[standalone] On the occupational hazards of being a writer [1/2]
(Author's notes: 1. Alex is not me and does not necessarily share my opinions on writing what you know, subversive anti-government activities, relationships with your characters, or the importance of writing an aspirational world to deprive your enemies of ammunition. And would not have shared my opinion on compulsory liscencing of textual work, had I not taken that bit out in an edit. 2. The Warriors' Apprentice cover really is that bad. I have a copy. 3. There really is a Stephen King story like that; it's called "Umney's Last Case" and is still under copyright, but there's a version findable online. 4. If this gets a little incoherent, forgive me; large portions were written when I really should have gone to bed already.)




On the occupational hazards of being a writer


There will be no more Golden Teratorn stories. This is why. It's not a happy story. It goes back a long way, but the relevant parts start last summer, when I moved, again, and thought it might stick. It's also why I havn't posted so much since.


1. "Where do you get your ideas?"

Set the scene:

Most of what I had fit in a few suitcases, but the big fireball took a very muscular fellow or a hand-truck, so my new landlord's son came out to help me wrestle it up the steps. "Call me Eddie," he said right off, "everyone does. Hey, are you the same Alex Macaphee who wrote 'Night's Swift Dragons?"

"The very same." I brushed the hair from my eyes and tried to figure out the most dignified and least hazardous way to approach the suitcases. Two on each shoulder, one in each hand? Make three trips? Get Eddie to do it while I guarded the car from ravenous kangaroo rats? I was already sweating through my shirt, and I hadn't been doing any heavy lifting. I should have moved under a dome.

Eddie, sensibly, hadn't worn one. He had the muscles of a young god. "Wow. I loved it," he confided. "Wore my paperback right out, in middle school."

Maybe it's childish, maybe I should let the mute testimony of sales figures do the job, but I still get a little warm feeling whenever someone tells me they liked my books. I grinned at him and folded my arms. "So what'd you think of the rest, huh?"

"Oh, I liked them too. But I got sensible and read the ebooks. Hardcovers all still excellent condition." He threw me a mock salute, then grunted as he lifted the fireball. "What's this thing made of, lead?"

"There's a certain amount of concrete. Sorry."

"Oh, it's no problem. I work out," Eddie declared. "And all you've got is this and the six suitcases. Don't you have any paper books?"

"Fire," I muttered. "I've got no furniture either. And not nearly enough clothing."

"Oh, there's a guy up the road a few miles who does nice handcarved stuff. I could run you up in the truck and help load it." Eddie looked hopeful and somewhat smitten. Well, it wasn't a bad thing; we'd probably see a lot of each other, and better he love me than hate me.

I hastily slung two suitcases over my shoulders and followed him inside. The temperature differential was tremendous. I decided to send him back out for the rest while I recovered. He asked where I wanted the fireball, and impulsively I selected the dead center of the living room. The rest of my furniture would have to match it now; it might as well take its rightful place. It looked very impressive, looming like a squat Barad-Dur against the blasted wasteland of brown tiles. Eddie wiped his forehead. "Wow. That's the fanciest one I've ever seen."

"Custom comission," I told him proudly. It wasn't just an appliance, it was sculpture. It could produce actual lava if I messed with the settings. That was part of the reason for the concrete - it was impossible to tip. I was impressed Eddie had lifted it, even without the water in the base. "Cost me most of an illutrated novella in collectible small-press."

"Must be nice being a writer."

"It has its hazards."

"Where do you get your ideas?" Eddie wiped his forehead.

I manfully refrained from slapping him. "People asking that is one of the prime hazards, you know."

"Er. Sorry."

"It's alright, you weren't to know." I let the suitcases drop, and sat down on the softer one. "But you don't have to go looking for ideas. They ambush you. In mobs, sometimes. Some people have clever answers - they'll say they get their ideas in this nice little idea shop in Berkely, or something like. Two writers used to say they got their ideas from each other. I don't; I'm not in any of the fellowships."

Eddie appeared to consider this for a while. "Still sounds fun," he declared. "I'll get the other suitcases, shall I?"

Captain Cameron once told me that ideas were indeed like sparks, in that having one could set a fire, but that many failed to alight, or were put out by the damp of custom before they grew. It was a pretty if overly baroque and not all accurate metapor, quite typical of him. I wish now I'd used it then.

I don't get my ideas; they move in, uninvited, and make snide remarks until I write about them.


2. Three major awards, and you still don't pick your own covers

Plugging in the fireball was going to be a challenge in the middle of the floor, but it was summer and I was between books, so it could wait. I stuck the clothes suitcase in the bedroom closet, and called it good. Then I offered Eddie dinner if he'd come shopping with me.

He turned out to be witlessly charming in addition to having the muscles of a young god. It just wasn't fair. He was thirty, he said. He didn't look thirty. Recently divorced, moved back home for a bit while he worked out what to do next. Sick of Los Angeles and more sick of bookkeeping. I expressed sympathy. He shrugged. "We gave it the old college try, you know? But it just didn't work out. She was going different places. We're still great friends, though. Hey, have you ever been married?"

There was one girl I would have married, but I never got the chance to ask her. She died on the Driesel 89. Her name was never mentioned in the news; the damn Senator got all the press time. I shook my head. "No. Never had the time."

*

A week later the place was more or less furnished. My agent called to tell me "Were I Human" had shipped, only a month late, and was probably hitting shelves. I hied down to the local Barnes and Noble to see if it was true, and do what I do with every book, which is to buy a copy, ask the clerk if they've read it and what they thought, and make sidelong remarks hinting my identity. This is not nearly as funny as it seems like. It was Captain Cameron's idea. He laughed himself sick. Tiphys thought it was rather immature, but that didn't keep her from laughing too.

They had it all right, a few dozen copies on a nice display, with my name on the cover in silver lettering. I nearly hissed. They'd been planning a minimalist cover with lots of wavy lines and one picture of a stone hourglass. I'd stomped very hard on that idea. Then my life had turned upside down and what with one thing and another, the final cover had gone out without my approval.

I should have found time to poke my nose in, really I should.

I've had bad covers before - everyone has. (My personal favorite was on the original paperback of "Warrior's Apprentice" by Bujold; I still have no idea who the woman in the pink sarong was.) This was a new low for me, though. Tiphys wouldn't be caught dead in anything sleveless for fear of showing her birthmark, the Teratorn has no figurehead, and if the Teratorn is airborne Cameron would be on it, not on a nearby tower looking bold and manly. And the pink clouds were utterly inxplicable, and looked like cotton candy. Not only hadn't the painter read the book, they couldn't paint good skies.

I picked it up and stared at it for a while, and Captain Cameron stared too, and eventually he offered that we could certainly find out the artist's name and adresss and leave some suitable offering on his porch.

What are you, I asked him, a cat? I'll call my agent and be Very Annoyed, and insist they find someone competent for the paperback and change it out on the ebook. And next book I'll comission a cover myself. Present it as a fait accompli.

He grumbled. I felt dizzy for a moment, and put out a hand to steady myself; it wasn't until I heard the thump that I realized I'd dropped the book. The slipcover had come off and was bent slightly. My head spun again when I piked it up. Tiphys suggested I get something more to eat before I tried to drive, but Tiphys is a pilot and acutely concious of that sort of thing. I waited for the rest of the peanut gallery to remark on it, but only Uenojibwe was awake, and he was obstinately silent.

When I got in the car Cameron piped up again, demanding to know if he'd get another book soon. I told him maybe. He thought this was cruel and he had lots to tell me which would make a good book. I took a few deep breaths, and asked Tiphys to drive while I talked to Cameron. She dislikes land-vehicles and she goes over eighty, but despite it she drives better than me. She readily agreed. I sat back and let her take the wheel, and I asked Cameron for details.

You shall be spared his hare-brained scemes. They worried me. They weren't up to his standard, and they all involved using secondary characters as emotional chew toys. I love torturing my characters, but they aren't supposed to do it to each other.

I should have known right then, in retrospect.

We got home without further incident, except for Cameron declaring that I was an ungrateful ass and that he was going to sulk for a bit. This was just fine by me.

*

The sun was barely up when I awoke; I'd been dreaming fitfully of Madam Sarilillia and her sisters, a pleasant dream, interrupted when Cameron arrived and demanded a turn. It left a bad taste. I'd never written him as other than perfectly gentlemanly, despite his occasional suggestions in that direction, and he and the good Madam had nothing in common. I ignored the feeling and made coffee.

Eddie showed up a little bit afterwards, with a bag of danishes. I have no idea where he got them; neither he nor his father could bake, and the only convenience store within five miles preferred Mexican pastries and horrendous little fried things. One disadvantage of living in the country. I let him in and slipped out to smell the air. Of course it smelled hot and dry. When I came back in he was thumbing through a copy of "Lost Civilizations of the Stone Age" which I'd left on my nice new handmade coffeetable. "This is fascinating," he said, and I could tell he meant it. "Research?"


3. Everything is research, so none of it is a business expense

"Maybe," I told him. "You never know what comes in handy." He looked suitably impressed. I decided he'd be likely to appreciate the irony, and continued, "One time I went rock climbing, because I had a scene planned where someone got into the Greves Monastary that way in the middle of a siege. It was fun for the first five minutes. Then it was grueling. Then I slipped, fell, and dislocated my arm. Of course, I'd gone alone, which every reputable course tells you never to do. But I figured, my characters were complete amatuers, why shouldn't I try it that way first and see if it was possible? I spent about half an hour clinging to the side of the canyon with one arm, trying to decide whether to call someone. I finally gave up and got my phone out with my bad arm, which hurt like hell, and there was no reception. So I sort of did a controlled slide down the rest of the face, and hiked back up, and drove into town one-handed." He seemed thourghoughly enthralled. I shrugged. "The thing was, while I'd been hanging there I came up with a better way for them to get in, so the whole exercise was pointless. But it came in handy later when I needed a character to get a dislocated arm."

Eddie did laugh, although it was a slightly nervous laugh. "That must have hurt."

"Nah. I've got high tolerance," I lied. In fact I'd retreated and let Uenojibwe, who does, deal with it. He didn't mind; he's handled worse. I helped myself to a donut. "So, what prompts the donuts?"

"They're a bribe," Eddie answered promptly. Oh-ho-ho! "I've got tickets to a production of Grease in San Bernadino, and I was hoping you'd come with."

"I love musicals. What's the catch?"

"You get to drive." He grinned the grin of a man who has found a true kindred spirit and is going to take them for all they're worth.

I should explain about my car. It's a very unique mishmash. The body is mostly an 83 Mustang, which my cousin Edsel found in her uncle's barn. The body was more or less intact, if dusty and paint-flaked, but the engine was missing several important components. Rather than try to hunt them down, she emptied the engine compartment and stuffed in a Hikaru 225 Voltive instead. They were very good retrofit engines, if a bit overpowered for most people's purposes. She redid the shafts with graphite. There was enough room left for a smuggling compartment and a minifridge, too, and she added roarers so it sounded just like an overpowered gas car. We repainted it sky blue with yellow and orange flowers, and a hood ornament of a bronze hula girl on a spring. It's an absolute boat.

I love it. I would hate it if I had to parallel park, but it's the best thing ever for camping. I have never owned another car, and I hope I never need to.

This isn't deeply relevant, but it explained why Eddie wanted me to drive; he loved the thing too, had taken opportunities to remark on how cool it was. (He at least didn't say nosh, which is the current teenage slang for cool, according to my sources. I don't know why.) San Bernadino was an hour and a half away, but what was an hour and a half in a land yacht with the top down?

As it turned out, it was a charming opportunity for him to flirt with me. I'm not exclusively gynephilic, just mostly; Eddie was a cute enough boy, and nice to talk too. I've had flings with men before. Only flings, though. I wasn't in the mood for a fling just then. I gently diverted him and he had mostly given up by the time we pulled into town. We stopped for emuburgers, and he promptly switched to flirting with the waitress. I like a man with ambition and drive, I do. By the time intermission was over he'd also run into an old friend of his from college, Lacie, and we wound up switching seats with a couple of high-schoolers on a date to sit with her the rest of the performance.

Captain Cameron liked her, distubingly enough. He has high and somewhat strange standards. I may as well say - in the books Cameron is a Celibate Hero of the worst sort; he never even remarks on someone's attractiveness. This is not for lack of appeties. Rather he insisted I write him that way; he felt the truth made an ugly contrast with his heroic image. Normally I wouldn't indulge my characters like that, but I let him get away with it. I sort of agreed. He was so much in command of every situation, mentioning that the girls he met in port were usually the sort of girls you adress as 'Mistress' would have seemed flat and inexplicable. And the boys. I'm on enough fundie watchlists as it is, I don't want to give them the satisfaction of seeing anything but a healthy and furfilling relationship in my books. My characters have enough external problems without giving them internal ones. (The fundies don't follow my private forums, though, which is why I feel comfortable mentioning this now.)

*

We got back a bit past midnight, and I dropped Eddie off and went straight to bed. It was so hot the windows were all closed up and the AC on when I got back, even that late. I staggered into the kitchen, got a juice from the icebox, and went to lie down on top the covers and wish futiley the house had an openable celing.

Around three, Cameron showed up. That was quite a girl you met at the show, he said.

In retrospect, his speaking in full sentences should have been my first clue.

I agreed with him, though. She'd been just his type. Not many women, even today, even here, went out in lace bras and chain bracelets, and certaintly some of the remarks she'd made ... well, one can't always judge by appearances, but she'd struck me as a woman used to getting her own way. Cameron expounded at length on the ways she could have with him, which at least proved he trusted me enough to admit it. Then he paused. You know, he said, the whole Celibate Hero thing is kind of losing its luster. Not that I'm eager for a coming-out scene, but you could at least write me something just for me. Delete the file afterwards, if you feel you must. Or hint, in the books. Fade to black. You're good at fade-to-black.

He'd never been so insistent before. He'd fantasized aloud when I insisted, but not asked. I told him I'd think about it, maybe, once I had a plot.

He muttered darkly. You don't need a new plot to do a missing scene, he said. It'll just be for fun, he said. Come on, after you made me break an arm you should do something nice. As if I had any obligation to do something nice for him. But the idea did sound fun, so I told him I'd consider it. In the morning.

Uenojibwe, who I hadn't even realized was listening, broke in at that point. He had an idea. I found my hands reaching for the ceiling and tracing letters I did not recognize. Half an hour later I was sitting up and typing furiously, and Cameron was sulking, and Uenojibwe was making clever remarks and occasionally adding to the inventory of strange symbols, which looked something like the markings on oracle bones.

*

Fast-forward here, to about two weeks later. (Am I too young to use 'fast-forward'? I picked it up from my grandfather. You lot seem to go for 'skip' instead, but you're younger than me, on average.) I had about fifty pages of Uenojibwe's new plot. It was brilliant and lyrical and funny, which I had badly needed. He liked it. He got to argue with me on-page, which he enjoys, even if it's very disguised; I suppose I ought to break that damn mirror of his, but I can't resist a good argument myself. What I didn't have was any of Cameron's story. Tiphys was getting restless, as well, and I'd taken a few long late-night drives, or rather let her take them, just to keep things even.

This is the boring part, I suppose. Most of it happened inside my head. Some of the best stories are like that; I've never worked out the trick. I write what happens to my characters, and let their internal reactions stay an enigma. If someone's emotions are written on their face, then the readers see them. Perhaps it's a quixotic little ambition, but I like my characters to have the privacy of the inside of their own head. Perhaps it's because a writer can't get that kind of privacy unless they're very good..

Relax, folks, I'm very good.

Eddie came over a few more times, and we talked. He generally brought food. If there is one thing I hate, it's coming out of a two-day streak and discovering my fridge is completely empty. So, Eddie was reassuring. I even convinced him to do a grocery run for me. He took his car, which was a slightly banged-up Kia pickup. I suspect it was a gift from his father. His father really wanted Eddie to move out permanently, and take over the family business. He had visions of growth, strength, a comfortable niche of the specialty market. Eddie was leaning to it just by default. I didn't like to see that; it's one thing when a kid really does love the family business, but Eddie was a restless type and didn't get along well with the cycle of the seasons. He'd be happier doing something technical back in the city.

I noticed that Tiphys was more or less silent. Cameron, by contrast, spoke up a lot. Generally about three in the morning. I told him he could just wait his turn. Uenojibwe had a plot, and I needed a plot. What do you need a plot for? Cameron asked me. You're richer than Croesus. You could probably take five years off before the wolf hit the door. More, if Were I Human sticks to the lists. I told him that wasn't the point. He didn't see what the point was, then. I pointed out that the immediate money interested me less than the possibilites, and expanding my worlds, and hadn't he had enough? He said he could take a lot, the recent thing with the broken arm being a case in point, and I'd given him such a terrible backstory on purpose, hadn't I, and I should have known it would leave him strong.

At this point I had to get up and make some tea, because I'd realized that my hands, without my permission, had been running up and down my pajamas. Cameron remarked wistfully on the nice pajamas. I said he'd get nice pajamas when he retired. That's the good tea, too, isn't he, he said. I admitted that it was. I offered to give him some in the next book. A whole cargo, if he liked. This was a mistake. Give an inch, they'll take a mile.


4. You pay bills with the contents of your soul, or you're no good

That was another warning sign; of course they're easy to see now. I let Tiphys drive all the time, and she has to do it with my arms, my shoulders, my feet, my eyes. I sometimes let Uenojibwe out, but on the whole I don't let male characters use my body. Or most of the women - it's special. It's a priveledge for the ones I think can handle this world, who want it, who are willing to do something useful with their time here. I let Uenojibwe be witty for me at interviews sometimes. Before I managed to dump the working world, he got me a job. But Uenojibwe is the only man I trust with my body as a matter of course.

I know all this makes me sound slightly mad. Maybe all this is some kind of metaphor. A metaphor gone metastatic, as Bujold would say. Well, it's my head, except when it isn't. I had to start somewhere. I'm like a god to them, but it's possible to trick a god, or ignore a god, or flaunt a god.

Or destroy a god. I've even written that.

I wound up setting aside the new book for a week to drive down to LA, because an old friend wanted some help with a screenplay she was working on. We were friends from middle school, in fact; we'd lost touch for a while when I dropped out and she went to college on the coast, but she came back to Colorado with her first husband when I was just breaking into the business, and when that went down in flames we moved to Seattle together. She moved out again two months later when she somehow finagled a personal assistant's job for some TV producer. Eventually she did a couple scripts for 'Eldan Twelve Travels', and then they asked her for a screenplay. I'm sure in two years she'll be famous. Melissa the Great. It occurs to me that I might get a screenwriting credit out of that week, too, which will leave me tremendouly amused.

Anyway, she had a new husband, a four-year-old daughter, and three parakeets. The husband worked and the daughter went to preschool, which left the two of us alone with the parakeets. They were actually quite cute. Uenojibwe said he wanted a parakeet familiar now, and such was my mood I promised him one next book, or this book if the plot worked out.

Cameron flew into such a frenzy I was forced to leave in the middle of breakfast and go lie down with a headache.

I got a phone call from Eddie halfway through the week, to my surprise. "Hey, Alex," he began. "You up for some more theatre?"

"Sure." I was beginning to wonder what I'd gotten myself into.

"Cool. There's a community college version of 'The Travelling Tontine' down in San Bernadino again and Lacie was wondering if we could come. She helped build the sets, you know." I didnt have to see him to know he was gleaming. There were all sorts of reasons this was a bad idea, really; for one thing, 'The Travelling Tontine' has only about a quarter chance of being done well, especially by an amatuer troupe, and it doesn't stand up well to being done badly. (If you've never seen it: it's about ten years old now, by Levis Insabine, and utterly brilliant in the hands of a skilled director who is willing to approach it as a subtle comedy instead of a tragic farce. I once played the part of Callista. I would say it was in my callow youth, but it was five years ago and my hair was already going gray at the time. Needless to say I played her in a wig, and apparently didn't do a terrible job.)

So, of course, I said, "Sure! I'll be back Monday. Do they have a matinee?" More fool me.

*

The production wasn't horrible; it was played as a camp farce, with lots of feathers and occasional slapstick bits, and left me giggling if not at the appropriate times. Cameron made rude comments throughout, although I tried to sit on him. This should have been another warning sign. On the way back he started to complain about how he'd always wanted to be a pirate. I told him if I'd wanted a pirate I would have stuck to Final Fantasy fic, and his integrity was one of his finest features. But it's not dashing and it gets downright painful, he said. If I had been a pirate I wouldn't have broken my arm last book. And I would have gotten out of Nagridin at least a month sooner.

Tiphys declined to comment, which was just as well.

Somewhere on the drive Eddie noticed how quiet I was being. "You okay?" He didn't venture to put a hand on my shoulder, but he twisted them together like he was trying to wring the handkerchief he didn't carry.

"Yeah," I lied. "Just fine."

When I got back I sat up until four in the morning doing Uenojibwe's story. I shouldn't have; I was already exhausted, and the writing exhausted me worse. The book's not out yet, but when it is out: the bit that I wrote during that night was the scene where Ahamru confronts him over his sister's murder, and Uenojibwe is forced to open the Barrier for him. Very intense, emotionally. Both characters were at a fever pitch, and even the two cameos (and I'm not saying who they are yet; read for yourself when it's out, it's important to the plot) were tense, on edge, ready to snap at the least provocation. All of this was too much for so late at night. I had to give up and go to bed when Ahamru broke down sobbing, and I realized I was sobbing with him. But laughing too, because his pain was so delicious. That was one of the cameos.

This is a problem for me. It might not be a problem for every author; I don't talk about it much. But the side effect of my characters opening themselves up to me is that they open to all of me, not just the parts responsible for putting things down on a page. They're a part of me. I feel what they feel. Even now I can't hate Cameron. Their pain is my pain, and their joy is my joy, and it all springs from my own emotions. It can't be healthy either to feel so many conflicting things, or to cut yourself off completely; I settle for this twisting half-seperation, because it is what I have always done and because I cannot stop writing. Once upon a time I did it for the money, beacuse it seemed better than the alternative. I know better now. I would gladly go back to slaving over a hot stove or bruising my fingers on torque wrenches, if I could lie again.

I can't lie. I write what I know. Thousands of people have seen the inside of my heart. It's amazing the things I've done in the name of experience, and the things I've done from experience. Childbirth is secondhand, but just about everything else is mine, and most especially the emotions. I've felt unexpected joy, won prizes I believed forever out of reach, shown people happiness they had given up on; but I have also been betrayed in love and watched the one I loved die and gritted my teeth over the slow dissolution of my world, which I was powerless to stop. Oh, and been assaulted. Granted, the situation wasn't the same as Baraai's. I should never have written that scene; it opened old wounds, and it could have been glossed over without killing the plot completely. Mildly mutilating it, yes, but I've mutilated plots on less excuse.

Rather more significantly, I've participated in a subversive plot to overthrow the government. This is why I live in California and keep my book tours local. There is still an outstanding arrest warrant for me in the United States. They tried to extradite me, once, but the border officer turned out to be a fan of mine; he sent me a nice letter later, explaining that he didn't think I'd write as well in prison, even if I weren't disappeered. Blatant favoritism for which I am beyond grateful.

I spoke to the man later; he's refused extradition on some of the most ridiculous points. Sole responsibility for a minor (the minor in question being a pet gibbon). Warrants served on the wrong letterhead. He has declared that he didn't have jurisdiction over a woman who claimed loudly to be a "Citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven", this country evidently being a crude hallucination due to pass away when the Higher Spirits descended. He officially refused my warrant on the basis of an obscure judicial decision involving the fact that conspiracy to overthrow their government isn't a crime here. I expyed him into 'Unpathed Waters'. He's not a very effective border agent, I suppose, but he's pretty good at keeping people out of trouble who don't belong. He longs for the day we stop extraditing citizens. I understand there are a couple bills floating around to that effect, and Norton quietly supports one.

Write what you know. Or don't, if you want the inside of your head to stay there.

*

My agent called. I had a screaming fight with her, which I like to do occasionally; it seems to leave her curiously invigorated. I had to fight to get angry. Uenojibwe's new book, which still didn't have a title then, had started out very funny, and it was still very funny - in parts. In parts it was horribly draining. I did, however, manage to work up a sweat when she chewed me out for refusing to do a signing tour for Were I Human. Sometimes I am tempted to blow off all future signing tours. The talks are fun, and I do love meeting my fans, but I am a homebody at heart.

Tiphys isn't. Neither was Cameron. Which turned out to be part of the problem.

It was just after the fall equinox, and - again in retrospect - I should have killed him right then and had done with it. I didn't. I'd gone to bed, and Cameron had tried to keep me up. Uenojibwe is taking up too much of your time, he said. You've got other characters. Ones who don't demand parakeets.

(Tiphys wasn't talking in sentences then, but I could feel her attempting to calm him down.)

I told him to shut up, I was tired, I was stressed up, I couldn't deal with this right now, I just wanted to lie down in a dark room for a while.

Captain Cameron nodded. Very well, then, he said, I've no objections to that plan. And before I could muster even a weary protest, I found myself in his cabin on the Golden Teratorn, rocking gently with the motions of the breeze, dark and comfortable, wrapped up in the vast icebear fur he'd gotten from Orytalthin Ten. I had visited the ship before, in fact, when it was in the long streches of 'the trip over the Fangs was easy if cold, and enlivened only by a few passing migratory birds'. I hadn't been in Cameron's cabin. I'd been up and deck and chatting with them. When I came to visit I was generally asleep, so I didn't think much of it. It even seemed to me to be a concillatory gesture. This place was surely more comfortable than my own bed, which was lumpy and which I really should replace, and where I would have been sweating half to death, instead of wrapping up in the bearskin and being comforably warm. And with that, I lay down and rested. The pillows were still warm. He must have been in bed when he was talking to me. Well, fair enough.

It was a few hours before I moved again. I hadn't heard any footsteps on deck in all that time, and if he was sitting somewhere quietly to spare my headache, it was almost supernaturally kind of him. I resolved to go tell him so, and thank him, and ask about that short story.

He wasn't on board. Neither was Tiphys. We weren't tied up at a dock; we were floating so high I couldn't even make out the ground, and the balloons were creaking peacefully, and I was the only one on board. I suppose I can be proud of myself for taking a good five minutes to panic.

Uenojibwe would help me keep my head, but he wasn't any better at piloting than I was. (And really, nobody but Tiphys could fly the Teratorn properly.) I took a few deep breaths, and then I said aloud, "Orytalthin Ten? Come here."

She took a while to respond, and when she did she was puzzled. Hadn't I told her off for showing up places she couldn't have gotten?

"Never mind that. This isn't on-page, so it doesn't count. I'm on the deck of the Teratorn. And I'm having trouble getting back home." I hadn't realized that was true until I said it. I've had dreams I couldn't wake up from before, but they were honest dreams. Nightmares. This world - I was the God of this world; I should be able to enter and leave it as I pleased.

Ten, to her credit, showed up at once; she leaned in to tap me on the shoulder. She was curious where the crew had gone, and why I didn't summon them. I told her the truth - I had no idea. She thought it had to do with psychic ingresses, which is fairly close inasmuch as the fictional mechnics of a magical mental discipline can be said to apply to the mind of its creator.

There are a lot of thing about psychic labyrinths that poor Ten never got the chance to show off during her brief on-page appearance. I'd elaborate here, but it would disrupt the flow and confuse my readers who aren't mad scientists, so I'll throw up another post tomorrow with the details. I might still use them; Ten wasn't meant as a protagonist but she's fun enough it might be worth growing her a custom-fit hero.

She explained all these theories to me, as she messed about with the rigging and I huddled up against the rimwall. I wasn't as panicked as I should have been. Eventually we sat down together with hot tea, and Ten asked about Uenojibwe. It was good to explain the plot to someone, and she helped me work out a point which had hung up a major scene.

Ten's very reliable. Good to have around.

If you're wondering why I wasn't taking more action: I didn't think it would do any good. If Cameron was shutting me out somehow, and yes, that idea was horribly disturbing, there was nothing to do but wait for him to be done. I had no safeguards against thi sort of thing. And I wasn't going to let him see me lose composure.

5. You have no reason to get up in the morning

Eventually, for lack of anything better to do, I went below again and curled up in Cameron's bed. I only lay there for a few minutes before my perceptions dissolved in a static crackle and I woke up in my own body, with a crick in my neck. I was sitting in my car, clutching a bottle of cold cream coffee. Of coure I jerked and nearly spilled it.

It has doubtless occured to some of you by now that I'm quite mad. Relax. The same idea was floated by my high school guidance counselor, which is one of the many reasons I left. If I'm mad - well, it's a madness that has made me rich and famous. Who cares if I hear voices, when they give such fascinating accounts of themselves? If I hallucinate I do so splendidly.

(I don't touch drugs, I should mention. Not even alcohol. It's noisy enough in here already. And I've grown used to them, they come to me naturally, but people who get voices artificially usually get nasty ones. Strightforwardly nasty, that is; I still have villains to deal with. I'm not convinvced that Captain - but I digress.)

It was still dark, and I had no idea where I was. The car was pulled over on the shoulder. It was an old road, rutted. The hills were spread out below, and there were a few scattered lights. Somewhere high up. Somehow I kept my wits about me enough to check the battery gauge. It showed about half charge, so I couldn't be more than a hundred miles from home. I had three times enough to get home.

First things first.

I finished the coffee, and stared down at the lights. None were rcognizable. The stars were clearly visible, stuning and breathtaking, and could have given me an excellent latitude reading if I had the least idea how to take it, which I didn't. I could have checked the GPS, if I'd bothered to put one on the car. It's not like you could get a new car without one sinceI'd started driving, but then, I'd never liked new cars. They smelled funny. I'd always figured on being, at a minimum, able to remember how I'd gotten somewhere, and if that didn't work, calling someone for directions.

Orytalthin Ten had gone away again. Captain Cameron was arguing with Tiphys, in low tones. I let them; it wouldn't do them any good. They'd dragged me up here, they could suffer -

It only occured to me at that exact moment that Cameron couldn't drive.

I got another cream coffee out of the fridge and sipped it while I gathered my thoughts. Then I spoke to myself, in my best angry-god voice: "TIPHYS."

She was startled out of the argument by it, at least. She was tremendously sorry for this, but leaving Cameron to work me over alone seemed a worse sin than going along to keep an eye -

I interrupted her. That could all be worked out later, I said, right now I wanted directions home. She cowered while she gave them, but my visage must have looked terrible. Captain Cameron went to his cabin to sulk and stayed there. I let him. I didn't try too hard to reassure Tiphys, although she was very shaken. Well, so was I. It was only right that she stew for a bit. The car started up at once, and I took off at far faster than I really should have been going. (You'd think we'd have given up the English System with the Federal Government, but I can still report that I was hitting a hundred and get gasps of shock instead of 'So what? That's normal on the highway!' So, I was hitting a hundred. Hikarus are good engines; it didn't lose power, or even make a noise that I could hear inside the car.)

We were only about sixty miles from home, anyway. Some poor schmucks have longer commutes.

When I got back it was about four in the morning. Thankfully Cameron had turned off the fireball before he left. I turned it back on again, and then, feeling fretful, I pulled off all the sheets and the comforter and pillow and laid them out on the living room floor, where I could see the fireball. My heart was still pounding from the drive and the multiple coffees. I threw the blankets over my shoulders and stared at the fireball. It looked even more like Barad-Dur without the sun to compete with, and from this angle.

Tiphys very hesitantly said, I'm sorry.

It was the first full sentence she'd spoken to me. I closed my eyes. I'm not mad at you, I told her, I'm mad at Cameron. At least he let you drive. If he'd tried to drive I would never forgive him. I love that car.

Tiphys said, He wanted to drive, but I argued him out of it.

Then you did right. Go tell him I'll forgive him, if I can have his promise never to come out without permission again. I know I've been tough on him lately, and I'm sorry for that. He'll get a short story. But I want to finish Uenojibwe's novel first.

*

I got up, rather muzzily, at eight long enough to take a piss and turn off the fireball. Then I dragged the blankets back into my bedroom and curled up in bed, with the blankets over my head. At noon I was woken up by my phone ringing. I put the pillow over my head until it stopped. Around eight I felt thirsty enough to get up and get a glass of water. I took it back to bed with me. I couldn't get to sleep right away, but I pulled the blankets over my head again and did my best.

Uenojibwe wanted to know if I was okay. I told him I was fine and he could go plot, I'd get back to him in a few days.

This wasn't healthy and I knew it, but then, it wasn't like I was missing work. Technically I was putting off work, but then, I didn't have a deadline for this next book. I hate deadlines. Ever since it wasn't a choice between paying rent with an advance check and paying rent with a Real Job, I've refused to tell my agent anything more than 'Oh yeah, I might have something done in a year or two'. She hates this, of course. We've never gotten on well. It's not healthy for a writer and agent to get along so terribly, but I've put up with it long enough that it's easier to keep going than get a new agent.

The last time I'd spent two days straight in bed it had been when I was in the black pit of depression. I managed to claw my way out of the pit with the help of an understanding counselor and copious drugs. Unfortunately, in a year I'd been so much better I stopped seeing the counselor and let my drug prescription run out. I wasn't in any shape to drive to San Francisco and find someone competent, and I wasn't about to call up a woman I hadn't seen in - hell, several decades - and ask her to talk me out of it. I wasn't even going to answer the phone. This would run its course.

But then, last time I'd spent two straight days in bed, my boss had called and asked if I was sick, and I'd been too terrified of getting evicted again not to do whatever the hell it took to show up for work. It was that which drove me into writing, I think. I have stories to tell, I have voices in my head, but at the heart of it I never want to have to drag myself out of bed and shower and get dressed and look marginally respectable and show up to scrub some other asshole's floors when I'd rather be curled up crying my eyes out. I'm enough an arrogant jerk to think my pain is more important than some rich idiot's clean floors. Hell, anybody's pain is more important than anybody's clean floors.

The next afternoon I finally managed to drag myself out of bed and cook something out of the freezer. I don't remember what it was, only that it was a TV dinner and that it had macaroni-and-cheese on the side, the kind that melted at some point and comes out of the microwave congealed. My freezer was full of more healthful things, but it suited my mood. I checked my phone. There were three messages from my agent. I deleted them without listening. (Yes, it was petty of me.)

Uenojibwe suggested I come stay with him for a bit, if I was feeling that bad. I told him there was no way I was leaving my body alone for a while.

I talked to Cameron, Tiphys told me, and he promised. But he doesn't want to get up either.

Of course she'd looked after him. Tiphys was too kind. It didn't suit her.

*

I was in a marginally better mood and Uenojibwe had given me a very funny scene, so I listened to my agent's next message intead of erasing it off hand. Somebody wanted to do a graphic novel of one of my earlier books. Now, if this were a fan project it wouldn't have needed my blessing, and as a commercial project I would ordinarily have thought it was cool, but the particular scripter they were considering bringing in was one I wouldn't have trusted to write the alphabet, let alone a book with my characters in it. I waited until she was certain to be asleep, then called back and left a rather nasty message saying I wanted no part of it, and had she cleared up the mess with the "Were I Human" cover yet?

That brigthened my day considerably. I'm getting crabby in my old age. Okay, not exactly old age, but late middle age surely. Eddie is young enough to be my son, although not by much. I read those 'This Year's Graduating Class' notices and throw my hands up at the state of the world. I was born in the middle of Great Depression II, in the United States of America, and I still lament the way the world is going. Most of you, if my last informal poll was accurate, never knew the fifty-one states. You grew up knowing that moving to orbit was a real possibility, if your parents were in the sciences or skilled in certain trades. You've never driven a gasoline car. You probably think of paper books as old-fashioned, although all indications are that they are no more obsolete than raincoats. You've never had to save energy. Never been told to think about the starving kids in Africa. Never been lonely, only rarely been lied to, never had to scuffle in fear, very little denied to. Me, I never went to college because when I was the right age to go to college, you still had to pay for it yourself. Even in California. I grew up thinking we were never going back to the Moon.

I've never met anyone born more than twenty years after me who needed happy pills. Maybe they don't have any reason to be sad.

(If you're worried now: I am currently using a very nice little cocktail of psychoactive drugs that have the net effect of forcing my mood to 'slightly happy'. Not proud of it, but it got past 'staying in bed for days', which I can take, to 'going after people with an axe', which I could take but the rest of the population really couldn't, and I gave up and called the local doctor. I didn't mention Captain Cameron to her, even though it was his fault. And yes, lying to your doctor is bad. Don't Do This At Home, Kiddies. I'm old enough to be reckless and I know my head better than anyone else.)

The third day, Eddie came up to ask if I wanted to have dinner with him and his dad and some friends from town. It was his dad's birthday. There would be cake. Tomorrow. Well, how could I say no to that?

It was a small and very homey party. I'd met Eddie's dad briefly when I signed the lease; he had struck me as a decent guy, if a bit disinclined to talk about anything that couldn't be welded. He gave me no reason to change my opinion, although I added to it 'really good at kareoke'. The friends from town were mostly older folks (that is to say, around my age), and chatted at length about their kids and their jobs and in a few cases grandkids. There was lots of beer.

Eddie and I, not having kids to brag about, were sort of left out. We ended up sitting on the patio with a beer (Eddie) and a soda (me) and looking at the stars, which you coud see pretty well this far out. "Hey," Eddie said. "You working on anything these days? I see your car in and out all the time. I thought you wanted quiet."

I shrugged. "I've got a novel going. Slow, though. Driving helps me think. How about you? Figured out what you want to do with your life?"

Eddie nodded. He looked very determined and very young. "I'm going back to school. But not until next fall. I'm going to study ecololgy."

"Quite a step off from accounting."

"Well. I was being practical. I want to do something just because I like it. You inspire me." He gave me a melting gaze and I was suddenly reminded that he'd flirted with me, helplessly, when we went down to see the play.

Poor kid. If my life is anything to go by, dong what you love is a recipe for disaster. I didn't tell him that, though. I laughed and said it sounded fascinating, and got him going on a ten-minute lecture about the importance of sagebrush. By the end he thought I looked tired and offered to walk me home. I pointed out my house was a quarter-mile away over open country down a well-marked trail; I couldn't exactly miss it. But he insisted.

*

Halloween is more or less a forgoten holiday these days, but I've always loved an excuse to break out the candy and curl up with 'Attack of the Mutant Ants from Mars'. So this is how I celebrate. I was five chapters from the end of Uenojibwe's book and had been for three chapters now, so I was in need of a break. In between chapters I'd amused myself with some Analog backissues I'd been meaning to read for ages, and running the little board poetry slam you lot probably remember with faint horror. I invited Eddie, since he'd perked up when I mentioned the idea.

While I was watching Eddie walk home afterwards, Cameron spoke. It was the first time in weeks. "He's a nice boy," he said. "Are you sure you don't want a fling? You need something, you know, you're all stressed out."

I'd never heard his voice before when he was offstage. It startled me and I took a minute to recognize it.

"Don't worry about me," I told him. I didn't say any of the things that were clamouring in my mind, such as Since when can you speak offstage? "I've got matters well in hand. And I'm busy with Uenojibwe right now, anyway."

"I always thought you two were up to something," he said. It sounded like a joke.

*

For a long time I thought that was the end of things. I still didn't know how Captain Cameron had taken over, or how he was speaking aloud offstage, but I had more important things to worry about. Uenojibwe's book stubbornly stayed five chapters from the end for another month. I lurked and muttered and took to staying in bed when I could and wandering around in my pajamas otherwise. I sweet-talked Eddie into getting my groceries for me. Then, in December, just when I was starting to leave the fireball on at night, it all wrapped up. I finished three of the last chapters in a dizzy whirl. I dumped the lot in my publishing 'ware and realized, to my asonishment, that it was almost seven hundred pages. Well, it might be possible to subdivide. Something to toss at my agent, once it was all written.

Captain Cameron didn't comment. He still didn't comment when I finally managed to polish off the epilouge - I'd never written an epilouge before, but somehow, for this book, it seemed appropriate, and Uenojibwe thought it was a hoot and it finally hit the light-hearted mood I'd started the book with and lost when things got dramatic, so in it stayed. Uenojibwe was unspeakably pleased. Ahamru was tolerably satisfied, and he'd lived, which hadn't been a given at certain intense points.

And then, nothing.

I called my agent and flashed her a copy. It was six in the evening when I sent it over, and then I spent most of the night staring at the celing and fretting. In between bouts of fretting I took walks. Back before the light pollution laws, you would have stood a good chance of seeing Los Angeles glow from this house. Now the only thing you could see glowing was Interstate 15 and some town lights, but it was impressive just the same. There were a few trees. Not many. Mostly there was a lot of dust. I thought about going to get some dinner, but the nearest all-night restaurant was in Barstow, right next to the bookstore. Well, I'd come up here for the peace and quiet, hadn't I? I could fix something, but I was running out of premade meals and I didn't want to turn on the kitchen lights and cook. So I had a candy bar and fretted some more.

Finally it occured to me I could visit all the websites I'd been avoiding while I wrote. Maybe one of them could provide some inspiration. I fired up the computer - I brought it into the living room, and huddled in front of the fireball, in vauge hopes of warming myself up enough to feel sleepy. None of the comics I'd dropped for similar plots pinged me, although I did kill an hour catching up with them. I turned to Fictropes instead. My article had gained a note on Were I Human, with a link to 'Born Detective'. I was amused; the character they mentioned had her skills despite her family, not because of them. Still no help. I hit the random article link.

It popped up 'San Dimas Time'. That was the best idea I'd heard all night. Screw this, I was entitled to a mini-vacation.




Part 2 here.