Eagles Over the Kennebec

Business first: Preorders for the The Fey Duology stand at! Amazon 204; Apple 30; Kobo 16 (BN, from which the title has been delisted, 8).

I have today read Steve's narrative and notes for Trade Lanes, and started making notes of my own. Which I guess means that, indeed, Trade Lanes will be the next Liaden book.

It was a very calm and fulfilling day, just sitting with my art and letting the ideas bubble and flow. This is how writers are seduced into writing the next book, even writers who have written many books and really ought to know better.

I am more or less packed for my vacation. Overpacked, of course. I always overpack, and I'm just going to have to live with that reality. People who arrive for a week -- 10 days! -- away with a single duffle bag -- amaze me.

Tomorrow, I have a few last-minute things to do -- change out the cat fountains, make sure I'm current with passwords and such on the laptop, and have another Talk With the Cats about how Deb will be taking care of them and the house. I've told them this three times already, but they don't believe me; you can just tell they don't.

Everybody have a good evening. Stay safe. I'll check in tomorrow.
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Well, look. I am behind in announcing that! My pleasant chat with Sean Hazlett was broken into two parts for the Baen Free Radio Hour. I had no idea I'd talked so much.

Part One aired last week, and Part Two has just appeared.

Business First:  In re The Fey Duology, all of the ebook suppliers to libraries, and most of the online bookstores have refused to carry the ebook edition.  If you pre-ordered from BN, please check that.  As of this morning, the vendors who will be carrying the ebook edition are:  Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Thalia, Smashwords, and Baen on the day of publication.

As of this morning, Amazon still lists the paper edition of The Fey Duology as ready to go on sale June 1.

Regarding my upcoming teaching event -- no, it will not be available on-line, only locally, and on then if enough people sign on to make it worth Adult Ed's time and space.

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First thing this morning, Firefly demanded a selfie.

I, of course, life to serve.

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Saturday, sunny and warm.

Breakfast was a blueberry muffin and what was left of the cottage cheese. I'm getting into that Interesting Time when I probably shouldn't do a Full Shop, but I'm running out of things.

On the stove for lunch is so-called sweet potato and lentil skillet, which is very tasty and produces lots of leftovers. I had on hand and therefore used a Japanese Garnet Yam, which is taking a little longer to become fork-tender than would your plain vanilla sweet potato.

Did a little work this morning on "When the Delm's Away." I have A Decision to make, so, letting that rest while I Don't Think About It.

This afternoon, I've got some Real Life to take care of, here and there, but, yanno? I may knock off early.

How's everybody doing today?

Oh, here, have a snippet:
There was a time when Kareen yos'Phelium had wanted, beyond any other thing in this life or the next, to stand as Delm Korval.

She had made an enemy of her brother, for he, though he had not wished for it, and had been properly aware of his own inadequacies, held what was her heart's desire.

She had very nearly made a stranger of her heir, seeing him as the personification of her failures.

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After lunch, and not to be outdone by her elder sister, Tali demanded her own selfie and a chin-rub.  

Again, I live to serve.

So far, Rook has withheld any demands for a selfie.  Should that change, I will of course Inform His Fandom.

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I sat out on the deck in my hooded chair for a little while, then I went out front and did some modest weeding.  It's quite warm, and sunny, of course, and I forgot my hat.  Have to get back into sunny-day habits.

Now that I'm back in and my duty the cats dispatched, the pots 'n pans washed, and the dishwasher doing its thing -- I will be knocking off for the rest of the day.

Everybody have a good evening.  I'll check in tomorrow.

Wednesday. Grey, damp, and warm.

Today is the day I was to have turned Kin Right in to Baen.

I have a bunch of clerical tasks to finish with today, so that's what will be happening. I also need to chop and freeze onions, figure out if I can freeze lemons, and also sliced deli ham (I went a little nuts at the grocery and bought a fresh-deli pack of black forest ham and another, of baby Swiss, because damn, I miss ham sandwiches). My desire having been somewhat slaked, I realize that I had better freeze what's left and parcel it out later.

Lunch will be a salad, on account I have lettuce, tomato, cooked potatoes, pickled beets, olives, cottage cheese, and I can have tuna, if the whim so takes me. Breakfast was ham and Swiss on whole wheat with mustard. Third mug of tea is brewing.

The cats have relocated themselves to the front of the house, which is where my office is located. No one is actually in my office with me at the moment, but all are within the sound of my keyboard.

I started reading Longeye last night, and have yet to encounter porn. I will backtrack to Duainfey briefly, reminded as I was by the audiobook company that sought out the Fey Books, signed a contract, and then pulled out, giving as their reason, and I quote: "Chapter Thirty-Seven!"

Now, Chapter Thirty-Seven is ... hard. Even very hard. Or, one might say, effective. Not porn, and I contend that no one would have paled, had Our Heroine instead been multiply and terribly wounded in a gun fight, or tied to a post and whipped.

I further note that we apparently have always wanted to talk about Power's drive to subsume and control Art/Soul/Love/Innocence.

What else?

Ah! A book came across my newsfeed -- Falling Forward, which apparently discusses the Myth of Resilience. As someone who still finds herself saying at least once a day, "I can't do this," I'm interested in what this book has to say, and I wonder if anyone here has read it, and what you thought.

I think that's it for the Morning Edition.

Today's blog post title brought to you by Sail North, "Compass."

Here, have a picture of Rookie before he jumped up into my chair in the dining room and went to sleep:

Lazy Monday. Glary and already warmer than it was yesterday. The weatherbeans have put all their tokens down on 60F/16C.

I slept "late," had a leisurely shower, sat in the window while Tali stood on my lap and slapped me with her tail (in her defense, there are a zillion crazy little brown birds hopping around the lawn). Had cottage cheese and some grapes and called it breakfast. Not sure what I'm going to do about lunch. Take out? I finished a book, after all. That used to be an excuse -- like we needed one -- to celebrate.

Made a list of things to do after I finish up the bookkeeping parts of Kin Right, and it turns out that I have A Number of things to catch up before I have to start the next book, in addition to having time to bake, so that's a relief.

Today's plan, as soon as I'm finished here, is to start putting my working Weird Words List into some kind of order, and to finish the laundry. In re the latter, I can report that the first load of towels is in the washer, and the cats are in Steve's office, doubtless writing a Memo to be placed in my file.

How's Monday starting out for you?

And today's blog post title is of course brought to you by Dire Straits, "Money for Nothin'"

So, where are we? Ah. Friday. Cloudy and colder than the last couple days. Haircut scheduled for this afternoon; before that, more reading of Kin Right.

Drafted "Melant'i Refresher for Terrans" to go into the front of Kin Right, pointing to the Cast of Characters in the back. Was reminded in so doing about the dog who was our outfielder back when I was eight or so and playing pick-up baseball at the local rec center. We couldn't keep the dog off the field, so we made him The Outfielder. He fielded for both sides instead of batting. Helluva outfielder, that dog.

What else?

Rookie got locked in the bedroom closet, and missed breakfast. He's making up for that now.

I think that's all I've got, really. The Exciting Life of a Writer, ayuh.

What're you doing that's exciting today?
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Tali helping me edit in the Command Chair

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So, Kathy talked me out of a buzz cut. After the new 'do, I walked over to Holy Cannoli and bought two lemon-blueberry ricotta cheese cookies -- one just eaten with a mug of tea, and one for tomorrow. I really ought to learn how to make ricotta cheese cookies. Or, yanno, maybe safer not to.

Rook is sleeping in the copilot's chair at my desk (as different from Steve's desk), while I take my first stab at a list of characters for Kin Right. This? Is going to be An Undertaking.

Next book, I swear -- one character and nothing happens to them.

I have about 100 pages to read in Kin Right, then 200 pages to enter correx into, then finishing up with the cast of characters and so on. The end, as the saying goes, is in sight.

I'm a little less than half-way through Theo of Golden, and the next meeting of the book club is April 20. I did finish reading Balance of Trade, and I'm going to have to take a step back and given some thought to my reading strategy here. If I'm going to be re-issuing the fey books, I'm going to need to read them, so I may have to break off the Liaden read-through for that. In the meantime, books I preordered last year when I foresaw oodles of time to read -- are starting to download.

Whee...

Well. It's good to have things to do, amirite?

New haircut:

What went before: Tuesday: So, that was no fun. Woke up sobbing sometime around midnight, apparently so I could buckle down and get the thing done properly. The cats piled on and did their best; Rook left at one point and came back with one of the floppy foxes he uses as wrasslin trainers when Tali don't wanna, and tucked it under my chin.

Long story short, I finally went back to bed around 7, woke up around 10, with a headache naturally, and all things taken up and tallied, I do believe that today I'm taking one of my banked Sick Days.

Do feel free to talk among yourselves.
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Wednesday. Sunny and going to be warmer.

Slept long and hard, assisted by coon cats. Woke up hungry, but haven't done anything about that yet. I'm thinking scrambled eggs and sausage are on the menu, as soon as I'm finished here.

Today, I need to go out and run errands. Notably, I need to take the Epson ink jet to the repair shop. The proposition that I do so was not met with Wild Enthusiasm, but an agreement that they could "look at it" and see if it was something simple. If not, printers being so twitchy and hard to fix and all, the advice is that I would be "better off" buying a new one. So, we'll see, I guess.

Also need to go to the grocery store and probably the post office. Then back home for some more reading of the WIP. Oh, and figuring out how to cancel Cook Unity, instead of just stalling it, which is what I did for this week.

I still have the lingering rags of a headache, and I'm inclined to call Foul, but, hey, maybe breakfast will help. EDITED TO ADD: Breakfast has been et. Feeling much more The Thing.

How's everybody doing?
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Ink Jet Printers: A Teaching Fable.

Once upon a time, printers were rated as to the number of pages per week they could be expected to handle without having a screaming breakdown. Those printers that could handle a heavy workload, week in and out, were called "office printers."

We here at the Cat Farm and Confusion Factory legitimately ran offices: we printed letters, and manuscripts, and flyers, and all sorts of things, and because we subscribed to the Asimov Theory of Typewriters (paraphrased): "Always have a spare, and a spare for the spare, because you don't ever want to be in a position where broken technology means you can't write" -- we each had our own printer and (usually) a printer that still kinda sorta worked, which had been semi-retired, and could be pressed back into service in case Catastrophe Struck.

We bought, in a word, for the Ages. At the moment there are two high-capacity printers in this house, both inkjets, both work horses, neither cheap. Both are, yes, more than 8 years old, because I remember Steve carrying them into this house like they were infants.

In comparison, back in 2012, I went to live for a month at the ocean, where I was going to be finishing the second Carousel book and making a good start on the third. Obviously, I needed a printer, but! I didn't want to schlepp my good printer to the ocean and risk getting sand in the workings.

So, I went to Staples and I bought, I kid you not, a sixty dollar inkjet printer, which came with two ink cartridges, guaranteeing, I think, 600 pages between them. Subsequent cartridges cost Approximately The Earth. Important Plot Point.

Off to the ocean I went. The Sixty Clam Printer worked flawlessly for the entire time I was away, and I did not stint it. When the month ended, I brought it home, and put it online as a "spare," mostly to use up what was left of the ink.

Two weeks after I got home, the Sixty Clam Printer died the true-death, without even finishing the ink in the second cartridge. I took it to the local computer recycling joint, and waved good-bye. Sixty Clams owed me nothing, and it certainly wasn't worth getting it fixed, not with what the home office was charging for ink, and I had a Good Printer at home.

Moral! Not all ink jet printers are cheap pieces of crap that ought to just be thrown away when they develop a glitch. Analysis is worth your time.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

And! The caution tape trick worked for the second day in a row.

Unlooked-for side effect: my next door neighbor saw the tape and got in touch to ask if my door was acting up again, because -- caution tape. I explained. I think Chewy owes the cats one more box, so we'll be doing this again tomorrow, though with different caution tape, because I unfortunately did not hide today's tape, Rookie managed to tape himself up with (thankfully) the painter's tape and by the time I caught and untangled him, the caution tape was a loss.

For those following along at home -- it looks like the book I'm finishing up now will be scheduled for Spring 2027, month of release to be determined.

Back to work I go.
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Well. I did finish the WIP. I did not print it out, because I still have some housekeeping to do -- notably trying to tidy up the section headers. So, that's for tomorrow, and then print out and read.

In other news, Google tells me it's going to snow tomorrow. Wunderground begs to differ, predicting rain tomorrow and snow on Sunday-into-Monday. So, I guess we'll see.

I had been kinda lookin' for a day when I could scooch down to an oceanside somewhere, being as I will be shortly be a Free Woman, but it's looking like the first day without any shenanigans planned is next Friday. Well. I can always finish my poor, neglected glass project.

Or, yanno, bake bread? I could bake bread, people! And -- cookies, and muffins, and -- Good Ghod -- the sky's the limit, here.

*deep breath*

...a brief break to feed the tiny, starved, and abused kittens I rescued from a Mean Writer Lady who never fed them or brushed them or fed them or played with them or fed them...

I really don't know how people can be so cruel.

So! Tomorrow Sarah will arrive in the morning, and I will retire to Steve's office to straighten out the header problem, and then I will make the lunch I had planned to make today, but I was writing, so I ate a TV dinner outta the freezer instead, and print out a book.

And on that note -- g'night. Everybody stay safe. I'll check in tomorrow.

Monday. Warm and rainy. Today is Tali's 4th birthday. She insisted that we all get dressed up for the occasion and as you see we have done that for her.

Also included in today's pictures are the long backyard and my new embroidery project -- the very first one I have designed myself.

The plan today, as it has been for a number of days, is to write. I am really almost done. I really wish that my brain did not helpfully remember everything I've written as garbage that needs to be rewritten 14,000 times.

So far, Cook Unity has been . . . okay. I only had the one unsatisfactory meal. The butternut squash and lentil soup was marvelous, as was the salmon, yesterday. I have Great Hopes for today's mushroom pot pie.

It occurs to me that my cleverness knows no bounds, as I had booked a Rest Week at Old orchard Beach the week before Memorial Day, which seemed like a good idea at the time. However, I did NOT have a Middle East war on my bingo card, and now I'm wondering if I should cancel because it's very probable that I'm not going to have enough gas to get there.

Honestly, this timeline.

So! How's everybody doing?

Tali's Birthday Photo Album

Where were we?

Ah. Sunday. Time Change Day. I Ignored All The Advice, and went to bed late last night, because magic show, and slept past the new-normal waking time of 6 am by the Old Clock to 7 am OC, putting me well behind Everything.

For Calibration Purposes, it is as I write this sentence 9:21 am New Clock.

May I just say that it's a good thing I don't have to leave the house tomorrow. Or today.

Weather is currently cloudy, drizzly, and warm. I'm hoping today will be the coup for the ice field at the bottom of my front steps. I need to do something about that, though Exactly What escapes my imagination at the moment -- it forms every year and it's a death trap, getting deathier and trappier the older I get.

Last night's magic show was enjoyable. I did meet the magician very briefly as he toured the house before-show, in his melant'i as "stage manager". I had somehow failed to understand that I had a seat in the Very First Row, odd-side. I was in sort-of the middle, with a family of three sitting to my left and filling out the row.

The "stage manager" stopped by, hunkered down in front of our "group" of four, and asked us for our help. It seemed that a big part of Michael's show was telepathy-based, including calling cards that people were thinking of. The Ace of Spades, according to the "stage manager" had been coming up in people's thoughts just way too often, and our help was solicited in thinking about other cards.

He then pulled out a deck of cards, fanned them and offered them to me. "Pull a card, look at it, but don't show it to anybody -- put it inside the folds of your brain and just really think about it hard. Then give the card back to me. OK? OK!"

I chose a card (the ten of spades; I believe my prohibition against sharing that information expired at the end of the show), assured the "stage manager" that I had it firm in my mind, and he repeated the exercise with the people to my left. Then he left, telling us most earnestly to think hard about our card.

I mention here, because I noticed it, that those were very thin, slick cards.

When the magician came on-stage, and after a brief smoke, he called the daughter of the family to my left to think about her card. He then drew it on a pad of paper. The three of diamonds! Ta-Da!

And we were off.

A good time was, I believe, had by all, and I eventually wandered my way home to resuscitate my cats, who had all expired of hunger in my absence.

Today, I write, and do laundry. In fact, the first load is drying, and the second is washing.  I wish I could say the same about the WIP.

I'm drinking my first of what I believe will be many cups of tea on the day, and I really ought to find something to eat.

How's everybody doing today?

Thursday. Sunny and chill. The cats are sitting in the sliders in Steve's office, squirrel watching. Am sitting in the comfy chair in my office. Drinking a cup of Darjeeling, I think, (edited to add:  It was Lapsang Souchung) and basking in the happy lite.

I find that I really don't have much to say this morning. I'm going to go get breakfast and hide inside my story.

How's everybody doing?

Dictated to my phone
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Worked. Made stirfry for lunch. Scrubbled cats. Have a few things to clean up in the business office, need to wash the pots 'n pans, and do one's duty to the cats.

Then I believe I shall go back to Steve's office and recover the old, ill-tempered GNOME-based system, because COSMIC? Is not ready for prime time. I hate it that stuff gets released when it doesn't work, and by "doesn't work" I mean -- surely, the primary use of a computer is to handle files? I means, yes, they also do math, and play music, and host games, but these things are also file-based.

I see No Benefit to ... anyone ... in a computer system that can't reliably cope with its own files. So -- big step back for me, and fingers crossed that the recovery process is fairly seamless.

In other news, not content to nag me to sell my house, now there are people who want to buy my car. Given a new Forester costs on the order of +/-$40grand and I'm being offered +/-$27grand for my current Forester -- I don't see the appeal, aside having a new car, and it happens I ain't jonesing for a new car right now.

For those keeping score, the snow is melting fast under the sun and (cold) breeze. I had a go at smashing up the ice in the driveway yesterday, which, among other things, is pretty good therapy. However, I will not be so indulging myself today, because I really can't afford for my back to go out again.

I have not today seen the news, but I don't suppose we've jumped to a better timeline. Call me a pessimist.

I think that's all I've got.

Hope y'all are having a good day.
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I've been having a fascinating discussion with System76 Tech Support, who assures me that COSMIC is functional for many of their users, and incorporates all of the things those users depend on, which -- it boggles my brain, but I Am Only A Writer, and this thing is barely doing anything that I need and depend on.

Apparently, however, the ability to order one's own desktop is not a top-tier "feature." They're still working on that one and should have it ready by June.

In the meantime, the recovery ... didn't, so I'm kinda stuck. Happily, I am from the Past and still have access to sneaker-net. But it is kinda off-putting that I can't backup my day's work to the portable drive (in addition to Dropbox), because while I can see the damned thing in the margin, when I hit Copy Files To -- it disappears.

*throws hands in air* *catches them*

Anyhoots. I did work today. Tomorrow morning, Sarah comes to clean, and sometime tomorrow my first delivery from CookUnity will arrive.

Exciting times.

Everybody have a good evening. I'll see you tomorrow.
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Squeak, squeak, squeak.

Tech Support sent me a restore file, which I flashed to a thumb-drive and booted from and!

I'm back!

And all of my files are intact!

Cabana boy! Wine!

And a glass!