Separation of Duties

 

Listen. Writing is one thing. Marketing is another thing. Taxes are yet a whole other thing. All of these things happen in different parts of our brains. I adhere to the Ghost Busters school of thought: Don't cross the streams. Trying to get those different modes of thinking to work together is a recipe for madness.

This brings us to my theme sooner than I usually get us to a theme of any kind: Separation of duties.

Functionally this means that when I'm writing, I'm writing. It's all I do. Not because that's the best way, only way, or preferred way to do anything - it's because that's how my brain works. Other folks can write for an hour or so then switch it off and go do another thing. I need more commitment than that. I seem to work best in four hour blocks. (Which, admittedly, are in crushingly short supply at the moment.) When I've done writing for the day, however, I can switch modes and shift into another brain space to do something else like marketing or administrative work. One this is sure, though. Unless there's a really compelling business or marketing deadline, writing happens first. Everything else falls after. About every other week or so, depending on how lazy I am, I pick a day to dedicate to errands. These can be business tasks or marketing copy or mailing out books or what have you. That dedicated day is a planned writing break and pre-Covid also served as my day for going to a museum or an art gallery. It seemed to work combining an official 'catch up on all the stuff' day with something fun that was meant to refill the creative well. 

If I'm in a position to need to format a book for indie release, say. I fold that into the writing schedule in my project plan. It doesn't get counted as 'business', in part, because formatting a book follows logically on the heels of editing for me. I have a background in tagging content, so book formatting makes programmatic sense to me. Mostly. But most other tasks for which I am not qualified - cover art leaps immediately to mind - I 100% advocate hiring out. I feel like there's a sliding scale for return on investment. What you can afford to pay to offload anything that's not writing pays you back in writing time. When you're a broke writer not yet pulling in $$$ on books, it's a very DIY business. So split it up and put on different hats. Write when your write. Market when you market. Be a shark, if that's your thing, when you're working business. Spend money on those things that will give you the biggest ROI - for me that's editors and covers. For someone else, the greatest ROI might come from hiring someone else to format a book because that's black magic. But eventually, the goal is to begin offloading the parts of the process you don't enjoy (and I'm sorry, but if you're imagining hiring ghost writers, maybe consider finding something else to fill your time and drain your bank account?) to vendors or an assistant.

I'll give you a rare glimpse into the author assistant interview process. Spoiler - I think she nailed this interview.

Four-Footed Writing Companions

It's hard to see the void who's positioned himself between me and the keyboard, but that's Raven. He's appointed himself my newest furry writing companion. Provided it's not too hot. Or there's nothing interesting happening on the back deck.  He's not as experienced as the editors and writing companions who filled the position before him, but I'm confident he'll learn. Perceval and Arya want to be my editors. They've perfecting the art of walking across my keyboard. In Arya's case, she particularly likes to stand on keys. Just to make sure she really gets her point across.

 Crow likes to be in the same room so he can offer moral support while I work, but he's more of a thinker than a doer. He looks on from his sunny spot on the cat tree while I write. I'm required to pay a pet tax by skritching his chin if I get up to grab tea or a snack. All of this four-footed company is most welcome as our senior editor died on Monday afternoon. Miss Cuillean had retired from her position about four months ago, but out of respect, no other cat would take her place while she battled her final illness. Now that she's moved on, the younger cats are seizing their opportunities and I have all the furry contributors in the middle of what I'm doing that I can handle. 

Where I Go to Know

The single writing-related resource I use is a search engine. It's because I don't really have one go-to. Most of the time, I want to know what the psychological drive is that transforms hate into love. I want to know how survivor's guilt manifests. How fast is acceleration of a craft in a solar system if you deploy a solar sail of x size. How does the brain respond to foreign objects and where can I place something like that without killing someone outright? 

Huh. It's possible I'm on a couple of FBI watch lists.

Perhaps I land a little more frequently on Jeffe's side of the internet with Thesaurus.com but if I do, it isn't by much. I'm one of those writers who finds a word image or gesture and I make sure I get my money's worth out of it in a draft. It's in rewrites that I realize I've used the same thing sixty-some-odd times and then I break out the synonyms. 

But for most things, it's my trusty search engine. It may take me far afield, but serendipity is a thing and occasionally the rabbit holes pay off, too. Most of the time, I get right where I need to go, grab my info and I'm back in the race. Though, in this race it should be noted that I'm the tortoise. And I stopped for snacks. And a nap. And . . .

This is Perceval (the silver tabby) and her mini-me Peseshet (the brown tabby and white in shadow here) above. Even though they were rescued a year apart, we're pretty certain they are related. Perceval certainly treats Peseshet as if they are. I figured we could all use a little cute on a Friday morning.

Making It Up As We Go

You'd think, since I've made up like 12 different deities for one series that I'd have created some kind of holiday that I then had to write about and describe what happens and how it's celebrated, but somehow, I've managed to dodge that bullet thus far. Maybe having to save the galaxy leaves too little time for parties and big feast days.

As you can see, however, according to Perceval, every day is a holiday.

In the upcoming manuscript, I'll have an opportunity to handle holidays. The closest I've come is inventing languages and having to my people navigate some cultural differences.

What's interesting is that currently, we're in the process of reinventing holidays at home - and these are holidays we know. But because we're now a blended household since my folks moved in, we're having to find common ground and redefine what holidays mean to us now. Other than too many calories and increased stress. Not to mention cats climbing Christmas trees. I should totally invent a holiday. I realize I have a lot of material to pull from. But you know, when you're living in outer space and you aren't beholden to a solar cycle, how do you define a day? And then, what kinds of holidays would you observe? Maybe something closer to the modern Naval tradition of celebrating crossing the equator. Hmm. I think I perceive a novella brewing. See what you've done now?

When Nature Says 'Hold My Beer'

Bear with me. I have a story to tell. This is Perceval. Perceval was rescued by a neighbor who presented the kitten for foster care as a 'he'. Then 'he' went into heat. He became she and (because of the aforementioned heat) developed a raging urinary tract infection. A sterile draw (with a needle and syringe) of urine at the emergency vet revealed a new mystery. Perceval had sperm swimming in her bladder.

Yes. I have male cats. They're shooting blanks. Have been since December of last year.

Thus, the vet proposed the notion that Perceval might just be both 'he' AND 'she'. Jeffe, on Instagram, instantly proposed swapping out Perceval's pronoun to They. Motion seconded, voted upon, and passed. Surgery was undertaken. It was a spay - there was a uterus and nothing more internally. Had Perceval been a true hermaphrodite, there would have been a set of male gonads as well as the female reproductive organs. There weren't. However, the doctor did point out that Perceval's external genitalia are ambiguous. While there's clearly female anatomy, it appears that a pair of testicles also tried to develop. They never fully formed, so the cat didn't have to have a neuter surgery on top of a spay surgery. And the mystery of the sperm in the bladder? We may never know. Subsequent checks of the boy cats confirms they're in the clear.

What does this have to do with writing characters in SFF? Simply this: Nature and life recently proved to me that they are far too ready, willing, and able to shatter our preconceived notions about gender, sex, and identity. So getting hung up on any kind of either/or question about who's what and therefore gets to love whom, when writing seems silly. SF and Fantasy is, to me, about who characters are as individuals - including their identities, preferences, marginalization, and how they cope. This may be privilege speaking, because I'm part of a population that doesn't often have to get to grips with being in mortal peril simply for existing. I suspect that shows in my writing because while I have a trans character, a bisexual main character, PoC as main characters - in my stories, these people are rarely under threat based on being either bi, or a PoC, or trans. Mainly because part of the joy of SF and Fantasy for me is getting to dabble in a world that's much broader than this one - one that encompasses possibilities and embraces them. I'd like to think that makes me idealistic rather than simply naive. Or worse, hurtful.

Honestly. Does anyone really think that when we finally do run into life out there in the stars that they're gonna all be CIShet/clear binary with no richness? No variety? No specialization and adaptation? If yes, do you science at all? Cause yeah, nature doesn't work that way. And so long as I'm writing, neither will I.