A Conversation With My Son This Morning

"Dad, why can't people litter?"

"Because it hurts animals and plants and messes up the environment."

"I want to litter."

"No, we have enough litter at home."

"Why?"

"Because you two don't clean up your messes and Mommy and Daddy work too much to handle it all."

"Why?"

"Because Mommy and Daddy both need to work to make money."

"Why?"

"Because the economy is a shambles."

"Why?"

"Because people don't vote right."

"Why?"

"Because civics lessons aren't focused on."

"Why?"

"So people won't know how to vote."

"Why?"

"So bad people can stay in power."

"Why?"

"Because there's a lot of money to be made."

"Why?"

"Because people don't vote right."

"Why?"

"Because civics lessons aren't focused on."

"Why?"

"So people won't know how to vote."

"Why?"

"So bad people can stay in power."

"Why?"

"Because there's a lot of money to be made."

"Why?"

"Because people don't vote right."

"Why?"

"Because civics lessons aren't focused on."

"Why?"

"So people won't know how to vote."

"Why?"

"So bad people can stay in power."

"Why?"

"Because there's a lot of money to be made."

"Why?"

"Because people don't vote right."

"Why?!"

"Because civics lessons aren't focused on!"

"Why?!"

"So people won't know how to vote!"

cackling, daughter joins in unison "Why?!"

"So bad people can stay in power!"

"Why?!"

"Because there's a lot of money to be made!"

more cackling "Why?!"

"Because people don't vote right!"

"Why?!"

And then, mercifully, the car trip ended.

-Dave

Damn You Santino Fontana

And damn you, too, Rachel Bloom, by extension. Because some day soon my son is going to ask me to play the Frozen soundtrack in the car again, and I'm going to slip this in and tell him it's the missing Anna and Hans song. And then my wife is going to slap me until we run off the road and go up in a giant ball of flame, all because of a cheerful song about urinary tract infections.

Think of the children, you two, for shit's sake.

Time To Write

If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that. - Stephen King

State of the Author, 2015:

I barely have time to read. I very barely have time to write.

I am starting to suspect that only barely having time to write, is worse than having no time to write.

("Oh God", says the reader, "he's going to whine that he doesn't have enough writing time." Bear with me, there are some good links coming up.)

I went into this year with no real resolutions, authorly or otherwise. But after doing my taxes I developed one, which is that this year I would finally make some money with my writing. Because I could really use some extra money.

(Technically I've already achieved my resolution: Black Library sent me my latest royalty statement for The Assassin's Dilemma, and with two sales this quarter I made a handy twenty-two cents. It doesn't matter that the company doesn't pay royalties until you hit twenty-five dollars or more, I celebrated.)

I've read some great motivational books on self-publishing, like Let's Get Digital: How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should and Write Short Kindle Books: A Self-Publishing Manifesto for Non-Fiction Authors; and I've read some not-so-motivational articles on self-publishing, like Confessions of a Failed Romance Novelist (which you can find through the somewhat better Confessions of an Irritable Romance Novelist). I've been seduced by royalty numbers and sales figures and the apparent success of even dinosaur erotica on Amazon.

And I like writing short fiction, damn it. I enjoy writing good twists and fast pacing. So, I figured, I would write some short works, put them up for sale, and see what happened. I certainly wasn't short on ideas. Even total failure would be a good learning experience, and maybe I could beat Beverly Bush at her own game.

And...

Nothing. Total mode lock. Not writer's block - this is coming out just fine - but I can't seem to even start anything.

When I get stuck I tend to read books on writing to un-stick myself. This time I sprung for 2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love by Rachel Aaron, which is only a freaking dollar and you have no excuse not to pick it up. No matter what your writing habits are, there are some solid tips there and I'm looking forward to trying them out.

I enjoyed the book, but I'm still not writing, still freezing up at the blank page, which pisses me off to no end because I know I'm better than this and I don't understand what the problem is. But I think I might be getting a handle on it.

I came across a post by Kameron Hurley, Life on 10,000 Words a Day: How I’m Hacking My Writing Process, which after "2k to 10k" seemed like a natural read. (And it's name-checked in the blog post!) And it was thought-provoking and interesting, but there was one passage that stuck out to me:

I heard author Catherynne Valente once compare falling into this immersive state while writing with falling asleep, and the metaphor was so apt that a little bell went off in my head, and I realized that I’d been trying to fit the act of writing into a work week designed to produce widgets, not prose. When you only have 90 minutes to lie down and take a nap, and the dog is barking, and people are opening and closing the doors, and the TV is on, and cars are driving by… you’re constantly popping in and out of that glorious place where you’re drifting off to sleep, and you really never reach the deep sleep you need to feel rested. Sure, you might get some “rest” but you haven’t really slept the way you would if you have five hours, eight hours, ten hours to nod off.

This is what trying to write in 90 minute chunks of time feels like for me. I know I have 90 minutes. I know it’s not going to be enough time to really get into what I’m doing. I know there will be distractions, and my brain won’t have the time it needs to slip into the sleepy-dream-hallucinating-I’m-in-another-world state that I need to crack out some effortless writing.

My writing time has been limited for awhile, but lately it's gotten significantly worse. I'm at work for nearly eleven hours a day, and when I get home my son demands most of my time until he goes to bed. (And he does whatever Daddy does, so if I open a notebook? He's scribbling in it five seconds later. Pull up a keyboard? dkla;ahgdls;a.) After that there's dishes, walking the dog, actually spending time alone with my wife... basically if I want a block of writing time during the week, it's going to start at 11 p.m. And my weekends and days off have been taken up by personal and family crises that obliterate any notion of writing.

I know about that dream-state Kameron and Catherynne are talking about. I've been there, I love it. And I know I'm not going to get there with the time I have available. And knowing that - knowing that any time I start to write, I could be forcibly and irrecoverably interrupted at any time - is turning into a crippling block for me.

For example: I tried to draft this post at 6:00 p.m., and my son scribbled all over himself with my pen, sat on my lap ripping Boogie Wipes out of their bag, demanded I read him the book with the shark puppet, and picked a fight with the dog, all within ten minutes. And then it was his bath time. I am writing this at 11:29 p.m. I am sitting in my office, scared that the clatter of my keyboard is going to wake my son up. He sleeps right above my office, and I've got superstitions about him. He'll wake up if I type too fast. He'll wake up if the dog barks. He'll wake up if I'm up after midnight. And he's stuffy and coughy tonight, which has me even more worried, because if he does wake up that's two hours of rocking and shushing him back to sleep.

Did I mention I have a second child arriving soon?

I'm going to keep writing, that's not in question. But doing it well, and doing it in a way that makes me happy... that's trickier. And I'm not sure how I'm going to work it anytime soon.

So. How are you all doing with time/space management? Any good reads on the subject you'd recommend? Here's one I enjoyed, to send you off with: A Shed Of One's Own, by Chuck Wendig. Who has a writing shed that isn't filled with lawn mower.

I'm not jealous.

Not one bit.

Fall

I love fall. Always have, probably always will. It's the time of year when some relief comes from the dog days of summer, when the air turns cool and a man can go for a walk without drowning in his own sweat. The grass is still green, but the leaves have burst into orange and yellow and red, and the sky tends to cloud up and you get breezes, breezes you don't get during the rest of the year. There is nothing better than a stiff breeze under a cloudy sky, when the air is charged with the potential of great change. You can go outside and stand on the edge of the world, close your eyes, and breathe deep.

The dog, naturally, doesn't share my appreciation of the edge, and would much rather hide indoors any time a bit of wind comes along. My son gets it, though, and wants to spend his time in the evenings outside, toddling around with a broom three times his size and making me catch him when he goes marching off the side of the deck. It's nice, when he's not testing gravity, to sit in a chair and "take it all in" with him.

And thank God for those quiet moments, because the rest of the world seems to be somewhere over the edge, about a hundred feet down and picking up speed. Everywhere you look there's some new form of madness taking root. I understand the need to keep informed, but I'm finding it harder and harder to cope with the deluge of fear and horror coming out of the news these days. 30 years of war, police brutality, innocent people imprisoned and men guilty as sin allowed to walk out of court free and wealthy... to quote Hunter S. Thompson, "How long, oh Lord, how long?"

I could go on, but it's late and I need sleep more than I need to ramble on about the state of the world. Suffice to say we're standing on the edge, all of us; and it's best we take our bearings before we step over. But before that, go jump in the leaves, give your family a hug, and take the time to breathe deep.

The Best Laid Plans

"No plan survives contact with the enemy." Alexander of Macedonia said that, right before he was killed by Ebola-laced elephants.

I propose a variant truth: "No plan survives contact with an infant."

I have determined, after incurring a brand new car bill, various medical expenses, repeated housing repair expenses, and numerous oversized grocery bills (not to mention how ridiculously expensive crabs are this year), that I would like to start making actual money with my writing. Which means writing for publication, in addition to endlessly tweaking the epic fantasy novel squatting in my brain meat.

In preparation, I've been reading Six Figure Freelancing, by Kelly James-Enger. It's a first edition copy, which means it's a bit dated (written in the days where the Internet was only a research tool and Word hadn't devoured every feature of word processing), but it still has some valuable insights on the level of persistence and organization a writer needs to freelance successfully.

I took the book to heart and declared that I would get organized. I set myself a goal for my first week, namely that I would take half an hour a night to sit and write without doing anything else. To hell with the dishes, laundry, and dog! I would set aside all my chores at 10 p.m. for a half an hour and just write.

I told my wife about my declaration, because that's how they work, and she did everything she could to help me cut down on my chores for the night, God bless her. All I had to do was put Ben to bed at his usual time, between 9 and 9:30, and I'd be set to get started.

So naturally Ben developed a mild cough and wet himself three times in a row, then refused to stay asleep when I put him in his crib, then passed out, then woke up again, then sucked down his third bottle of the night and drowsily threw himself upside-down in my lap in some non-Euclidean baby sleeping position that led to me half-lowering, half-plonking him into his crib, whereupon he tossed a bit before he gave up and passed out at the stroke of 10:30.

Now it's 10:45, and I'm finishing up this post to tell you, Dear Reader, that it is never wise to leave an infant out of your calculations, especially when he is sleeping on your chest.

Fifteen minutes to go. Onward! Upward! And stay asleep little buddy!

The Fever Dreams of Nurgle

I remember once, I think, I wanted to write something... but that thought is gone now, washed away in a tidal flood of snot and blood and sweat.

Nobody warns you when you have a kid that you are putting yourself at risk of getting every childhood disease known to man, again. Well, they may warn you, but they say "just wash him when he comes home from daycare and you'll be fine." Liars, all.

Daycare is not a place where loving people care for your child while you work to support him. Daycare is a festering plague pit where only the strong survive. I've been to the pediatric emergency room twice since Ben started daycare over fevers that turned out to be almost nothing, then he got pinkeye.

My wife has been sick for a solid month. She actually talks to people in that hellhole. Upper respiratory infection, bronchitis, strep throat, pinkeye, upper respiratory infection again... I've honestly lost track and I'm not sure either of us has an accurate tally. I escaped the reckoning for awhile, but I've been sick for a week now with something in my nose and throat and an ear infection that came from nowhere.

Neither of us has any paid leave left. I'm relying on a Higher Power to get me out of work to see my family on Christmas Eve. Possibly that power is meteorological.

We have three great-grandparents who haven't met Ben yet, and because we want him to continue to have those great-grandparents they won't meet him until everyone is healthy. Current estimates set that sometime in October. 2015.

Everyone got flu shots, the TDaP booster, and the other necessary illness prevention treatments, but they are helpless before the wrath of a strange toddler with pink eyes and grabby hands. (Still no autism, mind.)

And now Ben, who has been healthy since he got over the pinkeye, had his nose fill up with snot tonight and is warm. Not feverish, just warm. I suspect the cycle is about to start again...

Isn't he adorable? Wash your hands. Don't touch your eyes.

Zero Count, Worldbuilder's Disease and Flagging Morale

Dear God in Heaven this ain't good.

It also ain't accurate - my last blog post went up on the 14th, and I've jotted down some bad attempts since - but in terms of "words of like, fiction I've put down on paper" it's pretty much spot on.

Now, in my (pitiful, shameful, insufficient) defense, my wife and I did have a baby at the end of July and our schedules have been a teensy bit thrown off by, um, getting up at all hours of the night to feed the boy. And I've recently gone back to work, which means when I get home I get to take the baby for most of the evening to give my wife a break and then go to bed for not enough sleep before I get up to do it all over again.

So it's not all me being lazy. But I don't get to use that as an excuse to not write anything.

Let me introduce you to A Boy and His Demon. (Working title. I don't use nifty code names like Sarah Cawkwell.)

I started this book last year for NaNoWriMo and finished the first draft in... February? That sounds right. The idea is an epic fantasy series, ultimately, but starting with a fairly self-contained first book where an adventurous young boy tries to overthrow the undead king of his island home. The basic plot is in place

(just got stopped by a dog walk and a crying baby, feeding and diaper change)

and I've got a killer ending and I think the story's interesting, the villains are cool and the heroes have potential.

But nothing fucking works.

The island's geography is a mess, and that's screwing up all my timelines because Boy Hero has to go from one end to the other at least once. The villages operate under a system of law and government that amounts to "don't piss off the Lich". I'm not sure if the population is sustainable, especially with people getting killed and raised as zombie slave labor all the time. There are sentient animals that probably should have been hunted to extinction by now. Trade and travel are highly limited but every village has boats capable of reaching the mainland and I'm not sure how that works.

(now my wife's going to bed, so I'm on baby duty until his next feeding. at midnight)

(and now I'm back, after about four, maybe four and a half hours of sleep)

It gets even worse when I consider that I mean for this book to set up a trilogy. What's the back story on the Lord High Butcher and his horrific master, the Burning King? How much of the southern continent does the Empire of the Dead rule? Are there still independent kingdoms? Were there ever independent kingdoms? Either way, how did they interact with my island before and after all the shit hit the fan? What happened on the island during the worldwide demonic invasion? The War of the Three Sorceresses? The Godwar? Where are the gods and the demigods anyway?

There's a term for all this worrying and nitpicking, and it's Worldbuilder's Disease.

(transcribing notes jotted down at my day job while waiting for a meeting to start)

My real problem is that I'm not writing, but also that I started reading epic fantasies when I was beginning my second draft. J.R.R. Tolkien, Brandon Sanderson, Brent Weeks. These are guys who have mastered the epic form and demonstrated just how much work I have to do. But how do I know when it's too much? And how do I start revising when I have so many gaping holes - honking big plot-relevant holes - in my world?

(and back home after work, haircut, dinner, changing a poopy diaper)

The answer, of course, is that I don't, I have to fill in the damn holes or there's not much point to revising. But the sad truth is that worldbuilding feels like treading water to me. I know it's necessary, but it doesn't improve my word count and it doesn't help me fix my bland main character, and the longer I do it the more I think that I'm losing my ability to actually finish the draft.

Where was I? What is this?

(God help me Miley Cyrus)

And I am going to finish the draft no matter what, because I do not need another set of lunatic ghosts dancing around in my head. (Hi Constance, hi Shosanna, I'll get to you, shut up.)

(two loads of laundry hung and folded)

I am going to finish the draft. I am going to fill in that chart with words every day. I am going to build the world I need to build.

But, ah, if anyone has any tips on the worldbuilding thing? Post them in the comments. Thanks.

A Letter To My Son

Dear Benjamin,

We found out you were on your way the day after Thanksgiving. Your mom had been nauseous for a few days and finally took a pregnancy test. We'd been trying, in a "let's see what happens" kind of way, for two years, but it was pretty much a given that some fertility drugs would be in our future.

That morning I woke up to your mom saying "What?" as loud as she could. I walked to the bathroom and I already knew what I was going to see, and she showed me the positive test. Then she cried - just couldn't believe it - and I held her. Then I raced out to get four more tests just to be sure. I think by the time the doctor confirmed you were coming we had twenty positive tests sitting in a baggie.

We told your grandparents and your aunts at the holidays by showing them your first sonogram picture. Your mom got tackle-hugged twice and a few people got choked up. Everyone was just overjoyed.

You were kind of a big deal.

* * *

I think as far as pregnancies go you were a pretty easy one, right up until the end. I had to rub your mom's feet more than a few times, and she had to go on a special diet because you messed up her blood sugar, but there was never any terrible pain for your mom and no real danger to either of you.

Not that I didn't imagine a few. You've probably seen Star Wars by now if I'm doing my job right. Well, I understand where Anakin Skywalker was coming from now. When you're a dad you can imagine all sorts of horrible things happening to your wife and son and be scared of them, no matter how ridiculous they sound. Traffic accidents were very popular in my mind for awhile. I don't know what I would have done if your mom had still been working in D.C.

I think, maybe, I didn't quite believe it was real, even when your mom's belly got big and you were just a few weeks out and we were taking parenting classes and setting up a crib for you. I kept thinking something was going to happen and I'd never get to meet you.

But I did.

* * *

The doctors brought your mom and me into the hospital on Tuesday the night before you were born. They wanted to jump-start her labor before you got too big to handle or something else happened. They gave her drugs that bumped her contractions up from "that's happening" to "Oh my GOD OW" pretty quickly - I think the time between the drugs starting and the epidural starting was the worst.

Your grandparents came to visit us in the hospital, and while your mom was talking to your grandmom there was a little "pop" on the monitor, like you'd kicked it again, and your mom's water broke. That was around seven in the morning. After that the labor went very quickly, then stopped by four in the afternoon for no apparent reason. So the doctors asked your mom if she'd like to meet you early via Caesarian section and she said "yes", and a little over an hour later we were holding you for the first time.

I got pretty overwhelmed. Okay, I cried. You probably can't imagine your dad crying all that well, but it happened. It wasn't sad crying, it was "too many emotions hitting me at once" crying. The nurses measured you - 8 lbs, 9 oz, 21 inches long - and cleaned you up and got you dressed in a little white onesie and a pink and blue striped hat. You hated that hat, it never stayed on your head.

Your mom came in to meet you and then had to take a nap because she'd been through a lot. Then we took you up to a hospital room and you got to meet your grandparents and your Aunt Lauren. Everyone thought you were adorable.

* * *

We took you home as soon as we could and introduced you to Lina. She wasn't sure about you at first, but once she got a good sniff she accepted you. She still likes to bark when we take you out of your bassinet, but she'll get over it once you start dropping some food for her in a few months.

You've been a really good kid for this past first week. You're healthy, you eat well, and for the most part you're quiet or sleeping. Sometimes you get fussy when we don't feed you as much as you want, but I swear we're just trying to make sure you don't eat yourself sick. You love car rides and your stroller and your bouncy seat and looking out the window. You like to walk around in your dad's arms and curl up with your mom in the recliner.

I hope you get to read this one day and know how much we both love you. We waited a long time for you to turn up and we're glad you're here now.

Love,

Dad

Tears and the Telephone... The Recovery of A Thousand Dollars From Bob the Banker... Everything Takes an Hour in Texas...

The first I knew of the problem was when my wife slammed her hand on the desk and demanded my phone.

I'd just helped her pick out a new Dell computer to replace her Inspiron, which I was going to upgrade and use to replace my computer - a win all around. Then Sarah opened her email and found a message from her bank letting her know that they'd declined the charge, for her protection. Because my wife is a 1337 haXX0r who'd bought an apron and a desk earlier that day to test out the credit card she'd stolen from herself.

I handed Sarah her phone, in case they were checking numbers, and went off to heat up a frozen pizza for dinner. I'd been fighting our home wireless network all day, and after that evil bastard I had no desire to witness the coming conflagration.

I could hear the conversation getting more and more heated, and then "Dave!" Sarah saw me come in to the office and told the guy on the phone "You're going to have to talk to my husband, because I'm about to start yelling at you." Then she handed me the phone and burst into tears. "It's the Gremlin," she explained, and went looking for tissues.

I put the phone to my ear and heard... something. Bob (not his real name) had a thick accent, and there was static on the line. I could have handled one or the other, but the mix blended into a symphony of gibberish and I could only make one word of his out of ten. In return, I had to yell all of my answers and tried to keep them to three words or less.

I eventually deciphered that the bank had canceled the charge to prevent possible fraud, and Bob had been trying to make Sarah call Dell to resolve the problem, because the bank certainly wouldn't do it again. Finally Bob agreed to conference me into a call with Dell to have them put the charge through again.

Let me be abundantly clear: Bob the Banker was going to call Dell's support system with me.

We waited on hold together for ten minutes, during which Sarah came into the office for a hug. Finally we got through to Al, who took my order number and offered to transfer us to the department that could actually rerun the credit card. Then he hung up. This is Dell's standard practice, apparently.

Bob called Dell back. Another ten minutes on hold. Chris picked up and took my order number again, also my address, name and phone number. He transferred us to the Very Important Department, which we got to fifteen minutes later. Donna picked up the phone and said "Hello?"

I opened my mouth, and then Bob began yelling into the phone at the top of his lungs right over me. So I shut my mouth and let him go on, then I noticed that Donna was saying "Hello? Can you hear me?" I said "Hello!", but Donna had already hung up. I heard Bob mutter "Are you serious?", and by God I felt for the man at that point.

Bob gibbered at me in a futile attempt to get off the phone, but I had him conference us in to Dell again. This time we got Jose, who in defiance of every law of telecommunications was the easiest man to understand I got the entire evening. He put us through to the hold system for the next twenty minutes.

At this point I was an hour into the call and was getting a little loopy. Sarah had brought me the pizza and a drink, so at least I wasn't hungry, but the entire call was so absurd that I couldn't stop giggling.

Finally Ellen picked up and offered to run the charge again. I confirmed with Bob that yes, it would work this time, the charge was run, and everyone confirmed that it had gone through successfully this time.

Ellen hung up and Bob asked if he could do anything else for me, a question so jaw-droppingly stupid that I assume it was part of his script. I blanked, trying to decide if I should demand he raise Sarah's credit limit or lower her interest rate, when Sarah saw my expression and snatched the phone out of my hands to lay into Bob for a good five minutes.

And that should have been that, but like any good monster movie Bob came back for one last scare. I found an email in my inbox saying that Sarah's contact information had been changed, something I should not have gotten. Apparently Bob, out of confusion or pique, had swapped my wife's email address with my email address, something I had never given him. When I worked up the nerve to tell Sarah she immediately called the bank, and the first thing she got was an automated message asking her if she wanted to activate her new credit card?

I took Lina outside to run around in the back yard. Every man has his limits.

The Irene Retrospective

So I'm still alive! I'm sure you were all extremely worried.

Sarah and I took Hurricane Irene seriously from the get go: shopping for non-perishables, wrapping bungie cords around the Crepe myrtles in our backyard, that sort of thing. Our friends, Tara and Mike, took things a bit more seriously, because they live in Queen Anne's County and they had to deal with an evacuation order. So come Friday night my house was temporarily converted into a refugee shelter / hurricane party.

Despite the circumstances (read: a honking great hurricane bearing down on us), we had a great time hanging out together, and I heartily recommend getting together with friends if you know you're going to get hit with a big storm. Super Mario Bros. Wii filled a lot of time before the power went out: we actually were about 40 seconds from finishing off Bowser when the storm finally cut us off. There may have been a bit of screaming at that point (don't worry, we'll get him one day).

This is a marked dinosaur/dragon thing.

We should have known it was coming. Saturday was pretty much all rain and wind as soon as we woke up. We got through most of the day on our supplies (pancakes, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches), but we did end up ordering Chinese food from the local Joy Luck for dinner, maybe an hour before things started getting nasty. They were willing to deliver in heavy rain and winds with a massive storm incoming, and for that I salute them (and tipped well).

Irene took out our power around 8:30pm. We ended up playing a couple rounds of Uno (which I was stomped in unmercifully), followed by a team game of Trivial Pursuit (during which Sarah and I stomped our friends unmercifully). At one point Tara left the room for a moment, and when she came back in Lina jumped on her leg in greeting. Tara may have screamed, which may have caused Sarah to scream, which may have caused me to shout a bit when she dug her nails into my arm. I didn't see Lina chuckle, but I assume it happened.

The following morning was damage control, which mostly meant cutting up tree limbs that fell in our yard. Queen Anne's County lifted the evacuation early on, and Tara and Mike said their goodbyes once they got their power back. We figured we'd have our power restored similarly quickly.

Oh, how wrong we were...

As it turned out, Anne Arundel County was one of the hardest hit areas in Maryland in terms of power outages. Only Baltimore had more outages (the city, but the county came in third). Our local power company, BGE, had prepared for about 500,000 outages, but we ended up with close to 750,000 throughout the state. So even with a few advantages (i.e. living right off a major highway), it was 48 hours before we got our electricity back.

The details of the outage are inconsequential, to paraphrase Mike Myers. Suffice to say Sarah and I spent a lot of time reading, keeping our phones charged up enough to stay on the grid (which involved cannibalizing my laptop's power supply), trying to get Lina to stop barking at nothing, and plotting a takeover of our neighbor's generator.

A scenario we narrowly avoided.

I strongly recommend the Mighty Bright clip-on Kindle light if you need a good flashlight, by the way. It lasts for hours and hours, is bright enough to illuminate a room, and can clip into place if you want to read something.

We gave up on sitting in the dark early this afternoon, and visited my mom's house to recharge our batteries, both literal and metaphorical. Also to get out of the stifling heat of our house, which is what happens when you have no power in August. By this point Sarah was constantly tracking BGE's press releases, local blogs and her Facebook friends to figure out when we'd get our power back, and we'd half convinced ourselves that we'd be powerless until Saturday (BGE's worst-cast estimate for the county - and if anyone actually reaches that estimate, you have my deepest sympathies).

Fortunately reality trumped the ironically evil hand of Bad Luck, and the power kicked in just after Sarah went to bed. She sat up to try to figure out how the fan was running, and was treated to the sight of me dancing for joy in the bedroom.

I'm scared it looked like this.

So the power's back, the house is nice and cool again, and the dog finally seems willing to sleep with both eyes closed. All things considered, we got off very lightly. We spent a weekend with good friends and family, played a lot of cooperative games, and ate a ton of junk food. If I'd remembered to go get booze before Irene hit (and if the power hadn't gone out), I'd have rated it a 10/10.

The missing ingredient.

And happily, it doesn't seem like I missed anything major on the Internet while I was (mostly) offline. Oh, wait...

Fun Times Ahead

Before I get started, I want to put something on the record. This weekend my sister graduated from the University of Baltimore School of Law. Not only that, but she's already passed the Bar exam and, once she's taken the Oath, she'll be a full-fledged lawyer licensed to practice in the state of Maryland.

My little sister is all grown up, and she can get my ass out of prison if need be. I'm very proud of her.

At the end of this month I’m going to West Virginia for a few days on a fishing trip. My dad is a member of a hunt club that maintains a cabin up in The Mountains, and while I don’t hunt*, I do enjoy going along for some trout fishing and hiking.

*I spent four years on Annapolis High’s NJROTC Rifle Team, commanded it for two, and qualified for an Expert marksmanship medal, but I still don’t think my dad would trust me with a gun in the woods. Which is a moot point, because he bow hunts, and he is wise to do so. Rifle season in West Virginia always seems to end with a new batch of “thought he was a deer” stories.

If my memory serves, this will be the first time I’ve gone up to the cabin since my wife and I got married. She is not taking this as well as I would have hoped:

Wife: I just realized that it is super inconvenient for you to go to WVA the end of the month. I have a work function that I HAVE to be at... I won't even get to leave until...8? Maybe later? Who knows when I'll get home. The Corgi baby will be absolutely dying by the time I'm able to get home.

Me: That is inconvenient. Not extremely inconvenient, but inconvenient. We could always see about asking my mom or sister or someone to drop by and help the Bugbear out - it's not like I'll need my house key in West Virginia. No biggie.

Wife: Or you could just not leave me? *puppy eyes* The boogeyman will get me since you won't be there.

Me: I'll leave you a crowbar to deal with the boogeyman. He doesn't like that.

Wife: Bullshit. Boogeymen LOVE crowbars. Just one more tool that they can disembowel me with.

Me: Oh for... You have GOT to read the fucking Hogfather one of these days. Boogeymen? Not a big deal. A few quick whacks with a blunt instrument and they go running. If that doesn't work, throw a blanket on them and wipe them from existence.

Wife: In that person's world.

In the REAL world. The boogeyman rapes you and disembowels you with whatever is handy.

Also vampires. Vampires that enjoy sucking blood out of people's feet. One of those could get me!

Me: Nobody's getting at your feet when you're tucked in bed. The worst thing that's going to happen is that Lina sneaks upstairs and licks your hand again.

Wife: Lina just likes to look out for me and make sure I'm OK.

Me: I'm putting the whole boogeyman thing on the blog by the way.

I may have to build her a widow’s walk before I leave. That’s probably going to blow our security deposit straight to hell, but whatever I can do to make her feel better.

In the meantime, there’s writing to be done. I’m smack in the middle of Black Library’s open submissions window. Right now, I’m revising a pitch for a short story that I’m quite pleased with - the idea’s been percolating for awhile now, and with another week or two of polish I’ll be glad to send it out the door.

I’ve also been working on a novel pitch, but I’m starting to think that I’ll need to wait for the next window to submit it. I’m three drafts in, and I’ve got a handle on the characters, the world they’re operating in, and the general thrust of the plot. What I don’t have are all the little details that I’ll need to convince the Editor Gods that I can be trusted with 200+ pages to fill.

And, if I’m honest, I might be better served pitching a short story that includes some of the characters I’m working with and gives me a chance to show that, yes, I can write about genetically-enhanced killing machines in an interesting fashion. It certainly can’t hurt my chances.

Regardless, once July gets here and the window closes, I’m going to be switching over to my own stuff for awhile. I’ve had a book rattling around in my skull for two years now: one that I wrote a draft of, badly, for NaNoWriMo. I shelved that draft, but I’ve never been able to shake the concept. It’s stayed in my head, putting down roots and using my idle thoughts to germinate and sprout in new directions. I think by now, it might just be ready to bloom.

I might even be able to start posting word counts again.

Tales of the Sick Wife

Presented without comment:

Sarah:

Fever is what I've got. I'm scalding to the touch and instead of taking the DayQuil, I took this Tylenol Severe Head Congestion thing. That was supposed to be non-drowsy, but I'm pretty sure I just lost 25 minutes sleeping. I feel absolutely miserable, which is just great. absolutely great. I really should have just stayed home today. I will be staying home tomorrow though if I'm worse. And I really hope that I'm not. Because this just sucks. :-(

David:

Sorry to hear that. Not surprised, but sorry. :-( Not sure why you skipped the DayQuil for some unknown medication, but I hope one of them will help you. Give me a call if you get sent home - my major tasker for today is complete/in-progress, so if you hold out until say, noon I shouldn't have any trouble coming to get you. And yes if you still feel bad or worse tomorrow you do not get to go to work.

P.S. This is cute, but weird.

S:

that was cute and weird. never would have thought of that myself.

i didn't notice a difference at all when i took the unknown ones. except i'm really really tired now. i just want to curl up and sleep. this just sucks. i'm really sorry that i thought i could do this. i don't think i'm going to be sent home. i'm feeling that weird dizzy drugged up feeling now. where my legs are like jelly and forming coherent sentences is hard. i've got this stack of reservations here to finish that normally i would have had banged out by now. but i keep getting distracted.

5:45 for sure at the metro, in the unlikely event i'm sent home early, i'll give you a call. i just want to nap now, but it's no where near time for naps.

S:

oh snoogie. the continuing saga of the sick sari continues. .....wait....what? *sigh* i'm just going to leave that as i wrote it and let you see just how today is going.

i set a personal best for consecutive sneezes. 6. 6 painful, loud, rough sneezes in a row. i'm surprised i didn't dislodge any teeth. everyone has been telling me i need to go home. but...so much work to do. i think i'm setting myself up for a burnout. i am 99.9% sure that i will be staying home tomorrow. because this cannot be allowed to continue on.

also, eating lunch was so hard. hard to chew and breathe at the same time. felt like food was either going to fall out of my mouth, or i was going to choke on it like screaming girl from middle school (tragic tale of screaming and sandwiches...)

now...i just want to be home. i just want to be cuddled up with you. and i just want to sleep. i haven't taken any medicine this afternoon. i'm debating if i should take a dayquil or not. i think i might want to. then nyquil a little early tonight. i was ok for 30 minutes last night. plenty of time to brush, floss, lysterine, and pee before bed. i hope. it wasn't until i laid down that my legs truly felt funny. i am certain now that i have a fever. i wonder how high it is. we have a thermometer right? we should use that to figure it out when i get home.

i like gnomes. just thought i would remind you of that. i don't know why. but i did.

D:

This is so going on the blog later.

Barring the timely application of a panacea, Sarah will be staying home tomorrow.

And hopefully the dog will not disturb her too much.



--David

Author's Log

Wrote about 500 words for an upcoming blog post, which seems to be taking on more length than I expected. This has nothing at all to do with Kaley Cuoco.

Current Reading

Just finished rereading N., a short story by Stephen King. It seems like every time King takes a stab at Lovecraft he comes back with gold, and this story is no exception. It's currently being adapted into a comic by Marc Guggenheim and Alex Maleev, and the first issue does a great job of maintaining the creepy. DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE OCD.

I also just read a short story by Benjamin Rosenbaum in the latest Fantasy & Science Fiction. It's called "The Frog Comrade", and it's an amusing semi-Communist take on the Princess and the Frog fairy tale. No Disney here, just a very vocal frog and a few unexpected developments.