So, I’ve just finished the seventh inning clean-up of Carousel Seas. Lost a few words along the way, as per usual. Tomorrow, I hope to add new words, and so on until I type, “The End.”
I had hoped to do a blog post somewhat more interesting than this one, but — this is all I got today. Sorry. Will be interesting tomorrow.
Hope everyone had a lovely start to a lovely weekend.
* * *
Progress on Carousel Seas
78,086/100,000 words OR 78% complete
“Felsic.” I tried to keep the surprise out of my voice. “I’m not sure this one’s yours.”
“Anything comes in that loud and that hungry is mine,” Felsic said grimly.
The Diviners, Libba Bray (e) The Eighth Succession, Don Sakers You’re All Just Jealous of My Jetpack, Tom Gauld Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, Lois McMaster Bujold (e) Hellspark, Janet Kagan (re-re-re-re-re-re-&c-read) The Year of the Dog, Grace Lin The Quantum Thief, Hannu Rajaniemi (e) Let’s Pretend This Never Happened (a mostly true memoir), Jenny Lawson How Dark the World Becomes, Frank Chadwick (e) Shades of Milk and Honey, Mary Robinette Kowal French Fried, Chris Dolley (e) My Father’s Dragon, Ruth Stiles Gannett (read aloud w/Steve) Fair Game, Patricia Briggs (e) Nymph, Francesca Lia Block (read aloud w/Steve) Oh, Myyy, George Takei (e) Hunting Ground, Patricia Briggs (e) Cry Wolf, Patriacia Briggs (e) Alpha and Omega, Patricia Briggs (e) Miss Buncle, Married, D.E. Stevenson (read aloud w/Steve) Agatha Heterodyne and the Hammerless Bell, Phil & Kaja Foglio Moonrise Kingdom screenplay, Wes Anderson & Roman Coppola (e)
. . .which are quite lovely, and of course suitable for framing, which we shall do, bye-n-bye.
In other news, the winners of the 2013 Maine Literary Awards have been announced — Congratulations to all!
Today, I have some errands, but most of what I have is Carousel Seas, which, so far anyway, is hanging together just fine, and I very much hope that proves to be the case all the way through to the end-of-what-is-written. *knocks wood*
Carousels and seasides and trenvay and whatnot already being on my plate, Steve had drawn proofing duty for the mass market galleys of Dragon Ship, to be published in late August.
For those who are playing along at home, the publishing schedule for the next little while looks like this:
Liaden Universe® Constellation Volume One: July 2, 2013
Dragonwriter: August 6, 2013
Dragon Ship mass market: August 27, 2013
Trade Secret: November 5, 2013
Liaden Universe® Constellation Volume Two: January 7, 2014
So, a day of catch-up, and answering emails, and tomorrow it’s back to work. By which I mean reading Carousel Seas to the point where I had to leave it, and going on from there. Or not. It’s close enough to finished that a cold read is going to be a big help, and even though we were only away for five days, enough happened in that five days that I feel like I’ve been away from the story for a month.
After an initial period of pretending not to know who I was, Mozart has gone to clinging tightly and murmuring little complaints betimes. I think that I’m to understand that we were away for far longer than was permissible, the weather was too hot, our house sitter was the Wrong Person (though ordinarily he adores her), and he was plagued the whole time by bad dreams. Poor Mozart.
Here’s a picture of the Friday night Liaden reception at BEA. Picture taken, I believe, by Mr. Andrew L. Porter.
Sharon Lee, Steve Miller, David Mattingly, AND The Tube
…this reminds me that I need to write to David, to thank him for the contents of The Tube, which we didn’t open until we were safely at home.
Steve and I are back from New York. Will New York ever be the same? Time will tell.
BEA was large, New York likewise, though BEA was considerably cooler. We were ably taken care of by Corinda Carfora, Tony Daniels, and Jim Minz, who all made sure we were where we were supposed to be when we were supposed to be there; caught taxis (and eventually let them go; NYC has a very strict catch-and-release program); guided us down the PATH and over the MTA — all with considerable good humor.
The Friday night reception was a blast; we met lots of people in person for the first time, and renewed the acquaintance of a buncha folks who braved the really awful heat to come by to see us; and the signing on Saturday was lovely — just enough people to keep us busy, but not enough to make us frantic.
Thursday night we were pleased to accept David Mattingly’s invitation to visit and tour his studio. We had a fine time talking with him and his wife, Kathleen; and the resident cats.
On the way to and from New York, Steve once again had All The Fun. We had decided to take the Scenic Route to Albany (where we would catch the train to New York) on Wednesday. It was a lovely drive for most of the way, until — about an hour out of Albany — the skies darkened like the Blackest Night had fallen, and rain sheeted out of the sky. It being the scenic route, there was no place to pull over and wait the thing out, so we crept along, hoping the road held together. . .and it got? Darker. Also extremely windy. Later, we found out that a funnel cloud had been overhead. This is the sort of thing you want to find out later.
Today, coming home, we decided to make time, which meant that Steve got to drive manymanymany miles in a furious downpour; in several sections the fog rising from the tires of the trucks and cars traveling in our cohort was so dense, you — well, I — couldn’t see where we were going.
However, we are now home, arriving to find that our housesitter had taken delivery of a box full of Liaden Universe® Constellation Volume One authors’ copies while we were gone. The cats pretended they didn’t know Who These Strange People Could Possibly Be for about a half-hour, then decided not to give us a reason to leave again.
. . .So that’s the last few days in a nutshell. What did y’all do that was fun?
Readers of this space will perhaps recall that the cats ordered in a cat tree a couple weeks ago. They bought it on eBay, from a company based in New Jersey, and it arrived very quickly, whereupon it sat in the living room looking like this:
Cat tree box Coon cat provided for scale
. . .waiting for someone to open the box and assemble the contents. Clearly, Mozart wasn’t going to do this, and neither was Scrabble. We intended to, but had things in queue ahead.
Right after the box landed, I did some prep work — moving the couch. . .
Couch. . .before Oil on the left is The Wizard and His Companion (Lynn Barnes)
. . ., and taking the paintings down. . .
Paintings in corner. The big oil is the cover art for Pilots Choice (Michael Herring). The giclee print is the cover art for Necessity’s Child (David Mattingly)
Today, having early (early!) this morning sent Jethri on his way to Madame the Editor to be Disciplined (*ahem* Sorry. Wrong story.), was the cat tree’s day.
Steve is a Hero of the Revolution. He did all the heavy lifting and building and stuff.
So, here’s the cat tree, unboxed. . .
Scrabble among the pieces
…and here is the base, going together with, may I say, majestic deliberation:
Step One
Step two. . .
Scrabble was extremely into this whole building thing. She performed multiple inspections of the pieces, and climbed on the incomplete tree to encourage Steve in his efforts. She also performed a little half-time cheer, to keep his spirits up. I don’t know that we’ve talked about Scrabble’s considerable skill as a choreographer here. Below, you see her in a classic move:
Scrabble performs half-time cheer
Cheered, Steve returned to the task with renewed energy, and very shortly, we had. . .
Step three…
Step four. . .Scrabble is discussing the final step with Steve, who declined to be in the photoThe completed cat tree
As of this writing, Mozart remains of the opinion that the cat tree worked better when it was inside the box. We expect him to shortly publish a revision.
. . .printing out Trade Secret as I type, today will be spent immersed in the Jethri-verse. The interwebs seem to be carrying on as usual without my participation. Carry on, interwebs, carry on.
* * *
Progress on Carousel Seas
77,938/100,000 words OR 78% complete
“I’m afraid that you’ll have nightmares, even if I do finish it,” she said. “I’ve had my share of them, since we started down this path. But, even so — even now — I can’t see what else we could have done; and it was certain that we had to do something.”
“Now you’re just having fun with me,” I said.
Gran glared — then laughed.
“You’re right. If I’m going to tell it, I ought to tell it properly, from the beginning.”
Look what came in the mail! Thank you, Woodchucks!
New Sampler from Woodchucks’ Revenge
Those who have read Carousel Tides will recollect a shout-out to Woodchucks’ Revenge on the acknowledgements page, for a song called “Voices in the Hills,” which was part of the inspiration for the trenvay.
The Woodchucks do blues, old folk, new folk, cowboy songs, and anything else that takes their fancy, and you haven’t discovered them yet, you should give them a listen.
