Date: 2010-02-09 19:27 Subject: Organizy Day Security: Public Location: Witchnest of Productivity Mood: accomplished Tags: busy, reading

Today I Got Things Done.

-A load of laundry (with no fail)
-Updated my writing to-do list for the first time in like a year
-Finished bravado111's manuscript edit
-Finished jkoke's manuscript proofread, and packaged it up for the mail
-Wrapped some Seekrit Things in pretty wrapping paper
-Cleaned lots of things out of my email inbox, including:
     -Updated my writertopia page as per my Campbell eligibility (ahem)
     -Submitted an invited story to an anthology
     -Some general correspondence that had fallen woefully behind
     -Quicken matters
-Oh yeah: did Quicken, paid bills
-Conceived of a possible solution to a sticky plot problem markferrari has been facing (time will tell if this is actually an accomplishment or not...)
-Gave up on a book I'm reading, even though I was 379 pages into it (no, I won't say which one: I don't want to lose my Kewl Intelleckshul Cred entirely)
-Blended breakfast, cooked lunch, cooked dinner
-A whole handful of other little dribs and drabs too teeny to mention or even remember, but there were so totally more things than that

Now I have to decide what book to read next. I'm thinking it's time for another desperance book. I've been so good: I deserve that. Yes? Yes. I'm so glad you agree.

Date: 2010-02-09 14:16 Subject: The Cute, It Burns Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: cheerful Tags: family

My brother is in Thailand right now, for a month, working for energy efficiency ('cause that's what he does).



Isn't he adorable?

When I asked if I could put that on my blog, he said sure, and then sent another picture, saying, "This is what I look like when I have to listen to other people talking." :-)



Okay, enough Big Sister Squee. Carry on.

Date: 2010-02-08 18:09 Subject: Retirement Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: contemplative Tags: family, no-job

I am having a devil of a time remembering what day of the week it is, any more.

____________

I had a nice breakfast with my mom and stepdad this morning. They had just gotten back from--wait, I have to start this story earlier.

My stepdad just retired at the end of last year. My mom, being (mumble) years older than him, had already retired a few years ago; he'd been waiting and waiting, just DYING to join her. Finally, he could.

One of the first things they planned was a nice cruise.

This has been in the works for months. They've been so excited. The luxury! The relaxation! The ample food, and the fun drinks with umbrellas in them!

Finally, the time was almost here....and, guess where one of the stops on the cruise was to be?

Haiti!

Oh god. They watched the cruise operator's website for days after the earthquake: no update. Surely they would redirect the journey, if not cancel it altogether. How in the world is anyone supposed to feel good about going on a CRUISE to HAITI???

Then it was announced: the stop at Haiti would remain on the schedule. And, the cruise ship would carry loads of relief supplies.

An elegant solution, I think.

_____________

Anyway, they had a wonderful time. The side of the island they stopped on was undamaged. But they spent as much money there as they could (in addition to the donations they'd given already).

And boy, did they have a good trip. I heard every detail. It almost makes me rethink my own feelings about cruises... :-)

Date: 2010-02-07 19:11 Subject: Nailed It Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: accomplished Tags: stories

This morning I realized that the ending I had previously imagined (and then rejected) for Teh Collab was actually more along the way of the right answer than I had suspected. So I spent an hour and a half undoing most of yesterday's words, rewriting some of them, writing the *actual* ending, and then going over the whole story to make it seem like I'd meant to do it that way all along.

Then sent it to Teh Collaborator, so's he can fix all I screwed up.

Stay tuned. This is going to be an awesome story some day. But for now, at least, my part is done. And for that I say: Hooray!

Date: 2010-02-07 11:32 Subject: Simplify, Simplify. Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: Organized Tags: announcement, facebook

So. There’s gonna be some changes around here.

1. Blogging.
If you are reading this on the LiveJournal side, as 99.99 percent of you are, you aren’t going to notice a thing, except maybe the absence of the “originally published at” dealie at the bottom of the page (after this entry). For some time now, I have been keeping this blog on my WordPress website and cross-posting it to LiveJournal. Which has never worked properly; it has always required several extra steps for me to get it to post correctly on LiveJournal.

So I looked at the numbers. In 307 posts, I’ve received 24 comments on the website–which is actually 12, because half of them would be my answers. That’s 12 legitimate comments; also, there are 3,780 spam comments.

In other words, very nearly all of my activity is here on LiveJournal. This is also where I keep up with my friends. So I’m just going to post here, and leave out that step.

I’ll still keep my website active, with publications and appearances (just updated it today, in fact). But I’ve changed the front page to point to the LiveJournal blog, and I’ll add a small entry atop this one to that effect, as my final post on the website.

2. Micro-Whatever Stuff.
I’ve got a Twitter account and a Facebook account. I use them sporadically at best, ignoring them for weeks at a time. Then feeling guilty about it. This morning I have finally owned up to the reality: the tiny, tiny limits just don’t work for me. Micro-writing is not my style. I end up posting cryptic, contextless stuff; then people respond to it, trying to engage; I don’t answer; I feel guilty. So, enough of that. I’ve posted a notice on Facebook directing everyone to LiveJournal; I’m just going to leave Twitter be. I do not naturally write short and pithy.

3. Focus.
What I am going to do, as far as the computer is concerned, is focus on two things: writing fiction, and keeping my blog. I realize that the world is leaving me behind, that everyone is moving smaller and smaller, that blogging is passe, whatever. Fine. I do not need to be cutting-edge. I’ve never been; why start now? I don’t even watch television. I am so far out of the loop, I can’t even see the loop. I’m good with that. I don’t need the distraction of all the other social media, or the guilt I feel for neglecting them.

This feels very freeing.

4. Finally, A Note:
If you are one of my friends on LiveJournal, and your only posts are those daily aggregates of your tweets, I will probably not de-friend you, but I will be filtering you out.

Simplify, simplify.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-02-06 20:07 Subject: Quiet Day Security: Public Location: Witchnest, right by the bed Mood: melancholy Tags: food, stories

Well, as it turns out, after my morning walk, I didn’t leave the Nest all day.

See, in the morning it was raining; then, by the time it got to be sunny, I had written my 500 words on Teh Collab and was ensconced in doing edit/crit work for bravado111 (Honeyed Words, the sequel to the forthcoming Black Blade Blues); then as it got later, I was doing some proofreading for jkoke so I could feel good about going out for the evening; and by the time the_ogre, alas, called to cancel our evening due to his coming down sick, I no longer had any oomph for going out at all.

Oh well.

______________

So I stayed in, and drank some wine, and made up a big batch of delicious coleslaw, which covered my kitchen in tiny shards of bright purple cabbage. I’m not sure how that happened. It’s all cleaned up now…

_____________

The spam comments to this blog amuse me. Sometimes it’s random words or characters with what appears to be links to pr0n sites; sometimes long strings of Cyrillic with what appears to be links to pr0n sites; sometimes highly ungrammatical praise of my blog (with links etc etc); sometimes highly ungrammatical criticism with etc.

This one I rather liked, though: Brim over I assent to but I dream the brief should prepare more info then it has.

Kind of poetic, in its way.

____________

Also, someone finished the pistachio ice cream. Thank god. That’ll make it stop screaming.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-02-05 20:40 Subject: Chemo, Remote Security: Public Location: Witchnest Tags: cancer, food, jay

jaylake has his third chemo session today.

I’m not there.

The problem with long-distance relationships is, well, the distance. I live here. He lives there. “Here” is rather far from “there,” actually. It costs money to get from here to there, and back again. It disrupts what’s left of the life I have here (”what’s left of”–now that I’m not working, that is) to spend time there, out of my home, in space that isn’t set up for me.

Be that as it may: I am there a lot. I was there for the first two chemos. I sat in the infusion center and I learned how to unplug the needle from the port and I was there for the doctor consults and the bottle ritual and all that.

We discussed this at great length, the schedule. It’s every two weeks, the chemo. We’ve been seeing each other roughly every two weeks for some time now–long before the excellent cancer adventures started up again.

And so, in our discussions, we asked: did we only want to see each other during the “bad” times, when he is sick? Or did we want to try to space it out, so that we also have some relationship-time during the “good” times?

It made so much sense to do it that way. That’s what we decided to do. jaylake has family and many loved ones in Portland and very nearby, who can be with him during the infusions. He is surrounded by love today.

But I’m down here.

And, as it turns out, it sucks.

Earlier this week, he realized that he’d rather have me there during the sessions, that even the “good times” are really not that good… but the tickets are bought, the plans are made, for the next month and a half or so. We can’t change the plans for the next few sessions. I’ll be there for all the ones from #6 going forward.

But this is #3, and I’m here, and he’s there.

So, there you go.

______________

In other news. I went to the East Bay and had lunch with a friend I haven’t seen in well over a year, and saw her lovely new home. I have baby artichokes and whole garlic cloves simmering on the stove. I didn’t get a nap today. I didn’t write today. Okay that’s enough other news.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-02-05 16:44 Subject: Go Order a Book! Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: pleased Tags: stories

Lookie!

You can pre-order it now! Because, you know you want to, and I know you want to. So, what are you waiting for?

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-02-04 19:41 Subject: A Curious Development Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: contemplative Tags: m&ms, mark, no-job, stories

I am discovering a new skill in the last few days, something I’ve never been capable of before, in all my years.

It is called napping.

It most often happens when I have had a busy, productive morning: first yoga; then work at the keyboard: writing (a full thousand today, on Ye Olde Problematic Collab), critting, and correspondence; then a small lunch; then perhaps some time on the phone (today with markferrari, finally released from his most recent Work Death March); then I decide to lie down in bed with a book for a little while, as a reward for all that industrious productivity.

Then my eyelids get heavy.

Then the words swim on the page and make no sense, even though the book was perfectly compelling earlier.

Then I decide to just curl up and close my eyes a bit, let them rest….

Then it’s twenty or thirty minutes later, I don’t know who I am, and there’s drool on the pillow.

_____________

Who knew? I’ve never been able to nap before. I think it’s a function of being near an actual bed, in the afternoon. With nothing else I’m *supposed* to do. Not supervised, not stuck in an office.

This must have been when I’d get M&Ms, when I had a real job.

Napping is probably healthier.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-02-03 19:22 Subject: Discipline, Restored Security: Public Location: Witchnest of Domesticity Mood: accomplished Tags: demonhead, food, oloti, orchids, stories

Yep. And instantly rewarded, too: the scale numbers have retreated to where they were before the weekend, and went a half-pound further to boot. That’s what I like to see.

____________

Seekrit Difficult Collab Story continues to give me fits. I had a clever ending all figured out, and wrote up to it, and got there, and realized that the clever ending is actually just a semi-clever mid-story twist, leading to far more complications. And the ending itself…. recedes into the distance, never to be found… How long is this story going to be? We never agreed we were writing a novel…

____________

Also I: did yoga; successfully wrangled two loads of laundry through the FailMachines of Quarter-Eating Doom; watered the orchids; remembered three things and forgot a fourth at the grocery store; finished reading a book and fell into a tiny nap afterwards; did thirteen chapters of crit for a friend, and two chapters (plus a prologue) of proofreading for another friend. Because that is what we do for each other. Ask me how many people are reading Demonhead and Our Lady of the Islands, even as we speak.

Good stuff.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-02-02 20:39 Subject: Um. Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: tired Tags: food, stories

So, my weight crept up a bit, according to the scale this morning. I wonder if this is at all related to all the eating and drinking over the weekend?

Anyway, back on the discipline, now. Except, with a small bit of wine, and a half-smoothie in the morning. But other than that: discipline.

___________

I wrote 750 words on the Seekrit Difficult Collab Story this afternoon. It was like pulling teeth, but in a good way, in that I think I have a hint as to where it might be going. It stands at 5,000 words now; it might go to 7 or 8K total. More on it tomorrow. I hope.

___________

That’s about it from here… Be well, everyone.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-02-01 22:30 Subject: Impromptu Writing Workshop and Culinary Retreat Part II Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: full Tags: food

More on the culinary and less on the writing, today. As far as actual output is concerned, anyway.

To wit, the kitchen produced: lamb meatballs, in a thick tomato sauce, with plenty of garlic and mint. And leftover pan-seared asparagus; and some of the ahi and wild rice for lunch. And a precious, hoarded bottle of Former Boss Man’s basement 2006 Pinot Noir (Nuit San Wogga Wogga, decanted, of course). Oh, the yum, it was off the charts.

On the writing front: lots and lots and lots of discussion; no word count to report. But hey. It all counts, doesn’t it?

jkoke returns north tomorrow morning, early. It was a lovely visit, and I look forward to many more fruitful collaborations in the future.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-01-31 18:24 Subject: The Witchnest Impromptu Writing Workshop and Culinary Retreat Security: Public Location: Witchnest at cocktail hour Mood: hungry Tags: food, stories

jkoke is in town this weekend, and the town is behaving beautifully, bringing lovely sunshine where before there was torrential rain.

There has been much of the writerly discussion, and then there was actually some of actual writerliness. I picked up a Seekrit Collab project that had been languishing since mid-December and wrote about 500 words on it, finding my way towards the end. (Then my Clever Collaborator will fix everything I’ve messed up, and it will be an excellent story. At least, that’s my plan. Shh, don’t tell him.)

More exciting than the writerliness, though, is the situation in the kitchen right now. A pair of utterly gorgeous ahi steaks are going to be prepared before my very eyes. All I have to do is make asparagus.

Even more exciting than *that*, however, is that martinis are being concocted as we speak. Le Yum!

Oh and last night’s wine? Mmmmmm. And I didn’t overindulge, and I didn’t gain back an ounce.

So that’s the news from here. Gotta go–I hear my new cocktail shaker, well, shaking.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-01-30 09:14 Subject: Weather Eye Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: pensive Tags: randomosity

Faeries and mad ghosts bedeviled my morning walk.

Strong forces are at work.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-01-29 12:51 Subject: Contents and Container Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: contemplative Tags: cancer, food, health, jay, oloti

State of the Container of the Witch:

The diet continues very well. Can you believe I haven’t had a drink in nearly two weeks? The numbers on the scale continue to edge downward, and I’ve re-introduced a whole tier of favorite clothing back into the rotation. Yay! And it’s still been really, stupidly easy. Which only proves the theory I heard long ago: you can’t do this kind of thing until you’re ready. All last year as I was gaining weight, I’d be thinking, Oh, jeez, I have to stop this, I have to do something, I need to eat less, etc etc. But I wasn’t ready, so it was impossible. Now I was ready–finally, really emotionally ready–and it’s easy.

So I am going to reward myself and ease into phase 2 a couple of days early. There will be a drinking buddy around this weekend, and I’d hate to miss that opportunity. I’m going to be a terrible lightweight, though, so I have to be careful. And I’m not going to suddenly flood my diet with a whole bunch of carbs. My plan is to do three or four days of a sort of hybrid phase 1/phase 2, starting tomorrow (add a little fruit, some wine, maybe a cracker or two), and see how it goes. Then by mid-next week, go more fully into phase 2 if I’m happy with the results.

_______________

State of the Contents of the Witch:

Results hazy, try again later.

No, seriously. Lots of good stuff going on; lots of tough stuff going on. I am feeling helplessly remote from jaylake as he struggles with chemo and its attendant frustrations and limitations. I am reading his treatment of Our Lady of the Islands and loving it. I am contemplating what my next big writing project(s) should be. I am contemplating big external changes in my life and big structural internal changes–future, ongoing, recent past. Vague, I know, but isn’t that the way life is sometimes?

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-01-28 17:50 Subject: Dad Time Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: pleased Tags: family

I had a really, really nice visit with my dad.

I’m so glad we both took steps to make that happen–him especially, as he did more. I got up there late afternoon, he showed me around his business and all the cool new equipment they’ve gotten since the last time I was there, and introduced me to a bunch of his staff. Then we went and watched the State of the Union speech (the first TV I’ve seen in like a year); then out to dinner, where we started talking.

The first part of the conversation was more general catching-up, which was quite good. But then after dinner, we stayed up late and got into bigger stuff. Our whole history, from my parents being so young when they had me (21), up through our time on the Land, and then their divorce, and the advent of step-parents, etc. And on through my adulthood and he and Stepmom having my half-brother, and my marriage to my ex, all that. And through it all, our communication with each other, both bad and good–and our different perspectives on it.

He told me things I hadn’t known were true, but hearing them, I knew they were. And I know he’s hearing me too: my feelings of missed connections, of his scarcity in my life.

We’re both going to do better. We’ve got a plan. We’re understanding each other.

I’m so very happy about this. Thank you, Dad.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-01-27 14:48 Subject: On the Road Again Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: busy Tags: driving, family, orchids, travel

I’m leaving in a few minutes, heading to Points Partway North for an overnight visit with my dad. Which I am very much looking forward to.

Orchids are in the sink and need to be put away; a small bit of packing has to happen; otherwise, I am ready.

I’m taking the computer, but I don’t anticipate much more (if any) internettery on the day…so, be good, everyone, and I’ll be back tomorrow!

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-01-26 22:03 Subject: It Was A Busy Day Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: accomplished Tags: demonhead, jay, oloti

jaylake wasn’t the only one who got a novel to first readers today.

I did the same with Demonhead.

Yay!

It’s particularly exciting, because, well, Our Lady of the Islands is my novel too–so I sort of finished *two* novels today. I’m reading his treatment of Our Lady right now, and loving it–I can see my words melded with his words, and they work together nicely. If I do say so myself. This book rocks.

Hmm, which icon shall I use–the demon or the lady? I think the demon. Because, well, I *did* finish Demonhead today. That’s noteworthy.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-01-26 15:14 Subject: Art! Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: pleased Tags: stories

Cover art!

My story “The Hippie Monster of Eel River” will be in this fine-looking anthology. Thanks to jennifer_brozek for letting me copy (and for buying the story in the first place!).

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.

Date: 2010-01-26 10:59 Subject: Dept. of Small Things (Which Are Huge) (Because They Are Smaller) Security: Public Location: Witchnest Mood: pleased Tags: food, health

I am wearing pants from the next tier down, in my vast constellation-o-sizes. As in, one step down from Utmost Hugest Evar, where I have been stuck for months.

And they feel and look good.

Originally published at Shannon Page: Author. You can comment here or there.