Author: Sharon

Solving Socks: Update

Since yesterday, several people have reached out — publicly and in private mail — to say that, were there a fundraiser set up to cover Socks’ medical bills, they would contribute; that, if there was any way that they could help keep Socks with Steve and me, they’d be willing to make that effort.

Truly, Socks has the best fans in the world.  Steve and I are humbled and grateful.  Socks would be. . .well, not humbled, exactly, but pleased that so many people want to skritch his ears — but at the moment he’s napping on his special quilted piece, in Steve’s office.  Must keep to the schedule, you know.

So, here’s the thing:  Socks’ vet did offer us the option of megacolon surgery.  This is a procedure that shortens overlarge colons (apparently not an uncommon problem in cats), and which is the solution for the constant bouts of constipation/need to rush to the vets/emergency vets at all hours for emergency enemas.

Our vet made no secret of the fact that this is an expensive surgery, involving, as it does, Specialists in Portland.  We are simply not up for an “expensive” surgery.  I’ll be frank — the money tree doesn’t have that many leaves on it.

However, we’ve started to think that we can do this thing, thanks to the people who have offered to help.

So!  We’ve begun research into this procedure, and talking to people whose cats have undergone the operation.  Socks has a follow-up appointment first thing Monday morning with his primary vet and we will delve into such things as costs, success rates, and convalescence care.

After we have all of these ducks in a row, I will lay it all out here, and we’ll see if this is possible/desirable.

I want to thank everyone for their caring, and their sharing, and their willingness to help.  You guys are awesome!

 

In which Socks needs solving

As you know, Bob, last April we drove to Connecticut to pick up a new member of the family, a recently retired Maine Coon stud, Upper Valley Bahzell P of Blueblaze, call-name Socks.

This is Socks:

Socks at home, November 12, 2012
Socks at home, November 12, 2012

Socks is polydactyl (that means he has extra toes; this is pretty common with Maine Coon cats, who trace their Lines all the way back to the barns of Maine, where they sometimes need to open doors and operate equipment.  I know some people think that extra-toed cats are “deformed;” this is not the case.).  He has papers to go with his fancy name, from TICA and from the Cat Fanciers’ Association; and his official color designation is Silver Mackerel Tabby.  Socks will be seven years old on April 12.

So, that’s the technical stuff.  What you really want to know is that he’s a sweet and attentive individual.  He likes to watch movies with his people; he likes to read, and he likes Classic Rock. He likes to help, and can pretty much be counted on to be in the middle of whatever it is that’s going down.  Despite being a rather large cat (Maine Coons are called The Gentle Giants of catdom), he’s often a lapsitter and a sleeper-with-people.  He takes his flying mouse play Very Seriously.  He has a charming, growly little voice, rather than the classic Maine Coon squeak.  Think Humphrey Bogart.  With extra toes.

Maine Coons are known for their good nature, but Socks goes above and beyond.  I have never, ever heard him growl or hiss; he has never, to my knowledge, lifted a paw in anger.  In fact, if fault could be found with such a sunny little person, it would be that he’s a little too unassuming; he tends to disappear into the crowd.

Socks came to us as a semi-rescue — he was recently neutered and out of a job; he had a sniffle, several bad teeth, and he was seriously skinny.  We figured to get the dental situation fixed, feed him up, get the sniffle under control, do a little immune system boosting.  We have managed the teeth (he lost seven); we’ve fed him up; and he’s markedly less. . .depressed than he was when he arrived.

The chronic sneezing, despite daily doses of antibiotic (which he takes with minimal protest), continues.  Lately, he’s developed a constipation problem — apparently, in order to accommodate his long trips from harem to harem, he developed a larger than normal colon.  When he was a young guy, in top athletic shape, he could bring the necessary muscle to bear to operate this organ, but as he’s aged, he’s let his stomach muscles go (don’t laugh; many of us here today have let our stomach muscles go).

All of this is to say that, though Steve and I love Socks, we’re looking for another situation for him.  Ideally, this situation would be with a person who was home more than away, and in which he would be the Sole Companion and Supervisor, or one of two.  He does like the company of other cats.  We do not believe that he is a dog lover, nor have we seen him with small children.

We have spoken to the cattery with which he was last affiliated, and the owners have said that he can go to them.  We’re reluctant to do this because of Socks’ extreme good-nature and his ability to fade into the crowd.  I think the reason that he got into the shape he was in when he came to us was that he traveled from place to place and was so compliant that no one really paid attention to Socks, as Socks.  So, we’d rather try to find him a better condition.

Please pass this note around to people who may be interested in acquiring a really special friend.  And if you can help, please let me know.

Thank you for listening.

Books read in 2013

How Dark the World Becomes, Frank Chadwick (e)
Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal
French Fried, Chris Dolley (e)
My Father’s Dragon, Ruth Stiles Gannett (read aloud w/Steve)
Fair Game, Patricia Briggs (e)
Nymph, Francesca Lia Block (read aloud w/Steve)
Oh, Myyy, George Takei (e)
Hunting Ground, Patricia Briggs (e)
Cry Wolf, Patriacia Briggs (e)
Alpha and Omega, Patricia Briggs (e)
Miss Buncle, Married, D.E. Stevenson (read aloud w/Steve)
Agatha Heterodyne and the Hammerless Bell, Phil & Kaja Foglio
Moonrise Kingdom screenplay, Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola (e)

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, in proving foresight may be vain

So, no early writing session for me today, other bidness having called.  It’s a legitimate call, but…grr.

I mention, for those who care about such things, that the Nebula final ballot is now available, and that SFWA members may vote.

And, speaking of awards, for those who missed it yesterday.  Fake Hugo Award Categories.

Have fun; and I’ll see you all later.

In which the writer is lazy

I was at the Winslow Library this morning slightly before 10 a.m.; a little later than I’d wanted — OK, a lot later than I’d wanted.  I’d chosen Winslow, out of the two libraries available to me locally (which is to say, there are other libraries in nearby towns, but they have less-than-full-time hours, and are further away), Winslow opens at 9 a.m. on Monday (Waterville opens at 10 a.m. M-F, which foolish consistency I very much appreciate), and I knew I had a Full Plate of errands, so I wouldn’t be able to work but what a couple hours, so I thought I’d get an early start.

*cue laugh track*

I settled in to a table, opened my summary file and began to type, and lo!  I have a bunch of notes, and two opening scenes (I’m going to have to break viewpoint at least once in this book.  The great weakness of first person narratives being that the narrator can’t know everything, because, if she does, there’s no tension, but the reader has to suspect that there is more going on with the other characters, behind the narrator’s back.  It’s a tricky balance, and it’s why I take issue with those who maintain that “I” books are across the board “immature works”.  “I” books are dicey; I’d rather head-hop any time.)

So, anyhow, back on topic — it was a good work session, if only a little longer than an hour — and I have a place to actually start writing on what looks to be, at this point in the day, tomorrow.

So. . .yay! progress!

I then betook myself, in the snow, to the bank, and the post office, and to Penney’s, where I found that, it’s true, after years of being my place to go for tall jeans that don’t cost the earth, towels, sheets, and various else, Penney’s has made itself irrelevant to me.  I had suspected as much from the website, which is…sparse in terms of items of interest to me — and the store is even more frightening — there’s so much space on the floor, you could hold a roller derby in the place; the amount and kind of stock has shrunk that much.  Apparently Penney’s doesn’t want your business if you’re older than 12 or wear greater than a size 6.

Note to self:  Find new source for cheap jeans.

Continuing with the errands, I was back home by 2:30, bearing groceries and a Subway sub, aka dinner.  After grocery stowage and dinner, I took a four hour nap, which was obviously much needed, but not exactly convenient.

I have some few chores to do around here, and then I do believe I’ll read for a bit and go early to bed, *sigh*.  Tomorrow, I’m planning on doing the early day work shift at Waterville, after which I hope to come home and be Rather More Productive than I was today.

Shameless Self-Promotion:  The nomination window for the SFSite Readers Choice of Best SF/F Novels of 2012 is open until March 8! Here’s your link to the rules.  The self-promotion part is this! reminder! that Dragon Ship by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller was, of course, published in 2012.

 

In which the author fails to outline

So, last night, after work, I broke out a new! yellow pad, drew a black pen and a red pen from stores and retired to the sofa to consider Carousel Seas, Socks sitting as consultant.  Since I’ve now heard from two beta readers to the effect that Carousel Sun makes sense, I feel reasonably confident in moving on with the story.

Now, usually, I work outline-free.  Which is to say, I’ll sketch in some notes, some bits of dialog, some questions that the narrative ought to address,  but that’s pretty much it.  At some point, I’ll feel like I have Enough Stuff to start typing. I type for the first, oh, third of the book, then I read what I have and see what the threads are, and consider where they’re going.  From that point on, I’ll make chapter-going-forward (or scene-going-forward) notes and so on until the thrilling conclusion.  This method is somewhat uncertain, and can become a little hair-raising in the face of serious auctorial illness or a severe bout of depression, but in general it Works for Me.  And, no, it’s probably not how grown-up writers do it.

Having said all that, I will confess that I have worked from an outline once or twice — for values of having produced an outline, which I then threw away when the story took a left turn.  After all, I’m usually under contract for a novel, not an outline, so the outline is, IMNSHO, disposable*.  From these early experiences, I learned that outlines (for me) are pretty much useless.  That scene-sketching, writing bits of dialogue, and being open to SFoG (Sudden Flashes of Genius) is much more useful to what we’ll dignify as My Process.

The trouble with all of this being that, due to mostly having day-jobs during my formative years as a writer, I’ve been pretty much a Night Writer.  Brain turns on at 5:00 p.m. and we’re off to the races.  Early in the day, I’ll edit what I wrote yesterday, and maybe noodle out some notes, but the actual work happens late in the day.  This needs to change, at least somewhat, due to Reasons, and it occurred to me that it might make the transition to Day Writer easier if I had a road map to assist my daylight-shocked brain.

And I sat there on the couch, with my pen poised over the nice, new yellow pad, with Socks, remember, consulting. . .and wrote down the questions left over from the previous book; other things I think need to be addressed, going forward…and flipped the page, thinking, “Outline.  It’s not hard.” . . .and got nowhere and, finally, gave up, because, yanno, how can I outline something that hasn’t happened yet?

*sigh*

This would seem to be a bigger conceptual change than I had thought.

So, writers who read here — outline or no outline?  And!  If outline, how do you outline something that hasn’t happened yet?

—————

*I was at Boskone on a panel with a writer who swore that he produced 130-page outlines.  Which, full disclosure, seems nuts to me.  He then went on to explain that he’d gotten to the point in the current project where he realized that the outline had misled him, and was in the position of having to tear out 9,000 words — or possibly start the book over; it was Sunday afternoon, I was tired, and he was heated — and the deadline was looming.  Which only serves to reinforce my own feelings regarding outlines:  They’re only going to betray you in the end…

Books read in 2013

Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal
French Fried, Chris Dolley (e)
My Father’s Dragon, Ruth Stiles Gannett (read aloud w/Steve)
Fair Game, Patricia Briggs (e)
Nymph, Francesca Lia Block (read aloud w/Steve)
Oh, Myyy, George Takei (e)
Hunting Ground, Patricia Briggs (e)
Cry Wolf, Patriacia Briggs (e)
Alpha and Omega, Patricia Briggs (e)
Miss Buncle, Married, D.E. Stevenson (read aloud w/Steve)
Agatha Heterodyne and the Hammerless Bell, Phil & Kaja Foglio
Moonrise Kingdom screenplay, Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola (e)

In which Rolanni lucks out

So, the snowfall called at 8-12 inches came to an overnight splat of 2-ish inches of white rain, which I swept off the steps, and which was already oozing off the cars.  It’s now Actually Raining, and I can live with that.

Steve remains among the walking wounded.  To address this, I made a Big Pot (bigger than I had intended, actually) of chicken-noodle-with-garlic-and-and-veggies soup.  Today’s dinner is baked pork chops.  I think.  (Note to self:  Teach Mozart to cook.)

In other news, only 68 pages left to proof for Constellation One, which I shall commence in to do while waiting for a big project to hit the desk.

Hope everyone is having a pleasant Thursday.

Gonna get a big dish of beef chow mein

Today was far too long.  Also, there were vampires.  It was, in retrospect, Not A Good Day for vampires.

On the plus side, I am now half-way through the galleys for A Liaden Universe® Constellation Volume One.  

We here in Central Maine continue to reside beneath a Winter Storm Warning, starting at 1 p.m. tomorrow, and ending at about 3 p.m. on Thursday, after 8-12 inches of snow have been tastefully deposited on the surrounding countryside.

Maybe I’ll make grilled cheese sammiches for dinner.

Everybody stay warm.