The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Apartment Hunter

Rob is away in Portland looking at apartments, which means I am home alone for the next week at least (since he has to find the apartment, then arrange for a flight back). Should be a perfect time to work on writing, right? But as it turns out, an upcoming cross-country move is one of those things that is so brain-destroying that it eclipses anything else you might want/need to work on. This includes not just writing but also reading, sleeping well, basic hygiene, and ironically enough, packing for the move. It's just this omnipresent thing hanging over you all the time. If moving anxiety was this bad when we moved from Pittsburgh to Baltimore, I surely do not remember it. But then, that's only 400 miles. (And I also wasn't writing then, so I can't gauge if it affected my writing or not.)

Somehow we missed this statue in September.

The thing about moving to Portland that makes it tough is that a LOT of people want to move there, and there aren't enough apartments for everyone. Supply and demand. We heard from multiple sources that the best way to get an apartment in Portland is to fly out here and walk the streets. Unfortunately, the For Rent signs weren't exactly thick on the ground in our preferred area (North Portland), and even though I knew it wouldn't work out this way, we did not secure an apartment on his first day out there. It's almost enough to make someone utter the b-word, although I'm not certain we're at that point yet.

Anyway, in publishing-if-not-writing news, the Strange Bedfellows anthology (which includes my story "The Afternoon Revolution") is available for pre-order at Amazon and elsewhere. Check it out!


P.S. Props to our friend Alex Wrekk for hosting his stay in Portland! Go buy some buttons and zines from her.

On Not Writing

Confession: aside from a few pieces of flash for a contest, I haven't been able to write or revise anything for the past few weeks.

This is moderately concerning, because in the past when I haven't written consistently I wind up basically quitting for years. While I don't think that will happen this time, because I'm not as much of a moron anymore, it still feels dangerous not to write. It's so easy to fall into the "not writing" trap, and quite difficult to climb your way out of it once you're in.

Comic books awaiting their epic journey.

A lot of the reason I can't write, maybe even all of it, is due to the upcoming move to Portland, which is now precipitously close. Less than two months away close. And while I am totally committed to this move and can't wait for it to happen, even good things cause a ton of stress and anxiety. Moving is right up there with divorce and job loss as a stressor, and this move will come packaged with job loss (with nothing waiting for me) and is clear across the friggin' country. We are literally moving as far away as one can from our current location without leaving the continental US. It's not a coincidence that this "writer's block" coincided almost perfectly with the finalizing of our timetable. There's just so much to do, and I feel like I can't carve out some writing time since I should be packing boxes or sorting out stuff to give away. Although I'm falling down on those tasks as well, truth be told.

People, including Rob, say to be kind to myself, to let the writing flow at its own pace and give myself some breathing space, but honestly? Fuck that. I need to be harder on myself, because when it comes right down to it, the only person hurt if I don't write is me (and maybe Rob, a little). There's nobody out there salivating for my precious words. Sure, it's "only" two months, but that's a hell of a lot of writing time to waste, and I was going at a pretty serious pace up until two weeks ago. (And there's always the possibility that it's not because of the move. I'd rather not think about that possibility.)

I'm sure it will come back in time. I signed myself up for another crazy challenge to write several full-length short stories at the pace of one per week over the next several weeks, and I'm still sticking to my deadline of having my novel reader-ready (if not agent-ready) by April 1, although I probably won't be able to deliver it to beta readers on that date since we'll probably be driving through Montana or some shit.

There's just nothing worse than having a huge block of writing time and not being able to do anything but stare at a blank screen because you're filled with existential dread. Well, maybe those big-ass spiders they have in the Pacific Northwest. I'd rather not think about those either.

***

To pull a total 180, my contributor copy of Spark: A Creative Anthology (which includes my story "Real Plastic Trees") came in the mail a few days ago. It's an astonishing 400+ pages long, and includes speculative fiction pieces from both established and new writers. The paperback book is gorgeous, but there's also an e-version if you prefer that. Pick it up!

Revision Blues

I'm mostly a short story writer. I'm mostly a short story reader. I fucking hate revision, I like getting a story there 95% of the way the first time out even if it takes a lot longer. And yet, here I find myself revising a novel. What have I become?

I'm also using Scrivener. I might as well go all in and write in a coffee shop.

Writing and/or revising a novel is a lot different from short storying. A LOT different. For one thing, you can't write them in one shot, unless you're mainlining Red Bull laced with trucker speed. The fact that they can't be written in one session means there's the possibility of inconsistencies, both in plot details and also in the writing itself. There are parts of this thing that need almost no revision at all! Those were written on "good days." Other parts (most parts) need drastic rewriting. I can tell if a short story is going to fail or succeed (in my estimation, not talking about the marketplace) almost as soon as I've finished writing it. With a novel, I have to hope that the revision will yield something of value, that I'm not just throwing time and effort down a giant sewer.

I know people who love writing novels, which is great for them! I hope to be one of those people someday! But right now, it feels like the worst thing ever. Can you imagine writing a series of these things? Well, you probably can, because most SF/F writers love series. I know people who say writing a series is easier than writing a short story, which is absolutely insane. So much to keep track of! So much text to keep in your head at once!

This is my short fiction writing process: I basically have the entire thing plotted out in my head (not on paper, never on paper) before I touch fingertip to keyboard. First line and last line are set. If the stars are right, the story just comes out. Boom! We're done here. Then it goes to my in-house editor for a pass, and after some revision, it's sent to magazines who will either publish it or they won't. Super easy, super fast, with built-in validation in the form of occasional sales.

Novels though, man. First you have to write a first draft, which is probably not even going to be close to your real draft. You have to find beta readers, because a novel is much too much work for an unpaid in-house editor to take on alone, or maybe you don't have an in-house editor. Then you have to revise a manuscript that is of inconsistent quality. It could take years before you're given that yea/nay by a wise and all-knowing publisher. (Around eight years and counting for me, although I was retired for most of that time.)

I do know that I need to find a way to up my writing speed if I'm going to write novels. When I'm actually writing, I'm extremely fast. But with short storying, I basically don't write until I'm ready to write. Write every day? Fuck no I don't write every day, that way lies mediocrity in the short story game. But now that I'm really knuckling down on this revision, I see the wisdom in writing or at least revising or at least opening up the document every day. Because writing short stories is about inspiration, but writing novels is about persistence. I have the one, but not the other.

So yeah, the slog continues. I hope to be finished with this draft (which is probably not even the real and final draft, fuuuuck) by the time we move to Portland, at which time I can send it off to others and get started on another. Fucking. Novel. I guess. Maybe I should take a break to write a flash fiction piece, that will make me feel better about life.

2013 Year in Review

So, 2013. Kind of a year. Recap time!

Writing: I wrote ten short stories this year, which includes three flash-length pieces and one novelette. (This only counts stories that I sent out for submission.) This is three times as many stories as I've written in any other single year dating back to 2005 when I made my first sale, and comes very close to equaling the amount of stories that I have written in all years combined since that time, counting the two or so years I was all "fuck writing" and didn't type a word of fiction. I didn't track word count, I only care about individual stories.

I sold five of these stories, plus two written in previous years. Three are currently out:

• "Super-Parents Last All Childhood Long" in Daily Science Fiction
• "You Will Never Be the Same" in the Whispers from the Abyss anthology (buy it!)
• "Thirty-Six Interrogatories Propounded by the Human-Powered Plasma Bomb in the Moments Before Her Imminent Detonation" in Daily Science Fiction. I will never write a better title.

...and the remainder will be out sometime next year. I sold a story to a dream market and three to print anthologies. I joined SFWA as an associate member, and then became active a month later. I went to four conventions, and paneled at two of them (although one was a "stealth" paneling, ha!). I did not work on any novels.

But though sales and publications are certainly nice, the most important thing is that I was writing. Even though certain things in my life are less than ideal right now, I kept writing, and I didn't stop. It's like a switch has been flipped, and while I wish this switch-flipping would have happened in the mid-aughts, better it happened now than not at all.

What is this thing?

Non-Writing: Okay, here's the part where I get to talk about Portland. We went to Portland, and it was amazing. We also visited Boston, which was similarly amazing. I've made no bones about the fact that I haven't enjoyed living in Baltimore, where we relocated in 2010 for Rob's Teach for America job. We went to both Portland and Boston partly for a vacation (and in the case of Boston, an excuse to go to Readercon), but also to "audition" these cities as possible places of habitation. Boston, I love you but you're expensive as hell. Portland, however, lives squarely in the center of an imaginary Venn diagram with "affordable" on one side and "spectacular" on the other, and in that space is a one-bedroom apartment for less than a thousand dollars a month with our name on it.

Everyone, or at least a lot of people, love Portland and I didn't expect it to live up to the hype. But it totally did! It reminded me of the best parts of Pittsburgh (which never gets any hype). The weather is beautiful, even the rain. Bike lanes, cheap food carts, and Powell's Books, yay! Also, we already have a lot of friends there, as opposed to Baltimore where we knew nobody before moving here and had to build everything from the ground up. And even though we did manage to do that, it was very hard going there for awhile.

So yep, we're shipping out, hopefully in April. I will dearly miss the friends I've made here in Baltimore, but this is something we have to do (also there's this thing called "the Internet" now, which makes distance easier to take).

What's up for 2014? Well, moving to Portland and acquiring at least one of their notoriously scarce jobs will take up a lot of our time. I still plan to write at least one more short story in 2014 than I did in 2013, and keep on submitting them. I plan to finally, finally, FINALLY get my novel (yes, that one) ready for submission to agents and/or small presses. I want to put out a zine and keep my hand in the zine community, since my fiction writing has essentially put zining on hiatus. That won't be hard in Portland (will you be at the Portland Zine Symposium? I will, for the first time!), but my priority going forward will still likely be fiction. I feel grateful to have my creative life on track

December Randomness

First, a sale: my flash fiction piece "Real Plastic Trees" will be appearing in the upcoming speculative fiction issue of Spark: A Creative Anthology, alongside such writers as Alex Shvartsman, Annie Bellet, Brad R. Torgerson, and more! You can pre-order it here at a discounted price, if you'd like.

I just finished writing a novella, my first stab at long-form writing in over six years. And you guys, I... kinda hate long-form writing. I wrote no short stories while I was in the process of writing the novella, and I really miss the instant (or maybe not so instant) gratification of doing that. Yesterday I had a large chunk of time blocked out to finish two short stories, but I just couldn't work on them. My brain felt completely fried, everything felt hopeless, everything I put down felt stupid and wrong. This is not unlike the problems I had after finishing my novel. Hopefully I don't quit writing for as long this time! I'm not going to unilaterally say that I'm never going to write a piece of long-form fiction again, but it will be awhile before I try it.

Plans for the great Baltimore-to-Portland move continue apace. Nothing new to report, but I have decided to start a new tag, "movelandia," which might give some of yinz a glimpse into the coast-to-coast moving process. I may also then compile the posts into a zine because there is nothing more Portland than writing a zine about moving to Portland and that will help me acculturate into my future home*.

In topical news, Crossed Genres magazine is in need of your help! They need to get 300 more subscriptions before the end of the year or they'll have to close. It's a great magazine that publishes a ton of new writers (at professional rates) and subscriptions are only $15/year for the digital version. In the common exchange rate of the times, that's only four visits to Starbucks, or one semi-fancy dinner out, or one-thousandth of the cost of a new car! (Seriously, don't do this.)

Also, as this is my first year as a SFWA member, I will be voting for the Nebula Awards for the first time ever. If you have a short story or novelette you'd like me to consider, feel free to link it in the comment section, or email a copy to satifka at gmail dot com if it's not available online.


*Real talk: when we were talking about what city to move to, I wondered if I'd fit into Portland because I'm not nearly as involved with zines as I used to be. "Do any fiction writers live in Portland?" Ha-ha. Hahahaha. Ha!