Date

Well, I'll definitely be seeing *him* again....

Pacing

I'm always curious to see how other people write books. Mainly because mine are always such a damn mess.

When I hit the 3/4 mark, I have to go back and hack apart all the pacing. It's all about timing action scenes and shuffling POV scenes into the right order. Putting in additional POV scenes where necessary, adding foreshadowing elements. I like to do this right before the last quarter because if I'm prepared for it properly, the last quarter flows like a dream. But you have to get the pacing right first, and everybody's plot threads, before you can tie them all up at the end.

Yeah, yeah: details.

And then there's chapter length, varying sentence length (there's a lot of rambling in this one. Cutting commas is going to be one of my biggest projects when I do the first pass of rewrites).

Books are like any other type of writing, on a grander scale. It's putting everything in the right order, in just the right way, to produce just the right emotional effect in your readers. Marketing writing is like like. Technical writing is drier, but you're still trying to take complex concepts and make them comprehensible to the greatest number of people possible.

And you do it in fiction, too. You organize it in a way that gets you the emotional reaction you desire. You want people to connect with your characters. You want them to care. You want to show them a complex but (mostly) comprehensible world.

And you do it all with letters and punctuation.

And pacing.

Fucking pacing.

Sex Change

The fact that the two primary folks who put Nyx back together again are men really bothers me.

So one of them will be getting a sex change. I mean, not within the book (though that certainly would be something interesting to explore in this weird body-swapping world... hm...), but an authorial one.

Sometimes I think what the difference is between feminist science fiction and everything else is just being aware of what you're doing. I've got a lot of heavy cultural biases. I work hard at being aware of them when I'm building worlds, and seeing where they drive me off track. Not every world is like this one. I love reading about places where things are really different. Not just the gadgets, but *everything.* There's so much we just automatically assume, stuff that doesn't fit into the worlds we build. It's the Martian husband reading the paper and the Martian wife serving him tea.

Come on. Really?

Stupid things, like the assumption of a nuclear family (yes, I defaulted to a couple of these, too), the assumption of a supporting cast and background characters that are 95% male (it was a struggle to reverse this for GW, but writing anything else would have been portraying a totally different world than the one I built), het love as the penultimate in intimacy (reeeeeeaally trying to break out of this one, but it's hard), boys who move and shake the world while the girls hold their hands, one-way racism, and governments in total control (we like to think ours knows what it's doing; most governments, though, are pretty incompetent).

Things are a lot more messy (and a lot more interesting) than all that in the worlds I'm building (and, in fact, in real world; the world as assumed is much duller than the real thing). And yes, it's a pain in the ass to go back and fix it when you screw something up.

But the world is better for it.

My Own Ineptitude Sometimes Baffles Me

I'm applying for an apartment. I need my old landlord's phone number. Do I have her phone number? A copy of the lease? Why, no, why on earth would I have that information! Jenn handled all that!

Yeah.

This is why relying on other people to handle stuff explodes in my face. I tend to rend my personal relationships with an unforgivable sort of finality that bites both ways.

It's why I'm so terrified of trusting people. If they don't ruin it, I probably will. It's probably one more reason I'm happy to be moving out now instead of a year from now so I can actually stay friends with Steph and the Old Man...

Sometimes I think the person I really don't trust is myself.

Daytonism of the Week

Was at an apartment showing tonight, and the subject of Dayton and why I moved here and my job came up.

"I'm a copywriter," I explained. "It's really great, I love it. I write all of our brochure copy, promotional stuff, web copy, that sort of thing."

"Oh, you're kidding!" the bubbly leasing agent exclaimed. She was a couple of years younger than me, plump and pretty, with a daughter in daycare. I was kind of surprised at how much she seemed to appreciate what I did.

"That's really wonderful!" she went on. "I'm writing a children's book, and I'm trying to figure out how to copyright it. It's so great to meet a copy-righter!"

No, I didn't correct her. I neatly changed the subject.

All of my roommate's stories about people here are true.

Finally Caught Up

Finally on schedule again. I'm going to go collapse now.

Officially Through the Middle

I've officially passed through the Dreaded Middle of the book. This isn't so much a word count thing (I thought, until I did the word count) as a scene thing. The worst is over, and now we're going out to kick some ass.

This fact does, however, neatly dovetail with this afternoon's wordcount (still 2500 behind schedule):



Now comes the long pause while I clean up the first 3/4 of the book so I can write one long, smooth end-tying, ass-kicking ending.

Yes, this means line edits.

I'm slashing at least twelve pages and going back to get in some foreshadowing and more clearly tying folks and events together. I'd like to avoid dog-sized holes in the plot. Let's keep them roach-sized, please.

Strange Days

Why is it that the happiest scenes are always the hardest for me to write?

Maybe because, in my books, happy scenes always mean the worst is about to happen.

Back to School

I'm officially signed up for my first Economics class and my first Marketing class, paid for part and parcel by the company. How could I not take advantage of that?

I'm so thrilled to be in school again, I can't even tell you. The plan right now is to just go ahead and get the AA in Marketing Management. I mean, if they pay for it, why not? Helps me diversify and keeps my brain busy.

These two are online courses to start, since I have moving and wacky schedules and writing deadlines and most classes were full cause it's the last week to register. Next quarter I'll do one or two more, real-world classes this time. I need to socialize more, and school's a good excuse.

Gets me out and about.

Also, more apartment hunting today! I have three more lined up for the weekend.

Life: it's not bad, yo.

Things I Find More Than a Little Embarrassing

Standing in line at Chipotle tonight, the one right around the U of Dayton, minding my own business....

... and then!

Some jocky 20-something college kid gets in line behind me. I did not notice him at all when he walked up.

Oh no, I did not notice him until I smelled him. I recognized the scent immediately, not because it made me want to gag, but because the smell made me want to turn around and tear all his clothes off, just like in the commercials.

Yes, indeed: he was wearing Axe body spray.

Seriously. It triggers my crazy-attraction Kryptonite response like nothing else besides the Real Deal.

I find my stunning physical reaction to this body spray - so ridiculously like the commercials - to be incredibly embarrassing.

Seriously. I had to turn my back to him. I had to force myself not to turn and look, because I knew he was just some kid and certainly not All That, but gawd was I feeling otherwise... heady scent-drunk.

Sometimes I'm just so damn easy.

Yum.

Perspective

One of my coworkers announced today that he and he wife officially paid off their house yesterday. They've been scrimping and saving ever since they bought it to get rid of the payment.

He's 26 years old.

He's now doing research into investments.

DIE PUNY HUMAN!!!!

Um... next month, I'll pay off a credit card?

Damn.

Ridiculous Amounts of Writing

20 pages today, to catch up. I accomplished this by skipping some filler scenes and going straight for the good ones. Sadly, it means tomorrow I get to write a bunch of filler scenes.

Still about 2500 behind the schedule, but that ain't no thing. I'll have a draft of Black Desert by the end of April.

No, really! It's like a spring miracle!

Note I did not say it was going to be a *good* draft, but it'll be a draft nonetheless. My first drafts are always pretty wild.

What $425 Rents You in Dayton, OH

Really, it wasn't all that bad. The kitchen was smallish, the closet space was minimal, and the bathroom was the size of an NYC bathroom (ya'll from there know what I'm talking about), which gives me panic attacks.

But it was right down the street, reasonably clean, and the rooms were, well, adequate.

But that's all it was, really: adequate. It was like the apartment I rented in South Africa. It was... enough. Adequate. But wandering around, looking at the panic-attack-inducing bathroom, I realized it just wasn't enough for me.

I mean, hell, I'm 28 years old. I have a good job. I'm not a student anymore, and though I want to live frugally, do I really want to live like a cockroach? There's living frugally, and then there's panic attacks in the bathroom.

So I'm upping my limit to $525 instead of under $500. I want closet space, a balcony, and a decent sized bathroom in additional to my dishwasher and air conditioning. Call me high maintenance.

Call me old.

But you know what? It's about damn time I lived like an adult and not a college kid in a fucking dorm room.

The Contract Arrives!!!!!

Happy author~~!!!!!


Happy contract!



Description of the future goods to be delivered.... For those who can't read the smallish text, it reads: "Each work shall be a Middle Eastern-inspired fantasy novel featuring organic technicians, brawling mullahs, swarms of magician-trained locusts, and a former government assassin turned bounty hunter."

Yes, yes they will.

I love my job.

Results of My Fitness Test

As part of our health and wellness program at work, we do fit tests every three months.

The results?

My weight = the same

My body fat percentage = the same

Resting heart rate = improved

Pushups = 8 more than last time

Situps = the same

Measurements = lost almost two inches around my hips and half an inch around my waist.

The rest?

You guessed it.

About the same.

This is why I don't use a number on a scale to measure my progress. I measure progress by pushups and heartrate, honestly.

Another One of Life's Little Ironies

Since it looks like I'll have my own place May or June 1, I started shopping online for my old French perfume. Afterall, living on my own means that I can, once again, use scented products without slaughtering one of my roommates! Huzzah.

Arielle, my longtime favorite perfume since highschool made by Fragonard, the wonderful French perfumerie, has, sometime over the last year, been discontinued.

I had half a bottle left with Jenn at the old apartment. I'm sure it has since been pitched at some point during the horrific endgame that was our friendship (and yes, totally my fault. Much more was lost than half a bottle of discontinued perfume, but it's one more thing lost during that time in my life that cannot be replaced).

I guess I could get some Soleil or Capucine or Reve Indien, but... but... Yeah.

One more thing gone.

It's funny how sometimes it's the little things that get to you.

Equilibrium

How come I'd never heard of this movie? It's worth it for the gun kata alone! Wheeee! It's like Gattaca meets the Matrix, with Christian Bale! I mean really, how could you go wrong? Or Maybe Harrison Bergeron meets the Matrix meets Gattaca meets Christian Bale.

Anyway, it plays with old themes, but they're old ideas I enjoy: classic SF dystopia. What happens when you try and make everyone the same? What happens when we all look the same, feel the same... or don't feel at all?

What it does do, however, is fall into a lot of old traps. This "new" and "revolutionary" society is still based on the nuclear family structure. Babies are still made and raised the same way, which seems a little silly when you remember that these folks aren't supposed to have feelings. Why raise your children? Out of a sense of duty to the state?

I'm always amused to find that the future looks a whole lot like the 1950s.

There are also only about 4 women in the future, apparently. Seriously, check out all the group scenes. I made the assumption, early on, that women and men were segregated. Turns out that wasn't the case, the filmmakers were just too lazy to find a reasonable number of women extras.

It also falls into an old trap that I'm trying to break in my own work. A totalitarian society is overthrown by... killing its leader. We just need to destroy the head and blow up the prozac plants and then people will be free!

Well, you know, fighting the Man with the same hatred and violence the Man uses against you... isn't all that revolutionary. You get another cycle of hate and violence. A small group of people chooses to "liberate" many through an act of violence.

Can't we think up different ways to build new societies? How effective is it, really, to kill a dictator and magically remake a country? Look at South America. Africa. Iraq. The US has been killing dictators for years, and it's made a hell of a mess. You don't just slaughter a dictator and expect things you change. It's a lot tougher than that. It's changing people. It's finding new ideas. And you can't do that with a bullet.

Killing people is easy. Real change is hard.

Slog, slog, slow

I think doing back-to-back chapters of Rhys-and-Nyx-expositing-over-tea to Nyx-and-Khos-expositing-over-beer is going to be just a little exhausting.

Time to break and re-group.

Building a(n) Different Alternative Femininity

Sometimes what I suspect I'm doing - the way I live my life, what I write - is building an alternate version of femininity.

I was at the coffeeshop today working on Black Desert, and at the the next table over three skinny, blond 14-year-old girls were drinking waters and frappuchinos, gossiping about boys and discussing the total calorie count on the container of fruit they were sharing.

And as I was sitting there, the old despair started welling up in me again. That certain knowledge that I never have and never will look like that or live like that. I spent my pre-teen and teen years trying to conform to that mold, and it didn't work. The problem with having one dominant femininity is that not only does everyone start looking and acting the same, but you've got this vast majority of women who - even with the help of loads of plastic surgery, strict diet control, and abstaining from all things non-trivial - will never, ever conform to that mold, no matter how hard they try. And they'll spend their lives hating themselves for it.

Note that I'm not about complacency. I'm not about giving up and hiding under your couch and eating bon bons for the rest of your life. I love watching succeed, find power. But most people can't get there by reaching for the 21st century American ideal of "femininity," or skinny blond bauble in heels. It's an incredibly transitory ideal (as all of them are). You can hit it from 16-35 if you're genetically blessed or spend loads of time and money on it, and then you're pretty fucked or very rich (and even the very rich will only get another 10 years out of it).

We have no Amazon ideal. We have no Tough Matron ideal. We have hot Britney. And when Britney has kids and loses her teen popsicle image and goes wacky and has real problems like most folks from her end of town, she's nothing. That's all of us: we're nothing. No worth; not worth looking at, not worth noticing.

Youth and beauty have always been sought out and valorized, but there are alternative role models, alternative ways to find strength. When did we stop worshipping heros and start worshipping youth? In fact, real strength can often be found only outside of our narrowly-defined version of femininity. Young, thin and air-headed only gets you so far. "Hot," if used in tandem with "smart" can get you called a bitch or send you right to the top... so long as you have the strength and financial ability to maintain it.

So what about all of us who'll never be blond, thin, and believe youth should be left happily behind along with bad sex and credit card debt? Cause honestly, there's very little I miss about being young. Perhaps I miss being invincible, but the bad sex and credit card debt? Yeah, that I could do without. I much prefer life on the downside of 25.

I remember throwing my first punch and how amazing it felt. All of a sudden you realize that this big clunky body that you thought was worthless by virtue of its so-not-hotness is actually *good* for something. You channel 200 lbs of strength into knocking over a 200 lb punching bag, and for the first time in your life, you feel strong. You have worth. Worth not measured by the width of your ass.

If fact, there were all sorts of things my body was good at. I just never had the courage to give it a try. If I wasn't worth looking at, what kind of worth did I really have, as a bag of flesh and blood? Oh, sure, I had a brain. My dad always told me I was the sort of girl guys married, not the sort of girl they fucked around with. Problem was, I didn't really want to get married. And I had a real problem with my worth as a person being decided by what it was guys wanted or didn't want from me.

How about the world? How about, what can I, physically and mentally, as a whole person, give to the world? What am I worth to myself? What can my body, my mind, do for *me*? .... Besides attracting or repelling a bed partner?

And when I sit down to write I write about women whose sense of self-worth is defined by what they know, what they've done. Asses and breasts and hips and legs are tools, body parts, stuff you trade off and shuffle around, shit that gets you from here to there. It's not who you are. It's not what drives you.

In my world, you look for a friend and/or bed partner based on what they are, what they can do, strength and reliability and skills and flat-out usefulness. Beauty is lovely. Beauty is fun to look at. Beauty can stop your heart. But it's a passing thing, candy, no more permanent than its component parts.

I build worlds where strong, scary women build and control the world. That's not to say that there's not a place for other kinds of women, for men of all stripes, in those worlds, but the people running the show have a different set of values. There's no cult of youth and beauty there. There's no 24-hour news channel. There's no roadside advertising. There's nobody in your face telling you to measure your worth by the width of your ass.

Thick or thin, doesn't matter out there.... question is, when the shit hits the fan, will you stand and fight, or cower and die?

That's the real question out there, the only one that matters.

And with those kinds of odds, nobody gives a shit about how many calories are in their goddamn fruit cup.

Med Expenses Paid Last Year:

$2620.73

This is the amount I actually paid out of my own pocket, not how much I was charged or what I still owe. As of last count, I owe about $1700 more, $700 of which has been tied up with my insurance company and which they should hopefully pay.

If we counted how much insurance paid, the number is easily twice that. Easily.