Friday. Dim and chilly. Slept late, for recent values of late.
Today is an Official sweatpants-sweatshirt-snuggy-sox-Read!-The!-Manuscript!-Day.
. . . just as soon as I get breakfast, which will be! Oatmeal with apple jam. First cup of tea is brewing.
Kpop Demon Hunters was amusing, and I’m not sorry I had to wrassle Netflix best two out of three to get to watch it.
Y’all have a good Friday.
Weather first: It snowed this afternoon.
Earlier That Same Day: Taking a break to bring the windchimes in for the winter.
Today is the 45th celebration of the day Steve Miller and I married. Against both of our better judgments, and yet, it was the only way to make certain we would each have someone to speak for us, if we couldn’t speak for ourselves.
I am once again thankful that we were often in the situation of having to put off Official Celebrations until whatever project happened to be on-deck was caught up. This means that working on the WIP is nothing out of the ordinary for an anniversary.
In honor of the day, I am wearing one sapphire earring and one peridot earring — my birthstone and Steve’s adopted birthstone (he didn’t like rubies). The air cleaners are on in the living room and the bedroom, and all of the cats joined me in Steve’s office to work.
I have a pizza, which I may or may not partake of this evening — pizza was the Official Standby Celebration Food — and now the sun has come out.
Back to work I go.
I hope everyone’s having a good morning.
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So! I rearranged the WIP, sorted what happens on which day, which was really needed. I pulled some scenes, and adjusted others. The whole manuscript in its new configuration is now printing out so I can do a read-through tomorrow.
For the moment, I’m finishing up my tea and cookies (note to self: find recipe for soft-baked lemon-sugar cookies; those things are yummy). After, I’ll go downstairs and do the cat box change out that I missed doing, what with the back and then the rush to catch up my stained glass. Then a shower, and then?
Maybe tonight is Kpop Demon Hunters. Why not?
I have decided that I will be making my own Thanksgiving dinner this year. There are certain things that I want to eat, and it’s not that hard to bake a couple of turkey fillets, pop a tube of biscuits, mix up a bowl of mashed, and another of dressing, if I wanna be Really Crazy, and throw some asparagus in a pan. Pie is readily available in Hannaford and Shaw’s and whipped cream is an easy buy.
So, this year, I’ll have what I want, as much or as little, while feeling neither forlorn nor bereft, and! I’ll have leftovers. And nor I won’t have to drive to Lisa’s or put up with Front and Main or The Senator. (All of these are very nice restaurants; I just don’t want to have to cope with any of them on Thanksgiving.)
That’s a Decision, then, and it even feels reasonable, which trying to convince myself to go to the buffet at Lisa’s just … wasn’t.
What else?
. . . not much actually. Days get weird when you prioritize writing.
I can report that it has stopped snowing — some hours ago, actually. Just a squall. Or a threat. Whatever.
So! Signing off for the night.
Everybody have a good evening. Stay safe out there.
So, that was a good writing day, where the word count will tell you that I goofed off all day. This is why word count is a blunt instrument. Hope to have another such day tomorrow.
I hear from my PCP that he will be scheduling an appointment with a neurosurgeon for me — not! he says quickly, for surgery, but because it looks like one of the nerves in my back is being pinched. OHkay… I guess I’ll wait to hear from the neurosurgeon.
Coon Cat Happy Hour has been served up. I thought I was going to watch Kpop Demon Hunters tonight, but maybe I’ll peruse a few catalogs and go to bed early, instead. I’m kinda bushed, what with having crowds of people traipsing through my head all day.
I see that Maine did the Right Thing and voted DOWN the make-it-as-hard-as-possible-for-people-to-vote item, and voted UP the take-the-guns-away-from-the-folks-who-are-obviously-having-a-break-before-they-hurt-somebody item.
All in all, not so bad a day, really. With luck and a tailwind, I may have a Completed DRAFT by the end of these few halcyon days of freedom.
Fingers crossed.
I hope everyone had a satisfying day, and will have a good evening.
Stay safe.
Oh, I found the mother load:
So, here’s The Plan, insofar as &c.
I have nothing on my calendar (saving the 45th anniversary of Doing the Legal) until next Tuesday afternoon.
This? Is a Gift. And what I intend to do with the gift is to make some serious inroads into the remaining quarter of the WIP. This means that check-ins will be … sporadic, and possibly will not happen at all.
Default setting should be that nothing bad has happened; I’m working.
I thank all of your for your care and support, and —
cracks knuckles
Let’s do this thing.
Everybody stay safe.
Sunday. Sunny and chilly.
How is it not even noon yet?
Well.
Breakfast was cottage cheese, grapes, toast. Lunch will be soup and a grilled cheese sandwich. Because I Can.
Wrote +/- 780 words first thing, which brings the total WIP to 105,500. Ish.
Wandered around the house making sure the programmable thermostats remembered their programming from last year. Updated my books read list. Dealt with email. Tried to figure out how much I’m going to be dinged for excise tax tomorrow when I go to buy my sticker at City Hall. Ordered in Scottish, Irish, and strong Irish tea. For Science!*
Still need to pay bills and do PR. And work on my glass project.
The cats were strongly in favor of gathering all together in Steve’s office first thing after breakfast, and that’s where they still are.
How’s everybody doing on this first day of the time change?
______
*Science! The scale is: Brisk-Body-Aroma
Brisk: Does your mouth pucker?
Body: Does the tea fill your mouth?
Aroma: Does the tea have a robust scent?
Irish Breakfast Tea: 2-4-3
Hiberian (hi-test Irish): 4-4-2
Scottish Breakfast Tea: 4-5-1
Yesterday, I baked bread, did embroidery, carried books down to the basement and got them safely stowed, finished Phase One of the Sekrit Project, which leaves two Phases left to complete by November 14, which is totally doable.
I also found Steve’s cardinal, which was hiding behind books on the bottom-most shelf of the bookcase from which it fled.
And a bonus find…
About a million years ago, I bought Steve a sundial for his birthday. Approximately two hundred years ago, the gnomon went missing. The sundial then became a piece of glass art that sat on a bookshelt in Steve’s office.
Today, as I was looking for the cardinal, I found the gnomon for the sundial. It had been stuck to a book.
So the sundial is back together, which is pleasing, even though it I probably have no place to set it up, since — windows, cats.
Still, I’m pleased that it’s at least potentially functional again.
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Where are we? Thursday?
Thursday. Sunny, white-and-gray clouds traveling across a blue sky.
Breakfast was two slices of yesterday’s bread, toasted, cottage cheese, and grapes. Yesterday, I ate three slices of bread with butter as soon as the loaf was cool enough to slice, two slices this morning, and I foresee another slice or two with lunch. I am not usually like this, but I’m gonna finish this loaf by Saturday. Guess I needed Vitamin Bread.
Wrote 1,459 new words this morning. Did the addition, to get some idea of where I am contract-wise, and found the total WIP at 102,870, which In Theory means I can type THE END.
Yeah, yeah. We laugh at Theory.
I did sleep in, and my desk one! more! time! looks like a bomb hit it. How does this keep happening? Gremlins, I guess.
Tonight is glassworking, which means a late lunch, because class goes so late. Happily, I can sleep in tomorrow.
That? Is all the news from this side of the world.
How’s everything going for you?
Oh. I got the sundial set:
Thursday afternoon cat census:
What went before ONE: So that’s +/-1,320 words on the morning. I’m not reporting the impact of these words on the WIP total because I don’t know exactly where they go.
The cats were all waiting for me when I got to Steve’s Office, and they stuck with me until I said, “That’s a wrap,” whereupon Rook and Tali got up, stretched, and followed me to the front of the house.
It’s now time to have lunch, then go downstairs to perform one’s duty to the cats, and monkey around with my glass for a bit.
The cloudy morning has become a sunny afternoon, though still cool.
And so it goes.
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What went before TWO: Aaaand that’s enough fun for one day! I have finished cutting what glass I can. As Was Predicted, I did break the starfish — twice, but the second time much better than the first (Do not laugh. The bar we’re using here, as Miri Robertson once famously said, is the one that’s buried in that snowpile over there). So, rather than run out of glass, I shall take what I have with me to class, prepared to Learn Better.
There’s a horrifying amount of glass pieces in my scrap box. Honestly, I should go into the kaleidoscope business.
Also, the project got its tithe of blood today, so I was glad I had wimped in and taken my silly little first aid kit down to The Studio.
But! All that said — I’m for a cup of tea and a bun, and then I do believe I’ll read.
Everybody have a good evening. I’ll check in tomorrow.
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What went before THREE: New entry in Steve and Sharon’s Excellent Adventure, for those who are reading along: Eager Street
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Um. Monday? Cool and damp; rain in the forecast.
Updated my books read list — I have read my 50th book, which is something of a relief; I really didn’t think I was going to see that many.
Read the first eight chapters of the book club book last night. I really can’t tell if the … predictability is a feature or a bug. As in, yes, this; yes, this, too; no that’s pretty flimsy, but it gets us where we’re going; ok, yeah, they lied, what a surprise — is just the entrance ramp into the Real Story* (feature) or if, having begun, this is how we mean to go on. Well. I’ll find out.
In other news, I was inclined to feel Poorly Used when I got the news that my health insurance will be going up $30 a month in 2026, but that was before I read the newspaper and found out that this same insurance provider is dropping membership for half the state. Yes, the half that needs it the most, why do you ask?
Sigh. It’s possible that Mondays aren’t good for me.
P’rhaps I’ll go find a cup of tea and something for breakfast.
How’s everybody doing this morning?
________
*I almost had a fistfight on a panel regarding the beginning of The Goblin Emperor, in which,** and my fellow panelist was insisting that it was Bad Storytelling because Basic Security mandates that you Don’t Do That, and my equally empassioned argument that this was just to “explain” how we got to the Unlikely Situation which was the Actual Story the writer wanted to tell. Wow, that was an exhausting panel.
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
SPOILER
_________
**The Emperor and all of his sons are on the same airship when it blows up.
What went before ONE: Wrote 1170-ish new words, sketching in that scene. Needs work.
Spent an hour…maybe two hours with my glass project. Needs work.
Back in my office for right now. I may or may not go back to the The! Studio! today, though even if I don’t I need to remember to turn off the heaters and the humidifier.
The cats were before me when I got to Steve’s Office this morning, Rookie giving me a Look that pretty clearly stated that there would be A Note In My File for coming in late. So far as I know, they’re still in Steve’s Office. If I wanna go sit in the basement, it’s nothing to do with them.
Project to date:
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What went before TWO: Sat down in the comfy chair in my office to look out over the Long Back Yard and have a snack, and this happened:
What went before THREE: OK. As reported earlier, did some writing, did some glasswork. I also made the paper edition of Civilized Behavior, but it will not be released until November 6. I also sent the ebook files to Baen, with a request that they publish on November 13, which is the date that the ebook edition will publish at All The Other Vendors.
Everybody confused now?
Yeah, me, too.
The cats all came out to my office to sit with me and I was wranglin’ files. Pretty soon, they’ll start reminding me that it will Soon! Be! Happy! Hour, but I think I have time to get the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and put away before that Auspicious Hour strikes.
How’d everybody do today?
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Sunday. Chilly, cloudy — no, wait! Here’s the sun trying to break through.
Slept a little late this morning, but that’s OK, given the exciting week I’ve got lined up.
Rice and asparagus stir fry for breakfast. Because I Could. Leftovers for lunch.
The two bill-like pieces of mail that came in yesterday, were not in fact bills, so yay.
Yesterday also saw the delivery of another light tube/string. Once I get that up, I’ll have three rooms outfitted with LED strings — the living room, Steve’s Office, and my office. This is perhaps excessive. OTOH, the Dark is Rising.
Today’s plan is writing, glassworking, one’s duty to the cats, reading. Yeah, slacking off again. I’m thinking that I’m way overwriting this book, but — onward to (an) end, then rest, then Sumo Editing. The Writing Life.
And that? Is all I’ve got.
Who else is slacking off today?
Today’s blog post title brought to you by Siouxsie and the Banshees, “Dear Prudence.” (Yes, yes, written by Paul McCartney, thank you.)
PR first: Open for Business!
What went before ONE: And I’ve just figured out the best part of having a studio with a door — I can leave everything as it is, where it is, so next time I go down to do some work, I can just — work.
I’m feeling somewhat better after an hour of working at my own pace and figuring stuff out by myself. Not that I’ve made Strides — no, I have made at least one stride. I successfully cut a strip of “sand” out of that awful glass and it broke along the scores! Even the blasted point. So, yay. Progress.
I also cut four or five pieces out of clear colored glass, which behaved like rational silicone dioxide, broke where it was scored and didn’t give me no lip. I do, however, foresee days at the grinder in my future…
Work so far:
What went before TWO: So, today I pulled a scene, completely rewrote it, and! The WIP wordcount is exactly the same as it was before I did all that. So! 98,770. ish.
Spent an hour in My! Studio! playing with glass.
It was such a nice day that I think I’ll try to do it again tomorrow.
Next week is looking a little complex — book club on Monday (Oh. I need to get a copy of our next book, The Women), driving to and from the hospital in Rockport with a nerve conduction test in-between on Tuesday, and! needlework (I really don’t want to miss two weeks in a row); glasswork on Thursday; and Aztec Two Step on Saturday. So, that will be a good week to use the cut-up time for the Sekrit Project (remember that?) and putting together the paper edition of Civilized Behavior (ebook at all the bookstores for preorder!), and finishing my glass homework, too.
Yeah, I’ve got a little too much on my plate, still, but I’m working through it. By the end of November, I should be past the worst of it.
Question for my glassworking folks! Must you have a grinder to go forward in the hobby?
The cats wish me to know that it is Happy Hour and technically, they’re not wrong. And yanno? I could use a glass of wine my own self.
Everybody have a good evening. Stay safe. I’ll check in tomorrow.
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Saturday. Sunny and going to be slightly warmer than the last couple days.
Breakfast was an enormous scramble — two eggs, leftover veggies, half a said-to-be apple fritter which was, frankly, disappointing. The Caterteria has been replenished. The cats are in various sunspots throughout the house. I will very shortly be going back to Steve’s Office to write the scene the Boys Belowstairs so kindly provided upon waking.
The plan for the day is, yes, writing, and glassworking; one’s duty to the cats, and a walk. That’s enough for one day.
I’m remembering a story about Steve’s grandmother, who traveled by bus and by subway, but had never, and by design, learned how to drive. Her reasoning being: “But what if I was driving and I thought of a poem? I wouldn’t be able to stop and write it down!”
I know a bunch of you are going/have gone to No Kings assemblies in your little pieces of America. Strength to your sign-carrying arms.
And thank you.
Today’s blog post title comes from Men at Work, “Down Under,” which actually got me to sing yesterday. Well done, Men at Work.
Good morning:
What went before ONE: The lost has been found.
I looked in the closet in Steve’s office that the cats like to bat springs under, and there were four springs — one each of red, yellow, green, and blue — and one somewhat furry wrist brace.
So! I now have a dedicated glassworking brace. Go, me.
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What went before TWO: So that’s 1,140ish new words, bringing the WIP to 98,770ish. Now, I need to do some picking up for Sara, who arrives V. Early tomorrow, eat a lateish lunch, and do as many picky little tasks as I can before it’s time to leave for glassworking class.
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What went before THREE: Always a shock, when years later you reread a story you had written that you had thought was . . . not up to standard — and realize that it’s a good story, after all, despite it wasn’t the story you had, perhaps, intended to write.
“Our Lady of Benevolence,” by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller.
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What went before FOUR: Wow, am I bad at cutting glass. Though, in my own defense, even the teacher thought there was a reason the glass I’d bought for sand was on sale. I am significantly better at cutting clear and pebbled glass, so — though it’s a poor workman and all like that — I’m blaming the glass.
Onward…
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Friday. Up earlier than I’d like, but the payoff is that Sara will be here in and in a couple hours I’ll have a clean house.
It is currently chilly down here in the shadowland, though sunny at treetop level.
Sigh.
The tea is really good this morning. Barkeep! Set me up another!
So, homework is to finish cutting out my glass, so the pieces are ready to be ground and — I dunno — next week. I’m having a lot of I Dunno moments, and while I recognize that this is in fact what learning a new thing is, it’s still … disconcerting. It probably doesn’t help that our teacher, who is very skilled and has been doing and teaching glass for A Long Time, occasionally forgets to articulate a step.
It was, for instance, only last night that I was finally able to understand why I needed “half a ceiling tile” and in fact, caught a glimmer of What Kind of ceiling tile. ANSWER: It’s to build the pattern on, after you’ve cut your glass. So! That would be a hard, as opposed to a fluffy asbestos, ceiling tile. Or perhaps a thin piece of board of the appropriate size. I’ll poke around downstairs and see what I have.
As I said last night, I have several kinds of glass to work with, and the … opaque glass is murder to cut. The several pieces of colored glass cut like a dream, and I suppose it’s a good thing that I started with the sky — which is clear orange glass — and cut my pieces with no problem.
Trouble started with the ocean — also opaque, swirls of blue and white that I had thought myself very fortunate to have found on sale — when I did a credible job of cutting several small pieces, but managed to break a bigger piece. Still, I have glass left over, so that can probably be salvaged.
Then I got to the swirly yellow, beige, tan part that was to be the sand. There are six? smallish pieces, and no matter how I leaned on my cutter, I couldn’t get a score deep enough to break properly. The instructor finally came by, looked at the carnage on my table and asked what my plan was. I said that I still did have several large pieces of the same glass leftover and that my plan was to start over. She took my cutter and a scrap, tried a score, shook her head and said, “Do you have the pattern pieces for all of this?” I handed them over. She fished the bigger pieces out of my scrap box and said, “I’ll do these. This glass isn’t easy.”
She didn’t have time to cut them before class let out, but she told me to bring them back next time and she’d cut them for me. So there’s that. And — lesson learned. I shall be working with clear glasses until I have something approaching a skill level there.
I suspect that my work was not made easier by having a cutter that leaks oil all over.
So! Not exactly a success, my first attempts. I thought I had prepared for screwing up, but, honestly? Largely due to ignorance regarding how many ways there were to screw up, I surprised myself.
Sara just texted to say that she’ll be a half-hour late, which gives me time to drink this cup and tea and make another before I retire to Steve’s office and open the WIP.
How’re y’all doing this morning?