Dreading Mondays

Today is Monday. Mondays are usually about drudgery, about picking up the pieces of the jobs you abandoned on Friday, getting back into the flow of the task, aligning yourself with the corporate plan and getting at it. Getting on task. Working.

I've always said that I didn't want the kind of job that makes you look forward to Fridays, and dread Mondays. And yet, I have had precisely that job for the last... uh. Always. Almost fifteen years, I guess.

Last Wednesday, I tendered my resignation. I'm done with presort. I'm done with fundraising. I'm done with dreading Mondays.

This is my last full week here. I'll have next Monday, but that will be a short week, and I don't suspect there will be much for me to do. And then on Thursday morning I'll wake up, and my time will be my own. I'll have no excuse to make about how long I can devote to this project or that book. For the last nine years I've been writing nights and weekends, neglecting relationships that mean the world to me, not taking care of myself mentally, physically or spiritually. Grinding.

And at the end of the day, when I settle down in front of the book each night after a full day of work, exhausted, there's no way I'm writing as well as I could be. I'm certainly not performing up to my own standards. So now I have the chance to do that. I can write as well as I can, with no excuses, no filters, no buffers between me and the page.

Can I make it as a full time writer? We'll see. That question has been hanging over my head for years. As long as I had the day job, it wasn't a question I had to answer. I have to answer it now. I have to succeed now, or accept failure.

I'm not the kind of guy who accepts failure.

Overthinking the Public Face

Writing is kind of a private business, with very public results. I don't know if writers are just naturally introverts, or if it's something you become after years of toiling in silence and isolation, or if writing by its nature requires a kind of introversion and self-awareness to succeed. Maybe introversion is a selector for the writer's evolutionary process. I don't know.

But it's a private task. I write books in isolation. I cut myself off from my friends, my family, my wife... I go somewhere quiet and I labor inside my head, and then I force that labor out onto the page.

The point is, it's not something you do publicly. When I write it, I'm alone. When you read it, I'm not there, and I'm not really aware that you're doing it. There's a gap in the process, you understand.

Usually, when people go to work, they're doing their work publicly. Other people are aware of your task flow, they appreciate or denigrate your effort, and when you succeed there's some public awareness of that success. You can work hard, succeed publicly, and be appreciated. There's a certain amount of pleasure to be found in being good at what you do, and having other people aware of that, and being in the presence of their awareness.

That's all very convoluted, I know. What I'm trying to say is that this is why I love conventions. Usually, I'm a write alone in my basement, or at a coffee shop, or at my kitchen table. But at a convention, I'm publicly a writer. I sit on panels, I expound wisdom or idiocy, I gather with my fellow writers and editors and publishers, and I do the things that writers do. It's a rare privilege. And while it's not writing directly, it is the most public thing that writers do. It's the face we hand to the public.

Anyway. That's why I love conventions.

Sagittribot goes to Capricon

This weekend I'll be at Capricon, in Wheeling, Illinois. My schedule is below. Quite busy! And you'll notice I'm on three panels with Gene Wolfe. So. That's not intimidating AT ALL. But it should be great fun. I am determined to make it so.

Retro-futurism Sure Beats the Boring Truth! - Thursday, 02-09-2012 - 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm - Birch B
A celebration of looking backwards to look forwards. Steampunk, the Jetsons, and NASA all had cooler ideas about how the future looked than it really did. Why is our imagined future so much hipper than the one we live in?
Tim Akers
Kerri-Ellen Kelly
Nayad Monroe (M)
W. A. (Bill) Thomasson
Michael Z. Williamson

You Are Not Alone: Writers Groups and Critique - Thursday, 02-09-2012 - 9:00 pm to 10:30 pm - Birch A
Many SF/F writers, from Asimov to Tolkien, have belonged to writers groups or benefited from critique partners. How do these groups help an author hone her craft? Some members of writers' groups discuss their experiences.
Tim Akers
Eileen Maksym (M)
Nayad Monroe
Michael D. Thomas

Reading: Tim Akers - Friday, 02-10-2012 - 12:00 pm to 12:30 pm - River C (Cafe)

Tim Akers

Religion in Worldbuilding - Friday, 02-10-2012 - 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm - Botanic Garden A (Special Events - Programming)
Authors too frequently just change around the fixtures on a real world religion and insert it into their fantasy world. These writers will talk about how they go about creating original religions, and how the use of religion can drive worldbuilding and shape the story's narrative.
Tim Akers (M)
Alex Bledsoe
Phyllis Eisenstein
Nayad Monroe
Gene Wolfe

The Transition from Short Story to Novel - Saturday, 02-11-2012 - 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm - River AB (Programming - Media)
Though many might think these two mediums are very similar, not every writer can easily make the transition from one to the other. What are the pitfalls and what should the writer know before starting? Is it easier to do it in reverse and go from novel to short story? What’s similar and what’s different? Does it help to think of chapters as mini-stories? (Panel idea from Cat Rambo.)
Tim Akers (M)
Phyllis Eisenstein
Jody Lynn Nye
Gene Wolfe

Writing Is a Business - Saturday, 02-11-2012 - 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm - Botanic Garden A (Special Events - Programming)
As aspiring writers enter the field, they will do almost anything to become published. This attitude often can lead to others taking advantage of their work. These professionals will share advice about agents, contracts, retirement, and...gulp...taxes.
Tim Akers (M)
Richard Chwedyk
Matt Forbeck
Gene Wolfe

A conversation about Love

I've been hesitating to write this post, because it implies some sort of closure, and I think it's a while before I'll have closure on this. Also because I'm trying to make this blog less about my personal tragedy. But I've also come to realize that this journal is more for me than it is for you. It's more of a public record of me, of who I am, a reflection of my mental and emotional state at this moment. I've been going back and reading about myself.

Anyway. In case you don't know, or haven't figured it out, this is a post about my dog.

We got Phae a little over a year after we got married. It was probably too early for us to get a dog, but we wanted one, and the timing worked out really well. When we went to look at her, she and her brother were romping around, causing trouble, eating grass. She threw up in the car on the way home. I slept on the floor next to her crate that first night, so she wouldn't whine so much.

Phaedrus was always full of love. She was patient, she was gentle... frankly, she was the sweetest dog you would ever meet. We loved her every day of her life, and she tolerated that love, because it was her due.

I have a thousand stories, but I'm going to keep them to myself. Suffice it to say that she played hard, felt bad when she caused trouble, and loved to steal pizza out of the trash or off of an unattended plate. These last few years have been hard. Watching her decline hasn't been easy. But it was easier than this part.

She has been suffering from fluid on the lungs since Thanksgiving. Last Thursday night she was having some trouble with it, but no worse than she's had a dozen times since it started. I got her up and got her leash on for a little walk, since sometimes that helps. A year ago we were able to get her to walk down to the end of the block before her legs gave out. Recently it's just been around the house. That night I was able to get her to the front yard, but I had to carry her back inside. We propped her up so she could breath easier, got her a little water, and then went to bed. At 2:30, Jen checked on her. She was sleeping peacefully. Maybe even dreaming.

She never woke up. I found her the next morning, right where I had laid her down. Still. I can't tell you how empty she looked.

It's been a hard weekend for us. It's hard, right now, thinking about it. It's going to be difficult for quite a while. Every time I walk into the main room, I'm going to look at where she usually was, to see how she's doing. I'm going to hear things in the house, sounds, and think it's the dog settling down to sleep, or getting up for a drink, or just huffing in her dreams. The house is going to feel empty for quite a while.

We named her Phaedrus, after the character in the Socratic dialogues who starts the conversation on Love. She was, and is, true to that name.

She was a good dog, and I loved her. I miss her. I always will.

As stone sharpens stone

I was watching the last few games of the regular NFL season, and I was thinking about how strange it must be for those guys in irrelevant games. They have this moment, these three hours, and then their jobs are technically over for a few months. Maybe forever. And, as these things tend to work in my brain, that started a whole cascade of thoughts about professionalism, self-will and the writing life. I'll try to parse it all out here, if I can.

First of all, being a player in the NFL isn't really just a job, just like being a writer isn't really just a job. It's a lifestyle, and it's a lifestyle that you only attain through years and years of serious determination and full-time effort, layered on fat stacks of talent. Think about the process players go through to get to the NFL. They were probably the standout talent of their high school team, their coaches marked them as the best they had ever seen, because you have to be that good to get recruited by a real college. Then they need to be among the best at the collegiate level just to get noticed by NFL scouts, playing for a major team and putting up major numbers. And that might get them a high draft pick, and the kind of attention, coaching and patience that the high pressure world of professional football gives to valued players.

And then they have to perform. Because no amount of perceived value will replace actual value on the field. How many players go through all of that, land the good pick, the dream contract, and then wilt on the field? I'll tell you; most of them. Most play a few years, the coaches figure out they can't adjust to the accelerated pace of the professional game, and they wash out. They knock around in the smaller leagues, they do a turn in Canada, maybe they get another chance, maybe not. Maybe they end up installing drywall and dreaming.

And that's a lot like writing. Too many aspirant writers think that first book contract is the win. And it kind of is, for a day or a month or a year, but then you have to step up, suit up, and step onto that field. You have to perform.

Players in the NFL don't end their season on the last down. They may take a break, may get that surgery they've been putting off until this season is over, but then they start preparing for next season. They are where they are, succeeding at the level they're at, because they are finely honed monsters of determination.

Be that.

Advice for Writers. No. Seriously.

I first met my agent at World Fantasy in Madison, in 2005. Actually, that's not strictly true. When I initially decided that I wanted to be a writer, I also decided that I should go to some conventions, and the first con I went to was Worldcon in Toronto. That was 2003. And I went to a panel, the sort of panel that aspiring writers go to. I don't even remember what it was about. But Joshua was on that panel, and the things he said impressed me. I was making myself go around and talk to people, seeking advice for my budding (really, at that point still buried in the dirt and wondering which way the sun was) career. You know. The kind of this aspiring writers do. I approached a number of writers that weekend, but Joshua is the only agent I talked to. I think I asked him to extrapolate on something he said in the panel. Honestly, I don't remember. I remember being scared, and nervous, and hoping that he would at least talk to me. And he did. But I'm sure he doesn't remember that.

No, the first time I really, really talked to Joshua was in Madison. We met over a can of Sundrop at, I believe, the Tor Party. If you saw Joshua on Saturday night in San Diego at WFC, you might have heard this story, or at least part of it. And to be honest it wasn't a hugely complicated conversation, but it ended with him asking for a sample of what I was working on at the time. Like everyone else, I was working on a YA fantasy novel. And then over Christmas while I was visiting my in-laws, Joshua requested the full manuscript.

In February, he sent me a letter. Three pages, single spaced, typed. I actually carry that letter with me everywhere I go. It's on my desk right now. I keep it in my bag. If you asked to see it at WFC in San Diego, I could have showed it to you.

It's essentially a rejection, but not really. It points out, in grim detail, everything that's wrong with the book. There are some specific suggestions on what to fix, and some general suggestions on ways that I need to think differently about writing something like a novel. And then there's a great deal of encouragement.

Today I'm working on how to improve the new work. I think it's good, but I think it can be a great deal better. And after conversations with Joshua, I realized that I'm kind of slipping into some of the mistakes I made with that first book, and forgetting a lot of what I learned with the previous three. I sometimes look at the sales numbers for those books and wonder if the things I learned while writing them were good things, or bad things, but I'm coming to grips with it. So this morning I got to work and took out that letter, and left it on my desk. Because now, almost six years after the fact, it's still an insightful letter. There is still instruction, and still advice. And still encouragement.

This is why I'm careful with what I say to other writers, especially young ones. Because it can mean so much, for so many years. You can shape a career or ruin one. And I'm always grateful that so many of the people who have had contact with me over the years have all done so much to shape, in such constructive ways.

Ritual of Morning

There's a tangle of spray paint on the asphalt. Different colors; pink for this car, yellow for the truck. Red and blue and green. Lots of colors. The dashed lines describe velocities, trajectories, the paths they took through metal and broken glass as things went wrong. Badly wrong. Someone left their house yesterday and didn't come back. They did their morning things, their rituals. They got in the car and they took the same road they always take. They went to work. They never got there, and now there's this arcane diagram on the road trying to describe why.

I drive over it, over the lines that tell a story of a life ending in mundane and violent ways, and I continue on to work. Another day. One more day. Every day.