Blog Without A Name

Up betimes and to Eric’s for breakfast, because the milk had gone sour. Yes, it’s a lame excuse, but it was our excuse. It being, for a change, an Absolutely Gorgeous Sunny Day, which it had not been on Monday, October 3, the 23rd anniversary of our arrival in Maine, we decided after breakfast to take our Anniversary Drive.

Out to Skowhegan and beyond via 201, to 43, and then across to Madison, the mountains black-toothed and sharp against the sky. Not much in the way of leaf color; I fear me we’ll have a quiet fall.

From Madison, to Anson, to Starks, past world-famous Chicken Street, and eventually to Farmington, to rest, briefly, and seek out Mr. Paperback, where we signed stock — one copy each of The Agent Gambit, Korval’s Game, Ghost Ship, and two of Saltation — purchased a copy of December’s Analog in which Mr. Sakers says very nice things about the Liaden Universe® in general, and Ghost Ship in particular in “The Reference Library”, and  a 2012 Non-Sequitur Kitchen Table calendar (you might call it a desk calendar).  We also took on a new ‘prentice — ours is the one with the pink-and-gray tail.  His genus name appears to be Yoo-Hoo, and he makes a Magic Twinkly Noise when you press his stomach.  No, I’m not kidding.

We then got back on the road, proceeding down 2-and-4, thinking we might go to Portland for lunch.  Alas, we hit road construction in Jay, and decided that the better part of valor would be to turn around in Lewiston, hit Augusta for lunch, sign stock at BN, and return home by way of the post office, drug store, and grocery.

(A head’s up, for those in the Jay/Livermore Falls corridor.  A bar somewhere in that area, right on Route 4, is advertising that it will be hosting the Maine Saracens Halloween Party.  I said to Steve, “Did I read that right?”  He said, “Yep.  At least we know where we won’t be on Halloween.”)

…We implemented the back-to-Augusta plan, though we did get tangled up in the aftermath of this, which necessitated some cutting-and-pasting of the route.  Eventually, though, we found our way to Rooster’s and a nice cup of broccoli cheese soup for both of us, with a shared BLT, and large glasses of iced tea.

At BN, we signed the two Saltation mmps they  had in stock.  The young lady on the desk allowed as how they had sold out of the Ghost Ship they had in stock and hoped that they would have another one when for us to sign when we stopped in again.

Pause.

What else?

Oh!  Staples in the Augusta Marketplace — the very first Staples I ever remember seeing — is closed.  There’s a newer store opened across town, so, all’s not lost, but…wow, what a shock.

So, then.  Back to Waterville — drugstore, post office, grocery store.  A side-trip to Giffords for milkshakes, and so to home where I have caught up on email and bookkeeping, written a blog post, and will shortly join my husband in the kitchen for lunch and a spot of reading.

What did you do today that was fun?

Slightly less excitement yesterday. I guess you can’t be blacklisted every day.

From the musical side of My World, Abney Park is releasing a new album on October 15 — Off the Grid.  There’s a rumor of an online pre-release party, but no links yet.  I’m very excited, and will be buying one of those CDs Very Soon After they become available.  Also! Frenchy and the Punk are doing a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production of two new CDs.  They’re less than $700 short of a very modest goal to complete a very worthwhile project.

On the housekeeping front, yesterday…I decided that I wanted cranberry bread, but I had some other stuff to do and didn’t want to be tied to the whole rise-punch-down thing.  So, I unshipped the bread machine, which I use once every year or so, loaded up the ingredients, pushed the button, and went back to my office.

About fifteen minutes later, the machine SHRIEKED, and kept on shrieking while I ran down the hall to the kitchen and pulled the plug.  Looks like the kneading blade froze up.  I was corked off, because, hey! cranberry bread.  So I dumped the dough out, and preheated the oven to 170 degrees while I finished kneading the dough and distributing the cranberries (I found later that you don’t first-rise with cranberries.  Who knew?).  Then I turned the oven off, put the dough in, set the timer, and went back to my office.  An hour later, the dough had doubled. I punched it down, set the oven to pre-heat to 375, made a loaf, put it  in a loaf pan, covered it, put it on top of the stove, and went away again for half an hour.  When I came back, the oven was hot, the dough was riz, and in she went.

I had a couple pieces of the result of all this effort this morning for breakfast, with cream cheese.  Mmmmmm, cranberry bread and cream cheese.  Very tasty, despite All It’s Been Through.

Now, I have to figure out if the bread machine is DOI.  And, if it is, whether I want to bother with another one.

There was frost on the deck and the cars this morning, and I just came back from a walk in the sun.  (Maine resident moment:  I looked at the thermometer before I left, saw that it was reporting 37F/3C outside, and said, “Oh, I’d better get a sweater.”  Which I did.  My nice, RED fleece sweater, to go with my nice RED hat.)  It’s just a little too breezy to be perfectly comfortable (note to self: find Fall gloves), but my, isn’t sunshine nice?

The proof copy of Barnburner arrived from Lulu yesterday (probably, yanno, a couple days ago, but I hadn’t managed to get to the post office for a couple days).  It’s a perfectly presentable little book, especially for something that’s going to be sold entirely off the web and not browsed in bookstores, so Here’s The Plan.

I’m going to format Barnburner’s sister book, Gunshy, and make them both available, for now, from the Lulu Store.  This will solve the immediate problem of people who want those particular books-as-books and who can’t find them. It looks like the price-point will be right around $12US.

It seems pretty clear that Lulu is not going to be the permanent solution for any future chapbook-like-objects Steve and I may do, such as collecting the stories off of Splinter Universe onto paper.  I’m still exploring options there.  The biggest problem is that the POD presses are…not kind to chapbooks.  We may end up having to do perfect-bound 5.5×8.5 (aka “digest”), and going 84 pages each (the lower limit for digest) to get a rational price for people.  This would mean a longer wait while enough material builds up, but! more stories when the book does make weight.

And just by the way — if you’re thinking of using Lulu to self-pub.  As dancinghorse said, back in another conversation, if you’re willing to accept a number from Lulu’s ISBN tree and let Lulu be the “publisher” of your book, they will distribute to Amazon, BN, &c, &c, for “free”.  If you have your own ISBN (which Barnburner and Gunshy, for instance, happen to have), Lulu will charge you $75 per title to distribute to Amazon, BN, &c, &c.  And then of course, the bookstores get their discount off retail…so you earn less per each.

For those who wonder how I fill my hours, now that I’m “not working”, I have the following projects immediately on my plate:

1. Format and proof Gunshy

2. Do fly-revisions on the first 60 grand of Necessity’s Child and make a list of those things that Must Happen, those things that it Would Be Nice to See, and those things which are just Off the Wall. (Sorry, this really is as close to doing an outline as I get. Sometimes, I don’t even do lists, if I have the time to just Live In the Book.) Then, yanno, finish writing the thing.

3. Write and post “The Space at Tinsori Light”

4. Start with the Liaden Audible Lexicon project

5. Continue researching POD options for chapbook-like-objects.

6. Consider a possible crowd-source project for next year. I’m tempted, but I don’t know if it’s feasible. Checking notes and deadlines now.

Deadline projects in-house at the moment are:
1. Dragon Ship — November 15
2. Necessity’s Child — March 15, 2012
3. Trade Secret — July 15, 2012

Plus, various flavors of Life, some of which, like the details involved in the closing of SRM, are ridiculously time-consuming and involve appointments with Experts.

So, anyhow, keeping busy, here. If not out of trouble.

And, as it’s a little cool in the office, I’ve just put one of the shawls Sarah Al-Amri of her kindness sent me.

Twice warm, me.

Exciting day here at the Cat Farm. Not only did Eddie the FedEx Guy deliver us a nice, tasty box of Mouse and Dragon mass market paperbacks, but Mozart and I finished up with the manuscript-thus-far of Necessity’s Child. Thinks now need to be thought.

As if the above weren’t enough! excitement! We learn today (we could have learned yesterday, if I had bothered to open my email) that Ghost Ship, with nine other worthy novels, was a Borderlands Books hardcover bestseller for September. Here’s the list; lotsa good reading there:

1. Reamde by Neal Stephenson
2. A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin
3. Legacy of Kings by C.S. Friedman
4. Tears of the Sun by S.M. Stirling
5. Departure by Neal Asher
6. Rule 34 by Charles Stross
7. Embassytown by China Mieville
8. Magician King by Lev Grossman
9. Ghost Ship by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
10. How Firm a Foundation by David Weber

Now, exciting as bestsellerdom is, something Even! More! exciting happened.

I got blacklisted.

Yeah. I’m pretty proud.

Oh, you want to know what I got blacklisted for?  For yesterday’s Disambiguation Notice.  By, yeah, the “Write Agenda”/”Writer Be Aware” people, whoever they are.  Apparently, they have this list of authors who have hurt their feelings, and they send the list to librarians with a letter advising the library not to buy the work of anyone on the list.

Wonder how that’s working out for them?

Anyhow, if you missed the whole backstory, you can read about it at Writer Beware, at Whatever, and at In the Labyrinth.

Oh, and the title of this evening’s post?  Somebody over on Facebook made a request for B-52 lyrics, but yanno?  With the B-52s it was never about the lyrics, it was all about the delivery.

Here, have some Love Shack.

 

Warning: May contain spoilers for Carousel Tides.

I’d been meaning to get into That File Cabinet Down There for a while now, to look for something I’ll tell you about later. I found what I was looking for, and also a Vixen the Slayer t-shirt, which I wasn’t necessarily looking for, but not not looking for, either.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R

S
P
A
C
E

I also found, the first outline — no. The first jotted down notes and concepts for the book that became Carousel Tides, which I reproduce here, as an Exercise.

Ocean

Carousel

Cat/Tiger

Dragon

Drug Runners

Selkies

Goose Rocks

Stratton Island

Kite store run by Chinese family (water dragon)

Keltic Knot [roller coaster]

*The selkies base is Stratton Island

*The dragon’s secret is on Goose Rocks

*The drug runners are using the selkies to transport the dope. The prince of the selkies is a friend of the Dragon’s who has fallen out with her over — something

*The Dragon isn’t interested in the drug runners until they kill someone under her protection

*The Tiger is the new kid on the block of whom the Dragon is both suspicious & attracted

the fire in 1969 started in the merry-go-round at the entrance to the old pier July 18 1969

Borgan  aka Andre Borgan

Bonny Pepperidge
Tupelo – Black Gum – Sour Gum – Pepperidge –
Nyssa Sylvatica

#

Well. That’s pretty close, innit?

And now, to the sofa!

Have I mentioned here that we’re getting our deck replaced? It’s time — past time, really; the whole structure kind of wobbles and shakes and it’s a whole new dance form, getting down the stairs. It’s a Pure Miracle that it didn’t fall down last winter, though I’m grateful that it stood its duty.

Because the people who built our house had this Negative Feng Shui thing going, the house is sited so that (1) the summer sun shines directly into the kitchen window for long New England hours every day in season and (2) the snow, when it blows, curls over the roof of the house and falls with a thump and a bump directly in front of the door. There were at least two occasions last winter when I was afraid I wasn’t going to be able to get the door open, and, just by the way, using the kitchen door for a snowplow hasn’t done it much good, either. So, what I wanted (being as I’ll be doing the best — for values of best — part of the shoveling) was: (1) a deck that wouldn’t fall down with the first snow load, (2) new stairs with a banister on both sides, (3) a peak over the door, to break the snow-fall from the roof.

Yesterday, the guy who’s going to do the work came over with a pad and paper and drew sketches and marched us all over the existing deck, and took measurements and did on-the-fly arithmetic, and worked the thing out three ways from Maybe, looking for the best outcome for the least bucks.

I don’t often get to watch somebody else in the throes of a creative fugue, so that was a treat all by itself. I said to Steve later, If this is what we look like when we’re riffing the story in public, no wonder people sorta back away, smile and nod.

Anyhow, at the end of it all, we have a design for a slightly shorter deck with a longer stairway up from the ground, so it’ll be less like climbing a ship’s ladder. The main part of the deck will be roofed, and covered in nice tin, so the snow-fall from the roof will slide down into the yard beyond the deck. The only thing that’ll need shoveling will be the stairs. And! as a Special Bonus? The roof will block the summer sun.

In other news, Mozart and I are still working with the print-out of Necessity’s Child, and in odd minutes I’m trying to figure out Google+ and why on earth I should be involved in Yet! Another! networking site.

Oh, and? It’s raining.

I believe that some aspiring writers read here from time to time, and I do absolutely know for a fact that, when I teach, and when I talk with beginning writers at conventions, I mention Writer Beware as a useful resource.

In a word, what Writer Beware does is investigate and expose literary scams. In addition to the website, hosted by SFWA, Writer Beware maintains a blog, here, and a Facebook page.

I’m mentioning this here now because. . .someone or group of someones has put time and effort into a very. . . peculiar web presence entitled “The Write Agenda.” This site supports two mirror sites, one of which is called “Writer Be Aware.”

Be advertent! The site that I recommend as a good resource for writers in these days of internet scams is Writer Beware. Another excellent resource for authors wishing to protect themselves from harm is Preditors and Editors.

Here ends the Disambiguation Notice. Thank you for your attention.

Yesterday, it rained. As opposed to today, which is only grey and sodden.

Despite the rain, I truly needed to go to the grocery store and while I was in town, I stopped by Marden’s, home of surplus and salvaged goods from all corners of the universe. Since it was rainy, the rest of the population of Waterville, Oakland, and Winslow had decided to go to Marden’s, too. I’m not kidding you, there was gridlock inside the store. One lady was so busy staring around at all the Stuff, she walked right into me. Good thing the place was so crowded; if there’d been less people in the aisle, I’d’ve fallen down. As it was, the pressure of the crowd kept me upright.

I note that Marden’s Waterville location has received quite a lot of items from J.Jill, so if you’re a fan, it’s probably worth the crowds to get some really good deals on clothes.

I also note that there’s some UGLY furniture being made nowadays. Of course, the sample was from Marden’s, so maybe the pieces on display were remaindered for a reason.

Ostensibly, I was there to look for a rug. There were many rugs — 9×15 “Oriental” rugs, only $79.99 were of special note. Man, it used to be that knock-off Oriental rugs were actually made out of polyester blend. The things on offer yesterday were a sort of double-thick canvas that somebody had run through a Giant Ink Jet to print on an Oriental design. Nasty to look at; nasty to touch. Not worth 79 cents, much less $79.

There were several hand-loomed wool rugs (Handmade in Tibet! said one. Um, yeah?) that felt real and looked interesting — and there my Shopping Foo was as strong as ever — $500, $600 each. I’m not buying a $600 rug from Marden’s. Yes, even if it’s “marked down” from $1200.

Let me see, what else? Wasted some time on eBay “shopping for” an antique “crystal ball” watch that isn’t being sold out of China for $5, $20-$40 shipping and thirty-day delivery window. Not much luck there, which is fine — I couldn’t afford to purchase such an item, if I found it for sale from a vendor providing actual information about hisorher wares — but, as I mentioned on Facebook, I did find a Model 21 Ship’s Chronometer Escapement Jewel, in case anybody needs one.

Yesterday evening, Mozart and I made a start on reading Necessity’s Child. Due to limited Higher Brain Function induced by the stress of the late-but-not-lamented day-job, I did indeed fail to report in the pages of the novel an Extremely Important Event. Happily, it’s a very drafty sort of draft in places, and there’s an appropriately shaped hole in very nearly the perfect spot into which this event may be inserted, making that whole process a lot less painful than it could so easily have been.

I also found a place where the backbrain was going nudgenudgewinkwink that I had also failed to notice due to the aforesaid limited HBF, but which leapt out at me like a saber dancer just as I was writing down in my notes, “But what HAPPENED to the patrol?” Duh. It were obvious to the meanest intelligence, O Author. Do try to pay attention.

To give you some idea of Just How Distracted I’ve been on this project — I usually run one yellow pad per book, for notes, scene building, snips of dialog, reminders…

Necessity’s Child has four partial yellow pads in use, and not because I was jotting down copious notes. No, it was because I’d forget that I already had a notepad in play and start another one.

So, anyway. This morning has been spent with the correspondence, and now the blog. Lunch is looking like baked potatoes, after which it’s back to the couch, the pens, the pads, the cat.

Everybody have as good a Monday as you can manage.

Steve and I have commenced our annual reading of Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October, in which we follow Jack and Snuff and the progress of The Game down through the month of October. We here at the Cat Farm read one chapter a night, alternating who reads aloud. Who else is reading along with us?

This morning, no doubt assisted in the endeavor by the soothing sound of rain against the bedroom windows ( Mozart helped, too), we slept in, and had a late, leisurely breakfast. Fans of Mozart will be pleased to learn that he is still asleep on the bed.

I have already(!) printed out the 240 existing pages of Necessity’s Child. I’ll be taking it, a red pen, a black pen and a yellow pad with me to the couch a little later in the day. But first, I have chores, and errands to do in town.

Across the Great Barrier, Patricia C. Wrede
Scaramouche, Rafael Sabatini (e)
Defender, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
Magic Under Glass, Jaclyn Dolamore (e)
Silver Borne, Patricia Briggs (e)
Warrior Sheep One: Quest of the Warrior Sheep, Christine and Christopher Russell
Phoenix Rising, Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris (e)
Crown Jewels, Walter Jon Williams (e)
Explorer, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
Defender, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
Bond of Blood, Roberta Gellis (e)
Inheritor, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
I Don’t Want to Kill You, Dan Wells
Invader, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
Library Wars Volume 1: Love and War, Kiiro Yumi
The Perilous Gard, Elizabeth Marie Pope
Edie Ernst, USO Singer — Allied Spy, Brooke McEldowney
Silver Phoenix, Cindy Pon
Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson (e)
Foreigner, C.J. Cherryh (read aloud with Steve)
Betrayer, C.J. Cherryh (read out loud with Steve)
Right-Ho, Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse (e)
American Rose, Karen Abbott
The Bull God, Roberta Gellis (e)
Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott
Of Blood and Honey, Stina Leicht (e)
The God Engines, John Scalzi (e)
Or Else My Lady Keeps the Key, Kage Baker (e)
Unseen, Rachel Caine
Total Eclipse, Rachel Caine
Weight of Stone, Laura Anne Gilman
The Story of Chicago May, Nuala O’Faolain

Was I after forgetting to mention that those of you who are readers of The Walker Papers by the excellent C.E. Murphy (first book, Urban Shaman, for those who haven’t read them yet — go, go find, buy, read), you might still have time to get in on the ground floor of a special offer. Ms. Murphy is funding the writing of Walker Papers novella “No Dominion” featuring Gary the cab driver through Kickstarter. The campaign opened today, and you can read all about it here.

Today, I have composed and sent out an InfoDump, done the end-of-September bookkeeping and checkbook balancing, watched Dumbo with Steve, and wrote a couple thousand words.

I am now at the point — the end of Chapter Twenty, for those keeping score — where I will be compiling the files I have and printing out many pages of manuscript, so that I can familiarize myself with whattheheck I said on various subjects, and see if it matches up with whatever I might’ve said on the same topic later. I have the sinking feeling that I forgot to Put Something Important In. In which case, I’ll be needing to rip out and resew some seams. Good thing I laid in a lot of thread and a whole card of needles.

In other news, it rained all day. And tomorrow’s looking like more of the same.

Progress on Necessity’s Child
60,495 of 100,000 OR 60% complete

“Don’t let ‘im pull your leg, missy,” Beck said from the stove. “Ain’t a single one of ’em tall by Surebleak measure.”