Category: Blog

Well, things have been hopping around the ol’ Confusion Factory these last couple days.

Yesterday, I had nice chat with the second of the four brave and fortunate people who will be committing the Liaden Universe® to audiofile.  I did laundry, and glared menacingly at the proposal file while I put words in and took words out.  As one does.  I did do-it-yourself deep muscle massage on my frozen shoulder with the TheraCane, which, just by the way, hurts like a sonofagun.

This morning, I started in signing sheets of paper.  When Steve and I have both signed all 1200 pieces of paper, they’ll go back to the printer and be bound into the appropriate number of Dragon Ships.  I would just like to say?  That 1200 sheets of paper is a non-trivial number of sheets of paper, and that I am entirely at peace with my decision to write under my own, and relatively short, name.

Also this morning, the proposals went to Madame the Agent, who will look them over and in the fullness of time either send them on to Madame the Editor for discussion, or to us, for improvements.

Fans of Socks will wish to know that he went back for a checkup today.  He was not (that’s NOT) happy about this at all, and when I let him out of his traveling box in the examining room, he jumped down to the floor and stamped around it, tail snapping.  And when I say stamped, I mean stamped; it sounded like he had flamenco boots on.

Aside a fit of temper, he’s in good health, and we’re to continue doing whatever it is that we’re doing, and cross fingers he’ll continue to gain weight and otherwise improve.

Socks and I returned home in time to help Steve and Mozart (Scrabble having gone to the basement to, I assume, inspect the tornado room ) batten down the hatches, turn off the computers and marvel at a really splendid, and for several minutes there, quite scary, thunderstorm.  I speak as one who tends more to the “thunderstorms make me ecstatic” side of the scale than the “thunderstorms scare the hotel outta me” side.  The net effect of the storm?  The temps fell from 93F34C, pre-storm, to 72F/22C, post-storm.

After the storm, I did a deep-massage session with the dern cane, then signed some more pages.  Honestly, I think they’re breeding down there in that box.  I’m sure there are more empty pages now than there were this morning.

For those who follow the Free Culture debate, there’s an interesting exchange that you may not have seen.

First, there’s this blog post by Emily White, an intern at NPR, who confesses that, as someone with a music library in excess of 11,000 songs, she’s only in her life purchased 15 music CDs.

Then, there’s this (warning: long) and informative response from The Trichordist.  If you have time to read only one of these posts, I would recommend this one.

And now?

I’m going to wash dishes.

And sign some more pages.

 

Carousel Tides T-Shirt
Only 10 more days to order one (or more!) of these stylish and beautiful t-shirts. This piece will become an essential element in all your summer ensembles! Go here for details and order form. Orders close 12:01 a.m. EDT July 1. (P.S.: If you prefer to send a check, please drop me a note at rolanniATkorvalDOTcom and let me know that the check has been mailed, how many shirts you’re ordering and the sizes.)

New Story at Splinter Universe!
In celebration of the beginning of summer — a beach story! “Emancipated Child,” presented for your reading pleasure.

Beach Reading!
Headed out to the shore? Don’t forgot to load up your ereader with Lee-and Miller echapbooks from Pinbeam Books (with links to the Kindle and Nook stores and to Smashwords). And! While you’ve got that ereader out and primed, why not stop by Baen Books and download your favorite Lee and Miller novels in the format of your choice?

Clarion Write-A-Thon
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.

. . .here ends your Thursday morning advert. Thank you for reading.

Steve and I have been ignoring Splinter Universe as we took care of some other things, professional and private, that had kind of gotten piled up.

We’re still super busy, and can’t promise a story every week, or even every month, but! we couldn’t let the Summer Solstice go by without giving y’all a beach story.

This one’s set in Surfside, the next town up from Archers Beach, familiar to those of you who’ve read Carousel Tides* — and every word is absolutely true!

Of course.

Here’s your link to Emancipated Child.

Enjoy! And if you like the story, please consider donating by clicking the PayPal button at the bottom of the page.

–Sharon Lee, June 20, 2012

_________________
*If you haven’t read Carousel Tides, but would like to, it’s available in mass market paperback and in trade paper from your favorite local bookstore, from Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, and in the ebook format of your choice directly from the publisher, Baen Books.

Today’s slightly less complex to-do list:

1. Make ice tea
2. Await the arrival of the contractor
3. Edit and polish “Emancipated Child”
4. Work with Thera Cane (ouch!)
5. Chat with narrator of the Space Regency sequence, and pronounce words
6. Glare at proposal file

The rest of the day is shaping up this way:

1. Throw Dragon Ship proofs into FedEx box
2. Check mail
3. Go to physical therapy
4. Pick Socks up from hospital, Bast willing
5. Make fixes to “Landed Alien” and send to Madame the Editor
6. Prep for talk with first narrator, scheduled for tomorrow, noonish

Um…lunch. Gotta schedule lunch in there, somewhere.

I’ll see y’all later.

So, when I was a kid, my father took me up to Margate City (that’s in New Jersey), to visit The Elephant Hotel.  This would’ve been some time in the mid-60s (Yes, the nineteen-sixties.  Smarthat.)

The Elephant Hotel faced out to sea.  There was a sign nearby, explaining that it had been built by a Mr. Lafferty — clearly a peculiar fellow — back in the 1880s — and was one of three Elephant Hotels built at about the same time — the others being sited at Coney Island, New York*, and at Cape May, New Jersey**.  The Margate building at the time of my first viewing was in sad, sad shape — somewhere I have pictures*** — and my dad wanted to be sure I’d seen it, because it was a wonderful thing — a silly, foolish, marvelous thing — and it was going to be torn down.

Well, long story short — people intervened.  The next time I went to Margate, I drove myself and  my-then-boyfriend, specifically to see the Elephant Hotel, because I’d told him about it, and he didn’t believe me.  The time being pre-internet, the only thing for it was to get in the car early one Saturday morning and make the drive up from Baltimore.

The Elephant Hotel was gone.

Well, of course it was gone; how could I have expected it to stand in the face of the strong seas and hurricanes that had hammered the Jersey shore in the intervening decade?

Except, as we were leaving, kind of weaving semi-aimlessly through Margate — I found it again.  It had been moved to a place of. . .slightly greater safety, the structure looked. . .dangerous, and it could have only survived the move to this new situation by the direct intervention of Lord Ganesha himself.  There was a fence around the tired old building, and a billboard that said:

SAVE LUCY!

. . .and went on to tell how the Schoolchildren of New Jersey were pitching in their milk money to restore the Elephant Hotel, now known familiarly as “Lucy.”

Goddess bless the kids of Jersey:  they did it.  The Elephant Hotel, no longer a hotel, is now on the National Registers of Everywhere Imaginable; and you (yes, you!) can visit her, and take a tour of the restored interior, look through the portal eyes, out to sea; and buy t-shirts at the gift shop.

Knowing that the Elephant Hotel still exists, that makes me feel good, though the chances I’ll ever see it again are small.

* * *

Having, then, this early and enduring interest in unnatural pachyderms, many years later, I followed with interest the progress of the Sultan of the Indies on his Time-Traveling Elephant.

. . .and have wondered, off and on, for some years now, whatever had happened to the Time-Traveling Elephant.

I discover today, through the Magic of Facebook, that he’s in Nantes, employed as a mover of people and a thing of wonder, as is, you’ll agree, only fitting and right.  It’s also a great relief to me, to find that he hasn’t been dismantled, or broken down for parts.

But, no, it appears that the people of Nantes are devoted to their elephant and intend to keep him in good working order for a number of years, and if, for some reason they fall short of their intention, I hope that the children of Nantes will take their cue from the kids of Jersey.

It’s only icing on the cake — or howdah on the elephant — that the Makers of Nantes, who are responsible for the birth of the Time-Traveling Elephant, found themselves with idle hands, and decided that the best employment for themselves, their hands, and their creativity. . .was to build a carousel, complete with a batwing, err, unicorn.

. . .this has been your report from Maine for Sunday, June 18, 2012.

Yes, I finished proofing Dragon Ship.

—————

*The Elephantine Colossus, twice as big as Lucy, burned down in 1896

**Light of Asia was torn down by the City of Cape May, date unknown

***Actually, go here.  The picture on the right — that’s what I saw

Frederica, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
No Dominion, C.E. Murphy (e)
The Prestige, Christopher Priest
Cuttlefish, Dave Freer
Intruder, C.J. Cherryh (read aloud w/Steve)
Blameless, Gail Carriger (e)
Changeless, Gail Carriger (e)
The Quiet Gentleman, Georgette Heyer (read aloud w/Steve)
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)

Progress on proofing Dragon Ship
336 pages read /36 pages remaining

Fans of Silversocks are requested to light candles, cross fingers, spin a few prayer-hamsters, &c — he’s a wee bit under the weather and is resting at the Waterville Animal Hospital.  We visited him this afternoon, and are able to report that he was in spirits, and very glad to see us — as we were, to see him.  We hope to bring him home on Monday.

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.