they must need bears

Hi. This is an admin post, which theoretically is for the new people. With any luck, it will stay at the top of the blog this time.

Through your mastery of the backroads of the internet, you've found my weblog. I'm Elizabeth Bear; I write science fiction and fantasy, and I talk about that here. I also talk about my life, my hobbies, my elderly and presuming cat, and various other things, including TV shows and books I like, the ongoing saga of my recent car troubles, things I did this weekend, and so on.

This is a public blog, and I very, very rarely post anything friends-locked. You don't have to ask my permission to add me as a friend, to read or to comment. I often don't add people back, but that's because I'm swamped, not because I don't think you're interesting.

The only thing I ask is that you be polite, to me and to other commenters, and exercise the sort of common courtesy you would in someone else's living room. If you don't know what common courtesy is, ask your mother. If I think somebody is being rude, I generally explain it to them before I take drastic action, so don't fret too much.

Welcome in. There's drinks in the fridge, and if you get here early, you might score a spot in the hammock or on the futon. Feel free to introduce yourself, if you haven't before.

Watch out for the man-eating plants.

Progress notes for 9 April 2008

Seven for a Secret:

New words: 2003
Microsoft wordcount: 2155
Manuscript wordcount: 2750
Deadline: July 1
Mammalian assistance: The cat is cold. The cat does not want to be covered. She just wants to bitch at me about being cold. 
Reason for stopping: Quota, and I have some reading I need to do.




Darling du jour:

He didn't believe his own lies anymore. He hadn't for decades. His artifices had grown shallow, without structure or craft.

He could no longer inhabit them. Not the way these girls, a medium-blonde and a paler blonde, inhabited their uniforms and the tissue of lies that constructed them.

Tyop du jour: They interred no stores.

Thank you, brain, but that's not the right word that sounds sort of like that.

Jury-rigging: Everything seems to be firing smoothly so far. I suspect I need an antagonist.
There's always one more quirk in the character:  Somebody is dissociating.

Today's words Word don't know:  wampyr, flyte
Words I'm Surprised Word Do Know: n/a
Sustenance: coffee, chamomile tea, leftovers, bagel chips, pistachios, cereal. I am about to order a pizza.
Mean Things: invalidism, Nazis.
Other writing-related work: about to go start critiquing a novel. did a whole bunch of research.

Exercise: none. I am in pain. (Okay, there was archery yesterday. I guess that counts.)
Miles to Lothlorien: 174.9
Guitar practice: no, because I suck.
Mail: nomail
The Internet is Full of Things: via rachelmanija, Green Porno. (Not worksafe, if you didn't get that from the title. But oh, so cool. I want to have Isabella Rossellini's babies.)

Well, I finished the book I was reading. And now I have nothing to do except be twitchy and think about what I need to be writing tomorrow. And the stuff I have sitting around unfinished that I could be finishing.

Which means its time for the First Lines Meme, in which I list the opening bits of all my works in progress, as a sort of public accountability.

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( Woooooooooooooooorks iiiiiiiiiiiiin progreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesssssssss! )

There. Maybe that will shake something loose.

(Yeah, I know, some of those I have been working on for years already. That's par for the course.)

Book Report #97, Elizabeth Moon, The Speed of Dark

Quite an impressive piece of work. One of the things I was most interested in was how the book itself succeeded in making me anxious, which is to say, made me feel the protagonist's anxiety as life is sort of rushing at him from all directions. At one point, I almost didn't want to keep reading, because it was too hard to maintain my separation from the story.

Also, Ms. Moon can write. I love the parallax view of Lou's view of Mr. Aldrin, and Mr. Aldrin's view of Lou.

That said, I did think the characterizations were a little one-dimensional, and would have liked people to vary from their assigned roles as heroes and villains a little more. Which I think was why I liked Aldrin so much; he's complex, and has moral weaknesses and strengths.

1005 words on "The Red in the Sky is Our Blood" today, by the skin of my persistence, to a total of 5013. And I think I'm stuck, at least until I figure out what the revolutionaries want with the Russian mobster's ex, and why on earth she would agree to help them.

So tomorrow, in the interests of making progress on something with a looming deadline, I'm going to give the Sebastien Novella Still In Need Of A Title some rope, and see if it will write me an opening.

Excelsior!

It's royalty statement season for two of my publishers, which means that I get to see how well or poorly books were doing around Christmastime last year. (Yeah, the wheels of publishing grind slow. The grand tradition of the 4-5 months delayed royalty statement was established long ago, and computers certainly haven't speeded anything up. Nor are they likely to, when publishers can still make a few pennies on the float.)

My Roc statements come so early in the biannual period I tend to forget I've gotten them by the time the others arrive--I think I had the statements for Whiskey & Water and Blood & Iron in February. (No, they haven't sold through the advance yet, but I think the MMPB for B&I will put it over the top, if it sells okay.)

So yesterday, I got my Tor statement, and it looks (If I am reading this thing right*, because every publisher also has a different format for the darned things) it looks like A Companion to Wolves (by Sarah Monette, and some chick who is obviously clinging to Sarah's coat-tails for all she's worth) sold through the advance, and then some, in its first three months of life. No money is forthcoming yet, because of this thing called "reserve against returns," which is the publisher holding on to the money until they are sure that the books won't come back. (It takes fewer copies of a hardcover to sell through a reserve, because the per-piece royalty is higher.)

To give you an idea of how long it sometimes takes, Bantam Spectra was still holding a reserve against returns on Scardown and Worldwired, published in 2005 (though they have released the reserve on Hammered), the last time I checked--remember what I said about making a few pennies on the float? Anyway, I don't have my Spectra statements yet, so they may have released that as of this period. Since Worldwired just went back for another 2000 copies (that's either the third printing or the fourth; I've lost track. I think it's the third.) I'm reasonably certain they will have to give me some more money eventually.

Moral: don't count on living on your royalties.

Other Moral: Suprise!buttsecks sells. Or maybe feminist critique of fluffy companion animal fantasy sells. Or maybe both.

*I'm still trying to figure out how many copies this says are in print, though, so don't count on my math too much.

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Speaking of mass market paperbacks and A Companion to Wolves, Amazon is telling me that the MMPB of A Companion to Wolves will be available in July, not October as previously expected.

So it looks to be a happening May/June/July/August in Ebearland, what with the trade paperback of New Amsterdam available! now! and the last two episodes of Shadow Unit: Season 1 in the hopper, and the MMPB of Blood & Iron coming early next month, and the trades of Ink & Steel and Hell & Earth in July and August, respectively. After that, there will be a brief pause before All the Windwracked Stars at the end of October, in hardcover, from Tor.

Also, I've had a couple of conversations with my editor and agent about Chill, and now that I seem to be able to write again, we're going to try to get it finished in time to keep the current publication date of January 2009. Which means I have to have a draft by the middle of August, and we need to be done with the revisions by September 15. This will work out, as it means I will have the dratted thing done before Viable Paradise. (Which is where I am spending my birthday this year. Go team me!)

So really, okay. I can see why people say I'm prolific. But honestly, if you spend seven or eight hours a day writing fiction, this is what happens.

And speaking of which, this would be me avoiding working on "The Red in the Sky is Our Blood." So I should pony up and go do that, neh?

Well, after a really good day climbing Monday, yesterday stank on ice. My left shoulder was bothering me a lot and the stomach did not like the cashews I had as a pre-climb snack, so I tried my project wall, and could barely even get on it, and then did two easy routes and watched Alisa and The Jeff climb for a while, and then came the hell home and watched Criminal Minds. Fail! But I will do better Monday.

Still, disappointing, as after Monday's general air of success I was hoping for another good day. Perserverance, however, is critical.

It's a cool, gray today with the promise of rain. I'm not going for a run, as I am declaring a recovery day (there may be climbing Saturday, if the weather is good, and there will be running tomorrow) but I might go for a walk later. If I get enough work done. And don't decide to curl up with a book instead.

Meanwhile, right now, I'm going to make coffee, shower, and see if I can get my words done early. There's archery tonight, after all. We'll see if my shoulder and neck are up to it. I'd like them to be, because I've been improving there, too, after a long plateau, and I don't want to lose ground.

David Rossi. Feminist. So wrong. And yet so right.
Okay, Dave. You're mine now. All is forgiven.
Just don't assume Garcia is your secretary again, all right?

Also, Eddie Bernero is a lying liar who lies, and I love him for it.

( Criminal Minds 2x17/18, The Crossing, now with extra added Rubicon )

1119 words on "The Red in the Sky is our Blood" today, bringing the total to a little over four thousand, or about a third of the projected length. Calling it a day with that, as I also seem to have found the plot, though I know I need to go back and raise the stakes and inject a little tension into the proceedings.

I think I'm cured. How awesome is that?

Now I get to eat something and then goof off and read until it's time to go climb.

Somewhere on the Internet, somebody is wrong!

781 words. Huzzah! Okay, it took me all day to get them, but I got them, and I'm not convinced they're terrible.

Score.

I would go get a snack before I have to write my column for Storytellers Unplugged, but the cat has colonized my knee and is holding on with her claws.

Some reasonably awesome news on the overseas front.

Blood & Iron is going to be a graphic novel in France, brought out by Soleil Productions. Or more precisely, three graphic novels--volume 1 is forthcoming in January '09 (tentatively), and a second and third volume should follow on a yearly schedule.

It will be a French translation, obviously. No word yet if or when there may be an English version, but as Soleil does work with Marvel, there is hope. (It may wind up being a little like that classic Late Night With David Letterman bit where he had a team of translators take the Beatles' "Yesterday" from English through six other languages and back again, but then again, that might be an improvement! You never know!)

This pleases me no end. As some of you know, B&I started life as a graphic novel script, so in a way it's come full circle. And I get to fulfull my twenty-year ambition of seeing the Kelpie on a splash page.*

So here's to a glorious future for Sang et Fer, yah?

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*::puts a quarter in the pun jar without even being ordered::

Climbing yesterday, figured out what I was doing wrong on that traverse (Did you know there are two footholds at the part I got stuck at? Because, er. I didn't. And I was using the higher and further-away one, which got me all wrong-footed.), got past it, and got stuck where I had been stuck before. As near as I can tell, the next move is "Stick your left foot in your ear and then stand up on it."

Maybe Wednesday.

However, I did manage three other 5.7s, two of which I had done before, but one of which was brand new to me and I got it on the first try, albeit with two falls and some dogging on the rope. I think I can do it comfortably next time, though, though I already know I will still have to rest on the overhang. This excites me, because it means there are three 5.7s in the gym I can do comfortably enough that I don't kill myself on them. Which means I can probably mostly-retire that 5.6 I've been doing mostly so that I didn't have to stop after two or three routes, because god knows I need the endurance training and the exercise.

I came home from last Wednesday's climbing with a mystery bruise in the palm of my left hand, where the ring finger and pinky run into it. It wasn't particularly sore, though there is one achy, firm-feeling, paler spot in the middle there. It seems to be fading out, though, and it doesn't impede my grip strength, mobility, or fine control, so I think I'm not going to fuss about it. Probably just trained a tendon on that (%&*(^)*&^ traverse.

With a 6 mile hike Sunday and a 4.5 mile walk today (After the hike and the climbing, I decided to give my calves and toes a break from running) which included two miles under pack, as I was bringing my groceries home, I'm feeling pretty all right with the world.

Also, hey, did you know that when nothing's screwing with my biochemistry, I'm halfway sane? It's pretty exciting, is what.

174.9 miles to Lothlorien. I'm climbing to Redhorn Pass, fearing snow. (With good reason!) Memo to me: Bear, you suck! Practice guitar today.

And now, I am going to go terminate a bagel with lox, with extreme prejudice. And then maybe read some more Elizabeth Moon and do some actual work of my actual own.

It happens that I wrote words today. 114 of them.

Turns out that the scene I've been waiting for for the past three days wasn't a scene at all, but a transition.

0.o

Now I have to figure out what the next scene does.

A YA novel about a young girl who is fated to grow up Queen of the Amazons. Lyrically written in fragments, a kind of mosaic told in first person. It has just a few absolutely perfect sentences in it, and there can never be too many perfect sentences in the world.

It's dreamlike and mythical rather than grounded and historical, and I enjoyed it a great deal.

I opened "The Red in the Sky is Our Blood" today and poked it, wrote two sentences and closed it again. Not ripe yet. Really need a little more time for the well to refill, apparently.

Well, it'll start pushing on me sooner or later, and if it doesn't, I'll go in after it with a cudgel. For the interim, I have only one challenge level left to beat on Peggle and I will have finished the game, and apparently that's exactly the level of intellectual complexity I am capable of right now.

I think I need to stop taking short fiction assignments for a while, and maybe just work on short stuff that I feel like writing. I'm getting plumb wore out, is what.

Today is the last day to enter the Ink & Steel ARC contest.

My Dad. Playing a very abbreviated version of "The House of the Rising Sun" on a guitar of his own design and construction.

Yes, it runs in the family. Whatever "it" may be.

Yet another criminology text. This one bills itself as "A standard system for investigating and classifying violent crimes."

Interesting and informative. Not a lot of stuff that was new to me, but arranged in an easy to reference fashion.

Now I need to read a book about fluffy bunnies. And chirping birds.