Finally!  Didn't I tell you it was just around the corner?  Of course then I promptly took a couple of years off to move twice, build a new house, and other fun stuff.  But now that we are finally settled in the new house (which is awesome) I am getting back into writing stuff and sending it out, while plodding away on the novel.

One of the first things I sent out was a super-short (flash fiction, really) fantasy piece called Bad Water.  You can find it in the August/September anniversary edition of AlienSkin Magazine, as soon as it's out.

Short fiction is hard for me.  I tend to couch all of my ideas in terms of books, and they tend to be that lengthy.  So writing short stuff doesn't come easy.  But a sale is encouraging, and I suppose I'll keep hacking away at it. 

We've been working on building a new house for the last 18 months or so--we are our own GC, so it is a long, painstaking task.  We are nearing completion though, and it is with that in mind that I am attempting to get more regularly into writing again.

I seem to have taken control of my carpal tunnel syndrome, through some low-level laser therapy and some significant workstyle changes--my vertical keyboard and mouse are my very best friends and I wouldn't trade them for anything! 

Safetype Vertical Keyboards & Mice

All of this, and the switch to Dvorak (in which I am now very proficient) has made a world of difference in my wrists.  So much so that I can now do my writing on my iBook when I am out without aggravating my wrists.  The best thing about my iBook?  It's one of the older ones, with the color accents and can barely manage OSX.  It's a good workhorse for novel work, it can get on the internet if I need to do research (but is slow enough browsing that I am unlikely to use it for anything else).  It's solely a writing machine, that I can take wherever I go.  And the battery life isn't half bad, either.



So with all this, yes, the word count has changed, but I don't yet have the new count.  And I seem to have lost the link to update the counter.  So it looks like I have some work to do. 

Yes, I am still alive, and working, albeit slowly.  I'm getting sort of proficient with Dvorak, and you may have noticed the progress bar moving again (huzzah!)

And of course, just as I'm getting a little momentum built up, Holly Lisle comes out with a book I will have to drop everything to read.  The Create a Character Clinic is a wonderful book, and it's not one of those books where you have to skim a dozen pages of useless stuff to get to the couple of paragraphs that will help you.  I highly recommend this book--but be warned, you will have to stop every couple of pages to write down all the ideas you've suddenly got for your own characters, even ones you're already writing.

It's indispensable.  Just don't say I didn't warn you. 

First let me say that carpal tunnel syndrome is one of those topics I have always diligently ignored.  Not because I doubt it's existence; I know it is real, the same way Attention Deficit Disorder is real.  But I feel it is overused, the same way ADD is: "Kid won't sit still for storytime?  Must be ADD!"  "Got wrist pain?  Must be CTS!"  It seems to me in danger of becoming a buzzword.

So it's probably no surprise to learn that I have it.  It's a halfway expected outcome of my situation: violinist, home seamstress, typed on an old manual typewriter for many years, more hours spent on a computer these days than I care to disclose.  Even a family history of the disease.

So.  I'm hardly pleased about it, but in the grand scheme things could be a lot worse.  Still, my doctor reminded me in no uncertain terms yesterday that I am not to take this lightly.  It's not something to be ignored, and if I fail to take it seriously the problems, which are now painful and annoying but not utterly debilitating, can turn to permanent damage.

Oh, tidings of comfort and joy!

So what now?  Well, I am certainly not failing to take this seriously.  My husband would probably tell you I'm taking it too seriously, but I would just shake my head.  As you can likely guess, I highly value the free and painless use of my hands.  There's no such thing as too seriously.

I have about three wrist braces here, in varying degrees of support, for day and night use.  They range from "Ace bandage" to "practically a cast".  Last night was the first night sleeping in them, and though it was difficult getting to sleep in them, I only woke up once with numb, tingling hands.  I have a brand new Microsoft Natural keyboard, and a Logitech trackball. 

And I'm learning Dvorak keyboard.  Oh, yeah.  Did I mention how incredibly frustrating that is?  I type something like 12 WPM now.    But I'm slowly getting better.  I didn't start this thinking it would be an overnight change, just that it would be worth it in the end.  And I still believe that.

But keep reminding me, because I'm liable to forget.

Web access is going to be sporadic the next couple weeks, I'll be off and on.  The good news is that maybe without all my other distractions I'll be able to get some serious writing done.

And speaking of writing, I have a piece in the September/October edition of Vision.  It's called "Why Write?" and answers that question--geared specifically toward speculative fiction.  Find it here:

Why Write?

"The Enemy in the Mirror" part 3 and conclusion, are up in issue 161 of Bewildering Stories.  Enjoy!

"Bewildering Stories" issue 160 came out today.  So "The Enemy in the Mirror" parts 1 and 2 are available now, at Bewildering Stories. 

Two new pieces available soon, one online and one in print.

My first publicly available short story ever, "The Enemy in the Mirror," will be appearing in issues 160 and 161 of Bewildering Stories.  Bewildering Stories is a perfect venue for this particular piece, which is not fantasy, nor science fiction, nor just about any other category I can think of.  If "bewildering" were a genre category, I suppose it would probably fit.  This is a story I wrote many years ago and never did anything with, then just recently pulled out and dusted off.  Issue 160 is not out yet, the current issue is 159.  For those early birds, though, you'll find me in the "In Times To Come" section at the bottom of the contents of 159.

Second, the September/October issue of "Writers' Journal" will carry an article of mine, "Targeting Enemy Words."  My contributor's copy just arrived today, and though the postal service made a pretty mess of the magazine, the article itself looks great.  So I'll be picking up a newsstand copy or two to replace mine when it comes out.

And when September actually arrives, I may or may not have another piece to announce.  So warm hugs and fuzzy back pats all around. 

Bewilering Stories

Writers' Journal

No, not Redeemer of the Realm.  The only saga I'm writing these days, it seems, is transferring The Ordeal of Finnegan here.  (That's not completely true--I have been working on Redeemer, but mostly polishing and editing the first third.)

Finnegan's old vet called this morning.  The Distemper Titer (the test they drew blood to perform when we were in on Monday) came back.  At first I couldn't tell whether the news was good or bad; first he said negative, then positive, until I was thoroughly confused.  "So...." I said "...is it positive or negative?" 

"Negative," he said.  "He doesn't have distemper." 

That's the good news.  The bad news, he tells me, is that he still thinks there is something serious going on and we should bring the dog back in for a radiograph and bacteria culture, and he'll transfer me to the receptionist to schedule.

At this point, I confess, I became suddenly gutless.  While stomping out of the clinic and hauling Finnegan immediately somewhere else came easy, I suddenly lacked the intestinal fortitude to actually tell this vet we would not be bringing him back.  I hem and haw and mutter something about Larry's schedule being the determining one, and we'll have to call back. 

I did call Larry and discuss the whole situation with him (again).  We are both pleased that Finnegan does not have distemper, but neither of us seem particularly eager to take him back to the old vet.  We're sticking with the new one, and going the distance with this new two-week-minimum prescription of Cephalexin.  Larry tells me he doesn't think Finnegan's sinus trouble seemed as bad this morning (although I of course wonder if there couldn't be some wishful thinking there, which is why I don't trust my own perceptions of how well or not he might be doing)

So I feel maybe a little vindicated.  I could just as easily have ended up feeling humbled, if after all this the tests started showing it was indeed distemper after all.  But after two pretty reliable tests have come back negative, a week apart, everybody including the ordering doctor seems to accept what we have here is not distemper.  Of course we'll mention this latest result to the new vet, after all, we told him they had drawn blood for the titer, but I doubt he'll be hugely impressed either way--he had been concerned from the start not so much with pinning a diagnosis on Finnegan's condition as with helping him feel better, after all.

But as far as Canine Distemper is concerned, I just heaved what I hope is my final huge sigh of relief on the subject. 

So, we brought Finnegan home from the pound on July 22nd.  On July 26th, he went to the vet.  Kennel Cough, they say, after glancing at him, and put him on a week of Cephalexin, 250mg twice a day.

He went back the 31st.  Distemper, they say, after glancing at him, and put him on a week of Baytril (not allowing him to finish the week of Cephalexin).  They do a conjunctival swab, assuring us that this is THE definitive test and will tell us FOR SURE whether or not he has it, even though he was recently vaccinated.

He went back August 8th, after finishing the Baytril.  The swab, as you know, was negative, so we all breathed a sigh of relief.  Only now the vet glances at him, shakes his head, and says he still thinks distemper, and the test isn't very reliable.  Which is not what he told us before.  He says he could do x-rays to make sure there's nothing lodged in his nose or something, but he just doesn't think it's worth the trouble.  Instead he wants to perform a series of other tests to see if he can nail down this distemper diagnosis, and start a week on a third antibiotic in the meantime.

At this point I walked out of the clinic, leaving Larry to pay the bills and bring the dog.  Muttering the while, I get both kids in their carseats, start up the van, and use the navigation system to look up the phone number of another vet clinic I know, one who is commonly agreed to be the VERY BEST in this area.  When I was still living with my parents, I took one of our dogs there, and they impressed me.  My mother-in-law agrees, they are the ones to see.  So we call.  They listen to our situation, and tell us that they can see him RIGHT THEN.  Wow.

The thing I liked best about this other clinic is that they have always been straight with us.  When I brought our other dog in years ago, he had suffered total kidney failure.  His chances of recovery were almost nothing.  They told us that, so we went in knowing exactly what to expect.  With the vet we've been using more recently, we felt, as Larry put it, like he was using a dartboard in the back to pick what to tell us that day.  I know that's not quite fair, distinguishing between kennel cough and distemper is a very tricky thing until the GI or neurological symptoms of distemper begin to appear.

So the new vet examines him, and says he can see why they would say distemper; of course it could be.  Anytime you see a dog with a snotty nose distemper is to be considered.  But he's not convinced that's what it is.  We could spend a lot of money on tests trying to prove it one way or another, but in the end, he says, it doesn't really matter.  He says unless the diagnosis is going to change what we do with the dog, it isn't worth the expense and the stress to Finnegan to test and test.  He thinks we should follow the symptoms, and medicate as necessary to support him through whatever he has.

And he also thinks it could be just a simple cold, perhaps combined with an infection, like a sinus infection we might get.  One week of Cephalexin--especially one unfinished week--is just not enough for a dog with an upper respiratory infection, he tells us, plus he really should have been getting 250mg 3 times a day, not 2.  And the other two antibiotics we've been given, while great meds, are not the best for this sort of infections, and Cephalexin is.

So, I've switched vets.  And while it may not be evident from my lousing retelling of yesterday afternoon, I am more satisfied--I feel like before we were dealing with a vet who, after some waffling,  was married to a single diagnosis, and moreover, was convinced that the only viable option with this diagnosis was to put the dog down.  I don't argue that distemper can be fatal.  I know that.  But after our first conversation with him where the word distemper came up, I went and did a lot of research about it.  And what I read disagreed with what he was telling us, and was right on with what the new vet said.  Yes, many dogs die from it.  But just as many recover and go on to live for years with no effects.  And others recover and go on, but need medications to deal with the neural damage--I'm speaking here of seizure control medications.  While we have no wish to keep a suffering, dying dog alive, we also have no wish to put him down as soon as diagnosis is certain, before he is even manifesting characteristic symptoms.  As, for the record, he has not.  His sole symptom is a runny nose.  He has never run a fever.  No crusty eyes.  No hardened pads, on feet or nose.  No vomiting, diarrhea, loss of appetite (he eats like a pig).  No seizures, tics, or twitches.  No drooling.  NOTHING but a runny nose.  It seems premature to be edging toward putting a dog down for a runny nose.

So the plan for now?  Give him the Cephalexin, and see what happens. 

Well, we just checked in with the vet, and Finnegan is in the clear!  The tests were negative, no distemper.  Whew!  It looks like we are dealing with an upper respiratory infection, and the stronger antibiotics hes on now seem to be helping with that.

So thanks everyone for the kind words and kind thoughts.  The nail-biting is over, and maybe now I can write again.

Whew!

Don't you hate those blog entires where the first thing you see is an apology from the author for being absent for so long?  Well, brace yourself, because you're about to get one from me.

As you may have noticed, I have not posted in a while.  A long while.  Sorry about that.  A combination of stresses has added up to keep from from writing, not only in this blog, but pretty much at all, for the last few weeks.

Work, I won't talk about.  We all know how that goes. The most important stress right now is our new dog, Finnegan.

Not that Finnegan himself is any trouble.  We adopted him from the pound on a week and a half ago.  He's a West Highland White Terrier, and he's the sweetest, best behaved dog I've ever owned.  No, the problem isn't Finnegan himself.  (Finnegan, BTW, is a name we picked out ourselves, because it is Irish and means "little white-haired one," which he pretty much is.)

The problem is that during his stay at the pound, Finnegan picked up some sort of illness.  Initially the vet thought Kennel Cough, which isn't such a big deal, but now, a week after his first visit, the vet thinks perhaps it is instead Canine Distemper.

That's bad.  Canine Distemper is something that, from my understanding, has no treatment and is usually fatal.  Everything the vet has said seems to support this.  He sent in swabs for lab work on Sunday, and figures by Wednesday or Thursday we should know something.

So I'm stumbling along at work, but not much good for anything else.  If you have any spare good thoughts, please send them Finnegan's way.

Thanks.

I am:

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're
actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their
assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they
build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd
be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

How about you?

At long last, I sat down and synchronized the Mobilon and the desktop, meaning I finally have updated word counts.

New Words: 3585

Total Count So Far: 48, 616

Holiday weekend, boo for the word counts.  And we're switching some of the base controls in my major project at work, so I've been so busy I can hardly breathe.  Yuck.  Hoping for more impressive counts soon.

If you've been here before, you'll probably notice the new addition at the top of the page--the Work in Progress bar.  It's pretty self-explanatory, and I love it. 

The word count itself is out of date--that's the word count from Thursday or Friday, I don't remember which.  I'll sync up the Mobilon later and get the word count updated.

I had a bit of good news yesterday--one of my stories has finally been picked up.    It's a non-paying market, but I have discovered that non-fiction and fiction are two very different markets, at least for me.  Non-fiction was very easy to break into; if the material is good most editors could care less if you've published before.  I never even really got into the habit of listing my credits on cover letters.

Fiction is a harder nut to crack.  And more attention seems to be paid to what you've published before, and where.  With fiction it's not enough to have good material--it's got to be great, something over and above what everyone else is sending in.  Fiction is very competitive.  This particular story is a strange one, not easily classified as fantasy, science fiction....it's also very long.

But as with everything I write, I believe in it.  On some level, every story I write deals with something important to me, and this one, one of my oldest stories, is no different.  I'm glad to see it picked up, and I like the place that wants it.  I've read some of the other stuff they've printed and it all seems good.  And when it goes up, next month, I'll post a link here, or the website, or both. 

I discovered a website today I've never seen before: RejectionCollection.com.  It's interesting to look around.  It's a little disturbing, though.  There are intelligent, composed responses on there.  But most of them, at least most of the ones I managed to find, are angry, and often nasty, rants.  Extreme examples of rejection taken personally and vilification of editors.

Folks, better is expected of us.  We're writers.  We're supposed to think carefully and make sure the words we put down are really what we mean.

I wonder if some of those posters on that site are aware that there are editors out there watching it too.  That's how I found the site, incidentally, was a link in an editor's blog.  Considering that the rejection letters are posted in their entirety, and that many of them are personal rejection letters, and even include the name of the piece being rejected...how hard would it be for an editor to figure out who was flaming them?  I don't know that I would want to burn my bridges that way.

Yeah, I've had plenty of rejections.  Some of them were encouraging.  Some of them stung.  But no matter how rude the rejection, no matter how offended and angry it might make me at the time, I would never post it on a public website with scorching commentary.  Because the thing about websites is, you never know whose eyes might be watching.

I'll stick with my old-fashioned method of dealing with rejection; stomp around the house for awhile, then come back later when I've gotten over it and re-read the letter with a cool head and see what I can learn from it.  Honestly, very little of what any editor writes in a rejection letter is meant personally.  It's very hard not to take it that way, especially at first, but it's the truth.  Once you accept that, once you believe it, rejections become a whole lot easier to take.  At least that's how it worked for me.  I don't even need to stomp any more.  I just shrug and go on.

So please, please, I beg you--don't publicly flame an editor for rejecting your work.  At least, not if you want them to read anything you write ever again.

Today's Words: 3120

Total Count So Far: 45,031

 

If you're like most people, you think of writer's block as this occupational hazard--kind of like carpal tunnel syndrome or finger cramps--that attacks randomly and leaves a previously prolific writer staring in agony and frustration at the endless blank page.

I used to subscribe to that view myself.  In fact, I've got an entire page on my website full of writer's block strategies based in just that view.  However, after working on Music Mage, and slowly creeping up on the halfway mark of Redeemer, I find that I am changing my view.  The more I write, the more I feel like writer's block just means I haven't done my homework.

If I'm staring at a blank page, with no idea how to enter the scene, that probably means I don't really know where the scene starts.  If I can't continue it, I may not know what the essential conflict of the scene is.  Not knowing how to tie it up probably also means I lack an understanding of where the climax of the scene is.  Maybe I don't understand a character well enough to convincingly portray his actions.  Maybe I haven't thought the scene through well enough.

There are all sorts of ways to remedy these things.  My favorite is to sit down with my Notes document (which has all but replaced my Supplemental Materials binder).  I make a note about the scene I'm working on--summarizing what has gone so far, and what my problem in continuing is.  Then I just start asking questions, and trying to answer them.  Even if my answers don't work right away, I just keep writing.  Eventually something will surface that works.

Usually it's not asking questions that gets me stuck.  Why is my main character doing this?  What will this person say to that?  Wouldn't the logical reaction to that be this?  Why, why, WHY?  

And on and on it goes.  Once I ask the right questions (and that's the part that takes so much practice--after enough iterations through the block/question cycle, you get better at knowing which part is holding you up, and what questions will get you what you need to continue) I can continue, with a clear vision of where I'm going and how I'm going to get there.

And that sounds like defeating writer's block by any definition I've ever heard. 

Today's word count for Redeemer won't be the most impressive one ever.  But I also managed to write that short story I mentioned the other day, and it was about 1050 words, all told.  Not too bad.  It seems my short stories turn out either very short or very long, with nothing in between.  But I haven't really been writing short stories that long; it's something I started fairly recently to try to build up some credits before I start shopping around these two fantasy novels.  You may have noticed all of my recent credits are non-fiction.  I like non-fiction, but it isn't where my heart is.  So I need to start getting stories out there.  It's taking a little time, but I'm getting close.  I can feel it.  Anyway, today's counts:

Today's Words: 1287

Total Count So Far: 41,911

Hopefully one of these days before too long I'll be able to announce my first fiction sale.  And that, when it happens, should pretty much be proof that you can do it, too.  Fiction is frustrating; I find that I can sell non-fiction articles--especially articles about writing--as fast as I can write them, but I haven't sold a story yet.  But I'm not doing too bad, all thing considered, I'm only on my second short story, and it's only been two places.  The first editor told me the writing was very good but the story was too traditional for them, and the second editor told me I have a real flair for plot and character but there was too much exposition up front (and he's right, too.  This particular story I started about ten years ago, stuck on a shelf, and just finished recently.  I didn't change the beginning at all, and I really needed to.)  I've always had trouble with short stories, because my ideas all tend to be booklength, not easily compressed into 5000 words.  But I'm learning.  I guess it's a learning process for us all.  Probably, there's an article in that, and probably, if I write it, it will sell right away. 

And that's great, I really like selling my articles.  But right now I'm really focused on selling a story.  Right now, I'm focused on selling one.  I'll worry about getting more after that.  And having X number of stories sold to magazines and webzines can only help when it's time to send out these books; I'll have something of a track record in fiction.

So there's my long term plan.  Pretty exciting stuff.

Today wasn't a total loss.  I got a couple solid scenes in, and quite a bit of background work on the nomadic people of the Redeemer universe.  Working on the customs and beliefs of the tribes also gave me a few good scene ideas, so that's a plus too.  Word counts:

Today's Words: 983

Total Count So Far: 40,624

And I got a story idea that I think might turn out to be a really neat short story.  But that's for another day.  Today it was enough just to document the idea, so I don't lose it.

I've been seeing a disheartening trend out there, evident in some of the blogs I read, and other, scarier, places.  It seems that a lot of people who write want to limit the definition of a writer so that it pretty much includes only people like them.

Like the fanfiction argument I posted about.  "Real" writers, as they call themselves, say that people who write fanfiction aren't real writers.  Because of what they write.  The RWA, in its latest round of ill-conceived policy changes, is trying to limit the definition of a romance--and hence a romance writer--to include only writers who write a certain type of story--including a certain number of people and what they call an "emotionally satisfying ending".  Anybody else isn't a "real" romance writer, at least not in the eyes of the RWA.

And it doesn't end there.  The RWA doesn't seem to want to extend its highest priveleges--like PAN membership--to e-publishers and writers who publish that way.  No matter the sales figures, no matter the standards, no matter anything, it seems e-publishers aren't real publishers.  And e-writers aren't real writers.

I think that's plain silly.  I don't write romances, don't even read them, but even from here its obvious that the RWA is uncomfortable with the way publishing trends are moving--both in what medium of book sells and what type of content sells--and this is their way of trying to curb that. 

To me, a person who writes is a writer.  If you don't like the content of someone else's story, or the medium in which they choose to market it, fine.  But don't try to argue they're not a "real" writer because of it.  Maybe this person is the best writer you've ever read, maybe they are far from it.  To me that's irrelevant.  Do you love to write?  Do you carve time out of your busy schedule to write?  Do you love the works that you write--good, bad, and ugly?

Then you're a writer.  Maybe not a professional writer, maybe not a best-selling writer, but definitely a "real" writer.

Writers already get little enough respect from the outside world.  We don't need to start dividing against ourselves as well.  Bickering and back-biting among people who share a common love of the written word seems small and counter-productive.

Can't we all just get along?