Anti-Plagiarism Day

Jane Smith on How Publishing Really Works has declared today Anti-Plagiarism Day!

Not only do I support this idea, I'm finding it a weird bit of synchronicity.

You see, last night, I stayed at work until 8 PM photocopying the evidence that showed one of my students had plagiarized from his peers. This was the second week in a row that student had been involved in plagiarism. Dude, why didn't the zero and the written warning I gave you last week scare you straight?

He was sneakier about it this time, but I R SMRT--and he may end up kicked out of university. Failing this week's assignment on his own merits would have been a far wiser choice than trying to pass based on someone else's.

Plagiarism is something I get pretty morally outraged over. I can empathize with the plagiarist in some cases, in that a student usually does it out of a sense of desperation. However, I won't let them off the hook for the theft. It's not a victimless crime; my students who had been plagiarized from last week were incensed to hear their work had been lifted word-for-word and equation-for-equation by someone they didn't even know.

When a published author plagiarizes another author, such as in the cases of the notorious Cassie Edwards or Janet Dailey, one of the things that annoys me most is some fans will not only defend the author, they'll blame the victim or the whistle-blower.

One common refrain that came from such fans when the (fabulous) Smart Bitches, Trashy Books website broke the Cassie Edward's story was that the SBs were being mean by slapping their evidence up on the internet--that such findings should be dealt with quietly, privately.

This attitude irks me, because the thefts weren't personal. The plagiarist wasn't stealing from the other person to hurt them; they simply saw something they wanted, then yoinked it. The crime wasn't personal, so why should the repercussions be?

If a complete stranger breaks into my house and steals my TV, and I later learn that person's name, should I go deal with them personally? Not only are things likely to get ugly if I do, how probable is it I'll get what I want from the confrontation? No. They broke the law; let the law deal with them. They didn't make it personal, so neither should I.

Another thing that irked me with Cassie Edward's defenders is they listed off Ms. Edward's merits and frailties as a person as a defence against her actions. You know what? It's irrelevant who she is; we're condemning what she did.

For the record, my plagiarizing student seems like a really nice guy. He's warm, friendly and gently-spoken, and he's doing meaningful things with his life in addition to being in school. But who he is doesn't change what he did, and that's the thing I'm kicking his ass for. Whether he's a nice guy, or terribly stressed-out, just isn't relevant.

Winning by cheating isn't winning, and if we want more merit in the world, then we have to both reward merit and keep dishonesty from accruing the same rewards as merit.

In other words: lift up the worthy, slap down the cheaters. It's a way to make human society better.

Ooh, Shiny!

You know, I actually do have a meatier blog post percolating in my brain, but for now, more pretty stuff!

Here's a dragon made of the pull-tabs off pop cans by an artist known (online, at least) as ~OniMushaKid.

(Click the picture to see the larger image posted in the artist's DeviantART gallery.)

Train vrs. Tornado

Train vrs. Tornado. Who will win?

Things get interesting at the one minute mark, if you want to skip ahead.

Ooh, Pretty!

For the first time ever, I am thoroughly impressed by someone's paper-craft project.



This pretty-princess fairy castle was made over the course of four years by Wataru Itou, a Tokyo art student, and it features a working train also made of paper. Click here for more photographs of Mr. Itou's spectacular "A Castle On the Ocean".

Um. Is it weird if I want to live there?

Congratulations, Stuart!

Congratulations to Stuart Neville, a.k.a. Conduit, on the release of his novel, The Twelve, in the UK!

I can't wait to get my hands on a copy when it's released as The Ghosts of Belfast on my side of the pond in October.

Stuart was once one of us many, many wannabe writers bounding around the internet trying to learn the Tao of publishing from the likes of Miss Snark and Evil Editor, so it's pretty thrilling to see him launching what looks to be a very successful career!

Every time I've read an excerpt of Stuart's writing, it has been pretty clear he has the talent to make it. And look! People like James Ellroy and John Connolly agree with me!

Congratulations, Stuart! I wish you the very best of luck and deserved success in your career.

*shakes pom-poms* You-can-do-eet, Con-du-eet!

Remembrance, Not Silence

Hydraulic-Piston Legs Are the New Black

Okay, fellows. You know how women have long been subjected to unrealistic expectations about their bodies? Well, it's payback time. From now on, you are all expected to aspire to this:



Especially the strip-tease-by-ninja-moves.


.

Linky-Love: Great Interviews

Some excellent author interviews are happening today; please check them out! Both of these are interactive in that you can expect the author to participate in the comment threads.

Merry Monteleone hosts an interview with Erica Kirov, author of Magickeepers: The Eternal Hourglass.

Aerin hosts an interview with Stuart Neville, author of The Twelve (UK)/The Ghosts of Belfast (N. America).

Controversy: Part 3

Cancelled due to me chickening out. :-)

The topic was:

Is It Unethical to Have Children?

Feel free to comment anyway, if you would like. As before, please be polite and respectful of everyone else.

Interlude from Controversy

Writtenwyrdd has a great post up for How to manage your credit rating, tips for handling junk mail & telemarketers, and do not call lists.

A lot of the information is most useful to Americans, but it's still handy to know what possibilities exist, because your country might have similar safe-guards.

And who doesn't love the idea of sending junk mail back to the sender via their own postage-paid envelopes? *maniacal laughter*

Controversy: Part 2

This is part two of a short series of posts where I'll voice an opinion that might be controversial and then step back and let others react to it.

Please feel free to discuss, argue, agree and disagree in the comments section. All I ask is that everyone to be polite and respectful to everyone else.

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Could a "Freeware" Model of Sales Work in Publishing?

This post was inspired by a comment made recently by Sarf, and I thank him for the input that led me to consider this question. Here's Sarf's original comment:

I have some questions for your readers.

First the set up:

A person pirates your book by downloading a copy from the web.

They love it. Are you as the author glad or sad?

Now said person writes you a check for the cover price of the book and mails it to you. Do you care if they pirated the book or not?

My (abridged) response to this was:

If I wanted to give it away for free, that's easy to arrange; by trying to get published, it's implied I don't want to give it away for free. I'm not [doing this for attention or praise, so book-love is not enough.]

[As to the question of being paid after the fact,] I want money for my work, but at the same time, I believe I should control whether or not my work is for sale in the first place [thus payment does not erase the ire I feel at having my work taken without my consent].

Sarf is a programmer, so I understand why he's curious about this question. The model he suggests is in keeping with the one "freeware" works under: a computer program is put onto the web for anyone to download, and the creator asks people who like the program to either pay hir† or buy a more powerful non-freeware version of the program.

It's a model worth thinking about, because pirating is something we'll never stamp out, and there's a lot of wisdom to trying to find a system where pirating simply isn't considered a problem. The freeware model views "pirating" to be a way to win customers.

The author Cory Doctorow is buying into this idea. He has said that obscurity is the thing that threatens his livelihood, not piracy, and so he offers some of his books online, for free, and asks people to pay him if they decide they like what they see. To him, he's getting his work read by new people and hopefully winning loyal customers.

I will note that there's not much empirical evidence to suggest this is working, although there's also not much evidence that it's doing Mr. Doctorow any harm. The jury's out.

The last thing I'll note is how music piracy gave way to iTunes. Some people will always steal, but most of us are uncomfortable with that. When the music industry started offering their customers what the customers wanted (the ability to browse for music, the ability to download, the ability to buy one song instead of an entire album) rather than what the industry wanted them to want (the status quo), the public bought into that in a big way. Most of the people downloading music now are paying for it. A few years ago, that wasn't the case.

As eBooks become more popular, the publishing industry should be thinking carefully about what they want the future to hold. Enforcing the status quo could backfire, so thinking flexibly about how books are sold is a worthwhile endeavour.

† "hir" is a gender non-specific way of writing him/her. I like it; I'm usin' it.

~~~~~~~

What do you think? Is piracy theft, and therefore always wrong? Can piracy be harnessed as way to generate sales? Can the freeware model work for publishing? Is there another model that you think would work better? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Controversy: Part 1

I'd like to start some discussions, if I can, and I think the best way to start a discussion is to voice an opinion that might be controversial and then step back and let others react to it.

To that end, this is the first of a short series of posts where I'll do exactly that. I intend to release the posts daily, and I think I'm only going to do three or four for now.

Please feel free to discuss, argue, agree and disagree in the comments section. All I ask is that everyone to be polite and respectful to everyone else.

~~~~~~~

Should Freedom of Speech Have Limits?

As a tween-ager, I decided you should read/listen to everyone's point of view, then make up your own mind. Censorship, i.e. obliterating the words of dissenters, struck me as a bully's tactic, even at that age, although I probably couldn't have put that concept into very eloquent words then.

But here's the ugliest wart on the backside of freedom of speech. Hate-speech.

Hate-speech is at the heart of a contradiction that has always unsettled me. On one hand, I do believe in legally limiting people's ability to disseminate hate-speech. On the other, isn't it hypocritical for me to promote freedom of speech, then turn around and say, "but only up to this point"?

It's something I've long been uncomfortable with, and I only recently sorted out a rationalization that satisfies me. It runs something like this:

Freedom of speech exists to champion and glorify communication. Throughout history, humans have dealt with their differences in many brutal ways, but in our best moments, we deal with them by talking it out. When we speak to one another, we gain understanding, we gain knowledge, we gain tolerance, and sometimes, we even fix our problems. In short, when humans beings talk to one another, we become a society instead of a war-zone. I think that's worth glorifying.

Hate-speech, on the other hand, encourages people to stop talking and start hitting. It seeks to halt communication and prevent understanding. It undermines that which freedom of speech exists in order to promote. Thus, I don't believe hate-speech deserves to be protected under freedom of speech; City Hall should not issue digging permits to people who intend to remove the foundations of the city.

I'll defend someone's right to speak about even abhorrent beliefs, so long as they don't advocate silencing anyone else, including those who disagree with them.

~~~~~~~

What do you think? What limits should freedom of speech have, if any? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Yay! Books!

Yesterday, I bought a book. It wasn't the book I had been considering buying; it was an impulse.

Today, I went to buy the book I originally wanted. Eight other books came home with it.

Y'think I might be set for summer reading material? I may have gone a wee bit overboard, there.

For the record, my new paperback babies are:

- Summer Knight, Death Masks, Blood Rites, Small Favors and Turn Coat, all by Jim Butcher
Yeah, I'm on a binge.

- Odd Hours by Dean Koontz
This was the impulse buy.

- The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Because I'm the last person on earth to have not read it, and the peer pressure is just killing me.

- Acacia by David Anthony Durham - Aerin has dibs (see below)
On the strength of the Dynastic Queen's glowing recommendation.

- The Digital Plague by Jeff Somers - Merry has dibs (see below)
Because the only thing scarier than electric monks is Avery Cates.

- The God of Clocks by Alan Campbell - Josh gets dibs, and Sarf gets a copy of Scar Night 'cause he's family! (see below)
This is the writer's third book; his first two were rather jaw-droppingly amazing. This guy arrived on my author-to-watch-for list quite abruptly.

El Husbando chuckled at me when I came in today oohing and ahhing and chortling in anticipation over my latest acquisitions. Laugh now, buddy! You're going to be fighting Jim Butcher for my attention for at least the next month.

~~~~~~~

:-D
So. Anyone else got a book they're particularly excited to be sinking their teeth into?

~~~~~~~

Edit (Free Stuff): Ooh! Aerin gives me a great idea. Since I live in a eensy-weensy apartment and thus donate most of my books to charity once I'm done reading them, would anyone like to volunteer to be the charity this time?

I.e. in the comment section, put dibs on one (1) of the books mentioned above, and once I'm finished reading it, I'll mail it to you, anywhere in the world! Aerin gets first dibs on Acacia, however.

If you get picked to receive a book, I will need you to email your snail mail address to me, but we'll work out the details in the comments section.

Nekkid Wimmen

I'll get to the nekkid wimmen in a moment. But first, my equivalent of Twittering:

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Dad-blamed, gosh-durned spammers. Grumblegrumble. Hopefully they're gone now, but if not, I may have to change the commenting rules on my blog. Grumblegrump.

~~~~~~~

So... It's been a while, hey? Yeah; I'm a bad blogger.

Truth is, I've been a bit of a naughty writer lately, and I think the dearth of blogging was due to my guilt. I finished a chapter on my WIP, wasn't totally happy with it, decided to take a break while I outlined the next chapter, and WHOOPS. That 'break' expanded into nearly a month of sloth and minimal writing.

Clearly, The Koala needs to blink her red eyes clear, lick the cotton candy off her claws, and do some Goblin-eviscerating.

Um. But I am back in the groove now, so flesh wounds only, please? Whimper.

~~~~~~~

As Sarf noted, spring can make you itchy to do something new (like going to VENICE, omgsojealous...) It has certainly taken me that way. I'm signed up to try yoga, and, two weeks ago, I started going to life drawing sessions again.

For anyone who doesn't know what "life drawing" is, that's a euphemism for drawing nekkid people. Yes, nudey wimmen. Nudey men. Hur, hur.

Except there's not much "hur, hur" about it. The models generally conform to Laman's Law of Public Nudity, which states: "Anytime you see a stranger naked, it is always someone you wish you hadn't seen naked."

The models might be grey-haired grannies, bald forty-year-old men, very overweight women, or creepy young guys with tattoos and pierced...bits.

However, that lack-of-teh-hawt is actually one of the coolest things about life drawing. Once you start sketching, you begin seeing the beauty in people you wouldn't look twice at. You notice the wonderful eyebrows and nose on the bald guy, the lovely flowing lines that define the plump woman's shape. You see the beautiful bone structure on the granny and realize she was gorgeous when she was young, and you spot the elegant musculature on the sketchy, skinny guy with the piercings.

It feels like a gift, every time. The world presents you with a very ordinary person, and you get to see them as a thing of beauty.

It's also weird, of course. I'm still not used to sitting with a bunch of strangers, waiting for a sixty-five-year-old man to whip off his sarong and sling his scrotum over a barstool. All the other artists act so cool. I do too, I guess, so I wonder if I'm the only one in the room who still gets that, "Eek, a penis," reaction.

The "eek" reaction goes away as soon as you start sketching, of course. You're concentrating too hard on what you're doing to feel odd about it. It reminds me of how I used to not be bothered by heights while I was rock climbing. If you're concentrating on your hand and toe placements, and the granite in front of your nose, then the expanse of empty air gaping under your feet doesn't bother you.

And it's kind of the opposite to how I feel about writing a first draft (at least these days.)

While I'm writing it, the story seems like complete drek. I'm pushing onward just to have something on the page, and hissing my mantra, "It's only a first draft," through gritted teeth. Only when I lean back and read it over do I think, "Hey, that's maybe kinda good..."

Is it weird to like editing your work more than actually writing it? You get to enjoy the good bits when you're editing; when you're writing, it seems like you're too busy to notice.

Does anyone else find this to be the case? I'd love to hear what you think.

Mallows, Sans Marsh

I made marshmallows today--from scratch! I am so proud of myself I could just blog.

Once upon a time (when I was teenager-ish aged), I realized I had no idea what marshmallows were. None. I'd been eating them my whole life, but I couldn't have told you any of the ingredients beyond sugar, or by what industrial alchemy they are wrought. To make things worse, I soon realized I also didn't know what mayonnaise was.

As it turns out, sugar is pretty much all there is to marshmallows. Here's the recipe:

Marshmallows

3 cups sugar
1/2 cup water

3 packets plain gelatin (that's about 20 grams, or 3 Tablespoons)
1/2 cup cold water

pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

Instructions:
- Prepare an 8 x 11 inch pan by greasing it, then dusting it with icing sugar.
- Mix gelatin and 1/2 cup cold water and let it sit for 10 minutes to "bloom".
- Boil sugar and 1/2 cup water together until it reaches 250 degrees Fahrenheit (120 C). For those of you who know the lingo, this is the "hard ball" stage. You need a proper candy thermometer for this.
- Drizzle the hot sugar syrup into the gelatin mixture while beating at a slow speed.
- Once all the sugar syrup is in, add the salt and vanilla extract, then beat at high speed for 12 minutes. The marshmallows will become very thick and gluey by the end.
- Pour the marshmallow goo into the prepared pan and smooth its top with a silicone spatula or greased plastic wrap.
- Allow to cool and set (a few hours), then cut into cubes and dredge the sides with icing sugar until the marshmallows are no longer sticky to the touch.

Makes 20 large marshmallows.

Edit: If you place your mixing bowl on top of a potholder for insulation, it cuts down on the small crunchy sugar crystals mentioned below.

Husbandos and Goblins agree: these taste JUST LIKE STORE-BOUGHT (maybe slightly better.) The mouth-feel and texture are exactly the same also, although my marshmallows have a slight bit of crunch from the sugar that you feel between your teeth. El Husbando actually really likes that.

So...why would someone make marshmallows when it's so easy to just buy a bag? Well, because Goblin is gibbled. Store-bought marshmallows contain corn syrup, and I've got an allergy to corn. Although I can eat the pre-packaged ones with no noticeable consequence, I probably shouldn't. Hence, adventures in mallow-land.

So that was my fun for the day. Has anyone other than Sarf done something quirky and adventurous lately? Tell us about it!

And by the way, mayonnaise is made by beating egg yolks and oil together for a really long time. Who woulda guessed that?

MemeMemeMeme...

A fun meme from Travis Erwin. Play along; you know you want to! (And if your memory's as bad as mine, just make up stuff that's approximately right.)

1. Your rock star name (first pet/current vehicle)
Goldfish Bus
2. Your Gangsta name (favourite ice cream flavour/fave type of shoe)
Vanilla Sneaker
3. Your Native American name (fave colour/favourite animal)
Blue Cat
4. Your soap opera name (middle name/city of birth)
Joan Edmundschuk (this one's fictitious for privacy reasons)
5. Your Star Wars name (first 3 letters of last name/first 2 letters of first name)
Debje
6. Your Superhero name (second fave colour/fave drink)
Red Tang
7. Your NASCAR name (first names of your grandfathers)
Bert Alexandir (Fictitious for privacy reasons; sorry)
8. Your dancer name (favourite scent/fave candy)
Lilac Caramilk
9. TV Weather Anchor name (5th grade teacher/city that starts with the same letter)
Gache Glenlivet (Sheesh--who remembers 5th grade?!)
10. Your spy name (fave season/flower)
Spring Iris
11. Your cartoon name (favourite fruit/article of clothing you are wearing)
Pomegranate Bathrobe
12. Your hippie name (what you had for breakfast/favourite tree)
Nothing Cedar
13. Your porn star name (first pet/first address)
Goldfish Lanky

Studentfail, Queryfail, Agentfail, Zamboni.

It's been Monday all week, I swear.

My apologies for the lack of blogging, but yeef. My students are succumbing to serious end-of-term flakiness. I have scheduled ten make-up labs in the past week, and I had two more students absent today who I haven't heard from yet.

It's my own fault. I am a ginormous softie, and they all know it.

My desk is a-flutter with dubious doctor's notes. Bambi-eyed woe-begones creep into my office to protest their innocent ignorance about the department's (well-advertised) policy of "You ditch a lab, you fail the course". Emails sluice into my inbox, detailing the horrors of abrupt, profound, far-too-icky-to-come-to-school-OMG ailments.

I roar and gnash my teeth and try to put the fear of God the meanie-head Lab Instructor into them, and then I let them do the make-up labs anyway. I am such a sucker.

But I also love my job and my students, even when they're making me nuts. I remember what university was like, and all the complex ways in which anxiety and common sense can tango when there's a project due and a midterm coming up. The kiddies do make me smile. Just not when they're actually in my office, claiming they "overslept" a lab that starts at 2 PM.

Besides, did I mention the meanie-head Lab Instructor can get a lot of writing done while she's over-seeing a make-up lab? I am glad I bought this laptop.

Which brings me, via a typically circuitous route, to #queryfail and Agentfail.

I'd like to comment on these two incidents--or more specifically, some of the comments made in them--from the perspective of someone who makes a living as an instructor.

Dear Writers:
Here's a secret: Teaching is fun. Marking sucks. They don't pay me to teach; they pay me to do the stinkin' marking.

Imagine me hunched at my desk, hemmed in by a box canyon built out of lab books, my fingers cramping around a red pen. I have to get through all those books, and I'm starting to go buggy. The only way I'm going to make it is by taking occasional brain-breaks. I pull back from the canyon, cast a wistful eye at the sunshine outside, and check my email or read a few blogs. Then I get back to work.

Now imagine yourself writing a problematic scene. You grind your teeth and sweat over the words, but it's just not flowing. Finally you stop and play a few games of Minesweeper or computer solitaire. Just a few--and then you get back to the grind.

We all do that, right? Sometimes you just need to clear your head.

So please don't begrudge agents their Twitter and Blogging habits; it's perfectly human to need to take brain-breaks. When you're mired in a task that is tedious as well as depressing or frustrating, sometimes the only thing that gives you the stamina to plough onward for another two hours are those brief, time-wasting breaks. This is true of marking, and writing a tough scene, and it's also true of wading through the slush pile.

PS - And please ease up on the response-time fury. Go re-read my second paragraph; when I get busy at work, I blow off non-crucial things that don't make me money. Agents are allowed to also. Reading the slush pile does not make them money.

Dear Agents:
Here's something you've probably had to explain to a few clients: A writer creates a work, and the public reacts to it. The writer controls the former thing; they do not control the latter. They can write the best damned story they are capable of, but they can't force anyone to like it.

Teaching is similar, in that the outcome is beyond your control. Some students--despite your most strenuous efforts--will never learn enough to pass the course. You have no control over that. You can only teach to the best of your abilities, just as the student can only learn to the best of their abilities.

And yes, it's frustrating when you try your damnedest and it still doesn't work. All teachers groan about and laugh over their students in the staff room. We need to decompress.

However, that's where such discussions have to stay. Ridiculing a student to their face never benefits them. You might de-moralize the student, or make them decide you're jerk not worth listening to, but you won't teach them anything. And your raison d'etre is to teach.

So here's the tough question: How much of #queryfail was an honest attempt to teach, and how much of it was a really fun staff room discussion?

Because if it was the latter, it shouldn't have taken place in front of your "students", the writers. You are absolutely entitled to have as many #queryfail parties as you want and to enjoy the hell out of them. Just make them private--keep it in the staff room.

The Demon-Squirrel is Back

Last night, I come home, take a gander out our balcony window, and notice two mouse-traps on our deck.

Mouse-traps baited with paper towel.

Apparently the Demon Squirrel of Seville came back. Hence the mouse-traps.

She didn't chew up our plants this time, but she did rip the paper towels off the makeshift solarium El Husbando built around his hibernating Venus Flytrap (it's a long story.) Hence, mouse-traps baited with paper towels.

Have I mentioned El Husbando can be pretty obsessive about his plants? I mean, he's no match for me when it comes to weirdness, but still. Paper towels. As bait. For a squirrel.

What brought on this malevolence, you ask? What caused my mild-mannered, vegetarian husband to break out the weapons of mass destruction? Well, the perceived threat to his Venus Flytrap was certainly part of it, but the real military provocation came in the form of bioterrorism: he discovered not one, not two, but three (relatively) large piles of squirrel poo on our balcony. I admit, that's a fairly high poo-to-balcony ratio.

Groovin' peace-nik that I am, I squawked as soon as I saw the traps. El Husbando is of the opinion the mouse-traps would only scare the squirrel, not hurt it, while I think they could break her paw or wind up permanently attached to her tail, hampering the animal for life. So I poked his traps and promised to find a more humane way to drive off Our Furry Nemesis.

Having given the great god Google its favourite sacrifice (my free time), I am now equipped with my own weapon of mass destruction:

A spritzer bottle full of extra-spicy hot sauce. Apparently, demon squirrels don't like their nesting materials Cajun style.

OMG--Squee!

There. Are. No. Words.

Well, except for "Extreme Shepherding".

Our Furry Arch-Nemesis

It's interesting how perspectives can shift with the addition of one small piece of information. I just finished reading Jim Butcher's Princeps' Fury, and one of the series' principal villains just turned out to be not such a nasty character after all--or rather his motivations are abruptly more understandable, even if the reader doesn't approve of his actions. Mr. Butcher has been doing this intermittedly throughout the series.

As in fiction, so in life! Yesterday, the cutest little cuddle-bunny you ever saw abruptly turned into Our Furry Arch-Nemesis. The one tiny thing that changed my perception of aforementioned beastie? Lilac.

Let me explain. We're city dwellers right in the heart of downtown Concreteum-Urbania, and when you live in a weensy 12th floor apartment like we do, if a squirrel runs up the side of the building and hops onto your balcony, that's freakin' adorable, right?

And she was; she had a teddy bear body and bright shiny eyes. Her mouth had that grave, groundhog-earnestness to it. She was black and agile and her tail fluffed endearingly.

I'm a bit lazy about pruning my plants, and so there's a popcorn bucket full of dead clippings sitting on the deck. It's been there, in various degrees of brimmingness, for several years.

The cuddle bunny starts grabbing handfuls of this material, tucking it into her mouth, and dashing out of sight behind our juniper tree, presumably to scamper back down the building. Still adorable, right?

But wait--we discover she's not running down the building; she's building a nest behind the juniper tree.

El Husbando starts being a bit concerned at this point, but I start cheering. "Baby squirrels! We're going to have baby squirrels running around on our deck this summer!"

"They're going to poop all over it. It'll be worse than the pigeons."

"Baby squirrels! Yay!"

"Hey--there's a lot of green material in that nest..."

El Husbando steps outside. Squirrel runs away down the building. E. H. inspects the nest, then returns with his lips pressed thin. "She's completely chewed up the back of the juniper."

So what? thinks I. That's the back; we don't see that part anyway. And baby squirrels! How cute would that be?

"I'm going to poke her with a stick so she doesn't come up anymore," says El Husbando.

Now this comment shocks me. El Husbando is a vegetarian because he doesn't believe a living creature should have to die just so he can eat. However, he's also a bit of a fuss-pot regarding his plants, and apparently those two instincts were at war. I, of course, decided to help out the side I agreed with more.

"Don't do that! If she falls off the building, she'll die. Besides, she's just looking for a place to have her babies."

I would have said more, but at that point, El Husbando casually dropped the bomb."She's bitten a huge chunk off your tree, too."

My tree? Wait--you mean my lilac tree?

The squirrel might as well have grown horns and mandibles. I've loved the scent of lilacs since I was a child, and before Sepiru Chris, his wife Regina, and their feline overlord Pommes went galivanting off to Switzerland, they dug a lilac bush up from their backyard and gave it to me in a pot. Last year, it had recovered from the transplant enough to put out a single spray of flowers. I have high hopes for it this year.

And there was indeed a big chunk of it chewed off. Well, then. Time to show Our Furry Nemesis just who's got the opposable thumbs.

We broke up and threw away her nesting material. We propped some metal slats behind the juniper. We drizzled Pine Sol in the same area, just to make sure it didn't seem hospitable (although I'm not sure the scent of pine would bother a squirrel...) We lashed planks of wood to our balcony to make it difficult for her to get off the wall and onto our deck.

I think the commotion itself scared her away, more than our physical deterrents, since we didn't see her after that.

One small revelation, and everything changes. This is part of why backstory in a book can be a bad thing, and it's also why we give our characters secrets--every secret can become a turning point for your story.

Or every lilac branch.