Magazines come and go. I understand that. No, truly, having run Niteblade for five years now, I really DO understand. However, there is a huge difference between a publisher closing up shop, and a publisher closing up shop and not telling anyone.

Once you realise your publication is going to be closing its doors it is time to, at the very least, drop an email to the people whose work you’ve accepted for future issues (not that I’m referring to myself here, no, no, of course not LOL). Really, you ought to make a public announcement of some sort and let everyone who has submitted work to you know as well, so their stuff isn’t hanging about in limbo, but to not even tell the people whose stuff is meant to be in your next issue? *sigh*

For what it’s worth, if Niteblade ever has to close its doors, I promise to do it right, not just vanish into the ether in silence.

Also, somewhat randomly and completely unrelated to the first half of this blog, I put up a writing prompt on NaNoLJers this week that I thought was pretty good. Check it out –> What would make your character go out in the cold?

I found a dead bird today, a magpie. Where I grew up, in rural Alberta, magpies were reviled. They were infamous for stealing dog food and being able to ‘smell a gun from a mile away’. I listened to many conversations about the best way to kill them (usually involving poison and the aforementioned dog food) and how horrible they were. Frankly, I thought it was the people doing the plotting that were horrible, not the birds. I love birds. Even magpies.

I know magpies aren’t angelic, I’ve seen them swarming to pick on a weaker bird, or squirrel, and I’ve heard stories about them ganging up on cats, but I guess that sort of falls under the whole ‘circle of life’ or ‘nature is cruel’ thing. I think they are beautiful. Their black and white feathers, their silhouette when they fly overhead. They are super-smart, and I freaking LOVE how they talk with two voices at the same time. Someday I’ll write a story with that in it, someday.

Not today. Today my story is about one particular magpie that won’t ever speak again, in any number of voices.

I left my house, intent on dealing with some mundane errands. I was feeling a little bit sorry for myself because a had a bit of a headache and the scale this morning said I’d gained 1/2 a pound overnight. I left my yard and started walking down the sidewalk toward the mall, and I saw it. A feathery bundle laying still on the sidewalk. Right in the middle of the sidewalk. It was unmistakably a magpie, even from a distance, it’s coloring and shape told me that much. I couldn’t tell if it was alive or dead, there was a light breeze and it was ruffling its feathers just enough to sustain the possibility of breath. I was frozen in place for a moment, trying to figure out what could have happened — because it was just laying there. There were no scattered feathers, no other birds or animals, no sign of any struggle, just a bird, obviously dead or dying, laying in the middle of the sidewalk.

When I finally walked toward it, I hoped it was dead. If it was suffering I knew I wouldn’t be able to find it within myself to kill it, nor did I have the faintest clue who to call. There was something about it’s posture that told me if it wasn’t dead it soon would be, so I didn’t think even if I -did- call someone they’d be able to help. So I wanted it to be dead. And I felt bad for that, but dead > suffering without hope.

All those thoughts swept through me in the time it took to reach the magpie, all those and several theories about what could have killed it.

Because it was very definitely dead. I realised that before I’d reached it. When I did get to it and look down, it looked beautiful. He had no wounds, no blood, his body wasn’t twisted or unnatural looking. Snow had fallen on him (from the trees above him, I presume) and then melted, leaving tiny droplets of water that sparkled on his feathers. Looking at him, my heart ached, and yet, I had the thought ‘I should photograph him, he looks gorgeous.’ I dismissed that thought as soon as it occured to me, but really, he was that lovely, even in death.

I took off my glove and reached for him, then stopped and put my glove back on. I don’t know why I’d taken it off in the first place, because his feathers looked so soft? Because I wanted to brush the water droplets off him? I don’t know, but a childhood of repeatedly being told ‘Don’t touch that, it’s dirty and it’ll make you sick’ put my glove back on before I picked him up. But I did pick him up. What choice did I have? I couldn’t leave him laying there. Couldn’t make him someone else’s problem, or leave him for a neighbourhood kid or cat to discover.

I brought him home, and then, swallowing back tears the whole time, wandered around my yard, trying to figure out what to do with him. I couldn’t bury him, the ground is frozen and covered with snow, plus I had errands to run before Danica got home from school. I couldn’t just throw him in the garbage because… well, I just couldn’t. I thought about putting him on top of the compost pile, where he could get covered with snow and decompose untouched over the winter (somehow compost doesn’t equate to garbage in my brain), but that wasn’t safe. Not only could the neighbourhood cats potentially get him, so could my dog. I didn’t want to have to deal with that. I thought about putting him in our shed until spring when I could bury him, but I couldn’t get the door open (it was frozen in place).

In the end I left him outside, up off the ground with a crate covering him to keep him safe from scavengers. I’ll leave him there until Jo gets home to help me make a decision. It could be that there’s someone with the city I can call to deal with him, if not, he spend the winter quadruple bagged in my freezer until spring. Or that Jo can get the door to the shed open.

Whatever happens, he touched my day and my heart and I felt compelled to write about him and share my story.

Rest in peace, Magpie.

One of my guilty little pleasures is Jersey Shore.

It started by accident. While flicking through channels last year I stumbled upon Jersey Shore and lingered on that channel a while just to torment my husband.

In turn, he set up the PVR to record Jersey Shore.

Then we started watching the recordings.

It became a family event. Each Friday we’d watch what had been recorded on the day before, and I have to admit that the word ‘Jersday’ was uttered more than once within our walls.

I grew to actually like Pauly and Vinnie and to enjoy the train wrecks that are Snooki, Deena and Mike.

I know, I know. But wait, there’s more. I caught an old, random repeat from Season 1 or 2 last night and it totally inspired the stuff I wrote today for Consequence.

At the moment I have a total of two scenes (two scenes! How lame is that?) which I think I’ll be keeping once revision time comes around, and that’s one of them. It’s good. Like, really, truly good.

Maybe I’ll name one of my characters Jersey as a tip of the hat.

Maybe.

On Tuesday I looked over my schedule for the day and there was writing time all over the place. I had a list of things I needed to do for Niteblade, but other than that, it was writing time as far as the eye could see.

Care to guess how much I got written?

I think it was about three pages. Three. Pages.

I write fast. Well, okay, I write longhand much slower than I type, but still, three pages? Realistically that accounts for only about half an hour of my day.

What did I do with the rest? Well, I did work on that Niteblade stuff, and I also decided to make soup to have for lunch over the next week and I also… made cornbread.

I was in my room working on the first draft of Consequence when I discovered my POV character was a vegetarian. Apropos of nothing I wondered what he was going to eat for dinner (even though that dinner wasn’t going to be on the page at all anyway) and I decided he was going to have cornbread. “Mmm… cornbread,” I said to myself. “I haven’t had cornbread in ages. I should make some.” So, I kid you not, I got up from where I was writing, walked into the kitchen and made cornbread.*

How do you spell distractable?

Now, I always have to write myself into a story, and I typically end up cutting at least the first chapter or two when I revise but the cornbread thing was, to me, a huge sign that I was doin’ it wrong. You see, the reason I was so easily distracted was because I was over-thinking things like crazy. Really. It’s similar to what Robert Brewer talks about in his blog here.

In my brain it’s not really focusing too much on the first sentence, but on other important things, like POV and tense and such. My thought process on Tuesday was something like “I should do this from Carrie’s POV exclusively. No, wait. It would be better from Aaron’s POV. Yeah, because *STUFF*. Oh. Actually, maybe a 3rd person POV would be better. The problem would be I wouldn’t be anyone’s head’s but the advatanges are I could go anywhere in the town I wanted, and it would give me a way to show *STUFF*. Unless–”

You get the idea.

With so much indecision and over-thinking going on in my head is there any wonder I wasn’t connected to the story? That I found it easy to walk away? I don’t think so.

When I sat down to write today I gave myself permission, not only for the first draft to be bad, but also to be chaotic. First of all, I’m writing each and every scene that occurs to me, even ones I expect to cut later. It’s easier for me to cut stuff out than to add it in, and I never can tell what I’m going to discover in those scenes, I may just surprise myself and decide to keep them. I’m also writing from whatever POV and in whatever tense I feel like. Hopefully by the time I get to the end of this draft I’ll know what point of view and tense I want the final version to be in and I can revise everything to fit that, but really, if I didn’t give myself permission to just freaking write it, it just wasn’t going to happen.

So right now, this draft is a crazy, chaotic mess. Scenes are written in three different POVs and two different tenses. But there are words on the page and at this point, that’s all I can allow myself to worry about.

*In part I blame Jayde for my cornbread cravings.
**That picture is of Danica, I thought it was appropriate because we took it as a long exposure of her shaking her head back and forth. Which I’ve done at myself a lot lately.

It’s that time of year again. I have a love/hate relationship with goal setting. I love it because goals really are motivating and help me not only get stuff done, but see progress when I need to the most. The thing I hate about goal setting is trying to figure out where the balancing point is between ‘Unrealistic Expectations’ and ‘Challenging Myself’. Tricky, tricky.

That being said, this is my attempt for this year:

Health: This relates to my writing because the healthier I am the more productive (and less dead) I am.

• Continue to eat healthy. In my case that is a low-sodium pescatarian diet.
• No drinking energy drinks
• Remember soft drinks are a ‘sometimes food’ (Thanks Cookie Monster)
• Workout at least five times a week*
• Lose 40lbs

School: I think this year is going to be more writing and editing-centric so my school goal is optional, depending on time and stress.

• Finish one, or, if I’m feeling super energetic, two more courses toward my degree

Writing:

• Write the first draft of Consequence (Deadline is March 31)
• Participate in the monthly version of Write 1 Sub 1. I have a habit of writing ‘cast-off’ poetry for things like this when I become overwhelmed. That’s not acceptable here. Poetry only counts if it is in a complete and publishable form that I’m proud of. Same goes for stories.
• Figure out what to do with Shadows and my zombie poetry and get to work on doing it. This can mean looking for an agent, a publisher or any number of other things. I can’t be specific until I’ve made a decision
• Either finish a first draft of Hollow Children or a transcription of Twixt
• Revise the whack of ‘mostly finished’ short stories sitting in my Dropbox and start looking for homes for them
• NaNoWriMo is optional. So is NovPad.
• Participate in the Whittaker Prize again this year, but in only one category, not both.
• Finish writing poems for all the 2011 Novpad prompts

Editing:

• Implement the new payment system for Niteblade
• Run a fundraiser and increase promotion in order to move out of the red
• Super Sekkrit Projekt w CJD (not Niteblade-related)

Wow… so that’s a lot more goals than I usually set in a year, but it covers some of the things which affect my writing and I don’t usually address in goal-setting. Hopefully that makes things go smoother, but if not I’ll know better for next year.

*The reward for 300 workouts this year will be Christmas in San Francisco. Rewards, especially those not related to food, are good.

Well, I’m getting better at the whole goal-setting and achieving thing, but I’m still far from l33t at it

Last year when I looked back at the goals I’d had for 2010 I’d only managed to accomplish a quarter of them, but this year, looking back over the goals for last, I’ve managed to double that. Oh yeah, I hit the 50% mark LOL

Okay, I grant you, that’s not great, but it’s progress.

My goals for 2011 were:

• Revise the current draft of TWIXT
• Finish writing the current ‘new first draft’ of SHADOWS
• Get a polished manuscript for my zombie poetry chapbook ready and begin looking for a home for it
• Write the poetry project with Danica she and I planned

The first draft of Twixt is still sitting on my shelf, waiting it’s turn for my attention. I still think it’s a strong draft and a great story, but it has a couple big issues that I haven’t quite figured out how to address yet. I actually think I nailed the solution to the biggest one, but I haven’t started revising yet because I’m currently more interested in working on Consequences so… Twixt has to wait. A little while, at least.

I did finish writing the latest draft of Shadows. I’m done with big revisions on that one for now. I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with it, it’s in the hands of two trusted critique partners, and once I have their feedback I’ll be able to make a decision about its future. So, yay! One goal accomplished

I also accomplished my second goal, that of finishing up my zombie poetry chapbook and have started looking for a home for it. In what has become a bit of a familiar problem, the size of this chapbook is a bit of an issue. I picked only my strongest and most favourite zombie/apocalyptic poems to include, and that makes the book a bit shorter than most publishers want. I’m considering doing a small, personalised limited edition of it and giving them away as gifts to friends, or special bonuses for people who buy my other work (like Shades of Green). We’ll see. For now, however, the chapbook is done and I am looking for a home for it, so goal = accomplished.

Sadly, the fourth goal I set, the poetry project Dani and I were going to do hasn’t come together. We are, however, working on a different creative project together. An illustrated story. I’m writing, she’s illustrating. We’re progressing slowly on that one, but slow progress beats no progress.

I didn’t have a whole lot of publications this year, and the ones I did were mostly poetry. This is partly due to the fact I’m becoming pickier about where I submit my work (starting at pro markets and working my way down… except when I need a writerly ego-boost LOL) and partly because I just wasn’t submitting things. Or writing them. Other than novel-length stuff, I mean.

It was a difficult year for me productivity-wise. I was busy with loads of things, from school to Niteblade, NaNoLJers and family things. I spent a great deal of it in the grips of a bad depression that sometimes made it difficult to even get out of bed. I found that setting these goals was very helpful for me. I looked back at them several times over the year to remind myself what I wanted to finish this year, and to keep myself motivated and engaged in something. I will definitely be setting new goals for 2012, but I need to take the next couple days to think about what they ought to be.

What kind of goals are you setting for your writing for the coming year?

Truth is the slipperiest creature I know. I just wrote a long(ish) blog entry, complete with pictures and nostalgia, about my favourite ever Christmas present. Then I deleted it.

It’s so tricky when you write about real things, about real people. Even if you’re saying nice things about them, it’s never quite clear what you should share and what is best kept to yourself. Or at least, it’s never clear for me.

We were pretty poor when I was a kid. That’s a fact. We never went hungry, but money was tight and there are a lot of stories in there, but are they mine to tell? Is it really fair for me to talk about what it was like growing up? That doesn’t just affect me, but my whole family. Just because I feel comfortable talking about that, does it mean I can? That I should? What about my siblings? My parents? My extended family? When I tell my story I’m also touching on theirs.

In the case of the blog entry about my favourite Christmas gift, I loved the present because I could see how much love and thought had gone into buying it for me. I could see how proud the person giving it to me was because they thought they’d gotten me the thing I wanted most in the world. They were wrong, they’d misunderstood what I asked for, but it didn’t matter to me. In that case it really was the thought that counted and that ‘wrong’ present meant more to me than the ‘right’ one ever could have because I saw the love behind it. Still, I’d never told that person they’d bought me something other than what I asked for. If they read this blog and found out, would it hurt their feelings or would they be happy to know I saw their motivations, their love, on thier face and it made that gift mean the world to me? I didn’t have the answers, and I don’t want to hurt anyone, so I’m keeping that story to myself.

But then, what if I want to tell a story, a different story, about when I was a kid? What if I want to talk about elementary school, or junior high? What if our family situation touches on those things (because dude, how could it not?) how do I know what’s okay? How do I decide when it’s okay to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and when to pretty it up a bit? What if I want to talk about the less than shiny parts of our family? No one’s perfect, and certainly no family is. That’s part of my story, is it okay to share it?

I don’t know the answers, but I’m starting to ask the questions. I think, for now, I’m just going to have to keep feeling my way through, one story at a time and really take a hard look at my motivations for sharing each. I don’t want to hurt anyone, so that’s the only way I know to go. But in the end, it’s my story too, so I think I have a right to share if I want to.

Mostly I write fiction, so this doesn’t become a giant problem, but who I am, what I’ve known and expierenced, they all inform my writing, so even in fiction, it’s important, I think, that I consider these things.

Cheerful thoughts leading into Giftmas, eh?

I suspect the holidays are greatly to blame for my thoughts heading down this road, as is work on CONSEQUENCE which takes place in a small town much like the ones where I grew up in.* Sure, we didn’t have genies, but in a way, small towns are like families. They have secrets, they have truths and they have ways of functioning that are unique to them. I’m not trying to re-create anywhere I’ve lived for CONSEQUENCE (okay, that the last time I’m writing it in all caps ) but I’m definitely finding myself thinking about them a lot these days. The good, the bad and the ugly.

Families, small towns and truth. I could get lost thinking about them, but then I’d never get any writing done. So maybe I am, as usual, just overthinking things what I really need to do is stop the thought merry-go-round and just freaking write.

/ramble

*and, it should be noted, never fit into

So far this month has been cruel to me.

It really has.

I have a fantastic story idea I really, really want to develop (It’s working title is CONSEQUENCE, though I fully expect to change that someday) but have I been able to find time for that? Hells no.

Between Giftmas stuff, having a life (*gasp* I know, right? But it’s true! I’ve actually even been out to three shows so far this month. Three. That’s like a record, I think), working on Niteblade and school–

Oh my goodness, school. Schoolwork has been kicking my butt far more than it should be. I don’t really get it, but there you have it. This month I have to do two assignments. The first is to write a research paper proposal, and the second is to write the paper I’ve proposed. I had *such* a difficult time picking a topic, first of all. All the ones suggested by the course made me roll my eyes, and none of the things I could think of that I wanted to write about could be imagined to fall within the guidelines. It was tricksy, but eventually I chose a topic, “Are North Americans eating healthier now than they were ten years ago?” (the answer, in case you were wondering, is a resounding no). Then I had to write a research paper proposal that included an outline of how I expected the paper to go. The notes in the coursework emphasize that we are not allowed to strongly deviate from that outline once our proposal is approved.

Let me let you in on a secret. I don’t outline. Okay, so that’s not a secret, but it’s true. This assignment forced me, someone who totally doesn’t outline. I discover the shapes of my stories (and essays) by writing them. By sticking my pen on the page and chaining one idea to another until it’s done. Trying to figure out how this essay was going to read was torture for me. It was cruel. Seriously.

I sincerely considered writing the paper and -then- doing the proposal once I knew how it was going to work. The only thing that stopped me was the fact that, if my professor insisted on any major changes from my proposal to the finished work I would potentially have to re-write the entire essay and I’m lazy. I didn’t want to do the assignment twice.

So I brooded about the outline for two days, then finally locked myself in my room and got it done. It hurt. It hurt more than going to the dentist, and I don’t mind telling you that the thought “I only need 50% to pass” occured to me more than once but I finished it and handed it in.

So yeah, forcing someone who doesn’t outline (I hate the word ‘pantser’, sorry.) to outline? That’s cruel. But I did it. Cause I’m awesome.

Or something.

So that’s done, and handed in. Now I wait for feedback before writing my research paper. That can’t possibly hurt as much as the proposal. They can’t possibly make me outline it twice, right? Right?

My deadline for this course is the end of the month, which I’m eyeing with anticipation because that is when I’ll have some more time open up in my day and maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to steal a week or two and lock myself away to work on Consequence. I’ve started it three times so far and haven’t liked any of them. I have a good idea for a fourth way to begin that I think might really work, but I won’t know for sure until I try. And that requires time. I feel like if I can hide from the world until I’ve written enough that I can see the shape the story is going to take I’ll be better equipped to make steady progress on it. We’ll see… we’ll see…

/ramble

Consequence, Alberta.

Don’t look for it on a map, it doesn’t exist except in my imagination. Yet. By the time you read this* I should actually have started writing about it. Consequence is the name of the town I’m setting my new writing project in. That’s subject to change, of course, as I get going, but for right now, I like it.

Beth has inspired me to want to write a bit of a blurb before I start work, and while I have some stuff whirling about in my brain, I haven’t actually written anything down yet. Suffice to say, however, the people in Consequence have trouble. Djinn trouble.

At the time of writing this have, as usual, a concept and, for lack of a better word, my Big Bad, but not quite figured out my smaller plots. I’ve mostly been developing characters using my fishbowl (which is really a rosebowl) and I’m hoping they will help show the plot the way. I am optimistic about this. The fishbowl has produced some freaking amazing characters, and at least one plot twist, so far. If you contributed traits to it thank you so much. So far the following internet-contributed traits have been pulled out and assigned to characters:

• paralyzing fear of eggplant
• phlegmatic
• says #s in the wrong order (“It’s 6 or 5 miles away.” or “I’ll be there in 8 or 7 minutes”)
• pigeon-toed
• insists on upholding a code of chivalry or other code even though it’s not required.
• hates being too hot

I hope when this project is done you’ll enjoy reading it and trying to spot the traits you contributed.

The best part about character traits other people have added to my fishbowl is that they aren’t from my brain. No doubt that seems obvious, but because they aren’t from my brain they aren’t comfortable for me. They shake things up and challenge me to think differently, which keeps me out of ruts. Thank you.

From now on my fishbowl is officially always open, so if you ever want to contribute, you are more than welcome to. I really ought to create a page on my blog for the fishbowl, but that sounds like work and right now I’m all about drafting.

In the meantime, I’m very excited about this project, so wish me luck as I break ground. Hopefully my enthusiasm will carry me far enough into this draft that momentum can charge the rest of the way through. Once I get started and actually have a feel for how well it’s going I’ll give myself a deadline for the draft and that will help too.

*I’m writing this on Friday evening and just scheduling it to post Monday morning.

Mmk, I screwed up. I put off doing this blog entry for too long and now my kiddo is home and I’m trying to focus enough to write it. That is not an easy task. She loves singing random songs and making odd noises. These things are very distracting to me and make focusing on anything difficult. So, note to self, in the future write your blog entries before Danica gets home from school.

If I seem more disjointed than usual, that’s why.

That’s right. I’m totally blaming my teenager.

That’s okay, right?

<.<

>.>

Oh hey! She just went downstairs and took my excuse with her. Which means I probably ought to delete everything I’ve written above this, but I’m not going to. Because I don’t wanna.

Shadows is done.

That’s exciting, but less than I’d like. You see, Shadows finished at about 41k words. That lands it pretty squarely in the ‘Incredibly awkward length that is a nightmare to sell’ category. Also, I’m rather pissed, to be honest. This draft was supposed to be longer than my last one, so how did it end up shorter? Gah. The story is stronger, the characters have more depth and overall I feel good about it, but that word count… ugh.

I’m trying to figure out what to do with it now. My original plan had been to start looking for an agent to represent it, but the length makes that a problem. The way I see it my options sort of look like this: Read the rest of this entry »