Scarlet Letters

SCENE: The car, making an unscheduled turnaround in a Main Street parking lot. BOY: Mom, what are you doing? ME: I'm going back. BOY: I have to be at Scouts in fifteen minutes. ME: We're like six blocks away. You'll make Scouts. We pull up to the fire station, and I get out with my camera. Commence several pictures of the firefighter candidates doing "the ladder test," as they climb up to the top of the ladder truck at full extension - to see if they can physically do it, and if they'll freak out at the top. ME: Get my iPad. BOY: *eyes camera* Why do you need your iPad? ME: To take notes. BOY: You said it was just a photo! ME: I have to get information for the caption! BOY: *sigh* *teenage eyeroll* *retrieves iPad* ME: Thank you. I got the photo array. It was cool. He made Scouts. He's used to this.

I have officially given up on the Boy's generation coming up with good teen dramedies. It really must suck to be a teenager now. To watch a movie with teenage protagonists, they basically have the choice of fantastical worlds like The Hunger Games  (good times, but whoa depressing) or they can go to "old" movies like Harry Potter  (just let that sink in for a minute). Or they can go to movies like The Fault in Our Stars  or The Perks of Being a Wallflower , nicely tragic. Boy is all excited about Paper Towns,  because it actually is about teenagers. My new mission is to find good teen movies for Boy. The movie-teens of the Eighties might have been a little light on parental supervision and plenty heavy on sex, drugs and rock-n-roll, but they were awesome in all the bright-neon gaudiness I remember so fondly. The top themes were breaking through socioeconomic barriers: poor vs. rich was a constant theme, as well as busting through the caste system of the modern Am...

With Hypericon behind us, we enter a two-month lull in touring. I'm going to pretend that means I will be able to catch up the LitUnd inventory and bookkeeping, redesign LiteraryUnderworld.com and port to a new vendor, edit two books in the queue and finish rewriting Banshee's Run as I manage Julnawrimo next month . Pause for laughter. All those things have to be done before Labor Day, however, because I've been accepted at Dragoncon again and thus I will wend my way to Atlanta in September. That kicks off one of the most grueling schedules I've ever set for myself. First it's Dragoncon for the Labor Day weekend in Atlanta. I'm a solo act at that one. Then I go back home - for two days. Then it's off to Louisville, Ky. for Imaginarium, the second weekend in September. This will likely be a Literary Underworld event, with the usual cast of characters and the Traveling Bar (of Doom). Then back home, for three days. I fly to Florida that Thursday ...

It does take more than money to make me happy. But the sales from this weekend in Nashville go a long way. I'm not going to disclose numbers. But I will say that the gross sales figures from this weekend are within shouting distance of our gross sales from Midsouthcon, one of our highest-selling conventions.  Why is this shocking? Midsouthcon has more than 2,000 attendees. Hypericon had maybe 200.  Those guys rock. My authors were happy. The staff was happy. And the Literary Underworld Traveling Bar was well-stocked.  (This show's most popular items were an awesome maple bourbon provided by Underlord Stephen Zimmer and the famous apple pie moonshine provided by Michael Farnette. Yum.) It takes more than sales. It takes good friends, colleagues in the small-press trenches and intelligent conversation that goes beyond debates about the Heisenberg Compensator to the reflections of popular culture in the world around us. It's always worth the lost sleep. ...

I've been a loyal TiVo customer since The Leprechauns first sent me one. Waaaaaay back in 2005 or so, a TiVo with a year's service prepaid arrived on my doorstep shortly before my birthday. The card was signed only, "The Leprechauns." I was doing a lot more with CultureGeek back then, since it was part of my day job. When the column was canceled, I relaunched it independently. The upside was that I got to say "piece of shit" in my reviews. The downside was that I couldn't use work time for writing reviews anymore, which is why I go waaaaaay too long between posts. There are only so many hours in the day, and I spin too many plates as it is. I always assumed the Leprechauns were friends who were fond of the column and wanted to assist me in finding stuff to review. I never wanted to know, frankly; some things should stay secret. It was immensely helpful in that regard, and I became a loyal TiVo customer - even converted my long-resistant dad to the wo...

After a long day of medical nonsense, I got to relax with my writer pals at Eville Writers. And a puppy. Here, have a gratuitous puppy picture. Said puppy is a service dog being trained by awesome writer and Literary Underlord Cole Gibsen . I warned her that if she didn't bring me fresh stock to take to Nashville this weekend, I was going to send Jimmy to her house and mug her for books. If you have any fondness for YA fantasy and kickass writing, you should check out Cole. We seriously cannot keep her titles in stock. And we have the new one, which will be up on the LitUnd site before the weekend. She's amazing and her work is really on the upswing. Topics of conversation included the usual: state of the industry, self-pub vs. trad pub, recent signings, upcoming conventions, marketing your book and Julnawrimo. Yeah, I guess I'm going to do Julnawrimo again. I'm doing a rewrite on a previously-written project, because I am still not happy with it and since i...

I know some of you have known some of this, but now that it looks like it's not going to progress further, I guess I can tell the whole frustrating, annoying, infuriating story. We really aren't ones for big expensive phones. I use an iPhone because it is necessary for my job, and my old iPhone was about five years old. Man had acquired a smartphone two years ago; Boy was using an old-fashioned dumbphone. But as Man's contract came up for renewal, we decided to combine all of us into one family plan, and trade in our aging phones for a trio of shiny new iPhones on an installment plan. The menfolk were inordinately excited, especially Boy. He had never had a smartphone, and immediately began filling it up with goofy games and madly texting his friends. I was looking forward to helping him use it for organization, for time management and tracking his school assignments. At least, that was the working plan. Only a few days later, Boy had his theatrical debut in Les Miser...

A pleasant surprise today as Boy and I exited the local grocery store: a clerk reached out and handed me a small bouquet of flowers. "Free today, ma'am," she said, smiling. I am a sucker for cut flowers. I prefer the live ones, but they don't stay that way around me. I'm working on it. Man tends to mock me about this, because he likes to play fast and loose with his life. These were exceptionally bright daisies, in colors practically neon-strong that rarely occur in nature - at least in daisies. I knew they'd been dyed, which I usually try to avoid, but hey - free. The white and red roses adorning my living room had become desiccated corpses by now, and I lacked the cash to replace them with something more pseudo-alive. After putting the groceries away, I carried the dried-out roses to the sort-of compost pile in the yard, behind the trees. I cleaned the wedding vase and filled it with water and the little packet of preservative that came with the daisie...

It could have been worse, or so I keep telling myself. The price tag for my stupidity is pretty high, however. A new hard drive with lifetime warranty, plus data retrieval of whatever they can rescue from my dead drive. A new battery, required because my laptop was declared vintage within the last couple of weeks. That means Apple will no longer manufacture the parts, and since my battery was about to die, I needed to get a new battery while they're still available. Therefore I was going to postpone my planned RAM upgrade until I could recover from this financial gut-punch. However, I figured out that if I did the RAM now, it wouldn't cost me any additional labor costs and it came with a lifetime warranty, as opposed to the 'crack the case and pray' warranty that comes when I do the work myself. Total cost: $525. To be fair, the cost would have been the same if I hadn't been stupid. However, I wouldn't be sitting here praying that they are able to rescue ...

Let me preface this by saying that snarky or even well-meaning comments about Apple really will not be welcome at this time. I can't believe how often I have to say this, but seriously, guys. I am quite stupid. It's not like I don't know the golden rule of computers: Thou Shalt Back Up. I'm actually quite good about it, usually. My mobile devices back up daily to the cloud. My laptop backs up to an external drive I keep on my desk. It isn't wireless, so I had to remember to physically plug in my laptop for backing up, but it works. Or it did. A few months ago, my external drive went kablooey. That's a technical term. We planned to replace it, but we were stony broke that month - like, tuna and macaroni broke. We also knew that the house wifi router was three years old and getting twitchy. So we discussed it, and decided that we would kill two birds with one expensive stone. The Airport Time Capsule is an awesome dual-band router and a 3TB wireles...

The Good • Boy's theatrical debut was delightful fun, and he had a smashing time. I had not seen the scaled-down community theater version of Les Miserables before, and as my dad put it, the very young, energetic cast was obviously giving it absolutely everything they had. Boy was terrific as an ensemble player. He was a disturbingly convincing drunk, which means he's seen too many cons, and died most heroically on the barricade. (Spoilers!) I was not prepared for it to be so stressful! I was much more nervous than he was, hoping nothing went wrong. My stomach was in knots! But I was even less prepared for my emotional reaction to seeing Boy on the stage. The theater meant a great deal to me as a young woman, and I have never once regretted my decision to study it. I also have not regretted my decision to give it up, but I was overwhelmed by emotion when I saw Boy up on the stage obviously having so much fun "At the End of the Day." • The Author Fair went off ni...

One of the fun things about an author fair, even one with light foot traffic, is the chance to talk business with other writers. Chatting with the other authors at this weekend's signing convinced me to try KDP Select for one item as a test case. I've not been terribly fond of the exclusivity requirement; I am concerned about what Amazon's market dominance means for the rest of us, and I have generally followed the philosophy of having my work available in as many formats as possible. If my readers want it in iBooks or Smashwords, they should be able to get it there. However, my standalone novellas have not been terribly successful on the other formats. The difference is drastic. In a strictly-business review of sales, I lose very little by taking a novella and putting it exclusively on Kindle for three months. I'm conflicted about it, but if I look it at solely as a businesswoman, it's an experiment worth doing. Some authors have said they lost a bucket on KD...

I expended all my rants earlier. I'm too tired for any more. Instead, you get a cross-section of my life. • This week is shaping up to be Hell Week. We get these from time to time here at Donald Smith Gillentine Inc., and usually it's those weeks when I have meetings every night after work. For once it's not me. This week is Boy's final dress rehearsals for Les Miserables. He is working hard, five or six hours a night after school AND after math tutoring, without complaint. Boy has never been one for a strong work ethic, so to speak, so I am pretty impressed with him. Even if he has broken his glasses yet again. Man is gearing up for finals and as usual is apoplectic. The folks are coming this weekend, so I am attempting to clean up the house, in between all the other nonsense. Of course the play falls on finals weekend and  the Author Fair/Relay Cafe and  Relay Sunday, because that's how we roll, and we have Cardinals tickets and  will likely miss the baby ...

Boy: What's for dinner? Me: Hambone split pea soup. It's been cooking all day.  Boy: Hm. Me: Mmm, doesn't that smell good? Boy: It smells like soup. Me: Oh nice. You're going to appreciate home cooking two years from now when you're eating cafeteria food all the time. Boy: I'm going to have homecooked meals every Sunday when I come visit my mom. Me: You better. And I'll make hambone split pea soup from scratch. Boy: ... --------- Scene: Driving past the garden bridge where our wedding photos were taken. Man: Ohhh... Me: Are you tearing up? Man: Yes. Me: Again? Man: Hush. Me: Marshmallow. Boy: Control your husband. Me: Yeahright. Like I could. --------- Scene: Dropping Boy off for play rehearsal. As he gets out, a teenage girl disembarks from a black SUV. As she approaches the door, her (presumed) father calls out, "Have fun, sweetie pie!" The girl whirls, mortified beyond words. "DAAAAAD! No!...

If there's one thing that makes me go from zero to apoplectic in 2.5 seconds, it's the ongoing insistence that journalism is dead or dying, that no one does serious investigative work anymore, and that it doesn't matter. I have long and generally profane rants that launch on automatic at such statements. In the interest of preserving my stomach lining, I've tried to avoid them of late. One must be on social media, but one must also learn to "walk away, walk away..." Yet I seem to have gotten into several of these discussions this week, because once again we're named as "worst job in America." As if that hasn't been happening for decades. It's hard work, and enormously underappreciated. So we all just snicker ruefully at that damn list and go back to our desks. This time, I'm going to show our work. Here is some of the "useless, unnecessary" journalism of the past year, from that "dying" newspaper industry: • ...

For once, not my dear friend Sara M. Harvey. If I wish to find the Glitter Lady, I'm pretty sure she's still taking my calls. So is Sarah Sanford, despite the number of times I've killed her in print. A few months ago, I bought a used book off Amazon's independent sellers. It was a novelization of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's  "Far Beyond the Stars," which is of course very out of print. It arrived today - yeah, those guys take a while - and carried with it an extra surprise. I flipped through the pages, and a laminated card fell out. It was a student ID for a Sara Beatty-Knudsen, who attended the Vancouver School of Arts & Academics. It's dated 1996-97, and she appears to be of middle-school age from the photo. She was part of "MS Team 3," which to me confirms middle school and using the team-teaching concept. A little internet searching shows that the school is not in Canada, as I expected, but in Vancouver, Wash. It's still o...

Or so that's what I always see. Someone needs to tell me that I'll get used to seeing my kid driving the car in which I am a passenger, because every time I look over at the driver's seat and see Boy, I see the little seven-year-old imp whose feet couldn't quite reach the petals, grinning at me as he played at driving. He's not bad at it, really. We've been woefully inadequate at taking him out to practice, in part because of our crazy schedules that never intersect, and in part because it's immensely stressful. Look, I know he isn't likely to kill us, not as carefully as he drives right now. But the consequences for even a minor fender-bender while he's at the learner's-permit stage are so disastrous that it makes me five times as nervous. Plus, it's MY new car. We were supposed to teach him on Jim's old piece of crap. Which didn't last long enough for Boy to get a learner's permit. At one point I declared it was just too m...

For the record, brain, it was not very polite of you to come up with the title and two-thirds of the plot to the next Nocturne  novel at church today. Especially since we're obligated to about three more projects before we could possibly get to that one. It's gonna be kickass, though. ---- Day two of Waiting for Dreamhost. Something like Waiting for Godot; when something goes wrong with my website, they respond instantly, and sometimes I can even get a live chat for help. When something goes wrong with the webstore, I must post in the forum and wait for a reply. It's been more than 24 hours and no response. If I call them, the price is $99. Waiting. Waiting... Let's make bets! ---- Boy: Are we doing anything Tuesday? Me: *parabola-mouth* Boy: What? Oh. Oh my God. Me: *supersniffle* Boy: It's your birthday Tuesday, isn't it. Me: *pout* Boy: I may have to do some shuffling. I forgot. Me: For the record, that's the last time you get a free pass...

BOY: *drops TV remote on the hardwood floor for the 900th time* ME: *glare of doom* BOY: I've got it! I've got it. It... still works. Sort of. Don't press too hard on the left side. ME: Would you go get a newspaper? BOY: Why? ME: So I can roll it up and smack you over the head with it. BOY: I didn't mean to! ME: Okay, we can't change input anymore. Quit breaking my shit! BOY: Watch your language. ME: Yeah, it's really goddamn unladylike to swear. BOY: You'll never catch a husband with a mouth like that. ME: *choke* Out-smartmouthed by my own spawn. The student becomes the master. ------ ME: Can you snag me a glass of milk? BOY: *dramatic sigh* ME: Oh please. It's not that big a trial. BOY: *more sighing* ME: Dear Mom, thank you for going to the grocery store after work and spending your hard-earned money buying food to fill my belly. I appreciate your sacrifices for my well-being. BOY: Thanks Mom... ------- ME: Metro-East Luther...

I've told this story before. But it bears repeating, given the death of Sir Terry Pratchett today. The author was mourned by more than his friends and family; he was mourned by the many readers who loved his work and had the honor of meeting him and being charmed by him, as I was, on one of the more nervous days of my life. In 2007, I attended a convention where the famous Terry Pratchett was the guest of honor. I was a nominee for an award and much consumed with my own panels, making sure there were people on the booth in the dealer's room, assisting my friend with her book release, and other such convention business. On Saturday, Pratchett had been scheduled for a signing one hour before me. Only one hour, which meant that by the time he was done, the line still stretched to Spain. There were a handful of us supposed to go on after Pratchett, which is a bit like scheduling a bar band to follow the Beatles. Fearing a riot, the powers that be kept Mr. Pratchett in place and...