Blog Without A Name

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)

Frequent auditors of this journal will have seen that there is a Plan Afoot for t-shirts bearing the legends “Ride the Carousel at Archers Beach.” It has been said, and I couldn’t agree more, that it would be Absolutely Awesome if a bat-wing horse could be included as part of the art (I’m envisioning the words in a circle, the batwing horse in the center).

Does anyone with mad art or Photoshop skillz have time to produce such a graphic? Talk to me.

Weird Word Project
I have received completed lists for the following novels:
Agent of Change, jessie_c
Saltation, micheledear
Scout’s Progress, sb_moof
Ghost Ship, Alon Ziv
Crystal Soldier, redpimpernel
Local Custom, eoma_p

The following titles are (or, in the case of Dragon Ship, will be) in the hands of Wranglers:
Crystal Dragon — capricchio
Fledgling — marniferous
Carpe Diem, Local Custom — Deborah Fishburn
Conflict of Honors — silverdragonma
Mouse and Dragon — eoma_p
Balance of Trade — Elaine Bushore Fisher
Plan B — Jennifer Briggs
Dragon Ship — Alon Ziv
I Dare, spiritdance

Progress: Short Story Collections:
I have finished compiling the first volume, which includes all of the stories included Adventures in the Liaden Universe® Numbers 1-8, and Calamity’s Child. Still needed: Authors’ Forward; title.

Progress: Interview:
All finished and sent in. I’ll let y’all know when it’s online.

Progress: New Tech:
The new Acer ultrabook is very nice; I made recovery DVDs; weeded out the stupidest of the pre-installed programs; used Explorer for its One Purpose in Life — downloading Firefox; downloaded and installed LibreOffice; Thunderbird; Eset; and synced my bookmarks and passwords across Firefoxen. I installed a pleasant desktop photo. I still need to make templates in LibreOffice, but, really, we’re just about ready for prime time, here. The ultrabook rejoices in the name Number Ten Ox, and has received the Coon Cat Cheek Rub of Approval from both Mozart, who is a keen judge of processors, and Socks.

The coffeepot is a joy and a marvel. Coffee for everybody!

Planning, ahead:
Tomorrow, a foreword! And a title, too, dern it. Then, on to compiling Volume Two.

I really need to finish putting my room in order. No, really.

Need to post a want ad.

And I need to get in touch with a guy about a t-shirt.

Planning, tonight:
I’m going to retire to the couch with a glass of wine, a novel that I didn’t write, and quite possibly a cat or two.

G’night.

So, an interesting day, so far.  Had fresh-bake bread for breakfast, with mint jelly (mmmmm, mint jelly); set the new coffeepot cleaning, so we can have new-coffeepot-coffee tomorrow morning; and called Anthem Blue Cross, our supposed health insurance company, to find out why they had denied an echocardiogram for my husband, a heart patient.

This is interesting — no really; it is.  See, Anthem doesn’t make “determinations” — they simply exist to take your money — there’s another company, something called American Imaging Management, and its purpose is to deny medical procedures in order to save their stockholders money review the available data to determine whether a prescribed test actually is, in their sole opinion, necessary.

It comes about that American Imaging Management decided that the diagnostic echocardiogram was not necessary, in Steve’s case.

I asked the customer service rep at Anthem where we went from here — just show up in the cardiologist’s office with a couple thousand-dollar-bills in hand and get the test off our own bat (which, to be Perfectly Fair, is what’s going to happen, anyhow, we having the Pay-Anthem-$600/month-so-they’ll-say-we-have-coverage-while-we-pay-all-medical-bills-out-of-our-own-pocket-anyway Special for folks who have made Bad Life Choices and don’t have a Good Job with health care benefits plan).

The service rep actually went the extra yard, and called American Imaging Management for me.  He reports that AIM declares that their ruling may be appealed.  All that needs to happen is that Steve’s Actual Doctor call a Doctor on Staff at AIM, and, well, convince the staff doctor that the test is necessary.

Easy-peasy, right?

After that conversation, I was more than ready to go to gym, and so I did.  Back now, with a bunch of cut ‘n paste in my afternoon, and a list of interview questions to answer, when I get bored.

While I was gone, Steve has been doodling around in the new Cafe Press store — I hear there’s tree-and-dragon jewelery to be had at the Hyperspatial Boardwalk Shop, along with the usual t-shirts, bags, clocks and teddy bears.  Check it out.

I have also been remiss in announcing that the Fourth Klamath Splinter is now up at Splinter Universe.  Progress had been set back due to scanning issues, which have now been resolved.  We thank you all for your patience!

And now! Cut ‘n paste.

No.  No, the excitement never does stop, why do you ask?

 

I’m (slowly) getting the stories for the first, as-yet-untitled volume of Liaden Universe® short stories into shape for submission.

Today, I was in part working on the Lute and Moonhawk stories, of which there are four, and part of a novel.  Back when all this writing stuff had first come into our lives, we had intended to write more Lute and Moonhawk stories, sort of reflecting Shan and Priscilla, in the “current” universe.  That didn’t happen, but we knew those further adventures existed, even if we didn’t know their exact shapes, and we knew that Moonhawk and Lute were cornerstones of the Liaden Universe®.  This led to a little awkwardness in the Crystal books, but at least we had managed to write those four stories and get them out for (some) people to read, so their involvement, in, err, things wasn’t Completely Untenable.

Sort of.

And then — Steve’s been scanning the various bits and pieces of what is, in an alternate universe where Sharon and Steve actually wrote and saw published all the stories they have in their heads, would have been a novel-length treatment of the Klamath Campaign, told from three viewpoints — Miri’s in retrospect; Mr. Brunner’s in current; and a young lady whose name I don’t at the moment recall, serving as her grandmama’s secretary, on-world.

I remembered today, as I was putting “A Day at the Races” into its place in the collection, that that story, in its original iteration, had a scene where Val Con suddenly freezes, to the astonishment of his kin, and finds himself on a battlefield, where he “pushes” a soldier out of the way of  a falling tree.

The Klamath story had a reciprocal scene in which Miri, too focused on trying to get her people safe to pay full attention to her own safety, is thrown by. . .someone. . .lands, rolls, and comes to her feet in time to see the tree shatter on the ground she had been occupying.

Well. . .

In other news, today saw the arrival of Steve’s new tech (mine arrived yesterday), and the new coffeepot!  I got in touch with the gentleman best suited to help me on-site with the Semi-Sekrit project; we agreed to touch base on Monday and arrange a time for a face-to-face, so that’s proceeding in a forwarder, if leisurely, fashion. I baked bread, and between the two of us, we managed to get almost all of the laundry done.

Not-quite-idle question:  How many people would be interested in a Ride the Carousel at Archers Beach t-shirt?  I’m picturing one of those ringer tees in pastel green or pink, like you used to get at amusement parks, back in the day, with the legend and maybe a carousel horse where the pocket would be on the left side, if ringer tees had pockets.

 

 

Updating…

I have in hand (Well. In mailbox.) lists for:
Agent of Change — jessie_c
Saltation — micheledear
Ghost Ship — Alon Ziv

The following titles are in the hands of Wranglers:
Crystal Soldier — redpimpernel
Crystal Dragon — capricchio
Scout’s Progress — sb_moof
Fledgling — marniferous
Carpe Diem, Local Custom — Deborah Fishburn
Conflict of Honors — silverdragonma
Local Custom, Mouse and Dragon — eoma_p
Balance of Trade — Elaine Bushore Fisher
Plan B — Jennifer Briggs
Dragon Ship — Alon Ziv

Titles not yet assigned: I Dare
Wrangler without portfolio: Spiritdance

Obviously, Spiritdance and I Dare were meant for each other.

Books assigned twice: Local Custom

Folks who want more work to do: jessie_c, micheledear
If anyone needs to hand off their piece (life happens), we have hands waiting to help.

May I please have an aye! from you in comments if you have your list and are happily engaged with it?

Thanks!

So, Saturday Steve and I went down to Old Orchard Beach, hoping to settle Point One of the Semi-Sekrit Project. Alas, the person on whom I had placed my best bet…is still in Florida. I did score his phone number from the on-site manager, so, not a total loss, but a bit disappointing, nonetheless.

We did stop at Michele’s for breakfast and to give them a copy of Carousel Tides. Michele came out of the kitchen (she never does this!) to give me a hug. We talked a little about the Semi-Sekrit Project, and she has some ideas, which she was going to check into and get back to me — which is beyond awesome.

We did a lot of exploring on the day — which was sunny and warm and just about perfect. Did you know there was an elk and deer farm in Scarborough? Neither did I. I made lots of notes about lots of things, of which more in a moment.

We had meant to have lunch in Saco and explore downtown on foot, but that failed to work out, so we kept on driving and eventually came to Whole Foods, where we decided to have our now-much-belated lunch from the buffet. That wasn’t a terrible notion, but it was so noisy and so crowded that I managed rather the worst panic attack I’ve had in years; this close to putting everything down and running out the door. Deep breaths and a grim determination not to run won the day, which was, after all, for the best, ’cause, hey, lunch was good.

We decided not to shop afterwards, though.

Regarding taking notes, above, I had Cygnus with me, naturally, and had started making notes using the word processing program on-board. Unfortunately, this process is much, much slower than scribbling notes on a pad of paper (which I defaulted to, Steve having brilliantly brought a pad of paper with him). I know there are handwriting applications for Android devices — anybody have a favorite one they can recommend?

And? I want to live here.

Oh! It was discovered yesterday that Socks’ has acquired a new title — all of our cats accrete titles over time — his first in Maine: Silversocks, Overseer of the Daffodils.

Some have asked how the daffodils are doing under this new and benevolent oversight. The answer is: Since Socks is an inside-only cat, his oversight is — oversight. He has, in fact, adopted as his own the window that looks out over the daffodil patch. The daffodils appear to be prospering, since we have several dozen that look like they’ll explode into bloom this afternoon — some weeks ahead of their usual schedule.

We’re looking forward to a fun-filled week ahead of us here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory. I intend to finish up the SRM end of year financials today, and move on, tomorrow, to compiling the 310,000+ words of Liaden short stories into two volumes to be sent to Baen. That should keep me occupied for a couple days.

We’re also expecting some Interesting Deliveries; Mozart is on-board to get his Summer Haircut; and I’m determined, starting tomorrow, to get back into both the bread-baking, and the gym-going schedule. No, I don’t know how we stand the excitement; just naturally high-energy, I guess.

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)

We have the following folks volunteering for Wrangler*:
Ginni Morgan
Deborah Fishburn
Jessie_C
sb_moof (provisionally)
silverdragonma
Kat Ayers Mannix
eoma_p
redpimpernel (on stand-by)
——-
*Job description, Wrangler: Accept the list of words for a book, delete any misspelled words that may have snuck through as Weird, be sure that first and last names are paired, and properly, submit the list in a form agreed-upon, to S. Lee by a deadline known in advance to all parties

Automagician:
We seem to have at least two folks who have done most of the needful:
ebartley
johnhawkinson

Zola and Capprichio have also volunteered their skills, but I think the software solution lets them off the hook. This time, she added, warningly.

The first thing we need to know is what resources are at hand. Both John and Elizabeth have lists, or will have lists? Can I ask the two of you to talk and sort out who has what, and split up any remaining sorting work between you?

While the Automagicians converse, may I hear from the Wranglers which book(s) they would like to Wrangle? We have (potentially) seven Wranglers and at least 8, and possibly 10, titles to sort. I feel that the Crystal books will be among those titles, and they do, I think, present a special challenge. Capprichio, is it possible that you could step up as Wrangler for those, rather than Harvester?

I will be away from the computer tomorrow, Saturday, but ought to be back on Sunday.

Once again, thank you all.

Today, April 12, 2012, is Silversocks’ sixth birthday.  He’s celebrating by sleeping in all of Mozart’s favorite spots.

* * *

Yesterday became a run-around the countryside day, which, ohghod, we needed so much.  I did get the annual mammogram (did you get yours?), and Mr. Smith graciously did a Full Vehicle Alignment on Binjali.  We went to Sam’s Club and took on supplies.  Previous to that, we went to Staples and I bought a Targus stylus, which makes navigating the web with Cygnus very much easier.  Yes.  Yes, we are Wild and Crazy, I admit it.

* * *

I made an error in the to-do list, the stories for the upcoming Liaden Universe® short story collects are due in May 2012 (that’s next month!) and August 2012 (that’s, umm, soon!)  Good thing I was thinking about getting to them early, huh?

* * *

It looks like the live-on-location scheme has a chance of coming to pass.  Step One, which ought to have been, yanno, Step Four or Five, has already been accomplished, because that’s how we roll. We don’t call this place the Confusion Factory for nothin’, you know.

We’ll be moving on Step Two, which ought to have been Step One, on Saturday, looks like.  Fingers crossed, fingers crossed…