weather eye

Leap Day Bitch Break

Selene

I turned my alarm clock off for yesterday and today, and boy howdy was it ever the right choice. Insomnia hasn’t been biting as hard as it used to, but a night and a half of it is a danger sign I’m not going to disregard. Plus, today’s February 29, which only rolls around every four years.

When a bitch needs a goddamn break, a leap year’s extra day will work as well as any other. I’m only going to work on things which please me today, and that might mean fanfic. It certainly won’t mean anything I have to strain over. Oh, and also in honor of leap day, Selene is $2.99USD in ebook through these retailers (it doesn’t go on sale often, but I heard the pleas of my Danny Valentine fans…), Rose & Thunder is $3.99USD through these ones, HOOD‘s Season One is $1.99USD through these, and The Complete Roadtrip Z (all four seasons) is deeply discounted to $9.99USD in ebook here. There are other sales in March and April, but since this is a frabjous day I went all out scheduling these.

We’ve had hours of rain and it looks like the trend will continue through the weekend, which pleases me to no end. Of course I’ll be physically miserable halfway through my morning run, but that’s more than balanced by the joy of getting home, slithering into a warm shower, and drawing dry socks over my lower paws. I have officially reached the age where good socks are a blessing, a luxury, and damn near a courtship gift.

You may have also noticed the site looks subtly different; there’s a lot of work going on behind the scenes to get rid of certain plugins and services provided by companies who have drunk deep the “AI” Flavr-Aid. No more Google, thank you very much–I am weighing even turning off Analytics–and I’ve done a lot of work over the past few days to make sure I can switch away from the Jetpack plugin wholesale if Automattic tries scraping sites where it’s installed. To be strictly honest I don’t think the latter will happen, but I’m not leaving any openings. “AI” and “machine learning” enthusiasts have proved themselves so rancid and exploitative they will never be welcome in my house, world without end, amen.

It’s a huge goddamn grift and I’m tired of it. Even the faintest whiff of that nonsense is enough to turn me away entirely.

On the bright side, my coffee tastes exceptionally fine this damp grey morn. I mean, the first hit of caffeine is always a blessed event, but sometimes the stars align and one receives a superlative jolt. Perhaps some of it has to do with also getting a decent night’s rest after a week of uneasy-at-best toss-turn, or the fact that the Muse has turned away from certain types of input and is back to history books. The latter is a profound relief. I’m not me when I’m not writing, and I’m even less me when I can only get a quarter-hour’s worth of uninterrupted daily reading.

Boxnoggin will not enjoy beginning our walkies in these conditions, but he’ll like skipping them even less. I suppose I’d better finish this marvelous set of espresso shots and amble for the toaster.

Give yourself a wee bit of a break today if you can, my beloveds. You’ve earned it.

Ivy and Horizons

Even in winter, life is everywhere.

It’s too warm for February. (Thanks, climate change!) At least we’ve had some icepocalypse to cut down on summer’s insect population, and the cherries aren’t blooming yet. Even the one down the street which usually wakes up first–giving me no end of worry, I might add, the poor thing’s going to gamble wrong one of these years–is still blissfully asleep. But that doesn’t mean nothing’s happening.

For example, the ivy-banks are full of berries. The blooms were active far later in fall than anything else, and on sunny days late bees clustered them with zest. They’ve swollen through the worst winter has to offer, and I’m not sure what precisely eats them but something must be overjoyed at the snack.

Ivy’s a terrible plant in this part of the world, and can choke entire hillsides if allowed. Yet for obvious reasons I feel a sort of kinship with something thriving despite every effort to kill it. I also saw a dandelion in the backyard t’other day, while waiting for Boxnoggin to decide which part of the turf to christen. A tiny yellow sun saying hello, good afternoon, fuck you to the world; many are the yards in this neighborhood where such a thing would call for a sudden vengeful application of weed-n-feed. But the older I get, the more I want to just… let things live, if they’re not hurting anyone.

Still going to prune any ivy so it doesn’t kill the Venerable Fir, though. There’s letting things live, and then there’s being foolish with a vine which can kill a tree that will in turn absolutely take out two whole houses if it comes down during a hard wind. I’m broadening my horizons, not being stupid. (Granted the line is a little blurry some days…)

See you next week, my dears.

Incremental, Nonetheless

I’m pretty chuffed that A Flame in the North made LitHub’s list of February’s best SFF books. It’s in some stellar company, and I am thoroughly amazed. I am also nervous as hell since release day is stalking ever closer; these books have had a very difficult road indeed. Oh! And for those asking, Black Land’s Bane is a trilogy, not a two-parter as Amazon is saying. Hopefully that error should be fixed soon.

We’re also back to more reasonable winter weather for this part of the world, for however long that lasts. Boxnoggin is annoyed–six years he’s been here, but the liquid sunshine still discommodes him. Poor thing. He’s currently pacing the hallway, lobbying for early walkies though he knows, he knows I have not yet finished my coffee.

I should do a “from the mailbag” post soon; I’m getting a lot of the same kinds of questions and can’t reply personally. I wish I could, but actually writing the books takes precedence.

In the good news column, the novella is off the ground (I got the robot donkey named Chicken punched last night) and the Sekrit Projekt did not need all 17k of its beginning scrapped, so at least there’s that. And I am nearing the end of the first pitched battle in Highlands War, which currently has our favorite sellsword thrown from her horse and into the carcass of a giant boar. (Because that’s just how this book rolls, naturally.) Today she’s going to struggle out of the mess of guts and meat, and have a clear shot at ending the war once and for all…

…but things are never that easy, especially for one of my characters. I’m looking forward to that bit of writing today, as well as perhaps a lyrical little meeting between almost-lovers in the Sekrit Projekt. There’s just a cornucopia of good stuff waiting for me once I get walkies out of the way, and maybe it’ll distract from the nerves over release day and the looming stress of living in a failing empire plus capitalist hellscape.

Maybe.

As I’ve typed this, flicking between screens and waiting for caffeine to hit the bloodstream, I’ve reached the chewy dregs of the morning coffee. Boxnoggin has settled, but his (rather adorable) ears are pricked and the instant I shift to stand up he will be accompanying me to the toaster–brekkie comes next in the ritual–and waiting for his toll of crust, then dancing in place as the habitual getting-prepped-for-walkies continues. I’ have to be extremely careful not to vary his morning routine too much, for upon that path lies an anxiety spike for the poor creature and nobody wants that. I’m glad to be consistent enough that Herr von Titzpunch can stamp his paws and look miffed when there’s a slight deviation; it’s far better than the anxiety spikes he used to display.

Progress is incremental, but welcome nonetheless. The firs are ink-shadows because the sky is lightening. Tuesday beckons.

I suppose I’d better get to that toast now…

Indignant Fire, Biting Back

I waxed rather indignant this past weekend, so my mentions are a bit of a mess. Reports of the deaths of books and writing are always highly exaggerated, world without end, amen. The recent successes by creatives and people doing the damn work pushing back against corporate and billionaire exploitation has the corps and billionaires running scared that a few of their profit percentage points might get shaved off. I’ll leave it at that.

The current reading is Pekka Hamalainen’s Lakota America, which is thought-provoking and very dense. I have a couple more of his books (someone got their dear old Mum a gift card recently) added to the TBR pile, which is teetering at a dangerous angle. The Muse wants nice chewy historical reading but she also wants a very specific type of action movie, and I cannot bifurcate like I used to. So maybe it’ll be movie weekends and wading through footnotes the rest of the time.

I woke up with a very specific Pink Floyd in my head; it’s past the winter solstice so maybe I could even listen to it outside the skull radio. However, it doesn’t feel like there’s enough sunlight. I mean, I live in the Pacific Northwest and am glad that it’s nearly always grey, but I can’t listen to the Floyd without some solar radiation. Maybe if there’s a yard work or burn day soon.

Speaking of which, we do have to lug out the firepit before the spring rains halt, mostly because there are Experiments in Combustion to be done. A while ago my writing partner and I were talking about wintergreen LifeSavers making a spark when you bite them (they do!) and the comments on a video we dug up led us to wonder about granulated coffee creamer as firestarting material. Initial experimentation says not really, it has to be airborne before one gets the very theatrical puff of flame. Though in fact, we only tried with a certain kind and it could have been sugar interfering with the effect.

I really should have found a place to get sample packets, then done testing for different flame capabilities, but there was only one certain kind we could get our hands on at short notice so we made do. It’ll just mean more fun later. I want to see if different flavors produce different colors as well; the Selkie doesn’t think so since that’s mostly a function of minerals. But we’ll see. (Science!)

That’s another reason writers will never go out of style. One of our hallmarks is endless curiosity about the world, and willingness to do “research” even if it might singe one’s eyebrows.

However, lighting things on fire will sadly have to wait for a little bit, as I’m up to said eyebrows in work. I want to get this first pitched battle put to bed, get another character agreeing to something despite her better instincts, and then there’s the robot donkey (named Chicken) in the novella to get upright and working–I was about to type manageable but that’s never going to happen. Plus Boxnoggin wants a long ramble and there’s my own silly corpse to move along at a shamble for a defined distance.

And there’s mounting nerves over the upcoming release to deal with as well. All in all, Monday’s biting early and I should get my molars involved in biting back.

…I just popped over into email in order to clear some correspondence that had to go out before 9am, so the week is beginning as it means to go on, I guess. Time to choke down some toast and get out the door.

Catkin, Half-Drowned

Half-drowned, still protecting.

As the Icepocalypse faded we had a few days of soaking rain–really, Pacific Northwesterners need a thousand names for the different types of liquid precipitation we get–at relatively balmy temperatures. 50F is not usual for January, and several trees are putting out catkins or outright flowerbuds.

I’m not so worried about the camellias and that one cherry tree down the hill always goes earlier than anyone else. But I do whisper to the others–please, be reasonable. We could still get more ice, or worse. Try not to get too excited.

They’re not listening. I got this snap of a half-drowned little fellow, tousle-ragged, protecting tender new growth underneath. I hope they make it.

I hope we all do.

See you Monday.

A Shoe, Any Shoe

The new year has started out with good news and the stove being fixed, yet I’m a little caddywumpus. I’m ever braced for disaster–all my life, really, but especially since 2016–but am hardly prepared for things to go well. So my nerves, while re-wrapped a bit from the time spent from Boxing Day to New Year’s, are fraying in an entirely different way. Just waiting for a shoe, any shoe, to drop.

I suspect this isn’t healthy. In any case, it’s a relief to get back to real work. There are sample chapters for House of the Fan to brush up and send to the agent, subscription stuff to get out the door (including the first bit of Tomb of Night for my subscribers’ delectation), Boxnoggin to walk (eternally), and yoga to do since I’m on a recovery break from running. Of course recovery is my least favourite part of the process, since I devoutly desire the endorphin hit from hauling my weary corpse along at just above a shamble, but needs must.

Fortunately, it’s raining. It feels like I spent forever in drought–all the way through last October–and have just now shaken off the parched sensation. Boxnoggin is irate every time he has to go outside, even if walkies are the joy of his existence, but after a while he settles down. I would hope he’s beginning to grasp that the weather does as it wills, but I know he considers it my fault and doing specifically.

I wish I had even a tenth of the power my dog attributes to me. So many things would be sorted in a right bloody hurry.

I also want to get the discovery of a few bodies written in Highlands War as well as an assassin’s practice with her shiny new weapon in House of the Fan. taking time away from actual writing to deal with Other Stuff is always upsetting. I just want to goddamn well create, for fucksake. I feel like yelling at the world to settle down so I can go back to telling my weird little stories, but alas, that’s on the same level as Boxnoggin wishing the weather would cooperate with his preference for dry paws.

At least the coffee tastes very fine this grey gloomy morn. Oh, and I should mention that the Battle of Crunchy Discord seems to have convinced Trashmouth!Squirrel that the way to gain access to a magical pile of peanuts is to play chicken with vehicles upon a specific piece of road.

I’ve seen him playing in traffic twice now. Boxnoggin has not lunged for him, seeming instead rather puzzled that a fuzzy, ambulatory snackable has taken it into its head to Frolic Upon the Road, which is a behavior Box himself gets scolded for. So he’ll peer past me as we walk along the fence and the boulder embankment, glancing up every few steps to check my expression like a toddler who sees another kid about to get in trouble.

Maybe he even misses ol’ Trash screaming from the top of the fence, who knows? I have not scattered any peanuts on that particular slice of paving since The Incident1; Mugshot and her crew now clock us before and after that part of walkies, hoping for the two-tone alert whistle and a handful of treats. I keep the rewards relatively random so they do not grow dependent or importunate, and the corvids have largely left off taunting Boxnoggin in the hopes that peaceable conduct will gain them more crunchy calories. Some of them, especially the Littlest, will even hop from one foot or the other, or do small fluttering tricks to catch my attention.

All in all, the year’s started out rather well. I’m hoping the trend continues, and taking deep breaths while I can. Now it’s time to get started on Thursday. There’s a lot to clear before I can get to what I really want to do today.

See you around.

One Last Mashup Rose

…left in my heart.

This rosebush has been singing a mashup of Yellow Rose of Texas and You’re the One Rose (That’s Left In My Heart) for a week or two, so I caught a snap of it in rare winter sunshine. The water drops are from heavy mist, the river and wet earth both breathing cold exhalation upwards. Now the rains have moved in again, so it’s a bit warmer…but just a bit.

Yesterday was Yule, and we dragged out the new tree–bigger than the old one, 75% off a few days before Samhain, my daughter didn’t expect my caving to the begging but really, our other tree was beginning to look seriously overloaded and this one has more space. It was a bargain, but it also means that every time I walk past the living room I flinch a little. Still, the kids are thrilled and my daughter’s bestie enthused over it during his visit yesterday, so at least they’re happy.

Later today the stove might be fixed. All phalanges are crossed.

I’m saddened that we’re past the darkest night of the year; I could have used more rest. This interstitial time–between Yule proper and the New Year of society at large–could be restful and restorative, but not this year. Or maybe it’ll turn out all right once the stove’s dealt with, who knows? All I want is to get through today and crawl back into bed with Chaucer, who is turning out to be a helluva good time. (I recommend the current Norton Critical edition–you know I love Norton Criticals as a whole, but this one really goes out of its way to make the text accessible.) I’m about halfway through Tale of Genji and am going to go back to it after the New Year, I just couldn’t handle more wet sleeves.

I suppose I should get some toast gnawed and Boxnoggin rambled. He’s not going to like it if the rain keeps up, but he’d like skipping walkies even less. Change is this dog’s mortal enemy, and he was extremely put out by the gleaming new thing in the living room until we came back from yesterday’s stroll and his short-term memory had been reset. Now he’s fairly sure the room has always been in this configuration…but he suspects, and it makes him nervy. Poor fellow.

I wish you a peaceful weekend, my dears. I may be back on Boxing Day, or I might decide to take until January 1 off, haven’t decided yet.

I’ll see you when I see you. Be safe out there.