This is the blog of Kelly Jennings, science fiction writer. Bibliography here: https://delagarbibliography.blogspot.com/
Today I'm holding walk-in conferences for my comp students and editing students, except no one is walking in. I have had one student who wants to know if I can meet them on Monday instead. (Today is the last day of classes. So, yeah, no, I cannot.)
Anyway: my point! Would it be inappropriate for me to lie down on the floor and nap? (Due to insomnia I got almost no sleep last night, and the two pots of coffee I have drunk so far are really not doing it.)
God, I'm so sleepy.
I submitted my novel, the third in the Escape Velocity series, and I wrote and submitted a short story. Now I am starting the fourth Velocity novel AND apparently writing a novella. Why must I write novellas? What is WRONG with me?
I'm also writing book reviews for Asimov's and for Interzone, so I am reading and re-reading a ton of SF/F books, toward that end.
And I am grading final papers as well as the final packets for my fiction workshop. Also, I am teaching Script Workshop next semester, which should be very interesting, as I have never actually written a script on my own, although I kind of helped Dr. Skull write one, back in the previous century, about vampires who were long-haul truckers.
So I might be writing a script soon, is what I'm saying, since I find it useful to have done the things I am trying to teach other writers to do.
Meanwhile, while I have you here, should I compel them to write screenplays or should I allow those who want to write scripts for graphic novels to do that instead? I am thinking not, because if we are all writing the same sort of thing, the workshop might cohere better. But maybe?
All of my classes are on Tuesdays-Thursdays, by request -- this is a favor the chair does for me, so that I can have four-day writing blocks, from Friday through Monday. But this means I get to school before dawn in the winter, arriving, usually, at just after 6:30 a.m. It's dark and cold, and the drive to school is short enough that the car never warms up. I am shivering the whole way.
My office is overheated, though. I have to pull off my jacket and gloves and hat and the woolen jersey I wear under all this, to keep from breaking into a sweat. The office is dark, the building is silent. I say good morning to the cleaning person, who is usually emptying yesterday's trash cans at this point.
I make coffee and drink it while I watch the sun turn the trees outside my office window gold against the blue sky. This is my favorite moment of the day. It's almost worth getting up so early. Almost.
Also, is there anything better than hot coffee on a winter morning?
I spent the hours between 6:30 and 9:30 prepping for classes and maybe grading some papers. I say "grading," but I don't actually grade the essays my freshman write, not exactly. I give them feedback and assign a temporary grade -- like, this is the grade this would get if I were grading it -- and then send the paper back to them to be revised and resubmitted.
At 9:30, I teach my first section of Comp I. Right now we are working on revision practices for their major papers. I talk a little about reverse outlines, higher order concerns v. lower order concerns, and then settle them into their "workshops" to deal with at least one problem in each of their respective papers. I wander around the room, dealing with problems that stump the workshops.
At 11:00, I do all this again with the second section of Comp II.
From 12:15 until 2:00, I eat oranges in my office and do more prep/grading.
At 2:00, I teach my Editing class. We're working on Light v. Heavy editing right now. My most talented student is having trouble with this, since they want to go heavy on every edit. What does light editing mean? they demanded. Am I just supposed to leave errors in the manuscript? I attempt to explain, but they remain confused and frustrated. They have the right answers, how can they not share them? That sort of thing. Believe me, I understand.
At 3:15, I return home to take the dog out and check on Dr. Skull, who is at his computer even though he's supposed to be sitting with his feet elevated so his toes will heal. I grumble at him, he says he'll elevated his feet from now on, which I don't believe for one damn minute.
At 4:30, I return to school to prep for Fiction Workshop, which starts at 5:25. It's supposed to run until 8:15, but by skipping the mid-class break, I get us out by 7:30, usually. We workshop four or five stories, and talk about the reading, which this week is Jesse Stuart's "Split Cherry Tree." None of them have ever read it. Apparently no one reads Jesse Stuart anymore. None of them have even ever heard of him. They all like the story, though. I make a mental note to add Stuart to my list of stories to assign to undergraduates.
At about 8:00, I arrive home. I'm so exhausted I feel like I've been hit by sticks all day. Dr. Skull has gone to bed, usually without eating dinner. I feed the dog, I feed myself, I watch an episode of Deadwood. I lie on the couch listening to an audiobook (Connie Willis's The Doomsday Book at the moment) until I fall asleep, sometimes around midnight.
I guess that's actually a 13 hour teaching day. But it's 12 hours if we don't count the hour I spend at home yelling at Dr. Skull and dealing with the dog.
I really do prefer this schedule, due to the time it gives me to write. But my God is it a long day.
His toes are much better, which is good, because I could not get through to our primary care doctor either. The phone rang and rang, then went to the answering machine, and then hung up before I could leave a message.
If they weren't healing, which they seem to be now, I would take him to the ER. But we're following our primary care doctor's advice, except for taking him to wound care, which is to change the dressings once a day, keep his feet elevated, and have him walk around every half hour or so, which helps with circulation. Seems to be working.
Also, UGH.
Okay, so Dr. Skull has these scrapes on his toes that aren't healing, so we went to our primary care person, who referred us to Wound Care (who knew that was a thing). Wound Care contacted me this morning to tell me they couldn't fit us in for three weeks, and maybe not then. It depends on our insurance, they said. I told them what insurance we have, but they aren't the insurance person, so they had no idea if Mercy takes our insurance, or if our insurance will approve Wound Care.
I asked them what I should do. They advised me to call our primary care person again. So I did. But they don't work on Fridays.
I foresee a trip to the ER in our future.
Good thing we don't have that evil socialized medicine, I guess.
You can commission my kid, who will do art for you!
Here's a sample of his art.
He also did my icon, and could create one for you, too!
Polyamory, found families, spaceships -- what more do you want?
If you buy them from the publisher, you're supporting a small press!
I commissioned these -- they're marker on paper, done from photographs I took myself. The Green Night one is of our house from the rear with a migraine bulb burning in a lamp. Snowy evening is from another photo I took, last winter when it snowed so much.
(Scene: In the bedroom, DR. SKULL is getting ready to lie down for a nap. DELAGAR enters stage left. DR. SKULL gives her a look of mild surprise.)
Dr. Skull: Oh!
(DELAGAR glances at him in inquiry)
Dr. Skull: I thought you were gone.
delagar: Where would I go? It's Sunday, and I already went to Wal-Mart.
Apparently November 28 is the "National Day of Giving." Who knew!
I've been giving all along, but if you're looking for places to give, might I recommend giving cash (rather than canned goods) to your local food bank? If you want to give food, give things that can be eaten without cooking, and especially canned or boxed milk; or sanitary items. Partners in Health is also a good organization.
Give also to the ACLU, who are fighting for us all.
And buy comics for the children of Gaza.
We're having Thanksgiving on Saturday this year because the Kid's fiancé has to work Thanksgiving Day. He's not in retail; he works for a small business that boards dogs, and of course they're busy over holidays; so it's not unexpected. He'd probably have to work (or someone would have to work) even if it weren't for Black Friday nonsense.
My nephew and my SIL may be able to come down; and Uncle Charger is coming down. The kid and I are going to do most of the cooking this year, as Dr. Skull is still finding it hard to get around (he's got an issue with a disc in his back). I'm not sure what we will cook. I should think about that soon.
Meanwhile, winter is here -- it froze last night, and today the high is predicted to be in the 40s. My cats are not pleased. I had terrible insomnia last night, so I was awake when the icy weather arrived. I took the dog out around four a.m. and the world was frozen and still, the sky absolutely clear and filled with stars. I enjoyed it, even though I was so tired my bones ached.
Stupid insomnia.
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| The Trapper, Rockwell Kent |
My kid has comics in this bundle -- you can get 121 comics for $10, with all the proceeds going to help the children in Gaza.
Get some comics, do some good!
Over the past decade I have noticed that I start a great many more books* than I finish. I used to finish most of the books I read -- at least 90%, I'd say. Now, looking at the last 20 books I've checked out of the library (excluding cookbooks), I see that I have finished nine.
(I'm only able to do this because our library page now has a "Reading History" link for everyone's account. I'm not sure how I feel about this. In theory, this data is available only to me. In fact, obviously, if the data exists, it can be made available to anyone. In these days when Moms for Liberty and indeed the entire "conservative" camp, is looking to make certain ways of existing a legal offense, collecting data in this fashion worries me, just a bit.)
If we go back 50 books, for a broader sample, I have finished 24/50. (Again, excluding cookbooks.)
If we go back 100 -- excluding cookbooks and re-reads -- it's 42/100, but some of those are re-reads, so I don't know how to evaluate that number. Let's stick with 24/50. I'm finishing less than half the (new) books I check out of the library.
Is this because the quality of books being published is worse than it was ten years ago?
Maybe.
But there are other possibilities:
(1) I am less exacting about the books I check out than I used to be. I'm pretty sure this is true, since I can remember noticing that when I "took a chance" on a book I wasn't sure I would like, sometimes I really, really liked it, and that gave me a new writer, even a new genre, to read. (I'm looking at Georgette Heyer here.) So it's possible I'm taking more chances on what I check out.
(2) I'm less interested in finishing books I'm not enjoying. This is to say, I've given myself permission not to finish a book if I'm not having a good time. File under life-is-too-short.
(3) I'm reading, or at least sampling, books in the SF/F books I would not have checked out before, because I'm looking for books I might want to use in a review. This would explain an increase in DNF over the past couple years, since I started reviewing seriously for two SF magazines. I'd say maybe five or six books out of the hundred fit that category. On the other hand, I finished a couple of books I would not have, because I was hoping to review them. So that probably washes out.
It could also be that books are in fact getting worse. I don't think you can prove it with my data, is all I'm saying.
*I thought about giving examples of the books I wasn't finishing here, but I think that would be too mean. It may have nothing to do with the quality of the books. It may just be that I'm the wrong reader for whatever the book is. Anyway, if you're an author googling for your book, your book is wonderful! I'm absolutely not talking about your book here!
