Category: Blog

To-Do, with Snow

If it’s December in Maine, it must be snowing, right?

And it is!  Snowing, that is.  Accumulations of 1-3 inches, say the Weatherbeans, which is, yanno, more of a Practice Snow.

So, today, I have a to-do list, which I fear I will not accomplish fully, but it’s good to have goals, right?

I will say that throwing One’s “outline” away was the right thing to do; I’m now back up to 1,000 words a day, from a grind of 500 or less.  Realsoonnow, I need to get back on the 2,000+ word-a-day diet, but right now I’m just happy that the characters have come back from lunch break.  Also, I got to write a Very Cool Scene, so it’s all good.

Steve and I braved the crowds yesterday to hit the grocery store, in anticipation of today’s promised snow, and, while we were out, we visited TJ Maxx.  There we purchased an AM/FM/CD/MP3 stereo clock radio, which will shortly be placed in the living room and, in beautiful theory, give the general household access to music, an access we lost when the last CD stereo blew out.  As much as we like music in this house, you’d’ve thought we would have done something about it before now, but apparently some things Take Time.

Anyway, today’s task list looks kinda like this:

1.  Write and publish InfoDump #103
2.  Address Yule cards
3.  Perform various Necessary Services for Felinekind
4.  Laundry
5.  Write the next scene
6. Update the side links at Eagles Over the Kennebec
7.  Dishes?  Nah, all of us know that ain’t happening today  Surprise!

Hope everybody had a lovely Thanksgiving/Thursday and a relaxing weekend.

* * *

Progress on One of Five
12,392/100,000 words OR 12.39% COMPLETED

“Shocking,” Father murmured, his silver eyes half-closed. “But tell me how you will turn this sad situation to your hand.”

Pre-order *Personalized* copies of Carousel Sun

The following message from the Uncle has just arrived:

We’ve arranged for our order of Carousel Sun by Sharon Lee (sequel to Carousel Tide) to be shipped from the bindery to the author for signature and then shipped on to us.  If you pre-order a copy before the end of December and request a personalization as well as a signature, we’ll try to arrange it.  The book won’t be shipped until around the end of January or beginning of February, and you can continue to order a signed copy until we’re sold out.  But if you wait until January to order a copy, you won’t get a personalized copy.  (Yes, we still have signed hardcover copies of the last 2 Liaden Universe® novels by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.)  The link to all the signed Lee & Miller stuff is on the Browse Our New Books page.
Best regards,
Don Blyly
Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore

Here’s the bullet-point version:

* You may now pre-order a signed copy of Carousel Sun from Uncle Hugo’s Bookstore via this link

*You may also, for a limited time, have your pre-ordered signed book personalized.  “Personalized” means you ask the author to write something special on the title page in addition to their name.  These can be as simple as, “To Marge,” and as complex as “To Marge in memory of that night in Seattle.”  Fair Warning: I, as the Signing Author reserve the right not to inscribe a book with a personalization I find to be, in my sole judgment:  (1) offensive, (2) too long, (3) anything else.  You will use the Special Instructions box on the order form to write out your personalization — Please check your spelling, ’cause I’m going to assume that you’ve typed it out exactly as you want it.

*There is a deadline involved if you want your pre-ordered signed copy of Carousel Sun personalized.  That deadline is December 31, 2013.  So you need to do this now.

*There will only be a limited number of signed copies of Carousel Sun available, they will only be available through Uncle Hugo’s SF Bookstore in Minneapolis.  The exact number of signed copies available depends upon how many are pre-ordered.  So, sooner is better than later to order, if you want a signed copy.

*Here’s the link again.

*The Uncle is doing me — and you! — a pretty substantial favor here, so please be courteous.  And while you’re at the Lee-and-Miller book page that the link above leads to, take a few minutes to look around.

Thanks very much for  your interest and support.

Books read in 2013

Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie
Slave to Sensation, Nalini Singh (e)
The Rook: A Novel, Daniel O’Malley (e)
And All the Stars, Andrea Host (e)
Above, Leah Bobet (e)
Night Calls, Katharine Eliska Kimbriel (e)
Wild Ride, Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer (e)
2012: Midnight at the Spanish Garden, Alma Alexander (e)
The Hummingbird Wizard, Meredith Blevins (e)
Famous Gunfighters of the Western Frontier, W.B. (Bat) Masterson
Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny (re-read)
Creatures of Light and Darkness, Roger Zelazny (re-read)
Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo (e)
Ice Crown, Andre Norton (e)
Fair Coin, E.C. Myers (e)
Frost Burned, Patricia Briggs (e)
Through a Brazen Mirror, Delia Sherman
Protector, C.J. Cherryh (read aloud with Steve)
Eight Million Gods, Wen Spencer (e)
Promises to Keep, Laura Anne Gilman (e)
Miles to Go, Laura Anne Gilman (e)
Even Money, Dick Francis & Felix Francis
Magic Bites, Ilona Andrews
Sandman Slim, Richard Kadrey
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, Patricia 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)

Moving on. . .

The weather that manifested as blizzards and snowstorms in other parts of the US rode into Maine as torrential rains on the back of an unseasonably warm, and extremely damaging, wind.  We have flood warnings for every river and stream, standing puddles in every lawn, and gullies clogged with leaves overflowing into the roads.  Tree limbs are down, and though we haven’t lost power in our neck of the woods, others — quite a few others — have.

It’s stopped raining for the moment.  The weatherbeans are calling for temperatures plummeting to 29F/-2C tonight, and precipitation in the form of ice pellets.

Steve and I went to town at midday to pick up our deli-made Thanksgiving dinner; and we intend to Stay Right Here at the Confusion Factory for the next couple of days, if not the entire weekend.

It will be a working holiday, as Thanksgiving often is, with writing early in the day, then knocking off for dinner and a game of Scrabble.

I am, let it be known, working again, having accepted the path of wisdom and thrown away the outline (such as it was) for this book.  So, yay.  It would sort of be nice if the book would cough up with at least a working title, but I guess we can get along with “One” for a while yet.

Also, I have identified a Hot Fudge Sundae scene, which makes me happy.  Things always go better with when there’s a Hot Fudge Sundae to write toward.

I hope everyone is safe and warm where you are, and that the holiday, if you celebrate, gives you comfort.  For those who don’t celebrate a holiday tomorrow — I hope your day is stress-free.  Unless you like that sort of thing.

* * *

Progress on One of Five

10,012/100,000 OR 10 percent complete

Well, and none of that solved Theo, poor child, cast from Frenzel to ragtag Cresthaller, and not a profit made from either. It was scarcely the best use of a new — not to say, unwilling — trader, much less a new-found cousin. Happily, her nature appeared tenacious, and he dared hope that she hadn’t yet become discouraged.

Coon Cat Work Ethic

I didn’t want to leave anyone with the impression that it’s all tag and wrestling around here.  We know how to work.  In fact, we know how to make the bed.  Mozart, by reason of his years is naturally in a supervisory position on the trunk at the bottom of the bed:

Mozart supervises the bed-making. Photo by Sharon Lee
Mozart supervises the bed-making.
Photo by Sharon Lee

 

Sprite takes a paws-on approach. Photo by Sharon Lee
Sprite takes a paws-on approach.
Photo by Sharon Lee

 

Tuesday morning cat spam

So, Trooper and Sprite have been wrestling in my room.  Here you see the resulting carnage.

Apparently Trooper won. Photo by Sharon Lee
Apparently Trooper won.
Photo by Sharon Lee

Looks like I’ll be spending some time picking magazines up off the floor.

Sprite, in the meantime, has volunteered to take over the filing.  Or at least, the filing basket.

The new office clerk. Photo by Sharon Lee
The new office clerk.
Photo by Sharon Lee

Observant readers will immediately recognize the file basket that Trooper had adopted as his own.  You will also notice that Sprite, who is. . .Considerably Less Substantial than Trooper, is overflowing the confines, and putting ghod knows what kind of stress on its  wicker walls.  From this, we must conclude that Trooper is a contortionist of no small skill.

Having established his ascendency over both Sprite and my carousel magazines, Trooper has retired to his box.

Trooper in the Plan B box. Photo by Sharon Lee
Trooper in the Plan B box.
Photo by Sharon Lee

The old broken stars they fall down on the land

So, last night we made the journey into Waterville to see James McMurty perform at the Opera House.

The House was full; I think the three empty seats in the row directly in front of us may have been the only empty seats.  It was a crowd almost exclusively made up of the gray of hair, and all of us had a startlingly raucous good time.

I had one of those Awkward Moments of Mortality when the Aggressively Blonde woman in her Coordinated Outfit sitting beside Steve got up to dance.  “Really?” I thought.  “She’s sixty-five if she’s a day.”

hi-hat

James, who was without the Heartless Bastards for this show, sang and played for two hours straight.  You know what?  Having just recently finished a tour where all I did was sit and talk for two hours, I don’t know how he did it.  I went back to the hotel exhausted, and my voice still hasn’t recovered.  James has another show tonight, in New Hampshire.

If you get a chance to see James perform — grab it.

Even if your hair isn’t gray.

* * *

. . .so, today at the Confusion Factory, having identified the Cause of the Stuckness on First of Five, I will be going through Dragon Ship and extracting a chronology so I can figure out where I am in Space and Time.  I suspect this will show me that the two story arcs I had thought to tackle this time are mismatched, which will mean I’ll need to sort through my Big Box of Story Tackle and Spare Parts to find the correct linkage, which is kind of a pain in the hat.

But not as much of a pain in the hat as writing three-quarters of a book and then realizing that the timing’s off.

* * *

Fans of Sprite will be pleased to know that she has ascended from the Cold and Dreary Basement and is now spending almost all of her time upstairs in the warm world, where she has become the Terror of the Stuffed Chipmunk, and started circulating a petition to ensure that All The Hugs Belong to Her.

The petition has little chance of getting enough signatures in this house, but its nice to see that she’s civic minded.

The rest of the cats continue, mostly unperturbed.  Mozart accords the kid a sort of absent-minded goodwill; and she’s respectful, as is proper.  Scrabble, of course, isn’t about to take any ‘tude from an overpowered kitten, no matter how tall she is.

Trooper actually deals with her the most, which is a mixed blessing, I think, from his perspective.  On the one paw, it’s good to have somebody to play tag and wrestle with.  On the other paw, she’s trying to take over all the Good Places he’s identified for himself.

On the left hind paw, though, he’s not shy about asserting his rights, when they matter.  Just yesterday, Sprite had taken over the Plan B box in my office, and Trooper decided that he wanted it.  So, he just. . .walked in, apparently intending to lie down on the kitten, if that’s what it took.

The kitten vacated in favor of the blue rug behind my chair.

And thus. . .tranquility reigns at the Cat Farm.

What did y’all do this weekend that was fun?

AKiCiF: Audiobooks

I’ve gotten a note from a long-time reader, who says that they “bought something” from Audible, expecting that they would get discs, which they could use in a CD/DVD player, and was disappointed to find that they had to listen at the desktop.

So the question for the assembled multitudes is:  Is there a way to copy the Audible book to (I assume) many discs?  And, if so, would you lay out the steps here so this reader can follow them?

Many Spanish Aunts.

Today, I read galleys

. . .and probably tomorrow, too.  News of a due date is rumored for today, but the cover letter references an expedited schedule due to the Thanksgiving holidays, so I Expect the Worst.  For those who keep track of these matters, we are referencing the galleys for Carousel Sun.

What this has to do with y’all is. . .nothing much, really; it’s mostly between me, the pages, the red pens, and the sticky flags.  However, I will be scarce on the web; email and blog queries have very little chance of being answered for the next while.  Please adjust your calendars accordingly.

In other news, Jasmine Sprite, Mistress of the Night, has decided that she is the Boss of Trooper.  We do not agree; nor does Trooper, though he’s rather too polite — IMHO, a sharp whack upside the head would do her some good.  In that vein, it appears that Young Sprite has already gained a Healthy Respect(tm) for Aunt Scrabble, Mistress of the Paw of Steel.

We will at some point post pictures of Sprite, who is quite stunning, but her current schedule has her hiding in the crypt basement during daylight hours, only emerging at midnight, to demand subservience, cookies and snuggles.

Everybody have a good Monday.

I’m gone.