Year: 2011

. . .some administrivia, anyway. After I unburden myself by saying that I saw a motorcycle accident on the way home — the bike went down essentially at my feet. All parties seemed to be all right, though I think that that the girl driver who cut them off, and kept saying to the cop, “But he hit me!” may be in for a rude sort of surprise somewhere down the line.

And the sad, scary part was — he damn’ near missed her, through no fault of her own, just clipped the very, very backest bit of her rear quarter-panel, but it was enough. The passenger jumped clear, but the bike took the driver down under it.

Ambulances arrived, also police officers, and several helpful strangers, at least two on motorcycles. I pulled off to call the cops and to wait, since I’d practically been in the guy’s pocket when he fell, but turned out nobody wanted to talk to me.

Just as well.

In any case, I’m still a little rattled.

So! Administrivia:

1. As previously announced in this blog and elsewhere, Uncle Hugo’s has received the signed* copies of Ghost Ship very early. If you pre-ordered a signed copy of Ghost Ship from Uncle Hugo’s and you want your book mailed to you RIGHT NOW, write to Don Blyly at unclehugoATaolDOTcom and tell him so. If you want your book personalized**, you must tell Don that, too, by July 15. Books that are to be personalized will be held until Sharon and Steve are in Minneapolis in late August. Signed books will either be released RIGHT NOW, if you write, as above, and say so, or after July 15, if no order has come through for personalization.
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*Signed means that Sharon and Steve signed their names on (in this case) a page that was then bound into Ghost Ship. The signatures are authentic; the paper matches that used to print the rest of the book. The books are SIGNED with the authors’ names only.

**Personalized means that you want Sharon and Steve to write something more than their names in your book, to make it, yanno, personal.

I had no idea when the original call regarding the early arrival of Ghost Ship was posted that there was, or could be, any confusion at all between “signed” and “personalized”. Live and learn.
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2. Splinter Universe is slowly coming together.  Right now, there’s a “splinter” up as a dry run to test website functionality.  A “splinter,” as is explained on the site, is a piece of novel or story that was for whatever reason never completed.  The current splinter is the first two chapters of a novel that died just short of 20,000 words in 2003.  I’m perfectly happy to post the rest, in chunks, but it must be understood that when those 20,000-ish words are done, that’s it.  There’s no resolution to the story, nor will there be.

…and now I need to sign some books and maybe get a glass of wine.

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller are gobsmacked — but pleased! — and hereby announce to The World that Saltation, their sixteenth collaborative novel, the eleventh set in the Liaden Universe®, has placed in the Locus Poll Top Twenty Best Novels of 2010.

Thank you! to everyone who voted.

*falls over ded*

The day started early, with the advertised run to Augusta to drop Argent the Forester at Charlie’s Subaru for some work behind the nose. We did, indeed, use the outing as an excuse to have breakfast out — at Rooster’s, formerly the Ground Round. Yes, we’re shallow. And breakfast was good, so, yanno, win-win. Also? Carrabassett Bad Dog Coffee. Make that win-win-win.

Rooster’s menu looks interesting on the lunch and dinner side, so we may go back at some point. Though I think I’ll give the mashed potato pizza a miss.

The young lady at Charlie’s called to let us know that she thought the car would be ready by noon, which was permission to goof off even more! We went to Sam’s Club in order to get our after-breakfast walk in. While we were there, I considered an IPad half-seriously, and said to Steve that maybe if I had a tablet, I could lighten my carry-on load during the August world travels, by leaving The Leewit home.

This was, as you might imagine, an excellent excuse to go down to BN — the new Nook “tablet” isn’t — and thence to Staples, where I was underwhelmed by the XOOM, but quite liked the Acer Iconia, though $449 is a leetle bit steep, even for an Extremely Cute Gadget.

By the time we’d done all this, um, research, it was noon-ish; we went back to Charlie’s, ransomed Argent and so to home, where some poking at the web gained the information that there’s also an Asus tablet, which looks nifty — The Leewit is an Asus, and runs, with all respect, like a little klatha-powered truck. Still…$400 for the 16GB, plus another $139 for the docking station. And, really, not that much savings in pounds. Sigh. Cute as a button.

After lunch, I applied myself to Splinter Universe for a bit, and I think I have, with a hint from, fixed the RSS feed problem.

While I was over there, I put up some goodies, just to keep things moving along.

I see by my PayPal account that several kind people have already donated to the work, though there’s no work yet on display, barring my own inept skills as a website builder. I do very much appreciate everyone’s support — thank you!

One gentlebeing appended a message to their generous donation, hoping that I had a reminder service in place. Um, no. I am Not At All Interested in keeping databases full of people and numbers and dates and sending out reminders. Too much like work, darlings.

We hit home this afternoon just as the UPS truck was pulling up with. . .

Our authors’ copies of Ghost Ship. My goodness! is this book eager to fly!

Hope everyone’s recovered from the holiday, if and when. Tomorrow, I’m for the day-job.

…only eight more days of school.

So, apparently the town didn’t spring for the jet fighter fly-over this year. Or, if they did, the jets executed their turn for the return flight in some airspace other than that directly over the Cat Farm. This? Was a Good Thing.

A Less Good Thing was the bee that got up under my hat and behind my sunglasses on this morning’s walk. I snatched off hat and sunglasses, whereupon my glasses spontaneously decided to test gravity, which I can report was operational at that moment, meaning that said glasses fell, lenses down, on the gravel, and, yes, they are now an excellent example of why you should never drop your glasses on gravel. Argh. Granted, they are — were — my back-up glasses, but that means I’m down to one pair, which — given adventures like the one just described — is so not a good idea.

Despite the bee, and gravity, and everything, I had a pleasant day. I learned lots of Stuff about WordPress, most of which I will forget by tomorrow morning. But, no matter, for!

Splinter Universe now occupies a space on the web.

There’s no story there yet, or much of anything else, and I’m told the RSS isn’t working, but still and all, I’m pretty happy with my day’s work.

Come the afternoon, after a supper of veggie cheeseburger on a bun, fresh carrots and baked beans, all washed down by Outrageous Ginger Ale (which was pretty dern good), I worked on “Kin Ties,” and watched the various thunderstorms come through.

Now, it’s time to knock off, get lunch and talk over tomorrow’s logistics with Steve. We need to be in Augusta early in order to drop Argent the Forester at Charlie’s Subaru for a little bit of work behind the nose, so of course the burning question is: Do we eat breakfast at home before we leave, or do we use the drop-off as an excuse to have breakfast out?

Decisions, decisions…

I hope everyone who celebrates had an enjoyable holiday.

Frequent readers of this periodical will recall that Lee and Miller had been commissioned to write a story for the front page of the new Baen website, said story to be featured in July.

The fact that we here in the Northern Hemisphere are now standing firmly on the Fourth Day of July, coupled with the fact that “Intelligent Design” has yet to appear on Baen’s front page has apparently occasioned some anxiety, to which we say, “Fear Not!” and also, “Stop hitting the refresh key before you sprain something!”

Baen swaps out its front page on the 15th of the month. “Intelligent Design” will therefore appear on — anyone?

Yes, thank you.

“Intelligent Design” will be published to the front page of the Baen website on Friday, July 15.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog.

1. Looked outside to see what the heck the birds were all in a tizzy about. Saw what looked to be a panda-face in the tree directly outside of my window. Called Steve, by which point the panda had morphed into Quiet — or Louder — one of the next-door-neighbor’s two identical grey Maine Coons, going birding. Steve and I mocked him through the screen, and he climbed back down, to play kitty-hides-in-the-grass at the base. We mocked him some more, and he left, doubtless to find a less-public tree.

2. Somebody took our mailbox off its post. So not funny. At least it’s in one piece, though Steve had to screw it back on to the pole.

3. Designed and ordered Moocards for WorldCon and beyond! Man, we do a lot of stuff.

4. Took an after-breakfast walk this morning — our new habit. It was only 72F/22C, but the 95% humidity made it feel like a morning at the ocean.

5. Registered the short story domain name and started building a site. Again forgot how to manage the damned menus in WordPress, so things will progress when I remember.

Today being Friday, there was no school. Steve and I rose in our own good time, had breakfast, made phone calls and eventually meandered out in the direction of the Big City of Augusta, with the intention of petitioning the Ghods of Tripilay to provide auspicious signs, portents, and of course numbers, for our upcoming trip to Reno and Minneapolis.

Off we went, cross-country, arriving to find that the Ghods had relocated to another place. This stratagem proved vain, and we found them despite it.

We had discovered for ourselves that scheduling the train trip to and from Reno was relatively simple; it was the addition of Minneapolis to the itinerary that provoked the devilish details. One is told that it is often thus, with Minneapolis.

In any case, and some while later, we came away from Tripleay, having had our courses truly plotted and our credit card read. Poor credit card.

May I just say? I believe that I’ll be well and truly sick to death of Chicago Union Station by the time this trip is done.

Also? I think I need more ebooks.

We came home through a patchwork of sunlight and downpour, had lunch and got down to work, which in my case was linking up all the free chapters of Lee and Miller material available from Baen to the Pinbeam Books site, and balancing the checkbook.

Tomorrow, I need to do something about all this unfinished fiction lying about the place, and to register the domain for the upcoming short story site. Finding an acceptable domain name was harder than you might imagine. It was, at least, harder that I imagined. In any case, that step is at last done, and now all I need to do is build the website. And write some stories.

Piece o’cake.

I hope everyone who celebrates July Fourth as a holiday has a lovely one. Me, I hope that the town has failed of hiring stunt jets to overfly the parade this year. I could do without the adrenaline surge.

. . .only eight more days of school.

We here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory have received several boxes of books over the last few days. Here our models show a few:

First, Steve, with the ever-popular Ghost Ship arc and brand-new! Saltation mass market:

Next up is Sharon, boldly attempting the same ensemble.  Not as fetching as Steve, alas, but points for sheer nerve:

And, finally, effortlessly outshining the rest of the company, Mozart, who reads in bed:

I hear from Mr. Blyly that he has today received 34 cases, 852 pounds, 680 individual autographed copies of Ghost Ship. In hardcover.

Yes, the street date for Ghost Ship, unsigned, is August 2. Yes, that means Mr. Blyly has received the signed books that required special handling more than a month ahead of that date. No, no one involved in this transaction knows why, but I think we can safely say that this is not Mr. Blyly’s fault. Nor ours.

I trust that this is clear.

Thirty-four cases of hardcover book makes, as I know from long experience of receiving cases of books to sign from Meisha Merlin back in the day, Quite A Large Pile there in the middle of the living-room-or-store. Mr. Blyly would, quite naturally, like to remove this impediment to commerce from the doorway and aisles of his store in as timely a fashion as possible.

So! If you want your book RIGHT NOW, and don’t care to have it personalized (there is a July 15 deadline for requesting personalization; those that request personalizations will have to wait for us — that’s Steve and Sharon — to get our sorry tails to Minneapolis sometime in the middle of August, find a pen and get to work), write to Mr. Blyly at unclehugoATaolDOTcom and tell him that you want your book mailed immediately.

If Mr. Blyly does not receive your direction to mail your book(s) immediately, he will be in honor forced to hold it/them until after the July 15 deadline for personalization requests.

I trust that this is also clear.

Excellent.

I confidently leave the matter in your capable hands.

Well…I went to a convention. PortConMaine — you’ve heard me talk about it here before. As expected, I had a very good time, and welcomed the chance to stretch my con-going muscles a bit before WorldCon.

Steve and I had been guests at PortCon, back in…’04?, I think, when it was held in the Best Western Merrye Manor. This year’s venue — the Wyndham in South Portland (aka, the Round Towers) — was significantly larger, but still not quite large enough to hold the whole convention, necessitating the addition of A Big Tent — which really is a Big Tent, set up in the side parking lot — where the biggish items of programming — the techno dance, and the masquerade, to mention two that leap to mind — were scheduled.

Steve and I were writer guests of honor this year. We presented a couple of craft-related panels to a polite, cheerful, and welcoming audience — really, if I had to pick one thing that stands out for me from both of the PortCons we’ve managed to attend it would be the general attitude of cheerful politeness.

Since all of our events were on Saturday, and the con hotel was sold out, we opted to stay in Old Orchard Beach, and add a little bit of sea air into an already rarefied atmosphere. This worked out well, too. On Friday evening, after we left the con, we attended the Grand Opening of Jumpin Jake’s Seafood Restaurant, where we were pleased to listen to the Jerks of Grass while enjoying a really excellent dinner.

Saturday morning, we arrived at The Round Towers early (so as to secure a parking spot; no easy feat), and ate breakfast on-site before immersing ourselves.

Sunday morning, we had a leisurely breakfast at Michelle’s Garden Cafe before heading back to the con.

We had an interview arranged for 1:00 with Emmanuel and Maura from Nerd Caliber.  At about 11, I left Steve to roam the dealer’s room and settled into a ‘way too comfy chair in the lobby of the bar to read.  I hadn’t turned too many pages on the Nook when I heard a very soft, “Ms. Lee?” and looked up to find that the NerdCaliber squad had arrived early.  Maura confessed that she had recognized, not me, grey head bent over Nook, but The Starry Jacket of Many Titles.

We extracted Steve from the vendor area, appealed to Chairman Patrick for a quiet spot — which was cheerfully and politely provided, with an absolute minimum of fuss (and thank you! to the nice man who was building a deck in the game room and gave up his corner table to us) — and had us a delightful interview.  At the end, Maura asked if she could take some stills of TSJoMT.  I took it off, and we arranged it on the table so that it could be shot — and so its fame continues to precede it — and me.

Sunday evening, we wound down with dinner at JJ’s, did a short walk around town, and headed back to our room, there to sleep the sleep of the justly exhausted.

Monday, we came home via the Maine Mall and Hunt’s Photography, arriving somewhat later in the day than we had planned, to discover a sadly depleted Hexapuma, who had apparently taken exception to the back-up auxiliary cat-sitter and failed to eat or drink until she produced Steve, or, in a pinch, Sharon.  Needless to say, the results of this autocratic and dictatorial behavior won Hex a visit to his friend Dr. Slack this morning, where he was rehydrated and allowed to return home, with a recheck-up scheduled for tomorrow morning.

In between playing cat taxi, I formatted The Tomorrow Log and uploaded it to Smashwords, so there’s an end to that project.

And, after having been warmish and glary all day, it’s now cloudy, accompanied by a small breeze.  P’rhaps we’ll have a thunderstorm. That would be pleasant.

Still a little bit of laundry to do, and I have to shift all my Stuff out of my purple bag into the new red bag that arrived while I was away in the South.  Tomorrow is, I see by the calendar, Wednesday, which means I’m due at the day-job.

Only ten more days of school.