Nattering

1. Christopher is coming home today. YAY. In case you were wondering about the grossness sweepstakes (I know you were, c'mon), the dead bird count is holding steady at three. The tragic bird Okies seem to have gotten their tiny plan together to not fall out of trees into the Dust Bowl and/or Emma the Dog has been unlucky instead of wrathful. Whatever the case, I say again: YAY. Now if I could only stop yawning. (I did reveal on twitter the secret head-tapping trick of wakefulness, provided by Barb at a Wiscon, I believe. It works. At least temporarily. You just tap your scalp with your fingertips and ignore the strange looks. *taptaptap*)

2. So, I didn't finish the draft of the gods book this week, but I managed a respectable 7,000 words. The lion's chunk of that was on Sunday, which is possibly the only time I've ever drafted a chapter in a day. The rest was pecking away. But this was a week filled with family medical issues and hospital trips and ambient stress and running le household solo and tres dead birds and such. I'll take it. Annnd I'm finally in the home stretch, aka the last 10K (I hope this isn't one of those false horizon endings…), so next week should do it. Resisting panic, since I'm really looking forward to digging into the 1.0 to 1.5 or (with any luck) 2.0 draft. For once, I actually have a list of pre-notes for that first pass of revision. Speaking of which…

3. Terri Windling had a typically great collection of quotes (and Tilly photos) this morning in a post titled "The courage to be bad," which says it all, doesn't it? I tumblred a piece of it, and I just saw Kat Howard has a nice process post inspired by it too, in which she talks about how we learn to let go of that idea of perfection in first drafts as we get better at revision. And, yes, what she said. I think one of the most freeing things for me about the First Draft now is that unlike when I started out and would sometimes hand this off to C or others unvarnished as soon as I finished*, I now know that the Real and True First Draft is for my eyes only. It makes the writing go much easier to know no one will ever see it quite so messy, except me. (Barring the bus crash that is one of my greatest writerly fear fantasies; to have left a first draft on the desk and get hit by a bus is only topped by the thought of a half-done revision and getting hit by a bus.) And not that this first revision will be the only one by any means, but hopefully it will be enough to enable the REAL revision that will inevitably be necessary. I think the bones of this draft are pretty solid (the outline more or less held), but it needs some facial restruction and skin grafts and emo therapy here and there. As always. Not that I'm not half-panicked during a draft the whole time, because, believe me, I AM. But I feel like I've also learned to let go of the idea of solving all the problems (especially smaller ones) during a first draft. I can take it on faith now that if I keep writing, those little alarms in the subconscious about reveals or the fuzzy parts of the ending or characters who aren't quite right yet will present solutions or at least that solutions will be able to be teased out of the completed draft (almost goes without saying that's with the help of writer friends, agent and editor, but always worth saying, of course). Not to say I never stop and actively come up with solutions, but I'm way more comfortable rolling with uncertainty now. Once it's complete I can be more efficient about problem-solving. Maybe. Anyway, something I noticed and decided to natter about. Clearly.

4. Remind me of all this when I start panicking during the revision about how it will never be any good and there's no way I'm equal to the task, what is wrong with me for even trying this, etc. etc., okay? (Seriously, this book has been hard for lots of reasons. Because it's big and epic and *hard*, natch, but also perhaps because I'm writing it while careening toward the release of my debut novel–more fun with ambient stress!–and my worry has been deep at times, but now I'm back to loving it, and I just want to finish so I can Make It The Best I Can. Hallelujah. Not a moment too soon.) Those feelings are a completely normal and unavoidable stage, too.

5. But enough process-o-mancy. Some things well worth reading elsewhere: "it's who you are at the core" by Justine Musk (HELL YES); "10 Things I Learned on Book Tour" by Austin Kleon (good stuff in here applicable to lots of situations, not just touring); "The Incredible Resilience of Books" by Peter Osnos (the sky is the sky and cannot fall); Shannon Messenger on figuring out how to deal with reviews and best interact with review(er)s online as a debut author (to which I can only say, yes, and always thank you to anyone who reads my book–I commented there too); and, finally, the Books That Shaped America exhibit at my beloved LOC (thoughts on the list?).

Have a great weekend, everybody. *mwah*

(*Finished as in typed The End, not as in really finished. The whole problem. And, okay, so I totally did this to Beth Revis and Laurel Snyder at our retreat earlier this year, but I had no choice. It was an extreme situation, and there was No Time. Sorry, guys! I sure hope I don't get hit by a bus before I get around to taking another pass at that one.)

Sometimes I need a weekend that's about putting things back into their boxes, about cleaning and prepping and, yes, organization. I think organization may be my superpower these days, or at least the only difference between feeling like things are under control and manageable or are off the rails and spinning into chaos. (Of course, my brand of organization likes to leave a little room for chaos. Things tend to get stale fast without it.)

This is a summer of writing, both for me and Christopher. I don't know about you, but whenever I'm entering a big push on a project or starting a new phase on one, I go on a cleaning jag. This weekend involved major league office tidying, as well as starting new scrivener files so I wouldn't have visual "clutter" in the ones I'm working in, and some major shelving of TBR stacks. Christopher kindly spent all day yesterday assembling two new bookshelves (the leftmost one below, and another just like it) and we managed to get almost everything off the piano in the front room, the office shelf that's supposed to be for research only, and the guest room floor. Oh, the guest room floor piles, aka my hostess shame.

But now the guest room is looking good. No more piles, see? Come, friends.

And despite all this busywork, I managed to get a good chunk of writing done on the projects I'm working on, one drafting and the other revising. I am hoping this pattern can hold for the next month or two. And I ran all the errands ever. Today started my getting back to early morning wake-up writing, at 6 a.m., which blessedly isn't pitch black at this time of year. Oh, sun, never leave.

Here's hoping you had a nice weekend, too.*

*We did not, however, manage to see The Avengers. And I still haven't seen The Hunger Games movie. Woe. WOE. Maybe next weekend.

Another International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, another fabulous time. I loved Jeff VanderMeer's post about the conference; what he says is true. I think part of what makes it so special is the size–fairly small, very relaxed alongside all the serious and academic conversations, and then there's just some indefinable magic that can't quite be quantified (but which is probably the cumulative effect of having so many amazing people in one place).

In many ways, for me, this year felt like a family reunion–it tends to feel like that every year, but especially this one. Christopher and I actually met at an ICFA just over 10 years ago, introduced by our common friend Kelly Link. Kelly was guest of honor this year (along with the delightful China Miéville). In fact, lots and lots of my friendships if they don't go back to ICFA directly, certainly deepened there. By far the highlight of this particular weekend was getting to see Ursula in action.

Anyway, silly pictures were taken, there was writing talk and gossip, there was me trying to show my cover art to people on my tiny phone screen, there were froofy drinks. I learned important lessons, like that Barb and Kelly will take advantage of my weak swimming with the borrowed water weapons of young girls. And we all–except Chris Cevasco, who already knew–discovered that first edition D&D had a quite detailed…prostitute class. EEP. (Seriously, you must look at the designations on the hilariously-named Harlot Encounter Table.) I stayed up until 3 Saturday night and still made it up for a breakfast at 8:30–I'm usually early to bed, late to rise, but there were just too many wonderful people to spend time with. In fact, as always, there were far too many people it was wonderful to see for any sort of comprehensive list.*

This was also the year we finally got a good look at the alligator, which entertained with some hair-raising growls during the banquet-refugee gathering on Saturday evening. Swamplandia = necessary ICFA reading, and not just for fun.

Other recommended reading: Fantasy Matters will be talking about the conference for the rest of the week. Check it out.

*I will say, however, that Charles Vess let me have a little peek at the graphic/novel hybrid he's working on and, wow, is that going to be *gorgeous* when it's done.

1. This is primarily a Friday Five about why I was MIA all week.

2. Vacations tend to have that effect, don't they? You get home, rested but with all the things you would have done during that time waiting, plus the new stuff of the week at hand. So lots of things. Deadlines swirling, massing, menacing. And I had two episodes of The Vampire Diaries to watch. A girl's got to have priorities.

3. And some of those priorities included line edits! Yay. I do love to edit. Now those are all done and Blackwood is off to be copyedited. I happily clink my glass with yours. And fabulous editor Amanda also sent cover art thoughts this week too, and let me tell you, I am excited. The concept is thematically perfect and I do believe it will be COOLMAZING.

4.  Also this week I've been working hard to nail down all the details of the synopsis for the second book of my contract. Synopses are hard, even if you have a handle on most of the book already (and had a massively helpful brainstorming session with lovely geniuses in Mexico). This book has a pretty seriously involved world, which I want to make sure the story lives up to. So…yes, hard. But it is beginning to fall in line, and once I finish figuring out the exact details of the ending, I think I'll have a good road map for the book. And then I will turn it in and see if we're all agreed. And then–fingers crossed–write like the wind if the wind could write.

5. All of which adds up to: I am taking tonight off. Oh, yes, I am. Couch, Bitterblue, television (Castle two-parter! Fringe!), and a glass of wine. Or two. Here I come.

Have a great weekend, everybody.