Interrogating Jeanne again

I went back and had another conversation with Jeanne because I’m having trouble getting over the age difference:

“Jeanne, how do you feel about Josh?” I sipped my cup of coffee.

“You mean how should I feel about him, or how do I feel about him?” Jeanne looked at me, woman to woman, simpatico. Both of us wore summer clothes, and only those who knew us would recognize us as highly educated women.

“I need to know how you feel about him if I’m going to write this correctly.”

“He’s an impossibility. I’ve studied sociobiology, and everything I learned tells me that there’s no possibility our relationship should exist. I’m not of childbearing age, so he shouldn’t be attracted to me. He’s not a provider type – “

“Do you know that?” I asked.

“Guilty as charged. Let’s just say he’s a writer, and you should know by now that he’s never going to be rich.” Jeanne chuckled and set her cup down. “If the whole purpose of the human race is to provide another generation of humans …”

“But you don’t believe that,” I challenged Jeanne.

“First,” she emphasized, “I think sociobiology is garbage. The same sociobiologists who assume that the sole purpose of life is procreation assume all human enterprise – travel, art, architecture – exists so that the male of the species can attract the attention of a bed partner.”

“And you’re not waiting for some guy to write a sonnet for you.”

“Oh, God,” Jeanne lamented. “I’d love it if Josh wrote a sonnet for me. How far gone am I?”

“You tell me,” I grinned.

“As I said, Josh is impossible. He made the first move; did I tell you that? I’m sitting there with my computer, and suddenly, I look up and there’s Josh sitting across from me. With this grin and the hair falling in his eyes. I shouldn’t think this, but –”

“But?”

“I’ve never gone for the traditional. If I wanted a scientist, I’ve been surrounded by them for years. None of them have ever agreed with me – what a statement; they didn’t interest me, especially when they did the ‘Howdy little lady’ thing and told me why I should let the men take care of things. I think it made me more open-minded.”

“And?” I ask. I’m rather enjoying this.

“Josh isn’t typical. He’s not that warrior-hunter type sociobiology tends to promote. He’s bookish, so it’s wonderful to have conversations with him. He’s devoted to his aikido and his writing. He’s – well, he’s not a big guy. That may be an understatement; I don’t think he weighs 130 pounds. Okay, he’s absolutely beautiful, and it drives me crazy because I’m not exactly beautiful.”

“What does he think?” I probe.

“I don’t know. I don’t know if he knows it’s getting serious enough in my mind that I wish we were dating, with all that implies. He hugs me and I’m curious. I have no idea where he stands and I don’t want to scare him off.”

“So you’re going to wait for him to say something first.”

“I don’t know what else to do. I don’t want to be like a cougar or something, and – God, I think he’s a virgin.” Jeanne rubbed her forehead.

“Well, if he’s as bookish as you say he is, then I suspect you’re right. Is it that scary?”

“It’s a lot of responsibility.”

“It’s a lot of fun,” I shrug. We both break out laughing clandestinely, as if caught in something naughty.

Please weigh in

On the road again, this time to Omaha, NE to visit four interns. So I’m taking a break from the pig-wrestling that is Gaia’s Hands.

Part of the problem is, I think, that I’m not feeling the characters. They’re great characters, two oddballs who have managed to find each other despite an age difference and different worldviews. She’s a 50-year-old botanist who lives in the scientific world, and he’s a twenty-one year old writer who believes in spirits.

There’s a big taboo-breaker here; we as a society at least accept older men/younger woman relationships. We might be a teensy bit squeamish about the older man and the sweet young thing, but it’s a trope which is dismissed as understandable given the purported fragility of a male ego and the rich man’s ability to “purchase” youth and beauty. Reverse the genders and it’s unthinkable, the target of nervous laughter and prurient “hot for teacher” fantasies and protestations of how this is against nature because women look for strong males who can protect them … bullshit.

As my husband reminds me, I like to bust tropes all to hell. I also have a fascination with younger men, even though they do not have a fascination with me (that damned biology, I guess). But I’m struggling with the questions about Jeanne and Josh’s relationship:

Can Josh be mature for his age even though he hasn’t gotten into the workplace yet (and will likely go into grad school after he graduates)?
Will Jeanne have patience for Josh’s trajectory? (She doesn’t need him as a provider, but would want him to have self-determination)
Could Josh be attracted to the older, curvy, saggy Jeanne?
Could Jeanne be attracted to the younger, rather small-boned Josh?
Are Josh’s parents going to crap themselves if Josh brings home an older woman (they will) and will Josh care (probably not)?

In other words, can I make this believable? Please weigh in.

Hodge-podge of slop

I got my 30 hours in for Camp NaNo, but there’s still so much more to write/clean up for Gaia’s Hands. Every day, I think about what could be missing from the document:

Is there enough description?
Is Jeanne and Josh’s budding relationship going too slowly? Too quickly?
Are there enough female characters?
Should I have taken Annie Majors out when I took the Eric/Annie relationship out for being too complicating?
Is the danger ratcheting up enough?
Do I care about this book anymore?

Honestly, about the last point, I’m not feeling it at all. I feel like this is a hodge-podge of slop and I can’t figure out how to make it into a book.

Good wishes are welcome.

Avoidance

I’m getting avoidant toward Gaia’s Hands.

Honestly, every time I add something, I feel like I didn’t do enough, and I wrestle between going on and adding more plot and going back and adding more detail.

I think I need to do the former, because I need a whole book to react to. But it doesn’t feel rewarding, just a long slog with no cookies at the end of the day.

I’d drop it entirely, but I’m in the middle of Camp NaNo, and I have six hours left to write till goal. I’ve only lost a NaNo once, and that was when Trump got elected.

So I’m going to have to go on and write, with hopefully an aha reaction with my characters today.

Mud-wrestling a pig

I took a break from Gaia’s Hands yesterday to prepare query materials for Apocalypse. Not so much because I’m ready to query Apocalypse as much as I’m at my wits end trying to fix Gaia’s Hands.

I probably wouldn’t bother at all, just relegate Gaia’s Hands to the “lessons learned” pile were it not for the fact that it’s a prequel to Apocalypse, and I think I can get Apocalypse out there.

Gaia’s Hands is a smaller story, dealing with corporate greed and sticking to one’s convictions — and a Goddess, of course. But editing it feels like mud-wrestling a pig, and the pig is winning.

optimism and waiting

Apocalypse is ready for querying, but I’m going to sit on it for a while, until I know what’s happening with Prodigies. If Prodigies gets accepted by either DAW or the remaining agent on my list, it changes the whole dynamic.

I’m thinking positive. My good Germanic role models on my mother’s side of the family would discourage my positive thinking. The Koenig family motto is “Don’t look forward to anything; you might be disappointed.” The problem with this, though, is that all that time I’m not looking forward to a positive outcome doesn’t make the rejection any easier, and in fact, prolongs the misery.

Optimism always makes me worry that I might be hypomanic; as someone with Bipolar 2, this is not an idle worry. But I’m not being kept awake by disparate thoughts linking with each other like boxcars in a railyard, so maybe this is true optimism.

So I wait.

An excerpt from Gaia’s Hands

I am getting so tired of editing.

That’s all I’ve been doing this summer — editing/rewriting whole novels, starting with Apocalypse (almost ready for querying) and continuing with Gaia’s Hands (my current source of despair). But it’s between that and putting them in a drawer somewhere, and I think that, now that I have a sense of what the novels need, they deserve the second (actually fifth) chance.

When I started writing, I thought that my first draft was the final product, which was my honor-student hubris speaking. Those rejections were the best thing to happen to me, because they made me work harder and learn more.

That being said, it’s time to go back to editing Gaia’s Hands. My commitment to Camp NaNo is one hour per day, but I’ve been doing two just to be safe.

********************

Now, an excerpt:

On Wednesday, Jeanne arrived at her office after her 11:00 class to find Dean Davidson, who she had previously only met at college meetings, standing at her office door with two other men. All wore bespoke suits that probably cost as much as her monthly salary.
“Jeanne,” Dr. Davidson said in his light, cultured voice as he stood at her office door with two other men. “This is Jack White, the Chief Financial Officer of Growesta — “ Jeanne shook hands with a middle-aged man with silver hair and a tan — “and Enzo Patricelli, Board of Directors.”

Jeanne shook Patricelli’s hand. His eyes, ice blue in a pale, strikingly handsome face, held eye contact for a hair more than was polite, and Jeanne wondered if he was from another country. He seemed foreign to her with his auburn hair falling just a little too long for Corporate America, and a slightly stiff manner about him. Austere, even chilly, but handsome in a compelling way. Jeanne wondered what his role in the proposal would be.

They discussed nothing significant on the trip to the steakhouse, nor did Jeanne expect to. Nor did they talk over the dinner of steak and potatoes. True to what she suspected, the men served the proposal with dessert and coffee.

“Jeanne,” Dr. Davidson led the gambit, sipping his coffee, “I understand you’re applying to become a full professor this fall.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Jeanne said. “I have my materials together; you should receive them for review the first of August.” She remembered the earlier hints Davidson had dropped.

“I’ve noticed you haven’t brought any grants into the department lately,” Davidson replied.

Jeanne felt herself tense up, her hands flatten on the table. She took a deep breath. “I received a grant two years ago, a sizeable grant from the National Science Foundation.”

“Still,” Davidson said. “I believe we can offer an opportunity that would not only fund your research, but would vastly improve your changes of promotion.”

“Okay,” Jeanne said, knowing she sounded tactless, “tell me about it.”

“Well,” Jack White began, “Growesta is reaching out to make connections with promising faculty in various agricultural institutions, and we decided to start here at home. We at Growesta have been following your career with interest. You have an excellent track record in research with your — uh — Jeannie Bean. You have media exposure in the Chicago market talking about your research, and you come off with integrity, all things we’d like to capture.”

Capture. Jeanne hoped that was an unfortunate choice of words. “So what is it you’re offering?”

“We’d like to invite you into a collaboration with us where you could help us promote new varieties of beans for the agricultural market. You’re known for your work with beans.”

Jeanne took a deep breath. “You’ve looked at my work. I bred a perennial bean for larger bean size to make it more interesting to a consumer market. These beans were developed to be planted within the context of permaculture gardens, which are by definition organic. Are you offering an opportunity for me to work with you on promoting beans for organic applications?“

“We aren’t pursuing organic strategies at this time,” White replied. “But someday, I suppose, we may get to that point. We want you to promote our herbicide-ready products to the public, who has become increasingly distrustful of our products. You have captured the imagination of — of at least the marketing department at the University, and the regional media as well, as is evidenced by your interviews with Chicago-area stations. We would like to have you speak for us.”

“But my research — “ Jeanne stammered. “It’s not —”

“I know what your research has been,” Dean Davidson interrupted smoothly, “and it has been excellent research. But look at the opportunties here. We’re talking about money for you to continue your research, which we will treat as a grant for the purpose of your portfolio and taxes. Upward of $50,000 a year. And this should pretty much guarantee your promotion to full professor.”

That money would fund a lot of research, Jeanne considered. But tenure … “You can’t guarantee me full professorship.”

“You would be surprised,” Patricelli spoke for the first time, in clipped words. “Corporate dollars go far into greasing the wheels of the college administration.” In his words, Jeanne heard promise — and warning.

“I don’t know,” Jeanne nearly stammered, meeting Patricelli’s eyes in their icy regard. “Please let me consider this offer.”

“Okay,” White said. “But we can’t wait for too long. The ad campaign would need to be drawn up soon.”

Ugh

Back home. I’m staying home to write today because I’m feeling under the weather — but not enough under the weather to not make my two hours writing for Camp NaNo.

My head feels like two gerbils are nesting in it. My tummy feels like — oh, how novel. I have food poisoning from the suspect sushi I ate yesterday.

Writing will be postponed.

Strange activity on the blog

Occasionally, my blog will get bursts of energy, with several countries visiting all at once — a bouquet of visitors from Japan and Ukraine and Moldova and Sweden and Moldova. All on the same type of browser. All reading the same note — which is not the current post. Usually a day or two after I’ve last posted on a slow post week.

The most obvious solution is that my post count has been increased by a bot, probably one that can spoof countries. But why? Why bother spoofing different countries? Why bother actually connecting to a post? (I’ve noticed times when my hit count has increased with no specific blog posts hit). It doesn’t seem to be an effort to disseminate porn links (which happens now and again). If it’s a DDOS attack — well, it’s too modest for a DDOS attack.

The only thing I can think of is that something or someone is trying to inflate my reader numbers. Thanks, I think.

*************
Today I’m at the Graduate Hotel in Iowa City, IA, home of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop (the ranks of which are too rarefied for me). Here’s a picture, apropos of Gaia’s Hands:

Writing in Beaver Dam WI

Another day at Higher Grounds in Beaver Dam having just finished another three hours of writing. I’m at 14 hours out of 30 for Camp NaNo July, and I’m at least getting more words for Gaia’s Hands. I think it’s going to go through another dev edit because it deserves it and it’s now a much different book.

Richard has just gone through a line edit of Apocalypse, which means a couple fixes and it’s ready to go into Query Mode. It’s a very different book than the one that failed in querying. I think I’ve grown a lot from when that was the second (and third) book I’ve written.

One thing I’ve discovered: Nobody’s impressed that I’m a writer. I’m secretly amused by this, because there’s this part of me who dreams of impressing people. In reality, it’s “Oh, you’re a writer? You’re not published yet? Have you tried children’s books?” I have nothing bad to say about children’s books, but unless they involve ancient lore, preternatural bad guys, and the reincarnation of King — Oh, sorry, that’s Susan Cooper’s Dark is Rising sequence. Loved that stuff.

I stay optimistic, maybe because I’ve won one short story contest and been a runner-up in another. (I’ve been rejected by three times this many zines and contests, though).