Category: Blog

If there’s a God in heaven, He’s got a silver thunderbird

When last we saw Our Heroine, she was sitting down on the couch in the Confusion Factory living room, a large orange cat on her lap, vibrating, and her ereader open to Conflict of Honors.

Outside, it was a beautiful, sunny, cold Maine day, and the across-the-street neighbor had decided to trim up her driveway, which is almost directly across from our driveway.  She was using an outsize pickup truck fitted with a plow.  As one does, and it must be said that she was not expert, but you don’t have to be expert in Maine to use your own private pickup truck in your own private driveway to do whatever you want to do with either.

Our Heroine read one page, two pages, three. . .

And from outside there came an enormous cacophony, metal screaming and a truck engine revving and tires skidding on snow.

Steve got to the kitchen door first.

“She hit your car!”

The next thing Our Heroine knew was that she was in the driveway, boots on, coat unzipped, looking at the smashed remains of Kineo the Wonder Subaru.

We shall pass lightly over the next few hours, while we waited for the Winslow policeman to arrive and file the accident report, and the several phone conversations with our insurance company, and come to rest in the early morning of Martin Luther King Day (in America), where Our Heroine has already called Charlie’s Collision Center (Certified Subaru Repair Facility) and achieved a promise from one Doug to send a tow truck.

It is my belief that Kineo is totaled.  I am not a mechanic.  Certainly, one is in receipt of a Very Strong Hint from our insurance company that so new a car ought not to be totaled.  However, I can see a bent frame, and the fact that the radiator has been pushed back into the engine, kicked to the right, and down.  We shall see what Charlie’s Collision says.

In the meanwhile, since I’m going through my insurance company, and we do not have rental car on our insurance, they’ve been steadfast in saying that they cannot give us a rental car.  Fair enough.  I will make another call this morning to find if, since this bill will eventually go to the plow truck driver’s insurance company, if I cannot make arrangements to get a rental and have them reimburse me.

In other news, Steve has a really nasty cold. . .and it’s snowing.

Today’s blog title brought to you by Marc Cohn, “Silver Thunderbird.”  Here’s your link.

For the Facebook peeps, a picture of Sprite, being elegant.

Sprite being elegant atop the file cabinet Jan 17 2016

Conflict of Honors re-read

So, we heard from Boskone that the NESFA* Book Club is currently reading Conflict of Honors and will be discussing it at the con (time and day will be listed in the final schedule posts).  They ask that we be present at the end of the discussion in order to answer questions.

Now, it’s been a long time since I read Conflict of Honors (as opposed to, say, reading galleys of Conflict of Honors, which is a whole ‘nother process), and while I sort of have it as a gestalt in my head, at this distance I’m certainly not clear on the simple basics of How The Story Goes.  Obviously, then, I need to reread.

I began this project yesterday afternoon, and because I’m a slow reader, I made it all the way to Shipyear 65/Tripday 130/Fouth Shift/18.00 Hours, in which Pilot Dyson wakes Priscilla up.

Narratively speaking, things are going well, so far.  Not so well for Priscilla, of course, and I wish I could have another go at Dagmar, who’s a little too…too.  On the other hand, there’s this —

Conflict of Honors was published when I was 36.  I stand before you today, 63.  Palindromes aside, it’s worth noting that Conflict was the second novel we finished**, and it was originally thought to be a short story***, to give us a better handle on Val Con’s brother Shan.  We wrote it while Agent of Change was under submission at Del Rey, and submitted it while Agent was under submission at Del Rey — in September 1986.  It was accepted for publication in September 1987.

Agent of Change was published in February 1988; Conflict of Honors was published in June 1988, to hold the pocket left empty by the non-delivery of a contracted book by another author.  Because it was not published for Itself Alone, it kind of got short shrift, though Romantic Times picked it up and gave it a glowing review, SFR/RSF being thin on the ground at the time.  So thin, in fact, that we hadn’t yet invented the names Science Fiction Romance or Romantic Science Fiction, and were still formulating what “this” was, why it appealed, and why we wanted more, please.

Agent, Conflict and Carpe Diem (published in November 1989), were all paperback originals.  Paperback originals were not. . .considered to be Timeless Classics.  They were considered to be cheap entertainment, to be read once, or maybe twice, and then given — or thrown — away.  The original Liaden “trilogy” has been republished now three times since the 1980s, and are, as I type this, available in print, as ebooks, and as audiobooks.

That’s an astonishing amount of staying power, and I sometimes wish that we could have known, ‘way back that the books would survive to be studied or scrutinized by readers 30 years down the timeline with values and experiences of which we wot not — though what we might have done differently, I can’t say.

#

In other news, it snowed yesterday — not much, but still, it snowed.  The plowman arrived this morning — early as we count the day, damn’ near lunch-time as the plowguy figures.  Now that breakfast is done, and this blog post about ready to go up, I’ll be donning coat and gloves and boots and widening the path from the driveway around the house to the generator, and digging our mailbox out of the pile of snow the across-the-street neighbor thoughtfully placed over it, to keep it from drying out.

After that, I believe I may make another pot of coffee and settle in to read.

Tomorrow, we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday which, among other things, means no mail, no bills, no checks.  Baji-naji, I suppose, or at least good enough for rock and roll.

MLK Day also means that schools are closed, and Pickleball is nudged up and shortened from  9am-noon to 8am-10am.  I am actually considering getting up in time to attend Pickleball tomorrow, assuming that I can keep dodging Steve’s cold, so that I can try out my brand! new! paddle.

What’re y’all doing that’s fun or exciting?

______________

*The New England Science Fiction Association, which sponsors Boskone.

**Actually, it is the third novel we completed.  We lately uncovered a draft of a Kinzel novel that was never published; the original lost at the publisher, and very likely a good thing.

***And is, in fact, a very short novel by today’s standards. The Card says it was submitted at 82,000 words; the electronic copy from Baen says 86,345 — but the front matter is included in that count.

Scrabble inna basket Jan 10 2016

 

By Grabthar’s Hammer, by the suns of Warvan, you. . .will be. . .remembered

Or, to riff off of Oscar Wilde: To lose David Bowie is a tragedy; to lose David Bowie and Alan Rickman inside of one week can only be carelessness.

. . .Well.  And no one ever said that the universe cared. . .

#

So, today.

Today was vacuum the house day, and make lentil stew for lunch day.  Since I’m a linear girl, I was going to vacuum first, then make stew.

That plan got kicked out when Dyson (the vacuum cleaner is a Dyson, name changed from The New Vacuum a couple years ago when I realized that we’d purchased it with royalty money from Meisha Merlin, which has been closed for eight years). . .when Dyson screamed a mighty scream, which usually means that a string has gotten ’round the rollerbar, or cat fur. . .

Well, it was cat fur — about a coon cat’s worth of cat fur — and it looked for a while there that the cats’ clever plan to murder the cat-eating machine had borne fruit, because I couldn’t even get the face-plate off to begin to deal with the problem.

Steve saved the day, with Trooper and Sprite close at hand, to observe the process.

I fear they may have a upgraded murder plan in the works.

While Steve was working on Dyson, I started the lentil stew, and observed progress on The Leeewit, which I had resurrected in order to try my hand at Linux one! more! time!

. . .this may require some background.

See, like Everyone Else on PC World, I have been being badgered by Microsoft for months and months, to take my “free” upgrade to Windows 10 (I run Windows 7).  In addition to being a Linear Girl, I am a Girl Who Does Not Like to Fix What Ain’t Broke, and I have been ignoring these importunate messages.

However, it seems that Microsoft will eventually just be pushing 10 down as an “upgrade,” which is horrifying beyond belief.  The desktop is my work machine. And though it is backed up, my life is on this machine.  I cannot risk losing anything.

So, I figured that I would install Windows 10 on Number 10 Ox, the Acer laptop, also running Windows 7 Pro, and Pay Attention.

The installation went smoothly, though it was slow (by today’s standards; I’m old enough to remember having to pretty much block out a day to sit in front of the computer and swap out a quarter-zillion disks-then-a slightly lesser number of CDs), but it was after the install that the fun began.

That was when I tried to find and turn off all of the spyware and “helpful” options in the “free” software.  Stuff like — if a computer on the internet is updating to Windows 10 and your computer happens to be on the internet, too, it may be pressed into server duty, in order to serve software to this other computer.  And — oooooh, keystroke logger! and we’ll helpfully send those keystrokes to Microsoft, so your computing experience can be “fine-tuned”.  Dude!  I work on this machine, and the internet is more often on than not.  Are you really going to be pushing ads for the Quality Inn Solcintra to my computer?

Long story short, the experience left me wanting to never do it again.  Apple is too expensive for me, and subject to its own slings, if not outright arrows, so the obvious answer is — Linux.

Long-time readers of Eagles Over the Kennebec, will recall that I at one point had a Linux box.  There was an uneasy peace between us, and occasional flashes of real affection, but we never loved each other.  And eventually, I went back to Windows, as being easier on my brain.

I am told that nowadays Linux Mint is Doing The Thing Right, so I pulled the Leeewit, the by-today’s-standards-ancient Asus eeePC, out of the closet and downloaded the newest Mint (which for some reason is called Cinnamon) to it.  Then, of course I couldn’t install it, because even the best software can’t wipe the drive it’s living on, then install itself.  Duh.

Steve once again came to the rescue, downloading the OS to a stick.  We then had to go ’round the barn three times in order to convince Leeewit to actually boot from the stick, but we got there eventually, and as I type, I have a functioning 32-bit Atom-powered netbook running a full edition of Mint Cinnamon (Rosa) 17.3.  LibreOffice comes with, so I’m ready to rumble, and?

We shall see.

Somewhere around all those adventures, lunch was served and eaten, and vacuuming was done.

I wanted to talk about vacuuming.  Well, actually, I want to talk about Trooper.

Let it be said upfront that Trooper is Not Dyson’s Biggest Fan.  When the machine roars to life, he immediately runs to my office (my office being, despite innumerable demonstrations to the contrary) considered by catkind to be Safe.  Sprite makes right for the basement, and Scrabble — poor Scrabble — freezes on top of the file cabinet in Steve’s office, and (unless I want a drooling, shivering basket case on my hands, which I don’t) must be picked up and brought to the basement stairs.  When you put her down, she wails piteously, runs down to the bottom of the steps, and gazes up at you, still wailing, until you close the door and get on with things.

Today, however, when I escorted Scrabble to the stairs, and she descended, crying — Today, Trooper came out of my office, and went downstairs, pausing a few steps above her, and spoke to her in his mid-range, not-squeaky voice — and here’s the amazing part — Scrabble not only didn’t lay into him with ears back and claws extended, she actually stopped crying, and accepted a head-butt.

I am amazed.

I also learned today that Belle?  Can levitate.

I thought she’d gone downstairs, like the practical mom-cat she is.  I thought wrong.  She had retired into the basement of the Cat Castle; all the way in the back corner of the basement, where she was apparently determined to wait it out.

Then the vacuum entered the living room, approaching the Cat Castle, and — she lost her nerve.

Remember that I thought she’d gone downstairs, and thus was completely taken by surprise by the Very Large Orange Feline bursting out of the basement and into the air.  I swear she was heading directly for my head, did a mid-flight adjustment, landed on the far side of the Mencken table, and bolted for — downstairs?

Silly person.

Under the bed.

I collapsed, heart pounding.

And Belle has a new nickname to go along with “Mom.”

Flying Lion.

And so that.

Time for me to get to work.

Here, have a picture of Trooper, bird-watching.

Trooper bird watching Jan 10 2016

It doesn’t matter what you wear, just as long as you are there

Business first!  If, for some reason, you should happen to need, or want, a “press kit” regarding upcoming Liaden Universe® novel Alliance of Equals, you may find it here.

You will note that the information states that Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore will once again be the sole source for signed and/or personalized copies.  You will also note that Uncle Hugo’s has not yet opened pre-orders for this title.

Uncle Hugo’s is an independent bookstore with limited resources and staff.  Right now, they’re very busy (as you might imagine) coping with the orders for signed copies of Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (go here, if you want one of those, too).  They would rather not get mixed up — and you — and we! — would rather they didn’t get mixed up.

Since we don’t want to break the staff, and the staff wants to give good customer service, and also bearing in mind that Alliance. . . has a publication date of July 5, we consulted with Mr. Blyly, who consulted with staff, and!

Uncle Hugo will open pre-orders for signed and/or personalized editions of Alliance of Equals by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller, on March 1.

So, hold onto your horses, and your credit cards.  Mark your calendars.  We will, of course, shout it from the rooftops, when the pre-orders open.

Thank you for your patience, and your enthusiasm.  Steve and I appreciate it immensely.

* * *

 In other news, Steve and I have started to read Terry Pratchett’s Mort to each other in the evening.

Also, I discovered yesterday that the piercing in my left ear had closed up, and I had to break a thin layer of skin in order to insert an earring.  I’ve gotten out of the habit of wearing earrings — actually have lost my taste for long, dangling earrings, but I don’t want to give up the option of wearing studs — or, yanno, even return to long, dangles of a day or evening.  So!  I guess I’d better remember to put in earrings — I have a pair of pearl studs that are the most comfortable earrings I’ve ever had, and a pair of aquamarine studs that Steve gave me.  Other than that, I would appear to be studless.

Hmmm.

Oh, wait!  I’m going to Boskone next month!  Perhaps I will be able to solve this tragic wardrobe deficiency.

I think that’s it — well, no.  We here at the Cat Farm currently abide under a Winter Storm Watch, until 10 am tomorrow.  Predictions are for snowfall from four to twelve inches, depending on where we exist in Mid-Maine’s ever-shifting geography.  I’m hoping to see four inches, which might not cause a cancellation of Tai Chi and pickleball, but will not be surprised to see eight inches, which might make it more problematical for the Y to open.

And that?  really is all I’ve got.

Here, have a picture of Belle, being awake:

Belles awake no really Jan 10 2016

Today’s blog title brought to you by David Bowie and Mick Jagger:  Dancing in the Street.  Here’s your link.

This, and all the world

The question is:  how much world building do you do before starting a new series or tangent? I’m working on my first novel and keep finding I have to backtrack to explain assumptions.

There are a couple of things going on in this question, so I’ll deal with the easiest one first:  It’s Perfectly OK to have to go back and fix/add stuff in/to your story.  We all do it.  We all get stuff wrong in the first draft.  That’s why most of us (I have had conversations with writers who say they write perfectly and never redraft.  Perhaps they do.) do multiple, or rolling, drafts.

As to how much world building I/we do before starting a new series…my first inclination is to say, “None; the characters tell me what I need to know, when I need to know it.”

While that’s true, it’s probably not true enough.  There are certain basic decisions you need to make before you start writing a story.

You should know what kind of story you’re writing:  romance, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, literary, &c, &c.  Knowing your genre will narrow what kind of world you’re allowed to play in.  Yes, there are crossovers.  The Liaden stories cross genres six ways from Thursday, but they are rooted in the traditions of science fiction.

Now, this business with the characters telling me/us what we need to know?  That’s true.  But the reason it’s true is that Steve and I tend to “meet” the characters who will be living in any particular story first.  That’s How We Do It.  Other writers think about the world/society first, and then they think about what kind of people would live in that world, and what kind of trouble they’d get into, what their assumptions are about their world, and if they’re right, wrong, or yes.

One of my favorite stories about world building comes from Janet Kagan.  She’d determined to write Hellspark, a book about language, and how it shapes society, thought, and prejudice; about what sentience looks like.  She worked hard on the kinesics of the various characters and cultures, kinesics being a plot-point, and she worked hard on her main character, Tocohl, who was a master linguist able to get around in multiple cultures because of her mastery of language and body language.  She wanted, particularly, for none of the cultures depicted in Hellspark to be “ours.”

And she was just about to hand the book in when she realized something.

In her book about alien kinesics?

The master linguist nodded.

Well, she tore the book apart to find and fix each of those incidences.  As one would, of course.

Now, that’s not the story of a failure — the error was caught in time.

But it is a cautionary tale to all of us, to think about what we’re doing in the world and society we’re building, and to question the easy answers that come from our assumptions and a lifetime of experience in what we like to call the real world.

Ask yourself:  What would a kid who lives in a closed environment where germs and dirt would cause a lot of problems, cuss by?  Might he use, mud, or dirt?  Supposing this closed environment that must be kept clean — how is that done?  Who does it?  What’s it called, the clean-up run?  It’s a basic task, keeping the ship clean, a survival task — is it therefore high-value?  Is the Garbage Man the ranking crewman, revered for keeping the ship spotless and the crew alive?  Or is Stinks a low-level task relegated to the junior-most?  It could go either way, right?  Just because we don’t happen to revere sanitation workers in so-called real life doesn’t mean that’s Natural Order.

Once you’ve made your choice — be consistent.  Pay attention.  Daydream about what your choices mean, down the story-road, what interesting developments might spring from them.

. . .but you can do most of that while you’re writing, see?  So long as you remember that going back and “fixing” things is a natural part of the process of storytelling.

. . .hope that helps.

Princess with sunshine and string Jan 8 2016

Adventures in coon cats

This morning, we got up early (for the third morning in a row.  Yes, I have a call in to the Auditing Department.), in order to adorn Princess Jasmine Sprite in her travel regalia — the sparkly pink-and-purple leash, the red harness, the royal ladybug ruff, this morning augmented by the sable fleece blanket.

Her Highness had, sadly, forgotten the appointment she had directed Staff to make with her physician, and, as I gathered her up in my arms and started for the kitchen door, she made one loud, anguished cry that sounded for all the world like, “Dad!”

We settled in the passenger side, and she managed to work herself into quite a state by the time we reached her physician’s office, where she immediately transformed herself into a Frozen Not-There Cat for the duration of the physical.

She is, as we suspected, Perfectly Healthy, weighing just a whisker (almost literally; coon cat whiskers are. . .not insubstantial) under 15 pounds.  She received her two-year distemper vaccination and was given a chip, which puts her in the vanguard of Feline Technology at the Cat Farm.

Princess Sprite is now resting comfortably on the blue rug (her Turkey carpet, formerly Trooper’s Turkey carpet, formerly Sharon’s Turkey carpet) in my office, after a brief sojourn in her Secret Aerie to recruit her strength and recharge her Princess Powers.

The mail had been delivered at home by the time we returned.  The mail consisting of two books, and! my new waterproof, lined, winter gloves from Duluth Trading Company.  I am remiss in reporting that my slip arrived yesterday, as did our Yule gift to each other — a case of mixed wines from nakedwine.com.

I think that leaves two shipments outstanding, which I expect to see next week.

Speaking of yesterday, it turns out that though pickleball is on the schedule at the Champions Fitness Club in Waterville on Tuesdays and Thursdays, attendance is sporadic.  I went in yesterday, hoping for a game, waited around for half-an-hour, nobody showed, so I left to do errands.  Sigh.  Next opportunity to sport the pickle — Wednesday morning.

I did learn yesterday that, if I decide to make enough of a habit of pickleball that I’ll want my own equipment, I will not want a wooden paddle.  The paddle I was loaned last Wednesday was aluminum, I suppose, and it was like an extension of my hand; I hardly knew I was holding a paddle.  The wooden Club paddles weigh a ton, and I can see it wearing my wrist out inside of a (short) game.

Hmm.  I wonder if I can play left-handed, anymore.  Over the years since the nuns changed my handedness, I’ve become more and more right-hand-oriented.  Something to experiment with, I guess.

After supper yesterday, Steve and I drove out to Skowhegan, on purpose to visit the New Balance Factory Store, Steve being in the way of wanting a pair of tennis shoes — about which more in a moment.  I did not intend to buy tennis shoes, myself, but a pair of blue cross-trainers with orange laces called my name and I did not resist long.  I’m wearing them right now, and myghod, they weigh nothing.  Maybe I’ll be able to fly again, like when I was a kid in the first new sneakers of summer.

But!  We were speaking of tennis shoes.

I asked the young lady on the floor at New Balance for “tennis shoes,” and she obligingly showed me the tennis shoes on offer, helpfully pointing out the pivot point on the sole.  Because “tennis shoe” is a technical term.

I chewed my lip for a minute, and then said.

“Back in the dark ages, we called all the kid’s casual canvas shoes tennis shoes.  Nobody really played tennis in them.  There’s another word — sneakers?  Soft shoes that are not created for a single task, but that you can walk and play games in?  I’m looking for sneakers.”

“Oh,” she said.  “Cross-trainers.  Right over here.”

On the one hand, good on her for being patient and guiding me to what I really wanted.  On the other hand, I feel like I’m needing to give a history lesson every time I want to buy something, lately.  Anybody else having this. . .experience, or am I just hopelessly behind the curve?

And! For those who Await, a photo of — no, not the new sneakers — Princess Sprite and Trooper, doing the taxes.

Sprite and Trooper do the taxes Jan 6 2016

I been warned by the board of inquiry; condemned by the board of health

I hear you over there, “What in ghod’s name has the woman been doing?”

Answer is that I’ve been working — there’s been an…development in re the current project.  But, yanno, it’s a good development!  You’ll like it.  No, really.  It just means that the delivery date’s been put back a smidge.

Also, I’ve been on hold a lot because —

The health insurance company, which last year let it be known that it was going to be serving out Tier One meds for no cost, if  (IF) you moved your business to a handful of approved pharmacies, and then decided that the cost/benefit thing didn’t work (they’re a non-profit, so even though they sent a letter to their membership indicating that it was not profitable for them to continue the program, I’m told I shouldn’t say “didn’t make a profit.”  So, that.), and then got pissy when everyone who had somehow imagined that this was going to be an on-going thing (I went to the damned orientation session.  The words “pilot program,” “experiment,” or “so we can see what happens” were never uttered in my presence.), got corked off at them?

The insurance company isn’t answering the phone.  Now, all I want to know is how much my meds are going to cost me this year, which the pharmacy can’t tell me, because they have to process the prescription, and every card’s a winner person’s price is somehow different.  But!  All those uneducated folks who are mad at the insurance company are tying up the lines, and the poor automated answering system was, as of my last attempt to call, yesterday, just about to lose its tiny mind.

What else?  Oh!  Today was the first day of Tai-Chi at the YMCA.  Steve and I went together, to find that there are only four of us in the class, which needs six to continue, so if you’re within the sound of my voice — or, more pertinently, within reasonable distance of the Alfond Center/YMCA/Boys & Girls Club on North Street in Waterville — and you’re free on Wednesday mornings from 9-10, the Tai-Chi class could really use you — and you could really use the Tai Chi class.

Anyhow, the four of us and the instructor did the first class, and when it was over, Steve was for going up to Anytime Fitness to do his usual Wednesday thing there, and I — heard the sound of ping-pong being played, with vigor, right down that hall there, and having once been an avid ping-pong player of little to no note, I wandered down to have a look.

What I found wasn’t ping-pong.

What I found was?

Pickleball!

Pickleball, for those who have never heard of it (like me, before this morning) is the unholy child of ping-pong, badminton, and tennis.  Played with a wiffle ball.  There was a roomful of people having at it, and they all looked like they were having so much fun.  And badminton, which I also used to play and enjoy, has long been denied me — long story short, I went out to the desk to find out how I could participate.

And the news from the receptionist was:  “Give me three small ones, take yourself down the hall, sign up on the game sheet, and wait ’til a court clears.  There are extra paddles in the room.”

Ohmighod, I had so much fun!  I can’t remember the last time I had so much fun for three bucks.  The rules are a little Calvinballish, so I was happy to be taken in hand by Mike, who showed me the rudiments, and good-naturedly partnered me through two learning games — we lost both, but we lost the second game much closer than the first!

It turns out that there’s pickup pickleball every M/W/F from 9-11, and all you need to do to play is show up, fork over with the three small, and go put your name down on the sheet.

Not only is pickleball fun of itself, but I (1) wasn’t the oldest person on the court, (2) nobody felt like I was picking on them if I managed to return and/or volley, and (3) everybody was delighted to have someone new wander in.

The last time I tried to play badminton was at Colby, where a group of students had arranged for a time for pick-up badminton, all invited.  But it turned out that “all invited” did not mean middle-aged secretaries.  They were very nice about letting me play the first time, then moved the session time to an hour when I wasn’t on campus.  Ah.  Well, then.

But!  Let us not repine nor be made gloomy by the past.  Let us look to the future, where —

I believe I shall play pickleball again, on Friday.

In case you’ve never heard of pickleball, here’s a video.

For the Facebook peeps (and for you, too; I don’t mean to exclude anyone), here’s a picture of Belle, who does not believe that she will be playing pickleball, thanks.

Sleepy Belle Dec 6 2015

Today’s blog title brought to you by David Bromberg, “Danger Man.”  Here’s your link.