Writing
Work is going well on Mercy. I wonder why I procrastinate so much (every freaking day!) when, once I finally buckle down, I really enjoy working on it. I ARE MAH OWEN BIGGIST OBSTICKLE.

Having a problem with how to start it, too—not a fan of my original opening. So I’m working on scenes in random order, with the question of how to kick the story off not too far back in my mind. If a brilliant idea doesn’t pop up on its own, I’m thinking of writing a new opening every day for a week and see where that puts me. But not this week. This week I’m going to continue working on scenes randomly.

Cycling
I did 8 miles Saturday, 9.6 on Sunday, and today was supposed to be 12, but like a dufus I missed my turn-off and ended up with 13.5…which is pretty damn cool. Next Sunday you can bet I’ll be pedaling into the Ultimate Ice Cream parking lot for a milkshake.

And after not toppling over for a while, I toppled over today. Twice. Sigh.

Shows
We saw The Warlocks and The Black Angels at The Grey Eagle Friday night. Prior to the show I’d liked The Warlocks better, but The Black Angels won me over live. Their drummer, Stephanie Bailey, KICKS ASS, and I liked how they changed up who played what. They had a few problems—something was going on with the keyboard near us in the beginning, they seemed to have trouble finding room for themselves on the stage, and at one point during the encore Alex Maas’s guitar got unplugged—but none of it took away from the overall show. I’d see them again.

The Warlocks put on a good show, but I’m not sure I’d see them again. Maybe if they hadn’t opened with my favorite song (”Zombie Like Lovers“) (and it was really good) (but it was like coming right away, yet the intercourse goes on and on) (this is, of course, far more my problem than theirs)…. They also weren’t as compelling to watch, even with Bobby Hecksher’s kibby fits.

This was also our first time at The Grey Eagle. Not a bad place. The stage is maybe two feet high, no barrier. They’ve got a bar and a kitchen. No complaints about the sound. Mark’s going back to see Custard Pie on the 18th, when Jake and I go to The Orange Peel to see the “Local Metal Showcase II.”

I’ve forgotten to mention that when we had to exchange rental cars in New Jersey, I left my keys in the one we’d been driving. We called the Hertz office in Trenton as soon as we realized it, and the woman told us she’d mail the keys. However, it seems that she may have just lied to get us off the phone. Hopefully she didn’t just chuck the keys in the trash.

Yesterday I went to the Pontiac dealership to get a new key made using my VIN (because I only got one key with the car when I bought it), but the key they made doesn’t turn in either the locks or the ignition.

I am apparently never going to be able to drive my car again.

I guess I could turn it into a very expensive planter.

For weeds, because that’s the only thing I have enough ambition to grow.

Meanwhile, picked up the dogs from the boarding kennel yesterday, after the key thing. Jack was his usual self, but there was something wrong with Izzy. She just looked a little dazed at first, and I thought maybe getting home and getting some rest on a prime piece of bed real estate would sort her out, but by 3:30 in the morning, it was clear that there was something Serious going on. So I brought her to the vet, who put her on IV fluids and started bloodwork. When they called me after this, they said it looked like kidney failure. Cue tears (mine, not the vet’s). I okayed x-rays, and after a while they called back to tell me that her kidneys looked pretty normal on the x-ray, neither enlarged (as you’d expect with acute kidney failure) or undersized (as you’d expect with chronic kidney failure), and putting that together with the bloodwork (particularly the elevated potassium) and the fact that this all happened in conjunction with a stay at the kennel, and the fact that she’s trembling and walking funny, they’ve decided it’s maybe Addison’s instead, so I okayed the test for that and we’ll have the results in a day or two. Cue hand-wringing. I hope it is Addison’s, because while not curable it is treatable. Meanwhile they got her stabilized enough to be able to stay at the vet’s overnight (as opposed to having to be transported to the emergency vet hospital). I’ll call in the morning to see how she’s doing—hopefully even better yet! (Please don’t let it turn out that I made the wrong call on staying at the vet vs. going to the emergency hospital for the night. I just didn’t want to move her if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.)

I haven’t had a chance to get back to bike riding yet. I have to bring Mark to work tomorrow so I can go back to the dealership to try to get a working key, and so I’ll have the car if the vet says Izzy can come home, so probably no bike riding tomorrow either. I did look at my bike fondly…as I was bringing down a load of Izzy-puke-covered laundry.

I was planning to start in on the Mercy rewrites today, but no luck. I’m typing this while I make dinner, and I have a crapload of things to do after dinner. But tomorrow, I’m digging into it. (I did get it all set up in Scrivener last night, though, and rearranged the first draft so that the scenes were in order. And I made notes. Tomorrow. Definitely tomorrow. I shouldn’t have any puke to clean up off the carpets and stuff tomorrow….)

Karma must be exacting a little payment from me today. First I went down with my bike—again while not going anywhere. This time it was that my right foot didn’t clear the trunk bag as I dismounted. Why hello thar, driveway pavement!

This afternoon I was walking down the steps to the French Broad Co-Op’s back parking lot, thinking how pretty that little area is, a garden oasis between two parking lots, and bam—twisted my ankle. First word out of my mouth: “Fuck.” Next: “Ow. Ow.” Then, as I hopped around: “I’d better be able to ride tomorrow.” I think I’ll be okay. I’m more concerned about the heel of my right hand, which I apparently bruised on the driveway. It hurts most when I’m shifting in the car. Can’t wait to see how it feels on the handlebars in the morning. Meanwhile I’m alternating an ice pack between the two owies.

My plan for this morning was to buy Lewis Black tickets as soon as the public on-sale started at 9:00 and then bike down to the tailgate market for yummy fresh produce, but at 9:00 I realized that the on-sale was actually 10:00, leaving me with an hour to…do what with? It was enough time to ride to the market and back, but not enough time to browse all the yummy produce. If I waited till after the presale to ride, it’d be hot outside, and I’d be in a rush then, too, because we had plans for lunch. So I headed out around 9:10, went my usual route to the dead end, then came back and cruised past the mouth of our road, kept going past my previous turn-around spot, climbed a new hill, and came home. In all: 4.1 miles, and I was back in the house by 9:50.

We scored seats in the center orchestra pit for the Lewis Black show in Charlotte. Badass.

After I showered and drank breakfast (mmm banana peanut butter smoothies) and got some reading in, we met Neil for an early lunch at Nine Mile on Montford. The place just opened about a month ago. Jamaican food, tasty, and the meals are very reasonably priced, especially for lunch.

After that, we headed downtown to catch the kick-off of this year’s World Naked Bike Ride. Except it started pouring rain. We got soaked and missed seeing any bikers. We might have been there at the wrong time, too. The website I was going by said 1:00pm; others say 2:00pm.

(Incidentally, I got an email from my step-daughter, who’s interning at SCAD this week, with a link to info on the bike ride and one line: “don’t take dad.” Hahaha. Whoops.)

This afternoon, I finished reading Nancy Peacock’s A Broom of One’s Own (about writing and working as a housecleaner) and started in on Complete Book of Road Cycling Skills. Mark shook his head about that one. He figures once you get past getting the bike moving without falling over—something both of us licked years ago—the rest comes naturally. He could be right; I don’t, after all, have any plans to start racing. But it’s what I do: “Get into something; read up on it.” So there you go.

After my eyes tired of reading, I lubed my chain and adjusted the front shifter, which I’d been having to push waaaay to the right to shift. Should be better now. I wanted to level my saddle, too; its nose is pointing just a touch upward. No luck, though. I’m probably missing something stupendously simple. Something so simple they didn’t feel the need to put instructions for it in either the bike’s manual or my road bike maintenance book. I’ll mess with it again when my new saddle arrives (I took advantage of a sale and free shipping at Performance Bike this weekend to order a woman’s saddle—it’s a little wider where your sitbones go and has a bit of a cutout where your delicate bits go, which I think my delicate bits are going to appreciate).

Finally, I haven’t been writing, and I should have been writing, but I haven’t. I’ve figured out why, though, so tomorrow I’ll be back at it. The reason I’ve been avoiding working on the Rot rewrite is this: I keep thinking about it in terms of its ability to be commercially viable. Viable, schmiable. For now it’s more important that it be engaging to me. So I’ve tossed that pressure off and will dig in with renewed excitement tomorrow after my ride and before we go see The Happening. M. Night Shyamalan is one of my guilty pleasures.

Tonight it’s dinner with some other couples at La Paaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaz. I’m totally looking forward to the bacon-wrapped jumbo shrimp with coconut rice.

Which of course means they’ll have taken it off their menu.

The first draft of TOO DEAD is finished…and banished to a drawer until later this year. Tomorrow: back to the ROT rewrite (and coming up with a better name for that damned thing).

In the meantime…off to make burgers and crack open the celebratory wine.

Totally bringing TOO DEAD to an end this week. Five days? I can do it. One day to get them back to the mill with trouble hot on their heels, two days for the final showdown, one day for the resolution, and one day for the final touches on the ending and popping a bottle of wine to celebrate the end of the first draft.

What else to blog about today? I have some links sitting around in my “to blog” file, so here’s looking at those, kid:

Bookcase envy.

The coolest-sounding MMORPG ever (because I omg love the thought of a virtual world overlaid on the real one) that I’m not going to get to participate in anytime in the near future (more on that over the weekend, with photos maybe!).

And this video of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club doing “Spread Your Love” at a club—sound’s not great, but the video is the closest I’ve seen to the actual experience of being at a show. (My favorite bit happens around 2:30—that’s what I’m talking about!) Seventy-five days till I see them next (at a festival—so not the same as a small club, but I’ll take it. Plus I get to see NIN the same day. Dream come true y/y?).

Plus: 21 days till the new season of Weeds.

Anyone have any idea when we’re getting a new season of Big Love?

“You write because you go out and look for something and don’t find it. Somebody has to write it. Why not you?” - Kameron Hurley

I found those lines earlier this week and pasted them into a text editor with the intention of blogging about them, but I didn’t have anything more to say than ‘QFT!’, so I held off. (But QFT!)

I’m pushing to get TOO DEAD wrapped up by the end of the month. Half of me says “totally doable!” and the other half says “what planet are you living on?!” My characters are heading through the door that’ll take them to the final conflict. Eet ees coming!

I made good progress today, then had a lie down for a few minutes (even though I have a Beth Massie book I really want to get into; my eyes were too tired to tackle the small print¹).  While I was lying down I thought to myself—not for the first time—“this book is so unsalable.” And I thought what a shame it was, because I love the setup, the characters, their relationships and the ending. The middle, admittedly, has a lot of muddle in it. And the relationships…it’s not like anyone else (except Reesa) would find them attractive. Everyone’s dead, and not in that cool vampire or The Crow way.

These are not the kind of guys who could make you swoon…unless you have a weak stomach.

After a few minutes I was up and jotting down notes about the changes that’ll have to be made when I get to work on the second draft of this thing later this year—changes to tighten up the story and straighten out the muddled middle. And I think I’m going to have to cut one relationship out entirely. It’s not the end of the world—I got to enjoy the relationship in the first draft, the other relationships will be more poignant² for it, and readers will roll their eyes less—but it’s sad-making to admit it has to go.

…so it’s like what Kameron Hurley was saying. I’m writing it because I want to read it, and nobody else is writing it…so it’s gotta be me.

And I do love this story.

(It’s way too early in the game to decide this thing isn’t marketable anyway.)
¹ Is there a crazy high pollen count this weekend? In addition to the burny eyes, my stupid dry allergy cough has been irritating me since yesterday.
² Zombies can too be poignant!!!

June is coming up quick, and I need to be done with the first draft of TOO DEAD by then. I HAS OTHER PROJECKS YOU KNOW! So, an ultimatum: this book will wrap itself up by 120,000 words, and in aid of that I will glue my butt to the chair and churn out 1,850 words each day for the rest of this month. (I’ve already done today’s writing. Go me! I have a list of events that have to happen between now and the end, and I just tick them off as I finish them.)

On June 1st I can then shove TOO DEAD in a drawer for a while (not that I don’t love it, but we’re heading towards three months of immersion in it, you know?), and get serious again about ROT, so that I can get the rewrite of that done and get serious again about MERCY, which I’m dying to work on (but ROT comes first ’cause I’m going on a research trip for MERCY in late June—no writing on that till the research is done. I’ll be researching for this year’s NaNoWriMo novel, POSSESSION, at the same time. I’m excited about that one, too!).

Meanwhile on the graphic novel front: I’ve set a limit of eight “issues” on that as well, by which point the story has to manage to reach some sort of closure. I won’t get to everything I have in mind for it in just eight parts but I can revisit the storyline with a volume 2 down the road. (And a volume 3, volume 4….). (I should be set for Script Frenzy projects for the next three years.) So, that means I’m halfway done with that, too! Also: I’m not calling it GROWL anymore—that wasn’t working for me. Now it’s FRENZY. Issues 1 - 4 are titled, respectively, “Freak in the Night,” “Last Resort,” “Bloody Rockstars” and “Negative Chug.”

I was having the hardest time with TOO DEAD this past week—couldn’t focus, was deathly bored with everything, managed only the most lackluster word counts (and had a day or two where the word count was null). Today I finally worked out that I’d made a wrong turn—and where I’d made the wrong turn—so I noted that in the text, skipped a few lines and starting writing as if I hadn’t made that pointless foray THAT NEARLY KILLED MY STORY DEAD.

Then I pounded out 1,706 words in an hour. So nice to be enjoying the story again.

Now I’ve gotta try to get the graphic novel script page count done before midnight, so I can get some much needed freaking sleep.

Passed the 60K mark on Too Dead today. Still really enjoying working on this story!

I also made it to 40 pages on the (still ohmyfuckinggod untitled) graphic novel script, which I’m also really enjoying, though in a different way. I have no idea how long this thing is going to end up being, but I still have enough material in my head to keep it going to the 100 page mark and beyond. Eventually I’m going to have to figure out what the end of that story is, so I can start working toward it, but for now I’m good, I think. I’m not writing completely blindly; I have a direction. I have what I want to explore with it. I just need to follow it through to its logical conclusion. …whatever that is.

I do know (and have for some time) how Too Dead ends. And although I don’t think I’ll end up writing a sequel to it, I have (and have had for some time) one spooling in my head. What would most keep me from writing it (aside from the fact that I have other characters and stories I want to explore!¹) is that the first chunk of it is an ohmygodcrushingly depressing arc. I don’t know if I could stay motivated enough to face that on the computer screen day after day for a month. Daydreaming a story is a whole lot easier than writing it. (I, for one, am looking forward to the day that I can download movies straight from my head to YouTube and be done with this manual writing business once and for all. ;)) (Plus I haven’t actually gotten to the part of in the sequel where the oppressive mood starts to lift a little. (But it’s gotta, right? Eventually?)) Yeah, so, Too Dead is a lot of fun to write. Too Dead Two wouldn’t be….

¹Oh man, I remember 10, 15 years ago it was work coming up with an idea for a story. Hard work! To the point where it sucked to finish a story because it meant, shit, I needed to come up with another story idea! I want to go back in time to my younger self and yell “YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG.”

April starts tomorrow! What that means has just set into my brain—yikes! On top of it being a busy month at work, I am also: 1) not quite halfway through Too Dead, so writing will continue on that at a rate of 1,000+ words/day throughout the month, 2) going to six concerts, none of them local, and 3) doing Script Frenzy at a rate of 4+ pages a day (to make up for the days I may not have time to write because, hello! Six concerts!). (OMGYAY!)

(I don’t have a title for the Script Frenzy project yet, and it’s driving me nuts.)

Spent much of the afternoon researching for a clearer idea of the location much of Too Dead takes place in. The Internet is such a big help. Afterward, I went back and fixed up some bits in the last chapter based on what I’d found. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time on that, just pulled out stuff that didn’t fit and stuck some stuff in that did.

Also poked around at graphic novel/comic book script formats and possible titles for the Script Frenzy project. Which I’m not ready for. Can someone hold off April for a few more days? Danke!

I feel like a fair chunk of the day was also wasted. It wasn’t; it was time spent offloading a project onto someone else, which means one less thing on my plate, but it’s been time consuming, and I’m not yet finished.

Early today, I thought, “Hey, I could hit 40K today.” Then I watched an hour and a half of Gene Simmons Family Jewels, read for a while, checked email and Google Reader and all the other usual places, chatted online…. When I finally got around to writing, I got 2,143 words done, bringing me oh so close! 39,535. Then I had to stop and get ready to go out to dinner with some friends of ours.

But then! Then! After dinner and after we said our goodbyes, Mark and I brought our MacBooks to a local coffee shop, and I pounded out another 1,263 words, taking me very neatly past 40,000 words. (I totally love writing in public, by the way.)

AND I STILL LOVE MY STORY. (Which I’m calling Too Dead these days. We’ll see how long that sticks.)

To say that I am loving writing The Underneath, or whatever I’m calling it this week! I’m finally done with the beginning, and rather than finding myself going “Oh shit. Middle….” I’m happy to be here!

(Don’t rub my face in these words when I come crying to you about the middle later on, okay? Ta!)