Author: Doyce

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Charles de Lint on Hidden Things? Yeah, right…

Actually? As it turns out, yes:

“I loved this book from start to finish. It’s strange, weird and down to earth, all at the same time; chock full of fascinating characters, dark dreams and fantasy elements that deliver a real sense of wonder. What’s not to love?”

That was in my inbox last night — a forwarded message, via my editor. I mean, I really didn’t think…

Let me back up and tell you a story.

I read my first Charles de Lint book, The Onion Girl, in 2003.

First off, it’s really kind of amazing that I went as long as I did without reading his stuff — as a writer, the man is incredibly prolific, and pretty much everything he’s ever done falls squarely in what anyone would recognize as one of my reading sweet spots. I think it’s fair to say (De will correct me if not) that he is really one of the seminal authors in the genre of urban fantasy or mythic fiction or whatever people are calling it this week, especially when it comes to stuff in the magical realist vein, which is pretty much where I live when I’m writing.

And yet, somehow, I hadn’t encountered his work up to that point. I have no explanation other than the fact that county libraries in South Dakota were pretty thin in the Sci-fi and Fantasy section.

Then, just after I wrapped up the first draft of Hidden Things, one of my First Readers (Stacy Tabb, aka Sekimori, Queen of the Internet) said to me “You know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of Charles de Lint, in a good way.”

“Who?” I replied, because Wikipedia wasn’t really a thing, yet.

“OH MY GOD YOU HAVEN’T READ DE LINT? GET THE ONION GIRL NOW!”

So, because I trust my first readers (or they wouldn’t be my first readers), I did exactly that.

And, having read The Onion Girl, I set the book on my shelves and said “I have to be very careful about when I read this guy.”

The reason was simple: in my mind de Lint was a guy who, in a lot of pretty meaningful ways, was doing what I, at that point, was learning to do. Taken in small doses, that can be a great way to orient yourself as you develop as a writer, but overdo it and you can hobble your ability to figure out your own particular voice.

And I’m sorry if that sounded stupid and pretentious and arty. As Miriam Black would say, it is what it is. Writers worry about shit like that, sometimes.

So fast forward to about a month ago, and I’m exchanging emails with my editor and agent about the Hidden Things ARC. We each have a short list of “Absolutely Must” people whom we’d really like to read the story and yes: on the business side of things, it is for all intents and purposes done in the hope that these people you admire will want to say something nice about the book, but personally? I mean, I’ll be honest: for me, all of those names were just as much “MAN I would love for them to read this thing.”

Anyway, I list my names, and my agent lists her names, and my editor lists her names.

And one of them is Charles de Lint.

As in, she actually wrote the words “I’m going to send an ARC to Charles de Lint and see if he’ll write about it.” and no one laughed.

Well, I laughed. Right at the screen. Sure, let’s just send it over to the guy nominated for about twenty World Fantasy awards, I thought, I’m sure the chief book critic for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction has loads of free time available, between his own writing and music and whatnot.

But secretly, in my heart of hearts (read: when talking about it with Kate), I hoped.

“I loved this book from start to finish. It’s strange, weird and down to earth, all at the same time; chock full of fascinating characters, dark dreams and fantasy elements that deliver a real sense of wonder. What’s not to love?”

As far as “first book blurbs” go, it’s… not a bad place to start.

I’m still a tiny bit stunned. And happy.

It’s going to be a pretty interesting summer.

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Tweets for the week of 2012-06-03

  • As promised, I will be live tweeting a wedding, today. Please note: Do not expect mockery of a West Point wedding on Memorial Day. #
  • … Actually, you CAN expect mockery, but not of the institution, or the men and women in the service. #
  • West Point mood setting, via @clovis69: McArthur farewell speech – http://t.co/EQXVgdQK. #
  • West Point security understandably high. Comparable to airport security… If you're in the mood to insult West Point or embarrass the TSA. #
  • Hey: non-wedding related question for a lazy Sunday – any librarians or pro-readers who can tell me if Hidden Things is up on netgalley? #
  • Random thoughts from driving through the Palisades: what childhood book series used to mention Peekskill? Trixie Belden? #
  • Followup question: who's about to out themselves as a Trixie Belden reader? #
  • I don't know how long the wedding ceremony will run, but unless it's a full mass, it'll take less time than we've spent on finding parking. #
  • Nice church. Pity about the view. http://t.co/lPAa6Ecz #
  • Trixie Belden's big selling point for me as a kid? Numbers. Didn't care what they were about; only that our county library had 34 of them. #
  • The church itself, despite its age, boasts fabulous air conditioning… Which is more than can be said of my mother-in-law's. #
  • So… @DaphneUn: "How's my hair? " Me: "Fabulous." Her: "I know, right?" #fishingforyetmorecompliments #
  • West Point weddings begin PRECISELY on time. #youwillbeleftbehind #
  • Cheek-kiss greetings. Ubiquitous on the east coast? I need more data, but signs point to yes. #
  • The priest, crewcut, directs the processional with sharp handsigns. Pretty sure I heard him say 'deploy bride.' #
  • Father Crewcut makes serious use of dramatic #
  • pauses. #
  • The family has used this priest before. He has a 'bit' for his sermons: analyzing the hidden meaning in the readings the couple selected. #
  • If that sounds potentially horrifying and embarrassing, then I think my job is done. #
  • Okay, that's probably the best 'you may kiss the bride' kiss I've witnessed, thanks to the bride. Groom looks happily stunned, and should. #
  • Battery dying. More later. #
  • One more note: it is a full mass, and the parking did NOT take longer. #
  • Bride and Groom exit the church through an archway of drawn sabers. I don't care who you are, that's cool. #
  • Highpoint of the reception; someone with Garth and Wayne likenesses tattooed across the bridge of their feet. #timeless #partyon #
  • A bit surreal. Father-of-the-bride's advice to the couple: Don't blink. #theangelshavethephonebox #
  • Yeah. Totally. RT @ChuckWendig: Kids are basically dogs. I mean, they're not? But sometimes, they are. #
  • Back in Denver! A few hours left to like/retweet/tumbl #hiddenthings before I finish kissing the ground and figure out who won a galley. #
  • I wish I could give a copy of #hiddenthings to everyone entered, but I don't have *nearly* enough. The first galley goes to @juliaakarr! #
  • Another (or is it first?) happy customer! RT @wilsonsteve: Read advance copy of #hiddenthings and @doycet rocked it. #
  • RT @writemonkey: The closest I get to multitasking is ignoring more than one thing at a time. #
  • How would one go about spaying/neutering their plants? I feel like the eyeliner-smeared 'star' of a two-month-long cottonwood money shot. #
  • Oh, and hello to new followers! Visit for the #hiddenthings news, stay for the deciduous bukake jokes. #
  • Going to San Diego Comic Con? – Me too! I’ll be doing some other stuff at the Con as well (when I’m not busy… http://t.co/y1VVrZ6m #
  • I meant to mention this in my review, but @chuckwendig's Blackbirds pretty much… ruined red mylar birthday balloons for me. *shudders* #
  • Don't take the balloon thing as a ding against Blackbirds, by the way; for the right reader, it should be considered a ringing endorsement. #
  • Aww… RT @sekimori: I remember reading this story when he was doing it for a #NaNoWriMo http://t.co/TWeFx6TO Congrats, D! #hiddenthings #
  • And yes: one reason I think #nanowrimo "works" is because #hiddenthings started life as a NNWM project. I work well with tight deadlines. #
  • Canadian thistle and sweet clover. Two weeds that flower in my wedding colors. Not sure how I feel about that. #noxiouslove #
  • Replaced ten year old home office chair Something Fancy. Butt approves. Daytime standing desk doesn't care. http://t.co/cYpKvfbu #
  • I would not normally retweet a picture of me that is THAT bad, but the Liefeld mockery makes it a price I'm willing to pay. #
  • TRON: Uprising – First episode, up on Youtube: http://t.co/78RkfC38 — and it's pretty damned good. #
  • Random Average » My Outsider, ex-player Impression of WoW’s Mists of Pandaren expansion http://t.co/6tza2iS6 #
  • HIVEMIND: I'm trying to find a FAQ answer to "ZOMG WUT IF AN AGENT STEALZ MAH STORY IDEA" — thought I had one somewhere, but can't locate. #
  • Workspace – I posted a picture of a new chair to Twitter yesterday. Alongside the picture, I said: ›… http://t.co/vQpjBqmS #
  • Photo: http://t.co/aiwn5NFJ #
  • I've got 99 problems: http://t.co/czNkQtp9 (just that kind of day). #
  • "The POLITE thing to do would be to disagree…" http://t.co/V7KWS8mu #
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Workspace

I posted a picture of a new chair to Twitter yesterday.  Alongside the picture, I said:

Replaced ten year old home office chair with Something Fancy. Butt approves. Daytime standing desk doesn’t care.

(I know, riveting social media, right?)

In addition to the new (incredibly comfy, dangerously reclinable) chair, I removed the small “ladder” desk that Kate uses when she brings her laptop in for nerdly together time (not to worry: I replaced it with something considerably more sturdy), and generally did a lot of housecleaning in the workspace, especially in the closet (which got a new shelf unit that ended up mostly empty, thanks to my “throw it out!” style of clean-up).

As a general rule, I adhere as closely as I can to the “It’s all Too Much” school of thought when it comes to my living spaces. When I’m cleaning up I focus what, exactly, I want a space to be for, and basically just remove everything that doesn’t directly support that purpose. That might sound pretty zen, but I assure you it’s anything but new age feng shui.

For example, I want to use my office to:

  • Do non-writing computer-related stuff (typically at my desk).
  • Write (often not at my desk).
  • Edit/revise (back at my desk again).
  • Do computery stuff with my wife and/or daughter.
  • Read.

In addition, there are a few other things my office needs to be able to do, primarily:

  • Host some stuff that Sean can play with
  • Remain resistant to permanent Sean-related damage to the stuff Sean can’t play with

To this end, my home office has:

  • A new, still-kind-of-fume-laden, super-comfy chair.
  • My monstrous, utterly impractical desk.
  • My ‘side desk’ for laptops and hardcopies of stuff.
  • Kate’s desk.
  • My desktop (let’s be honest: gaming) computer.
  • My dayjob laptop.
  • My contractor job laptop.
  • My daughter’s laptop.
  • My netbook (on which I do all my first draft writing, pretty much).
  • A comfy wingback (where said writing takes place).
  • A big closet with spare computer bits, software, and gaming stuff for both myself and smaller persons.
  • A small bookshelf with books I really can’t bear to be a whole floor away from, or which I want to read ‘next’.
  • A baby-gate ‘cage’ around said bookshelf.

Clearly, the space serves many masters, and in order to fight what might seem inevitable clutter-creep, I have to be really vicious about my “if it doesn’t apply to the purpose of the space, it goes” rule. It doesn’t make the room spartan, by any means, but if you understand everything room has to do, you might concede that at the very least it’s efficient.

I don’t have a picture of the whole room, but this is current picture of the desk area:

Not pictured: my droid, propped up against the right monitor, so I can use it to check a bunch of phone-related things, and the podcasting microphone, because I'm (sadly) not podcasting anything right now.

The only object I don’t really need on the desk? That would be the stone ‘lawn ornament’ frog that you can see center left, holding my soda glass, and given what I went through to acquire the damned thing, I’m certainly not getting rid of it.

I didn’t set this picture up: that’s just how I left it this morning when I walked out the door.

And where did I walk out the door to?

That would be my dayjob work space which, in contrast, serves only one purpose.

Over a year at my "standing desk" (assembled from two "shoe caddies" from the closet department at Lowes.

Aside from its purpose (note the sweet, sweet singular), the only other goal I have with this space is to change things up as much as I can from my home space, in terms of physical requirements: I stand rather than sit and use a different style of keyboard and mouse — all told, I probably spend well over 16 hours on a computer every day of the working week, and doing whatever I can to reduce movement repetition is critical to my continued (relative) health and avoidance of RSI.

What about you guys? I have an unhealthy fascination for seeing pictures of where people do their work and play: got any cool setups link to? Share!

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Going to San Diego Comic Con?

Me too!

Stunted Fools, Scary-Ass Clowns, Enlightened Orangutans and other Devilish Charmers: Humor in Science Fiction and Fantasy

Time: Sunday, 7/15/12, 10:00a.m. – 11:00a.m.

Description: “The pen is mightier than the sword if the sword is very short, and the pen is very sharp.” And these authors’ pens are…very sharp. But, as The Hitchhiker’s Guide so sagely advises, DON’T PANIC. Humor is everywhere you look in science fiction and fantasy. So, wrap your towel around your head to ward off noxious fumes, and join us for an irreverent hour celebrating sly wit and unholy humor with some of the most devilish quipsters, wisecrackers and satirists writing today. Warning: you will snicker. And you may just laugh out loud.

  • Richard Kadrey
  • Doyce Testerman
  • Bill Hornshaw
  • Rob Reid
  • Ned Vizzini
  • Gini Koch
  • Nathan Long
  • Moderator: John Scalzi (tentative)

I’ll be doing some other stuff at the Con as well (when I’m not busy having a nerdgasm about being back there), but this is the first verified, we-know-what-time-it’s-happening thing. First, I’m pretty keen on the subject; second, I’m really excited about the potential conversation with that group of authors.

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Tweets for the week of 2012-05-27

  • I hate Facebook SO MUCH, but I still made an author page there, because I am a SHAMELESS WHORE. http://t.co/SalwTPDf #hiddenthings #
  • So, if you 'like' the facebook page, you will simultaneously cheapen my existence and possibly win a galley of HIDDEN THINGS! Win-win! #
  • (Tomorrow, we will have a HIDDEN THINGS contest here on Twitter that does not involve "likes" and does involve creepy microfiction.) #
  • "Watch out for the Hidden Things…" – I actually started writing a completely different post today (another… http://t.co/r9wnLzcW #
  • RT @WmMorrowBks: Enter for a chance to win bks by @doycet @joe_hill and more in our Fan Appreciation Sweepstakes! http://t.co/Oeh3x3Zl #
  • New blog post details how to win an ARC of #hiddenthings /and/ speed my descent into life as a shady huckster. Win-win! http://t.co/TWeFx6TO #
  • Volunteering at Colorado Food Bank of the Rockies this morning. Semi-related: I'm donating vegetables to charities from now on. #omg #
  • Off to #nyc Back Monday for #hiddenthings giveaway. http://t.co/TWeFx6TO #
  • RT @_Lexifab @doycet has a book coming out? #hiddenthings YES: http://t.co/TWeFx6TO #
  • We all need editors. (Quote of the Day) http://t.co/0H4XQnRK #
  • At her suggestion, permaborrowed @DaphneUn's Droid tablet to see if I want it, something different, or hate it a bunch. Jury remains out. #
  • If I were her, I'd already regret the suggestion, thanks to my (resultant) surly questions and random grumbling. Hate not knowing stuff. #
  • Weirdest tablet thing so far: on screen keyboard lags horribly in portrait; works fine in landscape. What? #
  • My sadness with open source/hardware? You're either rickety edge of innovation or two years behind. Sometimes lazy and mainstream is nice. #
  • Tablet annoyance: power jack on the bottom of landscape view (watching any movie). Terrible placement for any typical usage scenario. #
  • HIVEMIND: I've overlooked the fact I have access to a WEST POINT WEDDING to LIVE TWEET, tomorrow. It's been a year; are we ready for this? #
  • Quick thought for latter, more sober moment: analyzing comics based solely on artwork or story = judging a song based on only lyrics/music. #
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“Watch out for the Hidden Things…”

I actually started writing a completely different post today (another book review), and then realized that I really, really ought to start talking about some of the stuff going on with my book. (I’m actually fairly bad at the business side of publishing (or bad at business as publishing practices it, which is different). That’s a topic about which I can (and probably will) write a whole series of posts.)

I won’t lie: I’ve been putting this off. I don’t know if it’s nerves or laziness or the bone-deep conviction that something will happen and everything will just go poof and vanish. Even now, as I’m writing this line, I want nothing more than to delete the post and go do something else. Weird.

So here it is:

I have a book coming out in September. It is called Hidden Things.

It’s being published by HarperCollins Voyager, which is a recent… thing (see: not good at pub business lingo)… that brings all of the US/UK/Aus sci-fi/fantasy publishing arms of HarperCollins under the same impenetrable force field.

Now, part of the benefit of working with HarperCollins is (obviously) working with some very smart editors (a quick scan of my inbox tells me they have to pay at least six people competitive wages to control my rampant use of semicolons and argue where punctuation should go in relation to double-quotes1).

But another benefit is the fact that they have artistic, designer-type people who put together book covers for a living, and are quite good at it.

For example, they did this cover for Hidden Things.

I’m pretty happy with it.

…*plays it cool*…

OH WHO AM I KIDDING I FREAKING LOVE THIS THING!

You know what they say about not judging a book by its cover? Well screw that: you should definitely judge my book by this cover — nothing would make me happier.

Ahem.

Right. Sorry about that; got a little excited. If you need a bit more info, here’s a close approximation of the jacket blurb:

“Watch out for the Hidden Things…”

That’s the last thing Calliope Jenkins’ best friend and former lover says to her before ending a 2 A.M. phone call from Iowa, where he’s investigating a case she knows little about. Five hours later, she gets another call, this time from the police. Josh has been found dead; foul play is suspected. Calliope is stunned.

Especially when Josh leaves a message on her phone a few hours later.

Spurred by grief and suspicion, she heads to Iowa herself, accompanied by a road-weary stranger who claims to know something about what happened to Josh and who can — maybe — help Calli get him back.

The road is not quite the straight shot she imagined. Josh was involved in something a lot more complicated than a teenage runaway or deadbeat day, and Calliope find herself on a surreal road tip into — and behind — America’s heartland, hounded by once-magical creatures twisted by living too long just out of sight and the bogeymen in Calliope’s own troubled past.

See, what finally pushed me to the tipping point in terms of talking about all this stuff is the fact that I received a box full of advance reader copies last week, and I finally got to actually touch a hardcopy version of the story — to pick it up and feel the heft of it — and that helped me stop thinking that the whole thing was going to go ‘poof’.

It also reminded me that — more than anything — I want people to read this thing.

And that of course means I need to get the word out.

Which, you may recall, is the part of the stuff I’m bad at. Still, I’m going to give it my best shot. Here’s everything going on right now:

Hidden Things has its own special page on this site, right here, so that if I (or, should I be so lucky, you) tell someone about the book, there’s a handy link for more info. The Hidden Things sub-site isn’t totally done — I still need to finish up the Reading Guide page, but I’m taking a lot of allergy meds this week (stupid cottonwoods) and my brain is too dumb to come up with good questions — most of the pertinent stuff is there, and there are placeholders for the other stuff that I will fill in as we get closer to the date-of.

I bit the bullet, went back onto Facebook, and made up an Author Page… thing… It is here. Please don’t do anything crazy like making up a Facebook account just so you can see the page, but if you already have such a thing, well, you’ll be far more at home on that page than I am.

Finally, there are going to be some CONTESTS that will result in people winning ARCs of the book. As a matter of fact, there are already two contests going on right now, and there will be more soon.

Contest the First: A Simple Click It doesn’t get much simpler than this. All you have to do is:

  • Go over to that Facebook page I mentioned and “Like” something therein. Like the page. Like the picture of the cover I posted yesterday. I don’t really care what you choose; there are little blue thumbs all over the bloody place — click one of em. Or, if you are not written in the Book which is Face…
  • Tweet something on twitter about this blog post, and put a #hiddenthings hashtag on it, so I’ll see it. Or…
  • If you’re on Google Plus, go +1 this post, as it appears over there. OR…
  • Go to my Tumblr page and like or reblog this post.

Next Monday, I’ll gather up the names of everyone who did any of those things, put em in a hat, and pull a name out: that person wins a copy of the book. Simple.

Contest the Second: A Not-So Simple Click
This one is pure Facebook, since it’s not something I cooked up. William Morrow is currently giving away a bunch of themed prize packs of books. Hidden Things is included in the “Mystery/Thriller” package, because (I can only assume) someone at WM has a sense of humor. Go here, click the things that ask to be clicked, and you’ll be entered to win Fabulous Prizes.

Contest the Third and Fourth and So On: Which Haven’t Happened Yet.
In a few weeks, I’m going to ask for a bit more creativity in these contests: one of you will win an ARC for writing awesome twitter-length microfiction; a few others will win stuff (not just Hidden Things, but other stuff) for being all artistic and designery — that one will happen around the same time the San Diego Comic Con, where I’ll be signing stuff and sitting on panels and other things I didn’t do the last time I went. More on that when the time comes — I’d like to do all these things right now, but I’m told I should pace myself and start simple, which I have (I hope).

Now What Did I Forget?

Actually, I think that’s it. So…

Let’s have another look at that book cover, shall we?

*sigh*

She’s a pretty one, isn’t she?

1 – That actually ended up being a debate I won. Who knew I could hold my breath that long?

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Tweets for the week of 2012-05-20

  • Random Average » “Day One, after Day Z” http://t.co/hZe0HvCS #
  • So this box full of Things came in the mail today, and I'm told I can tell people about them. http://t.co/T9HDxxVA #
  • Finally starting @ChuckWendig's Blackbirds. Excited! Review to follow. #
  • Orchids smell exactly like a cavity feels. #
  • Email this morning informs me that I've been scheduled for mandatory volunteer work next week. Obvious Inigo Montoya Moment is Obvious. #
  • I thought no one could be worse for a show than Fox. Then NBC replaces @danharmon as #community showrunner. #brittadit #whattheactualfuck #
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Book Review: Blackbirds, by Chuck Wendig

I’m a sucker for amnesia stories.

You know the kind I’m talking about: Our hero wakes up in a hotel room with no memory of who he is or how he got there. There’s a pounding on the door, the landlord’s hollering that this week’s rent is due, the nameless protag opens the door, and the cops burst in, pinning him to the bed and reciting Miranda for the murder of so and so and OH MY GOD WHAT’S GOING ON?!? Dark City‘s a good recent example, but it’s something I’ve loved since Corwin woke up in a hospital bed in Nine Princes in Amber.

There are any number of acceptable and equally fun variations on this basic idea, a lot of them circling around the idea that the protagonist is investigating some blank spot in their recent history, trying to learn what happened and how they were involved — bonus points if it starts look like they themselves are the killer/criminal/victim they’re trying to find. I ran into a fun twist on this not too long ago in Richard K. Morgan’s Altered Carbon, a sci-fi detective story where the main character’s memory is fine, but his new body (not-so-gently used, one previous owner) has a number of dark secrets; it’s was a really good way for me to scratch that itch.

Chuck Wendig‘s come up with another one.

Let me introduce you to Miriam Black. She’s got a hell of a party trick: give her a little skin-to-skin contact (fingertips, lips, elbows on the subway, whatever), and she gets an instant, full-color, down-to-the-second replay (preplay? foreplay?) of your death. Pretty cool. Pretty dark. Pretty bad ass. That’s Miriam Black.

At least that’s what she wants to world to think.

Truth is, if you watch Miriam for a little while… if you listen to her talk (she loves to talk) and notice how she goes out of her way to alienate anyone and everyone with whom she comes in contact (emitting a stream of viscous, vicious, venomous dialog that fills a defensive moat only the brave or stupid would try to cross), you realize that that Miriam hurts. She blames herself for every death she’s ‘witnessed’; dies a little bit every every time a soul she’s touched shuffles off this mortal coil (no matter how much of a human stain they happen to be). She’s damaged goods, brother, and she’s getting worse, not better.

Miriam Black knows when you're going to die... and she will do anything to convince herself she doesn't care.

“Sounds interesting,” you might say, “but where in all that is your little amnesia fetish getting sated?”

Well see that’s the interesting bit.

Miriam, road-weary and cynical, has a chance encounter with someone… nice. Someone she likes almost immediately. Someone she might even become friends with; a granite block of a human being who’s maybe tough enough to withstand the wear and tear of the shit storm that is Miriam’s life.

Inevitably, she reaches out for a bit of human contact, and sees her new friend’s death.

Murder. Violent and nasty. In a month.

And, somehow, Miriam is involved. Somehow, she’s there when it happens, and does nothing.

That’s when Blackbirds got me.

I don’t know how to tell you what this book is — a paranormal sci-fi conspiracy horror murder-mystery roadtrip? Maybe. It isn’t even an amnesia story, not really, because you can’t really have missing memory of something that hasn’t happened yet.

Except… Miriam can.

How can I sum this up? How can I give you the one-line morsel that will send you off to find the rest of the meal?

If Phillip K. Dick had lived Charles Bukowski’s life, he might have written Blackbirds.

Might have, I say, because I doubt he (or certainly Bukowski) could have given half as much depth to Miriam as Wendig shares, and it’s Miriam that makes Blackbirds work. The gritty asphalt fantasy that makes up the plot? Don’t get me wrong: that’s great stuff, but it’s poor, damaged, desperate Miriam that brings the whole thing back to where we live.

You may not like her (she’ll be happier if you don’t), but you’ll care.

Just see if you don’t.