Tempered Thoughts

Be very, very quiet. There's an actual story unfolding in my head. I thought it was just a flash thing, but it's trying to be bigger than 1k words and trying to have more than one scene. When I went down to eat lunch it pestered me to jot things down on paper. I know, paper! How peculiar, that urgency, and the paper has a green broccoli stain on it because I was eating. I haven't been inside a story like this for quite some time. I'd forgotten how absorbing and delightful it is. I'm not taking back any of the good things I said about teaching or anything, but yeah, love this part of writing. Seven different things collided in my head and then poof there was a story place with a story in it and I was also standing nearby.

Here's the (mostly uninspiring, subject to change) first line, because I feel like I got to give you something for reading this far: "The class has eleven students in it on the first day it meets." Yes, there's a countdown, how clever of you to notice. And yeah, I know, present tense. How funny, right? I reserve the right to change it, but it's working for the time being. Maybe because it's 'in conversation', as Bujold would say, with horror? I dunno. I'm not sure whether anyone dies yet.

You know what is awesome? Looking at a story I wrote two years ago and actively seeing what I was trying to master when writing it. Oh look, I'm practicing kinesthetics. I'm telling you whatever people are doing physically at all times. And for my finale, I'm going to have a three person fight in a closet.

I tend to think I don't take (enough) risks with my writing, but there it is right there, three person fight in a closet, when I had trouble describing someone walking across a room. Not that it's a good three person fight in a closet. It needs some work. But I was consciously trying to tackle something I knew I sucked at.

And you know, my kinesthetics, lo these many months later, aren't exactly going to split open the world but they no longer suck either. Passable. Nice, from time to time, to be reminded of progress.

I've been talking to people lately about how I feel that if I write to my strengths, I'm cheating. I'm amused when readers, after several stories, get ahold of one where I went the easy way. They get a look in their eyes: "Why've I been reading crap from you when you can do this?" Their critiques are wildly complimentary. They suddenly realize I actually can write, when I put my mind to it. (Except I'm always putting my mind to it, see, even when it sucks.) Everybody thinks I'm crazy when I say I avoid writing what I'm good at. Of course you write what you do best, they say. Well, no, I try not to, I say. And I've had a hard time explaining why that is, why it feels like cheating. Maybe it's just arbitrary constraint setting or fear of failure, but I think it's something else. Reliance on what I'm already good at doesn't help me get good at anything else. In fact, reliance on what I'm good at (narrative voice, primarily, though I'm fair to middling at setting and sensory details) can carry people along in a way that obscures other flaws. So I write three person fights in a closet, and clumsy trying too hard omni, and action scenes that come across as brittle and unrealistic. I avoid first person, which I do well, in favor of painfully constructed plots, which I do poorly. Because I want to be able to write every kind of story there is. I'm overly ambitious, and don't want my smidge of talent in my way. And it's not just all the shiny techniques I long to master, either. Ultimately, I get tired of writing the same way all the time. If I forbid myself the easy first person pull-you-along narration most of the time, then when I use it, it's still fresh and pleases me. And I know I'm choosing to use it, not just falling back on it. It is a weirdness, and perhaps a flaw, but it's what I do. Right now, for example, I'm working on two basic things: non-linearity and subtractive writing. I'm usually a classical unity girl, and while I love that and will still use it most of the time in short stories, I've also started breaking away from unity of time. I have been consciously putting in flashbacks, and writing things out of order, even if I rearrange them later. Usually I prefer an intensity that stays in the moment and goes always forward, but there are stories that need to be told out of order, and I want to do that kind too. Right now my cutaways are pretty stilted and obvious, but eventually, one hopes, I'll get better at them. Subtractive writing is an experiment in methodology and probably merits its own post, when I've seen more results from my attempts.

As for my will to submit, I sent out two stories before the one I was panicked about bounced (and two days after I made the PANIC post, so I guess we can count it as accountability instead of procrastination - GO TEAM ME!), then turned the bounced one around not once but twice because I sent it to the fastest market ever, and got the one day rejection. So right this second I have four things out, counting the piece that bounced back to me from the "Haunted Legends" anthology. (So sad. But ehh, what you gonna do.) I dusted it off and sent it out again. It ended up being called "Mi Buenos Aires Querido" because apparently you can't copyright song titles. Sorry, Gardel. I'm pretty proud of it, even though it didn't make the cut for the anthology. I'm not saying I didn't hate it for a while. I spent - oh, I don't know - three or four days playing Civ III and pretending it didn't exist and trying to talk myself out of sending it for the antho. But in the end, I sent it to collect its rejection. GO TEAM ME x 2!

So one could say I am down to 13 things needing rewrites, because I made good on "Mi Buenos Aires Querido" (though not without dithering and wailing). However, I just finished a new story (tentatively named "Ephemeral Marginalia"...I'm not totally sold on the title, it may be too librarian geeky and the story's not about geeks or librarians), so I guess my inbox is back up to 14. Yes, I am uniquely positioned to make work for myself. At any rate, two of the currently out stories are nearing the last leg of their journey before surcease, so I need to revise at least two replacement things and get them out the door in the next six weeks. This is doable, as they say. Ideally, I suppose, I'd get another two things out in addition to the first two and then be looking at something like six subs out, a new record for me. And that would leave my to edit pile at around ten. If I can lop off one more I can reduce my stack to single digits. Whoa. Still, my track record on edits is abysmal, so let's just wait and see how I do in the next six weeks before getting too optimistic.

Also there's research for the new novel to engage in. Ha. Yes, I have a new idea I'm poking around at. In fact one of the 14 stories waiting for edits is set in the shiny new world of the maybe next novel. I wrote it the easy way, as a get a feel for it exercise. People like it and keep telling me to fix it and send it out. Take a number, story, get in line.

I'm currently in a panic about the fact that the only story I have out has been out for 26 days on a market that, according to Duotrope, takes 33 on average to reject something (and that's down! I swear a week ago it said 34 or 36 or some even number greater than 33) and I haven't not had a single story out in ohhhh a year and a half, maybe? I don't know for sure, I just know it's been a long time and if the rejection arrives before I get the gumption to send out the two things that were rejected on 8 July and 24 June that are still hanging around for no good reason then I will have broken this streak however pathetic of always having something out and that seems terrible.

I realize that in the scheme of things, this is a stupid thing to be in a panic about. Panic's not listening to my well-reasoned explanations.

Over the weekend I organized all the stories I have written that I could have out in markets if only I would fix them and send them and it came to 11 stories (well one is unfinished, so let's make it 10, but another I just realized isn't included and should be...how weird, I didn't have hardcopy for it, though I think there must be hardcopy somewhere and I wonder where...so back up to 11 and oh...hardcopy missing on several things, I see that now that I think about it and check the hard drive -- note to self for later: Adding to Naught, Easier Next Time, and the Would Be Super are not accounted for -- well, let's just say it's 13) and that doesn't count the story tentatively called "Mi Buenos Aires Querido" if that's not going to impinge on Gardel too much or perhaps it will end up called after some line of Borges poetry if I can figure out which one in the next five days or so. Said story is in a separate pile on account of needing to be all expedited and out of here soon soon (so that total is something like 14...is that possible?)! And it also doesn't count the trunked stories which I am not even looking at to rewrite because of the enormity of their suck, and there's four of those, five if you count Hindsight which was the brave experiment in submissions now retired. So apparently I need to do some editing because this situation is a bit ridiculous and yet notice how even faced with this ridiculousness I'm still not editing.

Though when I do decide to edit, I'll start with the one marked urgent.

And when my brain is doing this kind of breathless tallying and accounting is when I realize I'm in a panic.

I have no idea whether I'm making this post as procrastination or accountability. I'll let you know later, if and when I manage to send the two stories waiting in the wings out to their prospective markets (which I have already picked! I know! It's crazy! But I still have to steel myself to send things out and it's not even related to the inevitable rejection though of course that counts too). If and when I manage to edit that story that needs to be out the door this week.

Also, as a tangential worry, why is it that when I go back and re-read these stories for editing they sound so utilitarian? Do I no longer have access to any beautiful words, images, moments? Blech.

You know, there's a small bit of good news on the writing front. I sold a story, specifically my Bradbury/Alfonsina Storni homage. But shhh. Because the last time I sold something and told you about it, IT NEVER CAME OUT. So just...shhh. I'll let you know if it's ever published. Yeah, I know, crazy superstitious talk, but see above re:panic. Also, I dunno why I bother to file the serial numbers off if I'm just going to recite them to you here. Some student in some far flung parallel universe is currently looking right at this to support their thesis that the main character in that story is meant to be Alfonsina Storni with an eyebrow ring.

BTW, tally so far on the lyrics game is 2 points Sunjunkie and 2 points Jerm. Yes, it's like basketball. You get two points every time you score. You can't win if you don't play, as they say.

Which is why I am not a psychic.

No news yet, on anything subbed.

So let's talk about something else, shall we?

Over the past few weeks I've been listening to Michael A. Stackpole's "The Secrets" podcast. I think I downloaded it a long time ago, having seen it recommended (maybe) in Merrie's blog. Anyway, it mostly raises my hackles and makes me roll my eyes, but it also makes me think, and I'm of the suspicious notion that thinking is a good thing.

To be fair, he says some things that I couldn't agree more with, such as your writing should not be a black box. You should think about your writing and know how it works so you can fix things that break in your creative process. Granted, I've a tendency to overthink things, so of course I think it's great to spend lots of time and energy thinking, whether about writing or anything else. Maybe it isn't. But on this point, even if mistaken, Stackpole and I are in complete agreement.

He also gave me the great benefit of telling me what Cualcotel is. He was positing that the magic system in any fantasy must be introduced in the first chapter, because otherwise readers will wonder about the fantastical aspect. He said (and I paraphrase, the podcast episode is long since deleted), "If there's not magic then it's not fantasy, it's just a history of an imaginary land." And while his tone was derogatory, my heart flip-flopped with joy, because now I have a one line description for Cualcotel that's just perfect: a history of an imaginary land. According to Stackpole, no one wants to read these, but that's a problem for another day, isn't it?

But he's also irritating. For example, he does first chapter analysis on one of his own books, and claims you must run out and buy and follow along to get what he's talking about. Meh, that sort of self-promotion rubs me the wrong way. Worse yet, he claims he uses his own book because he can't know what another author was thinking when they were writing their first chapter. But the fact is, his analysis is of included elements, and you can clearly see whether the main character and conflict and such are presented in the first chapter of anyone's work. You can tell whether the book has enough tension to make you want to keep reading. It's just bogus reasoning. I'd have felt much better about "I'm using my book because I want to, that's all".

One of the thing he talks (and talks and talks and talks) about is not editing while you are writing. I've heard this a lot, and I sort of believe it. That is, I believe editing is capable of squashing forward momentum. That seeing what you have to fix can paralyze you from finishing. But he uses this writer/editor duality I see all the time (and now I'm moving from picking on him to the more general received wisdom of the writer/editor divide). This model, that one part of you writes and another part of you edits, is ubiquitous and it's a model I've thought about a lot, and I just do not think it works for me. The argument goes that your editor side kills your writer side and the two should not be in the same room together and you should be doing either one or the other but never both simultaneously. This extends to advising people to physically write and edit in different places, or with different props or at different times of day (and Stackpole advocates this methodology) to reinforce which role you are in and keep the two better separated.

Now, I don't know if it's because I'm neurologically left brain/right brain balanced, or because I actually have no clue what I'm doing with this writing thing, or because I don't fully understand the model as posited, or what, but this construct is useless to me. It's an artificial divide. My writer and my editor are the same person. They aren't divisible. Now I can see a mode of operation, yes, where one aspect dominates the other, but the interchange between the two sides (if it's two sides, which I'm not completely convinced about) is continuous. It's synchronous communication, not asynchronous. The corrective force, which I think is what people mean by their editor, must always be present in tandem with the output force, which is maybe the writer side, or nothing gets done for me. It's like this river and these banks and dams and locks, and if I'm not sticking in the dams and locks and levees as I go then the whole thing breaks its banks, spreads across the land and ends up a shapeless bog. And you can't put the bog back into the river. If I come to the end of writing something and I have a bog, I'm done with that. There's no pushing the water back into course. I edit while I work because I think about what I'm doing while I do it. I wouldn't know how to not think about what I'm writing while I write it. And maybe this is a basic sign of why I'll never get anything published (as Stackpole says), but I tend to believe that there's more than one way to skin a cat, and that if the model of splitting off writing and editing doesn't work for me, then I might just succeed at writing with a different approach. In fact, I just had an epiphany about editing, which is that maybe I don't like it because it seems too one-sided. I've told myself there's no writing involved. But there clearly is. Rewriting is writing just like writing is writing. Gah. This model is just terrible for me. Damaging. I'm done with it.

I also wonder how much of this writing blather is going to seem totally cute in that "I was so wrong" kind of way someday. But I don't mind that.

Two more comments and then I'm done here. One of the other food for thought things I've taken away from Stackpole's podcast is that he posits that every story must have a character arc. He is nowhere near the only person to say this, and I've heard it many times before, but he said it in such a way that it clicked with me differently. I think I may have a huge flaw in my writing in terms of character arcs. See, I'm always in the act of revealing a character for who he or she is, not so much in making them change, though sometimes they do. More often though, they are shown to have their true nature, a nature they may not have been aware of themselves. Often the growing self-awareness is what I use for an epiphany or a growth moment, but that seems like a cheater way to get through the growth/change bit. I have to think about this some more. Is revelation of character a valid tactic at all? It seems like what happens in a lot of lit fic, so it must be valid on some level. Even if it is valid, I should learn to do a more traditional obstacle/grow/change arc too, shouldn't I? I should be able to do both. A direction to work in! Yay! A concrete place where I have to hone a skill.

And lastly, this is not about the podcast, but in response to yesterday's comments. Thank you for your comments. I love comments. I'm glad that people want to be encouraging to me. However, I am amused by the perception of negativity my entry gave out. Hmmm. Well, it seems unlikely that all four things I have out will be accepted where they are. It may be that none of them will be accepted. That would follow the trend thus far, at any rate, with no sales. I know people who claim to be realists are often pessimists in disguise, but I have a feeling I'm owed a rejection from at least one of the markets I've sent to. I don't believe that's setting myself up for failure, or being hopeless, but following a natural set of statistical probabilities. I'll admit I am wary of connecting long response times to potentially positive outcomes, because for me, at least it has never worked out that way, and a couple of times I was burned by hopefulness on markets that usually have quick turnarounds but happened to take a long time with my submissions. That burn has smarted much more than the tingly feelings, by the way. Anyway, whether what I get is rejection, acceptance, or something in between, these are outcomes I have no control over. I've already done the part I had control over, and if I were going to place my hopes anywhere, it seems like I'd have placed them there, in the earlier steps of the process, in the part where I could do something one way or the other. I honestly don't know if I'm ever going to be published. Perseverance is not one of my strong suits, and is a critical aspect of success in the writing field. At any moment now, I could well declare this experiment over and done with and decide to go do something else. And, to me at least, that isn't a hopeless sort of feeling, it's a hopeful one. I've got other things I can do. I'm not stuck with this. I have an out.

I have one of those highly unreliable precognitive tingly feelings that I'll be getting a rejection today. If only it would come already!

Currently reading: Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin

So I sent a sub to an online magazine back in September, and Duotrope made it red some time ago, before Christmas and I said to myself, "Self, you can wait to query because hello, who wants a rejection at Christmas. Also you've never queried anything before and you have no idea what you're doing and sometimes these things fix themselves if you just wait."

Thus I waited. I heard nothing. And January passed, and I subbed some more stuff (well really the same stuff, which had now been rejected and gone out again while this other sub failed to garner its rejection) and Duotrope told me again this sub had really been out there WAY too long.

"Fine," said I, "Write query. You need the practice." I consulted writer friends. How do I write a query? I got some advice. I tried to follow it.

I wrote a succinct query, which I took too long to phrase and was self-conscious about, then emailed it to the address listed as for queries on the magazine's site.

I figured queries might get answered pretty quickly, specially if the answer was "oh right, we've been meaning to tell you no thanks." or "uhm...we lost it, send again?" Like maybe within a week or two (which it has now been). Am I wrong on this? I mean to wait six weeks, I guess, which puts me to mid-March and then re-query. Can you re-query or is that bad form? Do I need to wait as long on the query about the sub as I did on the original sub before I do anything else (which would be about sixty days or so for this market, more like eight weeks than the six I plan on waiting)? Do I just cut my losses after six weeks and sub elsewhere and send along a note withdrawing (and how do you write a polite withdrawal note)? What's the etiquette here? Help me out here, I'm flailing in ignorance.

ETA - I hope it's not rude of me to mention the market by name. In general, I believe in openness, and non-response to me should not be taken as indicative of anything about the market generally. I realize from Merrie's comment that my coyness makes it hard for people like me to track problems with specific markets using search engines, so I officially uncoy: Coyote Wild, which just put out a new issue and seems to be alive and kicking marketwise has been hanging on to one of my subs for a while now. I get nothing suspicious about them on Duotrope (responses to things submitted as recently as Feb 5!) though black holes shows a withdrawal that's about as old as my sub. As for Speculations, I'm never quite convinced I've looked in all the right places to get market info, but near as I can tell, there's nothing there about Coyote Wild. Who knows?

I am probably supposed to be learning patience from this. Patience, young grasshopper.

I typed,"He'd written the algorhythm that compared the camera takes to the database headshots."

"Wait," says one of my brain hemispheres to the other, "Something's not right about that word."

"Which word?" asks the other hemisphere, now three sentences ahead, sentences that have not been typed because apparently the typing is controlled by the hung up on spelling hemisphere.

"That one. The rhythm word."

"But rhythm is right. That's how you spell it. Looks weird, I know, but it's right. I'm positive. And it can't be 'algo' that's wrong. That's totally basic spelling, no tricks there."

"Something is WRONG, I tell you."

"Ok, ok."

Placate now or forever lose your next three sentences.

I flip to dashboard's dictionary app and type ALGOR, happy yet again for its completion search.

Algorithm, it tells me.

Ooooooh.

"See?! I told you something was wrong!"

Heh. Brains are funny. Algorithm. But I still say Algorhythm is a cool word. It should apply to something. Algorhythm: a word looking for a meaning. Give it one today. Meanwhile, I have three more sentences to type.

I owe a state of the writing entry at some point, but this is not that. This is notekeeping about short pieces.

Things subbed to markets:

• Another Boot (flash)
• Stranger's Child
• Three Second Memory
• Peeling Off The Pale

That's the most things I've ever had out at one time, though I've had four things out at various points during 2007, but this time around none of those four things is "Hindsight", which after more than two years of being almost the only thing I sent out and ten markets has officially been retired. I'm getting better at sending things out. Tea-leaf market reading at Duotrope says both "Stranger's Child" and "Three Second Memory" have been at their markets longer than the average time for a rejection but ehhh, that doesn't mean much, does it? I'm probably in for a couple of those "almost bought this" rejections that my stuff seems to be accruing lately.

Things that need to be polished and sent out:

• Easier Next Time
• Would Be Super (flash)
• Lie Down With Dogs
• How I Lost My Nissan 350Z

I pulled out "Easier Next Time" yesterday and realized with dismay it isn't flash, as I believed, and also guh, it's not speculative but is somewhat fluffy (as opposed to serious and significant) and I have no idea where to send it. Still, fixes first, markets second. It would be awesome if I got these four things out before the end of 2007. If I do all four of these, I can potentially double the items I am, as a friend says, "sending away for rejection letters."

Things that are setting a while before edits which I believe I'm capable of:

• Adding to Naught
• El Vientre
• The Genocide Hotel (temp title)

Things that are broken and I'd like to fix, but I'm not sure how:

• Far From The Tree
• Nine-Tenths
• Found Objects
• Loyal Companion

Things that are unfinished, but I mean to complete, soon as I figure out what goes next:

• the bleak angel story
• both failed slushbombs, the first one and the cooperative one
• the one about the messages in the margins, so long as it isn't "Found Objects" again (and I can't tell yet)
• the one about the camp kid building the voodoo doll
• the one in the file called tattoocode.txt
• the Chelia backstory one
• a testing waters story in the new world I'm harboring, probably about carnaval
• the post-apocalyptic segregated gender story
• the one about the kid who reads the dying stars

There's a lot left to write, even without digging into the idea file, which is itself voluminous. I suppose I can stop thinking of myself as someone who doesn't have a lot of ideas. None of these sort of started stories are entered into the database. Key them in with "Started", willya? Also, this is not exhaustive of the drabbles on the hard drive (or in paper! Ignore the paper!). I just mentally checked whether I was engaged with the idea represented in the file right this second, and left the others unlisted.

Things I mean to write but have not actually started:

• the story about the ponies for Sophia (needs to be about 300 words, full plot and girl arc)
• linked 55 word stories, a half a dozen or so (for Sophia)
• standalone 55 word stories, another half dozen, YA slant
• the VP Evil Overlord story, because really, it was an assignment, wasn't it?

Things that are broken and shelved for now:

• Egghead Kingdom
• Ennui (suitable for mining, I think, together with Hindsight into some new monstrous whole)

Things that are shelved:

• How Does Your Garden Grow (it's not a strong enough story...I'm not happy enough with it)
• Hindsight (also not a strong enough story, plus it's been to ten markets! I will dismantle it and steal the good bits)
• Olympus (aka the speculative version of Adding to Naught. I'm going to mine this at some point but it will never see light as it is)
• My Viable Paradise Titanic story (it's not very good, and that's being kind)

Things that have sold:

• The Way Before (flash)

Stories on the various lists which I wrote this year: Stranger's Child, Three Second Memory, Would Be Super, Adding to Naught, El Vientre, The Genocide Hotel, The Way Before. There are no stories I wrote this year that are not represented. This inventory tells me that my stories are coming out less broken than they used to...so I must have internalized some author toolbox stuff, though I wouldn't have known that from the writing itself. I've felt much less productive this year than last, and though I made less novelistic progress, I do appear to be regularly writing short stories so maybe I shall be less hard on myself about wordcount. Fewer words but the right words has greater value than the raw number of words, at least to me. I long to write brief anyway, so why tell myself I need to put in more words? (Amusing aside, I was given a very stern crit on "The Genocide Hotel" about not being afraid to add in more words. I always prefer winnowing to fattening. I wrote the recommendation down, so I would take it seriously). Examining the list(s) also tells me that I need stories to sit about six to nine months between writing and polishing. That's a huge lag time and I'm going to have to figure out a way to shorten it ("Stranger's Child" and "Three Second Memory" did not seem to need that long to steep, but "Three Second Memory" had been in my head a long time, and I cribbed plot for "Stranger's Child" - uh, I mean it's an homage). I think I will use wordcount tracking for novel progress and completion tracking for short pieces. Thus, I started and finished seven things this year. That's fewer than I would like (but more than I expected). Also, if this exercise has been reliable, less of what I write needs to be discarded than I thought, and most of what does need to be discarded is stuff from my first year writing. Note to self, it's easier to see progress when you make a list (or series of lists).

Maybe if I thought of revisions as translations I wouldn't hate them so much.

Right. So I realize I vanished for a long time (I use the metric of whether my brother in law asks me if I'm ever going to blog again to know whether it's been a long time. This past weekend, he asked). But the crocuses are back, and the woodpecker too (even though the city cut down the tree he lived in last year and I thought I might not see him again) so why not me too? I have returned!

As of yesterday, I sold my first story. No kidding. It's "The Way Before", going to Escape Pod, which is a dream market for me because a - I love it and b - I think audio stories are the bomb and c - it has a wider listenership than F&SF has subscribers. Thousands of people could hear my story. Ha! And here's the thing : I completely was not expecting it, because my story didn't make it to the finals in the Contest. Now, all along Steve (editor) had said "top three get special prizes plus standard contracts to whichever other ones I like," but I had just kind of assumed those would be culled from the other finalists. So imagine my surprise when he announced which stories he was going to buy (an additional nine, besides the winners) and my story was on the list. I thought it must be a typo, then found the email with the story contract in my inbox. Vertigo, shouting and dancing ensued in quick succession.

I'm going to be published, though probably not promptly. About six months, I think. Don't worry, I'll let you know when my story is available for download. With any luck, it'll be read by someone who doesn't stumble over the pseudo-Quechua names.

Not only am I going to audio, I have three other things out in markets. I rock. Not as much as I could, as there should be way more stuff out trying to find homes, but still. Nolove from Fantasy magazine on "Stranger's Child" so I sent it elsewhere, and turned around "Another Boot" on Flashquake's rejection (the classic rejection for me: this story is about too many things at once). Though I'm sure they didn't peg it as a Garden of Eden story. Those serial numbers well filed. "Hindsight" still out, too, and I'm going to trunk it when it gets 10 rejections. It's done well for me as a thing I can stand to have rejected, but I'm not sure it's really publishable.

So other than the obvious giddy inducing first sale, writing lately is a little...spotty. I seem to be beginning things just fine, but I don't seem to be able to finish anything. So because I'm a listmaker, here's a list of the things I'm currently working on. There's a meme I've seen a lot of places lately that has writers posting the first lines of their published things, or their works in progress, or their unfinished things, or whatever. so I'm going to use the first line meme as a frame for my list. First lines is one of the things I'm terrible at, but working hard on, so this is good work for me in more ways than one. In fact, highly verbal and unselfconscious me totally shut down at Viable Paradise during the opening line exercise. I wrote them, but they were all so bad I refused to read them aloud. Which, you know, is not like me at all. But I'm working on it. Here are some fruits of my work, though you'd be wise to watch for worms and rot.

• the glass ghost story, untitled, "Daisy stood as close to the tank as she could, watching the shark." Here is the counterexample to my bad opening lines claim. I'm completely happy with that line: it sets tone, foreshadows, tells you about the world, and suggests the menace I want. I don't think I can get much more work out of an opening line. I don't know how hooky it is, which is my biggest weakness, but it's about as hooky as I can come up with at this competence level. The only thing I'm not sure on is the protag's name, but that's just a placeholder.
• the margins story, also untitled and which has two opening lines at the moment. 1 - "Millie was the sort of girl no one usually addressed." or 2 - "Millie sat in her corner of the library, reading her book, knowing it would be up to her to observe when it was time to leave, because neither her classmates nor her teacher would notice her absence." 1 is backstory, too much like telling and having an obvious narrator. 2 is clunky. Neither matters until I get this written to the end, of course, but they're both pretty terrible as is.
• This one might be called "Tattoo Code", or it might be called something else, "'Share with me,' the man behind the counter said, when he saw the Mardi Gras colors shifting over my skin." Does some good work but isn't hooky enough.
• the moving backward hard to plot one, no title,"Time is a luxury, they say. I miss my wine cellar, the fit of tailored clothing, and sailing. Those were the extravagances I sought before, and would gladly indulge in again, were I able." Yech, there's nice resonance with the luxuries there but I'm not sure I can afford to start with a cliche. Does a saying qualify as cliche? I don't know, but this opening line doesn't work as a standalone (I had to add the second line) and it's certainly not hooky.
• untitled, nursing home one, "'What really counts is people.'" Not all that hooky, but it's dialog, so I think I'm allowed some leeway.
• Provisionally titled "The Genocide Hotel", "Josh stood in the lobby with his tablet tucked under his arm and the guest card gripped tightly in his right hand". Needs work, I believe.

These are only things I've started in the past few weeks, of course, not counting the reams of other unfinished things from the past two years. I'd like to get back to finishing things, and not just starting them.

In other news, my new favorite song is Gogol Bordellos "Not A Crime", though I still love their "Start Wearing Purple" too.

iTunes says I was listening to Not A Crime from the album Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike by Gogol Bordello when I posted this. I have it rated 4 stars.

And I just cannot help but tell you. I submitted a piece of flash fiction to Escape Pod's 300 word flash fiction contest. So did my friend, the Queen of Plot. Because Escape Pod rocks, and this is the first time I've seen a call for something not reprints, which is what they usually favor. Even better, it's a reader (listener?) rated contest. No, I'm not going to tell you which one is mine, that would be against the rulez, but you should join the forums and read the various flash bits and vote for your favorites nonetheless. I'd vote for myself (and other ones I like), but I'm scared to read the comments on my piece. My ego is weak, weak. But you have no stake, right? So go, enjoy. Discover the wondrous good that is Escape Pod. Even though I've linked some of the stories here before, in a few weeks I intend to do a "Best of Escape Pod" post, so you can stay tuned for my five or eight favorite stories ever from Escape Pod.

This makes three things I have out in submissions, more than I've ever had out before. Ha.

You notice how I revealed one secret so that I could hold back another? Double ha.

Also, I shoveled snow today. For the first time. In my life.

So I guess it's about time I wrote a little something about writing. I don't actually want to. I have no good news and I'm doing whatever I can to avoid thinking, working, anything on this topic. I've written almost nothing for - oh, about three months now - and if I hadn't given myself a deadline of November 2008 to beat my head against this wall I would have quit by now because ugh, the headache. I want out. I apologize in advance for how negative and discouraging this post is going to be and my only excuse is eh, you (at least one of you) asked.

• Exhibit A: I've done this for two years and published nothing. To be fair, I've sent out almost nothing, but that's because I can't stand any of it. I have a grand total of six rejections, all from the same story, the only one I ever sent anywhere. That's nearly all my problems right there : I don't write enough plus I don't like what I write enough to send it anywhere plus when I miraculously get up the gumption to send something somewhere it gets rejected (which, naturally, is no surprise, since I knew it sucked before I sent it).
• Exhibit B: There's no faster way for me to feel bad about something I've written than to read it at my writer's group. I'm not sure why this is. I don't think it's because I can't take criticism, but that may be it. I don't think it's because I'm convinced what I've written is great, since I'm pretty sure nothing I've written so far is great. Though I long for something to be. Just like that, all archaic and yearning. I want to write something great. But obviously, I haven't yet. Anyway, usually I'm just reading things I think are passable but need help, and when I get to the end and hear everyone's comments I just feel like the thing is sullied and worthless. These are not even comments that are wholly negative, I should explain. My writer's group has a pretty soft touch. Usually I feel like I totally failed to get anything across. Like I came in and read a poor version of Jabberwocky, all nonsense words in the right syntactical places, but failing to convey any meaning. Or like it's the wrong trousers and they're all wrong. It's not them, I'm pretty sure. It's me. Still, I've got to figure out how to handle criticism, right? Totally basic, necessary skill. Skill I thought I had, too, so I don't know what's wrong with me these days. I've also got to figure out how to read aloud something I've written and not hate every word as my mouth shapes it, but I don't know how to learn that, because it seems to be something I unlearned.
• Exhibit C: I'm not sure I love writing anymore. I don't love doing it, and I certainly don't love having anyone else read anything I've written. It's totally agonizing to contemplate sending things out for people to read. It all sucks! It's all broken! Sometimes I even know how it's broken, but so rare that I can fix it. Blech. I hate every word! If I hate every word, and I wrote them, how can I expect anyone else to feel otherwise?
• Exhibit D: Ok, so I lied in exhibit C. I don't hate every word. A couple of weeks ago I was rummaging through some papers and happened upon my failed slush bomb story. And I got sucked completely into it. And I loved it. But you know what? That story doesn't go anywhere. It's stuck. So what's all the pretty, engaging writing get me? Nothing. Not a thing. Because there's no story there. Well, there's a story there but I can't get at it, I can't make it come out. Just another three pages full of word detritus that doesn't cohere. And I don't know which is worse, all the finished stories which are not right or all the unfinished stories which are so promising but I don't appear to have the ability to fashion to completion.

I can't honestly say I suck at writing, but I'm pretty sure that however good I may be, it is not good enough. I fall short. Maybe I harbored too many dreams of greatness, I don't know. I was pretty sure I had my head on straight, non-delusionally, when I started this. I didn't think it would be easy, and I didn't think I'd make any money, but I guess I thought I'd be pretty happy with what I wrote. And I'm not. At all. It's not good enough. None of it is good enough. It's all I can do not to start a big bonfire and reformat my drive. Meanwhile, as I exercise the great restraint of not purging the world of my poor words, I'm expected to polish and edit and send all those sad little specimens somewhere? When I can see every blindness, every deafness, every cleft palate, every club foot? How inhumane a task is that to set oneself? I swear I'm not a perfectionist, though I'm sure this rant will sound like I am. I'm a complete and total believer in good enough instead of perfect. Problem is, I can't even get as far as good enough. I'm not sure how much better, or longer, I can fail.

Gah. I'm sorry I subjected you to this. You can see, maybe, why I didn't really bring it up. Next time, maybe you'll think twice before asking.

Ok, this is going to be very short, because I'm very tired, but I'm trying so hard not to miss a day! I'm really excited because I just got back from a crit group where we're going over Cualcotel. My readers got new, from-scratch written text (as opposed to edited and reworked), because this is where the novel takes a sharp turn from last draft and enters undiscovered plot country. So, I hesitantly added several cans of plot to thicken the stew, hoping I wasn't totally botching it because you know me and plot. So...both readers thought it was good, and the queen of plot actually said I'd done a fine job. Damn, if it wasn't like getting a smiley face sticker or an A++ on a paper. Skills, slowly and painfully acquired, while you wait. That's what I'm talking about!

Anyway, the rush of joy is so great, that I give you freebie text. Have some bits of Cualcotel that I liked very much but had to go, for plot reasons. So it's nothing that will ever appear anywhere except right here:

It was as though she were still dreaming, or maybe watching herself across a courtyard from a balcony in another building. It wasn't really she standing before a broken palace. Chelia laid her hand on Punyami's neck and stroked his ears. The velvet smoothness of them anchored her in a way that her own feet did not. Smoke clung unnaturally to tumbled down rocks. It didn't disperse in the cool mountain breeze. The air was especially cool on her bare arms, making her wish (again) that she'd had a chance to dress and get an overshirt. She shivered. Chelia had stopped, and everyone around her still moved. She was jostled aside by a trio of sun virgins carrying large bouquets of flowers. The guard was far ahead. He had neither stopped nor acted surprised at the sight of the wrecked palace. She darted between the crowds to reach him. Punyami followed.

and then a bit later this line of dialog from the guard was also excised : "No battle, keeper-to-be, the Kingdom of the Sun takes its wars to others. War is not brought to us."

See? When the writing goes ok, we all win!

But that's not enough, is it? Alright, then, here's the text that replaced what was cut in a never before seen preview of my work in progress Cualcotel:

Chelia's throat closed up, stifling the whimper rising in her. She laid her hand on Punyami's neck, calmed by the motion of his muscles as he walked with her. She would never enter that trapezoidal door again. Her father would not allow it. He'd given her Punyami. They kept one another safe.

I'm going to have to do something about that word trapezoidal. So far slanted and leaning have bombed as replacements, and really, they're trapezoidal. Le mot juste and so forth. I think it stops the eye on the page, though. Anyway, plenty of time to think about something other than trapezoidal to put there after it's finished, right?

That's all, folks. Have a good night.

I know that I often complain about (bad) poetry, but sometimes - it's true - a poem can say things that no other form quite can. If I could write a poem as beautiful as Jorge Luis Borges' "Ausencia", I would write such in memory of Simone. As a lesser artist, I will have to satisfy myself with the work of translation instead, and hope that I do not diminish the work with my efforts.

Absence by Jorge Luis Borges (translation mine)

I shall have to lift the vast life
that even now is your mirror:
every morning I shall have to rebuild it.
Since you have gone away,
many places have turned vain
and senseless, like
lights during the day.
Afternoons that were alcoves for your image,
songs where you waited for me,
words from yonder time,
I'll have to break them with my hands.
In which ditch shall I hide my soul
so it will not see your absence
like a terrible sun, at constant zenith,
shining calculated and ruthless?
Your absence surrounds me
like a rope around my throat,
like the sea in which I drown.

For grins, and to show you just how limited my translation skills are, here's Google's run at the same text.

Absence by Jorge Luis Borges (translation Google's)

I will have to raise the vast life
that still now is your mirror:
each morning I will have to reconstruct it.
Ever since you moved away,
how many places have become vain
and without sense, equal
to lights in the day.
Afternoons that were niche of your image,
musics in which always you waited to me,
words of that time,
I will have to break them with my hands.
In what depression I will hide my soul
so that he does not see your absence
that like a terrible sun, without decline,
shines definitive and ruthless?
Your absence surrounds me
like the cord to the throat,
the sea to which it sinks.

I read these at my writer's group back in July. Several people mentioned that places publish translations and that I ought to submit my version. It went like this : "You should submit that for publication."
"I didn't write it."
"Places take translations. That counts."
"Really?"
"Yeah, all sorts of places small presses, university presses..."
"Nah, really?"
"Yes. Really."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. You should submit this."

Heh. It's still kind of mindboggling. I can see why someone might hire someone to translate a work. But just sending out an unsolicited translation somewhere? That seems like crazy talk, to me. And you know, I didn't write it. That's the bottom line. But then, I was two seconds from thinking "I could translate all of Borges. I could fix the brokenness in the translations I've read of Ficciones. That would rock." It has its appeal. But almost certainly in mending some words and sentences I would break others. Translations are doomed to be approximations, imperfect. As for submitting the poem, I think I succesfully undercut that by posting it here. Not to mention that you have to do your own work of securing the copyright. What a pain. So if I do end up translating all Borges' work, you'll never see it.

One of the myriad tiny ways Spanish is not like English : there are no separate words for "worse" and "worst" nor for "better" and "best". Sometimes, you can say "lo peor" or "lo mejor" and convey that this is the single worst thing, but essentially, there's not a lone superlative word like there is in English. Another way the two are not the same: I've spent long minutes trying to come up with the English word for when you put a half lemon on that little conical ridged thing and press down to squeeze out the juice, and I was blank. Is there not a single verb for that? Is it the generic "squeezed"? There's no sense of wringing out in squeezed, no sense that you've stripped the lemon. How disappointing. I'm looking, of course, for the equivalent of "exprimir". My handy-dandy Spanish/English translator tells me I'm looking for the word "express" but ugh, how inelegant. And were I to use "express" how many people would assume I was using it in the far more common "to convey" sense and not the "to squeeze out the juice" sense?

Merrie had recommended some podcasts about writing (and no, I'm not Elizabeth, but I can steal recommendations with the best of them), and because I already subscribe to more podcasts than I can reasonably listen to, I added some of the ones she pointed to. On Thursday, I listened to the first episode of Holly Lisle's "On Writing" podcast. Her advice on this one is don't start your book with weather. Amusingly, and this is probably an indicator of how limited my repertoire of beginnings is, it had never even occurred to me that one could do such. I thought over my openings. I couldn't come up with a single one that has weather in it. I read a few, to make sure. Nope. No weather. Total absence of rain, snow, wind, clouds, sunshine. Well, I'll be. I was doing something right and didn't even know it. But here's where we come to the peril of writing advice, especially when it comes to me. My Connerly woman genes dictate that if someone tells me I should not do something, I must then immediately find a way to do that forbidden thing. Start a story with weather...so tempting. Not only does Holly warn me away from such a course of action but (extra bonus plus) I've never done it before! Hmmm. This writing advice podcast business may not be for me.

I am doing a second (in some places third) draft of Cualcotel, have I mentioned that? I haven't done a writing post in so long I forget what I've told you about. I'm still in the first quarter of the book, and I've discovered that I hate revision. This is part of why stuff languishes in my "to be fixed up before sending out" pile. There's also the queasy feeling I don't much like any of it and maybe it's all terrible and I'm doing myself a kindness by not sending it out. If I don't much care for it, how can I expect anyone else to? Though Gaiman said (on this very website, how cool is that?) that he doesn't expect anyone to like everything he writes, including himself, so maybe it's all pointless grumping on my part. Then again, he demonstrably doesn't suck, while I...well, let's just say I haven't proved my not suckitude yet.

I sent "Hindsight" out again, which means I officially have something out there again. It had languished for about six months. So, that's on its way to its sixth rejection. My goal is to get a second thing out before "Hindsight" comes back. I also already have the next market picked for "Hindsight", which should help turnaround matters. Really, how am I ever going to get that 100 rejection party if I don't snap to it?

The last thing I completed was a retelling of the Garden of Eden story. Snake's point of view, of course. Yeah, I know, so done. Like the world needs another one of those. Stack of useless words. On the other hand, it's what I had available to be written, so I wrote it, and it's preferable to the alternative: no story and no words. I did another one of those idea generating exercises, which is kind of fun. I did actually write up some stories from the first iteration of that exercise (including the mournfully, grievously broken "Far From the Tree") and I hadn't done it this year, so I guess that's useful. Spent about twenty minutes on it. About ten ideas, maybe about three or four of those usable. One that I thought was really cool.

I've had, lately, a lot of existential angst about my writing. Almost two years and I'm not anywhere, to speak of. I have a pile of words that I don't know what to do with, I seem incapable of sending anything out, and my writing lacks any sort of luster, though I do try. This has led to me weighing down my friends and relatives with numerous "woe is me" discussions of my writing (sorry, guys). Thankfully, you can be spared the brunt of all that, and I can get straight to the funny parts. With one of my friends, I had this exchange :
11:41 AM me: This was better when I thought I was GREAT!
my friend: hahahaha
and hugs
11:42 AM i find your fiction to be markedly different from your conversations. where you, in the words of admiral nelson, forget maneuvers and go right at 'em.
11:43 AM me: hmmm i'm digesting that. so my fiction is indirect?
11:45 AM my friend: i would say oblique without the payoff.
11:46 AM that the very best oblique writing can deliver.
me: i'm working on payoff! really, I am.
Then, with another friend, discussing a specific broken story:
"So of course I'm headed for the showdown so I have to put the caretaker in sooner."
She, "Well, actually, I'm never sure which way you're going with something. I find you often go in directions I didn't expect."
"Oh," worried pause, "I'm not sure that's a good thing."
"No, no, no," she assures me,"This can be a good thing."

Right, so on my first book, the one where they excerpt reviews down to a single word because anything else would be damning, I'm having them put "oblique..." and "unexpected". I'm sure my friends won't mind blurbing me. Also, it appears I won't have to turn in my internet bloggers member card, because I have managed to post a chat transcript. First memes, now chat transcripts, will my conformity never end?