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Unfortunately I’ve reached that point in the novel where sleeping is difficult, because you know what needs to be done next and you wake ten times in the middle of the night, dreaming you just wrote this scene that…

Okay, it might have to do with seriously too much coffee too. (Too much something, me?)

Making it extra fun, I woke up this morning with the teen puking his guts out. Stomach flu, I guess.

So, as you can tell, it’s going to be a fun day…

On the good side, reading over the novel so far, it’s much better than I antecipated. Much better as in “only cut out about five pages from the beginning, where I was trying to reinvent the wheel and the furthest I went in, the smoother it read.” Which is actually normal. For me.

I go have breakfast and walk now. I’m feeling vaguely queasy but I HOPE that’s just from the teen throwing up…

Do you guys wake up sometimes and get the impression you’ve stumbled into a parallel universe where your history/life is completely different?

Yesterday was one of those days for me, due to the comments of two completely different people. One of them was a face book friend – one of my early ones – and another was the troll on the airline post.

My face book friend told me that some other writer knew me and had talked about me. I was curious since I didn’t remember her name at all. (Mind you, I have a stainless steel sieve for a brain and if you meet me at a con, no matter how well we hit it off, count on introducing yourself to me two more times at least. There are exceptions, but mostly those are people I’ve read for years. But usually I retain some vague inkling of “I’ve heard this name before.”) And he came back and said she’d mentioned in her forum that we were together in a panel about how hard it was to break in, and I’d said that I sold the first thing I ever sent in and got a contract for two more.

In the airline post, the troll went into my writing after insisting that somehow I was a “bad customer” which through “something happens here” had caused the airline to strand me twice in the space of five days (for those who are wondering, no I didn’t bitch until the “manager” on the return leg tried to pull the “poor me” bit. For one I didn’t bitch because airline employees, in the days of “security” have broad powers to ban you from flights if they think you’re “threatening” which can include scowling at them. So, that entire sequence happened with us being as polite and accommodating as possible.) This “helpful” creature informed me that if I could take criticism and see other’s point of view maybe I wouldn’t be such a “terrible, self proclaimed author.”

Neither of these incidents hurt. The first was a “uh?” and the second was more of a “uh?” because of the “self proclaimed” thing. They both worried me though for various reasons. The troll’s one less than the other, of course, since DUH he was clearly just pulling stuff from air.

One of them is that in this field, particularly as it’s spinning out as traditional publishing dies, you need the good will of your colleagues. And both of those perceptions – that I’m G-d’s special little snowflake, and that I think I’m G-d’s gift to writing – could cost me the good will, or at least earn me the resentment of my peers. Again, the first one is particularly worrisome because it comes from a writer who said it on her forum*, which means more than likely she told it to a dozen people at conferences already. And this field runs on rumor.

And if you think that writers shouldn’t resent other writers who had an easier journey, you’re not a writer. It’s sort of like boot camp. Oh, it’s changing, and people who come in in the brave new era will feel completely different, I think. But breaking in used to mean going through an unreasonably difficult and long process. You resent the ones who skipped that process like an army man in the regency hated the officers who bought their way into their position. Even the best ones will be considered suspect until they’ve seen action and paid their dues.

And, oh, yeah, both of those comments are wrong. Not just wrong, but “h*ll, yes, wrong.” (Oh, okay, the troll might have a point, and I might be a terrible writer by some ways of looking at it. Don’t know. Don’t care. I’m not aspiring to Shakespeare here, just to writing entertaining stuff that provides people with a few hours of escapism.)

First the breaking in, which, by itself, will explain why the other is ridiculous.

This week is the twenty sixth anniversary of our civil wedding. It’s convenient as a marker, because I started writing with the intent to publish shortly thereafter. I’d always wanted to write, and newly wed I found I couldn’t do anything else: my teaching credentials were not accepted in the US, I knew no one, and my husband was gone most of the day. So, I grabbed my husband’s semi-broken typewriter, taught myself touch typing and plunged in.

I wrote a novel that summer. And two more in the next couple of years. They all got rejected everywhere. (And they should be, btw. No, they were not bad novels. In fact, with the rewrites, I learned most of the writing I know in those three years. But they were unpublishable for reasons of non-commercial world building. So, unsaleable.) After that I plunged into a novel that took me six years to write, and which might be publishable, except it’s not a novel… it’s a trilogy or perhaps a series. This is a mistake EVERY writer seems to make on their way to publication. (Some poor sods make it halfway through their career. The lucky ones don’t sell it.) I call it the “everything” novel. It will eventually be written as the Saga Of Horse And Bull, a series, now with more b… never mind. I outlined the rewrite about four years ago. At least three books, probably six. Eventually I’ll find time. Maybe when the kids move out.

Weirdly, the three first novels, despite their unsaleable concept, were other than that more commercial than the poor, misbegotten jumble that was mirror play.

After that, I wrote… Four more novels, and started ten others in proposal format. Of the four I wrote, I’ve since sold three, one of them after a significant rewrite. But I didn’t sell the first one of those until 2006 (I think.)

I also – because I heard that was how you broke in – wrote about a hundred short stories, and yes, sent them out. Over and over again. Again, I’ve now sold most of those short stories – some of them more than once – but didn’t sell the first till 94 and didn’t sell the first that saw the light of day (the first sale the magazine was shut down) till 98. Until then – so you see how much I actually sent things out – I got 100 rejections by March. I used to keep them in a big plastic bin in the bathroom. (In case the IRS wanted to verify I was trying to get published.)

I sold my first novel (more on that later) in 99 (I think.) It came out in 2001. By the time I sold my first novel, I’d sold exactly two pro short stories, to Absolute Magnitude and Pirate Writings (I think. I can’t remember the name exactly.) I had also sold about five non-pro shorts. The biggest sale I could brag about in my bio for the book cover was Weird Tales, and it was so new I hadn’t been PAID yet.

Depending on how you look at it, it took me either 9 or 13 or 14 or 16 years. In any case, I THINK the normal time for people to break in (from what I’ve seen with other people coming up) is between three and five years and, btw, a lot less persistence and rejection involved.

So, not only wasn’t I G-d’s own little snowflake, I was the Writer Of No Future. In fact, looking back I can only attribute my persistence to extreme insanity. Surely anyone sane would have decided that they had had enough and given up on this gig long before publication.

But my story is only abnormal as to length, and that was complicated probably by making the transition from Portuguese to English and by (more importantly) making the CULTURAL transition to what was “publishable” or “commercial” in the US. Also, at the time I was very young, coming from completely outside the field, not even knowing there existed such a thing as “organized fandom.” If I had to do it over again, I would have started going to cons early on, and probably could have sold those novels and shorts that have sold since MUCH earlier. In fact, my journey, if you count those novels and stories eventually sold, would be about average length.

As it turned out the years of getting kicked in the teeth were excellent preparation for a writing career in the oughts, when I broke in in novels.

Look, nothing worse can happen to a writer than breaking in too easily. That means you fold at the first bad review/laydown/critique. I’ve seen it. People who publish the first novel they ever finish, then get the next rejected and go into a mental fetal curl never to emerge. Which is a pity as those writers are usually much more gifted than I’ll ever be.

I’m not sure how the post-publication kicks in the teeth will be delivered in the new market, but rest assured they will. Perhaps like that poor woman who wrote a novel full of typos and grammatical issues and didn’t bother getting it copyedited, you’ll become a household name synonymous with “loser.” Or perhaps you’ll put something up and it will sell two copies. EVER. And those to your mother and your cat. Or perhaps your novel will become loved for all the wrong reasons, and interpreted in ways you never meant, like “Hey man, this is great, she says we should have sex with automobiles.”

Any of those can cause the unhardened writer to crawl into a hole and pull it closed after themselves. And it shouldn’t.

Oh, take criticism. With a grain of salt, but take it. The woman who went ballistic on her critics would have been better served by trying hard to improve her writing – which is something the rejection process taught me. And why I say the first three novels with the rewrites taught me the most about how to be a writer. Because even though I started out as a voracious reader, clue I got none how to actually engage a reader. Language and characters I got for free, but most of my novels consisted of characters noodling around in search of a plot.

But beyond that… well… Sometimes your best beloved works won’t sell. This doesn’t mean they’re bad. It might mean you crawled so far into your internal mythos that you can’t communicate it to anyone.

In the old days, the publishing process took care of keeping those out. In the new process, that won’t happen. So shrug off the “no sale” bits and try to figure out how to make it more appealing to a larger group of people. (To an extent. “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself” still applies.)

And then keep writing. Even if you are the writer of no future.

*I’m not accusing this writer of lying, btw, but I think she’s confused. Either she got me confused with someone else (tons of people confuse me with Tanya Huff. I’ll hear some panel I was at described and they call me Tanya Huff. No idea why. Does SHE have a Russian accent? I’ve never met her) or she misinterpreted part of my story. It’s possible if she said something like “You have to finish your first novel, it will never sell on proposal” I said “I sold my first novel on proposal. And then I sold two more on proposal.” And she interpreted that to mean “the first novel I ever sent out” instead of “the first novel I sold.” The term “first novel” is used in both senses, of course.

Old French Fairytales

No, I’m not talking about their belief that they’re still the leading culture in the world (hint for y’all: when you’re the leading culture in the world you don’t need to set special taxes on the import of foreign cultural artifacts in order to preserve your heritage) or the idea that Napoleon was the world’s greatest General, or even… Never mind.

I’m actually talking about French Fairytales. At some point I mentioned in this blog that I’d spent a summer reading the Comtesse de Segur’s incredibly moralistic tales. My alert readership TM proceeded to inform me that several of her books were available for free at Gutenberg. The only one in English is Old French Fairytales. (Yes, a part of me desperately wants to get the others then retire to a corner with them and translate them, though I have no clue what I would do afterwards. You see, I’ve never done literary translation, so I have no idea if I could then publish them [since they are, afaik out of copyright] under my “translation copyright.” And I could do that. In fact, it strikes me as a really fun “vacation” project, the equivalent of painting a room or recovering the sofa. But like those projects, if I do them in a year when I’m booked solid, y’all are going to miss some books, because barring a transmorgifier [scientific progress goes boing] that can duplicate me, my spending time translating means I’m not writing.)

So, while traveling, I decided to read them over. And realized several things – first they are still immensely appealing.

You see, when I read them they were VERY MUCH a guilty pleasure. For some reason, just like here people expect you to start reading with picture books, in Portugal they expect you to start reading with fairy tales. I never did, or not really. As far as I know (I was young) I started with Disney Comics, which makes a certain sense, as when people read the story to me I had a visual to anchor the words to, and I could then in “repeating” it to myself work the sounds backwards. (This is much easier than in English, btw. Portuguese is almost completely phonetic.)

When I was growing up people had two preconceptions about me as a young-lady-who-enjoys-reading-and-wants-to-be-a-writer. When I was very young they assumed I read mostly fairytales. Well intentioned friends, relatives and elderly women invited to my birthday party (there was always a gaggle of them and I never was very sure on how or where they attached to us) gave me books of fairytales. I actually liked some of the bigger ones, but not for reading. They tended to have gorgeous illustrations, which I liked to copy and color. Then as I got older, people assumed I was reading/writing romance.

Because I am the way I am – I think I was born broken – this meant that both types of books HAD to be shunned. Oh, I read any number of traditional stories because they were sold in these TINY books (think of those little chapbooks with your sign and the year at the grocery store) for the price of a pack of gum, and my mom tended to get me one as a prize for behaving while out shopping. These sometimes involved fairies, but more commonly they were Aesop’s fables or the like, so I didn’t consider them “fairytales.”

So, when at sixteen I succumbed – at a time when my brother was on vacation and not bringing the usual SF/F books into the house – to the fairytales that had accumulated in the “for show” shelf in the living room, I felt incredibly guilty.

And then I felt double guilty when I found myself enjoying the Comtesse de Segur, because her tales were incredibly, cloyingly moralistic, and you know how I feel about prescriptive stories.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself enjoying the stories just as much, despite the fact that well… characters have names like “Charming” “Perfect” or “Violent” or “Terrible.” And that in addition to cloyingly moralistic, the tales have a system in which reward and punishment are administered by an extra-story entity, usually a “fairy.”

There are hints some of these are based on older folk tales (the story of Good Henry is ALMOST for sure the story of a god and his travails) and the “fairies” are in place of more powerful gods.

So why do they still attract? I don’t know. Part of it is her description of dresses. Yes, I know, but a part of your mind is going “How much more outrageous can she get?” And “Wouldn’t diamonds the size of chicken eggs break her neck, if made into a necklace?”

But the other part of it is, I think, that she sets up conflict very well. The character has to give up something vital which he/she is not inclined to give up, before he/she can attain the goal. The sacrifice and reward are nearly balanced and you can see it hurts to choose. This always makes for riveting fiction.

Also, the “from the top” thing becomes innocent when it’s clear that it’s a tale intended for children who must perforce rely on adults for reward and punishment.

Interestingly, too, it has a lot in common with twilight. Yes, twilight. Including very young girls being raised (as it were) by much older/more powerful entities that intend to marry them. Very rapid pregnancies. An idea of destiny.

I wonder if those ideas are inherently appealing to the young human mind.

Anyway… I’ll be thinking about this. There might be a bunch of alternate-universe and UF with this type of thing in the future. (Not the bit that’s like Twilight. Well, maybe not. I promise to dress it up acceptably if I decide to use it.)

And if you have a few minutes mosey on to Project Gutenberg, download Old French Fairytales and tell me what you think.

*I posted this years ago in my livejournal, and have been unable to post it or put it up anywhere since, because I didn’t keep a copy and couldn’t find it on livejournal.  Now I’ve found it.  It is notable for being the shortest full story I ever wrote.  It was written as an exercise for Critical Evolutions, the writers group I used to belong to. (well… I probably still do, it’s just we’ve not been really active.)*

Doppelganger

Sarah A. Hoyt

No, he’s not me. He spies on me from my mirror. Sometimes I wake in
the night and look at the mirror behind my door and see him there,
watching me.

There is absolutely no point to telling me that I’m imagining it. I’m
not. Yes, he has my features and the same color eyes and hair. But he
is not me.

He watches me with hunger bordering on despair. As if I’m doing
something he wishes he could do. And that’s the scariest of all
because, you know, I’m not doing anything. I’m just going to college.
I go to class. I come back to the dorm. I don’t even have a
girlfriend.

And that’s the other thing because sometimes there’s this woman with
him in the mirror. She’s sleek and dark and beautiful, like a model.
And she will just stand there, beside him, and watch me also.

The thing is, I remember the woman. It’s a face I know. No, not as if
I imagined it. More like I saw it, you know, a long time ago.

I think she was that woman who tried to convince me to go drinking
with her after the freshman orientation, three years ago. I was
tempted, don’t get me wrong. I mean, beautiful women don’t come onto
me every day. But there was something… Something about her eyes,
something like the look in my double’s eyes as he looks at me out of
the mirror. And I refused.

I haven’t seen her again since, which is kind of funny, since I
thought she was another student.

Anyway, that was my only contact with her, so I don’t know why – if
this is all an illusion – she should be there, beside him, in the
mirror.

#

Alexandra comes over sometimes, to look in my mirror. Her own has
stopped displaying anything centuries ago. It now shows a murky
bottomlessness, a nothing, like the limpid surface of a lake. You
think it would go on forever, you think under there, somewhere, there
must be something, but there never is.

“I wonder if it’s there, somewhere?” Alexandra says sometimes. “I
wonder if there is something that shows, there.”

I shrug. What else can I do? I don’t know more about this than she does.

All I know is that when I look in my mirror, I see myself. Mostly
sleeping, of course, since I’m only aware at night, when that other me
sleeps.

But even asleep there is around him a remnant of the daylight world.
The book bag he takes to class. A t-shirt tossed on the chair. A pair
of shorts flung on the floor. Flip flops. Sun screen. It seems so long
ago. It was only three years. I meant to study law.

The other day when I looked out of the mirror, he was at the computer
and there was an email from my mom. I would have cried if I still knew
how.

And then Alexandra said, “Come on. He’s just reading email. Come on.
Let’s go hunt.”

She flung out of the room, and I followed. Alexandra was fun to hunt
with. She attracted people. She intoxicated them. She made it easy to
lure them to a secret alley and drink their blood.

It is true a vampire doesn’t see his reflection in a mirror. He sees
the reflection of who he would be. If he hadn’t allowed himself to be
seduced by the shadows and the dark. If he’d stayed in the daylight
world.

Is branding your writing still the best way to go?

By this I don’t mean having a specific name for a specific type of book, which particularly if a book is a little more risque than the others is just sense. (It’s best if the wrong person doesn’t pick up your book, even if a few right persons miss it. This might seem illogical, but one wrong person picking up the book and hating it, and telling all his/her friends what a disappointment you were can miss you readers for the next book.)

However, in general, for years now, publishers wanted you to “brand” – i.e. write only one type of thing, in a series and usually for their house only (Thank heavens Baen doesn’t feel that way) – and I wonder if it’s still an advantage.

Oh, not for the one house, only. That, I was told (by Laurell Hamilton!) right after I broke in “Publishers are like men. If you have only one, they don’t treat you right.” Now, I’m not sure what that says about her love life – nor do I want to know! – but I found out within months of her telling me this that she was right. The only way to ensure even semi-decent treatment was to have two publishers.

But I wonder if branding matters. You see, I wonder because I could never do it. While I understood the purpose of it – ie you got more shelf space with more books and had more chance of being noticed and also people who liked one book would like the others – I could never confine myself to one genre, or one set of characters because I am a Popcorn Kitten. Ideas rain on me from above and I have to take the ones that interest me, even if they’re a genre I’ve never written.

Oh, there are series I wrote SOLELY because the publisher made me. (One series, no, I’m not telling which. No, not DST which was written in at least one form thirteen years before it was ever published.) BUT there are several other series publishers “suppressed” – usually because I knew that as the market was they’d never be bought. Sometimes because I submitted and nothing happened. Right now, I have in the hopper an Orphan Kittens Mystery Series. (Naked Reader Press has told me they’re interested, so it will be written.) A hardboiled mystery with vampires. Two almost finished science fiction series – besides the one overdue – only one of which is in the DST sequence (though not with Thena.) Another space opera started in a different part of Thena verse, about five hundred years in the future (hard to tell, actually, if it’s future or past with this book.) The Leonardo DaVinci mysteries, started. The War Of The Roses from the women’s perspective (come on, giving birth, kidnaped children. It’s not striking a blow for equality, it’s how in hell did these women cope?) started. And, who knows, either through NRP or on my own, if I eventually find time, there WILL be the last two books of the Shakespeare sequence. And new ideas hit every time. Poor Captain Charming, in the last post.

So, I can’t do branding, unless I start a career for each name – doable now. But given the collapse of bookstores – see Larry Correia’s post, which reminds me of Kris Rusch’s post – is branding still all that important?

I honestly don’t know. I don’t read only one genre, and the fans I’ve heard from who do have let my siren song seduce them into reading other genres. From Science Fiction to cozy mystery, they’ll go there if I take them.

What is the most normal reading behavior? I don’t doubt that some people will read only my mysteries, or only my fantasy, or only my science fiction. I know some of you will not touch vampires, no matter how good. (Yeah, I know. They’re dead, they’re cold and – thank you Laura Anne Gillman – how can they get it up if blood isn’t circulating? Completely understand not touching that.)

I don’t read hard core erotica or splatter horror, for instance, but I still read every genre. If I’m writing your equivalent “do not touch” I can see you not reading those, but reading all the others, and then I still come out ahead. And every read I “capture” through one of these genres has a 50/50 chance of reading the rest, right? So…

To brand or not to brand, that is the question. Whether ’tis nobler to confine one’s imagination to one channel and by mastering it sell extremely well (?), or to be a popcorn kitten, mastering several subgenres and letting them crosspolinate to the delight of readers?  (Sorry, this happens when I haven’t had enough caffeine.  I’ll now go in search of it.)

*to understand the title, you must read Kris Rusch’s post.  This is why I’m so careful what I read before I go to bed when I’m deep in a book.  But you see, I’m an idiot.  I thought “Old French Fairytales” by the Countess of Segur, which I read as a young girl would be safe.  And then I woke up this morning with the bit below.  The world and characters will eventually, I think, become a series of short stories.  For now it’s back to Darkship Renegades for me though.*

“Captain,” the man said, and waited.

Captain Charming looked up from the paperwork on his desk. He didn’t blame his men for never using his last name.

In a world such as theirs, his name was a cruel joke, and not just because most of the kids in his elementary school called him Charmin.  And don’t even get him started on all the squeezing he endured. 

“Yes,” he said.

His subordinate, never a sight for sore eyes, being of peasant stock and having been raised by enchanted cows in a farm, after being abandoned by his parents, now looked even more bedraggled than usual. His coarse brown hair stood all on end, there were burs sticking to it. Eggs stained his blue uniform of coarse sackcloth, and his shoes looked like they’d been run over by a whole herd.

“It’s a dress, sir. Down on main avenue.”

“A dress? You got yourself looking like that fighting with a dress?”

“Well, no. It was the fact that the egg vendor ran and some of the eggs fell off his cart and onto me. Then a cart of hay overturned. And then…” He sighed. “A flock of sheep stampeded.”

Captain Charming picked up the magical pen which he had instructed to sign his dispatches this morning and, with a little effort – it kept wriggling – put it in his inkwell, which would keep it safe till he picked it up again. He chewed his bottom lip contemplatively. “What’s up with the dress, then?”

“Nothing sir. It’s a very nice dress, cloth of gold with diamond buckles. But it’s walking down main avennue.”

“What? On its own?”

“No, sir. Accompanied by a very nice headdress and a pair of silk slippers.”

Captain Charming stood up and sighed. “I bet you it’s the work of some fairy underworld or other.” He added with feeling, “I hate Mondays.”

What is going on with airlines? I clearly don’t have all the facts, don’t even know where to start investigating, but something IS wrong with airlines in the US.

Years ago, when reading PJ O’Rourke’s Eat The Rich, I came across his description of train travel in Siberia, where the train seemed to have been built to maximize discomfort and lack of hygiene. He compared this to travel in the US and I realized suddenly that Portugal, while not as bad as Siberian trains in the USSR was about halfway there: i.e. Portuguese trains had a restroom, but you’d not think to use it unless the alternative were death. And the way the employees treated you was with the kind of unconcern reserved for serfs. (Portuguese airlines still treat you that way. The emphasis is on the PASSENGER proving he/she is worthy by having all the paperwork and kowtowing to the “functionary” which is the Portuguese term for employee and which might tell you all you need to know.)

Yesterday, on the leg back from a hellish journey, I realized that US airlines are now halfway through Portuguese railways of old and the old USSR. And it makes me wonder: what is going on here?

Look, let’s start by establishing that EVERY company like every individual working for it, works in what it/he/she perceives as the company’s or individual’s best interests.

As we’ve seen in the case of publishing, in a large corporation it is possible for the best interests of the individual to be objectively at odds with the interests of the corporation, or at least to work to undermine it, without anyone being aware.

Maybe that’s what’s wrong with airlines, but I don’t think so, since even the decisions from the top down seem inspired by the type of – to draw from PJ O’Rourke again – Oxacan ditch weed that is simply not that easy or cheap to come by.

I can tell you the date travel became a nightmare: about a year and a half after 9/11. We tried to make it from CO to NYC and the trip alone took close to twenty four hours. I thought it was because the airline industry was recovering from a severe blow and restructuring, and it would get better.

I was wrong. I was actually seeing the airline industry at the best it would be in the next ten years. And every year after it gets worse.

Now, I know that the airlines got a massive bailout after 9/11. Are they still getting them? Are they too big to fail?

The evidence on the ground seems to indicate so, since I now find the total lack of unconcern with passenger wants or needs that I used to see in Portuguese public transport. Or is it the de facto rape of morale undergone by everyone passing through security? Does it soften people to put up with the otherwise indefensible?

One of the things I noticed while in Portugal was that my family puts up with ridiculous behavior form everyone in “official” position, even if the position is in a company selling to the public. They cringed every time I demanded what I’d paid for or made a fuss over shoddy products or services. They told me “we here in Portugal are more patient.” I’m telling you, my dears, if being patient leads to Portuguese level service, please don’t be patient. Not unless you have a hankering to be peasants.

Besides, even the “what can we get away with” doesn’t explain, say, my last trip. (And btw, in the last four trips booked, no matter how short or seemingly trouble free, I have YET to make it there in the allotted time. I rarely get all my luggage. And I will encounter one of more instances of sheer zany power-seeking by employees. Like… trying to force us to check a bag to “your destination” which fits perfectly within the frame they put up.)

The latest flights were from Denver to Atlanta, with a further car rental to Chattanooga. ONE flight. Not even that long. We chose Frontier because their Denver hub makes it cheap and convenient. Or so we thought. And because they were the one airline we hadn’t had an hellish experience with.

Suffice it to say I will never fly Frontier again, even if the alternative is walking.

No, it wasn’t the fact that their planes got hit by hail. Such disasters happen. It’s why they have insurance. It’s what came AFTER that.

Since they cancelled over a dozen planes – and btw, what WERE they doing cancelling at 10:30 am for damage incurred at 2 am? They could have cancelled it any time, and they have our phone/email to notify us, with perhaps a little more time to react.

BUT not only did they not cancel it till the last minute. Oh, no. They ALSO accepted checked luggage. Normally for five days or less, I travel with only carry on. However, I was taking Port Wine with me to give to people at the con. This required a checked bag because some nut jobs in England tried – and failed – to blow up a plane with their baby bottle. So henceforth and till the end of time, in the Tartarus we find ourselves in, we SHALL be punished by not being able to carry liquids. Unless, of course, they fit into the magic ziploc. (In a wonderful example of bureaucratic mentality, even if all you have is a bottle of hand sanitizer and you lay it on the tray so they can see it, pick it up and examine it, they’ll make you put it in a ziploc. They’ve forgotten the point of the ziploc is “to control quantity” and “so you can see what is there.” It is now a magical ziploc which stops explosions.)

So, we came in with no intimation of disaster and checked a bag. We sat at the gate, read our morning blogs, and waited. First the plane was delayed, then finally cancelled. We left at top speed for a customer service station, knowing, of course, that the nearest one would be swamped. We could have saved ourselves the trouble. ALL were swamped, with hours of wait to get to the front, by the time our plane was cancelled.

My husband left me and my son (we were traveling with only one, since the other was in NC already, and would drive in) in line, and went out of the secure area, to try to rebook at the counter, when the scuttlebutt around us was “you’ll be lucky to get there on Sunday.” Since the con ended on Sunday, you see where I had a SMALL problem.

So, Dan went out to rebook and secured it fairly soon – while Atlanta was booked solid, he got us on a flight to Nashville. He then tried to come back to us and found that his new tickets wouldn’t get him past security. Why not? They were not boarding passes. Why not? Because we had to first redirect and re-check our luggage.

By then it was about two hours since cancellation and two other frontier flights to Atlanta had left. Yes, you read that right.

I’m going nuts standing in line, and Frontier employees are circling the line with water, cookies and granola bars (none of which I can have but water, and oh, btw, because of security lines which can be hell in Denver, we left home at six, to get to the airport at eight, for a ten thirty flight. Yeah. I’m hungry and sleepy and just all around cranky.)

As it turns out Frontier employees SHOULD have been doing something else. What else? Why, asking people who had decided not to go or who were taking another route if they wanted their checked luggage back, for instance. JUST a thought. Also, btw, there were two people at the head of the line processing passengers and about five circulating with goodies. Does this make sense in any sane universe?

After a while I called my husband (we were trying to save cell phone batteries, which were needed as he was trying to solve a problem at work via cell phone.) He was standing in an “at least three hours” (per Frontier Employee. ONE working the line, mind you.) line to reclaim our checked bag. My son and I elected to go out of security and wait with my husband. BTW, this entire bit of theater (you’ll see why it’s just theater later) cost us the chance to maybe go home and nap or at least go to a restaurant and get a meal or even go to our favorite hotel and get a day room before our new flight at 8pm to Nashville.

When we got to the head of the line, the rumors that had been filtering back through the line became clear. The complete idiots at Frontier (sorry to insult idiots) instead of immediately cancelling all luggage from cancelled flights (surely, guys, if it was waiting to be loaded, it could be cancelled, no?) had sent it ahead by ‘first available’ flight, making a mockery of the idea that you need to pay for checked luggage because of fuel costs. Why burden your planes with extra luggage. Or does luggage only weigh when it’s WANTED? If it’s luggage no one wants flown, it’s weightless? (My dears, I write SF and that’s a quantum effect I never heard of.)

By the time we confirmed this, we barely had the time to catch our flight to Nashville. Meanwhile, we’d been making frantic rearrangements. You see, we had a car waiting in Atlanta. Had to cancel that (one way rental was $500 more) and book a shuttle from Nashville to Chattanooga. One small issue. Our plane arrived at one thirty am. Shuttle left at six. Even if we could get a hotel we’d be paying $150 to sleep three hours if that. So, we spent the night in the airport. Yes, I did this a lot at around 20, but I’m too old for this crap.

Meanwhile, Dan is on the phone with the luggage people in Atlanta, who tell him they’ll send our bag via a Delta flight to Chattanooga and it will be there when we pick up our new car rental there. Right… Only, of course, by morning the story had changed. They were instead going to fedex it to our hotel.

This seemed okay, and we checked in to our hotel, where I have to say – in that case – the fault was entirely ours. We booked that hotel, which used to be a Day’s Inn on the strength of two reasons – we’d stayed there three years ago and found it spartan but clean; and it was next door to the con hotel, which meant I could drift back to write. Only… well… no. Because the place, now a Knights Inn was the FILTHIEST place I’ve ever stayed in – and that, my dears, includes youth hostels in the early eighties in France – and without the barest creature comforts. Like… oh, a trash can.

But we went ahead and checked in because, duh, our luggage had already been sent there… right?

So we suffer through two days – I’ll try to discover what skin diseases I caught, later – without btw my clothes (I had taken three spare shirts in Dan’s luggage, but my jeans were definitely getting ripe) makeup OR my eczema medicine (well, it is liquid and a large bottle.) My eczema, btw, is haywire due to stress, lack of sleep, etc.

And then because the luggage hasn’t arrived and Dan continues calling, they tell him no, the luggage is in fact still in Atlanta. It seems the master plan was for us to pick it up on the way back.

I think dan exploded over the phone. The thing is that within an hour and a half our bag was landing at Chattanooga on a Delta plane. End of story? Oh, I WISH.

I was glad to have clothes, we changed hotels, happy happy joy joy.

On Monday we take the shuttle at noon to Atlanta for our flight. Again, note that Frontier has our cell phone numbers and that my husband connected to the net at least once. NO WARNING was sent.

We’re joking about the flights being cancelled, but even we didn’t EXPECT it, until… we got in line to check in and heard rumors.

We get to the front of the line and start by being lied to. They tell us that there was ANOTHER hail storm on the night before at two am. They couldn’t have known! It was just bad luck! They have rebooked us for Wednesday. They’re shocked it’s unacceptable.

Passenger in line next to us needs to get back to Denver, because his wife had a stroke. He’s not buying what they’re selling and calls friends in Denver to verify… there was no hail storm. (Which, duh, we knew.)

So they backpedal. No, no. The flights are still cancelled because of the hail storm on Wednesday before. And, oh, it’s weather, so they’re giving us no lodging or food.
(What transpires, btw, from putting together rumors while in line, is that Frontier chose to lease planes to keep SOME of their contracts… but not all. And yes, they are using the weather to justify doing nothing for stranded passengers, whom they’re not warning of upcoming cancellations. Meanwhile an article online says they won’t lose any good will because they’re using money from insurance to rent top of line planes and give excellent customer care. I’d like the reporter to have gone through what we went through.)

At this point guy next to us demands to talk to a supervisor and gets what my husband calls “designated crier” “It’s not my fault. I didn’t decide this. Why are you yelling at me?” Right. Because you are the face of the company, chickie. DEAL.

As she was about to leave she made ONE mistake. “Does anyone else here want to unload on me? I don’t mind… I mean, I can’t do anything, but if you want to yell at me, go ahead.”

At which point I said “Yes, I DO want to unload on you.” And I started by pointing out that no, this was no longer weather. This was choosing to violate contracts and that I worked for a nationally syndicated website (yeah, I know) and this WOULD be blogged (Promise kept, btw) and that I had had JUST about enough. Also that I was sure they were violating FTC regulations, among other things.

She then, CASUALLY – note that I’m sure she’s not really a manager, unless she’s the manager of that counter – awarded us a night in a (nice it turned out) hotel but NO meals. AT HER DISCRETION. So, the “powerless” crap was just that.

So, we paid $70 for dinner – Ruby Tuesdays. No car. All restaurants in the vicinity of airport are expensive – in addition to the extra $250 for the shuttle and the inconvenience of lacking my luggage for almost two days. I’ve found our last three trips, no matter how short, cost us about $500 extra apiece to get around airline insanity.

By the time we got back to the airport the next morning to fly Continental to Houston then Houston to Denver, I was so tired I seem to have arrived home without my cell phone. And while it might have been security, I confess that I was feeling so dazed that I wouldn’t put it past me to hand it off to a passing stranger. Since no meals, we didn’t have breakfast, thinking we’d grab something in Houston, so I was tired, upset and uncafeinated. ALSO itching all over my body from the worst eczema eruption in two years. (Which will necessitate doctor’s visit asap.)

So… what’s up with the airlines? Because given that the planes got hit with hail and everything thrown off, in the end this nightmare was brought to us by a lack of even casual interest in customer service. Frontier could EASILY have made our life better by

a) not sending the luggage on without us. If you’re booking passengers to the end of a weekend, from what’s clearly the beginning of it, is it so difficult to realize that many if not most of them are going off for an extended weekend? And that if they can’t get there till Sunday they simply won’t go? Or as in our case, book alternate routes to get to a conference or meeting? WHAT do you gain by sending luggage on ahead of passengers?

B) if you absolutely needed to send our luggage on a joy ride, how about just doing what you finally did, and put it on a delta plane, so it was there when we got to Chattanooga? Why the lies and the decoy with Fedex?

C) if you know you’re going to cancel the plane returning (and don’t even get me started on IT WAS A CONTRACT. You don’t get to pick and choose which contracts to honor. What are you? NYC publishers?) Email or phone the customers. First, it might be more convenient (it would have been for us) for them to stay put and extend their hotel (that one was clean) another night than to find out at the airport that they’re supposed to be homeless (and mealless) for two days. HINT there’s less chance they’ll revolt.

D) you effed up and you have an irate about-to-go-ballistic customer (or ten). The weather emergency was five days ago. Legally, you don’t have a leg to stand on. Yes, you can be a jerk and deny them hotels and meals. BUT even if you can get away with it – do you expect them to EVER fly with you again? EVER? In this lifetime? Do you expect them to tell their friends and neighbors you’re a great airline to fly with?

No? WHY DON’T YOU CARE?

How is it possible that EVERY step along the way Frontier chose the WRONG option to maintain customer satisfaction? And who will support them when they collapse? Uncle Sugar?

Honeys – Uncle Sugar is broke, and if I have anything to say to it, when you go to him with your little hand out, he’ll tell you it wasn’t his decision, and why are you yelling at him…

*crossposted at Classical Values*

I was completely isolated from the net for the whole time I was there — our planes were cancelled there and back — rant on that later.

Loved seeing my friends and colleagues and friends who are almost family, but the traveling was sheer hell and we got there one day late and home one day late. (If I EVER book frontier again, you have permission to beat me over the head with a day old mackarel.)

My kindle wireless/3G started acting up as it had in Portugal — I need to call customer service. So I could check NOTHING. And I oculd not post.

We just got home and I can’t find my cell phone. I remember putting it in the briefcase, but it’s not there. Head>desk. Repeat. No, I didn’t check it once I had it in. It’s a pretty tight fit in the briefcase pocket. Perhaps I did something gifted with it on the plane or the club at Atlanta Airport. I don’t think I did, but who knows? Last I saw it for absolute sure was while recharging it in Atlanta in the hotel. Since I just came home, got my necklace from the briefcase (removed for traveling) and did something with it so I can’t find it on my own desk, who knows what I did with the phone while even more jelagged. It’s just that it’s a pay as you go and it’s fully charged, as well as being practically brand new. Worse yet, I LIKED it. :/ Honestly, I think the only way it could have left my briefcase is if someone in security reached in and SPECIFICALLY took it. As I said, the pocket is pretty tight around it. Could someone have done that? Well, I was the last one in the family to go through and when I did I couldn’t see my bags, because they were backed up. Also, there was someone pushing the bags in. It would be the work of a minute to feel it, decide it was one of those expensive iphones (it’s not) and take it out. Then later look at it, realize it’s cheap knock off and throw it away.

Paranoid? Probably, but honestly, I can’t see any other way for it to be missing — save, always “I was half asleep and got gifted” which is… possible. Not probable, though since I rarely think to get gifted with phones. It’s usually more… expensive stuff, like jewelry.

And yeah, security annoys the living day crap out of me, so I’m going to blame them if I can…

Well, it’s that time of year again, and tomorrow the Hoyt Clan is Liberty con bound, leaving a friend in charge of Not-our-cats (Although right now only one not our cat comes by) and sundries. (Please don’t forget the sundries!)

I expect to be having dinner at the Acropolis tomorrow around this time (or a little earlier) with Number 1 son.

Looking forward to seeing everyone. The bad news is that I haven’t — grrrrr — finished Darkship Renegades. The good news is that it’s not because it’s stalled, but because I need to tweak a bit, because of a whole new subplot which makes it much more fun. (Look guys, Thena. Kidnapping. Burners. Explosions. Nough Said? Oh, yeah, and for the rest of you, impossible love, and a situation that will result in at least one tragedy… We just need to make sure the less likeable person dies.) I will read from it if I have a reading (haven’t seen schedule yet!) or you can accost me and make me read at some point, if you’re desperate. Meanwhile, I might be escaping to the hotel (we didn’t get rooms in the main one! :( ) now and then, to make sure the iron doesn’t get cold. I want it to go to betas on Tuesday at the latest.

Meanwhile, you know the drill, posting will be spoty till Tuesday, that is two days after the con, when sleep has happened. Be good.

Some people cut themselves. If you ask the more articulate of them they’ll tell you that they do it for the ability to concentrate the mind – that the pain is a cleanser.

Some people fast or wear hairshirts (yes, people still do that.) If you ask them you find that the feeling of vulnerability brings them closer to G-d.

Me? I’m hardcore. I write books. If you ask me, I’ll tell you I wonder why.

I sort of hope in a vague and wistful way that it can both provide a mental escape and bring me – and those who read me, maybe – closer to G-d. (This is a thoroughly non-denominational G-d, so rest easy. All that can be found in writing or reading unless they’re religious books, is an awareness of something bigger than the simple human spirit.)

Is that why I write? Nah. I wish it were. It would make sense.

I tell people I write for money. This too is a lie. Do I make as much money from it as if I were a secretary at some big and reasonably well-paying company? In the off years, just about. In the good years a little more.

But children, for this I work seven days a week, twelve hours a day and I’m never really “off.” The fact that I’m a writer has made my favorite downtime activity – reading – part of itself. And if you think that’s just talk, think again. It means there no longer is just pure enjoyment, but a thinking mind. “Uh… I see what she did there. Now, if I could…” On the bad days, I find myself reading some bestsellers in the fields I work in and going “And this is selling ten times what I do? Am I that bad?” Which not only kills all the enjoyment but makes me hate myself for petty and envious thoughts.

I’m fairly sure secretaries at least get to relax with a cheap mystery or romance, now and then. For the same money.

So why do I do it? I don’t know. I like to hurt myself, I guess?

It’s not something I would have thought about me, and it’s definitely not sexual. Something I found when I was young and dating was that if pain came in I went out. Even an accidental pinch that hurt was enough to pop me entirely out of the mood.

But I feel compelled to write and worse, after years of successfully avoiding writing the undignified scenes, after years of telling myself I’d torture my characters by the book and not getting involved with their suffering, I find myself writing this novel in an experience not unakin to swallowing shards of glass, and yet riveted by it, so that writing is happening at the oddest hours and as much as I can around the clock.

Both my characters are in deep emotional pain. No, all three of my characters, though one shouldn’t matter – but does. And my normal way to deal with this, up to two years ago, would be to tell the whole situation in two chapters, then move on with the plot and not dwell on it.

Now I’m wallowing in it, and in the character’s feelings. Not that it’s a belly button gazing novel. It’s not. There’s plenty of physical danger and action.

BUT the character’s feelings outline the character growth, and I need that for the big “transformation” scene deep in the belly of the beast. If there is insufficient suffering the transformation will not happen. It’s too early and I’ve only had about the quarter cup of coffee left over from yesterday’s writing jag. (Ew, cold coffee, ew. I hear you, but I want to get this post up, then eat breakfast, then work.) Insert in your own images about caterpillars and butterflies. Thank you.

What’s surprising me is both that I’m feeling the pain as if I were enduring it and that it’s utterly riveting and consuming. As you know from previous posts I’m always deeply suspicious of writing emotion this way. If I’m feeling it because I’m in their heads am I putting in enough for the reader? The answer used to be no. Now I’m not so sure, and it’s not like I’m being given a choice. I’m with the characters, in this roller coaster, twisting and winding along. No choice.

Also I’m the type of reader who, if the character is being kicked around too much, skips to the end to make sure it ends all right, then comes around to the scene again.

So, why would my own writing be different? Why is the character’s suffering oddly compelling? Will this make for a better book? Well, I hope so, though I can’t tell you for sure. And why do I do this? Can anyone tell me?

Crossposted at Mad Genius Club