I’ve spent enough time hemming and hawing over whether to get a netbook. Tomorrow, I place the order. My hesitation came from a few things: wanting a bit of a buffer in my bank account, first and foremost, but also the worry that I just wanted one for the shiny factor. I mean, I have a desktop and a laptop at home. Do I really need a third computer?
I’ve come up with a big ol’ yes to that. While I can take the monster that is the Alienware with me on trips, it’s also, well, a monster. It’s big and heavy, which makes it Not Fun to lug around an airport. Also, since most of my travel is business travel, chances are I don’t really have time to do much more than poke around the internet when I boot it up. If my choices between meetings come down to “nap or play WoW,” I’m going to nap. So, while a machine with an internet connection and a word processing program is pretty vital to me during those days, my sweet gaming rig isn’t.
As for more local usage, I can absolutely see myself using a netbook during my commute to and from work. On the train yesterday, the beginning of a story started clicking into place. I’d managed, in cleaning out my bag o’tricks, to take my college-ruled notebook out, but never put it back in, so the writing down of thoughts had to wait another half hour until I could get to my desk and some scrap paper. What’s there on the page isn’t exactly what was in my head originally. Still decent, but I feel like I’ve forgotten some turn of phrase I’d really liked.
It’ll also be good to have if the weather here ever gets nicer. Not just for getting outside and writing during lunches, but taking advantage of our backyard in the summer, as well.
Now, there’s still a little voice hollering at me that I can do all this with pen and paper, and that’s very true. But I type faster than I write, and have already discovered during NaNo that pen-and-paper writing on the train is an exercise in frustration — awkward position, holy ow my wrists, and handwriting made illegible by the movement of the train.
So, there it is. It’s going to take a couple of weeks before it’s in my grimy little paws, but I’m pretty excited about it.
A note on the story that I mentioned above. See poor, neglected Night Owls over there on the sidebar? I think this new tale might be set in the same universe. The good thing is, the tone of the new thing is much closer to the tone I wanted with Night Owls from the start. I’m hoping the time I’ll be spending with the short story will help me figure out what I need to do to bring that voice to the novel.
I had this book when I was little, called This Farm is a Mess! (Okay, yes, I had a lot of books when I was little. This was one of many.) Anyway, in the book, Farmer Woods was notoriously bad at cleaning up around the farm. As you turned each page, the mess piled up — dirty dishes everywhere, towers of clutter leaning more and more precariously as the book went on. Finally the farm animals got fed up with it (even the pigs, if I remember right!), and took it upon themselves to clean. I remember an illustration with all the dishes stacked in the back of the tractor or a pickup truck, getting washed clean in the rain.
It’s probably out of print now, though there seem to be a bunch of copies available on alibris. What I remember most about the book was the way my mother would read the signature phrase: This faaaarm is a mess! (Only, with her Boston accent, it’s probably more accurate to say she said, This faaaahm is a mess!) It sent me into giggles every time, and of course the phrase lived outside the pages of the book.
When my room a disaster area and my grandparents were coming over, she’d stand in the doorway, hands on hips, and declare, “This faaaarm is a mess!” It was my hint to get cleaning. Was the house in need of tidying the day after a party? “This faaaarm is a mess!”
I don’t even remember the last time I thought about that book, but looking around at my cluttered desk just now, eyeballing all the filing I really ought to get done, I had to fight a sudden urge to declare aloud that this particular farm is a mess. Only, my coworkers probably wouldn’t know what to do with me if I broke into the inevitable giggles, so I refrained.
Goal for this afternoon: stuff put away and organized so I can come back to neatness on Monday.
Less-tangible goals that are still housekeeping:
Get back to the NaNoing, noreallyImeanit.
Take those red pens I bought and get started on the edits to the Nin manuscript so Hill and I can be one step closer to shopping this bad cat around.
Also, we need to give the poor book a title already.
Suck it up and revise “Kate.” I think I know how to fix it. Then figure out a home for it.
Suck it up and send “Pomegranate” out again. I stopped after three rejections, which is silly.
/eyes the poor story about Lil, still running from that demon. /sighs
No less than three posts for WoW stuff that I owe, probably more. (Annalea post-Wrathgate, Bittertongue plots, Lyr-and-Yva scheming)
I have a ficly story sitting in draft-form that I’d really like to finish.
I think that’s quite enough of a laundry list for this weekend. I’ll be happy to check off even half of it. Sadly, I don’t have a bunch of helpful farm animals to help me knock it out, so it’s all me on this one. (No, my cats are lazy, they wouldn’t lift a paw.)
I’m not one for signs and portents. Were I to apply for a job as an oracle, I’d never get the gig. That didn’t stop me from being fairly certain my flight was doomed last night.
On the flight out to Chicago last Wednesday, I was napping quite peacefully when we hit a little bump. Nothing that bothered me, really just enough to wake me from my doze.
Then the plane dropped.
Then it teetered.
It was done in a few seconds, really, not even enough time to really register what was going on. I don’t know what causes that sort of thing, but the pilot came on, said they’d known there was going to be some turbulence, but he was taking us down a little lower to smooth us out. The rest of the flight was fine. My fellow travelers and I regrouped at the gate (we weren’t seated together), and shared some shaky smiles.
I didn’t think too much about it the rest of the week, except for providing a brief summary when asked “how was your flight?”
Two and a half days of work, then two awesome days rambling about Chicago with Marty and Shannon (with guest appearances by Vonnie and Dan), and the bad flight out was mostly out of my head.
Until, of course, we started out for O’Hare last night. Now, the thing to understand is, I’ve shared bad flight horror stories before getting on a plane plenty of times before. It doesn’t faze me. So, Shannon and I swap a few. I think I’m fine.
Then, standing at the check-in kiosk, I start dwelling. I have the option of upgrading to an exit row seat. I start to pass on it (I don’t think I can expense a $25 seat upgrade), then I go back and do it after all. If you’re looking for a rational explanation, I don’t have one. It was a feeling, and I followed it, telling myself it was for the extra leg room, since my laptop bag is so frickin’ huge, I can’t stretch my legs out under the seats in front of me.
In the security line, I start shaking. Can’t stop it. Maybe a bit of it is because I’m hungry, but I’d had a huge breakfast and don’t feel hungry.
So I buy food once I’m on the other side. And I pick up a copy of Under the Dome, since my terminal had a Barbara’s Booksellers (yay indies in airports!). I figure I’ll read my way through the flight and be distracted. Any of you picked up Under the Dome yet, even to flip through the first few pages? It starts with a woman taking flying lessons. She crashes by page ten. Granted, it’s pretty unlikely that my Jet Blue flight’s going to encounter a mysterious dome anywhere on the way to Boston, but god damn it.
Then the girl sitting next to me at the gate is yattering away on her cell phone, telling someone on the other end about some misgivings she has about the flight. I think it’s because it was a smaller plane, but somehow I managed to block her out before she could add to my own fears.
We board. The captain tells us there’s going to be some turbulence until we’re over Michigan.
Turbulence never bothers me. Little jostles and bumps don’t even startle me, most flights.
Now, though, every jiggle of the plane has me gritting my teeth.
Looking back on it, I think the upgrade to the exit row was a good move. I’m not claustrophobic at all, but there was something comforting about having the extra room that I can’t put my finger on. Maybe it was feeling like I had at least some semblance of control — if anything happened that required people to do their exit-row duties, I’d be the one acting, not relying on someone else to do them.
Once we landed, once wheels touched ground, I started breathing again. While we were in the air, I don’t think I realized how tense I was, or how shallow my breathing must have been. Once I got off the plane, though, I felt it. Greg met me at the baggage claim. I was just kind of staring into space waiting for my suitcase to appear, and was pretty zombie-like all the way to the car. Somewhere about halfway home I started coming out of it, but by that point I was pretty drained.
So, hopefully I’ll be over it by January, when not only do I have to board another plane, this time I have to cross an ocean on it.
Anyway. Home again. Back at it.
*Yes, that’s right, I’ve written nothing in the last week. Tuesday night was for some amazing RP; I had a feeling nothing else was getting done. Then I was a-travellin’, and only just got home last night. Work travel and visiting friends doesn’t leave me much time for scribbling, so I didn’t. I forgive myself.
I’m about 4,000 words behind. I’m okay with this. Spent a chunk of Saturday with google maps, making sure the route the characters take in flight makes sense. I ran into another problem, when I looked at an old outline I’d started. I left out a character in this draft, who really ought to be there. As in, if she’s not, someone’s going to say “Uh, where the hell was she?” So the dilemma becomes, do I go back and re-insert her, or do I introduce her in a different way? Still mulling that one over. I’ll let you know.
So, thing the first: go read Anna’s post about a particularly shitty E-bay commercial. I’m thinking that, in addition to loving our indies for the holidays, we could do a pretty damned good thing by supporting the people who sell their work on Etsy. I know a few of you know (and are!) some crafty people. Toss me some links in the comments and I’ll do a round up post later in the week.
Thing the second:
Going on a message board whingeing about how haaaaard it is to write does not buy you my sympathy.
Let me explain this a bit, after a few deep breaths.
(Before I begin: this is not directed at those of you who do write and have occasional bouts of words not wanting to behave on the page, or who sit down some days and find yourself not getting anything done and post about it. When that happens, do you come back the next day and write some more, or turn to a different project and work on that instead? Do you plow through the part that isn’t working and decide to fix it later, then work on other parts that do flow better for you? Also, when you put up a “writing is hard” post, chances are I’m going to learn something from you about your writing process, or will examine aspects of my own because of it. I’m talking about the people who throw down their pens and walk away from all writing, forever, or who never pick up said pens in the first place. Okay? Okay.)
On a board I frequent, a couple of posters have a habit of tossing up all sorts of “tell me what I should write” topics. They fish around for compliments on their ideas, looking for people to say “Oh my yes, you’re a genius! Please write it so I can read it!”
And then they don’t do anything. They’ll post a few days later wondering about whether they should take a class, or go to a workshop, or do all sorts of things related to writing except actually writing.
Yes, writing is hard. Telling a good story is hard. It’s work. Writers don’t just sit down in their chairs and get up a few hours later with books that are ready for publication. You write a draft. It takes time. It takes effort. When it’s done, you clean it up. Rinse-repeat until it’s ready, then you do the work to send it out and see if anyone wants to buy it.
And yet, there always seems to be a contingent of people who don’t want to actually, you know, write. They shout to the world that they’re thinking about writing, then spend their time lamenting the fact that they haven’t written anything.
My mouth, it is covered in froth.
It’s insulting to the people who spend their time actually writing. Digging at it a bit, I think I even understand why my blood starts to boil:
If I posted about how I was thinking of flying an airplane –but flying is hard and there’s so much to learn and what if I suck at it? But I really wanna do it, only I want to go right to the part where I take off and land smoothly every time. And that maybe I’d take lessons, I dunno, but flying is so haaaard — then a real pilot, who’s logged hundreds of hours in the air, and who paid his or her way through classes in aviation and actually, you know, did all that stuff, is going to laugh at me, then tell me if I want to fly I’d better get off my ass and work at it, otherwise I’m never getting into the cockpit.
Writers write. I wish I could remember which author I fangirl over said that, because it’s so very true. Writers write. Notice I’m not saying “Writers get published” or “Writers make scads of money.”
Writers write.
I’m not published. I’m hoping to be, yes, but it has yet to happen. I’m still a writer. Whether I’m a good one or not isn’t part of my argument right now, except to say this: all writing is practice. If I don’t keep writing, I’ll never get better at it. I’ll never figure out what works and what doesn’t with regards to pacing and plot and character, and how to make my stories better once they’re finished.
Writers write.
I’m not going to walk into a pilot’s lounge and complain about the hard day I had wishing I knew how to fly with the people who actually do know how. Likewise, don’t stand there bitching about how exhausted you are from the long day you had not writing.
Despite what the scam publishers would have you believe, writers support one another. We’re always looking out for new things to read, and will stand up and shout about ‘em when we love them. Likewise, when one of our own is having a rough time with a tangly bit of plot, we’re going to listen and help work it out if we can. Hell, see that first paragraph? Welcome to Marty’s Sunday morning gtalk spam from me.
It’s a big gorram clubhouse that we writers hang out in. Have you written something? Are you actively trying to write something by putting real words on paper or screen? Come on in! Apple juice and graham crackers are over on the table, help yourself.
But if you’re only here to whine that you don’t know where to start, and you have no intention of ever doing so, don’t be surprised when I dump my juice box over your head.
I walked from Park Street instead of South Station this morning. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have seen the memorial to Bob Wright in the window of the Park Street Church.
I never had a conversation with him, outside of exchanging waves in the mornings or afternoons as I rushed to and from the train, but seeing him there on the corner with his signs and his welcoming smile never failed to pull me out of a sour mood after a bad commute.
There’s a very sweet tribute to him here, from a blogger who did what I was always too shy to do: strike up a conversation with the man who wanted everyone to smile.
While I stood there, reading one of his essays that his friends had placed in the window, another woman came up beside me. We exchanged sighs instead of smiles and went on our separate ways.
There’s a memorial for him tomorrow at 12:15. I think I’ll be going.
So, there’s this new website, “The Society for Geek Advancement.” They made a video. How cute! In it, a smattering of geeky icons (Wil Wheaton, LeVar Burton, and Jonathan Coulton among them) proudly declare their love for geeky things alongside some people who… I don’t know. They’re pretty, and they use Twitter and Macs, so hey, they can be geeks too!
Are you wtfing at your screen, too?
Yeah. A bunch of people did. Wil Wheaton got a bunch of backlash for it, and mused a bit about how the project had morphed from what he’d originally understood it to be. It really does seem like some kind of marketing ploy. All through the video (I typed ad, originally, that’s how much it feels like one), I expected to see some sort of “GO BUY THIS NAO” at every new celebrity.
There is apparently a purpose to it, though it’s not all that evident on the site. The creator, Shira Lazar, wanted people to use social media for good causes and to make a difference. Proceeds from sales of “I Am A Geek” t-shirts go to Room to Read, which, hey, reading and education is an excellent choice, made even more awesome by the fundraiser they threw benefitting six girls.
However, it still seems to sneer a bit at things that are, traditionally, pretty geeky — Wheaton declares that he doesn’t speak Klingon. Someone else burbles proudly that they don’t play Dungeons & Dragons.
…wtf?
Now, in his defense, Wil says he meant the Klingon thing as inclusive, in a sense: “Geeks don’t have to speak Klingon.” Which, okay, I’ll give him. I’m guessing it’s one of those things where, the meaning of it was clear to him, but when it comes out in a two-second sound bite makes the ones who are fluent in Klingon boggle.
Bridget McGovern at Tor sums it up perfectly. Go read the whole article, but let me quote my favorite part:
One of the greatest strengths of geek culture is its remarkable inclusivity, its creativity, its ability to encompass and combine disparate ideas, modes of thoughts, and areas of interest without having to worry about keeping up appearances or maintaining the conventional status quo. To be so dismissive of traditionally maligned geek interests and so incredibly smug about our apparent technological superiority at the same time doesn’t celebrate geek culture—it’s just a cheap way of buying up some nice property in the mainstream, at the expense of the quirks, the playfulness, and the ability to be comfortable being different that is the essence of geekdom.
If there is one stereotype we should be moving away from, it’s the geekier-than-thou, Comic Book Guy-style sense of smirking superiority that only serves to alienate individuals from one another within and without the community. The creators of the SGA seem to think the best way to empower geeks is to ditch the nerdy comic books, hand the Guy an iPhone and a Twitter account, and make him over into an Ashton Kutcher clone, while retaining the obnoxious, supercilious attitude. This plan has the stink of a bad 80s movie all over it, and as someone who’s seen Can’t Buy Me Love more than a few times, let me tell you—it doesn’t work, my friends.
That. Right there.
I know it goes against the idea of geekery-as-inclusive when I want to shout “YOU ARE NOT A GEEK” at so many of the participants in that video. But I dunno, I get the sense that more than a few of them would be quick to sneer at con-goers, WoW players, tabletop roleplayers, and members of the SCA.
Hooray for you — you have a popular blog, you have a million followers on Twitter, you played Guitar Hero that one time and it didn’t totally suck. Sometimes you forward LOLcats to your friends, and you even went to see the new Star Trek/Spiderman/Terminator flick!
I’m all for geekery going mainstream. Hey, that means that more of the things I like might get the recognition they deserve! More sf/f books? More shows like Firefly,Lost and Fringe? Kings getting put back on the air? Hell. Fucking. Yes.
But if the idea is for sleek marketing people to redefine what makes a geek, make it hip and cool, pretty it up by taking away certain elements so the Cool Kids can still have people to snicker at, then count me the hell out.
Just got a whiff of something — someone’s hand cream, maybe, or a perfume, I’m not really sure, can’t quite identify what I’m smelling. Vaguely floral, maybe, I think.
Whatever it was, it sent me reeling back more than ten years, to the late spring/early summer days when I first started gaming, flipping through the pages of Mage: The Ascension (2nd edition 4-eva!), and trying to wrap my head around the rules of this incredible new world, the anticipation of what kind of character I’d play, who she’d be.**
I can’t even identify why that particular smell makes me flash back to it — maybe there was some kind of shampoo or lotion or soap I used to use, or… I dunno. Something, from the where and when of those days.
But yeah, I’m sitting here, on a February day suddenly feeling like it’s May or June, like I’m at my parents’ kitchen table trying to explain the whole concept of table top gaming to my mother, insisting that no, I’m not going to end up in a ditch in six months’ time, sacrificed to some dark D&D gods.
I’m cramming the concepts of avatar and sphere and gilgul and Tradition into my head, hoping I get the idea of quintessence right, and don’t fuck up so badly on my first night that I accrue enough paradox to be sent into Quiet.
Turns out, I didn’t need to worry about any of those things, really, though they were all important in different ways. Those first few sessions were vastly different than what I’d imagined they’d be, and thank god, really. If we’d started out by diving into a world filled with Tradition politics and intrigue, I’d have been in way over my head. Instead, we started small, just the PCs getting themselves in trouble, chased by the bad guys and getting away, getting into more trouble the next time, the world slowly expanding as I figured it out.
In later years, we’d get into the bigger picture — not just affected by Tradition politics but eventually affecting them ourselves, sometimes with those same characters, but mostly with others (though those original ones had cameos in other games, long after those first adventures were finished. We could never quite let them go).
Anyway, whoever it was that smelled all flowery has walked away. Scent’s gone, memory remains.
**And, to be honest, I look back at her concept and /facepalm a bit, amazed that the gents didn’t take one look at the character sheet and backstory and declare me unfit for their troupe. She had a lot of potential to be a Mary Sue. I think I managed to keep her from being one entirely, but eek.
Torteya has a post on songs you blow out your voice to, usually in the car. Rather than clutter up his comments with youtube links, I figured I’d treat you to some of mine.
Every now and then, work sends me somewhere within driving distance — a conference, a trade show, the occasional face-to-face sales call. I actually prefer these to the ones further away that require me to get on a plane. You’d never know it by how often I make Greg drive, but I actually don’t mind solo car trips. I take my time getting where I’m going, I bring music I love, and I just kind of… go.
Road trips with other people are all kinds of fun, too, don’t get me wrong. But in addition to singing until I’m hoarse, when I’m by myself I’ll also take a long stretch of highway to work out a scene in a story I’m writing. Yep, I’m the chick behind the wheel in the next car over talking to herself, working out beats in dialogue to make sure it doesn’t sound awkward or ring false. I do it in my head on the walk from work to the train station, too, but, well, you start talking to yourself out loud where others can hear you, even in Boston, you get funny looks.
But! The weird shit I do for writing is another post for another time. This one’s about the songs most likely to leave me voiceless when I get to my destination.
First, “Anna Begins.”
The song has this slow build, from low, stilted, and insistent to the higher, drawn out “her kindness bangs a gong/ it’s moving me along/ and Anna begins to fade away.” I’ve always, always loved this song, from my first listen of August and Everything After. There is only one Crows song that tops it, and that’ll be on this list, don’t you worry.
Funny thing about “Anna Begins.” The name makes it sound like an obvious choice for the playlist for one of my WoW characters, Annalea, but I didn’t think of it as an Anna-song for a long time. I do now, and finally caved and added it to her list. I’m still not sure if in-game events made it hers, or if it’s always been hers and has always informed the character and I’ve just been denying it.
Next. “Another Horsedreamer’s Blues.”
Something you might not know if you didn’t spend way too much time on Counting Crows message boards once upon a time (though this may be more common knowledge now, ten-plus years since Recovering the Satellites was released): there’s a kind of unofficial trilogy comprised of “Anna Begins,” “Another Horsedreamer’s Blues,” and “Margery.” I can’t seem to find “Margery” on youtube, so you’ll have to live with the lyrics for now. The version from Flying Demos is a weird cross of pop and country and not at all the version I’d want you to hear. For one thing, Adam’s voice is way too reedy in it. Should you go looking, find the version from Sleeping in a Perfect Blue from August of ’94. Or ask me.
Anyway, the connection is in “Margery,” here:
I looked up at Anna
She turned back to look at me
It’s best to kill the ones that matter
Render blind the ones who see
But oh, Margery
Takes the blade and walks away from me
Those lines give me chills every time.
I’d guess that a good part of my love for “Another Horsedreamer’s Blues” is, aside from wailing along with the ba-da, ba-da-da at the end, the song’s story refers to a play by one of my favorite playwrights — Sam Shepard’s “Geography of a Horsedreamer.” I’d love to see it onstage. There’s a man who can dream the outcomes of horse races, but (and it’s been years since I’ve read it, so forgive any inaccuracy in the summary) the bookie? mob boss? he’s been working for has pretty much drained him of any joy he took from it, keeping him locked in a room and demanding the dreams all the time. By the time the play starts, he can barely even dream about the horses; the best he can do is predict the dog races.
Time to dig that off of my bookshelf and add it to the reread pile.
Onward, then, to my all-time favorite Counting Crows song, forever and ever: “A Murder of One.”
There are at least six versions of this in my mp3 folder, plus uncounted ones on bootlegs I have yet to rip. No two are quite the same. The band tends to take out the “I’ve walked along these hillsides” lines in concert and add in any number of other things, all of which give the song a slightly different meaning. And there is not one of them I hate.
I do, however, have a favorite, and the only version of it I have is on a cassette tape that cuts off at the end of the song. My mom and I went to see them in October of 1999, and… oh my god.
If you listen, at about 4:38-4:39 mark, there’s this little riff. Three notes you might not even really pay all that much attention to. I don’t have my guitar available, and I’m awful with picking things out by ear so far, so I couldn’t tell you the notes (Torteya, halp!), but they are, in most versions of the song, just a neat little thing going on in the background.
In the show we saw, they became so much more. From the lyrics to the Sordid Humor song, “Doris Day,” then softly, so softly, that little riff became melody. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry now. I’m sorry, sorry now.” Which, here you go, from 2007:
Five minutes in, they go into “Doris Day,” then the “I’m sorry,” but not with that same melody. Hell, I’ve never heard it the way they played it in 1999 ever again, not even in a bootleg of a show they put on two days after the one I saw. Most of the time the sorries are nearly screamed. But that one time, that tiny little bit of melody. Ohgodperfection.
If I ever manage to get that version off of the cassette and onto a CD, my vocal cords are doomed.
I haven’t forgotten the promised rant. Matter of fact, it’s about 3/4 done, sitting in draft form here. It’s been a busy couple of weeks, and today, rather than getting things done as I’d intended, my “maybe I’ll feel better if I lay down for a half-hour” turned into a four-hour nap with rotating kitty companions.
Good news is, I do feel mostly better. Bad news is, the day’s pretty much gone.
"There's this thing they have in French: l'esprit d'escalier. The spirit of the stairway. I don't think we have a word for it in English.
"It means, well, the clever things to say that you only think to yourself when you're on your way out.
"All the cool stuff you wish you'd said at the time."
Death: The Time of Your Life, Neil Gaiman
