WordPlay

Doesn’t sound like a life philosophy, does it?

Well, surprise!

Here’s the thing.  In agility, there are contact obstacles (A-Frame, Dogwalk, Teeter…).  And there are safety-oriented performance criteria for these obstacles:  The dog has to put at least one foot in the yellow section.  The teeter must hit the ground before the dog departs it.

Here’s the other thing:  Lots and lots of dogs love to leap from the top of the A-Frame, the teeter in mid-air, the dogwalk from some point that’s excruciatingly close to the yellow but not actually in it.

So we have lots of training methods to teach the dog to run into the yellow.  Touch pads, stride regulators, targets, and cookies and….

I don’t treat my dogs on the contacts.  They’re Beagles.  Do I need to encourage them to turn the dog walk into a slow sniffing exercise?  No, I do not.  I taught them to crawl, which is a diagonal movement and prepares them to collect on the downslope while avoiding the cantering gait (lateral gait) that makes LEAPING so inviting.  (I don’t know anyone else who does this.  I’m sure people are pointing and laughing at this blog).

On the teeter the boys have different behaviors suited to their personalities, but really, that’s not the point.  There are so many ways to train these criteria, and different ways suit different dogs.  That makes no one way THE RIGHT way.

BUT.  If your way is to use a treat at the end of a contact, and you do that by squeezing fake liquid cheese (yum) onto the end of the obstacle at a training yard that many dogs use, then IT IS THE WRONG WAY.

Because what do you think happens to my dog when he encounters your cheese molecules?  Yes, thank you very much.  It untrains him at the same time that it gives him exactly the idea I don’t want him to have: that obstacles should not be performed, they should be inspected for food.

Recently Dart Beagle ended up in a cartwheel because his front end found leftover cheese while his back end was still performing the obstacle.  Thank you, no.  Do Not Want.

Still waiting for the life philosophy part?  Here’s another way to put it, much older and maybe somewhat hokey these days–it’s called the Golden Rule.

(Do you know, I grew up with a school ruler that actually had the Golden Rule burned into the back.  I loved that ruler!  It was Sturdy.)

Do unto others, people.  Yea, verily, as you would have done unto you.

Or am I a dinosaur?

PS there will be no photos of cartwheels, as I will make sure it never happens again!  But here is a moment of Belle about to tell Dart Beagle that he’d better sit still for a face-cleaning.  This time I did not fix her evil blue flash eye!

I’m lazy intensely busy. I bet most of you know the “Aurgh! Not enough time!” song.

To refresh your memory, it goes like this:

AUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRGHHHHHHHH!!!

But I love things that make my life easier.

Thanks to a web client, I finally followed up on an Easy Button I’ve had in mind for a while now–putting a “Get this blog in email” button on this blog and on my web site.  See it?  It’s over on the right, at the top.  Or on any page of my web site, in the left navigation side bar.

Sign up, and this blog lands in your inbox on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

The heck with everyone else.  The moment I got the thing set up, I signed up for it.  When it comes to me in email, then I know it’s published on schedule.  I don’t have to remember to check my RSS feed and I don’t have to think about the blog.  It’s right THERE.  Including a link if I want to head that way to make a comment.

Besides, I like to look at the pictures, even though I’m the one who put them up in the first place.

Like This.  Right here.  You could sign up.

Because, hey! It’s EASY!

Looks like this! Has a pretty link at the top! Comes to your inbox! Total awesomeness.

02/06/12

Here’s the latest, the greatest, the newsiest news!

The Fitzhenry & Whiteside Writer Beware generated by the  Dun Lady’s Jess reversion situation is quieter, but actively ongoing.  Some things take time…

Here in the office, TIGER BOUND, the fourth Nocturne Sentinels book, is in production–and so is the reprint of NOSE FOR TROUBLE, which means I’m working on the cover even now!  KODIAK CHAINED is in first draft and zooooming along quite nicely!  And the steamy new paranormal novella, Touched By Fire, is now available.

And…

• My out-of-print backlist is at Backlist eBooks — with more to come!
• Night of the Tiger was a December release (Nocturne Bite).
• The release schedule for the four outstanding Nocturnes is: Tiger Bound 08/12; Kodiak Chained  12/12; Demon Blade 2013; Dark Blade 2013.
• ConneryBeagle’s medical fundraiser goes on, and his updates are at the anthology pages!  Our goal is 700 books sold for his known expenses this coming year.
• Belle Cardigan Corgi is now an occasional blogger at WordPlay.  Of course she is!
• You can subscribe to WordPlay by Email

Every time I start first draft on a hefty project, my brain sprints for the gate.  There begins a long process of negotiation: the muse vs. real life.

Really, the brain wants nothing to do with it.  “Noooo,” it whines.  “Why can’t I have it aaaalll?”

Because it apparently just doesn’t work that way.

So after a certain amount of struggle, the muse will give a little ground–just enough to keep certain critical real life activity from imploding–and Real Life will give a little ground.  Or maybe a lot of ground.  Eventually, a lopsided balance of sorts will be struck.

But on this first day?  The brain is not interested in coming out to write a blog.  On this particular first day, the brain is a lot more interested in a proper opening for the story so many readers requested–Ruger’s story in my Nocturne Sentinel series.  The classic background character who sparkled on screen and demanded some time of his own, that’s Ruger.

Not that I’m complaining.  Neither is my muse.  My brain, as usual, is still trying to find the balance.

(Someone tell me I’m not the only one.)

Meanwhile, I think “A Bitch in Time “is still lingering as a freebie–that’s still a gone-any-minute thing–and Wolverine’s Daughter is on a 30% sale at ARe  until the 27th.  They’re both clickable from my Backlist eBooks page.  Happy reading!

DART BEAGLE!

It’s happened AGAIN.

That would be the way my work with critters habitually turns into metaphor for my writing.

While I could be talking about the incredible icy poo-fest that is the barn frontage this particular winter (in fact, given the state of the industry, I probably should be talking about the incredible icy poo-fest that is the barn frontage this particular winter), I’m somehow not.

It’s about tracking, really.  And how being on the end of the tracking line is a whole lot like wrangling the muse.

Every dog has a different style when tracking, but staying on the track is the only way to get the job done.  Enticing crosstracks won’t do it.  Following that just-flushed jackrabbit won’t do it, either.  Following blown scent instead of the actual track isn’t going to get you there, or getting stuck in scent pools won’t get you anywhere at all.

It’s up to the handler to question the dog, create a thoughtful process, and not follow blindly where the dog leads.  After all, if you step out confidently when the dog is merely pondering a crosstrack, then the dog may well rightfully think, “Ah HA!  She wants me to go this way!”

And yes, a writer needs to stay on track.  Both with editorial expectations (some publishers more than others) and with storytelling needs.  As in, there are certain necessary elements for a good story, no matter how many individual ways there are to approach those elements.

At the same time, the handler has to trust the dog.  No human can detect the scent the dog follows; only the dog can say where the track goes.  And while the handler employs an understanding of scent behavior and dog body language to know when to follow freely and when to wait and watch and stay out of the way and when to say, “Are you sure?”, at some point you simply have to trust.  And if you don’t–if you start questioning and hesitating in that moment you should be trusting…then the dog loses confidence.  Shuts down.  Quits.

It’s just the same with writers, right?  A writer needs to follow her muse.  Restrain the muse, and she shuts down.  Tell her no too many times and she flips you a rude gesture.  Ignore her insight, and go down a duller, well-trodden path instead of managing a bright new track through unexplored territory.

Add it all up and it becomes a dance.  Knowing enough about the territory and conditions and expectations–not to mention the muse or the dog–to provide the necessary guidance.  And then, knowing when to just plain trust, even if the track goes in an unexpected direction.

See?  Is that totally a tracking as writing metaphor, or what?

The muse rules.

My muse doesn’t have a name, which is kind of odd because my research muse certainly does (it’s Spike, which should give you an idea of the pushy nature of said research muse).

But she rules, regardless.

That means I write.  I write regardless of whether or not I have a contract.  I started writing in 7th grade (the first book, modest as it was) and I wrote through junior high, high school, and two different colleges.  Once I was living on that beloved mountainside in Eastern Kentucky, I wrote even more.  I wrote my way through Virginia, through Ohio, back to Western New York–and there, I finally sold the first book.

The point being…I write.  Regardless.

When I don’t write, the world is askew.  The pressure of that need builds inside, rather like the onset of a spastic tick.  Or the pressure of a big pending burp.  Or something more glamorous than that, if I could only think of it.

These past months, I’ve been involved in a lot of projects, and a lot of things that aren’t necessarily first draft, even when they’re part of the writing process.  It hasn’t escaped me that with each passing day, my little frantic undernote of being off-balance grows greater and greater.  Or that these other things, having forced their way in to eat my life, are really, truly eating away at the thing that keeps me whole.

The challenge is getting back to that whole–that pattern of basing the day around the writing.  Once you’ve fallen into that frenetic, off-balance place, finding the balance again isn’t always easy–especially when you have to say “no” to people to do it.  (And especially when real life isn’t cooperating, with weather chaos, wrecked van chaos, injured dog chaos, publishing industry chaos…oh, you just name it.)

So this week, I’m practicing.  Writing FIRST, other things second.  (This is complicated by my natural pattern of writing in the evenings, but I’m working on it…)  Because the muse is staging a rebellion, and in this case it doesn’t mean refusing to write…it means demanding to write.

I mean, it’s not healthy to hold in a burp that big, right?

Dear HuluPlus: I’ve already ditched satellite for doing what you’re doing.  Don’t think I won’t ditch you.

For years I’ve been impatient with satellite and cable services–you pay a bazillion bucks for a bazillion channels you don’t want, and watch four of them.  And if they offer a basic service, it’s either not really basic at all, or it very carefully excludes that one Very Important Channel so you have to bump up the service to get it.

Well, the roofers broke our satellite dish last February, and rather than have it fixed, we decided to explore other options.  In the end–after eight months or so of pondering–we recently decided to get a little Roku box.

We opened a HuluPlus account to go with it.  I admit it–we were lured by the promises of fewer episode limits on the available shows, more shows, and various perks.  I really like just being able to go to the shows I want, too.

Yeaaahhhh….not so much.  It turns out that the episode limits still apply to current shows.  And I still have to go to CBS to watch my CBS shows, etc.  And all that additional touted content comes from obscure stations/obscure shows that might be of interest to a collector, but for me just clutters up the options.  My shortlist is no more available with HuluPlus than it is with plain old Hulu.

And finally, there are still commercials every 7-8 minutes.  (Yes.  I found them so annoying that I timed them.)  They’re not long breaks, but they also don’t have any work-arounds.  Hulu gives you the option of indicating whether the commercial is relevant to you, which I stopped bothering with when I realized NONE of them were relevant to me.

This past weekend, we were trialing, and we took along a KindleFire.  This was initially awesome, as I was way behind in one of my favorites–Covert Affairs.  In fact, because of the Hulu limit on episodes, we purchased the first batch of season 2 episodes from Amazon, and by golly, I watched TV in bed while resting up from the intensity of the agility days.

Then it was time to move on to the more Hulu episodes, but…oh, woe.  Hulu couldn’t offer this show to a device.  So I checked out my other shows, all of which I’m behind in watching and would have been glad for a little catch-up during this rare opportunity.  Oh, woe–they were CBS shows, and not available.  Or they just didn’t show up on the search.  Or…or…OR!

I read a book.  (Bound by Suggestion, L.L. Bartlett)

So…yeah.  We’d had HuluPlus for only ten days before it became obvious that we were essentially paying to see the same content under the same terms.

You know, Hulu people, I’m not stupid.  I was bound to figure it out.  Did you really think not?

The main reason we opted in to the service was because it takes a Plus account to connect with the Roku.  But there are other options for the Roku.  And I would rather ditch a service that isn’t offering me anything and use that money to buy individual episodes of the exact shows I want.

I tend to think this is the lesson of the decade for entertainment providers--for publishers, stores, and media folks.  We have more options than we used to–we can choose the all-in-one package, but we can demand more flexibility, also.  We can go to the traditional source, or we can find niche options that more closely suit our needs.  It isn’t all-or-nothing any longer–and at last, surley and ineffective customer service will have consequences.

Yes, we have *monster truck announcer voice* Choice Power-er-er!!

I kinda like it.

It’s my own fault.  I waited a couple weeks, and then I put that new book release schedule on the blog this past Monday morning.  Right out there for the world to see.

And lo, Monday afternoon, I exchanged a few words with my editor, in which we counted on our fingers, looked at what remained to be done, and decided that July for Tiger Bound was just a leeetle too optimistic.

So that book is now an August baby, and my editor and I get to keep our sanity.

Except for the part where I run around my web site, blog, FaceBook, newsgroup, and Twitter, cleaning up after that July thing!

The Sentinels

Night of the Tiger (Bite): Dec ’11
TIGER BOUND: Aug ’12
KODIAK CHAINED: Dec ’12

Demon Blade
Demon Touch (Bite): Sept ’11
DEMON BLADE: ’13
DARK BLADE: ’13:

No, really.  I MEAN IT!

Late last week I “picked up” a new ebook from a small press.  I read only a short way into it and realized it didn’t meet my standards for craft, storytelling, or character presentation.  Bummer.

So I “picked up” another ebook, this one a sample.  Not from a small press, but the prose was dull and the bones of the plot showed through.  Still, there was something about the concept that caught my interest, so I told Nookita to check it out at the store.  Oh, wow, really?  Almost ten dollars for this ebook?

Yeahhhhhh…. 

No.

There’s a reason some of my ebooks are priced at 99c–it’s a Try Me strategy.  The first book mentioned above was  a Try Me priced book, and I was okay with taking that chance even when it didn’t pan out.

There’s a reason the rest of my works are priced reasonably--and why we have that philosophy over at Backlist eBooks, too.  Mine are 99c for the stories, $1.49 for the novella, and $3.99 for the full-priced books–because I think ebooks should cost a reasonable amount.  That second book’s price isn’t one I’ll pay for my favorite authors, never mind a casual read.

So after an evening like I had last week, what’s a reader to do?

Go back to Little Women, that’s what.  Luxuriate in the tried-and-true, and retreat, for the moment, from the combat shopping experience ebooks sometimes offer.   Besides, I first read this book so very long ago (as in, when I could still count my age on both hands), so I don’t remember the details.  And Jo is up to something–!

I’ll poke my head out again bye-and-bye.  Read any good, reasonably priced ebooks lately?

What’s that, you say?  Aren’t you keeping us up to date any longer here on WordPlay?

Just as soon as I get back from twelve hours of agility trialing for two days with the Beagles.  

#FreeDLJ!
And writers, take a look before submitting your work.  Knowledge is power…

======================
This is a vastly updated version of Q&A #1.  It’s lots different, though–I just didn’t want to stick a second post in this space to clutter things up.

If you haven’t seen the BoingBoing post—or read Cory Doctorow’s wonderfully concise and clear comments regarding the nature of regular trade channels—you might find it of some interest. Not everyone there thinks I’ve got my head screwed on straight, of course.

In response to the most common point I see being addressed in comments here and there:

Yes, in a perfect world, the contract reversion clause would have been more tightly negotiated–but we had to fight tooth and nail to get what we got.  Going forward on those terms was a decision I made on the basis of significant mitigating circumstances–my agent responds with a little more detail in the original post comments. By all means, learn from this situation.  But the main point here is how this publisher has behaved for the past eighteen months.  Learn from that, too.

The Original Post
The Timeline
The BoingBoing Post
The Writer Beware Post
WriterBeware Comments Further (scroll down!)
Twitter #FreeDLJ

Regarding my awareness that this is a Canadian publisher—yes, I know that.  It’s been taken into account with regards to the distribution conversation, as has the industry standard meaning for “regular trade channels.”

But delayed, limited online availability doesn’t constitute regular trade channels.  And even this (Tuesday) evening, a search on Indigo.ca of all the Chapters, Coles, and Indigo bookstores in Victoria, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, and Toronto has revealed DLJ to have one copy on the shelves at one store.

I’ve said elsewhere (I haven’t the faintest idea where.  It’s been a crazy couple of days) that I have no delusions that this book should be a best-seller.  It’s a 17yo title which sold modestly the first time.  The first edition copies are regularly priced at sums that startle me, but it can also sometimes be found at your basic used-book price (note:  it’s easier to find a used copy of the first edition than it is to find the reprint under discussion–I signed three of them at the last convention, after which they went back in their plastic protective sleeves).  To some extent, conversational threads that go in that direction–my unreasonable expectations or some failure to understand the modest nature of the book–are only misdirection.  To the contrary, I have a very good (and realistic!) idea of what this book could be selling.

Meanwhile, I’ve left a comment here and there, but I haven’t engaged in any significant conversations outside this blog.  I’m aware of what’s being said about me, and…well, I disagree.  Let’s leave it at that.

I admit it. This is not my strength. I’m not someone who enjoys a good rousing argument or is invigorated by social conflict. Mainly, I’m doing my best with something I feel needs to be done. Probably that means it could be done better, but you know…here I am, and here it is, and so be it.  I mainly hope the word of this publisher’s behavior over the past 18 months is reaching agents and authors who are considering submission plans.

PS: First-time posters on this blog pass through moderation before posting, and always have.  This is a Zone of Thoughtful Discourse, whether you agree or disagree with me.  Visitors here should feel safe to post, either way.  Visitors of Virulence will receive the Mighty Click of Moderation.