8:50 am…I spool my day back
to breakfast, then forward.
What was I doing when he breathed
that last difficult breath?
When his soul left his body I was listening
to a podcast, three hours
later I didn’t know which one.
I didn’t know the moment he was gone.
Broken, my phone doesn’t ring.
My mother’s face appears,
snapped in distant happiness,
It lights up the screen for a moment,
until I touch it.
I didn’t know, so soon.
8:50 I echo. I’m numb.
Not good with numbers.
91: that’s a good one.
One hundred would’ve been better.
Closer to forever.
Eight-fifty
Like a price tag for a life lived fully,
raucous and exuberant.
A high price we all have to pay so
must make sure, sure
it is worth it, every minute.

Some of that struggle is with the words on the page and the story in one’s mind, but some of the struggle is also a struggle of one’s identity as a writer. What you feel inside and the face you present to the world. A lot of authors, bestselling authors even, confess to feeling like an imposter sometimes, to a failing of confidence, a feeling that somehow the work they do is not good enough. You can just imagine how much tougher it is to a sense of oneself as a writer without generous income from writing to keep you warm through those days when the words don’t come easy. This week’s episode of the Writing Excuses podcast is called “Fake It ‘Til You Make It” and it triggered a cascade of memories from my early days as a writer. Square your shoulders, lift your head and look people in the eye when you say, “I’m a writer.” Do not pre-apologize, as Mary Robinette Kowal calls it.

These are my top three all-time most awkward questions regarding my identity as a writer.

• At a party at a friend’s house, shortly after I finished writing my first novel, In The Hands of Time, my friend who was hosting the party introduced me to one of his other friends, saying “she’s just finished a novel”. Which prompted the very intellectual person I’d been introduced to to ask me kindly and gently, “Oh, which one?” When I told him I’d just finished writing a novel, he went into slack-jawed astonishment, followed by stammering embarrassment. He got points for a fast recovery, and we became friends.
• When introduced to one of my husband’s relatives, she asked me, “Do you work…or are you just a housewife?” I replied “I’m a writer,” though not as matter-of-factly as usual because I was so gobsmacked (good British word which fits in well with Texas vernacular) that for half a second I didn’t know how to respond. That question is so wrong in so many ways that I didn’t know where to start!
• A person who I was very close to growing up (and this was not very far removed from our school days together) asked my husband how he felt about me not working and just sponging off him. I wasn’t there for this bit of conversation or I’d have had plenty to say to that (our friendship was already on the rocks at that point due to some nastier comments a couple of years before, about me choosing a career as a writer). My husband, God bless him, replied with aggressive conviction, “She works very hard. She just doesn’t get paid for it.”

I was already a published and paid writer prior to all three incidents, having had some modest publications in (now defunct) literary magazines, but I hadn’t had a big sale yet. I’m still not making a living at it (or making a living with music, either). Nevertheless I’m quite proud to say “I am a writer”….And I still can’t speak of finishing (writing) a book without flashing to my favorite first novel memory: “Oh, which one?”

The first dewberries of the season! Easter 2013. Photo by Ainy Rainwater

I picked seven dewberries on Easter! The first berries of the season, with a lot more to go! I have an unusual history with Easter and dewberries. Many years ago, when we lived in a small town out in the country, I sprained my ankle grubbing up dewberry plants out of a friend’s pasture. I transplanted them into my yard and limped around for several weeks afterward. To add insult to injury, as the saying goes, the dewberries never produced very many berries and the birds got them all, every year, the instant they ripened. I think I got one small tart berry in about ten years. I sprained my ankle for nothing. The universe, however, has seen fit since then to make recompense. A few years after we moved back to the coast, I noticed some kind of small bramble had come up at the base of the elm in the front yard. I thought it looked like dewberry, probably seeded there by birds. I left it and got a few blooms and berries occasionally.

Dewberry brambles surround the young pine tree. Photo by Ainy Rainwater

Then hurricane Ike came through. That took out the elm, but when the tree was removed I had the workmen take care to spare the small pine sapling which, along with the thready dewberry bramble, had been struggling along beside the elm. With no competition and plenty of sunlight now, both took off, the pine shooting up like a rocket and the dewberry bramble becoming a thick spreading patch around the base of the pine. Suddenly there were lots of blooms in the spring, followed by berries! At first just enough to snack on, but soon enough to gather for cobbler and more every year! Most amazing of all (particularly since it was planted by birds): no sign of bird predation! What the birds took from that ill-fated Easter dewberry plant, they’ve given back to me more than a hundredfold. Sometimes it seems like the world isn’t fair, but there’s justice in nature; you just have to wait for it sometimes.

I have fond childhood (and teenage) memories of picking dewberries. My first expedition was with my cousins, off in a wild area behind their house. We came tramping in, smug and berry-filled, and I remember my mother exclaiming in alarm, “Is that blood on your socks?” I looked down. Not blood, dewberry juice! Though, truth be told, it could’ve been blood because dewberries will rip you to shreds and leave stickers in your hands. If I wear gloves I fumble the delicate berries, dropping too many into the brambles too thick to retrieve or I accidentally crush the fragile fruit, so I usually pick barehanded. I used to start with gloves then end up stripping them off in frustration. Now I just pick carefully and slowly, picking out the thorns that prick me as I go.

Dewberries in bloom. Photo by Ainy Rainwater

In early spring my eye is always caught by the bright white flowers along the roadside. “Dewberries!” I think, though I’ve got my own dewberry patch now. It’s second nature, this noting of dewberries and always gives me a thrill. I no longer jealously guard locations I find; I just hope someone comes along later and has good picking. I’m not greedy: my little patch at home is enough for me. On dewberry picking expeditions into wild areas near and around town (woods, railroad easements, fields) when I was growing up, I always carried a “snake stick”. I’ve never seen a snake on any dewberry picking expeditions, but I was told that snakes loved dewberry brambles and that they lived in them. It seems reasonable: a secluded place, safe from humans and other predators (owls, hawks, etc). I doubt their scales would even register the thorns that tear me up. In the mind of a kid, the snake stick and the possibility of encountering a snake made dewberry picking into an epic adventure, with the thrill of danger and a great reward at the end, though truth be told…we always ate the dewberries as fast as we picked them. I think the only time I even took a pail with me to put dewberries in was when I went with my mother. Then we had not only snakes sticks, but pails, thick (hot) long-sleeved shirts and sturdy gloves to protect us from the dewberry brambles which were —no snakes being evident—more dangerous than the imaginary snakes.

This is my dewberry patch. Look at all those berries! They’ll ripen quickly! Photo by Ainy Rainwater

I still like tramping around in wild areas and if I come across dewberries I’ll eat a few, but I’ve been subsumed by civilization now. My favorite dewberry patch is in my yard. The birds, which formerly were the bain of my efforts to cultivate wild dewberries, have given me an ever spreading dewberry bramble (as well as wild chili petines). I feel a fierce soaring joy when these wild things bloom and bear fruit right here. Surrounded by civilization, I’m grateful for all this wildness the birds bring to me. As Henry David Thoreau said: “In wildness is the preservation of the world.”

He could clearly see the hole in the goat’s head from where he stood. A perfect round black circle on the grayish head. Not another one, he thought as he made his way down over the rocks toward it. He sighed. This was the second one in two months. The upgraded goats might be more sophisticated than the earlier models, but they still weren’t well-made. They’d taken the heads off for the upgrade — taking a few goats at a time so there would still be a good-sized flock for the tourists to peer at through binoculars — and when they’d returned them, they all had this access plate in the head. Unfortunately it screwed on with only a few shallow threads and it didn’t take long for them to work loose as the goats ambled and jumped on the rugged rocky alpine mountain. There was no hope of finding the missing screw-plate among the rocks and nothing to seal it up with against the elements. He shook his head. He’d have to carry it down and these beasts were heavy, heavier then the real thing.

At least he wouldn’t have to worry about the wolves getting the flock while he was gone. The local pack was thin and slowly starving since all the animals were slowly being replaced by mechanical ones. The artificial goats literally scared the shit out of the wolves. They’d circled the new “goats” closer and closer, conspicuously whiffing the wind until two wolves had begun to creep forward. At a certain point the fur had stood up on their backs and the lead wolf had bolted in fright leaving a stream of shit steaming in the cold twilight air., with the other wolf fleeing right behind her. The pack had then melted away into the fading light. He’d caught sight of them a few times since but they’d never made a move to approach again.

The village was a quaint rustic tourist favorite, but not so big that converting it would’ve been too difficult. They had started with the picturesque flocks in the valley and on the surrounding mountains. They still needed a shepherd to complete the picture and he still needed a job, at least in the short term, so he stayed in his snug alpine hut and roamed the mountains as he always had. He missed the smell of the goats. He was 16 now and they’d offered him a buy-out nearly a year ago when his parents had left. They were in New Snevea. He opted to stay. “New Snevea”, he’d snorted. As if there had been an “old Snevea”. From everything he’d read, seen and heard, the new planned city was impressive and well-designed, which was great for the people who lived in the gleaming urban landscape. But he didn’t want to live in a big city.

When he reached the trailhead near the base of the mountain, he heaved the goat — deactivated so it couldn’t mindlessly kick him to death all the way down — into a small motorized cart and wended his way the rest of the way down to the village in the high mountain valley. After shoving the goat, with a scrawled “hole in head” note, down the chute outside of the village, he continued into town. He usually went into the village once a month for supplies and to pick up his mail. Internet connections weren’t good here for reasons he really didn’t understand or care about, so old-fashioned letters hadn’t fallen completely by the wayside. Besides the usual brochures for New Snevea and yet another copy of the standard buy-out contract, there were three letters from New Snevea, two from his parents urging him to join them and one from his girlfriend. He wondered if she could still be considered his girlfriend since he hadn’t seen her in almost a year and hadn’t spoken to her since that one time they’d managed to connect by phone four months after she left. She didn’t understand why he didn’t leave. She accused him of having sex with that creepy simulacrum they’d installed in her place. He was appalled. He hadn’t seen it and didn’t want to. His shock was genuine and came through over the hissing distance between them. He noticed that in this letter she hadn’t begged him to join “everyone” in New Snevea as she had in every other letter. He wondered if she had found someone else, someone real.

Increasingly, he felt like an outsider in the village, like somehow he was the one that didn’t belong, who wasn’t “authentic”. Every time he came down he found a few more people he’d known his whole life replaced by androids who didn’t quite look like them. He dreaded seeing the ones who had replaced his parents. It was too disturbing. The “people” were far more sophisticated machines than the livestock, which were only meant to be viewed from a distance. It creeped him out. Tourists often did a double-take when they saw him, so accustomed had everyone become to artificial people. They asked him questions and made jokes about electric sheep that he didn’t understand. “They’re goats,” he’d say patiently. And they’d laugh. They were real in a way that the resort staff and the baker, and the postmaster weren’t, but “not real” in the way that tourists are always “not real” to locals. They sometimes made reference to “The Uncanny Valley” which was not where they were, though they spoke as if it was. One of them finally explained what the phrase meant: how disquieting it is when an android looks too real. He made a mental revision; this place was indeed The Uncanny Valley now.

He went back to his snug hut on the mountain. He could hear the wolves howling forlornly in the night. He wondered how long they had until they were starved out or hunted down and replaced. He wondered how much longer he could hold out against the insistent pressure to sell out and be shuttled off to “the good life” in New Snevea. He imagined a day not too far in the future when he’d be the only real creature on the mountain or in the village, not counting the tourists. Him and the wolves. Probably not even the wolves. He knew what that would feel like. He was feeling it right now, lying in the darkness still awake. The wolves’ singing had stopped. Not caring much for firearms, he’d thrown stones at them and hated them when they had worried his sheep or goats. But he’d always found their singing soothing in the evening. Now that they were the only living animals of any good size on the mountain, he knew how they felt. Unbearably alone. There was no reason to sing.

Flowers were in full bloom as alpine spring turned into alpine summer. The air smelled fresh and alive and bright. The rocks were slippery wet as the day warmed up and more snow melted. He took a deep breath. He could not give this up. He could never go to New Snevea. The goats clicked and whirred among the rocky landscape. He caught the flashes of sun off the lenses of tourists in the valley, looking through binoculars or telescopes mounted on the deck of the resort, or taking pictures. He waved at the unseen humans. It wasn’t until a half hour later that he realized he was waving goodbye.

The wolves had approached. The pack was smaller, only seven starving wolves left. He hadn’t seen them in a long time and as their howls had been more distant and sometimes absent he assumed they’d been ranging further away as small game became scarce under the pressure of predation. He walked toward the wolves. When they fell upon him it would be a good death; he would be able to smell that animal scent he’d missed since the sheep and goats had been replaced. He’d be able to feel their fur. It was an irresistible thought.

When he was close enough he could almost touch them, the lead wolf leaned forward quivering. So hungry. He braced himself against the impact, taking a deep breath of wild wolfish odor. The lead wolf nipped at his fingers, then submissively licked his hand. He reach out and sunk his fingers into the wolf’s thin, but authentic, fur. Then he straightened, his other hand gripping his staff. “I will take care of you,” said the shepherd. Then he led the pack out of the uncanny valley to the wild land beyond.

The Drabblecast  is hosted by Norm Sherman who recently took over hosting for Escape Pod as well. The podcasts have different editors and different content. The Drabblecast bills itself as “strange stories, by strange authors, for strange listeners…like yourself”, and while that does include some sci-fi, Escape Pod is totally science fiction. Podcastle, its sister podcast is devoted to fantasy stories and they interpret that very broadly. (Horror fans may want to check out Pseudopod, another sibling in the Pod Family; I don’t listen to it, but have confidence in the quality based on Escape Pod and Podcastle.) Toasted Cake is a flash fiction podcast edited and read by author Tina Connolly. It straddles the line between genre and mainstream fiction. The Truth are short contemporary radio plays, which are often amusing, dark, ironic, or surprising. They are usually collaboratively written and very well done. With Selected Shorts you can hear well-known actors and actresses reading everything from classic short stories to stories by contemporary authors which are destined to be classics. The performances and selection of stories are excellent, though sometimes they may be slightly abridged. Last year The Moby Dick Big Read was launched. Actors and actresses read one chapter per day. Most chapters are pretty short, so though it’s a long book with a lot of chapters, this is an easy way to get through it. I started rereading the book along with the podcasts, but eventually got ahead and finished the book before the podcast concluded.

Websites for the audio fiction are linked in the paragraph above. Below are the feeds and some additional information about the podcasts. Add these to your feedreader and you’ll have an entertaining selection of fiction to listen to.

• Drabblecast: http://www.drabblecast.org/feed/podcast/  (almost weekly, varying length, usually long) In addition to the featured story, there are flash fiction listener submitted “Drabbles” and “Twabbles”, and entertaining intros which sometimes include serialized mini-dramas featuring the fictional Conor Choadsworth’s adventures hunting for dangerous and mythical creatures.
• Drabblecast B-sides: http://www.drabblecast.org/feed/b-sides/ (rarely) Extra stories not included in The Drabblecast, compilations of serialized bits from multiple podcasts, miscellany.
• Podcastle: http://podcastle.org/feed/rss2 (weekly, varying length, usually long)
  There have been chronic problems with the Podcastle feed this past year. If you have problems with the feed, I recommend using the category feed: http://podcastle.org/category/podcasts/feed
• Escape Pod: http://escapepod.org/feed/ (weekly, varying length, usually long) This feed includes both audio stories, reviews, text…everything. Apps specifically for podcasts may not display non-audio entries, so you might want to drop it into your feedreader also so you get everything.
• Toasted Cake: http://toastedcake.com/atom.xml (short, weekly) Edited and read by author Tina Connolly, who includes mini-reviews of books she’s read at the end of each podcast.
• Selected Shorts: http://selectedshortspri.pri.libsynpro.com/rss (long, weekly)   Usually 2-3 stories. Only 5 are available in the feed at any time and once they scroll off they are gone, not available on the website.
• The Truth: http://feeds.feedburner.com/thetruthapm  Mini contemporary radio plays (short)
• The Moby Dick Big Read: http://feeds.feedburner.com/mobydickbigread (short)

Not everything will be to everyone’s taste, but I feel confident that everyone will find a something they like in at least one of these podcasts since they range from classics to “waaaaay out there”. If there’s nothing in the current feed that grabs you, go to the websites and give them a good browse. There’s some great stuff!

Note: Sometimes feeds change. These are the podscasts feeds as of today. If you’re reading this at some time in the future (ooooo….time travel!) you should probably check the websites to make sure the feed has not changed.

Will you ever charge people to use this site?

I do have some ideas for a pay version of this site eventually. But I will grandfather in people who are using the site before such a time, as they’ve had to deal with all the growing pains. Think lifetime free accounts. In any case, there will be lots of warning and time to prepare for such an eventuality.

What’s actually happening is that he’s changing it into a paying site beginning March 1, no one will be getting “lifetime free accounts” and there’s not been “lots of warning and time to prepare”. There’s nothing on the site’s homepage or login page about it and though I’m signed up to get informational emails about the site I have gotten none about the change which will take place in 3 weeks. If I hadn’t recommended 750words.com on my blog I wouldn’t be posting this, but people need to know. According to the site’s stats 9% (up from the usual 8%) of the users currently donate to the site. As I understand it, if you are one of the users who has paid this month you’ll be transitioned over for a “free month”, then it’ll be $5 per month or $50 per year. That means that 91-92% of the users will be left out in the cold come March 1. (Apparently tumblr is the only place official info on this has been posted.)

My own plan is to write through the last day of February, download my words for the month (having already downloaded previous months) then delete my account. It’s a private journaling site. I don’t need to pay anyone in order to journal and I don’t require a website in order to journal. I can do that on my smartphone, on my laptop, on my Nook HD tablet, or using pencil and paper. The only thing that makes 750 appealing is that it gives quirky badges for milestones and tracks all kinds of odd stats and data about one’s entries. None of which I need in order to write. Some of my writing there aren’t journal entries at all, but drafts of blog posts, notes for fiction, and fiction. Which I don’t need 750words.com to do.

I don’t object to paying for something that’s a good value and does something that I need. For instance, I started using Yarny for free during NaNoWriMo, but will use my winner’s discount to upgrade to a paid Premium account. If I’m going to pay to write daily online in the cloud, then I’m going to pay for something that has features and tools that are uniquely suited to writing novels. Yarny Premium is less expensive than 750 will be (even more so with my NaNo winner discount which makes it only $18/yr) and better suited to what I do. I’ll journal privately offline. I’ll draft my blog posts on the draft screen of my blog. I’ll write fiction on Yarny. 750words was fun. (I’ve written over a half million words there!) But it was just a place to do what I do and there are other better places to do that. I’ll miss the whimsical badges but there weren’t many I didn’t have and getting one cartoon icon every year or two isn’t worth $50 per year.

I am very disappointed in how the transition from a free to paying site is being handled. It appears that with only 3 weeks to go he’s just going to pull the rug out from under users with no warning, unless they hear about it by accident from another source online, as I did. Blindsiding users is likely to piss off people who might otherwise have been inclined to buy in. Which is a shame because the idea behind the site is a good one. Using 750words made me realize just how much I was typically writing anyway and it made me write on weekends which I ordinarily wouldn’t have. There are, however, other ways to journal and certainly other resources to write fiction. I am not withdrawing nice things I’ve said about 750words.com in the past; I’m just withdrawing from 750words. I do think for some people it could be a useful tool to develop the habit of writing every day or to use as a NaNoWriMo warm-up exercise. As I understand it, the site —which is very basic and occasionally erratic — will undergo some improvements after it becomes a fully funded site. I wish them the best of luck! As for myself, I’m looking forward to having weekends off starting March 1st!

Note: A week or so after I wrote this, the paragraph in the FAQ I quoted was removed. Later, reference to the changes to the site were added, though not conspicuously. There’s a link to posts about changes in one of the drop-down menus, accessible after you’ve logged in. The most recent I read said that they’d delayed the change-over to April 1 (April Fools!) and that people who did not pay would still have access to their accounts, just not the “Write” page. I’m still dropping out at the end of February to concentrate more fully on finishing the novel-in-progress.

The Shaggy Little Distraction
Photo by Ainy Rainwater

Last Saturday we got another rescue dog. I’ve gotten no writing done this week (except for 750words.com which has all been about the dog). After some thought I named her Reggie because her personality reminded me of Audrey Hepburn’s character in Charade.

At 8.5 pounds, she’s the smallest dog I’ve ever had. Age guestimate is that she’s about a year old.

Percy, aka The Muse Dog, had made it clear that he wanted a companion after the demise of our elderly (17 years!) rescue dog in October. He is now in a “be careful what you wish for” situation because she loves to play and is already running both of us ragged.

She’s not quite housebroken, so I haven’t been able to just lose myself in the book I’m writing because I have to keep a close eye on her to jump and run if she gives the slightest signal that she wants to go out. She won’t wait for me to finish a paragraph or even a thought. Also, I have to keep a close eye on her because almost every dog I’ve rescued has chewed something, no matter how closely I watch them. I think with rescue dogs there’s a lot of anxiety in new situations. Though I have to say she’s settling in with astonishing speed.

She was listed as a Yorkie-Maltese mix, but it’s clear to everyone that she has some dachshund in her because of the disproportionately short legs and long body. My vet guessed there’s Cairn Terrier in the mix, but if she’s full-grown there has to be something smaller than Cairn or even miniature Dachsie in the mix since the vet also assessed her weight to be “just right”. Her fur is very soft and silky, like Percy’s. He’s about 4 years old and twice her size; with her short legs she can run right under him, though her preferred strategy is to pounce from above. She’s quite the climber and often settles on the back of chair or couch.

She spent at least part of December on the street and was turned into Animal Control on 12.12.12. Cold days to be on the street. She spent 2.5 weeks there before she was rescued by one of the Houston area rescue groups. (Houston has a staggering number of rescue groups that foster dogs and cats from local shelters in the Greater Houston area.) She was spayed Wednesday of last week, posted on Petfinders last Friday (a week ago today). I saw the listing on Saturday, and went straight to see her, taking Percy with us. They got along fine. We adopted her on the spot. Reggie and Percy have really bounded since we got her home. From the time she was turned into Animal Control until we adopted her was only 24 days. We don’t know how long she had been on the street. She’s been through a lot of upheaval in the past few weeks. It’s been wonderful watching her relax into her new home this past week. Even if she has been a shaggy little distraction and I’ve gotten no work done on the book. Best excuse to procrastinate ever!

She’s very vivacious and smart. Frisky and funny and a real sweatheart. We are lucky to have found each other.

Percy, the Muse Dog (left). Reggie, the Shaggy Little Distraction (right)
Photo by Ainy Rainwater

I don’t always make a list of New Year’s Resolutions because I think if it’s something you should be doing, then you shouldn’t wait until Jan 1 to start doing it, but this year I realized I had a few things that actually made sense for such a list. Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with a bunch of personal stuff you couldn’t care less about. My resolutions are things you can look forward to this year!

One resolution was born of a screw-up, but I realized that January 1st was perfect for starting over. I broke my streak on 750words.com again, just short of getting the 1 year streak badge. What happened was that I was so exhausted and relieved when I finished (and WON) NaNoWriMo that I just stopped writing the next day. And I didn’t realize until the day after that that I’d missed a day in 750 because of that. I was bummed out, but decided if I was going to take a break I’d take a real break and start 750words over again on January 1 because I need exactly 365 days to get my 1 year streak badge. Perfect. Or it will be this time next year.

Another resolution is to finish the book I started with NaNoWriMo. It’s nearly finished in terms of plot. I have lots of loose ends to wrap up and one key scene left, but mostly this year will be rewriting it because “mistakes were made” as the saying goes. I think there’s a very good chance that the book will be substantially different after the rewrite — and I’m really excited about it! I’m also going to try to do a bit more short fiction throughout the year, but that doesn’t count in the resolutions, I’m just telling you. The big thing is the book.

The third resolution is that I’m going to do a cooking/foodie blog this year and publish at least one post per week. I know, we’ve been talking about it as a group blog for a while now. It’s supposed to launch this month, but if it doesn’t come together as a group blog I’m just going to do it on my own because all these months talking about it and drafting posts for it have made me realize just how badly I want to do this thing. I’m really excited about it and can hardly wait for the blog to launch. When it launches, whether it’s a group blog or a solo blog, I’ll post copiously about it here.

I’m wishing you a joyous, creative, fun New Year. Join me here, on the upcoming food blog, on social networks (Twitter, Facebook), and let’s have a great year together!

I think that no matter how the world changes there will always be a place for Sherlock and Watson. Sure, computers analyze the pattern of the hum, but someone had to think of this idea. We still need Sherlocks for innovative ideas and insights on human nature. Technology can aid him but, I think, never replace him.

(By the way, I love the new BCC Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes; he’s a good keeper of the flame. I also really like Martin Freeman as his Watson who blogs their exploits.)