Kicking Ass, Chewing Bubblegum

My current novel is kicking my ass, and by that I mean that it’s slapping me around like a little girl. Of course when I was a little girl I aspired to be a boxer, and for a while I was the terror of the neighborhood, with my big brother setting up opponents for me to knock down. I was well-nigh invincible until one day he brought around a little boy I had a crush on, and when that one hit me I actually felt pain. That was the end of my boxing career. Washed up at seven. There was nothing left for me but to become a writer, a career I took up at age nine, after two years of retirement from the ring. No-one warned me about the pain this time, but I guarantee you it’s there. When you find your bliss, you also find your pain. When you find the thing you most love, you also find the thing that can black your eye, split your lip, and leave you bleeding on the mat. Isn’t it wonderful?

In addition to publishing something like twelve pieces of short sf/f in major markets over the years I’ve written half a dozen very minor mystery novels, three under my own name, another three mercifully pseudonymous. I co-edit a magazine, which provides a lot of creative jollies, but nothing can take the place of writing my own stuff when I can nail my ass to the chair and do it. Sometimes that’s a problem.

I recently completed a strange contemporary fantasy (Daemon) which is propping up one leg of my agent’s desk. This new (untitled) thing is science fiction with a heavy underlay of invented mythology, told as stories within stories. It’s got a traveling society, monks, monkeys, mythical masters, idealistic revolutionaries, talking dogs, and a living god or two, and getting it down on paper has been like pulling chicken teeth.

So I call on you all as witnesses to what it’s going to take to finish this book. In addition to reporting my progress from time to time, I’ll discuss what writing means to me, what it does to me and for me, and what that feels like. You’ll read some stories about my oddball past, I’ll report on what’s happening to me in the present, and the future is entirely up for grabs, so let’s grab us some.