Myth, the Universe, and Everything

I've decided not to make another entry on how long it's been since I've written an entry. Things have happened, largely in regards to live, and it's been difficult to keep up with all the online things I do. As I answered when a friend of mine asked after my writing and spiritual life yesterday, I often feel the best I can do is just keep up, rather than be a master at any part of my life at the moment. (I've bookmarked a blog entry about writers, time, and kids over at Book View Cafe. I have yet to find a chance to read it.)

But back to the subject: something I've discovered about myself as a writer recently is that when I offer up a piece for critique too early, I lose motivation to work on it. My brain switches gears from writer brain to editor brain, and I start looking at all the things that need to be fixed rather than what needs to happen *next.* Both Blackstone Academy and East Wind are currently suffering from early-critique syndrome.

On the other hand, I don't like to write in a void. I like to know that someone is out there reading what I'm writing and wants to read more. It helps keep me motivated to think that people are hanging on at the end of a chapter waiting to see what happens next.

To synthesize these two things, I decided to create a group that I'm calling my Pep Squad. Their job is to be excited about what I send them (even if they're not). They're so early in the reading process that they're not even alpha-readers -- they're the pre-alpha-readers. I've got a team of four friends who are taking on this role for me, and I've just sent them some pre-writing tonight for a new project I'm tentatively calling Liminals.

I am not giving up on either Blackstone Academy or East Wind -- I'm just trying to find a way to keep myself motivated to write fiction while I'm trying to keep up with everything else that's going on. (I'm not only a columnist at Branford Patch, now, I'm also writing articles! Copyediting is back into full swing! Review gigs just keep on rolling in! So, I'm staying plenty busy with the work life, plus family life, plus karate -- test on Friday next!, plus Mommy Baby exercise and teaching, plus gaming and otherwise socializing with people I like.)

In other news, counting review books, several volumes of Schlock Mercenary, and manuscripts, I've read 49 books so far this year. I'm just slightly proud of that number, given that we're only in month four of the year.

I got next to nothing done that I'd had on my list to accomplish today.

In the plus column: Awesome substrate meeting! We talked about a new short story by Substrater Vlad -- he originally wrote it in Russian and submitted to us in English in synopsis form, which makes for a really engaging way to talk about a story! -- and discussed "Shotgun Wedding" (which I'll be making some edits to shortly, due to the good conversation) before I had to absent myself from Skype and do real-worldy things. (I missed the discussion on the first two chapters of lyster's new novel, which, like its predecessor, has the appearance of being absolutely fantastic.*)

Someone asked me to post about finding a writing group awhile back, and the truth is, I don't actually have really good advice. I fell into this one almost by chance -- Substrater Nat had an inkling about getting a group together when lyster got back from China and did most of the inviting of folks who, then, I didn't know well and had never read. I invited notadoor, who I'd met briefly at Simon's Rock when I'd gone back on TA prep for one of Mark Vecchio's study abroad courses, and who I'd gotten to know (and admire) via LJ. Most of us write, and are interested in, the same kind of fiction -- F/SF stuff, largely. We write in different areas of the genre, and we bring different opinions as readers to the table. And, this is kind of important -- we all seem to like each other. I don't know if that's critical for a writing group, but I've found it's really important for a gaming group, and I think the two are more similar than might seem obvious at first appearance.

But as far as writing itself goes, I wrote a few new sentences in a review that's due on Monday... Yeah, not exactly an inspiring total. On the other hand, Twostripe and I spent some time reading Off Armageddon Reef by David Weber (it's our family read aloud book right now -- we've done The Hobbit, Unseen Academicals, and, as you may recall, the last two books of "The Dark Is Rising" sequence since Bug was born. Picking grown-up books means that progress is sometimes quite slow. But we kept going ahead in Off Armageddon Reef after Bug fell asleep tonight. I'm hoping she won't notice.) Spending family time together, especially over a good book, was an excellent use of time, despite meaning that I didn't get to check anything off my to-do list.

Tomorrow is a Christmas pageant at church, which I'm excited about, and then perhaps I can be constructive in the afternoon. Here's crossing my fingers!

(Don't forget the Tarot / Greater Trumps contest! And keep getting ready for Alayna Williams on Friday!)

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*For the record, I don't just build up the Substraters because they're my crit group. Anything that I mention thinking is awesome is because I think it is awesome. (And really, I know from awesome, so you should take my word for it.)

I wrote the subject of this post, then thought, "Wait, didn't I write something with that title before?" Took me a minute to remember, but yes -- an adventure for Living Forgotten Realms (Cormyr 1-3, to be exact). It's kind of fun to have written enough stuff that's out there in the world (albeit most of it modular adventures) that it takes me a second to place the title.

But that's neither here nor there. The title is intended to reflect what I've been doing lately -- as in, "Keeping my." Things never seem to slow down at Casa Abbott any more, and a couple of unfortunate events -- currently a cold, previously an epic saga I'll explain below -- have made things even more of a kaffuffle than usual. But, hopefully, I'll get back on top of the pile and start feeling just regularly-whelmed instead of over-.

• The saga: Editorial assistant Tollers decided on Sunday the 7th that he was going to go out for an afternoon walk and just forgot to come home. For three days. Monday morning it snowed here on the Shoreline, and we were worried something had happened to him. So, we put out posters and spread the word among local friends. Bug and I wandered out into the woods behind our house whistling for him (the Editorial Assistants are trained to respond to a whistle) and polled the neighbors to see if anyone had seen him. Then, three days later, he showed up at the door, meowing to be let in as though nothing had happened. Whew! We kept him in for a couple of days to remind him where home was, but since then, he's been back out on his regular afternoon walks and has checked in more frequently than usual, as if to say, "I know I worried you. I'm okay. Feed me?"



• I wrote a short story! "Shotgun Wedding" is out on submission for an anthology that will be edited by Matt McElroy, my editor at Flames Rising. Two of my crit buddies (Twostripe and niliphim) said that the biggest problem they had with it was that it ought to be a novel. Considering that it's urban fantasy, and Twostripe doesn't even really like UF, that made me very excited. So, I'm hoping to start a bigger project featuring those characters -- I wrote the short story with the idea that it might be a prequel to an urban fantasy series. While doing research for the story, I came across the Chinese saying "All that is needed is an East Wind" -- I think All We Need Is an East Wind would be a nifty title, so I'm going to use it (or just East Wind) as a place holder for now for the soon-to-be WIP.


• I had a wonderful and too-short visit with my mother, who flew out from Michigan. She reminded me again that the only reason she let me go off to college at sixteen was that I promised I'd develop a way to tesser (I'd planned on going into physics), and I still hadn't fulfilled my part of that bargain.


• The current set of autobiographies is coming to a close, which means I need to get a lot of editing done this week! I've got a fun bunch of writers as usual: I already have edits back from playwright Jean-Claude van Itallie (who teaches about writing and theater, meditation, and healing in the Berkshires, not too far from where I went to college) and friend of the blog Jeff Duntemann (who you should be reading over at jeff_duntemann if you're not already). If all goes well with the editorial process, I'll have five essays in this batch (instead of the usual four), which should be a plus for my in house editor.


• I'm also studying, through a correspondence course, fitness for pregnant and postpartum women, in hopes of a) passing a practicum in early December, and b) teaching for Dancing Thru Pregnancy, the group that I've been taking classes with to get back into shape after having Bug. The material is really fascinating, though I struggle with some of the information, since I never took anatomy in school -- it's a lot of new content to work through. I just need to get on top of the material before my test deadline!


• Lastly: more copyediting. Bread and butter keeps a person from starving, no?

And, of course, I want to keep up with blogging again. I've got a great guest blog coming up from Dylan Birtolo (eyezofwolf), and hopefully there will be some fun news on the Cowboys and Aliens front to share, since word on the street is that there's a movie trailer coming out soon...