Drowning Nor Waving

April 1, 2012 Progress Notes:

Light (bad working title)

Words today: 200.
Words total: 3800.
Reason for stopping: That was all blood. And I'm getting hungry.

Darling du Jour: The worst of it, here, was how the wind smelled wrong. It came whistling between the buildings wet as a rag stuffed in your mouth and clogged your ears like strep throat, and even if she'd known the blossoms and smoke it carried, she couldn't have pronounced their names.
Mean Things: I am doing a horrible thing in the story I'm telling right now. I only hope the result vindicates, because otherwise, seriously, we'll need to pass a hat and buy me a new soul.

Research Roundup: The Don River system; flora and fauna of the Republic of Georgia; terrain at Yonge and the 401; a Georgian-language translator. Have I mentioned I'm doing a horrible thing?
Books in progress: Caitlin R. Kiernan, The Drowning Girl.

---

Things that happened this week:

So today, Above is out in the US. Pre-game show is officially over. Fly free, little book.

Friday was my last day at the Dayjob. I have been quiet about it, mostly because I've been too busy to blog (or think, or breathe, or sleep) for about six weeks now, but I got some arts grants this spring, for two different projects: this one and On Roadstead Farm. And so I am going to be a full-time writer for a year while I write those things.

And then? Who knows what happens?

The third thing: Friday night I was out for celebratory drinks with friends, and I came home utterly weaving drunk and wanted nothing but to write and write and write. And last night I was out at the movies and then dinner and rambling 'til two in the morning, and came home wanting nothing but to write and write, with the feel of close-passing trains rumbling around in my belly.

Finally I've had an edge of sleep, and all I want to do is write.

I'm going to ride this as long as I have it. Or as long as it takes. It's midafternoon and I'm possessed and addled with fiction like I haven't had a chance to be in months. Okay, fiction. Come on in. Hit me.

Happy April. Happy afternoon.

All right, kids, buckle up. I'm going to ramble a bit.

---

matociquala posted last night on her workweek and how long it takes her to write a book. What this post is actually about, although it comes clearer in the comments, is another aspect of the question that spurred it: The perception of authors as overpaid, spoiled, wealthy, greedy or...maybe just indulged members of our society. The perception, in short, of art as a class of work valued less than other classes of work.

I tangle with this thing a lot.

I am a working writer. No, I am not a writer who has a novel in print (and we'll get into the hobbyist perception that goes with that another time), but I am a writer who has been writing for eatin' money since early 2003 or so, which is when I started being reliably paid for stuff. Trufax: in second year I regularly paid my phone bill with the dribs and drabs of money from poetry sales. Writing still composes a non-major, but non-trivial part of my household income: My support staff and moderation gig at the OWW helps me keep chipping away at my school debt, and Shadow Unit, while not even remotely paying for the time we put into it at this juncture, kicked me enough cash last year to cover a month's worth of groceries and (non-rent) bills.

As truepenny has pointed out this week it's very hard to make ends meet as a writer. So unlike Bear and Sarah, I am also the proud possessor of a full-time Dayjob with really solid benefits.

My Dayjob is in the public sector, which is another place with some class-of-work issues.

There was a point early last year, when I was still fairly new to the job and quite blissful about it (I have a truly great office full of truly awesome persons) where I got very upset about my inability to communicate to people outside government that I really liked my brand new job. Any enthusiasm I had about my work would be automagically translated into Well, must be nice to have it that good and not have to work hard. You're having fun? Is that my tax dollars at work? The base assumption was that because clearly all public servants are spoiled and lazy and sheltered by the hand of a government employer, the enjoyment I got out of my job must be from lying on the couch and eating bonbons instead of pounding steel all day like real manly men doing actual, real work. It couldn't be that I had a good boss, good co-workers, and interesting, intellectually stimulating work; it must have been that my work was not legitimate, not demanding. To this day, I quite literally cannot talk about anything fun that happens in my office -- silly water cooler stories, lunch table anecdotes, nothing -- in mixed company without getting some form of blowback. Period.

I've learned to work around and weather the thing since, but it was actually quite hurtful. I couldn't share a good thing about my life anywhere but with my most trusted friends. It was like trying to show someone a butterfly and having the thing -- and your hand -- pissed on and then set on fire.

So basically I get shafted coming and going on this one. Of the 60+ hours of work I put into an average workweek, none of it is considered valued or legitimate work outside of my various insider circles. I have one career where I have to step carefully if I want to express the most basic pride in my work, and one career where I have to step carefully if I want to utter the mildest complaint about it.

And that means I'm sort of fascinated by the psychology behind perception of work: Why and how do we decide which fields of work are more "real" than others? How have we somehow accorded legitimacy to some -- totally necessary -- functions in society and yet routinely disparage other -- totally necessary -- functions? Why do normally right-thinking people open their mouths and drop these assumptions onto the floor every day?

---

I think about this a lot. I tangle with it a lot.

I think it's something to do with a class of products or services that, to people without expert knowledge, seem to self-create or self-maintain; that we feel have always been there. It's to do with the nature of work where, when it's done right, the worker isn't even noticed.

Let me go into that a bit.

People get pissed off at customer service or restaurant wait service if it's obtrusive. People only notice that grocery store stockpersons exist when something's not on the shelf. People only remember the existence of the Ministry of Transportation when there's a pothole. People get pissy at subway repairs because the inherent and subtextual expectation is that while of course subways need to be fixed, the fixing of them should be invisible. We should never see it happen, or it has essentially failed.

People only notice the author in the text, like the waiter or subway repairman or stockperson, if they feel something has gone wrong.

If we do our job right, the logic goes -- and I'm not getting into whether this is right or wrong today -- the reader shouldn't even see us. One paragraph at the back of the book saying general things about our pets, maybe where we live. Standard words at the front about who made this book possible; all very much to the forms. Look at the emphasis that creates, just by inference: the important thing is the book. We, the authors, should be completely occluded, completely obscured by the text itself.

When I pull off a good story, a paragraph that crunches into someone's chest like a wrecking ball, the book's there in their vision and it's fifty feet tall, bright as noon, eating up everything and roaring like a cannonball.

I'm not.

I'm invisible.

---

Here's the problem with that notion of successful art -- a notion that okay, I can't really argue with. The notion of text that lives head and shoulders above its author, text that takes on a life of its own and forms a relationship with the reader that the author really has no part of is really kind of glorious. I think a lot of us crave it a bit: making something that's bigger than us.

Thing is, it gets really hard to assert the personal or financial rights of invisible people.

This is why the argument against writing fanfic of works whose authors are uncomfortable with it never gets anywhere. This is why things like arts grants, book prices, royalty statements, financial need are considered faintly distasteful topics in a lot of writing circles, or why we talk about them in lowered tones or prescreened company. This is why it's such a big deal when an author "goes nuts" and engages readers who criticize their book, their lifestyle, their looks, their person, and why that behaviour is stomped on and stigmatized so hard. This is why reactions such as that which occurred on the Kindle forum about this Amazon kerfuffle happen. To the greater reading public, authors are invisible people. We don't exist, and therefore neither do our needs.

---

The question becomes, then: how to create fiction that stands like a pillar of fire in someone else's brain, to not get between my fiction and its reader, and yet, keep myself firmly in existence?

That one's for you, team. I am sadly out of answers tonight.

I am home from work, tired, angry, and in need of fifteen professional hockey players with respectable and yet unprickly hockey stubble to cuddle me and make it go away. Barring that, I'm ordering takeout, but it means I have sadly got nothing here and all you get is a meme.

So.

If I came with a warning label, what would it say?

Headache, exhaustion, and Dayjob insanity continue. Send pain meds and rescue dogs.

I do have reviews for you, though:

cassiphone at lastshortstory does a year-end of Shadow Unit, and has kind words for Sugar.

Rich Horton's also done a Shadow Unit roundup.

ase is decidedly unfond of "Bliss". Actually, it shocks me that that anthology is still kicking around, getting reviews.

Now I must clear some stuff out of this inbox even though my head hurts, because the Fountain Pen Hospital catalogue came tonight, and I promised myself that if I was good I could take it to bed with me (bow chicka wow wow).

Apparently it is Borrowed today, my very favourite holiday, which actually always does seem to come around the same time of year. Maybe November is the month when things break and I have to go out and replace them.

The thing that broke was my work shoes, little black Mary Jane things that admittedly, I've had for four years and have been wearing pretty much every day. One sole was kinda split in half and the other one paper-thin, and the water that cheerfully poured into my shoe yesterday morning was, ah, unpleasant. So off I went to the mall after work today to fight with shoe stores.*

After winning that battle one pair of new, better-made, more comfortable black Mary Janes** and one pair of surprisingly comfortable and Montreal-stylish black suede ankle boots later****, I decided I had been Very Brave (tm) and already spent a bunch of money anyways, so I might as well hemorrhage a little more without feeling too guilty about it, and got myself a cute black crocheted shrug, the DVD of Mystery Men, and three (3) Godiva truffles too.

Yes. Such is my sybaritic luxury.***

That closes out Borrowed for this year (and hopefully means I won't have to buy shoes again for at least umpteen months) at higher expense than some years, but at a maximum of efficiency. And now I am going to make a pot of tea and put on my new movie and knit, because after this workweek? My brain is too tired for too much else.


*I wear size 11. Most shoe stores stock up to size 10. 'Nuff said.

**A shoe store that stocks sizes 10-13 was located. Booyah. I'm just going there first next time.

***Although it is not Muskokan sybaritic luxury.

****I still technically do need a good pair of sneakers, but we will seriously leave that for another paycheque.

November 16, 2009 Progress Notes:

"When Your Number Isn't Up"

Words today: 250.
Words total: 450.
Reason for stopping: I have to get to bed. Dayjobbery demands it. I'm already up too late.

Darling du Jour: Niklas Shevchenko had been a dockman before the St. James lost its night porter. He still moved like one, wide and swinging, black shoes blurred against the patched burgundy of the hall carpet. Jake Beaton had been a junior welterweight, and he wasn't even that anymore. The bad leg dragged behind him like a body out of the river.

Mean Things: Physical exertion; bloody hands; terrible, terrible beauty.
Research Roundup: Slavic surnames, boxing weight classes, first use of forensic fingerprinting, dried blood. By the way, don't image-google that last one. Hello, war atrocity photos.

Books in progress: Nicole Kornher-Stace, Desideria.
The glamour: Today was the dreaded 11:00-7:00 shift, which meant I came home, ran some laundry, had a frozen pizza for dinner, and then the day was already pretty much over. This is not, shall we say, my favourite shift in the world.

---

The second I put mini chapter breaks in this, it proceeded to maybe not put out like a charm, but at least cooperate grudgingly. I'll consider the implications of that tomorrow, I think.

I will also stop worrying about whether I'm cannibalizing other projects, picking the wrong voice, being historically inaccurate, not having enough to say, pushing it, not pushing it enough, avoiding what I'm supposed to be working on, or producing crap, and just love the fucking bomb already.

After I go to bed.

Today I am off to scenic Minesing, Ontario, a place without even its own wiki entry (although apprently with both a public school, a slo-pitch tournament, and a swamp) for my first offsite committee with the Dayjob.

I'm leaving in 20 minutes to make the bus on time. And it is still pitch black out.

Terrible things I do for this Dayjob.

---

Also, an interim book report:

( This year's books, so far... )

#57 -- Emma Bull and Steven Brust, Freedom & Necessity

This started somewhat slow, and I wasn't sure about it, and I kept reading anyways because sometimes you just do. And once the plot kicked in? It was like a Jane Austen novel married a spy thriller and had a baby, and then the baby saw its parents gunned down and became the Batman.

So ostensibly this is a period epistolary slightly-magical spy thriller. Really, what I think it is? Competence porn. It's getting to watch people be stupidly competent at things and/or on the learning curve to such without getting that feeling of Suedom, and the great thing about competence porn is that when you really have it going, the stakes matter. The stakes are everything.

The other thing this is so far (I'm not yet finished) that I'm really appreciating is a book where a Dangerous Man (tm) is clearly infatuated with and interested in the protagonist, but it's because she is so freaking competent. He keeps looking at her and shaking his head like, "Geez, does everyone underestimate you or am I the only idiot in the house?" instead of looking at her like a Dark Highlander does some kind of prey. And this? Makes the Dangerous Man/Our Heroine romance trope actually believable, for once in its life. It makes me respect the heroine, consider that the Dangerous Man is worthy of respect (after all, good reason to have a crush, man) and feel the legitimacy of the potential romance.

That's cool. More books should do that.

And now, I'm off to Minesing.

Alas, today I have failed a bit at Adventure.

Got up this morning around 11:30, just too late for breakfast, which was fine; I needed the sleep after my *cough*-o'clock bedtime the other night and just in general. So I had a cup of tea and plotted what I could do this afternoon: the Museum of Civilization, or a tour of Parliament Hill. Both of these were in the same direction, so I grabbed my tiny umbrella and headed out.

First thwartation: Although the nice security man told me yesterday that yes, there would be tours on today at Parliament, when I got there everything was fenced off and there were about fifteen million protesters/rally participants/whatever on the lawn. I managed to inquire (shoutily, since they were up on a terrace) with other guard types if the building was closed, and it was. I admit to some small grump about this, because as far as I know, even when we have buses and buses of protesters on our lawn at work, tours still run. So, hmph.

Being thwarted in that, I decided that my feet were wet and my stomach was empty and I didn't like this, so I went into Byward Market to have lunch. There was a lot of that, and it was good: pears with prosciutto, tortellini in a gorgonzola cream sauce, creme brulee. Being full, warm, and with my socks half-dry, I decided, well, I liked that. And that my feet hurt from yesterday. And that I was kinda sleepy. So I totally bailed on the museum and came back to the room (through yes, more puddles) to flop on my bed, watch Mythbusters, and knit some on my Coachella.

After that, though, sevenravens called, and we had a nice cup of tea down the street, and that mitigates things a lot. So now I am back here, and since (as previously noted) everything in Ottawa shuts down early to save you from the wolves, I think I will call it here and go back upstairs to the knitting and maybe some hockey and all that business.

Train leaves tomorrow around noonish, so I should be home with wrapup and pictures (!) in the evening.

This has been your Trip Report.