Eagles Over the Kennebec

I am remiss in reporting the outcome of the third dinner in the HelloFresh box -- pea, mint, and feta risotto.

All of the fresh ingredients provided were, indeed, fresh, so no substitutions were necessary.  And -- it's a simple dish, simply made.  The most strenuous part of the exercise was chopping the onion, garlic and mint, but I like to chop things so I was a happy woman.  The rice did need constant stirring, which kind of got old, but finished up just before it became an Utter Bore.  At the last minute, Steve suggested the addition of two leftover sausage links, which added an Extra Something Pleasant to an otherwise warm and filling dish.  One pot, a chopping board, a sharp knife, a wooden spoon, and a bowl apiece to serve it made for a simple wash-up, too.

We did have about a bowl of rice left over, which we'll doubtless find a use for.  We used the chicken leftover from Meal the First in salads, and the leftover potato ragout as part of yesterday's breakfast.  Leftover steak will figure someway into today's supper.

So, that.

Today is going to be An Interesting Day.  First, Steve is off to Skowhegan for an appointment.  When he returns, we'll have lunch and get ready to motor on down to the Big City of Portland for the Maine Literary Awards.  Since Skowhegan is an hour thataway and Portland is two-and-a-half hours thisaway, Steve at least will have spent a great deal of the day on the highway.

In writing news, I got to write new words!  Yay!  I'm still unclear as to the current total wordage, for Reasons, but progress is being made.

Hope everyone is having a lovely and productive day.

* * *

"He was sometimes a burden to his children, but it must be said that he was sorely tried.  You would perhaps have found him a little stiff, and not apt to stint himself when an opinion was called for."

There's a new guest story up at Splinter Universe:  "Riverweave," by EC Ambrose.  Here's your link.  Remember that the PayPal link at the bottom of story will send your donation directly to the author, should you wish to demonstrate your appreciation of their work.

Because the medical tests scheduled for today were over and done with much earlier than anyone had a right to expect, Steve and I decided to give the new car (which still lacks a name) its head.  Whereupon, it ran all the way up to Greenville, which kind of hugs the lower end of Moosehead Lake.  We stopped her there, since the roads up around Rockwood are not what a city car might particularly like, ate lunch at Auntie M's, walked the cute little boardwalk at the water's edge, sadly determined that the wind was kicking up 'waaaaay too much dust to make further perambulating about town comfortable, stopped at the Indian Store on the way outta town, and came home via Bingham, which is looking very much the worse for wear.

We arrived home to find that today we lost both Morning Glory Zell, famous for once having worn a snake as a costume at a DisClave, and for having bred a "unicorn;" and Mary Stewart, author of many, many fine romantic suspense novels.  Their absences render the world much less interesting.

There are still two days to purchase Liaden Universe® novel, Fledgling, an Audible Hidden Gem, for a paltry $3.95.  Yes, from now until Saturday, May 17, at 11:59 pm Eastern Daylight Time, you -- Audible Member or Innocent Bystander -- can purchase the complete, unabridged audiobook, narrated by the incomparable Eileen Stevens, for a mere $3.95!

Here's your link.

Today's blog title comes to us from Cage the Elephant.  Here's your link.

* * *

Progress on One of Five
65,783/100,000 OR 66% complete

Young Mr. Smealy gave his word that he would never cause Boss Calhoon an instant's worry."

Miri sighed.

"Which promise it looks like he's forgot."

"He may consider that he did not promise to leave Boss Conrad similarly worry-free."

Bright and cold today; tomorrow?  Snowpocalypse.

You'll recall that I mentioned the Sylvan Investigations Kickstarter campaign owned and operated by Laura Anne Gilman.  That campaign goes over in a scant few hours, and is still just a leeeeetle bit short of the goal. Have a look, why not, and let's see if we can push this thing over the top.  Here's your link.

Speaking of Kickstarter, Streets of Shadows: A Noir Urban Fantasy Fiction Anthology is about halfway to its goal, with twelve days to go.  The ToC so far includes Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Kevin J. Anderson, Tim Lebbon, Seanan McGuire, Brandon Massey, Tom Piccirilli, and Lucy A. Snyder, which is worth the price of admission right there.  Here's that link.

In regard to Snowpocalyse, Our Plan at the moment is to get up at Omighod tomorrow, so I can drive Steve to the train station in Brunswick, then deliver the tax paperwork to the accountant and get home before Shit Gets Serious.  There is a fire laid in the woodstove, and I'm in the process of charging the Big Batteries.  We have put in stores of Mozart's medicines, cat food, yams, onions, wine. . .all the essentials, in other words.

Snowpocalypse also means that today?  Is devoted to the final ordering of the tax paperwork!  Tax paperwork is entertaining, for values of entertaining that include a tall drink with rum in it at the end of the day.  I personally adore how one place sends me a 1099 for a $103 payment, while another says, No 1099 needed for payments less than $600, but yanno?  It will Very Soon Now be Deb the Accountant's problem.  I keep reminding myself that she likes dealing with this stuff or she'd embrace another career.

A reminder for those going to Boskone -- Steve will be there, I will not.  Here's his schedule:

Friday, February 14

6:00 — 6:50
Bleeding Hearts
A Valentine’s Day panel about romance in science fiction, fantasy, and horror. What are some of our great love stories for the ages? What stories turned out to be tragedies — or worse? Panelists will discuss how love can turn a character’s world upside-down.
Darlene Marshall (M), Ellen Asher, Leigh Perry, Steve Miller

8 — 8:50
Good vs Evil: The Great Divide
Fantasy often incorporates pure goodness and pure evil, foregrounding them as serious character motivations or actually giving them bodily form. How does the battle of good and evil stay relevant in a world filled with shades of gray? What value does purity, for good or ill, lend to fantasy?
Jack M. Haringa(M), Jeffrey A. Carver, Steve Miller, Steven Popkes

Saturday, February 15

11 — 11:50
Autographing — Steve Miller and Charles Stross

12:00 — 12:50
Writers on Writing: Character Versus Characterization
The success of any story relies upon its characters. But writers can get confused between establishing a character and characterization. What’s observable? What’s hidden? What do we see on the page, and what do we feel when reading about this character as a whole? Writers discuss ways to more deeply develop characters, and how characterization can either get in the way or be used successfully.
Jeffrey A. Carver (M), Sarah Beth Durst, Steve Miller, Greer Gilman, Steven Sawicki

2:00 — 2:50
Kaffeeklatsche — Steve Miller

4:00 — 4:25
Reading — Steve Miller  (Reading from Carousel Sun and from Trade Secret)

5:00 — 5:50
The Long Series — How We Did It
Experts in the long multibook series share their secrets for keeping it alive and interesting. How do you prevent characters and storylines from feeling tired after the third or twelfth or even nineteenth book? How do you keep all those characters and histories straight when coming up with new ideas? Can fandom affect series development? Finally, when — and how — do you bring things to a satisfying end?
Ginjer Buchanan (M), Melinda Snodgrass, Steve Miller, Charlaine Harris

Sunday, February 16

11:00 — 11:50
Ezines, Fanzines, and Blogs, Oh My!
Fanzines, ezines, and blogs come and go, and return again in new and different forms. What is it about fanzines that gives them such resiliency when so many readerships remain in perpetual flux? What are the advantages of these forms? What do their readers — and writers — get out of each?
Steve Davidson (M), Joe Siclari, E. C. Ambrose, Steve Miller

12:00 — 12:50
Reboots: New Chances for Old Stories?
Are do-overs only for television programs, movies, and comics, or can we hit the dreaded reboot button on written fiction as well? Which classic stories should be preserved untouched in SF/F/H’s hallowed halls? Which might gain fresh life – and new readers — from judicious technological or social updating? Once you start changing things, how far should you go?
Steve Miller (M), Shahid Mahmud, Beth Meacham, Alexander Jablokov, Ellen Asher

* * *
Progress on Insert Working Title Here
20,283/100,000 words OR 20% Complete

"There is another risk, not inconsiderable, for what functions on a large scale also functions at the clan level. Since Korval was formed, it was yos'Galan's sense of propriety and ethics that guided the clan. For the first time in the clan's existence, we are in a situation that favors yos'Phelium's strengths over yos'Galan's."

It's still snowing here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory.  I've been doing Boring But Necessary work -- balancing the checkbook, updating links, and whatnot.  I'm thinking this afternoon belongs to the Yule cards -- to get them off my desk, if for no other reason.  Then I have to figure out who to call at the ACA because the Promised Specialist hasn't called, and hisorher time is up.  That's probably for tomorrow -- after I get the Yule cards off of the top of the file.

I want to assure everyone that I have not been undertaking the BBN work alone.  I have had supervision:

And, yanno?  Now looks like a good time to take a break and shovel some snow.

* * *

Progress on One of Five
13,321/100,000 words OR 13.32% Complete

But, there. Quin was. . .mostly. . .quite sensible, wasn't he? And didn't he, regardless, spend time better used for reading, or for exercising, threading beads along wires and chains? Indeed, some of his creations were quite pretty, and could at least be given as gifts, and worn. There was some cachet, too, in the wearing of a handmade jewel; even if the stones were semi-precious, at best.

The weather that manifested as blizzards and snowstorms in other parts of the US rode into Maine as torrential rains on the back of an unseasonably warm, and extremely damaging, wind.  We have flood warnings for every river and stream, standing puddles in every lawn, and gullies clogged with leaves overflowing into the roads.  Tree limbs are down, and though we haven't lost power in our neck of the woods, others -- quite a few others -- have.

It's stopped raining for the moment.  The weatherbeans are calling for temperatures plummeting to 29F/-2C tonight, and precipitation in the form of ice pellets.

Steve and I went to town at midday to pick up our deli-made Thanksgiving dinner; and we intend to Stay Right Here at the Confusion Factory for the next couple of days, if not the entire weekend.

It will be a working holiday, as Thanksgiving often is, with writing early in the day, then knocking off for dinner and a game of Scrabble.

I am, let it be known, working again, having accepted the path of wisdom and thrown away the outline (such as it was) for this book.  So, yay.  It would sort of be nice if the book would cough up with at least a working title, but I guess we can get along with "One" for a while yet.

Also, I have identified a Hot Fudge Sundae scene, which makes me happy.  Things always go better with when there's a Hot Fudge Sundae to write toward.

I hope everyone is safe and warm where you are, and that the holiday, if you celebrate, gives you comfort.  For those who don't celebrate a holiday tomorrow -- I hope your day is stress-free.  Unless you like that sort of thing.

* * *

Progress on One of Five

10,012/100,000 OR 10 percent complete

Well, and none of that solved Theo, poor child, cast from Frenzel to ragtag Cresthaller, and not a profit made from either. It was scarcely the best use of a new -- not to say, unwilling -- trader, much less a new-found cousin. Happily, her nature appeared tenacious, and he dared hope that she hadn't yet become discouraged.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to answer yesterday's Idle Question.

From the Idle Question came two Rebound Questions, one having to do with the importance of blogging to a writer's career (this was more of an assumption than a question, but I'm making it a question because I want to Say Something About That), and one asking what the blogger gets from blogging.

So, the assumption that one must blog or do some other sort of social media in order to be a writer is...a perception born of the frenetic age we live in, and the lack of willingness to accept that, in O So Very Many Ways, success as a writer is a crap shoot.

The Number One Thing that you need to do if you want to be in future, or are now, a writer is -- WRITE.  Write, send out what you write, pay attention to your craft, write, study the markets sufficiently to insure that you don't get cheated, write, and, ohbytheway, WRITE.

Everything else -- everything else -- is an extra.  You do not have to have -- what was the magic number? -- 1500? Facebook friends before you start in writing your novel.  You don't need to set up Whatever or Boing-Boing and tend it for a decade before you write your novel.  All you  have to do is open up your word processor, turn to a clean sheet in your notebook, go outside with a nice thick chunk of tailor's chalk in hand,  find a clean place on the sidewalk, or whatever else rings your bell -- and start writing.

That's it.  Personally, I think that starting a writing career by writing seriously (by which I mean with serious purpose and a goal) every day is hard enough without putting the burden of an active blog on the list, too.

Now, if you're a sociable sort of person and you like to blog -- then by all means go for it.  In fact, if you're the sort of person who likes to blog, you're probably doing it already.

Pro Tip: People can tell if you like doing something.  If you like to blog -- if it's fun for you, regardless of any other input -- then folks will read your blog and they'll comment and feel comfy with you, and cheer you on in your endeavors.

Conversely, if you hate blogging and only force yourself to do in order to Build Your Brand?  People will pick up on that, too.

The same principle applies to doing book signings and going to conventions; tweeting and facebooking.  Do what you like, and what makes you happy; don't do what you don't like.  And for ghod's sake, don't just do things in order to Sell Books; that's lame.  And pretty often it doesn't work.

Second question!  Why do I blog; aka What's In It For Me?

That's easy; I'm a writer, and I like to tell stories.  I'm an introvert, but I like to interact with people.  Blogging lets me do both things -- tell stories, and benefit from human interactions -- without exhausting myself by having to physically be in a roomful of people, read all that body language, and protect myself.  Blogging lets me limit interaction, when I need to focus elsewhere; I can read and answer comments in my own good time.  For me, blogging is dern near the perfect medium of communication.

* * *

In other news -- this is a long blog because you're going to have to do without for a couple days; we have a buncha stuff on this week's schedule -- a while ago, I got interested in Doc Holliday, and ordered in a well-regarded biography (Doc Holliday, by Gary L. Roberts).  Now, I like biographies -- they're my Reading Matter of Choice when I'm actively writing fiction -- and I've read a bunch of them, but I've gotta tell you -- I'm going to give up on Doc's book, here.

See, the primary reason I read biographies is to learn about people; their motivations; their movements; how they conformed to, or failed to conform to, the mores of their time -- and I'm getting none of that with this book.  What I'm getting is the author's speculation, a bunch of facts supported by newspaper reports and filed legal papers, and a review of the Civil War, as seen from Georgia and the Deep South.

Now, the author does say in his introduction that Doc left virtually no papers.  He had a lifelong correspondence with his first cousin, who had entered a convent, apparently because her religion had led her to refuse Doc's hand in marriage (they were first cousins).  The cousin had saved the letters, but upon her death, a family member took it upon himself (I assume the masculine pronoun here) to burn them (pause for a group banging of heads on desks).  I can understand that it would therefore be difficult to piece together much about Doc's private life.

While I applaud the author for getting a 400-plus-page book out of such flimsy stuff, that isn't what I read biography for; if I want speculation, I read fiction.  So, Doc's book goes back on the shelf.  Maybe I'll find more patience with it, later.

* * *

Frequent readers of this blog will recall that I have some. . .Interesting Cognitive Quirks apparently brought into my life when the Good Sisters switched my primary hand from Left to Right.  In order, so my grandmother told me, to make my life easier.

I've been living with the effects of this for quite a number of years, naturally, and I thought I knew all the Funny Places, but yesterday I discovered another one.

Compass.

Have you ever seen one of these things?  A dial marked N-E-S-W with degrees between, and a needle in the middle, the red end magnetized so it will always point more-or-less North, no matter how you turn the dial?  Yes?  Holy bananas, what a brain-bender!

No, seriously.  You hold the thing in your hand so that the red pointer points North, and then, if you want to go, say, East, you squint along the dial and pick out a tree or a mailbox or something along that line and you walk to it?  This is how its supposed to work?  Phew.  Steve spent an hour, maybe more, but it's not looking like a skill I'll be -- forget mastering -- understanding any time soon.  I hope to Ghu I'm never lost on a mountain in Maine.

Or anywhere else where there aren't street signs.

* * *

Y'all have a good Beginning Of A New Week.

* * *

Progress on One of Five
8,062/100,000 OR .81% complete

"Have I finally reached the captain of the pirate vessel Dutiful Passage?" The voice was high-pitched and clealy angry. Priscilla felt a jolt of her own anger.

"This is Captain Mendoza of the trade ship Dutiful Passage out of Surebleak," she said coolly. "To whom am I speaking?"

"Retribution Officer Blix," the angry voice snapped; "Law and Decency. In accordance with Chesselport Regulations 928A through 977M, pertaining to known pirates on-port, your vessel and its cargo are forfeit to this office; your officers and crew will be interrogated by this office, and those who are found guilty of piracy and related crimes will be placed in appropriate labor programs."

#SFWAPro