Tales from the Raven

By tomorrow night I need to be 100% ready for an early morning flight to Yellowstone.  As a sensible individual, I’ve taken some steps to get ready.  My preparations include:

• An empty suitcase with two items of clothing laid on top.
• A batch of wet laundry.
• A tentative confirmation from an untrained friend willing to watch our fish, chickens and cats while we’re gone.
• An overdue library book waiting patiently on the counter,
• Oh, and a website that is halfway through its facelift.

Otoh, I had a great time messing with the blog look, and had a fabulous time tearing my WIP apart and planning the next draft.  I plan to continue this trend of preparations until the last moment possible tomorrow.

It’s good to know my priorities can’t be shaken up by a little thing like a plane to catch.

This was supposed to be the post in which I announced how wonderful it is to be editing.  When friends such as Pat Esden talked about how much they enjoyed editing and re-writing their WIP, I wondered who their dealer was.

But I’ve really been loving round two.  It’s been nearly six months since I typed the last words.  I’ve gone through the stage where I was convinced the darling needed only the attention of one agent and it would be off to instant stardom.  I resisted the stage in which I thought burning would be too good for it, though complete and total chemical annihilation might work.  I spent weeks working on back history, studying plot arcs, dissecting plot point instructions, re-writing the synopsis, and trying out different queries.

This week I printed the whole thing out and started critiquing it just like I would do for a friend, or perhaps like a critique for a friend on steroids.  The critique.  My friends don’t want to be buff that way.

And I loved it!  So many ideas, lots of wonderful solutions already hidden in the manuscript and ready to be teased out, and the boring parts could be shed like so much dead skin.

But why is this post not about the joys of re-writing?  Why am I not editing my way to nirvana right now?  Because I took the WIP to the pool today…and I didn’t bring it home.

Luckily it was not drowned, and while I haven’t in fact set eyes on it, I’m told it’s in good hands and has been rescued from the night winds.  I plan a reunion tomorrow, and must now only pray that the WIP will not hold my neglect against me, and will recognize that it was not maliciously abandoned, but only temporarily misplaced.  Certainly not that word which begins with L and rhymes with cost.

Our chickens are no longer innocent chicks, convinced that the world means them no harm.  One of their number disappeared right about the same time I spotted a red fox in a nearby field…and she left behind a ball of feathers.

Her roommates weren’t too happy about it.  They’ve been acting more cautious–especially around our dog, Zeke–and have elected to sleep off the floor of the coop.  Of course, I hadn’t yet made them a perch, so that left them wobbling all night on a gate.  Not conducive to a good night’s rest.

Enter the perch:

We made it from sticks and branches we harvested from the woods, lashed together with the wire I use when I work on their coop.  Simple, easy, and cheap.   Best of all, it’s been accepted by the chickens!

Shall we invite the fox in, and see what he thinks?

Tuesday was an interesting day.  First there was the news that my story had bombed out on the wotf front.  That took several large gulps to get down, but has since been digested and accepted.

In searching for a submission backdoor I chatted with James Maxey and found that he and authors David Drake, Mark L. Van Name and Lisa Shearin were doing a panel and book signing that night in Cary at the B&N.   Accordingly I went by after my swordfighting class.  Here’s the evening in summary:

• James’s new cover of Dragonseed is awesome–check out the detailing on the shotgun.  Very nice.
• I have my own signed copy of Dragonseed, and yes, I feel special.
• Lisa Shearin fences, and she liked my dagger earrings.  The lady is in!
• David Drake continues to astound with the range of stuff that can come out of his mouth.  He’s wise on the writing front, I’ll grant him that, but I think he’s overly fond of making women blush.  I’m happy to say I didn’t give him that satisfaction.
• I was late and so missed most of what Mark had to say.  I’m still curious as to what the ‘L’ in his name stands for.
• I found it interesting to watch the authors interact with their fans.  My takeaway pointers were to let the reader/fan drive the direction of the conversation and its duration, so long as the line was still moving.

As a followup on the evening I went to James’s website and found he’s running a contest to support breast cancer research.  Go check it out and get your own copy of Dragonseed!

I read Magic Lost, Trouble Found a couple years ago and enjoyed it.  I always meant to pick up the next one…so Tuesday I got the second book, Armed and Magical and got it signed by Lisa.  I heard her recommend it as a great beach read, but I can testify that it’s also a great recovering-from-the-dental-variety-of-torture read!  I was very thankful for my new books as I moaned my way through the remainder of my Wednesday and nursed my three new fillings and 1 new crown prep.

There’s more than one use for a flower pot, as this picture shows.

This is Apricot’s favorite place to curl up, which gives me an excellent excuse to put off planting some mundane variety of flower!

It’s been raining for days, maybe weeks.  This morning when the sun came out, we all went outside and stared at the big yellow thing in the sky and debated over where it had come from.  After rubbing away the after image, we scraped off the green scum that had grown on us while we huddled under shelter from the storms—and ran for the pool.  Apparently, we hadn’t had enough H2O time.

Go figure.

I’ve been accepted to bootcamp! After watching the mail for a week, I almost missed the email when it came.

I can’t wait to meet my fellow students, and I’m totally stoked to spend a whole week focusing on nothing but writing. Oh, and it’ll be cool to take classes directly from Orson Scott Card, too.

I planned to come up with some cute story featuring my elusive hacker, but by the time the site was up again, and I faced its homely regression, I found myself feeling less charitable toward Mr. Hacker and have cut him out of the story.

Instead, I’m going with the quick catch-up news blurb:

• We’re having the kind of thunderstorm during which one wonders if there is some truth to tales of angry gods and temper tantrums.
• Tonight my dh and I passed our testing on single-handed broadswords, and therefore qualify to fight with said single-handed broad swords.  Of course, we’re not yet allowed to fight with steel, and so are stuck with silly pieces of foam…but at least we can fight with them!
• I still have no news on OSC’s bootcamp. The news is not overdue yet, it’s just long-awaited. But I’m good at being patient, so I’ll keep waiting. Patiently. Really, really patiently.
• We’ve applied for the permits that will allow our home construction to go forward. Still haven’t decided on a contractor, but we’ve decided all we really need is a bold fellow with a bulldozer.  Who uses contractors these days?
• I think I’m leaning towards the wimp route. In Yellowstone, that is, and will forgo the tents for the cabins.
  First unarguably wise decision I’ve made all year!

I know you’ve been holding your breath, so here it is. The chicks have grown and become chickens, in the way chickens do, and astonishingly we still have six of them.

 
They’re learning to tolerate Zeke with only a squawk or two,

and even put up with Apricot’s watchful eyes.

However, they have yet to produce eggs.  Since their nesting boxes are still on order (my orders, to myself), this is probably just as well.  Don’t worry, though, I’ll be sure to let you know when the first omelet appears.

To my Grandpa, Dad, uncles, brother and cousins who served or are serving in America’s armed forces.

To the women who have supported them.

You have my thanks.

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