I’m in the kitchen, getting my iced coffee. I hear a series of little thumps. Arthur hears it too and goes panicking.

Leland (sitting in the chair, tying his shoes): What?
Me: Oh, it’s you!
Leland: What?
Me: I heard a noise. A thumping.
Leland: …
Me: It could have been an intruder!
Leland: And who would want to break in here?
Me: I dunno! Someone who wants to… steal black cats with no fur on their tummy.
Leland: …
Me (gesturing to Merle, licking himself): I’ve posted pictures of him on the Internet…
Leland: *facepalm*

Taking a much-needed day off today. Last week was extremely productive, so this is a good thing. No comics, no copywriting, no marketing, no administrivia, no errands… just making stuff (probably beading), a little iced coffee and peach beer with Val, and my man.

Okay, okay! Maybe comics tomorrow.

Valerie started a-postin’ “Tattered Coat,” the next installment of SCHEHERAZADE! Here are some sample bits from the first two pages (clicking on each will take you to their respective posts):

….

Or you can just keep your eye on this page for the whole thing at once.

(New to SCHZDE? Start with the prelude, then continue on to read Zoe’s story about Marcos before checking out these new pages from Val.)

I have Yet More Comics Things to post, but I’ll save ‘em for the next day or so….

“Yes, Mother” with Sami Makkonen will appear in Negative Burn #13! Woo!

Here’s a fun promo image that Sami whipped up (click on it to see it a little bigger — hrm, I should look for a thumbnails plugin for Wordpress, eh?):

I love Sami’s art and am actually very proud of the story, so this is a “woot”s galore kind of situation all around.

OH! And yes, it will be up on Chemset. Steven is doing some housekeeping; I’ll post when we start going.

Just looked over some of my old reviews on Amazon.com and, wow… do I ever sound cranky in some of them. Well, except for the most recent, wherein I’m gushing. (So I gush about Vess! So sue me!)

Anyway. Leland and I have been off the grid in one form or another since last week — first out of town, next with heads down on the various and sundry projects (copywriting assignment and pitch for me, final approved first :01 script for him). But we did get to sneak out to last night’s reading at KGB, which featured an all-star line-up from the INTERFICTIONS anthology (that’s a link to their snazzy new blog). Rachel Pollack! Veronica Schanoes! Matthew Cheney! Ms. Valente! And a lovely young woman I’d never heard of before but am sure will hear much more from, K. Tempest Bradford. Afterwards we all went to Grand Schezuan on St. Mark’s, where we finally got to chat a bit for the first time with Ellen & Delia and Carol Scavella Burrell.

Whew.

Can I just say that the ladies of fantasy always have such great jewelry? Of course I would notice this.

Tonight there’s drinks with comics peeps at the Brooklyn Social, which I may or may not make it to, as tomorrow night is the pre-MoCCA kickoff at Rocketship and Saturday is my birthday. Wow! Just thinking about it exhausts me.

More later, including some comics pages. I need to go wash this Feria outta my hair now.

Leland found this a while ago. It came to mind again when we were listening to the Sopranos finale post-game analysis on NPR a few minutes ago.

Note: We don’t have HBO, so we didn’t see it.

A Message About Messages

Readers—kids and adults—ask me about the message of one story or another. I want to say to them, “Your question isn’t in the right language.”

As a fiction writer, I don’t speak message. I speak story. Sure, my story means something, but if you want to know what it means, you have to ask the question in terms appropriate to storytelling. Terms such as message are appropriate to expository writing, didactic writing, and sermons—different languages from fiction.

All right. So I’m pondering participating in the Blogathon this year. What do you think?

This is actually not a new idea. I’ve wanted to do it for at least three years running, inspired by Ms. Valente every year, but something ALWAYS gets in the way. Always. Story of my life.

Usually, we’re out of town. Apparently I already put it on the calendar this year, probably in an attempt to actually do it for once.

If I did it, I’d probably try to think of a theme or a story idea or something ahead of time. I would have to clear a couple of days of copywriting jobs and fictive riff-raff off the calendar for sure. And it would mean hitting you all up pledges. And oh ho ho, I will, my pretties.

I would probably do it on another blog to keep this place nice and neat.

Part of me is saying, “You’re a professional now! You don’t have time for this crap! Save it for your magnum opus!” and the other part of me is telling the first part not to take herself so dang seriously.

Anyways. Thoughts? More importantly, would any of you gentle readers toss a few bucks in the bucket? It’s for a(n as yet to be determined) good cause!

1. Unfinished projects everywhere
2. Finished projects everywhere
3. Stacks of books and piles of paper everywhere (Sandy’s house was like this when Bee and I would go over there, and he used to tell me that mine would look just like it someday, and I’d go, “nah” and he’d go “yeah really!” and look where we are now…)
4. Notebooks and index cards everywhere (I suppose this is a subset of #3)
5. Yarn

This year has been an adventure in organizing my time. Which is really an adventure in organizing my thoughts. Because the list is long and I add to it every single day, and I have yet to find “the system” for keeping track of it all. It’s unbelievably frustrating at times. Because, well, we know I can (and do) put my nose to el grindstone. It’s a favorite state, actually. But I just get so disrupted so easily.

It’s a process of elimination, really… I try on everyone’s systems and suggestions, I make the rounds at 43 Folders and DIY Planner and whatever… but still, simplicity eludes me.

I’m getting closer. Narrowing one’s sphere of influence, or maybe the fifedom, is key (Leland came up with the exact metaphor but I’m forgetting it now). I need to look in one direction, at a short list, on the day to day. But at the same time, I need to have the upcoming list well in hand, or at least safe in the butterfly net. And then there needs to be a place to stow the minute-to-minute mind commentary.

Six months ago, I was a huge Simpleology fan. “This is it!!” I thought. “This is perfect!!” Except for that part where I’m shuffling a squillion pieces of paper every minute. So we’re getting there, but still not quite right (I highly recommend that you check it out, though, if you struggle with this stuff).

The goal right now is to contain the day’s to-do list to ONE INDEX CARD. ONE. Not seven. ONE. And everything else gets squirreled under covers, close at hand but not close enough to bother me.

And there has to be SPACE to write everything down. That’s the problem with index cards. Love ‘em, but I’m freakin’ long-winded and a stack of short-term index cards does strange things to my brain (”look at me! look at me! look at all you’re not working on! look at all the crap you don’t want to forget!! look at all that’s here for you to dooooooooooooooooo!”).

And then I start to freak out.

So we’re trying a new system. A “three notebooks and one index card” system. Designed by and for yours truly.

Notebook 1: Goals. The Big Picture.
Notebook 2: Crap. Catch all. Butterfly net.
Notebook 3: Running list of next big (read: not administrivia) tasks in the queue. As in, these come after those (see below).
Index Card: Current day’s list. If I will not do it that day, it does NOT go on the card.

The notebooks that Chronicle gave away at BEA appear to be perfect for this whole enterprise (for books 2 and 3). Good thing I nabbed 5 of them.

A humble plea: please refrain from making well-intentioned suggestions as to how I can tweak the system. She’s just outta the womb, people. Like stories, me and my system are like feral kittens! We freak out easily!

Wow. I had no idea that I needed to get all that off my chest.

Holy smokes… has another week gone by? Apparently so. I’ve been over here trying to figure out how it is that my life seems to have not become in the least bit simpler since leaving my job. Meanwhile, everyone who knows me and has feet planted firmly in reality are smiling quietly to themselves.

Well, I’m smiling too, I have to admit. I’ve been never been more “relaxed and happy” (as Leland says) as I have these past few months, even with the whole “finding one’s footing” bit. Which is rather huge for me, as that out-of-control feeling is the one big thing that will upend me every time.

I had a post about Coney Island. We went out there last week for Dean’s birthday. It was still in draft mode until a second ago. I didn’t like it after all.

Can you believe that BEA was rather uneventful? Save for running into a couple of my favorite cool people, BEA was mostly uneventful. I missed picking up the one galley I really wanted to get, but that’s okay. Also? I suck at schmoozing. I just do. Note: “to schmooze” implies an event, such as an expo or a con, at which one schmoozes. Try me at some backyard BBQ with a lemonade in my hand. Or a party at a con. But I do not schmooze. I flirt. I am much better at flirting than schmoozing. Lean into it.

On that note, here are two thoughts that keep coming back to me:

1. You can get mad at your challenges, but why bother? Challenges exist. If you didn’t have these challenges, you’d have some other ones. Nature abhors a vacuum — they teach you that in witch school.

2. Time is going to pass, no matter what. So what are you going to do with yours?

In other news, my hair is finally short again. We could blame Val and we would not be wrong. It’s all good.