Dogs at Work

Good Morning everybody. I'm at my desk, and Jimmy is in his bed beside me. I thought Pippin was coming up, too, but he's only made two dashes into the office then, at top speeds, back out and down the hall, and down the stairs, and then right back up. He is playing some game that is a combination of tag and keep a way with Jon.

It started innocently enough with Jimmy wondering back to Jon's office then following him back towards the stairs, and me just wanting to know which dogs were coming upstairs with me. My goal was simply to sit down and get to work. So Jon helped herd Jimmy up here, then Pip was trying to play licky-face through the banister with Jon. We don't let the dogs lick us on the face, not if we can help it, we know where their tongues have been. But something about almost getting there excited the big puppy, and the next thing I know Pip is tearing around like some fifty-pound black blur. Jon is agging him on, making bark noises, and snuffling noises, and crawling around on his hands and knees, and the puppy is just loving it. I play with the dogs, but apprently I don't imitate play behavior as well as Jon does, because Pip never goes quite as nutso with me, as he does with Jon. It's a gift.

The game ended when Jon tired before the puppy, but who doesn't tire before a puppy? Then Pip gulloped (gallop isn't quite the right sound) down the stairs with Jon, and they raced off both of them tired but smiling. Dogs do smile, you know, or at least most dogs do. I am willing to believe that there is a breed or mix out there that does not smile, but I have yet to be introduced to it.

Phouka and Sasquatch are downstairs with Darla in her office. Pip is with Jon, and I've got Jimmy. There are days when I think I have too many dogs. Today is not one of them. After all if we had fewer dogs not everyone would have one to keep them company at work. And that would be a shame.

Afraid of the book

I finally realized that I'm almost afraid to write in the blog about how well the new Merry book is going. It seems like everytime I write that I may have hit my stride in it here on the blog, I don't keep my stride. I don't think it actually has anything to do with the blog process, but more with me relaxing about having passed the hurdles.

There is a point in most books where I just simply know that it's working. That I'm over the hump, but every time I build up speed for A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT, then I stumble, and loose my momentum. Jon and Darla have both reminded me that I do this on most books. Merry writes slower than Anita, that is simply a truism, so the stumbling seems more obvious to me. I guess if you're moving fast enough, the bumps don't seem like mountains. They're just bumps. At slow speed, the bumps are mountains, or at least hills that must be climbed, and it slows things down even more.

I know that each book is different, like a different year out of your life. Never quite the same. But I didn't realize that a series character, or maybe the difference in the worlds, something, could make that much difference in how an entire series of books writes for me.

Gotta go the landscaper is here. I did twenty pages yesterday, and twenty pages the day before. I've said a little prayer that I've actually hit my stride for this book, settled in not for a sprint like Anita, but that long marathon jog. You still get to the finish line, just not as fast.

Jimmy and Pip are asleep on two different dog beds. Jimmy in 'his' bed which is right beside my main desk, and Pip on the bigger bed that is pretty much in the middle of the floor. They are both lying on their sides with their paws stretched out, deeply asleep. Jimmy at fourteen just came up and laid down, and once he was certain I was actually going to be writing for awhile, he went to sleep. Pip, at a little over a year, played with and crushed the empty water bottle I let him have, then laid down to sleep. This is one of the longest peaceful times the two of them have had together in my office. Usually I can only have one of them at a time since Pip hit puberty, and Jimmy decided he was old, but wasn't backing down. Infact, the old man often starts the trouble. He has been writing checks his body cannot cash.

But we've been working with Pip on obedience and letting him know that Jimmy isn't in charge, we are. It's calmed him down a lot. We took him to a local outdoor cafe this weekend, and he sat at the table with us and didn't try to jump up on a single person. A reord. He only tried to put his paw on the one lady who petted him. He didn't bark once, and was very calm. The socilization is really helping his confidence. We also had a professional dog trainer out to the house to watch the dogs interact in their home environment. She was the one who pointed out that Pip isn't aggressive, he's afraid, and doesn't know how to be boss, and doesn't know who else is boss. He's a dog, somebody has to be boss, but he'd really rather it were someone else. So it's us.

I'm about a hundred and fifty pages in on A STROKE OF MIDNIGHT. If you've been reading the blog regularly you know that I've had some family illness, and it's certainly effected my ability to concentrate on the writing. Preparing for tour also cuts into things. Getting our daughter ready for school to begin again, also takes time and attention. Though Jon's mom helped with that this year.

I read how Eugene O'Neill, the playwright had his third wife, Carlotta, make sure that no one bothered him in the morning while he worked. No phone, no callers, nothing. Not even if the house were on fire. Everyone went around on tip-toes, speaking in hushed voices. At lunch she was afraid to even move to make her chair squeak for fear of disturbing the man's concentration. She also sorted his mail, which frankly is a fine idea, but the rest . . . Yeah, it's occasionally appealing to be that protected from the world. But how would it possibly work? What, I have a nanny to tend my daughter and never see her? You just give up your entire life to other people, and care only about the writing?

There are other writers that did similar things. Asimov worked an average of twenty hours a day, and supposedly never left his office during a work session. His wife brought him food. There are numerous other stories about writers that did that. Most, if not all of them, male, but I don't see how it would work. I mean was O'Neill not told if his mother was ill, if he was in the middle of a play? Did he only learn of it afterwards? Was he that protected? Or did emergencies disturb the great man's schedule? But what, I'm not going to greet my daughter home from the first day of third grade? I'm going to miss that? I don't think so.

My husband and I were both there huddled under an umbrella in the unusually cold down pour, when she got off the bus for the first day of third grade.

I don't know how to balance real life with the writing. I really don't. But I just don't think I could isolate myself to the degree that some have done and be happy with the decision. It would be as if the writing were more real than your life. How weird would that be? Also, truthfully, the thought of making everyone tip-toe around and whisper because I was working is a little too primadonna for me. I would feel silly asking my family and friends to do stuff like that. But hey, that's just me. Eugene O'Neill was the first American writer to win the Nobel Prize for literature. He won four Pulitzer prizes for drama. Some scholars claim that he's the third most widely translated and produced dramatist after William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw. Not bad, not bad at all.

So who am I to say that his schedule sounded prissy? I don't have a Pulitzer, or a Nobel Prize. But I'll say this, I can't imagine thinking I could order my family and friends around to that degree and there not be a palace revolt. I take my writing very, very seriously, but so seriously that the squeak of a chair could disrupt my creative process -- that serious I'm not.

Home again

We were home for less than twelve hours before we had to drag our butts back out. We got on a plane and flew to visit my family. It was a visit prompted by illness and just sheer age. There's nothing wrong with my grandmother, except she's 93. As Trinity said when she figured it out, "Wow, Mom, that's like almost a hundred. We've got to go see her. She can't last much longer." Out of the mouths of children. But it is the truth. The woman has been telling everyone she was dying since she was fifty. She is going to be right someday, at least about that.

My Uncle Jessie on the other hand, is truly ill. A sudden discovery of cancer that he probably has had for years. He looked much better than my other aunt had led me to expect. But then, Aunt Bonita, has always been something of an alarmist. But in this case her exaggeration got me on a plane, and I don't regret that. It was very good to see Jessie and Juanita, my aunt, and my cousin Millie. The visit was a good one.

I also got to see my Uncle Monk and my cousin Doug. He's the closest thing I ever had to a younger brother.

I was reminded that my family loves me, and I love them, too, damnit. That we may not always understand each other, but there is still common ground, still room to reach out to one another. Which we all did nicely, thank you. Which was very cool.

We leave tomorrow for the 'family vacation'. It will be the first one where we are driving somewhere instead of flying. You'd think with my fear of flying I'd be pleased, but no. You see, I'm afraid of cars, too. Not as afraid, thank God, but still nervous. My mother dying in one I think has something to do with this particular phobia.

Jonathon and I have both felt very anxious about the trip, and I finally figured out why. Because driving reminds us of all those awful family vacations where you're trapped in the car with people who love you, but don't always like you, and you're going some place that you didn't choose, and really don't want to go. I think I had one vacation my entire childhood that was a pleasant experience. Maybe more, but the one that stands out was the one where my Uncle Toots (Elbert), and my Aunt Bev, took me with them and their children, my cousins Brett and Denise, to one of the Carolina's. Even that trip had it's ups and downs, but you had three teenagers in a car. Come to think of it Aunt Bev and Uncle Toots were pretty brave to take us. I don't know about you but I was pretty damned moody at thirteen.

Oh, well. I've got to get back to work, and then finish packing.

Hey guys. I think I'm going to have Jonathon make a second supplementary blog for my soap box moments. We've learned at personal appearances that some people read this blog the way that we look at Sluggy Freelance (a wonderful internet comic). It's their morning or evening hello to the internet. So for those who use the blog as an escape I'll divide it between the unpleasant stuff. Mostly political. And the writing stuff, and lighter stuff. We'll probably have the other blog thingie up in a week or two. Until then I'll try to stay off my soap box. Unless, I just can't help myself. Who knows maybe someone will do something so outrageous that I won't be able to stand it. Bye for now.

For those of you who have read the last two blogs, and wondered when the heck did this blog go politic, I apologize. Not about what I wrote, but just that if this blog is supposed to be a refuge from the crap out there, the last thing you want to read about is more politics. So, in that spirit . . .

I did eleven pages on Saturday morning. Yea! I'm sort of hitting a rhythm. Today I get to visit the hallway of mortality (the torture chamber for the Unseelie court). It should be interesting, and disturbing, and dangerous. But before that I have to see what the dead gardens have instore for Merry and her men. How do you get someone down from a tree that has decided to make him part of the tree? Very bad ju-ju to cut a faerie tree. So what, you use magic, but what kind? How do you persuade a tree to give up a part of itself? How do you talk to a tree? I always get such interesting problems in my books. I'm going to go try and figure it all out. Bye for now.

Okay, I've been talking to a lot of people lately that are feeling very anxious. Anxious about real problems, or just anxious in general. It's almost like it's some sort of contagion of anxiety, and mild depression. Everywhere I go; people are worried about their jobs, or lack of them. Everyone is worried that if Bush is reelected that a draft will be put in, and it will not exempt only children, because there aren't enough households without them. Women will be included, but the thing that really has most people worried is the age being raised, so that early thirties, and you're still not safe. How many of us could leave our businesses for a year or more, at 33 or 35, and have a business to come back to.

On the other side of the coin, are the people terrified that if Kerry, or any democrats is elected president, that terrorist will swoop down and kill us all.

We all seem to be panicking about things on the extreme. Surely there is middle ground for all of us somewhere to meet on.

We all seem so scared. Scared about our jobs, or losing them. Scared about health care or how are we going to pay for our kids doctor's visits. There are an amazing number of people in our country that are two income households, but they can barely afford food and paying bills.

Here's an idea. Those of us doing well, find some good causes to support. Those of us in a position of power, help people. An old idea, but still a good one.

I feel like I'm drowning in the misery of everyone I talk to. So much fear, and uncertainty. I'll make you all a deal. Let's pretend to be brave. Let's pretend we aren't scared. Let's act as if we know how to fix all this, and move forward. Let's be brave together, no matter what our ideology is, let us join our metaphorical hands, and move forward together. Let's all take a deep, cleansing breath, and believe that it will get better. Believe and act as if, sometimes that's how it all begins to get better.

Let's not be divided by silly stuff. Let us unite over what we all care about. Enough food on the table, enough money to pay bills, medical care for everyone, and feeling that our government is not our enemy no matter who is in office. Republican, or democrats, or Green party, or Independent, we are all Americans, and most of us have the same goals, the same desires, the same needs. United we stand, divided we fall. Don't let the emotional manipulation of a few issues cloud the issues that most of us actually agree on.