Lessons from Britain

Our home here in Santa Fe is still under renovation, but we've turned one major corner. People who come by to work or drop things off no longer survey the scene and wonder what kind of crazy people would live in our place. We now get constant compliments calling our place "really nice" and "wonderful." One of the things I love about it is how small it is, and I know I didn't get my preference for small spaces from growing up in New Mexico. The American west, when I was a kid, was all about big houses with giant great rooms. Because land was relatively cheap, people would take advantage of the space they could have.

No, my preference for small, cozy spaces definitely comes from my time in Britain. I first lived over there when I was seventeen, attending the United World College of the Atlantic in south Wales. That was the first time I'd ever seen drizzle that didn't let up for weeks. Her in New Mexico, rain visits for a few hours and then is gone, and drizzle is rare. We tend to get pounded with big droplets that saturate everything before the sun comes out to bake it all dry again.

A lot of people find the weather in the UK oppressive, and I did too for a long time. It's difficult to go from a place where you can see mountains 40 miles away out your window to a place where visibility of one mile is extraordinary. It's possible in a situation like that to feel claustrophobic even when hiking outdoors. I wasn't used to dryness being a luxury, but in a climate where your laundry will get wet again between the laundry room and the dorm, and then stay wet because there's nothing like a dryer in the dorm, mold and rot become all too constant companions.

I have good memories from this time too, though. I remember lying in my cot as a second year, when I got to sleep right by the window with my bed up against the radiator. I'd fall asleep to the sound of raindrops hitting the glass, but be secure in my little cocoon of warmth.

When I moved on to Oxford, even though I had my own room, it was a small room and as this was the time when I was battling a yet-undiagnosed sleep disorder, it paid to have a small area to take care of. I soon figured out how much work it took to keep a living space in order. My energy levels were so low, that there were points in my life when I wouldn't even bother to fold the sun-shade in my car because I didn't have the energy. People laughed, but I was quite serious. I shouldn't have been driving either, but at the time I had no diagnosis or test results to show what on earth was going on. It was in the UK that I saw people living in little cottages and cozy spaces. Few could afford the square footage that a western American family was accustomed to, but they were no poorer for all that. Even now, when house hunting, just stepping into a large house made me feel tired. I imagined all the hours it'd take to clean and want to get out immediately.

This last time I lived in the UK, when my husband did his PhD in London, we moved into a space so small that even my British friends thought it was extreme. While it certainly had its downsides, it always felt manageable. My sleep disorder has long since been treated, but we did have a baby in the UK who screamed a lot. A rough night with him meant only getting sleep in 20 minute increments. All during this time, I felt too exhausted to keep the place in perfect order, but I never felt completely overwhelmed by the housework.

Besides that, it was wonderful to be in a small space with my children, because even when I sat at my computer and worked, I got a lot of interaction with them. I knew what they were doing and heard what they said and they needed only to call out to get my full attention. On a visit back to the US, where I stayed with relatives who had typical, American-sized homes, I found it almost impossible to multi-task. I either followed my boys around, or got work done. There was no doing both. Some people value having the space where they can shut the rest of life out for a while. I don't. I like to be in the thick of life and living whenever I'm at home. I like having my boys able to explore and play on their own without ever being entirely on their own. This way I can helicopter, without butting in unless their play gets dangerous.

When we came back to the US, for a year we rented a small home in Los Alamos that was still too big, and was laid out to provide separation and privacy. My children could easily get out of sight and out of earshot, so when we went looking for a home to buy, I told the realtor to show us small places. Our current home was one of the first candidates. It took me all of five minutes to tour and I told her that this was the sort of thing we were looking for. To her credit, she took me at my word.

The more I live here, the more I love it. It's not cramped or confining. It's got all the types of space we need, and only as much as we need. People see that I have two sons and a husband over six feet tall and wonder how it is I could commit to a place that will soon be packed to the gills with people and life, and there may come a time when we upsize, but it's not part of my firm future plans. I'm curious to see of my boys really do outgrow the space, or whether we ever feel like we need more "stuff" and places to put it. For now, though, we're quite happy as we are.

(I know, the title and the timing made it look like I'd talk about Scotland. The truth is, I've been to Scotland all of twice in my adult life. I lived in the UK long enough to appreciate what I don't know, and my degree in politics from a British university only confirms that. The Union was and is a matter for the people who belong to it. I was only ever a visitor.)

Homeless

For the next week, we'll continue to be "homeless". We have a home, and new one in Santa Fe, but we are renovating it and hence are moving around, from my parents' house to a hotel and so forth. We love our new home, but to live there right now would be difficult because it has no kitchen.

Obviously, I can't give too many details about our new home (one of the few writers I know who had a stalker was less famous than I - which is to say, not famous at all), but I love the place we found. Santa Fe has always been one of my favorite places in the world. I grew up just north of it in Los Alamos (something I can now talk about since I don't live there anymore - it's a small town, so talking about it while I was there would have been almost like giving out my home address).

People who know me know I'm a northern New Mexican through and through, even though I've only lived here since I was one. (If you think that's long enough to be a native of the place, you likely aren't New Mexican.) I used to joke with my law clients about how far my heritage doesn't go back in this state, as quite a few of them were Hispanic (yes, that is the term used here, locally, so please no Latino/Chicanos pouncing on me for using it), or Native American.

Once our renovations are done, I'll be posting some before/after pictures of the interior of our new place. It's an old, historic adobe that was somewhat run down when we bought it. We're gutting much of it and redoing the interior. It's a small place - by American standards, I guess. Less than 1,000 square feet, though we might add on a second bathroom and office for me, which would put us just over 1,000. (This is how we're able to afford the renovations - this house was well within our budget to purchase.) People may think we're nuts for cramming a family of four into this space, especially with two boys who are likely to grow up very big and tall, but we'll see how it goes.

Most of all, I'm grateful to raise my kids in the culture (or cultures, more precisely) that I grew up in. If I could pick anywhere in the world for them to call home, it would be Santa Fe.

Also, I'm about to embark on writing and publishing some fantasy and science fiction works, but more on that later!

Guilty Pleasures: Married at First Sight

I don't work every waking hour, just most of them. I have time to watch about one to two hours of television a week, and for the next several weeks, one of the hours will be this reality TV show, Married at First Sight, on FYI. People who know me know that I hate reality TV. I watched The Bachelor one season when a whole bunch of friends were watching it as a group - and even then didn't watch all the episodes, and I watched Survivor when a family friend was on it. As soon as he got voted off, I quit watching. This kind of stuff doesn't hold my interest.

So why am I watching a show with the premise of marrying complete strangers and having them live together for five weeks before deciding if they want to stay married or get divorced? Well, I'm hoping this is a different kind of reality TV. Specifically, I hope this is using the reality format to do something groundbreaking. Here are my thoughts so far:

- The "object" of this show is for everybody to win, and that's a new one for reality TV as far as I know. Four experts (that's what they're referred to as in the show, hence I'll just use that same term) in four areas of specialty went through all the candidates for the show and paired off three couples. At this point in the broadcast schedule, those couples have met, gotten married, and had their receptions. If the show creators wanted to set up a train wreck, then they have very poor memories. Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, with its ridiculous sham marriage and subsequent blow-up did not make for good television and did not earn itself a second season, so if all Married... does is create a disastrous situation, then the network execs should know enough from reality TV history to know that this is going to be a big hurdle for the newly revamped FYI network to clear. Also, this show is based on a show of the same format and premise that aired in Denmark, and two of the three couples did elect to stay married.

- Arranged marriage doesn't squick me the same way it may squick other people. I'm not sure why. Because I went to an international school and saw a plethora of cultures? Because I'm well aware of the fact that I, and anyone else on this planet, is the product of thousands of arranged marriages down through the ages? Because I agree with the assertion at the beginning of this show that love-match marriages are relatively new, from a historical perspective, and divorce rates have increased since they became commonplace? Now, that isn't to say that love-match marriages are the cause of divorces. Despite statistics that show that arranged marriages have only a 4% divorce rate on average around the world, that does not convey the complete picture. Cultures that still practice arranged marriage tend to be more conservative and more condemning of divorce. In some countries, divorce is very difficult if not almost impossible to obtain. Also, the purpose of marriage in these cultures is often quite different and the individuals have had their expectations of marriage cultivated accordingly over the course of their lives.

- If this idea works, the fact that it was implemented in reality TV will make all the difference. A sitcom or a prime time drama about couples who are put into arranged marriages obviously would not be comparable. Any writer can put together a fictional storyline where it all works out or doesn't. The point of this experiment is to see if it works on real people.

What I'm curious to learn:

- Whether arranged marriage could ever work in modern American culture - where people are raised with the expectation that they choose their own spouse, and where property, social status, and other traditional concerns tied to marriage have been largely left by the wayside. These people in the experiment didn't grow up thinking they would marry complete strangers, so without that lifetime of cultivated expectation, can they switch gears and do this?

My predictions, FWIW:

- Jamie and Doug make it and stay married. Okay, so spoiler alert for anyone who wants to click over and watch the first episodes on FYI. Jamie is not exactly happy on her wedding day. She's horrified because she isn't attracted to her spouse. Why do I think they'll make it? Because all the footage has already been shot. The experiment is over. Hence I assume the show is edited to create compelling narratives (reality TV isn't scripted in the traditional sense, but there's still room for plenty of spin.) The experts say up front that they expect Jamie will not be attracted to Doug. When this proves true, the sociologist says a short piece on how our society believes that attraction needs to be there at first sight or it will never grow, and that she thinks this attitude eliminates opportunities in love unnecessarily.

The weddings were *obviously* edited - Jason and Cortney's vows are backwards, if you pay attention. In the show he makes his second. In the actual ceremony he would have made his first. They switched them around for dramatic timing purposes. For Jamie and Doug, we're shown only awkward moments. Her hesitating at the altar. Him telling her he lives with his parents. Her asking the wedding photographer to not require them to be touchy-feely, etc. One of the only positive moments is when Jamie's nephew goes up to greet "Uncle Doug", which fits into the storyline of a nice guy with a strong sense of family and loyalty winning the heart of a woman who has limited experience on the receiving end of either. If Jamie and Doug made it to a happy marriage, then the show creators/editors/etc. are being clever. The premise has been set down: You can fall in love with someone you wouldn't have looked twice at when you first met. This also emphasizes the point of this show: that we don't always pick the best partners for ourselves. So can strangers with areas of expertise in sociology, sexuality, etc. do better than you would do on your own? My prediction is that they'll sure make it look like they can with the editing of this couple's storyline.

- If anyone doesn't make it, I'd say Vaughn and Monet, not because there's anything wrong with these two, but because they're both presented as very independent, self directed people, and that can be an extra challenge in any relationship. I'd think an arranged marriage might amplify that because they go straight from having their own structured life into having to compromise at every turn. Again, I'm not saying that's how these two people actually are - I've seen 120 minutes of footage of them, so I don't know them. That is how they are presented, though, so it seems plausible to me that this could be the narrative.
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Anyhow, it's been a while since I've blogged, so while figuring out what to blog, I decided to share my interest in this show. I think most reality television is pretty dumb, especially the romantic reality shows. The Bachelor/Bachelorette is, in my opinion, a thoroughly stupid premise. Courtship where a bunch of prospective mates are in direct competition with each other and the one doing the choosing has everyone competing for them, plus the opulent locations and excursions thrown in on the show, make it un-ideal to create lasting romance - to put it mildly. The fact that anyone off this show has gotten married is a testament to human ingenuity and resilience. It looks like the worst possible way to start a relationship. And I'm not a huge fan of watching train wrecks for the sake of entertainment. If a show is supposed to be "reality" then why would I want to watch people "really" get scared, hurt, humiliated, voted off the island, put into orchestrated opposition with one another, etc.? If I take the attitude that the show is mostly fiction - I'd rather watch something that was scripted.

Married at First Sight has six adults who agreed to the premise, willing to give this a try, and we are all invited to cheer them on, learn to care about them, and maybe even gain some insights into how marriages do and don't work. I'm very curious to see how this turns out. (And if it's a train wreck, I will be sorely disappointed.)

Girl Scout Twilight Camp

Last night I had a rather emotional experience. My friend, Debbie Chrissinger and I went to do a presentation at the Girl Scout Twilight Camp in Los Alamos, New Mexico - where both she and I grew up. Why did we do this? Because twenty-two years ago, we started this camp for our Gold Award projects.

Not everyone knows what the Gold Award is, but it's the highest honor in Girl Scouts. Some would call it equivalent to the Eagle Scout honor, but... well... Boy Scouts bristle when I say this, but I think the Eagle Scout Award is more like the Silver Award, the second highest honor in Girl Scouts that can be done in middle/junior high school. Read on to see what it is we had to do to earn our Gold Awards.

When Debbie and I were sixteen, we'd already worked together planning a variety of council-wide events all over the state of New Mexico, including a new badge program that we launched with a weekend long event with some help from a grant from Reader's Digest - which we applied for ourselves. We had mentors, but they encouraged us to work on our own. So for our Gold Awards, it seemed to make sense to plan another event, but not a simple, weekend event. We thought back to ten years before, in 1983, when we'd gone to a Girl Scout Day Camp, which had ceased running after that session. It seemed like a great resource for girls, but we looked into why it had ceased, and tried to find another option.

What we came up with was a twilight camp, meaning a day camp that runs in the evenings, after working parents are off for the day. This way, we figured, more parents could be involved, and the program might be more sustainable in the long term. Debbie and I each designed a program (I for Brownies, she for Juniors) for our week long camp, and then set about getting volunteers.

We recruited the camp director, all the core staff, the nurse, and the PAs (older scouts to help out with the units.) With a laser printer and some rubber stamps, we designed information flyers, registration forms, and resource packets. All of the camp registrations, which we distributed county-wide through Brownie and Junior leaders, came in to us, and we divided them up into units and designed the name tags and color bandannas they would wear. Using an ever so rare color printer, we printed iron on logos that we put on T-shirts. That took several hours, ironing all those on, but then we gave them to the campers to tie-die the first night and that was a big hit.

Debbie and I trained the staff, briefed them on their responsibilities, and put together the schedule. The first camp took place in the summer of 1993 at Ponderosa Campground, where our old Day Camp had been, and we had roughly 100 girls. A volunteer to be the following year's camp director stepped forward within hours of the opening ceremonies.

And now, 22 years later, it's still running. We were invited back the second year to design a second program, so that returning girls wouldn't do the same activities twice, but then the camp took on a life of its own. When they invited Debbie and me back this year, it was pretty surreal. 22 years means two generations of Girl Scouts have attended all six years that they were eligible as campers, and then volunteered all 4 years they were eligible as PAs. When the camp took a year hiatus a few years back, another scout did her Gold Award by relaunching it and expanding recruitment to nearby towns. Now, to put this in perspective, this grown woman who is a rising sophomore in college was not born when we created Twilight Camp. She began attending years after we were no longer involved, and claims she demanded her parents schedule any summer vacations around it. She had to fight to make her project eligible for her Gold Award; her committee felt that running a program that had already been created wasn't a big enough project to qualify.

The camp even has its own theme song now, composed by one of the adult volunteers, and the campers all knew it by heart. A few of the attendees went out of their way to thank us for creating a program that they have loved and enjoyed year after year and one PA even came up and admitted she always wanted to meet us, ever since she found out the history of Twilight Camp.

Debbie and I were invited so that we could do a short presentation on who we are and how we created the camp, then we had all the girls write notes to their future selves, listing things they wanted to do in Girl Scouting. The notes were placed in little plastic tubes that were sealed with a cork and had a blank tag, on which they were to write the date they'd open the letter again.

We suggested they open it when they each earn their own Gold Awards. Much of what I know about how to run my own business, I learned hands-on from Girl Scouting. People may mock the program, but I think that just goes to show how ridiculous people can be. I'm guessing few of these detractors have ever had an experience like Debbie and I got to have last night, and Twilight Camp isn't over yet. We met next year's camp director during the closing ceremonies. Girl Scouting didn't just teach us how to plan a program, it taught us how to leave a legacy.

#YesEveryWoman and #YesAllWomen: Some Thoughts

So the mass shooting in Isla Vista has kicked up debate on gender issues, women's safety, and perceptions of women. I won't rehash the whole debate about whether society is sexist and what needs to change for women to feel safe, but I'll offer a few observations of my own here, some of which I haven't seen stated elsewhere (which isn't to say they haven't been stated at all, I just haven't seen them.)

Women aren't always great at reading men.

You know, all too often in the gender debate women are framed as being more competent, more perceptive, more mature, etc., and I think we women need to recognize how that poisons the dialogue. Why do many women behave as if any man they do not know could be a rapist? Let's be honest about this: Because we aren't necessarily able to tell the difference, even when men can. Men who get offended at being treated like potential rapists might be self centered and not thinking this through, or may in fact wonder why so many females welcome "obviously" dangerous men into their lives and shun "obviously" harmless ones. It's because these things are not always obvious to us.

I was once on a hike with a male friend who, partway through, started poking around in the forest litter by the trail to find a big stick to carry. No, this is not a story about finding out my friend was an aggressor. He'd noticed a guy following us, and I'd missed it. The guy following us was good. He hung back. He was subtle. There was a lot of traffic on the trail. I'd like to say this experience was a lesson learned, but despite the hours I spend people watching and the awareness I try to cultivate, I could miss another instance of this. I have, if not a blind spit, then at least a blurry spot for this, and I see women making more "obvious" mistakes than me all the time.  Them: "But he seemed so nice." Me: "REALLY? Are you nuts?" We aren't always the more intuitive/perceptive gender.

So gentlemen, the next time a woman ducks away when you smile or freaks out when you enter an elevator with her and try to strike up a conversation, rather than get offended and feel like she's disrespecting you, have a little charity. Many of us women, when it comes to male behavior, are like a fashion blind person trying to dress for a major interview. Don't be upset that we're filtering too many good men out. Recognize that we're doing the social equivalent of putting colored paperclips on articles of clothing so that we can coordinate them Garanimals style. It's not always you. Sometimes it's us. And when we get it wrong, the price is incredibly steep, so please let us overcompensate.

Women get rejected too.

Whenever I hear guys complaining about rejection, I struggle not to say, "You think that's bad???" Being the self-motivated, independent person I am, I decided early in my dating life to be the one who asked the guy out for the first date. That isn't to say I turned down dates that I didn't do the asking for, but if I could tell that there was mutual attraction, I made sure to ask first. I figured this would filter out guys who didn't like my personality, because I'm the kind of person who calls many of the shots in my own life. How did the filter work? Well, most of the guys I dated were pretty cool about it. Having said that, it was a terrifying thing to do each and every time. Why? Because I had enough guy friends to overhear their gossip about women, and the female who did the asking did not typically fare well in their universe.

I should add that back in the dark ages when I was dating, men weren't all that used to being asked out, but women's lib had gone far enough that they all thought they were completely onboard with the idea.

And they were wrong, because what they didn't understand about being on the receiving end of the question was that it wasn't all supermodels crooking their fingers across the dance floor. Being the recipient of date requests means being asked out by people you never noticed, don't like, or find annoying. It means learning to be kind when you turn someone down and not telling all your friends what a loser they are (though yes, I'm aware women do this also. My point, guys, is that in my experience, you are often no better and sometimes quite a bit worse.) It means not thinking that someone who wants to date you is "clearly desperate" or is so hot for you that you are entitled to behave however you want and expect them to still be interested.

Maybe the world has changed since then. I hope so. But I would hesitate to say that men get rejected and mocked more often than women. Rejection is rough, guys. We know. No really, we do.

All women are affected by sexual aggression. Hence the #YesEveryWoman and #YesAllWomen hashtags (I'm seeing both).

Too often I hear men complain that women are too wrapped up in the idea of gender wars and too obsessed about their own safety. We are not. Google the latest stats on sex crimes. My guess would be that if you do that today or five years from today or ten, you'll still see that about a quarter of women in the US report a sex crime. Sex crimes are often unreported (how often is difficult to say given they are, as I just said, unreported, but anonymous surveys tend to bring in higher numbers than are reflected on police reports.)

I think a lot of men, and even a lot of women, don't fully comprehend the scale because it's truly mind blowing. I've led a pretty sheltered life in this regard. None of my male friends or partners have ever crossed a line with me. Couple that with my upbringing in a town where nearly everyone has been vetted for a security clearance and you get a pretty good picture of my life. If there's a war of sexual aggression raging, I live far from the front lines.

Nothing I'm about to say in this paragraph contradicts that. I personally know two women who were gang raped and nearly killed in the process - and these are two women willing to talk about it. I have no idea how many rape victims I actually know. I have been first on the scene to an aftermath of a rape. I have had other women confide in me about experiences that they never reported to the authorities.

Though the perpetrators may be few and likely none are reading this blogpost, they are nevertheless effective and far-reaching in their crimes. Next time a woman acts afraid to be alone with you, I want you to repeat these words to yourself: "This woman knows several victims of sex crimes and has a one in four chance of being one herself." Substitute any other word for "sex crimes" and think about this. If it were HIV, we'd be in the middle of a pandemic. If it were attacks by clowns, Ronald McDonald would be a shameful blot on the history of McDonald's marketing efforts that the franchise chain might never overcome. If it were sightings of Big Foot, this would make sasquatches more numerous in North America than all wild cougars, bears, and wolves put together.

It's just a statistic that's been around so long that it's lost its punch with a lot of people. Don't let that happen to you. Reasonable women get jumpy over it.

Most men are good people who are repulsed by and even outraged at sex crimes.

And women know that. If men need us to say it more often, then just ask. "You know that I'd never do something like that, right?" "You realize I'm shocked that happened, don't you?" and the like are reasonable questions. Ask them as often as you need to hear the answers. Also understand that women could use a few, "That was terrible and you shouldn't have to live in fear of that," affirmations from the men in their lives. And yes, we should ask for them, too. Ladies, the same rules apply. Unprompted affirmations are great, but the lack of them isn't proof of some deep moral flaw. Humans of both genders need prompts now and then.

The Isla Vista shooter was once at a party where he got pushed off a wall and broke his ankle, and one of his complaints about the experience was that no hot girls offered to have sex with him to make him feel better afterwards. Do I wish more guys would say this is messed up? Yes I do. It just seems like the kind of thing that should provoke a strong reaction. So, guys, you think this is messed up, right? Now there may be a troll or ten lurking out there with nothing better to do than spam my comments, but deep down I know that the majority of you reading this blogpost are nodding in agreement. It still would make a difference if more men said as much. You can post in my comments if you want, or even better, turn to the woman next to you and let her know. Even if it's always been clear to her you're no rapist, affirmations help soothe the hind brain, where the knee-jerk fears lurk for all genders of the human race.

Digging out

Phew has it been a crazy last ten months! In the middle of last year I started up my book formatting company, E.M. Tippetts Book Designs, and demand came way faster than I predicted. I even thought I was prepared and had already talked to three extended family members with the skills and interest to join me in the work. Even with four of us, it was really crazy. I pulled at least one all nighter a week, often more, and I have never done all nighters in my life - which is to say stayed up all night working. Due to my sleep disorder I have been up all night many times, but I was always trying to sleep.

Not in boarding school, college, law school, or when I was a lawyer did I do a single all nighter. For the first time in my life, though, I started to get why people do all nighters, how it is that they start something they're so committed to that they do what it takes, even if it means sneaking naps during the day while the kids watch cartoons and begging for help driving places when I was too out of it to do it myself (there the history of a sleep disorder helped. I know who I can count on in this department.)

Even still, it's downright weird to me to see our logo in bestselling books, because we've formatted a lot of bestselling books. I lucked into a very good network of indie writers and we have several big clients. It was a rush to be able to teach my contractors how to format a book and then show them that book ranked 157th or whatever on Amazon the day after it launched.

We managed to work together as a crew without strangling each other, and the business has turned several corners. There was the week when I didn't have to redo anyone's files. Then the week when authors sent us several curveballs and I could explain the fixes over email rather than have to do them myself. There was the week when all the formatters could format the galleys of a book in 24 hours flat. This week was another milestone. We've just finished the first week of the month (always our craziest), and I am not gibbering with exhaustion. Everyone's gotten so skilled at their jobs, and the formatting gets better and better as each formatter gains more confidence in the craft.

So, I'm back, more or less. I got my E.M. Tippetts website in order again, and this one will be next, but it might not show much improvement for a while because I'm not really sure what I want to do with it at the moment. I'll be mulling that over.

For my indie writing, I've also hired a publicist, and that takes a lot of the load off me - not that I'll stop interacting with fans, but I can do it without also having to plan every single blog post, handle every single review request, etc.

I'm back to crafting stuff again, because I'm a fidgety person. This time instead of jewelry, I'm making customized pens and pencil cups and that sort of thing. I've gotten production to the level where I've been able to open an E.M. Tippetts Book Designs Etsy Store. I opted to go that route so that the other formatters can also put things in it. They're all way more talented at handcrafts and such than I, and managing an Etsy store all on your own is very demanding. It's a venue designed for people who upload a new item just about every day. Much easier if we can spread that out some. I'm also making some jewelry pieces on the side, so I may reopen my jewelry store, or I may roll it into the current Etsy store. I'll jump off that bridge when I come to it.

And I'm finishing off another novel. I'll ramble on more about that in another post!

Our old neighborhood and our new home

So I've posted pics of our old apartment, now I'll post some of our neighborhood. We lived right next to West Ham station, which has Underground, Overground Rail, and Docklands Light Railway. This was also the station that was used for the London 2012 Olympics.

Anyone traveling to our place via tube would exit the station (the exit is in the photo above, at the far right), and make two right turns, to head down the street you see in the above photo to the far left. A better picture of the street is below.

Across from the station were some shops. There wasn't much as far as that goes in this neighborhood, but it's only a seven minute walk from here to Stratford (which is where the London 2012 Olympics were actually held). This is not the Shakespeare Stratford-upon-Avon Stratford, but rather a city east of London that has long since been absorbed into East London.

In this little row of shops was a Post Office, and a fish and chips (with Turkish owners who could make a mean hummus wrap for non-fish-eaters like me.)

Nearby was a park with two playgrounds:

And my older son's preschool (or "nursery" as they call it in the UK. It's part of the public education system and any child 3 or older can attend.)

Even though both my husband and I are from the rural mountain west, we found out that we prefer city living. Not having a yard? Love it! Parks where other people do the landscaping and maintenance work well for us. Walking everywhere because it's far more convenient than using a car? Ideal. 

Now that we're back in the US, we've just signed a contract to buy a condo in Santa Fe, and it's always interesting what other people have to say about this. Some argue that we'll eventually outgrow it with two growing children, which I suppose is possible, but not a given. We already live in far less space than our critics would ever tolerate, and we're very sensitive to what we actually "need" in terms of housing. Many insist that yardwork and gardening are important hobbies. Pass. Sorry. I live a very full life parenting my children, writing novels, and running my own book formatting business. I have nothing against yardwork per se, but it just isn't an interest of mine. Quite a few people insist that a large house is important for wealth accumulation in the long term. That hasn't worked so well for us; we owned property during the real estate slump and had to unload it at a loss. Real estate may be one way to bulk up assets, but it isn't the only way.

The most common assertion is that we won't have room for all our "stuff". That, in my opinion, sounds FABULOUS. I'm not a packrat by any means, but even I could use less stuff in my life. We'll be moving into our new home very carefully, and everything that doesn't fit, has to go. I really don't think we'll miss it. While living there, we'll have to think hard about what we bring in and likely will have to give something up to make room for it. In my opinion, this is healthy.

We also bought the place at a price that left us room in our budget to do some renovations. Given our life path, my husband and I will be looking at retirement around the time that we're paying for college for our kids. We have no particular budget for a nice home with all the features we want at that time of our life, so we're doing this now, while we've got more years to enjoy it and our kids to share it with. The one thing we've skimped on is guest accommodation - not because we don't like having people visit us, but because it's more floorspace that would lie empty much of the time. We'll have a futon and a lot of interesting things to do outside of our home, for anyone who wants to come see us.

I'm back :-) Here's what I have to say about finding an agent

Whew, I know I've been gone a while! In the last year I've juggled two kids, an international move, and starting up a business. That third one is what really took it out of me, because the good news is, my book formatting business has been successful. It's been so successful that I've been racing to keep up. But, I invested a ton of time and made it my first priority for long enough that now I feel like I can come up for air and return to my usual, sporadic blogging. And I'll tinker with this site some more to clean it up and all that good stuff. I know it needs work!

During this time I've been a regular blogger on Dawning of a Brighter Day, the blog for The Association of Mormon Letters. My posts are on the business of writing, and it's been very rewarding. There are some great regular readers there who always post replies and offer some great interaction. This month's post is on how to find the right agent for you. I didn't bother to rehash the usual advice about writing queries and such. Instead I posted from the point of view of someone who's watched people in the business for a long time and noted what has and hasn't worked.

A lot of people shoot themselves in the foot by having the wrong attitude, and there are a few ways to go wrong there. I lay out my observations in this post: When Looking for the Right Agent, Be Rational. So head on over and see what you think about what I have to say, and please do comment!

This is how cool George RR Martin is

I know, I know, it's been forever since I've blogged here. Life has been crazy - as usual.

My cousin was recently diagnosed with cancer and has been enduring treatment. To lift her spirits, the rest of us Mah cousins bought little plastic red dragons and took pictures of them various places. The original idea was to get one dragon and pass it around, but since we live all over the continental US, multiple dragons made more sense. We just all got the same one, and we used a dragon because my cousin was born in the year of the dragon (anyone who knows Chinese might wonder why we didn't use a horse, given our last name is Mah :-)

Well our dragon had some fun adventures and came with me to an author event in Denton, Texas where it met Colleen Hoover. Then it disappeared, and we couldn't find it in our house, until one day when my husband turned on our stove and the dragon, which had been stashed in the broiler by two very small people who know who they are, melted to sludge. I had intended to have George and some of my other author friends take pictures with the dragon. My cousin is a Game of Thrones fan.

So, when I was up in Colorado, visiting my sister, I got her dragon - which had it's face half chewed off by their dog, but never mind. It was in much better condition than my dragon. I got this dragon back home without incident and emailed George to ask if he'd have his picture taken with it.

He agreed. He even let me stop by his house, and we took this picture:

Wasn't that cool of George? The final CD of dragon images will go to my cousin in time for her party to celebrate the end of her treatment. I think I win the prize for the picture most appreciated by geeks.

T minus 8

I've been busy spreading the news to our friends first, but I think I've got everyone now (or I hope I do). Our time here in the UK is drawing to a close and we're moving back to the US next week. I haven't detailed much about our decision whether to leave or to stay because I didn't want to put any pressure on Trevor, whose decision it was. He did interview with a few places and was offered a job at an investment bank here, but we've decided to return to New Mexico and his job there.

So now it's time to say goodbye to London and the three and a half wonderful years we've spent here. We arrived as a family of three with a little jewelry business on the side (mine). We leave as a family of four with a book design business on the side that is growing fast (also mine). I also began to earn money as a writer over here, more than the pennies I brought in selling short stories, thanks to the rise of indie publishing. We got to experience the Olympics and see the closing ceremony of the Paralympics live. We got to see our kids take their first steps and learn their first words, and yes, they do have British accents right now, though we're not sure how the younger one, who is around us all the time and sees only American television managed to do that.

Since we're on our way out, I'll be able to post pictures of our home and such, which I'll be taking over the next few days. When they go up will depend on how insane the move is. Anyone else we've forgotten to meet up with, get in touch!

Sequence a Science Fiction Writer - a fund drive for Jay Lake

As I type this, the fund drive for Jay Lake's cancer treatment has already exceeded it's initial goal of $20,000.00. Why do I bother to post then? Because that was the bare minimum needed to get Jay's tumor genetically sequenced. This will enable doctors to better target this next round of chemotherapy in one last desperate bid to kill the cancer and save Jay. It's still worth donating because Jay will have a lot of expenses over and above this as he continues his battle with cancer.

Unfortunately, the prognosis isn't good, at all. He's got an 8% chance of survival, and while this treatment might increase the odds, it is still experimental. So money towards this treatment, even if it doesn't save Jay, will further our understanding of cancer treatment and thus improve it in the future.

I don't remember the first time I met Jay Lake. He and I crossed paths at cons many times, though I do remember the year that he announced he'd go for the Campbell Award - which is the award for the best new science fiction author. You are only eligible for this award in the two years after your first professional sale, so it's a tough one to get. Jay's strategy was to write short stories by the truckload and submit them everywhere. At the beginning of this endeavor, I confess I overheard a lot of nay-sayers talking about how absurd this was and that he was clogging up the major markets' slush piles with his endless verbiage. By the time awards season rolled around, "Anyone thinking above their brain stem," as Daniel Abraham put it, would vote for Jay Lake. His intensive writing had gone to plan exactly, and he did win the Campbell Award. He and Frank Wu commemorated the event (Frank also won a Hugo that year) by flipping their long hair.

Right now Jay's got a tattoo on his scalp that says, "If you can read this, I've got cancer again" (or something to this effect). Unfortunately, it's easy to read the text, and his signature beard is gone too. Some filmmakers are making a documentary about a year in Jay's life, and the Kickstarter campaign for this is also funded in full.

The video, however, gives you a little glimpse into Jay's life. Please help support Jay by donating a few dollars to the fundraiser to cover his cancer treatment. He's got a fourteen year old daughter to raise and more books to write. Nobody's read for this to be the end of his time here with us.

Fearful Symmetries, an anthology edited by Ellen Datlow, now on Kickstarter

I just backed Ellen Datlow and Chizine's Kickstarter campaign for Fearful Symmetries, which will be an unthemed horror anthology edited by Ellen. The pitch video is not to be missed, and I include it at the end of this post.

Ellen Datlow was my fifth week instructor at Clarion West, a pressure cooker style workshop that takes roughly seventeen students a year. Mine was the class of 2001, and there are always five author instructors and one editor, and the editor's week is when everyone falls all over themselves to look good in the hopes of selling a piece. Ellen was editing SciFiction back then, one of the highest paying markets in the field. Every instructor spends each morning critiquing the students' work, and Ellen's critiques were blunt and to the point. I certainly didn't have anything sale-worthy, and if I'd doubted that, she set me straight.

But it was never personal. Business is business, and after critiques were done, she'd come hang out with us in our lounge on the top floor of a Seattle University dorm and often stay through dinner. One night she made us all egg creams (she's a New Yorker, after all) and that same evening, someone also broke out a giant Costco jar of Jelly Bellies. I helped Ellen pick through them to find the black licorice ones. She's one of those people who likes black licorice (and I was happy to give her all mine).

Ellen told me both that my writing needed work, but I should go ahead and invest in myself, and in the years since has sent me many short, blunt rejection letters, which for anyone not in the know, are a true kindness. Editors receive reams and reams of submissions, so any editor who takes the time to be personal is telling you that you were worth precious minutes of their time. Through brief notes and the occasional meetup at a convention, Ellen's been a continuous, honest presence in my writing life, and no, I've never managed to sell her anything. Nevertheless, she's always remembered me and has even recalled stories that I subbed years ago. It's been an honor to know Ellen Datlow; she's a big name who knows how to make use of small moments to remain a friend of mine for over a decade.

Now check out her pitch video!

Clarion West - Surviving the Crucible

I get Clarion West flashbacks every time I see an episode of Survivor. I remember what it felt like, being overworked, exhausted, and struggling through what felt like a one against the world competition to see who would crack first (never seems to be the rest of the world.) But while Survivor is about voting people out and avoiding elimination, our Clarion West class did something much more ambitious. We worked to keep everyone in the game. If you think Tribal Councils are hard, imagine not letting yourself have them.

The format for the Clarion workshops is relatively straightforward. Seventeen people get in, they live communally, often in university dorms, and each person writes at least six stories in six weeks. Every day, 3-4 stories are critiqued in a morning critique session led by that week's instructor - always a professional writer or editor. The instructor then gives us a lesson or lecture, and then we're free to go write, read and prepare critiques for the next day, eat, sleep, try not to scratch each other's eyes out, etc. Critique is an elegant word for a downright brutal process. Imagine what it's like to have seventeen other people analyze and tear apart the story you finished in the wee hours of the morning the day before yesterday. Imagine spending the rest of the time reading other people's stories with a critical eye, so that you can do your critiques each and every day.

Clarion-style workshops are known for burning out a certain percentage of their attendees. The usual statistic is that only one third of the students are still writing ten years after graduation. They're also known for putting people's personal and emotional lives through the blender, causing divorces and separations, sometimes months after the workshop's close. Imagine going through that, and trying to not just get yourself through, but everybody else as well, including the jerk who tore into you with a personal attack a that morning's critique session.

You know things are intense when Connie Willis (yes, this year's SFWA Grand Master) hands out her personal telephone number and says it's all right to call her at home, in Colorado, to cry or vent or scream or whatever else we needed after her time as our fourth week instructor was over. And yes, she really did do that.

So how did we do? Ten years out, at least two thirds of us are still writing - a few don't keep in close contact with the rest of us, so I can't give a definitive breakdown. Eleven of us joined up for the reunion anthology, Under the Needle's Eye. At least six of us have books out or book deals locked down (I'm having a hard time counting straight because I've been running myself ragged with work on the launch today.) Every single one of us made at least one professional short story sale, a percentage that is almost unheard of. When I told Connie Willis this, she said, "Yes, but everyone talks about your class. You guys were special. You were professionals." Kind words from someone who'd seen some of our worst moments in fourth week when we'd been workshopping long enough to have our nerves rubbed raw, but weren't far enough along to feel the end was in sight.

I had the privilege of organizing the edits and doing the ebook conversion for Under the Needle's Eye, and I can testify, it's a spectacular array of speculative fiction writing by people who've worked hard on their craft for over a decade. But what's been even more gratifying is getting to share the experience of a successful launch with my classmates who didn't vote me out (even when I might have wanted to vote me out) and who continue to rally around and support one another. As I type this, Under the Needle's Eye is Number 1 in genre anthologies on Amazon, much higher than I anticipated we'd climb, especially on the first day of the launch. I'm proud of that, but more importantly, I am thrilled I get to share this experience with my fellow Clarion West survivors.

The rest of them are all quite a bit more eloquent than I. Check out the blog postings by Samantha Ling, Benjamin Rosenbaum, Kiini Ibura Salaam, Susan Ee, Ari Goelman, Raymund Eich, and Patrick Samphire. And then come find us Under the Needle's Eye.
 

The Indie Experiment: What's your marketing philosophy?

Before I can talk about what kinds of marketing work, I have to talk about what marketing is, or more to the point, the fact that marketing and publicity mean different things to different people. To me, marketing is a search process, not a coercion process. I'm not trying to make people like my book, I'm looking for the people who will like my book. It was obvious once I thought about it. I want to be like the successful ice cream vendor who will locate themselves somewhere like a beach on a hot day and put up a big sign. They don't run around begging everyone to eat their ice cream, they make themselves noticeable to a crowd that is sure to include people who want ice cream.

Basically, once I grasped that I didn't have to beg anyone to read anything, I felt like I could step out and market myself. I could announce that I was a writer and put up a pitch on my website for my book and go for it. I can really, honestly say that I do not care if any one individual likes my book - if you, yourself hate it, fine. Really. To me, getting upset about a bad review is akin to an ice cream vendor ignoring a line of customers to chase off after someone who makes a face at their ice cream sign. Why bother? 

But that's me, and knowing this about myself allows me to adopt marketing strategies that I'll enjoy. I'll post more on those later. The point of this post is to note that what works for me may not work for everyone. There are plenty of people who are a lot more aggressive, who tell anyone and everyone they are a writer, who bombard their readers with emails and event invites on Goodreads, and who sell a ton of books in this way. That wouldn't work for me because I despise this kind of activity. I don't want to draft emails all the time. To me that feels like pestering, and so that's exactly the reaction I'll elicit from readers if I try it.

I will post the specifics of what I do in the next day or two. I just first want to make it clear that copying me verbatim may or may not work for you. It may be, from reading this post, that you'll already be well on your way to finding what does work for you. The question you need to ask yourself is, what kind of successful business model appeals to you? Who out there in the realm of moneymakers, do you relate to?

Computer woes over, for now

Phew, well, sorry I was out of the loop for a week there. This time I had an excuse. My last netbook broke (after being dropped at least a dozen times on a hard floor - thank you kiddos), then the keyboard on my desktop broke, then the power cord on the netbook that my husband loaned me broke, but now I've got a new netbook that is an updated version of my old one, that endured multiple drops onto a hard floor from three feet and higher. Gotta love Samsung - or I do, at least.

So I'm behind on my book reviewing and all that, but will get caught up here!

Birthday craziness

Thanks, everyone, who wished me happy birthday this week! So far 36 feels like... well... not much different :-) People have asked how my birthday went, and the resulting story is a little nuts.

My family and I went to a restaurant that we had a coupon for through Groupon - we love Indian food and it was a good deal. We will never go there again. It had a bar in it (not a big deal) with several people getting themselves smashed (annoying, but also not a big deal.) At first this was easy for us to ignore, but then a very inebriated woman decided to come see our cute children.

At first we tried to be polite about it, which as you can guess was a waste of time. She was no-short-term-memory kind of drunk, repeating the same things over and over and over. She wanted our baby to give her five. He had no idea what she was talking about. After about thirty repetitions, the manager returned to the dining room and I gestured at him repeatedly to please get this woman away from our table. Eventually, he did.

She came right back. Again, I had to point it out to the manager. My husband and I didn't want to do it, because we didn't want her to lash out at us.

Her friend did instead. She started shouting about how she had two children and would never take them anywhere that served alcohol, because having drunk people come stumbling up to your table is perfectly normal in such a place (in her universe). Now, I may be Mormon, but I've been in bars and pubs before and really, this was unusual. Besides that, it's hard to take criticism seriously when it comes from a confessed mother of two who is drunk at a quarter to eight on a Tuesday night.

Minutes later her friend - whom others were feeding more alcohol to - fell off her barstool. She didn't stumble off or fall partway and catch herself. She smacked right into the floor as only a thoroughly drunk person will do. Her group of friends all backed away. No one even went to see if she was all right. Finally, the manager peeled her off the floor and escorted her out.

So, that was my birthday dinner. The food was excellent, at least, but after we were done we took our two kids and made a beeline for the Underground station and home. A friend of mine pointed out that both my boys may eventually need to know how to handle having drunk women hit on them. That is funny... but only in hindsight ;-)

Where I've been

Right here, knitting! And crocheting. A couple of weeks ago some friends had a baby and I crocheted him a sweater. My older son saw this and was very upset that the sweater wasn't for him, so I crocheted him one too and am now knitting one for my younger son, just to be fair. I knit and crochet the same way I write, which is to say I've unravelled the pieces multiple times to start again once I find a flaw or a better way to do the final piece. I'll even unravel the sweater I made for my first son and redo it as knit - because I'm getting very into no-seam raglan sweaters and figuring out how to put designs on them. It's right brain exercise :-)

Things have been exciting around here, though. I'm also in the process of getting ready to sell my book jewelry on Amazon. They approved my application! I'll take a couple of months to get everything all set up the way I want, but in the meantime, the jewelry is for sale at www.bookjewelry.artfire.com - and closer to Christmas shopping time I'll hold a sale through Artfire, as one last hurrah before we move onto Amazon.

That, and I've been reading a book I am about to resort to the nuclear option on. I will not finish it. That's really saying something because I read a lot, of all sorts of quality. I spent ten years in Critical Mass reading rough drafts of books - though I have to admit most of those were better than my final drafts. Unfortunately, I put this book down about a week ago and haven't had the slightest impulse to pick it up again and find out what happens. Oh well.

And I got a rejection letter the other day. I won't bother to list whom I'm getting them from anymore, but this was on a novella. Those are not easy to sell because they're long and I'm not enough of a name to pull readers into a magazine just because I've got 12k words in it, so this one might get me a stack of rejection letters. We'll see, though. Once I get new toner for the printer I'll send it out again.

Now back to this sweater. I've been watching Youtube videos to learn tricks to speed up my knitting speed, switched my technique from American to Continental and... yes, I'm just babbling now, aren't I? ;-)

Amidst the Rubble

I said I'd blog some more about my childhood friend, Dan Pendergrass, so here goes. For anyone who doesn't follow this blog, Dan died recently. He chose to leave the world, will have no memorial service, and less than a dozen of us have posted goodbye messages on his Facebook Wall. I can't bear the thought of my old friend disappearing from memory, so I'll record what I can of him here as I find the time.

Dan and I grew up in the tiny town of White Rock, New Mexico, which is technically part of Los Alamos, the town famous for producing the atomic bomb. I lived in the main part of White Rock, while Dan lived with his family in Pajarito Acres, an area of town with enormous lots where many people keep horses. His parents were forever in the process of building their house - I never did see it completed. Whenever I was over to play, we'd be stepping over stacks of wood and sheetrock. The house was built in the style of a Spanish villa and even as a kid, I could appreciate what a beautiful building it would eventually become.

Many people wondered why I had a male best friend. It was a Big Deal back then, and Dan and I made almost yearly visits to the school counselor to discuss the harassment we got. People assumed there was something romantic between us, but at age eight, we were more interested in catching lizards and examining bugs. His house was in walking distance of our elementary school, and when I'd go home with him we'd take the back trails and search out wildlife. He had a thing for snakes and spiders. I've always thought snakes were cool, and to this day, I avoid killing spiders (they kill much nastier looking bugs, imo).

Over the years that we knew each other, Dan had a variety of pets. One was a hamster named Jeffrey Rascal who was generally acknowledged to be the cutest hamster anyone had ever seen. For some reason that I either forget or never knew, Dan's parents told him to get rid of Jeffrey, so the white and cream rodent came to live with me, where I took care of him until he died of old age a year or so later. (I suspect this is where my preference for giving my pets human names originated.) Later Dan got some snakes, which he also had to give away. I wasn't able to take either. The first was a Ball Python and the second a Burmese. He and I spent hours sitting on the floor of his room talking biology and zoology like the two little nerds we were, while his pet snake slithered around the room.

I bonded with Dan because like him, I was a misfit. I guess I hid it a little better - which isn't to say I hid it well. I was the kind of kid who'd memorize all the Greek gods and goddesses and their Latin names. I subscribed to Zoobooks for so long that I started to get repeats of issues. By the time I was eleven, I had shelves of magazines like Natural History and was a member of the National Wildlife Federation and would read up on the activities of Greenpeace. I was an environmentalist back when we still celebrated Arbor Day.


When I think of my old friend, I think of sunny, New Mexico afternoons spent walking over the lava rock and around the sagebrush and Indian Paintbrushes (he's the one who taught me how to drink their nectar). I think of the deep blue sky and the canyon edge, where we could overlook the Rio Grande far below. And I think of dozens of stories that I will strive to tell here on this blog. I can't make Dan live again, but I can do my best to preserve what was, back in the day.

Under the Weather

Some kind of stomach bug has hit all of us, save my oldest son. Our baby showed symptoms first and we wondered if it was a food allergy. Two miserable days later, we know it isn't. A very kind soul from our church took our boys for the morning - we hope she doesn't contract whatever it is that we've got.

In any case, if I'm extra slow responding to email, that's why. I slept through nearly all of yesterday and the night last night. Whatever this bug is, it's awful :-(

Obituary for an old friend

I got news today that one of my classmates, Dan Pendergrass, passed away. Dan and I grew up in the small town of White Rock, New Mexico, and were very good friends as children. He was one of the first male best friends I ever had; people thought we were totally weird or our cross-gender bond, but throughout the subsequent years I've had a lot of guy friends and have considered life all the richer for it.

My memories of Dan are of a stunningly intelligent person, a gentle soul who struggled with the cruelty the world showed him. He was an eplileptic and one of the few kids in our class who wore a medic alert bracelet, and he was small for his age and uncoordinated. The last kid picked for sports teams (unless it was me). Some of the saddest memories I have are the birthday party at his house that was just me and his family, as he didn't feel like there was anyone else who'd want to come, and when I was hospitalized after a car accident when I was eleven, Dan ended up in the room across from me thanks to one of his many health problems (sad to say, there were enough that I don't remember which one this was.) While my room smelled like a flower shop and looked like an overstocked toy store, Dan's was relatively empty. I had a regular stream of visitors and Dan was usually alone. I brought toys and games over to him and that was one of the first experiences to show me that not all childhoods are created equal. I had a fantastic one with unlimited love and attention, but a lot of children go without.

He and I drifted apart in middle school and high school, but he'd been in touch again recently on Facebook. He was working on becoming a children's author, and would occasionally ask for advice. There I felt like I had to be the bearer of bad news as I let him know how difficult it is to break into that industry, though I hope his family saves his books and continues to work on getting them published.

I don't know the circumstances of his death, but I hope against hope that he wasn't alone and that he found the love and support that everyone deserves in life. Rest in peace, old friend. I'll never forget you.