Silk & Shadows

Currently working on: Brooding
Mood: Broody

Last year, the grapes tried to come in the house.

XY bought me a couple gorgeous Interlachen grapes for my birthday three years ago, and last year, they really took off.  They ran up into the birch tree and across the porch.  They tangled in the yuccas and wrapped around the sun shades.  When they started scratching eerily at the front door on windy nights, we knew they had to move.

So this weekend, while they’re dormant for the winter, XY whacked them back and transplanted them to brand new holes on their very own trellis, where they can run this way ‘n’ that way without opposition.  XY also moved the fruit trees to accommodate the new grapes trellis.  One of the roses, a lilac, and a bunch of perennials had to go to make room for the fruit trees.  It was cold, wet, muddy work, and the front yard looks like a cemetery with its piles of dark earth and skeletal plants. 

Tonight, when we took Monster Girl the dog for her walk, we paused in the 5 o’clock, low cloud darkness to stare at the wreckage, and it was hard to believe spring will ever come.

 At some point in my writing, I always feel like that.

There always comes a time in my writing when the story is out of control.  Tendrils are choking the life out of anything nearby.  Too scraggly and unwieldy and ugly, my writing begins to creep me out.  The darkness descends.  The winter of our discontent, indeed.

This is my fallow season.  Since the cycles of my writing echo the seasons in my garden, I’ve learned to apply a few rules to both.

1. Just cut back the dead wood already.
I have roses that bloom through November.  At Thanksgiving, they still have buds forming.  But invariably, sometime in December we finally get a hard frost which kills the last blossoms.  The buds blacken and slump on their stems.  The surviving leaves give me (false) hope that I’ll get another glimpse of pink.  But no.  Really, there’s nothing to do but get out the clippers and whack everything back to sturdy greenery.  That first cut is the sharpest, but the harsher I am, the more lush and vigorous the blooms are the following year. 

2. Lay the ground work and run the guide wires now.
I read a garden book once that said you should always put your 50-cent peat pot in a five-dollar hole.  I get impatient (and cheap) and am sometimes tempted to skip ahead.  But there’s no rushing the prep work.  So now I start by honing the spade and invest time in reading craft books and taking workshops that can make me a sharper writer.  I dig a deep and rock-free hole of prewriting.  I string my story arc wire on securely concreted plotting posts.  And I turn my well-aged compost into a hot and steaming muck.

3. Nurture the seedling.
Good God, but a seedling is so small and pathetic.  With only two baby leaves, I can’t even tell the peppers from the potato, the carrots from the kohlrabi.  And knowing how long it will take before harvest, sometimes it seems so pointless.  But I have faith that if I put a tiny toilet paper roll anti-slug collar around them, if I spread the compost thick, and thin the weeds, if I water them regularly with my blood, sweat and tears (minus the cliche), in the end — The End — I will hold the fruits of my labor.

Sure, it’s a dream.  But it’s always easier to dream in the dark.

Do you have rituals for the dark and fallow months?  Or do you vegetate?

Currently working on: Destroying Book 3
Mood: Godzilla-y

As W-2s begin appearing in mailboxes around the country in preparation for tax season, this seems like a good time to dream about making my first million.

…

Okay, back to work.

I wanted to be a writer because I wanted to be rich and famous.  I know, I know, in retrospect, that was crazy.  But I write fiction, after all.  Unfortunately, not fantasy, so I can’t sustain the fame and fortune dream.  Sigh.

And I have such plans for that non-existent million.  A back deck where I can write in the summer…  A breakfast nook with a sliding glass door to that back deck where I can write in the fall, winter and spring and those parts of summer where it is too rainy to write on the back deck…  (I live in the Pacific NW where we must be realistic about our outdoor opportunities.  And water-resistant.)

The rest of the million would be eaten up in colored Post-Its and buckets of cookie dough.  My needs are fairly simple.

It would take several million to make my real writer dream come true.  I’ve long had a fantasy of an artist commune, a place where writers, musicians, painters, and dancers could come and live for free while they pursued their art, even for just a week.  I found this diary entry from January 2000 where the fantasy began:

I wish I had a true office where all I did was write.  An office with bookshelves and a big comfy desk with a big comfy chair that could recline so I could pull the keyboard over my lap and type in perfect style.  There would be a TV with awesome reception that would automatically record my shows and not turn on until my chapter was done.  Yes, my choices must be taken away from me.  Maybe I will start a writers’ colony where all choices are taken away from the writer.  They must churn out the requisite number of pages before they are fed, for example.  That would get the muse juices flowing, no doubt. 

Okay, so maybe it’s less a commune and more a prison.  At least I have an office now.  Still no chair, although now I have a pretty purple exercise ball to sit on, which is fun.  And the TV is almost dead, no great loss since they cancelled the only show I was watching.  (I’ll miss you, Dollhouse!  Joss, stop working with Fox!)  I still have hopes for the artist colony.  Someday…

Okay, so I can’t control the million dollars, but I am closing in on my other first million.  My first million words.

A million words is one of those numbers that gets bandied about among writerly types.  They say “Every writer has a million bad words in her, and she needs to get them out before she gets to the worthwhile words.”  I don’t know about that; I’m pretty sure I got way more than a million bad words in me.  I think it’s just because they’re writerly types and so they like the big, easy number.  I know I like it.  I recently added up my final draft words on the ten novels I’ve completed: 844,000.  If I throw in the three false starts, I’m at 924,000.  I’m not counting the really false starts where I only have a few chapters or just the working outline.  And I’m not counting how many times I had to rewrite those words to arrive at the final drafts.

By the end of this year, my word odometer will roll over.  It’ll be interesting to see what’s in me then.  Lots of cookie dough, no doubt.  Unless that crazy warden from the writers’ colony makes me do my words first.

So what does a million mean to you?

Currently working on: The race to The End
Mood: High on naturally induced painkillers

Last week, I talked about how at the end of the year, I like to look back and see what I learned (if anything).  So of course the start of the new year is a time to look forward.

Because I’m looking forward and see mostly a monstrous looming deadline, I was gonna totally cheat and review last year’s resolutions… maybe cut’n'paste since I never keep my New Year’s Resolutions anyway…  Imagine my horror when I scrolled back and realized I totally cheated last year and didn’t actually write down any resolutions at all!

Who’s in charge of these things?

So, okay, fine, this year, I resolved to make real resolutions.  But I decided resolutions aren’t enough, since we all hear stories (I think I might have just mentioned one) about how nobody keeps their New Year’s Resolutions.  This year, each resolution (a “how”) is backed up by a goal (a “what”) and a dream (a “why”).  That way, whenever I’m tempted to not keep my resolution, I’ll be able to see what I was trying to accomplish and — more importantly — why.

Physical
Resolution: Add 10 minutes to my daily workout.  (Since my daily workout is currently zero if I don’t count the dog walks, this should be achievable, even for a slug like me.)
Goal: Stave off the cookie-induced metabolic collapse I’m told is in my near future.
Dream: Touch my toes with my head on my knees — Literally, I’ve had this dream, like, a half dozen times in the last two years, and I’ve never been able to bend completely in half like that.

First attempt: I’m typing this while sitting on an exercise ball.  My 1950s office chair (complete with cigarette burns!) is the antithesis of ergonomic, and I can’t splurge on a real chair right now.  I read that people stuck for long hours on computers can benefit from rolling around on a ball.  It’s definitely more fun than a chair. 

Career
Resolution: Increase my writing pace by 500 words every night by June; increase by another 500 words by this time nex year.
Goal: Write faster.  (This is my eternal goal; I should just say that now.)
Dream: Sneak a new book into my writing schedule.

First attempt: In the rush to The End of Book 3, I have to actually meet my old resolution on word count.  I figure that’s a place to start before stretching forward.

Emotional
Resolution: Say once nice thing about my achievements aloud every day week.
Goal: Transition my Eeyore mindset to a more Piglet philosophy.
Dream: Learn to assess my fears and wishes in alignment with the truth of the challenges that face me.

First attempt: I haven’t fallen off my balance ball.  Yet. 

I’m off to a great start!  Update coming next year!

Currently working on: Christmas madness, not to be confused with Christmas cheer
Mood: Cheerfully mad

Writers sometimes compare their books to babies.  People with actual babies may take offense because books don’t throw up on you.  But for the sake of analogy, writing a book and doing the baby thing are both creative endeavors with certain similarities: 

• Both take about nine months to finish.  (And often enough, starting a book isn’t something you plan either.)
• There’s a lot of crap at first.
• Eventually, you have to let go and set the book/baby free.
• Nobody ever tells you to your face that your baby is ugly.

I’m not sure why this is, because there are plenty of ugly babies in the world.  And some really awful book covers too.  But among all the many munchkins and manuscripts I’ve seen unleashed upon the unsuspecting public, I’ve never heard anybody tell the author, “Ooh, that’s unfortunate.”

Sure, entire websites are devoted to snarking on covers — and more than one water-cooler conversation has revolved around Junior’s elephantine ears — but the author/momma is never present.  Well, maybe there’s a good reason for this.  And I suspect the reason has less to do with compassion than selfish concern about the potential reaction of the hormonally unbalanced.  (And if you think an author at The End isn’t unbalanced, you should watch me stagger away from my computer after the last chapter marathon.)

But maybe I’m being cynical.  Maybe people don’t laugh aloud in front of the proud author/mama because:

• It’s just rude.
• The author/momma probably didn’t have any real say in what the book/baby looks like.  Sure, you can choose a reasonably attractive mate in the hope that genetic roulette will be weighted in your favor, but mostly it’s God — or as we call them in the technical world of publishing, the Cover Gods — who chooses.
• What really matters is what’s inside.

Honestly, I know I don’t have the emotional distance needed to make decisions about cover art.  For example, because SEDUCED BY SHADOWS is set in Chicago in November, I suggested that my hero, Archer, was smart enough to wear a hat and scarf against the cruel winds.

Yeah, that obviously was a stupid idea.

And I confess, I once bought a book simply because the guy on the cover was smokin’.  A good hero brings his own heat to the Chicago night

How about you?  Ever judged — and bought — a book by its cover?

Releasing a book is a strangely conflicting experience—or at least it was for me.

On one hand, it’s the fulfillment of a dream. The story you poured your heart and soul into for untold months is officially on store shelves, available for one and all to read. You run to the local bookstore and take pictures. You blog and twitter and email to share your happiness. You accept congratulations from family, friends, and peers. You celebrate (in my case, my sister had me over for a middle-of-the-week feast that included champagne).

Drawn into Darkness in store

But on the other hand, you also wake up to find all the build-up, all the tension, and all the fearful anticipation are suddenly over. This book is complete. It’s done. Yes, there’s still more marketing to do in order to get it the attention it so richly deserves, but all the really hard work has been done. As my colleague Kathryn Smith said, it’s a little like Christmas morning after all the presents have been unwrapped. The gifts are still wicked awesome, but the edge of anticipation is gone.

I floated on a terrific high most of my release day, beaming at strangers, telling people I met in the dog park that I was an author, and signing my books at the bookstore with a shaky hand. But I also had a contract in place for a second book, and by the time Drawn into Darkness hit the streets, I was already deeply entrenched in the second story and jotting down notes about the next.

My First Book Award from ORWA

Lachlan and Rachel will forever hold a special place in my heart because they were the heroes of my first book. And I’m keeping a copy of Drawn into Darkness in pristine condition, so I can easily look back and relive the excitement. But I’m looking forward to the day Brian and Lena take center stage, too.

I wonder if the next release day will be as surreal as this one was?

Currently working on: Racing deadlines
(Have you looked at a calendar lately?!)
Mood: Arriba, arriba!

Congratulations to fellow Silk And Shadows author Sharon Ashwood on the release of SCORCHED tomorrow!  Happy almost-Release Day, Sharon!

The writing life might be mostly (okay, by percentages, pretty much only) hours at a computer – just writer and words and weird, echoy voices in your head — but there are a few highlights, and the release of a new book is definitely one of them.  It’s been two whole months since my first book came out, and I’m still having tons of fun with it.

For example, I just attended my first book club meeting with the Cheeky Pages Romance Book Club at Powells Books in Beaverton.  Kind of scary, since they were readers who’d actually read SEDUCED BY SHADOWS.  To ward off any potential scariness in the form of literary criticism, I bribed them with brought two cakes from His Bakery, arguably (and yes, I’m happy to argue this point with you if it means a taste-testing tour) one of the best bakeries in Portland.

(Pictured from left: Raspberry Revel in White and Chocolate Indulgence — Comfortably serves 18 romance-reading ladies with enough left over for XY and breakfast. I can also vouch for their chocolate chip cookies and breads.  Yum.)

Earlier this month, I also went to Chicago for a stock book signing tour.  Stock signing is a guerrilla book tour where the author hits as many bookstores as she can, signing the books in stock (hence “stock signing”) and putting a cute “Signed by author” sticker on the front.  Every copy of SEDUCED BY SHADOWS I could find in every Borders and Barnes & Noble and Anderson’s in the Chicagoland area now has my awkward scrawl plus a bookmark plus a custom @1 temporary tattoo (inside joke from the story). 

(Pictured: Jessa Slade, somewhat chilly author who needs another haircut, on the new bridge to the Art Institute of Chicago Modern Wing (don’t get me started on the “string of lightbulbs” installation) with Millenium Park in the background.)

If you happen to live in Chicago and manage to find a book that I didn’t tag, I’m sorry.  I did a terrible job Googlemapping the tour — hey, it was my first! — and might have missed a store or two.  Especially if it was located next to a creepy alley or other potential demon fighting location, since I took a bunch of notes while I was there and might have gotten distracted.  Just email me jessa@jessaslade.com and I’ll mail you the bookmark and tattoo plus a signed bookplate.

The best part of finally having a book out is forcing my entire family to read it.

(Pictured above: Entire family reading SEDUCED BY SHADOWS — with certain pages excised for a certain person under 4′ tall.  Note the crazy pyramid of books on the tabletop behind us.)

Favorite stories from my first release — so far:

• A co-worker of my dad’s sent him home with her copy for me to sign.  She attempted to give him the book in her office and he explained how he really, really wasn’t going to walk across the truckyard with Archer’s bare chest shining in the sun.  So the book came to me in plain, brown paper wrapping.  Archer as contraband!
• Walking into a random Chicago bookstore to sign stock, finding a random salesperson to let her know I wasn’t defacing their property — honestly – and her saying, “Jessa Slade?  I know you!”  Really?!
• My grandmother went to dinner at the retirement center the other night to find her fellow nonagenarians gleefully discussing “Page 100.”  Yes, my work here is done.

Have you ever attended a book signing or other author event?  What was your favorite part?  If — purely hypothetically — an author was going to bribe you with bring a cake, what flavor would you prefer and how many slices would ensure a six-star Amazon review?

Currently working on: Unpacking the car trunk after a four-day camping trip and unpacking my mental trunk after Book 2 revisions
Mood: Purging

A writer, like any other triathlete, does her best work when properly fueled. 

Perhaps I should first justify my supposition that a writer is like a triathlete since one might not automatically think that marathon chair sitting and staring into space qualifies as an Olympic event.  But if you look closer…  There’s the wild flailing of idea generation, kind of like entering a vast lake where any direction is possible, but only one way will get you where you are going.  And then there is the grueling haul of the first draft, pedaling as fast as you can to get through it.  And finally there is the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other, no-power-but-you revisions culmimating in a full-out sprint to the deadline.

You see why carrot sticks alone won’t get you to The End.

I wish my list of writer’s snacks made suitable reading for dieticians.  But at least I’m not William Burroughs composing through a heroin/morphine/opioid daze.  (Tangent: Burroughs NAKED LUNCH is 50 this year!  And here nobody thought it’d live past its thirties.)  Hello, my name is Jessa and I’m a snacker.

As regular readers might remember, I should have a corporate sponsorship from the makers of my bucket o’ cookie dough.  The English Bay double chocolate batter comes in 8 lb. buckets that are precisely calculated to get me through exactly one month of writing.  Between pre-heating the toaster oven and baking the cookies for 13 1/2 minutes, I can time a 20-minute session at the keyboard and then eat cookies guilt-free before returning, sugar-powered, to my scene.

Which is not to say cookies are my only snack.  When I have time, I like to bake from the Cake Mix Doctor’s Cookbook. (For quick ‘n’ easy recipes, her blog is here.)  Yes, yes, I realize I haven’t fallen far from the bucket o’ cookie dough tree with box mix cupcakes, but srsly, yum.

(No dogs were injured in the eating of this chocolate. What? You thought I’d share?!)

Other emergency back-up snacks include the French Silk Pie from Village Inn (no other chocolate cream pie will do), Trader Joe’s chocolate-coated Dunkers, or — in a pinch — Reduced Fat Oreos (which sounds absolutely ridiculous — why reduce the fat in an Oreo? Because they stay crispier in milk, that’s why).

And that’s just for First Snack.

Because of the extreme sugar content of my snacking (amateur snackers should build up their endurance before attempting such feats) by 10:30 pm, I’m in desperate need of more fuel.  In the summer, my sweet XY brings a plate of watermelon, peaches or blueberries, depending on the season.  Not only is this more sugar (yay!) but it is fruity, fibery sugar which is self-righteous sugar.  The best kind.

By midnight, though, the sugar receptors in my brain have burned out and I still have more writing to do.  This is the time known in my household as Second Snack.  Second Snack demands salt.  But I am far less cultured about my salts.  I’ve tried gray French salt and pink Hawaiian salt and mostly they just taste like salt to me.  Any handful of pretzels will take me through that last hour.

The trouble, of course, comes when I’m really pushing for The End, 2 a.m. rolls around and I’m still at my computer.  What now?  Sugar is done.  Salty is over.  That leaves, what?  The umami taste (that’s the “fifth taste” culinary types say is induced by MSG in foods)?  Actually, carry-out Chinese at 2 a.m. sounds perfect, but would require living in a much larger city than where I am.  Instead, I usually just brush my teeth.  This is comparable to the triathlete veering off the nicely cordoned path headfirst into the cheering crowd.  Ooh, the agony of defeat.

But there’s another race tomorrow night.  And I’ll be pumped for that.

Although I write at a desk that’s in my living room, my working space is far more like a cave than an office. When I’m in full writing mode, my desk is piled high on either side with research books, notes, calendars, incoming mail that doesn’t need drastic attention, receipts I haven’t logged yet, snacks, snack wrappers, and a coffee mug. The only two things that remain perpetually clear and center are my monitor and keyboard. When I’m writing, the rest of the world falls into the shadows and the only thing that exists is the world I’m trying to create.

The cave analogy works for me. The light is always behind me (that’s where the big picture window is), I’ve got the professional tools I need, and I’m venturing into the great unknown with only a small flashlight of an idea on in my head. Writing is creative cave diving, so it makes sense that my writing area resembles a cavern.

Come to think of it, I even have a cave scene in my September release, Drawn into Darkness. Write what you know, as they say.

The only advantage I have over a real spelunker is the proximity of a coffee pot. Oh, and there’s no bats or bat droppings in my house. My family can groan all they want about my housekeeping skills, but even they would acknowledge I haven’t gone that far.

Here’s a pic of my actual workspace. I cleaned up the wrappers for you, but couldn’t quite summon the energy to tackle that little table under my color inkjet printer. That’s where I stuff paper, printing supplies, old research, and heck, just about everything I don’t look at until I need it. Stuff. Yup, that about sums it up.

As you can see, my office does not follow good feng shui guidelines. But it’s comfortable, inspiring, accessible, and close to the kitchen. I could always add a soothing little water fountain, I suppose. The dripping sounds would be suitably cave-like.

Which do you prefer–a neat, tidy desk or a busy, cluttered desk? If we took a picture of your workspace right this minute, which would it be?

Currently working on: Teaser prequel for SEDUCED BY SHADOWS
Mood: Ahead of myself

I am now contracted for four novels of the Marked Souls, so I am booked until 2011 and I’ll be writing like a fiend for most of that time.  Plus, the first book is coming out in October, and I’m get ready to knuckle down to the next two months of intense non-writing writing life stuff like promotions, book signings, and inventing new ways to avoid vacuuming.  So I’ve been thinking about whether my writing space serves me as well now that I’m a working writer.

I’ve posted this picture before, but let’s review.  Here is my office as it is today:

With the exception of the large mammal who isn’t me sitting at on the desk, overall this is a serviceable space.  It has all the key writerly pieces: A computer and a chair.  And Super Glue in the top front drawer.  Plus, it has a few extras: A cabinet to hold my junk, stacking cubbies to hold my more immediately necessary junk (dictionary, thesaurus, my writer’s altar, more Super Glue), inspirational art, and various writing buddies like my dog and geckos.

I know many writers crammed into closets and carving out chunks of the kitchen table every night who would be happy to have my space (with the possible exception of the dog) and so I am profoundly grateful to have it.

However…

I’m thinking I might need something more inspirational, considering all the pressure I’m under.  Maybe I need a satellite office.  Maybe somewhere warm and sunny…

Okay, maybe not.  The potential for distraction — not to mention a serious sunburn, always a consideration for the pasty, stuck-at-the-desk types – is too high.  And I need something with a little more discipline.  Maybe someplace like…

Right.  Those walls are kind of helpful, holding in all the good ideas, concentrating my concentration.  But there’s still something a little off about this set up…

Ah, there we go.  Now the walls are on the right side.  The perfect office for the working writer.

Except somebody left the door open…

How about you?  Whether you are a writer, a quilter, a mom, or whatever, do you need freedom or discipline to get your work done?  Does the view out your window inspire you or distract you?  Or is it all a matter of balance?

Currently working on: A mental breakdown
Mood: Ecstatic

I didn’t get as much writing done last night as I wanted to.  I blame summer.  Actually, I blame the cucumber-basil martinis, but those are definitely a taste of summer.

1. Pour crushed ice into a martini glass.  Set aside to chill.
2. Mix a teaspoon of sugar and a teaspoon of hot water into a syrup.
3. Chop a chunk of cucumber (about 3 inches, peeled and seed-free) into small cubes
4. In a shaker, crush the cucumber together with 2-3 torn basil leaves along with the syrup.
5. Add vodka, a tablespoon of fresh lime juice, and ice.
6. Shake well.
7. Empty the ice from the chilled martini glass. Garnish with a rim of sugar and a cucumber slice.
8. Strain the cuke-basil mixture into your glass.  Eat the cucumber slice and count it as a serving of vegetables.
9. Relax and savor summer.

Because it’s almost gone!!!  A few days ago, I overheard the phrase “late summer” referring to where we are in the calendar.

Late summer?!  But I don’t even have a tan yet.  Well, okay, I don’t tan, but I haven’t converted my full year’s supply of Vitamin D from sunlight.  Late summer?  Noooooo!

Long days, warm nights, gardening, hiking, camping, lazing…  All play havoc with my writing schedule.  If August is late summer in the Pacific Northwest, then July is the only summer we have.  Winter is November through May.  June we just ignore because it’s too embarrassing.  (I won’t go into September/October; those are a well-kept secret ’round here.)

Knowing the pleasures of summer are so fleeting makes indulging in them seem almost… necessary.  I eat too many blueberries.  I walk barefoot until my feet are permanently filthy.  I stay up too late and get up too early because the sun is out there and it’s calling my name.  Those are good memories to conjure against a dark and stormy Oregon afternoon.

Although I have to admit, I’m sort of looking forward to autumn this year.  Not only does my first book come out, but I’ll be working on Books 3 and 4 of the Marked Souls which sold last week to NAL Signet Eclipse!  Hence the breakdown mentioned in the status update above.  And now I think about it, that might also explain the martinis

What’s your definitive taste of summer?  It doesn’t have to be an actual taste.  Smells and sounds are good too.  In fact, anything sensual will do just fine.