Coming Along

The posts went up for the fence today and we’ll get the rest of the cement pour done tomorrow, so there may be an enclosed, secure yard for Bella to romp in within a week. It’s taken a lot to get to this stage, including a lot of me scrambling about in the bushes, clearing weeds and tearing out the old dog run as well as lopping intrusive tree limbs and tearing out undergrowth that resisted with thorn and sink hole.

And the dog met her new vet and got her shots. Now she is exhausted from the anxiety and barking at the fencing contractors all morning, so she’s sleeping in the corner of my office. She’s officially fat, but I love her anyway. Even when she snores.

I managed to cook a fairly decent steak with cognac/blue cheese reduction by messing with Alton Brown’s instructions only a little bit (I don’t own a cast iron skillet, so I had to fake it with a stainless stell one and a broiling pan.)

And I put in a little over 1,000 words on the SF/political thriller I’m hoping my agent, Sally, can persuade someone to buy eventually. That takes the word count on this project over 12,000. I’m hoping I can finish it up and that it doesn’t suck before I get too close to the “you must start now!” date for Greywalker #9–which, incidentally, now has a title: Revenant.

So I’ll need to be working on Revenant full time by mid-September to make the year-end deadline. I’ve already started on it and have a short pitch synopsis done and about 3,700 words. So far it’s odd and rambling, but I have some ideas… including a dragon built of bones and nightmare and a whole lot of Carlos being creepy.

I keep trying to do more, but the need to get the house and yard into acceptable condition before the season turns wet and cold keeps taking over my brain. It’s amazing how much trouble, expense, and time it takes to get a household running after living with nothing for so long. I still haven’t updated my driver’s license. I hope they don’t come for me…. I have two books to write this year!

Home at the Library

OK, so… the house has a small, formal living room (13′x11′–is that actually small? or does it just seem that way in person?) and we didn’t know what to do with it. We’re not the formal entertaining type so the room was a head-scratcher for us. The previous owners used it as a living/music room and had a console piano and some other instruments in it along with a love seat and a small secretary desk with a delicate little chair. Clearly not a practical idea for us. We put our first bookshelves in it and suddenly it was “the Library.”

(as always, click on images to see them larger)

My first purchase (on the cheap) for the house was an old library table, which we were using as a dining table, but that’s not a great use for it since it has a “butterfly leaf” in it that was a little shaky to use all the time, while the table without the leaf is really too small (22″x48″) for two people to eat at comfortably unless the diners sit offset from each other, or sit at the narrow ends as if they’re occupying some kind of Grand Dining Table that’s shrunk to Lilliputian proportions on top while maintaining it’s orignal height. So, today a dining table and chairs arrived and I had to move the library table into… the Library! So now it’s really starting to look like a library.

Still working on the book problem and Mr. Kat has left his tools sitting on the shelves so we can secure them to wall eventually. Puget Sound is earthquake country, after all. Not to mention the volcanoes. Trying to decide if I should move all the signed books down here or hoard them in my office…. Mwahahahaha….

Bella is not sure about all this furniture taking up her romping space however and seems to want to know why she can’t continue to run around without this stuff in her way.

“Why, Mommy? Why?”

But no worries: Bella has a whole big yard to hang out in and today was sunny for the first time in a while, so she took full advantage of that.

Life is good when you’re a dog and the sun is shining in your very own yard…

…even if some people do insist on putting furniture in the way indoors.

(Yes, Bella is on a tie-down here because the fence is still incomplete and we don’t want her to wander off or annoy the neighbors–or run off down the road and jump in front of a car, because she is that clueless. When the fence is complete, she’ll be allowed to roam freely, but not before!)

The Path Less Overgrown

Because a lot of you asked for photos….
This is the path I cleared over the holiday:

Sadly, we’re still a long way from done here:

And a long way from… well a lot of things…
(This is actually an abandoned housing development nearby.)
Even the Scotch Broom is a bit… odd here:

It may be the edge of nowhere, but even the plants aren’t the giving-up sort:

It’s Slow, But It’s Progress

Nowhere near the usual goals, but did manage to write 415 words today, get the printer cart built and the printer on it–but not hooked up–and get a fencing contractor to come and say “yes, I can do this job for a reasonable cost.” Not cheap and not what I’d hoped to spend, but I can suck it up to get a fence and let Bella roam free in the yard eventually.

Home and Garden Department

I’ve been lopping off the tree limbs that overhung the driveway and road, and I cleared off the front path which had become buried in cedar droppings and overgrown by plants. Yesterday I cleared some bracken ferns, salmonberry canes, and some sort of vine off the pump house and around the house and drive so you can actually see the road, the driveway, and the pump house now, and the house is no longer in danger of being invaded by a climbing vine of some kind the way the pump house had been. Eventually I’ll get inside the pump house and clear the vine out of the interior, and pull out the stumps of the vine root stocks and the bracken fern root masses too, but today I’m too tired. At least you can now find the house and the pump house and not be eaten by Audrey II every time you go onto the back deck. The bees are miffed though, because I ended up cutting back quite a bit of their favorite pink-flowering shrub that was falling into the road. I hope they don’t hold a grudge….

Must Be Home…

Because I managed to get the kitchen unpacked and stocked up enough to cook dinner!

Of course there weren’t enough chairs so Mr, Kat knelt on the floor (his idea not mine), I slightly overcooked the garlic, and we didn’t eat until 9 p.m., but hey, I hadn’t even tried this dish (chicken piccata) in 6 or 7 years, much less managed to make it edible. It was actually tender enough to cut with a fork and tasted pretty good (a touch too much flour in the dredge I think…). Now the dishwasher–which is not named Mr. Kat for the first time in 20 years–is cleaning up and I am having a glass of wine.

W00t!

Also, our bed was delivered and set up today and Mr. Kat made it up with clean sheets I washed in my very own washer and dried in my very own dryer! Luxury! Now we just need to get the rest of the bookshelves put together, find a few more chairs, tables, and lamps and we’re set! (well, we still have no beds for guests unless they will settle for air mattresses on the floor.)

Hokey Smoke! I’m a homeowner!

(Incidentally the dining room table is an old library table with a “butterfly” leaf that folds out of the middle. It’s cute, but not very large.)

Now if I can just get a few more things done on the business front, I may be able to get back to work. Have to write two books before the end of the year, so I’d better get cracking!

Bella Owns the House

In which Bella shows her appreciation for our new house:

Yeah, the video is only adequate and the audio makes no sense as Mr. Kat and I discuss shower curtains and dog… business, but here it is anyhow.

Home at Last!

We’ve been trying since October and it’s been a hell of a slog, but… Mr. Kat and I finally have a house. These came with it:

Sadly for the fancy black one, we’ll be re-keying ASAP since it’s a good general policy. Still… It’s so nice to finally have a yard for the dog.

Tell a Story Day: Part 21

And now more of the amazing and amusing Tell a Story Day! I’m posting part 21 here, but the story started April 15th on M. Todd Gallowglas’s site with Part 1 and has continued on up to Part 20 on Christopher Kellen’s site. You can see all the parts and links in order on Genre Underground’s Tell a Story Day event post. The story will wrap up on April 27th, so… keep reading and be sure to take a ramble around the other sites to see what else those writers are up to.

And now… Part 21:

As the bow sang and the arrow leapt free of the string, rushing to pierce the troll’s eye, a hand swept from down from the upper gantries of Assembly—just a hand, now mind, not an arm or a whole creature-me-thingymabob—and snatched the winging, singing arrow from the air just a nanosecond late to save the troll’s eyesight.

“Glarglebraglamit!” the troll roared. “Me eye! Arrrraggh! I’m blinded!”

“Oh, do shut up,” came a voice from On High (which was the very nicest neighborhood in all of Assembly and I’m sure you can guess who lived there….) “It’s only one eye and it’s not like you’re going to die or anything. Pull up your big-troll panties and be grateful I didn’t let him slay you, you stinky pustule.”

The android raised its head from the slick of marinara and lawyer guts. The elf could see the machine-man trembling, which he found quite curious and upsetting. But, since he was currently transformed into a rather handsome, capable fellow, he thought it best not to show his surprise. Instead, he snatched another arrow from his shoulder-blade and nocked it to his string as he drew the bow and aimed upward into the gantries and guy wires of Assembly’s mechanical heavens. “Assembly General, I presume?” he inquired, entirely as a courtesy.

A laugh rang from the upper reaches of Assembly and the hand mangled the arrow, rearranging its molecular parts along with the hand itself to create a metal face that now hung from the thick industrial smog and grinned at the elf in a way that seemed entirely too fey for a mechanical creature. “Oh, no, no! Assembly General is engaged at the moment and I came down to lend a… hand, so to speak, until AG is free to join us.” The face laughed. “I’m General Protection Fault. The Kernel says you’ve been a very naughty boy… or someone has. Now I need to straighten some of this out before AG gets here… Hmm… 1337, run the transcript for me so I can catch up on the situation.”

“Yes, General,” the android said, making some truly impressive grinding sounds as he generated a transcript of all that had transpired.

Using the noise as a cover, the elf swiftly re-aimed and let his arrow fly toward the grinning face of General Protection Fault. But the bow made a dreadful crunching sound and the string went as slack as a beggar’s purse. The arrow clattered uselessly to the floor.

“Hey!” the elf exclaimed, “that’s cheating!”

“This is not cheating,” the general replied. “This is Assembly. And your bow is, essentially, mechanical and thus, within the purview of Assembly. So there, and nanny-nanny-boo-boo. I win!”

The troll had, by this time, stood up, rubbing its wounded eye and looking somewhat cowed, not to mentioned confused and sheepish. Apparently this attracted the general’s attention as the face suddenly split in two so it could look down at the troll and keep an eye on the elf at the same time.

“Troll!” said General Protection Fault, “you have violated the gamer rules by utilizing the iDroid Universal Controller in spite of all reasonable protocols and warnings. So… you need to be punished,” the general added in a sing-song voice. “Guess what I’m going to do to you…?”

The troll cowered, “Oh, you wouldn’t. The lurkers support me in e-mail! I was just goofing off—I didn’t mean it! You got no sense of humor!”

“On the contrary: I have a marvelous sense of humor, which is why I’m banning you. For Life!”

“Nooooo!” screeched the troll as it vanished in a puff of gamer flop-sweat.

“Android,” the elf hissed. “Hey, why are you helping him? Look what he just did to that troll. We’re next.”

“I can’t help it, sir. I am a creature of assembly myself and I cannot disregard an override issued by General Protection Fault. It’s impossible! It’s part of my code!” the android added as a shiny icon appeared by his head sporting the words “Transcript ready to upload.”

“Ah, excellent,” said the General and ate the icon. He chewed thoughtfully. “Mmm… interesting adventures you’ve been having elf. And you too 1337. Oh, my… I think we may need to make a few… adjustments to your program after this….”

In the distance of Assembly’s heavens, things began moving ominously in the smog and a sound like ten thousand locomotives rushing to the same cataclysmic collision began. The elf and the android both looked up in alarm.

“Oh, goody! AG’s on his way!” sang General Protection Fault.

…

Princess Zyx was missing the best part as she sat in the examining room of Dr. Glockenspiel, the multiverse’s most celebrated reconstructive mage-surgeon.

“Now, Your Highness, you know I’m against this sort of surgery. I don’t think it’s at all wise to tamper with such near-perfection as yours and for such a paltry reason as hiding from your intended…”

“He’s not my intended. He’s my father’s choice and… well you know what sort of fellow he is. Besides, I’m in love with someone else. Someone wonderful…”

“Oh, that’s what all the princesses say.”

“Not you, you silly old man,” Princess Zyx said. “Not that you aren’t… quite wonderful in your own way, I’m sure.”

“All my wives think so.”

“Oh… well. Then of course they’re right. And I know I’d be settling for less, but, you see, love, True Love, has stuck its arrow in my heart and I simply can’t marry anyone but my beloved. So do something to make me unrecognizable to my father’s minions but still unutterably lovely so I can marry my love and get this moping over with!”

“Well, if you insist. Now, lie back and think of England.”

“What’s England?”

“I’m not sure, but that’s what you’re supposed to think about, so whatever it is, start thinking, toots.” Dr. Glockenspiel waved his hands over Zyx’s head and face and things began to glow and glitter….

…

The next part is now up at Jennifer Brozek’s site, or you can check the Genre Underground post listed above if you need to catch up or skip ahead.

Next, Please

Finished the proofs on Possession today, scanned, and emailed them back to the Penguins. Done with that book for a while. Now, on to the next one. This time: with dragon!

Tell a Story Day: Part 13

Today I’ve been invited to take part in Tell A Story Day with the Genre Underground–a group of (mostly) independent writers who’ve banded together to help readers find new stories. So, what is “Tell a Story Day”? Well, it’s an experiment based loosely on the Writer Under Glass project some of us participated in at World Con in Chicago last year: A group of authors create a story serially with no idea where the happy insanity will lead. Two authors will be adding to the story each day with their own creative spin, picking up where the previous author left off. Today I get to continue on with the story below as the mighty thirteenth contributing author (Yay 13!). I’ll also be posting another piece next week, so… stay tuned!

To read the first part, check out M Todd Gallowglas’s site. And the bit just before mine was posted by Jay Hartlove–read it if you haven’t already. I’ve posted the link to the next piece at the bottom of this page–though it won’t be up until tomorrow. And to see a list of everybody involved and links to all the current pieces, go here.

All right, then, let’s get started!

…

The elf muttered the incantation under his breath, the scroll gleaming and glowing brighter with each word.

“Just walk right in, it’s around the back,” the elf said, walking quickly in a circle, “just a half a mile from the railroad track…” He made the magic gesture—his arms pumping back and forth as he shuffled his feet on the steel floor of the foundry, then raised one fist over his head, yanking downward twice and letting out a magical toot—though he did issue it from a lower orifice than his mouth and he was still not quite sure that was exactly right, but it was what the stinky old wizard had done so… here goes nothing.

The scroll blazed bright in his hands, casting a light that looked… well it looked like a doorway. He dove through the magical door and tumbled onto a floor of black-and-white tiles, rolling up against a row of stools that stood on single chrome-plated legs topped by large bearded men in leather.

“Hey,” one of the large men said, picking the elf up by the scruff of his neck, “you banged into me…”

“Oh, Claus!” the elf swore. “I wanted Alice’s Restaurant, not the Cloak and Dagger!”

A feminine voice sounded just beyond the massive bulk of the leather-clad man who was holding onto the elf. “Now, Hy, put the lad down. He just slipped on the floor. Can’t hold a good wax-and-polish against the fella.”

Hy put the elf down with as much care as one might expect from what looked like a badly shaved Cave Bear in leather chaps and a matching vest. “Awww… Alice. You know I wouldn’t hurt nobody in your place. I was just funnin’.”

As the leather-clad one put him down, the elf beheld the owner of the voice and he’d be a two-headed rocking horse if she wasn’t the finest sight he’d ever seen: It was a blonde. A blonde to make a cleric kick a hole in a stained glass window. “Vavavoom,” he muttered.

The blonde stepped out from behind the counter at which the leather-clad Hy had been seated. She was holding a large glass beaker full of black liquid that steamed forth a strange, bitter—but curiously invigorating—odor. And her dress was blue, checked with white under a white pinafore apron with he name embroidered near her ample bosom: “Alice.”

The elf didn’t meant to, but he fell to his knees. “You… you must be Alice.”

The vision in blue-checked gingham giggled. “That’s my name, don’t use it up! But what can I do for you, little man?”

“I… I was told I could get anything I wanted at Alice’s Restaurant. Is that true?”

Alice nodded. “Of course it is—well, excepting me, because I’m taken. So what can get you? What’s your pleasure?”

The elf turned and looked behind him. The gleaming doorway still lay there, and he could see the giant Weeble wobbling inexorably toward them. He pointed. “I need to get past that.”

Alice looked through the magical doorway. “Well, Lordy, lord… let me just get my supplies….”

She put the steaming chalice of black liquid on the counter and walked away for a moment or two while the elf and Hy stared in horror at the massive machine drawing ever nearer.

“I think you got some serious trouble, there, son,” said Hy.

“I certainly do, sir. And if it catches up to me… the true fate of Princess Zyx will be sealed!”

Alice returned with a large sack in her hands and her apron pockets filled with instruments of destruction. “Let’s not dawdle, little man—I’ve got a business to run, y’know.”

With alacrity, Alice hopped through the doorway and the elf did the same.
The huge machine ground forward, wobbling, wobbling, wobbling but never falling down…

“What are you going to do?” the elf asked, nervously looking over his shoulder where he was sure the lawyer and the android would soon appear.

The blonde waitress drew an object from her bag and handed it to him–a curious, translucent container of thick red fluid labeled “Marinara.” “Now you just follow my lead and throw this when I tell you to. You ready?” asked Alice as she gripped a knife in one hand and a microplane cheese grater in the other.

The elf nodded, awestruck by her warrior beauty.

She graced him with a devastating smile. Then, with a spine-chilling battle cry of “Eggplant Parmigiana!” she leapt toward the dire machine and the elf had no choice but to follow….

…

Meanwhile, the lawyer was still arguing precedent with the security droid, saying “…and if not, you will be fined $50 and have to pick up the garbage in the snow.”

The android, having unsheathed the elf’s copper dagger, was staring at the engraving of Princess Zyx. “Curious,” he said.

“What? What’s curious?” the lawyer asked. “And please don’t distract me when I’m summing up. These legal incantations are very tricky.”

“This portrait of Princess Zyx… appears to be… alive.”

…

Catch the next part at Jen Wylie’s site! Mwahahahahaa….

Tired is Good, Right…?

Front matter and 107 of the 358 pages of galley proofs for POSSESSION reviewed (only 8 corrections so far but one was a doozy!) My neck and shoulders ache. But I’m getting it done! Due Tuesday. Will I make it…?