i look bad

An advantage of being the stay-at-home parent

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My knee has improved to the point that I can sleep through the night with only occasional twinges of pain-that-wakes-me-up. As a result, I’m sleeping like a narcoleptic, crashing at odd hours and inconvenient times.

And, I hate to say, the muscles of my injured left leg look atrophied, even though it’s only been a week and a half. I know it comes quickly, but it always surprises me. Time to start up the rehab exercises–as long as the pain stays bearable. And maybe some walking tomorrow.

Sorry that the blog has become so much about my leg pain. I usually try not to write about it very much, but it’s been a big deal in my life lately and has taken over everything, including my blog.

Well, that’s unfortunate

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And for “unfortunate” read “awful.”

Last night I was having a snowball fight with my son when my knee twinged. I didn’t slip, didn’t fall, didn’t twist anything. I wasn’t turning when it happened. I just stepped and that was it.

Now I can’t bend my knee or move it side to side. I mean, it’s been painful and tender, but never this bad.

So I’m laid up with enough ice to crack the hull of the Titanic and I can’t really see myself doing groceries today.

It’ll give me time for the rest of my copy edit, though.

Hey, writers (and other office/desk people)

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You should read this.

I have set up temporary standing work stations in my home, but I’m going to see about creating a permanent one, with one or two easily put-together stations if I have to work in the bedroom.

But I wonder about my big old desktop. That’s not going to be easy to raise up above my desk.

The turkey-and-stuffing sandwich diet: or, how I lost 18 lbs over the Thanksgiving holiday

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Actually, there’s no reason in the world for me to have put “how” in the subject header, because I have no idea how it happened. My random snacks have been largely meat-based–is this a pseudo-Atkins? I’ve just returned to the gym, but only three times a week and not last week because of the holiday and the flight to L.A. for the book trailer. Or maybe it was the three-day (near-)fast of my L.A. trip itself.

Then again, maybe it’s because I quit my day job and my body is flushing out all that artery-clogging sorrow.

More likely, despite being at 280+ for so long, my body was never comfortable there and has seized on what little activity I’m giving it to shed some unwanted me. I should never have let my various pains drive me to a sedentary life; instead of easing the strain on my legs and back, it only made them worse.

I still hurt, of course–that’s never going to stop–but it’s not as bad as it was. Also, I’m less concerned with the actual number on the scale (which is why I only get on it once a month or so) than with how I feel. I feel better. And thank Pikachu for that.

Next project for me: The Cranberry Diet: How to slim down while feasting like a glutton! I look forward to the free-publicity I’ll get from health expert denouncing me as a huckster and moron.

Out comes the bicycle

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Two years ago when I was picking out components for my new bicycle, I had several seats to choose from: The Glide Rider, the Tush Cushion, and the Prostate Bombarder. For the life of me, I can’t remember why I made the choice I did.

But! Now that my job is gone my bus pass is gone, too, so out comes the bike. Yesterday was my first actual pedal ride to the gym (in the dark, ‘natch, because of the time change) and it felt more than a little like punishment. Too bad we’re in a recession or I’d pressure the city to repave those bike paths. Still, it’s good to have worked out (tense choice deliberate), and afterwards I was a couple blocks from my regular Starbucks and library, letting me to a little post-exercise writing. I even met my daily goal and returned home well before my wife had to leave for work.

The downside of all this is that yesterday, for the first time in years–and I wasn’t planning to talk about this, but I’m all about the honesty–I wore sweat pants outside my home.

Yeah, it’s true. Not even a week after I left my job and I’ve already surrendered to fashion lameness. By Christmas I expect to be lazing around the coffee shop all day wearing a green velour track suit with my face half-shaved because I got bored partway through. It’s inevitable.

I’m not online all that much, though. Sorry if I’m not commenting on your posts–I’m falling way behind in my reading.

Things are good. Today or tomorrow I’m hoping to have the boy snap a photo of me in my new home office dress code. I’m sure it would make my former co-workers burn with jealousy.

Heading to the gym

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I’m going to the gym this morning for the first time in over a year. Yeah, it’s going to cut into my writing time and I’ll need to steal time from something else to make up for it. But I’m in terrible shape and constant pain. I can’t keep living this way and I certainly can’t keep up with my writing commitments.

Starting slow with lots of stretching. We’ll see how my pain levels do.

“I’m not an author. I’m a writer.”

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Heh. I finished up the latest section of A Key, An Egg… yesterday morning. It was a really difficult section, too, in which a home invasion completely destroys the protagonist’s house, and dangerously ups the stakes.

Now I get to start the whole book over from page one. After a healthy dose of outlining, of course. Fun!

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Ta-Nahisi Coates said that obesity is the third rail of the blogosphere, and damn if he isn’t right. He links to a rather tame and unimpressive post about the BMI which had to have comments closed because people went nuts.

Because… yeah. As a culture we’re raising awareness about sexual pleasure and, even if we aren’t 100% sane (or ever likely to be) we’re tossing the issues of privacy, preference, et al back and forth.

Not so with the pleasure that comes from eating. People are still weird about their food. Anyone who talks about vegetarianism knows that. People have strange compulsions regarding their food, and they hate to let other people examine them closely.

Coates also says, in the comments, that his legs hurt constantly when he was 295. Damn. I weigh about that and have the same problem…

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Last, I want to take note of this essay by Richard Kadrey about his new Sandman Slim novel.

Let me start by saying these books sound very good. They sound like they would fall right into my reading sweet spot: Fantasy elements in a book inspired by the best crime and detective fiction of the previous century. Wait a minute! Is this my book? ::checks Amazon.com sales ranking:: Nope! His numbers are too good.

My point is, that if I weren’t trying to write something utterly different from my usual stuff, I’d be all over this guy’s books like ugly on an ape. Then I read this:

It all comes down to this: I’m not an artist. I know artists. I have friends who are artists and I’m not one of them. Mickey Spillane said it best, “I’m not an author. I’m a writer. That’s all I am.” Occasionally I wonder if I even write novels. I write long shaggy dog stories. Messy, kind of odd and noisy. I love the graceful sloppiness of early punk and the garage rock you find on Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets record series. I feel like my books and stories are similar to the way Iggy Pop describes The Stooges music, “It’s dumb. But it’s smart dumb.” My books are basically Raw Power with commas.

Hmph! I’m guessing Iggy Pop isn’t a musician, then, because he doesn’t play music.

I’ve gotta spray this grafitti again: If you’re writing fiction, you are an artist. I don’t want to get into a debate about where to draw the line through art/not art. Fiction isn’t an edge case. Fiction is art.

Now, it may be bad art. It may be utterly conventional art. It may be an ass-kissing hand-jobbing desperate-to-please whore in a Mary Sue mask, but it’s still art.

Art isn’t a term of praise. It’s not a label we reserve for those things that “terrify” us but never “seduce” us. It’s not a superlative. If you make something that exists mainly for the purpose of evoking an emotional reponse from people–in other words, if you’ve written a story, you’ve made art.[1]

[1] What say you, Wikipedia? “Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression, including music, literature, film, sculpture, and paintings.”

That makes a lot of people uncomfortable. I know; I used to be one of them. Also, I used to get as obnoxious about it as: “Yes, I wonder about the nature of our existence, but I don’t get all Tolstoy about it.”

So I understand the urge to try to avoid being an artist. Who wants to be compared to Tolstoy? Who wants their readers to think the books we write are good for them? Does McDonald’s go around telling customers that their burgers are high in fiber?

Hell no. McDonald’s wants to sell their burgers; they only talk about the taste and talk about nutrition as a side issue. Eat this tasty burger! Read this exciting thriller! Don’t worry, I’m not like those high-minded guys your school teachers forced on you. I’m fun!

It doesn’t work, and it damages the art you make.

Call it low art if you want. Or pop art. Hell, call it “art-tertainment.” I don’t care. But don’t try to tell me it’s not art.

And buy that dude’s book, because it sounds awesome.

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Jeez, I’m really ranty these last two weeks, eh?

Let me make up for that with this: you can win a free copy of GAME OF CAGES (plus other awesome books) by entering this Suvudu contest.

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Anyway, I won’t be around to respond to comments for a while. I’m in training today and tomorrow. Pity me!

Author photos and online dating profiles

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I’ve been thinking about author photos for a while. Mine is this one:

Author Photo Harry Connolly

Yeah. That’s me. It’s not a great photo, but it’s hard to take a good picture of me. At least it’s better than this one or this one. So it’s not great, but it’s the best of a long day of shots. However, look at this one. I’d love to have a photo like that. Hell, I’d love to have an empty, uncluttered table to work at.

And authors have to fuss a little over their photos. Catherynne Valente wrote a post a few months back about her own picture, and how people thought she looked “mean” because she wasn’t smiling. Jeff VanderMeer took a swipe at the “male author with his arms crossed” pose.

So, hey, maybe I should wipe the smile off my face and cross my arms. Or I should look at stats on what sort of photos are most attractive.

That’s right, that’s the blog for OK Cupid, the online dating site. I’ve linked to them before, because they have a huge data set to draw on, and some of their statistics are pretty interesting.

In studying their profile pictures, they’ve found that men are much more likely to post an unsmiling photo as women (by 61% to 35%). Let’s ignore that flirty Facebook kissy expression; writers, don’t make that face for your book jacket. What’s more, they looked at the number of contacts each user received, broken down by photo type. For women, the flirty face (and smiling) while looking directly at the camera were the best choices. For men, it’s looking away from the camera that gets the most interest, especially if he isn’t smiling. Forget about the abs pictures. I have abs, but you can’t see them under all this damn fat.

Now, obviously this shit doesn’t track one-to-one. OK Cupid users are looking for luuurrrve! (or sex, I guess) and, although OK Cupid has been better in other posts, those stats are all about the heteronormativity. Authors just want to look interesting–or at least, not so crazy that potential readers decided to give their books a pass. But it is an interesting way to look the photos we put out into the world, and the expectations people have for them.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to look over this post on taking an enticing picture. Golden hour, here I come.

“Did you think all this up yourself? Out of your head?“

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Today was the book signing. What do you mean you don’t believe me?! Proof? Here’s the proof!

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That’s me, in case you didn’t realize. The white shirt I’m wearing was freshly ironed twenty seconds before that photo was taken, but as soon as I hung it on myself it shriveled like a flower petal dropped into acid. Those are my books, my pens, my individually-wrapped prunes dried plums, and my oh-so-stylish sneakers.

If you’re wondering how it went, I sold eight books, four of book 1, four of book 2. That’s about five books more than expected. For those that care, here’s how it broke down:

Two books to a neighbor, the mother of Mango Eater’s best friend (she was the only buyer I already knew).
Two books to a woman buying gifts for her house-bound 94-year-old friend.
One book to a man buying a gift for his 20-year-old daughter.
One book to an aspiring writer.
One book to a bookstore employee for her son.
One book to an older woman who was scary skinny. She’s the one who provided the subject header above. (My response: “That’s the job!” She then asked rather stridently “Who’s this Ray Lilly? Is he good or evil?” What I wish I’d said was “I reject your dialectic!” What I actually said was “Uh….”)

I also mailed off all the giveaway books except the cookbooks that Carol Wong won. She hasn’t responded to two requests for a mailing address, and it would be a shame if her books went to the library or something because she used a spam trap address in the blog.

Now I’m back home and I’m not stress-eating or stress-drinking or stress-napping. I’m just hanging out with the family, and as soon as Mango Eater finishes building his Lego, he’s going to read us the next chapter of Harry Potter.