Goofing Off – Sharon Lee, Writer

Today is the day after yesterday

So, yesterday was my birthday. It was also 911, which has Precedence, it being far more important to many more people than my natal day.

My Usual Strategy for many years, therefore, has been to stay the heck off of social media on my birthday.

So, after a false start, due to the fact that, while I obviously knew it was my birthday, I had temporarily forgotten that it was 911, I backed slowly away from social media and got on with my day.

It was a quiet birthday. Steve and I went out to breakfast at Lisa’s, which was pleasant, as always. After, we went up the hill to the Cony Circle Hannaford, which is bigger, brighter, and stocked more fully than either of the Hannafords in our little city, and mooched around, looking at the shinies, and picking up carrot cake, Borealis bread, tomatoes, and other celebratory items.

Shopping done, we came home, put away the groceries, had a second cup of tea, and retired to our offices, as we do. I did some shopping — oh! Land’s End is having a sale! — and some cleaning up of my office, poked around the corners of BlueSky, steam-cleaned the basement floor (don’t judge me; I get to decide what I want to do on my birthday), and doodled with the WIP for a bit.

Yesterday’s mail included a letter from Northern Light Mammography Department, informing me that my most recent mammogram revealed “NO evidence of cancer.” So that was a good present.

We had veggie fried rice and dumplings for lunch; carrot cake and ice cream a bit later; and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner.

In all, a pleasant day on my terms.

Today sees a return to business as usual, which includes getting the trash to the curb, answering the mail, and doing some advanced planning for said WIP, in addition to writing the next scene.

For those who collect such trivia, the WIP stands at 5,525 words more or less. I wish I could say “growing fast,” but it looks like this one, like Ribbon Dance, will be more of a “growing slow and steady” sort of novel.

I think that’s it. Below, as seen elsewhere, a picture of the author as 71.

The Magical Mystery is waiting to take you away

Yesterday’s plan, insofar as there was a plan, was to Get Out of the House and Do Something Else.

We were in large measure, Successful.

I drove us to Coburn Gore, which, for those of you who are Unfamiliar lies on the border between Maine and Canada. It’s our closest crossing to Montreal, and, having not had any real reason to visit Montreal or Quebec in the last few years, has remained Unsurveyed by Authors Goofing Off for Quite Some Time.

It . . . is not much changed. The northern reaches of the state are much harsher in terms of landscape and standard of living than the sought-after southern points. Several of the smaller towns have aged badly. Kingfield looked . . . OK, but we’re in the skiing off-season and Kingfield really doesn’t come into its own until the first snow.

The country — harsh, yes, but grand for all of that — mountains in the distance, and then right up in your face, chains of deep green lakes, ledges of living rock two feet from the passenger side, and on the driver’s side — why no, who on earth has that much safety rail? And honestly, at the speed you’re likely going, coming down the mountain and playing with gravity, that itty-bitty safety rail isn’t gonna make one damned bit of difference.

We drove up Routes 6 and 8 — hit some road work (welcome to Maine in the summer) but not much traffic, and most of that the big rigs, going up to cross the border.

For the purposes of this discussion, Coburn Gore is a convenience store and two border stations — Canadian, and USian. For those traveling in this direction, be aware that Peppin’s convenience store has no public bathrooms — those are said to be available at the border stations. I did not check this information, so cannot tell you how many questions you might have to answer the border guard before you’re let to use a bathroom.

What Coburn Gore really needs is a Visitor Information Center, with maps, and tourist booklets; coffee and soda machines, and public bathrooms, Mind you, this isn’t going to happen, but it would make the place seem less . . . prisoned.

So, anyhow, beautiful drive on the “new” road. The first time we drove to Coburn Gore, it was a lane-and-a-half of washboard; the second time, MaineDOT was tearing down a mountain and putting in a road that the big rigs could make some time on. That road is now complete and has been for maybe 12 years. So you see we really were overdue for an Inspection.

It was 77F/25C at the border on the top of the mountain. Steve took us back down, picking up degrees as we went. When finally we raised Bingham and pulled into the rest area on Route 201 to eat our picnic, it was 88F/31C and I was thinking it might make sense to turn around and retrace our drive.

However! There were cats at home, and home we came.

Steve beat me at Scrabble, just by a squeak. We had grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, and retired to the living room with our wine, and said cats, to read until bed time.

Today, it’s back to the routine. I have bills to pay, paragraphs to write, and laundry to do. I’m also on-deck for supper, which will be! The Rest of the Quiche, and roasted asparagus. Shaw’s keeps throwing asparagus in my way, and I keep buying it, so . . .

At the moment, I believe I am unsupervised. Firefly was in for a few minutes, but then Steve went downstairs, and she rushed off to supervise his Important Work for Cat Kind in the basement.

The Big Plan for the rest of the week is to stay inside on Station Air, as we’re looking for 90F/32C, and In My Not So Humble Opinion, that is too damned hot.

. . . and I think that catches us all up.

Everybody keep warm or cool, depending on your preferences.

Today’s blog post brought to you by The Beatles, “The Magical Mystery Tour.” Here’s your link.

You can be here by 4:30 ’cause I made you a reservation

So! I finished my draft of “The Last Train to Clarkesville” under the 8,000 word upper limit (by an entire 140 words). The story has now gone back to Steve for one! more! go-through before we send it on to the editor.

For those waiting for news of the Fair Trade audiobook — I have news! Baen reports that the contract for the Audible edition of Fair Trade has been signed and countersigned! This is progress. We don’t yet have a production date, or the name of a narrator, but motion is happening in a forwarder direction. We will let you know just as soon as we have more news, and we thank you all for your patience.

In even! more! Fair Trade news, Amazon is having a sale on the hardcover edition ($14.99; save $10.01!). Here’s the link.

Having finished “Last Train…” last night, I’m giving myself a half-day to, yanno, putter around with the embroidery box, clear away the debris from the last project, choose a new one, scrubble some cats, and what not. Tomorrow, I need to get with preparing Duainfey for release under the proper author name.

That’s today’s little bit of news.

Everybody stay well.

Oh! Blog-post title brought to you by The Monkees, of course, “The Last Train to Clarksville.” Here’s your link.

Writers’ Day Off

The weather forecast rain for the next, eh, six days, only yesterday was supposed to be cloudy and warmish.

So, we took yesterday off, and went down south to Ogunquit, a pretty little village by the sea.

The season isn’t quite in, so parking was Winter Well — aka free — at the public lot on Cottage Street. Steve and I alighted from Skylark the Subaru and walked out. The first thing Steve saw, after we’d crossed the street, was a sign that said, Footbridge to the Beach — so we did that.

There were people on the beach — barefoot children playing in the sand, their parents on beach chairs nearby. Lots of people, like us, walking, and staring, and walking some more. Ogunquit has a very interesting beach, and we were there at low tide, which meant we walking from the Norseman toward town center on the beach, rather than being forced by the tide to walk north, toward Wells.

Leaving the beach, we walked up to the village proper, where pre-season hours are in force at some places, while others were open. We stopped for tea cakes at Afternoon in Paris, bought chocolates at the chocolatier’s, explored the Village Market, and window-shopped.

We collected the car eventually and drove down to Perkins Cove to find that the public parking there was also on Winter Well, and had lunch at Jackie’s Too. Crab cakes, for those interested. Very good Maine crab cakes (this for those of us who grew up on the legendary Maryland crab cakes), with the interesting addition of (those who grew up on Maryland crab cakes may want to sit down for this next part) cheese in the mix.

After lunch, we walked around Perkins Cove, while the clouds congregated overhead. We got back to the car as the first drops began to spatter, and just over the town line into Wells when it began to rain in earnest.

Once home, we continued the theme. I did some embroidery, Steve read, we eventually had the evening meal, and so to bed.

Today, as predicted, it is raining. I have one, very brief errand to run out in Oakland, and then I’m in and writing for the next eight days, with two slight interruptions next Wednesday — to take Belle to the vet for her annual exam, and to get haircuts.

I’m aiming to finish Salvage Right by the end of April, so — off I go!

Ah, wait — have a couple of pictures from yesterday.

Perkins Cove, Ogunquit, Maine. Photo taken from the top of the drawbridge.

Writers’ Day Off

So, yesterday, it was sunny and warm, for values of warm that factor in March and Maine, and we called in one of our Rolling Days Off.

Now, what with one thing and another, I haven’t been driving much for the last, eh, year? Two years. Around town stuff — out to Unity Pond, or to Solon, but not what you’d call a Good Drive. Or not what I’d call a Good Drive. Understand, I like to drive, and it’s been a Point of Faith with me since I earned my ticket to fly that I could drive anywhere, any time, no problem. You wanna go to Mars? Fine, I’ll drive you to Mars; strap in.

For the first part of my treatment, I’d been driving myself to the Cancer Center — about 130 mile round trip — but then about half-way through the course, Radiation Fatigue set in, and Steve had to step up to be my chauffeur (cue the Beatles).

Now, the thing they don’t tell you about Radiation Fatigue, aside that “some” people experience it, is that — it hangs around after you’ve gotten done, received your graduation certificate from your ray-gunners, AND rung the bell. It hangs around for a long time.

Most usually, it manifests as a sudden, freewheeling Wall of Exhaustion — and I mean this exactly; you’ll be doing something — washing the dishes, reading, writing, driving — and BAM! you’re done. Now. You can barely hold your head up. There’s no predicting how, when, or why this will happen.

So, long story short, given the above, I haven’t been driving much. And, all other things being more or less back to normal — the other thing they don’t necessarily tell you about cancer recovery is that it takes a lot longer than you think — I decided to see if I couldn’t get my driving mojo back.

Frequent readers of this blog will recall that I recently bought a car — Tinsori the Honda. Tinsori is the back-up car. Our primary ride is a very nice Touring Subaru Forester with all kinds of safety features onboard, and it was the Forester that I drove out yesterday, Steve riding shotgun, all the way down to the ocean and back.

That’s a 200-mile round trip — no big deal — and I got to take a long walk on the beach, and we ate supper at one of our favorite restaurants; took another small on-foot tour of the town, stopped for ice cream on the way home, and!

It was fine. It was better than fine. No Wall of Exhaustion, not even on the horizon. So, I’m calling this a Modest Victory, and hope to repeat it — soon — and eventually arrive at a point where Steve doesn’t need to ride shotgun.

In Other News: I’ve completed my editorial pass through Section Two of Salvage Right, and Steve has it to read for continuity and general sense. In the meantime, I will be moving on to Section Three, continuing with the Write the Scenes You Know Method, with which I’m pretty well pleased. It means writing a lot of bridges, and sometimes having to frog, if the scene doesn’t wind up fitting exactly where it seemed to fit, but that’s all perfectly doable in the editing pass.

For those counting along at home, Salvage Right now stands at 64,656 words, or approximately half-done.

Here, have a snippet:

“One of the crew of Bechimo who may have valuable insight into my work. As you heard, we will speak in depth after the present task is completed, and I have slept.”

“Oh, you remembered sleep,” M Traven said, in a tone of broad enlightenment.

“If I had not, you would have reminded me,” Seignur Veeoni said, rising and moving toward the antechamber.

The writers, goofing off

So, we turned in a book! And the next one’s not due til next year, so, like the grasshoppers we are, we decided to take a vacation of Some Scope, rich with seal cruises, and eating out, and walking the seaside, and the town, and museums, and — well. Long story short, we have decided once again to be conservative (this seems really very unfair, as I share Padi yos’Galan’s dislike of being conservative, but here we are), and have scaled back our vacation plans, um…Quite A Bit.

I had schemed for Electron-Free, instead, we will be Electron-Lite, and our day-trip destinations will be chosen from among those shrinking areas in Maine where Covid and its cousin Delta are in lesser evidence. We will also be — see above — conservative.

So, yesterday! My suggestion was that we drive to Naples and have an ice cream. This morphed into driving to Naples and eating lunch on the back porch of the Freedom Cafe, overlooking Long Lake, and the various business that goes forth on that body of water in August.

My strawberry-blueberry-greens, feta, and chicken salad with lemon vinaigrette was awesome. Steve had many complimentary things to say about his fish ‘n chips, and just sitting somewhere that is not our dining room was…really splendid.

After lunch, Steve drove us along back roads to Pine Point, where we visited the salt water for a bit, before driving down to Old Orchard Beach, and actually finding a parking spot! So we had a small walk along the ocean there before heading home.

At Pine Point, a kind lady named Mary took a joint portrait of us, which is appended below.

I think that mostly catches us up. We’ll be back to work next week.

Everybody stay safe.

Of tablets, clocks, and Murderbot

Yesterday was Errands.

As you’re all of course aware the Samsung Galaxy Tab A7 Lite dropped yesterday, and it was in my mind to arrive at Best Buy in Augusta and Acquire One, since my old-in-computer-terms Asus tablet is trembling on the edge of the True Death.

Alas, the Best Buy in Augusta had no A7 Lites in-stock. They would have been pleased to order one for me, but yanno? I can do that myself.

So, onward!

Our next stop was Ellsworth, where we picked up the tambour clock that we had dropped off for repair in March, and and which I have missed DESperately every day it was gone.

Having driven to Ellsworth via the high-speed (where road construction is underway on both sides — welcome to summer in Maine), we opted to drive home via the low-speed (that’s Routes 1 and 3 to you), arriving in good time at Belfast, where we had a lovely under-the umbrella lunch at Nautilus at the harbor. Steve had the haddock sandwich and I had the portobello with melted cheese on toast, both pronounced excellent. There was green wine on offer, but we sadly declined, since there was still some driving to do.

Funny thing about Belfast harbor yesterday — there were no seagulls. No, not one, even though there were french fries in play.

We drove home, decided that the grocery shopping could be put off until today, and shared the piece of limoncello cake we brought home from Nautilus. Then Steve put the tambour clock back into its place in the living room bookshelf, I logged into B&H Photography and ordered myself a tablet, and we reconvened in the living room with a glass of wine, to finish reading Network Effect to each other.

In a few minutes, it’s off to the grocery store, then a story conference, then all story all the time for the Next While. I hear there are authors who never have Deadline Crunch, but those authors are not us.

It rained overnight; I’m not sure how much, and the weatherbeans today threaten us with roaming violent thunderstorms, armed with hail, so that will be exciting, and the more reason to do the grocery shopping early.

Everybody stay safe.

The Writers Goofing Off

Sunday, May 16 was our first non-medically aligned Electron-Free Day in. . .actually more than a year, and did double duty as a Sharon Practices Driving Day. Steve and I first drove down to Rockland, so we could take pictures of the harbor and pretty boats at play. Only…there were no boats at play or at rest. We walked around the harbor, from the Harbormaster’s Office to Archer’s on the Pier, and back, getting back into the car with cameras barely warm.

It was then we decided to go to Camden Hills State Park and see if the car was up to Climbing Mount Battie.

Short form, it was. Here are a few photos from a height.

Close up of sailboat on Penobscot Bay from Mount Battie

And so it goes…

It’s been a while since we last talked, and rightly may you ask “What on earth has the woman been doing?”

Well, I’ll tell you.

I finished with the Trader’s Leap copy edits, and returned them to M’sieur the Editor, who has passed them on to the typesetter. Which, yes, means that there is possibly an eArc in your Nearish Future.

The serialization of The Wrong Lance has finished. It will remain on Splinter Universe and Patreon through September 11 — coincidentally, my birthday. On September 12 all chapters and authors notes will be removed and compiled into a chapbook, Splinter Universe Presents: The Wrong Lance, for those folks who have requested a souvenir. Here’s the cover art:

We expect to release this concurrently with the mass market edition of Accepting the Lance, on October 22.

Oh, what else? Ah! I moderated a panel at reCONvene on August 15, marking my first time as a moderator and a panelist at a virtual convention. I had fun! My panelists — Steven Barnes, Jenn Brissett, Br Guy Consolmagno, and Adrian Tchaikovsky — were brilliant and I’d do it again in a heartbeat, which!

Happens to be a good thing, because Steve and I will be participating in AlbaCon in the Afternoon on Sunday, August 30 — which is coming right up! Other attendees are the writing team of Debra Doyle and James D. Macdonald. Steve and I will be reading — a bit from Trader’s Leap and another bit from a recent chapbook to be named later. More information will be forthcoming as we have it.

Other than those two events, we’re staying pretty quiet, and healing from the Compleat Disruption of Everything which has been the last 19 months of our lives. We’ve been reading a lot, as you can see from the lists I’ve been posting; taking advantage of the local Farm Pick Up for fresh fruits, veggies, meats, and cheeses, taking long country rides and visiting some of the little parks with which Maine is liberally sprinkled. We depend on InstaCart for our grocery shopping, and I’m kind of pleased at the fall-off in necessary doctor visits.

On that front, I have do still have one more medical appointment — this Wednesday — before taking up the new aromatase inhibitor (the first having, um, invoked Unwanted Side Effects), and Seeing What Happens. In the meanwhile, I have two pounds more to lose to hit the first 10 pounds my oncologist wants me to lose. This is a two-part process: first hit and maintain at 178 pounds, then move on to maintaining 170.

Yes, I have changed my diet, and it wasn’t really a hardship, since the “plant based” diet isn’t so very much different from what we’d been doing, anyway. Basically, it’s less bacon, more fish, and lots more veggies, but — I like veggies.

I’m also slowly getting back to something resembling exercise, though — I never thought I’d say this — I miss the gym. There you have it, though, I do miss the gym — almost as much as I miss going to the ocean.

Fans of the cats will wish to know that Belle has been feeling a little poorly. The cause appears to be her calcium levels, and she is now on a weekly, very low dose of Fosamax, of all things. She’ll have another blood draw in three to four weeks to see if this therapy is succeeding.

. . .I think that catches us up. I will try to do better about updates, now that life has settled somewhat, if not exactly returned to normal. Mostly, we’ll be writing, reading and cat herding here in Central Maine — which, come to think of it, is our normal.

Here’s a picture of Steve and me at Swan Lake State Park, in Swanville Maine.

The long view on Saturday Cove

So, yesterday. . .

Yesterday was Saturday. In addition, it was sunny, and warm, and, yeah, a little breezy, but with a welcome lack of winter tooth. A pre-spring breeze, in fact.

Friday morning, I had gone out into the world — aka to two places which were not hospitals (the pharmacy and the post office, and yes, I was wearing a mask) — and had noticed that Skylark the Subaru was just a tad reluctant to start. I mentioned this to Steve, who mentioned that Saturday was looking good for us to Do Our Duty by our Vehicle, and take it out for a battery-reviving ride.

Which is what we did. We picked a target — Lincolnville Beach in Ducktrap (or, if you prefer, Lincolnville) — and a route — over Pleasant View Ridge in China, which afforded a tremendous view of Mount Washington, as well as Sugarloaf, and — it was just the White Mountains and the Appalachians, as far as the eye could see.

Anyhow, we were motoring along quite contentedly, enjoying ourselves and the sun, and remarking on how many branches the winter had shaken out of the trees, and everything was going well, until. . .

We made a Fatal Error.

We stopped for gas.

For those non-drivers among us — when you stop for gas, you turn the car off.

In an Ideal Universe, once you’ve finished filling the tank, you get back in the car, turn the key, the motor turns over, and Bob’s your uncle.

In a less-than-Ideal-Universe, which is where we all seem to be stuck, the car — doesn’t start.

So, there we were, at the Irving gas station on Route 3, right next to Lori’s Diner, blocking access to a gas delivery point, dead, so to speak, in the water.

We called Triple A which this time did not fail us, and very soon we had Sparky himself from Sparky’s Garage, who gave us a boost with a — wait for it — handheld battery about the size of an ipad, and three times as thick.

On the road again, we resumed our drive, arriving at Lincolnville Beach to find that the Entire Population of Central Maine had thought to themselves, “Yanno? nobody will be at Ducktrap.” We passed on by, waving at the ocean, and headed up-coast, diverting into Northport, which — no, I can’t describe Northport. I love the place, but I have peculiar tastes in villages. Say, that Northport is built vertically above the sea; all roads, save the ridge road to which we scrupulously adhered, go either up, briefly, to the top of the hill, or down, eventually, to the sea.

The ridge road allows many good view of the sea, close in and distant, and so we drove, looking out, across to Searsport, and down to where the odd little boathouses are tucked into crinkles of land right at the edge of the water, and down to more public places, Saturday Cove, and the center harbor.

Coming out of Northport, we continued up to Belfast, did a circuit of the crowded public pier, and so to home, stopping to sit in line at Burger King, to gather fish sandwiches to take home.

So, that was fun, and I’m glad we got out for a drive. Less fun, I’m going to have get a new battery in the car — and soon. I want the car to start, and no back-chat, when I get out of Ray Gun Therapy. That means — new battery before Wednesday, which is complicated by the fact that the weatherbeans are calling for 3-5 inches of snow between 8pm this evening, and midnight, Monday.

Oh, April, you really are the cruelest month.