist happen. For example, you're reading a scene from a character's POV and you realize that this character has the Answers that everyone else needs to stop the crisis, save the day, live HEA. Then you look up at the page number and see that you're a third of the way through the book at best. You get the sneaking suspicion that this Character With All the Answers will soon die. Lo and behold, a spectacular accident (that is completely an accident, so there's not even the gripping idea that the Baddies offed this glorious character to prevent the answers from coming out) wipes Character With All the Answers off the face of the planet. Everybody loved the heroine not for any understandable reason (cute and competent will get you far, but not that far) but primarily because those characters later needed a motivation for their actions. The romantic subplot starts off with the characters supposedly no longer in love with each other (again, for no real reason that the reader can discern), and ends with them doing heroic things that risk life and limb because they actually love each other after all (and we've seen nothing to indicate why or how this happened, except that the plot needed it).

Again, it wasn't really a bad book, per se. It just wasn't nearly as good as it could have been. This is why, with every plot point that my muse reveals to me, my first question is always "Why does this happen?" followed quickly by "How does it happen? Why is this the only way it could happen?" and so on. A good book should not have you anticipating events because it's clear that Person A needs to get to Place Z in order for Plot Point 3 to occur. A good book should have you anticipating events because they're the inevitable outcome, and you know this, and yet you still find yourself cheering for the characters to figure it out and save their butts, even though you know they can't, and it's going to be awful, but the promise that they'll find their way out of it is there (you don't know how, but you know it will be good).

This seems somewhat off-topic from Teresa's post, but it's not really. Economy of plotting happens when the characters are the focus. If a writer only focuses on "what happens next", then we have that "I only remember the cool parts" effect. But if a writer constantly asks "why does this happen next" and "how do I believably make this inevitable", then the focus is on who's doing what in the story and why. The story's still there. The cool plot points are still there, but they aren't just little empty-calorie candybars floating in the ether of a poorly constructed universe. They're the high notes of a full-course meal where all the flavors are unique yet blend together perfectly to create a sublime gastronomical experience. Hmmm....candybars.

Another Organic Writer!

Tess Gerritsen discusses how she writes. I feel her pain. Strings of Discord started while I was camping in Grand Teton National Park the summer of 2002. It was sunset, and we were driving from Grand Teton to Yellowstone (they're connected by a little stretch of land). I just happened to glance to the right as we passed a meadow bordered on three sides by evergreens with a bunch of aspens clustered at the far edge of the meadow. The sun hit the trees just perfectly to cast the strangest shadows on the meadow and those aspens. I knew there was a story there. I could see in my mind a pale figure staring at me from across the meadow, beckoning me to follow her as she disappeared into those odd shadows. That was all I had for a couple months. Then we went on our honeymoon to various gorgeous national parks in Utah and Arizona, and a few other things shook out: I saw a woman with dark hair huddling in some of the vegetation that sprang up along a river on a road near Moab; that same figure struggled to climb the rocks opposite the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway while another figure looked down on her, waiting; a map of another world showed up in my mind and was quickly sketched on hotel stationary; and a quirky ghost named Elaynor rolled her eyes at a young man and said, "There's no heaven or hell, so just give up already." I teased a few more things out over the course of the next two and a half years, the basic beginnings of a plot.

Today, I have a sense of where things are going: Airen and Rayn have to get to Crae, which will be difficult; then they have to learn how to wield magic, which will be difficult in other ways; and then they have to stop the bad guys, which will be so difficult that they may not succeed, or if they do, they won't stop the bad guys permanently. I've got a few niggles about scenes that are telling me they belong at certain points in this book, and I've got a few characters who are telling me they're important, and that they've got something to do in the book(s), but they haven't told me what yet. One of those characters just revealed her past to me. I build a vague story around this and start writing, adjusting the plan as necessary as the characters and scenes start to make themselves known and flesh out. I've gotten better at anticipating the process, but that doesn't mean I can outline a plot or anything. Rather, my draft is better at providing a basic skeleton of what's going to happen, and as things are revealed, I can just go back and put in the necessary details, shed the vague internal and external dialog, and do some foreshadowing. Makes for a frustrating first draft to read as, by necessity, I tend to write obscure references all over the place. This is in part because I don't like to spend pages explaining everything at the beggining, but feed details to the reader as I go. But the bigger reason those details are obscure is because I don't know more about them myself.

Tess talks about how this method of writing is rather frustrating and prone to make one's hair gray. It can be that, sure. I bet it's even more difficult to write that way when you have a deadline to meet and the details just aren't coming fast enough. But for me, an aspiring writer with only self-imposed goals and deadlines, it's a ton of fun. I love to discover who these people are, what they're doing, and why as I write. And more often than not, I'll choose what seems to be a random name or location or situation as I start putting together the story, and find out later that it wasn't random, that it has a specific purpose. Those moments are so rewarding--and sometimes a bit creepy because I remember just pulling a name or something out of nowhere, I remember just tossing random letters together to get a name that sounded different, and later I'll realize that name has purpose and seemingly always has.

My muse does a lot more with my subconscious than she let's on. It's a love/hate thing, I guess.

Drew's Newest Cousin

My aunt DeeDee welcomed her son, Hayden Christopher, into the world last night at 7:35PM. He was 8lbs, 3oz and 20in long, and he was six days past-due. This is Drew's newest first cousin once removed. Hopefully they'll be able to meet in March when as much of the family as can make it congregates in Grand Forks to hang out with my Great-Grandmother.

I haven't heard the details of the birth as yet. Hopefully Hayden didn't follow his cousin's example.

In Which Feminine Troubles are Discussed

My poor body. I can hear it's confused mutterings: "OK, we're not pregnant anymore, so it's time to do that whole monthly cycle thing. But we're nursing, and that's telling us to delay the whole monthly cycle thing for a bit. But we're also getting these daily doses of progesterone, which is trying to trick us into thinking we're pregnant so we don't get pregnant, but still allows for that whole monthly cycle thing. Ah, hell. Let's just dump a ton of blood, cramp up like there's no tomorrow, and pump the short-fuse anger juice. Maybe then Kellie will straighten out the signals and make it clear what we're supposed to be doing here."

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this isn't a sign of more crazy health shenanigans, but rather just the normal process of my body trying to get back to its regular rythyms and patterns after pregnancy. But I'm not sure I'm going to survive another weekend like the one I just experienced. The cramps were similar to the god-awful pain of the uterine infection I had a few days after delivery (which was worse than any of the labor pain I went through), and the temper.... I just need to say again that Mark is a saint, especially as he had to juggle a fussy baby and an enraged wife on Sunday.

Adventures in Motherhood

Excerpted from SciFi Magazine's Fan Q&A, Stargate SG-1's Amanda Tapping has this to say about juggling a career and an infant:

It has been a lot more difficult than I thought. I am handling it well … I hope. But no one prepares you for the sleep deprivation. I find myself up at three in the morning breast-feeding and then running lines and then trying to pump more breast milk and then getting into the shower and then going to work. It's been a bit insane. Once there, I am unstrapping my gun and rushing to feed the baby between scenes. It's all a bit wacky. But the bottom line is that I love it. I walk off set and there's Olivia waiting in my trailer. It's been a real gift to be able to spend everyday with her and still be able to work.

While I don't have any stories of de-arming myself before breastfeeding, I did once pump breast milk at the command of Captain Malcolm Reynolds. And I have interrupted writing a magical attack to play the Binky Game with Drew (he spits it out, I put it back in, repeat ad nauseum).

Seriously, it's been rather inspiring watching Amanda Tapping continue her SG-1 role through motherhood, especially because she still had some pregnancy weight for some of the episodes, and they still played the "Sexy Samantha Carter" card without dropping a beat.

By the way, SciFi Friday returns tonight. Go. Watch. Bask in the TV's skiffy glow.

Goals for 2006

I have a slight problem preparing my goals for this year. The problem being that anytime between May and December, I could be able to quit the DDJ and I could be moving. Both will do interesting things to my free time and interrupt schedules and any plan I might try to conjure at this point. So, that being said, here are my goals for 2006, with a reassessment due in May or whenever we get a definite timeline on the job and move fronts.

Health: I need to lose 7 more pounds to get into the "healthy" weight range that doctors recommend for my height. I need to lose 15 more pounds to be at my pre-pregnancy weight, which is when all my pants will start fitting me again. And I need to lose 25 more pounds to be at the weight I had hoped to attain at this time last year. Of course, I want to lose the 25lbs, but I'll take the 15 so I'll at least be both healthy and stylin' again. Losing this weight requires healthy eating--something I'm OK at doing, but could stand to improve, especially while I'm nursing--and it also requires exercise--something I haven't even thought of doing until recently. Picking up Andrew and hauling him all over the place served me well enough while I was on maternity leave. But now that I'm back in my basically sedentary job, I need to start getting active again.

My apartment complex has a work-out room. I will start using that room for a half hour every week for starters and go from there. Since the boy's doing so well with sleeping, I will try to start getting up a half-hour early to do some of those Denise Austin workouts on Lifetime. I'll start with the goal of doing one of those a week as well and go from there. I'm also going to treat myself every Monday morning to a coffee or Einstein Bros bagel or somesuch. This will not only make going back to work after the weekend slightly more palatable, but will (hopefully) reduce unhealthy snacking and impulse food purchases throughout the week. If you treat yourself to something junky on a regular but very moderate basis, you should be able to cut the cravings. Which will also help with my finances. We hope. :)

Mental Health: I've actually been doing pretty good with this. And I obviously want to keep it that way. I want to get back into the habit of regular journaling (otherwise known as Morning Pages from Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way), but I just don't think it's going to happen daily. I should be able to hit every other day during the workweek. And then on the weekends, I should be able to foist Drew off on Mark for a half hour at least one day for some private journaling. And as much as I love my husband and my son, I need to start regularly giving myself some "me" time beyond the solo drive to and from work. That's also going to be a weekend thing. So, concrete goals: journal twice a week (once on a weekday, once on the weekend) and take a walk or veg alone with a book or in front of the TV for a half hour every weekend. For starters. And look at the countdown up top here more as "in X more days, I get more time to be with Drew and write" instead of "only X more days of this hell".

Writing: This is where I have to play fast and loose until we find out a more definite timeline for the rest of the year. Regardless of what happens by the end of the year, though, I should be able to finish a draft of SoD. That's the big, big goal. It's doable. My current wordcount is about 35k words, and I'm expecting the first draft to come in at 100,000 words or more. I'm able to write for three to four hours during the workweek and the same on the weekends. So, on the short-side, if I can write 500 words an hour, then I'll be able to reach 100,000 words in half a year. Factor in my tendency to "iron out the wrinkles" as I write instead of blazing a draft trail straight to the end, and add in the general insanity of raising an infant, and I think that 65k words by the end of the year is attainable. If I can get there faster, then I'll revise, have beta-readers check it out, revise some more, and start sending it out the door. That'll be icing, though. I just want to get the damn cake done. Once we have a better idea of how the latter half of the year is going to play out, I'll be able to provide more concrete goals for SoD.

As for the rest of my writing projects, all other novel drafts are on hold. I can do research when I have time or if I need a break from SoD. I can tinker around with some short story ideas (which are primarily backstory and worldbuilding for either SoD or The Masque). But the focus is SoD draft creation. In order to keep from burning out on SoD, though, I'm going to get back in the habit of doing regular writing exercises. The goal is to do fifteen minutes on a prompt daily, but I'll start with once on the weekend and once at work and see how I manage that. Reading back through some past exercises, I realized how much I just let loose with that writing, let it go where it would, or let myself experiment with a new style or voice or POV or setting or situation. And I've got the beginnings of a lot of neat stories from that. And it's only going to improve my overall writing skills. While I'm at work, I'm going to let myself continue to play with a writing exercise for as long as I have time during the day. That will be my writing play time, my break from SoD. And if I can get some short stories out of this, great.

I'm also going to devote a little bit of time to some narrative nonfiction. There are some great markets out there for it. The money would be nice, the exposure would be good, and the experience of the publishing world would be invaluable. I'm going to focus on writing some essays on what I endured and learned in 2005 and in some of the more...entertaining times of my life and try them in the woman's magazine market (Woman's Day, Family Circle, etc). I'll be happy to get a draft a month or every other month. This is extra, and I don't want to pressure myself too much with the potential to market it, but it would be nice to start developing a "backlist" of both short stories and narrative nonfiction that I can continually spruce up and submit to various markets and contests. That will help me feel like I'm doing something regularly to get published while I keep chipping away at those novels.

Thus my goals for 2006 are as follows: 1) Lose at least 15 pounds by exercising at least twice a week and limiting impulse snacking with scheduled treats; 2) Maintain good mental health by journaling at least twice a week and finding a half hour of "me" time every weekend; 3) Finish a draft of SoD; 4) Do writing exercises regularly to allow for writing play and learning and in order to develop a "backlist" of short stories and narrative nonfiction for routine submission.

Now I'm going to look at this week and next week and see about writing out the schedule to get this going. And I'll print out that short-and-sweet list and keep it in various places to remind me where I'm hoping to go this year. I will not look at that list as a guilt-inducing "don't fall off the wagon" sort of thing. Instead, it's going to be a motivator. I want to do this, and I know I can. Hour by hour, day by day.

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

I've been meaning to write down my goals for 2006, but that focusing issue I mentioned in my last post made that difficult. I think arriving at the end of 2005 was just a tad overwhelming. It's hard to imagine that in the space of a year I've become a mother, celebrated three years of marriage and five years of a relationship, suffered through the first week away from my son, had my first root canal, my first moderate speed car accident, my first case of shingles, my first major surgery, my first complications from major surgery, my second MRI.... You know, I think I'll stop there lest I overwhelm myself again. Suffice to say, 2005 was a very busy, very challenging year, but it brought the best reward I've ever had.

About this time three years ago, I saw a lot of people on the internet celebrating that 2002, the year from hell, was over. 2002 was a bumpy year for a lot of folks in the writing blogoverse. I wasn't spared from the bumps: 2002 was the year that the identity I had built for myself for twelve years was torn away from me, and after six years of training for a career in academic research or teaching science at the very least, I found myself working as a secretary. My ego had been thoroughly whipped, my health had taken a severe beating, and my psyche was reeling from shock. But 2002 was the year Mark and I got married in a beautiful ceremony shared by our family and friends. And 2002 was also the year that my muse exploded out of the tiny box I had shoved her into a long time ago and tried to ignore. Given those two amazing experiences, I have never been able to look at 2002 in a negative light.

I find myself looking at 2005 in much the same way. Sure, I had to deal with a lot of annoying health issues--some more serious than others. Sure, I had to put up with a terrible job that managed to get worse not better. Sure, I had to reshuffle my writing goals and projects as my free time became less and less. But by the end of the year, I was healthy, happy, had a definite date for the end of the DDJ, and had a healthy, beautiful baby boy whose smiles make just about anything bearable. How can 2005 be a bad year?

And after surviving such a jam-packed year, I find myself looking at 2006 in a truly optimistic light. I mean, if I can come up on the flipside after all that I've been through in one year, then I can do it again. And again. And again. I've got Mark, I've got Andrew, and I've got my identity back.

2005 was a landmark year. Mark and I have been together for five years, married for three. We welcomed our first child into this world and have survived the insanity of the first three months with a newborn. We looked adversity in the face and said, "Game on." 2006 promises to be another big year. Mark will defend his doctoral thesis no later than July 14. He'll start his career, hopefully in a position that let's me stay at home and write. By the end of this year, Mark will have a couple more letters to add to his name, and he'll have finished a very long, amazing journey. By the end of the year, we could be living in our first home in Arizona. By the end of the year, I could have a revised novel completed and making the rounds to agents and editors. By the end of the year, Drew will be talking, walking, eating solid food, and who knows what else, knowing the way the little guy operates. By the end of the year, I may be thinking about getting pregnant again--afterall, I'd rather have Baby the Second before I'm 30, and I'll be turning 28 in June.

Looking back I see strength in the face of challenge, support when strength just wasn't there, tears, joy, smiles, accomplishment. Looking ahead, I see so many opportunities and, for the first time, knowing the next challenge is lurking to strike when I least expect it doesn't send my control-freak, perfectionist nature into a tizzy. There's nothing like motherhood to make you take life in more livable, lovable doses.