One down, five to go

Couple of successes today, after a rocky few days. Made it into town and requested all of the Clarke Award shortlist from the library, aside from the one I've already been lent. They had none of them in stock yet at all, which is kind of a shame, especially considering the amount of buzz I've seen about a few of them, but I suppose I move in different circles to the library. In any case, the five I haven't got my hands on yet are now on order, and I hope they'll come through soon enough that I'll still have time to read and review them all before May 1st, when the winner's announced.

I picked up a couple of other books while I was there, including a steampunk short story anthology, because I've been writing those recently and am always happy to read more. Also one of the stories is by Jody Lynn Nye, and I need to read more of her stuff.

The other success was, naturally, food related (as usual). I managed to make a faux shepherd's pie (not lamb; pork - the suggestion came in of "swineherd's pie", which I like) from scratch, with no recipe. I even mixed it up a bit and made the mashed potato topping half Maris Pipers and half sweet potato, and that turned out pretty spectacularly. I'm very pleased with it all, even if it did take a long time and cause a bit of a mess in the kitchen. I'm starting to like this cooking thing, especially when it results in tasty food rather than just edible food. Focusing on something other than writing for a while is helpful, like sorbet between courses. Cleansing the palate of the brain.

Now I want ice cream. I wonder how you make that...

(Bonus: Everyone who read the title in Benicio del Toro's voice, take ten points and a nod of geeky appreciation.)

Infinite feedback loop

Today I finally managed to send some feedback to one of the friends who gave me feedback on my stuff, and whose NaNoWriMo novel I'll be reading at some point to give feedback on that...

I used to be better at feedback/critique, I think. I studied Creative Writing at university, and the group feedback sessions were a pretty big part of the whole thing. It was generally a lot easier to critique their stuff than it is to critique my NaNo group's, because many of them tended towards cliches much of the time. That seems less common among my lot, possibly because all of those from whom I've read stuff are, ahem, a few years out of uni and better read as a result.

Also, probably, I'm out of practice.

It is very difficult to critique something good, though. You'd think the few flaws would stand out more than ever - and that might be true for typos - but think about it. Think about your favourite films or books. They're not flawless (nothing is). But if they're good, if you're enjoying reading or watching them, you forgive them the odd fumble here and there. You wince at the clunky line and let it slide by. You handwave your own explanation for the minor inconsistency. You flagrantly ignore the giant plothole in the basic setup.

So it's much, much harder to remember to point out these flaws that we've trained ourselves to ignore when we're trying to help our fellow writers polish up the next draft. It often feels like nitpicking, like we're bent over the manuscript in candlelight, muttering wildly to ourselves that they won't get away with it this time and cackling into the night when we find something to pounce upon...

Or maybe that's just me. I do all my best critiquing in the crypt, swathed in black cloak.

I know, though, that for my stuff I'd much rather have the cackling circles around every typo or unnecessary adverb (leave the necessary ones alone, all of you waiting with your red pens uncapped already) than have the entirety of the feedback read, "Yeah, I liked it."

That's why I try (and don't always succeed) to point out anything I can. It would be a darn sight easier if people didn't write such enjoyable first drafts, that's all.

The spider dream (or: Never underestimate your brain)

Today seems to have been an intermediate day. I have short stories in progress, and have read other people's too. I made it round to friends' (one of whom has started blogging) place and helped with shopping and appointments. I even got some Gospel of Loki review written, though not an awful lot, since everything was delayed today by a very late start. I woke up at about 2.30am kneeling at the foot of my bed with my hand on the light switch, you see, so I slept in later on.

See, when I get particularly stressed or anxious, my brain decides to punish me with the spider dream. This is almost exactly what it sounds like and arachnaphobes may wish to stop reading here. Suffice it to say that I don't always get a full night's sleep, I can be a little paranoid about spiders in my bedroom, just in case, and I keep a close eye on how I process what's going on around me.

This started off a very long time ago, in the run up to exams at school (possibly GCSEs, so I may have been 16, that formative age when your brain chemistry is a bit off kilter and you're under more stress than you've ever known to boot). I was just nodding off one night when I caught a glimpse of a horrific, huge spider (big, fluffy, tarantula-size) lurking among the books and papers on the floor by my bed. Naturally, I summoned my mother, but no amount of searching could find any sign of it. Somehow she persuaded me to go back to bed and sleep.

For years, I was convinced that that thing had been real and had vanished somewhere in my bedroom.

A while later, I woke to the terrifying scenario of a big, long-legged spider crawling up the covers towards me. I gained full consciousness on the other side of the room with my back against the wall, in tears. It took a lot of effort to drag myself around the corner to get to my bedroom door and run for help. Again, there was no sign of it, though we stripped the bed and shook everything out and remade it. I can't remember properly, but I think I may have gone and slept in the guest bedroom for that one.

The next one was a big spider sitting on the pillow three inches in front of my face. I hit the bedside light and it was gone.

At that point I suddenly realised that it had been dark, absolutely pitch black, in the room. There was no way I could have seen a spider. So I shook the pillows out just in case, checked thoroughly, and talked myself back into bed and sleep.

After that I started applying logic when I woke up in a panic. There couldn't be a tarantula on my bed. The odds against it were astronomical.

My brain fought back, though. If I came up with a logical reason to ignore the panicked awakening and go back to sleep, it would change the scenario. Tarantulas were too farfetched? Okay, so it was just a gangly standard (if overgrown) house spider. It couldn't be crawling up the bed, because I would have felt the weight or heard the rustle? Okay, then it was slowly sliding down from the ceiling on a web. It couldn't possibly be descending from the ceiling on gossamer because when I switched the light on the gossamer wasn't there? Okay, it would be crawling up the headboard instead. I couldn't have seen it so clearly and vividly because there just wasn't enough light in the room, even with street lights or a bright moon muted by the curtains? Okay, then it was just a silhouette, a fuzzy shape, a suggestion of movement.

I checked the ceiling and bed thoroughly for spiders every night, so I'd know for sure. And I really knew for sure that none of them had ever been real when it started happening when I was in other rooms, other houses. Modern, hermetically sealed sorts of places. Hotel rooms with nowhere for them to hide. Friends' rooms that had just been cleaned.

I think it was shortly after that when a close friend started on her medical degree and excitedly brought up hypnagogic hallucinations. She described them as auditory or visual effects that usually strike just as you're about to fall asleep, in the first stages of a sleep cycle, when you think you're still awake but you're not, or if you're halfway through the night and you've almost resurfaced and woken but think you're still fully asleep. They're most commonly voices calling your name. I've never had that, though I've heard of it a lot and it crops up all the time in fiction (usually as a lead in to ghosts or telepathy, to be fair, but it's a common enough effect that most people I've discussed it with have admitted to it happening every now and again). I think I'd much rather have eerie disembodied voices than spiders.

My point (I have a point, honest, though not a particularly blogworthy one, really) is that the brain is weird, and persuasive, and likes to trick itself. This is relevant to a lot of the things I'm writing at the moment.

It's also very odd to be aware of something like this. It makes me step back and think twice about everything, all the time. I overanalyse pretty much everything I think in case my brain is trying to trick me. I cling to logic in everything. At the moment this tends to mean I over-explain everything as well, because I'm aware that most people aren't in the habit of laying down half a dozen logical arguments just to get back to sleep, so I'm a little too eager to present all my reasoned thoughts for whatever choice has come up.

It does help with spotting plotholes, though, I must admit.

Tweet tweet

Twitter is an odd place, especially if you keep your account open instead of private. It gives you access to conversations between complete strangers, brought to your attention by people you do follow bringing the chat into your view, or through the triple perils: the flame spurts of the search box, the quicksand hashtags, or the trending topics of unusual size.

A lot of the time, as anyone will warn you, this leaves you open to trolls and hate-mongers and bullies and all kinds of weird and upsetting opinions, statements, links, arguments, pictures, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum. You can stumble across it easily, people can stumble across you, and it can get unpleasant very easily.

And then you have the other side of it. I've seen people use Twitter for all sorts of good or just mundane things, from organising the next cinema trip to rehoming pets to fundraising for charity to finding missing belongings, animals, people...

Sometimes the random disconnected strangers turn out to be kind and generous. They make the effort to do better than just scraping by at the passive level of "Don't be a dick". They go one step further and actively do something nice.

I'm fortunate enough that most of the people I keep on my Twitter feed are like that. And it's helpful and reassuring to have friends who will step up and offer comfort and cheering-up and what help they can manage when things go pear-shaped, as they so often seem to.

What's surprising is when strangers do it too.

I can only assume that Joanne Harris was searching for mentions of The Gospel of Loki to see what people were saying, and stumbled across me citing it as the only positive thing in two days of squabbles and hurt and a rapid stacking up of bad, dark, unhappy things. She could easily have moved on to the next tweet with all squee and happy reviews.

Instead she paused, and took a moment to send a message, and be nice to a stranger. For no reason other than she could.

I ate today because of that. Because the kindness of friends is expected, and the kindness of strangers is surprising.

Gospel of Loki review tomorrow, perhaps. I kind of owe her now.

Day 9

So... uh. I made butterscotch Angel Delight and nearly made myself sick by eating almost a pint of it in one go? Does that count as a good thing?

Um. Had a couple of nice interactions with authors and editors on Twitter. That's definitely a good thing.

Intended to read Honour's Knight and friend's Lavender challenge story, but that didn't happen. Managed to write the first two lines of my Lavender, but then... stuff happened. Can't really write at the moment, especially not on that.

Um. Can't think of anything else good about today. Started off with a headache from stresses over the last couple of days, never quite escaped it. The space behind my eyes that felt so light and free when I finished and submitted Tick Tock is now full of unpleasantness and failure.

So much for Lent.

The geeks shall inherit the Earth

Today I made it round to see friends and help with a few chores again, which is always good, and even made it into town for another friend's birthday get-together. Since he's cool and clearly has good taste in people, I manged to get on well with the Doctor Who fans on my table, and we had a very pleasant geeky chat (they even bought my drink, wonderful sweet people that they were), while everybody attempted to eat ten little plates of sushi or assorted Japanese goodies. I tried the odd bit from other people's plates when they were getting too full to finish them, and am cautiously expanding my food tolerance to include some Japanese dishes now. Still not sushi, though. I like my fish battered and vinegared beyond all recognition, ta.

I wasn't eating, partly because when we left I went back to my friends' and had dinner there. They'd been torturing a gammon joint in a slow cooker and cider all day, and good grief it came out well. Practically fell apart when you tapped it with a fork. I may have to try slow cooker stuff at some point.

Obsessed with food, moi? Never.

Oh, and also, I clearly have the best friends, because after an outpouring of wails and lust on Twitter for a couple of t-shirts on sale a few weeks ago, I have been given both. Twice. Because my people are amazing. So now I have FOUR extra Loki t-shirts, bringing my total to six, so I shall never have to go without again. Fortunately for everyone, the two new Loki designs are so pretty I am absolutely sure I'll want to wear them a lot, so having duplicates is a very good thing; I do have a tendency to wear my best shirts to death, and it would be a very great shame to kill Loki off too soon. In a manner of speaking.

And I even managed to change my sheets and put away all the pots and pans in the kitchen, too.

I submit

Today's positives are small in number but pretty large in scope.

Smaller of the two: I finally got most of the kitchen cleaned, and all the dishes done. There is something undeniably soothing about cleaning stuff. It's simple, it's easy, you don't really have to engage your brain at all, you can clearly see the progress you've made, and when it's done it's done.

Practically the exact opposite of writing, then.

But today's bigger, better, happier thing is that I got Tick Tock edited and sent off. I fired the finished first draft at two of my NaNo chatroom group last night (Claire is one of these two, naturally), and they both did a superb quick turnaround and got back to me with a torrent of lovely happy praise and a bare handful of tweaks, which is always immensely gratifying and terrible for my ego.

I probably spent almost as long on the query/submission email as I did on fixing the story itself, and scraped in for the submission deadline... which isn't actually as hard-and-fast as I've been saying, to be honest. The submission call was actually for the next two volumes of Steampunk anthologies in the series, and March 15th was the cutoff date for stories to be considered for both, rather than just Volume Four. So even if my first draft hadn't been finished by yesterday, or had needed much more extensive edits, I could have submitted anyway. BUT, I made it my goal to submit in time for both, and with a lot of help from my wonderful, wonderful NaNo crowd and patient housemates, I have done so.

So, even if the story doesn't get accepted (I can only wait and see - I'm swinging wildly between confidence and cheerful pessimism) I did what I set out to do. I'd prefer to do it with a little more time in hand next time, but I can't quite seem to shake the habit of running things right up to the wire.

That being said, I did finish the actual story the day before the deadline, even knowing that I had a safety net of extra time waiting beyond it. And I was months ahead of schedule with Hanith. Perhaps I'm not doing as badly there as I think.

And now I can finally start on my Lavender and the Random Acolyte story.