Yes, this post is about writing. Well, sort of. 

Many of my regular readers here at tamboblog know I've been struggling with a long, crappy dry spell, writing wise. There are a lot of reasons for this frustrating lack of productivity - I've surely aggravated enough people with the boring-to-everyone-but-me details without going into much here tonight - but I've been working diligently on getting past them, or at least knocking out of the way so they're not so crippling. To be absolutely frank, I had a severe creative breakdown in the Spring of 2005, and for quite a while I doubted that Valley of the Soul would ever get finished. But it did, and while I'm very happy with the book, the act of writing it, forcing it... well, the aftermath wasn't pretty. Some days it's still not.

Authors don't seem to talk about their sales much, maybe it's that money taboo thing, maybe it's embarassment, I dunno. But Ghosts in the Snow sold well. Very well for a first novel in speculative fiction. Threads of Malice tanked sales wise, but that was a gamble I knowingly took. Ghosts was a joy to write (all writing was a joy back in the days before I sold) but with Threads I felt like I had to prove something to the publishing world, and to myself. Contrary to how I've been acting while faced with crippling fear the past couple of years, I came to this game to play, not just sit on the sidelines sucking my thumb and whimpering. With Threads of Malice I swung, and swung hard. Full aware of the distasteful subject matter I stared at in the story, I knew the book would either hit and hit hard, or the violence and depravity would be too much for folks to look at. It was too much. Many people have commented on how disturbing and graphic the novel was - someone even mentioned that they wished they could scour their brain clean again after several nights of nightmares - but, ya know, I wouldn't change a word. It was exactly the book I set out to write. I didn't flinch, didn't pull any punches, and shitty sales and nightmares aside, Threads of Malice stands up and screams. Now, years later, I like Valley's story best, but Threads is the book I am most proud of. I wrote that. Me. Shy Tammy Jones, the housewife from Iowa. I still boggle over that sometimes. Weird, huh?

A shall be forever thankful that Threads was off to my editor before April 2005 when most of the gears in my writing brain disconnected and sprung apart. That spring and summer were hell for me and there is no way, no possible way, I could have faced creating Threads of Malice as broken as I was. Thank God for Bill, our daughter (she's off to college Saturday! Aaack!!), Sam, Josh, and my therapist, Mary. 2005 SUCKED ASS, there's just no other way to state it. Financial disasters, medical disasters, personal and creative disasters... The crap just kept on coming. But, step by step we all pulled through. I turned Valley of the Soul in late - I NEVER turn projects in late, I am an anal retentive hard ass for meeting deadlines, even impossible ones - and even though it was only a couple of days late, that bothered me a lot. It still does. Because of my struggling to keep my personal shit together, the book was in shambles. I knew it, but I turned it in anyway. Any good thing in that book - and there are a lot of wonderful things - are because I have the best damn editor on the planet. She's awesome, amazing, and I don't deserve someone so incredible in my corner. Anyway, Juliet and I ripped out and repaired the multitude of problems in Valley's initial incarnation and it ended up being a wonderful story. 

Many readers who were turned off by Threads took a chance on Valley and the book partially repaired my reader base. I have received many, many assurances that despite the crappy numbers for Threads and rather 'meh' numbers on Valley, all is still okay. Not great, but I've been told time and time again not to worry, that all is well. I trust that's true, at least on the sales aspect, but I haven't completed a book in, well, nearly three years. In publishing, that's just about forever. I know that, and I know that any momentum I had is now gone. My reputation of being a congenial workhorse is tarnished. Even if my sales numbers haven't killed my future as a pro, my long and angst-filled sabbatical likely has. I am sorry for that, but for nearly a year after I finished Valley of the Soul I was rarely able to write a grocery list or a thank you note without bawling. I cried a LOT in 2006. Even writing a check at the grocery store made my hand shake sometimes. There is no way, no possible way, I could have written a book that year. Or last year when I could finally open my laptop without clamping down on hysterics every single time.

But I kept trying to stare the beast down, kept fighting against just giving up and walking away. It's been tough, and there have been many, many times I've said, 'Fuck it. I don't want to do this anymore."

But I always took a breath, steadied myself the best I could, and resumed trying to fix the broken parts in me. I'm still fighting, still struggling, but a lot of things have gotten a LOT better these past few months. The nightmares have stopped - after a lifetime of them, I haven't had one for months. I laugh quite a lot. I cry at appropriate times, not for no apparent reason. The crappy, self-hating tape that ran a constant stream of insults in my head has finally fallen silent. When it does emit a nasty squawk, I mentally smash it with a hammer. I could never do that before, but I can now. Life isn't perfect, and I'm certainly not perfect either, but I don't feel so... so broken anymore. Not whole, no. But I'm no longer broken. I'm just me.

One unexpected side effect - although to be perfectly honest, my therapist predicted it back in 2005 - is I have lost my stomach for gore. My dear friend Stuart wrote a wonderful, amazing, gutsy book and I couldn't finish it because of its content. I wrote about similar taboos in Ghosts and possibly WORSE in Threads of Malice. I researched them day after day after day, lived with them, dreamt them, and wrote them down (along with numerous edits, revisions, and tweaks) yet I couldn't look when faced with fresh violence and depravity. The book gave ME nightmares over it's content - which actually, was a break from my usual nighttime scream-fests - and I finally had to put it down. I don't watch horror movies anymore - I just don't have the stomach - and although I have a pretty good collection of murderous research materials, I haven't touched them other than to put them on a shelf. This is the woman who used to insist The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers was bedtime reading.

I have been - too slowly, dammit - working on Dubric's fourth novel, Stain of Corruption and it's well, different. For one, it's not bloody. There's only one body - I won't say who, but you've met them many times before - and it doesn't appear for a very long time. The book is very character driven, so many things pulling Dubric and his team in so many directions, and  they're all pretty much fucked before the body finally arrives anyway. Everyone's fucked, bad, and I like that, I like that a lot - I might not want to look at corpses all day every day anymore, but damn I love torturing characters - and some of the team won't survive the book intact. I'm happy with that, almost giddy in fact, but... but... Stain of Corruption isn't shaping up to be a murder mystery. It's not a fantasy novel either, other than happening in Dubric's world - so far there are no mages, no magic, no nothing but a whole heaping pile of trouble falling on my main characters' heads. Yes, someone dies, and yes, Dubric needs to find out who killed them, but that thread is so secondary to the story itself that it's more like a garnish on a platter instead of the main course or even a side dish. Necessary for presentation, definitely, and it makes the vat-o-crap Dubric has to deal with that much deeper and stinkier, but it's not the main focus.

So. If it's not a mystery - especially since the character in question doesn't die until the second act - and it's not a fantasy novel, what is it? Not romance - a couple of smooching teenagers do not a romance novel make. Not horror - not enough fear or gore. There's no big, all mighty villain bent on domination - well, there IS but he's not directly involved with anything, he's more of a shadow in the distance - so it's not a thriller. The guys don't really go anywhere, so it's not an adventure. It's all made up so it's not historical. There are several crimes - like arson, theft, and the aforementioned murder - so maybe it's a crime novel. Maybe. Only it's not.

I don't know what it is, other than a convoluted tangle of jealousy, revenge, lies, screw ups, back stabs, comeuppances, perseverance and pain, just like a Dubric novel should be. But without the string of corpses and drippy, blood-splattered walls. I'm not far enough in to know if it's even going to WORK. And even if it does, I don't think that a hard-to-pinpoint Dubric novel is the best move for my fourth book. 

Shit, I dunno. Right now it's all I have. A completely-different stand alone novel would be the correct move to make, I think, or something so non-TSJ standard that I move into a completely different arena and reader base if it's even possible to sell anything at all. I do NOT want to get a new pseudo-name just to get a sale; I do have some pride. I have no problem with a modification of my name, even to the point of using Tammy Jones should I ever write something light and upbeat. But to do any of that, to write something, anything, besides Dubric I have to come up with a concept, a story that WORKS. So far, I'm coming up short and I just don't know what to do. Do I keep twiddling along with a fourth Dubric novel that will likely be a tough sale for several reasons (let alone a potential career killer), or do I make myself work on something, anything else?

I want to write again, to work again, but I find myself sitting and spinning over those questions. I need to write and it probably shouldn't be Dubric, but if not Dubric, what?

 I know it's been more than a month...

But we're all fine. Really. I'm taking an online class - it's going incredibly well - and that's taking up a decent hunk of my time. Also, now that Bill's back from school, we have lots and lots of little home-improvement projects to do. Like hang curtains (the upstairs had no curtains, only blinds/shades, and I didn't want to nail/screw into 100 year old plaster without using anchor thingies that Bill has, that I couldn't find, that... anyway, you get the idea.) and lights since two of the pull-chain lights went bad. And getting the yard dog proofed. Because, well, I got a dog while Bill was gone.

Meet Stewie, one of two new additions to the Jones household. 

Stewie is, as many readers probably see, a Beagle. We got him at the local animal shelter because he'd been a stray. As far as we can tell, he's a purebred - or at least damn close to it, not that it matters because the shelter had him neutered - and is somewhere between 1 and 2 years old. He's also a master escape artist, so much so that today Bill re-did pretty much the whole western side of our backyard fence.

He is so ornery yet sweet, and we dance around and go 'ahhhwwwooooooo-wwwooooooooo!' several times a day because he loves to 'sing'. He's a great size, and is friendly and helpful and gets along with the cats. Now if he'd just stop peeing on the rugs and escaping the yard, he'd be perfect. Mostly, he has the housebroken thing figured out and, hopefully, the new fence modifications will encourage him to stay home. So that's all good.

Our daughter's cat, Ghost, wandered off about a month ago and never came home. We kind of expected that to happen, he simply would not stop looking for a fight and, sooner or later, the other critter would win. So, with Ghost gone we decided to get a kitten, which The Kid named Malaysia. The ultra-ornery feisty little shit.

Please note her glowing evil eyes. I took four pics of her and EVERY ONE had glowing demon eyes. I think that's a message or something. ;)

Actually, she's pretty darn cool, she's just really, really good at playing rough and scratching the heck out of us. However, when she's in 'cuddle mode', she cuddles and purrs and is very, very sweet. Especially for a demon kitty.

Malaysia and Stewie are great buddies and often - um, well, almost constantly, actually - tear through the house chasing each other and running over furniture. And us. And upsetting the other cats. At least until they pass out, recharge their 'going apeshit' batteries and do it all again.

So, home improvement projects and insane pets running amok. Things are back to normal here at the Jones'. The Kid is off to college next weekend, and we're getting a SECOND dog the weekend after that - a 6.5 week old chocolate lab mix puppy. I do believe I've lost my mind there. If anyone finds it, could they box it up and send it back please? One dog not-quite housebroke and I agree to take on a soon to be a monster-dog puppy?!??

Yep. Lost my mind. 

Ah well, no one ever said I was sane. ;)

Have a great day, everyone and I'll try to post more often, now that my office is, well, almost functional. And Stewie can be left alone for five minutes. ;)

 Puufy is grounded

Wednesday night (well, technically nearly 2am Thursday morning) Cooper HAD to go outside. See, our cats have spent a lifetime living in the country and their preferred potty-place is outside. Especially Cooper. So, I let Coop out and Puufy and Abbie went along.

Was a nice nite and none of them wanted to come in. Imagine, if you will, me trying to catch a cat and get them in the door while keeping the previously captured feline from escaping while holding a squirmy reluctant cat and not doing a very good job of juggling the two. A determined cat is a slippery creature. Anyway, Abbie decided she did want to come in but the boys, Cooper and Puufy did NOT. At all. It was feline party night time. Nanner nanner, Tam! We wanna PLAY!

So I told them they were pains in the butts and went to bed. 

Morning came and Cooper came right to the door wanting in to get fed. No sign of Puufy. The Kid and I called and called and called and searched all over everywhere ALL DAY and no Puufy.  We talked to neighbors. We put up signs. We checked the pound. No Puufy. I called to put a lost cat ad in the paper. No Puufy. I've been frantic, I've cried, I've tried everything I could think of to find him.

At about 11:10 tonight, I hear a familiar mrowow at the screen door. Guess who decided to mosey on home?

Puufy.

Who is now grounded from going outside. Rotten stinking fluff ball cat. ;)

 The Madness Never Ends

We're here at the new place mostly trying to sort through the chaos of the move. We lived in the old house for about 12 years (about 8 years the house before that) and we've accumulated a LOT of junk treasures. We have too much stuff for the house, I think, even though this new place has great storage and closets. 

Then again, most of the chaos will migrate to the basement and attic, just like the last house. lol

We're making progress, sorting and storing and trying to find a place to hang this picture or put that chair, and things are moving along at their own somewhat chaotic pace. At least until this morning when we found out that there's an issue with the sale of our old house that requires urgent attention, signatures, and delivery of proper forms and whatnot. Today.

Of course we're a hundred miles or so away from where this all needs to happen.

So we're scrambling and stressed, but after today, after the whole thing at the old house finally finishes, closes, and the new buyers get to move in, it'll be DONE. Unless of course some other crazy unexpected and completely illogical thing pops up. Which it will. Because that's how it works, I guess.

Anyway, it's good to be home and this house has felt like home ever since we got here. So, stressful or not, it's all good. :)

 And yet another housing update

Our buyers have settled down and we're set to close by the end of this month. We're actually moving next weekend, and I will be COMPLETELY offline from Friday the 27th until probably July 8th or so - there's a 10 day wait for DSL installation with our new phone/internet provider. Please don't tell me to go with someone else, in rural Iowa there IS no one else. There's one option, and one option only, unless we go via satellite.

But we're moving next weekend!  Woot!!

If you already have my snail mail address and/or phone number and I don't send you updated information by the time we move, PLEASE email me asking for it. I am a ditz, I'm stressed, and I'm soooooo disorganized. We don't have a phone number yet - hopefully we will before moving day, ha ha! - but snail mail's all set up. 

The Kid had her college orientation weekend this weekend - we just got home a couple of hours ago - and she's all registered for classes and ready to go! All we have to do is pay for it. lol

And, in keeping in the 'teaser line' mode, here's one from a scene I wrote this past week.

Lars glared at Dien. "Jess and I have kissed. There. You know. And I'm such a pervert that I touched her backside once. Come and arrest me."

That's about it for me. Have a great week!

Flooding

Hey everyone. I've been receiving emails concerned about how we're coping with flooding. Here, where we are, there isn't any. Oh, the back yard is kinda squooshy in places and we have some water in the ditch, but that's it. I hear that they're closing down downtown Des Moines - it's a good distance south of us - and that there's some flooding issues and water problems in various low lying areas and along rivers and creeks. We don't have that problem here, in fact our basement isn't any wetter than normal (we have a dank muddy cellar and it doesn't even have standing water). But, then again, we don't live near a river or creek or even a flood plain. 

A friend of ours who lives smack between the Des Moines River and a creek that feeds into it has been flooded out of his house. Another friend who lives in rural southern Iowa has to take a round-about way to get anywhere because the main road to town is partially under water. Another friend's daughter has standing water in her basement (as do a lot of people, I hear) and, really, those are the only impacts the 2008 Flood has had on us.

Bill's driving route north has so far been clear, even though some fields have standing water in them. Everywhere we tend to go we can get to without sign of water anywhere. We're high, dry, and just fine. We've been getting rain almost every night - last night is the first in about 2 weeks without rain - but other than making it difficult to get grass dry enough to mow we haven't had any trouble.

I hope y'all are managing the weather all right as well. Hang in there. It'll be hotter than hades and bone dry in Central Iowa before you know it.

As a teaser, I shall leave you with the current opening line of Stain of Corruption:

Jennit Perr's battered ghost stared at Dubric and there was nothing he could do about it.

Have a great weekend, everyone! Stay dry!

 An update.... hopefully

My internet connection has sucked for what seems like forever, but I thought I'd try - again - to check in. I can get on Bill's computer all right, but I can't use my blog software at all (it's Mac only and Bills on a PC) and emailing is a major pain in the patooty. Other than me cussing my busted ethernet port, we're all just fine here.

The Kid's graduation went well - she has freshman orientation at her college in a couple of weeks - and she's relishing her lazy summer. Well, lazy other than when her mean ol' mom makes her do things. Like put gas in the lawnmower or cook supper.

Bill's still working overtime and driving that crappy commute, so he's pretty tired most of the time. I've written a decent hunk on Stain of Corruption and have been doing some flesh-out-the-plot work on SPORE. So that's all good too. Best of all, though, we apparently have a buyer for our house. We're getting inspected tomorrow and if all goes well - which it SHOULD - we'll be closing by the end of the month! 

Which of course means that we'll need a place to go, a new home of our own, right? How about a three bedroom Victorian within reasonable commuting to Bill's job? It's pushing the limits of our price range, but I think we'll be okay. It's absofreaking gorgeous inside - least I think so - with all original woodwork and hardwood floors, and it's completely updated too! We just have to get past tomorrow's inspection and we're good to go. I'm a bit concerned about the scheduling of all of this - I mean, how can we close on our house and get the new house downpayment in and close there but still have time to move before our buyers are taking possession?? But our realtors and mortgage folks are certain it'll all go just fine. So I'm letting them handle it. lol

Oh, to contemplate flux capacitors

Hey all. Things here are all in flux again. 

Let's see. 

I am a guest poster/columnist on Poe's Deadly Daughters this weekend, it's a re-print of an essay I did a couple of years ago about superstitions and crutches.  Check it out!

We have three potential buyers for the house, all of whom want it, none of whom have the money. They're all working on financing, loans from family, and other cost issues. Hopefully they'll figure out something soon. And so we wait.

The Kid graduates next weekend. Other than a test or two she's finished High School. This simply isn't possible, we just brought her home from the hospital a couple of weeks ago, surely. She's out and about right now with 'the guys' which, literally, are guys - well, there's one other girl. They get together every Friday evening and play HALO. My daughter is a very good sniper and hide and sneaker, apparently. So they decide to play Tennis, which she sucks at, but that's not as much fun for the group as HALO, so they get bored bopping the tennis ball across the screen and go back to HALO. Where they all die. Except my daughter who has this maniacal laugh...

Anyway, she's out shooting her friends.

It's just recently, since the kidlets really, that our daughter has become social. Her normal wiring dictates iPod on, ear buds positioned, and nose in book for hours and hours and hours. She still does that, most definitely, but she's out and about doing things with - gasp! - people most weekends. Good for her, she deserves to hang out and have some fun. The only thing is, her parents miss having her around.

Bill and I talk all of the time about how we're soon to become empty nesters. She's off to college in August and it'll be just the two of us again. It's going to be a very, very odd adjustment. I've already informed Bill that we need to intentionally do things that get us out of the house sometimes to interact with other human beings. We're hermits by nature, both of us, but we need to do something once in a while right? I have no idea what we possibly might do, might get involved in, I guess it will depend upon what things happen in the small town that we move closest to. If someone ever buys our house, that is.

Writing wise, I'd very very much like to say that I'm churning out gazoodles of words, but I'm not. I am writing, sort of, a little, on Stain of Corruption and I've printed out some notes and things to work on with SPORE. I just wish I could reach down and grasp story again like I used to, it's just been so slippery and elusive. I can get words without too much trouble, they just never seem to connect to anything. Like I'll have a Lars and Jess scene that doesn't really have a time or conflict related situation. Then I'll write a bit of something that Dubric remembers from the war - again, with no story point reference. Then something else totally unrelated to anything. And another scene with Lars and Jess... I can't seem to find any threads connecting any of this and it's very aggravating. And what's the deal with Paul and the Narrator?!?

Something will break free. It has to. I just hope it happens soon. 

Just a pissy kind of day 

Woke up waaay too early, but when I went back to sleep I had a bad dream which ended abruptly when Bill came home. I was supposed to be up and ready to go - we had an important errand to run this morning - and of course, I wasn't up or ready. I was groggy, sore, and disoriented from the dream. And and feeling rushed because I wasn't ready, which didn't help. I've been on edge and pissy ever since and I apologize to anyone who's had to deal with my snippiness today.

Grr!

 Writing advice... from a finance blog

I've been reading The Simple Dollar for almost a year now, ever since we fell into extreme financial distress with the kidlets. Trent has consistently solid advice on a lot of issues - admittedly, it's not always applicable to every person or situation, but what advice column is? - but the coolest things about Trent are: 

1) he too is an Iowan (in fact, he shops at the exact same grocery store I do) and 

2) he's a writer.

Anyway, this morning Trent wrote advice to a friend about following dreams and how to grasp them. It's all about passion, baby, and how to pursue it. He tells us how he became a professional writer - he'd just sold his first book, go Trent!! - and how any of us can achieve our own dreams, what ever they are.

 House update

So far, exactly half of the folks who've toured our house have come back for a second look. The latest of those first saw the house Wednesday morning and are coming back for another walk through tomorrow (Saturday), with the kids and in-laws. They've also had several back-and-forth phone calls about financing with our Realtor and, assumably, that's in motion. We haven't received an official bid yet, but we're encouraged. Also, Sunday morning our house will be featured on Iowa Realty's weekly TV show, complete with a virtual tour and an open house that afternoon.

Hopefully this will move on to the next phase soon. We're keeping our fingers crossed!

As for writing, it's stalled, again, but it's more me that's stalled than the writing itself. I did eight pages yesterday, but I'm finding it difficult to sit still for long, let alone focus. 

 3453 words

That's my total so far. I'm on page 17 at an odd place to end a scene, but so far so good. The narrative voice is completely different than anything I've written before. It's in first person, for one thing, and the main character isn't the narrator.

Still enjoying myself, but I'm done for the night.

 Offline for a couple of days

I'm just trying to get a grip on this story. 

 Two More Pages

I am not pushing myself. I will not force myself into another blockage by making myself write while my writing muscles are flabby and stiff. I'm just letting it come, as it comes, and getting surprised with every paragraph.

Another two easy pages last night.

And his name is Paul. That's all you need to know. 

 Two Pages

I did two pages of fiction tonight, thanks to Holly Lisle's How to Beat Writer's Block course.

Two. Easy. Pages.

I cannot describe how utterly ecstatic I am. I don't want to push it, don't want to scratch and dent the process again, so I'm calling it a night and am gonna hang with The Kid.

Thank you, Holly!!!