Emily Mah

Denvention

2008-08-19T21:21:00.006-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted for two reasons. 1) I was out of town all weekend again, and 2) I've been working overtime to finish edits on this SF novel so I can get it out already.

Anyway, back two weekends ago I was at Denvention, the first WorldCon I've been to in years. I used to go every year, starting with PhilCon and ending with TorCon. Had I stayed single and a full time attorney, I probably would have kept on going, but I traded my spare time and extra spending money in for a good marriage, definitely worth it.

And sadly, WorldCon seems to be shrinking. This one in Denver was notably smaller than any other I've seen. Some think that WorldCon is slowly being cannibalized by ComiCon, and that's definitely a possibility. Perhaps the saddest thing was how few of the Hugo nominees and winners came. The ceremony was dominated by other people reading acceptance speeches of little slips of paper.

What saddens me about all this isn't so much that Denvention wasn't the nonstop party that WorldCon usually is, though that too was a bummer. It's hard to watch the community dissipating. One of the most interesting things about SF, that I learned coming out of Clarion West, was how interconnected everyone was. I.e. Connie Willis tells a story about turning down an offer to cowrite with David Brin, getting chocolates from him, losing said chocolates, and having Bruce Sterling help her find them again. Connie Willis, David Brin, and Bruce Sterling write in rather different styles, yet they all knew each other socially and artistically.

SF has traditionally had this amazing dialogue between its writers as they bounce ideas off each other, respond to each others works, critique each others books, and stay up far too late at cons sharing stories and quips. Nowadays, I think that's lessening, and part of the reason is that we won. SF and fantasy are so widespread that they've become mainstream. Many of the bestselling speculative fiction authors now didn't start out networking at conventions, instead they just read a lot of speculative fiction and decided to try to break into writing it through the usual channels of finding an agent and then selling a book. J.K. Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, and Stephen King probably haven't spent much time sitting on a bed in some random hotel suite together joking about whether John Scalzi can pass for Paolo Bacigalupi (one of the activities at Denvention). These three probably don't know each other at all, nor will a lot of their successors.

Fortunately I still have Critical Mass, a little microcosm of classic SF workshopping, and the New Mexico writers community is still going strong. And, times change, I guess. I hope the era of the tight knit SF community isn't truly ending.

LDSBA Convention

2008-08-14T21:57:00.003-06:00

Last Wednesday and Thursday I attended the LDS Booksellers Association Convention for the first time. Because I'm still relatively new to LDS publishing, I didn't even know such a thing existed a year ago. I also had no idea what to expect.

So on Wednesday morning I went over to the exhibit hall and got my bearings. I met the people at the Covenant booth, which took up a good piece of real estate in the back corner, and then looked around at the rest of the vendors. Convention is for buyers from independent LDS bookstores, meaning any bookstore that is not a Deseret Book or a Seagull Book. These two chains are almost exclusive to the mountain west, so nearly all LDS book distribution everywhere else in the United States and Canada is through independent bookstores.

After taking a good look at the Convention itself, I headed out to do a signing. There, I was in for a shock. I'd sort of kept an eye on how well my book was doing on Deseretbook.com, but hadn't paid attention to Seagullbook.com. Hence, I had no idea I was fourth on their bestseller list, or that my book would be prominently featured on displays at the front of the store. It was a nice surprise, but a surprise all the same. At all of the signings and bookstore drop ins I did last week, the book was easy to find. In fact, it was often hard to find all the copies of it because it was on the bestseller shelf, the front display, an endcap, and quite often there was a copy in the counter display. My mother, who accompanied me on the drive up from New Mexico, became quite adept at finding them all so that I could sign them.

Another surprise was that fans showed up. I knew there wouldn't be hordes, but I rather expected to just sit at the signing table and maybe sell a copy or two to passers by. To have people show up, looking for me specifically, was rather stunning. It would appear my fan base is women in their late teens and early to mid twenties, which is about what I expected. Still, it was very nice to see their enthusiastic responses.

I also got the chance to run into Traci Hunter Abramson and Jeri Gilchrist when we all dropped in on the same store. Traci was great to talk to, with her background in national security, and Jeri was wonderfully kind, going immediately to buy my book and have me sign it.

Some other surprises: Men bought the book from me. (The cover is so not geared towards men. I mean... it's pink.) All of the bookstore managers and most of the employees knew who I was at once. (Okay, not surprising if you know the book was on the bestseller list, but I hadn't known.) Covenant does royalties in August. (The check arrived while I was out of town and my husband read me the sales report. Suffice it to say I've met this year's goal of earning enough to buy an air conditioner, and this from two months of sales. They will drop off sharply from here on out, I think, but still!) My editor is really tall. (Well, taller than she looks on her Facebook profile, but I guess everyone there looks about two inches high. It was great meeting her face to face.) One of the other editors at Covenant is an SF fan. (He asked me how on Earth I got into my writer's group, as he knew of the other members. A fair question. :-)

All in all, a very nice introduction to the world of LDS publishing. I've still got a lot to absorb, but last week definitely steepened my learning curve.

Pedicure

2008-08-13T13:53:00.003-06:00

Last week, while I was in Utah with my mother, we decided to get pedicures (not something I do all that often). The pedicurist asked me if I wanted flowers on my toes, and I said no, but mentioned that I was on my way to a science fiction convention, so could I possibly get stars? Turns out they had rhinestone stars in stock and she obligingly glued some on to my big toenail for no extra charge (though I did of course tip her).

I think the effect is rather funny. Sorry the picture's so blurry; I took it with my cell phone in the airport very late at night while we waited on our much-delayed flight.

Bibliography

2008-08-13T13:00:00.002-06:00

Short Story Sales:

Root, to Shiny, it will appear in their Issue 5.

Disciple, to The Black Gate, issue to be determined

The River People, to The Black Gate, issue not yet out

Coyote Discovers Mars, to Coyote Wild; it is in their Summer of 2007 issue

Polar Shift, to Polaris: A Celebration of Polar Science, an anthology edited by Julie Czerneda and published by Fitzhenry & Whiteside in Spring, 2007

Novel Sales:

Time and Eternity (written as E.M. Tippetts) to Covenant Communications, is can now be purchased from Deseret Book, the BYU Bookstore, Seagull Book, and your local LDS bookstore (or, if they don't have it, they can order it in for you.)

Shiny!

2008-08-12T22:52:00.001-06:00

I just got home and learned I sold another story. My YA SF short story, Root, will appear in the Australian magazine, Shiny. I'll update my biblio when I feel more awake....

Off to conventions

2008-08-04T22:35:00.001-06:00

I'll be off-blog for a week. Tomorrow, bright and early, my mother and I are headed up to Salt Lake City for the LDS Booksellers Association Convention. Then this weekend I'll be at Denvention (this year's WorldCon). Rather an interesting mix of cultures, but it's been so many years since I've been to WorldCon that I'm looking forward to it. It's always a chance to see old friends.

My only regret is that I didn't get my SF novel all the way edited before I left, but I'll have my laptop with me and have gotten all the roughest parts out of the way. The rest should be easy enough.

Finalizing the calendar for next week

2008-07-30T13:49:00.003-06:00

So my mother and I got together, looked at a bunch of maps of the Salt Lake area, and scheduled a bunch of drop-ins at Seagull Bookstores for next week. Some surprises when I called around: 1) They'd all heard of my book. Often they didn't know my name (not at all surprising) but when I said Time and Eternity I always got an, "Oh!" and immediate increase in friendliness. Rather shocking to me. I gather the book's sold well, but a lot of these store managers are guys. Not that I mean to be sexist. I just think they'd be entirely justified to not pay much attention to a chick novel with a pink cover. One of the managers I had to call back had a copy of the book in hand when he picked up the phone. 2) Several of them sounded rather excited to talk to a Real Live Author. I know, I know, I sound completely jaded. Rather than basking in the attention, I'm thinking, "What? Are they new to their jobs or something? Where's the bored contempt?" Maybe they are new to their jobs, or maybe all the LDS authors favor one certain group of stores and I managed to hit a few that they don't often go to. Or maybe these store managers really like that aspect of their jobs.

The full calendar's over on my E.M. Tippetts site. I made sure to do a bunch of drop-ins in the Provo area since that's where many of the readers in my target age group will be. One manager forewarned me that there weren't likely to be big crowds of them there to meet me, and I assured him that I wasn't expecting that. For the most part, I hope to meet bookstore employees during the drop-ins, though readers are of course welcome.

Then, on Thursday night, I'm flying over to Denver for WorldCon. Rather a change of pace. My mother is coming on this trip with me - she was kind enough to keep me company on the long car rides up to Utah and back. WorldCon should be a fun experience for her, if a rather strange one. I've got one panel at 4pm on Saturday, and the rest of the time I just look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones. I've got two roommates that I've never met before (not uncommon). I wonder if I'll actually get to see them, or if we'll be out at such crazy hours that our paths won't cross.

After WorldCon I'll fly back to Salt Lake, get my car, and drive home. By that Tuesday, I should have successfully spent all of the money I'm likely to earn on writing this year :-).

Weird Tales and Leading Edge

2008-07-29T21:17:00.002-06:00

Not really a rejection entry. Weird Tales did reject a story of mine; this one originally got lost in the mail and Ann VanderMeer got me a very quick reply to my query checking up on this. So I resubbed the story and just heard back.

Meanwhile Leading Edge has invited me to have an editorial review. This isn't an offer to publish, but an opportunity to do a rewrite pursuant to their editors' recommendations, with the possibility of selling if they like a rewrite. Here's to hoping my rewriting skills are up to the task!

Now on Amazon

2008-07-28T14:04:00.002-06:00

My book is now up on Amazon.com, one whole copy of it. Actually, this means I can sell copies via Amazon if I have any spares, which at the moment I don't. I just had to wait until someone put it in the system. Covenant, my publisher, is one of the few LDS publishers that doesn't sell through Amazon, something I always found curious given their huge share of the LDS market. They seem to maintain it by going exclusively through LDS bookstores and websites.

"Drop-ins"

2008-07-24T22:39:00.004-06:00

My publisher has suggested that I do some "drop-ins" at various Seagull Bookstores when I'm in the Salt Lake Area for the LDSBA Convention in a couple of weeks. These are a new term and a new concept for me, but the basic idea, I gather, is going to the bookstore to meet the staff and be nice to them so that they think you're a good person worthy of selling a few books. I've read about this practice before, but never witnessed it. Yes, I'm definitely new at this.

The first thing I need to do is schedule these by calling the stores. I'm going to sit down with my mother (who's driving up to SLC with me) and together we're going to figure out the locations of all the stores so we can know which ones are near each other. The actual calls will be strange for me the first few times, but the publicist for Covenant assured me that bookstore staff will know what a "drop-in" is when I suggest doing one.

I'm also doing a couple of signings that week. Check out the calendar at www.emtippetts.com to see details.

Rough draft done

2008-07-22T13:00:00.000-06:00

I finished the rough draft of my SF novel on Friday and my longsuffering husband is now reading it. He claims to like it, but I'm at that burned out phase where I find the sight of it icky. Means I need some downtime, and ice cream.

Then it's on to rewrites....

Grocery store signing - sold out

2008-07-19T14:35:00.002-06:00

Today's signing at Smith's Food and Drug went very well. We sold out! Which means we'll need to see about getting more books in. Even though the book wasn't displayed before this afternoon, people figured out they could request it and bought a third of them. Another third sold all at once to one person who came in, and the last third sold over the course of about an hour.

Quite a success! Thanks very much, everyone who came!

Review in Meridian Magazine

2008-07-18T01:07:00.001-06:00

Meridian Magazine reviewed my LDS novel, here. It's a rather nice review :-).

Going nocturnal

2008-07-18T00:54:00.003-06:00

For the past several days I've had a hard time staying awake while I write, which I considered a very bad sign. I worried that I was getting either bored with the project or too psychically exhausted to complete it in the timeframe I wanted to. But when away from my computer, the story and characters nagged at me, so I decided it wasn't that. I wondered then if I needed to take a break from writing or else risk burnout.

Turns out it's just my insomnia, or whatever the best name for my sleep disorder is. I've had it for as long as I can remember and while it can be controlled with medication, I can't be on my medication right now because of drug interaction issues. I *finally* got some good sleep this afternoon and can now write without passing out in front of my computer. The way my disorder works is I can sleep during those rare windows when the petty dictator in my biology lets me. Missing a window means enduring more exhaustion. Unlike a normal person, I can't sleep whenever I'm tired. I can be so fatigued that I'm walking into walls but if it isn't a window when I'm sleepy, there is nothing I can do but endure it. There is no way to make myself sleepy. I tried everything from hiking 20 miles in a day to hot baths. No effect. For years I built up a rather frightening sleep deficit because I tried to practice sleep hygiene in order to get my sleep all at night. The result, I got maybe 2-4 hours per night, on the nights when I slept. By the time I found a doctor who could help me, I couldn't drive. I could barely see straight.

So, I slept through the afternoon and am now wide awake. I'll use the time to write some more because these windows of alertness are rare too. I'm looking forward to getting back on my meds and being a normal person again.

4 Wheeling

2008-07-15T14:56:00.003-06:00

Trevor and I spent July fourth this year four-wheeling in the mountains with his family. I'd never ridden a four wheeler before, and it was fun, despite the fact that it was on rugged roads with no helmets and riding 2-3 to a vehicle, exactly as the instructions tell you not to do. The lawyer in me was cringing quite a bit.

On our way up the mountain I saw my second ever bear in the wild. It's funny because I've lived my whole life in the American west and the first time I ever saw one was in my parents' subdivision, about a week before. He was a little scrawny guy who'd been eating people's garbage and has since been taking by the Dept. of Game and Fish to be fattened up and relocated. This bear, that we saw in Wyoming, was just trotting along towards the road. At the sight of us he stopped, started, then turned tail and ran, soon disappearing behind a rise. That happened so fast that I couldn't be sure of what I'd seen. My initial thought was that it was a dog, but given where we were, I knew that was unlikely.

Fortunately, he (she?) came out from behind the rise to continue on up the hill, which was covered with grass and no trees, so we could see him fleeing for quite a while. That's the longest bear sighting I've ever had.

The picture is Trevor and I once we reached an area near-ish to the peak. It had a lovely overlook, as you can see.

It has to be fun

2008-07-14T22:42:00.005-06:00

I have been exhausted these last several days, but have still managed to get about 12,000 words down. It's during the long slogs that I have to work the hardest in keeping my writing interesting for myself. This is a good thing, in the end of the day. If I have to keep myself alert, then I don't drift off into long expanses of prose where nothing happens. I hope! If I can stay on schedule, this redraft of my novel will be done by the end of the week. Then a week of editing and tuning, and then it goes out to agents.

Signing pictures

2008-07-10T20:23:00.011-06:00

I finally got pictures from my signing uploaded on my computer. To the left is a picture of me with the staff of Words of Wisdom Bookstore, who were wonderfully kind and attentive. Below is me and Trevor, my husband.

The signing was on Saturday, June 28th, which was the lowest traffic Saturday they'd had in a long time. It was the beginning of a holiday week, the temple closed that day, and it was a signing, and those are often jinxed (and I'm a new writer no one's ever heard of before.)

However, in the week to follow Trevor and I did manage to nearly double the store's sales of the book. I took a boxload of copies down to Wyoming to have on hand during some readings and talks that I did. What I thought would be plenty of copies all sold out in about five minutes at the first event, so I got through the rest of the week with copies my mother-in-law had bought. She let me sell those on and I bought her replacements when I went back to Words of Wisdom.

By the way, Trevor and I are dressed up because we'd just come from the temple, which was down the street.

One step forward, ten back

2008-07-08T21:48:00.003-06:00

I got more than 16,000 words written and deleted over vacation last week. So it goes when I write. I wish I was someone who could get it right the first time, but my first drafts are always awful, so I need to rewrite and rewrite until I drive myself insane.

However, the second act is coming together, yay! And will help me substantially revise the first act. The point at which the writing becomes easiest for me is the end of the second act. By then I know all I need to know about my characters, all of the storylines are laid out, I just need to write the finale - I've been able to do the entire third act in two days before - and then retool the first act. There's always a lot of junk in the first act at that point; stories set up that I don't need, or holes where I need to set up a storyline. I also rewrite the beginning last, so that I've got a good grasp on my characters and how they'll play to the reader.

I found this nifty device that shows progress on a book:

23,560 / 55,000
(42.8%)

The thing is, it's made for people who make linear progress. I'll cut, delete, and then write in such huge chunks that this word count will bounce all over the place. The total word count is also a complete guess, which makes this of limited use to me. My books usually come in around 60,000 to 70,000 words. Whether this one gets that long depends on how many subplots I stick with.

A Motley Vision

2008-07-07T15:02:00.002-06:00

William Morris interviewed me over the last week and the result is posted on A Motley Vision. For anyone unfamiliar with this site, it's a Mormon arts and culture blog, and a great read, in my opinion. It's especially useful for people interested in LDS or other spiritual fiction who find the LDS mainstream market limited. The bloggers read a lot more broadly, and will find books that might not make it into the mainstream LDS distribution outlets.

Submissions

2008-07-07T14:52:00.003-06:00

I don't have the camera hookup on hand so I can't upload my pictures from Wyoming. Nevermind. I'll blog about that later.

Meanwhile today, I've been doing agent submissions. It's hard to overstate how much I hate these. They take hours, they require serious attention to detail, and the result from 90% of them will be a form rejection letter. Yet, it's an essential part of working as a writer. Today, the car is still not all the way unpacked, there are suitcases on the floor, the house needs to be cleaned, and the yard desperately needs to be weeded. I've been up and working since 7am, and only just got back from the post office. And that was for a whopping 9 submissions - a piddly number. Each agency has their own requirements and their own forms to follow.

These subs aren't likely to lead anywhere much. This is for my second LDS novel, which Covenant just passed on because they found the protagonist too young. So this also means I need to get another novel written for them ASAP - ideally I'd like one coming out every year; it's important to keep ones name out there.

I think it very unlikely that any agent will be interested in one of my LDS novels, especially at this stage of my career, but it'd be silly of me not to send my work around to them. When I expect to get extremely miserable is when I do agent submissions for my young adult SF novel at the end of the month. Those'll have me blubbering in the corner, I'm sure. I'll have to do a million of those. One of my friends had to do forty-five submissions to land an agent, and she is a brilliant writer, way more brilliant than I am. Each query packet reduces your confidence in your writing by about 30%. You discover new depths of humility with each new one, but given the way limits work, by the time you're self confidence is almost gone, each additional 30% doesn't hurt so bad.

Signing

2008-07-03T21:29:00.002-06:00

Okay, so my blog will be a few days out of synch with actual events, and I don't have my pictures to upload yet. But on Saturday I did my first signing for Time and Eternity, up at the Words of Wisdom Bookstore in Billings, Montana. I don't think it's possible for bookstore staff to be more supportive than these guys were. First of all, they scheduled a signing, which doesn't usually bring in much business for a store, especially not when the author is new. Secondly, they spent the entire time hanging out at the table with me, talking. Often bookstore staff don't have time to do this, what with having to run a store. Thirdly, I watched them bodily drag a customer over to the signing table and thrust a book into her hand. Now, that goes above and beyond, I have to say. Seriously.

Their support has really helped sales of the book. They averaged selling more than one a day for the first month, which for a store of their size is incredible.

I also learned the very disturbing fact that their most shoplifted items are scriptures and CTR rings. I'm trying to imagine a person reading their stolen scriptures or wearing their stolen "Choose the Right" ring and wondering if such an individual knows what irony is.

Response from Deseret Book in Albuquerque

2008-07-02T22:57:00.002-06:00

I received a very helpful email from the manager of the Deseret Book in Albuquerque today, clearing up what the status is on their supply of my book. I gather that the initial order, done by the buyer, did not include any kind of automatic re-order for when the book sold below its minimum inventory. Usually the orders do include this automatic re-order, and so the book sold out while the store had to go through the procedures to get more in. Hence the delay in having them in store. They apparently have them in now, though, as a friend just wrote on my Facebook that she bought it from them today.

If a store doesn't have a copy of a book, though, you can always order it through them. This way you only pay the cover price and not shipping. A store employee should also be able to give you an estimated arrival date for the next shipment, though you may need to ask them for it specifically.

The manager's email now has me worried that they might have overcompensated and bought way too many books and will have to return them all and hate me forever... yeah, I should probably go to bed now.

Condensing

2008-06-25T21:12:00.004-06:00

I wish I could just speed up this process, or avoid it altogether, but oh well. I wrote about 3,000 words today - or rewrote at least. I always seem to need two versions of the first 100 or so pages, one that's terrible that just kind of helps me get my bearings, and then one that actually will serve as the rough draft. Today I got to the end of my rewrite of those first 100 pages, which means I push on tomorrow.

The novel is now about a third of the way done, and the second act can be hairy too. I do a lot of tinkering with the first as I write the second, because I find that the only way to keep the story rolling through the second act is to make sure every plot thread has a good foundation in the first act. The middle of the book is no time to introduce brand new conflicts.

By far the easiest part, for me, is the third act. When I've done it right, all of that naturally follows from what I've set up before. I wish I could just fast forward there, but the only way out of this process is through.

Distribution issues

2008-06-24T13:23:00.004-06:00

Well, so here's what I've been able to piece together. Deseret Book in Albuquerque originally ordered four copies of my book, the last of which sold nearly two weeks ago to a member of my ward. Ward members and friends who have tried subsequently to buy the book have been simply told it is out of stock. One friend who ordered copies through this store over a week ago, has not had his copies come in yet.

Such are the joys of dealing with distribution. I've talked to the manager at this store and a couple of supervisors, and they couldn't care less that I'm around. They first told me they couldn't afford to do a signing (I wasn't suggesting they do a signing - the cost of advertising those for a new author rarely gets recouped in the number of copies sold) and just muttered noncommittally when I offered to give them things like Book Club questions. Well, actually they again told me they couldn't afford to buy them from me (what kind of whacked out author tries to sell more items to a bookstore? They don't need more expenses.) Even when I made it clear that I wasn't trying to get anything from them, just offering to help if they could think of anything I could help with, they did little more than shrug. I did try to tell them, without sounding too arrogant, that more than four copies of the book would likely sell. The ward member who ordered copies through them was more blunt, saying, "Well you'll want to get *more* of these." They may have more in stock now, but I've been suggesting that people call ahead to reserve an in-store copy before making the drive to Albuquerque (not that I think they'd go solely to get my book, mind you.)

This leaves the internet the best way for people in my area to get the book, and yes, this is a problem. Even in the information age, there are a lot of people who don't use the internet. For those that do, I recommend this link to Seagull Book because they always sell at more of a discount. The real concern here is that people who think they might like to read my book are getting turned away the first time they try to buy it, and most will not try again. This impacts sales in a big way, since most product moves by word of mouth - every publicity campaign and event is trying to get this elusive force going. If that first round of readers isn't getting books, they won't have any opinion, good, bad, or indifferent, to pass on to others.

There are a few bright spots, though. Despite these hiccups, there seems to be good market penetration. Char encountered the bookstore employee who was raving about the book - and did not know that Char is my friend and top of the acknowledgments. Another member of my ward had a relative call up raving about the book, again, not knowing that I was in this person's ward and her visiting teacher. These are really, really good.

Another piece of good news is that the local grocery store will be stocking the book just as soon as their shipment gets in this week. In my town, as in many, the grocery store is the highest traffic business. I've also been asked to give a talk and signing there, perhaps multiple if it goes well, and this is a golden opportunity for me. I very much look forward to doing that, because unlike in a bookstore, where you usually sit alone with bookstore traffic going by, here I can expect to sit alone with grocery store traffic going by. Far more people eat than read.

And then there's the Words of Wisdom Bookstore in Billings, Montana, where I will be signing books this Saturday. First of all, it is very kind of them to arrange a signing for an unknown. I simply called them up because I was going to be in the area visiting my in-laws and asked if I could do anything for them. Second of all, they've done incredible advertising in their store. They've given my poster by-the-register real estate and put another on the front door. They've made a display of my book with a huge stack of copies. It's really quite incredible, and I hope it doesn't hurt them too badly economically. (I don't mean to be an utter pessimist - I only want things to proceed in a sustainable way.) And now I've just checked that link and see I'm up on their website. Wow. Thanks guys!

My calendar of signings as E.M. Tippetts is here.

Stupid internet

2008-06-21T15:22:00.002-06:00

So my internet connection comes and goes, which is good for the writing, but bad for blogging. I tried playing Guild Wars with Jayne earlier and kept getting dc'd. I don't know if the problem is my modem or the internet connection itself, and the problem is, I can't find out until I get a new modem. Qwest doesn't service the model we have because it is so old. So, Trevor ordered a new one off EBay and we're waiting for it to come in.

Meanwhile, I keep power cycling our modem, changing cords, unplugging phones, and all that fun stuff. Our phone cuts out occasionally too, which makes me think something's wrong with the connection to our house.