Tag: the writing life

Tuesday reportage

Tuesday. Gloomy, rainy, and cool.

Dithered around this morning with an outtake from Kin Right, which I’m expecting will become a chapbook along the lines of The Wrong Lance, while I printed out the current WIP which I will be reading (yes, again) since it appears that the sudden shock knocked the damn’ thing right out of my head.

I’m on my way to PT. I’ll hit the grocery after, come home, put groceries away, then head out for needlework.

The cats are sticking with me, with Rookie taking the lead in Administration — explaining to me when the cat bowls need refilling, demanding that I be to work on time, and guiding me back to Steve’s office, in case I’ve forgotten where it is, and accompanying me downstairs to perform my duties there. He’s also being sure to sleep with me, at least for a few hours, though not in Tali’s spot under my arm — he prefers to have a space next to my pillow.

Firefly has taken over lap duty. Historically, Firefly has been a Sit-With Cat, as opposed to a Lap Sitting Cat. Tali was *definitely* a Lap Sitting Cat, so it seems that duty has passed, at least for a while, until the human gets her act back together.

Someone had asked if “cat CPR” might’ve saved Tali’s life, and the answer to that is multifaceted. One — I don’t know. Two — I don’t know how to do “cat CPR;” in fact didn’t know it existed until the question came up, and? I would be terrified that I would have done more and more grievous damage, considering how much force has to be put into human CPR.

I do appreciate the people who have contributed to the cost of the lab work, and, yes, the cattery is helping.

Oh! A package arrived today via FedEx in an Unmarked Van, and the nice young man walked down the drive and handed it to me, since I had seen the truck and opened the door.

And now? I’d better get outta here.

Everybody stay safe.

Catching up Thursday with a dash of Friday, too

So, yesterday went a little pear-shaped. I had planned on an all-writing day, but Real Life intervened, which meant I got a couple hours of writing done, plus my duty to the cats, plus some little bit of embroidery while listening to Chanur’s Venture. I did chat a bit on Facebook, mostly about cats. To wit:

Answering the question that went past and now I can’t find it again: Is Tali the biggest Maine coon currently in house?

The contestants are:
Firefly, calico — 6 years, 11 lbs
Tali, orange tabby — 4 years, 13 lbs
Rook, black– 2 years, 13 lbs

Ladies and gentlebeings, we have a tie!

Biographical notations:
Firefly is petite, for a Maine Coon. She’s also an adult, by Maine Coon reckoning, and the most retiring of the present lot of supervisors. She’s affectionate, but easily overwhelmed, and can frequently be seen thinking. It is well to recall that Firefly has taken . . . many losses: Belle, Steve, Sprite, and Trooper.

Tali is the most compact of the three; when she lands on your lap, you know you’ve been landed on. She is the supervisor who demands the most lap-time. Very bossy, our Tali.

Rook is a growing boy; easily distracted, very affectionate, and scary smart. He and Tali have formed a partnership — he keeps time and she registers the complaint.

More about Maine Coon growth stages here.

The above led to the question of which was the largest Maine coon we had owned, to which I answered: You know? I’m not sure. Hex(apuma) was pretty big, but lanky. I thought Mozart–our first Maine Coon–was Ginormous when I first saw him. I think he might’ve clocked in at 14 or 15 pounds. Trooper was 17 pounds FORever, and in her heyday Belle had a pound on two on him. Sprite was right around 15 pounds. To put all of this into perspective, a Bichon Frise (aka “the little white dog everybody has”–I finally asked someone what breed her dog was) will weigh between 12 and 15 pounds.

This answer led to the evergreen But I thought Maine Coon cats were HUGE! To which I answered: Breed standard for Maine Coons is females 12-15 pounds, males 18-22. So, yeah, I guess I’ve had small Maine Coons. Given that domestic cats average from 8-12 pounds, that’s big enough.

Maine Coon breed standards here.
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All of which leads us handily into today, which I believe to be Friday–sunny and going to be warm-but-not-hot.  Tomorrow, we’re looking for the rainy rags of the nor’easter that’s been plaguing downcoast to arrive.

I had flat egg and Swiss cheese on homemade bread for breakfast, I am updating my blogs while I drink my third cup of tea, and will shortly be moving back to Steve’s office to accomplish some work on the WIP. For lunch, I have my choice of warming up a pre-cooked pork chop with … I think there’s carrots left over, or warming up leftover chicken pot pie.

Not a particularly ambitious day, but mine own.

And hoping yours is enjoyable.

Reading the past

The coon cats were keeping a Very Close Eye this morning.  Photographic proof here

Wednesday. Sunny, clear, and cool.

The misdelivered box came home this morning. The heat pump situation has been rectified and a tutorial received. I’ve read 150 pages/24,000ish words of an incomplete Jethri novel which I think was being set up to explain why Jethri’s genes were all over Spadoni Station in “Revolutionists,” with a side of Shakespeare. Written in 2020.

The bit I remembered is part of the Spadoni Station/Shakespeare fragment (if you can call a quarter-book a “fragment”), and while it could be hammered into what I’m working on, I think it will better serve as what’s nowadays called a “short novel” (Remember when ALL novels were 50,000 words? Yeah, yeah, and cost 25 cents.). It won’t be canon, but we’ve done this before. So! This bit gets put aside for later finishing and publication through Pinbeam Books.

I still have 37,000ish words to read of yet another “failed” piece — this one recognizably coming off of Fair Trade, written in September 2022. Fair Trade was published in May 2022.

Just for fun, I also have 3700ish words of a short story, that I wrote in November 2001, passed to Steve, and it got set aside in the Press of Other Business. What in Ghu’s name were we even doing in November 2001? We were still with Meisha Merlin, and Balance of Trade wasn’t published until 2004. Why was Jethri even — oh, wait. “Balance of Trade,” the novella, would have already been published in Absolute Magnitude. That’s why Jethri was even, and makes more sense of the story, too. We were thinking ahead, as we tended to do. Anyhow, I’ve only glanced at it, not really read it. Might be able to be finished without too much trauma, if I get enough flex in the rest of life.

Pay copy comes first.

The rest of today is, alas, chores.

I finished reading The Glass-Cursed last night — it’s a cozy, I guess, because the decision was made to let the Group Handle It, rather than allow one of their number to take the whole cost of the thing onto herself, despite her part in having created the problem in the first place. “Many hands make the work light,” and also “Grace to those who fought.” I did finish it, but it was starting to wear on me after a bit, which I means that, for me, it could’ve been shorter. Also, there are serious timing problems at the end when the characters don’t seem to know if something took two days or seven months, and the Really Important Question of How a certain thing got produced, given that there’s no X, and also Y is completely ignored.

I started the book club book at lunch, The Burgess Boys, by Elizabeth Strout, partially set in Shirley Falls, Maine, which is big enough to have a hotel, so it can’t actually be set in Skowhegan, which was where my mind went.

And that? Is all my news.

What’s yours?

Collaboration

Tuesday. Sunny and cool.

Today’s writing was chasing down partials and half-remembered notes from Steve’s side of his computer. I had a couple of bad minutes when I thought I was going to have to drag out his old Windows machine and do a forced march through that hard-drive, but just when the night seemed darkest, I found the piece I was looking for.

Which, as it happens, is not, as Steve had insisted at the time, wrong; it was just in the wrong place. This happens a lot, especially in the writing of novels. Which is why you might take That Piece There out of the active file, but you never throw it away.

Having found the files, I have some reading to do, but that’s for tomorrow. For today, I’ve spent every available spoon going through Steve’s indexes, which was a reminder–yet again–that, no, we didn’t think alike–and that’s why we worked.

Ah–there will be some, I suppose, who will wonder why I’m ferreting out these bits and pieces–surely, it would be easier to “just” write on in a forwarder direction? And, yanno? Maybe it would be. But this was Steve’s book, and God She knows he broke not a few brain cells on the thing, and it’s my intention to tell the story he intended–he wanted–to tell. Insofar as I can, being as we didn’t think alike, but I’m the one left standing.

In so-called Real Life, the heat pump in my bedroom seems to be On Da Fritz, so I’ll be calling the heat pump company in a few to see what they can do for me.

This evening is needlework, which I really want to go to. I skipped last week because my back wasn’t up for the chairs.

And that would be the contents of my brain on this fine morning.

What’s filling up your brain today?

Disambiguation

I seem to have confused people. Herewith, an attempt at disambiguation:

The book that was written and turned in to Baen in October 2024 was Diviner’s Bow (sequel to Ribbon Dance), which was published in hardcover, audio, and ebook editions on, appropriately enough, April 1 2025. The mass market edition was published in January 2026.

The book that people are wondering where the hell is the damned thing is Kin Right (sequel to Salvage Right), which was turned in to Baen in April 2026, and will, according to Baen, be published in Spring 2027.

The book presently under construction is Trade Lanes (sequel to Fair Trade), which is years overdue. I don’t actually seem to have a firm delivery date for this title, but I’m shooting for April 2027, that being a year from my last turn-in date.

After that, I have one more book under contract with Baen, which, I suppose, will be due in April 2028.

In answer to other questions posed here and there: No, I haven’t “given up” on writing short stories. I have a couple short stories and maybe two not-Liaden books swirling around in my brain, but! The Lee-and-Miller Writing Empire is short-staffed, and the House Rule has ever been: Pay Copy Comes First.

Here ends the disambiguation.

Saturday with writing and bread

Saturday. Sunny and cool.

Wrote about 600 words this morning, and discovered that I twitched something that I should’ve tweaked, so I printed out the offending pages and will sit with them later to try to untangle the he-said/she-said.

Since I’m down to my last two slices of bread, I’m baking a loaf, which is in for its first rise. I’ve cleaned up the kitchen. Still need to perform my duty to the cats.

Nothing much else doing, except the observation that it’s apparently Tali’s afternoon to keep me Under Surveillance. Either that, or she just likes to watch bread being put together.

Oh. The question of When Can We Buy Kin Right, which has come up three or four times in the last week.

ANSWER: The last I heard from Baen was that Kin Right would be published in “Spring 2027.” So now everybody knows as much as I do.

Also! It’s “taking so long” because I needed 18 months, instead of our usual year, to write it, which meant I turned it in to Baen in April 2026, instead of October 2025.

The reason I had to “take so long” to write it is because my co-author died in February 2024, and the September 2024 delivery date for that book (Diviner’s Bow) had in actuality not been extended, as I had thought it had been, which meant that I had to scramble hard to turn it in on time, or, rather, only a little late. Which in turn meant that I was exhausted, and that Creative Well we all talk about was dry and I needed some down time before I pulled the next rabbit out of my hat. Files under “Writers are Human.”

I think that really is all.

How’s Saturday going at your place?

Friday

Friday. Sunny and warm enough.

Sarah has been and gone, leaving a clean house in her wake. I’ve washed and dried the towels, folded and put them away. There’s a load of t-shirts washing and supper’s in the stove.

One thousand four hundred thirty new words written this morning. Turns out the 300 words I wrote yesterday were good; they were just in the wrong place. WIP now weighs in at 61,310. Ish.

The cats joined me in Steve’s office this morning, and there they all still are, melty-sleeping in the sun puddles.

Currently reading The Glass-Cursed by P.H. Blackwood, which has an interesting voice, and seems to want to talk about PTSD and the accommodations demanded by Real Life of those returning from a war. This is, I note, a Cozy Fantasy.

I’m listening to The Paladin by CJ Cherryh.

Which improbably reminds me that, now that I’ve viewed Murderbot in one mad rush, I need to cancel my subscription to Apple-TV before it flips over from free to pay me.

It looks like my weekend’s free, and I’m tempted to drive down to the ocean. Only, my back still hurts, so — maybe not. Well. There’s always a book to write.

Who’s got Plans for the weekend?

“Anything” is just a . . . suggestion

So, that’s 1,080ish new words this morning, for a WIP total of 52,570ish.

I may — that’s may — have figured out how to write two books at once, so I’ll be setting up the framework this afternoon, after I pay my tithe to the house.
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So, the cats are expecting a Chewy order, which will arrive via FedEx. While I was paying my tithe to the house, I happened to look out the window, and there was a FedEx truck in my driveway, which stayed there for, oh, four minutes? I went to another part of the house to get something, came back, and the truck was gone.

Well, I said, said I, noticing the lack of heavy box on the steps. I guess it’s in the (open) garage.

Only it wasn’t. That’s right! In a new Personal Best, FedEx not only failed to follow the long-filed instruction to leave packages in the garage, but! Failed to unload a package at all.

I? am actually Impressed.

I’ve been plodding along through the bookclub book — it’s interesting, but not a page-turner — and I just reached the part where Our Hero had realized that the actions he takes as an Official (in this case a high-level law enforcement admin) Actually Impacts people in addition to those who have fallen under his jurisdiction, and — this is the important part — that he, as a representative of The System, needed to do better. I salute Our Hero. Really, I do. And I wish that more people in positions of influence were not only able to have that insight, but gather the courage to act on it.

In other news, I think I have the method figured out for working on two writing projects at the same time. I think I’m going to be helped by the fact that the two projects are completely dissimilar. I guess We’ll See.

Taking a break now to do my duty to the cats and PT homework. Then! To the couch with me, notebook and pens in hand.
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. . . Dolly Parton and Tim Curry?

Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty

Finishing up on Monday:

And that’s 2,323 total new words outta the kid from Chicago, who has finally run out of steam. I’ll tuck it away for a couple days, if nothing else explosive happens. Jethri is getting a day off, and I? want a nap.

Yeah, that’s gonna happen.
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Well. Rookie suggested Guided Napping on the couch, and I took him up on it.

He’s really been working on his technique. Got a solid 45 minutes and feel human again. For values of “human” that include widowed writers beset by importunate characters.

I’ve got a few chores to do, but basically, I do believe I’m done for the day. I’ll read a few chapters of the bookclub book before it’s time to serve up Happy Hour.

Everybody have a good rest of the day. Stay safe. I’ll check in tomorrow.

Just an urchin livin’ under the street

So, that wasn’t the morning I had planned.

Alert readers will perhaps recall that yesterday a character wandered into my head, claiming to be from Chicago.  I said something along the lines of, “That’s nice, dear,” and went about my legitimate business, which is, as alert readers will also recall, The Further Adventures of Jethri Gobelyn ven’Deelin.

This morning as I was taking my shower and singing along with the radio, here comes the character again, and she not only brought her Sensei with her, but a bubbling threat of backstory and forward story, too.

Which is, of course, Just What I Need, standing as I am at the 50,000-word mark of a contracted-for space opera.

But!  The character was noisy.  The character was taking on weight.  So I got out of the shower, pulled on some clothes, shoved my wet hair back behind my ears and went to Steve’s office, passing neither Go nor the teapot.

I sat down, turned on the computer, opened a file and said, “OK, Kid.  You got an hour.  What’s on your mind?”

One thousand two hundred eighty-nine words and 65 minutes later, I hit a stopping point, or the kid ran of out breath — however you like it — and I was able to grab some breakfast (cottage cheese with apple butter, and a toasted slice of the bread I made yesterday, with cow butter).

I am now a jazzed-up mess, second cup of tea to hand, and wondering if I’m going to get back with the kid for another round, if I ought to check in with Jethri, or just throw in the towel and dance naked down Rte 104.

And how’s your morning going?

Portrait of the author humoring a character:

Today’s blog post title brought to you by the character from Chicago, and Axl Rose, fronting Guns n’ Roses, “Paradise City“