author: Nicole J. LeBoeuf

Still haven't finished Chapter 7. I really have to give Amy something more useful to do than twiddle her thumbs and wait for the end of the chapter. I'm one sentence away from getting her and Todd into that bit of necessary conversation--the one, in fact, that necessitates the switch in narrator, because it reveals things that Brian is not to know--during which Russ and then Brian will interrupt them, closing the chapter with a lovely piece of brutality we'll all enjoy (if guiltily) because the victim is Russ. I'll have to go back through the Novel So Far and make sure that Russ has been adequately presented as That Guy You Love To Hate, so as to best make way for the Schadenfreude. The effect I'm looking for is "Finally, that asshole is getting the beating he deserves! ...Wait. Ok, enough beating now. No, really. Stop! I don't want to see him die...."

Which all sounds very fiendish and manipulative. Probably because it is.

From time to time it occurs to me to worry that, as a writer, I'm setting myself up to be mistrusted by the community. Whatever community. Writers of fiction make their livings telling lies, after all--telling lies and pulling readers' strings. And yes, those lies stand in the service of Truth, and the string-pulling is exactly why the reader returns to a good book again and again, but still. The power to manipulate the heart and mind by use of words alone is a little alarming. Are those who have that power objects of suspicion? I don't claim to have that power in any significant degree as yet, but I'm reaching for it. I wonder if I'll regret achieving it.

Maybe the choice to use such a power to create works of unabashed fiction, as opposed to running for office or charming congregations into mass Koolaid imbibery, is enough to restore a writer's credibility. Unlike the corrupt politician or charismatic megalomaniac preacher, we're not trying to fob off our lies as fact.

Well, with the exception of folks like, I dunno, Carlos Casteneda or something.

There is a stained glass window in the door behind the bar at Conor O'Neill's in Boulder. It has writing on it, and that writing says,

"Drink is the curse of the land. It makes you fight with your neighber, it makes you shoot at your landlord, and it makes you miss him."

There's a band playing at Conor's, too. Big Paddy. They've been mainly playing rocked up old traditionals--"Star of the County Down", "The Drunken Sailor", and, what the hell, the odd U2 cover. Me and my laptop are tucked away in a walled-in nook around the corner from the bar, but it's still pretty darn loud in here. And it's only 11:00 PM yet. They could keep going until 1:00 with fairly little effort.

Today, I've taken my writing out on a date.

It's something Holly Lisle recommends doing when the fun of writing has disappeared and one doesn't know where to find it. Except of course she doesn't mean it literally, taking your writing out to dinner and a movie. What the hell. I felt like I had to get out of the house, so I took my writing out for a beer and some rockin' music.

Haven't done a lot. Mostly just reread Chapter 7, did some line-editing, and fixed the beginning to better match where the chapter has gone since then. Frankly, I'm getting worried about the time frame. At this rate, I'm not going to have this novel or Sara Peltierdone any time soon, much less by October 1.

But tonight? Not worrying much. The duo on the stage have started in on "Nancy Whisky" and the Smithwick Ale is pretty darn good, and I'm in a private little booth with just me and my writing having a romantic evening out. Tomorrow I don't have to worry, either, because tomorrow is a full day at home in which I can devote a lot of time to both novels if I so choose, and where's the need to worry when the worry's solution is in progress?

Tonight has been lots of fun, Writing. I think we should spend the whole day together, tomorrow. In our pajamas, painting each other's toenails. C'mon! It'll be fun.

(I think the metaphor ship has drifted.)

A suspiciously post-free weekend is easily explained by my having been in Santa Clara, California. I rather thought I'd actually write and blog all weekend long, but this was a jam-packed stuffed-with-fun weekend involving people that haven't been in my daily life for far too long to neglect on those so rare occasions when I actually get to see them. People like this person and that person, neither of whom I notice have updated their blogs in a while. Get with it, people! Bwah-ha-ha. Anyway, August 4th found me doing the day-before-flying Decapitated Chicken Dance, and for August 5th through the 8th I was on vacation. So there's my excuse.

For examples of the Fun with which the weekend was stuffed, see attached photos. (That will be "photos," plural, upon moving this blog entry to the new website. I restructured the database over there to allow multiple images to be associated with a given blog entry. Go me.) I, personally, was also stuffed with Fun, in the personage of candy Lego blocks. Bulk candy stores are teh bomb. They're like trick-or-treating and coming home with nothing but the good stuff. (They are unlike trick-or-treating in that the candy isn't free. The quarter-pounds add up pretty fast.)

I did try to hit the novel, but it seemed every time I had some time set aside, I managed only to get as far as my Morning Pages ritual. Found a wifi spot pretty close to the hotel, a lovely little joint called House of Bagels that sold three types of lox and piled it on a bagel for me with cream cheese and cucumbers, and ended up taking care of bits and pieces of email (mostly concerned with remote access to databases for efficient migration of blog posts from one domain to another) and running out the laptop's battery. There was only one free outlet in the cafe, and it had a blank plate screwed over it. I didn't think the management would think much of my whipping out a flat-head screwdriver and HAXX0Ring their electric bill.

Came home to some goody-goody-gumdrops in the mail. The contract from BBI Media had arrived. It's official--"Faith-Based Charity, Pagan Style" will be in Issue #42 of PanGaia. It will also be on the website, if the extra compensation for electronic rights is any indication. I did the happy dance, signed that puppy, and dropped it back into the mail before heading out into my day.

And yes, writing happened. Got Amy and Brian through their almost-encounter at Gasworks. Will probably finish Chapter 7 tomorrow. Chapter 7 is really, really long.

I am not entirely sure that I believe in omens, good or otherwise, although I do tend to think that the coincidences and absurdities around us are susceptible to the same sort of interpretation as dreams. But I do think--believe--know this for sure: That we want very much to do a thing indicates that the universe wants very much for us to do that thing. A writer's ache to write is evidence of the Universe's need for the stories that only that writer can tell.

(Talk to Barbara Hubbard about it. I happend to use an interview with her from Magical Blend Magazine to fill up my half-hour of volunteer reading this week, and I was all like, "Yeah, yeah, self-rewarding work, the need to create, all that, totally, yeah!" only I was also like "OK, you and Mr. Langevin get to sit in the time-out box for insane overuse of the word 'co-create.'")

So while I make no claims about portents and signs in the sky, I do feel justified in taking that triple rainbow Boulder was treated to today as a sign of encouragement. (Triple? Yes! If you look closely, you can see green through purple repeated at the bottom, one rainbow on top of another, both of 'em below a faintly hovering third.) Kind of like the elements sort of conspired to give me a gentle nudge in the direction I was already going.

(Did I ever tell you about "Putting Down Roots," the 2002 World Horror Convention, and fried perch at the Greek restaurant across the street from the airport Radisson? ...Right. About that, more some other time.)

Of course, my camera decided to kaput at me. The collage you see here is entirely thanks to a super-sweet neighbor of mine who did not turn and run the other way when I asked him if I could have copies of his pics. (It was totally the batteries. Put new batteries in, and the camera worked fine. There's enough juice left in the batteries to power the TV remote, maybe even a stereo walkman, but not the camera.) To him, many thanks, and the hope that he's OK with me posting these beauties.

And the novel? A good 800 more words. Not the same as a pathetic 800 more words. These were good. This was a good blend of the dominant "Oh, whatever will we do?" theme plus a leavening of humor to keep us from tumbling too far, too irrevocably into the self-pitying abyss. There were tears, there was laughter, there were hugs, there was snot on Todd's sleeve. It's all good. Tomorrow, Brian'll show up and the angstometer will rise a whole bunch.

Chapter 7 is long. I'm not sure if its huge length relative to the first six chapters is OK, or if it's a hint that I need to pack more Stuff into 'em all. I reread Chapters 1-3 and realized that there's a lot of cool foreshadowing of lovely subplottiness that, sadly, totally fails to show up in Chapters 4-7. For now, I'm ignoring it. But just wait until the next pass-through, the one after this rewrite is complete. Those seeds will sprout if I have to yank them out of their fartin' seed-cases myself.

Eked out another 500 words, mainly about climbing around in the old gasworks and looking at the skyline across Lake Union. Spent an absurd amount of time scouring Google:Images for just that view. Found it.

First time I visited Gasworks was the summer of '94, my first summer in Seattle. I started my Freshman year a quarter early for reasons I can't quite remember now. Glad I did. Had a couple months' run-up time to get used to campus and dorm life before the autumn wave of incoming Freshmen overloaded the system. Anyway, my floor's Residential Advisor led us all on a July 4th walk down the bike path to the Park, where pretty much the entirety of north Seattle gathered to watch the fireworks going up from across the water. I don't remember the show that well, but I do remember that was also the day of my first Dove bar. Some of us helped out a vendor (again, memory here is hazy) who in turn gave us free product. That was some good.

On the other hand, I can't tell you about my first time going up the Space Needle, because it hasn't happened yet. Typical: we tend not to do the touristy things that happen where we live. Hey, I never did the Jazz Fest until this year, despite spending the first eighteen years of my life in New Orleans. I never did the river tour in Grants Pass. And I still haven't done Six Flags/Elitch Gardens here in Denver. It's almost like we don't actually experience where we're living. Or maybe we're too busy experiencing it from the inside to experience it like an outsider. A tourist might rhapsodize about the view from the top of the Space Needle, but can he tell you about a candlelit Beltane ritual held inside the gasworks?

Not that I can tell you much about that, either. Stupid disintegrating memory.

I just got done creating the Blog Creation/Edit page over at the new site. I hate making fill-in form entries. Next I'm going to have to do the login functions so I can put Edit buttons y'all can't see everywhere. I hate mucking about with login functions.

And today, the novel progressed by another 100 words of conversation between Todd and Amy meant to somehow eventually get them talking about Brian again, while neither of them actually wants to talk about him, and get them both down to the sundial so that Amy can see what Brian's been up to these days, while I have forgotten exactly what that walk looks like.

I hate this sort of fiddly stage direction nonsense!

Everyone talks about the middle book. The middle of the book--the Week Two Wall--that's where the plot's gotten started but run out of steam and the ending crisis is too far ahead to reasonably hope to reach. No one over talks about the middle chapter. The chapter's gotten started, the chapter end crisis is still ahead, and here we are in the middle, the characters twiddling their thumbs like I'm supposed to be a good servant and bring the rest of the plot to them.

I hate lazy characters!

Yesterday: 300 words on the novel and no web design.

Day Before Yesterday: No novel work. Lots of web design.

Conclusion: My weekend was, on average, only one day long. Can I have a refund?

I have forgotten more about Seattle than I'm comfortable admitting. For instance, the walk down 7th Avenue to the bike path that leads to Gasworks Park. Does the bike path actually T-bar 7th, or is there some street negotiating between the two? How long does it take the bike path to get right down to the docks? How much concrete distance between the Wall Of Death and the water? Aaaargh!

And the sad thing is, I had a chance to refresh my memory back when John and I visited his sister. They went to a gaming session at a friend's house in Wallingford; I walked into the U District from there. I walked around the house on 7th Avenue. But did I go to Gasworks? No. I decided to visit campus instead. I puttered up and down Suzallo-Allen Library. Curse my studious streak! Curses!

(At some point, meanwhile, I'm going to start talking about the novel I plan to write come next National Novel Writing Month, and how it is not going to be a Jasper Fforde rip-off, I swear. But about that, more later.)

Hey, wow, this entry spans the gamut of Abstract Categories, don't it? Maybe I should stop pickin' em.

Still crawling along through Chapter 7. Spent half the time tweaking the already-written bits (bad habit! quit it! get the new version written!) and the rest eking out five paragraphs of internal monologue.

Got some stunning good news today. My article, "Faith Based Charity, Pagan Style," will see print in the next issue of PanGaia Magazine. The piece has been pushed back for several issues now, up in the air between PanGaia and newWitch as part of the usual uncertainty that surrounds any busy family of publications, so you can imagine how very pleased and surprised I was to get the phone call today. Watch this space for me crowing about it when the issue hits the stores.

Oh, and the new blog? Coming along nicely. I foresee the Big Move happening over the weekend or shortly thereafter.

So I guess you should actually watch that space for all the crowing.

[Author rereads previous post, shakes head in disgust] Well, that was maudlin. Less of that this time, I think.

Another 500 words today. Some stories, I feel like I'm dragging my characters kicking and screaming from minor crisis to minor crisis. It's not even that they're kicking and screaming; they're sorta sitting there on the ground, doing that "dead weight" thing they teach you to do in women's defense classes, and there's just staring at me balefully while I tug their uncooperative asses towards the next little hump in the story arc. Uphill.

Still, the hill I got to the top of was a good place to be. I'm not displeased with having climbed it. I'd estimate the rewritten chapter is about a third of the way through. It's a sort of three-act chapter, and we made it to the end of the first act, a confrontation that convinces Amy she'll have to leave Brian alone for now. The next act will follow her putting together her new life in Seattle, trying to land a job and figure out what else to do with herself--no trivial task, given that her entire reason for moving here is now agressively absenting itself from her life.

The bit of novel I'm entering is actually kind of dangerous. I figured I'd avoid turning Brian into a poor-pitiful-me whiner when I chose Amy's point of view. But she runs the risk of whining her way through the chapter, too. Poor pitiful me, my boyfriend wants nothing to do with me, I'm all alone miles from my family, I'm having trouble finding a job... Damn. My mother could tell you with some confidence that I've always had a tendency to write whiny narrators. I mean, narrators that could give Thomas Covenant a run for his money in the self-loathing and self-pitying races. Go on, ask her about "The View From The Levee" sometime. (I swear I'll redeem that story someday...)

I suspect the way to get a character out of its downward spiral into self-indulgent moping is to throw plot at it. Throw events at that character that force it out of its doldrums and into action. I'd already decided Amy would take her pity-fest for a walk down to Gasworks, and that she'd see Brian there in the middle of his own little wallow--if I look at that eavesdropping incident as an opportunity to throw plot at the narrator, I think it'll move along nicely.

In other news, John and I and some friends just got back from witnessing Johnny Depp's portrayal of Willie Wonka. What can I say but Oh YEAH. I think Roald Dahl would have been very proud.

Five thousand words. Ho ho ho. More like 800. But that's more than I tackled both yesterday and the day before combined, so, moving in the right direction, right?

Fact is, I got all distracted with web design. I created the web page that'll pull up blog entries over at the new site, fiddled with the structure and the style sheet, and made categories and manuscripts linkable. It's still butt ugly, OK, but then I haven't finished fiddling. And look! Linkable categories! Manuscripts that aren't all NaNoWriMo novels (because I write other stuff too)! Blog sorting that doesn't set weird cookies on your machine! Duuuuude!

Not, of course, that the screen shot above quite does the page itself justice (or quite does anything else besides take up a crapload of space in this blog entry), but then you can't see the real thing just yet. It's all hidden in a password protected directory, accessible only as follows...

AuthType Basic
AuthName "Niki's Weblog: Staging Area"
AuthUserFile "/yadda/yadda/yadda/passwordfile"
AuthGroupFile /yadda/yadda/yadda/groupfile
Require group Me

Back to the novel. OK. Maybe I've blogged about this bit before, but--this novel is set in a very specific locale, one that actually exists, for the most part. My characters all live in the boarding house I lived in for all but my first two quarter-years of college. They go to the same college I went to. They're living in the same city. Zoom back in: same cafeteria I worked at, same Gasworks Park I took walks to, same boarding house on 7th Ave.

They do say, write what you know. Often, I do. They say, write your memories. If you lived through childhood you have plenty material for all the fiction you can write in a lifetime. And I did, and I do.

They do not say, expect said memories to bite you in the ass when you begin to write about them.

I'm moving my characters around the memories of that house--Brian here, Todd there, Amy at the kitchen table--and then who comes down the stairs but that gal whose stoneware I broke in the oven (sorry) or that guy whose radio got stolen by that other guy who proceeded to expire in his bed while I was out of town, or maybe the two guys who moved in from the dorms and played White Wolf roleplaying games with me and two other friends all night long every other weekend. And because not all memories are pleasant, here comes L----o slinking around the corner with that smirk on his face, and there's the new landlord and his smarmy son who I swear was just pissing us all off deliberately in order to encourage us to move out so he could move his friends in, and that guy who kept coming back to dig through our mailbox after he stayed only two months rent-free and got kicked out for the rent-free part. And of course Russ in the novel, that needling twerp who recognizes no form of "that's enough" as long as he's still amused, he never wore any face but that of that guy he was conciously based on.

And because friendships don't always stay sweet, there's the role-playing game gang again only this time no one's talking to anyone anymore, and laughter that used to warm the heart now cuts to the bone without changing one audible note.

And because forgiveness happens, there's some of that gang again on the phone or at the IHOP when John and I drove up from Oregon on a visit. And there's the guy Russ is based on, who really wasn't all that bad all the time, blasting Enya out the window to compete with the noise of the party across the street, and him and I sitting on the awning over the front door and laughing at them all.

Damn. Nostalgia strikes again. Soundbytes aren't really representative samples, no more so here than on Fox News. The people briefly and non-identifyingly described above, they all really exist (except the dead guy, anymore), and none of them are as bad as some of those sadder or angrier paragraphs make them out to be (except L----o, whom John met once and dubbed "The Creep" because, well, he was). With just those parenthetical exceptions, I miss them all.

Well, not the landlord's kid. And not the digging through the mail guy. He was just... wrong. But mostly the rest of them... yeah.

I was going to end by naming one of them and begging him to email me, because, Gods bless his parents, his name is So Damn Common that Google avails me nothing, and the constant failure to find even the smallest lead is painful. But now I'm shy of it; naming even one name of that crew might make the rest identifiable, and who knows but that they wouldn't thank me for it. So. I'll end with some keywords, instead. Dude, you know who you are. Talk to me. It's been too long.

Werewolf: The Apocalypse. Also known as "garou." Pink Floyd: Dark Side of the Moon. Algernon, from The Importance of Being Earnest. NiN and that comic about the cat-girl. Bangor, Maine. The Talking Heads: Remain In Light. Tori Amos on the Dew Drop Inn tour (happy birthday). And, of course, there's always "Well, I've been to France..." (And for anyone who still needs to be told Seattle and the University of Washington, y'all really haven't been paying attention, have you?)

I feel like I'm writing my high-school senior yearbook "dot-dots" all over again. Look what comes of mining college memories to write a novel about college students. They oughtta post warnings.