Paksworld

So…Paksworld’s northern kingdoms are more like Europe north of the Alps, in terms of what they grow and eat, and Aarenis is more like the Mediterranean countries.   But there are variations.   Paks’s family had a small amount of land under plough,  for grain and the few vegetables they grew; they also harvested field herbs, wild berries,  and some wild grains.    The nearest mill was a considerable distance away, so her family ground grain to make bread in hand mills (stone.)   Grain was also cooked into a mush, flavored with herbs and sometimes meat.   They were lucky in having good-quality hand mills that didn’t put a lot of stone dust in the meal, so they didn’t have their teeth ground down. Read the rest of this entry »

…to buy a new pot, that is.  (Two posts back…that was  Friday.)   Saturday I started a soup/stew/concoction sort of thing,  realized I needed some things that neither R- not I had picked up at the store Friday,  and that meant I needed to get to a big supermarket,  not the little town grocery.   And if I was going to do that, then…why not go deeper into the city and buy a new pot? Read the rest of this entry »

And here it is.   This is the place for comments to discuss what you’ve been speculating about, so it doesn’t step on the toes of those who don’t want any spoilers.   It’s absolutely the place to discuss what’s in the various snippets that will be popping out here and there between now and Crown‘s Launch Day.

If you hate spoilers and speculation that goes a shade too far, do not read beyond the “More” and do not read the comments.    If you want to argue about what Midwinter present was just brought into the tower, here’s the place.  Have fun with it.  But keep it under wraps right here.   I will not answer questions here that would be spoilers if I did answer them.  (So don’t ask ME–take a wild guess if you must, but don’t ask me.)

Now for something off-topic: what the writer does after finishing a hard bout of copy edit checking while sick and coughing her lungs out.  Tomorrow will be a cooking day.  I have an “economy pack” of stew meat, variously colored sweet peppers, mushrooms, celery, carrots, onions, garlic and I’m considering whether (since my largest Le Creuset pot won’t be big enough) this is sufficient excuse to buy a bigger one.  Ideally this will start with a lot of sauteing and browning of meat on top of the stove, and end with everything and a quart of homemade beef stock and several large gluggles of red wine  in a big pot in the oven for hours.  And hours.  And hours.

I do have a bigger All-Clad stock pot I could use, but…although it goes in the oven…I really think the porcelain over cast iron does best for this kind of thing.   I suppose I could make a smaller batch…freeze the rest of the stew meat for another time…but the point is to make a big batch so I can freeze containers for later.   Some of the chicken stock I made earlier in the year was used up while I was sick (and it helped, so I need to make more) but with a big concert coming up, and son’s birthday,  and Thanksgiving, I need to start making the “fast dinners” now, so I can start the T-day prep by the end of the first week in November.

Very early tomorrow I  leave here to drive down to Austin and catch the train, arriving in Washington (if all goes well) early Saturday afternoon after changing trains in Chicago.  I am excited.   I’m taking knitting along (you guessed!) and hope to finish both the current pair of red socks and the green/purple/red/blue pair of short socks.  This may not happen if the writing fit hits.

Anyone who has the time, please do come down to the National Book Festival on the Mall.  I know many of you can’t come, but I’d love to see a friendly face (once you introduce yourself–remember my face-recognition problems)  from this group.

Read the rest of this entry »

Right now other people are working hard on Crown of Renewal‘s production status–the copy editor, for one–but there’s no news for me to share until after I get the copy edits and return them.

I am trying to catch up on everything that went astray earlier this year (HA! Fat chance!) and prepare for the next trip, next week.  It feels like being stuck windless with sagging sails in the Sargasso Sea, because it seems like no matter how many things I accomplish on a given day, more appear…and I’m not making progress on a book, which is one of the few things that gives me a sense of progress.  Read the rest of this entry »

I’m back from WorldCon.  I do have an iPad now, although I never got a chance to sit around downstairs where the free wi-fi was to learn how best to use it, because I was raging busy and also my neck was giving me fits–so carrying any more weight in the tote bag was not going to happen.   I have the iPad, and a padded case with a keyboard for it.  Yay!  (Eventually, when I learn to use it, right?)

Very, very busy convention,  and tiring with the size of the convention center and the heat outside and my schedule.  However,  met a lot of neat people, plenty of people wanted me to sign their books (always an ego-boost) and all I lost on the trip was my really good Knit-Picks needle gauge, which I will have to replace pronto.

Read the rest of this entry »

So this morning I turned on the little red netbook and began a several hour struggle to get it to behave.  No luck.   So unless I can find a store on the way down at which to buy something that will give me internet access at WorldCon, I’m out of communication until I return from there next week.

Absence of posts, tweets, etc. means nothing except that I didn’t find a replacement I wanted.    No need to worry.  But for any of you going to WorldCon, you’ll pretty much have to hunt me down.

I was hoping for an easy departure, smooth trip, early arrival.  Not happening.

Today I had a needle biopsy of some masses in my thyroid.   I was not looking forward to it (even Writer Brain wasn’t looking forward to it and kept saying “But I’ve experienced a wide variety of needle sticks before…I don’t need another one to use in stories…and anyway, Paksworld doesn’t have fine needles for aspirating cells, or microscopes to examine them with…”  )  I told Writer Brain that if it could horn in with its questions while I’m trying to cope with a bike wreck-in-progress, it could jolly well use its vampire-like desire for sensory input to track this one, too.

Read the rest of this entry »

I may have mentioned in some comment or other that I had an Incident With Bicycle and Pickup last weekend.   I am lucky to be a) alive and b) whole and–barring a somewhat unhappy neck and some fairly impressive bruises–recovered.   The incident was my fault;  though I knew that was an almost-blind turn into a very narrow lane, and that large pickups lived on the connecting street, I failed to adhere to the ABCs of safety: ALWAYS  Be Careful, not “Nearly Always Be Careful…”  Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday afternoon, the mother of a good friend died.  This afternoon, the husband of another friend died.    I had met the friend’s mother several times, but not the other friend’s husband.  Nonetheless…I’m in need of a little distance and silence.   I won’t be around for a day; my heart is with my grieving friends.