This week, my agent sent out pitches for That Subtle Knot, my opium-addicted hero gets married and gets straight Regency-set historical.
Now, much waiting ensues.
In the mean
This week, my agent sent out pitches for That Subtle Knot, my opium-addicted hero gets married and gets straight Regency-set historical.
Now, much waiting ensues.
In the mean
If only…
Ideally this is how I’d like to spend my summer (add catering and it would be perfect). As it is, if we open windows mosquitoes come in (although they get in anyway; the opportunistic little critters zoom in as soon as a door is opened, knowing that I, ripe, juicy and desirable, will be their dinner). If I put flowers in a vase I’d have to clean off the table first. Heck, I’d have to clean off the sofa first.
I don’t know if I could live with that wallpaper, though.
So how am I spending my summer?
Job hunting. Yes, my job fell apart in July and I really, really need work–I just don’t function well without it. It’s not as though I have set myself up a rigid routine (exercise! write! read! do good works!) although I probably should. My routine generally goes like this: get up early because I’m used to it, fiddle around reading email, run errands if there are any to run, write a bit, apply for some jobs, avoid the siren call of the tv and the hundreds of cable channels that still don’t provide anything to watch.
I also do odd bits of housework but god knows I don’t want anyone (spouse) to take this sort of thing for granted or, worse, that I start to think this sort of thing is essential. It’s a fine line.
So what are you doing this summer?
Sorry this post is so late.
I just got back from attending the World Science Fiction Convention (a.k.a. Worldcon) yesterday.
I woke up this morning with a headache….and my new headache medicine apparently makes me woozy.
(Hmm…I wonder what the derivation of “woozy” is? If I weren’t so woozy, I’d go look it up in a dictionary. After all, I have three within reach right now. But that would take effort….)
So here are a few random pics for you…which will hopefully make more sense than I do right now!
I’ll talk more about Worldcon later…
But just a few tidbits for now:
The Guest of Honor was the amazing Lois McMaster Bujold.
And I got to ask her questions.
And hear her talk.
And listen to her read the first two chapters of her upcoming new Vorkosigan book!!!!!!!
I also got to hear Todd, who was on three panels, tell folks how to build a time machine in the basement. (Half of that sentence isn’t exactly true, by the way, but I’m too woozy to remember which half.)
Speaking of wooziness…(hey, that’s a cool word…wooziness…wooziness…if you say it three times fast, then it begins to describe your state of mind…)…I just attended two conferences back to back.
Does that make me an expert on hotel shower curtains?
Or finding cool restaurants? (I had Singaporean food with Elena in San Francisco, and German food with Todd in Denver…)
Hey, wait — wasn’t the Woozy one of those L Frank Baum magical creatures? (My woozy brain is coming up with a picture that seems to be a bendable doglike creature made of silvery metal… Does this make sense?)
Google, and ye shall find.
Here’s a picture of the Woozy (the fellow clinging to the tree) as illustrated by John R. Neill, in Baum’s THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ.
Yep.
That’s my brain.
Clinging to a tree.
S-N-O-O-Z-I-N-G.
Cara the woozy (though not Cara The Woozy)
The History Conference held on the Wednesday before RWA kicks off held a Silent Auction during the Afternoon Tea. I’ve attended several of these Silent Auctions and pride myself on having a fool-proof strategy.
This year was no exception!
My strategy, honed by these years of experience, was to bid on several items so that I would have a good chance of winning at least one or two of the items I most desired. I put my claims in early and checked now and then (between tea sandwiches) to see how I was doing. As time ticked on, I became a little nervous. No one was bidding against me! I was winning EVERYTHING. Several more checks confirmed my fears. I won each and every single thing I’d bid on. The only saving grace to my pocketbook (strained after two and a half days of shopping in San Francisco)was that I’d bid low.
(these series of 3 photos are courtesy of The Beau Monde)
I don’t know. Maybe I should not have attended the Gentleman’s Tipple workshop where we sampled about ten different types of alcohol of which Regency Gentlemen would have imbibed. I tasted them all.
At least I won some treasures!
This lovely plate, donated by our Risky friend, Jane George.
Two prints Jane also donated. These I added to my already long list of items because no one else saw their incredible value and I got them for a SONG. David’s portrait of Napoleon and this other one. I think it says, “The Bank Looking Towards Mansion House.”
A CD – Napoleon: Music of the Empire 1800-1815. This was my year for Napoleon, I guess.
Books, of course. I always donate books to the Silent Auction. Every year I donate the duplicate copies of books that I have purchased for myself. Yes. I do forget and buy the same book twice. This year I donated three books… and purchased three books!
Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron was first published in 1858. The author is Edward Trelawny, who met Shelley and Byron on a trip to Italy. Trelawny was also the guy who designed the boat that Shelley and Edward Williams took out to sea on the last day of their lives.
The Young Melbourne by David Cecil looks good, too. Melbourne is William Lamb, the poor guy who married Caroline Lamb, who had a famous affair with Byron.
And the last book looks like more fun. The Scouring of the White Horse. If you are driving in the Berkshires you might come upon the white chalk figure of a horse carved into a hillside. This book tells about the 1857 festival of the cleansing of the horse by the people of Uffington. It is an eye-witness account by the author of Tom Brown’s School Days.
Many thanks to Jane George and Delle Jacobs for all their hard work on this very successful Silent Auction!
The background of my photos is the Pashmina I purchased in China Town. They assured me it was 100% Pashmina, all for $14.99.
If you attended the Silent Auction, what did you win and what did you lose? What was the most disappointing thing you ever lost in an auction?
‘Fess up. You’ve purchased duplicate books, too, haven’t you?
Visit my website and enter my contest. They both are still there!
I read this horoscope yesterday:
“Here’s a passage from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Breakfast of Champions: ‘Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne.’ This scenario has some resemblance to what you’re doing, Capricorn. Fortunately, you’re much smarter than two pieces of yeast, and so you will not do the equivalent of drowning in crap. But I bet you’ll create something comparable to champagne.”
This is very encouraging, considering I have hit the point which comes in every WIP where the story seems, well, crap. A terrible idea from top to bottom. I want the characters to fall off a cliff and leave me alone. Yes, I am on the downhill slide, about 30 pages left to go. Along with recovering from RWA, it’s a slog. But hopefully, all unknowing, it’s slowly changing into bubbly champagne. I do like champagne, and luckily there was plenty to be had in San Francisco!
Here I am with Risky Megan!
With Diane and Michelle Willingham at the Harlequin party (I think this is before the infamous tree felling!)
Some mysterious dandy with Elena at the Beau Monde Soiree
And with Megan…
And with Deb Marlowe!
It was wonderful to meet so many of you “in person” at RWA! I can’t wait for next year. In the meantime, what were some of you own highlights of conference? And wish me luck on finishing my yeast, er, champagne…