The Hanged Man

Are you familiar with the tarot card The Hanged Man? He's from the Robin Wood Tarot Deck, which is available here.

He means "Life interrupted. Change in your point of view."

This has happened. Not so much the 'change in point of view', but the life interrupted thing? 100%.

That means this won't be about publishing options. You know what those are. We've all of us peered at the various modes, venues, pros, cons, contracts, pitfalls and deathtraps. And wondered if maybe, just maybe, the grass isn't greener in someone else's pasture. I've come to the stunningly obvious conclusion that there is no right answer. Only the right for you answer. And I still don't know what's right for me. That's all I have on the subject because Hanged Man.

Except. It isn't the man that's hanging. Nope. It's my house. Look.

That's our boat. And our home. High and dry on the hard. At Christmas time, a key component on the drive leg (part of the engine) broke and we could no longer put the boat in reverse. Not a problem, unless you want to dock. Ever. Or get out of dock. Think of trying to get your car into or out of your garage without reverse. Now do it on ice that's moving under you. Yeeeeeeeeah. Clearly, this has to be fixed. Got into the process of fixing that itty, bitty broken part only to find the metal of the drive disintegrating. Seriously. BIG chunk of metal was gone like something had taken a bite out of it. Apparently Poseidon takes what sacrifices he wants and in this case, he needed a chunk of cast aluminum for something. We went from $10 part needing repair to having to replace the entire drive leg. That isn't a $10 part. Multiply by 300.

Anywho. The leg was ordered from the UK, ransomed from customs, and delivered. The boat yard gave me a haul out date and time. And here I am. Took three people to get the boat out of dock to make the trip. Docking here in Port Townsend was a bit like playing bumper cars, but I limited it to bumping my boat and the dock, not anyone else's boat - all under the eye of the local Coast Guard station. Sigh.

My brain is all boat right now, because I'm paying by the day for that spot on dry land while I replace that drive leg, and my family is scattered to the four winds because we can't live in our home while it's in the yard. So I'm crazier than usual. Sorry. Still. The trip up did have it's good points. I even had help navigating.

Photo credit to Emily Olesin, friend extraordinaire who was willing to get up at 5AM to help crew the boat several hours north to our haul out.

Also: Happy Friday the 13th!

Where Am I Going and Why Am I in this Handbasket

"And you may ask yourself

Well . .  how did I get here?"

Talking Heads

 

 

 

It should come as no surprise to you that I have a story about how I ended up here. I'm an Air Force brat. Dad was in the military long enough ago that we moved often. Post assignments were generally for two years rather than the four or more they are now. That meant that either you were moving or the kids you'd made friends with were moving. Nothing was permanent. You learned early how to not get attached to place or to people because you were a perpetual tourist, flitting in for a short bit before being blown out on the breeze of Uncle Sam's whim. It had benefits - we saw amazing sights and had one of kind experiences.

 

But a military kids live always leaving or being left.

 

Kids handle that in one of two ways - they either learn to make friends with anyone and everyone very quickly. Most do this by becoming joiners. My sister went this route. On the other path, the military brat learns not to count on other people. She becomes self-contained. Has a tendency to sit on the sidelines, hanging back, both intellectually and emotionally isolated. I went that route. Less disappointment, sure, but lonely. Not that I *wasn't* that kid that no one wanted on their kickball team. Sports were not I and there wasn't a word for 'geek' in those days. Well. The word existed, it just didn't mean what it does today. Yes. I am that old. Shut up.

Books were my friends. They were reliable. They were friendly and I didn't have to be anything more than I was - a sickly kid who nearly got shipped to Germany for major surgery because the base doctors didn't think I'd survive Iceland. Horse books got me through that. Swampfire. A Pony Called Lightning. I still measured my age in single digits and I was on a serious Western kick. Roy Rogers was my hero. And maybe The Lone Ranger. So try to be generous while judging 9 year old me.

 

Books kept me company when my cousins and my sister ditched me alone at my grandparents' house. My Aunt Betty brought me a box of tattered paper backs, every last one of them written by Andre Norton. Ordeal in Otherwhere was the very first of hers I read. I promptly read every last one of the books in that box and went to ask for more and even began collecting Andre Norton books, myself. Aunt Betty and I had a friendly competition going for years over who had more. Got a note from her several years ago after her house burned down. It said, "You have more Andre Norton books than I do, now."

 

The thing I don't know how to convey is that books have been unfailing friends. Through good times, through times I wasn't certain I could survive, a book in my hands saw me through often with renewed determination and with new courage. Isn't that what friends are supposed to do?

 

How did I get here? Stories are still my nearest and dearest friends. I need them to survive. And if anything I write can be someone else's friend, I'll maybe have paid the kindness forward.

The One Star Review

 

Moon set on the western edge of the continent.

 

 

Reviews. Am I wrong in thinking there's so much weird psychology wrapped up in them? I mean, sure. 95% of reviews aren't meant for the author at all. They're meant for other readers, a fact I appreciate. All hail ANYONE who spends the time and energy to read a book and the write a review. That's the greatest gift a reader can give an author, I think - it's time and life energy spent on your book. Doesn't even matter whether the review is good or bad. It's still a chunk of another human being's life being dedicated to your work. So please, if you review books (mine or anyone else's) thank you. I owe you chocolate.

 

The other 5% of reviews, though, that's where things get strange and where the agendas become far more transparent than I suspect the reviewer wants. You know how it is. Writer slogs for years trying to learn her craft and get published. Because then all her problems will be solved! Finally, the call comes. The first precious book goes out the door into the wide world. Someone reads it. Then someone else. Reviews start coming in. And they're okay! Until - hey! ONE STAR?? WTH? Your heart lands in your shoes as you read. 

 

Interesting story: It happened to Enemy Within. A reviewer on Amazon left a one star review saying he didn't understand why anyone liked the book, there was nothing new in it. (Even more interesting - I just went to find the review to quote it and it's gone. Huh.) Why did that review in particular stick with me? Was it because it was the first critical review of the book? Not hardly. If I want to play my critical review trump card, I note that no one less than Angela James wrote a very constructive, if critical review of the book. No this one star review stayed with me because the reviewer's agenda was plain in his dismissive tone. He's a frustrated writer. He had an idea that was similar-ish, but his was SO MUCH BETTER - the only problem was that he hasn't written it. He may never write it. It's much easier to take pot shots at the work someone else did than to do your own and face that the reality will never live up to the idea.

 

It seems like if a critical review is constructive and calls out issues that bothered the reader, then it's an honest opinion. The snarky one or two line reviews that don't actually give you any specifics - those set off my psychology senses (100% unqualified as they are) I think it's Julia Cameron who, in her ARTIST'S WAY books points out that the most vitriolic critics are creatives who aren't creating. I do my best to keep that in mind when some nitwit drops a snide, unhelpful line of bitterness into the flow of actual reviews.

 

Would I get 'author behaving badly' demerits if I pinged that reviewer with a note saying 'write yer damned book already?'   :D

 

 

 

PS: Don't forget to offer up suggestions for a name change! See Jeffe's post on the matter. You do NOT want me naming this blog. Just saying.

Inspired by What I See

Visuals as inspiration - mine start simply enough. Witness this mild mannered umbrella that opens out into a demon trap.

 

 

Then we get a little bit more complicated. Tell me this sign doesn't cry out for some major backstory. SO MANY BACKSTORIES. The story of the idjits summoning things at Subway - The story of the thing summoned - The story of the poor, beleaguered manager of the Subway shop. "God damn it. I'm trying to make a sandwich and now I've got to clean up another decapitation because you people can't get your séances right? Seriously?"

 

To this video of awesome that is straight up going in one of my scifi stories because the heroine is a demolitions expert and this is the coolest thing just about ever. Well. Okay. The ping pong balls and liquid nitrogen were cool. But this is definitely a close second. And yes. Things that go BOOM win. I am apparently very easily amused.

 

 

 

Paying for Contests: Breaking Along Genre Lines

Looks back over the week...tallies up the votes...and is not the least surprised to find the pay to play votes break right along genre lines. Anyone who's been a part of RWA has, to this point, been open to paying a contest entry fee. Conditioned? Yes. We are. For good reason.

RWA is unique among professional writing organizations in that membership is open regardless of publication status. The membership is tiered within the organization based on publication status, but the organization's goal is 'advancing the professional interests of career-focused romance writers'. That means that RWA welcomes writers of every level into the organization and then invests time and energy in teaching them anything and everything they want to learn about the craft and/or the business.

But, and this is a big 'but', there are no report cards, you know? If you're a writer still seeking publication, how do you garner constructive feedback from objective sources? Critique groups get to know you and your writing style fairly quickly - to the point that your crit partners can read between the lines of your writing and fail to call you on your BS. RWA's answer to objectively gauging your progress is contests. However, reading entries and commenting on their content takes time. Time is money. Therefore, in trade for someone else's time, contests within RWA charge a bit of money by way of entry fees.

So no, I have no issue with paying for contests. However. I will suggest that you should be very, very clear about what you're paying for when you fork over an entry fee. Before I was published, a contest had to promise me one of two things - feedback on the writing from someone who knew more than I, or a read by an editor/agent if I made the finals. The entire point of entering a contest was to find out where I needed to do more work on my craft and/or to get my work in front of an editor or agent and bypass the slush pile.

But just like kids grow up and graduate from high school, writers outgrow the need for contest as objective feedback loops. The RITA was the last contest I paid to play in and it was worth every penny just for the fun of it. But really, once a writer is published, feedback comes from agents, editors, critics, mothers . . . not kidding. Mom's single comment about my first book, "She swears a lot." Yes. Chick was a POW. She has reason to swear a lot. So no. I don't currently pay for contests.

To answer Jeffe's question from earlier in the week: Contests are a tool. Both for a writer's org and for the writer. Save the heaps of scorn for the writers and orgs that forget that fact.

Hunting Guide: Critique Groups, Where to Find and Bag Them

Critique partners (or groups) are like agents: good ones are worth their weight in gold. Bad ones are worse than not having one at all. By a long shot. But you've heard that all week long, right? So the question is: How do you find the mythical beast? The unicorn that is a good critique group? You have a few options.

1. Meet Up - install the app and the search for writing groups. Chances are excellent that you'll find a number of writing groups meeting near you. Read through their descriptions and go check out a few. You get a 30 day trial before you have to commit to paying for anything. And you can try out several groups - go, talk to people, listen to what they're writing. Listen to HOW they talk to one another about writing. CAUTION: I did have a Meet Up writing group near me, but the group was more interesting in cheerleading than in making something better and they read snippets of work that were far too short to allow anyone to really work on story craft. So for my money, it wasn't a bad group, it just wasn't pointed in the direction I was going. Have an idea of what you're looking for when you go in.
2. Your local library - chances are excellent that there's a local writers organization partnered with your neighborhood library. There may not be published critique meetings, but there are likely to be events like book signings that would allow you to begin talking to the writers and find out how to join the group. From there, you begin asking around about critique groups.
3. Cons - Attending conventions aimed at what you write gives you access to people writing the same-ish genre. You'll find all kinds of organizations aimed at you. (Norwescon, my local scifi/fantasy con almost always has Broad Universe - the women in scifi - reps offering up membership info.) There are also a ton of writers and aspiring writers of every type there. Talk to them. Ask about critique groups. You never know.
4. Writing Org Membership - Finding crit groups has been the greatest boon granted to me by RWA. My local chapter gave me my local critique group. My online chapter gave me the excellent critique partners I rely on as beta readers. It came from going to meetings, getting to know people, getting to know what they wrote and talking about wanting a critique group.

There are likely more ways to find critique partners and beta readers, but allow me to trot out an adage: You are the average of the five people you spend  the most time with. Meaning you can pick a critique group that will either lift you up or drag you down. The choice is yours. When you do get invited to a critique group, date! Don't commit straight off. Go to a meeting. Listen to how these people critique one another. Is the crit constructive? If problems are identified in a piece of work, are suggestions for fixes given? Are the crits voice appropriate to each author and piece of work? Does your critique style mesh? Don't be afraid to go through several groups before finding the right fit. I'm on groups five and six. Some didn't work very well, some I moved away, some everyone else moved away. The point is that you don't have to jump at the first thing to come along unless you're confident that you will become a better writer for joining. That, after all, is the point - to grow and to help your critique partners to do the same.

Crit Partners vs. Beta Readers

This week's topic in the Bordello is critique partners (CPs) - why we do or don't have them.

It's surprising to me that, while many aspiring and newbie authors use CPs, it seems like many authors gradually grow away from them over time. Particularly if they are working with editors. Also, more and more these days I hear writers refer to "beta readers" more than CPs, which I think indicates a few trends.

First off, let's define some terms, as they are in the Jeffe-verse. Your mileage may vary, but this is how I see it.

CP

A CP is someone who reads your work with a critical eye and provides feedback that might range from light edits to recommendations for exhaustive revisions. Usually this person is another author, who may or may not write in the same genre that you do. This relationship is usually reciprocal, where you act as a CP for their work, too. In fact, it's usually better that way, because having one person provide all the crit can cause problems for both. On the one hand, it's not fair to the person providing all the work and getting no benefit, on the other, a person who provides crit without subjecting themselves to crit in return can become callous and even mean.

Beta Reader

At the risk of being all GET OFF MY LAWN, when I first turned my dewy newbie author eyes on the shiny goal of becoming a career writer, I never heard the term "beta reader." Later I began to hear it used by established authors, who used it to mean a group of select (usually devoted readers of a series) people who would read the finished book with the expectation that feedback would be mild or high level. Then I heard more self-publishing authors adopt the term - and they seemed to use it in place of CP. To me (and I could be wrong), this reflects a trend of thought among self-publishing authors that critique kills voice and originality. A beta reader relationship can be reciprocal, but is more often one-sided.

Editor

I'm going to say that an editor is a paid, professional position - whether paid by a publishing company or a self-publishing author. (I have both. In fact, my editor from one of my traditional publishing houses works freelance also, and I hire her to edit my self-pubbed work, too.) An editor of this type typically provides developmental edits, which can range from mild tweaks to exhaustive revisions. A second stage, line-editing, handles less substantive issues - grammar, wording, continuity, etc. Note that copy-editing and proofreading are different! Those should not address content, but focus on formatting, grammar, typos, etc. This relationship is almost always entirely one-sided.

Okay! All of that said... do I have CPs?

Yes, indeedy, I do!

From the very dewy-eyed beginning, I have valued my CPs, and nothing has changed that. One of them is sister Word Whore Marcella Burnard. We've been CPs for ... wow, Marcella - six years? And sister Word Whore KAK has been a CP off and on. Several of the Word Whore alums have been CPs, too - though sadly are also CP alums at this point. People move on, yanno? These days I have two steadfast CPs who see almost everything I write. I also have several other author friends who I can send stuff to, depending on what the story is (since I write in multiple genres). My author assistant, Carien, acts as a beta reader at times - particularly on questions of series continuity.

My CPs are the ones who make sure I don't turn in complete shite to my editors. They read for me and we can talk out plot arcs and world building points. Some of my CPs skip reading and we just brainstorm plots with each other.

But all of this is by way of saying that I value crit highly - whether from CPs or editors. I think my editors can do better work if I've run things through my CPs first, because they can then focus on the higher level stuff and not have to fix basic structural/world/story issues.

As for the idea that critique can ruin voice or creativity... No, I don't believe it. Sure, an author has to winnow through the feedback she receives. It's key to learn what's an individual preference and what's going to matter to a lot of readers. But the one thing I'm sure of - almost no CP or editor ever sets out to kill a book and force it to conform to some standard. If you do encounter a toxic person like that - run, don't walk in the other direction. And know that it's the person, not the institution.

Good CPs are gold. They keep me humble, willing to examine my own work in depth, and on the course of ever-improving.

Thanks ever so much, ladies!

The Princess Life

PSA: April Fool's Day. Believe no one and nothing. You're welcome.

I so wanted the find an image of a glass slipper that wasn't 100% fugly. Failed. I mean, yes, there's amazing art out there on the interwebs, but I wasn't willing to pay the prices involved with using any of them. The free clip art things were abominations. So here we are.

With you guessing that my favorite fairy tale is Cinderella. You'd be right, to a point. It's not the Disnefied version I favor. It's the old version of the tale. The one that predates even the appearance of the fairy godmother. It's a darker story that's less about impressing gender roles and 'appropriate' comportment and more an 'us versus them' tale. In that older story, Cinderella's dead mother is buried near the house. A flowering bush (sometimes a rose, sometimes an apple tree) grows from her grave. When Cinderella sees a chance to escape servitude via the prince's ball, it is too her mother's grave she goes to ask for assistance. The bush flowers. Inside the flowers are the gifts she needs - the dress, the shoes. Not so much the coach, but let's not get hung up on details. Everything goes as it should until the prince comes bearing the slipper in hopes of finding his mystery girl. In this story, the step mother takes one of her daughters aside and whacks off her toes in order to get her foot into the slipper. Content, the prince rides away with the poor girl until a bird perches on his shoulder and sings a song about maybe he ought to notice the blood overrunning the shoe. He takes the girl home. Stepmom likewise mutilates her second daughter (slicing a bit off at the heel this time). Prince rides off with the new girl. The bird shows up again. Back they go and one imagines the prince MIGHT be getting a little miffed by this point. He searches the house, finds Cinderella and puts the shoe on her himself - am I the only one who hopes it got washed first? Sum result: HEA. Though, frankly, I don't see how. I can't help but feel like Cinderella could do a whole lot better than some dude who can't tell three women apart or bother to notice blood and pain when it rides beside him. But hey. Love is blind, right?

I confess I'm not crazy about the Western European fairytale tradition. It's short on strong women, instead espousing the sweet, child-like feminine ideal of the era in which most of them originated. That's what sends me back into the grimmer folktales that inspired the familiar fairytales. Cinderella started life as a story about the love between a mother and daughter - love that transcended death and that provided the inexperienced daughter with a template for manipulating her abusive step family. So while I love a Disney princess as much as the next gal, I do prefer my heroines with some shadows. And some serious guts.

Now. For chicks with guts, lets talk mythology. The women of the Mabinogion have got it going ON.

What Happens While You're Making Other Plans

 

You know the saying life is what happens while you're busy making other plans. It defines my relationship with long term planning. Yes. I need a plan, it provides direction without being as bossy as the GPS in my car. Plans, for me, have to be loosely held otherwise all life gets crushed out of them.

Owning the boat we do and living aboard it were long term plans that came to fruition. Publishing - also a long term plan that worked. Sorta. In true plot-twist fashion, nothing quite works out the way you'd envisioned. I'd imagined a long string of scifi titles to my name by now. Instead, the publisher asked for anything that wasn't scifi. Well okay. There's that bossy GPS after all, yelling at me that I'm taking a left NOW into other genres until I find home.

The reason the cat in the sunbeam is up there is that he illustrates one of the finer points of long term planning. Every single one of us tucks our hopes and ambitions and drives into our goals. Those goals reflect some of the finest points of our aspirations for ourselves. And then the universe hands us a situation that shows us that our priorities weren't what we thought they were. Or maybe I'm just a terrible planner. Point is, the elderly gentleman above has set his paws on his path out of this life. It's a long slope for him, one that could take another year to two years, if I'm lucky. The trade off is that I'm on call for him 24x7. Medications. Shoveling food into him. He cannot be left for more than four hours at a time. I understand it's a little like having itty bitty kids - cause he gets me up every few hours of the night to tend him. And not a bit of this was factored into my long term plans. Any plans, really. Sure. I still have long term plans and I am still working toward them. But let me stress how this guy getting sick utterly altered what I believed were my priorities.

Most of us think we understand our priorities. I'd submit that we don't. Not entirely. We're human and we operate from a particular blindness that assumes everyone and everything we love will remain the same - unchanged. Forever. Intellectually, we get that's not true. But until the severe mental illness strikes you or one of the people you most count on in the world, until that panicked midnight emergency run somewhere with someone you'd trade places with in a heartbeat, your priorities haven't been put to the test.

Every one of us are going to run into bumps in the long term planning road. It's why I've learned to hang onto my plans loosely. Because when life happens, it sometimes pays to examine your fistful of plans and cast aside any that no longer make sense. Once you've done that, though, the vital thing is to keep going. Creep toward the goal. Crawl if that's what you have to do. Just keep moving in the direction of the dream. Whatever it may be. That's where you'll find me. Out there hobbling along my road, muttering at my GPS to shut the fuck up.

The Lost Hour - Time Travel

March 13, 2016 1:22AM
"Minutes crawl like spiders at this hour of night, skittering into the corners and under the bed. Dust bunnies waft across the floorboards in their wake while I watch for the moment that time leaps an hour into the future. Waiting for that exact second to prove I was right. That the move, beginning at Greenwich and rolling ever westward through time zone after time zone, to steal away an hour from each sets the fabric of space/time in motion, too. Treating time as a malleable thing makes it so. Consensual reality builds momentum, a certain inertia of perception, if you will. As an intellectual exercise, we all agree to change time. And while we wink and nod, time really does change.

Tonight. I prove it. I built a device. Time piece, of course. LED so it doesn't completely destroy the battery pack. How embarrassing would it be to travel into the future and have your batteries die, right? So, no. The actual temporal distortion field cannot be battery powered. Unless you've patented a double A nuclear fusion model no one's told me about. No, for that, I tapped into the grid for the particle accelerator in the physics lab. The wire run was a bitch, but never mind that. Call me old fashioned. I know it's all Disney's Bed Knobs and Broomsticks, but yes. I did turn my bed into my time machine. If I'm right, and I think I am, I will go forward in time and only forward because that is the direction of our consensual momentum--humans agreeing to pretend it's an hour later than it really is. I'll have to wait for spring to test going back in time.

Look. It's almost time. To the future, then. Hong, Jamie, I know I've been weird for the past few weeks. This is why. Sorry I couldn't tell you what I was doing. I'll see you guys in three days when you catch up with me in time.
Penny"

Jamie clapped a hand to her mouth and stared with wide, red, tear-filled eyes at her friend Hong who folded the note and slipped it back into her jacket pocket. Jamie risked a glance down at the newly erected headstone.

Penelope Jackson

April 8, 1997-March 15, 2016

 



"Oh my God," Jamie whispered. "You don't think it worked, do you? It can't have worked!"

"Of course not," Hong said. "How could you time travel into your own grave? Your own coffin. Of course it didn't work. For her, there was no day three. Not when she died on day two."

Jamie choked on a sob.

A spider crawled down the face of the marker and began spinning her web.

Social Media Sin #3

Phoning it in because you think you SHOULD. I mean. Everyone else is doing the Social Media thing! Taking the online world by storm. Or at least maybe talking to people. Via pixels. But hey! Selling things ulterior motive!

No. No. No. This is beaching yourself on the shores of social media hell simply because you envy someone else's easy, pithy style and/or number of followers. Yeah, I had to reach for a metaphor to match my photo. Work with me.

In echo of what Marshall said so well yesterday, the social media thing isn't compulsory. There are absolutely people who have just enough extroversion in their generally introverted little hearts to make the social media thing look easy. But, you know, do you. If watching your Twitter feed scroll gives you hives, don't do it. If Facebook or Pinterest or Tumblr or anything else is a black hole mysteriously swallowing hours of your day, you have a problem and should probably cold turkey that crack.

Here's the rule I apply to me: If fun = yes, then go. If fun = pulling teeth, then no. Okay. There is an ancillary rule: Word count for the day must be achieved BEFORE any social media. Because writing is my job. Social media is a tool, yes, and fun - but it supports the writing, not the other way around. Why such simple rules?

It goes back to Jeffe's theme on the subject: Engagement. I find that me yelling BUY MY THING is as much fun as slamming my fingers repeatedly in car doors. It's off-putting when someone else fills my feeds with desperate buy links, I have no intention of doing it to someone else. Now. Annoying people with cat photos? Or with ridiculous, nerdy memes? Or comically awful nihilistic end of the world scenarios? Sign me up. Yeah. I know. I need to work on my definition of fun, don't I? The thing is a sense of enjoyment translates. If the person behind the social media posts is genuinely having a good time posting, that comes through. And there's nothing like a bit of fun to draw people in to engage with you. At least, that works for me. Sure. There are people who attract attention by posting outrage over this cause or that cause. I'm glad there are people who do that - the unexamined dark corners of humanity could use a little light shone into them. If that's your thing, more power to you. But that's the point: Do what matters to you. Make room for having a good time.

Shoulds are boulders. They'll crush you if you let them.

Getting in the Creative Groove

When the well runs dry and the ideas won't flow, it's time to get out of your head. Really out of your head. I like walks. Rambling, long walks in places I haven't been. The point is to turn focus away from the critical voices yammering inside the skull. I play a game - looking for x number of things to see. Things to observe. From the macro - Some days there are great alpine glow photos. (Alpine glow on the Olympics here). To the micro - Some days it's nothing more than listening to the gentle cackle of a pair of crows courting one another in the trees. Or the little weird and wonderful things that happen closer to

home - like a seagull trying to make a snack out of something as big as it is. The point is to focus outward, to distract the ego enough that the creative juices have a chance to work in the background. For me, the more I try to pin creativity down with ego-driven critical YOU SHOULD BE <fill in the blank>, the more creativity squirms away, retreating into the dark. If I give the grasping, frenetic portion of my conscious mind something to do, creative stuff is then free to sneak back into the open. I favor walks because moderate physical exertion works wonders for shutting up monkey mind. So does journaling.
 

 In the bad old days before better living through chemistry made ironing work shirts a thing of the past, I would have my best writing breakthroughs while ironing (which I absolutely hated - ironing - not the ideas.) The task was mindless, but you had to pay attention so as not to burn down the house. Or permanently press your digits. Conscious mind got occupied with wrinkles. Creative mind churned in the background, kicking out little 'hey, what if' voices. The closest I get now, is through walking a couple of miles (which occupies the conscious mind) or via deliberate alpha state meditating.

Still. All of that can be a little naval gaze-y. And occasionally, the best option is to stopping focusing inward at all. The best kick in the creative pants comes from looking out at the world and observing. Mary Buckham, in the midst of teaching a plotting course, once said that it is a writers job to see what no one else can or will see and then bring that to the page. We concentrate so hard on getting things to the page, we forget all about being observers of our world - all of our world, not just the bits inside our heads. Which makes me think that maybe tomorrow morning, I'm due for a good, long walk.



Title Life Line - Throw Me One

Titles. Was this topic my suggestion? Was it? Cause I'm hopeless. I've been reading all week, hoping and praying for a silver bullet that would make me less bad at titles. Listen. Titling a thing gives me hives. More so even, than having to write the synopsis of the thing. 90% of the time, I file my story files under a character's name. All of my working folders are named things like 'Ari', 'Sinclair', or 'Heli'.

Even when I *do* name a story, at long, painful last, editors want to change it. No problem, I say, and I provide a brainstormed list of 20 other possible titles. But you know what happens? Every single time, so far? They go with my original title. And if you think that doesn't give me a complex about my titles, you're as crazy as I am.

Like KAK and just about everyone else, I want my title to convey both genre and some hint of what the story might be about. That isn't to say it's always achieved. Just that it's a goal. Usually, I have to write a complete story before a title that isn't a character's name offers itself up for consideration. Those of you who know my work already know that the working title 'Ari' became the book Enemy Within (which was also the title of a movie that came out several years before my book did, speaking of avoiding duplicate titles. This happened again with Enemy Mine - which was NOT my title - my editor suggested it. When I said 'Enemy Mine, you mean like the Dennis Quaid/Danny Glover SF movie?' She had no idea what I was talking about because that movie had been made right about the time she'd been born. Yeah. Ouch.)

I'll tell you what. I will lay bare my current titling dilemma. I have a manuscript in edits right now. The working title is The Incubus and the Asexual. *I* love this title. No one else seems to. I'm completely open to a retitle, but everything any of my crit partners and I have attempted to brainstorm has just not fit. So the book will go through developmental edits and we'll see whether it offers up anything that does as good a job of telling you the story, the genre and the tone as The Incubus and the Asexual. Unless, you know, you have suggestions. Bring 'em on. When you're as hopeless at titling books as I am, it's a relief when someone starts tossing titles like a life line.

Vice Party - The Good, the Bad and the Nearly Useless

I don't get to indulge many vices, more's the pity. When it comes to the buffet of vices, I still sit at the kiddy table. Alcohol, which I used to enjoy (Lemon Drop anyone?) now equals migraine. Chocolate, too. The list of fun things that end badly for me is long and sad. Since I can't consume vices, I spew them instead. And still, they turn in service to writing.

1. Swearing is my vocation. It's a calling, a sacred duty to which I am devoted. Since the public rooms of the bordello strive to appear slightly family friendly, I curb my colorful language. Meet me in a public situation one or two times and you'll have no idea of the vast, simmering cesspool of language underlying my polite facade. Hang around long enough to lull me into a sense of safety, though, and that pool will bubble over. Most of my friends still look surprised when a word or phrase slips out. Many of them giggle, too. Does it help me while I'm writing? Probably. If only to give me the ammunition to complain in grotesque detail about how a story is or isn't coming together.

2. Analyzing. I have a degree in overthinking. It is a hindrance part of the time. The other part of the time, I'm making it work for me. Everything I watch, read or experience gets vivisected - how did the story go together? Did the conflict work? If no, why not? If yes, why? What would make a poor plot work? How could things have been changed. This is all part and parcel of peering beneath the hood to learn how something runs (or doesn't) so I can build my own.

3. Companion to that: I talk too much. No one wants to watch The Walking Dead with me anymore. I usually see within the first several minutes of an episode how it will end, and often, within the first episode or two, I can tell how a season will end. These are the wages of analyzing stories as a mode of living. Sure, sure, I learned long ago to not volunteer the spoilers. I may be slow, but I can be taught. Still, my TWD friends and family keep casting sidelong glances my way during a show. Finally someone will ask if I have it figured out. There's a second of silence when I shrug and nod. One of them will grin and say, "What's your theory?" I blab. Everyone laughs and blows me off. Until the end of the episode/season. How does this help my writing? It's concrete evidence that I've managed to learn valuable lessons about conflict and story arc - not just as an intellectual exercise. They're internalized. Keith likes to talk through movies and TV shows we've watched. Mostly, I think, he likes getting to geek out about a show with me. But tonight, while reading on his Kindle, he turned to me and said, "You know I can't read some of these books now without remembering what you've said about stories. About how there has to be both internal and external conflict that comes from who the characters are before a story really starts to resonate. You turned me into a tea snob over the years and now you're turning me into a story snob. A few scantily clad women and a couple of explosions used to be enough." High praise. I'm going to let this help me stop worrying about whether or not I'm doing it right. I'm just going to write and trust that conflict and plot will take care of itself.

4. The occasional bag of sour cream and onion potato chips because some times, you just need to grind the bones of your demons between your teeth. They taste salty. Like my writer tears. Or the blood of the innocents sacrificed to the gods of word count.

Tools of the Trade

Let's just all acknowledge that music is a huge portion of what gets me going. The MP3 player and good quality stereo ear buds are a prerequisite to me writing. Without piping creepy music into my brain, I'm the dog in the Disney Pixar movie UP. Every noise, every vaguely overheard conversation will drag me out of working and into eavesdropping - you know - in the interest of future stories. I am especially susceptible if there's the least hint of conflict in a voice or voices. Lacking an ivory tower in which to write, I do my darnedest to manage my focus. Most of my writing tools center on that.

1. MS Word It is possible I once toiled in the mines where this software was produced. Which means it's where I'm comfy. Dusty and stained by the blood of developers though it may be. This is where all editing, formatting, rewriting and stitching the corpses of my enemies --- er ---where stitching stories together happens. Sometimes I draft here, but Word has a lot of clutter on the screen and I will occasionally switch to one of the tools or apps that follow.


2. Pen and paper because writing by hand accesses a different part of the brain while you're writing and once in a while there's value in coming at a story from another angle.  


3. Rocketbook Notebook This is a notebook. You write whatever you want by hand with a specific pen (the ink is the key to the magic here). Once you've finished your masterwork, you bring up the app on your phone, snap a photo of each page and presto, your scrawl is scanned into the cloud location of your choice. You can classify and sort pages as they're uploaded. You can email them to yourself, too. When you've filled this notebook, you take it to a microwave. You zap it for a few seconds and presto. The pages are blank again. You start over.


4. OmmWriter This is one of my favorites. It is a simple text pad application nestled into an encompassing visual and auditory environment that takes over your computer screen, acting as a distraction blocker. It's designed specifically for drafting. The writing screen is tiny so as to draw you deep into the environment and into a semi-hypnotic state of flow. It offers several sound track and key click sound options and it is recommended for use with headphones. When I want to shut out the world and make some tracks, this is a great place to do it. The only drawback is that anything you import from this application comes into Word poorly formatted. You will have to spend a few seconds reformatting and doing a global search and replace on straight quotes - for some reason, the quotation marks resist being turned curly when I switch them to Times New Roman.


5. Dark Room. Variation on the 'suck you in' theme. Dark Room emulates an old Commodore 64. Black background, green text. Blocks anything from popping through - whether that's mail notifications or IM windows. Drafting tool only. No editing available. Same deal as with OmmWriter. You will have to mess with formatting. But such is life.  

When to Write to the Market

This was between me and the keyboard this morning while I was writing. Always lovely to have someone so utterly unconcerned about whether or not I make word count.

So this week, we're wondering when we should write to the market? Well, hell. That's easy. You should write to the market when you're asked to. It doesn't happen often, but occasionally it does still happen. An editor will approach you with a hole in his or her calendar that must be filled with a certain type of book by a certain date. If you can produce on a truncated time frame and to spec, grab that opportunity. It's tough to accumulate a ton of good karma in traditional publishing (where this scenario is the most likely to go down) but this is a sure way of doing so.

Other than that, I agree whole heartedly with my fellow Word Whores. Writing to the market for the sake of cashing in on a thing is a gamble offering some really crappy odds. Spoiler: Those odds aren't in your favor. It's mostly a timing issue, so if you are indie pubbing, you can tip the odds your way a bit with super fast turn around. If it sounds like a fun challenge to you, go for it and more power to you. I suspect sometimes someone hits on a story that resonates and brings out all the copycats trying to cash in on the wave. But like Jeffe said, if what you want is to get rich, there are millions of easier ways in this world to go about that. So, for me, the only time I'd jump on a bandwagon and write a story copying the flavor du jour would be if the flavor du jour REALLY lit my fire. If I could sell Firefly fan fic, I'd be right there. I think we all of us have our specific, geeky 'OMG I MUST WRITE THAT' story (only we don't recognize it until someone else writes it and we read it and want to hop on that band wagon.) In that case - write to that market because it's fun and because you honestly love that market.

I did have another writer tell me once how to anticipate the market. She said to go to a bookstore (when there were such critters) and look at what's lined up on the best seller shelves in nonfiction. Do it often enough and you'll see themes. These are the things people are interested in and they show up in nonfiction about a year before the same themes show up in fiction. She took her own advice and realized that almost all of the nonfiction books on the best seller shelves were about angels. She got busy writing angel books. Hers were some of the first novels with and about angels to hit the paperback market. She did very, very well. So there you go. The secret sauce. Maybe. Good luck with it.

Breaking the Writer's Back - Bad Habits

It hadn't ever really occurred to me before now that I could actually be a published writer, much less be a writer trying to attack bad writing habits head on. I skated for too many years not examining how I work, or questioning if how I work is actually productive. About three years ago, that process began, so I still have plenty of bad habits to address, but these are the top few.

1. Running from that which should be embraced - Conflict. Hard emotional stuff. You know. All the things most people (including me) actually read books for. But, and this is serious social conditioning at work here, I'm trained to avoid conflict and hardcore, dangerous emotion like the plague. Lots of people are, though I wager more women in this society than men, simply because Western culture espouses the 'women are the bridge builders' thing. Saw someone suggest that view was a pile of BS and women avoiding conflict is a survival thing. Don't care where it comes from. I want it gone when it comes to writing. I want to wade in, flailing, because I want to see what my characters are going to do. Easier said than done. I have to catch myself avoiding, route back and redo a scene in order to wallow in the conflict and/or angst.
2. Distractions - like most writers with internet connections I have the attention span of a gnat. I've been working on that for the past year. Meditation - no seriously - it's training to keep your mind in a particular place or frame - and when it ducks out, you're learning how to bring it back. Writing sessions go the same way. Focus. When I duck out to look something up that could wait until after the draft was done, or a I sheer off to screw around on Facebook for no good reason, I recognize what's happening far sooner than I used to and I bring myself back to the story. (There's a spreadsheet and reporting system involved, too. Also, an internet blocker, like Freedom is helpful.)
3. Chasing the shiny - so you know I had a former life as a tech employee at a large Seattle area software company. I'm guilty of still lusting after the latest, greatest tech and software. My bad habit is putting this stuff on my writing box with all the cock-eyed optimism of a trusting 2 year old. That bit me right in the place where my productivity lives this week. Windows 10. If you haven't installed it, don't. Not yet. There's a pretty nasty bug involving the Start button (which means that when it fucks up, you can no longer get to your applications). Known issue. Under investigation. No ETA for a fix. Sooooo. Don't go there if you don't have to. Not until that fix gets rolled out. I'm going to have to rebuild the machine. There goes another entire day.
4. Taking what I do seriously - you know what Jeffe said earlier this week about priorities? I have a bad habit of prioritizing myself and what I want last. For a very long time, I waited for other people in my life to take what I do seriously. Then came the day that someone (specifically Jeffe) called me out saying that it didn't matter who else took me seriously - taking me seriously was my job. She was right. When I have a contract, my family bends over backwards to make sure I get writing time. But the rest of the time, when I'm writing on spec - it all goes away. I'm not *really* working, so I'm eminently interruptible, right? Only if I'm not sticking to my guns and making writing the priority I want it to be. That's on me. No one else has to understand. They just don't get to call me or bug me between 8am and noon.

Oh there are more. But behavior modification really is a one step at a time kind of thing. You declare a theme (productivity is mine this year) and you work on the habits surrounding that theme. It's better to work FOR something (productivity in my case) than to work against the bad habits. It is easier by far to displace the poor habits with better habits than it is to attempt to simply stamp the bad ones out. That's my story. I'm sticking with it.

Notes to a Younger Writer

Things I wish I could tell my younger self about writing:

1. There are all kinds of armor. Some of them (like the attractive get up at right) protect your brain and lung cells when you're dealing with toxic chemicals. Other kinds of armor can and will protect your heart and soul when you're dealing with rejection letters, the occasional toxic person and the disappointments that are inevitable in any career. Learn these armors. Learn how to don them when needed. More importantly, learn how to take them off because you can't create from a closed up, claustrophobic heart.
2. There is no 'when things calm down.' It doesn't exist. Do the thing - the thing you keep putting off for a better time. For when you know more. You don't learn by not doing. You learn by trying, by making mistakes, by assessing, and by fixing. Make your mistakes often and early.
3. Give up caring what other people think of you. Truth is, they don't think of you. They're too busy wrapped up in the dramas and traumas of their own lives. This is both blessing and curse. Yes, you're alone. Deal with it. Because QUICK! No one's looking! You can try out those dance steps you're secretly afraid might be silly. Or that plot twist you suspect will either be brilliant or a train wreck. No one's watching. G'head. Experiment! You can always change it later.
4. Talk to people. More importantly, listen. Listen to what people say, sure, but more importantly listen to the stories people are telling themselves. Those stories are hidden beneath what they say. PS: Stay the hell out of the dime a dozen dramas that unfold in the industry. They're legion and they will devour your time and life energy if you let them. Also? The death of this genre, that genre, insert your death knell du jour here, or of publishing as a whole has been touted for decades. DECADES. People still buy books in one form or another. So shut up and write.
5. Write what YOU want. Screw what's popular right now. Your best work will be that which fascinates you, so wallow in your chosen freakiness and get on with jotting it all down.

Most everyone knows that I suffered undiagnosed major clinical depression as a teen and young adult. Until that was finally identified and treated, I wasn't capable of the kind of emotional resilience writing requires. I only say this because too many people suffer mood disorders without getting treatment. If you want to DO something, but find you just can't? Talk to your doctor. Ask to be assessed. If you are suffering from a disorder, it can be treated - which doesn't always mean meds forever. The point is that you have to stack the deck in your favor and if you feel gray all the time that's your life energy and your drive and motivation being stolen from you. You don't deserve that.

It's Dead Jim - When a Book Just Doesn't Work

Full disclosure. This topic was my suggestion. Yes, indeedy, you CAN blame me for this one. I suggested it because at the time, I was struggling with a novel. Still am. It's historical fiction. I *thought* I had a plot, but the more I write, the less momentum within the story there seems to be. The more I wrestled with the themes and the characters, the less sure I was of anything. So I put it aside and wondered if either it or I should be put out of our mutual misery. Thus the question. How do you know when there's no hope?

I ask because I have a forest of file folders filled with abandoned stories. Some are little more than ideas jotted down. Some have half a chapter. Others are several chapters. Only one is past the 25,000 word mark and that one wasn't abandoned because it wasn't working - it is awaiting its day in the sun after having been orphaned by a publishing house that declined the option for it. It WILL get finished and pubbed in some fashion.

So even though I have plenty of stories littering the corners of my brain (and notably, my hard drive) I've discarded not a single one of them. Because of three things:

1. Hope springs eternal - If I let these stories stew long enough, what ever issues kept me from completing them will be worked out
2. I'll get better - I have bitten off more than I could chew in any number of stories and I simply do not yet have the storytelling chops to pull these things off, but the more I write, the stronger I'll get and then these difficult story concepts will become approachable
3. Your time will come - some of the stories I've abandoned in my past are from when I was a kid. I am no longer in the same place as a human being as I was, but la plus ca change, right? I'm not the same person I was yesterday, either. So there may come a time when one of those old stories strikes a chord and I'll finish them.

Why do I not power through my issues with my stories? Because I subscribe to Shakespeare's words:

O time, thou must untangle this, not I.

It is too hard a knot for me to untie!

How to Tell If You're in a Toxic Relationship (With Yourself) - Or My Goal to Exploit Clickbait-y Headlines

Goals.

I suppose it's good to have them, but I can't help but feel that our (US) culture has a pathological, toxic obsession with goals - a hold over from our Puritan cultural roots that shouts guilt and crazy-making exhortations at us all.

DO MOAR

BE MOAR

YA LAZY, SINFUL, BROKEN BASTAGE

What? Only me? Yeah, I didn't think so. Well let me tell you something. You're fine. Exactly the way you are. Whether you feel tiny or shredded or possibly shattered. It finally occurred to me recently that human beings are only perfect when they are imperfect. It's only through the cracks that our souls shine through. It's from our places of vulnerability that we make the most meaningful and lasting connections. And if you create anything - art, cakes, a home, a family, anything at all, your hurts and regrets and shame are powerful fuel for that art. Not so say that joy and love aren't powerful generative forces, too, they are - but they come after you accept every aspect of yourself. Newspapers and magazines offer up a lot of click-bait-y headlines in January: HOW TO TELL YOU'RE IN A TOXIC RELATIONSHIP. If you read through the lists of signposts, you may nod your head sagely, glad you aren't putting up with any of the verbal, mental, emotional, physical abuse of a toxic relationship - but have you tried applying those signposts to your relationship with yourself? I'd fail. Would you? Most of us don't want to be abusers and we'd sooner the ground swallow us up than hurt someone that way, yet we never bother to evaluate how we treat ourselves.

So if there are goals for the new year, let them these:

1. Pledge to be gentle with yourself - adopt a policy of nonviolence in thought, word, and deed concerning yourself. Seriously. Just listen to how you think at yourself. You will be horrified by what you hear.
2. Make time and space for doing nothing at all. It needn't be much time. Fifteen minutes a day. Not for meditation. Not for reading. Not for yet another course on how to do or be The Thing. To do nothing. Most of us have forgotten leisure and how to be alone.
3. Vow to help someone else. Whether you volunteer on a regular basis or just offer a cup of coffee to the homeless kid on the corner once in a while - totally up to you. But if you want the cure for a bad day, bring a smile to someone else's face.

Goals can be a fine thing. You can't get to a place if you don't even know it's where you want to go. Just don't hold on to goals so tightly that you can't take a detour to see the sights. They aren't supposed to be used to flog yourself with. This isn't the Dark Ages. There is no widespread plague calling for parades of penitents flogging themselves to drive off the scourge. Unless, you know, you're into that kind of thing. Then by all means. Make that a goal and flog away.