Lee and Miller Boskone Schedule

As previously advertised, Steve and I will be at Boskone (February 19-21, 2016) in Boston, MA for New England’s longest running science fiction and fantasy convention. It’s going to be a fun weekend filled with books, film, art, music, gaming, and more, and we’d love to see you there! For more information about Boskone, check out The Boskone Blog, Twitter, and Facebook. Visit the Boskone website to register. The Full Con Schedule may be found here.

Our schedule for the weekend is below. Also look for us in the Art Show, the Dealer’s Room, and sitting around the lobby, chatting with friends.

We also try to host a Friends of Liad breakfast each year at Boskone. Because this requires active collaboration with the hotel restaurant staff, we will not know time or day until we are on-site. As soon as we know, we will Put the Word Out.

Boskone Schedule:

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

FRIDAY

Collaboration: Writers, Artists, and More!
Friday 6:00 – 6:50, Harbor III (Westin)
Creative collaboration is an endurance event. Each experience is different, whether working in a shared universe, co-writing a story, or working word by word with another author. Whatever the scenario, it can be an immensely rewarding experience. However, personalities can clash and the final decision isn’t always mutual. If you’re curious about creative collaborations and want to find out where to start or how to avoid the most common missteps, this panel is for you.
Steve Miller (M), Julie C. Day, Teddy Harvia, Stephen Hickman, Sharon Lee

SATURDAY

Kaffeeklatsch 2: Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
Saturday 10:00 – 10:50, Harbor I-Kaffeeklatsch 2 (Westin)

Foppish Fiction: The Dandy in SF/F/H
Saturday 11:00 – 11:50, Harbor II (Westin)
The Scarlet Pimpernel and Zorro both hid their secret identities behind foppish appearances. We’ll explore their descendants, both male and female, in speculative fiction. Then there’s the effete ruler of a decadent empire as a trope (or is that a meme?) of our genres. And what about the sidekick with a flair for fashion? Why are our protagonists all Winters in jewel tones, and none of them Autumns in burnt umber?
Sharon Lee (M), Ellen Asher, Debra Doyle, Grady Hendrix, Walter Jon Williams

Reading: Steve Miller & Sharon Lee
Saturday 12:00 – 12:25, Griffin (Westin)

How You Get the Word Out: Starting and Running a Successful Podcast
Saturday 2:00 – 2:50, Harbor III (Westin)
Podcasting gives us an outlet to share our thoughts and ideas with the world, and everyone seems to have something (perhaps a lot) to say. But is podcasting right for everyone? How do you go about “bootstrapping” a podcast? What do you need and what do you need to know? How do you attract and keep an audience? Where do you find a place to host your site? Successful ‘casters pass on their secrets.
Steve Miller (M), Kate Baker, C.S.E. Cooney, Don Pizarro, Brianna Spacekat Wu

Romance Across Space and Time
Saturday 3:00 – 3:50, Marina 2 (Westin)
Romance shows up in the unlikeliest places: from prehistory to the far-flung future; from pole to pole; from fantasy and science fiction to horror. Must it be a guilty pleasure? Or should we proudly proclaim the heart of the matter: wherever they may find it, all the world loves a love story!
Darlene Marshall (M), D L Carter, Mary Kay Kare, Steve Miller, E.J. Stevens

Writing: Pinning Down Your Plot
Saturday 4:00 – 4:50, Marina 3 (Westin)
Complicated plots need proper handling. Writers who lose control of a twisty tale can confuse and/or alienate their readers. But just how do authors manage a complex story line? Come hear their tips for keeping track of the trickiest of plots.
Steven Popkes (M), Ken Altabef, Sharon Lee, Christie Meierz, Vincent O’Neil

Boskone Book Party
Saturday 6:00 – 7:20, Galleria-Stage (Westin)
Join us for Boskone’s Multi-Author Book Party, see what’s new from authors you love, and discover new favorites. Boskone is also launching three NESFA Press books tonight: The Collected Stories of Poul Anderson Vol 7, Conspiracy!, and The Grimm Future. (Authors and publishers with a new book and a current Boskone membership are welcome to take part; contact program@boskone.org for details.)
D L Carter, Tom Easton, Grady Hendrix, Carlos Hernandez, E. C. Ambrose, Judith K. Dial, Sharon Lee, Steve Miller, Cerece Rennie Murphy, N.A. Ratnayake, Erin Underwood

SUNDAY

NESFA Book Club: Conflict of Honors by Sharon Lee & Steve MIller
Sunday 11:00 – 11:50, Griffin (Westin)
This February, the NESFA Book Club hosts its monthly meeting at Boskone. Join us as we discuss Conflict of Honors by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller, who will join the group halfway through the discussion in order to lead a Q&A. All members are welcome and newcomers are encouraged to attend.
Michael Sharrow (M), Sharon Lee, Steve Miller

Autographing: James Cambias, Sharon Lee, Steve Miller
Sunday 12:00 – 12:50, Galleria-Autographing (Westin)

Take Me To Your Leader
Sunday 1:00 – 1:50, Harbor II (Westin)
Does SF/F get leaders all wrong? How do leaders in large organizations actually act? Are leaders creative? What motivates them? Let’s compare character archetypes from page and screen to real-world leaders.
Stephen P. Kelner Jr. (M), A.C.E. Bauer, Vincent Docherty, Sharon Lee, Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Exoplanets Are Out There
Sunday 1:00 – 1:50, Burroughs (Westin)
Did you ever expect to view exoplanets from Earth? SF writers since Doc Smith seemed to assume we’d discover planets only when we approached the stars they orbited. Now astronomers have confirmed 2,000 exoplanets and counting; they’re designing new devices to resolve their spectra and hint at their habitability. Was this a failure of imagination, a choice to build drama, or an unexpected success of astronomical instrumentation? Didn’t any writers get it right?
Charles Gannon (M), Jeff Hecht, Beth Meacham, Steve Miller, Mark L. Olson

PSA: The next Theo novel

Theo Waitley has a lot of fans, and they write to us from time to time, politely pointing out that it’s been, like, forever (or 2012, whichever comes first) since the latest installment of her story, and they wonder when the next Theo book will finally gladden their lives.

Sadly, because of how we write (organically, say some; chaotically, say others), we have not been able to answer this seemingly simple question.

Until now!

Now, we can say, with authority, that Theo will play a large part in The Gathering Edge, the 20th novel in the Liaden Universe®. We’ve known this for a number of months, and I apologize for not saying so sooner, but, um, I’d forgotten it was an issue until, providentially, someone wrote to me, wondering when we were going to get around to continuing Theo’s story, and I realized that this was a topic Of Interest to Many.

So, yes — The Gathering Edge. Theo. Also the Uncle, Miri and Val Con, and — oh, a number of folks, some of whom you won’t meet until Alliance of Equals, which is kind of the bad news here.

See, Alliance of Equals is the 19th novel in the Liaden Universe®, and it’s not a Theo novel. It’s a Shan novel, sort of — possibly a Padi novel more than a Shan, but in that range. It, too, features the Uncle, and those folks you haven’t met yet, and it?

Is scheduled to be published on July 5, 2016.

We’re writing The Gathering Edge now — in fact, we just cracked 50,000 words (or passed the Theoretical Halfway Point, which sounds a little more encouraging, though its unlikely to be True) of the first-draft-and-a-half yesterday. The final manuscript is due on Madame the Editor’s desk in mid-February, 2016.

So, while there’s a Theo novel on the road to publication — yay! — you’ve gotta use binoculars to see it.

I am not going to predict when Edge will be published. Every time I produce my best guess for a date, Madame surprises me, so we’ll just say — publication is expected after July 2016.

Here ends the PSA.

For the FB peeps, a rare photo of Scrabble, who, unfortunately, had her forcefield engaged:

Alliance of Equals, by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller

This is in the way of being a Public Service Announcement.

Alliance of Equals, the nineteenth novel in Sharon Lee and Steve Miller’s long-running space opera set in the Liaden Universe®!

Alliance of Equals, I say, has a (hardcover) publication date of July 5, 2016. Yes, that is nine months from now. No, there’s not really anything we can do to “pressure” (cue laugh track) the publisher into releasing the novel earlier. No, we will not sell you our final manuscript (to be fair, no one has asked to buy the Alliance manuscript, yet, but we’ve had such “offers” in the past, and, in the spirit of forestalling any more. . .).

And honestly, even if there was a way to “pressure” the publisher into releasing the book early? We wouldn’t do it, because — we’d like our book to get a calm editorial reading and a thorough edit — and so would you.

Now, yes, Baen does often release eArcs of new novels ahead of the hardcover publication date, but they don’t release the eArcs six months ahead. And what if they did, and you got the book now? Have you really thought this out? Because if you got Alliance of Equals, now? You’d be in the same pickle, only worse, for The Gathering Edge, which we’re writing, now; and which is scheduled to be handed in on February 15, 2016. Figure 11 months out for hardcover publication — that’s January 2017, at the earliest. So, really, do you even want to go there?

Anyhow, we were given a general rule of thumb from the publisher, which is: Expect the eArc (if any) to be released around the time you, the authors, receive your authors’ proofs. We receive our authors’ proofs anywhere from two to three months ahead of the hardcover publication date, so, counting backward from July: June. May. April. . . .with April being the soonest you might see an eArc and mid-May about the latest.

Now! Baen does release sample chapters on the Baen website when a book becomes available for preorder. I actually don’t know when books typically go up for preorder; historically, Amazon has been the driver, and Amazon used to put books up for preorder as soon as they heard a whisper of even a tentative pub date from a publisher, never mind a final schedule.

Steve and I are in something of an odd geography in this whole situation of release dates and reader demand. On the one hand, it’s lovely that people are eager for our newest work. Really, it is. But, the wheels of publishing grind as they do. Baen publishes authors other than Lee and Miller, who also deserve to have their books receive a calm editorial reading and a thorough edit. And even if we “quit trad publishing and go indie,” as has been suggested by some avid fans — we probably wouldn’t write any faster. In fact, I’m betting our production would slow down, because we’d have to do all the stuff that the staff at Baen does for us, in addition to writing the novels.

While I accept that there are folks out there who can write a strong, salable book in an afternoon, and writers who consistently write and see published four or six books a year with no reduction of quality — Lee and Miller are not those authors. We have never been those authors*. A book a year is a comfortable writing pace for us; a pace that allows us to reflect, and to layer in the details and back-stories that readers have told us make the Liaden Universe® novels “special” and “very re-readable.” We value these things about our work, as you do, and we don’t want to slight the characters, our readers, or ourselves.

So. . .thank you for reading our work; thank you for supporting our work; thank you for recommending our work to your friends and colleagues. Thank you for treating the release of every new Liaden novel and story as a cause for celebration — we feel that way, too.

But, we really are writing as fast as we can; the publisher is publishing as fast as they can. We’re all hostages to the constraints of linear time.
_____________
*Back in 2007, we were those writers, briefly. We wrote six books in 18 months, while I was working a full-time job. It was an insane, stressful time, when the only thing we did was write, eat cheese sandwiches at the computer, snatch three hours of sleep before going to the day-job — and at the end of it, neither one of us had an ounce of creative energy left. I have no idea how people work to that level, constantly — all honor to them. What we learned from that experience was — we can write books fast, briefly, or we can write books at a more leisurely pace, for years to come. We chose the latter.

Placeholder picture of Belle, for the Facebook peeps:

What on earth has the woman been doing?

. . .mostly, I’ve been going through the manuscript of The Gathering Edge, fixing sentences, doing continuity checks, breaking long chapters into short chapters, moving a chapter up, sharpening dialogue, and layering in details. At the moment, the word count stands at 36,777, with a net gain of about 2,000 words.

“Net gain” is of course a moving target. Whole paragraphs have been removed from the playing board — and replaced with other paragraphs. I have wantonly removed maybe 300 total words of an explanation that will be needed later, but happened not to be in the right place. Maybe a couple thousand “new” words have been written, but there’s really no way to quantify that. “Word count” as an indicator of progress is really only (sort of) useful in the active drafting phase; there’s no good indicator of progress being made in the revision/squaring-up phases of the work, except maybe, “Yes; that’s better!”

At the moment, the manuscript is in the form of one Largish Lump of narrative, following one set of characters, and several Smaller Lumps of narrative, following other characters. These will have to be woven together at some point, but, at just over a third of a book, word-count-wise, we don’t have enough material to begin that particular process.

So! That’s what I’ve been doing. I’m a little over half-way through revising/sharpening/squaring-up the Largish Lump. Today, after I get through Various Mundane Chores, I’ll sit down with my red pen and the other half of the LL and get to work.

In other news, the GoFundMe project for replacing Larry Smith’s van (for those coming in late, ref here and here), is $5,292 short of the $30,000 goal. If you can, please donate; if you can’t donate, you can still help by spreading the word. Thanks so much.

Here’s a picture of Sprite in one of her favorite places, overlooking the Cat Garden.

Friday Morning Newszine

A*. As many of you know, Larry Smith, known variously as Larry!; Larry Smith, Bookseller; and “the guy in the corner of the dealers room with allllllll the books” — Larry Smith was in an auto accident on his way home from DragonCon; the van rolled, and needs Major Repairs, or perhaps a replacement. Larry, and Joni Dashoff, who was also in the van, were very lucky, due to a combination of seatbelts and canny packing of books and display shelves. Larry did have to spend some time in the hospital, but he was eventually released, and went home to inventory, and take, stock.

The news now is that, while — again, due to canny packing — the loss of stock was minimal, Larry — is back in the hospital. Con-going fans are aware that this is Archon weekend, and Sally — Larry’s wife, and businessmate — was, last heard, seriously wondering if she should even try to get to the con.

So, what we have here is: A van to repair or replace; unexpected hospital bills; loss of expected income. Not a good roll, on anybody’s dice.

Immediately after the accident, Marcia Kelly Illingsworth set up a GoFundMe page for Larry and Sally and the poor, abused van. Here’s your link. If you can donate, that’s super. If you can spread the word, that will help immensely.

Thanks for listening.

B. We are approaching the end of the seventh and last! week of the Do It Like A Delm Challenge. Entries must be received by midnight, Eastern Daylight Time (aka New York Time), on Saturday (tomorrow!) October 3. The last winner will be chosen and posted on korval.com Monday morning, October 5. The winning challenger will also receive a coupon for a free Baen ebook of their choice. Full rules here.

If you’ve been thinking about entering your challenge pic, you are right down to the wire. Summon your inner delm — or always wonder if you could have.

C. Submissions are now open for The Year’s Best Military and Adventure Science Fiction series from Baen Books. Full guidelines here.

D. I was going to write something about Writers Fugue, and Process and All. Maybe later. Right now, I have to balance the checkbook.

E. Y’all have a nice weekend. If you’re in the storm path, stay safe. Even if you’re not in the storm path, stay safe.

F. Here’s a picture of Sprite, resting after her labors**:

Sprite, recuperating from her latest nap.

____________

*WordPress has decided to be helpful, and format every numbered list into a squinched-up, impossible to read, “standard” format. Lists-by-letter don’t seem to be on its radar. And, so. . .

**I often post pictures at the bottom of my blog posts to make the announcement of the post prettier for Facebook, which, left to its own devices, usually posts a GINORMOUS (and ugly) G+ graphic. For those who dislike, or are tired of, photos of cats, spare a little empathy for the Facebook peeps, and avert your eyes. Thank you.

Cons, Coon Cats, and Boring Health Stuff

This is in the nature of a catch-up post.

For those who have been following along with the numbers game at home, the latest information garnered from the latest blood test is that the 1 mg dose of thyroid medicine is a winner. The poor pituitary has stopped with overtime manufacturing of kick-me hormones for the thyroid, and the thyroid is producing numbers in the normal range without being kicked, and — this being the important part — I am fully awake and at optimum crankiness and sarcasm levels for the first time in. . .years.

Come to think of it, that should serve as a Public Service Announcement.

Also — this repeats news shared on Facebook yesterday evening — I have successfully concluded a project years in the making — a ceiling fan in my office. I’m so happy — I can’t tell you. Here’s a picture:

. . .isn’t it BEAUtiful?

I have been reminded to remind y’all that! Registration for BaltiCon 50, held over Memorial Day Weekend, May 27-30, 2016, at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel, is now open. Here’s the direct link.

In addition to Guests of Honor George RR Martin, John Picacio, Bill and Gretchen Roper, and Martin Deutsch and Shirley Avery, BaltiCon 50 aims to welcome back as many of the con’s previous Guests of Honors as are interested and able to come. So far, 21 Alumni GoHs have agreed to return for BaltiCon’s 50th anniversary, including Steve and me (Writer GoHs, BaltiCon 37, 2003).

This is a big, big project, and BaltiCon is asking for your help in funding the travel for the returning GoHs. There’s a donation page here, where you may donate to your favorite GoHs. (Yes, I know that Steve and I are listed separately; I don’t know what’s up with that, but at the bottom line, I don’t think it actually matters.)

BaltiCon 50 is also selling a limited edition promotional tshirt in order to raise funds. You can view and/or purchase a tshirt here.

Finally, for all the latest news about BaltiCon 50, you can sign up for the Twitter feed: @balticon50

This is a Hard Writing Weekend, which means I’ll be somewhat scarce on the web. The beginning of next week includes an interview, and a visit from the generator guy, as well as Yet Another Phone Call to the health insurance company, which seems stuck in an Endless Loop of sending me a form I’ve now filled out and returned three times, while at the same time being unable to generate a monthly invoice. Sigh. Also, the Colby Art Museum is hosting an Open House on Thursday evening. I always like to go to the Art Open House. So, not an insanely busy week, but busy enough with mundane things — and writing, too.

Extra credit paragraph: From the Department of Anthropomorphism, Cats Are Not Social Committee, we have the following Observer Report.

This morning, I was sitting at the kitchen table finishing the wonderful tuna melt Steve had made for breakfast. I have a direct line of sight into the living room from my place at the kitchen table, and was able to see Trooper in the cat hammock, Belle stretched out on the rug close to the kitchen, near, but not on, the cat scratchers. Sprite walked into the living room, fell on Belle, cleaned her up, cleaned herself, up, cleaned Belle up and in due time, as frequently happens, the grooming morphed into a wrasslin’ match.

This morning’s match was. . .vigorous. Sprite broke twice, but came back, and Belle, seeming slightly put-upon, finally threw her Whole Being into the thing, grabbing Sprite around the waist and kicking her in the stomach. There were no growls, but Belle, at least, was clearly intent on teaching Sprite a lesson, rather than savoring the Joy of the Wrassle.

Sprite tried to break a third time — Belle wouldn’t let her. Sprite renewed her efforts to get free, Belle held her closer. I was on the edge of producing a loud, “Ahem!” when. . .

Trooper jumped down from the hammock and approached the melee.

Belle let go of Sprite and twisted to her feet to face him; Sprite escaped to the hall, where she sat down and began to groom her shoulder. Trooper walked directly up to Belle, tail slightly higher than straight behind, but not a full upward sweep, and put his nose against hers. She allowed this — then swatted him in the head.

Trooper went back a couple steps and walked carefully around her, as if he was going to go check on Sprite. In fact, he paused by the television stand, where he could see her in the hall, cleaning up, stroked his cheek against the wood a couple times, turned, and went back to the cat hammock.

Belle began to bathe.

I stood up and got myself another cup of coffee.

Everybody have a nice weekend.

Fundraiser for Larry Smith and Sally Kobee

Con-going fans know Larry Smith and Sally Kobee well as Larry Smith, Bookseller. They were in an accident on the way home from DragonCon, and their van has been totaled by the insurance company, for a very small percentage of what a new van will cost. In addition, Larry was in the hospital for a couple days after the van rolled, for observation. They’re home now, with their stock, which they’re slowly sorting through to see what’s still salable.

Steve adds more details:

We can’t tell you how much Larry and Sally at Larry Smith Books have helped us over the years. Just no way to add everything up in dollars and cents since– besides carrying our big publisher books for years, even having some in stock much of the time we were out of public view between publishers — they also carried our chapbooks when I was running SRM Publisher.

There were conventions where chapbook sales through Larry Smith Books covered our meals, and conventions where Larry and Sally took us to supper of an evening. There were also cons where Larry had no time to go to dinner, since he often runs dealer’s rooms, and sometimes even runs convention bids….

At one convention (where the con chair didn’t know us and hence would give us no program items, no readings, and no signings) it was Larry Smith who invited us behind his table (which never happens) where we signed for so long NESFA went out and bought us lunch. Yes, it was Larry Smith who helped prove that there was indeed “pent-up demand” for our Liaden books and our other work.

Our story is not unique. Larry and Sally and their crew have served convention fandom for decades, helping readers and writers across many interest areas, across many years.

We salute Larry Smith Books, and hope you join us in supporting this effort to keep the books rolling.

Here’s the link to the GoFundMe Page. NOTE: The campaign was started, on behalf of Larry and Sally, by Marcia Kelly Illingworth, who is known to us personally as a reliable person.

In which there are warnings and updates

Warning first, because that’s fair.

Do not try me today.
I really mean this.
I have no spoons, but I have lots of knives.
Thank you for your attention.

Now, Updates!

1. The Gift of Magic, an echapbook collecting two stories previously published on Baen.com, “The Gift of Music,” and “The night don’t seem so lonely,” is now available in the Kindle and the Nook stores at Amazon/BN respectively.

1a. Yes, I know the stories are individually available on the web for free. Thank you.

1b. I am exploring the possibility of publishing this chapbook to other ebook venues, and will make an announcement if and when exploration comes to fruition. Yes, I know about Smashwords, thank you. I have also recently been pointed at Draft to Digital, thank you.

1c. The Gift of Magic is dignified as Archers Beach #5. The Archers Beach books are, in order:

Archers Beach ONE: Carousel Tides
Archers Beach TWO: Carousel Sun
Archers Beach THREE: Carousel Seas
Archers Beach FOUR: Surfside
Archers Beach FIVE: The Gift of Magic

2. A Liaden Universe® Constellation Volume III is now available as an ebook in the Nook and Kindle stores. It may also be available in the ebook store you prefer; it’s worth checking out the possibility.

2a. The paper edition of Constellation III is due to be in stores on August 4.

2b. Those who preordered signed/personalized editions from Uncle Hugo, be of good heart. The books have not yet arrived here at the Confusion Factory, but we expect them at any moment. As soon as they do arrive, be assured that we will sign and personalized just as quickly as we’re able, and will get the books back on the road to Minneapolis so that they can be mailed to you.

2c. Yes, the book includes only reprints of short stories. No, I don’t know why Baen doesn’t publish the TOC in the book summary. The stories included are:

Code of Honor (Splinter Universe, 2014)
Eleutherious (Baen.com, 2013)
Guaranteed Delivery (Splinter Universe, 2011)
Intelligent Design (Baen.com, 2011)
Kin Ties (Splinter Universe, 2011)
King of the Cats (SRM Publisher, Ltd., 2002 in The Cat’s Job)
Landed Alien (Baen.com, 2012)
Moon’s Honor (Splinter Universe, 2013)
Out of True (Baen.com, 2013)
Roving Gambler (Splinter Universe, 2014)
The Rifle’s First Wife (Splinter Universe, 2014)
The Space at Tinsori Light (Splinter Universe, 2011)

3. We hear through the grapevine that Offworld Designs has begun shipping Tree-and-Dragon shirts to those people who ordered. They are now in the process of compiling a big enough pile of orders to do a second printing/embroidering. Here’s the search page for the Liaden items available. Please note that it is a search page; you must click on the image of the shirt of your choice in order to get detailed information.

3a. Yes, the only shirt color at this time is black. Yes, the thread/printing is gold. No, I’m sorry, there are no ladies tees available at this time.

4. The Nature Conservancy reports a successful treatment for White Nose Syndrome, which has been killing off the bat population at breathtaking rates. Here’s your link.

4a. Yes, I am aware that some people loathe and revile bats. I am not one of them.

5. Sprite and Belle had Second Breakfast together this morning:

Second Breakfast at the Cat Farm July 24 2015. Sprite (l), Belle (r)

CORRECTION re new proposed new copyright regs

This is me eating crow.

I have taken down my previous blog post regarding the proposed new copyright regulations, and I apologize for not digging deeper into this myself. Rob Balder was kind enough to provide me with the following links to:

A summary discussion the Copyright Office’s new proposals, including a call for questions, with a deadline of August 10

The actual report from the Copyright Office. Note: This is a pdf.

My apologies to the internets for dispensing misinformation.

Welladay, Monday

One of the best things about freelancing is that you can mostly avoid having Mondays.

Mostly. . .but not always.

So! Today was Monday, here at the Cat Farm, starting right out of the box, when all of us sleepyheads — by which I mean Steve, me, Trooper, and Sprite — were startled from Very Sound Sleeps (and in my case, a Very Intense Dream that I was just as glad to let go, except that I was Deep in Dreamspace, and waking up was — a jolt), by the sound of a knock at the door, at 7:30, which is what counts for early around here. By the time I had surfaced from the dream, the knock had come again, and both cats had leapt up and dashed down the hall, Steve following.

But, there was no one at the door. Careful examination showed that Scrabble had knocked a couple of brushes off the side of the sink in the bathroom. They’d landed on the scale, which is wood-clad.

Knock-knock.

Sigh.

None of us was getting back to sleep after that, so to coffee, and an uploading of Chapter Eight of Shan and Priscilla Ride Again (here’s the link, if you missed it), which I did. We then broke our fast and were discussing the proper structure of the day, when the mail arrived, always a moment of Great Excitement at the Cat Farm. I left the kitchen, walked down the drive and across the road to the mailbox, where I gathered to myself a handful of. . .

. . .bills.

More than five hundred dollars in bills, only one of which (the car payment) was anticipated, much less budgeted for — all, save that one, medical bills.

For the sake of moving along the narrative, I omit the plumber’s bill for a heart-stopping sum, which had already been paid, check crossing invoice in the mail.

The surprise bills? All were due “on receipt,” which — never mind. So I wrote checks, and had a panic attack, and a shower, ate the leftover stir-fry Steve provided for lunch, retired to the sofa to read — and got up again to write a check to the guy who mows our lawn — for two weeks, naturally, since he had taken care of us while we were on tour.

Late in the day, a nice thing did happen. More on that as I can.

Oh, and things seem to be moving along in the Great Plan to bring Belle to Maine later this month. Just need to nail down the date and time — that’s good, too.

Things are somewhat calmer now. Steve’s gone to chess; I did the dishes; Trooper and Sprite are with me in my office, napping while I blog. In a bit, I’ll go back to the sofa and my book.

But! Before I do that, I have news of a sort for Nook readers concerning Dragon in Exile, which is — Neither Baen nor BN understands why the Nook edition failed to find its way into the store, and the problem has been bumped Upstairs to the This Really Should’ve Worked Problem Solving Team. More news is expected in two business days. In the meantime, and as always, you may purchase an epub (Nook) edition of DiE — and all of — our published novels directly from Baen. Here’s your link.

Also! For those who appreciate a beautiful instrument, and especially a beautiful keyboard, there’s this.

So — how was your Monday?

Trooper and the purple duffle; a blast from the past.