the Meaning of the Day

Valentine's day is all about romance. And maybe that's why I've never really been that into it as a holiday.

Flowers. Chocolate. A fancy dinner. A night of dancing, a tub full of hot water and bubbles with candles all around, a bed strewn with rose petals. Maybe a new necklace, or a ring. The grand gesture, the ROMANCE.

Except that love isn't about the grand gesture, it's a hand brushing your shoulder as he walks by your chair, it's a cup of coffee you bring him in the morning, it's him scraping your windshield before he leaves for work so you won't have to do it in an hour. It's a glass of orange juice and some medicine delivered to your night table when you're sick. It's a thousand tiny gestures that add up, to let you know you're loved and appreciated every day of the year.

And I'm not saying that flowers and chocolate are meaningless, it's just that without those small gestures that happen all the time, well...a bouquet and a card aren't going to make up for anything.

I'm going to spend my Valentine's Day writing and waiting tables. The guy and I are going to have Chinese when I get off work. Might not sound like anything special, but it's my kinda Valentine's Day...

A happy one to you all. :)

Piracy...the issue that will not die...

Warning: This post is LONG

Every once in a while, the huge, ugly, flatulent elephant-in-the-room of ebook piracy raises its trunk and trumpets, splitting eardrums far and wide, and showering those unfortunate enough to be standing too close in a nearly invisible mist of elephant snot (eww!). And for the last week, there's been a lot of discussion going on about piracy and its effect on readers and writers--not the least of which is Astatalk's startling recent announcement, presumably in reaction to a bombardment of infringement complaints to their ISP, that fiction uploads are now banned from their site. Followed almost immediately by their claims that shutting down pirate sites like Astatalk will do nothing but hurt authors' sales... Hmmm...

This post, by author Tiffany Clare, raised some hackles, that's for sure. Dear Author linked to it, as well as to another, more prosaic post on book piracy by Tobias Buckell, and the umbrage in the comment thread flew fast and thick. A day later, Azteclady put up her own post on piracy--one that expresses for the most part how I feel about things, which is somewhere in between Tiffany Clare's understandably extreme views on the problem, and Tobias Buckell's more moderate, "meh, whatever" stance.

While I'm no longer mired in the futile outrage that plagues most new authors like Ms. Clare (and myself, not so long ago), I don't tend to agree with Buckell that piracy of books is an essentially effect-neutral issue. Though I'm intelligent enough to concede that not every illegal download = a sale lost, and therefore $2 not in my pocket that should be in there, I DO NOT buy into his assertion that all illegal downloaders fall into three basic categories: 1) content collectors who will never read your book, but get a kick out of hoarding tens of thousands of books they have no interest in reading just to say they have them, 2) paying-super-fans-in-the-making, who'll illegally download to sample your work, and who, if they like it, will go on to legally purchase your next book, and your next, and your next, and 3) people in less privileged parts of the world, who through economic disparity between our world and theirs, simply CANNOT legally acquire a book that essentially costs them a week's pay.

In the first case, you haven't lost a sale, because the downloader would never have purchased your book in the first place--hell, he's not even going to read it. In the second, you stand to make MORE sales than you would have otherwise, once those downloaders sample your work for free and discover you're worth their dime. In the third, not only aren't you losing a sale, but the very act of piracy is portrayed as encouraging literacy and is seen as a charitable act toward the less fortunate (and I have to say, this is a category of illegal downloaders I find it very hard to resent).

But I think there are other categories of illegal downloaders:

The Anti-Copyright Freedom Fighter: I've wrangled with this type before. They download illegally, they read what they download, and they view having to pay for it as an injustice of the first order. They see no value in the "gate-keeping" service publishers provide (having never been paid to read slush, one would presume), nor any value in paid-for editing, marketing and distribution. They believe a world without copyright will be a wondrous Utopia filled with beautiful stories that are free for everyone to enjoy--stories that were somehow transformed from raw manuscripts into shining examples of quality fiction through the dogged, though unpaid, labor of enthusiasts who do their part out of the sheer joy of the work.

The problem is, editing, marketing, and distribution ARE work, and often less than joyful. Ask any editor. Hell, ask any self-published author. And no one likes to work for nothing, even when they enjoy what they do. Likewise, writing itself is work, and it's work that for most doesn't even amount to minimum wage.

I'm a single mom. I've been solely financially responsible for myself and my three kids for more than two years. I work 20-30 hours per week waiting tables, and have a half-duplex in BC I rent out for less than market value because the tenant is so reliable. My kids and I live comfortably, though very modestly (IMO, the best way to raise a child is poor, hungry and desperate, lol). The royalties from my four published books represent, on average, a mere 10-15% of my monthly income. I earn five times as much waiting tables in a 20 hour work week as my four books bring me in the same amount of time.

Very few authors are looking to get rich from their writing. Even if it's a dream (OMG, I could quit my job, hire a maid, and get to have an actual, you know...life and stuff, woot!), most of us have at least one toe of one foot planted in the soil of reality, and understand the unlikelihood of us earning a cushy living, let alone millions, from writing fiction.

But here's the thing: We still want to get paid for our work.

First, writing costs money. You need a computer (the days of tapping away on a second-hand Smith-Corona are long gone). You (arguably) need a website, and that requires hosting, which costs. You need an internet connection. Even if you're self-publishing, you'd be advised to have a professional editor look over your manuscript...unless you're perfect, like me, and your words are pure gold the moment they materialize on the screen, heh.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, writing costs time. Time with your butt in chair, hands on keyboard. Time I could be putting toward any number of other things--cleaning my bathroom, playing cards with my kids, cutting the grass, or earning $20-30/hour at my day job. Time I could be spending in the pursuit of leisure activities, like watching movies, reading other people's books, mooching dinner and beers off my parents, going out to play pool, or just sitting on my ass, staring into the middle distance and thinking back on the good old days before I had kids and a house and bills to pay, that long-ago time when being bored was a BAD thing, rather than a rare and beautiful occasion when, holy shit, there's nothing that requires my immediate attention for the next ten minutes.

I'm a creative person at heart. I will always make up stories. I started in my early teens, in the twenty minutes every night before I fell asleep--imagining characters of my own creation acting out scenes behind my closed eyelids. Daydreaming. But if it hadn't been for the possibility of eventual publication (and money), I might never, at age 15, have started writing those stories down. And once I got married and had kids, and a house to look after, and a job, and bills to pay...well, everyone has to prioritize, right? We have to decide what's most important to us, and what's least, and what falls in between. And if there'd been no potential to ever earn anything from my writing, well, writing would have been at the very, very, very bottom of my list of priorities. I'd have gone back to daydreaming, enacting my stories in my own head, and forgoing the time and effort involved in putting them on paper.

And my responsibilities and burdens have only increased since I split with my ex-husband. It's hard to find the time and energy to even daydream, let alone write. Today, the mere potential of eventual earnings wouldn't be enough to convince me to invest any time in it. If I wasn't already earning money from my writing, if it hadn't already been demonstrated that I can write a publishable novel and sell it to a publisher and make some dough, well...

Writing is something I will always enjoy doing. But it's something I can and do spend time on only because I can earn money from it. And for my publisher, publishing my books is something they do because they can earn money from it. My editor picks through manuscripts until they're as close to perfect as she can get them, because she can earn money from it. Everyone involved in the process is motivated by money to some degree or another, no matter how much they enjoy what they do.

The Anti-Copyright Freedom Fighter will insist that in the brave new world of no intellectual property rights, there will still be tons of great stories out there, even if no one makes any money on them. But none of those stories would be mine, because I'd rather be a financially comfortable full-time waitress than a starving part-time waitress/writer. Most authors are regular people with regular jobs and bills to pay and a few little people who look like them depending on their income for things like diapers and school supplies and braces. And yeah, maybe some would keep writing if there was no earning potential in it--but they'd write less, because they'd have less time to write. And some of those would write one or two books for the personal validation and feedback they'd get out of doing it, and then get distracted by all the other things they could be and should be investing their time in, rather than this silly writing business that doesn't and won't ever earn them anything but a feeling of accomplishment and a pat on the back.

The Anti-Copyright Freedom Fighter will insist that in this brave new Utopia, there would be other ways authors could monetize their work--like merchandising or movie rights. But those alternate revenue steams are also dependent on copyright. Without copyright, anyone could profit off exploiting my story or characters in any way they wanted, and wouldn't have to pay me one dime. The Anti-Copyright Freedom Fighter will insist that a "tip jar" on an author's website would bring in plenty of money, the way an open guitar case attracts coins for a busker from passersby. But there's something very different about standing and enjoying a few songs on a street corner, and then walking away while the musician watches without throwing in a coin, and downloading a book for free. An author can't SEE you reading and enjoying his book. An author can't SEE you not throwing in those few quarters. And frankly, for many people, as long as no one SEES them behaving like a turd-ass, they feel perfectly fine in doing so. There are lots of people who would "tip" an author whose work they'd enjoyed. But there are also lots and lots and lots of people who wouldn't.

The Anti-Copyright Freedom Fighter is loathe to acknowledge the role profit plays in any creative endeavor, from the invention of the light bulb, to the creation of software programs like Windows, to writing fiction. The Anti-Copyright Freedom Fighter believes rightly that necessity is the mother of invention, but he refuses to acknowledge that potential wealth is its semen-providing father. The Anti-Copyright Freedom Fighter believes that fame and social status are enough to keep creative types creating and putting their work out there--and for some that may be true. There's a reason why, when my guy talks about me to his friends, he tells them I'm an author or a writer or a novelist, rather than a waitress, even though I spend way more time and earn way more money serving food than I do writing books. It's social cred, for sure. But social cred doesn't pay your phone bill, does it?

There's nothing that will convince The Anti-Copyright Freedom Fighter that his vision of a copyright-free paradise is misguided in any way. Even if his wish came true--copyright was abolished--and all that resulted was one giant, hideous pile of slush rather than sunshine, lollipops and high-quality, cost-free fiction galore, he'd insist that unforeseen forces had interfered with what would otherwise have been a golden age of fiction. So debating copyright with him is about as amusing as talking socio-economics with a gang of upper-middle-class born, teenage, quasi-communist, wannabe-street-kid, preach-socialism-from-the-cradle-of-privilege activists. Talking to people who base their philosophy on a world they wished existed but never can, rather than a better permutation of the world that is, well, it's essentially like talking to a brick wall.

So since there's nothing that will convince The Anti-Copyright Freedom Fighter to change his ways, we'll move onto the next category of illegal downloaders I've encountered.

The Super-Fan Who Still Won't Pay: She loves your books. She gushes about them to all who'll listen. She read your first and second titles and was so impressed, she's been lauding you all over the forum. Then she posts her request: "Hey guys! I adore this author! You should read her, she's fantastic! But I can't find her third book on the torrent site where I got her first two--anyone here have it to upload?"

This downloader stumbled on a pirate site one day, saw craploads of books she wanted to read, all available for nothing, and never looked back. Her very first post went along the lines of, "OMG, you have Nora Roberts' latest??!! So cool! I've been wanting that one for months! And to think I used to actually PAY for her books! I'm so grateful to have found you guys!"

The community felt warm and welcoming. And she got some serious warm fuzzies from uploading books from her own computer, and "sharing" all her favorite reads with her new friends. She believes them when they tell her it isn't stealing. And they're right--it isn't stealing.

But it isn't sharing, either. Sharing requires that you give up something in order to give something to someone else. When you share a cookie with someone, you no longer get to eat the whole cookie, do you? When you share a physical book, you have to hand it over to the other person and trust that they'll give it back when they're done. What she's doing isn't sharing--it's copying and distributing. Illegally. She doesn't have to give up one damn thing in order to get the good feeling of providing something of value to others. She didn't put in any of the work needed to create the book (hell, she might not have even paid for it), she doesn't own the rights to distribute the work, but she'll happily give it away to 4000 of her closest buddies, soak up their praise and gratitude, and in doing so, cut the content producer right out of the equation. She's trampled on the authors' right to decide where and how to make their books available to readers. She's taken something of value that someone else owns, given it away for nothing, and gets a shit-ton of backslapping in return. She's become the hero, and the author is forgotten. And no matter how much she adores your writing, she won't pay you one thin dime for it.

She understands that it's illegal to do what she's doing. She may even understand that it hurts authors--emotionally if not fiscally. But she doesn't care, as long as she gets what she wants...for free.

But there may be a way to reach some of these downloaders. A year or more ago, I stumbled into a blog discussion on the "feminization" of science fiction. The guy who wrote the OP insisted it was part of a feminist political agenda to girly-up everything that used to be just for the boys. A commenter--one known for his penchant for wearing only designer clothes, so presumably not on his last nickel--chimed in to say the latest Star Trek was an awesome movie. He'd ripped it off the net and watched it three times. Shit, why don't they make more movies like THAT? To which I replied, "Well, boys, you have your answer right there. Young men like those movies, but young men don't like to, you know, actually pay to watch them. They rip stuff off the net instead. So movie studios make sure that all their films will appeal to the ladies in some way or another--because women drag their boyfriends to the damn theater, and that's the only way studios have a hope in hell of earning back their $300 million in production costs. Want more movies made just for you? PAY for the movies you want to watch."

Producers get paid to produce. Consumers pay to consume. That's the way commerce works--even when that commerce involves creative content. And if readers want books they like--especially ones that are not quite mainstream--they need to pay for them if they want more of that sweet, sweet content.

Authors' careers are made by the sales they make, and they're likewise broken by the sales they DON'T make. Sometimes the difference between a second contract and the effective end of a career is as little as a few thousand copies. And no amount of pointing to a pirate site and saying, "I have a readership in the tens of thousands who adore my books--look at them discussing me all over the forum and singing my praises!" will do an author any good. Because just as there's no way to prove that those readers AREN'T members of Buckell's second category of downloaders--those paying-super-fans-in-the-making--there's no way to prove to your publisher that any of them ARE. All the publisher sees is a reader base that would rather illegally download your book than pay for it.

Which brings me to the downloaders I feel can be turned around, if only everyone can just stay calm, state their case, and try not to sling mud or be judgmental.

The I Didn't Realize: Believe it or not, there are people out there who simply have no idea how publishing even works, who have no notion of how squeaky the profit margins in the industry are. Who just don't realize that if you're not Stephen King of Nora Roberts or JK Rowling, chances are you don't earn--and might never earn--a comfortable living from your books. I encounter these people all the time--customers and coworkers and acquaintances who express astonishment that, "What the heck? You have four books published? What are you doing still slinging hash?"

Movies like "Stranger than Fiction" portray authors as some mythical upper/outer economic class of people who are so financially valuable to publishers that they have "handlers" and "assistants" who are paid to babysit them while they work. People envision things like book tours, which are pretty much non-existent unless you're one of Oprah's darlings. The common assumption is that books are big money, when in reality, 80% of traditionally published books already LOSE money for the publisher, and are subsidized by the profits earned through the big name workhorses in the stable. The prevailing wisdom is that artists often starve, even after they've been discovered, but writers stop starving the moment they get a contract.

The general sentiment is that publishers have bottomless pockets, and their wallets can take any number of hits and none of it will ever trickle down to the lowest person on the profit totem pole--the newb or midlist author. But a little time on Holly Lisle's website certainly cured me of any ideas of getting filthy rich off my books. She's a successful, midlist author who had 14 books in print and earning steadily for her before she felt it was safe to quit her day job. And the digital publishing industry is so unstable--between fly-by-night publishers, piracy, and the big industry boys stirring up the waters and fucking with everything--that I don't know if I'd ever feel safe to quit mine.

And when you consider that profits from authors like Nora Roberts are what allow big publishers to take chances on untried newbs, and keep taking chances on them even after their first attempts didn't do as well as projected...well, all of a sudden piracy doesn't feel so harmless, even if you're only illegally downloading one of LaNora's books, does it?

The I Didn't Realize has no idea that most authors have to forcibly wedge time to write in between the job that gives them a stable income, household chores, kids and a million other things their mother-in-law thinks would be a better use of their time. Like dusting the tops of doors and making the beds and stuff. And because the I Didn't Realize isn't actually stealing, and because the I Didn't Realize doesn't realize how tenuous an author's career can be, it's hard to see that illegally downloading does any real damage.

Illegal downloading is not the same as theft. It's less obviously harmful, but more insidious in its potential to do lasting damage, because it ISN'T theft. It's like jumping the turnstile and riding the subway for free. People can justify it so easily because the subway is going that way anyway, and as long as they're not taking a seat away from a paying rider, what's the problem? Except that on the digital subway, there's an unlimited number of seats, so no matter how many people ride for free they're never taking a seat from someone who's paid their fare. Until, of course, there are no seats at all, because hardly anyone's been paying for the ride, and the transit authority can no longer justify the conductor's salary or the price of fuel.

This is the very real fear authors have regarding piracy. Because the more people do it, and justify it, the easier it is for others to rationalize joining in. Especially when so many people out there are I Didn't Realizes.

It's the I Didn't Realizes who need to be educated and encouraged to support their favorite authors, to vote with their wallets, to reward the people who produce the books they love so writers can keep writing them, and publishers will keep publishing them. Because that's what we all want, isn't it? For the authors we love to keep giving us great books to read. And for me as a reader, my part in that equation is to purchase those books as much as I can, or get them from a library that purchased them, or buy a used copy that will fall apart eventually and have to be--you guessed it--purchased again at some point if it's to be read again.

As I've said elsewhere, creative work is not the same as "regular" work, even when that regular work requires skill and training. Writing fiction, or designing buildings, furniture or clothes, or painting, or sculpting, or writing/performing songs is not the same as being a pilot, or a receptionist, or a waitress, or a nurse, or a mechanic, or a drywaller, or a crane operator, or an accountant, or the guy who screws caps on tubes of toothpaste in a factory. Creative work has--or should have--a different perceived value than other kinds of labor, both to the creator and to the consumer. Because any mechanic can adjust your timing chain, but nobody but me can write MY books. Every book, every song, every painting, every sculpture ever produced is something unique that was generated essentially out of nothing, through the determination, imagination, and craft of the people involved. If I quit my day job, they'd just hire another waitress. Ribs and drinks would be delivered to customers, dirty dishes would get cleared away. But if I don't write my books, no one else will ever write them, because no one else can. They just won't exist, because they're my creations.

Because of this, the 10-15% of my income that I earn through writing means much more to me than the other 85-90% I get from other sources. That 10-15% is HUGE, because I earned it producing something no one else in the world could ever, or will ever, produce--books that came out of my imagination, books where every single sentence was of my creation. And this is why I feel it's so difficult for most authors to do as Buckell advises and simply divorce emotion from a cold, logical analysis of the economic effects of piracy. Because though there's no reliable way to quantify what pirating may or may not cost me, there's no escaping the feeling that it costs me something, even if that something is essentially unknowable. Even if that something is only control over how and where and for how much my work is distributed. Even if that something is just the right to say, "My book is worth $4, and if you want to read it you should pay that, or get it from the library, or get it second hand so that I know someone, at some point, paid for that copy of it."

People who pirate my books are in essence demonstrating to me that my work is worth nothing to them, even when they enjoy reading it, even when they rave about it. They're telling me that I should not have a say in how my work is distributed. Their constant congratulating of each other is like telling me that their role--as uploaders of my books--is as worthy of recognition among their peers as, or more worthy than, my role as the person who actually wrote them.

And that...well, it's discouraging. And it's also discouraging to realize that the number of downloads of one of my books from a single pirate site is often greater than the number of copies of ALL my books that have ever been legally purchased.

I have excerpts posted on my website to give readers a taste of my style, and there are reviews of my books that are easily found around the internet. Anyone who wants to sample my writing can do so legally, and if they decide that the size and quality of that sample isn't enough to justify them risking the price of a Starbucks latte on the actual book...well, I suppose that's fair enough. I've heard lots of downloaders insist what Buckell insists--that most of them are paying-super-fans-in-the-making--but I've seen plenty of evidence that even people who've read and adored my books, hell, who are panting for them, are often unwilling to pay for the next one if they can get it for free.

I've heard the DRM argument, and the geographical restrictions argument, and the price-point argument--all of which are valid, but none of which can be applied to my publisher's books, which are DRM-free from their own storefront, available to purchasers worldwide, downloadable infinitely and in multiple formats for one price, and priced more than reasonably. Those are some of the reasons I chose the publisher I did--I wanted to make it as easy and inexpensive as possible for people to purchase and enjoy my books. And yet people still pirate them. Lots of people. Not just citizens of Third World countries who couldn't otherwise afford them, but people from North America and Europe who easily can. Not just people who tried me out and said, "meh," but people who think I'm the cat's pajamas.

So I don't know what's to be done to fix the problem. I just know that for an author, it's very, very hard not to take it personally. And the only tactic I think will have any bearing on anyone is to calmly and clearly state our positions, as authors who want more time to devote to writing, not less, and more opportunities to convince publishers to take on our work and get it out there, not fewer.

Anyway, that's my take on the subject. :)

Life's been pretty sweet

Okay, it hasn't been all sweet, by any stretch of the imagination. But the good has mostly outweighed the bad of late. It has been really busy, though, which is no excuse for not blogging, but it's all I've got, so there you go.

My personal life has been kind of all over the place. The divorce drama has not died...it's merely mutated into something less costly in the financial sense, but more frustrating and disheartening than ever. This latest to-do (and no, I'm not going to elaborate in public, but it's probably even worse than what your imagination can conjure) has made me wonder, yet again, how some people can be terrified of marriage because it's a "serious commitment", but will often think nothing of having a child with that person they're too chicken to marry. You want to be stuck dealing with someone for the rest of your life, no matter how much you'd like to never see or think of him again? Have a dang child with him. Marriage is easy to get out of--especially these days. Kids are forever. Oy.

My job is going well. I like almost all the people there, and there's so little of the bullshit that went on at my previous job. It's fewer hours than the breakfast place, and I therefore have less money piling up under the mattress, but I still have plenty to get by, and enough to even exercise a little largess here and there. Likewise, the kids are all right. Steady as we go, onwards and upwards, and all that.

My royalty checks are still nice and big(gish), though they'd be bigger if I had more books out, for sure. Working on that. :)

I've been seeing someone fairly steadily since mid-November. It's been bumpy, but somehow we've managed to hang in there this long. He's...well, he's funny and brilliant and kind and honest and sweet. And a little weird--perhaps just weird enough to appreciate my own particular weirdness. And he's pushing me to write, and I think I need that kind of kick in the pants to launch myself full-on back into the habit at this point. So if I have a new book contract in the next month or so, you'll all know who to thank.

I'm still largely ignoring housework, and most of the writing I've been doing has been in emails to friends rather than fiction, or comments on blogs. I've been trying to stir up enough interest to join in on some discussions going on in the online romance community, but lately there hasn't been much posted around the neighborhood that arouses my passions, so to speak. Anybody feel like posting something outrageous enough that I can't resist jumping in, please do so. I'd appreciate it. :)

So there's the update. Still alive, cautiously optimistic about my life, but still dealing with stuff I'd rather wash my hands of. Gonna try to blog more, if I can think of anything to say that won't bore you all to tears, lol.

Hugs.

busy busy busy

So I was out all morning yesterday, but my amazing 15-y/o daughter fielded the delivery confirmation call from Leon's, gave the guy directions to the house, reviewed the invoice, and had her older brother sign for the bunk beds that arrived while I wasn't here. (Yet somehow she can't manage to throw her granola bar wrappers in the trash, even when the trash can is 4 inches from the table where she's left the pile of wrappers. Hmmm.....)

So now I will spend my day moving furniture, lugging the rest of the scrap from the wet bar out onto the back patio (to be carted away in the spring when the condo board brings back the "big bin"), and putting the boys' bed together. And working at 5, as usual.

Also spent my morning sorting out my money, trying to figure out how to juggle bills and stuff from my 4 bank accounts at 3 different banks (necessary, between rental income, debt payment and my US income, but annoying and a little confusing to keep track of, all the same).

My daughter's computer finally died the other day, so now I not only need a new one for my oldest (his planned x-mas gift, to replace the one he's outgrown), I need to look into a laptop for her if I ever want to get 5 minutes on my own computer again. So Christmas will be a little more pricey than I'd thought--but still essentially workable.

My sofa looks awesome, and I managed to fit it into the available space without having to rearrange everything in the room, which is cool. And it had a little bit of damage on the upholstery, so I called and they gave me a 15% discount on it--preferable to having another one delivered, and then having my kids end up doing the same amount of damage in the space of a week, no? Nicest thing about it is the lack of squabbling over couch space, though I'm sure they'll find something else to pick at each other about soon enough, lol.

Now that the wet bar is out of the way, the amount of space downstairs is HUGE. At least compared to what it was. The old sofa should fit there perfectly, and I'm planning a built-in computer desk that will serve all the kids. It should be a nice place for them to hang out when it's done (drywalled and painted)--less like a squat in a condemned building and more like an actual, you know, room. And finishing it will up the value of my sister's place, which will make me feel better about her giving me a break on the rent.

I'm getting lots of shifts at work--more than I really want or need--but at the same time, I do need to get a pot together for Christmas, so I'm letting that slide a bit. It's going to be busy over the next few weeks, but I'll manage. :)

too much to do...

It's been a while since I blogged, and I thought I better let you all know I'm still alive.

So here's the update: still alive. Might want to ask me again in ten minutes, just to make sure.

I changed jobs not too long ago--just after returning from what I hope is my last trip back to the soggy reaches of North Vancouver Island for a while--trading in my gig at the 24-hour egg and pancake house for a less hour-intensive job at a rib joint. I like it much better--I still work mostly evenings, and it's still 5 days a week, but the shifts are shorter and the politics are a bit less obtrusive and frustrating. The money's not quite as good, but it's still plenty, and a fair trade-off for having an average of 3 hours more every day to get other shit done.

I've been dating a fair bit, too. It's been hit or miss for a while now, though at the moment things seem to be more hit than miss. Fingers crossed and all that.

I've been undoing some of the renovations done by the guy who lived here before my sister bought the place. The guy didn't actually finish anything, his taste is abysmal (think appalling 1980s nouveau-riche), and his workmanship shoddy at best yet built to last--half of it's still bare plywood, none of the joints meet properly, nothing's level or square, but the 9000 nails he used has made demolition positively grueling. Nothing like getting it all wrong AND making it next to impossible to change, right? It's been fun...NOT.

I went out furniture shopping a couple weeks ago, and bought myself a sectional sofa and some bunk beds for my boys. The sofa arrives tomorrow, and I have to spend today before work figuring out how the hell it's going to fit in my tiny living room, heh. Wish me luck--full-sized sectional in a condo-sized living room? Oy.

My 40th birthday came and went without any huge, hideous emotional crisis. Sure, it ain't great to be officially middle-aged, but it's not so bad when you neither look nor feel it.

I've been kicking around the idea of really resuming the writing thing in the New Year. Looking at it like a job, rather than an avenue for self-expression and a little extra income. I should really be doing that right now, but there's too much to do with the holidays coming, and all the upheaval of rearranging my house. We'll see.

But that's my life as of Nov. 29, 2010. Pretty boring, really. Aren't you glad I filled you in?

Coming out...

It's National Coming Out Day in the US (Turkey Day for us Canucks), and I thought I'd post something more relevant than "Happy Thankgiving!"

For me, coming out as a bisexual was kind of easy. My parents have always been supportive and accepting (even of the stupid things I do), my sisters, kids and extended family are pretty liberal-minded, and frankly, half the strangers I encounter would probably suspect I dig women, anyway (the short hair and comfortable shoes give me away, lol). There was no drama in me going from closeted admirer of girls to open admirer of girls, no cutting me from any wills, no shunning or freak-outs (at least not where I could see them), and if there was any Othering or bigotry going on in regard to my being attracted to both men and women, well, most if it hasn't been directed at me so much as the concept of bisexuality, and what I've encountered has come from within the GLBT community at least as frequently as from the wider population.

Coming out was easy-peasy, all things considered. Gotta love Canada and our progressive ways of thinking.

But I've recently had kind of a light-bulb moment in regard to my gender identity. I've always considered myself a bit queer in that regard. Kind of an amalgam of male and female squashed together in my psyche and heart and not exactly getting along most of the time. My sexual feelings for men have always been very yin, and my sexual feelings for women have always been rather yang, so to speak. And like Lianon, the protagonist of some of my books, I've always felt like the trappings of femininity--jewellery, dresses, floral prints, long hair, lipstick, high heels, pretty much anything girly--are not just a costume when I wear them, but a misrepresentation and an undermining of who I am.

So there I was at [insert franchise name here], picking up an application, and I'm looking at the servers--all of them in tight, short, low-cut dresses, heels, and tarted up to look like "Escort Barbie"--and I'm thinking, "I can't work here! Shit, even if I could trick myself out to look like a 20 y/o hooker (and I probably could), I'd feel ridiculous. Beyond ridiculous. I'd feel like I was wearing a sandwich board that said, 'I'm pretending to be something I'm not!'"

More than that, I'd feel weak. And oddly sexless, if you'll believe. I love being a woman--wouldn't trade it for anything--but my femininity is best expressed through a masculine screen. I show off my female curves, but wear clothes that emphasize my female body from within a masculine context. My hair is short, but pixyish--if it looked butch on me I'd find another style. I wear make-up that emphasizes the femininity of my face, but in an understated way.

I feel my strongest and sexiest and most sensual and most confident in that uniform. And yet, I've always been left with the feeling, insidious and disheartening, that this being, this...ME, is somehow not a proper woman.

It comes from a lot of different places. From my (soon to be ex) husband, who told me that my short hair made me look like a man (it doesn't, but long hair is a strong enough icon of femininity that it mattered to him). From men on dating sites who ask if there are any pictures of me with long hair, or wearing a dress. From men who tell me I'm hot, but man, if I only put on a tight skirt and heels, I'd stop traffic. From lovers who've purchased lacy lingerie for me and then complained when I didn't wear it. From men in bars who look at me with open admiration and desire, then hit on the less attractive girl in the lacy purple camisole with the teased hair and ballet flats. Even from well-meaning friends on shopping trips who pick out floral-print, empire-wasted tops for me to try on.

The implication has always been that what I am at my core--and what I love most about myself--is somehow defective. It's like a black person constantly confronted with people who say, "If you can present as a little more...ah...white, you're hired," or, "I love you, and because I love you I'm willing to accept that you're not a blue-eyed blonde--you don't mind if I imagine I'm fucking Jennifer Aniston when we do it, do you?" or, "you'd look a lot more attractive if you de-emphasized your African features."

In the past, I've sought out very masculine men for relationships, because they make me feel feminine in comparison. I've resisted relationships with women because of my fear that my masculinity will take over somehow, and I'd lose sight of my femaleness altogether. And I didn't even really realize I was doing it.

Until I walked into IFNH and saw those botox girls in their stilettoes and little black dresses, and thought of the one man who didn't make me feel like I was not a "real woman". It was a brief relationship, but one that helped me learn all kinds of things about who I am and what I want. And what I want is for a man to tell me, with his words, with his actions, with his eyes: "You turn me on." Full stop. None of this, "You turn me on, but you'd turn me on even more if you put on this frilly bit of something and some thigh-highs. I know it makes you feel silly and inadequate, but it would make you more attractive to me."

That man told me things like, "I love your hair, OMG, short hair on a woman just does something to me." "Those paint-stained jeans are the sexiest thing I've ever seen you in." "You're so hot, you're like a stalking cat, lean and strong and so fucking sexy." He even called me "hyper-feminine" once. Who knew! He never once asked me to wear a skirt, or if I owned anything lacy. Never once implied, through word or look or action, that he might be more attracted to me if I presented myself in a more feminine way. He wouldn't have changed a single thing about how I express who I am at my core.

And for that, I'd like to thank him here. And I'd like to come out to everyone as ME, unusual, a little queer, somewhat extraordinary, but at my essence, a real woman.

my bad...

The other day I got a letter from a self-proclaimed fan of my work, gently (very gently) scolding me for not writing more. Telling me that he and my other "adoring fans" had waited patiently for my next book long enough. He was effusive enough in his praise for my work that I hardly recognized it for the admonishment it was, and honestly, it made me feel really flattered to know there are people out there who enjoy my work enough that they're getting frustrated waiting for me to release another title.

And it didn't get my back up at all, because he's right. I do need to get to it. Word-counts on my works in progress have moved little enough that it's not worth the bother of even updating my word-meters.

I keep telling myself (and the rest of you) that I simply don't have time to write, but that isn't it. I have time, lots of it, because my kids are pretty self-sufficient and I don't particularly care about keeping my house gorgeous (and haven't been doing it in any case, as anyone who tries to navigate across the legos and assorted detritus on my living room floor would tell you). Sure, I've been working a lot, and dealing with some serious logistical crap in regard to changing provinces, but I've got 4 hours a day with nothing that NEEDS to fit into it.

I just haven't been in the right frame of mind to do it.

I've been through an emotional ringer a few times since November over relationships that didn't work out the way I wanted. Black moments galore since February, but no climax to counter them, no sweet denoument into the land of happily ever after. My love life, it has not been romance of late. It's been lit-fic of the worst kind--the kind where unrequited love stays unrequited, where the hero gets screwed over by circumstances, the villain (or villainess) is victorious, and the heroine ends up alone yet again.

Add to that the fact that I spent my last year in BC angsting about even surviving, staring into a future where I'd indefinitely be making my mortgage payments with my credit card (actually, not indefinitely, because it would max out eventually, heh), where no matter how many thousands of dollars I handed to my lawyer he couldn't seem to help me, and struggling with the understanding that moving with my kids under the circumstances could have serious legal repercussions.

And when I'd finally concluded I had no choice but to relocate or be completely and irretrievably ruined by the status quo, and had put the process in motion, my stepson died. Right in the middle of that already difficult transition, a sweet, loving, soft-hearted kid I could only have felt closer to had he lived with us full time, just...gone.

And even now that things are less stressful; now that I've mostly weathered the loss of my stepson; now that I've accepted that me moving at what turned out to be the worst possible time for everyone--and the terrible pain it caused others--was simply unavoidable; now that my kids and I have the help and support we need from my family; now that I'm not scrambling to make my bills or facing decisions like "will it be milk or bread, because I can't afford both"; now that my divorce is finally looking like it will be over and done with and might not send me to the poorhouse after all ... well, there are other worries moving in to replace all that.

My divorce may be almost dealt with, but in order to settle it, I'm taking on a huge amount of risk. In a couple years I might have a nice sum of money to spend on tuition for my kids. But if property values don't recover in the hideously depressed community where my house sits, or if I can't keep it rented out, all I may end up with is a shit-ton of regret, more debt, and three kids who aren't going to college after all.

I'm staring ahead two months toward my 40th birthday, and feeling like I've wasted a lot of my life on nothing special. On struggling and putting up with things, instead of living. And it's been hard to put myself in the shoes of characters who do more than just struggle to make it from one day to the next, who fight for what they want--happiness, love, a feeling of belonging--and get it because it's what they deserve. What everyone deserves, when you think about it.

But you know what? That's no excuse. None of it is, really. I told someone I love recently that you get the life you choose, and it's true. Sure, outside circumstances have their way with us, but it's up to us to choose how we react to them, whether we opt to just settle for what the universe dishes out, or whether we work around the situation, or climb over it, or bulldoze through it.

I told someone else I loved recently that for my last year in BC I felt like a rat in a maze, wandering around looking for a way out that would be easy and uncompicated, but the only way out was blocked by lawyers with baseball bats, so eventually I had to kick a hole in the wall. It was difficult and costly in so many ways, but it was worth it.

And I can sit here and angst about everything I'm still dealing with and get nothing real accomplished, or I can put all of that angst aside. If there's nothing I can do about it, there's no point in worrying, is there? Just get on with things, put one foot in front of the next, one word on the page after another. Accept that even though things still kind of stink in some parts of my life, they stink a lot prettier than they did a year ago.

Words on the page, in life and in fiction. And I might not have that god-like power over the universe in real life that I get to exercise in my writing, but I still get to write some of my own story.

And maybe it's time to rev up that bulldozer. I think I'm done with kicking holes in things, though. My foot still hurts from the last time, lol.

I am not quite dead yet...

Yes, it's been forever since I blogged. And forever (okay, a little more than a year) since I released a book. And incidents of my misbehavior in other people's internet houses--heck, I'll admit I can make a pest of myself at times--have dwindled to almost nothing. Sad, I know.

Work, sleep, dishes, bills, kids, laundry, shopping, nagging my divorce lawyer, wrestling with bureaucracies...that's my life these days. Nothing much exciting happening, and no time for anything but the mundane.

Then I stumbled on this post today, over at EREC, which indicates that on a per-title basis, erotic romance ebook sales have pretty much "flattened out". This jives with the traditional wisdom that ebooks often sprint out of the gate, garnering the majority of sales in the first month--often the first day--they're available, then fizzle.

But you wouldn't know it to look at my royalty statements. I haven't released a book in over a year--haven't sent anything to my editor since March of 2009, in fact, when I shot off my finished manuscript of The Chancellor's Bride. And yet over the last several months, my royalty statements have seen a serious upswing. My statement for July '10 was topped only by that of July of last year, the month The Chancellor's Bride (my sole foray into m/m/f) released. And though almost half of my last cheque was from sales of that title, the other half consisted of sales of my first two--Crossing Swords and Healer's Touch (both m/f with f/f), which released wayyyy the heck back in March '08 and August '08 respectively.

In fact, Crossing Swords sold more copies last month (or my royalties for last month reflected more sales, because not all vendors do their accounting on a monthly basis) than it did in its month of release. And Healer's Touch did the same--more sales on this statement than in its first month on the market. And the vast majority of those sales are coming from Amazon.

Now granted, the numbers are still pretty small compared to those of other Samhain authors. That f/f tag in the content warning still repels a lot of readers. But Amazon has a larger customer base than MBaM, for sure, and I always had the feeling my brand of f/f books might turn out to be slow-starters. The Chancellor's Bride has a readership that is vast and avid, but already very well-served in the market, and it's followed the traditional pattern of most erotic romance ebooks--the first ten days of sales were great, then the next month...not so much. The readership had moved on to the latest batch of 100+ m/m and m/m/f books that were new and shiny and exciting and ready for action, and promptly forgot about my little book.

But f/f books (even in the context of a m/f romance) have to get in front of the eyes of a readership that is both small and elusive (and pretty damn picky, too, the way I am when I read f/f). That readership is not necessarily going to be well-represented among those early adopters of erotic romance ebooks--the women who turned to the internet for the content they craved (largely super-dirty het romance and m/m). Women who would NOT be repelled by that slash-tag in the warning weren't likely to be hanging out in their thousands at MBaM just waiting for the one title in 100 or 1000 that gives them what they want. But a growing number of them apparently own Kindles, or have a Kindle app on their iPhones.

It seems between decent reviews, solid word of mouth, availability on Amazon and the mainstreaming of the Kindle, my books are finding their readership. It may always be a small segment of a more mainstream one, and that's okay with me. F/f in whatever context is what I love to write, and I'm good at it. And I've said it before: I'd rather be a big fish in the small girl-on-girl pond than a small fish in the vast m/m ocean. I still feel the same way. I'd rather be one of a very few who write f/f with a bi/bi-curious slant--and do it well--than one of countless hundreds or thousands who write het and m/m. Because as the market for f/f makes the transition to ebooks, readers won't have to sift through thousands of titles to take a chance on one of mine, will they? And if they discover they like the way I write it, my name will be on a very short list of authors, and easily remembered.

And I'll take a moment to express here and now how grateful I am that my publisher has a decent contract with entities like Amazon, and offers some of the most author-friendly terms of any epublisher regarding second-party sales. Because sales are awesome, but only if they earn you some scratch, baby.

:)

my feet, they hurt...

OMG, I worked 12 hours on Saturday. In new shoes. My old ones--which I've been wearing to work for three years--are at the shoe-repair getting new soles. Yes, they're so comfy, I'm paying to fix them. And honestly? The uppers are still in really good shape considering the odometer reading on them. But for the last three shifts, I've been forced to wear a new pair I bought--same brand, different style, and just...ow. And I was still stuck in those torture devices yesterday.

And last night, well, it being Father's Day, we got hit with a late rush. My manager (much though I adore him) was shortsighted enough to send the hostess home at 5 because it was dead, and then we got slammed at 6. The parking lot was full, and between two servers we did $1800 in sales, about 3/4 of it between 6 and 8.

On the bright side, my awesome manager (whom I have dubbed "Superguy") cleans tables, runs food, fetches drinks, seats people, takes payment, and generally does whatever it takes to help us out. And afterward, he took a few minutes to tell me how much he likes the way I work--said he really likes that even when it's busy I don't show my stress to the customers, I'm always still smiling and joking with them.

And when my last table--an old lady and her handicapped son (who were admittedly a major PITA), got up to leave, he told me she ALWAY complains and demands a discount every time because she's unhappy with the food or the service or SOMETHING.

I said, "well, she was a pain, but she didn't complain about anything to ME." He laughed and said, "Hah, you can take payment, you'll see," and hid in the kitchen (the bastage). The other server bursts out laughing and says, "Yeah, you take payment, haha," and hurries off to pretend to be busy elsewhere. And the old lady just hands me the bill and her money, says, "Hey, lovely lady, thanks for everything. It was wonderful," and leaves.

Apparently, that's the first time she hasn't had a laundry list of grievances when she gets up to the till. Hah! Take that! Superguy was stunned. The other waitress just stood there and gaped.

Of course, now this means Superguy is probably going to seat all the problem customers in my section, sigh. But bring it on. I can take it.

getting settled...

Well, it's official, and I can now come right out and announce to you all that I've moved from the dismal, depressing rainforests of coastal BC to the alternately frigid and scorching wastelands of central Alberta. Despite the vagaries of the climate here (mosquitoes, how I loathe you), and the fact that I now have to contend with actual traffic (where I was before, well, we didn't even have a four-way stop sign in town, and if there was a single car within sight on the highway, I was cursing about having to deal with jerks who don't know how to drive), I am so very pleased with the move, because:

1) my parents are here, and they're the most pitch-inny parents ever. They help with the kids, with the housework, with the shopping, with lugging heavy stuff, with reminding me to do important things (I'm a chronic forgetter). They offer to take the kids places like McDonalds or the mall. If I need someone to stay overnight with them, or pick them up from school because I'm delayed at work, well, all I need to do is phone. I have promised myself I will not abuse this privilege, but it's soooooo tempting. Plus, they love me and they're nice to me and they're the kind of parents you can actually talk to about stuff without feeling judged. Mom and dad, you are totally, totally blammo.

2) my sister is here. I don't see her as often as I see my parents, because she has her own blended family to take care of, but the two of us installed a new toilet in the downstairs bathroom the other day and it went perfectly. Go team! I'm renting a townhouse she owns, and she's letting me have it at a huge discount to help me out, because that's what sisters do. And it's just really nice to be able to hang with her and talk to her about...sister things. Sis, you're some serious awesome.

3) I'll get to see my other sister (and her awesome hubby and kids) more often. They live way the eff across the country, but they certainly come out here more often than they ever managed to make their way to the sopping, isolated reaches of Middleofnowhereland, BC. She's also totally blammo, IMO, but I expect she knows that, lol. Can't wait to see her!

4) Sunday family dinners. I often hear people bemoaning such obligations as the big weekly or monthly family get-together, and sure, my own family is far from perfect. But after 16 years away from "home", I now revel in the assorted kookiness (my uncle still asks me what I learned in school today when I walk in the door, heh) that is my extended family. In a couple of months, I hope to have my house sorted out enough to host a dinner of my own, yay!

5) my kids get to go to schools that offer things like actual computer graphics courses (with computers that run more recent versions of Windows than 98), IB programs, and advance placement. When they're done high school, they might even get to go to college, too, because there are several within public transit distance--had we stayed where we were, they'd have had to live on campus, which we'd never be able to afford.

6) there is fast food. One of my friends from back in Middleofnowhereland, BC told me once, "I would kill a thousand cows for one bucket of KFC," and well...yeah. But now I don't have to kill any cows, or drive two hours to get my fix of the Colonel's eleven herbs and spices, or the drugs he puts in it to make you "crave it fortnightly"*. I can just drive three minutes and I'm elbows-deep in a bucket of original recipe, yay! And if I have pizza delivered, it doesn't cost me the shirt on my back, either.

7) there is work. Oh, there is lots of it. And it's lucrative. Even when business is slow, I'm earning what I earned on a typical "good night" at my old job. When it's busy? Double that. Or triple it. And if, heaven forefend, I decide I don't like this job? There's another one just down the block.

8) there are big box stores. Walmart, Canadian Tire, Home Depot, Superstore, OMG Ikea. And freaking Costco. There are two Costcos I can shop at--one five minutes away from my home, and another just a few blocks from work. And malls with actual clothing stores, not just those crappy discount chains or the ubiquitous small town boutique where a pair of jeans will cost you your firstborn son.

9) dating options. In an isolated town of only 3000, well, the women hang onto their men because they know 99% of the local single guys of an appropriate age are likely gay (closeted or not), players, assholes, or weirdoes with more guns and dogs than teeth. Here, there are lots of single men, hence lots of women who think the grass is greener and ditch the good ones because they slurp their soup, or won't buy them a new flatscreen TV, or don't earn $100k/year or whatever. And yeah, I'm sure there are plenty of closeted gays, assholes, players and weirdoes, but hey, at least the pool is bigger.

10) I get to wear sunglasses. In fact, I have to wear sunglasses, because there is this thing in the sky (maybe you've heard of it? It's big and yellow and I've been told not to look directly at it) and it comes out more than every 15 days or so. Even in the winter!

11) no provincial sales tax (or more recently, the dreaded and much-maligned "BC Harmonized Sales Tax"). This makes everything from gas to shoes to light bulbs cheaper than they are where I used to live. And the fact that I'm now in an urban area instead of way the heck in the sticks, well, I didn't quite realize how much more we paid for things like milk and bread just because we lived so far from anywhere big. My grocery bills will likely be $2-300/month less just because of the move.

12) competition. From gas stations to cable/phone/internet providors to food stores to restaurants to schools, there are no monopolies here. That means better service for less money in almost every instance.

Yeah, it was hard saying goodbye to my friends (because they're some of the best people ever), and I was even saddened at the thought of never going back to sling chow mein at my old job (as thankless and frustrating as it often was). There were things about living in a small town that I absolutely adored. But I'm still so freaking happy with this move, and the kids seem to be settling in fine. There are things they miss about their old home, but there are things they love about where we are now, too, and the adjustment has gone even smoother than I could have hoped.

I just long for the day when the novelty of the escalator at the mall eventually wears off. I feel kind of like a tool taking Blammo up and down that thing several times just for fun whenever we go, even if I secretly find it kind of fun myself...

*from "So I Married an Axe Murderer", and still one of my favorite lines from any Mike Meyers movie. It's funny because it's true.

Two bedrooms (sort of) down....

Wahoo! The master bedroom is finished. And I mean finished--not one more thing left to do in there. Despite some difficulty getting the queen boxspring upstairs (we had to take it outside, around back of the house, and haul it up onto the balcony and in through the balcony doors because our inside stairway has an inconvenient bend in it, grr...), the bed's now in there, plus two nice antiquey dressers, an old steamer trunk of my grandmother's for a night table, and a lovely bench for the foot of the bed. Blammo will bunk with me on a little mat on the floor until we move, and when it's time to show the house his blankets will go in my bench, and the mat will go in the closet.

Other than a handful of pink stains that won't go away, the carpet looks nice. It didn't smell too great in there at first--after sitting wet for a week, well, there was a swamp-like redolence even after it had mostly dried--but I bought some baking soda carpet stuff and it stinks real pretty now (overpowering wildflowers, oy, but better than the reek of a bog in early spring).

The downstairs bedroom ceiling is now repaired. We'd been suffering from drippy ceiling-butthole syndrome from a leak in the tub drain upstairs, and I had to cut a piece out so the plumber could work. I managed to apply spackle in roughly the same pattern as the godawful popcorn on the rest of the ceiling, and now we just need to paint it all. The walls are done, the furniture's in, and I've even stuck a stereo in there so it looks like a typical teenager's room (only without any posters of Megan Fox or Marilyn Manson or whoever, because the kid who puts even one hole in any of these walls is the kid who will find himself gruesomely murdered by multiple thumbtack stab-wounds and then buried under the astilbes in the yard).

The hole in my daughter's bedroom wall is now mostly fixed (one more pass with sandpaper and drywall compound and no one will ever suspect that the plumber broke half the pipes while trying to replace the tub faucet), and tomorrow we start sanding and priming over the big, colorful flowers she and I painted on her walls a few years back.

In addition, my mom spent much of today weeding my mess of a garden. Due to the lack of an actual "winter" here, the weeds grow year-round, and every spring you have to break the land from a wilderness state like a bloody pilgrim. She got maybe half of the job done during the five hours of sun we had this morning and early afternoon (we're back to rain again now, and for the next week, according to the Weather Channel).

Dad drove out onto a logging road to dump the yard waste (not the bags, though, of course), and tomorrow we'll borrow my friend's truck to haul all the recycling and old carpet and broken hoses and crappy old furniture and dry garbage that was cluttering up the carport to the dump/recycling depot.

Next on the agenda: finding curtain tracks for the closets (I'm not spending a fortune on doors for the kids' closets), and then hemming the $6 queen size sheets I bought into curtains for them. I also have to call the local guy who owns the little baby back-hoe that will fit through my gate, so he can deal with the drainage problem in the backyard, and send my papers into the nearest EI branch so they can start processing my claim.

Oh, and call my lawyer to find out what the eff is going on with the clusterfuck that is my divorce negotiation. Busy busy busy...

you know you should shampoo your carpets more often when...

...it's the fourth pass on the "heavy traffic" setting and the waste water you're pouring down the drain is still dark brown sludge. Bluh.

I borrowed my friend's Bissel to do the former boys' bedroom, which is really the master bedroom, and I'm absolutely amazed (and revolted) at how much crud can build up in a carpet in a kid's bedroom, even when you vacuum fairly regularly. The more I think about it, the more disgusting wall to wall carpet seems to me. I suppose it might get cleaner faster if I was using some harsh, heavy duty, stinky chemical solution, but I went with an all-natural product because I don't need to spend the next few weeks in a VOC-induced stupor, thanks.

Thanking my lucky stars the carpet is a glue-down--no underlay to collect mud during the shampooing process, only to reimpregnate the carpet with filth as the fibers dry and wick the dirty moisture up. Before I installed laminate in the living room, I made the mistake of shampooing the carpet before my inlaws came to visit. There was one patch I went to town on every day for over a week--kept looking clean, then ten minutes later I'd turn around and holy crap, the dirt's back. I eventually gave up, and had to deal with having them judge my housekeeping skills by the ugly brown stain on the floor in front of the sofa.

If, when I move, there is any amount of wall to wall in my new place, I'm totally investing in a steam cleaner. I'll do the whole floor every month or two, just to not have to look at the filth in the waste reservoir.

On the bright side, with the exception of two small stains (from strawberry-flavored fruit roll-ups, I think), the spots are coming out. I pre-treated them with a spot remover--Folex--which comes in a very lacklustre spray bottle that was virtually invisible next to all the TV-familiar brands on the shelf. But reading the label--no petro-chemicals, no VOCs, no obnoxious scents--won me over. And it worked really well. Smells like...well, like nothing, which is good for someone with chemical sensitivities.

And if you all are as grossed out as I am by the thought of kids playing legos on a floor completely saturated with filth, all I gotta say is moderately unsanitary conditions build healthy immune systems. My kids? Their immune systems must be super-human--but then I figured as much when the Swine Flu visited our house and didn't even cramp their styles. My coworker, who practically lives in rubber gloves and bleaches her whole house weekly? She and her kids were down for three weeks.

Yup, it's Sophistry, but it works for me.

argh...

Okay, the little, teeny-tiny cracks forming in the paint on my bedroom walls? Well, they were everywhere, scattered patches of little hairline cracks all over the place. So I tried touching them up, and nope. Still there. Shitty, crappy, cheap builder's paint--three damn coats to cover the blue in the room, and then it's all for nothing anyway.

So today I went and bought a 5 gallon bucket of Sico paint (hang the expense), tinted to a really nice buff off-white. I primed over the worst patches, and then threw one coat of the new stuff on and yay! Looks damn fine. Just one more wall to do tomorrow, and then I can shampoo the carpet and start moving my furniture in there (it's the master, but Firstborn and Blammo were sharing it). Then, while there's no furniture in the downstairs bedroom, I'll patch the ceiling, paint that sucker, and then finish the walls.

I'm going to grab one of my daughter's dressers to put in the master bedroom, move her computer and desk downstairs, and then I'll have enough free space to paint in her room too. Then the stairwell, kitchen, living room and bathroom (including the bathroom ceiling).

Then I have closet doors to install, baseboards to nail in, tiles to grout, light fixtures to change, laminate flooring to trim out, toilet seats to replace...

Oy. Every time I think I'm almost done, I realize how much I have left to do. Bloody hell.

And I haven't even begun to think about dealing with the yard--which is in an advanced state of "naturalization" and if something isn't done about the drainage problem soon the government will declare it a protected bogland and I'll be screwed. Where's a big strong man with a back-hoe when you need him?

Think I'll leave the gardening to my mom when she comes. She lurrrrrves weeding. Really, she does. It gives her the warm fuzzies. Fresh air and sunshine and back to nature and all that. Honest. And ever since she moved into a condo, she hasn't been able to slake her demented garden-lust. So I'm doing her a favor, really, when you think about it.

And I think my dad has been jonesing to try out that power washer he bought me a couple years ago. 3000 psi? Subaru engine? A nozzle that can cut through solid granite? Boo-yah! Gotta keep an eye on him, though, or he'll start taking pot-shots at passing teenagers just for giggles. Not that I'd mind...dang whippersnappers always throwing their Slushie cups and Red Bull cans on my lawn.

Yup. Busy as heck and stressed out of my mind, but at least I'm accomplishing things. I'll post pictures as the rooms get done, just so you all can see how awesome I am.

Blue collar guys...

Don't know where this post came from, but it's something I've been pondering of late as I do my best to hurl myself back into the sexual marketplace.

I don't know about you all, but there's just something about a blue collar guy that turns me on. Say what you want about a well-groomed man in a Hugo Boss suit and expensive shoes--for me, there's nothing sexier than a man with a little dirt under his nails, a man with forearms defined by weilding nailguns, screwdrivers, sawzalls, wrenches, a man who knows how to assemble a carburetor or fiddle with a timing chain, rewire a house, solder a copper pipe or fit the perfect mortise and tenon.

Maybe it derives from my youthful days as designated coffee-fetcher and flashlight-holder for my heavy-duty mechanic dad as he worked on the cars? Mechanic by trade, he was handy in myriad ways. I remember him finishing our basement from bare concrete and naked ceiling beams--he did all the plumbing, wiring, carpentry and tiling himself (with a little "help" from us kids), and I'll admit I picked up a certain flair for creative profanity from him as I got older and he guarded his tongue less.

Maybe it comes from the occasional trip to pick him up at work with my mom--the teenaged me waiting in a lunchroom where every inch of wall and half the ceiling was plastered with posters of naked women, indelibly associating sex with the smells of diesel fuel and motor oil in my already half-way bent mind.

Maybe it's because a man who's good with his hands when it comes to laying tile or installing a bathtub faucet or cutting the perfect dovetail joint makes me think he'll be good with his hands when it comes to...other things? Maybe the roughness of sweat and physical work translates into visions of roughness and sweat in other contexts in my subconscious?

Whatever the reason, seeing a man with a streak of black on his forehead, a dozen little cuts and scars on his hands, grime permanently imprinted into the whorls on the pads of his fingers, and flecks of paint or silicone caulk on his t-shirt just...does it for me. Holy hell, does it ever.

A blue collar guy doesn't need the body of an Adonis to impress me (although the ubiquitous plumber butt-crack is maybe not the hottest thing ever, heh), he doesn't need a face like David Boreanaz or Clive Owen or Brad Pitt. All he needs is to be reasonably attractive and have the ability to take something that's broken and fix it, or take something that's nothing but a pile of raw materials and build it, and I'm drooling. Drooling, I tell you.

How about you guys? Any of you ever get the hots for your mechanic, or want to jump the bones of the guy who came to install kitchen cabinets?

AWOL

Okay, just a small update for you all. I've been kind of incommunicado these days. I have a shit-ton of stuff to deal with, most of it less than pleasant, and haven't had the energy or the right mind-set for writing or blogging or even having long, convoluted email conversations with my online friends.

But, never fear. None of this is anything that a battalion of family law attorneys, a couple cases of beer judiciously applied and some primal scream therapy can't fix.

On the bright side--just so I don't close on a down note--I got my hair cut and it looks totally blammo. :P

Holding Pattern

Yup, that's my life these days. I'm...not in a funk, precisely, but I am feeling very introspective these days. I have a birthday coming up on Saturday (39--OMG, I'm staring down the gaping maw of 40, holy hell), I'm trying not very successfully to wrangle my ex to sit down with me and negotiate our divorce, Christmas and New Year's is coming, so it's kind of a weird time. A time for navel-gazing and figuring things out--what I want for me and the kids, how to get there, all that crap.

Of course, that means I haven't been around much at all--not in any of my usual haunts on these here intertubes. I have been lurking a bit, but not posting much at all. Haven't been doing much at all in the real world either (other than surviving 10 days of my kids having swine flu and various personal irritations like postage mix-ups and fixing scratches in my laminate flooring with a brown pencil crayon and stuff).

In other news, my van is making a horrible noise that three mechanics have told me is likely the flex plate for the torque convertor. For all of you mechanically uninclined folks, that most likely means a $100 part and $800 labor. In other words, they have to pull either the engine or the transmission to replace one little part. But one of the delights of living in a small, close-knit community is that people don't like to see people like me get the shaft. An acquaintance has offered to do the work for free, because I'm a single mom and he knows my finances are tight. So I'm going to bake him a couple of authentic Danish Kringles and dedicate a story to him, and talk him up to everyone in town. I think I almost cried when he offered to do it, and it just makes me feel so good to be living in a place like this.

In other other news, my buddy's trailer is being repoed. Not the bad news you might assume. She doesn't own it anymore but her name can't be removed from the mortgage, so a repo means she can start rebuilding her credit that much sooner. On top of that, as a thank you to me for all the help I've given her in her recent troubles, she gave me her kitchen appliances. We swapped out my 30 year old fridge and stove for her 5 year old ones (and OMG, her oven is a conventional/convection combo--and it's self-cleaning!), and for the first time in my entire life I have a dishwasher. I put it through its inaugural run tonight, and I am so freaking stoked. The Saell family rockets into the 1970s! Yay!

On the not so bright side, my muse is silent. I have three WIPs on the go and none of them are calling me. I was thinking of doing a short erotica piece to get my groove back, so we'll see. I need to write something to dedicate to my philanthropic mechanic. :)

So, it's been a while...

...and just so you all can stop worrying, yes, I'm still alive.

I've been in a bit of a holding pattern the last few weeks. School's started, but I'm not back in my groove yet. I managed to bang out about a thousand words on The Mermaid's Curse yesterday (celebrate the little victories, heh), but my house is still a mess. My grass is not cut. My filing is still waiting to be done.

Mostly, I've been indulging my internet addiction. Not blogging so much myself (although I did a couple posts on LVLM if you want to take a look), just misbehaving in other people's houses as it were. My one comfort in that is that the addiction cycles on and off, so I know it won't last much longer. And part of me is happy to just do nothing. After the summer I had, I need to recharge. Just...have some time without anyone needing anything from me. My poor kids. Their mother is running on empty. I'm just glad they're mostly self-sufficient--as long as I keep them in Froot Loops, Mini Wheats, oranges, grapes, frozen pizzas, a couple home-cooked meals a week, and they can find a clean pair of pants in the mountain of unfolded laundry in my room, they're okay.

I've also been sick with the plague for the last several days and took three shifts off work (two of those were extra, so it's not so big a loss, really), and the time alone was...beautiful. I got hardly anything done and don't feel guilty at all.

In other news, my youngest, Blammo, has taken a bizarre interest in vegetables, and has developed the ability to belch on command. Daughter is almost taller than I am and can no longer borrow my shoes because her feet are bigger than mine (which means she'll likely grow up to be an Amazon). Firstborn has apparently discovered an attraction to the opposite sex. I know this because he now showers every day without being asked, asked me to get him some whitening toothpaste, and has started scrubbing his acne. I'm worried.

In other, other news, I received galleys for Chancellor's Bride the other day. It's due out in print in May, yay! Unfortunately, I have nothing to put under the "Coming Soon" heading at the front of the book. :( Which means I really need to get working on my...stuff. Soon.

If any of you all have a whip handy, feel free to ply it. I can take it.

That's it.