Vicissitude and Season

Finally got to the post I've been meaning to write for ages on how and why my books are and are not romance novels, and what that means to me, at great length. I am not going to sit here longer and recode it to post here, so you'll have to read it on my blog. Comments welcome here as well as there.

This is mostly a for-myself feel-good sort of entry (still rather desperately needed, though I am doing better mental-health-wise than a few days ago), though the betas may enjoy it too, and anyone who's a Vienna Teng fan or wonders why I am listening to her so much these days.

So, under the cut, all the VT songs that are in my "book party" playlist (the only one I have left, since it was on my phone; I'll have to recreate the others as desired), and who/what they remind me of in my writing. (With not so much spoilers for books 3 and 4 as lots of ???.) Links if you want to join in!

( an old world made new on the same holy ground )

And that is all - so far! Others may very well work their way in.

You can now read my Waters of Time-’verse story, “The Opposite of an Epitaph,” on my website for free, or as a downloadable 99-cent ebook at Kindle or Smashwords.

This story covers a temporary, accidental distraction during one of George Merrill’s early time-travel adventures, from the perspective of someone he meets in the past. His 1752 mission centers around a) the arrival of the first incarnation of the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, b) the adaptation of the Gregorian calendar by Britain and its colonies, c) something to do with Benjamin Franklin, that we never find out about. (The famous kite experiment had occurred in June of the same year; perhaps he was still fiddling with electricity.) But all of that is filtered, in this story, through the interests and preoccupations of 13-year-old Ruth Gregory.

I’m hesitant to bill this publication as an inexpensive advertisement for my novels, not because I’m not proud of it, but because it’s rather different in style than my usual work – first person present! OMG! – but please feel free to promote it that way. George is certainly himself herein, if a somewhat younger man than we meet in Time for Tea, not so far along on the journey of knowledge about the workings of time and the history of his own country. Themes of liberty and patriotism – George’s versions thereof, and by extension mine – also turn up in the novels, most especially in Time Goes By and (I hope) in the as-yet-unwritten fifth book. Like time, love, and honor, they are not such simple concepts as many would like to believe.

I hope you enjoy the story!

Things:

1) Wow, Hannibal finale, way to earn your content warnings. Also… what? What?!!! (I suspect the Hamlet-like bloodbath is by way of saying "hey, network, this is what you get for not renewing us till after we'd written it" but holy shit.)

2) I am, alas, not nearly so intrigued by Castle's Downton-Abbey-esque season finish. Because come on now.

3) Hoping to catch up on other things besides obsessive weed-pulling and powerpoint-polishing after I give the Big Talk this Thursday. It seems likely I'll be defaulting on Trope Bingo, though, because despite wanting to write something (probably the POI hiatus fic that all of us must write) I don't see it happening this week.

4) I've been listening to lots of Vienna Teng and picking out Waters of Time-related songs; have decided that "Antebellum" is totally Sam and Olivia's song, and "Nothing Without You" is Wilfrid and Beatrice's (despite their fervent arguments against the title). Or alternatively "Augustine." (And "Harbor" is - ideally at least - George and Olivia's, and I could go on, but I'll spare you. Funny that on the whole I tend to find the non-romantic-pairing songs first, though.)

5) Oh, and the POI hiatus fic may borrow a title from "Goodnight, New York."

6) The trip to Texas went well, and we got Younger Son packed off to Ghana via Albuquerque, and he's sending happy-sounding texts about fufu and power cuts. I pick him up in Philadelphia a week from Thursday.

I suppose I should do more weeding now. Or organize my resource list.

Time and Fevers is now available for purchase in ebook and print versions! Details are at my website (which really needs a redesign, but who has time). Here's the blurb:

Olivia Lake’s search for her missing husband continues, as she and time-jumping partner George Merrill venture into the world of tulip traders, spice merchants and theatre lovers in 17th-century Amsterdam. Meanwhile, new players on the time travel stage make surprise entrances, and the employees of Constantine and Associates face the dangers posed by mysterious conspirators, unanticipated market forces, and their own hearts.

This would be the time to talk up the series, people. :)

Waiting to see if the attempt to link my blog to Tumblr is working any better than the currently-claimed links to Facebook and Twitter - they did work, for a while, and now I have to manually repost everything. I have other strategies in reserve, but still hoping maybe Wordpress will fix itself?

In other news, I'm rereading Christopher Fowler's The Water Room with crossover possibilities in mind - the Rivers of London connection is so obvious it hurts. Need to look at my Trope Bingo card again...

I have a stinking cold, and I have to drive to Allentown and back later today, and I've seen the digital proof for Time and Fevers and yes, I am going to have to work on the cover more. (I don't think it's entirely my fault that it's misaligned, but one must meet CreateSpace where they are.) Despite my "must do this NOW" urges, I know it's much better to wait until I'm feeling better and no longer in the "oh fuck it, this'll do, let me go bury myself in Elementary season two" state of mind. But I'm looking at my calendar for the next couple of weeks and weeping. Why did I think bringing out a book in the height of spring was a good plan? Oh, because the MacGuffin is tulips and it was so cute to have people reading it when the tulips were blooming. Well no, not if I have no time for marketing until summer, and most of the people I can guarantee will read it are equally busy right now.

*sigh*

On the other hand, it didn't snow two days ago, so that's good. (It did sleet, and drop below freezing, but I think all the flowering things and the seedling plants survived.)

I will be much happier when my head is not a mass of snot. Really.

I went for a walk first thing this morning (about 7 am) and saved shower, coffee, breakfast, and computer for afterwards, and will try to make that the pattern for the spring and summer. Walking or gardening, because oh my god I have so much outdoor work to do, and who knows how long spring will last.

On the book front, I need to waste some of this week's lovely weather forcing myself to get the TAF cover done, so I can order a proof. I did get the last formatting bits done while it was raining (and really I need to write down the steps to make the page numbers start at Chapter One in Word for Mac, because the help file is unnecessarily confusing and I always spend way too much time trying to follow instructions that don't make sense). Note for today: fix the paragraph I discovered where "apparently" occurs twice, and then stop worrying that there are more of those.

One lovely day this weekend disappeared to a drive to Allentown, to watch our son performing in drag (he was the Bearded Lady in a play about a circus, and he was fabulous. Little red number I could never have carried off, and four-inch heels. It's hard to learn to walk from the hips, though).

I finished Checkmate, and so have gotten through all the Lymond books twice, and of course I have Thoughts, but they are too scattered to cohere just now. The gist, though:

1) Most of the plot elements really are quite compelling if you pay sufficient sustained attention, but there are still places I don't know WTF is going on, and I think that's okay, because surface understanding still provides a thematic through-line. If I read them again I'll get the Companion(s).

2) It would be worth making detailed notes on POV choices, but naturally I didn't do that. But there are implications to hardly ever letting your hero dictate the narrative. Which quite possibly relate to the chess metaphor: another aspect it would be worth making notes on. But also to the way not talking about things directs the plot.

3) Archie is my favorite. Because obviously, second to gardeners I like elephant-keepers.

4) Wow, Marthe's advice to Philippa is incredibly problematic.

5) I think Austin Grey is unfairly twisted by plot purposes, but I'm not sure.

But on to other things, and I'll let all this mull itself over in the back of my head.

1) Three more inches of snow yesterday, and today it's cold and windy and whipping around white, but this is it, really. Somewhere out there a daffodil is blooming.

2) POI just average last night (I think; I was sleepy) but end of season still looks good (the finale is called "Deus ex Machina," yes they are going there). I am a bit concerned about Bear's self-discipline.

3) Also caught up on The Good Wife (for which I was spoiled, but still, a shocker) and Hannibal (less of one, and isn't that interesting?). And watching Elementary season one in downtime (rewatching, but since I fell asleep during every single episode the first time, defining it as such is debatable).

4) Up to The Ringed Castle in my Lymond reread. Funny how little I recall in detail from first read however many years ago that was, though general tone sticks very well. This one, recollected: a fair amount of bad weather, speculations on illegitimacy, and things that begin with L. On rediscovery: surprising amounts of politics and relevance to today's news. And an eagle.

5) Aside from that, it's all a blur of garden plans and powerpoints and seeds and formatting I really should get to and worrying about adult children's schedules. And taxes. (I have netted over $200 on the book so far, but all paid (or to be paid) in 2014 so nothing to be done about that at present. Except think more about marketing.)

6) I did join Pinterest, but have done very little about it so far except stick a whole bunch of Time for Tea-related images on a board. It's a mishmash of portraits and costumes and pistols and scenery and Japanese tea ceremony et cetera, and needs to be organized at some point. But I am intrigued by the idea of wrapping subject matter around imagery.

7) Have taken to spending some time each day working while standing. Looking forward to getting back to long walks when it's a touch warmer. Hope to be plotting Book Five while walking, this summer.

Briefly:

a) I posted four teaser chapters for Time and Fevers yesterday, which you can get to from my main author page (scroll down) or starting here. Huge spoilers for Time for Tea, obviously.

b) I'm also trying to keep something going on the blog there, so have posts on my book playlist and its in-jokes and narrative mode and how TAF's reminded me of a vegetable garden I once constructed.

Through chapter 14 on final edits. Boy, I really put you through the wringer, characters.

So, yesterday is over and I got through three hours of standing in front of the new Master Gardener class telling them what they need to know about vegetable gardening just to be going on with, and now I get to move on to the next thing, or the next several things. Which include: speaking to teachers about container gardening (done that before, collaborative effort, no biggie); doing a whiz-bang little half-hour talk on root vegetables at the spring conference, timing being critical because my talk partner has to fit in a cooking demo and we need to end on time; in March speaking, again with a partner (though we have yet to work out who does what), on keeping animals out of food gardens (moving ahead on this powerpoint is a major priority of the coming week); in April doing a talk on edible landscaping to a garden club and/or a basic vegetable gardening talk to interested members of the general public, I wish we could get it settled which; and, looking ahead to the end of May, creating from scratch and presenting a talk I've wanted to do for a while, at the statewide MG annual training day (my most potentially critical and certainly best-informed audience). (It's called "Purple Carrot People" and here is the summary: Ever thought you might want to grow that strange-looking squash in the seed catalog, or try purple carrots even though orange ones taste perfectly fine? Let's talk about the how and why of new-to-you crops, the benefits of novelty-vegetable-seeking behavior in a changing world, and why we should banish the word "exotic" from our vegetable vocabulary.)

None of those is three hours, so should not be so completely enervating, but still I know exactly how I'll feel afterwards. I'm thinking of it as the introvert response. I'm quite used to public speaking now, and really rather like it as long as I'm talking about something I feel confident about and interested in. I also like the events where I'm standing in the garden talking to individuals as they ask questions. And I know people regard me as energetic and enthusiastic and approachable and comfortable with an audience, which is weird because I am none of those things, though apparently really good at faking it. (I can honestly respond with gratitude and acceptance to "That was really clear and well-organized." Though occasionally that's faked as well.) But I get home from an event and need to not talk to people for hours afterwards (yesterday I had food and tea and watched about five episodes of Angel, which is pretty funny in context, Mr. Tall Dark and Introverted) and yet keep having little bits of conversation and/or lecture pop up in my head to haunt me and inform me what I've done wrong (even though I know on the whole I did it right).

Ah well; I am stuck with it now. Other things on the list for the coming week include pulling together the complete draft file for Time and Fevers and starting the formatting, which this time comes before final editing. I still plan to have that out by the end of April (in the middle of Oh My God Everything but what else is new). I need to get the author blog moving again and send out reminders to the mailing list of people I know personally who have read the first book to please find it in their hearts to write a review (by the way, I am on Goodreads, and let me remind you of my website). Today, along with shopping and laundry, I really need to start microgreens and write something about squash for the Grow It Eat It blog. And I had an ominous Return of the Migraine this week, so personal fitness needs to up its priority as well.

This is all to say you're not likely to see me on Tumblr in the near future, or contributing anything substantial to POI discussion (I drifted off a little during this week's ep, but hope to watch it again at some point), and fic is a very iffy proposition, though certainly the urge may come upon me at some point. But I'll be around.