Blog Without A Name

So, Steve and I got up at a Very Early Hour and drove to Blue Hill, where we spent a delightful hour with Ellie O’Leary, talking about science fiction and fantasy, and reading — Steve, from Fledgling, and me, from Carousel Tides. Those who could not hear the show, by reason of living in another hemisphere or something of that nature, may, tomorrow, we’re told, listen to an archive here.

We should of course after our interview gone directly home and gotten to work, but who thinks we did that? No, we continued down the bright blue and breezy day through the town of Blue Hill, across the Deer Isle Bridge, that spans Eggemoggin Reach (don’t you just love Eggemoggin Reach?), and drove down into Stonington, where explorations and research were had, and where we made the acquaintance of equine artist Penelope Plumb, a delightful lady who presides over a marvelous art barn on Sand Beach Road. The next time you’re in Stonington, stop by and introduce yourself.

Having explored and researched and socialized, we headed in a home-ish direction, stopping at Belfast to take on lunch at Delvino’s (cream of carrot soup to die for! I’m not kidding. It’s worth the trip for lunch, I don’t care where you live), and a visit with Belfast Bay, then headed back to the metropolis of Waterville for groceries. Sadly, we passed the scene of a. . .rather horrifying accident at the intersection of the Ridge Road and the China Road, which combined swathes of police, firefighters and EMTs were still working to clean up.

Rather shaken, we continued with our plans, took on groceries, came home by a different route and arrived home to find that two things had occurred!

One, Mr. Feldberg at Audible had written with the names and email addresses of the four narrators for the Liaden sequences. Lists were immediately sent to all four — so you see, we put your work to good use immediately! I’ll be talking to narrators over the next while, pronouncing Weird Words.

The second thing that happened was that, when I opened the sharonleewriter.com Blog Without a Name, I got a note that an update to WordPress was available, which I accepted — and which seems to have stripped me of my ability to post there. I have a blank blue box where the New Post page ought to be, and a “move” tool, but nothing else. So! No updates to Sharon Lee, Writer until there’s a new patch for WordPress, I guess. Maybe tomorrow I’ll figure out a way to actually tell people that on the site.

The WordPress tragedy aside, it was an enjoyable and invigorating day, and yes — tomorrow we’ll work.

Honest.

1. The new shower insert is in. Lovely and functional!
1a. Socks misses his new friend, Patrick, who was here all day yesterday and doing such interesting things.
2. Still proofreading Dragon Ship, ayuh.
3. Remember! Steve is participating in the Write-a-thon to benefit Clarion West. Read all about it here
4. Have you pre-ordered your Carousel Tides t-shirt? Details here
5. Tomorrow, June 14! 10 a.m. EDT! Lee and Miller on WERU-FM, on your radio dial at 89.9 Blue Hill and 99.9 Bangor. It also streams live at www.weru.org.

1.  Read Dragon Ship page proofs
2. Finish polishing “Landed Alien” and submit
3. Welcome workman into house 9:30 a.m. Tuesday morning
4. Vote before 3 Above
5. WERU interview, Blue Hill, Thursday
6. Finish polishing “Emancipated Child”
7. Get proposals finalized
8. Go to gym three times; I really mean it
9. Do some work
10. Hold self ready to read words to narrators

…to be perfectly fair, it’s a gorgeous day to sit outside on the deck and read…

We’ve made the minimum order, folks.  Thank you so much!

T-shirt orders open through June 30.  Details here

In this issue:
Audible to release entire Liaden series
Publishing news
Ghost Ship Number One
Interviews and podcasts
Clarion Write-a-Thon
Carousel Tides t-shirts
Signed copies of Dragon Ship
The Liaden Universe(R) World Tour
Support Your Local Bookstore
Chapbooks
Goodreads
Twitter
Disclaimer Stuff
Blogs and Other Webly Things of Note
Liaden Interest Groups on Facebook

Audible to release entire Liaden series
Audible.com will be releasing all 15 Liaden Universe® novels — Agent of Change through Dragon Ship! — in audiobook format.  It is the stated intention of Mr. Feldberg at Audible to have all 15 books available in time for the September hardcover release of Dragon Ship.

Publishing News
Baen has contracted for two sequels to Sharon Lee’s 2010 contemporary fantasy, Carousel Tides.  The novels, Carousel Sun and Carousel Seas, are due in early and mid 2013.  News of publishing dates when they become available.

Baen has also contracted to publish two collections of Liaden Universe® stories — specifically every story that appeared in the SRM Publisher, Ltd. Adventures in the Liaden Universe® chapbooks, that appeared from 1995 through 2011.  No publication date has been set.

Upcoming publications include Dragon Ship, which will of course be published in hardcover in September, Necessity’s Child (the book formerly known as George), to be published in May 2013.  A Liaden short story will also be the featured fiction on the Baen website in July.  That story will be available for free.

Ghost Ship Number One!
Ghost Ship by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller placed Number One in the SFSite Readers Choice Awards for Best Books of 2011.  There’s a lot of great reading (and stiff competition) on this list, so take a look:  http://www.sfsite.com/columns/best12b.htm

Interviews and podcasts
On Thursday June 14 at 10 a.m. EDT, Sharon and Steve will be guests on Writers Forum on WERU-FM.  In addition to chatting a little about science fiction with our hostess, Ellie O’Leary, Sharon and Steve will be reading from Carousel Tides and from Fledgling. Writers Forum airs every second Thursday at 10 a.m. at 89.9 Blue Hill and 99.9 Bangor. It also streams live at www.weru.org.

Steve and Sharon were interviewed by Brent Bowen at ConQuesT.  The fruits of that interview will be posted to Adventures in Scifi Publishing (http://www.adventuresinscifipublishing.com/) within the next week or two.

Pre-ConQuesT, Bryan Thomas Schmidt conducted an in-depth email interview with Sharon and Steve.  You can read that interview at Grasping for the Wind (http://www.graspingforthewind.com/2012/04/26/sffwrtcht-a-chat-with-authors-sharon-lee-steve-miller)

Clarion Write-a-Thon
As he did last year, Steve is taking part in the Clarion West Write-a-thon, and plans to help raise $1000 this year. Steve’s goal for the Write-A-Thon is to finish the upcoming Jethri novel, Trade Secrets. Clarion West is one of the oldest major workshops for science fiction and fantasy writers and proceeds are used for scholarships. Those wishing to donate to support Clarion West through Team Miller can take a look here: http://clarionwest.org/writeathon/stevemiller … donate a buck or two to the cause to let him know you’re watching for Jethri.

Carousel Tides t-shirts
To celebrate the sale of two sequels to Carousel Tides, and to do a little stealth promotion, Sharon is for a limited time only (which means, through June 30) offering Carousel Tides t-shirts.  Sizes go up to 5XL; cost per shirt is $19, shipping in US and Canada is $5 (international shipping to be figured on a case-by-case basis).  Everything else you need to know can be found here:  http://sharonleewriter.com/2012/06/carousel-tides-t-shirt-2/

Signed Copies of Dragon Ship
Those interested in scoring a signed copy of the upcoming Dragon Ship hardcover and supporting a worthy independent bookstore may order from Uncle Hugo’s SF Bookstore.  Here’s a link to the Rules that Govern Preordering (good stuff that’s well worth reading here, like “your credit card will NOT be charged until your order is fulfilled and your book is on its way to you”):  http://sharonleewriter.com/2012/02/pre-order-autographed-dragon-ship/

And here is the link to Preorder NOW:  http://www.unclehugo.com/prod/ah-lee-miller.php

The Liaden Universe® World Tour 
With their return from ConQuesT, Steve and Sharon have completed their convention traveling for 2012.  Next on the convention schedule is Boskone 50, February 15-17, 2013 (see you there?  http://www.nesfa.org/boskone/)

We have information! We have color! We have sizes, and a price!

Because the mock-ups at Black Dog Graphics fade after a few hours, y’all are going to have use your imaginations to put the pieces together.

Here is the shirt. The color is sky, a very bright blue. It is not a ringer tee. This is because ringer tees only go up to 2X, and there was a repeated request for sizes “as large as possible.” For the purposes of Black Dog, that is 5X and the shirt chosen does go from SM-5XL.

This is the gorgeous artwork that will go on the back of the t-shirt.

These are the words that will go on the left breast of the shirt, roughly where the pocket would be on a polo shirt.

The cost of the shirt will be $19, plus $5 shipping within the US and Canada.  International shipping continues to be. . .random, so we’ll have to figure those on an order by order basis.

This is going to be a bootstrap operation — which is to say, I’ll need to have pre-payment with firm orders, just like we did for the original Plan B t-shirts, ‘way back before the rocks cooled.  Once the individual orders are in, I’ll place the large order with Black Dog, then ship from kitchen table.

I’ll leave the ordering open through June 30.  Which is to say, on July 1, you will not be able to order a t-shirt.

By the Numbers:

1.  There is only one color shirt on offer, as above, in sizes from (US) Small to 5XL

2.  If are not a resident of either the US or Canada, you need to write to me before making your order, so we can work out the postage.  You may write to me at rolanniATkorvalDOTcom

3.  You may use the PayPal button below to order.  If you would rather not, you may send me a check via snail-mail.  The check must be in US funds drawn on a US bank, and be made out to Sharon Lee, PO Box 1586, Waterville Maine 04903

4.  If the minimum number of shirts required to make an order with Black Dog is not reached, I will refund the money to those people who did order.

5.  You are pre-ordering, or subscribing, to this t-shirt.  That means it will be some number of weeks between the placing of the order and the arrival of a t-shirt in your mailbox.  PayPal will charge your credit card as soon as you hit that button, so please do understand what you’re doing.

. . .I think that’s everything.  Thank you all for your support and encouragement.

6. Nope. That’s not everything. PayPal is NOT at the moment adding in the postage. I’m working on it. The problem with the postage not showing up on the invoice should now be fixed. Thanks to everyone who brought it to my attention.

T-shirt ordering is now closed.  Thanks very much to everyone who supported this project!

Feeling somewhat blue today.  You have been warned.

The mail deliveryperson continues to fail of delivering Items of Considerable Interest to the residents of the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory. Note to self: Look into arranging for a new mail deliveryperson.

Frequent readers of this journal will recall that Steve and I had been having a. . .discussion* with the insurance company about whether or not the cost of a diagnostic echocardiogram for a heart patient could ever be justified.  The doctor’s office finally prevailed, by, I assume, the time-consuming, but effective, means of burying the insurance company’s Denial of Service Division in forms, and the echocardiogram was, after about a month’s delay, performed.

We have now received the bill for that procedure, and I am able to tell you the sum of money that the insurance company was fighting to keep rightfully in the hands of its stockholders (who, as you all of course know, deserve a return on their investments).  That sum is. . .

$0.00

That’s right — nothing.  Not one thin dime.  We are responsible (as we knew we would be, since we have the Pay Anthem Blue Cross Six Bills a Month So We Can Have An Insurance Card insurance) for almost the entire amount of the bill.  I say “almost” because Anthem Blue Cross happily knocked $42.18 off the total due to the hospital.

Man, that was so totally worth a month-long tantrum.

. . .In other news, I have heard back from Himself in re the Carousel Tides t-shirt. I’ll be talking about that in a separate post a little later today. First, though, I need to do dishes.

______________
*By “discussion” I mean here that the insurance company kept repeating, “But, the expense!  Ow! OW! Our Stockholders’ Money!  Oh! my daughter!  OH! my ducats!”  while the doctor’s office kept filing forms indicating that the echocardiogram was the third corner in a diagnostic triangulation to be certain that the various therapies Steve is undertaking in order to improve his heart’s function are indeed working as desired.

Thursday, June 14 at 10 a.m. – Writers Forum on WERU-FM

Guests are Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, authors of science fiction, who will be discussing their writing and their genre. Writers Forum airs every second Thursday at 10 a.m. at 89.9 Blue Hill and 99.9 Bangor. It also streams live at www.weru.org.

* * *

Steve and I will each be doing a reading, and we’ll be chatting with our hostess, Ellie O’Leary, about science fiction, how it compares to its sister genres of fantasy and horror, and a Little Bit About Us.  Sounds like fun, and I hope y’all will have time to take a listen.

Off on another part of Teh Intertubes, a colleague is writing the last book of a series, and is experiencing separation grief.

During our interview at ConQuesT, I made the comment in reply to. . .something, that readers and writers have a different relationship with the writer’s characters; with readers experiencing something like a traditional, real-world “friendship” with those characters they’ve come to like.  The relationship between an author and her characters is more nearly collaborative, and while I do love my children, I don’t worry about them to the extent that some readers report.

Back at. . . Duckon, I think it was, a few years ago, I happened to overhear a young lady in the hallway between panels who was being congratulated by her colleagues for having made an author on a previous panel (on what I suppose was fan fic) break down and cry.  “She had to be made to understand,” the young lady was saying, very sternly, “that she doesn’t own those characters just because she made them up.  They belong to us, because we give them life!”  (Yes, I did check.  No, I didn’t start in with the young lady then and there.  This is entirely due to the fact that Steve grabbed my arm and pulled me down the hall to our next event.)

All of these things, though, speak to the “reality” of fictional characters, and the hold they have over the minds and hearts of readers (and writers, too, if we do only make them up).  My colleague who is wrapping up the series wonders what will happen to their beloved characters in the minds of readers, once their story is told; and if readers will also experience grief, knowing that this is the last book.

I have my own opinions on this (quelle surprise!), but I’d like to hear yours:  How do you handle the ending of a series?  What’s your relationship with — and your responsibilities toward — people who live in books?

Rain, rain, and, for a change, rain. One source claims five inches of liquid fell from the sky since last night. I can believe that.

The coon cats early took up a position in the bed, and have been holding steady most of the afternoon. I’ve been working on a short story, in between bits of bookkeeping and non-writing trivia. I really ought to do the dishes, but they may have to wait until tomorrow.

Take that, dishes!

Tomorrow, the weatherbeans promise more rain — actually, the weatherbeans are calling five days of rain. Apparently there’s a Weather System hanging over the Great Lakes, just a-spinning up water and spitting out rain, and it doesn’t plan on leaving any time soon.

Tomorrow being Monday, I have phone calls to make. At the top of the list is a call to the doctor’s office. My left shoulder and back have just about froze solid, and nothing I know to do, and have done, since we’ve got home from Kansas City has helped. I see physical therapy in my very near future, dammit.

The other pressing call is to Himself, to schedule a time when I can visit the shop, stick in hand, and talk t-shirts: sizes, color, cost, and the inevitable etcetera. As soon as we have those corners nailed down, I’ll report back.

Oh! We used one of the new pans today to reheat the spaghetti we had for dinner earlier in the week, and it was a dream. No stick, indeed! Also? Leftover mushroom and meatball spaghetti for the win!

No, I’m not sure how we cope with the unending scintillation that is the life of a working artist, either.

So, what did y’all do this weekend? Raining where you are?

Progress on Landed Alien
1,078/6,000 words OR 18% complete