Woke up before sunrise

Ghastly. My body has adapted to my work schedule and I even wake up before sunrise on Sunday. This is the first weekend I've had in ages that didn't have a stack of duties and chores to accomplish and so I'm back to writing.

'Death by Misfortune' is in the hands of the editors. I'm slogging away at several others. I was working on a Humboldt murder mystery until it hit a plot snag, so I ran off to work on the sequel to Son of a Gun which may have been bumped in the queue since I now know how it's going to end and who-done-it. Here is my sort of plan for the next six months or so of writing: (subject to change without notice, given the nature of post production)

"If Not for You" a Humboldt Murder Mystery
"The Unmapped Country" sequel to 'Son of a Gun'
"Elves, Inc." A Hollywood Faerie Tale
"Till Death Us Do Part" and "I HEART Dead Things" sequels to "No Rest for the Wicked" and "Death by Misfortune" respectively are in that rudimentary state which defies end dates and projected pub dates.

Those are the five on my desktop every morning and evening and that I carry on a flash drive to work on in lulls during the day.

Every single one of them is in that horrible soupy embryonic state that is so hard to work on. Only the memory of having been in this same damned place with my other books keeps me going.

Meanwhile I'm reading up a storm. I've sort of ended my Marion Zimmer Bradley obsession for the moment and am well into Holly Black.

In which I babble about things I should probably not...

This is one of those opinionated, political diatribes that I perhaps should not post. It makes me feel a little better, so just scroll on by if you become uncomfortable when writers of fiction spew their opinions all over the net.

I saw this today online, in response to the anniversary of 911, and it just blew my mind:

Today I went to the food market and as I was walking into the store I saw a women dressed from head to toe in a full black dress. Only her eyes were showing. I was so amazed I couldn't even breathe. I felt violated and wanted to scream. She must of went to the store fully covered to insult us and show she has the right to be what she is. A full covered slave for her man with no rights. I was so upset as a American and a women seeing a women in this country dressed like this. She does has the right to look like this but why does she come to this country and stay in her own.

We here as women enjoy our freedom and have rights. Why would you come here and choose to continue wearing clothing that means you are not treated as a equal as your husband. Does he cover from head to toe.
Well, I just froze and let her go to her car. However, we American's are
free and do allow other's to be free. However, I thought of a bomb being hidden under her black slavery outfit. I was ready to act. So let me say
you women can wear these horrible clothes to reflect women without rights in your home but I was ready to drop her if she tryed anything. I would give my life to stop these people from enslaving other humans. So wear your clothes even though you don't have but if you think for one moment that you can ever take over our country. Think again. I was ready to take you out without even thinking twice if I had to. I never thought Like this before. But I looked at wear you were going and watched your every step to your car. I am surprised you were able to drive. Lose the clothes or go back to your country and be a sexual slave to your husband there. Don't spread that hate here. We do not want you here. Go home. you make me sick.

Okay I am not reprinting this to mock this woman, or to revile her. I actually was awestruck. What blew my mind was the heartfelt emotion in her comment. It comes through, past the mispellings and grammatical errors, this fervent, deeply felt honest emotion. So much agony. So much anger and fear. Why?

Imagine the woman who has to go to a grocery store and be stared at by people like this writer "I thought of a bomb being hidden under her black slavery outfit" every day. Imagine living like that.

Imagine growing up 'in the land of the free and the home of the brave' and being LOOKED at like that.

This is going to ruin the entire premise upon which our Bill of Rights was written.

The line that stood out for me was "Don't spread that hate here." and all I could think was, obviously, there is no need to spread hate. It's been spread plenty thick already.

I won't give out the link. I don't want anyone going to this woman's location and blasting her verbally. What I do wonder is what is happening here? Where is this agonized diatribe coming from? What button is being pushed and who planted that button there? And, most importantly, what can we do to heal these people?

Yes, I'm still here.

My absolutely most favorite cover ever. Just thought I'd share it.

And a Kurt Vonnegut quote:

• Well, I've worried some about, you know, why write books ... why are we teaching people to write books when presidents and senators do not read them, and generals do not read them. And it's been the university experience that taught me that there is a very good reason, that you catch people before they become generals and presidents and so forth and you poison their minds with ... humanity, and however you want to poison their minds, it's presumably to encourage them to make a better world.
  • "A Talk with Kurt Vonnegut. Jr." by Robert Scholes in The Vonnegut Statement (1973) edited by Jerome Klinkowitz and John Somer October 1966), later published in Conversations With Kurt Vonnegut (1988), p. 123

Don't know why that quote and this cover appealed to me simultaneously at 6 am on a Wednesday morning, but there you are.