Slow and Squeezy, or, A Tale of Two Ponies

Sorry it's been so long, you guys.  I've been really squished lately.

Y'know, it feels pretty good to break into this whole semi-pro gig.  ("Pro" in that people are paying me to make with the fictional writings, "semi" in that such largesse isn't yet enough to live on.)  But one of the things that continues to bum me out is that I am

so

damn.

slow.

Like really.  An amazing pace for me is writing 300 words an hour.  If I have to stop and look things up or hit a hard part, that number goes way down.  It is hard to feel good about that when your Twitter feed is full of people belting out 800 or 1000 words in an hour and then skipping off to bake cookies.

So you start trying to justify it to yourself.  Well, I'm slow because I'm actually writing WELL, you see.  This is what it takes to get that masterpiece-osity that I got complimented on that one time.  It's a tortoise-and-hare scenario.  Slow and steady wins the publishing contract.  

But then you think about all the years you spent being the slowest one in gym class, too, and how you weren't actually running "better" or "deeper" than anyone else - you were just miserably crap at running.  And how a lot of the people who can write like gangbusters are actually turning out really excellent work.  And how the tortoise is completely screwed if the hare doesn't slack off.

So if speed has no reliable correlation to quality, then you either have to figure out how to pick up the pace somehow, or else accept that you just have a really god-awful slow mental metabolism, and will have to work twice as hard as the average person to get the same results.  Not an enticing prospect if you're as insecure and lazy as I am.

You know what's really cheered me up, though?

Ponies.

Specifically, these ponies:

from mlp.wikia.com

I know, right!  They're like a dashing equestian barbership duet!

See, in the hallowed canon of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic don't you judge me, I swear to God, these guys are the Flim-Flam brothers.  They show up in an episode called "The Super Speedy Cider Squeezy 6000." Spoilers here follow.

Anyway, so these guys ride into town on the aforementioned Squeezy - a huge rolling contraption that automatically turns apples into tasty cider.  This does not bode well for the Apple family, whose homemade cider business is far too slow to keep up with local demand.

(You know you're in trouble when the Monsanto reps have their own catchy theme song.)

Things proceed as you might expect: a winner-take-all contest is set up, pitting the Flim-Flam brothers' super-modern machinery against the good old-fashioned methods of the Sweet Apple Acres team.  And of course, it's a kid's cartoon, so it follows a somewhat familiar plotline: the brothers actually win the contest, but the slop their machine turns out is so vile that they're run out of town on a rail, and goodness and decency and hat-waving old-timeyness carry the day. 

Here's what I like about it, though: the machine is superior in every measurable way.  It's not only enormously faster than old-fashioned horsepower, but also has a perfect quality-control sensor that weeds out rotten apples.  The Flim-Flam brothers lose not because their method is inferior, but because they turn off the quality control mechanism, turning rotten apples and garbage into cider in a last-ditch effort to produce more raw product and win the contest.

By now you see where I'm going with this.  At the end of the day, it's not about slow versus fast, or old versus new.  It's about whose integrity will buckle when the going gets rough, and whose won't.

And I can still win on that front.

So hopefully I can get back to regular blogging again in real short order (there is so much cool new stuff I am DYING to show you, believe me!)  But if I don't, it's because I'm still sorting the apples and turning the crank - hopefully with tasty-delicious results!


I have learned the meaning of self-loathing, and it is writing a sentence that you know is sloppy and starting another sentence.

Calvin and Hobbes and Onfim

You know what was cool?

Actually, let me back up: you know what was cool, if you read the comics pages of American newspapers in the eighties and early nineties?

Calvin and Hobbes.

And if you didn't, the short story is this: Calvin is a six-year-old boy with a stuffed tiger/best friend named Hobbes, and an imagination the size of a small galaxy.  They went on all kinds of adventures, and the strip would regularly switch back and forth from the lush, well-illustrated world of Calvin's imagination, to his rather less impressive reality.  Thusly:

© Universal Press Syndicate

It was a fantastic comic strip for so many reasons, but part of its enduring appeal is how it hilariously, astutely, lovingly renders a child's world.  It was a huge part of my own childhood, and I have no doubt that it's going to keep its place in our cultural memory for a long time yet.

Anyway, fast forward to today, when my Twitter feed (and my buddy Daniel Bensen, of Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen fame!) turned me on to this little gem here:

Image by Onfim of Novgorod, licensed by www.gramoty.ru under CC BY-SA

This is a replica of a birch-bark drawing done by a boy who lived in 13th-century Russia.  It's part of an article called The Art of Onfim: Medieval Novgorod Through the Eyes of a Child.  I'll let the author, Paul Wickenden, explicate this drawing here:

Onfim was being taught to write, but he was obviously restless with his lessons and when he could get away with it, he intermixed his assignments with doodlings. In this first example, he started to write out the first eleven letters of the alphabet in the upper right corner, but got bored and drew a picture of himself as a grown-up warrior impaling an enemy with his spear. To remove any doubt about the identity of the warrior, he even labeled the person on the horse as "Onfim."

This is without a doubt the sweetest, funniest, most touching thing I've seen in weeks.  I just can't tell you how it delights my soul.

Well, maybe I can.  Look at this one here:

Image by Onfim of Novgorod, licensed by www.gramoty.ru under CC BY-SA

This one has a spelling lesson at the left, with a picture of Onfim's mother and father at the center.  And to me it's just, like, massively enchanting to drink in all the little details.  Compare this drawing to the one above, and notice how they differ from our modern preschool/Crayola iconography.  Do you see how the nose is always a straight line, making a perpendicular cat-like connection to the mouth?  And how the hands don't look like little three-fingered brooms, but like rakes?  I'm no art-ographer, but I wonder if those outward bulges above the arms are shoulders - and I ADORE that horse.

So I guess if there's a point lurking anywhere in here, it's this: it's easy to understand intellectually that all societies have some things in common - that as long as there are people, there will be six-year-old boys who get bored and fantasize about having great adventures.  But it's not until you really see a little scrap of the past up-close and personal that the tiny, telling differences become apparent, and you can see that boy as his own separate, entire person - a human being in sharp focus, and a startlingly intimate connection to a world that no longer exists.

I want this.  I covet this.  I can't think of any greater success in storytelling than being able to bank-shot a character off of that backboard of differences - race or time or culture or gender or whatever - to land right back in the reader's lap.  And I'm starting to think that fantasy - be it ever so dinosaurs-in-fighter-jets humble - is a genre custom-made for doing just that.


These are the voices of the dead - an extinct culture - to which everybody is a little bit deaf.

The Joys of Being a Pre-Published Author

So I ended 2013 on a kind of a downer.  Not too long after, my good buddy Kyle wrote a blog post noting that a lot of new authors seem to be really in the pits about their chosen profession - that it seemed to be one giant skin-thickening, loin-girding, expectations-managing protracted flinch.

I would be lying if I said I were in a happy mental place at the moment.  But I think that has less to do with the world of publishing than the fear of losing control.  After years of working on this thing, the window of opportunity for changes and improvements is finally closing.  Soon it'll be fixed, unchangeable, all its flaws immortalized in amber, and my role will move from all-powerful author to diligent cheerleader.  The baby is going off to college, and who knows what'll happen when it gets there?

Anyway, I wrote an article a couple months back called Five Secret Advantages of the Unpublished Author.  I wanted to do something similar here.  Are you ready?

The Joys of Being a Pre-Published Author

1.  Legitimacy.

That's it.  To be clear, there's a million and one happinesses I could rattle off: receiving the ecstatic "we got one!!!" email; going out to dinner with agent and editor; dropping The Big News to friends and family one at a delicious, savory time; getting awesomesweet cover art; that first check in the mail.  But those are all fruits falling from one singular tree, called External Validation, otherwise known as My Writing is Officially Worth Something Now.

That's the gold nugget I keep in my pocket, the solid reliable center of this whole huge hurricane of insecurities and what-ifs and things completely outside my control.  Even if God visits Job-like misery upon me - even if my publisher goes broke, my agent drops me, my reviews suck, my book tanks, and my name becomes so toxic that I have to spend the rest of my life writing under a pseudonym - the fact remains that something I wrote was good enough that somebody wanted to represent it, and somebody else wanted to pay me money for it.  That is the one beautiful, permanent, no-takebacks talisman that will forever shield me from the insidious brain-spiders of doubt.

Thusly.

And man - for all of you guys who are striving on the traditional publishing path, let me tell you: having magic ego elf-water is AMAZING.  It is holy and potent and lasting, and I so hope that you will pursue your craft and persevere through rejections and doubt to get you some. 

(And for the record, this is why you will never, ever hear me slag off self-published writers.  To put yourself straight out into the world without needing someone else's prior approval, to sustain yourself on faith in your own ability - on the self-esteem equivalent of photosynthesis! - is a feat more amazing than I ever had the guts to attempt.)

Anyway - keep at it, fictioneers, regardless of your chosen form or flavor.  It's a hell of a quest, no matter where your road takes you.

Gilthoniel, A Elbereth!

A Writer of the Imminent Future

"Self," I said, "we really need to get a new blog post up.  The Prius thing is making us look like even more of a self-perpetuating stereotype than we actually are."

"I know, self," I said, "but if we don't knock out at least 1,500 words today, we're going to be in the Sad Zone again, and nobody wants that."

Then the phone rang: a very nice person was calling to tell me that my short story, "Hell Bent", had taken an Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest. 

That in itself is not a world-changing event.  No cash, no Corvette, no tropical weekend getaway with Vanna White.  (Though I absolutely recommend the contest to any of you speculative fictioneers out there - it's fun and free, not to mention potentially lucrative, and has minted more titans of SFF than you can shake a Klingon painstick at.)

But damn, I am pleased. 

One of the things that really eats my self-esteem is that I write SO. DANG. SLOW.  Like really, unconscionably, Sarlacc-digestion-speed slow.  (That 1,500 words thing has been taking me five or six hours a day, and I'm still failing regularly.)  There are so many people at my kickin' awesome workshop who just knock stuff OUT - who have a new chapter to read every Wednesday without fail, who are constantly submitting this here and that there, while also revising three more stories at the same time and probably flipping omelettes while they type.  I even know a guy who's writing a short story a week.  Every week.  For a year.  And yet he somehow still has time to go out to the bar, and I KNOW that cuz I saw him there last week!

I know I need to pick up the pace.  I'm sure I'll get faster if I keep at it.  But in the meantime, it is awfully encouraging to know that this little thing - my one and only short story, the one I spent 100+ hours researching and revising and workshopping and polishing - actually got somewhere on the very first try.

Needless to say, thanks hugely to all of you guys who helped to sand down the edges.  I think I'll try to send the little darling somewhere else, see if it can't win a place in a magazine somewhere.

In the meantime, and just in case you're interested, the opening scene is below the cut.  (Write Clubbers, this will not be new to you, though I owe you immensely for your critique!)

Requiem for a Prius

I know.  I know.  Here's me with all my tooled-up Western website, my Texan schtick, my still-not-as-wide-as-the-barn-door-behind-me rustic author photo... and I'm just gonna come out and say it: I drive a Prius. 

*saloon piano music stops; hard-eyed stares commence*

Not sorry.  Around here, we like our Dr. Pepper, our big-ass belt buckles, and our even bigger-ass trucks... but I tell you what, that sweet white futuristic road-suppository was the best car I ever had.

Had, as in past tense.  It's dead now.  Insurance company declared it a total loss.  And I get why, after the Incident. $9000+ to resurrect a seven-year-old car with over 135,000 on it just doesn't add up. 

But man, I am just all kinds of cut up about it.  I LOVED that freaking car.  Delivered pizza in it (and boxes of thawing chicken parts, and more sheet cakes than I can count).  Drove back from the casino at 2 AM with a cute drunk girl puking down the side of it.  Spent the night in it.  Always took it in real regularly for all its services and tune-ups and what-not.  And I tell you what: in all those hundred-thousand miles I had it, it never once left me on the side of the road.

To be clear: I'm not one of those people who gives their cars names and genders and personalities and all that.  It's still just the white Prius in my mind.  But man.  I TOTALLY GET how people get attached to their rides - shoot, to their toys and keepsakes and inanimate objects of whatever kind.  It's almost like, the less actual mind and personality something has, the easier it is for you to imprint your own thinking on it.

You know what I mean?  There's all manner of classes and therapy and daytime TV programs invested in helping you to tolerate the well-formed proclivities of the intelligent hominid you married (to say nothing of the ones you subsequently progenated).  With little furry friends, you have a bit more room on which to write your mental fan-fiction version of their personalities.  By the time you get down to fish and turtles, you're pretty much stumping the whole thing.

So I guess it's not surprising that we can still see characters in the noble steeds of the 21st century.  Maybe it's kinda hard for your constant adventuring companion to avoid growing a little bit of a soul, whether it's well-gummed teddy bear or a two-ton road warrior.

At any rate, perhaps you will indulge me while I eulogize mine.

Goodnight, sweet Prius.  And flights of angels drive thee to thy rest.

Changes

You might have noticed that I made a couple of changes around here.

I resisted putting my photo online for a long time, and part of me still wishes that there was some magical way to avoid that.  I wish I could stay in the part of the Internet where we have to judge each other only on our words, because there's no name or voice or body to let us shortcut our reason by saying "oh, of course - s/he's one of those."  But that would mean never leaving my computer or going to any events ever, and I'm not willing to do that.  So now you can enjoy me as I exist in carbon-world: as Yet Another Squishy White Woman.  (And a damn fine example of the species, if I do say so myself.  Shout-out to all my fellow SWWs!)

I resisted using my given name for similar reasons.  It's hard to spell and pronounce and remember, for one thing.  But more than that, I always felt like the scariness that is writing and inviting the whole world to read it almost requires some kind of spandex-clad second identity, so the slings and arrows of outraged readers fall not on Bruce Wayne, but on Batman.  Because he can handle it.  Because he's Batman. 

Well, I've written what I've written, and I look the way I look, and I probably ought to get comfortable with owning all of that.  (Though I'll take it as a favor if y'all still call me Tex.)

But I'm not gonna lie, you guys.  I am scared out of my mind way more often than I'd like to be, and it's not just pre-publication jitters.

--I'm scared of putting my picture up, cuz I've seen what people do with them (especially if you're a gal who starts having unwelcome opinions.)

--I'm scared of using my real name, cuz I've also seen how clever the Internet can be in digging up your personal information and delivering the rape-and-death threats right to your doorstep.

--I'm scared of going to cons as anything but an attendee, because I've heard all the horror stories about creepers and stalkers, in addition to the more garden-variety "how 'bout you have a nice big glass of shut up and sit down, little lady" social misdemeanors.

--I'm scared of the regular old "your books suck, you suck, and you should probably just go die in a fire" reviews, comments, and hate mail that seem to be par for the course these days.

And you know what?  I bet that is not a drop in the freaking ocean compared to the racism, ableism, and homophobia that I'll never have to deal with. 

Anyway, none of this has actually happened yet.  And when it does, it won't be anything that hasn't happened to hundreds and thousands of other people.  It won't be anything that I didn't accept as a risk when I decided to get into this gig.  After all, if you play outside long enough, sooner or later you're going to scrape your knee.  For me personally, the thrill of the playground is worth the risk.  And I'm incredibly lucky to have made it this far.

I guess mostly I'm just going to miss this version of me.  The one who's never had a nasty encounter, who can go to cons all starry-eyed and bouncingly enthusiastic, who's never had to find out what does or doesn't qualify as justification for a restraining order or a harassment complaint.  There's already so much "except for..." in my love for SFF fandom and Internet culture in general, and it's going to suck to have to add to that.

Well, here's to 2014: the year I get out there and get dirty.  Bring it on.

Hold your head high, take a deep breath and sigh
Goodbye to Sandra Dee.

From 60 to Zero in 3.5

Well, it's like this: on Monday night, I got in my first actual for-real car accident.

I was doing about 60 in the middle lane of the freeway.  Then the fellow on my right careened into the guardrail, ricocheted off, and slammed into into the right front corner of my car.  It knocked me into the left lane (though fortunately nobody else was near me.)  By that time he was veering wildly all over the road, and I was so scared he was going to hit me again.  I sped up to get out of his way, but something was really wrong with my car, so I pulled over onto the left shoulder and threw on my blinkers.  He ended up spun out and smoking across two lanes.

I ended up in the back of a patrol car. 
(Did you know the seats back there are plastic?  True fact.)

Things got more orderly after that.  I called 911.  The police came, and some ambulances.  They towed my car, and dropped me off at a Whataburger, where my sister collected me and took me home.  I got a good telling-off from the Dude for not taking up the medical personnel on their offer of a once-over, but I didn't hit anything inside the car and the airbag didn't deploy.  (Weirdly enough, it's my foot that's been killing me here, three days after the fact.  I can't figure that one out.) 

So everything's in limbo at the moment.  Car's got at least a broken axle, but we're still waiting to hear the full extent of the damage.  Really REALLY hope it's not a write-off.  In the meantime, I've been thinking a lot about how much worse it could have been, and all the little advantages that add up in situations like this.  You know, living in a town where you have family and friends who can come get you when you're in a pickle.  Having full collision coverage, so you're not wringing your hands wondering if you just had a $10,000 bad day.  Having the means to walk over to the car rental place after the fact and get yourself some temporary wheels.  Knowing that you have medical insurance, so you're covered if you wake up the next day with your head on backwards.

But what's really killing me is that I don't know anything about that other car.  Was the driver hurt?  Did s/he have passengers?  Were they wearing seat belts?  What caused them to lose control in the first place?  I must have sat there for half an hour, talked to the police four or five times, and it never once occurred to me to ask.  I just didn't even think about it.

Regardless, the police report should be up by tomorrow, so hopefully we'll find out soon.  We still had a really good Christmas with the the Texas/New Mexico branch of Team Thompson.  And even if the car is a loss, it won't be an insurmountable one.

It's just really weird, you know, to suddenly find yourself in a place where your second-to-second decisions are the super-vitally-important ones.  Weirder still to look back after the fact and realize that maybe you're not exactly the kind of person you thought you were.

At any rate, I know the holidays are stressful for a lot of my friends.  Hope you guys got through it with at least one good thing added to your memory banks, and at least one more to look forward to.  Y'all stay safe out there, and think a good thought with me for driver #2 in the meantime.


We just had a near-life experience, fellas.

"One Night in Sixes" Available for Pre-Order!

Not gonna lie, y'all.  It's pretty freakin' exciting.

One Night in Sixes is available for pre-order on Amazon.com!

What I know so far:

--right now it's mass-market paperback only, but the ebook version will be forthcoming.

--big delicious version of the full cover (w/title and everything) is likewise still in the works

--the Goodreads page is live too!  (waiting for aforesaid big delicious cover, and then we'll add it there as well)

--it hasn't shown up yet on Barnes & Noble, but is populating to other retailers (and search works better if you put the title in quotes.)

--paper and ebook versions will officially launch on July 29th

I won't be doing the huge "hurry up and get you one!" sales push until things are a little more put together - but if it sounds like your kind of yarn and you do want a paper version, go put your name on it!  (And if you want me to put my name on it, I will even bring my own pen.  Hell, I will sign your ANYthing.)

Thanks ALL y'all who have already lent your attention and enthusiasm to this thing.  Soon, the lightning will strike and the current will arc and it will LIVE!
 

Don't know if I'm elated or gassy, but I'm somewhere in that zone.

A Sawmill's Hope, or, Kickstarting Over the Snake River Canyon

You know, I'm starting to believe that an essential function of friendship is to enrich your life with people who think of - and DO - things you never would have.  If true, this would explain a lot about my marriage.  (Like, not only would I not have elected to draw a giant dick in the sand at a friend's beachside wedding rehearsal, it never occurred to me to WANT to.)

Case in point, though: one of my newest friends, David List, is currently Kickstarting a fantasy novel called A Sawmill's Hope.  This is currently blowing my mind.

He had me at "fishmen."
(image (c) David List and Tracy Flynn)

To be clear: the idea of Kickstarter itself, or using it to fund novels, is nothing exceptionally new.  I watched A Lee Martinez fund a short story collection earlier this year (and Robots and Slime Monsters is coming out soon, BTW!)  And although it's actually the first I've heard of him, Harry Connolly has done a great writeup about his recent success with funding a new fantasy trilogy the same way.

But see, those guys are are Big-Five multipublished authors, who already have a slew of books out on the shelves.  For our man David, A Sawmill's Hope is his brand-spanking-new debut.  He doesn't have 900 professionally-published pages worth of reputation to ramp up on.  He doesn't have a big established fanbase to rev up for this project.  That dude is running on passion, guts, and passion. And guts.  So like... I guess sort of a whole 80's action movie parfait, minus the obligatory power ballad.

That is pretty amazing to me, because Kickstarter takes the traditional self-publishing model and does a total 180.  Instead of putting your book up on Amazon and then spending years convincing people to buy it, you ask for their money up front, and have only Xty-two DAYS to convince them to ante up. If the funding goal doesn't make, all of your backers' pledges poof into the ether, and you got nothing.

I believe my chosen analogy is an accurate one.

So how do you sell people on a book they can't buy yet, written by an author they've never read?  (Full confession: this particular topic is of keen interest to yours truly.  I'm sure I don't know why.)

Well, so far David's taking a multimedia tack.  He's got the sample chapter and cover design up there, of course, but he's also got art, music, and the video too.  And - like the sand-phallus's tasteful, appropriate counterpart, this never would have occurred to me - he's giving out a secret backstory tidbit to all his backers, every time the funding hits another 10% mark.  Won't spoil the ones he's given out so far, but I will say this: it is really cool to hear about how his growing up in a granite-mining town, with all of the associated miners' hazards and diseases, has influenced the way magic works in his world. Totally encourage you guys to give it a look-see, if you're looking to tromp through a fresh corner of Fantasyland!

(c) David List

Bigger question for you-all in the meantime: what other tidbits or extras make a project like this one stand out to you?   Are there any Kickstartings or other indie drives that you're especially stoked about?

It was dumping rain, churning leaves like an unending applause.

Doing the Horse Stance

Sorry for the long radio silence here.

To summarize: had an awesome time with the fam, made it back to the states, am currently enjoying the last of five blissful, iced-over days with the house to myself. This is what the front walk currently looks like--

--which I am taking as a sign that God wants me to stay home and work on my book. (Can do, Lord.)

I did finally venture out yesterday, though, to watch my sister test for her black belt. LOOK AT THIS GIRL GO.  (And yes, that's cement under the towel.)

I know, right. I am RELATED to that. (Don't ask me how - maybe we flipped a coin in the ovary. "Right: heads, I take squishy, sedentary and sarcastic, tails, you get relentless ass-kicking aptitude and a knack for cleaning up anything that can come out of a dog.")

It was a hell of a time, too. There were four other people also testing for various degrees of black belt, and the Master really put them through their paces. There was five-on-one sparring, brick-smashing, board-breaking, throws, holds, and more weapon forms than you could shake a kwan dao at.  Here's the one that always makes my eyes pop out, though:

It's called the horse stance, and if anybody ever tries to blow you smoke about what a total martial arts bad-ass they are, you can pretty much call them on it by having them drop into a horse stance and clocking how long they can hold it.  It is hard - sweat-beading, arm-shaking, butt-quivering HARD.  (How hard, you ask?  Well, to give you some idea, people testing for the black belt - which you tend to earn after about ten years of serious, solid work - hold the stance for five minutes.  Ten years.  Five minutes.  Yeah.)

I think this is my favorite of all their skill tests, though.  More so even than the brick smashing.  Because, like...yes, there are those moments in your life when you do have to rise to the occasion and do something jaw-droppingly amazing.  Like lifting a car off a child, or schooling the hosts of "Crossfire" so hard the show gets cancelled.   But man... SO OFTEN the biggest, hardest, most epic battle in a person's life is the struggle just to stand it.  Whatever it is.  You're not trying to win any medals.  You're not out to save Metropolis.  You're just staring down the absolute toughest thing in your world, and holding the line.  It's amazing to see that struggle given physical form.

(Please don't take this as any dire personal allusion, by the way.  I can assure you that my gluteals are quivering only in happy, positive ways.)

Anyway, hope all you local yokels are staying safe out there.  And if anybody DOES happen to need someone who can snap a man's neck between her ample liquid-titanium thighs... I'll be glad to get you a referral.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure every woman in the room spontaneously ovulated at the sight of that.