Day is done

[rolanni]

Seems awful early for day to be done, actually, but my brain is kinda marshmallowly feeling, so I think I’d better give it a rest.  It’s not like it didn’t do a little bit of work, today.

So!  Having goofed off early, I’ll goof off late, too, and go curl up on the couch with a book.  For some reason that the backbrain isn’t sharing with me, I need to reread “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”  I mean, fair enough, it’s probably been more than twenty years, but why now?

In other news, there’s a new chapter up at Carousel Tides, that being Chapter the Fifth.  As always, the link goes to the first page on the website rather than directly to the chapter, in order to avoid inadvertent spoilage.

Speaking of Carousel Tides. . .  While I was in Belfast today, I stopped by the Mr. Paperback in Reny’s Plaza and dropped off a dozen or so sampler chapbooks.  There were two people behind the counter when I came in — a man and a woman.  The man asked if he could help me, so I introduced myself, explained I was a local writer, and that I had a book coming out from Baen in November that was a Maine fantasy.  Would he be kind enough to give these samples to customers known to read Urban Fantasy and/or Maine fiction?

He took the chapbooks, making noncommittal noises, flipped one over to read the back, and suddenly said, “You’ve written other books.”

I agreed that I had written many books with my husband and that we had signed in the store some years back, with three or four other local authors, in celebration of Nebula Weekend.

“I’ll be delighted to distribute these for you.  Thank you so much,” he said.

“Thank you so much,” I replied and moved off to go, yanno, look at the books.

As I’m leaving the area, I hear the woman say, “Why are you doing this? Who is she?”  And the guy said,  “Her and her husband wrote a science fiction series.  I read them, a long time ago.  In fact, I think we have some of their stuff back in the section.  It’s OK.”

I happened past the SF/F section via the stuffies and am able to verify that, yep, there was some of our stuff in the section.

So, that was OK.

I have written today.  I’m pretty sure the word meter won’t work over here, so I’ll just report the following progress on Ghost Ship:

61,740 words/100,000 OR 61.74% complete

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

Comments

[elbales]

No, I get it that they can't just merrily accept chapbooks from whoever... it sets up all kinds of expectations. What seemed not-so-advertent to me was the fact that the man remembered her—in fact, Sharon had just established that she and her husband had written a number of books together, and that they had previously signed books in that very store—and yet the woman asked this question that seemed out-to-lunch to me. Like, was she not listening?

(ETA: This is to say that the man's actions seem entirely reasonable. He asked questions; he established Sharon's bona fides, so to speak. In short, he did his job. It's the woman's question that made me smack my forehead.)

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Like, was she not listening?

I'd been thinking about this myself, and I think it might be a case of Telephone. Probably the Head Office said something on the order of, "You guys have got to double-check before accepting any freebies or signing requests that come in. Don't just say yes automatically." And that got remembered as, "Don't take freebies from people claiming to be authors and Just Say No to requests for booksignings."

[elbales]

Oh dear. That sounds dismayingly plausible. Oh, the pain.