TRAVERSING Z

Process

November

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(This was sunset in my neighborhood two nights ago. Particle count was 187 per AirNow.)

Life, my therapist is always telling me, is one thing after another. The last three weeks, for me, have been clear evidence of such, culminating in a death in the family and my partner getting sent up to Butte County to help with the Camp Fire. Through it all I’ve kept indexing, riding out this busy season as best I can, so there are now certain memories that are inextricably linked to Putin’s second go as President or the state of mental health services in Sussex. But I’m nearly done with what may be the last index of the year, and thus can return to all things writing—even if it is while wearing a N95 mask.

I am also NaNo-ing. I’m behind on my word count, but it’s been a while since NaNo has been about winning for me so I’m not bothered. It’s about the pretty graph and the commitment to writing every day—or as close to that as I can get, barring upsets like last night’s:

So, yeah, a little surgery has to happen before I push forward again. It’s too much of a problem to just keep going, it will do nothing but distract me until I’ve fixed it. Writers, know thyselves, and what you can or can’t work around.

In other news: “All That I Left Behind (We Are)” is an experimental piece that was chosen by The Fabulist for its Halloween story. My busy October felt good overall, and though it was nearly invisible I wore an armband for my relative at The Octopus and felt better for it. I’ve been looking back over this first year of freelancing and brainstorming ways to make my income less feast-or-famine going forward. And my goodness, but I have a lot of writing to do …

In other other news: if you’re a fan of Stranger Things, Russell Nohelty is giving away a fat prize of related stuff (including The Book of Barb! I clutched my chest when I saw that, so fresh still was my Barb-pain). Russell is a great writer of books and comics, and he regularly does these themed giveaways to help authors get exposure and build their mailing lists. I’m new to this sort of thing, but there’s a lot of choice stuff, including DVDs, Funko Pops, and more. If he ever does an Attack on Titan one I’m all in.

AoT season 3

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It’s day two of no freelance deadlines, hurrah! And I’m getting to grips on things again. I’ve been making entries on the Magic Spreadsheet, nudging the daily wordcount up past 1000, reconfiguring the desk into something a little more ergonomic … and also treating myself to Season 3 of Attack on Titan.

(Yes, I know, not S3, but I love this image.)

So far I’m enjoying it, though with reservations. Sometimes, for me, long-running series go down narrative paths that I find frustrating, though understandable if you’re trying to sustain a story through double-digit manga volumes. There was a sense of scale to the first two seasons of AoT that I worry might be getting lost, as the focus seems to be shifting away from the grand battles of small, determined humans vs. vast distortions of themselves, and more into old tropes of bloodlines and inherited power and blah blah blah.

Also I was hoping for more of this guy.

Though there was more of this guy, and that’s always a good thing.

It’s a bit hypocritical of me to whinge about bloodlines considering that I’m writing four effing novels that include this trope. But if nothing else, AoT is reminding me of why I included it in the first place: so I can constantly have characters say this blood thing is utter bullshit, over and over, until the very idea is ground into dust for good.

Another good reminder: of what it feels like to immerse in a world, to feel it, to can’t wait to find out what happens next. Of how much I love large casts and varied stakes and the minutiae of worldbuilding (am I the only one who pauses in those mid-episode breaks to read them? Who enjoys references to details like the vats of yeast?) One of the reasons I write is to chase that feeling for myself, but sometimes that purpose gets lost in the crush of deadlines and expectations … As soon as the end credits began rolling last night, though, I was hunting for my laptop.

a sale, an interview, a book, a planner

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Right now Vacui Magia is on sale at Kobo for 99 cents. If you’ve been thinking of checking it out, perhaps now is the time?

I was interviewed by the excellent Tim Jeffreys over at Dark Lane Books, about process, short fiction, and that endless struggle to balance paying-work and writing-work.

In other news …

Leviathan is in layout, so ARCs are coming soooooon!

I’ve been trying to finish a line edit on novel #1 so I can finally send it to a few people who were kind enough to show interest. It’s kind of now or never, because starting in mid-May I have a chain of (much needed) freelance projects coming in, and that’s pretty much me done for the summer. I have some shorts to finish and larger things to mull over, but there won’t be any all-day writing or editing sessions for many weeks.

A smaller excitement, but stationery fanatics will understand: I have a new planner coming. I haven’t been this excited over an object in ages. I’ve been using Plum Paper planners for the last couple years; they worked well for organizing but they’re heavy, and I hate the waste of all that coated paper and plastic. So I’m switching to a traveler’s notebook, with an eye towards recycled paper inserts that I can swap in and out, and a vegan leather cover (that’s the parcel currently crawling towards me). Gimme gimme gimme. This will also let me combine a Plot Your Work project planner with a calendar and a journal all in one little book-unit—knock wood, I’ll no longer have to carry two or three notebooks with me. I’ll miss spiral bindings, but that’s the only downside so far. Once or twice a year I feel like I make these little jumps forward in managing myself and my writing; this is one of those jumps. So freakin’ excited!!