Blog Without A Name

Five at one blow

Regarding Signed Copies of Dragon Ship

There’s a new entry in the Archers Beach Blog, here.  And, some more pictures have been added to the Archers Beach Photo-Diary

First, the esteemed Mr. Stephen Gould is giving away five ARCs of his next Jumper novel, Impulse.  You already know you wanna read this book when it comes in January, but how cool would it be to able to read it in. . .October?  Go here to find out how you can enter to win one of those five ARCs.

Jennifer Jackson (aka Madame the Agent) is giving away the complete set of Liaden omnibi published by Baen in celebration of the fact that she helped facilitate the sale of FIVE Liaden novels to Baen!  That contest ends tomorrow, so go here now!

Uncle Hugo’s is now taking pre-orders for signed copies of Necessity’s Child.  Here’s your link.

Today, I took off and viewed lighthouses.  A short account of the day is here.

Also?  New pictures at the Archers Beach Photo-Diary!

1.  Lee and Miller sold five Liaden Universe® novels to Toni Weisskopf at Baen Books through the offices of Jennifer Jackson of the Maass Agency.  The question has been, which book will be the sequel to Dragon Ship.  The answer is:  They all are.

2.  Fifteen Liaden novels (aka all of them), divided into four Sequences are now available from Audible.com.  For those who may wish to sample the material, or the narrator, or both before purchase, Audible has generously provided a free hour sample of the first book in each of the four Sequences.  Handy links:  right here.

2a..  We hear from Mr. Feldberg at Audible that, yes, it is his intention to acquire the audio rights to Necessity’s Child.

3.  There’s a new splinter/story up at Splinter Universe.  Here’s the link.

4.  There was error at the bindery which resulted in some signed sheets being bound into the wrong edition (by which I mean wrong-ISBN, since the signed and unsigned editions bear two distinct ISBNs) of Dragon Ship.  This has, as you may well imagine, Caused Some Problems.  The quickest to recover is Don Blyly, who, now in receipt of Simon and Schuster’s fix (no, I don’t know whose fault it was, who’s fixing what, or exactly what the fix is — don’t, I beg of you, ask me to explain any this; I’m reporting, here.), is continuing to ship pre-ordered books.  He lets us know that he has another 100/150 unspoken for signed editions, so if Amazon has failed you — about which more in a moment — contact Uncle Hugo.

4a.  Amazon, evidentally neither as clever nor as accommodating as Uncle Hugo’s, is having head explosions all over the known book-selling universe.  It’s cancelling orders; sending unsigned books to people who ordered signed books; sending signed and unsigned books to people who only ordered signed books; sending signed books to people who didn’t order signed books.  None of that — not one detail of that — can we the authors fix for you.  We are very sorry for the mix-up.  But honestly?  It has sorta palled, even as black comedy.  Be it written that, by this point in the play, we are informed of the problem.

5.  Yes, we are also aware that the advertisement for Necessity’s Child that ran in Locus (and the art on the catalog pages at BN and Amazon) displays “Final Art to Come” on the cover.  No, we don’t believe that the final cover will display this message.   If it happens that we’re wrong about that, then we’ll have the opportunity henceforth to refer to that novel as Necessity’s Child: Final Art to Come.  Which has a nice, academic ring to it.

6.  It’s a cool and sunny day down here in the south.  I’ve finished my breakfast, the coffee’s gone and I need to go into Saco to take on supplies.

Here ends your Thursday morning Advert and Intelligencer.

Housekeeping note:  The wifi here at Temp Headquarters went out just as I was about to post the above at 9:15ish, so I have already accomplished #6, above.  On my way to Saco, I cruised by Camp Ellis, and Wormwood’s (which actually isn’t on the way to anything, but I digress).  I did see two cats, so apparently the gentleman from Away has not yet gotten his way.

Thanks again to everyone for the birthday wishes!  I had a pleasant day, with a nice long walk on the beach, did some writing, then went out to dinner with Steve, at Anjon’s overlooking the marsh, which is a lot better than it might sound.

This morning, we breakfasted at JJ’s (note to self: find recipe for sweet potato cakes; those things are good), walked on the beach and up into town, then Steve headed north, for home, and I walked back to Temp Headquarters.

Right now, the laundry’s doing, I have left-over manicotti on the menu for lunch, an afternoon walk on the beach, and 2,000 or so words on the computer on the to-do list.

At this point, I’m planning on partaking of a small part of Open Lighthouse Day on Saturday.  I will at least visit my old friend Bug Light, and perhaps Portland Head Light.  Not up for a lot of circular-stair climbing.

Now!  If you thought that yesterday’s celebration was all you were gonna get — you were wrong.  Madame the Agent — aka Jennifer Jackson of the Maass Agency — is doing some celebrating herself, as she ought, and she’s giving away a complete set of the Baen Liaden Universe® omnibi.  Rules and information here

Hope everyone is having a spectacular Wednesday!

Today is my birthday.  Yes, it is.  And I am sixty years old.

On some other occasion I’ll ruminate on the irony of arriving here, which is much, much further along the timeline than I thought I’d get.  But for this morning, I’ll thank all! of the folks, from Maine to Surebleak, judging from FB, LJ, and private email, for the birthday wishes.  I’m overwhelmed.  Really.

Since it is my birthday, and I get, at least in a very small way, to set today’s rules of engagement, I’d like to give y’all a gift.

You know that proposal for five Liaden books that we had pitched to Madame the Agent at the beginning of the summer?  Which she subsequently pitched to Madame the Editor?

The proposal has been accepted; the books have been sold.

Thank you.

Sharon

P.S.  Regarding the above — no, we don’t know pub dates; no, we don’t know the titles —  might be Bridgett, Fred, Lou, Beth, Ellen. . .  We’ll let you know these things as we know them.

In the meantime. . .watch the skies.

So, I’ve written some, and taken an evening walk to shake up the brain cells.  I think I’ll have lunch now, rather than trying to remember to interrupt myself again, in an hour.

Miles on the day thus far:  5.  That’s pretty good.  It’s easier to walk in town.  I may have said that before.

Speaking of walking, and of cameras that run out of batteries at inopportune moments. . .

This morning, besides depriving me of a picture of Bo, who was certainly the single most photogenic thing I’ve seen in town so far, I lost the opportunity of. . .

A youngish, but no longer young woman, with longish and bedraggled too-blonde hair, wearing a pink OOB sweatshirt and shorts.  She’s at the sad beginning of a day following a bitter night, and she’s sitting on the  concrete ledge of a building at the end of a parking lot, huddled over her cigarette like it’s her last ray of hope.  Next to her on the wall of the building is a sign:  Dead End

. . .

On this evening’s walk, camera-less (Yes, yes, I could have taken the big camera, but it’s…big, and I can’t hold it steady anymore.  The little camera has shake control.), I passed a tree that has woven its roots in and threw through a stone wall that’s keeping a small hill from sliding across the sidewalk.  I’m going to have to walk that way again, with a camera; it was Absolutely Amazing.

…and with that, I’m getting that sandwich, and then I’m getting back to work.

I hope everybody has a good evening.

It rained last night, several times; there was a fire next door, too.  My daily miles totaled 4.5 and my daily words 1,975.

I slept in this morning, by reason of having stayed up late for a number of reasons, including the above, work, and the upstairs neighbors rearranging their furniture for what I’m guessing must’ve been a square dance.

On this morning’s walk, I met Bo*, owner of a lady and five cats, who graciously bestowed upon me some Vitamin Dog, so I’m all set there for a day or two.

I will note that this apartment houses the Scariest Washing Machine in Southern Maine.  In case anybody was looking for it.

I’ve posted some more pictures to the Archers Beach Diary.  The batteries in the little camera have died, so I’ll be switching over to the big camera until I have new batteries.

The rest of today will be involved with that writing thing, and, yanno, another walk.

Tomorrow, I need to walk up to the top of the hill and get Rite Aide to give me a flu shot.  Also, I need to make dinner reservations for Tuesday.

And write.  This being a working vacation.

______

*This is not a picture of Bo, because by the time I met him and his lady, the camera had died, but it is a picture of what Bo looks like.

As reported elsewhere, the amusement park is closed for the season.

Ah, well.

Yesterday, around 11 a.m., Every Motorcycle in Nearest New England hit town with a roar and a snarl, and behold! the town began to act as if it was summer.  Bars and restaurants that had been sealed up tight all week, were open, lights on, music pouring out of open windows, bikes and cars were doing the vanity cruise up and down the hill, and around the Fountain Circle.  Bathers appeared on the beach above the Pier, though not so much below.  The Pier threw the switch, and really bad, live, rock music wafted over the beach.

In other news, I clocked 3.5 miles yesterday, and 2,550 words, so that.

I see in the latest issue of the Courier, by the way, that the local animal rights folks are still trying to keep the Wormwood Cats in place.  The town appears to be allowing itself to be bullied by the man from Away, however, so still not sure how all that’s going to play out.  The rights folks do mention that:  working harbor + no cats = rats.  Perhaps the gentleman from Away has never seen a harbor rat.

I note that Moonrise Kingdom is not showing in any theater within the sound of my voice, which is kind of a shame.  I had wanted to see that. *makes note in Netflix*.  Sigh.  At this rate, I’m gonna have to take off two weeks to catch up all the movies in my queue.

Today’s activities include grocery shopping, minor housekeeping chores, a walk on the beach to see how that Surge Warning looks up close and personal (yes, I’ll be careful; I won’t go in the water; and I will be very, very respectful of waves), and more with the writing.

Hope everybody’s having a fun and/or relaxing weekend.

So, the first thing I need to report is that I am much more dependent on bandwidth than I had supposed, living retired in the country, as I do.  An internet connection that isn’t quite fast enough for a Pandora feed was…something of a startlement.

The second thing I can report is that I like living in town, with various things in walking distance.  I also like living less than a block from the sea, but you probably figured out that part on your own.

I don’t like being catless, nor being Steveless, but those were also sorta givens.

I also wish that, along with the fine and very sharp paring knife that I brought with me, I’d brought one of the larger knives of the same ilk.  This blade in the kitchen drawer is an active menace to a woman trying to cut a bagel.  Honestly, it flexes.  *shakes head*

The writing part of the writing vacation has mostly been confined to a series of Realizations — one of them being that I started the story a week too early, so I had to go back and update the chapter headings and the places within the chapters where Kate talks about what the tide is doing.

Speaking of living where I can walk — over the last two days, I’ve walked 12 miles.  I expect a little less mileage today, since it is a Writing Day, but I’ll be down at Fun Country when it opens at 5 p.m. tonight, camera in hand.  I think it’s only open another weekend or three before it declares the Late Season finished. so sooner rather than later seems my best course.

So, the Friday report.  And how’s by you?