Blog Without A Name

The revisions came back on the essay; happily, nothing drastic.  I’ll deal with them…tomorrow.  Or Saturday.

This morning, FedEx brought another 600-ish tip-in pages for Necessity’s Child for Steve and me to sign, so — good on y’all who pre-ordered signed copies!

Also!  Did you know that February 2013 is the Silver Anniversary of the Liaden Universe®? That’s right, in February 1988, the paperback original of a quirky little space opera titled Agent of Change, by Steve Miller and Sharon Lee, appeared in bookstores everywhere! And the rest?  Is history!

In celebration of the persistence of history, we’ll be hosting a combined book release party/silver anniversary at Boskone — more details as they’re nailed down.

We ought to plan a web celebration, too, for the folks who can’t make Boskone.  What do you think we should do?

Twenty-five years, and all of the Liaden books are in print.  That’s really kind of awesome, actually.

And in other news, I cleaned the bathroom.

 

Liaden Universe® reader Gus Fleischmann has taken the bold, and necessary, step of starting a Liaden wiki.  He’s made a beginning, starting with Dragon Ship.   You can take a look at it here.

For the record, he asked our permission to pursue this project, and we gave it, so this is legit.

Gus very quickly realized that wikifying the Entire Liaden Universe® is going to be a very large task, and that many hands make the work light.

So, if you’d like to help build the wiki, please go over, sign up, and help make this thing happen.

Thanks!

So the turkey bones are busy making stock, and the laundry has been started.  Still on the to-do list, dishes! the reading of the manuscript! writing!  more laundry!

Yeah, it’s a thrill a minute here at the Confusion Factory.

For you, though, there is excitement! and adventure! in the air!  There’s an ARC of Necessity’s Child, the newest Liaden Universe® novel (how new? you ask.  So new that it won’t be published until February.  That’s like, pre-new!) up for grabs, straight from the authors.  Hurry and enter, because the contest closes Wednesday at noon, Eastern Standard Time, U.S.

Edited to add:  I should note that, since this is a standalone novel within the universe, this would make a great holiday present to That Certain Someone who you’ve been trying to hook on the Liaden books, but who just can’t commit to reading 15 novels.

Contest rules here.

So, the Anne McCaffrey essay commissioned by BenBella has been written and delivered; I’ve signed all the tip-in pages for the autographed edition of  Necessity’s Child;  the short story commissioned for Baen’s website has been written and delivered; today I finished reading the galleys for Necessity’s Child, and have emailed my correx to the appropriate folken.

Y’all know what that means, don’t you?

Right!

Now, I get to put on a new head  read the first 70,000-ish words of Carousel Sun, and get with writing the rest.  I have a soft deadline of December 31.  The manuscript is actually due at Baen on February 15, 2013.  I’m figuring that means writing about 1,000 words a day, minimum, which isn’t so bad.

This also assumes that nothing else requiring me to think outside of Archers Beach occurs from now until the end of the year.

…yeah, that’s gonna happen.

Everybody having a good holiday?

From Sharon, Noon EST, Wednesday, November 28, 2012:  The contest is now closed.  The last eligible reply is from Sunbee19.  Winner will be announced on Friday, November 30, 2012.

Thank you all for playing!

**************

This is a contest for those among us who are patiently waiting for the February publication of Necessity’s Child (the book formerly known as George)*

Several A(dvance) R(eading) C(opies) of this fine Liaden novel arrived at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory earlier this week.  So we’re doing a giveaway.

HERE ARE THE RULES:

If you want an ARC of Necessity’s Child, all you have to do is tell me why.  Whoever has the best reason, in my sole judgment, will win the ARC.

In order to make it easy on me, I’m only going to accept reasons that are posted in answer to this post on sharonleewriter.com.  LJ and/or FB answers will not count.  The Blog With No Name at sharonleewriter is a moderated blog, so don’t worry if your post doesn’t show up immediately; it may take up to a couple hours to be cleared.

The contest will end at Noon, Eastern Standard Time on Wednesday, November 28, 2012.

I will make my determination no later than Friday, November 30 and will contact the winner for a snail address.

Everybody OK with the Rules?

Cool!

I’m looking forward to reading your reasons.

———-

*Promo copy for Necessity’s Child, for those who need their memory refreshed:

The kompani sees none as enemy, and few as friend. It 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, upon the planet Surebleak, with its friends, its enemies, and, most of all, its plans may bring catastrophe, changing the world’s 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.

A new, standalone novel in the popular Liaden Universe® Series

 

I have been away; driving up and down the world during a day so dim the air looked grey.  I have no idea why it wasn’t snowing.

I’ve ordered new glasses (ouch), picked up prescriptions at the drugstore,  tomorrow’s dinner from the Hannaford deli, and today’s lunch from Subway.  I did not get Binjali’s tires rotated, because Tire Warehouse was! a! zoo!  What’s that about, on the day before Thanksgiving?

Back home, packages had arrived — 2013 (!) calendars, a case of paper, and Agnes and the Hitman in mmp.

What I want to do now is take a nap.  What I will do now is pour myself a cup of coffee and get with the galleys.

What’re you doing today?

 

Submitted last evening, “Eleutherios,” a short story by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller commissioned for the Baen front page, January 2013 publication date.

While I was finishing the story up, the authors’ proofs for Necessity’s Child arrived, with a deadline for return of next Tuesday.

I’ll be on the couch with a pot of coffee, two Maine Coon cats, three red pens, and a clutch of colored stick-it tabs.

Y’all be good.

So the short story’s done in first draft, clocking in at 7,300 words.  It still needs a title (hmmmm…Camel?) and a thorough going-over, but for today it, and I, rest.  By which I mean, “signing several hundred blank pages.”  And doing the dishes.  Because yesterday was about writing 5,000+ words, and the dishes suffered for it.

In other news, the Deluxe Scrabble edition which is our Yule present to each other arrived on Friday, and has been sitting on the Mencken Table making with the come-hithers.  We have, so far, Been Strong.

Also!  The Christmas catalogs have begun to arrive.  I love Christmas catalogs, they’re so full of. . .stuff.  Ridiculous, useful, in some cases sublime stuff.  Things I never knew existed.  Truly, Christmas is a season of joy.

I’m still working my way, page-by-page when time allows, through Maphead, which is continuing to amuse.  I’ve just finished a chapter dealing with (among other things, like the National Geographic Geography Bee, and people who turn maps upside down so they’re pointing in the direction of travel) people who make up their own geographies.

The 1942 smash hit, Islandia, was the lifework of Austin Wright, who began imagining his world when he was a boy, and continued to work on building its culture, language, geography, and customs throughout his life, until his untimely demise.  (Read all about it here).  The papers from which Mr. Wright’s widow and daughter extracted the novel ran to manymany hundreds of pages.

Also discussed, of course, is Tolkien, and Brandon Sanderson, who is quoted as saying something like it’s the maps that allow people to immerse themselves in fantasy novels.  A sentiment with which — speaking as someone who skips over, and is frequently annoyed by, the maps — I am not in agreement.  Having a map of Mirkwood Forest doesn’t make me “believe in” Mirkwood Forest; I believe in Mirkwood Forest because it’s real.  Sheesh.

That aside, and speaking as someone who, at an early age, started in to build what became the Liaden Universe®, I’m amused by the author’s assumption that people who tend toward that particular imaginative exercise are inevitably mapheads and/or that maps will definitely be part of the process of defining the world.

I am. . .whatever the opposite of a maphead is.  Unless I’ve walked an area, a map of it makes no sense to me.  If I have walked an area, then I can “see” the houses and the landmarks on its map. I have a map of Old Orchard Beach hanging on my wall.  It serves the same function, for me, as knots on a memory string, to remind me of locations I already intimately know.

It amazes me that Steve (who is a maphead) can look at a map of foreign climes and immediately know how to get from Point A to Point B.  How’s he do that?

I guess I’m saying that there won’t be any maps of the Liaden Universe® coming anytime soon.

But — here’s a question for all you voracious readers out there — do maps lend weight or reality to your fiction-reading experience?  What (else) makes a world “real” to you?

Discuss.

. . .and I’m off to do the dishes.