Fair Warning

I seem to be doing a lifo system with livejournal posts, mentally last in first out. Anyway, last night it hit me that I'm pretty scared of finishing this book, or rather these books. I've been working on Thermionic Night and Sampo in some form for years now. Books have not taken me years before. I have taken breaks to write other books in the middle of this mess. These books have stuck with me. And I can see the end from here. The tunnel has a big, bright light at the end of it.

Of course, there'll still be Midnight Sun Rising when they're done, but as I said last night when I was talking about glaciers in my head, MSR feels distinct from them. It has different main characters and is set in 1997 instead of the 1950s. And it's more of a road trip book, whereas very few people get to go anywhere in the first two, and I think it might stand all right alone, and...hmm.

And here's where we get into the workings of the Mrissa brain, because I write on an Arctic Circle sort of mindset. I have Long Night Brain books and I have Midnight Sun Brain books. Appropriately enough, TN and Sampo are the former and MSR is the latter. (Fortress of Thorns is a Midnight Sun Brain book. The Grey Road is a Long Night Brain book.) So what this means is that I've been at least partially wallowing in Long Night Brain for years now.

I think it's going to be a little painful to come blinking out of it, even though Dwarf's Blood Mead and The Worldbuilders were definitely Midnight Sun Brain books. So what I'm saying here is please, please be nice to the Mrissa when it's done. I'm going to be elated when I finish this draft, and then after that I think the rebound is going to be fairly hard. Give me cuddles or take me for coffee or pet my hair and tell me how much edits can fix. Or write me e-mail or something. Be prepared for neurotic mopery. I'll do my part by trying to minimize the neurotic mopery and by being nice right back. But I'm just saying: Long Night Brain for three years. Not what we call easy to get out of.

I'm spooked about finishing this book, as I said. So the logical thing to do is sit down and work on it some more. So I will.

Two weeks

Who's going to WorldCon this year? When and where will I see you? Are you overscheduled or free as the proverbial breeze?

I know some of you are going, but remind me anyway, particularly on the "seeing you" thing and the "scheduled" thing.

I will be there from Tuesday before to Wednesday after. We will do other Boston things in that time, most likely, but if you're going to be hard to get ahold of, I'd like to put in those of you who are big rocks first and then let those of you who are handfuls of sand like myself (or gold dust, if you like) fill in around it.

Old

Last week, C.J. and I were talking about his dad, who is 60, and how when his dad was born, 60 was probably old. We marveled. I asked Grandpa Lyzenga, and he said yep, when he was in his mid-teens, 60 was definitely old. But Ray (C.J.'s dad) is definitely not old. Definitely middle-aged. People talk about feeling mentally younger than they are, but it's got to be strange to have the definitions receding before you as you get there -- especially to have them receding fairly close before you.

Ever since he turned 70, my grandpa has been telling me that when he was my age, he never expected to get to be his age. Since he was not just a member of a previous generation but also a Marine, I have no reason to think he's exaggerating. And yet when people said that Mark's grandma had lived a long, full life, I was only willing to give them "full" in my own head. She was not yet 80. I have expectations of how long I should get to keep people, and the lower bound on them is 90. I've lost loved ones before their 90th birthdays -- several times -- but it's always a shock and an affront. And I think it should be. Medicine has improved, dammit. I should get to keep my people.

I don't know how my mom would feel about me telling this story on her, but I don't think it's a bad one, so I'm going to go ahead. Last year she was walking to her car from some store or another, dressed for work in flowy dress-casual clothes. And some guy pulled up and said to her, "I don't want to seem like a creep, but I just wanted to tell you that you are still very attractive for a woman of our age." She told my dad and me this story, and Dad was annoyed, and I was infuriated. "'For a woman of your age!'" I spat. "He had a lot of nerve, 'for a woman of your age!' Lucky I wasn't there. I'd have told him!" My momma turned 50 this May, and my momma is pretty for a person, for a woman, and women of whatever age would be very lucky if they looked like my momma, thankyaverymuch. (The best picture for me is the one towards the bottom, where she's goofing with her slippers. Because she's having fun.)

Mom was a little bemused by my reaction. "He was trying to be nice," she said. I said, "Next time he should try harder, then!" And Dad and I both went around muttering, and Mom looked at us like we'd lost our minds.

I know this guy wasn't the enemy, but good heavens, what an idiot.

timprov and I tease markgritter that he's old, and every year when I pass T up again he teases me that I'm getting old. But honest-to-goodness old? My grandparents just started to get to that. They're still learning how. I hope they have a long time to get it right, but they're quite new to it in the last few years. It's good on them. They're doing well with it so far. But Grandpa is 76, and he's just started being old. And when my friends tell me how long "people" live, I can't help but wonder how many times their definition is going to change before they're done.