Author: Sharon

I Don’t Want to Kill You, Dan Wells
Invader, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
Library Wars Volume 1: Love and War, Kiiro Yumi
The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Marie Pope
Edie Ernst, USO Singer — Allied Spy, Brooke McEldowney
Silver Phoenix, Cindy Pon
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (e)
Foreigner, C.J. Cherryh (read aloud with Steve)
Betrayer, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
Right-Ho, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse (e)
American Rose, Karen Abbott
The Bull God, Roberta Gellis (e)
Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott
Of Blood and Honey, Stina Leicht (e)
The God Engines, John Scalzi (e)
Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key, Kage Baker (e)
Unseen, Rachel Caine
Total Eclipse, Rachel Caine
Weight of Stone, Laura Anne Gilman
The Story of Chicago May, Nuala O’Faolain

So, the day-job staff development day was fun; my two workshops were thought-provoking in different ways, lunch was eggplant lasagna, which was very tasty, though I am sorry to report that the 7 strangers with whom I was supposed to dine were in actuality 7 folks from different departments than mine, all of whom I knew at least slightly. I ditched the ice cream social on the lawn at the end of it all because it was Just. Too. Damn. Hot*. to be standing out on a lawn, ice cream or no ice cream.

Stopped at the grocery on the way home to take on milk-like objects. Arrived at home, I paid bills, including the quarterly taxes — early, so I am not only industrious, I am Virtuous.

And! Not only am I Virtuous, but I am tired. So, no writing tonight, and no uploading of eBooks or anything else of Actual Use. Instead, I’m rustling up some lunch, reading a chapter of Bren with my husband, and hoping the evening cools off enough to be sleepable. Tomorrow — my last full-time day of not-summer — is supposed to be a beast — horrible hot**, and threatening thunderstorms, hail, and all kinds of bad behavior.

We’ll see, I guess.

How’s the weather where you are?

______________
*82F/28C
**88F/31C
That’s right, laugh. These are Maine values of Too. Damn. Hot. people. Check back with me in January.

Uploaded Changeling to Smashwords and linked it up good and proper over at Pinbeam Books. I know it’s Not the Done Thing for writers to say good stuff about old work, but I do like Changeling. A fine story.  I’m glad we wrote it.

Let’s see, what else? Steve and I have come up with a list of thirteen stories to tell live! on the web! Contrary to our Initial Vision, not all of those listed are Ride the Luck and/or Aelliana-and-Daav stories. There’s a reason for this, and the reason is:

Baen contractually has first dibs on the next Liaden novel. We will therefore not even tempt our backbrains with the cookie of “linked stories” because you can see exactly where that would go, can’t you?  Don’t despair though — there is one Ride the Luck story in the mix, and I’m sure there will be more, assuming we’re all sufficiently amused to keep at this awhile.

What else on the day? A warm one, bright and sunny. Changes coming at the day-job. Exciting changes. No, I’m serious. But, before the exciting changes, the staff picnic development day, on Wednesday. I signed up for a couple of interesting lectures, and Lunch With Seven Strangers, with sounds rather like a play in the style of Murder by Death.

I should upload another ebook to Smashwords tonight, but, yanno? I’m going to go read for an hour, and rest my hands.

Hope everyone had a splendid Monday!

Some folks have written to ask if the eArc of Ghost Ship “matches” the hardcover book that will very soon now be printed and which will appear on the shelves of your favorite bookstore in August.

After some back-and-forth with one of the correspondents wondering this very thing, it transpires that said correspondent understood that sometimes the finished book “differs” from the eArc and s/he wished to know if that was the case with Ghost Ship.

And the answer is. . .

Yes.

And no.

There are certainly some grammatical/spelling/technical issues that have been addressed in the galley proofing stage of the typeset manuscript from which the book will be printed, which issues appear in their Wild Form in the eArc.

Are there whole scenes excised, new scenes inserted, characters written in, out, or altogether made into mincemeat? In short, is it a Whole ‘Nother Book that will be coming out in August?

Of course not.

The way the process has worked with Baen thus far is:

1. Authors contract to write book; receive advance

2. Authors write book; turning in manuscript ahead, on, or slightly past deadline

3. Editor reads submitted manuscript, points out places where story is broken and/or where action/motivation/characterization needs expansion

4. Authors do necessary repairs; submit amended manuscript

5. Editor acks receipt of amended manuscript

6. D&A check arrives; authors party

7. Some Months Later, editor transmits copy editor queries; authors repair or not, as necessary; book goes to typesetter

8. eArc becomes available. I am not certain that the eArc includes the changes generated in 7, above. Most certainly, it is the amended ‘script acked in 5.

The ‘script in 5? Is the complete novel. Any confusion spotted by the copy editor has thus far, and in our experience, been Important Detail Stuff, not Plot Altering Ohmighods. Plot Altering Ohmighods fall into Toni’s honor.

To sum up: Lee and Miller eArcs contain the Whole Story as it will appear in the printed book. The printed book will certainly contain cleaner copy. What you are buying when you purchase an eArc from Baen is the ability to read the story in a rough, but not the roughest, form five to six whole months before the printed book comes out.

Questions?

So, the s-hook from which the bouy bell depended rusted through and dumped the bell into what we fondly call “the garden” (and which had, up until this year, actually been a garden, but — this year we had to let a lot of B-list stuff go entirely, not to mention letting some A-list stuff slide shamefully), but is now actually a dandelion patch. I can see that the dragonflower is coming up and I have hopes for the keys of heaven and the asters. The butterfly bush died long ago, and the replacement butterfly bush, too — I think we may not have the right feng shui for a butterfly bush. In any case, whatever comes up among the weeds will pretty much be on its own. I’m going with “wildlife habitat.” That’s my story and, by gum, I’m sticking to it.

But the bell — about 15 inches of toned (that’s rusty, to you) steel, that was one of the first three things we bought when we moved to this house — the bell’s OK, but right now it’s sitting on the deck, its voice silenced, all for the want of an s-hook. You would think that even we would have an s-hook on hand, but — hopelessly disorganized. We don’t call this place the Confusion Factory for nothing, you know.

Well. Something for the shopping list, tomorrow.

In the meantime, here’s what our bell would sound like right now, if we’d had a s-hook.

So, Admin has decided when summer is — a hotly anticipated decision at the end of every school year. Really, I think we’re missing a bet by not starting a pool — insert groan here — but the administrative staff, whose household budgets serve as the markers in the game, can’t really afford to gamble.

In any case, summer starts on Monday! Which is good. Now I can get some work done.

Speaking of work, I have been — slowly, I’ll grant — uploading ebooks to Smashwords, which offers multiple formats for download and a library shelf for patrons, so if you change your desktop, or drop your smartphone into a koi pond, you will at least not have lost your books.

You may, as of this day and hour, find the following Lee and Miller, and Lee, and Miller ebooks on Smashwords:

Two Tales of Korval:  Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Number 1
Fellow Travelers: AitLU #2
Duty Bound: AitLU #3
Certain Symmetry: AitLU #4
Variations Three
Chariot to the Stars

I do know that this part of Steve and Sharon’s Excellent eBook Adventure is taking a bit of time.  We do intend to keep at it until it’s done, and the advent of day-job summer may well speed the process along.  Do tell your ebook reading friends about Pinbeam Books (eBooks you want to read!).  Signal-boosts greatly appreciated.

And now?  Steve is making Philly cheese steak sammiches for lunch, so you can bet I’m heading for the kitchen.  Yeah.  Along with the cats.

G’night.

Invader, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
Library Wars Volume 1: Love and War, Kiiro Yumi
The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Marie Pope
Edie Ernst, USO Singer — Allied Spy, Brooke McEldowney
Silver Phoenix, Cindy Pon
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (e)
Foreigner, C.J. Cherryh (read aloud with Steve)
Betrayer, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
Right-Ho, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse (e)
American Rose, Karen Abbott
The Bull God, Roberta Gellis (e)
Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott
Of Blood and Honey, Stina Leicht (e)
The God Engines, John Scalzi (e)
Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key, Kage Baker (e)
Unseen, Rachel Caine
Total Eclipse, Rachel Caine
Weight of Stone, Laura Anne Gilman
The Story of Chicago May, Nuala O’Faolain

So! Tomorrow’s Tuesday. Pooh.

Today saw some work on the Pinbeam Books site, a massive slaying of the dish monster and a nice picnic lunch of no-soy veggie burger on a roll, macaroni salad, and root beer, with frozen yogurt for dessert.

Having feasted, I returned to my office with the intention of adding more words to George, which I did do eventually, though it took longer than it ought to have to find my lead.

And now? Lunch time and early-ish to bed, because play-time’s over and tomorrow we work.

Progress on the Book Presently known as George
40,106 words/100,000 OR 40% complete

It was not particularly easy to shell peas one-handed, but it could be done, and, after some practice, done with a certain amount of dexterity.

Suddenly, it’s summer.

I have the window beside my desk open; the breeze is pleasant and occasionally brings me the scent from the lilacs on the other side of the screen.

At the moment, Hexapuma is occupying the co-pilot’s chair at my left while Mozart reclines beside the keyboard, his chin on my knuckles, making it, may I just say? so very easy to type.

The weekend thus far has been very pleasant and moderately productive. Steve has made us several splendid dinners; the laundry is done; I’ve uploaded two ebooks to Smashwords, Fellow Travelers and Duty Bound, and finished up the revisions on George-as-it-now-stands.

Tomorrow is Monday, and you know what? I don’t care.

I could get used to this.

Hope everyone who celebrates is having a similarly pleasant holiday.

Progress on the Book Presently known as George
38,821 words/100,000 OR 38.8% complete

Nova eyed her henchwoman sternly. Yes, definitely amused. How delightful that one’s staff was happy in their work.

Edited to Add:  Marvelous and efficient Baen editor Laura Haywood Cory <lj user=laurahcory1> for those on LJ) has the matter in hand.

Since these alerts are getting more frequent as the release date for The Crystal Variation comes closer, I thought a general posting might be in order.

Steve and I are aware that there are several infelicities in the listing on Amazon and on BN and on Webscriptions for The Crystal Variation, the most notable being the misspelling of the heroine’s name. We do very much appreciate that people are concerned enough about these things to write to us. Our fans are the best.

However! Amazon no longer allows authors to change the listings for their books, even to correct an error. I don’t think BN ever allowed authors to amend things in their catalog. Possibly one might write to Baen Management, as we have done, (infoATbaenDOTcom) and ask them to correct the errors. Possibly they have attempted to do this and the bookstores are ignoring them.

In any case, thank you! for your advertance and your interest, but — hands tied, here.

Thank you.