Double-Barreled Today

We’re getting closer to the second Sons of Ymre being out in the world (Nov 17!), which is a pleasant thought though will be nerve-wracking as all release days, world without end, amen. I’m glad I took a few days’ worth of hiatus; it was spent doing a hot revise on the portal fantasy, which is now resting with the agent and a beta reader. I know it’ll go out into the world, the only question is when. Maybe a Kickstarter?

…yeah, like I have time for that. Hrmph.

Hell’s Acre is also resting with a certain publisher–thankfully indie, not trad. I’m frustrated by how the duology has been treated by the latter; I should have just put it into the self-pub pipeline once the edited ebooks for subscribers were cut, but I wanted to experiment. There were other considerations, true, and of course it’s not really an experiment if there isn’t the risk of things going badly, so I suppose I chalk it up to a learning experience and move on.

Lots of that going around lately.

It’s a new month, which means the Monthly Sales page has been updated. (Remember to check the dates!)

What’s left on deck is the first in the Cain’s Wife trilogy–doing that for NaNo, since the portal fantasy decided it wanted to be born before All Saint’s Day–and Highlands War, where I had a throat-clearing of about 800 words that I had to throw out since it was pretty and worldbuilding but did nothing for the plot. It may make it as a deleted scene for subscribers, at some point. And taking the third spot on the docket is the Ragnarok book, though that’s super difficult to make headway on.

I mean, I don’t know what I expected for a series that ends in a literal apocalypse, and am trying to be philosophical about the whole damn thing.

At least it’s raining. A lot. Every drop renews my soul, and frankly after last summer I needed a deluge or five. Boxnoggin is currently, and very dramatically, Not Having This Rain Bullshit; the poor fellow believes that since I provide food, treats, and all structure to his existence that naturally I also control the weather. He will adjust and consider liquid sunshine the new normal soon enough, losing his entire shit when the dry season comes around next year, but that’s the very definition of we’ll cross that bridge when we arrive.

Today I’ve got to get a wilder witch and her vampire friend aimed at a revenge heist (Cain’s Wife told me what the problem was while I was in bed last night, as books tend to do) and a duel between giants finished without anyone getting killed (though I am pretty sure that’s going to be impossible, and a very tired sellsword is going to be even more irritated). Maybe I can just have someone’s hand lopped off in the latter? I suppose I’ll have to write and see, always my favorite state of affairs. At least Highlands War is behaving like an organic creature now, growing according to its own desires instead of mine. A sign that I’m on the right track.

There appears to be a short break in the rain, which means brekkie and at least the first bit of walkies is a good idea but only if I bolt the rest of this coffee and get going. No rest for the weary or the wicked, and apparently I’m double-barreled today.

See you around.

Good Folks’ Goblet

A tiny goblet, for sipping dew…

The damp chill has been very good for mushrooms, and the Princess snagged a shot of this one earlier in the week. Just a wee little cup, minding its own business.

I’m still consumed by the portal fantasy, and resenting anything that takes me away–even caring for the meatsack carrying me around. I might even have to pick another project for NaNoWriMo, since this one seems determined to finish a zero as soon as possible.

There are worse problems to have. And I’ve cleared the weekend for working on this, so we’ll see how long my wrists hold out.

Have a lovely weekend, my dears.

Miles to Go

Woke to the sound of rain on the roof and it was so lovely I dawdled a bit, scrubbing at Boxnoggin’s tummy and telling him what a good boy he is. The demand for morning snuggles has been met tenfold. Now he’s busily ignoring his breakfast, having braved the damp outdoors to unload his bladder and returned to bed for a snooze. When I have toast crusts he’ll condescend to haul himself forth and demand a toll, then it will be time for walkies.

Formalities must be observed.

It’s been a little rough lately, between the news cycle and events closer to home. The thing about being the person known for showing up in emergencies is that sometimes it’s the only reason one is called upon, and later when the emergency is done one is a living reminder of a stressful time in another person’s life, so they avoid one. Both are entirely natural outcomes of being reliable, and if the former is a bother the solution is to have very strong clear boundaries about what constitutes a proper emergency deserving of aid.

The latter…well, there’s nothing to be done for it. Thy good deeds shall be punished, yet still thou must do good deeds. This is never truer than when one knows one will be a reminder of something awful in someone’s life even if one’s entire goal, focus, and interaction was geared at getting a person to safety. That does certain things to a relationship, and one had best be prepared for as much. If one is expecting pats on the back for being Reliable, one will inevitably be Disappointed.

In any case there’s no reason to bemoan the (emotional) weather, just dress for it and get on. Yet another reason I wouldn’t be young again, not even for a significant sum of cash. It simply isn’t worth the wear and tear on the nerves, even if the body is significantly chewier and bouncier.

So onward we go. I think I can finish Gamble in six-seven scenes. Those of you familiar with the process will know that it will take me at least ten and I will be bitching about Zeno’s Paradox of Finishing A Goddamn Book as I knock off one after another. Highlands War has left the plateau, and next comes a death or two, then the warrior-women who are part of an extended Macbeth reference. (I didn’t realize Redfist was very Malcolm until recently–thanks, Past Me, that’s lovely. Really.)

The Ragnarok book continues to boil. I was struck last night by the idea that I could fracture time and narrative both in the book, and do it, structurally speaking, very differently. I don’t know if it’s a Good Idea or the kind of idea that strikes when one does not want to commence writing the damn book, so I’m giving it a day to sort itself. The biggest thing at the moment is how the protagonist recovers from the pond-dumping incident. I knew she had to be tossed into the damn thing, that was its entire purpose from the Beginning of the World, but how she gets over the event is significantly more fuzzy inside my head.

This is the problem that will probably accompany me all through walkies and the morning run. The rain means a lot of jackasses who let their dogs wander offleash will remain (prudently?) inside, which will make everything just that much more pleasant and less stressful for Yours Truly. Yet another benefit to the season of damp.

It’s almost dawn. Time to finish the dregs of coffee and get bread in the toaster. I’m already looking forward to dry socks at the end of morning games, but there are quite literally miles to go before I achieve that rest.

Onward to Tuesday, then.

Filaments in Soil

Well, we made it through the weekend. I knew if another patch of dry weather came the deck had to be sorted, so there was a festival of pressure-washing and sealing. I am still a little weirded out that I am apparently the type of person to own a pressure washer now.

Not that it’s a bad thing, mind you! I just never thought I’d achieve any sort of permanence in my benighted existence, and it doesn’t get much more permanent than such appliances. An investment in futurity, you could call it; somehow I possess a thing that is only to be used a few times a year (if that). Then again, I suppose living for so long in one place does encourage one to drive down roots. After a childhood spent moving, restless as a military-brat rolling stone, it’s weird to have actual filaments driven into soil.

Not to mention waterproofing deck stain clinging to one’s fingers.

There’s new monthly sales (especially coupon codes for my Smashwords and Payhip stores) and it looks like the second Sons of Ymre book will be out on time in November. Once I have preorder links for that last, don’t worry, you’ll be the first to know. I’ve got copyedit queries to get turned around, a discussion between a sellsword and an adai to write, a Ghost Squad book that wants to be finished and will no doubt take up a lot of my working time today, and I have to figure out what to do with the protagonist of yet another book now that I’ve thrown her in the damn pond.

And Guilder to frame for it. I’m swamped.

Which is frankly right where I want to be. There’s also some toast to toss down the hatch and the dog to walk. I have to squeeze in a run today too; I will be useless if I don’t.

Off to Monday’s races, then. The week is starting out somewhere between a bang and a whimper.

A Few Last Blooms


There are autumn crocuses, a few coneflowers hanging around, and late roses just on the edge of blown. But this–a last clematis bloom or two–makes me feel ready for autumn. You can see the heat damage on the leaves; the last few summers have been awful, and upcoming ones will probably be worse. (Let’s not even talk about how the rhododendrons are doing.) I love this vine, especially its greenish flowers. I hope I can keep it alive.

The rains are busy plumping all the leaves out before they fall. I can almost hear the trees sighing with relief under cold showers. Firs and pines are busily dropping old damaged needles, and the cones hitting the roof (not to mention the deck, the shed, and everyone else’s roof, not to mention the road) are another signal. Squirrels are gorging on those pine- and fir-fruit. The rabbits are getting underway with a burst of garden depredations–I saw one amid a neighbor’s tomatoes the other day, and Boxnoggin nearly lost his damn mind–and the crows are very happy indeed with a crop of drowned earthworms. Going from drought to saturation must be hard on those last.

Three books are on deck. (Oh, and I’m over at Tor.com talking about Five (Whole) Mothers.) The rains have arrived. The coffee is still hot this morning.

See you next week.

Commensurate Dreams

Could not, would not, did not wait for Boris to finish burbling coffee into the carafe this morning. I positively need the jolt.

I went to bed last night with Wisconsin Death Trip, and my dreams were commensurate. Perhaps it’s a version of telling myself I have it good, that my problems are comparatively small. Accumulating the internal pressure to add another book to the round-robin of daily work is taking precedence over just about everything else right now; I suppose reading grim historical accounts is a necessity. There’s also some Junji Ito sitting next to the keyboard for bite-size delectation over the next couple days. After that I think it’ll be back to regular reading.

The assassination in Highlands War did not go the way I thought it would. The protagonist there delights in throwing me off; I just have to lean into it, I guess. And in Gamble I keep trying to get the hero shot but he’s too quick on his feet, like Francis in Mr Right.

That’s okay. I have ricochets, and all sorts of other methods. (Cue evil laugh.)

Yesterday’s big thing was finding the first line of the Ragnarok book. It’s…difficult, swimming against the tide on that particular series. I haven’t seen this marked a bifurcation in responses to a series since Strange Angels. But I persevere, mostly out of stubbornness. I’m too far in to back out now, and I have to believe that maybe there’s some redeeming value to the books I was so excited to write. Maybe I just didn’t execute the vision well enough? I don’t know. Part of me wants to snarl, “It’s not me, they’re wrong!” But on that road lies asshole-dom, so I’ll just buckle down and finish out the whole thing as best I can.

The work does what the work wills, and I have to trust it will find its readers out in the wide world. If nothing else, the whole thing’s given me impetus to make a few other necessary decisions. Silver linings, and all that. I just wish the sick thump of nausea under my breastbone would go away. I know what the problem is–I should not allow myself to hope, and yet the very last thing to escape Pandora’s box keeps flittering around my heart, sinking its tiny fangs in at every slight provocation.

Anyway, I found the first line in one book, got the assassination attempt mostly sorted in another (today I’ll clean it up to make sure), and got the heroine out of the freezer in the third. Not bad for yesterday’s work, and sets me up for success today. If I can get the Highlands army off the plateau, get the hero in Gamble at least winged so we can get to the hurt/comfort trope (one of my faves), and get the protagonist and her Valkyrie to the pond in the Ragnarok book I will count today well spent.

But Boxnoggin needs walkies, I need a run, and the crock pot needs to come out for a giant mass of beef stew. I’m sort of excited about that last bit, since the weather’s turned. If I get exceeding ambitious I’ll also throw together some bread dough. Even if all else fails I can still bake a good loaf.

There’s that, at least. Onward to Tuesday, and damn the torpedoes.

Damp, Incomprehensible

The silver lining is the rain. Tipping, tapping, rushing, slithering through the gutters, covering the trees and perking up the ground cover–everything is taking a long deep drink, grateful for the change.

I should’ve gotten the deck dealt with, but we’ll have a dry week at some point in the next month or so for that particular chore. I spent yesterday making cookies, doing house chores, and basically nesting. It was just what I needed, and when I woke up this morning it was to a different world. Summer is well and truly broken, and my soul is peeking out from its cave, daring to maybe uncurl a fraction.

The cookies were nothing special–the dough base from a Ghirardelli recipe since my daughter and I both like it, but with no chips, just the leftover nuts and nut toppings we accumulated over the summer from various experiments like no-churn ice cream and the like. I judged the amount remaining in three-four bags to be just enough for a single recipe of base dough, and was proved entirely correct. The kids have come around to nuts in cookies as long as they’re warned, and I made no secret of my ambition to use the damn things up the next time I went near the oven.

Next comes bread. It’s a joy to have baking on the cards again.

It also helps that the coffee’s sinking in. I have grown philosophical; I suppose there had to be a point like this sooner or later. A fighting retreat is held to be the most difficult of maneuvers and I am deeply engaged upon one at the moment. It may be arrogance, but I want to at least make a good showing so I’m concentrating on paring down to essentials, letting the pursuers have what is unimportant and protecting what I can. It’s a shame–I had high hopes–but such is the creative life.

There are new shoelaces for my brogans, library books on hold waiting for me, the last of the respiratory illness crud to wash out of my system so I can record another Great Chapters bit (for my sins, I want to read a bit of The Great Gatsby aloud), and the opening to the Ragnarok book to find. It’s that last one I’ll be most concerned with today, especially while running. I know precisely where it starts, I can see it in my head, but I need to find the right opening line before my hand twitches for the hilt.

I mean, I do already have an opening line, but I don’t think it’s the right one. It was a placeholder set down when I finished the book before, to prime the pump as it were. It’s close, but my instincts are warning me no cigar. I suppose this series is teaching me to trust said instincts even when the entire world seems dead set against. One would think, given the proclivities of many of my protagonists, that would be easy for me.

It’s not.

Boxnoggin is beginning to stir. He is displeased with this ‘rain’ nonsense and wishes I would not do such damp, incomprehensible things. It completely escapes him that there are some matters I am not directly in charge of and arranging to suit my whims; I wish I had even a fraction of the power he attributes to his humans. At least he’s correct in assuming I’m the dispenser of toast scraps and other goodies, which I should get on as soon as possible. His collar just jangled, and next comes him padding down the hall to remind me he’s got a bloody schedule, Mother, and even if the rains have moved in nothing must be allowed to stand in its way.

Seats and table trays in the upright position, folks. Monday is about to begin.