Convenient Lacks

I had meant to post this a good two weeks ago, but I got distracted halfway through composing, then decided I wanted to answer the Global Warming Debate with my response, then I realized that I just wanted a quick sketch of my reactions to this article. So here's the post, at long last.

Via Holly Lisle, I read this interesting article about inaccuracies in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. Given that this article comes from an organization "dedicated to sound public policy based on sound science" that strives to separate reality from rhetoric, I found the following three things very interesting.

1) The author chastises Gore's rep for saying "[Global Warming is] a complex issue" but not referencing all of the scientific papers on which they based their 90-minute video on the movie's website on the page devoted to the science behind the movie. The author of the article then proceeds to only reference one of the two articles the site referenced and doesn't bother to back up its refutations that cannot be found in that one source. If you're going to accuse someone of sloppy scientific arguments, it's best not to make their same mistake. Especially for this loaded topic, it makes you look really bad.

2) Many times the article explains that the environmental impacts the movie attributes to global warming are actually caused by some other way in which humans have destroyed a part of the local environment. The fact that the article mentions those impacts at all is a mark in the author's favor, but the fact that those impacts are left to stand as refutations of Gore rather than exhortations (or even just links, dammit) for policies (or even just their opinions on policies) that can stop such damage makes me wonder about what I'm reading.

3) Several of the inaccuracies listed after the first nine that were upheld by a British court are just repeats. For example, Error #7 is that the movie claims Hurricane Katrina is manmade, and Error #11 is that the movie claims that Hurricane Caterina is manmade. (By the way, for an institute that claims to eschew politics and rhetoric, the explanation of Error #7 is remarkably political, and also wrong. Wrong in the sense that the Democrats didn't cause Hurricane Katrina. The author is clearly trying to say that the Democrats were responsible for the levees breaking and inflates the rhetoric severely in doing so.) Also, Error #28 is that the movie blames global warming for the spread of tropical diseases and Error #29 is that the movie blames global warming for the spread of West Nile. Conflating the number of errors with cheap word tricks or refuting a point in such a way that all similar points of that nature are clearly covered by that refutation (i.e. if someone consistently misspelled words that a spell-check would have caught, I wouldn't say, "I found 22 misspelled words in this document." I would say "This document was not spellchecked." I think the latter is more damning, actually.) again makes me think you have an axe to grind rather than a cogent scientific argument to make.

It's too bad, really. I get so steamed with all this talk about global warming because, looking at the matter from a geological perspective, I think we've got a lot more data to collect before we go blaming anyone other than nature for causing it. In the meantime, science has already shown without a doubt how much damage we our doing to our environment on a more micro scale that may or may not stretch to a macro scale in the future if left unchecked. Why is it OK to dismiss smog and acid rain and local water pollution in favor of fear-mongering over water world? We've got enough environmental problems that we know for sure we've brought upon the world ourselves. Let's get back to those, please, and start where we can actually prove we can make a difference. Seriously, I'm beginning to suspect that global warming was a concept invented by Big Oil and such specifically because it distracts from the reality of the problems in our backyards that they've already been shown to be causing.

By the way, I'm getting really sick of these car commercials from, IIRC, Mercedes and Lexus that show these super environmentally friendly, alternative fueled cars, with the voiceover something along the lines of "Ready for the world, when the world is ready." Idiots, we're clearly ready for it, unless by "ready" you mean that you need a certain demographic willing to drop 1,000,000 for that car so as to make the car profitable. But I have a feeling "ready" means something more along the lines of "when Big Oil isn't going to crush us for daring to mass produce cars that don't require their product."

Process Examination #14: It Seems Cruel That Logic Should Let Me Down

I hadn't intended to take a day off from writing today. The easiest source of blame is Emma Bull's Territory, a story that absolutely sucked me in and refused to let go until I read the last page not an hour ago. But I have to be honest and admit I was looking for an excuse to step away from writing today. I didn't really need to, at least, not where PPR is concerned. It's just that the stutters and stalls and hiccups of THUMB have me all twisted and turned, trying to figure out where things went wrong this time.

As I mentioned yesterday, logic is what did me in. Or, rather, strict adherence to a logical flow of time and events and patterns. I've been writing THUMB in such a way as to cover just about every single waking minutes in these characters' lives, highlighting the dialog and character interactions and downplaying the action. Finally, in the past two days, I figured out why: I had set up a POV rotation pattern that I slavishly followed, forcing events to unfold in this step-by-step way, revealing what happened as the clock ticked on because that's exactly what that POV pattern demanded I do unless I wanted to pass too many important things by. For example, I couldn't skip ahead a couple of days in Jasper's POV because that would mean having to summarize and infodump on important things that had happened during those days in Elzie's and Rafe's POV. And I couldn't not have the Jasper POV scene because I had set up a structure based on it being there.

Logic has been my friend for a very, very long time. I suspect it still is, but it's laughing at me for taking it so literal. The laughter wouldn't hurt so much were it not for the fact that literal logic would get me to a completed draft, but it would take a good deal more than 100,000 words and a couple of months. And the revision process would be murder. Literal logic is not the way to write novels. Rather, it's not the way to write this novel.

So I'm trying to shift gears and ease the POV pattern and loosen my stranglehold on logic for Act 2. And I'm trying to do it without going back to rewrite Act 1. And I'm trying not to think about the fact that writing short fiction, even a novella, seems to be easier for my brain to parse. I want to write novels. I have tons of novel-length stories in me to tell, and I have to tell them. And I'd rather not take years to get each one out of me.

Part of the reason I started this series of posts was to, obviously, examine my writing process in frequent, honest terms that would help me navigate my way from the beginning of a story idea through to the point that I decided to cut the cord and send it out into the world. I can think of a number of different ways to interpret this crossroads I feel is before me and, in so doing, pick a direction. All of them, if I wrote them out here, would likely sound extremely plausible. All of them would point in different directions.

So why don't I cut right to the chase? Any falter now feels like it's admitting I can't finish a novel. That was the Awful Troof I feared back when I set aside SoZ for this crusade. And here I am, roundabouts the end of Act 1, with 40K words in the story, hitting a speedbump that has me looking back at the starting line and wondering if maybe I should try this race over again.

Damn. It. To. Hell.

No. Screw this. I'm going to finish this damn book. And I'm going to do it by the end of January, as I know I can. I'm going to take the ideas I've got to get me to the end and, by golly, use them to get me there. They may not be perfect, they may not work as well as something I'll figure out later, but they will get me to a completed draft and then I'll fix the stupid thing, no matter how painful that process is going to be.

Take that, logic.

This Period of Silence Brought to You by...

Errand Friday, TusCon 34 Saturday, Christmas Shopping Sunday, and Tired Monday. And I almost didn't post this today because I've been so rigidly locked into schedules and pattern and logic in so many aspects of my writing life that I had a hard time not posting a Process Examination post even though I have stuff to talk about (regarding that rigidity of pattern, actually). So I'm going to break the confinement of the blog schedule and post on that tomorrow. Maybe it will help me break the confinement in my writing tonight.

TusCon 34, by the way, was a fun day. The Con is smaller than my only other fan con experience, Mile Hi Con, but fun nonetheless. I tried on a corset for the first time at a booth in the dealer's room. A very interesting experience, and if I had had $500 to spare, I would have bought an absolutely gorgeous corset/skirt combo that I wisely didn't even try on out of fear I would whip out the credit card before I could stop myself. Also, Emma Bull is great fun to hang around. I'm looking forward to starting Territory tonight, which she graciously signed for me (I used my lunch break to wander to a Borders in town to pick it up after I learned that they didn't have copies for purchase at the con; that's what I get for confusing a writing conference with a fan convention--one day I'll learn, but I've only got a couple of each under my belt at the moment).

Christmas shopping on Veterans Day weekend, however, was not fun. We did hit a lot of great sales and got the gifts we wanted for everyone on our list (except for each other and most of Drew's stuff), but the crowds were thick and the mall had chosen this week to renovate the play area, thus taking the wind out of Drewbie's sails.

It feels very weird that we are only nine days away from Thanksgiving. I've got family coming in town for it, so I'm eager for the holidays. But we're still flirting with the low 90s here. I can count on one hand the times I've worn jeans in the past two months. The only time I've put on a long-sleeved anything since March has been during early morning camping or hiking excursions. I even ordered a peppermint mocha at Starbucks the other day and was disappointed that, while yummy, it didn't taste as good as I remembered from a nippy winter day in Colorado. I will get adjusted to the weather. It's just going to take longer than I had thought.

The Onion Makes My Day, Part # 1397

My only gripe is that it's a short piece. More, please! I eagerly await the installment titled "First Person Narrator Witholds Evidence from Self" or somesuch.

A New BPAL Discovery

After realizing that putting the BPAL fragrances on my wrists led the scents to rub off onto my keyboard and back onto my wrist in an odd, not entirely unpleasant olfactory experience daily, I began refraining from putting the stuff on my wrists at all. Instead, I swiped it on my neck and dipped a little in my decolletage, such as it is.

The difference in smell is remarkable. It's much more "pure"--as in it smells more like what is in the bottle. It also lasts longer and stays "intact" as a cohesive fragrance longer. Namaste is still my favorite, but the others improved dramatically by leaving my wrists alone.

I am curious to try this simple experiment with the other perfumes I have. It could be an odiferous stretch of days for the men in the house.

Process Examination #13: It's All a Placeholder for the Real Thing

Sigh. I'm trudging my way through the first draft of THUMB, and I've realized that there is so much I have to fix. Just about every scene has something that is my shorthand for "make this not suck in revision." It was not a shiny happy moment when I took stock of Act One and realized most of it fits into that category. But still I keep slogging, although it's harder to do so when you're staring at a scene that is just mired in Suck, when you're having characters talk about conflict and action rather than actually putting them in conflict and action.

Of course, it's not all bad. Even in the "slime, filth, putresence" stage, I see the gems still, which means that there are likely more of them than I'm letting myself see at the moment. And all this talking head phenomenon I've got going on and the punches I'm pulling so my characters aren't cut too low too soon (I know where they're going to end up by Acts 3 and 4, so I'm trying to be a little nice to them right now; Bad Author! Bad!) is helping me see where the story's lacking, what I need to fix. I even managed to figure out a better way to do a certain plot and character point last night because of all the vast amounts of suck surrounding me. (By then, though, it was my bed time, so I only managed to choke out about 150 words in that new direction. Thank God PPR is going well so I'm not feeling completely stupid in writing.)

I think I might have even mastered part of the trick of changing plot or characters in mid-story and not having to go back and revise. We'll see as I keep moving forward, though. I feel driven to finish this draft without getting stuck in loops, so I'm going to keep pushing on, asking questions when I stumble to make sure I don't get too far away from the story and the characters that I have to scrap 82K like I did with SoZ. (I know I've said that before. Writers pay attention to refrains, sometimes we even figure out what they mean before our readers do. I'm pretty sure the essence of this motif is this: Me want finish book! Now!)

One thing that might help me through this is to actually track the Things That Suck as I notice them in a document so I can have a revision guide. Of course, that also runs the risk of starting out my revisions in a very negative light. Must ponder.

Drewbie Goes to the Beach

We went camping on Lake Havasu this weekend. It's yet another beautiful area of the state. In fact, most of the drive from Casa Grande to the western border and along it was gorgeous. (The part that wasn't was a stretch of the Phoenix bypass route and a bit of I-10 getting out of Maricopa county. Come to think of it, a good chunk of I-10 treks through one of the ugliest bits of the state that I've seen. I-10 from the westernmost reach of Phoenix through to central Tucson is not the best way to see the beauty of the Arizona desert, though it does have its nice spots even there. Picacho Peak and the distant mountains of the central valley come to mind.)

Most of the state parks over along the Colorado River and Lake Havasu are focused on boating and water activities and are designed primarily with RVs in mind, but we did manage to find a nice shady secluded spot in one park to pitch our tent. The Colorado River valley had some very fascinating mountains around it, mostly on the California side. It was still fairly warm, barely dipping into the 50s at night, but it was just cool enough that we were able to get a fire going without feeling too ridiculous. The Drew Monster thought it was cool.

But the best part of the trip was watching Drewbie go nuts in the lake and along the shore. The water was cold but warm enough that he was able to play in it for about an hour, taking breaks on the warm sand in the sun to warm up for stretches. He went nuts with the little waves, splashing his hands in them, trying to figure them out. Then he would have fun digging up wet sand and carrying it over to where Momma was sitting to proudly deposit it in front of me.

Of course, nothing could quite top his discovery of the ducks in the lake and on the beach. He chased them all over the place, trying to herd them into the water if they weren't there, getting somewhat alarmed when they took off into the air.

We'd like to go back when the water is warmer so the Drew Monster can really go nuts in the lake and river, but it's quite clear that the warmer months will mean very large crowds and lots of boats and jetskis and such. We'd have to pick our travel time very carefully.

Still, it was a great trip and a real treat to watch El Boyo Diablo cavort on a beach. Pictures will likely be posted soon.

Maybe I Should Wait to Watch This...

Via Jacquandor, I read this fangirlsquee about a new Joss Whedon show on FOX. And it sounds really awesome. Like the kind of thing I wish I had come up with first so I could play around in this universe without stepping on someone's copyright toes. I just might fully understand writing fanfiction with this show (assuming it lives up to this killer premise). Here's the show blurb:

Echo (Eliza Dushku) [is] a young woman who is literally everybody's fantasy. She is one of a group of men and women who can be imprinted with personality packages, including memories, skills, language—even muscle memory—for different assignments. The assignments can be romantic, adventurous, outlandish, uplifting, sexual and/or very illegal. When not imprinted with a personality package, Echo and the others are basically mind-wiped, living like children in a futuristic dorm/lab dubbed the Dollhouse, with no memory of their assignments—or of much else. The show revolves around the childlike Echo's burgeoning self-awareness, and her desire to know who she was before, a desire that begins to seep into her various imprinted personalities and puts her in danger both in the field and in the closely monitored confines of the Dollhouse.

Exciting, no? But there's that whole "it's on FOX" thing, which means that seven-episode committment could be all they give us, and we might not even be able to FIND all seven episodes because the timeslot is going to be like playing hot potato, and they certainly aren't going to air those seven in order or anything. And I'm sure they're going to promo to the sex quotient ad nauseum and drive away non-Whedonhead viewers. And there's the added issue that I just don't really like Eliza Dushku very much--I think she clunked on Tru Calling, but that show had a lot of other problems, so I might be giving her bad taint by association.

Anyway, I'll watch the premiere, but I'm going to have to unhook the "gimme good SF" fangirl in me to do so cuz I don't want to get too attached to a show that doesn't have good odds of surviving.

Hey! You! Take This Candy!

I thought about saving this for my usual Monday Drew Monster post, but it's just too much fun to wait to share this. Plus, we're going camping this weekend, so I'll likely have lots of new material for a Monday post.

Being new to this neighborhood (and far removed from the concept of trick-or-treating; we've been living in apartment housing that didn't get any of that for the past seven years), we decided not to take Drewbie out for Halloween, opting to stay at home and have him help us hand out candy as we gauged the time window and the age ranges and such. Turned out to be a good choice.

Drew absolutely had a blast handing out candy. He helped Momma pour the candy bags into the plastic jack-o-lantern he's been carrying around since his birthday. Then he demanded I let him sample one of each type. Then he discovered he LOVED the lollipops and had to fish them out of the jack-o-lantern and keep those separate.

When the doorbell rang, he would do his half-dance, half-run thing to the door and open it himself. Using his non-favorite candy, he quickly picked up on the concept of dropping a piece into each bag that got shoved under his nose. Then he'd wave and say, "Bye!" and shut the door as the trick-or-treaters walked away.

The real fun was when there was a lull in between visitors earlier on in the evening. He got tired of waiting for someone to ring the doorbell, so he ran to the door, flung the door open, saw an unsuspecting three-year-old and her parents down by our driveway and went tearing out to them, holding a prized lollipop aloft. Also enjoyable were the times when the trick-or-treaters would be turning to leave with their loot, but Drewbie decided he wanted to give out more candy. He would stand in the doorway and hold out a piece of candy and say, "More? More? More?"

The entire night, he had such a look of purpose and order. There was a process, by golly, and he was going to do his part. He wasn't very interested in the costumes as he mostly zeroed in on the candy bags. He had so much fun dishing out candy that we might have a hard time convincing him that its actually more fun to go trick-or-treating next year.

Wiktory!

I met my minimum word count goal for the end of October. In order to stay on track to finish this draft by the end of January, I needed to hit 38,950 words today. I am pleased to announced that I made it to 39,116. I knew I could do this.

Now I must go crash into bed. Tomorrow starts another month of writing no less than 750 words in THUMB at every single writing opportunity. No rest for the weary, and all that jazz.

Progress Report #1: Um, Maybe Overextended

OK, so when I mapped out my minimum end of the month word counts for THUMB and PPR, I hadn't considered that I would also be writing up summaries of the RWA talks at the end of the month. I also hadn't realized that it was my brother's birthday on Sunday and that a bro-sis dinner out would eat up a writing night. I also haven't gotten the swing of factoring in "sick" days, and I was dealing with sleep deprivation hardcore this weekend. And, while the plot points have been coming fast and furious for PPR, they haven't been as forthcoming for THUMB.

What does all of that translate to? I need to write 4K for THUMB by tomorrow to meet the minimum amount of words I want for the end of October in order to keep me on-target for a draft by the end of January. This wouldn't be too far outside the realm of possibility were it not for those summaries I have to do. I think I might nudge those to the 1st as the newsletter they're for goes out by the 5th. That should be close enough for government work. (OK, I really don't like that saying. I don't think I'll use it again.)

For the month of November, especially given that we are having guests over for the Turkey Day weekend, I have already slashed a number of days that, without the holidays, I would use for writing. I think to prevent an end of the month crunch, I'm going to come up with weekly totals to help me stay on track. Assuming the story actually, yanno, decides to make itself known to me often enough to stay on track. Darn Muse.

I'm not worried about PPR in the slightest. That one is chugging along very well. I'm fairly certain I'll be done with it before the Turkey Day weekend, thus giving me some down time before I have to dive back in for revisions. I'd like to get this one out the door by mid-December at the latest. (And I just had a freak-out moment thinking about mailing something in mid-December until I remembered that this opp takes electronic subs only. Sweet.)

This is the last time (this year) that I have to write up the RWA meeting summaries, though I, fool that I am, have volunteered to be in charge of the newsletter next year. So I'm sure I'll be crunched at the end of the month again. Must account for this next year.

The Joys of an Increasing Vocabulary

The Drew Monster has added "no" to his growing list of words. Right now, he seems more amused that he can say this magical word that Momma and Daddy have used so frequently, and he likes to babble it while he plays. I'm sure by the end of the week, though, he'll have figured out that he can use this word on us now to extraordinary effect.

We were hoping he wouldn't learn this word for a while longer yet. I guess this means "why" is going to be uttered before we're ready for it.

Cut, Paste, Print & Save

Agent Kristin Nelson is doing an excellent series of posts on how to pitch your novel either live to an agent/editor or in a query letter by examining the cover copy of already published novels. The concept is to distill the inciting conflict and unique world elements in as few sentences as possible. Tricky stuff, but her analyses are very enlightening. Check it out.

OK, That? Was Not Fun

Yesterday my writing got derailed twice. Andrew woke up from his nap forty-five minutes earlier than usual, giving me only fifteen minutes of writing time after my work day ended. I wrote about 250 words. Then I imbibed at dinner on a stomach that was emptier than I had thought with a margarita that was a great deal more potent than I had thought. Brain was not coherent after that. No words last night. Going to bed under these circumstances never makes me happy, but there's only so much prodding I can force my brain to endure, and there's only so much sleep I'm willing to sacrifice. So I retired with my measely 250 words for the day.

Then the Drew Monster woke up screaming about thirty minutes after we had turned out our light for the night. (This means Mark had been asleep for roughly twenty minutes and I had not even begun to drift off; inebriated or no, I take at least a half hour to fall asleep.) We tried to calm Drewbie down for a good 15-30 minutes, but he wasn't having it (we're pretty sure he had a nightmare). So we snuggled up with him in the living room and put an episdoe of his favorite show on. It still took him over five minutes, but he finally did calm down.

Only problem was, in calming down, he also managed to convince himself that it was morning and he was up for the day. Cue screaming when we tried to put him back to bed after the episode was over. We tried to calm him down for another 15-30 minutes. No joy. So back we went to the TV. Lather, rinse, repeat.

After the second round of TV watching, I took him outside to show him the moon in hopes that he might understand that it was, in fact, night time. He still squawked when we returned him to his bed, but it was brief and it was followed by thrity minutes of actual sleeping. (I may or may not have grabbed a few Zs during this time; it certainly didn't feel like I did.)

Then he was screaming again, and I went to his room and thought maybe if I crawled into bed with him he would settle. And he did, only he didn't settle very deeply, so every time I thought I had heard steady, sleepy breathing for five minutes or more, I would ease out of the bed...only to have him wake up, usually as I was shutting the door behind me. Back to his bed I would go. Lather, rinse, repeat. Finally at about 1:45 I was able to leave him asleep in his bed and crash into bed myself.

Trudging through the day on four hours sleep? Do not want! Likely I'll have to use Drewbie's nap time today to get some sleep myself instead of write. This does not make me happy. It's times like these you really wish your child could communicate exactly what's going on in his head. If he could've just told us exacty what was wrong...

I Don't Go to Bookstores to Be Social

I am not by any stretch of the imagination an introvert. Such a trait would have been a major liability growing up in the military where either you or the folks around you were picking up and moving on to the next assignment almost as soon as you'd settled. Now, I'm not entirely sure I'm an extrovert, either. I just learned how to adapt to my constantly changing surroundings. Mostly.

That being said, I never considered running errands or shopping to be a way to socialize (unless you bring the friends along with you and you shop together). Now, if we're standing in a line or oohing and aahing over the same product, sure, I might strike up a conversation if the mood seems right or the person seems amenable. I've had nice chats with folks around playgrounds, too, while we watch our kids cut loose. (I've also had intensely awkward conversations around playgrounds too, but that was because the need for a deeper connection was so palpable for both me and the person I was talking with that we couldn't easily do the superficial thing; it's hard to be polite and talk about the weather when the subtext screams "I need a friend! Please, be my friend!")

So I had some mixed reactions while reading JA Konrath's post about handselling your own books to folks in bookstores. On the one hand, he lays out excellent advice and gives plausible scenarios that are very informative to folks who need some help on how to handsell. On the other hand, I kept wincing. When I go to a bookstore, it's almost always because I have a specific goal in mind: find this book, or browse the SF section for something fun. I'm in my own world, looking at all the shiny shiny. If I want assistance or an opinion, I'll ask for it. The couple of times that another customer has actually talked to me in the stacks (maybe after seeing me trying to decide between two books or something), I haven't enjoyed it. It feels like an intrusion, another shattering of the illusion of being surrounded by stories just waiting for me to read them. As a customer, I would not like being approached by an another trying to handsell a book. Hell, I wouldn't enjoy being approached by a bookseller trying to handsell a book. If I want a handsell, I'll find you.

I can't see myself approaching customers who aren't in any way signalling receptability in a bookstore during downtime at a signing. If a customer's looking around as if lost, I'll talk to them and see about bringing the conversation around to my books if what the customer is looking for matches up. If a customer approaches me, of course I'll go into extrovert mode. If a customer is hemming and hawing over books that match up with mine, I would have to weigh the situation carefully to make sure an approach wouldn't annoy. If it's really slow, I might also put a note on the table with my books that says "Hey, I'm wandering through the SF stacks, looking for items to add to my TBR pile. Come find me and give me recommendations." Or something.

Of course, that's all very hypothetical since I have not a single published title outside of my master's thesis, and only two copies of that are on shelves and only at the University of Colorado library. I'm sure they'll go flying off that shelf as soon as I make it big, because what rabid fan wouldn't want to read about how I attempted to purify an enzyme and analyze the kinetics of its reaction?

As an interesting aside, I should note that I'm likely to be much more comfortable at a signing in a Borders store as opposed to a B&N store. Most of that stems from having met with my critique group in a Borders weekly for four years. But the rest of it is just because B&N gives me a very formal feel. I have a hard time relaxing and browsing as a customer in their stores because I always feel like if I touch anything, I'm going to set off alarms. I think it's the dark wood and dark green decor. Borders has brighter woods and colors. There's also quite a few open walkways whereas the B&N stores I've been in crowd their walkways with displays, making me feel claustrophobic as well (a perception not enhanced by having higher stacks as well; you can't look over the stacks in a B&N to see the whole store the way you can in a Borders).

Process Examination #12: Juggling Two Projects

I've always been a multi-tasker, sometimes compulsively so. It's very rare that my brain will actually allow me to buckle down and focus completely on one thing. At the very least, I require background music and/or noise for some part of my brain to analyze and follow while the rest of the gray matter addresses the primary task at hand. So I was surprised when, early on the writing of THUMB, I was unable to work on the revisions for another story. But I duly noted the chaos that ensued from attempting to pre-write and start a draft at the same time as revising a completely different manuscript. And I set aside the revisions for later.

Now, here I am making remarkable headway in two projects at once, one of which is a rewrite of more extensive proportions than I had originally thought it would be. And I'm thriving. The key for this success has been to keep the two projects divided by time of day that I work on them. I work on PPR during Drew's naps, and I work on THUMB in the evenings. Reserving the time for both projects had allowed me to focus and not get so hung up on the little stumbles.

I'm reminded of how much I enjoyed research as an undergrad, juggling two different labs in two different states between semesters and breaks. I could concentrate on the project in front of me, shrug away the annoyance of a setback and focus on getting data. All because I knew I would be setting aside the frustrations in front me in favor of another project in just a few months, and that I could come back to the current project with refreshed energy and perspective. (Seriously, there are times I wish I could be paid to be an undergrad researcher, complete with a full course load; I think it was the most successful "career" I've ever had.)

I think the key to this successful juggling is that both projects are well underway. THUMB is just about out of Act One and PPR was already complete in draft form (of course, the departure from the draft is a bit more extensive than I had thought it would be; still, I know where I'm going and what needs to be tweaked to get me there because I've already traversed this particular path). I don't think the juggling would work if I were trying to start a new novel or even working on an already started novel (such as SoZ) as that's just too much to ask of my brain.

(Another aside, it took the ickiness of my first trimester to understand that it is possible to demand too much of my brain while multi-tasking. That led to me running a red light and totalling our car while I was fourteen weeks pregnant. I can still remember quite clearly the moment when I tried to add one more thought to the mix in my brain and my brain just went mushy and came up empty until I realized the car next to me was breaking hard, which meant I should likely be doing the same. Only I was a bit too slow on the uptake.)

So with two projects feeding off of each other, I have plenty of faith that I can reach my goals quite handily for these two projects. Here is the state of their progress:

THUMB: 32,072 of 100,000

PPR: 8,642 of 30,000

Go me and my mad juggling skillz.

Back Outside Again

One thing I never appreciated about the hot summers when I was only in the desert for just over two months each summer: they last a lot longer than two months. Another thin: the inability to play outside might not mean much to a college student, but it means quite a bit to a toddler.

Thus the Drew Monster and I have been ecstaticly welcoming the return of the low 90s and high 80s. We've resumed our daily treks to the mailbox and playground. We've taken to waiting for Daddy to come home by running around in our mostly rock-covered backyard instead of diddling around inside the house. This does mean that Drewbie needs a bath every night instead of every other night because he invariably spends a good deal of time exploring the one dirt patch we have yet to cover with rock.

In the four to five month gap since we've been outside regularly, Drew has grown enough to climb and crawl all over the playground in ways he wasn't able or willing to before, which made my heart beat a little faster the first time I saw him climb one particular set of bars. He likes to race me to chase down balls in the backyard too these days and actually work at kicking the things to me instead of kicking just to see them spin and roll away from him.

It's also nice to be able to explore a lot of the little parks and rec areas within an hour or two drive from our house without having to worry about heatstroke. It's good to be able to get out of the house every weekend and let Drew run around and hike and climb and get dirty. I've got to find a better way to handle the hot months, though. I've got until mid-May to put together a plan.

A Great Day to Honor my High School Buddy

Because I am fighting some sort of bug that makes me feel as if to do anything other than crash in bed is the equivalent of forcing me to run a marathon, I will indulge in some lazy linkage and point you all to the crazy goodness that is my buddy Matt (and friends). Be forewarned: this song is an earworm of disturbing proportions. And the video is great for warming you up on a chilly day as poor Matt is not wearing the lightest outfit.



In case you're wondering (and I'd wonder if you didn't), this is a related work for a SciFi comedy TV show that Matt and his buddies were working on to submit to the New York Television Festival. I'm told that there may be more disturbed YouTube videos from this project, and I will happily post them here so I don't have to exert myself to come up with actual content.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to try to force myself to write my minimums today so I'm not horribly behind on my writing schedule despite feeling like a zombie. I'm curious to see just how deranged the content I generate will be today. Good info to have for when I'm sick while writing toward a publisher-defined deadline.

The Consumerization of the Reader

I've never been interested in reading or writing media tie-in novels or the Harlequin contemporary romances, but I never understood why. I just shied away from the displays in the stores and shrugged away calls for submissions to those lines. But as I burrow deeper and deeper into various writing communities, I'm coming across a lot of people who read and write tie-in novels and category romances. And I've read a couple of the romances, trying to see if I could spot the "difference" I gave those books in my attitude. I really couldn't.

A couple of weeks ago, though, I figured out why the entire concept of tie-in novels and Harlequin's categories rubbed me the wrong way. Those books don't make me feel like a reader, they make me feel like a consumer. Coming from someone who easily spends $500 a year on books (one year I'm going to terrify myself and track the number; there's a very good reason why Mark handles the vast bulk of our finances), this might seem like spliting a microhair.

As a reader, I pick up a book because I'm interested in the story. (Well, OK, so I also pick up books to research the market and the industry; but always the bottom line of that research is to compare the story I read vs the data point that brought the book to my attention.) While publishing is a business out to make its profit just like all the others, whenever they push a product, they don't appeal to me as a consumer, they appeal to me as a reader: blurbs, cover copy, artwork, newsletters with excerpts or anecdotes from authors. Hell, even the Borders Rewards newsletters don't just stop short of giving me a coupon and laundry-listing the titles to be released. They often have interviews and excerpts and company exclusives (songs or "deleted scenes", etc).

How (according to my perception) are tie-in novels and category romances different? The tie-in novels feature cover art that has the medium it's based upon front and center. It makes sense to do this in order to get the established fan base of that product in another medium to buy the book. Hence I feel like a consumer: you like this TV show then buy this book and continue with the characters. The focus is not about informing me of the story, it's about moving product through brand recognition. "Buy me! Yes, there will be more of the tangled Starbuck and Apollo angst that you enjoyed in last season's episodes within these pages!"

With Harlequin's books, it's the way they are packaged and sold that kills the illusion of the barrier between reader and consumer. They are on a rack, in categories, sometimes with remarkably similar titles. And they cycle through to a new title every month (or less). I see that display, and I don't hear the siren call of books calling to me with entertaining stories. Instead, I hear: "Buy me! You are a middle class woman with time and money to spend and you are always jonesing for stories about men and women navigating their way to Happily Ever After! And come back in a few weeks and BUY MORE! We know you read approximately 9 books a year! Wait, don't pass us by! Come over here and bow down to the statistics of your demographic! We can show you our research! In pie-chart form!"

Now, I don't harbor any illusions that the other books on the shelves are any different. The team that got that book from manuscript pages to the product in front of me are trying to maximize the chances that I will buy that book instead of the one next to it. But, unless the author is a Big Name, they have only the story to recommend, so all of the decisions they made regarding that book are focused on bringing out the interesting elements of that story to give me a package that says: "Buy me! I will entertain you with a great story!"

Here's the thing, though. The folks behind tie-in novels and Harlequin's category romances know full well that consumers will ditch a product that doesn't deliver. And success in one medium is not going to translate into another without delivering the goods that is expected from that other medium (as well as the added tangle of not detracting from the enjoyment of the original show or movie). And even the most voracious of readers won't buy books if they've been consistently disappointed. So the stories have to deliver in those cases just as much as they do for any other book. You might argue that they have to deliver more because of their differences from the sea of single titles around them.

However, in a world where not a day goes buy that someone doesn't make me feel like a stat to move from "THEM" to "US", I appreciate a product that doesn't do anything overtly to make me feel like anything other than a reader wanting to be entertained by a good story. As I learn more about the publishing industry (hopefully from the perspective of a published author one day soon), I may come to see all books as treating me like a consumer over a reader. It would be nice, though, if instead I got over my "I'm a purty snowflake with unique reading tastes" knee-jerk reaction to tie-ins and category romances.

Process Examination #11: Notebooking Again

It's funny. Now that I'm fully into draft composition mode and buckling down for a regular writing schedule, I managed to forget the tricks that did well during pre-writing and the initial stuttering. For example, while laying down the law for my writing times, I went on about this "freewriting" thing. It was a good idea at the time, born out of a feeling that I should be writing at the computer during my writing time, even if it's just brain spew vaguely or not at all related to the novel. I never kept myself to that concept of getting the fingers typing, though, and I didn't really need it until Sunday. And I just froze up.

Now, part of the problem was that I had just picked up J.R. Ward's latest Black Dagger book, and those books are like crack. I can't really explain it. I seriously can't put those books down. As a writer, I want to know how this is done so I can do it in my books. Is there some subliminal printing thing going on? Are the pages dipped in a narcotic? Maybe the ink is laced with something that forces the eyes to follow it? I can't even pin down the story elements and the construction that really grabs me. That's how totally I get sucked into these books. If my interest wanders at all, I can usually figure out why, but that doesn't happen often. At any rate, being in the middle of this book did not make it easy for me to immerse myself in my writing on Sunday.

But I finally figured out that the bigger problem was that I hadn't notebooked the upcoming scenes and chapters at all. I don't mean outline. What I write for notebooking is taking a general concept of what has to happen in the next scene (sometimes it's as broad as "Jasper is the next POV character; need some action and plot revelation here") and then I sketch out ideas as they come. It really ends up sounding like a conversation (details are variabled out so as to prevent spoilerage):

Maybe I should have Jasper say this while doing that, and Celestina gets pissy?

No, because then she'd never let him do that other thing, and that has to happen in this chapter or else the next chapter isn't going to flow.

OK, so maybe Jasper does X because of A that happened ten years ago, and Celestina was part of bringing A down on his head, so she gets to grin and--

WAIT, Lutgard shows up and totally has to say E while doing Y so that Celestina gets G piece of information that Jasper completely misses, but he gets H piece of information, and so does the reader so Elzie's next chapter makes sense.

Me rikey.

Don't worry if you didn't get that. Chances are, in another couple of months, I won't get it either. But it's exactly what I need right now in order to write the next scene. And when I set up my writing schedule last week, I completely forgot to work time in for that. Not that I need a lot of time. I can usually get the notebooking done in the first half hour or so I sit down to write and then still make my minimums. Or I drag out the notebook during the day and scribble stuff down as I'm working or running after Drewbie.

I'm sure when I get to the end of draft comp and also during revisions that I will have similar process examination posts that amount to a "Duh!" with regards to forgetting about the power of notebooking. Maybe I'll be quicker on the uptake next time.

The Power of Suggestion

The Drew Monster is really starting to work on his vocabulary, mostly by deciding he likes to try out the words we ask him to say or the ones he hears us say a lot. You'd think that latter bit's a set up for the traditional toddler uttering of a four letter word in an inappropriate location. Nope, not our son. Not this family. No, the word he learned via repetitive hearings from both of his parents and tried out for himself is (drumroll please):

D'oh!

Update and Such

The plan I put into place Tuesday (with the minor tweak when I checked my math and actually counted my available writing days until Jan 31; I have to write 775 or 900 words every writing day in THUMB in order to hit 90 or 100K by Jan 31) has worked fairly well. I've writting beyond my minimums each day with the exception of Thursday night. But I got the words I missed and more by squeezing in some writing time before my chill time with the hubby on Friday night. And I feel great about my progress.

The one thing I still struggle with is the freewriting and getting myself on-task at the beginning of my writing session. I'll track that a bit more this week and see if I can modify the freewriting concept so it will actually be appealing and helpful. Such a concept.

Completely overcome by energy this weekend (I gave up on my turn to sleep in so that we could explore Phoenix's South Mountain park, which was much more remarkable than I would have guessed), I spent my early morning time with the boy by reorganizing my book shelf. I culled my TBR pile of 24 books, which left a staggering 84 titles in the stack (and, of course, we went to Borders today and I picked up two more; why, no, I never do learn, and, besides, self-control in book buying is for sissies).

Also, I am doing the second sniff test of Namaste. It is definitely lovely, although the lemongrass fades away too much for my tastes as the scent wears on, leaving mostly patchouli in its wake (not bad, but not quite as happy as lemongrass).

My Fragrant Prezzies Arrived!

The Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab perfumed oil blend I ordered in honor of a character from THUMB arrived today along with three imp's ears (samples). This was a reward for my quick, focused revisions on the first few chapters of THUMB. As I anticipated this one package so much over the past two weeks and was thrilled when I received it today, I just may be using this as a carrot for me in the future. I love BPAL's site and the whole concept of putting allegorical ideas into smells and could play around there for a while, creating a cache of fragrances that I can go to for my writing (give characters and settings an extra oomph with actual smells to reference).

Riffing on Sarah Monette who brought BPAL to my attention in the first place, I give you the results of the sniff tests.

In my utter glee at receiving this package, which was a reward for reaching a milestone in THUMB, I got a bit overeager and, instead of simply opening one of the imp's ears to smell straight from the bottle, I splashed a small amount on me. Thus, Jezebel became the first sniff test. It is described on the site as a blend of honey, roses, orange blossom and sandalwood. On me, it smelled like baby powder with a faint trace of cotton candy, which made me think of J.R. Ward's lessers.

After my shower, next up was the stuff from the 5ml bottle I had actually purchased: Undertow. Described as a blend of lotus and juniper with a hint of mint, it was quite sickly sweet strong upon opening the bottle. It took a few minutes for that strong cough syrupy smell to alter into a light, crisp floral with a trace of something very near to citurs. Mark likes it, but I'm somewhat on the fence still, both how it smells on me and if it actually matches the characer for whom I bought it. (The scent's literary description is why I purchased it, because it nicely followed an arc for the character.)

I had meant to stop there tonight, but I was too curious to leave the other two scents untried. (This means that my nose may not be smelling right anymore, or at least not smelling distinct blends properly. I will repeat the sniff tests in the future and report back on my findings, of course.)

Next I tried Namaste (sandalwood, jasmine, rose, patchouli, cedarwood and lemongrass). I smelled the lemongrass immediately, though the sandalwood and patchouli and rose are there with a closer sniff, and the lemongrass doesn't overpower the other smell after a few moments. I liked this one best as it is bright yet complex and overall very soothing.

Last I put on a small amount of Vampire Tears, which had the following laundry list of contributors: wisteria, white grapefruit, neroli, green tea, jasmine, white ginger, honeysuckle, iris, and tonka. It smelled like candy out of the container and immediately on my skin. The more floral and muskier tones came out after longer wear. Not too bad.

Things You Shouldn't Do Near Writers, Part the Many

While it might decrease the fodder for our novels, I'm beginning to think writers should wear some sort of identifying mark on their foreheads to keep people from acting in ways that are just begging to be put into their next novel. Lots of folks don't like finding themselves doing something stupid in print, even if the names have been changed to protect the idiotic.

For example, my mother was recently in the hospital (she's out now; fun with ulcers!), and I had to take her something outside of visiting hours. I went through the emergency entrance, and was promptly required to sign in (I'm pretty sure she checked my ID, but can't remember). I got a badge that said "VISITOR" and the day's date, but, while there was a space for it and the lady knew exactly where I was going because I had told her, not my destination. I then proceeded to wander through the guts of the ER nurses station, trying to navigate my way into the main hospital and patient rooms. A kind nurse pointed me in the right direction. I passed another nurse on my way through the halls, and then walked right by two more nurses at a station in the patient area who didn't appear busy. I passed one more nurse deep in the patient hall before arriving at my mother's room. I smiled pleasantly at everyone and looked them in the eye, giving each one of them a chance to stop and confirm what I was doing there where I wasn't supposed to be. I'm not a mystery or thriller writer, but even I couldn't help but think of all the ways such a system could be manipulated for an antagonist's nefarious purposes.

My next example is much more bold as the person in question knew for a certainty that I was a writer. But it's also a trickier situation. I'm pretty sure he tried to proposition me for an affair. Why am I not certain? Well, I'm seven years removed from the meat market, so I could be rusty on interpreting "interested male" signals that aren't coming from Mark. And it's not like he said anything conclusive. But he did go out of his way to engage me in a conversation (we were in a large group setting and he had no reason to chat with me in particular over the several folks around him). Also, when I shook his hand in greeting, he slid his index finger up to the pulsepoint of my wrist. He also had that lean-in-close, keep eye contact, and smile with 1000 watts thing going throughout our conversation, which I kept centered on our respective families, just in case I was being hit on.

Let's say he was trying to start something. This just makes the writer in me go friggin' nuts, all because of one question: why? What sort of married person solicits another for an affair? Is he from an open marriage? Is he a compulsive adulterer? Was he bored? It was a convention-type setting were most folks were from out of town, so maybe he just didn't want to be lonely in the hotel that night? Maybe it was a sting operation, and I would've ended up on some warped Dateline special with my face all blurred and my voice distorted as part of an expose on the state of marriage in the US.

Going in the Mary Sue/Glittery HooHa direction, maybe I'm just that hot and fascinating that he couldn't resist. Or maybe we knew each other back in high school or something and I never noticed him then and he's always had a crush on me.

OK, I can't stop laughing at those last two. I stopped writing wish fulfillment stories in college. Hell, when it didn't take long to recognize that Denise in HD was quite clearly me, I tried to kill her off right away. Tried, but she separated herself enough from me and got very insistent that the story needed her. I don't quite believer her, which is yet another reason why I've set that novel aside in a nice deep, dark drawer.

Anyway, people, you've got to be aware how much a writer will put you under a microscope to figure out what makes you tick, why you did something. We'll engage in armchair psychoanalysis before you can blink. We'll also scrutinize just about any venue and event for a means of exploitation, for an opportunity to really jump start the conflict and make a story of the situation. Be careful what you do around us unless you don't mind seeing how we take the truth of what we see and dig for interpretations you might not like.

Delayed Milestone Announcement

With the activity surrounding Drew's birthday and with Mark's parents being in town, I totally spaced on blogging about the other big day that happened last week.

Mark and I celebrated our fifth anniversary last Friday.

We left Drewbie in the capable hands of my in-laws and went out for a very nice dinner at the Ahwatukee Melting Pot. I don't know if all of the tables were set up this way, but in our section of the restaurant, each table was enclosed in a curtained-off alcove. We had no idea that was how the restaurant was set up, but we couldn't have planned it better. They were also having a neat Mediterranean-themed special dinner, which was delish.

The only downside of the evening was discovering that the Barnes & Noble on the way back to the highway only sold books, not music and movies. (We had gotten on the topic of 80s hairmetal toward the end of our meal--the perils of living with a writer as I'm writing a book that makes liberal use of said music.) We were craving some Def Leppard and were bummed out to find only a vast stretch of books in the store.

We were further disturbed by the group of insanely young-looking kids mobbed outside of the store after 10PM on a Friday night. Some of them looked to be 14, but most of them looked to be about 12. I know I was raised with some fairly strict rules and curfews, so I may be drastically out of touch with the norm for what kids are allowed to do these days, but damn. What kind of parent lets their twelve-year-old hang out at a major strip mall (there's a movie theater and several other big box stores around the B&N) within spitting distance of a big-city interstate on a Friday night after 10PM? Drewbie may hate us for it, but not just no, but hell no if he ever asks to do that.

How appropriate that, on our fifth anniversary, Mark and I proved to the world our full emergence into the adulthood state of pining for old music and shaking our heads at kids these days. All we needed to complete the transformation was to have chatted loudly about "when I was that age..." to each other.

Process Examination #10: Lowered Expectations (aka Reality Bites)

OK, so I finally did some number crunching and frank assessment of THUMB and another project that has come up.

(This other project is a revision of a novelette into a novella for a sub opp with Samhain publishing, which is primarily an e-book publisher and their stock is primarily romance. This project is much more toward paranormal romance than SF, so I'm going to submit it under a pseudonym as a nod toward perhaps starting a career in that genre and in e-books. The career that I want is in traditionally pubbed science fiction and fantasy novels, though, and I've seen more than one writer suffer due to a backlist in a romance genre and in e-books. Hence the pseudonym. But I do have a number of shorter pieces and ideas that don't seem to fit in with the SF short fiction markets, so I might as well see if I can turn a coin where they might fit better.)

Anyway, a draft of THUMB is going to be 90K minimum and 100K maximum, and I've only written about 23K so far. That's 67 or 77K by the end of the year if I want to hold myself to my original goal of a draft by the end of the year. I was thinking I could buckle down and likely make this work. But with the sub opp that fell into my lap, I need to add a minimum of 12K to the novellette and a maximum of 22K to bring that story into the range this opp is looking for. So that means about 80K minimum and maybe even as much as 90K by the end of the year.

While I would like to be producing at a level that would have me reliably writing 30K a month, I'm not there yet, and with holiday guests and travel coming up and my stubborn refusal not to give up one night of downtime with my husband every week (I will not sacrifice my family or my marriage for any career), I just don't think it's possible to get 80K or 90K by the end of the year. Because the sub opp is due Jan13, I pushed my THUMB goal back by a month, giving me just under four months to finish that draft and about three months to finish the paranormal revision.

It's a bit more manageable, but I know that I have to push myself harder than I have been, hold myself to what I'm capable of doing each night. I'll be revising the novelette during Drew's naps (that's an hour of guaranteed work), and in the evenings, I'll be working on THUMB. I can fairly reliably produce a minimum of 500 words for every hour I have my BIC, often 750, and sometimes 1000.

So I'll need 24 to 44 days of pure writing at 500 words to get to the right word count on the novella. Add in 15-20 for pre-writing and rewriting, and I'm set for meeting the sub opp deadline with a good amount of wiggle room.

As for THUMB, I need 134 to 154 days of pure writing at 500 words/day to get to the end of the draft. Given that I usually have more than an hour to work in the evenings, I think I can shave off 30-40 days from that estimate. I'm also going to work out a weekend schedule with Mark that gets me a couple of extra hours during the day and boost my output that way as well.

Basically, I've taken a hard look at my writing goals, at my writing output, and at the habits I've fallen into that reduce the output for no good reason. For example, when I had a great writing night last week and then felt my brain turn to mush the following nights, I gave myself a half hour each time and called it quits without trying anything to get words. I'm going to start employing freewrite mandates at times like those. If I feel in any way that the words aren't going to come the way I like that lets me write my usual output, then I will start freewriting in fifteen minute intervals. The freewriting can be an examination of why I'm not feeling the words come, it can be a rambling examination of the chapter I'm trying to slog my way through, it can be the same word over and over and over and over and over again. But I have to freewrite for fifteen minutes and then re-evaluate how I'm feeling about producing actual draft content. Given how I've seen my mind and muse work in the past, I'm pretty sure that this will trigger something I can run with, if not in the first fifteen minutes then definitely in the second. And if it doesn't, then at least I will have tried.

This is the way I'm going to get a better handle on my regular writing abilities and start treating myself and my goals seriously in yet another way. I want a career in which I write a book a year at minimum, preferably two. I think I'm capable of it, but I really haven't given myself a chance, haven't worked on discipline enough to see what I think of a schedule that would give me that output. I know I'm happier when I'm consistently producing, regularly working my way toward the end of a project. I think this is going to have great results.

Not Quite Into the Tricycle Concept

The Drew Monster hasn't warmed to the idea of pedalling just yet. He doesn't mind being pushed on it. And he certainly enjoys pushing the trike around himself, and he loves putting rocks in the little "trunk." But actually using this device as a mechanism for self-propulsion along a sidewalk? Not so much.

His biggest birthday hit seems to be all the coloring implements, though the Diego Rescue Cell Phone was a required traveling companion for a couple of car trips after his big day. And every morning starts with a rousing round of music on the new xylophone. But, of course, he had the most fun on the day of his party by pulling all of the tissue paper out of the big huge bag Uncle Brad put the Diego phone in. And we still haven't set up the Thomas train set yet, so we'll see what sort of play time that gift gets in the coming days. Of course, Momma and Daddy are very happy with the clothes and birthday money which we spent on clothes as he's starting to get too tall for his current wardrobe and definitely needed better fitting cooler weather wear.

So thank you everyone who helped us celebrate Drew's 2nd Birthday. We'll be sending Thank You cards shortly, and each one will include a Drewbie Original Scribble for extra collector's value. The art will most likely be in either blue or purple, his colors of choice. Or pen, perhaps, as Andrew Thomas has been known to wield ink as a preferred medium.

Two Years Old

We have now officially entered the Terrible Twos. Some days it feels like we've been here for a while, others it seems impossible to put the word "terrible" anywhere near our son. But no matter his mood, there's no escaping the excitement of watching Drew grow and learn and change day by day. Right now he's interrupting me by demanding I cover my ears with my hands like he's doing. No, I have no idea why.

He may not speak very clearly, but he certainly has a lot to say. And it's quite clear that he understands just about everything we say these days. I wouldn't be surprised if he figures out the spelling trick long before we're ready for him to do so. Right now he's wowing us with his ability to point out animals in his favorite books on demand. We'll tell him, "Show me the yellow duck." And he'll flip through the pages of the book until he gets to the page with the yellow duck on it and will proudly crow and point to it.

A year ago, the Drew Monster's favorite toy was a mini-keyboard thingie. He quickly tried his parents' patience by pressing one button over and over that started a series of songs. Nowadays, his favorite toy is the couch in my office. He loves to take all the cushions off and walk around on the wood framework (it's an IKEA piece) and straddle the slats and otherwise contort himself around the thing or bounce on the cushions on the floor. We're getting him a tricycle for his birthday this year, so we'll see how he manages with that and how it changes his favorite toy rotation.

It's very hard to believe it's been two years, and I don't think that's a feeling that's going to go away ever. Eventually, whenever someone asks me how old my son is, I'll probably end up replying, "Older than I think."

Happy Second Birthday, Andrew Thomas.

On the Recent Silence

I wrote a good 2000 words in a couple of hours Sunday night, and it seems that those 2000 words were most of my allotment of words for the week as everytime I've sat down to write since then my brain has produced a dribbling, novocain-lipped, incoherent babble that rapidly degenerates into "Ugh". Hence the silence. And it seems like it's going to continue as my in-laws arrive tonight to visit and help us celebrate Drewbie's 2nd Birthday tomorrow. (I will manage to drag a nice coherent post out of my gray matter tomorrow for that.) Maybe on Sunday I'll get back into the swing of writing here.

One Wookie to Rule Them All

It's been on the net for two years now, but via Abigail Nussbaum, I have just now read this great secondary character analysis of the Star Wars mythology. If I were Lucas, I would cop to this interp as it would make me look oh so smart.

The Trouble With Growing Up

While yesterday's post of self-awareness and enlightenment does a nice job of making me seem mostly well-adjusted and right with the world, it left out a key piece of information. The knowledge gained by catharsis and navel-gazing is great when it's there and helpful and makes you interact with the world in marvelous ways. But it's not always there. Or, rather, it's always there, but our damned dirty ape brains can't always get to it. So we can acheive enlightenment all we want and still wind up being compelte jerks to each other when it counts.

There are times that I wish I hadn't looked closely at myself and tried to improve my way of looking at the world. If I hadn't, I wouldn't be wincing about stupid things I've said and done in the past, ways I've mistreated people, times I've been so self-absorbed that I couldn't see the needs of others, or, and this is what really irks me, moments when I've been so focused on my life that I missed opportunities of friendship and mentorship.

Here's the kicker: I'm going to do it again. Because as much as I can sit here and post about "happiness is a journey, not a destination" and live life for the moment and yadda yadda yadda--it's a very safe bet that when I need that understanding most, my lovely little brain will be spinning a loop elsewhere and I'm going to do or say something stupid that I'll wince at later.

Hey, World! I'm Finally Over Myself....Or Not

Over the course of living with my mother for three months, dealing with unemployment twice in six months, getting a sixth manager in three years without having changed positions at the DDJ once, traveling for three weeks as a single mom, buying a house, setting aside 80K in one novel and navel-gazing my way through 20K of another, and juggling part-time hours from home with the Drew Monster, I think I managed to put my sense of self into an appropriate perspective. I no longer have an inner twelve-year-old strutting around in my head, yelling, "I'm destined for greatness! Greatness, I tell you!" Instead, the inner voice has aged and developed some kind of wisdom and now says, "Greatness may be in the cards for me. It may not be. I'm just living my life, taking care of myself and those I love to the best of my ability day by day. What happens, happens."

This way, I can still dream big and spin scenarios that have me winning Hugos for my first novel and short story the same year I win the Campbell--and then I can laugh myself silly, shake my head, add a dose of reality to the scenario (God, can you imagine the sophomore slump after such a freshman effort? Talk about pressure for the rest of your career.), and get back to slogging through the draft that feels like shit.

I'm also not holding my past pains as close to my heart as I did before. Cloaking even the smallest part of my self-image in victimhood and pity just made consistent happiness all the more unreachable. That's not to say I'm going to ignore the bumps and bruises life's given me. They are a part of me, they've shaped me (in ways I may not fully understand still). I will continue to examine them insofar as I can learn from them. I'm not going to wear them like a badge of honor anymore.

Being a stay-at-home Mom who also works from home has finally allowed some of my perfectionism and control-freak tendencies to lessen, too. This is something that writing started five years ago, that career changes continued, that the first year of Andrew's life furthered. But it wasn't really until this month that I finally understood that I'm going to have moments and days and maybe even weeks when I can't seem to get anything right with Drewbie. I'm going to pick the wrong battles. I'm going to have moments when the TV will have to serve as a sitter because my brain won't respond to even the lightest prodding. I used to worry about every inconsistency, every failure, every second I wasn't engaging Andrew in an activity that would enrich his mind and develop his skills. I've got one smart, tough kid. He's working as hard at figuring this world out as I am at trying to help him through it. We're going to stumble as we learn--and learn something then as well.

Accepting that, destined for greatness or not, I've got a life to live as richly as possible each moment, puts the pressure of perfection neatly aside for the most part. Tomorrow's another day, and all that jazz.

That all sounds great, and between a lovely drive through the valley between the Dragoons and the Chiracahuas at the beginning of the month and a drive around the Catalinas just over a week ago, I think I managed to really accept this knowledge, absorb it, and understand it after years of gathering it. Because somewhere in there I realized that the DDJ isn't ideal, but it allows me to have the lifestyle I want (stay at home with Drewbie, extra time and energy to write). Because somewhere in there I fully accepted that I don't really care if I ever get published or not--I'm writing for me. Because somewhere in there I stopped seeing Andrew in light of all the ways I've screwed up and started seeing him in all the ways he's succeeding, sometimes despite me.

But it all breaks down when I get to my physical self-image. I am beginning to loathe my body, to hate my smile. I think it's because I've finally come to appreciate how I looked when I was in college and see how much I've changed in appearance since then. Also, while my weight is just fine for my height (though I wouldn't mind slimming my tummy and thighs a bit more), I want better tone in my body particularly in my abdomen so I don't have to stare at the flab hanging over my c-section scar for the rest of my life. The big problem with the State of the Bod is that I am literally covered in stretch marks from my belly button to my knees because of the weight I gained during pregnancy. Because I scar easily and keep the scars I do get, I'm not sure I'll ever be able to get rid of those stretch marks. And they are ugly and impossible to ignore.

How do you accept the way you look, embrace it, and ignore the inner twelve-year-old who thinks you should be the most attractive creature to wander the face of the earth?

Process Examination #9: Variations on the Theme

I should've known better than to submit a query letter for critique by an editor who doesn't publish SF. I tried to quibble a bit in the opening paragraph and highlight elements that might be more fantasy than SF so it wouldn't look totally stupid to be submitting this query to her attention. Unfortunately, in that quibbling, I opened the letter with this lovely sentence and got appropriately dinged for it: "I don't know where to draw the line between fantasy and science fiction." So, of course, the editor talked about how unprofessional that sounded, that you don't know your own field, etc. An excellent point, but it made me wince all the same.

She then went on to say that query letters don't need to summarize the plot and to stay away from big blocky paragraphs that belonged more to a snyopsis. The query letter needs to get to the heart of theme and characters that create an intriguing concept to entice the editor to ask for more. Another excellent point, phrased in a way I either hadn't heard before or hadn't absorbed as it wasn't my own query letter on the chopping block at the time.

That got me thinking, can I even begin to distill this novel into its selling concepts yet? I've got some ideas, but it's hard to mention the one element I know that's fun and sets my story apart--80s hairmetal throwbacks--in a way that explains why that element is in the story without bogging it down in a worldbuilding infodump. So I turned to that squirrelly concept of theme to look there for something that might make a query letter stand out.

OK, I also looked at the characters, examining what makes them unique and fun to write, what conflicts they get tossed into that make the story interesting. But that, in turn, brought me back to theme as I started noticing, well, themes in my characters and conflicts.

Unfortunately, all I've got are words: chosen vs blood family, decisions under pressure, corporate shenanigans, and breaking the rules. I had the first three more or less from earlier contemplations on the concept of theme. The last one came up while considering the query letter and what stood out about it as strong. Every single one of my characters breaks the rules in some fashion and often for interests that aren't self-serving. Well, my bad guy's the exception, but even there, he's more concerned about his family's company surviving, not really about his own power and interests. I guess the key difference is that my good guys don't break rules that put others in danger without the consent of those others, whereas my antagonist doesn't see a need for any such thing. To him, everything is expendable as long as his family's company endures.

While all of these meditations on theme and characters and conflicts are enlightening, I still don't have a theme I can articulate in a sentence or two. I still can't convey clearly the awesome in my book. I know, I know. I'm not even at 20K yet, so I shouldn't be fretting about this too much. I'm sure by the time I get to "The End" in this draft I'll be able to express theme and Teh Awesome in a way that's going to make a wicked query letter. But I don't think I'm going to stop analyzing THUMB for theme and intriguing elements as I work through this draft. It's helpful. It keeps me on top of what my characters are doing, on how my conflict is twisting and shaping.

Opening a Can of Worms

We bought some cans of cat food the other day, and they instantly became Drewbie toys. He loves to stack them. He loves to slide them around on table tops. He loves to move them between his two favorite areas: the coffee table and the breakfast bar. Yesterday, he surprised his parents by stacking up the cans on the breakfast bar, climbing down the stool, walking over to the utensil drawer, and fishing out the can opener, which he then dragged back to the breakfast bar and played at opening the cans. He has rarely seen us use the can opener.

This morning, he showed off even more of his impressive smarts by digging out a bottle cap popper/can puncturing combo to work on the cans with.

Also, he's added "hot" to his verbal repertoire and "Bye, Daddy" to his list of crude sentence constructions, although our favorite was when, upon returning from a trip down to Tucson, I asked him (but was really asking Daddy) if he had pooed today. The Drew Monster's answer: "Oh, yeah!"

The Obligatory "Darn Those Fightin' Irish" Post

I'm told by my mother's Wolverine-loving significant other that I have been remiss in mentioning that Michigan did in fact pound the Irish last weekend. And, yes, the Irish did lose to Michigan State yesterday. The '07 Irish have indeed made Notre Dame history: this is the first time we've started 0-4 (and we could very likely go 0-8), and yesterday also marked the first time a team has ever come into our house and beat us five times in a row (*shakes fists at the Spartans*).

But I'm the wife of a man from Buffalo and life-long Bills fan. And I was a Bills fan in my own right years before I met him. I'm also a Cubs fan. And I was at Notre Dame for the beginning of our spectacular bowl game losses. Hell, I even went to one of them. I know how to shake off the ouch of this season and look for the positives (we finally scored an offensive touchdown yesterday! woo-hoo!).

So, yes, Michigan trounced the Irish. After they got stomped by Appalachain State, though, I find it telling that my mother's significant other would consider the Wolverine's beating of an Irish team ranked 104th (or lower, after yesterday) is gloat-worthy. We're the college football punching bag this year.

Process Examination #8: Maintaining the Narrative Thread

I'm in the process of completing a very tight-focused revision of the 17K words I've written in THUMB. The only purpose of this rewrite is to add in new narrative dots and delete some old ones so I can connect them in a slightly adjusted narrative thread.

I've discovered that I am not the sort of writer who can say, "Hey, if I change/add/delete this plot point way back in Chapter 2, the story will look like X here in Chapter 8 where I'm at now," and just keep going ahead with draft. If I try to do that, I get lost in the many ways from Point A to Point B in each chapter and end up building an entirely different narrative thread than before I came up with the new plot points but that doesn't follow from the new plot points, either. It's one of the ways I got to 82K in SoZ without leaving Act One.

It's not easy to force my way through a "only look at this one aspect" revision. There's a part of me that wants to burrow down into the nitty-gritty of every sentence and Fix the Whole Damn Thing. But that would take way too much time, and I'm not willing to invest energy in that sort of revision when it's likely I'll be making more substantive narrative thread changes as I work my way through the rest of this draft. But it's hard to catch a bit of dialog or description and wince a bit, knowing it could be better, but just zip right past it because it's out of scope for the revision.

So I've decided to dangle a carrot for this task. Via Sarah Monette, I have discovered the Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. They specialize in perfumes that represent poems and literary characters and the like. I'm not really excited about it for dousing myself in scent (though I have no objection to that, should I enjoy the scents I purchase), but Muse is practically pinging with the possibilities. Scrolling through their scent descriptions, looking for character matches, getting olfactory input for the novels. And I'm completely caught up in Muse's excitement.

In one of my backstory scenes, I have a character spritzing herself with perfume. It's more than just a "hey, it smells good" thing. To her, it's like armor and a weapon. It hides her even as it empowers her. She knows this and revels in it. But I had no idea how to describe that kind of a scent. Now, after wandering through the BPAL website, I've got a couple of ideas based on their allegorical connections.

So, as soon as I finish this limited rewrite (which I'm thinking I can get done by the weekend), I'll be rewarding myself with a purchase at BPAL. And then it will be back to the draft, armed with the super sniffer and an intact narrative thread. Nothing's gonna stop me then.

Why I'm Watching the Oscars in 2008

Jon Stewart's just signed on to host. 'Nuff said. Watching him snark on Hollywood is more entertaining than watching what Hollywood produces, with a few notable exceptions.

Flip the Switch

I've been pulling words for THUMB out of my fingers for a while now, feeling like everything was terrible, that I was somehow approaching things from every wrong angle possible, that I was going to have one helluva time rewriting this book (assuming I could onsey-twosey my way through to the end of it).

I started to feel a little better when I got the idea for the medical device, but then I still struggled with the ship's mechanic chapter. I kept thinking of different directions to go with the scene and kept telling myself it felt like a housekeeping scene the way I was going at it. I just couldn't get a read on it that would let the words flow.

So I sat down with my notebook today, put the day's date, and then wrote the following: "Problems w/Chapter 6." On the second item, the solution to my problem with the scene hit. The rest of the page in that notebook starts with "OK, this is good." Then it goes on for a half page of how to revise the first two chapters to mesh up with the solution for the problems with Chapter 6. Then I've got a page of draft for the New New Chapter 1. And then I wandered into a query letter draft that ended up reading more a like synopsis for a page. I stopped that effort and sketched out the bullet points of what needs to be my query letter.

Let me explain.

My RWA chapter is having a special "members only" sit down chat and critique session with Mary-Theresa Hussey (senior editor of Luna, among other things). She's willing to look at the first two pages or query letter from any of our members. I thought about this opportunity, how I'd hate to pass it by. But I don't really want to have the first two pages critiqued. I've actually already been through that experience with HD and Teresa Nielsen Hayden. I've also had my query letter and first 30 critiqued by a multi-pubbed author, so at first I wasn't too eager to try to whip anything up for MTH and was content to listen to her pick apart the work of others.

But then I remembered how much I hate not knowing why an agent or editor passes on a query letter when that's all they've got. This is a perfect opp for that. So I'm trying to put together that query letter for a novel that's not even a fifth of the way finished.

Mark's been having all sorts of great success with finding a new job (hasn't landed one yet, but there are three possibilities that seem to be moving very fast from resume forwarding to interview to calling the references). I'm happy for him, but part of me is both relieved and irked that he's using up our good luck. Relieved, because it's a lot less likely with all this stuff falling into place for Mark that MTH is going to read my query and say "Send me more now". And irked, because of the same.

Sigh.

Observed Trauma

The Truth Shall Set You Free. This is such a glorious aphorism. It's certainly one to live by whenever possible. And yet, I struggle with it in certain venues. A while ago, Elizabeth Bear posted at length about the trauma in her life, mostly to help herself and some close friends process current and past trauma that had flared up to get in the way of life. I remember reading that and having a riot of reactions for days. I have no trauma like hers. In fact, most of the trauma in my life is observed, secondary instead of primary. It's had a profound impact on the shaping of my life, of course, but I can't really purge it in a blog post because it's not mine.

Honesty is a great thing. Outside of the dark places in my mind that I prod for writing ideas every now and then (or from which writing ideas tumble out and scare the piss out of me), I could quite happily post at length about who I am and how I came to be that way. (The dark places, given time and the light of more attention, likely will fall into the "share and share alike" category. But I think I have another decade of knowing myself before they get there. At the least.) Unfortunately, I can't. Because the shaping of me is the product of others' pain and suffering and secrets. I can't out their trauma to explain me.

It's a strange thing to always be there to watch your loved ones take a traumatic blow while you emerge more or less unscathed. You don't think about your scratches. You collect yourself after the shockwave and go rushing to the loved one's aid. You get the urgent needs cared for and settle in for the long wait by the hospital bedside. Maybe that's when you notice that there's a long scratch on your arm or a shallow gash under your eye or maybe your neck has some backlash or maybe your ankle is a little stiff from the fall you took due to the shockwave. You make sure your loved one's attention is elsewhere, then you clean and bandage your minor bumps as best you can and go right back to the bedside. This is usually when you start replaying the event over and over in your mind, looking in hindsight at all the warning signs, berating your lack of attention, swearing to be more vigilant in the future.

And maybe months later, you'll notice that the scratch left a wicked scar or your ankle acts up whenever a storm comes. You set that aside, feeling guilty for even daring to catalog your own injuries given what your loved one had to endure. Eventually, you learn to take care of any bumps and bruises that life deals you, always comparing them to that observed trauma. You don't mention them until the wound festers and suddenly it's so much bigger than it should have been and it embroils those around you. You berate yourself yet again for letting things get so bad, for burdening those who already have too many burdens because you failed in taking care of yourself properly.

It's not quite survivor's guilt, because the other person is still alive and struggling to meet each day, and you weren't really in the same boat anyway. You try to make yourself perfect, to be strong, to be there whenever you're needed, to help with the recovery, to protect against future trauma. You get used to denying your own pain and needs because, damn, how can you even begin to impose when the comparison is so off?

Of course, that enables those around you to think that you don't need help and to dismiss your problems or to hear them as an attack (either reaction may or may not be due to the presentation of the problem), prompting you to delay sharing your problems in the future so as to prevent those reactions. The Circle of Hidden Pain. And it's a pain that makes you feel guilty for even having it because you haven't really "earned" it like those whose trauma you've witnessed.

Process Examination # 7: Focus Point

For this writer, inspiration doesn't always come in the form of a great character, or a fascinating conflict, or a beautiful setting, or some intricate thematic concept, or a grand plot. This is particularly true when I'm in the midst of writing a novel. Inspiration comes in odd ways during the novel writing, often when I'm thinking about some niggling macguffin of one sort or another. That is, the niggling detail is important in that it frames a daily aspect of the characters' lives but isn't really central to the plot.

In this case, I was trying to get some details figured out for exactly what the medical device that one company sells and that my MC repairs/maintains/audits/what have you does, other than the hand-wavey "it uses advanced tech to sequence DNA, hunt for illnesses, and monitor cellular processes in a short amount of time". Hand-wavey is good for vague plot directions and outlines. It's bad for actually composing draft (unless you don't mind going back in to put in details). And I was in the middle of a chapter in which I realized how much the hand-wavey details sucked for my space ship mechanic.

So, of course, I side-stepped the mechanic's details and went to the MC's job details. Helpful for the next chapter I need to write, not for the one I'm currently mired in. BUT, it worked! I got the most amazing idea for my medical device. It's specific enough that it acts as a focus for further research I need to do on the topic.

Research of any kind needs a focus point. As someone who participated in academic research for five years, I obviously knew this. I just don't think I ever quite understood it. I've known for a while now that THUMB was going to be addressing cybernetics in a big way. I even tried to do a little bit of general research on the topic to get my bearings, but I was frustrated that no clear path to what I needed for my story emerged (not in the sense that I wanted answers for how a futuristic technology would work; more in the sense that I couldn't escape the general). So I set the research aside and kept writing, wanting at least to keep the story going, knowing I could add details in later during revisions (though this would not make for a pleasant rewrite).

Now that I know how the medical device works, that serves as a focus point for the cybernetics research. I know what interface of biology and technology I'm looking for now. I can read articles and books with that in mind, culling details when they turn up. Another chunk of the novel falls more securely into place, serving as greater assurance that I can in fact make my way to "The End." It's the reverse of "connect the dots." Pre-writing inspiration, of the sort I described in the first paragraph, provides snapshots of an overall picture, which I then dutifully piece together in a way that seems to make sense. Inspiration while I write is like a microscope, showing me the subtleties of that picture. But if the microscope has nothing to focus on, it's still a big blur.

Digging in the Dirt

Andrew loves to dig around in dirt of any sort. Mud works just fine for him, too. I have no idea what about dirt fascinates any child so much. Is it the texture? The sense of buried treasure when a rock or something a little more animate is unearthed? The way it changes the color of the skin and turns white fingernails black? The strange taste of it?

One of his favorite things to do at my mother's house is to help her in the garden. And I'm not looking forward to the day when we finally rake out the remaining piles of rock in our backyard and take away his fun rockslides (that become mudslides after a rain).

Yesterday, while Mark was grilling up dinner and chatting with Brad (D'oh! I think I've completely neglected to mention on the blog that my brother moved to one of the Phoenix suburbs a few weeks ago. It's nice to have him so close and indulge in sibling relationship that lets us talk face to face regularly.), Andrew found a patch of dirt in the backyard and just started digging with his fingers. At first, I think he was trying to pry loose some small rocks. Then it became some sort of mission. The ground was packed too hard for him to dig very deep, so he settled on digging a shallow ditch over a large area, tossing the loose dirt over his shoulder to varying degrees of success. A couple of times, he laid down in his ditch. Or tried to. Cleaning his hands for dinner was quite a task.

I don't mind the dirty clothes and child. One day, when his clothes might actually fit for more than a few months, I might. But it's amazing to watch him dig. He's so determined, so intent. There's a purpose to clawing away at the ground for him. I just have no idea what it is.

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.