The Best State in the Union

We thoroughly enjoyed our camping trip in Chiracahua National Monument and the valley between the Chiracahua and the Dragoon Mountains. The drive was gorgeous, including the trek along I-10 south of Tucson, particularly when we entered the Texas Canyon and got to stare at gorgeous rock formations crowding around the highway and beyond. Exploring the Dragoons and Chiracahuas and the valley between was just amazing. The biggest cities in the valley are Willcox and Douglas, and labeling either "city" is a bit generous. Most of the valley is rural desert grasslands, small towns dotting the state roads the run the length and width. Douglas, the little we saw of it from the car while driving longer to let Drewbie extend his nap, has a fascinating historic downtown district that really needs to be restored. We saw the Mexican flag waving about a half mile or so in the distance, the closest Mark's even been to that country.

I don't think I stopped smiling the entire time we wandered through that valley. We even found the perfect writing retreat. Now's not a great time to be thinking of extravagant vacations just for writing, but Mark and I are already devising ways to set aside time and money so I can spend a weekend at the Sunglow Ranch and write my fool head off. It might take us a year, but we'll get me there. I think I'll probably set up some sort of savings so I can make that retreat an annual thing. Just wait till you see the pictures we took.

We're already planning another camping trip to the area as we didn't have enough time (and didn't know the grade of the hike) to explore Cochise Stronghold more than having a quick lunch in the campgrounds. Plus, Tombstone is just on the other side of the Dragoons and there's a number of other sites and trails in that valley, so we might need several more trips as the Drew Monster grows up and can handle more hiking.

Drew is already an excellent hiker and climber, though. Mark and I realized as we watched him scramble up rocks (while Mark remained close by and had a firm grip on the Elmo tether) that we need to get in better shape if we're going to keep up with El Boyo Diablo in the future. The Drew Monster mostly had a good time, although he had several hissy fits as if to remind us that, yes, he is indeed less than a month away from turning two. He was pretty excited to be in his own sleeping bag on his own mat this time instead of the travel crib we used before.

It was a great trip. So much to see and marvel at in that valley. Mark and I have now been to the southeast and northwest corners of the state, and explored a decent amount of the central corridor. And we know there's still a ton more we've missed. We're already planning another camping trip near Lake Havasu in a couple of months, and we've got another camping excursion over to Canyon de Chelly in the works for next spring. Arizona truly is the best state in the Union.

Things to Make You Smile, In Case the Long Weekend Isn't Enough

1. Mark had an interview yesterday that went very well. Keep those fingers crossed and the prayers and good thoughts comin' as they're obviously working.

2. #5 Michigan just lost to Appalachain State. At Michigan. For the season opener. During the innaugural broadcast of the Big Ten Network. Understandably, the Big Ten Network announcers are now all over themselves, talking the game up as the biggest upset in college football history (which, if you've gotta go back to the 50s to get anything comparable, it likely is) in order to put some sort of spin on their first broadcast of the Big Ten's marquee team. Warms my heart it does. I feel for whomever Michigan is playing next week. That's going to be one ugly game.

3. Notre Dame's star QB recruit was injured over the summer and isn't starting, and the starter fumbled the ball not two minutes into the game. This makes me smile because, win or lose, we're playing Georgia Tech, a team with valid Top 25 aspirations just like us. If we lose, we still get to laugh ourselves silly at the Wolverines.

4. In case the International Pixel-stained Technopeasant Wretch Day kerfuffle wasn't enough to amuse you about how some science fiction writers seem to fear the future, read up on the latest from the Discover-endorsed standard-bearer of science fiction and fantasy writers in America.

5. #4 would be even more entertaining were it not for the fact that it seems there is a trend that writing orgs have internet slapfights that seem extraordinarily ironic for their genre. Every year or every other year, there seems to be a big RWA scandal involving authors who dress a bit too naughty at conventions or try to sell their much-too-steamy books. I predict the Mystery Writers of America will have some sort of huge falling out in the ranks about the identity of a writer satirizing them under a pseudonym within the next five months, just for parity's sake.

6. We're going camping starting tomorrow morning (have a family BBQ this afternoon), so we should have more pictures of the Drew Monster getting crazy dirty while roughing it soon.

Have a great Labor Day Weekend.

All About Perspective

I love The Onion. They made my day today with their take on pregnancy. Warning: whether it was intended or not, those with strong pro-life sentiments may find a few paragraphs not quite so amusing. Strike that, those with strong pro-life sentiments might find the whole thing offensive. When I read the article as a mother with a somewhat bumpy pregnancy and recovery, though, I can't take offense at all. I laughed heartily.

Border State

Living in central Arizona, we do see quite a few Border Patrol vehicles, but we don't usually see them in action. The Casa Grande Border Patrol station is actually here because they can't set up a station on reservation land, and Casa Grande has the closest access to a large stretch of reservation lands that are popular for illegal aliens making their way up to Phoenix on foot.

So I was somewhat surprised to see three highway patrol cars and one border patrol SUV surrounding a Jeep (all vehicles appeared to be empty of their drivers and riders) on a patch of dirt by the on-ramp we use to get on the interstate. A couple of miles off into the desert, there was a helicopter circling around a particular spot of ground. So the chase was likely over or coming to its close. Given the condition of the Jeep (looked pretty new and spiffy), I'm fairly certain that the perp was either a border drug runner or a coyote (what the smugglers who lead the aliens across the border get called here; these lovely people are known to take a group of aliens into a fairly remote part of inhospitable Arizona desert in high summer, point in a vague northerly direction and say "Phoenix, four hours walk," and leave).

It's one thing to know that the Border Patrol exists. It's another thing to see that in action. And it's something else entirely to think about the lives and moments that intersect to precipitate that action. That last is not an obvious train of thought for those not involved, but I think it's the most important.

Bit o' Stress*

Last week Operation Find New Job (Part Deux) took its toll on the household. Beginnings of depressions, bruised egos, flaring tempers, insomnia. The Works. The goal for this week is to try and fold in this piece of insanity a bit better so we can function as a family to support each other through it. Blogging may continue to be sparse to non-existent.

*Likely because I needed a touch of happy ridiculousness today, thinking up this title reminded me of that god-awful candy Bit 0' Honey. (I would say it's a refreshingly true product name except for the fact that they don't tell you that the bit of honey is mixed in with sawdust.) This icky concoction is (or was; hopefully he's come to his senses) the fave sweet of former Fighting Irish Coach Lou Holtz. A group of friends in our brother dorm were Lou Holtz Fanboys to the Extreme!!! They made it a point every year (no matter that our freshman year was the man's last year coaching the Irish) to write him and ask if he, in his Magnificience, would be so kind as to watch an away game with their humble selves in their meager dorm rec room or if we would deign to come and impart his Noble Wisdom to their ignorant dormmates, or somesuch. They always had a bowl of Bit O' Honey candies (and Diet Coke, another reported fave) on hand just in case His Worthy might drop in unannounced despite sending very polite and often personalized "Thanks but no thanks" responses to all of their requests. I think one day he did drop in for a quick visit. If one of the group ever reads this, I'm sure I'll be labeled a heretic or blasphemer for not remembering the details of this visit down to the way he had his shoes tied.

You Must Choose, But Choose Wisely

Drew's mealtimes have improved significantly by giving him a choice of menu options. Except for breakfast. The Boy rarely eats a good breakfast these days. But give him a choice of pizza or PB&J sandwich at lunch, and he'll enthusiastically pick one and eat more of the selection than he's eaten before. I can't believe it took me this long to figure this out. We've been having him make his snack selections from the pantry for a while now (supervised, of course), and one of those moments hit me like a ton of bricks. Of course Drew would enjoy having a choice of meals as well.

On the matter of what he wears, though, Drew didn't even try to put up with denying his say in things. Starting a couple of weeks ago, he refused to wear whatever we pulled out for him, morning or night, opened the dresser himself and dragged out what he wanted to wear. This has resulted in night-time outfits of pants with no top and day-time outfits of the same sleeping pants with a shirt. He does have a couple of favorite outfits: the bright orange shirt with a pirate shark on it, the beach rompers in bright blues and greens featuring frogs, and a pair of beige shorts that amazingly still fit him despite being intended for 9 month old babies to wear.

The other choice Drewbie regularly makes is to wear socks. Given the 100+ heat outside, I find this choice surprising. But he does seem to be very into socks at the moment.

I'm taking this as good practice for the teenage years. If I can tolerate his wacky choices of wardrobe now, I just might be able to stomach the even crazier ones in the next decade. Maybe.

We're Following the Leader, the Leader, the Leader, Following the Leader Wherever He May Go

Jacquandor is very lucky that I was looking for something to blog about today (the two topics I had been considering being not quite ready for public consumption) and, also, procrastinating. I've got a new chapter of THUMB to start, and my darling muse has yet to let the bits of flotsom and jetsam gel into anything coherent for this chapter. Yes, he is very lucky that I am in fact responding to his "Seven Things" Internet Meme tag, as my first instinct is to pretend I never saw the tag* and risk exploding the internet just as I risk unraveling the fabric of space time whenever I delete a "Forward this or [insert dire consequence here]!!!" email, usually sight unseen.

So, here it is. Seven things you may or may not know me, the Crazy Relationship Edition. (My earlier iteration of this meme listed seven things about me in seven categories. I'm not going that route this time.)

1. I was once propositioned twice in the same night by two townies in a bar in South Bend. This was during the course of a Girls Night Out, and I was pissed to have to deal with Male Horomones at all, so I left the bar in a huff, asking loudly, "What, am I wearing Eau de Slut perfume?" The next day, I went to Claire's a bought a $5 ring that, in the dark of the bar, could double as an engagement ring. I wore said ring every other time I went out with the girls that summer. It didn't help.

2. For a very brief moment in the seventh grade, I dated the most popular guy in school, who happened to be black. Our relationship was instigated primarily by a friend we had in common for unknown reasons. It was the shortest relationship I've ever had, lasting less than twenty-four hours, only three of which we actually spent together. During those three hours (the course of a junior high dance), we shared several slow dances. We also held hands while surrounded by his friends (a pretty thoroughly mixed race group) who looked at me as if I had green skin and some antenna. I think this was because my only known asset (other than that I wasn't fugly) was that I was smart, not because I was white. We kissed each other on the cheek at the end of the dance. The next day, one of us called the other and we both agreed without any hesitation that it just wasn't Meant To Be, heaved simultaneous sighs of relief, and went about our lives.

3. I played the whole "let's just be friends" card with a boyfriend in junior high. We had been friends before we dated, and dating for quite a number of months, IIRC. I missed the friendship uncomplicated by the relationship (mostly because the relationship had led to much cruel teasing by some of the In-girl crowd and I let it get to me). He took the break-up hard. So hard that he had a friend of his slip an add for bust enhancement cream in my locker. So hard that he told all of his friends that I was a lesbian, which I found out about much later and actually laughed at the news. We've since reconciled and are pretty good friends.

4. The guy who gave me my first kiss was eager to ignore me when he realized a kiss was all he was going to get out of me. So eager, in fact, that when he tried to excuse his avoidance of me by saying he had mono, he couldn't understand why I might get a little freaked out about that. I had to say, "Remember? You kissed me?" And he did this little, "OH. Yeah. That." Later that day or that week, he was kissing someone else. Ah, l'amour.

5. As I was on my way to ask the guy I liked to escort me to the Junior/Senior prom my junior year, I was intercepted by a senior drama buddy of mine. And he asked me to the prom. I felt awful, but I had to say no and explain that I was actually seconds away from asking someone else to go with me. He was more frustrated and embarrassed than heartbroken as I was the third girl he had asked. I still feel bad about that, but the guy I asked said yes, and we ended up dating for the rest of high school, with a minor hiccup of a month during senior year.

6. The first "boyfriend" that I can remember having was in the first grade. I think our relationship was characterized by sitting together at lunch and playing together on the playground. Occasionally, he gave me rings that I'm pretty sure he had stolen from his older sister.

7. One of my last boyfriends broke up with me via a seven-page long email, during which he said it was my fault he had to lie to me, told me I had no right be upset about my parents' divorce because of some variant of the "there are starving children in China" argument, and (in rebuttal to my WTF? response) whined about how much time I spent studying. Then, three days later, he sent me flowers and made "maybe we shouldn't have stopped dating" noises.

I'm not going to tag anybody for this meme except to say that anyone who reads this and needs a blog entry and is at a loss for words or simply needs further means of procrastination, feel free to consider yourself tagged.

*This is the last meme I did, and it was practically perfect in every way.

Stardust Needs You!

I caught Stardust at 10AM last Sunday along with about fifty other people. It felt strange to be watching a movie so early on a weekend in the theater, but the movie was well worth that minor discomfort. Hell, Robert de Niro's performance alone was worth both the price of admission and the snacks I bought, with the Dead Prince Peanut Gallery making up for any loose change that de Niro might not have covered.

It was such a beautiful film filled with gratuitous witchery and prince-death, Stupid Hero Tricks, and enough darkness to remind you when you might forget that, no, this isn't a Disney Fairy Tale. Alas, though, it didn't perform nearly well enough in its opening weekend to have it stick around in theaters. So if you want to catch it on the big screen, it would behoove you to do so this weekend. And bring some friends, maybe see about turning the box office numbers around.

I thought about why Stardust didn't do better. I mean, c'mon, it's friggin Neil Gaiman. If he can't draw a big crowd, then there's no hope of any of the rest of us SFers making a big splash in Hollywood. My yet-to-be-published novels are already sad about this. The only possible explanation I could muster was that the male SF community was mad for Rush Hour 3 (or, to be more generous to the other sex, The Bourne Ultimatum) instead. Then I remembered that Flash Gordon was having its season premiere on SciFi that Friday as well. Yet another draw for the SF community. Then I actually watched that premier during one of its re-airs and figured anyone who had watched that in favor of even Rush Hour 3 wad no doubt kicking themselves all the way to the theater the next night. I never quite got in synch with the characters' reactions to what was happening, and then there was the problem that No Female Shall Be Anything Other Than Brunette. With Similar Facial Features and Body Type. At least they messed around with their hairstyles. This phenomenon, though, was especially problematic when they tossed one of the women in a harem, also full of brunettes who looked nearly identical, even in height.

Anyway, if you haven't yet seen Stardust, you should really go see it. If not for yourself, do it for the future of quality SF books getting made into movies.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Found out yesterday that Mark's company is up and moving to California come October. He was given the option of moving with the company or being out of a job come the end of September, with the company's sincerest regrets and best efforts to recommend the hell out of him. It didn't take us very long to go with the latter option. While Mark has really enjoyed this company and the science he gets to do there, even he can't muster the faith that the move is going to do anything for this company's viability. That's saying something.

We've got six weeks to get him a new job without losing any of our savings, but our savings have been intentionally plumped these past few months specifically for this eventuality, so we should be OK for a few months after that should the job search not go well.

Sigh. Where's my multimillion dollar publishing contract when it's needed?

Process Examination #6: I'm Kellie Hazell, Reminding You to Help Control the Pet Population. Spay or Neuter Your Plot Bunnies Today.

Oy, the perils of the first three chapters. The brain is supplying ideas, various routes to get you from Point A to Point B, various morsels of character info that ratchet up conflict and promise for a big pay off. Beware the lure of the plot bunny.

I have not been successful in fighting the plot bunny temptation in my previous novels (and, no, I don't consider it an accomplishment to reach for the kitchen sink, pause, then decide against tossing it into the first act of the novel). Those bunnies are just so darn cute. You pick up a pair: protag and antag. And you examine their coats and decide they are perfect for the novel. You will enjoy watching these two square off, detailing their triumphs, their failures, their every single nose twitch and tail wiggle. Every hop will have significance, every nibble of the carrot. Then you step away for a moment, your attention on finding just the right novelty item to put in the cage with them to enhance their surroundings. Only when you turn back to the bunny cage, you find that there are suddenly quite a bit more than 2 bunnies in there. But you can tell how they sprang into existance, what traits of the parents they kept, how they provide so much more context and conflict and depth to the story.

So you get a bigger cage for the little beasties and write away, not missing a single juicy detail. Somewhere in there are your original bunnies with their particular story to tell. You may even develop that appropriately in and around your meticulous recounting of the progeny's antics. But your reader probably isn't going to have much luck finding that thread or giving it greater weight then the rest of the stuff you've shoved on her, and she's probably not going to be able to develop a coherent story question to carry with her as she reads.

The Plot Bunny Problem crystallized the concept of the story question for me, actually. I always understood what was meant by a story question: it's what you want your reader to be asking about the story, usually by the end of the first page, definitely by the end of the first chapter. Will the hero beat the bad guy? Will the heroine and hero get together? Will the protag learn that family isn't just about bloodlines? But I didn't understand just how powerful that story question needed to be and that even directly related information and questions can dilute it, especially in those first three chapters. In order to figure that out, I had to get somebody to critique the rough, rough first three chapters. Sure enough, my critter asked a whole bunch of story questions, two of which were what he needed to be worried about in that chunk of text. But he couldn't tell that. And I really couldn't see the problem with the other questions until he gave them equal weight to the important ones.

Now for my next process dilemma: to rewrite based on that critique or to move forward? I think the first antag POV chapter will help clarify this in my mind.

His Business Traveling Days are Over (For Now)

This trip back to CO was likely the last time I bring Andrew with me. Not because he's misbehaved during the trips, far from it. He loves traveling. No, once he turns 2, I have to pay full price for his ticket. The DDJ certainly isn't going to cover it.

This trip then was a nice farewell to our unique joint business trips. Drew flew well both ways. He even took out the safety features card and read along with the safety video (the card has pretty pictures!). He slept well, though not in the crib the hotel provided. He climbed out of the thing his second night there. So I used the base of the crib (really a play pen) as a mat for him to lay on, but he didn't like that for much more than an hour or two. So he shared the king-sized bed with me for the other three nights.

He ate very poorly for me every night, too. But apparently he ate quite well at day care, which is better than nothing.

The last day of the trip, he came with me to the office. He was a big hit as always and helped me out quite well with the few bits of work I had to do.

The highlight of the trip, though, was when we went to the mall for dinner and I let him play in the kiddie area just to the side of the food court. Drew was sitting on the top of a slide, deciding whether or not he really wanted to go down the thing, when some girl behind him got impatient and kicked him. Drew slid down the slides' raised edges on his back before thunking to the ground. I shouted something (I think it was "Oh!") and bolted to him, picked him up and took him back to the table to calm him down. Only he wasn't calming down. He didn't seem hurt at all. In fact, he kept reaching back for the kiddie play area. Sure enough, as soon as I plopped him down in the play area, he stopped crying and went trotting off to play as if he hadn't just sailed five feet through the air and landed on his back.

But it's good to be back and better to know that I don't have to routinely play at being a single mom anymore. We had some fun traveling together for the DDJ, but that solution has outgrown us and its time to find a better day care option for us here in AZ for Drew when I do travel. It should be easier to manage now that the summer is over and day cares aren't flooded with kids who are back in school.

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?