I Would Laugh If It Weren't So Creepy

Who says the TSA doesn't have a sense of humor?

I opened up my suitcase in the hotel and was surprised not to see one of those TSA cards informing me in copious boring legal terms that my bag had been opened and searched prior to being loaded on the plane. Then I took my laptop out of the bag and found the card.

Three guesses where it was.

Nope. Getting warmer. Close.

The card was nestled--yes, I said nestled, as though someone had placed it there with care and may have even thought about swaddling it--in my pair of lacy boy short underwear from Victoria Secret. Under my laptop. There is absolutely no chance it could've have arrived at that destination without someone clearly putting it there.

Even more disturbing was that the Drew Monster's Curious George stuffie was squished in next to the TSAd boyshorts underneath the laptop.

I believe I will pack nothing but white cotton briefs everytime I must check a bag in the future. To hell with panty-lines in my work pants.

Begin Radio Silence

Tomorrow morning, Drew and I head off to Colorado for the DDJ. We'll be getting back Thursday afternoon, and then Mark's aunt (Drew's godmother) will be flying in Friday. Posting may be light to non-existant until next Sunday.

Really, it's a very good thing if you don't hear from me until then. I'm making smashing good progress on THUMB, thanks in part to the RWA Tucson chapter's Book-in-a-Month challenge. It's keeping me honest and forcing me to look at every bit of free time in terms of whether or not I can get out a couple of pages. This is my word count so far:



So while I might have free time in the upcoming week, I'm going to do everything in my power to use it toward increasing that total.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to squeeze out a few pages while El Boyo Diablo is napping.

The Simpsons: Best Conveniently-placed Items to Hide Nudity Montage Ever

We saw The Simpsons Movie on Tuesday. It was chock full of stuff that we'll need a couple more views and slavish attention to the commentaries to catch, but there was still plenty of fun to be had in the first viewing.

One thing I've always enjoyed about The Simpsons is that they more often than not follow up slapstick humor with something rather witty and less obvious, sometimes incorporating that into the slapstick humor itself. Sometimes they just go crazy and obscure too (I'm thinking of "I call the big one Bitey" that nearly every male fan of the show thinks is the Best Line Eva; it just doesn't do it for me). I really appreciate how the show skewers certain tropes, too. My favorite example of this is how often cars (and other conveyances) explode for no good reason--a nice "take that" to stupid big summer blockbuster action sequences that defy the laws of physics.

But they really outdid themselves with their take on the Austin Powers-esque sequence of a nude Bart skateboarding. The "interesting bits" were hidden in several clever ways for most of the scene until near the end when Bart moves behind a hedge--and everything but the interesting bits are obscured. (I'm curious as to how crudely animated male genitalia qualifies for a PG-13 rating, though. Maybe because it was, in effect, disembodied? Truly a philosophical quandry.) The cake-topper of the scene, though, was when Flanders caught sight of Bart's package in the middle of saying grace over his meal and blurted out a startled "Penis!", which his sons dutifully repeated as part of the prayer. ("Bountiful Penis" is just screaming to be made into a rock band's name, of course.)

Along the same lines as "I call the big one Bitey" was the "Spiderbig" song Homer sings that many male fans have been squeeing over. Again, it just didn't do it for me. Then they busted out with the choral version of the song later in the movie, complete with chamber orchestra trappings. That, ladies and gentlemen, is funny.

Other great bits included: "American Idiot" (Funeral Version), retinal scans of several of the mutant squirrel's eyes in order to pass security, Krusty emptying a tanker full of flop sweat into the lake, and Maggie saving Homer from gun-related violence.

We've been following the genesis of this movie on the DVD commentaries of the regular episodes for a while now, and, though I never expected fanboy squealing, Mark delivered on the anticipation by threatening me with divorce if my request that he buy popcorn before things started made him miss any part of the movie. Our marriage was saved by a late start and three trailers.

Fascinating Writing Discussion o' the Day

Elizabeth Bear compels you to compare and contrast John Denver and Gordon Lightfoot YouTube videos and then apply the results to a discussion of genre conventions. The comments are also fascinating and gave me several moments of "ow, my head hurts" and fond memories of the days when I just heard a song and liked it cuz it was catchy and all thinking stopped there (those days started to end when my grandmother wouldn't get me a Milli Vanilli tape because of the song "All or Nothing"; they breathed their last gasp when I heard "All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You" and my brain couldn't process the persistent attempts of the pop culture world to make that a sweet, mushy love song).

As for the bit about examining genre conventions, I think you can only question a certain number of them at a time. Otherwise, your novel becomes less about telling a story and more about the mechanics of telling a story. The latter are often hard to read and assigned to annoyed students for the purposes of writing long essays about the plight of the common man or somesuch.

Also, there's a certain power in writing a nothin'-here-but-us-tropes story: Everyone can access and understand it. In that case, it's up to the writer to wield the tools of theme and character development appropriately to provide depth in the construct of those facile genre conventions. But I suppose it can be argued that shallow themes and flat characters are part and parcel of certain genre conventions, so that having a layered, difficult theme and textured characters immediately means you are examining genre conventions and giving the hard answers.

D'oh! Now my logic's all twisted into a pretzel.

Process Examination #5: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Draft

When I set out to write backstory in order to better write the draft of my current work in progress, I hadn't expected to write over 20,000 words of backstory. I thought 10,000, maybe. Just enough to sketch out a couple of defining events that brought my characters into the situation that starts my story.

One thing I have learned very well over the past five years of writing is that I suck at estimating how many words any one scene idea is going to take. I always think it'll take less than it does. Always.

But that's OK. In this case, it was perfect, particuarly because I was able to write over 8,000 of those 20,000 words in one week, and the rest over three weeks. I don't mind spending a month on writing backstory. Or, at least, I don't mind it when writing the backstory reveals a gaping plothole that necessitated a change in my antagonist's plans. A significant change. I can just see how writing the draft would've been like pulling teeth with the original concept. I would keep writing and writing, trying to find through each new scene and chapter what was wrong and how I could fix it. Introducing new plot angles, maybe even new characters, throwing all manner of tangentially related ideas into the draft in the hopes that something would stick.

I can just see it because that's pretty much how I've written every idea before.

The backstory, though, revealed my plothole before I even had a chance to write my way around it, simply because it forced me to ask a particular question: What exactly did Toby do to escape his previous life and get himself stuck in his current one? Without the answer to that question, it was impossible to write one particular piece of backstory. Three days of mind-probing later, and I realized that the science I had set up for the story--terraforming--wasn't going to work. It just wasn't logically possible (no, not the concept of terraforming, just its place in my story).

This brought me around to the concept of theme. For a while now, I've been asking myself what the theme of this book is supposed to be. What point am I trying to make? I could never shake anything clear out of my head. I could feel something there, a whole mess of mental connections and thoughts and ideas, but I couldn't articulate it. When I asked that question after 20,000 words of backstory and a clear outline of the requirements of my story's science, I got a question in response: What trends have I noticed in my pre-writing?

That simple question gave me both the beginnings of a theme and a science concept that works for the story.

I've still got that last backstory scene to write, but I need to do a few bits of research first, so I'm not trying to talk cybernetics out of my ass (or, at least, not entirely out of my ass). I'm also ready to start writing draft as well, at least the first two chapters that don't yet involve the science because my two protagonist POV characters have no clue that the current problems they are twisting themselves around are because of a science project that will mess with their lives so much more.

I think this experience has finally kicked away the fear of writing a full novel's worth of words that have to be tossed out as I did with Shadow of Zehth. I know the hallmarks of that problem. I recognized them pretty quickly in just writing backstory. I figured out the right questions to ask, and I figured out how to organize the information I did know so I could tailor my search for answers.

Also, I figured out that, yes, it's possible to look at the draft you're creating and realize that it needs work before it's a finished product and to fix it as you go. But, I've also realized just how productive I can be when I stop thinking of the draft as a stepping stone to a finished product and just get on with telling the story. I'm less concerned with the work of revision now. Something finally clicked in my brain to tell me that revision is a separate step, and I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. That's going to be some monstrous process examiantion then, I'm sure. In the meantime, I've got a story to finish.

I Hear the Secrets Drewbie Keeps When He's Talking in His Sleep

The Drew Monster has inherited a couple of unfortunate parental traits. The first being that he likes to move around in his sleep. He hasn't yet started the night-time treks through the house that his father does, but he can cover the mattress any night of the week. The second that he's started a night-time ritual of a few words.

Every night between eleven and midnight, Andrew says something in his babble-speak. It's usually just one word, sometimes two. And I can never understand it as one of his recognizable words. But he's fairly consistent about this. He blurts his word and then doesn't make a peep, no other sounds to indicate that he might be awake.

He gets this from me. My nocturnal yammerings are not as regular as his, but I'm the one who will chat. Mark, of course, does a good deal of talking and, often, screaming when he's in the middle of a sleep-walking stint, but he doesn't ever separate the two. Hopefully Andrew will not get further into his father's realm of night-time wanderings, as I'm not sure what I would do with two men roving the house at night, running and jumping and pushing away from their nightmares. If that should happen, I think I'll have to sleep in a room by myself, lock, and barricade the door and let the two of them duke it out.

Various Thoughts to Catch the Blog Up

I've had another week where I either couldn't dredge up enough excitement for a post or couldn't get past the "nobody wants to hear what I have to say" stupid censor. Most of that was brought on by the news of someone else's tragedy whom I never met and have only interacted with intermittently via phone and fax through work. Still, it came on the heels of a major plot snarl that already had me questioning my abilities as a writer and on the coattails of a bad lunch time interaction with Drew (I don't care how many books say that it's normal for kids to eat like horses one day and then eat nothing at all the next; it might not bother me as much if I haven't been hearing how low Drew's weight is compared to other kids for practically his entire life; his bad meals make me feel like a bad mother). So I fell into a bad empathy spin for this person I've never met and really don't know from Adam. Thus I haven't posted. But the empathy spin has passed, so more posting this week, to be sure!

Yesterday I was down in Tucson for an RWA meeting. It was a great meeting: after the report on National, we had a panel of men in dangerous jobs--a pilot, a border patrolman, and a motorcycle cop. It was all very fascinating. They spoke candidly about their job and the risks, and the members had great questions to ask. I knew very little about the Border Patrol despite seeing their SUVs all over the place, so it was a real education hearing about what they do and how. It actually gave me an interesting idea for a story that I don't have the time to write.

But the craziest part of yesterday's trip was trying to get back home. We're in the middle of monsoon season here in the desert. In Casa Grande, that doesn't mean too much beyond lots of wind and dust and late night storms. But in Tucson, that means streets become rivers. I had forgotten. Nothing like taking a right and discovering that a paddle would be more beneficial than an engine. I spent a good hour weaving my way through Tucson, trying to find the driest route to the interstate (and given that ten of the on-ramps nearest where I was are closed due to construction, this was a very tricky proposition). Luckily, my familiarity with the town hasn't gone away, so I was never lost. But every Tusconan knows which streets to avoid during a monsoon, and I had clearly lost that knowledge in the past seven years.

Also this week I finished Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was a satisfying conclusion. Except for the epilogue. For the best explanation as to why I didn't like the epilogue, I'll refer you to Abigail Nussbaum because I couldn't put my finger on it until I read this from her:

The impression conveyed by the epilogue, however, is of the kind of quaint conservatism that the novels had previously militated against--family and tradition and community triumphant, with nothing ugly beneath the surface. What Harry, Ron and Hermione have accomplished, in other words, is to bring modern notions of equality and justice to the wizarding world without subjecting it to any of the social effects of modernism, chiefly the collapse of traditional institutions and worldviews. That's not just neat. It's dishonest, and disappointing given that the series had seemed to recognize how problematic those institutions were even as it glorified them.

My only other gripe with the story was the manufactured sense of urgency that so many quest stories suffer. It wasn't the worst offender I've seen, but it had its moments. Chief among them was when Harry was deciding on a course of action and his choice depending on which of two people he was going to talk to first. Time seemed to be of the essence as he made his choice and talked to one person instead of the other, but really the only urgent matter was for the reader to learn certain pieces of information before learning what Voldemort was up to at that particular moment. I know this is the case because, having made the choice before talking to either of them, he no longer had to worry about time and proved that by taking a month to plan his next move after speaking with both people and confirming what Voldemort was up to. Really, there was no reason that the book should've spanned a year's worth of time other than that this setup was ingrained from the rest of the series.

As for other goings on, I did unsnarl the plot issue I mentioned above. I need to do a bit more research before I can finish the backstory, but I've got enough to write at least the frist two chapters, so I'm pressing on with draft. I expect I'll have another process examination post on Tuesday.

Have you had your inner conspiracy theorist shut down yet today? If not, read this by John Scalzi. While I was at first surprised that there are actually sane, intelligent folk chatting up the possibility of a Bush-led coup to make him Emperor of the United States, I found myself falling in love with the idea from a writer's perspective. How would something like that go over in a first world country with computers and TVs in every home and guns in nearly as many? Would any governtment that has just wrestled the constitution to the ground have enough resources to stop every Jane Doe with a blog? Could they monitor all IMs and cell phone conversations? Revolution would not only be easy to foment in that fictional set of circumstances, but it'd likely be comical because there would be so many revolutions all around the country--many of them with diametrically opposed goals. Talk about anarchy. Excuse me while I jot some notes for yet another dystopic novel.

Rejected Novel Dedication #7

To my beloved cat, Scritch:

I can has keebord now?

KTHX!

Drew's New Toys

Mark and I really hope that Drew is going to have a lifelong love of soccer, otherwise the excessive amount of bouncy balls in our empty-but-for-the-telescope formal living room will be just that. Excessive. These days, Drew enjoys kicking the balls as much as watching Momma or Daddy try to pick them all up at once--we are always thwarted, mostly accidentally on purpose. But it's somewhat hard to resist the Drew Monster when he utters his first sentence ever while pointing at the WalMart bouncy ball display: "Moe bah!"

Excessive or not, though, the proliferation of inflated rubber spheres in our house is a preferable distraction from Andrew's other shiny new toy: El Boyo Diablo hearitly approves of our new-to-us mini-van.

Yes, after much budget analyzing and used car research, we have become a two-car family. Friday night we bought a 2004 Kia Sedona. I believe the official color is called ruby red or something (I'm looking forward to the day when car color nomenclature goes completely into Odd Land; my car might become "Dorothy's Ruby Slippers Red" or somesuch). It's got an impressively low amount of miles on it for a 3 year old car, which was the biggest selling point for us. We were completely surprised to find a DVD player in the car as the internet listing hadn't put that on the features list.

The entire family is psyched about this. Drew loves climbing all over the seats and grudgingly gets into his car seat when Momma or Daddy have decided we've wasted enough time and need to get on with the errands. Mark loves all the extra cargo space we've got, something that is woefully inadequate in our little Saturn sedan--packing up for our recent camping trip was quite the experience. And me, I love the fact that I am no longer stuck indoors or at the mercy of other people's schedules when the temp soars past 110 and Drewbie gets antsy. As for the extended family, they no longer have to rent a car when they come to visit because now we actually have room to transport them AND their luggage to and from the airport. Plus the power windows in this car actually work!

We had originally intended to wait until May when the Saturn was paid off to get a second car, but I was slowly going crazy without a means of transportation during the day, and Mark didn't relish the Tetris-like organization of any excursion. Plus, the next big house purchase was furniture for the formal living room, and neither of us was keen on taking away Drew's kickball gym. The living room's going to have to wait until next year. By then we may have a dozen brightly colored balls bouncing all over that room.

Does This Mean I'm Part of Fandom Now?

Due to reading a couple of blogs about the state of SF, in particular its readership and fannish aspects, and other influences that I'm not sure I want to examine, I had a very strange dream last night.

I was part of a group putting on a small Con (short for convention, not confidence). Only we were putting it on at a hotel where some other huge Con or event was going down. And we were trying to pilfer attendees. We decided to con (in the confidence sense, this time) people to come to our meager conference room in the hotel by having a big chocolate spread. The theme was Easter, for some reason (maybe I'm getting all precognitive and looking into next spring), and we were infinitely pleased with ourselves for coming up with this "lure them with chocolate" thing. Somehow in my dream, this ploy ended up working on a bunch of stuffy white male exec types.

Then we really got 'em when they walked into our meager conference room and found a room full of women led by Teresa Nielsen Hayden who decided we all need to unleash our inner girly-girls by applying make-up as we discussed the role of women in current science fiction novels. At least the make-up was kinda cool in that, with one stroke of a blush brush, this purply glittery stuff swept along the side of your face and sort of applied itself however it saw fit. It wasn't the best self-aware cosmetic I can think of, though, as we all ended up looking like Kim Cattrall in her Chinese Demon Bride getup in Big Trouble in Little China, which I recently saw the other night.

At this point, Drewbie startled himself awake, thus waking me up and interrupting my subconscious from the effort of furthering an academic conversation in a room full of smart women masquerading as freakazoid geishas nibbling on gotcha! chocolates.

When I fell back asleep, the Con was over, and I, like a true fan junkie, was looking for more Con action. I found a stack of local newspapers, one of which was the local SpecFic Society rag, and it was advertising a Con not too far away. In fact, it even had a map that morphed from a layout of Phoenix to something out of your standard quest fantasy novel. (One of the place names, right next to a cute rendering of a dragon, was "Pinot Noir." I think my subconscious was looking for a little help at this point, and rightly so.)

Alas, the alarm clock went off, preventing me from having to sword & sorcery my way through Phoenix and into Pinot Noir for what would have undoubtedly been the Best Con Ever!

Time's like these, I really want to know how the mind works. I mean, if my subconscious can spin a yarn like that in my sleep, I want to learn how to hijack it better when I'm awake and really kick my fiction up another notch.

Process Examination #4: Dodging the Draft

Ah, the writing life and its bountiful ironies and contradictions. Not long after I posted my bit about how I felt I was ready to start in on the draft only to discover I wasn't, I started getting very involved in writing backstory and finding my characters' voices and avoiding getting back into the actual novel draft. This is not to say that I did excessive backstory writing or pointless character navel gazing. Rather, in focusing on the backstory scenes and letting them reveal what they would about the characters, I better understood the plot of the novel itself. And in better understanding the novel's plot, I had a better grasp of just what it would take to write my way from Chapter 1 to The End.

Eep.

One of the benefits of organic, completely fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants writing is that you have a vague destination or goal in mind and this lets you focus rather completely on the journey. It's a great metaphor for life, and you do get lost in the joy of exploring a world or a set of characters or a story without worrying about the destination. It's my comfort writing. It's not how I want to write professionally, though, because it's damn inefficient and frustrating when you'd like to boost productivity. It's possible that I have yet to channel my muse appropriately to allow for the best organic writing experience. Maybe one day after I've finished at least one more novel I'll try it again and see what happens.

But even as I've figured out how to get out of truly organic writing while still avoiding rigorous outlining, I hadn't considered what it might be like to have worked out enough of the plot and character arcs--in the sense of staring down a daunting 100,000 words. It's one thing to broadly outline where you're going and why and who's going to be doing what when they get there. It's quite another to sit down and type in all the details of that journey. Nevermind that I've done this before for Human Dignity. I'm still a little twitchy from writing 82,000 words of Shadow of Zehth and realizing I had to go back to word 1 and start all over.

So I might be writing a bit more backstory than I though was necessary when I first realized I wasn't ready to start the draft. But I'm getting a lot more puzzle pieces for this book in doing so, and I'm getting to know my characters very well. I'm also getting a good sense of the further research I need to do to write some key scenes better and incorporate stronger details into the going. This is the benefit of doing backstory, at least for me. It's like taking a practice test. The pressure's off, so you can play around a little, figure out where the strengths and weaknesses are, if it's possible to use this character in this way or not (found out that one of the plot arcs I had set up for a non-POV major character wasn't going to work because that character, when I wrote backstory from her POV demonstrated a slightly different set of morals than I expected).

But, of course, this could become excessive very quickly and thus allow me to stall when I should really start digging into creating the novel. So I've limited myself to one scene per character that I want to learn more about. I have a cast of six characters, and I know I want to write backstory scenes from five of them. I've already written one and a half of those scenes. My backstory has also yielded a seventh character who will play a major role in a subplot (and a minor role in the plot), and I think I might want to do a scene from her POV. But that scene and the odd man out of the first six I mentioned will be extras as things stand now. I might use them to kick start me out of any potential future stalls.

The one very good thing about dodging the draft is that I've seen how vital backstory free-writing is for me. It's solidified plot and characters. It's highlighted weak spots that will need attention either in research or revision. It's given me surer footing in the world of this novel, but it has its limits.

This Just In!

The very last line of the next Harry Potter book is:

Harry looked around him at the carnage, shrugged, and said, "I, for one, welcome our Death Eater overlords."

OK, so not really. Or maybe. I have no idea. I'm getting the book on the 21st just like most of the rest of the world. It was one of those "What if" moments that took a macabre bent.

I'm actually confused between looking forward to seeing the new HP movie and looking forward to reading the HP book. I don't think I've quite realized that I can do both before the month is over. The movies have been fall treats for me, the books summer ones. I'm sure I'll get over it.

Rejected Rejection Letter Response #1

In lieu of my Rejected Novel Dedications feature, I give you a lovely depiction of author insanity at its finest. (May not be work safe unless your volume is low.)

At Long Last! Pictures of the Drew Monster!

Yes, we finally have fresh Drewbie content at our website. So check it out.

Andrew Goes Camping

The Drew Monster absolutely loves camping. I think its biggest appeal to him is the ability to get filthy dirty with little to no effort.

Because of the fire danger in Arizona this time of year, we weren't able to have a campfire, so Drewbie missed out on that camping experience. And he didn't seem to like waking up confined in his playpen rather than in his bed, but he calmed down pretty quickly and fell back asleep in my arms, so it all worked out.

We were up in the Tonto National Forest around Payson. It's a beautiful drive up the Beeline Highway from the swanky eastern Phoenix suburb of Fountain Hills. (We actually drove through Fountain Hills one day, but the World Famous Fountain--it's apparently the third largest in the world--wasn't on at the time.) The main purpose of the trip (other than seeing how the Drew Monster took to camping) was to go to Tonto Natural Bridge State Park. It's a small little park with a couple of quick but steep treks to get under an amazing bridge carved out by water. It had been threatening to storm the entire time we were putting up our tent and walking down under the bridge (yes, Red Hot Chili Peppers was running through my head a couple of times that afternoon), but it waited until we were safely under the large stretch of rock before cutting loose. So we and several other folks sheltered under the bridge while it poured rain and thundered all around us. Drew figured out that dropping rocks into one of the pools under the bridge was great fun indeed and heartily demanded "Moe!" whenever he ran out of rocks nearby. It was a very nice excursion.

Mark and I were just tickled that Andrew enjoyed camping so much. We're already looking forward to our next camping trip, which will probably be in September or October/November.

Oh Noes! Intarnets Killed the SF Star!

I've heard a lot of references to the "science fiction is dying" debate. I've never really spotted evidence of it in the wild, on my own, devoid of anyone linking to some blowhard's blog. But folks talked about it so much within the genre itself, I felt sure that it had to exist. And lo, five years after my self-indoctrination into the field of science fiction, I have spotted my first specimen. In the August issue of Discover Magazine, no less.

Excuse me while I commence with the present tense, to make this read more as if I'm hosting some wild safari show.

I'm caught by the "title" of the article, which reads more like a quote from the piece itself:

At a gathering of potential Jules Vernes and H.G. Welses, one wonders if science fiction is losing its predictive power as reality becomes increasingly fantastic.

Blimey! It's presenting! It's doing the mating dance of "Science Fiction is Dead" right before my eyes, telling me science fiction can't function because reality is too much like science fiction. Where's my camera? It's like spotting Big Foot!

I catch a whiff that something may not be quite as remarkable as it seems, though, as the article continues its multicolored "do me now" extravaganza.

...this gathering of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America is palpably low on excitement.

I turn away from the specimen so as to snort laugh into my sleeve. Never did I think that, upon my first sighting of SFID, I would also see the equally remarked upon from within but rarely seen from without phenomenon of "SFWA Represents Genre Writers to the World." Forget the camera, I want a chair, a beer, and some popcorn. This dance could take a while, and there's not a chance of the specimen seeing anything beyond itself.

The lack of couch potato comforts is doubly-felt as the ritual continues.

Fiction is a job for people with Big Ideas, not a flair for small talk...they're generally too concerned with topics like the human condition and the fate of the world to worry about their appearance.

Great Tropes of Eternity! He's invoked the sacred act of "Writers are Unsocial, Unkempt, and Smell Bad" before even finishing the first third of the first segment of the dance. Ladies and Gentleman, I am truly witnessing something amazing here. I only regret that I had to experience this alone. No one will believe what I've seen.

OK, I have to stop there, or else this is going to take too long, and I'm going to open myself up to copyright violation problems from quoting too damn much of the article. As I said above, it's in the August 2007 issue of Discover. It's the "Blinded by Science" departmental piece by Bruno Maddox on pages 28-30, and it's truly a wonder of journalistic accomplishment.

All my "Crikey" kidding aside, this article does sum up just about all the things I've heard folks within SF as a genre bemoaning. Plus it ups the ante by saying that it's not just SF that's in trouble, it's all fiction in general. It's those pesky Intartubey thingies that's ruining it for everyone while simultaneously letting anyone be a person of Big Ideas, if only for the moment it takes to push "Publish" in their blogging software. (Crikey! That's a steaming pile of irony, folks! Let's just step carefully around it.)

The one very interesting thing about the piece that gives me food for future research is that Maddox attributes the demarcation between "hard" SF and "soft" SF to various spats between Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. I hadn't heard that before. In fact, I had heard (from a female professor, I believe) that "soft" SF was a term coined when all those silly wimmin began writing SF that focused on silly things like biology and the like. (By the way, Maddox's discussion of SF is completely male-centric, right down to the "shirtless bodybuilders with Thor hairstyles" featured on the "brightly colored works" glutting the SF section. What bookstore is he frequenting, and can he give me directions from Phoenix?) However, this one interesting morsel that distinguished "hard" and "soft" as dealing primarily with the gee-whiz science vs dealing primarily with the social impact of the science was not enough to salvage the entire piece.

I loves me some drama, as my mother will tell you, but even I couldn't help but snicker at the realization that Maddox was at the friggin Nebula Awards (not the actual ceremony, but lounging at what sounds like the SFWA version of a Con Suite), generalizing for the genre because a bunch of old men are picking at fresh from the can bean dip and acting as if they're avoiding the big elephant in the room (which is, of course, the death of SF). Maddox is upset because he hasn't stumbled into anyone doing that costume thang or the other tried author-in-public trope of putting on a jacket and using a pipe to punctuate statements in some frenzied debate. But that's not really what he's missing. He's missing that sense of energy that he thinks should be suffused in any gathering of potential future SF greats. Maybe the Good Ol' Boys were tired after all that Election Debate Frenzy. Or perhaps they were still recovering from their Internationl-Pixel-stained-Technopeasant-Wretch-Day-induced heart attacks.

Yes, not a paragraph after zinging the room for being naturally taciturn and unsocial, he berates the congregation further by grading their effervescence. All while saying that SFWA = the past, present, and future of SF (won't SFWA be proud), and that SF is dead and we all know it. This is before the first section break.

Then it's the bit about Wells and Verne and hard and soft, and past SF influences. And it's all pretty good reading until it goes right back to SFWA Nebula Con Suite cruisers = SF Golden Days heirs. And from there, on to the whining about those lurid fantasy covers taking up all the damn shelfspace.

As if I couldn't be amused enough, though, Maddox goes on to toll the virtues of Michael Crichton's pre-Timeline work, citing Andromeda Strain as the pop culture reference du jour of the media whenever, get this, "some mysterious virus escapes from a lab." (Dude, if I had a nickel for everytime those pesky labs are releasing their Frankensteinian concoctions into the world and the media gets all Andromeda Strain about it. (Actually, wouldn't the more relevant pop culture reference be Hot Zone? Or perhaps Outbreak?)) Then Maddox regains some of my interest by lambasting Crichton for both Timeline and Prey, and that warms my heart, it does.

But wait! Crichton's nose dive into the realm of badfic--even though Maddox himself in this article admits that the man writes techno-thrillers, not SF (though he labels that as a petty distinction suited for purists, mostly for the purposes of his argument, which I realized as I read on)--must be indicative of a trend for all "serious science fictionists." No supporting evidence there. Must be, again, that bookstore with the choice manflesh on the covers.

The reasons for the crappy SF are two-fold. First one up to the plate: The Evil Internets as Destroyer of All Fiction as a relevant "delivery system for big ideas." (So why was he in that bookstore, and why are they so dreadfully jam-packed with male nipples?) Afterall, why slave away at a book for several years (Jiminy Crickets! We're beyond a stereotype trifecta here, folks! He's going for the world record!) when you can just crank out a quickie post that says the same thing and not even worry about those silly typos?

Second reason SF is crap/dying (yes, did you catch when he equated the two phenomenon): The iPhone! Apparently Maddox is so gobsmacked by Steve Jobs that he can't possibly imagine how much further science and technology can go. I'm reminded of a conversation I had as a grad school applicant with an entrenched professor at CU. I had barely shook the man's hand and turned to settle into my chair in his office when he loudly proclaimed that there wasn't anything left to discover in science. I think I actually laughed to his face rather than turning to snort laugh into my sleeve (so naive I was, then). It's this sort of thinking that ultimately got me out of grad school and into writing SF. In SF I can take the foundation of scientific knowledge I spent six years gathering, build on it, dream it out bigger than it can be right now, and go nuts. I mean, the implications of mapping the human genome alone are astounding (both in the hard, gee-whiz sense and in the soft, social implications sense; and, no, it hasn't all been done any more than any idea in fiction as already been done).

As I finish up the article, I'm already laughing at Maddox for not unterstanding his research subject beyond the surface and tropes. But I'm somewhat perplexed how his little piece actually adds up to a discussion of why SF is dying or how the Internet and iPhone-like technological advances are kicking the ailing corpse into the grave. Then I read that SF writers should take heart! (And he tells me to do so in tongue-in-cheek fashion, admonishing himself for snarking on the SFWA Smelly Ol' Geeky Geezers Club. Surely I should be listening to him now!) Rather than let SF die, society should go into the bookstores and:

Let everything but the truth be "Fantasy," I say, and let the truth--the searing, unmanageable, discombobulating truth of the lives we have invented for ourselves in a world it took artists to imagine--be Science Fiction.

"Fantasy is for escapist losers" for the win! So the entire article is revealed to be nothing more than sour grapes over all those shiny topless hunks wielding swords against dragons. He has completely convinced me of his argument.

Science Fiction is Dead! Long live Science Fiction!

Another First

Mark and I are taking Andrew camping this weekend. We're hoping he takes very well to this. As with our trip to the Grand Canyon, we will once again have the Elmo Leash available to allow El Boyo Diablo safely to walk around our campsite and the Tonto Natural Bridge and forest area. Hopefully I'll have amusing and positive stories to share about this experience on Monday.

Early Thoughts on Carol Berg's Flesh and Spirit

Quick thoughts as I start this book: Carol has established her main character's voice so incredibly well really by the end of the first scene. Though, because I am slow, it took me until halfway through Chapter 2 to realize just how amazingly well it was done. That's when it dawned on me how clearly the dialog and actions and thoughts of the main character were pouring out of the page and into my brain. And I think I'm on page 12. This takes amazing talent and skill, ladies and gentlemen.

So go buy the book. That is all.

Musings on Writerly Identity

Nick Mamatas, the Clarkesworld editor that gave me my first rejection with feedback, often has a blunt, brusque way of putting things that catches my attention and gets me thinking. (Yes, yes, good for him, good for me; shiny gold stars for everyone!) More often than not, my immediate response is an incoherent jumble of thoughts that usually start with, "Yes, but...." The posts of his that garner an extensive mental babble of vaguely defined agreeing protestations I tend to set aside and come back to frequently to see if I can shake anything cogent out of all the rumblings.

A while back, he posted a long bit about how writers who prefer to call themselves "craftspeople" rather than "artists" had it wrong all wrong and were bad stupid monkeys. This generated all sorts of "I see what you're saying, and I don't fully disagree, but I don't fully agree" trainwrecks in my head. So I kept going back to it, trying to figure out just what the hey my brain really was trying to tell itself on this matter. Luckily, he posted on recent caterwaulings within the SF community about getting no respect. His point on the last post was something along the lines of "Please, it's a Pulitzer for a non-journalistic medium; it means nothing." Fair enough, but I found the linked discussions about how SF is viewed from the outside and how the insiders feel about that insteresting and finally gave me the catalyst for understanding my "Yes, but" to the "NO CRAFTSPEOPLE NO!!" post.

So here are my thoughts, still not as coherently expressed as they likely could be, and in no particular order.

1. My desire to believe I'm special, capable of changing the world, became less important than just wanting to do my thing without Life mucking things up too much, sometime in the past two years. Probably having a kid had something to do with it. Yet even when I thought I was the shisnit, I always wanted people to believe that they could do whatever great thing it was I wanted to do if they just tried hard enough (perhaps to justify my own existence as being earned, not a series of lucky breaks along with work, some of it hard). Calling myself an "artist" immediately puts me in that "special through my own uniqueness that you can never achieve" category that I never wanted to be a part of. Bit of an off-shoot of the "we make our own destiny" way of thinking, just even more steeped in a desperate sense to find validation in the world.

2. I know going in that commercial fiction of any genre stripe gets shat upon by folks with soap boxes who are trying to establish what will be remembered 100 years from now today to cement their own importance in the world. Part of me cares (it's small; the same part that dreamed in a "I really don't believe this would ever happen, but it's warm and fuzzy" way that I would win the Nobel prize for some amazing AIDS or cancer research breakthrough by the age of 35). Most of me just has that same "let me get on with what I want to do here" attitude. And another part of me laughs maniacally, dreaming of the day when I am a multi-million dollar genre hack so I can really gloat.

3. I'm really starting to bristle at labels lately.

4. Art is a product of plying one's craft. That's why someone can look at an overall shitty piece of art and say, "Look at the craftsmanship." Because it is something to admire the putting together of a story, but if the story itself sucks, then it's a shitty piece of art with excellent craftsmanship. Weaving a basket is craft much the same way that writing a standard five-paragraph essay is craft. Thus I would never call myself an artist or a craftsperson. I am a writer. I ply a craft to create a work of art. Thus I can be identified as either a craftsperson or as an artist by others as they see fit. For myself, I don't see a separation between the two, really.

Rejected Novel Dedication #6

[I thought it would be fun to get back to this feature. I don't know if it'll be a regular installment, or just something I do whenever I get the inspiration and/or feel like being pithy.]

To all the esteemed reviewers who panned my previous novel:

It sold 175,000 copies and earned me my third million.

Ha.

By all means, trash this one, too.

Amphibious Andrew

Now that the water in my mother's pool has warmed up beyond 80 degrees, the Drew Monster has morphed into the Loch Ness Drew Monster. He's been experimenting with putting his head under water in the bath for quite some time now, quick little dips below to prove to himself that he can hold his breath on cue and the like. He's also become a shower fiend, really enjoying standing under water.

All of that has somehow convinced The Boy that he can swim.

In my mother's pool, he mostly keeps to the main entrance steps because he can play like he's in the bath on those levels without struggling to keep his head above water. But every now and then, he'll decide he has to embark on a journey to the center of the pool. He'll do a little leap in my general direction, trusting me to catch him and keep him afloat as he swims by straining himself forward with his arms and chin and chest, occasionally kicking his legs. He's very difficult to hold during these times, and its all Momma can do to keep her own head above water as well as his.

We have practiced dunking him fully under water as well. He's OK with this once or twice, but then he's not all that enamored of it and would rather play on the steps. It's pretty funny. I can ask him if he wants to practice going under water, and he'll emphatically shake his head no. But then he'll do his little quick face dips on his own. At least he's used to the prospect of being underwater enough that the one time he missed the edge of the step and fell into the deeper part of the pool seconds before Momma was able to snag him, he emerged calmly in my arms, blinking away the water and breathing just fine. He had known to hold his breath. Momma's heart had stopped, of course, but he didn't even sputter or cough.

The real joy of an hour-long pool session with El Boyo Diablo, though, is that he wipes himself out so well that he doesn't fight bed time and sleeps straight through until 7AM or later. I would take him swimming every day, except for the fact that the same hour-long swimming session tends to drain Momma just as effectively, too.

Best Chapter Ever

I'm reading Cory Doctorow's Eastern Standard Tribe. As the romantic relationship between two characters is just about to hit its consumating moment, there's a chapter break. So I dutifully turn the page and see the following:

Chapter 15

Vigorous sex ensued.

And then it's on to Chapter 16. I laughed so hard I nearly cried. Clever, perfect for the story, etc., though a small part of me felt cheated, and a slightly larger part than that felt that Doctorow cheated. Still, most of me really really appreciated that single chapter.

Process Examination #3: Rarin' to Go

OK, so I've got all the information I generated via Notebooking and Research (Phase 1; research never really stops over the course of the novel) organized into the sweet new version of Liquid Story Binder. Included in that information is an outline of sorts. Well, it's more of a Four Act Structure with a few snippets of song, dialog, emotion, action, and scene scattered here and there as Muse deigned to share them with me. I've got the first three scenes starting to form more concretely in my mind. I must be ready to write, right?

Wrong.

I've tried to write the opening scene a couple of times over the past month, and I could tell almost from the first paragraph that I wasn't ready to write it. Still, I kept chugging away each time, usually starting with a brand new draft and getting a couple of pages into things before the effects of Not Ready Yet became too great to ignore or before I ran out of writing time for the night (and then the next view of the material would bring the "Not Ready Yet" effect into painful relief). Before I had everything all sorted and such into the LSB, I figured that to be the reason behind Not Ready Yet, but Sunday afternoon I got everything organized so that I could finally start writing Sunday night. Again, I soldiered bravely on, trying to ignore the Vast Quantities of Suck in my writing, telling myself it just seemed bad because it's been six months since I've actually written novel draft or that my silly internal editor was hoping the scene would be perfect the first time or that maybe--please, God, let it be this simple!--I was unused to composing draft in any other program than MS Word and the new layout and quirks were making things seem bad.

While all of that may be true, I finally took a moment to reflect (via notebooking--how in the world did I ever write seriously for five years without realizing how important this is for me?) on why the various versions of the opening scene kept feeling off. Every view of every version came back to the same thing: my POV character wasn't engaged with the story. She was either a passive observer, a boring observer, or a wooden puppet.

How could this happen? I have her history! I have a picture of her! I know her motivation! I know her internal tensions! I know that she enjoys listening to bad Update Movement Rock (imagine "YMCA" covered in such a way that it refers to things folks a hundred years from now living in space might dig) and low-g acrobatics! Why isn't she living for me?

Helps if I give her even a fighting chance to establish her voice. I'm not sure it's possible to do that by shoving her right into the opening scene (which has to accomplish a lot of other things to get the story going). So I need to do some non-book writing, get to know how this character interacts with her world and figure out how to convey that. I also want to do this for several of my other characters.

I think I've fallen on my face in previous drafts, expecting that all of the facts and figures I came up with for characters and backstory would miraculously gel into character-specific voice and action and cause informed prose to just spill from my fingertips when I sat down to write the story. I suspect this may be the big issue when writers complain that the story they're writing isn't anywhere close to the story in their heads. Or that's the case with me. The story in my head is informed by all the worldbuilding, all the backstory. This is mainly because all of that information exists in my mind in pictures and mini-movies, complete with vivid colors, background noise, smells, and even feelings. I can't just directly translate that and expect it to live and breathe for the reader because a direct translation of the images in my head is going to be very passive, very stilted, nothing more than "then this happens and this and this" and so on until I reach "The End."

So I've got to tap into the characters and set aside the desire for a literal translation. I've got to figure out how to see things as the characters see them, to live the book from each POV and be only as informed about the past and the present and the possible future as each POV character can be and see how that colors the movie. There is no Fourth Wall in third-person limited POV. No one is simply watching the moive unfold. They are living it. As a writer, I have to jump into the frame and each character and live the movie with them. I'll still have to translate that experience, but hopefully a conscious effort to get into my characters' heads will decrease the tendancy toward passive observation and puppetry.

Kisses from Drewbie

The grandparents have noticed that Andrew is more shy and reserved when it comes to expressing affection. He doesn't dish out hugs and kisses the way some toddlers will. In fact, he's very particular about who holds him and when. I get most of my Drew snuggle time when he's just woken up in the morning or after a nap. He'll interact with you and wave to you and talk to you (usually he'll say "Bye" or "Uh-oh" as appropriate) and sometimes he'll reach up so you can pick him up (usually when he wants to see what's going on at Adult Level), but he doesn't just come up and hug or kiss you.

In fact, he's done that to me only once. Out of the blue one day, we were chillin' in the living room, and the Drew Monster just got up from where he was, walked across the room, planted a wet one on my lips, and then went right back to where he had been. I wouldn't be surprised if that was both the first and last time for that.

Nowadays, though, we can ask Drewbie for kisses and sometimes he'll be kind enough to give one. We usually have to be holding him anyway. We ask, "Got kisses for Momma?" And he'll either shake his head no (to which I respond, "Well, Momma's got kisses for you anyway!" and do those gobble-type kisses on his cheek and neck and arms that make him giggle and squirm) or he'll lean in and plant a wet one. Sometimes, just because he knows his power, when Daddy asks for kisses, Andrew will lean away from Daddy and toward me and give me a kiss. Daddy doesn't appreciate this.

I don't mind the kiss-shortage, though. The full-body melt of his morning and post-nap snuggles serves very well as a replacement.

My First Blackout

The Drew Monster and I survived our first power outage in the desert. Thankfully, it started at 8:30AM and lasted only until 10:15AM. I shudder to think what it would've been like in the afternoon here. As it was, the house was getting toward uncomfortable when the AC kicked back on, and cold water is really only cold this time of year when it's got ice in it or when it's filtered through your fridge. Most of my showers are hot enough with the faucet pointed almost to the coldest part of the faucet's range.

Andrew handled the strange stillness in our house like a pro, not really missing a beat from dumping Cheerios from one tupperware container to another (a game he created himself just this morning). I was a little freaked out about the prospect of being stranded in a home with no AC for the rest of the day and was very very relieved when everything came back on.

Process Examination #2: Research

Writing research can be a tricky thing. As I mentioned in a different post, writers really need to absorb and understand as much information about this world as their brains can possibly retain. We may tell lies for a living, but we get paid and remembered on how believable those lies are. The more you know about how things work, the more real your constructed lie will be.

So writers tend to do a lot of research for any project. My background in science has primed me well for this aspect of writing. I'm used to reading material that may often be thick and dry to glean a few pieces of information necessary for the task at hand. The good thing with research for writing is that you can usually wander far and wide into any topic and get interesting facts to tuck away for later use. This is also the downside of research for writing as well as you can lost in researching something and end up using none of it for the current project and thus feel like you've wasted hours.

My current problem with research is that I have two main topics to read up on: economics (and business culture in general) and space colonization. The former isn't all that scintillating, but it's very very very important for the world I'm building. The latter is absolutely riveting to me, and therefore capable of distracting me from the task at hand.

Then there's the perils of the research medium that's easiest to use: the Internet. You can very quickly scan through information, pick up some facts, refine a search further and dig deeper into a topic. You can also link-hop all over the place, looking for that elusive tidbit or that alternate presentation that's going to make everything click for you. This is where I fall down on the lessons learned from science research past. I haven't trained myself to document my research logic leaps in any searchable (to me, even) way. So I often have to repeat my research to make sense of a note I scratched down or to figure out just what I was thinking when I created a certain worldbuilding element. This has got to stop.

But documenting what I'm researching on-line is going to slow me down. Plus, I'm reluctant to commit something to paper when another link will give me better information on the same topic (or more reliable information). I think what I need to start doing is summarizing my research trips on the 'net better. Just document the overall sense of what I figured out and the major places where I found the info.

The problem isn't systemic, though. If my research leads directly to worldbuilding elements such as a calendar or a backstory timeline or some other concrete idea that has direct application to my current picture of the novel, then I scratch it down as I go (though I don't usually cite my source). It's the stuff that I've done reading on that didn't lead directly to an applicable thought that's got me worried. I think, though, that if I go through my notebook and make an effort to organize the information there into an electronic format of some sort that a lot more of my research booty will shake loose. But that leads into my next process examination: Rarin' to Go.

Verbalizin'

Drew's been working on his vocabulary of late. He's mastered "Uh-oh" much quicker than he got out "Ma." And I'm still not convinced that he's discerning in his use of "Ma." It seems to be a sound that can mean anything from, "Mom? Are you listening?" to "Anyone who may be around, come here and look at me!" But it does sound different than the "Mar" sound he uses sometimes to call Daddy. (He has only used a "Da" sound a handful of times to actually refer to Daddy.) I guess that means I better start calling Mark "Daddy" around the Drew Monster.

After "uh-oh," Drew's next most often-used word is "More" (which comes out in the following way: "moe, moe, moe" and is heard during snack and meal times). We're trying to get him to say "Please" after his "moe, moe, moe," but mostly he laughs at our efforts and just repeats his demand of more.

After "more," we have a similarly repeated "Ball" that comes out more as "baho, baho, baho" and is shouted at anything remotely round that looks like it can be rolled, thrown, or kicked.

But the latest addition to Drew's vocabulary is "bye" and this is shouted very loudly and with much enthusiasm while waving anytime someone leaves the room or if he leaves someone behind in a room. He perfected this word while I was in Colorado for the DDJ.

Hopefully he'll keep adding to his oratorial repertoire at a fast pace. Two-year-olds are supposed to have a vocabulary of fifty words, if I remember all the books correctly. Otherwise they're gonna start looking for reasons why he's not gabbing away as much as is developmentally appropriate. The first thing to investigate will be his frenulum, the tendon that attaches the tongue to the floor of the mouth. If they think that's retarding his speech, then it's snippy-snippy time, and I'd rather he not experience surgery at the moment.

Excellent SF Worldbuilding Considerations

One of the reasons I both love and hate writing: you have to not only know but understand so much. This means you should be perpetually in student mode (also sponge mode, as I am fond of calling it). You need to be always up on the current research in just about any field you think will impact your writing. And if you are writing SF and Fantasy, this better be everything from economics to physics to anthropology and back again. And it's not a bad idea to understand how we as a race of sentient beings interacting with this particular macroenvironment called Earth have gotten from "Ugh" to "I totally have to IM this Paris Hilton prison meltdown YouTube video to my entire flist." And so on.

As part of that continual learning, being on the lookout for folks shooting down the past romantic views of your genre tropes should be friggin' required learning for writers as well. One of the best such essays I've seen on the topic of space colonization is by SF author Charles Stross, and if you're considering writing a space opera or some other story in which humans conquer the Final Frontier, you best be reading this. It's an excellent summary of the obstacles keeping us firmly entrenched on Earth for the forseeable future with the exception of small exploratory forays. If your fictional space opera universe doesn't somehow explain away these concerns (and there are ways to do so, ranging from the scientifically valid to the plausible to the "now you're writing a fantasy" variety), then you might want to get back into worldbuilding. Just sayin'.

Stunning Eleventh Hour Saves

The book I ranted about earlier managed to finish reasonably well even though the Big Reveal was exactly what I thought it would be content-wise, but not as dramatic genre-wise as I had assumed it would be. Meaning it was not as important to know the plot arc as it was to know the character arc and the latter third of the book made that clear and the ending was thus satisfying. Still made for an aggravating read through to that point, but not horribly so. Had I been editing the book, I probably would've asked for some sort of better intimation of that fact earlier on. It was somewhat there in that the characters privvy to the Big Secret kept getting irked with the main character when it was quite clear he had no earthly clue what was going on despite the truth being painfully obvious. But that just annoyed me more because there was no other story question for the reader to be asking that entire time. I'll have to re-read this book again at some point, see if maybe I'm just missing the story question since I obviously found it toward the end of the book.

Just in time for the end of the third season and as many staunch SG1 fans are trying to figure out if SGA will be worth their time next season, "Stargate: Atlantis" finally manages to acheive Viable Story Arc, and one that includes the wraith, even. Imagine that. Now my criticisms of the show will trend toward bemoaning the lack of subtlety and showing rather than telling in that story arc, but that's just me wanting to see the show Be All That It Can Be.

Another Birthday Bites the Dust

Today I turned 29. The day didn't start out so hot as the Drew Monster decided to wake up at 4:30 and Mark was feeling sick so I got Early Morning Boy Duty. Then Drew spent much of the day fussy because his schedule has been all bent out of shape with my travel this week. Then there was the DDJ work I had to do even though it was supposed to be my day off (and I have more work to do tomorrow, and more on Sunday...sigh).

But then I got an email from my high school buddy, Matt. His latest project be here. I've just scratched the surface of the site (it's in beta, so loading and such may be wonky--give it time, it's worth it), but my favorite so far is the "Slept Funny" video. Probably because I just got back from a stint at the DDJ. I also managed to call this illustrious and hilarious fellow for a bit today, and it's always fun catching up with him.

Also, I had managed to forget it was 'Gate Night, so I get fun first-run TV to enjoy after El Boyo Diablo is sleeping. And Mark and I exchanged birthday, half-iversary (we've been together six and a half years today), and Father's Day presents today, so we also have the "Men in Tights" DVD to watch.

And, as if the universe hadn't done enough to turn the day around, my mother stopped by with a couple of beautiful bracelets she made for me mostly out of turquoise. One of them has all these neat fetishes on it. Very cool.

So the day is winding down, and it looks to end vastly better than it began. Thus I start the first day of my last year as a twentysomething.

Annoyed Reader

I'm reading a highly acclaimed first novel by a writer who has gone on to be quite successful and keeps on getting critical acclaim. I've even read a later work by this person and enjoyed it. And while the story of this book isn't bad and is entertaining enough, I'm frustrated by how stooopid the main character is, or, by an alternate interpretation, just how stoooopid the author thinks the readers are.

Maybe the back cover copy set up the "mystery" thread of the story more than the author intended for it to be, so my reading was prejudiced to be looking for something that the author didn't want me to be hunting for at first. Or maybe I've read too many novels with this type of twist and can spot the signs damn quickly. Or maybe I'm up on my Stupid Writer Tricks and know when an author is Up To Something and can hunt around to figure out what. Or maybe I'm just on the same wavelength as this author and my reading can spot all of her foreshadowing elements and clues and knows exactly why they're there.

But the more I read, the more I keep thinking that there's gotta be something I'm missing, that while I know the "whodunnit," the real twist is in the "howdunnit" or the "whydunnit" or the "whythefrackdoesn'tsomeoneundunit." Because if I get to the end of the book and the big reveal is nothing more than the knowledge that was painfully obvious to me two chapters into the book, then I'm going to be damn pissed and wonder what the hell all those critics were smoking.

Yet Another Quick Announcement

I have finally met someone who has bigger right-left directional problems than I do.

Unfortunatley, this person was my airport shuttle driver this morning.

In the category of mixed blessings, said person was also an interstate speed racer.

Thus, I did not miss my flight despite getting on the road forty-five minutes late.

Quick Announcement

Just wanted to let you all know before I head out to Colorado for the DDJ early tomorrow morning:

MY PRE-PREGNANCY PANTS FIT AGAIN!!!!!

That is all.

Because I Haven't Talked about Pop Culture-y Things in a While...

First, I wanted to link to two awesome and FREE short stories on the net. These stories are clearly written without being superficial and don't play tricks with narrative until the end, which allows them to be all thinky without pissing you off or keeping you from easily following the thread of the story. The second story's trick ending (and I mean "trick" more in the sense of "non-traditional" and/or "unconventional") is a bit aggravating, but it wasn't quite enough to ruin my overall enjoyment of the story. Anyway, I just wanted to share with the world that I found two enjoyable, understandable stories that I can actually grasp beyond the superficial structure and get all ponderous about without wanting to beat my head against to wall to follow the narrative thread or without reaching for a dictionary every other word.

So please go read and enjoy (for FREE!!!) "The Oracle Spoke" by Holly Phillips, published by Clarkesworld and "Far Side of the Moon" by Ruth Nestvold, published by Ideomancer. I'm not quite up on award eligibility, but seeing as how I'm definitely going to WorldCon 2008 in Denver (Denvention3), and seeing as how the "penis-heavy" Hugo ballot for this year did piss me off and make me want to Do Something, I'm starting an award nomination list with these two stories and will be on the lookout for more.

Second, I've been long irked with the "Stargate: Atlantis" folks for dodging really juicy conflict for their heroes because it involves some moral ambiguity and for forgetting their own character supertalents. Last night they finally revisited Teyla's Wraith-sensing abilities, though I think they could've done better things with it to make both Teyla, the Wraith Queen, and the story richer by getting, once again, deeper into the conflict of what was going on. Still, it was nice to have them finally get back to that after a few times that they ignored it to create a story that wouldn't have worked had they acknowledged it.

And the promo for next week indicates that, thank all that is Good and Holy, they are revisiting the Michael character. They really need to keep him around as a focus for their fight against the Wraith as he represents something that the heroes did that wasn't too kosher and the Atlantis team should not be allowed to dodge that conflict any longer.

One thing I've realized during this season of SGA, though, is that this show does very well with standalones. That seems to be where the characters and writing shine. I have yet to see a story arc well done on this show. I'm hoping Michael will rectify this.

Process Examination #1: Notebooking

I've been working on THUMB and analyzing my writing process for only ten days and already I've realized so much about how I write. It's really been an amazing experience.

First of all, I have trusted my brain far too much to retain information, especially in the pre-writing stage. I do a lot of mental brainstorming on plots and characters and theme and, if I wrote anything down in the past, I only recorded the end results. I never recorded my thought processes or the crazy alternatives I considered and discarded in my brainstorming sessions. It's amazing how much more grounded in my work in progress I feel by documenting all the gonzo twists and turns of my thoughts in these initial stages of writing. Also, I can review where I've been so much easier and get back into the flow of the project that much faster.

Secondly, there are a few key things that I can do first thing in pre-writing any project. (Well, first thing after I freewrite the initial idea for a scene or two and let it stew for a bit.) These are basically ripped from He Wrote, She Wrote and manipulated into my own sense of order.

Jot down my idea in one sentence (One Sentence Idea)

Identify clearly my protagonsit and antagonist (or at least identify their roles)

Sketch out the central conflict, refine until the conflict is the protag and antag pushing directly against each other (Conflict Box; I find that I do a lot of backstory and worldbuilding in this step as I extrapolate motivations and goals from my one sentence idea and the roles of my protag and antag)

Attempt a four act structure plot outline (following the KISS method and just trying to see how conflict and action can arc form where the protag and antag are at the beginning; usually I have some sense of the overall outcome of the conflict box from my freewriting and idea percolation)

Find where four act structure doesn't quite jive and start asking questions: does the outline fall flat because there's no undercurrent of theme to hang it on? does the outline fall flat because I'm trying to force events rather than have them grow organically from the story?

Thirdly, all of this has to be done in a notebook, it seems. Every time in the past ten days that I've sat down with software to try and organize or record the results of this above process, my brain goes blank. But every time I sat down with my notebook for THUMB, the ideas just flew. I could also make connections better, see where they were coming from and where they could go. Also, I've been able to write down anything that comes into my brain in the notebook, not caring if it wasn't going to take me anywhere or not. With software, apparently I use the ease of editing to try and create something beyond first draft brain purge as I'm first typing. It leads to reverting again to keeping my thoughts all tied up in my mind and only writing down the end result and feeling less connected with the world I'm building. (However, I have already learned that I need to eventually organize the final decisions into some sort of easily accessible and readable software. Flipping through a notebook to find that one plot point or character note is not conducive to productivity.)

Finally, in being aware of the hows and whys of my writing process, I've been able to get to the point faster. I'm more in tune with my muse and the logic behind her ways. I was able to home in on a major logic problem in my broadly defined plot almost immediately. Then I was able to get to the crux of ways to sidestep the problem. After that, I knew exactly what strengths and weaknesses to look for in those methods and could chart out better how the solution would fit into the meshwork of the novel.

This will lead into my next process examination post: research.

Last Minute Glamour

Found out today that I am a go for hanging elegantly on Mark's arm for the Arizona Small Business Association's Arizona Companies to Watch Awards Event, where there will be a Red Carpet and awardees (of which Mark's company is one) will be given the "star" treatment.

I suddenly wish that the killer dress I bought for a dance my sophomore year of college still fit. I suppose it should comfort me that I bought the thing a decade, thirty pounds, and a child ago so of course my body is going to laugh at the idea of squeezing into a size 4 dress.... Oh well, I'll just have to comfort myself by going dress and shoe shopping tonight. Oh, the agony.

Now to figure out if my hair will tolerate any style in 100+ heat?

Check-in Connection

I really haven't done well with the posting lately. It's not that I don't have anything to say, just that I'm less and less confident that what I do have to say will be either informative or entertaining to anyone else. This is because lately I've been getting into my head about writing processes, and posting about that might be interesting to some writers but probably not a whole lot even then. Or I've been ruminating over various hot topics in the writing and publishing worlds that have been hashed out much better by others with more experience and/or knowledge. And all the while I'm craving community, so chances are my posts would be either over-reaching to try and place myself within certain internet communities or very clipped links to the voices in those communities. No one wants to read a strong undercurrent of my need for validation in the writing world or my increasing sense of disconnect from the world in general. In fact, I'm rather sick of listening to those threads in my own mind.

So, what does this mean? It means that I'm on a personal crusade to see if I can kick this addiction to external validation and various and sundry other evils associated with requiring the respect and attention of others for feelings of self-worth. This may mean I'll post more often about whatever happens to cross my mind. This may mean I'll post only weekly on the fun Drewbie tidbit of the moment. I dunno. I'm not even sure how this crusade will manifest itself in my need for community. All I do know is that, starting now, I'm embracing wholeheartedly my recent endeavor to examine my writing process.

Let's talk some more about that last one. I set aside Shadow of Zehth last year in favor of short fiction so I could keep writing without the pressure of a novel during the move to AZ and into our house. I set aside SoZ again this year when I realized that I had some serious plot issues to unsnarl before I could get back to draft creation. So since September of 2006, I haven't written more than 2000 words in a novel and instead have written around 30,000 words of short fiction (including revisions). In writing the short fiction, I managed to take a closer look at craft and how I approach it. I've also examined my career goals when Mark's job was threatened, looking at ways I could increase my chances of bringing in money faster with my writing (I might talk more about that in a later post, but the examination is not quite finished, so the post might be delayed a while yet).

Basically, I've refined a decent amount of my thinking on writing and my identification as a writer. Part of that refinement is a desire to pay more attention to how I go about creating a story from the first whiff of an idea to the last revision. That desire stems from a serious aversion to reaching 82,000 words in SoZ and realizing I needed to start from the top again, maybe keeping some of those words. Maybe. I'd rather not go through that again. The desire also has roots in a growing frustration at the length of time it takes me to write anything. I know I am capable of being more productive, and I want to be more productive so I can increase the chances of ditching the DDJ that much sooner. Place this desire against the general Sage Advice of writing personages that I respect, and I found myself in a bit of a dilemma.

The standard recommendation to budding authors is to keep at a draft until you reach "The End," then worry about fixing things. The reasoning behind this is valid and sound: finishing a book is hard, starting a project is easy. Most would-be novelists get caught up in an idea for a while, tinker with it until the fun runs out, then move onto to the next Shiny New Thing and repeat. I don't want to be that sort of amateur (a hobbyist, really), and I think the fact that I did see my first novel through to "The End" and through two substantial revisions beyond that is a mark in my favor. I have, however, started three novels since then (and gotten to the 30K mark in the first one, 40K mark in the 2nd, and 80K mark in the 3rd). But I've also completed three novelettes and three short stories.

(All told, I've written around 300,000 - 400,000 words so far in my writing endeavors; the figure could be as high as 500,000 as I haven't accurately tracked the new content word count of my revisions. Add in my blog post word counts, and I'm well on my way to writing the million words one author recommends to new writers. He also recommends then burning said words; he may be on to something.)

So while I've been futzing around with short fiction, I've been trying to find a way to get back to SoZ and complete a draft by year's end so I don't become That Amateur. It hasn't been working. I thought I had hit the breakthrough I needed the other weekend when I was chatting about SoZ with my father-in-law, and I realized how I could tweak the plot so the conflict didn't just fizzle away into nothing right about half-way through the book. I was excited, I was energized. I had Plot! Viable Plot! To get me to "The End!" So I sat down to do my fuzzy, organic writer-style outline and realized that I actually had two plots going on. This wasn't a new realization, but after all the craft realizations I had during my short fiction endeavors, my two plots realization suddenly showed me the complexity of what I was trying to do.

And I realized I wasn't quite ready to do it yet.

That is, looking at writing through the lens of short fiction, I came to realize just how little I understood about writing. Sure, I know a lot about writing, and I've read a lot of books and examined all manner of writing styles and elements, and I've become a rather accomplished critiquer, but somehow I had kept all of that knowledge in one area of my brain and never actively digested it and applied it to my own writing process. This is not to say that my writing hasn't improved, that none of the knowledge I picked up worked its way into my writing. But there's so much more to be transferred.

Enter the project THUMB. No, I'm not going to explain this project, other than to say that the "U" in the acronym is variable depending on my mood and the status of the project. Today, I think the U stands for "undeniable." By the time I'm finished with this project, I hope that the U will stand for "ultramundane" (a rather cool word that doesn't mean what you think it means). Anyway, this is an idea that's been gestating for about a year and a half, the product of a writing prompt that collided with another idea that I had thought would be in a different book but didn't fit. I'm going to use this project as a means to examining my writing process and seeing if I can better comprehend and utilize all the fine writing knowledge I've been dumping into my skull over the past five years.

After more than a decade focused on science and math and going to great lenghts to be aware of my thinking process in those areas, it was an undeniable relief to just cut loose and write and let the story and words flow where they would, trusting in my muse and my subconscious mind to keep me on track. It worked more than not, but it's not how I want to spend the rest of my writing life. I've moved beyond that. I want to feel more engaged with my writing, more connected with that part of myself.

Now we're back to the whole point of this post: connection. I'm hoping that, in writing THUMB and taking an active role in my writing process, I'll divorce myself from the need for external validation as a means to self-worth in writing. And I'm further optimistic that by doing so, I'll trigger ways to connect with the world around me that isn't writing as well.

It's strange. I used writing to heal myself in a number of ways for the past five years. It anchored me when the identity I had invested in for more than a decade unraveled. But I think I managed to use it more as a crutch than as an integral part of myself. Now rather than use writing to heal myself, I'm not going to "use" it at all. I'm going to make it my own.

Victory!

The Drew Monster actually fell asleep in his Big Boy bed tonight! The real victory, though, will be if this is a repeatable event or not. But any night that doesn't involve him falling asleep against the door is a good thing. And here's hoping that he doesn't fall out of bed like he did last night (wasn't hurt, of course, just startled).

And let's really hope that he becomes so old hat at this that he can start napping in his bed too. And then maybe, just maybe, by sometime next week, he'll be comfortable enough with this transition (with some occasional reversions) that he doesn't cling to me throughout the day. Poor guy. All this growing up stuff can be pretty scary.

Andrew Thomas: Escape Artist

A week ago, we discovered that, given enough stuffed animals shoved against the edge of his crib, Drew could climb out of the crib and onto the attached dresser and from there let himself down onto the changing table. We removed said stuffies from the crib, and Drew did not repeat the antics, so we figured we were safe for a little while yet.

Then Friday night, I'm out for some me time and Mark is keeping an eye on the boy, who is supposed to be asleep. All of a sudden, Mark here's a door open and shut and assumes it's me, returning from my time out. Then he here's the pitter-patter of little feet on the tile and Drew comes into the living room. El Boyo Diablo managed to climb out of the crib using the iron tightness of his grip on the side rails and the brute strength of his calve muscles. And this time the height of the changing table didn't bother him as he eased himself over the side and used the shelves to climb down to the ground.

We dismantled the crib that night and brought in the play pen for a quick substitute. Then we took a trip to Ikea and scouted out beds (or a replacement for the twin bed serving as a sofa in my office, thus giving Drew a real big boy bed that wouldn't need to be replaced again in a couple of years). We found a new couch for my office and a new dresser for Drew (since the old one was a part of his crib) and then gathered the necessary accoutremonts (waterproof mattress pad, etc), so that Drew was all set to sleep in his very own Big Boy Bed for the first time last night. (Yes, this is a couple of months ahead of the 2-year-old mark during which this transition usually occurs. Thank Mark and his knack for climbing that he has passed down to our son.)

Drew liked the novelty of being able to roam after we put him down for the night. He also like the novelty of the bed, just not for falling asleep in just yet. After a few re-entries into the room to put him back in the bed and get him calmed down in the bed, we finally just let him do what made him comfortable. A half hour or so later, we went back in and found him asleep in the rocking chair, contorted in a position that, as his legs stretched out, made his head ease over the edge of the chair. Needless to say, we moved him over to the bed. He didn't stir.

This morning was nice, though, having Drew able to wake up on his own and play quietly in his room for a good thirty minutes before he decided to wander into our room and wake us up. Napping, however, is another battle entirely, and one that will be fought in interesting ways this week and next.

I didn't like the new layout of his room initially, and I think it's because having that normal bed in there is more a shock to my system than how the new furniture fits together. Drew's not the only one who needs to adjust to this.

Back Too Soon

We had a great visit with Mark's parents and a fabulous trip to the Grand Canyon. Drew did very well with his first long-distance car drive and was quite the trooper exploring while attached to his Elmo tether/harness. He was definitely not too amused by the time we were about halfway home and spent much of the last hour or so of the trip fussing to get out of the damn car and be home already. Even with that, though, he did extremely well. Mark and I are already getting excited about future trips with El Boyo Diablo--thinking a bit too far ahead and banking on a continuation of this same temperament, I'm sure.

Vacay

The in-laws will be arriving tonight and leaving Tuesday morning. After that, Mark, Drew, and I are taking our first family trip to the Grand Canyon (there will be many more over the years). I won't be back until Thursday, so ya'll have fun without me.

Feeling the Weight

I finished typing in my revisions to Pinewood Fog, formerly Ghost Story, and now recently changed to Something Apart from Nature. Having title problems there, obviously.

In the course of my changing reading tastes and writing wishes, I've developed an ear for prose that "sounds" wrong. But I haven't quite developed a way to diagnose and correct the problem. Sometimes the problem is obvious but the solution is not. Sometimes I can't even figure out the problem. It seems remedial, but I may need to sit down and diagram all the things various elements of writing should accomplish ("should" being subjective, but I seem to be gathering an understanding of what I think writing should accomplish and whether or not that's in line with various editors and agents; unfortunately, I have a hard time keeping the "shoulds" in mind when writing draft and doing revisions). I have to keep better track of this in my mind, maintain a better awareness at least when I sit down to improve a draft.

But then I read something like this. Look at all the things that are supposed to be in a paragraph or two in a query letter. That essay just kept going on. And on. And on. Yet there's really nothing to disagree with. In order to garner interest from an agent, a query letter really does have to accomplish a ton with very little. This is just a recent example of a lot of writing advice I'm reading lately that is good but also serves to make me aware of how much one word is supposed to do.

In short, I'm getting a bit tripped up, like the centipede who suddenly wondered exactly how he's supposed to make walking work with all those damn legs.

In this sense, it's a very good thing I'm focused on short fiction at the moment. While one might argue that my words have even more to do in the smaller scale, I can at least keep better track of the suckers. I'm also taking the small scale to teach myself ways to fix the wrong-sounding parts. I could tell as I did the type-in that there were words and sentences and paragraphs and, in one case, a whole chunk of a scene that didn't quite belong or didn't serve enough of the story, but mostly I was unable to fix that on the fly. So I'll have to do a second revision and really get into some nitty gritty examinations of those 11,293 words. I want to learn what I'm doing wrong and see how the things I got right worked. But I don't want to over analyze.

Here's the really wacky thing: I'm looking forward to this. But I still feel the weight of all I have yet to learn even as I take in the weight of all I have already learned.

Rejected Novel Dedication #5

To my muse:

I saw you smile and had to write a lengthy scene to describe the beauty of that expression. (See pg. 4)

I saw you laugh and had to write witty dialog worthy of such a marvelous sound. (See pg. 10)

I saw you cry and had to write a tragic moment to explain away your tears. (See pg. 75)

I saw you with Henry and had to write a damsel-in-distress scene to rescue you from his foul grip. (See pg. 148)

I saw you with Henry again and had to write a twist-ending. (See pg. 342)

I saw you move into Henry's apartment and had to write a proposal for a gritty thriller, which my agent sold to a major publishing house in a six-book deal.

Thanks for all the inspiration.

Mister Independent

The Drew Man is trying to prove he's all grown up--or at least demonstrate that "anything you can do I can do better." I've already talked about how he helps us throw away and take out the trash. Mark's got great video of Drewbie all but disappearing into the washing machine (we have a front loader) and dryer as he helps out with the laundry. The Drewbinator has started trying to open the car door when we get ready to go out and happily crawls into the car and into his car seat all on his own. He tries to buckle himself in but can't quite it the mechanics down. (His booster chair, on the other hand, poses no such buckling problems.)

The independent streak carries over into his night-time rituals. He decides when he takes a bath (usually every night) by patting his chest with his hands. We're not sure how that symbol came to mean "bath," but it's quite clear that it does. Once in the tub, Drew has figured out how the faucet and drain works and will get the water filling the tub. This is a bit detrimental when it's time to end the bath. Lately he knows the whole lotion routine and will present an arm or a leg as the limb to lotionify first or next.

His sense of independence has been causing problems lately when we go to the grocery store. Drew refuses to sit in the cart and be content to help us cross off items from our list as he had before. Now he wants to be out and about, helping us by selecting items to put into the cart. This wouldn't be so bad if he detested holding one of our hands so much. We may have to make grocery shopping an evening outing by only one of the parental units if El Boyo Diablo continues to resist control in the supermarket. But it's still very cute to see him running down an aisle and stopping to select something (usually random and never something we would put on our list) and then trying to toss it into the cart. The times we can guide and direct him in his assistance, it makes for great entertainment.

I'm sure a desire to be independent is normal at this age (well, hell; it's normal from now until the kids actually achieve independence, isn't it?), but watching him take on the world at not even three feet makes my heart twist. It's not going to get an easier, is it?

Random Thoughts Check-in

I just finished the revisions to Pinewood Fog (I always love it when I can write over a thousand words in an hour; wish that would happen more often). I'll do the type-in tomorrow (or start it, as I think I've re-written about 75% of the story and most of it is still in hand-written form). I'll probably have to do another revision as a few thoughts hit me during this last revision. My goal is to have this thing done and submitted to WotF by the end of next week.

Ever had an encounter with someone that makes you wonder if you've completely missed part of a conversation or lost the thread of subtext or run into this person in a previous life that she remembers and you don't? I went out for sushi with a friend on Wednesday night and we had a server that called to mind that sort of feeling. She was so disconnected with us and strange with our orders. We did the all-you-can-eat sushi special, and you have to fill out these little sheets with the food you want for that round of the special. (For each one of four rounds of dinner, you could have so many appetizers, so many sushi rolls, etc.) My friend and I marked what we wanted and got something close to that over the course of the next fifteen minutes or so, but it wasn't quite right. So we looked at the sheet, and scratched our heads when we saw that the sheet had markings reflecting what she brought. Meanwhile, she practically rips my friend's water glass right out of his hand to refill it (she came up behind the two of us, so neither of us saw her and she didn't announce herself; nor did she fill my glass first, which I wasn't touching at the time). When we fill in the sheet for the second round of food, we both made a point to remember our orders. Sure enough, we start getting food we didn't order, but our sheet miraculously has everything marked the way she brings it--even to the point of one request being scratched out. Very strange.

Casa Grande is pretty darn far away from a lot of stuff. On my way up to Scottsdale for John Scalzi's reading and signing, I somewhat perversely looked at the odometer. By the time I got back home, I had driven 100 miles. 100 miles for an author signing, people. But here's the real kicker: I'm so used to driving at least a half hour on the interstate to do anything that I didn't even think much about it.

Speaking of the signing, I'm happy to have two signed books in the Old Man's War trilogy. The first one and the third one. I had hoped to support the Poisoned Pen bookstore by buying both the second and third books there and then having Scalzi sign them. I assumed the store would have stocked up on all the books of the trilogy. I neglected to revise my assumption by remembering that the bookstore specializes in mysteries (though they are wanting to expand into spec fic). So I have a spiffy signed copy of The Last Colony that I can't read until I swing into Borders and pick up The Ghost Brigades. Live and learn, Kellie. Live and learn.

Honing my skills as a writer has opened my eyes to a world of subtext and social commentary (both intentional and frighteningly unintentional). I was reading a book lately where I saw a dreadful undercurrent of misogyny and sexism. I'm pretty sure it was unintentional and not subtle social commentary due to the reliance of telling character motivations through internal thoughts (even when that character's actions and dialog with others made the thougths quite clear enough).

Back to fanfiction, again. Did I miss out on a kink? In the discussions of fanfiction I've read lately, someone inevitably asks why is that the bulk of fanfic focuses on male/male sexual relationships. And someone else inevitably responds, "Well, duh! The majority of fanfic is written by straight women!" Everyone knows that straight men find female homosexual acts erotic, but I haven't heard before about the opposite situation. Is it commonly accepted that straight women find male homosexual acts and relationships a turn-on? How could I have missed this assumption?

Inadvertent Advertising

I've been remiss in my blogging lately, mostly due to lack of time between working full-time, keeping the Drew Monster from getting too irked at my working full-time, and trying to keep my writing on track. I do have lots of posts in the works, though, so hopefully the silence will be over soon. It's not going to be over until the weekend, though, as I'm back at the DDJ until tomorrow evening.

But when I heard this on the radio this morning, I just had to share:

Looking for something fresh? Like the outdoor breeze up your shorts fresh?

This was for an advertisement for an outdoor mall, and why shouldn't it be? I mean, don't you always think about the fresh air blowing up your crotch when you see an outdoor mall?

This isn't quite as bad as the "Kiss your creams good-bye" slogan for a yeast infection treatment pill, but it's in the same ballpark. Where have all the beta readers gone in advertising?