Sharon – Page 244 – Sharon Lee, Writer

The drillin’ in the wall kept up but no one seemed to pay it any mind

This was not the day I had planned.

I had planned to do some business emails, then get with the manuscript, and finish the squaring up of the Big Narrative Lump, and indeed, the day went agreeably in that direction for about two hours. Then, I noticed that Belle’s back foot was bleeding. Steve and I did an examination, and determined that, yes, this was a matter for the vet, so we called, and achieved an appointment for 2:30 today.

After that, it was my turn to call The Guy From Dead River (for those coming in late, the whole house generator was installed yesterday, so yay! However, the generator needs propane to operate, and, as reported earlier, siting the propane tanks was apparently going to be A Big Problem). This would have been, you understand, on the order of the sixth phone call we’d made to the office since the site visit.

I actually reached someone who could help me. She informed me that this project was going to be Very, Very Difficult, involving two guys for six hours and a ditch witch, it was going to cost A Bundle of Money, and! — insult to injury — the work can’t be done until November 16. At 8 a.m., naturally enough.

This is the point where you’d walk away and call the next vendor on the list. Sadly, there is no next vendor, so I agreed to Terms, and ask you please to all join me in hoping that the damned ground doesn’t freeze before November 16.

Grr.

I did a little more work, Steve made us a lemon and chicken soup for lunch, and at precisely 2:30, we were at the vet’s, who was saying, “Good grief, what happened?”

As near as we can figure, Belle tried to get into the drop ceiling in the basement — a favorite hangout for Cat Farm Coon Cats, though they really are Far Too Big to get into the drop ceiling in the basement — missed her jump — or insisted that she had so made the jump — and in the process ripped a claw out of her back right foot.

The vet cleaned the wound, prescribed antibiotics (because Belle weighs very nearly 17 pounds, Belle gets to take Dog Drugs, which is to say 1/4 of a dog-sized antibiotic), and sent us on our way with instructions to watch the foot, and Belle’s behavior, and call if anything changed for the worst.

I will note that Belle was a perfect lady on the ride to and from, and at the vet’s. Though her foot must have hurt a lot, she didn’t utter a single curse, nor tried to discipline the doctor or her assistant. I expect Maine coons to be mellow, but this was really above and beyond.

Home again, I did the dishes, and got back to work for another hour. My concentration, however, is not what it ought to be going into this section, which needs a bunch of description, and is also somewhat scrambled on the Who Said What To Whom front. Which is to say, the kind of stuff you need to bear down and micro-concentrate on.

So! That will be Saturday’s job, since tomorrow, day-time, is filled with appointments, and that evening with the Rocky Horror Show.

* * *

In other news, I have been remiss in reporting the anniversary of our 27th year in Maine. We crossed the border on, I believe, October 3, 1988, and commenced an exciting day, indeed, in which we found in short order that we had no place to live (because the daughter of the owner of the house in Skowhegan we had rented long-distance, had left her husband in the time it had taken us to drive from Maryland to Maine, and moved into “our” house); Steve’s job, also arranged long-distance, had evaporated; that the Skowhegan library had on its bookshelves in 1988, SFBC editions of books that hadn’t gone out since 1977, and the librarian of same advised me, earnestly, that, if I was a reader, I should go to the high school library to borrow books.

Yes, it was epic, that day; one of the Great Ones that you look back upon in calmer times and wonder how you had held your hand from murder and mayhem.

Still on topic — in another three weeks, Steve and I will be celebrating the 35th anniversary of our marriage. We moved to Maine together, where we knew no one, save Tom Easton and Barry Longyear, through SFWA, when we had been married less than eight years. In retrospect, I’m not sure if that was heroic or stupid.

Whichever, it turned out all right in the end.

* * *

Yesterday, I did go elsewhere to work, and got a bunch of redlining done on the threads which are not the Big Narrative Piece. In the morning, since it was sunny, and windless, I went out to Oakland, and worked at a picnic bench at the Messalonskee Lake Public Boat Landing. I was wearing good Maine layers — long-sleeve tshirt, long-sleeve denim shirt, long-sleeve fleece hoodie, jeans, and wool socks — and it was actually quite pleasant for a couple hours, until the wind picked up. Later in the afternoon, I moved my base of operations to China Lake, where I lunched, and worked in the car.

* * *

Today’s blog post is brought to you by Bob Dylan by way of Tom Russell, “Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts.” Here’s your link.

* * *

Here’s a shot of yesterday’s temp office at Messalonskee Lake:

In which you may now pre-mug

Offworld Designs has added pre-orders for the Brand! New! 11 oz Liaden mug to their Liaden Universe® Store!

Here’s your link.

Yes! You can have your very own tree-and-dragon ceramic mug in time for the winter holidays! I gotta tell you, hot chocolate tasted great in the previous iteration of mugs, and I’m betting? That it’ll taste even better in the new mugs!

You will also find in the Offworld Designs Liaden Universe® store the opportunity to order tree-and-dragon denim, polo, and t-shirts. Remember that these items are printed/embroidered in batches, so plan ahead for gift-giving.

* * *

In other news, we will tomorrow! entertain the Generator Guys. They plan to arrive at a Truly UnGhodly Hour — I believe Seven-Thirty A M was quoted — and go to it, making lots of noise and turning the electricity on and off. Steve mentioned that, all this being so, I might want to arrange to work Somewhere Else tomorrow, and so I shall do.

Today turned into a Day Off, by which I mean, no writing/editing/revision happened. Mundane errands — including a doctor’s visit, and grocery shopping — took place. We also snuck in a ride through the rapidly falling fall, and a pleasant lunch at the Flatlanda. I still need to clean out the cat fountain, while Steve preps the Engine Room for the arrival of the Generator Guys, and then this day is over. I’ll hit the couch with my book, and plan an early night, given the projected Moment of Arrival for our guests.

I did make a discovery today in the doctor’s waiting room. Television is really irritating. So, OK; I knew that. But, honestly, three grown women going on and on about whether or not they would permit their husbands/SOs to have a “work wife?” Please. I wanted to read my book, obviously, but the volume was such that reading. . .was difficult.

So, I’ve added to my list of necessities when visiting doctors/hospitals/waiting rooms in general — earplugs.

As reported elsewhere, yesterday, The Gathering Edge now stands at 39,525 (which is to say it has gained about 4,590 words; I’ve Outright Removed about 500, and played fast and loose with a bunch of sentences and paragraphs, which is the nature of revision). I have another 20 pages of the Big Narrative Lump to go through and bring up to trim, and then I believe we may proceed in a forwarder direction with style and confidence.

. . .and I think that’s all the news that’s fit to print.

Trooper and Sprite, sharing the bookshelf in my office:

Alliance of Equals, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

This is in the way of being a Public Service Announcement.

Alliance of Equals, the nineteenth novel in Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s long-running space opera set in the Liaden Universe®!

Alliance of Equals, I say, has a (hardcover) publication date of July 5, 2016. Yes, that is nine months from now. No, there’s not really anything we can do to “pressure” (cue laugh track) the publisher into releasing the novel earlier. No, we will not sell you our final manuscript (to be fair, no one has asked to buy the Alliance manuscript, yet, but we’ve had such “offers” in the past, and, in the spirit of forestalling any more. . .).

And honestly, even if there was a way to “pressure” the publisher into releasing the book early? We wouldn’t do it, because — we’d like our book to get a calm editorial reading and a thorough edit — and so would you.

Now, yes, Baen does often release eArcs of new novels ahead of the hardcover publication date, but they don’t release the eArcs six months ahead. And what if they did, and you got the book now? Have you really thought this out? Because if you got Alliance of Equals, now? You’d be in the same pickle, only worse, for The Gathering Edge, which we’re writing, now; and which is scheduled to be handed in on February 15, 2016. Figure 11 months out for hardcover publication — that’s January 2017, at the earliest. So, really, do you even want to go there?

Anyhow, we were given a general rule of thumb from the publisher, which is: Expect the eArc (if any) to be released around the time you, the authors, receive your authors’ proofs. We receive our authors’ proofs anywhere from two to three months ahead of the hardcover publication date, so, counting backward from July: June. May. April. . . .with April being the soonest you might see an eArc and mid-May about the latest.

Now! Baen does release sample chapters on the Baen website when a book becomes available for preorder. I actually don’t know when books typically go up for preorder; historically, Amazon has been the driver, and Amazon used to put books up for preorder as soon as they heard a whisper of even a tentative pub date from a publisher, never mind a final schedule.

Steve and I are in something of an odd geography in this whole situation of release dates and reader demand. On the one hand, it’s lovely that people are eager for our newest work. Really, it is. But, the wheels of publishing grind as they do. Baen publishes authors other than Lee and Miller, who also deserve to have their books receive a calm editorial reading and a thorough edit. And even if we “quit trad publishing and go indie,” as has been suggested by some avid fans — we probably wouldn’t write any faster. In fact, I’m betting our production would slow down, because we’d have to do all the stuff that the staff at Baen does for us, in addition to writing the novels.

While I accept that there are folks out there who can write a strong, salable book in an afternoon, and writers who consistently write and see published four or six books a year with no reduction of quality — Lee and Miller are not those authors. We have never been those authors*. A book a year is a comfortable writing pace for us; a pace that allows us to reflect, and to layer in the details and back-stories that readers have told us make the Liaden Universe® novels “special” and “very re-readable.” We value these things about our work, as you do, and we don’t want to slight the characters, our readers, or ourselves.

So. . .thank you for reading our work; thank you for supporting our work; thank you for recommending our work to your friends and colleagues. Thank you for treating the release of every new Liaden novel and story as a cause for celebration — we feel that way, too.

But, we really are writing as fast as we can; the publisher is publishing as fast as they can. We’re all hostages to the constraints of linear time.
_____________
*Back in 2007, we were those writers, briefly. We wrote six books in 18 months, while I was working a full-time job. It was an insane, stressful time, when the only thing we did was write, eat cheese sandwiches at the computer, snatch three hours of sleep before going to the day-job — and at the end of it, neither one of us had an ounce of creative energy left. I have no idea how people work to that level, constantly — all honor to them. What we learned from that experience was — we can write books fast, briefly, or we can write books at a more leisurely pace, for years to come. We chose the latter.

Placeholder picture of Belle, for the Facebook peeps:

Books read in 2015

37. From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
36. The Paper Doll Museum, Abigail Padgett (e)
35. The Princess Bride, William Goldman (re-re-read; and–it’s official–I definitely prefer the movie)
34. The Goblin Emperor, Katherine Addison
33. Cooking the Books, Kerry Greenwood (e)
32. Forbidden Fruit, Kerry Greenwood (e)
31. Maisie Dobbs, Jacqueline Winspear
30. Trick or Treat, Kerry Greenwood (e)
29. The Golden Hawk, Frank Yerby (reread; six pages fell out at various spots during this reading; it was reread many times, when I was 14)
28. The Wave in the Mind, Ursula K. Le Guin
27. The Boy from the Burren, Sheila Gilluly (e)
26. Dead Heat, Patricia Briggs (e)
25. Girl Genius: The Beast of the Rails, Kaja and Phil Foglio
24. A Bollywood Affair, Sonali Dev
23. Who Buries the Dead, C.S. Harris
22. Killer Instinct, Zoe Sharpe (e)
21. Devil’s Food, Kerry Greenwood (e)
20. The Making of a Marchioness, Frances Hodgson Burnett (e)
19. A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett (e)
18. Geekomancy, Michael R. Underwood (e)
17. The Perfect Rake, Anne Gracie
16. The Martian, Andy Weir
15. Blaze of Memory, Nalini Singh
14. Tracker, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
13. Chanur’s Legacy, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
12. Chanur’s Homecoming, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
11. The Kif Strike Back, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
10. Why Kings Confess, C.S. Harris
9. Chanur’s Venture, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve) (Note: the publisher’s note at the end of the book states that the next-in-series is Chanur’s Revenge. This is false. The next-in-series is The Kif Strike Back.)
8. Angels’ Blood, Nalini Singh (read out loud with Steve)
7. The Pride of Chanur, C.J. Cherryh (re-read, read out loud with Steve)
6. What Darkness Brings, C.S. Harris
5. When Maidens Mourn, C.S. Harris
4. Where Shadows Dance, C.S. Harris
3. What Remains of Heaven, C.S. Harris
2. Where Serpents Sleep, C.S. Harris
1. When Gods Die, C.S. Harris

Gang agley

So, yesterday was a wash. Woke up with a headache, and decided that I’d take two aspirin and soldier on. Turns out that the headache was tougher than that, and! tougher than everything else in hand, so — long story short — I didn’t dare go in to the manuscript, because my brain actually hurt. I took a nap, did some lightweight research, and sorted out some stuff I’d been meaning to get out of the recipe file. Then I went to bed early, weighted down with coon cats. Not my most productive day ever.

While I was napping the Guy from Dead River — which is not the title of a novel by Edna Ferber, though it ought to be — came by to scope out the placement of the propane tanks while will provide juice to our generator when it is installed.

Now. . .we call this the House of Negative Feng Shui for a reason. The people who built the place had a Positive Genius for Wrong Placement. The living room and kitchen are placed so that they will catch the full fury (insomuch as Maine has such fury) of the summer sunshine, and! most of the snow winds. This means that the front of the house (pre-roofed-deck, thank you, Todd) was a broiler in the summer, with the added bonus of not being to get out the kitchen (main) door in the winter, because the wind dumps All The Snow exactly in front of the door.

On top of this, the house is sited too close to the road, and too close to the eastern boundary, which is the only rational place for a garage, since all the doors are on that side of the house.

Anyhow, yesterday, and the Guy From Dead River — who discovers that the the Only Possible Place (by Code) to site the propane tanks is where the propane tank for our stove is now — on the farthest side of the property from the generator. And? Yep, you got it; there’s only one place where the generator may (by Code) be sited.

“Gonna have to do a lot of trenching,” said The Guy.

On the other hand, he didn’t say that it couldn’t be done.

Though he did say that he needed to talk to his boss.

*sigh*

In other news, frequent auditors of this journal will recall that Belle had been limping off her right leg, and we took her into the vets a few weeks ago to be sure she hadn’t sprained or broken a paw/leg. At that point, the vet found no indication of a break, but suspected soft tissue trauma. She prescribed three days of pain killers, and warned us that soft tissue injuries take a Very Long Time to heal.

The limp hasn’t slowed Belle down; and, if it’s gotten no better; it hasn’t seemed to get any worse. So, we decided to Be Aware, but not panic.

Fast forward to Monday, when I was grooming the cats. I took hold of Belle’s right leg, stretched it out along my arm, and pressed her foot pad to shoot her claws. I cut the first claw on the right foot — and when I moved on to the second claw, Belle let out a scream, and jerked forward, as if she was going to bite me — and then dropped back, looking Very Embarrassed, indeed, while being Not At All Interested in having me touch her paw again.

“I think I found the problem,” I told Steve, after we’d all gotten settled down.

“Right,” he said, and phoned the vet for an appointment.

Which was for today, at 8:30 am. A thorough exam was made, including x-rays of both feet, and — diagnosis still inconclusive. There does seem to be tenderness in the right foot, but no evidence of infection, or of a break. We have glucosamine to put in her food, to see if that helps with the situation.

Belle rode to and from the vet on my lap, wearing the Royal Ruff, which is Standard Traveling Livery for all the coon cats here at the Cat Farm. None of them cares to travel in the palanquin, so they’ve learned to tolerate a small dog harness with a clip-on leash, and the ruff. Both Trooper and Sprite drool in the car — less on my lap than in the carrier — and the ruff helps them preserve their dignity, not to mention keeping most of the cat spit off my hands. Belle is a neater traveler, but this was her first time on my lap, and we wanted to be sure.

She did fine on the ride to and from, and at the vet’s, and is now sleeping the sleep of the Justly Exhausted on the copilot’s chair in my room.

Now, it’s time to get to work.

Here’s a picture of Sprite, wearing the Royal Ruff:

What on earth has the woman been doing?

. . .mostly, I’ve been going through the manuscript of The Gathering Edge, fixing sentences, doing continuity checks, breaking long chapters into short chapters, moving a chapter up, sharpening dialogue, and layering in details. At the moment, the word count stands at 36,777, with a net gain of about 2,000 words.

“Net gain” is of course a moving target. Whole paragraphs have been removed from the playing board — and replaced with other paragraphs. I have wantonly removed maybe 300 total words of an explanation that will be needed later, but happened not to be in the right place. Maybe a couple thousand “new” words have been written, but there’s really no way to quantify that. “Word count” as an indicator of progress is really only (sort of) useful in the active drafting phase; there’s no good indicator of progress being made in the revision/squaring-up phases of the work, except maybe, “Yes; that’s better!”

At the moment, the manuscript is in the form of one Largish Lump of narrative, following one set of characters, and several Smaller Lumps of narrative, following other characters. These will have to be woven together at some point, but, at just over a third of a book, word-count-wise, we don’t have enough material to begin that particular process.

So! That’s what I’ve been doing. I’m a little over half-way through revising/sharpening/squaring-up the Largish Lump. Today, after I get through Various Mundane Chores, I’ll sit down with my red pen and the other half of the LL and get to work.

In other news, the GoFundMe project for replacing Larry Smith’s van (for those coming in late, ref here and here), is $5,292 short of the $30,000 goal. If you can, please donate; if you can’t donate, you can still help by spreading the word. Thanks so much.

Here’s a picture of Sprite in one of her favorite places, overlooking the Cat Garden.

In which the bread is rising, and BaltiCon is coming

So, I’m trying this new (to me) bread recipe — quick no-knead bread. It’s rising now; and I’ll let y’all know how it turns out.

I know I’ve mentioned here once or twice that BaltiCon’s 50th Anniversary is coming up at the end of May 2016, and that the concom has invited all of the previous Guests of Honor who wish to do so, to come and party with you, along with this year’s GoHs, George RR Martin, John Picacio, Shirley Avery and Martin Deutsch, Bill and Gretchen Roper, and Alexandra Duncan. This is a monstrous — not to say expensive — enterprise, and BaltiCon has a number of ways in which you can help make this Vision happen. Here’s the link to the webpage that Explains All.

Past GoHs who will be attending BaltiCon 50 include: Steve Miller and Sharon Lee (BaltiCon 37), Charlie Stross (43), Sheila Finch (26), R.A. MacAvoy (19), Michael F. Flynn (26), John Varley (15), Jody Lynn Nye (46) — and more. Check the link above for a complete list of returning GoHs.

I do want to point out that one fundraiser — a Special Edition BaltiCon 50 t-shirt — has only three more days to run. So, if you want to support the con, and! be a fashion statement, now is the hour. Here’s your link.

As the bread rises, I and my red pen will be going through The Manuscript As It Stands So Far of The Gathering Edge, the. . .20th novel in the Liaden Universe®. Word count, BC (Before Carnage) is 34,876, or a little over a quarter of a novel. For those who have been patiently, and not-so-patiently, waiting for her reappearance, yes, Theo is in this novel.

And so — to work.

EDITED TO ADD: Because I know you’ve been sitting on the edge of your chairs, waiting to find out how the bread turned out. The answer is that — it tastes great, but it’s very dense. I think substituting buckwheat for cornmeal was a mistake, but Steve’s allergic to cornmeal, so that wasn’t an option. Next time, I’ll use oats. So, not a Complete Success, but this was a loaf dedicated to Science! from the first, since I couldn’t for the life of me see how this recipe would even work. It is, IMHO, a Busy Person’s Bread, what with the four hour rising time. I’d rather, I think, just do the traditional knead-and-rise and have my loaves cooling on the rack in three hours, tops.

Hope you hear this song and it pissed you off

I see it’s the fashion nowadays to promote yourself as an important voice in your field, even, um. . .well before you achieve that pinnacle. While this isn’t anything particularly new, I am just a wee bit tired of all the folks who seem to believe that the only way to success and glory is to preempt it, and to realize one’s greatness out-loud, loudly, and often for all to hear.

Being a writer really does not convey Heavenly Status upon anyone. You are not a superior person because you are a writer; you are not even a superior person if you are a “successful” writer, whatever that means this week. Being a writer may mean that you’re clever, or that you can write good sentences — though not necessarily. Mostly, though? It means you have a weird job that pays the top few percent of practitioners really, really well; rewards another — not necessarily the same, though there’s occasionally some overlap — small percentage with awards and accolades, and pretty much ignores the rest, by which I mean the Greatest Number of People Working.

Just like, oh — Real Life.

I suppose it could be fair to say that, if you are a writer, you have a need to be noticed, and the internet does make it easy to scream “me, Me, ME!” — and I’ll be the first to admit that you need an ego made out of titanium in order to cope with much of what’s just Standard Practice in the industry. Certainly, in the spirit of Full Disclosure, the internet has done well by Lee & Miller, for values of “well” that do not include investing us with the Wisdom of the Ages.

Just occasionally, like today — and yesterday, and the day before yesterday, too — I wish that we would all of us at one time decide to turn off our computers, and our phones, and our tablets, rise up from the desk, take our kids, or our dogs, or our SOs — leave the house, and walk up over the hill for a dandelion break.

It could do a world of good.

Today’s blog post brought to you by The Spin Doctors, “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong.” Here’s your link.

Pre-wrassle warm-up. Belle and Sprite.

Say, there; wanna get mugged?

Some of you will remember those halcyon days of yesteryear, when, among the other Wild and Crazy Things that were coming out of the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory were — Tree-and-Dragon mugs, produced in support of the original publication of I Dare, in February 2002.

Thirteen years ago. Wow.

We never did another run of mugs because, boy, were they breakable — and whimsical, too. We’d ship four in a Special Mug Mailing Box; three would arrive in pristine condition, while the fourth was a little mound of cobalt blue rubble. We replaced the broken mugs, of course, so the whole experiment was. . .somewhat more stressful than was useful for anyone.

In the interest of History! Here is a picture, front and back, of one of those original mugs, still in use at the Confusion Factory as of. . .today, actually:

Old Mug TWO — Back of mug. You can see that the letters are chipping, though the mug itself has held up really well.

Front of mug, with my breakfast. The tree-and-dragon is chipping badly.

Well, after 13 years and many requests from mug owners, whose mugs are in similar straits, and from folks who never even got the chance to buy a mug — we’ve partnered with Offworld Designs, the same folks who brought you the Liaden Universe® tees, polos, and denims, to do a run of all new coffee mugs.

This is a mock-up of what the new mugs will look like:

NOTE: The mugs are not yet ready for prime time. You will be able to order them in time for Christmas. As soon as the ordering page is live, we’ll let y’all know.

Tea for the tillerman, steak for the sun, wine for the woman who made the rain come

Shameless self-promotion first! The interview we did with John Mierau is now Live! On the Internet! The first segment is Greg Miller talking about his adventures with Kinda Funny, then Lee and Miller describing our adventures in crowdfunding across the centuries. Here’s your link.

As I probably failed to mention here, I spent a good portion of last Saturday digging in the dirt. We did at last bury Mozart’s ashes in the Cat Garden, where he joins Socks and Hexapuma, Max!, Patia, Kodi, and Nicky.

After a brief Ceremony of Remembrance, and seeing as I had the shovel and the rake out in the middle of a sunny, if slightly chilly October day, I took it upon myself to thin the daffodils, which had been needing attention. Boy, had they. I transplanted some of the gathered bulbs into the cat garden, but still had over three pounds of bulbs left. I put out a call on Facebook, and a kind friend down-coast claimed all three pounds. Which of course meant that Steve and I had to drive to the beach yesterday, in order to hand over the goods.

It was a fine day for a drive. We made the delivery, then hit the beach, where it was. . .a little chilly. We took a walk, went out to Saco to have lunch at Salt Bay, and went back down to the beach for another walk, and to say hello to Googin’s Rock. On the way home, we stopped The Dairy Corner for ice cream — Steve had pumpkin ice cream in a cone; I had mint chocolate chip in a cup.

Today, having spoken yet again to the insurance company, I need to get to work.

Later.

Today’s blog title brought to you by Cat Stevens, “Tea for the Tillerman.” Here’s your link.

Here, have a picture of me, standing outside of Myst (which was closed), looking across the circle to the carousel.

Sharon at Old Orchard Beach, October 5 2015. Photo by Steve Miller