The Writing Life – Page 7 – Sharon Lee, Writer

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.

The Excitement Never Stops

Yesterday afternoon, Steve gave me his go-through of my draft of “The Last Train to Clarkesville.” I read it, made some minor corrections, gave it back to him to read, and he pronounced it Good.

We submitted the story last night around 8 pm. This morning, we have an ack from the editor — story received.

GHOD, I love electronic submissions.

No word limits were broken in the submission of this story, which came in at right around 7,955 words.

“Last Train to Clarkesville” is the 101st Lee-and-Miller collaboration; it is a Liaden Universe® western.

As soon as we have an acceptance, we will talk about this story again, Reveal the name of the anthology, and when it will be available.

Next up — a Liaden story to partner with “From Every Storm a Rainbow,” in the next Pinbeam Books chapbook. I’ve put out a casting call, so we’ll see who shows up with a problem.

Of course, the last time I did that, I got Jen Sin yos’Phelium.

For now, I have a slew of paper on my desk, only some of which is Story Detritus, so I guess I’d better dig in and see what all’s here.

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.

The Tuesday report

Still working on “The Last Train to Clarkesville.” Was hoping to finish today, which — eh. Maybe? But probably not.

Firefly has been very busy with the cat toys. While Sprite and Belle are content to sit among the toys (and Trooper mostly ignores them, unless they are actively in play), Firefly carries them around, and makes little groupings. Just inside the tech room door, there’s a deliberate cluster of two chipmunks, one fish, one rat, and, at a little distance, a fluffy ball. It looks like a team meeting, or maybe a tea party. Maybe I should get her a tea service?

She also very busily carries toys downstairs, and then brings them back up. Possibly, she’s showing them where the litter boxes are, so that there are no Accidents. Nobody want any Accidents, amirite?

For those keeping track of Salvage Right’s progress through the Maze of Publishing, Madame the Editor reports that she has read the manuscript, and that it was “great fun.” Next up is cover art, and copy editing, and galleys, all in their own good time.

We are apparently still looking at a June 2023 publication date.

For those who have been Patiently Waiting for the Fair Trade audiobook — I must continue to disappoint you with news of no news.

Steve is now in the Authorial Hot Seat, and working away on Trade Lanes, due for a September 2022 turn-in.

And that? Is the Tuesday report.

Saturday in what passes for the city

The day got off to a mixed start, so I spent my time usefully cleaning the bathroom and steam-cleaning the kitchen floor.

Then! My new Project Box arrived, and I spent some time organizing my thread, and my hoops, and my tools, and by the time that was done, I was feeling almost human again, so I got out my light-sheet (really can’t call it a light-box, it’s so flat), and traced the design I want to stitch on the needle-holder I made the other day. I have two “transfer” options available to me at the moment, being out of dressmaker’s carbon. The first is a felt pen, which gives a thick black line. The second is a pencil that produces a medium reddish-brown line. My usual bias is pencil, but I’m thinking that for this, I like the black line better. We shall, as they say, see.

On the schedule this afternoon is looking out cover art Duainfey and Longeye, which we will be releasing under the proper author’s byline in August.

Also, I’m revising “The Last Train to Clarkesville,” which is due mid-August, so I really ought to get on the writing part of that task, now that I’ve figured out who this One Guy is and how he got into the story.

And that’s Saturday in the city.

Here’s a picture of the Project Box, since I know you’re all dying to know what it looks like:

Story Ideas: What Not To Do

Short form: Please do NOT write to me-or-us with story ideas.

Long form:

1 We are not as forgetful as some folks assume we are. It helps to bear in mind that if it’s been “years” and you haven’t seen X THING / CHARACTER / LOOSE END addressed “yet” — that’s probably only two or three books. You read much faster than we write. The smart money says we probably haven’t “forgotten.” We just haven’t gotten there yet.

2 I make it a practice not to read story ideas sent by readers. This is not because I don’t love you. It’s because there’s a long, bad history in writing regarding people suing writers for having “used their idea” without giving them credit/compensation/the firstborn/whatever. I don’t have time for this kind of nonsense, so it is my policy to throw out, unread, ideas for future storylines in any of my working universes.

And, yanno, I’m not just being an Old Meanie, here. This policy serves you, too. Say, I’m planning on doing X in the next novel, and you write to me all eager for me to X in the next novel. What happens, if I read your letter? I have to throw X out, because of #2 above, and you will never get to see how it plays out.

All I’m saying is — trust us, yeah? We know what we’re doing — in large measure, anyway.

Here ends today’s Public Service Announcement.

Post-novel turn-in syndrome

So, yesterday we turned SALVAGE RIGHT, the 25th novel set in the Liaden Universe®. For those coming in late, or who are Just Wandering By “we” in the case is Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.

Since there are a lot of books, and several threads, and Someone will ask What Is This Book About, and no one is ever satisfied with “about 130,000 words,” below is the authors’ working synopsis:

Clan Korval has for two hundred Standards believed Jen Sin yos’Phelium dead. In Neogenesis, the delm of Korval was apprised of this error. Salvage Right is the story of what happens next.

Everybody up to speed, now? Good.

I started working on Salvage Right (I say “I” because I am lead writer on this title; Steve is lead writer on Trade Lanes, the next title, due in September) on November 15, 2021. My brain immediately took the idea and ran with it, and I do mean “ran.”

“Big party at Tinsori Light!” was basically the theme of the next six months, when, in May, I declared tools down on a Good Enough Draft, sent the 106,000 words then more or less in place to beta readers, and took two weeks off, one of them to clean the house; the other to sit on the porch of an oceanfront apartment and stare at the waves, and the sky.

It was a much-needed break, and I came back to the manuscript with vision and energy renewed.

Which was a Good Thing.

We’re going to talk a little bit about Process, now.

The last novel I was lead on was Trader’s Leap, delivered in October 2019. 2020 was more-or-less taken up with breast cancer surgery, radiation and recovery. And recovery. Oh, and more recovery. During which time, I repeatedly tried to write — something. Anything. Only to find that I seemed to have forgotten how.

I therefore sat myself down in an effort to relearn my craft, producing as my first post-cancer It Actually Makes Sense story, “Ambient Conditions,” in October 2020. Five more short stories later, and coauthor for Fair Trade, and I felt pretty confident of my ability to take lead on another novel.

My Previous Method for writing novels was to Think Hard about the characters and what kind of trouble they were likely to get into, identify a few key scenes, and then, when I felt Ready, start writing the first scene, and proceed, in a more-or-less linear direction until “The End.”

The above method has its flaws. It is sometimes necessary for me to stop for days while planning out the next scenes/interactions chronologically. The benefit is that, once a “good enough” draft is achieved, it really is Good Enough.

As mentioned above, Salvage Right was written in the heat of “Big party at Tinsori Light!” where the backbrain threw up this scene, that scene, this other scene, and so on. My job was to type as fast as I could, and when the occasional breathing space arrived, to chain the scenes in an order that made sense, given What I Knew. Problem being that I didn’t know Everything.

Which meant that when I called tools down and took my two-week break, the book was Not As Finished as I believed it was, and that there was still a Large Chunk of Story still in my head that had not made it to the page.

So, long story short, I wrote +/-30,000 words in a little less than a month, rearranged the manuscript once more, and, finally, only four days late, turned it in.

Will I use the Write What You Know until you Don’t Know Anything Else Method again? Probably. I really like the sense of movement and engagement with the characters. I did have Moments of Panic in the last stage, but I did not have a spell of ennui such as sometimes overtakes me when I’m writing straight-through-come-hell-or-high-water.

So! My 34th novel and I’m still learning Stuff.

I did have a blast with these characters — as shifty a bunch as have congregated in one place in the Liaden Universe® — and I think y’all are going to like the book.

At this point in time, recalling that These Things Can Change — Baen plans to publish Salvage Right in Summer 2023.

My next project, after a few days of Light Duty, straightening out drawers and vacuuming and such like, is revising what I’ve been calling, to Steve’s not-so-secret amusement, “the Hat story” (actually, “The Last Train to Clarkesville”), then start getting Duainfey and Longeye into shape for indie reissue under the proper author name. After that? Welp, I’m lead on the book due next June, so I guess I better start Thinking About That.

Here ends today’s discourse.

SALVAGE RIGHT news

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller have just submitted their one hundredth collaborative effort, novel SALVAGE RIGHT, to Toni Weisskopf, at Baen Books.

Proof:

Communique from the Collected Denizens of the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory

Let it be known that yesterday’s Writers’ Day Off” trip to New Hampshire was not only occasion for a leisurely drive to the Plymouth, NH environs but also a well-researched opportunity to meet with and adopt to our household one 21 month old Maine Coon cat from Kelimcoons, the same home that brought us Trooper, Sprite, and Belle. Currently going by the call-name Firefly, she is slated to assume the vacant fourth cat position.

Our new young friend was remarkably calm during her one hundred and fifty mile drive across state lines to the Cat Farm, only complaining once or twice – as who would not? – during several unexpected turn-and-bump situations.

On arrival at the Cat Farm, Firefly took up overnight residency in the second bathroom in order to recoup her energy. She took short meetings with the other cats in the household last evening and all agreed it would be good if she in fact were allowed to relax alone in her suite.

Consideration of a nom-de-Cat Farm will take place over time, as she sorts her place and her responsibilities.

As of this morning Firefly has been given unrestricted access to the house. Most recent sighting showed her exploring the comfort of The Place Behind the Freezer in the basement, as well as the Place Beside the Ice Chests, having tested Belle’s once favorite spot of The Place Behind the Washer and Dryer and found it interesting but not that all it could be.

Glamour pic:

Guest post: Steve Miller

Steve explains the origins of Tinsori Light:

many years ago — say in the mid 1990s — we were established enough in Maine (and the publishing world) to begin taking short vacations “at the ocean” … which for us meant Old Orchard Beach, since it was both the closest in time and the closest to what we expected of a beach, then — a sort of honky tonk boardwalky feeling, even if there was no real boardwalk.

In a kind of foreshadowing, and as a bow to Doc Smith, we’d chosen a place called “The Skylark Inn” for this adventure….

For some reason we’d decided to travel with a small AM-FM-Weather radio that could (if necessary) be powered with hand-crank. The radio had been used once or twice during snow-events at home in Kennebec County, but it did have batteries and we took it with as part of the general “my ghod, we’re really getting out of town!” kind of attitude, and not knowing if the room would have a radio.

What we hadn’t realized was that once we were at the ocean that radio could provide round-the-clock entertainment. There was a local OK kind of rock station and too many mock-country stations, but what we listened to nearly constantly that trip, and for many thereafter, was — the weather radio. Some days we were getting a very weak signal from the top of Mt. Washington, which we hadn’t realized was basically line of sight to OOB. Most days at the ocean we’d we’d turn the radio on as soon as we rose, and listen to the rotating litany of coastal weather news. We were amused to hear regular warnings about how dangerous the cold water could be, and sometimes paid attention to the wave-height news which could, after all, predict great waves at the beach itself.

Eventually that listening told us there was a place whose signal was often missing, a phrase delivered mechanically, and as if with a slight sense of irony, delivered dryly. The phrase became a catch phrase for us, an in joke for many uses — “Matinicus Rock is not reporting.”

Some of the reporting spots were lighthouses, some were ocean buoys, but the one that stuck with us most was Matinicus Rock.

Through this joke and considering the inevitable “ocean of stars” thing … we ended up talking of places that came and went, places that reported to the rest of the universe at whim rather than necessity … places that darn well refused to report! darnit! and eventually came to name some place Runig’s Rock, and another place “Tinsori Light.”

The minds of writers are strange. Where do we get our ideas, you ask? We get ours from Matinicus Rock.

Alas, the old weather radio gave up the ghost when the cheap batteries it came with gave up the ghost by splitting and leaking into the interior. We achieved another, nicer radio soon after, one without a crank, and today — to get into the mood for a trip to the ocean — I set it out on the refrigerator top (in order to get the best signal) and listened to the Dresden station churning out reports. Sharon laughed when we got to the “beware of cold water” warnings and then we both were sure we heard that message echoing through deep space: “Matinicus Rock is not reporting.”

Where do we get our ideas, you ask? We get ours from Matinicus Rock.