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The dreaded “nice guy.”

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Today’s writing session was cut short by a “nice guy.”

As I’ve mentioned several times, I usually do my writing out of the apartment–fewer distractions and it helps to get my work finished if I have a set time I have to stop. There’s a Starbucks close to my house that I used to visit all the time, but it became a pain in the ass. A lot of folks with serious issues began hanging out there. Sometimes they would carry on loud conversations in that small room. Sometimes they would do wound care right there next to me. It was distracting and gross.

Today I thought I’d give it a try again. Unfortunately, someone sitting nearby decided that he and I should have a pleasant chat. He kept trying to start a conversation with me, even after I told him several times that I was sorry, but I’d come to work and didn’t want to talk. It would go like this:

“Nice computer you have there. Apple right? Is it an eye-something? A MacBook?”
“Yes. I’m sorry, but I can’t talk. I really need to work.”
“Work? You’re working, huh? I got my Master’s degree at the University of Minnesota. Where did you get your Masters in Computer Science?”
“I never said I had a Masters in Computer Science.”
“Oh, so insurance or bank, huh? Which bank do you work for? Wells Fargo? B of A?”
I don’t answer. Three minutes of silence.
“You get movies on that thing? What’s your favorite movie?”

For an entire hour. He managed to keep a wide-eyed and polite tone through the whole thing, almost to the end, as though he was being perfectly friendly and polite. But there was something off about the guy. I still managed to meet my small word count goal, but not my usual Sunday goal. I’m not going back there again.

Also, yesterday I received a really crazy PM on LiveJournal from a complete stranger. He was trying to enlist me in this project to do something nice for a Third Party (who shall remain nameless). If this had been a quick “So and so needs X. Would you like to help?” I would have been tempted. Instead it was 800 words of how Third Party irrationality and inability to make sensible decisions, and how Third Party wasn’t letting the stranger offer the necessary help, so stranger wanted to do it through me as a proxy.

Ugh. It was creepy as hell, and a perfect example of the “nice guy” who thinks they’re entitled to steal someone else’s agency because they know better and they’re being caring and polite about it. It didn’t have the undertones of a criminal looking for a mark, but it made my skin crawl anyway.

This morning, in the Starbucks, the creep eventually became irritated with me. “I’m trying to be nice, here!”

“No you’re not!” I answered. He looked surprised. “I’ve been asking you not to interrupt me while I work, and you’ve been interrupting me anyway. That’s the opposite of nice.”

(added: Sadly, I’m pretty sure this isn’t parody.)

I haven’t been online much for the past few days

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Busy with crap I can’t/won’t talk about. I’m about 3,000 words into The Buried King and I feel like I’m spinning my wheels–and I’ll be damned if just typing that didn’t give me the idea I needed to revamp the opening of the book.

That means I’ll be restarting this thing for the fourth time, but what the hell. Whatever it takes, right?

It doesn’t help that my brain has been consumed by all sorts of personal shit. How do we change our lives for the better? What’s the next step? Do we move? To another city? Dump a bunch of our crap? Buy a car so we have more mobility?

I don’t know. There’s a lot of uncertainty in front of us. Hell, we’re taking a trip in September, but we can’t even decide where to go. What makes things worse is that I can’t even work out the plot of my WIP on long walks; my thought are consumed with problems big and small, especially the petty annoyances.

More later.

Today

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It’s gorgeous outside. Sunny, warm and inviting in the way that only Seattle can be. So of course I’m stuck inside trying to finish today’s pages.

With luck, I’ll finish a little early and have time for a walk and some reading. Then it’s a trip to the library and lunch in Fremont with an old friend I don’t see often enough. Later this afternoon I’m sure I’ll be playing a little Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich.

But only if I finish these pages. Logging off.

ETA: Done!

The Buried King

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Finally started chapter one of the new WIP today. Here’s the rough draft first paragraph:

As the sun rose over the ocean, the chirps keened in their aerie. Joad lay on his cotton mat, staring at the timbers overhead. He could never sleep through that sound, faint as it was. To him, it always seemed that the lords of the city were mourning the start of every new day.

I made my goal, too. I’ll probably end up deleting it all, but it’s an auspicious start.

Long walks = writing

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After several rather cluttered days, I’m taking this morning for The Buried King. First, a long walk to work out some plotty knotty goodness. Then, coffee and my laptop. We’ll see if I’m finally ready to tackle chapter one.

Five Things for a Friday

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1. After weeks of trying to figure out how to fit exercise into my schedule (“What do I give up?” and “When would I have the energy?” being the most important considerations) I suddenly realized that I could squeeze a long walk into my schedule after I finish my shift at my day job, but before I come home. This week I’ve been walking the bus route toward home for 30-40 minutes, and it’s working well. Soon I’ll bump that up to an hour. It means giving up some reading time at the bus stop, but it’s worth it.

2. My feet and leg pain is back. See number one above. I haven’t told my wife about it because it freaks her out, but it’ll soon be obvious because…

3. Our Mothers Day jaunt will be a trip to the park. Lots of walking. Lots of greenery. She loves long walks outside and considers them an essential part of her spiritual self-care. Unfortunately, our son only ventures outdoors after an hour of whining and misery. But we’re doing it, for her. I expect to be in a lot of pain, and to be stuck in the middle.

4. Also this weekend, a very good, very old friend will be in a nearby town. Will he be able to visit? Will I be able to go visit him? No clue.

5. I’m pretty much committed to making a book trailer for book three. Nothing much is going to happen to it at least until the fall, after Game of Cages (aka book 2) comes out. No rush. I will, however, be watching a ton of trailers in the meantime to see what I like and don’t like.

Surprising 6th item: The pre-writing for The Buried King is at the absolute worst part–I have all the characters set and what they want. I know how they’re going to try to get what they want. What I don’t have is a clear idea of how all the conflicts are going to play out.

Truthfully, I don’t need to know this exactly, but I have to have enough information to be sure that the protagonist is going to have conflict with each of the antagonists, and I need to know that each conflict is going to be different. I’m not there yet, which means I’m ready to start writing chapter one but I’m also not ready. Frustrating.

There was supposed to be a surprising seventh thing, too, but I can’t remember what.

I solved the last scene of Man Bites World yesterday

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Revised it, cleaned up the manuscript this morning, and just now emailed it to my editor.

Phew!

Now I whip up a list of reviewers who need ARCs and try to come up with a selling title for it.

Five things for a Friday

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1) Important indicator of an improving economy: The line at Starbucks is getting way long. I had to skip my refill this morning to get to day-job on time.

2) Remember that editorial note I mentioned before? The one that’s kicking my ass? I skipped breakfast today to get extra time to work on it, and I’m still losing. I’m doing something wrong, but what I don’t know.

3) Medical and dental insurance costs for my family and me for the year: $23,381.28. One year. Three people. Core plan. And that’s just the insurance–it doesn’t include what we’ll be paying for copays, deductibles and care that’s covered at less than a hundred percent. Outrageous? You bet it is. I hope Obamacare does something to bend the curve, but if it’s not enough, Congress should get back .

4) I’m collecting recipes for the Week of Pizza (aka, the week my wife is out of town). Cream cheese, sugar and fresh fruit? Check. Olive oil, capers, pepperoni, salad fixin’s? Check. Olives, pineapple and ham? Check. Bacon and eggs? Check. It’s going to be an odd week.

5) Currently, the Amazon.com sales ranking of Game of Cages is better than the ranking of Child of Fire by a factor of two. Yeah, I know the rankings “don’t mean anything” but I wonder if it’s time to switch my most prominent user icons from the CoF image to the new book:

Game of Cages

In other news…

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My editorial notes on Man Bites World were really simple and straightforward–ambiguous dialog! contradictory description! repetitive narration!–right up to the last one. The very last comment I had to deal with bowled me over.

It’s a line of dialog that makes sense in my head, but none of the meaning it’s meant to imply comes out on the page. It is, essentially, a declaration of war on the status quo in the Twenty Palaces setting, and that’s not something you clarify in a ten-minute revamp.

For four days I’ve been trying to make this work. I’m going for a nice walk now to think about it.

Well, my day is already blown

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I overslept by two hours this morning, and those early morning hours are pretty much solid writing time. That makes me mutter curses and plan to abandon my kid to the Wii later today, but we’ll see.

So instead of posting something original, I’m going to cut and paste an email I sent to a friend. He asked (generally) for links to websites that would help an aspiring novelist FOAF. This is what I sent:

I’m only going to give four suggestions:

First, he should buy a copy of CHILD OF FIRE and study it closely. In fact, he should buy two in case the first copy disintegrates after multiple rereadings. And a third, to give away, I guess.

Second, he should read Slushkiller, along with *all* the comments:

http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004641.html

It starts out as a discussion of rejections, and how professionals judge submitted work, but the conversation ranges over many topics (and even features a typically batty appearance by former WP-er Frank/Franchesca to defend self-publishing).

It’s long, though. Longer than many novels. He should stick with it and read the whole thing.

Third, check out the Learn Writing With Uncle Jim thread on Absolute Write:

http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6710

The first volume of that thread is 251 pages long, with 25 comments on each page. It’s so long, though, that it was sealed off and a second volume started in the same novel forum. Again, it’s long, but it’s full of useful information.

It’s also been running for seven years. A little of the information is outdated, but it’s corrected in later parts of the conversation.

Fourth and finally, he should be reading agents’ and editors’ blogs. Start here:

http://pubrants.blogspot.com/

And look at the sidebar. First of all, her numerous posts about the way publishing works are fabulous and full of detail. Second, her list of other agent blogs is terrific. The budding novelist should go through those blog rolls and find a few informative blogs to add to his RSS feed. It’ll be trial and error, but it’s important. While he’s working on his craft, he should also be studying the industry.

And that’s a lot of reading, no kidding. That’s a double shitload. But it’ll be fun to read, because writers should be interested in the industry, and doing interesting things is awesome.

And now, and anti-rec: Here’s a list of people the budding writer should not waste their time on:

Anyone who says that NY publishers are closed to new writers.
Anyone who says that editors only want to publish their friends.
Anyone who says that they can’t get published because of their politics.
Anyone who says that you have to write short fiction to break in to novels.
Anyone who says that writers shouldn’t bother with small presses.
Anyone who says that most of what’s published today is crap.
Anyone who says that the big publishers are “dinosaurs”.

Good luck.

Frankly, I think those few links provide a buttload of reading, but if anyone wants to post a link or two of their own, I’ll drop him a note–since I don’t think he reads my blog (melodramatic sigh)–to check out the blog and LiveJournal comments for his FOAF.

Have a productive day.