Day in the Life of an Idiot

My new book is officially out today. I got the trade paperbacks in the mail yesterday. This morning I took the time to add subtitles, etc. Please feel free to watch for the silly subtitle mayhem, if nothing else.




Okay, so if you still haven't bought it, now is the time. https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/welcome-to-boy-net/

 "Woe" is probably too strong a word for this situation. It's more that I am a complain-y person who likes to complain about things. The current thing I am fretting about is that I agreed to do a Speculations reading at Dreamhaven next Wednesday. 

True confession time. 

I have NEVER liked reading my own work out loud. Despite the fact that I often enjoy re-reading my own work, as discussed in a recent previous post and I generally like speaking in front of an audience, I kind of hate readings. It's one of those things, however, that is fully expected that authors DO. 

There's a couple of personal reasons why I dislike reading, out loud, in front of an audience. I am dyslexic. I've been dyslexic my whole life and so I have a lot of... shame around it? Like, I'm mostly okay with this fairly minor (for me) learning disability, but when I am standing in front of people who are all staring at me and I stumble over my own words, I don't enjoy it. I've learned to make fun of myself and to get around my mistakes by just going with something close to what I've written, but the actual act of reading out loud in this very structured space is not something I enjoy.

My other complaint in my complaining song is that I also, personally, am not fond of going to readings? I have an allergy to the MFA voice. I find it grating at best and soporific at worst. Worse, its prevalent, even among people who are not in Academia. Even when a reader doesn't do the MFA voice, I'm not great at paying attention when people are reading in performance halls, bookstores, and hotel panel rooms.

I don't know why. Like, Shawn used to read to me while I did the dishes (we don't have a dishwasher) for years. She's been replaced by an iPad and Spotify, but having people read to me or tell me a story is not the problem. So, I don't really understand why I find it hard to listen to writers reading their stories at readings. There just must be something about it that feels artificial. I honestly don't know. 

Am I alone in this?

At any rate, I'm also struggling to figure out WHAT to read. My WIP makes the most sense, but this is a book that I'm floundering on at the moment and I'm in that dreaded "I hate this book" phase of writing. I still might find some piece of that to read, and probably will? I could also read some short stories that I've recently sold... and I might do that, if for no other reason than that the editors of the anthologies would probably be happy that I'm out publicizing their product.  

I dunno.

La! There's my complaining song. 

How are you?

Admittedly, I have been procrastinating on setting up my work email so that I can view it from home. Several months ago, Ramsey County experienced a payroll hack that had IT scrambling to plug holes. One way in which they did so (inconveniently for _me_) was to set up a two-point authorization for those of us who need to check email remotely (i.e., from home.) This required an app and, thus, obviously, a smart phone, which I didn't have until very, very recently.

Even so, I've had my smart phone for a couple of months and I only just (after some good-natured harassment from my family yesterday) decided that today would be an excellent day to make all the various calls to the IT folks and Get It Done. First, I forgot my password enough that I locked myself out of the log-in page that would get me started on the process. Then, after calling to change it, I discovered that it didn't matter because I had been dropped off the official list of people who needed to access this whole deal. So, I had to call AGAIN. And, then wait an half hour.

So, I took full advantage of my half hour and I went to the library to return a book that was about to be due and to pick up another on hold. I then, went to the grocery store and picked up victuals for dinner tonight. (Mason really wanted "meat muffins"--which are basically individual meat loaves in muffin tins.)

Back at home I downloaded the app and thought I had it all set. Well, for reasons unknown to me, the process got hung up in the verification step and so I had to call IT AGAIN. This time the guy was one of those people that you sort of wonder how they keep their job because he was so inarticulate, while also insulting my intelligence ("Did you try to scan the QV code from the PDF?" To which I said, "Do you THINK I'm a moron?" He chuckled but added, "You'd be surprised how often that's the problem.") But, he also left me with the "instruction" to wait for a call back from IT when they were done resetting my account.

Good f*cking thing I didn't wait for a call before I tried again, because I'D STILL BE WAITING.

Instead, I thought, surely it's been long enough and I went through the process and this time it worked, no hitches.

Good news, everyone: I appear to still be employed by Ramsey County and I now have access to mail at home.

Woo.

Otherwise, I printed out all of the submissions for tomorrow night's Wyrdsmith's meeting (for those of you who are new subscribers, Wyrdmiths is an in-person writers' group that I founded back in 1997-ish[?] that has been on-going ever since. We meet on Thursday nights at a local coffee shop and talk writing.) We have one very short story from Adam, and new novel bits from naomikritzer I'm looking forward to reading and reviewing both of those tomorrow while I sit at the laundromat washing all of the rag rugs that poor Ms. Ball ruined with her Hell Poop^TM .

( Spell-a-Day Project (Jan 9) )

I was really hoping to catalogue our trip to Washington, DC with photos, but the picture editor/attacher mechanism over here on LJ is still busted.  Your best bet to see all the pictures is going to be to scroll through: https://www.facebook.com/lyda.morehouse, which you should be able to do without being signed-up (though I don't know that for sure.)

Many apologizes.

It was a great trip, all and all.  While Shawn was stuck in endless meetings, Mason and I were power-tourists.  Our hotel was within walking distance of the zoo, so that was one of our first stops.  We spent two days exploring the museums on the Mall (our favorite was the Natural History Museum), took in a show at the Kennedy Center, saw the Library of Congress (Mason wept to think of 35 million books), the National Archives (where we saw the Constitution, etc.,) waved to the empty White House (apparently Mr. Obama has been on vacation too), saw all the various monuments, went all the way out the National Arboretum, attempted to kayak the Potomac (we couldn't find the boat rental), went to the Spy Museum, ate out, and generally learned to navigate the Metro like pros.

All in five days.

I'm pooped now and ready to be home and back to my usual things.

While we were away my Bloggin' for Books book arrived.  I ordered a book about how to become a comic book artist called Comic Book Art: Fundamental Tools and Techniques for Sequential Artists by John Paul Lowe, which I've pawed through and it's made me feel like the worst artist in the history of art.  I've been contemplating how to blog about this visceral and emotional reaction to what is essentially a text book. I wrote something up, but I'm not sure if it's a review or a whine about my life.  The sad thing is that I can't order another book until I review this one, so I'm going to have to figure something out.

Also a check came from my agent.  I'm apparently selling like gangbusters over at Audible.com.  The entire Garnet Lacey series is there and available, and, for whatever mysterious and awesome reason, is selling REALLY well.  Here's the first one: http://www.amazon.com/Tall-Dark-and-Dead/dp/B00COIYSHW/.  You can listen to a sample for free.

On the flip side, I also got a rejection for a writing job I applied for.  It was for a game company called Choice of Games: https://www.choiceofgames.com/about-us/. They were looking for writers to write Choose Your Own Adventure style story games for them.  Technically, I failed to be good enough to pitch them, which I guess makes me even more of a doofus.  But, I blame myself.  They were looking for a 3 - 5 page sample of writing and I sent them the very first story I ever sold, "Irish Blood," because it's one of the few stories that's actually short enough for me to send them something complete.  I'm still immensely proud of that story and I thought it best to show something with a beginning, middle, and ending.  I still think the story is awesome.  It was awesome enough to be reprinted in the Best of Dreams of Decadence not that long ago, after all.  But, it's about a fairy and a vampire, and it's possible the gaming folks felt that kind of story was very 'been there, done that.'

Who knows.

It would have been an interesting gig, had I gotten it.  But, it also would have been a LOT of work.  A friend of mine who applied with me is still in the running and I'll be curious how the process goes if she makes it past this hurtle.  (Fingers crossed!)  I have to admit I'm fascinated by the directions in which writing and writer/reader interactions are headed.  I'm starting to have real fun over at WattPad, and I see this fan-fiction model as a really fascinating experiment in continuing writing outside and beyond traditional New York publishing houses.  What is writing going to be like in the future?  I suspect it's going to be much more like this, because most people look for writing on-line these days.

A blog just won a Hugo, after all.

Shawn, Mason and I had a nice weekend. We spent a good part of Saturday morning estate sale/rummage shopping, which was a blast. There were a couple of church basement rummage sales, including a really awesome book sale at St. Olivet's, which is this beautiful Congregational church close to the Merrim Park Library. In fact, Mason and I were done early and we just sat an admired their gorgeous 'gymnasium.' Shawn and I joked that we were tempted to join the church just for the building.

St. Olivet's was a stark contrast to the house we stopped at that was just down the road from Stepping Stone Theatre (behind the law school). It was... straight out of a Stephen King novel, not only had it suffered HARDCORE neglect (on a squalor level), but, you know how most of the time you can feel the good strong bones of a house underneath all the grime and disrepair? Yeah, no. This house had been born with a mutated, malformed skeleton. Because, even though people had 'remuddled' it over the years, there were pieces that were clearly original that were just... odd. Like the second story... prayer alcove? It looked like people had been using it last as a closet, but it had been built with a stained glass window and a little buildt-in kneeler. The rooms were also all off at odd angles, which were perhaps originally meant to be 'charming' or even 'eccentric' but came off as cramped and wrong after time had worn the beauty away.

Mason, who has a very low threshold for bad vibes, walked in and instantly said, "Oh, no. Let's just go." Shawn and I pushed through with sheer curiosity and, much to Mason's chagrin, we both brought something home from that house. (Shawn got a roll of rope and I found a leather wallet.)

That house was one of the ones that all the sale-rs had to stop and chat with strangers about (which, if you aren't from around here, you might not realize what a BIG DEAL that is in Minnesota.) I would say something to Mason like, "My god, look at this, the original builders didn't even finish off these floor boards..." and the person passing by on the way up the stairs would feel compelled to stop, look, and then comment about some other odd feature they'd seen in the garage or elsewhere. The estate sale workers kept trying to sort of reassure people by saying, "This house is old. It was built in 1913." To which, I replied, "Our house was built in 1911. It doesn't look like this. Something more than time happened to this house." To which, they had no other response than, "The workers are coming back on Monday."

The other thing that pissed off all the estate sale-rs that came through was that, possibly to fund the remodeling, the prices were jacked up. There were things there that should have been marked ten bucks (generous) that were set at SEVENTY.

Mason shadowed me through the whole house saying, "This place is like a HOG (Hidden Object Game)." Because on top of all the weird angles and decrepit-ness the estate sale workers had just piled all the goods in boxes and in tables in a way that just made it all seem that much more chaotic. Even the back yard garden was a mess.

It was kind of amazing, really. It was the sort of place that sticks in your head, and it may have to work its way into a novel, because it's too good to waste, you know?

Sunday we spent doing some housework, baking cookies (for real! I made chocolate chip!) and playing some board games. It was that kind of day because we woke up to a rain that beat down steadily all day long.

During some of my housework, I started a new anime series. I'm now watching Witch Craft Works. I'm not entirely sure I can recommend it. It's weirdly compelling, though. The story is about "an average high school boy" who, it turns out, has a witch guardian who considers him her "princess." A lot of the humor in the story has to do with a shounen reversal. She gets all the power-ups, is popular and aloof, and he's just kind of a pretty/handsome load she constantly has to rescue. Weirdly, that kind of works for me. All the villains and side-characters are female, too, so it's very much a conscious 'see, this is what you look like!' in terms of reversing all the gender stuff.

I'm watching it on Crunchyroll, so it's a new anime, only just having aired this year in January in Japan. There are 12 episodes, and I'm just about to start #4 with today's load of dishes. I suspect that if this anime follows the flow of most 'new-ish' anime, the real action will start now that they've set up the characters and the situation. I feel like it was right about episode 3 or 4 that Rei was introduced in Free! Iwatobi Swim Club and that's when things really started rolling.

At any rate, I'm enjoying that.

Today my plans are to get a good start on my new Tate installment. I have to say that given time, the serial thing on WattPad is starting to work better for me. I've decided that I'm not allowed to look at my statistics, which helps, and only concentrate on the comments. I have one really faithful reader (who is not actually someone I know outside of this context), so I'm kind of writing this for her. She leaves comments at the end of each chapter and is even starting to try to guess at the plot, WHICH I TOTALLY ADORE AND HAD BEEN HOPING FOR. So, that's working.

More importantly, having the publishing deadline of once a week on a Tuesday afternoon, means I'm writing forward every week. This is a very, very good thing.

Plus, even though I hate it, it seems like my social media blast about the updates are getting re-blogged (at least a friend saw it happen once), so that's kind of all I can hope for.

I really do think this is the sort of thing that might become a THING given enough time. For now, I'm along for the ride... and it's keeping me writing on a Tate project.

As I wrote before, I got a nasty little stomach bug last week, which I proceeded to pass around the house. Mason wins the most spectacular event by vomiting copious amounts of ring spaghetti onto the sidewalk on our way to hang out with revolutionaryjo at the Tea Garden. I felt like the World's Best Mom (tm), as I rubbed his back as he barfed in public. Seriously. Not cool. But, in true fannishness, Mason and I hung out and chatted SnK and Free! for a little while despite all the excitement.

Sheesh.

Shawn, who usually has the lowest constitution in our campaign party, was the last to fall. She got sick yesterday and, like Mason, seems to be over it already. Me, I got to have it for almost five days.

But, yesterday, I managed to take advantage of an unplanned pajama day (since Shawn was down for the count with the sick) and did a little preliminary editing on the podcast project. I successfully made a separate audio clip of the Sumerian language stuff, so it's now ready to be spliced into to the podcast at some point. The next thing I need to do is go through the interview I did with Rachel and pick out some of the highlights for the first episode. And then I need some kind of cohesive narrative to tie it all together. The good news is we're not looking to have it ready until the 29th. The bad news THAT'S ONLY EIGHT DAYS FROM NOW.

Today I also worked a bit for Sofa Wolf. I'm helping them package things up for the kickstarter that they did to print an omnibus edition of Digger. Today I packaged up a lot of stickers. Tomorrow will likely be the same. I'm fairly sure I drove Jeffery insane singing to myself while listening to my mp3 and generally nattering on about people's cool last names, where they were from, my opinions about the characters in Digger (most of which I find ridiculously awesome, charming and/or hilarious) and all sorts of other odd observations.

I'm kind of my own noise generator.

:-)

My agent was also looking for something with different sexual orientations, so I dusted of my very first novel, Sidhe Promised, and sent it on to her to see if it would fit the bill. It'd be cool if it did. I rather love that book still, though it may be a touch dated, given that I wrote it almost 20 years ago. Anyway, fingers crossed.

So, that's kind of the re-cap. I should be working on the UnSeen World novel for Rachel, but I'm being side-tracked by silly Halloween stuff right now. And Tumblr. Such a time suck Tumblr is. Though, my fandom really does live there.

Yesterday, I was supposed to work on my sample chapters. I just could NOT get motivated. I don't know why. I have lots of other things I could blame besides myself, of course, including the fact that Shawn ended up not going to work (she had to attend the funeral of her co-worker/friend's mom) and Mason had the day off from school. Mason, however, was quite content to spend the day watching too much streaming MythBusters while putting together the LEGO DeathStar. So... actually, I had plenty of free time.

Which I spent meandering around the Internet and generally moaning about having ennui.

I did manage to write a blurb for a friend's small press science fiction novel. That had been on my to-do pile for MONTHS. I thought, in fact, I'd missed my opportunity to say something about it, but he emailed me a week ago to say that the book was in its final stages and they could still use a quote from me, if I had something to say. I'd read a lot of it when I thought I still had time, but then life had gotten in the way like it always does and I'd set it aside. So I picked it back up and read it.

Writing blurbs is such a funny, fun experience. It's one of the perks of being a pro that I never really gave much thought to when I imagined my life as a writer. Of course, I never imagined that I would still be struggling to make ends-meet when my "dream came true," but, on a happier note, there are these strange sort of perks to being a writer that are a bit like benefits. Like, occasionally, I get free books. My only 'price' is that I have to find something snappy and witty to say about them (if I like them.)

If you ever wondered, there is no blurb out there that wasn't solicited in one way or the other. By solicited, I do NOT mean paid for, but I mean the person asking (usually the author her/himself) knows or is connected to in some way the person s/he requested the blurb from. Only very rarely, I get requests from people's publishers. I suspect if I were a bigger NAME, I'd get many more of those. (I'm sure Neil Gaiman and Lois McMaster Bujold are overrun, for instance.) But for someone at my level, it's usually someone I consider a colleague, or even a friend, who's asked me to read and blurb their book.

I've actually long dreamed of asking my friend Eleanor Arnason to blurb my book in her signature Icelandic way, which I imagine going something like this, "XXX by Lyda Morehouse is okay. I've read worse."

Anyone who knew Eleanor would realize what AMAZING praise that was and rush out and buy a million copies. Of course, most people outside of the Mid-West (who weren't Scandinavian) would be like, "What?!"

:-)

Anyway, I'm happy to report that, having turned in my blurb to my friend, I did, officially, accomplish SOMETHING yesterday.

I also posted the first part of my Komamura fic. (http://archiveofourown.org/works/650152) which has gotten very little response. To be fair, not a lot happens in it. There's a conversation at a party and a little flirting. I didn't jump in with both feet by any means. I also realized that while there's some overlap with furries and Bleach, it's still kind of... taboo to write what is essentially a romantic story about an anthropomorphic wolf/fox and a shape-shifting fox demon. Perhaps 'taboo' isn't the right word, but it's clearly not a lot of people's cup of tea.

So be it. I had a great time writing it, and I might just be stubborn and do it again. (I am very curious about this reaction in one way, though, considering how animalistic I allow my Renji to be. Apparently-animal-on-the inside/barely contained nature ala Wolverine is much, MUCH more acceptable than animal-on-the-outside. [My furry friends? Any comments on this phenomenon?])

At any rate, it is what it is. I don't expect people to read outside of their comfort zone. This is one of the reasons I get cranky when people mock fan fic writers for choosing unusual pairing or for taking on a fetish that is way, way out of the norm. (I recently got a new comment on my rant about i09's former FFF column that brought all this back to me.) The thing is, I don't really happen to *get* diaper fetishes or water sports or any number of things that healthy, normal human beings are into. There are things, in fact, I actually find somewhat objectionable, like rape fantasies and certain underage sex stories. But, I deal with that by checking the warning tags AND JUST NOT READING THEM. That's why warnings were invented, people.

I also tend to stop reading any fic that has extremely bad grammar or spelling... unless, by some miracle, the story and characterizations are able to rise above that (which, strangely, CAN happen.) Sure, it's funny when someone (like me -- this is a real example from an erotica piece I handed out to my writers' group) uses the word lions when they mean loins, or talks about quacking Aspens or bear feet. I've kind of done them all, and to which I say, Dyslexics Untie! (A joke Shawn had to explain to me, because I read it several times and still parced 'Unite.')

But, seriously, people, if it bugs you JUST STOP READING. It's not that hard. No one is forcing you to read their terrible grammar. They're not even getting paid to post it. So, it's not like you bought a book for 7.99 and discovered that that author has a soul-bonding rape fantasy and no copy-editor (which happened to me.)

I think in the case of the latter, when it's something that's been professionally published and which people are then expected to pay for, I think mocking should rain down from the heavens. Because, that's the dues of a published author. Even when you don't have a fetish that leaks into your fiction, you are putting it out there, and that means someone, somewhere thinks it's COMPLETE CRAP. Other people, take it home, love it and beg you for more. That's just the way the publishing game is played.

The same rules shouldn't apply to fic, IMHO. Because it's just for fun. If it's not fun for you, DON'T F*CKING READ IT; go play in the sandbox that fits YOUR fantasies. That's the POINT OF IT.

/rant

Man, I get wound up. :-)

For those of you just tuning in, I've been more than a little obsessed on an Anime called "Bleach." In particular, my brain has seized upon a character named Renji Abarai, over whom I've expended a great deal of creative energy writing fan fic and drawing fan art.

I realized, today, why I love Renji. Renji isn't the hero of "Bleach," no, far from it. He's not even the most powerful or cool guy in the show. In point of fact, he gets his a$$ handed to him on a surprisingly regular basis. The reason I love Renji is he gets back up. Every damn time. There is ABSOLUTELY no keeping Renji Abarai down.



Today, I need to be Renji. I need his indomitable spirit. I feel kind of crushed by a particular rejection -- shredded, quite honestly. But, as much as I want to just lay down and die, what I need to do is get up off my knees, *again*, and fight.

I should be revising, because I find myself with a bit of unexpected free time. Mason's teacher called about a half-hour ago to cancel my usual volunteering gig. It seems that they had an awesome math test, so he was planning on giving them extra snow-play time outside this afternoon, as a reward. Apparently there are only a couple of sheets that need to go into the folder, and he thought I might like to just skip this time. There just wouldn't be that much for me to do. Since tonight is the first time I'll be volunteering for chess club, I thought that seemed like a pretty fine idea.

I'm looking forward to chess club. Mason has been kind of into chess for a while. Since we started watching Hikaru no-Go, actually. I'm... okay at it. I played chess in high school, though never seriously. The point is, it will be nice for him to play with people who are probably not only better at it, but more INTO it.

But because we knew we'd be going to chess tonight, we went to KSW again last night. (Two nights in a row!) I had a surprisingly great time. The "game" at the end of class was a friendly competition to see who could do a running snap-kick over a string of knoted belts that was risen progressively higher and higher. I surprised myself (and possibly the head instructor) by actually being in the group that lasted all the way to the end. This was particularly surprising to me because it wasn't just about jumping (which I normally am not good at) but it was also required that the motion with which we went over the barrier actually RESEMBLED a kick, not just a jump (or, as I would have expected of myself, a flail.)

When time-over was called, there were two brown belts, a red belt and puny little yellow-belted me. (Also, I would like to note that we were all girls, and I was at least twice the age of the oldest one.)

Cool, huh?

I thought so.

If nothing else, it bodes well for my year-in-excercise.

The other really funny thing was that when we got home, Mason talked me into going downstairs to row on our rowing machine for almost another hour. Yeah.... see, we have this new rule, which is, if I'm going to waste time watching TV, I have to be rowing. Mason really, really wanted to watch some more Bleach. How could I say no to that?

We ended up watching two episodes, which is about an hour.... I should be so sore today, but I'm not. I have a bit of stiffness in my legs here and there, but I'm happy to say that I'm not crippled with muscle soreness. Weird.

All right. Enough of that. I'm going to try to get more work done on the book. I have to say that revisions are taking more time than I might have hoped. Part of that is because the beginning is a bit drafty, as it were. There are holes that need patching, and. in some cases, re-BUILDING. I spent a good part of the morning rewriting.

To be fair, I had a hard time starting this book, so it's not that surprising that the beginning is the roughest part.