Blog – Page 303 – Sharon Lee, Writer

The rats on the street all dance ’round my feet

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.

What does it have it in its pocketssss?

For those who were breathlessly awaiting news of the Contents of The Tube, pictured here:

Sharon Lee, Steve Miller, David Mattingly, AND The Tube — Sharon Lee, Steve Miller, David Mattingly,
AND The Tube

. . .I may now report that there were two prints of David Mattingly artwork enclosed:

Poker with the Dragon

Honor Among Enemies

. . .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

But I talked to a man last night; gonna do a little favor for him

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.

…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.

I traveled through East Texas where many martyrs fell

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.

(Liaden Universe® Silver Anniversary article in PW)

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?

The great cat tree caper

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 — 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 original art for the cover of Pilots Choice (Michael Herring). The smaller one is a giclee print of the cover art for Necessity's Child (David Mattingly) — 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. . .

…and here is the base, going together with, may I say, majestic deliberation:

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:

Cheered, Steve returned to the task with renewed energy, and very shortly, we had. . .

Step four. . .Scrabble is discussing the final step with Steve, who declined to be in the photo

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.

Here ends this photoessay.

UPDATED TO ADD:

That didn't take long — That didn’t take long

Shifting gears

. . .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.”

Mail call

Look what came in the mail! Thank you, Woodchucks!

New Sampler from Woodchucks' Revenge — 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.

Here’s their website.

And here’s the website of their producer, featuring sample songs from a wide range of artists.

Have fun!

Now I know you’re not the only starfish in the sea

So, let’s see…Day before yesterday — that would have been Wednesday — I needed to describe Carousel Sun (by which I mean to say, the book I submitted in February, and God, She Knows what it’s about because I’m three-quarters of the way through the sequel, and I surely don’t) in a couple paragraphs (aka 150-300 words) so that the spring sales tip sheet will have something on it that will make book buyers eager to stock the book.

This is one of those things that writers do which are double-edged, to say the least. On the slicing edge, you’re glad the publisher has asked you for this input because they’ve got dozens of books on their plate, and you-the-author have only the one, and, presumably, you know your own work best (insert laugh track here).

On the thrusting edge, though, there’s the sad truth that I, at least, am a Lazy Writer and by gum if I could’ve told Carousel Sun in 300 words, I certainly wouldn’t have used 104,000 of the little beasts. I’d’ve knocked the book out in an afternoon and then played for four months, until it was time to start the next book. Trust me, at this point in the proceedings, I know myself.

So, it took a ridiculously long time to craft those words (this despite the fact that I had asked a long-suffering beta reader to help me define the principle storyline), but by the end of Wednesday, I had something I thought would work, sent it off, and got ready to do, yanno, work.

Except that the next section of story stalled, and no amount of pointing at the outline to show the characters what they were supposed to do next elicited anything more than yawns and a conversation among themselves about whose turn it was to send out for pizza — which long-time readers of this blog will recognize as a sure sign that — yes, you in the corner wearing the pink flamingo t-shirt. . .

Yes, exactly that.

It means that The Author Screwed Up.

So instead of writing any words, I went back over the last 75 pages of manuscript, looking for the place where I turned left when I should’ve turned right.

Fortunately, it was easy to spot — a case of the sub-plot moving along quicker than the main plot. It’s also fairly easy to fix, if frustrating for a writer who is trying to make words and have a complete draft done in twelve days.

Yesterday, then, I pulled 2,490 words of sub-plot out of the book, and carefully saved them for later use; then I wrote 2,252 brand new words. Today, I hope to write very many more words than this because I have news of two things that will be landing on my desk in the next couple days which will have precedence over this book.

So! another chapter in the exciting life of a writer. I know, I know. . .not for the fainthearted.

And now? I’m going back to work.

Everybody take care.

* * *

Progress on Carousel Seas

73,706/100,000 words OR 74% complete

I looked up. “My point is that any sentence that starts off with, No, but Bel — really needs to be finished, so I don’t have nightmares.”

Oh, the buzzin’ of the bees in the peppermint trees ’round the soda water fountains

So, I think I failed to mention here that, after research and consultation with the resident cats, and some really hard shopping, we ordered in a cat tree, which arrived today. I have already declared it a success, as Mozart immediately jumped onto the box and declared himself the King of the Cats. I will note that the cat tree is still in the box, because I need to do stuff like move the sofa and take down some pictures before I can actually build the tree. This may happen tomorrow. Or it may not. Pictures will be posted, when and if.

Mostly though, I’ve been writing. I really, really want to finish this draft before we head off to BEA, and, barring something Tragic, it looks like I’ll be able to do that. Phew.

Sometime in the last. . .month or so, I received a mailing from Planned Parenthood that included a “membership card” — has anyone else gotten one of these things? It has my name on it, and an ID number and states that I’ve been a “member” since 2001, which is apparently as far back as their database goes.

Here’s the thing, though. I don’t consider myself a “member” of Planned Parenthood. I support their work, but I didn’t join; I wasn’t aware that Planned Parenthood was a club.

Am I alone in being annoyed by this?

To top it off, Planned Parenthood has been calling (and calling and calling) for the last few weeks, because they have this matching grant thing they’re trying very hard to qualify for. I wish them well, but I really resent it when they tell me that my “usual” donation amount is $150 and can they put me down for $300 this time? All said in the perkiest voice imaginable.

First of all, my “usual” amount is more like $25; the $150 was the result of the fundraiser Pinbeam Books did for Planned Parenthood when they were hosed by the Pink Ribbon People. We donated the proceeds of all sales of The Cat’s Job, for a month, I think it was, to Planned Parenthood.

Also? Here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory, three hundred dollars is Serious Money.

So, yeah, I’m annoyed on a couple of fronts, here. And I’m also saddened that they feel they have to adopt hard-sell tactics, which are going to lose them donors like me, who don’t want to be manipulated, and who have limited funds, and more than one charity worthy of those funds.

Sigh.

* * *

Progress on Carousel Seas

73,968/100,000 words OR 74% complete

“This just come in — express, Kate. Ain’t nothin’ comes in express.”

Well, I tell ya, I’ve fought tougher men, but I really can’t remember when

Physical therapy continues. It would appear that the heart of the problem is my left shoulder, which got messed up in a car accident back in the day, when a guy in a hurry to get to a party ran a red light, broadsided my little green Maverick, and I shot cross-car, striking my head on the windshield on the passenger’s side, shattering the safety glass (insert hard-headed woman joke here), and lost consciousness.

It’s been quite the epic, this shoulder. At first, I was told that I would never use my arm again. That was a non-starter, given that I typed for a living. So the doctor and I went ’round a couple times and he finally buckled and gave me a reference to Kernan Hospital’s Sports Medicine Unit, which at that time did all the therapy for injured Colts and Orioles and other Baltimore-area wildlife, with the dire prediction that therapy was going to hurt.

Which, to be fair, it did. The guy who was my therapist did brutal things to me, including hanging me by my neck to stretch the locked muscles. “I will hurt you and you will hate me,” he told me during our first meeting. “But then I’ll give you heat, and we’ll be friends again.”

And that’s pretty much how it went. I got the use of my arm back, the shoulder never really stopped hurting, but I’d been primed to expect that outcome, and with familiarity, I was able to largely ignore it and get on with things that mattered.

Except that, like many folks I’ve talked to, all my stress from those days to this goes to live in the most vulnerable place — the shoulder that never really healed.

Thirty-four years of compensating takes its toll on the whole body — that old ankle bone connected to the leg bone thing — and this is what I’ve brought to the physical therapy table.

The presenting problem — the hip pain — has been addressed, but my body’s out of true, and it feels like my left shoulder (by which I, neither a doctor or a scientist, mean the area bounded by the occipital bone and the trapezius and down to places I don’t know the names of) is made of cement. It really seems as if getting in a street drill would be a good thing, here. Failing that, it looks like lots of work ahead to get things properly aligned, and hopefully to prevent any more new problems caused by this old problem.

So, what I’m saying here, long-windedly, and not very elegantly is — if you have a health issue that you’ve been…oh, just putting up with, say, either because it’s been with you so long it’s familiar, or because you don’t think you can afford to get it fixed — and believe me, I know all about not being to afford to get something fixed, but?

That’s one of those false economies. Because whatever isn’t right isn’t only going to continue in its not-rightness, it’s going to take other, perfectly healthy, bits with it into not-rightness. And eventually, it will all have to be looked at, anyway, when it’s become a large, entangled problem.

So, take care of yourselves, right? You really are worth it.

* * *

Progress on Carousel Seas

70,044/100,000 words OR 70% complete

“It’s a strong curse, Kate; it will not fail.”