“That you have no Drunk of Death …”

By Holly Lisle

I’m doing the revisions and corrections gathered up for me by my superb Fast Turnaround beta readers. And just hit my favorite of my screw-ups so far.

I’m eventually going to have to do something with it, I think. It’s the phrase “that you have no drunk of death”, which would seem to be a thing to be much celebrated. The correct line, of course, is “that you have not drunk of death.”

But the image of the Drunk of Death is calling to me. Going to have to figure out who and what that is, and where the creature could be inserted into something else I’m working on.

Meantime, this will go into the acknowledgements in the book, but I’d like to do a public thank you now:

My unending gratitude to:

The fast turnaround crew — Sheila Kelly, Kay House, James Milton, Jim & Valerie Mills, Linda Sprinkle, and Lazette & Russ Gifford, who between them found 497 mistakes that I missed, and got these errors back to me in typed, line-separated, database-sortable form in three days from the day they received a manuscript they�d never seen — and in some cases got them back in hours, rather than days. Your comments were brilliant, your eyes were keen, and I am deeply grateful. You were wonderful.

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Slog, slog, slog.

By Holly Lisle

Slog, slog, slog.

Bitch, bitch, bitch.

Die, book, die.

(Excerpted from Dick and Jane Grow Up and Become Whiny Writers Behind on Their Deadlines)

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Forty-two

By Holly Lisle

I measure the passage of time now in terms of hard-to-get fruit and vegetables — black cherries and avocados, peaches, good Midwestern corn on the cob, apples with local names and real bite, blackberries and nectarines and beefsteak tomatoes, morel mushrooms. I miss the drifting of snow, the budding out of trees, the apple blossoms scattered, first trilliums, first lilacs, digging in the garden, the smell and feel of good earth as it softens, first swimming expeditions, walking ankle-deep in creek water with the forest cathedral-green arched over my head. I miss the first blush of autumn on the hardwoods, the maroons and rubies and sunflower yellows of Ohio woodlands in full autumn, and the friendly, chilly-but-rarely-nasty North Carolina winters.

But time does pass. I missed peach season this year — I don’t know how or why, but it left a hole in my time. I am determined to get good corn and eat it — steamed and lightly salted, and maybe with a decadent bit of butter — before that too slips by me.

I am forty-two, and I can’t figure out how that happened. Fifteen seemed like it would — should — last forever, riding my bicycle with no hands for miles and strolling through farmers’ fields and climbing up and down Ohio hills. Twenty-four seemed like it would last forever, chasing two toddlers and working as a nurse and wondering if I could finish that first book. Thirty-one — that went in a flash, with a second book written, a first book sold. And thirty-two — that was just a blink. Leaving nursing, becoming a full-time writer on a the frailest of hopes — a three-book deal and my own certainty that I could make it.

Forty-two. Optimistically, I could look at this as a halfway mark, or less. Realistically, I probably passed the middle of my life a while ago and failed to acknowledge the moment. I think odd thoughts now; I look at the little knick-knacks that decorate my desk and realize that they are far more permanent than I am. That copies of the first paperback novel of mine in print will still exist when I don’t. I thumb my stack of Simaks and Sturgeons and think long thoughts.

We are transient creatures, no matter how permanent we seem to ourselves at any moment. Lost in moments of deep focus, time stops for us — time does not exist when I write. But that only means it picks up its pace when I step away from the story. The kids have grown so fast — one is an adult now, and that thought still stuns me. The people in my life have changed, so many lost, so many gone away. I wonder if I will have my hills and seasons and garden again someday.

And the stories. How will I write them all, and who will read them? And is there anything else I haven’t done with my life that is still waiting? What clues have I missed? What have I left undone?

The twenties were all about confidence and chasing forward, and my thirties were all about getting things done. So far, the forties seem to be about this damnable itch at the back of my mind that somewhere, somehow, I have left the iron on and I need to figure out where I left it, so I can turn it off.

If I could get them, I would take a million more black cherry seasons. I do not think I would ever tire of the passage of days, the movement of seasons, the change of light in the hills, the comforting sound of rain on a roof, rain streaking down a window. I do not think I will ever be ready not to be here. But I am forty-two. And maybe that changes, too.

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Up the stairs

By Holly Lisle

This time last year, nothing had yet happened in New York. I’m thinking about that, and thinking — There are two ways to deal with the aftermath of such senseless violence and such evil. The first is to dwell on all we have lost, to focus endlessly on our pain and grief, and to weaken ourselves. We always have the choice to be victims. The second is to focus on all that remains, to focus on both anger and hope, and to make ourselves stronger. We always have the choice to be survivors.

On this day, I will light my candle for those lost, and I will remember, with anger and with hope — anger that good lives were lost, hope that in the midst of such darkness heroes arose. And knowledge that heroes walk around me — men and women who risk their lives daily in service to others, as well as those who do not know yet that they have the capacity to be heroes. And I hold in my heart the determination and the promise that if I am faced with such a situation, I will run up the stairs, not down. I will run to the front of the plane, not the back. I will die fighting, not die weeping. Because of me, if there is breath in me, someone else will live. Or fewer will die.

I will be no one’s victim.

America need be no one’s victim. We are a strong nation, and weeping does not become us. Evil came to us, but we survived, and we are stronger now. We have earned both our anger and our hope. And as a nation, too, we can run up the stairs, not down. Run to the front of the plane, not the back. We are a nation of survivors — the descendants of hardship and poverty, of revolutionary war and massive civil war and massive World Wars, of a Great Depression, of endless little disasters. Our citizens have arrived on our shores from concentration camps and torture in enemy hands, civil wars, blinding poverty, terrifying oppression, and they have built good lives here, for themselves and their children.

We are who we choose to be. I choose hope, and anger. And the image of men in heavy coats and yellow hats running up the stairs, not down.

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STET Stamp Redux

By Holly Lisle

I still have two thirds of The Wreck of Heaven to get through, so my writing creativity today is pretty much limited to angle of placement and force of attack with the STET stamp.

Okay — so what is a STET stamp? For that matter, what is STET?

Writers get a final call on what is and what is not changed in their books. Books go through a number of editing processes — the editor reads and marks the manuscript and requests revisions, the writer does the revisions, the editor reads and (one hopes) approves the revisions and sends the manuscript off to the copyeditor, the copyeditor goes through the manuscript looking for continuity issues in-manuscript and in-series, plus spellos, typos, and grammatical errors and makes changes, and the writer goes through the manuscript and checks the changes made to make sure they’re acceptable.

Usually, they are. Sometimes, however, you the writer will have a significant difference of opinion with your copyeditor over some general usage issue — I had to deal with a “less/fewer” change made to this manuscript, for example, that I did not like — or with general writing style conflicts (copyeditor does not agree with your comma placement, or cleans up the grammar in your dialogue — these both just drive me nuts). In instances where you disagree, you have the right to STET — to mark the word STET on your manuscript over any change you don’t approve, saying, in effect, “Leave it the way I wrote it.” You may or may not choose to write outcalls on the manuscript explaining your decision — in the case of “less/fewer”, I did a usage book lookup to make sure that my usage was acceptable. It was — it’s been in use since at least 888 AD, when it appeared in an English translation from the Latin by no less notable a personage than King Alfred the Great. I STETted the copyeditor’s change, noting the usage, and the fact that my way sounded less pretentious, and drew a box around the remark so that it did not end up as part of the manuscript proper. Sometimes, as with commas, I just STET without comment, making only a global comma note on the Style Guide that I reserve the right to use commas in a somewhat ungrammatical manner for sentence rhythm, and that the typesetter should follow my lead with this.

I am careful with STETs. I thought I was right in another usage question (a change of imply/infer) and checked my usage guide, and found out that I was, in fact, really wrong. Not just a little wrong, but really wrong. Did not STET that change.

I have a couple of usage guides, but the one I like best is Merriam Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, which has very nice documentation of all the alternatives. English is never simple, so I have a backup for second opinions — The Encyclopedic Dictionary Style and Usage, by Mary A. DeVries. There are other guides; I own some of them, too, but these are the two I use.

Finally, I leave you with these two thoughts before I get back to work:

  • Writers don’t know everything, but neither do copyeditors.
  • It’s what you think you know that will prove your undoing, so always double-check everything.

Which brings us back to the STET stamp. What is it? It’s one of those self-inking rubber deelies that prints STET in neat little red letters when you give it a good thump with the palm of your hand. Very satisfying. A STET stamp says, “I’m so sure I’m going to be right at least some of the time that I had a stamp made to celebrate the occasion.” Though actually, I didn’t. Jim Baen, my publisher at the time, gave it to me for Christmas about eight years ago. I’ve never used it until yesterday.

Anyway, now I’m back to thwacking commas. Hah!

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Me and My STET Stamp

By Holly Lisle

I get to work today, but I do not get to write today. I have fallen behind in prepping the copyedited manuscript of The Wreck of Heaven for its return to Eos, so today I just need to sit and read and make those requested changes that I agree with and STET commas.

I STILL haven’t used the STET stamp. There is something in me that feels guilty for undoing the work someone else has done, even though that person assiduously went through and undid a great deal of the work that I did. And even though I want my commas where I want them, and even though the person who changed them all will not see my re-corrections, the STET stamp feels … cold. Impersonal. Imperious.

But it’s quicker and significantly neater than my handwriting. I feel silly for feeling guilty. But I feel guilty.

What the hell. There. ::thwonk!:: I have officially used my STET stamp for the first time on an actual manuscript. (You can’t see it, but I put in the sound effect so that you could hear it. Full-service blogging, that’s me.)

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World’s worst wake-up lines

By Holly Lisle

There have to be worse ways to wake up, but, “Mommy, I pooped on my pizza” will drag a mother from dead unconscious to bolt upright in .37 seconds flat.

Of course, it doesn’t make any sense, and the child who said it — in clear, ringing tones — was sound asleep when he uttered this phrase … and didn’t bother to wake himself up with this little declaration. But it sure brought my sleep-time to a screeching halt.

Good morning. I’m working now, wearing the frazzled — yet still weirdly grateful — air of someone who just missed being run over by a bus on the way to work.

Kids.

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Writing: The Profession NO One Respects

By Holly Lisle

I have debated even posting this — it’s a hot topic, I’m angry, and I dare not use names. Under such circumstances before, I have summoned more lightning than I care to deal with.

Nevertheless, this must be said.

Not one, but two, big SF/Fantasy editors have now said, in almost exactly the same words, “I’ve always thought writers should be forced to get a real job (get out there with the people) — it’s the best way to meet characters.” Parenthetical phrase said to the other writer; as written, said to me about another writer. In both cases, the editor was pleased at a full-time writer having to go back to a day job to cover slow payments from publishers and the career effects of chains ordering to the net.

Look at this from a number of directions. First — the implication of “forced.” In each case, the editor’s wish for a levelling effect is much in evidence by the choice of that single word. Writers left to their own devices would obviously never crawl out of the house, talk to anyone, observe anyone. Writers not “forced” to do what someone else thinks is good for them would apparently be too stupid to do what was good for them on their own. Or even to know what is good for them, since obviously these two powerful editors, and perhaps others, know so much better.

Clearly, from this editorial perspective, full-time writers are something to be dreaded, or pitied … or perhaps just fixed. The way one fixes a cat. Without consent, for its own good.

Second, that statement reeks of jealousy. Writers meet people all the time, ones we like as well as ones we don’t. So obviously the issue is NOT meeting people.

It’s control.

Full-time writers aren’t under anybody’s thumb. They work any hours they want, take off whatever days they want, punch no cards, write in their pajamas or (ick) stark naked, or wearing ratty jeans and sweatshirts. Granted, most people would do anything to avoid my chosen hours, but I like them and they’re mine. Full-time writers don’t have anyone they call boss — editors are, at their best, collaborators. They can be listened to or not at the writer’s whim, if the writer is willing to take the consequences. Many writers are.

But in what other profession does the middleman from your work to its completed state feel that you would be better at what you do if you had to do it while holding down a part-time job to make ends meet?

Do car salesmen think that Detroit would be turning out better cars if the designers were having to flip burgers part-time at Mickey D’s to keep the wolf from the door?

Do hospital administrators think they’d be better off in the hands of surgeons who were moonlighting at Wal-Mart?

Have Stephen King’s editors ever thought, “Steve should go back to teaching — his characters are getting a little thin?” (If they have, they’re obviously post-lobotomy.)

Finally, it demonstrates an amazing, even sweeping ignorance of what writing is and where characters come from. I don’t get my characters from people I meet. I use outsiders for window-dressing — expressions, voices, ways of walking, styles of hair, shapes of bodies. But all my characters come from inside me. They are all aspects of me, and the more willing I am to be honest about myself, to personify my ugliness as well as my goodness, the better my characters are.

Good characters come from the writer’s integrity, period, and stand or fall by that measure. Anything I need from other people where character development is concerned, I can get from a half-hour in the mall, or shamelessly evesdropping in shops and at restaurants, or while watching other people work.

Is this what all editors now think? There were editors once who were proud of the number of full-time writers in their stable. They were proud that they were part of supporting and creating something that they loved — for these editors loved books, loved to read, believed in what they did. And — make no mistake — a good editor’s hand helps shape the final book in ways readers never imagine or suspect. Talented editors help writers see their own work more clearly, and guide writers to writing better books. Jim Baen was one such editor — don’t know if he still is, but he was once. Are there any others? I don’t know. I think editors who respect writers and love books are a dying breed, and their passing signals dark days ahead for us.

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The “five-year-old-at-Christmas” phenomenon

By Holly Lisle

I stayed up until about midnight last night, just so I would be able to sleep in until 6 AM. But it didn’t work. This morning I woke up at 3 AM — that sort of hard wake-up where you know you’re really awake and it’s going to stick. I lay in bed as long as I could stand it, but finally gave up, got up and was at the desk and writing by 3:54 AM.

I know what this is — it’s that early phase of a project excitement, which, like end-of-book excitement, sometimes hits me and won’t let me sleep. I have all these words and images and cool twists and surprises, and just can’t wait to get them on the page. I’m like a little kid at Christmas, knowing the good stuff is out there under the tree, and lying in bed in the wee hours of the morning with my eyes squinched shut, body rigid, fists clenched, waiting as long as I can stand without waking up Mom and Dad, and finally just not being able to stand it anymore, and tear-assing through the house to pound on the door and yell, “It’s Christmas — Santa came and there are PRESENTS!”

Which, when you think about it, is a pretty cool way to feel about your job — and more than one day a year, too.

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Tarot imagery and the payoff

By Holly Lisle

A couple days ago, I wrote the scene where Phoebe has a premonition of her own doom that involved tarot cards. For the scene, I shuffled the deck and pulled out two cards at random. The first was the Seven of Swords, which seemed really appropriate.


It is essentially a negative card, involving risky or sneaky plans, bad ideas, and good people in danger from people of ill intent. As such, it fit the book perfectly.

The other card I drew stumped me for a minute. It was the Three of Disks.


This is usually read as a card about people working together to achieve a goal, and is a positive card. But the scene of Phoebe’s premonition is a negative scene — and then I looked at what the women are doing. They’re building a wall — nice big solid wall, like the walls Phoebe is hiding behind. But built into that wall is a hole you could drive cattle through — and it’s obviously there by intent — part of the design.

So in Phoebe’s premonition, she goes through the same logic in reading the card that I did, and comes to the conclusion that the danger is going to come to her through a hole in the security of the place where she’s staying, but a hole that everyone knows about — that is a feature, not a mistake — and that it’s something all the care everyone has taken to keep her safe is going to be worthless.

Today, she discovers what that hole is. It’s a whopper.

Even better, that single card draw gave me the ending of the book, which I hadn’t known except in generalities. Once I figured out how Phoebe would read that card, suddenly I could do a sentence-per-scene outline of the last twenty scenes of the book. It fell into place for me in about an hour. It was an amazing experience.

Books come from some strange damned places.

Word goal the day, 66,513.

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