When in Doubt, Cut Down a Tree. In the Snow.

There are worse ways to spend a Saturday...

What's On Your Bookshelf: Why I'm Still Holding Out On Buying an E-Reader

The local Books & Co. had several Nooks on display the other day. I've resisted e-readers for lots of reasons, but mostly because of Amazon's weird "You bought it but we can take it away" thing. If I download a book, I want to download it like a PDF. A file that's mine. No DRM. The idea that Amazon or a publisher can suddenly decide to retract something already given scares the anti-censorship fiend in me.

And yet... and yet.. I have too many books. I'm tired of moving them. And sitting in bed curling up with a 800-1000 page book isn't really cozy. It's awkward. Carting it around on a plane is even less cozy. Reading from a slim e-reader seems so much easier. 

But I'd also like to actually be able to, you know, read it. I love the color Nook, but the backlight kind of bothers me on that version. But I'm not sold on the non-backlight because if I can't read in the dark on an e-reader without and extra light, what's the point? And why am I paying as much for an e-reader as I am for a laptop? At that point, why not just read books on a laptop? And that's just no fun. And why should I pay extra for Wi-fi? 

That said, I realize how much easier life would be if I could fit all my books onto a hard drive... but also how easy they would be to lose. Knowledge is great. But it's also hard to hold onto.

I suspect that I will always buy really good books in print. The kind of books you really love and cherish. The ones you want to have signed by authors. Or the ones with really important information that isn't likely to go out of date soon.

But there are other kinds of books - the popcorn reading, or the 8-book sagas, or the 12-book history compilations - that will just be easier to read and forget about or read and easily access on an e-reader. I love books, but the more junk I get bogged down in, the more I realize just how many of them I can live without. There are only so many books I love at any one time.

When book and movie libraries both move totally digital, I expect to have a couple bookcases of prized books, and that's it. The more times you move, the more you appreciate having a clutter-free life. E-readers help with that. But I don't love the technology enough (and it's not yet cheap enough) to make the switch.

I'm a notoriously late adopter. I resisted getting a cell phone until I live in South Africa, and then I ditched it again for four years in Chicago.  I didn't get a proper one again until 2007?

The e-reader will be the same. All the cool kids will have them, and stare at me wide-eyed when I talk about how much space all my books take up, before I finally find something that really turns me on.

Homesteading in Dayton, Ohio

I lost my last job because of the banking crisis, but despite that week of terror, I've been largely shielded from the recession. I was beyond lucky to get offered a job after being unemployed a week. Health insurance freak-outs subsided soon after. 

All around Dayton, stimulus money has inspired tons of construction projects. There are new parks, newly paved and repaired streets and highway projects, and abandoned buildings being torn down. There are even a couple new tech buildings being built. The local university has been taking advantage of the crash to buy up property, including the enormous old NCR building, and is making the south side of the city a regular university town.

Few of these buildings are full anymore.

It's easy to ignore or simply not see other things. I visited the pharmacy downtown yesterday during my lunch break, and discovered that Chik-fil-a, and Roly Poly in courthouse square, and the Quizno's across the street, had been closed for some time. I'd known Quizno's was done for awhile, and I figured Roly Poly was coming (they have terrible service), but Chik-fil-a was a surprise.

See, the big skyscrapers downtown are far from full right now. Some of them are totally abandoned and up for auction.

I came home last night to find that the city had finally torn down the two houses due for demolition across the street from our house. This was after they'd finally gotten to the house right behind ours last week. Our neighborhood is wide-open and spacious, and it reminded me in that moment of Detroit. They've got a similar issue in many of their neighborhoods. So many houses have been torn down that they're looking for people to do something with the old lots. Abandoned lots that nobody's doing anything with aren't making the city money, and aren't inspiring people to stick around.

I remember telling J. at one point that we should totally go out and "homestead" in Detroit, where if you call the police there's a good chance they won't come and if your electricity goes off, it may not come back on again. If I didn't have to worry about where my drugs would come from, it could be fun.

Turns out, I kind of like this option better. Easier access to drugs and all. See, Dayton still functions, despite the complaints you see piling up on the City's Facebook page. Everyone I've dealt with at the City has been pleasant (even if not always competent - but that was one person out of half a dozen), and genuinely interested in helping people grab up and develop land. There is opportunity here, even if it sometimes seems like the world is dying all around you.

There are things I like here. I like that it's a bike friendly city. I like the 2nd Street Public Market that's open year round and has an awesome deli that serves lobster bisque (if I close my eyes and don't think too hard, I can pretend I'm at Pike's Place Market in Seattle). I like that we've got a bunch of rivers, and parks. I like that there's a boxing gym right downtown, even if I still haven't managed to get there. I like 5th Street's bars and restaurants and funky feel. I even like the Dayton Dragons field, even though I could give a crap about baseball. It just looks nice. I love the art institute. And the summer festivals are killer. It starts with the Strawberry Festival, then the Lebanese Festival, the Greek Festival, Octoberfest, and so many more, and as many county fairs as you'd like to go to.

Now, it's not like I'm going to write a love letter to this place. When I came home yesterday and looked at the flat, filled in lot where our haunted house used to be, I dreamed once again of spring when we would be able to start planting five million trees on our combined barren lots. I miss the mountains, and big trees, and the ocean. I miss road trips to Reno and Bend, OR and Timberline Lodge.

Taste of home: 2nd street public
market is open year round

But I'm also under no illusions about how everyone else is struggling through this recession in big cities where rent is always over $1,000 and mortgages are often over $2,000.

My quality of life out here is a lot better than it would be if I was trying to scrape together $1,200 for a two bedroom in Portland and shelling out hundreds a month to cover gas. Today, I live two miles from my job and a mile from J.'s school. The longest commute we have is J's 20 minutes to Centerville when he's working nights at one of the school's branch campuses.

With all my student loan payments, I don't know how I'd live very well at all in a big coastal city. But out here? Out here I have a house for $541 a month, a car that's paid off, and I don't generally worry about how to pay for groceries. It's not such a bad place.

Now that our prior place is all rented out, we can even afford Christmas, which was looking iffy there when we expected to be paying mortgage + rent in December. Life was not going to be fun. Now we're getting back our deposit, too, and Christmas is fun again.

There are very few places J. and I could live well on what we make (particularly with the amount of debt I've wracked up traveling and getting degrees over the years). I'm not in love with Dayton, but I like that it lets me live that hazy half-dream of The Good Life on a budget.

Happy Weekend

Mine certainly was!

And The Walls Come Tumbling Down...

 

Our haunted house gets smooshed. 

Revenge of the Blogosphere: Haters & Comment Moderation

I started this blog back in 2004 as a place to mouth off about my life. It was a natural extension of the long and winding emails I was sending out to groups of friends. Back then, only the "cool kids" were on the Internet anyway, so I didn't feel so strange about posting things in public. Geeks and freaks stilled ruled the net. It was pushing into the mainstream, but I can guarantee that nobody at my day job back in Chicago Googled me in 2005 or even 2006.

There's some fun stuff that comes with blogging. I remember going to a Wiscon the year after I started and how people came up to me and introduced themselves - total strangers - saying they read and followed the blog. It was... weird. As a writer, the cliche is that everybody asks you, "Where do you ideas come from?" In the blogging world, the first thing other bloggers ask you is, "How do you deal with negative comments?"

Blogging is a great way to prepare yourself for when your first book comes out. If you haven't started a blog and you want to be a writer who actually engages the world, I highly recommend it. Because, if you're lucky, you'll say plenty of things on your blog that make people who don't even know you hate you. And people hating you, for a writer, is a very similiar feeling to people hating your book. So you'll grow some thick skin real quick.

It's funny that people who read your posts get far more personal in their attacks than people who read your fiction. If you're lucky, they engage with your actual argument, but more often, they feel it's necessary to personally attack you. Which is weird, since they don't, you know, know you. But blogs are far more personal spaces than books, in part because of the fiction/nonfiction divide and in part because there's not the status confirmed by mega-publisher standing between me and the reader. We read stories differently if they've been published vs. unpublished. I expect published stories to be better. It doesn't mean they are. But I have different expectations. The web has become a great equalizer, and it means there's no longer any ivory tower for you to hide behind when people throw stuff at your crappy arguments.

Now, there are all sorts of things I can infer about a writer from what they write. But I don't know that I've outright called an author a woman-hating faggot, for instance, because of something he'd written.

But when you're loud and offensive and explicitly tackling feminist issues on a blog, the odds of a day going by in which you're not called a man-hating lesbian go up the more you post. Now, there's certainly nothing wrong with being a man-hating lesbian. There are certainly women I find attractive, and certainly some men I strongly dislike. And I suspect the vast majority of people in the world find some women attractive and strongly dislike some men, and vice versa. What gets me is how this stuff is brought out to silence the speaker. To invalidate what they're saying. You could have the best argument in the whole world, but one scream of "man-hating lesbian" and some weirdo thinks they've cut you down.

Um, no.

See, here's the thing, folks. If you choose to live publicly, you have to deal with the haters. And there will always be haters. Far more haters if you have an explicitly political blog. They will send you nasty emails and threaten sexual violence and call you gay, because this is about the extent of the scary stuff they can think of.

That's the good news. Because if it you know how to throw a good right hook and don't find being gay offensive, the world is your oyster.

Yes, really.

I've gotten all sorts of hatred spewed over here in the six years I've been posting to this blog. Thing is, all everybody talks about is the bad stuff (look at this post, even!). What we fail to talk about (and what nobody ever asks me about) is how to deal with the *good* stuff. I've had fan letters and thank-you letters and some really good stories about folks who changed their lives because of a personal story I shared here. I've had letters and comments that literally leave me speechless (or word-less at least). In the face of strong, heartfelt emotion I always have trouble responding, and it's no different with blog comments.

We continually focus on the bad. I know a handful of female bloggers who've deleted their blogs due to harassment. That's a tragedy. I understand it, sure, but it's a tragedy nonetheless.

When you start thinking about quitting, pull up the good conversations. The fan emails. The amazing comments. Remember the lives you're making better.

And just know that harassment comes with the territory. Harassment means you're doing something right. It means you made somebody uncomfortable. It means you're freaking them out and shaking up their worldview. It doesn't mean you need to shut up.

When people ask me how to moderate comments, I actually find it to be a trivial question. It's not about how to moderate comments. It's how to have the courage to keep talking when everybody wants you to shut the hell up. Hatred is exhausting. And we focus on the hatred, of course. We give negative comments three times the attention of positive ones, which always makes it seem like there are more than there really are.

The kind of blogging I do, I realize after my long hiatus, really is about courage. I was worried all the time about what people would think. I was worried about strangers at cons. Stalkers. Potential employers. Work colleagues.

But there's also a lot of good that comes from it. A lot of people who find some value in it. Who take courage from it.

And that makes it all worth it.

You have to figure out what's worth it for you, too. I don't envy the bloggers who've been targeted with hate campaigns from the big conservative or MRA blogs. I don't envy folks with exes who stalk them via their blogs. I don't pretend that "just ignore the haters" works in every instance. But the majority of the time, what we need to go forward is, simply, courage.

And a willingness to hit the "delete" button.

Hey, Jude

I don't generally like to mix my personal blog with my day job life, as it's a good rule of thumb to keep the two separate. However, being somebody with a chronic illness that most folks get when they're kids, I have a soft spot for kids with chronic illnesses. I also have a blog that some people do, on occasion, read (especially when I'm ranting about Urban Fantasy, apparently).

My boss's son, Jude, has been suffering from an undiagnosed neurological condition that looks a lot like epilepsy - but all the tests have come back negative, and the drugs for epilepsy don't work. It sucks even more in this case because it's a kid, and it's tough for a kid to tell you what's wrong/what he's experiencing. They have spent many years, many doctors, and many, many dollars trying to figure out what's wrong with him and if there's anything they can do to help control his episodes. You all who've followed my frustrations over health insurance claims and benefits and dollars over the last four years may have some idea of what that's been like for them.

I know SF/F circles move in and out of health offices quite often, being the sorts of people prone to chronic conditions and terrible health (one of the reasons we turned to SF in the first place, come now).

Please take a look at Jude's story and pass it on if you're so inclined. Getting the latest cat picture to the top of Digg is all very well and good, but it's helping out people like this that is the real power of social media. Let's see if somebody knows somebody who knows somebody who can help.


You can contact David and/or learn more at his blog.

Where Have All the Brutal Women Gone?

One of the things that bled out of me after I got sick was all the rage and anger and angst. Oh sure, I get upset at things still, but I no longer get worked up into a blind rage. Whenever I start getting worked up, it hits a certain pitch and then it all bleeds out of me, like water. This is unfortunate for a lot of reasons, among them being that anger, despair, and self-hate drove a lot of my motivation. This came up a lot in my personal life, where folks told me that in order to be happy, I’d need to cut out the self-hate. At which point I said, “Well, yeah, that’s great, but… what does that leave me with?”

Not a whole lot, apparently. I find it very hard to get worked up or passionate about much of anything these days. It does come and go sometimes. My writing has finally crept back a bit, after a year-and-change book depression when GW got canceled by the prior publisher. I find a lot of pleasure in writing book 3 these days, primarily because I’ve done that thing that writers do – gave my protagonist a similar issue to tackle. She recently came back from the dead, got a whole lot of extra time… and now she’s not really sure what to do about it. 

Mortality can be like that. 

I got sick four years ago… you’d think I’d be over it by now. You’d think that’d be enough time to go through the grieving process. But I suspect there are many stages of grieving, and when you have a full life with a lot of other, immediate feed-and-clothe-and-medicate-myself things to tackle, you don’t spend a lot of time working through your “Holy crap I’m a cripple now” issues. 

I very nearly gave my protagonist a chronic illness in book 2, just to see how she’d deal with it. But as I worked through that version of the draft, I just wasn’t buying it. Not only because it felt far too Mary Sue-ish but also because, well… I enjoy writing the Nyx books because I get to write about a physically powerful and capable female protagonist. When you take away her physical power, she’s just another woman. Just as vulnerable and frail and potentially weak and fearful as any other person (not just women, but I know my aversion to making her physically weak has a lot to do with her sex. Lack of power is especially terrifying to women, and certainly to me). And, you know, that’s just not something I want to spend my time writing about. I spend a lot of time living it. Why stay up at night writing about victims?

Because that’s what it feels like sometimes. It feels like somebody took a shovel to the back of my head. Just got right on up behind me and swung before I could even turn around (of course, if I’d turned around, I’d be dead. The fact that I came so close to dying – and that dying is so much easier for me now than before – is something else I deal with).  There is nothing you can do to prepare for illness, for disability. With violent attacks, we like to feel that we have some kind of power. That if we just trained hard enough, ran fast enough, hit hard enough, that we could avoid violence. Violent attacks, at least, we can pretend we have some kind of fighting chance against. It’s why I started lifting weights. It’s why I started boxing. I wanted a body I could control. After a lifetime of hating my body, I found some peace in knowing it was very good at knocking over a 200 lb punching bag with a good right hook. There was some comfort in that. 

Getting sick was like starting all over again. Suddenly all my worst food addictions weren’t in my head at all – there were tangible, physical symptoms of my need for immediate glucose (symptoms like convulsions and eventual death). Food had been the enemy for so long, for me, and now it was both the enemy and the cure. Sugar’s too high, your body slowly rots. Sugar’s too low, you go into a coma and die. 

Better figure out the balance, lady, or you’ll die. 

It’s frustrating, and exhausting, to be so aware of your personal care. Your own mortality. I get sick of it sometimes. Sick with my own mortality. 

In that way, I’m not sure how much of my current malaise has to do with being 30 now and how much has to do with simple stress and my poor eating habits over the last year, both of which affect me much more strongly now. Some people might be able to shrug off the effect of stress and food on their health, but when you can measure its effects with a glucose monitor, it’s less easy to brush it aside. 

I should have died back in 2006. I’ve had four years of extra time to mull that over. But when I look at it some days, it just feels like Nyx out on her porch at the coast in book 3, pissing and drinking and fucking her life away. Sure, a lot of life events have happened. Good, wonderful, passionate things. 

But most days, life doesn’t feel as big and bold as it once did. It feels closed and exhausting and unimaginative. Dull-eyed. 

I know what I need to do. That’s the rub, there. My recent A1c was deplorable. My eating habits have degraded to the point of farce. I am tired all the time and when I get excited about anything at all these days, it feels very surreal. 

I would like to live a big, bold, passionate life. 

I’m just so tired all the time. 

And I know where my feeling of power and health comes from – it’s from lifting weights, and boxing, and those horrible, horrible, deplorable, teeth-gnashing 3-mile jogs I was doing on the Chicago waterfront.

I know I need those things to feel better. But I no longer have the self-hate to drive me to do them. 

Just a lot of extra time. 

A lot of fucking and drinking at the end of the world.

Why I Haven't Posted in Awhile

Toss a Coin

Having a Baby...

Me: Just one more push! We've just got one more!

Steph: YOU SAID THAT THE LAST FIVE TIMES!!!!!!!!!

Me: I meant, one more in this set.

Because baby-birthing is the ultimate total fitness workout.

Three Things Make a Post. Pity I Only Have One...

Started writing a post about The Windup Girl, then was beaten out by the heat.

Tra-la.

Have been spending most of my updating time on Facebook, as it's faster and easier to update than the blog when all you've got are a couple of links and some piecemeal reactions to random life events. Too much work blogging means too little personal blogging, and that is kind of a problem.

Hoping for a day without a heat index of 100+ and humid. May free up the brain pan some.

SOMEDAY

Someday I will write something besides radio spots and social media strategies again.

SOMEDAY.

Food. Get Some.

Have been a crazy Mad Men fool lately. Look! Here's a picture of some excellent food at Boulevard Haus to distract you!

Am looking forward to upcoming vacation mainly because it means I can unplug from social media pursuits for a whole three days and work on some actual fiction. I've got Babylon and Iron Maiden languishing out there on Dropbox.What's the use of a mobile file management system if you never use it?

Also, boxing classes start when I get back from the Left Coast. Yeah, yeah, delay involves a sprained right finger, which involves a bad dog and a leash. Not nearly as exciting as it sounds.

Man, I'm looking forward to this vacation. Just wish it was another three or four days longer.

How Does Your Graden Grow?

Quite remarkably, it turns out. Raised beds all the way!

Cilantro.

Full garden

First broccoli florets.

Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and red onions.

Tomatoes, peas, eggplants, yellow squash, red onions.

You Know You Haven't Blogged in Awhile When...

... you've got half a dozen spam comments to clean out. I'm alive, just work-busy and busy-busy with some promo projects for God's War (really want to have a killer FB page and flash-based site for the book. I know, I know, but fans love flash).

I promise, more content soon.

In the Bag

Book 3 work this weekend. Also, bumped into yet another person who doesn't know what a "copywriter" does. Has the term just totally died out, or do folks just think magazine copy and web page copy gets cooked up all by itself?

Hrm. I blame blogging. I supposed that if just anybody can "publish" some words online, there can't actually be a job that *pays* you to do that... heh.

New Digs!

All settled into the new digs. Check it out! (everything here but pics of J's room, which he's still putting together a bit)

(Click here for full set)

Oh, How I Love Thee....

J. and I have nearly finished the first full season of Farscape. Last night, he looked up some actors on IMDB to see what else they'd done, then came back into our room and said, deadpan, "Did you know that most of the actors are Australian?"

Oh, J....

Looking forward...

... to spring.