The autobiographical nature of fiction

The characters I write do not share my politics. You generally can't infer what I think on specific subjects based upon what my characters think and do.

For instance, I have lots of witches (some Wiccan), Catholics, Muslims, and characters of various other faiths in my books. But I'm not spiritual, personally.

A disproportionate number of my characters have zero interest in children or babies. See: Elise, Betty, and James for starters--not to mention the teenage characters in Six Moon Summer, to whom the idea of babies would be pretty ridic. I, however, am a baby-crazy fiend who is obsessed with fertility, pregnancy, and lactation. Seriously, you would be astounded and probably grossed out about all the things I can tell you about cervical fluid.

I am also a card-carrying hippie. I believe love and pacifism are the way to go, ideally. But you can barely go two pages in one of my books without someone getting punched in the face or stabbed.

So generally, my characters aren't anything like me.

But my books are still pretty much autobiographies. (Bare with me here!)

I was an awkward teenager. Pretty much until my eighteenth birthday, I was unreasonably immature, sheltered, and averse to anything that might actually make me look good. Zero fashion sense. Zero social grace.

Then my eighteenth birthday happened, and everything changed. It's kinda crazy how abrupt the shift was--one day, I was that fat girl in class that made weird laughing noises, and the next, I'd lost fifty pounds and gained self-confidence and people actually flirted with me once in awhile. My whole life changed.

In many ways, Six Moon Summer is the story of that change. I actually lost the weight when I was fifteen years old -- the same age as Rylie in the beginning -- and began this crazy transition from girl to woman. It was a heck of a ride. At no point did I turn into a furry wolf and eat a lot of innocent goats and deer, but I did find my self-identity, find love, and find adulthood.

Death's Hand and the other Elise books tell a different part of my life's story, though still very focused on my adolescence. (I'm only 24. Cut me some slack. I don't have a lot of life to write about yet.)

For all four years of high school, I was the only girl in my 3D computer graphic design class. In my senior year, I was one of two girls in a construction technology class. When I graduated, I promptly got a government IT job where I was -- you guessed it -- the only female-bodied person in the department.

Is it any wonder that I write about Elise, who is one of the only female demon hunters in the world?

I finished the rough draft of Damnation Marked tonight. Scrolling back through the chapters, I can see that this is pretty much the darkest book I've ever written -- even darker than Long Night Moon, which was preeeetty dark. It's all angst and suckitude and getting kicked in the face for Elise and company. I wrote 80% of the book in two of the worst weeks of depression I've ever had, so I guess that's no surprise. There's a lot of shadow, a lot of death, and a lot of misery. It's an almost exact mirror for my mood as I wrote it.

There's a lot more nuance than what I've mentioned above, but I hate to get too detailed. Nobody wants to hear me ruminate about my experiences with gender identity and sexuality as a teenager, or how I interpreted that through the lens of genre fiction, that's for sure. ;)

But it's really interesting to think of how life and art reflect each other -- even when that's not what we set out to do.

Writer friends--do your books reflect your life? Reader friends--do you think you can you tell what a writer is like by reading their books?

Damnation Marked blurb and cover!

There's something in the earth deep below Elise Kavanagh's territory. A shadow is falling upon local demons to devour their flesh and harvest their souls.

And it's coming for Elise next.

The Union has an easy way out. They want to send Elise into hiding again with her former partner, James Faulkner. All she has to do is surrender the territory and trust that they can protect the ethereal ruins, the dark gates, and the city she's come to know as home.

Greater powers have other plans for Elise and her fabled power as Godslayer--plans that mean surrendering her life and blood to the most powerful demon alive. But if she descends, there's no turning back. Once she gazes into the abyss, it will gaze back into her... and Elise will be damned forever.

You know what this means, guys. :) Damnation Marked is coming soon! Just about a month away!

I'm wrapping up the first draft now, and it's already partially edited (I'm kinda doing things in pieces this time so I can finish it more quickly; I have other urgent things I really have to do soon). I have a spot reserved with my copy editor for mid-September, and she's a speedy beaver, so this will probably be available at the end of September (proofreaders willing!).

So! Mark your calendars. Damnation Marked. September 27th. (Probably.)

If you would like a review copy of this book as soon as it's ready, fill out the form over here. You'll get it AFTER major edits but BEFORE proofreading, which means there will be smatterings of typos and other lovely icky things that most people don't get to see. ;) All I ask is that you add your review to Amazon as soon as you finish. Easy peasy!

Excerpt from Damnation Marked

I feel like blogging, but I don't feel like blogging. Does that make any sense? (Answer: No.) So instead of coming up with something to talk about, I'm going to share an excerpt from early in Damnation Marked. This book's getting pretty close to wrapping up--I'm very excited for you guys to read it. :D But until then, here you go. Enjoy!

July 1998

Piotr Blodnieks did not look like he was the best at anything. He had a tiny beard under his bottom lip that resembled a paintbrush, a gentle smile, and soft features. His narrow shoulders and sharp joints made him look awkwardly gangly instead of lean and fast. At twenty-one years old, he hadn’t yet grown into his adult muscles.

Speaking to him didn’t give a much better impression: he was a polite, quiet young man who was shy to make friends and seemed to prefer a good book to a fistfight.

Regardless of appearance, Piotr’s name was stamped on Hell’s history books as the greatest living kopis. His name was widely whispered in the night by fearful demons. He was best known for singlehandedly slaughtering a centuria of demons in the Ukraine. And nobody would ever know it by looking at him.

Nobody aside from the dozen kopides he had just beat in a sparring match, anyway.

Hamengku groaned on the ground, cradling his shattered knee, while Piotr wiped blood off his hands with a white towel. Despite having spent the previous three hours fighting, he wasn’t even winded, and only had two bruises. Both of them were from having punched someone else.

“Will he be okay?” Piotr asked his friend, Malcolm, in Russian.

Malcolm helped Hamengku to the sidelines. “Oh, certainly, given a couple weeks of healing.” He switched to his native English. “Isn’t that right?” The loser glared at him without a hint of understanding in his eyes. Most people waiting around the fighting ring didn’t share a common language. “Right! No hard feelings, then? Who’s next up against Piotr?”

The dozen kopides who had lost their sparring matches muttered among themselves. The men still standing only exchanged looks.

Two weeks prior, they had all been summoned to an empty warehouse in Wales by a delegate from the Council of Dis. Over three hundred invitations were sent out, but only the thirty men currently standing in the building had responded, either because it was a convenient distance from their territories, or because they considered the potential honor of being the next greatest kopis worth the time it took to get there.

But nobody could defeat Piotr. He was, in Malcolm’s words, “a bloody machine.” The Council’s delegate—a petite witch with curly black hair—supervised the fight from her seat on a nearby crate, taking notes on the outcomes of each match, and she was rapidly growing bored.

She wasn’t the only getting antsy. The shared bravado in the room rapidly dwindled as Piotr felled one kopis after another.

“Oh, fine. Let me try,” said a man named Brandon when his friend, Shawn, nudged him forward.

They cleared the floor of the warehouse again. Malcolm mopped up a puddle of sweat with a bloody towel, then stood back.

Piotr and Brandon exchanged blows. The air filled with the sounds of knuckles meeting face.

Malcolm hollered, and his cheers encouraged the others to join him.

Nobody noticed a door at the back of the warehouse open, or the two people who entered and took position at the back of the crowd.

The fight between the kopides was short. Brandon didn’t allow himself get knocked out. After a few minutes, he backed off with blood streaming from a cut in his forehead, and held up his hands to indicate that he was done.

The other men booed.

“You’re too fast, man,” he said. “I’ve got to catch a flight tonight. I don’t want a concussion.”

Piotr gave a confused look to Malcolm, who translated. “Looks like you’re stuck being undefeated, mate. Nobody’s going to win against you. Best hope you’re immortal, eh?” He laughed and clapped the greatest kopis on the shoulder. “It’s hard being at the top!”

A quiet, confident voice broke through the laughter. “I’ll fight him.”

One by one, the kopides turned around to search for the speaker, and their eyes fell on the pair at the back.

The first was a man over six feet tall, dark-haired and blue-eyed, who looked like he would have preferred to be anywhere except the warehouse. Stubble shadowed his jaw. He rubbed his hand over his eyes with a low groan.

His companion was a full head and shoulders shorter. Her body had the lean lines of adolescence, aside from thighs thick with muscle, and a bandaged knee. Her red-brown hair was chopped so short that she would have passed for a boy if not for the curve of breasts under her baggy vest.

She was also, clearly and undeniably, the one who had spoken. She was the only woman in the room aside from the Council’s witch.

Malcolm laughed. “Aspides don’t fight.”

The girl pulled off one of her motorcycle gloves and bandaged the knuckles without responding.

“She’s not an aspis, you idiot. Does she look like a witch?” snapped the man at her back. He raked a hand through his hair. “Dear Lord, Elise, do you really think…”

Piotr came to stand beside Malcolm, as did Brandon, and Shawn. They formed a wall of muscular bodies. The tall man trailed off.

“Human girls aren’t eligible for these fights, either,” Malcolm said.

That failed to provoke a reaction from the girl called Elise. She pulled off her other glove and also bandaged that hand.

“You really don’t need to do this,” muttered the tall man. “In fact, I really think it would be best if you didn’t.”

The look she gave him dripped with hatred and disdain. Then she returned her attention to the kopides in the circle, her eyes flicking from one body to the next, and she planted her hands on her hips. Her biceps were almost as well-defined as the line of abs that peeked over her jeans.

“I’ll take all of you.”

The men laughed, but it was getting a little uneasy.

“What’s going on?” Piotr asked in Russian.

Malcolm’s humor had dropped off a degree when he realized she wasn’t joking. “I think she’s a kopis. She wants to fight you.” He switched back to English. “You realize what you’re volunteering for, right?”

She gave a sharp nod and stepped into the ring.

Piotr surveyed her as she lifted her fists and spread her feet into a wide stance.

“I’ll fight,” he finally said.

---

This will be probably be available next month. End of September. I don't want to get too specific on dates yet, but... 28th-ish? As always, if you want to be among the first to know when it's released, make sure to enlist in the Army of Evil!

A slightly more natural life. Maybe?

My life is just full of change this year. Not only am I finally on anti-depressants (and grateful for all your support, even if I have a hard time saying it), as well as four good months into self-employment as a full-time writer, I have also done two other big things:

1. I use baking soda and white vinegar for everything in my house. EVERYTHING.
2. I've stopped eating sugar.

Let me hit on those one at a time.

First of all, did you know you can do just about anything with baking soda and vinegar? It's true! I use them to clean my counters and floors, I use them instead of soap in my washing machine (especially when the cloth diapers need to be stripped--yuck), and the REALLY BIG WEIRD ONE is that I am also using baking soda instead of shampoo.

That's right. I haven't shampooed my hair once in the last three months. I only wash my hair once or twice a week, and I just use a little bit of baking soda rubbed into my scalp.

Surprisingly, my hair quality has drastically improved. My hair is very dense, but fragile and fine; chemicals wreak havoc on it. When I shampooed/conditioned every day, I always looked greasy and gross, and my hair was impossible to style. Uh, not that I style my hair. I'm way too lazy for that.

Skipping the shampoo means my natural oils have a chance to shine, in a good way! And it's pretty much the most awesome thing I've ever done. I don't have to shower as frequently. (Very convenient, when one's toddler is in that "I MUST HELP YOU WITH EVERYTHING ESPECIALLY PERSONAL HYGIENE" phase, as mine is right now.) Saving money is pretty sweet, too.

I do use it as an excuse to go loooong periods of time without showering, though, what with all the laziness. My poor husband. Good thing the Helpful Toddler doesn't seem to notice I reek.

You can learn more about going no shampoo and how it works with your type of hair here: http://noshampoo.org/ (They recommend apple cider vinegar for the conditioning. I just don't use it at all.)

But I think I like using it as a cleaning solution even better. I am paranoid, and having toxic chemicals under my sink scares the crap out of me when my son is clever enough to circumvent baby locks. Being able to fill a squirt bottle with white vinegar and tea tree oil (which is an anti-fungal) and use that for everything--seriously, everything--is a nice, non-toxic way of cleaning up those poopy cat butt smears. Because sometimes, the kitties just can't resist the urge to drag their tushies across my dining room floor.

You guys are SO lucky you're cute.

The second thing is that I've cut out sugar. Actually, almost all carbohydrates. I still eat lots of veggies, so long as they grow above ground (especially the leafy green ones), and low-sugar fruits like avocado and a little tomato, but no wheat or grains or refined sugars. No bananas or apples and suchlike, either.

Why? Well, my body mysteriously decided that it hated sugar a few weeks ago. I suddenly ballooned and felt horrible. You don't need the details, but trust me when I say that the gastrointestinal situation was... no bueno. Muy, muy no bueno.

I've felt tons better since I cut out carbohydrates (less than 30g a day, not counting fiber). No more blood sugar swings, no more bloat, and I've lost about 8-10 pounds. Plus, I never seem to get hungry anymore.

I'm not going to lie--the first week of no-carbing sucked. I was exhausted and foggy. I napped with the baby every day and got nothing done.  But ever since I adjusted, I have felt so much better. I don't really miss the sugary stuff all that much, since I'm eating tons of baked avocado, bacon and eggs, chicken thighs, leafy green salads, and nuts/cheese.

And oh man. Lattes made with heavy whipping cream? Dangerously delicious.

So that's life right now. I guess I'm trying to make things a little more natural--or at least, a little less processed. Lots of cooking at home. I make my own cleaning fluids and shampoo substitute. My son waddles around with mooshy cloth diaper butt. I might as well grow some awesome dreads and wear tie-dye shirts everywhere.

My son is way ahead of me on that.

This is my current favorite low carb recipe:

BAKED AVOCADO

Big avocado

Sour cream

Bacon

Olive oil

Salt

Some of your favorite cheese

Cut the avocado in half, rub with olive oil and salt, and bake in the oven until hot and tender. (You want temperatures? Pfft. We don't need no stinking temperatures.) Cook the bacon until it's crispy. Add cheese to the avocado and keep baking until it melts. Then add a dollop of sour cream to each half, crumble the bacon on top, and share with your spouse. If he deserves it.

Have you been getting into lifestyle au naturale at all? Got any good recipes for me?

Baby steps

It only took me a few months, but I finally saw my doctor about the problems I'm having with depression. Things haven't improved since the last time I blogged about it, I'm afraid. Despite my determination to get treatment, it's so hard to find the strength to do it--when I'm feeling crappy, there's no way I can pick up the phone; when I feel fine, I don't know why I would even want to.

But I did see my doctor. And what an interesting experience that was.

I described the problems I'm having: Forgetting everything. Inability to keep up on commitments. Overwhelmed by trying to take care of my toddler. Crying jags. Losing track of time. Major irritability. Lack of desire to spend time with family and friends. Living life in a fog.

He was very sympathetic and was willing to manage treatment himself (which helps a ton, because I can't keep up on therapist/psychologist/whatever appointments). We agreed to start a low dose of anti-depressants and see how that goes. He warned me that anti-depressants would be likely to have unwanted side-effects.

Which is when things got a little... weird.

I explained that my income is dependent on my ability to function creatively, and if there was a medication less likely to impact that, I would prefer to try it first.

He said, "Just a moment. I'm going to do a little intuitive thing."

My doctor turned to face a Native American wall-hanging, made some hand gestures (which I couldn't see around his back), and seemed to confer with his spirit animal. I think.

Then he turned around and suggested a very low dose of Prozac.

You can't make this stuff up.

I agreed with the coyote spirit and my doctor's suggestion, so now I have a prescription, and I'm about to embark on treatment. I'm optimistic. I have a great support system, a wonderful husband, and general good health. I think I can beat this with a little help for my poor, suffering brain chemistry.

He's also prescribed a half hour of walking with my family every morning, which he says will do much more for my depression than drugs could. He's probably right, but that one's going to be a LOT harder.

Anyway, I'm hoping to be semi-functioning again soon, even if I'm looking forward to about a week of fatigue as my body adjusts to new medication. Everybody has been really sympathetic and helpful during this time. I Can Do This. (I'm mostly optimistic right this second because I have a sugar-free vanilla latte made with heavy whipping cream, which always makes me cheery.)

What strikes me as strangest about this whole experience is how surprised people look when I mention The Depression Thing. "I never would have guessed you're having problems," they tell me. (I've heard this from a dozen people.) "You seem so confident and driven."

I don't really know what people expect out of a depressed person. I feel like I'm dragging a ten ton weight everywhere I go. I look at things and I don't really see them. It's difficult to describe--it's like sensations come in and go right out again without "sticking." I don't enjoy anything, aside from this delicious latte. I deal with a constant internal litany of "you suck, self" (I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm unpleasant to be around, my writing sucks, my sales suck, why does anyone ever want to deal with me). Life feels so goddamn *dark* right now, like there's never light, and I am so horribly miserable, and I don't know why nobody can *see* that.

But it's a pretty invisible disease. Outwardly, I appear to function. I take my son to the children's museum. I write. People talk to me, and I smile at them. All this darkness hides under my skin

Hopefully, Prozac and exercise will remedy that. And hopefully it won't take my ability to be creative with it.