Category: Life with Coon Cats

Saturday check-in

So, it was a busy week here in Central Maine.

On Monday, I went to my first ever book club meeting.  There are three of us, and all — including the leader — book club virgins.  We’re reading Comfort is an Old Barn a collection of columns by local reporter/columnist Amy Calder.  I worked with Amy many years ago now at the Morning Sentinel.  Steve and I went to her book talk at the Waterville Library back in December, and bought her book, but I hadn’t yet dipped into it, so this was a good opportunity.  Our group of three is relaxed enough to agree that we’ll make it up as we go along, and our next meeting is set for Monday after next.

Also on Monday, I opened up Steve’s file for Double Vision, which he had been reformatting for ebook publication just before he died.  It was very close to complete, so I finished up the little bit that remained, compiled the file and downloaded it to my tablet for a quality check.

Tuesday morning was a session with the grief counselor, which more or less puts a period to Tuesdays.  I spent the day getting Steve’s papers into traveling boxes, and getting Double Vision uploaded to various distributors.  It is now available for pre-order from the vendor of your choice.  It will be available for immediate download on June 1 from those vendors, and also from the Baen site.

Wednesday, I filled some more boxes with Steve’s papers, running out of papers at the same time I ran out of boxes.  I love it when a plan comes together.

On Wednesday, it was Revealed that I need a new roof, which was . . . not particularly pleasant news.

Wednesday also saw the Grand Arrival of 200 copies of Ribbon Dance, to be signed and sent on to Uncle Hugo’s SF Bookstore in Minneapolis.  If you would like a signed copy, you may reserve one here.

I finished signing the books and resealing the boxes Thursday night, and UPS will be picking them up on Monday.

As an aside — signing those books obviously wasn’t the hardest thing I’d ever had to do, but it was . . . not easy.  The arrival of books to sign used to be reason for a party for Steve and me.  This time — not so much.  No promises one way or another, but this may be the last time I do this.  Not only because of the heartbreak angle, but — tossing around 30 pound boxes of books isn’t getting any easier.  I’m 71, after all, and getting old sucks.

Where was I?  Ah –Thursday.  Thursday, I called the insurance company in re the necessity of replacing the roof.  An adjuster will be with me on Monday.  In the meantime, I have an estimate for replacement, which is — yeah.  It’s a big roof.

On Friday, I affixed labels to boxes of books and also to boxes containing Steve’s papers, then I spent the rest of the day with the WIPnovel, on which I am behind because — well.  Oh, and the curtain rod across the window in Steve’s hallway finally failed, dumping the curtains onto the floor, but doing no more serious damage.  I have a tension rod on order, which is supposed to arrive tomorrow, and I hope to get the window decently covered then.

Friday night, I posted Ryk Spoor’s Guest Column on the Liaden Universe and Ribbon Dance here.

Today, I have a couple things to do, including updating this blog, but I intend to spend most of the day with the WIP — and tomorrow, too.  I am also waiting for FedEx Ground to stop by and take on Steve’s papers, the first part of their journey to the Cushing Memorial Library, in Texas.

And that catches us all the way up.

Below we see the Crack Box Inspection Team of Trooper and Firefly, inspecting boxes.

Saturday check-in

So, in-between remembering to promote our work, and taking care of the cats, and writing less than I would like but more than one colleague has assured me is possible, I’ve been putting Steve’s papers into boxes for eventual shipment to the archive at Texas A&M.

This means that I’ve been reading old letters, and poetry, and notes about what’s for supper; submission letters and rejections.  And there’s this whole long … thread, let’s call it, around a story called “The One About Dancing,” which I remember in concept, but not in any detail.   It seems that it started as a Notion that Steve had that stalled.  I then had Notion and it got kickstarted, and we tried to sell the hell outta that story.  We sent it to Amazing, we sent it to Owlflight, then at last to Spectrum SF.

Paul ____ at Spectrum . . . wasn’t particularly encouraging.  He wanted extensive edits, which Steve was game to take on.  My name was on the story for a while, as co-author, but I removed it after Steve starting working with Paul on revisions.  He was doing the bulk of the work there, because I probably had a day-job, and I didn’t feel that I was contributing enough to the emerging work to be listed as a coauthor.

So, anyway, Paul finally declared the revised Tanj (the name of the main character was Jobber Tanj, and we referred to the story as “Tanj”), and I quote  “Wow!”  His last letter is about the concept art, and a request for a follow-up Tanj story.

Then . . . nothing.

I assume Spectrum went out of business.  I don’t remember, honestly.  Nineteen-eighty-two was a long time ago.  I did a quick ‘n dirty websearch, and can’t find any info.  It’s as if it never  existed, except that I Have This File.

Aside the Mystery of the Disappearing Market, what struck me about the Tanj thread is how . . . friendly and helpful the editors — Elinor, Millea, Paul — were.  Even the rejection letters for other stories were cordial and tried to pinpoint what didn’t work.  Even given that sometimes what didn’t work was what we considered to be the Point of the story, that was . . . extraordinarily generous.

So, there’s that.

In other news, it looks as if Maine has entered True Spring, with the daytime highs regularly hitting the high 50s/low 60s (F) and the nighttime lows staying above freezing.

A couple of folks have asked if I’ll be at BaltiCon, and the answer, sadly, is no.  I really don’t expect to be attending any cons for the foreseeable.  I miss you all, but — no.  Or at the very least — not yet.

And I think that more-or-less catches us all up.

Oh, wait.  Here’s a picture of Firefly in her space capsule, which conveyed her to her annual wellness appointment with the vet yesterday.  She was declared to be both gorgeous and healthy.

Forty-two

So, it’s raining, as it has been for the last few days.  For a couple of those days, I had back spasms and was therefore zoned out on muscle relaxants and pain killers, which you’d think would make some things easier, but — didn’t.

I’m finding the wind and the rain unsettling, which is something of an about-face.  I used to love wild weather.  Well.  Perhaps that’s something for young people, who may not be overly worried about trees, or wires, coming down.

I was born during a hurricane, as my father told me, so maybe I had a predisposition, or even a kinship.  I used to race the wind — at first running; later in my car.  I grew up in Baltimore, which was a thunderstorm-rich area.  I loved the smell of ozone, and would stand outside to watch the lightning crackle across the sky.

The weather in Central Maine doesn’t tend toward violent thunderstorms.  We get your nor’easters — wind and snow; wind and rain; your occasional sou’easter.  Hurricanes, ayuh, we get those, too.  And I find that I’m not a wind-junkie anymore, and that makes me sad.

In other news, I’m writing, slowly, and trying to stay on-topic.  It’s so very weird, not to print out the pages and leave them on the dining room table for Steve to read.  Instead, I print out what I wrote every evening, so I can read it over my  breakfast — that works, pretty much.  The worst part is when, mid-writing, I’ll ask myself, “And why are we doing this, exactly?” — it kind of derails the process.

Still, work is going forward, and I’ll take progress.

Below, proof of coon cats being on the case.

 

 

Keeping on keeping on

So!  What on earth has the woman been doing?

Sorting through photographs, and Steve’s papers, and making some decisions thereby.  Fanac.org was kind enough to take the box of fanzines I gathered, and will be digitizing and putting them on the site as time and volunteers allow.

Steve’s papers include some correspondence with interesting people in the field, and a file drawer of handwritten, unpublished poetry.  Steve had been a traveling poet before I knew him, and he wrote poems like you and I doodle.  By contrast, his fiction is — surprisingly sparse, mostly seeming to be many iterations of the same five or six stories, along with a couple that I dimly recall seeing, that had apparently been pitched in a box in frustration after gathering too many rejections.

The majority of what he left, though, are photographs.  Steve was very rarely without a camera, and thus I am left with many (unsorted) glimpses of cats, daily life, cats, moments from the Liaden Universe® World Tour, time spent with the Friends of Liad, cats, and, err, me, along with pictures of us, and pictures of Steve, because he insisted that I have a camera, too, that being one of the markers of a civilized person to him, though I was never as prolific on film as he was.  Oh, and pictures of cats.

Because of a combination of things — the sparseness of his papers, the convention badges and program books that I had no idea what to do with, the proliferation of personal letters, cards, and photographs, gave me the idea of making what I first conceived of as “a scrapbook,” but which will probably be three, or four, scrapbooks by the time I’m done.  I’m thinking that there will be narrative, written by me, because the pictures are jogging my memory — never robust — and of course Steve left no notes of his own.

I have already sorted some of the photos into the existing album, which is what opened my eyes to the fact that a single album, with dividers, was Just Not Going to Do the Job, and I spent what was probably a stupidly long time looking at how many pictures there are of me, and questioning their part in this project.  In the end, I came to the conclusion that, yes, the pictures of me are part of the narrative; after all, the photographer considered the pictures worth taking.

In addition to the above, I’ve been writing — not as quickly as I’d like, but that’s usually the case — and going to gym, and mostly keeping up with daily life, in this vastly changed environment.  The coon cats are keeping a very close eye on me, which I can hardly blame them for, considering the number of A-List players we’re lost lately.

One thing I haven’t done is an InfoDump, and I really ought to.  Some people will have missed the news about Steve, and there’s the Ribbon Dance eARC to promote, and the upcoming Salvage Right mass market because Life Does Go On, and books are in a very literal sense, my life.

Well.  Maybe this weekend for the InfoDump.

I think that catches us up for right now.

Thank you all for your patience, and for your support down many years through many stories.

 

 

 

It’s a wonderful night for a Ribbon Dance

First things being first — I am under the impression that the Ribbon Dance eARC will drop Sometime Today.  Here’s your link to the Baen eARC page.

For those joining us after the break, an eARC is a Baen Tradition, in which electronic A(dvance)R(eading)C(opies) are offered to those readers who Simply Cannot Wait for the release of the hardcover/ebook, three months down the road.  eARCs may contain errors that do not appear in the finished book.  In the case of Ribbon Dance, such errors will be on the level of typos and broken sentences — which is to say, not story-altering.

In other news, tomorrow will be the fourth anniversary of my mastectomy.  Also!  Gifford’s ice cream stand, which is a scant half mile from the Cat Farm, will reopen for the season tomorrow.  No, these things are not related, saving that I may go out for ice cream tomorrow afternoon, in support of local business.

My brother-in-law and nephew came up from mid-Coast for a couple days and helped me get a lot accomplished, including pulling a bunch of boxes out of Steve’s closet, which went in there 6 years ago and were never heard from again, cleaning out the Goblin Room and the Winter Room, clearing the garage, and even doing some needed yard work.  It would have taken me months to do what they did in two days.

I’m left with details in terms of papers and photographs and the … things that one accumulates just by having lived a busy life.

I will say that, having seen Steve’s brother in action — I knew Steve had been getting tired, but not how tired he actually was.  I couldn’t have done anything about it, and I know that, but it still leaves me feeling like I let the side down.

Well.

Monday, I’ll be starting what I hope to be a long-term exercise class at the Community Center, which meets at 8:15 M/W/F.  I have apparently acquired the vice of early rising, so this ought to be perfectly doable, and provide the dual benefits of exercise, and human interaction.

I think that gets us caught up for the moment.

Oh, wait.

Here, have some pictures of coon cats.

Sprite atop the file cabinet
Trooper in my co-pilot’s chair
Firefly at the top of the living room cat tree

And when the stars threw down their spears

It’s a funny thing, how life goes on.  Until it doesn’t, of course, but we’re very good as a species about ignoring that.

So — life.  Much changed, but still moving, still demanding attention, response, thought, and action.

My short-term goal is to find all of Steve’s papers — which is not as easy as you might think — and get them into boxes to send to the archive at Northern Illinois University.  My brother-in-law and nephew are coming up from mid-Coast in a few days to help me, literally, with the heavy lifting, and a Dumpster has been engaged to receive such things as no longer have utility.

My longer-term goals are to finish the sequel to Ribbon Dance — the deadline having been moved from September to November — and start work on the book after that.

In-between all that, there’s the Ordinary:  Litter pans do not clean themselves, after all (well, OK; apparently some litter pans clean themselves); bills still need to be paid; meals eaten; dishes washed; cats scrubbled, groomed, and played with.  Credit where it’s earned:  the coon cats are keeping me to a Tight Schedule, demanding tools down at precisely 7:11 pm, so that Happy Hour may commence (Happy Hour starting with a shared can of gooshy food, after which we — by which I mean, three cats and a woman — make a pile on the sofa for an hour, until it’s time for me to get my meal.)

In the planning stages are a return to the gym (I had cancelled my membership, because the cash, it was not flowing), which is in the Community Center, where  there are people.  I’m also going to have to look around me for a book, lunch, or sewing club.  I score pretty high as an Introvert, not to mention a tendency toward Black Knighthood, but even I need some human contact.

Under Ordinary:  I believe that the eARC of Ribbon Dance is due to drop on March 15 — so, yanno, Watch the Skies.

I do want to mention that people had asked for a place to write about Steve and how he touched their lives.  I’ve set up a page here for that purpose.  If you choose to contribute, please understand that you are not required to be Solemn.  Steve loved to laugh, and was rarely solemn himself.

And I think that catches us up.  Everybody stay safe.

Today’s blog title brought to you by William Blake, The Tiger.*

_________
*Steve was born in a Year of the Tiger

At the beginning of the movie, they know they have to find each other

. . .  but they ride off in opposite directions.

So, yesterday, I did manage to write most of the day, with needed breaks for, oh, changing the bed, and taking a walk, and like that.

Anyhow!  Yesterday, I wrote.  I sat down at the keyboard knowing exactly how I wanted this to go, and, 1600 or so words later, discovered that I had written!

Something entirely else.  And worse–it didn’t work.

Yeah, I hate when that happens.  Sometimes–just often enough to let you think that your fingers really do know better–the difference not only works, but it’s better than what the brain put forth.  But, yanno, not always.

So, today, I will write again, and this time I’ll stick to the script, and see if I can’t get this thing put to bed, because tomorrow I really do need to get back to the novel.  I mean, September isn’t getting any further away.

Otherwise here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory, RL continues to put itself forward, which doesn’t make it easy to write, though Needs Must of course.  Or, if you like–Necessity.

Speaking of RL–over the weekend, our mailbox fell off it’s post.  I went out in what was then rain and wind to put it back, found it wasn’t a matter of just Putting It Back, went inside for rope, but found none, and finally grabbed a roll of duct tape, which as we all know, holds the universe together.

Only, not in the rain.

Right about then, my neighbor, who had been snowblowing his drive, came across the lawn from his garage, waving a nautical cinch strap.  Together, we got the mailbox strapped to the post, and he promised to help me achieve a More Regular Solution later in the week.  Good neighbor, yeah.

Yesterday, which dawned sunny and cold, he called to tell me that he was going to take the mailbox down to his workshop, and fix it up, which he proceeded to do, drafting his wife into the project as a stabilizer for the last step.

I went out to thank them, and to see if there was anything I could do, but they had it in hand, and all but done by the time I got there.  I did give them a signed copy of Salvage Right:  “The writer’s equivalent of a batch of cookies,” is what I told them.

“Oh, no!” came the answer with a broad grin. “This is like homemade jam!”

We are, indeed, fortunate in our neighbors.

Now?  I’m going to work, as above.  You’ll see that I’m well-supervised:

 

 

Today’s blog title brought to you by Laurie Anderson, “Sharkey’s Day.”  Here’s your link.

Saturday in the City

It’s a holiday weekend, so I’m told.

Here in the center of Maine, we’re looking at sun and warm weather starting, oh, today, and getting progressively warmer — kissing 90F mid-week — before exiting on thunderstorms, next Friday, and falling off into more seasonal temps.

For those following along at home, I’ve been using my XChair for a little over two weeks now, and it’s a delight.  Well worth the money.

The household is slowly reforming around the hole where Belle used to be.

Trooper has stopped going to her usual places and calling.  He had seemed to form the theory that the front door was involved, and twice tried to step out onto the front porch to scope things out while we were in-loading groceries.  Turned out that was too scary for everybody, and I think we’re past that now.

Sprite has been stepping up into what had been Belle’s special duties, such as sitting on Steve’s lap while he reads, and felining his copilot’s chair.  Firefly has also been coming forward to cover some of Sprite’s duties.

The humans still get lumps in their throats at odd moments, or will abruptly notice that they haven’t seen Belle in a while and hope she hadn’t gotten herself stuck in a closet . . .

It’s a process.

On the Professional side of the coin, Baen has let us know that Ribbon Dance will be released in June 2024.  David Mattingly is even now hard at work on the cover.

Steve is working on Trade Lanes.  Though I had intended to put my feet up and take it easy for the next while, it looks like I’m working on the follow-up to Ribbon Dance.  Well.  If the book’s ready to be written, I guess I’m ready to write it.

I think that catches us all up — no, not quite.

Steve and I went out yesterday to forage, and I very much fear that!

A dragon followed me home.

Mini Check-in

Today’s Plan insofar as there is A Plan, is! to finish this last chunk of Ribbon Dance today and give it to Steve to read. Target is a Monday turn-in to Baen.

After which I collapse. And clean out the linen closet. And catch up on that Big Pile of Stuff Over There. Also, I think I volunteered to write a story for a ZNB anthology. Ought to find out about that.

Mooching over to Amazon, I see that Salvage Right has collected 450 reviews by this, its one-month mark (released on July 4. Yes, I know July has 31 days. I am a Slave to Symmetry.) Many, many thanks to those who have read, reviewed and/or rated. We appreciate your time, your thoughts, and your contributions to the Cat Food Trust.

Here, have a picture of Sprite being appreciative.

. . . and back to work I go.