Ragged Feathers

Just a few quick things, since Monday is humping my leg like a sabretooth Chihuahua:

* To those of you asking for a Hedgewitch Queen/Bandit King spot in my fan forum, success! Here it is.

(See below)* I am informed there are some copies of Reckoning floating around out there with a printer error. As in:

Just finished reading Reckoning. Very confused. Book pages screwy? After p278 went to p215 with repeat through p246 then ended.– A fan on Twitter

There was a printer error, and they thought they caught all of them, but such is obviously not the case. My editor is asking around about how to solve the problem. So, hang in there–as soon as I know more, I’ll share it here.

* This last Saturday my friend Zen E. participated in the Portland Boulder Rally at the Circuit NE. I was on hand with the video camera, and it was a great event! I am constantly surprised by how supportive the climbing community here is. Out of all the people I’ve met since I started climbing, there’s only been one outright-nasty person. The rest of them have been kind, thoughtful, polite, cheering on everyone and just generally being good sports. It’s amazing. Anyway, Zen stuck her last route of the day, one she’d been working for a while during the competition, and it was great to see. (The video of the occasion holds audio of me whooping with you when she makes the last move and her hands stick at the top. I was Very Excited.) Thanks to everyone who made such a great event possible!

* I’m getting a lot of mail about Steelflower lately. Guys, even if I had time to write the second in the series, there are other considerations. I know you want to read about Kaia and her troupe heading off to Rainak Redfist’s homeland to take back his birthright, but it might not happen for a while, and being angry with me won’t help or solve anything. I have the last two books of the series in my head–the third book deals with Kaia and Darik’s return to G’maihallan. But like I said, it may be a while. I am looking at a number of different options. That’s all I can say.

Coming up this week: my thoughts on epub-only, the Pyrrhic Victory of Pelennor Sunroom, and possibly (if I can figure out how to meld the music into it) a podcast. Not sure about the podcast, though. It takes me a while, and much swearing, to get those right…

Over and out.

ETA: Heard back from the publisher–no more than 200 copies escaped with the error. If you received one of them, contact the publisher’s Customer Service directly. If you can’t take the book back to the bookstore from whence it came, they can send you a new copy. (Note the “IF.”) Thanks for letting me know about this, guys–I got six emails in a 20-minute span about it on Monday, and about had a heart attack. Whew.

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Steel-toed boots. Eyeliner. A good-quality trenchcoat. A Zippo, just in case. A pocketknife, a handkerchief or two, electrical tape, and a tiny first-aid kit. These are the things no girl should be without. You can, I suppose, substitute duct tape, but a roll of that is kind of hard to stick in a pocket. Though I have. Once or twice. Just to be sure.

“You need chains,” the Selkie told me, and proceeded to equip me with such. They go in the back of the car, along with the two first-aid kits (softcover survival and hardcover medical), the gallon of distilled water (great for washing the floormats after Sir Pewksalot gets excited), some rolled-up towels, bungees (you can never have too many) and granola bars, the roll of toilet tissue and the extra plastic bags knotted up and stuffed into a milk crate. Antibacterial handi-wipes and extra ibuprofen in the center console, a Sharpie, a tiny tub of Carmex (even if it melts, it will be okay, unlike a tube) and a multi-tool that can break a car window and slice a seatbelt…just in case. Ice scraper. Extra dog leash.

In the garage: the axe handle, the heavy bag, canned supplies and water, extras and just-in-cases on shelves next to the decorations and the boxes of author’s copies. (Maybe I could chuck them at an intruder. That might work.) In the house: bokkan scattered about, the linen closet stocked with first-aid and cold medicine and light bulbs, cleaning supplies, and a weapons check every day. Going through each room and making sure that no matter where I am there is a weapon within easy reach. It doesn’t have to be anything someone else would think of as a weapon, just something I can use for self-defense. Even the souvenir rocks from road-trips can be chucked at a poor soul who won’t know what hit them until too late.

Baby wipes. Sleeping bags. Extra umbrella. Go bags by the front door, both for paranormals (haven’t had a client in years, but still keep it packed and ready) and for emergency/disaster. Important paperwork stashed. Extra pens. Scarves hanging on pegs, gloves in a bucket just in case, flashlights checked and batteries tested. Charcoal, tealights, another survival kit, spare sheets for God knows what, a stack of rag-towels for sopping up spills or ripping into bandages. A stack of old cloth diapers, because they are useful. Cat litter, not just for the cats but also for cleanup of who-knows.

I was told, all during my childhood, that I was flighty. That I’d never make it in the real world, because my head was in the clouds. Instead, I’m the one with a stick of gum, the aspirin in the bottom of the purse, the pocketknife, the GPS or the candle or the cigarette lighter. Motherhood taught me some of that, but my instinct, even while living rough, has been to prepare, as far as possible, for whatever.

I am either going to be in great shape when the zombie apocalypse hits…or on an episode of Hoarders. It’s anyone’s guess which.

The weird thing is, I still think of myself as stupid and flighty. I still have the knee-jerk “oh, I’m a mess, I’m never prepared,” even when I’m the one with the spit and baling wire. I am rarely caught-without in any major way, which is probably helped by the fact that I’ve lived in this house for a good decade now. Which is another thing–even after that long, I’m ready to move at any moment. Ready to pack and torch and flee if necessary. I always have been, but if it hasn’t been necessary for the past ten years, well.

My point (and I do have one) is that readiness is a process, and that I am rarely as helpless as I am afraid I might be. As life lessons go, it’s a good one. I just wish I could get it into my skull so I could relax. Well, at least fractionally. But until that happens, it’s the trenchcoat and a pocket check before I leave the house. It’s checking the go-bags every month and eying the linen closet weekly. It’s packing for just in case and hauling what I might need if disaster, either physical or otherwise, hits. It’s getting ready, being ready, as a state of mind.

What do you do to get ready, kids? I’m interested. I’m always looking for readiness tricks to shamelessly steal borrow. Yeah, borrow. That’s it.

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I am munching on crackers, Brie, and grapes. This means, according to the tortoiseshell cat, that I am the New Best Friend and my lap is meant to be purred upon. You’d think cats wouldn’t want Brie–I mean, it’s fermented, right? It can’t smell good to them. I am mystified. Also, I am a little annoyed at how the cat seems to think I’m loading the cracker with Brie for her. She even tries batting at it as it’s on its way to my waiting mouth. This does not end well–she gets put on the floor, as gently as possible, and springs back into my lap the instant my hands are occupied with the food again.

I suspect we will not reach a detente, but neither will we war openly.

Five miles run this morning, at about 9:39 per mile. Another personal best, fueled by the adrenaline I’m burning off from last night. Since the flu episode and adding the fact that the weather has turned positively filthy, I’ve bagged the 5AM runs for a while. I miss Phred the Coyote and the stillness of that early morning, but nearly spraining an ankle because I can’t see what’s living at the bottom of a puddle in the dark Taught Me A Lesson. (Do NOT ask. You don’t want to know. Trust me.) For once, I am choosing discretion over valor. Or something.

The leaves have mostly turned, all at once. The crisp nights have given them fantastic shades of red and orange and yellow. This is the best year for leaves easily in the last decade, or maybe I’m just seeing them afresh. Things do seem a lot brighter this year than they have for a while.

I am not upset at the weather, though. People who move to the Pacific Northwest and bitch about the rain are like…people who move to LA and complain about heat and gridlock, or New York and noise. I happen to love the rain. When it taps on a roof and I’m warm and dry inside, there are few things better. The luxury of running in the rain, getting physically pretty miserable, then coming in and drying off is pretty intense. Winter also tends to be my most productive period as a writer. I guess maybe it’s that there’s not much else to do but hole up and tell stories when it gets gray? Plus, it’s harder to guilt me into leaving my house in wintertime. I really am quite happy as a hermit, thankyouverymuch. I’m not quite a Henry-Chinaski-class lover of solitude, but it’s pretty close.

It’s taken me a long time to write this, between stuffing my face and fending off a very vocal and indignant tortie who wants some damn Brie, nao plz! I have the shades all drawn, and the door locked, and the house to myself while the kids are at school. The current revision–a fresh new YA–is calling my name. It needs a scene between a princess and a huntsman in a fairy housekeeper’s kitchen. Also, it needs more gunfire.

It’s shaping up to be a beautiful day.

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Let’s talk, dear Readers. Let’s talk about endings. (If you haven’t read Reckoning yet, I’ll do my best not to spoil you.)

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So last night’s fall at the bouldering wall seems to have no lasting soreness. It was just one of those sessions where I was clumsy all the way through, always fun. I went up to grab a hold from an undercling, missed it, and tumbled. Fortunately I was relaxed when I hit, I landed on a well-cushioned part of my anatomy (seriously, you’d think I would have no ass left with as much as I run, but OH NO) and I rolled. I stretched out after the session, came home, drank a bunch of water, took ibuprofen, and went to bed smelling of homemade Tiger Balm. (My writing partner has many, many talents.) This morning…no soreness, barely even a bruise. Which is good, because I’m climbing again today (I promised) and dealing with copyedits, which means a lot of sitting on that tender, much-abused buttock.

I know, I know, you really wanted to read about that.

Let’s see, what’s the news? I have a story, Gallow’s Rescue, in the just-release Courts of the Fey. Like Eleni, Wolf, and Tarquin, Gallow and Robin have a much longer history, and I wish I could write their story. Trailer-park fey and epidemic disease, who wouldn’t want that?

Also, I’m over at John Mierau’s place talking about Frank Herbert’s Dune, the Litany, and how I wanted to be a Bene Gesserit. And the winners of the belated release day prizes are up!

Other than that, I’m hip-deep in copyedits for the first Bannon & Clare, and the water is rising fast. Plus I’ve got to update the Books page, and that sound you hear? It’s the gears inside my head gummed up by snot. That’s right, I’m coming down with a cold.

Not in single spies, but in battalions. By the way, if you have a good smartphone app that can alert one to changes in barometric pressure, let me know? I’m tired of the pressure changing and half my head wadding up like agonized tinfoil.

Anyway, I’m going to climb, fill myself to the brim with fluids and vitamin C, and fillet more of these copyedits until they are bled dry. The crankiness of physical misery might even add something.

Over and out…

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“SHIT!” I screamed, as I skidded around the corner into my kitchen from the garage. “NO NO NO! NOOOOO!”

The squirrel wasn’t listening. The dog, attached to the couch, was barking hysterically.

When we last saw Neo, he had voiced his battlecry and flung himself into my unprotected house. This was a fine way for the goddamn rodent to repay me for not leaving him in the road to die. Gratitude may be a virtue, but I really am beginning to think it’s one this little asshole doesn’t possess.

Several thoughts flash through one’s head when one has inadvertently let a demonic tree-rat into one’s house. Let me see if I can list them in some kind of coherent order.

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*clears throat*

Angel Town, the last of the Jill Kismet series (for now) is now shipping from Barnes & Noble, Powell’s, and Amazon.

She wakes up in her own grave. She doesn’t know who put her there, she doesn’t know where she is, and she has no friends or family.

She only knows two things: She has a job to do: cleansing the night of evil. And she knows her name.

Jill Kismet.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be hunched in a corner shaking, as is my usual wont on release days. You’d think they would get easier to handle, but no–I feel the same fierce anxiety each time.

Over and out!

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I’m going to have to write the Battle of Pelennor Sunroom next week. This week’s just not conducive to sitting down and telling a really embarrassing story about a squirrel loose in my house.

What can I tell you? I’m hard at work on the next Bannon & Clare book; there are revisions for a brand-new YA sitting in my inbox, I am turning in eleven-minute miles. The revisions…well, I’m in the week after receiving the edit letter where I am just processing. I think I’ve written about it before–when I get an edit letter, I open it up and read. Then, I cry. I scream. I fling the pages across the room, I stamp, and I basically have a little hissy.

Look, I’m admitting it out loud. This is part of the process.

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It was one of the few times in my life when I wished I played some form of incredibly violent team sport. Not only could I have used, say, hockey armor or an American-football helmet, but I also could have used some backup.

After all, I was going into the garage.

When last we left him, Squirrel!Neo, stunned and possibly concussed (that’s a word, right?), was curled in a cat carrier in my garage. He had a bowl of shelled peanuts, a bowl of fresh water, and I’d made sure the cage door was locked. I spent a restless night, hoping I wouldn’t have to dispose of yet another rodent corpse come dawn. I was running out of room in the Squirl!Semetery. Though I wouldn’t put it past another one of the little bastards to rise from the grave again.

So, the following fresh warm morning, I got up, nervously checked out the websites of a few sporting goods stores, and thought of dealing with the questions I would encounter if I went in and bought a whole set of hockey pads, helmet, greaves, the works. Kevlar seemed like a good option. Plus, a few hockey sticks would be a good addition to my Sekrit Weapon cache. Bonus if I could roll them in tar and ground glass.

Look, I was just being careful, okay?

But in the end, I decided that one wounded squirrel in a cat carrier was probably not going to require me dressing up like a modern-day secutor. I mean, Neo was probably feeling a bit under the weather, although I doubted even at that moment that he would be harboring so much as a tiny shred of gratitude toward the big pink monkey who had gotten him out of the road and shelled his fucking peanuts. Probably, I thought, he’s sleeping.

That was my first mistake.

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It’s another edition of Random Things Lili Thinks About, For She Does Not Have An Idea Worthy Of A Long Blog Post.

* Why the hell is Glitch so addictive? You’d think a game where you squeeze chickens, nibble and pet pigs, and make gardens would be boring. Instead, I can’t stay away. It gives me a glow of accomplishment. Man, I’m boring.

* Boring isn’t so bad. I’ve had enough excitement in my life that I can stand a LOT of boring. Like, until I croak. Because boring is safe, boring is predictable, and boring does not lead to bleeding, screaming, or pain. Well, at least, not my kind of boring. I’m pretty sure there’s tortuous boredom out there that will make one scream and bleed. I am happy to avoid that.

* On the other hand, I am rarely bored. Apparently I am easily amused, and can amuse myself for long periods of time. This is not a bad thing.

* When I run, music often plays in my head. I don’t use my IPod unless I’m on the treadmill; it’s just too much of a hazard. My brain, however, apparently requires music, so it gives me a selection of hits. This morning it was Phantom of the Opera (in particular, Prima Donna and Notes; God, I love Minnie Driver even though the singing in that version is…meh, I mean, really, Gerard, did you have bad dental work? The lisp, my man, it’s gotta go) and, of all things, AC/DC’s Back in Black. (Which happens to be Graves’s theme music near the end of the Strange Angels; he starts out with Chris Isaak’s Let Me Down Easy and AC/DC’s Highway to Hell.) I’m pleased to report Andrew Lloyd Webber and AC/DC go together rather well while I’m running in the dark.

* Oh, look, a Sekrit Hideout has been discovered. The story possibilities are endless.

* I’m told (hi, TP!) I must have a very sharp sense of smell, because of how I write. I don’t think I do, but I do think I pay a great deal of attention to olfactory input. I am constantly aware of the smellscape around me. (When one has kids, it’s always best, don’t you think?) If I come down with a cold and a stuffed nose, I feel half-blind. There’s also the funny things I call “misfires” or “auras”–that’s when my brain doesn’t know quite how to handle the input it’s getting, so it gives me a smell/sound/taste/sight that cannot possibly be. Usually this shocks me into paying attention to something I wouldn’t normally have taken a second look at; it seems to mostly be a way for my subconscious to warn me of possible danger. Most of the synesthesia I suffer is of this sort. (The rest of it seems to be excess energy in my neurons just slopping around.)

* I can finally listen to music with words again. Recently, finishing three zero drafts basically at once, I had retreated into classical and ambient music. Lyrics just scraped the inside of my head raw and irritated me right between the shoulderblades. Thankfully, the sensitivity retreated as it always does. It’s funny, when I’m writing something dire I want bright pop music, when I’m writing something mannered and precise and historical I want punk or hard rock, when I’m writing romance I want angry music. It’s as if the aural stim needs to be a balance to the weight on a certain set of creative muscles.

* I might–might, mind you–be reaching the end of my reading on the Eastern Front of WWII. If this is so I’m going to have to find another historical oddity to stripmine, since my tastes in fiction have also retreated like bruised anemones . I’m beginning to be unable to read in the genre I’m writing, or at least, not comfortably. It’s hard to read for joy anymore, I’m so used to revision-reading. The nonfiction gives my brain a chance to spool down. Plus, it’s a relief to read something I won’t ever write about, almost (dare I say it) restful. Since rest is always in short supply, it’s nice to find a few moments of it here and there.

Eh. I, I, I, me, me, me. Booooor-ing. I’d write the next chapter of the Squirrel!Terror saga, but all my focus is taken up with revising. Eh.

Over and out.

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