Progress: Lord Help Me in Revisions

So far so good with this progress metter posting thing. It's actually making me look at my writing process in a novel way, getting me to look at the little fun bits that might make entertaining fodder for these posts. One thing I realized tonight, though, is just how ugly this draft is going to be. I've got threads starting and dangling and knotting all over the place. I'm putting a lot of trust in Muse that I can pick them all back up at some point.

Deadline: June 30, 2008
Today's Words: 1162
Total words: 49,992 (6,992)

Repetitive repetition: 10 instances of "could", 8 of "can", and 2 of "can't"; apparently I'm all kinds of positive in this bit
Fun with typos: "the information my uncled had" (this is actually a very common typo for me; I seem to add or remove one letter at the end of words frequently)
Odd Spelling Suggestions from my WP's Spellchecker: "barff" instead of "barf"
Musical stylings: Just ATB today, which surprised me as it's usually far too bright a sound for draft composition
Munchies: Craisins and H₂O
Researched via Quickie Wiki or the Google Boogie: Nada
Mean Things: Lying to friends and strangers, taking their doubts on the chin
Placeholder of the day: "We can play a game of [something fun] or watch a digie."

Physical therapy contortions: Did all my stretches and even tried the knee one, though I might regret that tomorrow. I'm taking the night off from scar tissue massage as I'm going to get a nasty round of it tomorrow at my appointment. The Nosey cat decided that me sprawled on the floor meant I had invited her to flop all around me and nose and mew her way into my face and shoulders and hands and knead my hair with her paws. I couldn't persuade her otherwise.

Progress: A New Trick

Trying something new, borrowing heavily from Elizabeth Bear. I'm going to see if posting my writing and physical therapy progress on a more frequent and rigid basis keeps me honest and productive. Here goes nothing:

Deadline: June 30, 2008 (totally self-imposed and looking toward completing revisions by the end of the year)
Today's Words: 565
Total words: 48,830 (5,830 for the Starting from Act 2 Endeavor)
Repetitive repetition: "There's the truth, and then there's the truth."
Fun with typos: None that popped out at me, but that doesn't mean they aren't there.
Musical stylings: Mostly remixed Collide with some ATB thrown in.
Munchies: Just agua tonight.
Researched via Quickie Wiki or the Google Boogie: Lyrics for various and sundry stalker songs
Mean Things: Viral program that plays said songs
Placeholder of the day: "some synthesizer effect"
Physical therapy contortions: Got through all of my stretches except for the one that makes me kneel. My knees just can't hack it. Still to come tonight: torture scar tissue massage.

I'm going to try to keep this up for the next week and see how it goes.

Interesting Things About My Trip

Man, I'm really into this "4 Things" meme. It an excuse to be remarkably lazy in the blogging department. Not to worry, I think I might try something new here soon and keep content fresh and entertaining daily. Ha. And I'll have more about my trip later as I still chew over the bits and pieces of insights I gleaned from it.

• My MRI was, in a word, "unremarkable" but for some minor disc degeneration, which is common due to such things as gravity. The prescription: loosen the hip muscles, strengthen the abs, and improve the posture. (I've since discovered other things in the progress of my physical therapy; more on this later.)
  


• A gathering of college-scene/struggling/indie/garage bands occurred in a lovely patio setting just a stone's throw away from my room at Hotel the First. Apparently, even supposed professionals are prone to singing very bad karaoke and shouting a lot just to hear their voices echo through the valley. I could sing along even though my patio door was shut and I had my own music on full blast. My word count for that night was only 561 words. I was less than amused.
  


• Driving back home on Sunday proved to be quite an experience. A chilly wind was howling through the valley by the Chiracahuas. By the time I got to Benson and realized I need to check my oil when I gassed up as the car was riding rough (dipstick was bone dry; fun), the wind had brought with it temps in the 40s or lower. Then I hit the Tucson valley and saw a whole wall of purple gray in the sky and knew I was in for some severe rain--only to encounter marble-sized hail and snow for a fifteen-minute stretch first. The interstate was even icy for a small bit. In Tucson. On March 16th.
  


• Absence makes the sight grow sharper. Being away from Drew for nearly three days let me get some distance so I could see just how much he's grown and developed his mad toddler skillz. It's interesting that I kept thinking of him as smaller and more dependent on me without realizing it. From what I've heard, I don't think this is going to change any time soon, but at least I'm aware of it.

Off I Go

After enduring a round of Kellie the Human Pretzel at physical therapy this morning, I am ready to head on down to Tucson for the start of my Getaway. Though the first bit of my "vacation" involves analyzing my MRI results with my orthopaedic specialist. Then it's on to the hotel for rest, relaxation, and lots of writing. Wheee! I'll have lots to say about the experience next week.

One Last Gasp

Right now, I have not quite 1000 words of THUMB to my name this week. I was hoping for at least double that, if not triple heading into my weekend so I would be taking a productive week and ramping it up. Barring a miraculous 1-2K outpouring tonight, it's not going to happen. I'm shifting the focus of my trip to just making progress, refreshing myself, and coming back to home with a renewed sense of connection to this book and myself and my writing. If I manage 10K or more, swell, but finishing the current chapter will be just as welcome.

Still, I've got one last night of writing in my usual environment. I'm going to do all I can to make it a productive one.

Various Bits of SF Geekery

Because apparently I can't blog anything of subtance for more than a paragraph or two lately.

• In a similar vein that Tor.com hopes to tap, I've been trolling through io9.com to see what was up. Found some neat spoilers on the upcoming Battlestar Gallactica and lots of speculation about the summer SF goodness coming at us. And then, in a lovely piece the likes of which don't appear on the site often, a fab essay on rules for writing short fiction. Though I must say that the art work is a head-scratcher. I mean, I get that women are depicted as sex objects first in most comics and SFnal art work, but wow. Never have I seen such attention given to breasts so that I understand that the lady in question used to wear a more substantial bra but has recently opted not to. Tan lines are a bitch.
  



• It was all over the internets last week that the co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons died. Many great tributes were paid, nearly all of them referencing the game play in some fashion or another. My favorite was Charles Stross's spin roll, as he lumped in current politics, and he's a Brit at that. All I can say is, as long as the Cheney card is in play, looks like we're stuck between Barack and a Hard Face. (My experience with D&D is limited to some guy who was sweet on me trying to introduce me to the gaming life, and I got cross-eyed at all the rules and rulebooks. Though, later, I did get to enjoy a RPGer condescending to me in horrid, sexist fashion so he didn't have to leave the game he was playing at a con. Must say, between the two exposures, I've not really been interested in learning more.)
  


• Watched the SG1 movie, The Ark of Truth, last night and came away mostly disappointed. Most of this is because the movie was sending me cues left and right that it was supposed to be EPIC, and I just didn't buy it. Intense and grand music scores, sweeping panoramas, save-two-galaxies-at-once stakes, etc. The problem with trying to make this movie epic was that the story was essentially a two-hour season finale. It's hard to get into the standalone epic feeling when you've got two seasons of television shoring up all the backstory and characterisation so that the plot can be hurled at you with big 'splosions. (And, actually, they still ended up cheating us out of a decent build up to the whole concept of the ark and its origins and moral ambiguity. Also, there's direct Deus Ex Machina that further flattens the feel of the movie out of its epic aspirations.) That being said, I am very much looking forward to the second movie as the story is not a direct continuation of a plotline developed in the series. It seems much more likely to offer a good standalone movie with a universe and characters I enjoy.

Mor on Tor

Patrick Nielsen Hayden tells all!

UPDATE: You know, I thought I was being all clever and writerly with the title of this post. Then I realized that I had written, essentially "moron Tor." Not the brightest thing to do to the leading SF publisher when one is trying to get one's SF published.

Baby, Remeber Drew's Name (Remember! Remember! Remember!)

Drew's big into dancing. His favorite (read: only) style is frenetic running in place while moving his arms up and down and shaking his head back and forth. Sometimes he mixes it up by running in a circle while doing the above or mimicking whatever I'm doing. This makes for a lot of fun times whenever something musical comes on in the house.

Another thing Drew likes to do is run around the house in one final pre-nocturnal hurrah after he's released from the shower or bath. The first step in this process is to run to the parent who was absent during the washing and give said person a big hug (this also helps him finish drying off as he isn't really into that whole "toweling down" thing). Then he'll hurry into his room to jump on his bed before we come at him with a diaper and PJs. (His word for jump, incidentally, is "boing.") Lately, though, he's been dancing around to whatever music is coming from the TV before we get him all trussed up for the night.

Last night, this new tradition and love of dance took a fascinating twist when I had the XM Radio 80s channel on and "Fame" started up after Drew gave me his very wet hug. Drew and I had great fun dancing to that song. He particularly enjoyed it when I did a mock balletic jump. Then he tried to do the same thing, and laughed when it always turned into a near-belly-flop on the carpet.

It feels great to be silly like this with Drew, to move just for the sake of moving, to sing and dance and not care what anyone who observed us might think about the spectacle. I wish I could bottle up this enthusiasm to experience the world without the restriction of clothing. Not because I think we should all be nudists, but because the focus is not on how the body appears but on how it functions and interacts with the world. Society tells us not just that our bodies are private but also that they are shameful or abnormal. I'd like for a moment to feel the same freedom Drew feels when he escapes the towel and throws himself into whatever activity catches his attention. I'd like to be able to dance naked in the privacy of my home without feeling exposed or horribly aware of the flabby bits and the awkward sags and the scarred skin.

Ready for Progress

OK, I've decided to dive into the story at the beginning of Act 2 and pretend that Act 1 is the spiffy goodness I've outlined instead of the nearly 50K of crap I just read through. This hasn't worked for me in the past, but then I didn't try it armed with outlines of both the crap and the shiny new stuff. Also, I think that previous attempt might've been interrupted by getting pregnant. Regardless, I'm going to do it this time and do the outlining trick whenever I feel I've wandered too deeply into Suck.

Plus, if I'm going on a writing retreat next weekend (!!!!), then I best be plugging along on actually creating draft instead of all this dithering I've been doing lately. No sense in wasting that weekend with more dithering. I want to jump into it with a plan of action and a track record of successful writing in this new vein.

So, I sit before the computer, armed with my "Floggings will continue daily until morale improves" T-shirt, a couple of hours of remixed Collide songs, Jelly Bellies, and the promise of a Starbucks run compliments of a gift card Mark got me if I need the boost. I'm ready to head into the fray. I've got the hip waders for the Suck on standby, just in case.

Decisions

I've spent most of my writing time this past week outlining the current draft of THUMB in all its hideousness. This was so that I actually knew how I had gotten to the crunch I encountered not long ago. I had already realized much needed to be changed, but without a good handle on what was there and how I should change it, forward progress was moving at either a snail's pace or propelling me backward with the force of Sheer Suck. It got so bad at one point that I realized I had two characters essentially yelling at each other over supply delivery in what amounted to a slightly more sophisticated version of "I know you are, but what am I?"

The outline helped me see a few patterns. The first being that having a villain POV in this just sucked the conflict right out, especially when I had my protags face whatever obstacle he presented in the following chapter. Nothing was building, and my poor villain was going to wax melodramatic just to build a plot that would really confound them. Also, I kept resolving big stuff "off-camera" in order to have more time for dialog that, while mostly good and character-revealing, essentially served to introduce the characters to each other, trot out their backstory, and explain what they were trying to do. Over and over again. Oh, and I realized very quickly that shifting this to first person POV drained the life and color right out of the story. (This happens to me when I try to move a story to first person POV when it doesn't need to be; the effects are startling and immediate.)

But, I also saw how there was a lot of good stuff in there, hiding under all that Suck, waiting to get teased out and buffed into gleaming awesomeness. I saw what nixing the villain's POV would do. I saw what I would miss in getting rid of a secondary character's POV. And I found a whole bunch of better ways to dump my protag into conflict and have her try to swim out on the page instead of off of it. Without wallowing in angst (mostly). Or, at least, I think I did. That's the problem with that right-brain, left-brain translation issue. The right brain is buzzing with excitement, seeing all the threads and mostly confident that the dark spots of the threads, the hidden snarls in shadow, are still going to take us to the end of the story. The left brain wants the right brain to write everything down in triplicate.

Meanwhile, I have to decide if, after setting up a new outline of what the story should look like vs what it currently is, I need to write the story to match or if I can take the story on faith and write as if I've already written it. The left brain really wants to do the latter (ya know, the model of efficiency). The right brain views the "story as it should be" outline as a new toy and is just itching to play with it. The rest of me just wants to have a complete draft of the book so I can move on with revisions as that's when both the right and left brains seem to be in harmony.

Another Item I Should've Linked a While Ago

SF publisher Tor (perhaps the biggest name in SF publishing) is gearing up for a spiffy new, interactive website and, to whet your appetite and keep you riveted for more details, they are giving away a free e-book a week. No purchase (or DRM) involved. They are also giving away free wallpaper by their various cover artists. I've got a gorgeous Stephan Martiniere print on my computer at the moment. Makes me giddy every time I log in and fall into that work of art.

How do you join in the giveaway madness (there's also a sweepstakes for a an e-book reader, IIRC)? I'll cut and paste from the email to give you more info and the link:

SOMETHING NEW IS COMING.
A science fiction and fantasy site not quite like any you’ve seen before, mixing news, commentary, original stories and art, your own comments and conversations, and more. A place on the net you may find yourself wanting to visit—and participate in—every day. Stay tuned to www.Tor.com.

If you like SF and/or enjoy freebies, check it out. If you're interested in the quirks of a mover and shaker in the publishing industry, then I doubly recommend checking this out.

Something I Meant to Link a While Ago

A gaggle of good SF writers have banded together to create an on-line series of episodic fiction in the style of Criminal Minds--but the unsub is deep in paranormal quirks beyond just being a bad guy. There are two episodes up: Emma Bull's "Breathe" and Elizabeth Bear's "Knock on Coffins." These are essentially novelettes, so it will take some of your time to read, but it is vastly worth it. The next episode will be up on March 17. I'm told there's also a lot of easter eggs buried in the site, but my technical savvy only stretches so far.

Anyway, check out Shadow Unit (I've also added a link on my sidebar for your future timewasting needs), a collaborative effort by Emma Bull, Elizabeth Bear, Sarah Monette, Will Shetterly, and Amanda Downum (and maybe another?). Go. Read. Enjoy.

Rub Me the Wrong Way

Gah. I have hit a point where I would love nothing more than to rant about something but there's no way I can siphon off enough of the details to cover my butt and still have anything worth posting. I will only say this: if you're reading this, it doesn't apply to you.

So, instead of a long, juicy rant, I'm going to do the next best thing and grouse about my phsical therapy appointment, which essentially encapsulates the philosophical griefs of my rant in physical form. It's so nice when life gives you that particular brand of synchronicity, isn't it?

Yesterday I had my third PT appointment. We're focusing on stretching out my overly tightened hip muscles, strengthening my abs, and monitoring my back's response to all of this. The first appointment revealed my left hip is slightly higher than my right and this may or may not explain why my back rolls unevenly when I slouch and straighten, which may or may not be the cause of or a contributing factor to my current hip pain. Still, the therapist wants to help me even out the imbalance as much as possible and has geared my stretches and appointments accordingly. The first week of PT went fine along these lines.

Enter Monday.

I am already torqued and likely carrying around far too much stress in my body. I hustle to the appointment, and they start me out with a nice rest on a heating bad and electrical leads to relax my back and ease any pain in my workout. About halfway through the heat session, I notice that the numbness in my left leg ramps up from its usual, constant level 1 baseline to about a 4. Not numb enough to prevent me from using the limb, but enough to make me go, "hmmm." But I don't say anything as the therapist checks in to stop the heat and have me start my stretches while he finishes with another patient. After all, I had spent the entire time on the heating pad with my legs elevated, so maybe it's just a result of that.

I get about three reps into my first stretch when I notice my back is not happy with me when I do the stretch, which is essentially just a pelvic tilt while I contract my abs. So I switch to another stretch, this one focusing on loosening my hip muscles, and the back does not protest. I try another stretch involving contracting my abs, and the back protests again. I run through my stretches as much as possible, trying to figure out what hurts and what doesn't and where.

My therapist comes back, and I give him my report. He then says, "Hmm. You're going to be my case study." Translation: I have no idea what the hell is going on, so let's go hunting; this is gonna hurt and/or involve a lot of extra tests. Unique is good for just about everything in life, but when it comes to health issues (and technological difficulties), unique is bad.

And a-hunting he does go, pushing all sorts of spots on my back as I move this way and that way, figuring out (or trying to figure out) where the pain is coming from by finding the very painful spots and comparing them with the not as painful spots. I whimper and gasp a lot, thinking it's a perfect way to end a Monday.

My next appointment is Friday. I think I'm supposed to hear back about the results of my MRI (that I took on Saturday) before then, so hopefully I can go armed with more information to prevent a repeat of the "What Happens If I Do This" game.

Strange Awakenings

I figured the day would be slightly odd when a nightmare woke me around 4AM. It wasn't anything like a giant spider or my son in harm's way or [insert standard terrible fears here]. No, my dream involved an unusually thin, ambulatory, life-size Santa Claus doll made out of cloth. And that bastard wanted to rassle.

Here's the context: I was in some old Victorian house with another person (he/she was only outlined hazily in the dream) playing Ghost Hunters essentially, waiting for something to happen. And lo, I look into a darkened hall and see the white fur on a Santa suit. We immediately investigate. The unknown partner mutters something about "orb activity" and "EMF" this or that, while I decide to provoke the Standing Santa Doll. (And it was standing all by itself, without strings or a stand or being a mannequin or whathaveyou.) Bad Santa grabs my thumbs unkindly. I somehow manage to gain control and hurl him up the stairs like the cloth doll he is. Then the sumbitch gets back up and comes back down the stairs, ready to really dish it out.

That's when I woke up. But I was so tired, that my body was trying to go right back to sleep, but I didn't want to back to sleep and risk finding out what Possessed Bad Santa had in mind for me. So I fought to stay awake and distract myself for about a half hour or so. The rest of my sleep was dream-free as far as I know.

In addition to the general WTF quality of this dream, I'm now struck by the ability I seem to have developed of easing the terror and fright of my nocturnal musings by either 1) recognizing it's a dream early on (not enough to lucid dream), and telling my dreaming self that I've already had this dream before, and I remember that X monster is going to jump out here or Y bad guy will get his in the end or 2) retconning my dreaming self into expecting the bad turn of events by being there specifically to study them (like being a Ghost Hunter). Thus it's been quite some time since I've had a truly terrifying, must turn on all the lights, whimper in hubby's arms nightmare. It's a fairly neat trick. No idea how I did it, of course.

"Your Daddy's an Old Man Now"

Mark's words to Drewbie this morning. My husband abandons me for the world of the thirtysomethings today. I'll be a few months behind him. Shockingly, there is a real dearth of taunting cards for this milestone. Most of the ones I found were along the lines of "Hey, welcome to REAL adulthood" in some flowery form or another.

That's OK. I made up for it by getting him a T-shirt that had "NERD" plastered across the front.

Process Examination #18: In Which I Hack my Brain a Second Time*

With short fiction, I write by letting the story pour out of my fingertips as fast as it can, heading in whatever direction muse decides to go. I might have a general sense of the ending or the character arc or something, but usually I get an inital idea, spill it out in a small amount of time, and then leave it be for a bit. When I come back to the story, I look at what I wrote, compare it with the original idea, figure out if there's a disconnect to fix or if the story I wrote evolved into something else entirely that needs a new framework. Then I do serious revisions of the sort I did for PPR: Toss out 6K words, write an extra 25K. This brings me to the place where a lot of other writers are when they finish their first draft and then have to go in for revisions. I do said revisions, then the once or twice over for grammar, etc. Voila, I have a finished product of the short fiction variety.

For novels, though, my brain clearly wants to do this same process, but the left brain absolutely panics and gets in the way of the story-purge, trying to take me in directions better suited to give me a viable novel. See, the left brain is all about logic and efficiency and sees that spending six months to three years banging out 100K words or more that are going to get axed anyway is just Not Acceptable. The right brain, trying to translate the story vision to words fast enough to appease the left brain, gets all twisted in knots and misinterprets the vision and gets things horribly wrong. I end up in a terrible snarl anywhere between 20K and 80K because of this. The left brain wants to finish the draft and get on with fixing it so it's actually a novel that can, you know, start the process of getting representation and/or publication. The right brain sees the mangled corpse of what it originally intended to write and can't pick up any narrative thread that has a fraction of a chance at carrying a draft through to the end in any way that relates to the story I'm trying to write.

I compromise by starting revisions of the words I've alredy written, to help the right brain find my story vision and to convince the left brain that I'm making changes that will translate to less time spent on revisions later down the road. But the conflict between the two hemispheres inevitably starts again, this time snarling me within 5K to 20K from the original snarl point. I might compromise again with revisions or the left brain will retreat and let the right brain try to carry the story through to the end. Neither option works. When my brain realizes that I am stuck and conflicted within myself as to how best to proceed to finish the project, I start all over again on a new novel idea.

My problem in dealing with this pattern is that I have only fully understood where the left brain is coming from. Finish the book! Revise it! Sell it! Get going on that professional writer path, already! You only have a small number of hours each week to write! The longer you take to write one book, the longer it will take to sell that book, the longer it will take to eventually earn you the money that will allow you to quit the DDJ and have more time to write more books! So write! Write better, faster! You can do it, I know you have talent! Let's go, go, GO!

The right brain never explained itself to me, it just refused to produce at the pace the left brain demanded and developed skills in telling me that I wasn't being true to the story vision, not in the least. But I figured it out, all the same. It gets back to the map analogy and how I can't outline a novel. This is because story ideas come to me in complex, three-dimensional images (or groups of images) that have all sorts of sensory and extra-sensory elements embedded in it. The trouble comes from not being able to convey that image accurately into words for the right brain. The right brain is constantly frustrated at its inability to communicate with the left brain, and the left brain keeps trying to boost efficiency by throwing more words at a story, only to frustrate the right brain even further because they are the wrong words, and not just "fix this in revisions" wrong, but taking the story sometimes far away from the complicated images.

Getting back to taking a trip without a map, let's say that one person, Jack, is trying to meet up with another, Jill. Jack starts driving towards Jill, asking her for directions on his cell phone as he goes. Problem is, Jill can only describe her surroundings in ways that don't help Jack at all. Jill says she's in the place where the air smells just like the end of summer. Jack asks what's around her. Jill says she got some mountains to the west. Jack asks how far. Jill says she can pinch the highest peak between her thumb and forefinger while she squints at it. Jack asks what's to the east. Jill says a gray, three-story building with no numbers or letters on it, but many of the windows are missing, and some have been replaced with green glass instead of clear.

Jack asks for a street sign. Jill says there are none, but the asphalt is cracked on one side and smooth and deep black like new on the other. Jack asks her what city she's near. Jill says the energy of the place reminds her of a sprawling urban center that hasn't swallowed up all the rural pockets just yet. Jack asks her if there's anyone around her who can answer his questions. Jill says the few people nearby are stuck in a loop of some drama or other and are far too busy unraveling their own crises to help with hers, and would Jack like to hear some of the things these folks are saying? Jack says only if they're talking about a street address.

This goes on and on until Jack finally gives up, calls Jill's cell service provider, and has them triangulate her location with the satellites. He swoops in, gets her into the car, and drives them off to someplace new.

Dealing with these two yahoos for the course of a novel is going to drive me insane if I don't find some way of managing their miscommunication.

---

*Not only does this post make clear to the world that, yes, in fact I am a gemini, but it also demonstrates my left-right confusion issue admirably well. Or, at least, it did before I edited it to be, you know, accurate. I got the left and right brains pegged correctly for the first paragraph they appear, then it went downhill from there. Fixed now.

Drew Goes to the Zoo

We went to the Phoenix Zoo yesterday, pretty much right after it opened. It was perfect: not too many people were there yet, those that were had kids near Drew's age in tow, and the weather was cool and pleasant with cloudcover to keep the sun from draining us too much. This was Drew's third trip to a zoo, the second one with Mark and me. On his first trip, he apparently found the giraffes fascinating. On his second trip, he tried to climb every fence in sight and wasn't too interested in the animals overall. On this trip, he couldn't get enough of running the trails, pointing out the animals, watching them climb and run and move, and, of course, climbing every fence in sight.

It's really amazing how much he's changed in the past year, and how much he's stayed the same. He didn't want to be in the stroller much last year, and we didn't even try to bring it with us this time. However, last year, he took his release from the stroller as permission to run far away as fast as he can because it was fun to have Daddy give chase. This time, he ran ahead because he wanted us to get to the next area quicker, but mostly he stayed close to us. Of course, the obvious change in these two visits was how much he talked and pointed and understood what he was seeing and how it connected with his animal puzzles, the books we read to him, his stuffed animals, and the shows he watches. Our kid's brain is on the go.

But the highlight of yesterday's trip was watching Drew ride a camel. It wasn't exactly cheap to have him and Daddy hang out on a camel for a quick walk, but Drew's wide grin was well worth every penny. Daddy reported that Drew, in addition to grinning madly, spent the entire ride saying, "It fun!" over and over. We'll have to print out copies of the picture I took of them.

It's amazing how much fun it is to watch your kid have fun. My enjoyment of the zoo really had very little to do with the zoo itself (although, watching a tiger climb down from the top of a very tall tree was awesome), but I can't wait to go back with my son.

Confidential to Sonja*

You won a raffle item yesterday! Phoebe's hanging onto it to give to you at the next meeting.

By the way, while you did miss out on a great second half of the meeting, you may have had the right of it jetting out when you did. I think at least half of us had grey matter dribbling out of our ears by 2:30. Most of the rest of the workshop passed in a haze of "Malfunction, malfunction! Cannot compute! Error! Error!"

---

*Because all the cool kids are doing it.

Recently Achieved Milestones

Another hastily assembled group of things for your perusal. This time, they are happenings of note.

• This blog has been chugging along for five years as of last Wednesday.



• This blog has something along the lines of 1045 posts now. (I completely missed the 1000-post threshold. I may go back and figure out which one turned the counter over.)



• I'm all booked for my first ever Writing Retreat in Inspiring Locales. Thanks to all of the hotel stays I've done for the DDJ, I racked up an insane number of reward points through Marriott and was able to treat myself completely free to a night at a beautiful Resort & Spa in the Tucson Mountains. That's Stage One of my Retreat. Stage Two is a night in the Sunglow Ranch in the Chiracahua Mountains that I mentioned back in September. This bliss of solo writing time and me-indulgence the likes of which I'd love to repeat annually but will likely have to make do with "in a couple of years" is all set for March 14-16. It won't be completely me-time as I've got to go to a doctor's appointment in Tucson before I can check-in to the resort.



• Drew woke me up at 5:15 this morning for something rather momentous: he decided it was time to pee in the potty. Of course, he hasn't shown any interest for the rest of today in repeating this remarkable feat, but I have high hopes for more morning forays into the world of Potty Training.

And Now for Something Completely Different

I do have regular blogging to catch up on, I know this. And I should be back in the swing of things starting sometime this week, but definitely picking it back up by Monday.

In the meantime, I have to offer up the following as a public service announcement:

The Prisoner is quite possibly the best red wine I have ever had the pleasure of drinking. For those of you who like to imbibe, I cannot recommend this wine enough. It's a steal at $32, really. For those of you who are under age or allergic to sulfites, I weep for you.

Some history: On Valentine's Day in 2004, Mark and I splurged went to the Boulder Cork as we had just earned some unexpected winnings on a weekend gambling trip in the Rockies. We had a bottle of The Prisoner (2003 vintage) that night and were delighted to discover that the local liquor mega store was one of the few places in the country that stocked this label. We indulged as often as we could spare the money from then on. Then on Saturday as we were buying wine and cheese and other vittles for our delayed Valentine's Day dinner this year, Mark said, "Ohmigod, Kellie, look behind you." I turned and saw The Prisoner on display. Yes, it put as a bit above what we had intended to spend on the meal, but neither of us complained a single bit. We finished the bottle last night and were quite sad that we didn't have another to uncork. But now that we know we can get it regularly again, we'll be budgeting for it and drooling until we can pick up another bottle.

Seriously, if you like red wine, you've gotta try this stuff.

Permission Slip

I, Kellie Hazell, do hereby give myself permission to write complete and utter crap in the composition of any and all first drafts of any and all works of fiction I commit to digital space, notebooks, looseleaf paper (wide and college ruled), note cards, sticky notes, and any other surface deemed suitable for the purpose of writing from this point forward until such time as I decide to revoke said permission or until the end of the world.

Crap shall be defined as any or all of the following:

1. Prose that contains any or all of the following: poor word choice, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, passive voice, repetition, cliches, and any other wince-inducing construction of words not listed herein.


2. Characters who are inconsistent, stereotypical, annoying, angst-ridden, whiny, and behave in any manner that is readily conducive to acting out the story that is playing in my head.


3. Plot points that are obvious, overdone, unimaginative, boring, repetitive, and in any other way shorthand for the story trying to make its way out of my thick skull.


4. Descriptions of scenery, machinery, technology and job expertise that are sketched or heavily reliant on hasty googling or wiki, or that are completely lacking in anything but the barest of bones.


5. Narratives that do not adhere to any traditional or uncoventional means of logically laying out a story.


6. Any other crime against the English language and art of storytelling that in any way assists with the translation of the story in my head to a draft that can be improved into a saleable novel.

Signed digitally by the author, one Kellie Hazell of http://khazell1.blogspot.com.

Witnessed by The Internet this Fifteenth day of February in the year Two Thousand and Eight.

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Feel free to replicate this, add to it, detract from it, rail against it, and comment on this permission slip as you see fit. You can even forge your muse's signature if you are not the responsible party in your writing process.

Random Thoughts Make a Less Insane Post

Lots of rest and quasi-relaxation (more on this below) on top of surviving the DDJ and RWA insanity of last week went a long way toward making things feel more normal this week. Of course, I still haven't written any fiction yet, but that will change tonight. (Actually it could have changed last night, but I decided to take one night just for me as the quasi-relaxation didn't count.) So, on with the randomness.

Potty training is a strange road. Right now Drew thinks it's all a game and hasn't quite figured out that he can do his business in the potty in addition to sitting on it and playing with toilet paper.

After years of working with Celeron processors and above, Pentium 4 feels like moving through molasses, especially when trying to use Office 2007. I miss my old laptop.

I read 9 books in 10 days as a judge in a romance contest. I didn't have to read them so quick, but I found that reading for a contest feels more like a responsibility than fun and didn't like having all those books hanging over my head. Plus, romances tend to read very fast for me, so it was just easier this way. That being said, it was fun to get 9 free books and breeze through them all in the name of service to a writing organization. I signed up to do this again next year.

Related to the above, it is apparently a Bad Thing to have a heroine utter "Shit!" The preferred expletive is "Crap!" I find this word wholly unsatisfying as a single utterrance to express any emotion beyond a desire not to seem coarse. In fact, the only context in which I use the word crap is in full sentence, usually along the lines of "this is a piece of crap" and even then I tend to opt for the much more satisfying substitute of shit. But I have noticed that I am in the minority of women in this word usage preference (at least based on the books we choose to read). This is not the only word choice difference I seem to have with the female majority, but that is another post and one that requires a certain amount of bravery on my part as the words are rather loaded and my grandmothers read this blog.

February Hasn't Magically Wiped the Slate Clean

Life continues in the mad, frenetic swirl that was SOP in January. I have discovered exciting new technical problems such as my LCD monitor suddenly not working and my DDJ applications on the new work laptop suddenly not working. I've spent several hours today working with my IT department via phone, email, and them hijacking my system to get the latter one resolved.

Meanwhile, Drew and I both picked up some sort of cold during the recent travel, the ortho specialist is re-ordering an MRI (like we couldn't see that one coming) and telling me to see a PT, diagnosing me with, essentially, a lack of abdominal muscles. (C-section killed 'em, motherhood prevented me from getting 'em back in shape, and the rest of my body started compensating to try and protect my back and spine; the hips finally decided to get pissed at this arrangement.) I've been slaving away to my RWA responsibilities this week, fighting a new computer environment as I do it, realizing my learning curve is steeper than I had thought. Oh, and I haven't written a word of fiction since January 13th.

Me? Cranky? No. I'm unraveling at this point.

The Thigh Bone's Connected to the Hip Bone

Back in September/October, I started getting very bad hip pain every now and then in the evenings. Over a period of three weeks or so, I realized the pain showed up every time I carried the Drew Monster for more than a couple of minutes during the day or if I stood or walked a lot. So I made a conscious effort to limit my Drew carrying time and take more breaks during walks and long periods of standing. The pain mostly went away, flaring up much less often and only as a dull ache as I went to bed.

Then in late December/early January, that dull ache turned into something more pronounced at night and started happening every night and made it very hard to get to sleep. I decided it was time to go see the doctor. She did some poking and prodding and determined I likely had bursitis. She took some X-rays, gave me a steroid injection in my hip to get to work on the inflammation and put me on some NSAIDs. By that night, the pain was gone, having been replaced by a creeping numbness along my legs. Nothing too startling, just a bit of that "pins and needles" thing you get after a a limb's "gone to sleep". Still, it didn't seem normal, and the last time I had numbness like that, I had to have surgery on my knee, so back I went to the doctor. She muttered something about sciatica, ordered an MRI, and decided it was time to hand me off to an orthopedic specialist.

My insurance first approved the MRI and the specialist, so I got everything arranged for me to take my Happy Pills and get stuffed into the terrifying tube this past Friday. The day before my appointment, my insurance suddenly decided to deny my claim. I'm fairly certain they only nixed the MRI at this point, but I haven't heard anything back from the orthopedics guy, so they might have pulled the plug there too.

Meanwhile, my hip is feeling weaker and I'm compensating for it by using my quads more and more (not necessarily a bad thing; my thighs could use some toning), and straining my other hip. That's right, now my other hip is starting on the same journey the problematic one began last year. Sigh. I really miss the health insurance I had back in Colorado. And I'm beginning to regret trying to get this resolved as at least before I knew exactly how the pain worked and how to live around it, even if it did disrupt my sleep. That pain was easier to manage than this weak leg phenomenon. Drew and I are going back to Colorado for the DDJ tomorrow and I'm a bit worried that my hip will choose a very inopportune time to give out while we're there.

The last I knew, I was scheduled to see the ortho guy in a week and a half. Here's hoping my body holds itself together until then.

Another Reason January Can't End Fast Enough

Just heard back about PPR. Rejected. In standard from letter fashion.

Sigh.

Now to figure out where to send it next and get back on track with THUMB.

Actually, I'm going to get to that tomorrow or Sunday. Tonight, I think I might just let myself wallow a bit by acting like a slug in front of the TV with my Friday night shows and the bag of Hershey's Chocolate Truffle Kisses Mark got for me yesterday after frustrations with health insurance (a bit of fun from this month that I have not mentioned at all on the blog, actually; more later). Oh, and a glass or two of Bailey's might be involved.

Then I'll start figuring out where to ship PPR next and start progress on THUMB again.

Is It February Yet?

Gah, this month has been nuts. Some of it great, some of it utter crap, most of it hitting fast and furious to know the difference. And the reprieves I've gotten have come in the form of adding more aggravation with delays and extra paperwork and whatnot. My downtime doesn't feel like it and the busy times get eclipsed by the new twists that come after I finally get something accomplished.

Add to this the fact that the only computer in the house is in the family room surrounded by, well, family and distractions and I can't seem to summon up the energy to do anything computer related, even simply answering email. This will change when I get my work computer back and can set up my office again. Of course, I have to go back to Colorado with the Drew Monster in tow to get said work computer fixed, which is just par for the course this month.

So. Not so much with the posting until February, assuming things settle a bit. To entertain you while I struggle with Interesting Times, I direct you to my sidebar and it's bountiful links to writers who are great fun to read no matter the medium. In particular, I'd like to point out a new addition to the link list: Carol Berg's solo blog effort, Text Crumbs. She's just landed a three-book deal with Roc for a new fantasy world series, and it sounds very interesting. She's detailing her process for the very early-going of a book in a new universe, and it makes for great reading.

Go forth and read!

In Lieu of Actual Content

Because I am deep in IT Hell trying to replace the laptop I oh-so-stupidly spilled water on (no data was lost; gotta love external hard drives and file servers), and the only working computer in the hosue now is the Frankenputer that my mom's boyfriend resurrected from three non-functional computers, blogging is going to be light. Great timing on the writing front: a story out on submission and the next project in the throes of "hmm, maybe it'll work better if I switch it to first person POV" analysis. Not so great timing with the DDJ, but what can you do.

So, here are some neat takes on the whole Cassie Edwards plaigarism scandal because I certainly don't want to spend any time rehashing it in a clever fashion.

One of the plaigarized authors in question responds. (Warning: Tolme is understandably miffed and suffering form a case of cognitive dissonance as to the context of appropriated words. He dumps on the entire romance genre in addition to his warranted snark at Ms. Edwards. I can't really fault him for it. If that sort of attitude toward romance in general ruffles your feathers, you might want to read with caution.)

Another romance writer got tired of having to explain the hoopla to others and resorted to putting everything in context of a Greek tragedy (complete with wailing chorus!).

It's a bit more serious, but a really neat essay on admiring someone else's work and using it to improve your own writing rather than just taking the words and grafting them.

On an interesting related note, I once read a book in which the author plaigarized one of her pseudonyms. The author was a friend of a friend, so I looked up her books at the used book store so I could tell my friend that I had read the author. I found two books: one a regency and one a western and each under a different pseudonym. I read the regency first, thought it good enough to warrant reading the western, and started on the second book. The plot was lifted pretty much wholesale. Entire scenes were copied between one book and the other with just a search and destroy for details like character & place names and hair color, etc. This was over five years ago, just as I was getting started in my own writing endeavors. I was disgusted but didn't really think about anything beyond getting rid of the books and never reading anything by that author again. I've since forgotten the author's names and the titles of the books. If I had encountered this today, knowing what I know now about publishing, I would've certainly written to the publisher. I might've written to the author and/or agent, too. I can't imagine putting it on the internet, but then it's not like I'm a poster for a very popular romance review site. Maybe one day I'll do some research into the books and author and see if I can get the particulars again, but it's a bit of an odd situation: she recycled her own words, not someone else's.

Greater than the Sum of the Parts

The Drew Monster loves to take things apart. He'll dump puzzles and his bag of blocks onto the floor. Then he'll mix all the parts together. He's not very interested in sorting through the mess. He just likes to stir it up. This could be another side of his fascination with cooking, or it could be some other neat quirk of his personality showing itself.

No matter why he does this, it makes for messy living rooms and very long cleanup times. But, hey, with all the puzzles he dismantles and abandons for me to put back together, I certainly have brushed up on my ABCs, my shapes, my animals....

Wiped Out

I'm toast for the weekend, I think. I do want to get back into THUMB and make sure I've put together some sort of plan of attack for the thing, but I need a break. So I'm going to take a nice long hot shower, curl up in a warm fuzzy robe, and fall into Carol Berg's latest, Breath and Bone. I might let myself take off tomorrow as well.

Deadline Vanquished

I can't do anything the stress-free way. I was drafting up my email to the publisher in which I introduced myself and my story and would attach my synopsis and novella. A strange series of funky keystrokes sent my email on its way after I had only sketched out two sentences and before I had attached anything. I damn near had a heart attack. So I had to hurry my way through the full email and the last few reviews of things I wanted to do to send a complete submission off as soon as possible after my stupid incomplete thing.

I feel like such an idiot.

I'm really trying not to let this mar the high I've been on with this story this week, but it's very hard. Mostly because it just seems like a bad omen.

Grr. Stupid technology.

Bright side: PPR is off on submission and I am free to return to sanity and THUMB. And there was much rejoicing.

Synopsis is Done

Well, it's just squeaked in the 3 page limit. In the course of getting it from 5+ pages down to those 3, I'm not sure there's much more editing I could do to the thing. But I'll set it aside and give it a look-see tomorrow during Drew's nap.

Now I've got those last few bits of revisions to do, which I should be able to finish up tonight. I'm hoping that everything will be off to the publisher before the day ends tomorrow. That's two days before the deadline, hoo-rah. Then I have to wait three weeks for the verdict. My hopes are really running strong with this one, and the comments from both Mark and my critique partner have been very positive. This story feels like it is The One. And if it isn't (at least not for this publisher), then I'm still going to be very happy with my effort. I've really come far with my process with PPR, and I'm looking forward to applying what I've learned to my other projects.

Thank You, Scalzi

Inadvertently I'm sure, John Scalzi reminds me why I'm writing THUMB with all of that hair metal stuff. He and many others who recall (often with pain) those big hits will, I think, enjoy my book. Now to finish the damn thing.

*Eyes PPR deadline*

Almost free of it.

Process Examination #17: Stepping Around the Steaming Infodump

I've become allergic to infodumps. Nothing makes me feel more patronized as a reader than an infodump. "See here," the author is saying, "this is how this bit of worldbuilding works and connects with the story." I'd rather figure it out from context, thankyouverymuch.

I'm not sure when the allergy started, but I stopped using infodumps in my writing very early on. Unfortunately, I didn't learn a decent replacement technique to get vital character backstory and/or worldbuilding information across to the reader. Thus, the most consistent complaint I get in the first chapter or two deals with not understanding the odd references characters are making to each other about something that happened in the past or being perplexed by whatever geewhiz element of worldbuilding I shoved into the early going.

Yes, of course I ran into this with PPR. My frist critique contained several "Huh, wha?" reactions to my protagonist's job and to the broader world I established and to the basic rudiments of the paranormal element central to the story. I'm happy to report that, with just a sentence or two in dialog that did not in anyway resemble "as you know, Bob," questions about my protag's job became a non-issue for Mark. Alas, the paranormal element and the broader world details were still fuzzy for him. For the former, Mark and I figured out exactly where he got fuzzy and that adding a mere two words solved the problem. For the latter, Mark kept saying, "you need to explain that" and I kept saying "no" because I will not knowingly commit infodump. I quickly figured out a way around the problem in general but then had to struggle with the specifics.

Well, I figured out the specifics in a way that shouldn't add more than 100 words to the story and enhances the connection to the worldbuilding in a very nice way. Also, the fix is a nice segue into PPR: Novella the Second, which, if PPR sells, will be nice to have either well-outlined or underway should I happen to nab a multi-project contract out of the sale. I also have broad outlines for three other stories in this same universe (one is the third story in the current PPR timeline to complete a little trilogy, one is a prequel to this trilogy, and one--which I have rather a bit more outlined as I was working on it in a completely different capacity until I realized it hooks up well with this universe--is the backstory to how the paranormal element PPR universe came to be). So, success with the informing without infodumping, at least in theory.

Pantsless Drew

The boy is trying to start a fashion trend. For his nap time, we've been taking off his pants to make sleeping more comfortable for him. Lately, he doesn't feel the need to put his pants back on when he wakes up from his nap. Unless we have to leave the house, he spends many the afternoons running around in his diaper and a shirt. The house is usually warm enough (or he's usually active enough) that it's not a big deal.

Last week, Drew decided that his new PM outfit needed a twist. He demanded he wear socks and shoes without pants. He's quite taken with his New Clothes. As if the removal of his pants made walking a whole new experience, the Drew Monster will clomp around in his socks and shoes, staring at his feet. He walks backwards, he walks in circles. He steps with great care and precision, watching the movement of his legs without those pesky pants.

Even more amusing is how he handles the clothing requirements for going out of the house. In Pantsless Mode, he'll come up to me and say, "Car!" or "Out!" I then explain that he has to put his pants on if he wants to go in the car or outside. Drew considers this and says, "No," and finds something more amusing in the house to entertain him.

Of course, because I'm such a loving mother, I will be getting a picture of this attempt at influencing fashion for that Special Album of similiar photos to show Drew's special someone later in life.

Done and Done

I actually finished the type-in about 2.5 hours ago, but then it was right on to dinner and time with the fam and getting Drew to bed, so I didn't get my update posted right at the end.

I even went through and did a search and destroy for my junk words like even, just, really, much, etc. Trimmed a good 100 words that way. My story's word count is 28K, which is closer to the 30K upper limit of the subopp than I would like, but not egregiously so. And, dammit, I just remembered that I didn't run spell check on the stupid thing. Grrr.

Mark is reading the thing now while watching the Amazing Race. I need to update my outline to take into account the Brand New Shiny Ending and do a couple of scene analyses to make sure I didn't shoot myself in the foot with the new stuff. I actually enjoy this, usually, and I think my brain still has enough juice in it to manage. I'd really like to get this last little bit done tonight so my muse can munch and chew on the new stuff and make sure I haven't missed any holes or such.

Here's hoping Mark gives it a thumbs up, or at least gives me helpful feedback so I can fix the broken bits by the end of the week.

I am still a little stunned that the first week of 2008 has been this nuts with the deadlines.

Progress

I've been typing away for about two hours now, and I have gotten about a third of the way through the manuscript. Yay! Of course, as I go through my changes, I'm swinging back to "gee, doesn't this stink" and that's not a fun place to be. Just gotta push through, get this done and see what Mark thinks about it, since I don't have enough distance from this thing to assess it anymore.

Onward to the next two-thirds of the MS.

Nuts.

Because I always try to get a five minute internet procrastination out of my system before I sit down to a document, I checked my email before I began the type-in. And, because Murphy is just such a swell guy, there was the last item I needed for my RWA chapter's newsletter. So I had to work on that, which I just finished. Seeing as how I've been sick and tomorrow it's my turn to wake up with El Boyo Diablo, I'm not going to push my way through a type-in tonight.

I'll lock myself in my office tomorrow and do it.

And then on Monday I will knock the stuffing out of a synopsis. Boo-yah.

Huzzah!

I have finished the last word of my revised ending. Now for the type-in, which will be extensive as the last forty pages of the original draft contain many many many revisions and directions to hand-written text in a notebook and on backs of pages and keep this bit of dialog but not that one and this little snippet goes over here now and the one that was there goes on this page. And so on.

After the Drew Monster is in bed, I will sit down to type it all up. Hopefully I will get rid of the suck that sneaked its way into the hand-written stuff as I type it up. I shall post my progress on that tonight. I'm planning on the post going along these lines: "Type-in finished. Suck mostly dead. Off to bed now."

Bleh

This shouldn't surprise me, seeing as how Murphy's Law lately has had greater applications in my life than Newton's law of universal gravitation.

Staying up until 2AM the other night to finish a book as a way to assert my control over life's little insanities was not a good idea. Life dished it right back to me: I've had a low-grade fever ever since. I felt mostly OK, just a little tired, until yesterday when tired snowballed into "leave me a lone, a freight train just hit me" exhausted. And I seem to be working up to that level again today. Meanwhile, I have a deadline for my RWA chapter today/tomorrow and, oh yeah, there's that silly novella I'd like to finish revising so I can beat my head against a wall about the synopsis sometime before that project's Jan 13th deadline.

I'm off to see if a shower with one of my perkier scented body washes can invigorate me a tad more. Then I shall bury myself in my office and finish PPR and type in my changes. I will be working on the synopsis tomorrow. So take that, Life.

Four Things Make a Post

It's not quite a meme but a commonly used frame I've seen a lot recently, and as my brain is somewhat mushy (see below), it seemed a good concept to explore.

1. Sometimes when life hands you a lot of tiny stresses, a couple of big ones (including watching someone you care about spiral), some unexpected deadlines and a few bits of internal wonkiness, the brain needs a night to say, "OK, screw this. Give me a book to fall into and let's finish it." So I stayed up until 2AM reading a book. It was a very absorbing read (even given that because I'm deep in revision mode with PPR, I was tightening prose and cutting words and looking for ways around infodumps and such) and I still managed to get four solid hours of deep sleep. Overall, I'm actually feeling somewhat refreshed. Certainly a little less overwhelmed by life's current level of insanity.

2. I went to the local Social Security Administration office today (for why, see below), and just with catching random snippets of the stories of the other folks there, I was reminded of just how much I couldn't handle a job like that. Which got me thinking about my very short stint as a public school teacher. I may have eased up on what used to be obsessive perfectionism, but I still haven't managed to deal with my empathy. Not having a tight reign on empathy in a job like that will suck you dry very quickly.

3. It's a long-standing joke in my family that my mother can never remember my birthday. Usually this manifests in not sending a card or calling (or, as happened once, forgetting when she did actually call on my birthday that it was my birthday and talking of other things). It's very funny when she tries to tell other people when my birthday is or if my brother the prankster decides to needle her and ask. She's gotten the day, the month, and the year wrong (sometimes all at once) during those instances. We all assumed this was something that started when she completely forgot to pick up me and my brother on my 15th birthday. (We were abandoned without money in the pre-cellphone era in a donut shop; when we finally managed to call, her reaction was comical: "Hi, honey. Why are you--oh.") So imagine my surprise when, after learning that we can't file taxes on-line because my birthdate didn't match what we entered, I examined a recent SSA mailing and saw that I was apparently born 3 days earlier than I had thought on June 12th. (This is actually the birthday of one of my mother's brothers.) See, when my mother applied for my Social Security card back in the mid-80s, she listed my birthday incorrectly. I'm surprised that it's taken over twenty years for this to affect me, but it's all fixed now. Now we have proof that, as early as 1986, my mother couldn't remember the date she gave birth to me. I have ribbed her well for this. Sadly, though, this could be a genetic phenomenon as I have managed to completely space her birthday (and it was the big 5-0, even). And I wasn't trying to give as good as I got, honestly.

4. I managed a most excellent pork roast last night by dumping a can of beef broth into a 9x13 baking dish, splashing a bit of Worchestershire sauce in there, tossing in a few cloves of garlic and some potatoes and onions and carrots and celery, and plunking a pork roast into the mix. I should've basted the thing, but I wasn't really expecting it to take 80 minutes to cook; thankfully it didn't dry out all that much. I made a very nice gravy by pouring the resulting broth/juice mixture into a roue. Apparently, I can cook things other than pasta sauce from a jar without a recipe.

2008: Goals for Me

As 2008 kicks off today, it's probably a good idea to get my goals for the year posted. Gets things started on the right note. I tend to have one-word goals for each year that aim at encapsulating the essence of my longer-winded ones. For 2007, the word was "focus." I promptly forgot about this noble idea during the first month of the year, but, looking back, I somehow kept that word with me. I did manage to focus on improving myself and my writing by actually getting to and trying to correct the stuff that was keeping me scatterbrained and three steps behind.

That being said, I came nowhere near to meeting the goals I actually detailed for the year. For the sake of my mental well-being--and to keep from derailing this post into a pat on the back for all that I did accomplish in 2007--I'm not going to analyze those specific goals and rate my success and failure.

So, onward to what I plan to accomplish in 2008, with my one-word theme being "open-minded."

Health:
Mark and I are both on a health kick to lose some of our excess weight and tone up the flab. We have been inspired by our svelt and spry son who isn't going to take kindly to our wheezing and moaning when he wants to run and climb and hike and swim and bike and whatever fool activity he takes a shine to. I've managed to find about 2-3 mornings every week (though the holidays derailed it recently) when I could do a Denise Austin workout from the always replenished 5 episode stash in my DVR. Drew has enjoyed working out along side me or simply watching the way I contort myself. Mark is going to get back into running. And we're both cutting out the junk food snacks as much as possible (with the exception of those holiday candies and cookies that are still hanging around, calling to us with their delicious caloric content).

If I can lose 10 pounds, great. If I can get the flab to stop dripping over my C-section scar, sweet. If all I manage is to do the workouts more often than not, I'll be happy with that. Spare time is a bit too precious a commodity at the moment to guilt myself into running myself ragged with demanding diet and exercise regimens. Once Drew is a little older, maybe.

As for the mental health, I managed to obsess my way into a breakthrough. That is, I got all hot and bothered about something for a month or so and really drove myself and Mark nuts about it. Then I sat down and forced myself to figure out why I was obsessing, the real deep-seeded reason. Figuring that out made the obsession laughable and dismissable and cleared away much of the other looniness I decided to exhibit in the months before. (Also, there might have been some interesting hormonal shenanigans involved; women's health, ain't it grand?) Since then, I've felt like a new person, being mostly sane or at least fully aware of the bits of me that aren't and able to deal accordingly. My goal here to just keep this trend going.

Motherhood:
This is the year for potty-training the Drew Monster. And watching his speech patterns closely to figure out if he's going to be a late talker or if he might need assistance with that whole talking thing. Also, I want to find better ways to keep him occupied during my work hours.

Reading:
I read at least 35 books this year. (I didn't think to start tracking them until June, so I had to rely on a spotty memory of the early part of the year to count what I read before June.) I'd like to read at least that many next year, though I'm not going to push myself to do it. Most of my reading time depends on whether the Drew Monster is keen on letting me bury my nose in a book while he plays. He very understandably doesn't care to let me do this but once or twice a month, particularly as he already has to play without me while I'm home working.

I'm glad I started tracking my book totals and my impressions of the books I read. It's just a simple spiral-bound notebook with quick little half-pages about what I think worked or didn't work and why. But, as I discovered with notebooking for my writing process, it does keep things better organized in my mind and cement some details that are worth noting for my own writing improvement. And it allows me to confidently report this:

Best 3 Reads of 2007 (in no particular order): Flesh and Spirit by Carol Berg, Survival by Julie Czerneda, and Territory by Emma Bull.

Most Interesting Reading Discovery of 2007: There is a publishing house that consistently disappoints me, no matter the line/genre. Of the dozen books of theirs I've read over the past couple of years, I've only really enjoyed 2, thought 4 were flawed but mostly OK, and wanted to write "what were you thinking" letters to the authors, agents, and editors regarding the remaining 6.

Books in my To Be Read Pile That I Will Definitely, Absolutely, No Excuses Read in 2008: Poison Study by Maria V Snyder, Maelstrom by Peter Watts, Blind Lake by Robert Charles Wilson, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A Heinlein, Old Twentieth by Joe Haldeman, and Lost Discoveries: The Ancient Roots of Modern Science--from the Babylonians to the Maya by Dick Teresi. I hope to read more than that, but I always end up adding to my TBR pile and picking the new and shiny or developing odd quirks in what I want to read at any given moment, so I think 6 is a good goal. (This is sad, given that I have over 80 books to go through in the pile.)

Writing:
Now we come to the real heart of the goals. I really do want to finish a book this year, but I'm hesitant to make a push for it and list it as a concrete goal. Why? Because I've never met this goal since I finished Human Dignity several years ago. It's starting to get me twitchy and depressed. Having said that, though, I think I've figured out enough of my process and ticks that I can finish a draft of THUMB by the end of the year. I think I can also finish revisions, too, but I don't want to jinx myself. At any rate, that's going to be the book I focus on finishing this year.

Unless, of course, I sell PPR and the editor loves it so much that she requests the other 4-5 stories I've got on tap for that universe and/or expresses interest in that odd zombie romance that's brewing. Then I'll have to sit down and examine my time and my goals and figure out how much I can give to The Pseudonym without derailing my science fiction and fantasy. Wouldn't that be an interesting pickle?

Seriously, all of my writing goals beyond finishing a draft of THUMB have to wait until I hear back about PPR in February. Because I don't want to work on any assumptions there, and there are several different ways it could pan out to impact my writing. So I'm going to post my actual, official goals sometime in February. That being said, there's a science fiction short (total word count could go as high as 20K) that I've been kicking around for a while and really want to write as it's a fun, unique idea and I think very saleable to several excellent SF markets. I would like to get that done and submitted somewhere by the end of the year.

And, no matter what happens with PPR in February, I can state one very concrete and acheivable goal. I want to continue the process examination and keep applying what I learn about myself from that. I hope that by the end of the year, I'll know even more about how I write that I can craft goals and establish a more disciplined routine in 2009 to increase my writing output without sacrifcing quality.

2007: The Blog In Review

I had fun putting together some of my fave posts of the year in 2006, so I figured why not do it again, even if it does smack of the severest form of navel-gazing? Then I actually started with January and was reminded that 2007 contained a good deal of sadness and unpleasantness. So be warned: it's bumpy in the early-going.

It's a Bitter Pill to Swallow:
My grandfather loses his three-year-long battle with cancer.

Mark loses his job, then he gets it back, then I have a work hiccup, then everyone else at Mark's company loses their jobs, then Mark's company wins an award for small-business growth and one for bringing biotech to the Phoenix area, then Mark's company moves to San Diego. (I don't think I ever blogged about it, but Mark did get another job without any downtime. He's now in an industry-academia hybrid at ASU and loving it. Much more stable with awesome bennies, which includes nearly free courses for the both of us and substantially reduced tuition for Drewbie.)

When It Comes to the Breaks, Look to the Reason You Keep at It:
Drew the Climber, Drew the Poison Taster, Drew the Escape Artist, Drew the Kisser, Drew the Amphibian, Drew the Digger, Drew the Two-Year-Old, Drew the Candy-giver, Drew the Chef

When the Going Gets Tough, Figure Out Where You Went Wrong:
This year, I began to examine why I struggled with certain things in life and writing and reading, being sure to take the time to snark and explain and warn and laugh heartily along the way.

I'm curious as to what narratives will frame next year's best posts. Here's to an exciting journey toward figuring that out.

Season's Greetings!

I've got a few precious hours to see about steamrolling my way through the rest of the PPR revisions before we have to pack and then it's on to my mother's for an early Christmas dinner. We'll get back, send Drewbie to bed, and Mark and I will snuggle up together to watch Love Actually, which has somehow become our holiday movie of choice. And tomorrow we're off to the airport in the morning to work our way to Buffalo. We'll get back just in time next weekend for me to do a year in review and throw together my goals for 2008. Oh, and write that intro letter and synopsis for PPR so I can send it off for mad praise and publication.

If you're traveling as well, be safe. If you're not, stay warm and cozy with those you love--or their hearts and voices, if you won't be with them. I hope 2007 finishes well for you and that you are ready to tackle another year with all your hopes and dreams.

Pushed Past the Block

For a night, at least. I've been struggling to get back into a groove with revisions even though I've mapped out a whole bunch of things that will guide me through to the last page. Every time I sat down to hack and slash my way through the draft, I would look at the first line in the next scene I had to tackle and freeze, if it was during Drew's nap. Or my brain would decide that was a good time to liquefy if it was at night. The mushy brain happened three nights in a row, which really pissed me off. What is mushy brain? Well, usually, when I prod some higher thought processes from my brain, I have a mental conversation that goes roughly like this:

ME: Ping.

MY BRAIN: Currently left on your to do list for the day: clean up table, wash dishes, tidy Drew's toys, sit at desk and work on revisions. The scene you'll work on first involves the first turning point for your protagonist, so you want to make sure you tighten the conflict and connect better it with her decision that propells her into a new direction for Act 2, and in Act 2, you've made the supporting characters a bit too cooperative with that new direction, so you'll have to work on that as those scenes come at you. Also, you're feeling a bit chilly in general this evening, so be sure to grab your fuzzy slippers when you put on your pajamas.

What a lovely response to my ping. A quick rundown of things that some part of my brain is always monitoring and tracking so the rest of it doesn't have to. Now, when I have mushy brain, the conversation goes a little like this:

ME: Ping.

MY BRAIN: Uh, wha? Is dinner done already? Did we eat meatloaf or chicken soup? Soup is yummy, and warm, and tasty, and...

ME: Ping!

MY BRAIN: Oh, right. Dinner is done. Um. Dishes? No, table looks to be cleared. How the hell did that happen? Maybe Mark did it? Is he putting Drew to bed, or are they in the shower? You need a shower too, get all warm. Use that Winter Candy Apple body wash and lotion and...

ME: PING!

MY BRAIN:...and after you smell all clean and Christmas-y, there's that dungeon chapter in Final Fantasy X-2 that you want to beat, level up all those dresspheres, though maybe you should just start all over from the beginning because that's a fun story, especially when you get to the chasing Chocobos part. Was there a better ending than the one you saw?

ME: PING! PING! PING! PING!

MY BRAIN: OK. Revisions. There's a scene that needs some work.

Long Pause.

ME: Ping?

MY BRAIN: You know, that scene. You should fix it. Make it tie in with the rest of the arc better.

Another Long Pause.

ME: Ping.

MY BRAIN: What are you bothering me for? You're the one who figured a few things out this afternoon. Didn't you write them down?

ME: Ping!

MY BRAIN: Come on! It was the thing with the arc with the conflict. You know, and then the love interest said the bit that tied into the first scene. And it all comes together and viola! A complete, fabulous revision!

ME: PING! DAMMIT, PING!

MY BRAIN: Isn't that what you wanted?

ME: ...

MY BRAIN: Maybe you should just curl up in bed and put on a Firefly episode. Oooh! Maybe the one where Simon takes his shirt off?

But, finally, last night, I conquered this loop. For one scene. Now I'm going to tackle the revisions again, and hopefully I can carry on with the momentum from last night. At any rate, it feels good not to be stuck in the same place.

THUMBonsai

In composing another post, I happily reminded myself about the Bonsai Story Generator. I had fun with it for SoZ, and I figured it would be good for THUMB. Here are the highlights:

Thematic Goodness:
Vin's gone.
That had to deal with Sela.
Let's hope they grieved in the first place.
Elzie reached out of denial.
She turned away the possibility of death.

A Healthy Dose of WTF:
Anger made it with a mechanic.
Her simple black dress had distracted her head.
The woman shook her own ears.
Elzie opened her body.
The woman shook her tone dry and turned to Vincent Merror's wishes, the solar flare warning system wouldn't have been trampled in the first place.
Then she turned to face flushed with SamCon, denial all over lunch?
He hadn't liked her head.

Simply Intriguing:
Muted was only appropriate for access to the appropriately compassionate woman.
Let's hope they don't mind the possibility of curvy, sultry beauty. Next to touch the woman behind her.
You're going to want to give them as they don't mind the break in.
Cremated, yes, the power of our business.
Forget a venue for word to examine the bones.

Stalling? Me?

It's hard to tell if today's distraction is part of my insanity regarding PPR or my outright terror over what to do with THUMB. However, it did make for an entertaining morning.

It started with a dream, as a good amount of writing inspiration is wont to do. My dream was about zombies (represented by Lurch, for some reason) and how a friend and I were holed up in an abandoned hotel room as our food supply (represented by a bar of chocolate) dwindled. Coworkers (nobody I know, actually) joined us, and there was much rejoicing in discovering we were not the last non-zombies left on Earth (represented by gathering around the Xbox that the room's previous occupant had left behind, no doubt as part of his zombie-fugue). Then one of the coworkers and I decided to scavenge through the hotel to see if we could find any more cool things (like a Wii or maybe, I dunno, food other than chocolate). Surprisingly, we found a terrified father and son hiding out in another room. The son, a teenager, donned an angsty attitude right quick, which the coworker felt compelled to rectify. This left me to check out the lobby area nearby, whereupon I discovered Lurch trying to nonchalantly get some towels. I called out to him, and suddenly the hotel went black. Cue sound of mass zombie attack.

It wasn't a particularly scary dream, but I had it toward the end of my sleep, and that's usually when I can exert a little narrative power on my dreams. These scenes were coming at me with some backstory, with links to related imagery that enhance the story, and with possibilities for conflict between the characters running around in the hotel. So I sketched everything out after I woke up, developing the story and characters in places as I went.

What made this so much fun and unique enough that I would sacrifice much-needed revising time on PPR? For some reason, this zombie tale framed itself to me in the form of a paranormal romance. Because nothing is sexier than a reanimated corpse, let me tell you. I shouldn't be surprised as my romantic elements in the stories that I'm thinking about for the pseudonym are fairly dark and not exactly in-line with that whole Happily Ever After thing. This, apparently, is the sort of career I'm trying to create for my pseudonym. It's gonna be hella fun, but maybe not so much with the success. Is it possible to subvert the romance genre from within?

When Neuroses Collide

My deadline for PPR is under a month away, and I still have to write a 2-3 page synopsis and introductory letter in addition to finishing the revisions. And an entire week of the upcoming month is going to be "lost" to the holidays. (I say "lost" because it's not like I mind spending time with the in-laws and family, it's just that I won't have that time to write and must accomodate that in my writing schedule.)

Welcome to Kellie's Crunch Time Neuroticisms. Surely you remember them from before? Here's the pattern they follow:

1. Early in revisions, start thinking that my story is pure gold and that it will launch my writing career in many improbable ways, but launch it nonetheless.

2. Shortly thereafter, I fear the launching of my writing career and suffer a hit in productivity levels, crooning to the whimpering parts of myself that really, change is good, particularly this change, it'll be all right, you'll just keep writing only you'll get paid and isn't that what you've always wanted.

3. Revisions resume with a vengeance, if only to keep the beautiful and terrible images of success at bay one night at a time.

4. Approach the middle or end of revisions and suddenly become aware of the Vast Quantities of Suck in the manuscript. There's no arc! There's no conflict! My characters are stooopid! Logic took a vacation in this chapter and that one! The climax is broken!

5. Progress grinds to a halt as I curl into the fetal position and wonder just how in the hell I ever could have considered myself a writer.

6. Mark, utterly perplexed by the sudden morph of one insanity into another that seems so opposite that he cannot comprehend how my brain can possibly contain both at the same time, gives me a look.

7. My muse, realizing that her writer will not have any company in her misery, mutters, "Oh. Just. Hell," and starts trying to find the narrative thread and the pieces that work and sits down to stitch something together, by God.

8. I am somehow able to view the Suck without wanting to burn the manuscript, instead looking at how it can be adjusted into NotSuck for a killer story.

9. I resume revisions, knowing the story is gold that will get me in the door...assuming I can hack it together out of the junk in front of me.

I am somewhat nervous to find myself in this same pattern again because, you might recall, when I went back to the manuscript that jerked me around like this before, I realized that the work in question was not just bad but horribly broken, and I had tried to get it published in that state. I've been trying to bolster my confidence by outlining just how much I've learned in the past year and a half, how I've got such a better grip on this story and what it needs to get fixed. I understand so much more about how I write and can find the potholes quicker and know how to fill them.

Or not. Ask me what I think about this story in 6-10 months.

Drew the Chef

The Drew Monster has been big into utensils and measuring cups and bowls for a while now. It likely started when he discovered how much fun it was to take out all the tupperware from the lower cupboards in my mother's house, grab a spoon, and stir just like Momma. We put child safety latches on our cupboards, though, so Drew opted for dragging a chair up to the counter so he could rummage through the cooking utensil drawer (we have long since removed anything sharper than a butterknife from that drawer). He knows the word "hot" very well, not because he's burned himself, but because Momma and Daddy are so freaked about that chance given his predilection for cooking that we've drilled it into him.

He's added a new twist to his cooking fixation. In the past week, I've had to set up a cutting board for him and give him either a piece of celery or a carrot to work on with a butterknife. The kid's learned a lot by watching me, and his fingers haven't once come close to getting in the way. El Boyo Diablo appears to be a natural. Once he cuts up the carrot or celery into a number of pieces, he'll then load up a measuring cup with them. A couple of times, he's tried to toss the contents into whatever pot or pan I'm toiling over. He also tastes his diced vegetable at least once, discovering regularly that, no, indeed he doesn't like raw carrots.

I always try to give him something he can add safely to the pot or pan with dinner in it, usually it's a can of broth to add to the soup pot or something. But he's clearly learning and wanting to do more. I had just started getting items out for dinner and hadn't turned on the stove top when I turned away to take care of something (probably answer the phone). When I turned back around, Drew had climbed up onto the counter and opened the cupboard with all the spices and started rooting around for the perfect mixture.

Mark and I have known for a while that we'd be getting our son planning menus and cooking as early as possible as one of his "chores", but we hadn't realized that he would 1) take so well to it and 2) get a head start on things. Ironically, he's not all that interested in Ratatouille.

Seven Years Ago Today...

...Mark and I decided to give that whole relationship thing a whirl. It didn't take us long to realize that it was a done deal. While I was the one who made the first move seven years ago, it was Mark who, about a month later (maybe less) said something about coordinating careers after graduation (still five or six years away at that point) in the first bold step towards, "Hey, this is rather serious, this thing between us."

Process Examination #16: Zooming Ahead to Revisions (In Another Project)

I'm not entirely sure why I've needed so much off-time from writing THUMB, but my brain keeps asking for another day or another week whenever I try to organize my thoughts on that topic. So I've shifted focus back to PPR, trying to really dig into the text for revisions and learn more about that part of my writing process.

What I've done in the past is just read the completed manuscript of whatever piece I had just finished, marking, deleting, and adding stuff as I go. It's a good way to get a sense of what's working and what isn't and apply some fixes, but I've come to realize that it's not quite effective for actually improving the whole of the text. That is, larger scope issues like arcs and story structure and theme and such didn't get the attention they needed. Not to say that I wasn't thinking about those things as I revised, but that I kept all of those concepts in my head as I read through the manuscript, expecting problems with those topics to pop out at me in much the same way I can find errors in spelling and sentence flow and character portrayal. Not so much, apparently.

I've been suspecting this for a while now, so I've been developing a plan for a couple of months. Or the notion that I ought to have a plan, at least. That doesn't sound like much, but it means that, in the course of my regular reading of blogs and books on writerly topics, I've been looking for methods to help me. And I found some. Rather, I found addtional tips that helped bring some older ones into focus as well as giving me new ideas.

In the past, via Holly Lisle's One-Pass Revision and some other places, I realized it was important to have a scene outline handy while doing revisions. However, I didn't know what to do with that thing. Hence, I just extrapolated from how I do basic edits and tried to keep everything in my head. After working through Jenny Crusie and Bob Mayer's He Wrote, She Wrote Writing Course, I found a way to use the outline much more effectively. Specifically via the concept of scene analysis Jenny outlines here and the critical questions she dumps out here. Now I have a better sense what I'm looking for when I do my initial read-through (which I used to flag scenes that needed scene analysis for tightening and general fix-it stuff).

I completed my first scene anlaysis yesterday and was delighted to discover two things: 1) At least for this first scene, I had a natural rhythym for beats in the scene that kept the conflict going and accomplished a bit for the story, and 2) I have a much better sense of how I can improve a few bits and lines in the scene to reinforce all the big scope concepts I've lost before without derailing those beats. Awesome.

We'll see what Mark things. I've decide he is going to be a beta-reader of my "I've done all I can on my own with this thing" version without any previous exposure to this piece. He'll be my barometer of how well I've revised with the new techniques. No pressure, honey. :)

Let's Go To The Movies, Andrew

The Drew Monster has discovered the wonder of animated movies. He had watched bits of movies before, usually while on a long-distance trek in the car, but a month or so ago, he realized that it was fun to watch an entire story unfold from start to finish. His three favorites are Curious George, Finding Nemo, and Ice Age, and Monsters, Inc. seems to be rated highly as well.

The problem (other than the fact that we don't want him to sit and stare at the TV for long periods of time; we're working on this) for me with this arrangements is how often I have to see these movies now. Don't get me wrong, I love pretty much everything Pixar has done (haven't seen Cars), and I can usually enjoy any children's animated feature for it's "Aw, what a cute story" value. But repeated viewing is forcing me to look at all the story elements that unravel, all the small little conceits and all the themes and messages that, intentional or not, are lingering in the background to cast a nasty pall over things. The latter is a big deal for me with every time I see Curious George--theft of another culture's icon and dismissal of its indigenous value and heritage, father/son issues that color a child negatively because his father favored a smarter kid with similar interests over the son, and on and on. Had I only seen the darn movie once, I wouldn't have bothered with all this analysis and critique because the movie's not meant for that.

Of course, El Boyo Diablo hasn't been interested in Ratatouille since his first vieweing, and that's the one I wouldn't mind seeing a few more times since I missed quite a bit (watching movies with kids isn't the way to comprehend a good portion of what you're seeing). It's like Andrew knows this.

It's funny, though. When I was about 11, I would come home from school every day, plop myself in front of the TV and watch The Little Mermaid. Sometimes twice. I guess it's a phase?

Not Quite Coherent, Apparently

My brain's all mushy. Mostly I'm still not getting the sleep I need, it seems. But also, I did finish tweaking the ending to PPR last night, so that could have something to do with it. I'm also somewhat afeared of restarting THUMB, which has sat untouched on my hard-drive for two and a half weeks now, so I think part of my brain is resisting full consciousness. And the weather's all weird today. I was supposed to crit someone's writing today while the Drew Monster napped, but I'm thinking I might need a nap myself instead.

Next week. Yeah. Next week is when I'll get back on the horse.

Momma Downtime

El Boyo Diablo decided to wake up, bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready for the day at 3:45 this morning. Add this to the fact that I've been taking between 1.5-2 hours to fall asleep every night this past week or so, and I'm quite the zombie at the moment. I had meant for today to be the day that I got back on the horse, but, well, now I'm more interested in sleep than trying to prove to myself I'm not a lazy, pathetic excuse for a writer.

So. Tomorrow. Tomorrow I shall crank out the adjusted ending to PPR (even though I recognize that, while the adjusted ending is generally what I want for the story, it's not quite right in its execution just yet) so I can ship this off to a critique partner and Mark for comments. Tomorrow I shall confront my writing demons and figure out just how exactly to move forward with THUMB when demanding a specific word count at this stage of the game freezes me. (I'm thinking "Finish Act 2, get into Act 3 by the end of the year" might work, though it's a bit terrifying in its vagueness.)

For some reason, 2008 feels like a nice, giant clean slate coming toward me just as I've reached the point where I've mucked things up this year. I can't remember the last time I was so eager to start a year with a new set of goals. But it wouldn't be too swell of me to laze around the rest of the year to get to that clean slate, now, would it?

By the way, one of the things I did while I was lazing around the past two weeks was beat Kingdom Hearts II. My reaction: Meh. The game had its fun spots and neat battle commands, but the story arc really really sucked and got mired in re-hashing all of the Disney flicks. Very much a disappointment after the first game. I wish I could find another game like FFX or FFX-2 to suck me into another world and a compelling storyline along with fun spells and weapons. But that stuff seems to be on PS3 or Xbox, and we're not down with shelling out $500 for a new platform just yet. So I'll content myself to max out all the outfits on FFX-2 and beat the special bosses and finish a first go-round of Ratchet & Clank: Dreadlocked, though it's not quite what I want. I suppose it's for the best, though, as I really don't have time for gaming at this particular juncture in my life.

OK, I think I'm going to ramble on about the odds and ends of my life if I don't end this now and hit the sack. Hopefully regular posting will resume for the next couple of weeks until Christmas.