Eagles Over the Kennebec

What went before ONE: Aaaand, back. Home Despot only had part of what I wanted, but I did not go to Augusta. Instead I went to the new Reny's, which is awesome. I bought a plastic folding table for less than $10, which I can sit out on the deck with my chair and have a place to put my tea or my glass of wine, or even my sandwich. I bought olives and soup, and a pair of summer-weight Carhartt utility jeans. But that's not the Exciting Part.

The Exciting Part is that Reny's Heard Me and now has a Reny's Passport! You have to visit all nineteen Reny's in Maine, and get your passport stamped at each one, then submit it for a chance at the Grand Prize! They'll even return your passport after the contest is over.

I got my passport stamped at Waterville today -- only 18 more to go!

What went before TWO: And, I now need a Big Umbrella, because the little open-sided tent took two of us to put up -- and it wasn't easy, even with. So! I have something to shop for at the next Reny's on my list.

What went before THREE: I just spent some time breaking down a few of Winter's Boxes and getting them into the open recycling bin for delivery to the curb tomorrow. I do not think there is a movie on my schedule this evening. I have an Idea about What Happens Next in the WIP.

Time to fix lunch, eh?

What went before FOUR: Writing consisted of Staring into Space, and trying to figure out how to get lightly through a convoluted piece of business without boring myself to death. I think I've got it. Of course, I thought that earlier, too.

And, that? Is the afternoon/early evening report.

Everybody stay safe; I'll see you tomorrow.

Tuesday. Damp, but they say no rain. Trash and recycling, including the boxes I broke down yesterday, are at the curb.

Today's music is one of my favorites, "Once in a Lifetime," Talking Heads. One of the two major songs that Agent of Change was written to. There was a mini-commentary from one of the band members before Mr. Hunter put on the music, speaking to why this song was Talking Heads first Number One. Said bandmate's opinion was it had been the line, "How did I get here?" that sold it to the millions, and he may be right. All I know is that the line that sold it to me, for Val Con, was "My god. What have I done?" And -- bonus -- the muttering at the end about "and now a twister comes..."

I see the signs of a feline decorating aesthetic on and around my desk. Why, yes, that pen does look better under the adding machine; and the Kleenex box on the floor, angled against the wheels of my chair. Why didn't I think of this?

Breakfast coming up soon -- pb&j on a whole wheat English muffin. I have leftover pork, so I guess that's lunch in some form.

Today is partially about Moving Things for the Grand Arrival of the Washer and Dryer, tomorrow at an as-yet undetermined time. Also, I want to get some writing done.

I don't know if it works this way for anybody else, and, indeed, it only works this way for me some of the time -- but I have to hit a certain Mass of Narrative before I understand the structure that has to be imposed in order to have All of This, err, make sense. I know they tell you in English/Writing class that structure is one of the first things you determine. Bear in mind that, in class, they also tell you that you have to know the POV's motivation before writing Word One. Yes, if I roll my eyes any harder they will roll right out of my head, thank you.

So! Breakfast for me, coming right up.

What's coming right up for you?

Today's blog title brought to you, naturally, from The Talking Heads, "Once in a Lifetime"

EDITED TO ADD, because someone did ask: The other song Agent of Change was written to is was also from The Talking Heads, and it is, of course, "Life During Wartime," which is basically the plot of Agent of Change...

Sunday. Raining, coolish.

Breakfast was salmon cake on multigrain whole wheat bread and the last orange. Lunch will be the chicken breast from the freezer, likely stir fried with rice and veggies.

Yesterday was a V. Quiet Day here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory. It did not snow, but it did kind of grumble and sleet and grumble some more, so a good day to be in the office comfy chair with a manuscript and cats scattered about, napping. I wrote 750ish new words yesterday, and I think I have the timeline going forward straight in my head at least, which where we need to start to keep in straight in your heads.

I took the hole-making titanium studs out of my ears yesterday -- yes, three days early! Call me a rebel. This was a Rather Difficult Operation. For a minute or two there I thought they were going to be For Always. I did finally get them out, discovering that they're nothing but little peace-bonded harpoons, which I will not be putting back in my ears, TYVM. I replaced the harpoons with my old and comfortable sterling silver studs, and in a couple days -- or, who knows? this afternoon -- I'll put in a pair of "real" earrings and see how that feels.

I bought a new space heater for the bathroom. The ancient of same, circa 2005, will be swathed in plastic and go downstairs with the tower fans, against need.

I also bought a bread slicing guide, since I'm not getting any better at slicing straight pieces off the loaf. This one is notable for being made out of bamboo rather than plastic, has guides for two sizes of slice -- East Coast Sandwich and Texas -- and has a crumb catcher built in. I'm looking forward its arrival.

The Long Back Yard is Once! Again! snow free, and the snowdrops have doubled their numbers.

I slept short and bad Friday night, so was in bed early last night with my mug of chamomile tea, my book, and three cats -- Firefly, who is really getting the hang of this reading in bed thing; Tali, who seems to think she remembers something like this, somewhere else; and Trooper, who clocked out by my knee and wasn't heard from again. Rook obviously had first shift of night watch. This morning, he was solidly asleep against my back when I woke up.

Today, I'm back with the manuscript, and ASL homework. Dr. Bill at lifeprint.com delivers our homework and you, too, can watch his videos and learn Sign, does something that I really like. He reviews the lesson with an assistant drawn from the off-camera class, but he also hams it up, introduces words that are not in the lesson in his answers, and gives you the feeling of being immersed. The first two lessons, he stuck pretty close to the syllabus, but by lesson four, he's apparently decided if we've stuck it this long, he can pick up the pace.

I will finish my re-read of Night's Master ... probably over lunch. Next book up is another Grace Burrowes, speaking of whiplash -- the first in the Bad Heirs series, because I'm a sucker for a Bad Pun.

You are now All Caught Up.

What's up with you guys?

Sunday morning cat census.

The red basket that Rook's tucked into has a History.  Ten years ago, it was manuscript basket on my desk at the Cat Farm's previous, country, location.  Sprite took it over as a cat basket.  Trooper then claimed it -- the conflict that decided his precedence is what gave it that Interesting Bend.  I bought another box, ceding the first to cats, but then there were two boxes, so Belle claimed that one...Anyhoots when we moved, Steve took the red basket, put a towel in it, and announced it an Official Cat Place.  It was used by all of the cats while Steve was still working at his desk.  Rook now uses it, and sometimes Trooper.

What went before: So, I pulled the trigger on my Garmin watch this afternoon after I came home. After warning me that it could be Several Days before my package would be mailed, I have a shipping notice and the news that I should see my Item by March 17, so Happy Five Years Cancer Free to me.

I sat with the manuscript a bit, but got no new-word-writing done to speak of. Tomorrow, I have "nothing" on the schedule, so I will try to buckle down and actually get some work done.

I have one more thing to get out into the email lanes, then I'm done for the day.

Trooper, alas, has caught on to Spring Forward. He is even now positing that it is Coon Cat Happy Hour, which -- it will be Old Time Coon Cat Happy Hour in just 1/2 hour.

That didn't last long.

Chorus:  Now's the time to preorder your signed copy of Diviner's Bow from The Uncle.  Here's how.

Wednesday. Sunny and cool. The 'beans are calling for Cooler Than Yesterday.

Breakfast was homemade wheat toast with cream cheese and grapes. My first cup of tea is with me here at the desk.

The loaf of bread is almost gone, so one decision on the day is whether I'm making a new loaf today or defrosting the Extra. Lunch with be chicken patty on a roll with a slice of cheddar -- a chickenburger! -- and whatever veggies seem good at the time.

I didn't go to bed last night as early as I had planned (mostly because Tali had actually come to my lap and gone to sleep while I was reading, and I didn't want to leap right up and disrupt a Milestone), but I did sleep past 7 this morning, so, go me (and Firefly and Rookie who both slept with me), for 8 hours plus of sleep, and I feel much more The Thing today, with a noticeable lack of I ache all over, which is a relief all by itself.

So, the heart monitor is annoying, though not for the reasons you might think. It's tiny and weighs pretty close to nothing. The phone part of the package runs Hot Pepper (Android 12), which isn't that many generations back. I think the Pixel 9 in my other pocket runs Vanilla Ice Cream (Android 15).

However, the phone is desperate for attention, and it every so often gets up on its hind legs and triggers the alarm for Poor Skin Contact! Which is my cue to reboot, which mysteriously solves the problem for another three hours or so. Aside that, I do have to be careful about cats who want to sleep on my chest, and also Rookie, who thinks that Thing Two (the spare unit that's kept on the charging cord on the night table) is some kind of weird cosmic spider that needs Serious Killing.

I have some letters to answer today, including a request for a "good" picture of Steve to be included on the page dedicated to the Steve Miller Memorial Poetry Contest. I have ... a few ... pictures of Steve, but none from his Performing Poet Period, that having predated my intrusion into his life. We may have to go with a paper plane, if I can find that one.

Other than that, I'm really wanting to do some work today, so maybe I'll take the spare loaf out of the freezer, after all, in the spirit of limiting distractions.

What are you doing today that's fun and/or interesting?

Ah.  Paper plane:

Yesterday, Steve drove me to Bangor, so I could get my second Pfizer shot at the Cross Insurance Center (across from the casino; look for Paul Bunyan in the front yard).  This was the same place I'd gotten my first shot, a couple weeks ago.  On my first visit, I thought Northern Light Hospitals, which is in charge of this site, had organized brilliantly.  This time they had streamlined the process even more.

There were a couple of changes from the first time.  This time, we had the company of a Police Dog (wearing a service vest that said POLICE), and his partner.  Police Dog was one of those Big Yellow Dogs that you see everywhere -- maybe some golden retriever mixed something else deep-chested, and solid.  He made it his job to check everybody over, and accepted a pat on the head from a person in a chair before his caretaker could say, "No, Dad!  He's working!"

I am sorry to report that this time I was not offered a choice between Looney Tunes band-aid and regular, and I had to tell the person who administered my shot why I didn't want it in my left arm.  ("Left-side mastectomy," I said.  "Right," she said, briskly.  "No sticks in the left arm.")

Funny thing there is that she wrote my Free To Go time on a Pfizer info-page for me -- 11:10.  I turned my head to look at the clock she had consulted to get this time, and it said:  11:10.  I looked at her.  "No, no!"  she said.  "That clock is to save our brains; it's set 10 minutes ahead."

I was pointed to the recovery lounge, waited my ten minutes, and wandered out to find Steve and the car.

I did have the impression -- which may be quite wrong -- that there were less people getting the second shot than had gotten the first.  In theory, I should have been with my cohort -- the same group that I had been with for the first shot, and we were not nearly so crowded yesterday.  OTOH, second shots were administered on the opposite side of the building, and they had done wonders using the available space, in addition to upping the efficiency of the whole process, so they could have just been moving people through faster.

After my shot, Steve took us to Bangor Wine and Cheese on Hammond Street, where we made the acquaintance of Greta, who has just recently been given the job as Official Welcomer.  Maybe some basset hound in Greta, or corgi? -- brown, bow-legged, white chest and nose, big, sweet eyes.

We took on a case of mixed wines, some flavored vinegars and olive oils, as well as olives stuff with feta.  Then we said a fond farewell to Greta, and motored on home the long way.  The car's map showed us a new route home -- honestly, I would never have thought to go up Lebanon Street in Winterport, because it looks like an alley.  Come to find out it becomes routes 139 and 69, and 69 eventually crosses 202, and anybody can find their way home from 202.

Stopped to pick up a pizza on the way home, and took it easy the rest of the day.  I did have a talk with Trooper about shop-keeping, to see if he might like to keep a shop, pointing out that Greta not only had a Big Comfy Pillow in the street-side window, but also a nice grey bucket chair with a blanket back behind the counter, so there were real compensations.  Trooper, however, feels that he has found his niche as a writers' cat.

Unfortunately, I do have some side-effects from the shot:  muscle aches mostly.  The vaccination site is a little bruised, but I've had worse with flu shots.  I've taken an ibuprofen and drunk some Gatorade.

The plan, insofar as I have a plan, is to take the day off.  Yeah, yeah, I know, but sometimes I can make it stick.

Everybody stay safe.

So!  My new fountain pen arrived.  It's gorgeous, and! it writes sooooo smooth on the gritty old yellow so-called "legal pad" paper which is my preferred paper.  The pen came with a converter, which I hadn't realized, or I would've bought it a nice bottle of purple ink, instead of a box of black cartridges.  Maybe later.

What's that, you say?   Picture?  How about a link, instead?

I went shopping after doing the gym thing this morning.  Since I had been putting this off for a while, I had rather a Lengthy List and only accomplished about half.  I fear that I am no longer the Lean Mean Shopping Machine of yore. . .In any case, I'll try to finish up on Thursday.

One of the things I'll need is!  Bug repellent.  Bugs find me very tasty (it's like mosquitoes somehow know I have a lousy immune system) and I have it in my mind to be out in gardens and zoos and suchlike things, so bug repellent has moved to the top of the (remainder of) my list.  Can anyone recommend a good, not-hideously-poisonous-to-all-living-things-and-or-cancer-causing bug repellent that's easy to apply and doesn't smell bad? (not that I want the earth, or anything)

The other things I'll need on Thursday are replacement plants for the Cat Garden, which, under the combined efforts of the neighbor's chickens and the lawn guy's assistant, has mostly become a Weed Garden.  The dragon flowers are still doing well, but the bee balm was ruthlessly cut off last year by the LGA, and did not, as I had. . .kind of hoped. . .come back.  The garden is now well under the limbs of the red maple, so I'm thinking some hosta (called Jimmy here at the Cat Farm, because I can never remember what the damned thing is called, and Steve said that The Murdered Teamster sounded more like a rock band than a plant), or maybe some more bee balm, if the LGA can be educated not to cut off their heads, or some other shade-loving plants.  And there's one REALLY sunny corner where some day lilies might profit...

You see, I think, why I decided to Put Off Until Thursday what I did not finish today.

While I was shopping today, I must've seen about eight displays of those little three-sided spinner things, whatever they're called.  Not having kids, or grand-kids, either, I hadn't until recently realized that these were A Thing.  Back when I was a kid (and dinosaurs, &c), I used to have a continuous steel-link necklace that I used to spin while I was reading and/or studying, because -- though I couldn't've told you that at the time -- it helped me concentrate.  My mother took it away from me, of course, because back then such things were Weird and Not Normal and therefore Not Done.

What an age we live in.

I also learned, just today, that I live in a teensy-tiny-vanishingly-small-economically-unsupportable bubble with, like six other people (and Steve, and the coon cats.  And probably even Scrabble, who does not suffer fools, in case that's ever been in doubt) who believe in the social contract, the rule of law, repairing the infrastructure, and that a female Doctor Who is not the End of Civilization as we know it.  Who knew?

Anyway, home now to find that Steve had started the laundry, and is even now putting supper together.  After the meal, it's -- time to go to work, with a promise from the local weatherbeans of thunderstorms, maybe, this evening.

And on that note -- y'all have a fine afternoon, 'k?

Oh!  And here are Counting Crows, "Rain King."

State of the health is improving, slowly.

State of the book is proceeding, slowly.

State of the weather is…summery. 81F/27C on March 22?  The daffodils are pushing their way to the surface already and that’s just…not natural.

In shopping news, Fanboy Glass tells us that they have received such positive response to their Tree-and-Dragon glassware that they’ve added Mugs and Wine Glasses to the ever-popular Pint Glass so go on over and take a look.  (Fanboy does not ship to Australia, or Switzerland, or Spain, or anyplace, really, outside of the US and Canada.  We apologize, but, having once tried shipping highly breakable objects ’round the world ourselves, I can see their point.)

The second splinter dealing with Miri Robertson and Klamath is now up at Splinter Universe, joining the first splinter.  Read one, read ‘em all.

The edit letter for Dragon Ship has landed, and Steve is on point.  This is not your cue to ask when the eArc will be published, thanks.

I can’t get into it now, what with needing to finish up Necessity’s Child and all, but I suppose it’s time to do a blog post about Voice, and how Science Fiction isn’t only Stories of the Far Future, and why extrapolating from our own world into the future is a mug’s game, anyway.  Somebody remind me if I haven’t gotten around to that by mid-April, ‘k?

The Exciting Projects happening in the background are taking the long way ’round the barn.  Watch the skies, but take a break now and then so you don’t get a crick in your neck.

Mozart is napping in my his rocking chair.  I have, I hope, done the research necessary to satisfy our accountant regarding last year’s income (we don’t get 1099s for all the money we earn; this is apparently occasionally confusing), so now!

I can get to work.

How’s the weather where you are?  Seasonal?  Or has it gotten ahead of itself?

Progress on Necessity’s Child (tbfkaG)
94,116/100,000 words OR 94%

The gentlest flick of the wrist brought the blade out, locked and ready for business; the barest pressure on a certain spot in the leather-wrapped handle put it safely away again.

In fact, Udari thought, eying the thing with unease, it was a just a bit too apt, this knife, so smooth and so sweet that a man might forget that he held a weapon.

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

Today is Amazon.com’s bounty-hunting day. If you’d like to read more about what other folks think of this adorable trick, here’s what American Booksellers Association has to say.

Here’s the link to the petition, again, for those who are interested.

There’s also a cogent discussion of Amazon’s Thrilling! New! Project! KDP Select.

As it happened, Steve and I had some shopping to do on Waterville Main Street today, so off we took ourselves, to the post office, which was a Zoo; to Joka’s; to Juliet’s Bakery — which were, thankfully, not a Zoo; to The Framemaker’s where Bill admired the Dragon Ship art, and suggested The Perfect Frame.

Now, I want to pause here and say that, indeed, it was the perfect frame. Right up to the point where Bill came back from running the numbers, looking a little shaken, and said, “This is the most expensive frame we have in the store. I’m not kidding.”

So, we three put our heads together again, found a very nice, and appropriate! frame, and settled on a price for mat, glass, frame, and labor that came in a couple of pennies less than one-third of what it would have cost for the frame alone of the other stuff.

That pleasant chore accomplished, we walked down to Barrels to renew our annual membership and chat with the crew. After that, it was Hannaford, and some moderate food shopping, then home to a quiche-and-green-salad lunch, and so to the desks.

…now back after a cookie break. Juliet? Makes a darn good gingerbread cookie.

I wanted to touch on something that first came up during the autographed books discussion we had a couple weeks ago. There seems to be a belief among people who don’t work in bookstores, or as publishers, or as writers, that Amazon’s prices are the norm and that indie bookstores mark their books up to an outrageous level, and that’s um…just not now it works.

How it works is like this: Rolanni Publications publishes Living High on SciFi by S. Lee. Based the cost of art, typesetting, copy editing, what the market will bear, &c, &c the publisher sets the price and prints it on the cover. This is called the “cover price” or “retail price.”

Now, in order to get LHSF into bookstores, the publisher offers it at a “bookstore discount.” This discount has been, for as long as I’ve been aware of these things, 40% of cover. This means that, if the cover price for LHSF is $30, the bookstore will pay $18. The
bookstore will then sell the book to you for cover price, thus earning $12 per book sold.

For the purposes of this discussion, we’re not going to get into returns and all the rest of bookselling’s arcane and endearing little traditions. We’re just going to do arithmetic.

So, are we clear on the above? — $30 cover price, publisher places with bookstores at 40% discount, bookstore takes the difference between 40% discount and cover price as their income (i.e., the cash that’s used to keep the lights on, the heat up, the employees and the owner paid).

Hokay. So, that’s how it works, normally.

Enter Amazon.

Amazon doesn’t want to take a 40% discount. They need to earn more money than that, so they can pay lawyers to help them avoid paying sales tax to the states in which they do business. Amazon wants a 50, 60, and I heard from at least one small press, a 65% discount off of cover. And they’re huge. If you’re a publisher, you’ve got to move books, so you hope to ghu that you can earn enough on volume to make this work. If your publishing enterprise is big enough, of course. A 60% off cover bookseller discount would be unsupportable at Rolanni Publications. Just sayin’.

Now. Amazon, having scrod the publisher on the discount, then turns around and sells the book to you at a price significantly less than cover price. This is, a DISCOUNT. It is not the natural price of the book; the natural price of the book is the one printed on the cover.

So, yes. You will pay more at your local bookstore for LHSF — unless the store is having a sale — because you will be paying cover price. But that is not because Amazon’s price is the Real Price and your local bookstore is trying to rip you off. It’s because Amazon is willing to go to quite extraordinary lengths to be the last player left standing at the end of the game.

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

Fasting blood test this morning, what fun. The whole panel, because it’s been, ahem. A While. After, it was Tim Horton’s for a medium mocha (food groups: caffeine, whipped cream, and chocolate), with an asiago/tomato bagel which was delicious, for me, and an apple fritter for Steve, which I understand suffered somewhat from a lack of actual apple.

Back home, I bought new thermal curtains for the living room. They were on sale, knocked down by $60, plus I had a $20 coupon and! there was a free-shipping promo. Yes, I am Mighty.

The Weather Beans tell me that it’s supposed to commence in to snowing this evening and continue that activity through tomorrow, leaving us with a nice overlay of about 14 inches of frozen precipitation by the time it gets gone, sometime on Wednesday night.

I guess I’d better charge The Leewit and the phone.

Oh! And we have Something Interesting going on in the background. I can’t say more yet. In fact, I may already have said too much, but! As soon as I can Tell All, you can bet that I will.

For today, I have my work cut out for me. The Dragon Ship revisions continue apace. So far, in my quest to tighten and clean, I’ve taken away a total of 220 words. Call me Rolanni the Hun.

In a few minutes, I’ll start marking down echapbooks for Pinbeam Books Big! Holiday! Sale! (I also have to convert Master Walk into Smashspeak, which for some reason I had never done. Loss of nerve, I’m guessing.) In any case! Watch this space for details of the sale, and remember! eBooks make wonderful gifts.

While I’m on the subject of electrik stories, I did want to most sincerely thank everyone who has donated to the Splinter Universe project since. . .well, since it started, and especially over the last week. The discussion of cash-streams hadn’t been intended as a call to action, but, what can I say? We have the best readers in the world.

Thank you all.

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

Bread’s in the oven for the first rise. Next on the agenda is to start the lentil soup for the meal we eat in the middle of the day, which we call dinner. Lunch is the lighter meal that we eat at the end of the day. Or possibly at the very, very skinniest half-hour of tomorrow.

For those tracking deliveries: Just My Type and the CD set of A Night in the Lonesome October have made it safely to the Cat Farm. Still to arrive is The Sleeping Partner, and The Shattered Vine.

Last night, after I was finished with Necessity’s Child, I started reading the contents of the file marked “Steve’s Klamath,” being a chronicle of the life and times of Corporal Miri Robertson, late of Surebleak.

For those wondering what the devil is keeping the woman from getting new words done on Necessity’s Child — new words are getting done, but they’re getting done in existing chapters as scenes shift, expand or contract. It looks like I should have announced these first 60,495 words A Draft. Who knew?

So, anyhow, not much of interest to see here at the moment.

Cat census: Scrabble sleeps with the heffalumps, and Mozart is still curled up in my spot in the bed, now that I’ve had the good grace to vacate.

That’s all I’ve got.

What’s doing at your house?

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

Scattered day, much thinking, small writing. I suspect that I will write one more chapter, so that I’ve achieved a Certain Point, then print out and read what’s here.

I did go to the gym today and meet with the trainer. I now have a workout routine! I did half of said workout routine today, as part of the training. My stomach muscles? Are really pissed off at me. I’m committing to three days a week — Monday, Wednesday, and Friday — an hour each day, even if I have to wimp out on the strength-building machines at first, and finish out the hour on the treadmill or the bike.

Go, me.

The other thing of note that I did today was order a new alarm clock. This was unexpectedly time consuming. Who knew buying a clock would be so hard? All I wanted was a dual alarm atomic clock with a thermometer. After much shopping and reading of reviews and specs, I compromised with a SmartSet Dual Alarm Clock Radio with Jumbo 1.3-Inch LED Display and Time Projector (Silver). You may ask, and reasonably, Why did you buy a clock that projects the time? And I would be forced to say, It came with.

Maybe there’ll be a way to turn it off.

In other news, I am exploring ways to offer print books to people who want them. To that end, I will be doing a tour of Lulu and seeing how much of a strain it will be to upload Barnburner as my Test Case.

Anybody who’s used Lulu have any advice/insight/warnings?

Progress on the Book Presently known as George
52,213 of 100,000 OR 52% complete

“Enough! We dream as one! Now, let us go and gather what is needed.”

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