Answers with coffee

Last evening’s post generated some questions, which I’ll try to deal with here, all in one lump, with the morning’s second cup of coffee.

Of particular concern was that I reported “scrubbling” the cats.  Some folks misread “scrubbled” as “scrubbed” and I want to assure you right now that the Cat Farm cats are, in the immortal words of my mother-in-law, “clean cats.”

“Scrubbling” in the vernacular of the Cat Farm is a two-handed, full body rough rub.  Mozart likes his back scrubbled.  He will lie belly flat on the floor, I’ll kneel next to him and rub both hands up and down, like I’m shampooing him.  He grabs on the rug with his front claws and squeaks.  Yes, he squeaks.  What can I say?  He’s a goof, but I love him.

Hexapuma likes to have his belly scrubbled.  The technique is roughly the same as above, except for watching out for the Sudden Grab(tm) when he’s had enough, and that Hex likes to enjoy himself in silence.

Scrabble prefers to let the whole scrubble thing pass her by, thanks.

* * *

Mozart and Hexapuma are Maine Coon Cats.

Mozart’s home cattery is the Kennebec Cattery in Pittsburgh, so his Full Formal Name is Kennebec Mozart; he is Officially a Blue Silver Tabby, and has just celebrated his twelfth birthday.

Hexapuma’s Official Moniker is Blue Blaze Sphinxian Hexapuma, from the Blue Blaze Cattery, now of Delaware.  He is a Black and Silver Classic Tabby and will this month celebrate his fourth birthday.  He is not, as many people assume, a polydactyl, though many Maine Coon cats are (it’s a feature, not a bug).  He was named, so I’m told, for a critter that appears in a series of novels by David Weber, the Sphinxian Hexapuma, which is, as I also understand it, far fiercer and more ambitious than Hex will ever be.

The Cat Farm’s cat-0f-all-work is Scrabble, a calico adopted from the local shelter.  Steve met her while she was interning at the local pet food store, realized her potential as an office manager and brought her home.  Scrabble will soon, so we believe, be eight years old.  We celebrate her birthday on September 1.

* * *

Reading order for the Liaden Universe® novels. . .

There’s a sort-of reading order over here, but honestly, there are apparently as many True Reading Orders as there are readers, so I’ve given up weighing in on the topic.  Read them how you like them; it’ll all make sense in the end.

* * *

There was a request for a description of the process of writing, but. . .I think I’d rather not talk about process while I’m actually writing, so maybe we’ll get to that one later.  I once heard an artist say that she could either draw or talk about drawing, but she couldn’t draw and talk about what she was doing at the same time.  If you start thinking too much about what you’re doing, the centipede gets all tangled up in her feet, poor thing, and goes crashing onto her nose.

* * *

Book length, and can’t Ghost Ship please be longer than 100,000 words.

I use 100,000 words as a target count for word meters and progress reports because (1) it’s handy, (2) we have a contract for a science novel in the Liaden Universe® of not less than 100,000 words, and (3) I don’t actually know how long the book is going to be until it’s done.  We write story, not words, but it’s hard to assure interested folk of the progress of the story in a nice little graphic.  Some days, there are no words; it’s all about staring at nothing.

But! To give those who are interested a range, here’s the word count on a couple of random submission manuscripts:

Agent of Change:  98,000

Duainfey:  101,000

Longeye: 101,000

Fledgling:  117,000

Saltation:  104,000

Mouse and Dragon: 115,000

Carousel Tides:  101,945

. . .so you’ll see we pretty often do go over, and hardly anything comes in right at 100,000 words.

And now my coffee’s done and it’s time to get on the road and run me some errands.

Everybody have a good Monday.

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.

Errands, the doing thereof

So, in early-ish to town, with a stop at the credit union, which is inside the city limits but no longer in town.  When Steve and I lived in Waterville, more years ago than  I probably want to stop and figure out at the moment, I could walk to:   the Morning Sentinel (where I was gloriously employed as a copy editor); the grocery store; the “department store” (Zayres, then Ames); the drugstore (CVS); the bank; the bookstore; the frame shop; the art supply store; the music store; the copy shop; another department store (locally owned; the name of which escapes me); a lingerie store; a head shop; a newstand; three beauty salons and a barber shop; another drugstore (LaVerdiere’s);  the video store; three jewelry stores; an insurance company; a bakery; a liquor store; the post office; the credit union; two banks; and several restaurants and bars.

I mean, people lamented that “main street was dyin’” but honestly, I had almost everything I needed on a daily basis within a six-block area.

Now, the credit union’s moved out to the edge of town, where you need to mount up your car to get; CVS likewise.  LaVerdiere’s closed, along with the grocery store and both department stores; the video store of course is long gone; Al Corey’s music store closed for remodeling a couple months ago, and now it’s and empty storefront.  Downtown still has stores in it — Children’s Book Cellar is still there; the bars and restaurants — renamed and revisioned, some of them — remain.  Liquor store’s still good.  So’s the post office.  But the lack of a grocery store (and though I Love Them, the fresh market is not a grocery store) has kind of made downtown untenable as far as living goes.

This is something I’ve been thinking about a good deal lately, as Steve and I try to figure out how to move “in town” by which we mean to a place where we can walk to most of life’s little necessities.  And where we won’t be ‘way, ‘way out in the country when we really shouldn’t be driving in snow anymore (I’m watching what some older couples — by which I mean, older than us — of our acquaintance are going through, trying to stay in country houses when one, or both, are becoming frail and it’s scaring me to death, here).

And!  All of that?  Was a digression.

Where was I?

Ah, yes, the bank, thence to the copy shop (which is still there, though much diminished from its days as Office Supply Empire and Quick Print) to make photocopies of the marked up pages before putting same in envelope and mailing them to North Carolina.

Having done this, I walked down to one of the two surviving beauty parlors to see if anything could be done about my hair, but they weren’t open at 9:15, though the hours on the door said “Monday 9-4.” I therefore went to the Post Office, mailed my packages, picked up the mail and returned, to find an undated-or-timed sticky-note on the door stating, “Be back in a few minutes.”

All righty, then.  I stuck around a few minutes, but no one ever showed up, so I walked down to the second salon and there Hilary cut my hair in a very satisfactory fashion and I can see again!

Having achieved this entirely satisfactory outcome, I got in the car and drove to Elm Plaza, there to dispatch an errand at Penney’s, walked down to the grocery store and did that errand, and so to home.

All of which took much longer than I had anticipated.

Came home, unpacked the groceries, made lunch and ate it, did a modest amount of laundry.

Writing happened, though not as much as I would have liked.  I realized rather late that part of what was throwing me off was that there was one (1) scene missing and one (1) scene  in the wrong place.  I remedied those situations and now am officially done for the evening, and yea, verily, the day.

G’night

Progress on Ghost Ship

64,035/100,00o OR 64.04% complete

Originally published at Sharon Lee, Writer. You can comment here or there.