Paksworld

For Orbit UK, Rachel Bach and I interviewed each other; my interview of her went up a few weeks ago (I did mention that, didn’t I?   I hope?)   and her interview of me is up now at the Orbit blog.   It’s not specifically about Crown of Renewal but it’s a nice general thing.  We were asked to pose 4-5 questions for each other–and we both enjoyed the process.

Next week (Wednesday the 27th)  I’ll be Twitter-chatting with Brian Thomas Schmidt on SFF Chat for an hour (no doubt annoying my choir director, because I won’t be at rehearsal.)   Schmidt,  you may recall, is the editor of Shattered Shields, the fantasy anthology a new Paksworld story is coming out in.   Some of you may be too engrossed in Crown to join us, but any who want to (whose Crown copy didn’t arrive?) are welcome.   As you can see from the website transcripts, Mr. Schmidt has a wicked sense of humor and I will have to be quick on my mental feet to keep up with him and those who enter the conversation.   (There will be more reminders about this.  That’s how the writer ego works…) Read the rest of this entry »

It began early in the morning with a cat deciding it was time for the human to wake up.    As those of you with a feline in the house know, once the cat who thinks the human should wake up arrives on the bed, and then on the human, waking up will occur, with or without the human’s cooperation.  That was, roughly, 5:30 am.

It continued with some breakfast, some business emails, some goofing off on Twitter, whence I found this wonderful video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vjm-WQKJCOM&feature=youtu.be&ac   That’s a three day old foal playing around in the sun in Yorkshire. Read the rest of this entry »

I picked up one of my older books last night and read it a bit before going to sleep.  Gross Ego Inflation,  you may be thinking, though the internal editor pointed out every single place where–years later–maybe another word would have been better?  Huh?  Are you listening?    It’s not one of the really-old ones–it was written post Hurricane Katrina*, for instance.    But it ties in with something that affects all writers in all eras, even if they’re trying not to be tied to a particular time and place.  Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks for your comforting words.   I’m doing well…managed to shame the fever blisters that showed up within a couple of hours into disappearing again.   Wish that *always* worked.   The main thing is being tireder than usual.

I will be scarce around here through Holy Week–the choir has a lot to do this week, and all of it requires getting the “outfit” clean between one day’s service and the next.   Showing up Easter morning with a wrinkled sweaty choir robe is not considered appropriate.    The Palm Sunday services (two) went well–a full house for both, as usual, long and tiring for the choir, but good for me (and others.)   Easter will be overflow time.   We don’t do Easter dinner…we come home from church and fall into bed.

At any rate, I’m looking up a snippet for you to have as an Easter egg this week…but avoiding spoilers in the last book is HARD.

Thanks again for your sympathy and your gentle words.

My father died this morning, after a fall, then a shortish time in a skilled nursing facility,  a problem there, and a brief hospitalization, but at home.  He was almost 102.    For most of my life, we had an extremely difficult relationship, based on very scanty and irregular contact, but that’s not something I want to talk about right now.   If ever.   What is important to me is that while I was on a book tour some years ago, when he had quit driving but was able to get around otherwise, one stop was in the city where he lived.  And I invited him to the reading/signing, and then had dinner with him and one of my half-sisters, who had driven him.   I can only hope it gave him as much resolution and peace as it gives me now.

Read the rest of this entry »

The patterns of spam that gets through the filter into the Paksworld moderation box is…interesting.  Recently, it’s become clear that search bots are picking up on the two posts with “plumbing” in their titles…there’s been a rush (pun intended) of spams from plumbing contractors, plumbing supply houses,  hardware supply houses, etc.   Quite a ways back, with a post on horses,  suddenly veterinary suppliers, horse feed suppliers, tack, and other equestrian spammers showed up.  I haven’t yet had any knitting-related spam, although the online yarn suppliers I’ve used show up on the sidebars of more commercial websites.

I mark the spam “comments” as spam, and they go away–and those particular spammers don’t get in again–but the whole “scour the internet for any possible keyword that might be a customer” thing means there’s always more.   Commercial spam that makes sense (sort of) like this is one thing.   Then there’s the troll-spam. Read the rest of this entry »

This post would have gone up last week, except for a power outage, a stubborn computer, and two speaking gigs for which prep had to be done.

Yes!  The cover of Shattered Shields in which I have a story, “First Blood.”  Those of  you who haunt Amazon.com have already seen it, no doubt, but last week was my first sight of it, when the editor sent it out to all of us.   Read the rest of this entry »

No one here has made this mistake.  However, in the greater blogosphere, I see this kind of thing coming and going, and as far as this blog is concerned, I want it to go and stay away.

“What?  What’s wrong?” I hear you say.   Read the rest of this entry »

…that last week’s “phone call every parent dreads”  ended well, with our autistic son alive, unhurt,  and not detained by police.  That’s very good news, and I have nothing but praise for the police & EMS handling of the situation–and this in a police force I have criticized before.   It helps, of course, that our son is white, good-looking, and that all the long hours of coaching and practice on polite behavior meant he was polite and friendly to the police officers.    All of those contributed to the way the police handled the situation.  However, the situation and its aftermath pretty much ate our days from last Thursday at 6 pm when we got the first call through Monday’s last contact with the crisis management team.  Read the rest of this entry »

The historians and archaeologists among you know that plumbing–its existence, variations, quality, and effect on human health (both good and bad)–is highly variable throughout history.    Elaborate systems for providing fresh drinking water, for instance, existed in time (and within a short distance) alongside the simplest, least effective ways of getting water to drink and a place to put your waste.   This allows fantasy and science fiction writers to play with the co-existence of different kinds of plumbing, and different attitudes towards what we now call public health issues.

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