Blog Without A Name

Got safety tubes, but I ain’t scared

Am I a bad person because, when I realized that we were out of clean table knives, my first thought wasn’t, “Gee, I’d better wash the dishes,” but “My god! We need to buy more knives!”

As advertised elsewhere, I had plenty of help in my office today.  Not only did Socks edit my notes and make some very valuable suggestions, albeit for some other novel in progress in another part of the globe, he encouraged exercise! by jumping up onto the printer, where he could reach the red origami crane that (used to) hang from the neck of my desk lamp.

The crane was moved, amid hilarity.  Socks jumped down from the printer and re-occupied the yellow pad, well-pleased with himself.

A note of caution to those who may go looking on Amazon for the free electronic copy of Agent of Change.  The free copy is still free.  However, another copy with the same cover is also now available for the price of $5.10.  To the best of my knowledge, this is not (that’s NOT) a legitimate copy of the novel (yes, the publisher has been informed) — do not be fooled, and do not give whoever has perpetuated this…unsavory event any of your money; do not buy this book — you don’t know where it’s been.

If you’d like to make sure you’re getting a correct copy of Agent of Change, you may still download it directly from the Baen Free Library, in all ebook formats known to man or Turtle.  Here’s the link.

Also?  Necessity’s Child still isn’t the sequel to Dragon Ship.  Thank you.

Progress on Carousel Seas

13,903/100,000 OR 13.9% complete

“The Gulf o’Maine, now,” Borgan said, still talking as low as if we were hunting tigers. The Gulf o’Maine’s one of the richest and peacefullest pieces of water in all this world. There’s a lot of angry ocean out there. A lot of angry ocean.”

 

Yo no soy marinero, soy capitan, soy capitan

What with one thing and another, actual writing has been going a little — OK, a lot — slower than I’d like.  I did sit down with Mozart, the pad, and the pen and we figured out — with Mozart of course doing the heavy lifting; I want to stress that —  how to accommodate the second POV in a way that’s not too intrusive.  We think.  That meant I had to recast the first scene, which meant I lost some words.  Of course.  But the scene is better now, and the reveal will be the better for being done slowly, over time.  So, yanno — it’s all good.

Just not fast.

I think I forgot to mention here that sandals are now on sale at the Dexter shoe outlet in Waterville.  At the time I received this information, via the store’s marquee, it was snowing a bastid and we could barely see the car in front of us.

Also, of slightly more import — there’s a new luthier in Waterville, right next to/slightly under Somerset Violins.  I’m not clear on whether the new shop — Patkus Guitars — is related to Somerset Violins, or if the Railroad Square shops and work spaces are just a super-nice location for people who build stringed instruments.  I do like living in a place where I can say that there’s a new luthier in town, though.

Tomorrow, I’m hoping  for neither alarums or excursions of any flavor.  I really need to get some work done, here, Universe, ‘k?

Progress on Carousel Seas:

11,387/100,000 OR 11% complete

“You must be somethin’,” Frenchy said, and her voice actually was a little hushed, as if she’d just witnessed an event of no small moment.

“King Cat?” I asked, trying for flippant.

“Near enough. The fishing men call him Old Mister, and even they do what he says.”

Socks update: The numbers are in

. . .and the numbers are Not Good.

Socks is in acute kidney failure*.  This obviously means that our plan of treatment has been radically changed.

We’re going to be concentrating on keeping him comfortable, hydrated, and fed.  I’ll be taking a tutorial on how to administer subcutaneous liquids to cats, so we don’t have to distress Socks with a ride to the vet every couple days.  The vet did say that she has never seen a cat with such high numbers who was still eating and drinking and enjoying life, which is a testament to Socks’ good nature and can-do attitude.

 

The ultrasound image is. . .inconclusive.  There was some concern about were or weren’t the kidneys polycystic — to my mind, that’s a technical detail.  The vet wants to diagnose correctly, and to that end, she’s seeking guidance from her colleagues.  The best she could tell me when we spoke this morning is that the kidneys are “not normal.”  Apparently in normal kidneys, the ultrasound will show the structure of the organ in perfect clarity.  If the kidneys are polycystic, the cysts are very visible and impossible to miss.  In Sock’s case, the kidney structure is. . .not what it should be, but if there’s a cyst tell, it isn’t obvious.

. . .as I said, for us, and for Socks — a side issue.

The other question — how long will we have him with us?  We don’t know.  We’ll treasure each day that we do have him with us.

Steve and I want to thank everyone who donated to defray Socks’ medical expenses, and everyone who were Standing Ready.  At this point, there’s really no sense in accumulating a Socks Defense Fund; this isn’t something that money — or anything else — can fix.

We’ll continue updates as seems reasonable.

Here’s a picture of Socks this morning, as Steve and I were eating breakfast.  He was full of smiles and purrs.  His position on the bench (on newspapers!  Socks loves him some newspapers!) is strategic:  the cat water fountain is directly to his left, where he can keep a close eye on it.

Socks at home, March 21, 2013
Socks at home, March 21, 2013

__________

*Kidney function is measured in units of BUN/UREA and CREA.  The normal range for BUN/UREA is between 15 – 34 mg/dl; 0.8 – 2.3 mg/dl for CREA.  Socks’ numbers are BUN/UREA: 180 mg/dl; CREA 8.3 mg/dl.

Socks update; waiting is

Socks is home; hydrated, and a-glow with the received adoration of his fan club at the vet’s office.  What we’re waiting for are the results of blood work and ultrasound, which will help us decide what will need to happen, going forward.

Hopefully, we’ll have all the results in one place tomorrow, and will know exactly what we’re looking at.

Thank you all for your care.

Socks Update

. . .this is not the Socks update I thought I’d be making this morning.  Then, I thought that I would be saying that Socks has been going on pretty well; a little grumpy, maybe, since his last emergency trip to the vet, on March 7.  His sneezing had increased and we had reported that to his vet, who thought that maybe the Baytril he’d been on had stopped working and had put him on Clindamycin, to see if that made a difference.

That was what I would have typed, if I had written the report this morning.

Now. . .

I’m sorry to report that Socks started to throw up and showed some other distress. We called the vet (there is a snowstorm going on, though at the time of the call, and the subsequent travel, the snow had slowed considerably), and debated whether or not to take him in; since we weren’t sure there was a problem, but with his known problems did we want to take a risk. . .and, long story short, we wound up inching our way down to Waterville in the snow.  Steve drove, and it was a good thing that he did; I would have been a weeping wreck by the time we reached the vet.

Anyhow, there was a room ready when we arrived and Socks saw the lead vet in the practice, who said that, since this was a new manifestation, the best thing to do was to have Socks under observation, so. . .Socks is overnighting at the hospital, and we’ll have a report tomorrow.

We then inched back to our house in the country, the snow having picked up, and roads virtually empty, saving us, and the occasional plow truck.

. . .and that’s the Socks Update.

 

An overfed, long-haired, leaping gnome

Last evening, Steve and I went comet hunting — and we bagged one!  Speaking for myself, I’m always pleased when I can see anything through binoculars (Steve had brought the Big Telescope, but we decided not to get it out since the astronomical binoculars were sufficient unto the task).  The crescent moon was just brilliant — and I saw Jupiter, too, sitting right next to it.  Steve also saw three Jovian moons, but I’m not that good.

We finally left our vantage point on the ridge clearcut because we were freezing, and because the comet had traveled out of our line of sight, and came home to celebratory grilled cheese sammiches.

This morning was the morning that I was going to take my car to the Subaru Dealer in Augusta and spend (so said my pessimism, which is rarely wrong) thousands of dollars getting the ABS brakes fixed-or-replaced.

This mission was made somewhat more complex by the fact that the (brand! new! in August)  battery was stone cold dead and not even a click could be gotten out of it when I turned the key in the ignition.

I went back into the house, and called AAA, which promised a truck within the next 45 minutes, and then I called the garage, explained the whole business and asked if I was taking the car to Augusta or bringing it down to him.  He said to bring it to him and he’d figure out what was going on.

Which he did.

The (brand! new! in August) alternator was stone cold dead — and, no, we don’t know why.  However, the mechanic declared it defective and put another in, free of charge.  So, yay! I saved thousands of dollars, but still got to worry.

In other news, my credit card was (according to BOA) “compromised” via a “third party vendor,” and they sent me a new one (credit card, not third-party vendor, though come to think of it, I might need one of those, too…)  Which has the damn chip embedded. They didn’t even ask this time.

Carousel Seas, meanwhile, informs me that it must be a bifurcated narrative, instead of All Kate All the Time.  This troubles me, but the reasons given are compelling, and the book itself is adamant, so there we have it.

Now that I’ve accepted the inevitable, I need to rewrite a piece-already-written, and work out how the two threads will shadow each other.  Mozart will be pleased — this will require some serious couch time with pen and paper.

For those playing along at home — you thought we’d had the last snow of the year, didn’t you?  Yeah, so did I.  Fooled us both, they did.

We currently reside beneath a Winter Storm Warning, with 10-14 inches of heavy, wet snow expected to fall between early Tuesday morning and midnight.  Yes, Wednesday is the first day of Spring; what’s your point?

. . .I do believe that catches us up.

If you need more, I’ll be on the couch with Mozart.

 

Sufficient unto the day is the excitement thereof

So, let’s see…

Early today, we discovered that Agent of Change was now available, DRM-free, from the Baen Free Library, which means it’s also available for free download from Amazon, because that’s how the Big River rolls.  Since the purpose of giving the first one away for free is to addict acquaint new readers with the Liaden Universe®, we ask that you please point out Agent’s availability to your friends, coworkers, family members, strangers chance-met on the street. . . and, if you’re able, to boost the signal, by mentioning Agent’s free-to-download goodness in your blog, on Twitter, or Facebook, or wherever readers congregate online.  Also?  The Kindle edition needs reader reviews, to help curious newbies decide whether or not they want to read this book.

As of this writing, the free edition of Agent of Change has a bestseller rank of 632, which puts it at #1 in Kindle Space Opera, and #62 in Kindle Science Fiction and Fantasy.  For whatever that’s worth — of which more in a moment.

OK, so that was the morning shift.

This afternoon, we learned that Dragon Ship by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller was the Number One Best Read of 2012, according to those who voted in SFSite’s Best SF and Fantasy Books of 2012:  Reader’s Choice, where it is one of an amazing six Baen titles on the list.

Speaking of Amazon bestsellers (see how I did that?  Smooth, right?), I came across this article, in which a new author is stunned by the financial rewards of his chosen profession.

Then there’s this article, which talks about the challenges of lipreading — if you read nothing else tonight, read this article; it’s fascinating.

And, apropos of nothing much, except that I was inside Steve’s camera earlier and found this — for your viewing pleasure, here is a picture of part of our living room.  The part with the Yule tree (which is still up), the Skylark Award sporting it’s classy! cover! that was kindly created for it by Kat Ayers Mannix.

In-between the Skylark and the tree is the Prism Award, recklessly unshrouded.  Directly before the Skylark are the extra Skylark Shrouds Kat also made.  And, yes, that is a red metallic cloth covering the top of the old radio on which all of this is arranged.

Yule Tree, Skylark, Prism, Cover Art by David Mattingly
Yule Tree, Skylark, Prism, Cover Art by David Mattingly

 

 

Hook a friend on Liad

Back in February 1988, Del Rey Books published as a paperback original a space opera that asked the musical question, Can a rich boy with a severe personality disorder, and a brother who is a giant sentient turtle, find true love and lasting happiness with a tough-talking retired mercenary soldier on the run from the Mob?  The title of this odd little novel was Agent of Change, from first-time novelists Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

This! is the novel that set up the Liaden Universe®, now sixteen books strong.  And now?  You can download it for free from these sources, DRM-free:

The Baen Free Library (in all ebook formats known to man)

Amazon (kindle)

Please share this news with all your friends, and especially with your friends who need the Liaden Universe® in their lives.

In other news, it snowed last night.

Cat Farm in the snow
Cat Farm in the snow
Photo by Steve Miller

 

 

I can climb the highest mountain; I can cross the wildest sea

Today, it was back to the Winslow Library, which despite being smaller and consisting of one really big room (the Winslow Library lives in a converted roller rink — in what was conceived as a temp location until a proper library could be built, oh…I’m gonna say ten, twelve years ago. Despite the fact that it was never supposed to house the collection forever, it’s well-maintained and very easy on the nerves, and holds up extremely well to the old library building, which was, I believe,  a former church.  When the congregation outgrew the building, it somehow came to house the town library.  It was old, it was tiny, it was cold.  Oh, and it was on a flood plain.  Every spring, the librarian would put out a sign up sheet for those folks who would be available at any hour of the day or night (I’m not kidding here) to move the books out, if the river crested above a certain number of feet.  Good times.) — is much quieter than the Waterville Library.  Also closer.

Edited to Add:  I have a lousy memory; here’s a quick history and current news on the old library

Anyhow, I’d slept late, and so got a late start.  The day was sunny and cold, and I noticed as I drove down the Garland Road that there are, like, a zillion maple trees on tap — more than I’ve ever seen. I’m wondering if this because this March is displaying some arcane signs of being the Best Sap Year EVER, or if I’m seeing desperation.  Gotta make money, and there’s good money in maple syrup.  Not necessarily in comparison to the labor involved, but having something to do is better than having nothing to do.

At the library, I realized that Number Ten Ox, the laptop was only half-charged, and that there seem to be no public plugs in the library.  Note to self:  Remember to recharge Ox every time you come home from a writing shift away.

Got about 1100 words down on Chapter Five before I needed to shut down for lack of power, whereupon I went into town to perform various errands.

It was then that I noticed the ABS light was now lit on Binjali’s dashboard.  The ABS light has to do with the anti-lock braking system.  Seems that, if the light is on, the anti-lock brakes are off, though, somehow, “regular” braking is still in force (oh, rly?).  The cure for this is to — all together now — take the car to a Subaru dealer.  Yanno?  I’ll deal with that next week.

Errands accomplished, I stopped to pick up lunch at the Red Barn’s Winslow satellite; and Steve and I feasted on fried chicken nuggets and potato salad.  Excellent lunch!

I have now finished writing Very Substantial Checks to the IRS and the Maine State Treasurer — and there’s still money in the checkbook! (this, children, is why, when we get a check in, no matter how small, no matter how much needed, we take the taxes out first.  Learn from our mistake; do this.  It’s painful, and depressing to see how little is left of a royalty check after 33% has been deducted, but it’s even more depressing to find out on Income Tax Settling Day that you owe more than you have.

I’ve also finished Chapter Five in rough draft, and now it’s too late to go to bed early, so I guess I’ll settle for going to bed.

Who’s got Big Plans for the weekend?

Progress on Carousel Seas:

8,510/100,000 OR 8.50% complete

“I don’t bear any particular fondness for Arbitrary and Cruel, but they are my employer, so I gotta be careful, here,” she said, slowly.