The best part about the rain has been walking the path alongside our local drainage ditch, where the grass is the kind of green I’d forgotten grass could be and the drainage ditch actually does an impressive job of seeming like a stream.

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So I wrote a few things last night. Mostly the fifth installment of the Flotsam series, which was overdue and then overdue again on the date I said I’d have it sent through after emailing the editor and letting her know it’d be overdue. Afterwards I did a couple of hundred words on some new things. Flotsam 6, for example, and the beginnings of two other stories. Then I ate leftover pizza, again, and swore that I will find some other food to serve as the I-have-a-deadline-and-no-time-to-cook standby.

I am heartily sick of pizza right now. There’s a grocery list in my wallet, full of things which will be used to make tastier, healthier meals. Bowls of chili and spicy tomato soups and plates of Moroccan chicken with couscous, which is one of those meals I make primarily because couscous is an awesome word to say aloud.

Alas, these things must wait until tomorrow, when the payday comes around and the grocery shopping actually happens.

And at least there will be writing, regardless, and I will watch my nascent little stories grow in ambition and word-count. Then I will proof my Daily SF story, which has just arrived in my inbox for proofing-type things.

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Occasionally, when I lament the wasted time that occurs in my dreaded dayjob, people will ask me why I don’t sneak in a little extra writing time. This is a remarkably hard question to answer with any satisfaction, but it largely comes down to this: there is nothing sneaky about my writing process.

When I’m at my most subtle, writing still consists of talking to myself and sighing a lot and staring at the ceiling trying to picture what happens next. This is something of a rarity, reserved for those instances where I write in public, for when writing alone in my house the act of writing is considerably more physical.

I pace from room to room, pondering things. I re-enact scenes, complete with conversations that are spoken aloud. Often I will find myself dancing for plot, which is less euphemistic than it sounds since it largely involves actual dancing, assuming dancing is the correct verb for the peculiar bopping and flailing that happens when I’m alone in my apartment.

I suspect I pull funny faces too, although I’ve never written in front of a mirror to check this. But there is nothing subtle or sneaky about writing fiction, so it’s never something I’ll sneak in at the dreaded dayjob. If I tried, someone would inevitably notice, and I suspect my dreaded dayjob wouldn’t be a dayjob for much longer.

Which would be fine by me if writing paid my rent, but thus far, writing does not.

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On the list of conversations I never expected to have with my father, the one that starts with do you have any Warhammer 40k novels I could borrow? is pretty damn high on the list. I also never expected the answer to be yes, but you can’t borrow them right now, but you can have the short story anthologies if you like. Yet, somehow, we had that conversation yesterday, and my copies of Tales of the Heresy and Let the Galaxy Burn are bundled together so I can hand them over next time I see him. He can have the novels in April, after I’m done reading them and making notes for the next interview I’m doing for Auscon.

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I threw out a lot of words yesterday. It started with all 2,311 that I wrote in Tuesday’s write-club and ended with the 8,000 or so words that I’d put together for the great-lovecraftian-ghoul-swashbuckley-wahoo! novel draft since the beginning of the month. Instantly all the Sturm und Drang of the last few days went away, and I could finally figure out how to write things that I didn’t actively dislike while I was writing them. They may not be great, but the out-of-control feeling that’s accompanied the act of writing seems to have abated a little.

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A happy birthday for the Galactic Suburbia crew, who just had their celebration to mark one year of podcasting. I’ve been listening less regularly these days, primarily because the dayjob eats time that I used to spend drinking coffee and pondering the state of SF, but I still make a point of catching up with GS when the opportunity presents itself. I recommend listening to the current episode with cake nearby, otherwise you may find yourself pausing the podcast to bake.

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I’ve started a new undertaking – reading the entirety of Federico Lorca’s The Poet in New York aloud, a few poems at a time. I’d forgotten how much I liked Lorca’s poetry – the last time I read him was back in, gods, 1999 or so, back when I was doing my honours thesis in poetics. After I’m done I’ve got his essay, In Search of Duende, to keep me company, but I suspect it’ll be a week or two until I finally get around to it.

These are the kinds of things you do, when you don’t have a television to amuse yourself in the evenings when the writing’s done.

Well, yesterday I did not run away and join the circus, but it was probably one of those days where I would have if I had viable circus-type skills and access to a travelling circus to run away with. I did not turn into the Incredible Hulk and smash things in a frenzy of anger. I did not resign from my dayjob to take up a position that would be more useful to the world at large, such as hunting werewolves or wrangling wild unicorns or, you know, going into politics.

But, oh,  I was sorely tempted.

Especially by the werewolf thing, which, really, goes to show how much I disliked certain aspects of yesterday, because I’m actually quite fond of werewolves.

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We actually had a full cohort at write-club last night, which is the first time all four write-clubbers have been in the same place since other people started joining the inimitable Angela Slatter and I on a regular basis.

As predicted, I did the sensible thing and started working on the next installment of Flotsam. We all gathered and ate and ate chocolate, and 2,311 words later, I was still starting on the next installment of Flotsam, largely because it was one of those days with there irritations of the dayjob had carried through to writing.

Finally write-club was over and everyone went home, and I was again afflicted with the not-sleeping which has become so common of late, so I dragged out a pad and a pencil and took another crack at the story, and it’s possible I came out with something that may actually be a beginning.

Then I lay in bed, still not-sleeping, and pondered how much can be considered enough to satisfy the guilt of not-writing-enough, and I still have no satisfactory answers.

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There is, most likely, another potential buyer walking through my flat this morning. I can’t be entirely sure, because the real estate agent no longer sends the appropriate documents. I just get cheerful text messages asking if there’s any chance of having a quick pop-around in the morning, which I’m not entirely sure means we’re coming and there’s nothing you can do about it or say no if you want, and we’ll respect it.

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So, yes, it’s a grumpy and crabby kind of bloggery from me today, because it’s been a grumpy and crabby kind of week.

Ordinarily, when this happens, I tell people to pat me on the head and go write until whatever isn’t working turns around and actually starts working, and for the most part they do and the grumpy goes away and I start sleeping normally again. It may take days or weeks or, in one instance, months, but eventually it works.

And, really, I guess that’s what I should probably go do.

So, instead, I’m going to go find a worthy and appropriate cause to donate money to in celebration of the day. And later, possibly, I will attempt to write something doesn’t make me feel like a misogynist arse every time I touch the keyboard.

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I sent off the third story in the Flotsam series yesterday, after which I collapsed into bed and tried to sleep and eventually gave up and read all of The Hunger Games in one fell swoop because it was there and I was too lazy to climb out of bed and get something else to read and it was obvious that sleep wasn’t on the agenda. Then I just lay in bed and pondered things, like monthly deadlines and how slow I write and whether I ever really stand any chance of writing all the things I want to write before I run out of time to write them, especially when you consider the things I’ve already written which somehow didn’t quite work out the way I expected them too, and so I still want to write something to fill that raw spot that wants a specific thing written.

I mean, I want to write story that captures exactly what it is that I like about wrestling, which is kinda what the next installment of Flotsam is about, except I couldn’t really fit that idea into a short story. In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s a novella, at the very least, and so I still have big story about the grandeur and spectacle of wrestling on the to-do list. I want to write a story that splices the premise of Buck Rogers with vampire lore, because the whole Buck Rogers’ series makes much more sense if he’s a vampire, and because I think a series of short books with lurid pulp titles like The Fangs of Jupiter and Bloody, Bloody Mars could keep me entertained for months. Hell, I’m not even done with unicorns or dragons yet, and lord knows I keep hitting those tropes. None of these are on the things I’m doing next list, they’re not even things I plan on getting to in the next ten years, but they’re sitting there on my to-do list because I don’t have the heart to take them off or I think I’ll want to do them one day, or I want to have them handy in case I do finally break down and start epublishing novels and things like whether or not someone else will publish the damn things become secondary considerations.

And I always sit around thinking, if I just wrote a bit faster I could get through them all, or perhaps, if I just quit the dayjob and had more time to work on things, but neither of these things address the fundamental problem. I got marginally more done while unemployed than I do now, and if I wrote faster it’s entirely possible I’d just add more ideas to the to-do list.

And there are still the things at the top of the list, the ideas still kludging together because they demanded novel-type shapes instead of the stories and novellas I’m more familiar with. Black Candy and the Great Swashbuclky Lovecraftian Ghoul Wahoo novel and Gothic: A Love Story (which will, eventually, probably come around to a new name that references Oubliettes, because I keep tacking more stories onto that world after the first one) and the occult western I’ve been making notes on and Claw and the book that I convinced Ben to co-write with me that I’ve been summarily ignoring since worldcon and…and…and…

The truth is, there isn’t enough time. Ever. I can’t really foresee a point where I look at the list and everything’s done. Some days I’m utterly bewildered as to how I’ll even manage to finish one novel, let alone the twenty-eight currently sitting on my list. We don’t even speak of the short stories. The last time I poked the draft of The Unicorns of Suggragette Three a dozen or so other stories started making noise about being finished.

It’s noisy, sometimes, inside my head. I always want to doing the next thing, or the thing that comes after that.

And tonight there is write club, where I will quite sensibly work on the fourth Flotsam story until I’m far enough ahead of the deadline to think about what’s next.

Black Candy, most likely, or Claw. ‘Cause the only way I’m getting through the list is one thing at a time.

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And now I go clean, for it is three hours to write-club and my house needs a good scrubbing.

I didn’t write an On The… story in 2010, despite my best intentions to do so. This makes me a little sad, ’cause it’s one of those things that I meant to do and simply didn’t find the time for.  In my head they’re part of an ongoing series, albeit a rather slow-moving one, and there’s a file on my computer where I put notes regarding possible titles. Every now and then I’d open the file, pick a title, and start writing, and somehow the story would always mutate and become something other than an On The… story.

I know this, because the series has unspoken rules. First person narration, for starters. Non-linear or fragmented narrative arcs.  Stories about odd relationships, particularly once they’re over. Male protagonists who wish they were more heartbroken than they really are, ’cause really the entire series is me having a conversation with the concept of masculinity, and the interpersonal seems to be the site where rite-of-passage masculinity stories take place these days.

When I story doesn’t work out, I usually blame it on the title. The titles, after all, are the tricky bits.

Today I’m coming up with titles, trying to find something new that’ll work. On the Final Appearance of the Laundromat Fey. On the Week of Bad Dreams that Followed the Arrival of the Yeti. On the Arrival of Doctor Sabretooth in my Parents Downstair’s Flat. On the Discover of Certain Books in the Back of the Hallway Bookshelf. Thus far, none of them are working, but I’ll get there. All I have to do is keep verbing nouns until something sticks.

It’s Saturday morning and I’m drinking instant coffee. Maccona Classic Dark Roast with milk and one sugar, for those who might be interested, although I have no earthly idea why you would be. In an hour or so I’m going to ignore the rest of the internet and start talking to the scattered members of my online crit group, who conveniently double as a group of good and articulate friends, so there’s still good reason to skype on the dates when we’re meant to be critting and no-one actually submitted things.

This, I suspect, is as close to being one of the hidden secrets of writing as I can think of – find people you enjoy talking too who happen to be writers, then talk to them as often as you can. Ideas will form, ambitions will solidify, and the day-to-day despair of being underpaid and frustrated by the blank page will gradually fall by the wayside. I remember this far less often than I should.

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The Friday issue of Daily Science Fiction containing my story appeared in my inbox overnight, delayed until Saturday morning by the magic of time zones. The online version isn’t up yet, but I’ll post a link when it is (I think the delay is about a week, but I subscribed to get the stories via email, so I’m not entirely sure).

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I’ve been up since five AM for reasons unfathomable to me, and spent most of that time re-reading parts of books I adore, because five AM on a Saturday is a good time to re-read and adore things all over again. The world wants you to sleep in on weekends, so the five AM start is like stealing time that doesn’t belong to you, and re-reading parts of books is the kind of sacrilegious activity that divorces language from the context of narrative and gives you the opportunity to appreciate things anew. Language as an art gallery, where you’re encouraged to examine the individual pieces of the whole.

It reminds you of things that have dropped from view.

I’d forgotten, for example, much of the raw power in Fitzgerald’s introduction of Tom Buchanan. I remember the tag-line – the final image of the body capable of great leverage – because it’s one of the great character descriptions that appear in modern literature. It’s the thing that sticks in my memory because that’s what it’s meant to do, but the set-up that makes that one line it’s impact? Forgotten. Lost. Until I sit down and re-read, and am reminded of how carefully that line is built up.

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and give him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body – he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see the great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage – a cruel body. (The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald)

Too many people hate the Great Gatsby because it’s one of the books they were forced to read at school, because they were told to ask more of their fiction. I don’t begrudge them that, asking more of your fiction is a choice every reader should make on their own and there’s nothing wrong with saying ‘entertain me’ if it’s that’s the choice they’re making.

But Fitzgerald’s book deserves so much better. It deserves to be read by people who will love it.

Preferably in parts, on Saturday mornings, long after they’ve read the whole

Also, 2011 is the year I teach myself to write in third person or die trying; place your bets on whether it works, but my money’s on the latter.

I’m going to reward myself with an episode of NCIS before diving into the Flotsam story and racking up some wordcount there.

One day I will remember that the cure for not-writing is writing, rather than having to relearn that lesson every time I stop.

I recently chatted to a friend of mine who enjoys the discussion of toil on the blog, watching the numbers stack up and the reports of work done come in. I know other people who are utterly opposed to seeing such things, preferring blogs to be more than just the accumulating of wordcount. I honestly don’t really know where I stand – I often wish I could do more, writing one of those online blogs that are broad in scope and capable of depth – but the truth of the matter is that I was first drawn to blogs because it allowed me to track my favourite writers doing their thing. In public. With occasional commentary.

For what it’s worth, folks who don’t enjoy the discussion of toil may wish to avoid this blog until April 2nd. The inimitable Jason Fischer and I have uttered one of the forbidden words – gauntlet – and quietly started naming tasks that need be done by March 31st. By mid-February I’m largely going to be posting wordcounts and the words “fists of fucking steel” as I try to get things done.

a) writing
b) making plans
c) washing up
d) buggering off early to play DnD

Last night there was write-club, whereupon I wrote about fifteen hundred words on my next Flotsam story, then sat up into the wee hours forcing myself to write 250 words on the novel project for 2011 (which is currently called Tarnished Silver Swords, but once existed under the working title of the weird lovecrafty-ghoul-swashbuckley-wahoo-novel; neither of these is workable as a final title). I thank Trent Jamieson for the reminder to do the latter, courtesy of his recent blogpost about getting stuff done despite being a procrastinating slacker (which is not to say that Trent is a procrastinating slacker, just that I am and his advice came at the right point to remedy that).

There has been too much not-writing in my life this January. I have another five days to rectify that.

2) My writing goals are as they always were: take over the goddamn world.

3) I need to remove all forms of fiction from my work area for the foreseeable future. This would be easier if there wasn’t a bookshelf over my desk.

4) I’ve given up on planning this year. I write what needs to be written, then I write other stuff.

5) The parenthetical aside is a thing of evil.

6) There are edits that need doing. I should probably go do them.