Me

Take some prog rock and call me in the morning

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So okay, say you’re grumpy. So grumpy you could steam-clean the carpet with your eyes, but you won’t out of pure peevishness. So grumpy your skin turns green and your friends all call you The Incredible Sulk.

You’re grumping through the kitchen, making yourself a cup of (Nas) Tea (Mood), listening to “Firth of Fifth” again in the vain hope that it will cheer you up, when suddenly… it does. Not all the way, mind, but a little bit. Enough for a thought, like a ray of sunlight, to get through your cantankerous cloud cover.

It’s going to take more than one puny Genesis piece. You’re going to need a whole musical regimen, says the thought. Some kind of Prog Rock Grumpiness Cure.

And that makes you laugh. Laughing is Kryptonite to grumpiness. It’s the beginning of the end.

However, maybe you’re not ready to completely let go of the Vast Existential Mope just yet. Here’s some dismal Pink Floyd. Not dismal enough? They can do MORE DISMAL.

Tomorrow: what I listen to when I’m done feeling sorry for myself.

I (re)write the songs

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Those of you who are new to The Rachel Hartman Experience (with Rachel Hartman) will not have been exposed to this side of me yet, but it has to come out sometime: I am an incorrigible filker. Filker may not be exactly the right name for it; I’m not a member of the filking community, after all, and my subject matter (and source songs) aren’t genre-standard. But I don’t know what else to call what I do.

When my son was very small, I used to rewrite song lyrics as a way of turning my frustration into something more palatable. I came up with songs like “Psycho Toddler”, “I Want to Ride My Tricycle”, and “I Am the Man (of Constant Teething).” I don’t do it that often any more – certainly not about the boy – but every now and then I’ll still be struck by something. Usually when I’m driving and can’t write it down.

Anyway, REO Speedwagon’s “Roll with the Changes” came on the car radio today, and I suddenly realized that with just a little tweaking, it was all about novel revisions. Here’s the source song for those of you who aren’t time-travellers from the ’70s.

I need to add: this is written from an editor’s perspective. My editor is a fabulous human being, and he has never speculated about monkeys teaching me grammar. Any silliness in this song must pertain to those other editors at other publishing houses. I mean, obviously.

“Write Me Some Changes”

As soon as you are able, writer I am willing
To let you know your book could use some rewrites.
Notebook’s on the table, and the red ink’s spilling.
You’ve got plot-holes that ought to keep you up nights.

I get so tired of the same old story.
I think you need to cut some pages.
I will be here when you are ready,
To write me some changes — yeah!

I knew you couldn’t end it, knew you’d pull your punches,
I’m thinking that a monkey taught you grammar.
This trope, you can’t defend it. There are no free lunches.
Get right back in there with a saw and hammer.

I get so tired of the same old story.
I think you need to cut some pages.
I will be here when you are ready,
To write me some changes — yeah!

Keep on writin’
Keep on writin’
Oh, write me some changes
Keep on writin’
Keep on writin’
You got to, got to, got to write me some changes — got to! Got to!
(ad nausem, until awesome synthesizer solo. Yeah, baybeh!)

Addressing the elephant

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So if you Google “second book syndrome“, a friend pointed out to me on Monday, quite a number of hits come up. Apparently the second book, just by virtue of being second, presents challenges that the first did not.

Sometimes “second book syndrome” is going to refer to the middle book of a trilogy, of course. That’s a structure issue, in part, particular to trilogies. I’m not writing a trilogy. I’m just trying to write a sequel that doesn’t make everyone who read the first book say, “Gee, she had so much potential. I guess we were wrong.”

I don’t know whether this happens to everyone, but it’s happened to me and I’ve seen it happen to my son. You happily go on a carnival ride – a rollercoaster, say – not really knowing what you’re in for. You live through it, obviously. Even so, even though you now know for sure that it’s not going to kill you, you’re too scared to get back on it again. You’re MORE scared than before you ever went on it.

That’s a bit what writing the second book is like. I was too ignorant to be scared the first time around. I didn’t understand all there was to lose, or how painful the process could be.

There is also significant pressure that wasn’t there before. The pressure to write something as good as the first one. The pressure to get it done quickly so that your demanding readers (and I already have some! And I’m not sorry I do!) can be satisfied sooner. The pressure to not let everyone down — and “everyone” is so much bigger than it used to be! It used to be if I choked I let down myself, and maybe my sisters (including Josh) who were getting a chapter each month. Now everyone is a large publishing house, librarians, bookstore owners, readers… everyone is potentially EVERYONE. How scary is that?

I might even let myself down. Somehow even that is more daunting than it used to be.

So that’s the elephant I’ve been carrying on my marathon. But you know what? It is an entirely self-generated elephant. I really do have the option – now that I see it, now that I’ve identified it – of putting it down and stepping away.  I did  that this weekend, in fact, without really meaning to. I was exhausted. I said, “Bite me, book!” and I slept in, played D&D with friends, and generally ignored all of it for a while.

And as I was walking to the post office one afternoon, I had a… a vision. I don’t know what else to call it. But it was like the clouds (of my mind) parted and I saw the promised land (of my book) spread out before me. A golden thread wound through it all, holding everything together, and I realized that the book was possible. All right, I realize that sounds goofy, but I saw it for one shining moment and felt my faith restored.

Faith is an interesting thing. I am not a religious person, not by a long shot, but boy do I need to believe. For a glorious instant, I believed in this book. The vision evaporated, as they do, and the next day I was back to banging my head on the keyboard in frustration. But I know, from experience, that if I’ve seen it once, I will see it again and all the more clearly.

The book is possible. I am setting down the elephant. Everything is going to be okay.

In which Neil Gaiman makes me feel better about life

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I’m not sure why, but this essay cheered me up: All Books Have Genders. The last paragraph, in particular, is something I really needed to hear right now, as I bang my head against my keyboard and shout, “Why am I not better at this after all this time??”

I’m still learning to write this book. We’ve made some good progress, coming to understand each other a bit better, over the last few weeks, but then I have days like yesterday where I finally had to admit to myself that the scenes I was trying so heroically to save weren’t worth saving and that I needed to scrap them and fill the GAPING HOLE with something else instead.

If Neil Gaiman finds writing a convoluted process, then maybe it’s ok if I do too.

In other news: doggies make us feel better! Here’s mine.

AWWWW! That’s how she sleeps, sometimes, all folded up like an umbrella. I took her out to the dog park today and she was just so cheerful, despite the rain.

Maybe I can be, too. Back to work…

Filling the days differently

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This week I’m doing what my friend Jay Allen calls “Social Media Detox”, staying off of Facebook, Twitter, and (hardest for me) GoodReads.

I don’t know about you, but I find that if I’m not careful, social media can eat away much of my day. It’s easy and instantly gratifying and superficially more enjoyable than work of any kind. It’s like eating Cheetos: my mouth wants more, even if I’m not really hungry. Er. Not that I have ever spent an entire day eating Cheetos. It’s an analogy, though I confess I’m having trouble figuring out which part of social media equates to cheesy orange fingers.

My point is, I’m bad at just having a little. I’m bad at getting myself to metaphorically eat my veggies and exercise and brush my teeth when the alternative is Endless Metaphorical Cheetos.

Everything else is less passive and more difficult. I’m like a turtle sometimes; I draw my head in away from the world. Social media enables that in a particularly devious manner, giving me the illusion of engaging with the world. Look at all these people! I’m interacting with them! And yet I’m not. When I contrast how easy it is to engage with people on Facebook versus engaging with the humans right in front of me – or with my dirty kitchen, or my art – I see these things are not equivalent at all.

I need to be in the world. I LIKE to be in the world, I like difficult things, but sometimes I need to take some time and remind myself why.

My glamorous existence

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Yesterday, shortly after I wrote the previous post, a brand new jug of liquid detergent fell off of our washing machine, landed on its lid, and cracked open. Every drop of detergent – all 2.95 litres – oozed onto the floor of the closet that houses our washing machine. Half went under the machine; half went to the rest of the closet, where we store chairs, tools, linens, and my sewing machine.

We didn’t notice this had happened until my husband was taking the dog out. The detergent had oozed under the closet doors and across the tiles of our entrance hallway. It was dye-free detergent, so at first we thought it was water, that the washing machine had leaked. I got a towel to wipe it with and discovered the slimy truth almost immediately.

My first thought, seriously, was, Well, at least we don’t need to get the washer repaired. My second thought was: Uh. Now what?

Adding water was only going to create mountains of unmanageable suds. This had to be scooped up “dry”, so scoop I did, down on my hands and knees with a big rubber spatula.

The entire operation took about four hours. Soap-covered tile is as slick as ice. I am thoroughly sore.

Of course, it took me until the point where my legs were shaking to finally realize, Oh, I could just kneel on a towel, right in the ooze. I don’t have to squat precariously balanced on my toes. Also: Who cares if I get this stuff all over my pants? I can wash them. I won’t even need to add any soap.

I suppose shouldn’t describe the viscous black sludge you get when many years’ worth of accumulated sub-washer dirt combines with liquid detergent. No, I won’t describe that at all. I will dream about it for weeks though.

No matter how many exciting and wonderful things may come from being a writer, my life also consists – and will always consist – of me on my hands and knees in a dimly-lit closet, scraping up snotlike, grimy goo with a spatula. I hope it will usually be metaphorical goo and a metaphorical spatula, but you never know. The point is, there’s something comforting in the prospect of absurd unglamorousness – stories are born out of just that kind of slime.

What do you mean it’s not Monday?

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I know, I know, I wasn’t going to post again until then, but something happened yesterday that I just want to jot down quickly before I forget.

I travelled in the morning, arrived in KY in the early afternoon, and took a nap. After my nap, I was the only one home for some reason, and the phone rang. Figuring it was for Dad or Marvis, I didn’t answer it, but I was close enough to the answering machine that I heard someone start to leave a message: “This is Mrs. Chamberlain. Rachel, your dad just told me your book is coming out soon, and I wanted to tell you…”

Mrs. Chamberlain. My sixth grade teacher. I lunged for the phone.

It turned out she had, indeed, run into Dad out at the arboretum, and he’d told her I was passing through to pick up my son on the way back from New York. “I found the listing for your book on Amazon,” she said, “and then I just really wanted to hear your voice.”

It was so nice to talk to her. She told me how much she always enjoyed my enthusiasm and imagination, and I told her (and almost made her cry, she said) that she was the very first teacher who noticed I was good at and enjoyed creative writing, and that she had encouraged me in that direction more than anyone else.

And then I realized that while I was in New York, I’d only told half a story.

Because someone (was it the photographer?) had asked me how I got started writing. And I told him that when I was eleven (6th grade) a boy in my class had boasted that he was writing a novel, and I’d thought to myself, Jonathan’s writing? How dare he! That’s MY thing! I competitively started writing a novel of my own, a straight-up LotR knock-off, longhand in spiral notebooks.

But here’s the part of the story I didn’t tell, because I hadn’t realized the truth of it: Mrs. Chamberlain was the reason writing was my thing, before I got all competitive with that boy. She had been so encouraging that year that I had taken it deeply to heart. I WAS a writer, down to my toes. She told me so, and I believed her. I gained an identity in sixth grade.

So there you go. Teachers really do shape lives. I feel so very fortunate that I got to thank her yesterday.

Done for now

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My second day was more relaxed than my first. I’m about to toddle off in search of dinner, but I just wanted to say two things:

1) I had a preconceived notion that a “marketing meeting” was going to be something dry and boring, but in fact it was great.  I was surrounded on all sides by people who love books and are full of ideas and enthusiasm. It was surprisingly like a locker room pep-talk before the big game, and I came out all fired up and ready to tackle people.

Of course, there seems to be no one to tackle in my immediate vicinity. The people of New York, being savvy sorts, have all scampered off. I suppose I shall have to wait and tackle my family when I get home. Rahrr!

2) It turns out my prog-rock entries are very, very popular. Who knew? America wants more Rachel geeking-out about YES! How can I refuse? You’re all in for it now. Rahrr, indeed!

 

The day was just packed

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I was too exhausted to type yesterday evening. No, really. My fingers were all Stop bothering us, woman! We’re off for the night! And it’s never a good thing for one’s fingers to decide that the only way to get that message across is to make it literal. So rather than attempt to write with fingerless hand-stumps, or my nose, I went to bed early and here I am.

I still could have slept more, to be honest, but my typing fingers, at least, are sprightly once again.

So. Yesterday. The good folks at Random House decided they need a more formal photo of me for publicity. I went in at nine and a kindly make-up artist tidied up my face. It turns out I clean up OK – who new? The photo shoot itself was fun, although apparently I have to look skeptical before I can smile. The photographer and I fell into this little pattern, where he’d say something silly (“Look like an author!”) and I’d make a suspicious face – honestly, without meaning to – and then he’d say, “Not THAT kind of author!” and then I’d laugh at him. And somewhere in the laughing, I’d smile and he’d catch it.

Then my editor, two of his colleagues, and I had lunch with some lovely librarians at an Italian restaurant called (by astonishing coincidence) “Serafina”. That was great fun. Librarians are some of my very favourite people; I know a legion of them (yes, that’s the collective noun: a legion of librarians), and I’ve never yet met one who wasn’t super. There must be some self-selecting principle at work, there. I really enjoyed talking to everyone.

I met many, many people at Random House, all of them saying such nice things about the book. I was quite overwhelmed and deeply touched by it all.

We shot some video of me in the afternoon, while I still had my face on. Those clips are going to pop up on the internet at some point, and I shall let you know when they do. By that point I was getting very tired, so I don’t quite remember what I said. It’ll be a nice surprise for everyone, including me! I have the distinct impression it was sometimes goofy, but that would have been the case even if I weren’t tired. I should also warn you that I sang. That’s right. I sang. Nobody burst into tears, so I think I did all right, but for that lapse of dignity I’m going to have to blame the exhaustion.

Oh, who am I kidding? I’d probably have sung even more if I WASN’T tired. I am incorrigible.

My breakfast with Wallace

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It seems to be performance week here at the blog!

Here’s an article by Wallace Shawn that just blew my mind. I know. Inconceivable, right? The article is also about Socialism – take that or leave it, as you wish. What really interested me, what punched me right in the stomach, was this:

We are not what we seem. We are more than what we seem. The actor knows that. And because the actor knows that hidden inside himself there’s a wizard and a king, he also knows that when he’s playing himself in his daily life, he’s playing a part, he’s performing, just as he’s performing when he plays a part on stage. He knows that when he’s on stage performing, he’s in a sense deceiving his friends in the audience less than he does in daily life, not more, because on stage he’s disclosing the parts of himself that in daily life he struggles to hide. He knows, in fact, that the role of himself is actually a rather small part, and that when he plays that part he must make an enormous effort to conceal the whole universe of possibilities that exists inside him.

Actors are treated as uncanny beings by non-actors because of the strange voyage into themselves that actors habitually make, traveling outside the small territory of traits that are seen by their daily acquaintances as “them.” Actors, in contrast, look at non-actors with a certain bewilderment, and secretly think: What an odd life those people lead! Doesn’t it get a bit — claustrophobic?

That’s how I feel about writing. That’s it exactly. All these latent potentials that real life has no room for, and they have to come out somewhere. They come out in dance, too. That’s one reason I can get up in front of people and dance: because I am also that. I am also a dragon trapped in human form, and a princess, and a fretful lawyer, and a little Porphyrian boy. It’s all there.

Sometimes I fret that I’m kind of out there for thinking all arts are one art, but then I read something like this and think, no, that’s exactly right.