I KNOW.

I know, I know, I know. I haven't updated in over a year. So here's where I've been.

It's much easier to not write than to write. Somewhere near the end of 2010, I started revising Mrs. Shadow. I was nearly two-thirds of the way through when... the holidays happened. So I couldn't work because it was about to be Thanksgiving. And I couldn't work after that because it was about to be Christmas. And then I couldn't work because it was a new year...

Procrastination. My thirtieth birthday started to loom, and I thought: If I don't finish this, I never will. So I made a calendar.

One month later, I've edited nearly 40 pages and deleted another ten. If everything goes as planned, I should finally finish in August, nearly two years after I started writing. When I reread what I've finished so far, I'm REALLY happy with the book for the first time. So. We'll see.

But I'm back. Thirty years old and, in five months, I'll be a father.

Hello, Ants! Goodbye!

For Christmas, I got an ant farm.

It wasn't just any ant farm - it was one of those sweet new neon-blue ant farms. The outer-space kind. Up until we moved into our new house, it sat unused in the closet, just waiting - as are we all - to be filled with red ants.

Last week, it was finally warm enough. I did not have to worry about coming out to the mailbox to find a package of frozen ant corpses. So I ordered a vial, and a couple of days later, I had twenty new friends.



And these little red guys were fast. A few hours after we put them in, they were already digging tunnels...


A day later...


They were pretty exciting guys. This one was my favorite:


In less than a week, the ant farm went from amazing to depressing. They stopped digging tunnels and started trying to chew their way out. And then came the dilemma: do I let them go or keep them? If I let them go, they're probably going to be eaten by a predator. At the very least, without a queen, they aren't going to be doing a whole lot of exciting stuff.
Then again: if I leave them in the farm, they'll die within a couple of months, all the while trying to escape.
SO, this afternoon:


So long, ants!

One year later

Actually, it hasn't been quite a year since we moved. Still, I have that feeling that almost everyone has when I look back - "I can't believe so much has happened" added to "I can't believe it's been a year already."

Here's where I thought I'd be: I thought I'd be about to quit the part-time job I'd get while waiting for my first book to be printed. I thought that surely, in a year's time, I'd have an agent and a publisher. And at least another book and a half written.

Well.

In the last year, I've finished editing The Cherubim and written a third book (Shadow). I've queried a couple of dozen agents; one actually gave The Dead Rise a full read-through (and a rejection.) I'm no closer to being published than I was when we moved.

This morning, I got up and edited another ten pages of Shadow. It's the best thing I've written to date, but I feel that way about everything I write - because everything else I've written to date is pretty awful. So there's that. I'm trying to feel optimistic about Shadow because it's stronger conceptually than anything I've done so far; it's the first thing I've written where I have something true to say. But does that make a good book? It's the story, and I'm not sure how strong the story is. I have to wait until it's finished and Rebecca reads through it.

But I'm happy I'm still writing. Even though I've taken a couple of hiatuses over the past year, I still love putting words down. And it feels good to still have an outlet.

We're closing on a house in three weeks. Since February of 2009, we've lived in three apartments in three cities - I'll be glad to finally settle down for a while. And I'll keep writing, knowing that commercial success isn't just around the corner.

Monthly update

It isn't that atheism embarrasses me. I live in Tennessee's state capitol, and as an urbane city dweller, one would think that one's fellow urbane neighbors would take any religious affiliation (or lack thereof) in stride.

But that's not how it is at my office. There, everyone's very proudly a non-denominational Christian. Scripture in email sigs, taped up on cubicle walls, passed along via loud discussions on Biblical interpretation.

So even though I'd decided I would proudly announce myself as an atheist if the conversation ever came up, I found myself quietly dancing around the fact.

"Have you guys found a church yet?" The woman who asks me is one of the nicest people I work with, but I've heard her disparagingly talking about non-religious people.

"Uh, no."

"What denomination are you?" Great. I'd been hoping my curt reply would end the conversation, but she's going to push it. So I decide to just put it on the table.

"I'm not."

"Oh, you're non-denominational? So am I! It doesn't matter what church you go to as long as you love the Lord. You do love the Lord, right?"

So now I'm in a bit of a quandary. The real answer to this question is mu, but I can't say that, because no one knows what it means. I could explain that I just don't believe in the Lord, but somehow it seems rude and confrontational. Then again, so's the whole conversation. So I take the lukewarm road, the worst road possible in a mixed metaphor, and say, "Uh... He's okay."

The woman looks bemused. "Well... does your wife go to church?"

"No, not really. We aren't really religious people."

"Well... you should come to church with me sometime." Then she wanders away.

Dream 1734

I had a dream last night that I woke up to find my right leg was amputated. Below my shin, there was nothing but a fresh, painless stump. I had to get to the restroom and couldn't find it, but nearby, there was a ruddy, hairy foot, complete with shin and shoe. I pressed it against the fresh stump. It felt odd. I tried moving my toes, and my big toe slightly wiggled. I stitched the foot on with a shoelace and hobbled out of my bedroom.

My parents were awake, but my mother was in a hurry to get to work and ignored my questions about where my leg had gone. My father was driving me around, and when I asked him what had happened, he seemed annoyed. I was asking too much too early.

"Well, when we looked in on you last night," he said gruffly, "we could tell you had blood poisoning in your leg. Took you to the doctor and they confirmed it. They had to amputate, at least until the poisoning went down. I knew you'd miss having it, so I left you my old leg."

"You couldn't have woken me up?" I asked, but he ignored me. He had bigger things on his mind at the moment.

He dropped me off near a town square where I was meant to see a doctor, but I wasn't sure why. I limped around for a while on my father's food and tried wiggling my toes. This time, it felt natural. My father's foot was beginning to become a part of my body.

I looked at my arms. They looked fine, except for the gaping holes in the middle of my forearms. When I looked inside, I saw muscles and tendons, and couldn't I see the telltale sign of rot? In fact, rotting holes weren't a good thing to have, were they? When I wandered inside the clinic, I thought of asking if it was possible that I had blood poisoning in my arms, but I wasn't sure of my doctor's name. My high school government teacher sat down and greeted me, and I left. I tried calling my mother's cell phone to ask her advice, but I couldn't dial her number. Every time I tried, my fingers fumbled.

ENOUGH!

I disappeared for a month! The book's bummed me out, so I'm dropping it for the time being. I'm supposed to be having fun with this, and even though I thought I was ready for this level of rejection - I wasn't. SO! Let it all calm down, start working on something else so I don't take this so personally, and think about querying later.

We went to a goat farm today!! Rebecca should have pictures up in the next day or two. Noble Springs Dairy is just a few miles away from us, and I buy some amazing chevre and feta from them every week - and they had their first tour today.

We milked a goat.

It was fantastic; this weekend feels like the first time in a long time that we've really been social, that we've really been out in the world, and it was fantastic. Even with my new job, it feels like I've put myself into a little bubble, and I've just started making little experimental voyages here and there. It's exciting.

Everything just seems so bright and full of possibilities. I've been feeling it more and more since I left Memphis - especially in the last couple of months. Escape velocity.

FIVE!

One month later, I've just gotten my fifth rejection. Twelve sent out, five form rejections. It's weird - The Dead Rise, even though it was clumsier than a third grader on roller skates, got at least a couple of personal rejection letters and a full manuscript request in the first ten queries. This one - no feedback. Some positive notes at Querytracker, but nothing from agents.

If I knew what was wrong with it - if it was the concept, the query letter, the first chapter, or just the genre - I might be able to fix it! But it's just a crapshoot right now. I'm working on a new query letter to send out when this batch is rejected - it's a little gimmicky, but a lot less 'distant' than the other. I'll post them both when the time comes and see what works best. Feels like like tossing pennies blindfolded, trying to hit a bottle across the room.

ONE!

First rejection! I told myself I'd send out five more query letters when I got my first rejection email. So I'll do that after work today. Weirdly: this does not concern me as much as I'd expected.

:-/

I just sent out the first five queries for The Cherubim. Feeling pretty ill. I've worked so hard on this, and I know that the way things go, there will be a bunch of rejections coming in soon. Still, without query letters, nothing would get published, right?

Description of my favorite hats

Things are getting exciting again.

Last weekend, Rebecca and I started reviewing The Cherubim - giving it that one last layer of polish before I begin querying again. It's good. It isn't The Best, but it's the first thing I've written where, on rereading it a couple of months later, I feel pretty good about it.

That's not true. I used to write short stories, and I *still* think they're funny ten years later. They're my sad little orphans; I feel pretty sorry for them, but they're kind of cute in their rag-tag dirty clothes and funny hats. But this is different - when I finished The Dead Rise, I was kind of embarrassed to show it to anyone. Whenever I sent it to anyone, I'd have this disclaimer of "This is the first thing I've written, I'm still working on polishing it up..."

So maybe this might go somewhere. Maybe not. Who knows! At the very least, I'm finally getting to the point where I'm wrapping it up. I started writing it in December of last year, and when I go back and reread the notes and the original, first draft, I can't believe how much it's changed.

I'll finish it up and start querying next weekend. And then I can move on to the second draft of Mrs. Shadow. And then Rebecca will have another book to read!