Blog Blitz and Oatmeal Cookies (Reprise)

Oh BOY.

Well, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the response to my last post was like slamming into the Internet at 120 mph, if the airbag were full of love and blog comments.  (Whereupon it would be called a 'love-pillow', of course, because 'comment-cushion' is unwieldy and 'blog-sack' sounds like something to be discreetly handed to a flight attendant.)

So if you came here from the Blog Blitz: thank you so, so much for visiting, and for all your wonderful notes.  I am steadily working my way through them, and will be on cloud nine million for days to come.  You guys are AMAZING.

Conversely, if you are wondering what the merry hell a Blog Blitz is... you are not alone, because I didn't either!

Here is the deal: the gentleman-scholar DL Hammons, not content with ringmastering WRiTE Club, also devised a wonderful blogging group, subscribable by email, in which everyone dog-piles on a single participant's blog.  The result is catastrophically awesome.  You are a celebrity for a day!  Traffic through the roof!  Comments out the yang!  And really a heck of a good deal: even apart from that one magical day when you are so ecstatically piled-upon, you are visiting other people's blogs as a pile-ee, and subscribing to those you find fun and interesting.  It's a great way to meet new people, broaden your horizons, and be an integral part of somebody's joy, every time you comment.  So if that sounds like even a little bit of fun... sign up and get your Blitz on!

And on a personal note - I was truly blown away by the comments on the last post.  In fact, there is material for about twenty different conversations there, and more amazing (and sometimes gut-wrenching) anecdotes than any one post can do justice to.  When it comes to charity, why DO we do what we do, and think like we think?

Well, based on some of the responses from that last post, here are a couple of aggregated guesses.

It's harder to give when you don't see who you're giving to.  This is probably why the TV commercials take such pains to show actual video of actual hungry babies / destitute families / etc.  This is also probably why it is SO freaking easy for so many of us (and I include myself in this) not to see need in our everyday lives.  When you are safely contained almost 24/7 in your house, your office, or your car, what opportunity do you have to notice the people outside the bubble?  How the dickens are we supposed to see what our own community needs when the system has closed us off into so many coffee shops and Camrys and cubicles?  We're not oblivious cretins - but we live in societies that constantly and actively segregate us from our fellow Earth-persons.

It's harder to give when you feel like it won't make a difference.  This is a big one.  That girl I met had found a family who would take her in as long as she could provide her own food and hygiene.  They would set her up a bank account and let her live there for four months while she looked for work - so it was incredibly easy to want to help her get that one crucial foothold up into a better life.  Much, much harder to do that when you know that no matter how much you give the panhandler at the intersection, he'll be there tomorrow and the next day and the day after that.

It's harder to give when you feel like it won't be appreciated.  Taking care of your sweet widowed grandma who loves you and everything you do for her?  Doable.  Doing likewise for an angry, senile old bat who spits, thrashes, and screams for help every time you have to hold her down for a diaper change?  That's a tall order.  It's hard to feel generous when the object of your generosity is indifferent, complacent, or takes it for granted.  I have no doubt that those feelings multiply with distance - when real living people are reduced to payroll deductions, or checks in the mail.

It's harder to give when you don't understand the need.  "Why would you have kids you can't support?"  "Why can't you get a job?"  "Why don't you just go to the emergency room and make them treat you?"  I think this is where the Golden Rule breaks down - where we end up assuming that the person on the other end must or should have our same set of skills, values, and abilities (and that our understanding of their reality is both complete and correct.)  Obviously people do make poor decisions.  But it would require the omnipotence of an almighty living god to know how much to assign to bad choices or character, and how much is the result of circumstances beyond anyone's control.  And frankly, most of us are hard-pressed just to figure out where we left our keys last night.

It's harder to give when you are scared.  Boy, isn't this the truth.  It's very easy to feel safe letting a tiny 100-pound girl into your car.  Altogether more difficult with a 6'5" Peyton Manning stunt-double.  And on a grander scale - it's incredibly difficult not to tighten your fist when you are worried that you could lose your own security, or when you feel like there's not enough (of money or space or jobs or whatever) to go around.  That's when the hoarding mentality kicks in, and generosity dies.

Of course, the world is full of bright, motivated philanthropists who have not yet managed to eliminate any of these problems.  But I think knowing about them, and recognizing them AS problems, leaves us far better equipped to question our assumptions and actively work against the impediments to our natural compassion.

And if you read this far, thanks hugely for humoring me through this epic double navelgazing extravaganza.  Regular programming resumes next time!

Let he who has never eaten a cookie... cast the first block of government WIC cheese.

A Spiritual Meditation on Oatmeal Cookies

I took a young lady shopping today.

It wasn't a planned exercise.  I don't know her name or how old she was.  But when you meet somebody who's sobbing outside the post office because she is absolutely indigent, hasn't eaten for two days, and can't even find the bus stop to beg for a ride, you start to re-evaluate some things.

Anyway, we ran a couple of errands, and once we got the essential bases covered, we stopped at the CVS so she could pick up a few extra supplies.

It wasn't very much.  Shampoo.  Advil.  A box of feminine things.  Some juice.  Red candles, because as she said to me, she loves to read, and lighting a candle makes it special.  A bag of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, and a tray of oatmeal cookies.

Looking back on it, it's interesting to me that little chocolate candies and oatmeal cookies counted as needful things.  And the more I think about it, the more I appreciate that.

Because really, sweets are literally bonus calories.  They are by their very nature something extra, something custom-made to please you.  And when we give them to ourselves, or to someone else, we're sending a message.  You are valuable.  You deserve to feel good.  You are more than a body to be kept alive.  You are a human being, and you are loved.

That's not really news, of course.  I don't know of any culture that doesn't have treat-sharing occasions encoded into its social calendar.  But when you are on the giving end of the cookie, it seems like the more distance there is between you and the recipient, the harder it is to do the giving.

You know what I'm talking about.  Helping out somebody in your family, office, church - that's easy.  You know them.  Of course they're Good People.  Ditto those adorable tots on the angel tree at the mall.  How much less enthusiastically would we buy trucks and dolls and paint-sets every year if the little card didn't come with names and ages to humanize the recipients - or if we were just asked to put money in a slot, and didn't even get the benevolent-patron vibes that come with picking out the toy ourselves?

And more than that, how easy it is to resent systematic, institutionalized giving - where you don't even get to choose what money you put into the slot, because Uncle Sam's taking it straight out of your paycheck.  How easy it becomes to grind your teeth at the thought of those ungrateful takers spending your money on candy and alcohol and things they don't even need!

And so we tighten the rules for welfare and food stamps.

Appoint ourselves judges for who deserves what and when, or outsource the judging to worthy trustees - churches, charities, politicians.

Stuff the care packages ourselves, give the bum food instead of money (who knows what he'd spend it on?), meticulously organize can drives so everyone can enjoy the warm fuzzy feeling of deciding for themselves whether the shelter-people will have chili with or without beans.  Because we are responsible individuals proven capable of managing things, and they will have our generosity on our terms or not at all.

To be clear - I don't mean to imply that we fortunate folks are closet assholes.  I truly believe that humanity as a whole trends toward radness.  And charity organizers would be silly not to use whatever techniques yield the best possible results for their cause.

But I do feel like we (in America at least) pour an awful lot of anxiety and effort into making sure that no anonymous moocher ever gets an undeserved cookie... when we would just as passionately, instantly, eagerly give them a whole entire box, if only we could meet them in person, as a person. 

And I wonder if the cookie's not actually an extra goodie at all - if treats, and having the means and freedom to treat your own self, aren't really, critically essential to the entire idea of caring for another human being. 

Apologies if this post comes off as self-aggrandizing backpattery, by the way.  Or a thinly-veiled political screed, or indulgent privileged hand-wringing.  I don't mean it.  Sometimes this blog is just a repository for thoughts that I would like people to know that I had, just so you can pick up my slack in case I get hit by a truck before I have a chance to act on them.

On that note: must look up French hip-hop artists, there ought to be an Angie's List for freelance manuscript editors, and haggis nachos need to be a thing.


All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt.

Five Delightful Things

Just what it says on the tin: this list is both self- and writing-centered, and contains up to 78% unrefined enthusiasm byproducts by weight. 

1.  I took my first-ever advance check to the bank this week.  Dollars are happy things!  But I gotta tell you, "I Are Real Writer" vibes are far, far happier.  And the money, in turn, led to

2.  Me posting an ad for an honest-to-God for-real conlanger (that's short for "constructed-language-er", I believe) to create honest-to-God for-real languages for my books - and getting whomped by interested applicants.  I am so, so stoked to finally be doing this.  It's so fun and expensive and makes me feel like a million bucks.  Is this what it's like to get a makeover? 

Speaking of which, mad props to the Language Creation Society and David Peterson in particular, who's taken so much time out of his busy schedule as the reigning Supreme Conlang Overlord to help make my want-ad more than a series of ignorant grunts and squeals.  (Writer-peeps, holler at me if you think you might be in the market for conlang services - I've now got more fantastic contacts than I know what to do with!) 

Yes, I'm breaking the first rule of Fight Club.
I am okay with that.

3.   Write Club 2013 will crown its champion tomorrow, which is going to be great no matter what.  I've already said plenty about why I love this contest, so I'll just add this: I have had more fun over the past four months, met more awesomesweet writers (and CRITIQUERS, good gravy!), and actually-literally-for-real upped my game because of this humble little game - it's unreal.  The book that comes out next year is going to be better because I got to do this.   And I want so badly to bring this action over to DFWcon somehow.  (Check out my latest post, by the way, if you're find yourself flagging: Five Secret Advantages of the Unpublished Writer.)

Look at this cover, you guys.LOOK AT IT.

4.  There are only two weeks left until The Golden City comes out and I get to read it!  Not gonna lie, y'all - I will probably go whole-hog navelgazing bananas about this book in pretty short order.  I am SO EXCITED to see another astonishingly underused historical setting brought to the fantasy aisle, and treated like more than a convenient slapdash shellacking for the plot.  (I've also had the privilege of swapping fishman-fistbumps with the author, and the fact that she's kind of excruciatingly rad doesn't hurt either.)

5.  As God is my witness, I am WRITING AGAIN!  Take that, responsibilities!  The fig of Spain for thee, sleep schedule!  Lick my lemons, adulthood - I'm base-jumping to Narnia and you can't stop me!


You need to have things trying to stop you so that you can get a better sense of how fast you are going as you smash through them.

A Psychological Portrait of Deschutes County, Oregon

Today, I'm writing from a town called Bend.  It's in central Oregon, the site of this year's Thompson Tour.

(Long story short: instead of getting together at Christmas, when everything is crowded, closed, and/or seething with winter plague, we gather the clan in the fall, at a different place every year.  By spending the money on travel instead of presents, we can see all kinds of fun and interesting places, and nobody has to cook!)

I've ventured out from my North Texas hobbit-hole a fair few times now, and let me tell you – there is really something special about going out west.  It's not because the nature out here is somehow magically better than anybody else's nature.  It's not necessarily some epigenetic American pioneer fantasy, either.  I think maybe it's because the ratio of earth to civilization is still so high here, even after all the Manifest Destiny and Go West, Young Man and Get Your Kicks on Route 66 of the last three hundred years.  Look here:

from Wired Science, and more specifically, NASA's Suomi NPP Satellite

Isn't it striking?  Out here on the left side of the country, the constellations of our towns and cities are still – even in the year 2013 – such sparse little specks in the vastness of the world... and you can't stay here long without feeling that.

It's frightening, really, to drive up roads that close for snow six months out of the year, and wonder what it would be like to break down in a blizzard and find yourself helpless, miles from any other human being.

image courtesy of my sister's enormous phone

Or to sit by a still lake, your phone at zero bars, and imagine how long you would go unfound if you suddenly had a heart attack.

taken by me

I have a taste for that kind of fear.  Even experiencing it in this safe, limited, touristy way pulls you back through thousands of generations of humanity – to people who huddled around fires in the dark, hoping to get through the night unnoticed by the things that lived outside the light.

Actually, I think that's one of the Western's most powerful attractions.  It's the only genre I know of that centers on a place – and more than that, a place so immense that it affects every living thing within its boundaries.  You had better step lightly and stay wakeful, it says, because nobody is coming to help you if you can't.  It's not horror – there's nothing malicious about it – but a place so vast and ageless as to be almost incapable of noticing you.  Human emotions like love and hate have their opposite here, in hundred-mile stretches of geological indifference.

sister again

Of course, while I-the-individual am tiny indeed, we-the-species are not, and it's dangerous to forget the power we have to alter our planet.  Still, in many ways, coming here feels like going home to my parents' house: we are bigger now than we were even a thousand years ago, and maybe even slightly more mature... but it's good to visit every now and again to remember where we came from, and to reflect on our smallness.

...and again.  No, I don't know how she does it either.

Happy birthday, me.  And thank you, Earth, for letting me live on you.

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

All I Really Need to Know About Fiction, I Learned From "The Order of the Stick"

So today is the tenth anniversary of a webcomic called The Order of the Stick.

It was in the news last year when its creator, Rich Burlew, launched a Kickstarter campaign to reprint OotS books that went on to raise $1.25 million - yeah, that's million with an M - through crowdfunding alone.

That is as it should be.

It's easy for me to say that, because it's easily my favorite comic (web- or otherwise), and one of my favorite stories.   Certainly the only one for which I've woken in the middle of the night and checked for updates.

This is the webcomic wallpaper equivalent of "Ode on a Grecian Urn":
forever wilt ye be oblivious to the monsters, and they be one second away from stomping you flat.

But if I were to distill my unrelenting enthusiasm down into something coherent and halfway meaningful, I would say this:

1.  I love what Burlew's success says about us as an audience.  You know, it's easy to get bitter and cynical when a terrible movie makes eleventy-billion dollars, or when your favorite show gets cancelled after like, an episode, or when Twilight of the Vampire Spankings outsells the Bible.  It is so nice to be reminded (and Burlew is certainly not the first to do it) that there is still room in the world for intricate, thoughtful, entertaining, first-rate fiction, and that we don't have to wait for it to be handed to us from the exalted offices of New York and L.A. - that we-the-people can hoist our favorite fictioneers up on our shoulders and reward them with success all on our own. 

2.  I love what Burlew's success says about him as a creator.  Yeah, he made a million bucks off of Kickstarter - but before that, he was working for nine years on his own initiative.  And maybe that is easier to do when you're posting weekly pages of a webcomic - getting feedback on the spot from your readership - than it is when you are slaving away for months at a time on a novel or some other massive Frankenproject, feeling trapped in the sweaty dark pit of your lightless word-hole as you sink into despair and wonder if you'll ever finish, or whether anyone will care when you do.  But I have no doubt in my mind that he started with the right question - not "how can I make a million bucks and be famous?" (because a webcomic is NOBODY'S answer to that one), but "how can I tell a really fun awesomecool story?"

3.  I love what The Order of the Stick has taught me as a storyteller.  I'm not kidding.  If you look on the ingredients label for One Night in Sixes, you will find that it is at least 18% OotS.  Which might sound weird, given that one is a fantasy Western steeped in blood and history, and the other is a comic about DnD stick figures.  But man, those little sticks have seeped into my porous wrinkled head-sponge like nothing else.  There in two brightly-colored dimensions is proof positive -

--that you can tell a story bigger than any single character's narrative arc

--that a complex story with multiple main characters is not doomed to bog down or burn out

--that "funny" and "epic" are not mutually exclusive

--that epic fantasy can be momentous and significant without disappearing up its own asshole

--that worldbuilding, setup, and backstory can and should be just as entertaining as the rest of the story

--that blood and sex and eye-candy are optional, but characters worth caring about are not

--that good and evil are not fixed, static alignments - no matter what the Player's Handbook says.

I could go on, but if there's one other thing that The Order of the Stick is good for, it's reminding me that a head full of story is only worth as much as your ability to sit down and keep knocking out the pages. 

Anyway: happy birthday, little sticks.  Thank you for lighting up my life.  And good luck with those velociraptors.

--But if we don't have noses, how do I smell?
--Like cheetos, you diminutive wastrel.

Midnight Brain Drippings: the Good, the Bad, and the Angry

Not going to lie, you guys: I am seriously overclocked these days.  Really want to do another GrammatiCats post, but it may be a bit before I get that far.

But I was rebellious and hedonistic enough to go to workshop last night, and to the traditional IHOP foray following, and we ended up having an especially savory conversation.  It was a swirling syrup-drizzled vortex of big expensive TV shows and giant sprawling book series and the frustrations of aspiring writerdom at large. Here for posterity and my own future reference:

On Big Fat Fiction:

1.  There seems to be a trend nowadays toward deeply flawed / unlikeable characters (Mad Men*, Game of Thrones, et al.)  "Idiots being mean to each other."

*I've only seen 1 1/2 seasons of Mad Men, and don't know how true this is.  But I remember being deeply impressed at how the writers managed to craft a suspenseful, dramatic, multi-layered story when so many traditional staples of TV drama - drugs, murder, violence, explosions, et al - have been taken off the table.

2.  A steady diet of "good guy vs. bad guy" stories can get tiresome, especially when you already know that the good guy is going to win.

3.  Many writers seem to have shaken out of the above mold by writing "bad guy vs. bad guy" stories - or less simplistically, an ensemble cast of morally gray characters at odds with each other.  Strange that "good guy vs. good guy" seems not to be terribly much in fashion.  (Premier hallmark example: The Wire. This is my favorite kind of story, and what I've tried to accomplish with Sixes.)

4.  A Song of Ice and Fire blew my mind when I first read it, because it was such a departure from the Big Fat Fantasy I'd read up until then - giant multi-thousand-page epic-quest monomyths where everybody's an archetype and Joseph Campbell spoiled the ending 60 years ago.  But see #2.

5.  But amazing groundbreaking fiction stops being amazing when it goes on long enough to establish its own constant trends.  If there's a likable character in ASoIaF on the verge of accomplishing something valuable and important, you can lay down your last dollar on it ending in a horrific botch.  It's still plenty interesting to watch the dominoes fall, but there's no longer the suspense of wondering whether they will or not.

And from a separate branch of the conversation,

On the Frustrations of Writing:

6.  So many aspiring writers getting frustrated when they've been so careful to play by the rules, and yet get nowhere.  (Passing similar to what I've heard when guys' well-intentioned efforts to meet women are continually rebuffed.  "I did everything you said you wanted - why don't you like me?")  Very hard to avoid this feeling when the people telling you "no" won't tell you straight what you're doing wrong so you can fix it.

7.  #6 above makes rich ground for unscrupulous people to sell ridiculous prescriptions to the desperate and frustrated.  Even well-meaning folks can unwittingly become bad prophets this way.

8.  Possibly part of the problem is writers asking the wrong question - wondering "how can I get published and make hella money and have my book in all the stores" instead of "how can I become a super bad-ass awesome writer?"  Too much emphasis on the nouns and adjectives - book deal, famous, published, author, signings - instead of on the verb, the activity of writing, as a worthy end in itself.

9.  But in fairness, it's hard not to get one's righteous rageface on when Twilight and 50 Shades sell beaucoup millions while violating all or most of the rules of good fiction that we keep raking each other over the coals about.  Readers can catapult a book to fame on the strength of "cuz I liked it."  Writers have no such luxury.

And separately from everything else,

10. "Red Hulk" is a stupid name for a comic book character.  Full stop.


Anyway, back soon with something more coherent.  For similar, better-curated pearls of wisdom from my posse, visit DFWWW in the meantime.  Our milkshake brings ALL the word-addicts to the yard.

This looks like a job for Bipolar Bear!  But I just can't seem to get out of bed...

DC Comics and the Case of the Deathless Media Franchise

It's been a big week for comic book drama.

The greatest tidal wave of Internet outrage has come from DC's new contest - and while asking artists to draw Harley Quinn naked and suicidal is definitely not the worst item on the company's social sensitivity rap sheet, it's really not helping.  (Next up: Batman sobbing helplessly as he masturbates to a Leave It to Beaver rerun!  Ha-HAAaaaaa!)

The second wave of the PR shit-nami has come as DC vetoed Batwoman's marriage to her long-term partner - while being careful to articulate that they are not objecting to lesbian superhero marriage, but superhero marriage across the board.  (And yes, dear reader: even Aquaman.)

Which brings us, rather retroactively, to A Lee Martinez's latest post.  He calls it Continuing Drama vs. The Dreaded Third Act, and opens with this:

One of the reason I enjoy writing standalone novels is that it allows me to tell stories that have a beginning, middle, and an end.  Series fiction is, almost universally, stuck in the second act by its very nature.

ACT ONE: Peter Parker gets bit by a radioactive spider, gains superpowers, learns a lesson on personal responsibility.

ACT TWO: Spider-Man struggles to fight crime and redeem himself in his own eyes and the eyes of the city he defends.

ACT THREE: Spider-Man learns to balance his obligations as both a superhero and an ordinary man, gets married, has some kids, stops being such a sadsack.

Yes, it’s that Act Three that’s the problem.  It NEVER happens.  It was never intended to happen.  Spider-Man is stuck in that second act, and he will never actually get out of it.

(I highly recommend clicking over to read the whole thing - it's a humdinger of a thesis.)

For all the publicity it's garnering at the moment, DC's weird, regressive Peter-Panning just shines a brighter spotlight on an issue that's been endemic to franchise fiction pretty much since the get-go: namely, that you've set up a system that pits your brand against your story - and the brand wins every time.

Would it be interesting to see Spider-Man get his Act Three?  It certainly was back when they called it The Incredibles.

But if we actually let Spider-Man grow and change as a character, we'd eventually run out of Spider-Man stories to tell - and Happily Ever After does not sell comic books, action figures, or kids' underoos.

So we have to keep the machine going.  Superman and James Bond and Dr. Who have been so calcified by time and money that their adventures will never, ever end - we'll just keep swapping out their puppeteers as needed.  And the more closely a supporting character orbits that fixed heroic center of their universe, the less they will be allowed to change.  (Killing off Squid-Boy?  No problem.  But Jean Grey just can't stay dead.)

That is the part that sticks in my craw.  When you know going into the story that the good guy can't achieve final victory OR die trying - that the Earth will not get blown up, or stay blown up if it does - that any substantial growth the hero has to do already happened back in his origin story - it feels like... well, kind of like how my good buddy Ike probably feels when he bumps up against the aquarium wall.  You know, like the story should be moving you forward into consequences, costs, changes, fallout -  but there's something artificial holding you back.  (Or in the case of mainstream comics' chronic retconjuration, letting you move forward and then teleporting you back.)

It's like some kind of invisible force field...!

And to be clear: I don't mean to dog on deathless franchises, or snipe at the people who enjoy them.  But I think it's interesting that we advocates of progressive nerd-dom get so vexed about these things - about DC's misogyny and militant super-bachelorhood, and the eternally white male Doctor, and all that mess I ranted about in Skyfall - when for the whole life of the franchise, we've basically been paying its creators not to change.


Not that we shouldn't ask for our favorite series to become more progressive, more inclusive.

Just that if they seem to be terminally stuck in the 1960s, it's because that's where they came from... and if they seem to be hell-bent on staying there, we might ought to quit spending so much energy ranting and begging and shaming them to move forward, and start putting our love and money into series that already have.

I hear Image Comics is lovely this time of year.

He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion.

World(Class)Con

I went to my first WorldCon this weekend.

Hit up an open coffee event with the relentlessly awesome Stina Leicht.  Scoped out the dealer's room.  Hung out with my DFWWW posse in all sorts of permutations and exotic locations.  Skadged ham sandwiches and cheesy poofs from the con suite.  Got autographs.  Went to about fifteen panels, an author reading, three room parties, and at least a couple of not-really-an-event late-night lobby congregations.  Stayed up past 1 AM, twice, having amazing conversations with people who'd been complete strangers only that morning.  Attended the Hugos.  (Didn't get to the dances or the masquerade or any of the stroll-with-the-stars events, but that's okay.)  Met about 538 fabulous new people, most of whom I still desperately need to email/friend/follow.

In short, I had an AMAZING time.  The best single word I can think to describe it is "generous".  Like really.  Everywhere I went, there seemed to be plenty of everything: plenty of space, plenty of food (there wasn't even a donation jar in the con suite!), plenty of things to do, not only on the program but just spontaneously and for the hell of it.  Plenty of folks ready to welcome you into whatever was happening.  I didn't once have to wait in line (except for the autograph sessions, natch), and although a couple of the panels were standing room only, I didn't see anyone turned away from anything.

And except for my one brief turn as a Solaris panelist and a couple of exceptional dinner dates, none of that had anything to do with my status as a freshly-anointed initiate of the SFF literati.  That was just the nature of the thing.

Anyway, I'm home as of this afternoon, and already the glow is fading.  In seeking to extend the post-con buzz, I've started reading about The Problems With WorldCon, which can't be ignored.  For many reasons, it's skewing dishearteningly old, white, and wealthy - I've noticed that about the writers' conferences I've attended as well - and it's hard to fully enjoy something like that once you start thinking about all the people who aren't there, and why.

But before I surrender to rationality, and while I'm still new and fresh on this whole con-circuit thing, I want to write it here for posterity: this was without question the best convention I've ever attended - really, one of the best times of my whole life - and I feel so, so fortunate to have had the time, health, and money that made this experience possible.  I understand now why there are charities who raise money for fans who wouldn't otherwise get to go to these things, and absolutely must start throwing my weight behind them.

In the meantime, I have about 538 fresh ideas on how to survive between now and WorldCon 2014, and a vast, faintly menacing number of tasks to complete in the meantime.

Challenge accepted.

And may I just say, 'yee', and indeed, 'haw'.

Listing to Port

You know, I feel really bad that I haven't updated here more often.  I'm so full of thoughts - oh, happy reader, if only you could taste a delectable full-bodied slice of my gray matter today! - and yet having so dang much trouble with follow-through.

Actually, a better way to say it is this: I feel like half of my brain is burning out from overuse, and the other half is rotting.  I knew it was getting bad when I found myself suddenly, desperately excited at the prospect of teaching GMAT math.  Or hell, ANY math.  My 10th-grade tutoring student whipped out her geometry homework this week, and it was like someone had offered me - dare I say that deadly four-letter C-word? - cake.

Meanwhile, the right side of my brain is busy failing at two blogs, four social media accounts, six email addresses, a line-editing project, and writing the first draft of one whopping big manuscript that really, positively needs to be done by Christmas.

To be clear: these are all TERRIFIC problems to have, and I'm grateful for every one of them.  It's just that collectively, they do end up with me sitting at my computer, begging myself to do something - anything! - but mostly staring at the dried sneeze-speckles on the screen in vacant fascination.

Dramatic re-enactment, starring my nephew, Pete.

Actually, I think this is a small part of the reason why I am so dang excited for WorldCon this week.  Hanging out with people in real-time is such a joy, you know?  Yes, it wears you out in its own peculiar way, but what a relief to only have four seconds to draft your response, instead of letting that blinking cursor leer at you for hours, or a whole entire weekend, while you attempt to compose the reply which will stand forever as a testament to your craft and thoughtfulness, or embarrassing lack thereof.

Dear Grandma,

Thank you so much for the Precious Moments figurine.  I'll think of you every time I see this adorable club-footed cherub, and remember to make my monthly donation to the Tow-Headed Caucasian Children's Fund.  Can't wait to see you at Kitschmas!

And no, it's not like every tweet and post and 3AM drunken gmail missive has to be some Ozymandian monument for the ages - but every one of them is explicitly meant to be noticed by somebody (especially when you are now in the business of being noticed by as many people as possible!), so why wouldn't you want them to look their best?  Especially once people have seen what your best really looks like.  From then on, they'll know in a heartbeat if you show up with anything less.

My God, is this what it's like to feel incapable of leaving the house without makeup?  Shall I never again browse the aisles of the Internet in my social sweatpants?

Well, perhaps not today.

And so I continue overclocking my frontal lobe, wallowing in problems that I am absolutely delighted to have, cultivating perfectionism at the expense of promptness, and wishing like the dickens that I weren't always, constantly, CONTINUALLY keeping at least one person waiting on me for something or other.

Sorry about that, y'all.  C'est la belle vie.  But if anyone needs any help with solving simultaneous equations or calculating probability, I am prepared to render aid with positively blistering vigor.  In the meantime, bring on WorldCon!

Psst.  Your participles are showing, dear.

Part of the Family

Well, y'all, today Publisher's Marketplace has made it official: I've accepted a contract from Mr. Jonathan Oliver at Solaris Books to publish One Night in Sixes and its sequel.

And let me tell you, I'm pretty dang stoked about that.  If the Blue Fairy herself had come down and asked what I wanted in a publisher, Solaris would be it.  (Granted, that is likewise true of my agent, Jennie Goloboy - really not sure how I got so lucky twice in a row, but I will take it!)

Anyway, I understand that tradition calls for a .gif-laden recounting of the epic tale.  I've never been very good at those (though I can heartily endorse Jamie Wyman, Annie Neugebauer, and Nathan Bransford for all your animated publishing-saga needs.)  Still, I was out for the weekly post-session carouse with my workshop peeps tonight, and this about sums it up:

IHOP Funny Face Pancake: the emoticon you can eat.

With that said, I would like to put some more words here.  I'll try to make them relevant.

See, it just so happened that while this whole thing was going down, I was in the Pacific Northwest to attend the PNWA and Willamette writers conferences (highly recommended!)  I also have family in both Seattle and Portland, so I set aside some extra days to catch up with the clan.

And guys, I just can't tell you what it's like to get some of your life's best news while surrounded by 12 or 15 of your nearest and dearest.  My mom and aunt squealed in perfect high-school-girl synchronicity when I first read them the letter from my publisher.  Cousins were called.  Phones were passed.  And every time we added a new person into the fold of what eventually became a giant impromptu family reunion at my grandma's house, the whole story had to be told again from the beginning, peppered with dramatic e-mail readings and supplemented with exciting new tidbits about cover design or contract clauses.  Shoot, we even had an expedition to the local big awesome indie bookstore to track down Solaris books.  (Verdict from mom and auntie: VERY good covers.)

I have never felt so little, or so loved.

"Well, of course you do," you might reasonably say.  "It's a big freakin' deal!"

And it is!

But here's what you have to know about my family.  We are a tribe of Addamses and Weasleys and Incredibles.  We are teachers and judges and Harvard grads, athletes and veterans, GIS specialists and mathematicians and actuarial super-geniuses whose jobs I barely understand.  Hell, my baby sister - the kid I relentlessly harassed from the back seat of the family minivan! - is already a kung fu national champion who dual-wields bachelor's degrees and dismembers dead giraffes at the Dallas Zoo while she works on her vet school application.  It's like our gene pool is equal parts mutagen, antimatter, and Diet Coke.

The same is true of my posse at the DFW Writers Workshop.  It is, like, a veritable Justice League of literary superosity.  We've got Rosemary Clement and A. Lee Martinez, Jenny Martin, Russell C. Connor, Pamela Skjolsvik and Kirk von der Heydt and a whole cadre of phenomenal writers who are getting ready to burst on the scene like so many juicy talent-swollen authorial zits.  (You might not be able to see 'em yet, but you can feel them coming in!)  I wish I could convey how much these folks have done for me over the past year and a half, or how loud and heartily they clapped for me tonight.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is, people see me as having done this amazing awesome super-impressive thing, and objectively, it is.  But I'll tell you this right now: I have spent my life surrounded by love and encouragement and about eight dozen models of hard work and jaw-dropping talent, and there is VERY little of this particular victory that doesn't belong to someone else too.

This does not make me sad.

On the contrary, I am delighted to add my little star to the great Thompson-Mayhugh constellation, and to hang my cape and mask next to the others on the workshop wall, and I absolutely can't wait to show you guys what all the fuss has been for.  Stay tuned for One Night in Sixes, coming in August 2014 to a bookstore near you!

And in the meantime, here's to my two phenomenal families - the one I inherited, and the one I found.  I couldn't have done it without you.

All we need to strive to be is part of the Apple family.