In which Rolanni reflects on what might have been

I’m (slowly) getting the stories for the first, as-yet-untitled volume of Liaden Universe® short stories into shape for submission.

Today, I was in part working on the Lute and Moonhawk stories, of which there are four, and part of a novel.  Back when all this writing stuff had first come into our lives, we had intended to write more Lute and Moonhawk stories, sort of reflecting Shan and Priscilla, in the “current” universe.  That didn’t happen, but we knew those further adventures existed, even if we didn’t know their exact shapes, and we knew that Moonhawk and Lute were cornerstones of the Liaden Universe®.  This led to a little awkwardness in the Crystal books, but at least we had managed to write those four stories and get them out for (some) people to read, so their involvement, in, err, things wasn’t Completely Untenable.

Sort of.

And then — Steve’s been scanning the various bits and pieces of what is, in an alternate universe where Sharon and Steve actually wrote and saw published all the stories they have in their heads, would have been a novel-length treatment of the Klamath Campaign, told from three viewpoints — Miri’s in retrospect; Mr. Brunner’s in current; and a young lady whose name I don’t at the moment recall, serving as her grandmama’s secretary, on-world.

I remembered today, as I was putting “A Day at the Races” into its place in the collection, that that story, in its original iteration, had a scene where Val Con suddenly freezes, to the astonishment of his kin, and finds himself on a battlefield, where he “pushes” a soldier out of the way of  a falling tree.

The Klamath story had a reciprocal scene in which Miri, too focused on trying to get her people safe to pay full attention to her own safety, is thrown by. . .someone. . .lands, rolls, and comes to her feet in time to see the tree shatter on the ground she had been occupying.

Well. . .

In other news, today saw the arrival of Steve’s new tech (mine arrived yesterday), and the new coffeepot!  I got in touch with the gentleman best suited to help me on-site with the Semi-Sekrit project; we agreed to touch base on Monday and arrange a time for a face-to-face, so that’s proceeding in a forwarder, if leisurely, fashion. I baked bread, and between the two of us, we managed to get almost all of the laundry done.

Not-quite-idle question:  How many people would be interested in a Ride the Carousel at Archers Beach t-shirt?  I’m picturing one of those ringer tees in pastel green or pink, like you used to get at amusement parks, back in the day, with the legend and maybe a carousel horse where the pocket would be on the left side, if ringer tees had pockets.