So yesterday I bought a house.

And I only hyperventilated a teensy bit.

I thought I was being ridiculous until at least 30 people representing EVERY SINGLE major stage of my life (childhood, summer school, college, Spain, grad school, Louisiana) got in touch to inform me that my buying a house symbolized to them the fact we have gotten OLD.

None of which made the urge to hyperventilate get any better.

So I’m coping the only way I know how: by sublimating my feelings into action. It’s awesomely effective, just don’t tell a therapist. And because I’m generous like that, I thought I’d share my method.
Wanna hear it? Here it goes.

DR. PEELER’S SORT OF NOT REALLY (AT ALL) PATENTED TEN-STEP PROGRAM  TO COPE WITH A SUDDEN FEELING THAT YOU’RE TRAPPED, BUT IN A GOOD WAY, AND YOU’RE GOING TO CALL IT “NESTING” TILL YOU CAN BREATHE AGAIN:

1. Buy a shit ton of Swiffer products. They’re disposable! Unlike your new life.
2. Throw out a ton of stuff because YOU ARE NOT WEIGHTED DOWN, YOU ARE STILL LIGHT AND FREE. Also, what the fuck were you thinking, buying not one, but THREE cans of haggis??? Blame Heather Osborn and Jungle Jim’s! Oh, and senility. Because you’re OLD.
3. Drink
4. Go to Home Depot and look at paint chips. Because you’ll be able to paint stuff! And paint can always be repainted. Just like houses can be sold. And just like you can go back to being twenty-one and peripatetic! Oh, wait, you can’t. You’re old. You also hate painting.
5. Drink!
6. Call all your way cooler friends who are undoubtedly AT THIS MOMENT planning to go clubbing, or climb some mountain, or move to Paris. Only to find they’re napping. Because y’all are OLD.
7. Pack up some boxes with mementos from the admittedly pretty amazing life you’ve led so far, only to find that they’re showing distinct signs of AGING. Aging just like you. You and all your once super-rad friends. Who are now old, as you are old. And can’t talk you down because they’re napping.
8. Call your mom, who tells you to suck it up, that you are old. And to go have a drink.
9. Take mom’s advice.
10. Finally, the number one top tip for coping is to do just that–cope. And not just cope, to realize how awesome this whole scenario is. That after all these years you’re chums with someone who still calls you Nyx from  when you tried to reinvent yourself at a distant summer school, age sixteen. That you’re still close to your BFF from elementary school, and you regularly hear from the girls you got drunk with on your first night in Spain, when you accidentally (and repeatedly) told the taxi drive you were horny instead of hot. That you’ve got this crazy-ass global tribe that now includes all these people you’ve met as a writer, who get you in a way no one else ever has. That understand the part of you who is always dreaming; the part that makes up whole stories about every single person you meet in which they’re secret uni-cycling spies (the deadliest spy imaginable) or itinerant narwhal trainers; the part that is always a little bit disappointed in this world because the one in your mind is so much more colorful. Oh, and you have readers, because you wrote books, books you never thought you’d write but that came out of your heart and your weird little brain and that people read and tell you mattered to them.  Books that helped pay for the house you’re going to move into, and that will help pay for your new patio you’re planning, and the lady-leading-praying-mantis-on-a-leash wallpaper you want for the dining room (the theme for your new home will be Fucked Up Victorian-Goth, just an FYI). Books that you hold sometimes in a creepy way, like they’re your children, but that’s sort of how how you feel about them even though you know that’s another thing you shouldn’t mention to a therapist. Basically, realize that you’re an insanely lucky girl and that this is an opportunity, not an anchor weighing you down. A chance to build–to build a home, a whole house of your own (mere rooms of one’s own are so 1920s!) in which you can write, and dream, and love. A place where you can thank your friends, both old and new–by cooking them dinner, or inventing a new world for them to escape into, or just having them over when they, too, need a little help coping.

Or you can just write weird, Bob Dole style third person accounts of your own feelings, because that’s cheaper than a therapist.

Basically what I’m trying to say is thanks for being there for me, folks. And thanks for being there for Jane. We both appreciate it more than we could ever express. If you want to show her some love, I’m creating a True Love album for my fan page. Just email me your own pictures of things that remind you of Jane, that you think Jane would like, or a still life with Jane in them. You can send them to iheartselkies(at)gmail(dot)com. I’ll post them on my FB (unless they’ll get me kicked off of there, so nothing too salty!) and I’ll pick some of my favorites, and some random winners, next week, to win a UK copy of book six, Tempest Reborn, out on May 28th.

All right, I’m spent. And those Swiffer products aren’t going to buy themselves…

I’ve been meaning to get this out for days, but I’m enduring the second most stressful time of my entire life. Good stress, yes! But stressful. The first most stressful time of my life was when we were selling Tempest Rising, and like that time, I’m doing a load of awesome things that are sort of killing me.

Like winding up the semester at the same time I do a huge convention, buy a house, move into that house, and release a book.

I’m not whining! I know how lucky I am to be able to do all of these things. But they’re still MAYBE gonna kill me. Luckily I’m being helped out along the way by all my awesome friends, both old and new. There’s nothing like busy times to remind me how lucky I am to have my tribe–a tribe I plan on growing in Pittsburgh, when I get in my new house.

But all of that is for a different blog post. THIS blog post is about the 2013 RT Convention, and how great it was! I’ve gone to RT now for four years running, and it gets better with each year. This year I was very busy, with four panels in total: two “craft” panels for aspiring writers and two “reader” panels for fans. My first panel was bright and early the Wednesday the convention started, and I worked steadily through till the huge signing on Saturday, when the con ended (at least for me).

It was a lot of work, but it was also fun, of course. I love hanging out with my peeps, and the nice thing about my recent con schedule is I’m seeing the same friends at everything. So even though we live in different parts of the country, we’re able to feel like we’re all part of each others’ lives. And they’re so inspiring, funny, creative, warm people. I come away from these things feeling like I’m ready to tackle the world.

Which is good, because I’m sort of planning on doing just that this summer.

So here are some highlights from the trip. Kansas City turned out to be RAD, although it SNOWED. So my #amwalkies were curtailed, which sucks as that’s normally the time I get to indulge my traveler’s soul and really see a city I’m visiting. But we still got out, and Pierpont’s at Union Station was one of the best dining experience of my life (and I’ve had good ones). We also had an AMAZING dinner at Nica’s 320, which was a super fun Cajun-Asian fusion joint. We went because they had a cocktail called a “Necromancer,” and we stayed because they had a huge beignet menu, including stuffed beignets. Our awesome server also didn’t bat an eyelash when we said, “Do you have a cocktail called a ‘Werewolf?’” He said, “What is that?” We said, “We don’t know, but it probably has bourbon.” He thought about it for a second and said, “Yes, would you like a Werewolf?”

They were delicious.

Here are some pictures.

Now I’m off to take some very rainy, wet walkies before I have to robe up for graduation. So excited to have this semester over with! The rest of this week will see me packing, frantically, then the big move to Pittsburgh.

This summer is mine, just to warn you. All mine.

It’s gonna be incredible.

Remember that Day Passes are available, and if you’re in the area but don’t want to see us babble, you can still come get books or get stuff signed at the GIANT BOOK FAIR. Non-registrants just have to pay $5.

You can see more about what I’ll be schilling and what I’m looking forward to at RT, here at USAToday.com.

So that’s me at RT! If you see me, feel free to say hello! I’m very friendly and rarely bite. Unless you buy me a drink first.

Sorry I’ve been a little MIA. Have been sitting on some good news that I couldn’t spill, or I didn’t want to because I didn’t want to jinx it. But I think everything is looking good now, so here we go!

The first fun news is for you audiobook fans out there. As you know, Jane’s adventures ARE available in audio…but only the first three. The good news is that Tantor picked up the rights to the last three books, so Eye of the Tempest, Tempest’s Fury, and Tempest Reborn will ALSO be available in audiobook coming soon. YAY!

Here’s the links to the first three, for those of you who haven’t heard them or who might have a roadtrip coming up! The artist who reads them is AWESOME, I was thrilled when they came out. Here are the US links (just click on the cover):

And here are the UK links for Tempest Rising, Tracking the Tempest, and Tempest’s Legacy.

I’m so glad that the rest of the series has finally sold as so many of you have been in touch to ask over the last year. Now I can finally give you good news!

So that’s the book stuff. The other stuff is equally exiting, at least to me. I’ve bought my first house, in Pittsburgh, and I’m so excited. It’s in a great neighborhood near some good friends, and I’m so looking forward to spending the summer getting to know my new hood. I know it will be good for me creatively, too.

And the house is gorgeous. It’s an adorable old rowhouse that’s been completely renovated, with exposed brick and a fireplace and open plan living area.

So parties galore will be hosted. It’s also got parking, and two porches, and a lawn (which actually terrifies me, but I’m trying to be a big girl). If you want to see more pictures, feel free to add me on Facebook.

So yeah, I’m going to be a home owner. And a Pittsburgher! It’s the first time I feel I’ve really committed to living somewhere in a very, very long time. Which is also terrifying. But freeing, as well.

We’ll see how it goes.

In the meantime, though, I’ve got to get back to grading. Our semester is almost over, although I have no idea where it’s gone. It’s been a really busy six months for me, but I’ve come out of it feeling loved, feeling tired, and feeling very inspired.

Not a bad place to be.

So without further ado, let me welcome Victoria, discussing what happens when we writers done get ourselves stuck…

WRITER TO THE RESCUE

So what does an author do when she’s written herself into a corner and can’t for the life of her figure out how to get out of it—all while thousands of fans are clamoring for her blood? That’s the situation in which I found myself last year at this time.

If you are a fan of the Gaslight Mystery Series (Berkley Prime Crime), you know that Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy of the New York City Police and Midwife Sarah Brandt have been solving mysteries and gradually falling in love over the first 14 books in the series. Unfortunately, I had started the series by creating insurmountable barriers to their ever getting together, never realizing that the series would become so successful or that readers would become so invested in Frank and Sarah’s lives.

Now let’s face it, how many mystery writers are lucky enough to have a series that runs for 14 books? I count my blessings every day. But in the spring of 2012, I realized that if I didn’t take care of Frank and Sarah’s relationship, readers probably would not keep reading. But how to do it without ruining the dynamics of the series? I was getting desperate, so I vented to my classmates.

Classmates? Yes, I was just finishing up my master’s degree in Writing Popular Fiction at Seton Hill University. One of my classmates, David Wilbanks, who writes Science Fiction and had at that time never read anything I’d ever written, took my challenge and sent me a list of about 20 things that could happen. Unlike me and my fans, Dave was unencumbered by knowledge of the characters involved, so his solutions didn’t have to be feasible or even sensible. His ideas were outside the box. Some of them were even outside the Universe. But one of them was the perfect solution to Frank and Sarah’s problems!

If you’re expecting me to tell you what that solution is right here, I’m sorry. I write mysteries, so I’m not giving away anything that might spoil the book for you. I will say that in MURDER IN CHELSEA you will finally get to see Frank Malloy propose to Sarah Brandt. Of course they also solve a couple murders and locate the birth parents of Sarah’s foster daughter into the bargain. This is a mystery series after all! And to thank Dave for his help, I named a major character after him in MURDER IN CHELSEA.

So this is how a fellow writer rescued me, saving me from the wrath of frustrated readers! You can see how he did it by reading MURDER IN CHELSEA, a May 2013 hardcover release from Berkley Prime Crime. It’s also available in all electronic formats. Please let me know if you like the solution by contacting me though my website, www.victoriathompson.com or liking me on Facebook at Victoria Thompson Author or following me on Twitter @gaslightvt.

In the meantime, I am doing some pretty furious brainstorming/catching up/writerings with the lovely Jaye Wells. I also plan on eating my weight in Tex-Mex and gas station BBQ and enjoying the glorious weather. I better get back to spring, Pittsburgh, you hear me??????????? xoxo

I’ve had a wasp named after me, which might be the coolest thing EVER. You can read about it here. And here. And here (snarky!). And here……. and about a gajillion other places. Apparently this is a big deal in the world of wasps.

And it’s a big deal to me, because it’s AWESOME. Not least because my wasp is a “parasitoid wasp,” known for its “deadly reproductive habits.”

No comments, please.

While you mull on that one, here she is! Ain’t she a beaut?

That pin, however, looks uncomfortable.

Anyway, terribly excited about all of this, of course. It’s not often one has a wasp named after oneself, and I’m delighted. Thanks to Donald Quicke for thinking of me!

Other Things I Like right now, besides having a wasp named after me (!!!), include some awesome books.

First off, I read Sophie Littlefield’s Garden of Stones and I about died. For those of you who don’t know me well yet, Sophie is a good friend of mine.

I also think she’s a genius.

I adore her books. Her Bad Day For Sorry mysteries are some of my faves, and I recently raved about her new e-book mystery, Blood Bond. Sophie’s an amazing writer, and it was with utter joy that I read Garden of Stones, in which she really comes into her own.

The book is beautiful. The prose is tight, elegant, and understated. The story is fantastic, integrating a mystery plot into the setting of Manzanar, one of the Japanese internment camps set up during WWII. I learned so much from reading this book, as a writer, as a reader, as an American, and as a friend. The book is about love and sacrifice, and contains some amazing themes. One of which, the idea of beauty as a curse, is a favorite of mine to explore and see explored.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough, and neither could Target, who made it one of their Book Club picks.

Other Things I Like include the fact that my good friend Mark Henry re-released his short story Seafoam as an e-book. It’s SO TWISTED AND CRAZY you have to read it, now. It’s only $.99, and it’s amazeballs. Also, insane as only Mark can be insane–brilliantly, and touchingly, and filthily.

One final Thing I Like right now is a band that’s new to me, Hey Marseilles. I can’t get enough–they’re sort of a more upbeat Beirut, one of my all time favorite bands. Here’s a sample:

In other news, I’ll be in Dallas next week for Dreamin’ in Dallas, where I’ll be running workshops on hot seating, deep point of view, and time management for authors. Can’t wait to be somewhere WARM and to see my friends in Dallas. For those of you in the area who can’t attend the conference, there is a public signing on March 29th:

Hope to see you there! xoxo

While I was away, I read Gillian Flyyn’s Gone Girl.

Don’t misunderstand me: the book is wonderfully written, really smart on about 100 levels, and very engaging. It’s also torture to read.

Now, Flynn clearly intended to make her audience squirm. And she achieves her goal. Gone Girl is not a book that you can “like,” it’s too razor sharp, too smart, too cutting.

And lawdie did it cut close to my bones.

There are so many things I could say about this book. I could talk about its critique of our legal system’s increasingly parasitic relationship with celebrity culture. I could talk about it as a literary thriller that challenges & extends genre conventions. Or I could talk about the rich, eloquent language.

But because Gone Girl constantly brings up narcissism, I’m going to focus on what interests me right now. There are three:

1) Must Love Flaws

In many ways, Gone Girl is a traditional love story. Boy meets girl, boy and girl fall head over heels in love, boy and girl realize neither was quite whom the other imagined, and torture ensues. Okay, that last bit is less traditional, but it was Gone Girl as a romantic warning that really shivered me timbers.

Partially that’s because I’ve become a published writer of a character that people really love. I’m so lucky that this is the case; that people feel so much for Jane. But sometimes that adoration seeps over to me and I can tell someone has kinda conflated me and Jane.

On the one hand, there is nothing headier than being adored. On the other hand, however, it’s a lie. I’m not Jane. I’m not a character on a page, defined (literally) in black and white. Instead, I’m a human being: full of flaws, aspirations I won’t ever meet, motivations that are far from worthy, unsavory desires, conservative impulses that bore even myself, etc.

I’m a person. Sometimes awesome, sometimes shitty, and usually somewhere in between.

And this is one of the levels at which I think Gone Girl is so brilliant. It takes this really fundamental desire upon which so many romantic notions are built–this idea that your True Love will See You Instantly, Know You, and Love You From That Minute On–and it reveals how fucked up that is.

I’ve had people fall in love with me in that first minute. Hell, I’ve fallen in love with people in that first minute. And wow, is it heady! To have someone adore you; to have a person like (literally, nowadays, with Facebook) every single thing you think, say, or do; to have a lover see this person who is bigger, smarter, more fabulous than you know you are. Such adoration strokes our ego; it whispers to us, “see, you are amazing, and finally someone sees that.” Even if we manage to ignore those whispers, we can’t help but wonder if the gaseous emissions of this person’s constant yes, you are perfect won’t actually propel us to the state of grace they see in us.

The problem is that it’s all a lie. A dangerous lie, in fact, as Flynn showcases by taking such pedestalizing (I made a word!) to its ultimate extreme. As Flynn warns of trying to live up to someone’s perfect expectations, “it had to stop, because it wasn’t real, it wasn’t me.”

When that moment of reality hits, there is nothing more painful, for either party. To have eyes that once stared at you with pure adoration go hurt, then slowly become cynical, and then fall out of love because you were never the person they loved in the first place…that’s a pain to trump the pleasure of being loved so ardently for someone we never were…

And it’s a pain we very much deserve, for lying to ourselves and accepting what we know is untrue.

The big problem is that we know this. We know, as Flynn writes, “There’s a difference between really loving someone and loving the idea of her.” And yet we do it all the time, because when we cast a person in a role, we get to take on a role ourselves.

2) The Casting Couch

One of the temptations of loving someone is to cast them in a role. Conversely, casting them means we cast ourselves: if they are Romeo, we are Juliet; if they are the President, we are the President’s Wife; if they are the Daredevil, we are the Voice of Reason.

Don’t get me wrong: dating someone who mitigates some of your crazier tendencies or who complements your skills, experiences, and desires, is a fantastic basis for a relationship. There’s no greater pleasure than learning together, or having someone who genuinely challenges you. But there’s a huge difference between the active work of being ambitious in a relationship, of going into a relationship open-minded and interested and engaged, and of expecting someone else to be that thing that finally defines us.

Flynn describes this process beautifully in Gone Girl: “Nick and I fit together. I am a little too much, and he is a little too little. I am a thornbush, bristling from the overattention of my parents, and he is a man of a million fatherly stab wounds, and my thorns fit perfectly into him.”

Reading that passage shows us how this nefarious casting process works. Amy, here, has decided what she is: she is Too Much. I can’t help but hear Lewis Carroll here, lamenting a girl “losing her muchness” as she becomes a woman. But that’s another story. Here, Amy has decided that she is, really, Amazing Amy, her namesake. That means she needs a foil, so Nick becomes Too Little. He can never live up to her, but he can strive. And she gets off on exactly that, the striving: seeing Nick squirm to reach her heights. She belittles him to empower herself, her will to power not only exerting itself but creating an entire narrative to prop itself up. She’s thorns; he’s holes for thorns to fit. In her world, they must be, literally, one – - her thorns shoved into his holes – - to be in love.

Now, Amy is crazy. But lesser versions of this crazy are so tempting. To see the other person as This One Thing That Only I Can Truly Understand/Support/Bring To Fruition. In casting the person as something that depends upon us or upon which we depend, we take the foil’s role: we are the beautiful needy or the strong and supportive. Suddenly, we are delineated.

We have a role.

And that brings me to my third thing.

3) Get Your Own Fucking Dreams, Thanks.

One thing that hit home for me the most from Gone Girl was the mutual parasitism of Amy and Nick’s dreams, and how brilliantly Flynn took what can be The Whole Point (For Real!) Of A Relationship and twisted it to show how it so often goes wrong.

And that’s because everyone needs to have their own fucking dream.

I’m lucky. I have some super solid goals that I’m working towards. This fact makes me a pretty happy person, I think. It makes me feel grounded and yet striving at the same time. But every once in a while I meet someone who does the ultimate version of points 1 and 2, and tries to make my dreams their own.

In other words, they’re going to take charge of my career. Be my muse. Help me get to that “next level.” They’re going to Svengali me out of this stratosphere.

My response: Get your own fucking dream.

Again, don’t get me wrong. I love being supported. I feel so warm and fuzzy when my lover does something kind to help me, or is genuinely interested in my work. And if someone I really cared about actually read my book, I would probably cry, then do something unspeakably filthy as a reward. Conversely, I love supporting my partner. I am a disturbingly nurturing person for a woman who doesn’t want to have kids. I will bend over backwards for the people I love.

But I leave their dreams to them.

I’ll help, sure. I’ll be enthusiastic when they need impractical support. I’m also up for practical support: I’ll brainstorm, lend elbow grease, bring them dinner or clean their house. I’ll get as involved as they need me to be, when they need me. And then I’m gonna step back when they don’t.

Because we need our own dreams. In attempting to co-opt someone’s dream (“WOW! I had no idea I actually wanted to run a writer’s retreat until I met you but now it’s my dream too!” or “I’ll go ahead and take over building your business because you’ll be happy and we’ll be together all the time and united!”) we take away something sacred to them. We also push our own dreams aside, letting a false dream, a coo coo’s dream, nest in our own soul.

And just like when that person realizes we’re not perfect, either they must one day realize “Oops, this isn’t really my dream,” or we realize, “Shit, what happened to my dream?”, or both.

So get your own dreams, folks. For your sake as well as your partner’s. Otherwise, you might one day say something like Amy: “But one day I will wear him down, I will catch him off guard, and he will lose the energy for the nightly battle, and he will get in bed with me. In the middle of the night, I’ll turn to face him and press myself against him. I’ll hold myself to him like a climbing, coiling vine until I have invaded every part of him and made him mine.”

Flynn created twin monsters in Amy and Nick, yes. But in my final estimation, the reason they bother people so much isn’t that they’re so farfetched. It’s because there’s a little of both of them in all of us, as well as in our cultural narratives. We’ve alternately wanted to be that vine that winds, or the cavernous emptiness it fills.

We’re all a little Nick and Amy.

This weekend finds me traveling again, this time to Boston, where I’ll be presenting at AWP (the Association of Writers and Writing Programs).

I’ll also be catching up with old friends and spending the weekend getting up to no good in my old stomping grounds. The birthplace, really, of my getting up to no good.

For anyone going to the con, here’s what I’m doing officially:

Hynes Convention Center, Room 110, Plaza Level

S136. Women in Crime. (Toni Margarita Plummer, Sophie Littlefield, Linda Rodriguez, Nicole Peeler) Boasting diverse voices and writing in settings varying from academic to rural to paranormal, three women discuss their choice to build a crime series around a female protagonist. These authors discuss crime and life from the female perspective, focusing on issues such as domestic abuse, divorce, parenthood, gender roles, sex, and justice, as well as the female sleuths and authors who inspired them. Moderated by one of the top acquiring editors for crime fiction, a Q&A session will follow.

Unofficially, I’ll be schmoozing, carousing, debauching…or what I like to call, NETWORKING. It’s all work, people. Really. And I can’t tell you how badly I need a weekend of networking right now. I’ve had a pretty insane month, with a lot of work, a lot of things shuffled all over, making some big decisions, nearly buying a loft, losing the loft, realizing I gotta be adult regarding stuff about which I’d rather be immature, and trying to stick to my guns and be brave about everything. So, yeah, a weekend away with old friends is exactly what the Doctor ordered.

Dr. Peeler, that is.

But I’ll be back soon. And then I’ll be in Texas! Doing some MORE Networking. Yay!

In the meantime, here’s a musical treat from my new favoritest band:

These aren’t upates…these are things you NEED TO KNOW. Like you need to know not to drink Drano. Or that I like vanilla cake for my birthday, thank you.

The first thing you NEED TO KNOW is that Sophie Littlefield’s much anticipated new novel GARDEN OF STONES is finally out today!

This book has all the critics raving and target picked it as their Book Club pick this month. I’m SO excited to read this as Sophie’s one of my favorite writers and this is supposed to be amazing. So yeah, go buy it before everyone starts talking about it.

The second thing you need to know is that we’ve officially added a signing in Austin to the little tour I’m doing with Mark  Henry/Daniel Marks, Liliana Hart, and Jaye Wells. Click that sentence to read about the genesis of this disaster waiting to happen tour and click here for more specific info about where/when we’ll be.

Mark/Danny, however, has this warning (it’s in the first few minutes):

So you have been warned! Expect inappropriate behavior. Unbelievably awesome, inappropriate behavior.

The third thing is that I’ll be in Boston next week for AWP! I have no idea what I’m doing as I’m so busy I haven’t even looked at my schedule, but I’m sure I will be AT THE BAR. AT ALL THE BARS. A LOT. Cuz that’s NETWORKING, PEOPLE. Info about the con is here!

In other news, I am looking for a loft in Pittsburgh. I’m still working at Seton Hill, but I have decided to bite the bullet and commute. I NEED A CITY.

So I’m all a-twitter with exciting things. But here are your marching orders: Go buy Sophie’s book! And come see me in Boston or in Texas! You have four beautiful cities to choose from. . . I KNOW YOU WANT TO!

Have a great week! xoxoxoxo