Texty

It's been a dog's age since I regularly posted on LJ, but what with its scary new TOS, I figured it was a good idea to back it all up (something like 15 years' worth of posts!) to Dreamwidth. I may go try to back up my fanfic journal, too, though since I have all of that stuff in other forms elsewhere, it's not quite as necessary.

If you're just catching up with me: I'm still writing books, still raising my sweet little boy, still fanthinging and still raising political hell. For more up-to-date content, find me elsewhere:

Twitter (same handle): Mostly lots of political rageflailing with the occasional late-night navel gazing. This is probably the best place to find me unless I already know you personally.

Tumblr (same handle): Mostly fandom stuff. Vikings, Legends of SuperFlArrow, MCU, GoT and a few others.

FB (real name): Pics of my kid, personal-life chatter, and the occasional political rant.

WordPress (MediatedLife): Long-form posts about politics, culture, media, and other topics of current interest. Updated sporadically.

GoodReads (real name): I have an author account over there, though it's rarely updated.

Shutterfly (Stilled Life): Pics of my life. Primarily my kid, domestic life, and places I travel to.

Given that LJ, to my great dismay, is very nearly defunct, this will likely be the last year I post one of these here. Will copy it over to FB, and go from there next year. Seems sad to be letting go, after such a long (if occasionally dodgy) history on LJ, but since it's like a ghost town here, and community is what really drove it before, I think it's time. Fitting end to the year, I spose.

Onward to the life tally!

( Last Year I ... )

( This year, I will ... )

First off, what y'all really want: A crapload of pics of my kid. :)

And now, on to ( the wordy bits: )

The Niblet hasn't yet decided to show up on his own, but there's an induction scheduled for tomorrow morning, so within the next ~24 hours or so, he'll finally be in my arms. Whoa.

I have a zillion and one feelings about this, of course, but the biggest is just being overwhelmed: So much to do, so much to learn, so much to think about now that I'm going to be responsible for the health and happiness of a tiny, helpless person. There's a chance that person may have some special needs down the road, too, so I need to be prepared for that as well (and am, mostly.) The house is close to baby-ready, the car seat is installed, we have plenty of supplies, and a go bag ready to take to the hospital. It's all going as it should. I think I can do this.

But one thing that's become clear in this is that the bandwidth I'm going to have available for anything other than my kid is going to be very, very small indeed for the foreseeable future. Obviously, M's going to be helping out early on, and the housekeeping and stuff will be managed. I also have some good local friends who can help in a pinch, and if all else fails, we'll find a way to afford a nanny or au pair to help here and there. But mentally and emotionally, my days of devoting a lot of energy to things outside my family are pretty much done for now. I'm going to keep writing, of course, and hope to find a way to sing again sometime, but most everything else will have to go by the wayside.

To that end, I've realized that I need to shrink my monkeysphere. It's something I've been thinking about for a while anyway, as I've felt increasingly overstretched, but now it's a lot more critical that I be careful about lending emotional energy to others when I'll have so little of it available.

FSM knows I love social media and fandom and knowing people all over the world, but one drawback to that is that I simply can't really be capital-F friends with all 200+ people I "know" from various places. I see their lives go past here or on FB, Tumblr or Twitter, and my instinct is to care about what's happening to them. The reality is that I can't, at least not in anything other than a truly superficial and therefore unsatisfying way. After years of trying to keep up, it's backfired: I now don't spend nearly enough energy on the people I'm closest to because it's getting sucked away by people I barely know. It's not a slight to those acquaintances, mind. They're perfectly nice people. But in order for me to be a good friend--and to have good friends of my own--I'm going to need to prune some folks from my everyday life.

This is frustrating, of course. I know so many lovely people I'd like to get to know better, but I'm just one person, with about 70% of the energy of an average one. I can't really keep up now. Keeping up when my life necessarily must revolve around my kid just isn't going to happen. I'm not, of course, going to be one of those diaper-brained Mommy sorts who has no life at all outside of her kid, but when I do have to make choices between him or other things, well, it's a damned easy choice to make.

So if I unfriend or stop following or don't acknowledge or respond to posts much for a while, please understand that it's not personal. Anyone who's kept up with me for long knows if I have a problem with someone, they hear about it. So it's not that at all. I just have to do some judicious editing in order to give the most important people and things in my life the attention they require. I'll still be posting somewhat here and there, of course. Hell, folks are probably going to get sick of my blathering on about my kid. But I'll basically be in broadcast mode, rather than interactive mode, except for the people I'm closest to. I need to focus on quality over quantity for now.

And mostly, I need to focus on my son, whom I am absolutely dying to finally meet.

It seems like it's been ages, and it kinda has--I started writing it more than four years ago--but my first novel is finally up for sale! Amazon has it in print and Kindle editions, and it's also at most of their international sites. Nook version is planned, but won't be out for a few months, since Amazon has exclusive digital rights for the first 90 days. However, the Kindle version is DRM-free, so if you're up for downloading and converting, have at it. It's also on the Kindle Lending Library, if you're short on cash.

Back-cover blurb, for those not already familiar with the story:

Young Mirya Thunderstone, like all Dwarf women, has lived her entire life inside her people's mountain home. Frustrated by her confinement, she longs to take up her family's legendary axe, and follow in the footsteps of her late, war-hero brother. But when an accident strands her outside the mountain, she finds there's more to being a hero than wielding a weapon.

Joined by a playful otterkin couple, a deadly Elf warrior, a laid-back Native hunter and an outcast orc, Mirya must use both her axe and her wits to find the truth behind the war that claimed her brother's life.

This is a YA novel in intent, but I think older and younger folks might like it, too. In terms of kid-friendliness, it's probably on the high end of PG: Some violence--not terribly graphic, and the romance bits are very tame. It's possible the language and social/philosophical issues might be a bit dense for younger ones, however. Basically, if your kid can handle Narnia or Harry Potter, she can probably handle this.

This thing is definitely fantasy-trope-a-go-go, but it's not exactly a Tolkien clone (nor did I intend it as such; I was actually influenced more by the Wizard of Oz and Alan Dean Foster's Spellsinger series.) The setting is a fantastical/alt-history version of the Pacific Northwest, centering on Mt. Rainier, and the characters' cultures are loosely modeled on those of middle-ages Russia (Dwarves), Japan (Elves) and Salishan tribes. And of course there are gay and feminist characters and themes. Of course. ;)

I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about it, and if you enjoy it, please do leave a review at Amazon!

P.S.: Big up to foxipher for the gorgeous cover art. It's like she got inside my head and knew exactly what Mirya looked like. So happy with it. :)

Not quite as much as 2011, as I was so sick for so long. But here's 2012's approximate tally:

Legit:
Finishing Harper: 32,000
Polishing up Thunderstone: 10,000
Worlds Away (new novel): 86,500

Fic: (Two Primeval and one Leverage): 2,350

Legit blog: 24,500 (49 posts at an average of 500 words each)

"Serious" LJ and Tumblr posts: ? But probably about the same as the legit blog.

Total: About 166,000

Vids:
Primeval: Brighter than the Sun, Heroes
PNW: An alt-edit of the opening titles

Graphics:
Two new designs up at Zazzle, a couple of ARCadians logos/headers, plus a few random things on Tumblr.

Good thing: the second mammo went well. Radiologist says it's prolly just a cyst. They want me back in six months, but otherwise, no worries.

Not good thing: Sometime in the last few days, I developed some weird symptoms, the biggest of which is stiffness and horrid pain in my shoulders and upper arms. Urgent care had no idea what's wrong, and the prednisone and hydrocodone they put me on isn't really helping. I go in to my reg clinic tomorrow for more followup, blood draws, etc. Not sure what they're going to find, but urgent care suggested it might be rheumatological/autoimmune. I really hope that's not the case and it's just some weird virus, but I guess I'll know soon.

In the meantime, I'm only barely functional, with drugs, because moving my arms hurts so bad I want to cry and throw up. Typing this now is possible due to two hydrocodone and a rx-strength naproxen, and it still hurts.

I've been sick for so long now, and I just want my life back, but I have a feeling that's not going to happen.

Posted via m.livejournal.com.

Been a while since I've properly checked in on the State of Me here!

Recovering today from last night's terrific chorus-reunion party (and bless D for tidying up the disaster zone afterward.) Got to see most of my usual suspects, which was lovely, but also some folks I'd not seen in a while--and a couple I'd not yet met before! The point of the party was to sing through some of our old stuff, and that didn't happen quite so much, because we were all quite rusty on remembering any of it, but we had a lovely time reminiscing about the group and past concerts anyway. Thinking seriously of throwing another one of these next summer, and doing it up a bit more formally--picking music in advance, etc. I really do miss singing and performing, and as that other chorus didn't really give me what I wanted, I need to find another way to do that regularly. If I were feeling seriously ambitious, I'd make plans for a proper (small) show, but with the upcoming adoption stuff and the fact that many others also have time-stealing little ones, not sure if it would really work out. Still, coming together now and then to harmonize with beloved others is so hugely gratifying for me that I need to figure out some way to do so.

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One other thing that the party made clear: I can pretty much halt my usual late-year depression in its tracks by hosting some sort of social event. Yeah, it's a lot of work to put on, but reminding myself that there are other humans besides the ones with whom I share a house who (I assume) enjoy my company is a major boost. As I noted on Twitter the other day, I'm really not a going-out type, because I can't communicate properly in most crowded, public spaces (among other reasons), but that doesn't mean I'm anti-social. On the contrary, I adore (like-minded, compassionate) people, and that's a big part of why I spend so much time online--it helps me feel connected. Technically, I am still an introvert, and I do need a lot of quiet, non-people time (especially when I'm writing), but I need a lot more of in-person contact than I often get, and the longer I go between social events, the more I start hurting. So house parties with the people I like are a big thing for me. And I especially like hosting, because I like cooking for people, and our house is big enough for folks not to feel crowded. So, yeah. Feeling pretty good about how well things went last night. :)

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Of course, another reason they went well is that we were all in high spirits thanks to the election results. Nationally, of course, I'm quite pleased that we won't have someone who would appoint more Scalia clones to the SCOTUS, and who supports GLBT and reproductive rights, and also that we had so many great new women elected to the Senate. But we also had a banner year on a state level, too, with the passage of 74, among other triumphs. Not a toker, so I'm not necessarily excited about the pot legalization thing (though I voted for it) but I do hope it at least frees up law enforcement to pursue more-serious offenses.

Have posted more about this on my legit blog, so won't say too much here, but I will say that I am distinctly pleased that the tide seems to be turning, and people are voting more from a place of thoughtfulness, compassion and understanding than one of fear and superstition. And I dearly hope, though I'm not optimistic, that the results will finally get more folks to realize that human rights shouldn't be up for debate. Legitimate political disagreement can be had over nuances of economic and administrative policy (though I'd hope such debates come with the backing of established fact, instead of outdated philosophy), but any policy based largely in religious dogma or the belief that suffering and death are reasonable consequences of poverty or lapses in judgment shouldn't even be on the table. Both objectivism and Christian exceptionalism need to get the hell out of the political discourse, so the rest of us can finally hash out the rest of it like adults.

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Aside from politics and socializing, the majority of my recent time has been spent writing. I'm doing NaNoWriMo again this month, working on a prequel/book one for the project I did in August, and also spent much of the previous two months polishing up the other two. I'm pursuing traditional publishing for #2 (Harper) and also submitted it for a contest put on by a major publishing house. No clue how successful I'll be with that, but I did want to give it a go. For #1 (Thunderstone), I've decided to go ahead and self-publish, via Amazon's in-house service. Have enlisted the services of a cover artist and editor, and as soon as I have all that in place, I'll be posting it for sale.

I had originally been against the idea of self-pub, because it has some major drawbacks, most notably the perception, however much value it has, that self-pubbed works are notoriously crap. Also, having the support of a proper agent and publisher is a big deal, especially for larger distribution options. But then, I also realized that my stuff isn't quite mass-appeal enough for most agents or publishers to want to take a chance on it, especially in a tightening market. Getting my foot in the door that way is going to be a major uphill climb, and one I'm not sure I have the patience for. On the other hand, if I get this out there myself and get a decent following, that will go a long way to helping me get a proper deal, for it or other stuff. I retain full rights with this service anyway, so it's not like I'm screwing myself out of future traditional pub options. It may not sell more than a dozen copies, but it'll at least be out there for folks who might like the story, and that's what really matters.

So, yeah. Hoping to get this one live by early December, and will definitely be linking to it far and wide when it's ready (they also do print-on-demand, so folks still wanting analog editions can get those, too.) In the meantime, it's back to the keyboard for more work on #3/3.5.

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Other than that, it's just the usual around here: playing video games, watching TV and movies, doing fandom stuff and trying to keep the cats from destroying each other or the house. Definitely feeling the itch for more travel, and we might try to find a way to get to Hawaii soon, but beyond that, we're more or less content with the holding pattern we're in while we wait to get picked by birthparents. My ongoing existential angst and annoyance with rotten people notwithstanding, I think my fall is going pretty well. :)

We're in! Of course, it's nearly two months past when I thought it would happen, but we are, finally, in the adoption pool! We had a little conference call with our agency counselor to tie up a few other things, and she said we'd actually got in as of Monday--she'd just been out of office and hadn't got the info until late.

It's amazing how freeing this feels. We've spent nine months just getting this far, and even though a lot of that was waiting, it was anxious waiting: wanting to be sure we had all the paperwork right, and that they'd approve us, etc. There will be waiting now, of course--probably a year of it, at least--but we don't have to actually do anything until we get picked by birthparents, so it's a lot less stressful.

Actually, I take that back: we do have a couple of tasks ahead of us in the short term: getting together a pile of emergency baby gear, just in case we get a last-minute placement, and getting M (finally) snipped. But beyond that, we really don't need to do anything else but wait and hope that someone out there thinks we're awesome enough to raise their kid. We're somewhat restricted in what we can do during the wait--we need to keep any traveling within a short flight away from home--but beyond that, we can just go about our business, now.

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At the moment, of course, the majority of my business is working on novel revision and thinking a bit about what else I might want to write for the proper NaNo coming up in ~6 weeks. I finally completed an overhaul of Harper that I've been meaning to do, and I feel pretty good about that. Also got another beta reader lined up for that, and I'm interested to hear what she has to say about it, since she's very familiar with the market I'm aiming for.

The other one, the one I just finished, does need some major surgery. I ditched the first two (grossly infodump-heavy) chapters, but it didn't quite feel right. Three hours of banging my head at it last night, and I finally fixed it: Same scene, different PoV character. Made all the difference in the world. Will probably spend much of the next week going over the rest of it and expanding where needed. I know M and D want to read it soon, but it does need quite a lot of polish before I'll let that (beta) wordbaby out into the world.

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Other than the writing and the adoption stuff, though, I'm not doing anything special. Still mucking around with my container gardening. The tomato plants are scaring me with how huge they are, and I seem to actually be growing artichokes and Meyer lemons, which is kind of astonishing. I guess we've just had enough hot, sunny weather for them to grow. Not complaining! Also need to figure out bulb-planting stuff, since it's about that time. We don't have much of that already planted, and I always forget to do it in the fall, so I'm going to try to remedy that this time.

Amazed it's Seoptember already, though. Need to think about my plans for fall--the usual house parties, holiday stuff, of course. Also in a nesting mood, now, so there will be things like cleaning out freezers and general tidying, plus scheduling some regular house-maintenance services we need, like roof cleaning and such.

Or ... I may just spend what pre-parent, non-writing time I have left watching trashy TV shows, playing video games and doing dorky fan shit. :)

Still high on my success of last November, I decided to do the summer version of NaNoWriMo, and I conquered it! Got the first 50k done in 24 days, and now seeing how much closer I can get to finishing the story by the end of the month.

Assuming I do finish it--and I'm sure I will--this will be my third completed novel in the last two years (fourth, if you count the 120k-word fanfic novel) and to be honest: I'm gobsmacked that I've done this.

I'm sure many reading this won't be surprised. I'm ridiculously verbose, after all (an LJ post of less than 500 words is incredibly short), so banging out ~300,000 words of fiction theoretically doesn't seem like much. However, most of that verbosity is in blog posts, commentary and other short-form nonfiction. Even my fanfic, until I started writing the series that eventually became a novel, was rarely more than 3,000 words each. I've been writing since I was a kid, and I've always had something to say, both in commentary and fiction, but I've never before had the stamina and focus to tell a long-form story. My ADD and tendency to get bored easily would always kick in, and I'd move on to something else before I'd got more than a couple of chapters in. There are probably as many words of unfinished stories sitting in various notebooks and hard drives as there are of the ones I've finished the last couple of years.

So what changed? How am I able to do this now when I wasn't before?

( When strangers ask me what I do, I tell them I'm a writer. Then they ask me if I'm published. Well ... )