I even think we had the same tattoos

Posted on December 5, 2011 by Kelly

Everyone, please give Stubby the Rocket a warm welcome.

Thanks to Chris at Avalon Tattoo

I’ve gotten modified in some way every time I’ve gone through a life-changing event, be it through a piercing or a tattoo. So between going to VP and finally selling a story, it was definitely time for something new.

Since I’ve been wanting to get some kind of sci-fi related tattoo for a while, getting Tor.com‘s mascot, Stubby, made perfect sense. That and I friggin’ love that little anthropomorphized rocket.

It didn’t hurt as much as the one on my leg did, and I felt right at home at Avalon (which I had heard nothing but wonderful things about), particularly because Chris was really awesome, and because I was getting my tattoo done under the watchful eyes of both a Sleestak and a Tuscan Raider.

And I absolutely love it.

I’ve gotten two tattoos so far this year, and the adrenaline rush I get after I get one is making me think very seriously about my next one. I’ve been excited about the idea for a while, and knowing the amount of work I’m going to have to do to make it a reality (both to earn the privilege to justify finally getting it, and in regards to what I need to do to plan it out), I should start getting this shit together at the beginning of next year. There’s only one big milestone left on my radar, and I’ve got something really special planned for that. And no, I won’t tell you. That’d take the fun out of it.

Update: The real Stubby just blogged about homunculus Stubby on Tor! Squee indeed!

Posted in Errata | 6 Comments

True! True! True!

Posted on December 3, 2011 by Kelly

I watched a movie I hadn’t seen in 16 years last night – Pit and the Pendulum starring Vincent Price. I loved this movie when I first saw it, partially because at the time I had a huge art-crush on Tim Burton, I had been steeping myself for two years in H.P. Lovecraft and I had, by that time, read the entire collected works of Poe. I was actively indulging the dark little corners of my heart, and this movie just clicked something more firmly into place. I was thirteen and playing guitar all the time, writing weird little short stories about psychic two-headed snakes and mad scientists.

It’s funny last night was the night I would re-watch this movie. I hadn’t known the screenplay for it was written by Richard Matheson (who, oddly enough, was the reason I read Day of the Triffids in the first place, because my dad gave me a collection called The Paranoid 50s and wanted me to read Matheson’s I Am Legend). My life is so very different now than the first time I watched it, but so very much the same. I’m playing music a lot of the time now (for the band) and am, once again, writing weird little short stories about snakes and mad scientists.

Funny how we can be so sure who we are when we’re young, then we get lost, only to find out 10-15 years later we had been right all along.

So I was sitting on the couch last night in my pajamas, drinking whiskey, consigning myself to a wave of nostalgic Vincent Price-glee when I got distracted and checked my RSS feeds and read this post by Elise (who I had the great honor of playing music with at WFC). I promptly paused the movie and lost my shit.

I knew why I was crying. It was the same reason I had spent a lot of the time 16 years ago crying. Because there is so much power for love in the world, and so much more between two people. And none of it had ever been mine. Being, as I was at the time, trapped in a nostalgic loop, just like Vincent Price was trapped on pause on the TV, I did what I had always done as a generally depressed teenager: I started writing:

There is silence tonight, emanating from absence. A shape that would deform the couch beside me, though

Is it worse to know that shape? To ascribe it features that twist into a smile I would know better than I know my own? To give it a sweet smell made sour from a day’s soft work, made fine with sweat and longing?

Is it so bad to reach out into the still air so the chaos invoked by my movement spin off eddies of atoms perpetuating infinitely and unimpeded, so that I can pretend there is presence in the absence?

No, but I can tell myself there is somber joy to be found in solitude, resting on calm waters unspoiled by passion. *

(*I should say this was going to be the beginning of a lamentation for a love I’d never known, and is not to be confused with me missing a certain recent ex)

Thankfully, as I was resigning myself to spend the rest of the evening spinning out more emo shit and crying into my whiskey, my friend Angela texted me mid-whine and managed to convince me to put on pants and go with her to Toronado.

And so my friends reminded me I am loved, and I don’t need to be emo about any of this shit (even though, I still retain the rights to be spontaneously emo).

When I was dropped at home, I curled back up on the couch to finished the movie. The nostalgia was gone this time, and I could finally see the real distance of those 16 years.

Hope you’re happy, or at least just as melancholy as is fit to make you happy.

Posted in Errata, Movies | 2 Comments

Serve me the sky with a big slice of lemon

Posted on November 29, 2011 by Kelly

Three out of four ain’t bad. I’m referring, of course, to National Novel Writing Month.

It’s kind of strange to look back on how different each of my NaNoWriMos have been. My life and the way I approach writing has changed so much over the last four years.

2008 – I was new. Raw. I didn’t know anything, really, about writing, but NaNo was what I needed to get my butt in my chair to work out what I needed to work out a lot of my “new writer” problems. It was thrilling. And maddening. I had a hard time sitting down to write most days because it was painful to see so much failure pour out onto a page. But there were moments that month where I felt like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing. Those were the moments that showed me that, yes, Virginia, this writing thing was something I did want to do. I won that year.

2009 – I wasn’t new anymore, but I was still raw. I had a massive influx of ideas in the intervening year. I wanted to do a graphic novel. I wrote a bunch of short stories. I was high on inspiration and the belief that I could fucking DO THIS. I didn’t submit any stories to markets this year, but I joined a local writers group. I wrote a lot of shit. A LOT of shit. It was painful. I didn’t think I could do it. I dropped out of grad school halfway through the year because of the small part of me that thought I could do this writing thing. A lot of things broke that year and it was awful for a lot of reasons. I was terrified. This was the year I didn’t win because I came down with the flu. I had no health insurance so I slept as much as I could that month because I was terrified of being awake. Terrified I would have to go to the hospital. I lost that year.

2010 – I wrote a lot more this year. I was working in a job that gave me a lot more headspace. I finally, after five years, stopped being chronically depressed. The inspiration remained, but I was uncertain. I fought myself over fears of what my future would be like if I failed. The same paralysis that gripped me in grad school still held me tight. I could write, but I made excuses. So many excuses. But a lot of amazing things happened this year which made me take stock of my fear. Of the excuses. I knew how I had to change. I knew I had to become more fearless than I was already pretending to be. I had to get over it. I had to grow. I couldn’t let myself fall into the future I was so terrified of. That month, I started NaNo on a whim. I wrote with no agenda. There was no future hanging on those words. There was no absolution. There were only the worlds. It was okay if they sucked. I won that year.

2011 – What can I say that I haven’t already said? This year has been incredible. Even before VP, when I was still struggling against my uncertainty. I applied to VP in the beginning of the year because “Fuck it” had firmly become my mantra. In 2010, I got three rejections. In 2011, I’ve so far gotten 18. VP (and WFC) broke that scared little part of me. Since October, I’ve stopped thinking of writing as a “hobby.” It’s a second job. It’s the real job I come home to after I work my “other” job from 9-5. And I treated it as such. I haven’t taken a day off of writing (or writing-related activities) since I got back to San Diego. I look forward to sitting down and writing something. Or even revising something. And because of that I won this year. A day early even.

As a reward, I’m taking a day off tomorrow from the novel, because it’s far from done. My NaNo will continue through next month, with the goal of finishing this first draft before the new year, because next year my goal is to start looking for an agent for this book.

But that won’t mean I’m taking a break from writing. I have a flash piece I want to finish and revise. I have a new story that needs some serious revision. There’s another one sitting half finished on my hard drive that I need to finish. And there’s the story idea I’m in love with, but haven’t quite figured out how to write yet that I’m looking forward to taking a stab at. And I got another story idea this morning listening to the latest Radiolab that I want to play around with for a bit. Not that those will all get done tomorrow (I’m not insane, and besides I have work all day). But all of these things are adding to my motivation to get the novel done next month, because then I’ll be free to play with all of those things in January to my heart’s content.

But the flash piece is due tomorrow. So flash it shall be.

Hope your November was productive. And if it wasn’t, you’ve got one day left to do something amazing.

Posted in NaNoWriMo, Writing | Leave a comment

An Ordinary Day With Sweatpants

Posted on November 25, 2011 by Kelly

Yes, I would like to taste what the Derek is cooking

Thanksgiving has come and gone and despite the bad news I got in the morning that the flight my mom was supposed to work to SD (so she could come out for Thanksgiving dinner) was changed to a flight she had to work to SF (so she didn’t make it), it turned out to be an awesome Thanksgiving.

We had two birds, one roasted, one fried. Everything else was as equally homemade and ridiculously delicious (including the non-vegetarian stuffing I accidentally ate). My friends love a cooking challenge, and since each one of them has a deep love of cooking and/or baking, the A-game was very much brought in both the main dishes and desserts. We gorged, then laid around drinking, then gorged more to the point of pain, then drank to forget the pain.

Good booze abounded, including a sweet ambrosia of a punch made with Hawaiian Punch, ginger ale, vodka (or later rum) and orange sherbet. There was good bourbon, good beer, Irish coffee, and a promise of margaritas that never materialized.

We watched the original Star Wars trilogy, played a quick game of Star Wars Trivial Pursuit, then regular Trivial Pursuit using the Star Wars edition figures. We watched Chicken Run. We watched The Thing.

A group of scruffy-looking nerf-herders

I love my friends, and I’m glad we all got to spend yesterday together since it’ll be the last time all six of us will be in the same place for Thanksgiving for a very long while.

Change happens, and while it usually winds up being a good thing, sometimes it can go fuck itself.

This is probably the sort of thing I should have done yesterday, listing the things I’m thankful for, but on the morning after a nearly perfect day (still pissed I bought the wrong potatoes for mashing – WTF me?) they’re brought into more of a natural light.

I’m thankful for my friends and their sarcasm, understanding and support. I’m thankful for my family, who while they may not be present, they’re there in every holiday tradition I emulate.

I’m thankful I was given the opportunity to go to VP. I’m thankful for all of the friends I made there, and all the friends I made later because of the friends I made there. I’m thankful that on a daily basis, largely because of ripple-effects from VP, the good is outweighing the bad.

(I'm thankful for ABC fire extinguishers... just in case)

I’m thankful for quiet, peaceful mornings drinking good coffee because of all of the pain and terror of change and uncertainty I had to work hard to get past over the years so I could be sitting on my couch on this quiet peaceful morning to drink good coffee.

I’m thankful I have people in my life that inspire me.

I’m thankful I have people in my life that call me on my bullshit because they want me to be happy.

I’m thankful I have people in my life that believe in me.

And now, I’m thankful for Kleenex.

I hope your holidays are what you need them to be.

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When the spaceship came down I was left on the ground

Posted on November 14, 2011 by Kelly

I did it.

Well, I technically did it over a month ago and I’ve been mostly sitting on it because I wasn’t actually sure if it had happened or not.

Anyway. What I finally did was sell a story. Not just a story but THE story – the one I had been working on for nearly four years. The one that I had gotten nine form rejections for. The Triffid story.

When it happened, I was sitting on a balcony in Martha’s Vineyard on next to no sleep with my bags packed waiting for Steve Gould to pull the car around to take Katherine and I to the ferry. I wasn’t sure whether or not I could celebrate. I was flabbergasted above all, sitting there with my phone in my hand. I kept thinking someone would pull the rug out from under me to tell me it had all been a mistake.

I never thought I would sell this story, to be honest. I thought there was something horribly wrong with it that no amount of revisions (there were five or six total revamps of that story from the original iteration) could fix. If things hadn’t gone down the way they did, I was going to try a few more half-hearted attempts to send it out and then I was going to trunk it.

When all you get is form rejections, it’s hard to know whether or not there’s something flawed with the story or if it’s just not a good fit for that market. And when you send out lots of things and still keep getting form rejections, you start thinking that the problem must be the writing.

And sometimes, yes, that’s the case. Especially when you’re still starting out. But the only solution is to write more stuff, finish that stuff and rewrite the stuff you finish. I can’t say how many times I started writing something else to have an epiphany about a story I’d already finished working on. Then send them out. Send them out if they’re ready. Send them out if they’re not.

The VP motto is “Send it out ’til Hell won’t have it.”

It’s true. The only way to sell stories is to write a lot of stories and send them out until there is literally nowhere else to send them. It’s hard to do because the rejection really wears you down.

I got the check in the mail today, which I suppose means I can no longer worry that someone’s going to jump out with a camera yelling, “Gotcha!”

The best part isn’t the catharsis of finally selling this story, or the check, or even the validation that came with it (because I’d be lying if I said that terrified little part of me that wanted to say she was a writer but wasn’t sure if that was okay or not doesn’t feel validated a little bit). It was that I freed up all this headspace to write other things. And I’m fucking energized to actually write them.

Speaking of which, I should be writing right now.

(And yeah, the title of this post has nothing to do with the post itself. It’s just an awesome Okkervil River lyric and I’ve been wanting to use it as a title [also because How to Sell a Triffid sounded way too fucking stupid])

Posted in Viable Paradise, Writing | 2 Comments

Someway, Baby, It’s Part of Me, Apart From Me

Posted on November 12, 2011 by Kelly

This is the first morning I’ve been alone since June. It’s not a temporary alone-ness, it’s a permanent one – one that will only be disturbed if I make an effort to leave my apartment and seek out the company of others.

Don’t make the mistake to think this is unwelcome. After VP, I was drained. I wanted to sit and stare at the walls and process, but with someone else living with me, there were no such moments available. I had to go to a coffee shop and be alone around others, which is not the same.

When you live with someone else, there’s a constant expectation of their presence. I’ve written about this before, in that even when they’re not there, they exist in a part of your mind that tells you, “You may be alone now, but you’ll never be fully alone. They’ll be back. Don’t even think about relaxing fully.”

I like being alone. Despite my sociability, I get drained. I’ve got it in me to do marathons of conversation (for days, even), but if I don’t get an equal amount of time to myself, I fade. I’ve been fading for a while. Even having someone else in the room with me, I used to use the presence of an other as an excuse to not write.

Now I have my apartment back. And I’m alone. Truly and fully alone. I can sit and cry, or listen to music I want to listen to, or cook things with onions in them, or I can put on a Disney movie and vacuum the carpet. I can even leave the TV OFF ALL DAY. And I can write.

There was a summer in college when all of my roommates had vacated and I had the entire place to myself. I was working as a bike messenger and I was miserable, hungry and tired all the time from the classes I was taking, the tutoring I was doing and the unpaid lab work. I couldn’t enjoy it. I would spread a sleeping bag out on the floor in the living room and eat my plain pasta when I got home at night while reading my Organic Chemistry textbook before I passed out so I could be out on the streets again at the ass crack of dawn for deliveries.

Now I have a job I enjoy, enough money to buy food I actually like to eat, I get enough sleep at night, and the things I’ve been working hard to make happen are actually starting to happen (provided I keep up the hard work, of course).

Getting older is fucking rad.

There are going to be good days and bad days in the coming weeks, I know, but on this perfect and peaceful morning, I can’t complain.

And though I don’t feel like it, I’m not going to be using the pity party I’ve been indulging the past few days to keep me from getting some words down today.

If you have no excuses, go make some art today. If you have lots of excuses, do it anyway. You’ll thank yourself later.

Posted in Errata | 3 Comments

Fuck This Place

Posted on November 11, 2011 by Kelly

There are distractions aplenty at work and online today. And tonight I’m having a party so I don’t have to be alone. I’m okay. Some moments are better than others.

Love to you all.

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A note to those who’ve been concerned…

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Kelly

Many of you may already know that shit’s going down in my life right now. So to all of you who’ve reached out with support and encouragement and love, I wanted to say this:

Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Change is difficult, and no matter how good life can get sometimes, it’s easy to let the shit pull you down.

You’re making me more buoyant and it makes this hard thing so much easier to not feel like I’m alone.

Strength is what I need right now. And courage. And the knowledge that things will be better in the long run. Because as I wrote to someone earlier today, things SUCKY SUCKY SUCK SUCK FUCKING FUCKY SUCK right now.

So if you see me, give me a hug. Because though I may not be broadcasting it, I really need it.

Love to you all.

(P.S. Nats: no hug necessary. Your generosity is the biggest hug I could hope for and no amount of El Zarape and Cherry Chocolate Stout could convey my gratitude)

Posted in Errata | 11 Comments

You take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have…

Posted on November 9, 2011 by Kelly

I had a goal for my business trip to stay on top of my wordcount for NaNoWriMo. I have always been traveling in November, when the yearly madness takes place, and I have never once managed to stay caught up. Weekends were always the time for frenzied typings where I would come close, but not quite.

This is the first year things have been different. I’m actually two days ahead as of right now (thanks to a marathon writing session in the airport while my flight was delayed, and the flight itself). And I accomplished my goal, which means I get to treat myself to a brand new ukulele.

[Aside: My ukulele did not survive Patrick’s thrashing, which is fine as I needed to upgrade anyway for THE BAND. And now I have a uke that’s been played to death by Patrick, and signed by Amanda Palmer, so that’s as good a way as any for a uke to be retired.]

I have won NaNo twice before, once in 2008 and once in 2010. 2009 I was down for two weeks with the flu, so I didn’t get the wordage in.

So if you’re doing the math (and remember that this year is the year I’m rewriting the one from 2008), I have three novel ideas so far, and only one of them is completely fleshed out. And since this is the year I clear my plate of pending stories, I’m looking forward to getting this rewrite done so I can embark upon my goal for next year: to find an agent.

I like the other two ideas (both have child protagonists, but one is clearly YA, while the other is not), and I want to work on them, so clearing this book out of my system as soon as possible is a wonderful impetus to put butt in chair. Every day. That, combined with my lingering motivation leftover from VP, is making the words flow.

I’m hoping there will be no mid-book slump, since I’m way too excited to get back to the short stories I’ve started since VP that I want to finish (because they’re all wrapped up in my head and they’ve got beauty right at their core that I want to immerse myself in). And based on how things are going now, the groundwork that’s already been laid, the motivation and the abundance of time I have now that I’ve got no trips planned for the rest of the year, I think I can do it. And most of all, I hope this motivation carries through into December so I can bang out the second half (this story is looking to be 100-120k long).

I’m happy with what I have so far. The scenes are better, more focused. The characterization is stronger. I know the shape of the story so I know the things that need to be laid down early and the things I’m building towards. I’m looking forward to hitting the crisis point in the plot this weekend, and a lot of my favorite scenes are yet to come.

I’m optimistic. For a lot of things. And there’s a long road of hard work between me and my goals. But I’ll get there. One word at a time.

Posted in NaNoWriMo, Viable Paradise, Writing | 2 Comments

I like the way your butt looks in that chair

Posted on November 3, 2011 by Kelly

It’s National Novel Writing Month and since I still have a strong desire to do ALL the things, I’m doing it for a fourth year in a row. But there’s added difficulty: I’m in Chicago on a business trip until Tuesday and I’m TIRED.

I have gotten very little sleep for the past two weeks so I’m looking forward to tomorrow night when I can go WHUMP and not have to go out or get up. And that means plenty of time to write between episodes of nodding off.

As far as NaNo goes, I’m technically cheating this year. I won last year only by the skin of my infodumping teeth, so I’m hoping to not have to do that this year. And I think I can accomplish this because THIS time I’m rewriting THE BOOK.

I’ve been trying to rewrite this book for years. This was my first NaNo book. I loved the idea (I STILL love the idea), and though I only had the idea when I first sat down, as I was writing I found the heart of the story, and as I kept writing I eventually found the plot. But when I got to around 90k in January and realized I’d made a mess of everything and there were things I didn’t know were important until later. So I stopped writing because I knew I’d have to rewrite the entire thing anyway. And I fucking trunked it for three years.

So last year, when I decided to go to WFC, I wanted to have something to talk to people about in case I met someone that was interested (silly Kelly, cons are for cuddle puddles), so I detrunked the thing and started reading it.

And my fucking EYES BLED.

I couldn’t get past the first few chapters. I would sit down all eager and bushy-tailed with my red pen but by the end of the revision sessions, I looked like this:

No one likes an emo author

My prose was awful. I wandered too far afield. The infodump was EPIC. I couldn’t even bring myself to try and do the sticky note blocking on the wall even after I’d already spent $15 on post-its for that specific purpose.

As such, I didn’t rewrite it. I just stared at the pile of paper on my coffee table, whimpering. But I WANTED to rewrite it. I really, REALLY did.

So while I was at Viable Paradise, I was sitting next to Uncle Jim at dinner one night and decided to ask his advice.

“Rewrite it from memory,” he said.

And I had a complete “Duh” moment. Of course I should do that. There’s a LOT of really cool shit in this book. What I remember is all of the cool shit (and I did fix the problems that had cockblocked me later with an outline that took a grand total of 25 minutes to write – I’m still pissed it had been that easy). Best of all, in those aborted rewrite sessions from a few months back, I saw how I’ve become a better writer. That makes me feel better, not to mention excited, about embarking on this book again.

I loved it because it was the first time I wrote EVERY DAY. And cool things happen when you write every day. More of the technical stuff goes on autopilot and your inner beast gets so much time to run around, it starts clamoring for MOAR WRITING PLEAZ K THX. It also taught me that I could have ideas that I’m still in love with four years later.

Now I get to go through, knowing what the themes are, knowing what’s going to happen to all of these characters, and knowing the world inside and out. All I have to do is focus on following Steve Brust’s advice to cram as much cool shit in there as I can (and I’ve got a lot more cool shit in my head this time around, I’ll tell you that).

And if I can just get to the end of this thing, you know what? It’s gonna be the kind of book I would love to read. And all I’ve ever wanted to do was write a story I would love to read.

But I’ve got to finish it this time.

Butt is in chair. It’s time to do all the things.

Posted in NaNoWriMo, Viable Paradise, Writing | 3 Comments