Eagles Over the Kennebec

So, I don't know whether it's better to write a blog entry when, really, nothing is happening worth talking about, and therefore annoying the adrenaline junkies amongst us; or to not so post, and distress the worriers.

Well.

Steve's version of the Vile Cold turned to pneumonia, and he's been taking prescribed meds and getting some rest.  My version -- decided to come back again, though not as drippy this time, and heavier on the coughing.  The coon cats are still on the case.  Work is going forth, albeit slowly.  The people in charge of sorting out the possible professional engagement in October have reshuffled themselves one! more! time! so no news on that front, then.

We will be doing an interview with Tony Daniels of the Baen Free Radio Hour later this afternoon, which will no doubt be fun.  Our plan is to change off hacking our heads off, so we'll see how that works out.

If I am candid, I'd allow that, really, the biggest news right now, is the back yard.  We have, like, six cardinals living in the back yard, a fair mess of chickadees and goldfinchen, a few morning doves, a nice married couple of grosbeak, purple finches, downy woodpecker, and his cousin, red-bellied woodpecker, house sparrows, and the ever-popular flying fish -- aka, the ruby-throated hummingbird.   We're still feeding, so the action is up close and personal.

Especially thrilling has been the resident flyers' discovery! of the birdbaths.  Mind you, I put them out months ago, wipe down and refill them every day, but the discovery happened only this week.  Now the things are littered with goldfinchen, and I've gone from thinking that putting out two saucers was too many to thinking that I might to install two more.

Down the bottom of the garden, the sea rose is going gangbusters.  I had hoped this year to place another up nearer to the house, but that went the way of planting the butterfly garden -- between the Incredibly Rainy Spring and Life. . .well, next year will have to do.

On the subject of other wildlife, we had a skunk scoping the place out for a few days a couple weeks ago, but she finally decided we wouldn't do, and moved on, leaving us the grey squirrels and the woodchuck, and perhaps the fox, though I haven't seen her this year.

So, there you are -- a surfeit of excitement, to be sure.  I hope I haven't overwhelmed anyone's capacity for thrills.

Here, have a picture of Trooper and Belle, overlooking the hummer bar.

It says here that Boskone 53 will be my/our 56th science fiction convention since 1996.  It also says that we attended 17 of those soon-to-be-56 conventions as Guests of Honor or Special Guests.

I'm not sure this is completely accurate.  For instance, Steve attended some recent Boskones on his own ticket, while I stayed home to man the day-job or to care for Mozart, when he was too ill to be left with the cat sitter.

Nor did I start going to science fiction conventions in 1996.  My first convention was Balticon 10, in 1976.  Steve and I did a bunch of conventions in the late 70s and early 80s -- as hucksters, as we were called then, and Steve doubling as a pro (I wasn't even remotely a pro until 1980, when I sold my first story to Amazing).  That was before we moved to Maine and gafiated for a few years.  Sadly, I threw away all those convention badges long ago in a Fit of Despond, and, yanno, back then -- why would I even keep records of what conventions we attended? So the Real Record is, I suppose, Lost to the Ages.

Still, 55, soon-to-be-56, conventions in 20 years is. . .something of an accomplishment.  I'll  call it that, anyway.

Here's something a little different -- a galactic ice castle, courtesy of the Hubble Space Telescope:

Most of y'all know this story.  Generally, I'm putting it here for those who have heard a garbled version, or who are justifying something they want to do by convincing themselves that we did that thing, and so it's OK for them to do it.

In general, I'm not comfortable with being a justification for the actions and decisions of anybody else.  I mean, jeez, if you wanna do something, do it, and see what happens.  Though, I don't -- I really don't -- think it's a good idea to quit your day-job and ask your friends to support you while you "try this writing thing," if you don't already have publishing experience, and a reader base.

Anyway.

Once upon a time, 'way back in the last half of the 20th century, Sharon Lee and Steve Miller were working day-jobs and writing on the side, as one does.  We had collaborated on, and sold to a magazine called Fantasy Book, two short stories about a not-very-bright, if well-meaning, accidental wizard by the name of Kinzel.  The editor was very encouraging about the stories, asking for more of this, please, so we wrote a third in the series, and sent it off, feeling like we had a sure sale.

Lesson the First:  There are no sure sales.

The story came back by return mail, with a form letter attached, that said (paraphrased): Fantasy Book has gone on hiatus, due to lack of funds.  Just as soon as we have funding, we'll let all our writers know.

That was in 1985.  Fantasy Book is still on hiatus.

Well, that was a disappointment, to say the least.

Now, for those who were born since those Halcyon Days of Yore, I will just mention here that home computers, cell phones, tablets, and the like did not always exist.  In fact, desktop computers were just starting to become available to regular people, and, courtesy of our advance money for Agent of Change, purchased in 1985 by Del Rey Books (an imprint of Random House), we had a Kaypro so-called portable computer and a 9-pin printer.  The Kaypro computer had an internal 300-baud modem, and we were members of several Baltimore (we were living in Baltimore, Maryland at the time.  In fact, we were both born in Baltimore, Maryland, in the 1950s.  No, I never rode a dinosaur to school.) area computer bulletin boards (computer bulletin boards were pre-internet chat and (sometimes) group game systems).  We were on Midnight, KC's Place, and. . .(memory fails:  Fallen Angel ran the place, that's all I remember.  Lovely woman.  'Til Dawn, maybe it was called.). . .all of which were heavily messaged-based.  There was quite a tight-knit community of BBS users, and one night, Steve was "talking" about the Fantasy Book situation, and the fact that we had an orphaned third story in a "trilogy" and no other magazine was likely to take it, when one of his correspondents said, "Why not publish it yourself?"

"Takes money," said Steve.

. . .and two days later, when we went to the post office to collect our mail, among the advertisers and the bills was an envelope containing two $20 bills, and a note that said, "Toward publishing your fantasy stories."

Steve had the skills to do layout, having worked for several newspapers in several capacities.  He did the figuring -- how many pages to publish not just the third, but all three Kinzel stories, got the quote from the printer, added in probable postage, asked Colleen Doran how much she would need to draw us a cover, and put the whole package before the BBS community:  This is how much it would cost to get this done, and everyone who donates -- I forget.  $5? -- to the project will get a copy of the finished chapbook.

Donations -- I kid you not -- poured in, we produced the book, friends from the community came over to our house to help us collate and saddlestitch it (we saved money by doing that part ourselves, rather than having the printer put the book together), we mailed them to subscribers, and!

That was our very first crowd-funded project.

Historic touchstone:  Agent of Change was published as a paperback original by Del Rey Books in February 1988; Conflict of Honors, was published as a Del Rey paperback original in July 1988; Carpe Diem was published as a paperback original in October 1989, as a Del Rey paperback original.  In 1991, I guess, Del Rey rejected the option book, and our editor there told us we were has-been writers.

We continued to write, though nobody bought our stuff, and we worked day-jobs to keep cats and house together.  I was a copy editor on night-side news at the local daily.  Steve was childrens librarian at the Oakland Public Library.  I was office manager for a wastewater service company; Steve did sales in a computer store.  I was executive director of SFWA.  Steve was internet librarian for a dot.com that went bust. You know the drill.

Around 1995,  SRM Publisher, Ltd. came into being, and?  Most of our 25 chapbooks, three trade paperbacks, and two hardcovers, were pre-funded by subscription -- crowd-funded, if you will.

Then -- we're still in the 20th Century, now -- Del Rey Books having dropped us, though, as I said, we continued to write -- we got a call from Stephen Pagel, who was starting a publishing company called Meisha Merlin.  The idea behind the company was to reprint "underpublished" books -- by which Stephe (that's what he called himself, "Stephe," and that's how he spelled it; not a typo, OK?  A man can decide what he wants to be called and how it's spelled) meant mostly 1970s and 1980s paperback originals that had been read to literal pieces and were now out of print, so people couldn't replace their worn-out, much-loved books.

NOTE for those who were born into another time:  Ebooks existed at this time, but, since ereaders with nice resolution did not, nobody wanted to buy them.

So, Stephe at Meisha Merlin had heard good things about our three novels, and wanted to reprint them, if the rights were available.

Well, not only were the rights available, we had five more books (we'd continued to write, remember?) in series ready to go, and Stephe -- for good or ill -- purchased them on the spot.

Plan B, the fourth novel in the Liaden Universe® was published by Meisha Merlin in February 1999; our last book with Meisha Merlin -- Crystal Dragon -- was published in February 2006.  By that time, we were full-time writers, and earning more than the day-jobs had ever paid us.

Right around the time of Crystal Dragon's publication, Meisha Merlin stopped paying us, and by the winter of 2006, we here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory were. . .in serious financial straits, barely afloat, despite the income that SRM was still bringing in.

Obviously, we needed to do Something, and in the end, we did three things.

1.  I went -- as my colleagues there charmingly put it -- "back to work" as a secretary in the History Department at Colby College.

2.  Steve and I put together the first five chapters of a Liaden book we called Fledgling, about a never-before-seen character, Theo Waitley, and announced to the interwebs that we would be posting the first chapter, free for anyone to read, on January 7?, 2007.  The next chapter would be posted when we had collected $300 in donations.  We further promised that anyone who donated $25 or more would receive a hard copy of the novel, if one were ever published.  (At that point, like the Kinzel stories, we figured we would publish the book ourselves.)

NOTE:  Kickstarter did not exist at this point.  In a sense, we pioneered the Kickstarter model in science fiction publishing.

3.  We asked our agent to send two active proposals for fantasy novels, to Baen Books, who had picked up the erights (which we owned) to the (then) 10 existing Liaden novels.

Number 1 above covered our health insurance, and brought in a modest amount of money, bi-weekly.

Fledgling did very well for us; and the following year we wrote the second Theo book, Saltation, in the same manner.

Baen purchased the two fantasy novels -- Duainfey and Longeye.

In due time, Baen picked up the rights to publish both Theo books -- and, the rights having finally been recovered from the smoking wreckage of Meisha Merlin -- new Liaden titles, as well.

We are now full-time writers; I quit my day-job in the summer of 2011, because the loss of opportunities it caused outweighed the benefits it produced.  We will in May turn in our. . .twelfth novel to Baen books.  Our entire backlist is currently in print, as books, ebooks, and audiobooks.

. . .I think that's it.  Who has questions?

So, Steve took Jack the Giant Killer into the shop this morning while I ran errands in the opposite direction, and went to gym, too!  Presently, I'm working on Number Ten Ox, who has been wired up with the funny keyboard and the trackball.  We have only just located the HDMI wire, so later this afternoon, I'll have a Big Screen to work from, too.

What with one thing and another, I got zero writing done yesterday.  Hoping very much to do better today.  For those playing along at home, the manuscript now stands at 33,194 words in this iteration, which seems likely to stick.   And the next time I run into the Backroom Boys, I'm gonna beat their punkinhaids.  Just sayin'.

Though I didn't get any actual writing done yesterday, I did get a the Sunday chores done, including the Brushing of the Coon Cats.

This chore is enlivened by the fact that each of the Coon Cats has a different approach to being groomed.

Mozart takes the What Fresh Hell is This? approach, which includes writhing away from the brush as if it were on fire, swearing loudly, and screaming that a murder is being done and won't anyone help him!  He swears, in his high, squeaky voice, the entire time his claws are being clipped, folds his ears down so they can't be cleaned, and will have nothing to do with the anti-static towel that smells like flowers.

Trooper, on the other hand, Understands that the Thumbs wish to groom him.  After, all he is magnificent, as Trooper is the first to admit.  He allows the brush and the comb with an air of regal complacency, is testy, but calm during the manicure, and resigned in the matter of the ears.  He graciously declines the smelly towel.

Sprite. . .loves the whole process.  She adores being brushed, purrs while she's combed, puts her paw forward to be clipped -- I honestly think she'd let me paint her claws for her.  She eeks! if I forget to clean her ears, and can think of no better end to her spa experience than to be stroked with a towel that will make her smell like a flower.

I'm thinking of pairing her with Mozart so he can see how it's done, but I'm afraid he'll teach her Bad Language.

The plan for the rest of the day is eat lunch, write, wait for the tech to call with news of Jack's condition.

How's Monday treating you?

*Today's title comes from Warren Zevon, "For my next trick, I'll need a volunteer."  Here's a link.