written word – Page 12

RightWellThen.

Apparently this “up at six, out of the house by seven, back around seven” thing is putting a bit of a crimp in my usual writing schedule. I am not very deeply surprised.

The work is work I am good at, and all the people there are quite pleasant. Also I’ve decided to see how long it takes me to knit a hat when I’m only knitting in transit to work or over lunch. It’s going pretty well.

The cats are yarbling at each other; there are apparently highly sensitive negotiations in progress, concerning such topics as who gets to lick whose head and which hollow in the cat-tree is Best Hollow. (Based on the available evidence, I would say Best Hollow is the one that already has a cat in it. But I may be missing some subtle nuances, here.)

Oh, hey, a reminder – submissions to Women Destroying Fantasy open up tomorrow, and Cat Rambo‘s posted some notes on what she’s looking for as editor. Very much looking forward to that issue coming out.

Words and days

So, the Rejectionist (Sarah McCarry’s blog, which I know of and have dipped into but have not settled down and regularly followed[1]) is currently working on an interview project; she’s looking to post interviews with writers who manage depression and mental illness.

Looking at the rest of what she’s written, I think it will be an interesting and informative series to follow.

(There is something I have been trying to articulate about depression, even if it isn’t particularly new or insightful, but it hasn’t gelled for a bit. Will try and get it out this month.)
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[1] Can I have more time, please? Like… four hours a day more time. Four hours a day where I could spend three on nothing but reading, and one on cleaning. Just a year of twenty-eight hour days.

I’m not sure if this is optimism or cynically informed pessimism. But it’s working!

So I am trying to tidy something up and get it ready to send off. And I am actually not getting this done, because the idea of revising is unnerving me greatly, to put it mildly. And as I often do in such circumstances, I turn to the light of my life, for his words of wisdom.

“What are you worried about?” he said.

“What if I make it worse and can’t tell?”

“Well,” he said in a cheer-up kind of voice, “it will probably get rejected by statistically the same number of people.”

(I confess there was something of a stunned pause on my part, here.)

“…boy,” I said in a slightly strangled voice, “are you lucky you took the knives and forks away.”

Still, you know. He’s… right, I guess? I mean, if I make it better, it will probably get rejected by fewer people. If I make it worse, it likely won’t actually get rejected by more.

I am fairly sure that I am missing something, but since I am more looking to get unstuck than I am looking for statistical analysis[1], at least I am achieving my primary goal. Cheers!
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[1] Which is fascinating, but often leaves me with that faintly bubbly feeling that I get when I have managed to (briefly) internalize the Monty Haul problem and the truth of the solution.

Breaking it down. (for SCIENCE!)

Missed this when it came out a year and a half ago – a new superglue that bonds at the molecular level, prompted by analysis of flesh-eating bacteria.

It contrasts particularly with some of the chemical screening assessments I’ve been looking at lately. The most upsetting of those cited an experiment testing a chemical compound’s toxicity, in which one of the dogs being steadily poisoned lasted for for nine hundred and ninety days before dying.

Please accept my assertion that those were not a healthy, pain-free nine hundred and ninety days, and let us move on. (If possessed of pets, you may wish to have a small time-out in which to cuddle one or pet one of them for comfort. I am doing this thing. I am also rambling all over the place.)

Continue reading “Breaking it down. (for SCIENCE!)”

Shock and silence.

Well, I submitted a story.

I… well, let’s be generous and say I haven’t done this much. I actually think I’ve submitted one story in the last two years, and not for years-that-get-into-double-digits before that and… well, let’s say I hold no malice whatsoever for the rejection and move along.

On a semi-related tangent: I keep using the phrase “mule puke” to refer to bad writing, as long as it’s my bad writing. “Oh god, I thought it was mule puke.” “It’s okay if this is mule puke, just keep typing. I can edit later.” “Why do I bother if it’s all mule puke?” This amuses me, a little, since I know exactly where I picked up the phrase–it’s from Dean Koontz’s Lightning.

This is a little funny, because… Seriously, I read that book about twenty years ago, it has twisty plots and dramatic death scenes and time-travelling Nazis, for crying out loud, and what do I remember? The author finding that her husband has gone out after reading her first novel and being convinced that it’s mule puke and he’s gone out to get enough liquid courage to tell her.

(He actually went out to buy her a (Lalique?) crystal bowl with leaping frogs for handles, which he was certain they could afford because her book was awesome and would sell millions. “Would you for god’s sake stop being the shattered young artiste and open your present?” He was right.)

Like pulling teeth. With marshmallow pliers.

I have been picking away at a story. It is currently at four thousand words and change.

I would guess about thirty-eight hundred of them need to be rewritten, and of those, right now, I feel like it would be optimistic to say that only two thousand need to be burnt outright. Burnt. And there’s a subplot or merging course of events or what-have-you that I know how I want to involve but haven’t actually done anything with, and a creeping embarrassment at the prose and the setup, and…

I am torn right now between calling it off, hammering out a final scene so that there’s something to tear apart later, or sketching out a point form list of what I need to have happen next. (I am bravely putting off sinking into a funk of “oh my god I can’t do this”, since it always knocks my schedule for a loop, really.)

Have you been here? What do you do?

Slightly surprised.

I could have sworn I’d written something here in the last month. Looking over where I’ve actually been typing, though, I can see how I didn’t manage that.

I’ve been chipping away at a couple of stories–one handwritten, one typed up, and it’s interesting to see how the pace is slightly different. I’ve also been working on a story for a game–the Story Nexus engine’s open to the public, now, and it’s got the potential to be a huge timesink. (You can check it out online over here.) And there were some repairs at home, so there’s some work putting everything back into place.

And I’m job-hunting, too, since my contract was not renewed. That last is probably the most draining of everything, to be honest.

Quick thoughts.

Two things have been rattling around my head today:

A man said to the universe: ‘Sir, I exist!’
‘However,’ replied the universe, ‘That fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.’
— Stephen Crane

and

“It has been said that writing comes more easily if you have something to say.”
— Sholem Asch

I thought I had something to say. I’m just having a little trouble placing it, right now.

Oddly content

If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man’s life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Came up, perhaps unsurprisingly, in the context of Game of Thrones. Martin’s ability to make characters that do frankly reprehensible things into people you actually start to like is unlike pretty much anything I’ve ever seen (although, you know, suggestions for similar writers to check out is welcome).

It actually got to the point where I was deeply uncomfortable with someone’s pointing out exactly how objectionable the behaviour of one of my favourite characters was. That’s fairly unusual for me, although probably it has to do with the fact that people who commit murders aren’t usually portrayed as sympathetic characters. It’s not as if I am in a position to stand back and say “well, usually I have no problem with the criticism of characters I like which do bad things, but something about the way GRRM writes them makes it different.”

(Note that I said “people who commit murders” instead of “murderers”. On the one hand, this illustrates how much focus gets put on other aspects of the character. On the other, I picked those words, and they are words that minimize the murders in question.)

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I’m putting off being annoyed at something. I mean, possibly I won’t have reason to be annoyed, but I might, and the possibility is sort of trying to squinch up my spine. It’s annoying, and between watching The Newsroom and pausing it to discuss Game of Thrones and getting the occasional news squib from the real world (mostly cheerful) I think I am mostly overcoming it. Which is nice.