reasons i suck

Five things for a Friday

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1) Time for a yay! I’ll be doing another Big Idea essay at the end of August, this time for GAME OF CAGES. Yay! This time I’m going to write a little bit about pets and pet-owners. You guys know how I feel about pets, right? I’m sure many of the people who read it are going to suspect I’m an alien infiltrator, but I swear it ain’t true.

2) I have a huge disorganized jumble of odd books at home. Why, you ask? Because I’m going to be giving them away. They’re all out of my father-in-law’s collection (with his blessing), and they range from ethnic joke books with blank spaces where the ethnicity would go (“You supply the ethnic!”), to stacks of old Archie comics, to old-time erotic photography (now with more bodystockings!), to other, odder books. As the big event, I’ll be giving away this puppy. That’s right, folks. Watch this space.

One question: should I bother with contests? Or just pretend to choose people at random?

Anyway, those books shouldn’t be in a jumble, but they are, because…

3) I spent a good portion of last night tidying my desk so the new printer will fit. My laser printer has stopped working since my Qwest troubles caused me to reinstall my operating system. The Australian print drivers I’d installed seem to have been wiped, and I wasted a bunch of time looking for working replacements. Grr. Way to not support Mac OS, Samsung! I hate you now. Add to that a phone conference about the book trailer for Man Bites World, and I find that…

4) I have a lot of housework to do tonight. Vacuuming, dishes, tidying, recycling, not to mention a quick shopping run for my wife and son’s comfort foods because…

5) Tonight my wife and son come home. They will both need a lot of attention, and I have to say I’m excited to see them. I don’t do very well when my family isn’t around.

Having a crappy day at the day job today.

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People, when you call a company, sometimes the person who can help you is the first person who answers the phone. Don’t be rude to them and don’t try to blow by them to the person you think can help.

Anyway.

As much as I try (try!) to make this blog a not-specifically-about-writing blog, here’s two writing-related things:

First is Rob Sawyer’s post about the end of the full-time SF novelist, and John Scalzi’s reaction.

I’m still sifting through my thoughts on both men’s ideas. I’m a fantasy writer myself, which some people might consider a close, close cousin to “SF writer” but I doubt Mr. Sawyer would agree. So, my experience is not directly transferrable to his, since we write for different but somewhat-overlapping markets.

First of all, as I mentioned in the comments on Scalzi’s blog, health care is a huge issue. I would be a full-timer right now if I were a Canadian and had access to their Medicare system. I doubt I’ll even try to become a full-timer until the Affordable Care Act comes into play, and we all have a chance to see if it works.

Second, also mentioned in Scalzi’s blog, there are a lot of people who make their living off novels. The person who drives the truckload of books from the warehouse to the bookstore is one of them.

But for writers? There’s an awful lot of competition out there, and it’s getting more intense. Every time I see a 4 (out of 5) star review on Child of Fire, I feel like a minor leaguer. If I’m going to try for a career in writing, I need to max out the awesome scale as much as possible.[1] That’s the way to build readership, and that’s the way to maintain an active backlist.

Because it’s the backlist that does the heavy lifting. One of the lessons from Donald Maas’s free ebook on writing, The Career Novelist: A Literary Agent Offers Strategies for Success, was that the writers he represented who earned six-figure salaries didn’t do so with their advances, but with their backlists. That’s what I want, too.

But how much of Rob Sawyer’s concerns come from the recession rather than general publishing trends? Is the type of work he does going out of fashion? Should I dump a bucket of live bait over his head because he uses an offer of three grand for ten days of work as an example of why SF writers can’t write full time?

And for John Scalzi, he’s pretty clear that he’s coming onto the scene in a big way (he’ll become SFWA president tomorrow, among other things)–how will the market look for him in 15 years?

Great, I hope. And for Rob Sawyer, too. I hope the two of them become filthy millionaires, just like me. But Scalzi’s correct that few novelists ever get to quit their day jobs[2][3]; however, just pointing this out doesn’t speak to how many of them can do so in the future.

But this is a really bad time to be making predictions about the publishing industry. The recession is hurting a lot of folks right now, from readers to publishers to us writers, too. New delivery systems are gaining ground, and it’s still too early to judge how far they’ll penetrate the market, or how deeply. Urban fantasy is still doing well, but Christ, does that genre need to be shaken up and broken open.

On top of that, U.S. health care reform may make it possible for me to go full time with my writing. In fact, I’m hopeful that there will be a bunch of positive effects of the ACA, including a reduction in job lock, more new business startups, and more self-employed workers. How great would that be?

Which is just me saying that I want it and hope to get it. I suspect I’ll need to be way more prolific than I currently am, though.

Damn, wasn’t I supposed to talk about two writing-related things? This got a little long, so I’ll put that other topic off until the next post. Also: day job still crappy.

[1] Not that I need five stars from 100% of all readers who ever pick up my book; that would be crazy. I’ll settle for half.

[2] Why oh why didn’t I get a degree and a career back in college when I had the chance?

[3] Dean Wesley Smith talks about how many writers work full-time right now right here. Interesting stuff.

Gah!

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Stupid, time-consuming video games and with their short term rewards.

Five things for a Friday

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1- You know what’s annoying? Being unable to find a link to an article that you wrote about in your own blog. [added later: found it!]

2- I have a brilliant idea for a multi-million dollar invention: the ultimate alarm clock. Here’s how it works. At the time you want to wake up, it uses orgone energy electromagnetic waves to stimulate the dream centers of your brain. You have a dream where you wake up after the time you were supposed to be at work, and the blind dream-panic wakes you up for real, even in the dismal hours of the morning. Multi-million dollar invention, I tell you.

3- In keeping with my usual computer game protocol, I captured Hill 400 in Call of Duty 2 earlier this week. Soon I can try out Prince of Persia. Maybe tonight. Or maybe I’ll watch movies. Or do both. It all sounds good, as long as my entertainments are all several years old and cheaply acquired.

4- Remember my previous post about stress and my recent inability to write? Well, on Wednesday night I heard Bill Clinton talking about the US World Cup victory over Algeria. He did sound seriously ill (I blame the vuvuzelas) but he praised the team’s “mental toughness.” To paraphrase from memory: Every high level competition, from a championship game to a big election eventually comes down to mental toughness.

I like that! I like “mental toughness” better than “discipline” because the latter sounds like a lot of hard work, but the former sounds like something you just have. I went to bed thinking about it, and woke up on Thursday morning trying to imagine myself as a writer who was also a tough guy–stress doesn’t get to me! I can sit down and do the work whenever I have to, just like a professional athlete! Professional!

Then I opened a book and started reading.

5- That book I mentioned in number four above? It’s The Ivory Grin by Ross MacDonald, and although I’m only halfway through it. Still, it’s FANTASTIC! Maybe what The Buried King needs is not some new mental attitude but a new mental model. Thank you, dead author!

6- Bonus sixth thing! I’m deeply annoyed that day job is too busy for me to read this article of social influence and obesity. Reading it at home is going to seriously cut into my time-wasting time.

Things that suck

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Originally, I was going to write about this somewhere private where I know I could talk it over with a few people I’ve known a while… sort of run through the issues here, but to hell with that. I’m just going to put this out as part of my public face.

Right now, a lot of rotten crap has been going on. What’s the number one thing that sucks? Me.

My wife and son are still out of town dealing with the death of my mother-in-law. I’m here alone, feeling adrift without my family. I’m also stymied by some other problems that I can’t talk about because they aren’t mine. Add the petty time-wasting of my recent Qwest situation, the uncertainty of my day job, personal crap I don’t need to see on the internet and so on, and you have one writer who hasn’t been able to write.

Writers write, yeah? That’s what everyone says. I’ve been writing, too, but I end up cutting or deleting it by the end of the week. Then there are also days when I don’t write anything.

I know I have plot problems to solve, but my head is crowded with stress, worry, and petty resentments. Somehow I need to clear some space, but all of my usual recharging activities–reading, movies, games–are wildly time-consuming. When to I get the writing done? When do I solve the plot problem that’s staring me in the face?

Those look amazingly like questions, don’t they? They’re not. Not really. They’re just expressions of my personal dismay and confusion. I really do want to be a professional writer. I really do want to write. I really love the book I’m working on; I swear to Pikachu it could be awesome. What I don’t have but really, really need, is the mental toughness to fall into story space even when I’m depressed, distracted or upset.

In a bit, I’m going to close my internet for a few hours, and I’m going to be less active online for a while. I need to find that hook inside my mind where I can hang a story.

Here is my sad face

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I must go home to an internet-less apartment. It will be beer, books, and maybe a DVD.

God! How do people live this way?!?!

Amazing coincidences!

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So, Wednesday after work I discovered I couldn’t connect to the internet at home. This was annoying, because I have writer-type crap that needs doing, but hey, it happens. I called Qwest tech support and after nearly an hour and a half I was told they’d traced the problem to my modem. I was entering the username and password correctly to connect to the ISP, but the modem wasn’t retaining the info (or something). They could access my modem, but I couldn’t get the internet.

Obviously the solution was to buy a new one, which I did. It wasted an hour and a half (notice the trend) of my evening, but I went out and bought a new Qwest-compatible wireless modem. ($90!)

When I brought it home to install it, guess what? Same. Exact. Problem.

After another long call to tech support (you know how long it took) the guy informed me that, by amazing coincidence, my brand new modem had the exact same problem as my old one. AMAZING! Go back to Best Buy, I was told, and exchange it for another one. And see if you can get them to test it right there in the store.

And… fine. I don’t believe them, but fine. I’m not going after work today (because I have a life[1]) but I will be going first thing tomorrow. So long, most productive writing time of the week! I will have to reschedule you, because I have to fix my fucking internet connection.

And if this doesn’t work, Qwest is out. I’d hate to lose the email address I’ve had for years but I may not have a choice. The main problem is that I don’t have any other really good options. The cable ISP in my area is Comcast, and those bastards are the ones pursuing the lawsuit against the FCC about packet-slowing. To hell with them. What other choices do I have?

::Shakes fist at corporate tech support::

Best Buy provides the email address for the manager of the store I’ll be visiting tomorrow. I’m going to drop him a line to let him know what’s going on and why I’ll be there. I’m sure Gary Mylie will be overjoyed.

[1] Not really

This doesn’t work

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This is one of those complaining posts, because sometimes shit just doesn’t work out. There will be one positive note included at the end, just so you don’t think everything in my life is petty annoyance. People who hate to read griping should skip to the end.

First: My modem at home has died. I emailed a link to myself from work at 5pm. When I got home at six, the email was there, but I couldn’t connect with the web. After more than an hour with tech support, they decided that I just need to buy a new modem.

I’m counting that time as my “cleaning” time for yesterday. Grrr. Today I need to take a bus clear across town to buy a replacement. Maybe that will be my… I don’t know. Maybe I can’t follow my guidelines today.

Second, after a night of leg cramps and nightmares, I completely overslept. I hate oversleeping, especially on day-job days, because that’s my writing time. So not only was I nearly an hour late for work, but I have written nothing today.

Third, (just to bury the lede) I may be losing my day job. It’s not an ideal job, but I need to be part time on these particular days, or I can’t work here. The company is “reorganizing” (iow, trying to drive out a union for a different dept) by combining all its call centers into one. I will go from being employed by a non-profit to a state employee, which means I’ll be doing the same job, but starting over as a new employee.

That means: new benefits, six-month probation, loss of accrued sick time, an end to my retirement plan, new bosses, new office, new co-workers, etc. Will I still be part-time? Will I keep my same shift? That “hasn’t been decided yet.” They still have to “examine the work flow.”

Did I leave my wife alone in upstate NY to deal with all this family crap because I didn’t want to lose a job I was going to lose in two months anyway? Shit.

Anyway, here’s the upbeat news. I’ve received permission to post Chapters 2 and 3 of GAME OF CAGES online. Chapter 1 is already here, of course, but the next two won’t go onto the internet until closer to completion date (especially considering the work I have to do to get them ready).

How not to be lonely.

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No, this isn’t actually a plan for avoiding loneliness.

As I mentioned before, my wife and son are in upstate NY for the rest of the month, dealing with the death of my m-i-l. That means I’m home alone for that time.

Normally, I’m a complete ass when it comes to productively using private time, especially when I have a lot of it. For these two-plus weeks, I have to be better. Therefore! I have made these resolutions:

1. No fancy cooking. I can’t be spending hours and hours prepping foods that I eat in 15 minutes. Sandwiches, salads, pastas, etc. Simple stuff.

2. Exercise every day. I have time for it, therefore I have no excuses.

3. Clean kitchen at the end of every day. No going to bed with dirty plates in the sink or crumbs on the table.

4. Spend half an hour each day cleaning the apartment. The kitchen doesn’t count toward this goal. Vacuuming doesn’t take long. Neither does a quick sweep/wipe down of the bathroom. Making bed: 15 seconds, tops. If I set aside this time and try to rush through it, it should be a huge burden or time sink.

5. All writing goals will be increased by 500 words a day. That doubles the quota for day-job days, and increases the day-off day quotas to 2K. I’d like to try for 3K, but that’s a lot of story for me. This isn’t listed fifth because it’s the fifth most important, but because it’ll be an easy goal to meet.

6. Only drink beer on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. Moderation is the key.

7. Watch grown-up movies. Because of the boy’s screwed-up sleep schedule, the only time I have to watch movies for adults is the morning, and morning is writing time. As a result, I pretty much haven’t seen any R-rated movies for a couple of years. At this point, I don’t even care if they’re all that good, I just want to watch some. I may even go to (gasp!) a theater.

Of course, none of this works without:

8. Sensible amounts of internet time! Like many people, my time online expands to fill the amount of time I have. I can’t keep doing that. Therefore, I resolve to follow fewer links, join fewer discussions and let my email program chime to let me know new messages have come in, rather than check over and over.

Hmm. Maybe I should add: Write shorter blog posts.

edited to add: Oops! I forgot one: 9. Eat fruit and vegetables every day.

Three semi-revealing things about me

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1) While descending toward JFK airport, the plane I was riding hit the worst turbulence I’ve ever experienced. I was seriously thinking I might never see my family again. I also wondered if I could find a way to fold down a couple corners of a page of the book I was reading so that it would highlight a special message to my family, just in case the book made it through the crash but I didn’t. It seemed like a nice idea, but unworkable, so I didn’t try it.

2) It was only after spending 12 hours in airports and airplanes, having returned home to my own city, that I realized I have the house key’s to my father-in-law’s house in my pocket. Luckily, I know they have a way inside. I’ll express mail them tomorrow.

3) Every time I go out of town for a while, I always half-expect to come home to a smoking wreckage. What if the building burned down? Who would be able to contact me about it?

This is how screwed up I am.

Anyway, I just spent a week out of town because my mother-in-law died. I hadn’t been talking about it publicly because my apartment was going to be completely empty for a week, and what if the burglars who hit us two years ago saw something on my blog that invited them back. (Actually, I had mentioned it in unlocked posts, but then thought better of it and locked them.)

More about all this later. It’s nearly 2 am PST.