Blog Without A Name

So, a Carousel Tides t-shirt that I was holding for someone, because theirs hadn’t arrived, is now available.  (The original shirt had apparently taken the route through Timbuktu and Solcintra, but did finally, as of yesterday, arrive.) If anyone wants an XL Carousel Tides t-shirt, please write to me at rolanniATkorvalDOTcom.  The price is $19 for the shirt + $5 shipping = $24.

Today, I did chores. I also finished the book I’d been reading in-between things — Geisha, by Liza Dalby.  It’s an interesting book, put together as a series of vignettes, which shouldn’t work, but does; and makes for an easy in-between read.

After chores, I wrote!  New words, even!  According to my log, I haven’t written a word on Carousel Sun since…August 3 — the day of the Epic Flood.  How strange.

Speaking of the Flood and the aftermath thereto…tomorrow of course we host the plumbers and the flooring team.  For one halcyon hour, we also had the electrician scheduled for tomorrow, but he had a cancellation on Friday and moved us forward on the dance card.

Steve will actually be doing the lion’s share of contractor-hosting.  I have a long list of errands to run, after which I may retire to the cloistered corridors of the Winslow Public Library, with Ox, and perhaps do some of that writing stuff again.  I should also see if the signal is strong enough at the library to allow my cellphone to function.  If so, it may be advertant to ask the librarian for use of a private room on Tuesday morning, so I can conduct my interview from a relatively quiet location.

*note to self:  take cellphone receiver*

And so we start the last week of summer. . .

Progress on Carousel Sun
20,223/100,000  OR 20.22% Complete

I’d ridden the kick into a spin, now I straightened, staring up into a wholesome round face that was at the moment wearing an expression more pained than pleasant.

Geisha, Liza Dalby
The Kimono of the Geisha-Diva Ichimaru, Barry Till, Michiko Warkentyne, Judith Patt
Partials, Dan Wells
Starters, Lissa Price
A Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs (read aloud w/Steve)
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Grace Lin
From Whence You Came, Laura Anne Gilman (e)
Frederica, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
No Dominion, C.E. Murphy (e)
The Prestige, Christopher Priest
Cuttlefish, Dave Freer
Intruder, C.J. Cherryh (read aloud w/Steve)
Blameless, Gail Carriger (e)
Changeless, Gail Carriger (e)
The Quiet Gentleman, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Unbroken, Rachel Caine
The Talisman Ring, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Sylvester / OR, The Wicked Uncle, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Death and Resurrection, R. A. MacAvoy
The Unknown Ajax, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Black Sheep, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Stealing the Elf-King’s Roses, Diane Duane (e)
The Reluctant Widow, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Friday’s Child, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Dragon Ship manuscript, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (e)
Kim, Rudyard Kipling (e)
Regency Buck, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
Pollyanna, Eleanor H. Porter (e)
Chimera, Rob Thurman (e)

 

This morning’s mail brings the delivery money for “Landed Alien.”  After deducting 33% for taxes , there’s enough left over to pay the plumber’s bill for the timely rescue on August 3, which invoice also arrived today.  That’s what we call your perfect timing.

In other news, the laundry’s doing, I have chicken marinating for this afternoon’s stir-fry, and I think I heard the dirty dishes muttering the opening lines of  the “Wreck of the Hesperus” a little while ago, so…better deal with that rsn.

Still lookin’ for a home, one (used) but perfectly wearable size MEDIUM t-shirt from BaltiCon 43, art by Kurt Miller. If you can use this t-shirt please write to me and let’s work something out*
—–
*”work something out” means that I’m open to barter or trade. It also means that I am willing to mail you (or a party designated by you) the t-shirt because you (or they) will enjoy it and/or get use out of it.  In the latter case, I will ask you to reimburse the postage.

Questions have piled up underneath various blog entries at Eagles Over the Kennebec.  So!  Massive question-answering.  If I’ve missed yours, ask again and I’ll do my humble best.

1.  Why am I going to Archers Beach?

Because I have two books set in Archers Beach due pretty soon now, and, as matters now stand, and with Mr. Bouchard’s kind assistance, it was cheaper, in time and money, to stay in town during September, rather than make multiple day-trips down-coast.  The decision to do this was made when I thought this year would look very different than it’s turning out, but made they are, and off I am.

2.  What will Madam Agent  want you all to write next?

That’s kind of got the cart before the horse.  Given that the proposal we submitted are all for books in-series, Madame’s job at this point is to either (1) request from Steve and I more fullness of detail in order to clarify our intent, or (2) to send the proposals on to Madame the Editor.  We haven’t gotten a request for a rewrite, nor heard that the proposals have been passed on; Madame the Agent is on vacation, so we hope to hear in re (1) or (2) in September.

3.  Any plans for more Tree-and-Dragon symbol tees?

There’s a kind of t-shirt shop under construction here.  Also coffee mugs and tote bags.  I’m not sure what’s going on with all the shirts with teensy-tiny logos on them.  Cafepress being…somewhat opaque to me.

4.  I take it there is a naming convention that assigns males a two “word” name, like Val Con and Er Thom, but “Daav” seems to be exceptional in that respect as well.

Many male Liadens are saddled with the two-section personal name.  The traditional naming practice is two syllables of three letters each — the balanced syllables are both artistically and philosophically pleasing; the total of six letters is also pleasing, six being a felicitous number for Liadens, along with twelve.  So you get Jen Sar, Ren Zel, Sae Zar, Win Ton… 

However, some names are very old in the Clan — such as Clonak,  Er Thom (which follows the six-letter, two-syllable rule, but the syllables lack symmetry), Daav — some are names that have been imported into the Clan for one reason or another, like Ichliad Brunner.  Liaden society is pretty rigid, but it is still a starfaring society, and nasty, foreign, untraditional things will, sadly, creep in among the less principled Clans…

OK, who’d I miss?

Someone suggested that Scrabble or Mozart might pitch in to assist Socks in Monday’s Supervisory Marathon.

Here is a picture of Scrabble, supervising work in the kitchen from the bookshelf in my office.  I’ll note briefly that Mozart was not available for a photo at the time, having gone downstairs to hide.

1.  The Peavey, newsletter of the Maine Writers and Publishers Association features some Liaden news, as well as news and notes from all points of the Maine Writing/Publishing Geography.  This link might work…

2.  A librarian friend sends us the following Liaden mention from Public Libraries, the Under the Radar Column, which this month deals with Sci-Fi you might have missed:

“The Liaden series by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller was initially released in the late eighties, but was never a big success. However Lee and Miller continued to write them, much to the delight of a dedicated group of fans. Baen has re-released all of the original books, as well as several new titles and the many short stories, in both print and digital editions. Lee and Miller continue to add to their entrancing space opera with the recent YA friendly Ghost Ship (2011) and Dragon Ship (2012).”

3.  I usually give clothes I no longer want/that no longer fit to Goodwill in Waterville, but I find that I have two t-shirts, size medium, that I don’t think I’d better donate, given the, err, political climate.  Does anyone want a MacHall Cthuhlu “Sell your soul for a cookie?” t-shirt and/or a Balticon 43 (the year Charlie Stross was GOH) t-shirt?  If you can use these shirts — both black, both in good, wearable condition — drop me a note at rolanniATkorvalDOTcom and we’ll work something out.

4.  For those keeping score, we will on Monday-coming have in this house, in order of appearance: 1. the plumbers, 2. the electrician, 3. the flooring crew, 4. The plumbers.  I’m thinking Socks is going to have to get in a temp-cat to help him keep it all under proper supervision.

5.  In 12 days I’ll be in Archers Beach.

1.  “Landed Alien,” a short story about Kara ven’Arith is this month’s Free Story on the Baen website (you need to scroll down).  It will be available there until September 15, and then be retired to the Free Library.

2.  Dragon Ship, the fourth book of Theo Waitley, is now available from Baen in the ebook format of your choice.

3.  Geek Girl Project continues their Books for Writers series with a review of Carpe Diem, by Lee and Miller.

4.  Necessity’s Child is not (that is NOT) the sequel to Dragon Ship.  Since it is already written, turned in, and scheduled for publication — three conditions that the sequel(s) to Dragon Ship do not at this time meet — it is Extremely Doubtful that we will “tell our publisher” to release the sequel next.  Sorry ’bout that.

4a.  Necessity’s Child is actually a darn good book; I like it, and a handful of other folks who read SF, including James Burton, Jaine Fenn, Dave Freer, Todd McCaffrey, Steve Miller, Elizabeth Moon, and Toni Weisskopf like it, too.  I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

4b.  The proposals for the books following Dragon Ship are on Madame the Agent’s desk.  We’ll tell you if/when they’ve been accepted by Baen.  Until then, you now know as much about this as we do.  Feel better?

5.  AsyouknowBob, the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory experienced an Epic Flood a couple weeks ago.  We, by which I mean Steve and I, have been Coping With The Mess Left Behind (the cats providing encouragement, in between naps), which means that, yes, I’m behind on my email.  And just about everything else.  Thank you for your understanding.

So, today!  The electrician, who discovered the reason that plugging in the air conditioner on one side of the bedroom turned off the light and alarm clock plugged into a Completely Nother socket.  Turned out there was an arc being created in the receptacle itself.

We are very lucky people.

While he was here, the electrician also replaced a not-to-code wire to a circuit breaker.  The rest were OK, but this one particular wire was of a sort that would have failed before the circuit snapped over.  The words of the electrician were, “Well, there’s a fire waitin’ to happen.”

We are very lucky people.

The reason we had called the electrician was to move a plug in the bathroom, since the new vanity, once installed, will cover the existing plug.  This was done with a minimum of fuss, but not exactly in the optimum-for-us manner. We’ll need to punt.

There’s a change.

I believe that, with the departure of the electrician, we are now bereft of craftspeople until Monday-next at oh-ghod-early, when the plumbers will arrive, rip out the existing vanity, and the toilet, move the washer and dryer to the kitchen and fly away.

Coming close on the heels of the plumbers will be the flooring crew, who will do their thing.  After we have a floor, the plumbers will swoop on by to install the toilet and go away until Tuesday morning, when they will pick up the vanity from Waterville Custom Kitchen before landing again at our house to continue with their piece of the adventure.

The really sticky part about that is that it’s bound to be noisy, and I have a phone interview with the fourth narrator of the Audible editions at 10 a.m. on Tuesday.  *cough* I hope Neil can filter out the racket.

Speaking of insurance companies, the mail brought packets from same regarding the flood.  It may be that we will simply lose the books that we have lost, since there seems to be no insurance-company-comprehensible explanation for them available to me.  I will need to call the Claims Supervisor tomorrow to verify that.

*sigh*

Lest I forget, today’s adventures also included the arrival of Girl Genius, Volume Eleven, which provided a welcome respite.

*sigh*

By the middle of next week, this will all be over.

 

 

I have a few things from my mother:  A bad temper; a sarcastic sense of humor; an erratic cycle of dark sight and brilliance — those are the big things.  She taught me how to read — that was huge — and she taught me that nothing that I did would ever be good enough to redeem me in her eyes — that was huge, too.

In terms of things…I have more things from my grandmother than my mother — a platinum lattice-work ring set with three mine-cut diamonds.  A couple of shot glasses.  Pie Pans.  A Book League of America edition of Jane Eyre bound in blue cloth, the gilt letters and furbelows that had adorned the spine flaked away long ago.  A porcelain Chinese boy and girl; a figurine of a dog cast in lead; a pineapple-shaped lamp finial; another dog — maybe a Jack Russel Terrier — porcelain, his spots fading.  A skeleton key.

The thing I have from my mother, though — the single physical thing object. . .is a brass ring.

It looks like this.

Family legend has it that this ring had come off the carousel at Gwynn Oak Park (if you ever go to Washington, DC, and visit the carousel on the Mall — that’s the carousel that used to be at Gwynn Oak Park.  A Herschell menagerie, built in 1947.).

Typically, brass rings were traded back into the carousel operator for a free ride.  Some people, of course, kept them as souvenirs.  It seems odd to me that, even as a little kid, my mother would have held onto something as frivolous as a brass ring.  Maybe there wasn’t time for an extra ride that day, and she forgot to take it back the next time the family rode the streetcar out to the park for a picnic.

However that may have been, the use to which the ring had been put by the time it came to my attention was entirely in keeping with what I know of my mom.

She used it to keep the wire of her portable electric mixer coiled tidily.  It served that purpose for years, and then one day — I don’t know.  The mixer broke?  We could finally afford a big mixer?  Whatever it was, the brass ring was no longer needed to fulfill its long-time duty.

So my mother was going to throw it away.

“Can I have it?” I asked.

“What do you want it for?”

“I just do.  It’s pretty.”

There was a long pause before she threw it to me.

“If you leave it laying around, it’s gone, hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

So, anyhow, I still have it.  Usually, it lives in a drawer in my office.  Occasionally, I see it, when I’m looking for something else, and I’ll smile at it, because it’s not pretty.  Because it is entirely and only what it appears to be.  I think that’s it.

I saw it again today, when I got into the drawer to look for something else, and it made my smile, like it always does.

 

 

It rained like a sonofagun all day.  No.  It POURED much of the day, with intermittent moments of mere rain.

Out of the downpour, then, at a Very Early Hour, came the painters.  They painted.  One of the things they painted was the ceiling and wall along the descent to the basement.  For this, since the basement stairs ceiling is a jillion feet high, a scaffolding was erected, including a plank for the painter to stand on while he painted the walls.

Socks, being the safety conscious supervisor that he is, immediately took it upon himself to walk the plank out to the far end, thus proving that it would adequately support a Really Big Guy.  He then marched back down the plank to the hallway, gave the painter, who had been properly waiting the end of inspection, a nice, ’round both ankles hug, and work went forth.

Meanwhile, in the bathroom, the boss was ripping the hell out of the wallpaper.  Sigh.  I’ve hated that wallpaper for years.

Into all this busyness came the electrician, who inspected the (relatively minor) problem of having to move an outlet in the bathroom, and the (rather more complex) problem of the crossed wiring in the bedroom.  He intends to return tomorrow, or perhaps Monday, to do what he does best.

Over on Facebook Lauretta posted this link, which I think is pertinent to the repair situation as it unfolds.

The Claims Officer called to let us know that a check has been sent to the Remediation Guy, covering his costs in full.  Another, very much smaller check, will be in the mail to us tomorrow.

Late in the day, the auction went over, and the Green Folder is as I type packed up and ready to embark on the journey to its new home, tomorrow.

The inventorying continues.  Found a whole stack of soggy cardboard boxes today.  And this is after things are dry.

So, the glamor.

Regarding the writing life and the recurring topic of why writers drink…I had meant to point to this a couple days ago, but for some reason, I forgot.

Here, read.  I’ll wait.

Back?  Was that a good read, or what?

Now, what this is, is that Hachette Publishing is demanding that its authors accept DRM on their ebooks.  What a surprise, right?  But the wrinkle here is?  They’re also demanding that Hachette authors demand that any other publisher those authors may publish with ALSO DRM those authors’ books.

Which is crazy.  I mean, first of all, what publisher listens to authors in matters of line, sales, and marketing?  Clearly Hachette doesn’t, or they’d’ve dumped DRM some time back.  And?  Who died and left Hachette Emperor of the Publishing Universe?  They’re going to force other publishers (by which, in this instance, Hachette chiefly means “Tor”) to abide by Hachette’s demands — how, exactly?

But!  Hachette doesn’t care.  Their threat is to its authors:  Make this so, or suffer the consequences.  I have spoken; go.

I really don’t know what I’d do if I was a Hachette author.  Besides, yanno, lay in a whole lot of wine.  Direct my agent to pull my Hachette titles?  Direct my agent to pull my titles with That Other Publisher?  Go back to college and take a degree in accounting?

Wouldn’t it be lovely to sit in a comfortable room, with a cat or two to hand, and a window looking out onto a scene you find inspiring, and just. . .write books, leaving the world and all it’s craziness on the far side of the door?

Yeah, that’s gonna happen.

G’night.