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.

I am NOT in the mood...

CAUTION! Downer post ahead:

Ever read in the news about that family whose house burned down Christmas Eve, three days after someone broke in and stole all their kids' presents?

Ever hear about the guy who won millions in the lottery only to have his wife leave him and a con artist filch him for every penny two months before he dies of terminal cancer?

Ever imagine the sound of a phone ringing on death row delivering a pardon from the governor, two minutes after the executioner pushed the plunger?

Ever see that episode of King of the Hill, where Peggy leaps from the airplane yelling, "I feel so freakin' alive!" just before her chute malfunctions and she hits the ground at terminal velocity?

That's what this Valentine's Day feels like for me. And granted, it would feel like that even if it weren't Valentine's Day, but the irony of the day is almost enough to make me start writing depressing litfic about nice guys who finish last (or not at all), and villains who get cookies instead of comeuppances.

When I think about all the good deeds I've been depositing into my Karma account for the last year or more, and the steaming rain of shit I've received as a return on my investment, I can't help but wonder if maybe--just maybe--I've been prepaying the consequences for that one really, really, really bad thing I'll be able to do and get away with. And frankly, there's no shortage of ideas in my morbidly creative mind as to what that really bad thing will be, nor a shortage of candidates vying to be its recipient, heh.

I'm currently trying to write the prequel to The Chancellor's Bride, the story of Collin and Harral's first meeting. It's a story of one man placing all his trust in the hands of another, taking that huge leap and just knowing the man he loves won't let him plummet and end up a proverbial pancake on the sidewalk. And even as I write it, every fiber of my being is screaming, "Don't be an idiot! WTF, are you crazy??!! He is not going to catch you! You're setting yourself up for an ironic tragedy!" Which tells me I may not be in the right headspace to be working on this particular WIP, lol.

I'm pretty sure this feeling will go away eventually, but maybe I should concentrate my efforts on Lianon and Rhianna's story for now.

In the interim, I'll just say this: If you have a Y chromosome, I reserve the right to hate you for no reason. Not that I WILL hate you, I just reserve the right to. So be warned.

And because I don't begrudge others the joy they find on this day or any other, I'll give you all a heartfelt Happy Valentine's Day. I really do mean it. Unless you have a Y chromosome...

The sky is not falling...

...or is it?

With all the general panic about Macmillan moving to an agency model for book sales, I thought I'd toss my two cents into the debate.

Go. Read. Feel better. Or don't, I guess, if you're convinced I'm full of hooey.

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

OMG help me

Well, we're well into week two of my buddy and her three-year-old demon spawn staying at my house, and not surprisingly, nothing is getting accomplished. My word-meters are stagnant, emails in my inbox go unanswered and there are still 842, 560 dirty dishes in the sink. Every time I go to work, I think to myself, "I don't want to be here, but god help me, I do not want to go home." On top of which, she won't be able to move out for another week or so. Oy. My liver ought to give me a medal for not descending into full-on alcoholism at this point.

But lo, it is a long weekend, and the little guy's dad is going to take him for three nights. Angels are singing right now, I can hear a whole choir of them in my head as I type this.

Does this mean I'll be able to get my house clean or my WIPs written or anything productive done between now and Monday? Probably not. But I will make myself at least start an article for Victoria Janssen's blog--we're tentatively scheduled for August 28th, which is later than I'd like, but I did leave it til the very last second of the very last minute so I'm not about to complain. It also gives me more time to procrastinate, and my therapist says my self-esteem benefits from concentrating my efforts on what I do best, so procrastinate I shall.

For article ideas, I'm thinking "Writing F/F for Fun and No Profit", lol. Or how about "F/F/M: Two Hot Babes Seein' to Mah Manly Needs"?

Um, no.

I think my topic of discussion will be "F/F/M: Not Just a Straight Guy's Fantasy". Coming on the heels of Bound by Steel's print release (August 4th, BTW), and in light of my EC-aimed project, Vessel, I think it's topical, at least for me. I only hope I can do the subject some justice, especially since my brain no work so good right now.

I also have to arrange for some promo for next Wednesday (the 5th) to do at the Samhaincafe, and plan a contest or something for a print copy of BbS.

And I know most of you all have not entered my (admittedly half-assed and hurried) pick-up line contest for The Chancellor's Bride (still holding at #6 on Samhain's bestseller list), which is something that will have to change, because I absolutely refuse to announce a winner when there are only three qualifying entries. So get to it! I mean it. I'd say all the cool kids are doing it, but clearly most of the cool kids have other things to do.

And that's about all the coherence my brain can manage today--which does not bode well for my performance at work tonight, but oh well. They love me there, even when I mess up every two seconds and can't string an understandable sentence together.

Hugs. And if I don't blog again for a while, it will be because I've been committed--perhaps voluntarily. Maybe in the nuthouse, I'd get five minutes in the bathroom without all hell breaking loose on the other side of the door. A girl can dream...

f/f vs. lesbian

I posted a rather long and rambling post on LVLM today on the question of whether lesbian romance is synonymous with f/f romance. Part diatribe, part stream-of-conscsiousness, part genre analysis, it explores many of the reasons I believe the two genres aren't simply six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Any of you all want to go check it out, please do! It's even mom-safe. And leave a comment--even if you think I'm full of hooey. I'd really like to hear opinions, even those that differ from mine.

New Project!

Okay, I've mostly resisted bragging all over blogland about Ellora's Cave inviting me to submit my work to them (direct to their EIC, no less), based on their reading of Crossing Swords and Bound by Steel. All question of modesty aside (because I have none), I was keeping fairly mum because I wasn't sure I had a project to send them. It's been my intention from the start to keep all my Emissaries-related books at Samhain (unless I manage to flog them to Tor or something--hey, hope springs eternal, right?), and since I've always set my stories in the universe of the Emissaries, well, I was kind of stymied.

I wasn't sure I was up to building another world. Thousands of years of history and mythology, religion and politics, cultures and customs? Oy.

But pretty much everything I've ever written has evolved from a handful of characters and a single scene, and a week ago, three characters popped into my head. Ralameis Antiog, a princess raised in a glittering palace where men rule and women are silent, forced into a political marriage with fierce tribal prince, Yavarro Singael. Harsh and ambitious, the finger-bones of his enemies woven through a hundred braids of his hair, he scares the living bejabbers out of her. Between them stands his vessel, Roucana, the shield upon whom each blow meant for him must fall, his will made flesh, obedient in all things. His vessel happens to be a woman. She also happens to be in love with him.

As you can see from the new wordmeter below and to the right, I'm already more than 5000 words in, and things are about to get complicated between the prince, his new bride and his vessel. Bad decisions will be made, feelings will be hurt, the heart's innermost longings will be laid bare.

And yes, there will be plenty of hot girl-on-girl-on-guy sexx0ring. Because with EC now considering dipping its toes back into the girl-on-girl pool, despite the fact that they told me I could send them whatever I liked, well, I'm the stubborn type. I know m/m/f BDSM would likely be received better, but being contrary by nature, it will be one man and two strong women from me, and all the bondage will be on the inside.

I'll be posting an excerpt from this WIP on Excerpt Monday, which is in just a week. Considering how my stomach was all tight and tingly playing out the scene in my head, I have some hope it will be both hot and heart-wrenching.

Hugs

Kill me now...

After a week of barfalicious togetherness, I was all set to send my herd of brats to school today. Because no matter how much I love them, a week of whining, moaning, vomiting, hacking, nose-blowing, feverish quality time is enough for any mother.

The alarm went off at 7:30, I lurched up the stairs. Looked at my coffee-maker. Looked at it some more. Poured myself some iced tea and washed down a handful of pills. Then I stumbled back downstairs and crawled back into bed.

I feel like I've been hit by a truck. Fever, joint and muscle aches, chills. Only good thing is my cough seems to have improved and I'm not walking around with a wadded kleenex shoved up each nostril. But holy crapping damn, my body HURTS all over. No way could I have stayed upright long enough to get my monsters to school. Driving? Not a freaking chance. Only reason my fingers are obeying me so I can type this is because I've just had another handful of T-1s.

Does this make me a bad mom? I don't care. One more day off school will not doom them to failure come report card time.

For me, I'm just gonna go lie in the middle of the street and hope some kindly passing motorist runs me over. Blurgh.

Romance's Impossible Standard

I was swirling around The Toilet Bowl (aka, Mrs. Giggles' blog) today, and found a post there about romance heroines that really resonated with me. For those of you with clickthruaphobia, the gist of it was: Why do we demand effortless perfection in our heroines? Why must a romance heroine be (naturally) large-busted, (naturally) slim yet curvy, and (naturally, effortlessly) gorgeous? Why is a heroine villified if she (god forbid!) gets breast implants to have that large bust, or (heaven forefend!) diets to achieve that perfect body, or (gasp!) wears make up to enhance her beauty?

Well, the indoctrination starts early, my friends. You can see it in Disney movies like Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella: there's the heroine, perfect and pristine in her natural beauty and purity (even when she's dressed like a shlump), while the villainess is a heavily made-up, corset-wearing, updo-sporting nasty. And the villainess--even the fat, ugly Sea Witch, Ursula--comes off as more clever, overtly powerul, even sexual, than the sweet, innocent, gullible heroine, who triumphs not by wit or fortitude, but a combination of luck, blind faith and deus ex machina. It's no wonder that the villainess usually seems (to me, anyway) more complex, meaty and interesting as a character, while the heroine often has all the dynamic flavor and compelling texture of a Twinkie.

We're bombarded all through our childhood with the idea that for females, innocence and simplicity (even to the point of stupidity--I mean, the apple is freaking poisoned, duh) is good. Whereas a woman comfortable in her sexuality is evil. A woman who cares about how she looks is evil. A smart woman who knows what she wants and sets out to get it is--you guessed it--evil. A little lipstick, a push-up bra and a take-charge attitude can take a potential heroine from virtue to vice in less than 60 seconds.

But the times, they are a-changing. In romance novels these days, we increasingly demand a heroine who is smart, beautiful, sexy and competent, yet the moment the heroine appears to be aware of the fact that she's smart, beautiful, sexy and competent, she loses her lustre in the eyes of many readers. We're mired in that uneasy null-space between a woman's traditional role and women's liberation. Torn between the madonna and the whore.

One author's comment on Mrs. Giggles' post indicated that for her, the answer lies in m/m romance. That men are simply more dynamic, more powerful, more interesting (and hotter) romantic protagonists than women. Which leads me to ask: Why must we turn to men for characters that engage us? If it's possible to write a strong, complex and intiguing male, why is it so much less possible to write those same qualities into a female character?

I've written many heroines in my twenty-odd years of writing:

The six-foot-tall warrior/slave who lives for vengeance.
The coltish, breech-clad tomboy bastard.
The tavern girl who's lost count of the number of men she's been with.
The whore with the red-painted lips, who loves everything to do with sex.
The cross-dressing, unabashedly bisexual killer for hire with a death wish.
The daughter of a goddess who isn't afraid to use sex to get what she wants.
The traumatized rape victim who learns to love her body again.
The high-class rent girl with a financial plan that will get her off her back.
The queen who marries a man half her age and enjoys every second in their marriage bed.
The courtesan who sleeps her way to a chance at revenge.
The bisexual metallurgist who uses her psychic gifts for voyeurism.
Her lesbian companion who isn't past inviting a man into their bed to please her lover.
The child sexual abuse survivor and freedom fighter who is willing to die for her cause.
And four guilt-ridden immortals who ambush one poor sap into a polyamorous marriage.

These women are all beautiful, though not always (or even usually) traditionally so. Some are aware of their beauty, some aren't, and some don't much care one way or the other. Only two are virgins at the beginning of their stories (and none by the end, heh). They are all sexy, honorable, flawed, strong, intelligent, vulnerable, determined, complex women who are every bit as dynamic as any man.

There is beauty to be found in simplicity--if you're talking about a lamp or a vase or a china pattern. Sweetness is all very nice, but too much of it makes my teeth hurt. I'm not interested in Snow White. She bores the everloving crap out of me. Cinderella's passivity and martyrdom doesn't impress me--it makes me want to smack her upside the head. But the answer, for me, is not to stop writing women altogether. It's to write the kind of women I'd like to know, the kind of women I can respect.

Even if they wear lipstick.

Global Warming...

...where are you?

In all my years living on the North Island, it's never been so cold for so long so early in the season. I mean, yes, we've had snow in the past. It typically falls for a few hours sometime in January, then melts before the kids have time to finish building their snowman. Sometimes it sticks around for a day or two--just long enough to pay for the local body shop owner's vacation in Mexico--before our regularly scheduled rain resumes.

And yes, we've had freezing conditions before. But I've never seen the water that runs in ditches and cascades down the embankments along the highway frozen solid. Last year, for a week or so, I had to go out each morning and break the crust of ice on the top of the water in my dog's bowl. This year, we had to bring the bowl inside--once we'd chiseled it off of the surface of the deck--because it had four inches of solid ice in it. As I watched a group of poor, brave, foolhardy, insane kids sledding across the street, the wind tore a Crazy Carpet from a little girl's mittened hand to carry it half a block before depositing it on the roof of my neighbor's toolshed. Guess when you only get snow a few days a year, it's hard for a kid to pass up the chance to play in it--even when you stand to lose a body part.

Now I know all of BC--all of Canada, in fact, and a good portion of the States--is in a deep freeze. And I know, those of you in Winterpeg or Edmonton or Toronto or Halifax are probably muttering under your breath right now about where I can stuff my wussy -5C (to which I will give the standard British Columbian's reply of "But, it's a damp cold."). But with gale force gusts nudging the windchill down to -10 and lower, with snow piling up inside my carport, with the windows rattling and the heat in my barely insulated house cranked, I feel like I've earned the right to moan.

So hear it is, my big whine: It's effing cold. I don't like it. So if the Sierra Club or whoever is in charge of this global warming stuff wanted to send some my way, at this point I wouldn't complain. Come on. All I'm asking for is five degrees.

Hooray, I have a headache!

No, really. Hooray!

I have a headache. I've had it since Friday. And yes, that's a good thing. I spend a lot of time lying down when I have a headache, not reading or watching TV or even sleeping. Just lying there, not quite asleep. Thinking. Playing scenes in my head. Letting my mind wander.

And that's when my best ideas are born. That's when the magic happens. Revelations occur in random flashes of brilliance that sometimes hurl me from my half-slumber, heart pounding and out of breath with the sure knowledge that this--this is the way I need to go. Forget all the crap I thought I knew about my characters and their stories. I knew nothing. I was a fool. Now I know better.

Saturday around 6 PM, I learned something about the villain in my current WIP that completely invalidates all the plotting I made myself do a couple weeks ago. It also makes every aspect of the story that much more perfect, makes everything fit together with perfect elegance. It was one of those POW! moments when my subconscious kicks in and overrides everything else. And damn, if that isn't almost better than sex.

About ten minutes after 6, another revelation hit me, an epiphany about the nature of my creative process--an amalgam of headaches, parental guilt, and getting things done. Last December, I got my tubes tied. Consequently, I was able to go off the birth control pill. When I did that, I went from having three migraines a month, to one--or none. And my daily word count plummeted. Between being more busy than ever, recently becoming a single parent, and no longer having an excuse to lie around on the couch playing pretend in my head, I hit a creative lull. Lie down? Who has time to lie down? What kind of mother lolls around daydreaming when there's laundry to be folded?

Well, this kind of mother, from now on. As of today, I've scheduled in two mornings of downtime every week for the foreseeable future. Hopefully, that will get my muse back on speaking terms with me, and my wordmeters chugging back along.

And if not, well, at least I'll be well rested. :)

No, it Isn't Snow

It's dog hair.

Yes, it's that time of year once more: Shedding season.

"What's this?" you say? "A dog, shedding in the fall? But spring is the time of year for dogs to molt!"

To you doubters, I say "Pooh"--right after I spit out a mouthful of dog hair.

Every October my fat, stupid, lazy, coffee table of a dog drops her entire coat. Yes, her entire coat. Like any fashionista, she is unsatisfied with merely expanding her current wardrobe--twice a year, she requires a completely new one.

This means for about three weeks, the rest of us are forced to wade through drifts of soft, ivory fluff that aspire to the ceiling. Woe betide the child who climbs sticky-fingered onto the sofa. We hostages to the hair wear dark colors at our own peril. Why, just this morning, I couldn't get the F on my keyboard to function. The problem? A matt of dog hair stuck under the key.

There's dog hair in the butter dish, dog hair in my freezer, dog hair sprouting from the window screens, dog hair stuck to my mascara wand. And yet there is still, defying all laws of physics and common sense, dog hair on the dog. I can brush her for hours, harvesting bales of the stuff, and three and a half minutes later she'll wander by in a cloud of freshly molted fur, depositing her dubious bounty on every piece of furniture within fifty feet.

I have fought this biannual war of attrition with a multitude of inadequate weapons: brooms, dog-combs and vacuum cleaners, lint-rollers and sticky tape. I have even considered applying a generous coat of spar varnish to the dog so the whole mass comes off in one, solid shell. But this year, I simply no longer have the energy to fight. I concede defeat. The hair wins.

I'm not even going to vacuum until the saturation bombardment of dog-follicles ceases. The battle is unwinnable, so why even try?

If any of you all are looking for me, I'll be under the dog hair until the second week of November.

A Couple of Things...

Okay, as those of you who are paying attention will have noticed, I've made some progress on The Chancellor's Bride. Unfortunately, I totally cancelled out that progress (and then some) by increasing my initial estimate from 50k when complete to 70k. During the course of writing Bound by Steel and this latest WIP, I've come to the irksome realization that when you have three people involved in a romance, the book is just going to be longer. On the bright side, it's also going to have more sex scenes, yay!



Also, I just finished writing my first ever book review. Check it out.

Smokin' Hot!!1!!

Okay, it's finally been approved by those in power, and I'm now free to post it. Voila!

<===Lianon, drool, drool.

<===Kaela, mmmm, yummy....

<===Gil, oh swoon!

Told you all it was smokin' hot!

To celebrate this auspicious occasion, I shall treat you all to a snippet. A wee one, mind, with no actual smexing, because despite my delight over this wonderful cover, I am feeling a tad contrary today. And although my mood has nothing to do with you guys, I have no qualms about taking it out on everyone, lol!

Kaela sat huddled in the water, hugging her up-drawn knees. She looked so fragile, so lost, it made Lianon’s heart ache. “Let me help you with your hair?”

“All right.”

Lianon knelt beside the tub, just at Kaela’s shoulder. Reaching for the ewer, she filled it with steaming bathwater and poured it over Kaela’s unbound hair. The heavy black curtain plastered itself to her shoulders and back.

“Lean your head back.”

Kaela’s neck arched, the fine cords standing out. Her collarbones jutted, and Lianon imagined her mouth on them, her tongue dipping into the hollows. The girl’s knees were pressed tight against her breasts, but that only enhanced her cleavage. Lianon felt a familiar heaviness settle between her legs, but forced her eyes from the sight, and her mind from thoughts she knew Kaela would not be ready to acknowledge.

Gingerly, taking care not to startle her, Lianon washed Kaela’s hair and back, her hands skimming gently over the marks of her experience with sur-Marus. As she worked, the girl began at last to relax. The cooling water raised gooseflesh on the parts of her above the surface, and she hunkered deeper down. When Lianon finished with her hair, Kaela lay back, closing her eyes and resting the base of her skull on the contoured edge of the tub. Her crossed arms covered her breasts, but one pink nipple peeked from the crook of her elbow. Lianon’s eyes fastened on it as her belly coiled and tightened.

Gods, what was she doing? Her feelings were premature, to say the least. Even if she was able to guide Kaela toward an acceptance of her body and her sexuality, even if she helped her get past the rape, there was no guarantee that the girl would be remotely interested in any kind of liaison with another woman. If Lianon wasn’t careful, she’d end up with a broken heart.

“Hungry?” Lianon asked, flinching inwardly as her body responded involuntarily to the subtext of the word. Gods, she was hungry. Ravenous.

“Mmm,” Kaela sighed, smiling. “Starving.”

Lianon grabbed the tray and headed into the main room, where padded chairs and a settee would offer more comfort than the kitchen, and where there was no beautiful, naked woman in a bathtub to tempt her. She set their meal down on the low table and continued on into Kaela’s room. “I’ll bring you your shift and robe,” she called over her shoulder.

When she returned to the kitchen, it was to see Kaela wrapped in linen, one foot propped on a chair, drying her calf with a corner of the towel. Her limbs were displayed in all their contoured glory, her sleek, black hair seeming to caress her shoulders and upper arms. As Lianon stood there, transfixed with desire, the towel slipped loose and Kaela scrambled to retrieve it. Her creamy skin was flushed pink from the bath, and trails of water from her hair wove their way down her naked torso. She straightened, staring in horror at Lianon, clutching the damp linen to herself as her face went red. With a start, Lianon realized the girl wasn’t trying to cover her breasts so much as the scar above them.

“Don’t look. Please,” Kaela whispered, her chin starting to go wobbly.

Lianon turned her back, as much to dash the tears from her own eyes as to give the girl her privacy. The look on Kaela’s face hadn’t been the expression of violated modesty you’d expect in a young woman caught without clothes. It was a profound horror at being seen at all. And how could Lianon blame her? Kaela bore the marks of sur-Marus’ brutality all over her body, from the crescent-shaped bite-marks he’d put on her back and shoulders, to the scars on her face and chest from his bodyguard’s dagger. She didn’t see her body as a thing of beauty or a source of pleasure and comfort. To her, it was a constant reminder of an event she had to get past, if she was ever to be happy.

“I’m sorry,” Kaela whispered, clearly miserable. “I’m sorry.”

Lianon turned back to find Kaela modestly wrapped in her towel, hugging herself. “I’m sorry, Kaela. I didn’t mean to stare. It’s just that…”

Reaching up to tug a sopping lock of hair over the scar on her cheek, Kaela looked away, blinking frantically. “I know. You don’t have to tell me how ugly I am.”

Lianon swallowed a startled laugh, her eyes stinging. She shook her head, bemused. “What are you talking about? You’re beautiful… Beautiful.”

Okay, that's enough of that! You want more, you'll have to catch me in a more agreeable humor, lol! :D

The Waiting is the Hardest Part...

Warning: huge, whiney, complainy post ahead...

Ever have one of those days where it just feels like you're waiting and waiting and waiting? For me, that day is today.

Waiting on that first royalty statement to find out how Healer's Touch did in its release month. Will it sell better than Crossing Swords did? I have to assume so, since it actually made the top ten at MBaM for almost a day, yay! Will Crossing Swords experience a surge in sales this month due to Healer's' release?

Waiting on final approval for the cover for Bound by Steel, which is so smokin' hot as is that I can only imagine how scorching it will be if it's undergoing a face-lift.

Waiting for reviewers to do their thing. I only wish they were all as flattering as Madame Butterfly was in her haste to read and lavish praise on Healer's Touch. At the same time, dreading the moment when those reviews go up, on the chance that they are scathing, or worse, tepid.

Waiting for my stepson and his friends to go home so I can have my house back. You have no idea what it's like to have four 21-year-olds, three kids and two adults living in a 1200 square foot, three bedroom, 1 1/2 bath house with no basement.

Waiting for my kids to go back to school so I can actually write.

Waiting for October, when Bound by Steel releases. At the same time, dreading October because I promised my editor I would have Chancellor's Bride finished and in her hot little hand by Hallowe'en.

Waiting for the rain to stop and the sun come back. Please, please come back, summer.

Waiting for customers to walk in the door. I mean, it's the last dang Wednesday of the month (otherwise known as "Welfare Wednesday"), the day everyone's government money comes in: GST rebates and child tax benefits and guaranteed income supplements and welfare cheques and pension cheques and all that, and usually it's so busy in here I can't even check my email. But today, for some reason, I have had two--count 'em--two tables since I came in at 11. It is now 1:30.

Waiting waiting waiting for the other waitress to get here at 5 so I can go home. And wait some more.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that the weather is to blame for my discontent. It's been pouring rain and cold (12C) all week--we even had hail, ffs. I guess we already had our summer on the North Island, and it was all of three and a half weeks long.

*sigh*

I did a bad, bad thing...

What bad thing did I do, you ask? Well, with Chancellor's Bride hovering near the midpoint and an October deadline looming, I went and started a new project last night.

2000 words in. Planning for 40k. WTF am I thinking??!!

That is all.

The Everyday Writer I Ain't

You spend any time among authors and you hear a lot of advice on writing. Much of it has to do with the oddly yet aptly monikered habit of BICHOK. Butt in chair, hands on keyboard. The belief is that the proper, disciplined, career-oriented writer needs to write every day. Anything less, and you're just a wannabe.

Well, anyone who has been paying attention to my word meters ===> to the right will have noticed they aren't zooming into the stratosphere of late.

Okay, let me clarify. I have been writing plenty, mostly making a pain of myself on other people's blogs and forums, offering my opinion even (perhaps especially, hehe) when I know it might not be appreciated. And I've been doing a little proofing of my WIPs, tweaking sentences and trying to get back in the mood. But to be honest, I don't think I will get back into the required brainspace for writing fiction until after my cousin's wedding on the 20th, when most or all of my invading hordes--I mean, visiting relatives--will head back home.

According to prevailing wisdom, I should live by the code of BICHOK. I should sit in my chair every day and make myself write, even if all I produce is crap. But I just can't make myself do this. It seems like pointless self-flagellation to force out words when I'll likely just end up deleting them anyway. It isn't as if I haven't tried this exercise in futility. But writing scenes that start out as garbage and end up that way, too, can't help but make me doubt my abilities as a writer--and honestly, this business already provides writers with enough reasons to doubt themselves.

Plus, forcing myself to do stuff I don't wanna do is NO FUN.

I write in spurts. I'll spend weeks daydreaming and getting nothing accomplished, and then BAM! I'll finally sit down and bang out 15 000 words in a few days. I know myself better than any self-appointed expert ever will. Taking a day or a week or a month off will not be the end of my career.

So a big NYAHHH! to prevailing wisdom. I'm not your BICHOK. I don't have to do what you say. Those word meters will move when I'm good and ready.

For now, I'm off to Dear Author to see if I can't annoy someone I don't even know. Wheeeee!