Blog Without A Name

Fans of Socks will be pleased to know that he’s taken up the work ethic of the coon cat.  Here you see him vetting contracts.

 

Mozart’s fans will see that his summer shorts are growing in, just in time for the Really Hot Weather to hit, and if that’s not the epitome of cat timing, I don’t know what is.  I am sad to see that his mouth has developed a sag on the side where he lost two teeth; he always looks a little grumpy now. . .

…this has been your Monday morning cat spam.

Everybody have a good day!

 

I was born in 1952.  That’s rather a long time ago.  About sixty years, in fact.  (I heard that, you in the back, and you are correct —  I am older than dirt.)

Now, back in my day, we had this thing called television.  Oh, yeah, I know you have television now, but not like we had television.  My family, based in Baltimore, had programming on three channels to choose from — 2, 11, and 13.  Sometimes, in the evening, you could get a snowy picture out of channels 4 and 5, broadcast from DC.

As a Little, my television viewing consisted of The Early Riser, Captain Kangaroo, various afternoon game shows that had moved into the new medium from radio — As the World Turns and Guiding Light, if I was staying with my grandmother — The Ed Sullivan Show, Monday-Wednesday-Saturday-Whatever night at the movies; and the other show that aired at four o’clock on weekdays, and ran movies staring Joe E. Brown, W.C. Fields, Abbot and Costello, The Three Stooges; The Keystone Cops; Charlie Chaplin; The Bowery Boys, Our Gang; Tarzan and Bomba…

I was a faithful viewer of Cap’n Tug, which came over Channel Five at my dinner time.  I’d sit on the floor in front of the TV with the dog, sharing my slice of yellow American cheese with mustard between two pieces of white bread sandwich with the dog (one bite for me; one bite for her. What?  She liked mustard.), watching cartoons, and listening to the Cap’n as he moved his tug back and forth across Baltimore Harbor in pursuit of work.

Course, there was Disneyland, and the Mouseketeers; Queen for a Day.  In the early evening, I watched Sergeant Bilko, You Bet Your Life.  Saturday was cartoons; Roy Rogers, Sky King, My Friend Flicka, The Lone Ranger, Cisco Kid…

Then there were the cop and G-man shows:  The Naked City, The FBI, Dragnet. . .

And then, in 1964, eleven days after my 12th birthday — there came The Man from U.N.C.L.E.

I had, by this point, absorbed quite a lot of storytelling through my eyeballs; and I was a tough critic.  But I had never seen anything like this.  The chemistry between the characters, the cool dialogue, the stakes,  the explosions!, the daring escapades, the sly humor. I  was in love, and I wanted More of This, Please.

In short order, I got. . .not exactly More of This, but More Like This:  The Avengers, with that marvelous tension between Peel and Steed; I Spy; The Wild, Wild West with the buddy-thing going between Jim and Artie (and y’know, the explosions and the cool dialogue and the adventure!); Honey West; Mission Impossible; Get Smart; Johnny Quest. . .

Television was spy-mad, and though my parents (unfairly!) ruled that I was too young to stay up for Secret Agent, and MUCH too young to view James Bond flicks, I had enough to keep my brain buzzing.  Also, my mother, who wouldn’t think of allowing my tender eyes to rest upon a  Bond Girl, had no problem with my reading every Ian Fleming book in BCPL’s collection.

It was about this time that I began making up stories in my head, to keep myself occupied during the long, dull hours at school.  And it’s not really a surprise, is it, that the very first character I met inside my head was a. . .spy?  Well, but!  An interstellar spy, because that was exciting, and new (since, yanno, I hadn’t heard of the Lensmen, yet).  Because a spy needs somebody to watch his back, I figured he should have a partner, somebody who could shoot and take care of both of them, should the need arise — not another spy, though, someone who hadn’t told lies so long he’d forgotten what truth looked like — a soldier!  Yes.  And the soldier should be a girl, because why should boys have all the explosions, anyway?

Twenty years after The Man from U.N.C.L.E lit up the black-and-white screen in my parent’s living room, having in the between-time told myself countless stories about Val Con and Miri and The Green People — On October 31, 1984, Steve and I packed up a manuscript detailing the adventures of Miri and Val Con and the Clutch Turtles — Agent of Change, by Lee Miller — and mailed it to Ace Books.

It was, of course, rejected; DAW rejected it, too.

In December, 1985, Del Rey Books mailed us a contract, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Illya Kuryakin and Napolean Solo have a lot to answer for, yeah.  But I like to think their grand-stories have done them proud.

 

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 title brought to you by the weather outside, which is dreadful.  When I lived in Baltimore, I got used to breathing soup, but I never learned to like it.   Terrible thing for a native to say.  Alas, the soup has found Maine this weekend — heat combined with ozone and pollutants showing orange-red-yellow all up and down the state.

We here at the Cat Farm have deployed the air conditioners and are going to stay inside, reading the contract set that arrived in this morning’s mail, writing, and, for my part at least, not reading the news.  I will perhaps spend some time seeking out pictures of kittens and baby platypuses on the internet.  Or maybe I’ll just curl into a corner of the couch and spend an hour or two with somebody else’s book.

. . .There was a inquiry yesterday into the musical and film preferences of the cats.  Mozart prefers piano — classical or soft contemporary; he doesn’t much admire jazz piano.  He deplores bagpipes and classic rock, though he likes Abney Park and Gaelic Storm.  Go figure.  His politics are apparently liberal:  When he first came to live with us and was sulking in the basement, the first time he came upstairs of his own volition while we were still awake, was in order to view of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.  He also very much enjoyed Hugo.

Scrabble seems to have no musical inclinations, and film bores her.  She prefers to be where the computers are.  Little brown geek cat.

Like Hexapuma, Socks likes anime, and action adventure movies.  He adored RED, which was a surprise; I wouldn’t have taken him for a Bruce Willis guy, but there you are.  He also seems eclectic in his musical tastes:  piano music, weird zither-y atonal music, Bruce Springsteen, Janis Ian, Steeleye Span, Grateful Dead — it’s all good.  Hex, of course, being deaf, had no musical opinions.

Which reminds me that the Music of Liad game is still going on. Rules here.  So far we have musical themes for the following books:

Agent of Change:  Secret Agent Man (Johnny Rivers), Life During Wartime (Talking Heads)

Carpe Diem:  Beethoven’s Sixth

Crystal Soldier/Dragon:  Capriccio Italien, Smugglers Blues (Glenn Frey)

Fledgling/Saltation:  Somewhere over the Rainbow (Judy Garland)

Local Custom:  I would walk 500 miles (The Proclaimers)

Mouse and Dragon:  She was the Prize (Gaelic Storm), Come Undone (Duran Duran), Lullabye (Billy Joel)

Scout’s Progress:  Sweetness  (Yes), Your Own Special Way (Genesis)

And! Character Themes

Daav:  The Clock Ticks On (Blackmore’s Night); Renaissance Faire (Blackmore’s Night)

Clutch Turtles:  Afro-Celt Sound System

. . .that’s a lot of interesting listening, already.  C’mon and play — you know you want to!

 

Here’s a fun game for a hot day!  Is there a song that, to you, particularly evokes a Liaden Universe® title ?  What is it?  If there’s a recording on Youtube, link to it so everybody can hear it!

There are no right or wrong answers obviously.

Here, I’ll start.

Agent of Change — Life During Wartime, Talking Heads

Mouse and Dragon — She was the Prize, Gaelic Storm

Let the game begin!

 

Cuttlefish
You are perhaps not aware that Cuttlefish, by Dave Freer is now available for sale from all of the Usual Suspects, including your favorite indie bookstore. Having now been made aware of this fact, you should forthwith go out and obtain a copy. I had the great good fortune to read an advance edition of Cuttlefish, and enjoyed it immensely. I mean, really — steam-powered submarines! Drowned London! airships! cross-and-double-cross! What’s not to love?

Powers
This is a reminder — because I know how you are — that fellow Mainer James A. Burton’s fantasy Powers is on the shelves now. Genre-wise, Powers is contemporary mythic fantasy, with a side order of hard-boiled detective. Think Zelazny crossed on Butcher and you won’t be far wrong. I should also mention that Mr. Burton is a very close friend to Maine author James A. Hetley. Fans of Mr. Hetley’s work should by all means check out Mr. Burton.

Liaden Audiobooks
This has been mentioned elsewhere, but it’s worth saying again: On September 4, 2012 (that’s less than two months from now!), Audible will be releasing, simultaneously, every damn’ one of the Liaden Universe® novels ever published — Agent of Change through Dragon Ship!  One million, five hundred thousand words of Liad, four Sequences, four narrators, no waiting!

The Hyperspatial Boardwalk Store
What’s summer without a visit to the Boardwalk? Can’t get to the boardwalk? We’ve got you covered. They Hyperspatial Boardwalk Store carries a line of Liaden Universe® t-shirts, coffee mugs, bags and jewelery. While you’re there, check out the Archers Beach Store!

Pinbeam Books for summer reading
Thirty electronic chapbooks containing Liaden, Lee, and Miller short stories. One previously very hard to find poetry chapbook by Miller, and! Lee and Miller space opera, The Tomorrow Log. Links take you straight to the Kindle, Nook, and Smashwords edition of each book. Plus! Check out the new Audiobook page!

. . .this has been your morning advert for Thursday, July 12, 2012.

Not much to see here.

This morning, before noodling off to gym, I talked to the narrator of the Theo books about Saltation, which she’ll begin recording next week, having just finished Fledgling.

In related news, it would seem that all 15 Liaden novels will be released from Audible on. . .September 4.  Wow.  That’s going to make quite a splash.

Later in the day, I started a list of Who’s Who in Archers Beach, also known as the Carousel Sun Weird Word and Name List.  Should’ve done that first thing, but I got involved with making sure I had Fun Country’s Season schedule right.

So, like I said, really not much happening here — and tomorrow’s looking to be more of the same, though I do need to bake bread.

Hope everybody’s having a relaxing time of it.

Progress on Carousel Sun
8,060/100,000 OR 8.06% complete

It was a strange and fierce place, Googin Rock, though less strange than it had been, weeks ago. Magic again. And, yeah, I was in it to my elbows.

 

A very pretty day today, and so clear I could see the mountains in the next state over when I drove along Quimby Ridge.

Tomorrow is physical therapy, and I guess, since I’ll be in the neighborhood, I’ll try to renew my driver’s license, since the state was kind enough to send me a reminder.

In order to renew my driver’s license, it says here, I have to bring two forms of ID.  My driver’s license does not count as ID.  One of the forms of ID must be either a certified copy of my birth certificate, or a passport.  Well, OK; I have a passport.

The second form of ID must have my address on it.  Acceptable pieces of ID include:  a utility bill; the registration for my car; a lease; or a deed.  WTF? I’m renewing an existing license, which I have used numerous times as identification over the last six years.  I’m not trying to do anything subversive, like, oh, register to vote.  <fe>There I could understand the need for extreme caution.</fe>

Also in today’s mail comes the joyous news from the Social Security Administration that I have accumulated enough “points” to retire at 62/66/70, and! to be eligible for Medicare, and! for my family to receive survivor benefits in case the increasingly insane political discussion does me in.  Huzzah.

I also learn from Social Security that they are figuring my annual income going forward based on 2011’s earnings.

Falls over laughing

The other interesting thing — I tell you what, these forms are fascinating — is that Social Security started counting my wages in 1968, even though I started working in 1965.  I had to have a Worker’s Permit, which held me to a certain number of hours during the school year, and I think kids were paid at a different rate.  Also, I guess, kids had no Social Security withheld from their pay.  All that future earning power — thrown away.

What else?

Ah!  For those who had asked — we hear from Madame the Editor that, yes, Necessity’s Child will make an appearance as an eArc, but!  It hasn’t been scheduled yet, so, yanno — stay calm.

Everybody stay cool.

Progress on Carousel Sun
5,177/100,000 OR 5.18% complete

My grandmother lives on Heath Hill, among an old stand of mixed wood.

Breaking News!

Necessity’s Child, a Liaden Universe® novel by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, will be published on February 5, 2013.  The novel had previously been scheduled for May, 2013.

What’s the book about you ask?

Here, have a blurb:

The kompani sees none as an enemy, and few as friend. The kompani exists in many places, living quietly in the shadows, thriving off the bounty that others have no wit to secure, nor skill to defend. Their private history is unwritten; their recall rooted in dance and dream.

Clan Korval is wealthy in enemies; fortunate in friends. They protect themselves with vigor, and have taught even their youngest children the arts of war. They arrive on the planet Surebleak, where the kompani has lived secret and aloof, borne, it seems, by the very winds of change.

Change is often a boon to the kompani, for in change lies opportunity. But the arrival of Clan Korval, arriving upon Surebleak with its friends, its enemies, and, most of all, its plans may bring catastrophe, changing the culture and the kompani, forever.

In this time of change, the lives of three people intersect — Kezzi, apprentice to the kompani’s grandmother; Syl Vor, Clan Korval’s youngest warrior; and Rys, a man without a world, or a past.

Necessity’s Child is a standalone adventure in the popular and exciting Liaden Universe®

 

 

Wow, it got hot today (for Maine values &c).  I saw 93F/34C on the thermometer and thereafter averted my eyes.

I spent a good part of the afternoon on the couch, as threatened in these pages yesterday, and managed 1,810 words in the right direction.  Unfortunately, those words only advanced the manuscript by 1,210 words, because I had to rip a previously-written 600 words out by their roots.

Well, still, forward motion is forward motion.  I think that writing about Real Life, like we like to call it, is more difficult (for me) because there’s a fine line between too much explanation (boring the reader) and not enough explanation (confusing the reader).  The Liaden stories have always had a kind of “catch me if you can” attitude to them, which the Archers Beach stories can’t support.

Since I was writing on Number Ten Ox from the comfort of the couch, I have discovered a few more inexplicable crotchets.  For instance, the Firefox installed on Ox has taken it into its punkin’ haid that googlemail and gmail are both Dangerous Sites and will not allow me to check my gmail, nohow, no way.  I downloaded Chrome in order to be able to do that, but honestly?  Where did that come from?

Also, I still don’t seem to have configured Thunderbird correctly on Ox.  Trying to figure that out will be my reward for having been a good and productive writer today.

Here at the Confusion Factory, we do not stint on rewards.

I think that’s all the news that’s fit to print — well, no.  I see I have neglected to report that Mozart and Socks have together stretched out as far as they will go, bellies up to receive the cool-ish air generated by the tower fan in the living room.  Let me tell ya, them guys ain’t dumb. . .

Progress on Carousel Sun
5,152/100,000 OR 5.15% complete

In 1978, a nor’easter chewed up the World Famous Archers Beach Pier and spat it out like so many toothpicks.