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Hiding from your troubles (publishing post)

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I’m sure you all know people who hide from their problems. Maybe you’re one of those people yourself–I’ve certainly been there and understand the urge. The short-term pain of telling someone something they don’t want to hear–along with the chance that they will truly freak out and lose their cool–can be so upsetting that people put it off as long as they can. Yeah, it will all be worse someday, but at least they’re avoiding the pain of right now.

It’s always better to be as up front as possible: This book will be late, there’s a problem with these checks, chain store X won’t be carrying your books. Present the problem as soon as you know for sure you can’t avoid it. Present a plan to fix it. Apologize for the difficulties it will cause. Yeah, there may still be anger and embarrassment, but it will be less.

Now, I don’t *know* this was the problem with Ridan Publishing (Context), but the particular author mentioned in that post did a good bit of research into them before she signed with them to make sure they were legit, and still things turned weird. No payments. No communication. No acknowledgements that contracts have been terminated.

But that’s what it sounds like.

The good news is that the publisher has contacted the unpaid author in question with the promise that communication will resume and issues will be addressed. It’s a good first step, but I’d like to hear that all royalties have been paid.

Whatever the cause, I realize it’s not as simple as saying “Always be upfront about problems.” Of course that’s easy to say, right? I know that it life can sometimes seem overwhelming and stress can make us do the wrong thing even when we know it’s wrong. Still, however hard, doing the right thing is usually less painful than doing the wrong one.

In other news, I completely forgot that Brickcon is this weekend. Maybe my son will want to go tomorrow, since today is already dedicated to errang running.

See, yesterday afternoon my internet suddenly shut off. I tried all the usual tricks but couldn’t reconnect, and my son hovering at my shoulder (he had a multi-player Minecraft session planned) didn’t help. Eventually, the help tech at my ISP declared that my problem was my modem and, although it bounced back for a while last night, I have to spend most of this afternoon on a three-bus trip to buy a replacement.

I hate going to Best Buy.

Anyway, it’s another writing day shot all to hell. Ah well. At least I’m not pretending the modem is just fine and I don’t have to do anything about it.

I’m on Marketplace APM

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Yesterday I volunteered to be interviewed for a story for American Public Media’s radio show Marketplace. Today, that story is online.

It’s about weight loss apps, and as I expected, they used the segment in which I admitted to being ashamed of my weight.

One of the most dangerous things I do, productivity-wise

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One of the most dangerous things I do, in terms of my productivity, is leave my house with the wifi still live. I always mean to do work, but somehow I get caught up in email/Facebook/Twitter, and Twitter is the worst of all. It’s not just that the messages keep coming, prompting me to load new ones; it’s also that they are usually full of links to completely awesome things elseweb.

That means a 50-character leads to a long Kate Beaton cartoon, or an article Olympic drama, or health care politics, or that excellent “How to Kill Yourself and Others in America Slowly” essay I linked to everywhere last week.

Today it was the Readercon public statement, a couple of articles about sexist coverage of the Olympics, a change in the comments policy of a popular writer’s blog, and…

Really, does it matter? All that matters is that I’m not at work on my book. So I’m going to do the grown up thing now and turn on Freedom for a few hours.

Unjuice fast, day 2.5

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My last (maybe) day of the raw veg only “fast” and I just took a very hot, long shower.

Normally that would trigger a massive hive outbreak and unbearable itchiness, but today I only have the ugly red welts. I seriously have more spots than a cheetah.

However, the itching is almost non-existent. I call that progress, but I don’t know if it means I should continue on or not. I’ll discuss it with my wife later.

Unjuice Fast, Day 1.5

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I’m part way through the second day of my “unjuice fast,” in which I partake of a juice fast that focuses on ingesting large amounts of green veg and nothing else, except without actually juicing them. Instead, I’m setting a large bowl of uncooked, undressed greens beside me and chowing down.

Yes, it’s been difficult. (Details, and some digestive TMI, behind the cut) Continue reading

Tomorrow is my not-birthday

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For new or forgetful folks, the not-birthday concept is pretty straight-forward: my wife and I have the same birthday, which sucks, so I moved mine back a month.

What this means: omelet with oven-roasted potatoes for breakfast, pizza at some point, possibly a bottle of quality beer.

Then, on Monday, I’m starting an unjuice fast. Health-related stuff behind the cut. Continue reading

Willpower is not a virtue

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And by “not a virtue” I don’t mean that it’s a vice or it’s something awful. I mean, it’s not a wonderful thing that people have or don’t have.

Okay, so, I’m an NPR-listener. Yeah, I often hear this expert or that being interviewed… so many of them that they sometimes run together. Sometimes I’ll hear something that sticks with me and I have to go back to find it again. Like this interview with David Eagleman.

What Eagleman said, for those who don’t want to click through to the show, is that our brains aren’t this unified thing. We, ourselves, aren’t a unified identity. Different parts of our brain want us to do different things: Lose weight, exercise, sleep in, work hard, order the fries, watch that TV show… We’re full of conflicting impulses.

This is certainly true of me. I have long battled with myself over all sorts of indulgences, and different parts of me fight in different ways. When I get up early to work on my book, I feel a sense of accomplishment. When faced with the opportunity to eat something I shouldn’t, I feel a sense hopeless despair.

And in recent years, it’s been a tossup which part of my brain[1] would win, except for the despair. Hopeless despair has been a trump card in my life; I have a hard time beating it.

However! Lately I have stopped looking at myself as a complete whole. Lately I have tried to recognize that there are several different personalities living inside me, and that my brain plays dirty tricks on my to make me do things I shouldn’t. In essence, I’m accepting the fact that my own brain is often my enemy.

I’ve talked about this before: It can be hard to say no to food when the despair hits. It can be hard to get up early to work when I know I need sleep, too. But for the past few weeks, I have not been using willpower to win these internal battles. It might look like willpower, but it’s not. What I’ve been doing is keeping my goals in the forefront of my mind and treating all impulses that get in the way as an enemy attack. It’s not willpower to refuse to go over to my enemy camp.

It’s been working, too. For me, I mean. I don’t know how well this would work for anyone else.

[1] If you’re thinking of “parts of my brain” in an anatomical sense, you’re being too literal. I’m talking about competing impulses.

Keeping the internet at arm’s length

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Back in 2010 when the health care debate was going on (and before it) I kept pretty careful track of the health care debate. In truth, I stressed out over it to an unhealthy degree. I couldn’t contain my disgust when Ben Nelson demanded the end of the public option, and I was livid with hate when Joe Leiberman revenged himself on the liberals who primaried him by ending voluntary Medicare buy-in for folks over 55.

In short, I spent a shitload of my time following reports on the legislation, annoyed and alienated friends with my arguments, and generally made myself unhappy. In the last few weeks, I’ve been following the news in only the most general way, trying not to let myself get distracted.

Now that the Supreme Court has (rightly, in my view) upheld the individual mandate, the ACA is going forward. This is going to be a very good thing for me, personally, because the health care plan my family has (bought as an individual) is outrageously expensive. Obamacare will ease that burden. I mean, I have health insurance right now, but I won’t go to the doctor to have my foot checked (I have a possible stress fracture) because my outrageous deductible means the expense would all come out of my pocket.

Anyway, people are saying dumb things on my Facebook feed, and on Twitter, and everywhere. Me, I’m going to stay offline and keep working, to preserve my sanity.

Connectivity is spotty right now.

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I may be hard to reach, and I know I owe some folks email. Please be patient with me.

Last Day for Book Giveaway (plus video games)

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Today is the last day to eligible-ize yourself to win a free book–all you have to do is sign up for my I-have-a-new-thing-out newsletter. Details here.

For those of you concerned about being spammed with my newsletter, let me mention that later tonight, when I send out the message about the new book giveaway, it will be the first ever issue of this newsletter.

In other non-news, since my wife has to work on Sunday and my son has a tournament on Saturday, today is my Father’s Day. We’re celebrating by having breakfast at a restaurant (I love restaurant breakfast, for serious) and having burgers for dinner. With buns. I know, crazy, right?

I’ve asked to have the Chris McGrath prints of my Twenty Palaces cover art either framed or matted as my Dad’s Day gift–like most people, I don’t need more stuff. However, my wife and son have been eyeballing a flat screen TV for our Netflixing. Nevermind that I think our 19″ CRT still works just fine; they have the temptation and I may be the excuse.

Anyway, I’m going to do a bit of work in the Star$$ until they get here, then they’ll leave and I’ll work some more. Work! It’s what’s for dinner.

Also, having finished, sent off, and celebrated Epic Fantasy With No Dull Parts, I finally felt as though I had permission to play a bit of computer game.

Now, I’m not exactly Mr. Moderation, so I don’t play all that much. I tend to get stuck in games, trying to do one more thing one more thing. Of course, the games are designed to make you do exactly that, which sort of sucks. As a result, I have to keep away from them for the most part if I want to create books, stay married, pay rent, move my body, and/or feed myself.

But sometimes, I say what the hell. Last night after I did the dishes, I turned on Neverwinter Nights. (It was an Oppressmas gift.) I turned it off at 4 am.

It’s possible that my wife is correct when she points out that these games aren’t good for me. And that I’m a boring husband when I play. Worse, I still couldn’t find that third werewolf. And why am I carrying around this troll head? I know someone wants it, but…

Anyway, I will now get back to formatting my son’s 10K comic fantasy for publishing on the blog while I wait for the fam. Have a great day, everyone.