Echoes in a Hollow Space

Getting my life back in gear of the day: After my house move in November into a smaller space I was unpacking in a frenzy at first, searching for the necessities and getting them out of the garage and into my rooms. I was so happy to be out of the apartment from hell that I got downright giddy at first. The space restrictions caught up with me first, and I've had to make some decisions about just what were necessities and with the chaos left from that first frenzied unpacking. Large swatches of my life still remain unpacked in the garage.

One of the crucial things that are still packed are my art supplies. I've always been prone to making things, both in a art-for-art's-sake way and in a meditative/spiritual context. Since November that whole aspect of my life has been completely ignored. Not being able to make things makes the blues bluesier, makes me even more obsessive-compulsive than usual, deadens some of the senses of my creative animal. That nervous, self-devouring energy gets dissipated when I make things: it doesn't go into the object, it just ceases to exist. Nothing makes me feel more positive than when I successfully complete an art object and imbue it with a bit of my positive spirit. It's a whole other feeling from the warm, rich vibe I get from a good writing session. I need it as much as I need the writing, and I'd forgotten that.

So in recent weeks, I've been taking steps to get back that which has been lost. I still haven't found all my stuff, or have found it in random, frustrating bits—the jeweler's anvil and chasing hammer, but not the jewelry tools, for instance—but I've retrieved enough to make do and get creative with my hands again. And that's a peaceful, easy feeling. I'm moving in the right direction.


Quote of the day:

"Writers would be warm, loyal, and otherwise terrific people—if only they'd stop writing."

—Laura Miller, Salon.com review of "Finding Forrester"


To which I would answer, "Depends on the writer." Some of us would be much worse if we didn't write.

Writingness of the day: If I keep going at my present rate, I should be able to cut another 10k from Shivery Bones. Predicated on ifs, of course, but I'm amazed how many fat and wasteful phraselets I'm finding. In the case of the opening chapters, it's been downright embarrassing. I sent this out to people? Aiee. And in other even more boring news, the transfer of the ms. file to the new "purified" template seems to have worked: the word count and page count are consistent on both Macs and the PC and all versions of Word. Huzzah. Even better, the lowest word count is the one that's sticking. Huzzah, huzzah.

You know, it's rather pitiful how much I fretted about my internet connection being up and down all weekend. I knew how bad it had gotten when I actually had the thought yesterday, "At least tomorrow I'll be at work and have a stable connection." And seeing as I live in a third world country, my phone lines won't be fixed until Friday.

"We're so busy because of the rain storms," the repair person said.

Wouldn't you say that a company had spent insufficient funds on infrastructure if every time it rains, massive numbers of phones go out? It never rains in California, as everyone knows. Maybe they were counting on that.

But I digress. This started out to be a positive post about all I accomplished between those times I was obsessively checking the lines for dial tone/connectivity:

➊ I actually got 1,000 words done (for a total of 1250) on a new short story, inspired by the OWW Ghost Challenge—although I doubt seriously I'll finish before the challenge is over. I have the novel to finish, after all, and that's taking up most of my writing time, but it was still fun to write something different. This one might have an actual shot at being a genuine short story, but...

➋ I only got one crit written and posted before the horrific events of no connectivity/OWW server crash.

➌ I updated the 2 page synopsis for Shivery Bones. It's amazing what a little distance will do. I hadn't looked at it for a while and I cut about two paragraphs worth of stuff.

➍ I played in the garden, unpacked more boxes, packed more boxes back up again for the garage sale we're having when the weather clears, did laundry—hardly stimulating but, I'm sure you'll agree, necessary.

➎ I cooked "carnitas" tacos on Saturday and chicken paprikash on Sunday. If I do say so myself, they were pretty good. I bought myself a new slow cooker because I found just the one I wanted on sale last week. A slow cooker?? you may ask yourself in horror. Well, sure. A girl never knows when she might get a hankerin' for cocktail weinies in bourbon barbecue sauce or Superbowl chili. Seriously, I cooked the paprikash in it, and plan to cook arroz con pollo or some Chinese pork next. This ain't your granny's slow cooker.

➏ Saturday morning, before the horrific internet boom and bust began, I introduced my roommate to the wonders of online shopping. I could tell by the gleam in her eye that I may have created a monster. I may have this as a mark against me in the Akashic records. God to Pam: "You got some 'splainin' to do."

This is the first day in about two and a half weeks that there's been breathing space at work. Everyone decided they had to have their research projects done before the Christmas break, stuff they'd been sitting on for months. You know, the usual.

But starting Friday, I'm on vacation until January 3. I am so so so looking forward to it. Inevitably, I'll have to do some unpacking and rearranging on the homefront, but I am also hoping to get a good chunk of writing done. I will not promise anything so rash as finishing the novel...but it could happen. If sloth does not overtake me.

Novel talk of the day: That is to say, talk about the novel, not necessarily anything novel.

I desperarly want to get Night Warrior gone so I can concentrate on other projects, like Charged with Folly. I almost rebelled today and decided I'd work on something else, but no. No, no, no. Must. Suck-it-up. And. Finish. That's what separates the women from the girls, right?

In today's scene there were all these people yapping and yapping and yapping. They've been having a yap party all week and won't shut up no matter how much I pound the ceiling with a broom or threaten to call the cops. All the chitter chatter is because they're trying to avoid the big fight scene—they can't fool me. But today I managed to shove them all the way up to the opening of it before I had to go back to work. They have no choice but to fight now. (Although the way they've been dragging their heels, they may take a notion to discuss the air speed of a swallow carrying a coconut instead.) (I will not allow this to happen, and no smart ass better ask whether it's a European or an African swallow, either. If anyone gets thrown into the Pit of Doom, I'm doing the throwing.) (I am the author, after all, and I'm in charge.) (You hear?)

Christmas miracle of the day:

My post-Soviet ex-apartment manager, Yuri, and I parted on good terms. Things got tense at El Palacio de las Cucaraches apartments, but I realized at a certain point that was largely the fault of the cheapskate slumlord who bought the place a few years back. Yuri was stuck in the middle, so I didn't take my wrath out on him. Besides, unless someone does me serious wrong and smiteth me, I usually try to behave in a civilized manner and not smiteth them. Not everyone in the building felt this way and Yuri was on the receiving end of a great deal of sh*tteth. So he appreciated my niceness, said he was sorry I was leaving, and asked me to write him a thank you note so he could show it to the owner and not get blamed for me moving out.

*shrug* Why not? In return, he said he'd "take care of my apartment and I shouldn't worry about a thing." Well, you know, being a cynic and all I didn't figure that would come to pass, so I've been waiting to see how much they were going to try to bill me for repairs. Imagine my surprise: Yuri turned out to be a man of his word. I got almost the entire security deposit back last night. That man is definitely getting a Christmas card.

Christmas torment of the day:

Oh the weather outside is frightful
But the fire is so delightful
And since we've no place to go
Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

(I believe in sharing.)

Irony of the day: I did two Santa letter memes and a Cthulhu letter meme, and I wound up on the bad list all three times.

Stupidest pun of the day: "Joaquin in a winter wonderland."

Writing blah-blah of the day: The ms. to Night Warrior is a wormy, bloated carcass, but I am making progress to the end. Sloooowly.

Lately I've been taking a page out of the book of kmkibble75. No, I haven't mutilated his ms. I've been outlining and moving around the puzzle pieces for the finale of Night Warrior. I've always known what happened at the end (you'll be glad to know), but it's starting to get complicated as the three timelines come together. In the big push towards the end I wanted to feel as if I really did have a handle on things.

What with the household move, I didn't work on the ms. for about a week and a half, and that's too much time to keep the feel of the narrative alive and coherent inside my mind. It's all there if I pay attention to it every day or almost every day. But if I get seriously sidetracked for a week or more, I have to circle back and reacquaint myself. It's not the plot, exactly, that fades, but the emotional resonance. The method acting; the grip of the characters' innards. It's hard enough to ride my own emotional life without mollycoddling theirs, as well, and my psyche seems ready to abandon them at a moment's notice.

Outlining ahead of time might have saved me outlining now, but as I've said before (ad nauseam, in fact), that process doesn't work for me. I think it's because the narrative tends to be an emotional ride for me rather than a left brain exercise. I have to feel my way along because I have to stay in touch with the feelings of my characters. But I do sometimes have to stop and make "spot outlines" to make sure I still know where I'm going. Because the plot has a tendency to shift on me sometimes as I go along, and when paying attention to the way everyone feels.

Meme of the day:

My Roman Name is Aemilia.
Take The Roman Name Generator today!
Created with Rum and Monkey's Name Generator Generator.

I've got a thing for Romans, but only since I started researching them for my characters, Annia Sabina and Caius Cassivellaunus. I never thought Romans were all that cool before. I suppose Steven Saylor went a long way towards coolizing them for me. I loves me some Gordianus the Finder.

Typo of note: Llamrei didn't shy from the grizzily burden

(You can tell I'm a native Westerner, huh?)

Socks of the day: White with little blue-grey flowers.

Wallace Stegner's Angle of Repose is staring at me from one of the To Be Donated bags of books and I'm feeling rather relaxed about life again after eight weeks of frenzied packing up. I am still surrounded by objects which must be sorted and put in their proper places, the garage is still crammed full of boxes which must be dealt with, and there is the distant thought of a yard sale which must be organized to dispose of excess household goods, but for the first time in a couple of months, I don't have to do anything.

I cleared out the last of my possessions from the apartment Friday, got my bedroom and sitting room squared away (the comfort zones), got my computer set up (anywhere I hang my computer is home), and decided that the rest can be taken care of gradually. (My DSL move got messed up and I won't have it until the end of the week, so they soothed my rumpled feelings by giving me free dial up in the interim. Alas, how quickly we get spoiled.) Yesterday, I allowed myself to be a bum. In sort of the ultimate tribute to bumitude I played Myst Masterpiece Edition for three hours last night. That's why I rarely play computer games: time just dissolves. And I always think there's something better to do with my time. But that was the point. I was purposely not doing something better with my time. And it is damned relaxing.

Today, I'm thinking of writing again. I'm actually itching to get back to Night Warrior and finishing that sucker off. Surely that's a good sign. I've been thinking of some short stories—contemporary fantasies—even though I suck mightily at short stories. They have an awful tendency to turn into novels on me. But who knows? I might actually bring something in under 10k.

I was sad to hear of SCIFICTION's demise. Seems like an unnecessary death to me, but what do I know? I'm just a fan.

And there's a very interesting discussion of how authors behave at conventions over at Café de madrobins. I'm absolutely glad I'm not required to promote anything if I attend any conventions next year. I can fake extrovertism with the best of them, but I'd much rather just meet people and talk. I've never been to a convention. Since Worldcon is in Anaheim in 2006, I thought it would be stupid to miss it. Though chat around LJ seems to indicate that WFC is the place to be. We'll see.

Right now I'm content to be hanging out and not having to pack anything.

Quote of the day:

"I awoke this morning and attacked my play with a vengeance. A stabbing need to create something out of this madness. To stand art up in the face of it. Maybe it's a redemptive act. Maybe it's this belief in the power of art to construct, to inform us of the nobility of our humanity, to bring us closer to our kinship with the gods, and, armed and armored thus, through will and daring, bring about an increase in our humanity."

—August Wilson

Moving news of the day: Yes, stacking all my possessions into a huge pile, dousing it with gasoline, and lighting it does sound like a good idea. Why do you ask?

One week from today.

Weirdness of the month: My neighbor likes to smoke on her balcony late at night. Sometimes when I'm trying to sleep, I smell it wafting through my bathroom window and clear on into the bedroom. Once when I had a cold it even woke me up coughing.

One night about a month ago, I sat on the edge of the bed reading just before turning out the light for the night when all of a sudden the room filled with the scent of sweet pipe tobacco—so strong it was as if someone sat next to me puffing away. At first I thought my neighbor had someone over who was a pipe smoker. But I peeked out the window and didn't see anyone. My next thought: "Who do I know who's dead who used to smoke a pipe?" My thought after that was, "Oh Christ! X's father just saw me naked!" Which made me somewhat queasy.

I live in a strange little universe.

It wasn't until later that I realized the smoke could have been cannabis, and perhaps came from one of the balconies above me (a fairly likely scenario). But why be logical when it's so much more fun to go to the extreme edge of imagination right off the bat?

Of course, if it was cannabis and it wasn't someone living nearby, I have plenty of dead friends who might have seen me naked that night. Some who have seen me in that state before, some not. Not sure how I feel about that.

But I will certainly be glad not to smell that woman's gacky cigarette smoke when I'm trying to sleep at night.

A good session with Caius and friends yesterday. Or rather, Caius and enemies, in this scene. I got over myself and worked through the fight scene that just didn't want to get written last week. But today was a slog. I had to prepare my characters for a big battle scene (and actually hoped to write the battle), but they resisted. It was like trying to push them up a steep hill and they'd gonr all slack-limbed on me—pure dead weight. I don't know why they are being so nasty, but nasty they are. Could it be because of prose like this:

Cliché du jour: At last I had proof of his villainy!

Oh. My. God. It's so horrifically bad I'm tempted to leave it in just for the shock and awe value. Then again, maybe not.

And I dreamed last night that every corner I turned in my apartment had another bookshelf I'd forgotten about and books that needed to be packed. And not your normal nicey-nicey books, but those big honking things with the crusty covers like you find in the stacks of research libraries. And the thing is, there just aren't that many corners in my apartment, so I don't know why I kept turning so many of them—but turn them I did.

My friend is coming over to help me pack on Sunday, despite her early fears that she might have to have unexpected major surgery that weekend. Another is coming over the following week, despite her fears of unexpected major surgery. I'm glad that the fear of back operations and kidney transplants didn't pan out. I am bribing them with food, so perhaps that improved their health.

I love my neighborhood, it's funky down-at-the-heels-but-struggling-to-hipness; it's a great mixture of classes and races and ethnicities. It's a real neighborhood, not a housing development grouped around shopping centers. And I will miss it.

So, less than three weeks until I move. Three weeks from yesterday. I've started grieving for my lost home, my lost neighborhood. I suppose I've been grieving all along, but I'm acknowledging it now, letting it in. I'm moving someplace I don't want to move, but there's no help for it. Since I haven't got any choice, I've tried to embrace the move and make it my own—and that's worked well for the most part. But I'm exhausted now, and that always brings my negative emotions closer to the surface.

Interesting sight of the day: On the drive home, I was brooding about all this—brooding is a talent of mine and I was exercising it with great vigor last night. I decided to do something really suicidal, so I turned off Venice Blvd. into a quiet residential section of Venice so I could cut through the back way to Lincoln Blvd. to visit an execrable fast food drive-through joint. Nothing like fast food to really crash my emotions and body.

But deep in the lushest part of this residential neighborhood, where ancient trees grow tall and shady, where the streets are broad and from the early Twentieth Century, as are the houses, I saw a group of kids playing. They ran across the street down the block from me, laughing, and followed by a three-legged golden retriever. He was smiling and laughing right along with them—you know that look dogs get on their faces when they're with people they love and all's right with the world? And he was vigorous and running on his three legs and his coat gleamed with good health and good care and he was completely in the moment and happy.

And I thought, Puppy's got it right.

I have a safe and dry place to sleep; I am in reasonably good health, well-fed and well-groomed; I have a place to go and things to do; I have people who love me and want to play with me. What's to be unhappy? So I only have three legs. It hasn't stopped me from running.

I'm in the midst of book packing frenzy and I'm still buying books. Not many, just a couple, but clearly, I have a mania. I ordered a book from Amazon because I realized in packing up that I had book 2 and 3 of the series but not 1--and I had to complete the set right now, didn't I?? I felt like going on to the next book in a series I've been reading in the hour before I collapse into bed at night, so I picked that up. I will probably be picking up the sequel to a book I finished last week. I wasn't sure I'd continue with the sequel because of problems with the first book—a slow and impressive build of world and character followed by a rushed and nearly passive action closer—but I find I can't stop thinking about a certain character and I thought I really should try to exorcise that private demon. And I ordered a book on labyrinths because I am researching them for a novel and because a friend and I are thinking of building one in her garden.

(Did you know most people have it wrong about labyrinths? They aren't the things where you wander around and get lost--those are mazes. Mazes are designed to fool and are left-brain puzzlers to be figured out; labyrinths have one way in and one way out and are a path meant to be walked for contemplation. The Minotaur was not actually in a labyrinth but in a maze. Labyrinths are places where you walk a sacred path to get into a meditative state--like they have at Chartres or Grace Cathedral in San Francisco or the Nazca lines or Celtic burials or . . . well, there are a bunch of them around the world, some ranging back millennia to pagan times. Christian and pagan, pretty much every religion or way of knowing has some form of the labyrinth. I will not be using labyrinths in the maze sense in my novel, but in the meditative sense.)

(But I digress.)

And speaking of rushed and passive action sequences...that next book in the series I've been reading had a similar problem in the opening pages. I couldn't help wondering if these sequences in the ending of one book and the beginning of another weren't a result of being forced to edit down a ms. from a larger size to one more acceptable to the present publishing climate? I suppose it could just be writers' fatigue and rushing to get things over with, but I've noticed that rushed, passive action thing happening in quite a few books lately. I can't decide if it's a symptom of the publishing environment or if I'm just noticing that sort of thing more these days. What really cheeses me off is that I think in both cases it would have been so easy to fix--just make the verbs more active, make the POV slightly more immersive. In the casing of the ending sequence it felt rather like coitus interruptus after that long, careful build. In the case of the opener, it just felt sloppy and tired.

You can't have everything, I guess.

And about all I'm doing these days is hunkering down to write and hunkering down to pack. I'll try to sneak in some crits when I can, but I have to focus my priorities on finishing Night Warrior and in getting moved.

Oh, and Night Warrior is probably going to be called Midnight Ragas in the second draft, for reasons which will become apparent...in the second draft. (It will take some twiddling which I don't have time for right now. Must. Finish.) For right now, it's staying Night Warrior.

And I can't help wondering if NW is going to have a rushed and passive action sequence in order to Get. This. F-er. Done. *sigh*