| Almost not 2007 |
[30 Dec 2007|08:21pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 happy |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
No music stuck in my head! |
] |
Very happy this year is almost history. Just about 26 more hours. Less.
I'm sending out the last batch of stories. I'll hit 145 when the goal was 144. Not freaking bad considesring the bitch 2007 has been.
Might be 144. One is a query. 'Got this weird story, sounds like it fits. Want it?'
Meanwhile just posted an intent to try and actually finish something LONG finally, again, but finally.
And there is marketing. And I feel alive again for the first time in some tmie.
Oh, and I'm thinking about the race again, too, which is only psychotic because it happens in November and I'm not sure but I think psychotic is spelled wrong. I should definitely know how to spell that.
Must finish updating "Anthologies I want to write stories for" notebook and go make tacos. Gads, it's 8:30 already. Stupid day, ending! I am techincally 'on vacation' still yet today, a Sunday, one of the agressively Not Taking Holidays sort emailed me how he'll be available for making changes etc on the supplement tomorrow and Tuesday. Hello? Tuesday is New Year's Day. Be available all you want. (Plus, I emailed him in plenty of time before I left that I woudl be out of my office until January 2. Maybe he needs a calendar.)
Um. It's getting later. Dinner waiting. Husband waiting for dinner. Must finish anthology notebooks.
It's nice to feel alive again.
|
|
| Some things are better left behind |
[28 Nov 2007|04:33pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 cold |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Angola - Ambrosia (actually, this one is pretty good) |
] |
Obsession: needing old music from my misspent youth.
But not all of it stands up to time. Perhaps when one has switched from pop to metal one can't go home again to Ambrosia.
One shouldn't even try. :P
|
|
| FUBAR - Jennifer's Travels, Part II |
[14 Nov 2007|08:31am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
relieved |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Heart to Heart - Ambrosia |
] |
Shudder.
First off, there are very few Mondays that I like anyway. Monday is just plain a bad way to start a week. Monday at 3:15 a.m. is criminal unless the end result is winding up somewhere like Orlando to go to Disneyworld and 1. I wasn’t doing anything remotely like that and 2. I haven’t done that yet so I’m only guessing that it would mean 3:15 a.m. on a Monday morning would be less repellent.
My car windows were frosted. Only the second time this autumn. It depresses me. The drive was long and dark and horrid, knowing that I was running late and that I sincerely wanted to be running later. I would have been delighted to have missed the plane so of course I didn't even come close to doing so.
I was carrying the backpack/bag I got in Iowa and it had laptop, sweats, non-lethal bags of scary products – they now say you can only carry one quart sized baggie of personal products in your carryon luggage and the rest has to be checked. I don’t check bags, since I want to see them again in this lifetime, and I usually put my inhaler and pills in one baggie because it’s easier because they’re going to freak about it anyway. I don’t remember if it was going out or coming back that they actually considered giving me a problem about my birth control and thyroid pills and inhaler that were in the second baggie and before they could say anything at all I growled at them. They seemed to see the logic of leaving the growling woman alone. On the way out, wearing the pullover sweat shirt to save room in the backpack (the scary zipped one was in the stupid plastic bins going through the conveyor) the woman there patted me down and said “If you don’t mind” and I looked directly at her and said “I DO mind, because this is STUPID.” I hate homeland security goons and all the stupidity and totalitarianism and the fact that this country hasn’t risen up yet and said “Fuck off, losing civil rights doesn't make us safer. It makes us stupider.”
I still didn't manage to miss the plane. In retrospect, being arrested by the Homeland Security Goons would have only been slightly more annoying than the trip itself.
The flight in was really bumpy. And full of loud suddenesses. Like when the TV screens unfolded without my knowing it (I was happily reading The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes [Jennifer Crusie and 2 other romance writers – wonderful book] and forgot about airlines like United/Ted who can’t be bothered to talk to the passengers and must video at them) and started off VERY LOUDLY. When they were nearly done the flight attendants noticed some lucky passengers hadn’t had their screens unfold and therefore STARTED IT OVER.
We were bumping along not far out of Reno (but far enough out for the bumpy to no longer be caused by the Sierra) and the captain came on VERY LOUDLY and said “Flight attendants, SIT DOWN!” I wondered briefly if they’d done something wrong, and then realized we were going to be tossed about. It was really very unpleasant. I was further back than I wanted to be, and had already paid another $30 to be moved from the very last row up to a row just over the wing.
The landing itself wasn’t bad, which is amazing for Denver. Then I walked about a hundred miles looking for any sign that would say Ground Transportation. I kept thinking I’d find stuff on the way – a Starbucks coffee drink in a bottle (the Denver airport largely sells water in bottles and not even much soda, and Seattle’s Best Coffee has a lock on the place) or a bag of nuts or something. I finally gave up and decided to find food at the hotel.
Ha, ha, ha.
I found ground transportation, which seemed like a logical place to call for the shuttle, and called Days Inn Business Place which I’m going to repeat several times because the entire world needs to be warned never, ever, ever go anywhere near Days Inn Business Place which is the filthiest, scariest, worst, sullenest, nastiest, vilest and worst “hotel” I have EVER stayed at.
The hotel was 6 miles away. You drove out of the pick up area at the airport, drove onto the airport road, turned left onto a huge parkway with nothing but fields around it, then turned left into a cul-de-sac with the Days Inn Business Place From Hell and a Ramada and a Holiday Inn and you were there.
It took the shuttle half an hour to arrive. Hello? It’s not that they had regular times to show up. Nope. I had been told when I called the night before leaving to CALL UPON ARRIVAL AND THEY’LL COME.
Ha, ha.
Finally the driver came and collected me and I went to hell. I mean, Days Inn Business Place, Denver, Colorado.
Having had only half a small bag of Lays anti-nausea chips since 3 a.m. Reno time and it now being 9 a.m. Reno time, I was hungry. There was no food. The hotel did not have a coffee shop. The hotel did not have a gift shop with snack foods and tea or coffee in bottles. The hotel did not have vending machines. The hotel had a very sullen pregnant teen working the desk who did not tell me the room behind her which had at least cokes visible from where I was standing also had food for sale when I asked “Is there any food?” She did tell me I couldn't have anything from the “executive” area with its cereal and coffee and danishes.
That probably wasn’t a problem, as I wouldn't have wanted anything, but she did relent and say I could “Look” (I assumed “and also eat”) but that it was wiped out. She went on to say that across the parkway – which had no stop sign, signal or crosswalk – was a Village Café (if it’s a chain, eschew it) and a Bennigan’s. Joy! A quarter mile walk through prairie. And I swear I didn't imagine that she said it was “allowed” that guests could walk over there. I suppose she might have meant the cops (not that I ever saw any) wouldn't arrest you for jaywalking because they would understand hungry people foraging for sustenance might bite them, and that there were no crosswalks anywhere in sight, but it did sound rather like we were prisoners rather than guests. I also suppose I could have called a taxi, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn't have come. It was very much “in the night, in the dark, when no one will come any closer than town” (and no, Shirley Jackson wasn’t comforting at that time.)
So I went upstairs in the world’s slowest, creakiest elevator and along a dim, dark, rather unpleasant hallway to room 309. And stared. Appalled. It was very small. The bed took up a lot of it. It did have a broad table and desk chair. It had a couch no one could have paid me to sit on without a haz-mat suit, and a coffee table and end table. It had a king-sized bed with stained, very stained, threadbare linens. It had filthy, dark carpet with holes and runs. It had one window facing an endless field of blowing brown grass. The window was against the wall and narrow, and the curtains opened into the room, giving very little of the window to see out of. Not to mention when one CLOSED the curtains they left a nice 6 inch gap on the inside of the room where you could easily see right out the window from the bed. Which shouldn't have mattered what with that field, but there was a parking lot out there and, y’know, it’s a hotel. One is already a little off kilter. Though the window was sufficiently dirty to allow for privacy.
I had no intention of using that shower. I’d only brought clean under-things and was going to wear the same shirt and jeans home again. Showering quickly became not an option.
Back downstairs. I’d told Miss Sullen at the desk of the Days Inn Business Place in Denver, Colorado (never, EVER go there), that I was going to meet someone in their lobby at noon. (At the time she was talking to 2 very thug-like men – I mean to the point of thinking I should offer to call 9-1-1 for her – but apparently they were supposed to be there.) She must have listened, but that is after I went over across the parkway and had a very bland breakfast of toast, bacon and tea. I knew getting my caffeine was going to be tough there, but at least the Village Café was open till midnight and opened again at 5 a.m.
When I got back, my client had showed up early and was waiting for me in the lobby and Miss Sullen had told her I was checked in and had gone foraging for food. That’s something. We drove back to the Village Café (she had a car, obviously) and stayed there in a forgotten corner, spread out in a booth, mostly left alone but sometimes remembered and given fresh water and tea and coffee, for 5+ hours. I had, of course, forgotten to bring a tape recorder, but honestly I would never in a million years listen to that all over again.
It was productive. My client has health issues and is very difficult to communicate with and in person she is much better able to focus. I didn't know that, but it was definitely in my favor and it was, after all, why I made the hell trip and suffered Days Inn Business Place, Denver, Colorado (never, EVER go there.) I got more information, I got terrific insights, I got to listen to her voice again and at least because I took 38 pages of notes, when she said something I knew I wanted to get as right as possible it wasn’t with the idea I’d have to plow through all the audio tapes to find it, instead I just made sure I wrote it down completely as opposed to notes. (She’s given me 75 pages, single spaced, which is a terrific start and gives me her voice.)
It was a very long time, but. It is why I went. And it made her terrifically happy. I’m going through some thing in my head where I keep trying to figure out where my responsibility to others ends and to myself begins. I went through tremendous hell on this trip – it really was very unpleasant and sometimes actually scary – yet I had a grant to cover it and it was the reason I went. It would have been so much simpler to have seen her at Mile Hi con, but it was better to be here for Rick a week after his dad died. But does making a virtual stranger (I may have 75 pages about her life, but I don’t know her) happy constitute a reason to go through what I went through? And then, at one point she interrupted whatever she was saying and asked, “Did you come to Denver just to see me?” It made her very happy and showed her in a way I couldn't have otherwise my intention to follow through with this book. She asked me again about the grant monies and I told her how things are going. The grant only covered the trip but I’m hoping other grants will come in and if the book goes somewhere, I should get an advance. And I do think the book will go somewhere.
I’m in a weird business.
She drove me back to Hell (Days Inn Business Place, Denver, Colorado, never, EVER go there) and we talked a little while she smoked a cigarette (I wanted her to hurry, I was DONE and getting anxious) and she left and I went inside. I’d bought her lunch because I was starving and it seemed the right thing to do (I suppose with a typical client I’d rather expect her to buy me lunch after I flew there to meet her, but she’s on disability and I’m not on a payroll with her) and we’d eaten late so I wasn’t hungry yet.
And I went upstairs and things just kept getting worse. It was 5 Denver time or so (I never reset my watch, I was homesick before I left this time) and I just kept panicking. Little room, so dirty, so creepy, empty hotel because after all who the hell would want to stay there?
As I write this, it doesn't all seem as bad as it was. But it was. I hate flying, really seriously am terrified of it. I hate turbulence and there was a lot of it. I hate the surrealness of getting up at a weird hour after not sleeping, heading into the wrong time of (night) and doing strange things. I hate the Homeland Security Goon Squad and how vile they’ve made flying and how absurd (terrorists are so much smarter than the Goon Squad and will so easily work around them.) The hotel being in the middle of nowhere with nothing there was creepy. The fact that it was empty – no other guests coming and going, no families on vacation, no business people coming and going – was creepy. The fact that there was no food was creepy. Initially I thought I’d go back to the Village Café for dinner, but a quarter mile in the dark in a deserted area outside Denver? The idea that I could ask the shuttle to take me over and “They will if they’re not busy” (Miss Sullen) didn't appeal.
And I panicked. I was there till 6 pm the next day. Check out wasn’t till noon and though I could leave any time, I’d leave to do what? Sit at the airport?
So I worked. And I called Rick, several times, and that was panicky too because I hadn’t taken my phone charger and was suddenly convinced my phone would go dead before I got home and it had just become a lifeline. Around 7:30 I wondered why I couldn't have stayed at one of the other 2 hotels – they were just as cheap I suppose and in the same place and that made me think “and they might have had food” and that made me think “They might have gift shops” and before I could get sullen myself that I hadn’t chosen them to stay at it occurred to me I could GO over there and look. (It never occurred to me that they might have had coffee shops… though they clearly didn't.)
I went next door to the Ramada and they had the same little room behind the front desk, only THEY told me it had food for sale. I bought some really nasty Red Baron frozen pizzaettes and little bags of Cheezits and Rock Star for caffeine. THEY then said “Days Inn from Hell is built just like we are, they have the same thing.” Yes, I agreed, but THEY didn't tell me about it.
I took my nutritious stash back with me and typed up 38 pages of notes on the meeting and then typed up what I’d last written on my short story and then wrote a page or two on it and then read on the Jennifer Crusie book and then called Rick several times and then had a severe panic attack and then started searching the bed for evidence of bed bugs and FOUND IT and then started to wonder how/where I’d sleep and then panicked some more and called Rick some more and so on and so forth until 1 a.m. Denver time at which pt I’d watched the end of a Friends I wish I’d known was on and all of a Will & Grace wondering when it became SO bad and SO campy and WHY, and I had pulled all the covers off the bed (the room was very hot anyway) and I curled up in the middle of it in my sweats with no covers and lay there. Sometime around 4 Denver time I think I pulled my sweatshirt over me and since Rick was going to call me at 6 a.m. Reno (real) time which was 7 Denver/Hell time I kept waking up to check all the different times (watch, clock radio, phone, in case they didn't agree).
LONG morning. I finally went downstairs at 10:30 and asked to take the 11 shuttle rather than the 12. I didn't want to go to the airport for a variety of reasons but I wanted out of THERE.
Reasons I didn't want to go to the airport:
1. I’m afraid of flying.
2. My flight was at 5:45 p.m. How long does one want to be in an airport?
3. I was going to try for an earlier flight but, uncertain how that works, was afraid of doing so (everything about airports scares me.)
4. In Vegas at least you can’t check in until 4 hours before your flight. I wasn’t even sure there were bathrooms on the free side of security. (There are not only bathrooms but an entire MALL. And FOOD.)
It was then I discovered the actual bugs in the hotel room. I took the 11 shuttle. (Oh, and when I'd gone to breakfast, I tried the door before I walked away, which I hadn't done before. It didn't lock. It didn't even fully close. You could push it open. When I told the Less Sullen girl as I left, she said "Oh, you mean it can be pushed open? Okay, I'll have them reset it." Whew!)
The shuttle driver had escaped from Romania either 20 years ago or in 1997. I think he meant 1987 which makes much more sense. He escaped by running through fields and hiding from dogs and soldiers and making it to a UN camp and so on. It was an interesting story and I heard it all. Rick had called while I was going there and the driver was disinclined to stop talking and when he didn't have the whole drive to talk, he just sat in the unloading of passengers spot and went on talking, not letting me out. I wasn’t, obviously, in a hurry, but still. He wants to write a book. I couldn't find a business card to save my life and just gave him my info.
I will NOT go back to Denver to write his book.
Another reason I was not happy Tuesday:
The WIND was insane. Sitting in the shuttle before going to the airport with Mr. Chatty from Romania the shuttle was ROCKING. I did NOT want to fly in that.
The guy who checked me in and gave me a Boarding Management card rather than a boarding pass said it was unusual to be so windy so early and that it was usually windy 2-5 and it would get WORSE but it was typical for Denver. Joy! He also told me the only other direct flight was leaving in 25 minutes and was full. So much for that idea.
I found a corner and read and read and read and read. At 3 (when I’d been there 3 ½ hours) I went to find out if, since my flight was now listed and had a gate, I could have a real boarding pass and found out the management card could get me through security.
The airport was as deserted as the Days Inn Business Place Denver Colorado (never, EVER go there). I walked up to the security person with no one in front of me, showed my ID and card, then walked directly up to the conveyor. Wow. I was there from 11:15 to 6:00 and it was deserted the entire time.
Then I waited for several hours inside the totalitarian part of the airport. I ate chips. I drank bad tea. I read my book. And the flight was only 10 minutes late, mostly because they said coming in was so bad someone got sick and they had to clean up. The guy making the announcement got mad because everyone went on talking, ignoring him, and said it was for our own good, that we were going to be in our seats for the first hour to 90 minutes because it was SO BAD up there we wouldn't be able to go to the bathroom.
Since I have a goal of never using an airplane bathroom, this doesn't bother me. It was the SO BAD part that made me want to rent a car and drive home. He had me thoroughly psyched.
And of course it wasn’t anywhere near that bad. It was bumpy and it never stopped being bumpy until the Reno side of Salt Lake City, but it was little bumps, like a bad road in a car, nothing that swayed us or made us drop or rise precipitously. I wouldn't have noticed it that much if he hadn’t freaked me out. It was, after all, my fourth flight in four days.
The guy next to me was a hydrologist who runs a nonprofit in Boston and he was bright and funny and interesting and drunk (I cannot fathom how anyone who smelled like a distillery could not be drunk.) We talked the entire way and I really didn't mind. A few times I would have liked to have read instead, but mostly it was okay. I gave him the Pringles I’d bought before I found Lays, because he hadn’t gotten dinner and they weren’t feeding us because it was too bumpy for them to get up. (It wasn’t, but they were convinced it was.) When they did get up, he had 2 beers.
We must have flown directly into the wind, because the 2 hour 18 minute flight took 3 hours. And it did feel like we were flying slower and we were never going to get there.
I was in the very front. Seat 1E. So at least for once I got out first and then I came home and left my bag on the front step (it didn't get cold enough I don’t think to kill off anything that might have crawled in there, though I did make sure to leave my bags and clothes on the tables at the motel in hell, not the bed) and I came in, said hi, and undressed in the laundry room, washing everything cloth.
And I’m home. I had 56 emails this morning, about 14 of which weren’t ads or newsletters or spam (I may like Disney and Victoria’s Secret, but their communications are still ads.) It was a dreadful scary trip and today I’m going to kiss my cat a lot and unpack and email Days Inn Worldwide about how bad that was (and Expedia, too) and put my receipts for both trips together (Jennifer’s Travels, Part I will be following later, that was the GOOD trip to Portland/Powell’s) and make calls on work stuff and so on.
I’m so glad to be home I’m not even leaving to go to the gym (and from the looks of the world outside, I’m not running out there either. But I hurt my knee at some point in my travels and it’s hot and swollen, so just as well.)
I’m SO glad to be home. I don’t anticipate another trip until we go to Disneyworld in March. Wow. Shudder. I think I may need to go take another shower. And then I’m going to start my day which now has 2 To Do lists in progress (why?) and drink caffeine and eat food.
|
|
| Morning Vs. Afternoon (more vultures) |
[05 Nov 2007|01:06pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
ready to run again |
] |
_This Morning_
Started a short story that ended up in my head after I asked Nicky if he was my cat or a soviet spy. That cranked up into a murder mystery and I’ve written nearly 900 words on it. This is an EQMM type story.
Wrote out a short account of the race, nothing flowery, just impressions using the directions between aid stations to remind me of what was when-ish. Then started the short story that sprang from that. It will either be Asimov’s or ROF type and either can go to F&SF for instant rejection, alas.
Marked all the places in the blank book I’ve got stories started.
Started another story that works for Asimov’s or F&SF (sf). With some changes it could head off to ROF.
Started the first crime novel competition novel – started text and worked on plot.
Started Southern Lights – copied out the beginning from the short story that wants to be a novel, then marked where things change radically and started marking plot and research needs.
Started (re-re-re-started) Girl’s Club, this time with the different idea of how it starts. Very short start (have written it countless times in my head) and then the break and how the story survives without more than one short flashback. (damn, need to add that.)
Took a story assignment from the Red Report (if that’s what it’s called) from the squeaky editor who called me when we were heading to California – apparently her name is Tara and she’s so very new. They’re paying me $.20/word on this magazine too and the story is only 1200 words. She’s sending me copies of the magazine and hopefully more than one person for the contacts though it’s Reno/Tahoe Industrial Park so how hard can it be? She just wants an overview and it’s not due till 11/19. still don’t know why I took it. Still $240 for 1200 words isn’t bad and it will be quick.
_This Afternoon_
Oh. You mean I have to work? I’m an hour late already because I let myself play in the fiction world (AND ate bad stuff when I said I wouldn't) and now I have to contact Kent, print what he sent me, find where I’ve filed him (or if), call Disney on some collectibles stuff, call my doctor, do RLife last minute edits, rough the beginning of people watching Best Of, review Monte from you, start Monte 6 and set up 7 and 8, and start Jane in total.
Oh, sure. No problem…………..
|
|
| And there were VULTURES |
[04 Nov 2007|08:42pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
excited |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Nonstop ringing in my ears - stupid elevation changes |
] |
The race has happened. All the training is past and the need to run hasn't. I know it will wane this week, as I realize I have another year before the next one. But for now, it's still there.
Friday Rick and I went and picked up Cindie and we all drove to Granite Bay, California which is between Auburn and Sacramento and absolutely beautiful, something like going back in time to maybe the early 70s. small, clean, lovely, full of trees. It was in the mid-70s or low 80s and we got a nice motel in Rocklin and had dinner at Chipotle and then I lay awake most of the night worrying. At 5:30 I got up and at 6 we all drove over to a middle school and met with 300 insane runners of all different sizes and shapes but most of whom were older than me because ultra marathoners usually start in their 50s.
There was a briefing for the runners, most of which I couldn't hear because I was at the very edge of the gym with no way to get in past all those people and which I had arrived late for, but I’d already registered Friday and had my number (202) and my gu and my goo and my Gatorade and other things starting with G like a Good Case of Nerves. With no apparent signal I could determine everyone started flowing out the far side of the gym into the bloody darkness (it was 6:40 or so) and I said goodbye to Cindie and Rick and followed across a very rocky, rut-filled field and off to a gravel covered trail. It was dark and trees kept smacking me and I ended up talking to the girl next to me who has done Western States which wows me no end. (Western States goes from Squaw to Auburn or some such, 100 miles over the Sierra – an ultra-marathon.)
Eventually we all gathered in the dark near the “bay” which may be a lake or may be a part of the American River or may be a quarry – there are apparently quarries there. And then we all hung out. My new friend wandered off to “find her bush” and other people dashed into the bushes. A little too natural for me.
And then again, with no signal I was aware of, as the sun started to come up over the bay in a smudge of unattractive orange, about 300 people began surging into the darkness, yelling in joy and most of them – all older than me, mind you – surged _past_ me and away. It was one of the most surreal moments of my life.
And it continued for a very long time. I learned many things about the Helen Klein Ultra Marathon. For one thing, they do not believe in overwhelming you with signage, so when the bike path diverges, you should hang about looking for other runners or hope for the best, because very infrequently will you find a salmon-colored page with arrows on it. I learned that partway through the arrows pointed the way I’d come because they were for people coming back. I learned that when you are running the middle distance race – there were 15, 30 and 50 mile races happening at the same time – that those bunnies and gazelles already turning about for the 15 mile race will depress you soundly. I learned that I could find my way by following the gobs of spit on the asphalt.
Mostly I discovered I was alone. I got into the middle of things and everyone just fucking LEFT. There was silence and birds twittering and crows laughing at me and fishermen in the stream and bicyclists everywhere coming AT me but there were no flipping runners before me or behind me. Even the mad power-walking old man with the orange t-shirt got tired of shuffling creepily behind me and passed.
Depressed already I dashed up to Rick and Cindie at the first aid station only to discover I was running 2 minutes faster than I usually do, making 10 minute miles and that there were apparently loads of people behind me that they could see from the road as they drove to the station. (I figure I began running faster as I became convinced that I really was lost and started running hard.)
Encouraged, I went on from Negro Bar (no clue) to the fish hatchery aid station where I was convinced I was lost because I hadn’t seen another runner in 20 minutes, only hoards of bikers having an event. But they were there and I went off again and found an old man in his 70s who I ran with for several hours. His name is Ron and he ran 78 miles last week but I like him anyway. He runs ultras all the time.
The route curved about in the trees, and runners started coming back at me, but I figured they were 15 milers and was just glad to see ANYONE during those times I wasn’t running with Ron. And then I came around a wooded corner and stopped completely, because up – way the hell up – in two stunning trees were what appeared to be sculptures of the biggest damn birds I’d ever seen. One had it’s 7’ or so wings spread and was utterly still. The other was simply standing there. I just gaped and was thinking wildly, eagles? I don’t know any hawks that big, when the one with the spread wings turned very slowly to stare at me. Contemplatively. With it’s naked, red, ugly head.
Fine. There were vultures. Like I wasn’t already questioning my sanity. And another runner, coming back my way, said “He’s looking at you, better get moving.”
So instead I twisted my ankle, the one I sprained and ran on all those years ago. But not badly. I ran through several more rest stops, becoming increasingly irritated at the amount of walking vs running I was doing and when I reached 15.55 miles and was told to go back the way I came, I dropped out. I think if I could have gone ON, I might have. At least to 20 miles. But going through the same damn path, all those empty spaces with no runners at the one pt the bike path was closed and I had to detour in the damn woods with no sense of direction and only a couple salmon colored signs I gave up. My hips were explosive and my knees furious and yet I was pretty damned pleased. I’m not sure what’s the farthest I’ve ever run outside. 8 miles this spring, maybe 10 back in Oregon which was 12 years ago and doesn't count.
We drove back to the school where I learned middle school girls apparently don’t rate hot water in the showers and that I had only brought a hand towel… and then to Olive Garden where I consumed a small city’s worth of food and then, because there wasn’t anything else really to do, we drove home while various body parts threatened revolution.
What’s interesting is I can’t wait to do it again. I know that in March I’ll want to start training, and I know that it is WAY too soon, I was so sick of running this past month I got much less mileage than I had been getting. I need to start serious training in August, and do it the way I was with the mapping out of long runs and medium runs and times off and so on. I know 20 miles is fine for the longest training run, but I need more outside.
I’m totally jealous of that bike path they have in Granite Bay and learned that I’d apparently run through 3 towns which makes me giddy. I’m going to explore longer running areas outside in Reno - maybe near Mogul? I always see people out there and they don’t LOOK squashed by cars. Huh – that’s a possibility. So is the Sparks Bl green belt thing that runs between lanes of traffic. It’s not ideal for that reason and because it’s been under construction (or destruction, judging by what they’re doing) for just about forever this year. I can do Rancho San Rafael, too, which gives me hellish hills, which there aren’t on this course, so that’s an advantage, like dropping from 4300 feet to 482 was. I need long, flat, asphalt and outside. But I need the treadmill too so my knees and hips will stay attached. Rick said he thinks I should do the 15 and run more than I did. I think I should do the 30 and get it all.
But I’m glad I did it. The two sides of me – the red and the blue sides, the leader and the apologetic nice person the color coding picks out, or the two schizo sides – are in disagreement. I half feel I failed and I’m half thrilled at what I did. The rest of me just feels somewhat beaten but not as bad as I expected.
|
|
| Good neighbors dont' listen to Rod Stewart |
[24 Oct 2007|03:10pm] |
I hate confrontation, even when I don't have any. For the last 40 minutes I've been trying to read thru the very boring interviews for the corp giving article and wanting to be anywhere but my office.
But my office was the only room in which I couldn't hear Procal Harem (or whomever) and Rod Stewart and so on from the next door neighbors who are busily building some kind nof covered deck.
Okay, busily is a misnomer. At the rate they're going they're going to be out there "hammering" for the rest of my life.
And it's so loud this is the only room I can be in.
Finally I put on my shoes and went over and asked them to turn it down. I supose they're just blank - that's being nice, that they dont realize when you live 2 feet away from each other, turning the "music" up "nice and loud" so you can hear it means that through my double paned keeps-out-too-much-sun Rick-lied-to-me-about-them windows I can hear LYRICS.
But their son (who seems to be really really weird) was quite nice. He's not building, he's lounging about in sweats and no shirt (really? Not something I needed to see.)
Now, we shall ssee. Will it be down when I go back to Corporate Giving? Will it be down tomorrow or will they assume I'm deaf on Thursdays?
Ugh. Oh, I'm gone most of tomorrow. WHich would be good if it didn't mean I'm fucked for friday fiction.
BLAH. Must go write boring article.
|
|
| Good writer, bad writer |
[24 Oct 2007|02:15pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
chipper |
] |
So today. Knowing I need to write one very long not-that-interesting-to-me article on corporate giving and one chapter in a ghosted book and do the last 7 or so edits for the magazine and that if I could get that done TODAY (ha, ha) I could take Friday for fiction, I then set out to do some minor fiction, including unpacking the 'crap' boxes where everything fiction has been since the beginning of the month when a violently unpleasant rejectoin sent me reeling. I then wrote, figured out anthologies I wnat to write for, fixed up the timelines on anthology notebooks, and started agent letters on two novels.
With the result that it was after 1:30 when I headed into Nonfiction, having meant to do it much earlier. Like, oh, 12.
And then? And then the phone rang and I, jumping ceiling-ward and instantly guilty that I wasn't doing exactly what I was supposed to, answered. I looked at the number but I've called so many people for articles I didn't ID the prefix like I should have because I KNOW it's another writer, a guy in his 70s, who I avoid phone calls from AT ALL COSTS.
AND he called to poke about. I'm assoc editor of the magazine. He hasn't had an assignment lately. He was trying to figure out why and if he'd listned to himself, he said all the reasons he's on a break to me more than once. But he didn't listen, he just justified and I wanted to say "Look, writer, I dont get to choose who writes what, I'm the assoc editor and the editor is glorying in her power right now and you're just chatting up the wrong editor."
THere's 23 minutes and 31 seconds I'll never see again. BLAH! But it gave me the idea to see how the last two corporate giving aritcles started, because I was at a loss for an intro, and while looking at that I got a complete outline going. Now I jsut need to move into the sun in the window and make some tea and read and outline all the interviews. Then I will write at least 700 words over whatever my limit is, cut a lot, cut more, moan a lot, moan more, and finally send something out.
Whether the chapter gets writ or the other edits done is another thing entirely since it's now 2:30 and Rick is coming home earlier and earlier....
|
|
| Writing, Running, Eating |
[17 Oct 2007|07:47am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 bored |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Pretty Tied Up - GNR |
] |
Fiction - 0
Editing - 100%
Nonfiction - winning
Last long run - last Tuesday, 20 miles
Since then - 5 miles Monday, 4 miles yesterday, probably 3 miles today - anyone see a pattern?
Weirdness - writing the cover story for the lifestyle magazine I associate edit and then editing it. Watching it turn from a clean, strong idea into a sort of mish-mash mess. Watching prose I liked chopped, facts I thought important lost, things Other People wanted added insanely. Watching the editor, publisher and other publisher take ownership and go mad. Watching actual veteran's in NNV have their stories replaced with stuff from Ken Burns' documentary because the editor is ga-ga over it. Fighting to write my own photo captions because 1. it's my job as writer 2. they're photos I provided 3. tired of everyone else taking ownership. Getting email from the publisher about how strong the piece is and how big an impact it will have. Feeling otherwise, also tired.
Today -
Run outside (not heading to town, just SICK OF RUNNING and SICK OF DRIVING)
Interview
Calls for other interviews
Working on story due in UK 10/31/07 - needs to be 25,000 words - is 3500
Articles - Best of Christmas Lights - call 2 Home Owners' associations for phoots, call fire dept for tips on not burning down the house
Xmas lights - write
Articles - Chamber Orchestra - write (blah - hard one for someone who can't tolerate much more than metal and rock)
Chapter 6 one client
Chapter 3 another client
Clean office
CLEAN OFFICE
free write
do abs
call for hotel for race
email people about Halloween party
laundry!!!
And I've used up my first hour now. Off to ... well, one of those things.
|
|
| 20 miles, miles of flakes |
[09 Oct 2007|04:18pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 sane |
] |
Longest training run so far - and as far as I'm going till the race - today. 20.05 miles, really slow. 4 hours 42 minutes because I Did. Not. Want. To. Do. It. Part of not wanting to is running for an hour and realizing great, I've done 5 of 20. 3 more hours! It's wearing. So I ran 18 minutes, then 12s for the first hour, 9s for the second, 7s for the third, and 5s for the fourth which doesn't work out at all to as long as I was there. Anyway. Did it. If I go this slow at the race, it'll be 7 hours, which is what I've guessed all along.
Then I "ran errands" but actually it was more like hobbling errands. Post office (there was a huge line of people who were obvoiusly sad at not going on Columbus Day and were all there en masse today, so I took my "refused" sfbc books back with me), 2 library branches and a grocery store, and I FORGOT to get gas and the last 10 miles to home were very positive thinking.
I had been home about 10 minutes when the house phone rang. I’ve started answering it more often because I’m hoping to find one of Matt and Amber’s creditors and ask them if they bought the account or actually have some knowledge, based on wondering if Matt and Amber are still using our phone number as a decoy, and if so maybe the phone company will hunt them down and kill them. Matt and Amber apparently had our phone number for many, many years, during which they never met a bill they wanted to pay. I have a deep hatred of Matt and Amber.
Though lately it has occurred to me so few people use this number it would be fairly easy to change it.
At any rate, it wasn’t a creditor, it was my ex-bz partner. I didn't want to talk to her, I wanted to make tea and get off my knees, the left of which hurts and the right of which is swollen and angry and, for some reason, hot. I don't know what hot knees mean, but that can't be good.
Neither is gtting a call from my ex-bz partner if I want to not be on the phone. This is what she wanted: back when we were working together she was working with Jerry and someone I can’t remember, who had a coaching-type business. She agreed to trade some services, though I never really benefited because she chose to meet with them for sales coaching at some weird a.m. time. One of the things she was supposed to do in trade was an online article thingy that she still can’t adequately describe. When we broke up ink, I started meeting with Jerry briefly because he wanted to write two books. Only “Flake” fits him, too and he disappeared.
Now he’s resurfaced and called her, since he was her client, and he wants to know where his article thingy is. First off, I think clients who disappear off the face of the planet for this long kind of have a nerve just showing up and wanting their article thingies. My ex-partner says it was one of those things she could “never quite get around to” which was often a large list. She feels vaguely like he should have it, since she apparently got enough training from them to owe them trade and I don’t know what else she wrote for them, though she did get them the City offices where she lives as a client.
She wanted to know if I would take this (inadequately described) project and do it for free, ghosting it for her, so she could give it to him and feel better.
:) :) :) :) :) I’m feeling so exceptionally sane…….. and now I’m going to go read. Not try and do anything since I didn't get home till 3:30 or so and then got Diane’d. I’m just going to go read. And be. And hope that clients like my being enough to not be upset at the other stuff that isn’t being yet as I ain’t writ it.
|
|
| 2007 |
[06 Oct 2007|11:20pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 blank |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Dry County - Bon Jovi (From run) |
] |
Blank. What a week. The agent who was interested who was reading who had requseted a full based on the query said it was boring and wished me a happy life. That was Thursday.
Thursday for the first time in my life I trashed my office. Most of the fiction crap is in two boxes labeled crap (one of which, for reasons beyond my control, is covered in puzzle glue.)
(Don't ask me what puzzle glue is. Don't ask me why it wouldn't hold the puzzle together but is very sticky now.)
I was geting the hang of this vaction thing tho'. Working a couple hours a day, realizing how easy it was to DO the work, looking at what I was able to bill from basically 10 hours over Sunday through Thursday. No, today is Saturday isn't it. And I worked Friday.
Then today we went to town and I went to teh post office and got mail from the mad woman and discovered Walt is dead. My father, aka the Meanest Man in the World. AKA, WEB (his initials.)
I'm blank. We went on with stuff in Reno, went to see Rick's dad who we couldn't wake. We came home and Rick called his mom and in typical mother-in-law fashion, she managed to amaze me twice in a phone call I didn't make, once positively, once about as negatively as possible.
First, becasue her father, who I think might have been an uncle, or maybe he was a father, I've stopped trying to remember her family history, was a total bastard, she understands this. She said she'd gone back to Michigan with her husband and however many little Baumers there were at the time and they were at the airport for the return trip home and got news her father had died. She went home anyway.
Because of that, the fact that Jo's letter says she needs both Rick and I where she is this weekend (the letter written 10/2, I got 10/6 because I don't check my PO box regulary, there's usually only rejections, bills and moths in it) so she can give away his stuff, is something my MIL says I can ignore. Her words, via Rick, were "Don't worry about it."
She also was apparently very nice about the whole book/agent thing, since she was quite excited when it looked like s/t good was going to happen finally.
BUT. Rick hadn't told her he was going on vacation. And when I talked to her one night during the week when she had NEWS about Don's WWII stuff (too late for the article from hell) I talked to her, despite not wanting to talk at all that night, and never mentioned Rick or his vacation, not knowing he hadn't mentioned it either. So he said he had had to tkae it on short notice and the Very First Thing She Wanted To Know: WHY AREN'T YOU OVER HERE FIXING MY ROOF??
No fucking kidding.
That would be the amazed in a negative way. Rick wasn't appalled particulary -he was amazed she would actually say it, but he was prepared anyway, and told her my book had been rejected and he needed to be here for me (which is pretty damn true, damn it.)
My heart wouldn't stop pounding, though - between that and the mail and the rest of everything, so I took a run, meaning only to go up and back, maybe a mile, mile and a half, but prepared if it felt good (and so not expecting it to) to run the 3.2. And it did, and I did, and I saw a cute couple of quail, and a labrador who is eating his fence from the top down in order to escape, and the big ugly BUG FROM HELL from Monday's run wasn't there. (Logically I ddin't expect it to be - in the interim it has SNOWED - but the bug wouldn't get out of my mind. Bugs the size of ping pong balls tend to stick in one's mind, esp when one comes within inches of stepping on them. *shudder*)
I'm tired. My heart is under control again, so maybe the solution (since the problem appears to be stress) is to run every time it pounds. Since it pounds most when I go to bed at night, this presents logistical problems... And I'm still blank and very, very present in the shell for a change. It's kind of weird being this much in my body. I don't think I like it here. And now back to reading the weight loss book I'm reading as research for the weight loss book I'm ghosting. This one was quite interesting at the beginning, but now they keep explaining the same things over and over and I can't read for long without getting bored. I have'nt tracked my hours reading it. I suppose I should.
|
|
| Things you love should remain things you can love |
[02 Oct 2007|02:32pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 whinging |
] |
Writing for the magazine should remain something I love, not become a fight and a misery.
Having my husband home should have been a pleasure, not him springing it on me Thursday and not being able to make plans or go away because I'm swamped and had no warning. I'm trying to be nice and make it nice for him, like working 3 hours today so we can "be together" which has been a non-morning of Sunday-like behavior - reading, not much - and now he's in a pissy fit because the wood he has is too warped to do Halloween stuff and he cna't find what he needs to do something else. What's really bothering him is that he's wasting the damn week and the things he thinks he'll get done - Halloween decorating - are taking too long. I know that one, whenever I give myself time for pure fiction it happens.
Meanwhile I'm enjoying working on the ghosted book and don't feel like being dragged into his hissing angry shouting fits. "I love you, now go the fuck back to work." What a waste of time. We're looking at going to Disneyworld next spring but I would feel sick to my stomach if I was already wasting a week and that was my next vacation.
(Though I note that my "vacations" are actually work - it's just I do the work I love during those weeks. And yes, I feel appropriately guilty.)
There doesn't seem to be anywhere safe today. I have a friend who had a breakdown a couple years ago (just about three years ago I think, if I'm tracing the timeline right.) She just stopped everything and has turned her back on all of it and refuses to do more than work and play video games. I'm sort of starting to understand that. Um, except that I dont' like video games. Or working. So I guess no breakdown for me. I shall instead go bck to ghosting.... Oh, and one of the vets for the article called and said he did have photos and could I meet him halfway to get them. THat boggles me. He works in South Meadows, maybe 3 miles by freeway from the office, where I am not. I am in another bloody "town" from where the office is and even if I WAS in the office, he can fly 17 hours to bomb people but not drive 3 to drop off photos? (And directly I argue with myself - it isn't his responsiblity to rpovide photos! Or even be interviewed. That's something else I'm whinging about - I am sick to death of having to provide photos when i'm a WRITER not a visual artist and not a phhotographer and I forget them half the time and we don't get paid for them but we do get whined at b/c they aren't good enough....)
Oh shut up and go ghost.
|
|
| AUGH! |
[02 Oct 2007|01:05pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 angry |
] |
Suposed to start working on a ghosted nonfiction book at noon, work till 3, take photos to the magic scanning place, meet a friend at 5 to talk about her novel, go to a movie wiht my vacationing husband.
So now it's 1 and I'm going to work 1 to 4, then do the novel thing and the movie thing and fuck the photo thing and am about ready to kill the publisher.
This stupid veteran's article. I told them from the beginning I didn't want to write it. War doesn't fascinate me, it sickens me. But they wanted me to write it, gave me 2500 words for 5 wars/5 vets and off I went, knowing a WWII vet who'd been at Iwo Jima, a Korean vet who was at Inchon and Chosin Reservoir, a Desert Storm vet who dropped bombs in Saudi (hmm, I think techincally that's wrong, if they were defending Saudi), and an Iraq vet who didn't do much of anything. The editor found me a Vietnam vet to harass who was at Kehn Sahn or something spelled similarly to that (I can remember Que Son, but that was the identical sounding OTHER battle).
I got the interviews, which was hard. I did the work, which was hard. I wrote the article and kept it to 2750 which was hard (though 100 words of that overage is the Korean vet, who is fascinating.) I got it in late, but I thought it was good. Rick read the part on his dad and said it wasn't. He said it was disjointed and jumped around. Fine, that dragged me down. I dind't offer the rest and he dind't ask.
And now we're battling on photos. Fuck! The publisher insists I take the photo - which we might have the negative to, I don't know - of the flag raising (one of them) on Iwo and LEAVE it at Reno Type b/c she refuses to pay the rush charge. I maintain she's getting the photo free, one of the actual photos no one has much seen, and that she can pay the rush or not use the photo. It's gone on and on and I"m now sick to my stomach I'm so pissed with her. Rick said if the rush fee is reasonable he'll pay it. It won't be. He's thinking reasonable $20. I'm thinking reasonable $50. I don't think it will be either, though if the pub IS quibbling (being a bitch) over $50 she should be slapped. And now I'm too pissy to call RT and find out. The editor can. I feel sorry for her. I dragged her into it b/c 1. she's the editor and I shuold go through her for articles, not to the pub who I'm just used to working with and 2. she's sane and I hoped that would help.
Doesn't it make sense that a 60+ year old photo from a 60+ year old war should LOOK 60+ years old, not new and glossy and slick like the rest of the mag?
Fuck fuck fuck. And now i must go work on the book. WIth my whirling head and pissed off adrenalized stomach.
I think I'm finally facing the fact that I don't really like the publisher much.
|
|
| Well, I did go back |
[01 Oct 2007|02:13pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 dizzy |
] |
I did go back to life last week (thanks, Patrick) and it didn't bite too bad. Long run Monday, not as long as it should've been, but I've probably mentioned I'm gettind damned sick of running. 3 miles T, 6.5 W, 5.75 Th, and nothing Friday, I didn't leave the house, I just worked.
This because Rick called Th a.m. after my gym and said he would be taking the next week off on vacation!!
Uh, What?
Um, hi? I can't have a week off jsut like that. I've got the magazine now and 3 books. 4 if you want to count the one that's in limbo and I wish to hell would stop being in limbo and get done.
To which he said "You can work," all cheery like I hadn't also been looking forward to a week w/ him "and I"ll do Halloween stuff" which has translated to "You can work, and I'll get up once every 2 hours and bang wood together and the rest of hte time the television will be on nonstop."
Gah. But so far today I've finished the vets article, which I asked Rick to read the part about his dad, and which he didn't like. That's reassuring after a month on the thing. I've also... hell, not much. Done a rewrite on a novel hook. Edited stories. I need to run butit's something like 62 and windy as all hell.
I nicked this from Patrick's livejournal. Top 50 Dystopian films. I have a feeling I won't have done as well as I should have seeing them. *'d the ones I've seen [I was wrong - 36 out of 50's not bad]
* Metropolis (1927)
* A Clockwork Orange (1971)
* Brazil (1985)
Wings of Desire (1987)
* Blade Runner (1982)
* Children of Men (2006)
* The Matrix (1999)
* Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior (1981)
* Minority Report (2002)
Delicatessen (1991)
Sleeper (1973)
The Trial (1962)
Alphaville (1965)
* Twelve Monkeys (1995)
* Serenity (2005)
* Pleasantville (1998)
* Ghost in the Shell (1995)
Battle Royale (2000)
* RoboCop (1987)
* Akira (1988)
* The City of Lost Children (1995)
* Planet of the Apes (1968)
* V for Vendetta (2005)
Metropolis (2001)
* Gattaca (1997)
* Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
On The Beach (1959) [no, but I read it and loved it - does that count?]
* Mad Max (1979)
* Total Recall (1990)
* Dark City (1998)
War Of the Worlds (1953)
District 13 (2004)
* They Live (1988)
* THX 1138 (1971)
* Escape from New York (1981) - oh I love this movie
* A Scanner Darkly (2006) - and I hate this one
Silent Running (1972)
* Artificial Intelligence: AI (2001)
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984) - again, read it, loved it, haven't seen it
* A Boy and His Dog (1975)
* Soylent Green (1973)
* I Robot (2004)
* Logan's Run (1976) (the movie and book that launched me into SF)
* Strange Days (1995)
Idiocracy (2006)
* Death Race 2000 (1975)
* Rollerball (1975)
* Starship Troopers (1997)
One Point O (2004)
Equilibrium (2002)
|
|
| What if I just *didn't* -- ever again? |
[23 Sep 2007|07:59pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
black hole |
] |
What if tomorrow morning I saw Rick off to work, then went back to bed and slept till I couldn't sleep anymore? No insane mileages of running. No gym. No fiction. No stupid photo "tutorial" with the publisher. No blog entries for the CEO. What if I didn't even tell publisher A and publisher B and the editor that I wasn't coming but just worked on the articles and the ghosted books and maybe my own stuff and maybe didn't do any of that but read Lisa Gardner and watched 'Friends' and lay there, not showering again like I never did today, maybe even wearing these jeans and this t-shirt for a third day?
Other than Rick, who would care? Or even notice?
What if I NEVER went back to life?
|
|
| Or even sooner |
[21 Sep 2007|04:10pm] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Bullet with Butterfly Wings - Frida Snell |
] |
I was willing to bet the Fiction would go hog wild next week as a result of being given its freedom this week and not really using it to the full extent that it could've (this making it sound a great deal like the fiction is something outside myself, perhaps a willful cat.)
(Well, that's not too far from the truth. It does like to rub on my legs and purr at me when I've got my hands full or I'm still wet-legged from the shower. When I'm ready to pick it up and cuddle, it hisses and rakes holes in my abdomen and runs.)
No, no, I'm getting too far into Sanity Leakage here.
So, the fiction made a return visit this afternoon, maybe because I stopped insisting the only way to have a successful fiction week was to write constantly.
So I wrote quite a bit, 10 handwritten pages on a short story. It'll be under my pen name in a genre that isn't quite my norm, but it's got fantasy leanings and I like the plot. I like the characters, too.
And then I went and listed my top dream agents for Uncle Charlie, then looked through all my notes and wrote my first paragraph notes - why they're my dream, and how I found them and doesn't that make me sound vaguely stalkerish?
And then of course foudn a few more agents at one house I'd probably die of shock and pleasure if they even said "Nice try." No, I wouldn't, actually - that's why they're on the list. They're dream agents and I want them. Stop drooling and believe in the book, Jennfire.
And I finished the hook, revision and it's no longer than it was (thank you, nice hook) and so the letter is written mostly - the parts about the book anyway.
And now what I want to do (oh, look how cleverly I'm transitioning between paragraphs by using "and" each time, like a kid describing a movie - and then this happened, and then that happened) and now I want to
- do more research for the Pushy Novel
- go on with the list of short stories that need to go out
- read on 4L&T
- write on Masque
So. Pick one.
|
|
| No, really, I'm not here |
[21 Sep 2007|02:30pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
curious |
] |
This has been an uneven fiction week. Weather's uncertain, so even if there were good places to go sit outside and write at home, it's more cold than warm and all my paper would blow away and my hair would blow off and my ink would dry up. Yeah, it's windy like that. Plus, y'know, I'd freeze. 70 and windy ain't my weather. 100 and still, w/ no clouds - please, now, and thank you.
I've worked on
War is a Young Man's Game (which I found the story for and then had a surprise from one of the characters which I like)
Blue Light (a story for my pen name, and in fairy tale-ese, and I like it, but it's not first in line when working)
Book of Two Halves (dark fantasy/horror, which found The End yesterday of a totally zero draft needing many [bracketed] holes filled)
Today I started a story for another anthology because apparently I can never have too many stories going (this is Rumors of Flight and I'm also "writing" Comfort Women and one called Warburton, which is silly to list since it's a paragraph long at this point and has been for about a month [oh, but I like the paragraph and the dream that lead to it].)
Today I also intend to read through as much of For Love & Truth as I can, to figure out where the hell it started losing track and the plot wound down into tiny annoying scenes.
Oh, I've also written the hook for Uncle Charlie, which is why I came in here, to finish the revision and list which agents to send to first and then see if I can't rough out their letters. I think if none of them conflict with agents who are looking at the fantasy novel that already went out, I should have Uncle Charlie out the door to 5 agents by the end of next week (9/28, and I'm holding myself to that.)
Yesterday drizzled down from not going to gym and thinking I was going to Do So Much to depression and 11 cups of tea and recording rejections (and one lone sale) and making a list of stories that should get their asses out the door again. I'm only half through that because I looked up from doing it and it had mysteroiusly gotten to be 11 p.m.
Tomorrow we're going to Granite Bay, where apparently my race really is, which is closer than Sacramento, and then on to Sac for Chipotle lunch. I told the Js at the Magazine that Associate Editor J (me!) would be GONE this week. I nicely scheduled my (Gone) ficiton week for mostly when I wanted (I aim for equinoxes and solstices) and when Editor J asked "So you're gone next week" I said "I'm going to do a bunch of fiction - " and upon hearing ringing silence, added, "And we're going to Sacramento."
Never mind WHY it threatens people that I take a week here and there to pursue the actual dream, or that I work twice as hard the week before and the week after, both of which, I might add, are usually heavy on fiction wanting out, because fiction is stubborn that way (and I'm willing to shove aside whatever needs shoving aside next week if the fiction gets energized by this drizzling, fading week, or if the runs would like to feel like runs again rather than experiences in sensory deprivation and by sensory, I acutally mean BREATHING).
At any rate, it threatens people when I do this. Maybe because ... oh, I don't know why. I do know I can tell them I'm "on deadline" with a specific (unnamed) project (yes, MINE, fiction, yes, but we don't say so) or that I can say I'm "going out of town" (I am, to Sac, just not till Saturday of the end of my week). What I can't say is "I've done all your work up to date, and will do the next bit to deadline when I return, but next week I'm going to spend every day running and writing fiction" because that causes people to go mad and pester me. Generally they start, "I hate to bother you" and go on with something that could wait or doesn't matter or isn't me.
This week, though. It's been weird. The Js jsut went right on. Apprently as we embark in the 21st C if you have email you're expected to carry it with you night and day, everywhere, possibly into surgery, on ultra-marathons, etc. I suppose the same for cells, though only one client called me and then he just called the other writer on the project (he said in his VM.)
The email isn't a surprise - they were, after all, emailing madly at 12:30 a.m. Sunday morning before print week. I'm not sure what exaclty kept the publisher from just calling. But I'm curious - is the idea "Just because I sent it doesn't mean I"m not aware she's out of town and won't answer till she returns" ? Or is it, "Of course she's taken her laptop [which we assume she has] out of town with her and will check in" ?
The editor J sent me an email about ... huh, I'm not sure anymore there have been so many ... on Tuesday. I answered it Wed night in a "I just have access from my hotel room" type response. Never said that, but tried to indicate "I may have email access sometimes at night." Since then? More and more and more AND she's sending me stories to edit for November. Okay, October went to print MONDAY of this week which means No, I'm not starting over. I expect 2 weeks of hell from them a month, and two weeks of NOTHING. At least 10 days of nothing. And I am well within the nothing zone.
I didn't respond to that. Thought maybe it was in the "I know she's not there, she'll find the email when she returns" category. Except - except she sent me email Wed asking if I could hang out after the (damn stupid meeting with the publisher that happens Monday) and discuss December. I didn't answer because -
deep breath -
I'm Not Here.
And so today she asked again. "I don't know if I asked you this before..." as she sent more stories to edit.
Feh. I am going to go read more guidelines for anthologies, then finish the hook, then work on the Newest story, then read 4L&T. Y'know, becuase I'm On Vacation and I Am Not Here. I do not play well with others and I really don't know if this is going to work.
|
|
| What I'm Doing. What Am I Doing? |
[20 Sep 2007|09:55am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
pensive |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Love Comes to Everyone (WHY this song?) - E Dan & John F-C?? |
] |
This morning I've spent about an hour taking notes on 16 pages of Rommel's biography. Maybe 45 minutes. It still seems a very long time to only get through 16 pages of a book. I also played online and looked up maps of Africa and when tea plantations started in Kenya. It's all research and it's going slow. I read the short story Southern Lights is going to be based on (also called Southern Lights, go figure) and I'm impatient. I want to finish the Rommel book but I'm on page 76 or something and the Afrika parts don't end till 140. That's a lot of hours. I'm hoping one book, which makes him out to be somewhat of a loon and an egomaniac, will be enough for the facts. I looked at one of the others for maps but none of them are giving me exaclty what I need, possibly because I'm not 100% sure what that is.
And Southern Lights can't even be the next book. If I want to enter the St. Martin's/Minotaur first crime novel contest - and I do, I sent for the application and everything - then THAT book, which is deadline NY 12/31/07 - needs must be next. Too bad. I've got the opening and spent some time yesterday trying to figure out the facts. The who dun it part should be interesting and kept fairly well hidden, since at the moment I certainly don't know.
This week is going oddly. I went gym T and W, meaning to to T,W and today, but obviously didn't today. I may run. I may not. I don't seem to give a damn about running. Or, maybe, I do, in the Anti-Running sort of way. My weight nad the race and the rest of it means I can't have this attitude. Oh well. Plus Street Vibrations - the special event from hell - is in Reno this week. Yesterday the gym was disgusting with people, most of them people I didn't know.
If I get to the end of this week having only worked on 3 short stories and finished none, having not read through 4L&T (though I'm not, because reading doesn't seem like writing) and having not read through Watercolor for the rewrite (though I'm not, because reading doesn't seem like writing) and having not done anything BIG (like December 2005, when I wrote a very long novella last minute of a fiction week) I'm going to be unhappy. OTOH, I like the short stories, and I don't know when else I'd get to do the research. I suppose each fiction week makes of itself what it will.
There needs to be some better balance. Some way to keep the 24/7 passion of the fiction during the other dreadful weeks, which are far more plentiful, there being 5 fiction weeks in a year and 47 non. yes, I can and usually do make 2-3 hours available every weekday, minus those days there are enough errands to make it impossible, that I have to come home and work on the nonfiction. I'm overextended with projects, but even if I wasn't it's hard to stay on track. Harder still when I would like to take all day every Friday and instead I often have the writing of articles I've done the interviews for during the week, or ... well, life. Nonfiction doesn't stay neatly in the lines.
So now, shower? Or Book of Two Halves? (I cna't call it that, it's a title I did the free write to. But the working title can be that.)
|
|
| Writers aren't supposed to die |
[17 Sep 2007|11:30am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
sad |
] |
I didn't read Robert Jordan, but he wasn't supposed to die, or die young.
Now I need to go write even more words. We never know when that bus with our name on it is veering down a busy street.
Writers aren't supposed to die.
|
|
| Why, yes, now that you mention it, I AM irresponsible |
[16 Sep 2007|08:59pm] |
| [ |
music |
| |
"Unforgettable" (only i'm hearing "Irresponsible") |
] |
So. I did it. Chapter 1 for Client A (or B, or whatever I called him formerly or even formally) is off to Cid to see what she thinks. It's not complete, but that's okay -- it's a draft, a test of voice, and chapter ONE, for crying out loud. Plus, he didn't give me all the information and since it's on weight loss, I dont think I should fill in the missing pieces. Like, goal setting - I shouldn't tell people that, as a matter of fact, bulemia did work for me for a year and a half...
And then chapter 4 for Client B. Chapter 1 for A had taken 4 hours when I'd alotted 3 and so I really hoped B's chpater 4 would take only 2. It did, because - I'm wonderful to me! - I'd already done nearly 3 pages on it at some point in the future (and I think I'll celebrate that rather than worry about having written 2 1/2 pages without remembering it.) So I got most of that, another joint project with Cid, and most of it is written, not blocked and outlined, except for one hole in the middle I could have filled in but couldn't figure out if it needed to be there or not.
Quite a nice amount to bill for today, to kick off fiction week.
And the Js at the magazine, the publishers and graphics and editor have stopped hissing at each other via email (and copying me, J #5) and the designer has sent out the last piece. As usual, it's going to be beautiful and as usual, it was nuts getting it there. My second complete cycle as assistant editor.
But in the process, talking w/ the editor, she said "You're out of town this week, right?" and I started to say "I'm going to be doing some fiction" because I'm stupidly honest even though I know nearly NO ONE gets this, and I heard her go quiet, if that makes sense, and I went smoothly on with my sentence, "And I'm going to Sacramento." Which I am. I just didn't say when.
So bring on the fiction - Southern Lights research and plotting, City reading up to date, 4L&T reading to figure out where the novel got lost, the crime novel plotting, Watercolor reading to see where I need to rewrite to get it out, maybe the Uncle Charlie hook so IT can go out. Short fiction is Blue Light (erotic fairy tale, different name), Warburton (only one paragraph so far, but I like it), War (several pages, sequel to a story no one wants that I like), Comfort Women, Book of Two Halves and whatever else I'm writing - I can't remember ever having so many short stories in play at the same time. It's bewildering.
Gym on T - W - Th and maybe only T & TH if i get really spoiled. Runs outside, gorgeous weather for it (I like it hotter, but it's still pretty) and still need to set email and voice mail to say I'm not here.
Because, y'know, I'm in Sacramento. Because working my ass off to take 5 days strictly to write fiction would be irresponsible.
|
|
| What I'm reading |
[16 Sep 2007|05:41pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
tired but happy |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
Locamotive - GNR |
] |
A book on weight loss, research for a ghosting project.
A friend's novel that's deeply into a national contest (into finals) and is fantastic so far. Not my usual genre and I'm enjoying it.
Comma Sutra, a very funny grammar book I keep saying I'm going to stop reading because I'll never figure out grammar anyway, no matter how funny the author makes it.
Talebones 35, which I actually finished this morning before all the ghostwriting and writing and writing started for the (Sun-and-therefore-not-fair) -day. My favorite story was Death Comes Twice, by Mary Robinette Kowal, because it was the kind of weird, twisty, unidentifiable story I adore. I really liked "A Little Animal Throb" too because of the ending. Of course the draw for me was William F Nolan. I met him once at a con and confused him slightly (only in passing) by makign some random comment about his influence on me. Had I told him the whole story,he'd likely have sprinted in the other direction.
(The Whole Story)
I turned 15 the summer "Logan's Run" came out (and for anyone doing the math, yes, i'm STILL 25, get over it). I was deeply in that place where I needed to BE Farrah Fawcette-Majors, despite having the Kate Jackson haircut and the body of a young boy. _sigh_ Anyway, I saw a billboard for it first, when I was in L.A. briefly to see my grandmother, and only saw it in passing fast at night with the L.A. Sky behind it. It was magic - 2 people running, pretty people, with a statement like "Welcome to the future - the only thing you cna't have is your 30th birthday."
Hooked. And not long after I found the novel w/ all the movie stills (I'm still trying to figure out who George Clayton Johnson was and why his name is on the book.) I began reading it feverishly. I must explain here: I was a stupid kid. I had no clue what genre was, or that if I found one book I adored, there would be others in the same _genre_. 'er, this despite having lived on Heinlein in 6th grade.
So the thing is, I sat on the stairs at our house, which were behind a wall, meaning one went up 3 stairs, turned 90 degrees right, and went up something like 10 more. The wall to the living room blocked one being seen so Jo, the insane harridan (probalby spelled wrong) couldn't find me. She was nuts, after all, and though she spent all day reading in the backyard, apparently my spending the summer reading wans't good. She kept trying to make me go do things that summer [the next summer I turned 16 and she insisted I get a job. I did so, at Taco Bell, where I found sex and drugs to go with the rock-n-roll of my high school motto. That worked.]
And I read 'Logan's Run' that summer. I read it cover to cover, stared at every movie still, read every cover blurb, studied the copyright page, and then started over. I made notes on tiny pieces of paper, which are still stuck in there, marveling at how Mr. Nolan had extrapolated things going on NOW (or at least then) and blown them up - youth poewr became only the young. Overcrowding became death at 30. Etc.
Over the next year or so, or at least the rest of high school, I found the other two books - Logan's Search and Logan's World, I think. I've read them a couple times, but they'll never be the magic of Logan's Run (like I found 'Tombs of Atuan' in jr high. Did a helpful librarian ever say, 'There are two other books in this series'? no, they just let me keep checking out the same book without - again - anyone cluing me in to the entire fantasy genre. I tell you, I was thick. And when I read the other two as an adult, the magic wasn't there. It's still there in 'Tombs' - "I am not Tenar. I am not Arha. The gods are dead. The gods are dead.")
And now, having come full circle in babbling, I must go work on one of the other ghost projects and try for a chapter starting at 6 pm when the other took from 10 to 4 with breaks in between for magazine proofing and editor-comforting and emails and too much bad food. But tomorrow starts fiction week and already I'm thinking run outside M & F and only gym T through Th and how much can I get written?
Not enough. I want to make my living at it. I'm jsut as under the gun on fiction right now, even if most of the deadlines are mine. Oh - the crazed residency woman from thsi summer's insanity reappeared, Barbie who went into the desert and who I decided not to pursue just so I could eventually say "I don't want to do this." She called beginnign of last week (I think) to see if I wanted to do a residency w/ 3-5 grades despite my clearly having said nothing younger than jr high. I hadn't asnwered her last week, and had forgotten her since and now, on the very good advice of my very good and sensible friend Inez, I'm not going to. Perhaps she will slide away and harrass other writers, Inez suggests. I hope she's right.
Tomorrow morning I shall put "not here" responses on e- and voice- mails. yessssssssssssss.
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
jennfire's journal