I Am Not a Rock Star

But I used to be. Our first rule was Never Tune Your Instrument.

I finished NaNoWriMo in fifteen days this month. Blahhhhhrhghlghglhgh.

I'm way less confident about my writing than I used to be. Nowadays, it's quite common for me to write a draft, scrap it, write another draft, handwrite a draft to incorporate into that draft... and then throw it all away again. NaNoWriMo is kind of a nice hearkening back to when I was a teenager and I thought that Robert Jordan imitations that dripped from my hands at 1800 words a day were pure gold.

Now I'm cutting, chopping, reworking... I've probably written 70,000 words total this month, but the draft just won't get past 60k, and I know I'm going to throw away the first three chapters.

For fifteen days, writing this mad, passionate whore of a novel, I was dripping gold again.

Adia fell on her face yesterday and scraped her nose, so she has been wearing a Band-Aid on her face.

I drilled her on what to say. "Adia, if anyone asks where you got that Band-Aid, what do you say?"

Adia: "I don't talk about Fight Club!"

At preschool, one of the other moms said, "Did you hurt yourself?"

She shoved her fist in her mouth and remained silent. For shame, Adia.

Thoughts For Vets' Day

I was searching around for something to say about Veteran's Day and appreciating the troops and war is hell and and and... anyway, this is it.

"My memories of the last war haunted my dreams for years. Military service, to be plain, includes the threat of every temporal evil; pain and death, which is what we fear from sickness; isolation from those we love, which is what we fear from exile; toil under arbitrary masters, which is what we fear from slavery: hunger, thirst, and exposure, which is what we fear from poverty. I'm not a pacifist. If it's got to be it's got to be. But the flesh is weak and selfish, and I think death would be much better than to live through another war."- CS Lewis.

Amen, Jack.

My father has, for the last few years, been working in a military hospital as a psychologist. I used to look at veterans and simply think they were courageous, and wish I could be as proud of something that I did as they might be of what they did.

Now I'm both horrified and in awe. The stories my dad has told me have made me wonder how anyone could keep their sanity after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's not just the horror of seeing your buddies die. It's knowing that any kid who asks you for candy could be wired with an IED. Knowing that any child who "accidentally" wanders out in front of your moving tank could be preparing to blow it up and himself in the process. Seeing those children die, for the lies adults have told them. Knowing that the opposition actually believes that it is worth it to murder these children and other civilians, all in order to take you out. Knowing that your very presence attracts these things, and yet knowing that you must do your job or more innocents, and more of your buddies, will die.

I don't wish I had served in the military anymore. My admiration for veterans, though, has grown by exponents. The vets of Iraq and Afghanistan have fought and died to try and restore some kind of justice, however misguided the original government intentions. I hope I can make the world they fought for better in my own way.

If This Is Word Vomit, I Must Have Had One Hell of a Word Drinking Night

NaNoWriMo Day 1: 10,055 words. Brain: no.

My Hot Wife

I subscribe to Dave Wolverton's Daily Kick in the Pants, which is a motivational email about writing. He wrote one the other day about writerly spouses. We are supposed to read the letter to our spouses. It begins thus:

"I’ve been a writer for thirty years, and I just realized that as a writer, for ages I’ve been trying to deal with a problem that I don’t have much control over: interruptions from my spouse.

If you’re married or have children, or if you’re in business, you probably have this problem, too.

With me it’s little innocent things. I may be writing, and my wife will come and ask, “So what do you think we should do about this problem?” It could be anything: Should we get the cat neutered? What do we do about our daughter’s tattoos? Do you like the new dress that I bought?"

Dave goes on to beg spouses to be supportive, which means being quiet.

Well, Dave...

Let's take a moment to talk about how awesome Chrissy is.

Not that she never interrupts me, or won't call me home from the library or coffee shop where I have camped out to write. And I must admit, when we were first married, she would sometimes test my commitment to writing by dressing... um, let's change the subject and keep this blog PG.

But Chrissy really doesn't interrupt save in case of emergency. Sometimes she puts Sam in the room with me, in a baby toy-thingie, and asks me to keep on eye on him, but she'll take him back if he cries too much. We have two kids. Someone is always crying. She deals with it while I'm writing, because she wants me to do it.

When we were first dating, Chrissy went through my room and stole all of my writing that she could find. She loved one particular story, and gave me a suggestion on the story that vastly improved it. Once I implemented her suggestion that story got me into Western, went on to be a finalist for Writers of the Future and then won me two hundred bucks in another contest.

Right after we were married, she read about Dave Wolverton's writing workshop in Salt Lake. "You're going," she told me, and when I asked her about the cost, she said, "I'll pay it. It's worth it."

At that workshop, I met Eric James Stone, who was almost as crucial as Chrissy in setting me on the path to a writing career. He showed me these strange things called "writer groups" and "cons." He became my Obi-Wan Kenobi. I guess that makes Chrissy my sexy Yoda.

Chrissy continues to read most of what I write. Now, it's a lot harder for her but she will still do it, as long as I can wrangle the kids while she does so. Her suggestions are almost always the best ones I get, because she knows what makes my writing work and what my major pitfalls are.

I can't imagine a better spouse. I love you, sexy Yoda.

What I Did At Camp

[This post was originally started in the Seattle Airport. It is presented to you in real time. And 3D. Unrated.]

I am sitting in an airport and going on my nine thousandth set of words for the day. Yeah. That's what Viable Paradise has done to me. And I am writing this now, because tomorrow I intend to hold a lotta babies.

What is there to say about Viable Paradise 14 except this?

Also, Martha's Vineyard is beautiful. My classmates, whom I will list later, were amazing, except for Jake Kerr, who is now my nemesis. I can feel his evil eye upon me, like a wheel of fire. I can't count the number of amazing experiences even without writing involved, like learning to fence from Michelle, swimming in the middle of the night with a host of students including Sän, who went in fully clothed several times. Luminescent jellyfish! On Saturday I even got to ride a bike (thanks, Bill and Mary) all around the island. (I also got to find out that I had never changed my flight from the original Saturday I booked it for. Blehhh.)

[Picks it up a week later.]

Wow, time passes when there are babies crying. I've been catching up on work and furiously preparing to write for NaNoWriMo, a novel I am tentatively calling "The Phantom Menace." No, seriously. I'll explain it later.

As for actually writing at VP: Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden talked a lot about publishing, as one might expect. They were very excited about ebooks, Barnes & Noble's health and other related stuff, which was really cool, because we could hear them over the Internet screams of "Publishing is deaaaad!" Turns out it's not dead and Tor is even more not-dead than others. We got to go deeper into a conversation I've had with some authors and editors before, re how ebooks can bring back an author's out-of-print backlist, trade paperbacks and hardcovers, the shrinking paperback shelves in drugstores and grocery stores and what it means to the books publishers buy, and and and...

She kept the lowest profile, but Laura Mixon turned out to be VP's secret weapon for me. She lectured on the care and feeding of your Other, aka the Beast. We learned how to treat your subconscious nicely so that it will deliver, theme, resonance and humor, while your conscious mind is able to work on character and plot. My one-on-one with Laura was also really helpful, as she capped off the week by giving me some really good, simple and sound advice on the story, and then listened to me bitch about writing with screaming children.

On top of workshopping our submissions, we wrote stories until about 2 in the morning. I actually wrote "The End" and fell asleep right there with the laptop on, while next to me, Sän went on writing until he faced the same crux.

I thought my story was terrible. People liked it. Even Jake liked it, though he was only saying that to lure me into false calm so he could pierce my aorta with his vampiric tentacular appendages.

And a bunch of other stuff. Mac and the staff made amazing food and were house-elves to put Dobby to shame. Okay, Dobby was a crappy house-elf, but they put the other hard-working house-elves in Harry Potter to shame. Uncle Jim and Doyle were amazing mentors and teachers and high-energy the whole time. Steve Gould was a lot of fun and he and Scalzi discoursed on the joys of working with Hollywood. Bear and I sang a lot of songs, drank a lot (okay, well, she drank a lot while I had water and Coke Zero) and she looked over a portion of my long-suffering historical novel that I am intimidated to write because I've never been to the Middle East.

I also periodically said stupid things, which tend to fly out of my mouth if I keep it open enough, but at the end of the week the people liked me.

Over the last few years I've been shortlisted for Clarion and a finalist for Writers of the Future twice. So as you might imagine, I had workshop lust. I was like one of those BYU students who, still a virgin at 29 after two failed engagements, finally makes it to the wedding night afraid that it won't be all it was cracked up to be.

VP, you did me good.

My Young Ward in Short Pants

Adia has discovered superheroes. I left some comics lying around, and she thumbed through them. Rather than being a "Mermaid Madeleine Princess" for Halloween, she wants to be a "Mermaid Madeleine Wonder Woman." Yesterday I got home from my daily run she met me at the top of the stairs.

"I'm Evil Batman and Mom is Wonder Woman."

"Cool," I said, expecting to be promptly informed that I was Superman or Good Batman or some complimentary hero.

"You're Evil Batman too. And we punch each other. Pyew Pyew Pyew!"

The last is meant to represent laser-gun noises. I have never been prouder of her than I am right now.

I was holding Sam later that day when she came in, still pyew-pyewing me. "Is Sam Robin?" I asked. Sam promptly cooed a cute little coo like he does. "Who is Robin?" Adia asked. "Batman's friend," I said.

Adia hugged Sam and kissed him. "Batman gives Robin lots of hugs and kisses because he loves him."

300-Word Book Review AKA How Can You Read This? There's No Pictures!

Explanation: After I read a book I usually like to take down a few of my thoughts regarding the book, lest it disappear down the memory hole. I had a whole document full of these comments. I forgot to save it when my laptop got stolen. A few of the comments ended up in correspondence, though, like the following that I sent to John Brown, the author of Servant of a Dark God.

300 Words! Better Than Fail Blog!

I argue fine points of LDS doctrine with John Brown on Facebook, so I wanted to read his book. I was genuinely, deeply moved. This book feels real. The book started with a description of a pretty basic day on a farm. At one point, when two kids asked their brother to guard a fugitive, he said, “Who will do the farm chores?” I liked that. So real and so easily missed.

Brown doesn't have Sanderson's gaming-module glee in his confusing magic system, though his characters are more real. Any government-unauthorized magic identifies one as a Darkfriend (called Sleth, but it’s the same idea). One of the characters, Argoth, was a former Darkfriend. He had gone from stealing life from others to hoarding it in small increments from donations—I think?—from his Sekrit Order.

The best parts are the moments where children face up to their parents' problems. Talen, the main character, had to accept how his dad is, to all appearances, a dark wizard. It reminded me of conversations with my dad; he always told me that my rigid view of Mormonism needed more gray areas. I thought he was on the road to hell. The book might have been better if Talen had maintained his definition of wizardry and betrayed his dad.

For more baggage, the character Argoth challenges a corrupt ruling wizard. To do so, he draws strength from his son, almost killing the kid. Armed with his son's energy, Argoth battles bad guy , and the wizard makes him into a mental slave. He took his son's life-force to conquer this baddie, and it DIDN'T WORK. I would kill to pull that off in a book. Brown plays for keeps,; well done in a world of fantasy comfort-food.

[Lest ye wonder, this is the list of books I've read and lost my profound thoughts on:
Collapse by Jared Diamond
The World Without Us by Alan Weisman
Gardens of the Moon by Steven Erikson
The Book of Saladin by Tariq Ali
Manhood For Amateurs by Michael Chabon
Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose
Lamentation by Ken Scholes
Canticle by Ken Scholes
Antiphon by Ken Scholes
Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon
The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
A Voyage Long and Strange by Tony Horwitz
Water by Steven Solomon
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King

That's since April. 3-4 books a month is pretty studly. Oh yeah. It turns you on.]