Eagles Over the Kennebec

So everybody knows the story, how 'way back in twenty-aught-oh-six our publisher of dern near a decade stopped paying us and we were Forced to Improvise like mad, improvisational things. It is well here to pause and recall that writers are people who live by their wits. For good or ill.

So, the combined wits of Steve and myself revealed that Maine gets damned cold in the winter and that we would object to living under a bridge in Maine winter conditions almost as strenuously as the cats would object to the loss of their floofy blankets and penthouse catboxes. This meant that we needed -- anyone?

Right.

We needed A Plan.

In fact, we needed A Two-Pronged Plan, and Four would be better.

The prongs we came up with were: (1) Write a Liaden story and give it away on the web for free, while asking those who had a little change jingling in their pockets to donate, and (2) Get a day-job to keep the cash flowing and the health insurance covered.

That met the minimum, Prong-wise, and so we started.

A couple months into 2007, Madame the Agent produced Prong the Third -- a contract for two dark fantasy novels, Duainfey and its sequel, Longeye, to be written on really short deadline.

Nothing we had discussed between us said that the Plan had to be easy, and, we knew that, if we were going to rescue our careers as writers, we had to start building a new backlist right now, so we took the contract, and we wrote the books, which made three in 2007 -- insanely quick for us.

Baen did its part by editing, promoting, publishing -- all those things that publishers do, and in September 2008 Duainfey hit bookstores in hardcover, followed by Longeye, in April 2009.

The mass market edition of Duainfey was published in February 2009, a little more less than a year after the hardcover, and today I see that Amazon is shipping the mass market of Longeye.

And there we are. This is the backlist that we started growing anew, right now in 2007.

Raises a glass to Becca and to Meripen Longeye.

Fair seeing, the both of you.

We have reports of Longeye slowly trickling into bookstores.

Mysterious Galaxy has-or-very-soon-will-have signed copies of Longeye available. Yes, they do mail order!

Constellation Books in Reisterstown, Maryland has Longeye in stock. Yep, they do mail order, too.

Depending on which database is ascendant at the moment, Amazon.com is either shipping, or will be shipping Longeye. Reader reviews are live (which argues for "shipping"), so if you're of a reviewing bent, have a ball.

Anbody else have any sightings that we can add to the list? Minneapolis? Berkley? Elsewhere?

Well! That could have gone worse. And having my brain still dialed to "Con" meant that I got a solution to a problem that has been blighting my secretarial life for months. This is what happens when you dare to call the Ghod of Email on the telephone. Really. He was very helpful, after an initial muddle of mutual misunderstanding. I have my hack, and life is good. Which is a pleasant way to end a day that started with the news that the other chairpersonship to be filled next year, has been. Alas. Next year is not shaping up to be the winner in the Best Bosses category. Maybe I'll take a sabbatical.

In poster-making news, a speaker who had given me a title for his talk Some Months Back, and for which a poster had been made and printed, decided -- you're ahead of me, aren't you? Yep; he decided to change the title to something High Falutin' and Scholarly. How Scholarly is the new title? Let's just say that it doesn't lend itself well to illustration. I wrote to the speaker, asking if he had an image which he had the right to use that I could incorporate into his new poster, and received a reply within minutes.

If I was "worried about copyright" the answer ran, then my speaker couldn't help me.

Yeah, I'm worried about copyright. So sue me. The typeface on his poster is extremely readable, if I do say so myself. It's a pure wonder how big you can make the words without a silly graphic taking up space.

On my way home, I stopped at the post office box, and picked up a bunch of goodies, including cover flats for Longeye and the Moo cards that were supposed to have arrived in time for us to take them to StellarCon. I'm impressed. Nice stock, clear printing. The information on the reverse is a little small for old eyes, but that really is a quibble. I'm going to be ordering in some more of these to take to WorldCon.

At home, two more boxes of Longeye are taking up a sizeable chunk of the living room, these to be signed and then sent on their way to Mysterious Galaxy. If you have a signed Duainfey and want a matched set, Mysterious Galaxy is your go-to place.

Mozart has been very clingy; I can't sit down without having a seventeen pound coon cat in my lap and/or sprawled across the keyboard. The attention is flattering, of course, but the retro-guilt is killing me.

I ought to work tonight, but I'm not gonna. I'm going to meet Steve in the living room and watch an episode or two of Avatar and then I'm going to bed. Perhaps my brain will dial down from "Con" on the overnight.

Or perhaps it won't.

So, today, as part of the Outcome of yesterday's acrimonious meeting in which it was Revealed that my boss and I are blockheads bent upon Inconveniencing the Princess of the Galaxy, who has -- wait for it -- A Book to Write...Today, I did a mountain of data entry. It took me every single minute of my work day; which meant I have a Whole Buncha Ketchup tomorrow, doing my Regularly Scheduled Work, which of course had to be ignored today, so that the PotG will no longer be Inconvenienced. About this. Until it's Revealed that I Did It All Wrong.

But, that's tomorrow. Or possibly, Monday.

Today -- in fact, this evening -- there was a (scarily brief) edit letter for Longeye waiting in my inbox. I think we've resolved everything that was asked. It took, like, an hour. Um. Eep.

Steve is making Good Smells in the kitchen. Rolls, he says. They're not ready yet, he says. They sure smell ready...

I suppose I ought to pay these bills; they're due soon, and there's money in the checkbook. After I do that, I'll get back with the page proofs for Duainfey.

Evil Roy Slade has arrived from Netflix. Just sayin'...

We are in receipt of Reliable Information from Mr. Bailey at Baen Webscriptions that the e-ARC of Longeye, the sequel to Duainfey, will be available for purchase on "September 13."

In these parts, that's...tomorrow.

For those who missed it, Liaden Universe® story "Misfits" may now be read in its entirety, for free, as a sample chapter of the December 2007 issue of Baen's Universe. Thanks to robotech_master for the head's up.

Also! I am...somewhat startled... to be able to announce that Longeye, the sequel to Duainfey, is now available for preorder from Amazon.com -- pub date April 7, 2009.

Buried in the comments to yesterday's book meme, mbernardi points out that the list being reproduced in various LJs differs in Interesting Ways from the Actual List, which may be viewed here

In other news, I have been Doing Bookkeeping today. Steve tells me that lunch will be ready in a few minutes, after which, it looks like I'll be settling down with Theo.

Hope everyone's having a fun and productive Friday.

Due to the fact that Longeye is due at Baen on June 1, no excuses, and is still thirty grand from the finish line, that is where the efforts and so-called talents of both authors will be focused this weekend.

There will be no new chapter of Saltation posted on May 26.

Steve and I apologize profusely, and thank you once again for your patience.

Could somebody tell me why the life of a writer is believed to be one of unending glamour and excitement?

This weekend, I wrote, slept, wrote, ate, wrote, did the laundry, scrubbled cat belly, wrote, answered a few embarrassingly overdue emails, wrote, signed some books for an SRM bookstore order, wrote, updated the Saltation webpage (only 554 books left for adoption!) and, um, wrote.

You'd think that I'd have something to show for all this industry, but you'd be wrong. The days when I could press out 4,000 words in a day are apparently gone forever. Guess I'll just have to write shorter books.

Here in beautiful Central Maine, we're looking at showers on the overnight, and the possibility of thunderstorms on the morrow (yay, thunderstorms!)

And how was your weekend?

Progress on Longeye:

61,296 / 100,000 (61.3%)

So, hey! We did the closing. And it was easy and smooth and now we know what amount to write the check for every month, foreverandever. Or at least the next 30 years. So, all good.

As reported in kinzel's blog, various things are moving apace, not counting, I suspect, the Authors. The new beta page for Fledgling is up here. Comments are being taken here, which is part of the Fledgling/Saltation community.

For those who have been even busier than we've been, an Announcement: There will be a WorldCon this year. It will be held in Denver. It will also be held in August, therefore establishing a lack of Herr Heisenberg's involvement in the proceedings. Read all about it here.

We -- that's Sharon Lee and Steve Miller -- will be attending this Denver WorldCon in August as panelists. We have train tickets! We have hotel reservations! We have Plans, Big Plans, to ride a vintage wooden carousel, which may not pan out, but! it's always good to have plans.

In addition to Plans and train tickets, we have the lovely and talented gilraen2, who has taken on the task of arranging a Friends of Liad breakfast. Because she is a splendid and organized person, we will be selling tickets in advance (Is this not a thing of beauty? Why didn't we think of that?) but! (you knew that was coming) we need a central place at the convention to do this piece of business. We had become accustomed to doing our con-related at-con business from the Meisha Merlin table, which is no longer possible.

Is there anyone (actually, lots of anyones, so nobody gives up their whole con for us -- that would be Too Awful) who is willing to man a Liaden Universe® fan table (I have no idea if it's even possible to reserve a fan table at this late date)? Can someone think of a central location where tickets could be sold *other than* a Liaden fan table? Suggestions welcome.

In other news, I've updated the Saltation subscription meter. As of this writing, 628 books have been adopted, with only 572 remaining.

I've also been writing, a little, and very much need to write this weekend, a lot. Anybody who has some spare energy, send 'er this way. Thanks.

Progress on Longeye

46,943 / 100,000 (46.9%)

Have I mentioned that I hate daylight savings time?

Friday, I read what I had of Longeye. Saturday and today, I spent rewriting chapters seventeen and eighteen. In one sense, it's nothing short of awesome how many new and interesting ways I'm finding to sabotage myself on this book. After it's done, you get down-time, brain. Promise.

In other writing-related news, the copy edited manuscript of Duainfey should be arriving tomorrow. *Sharon locates red pen and sticky-flags and puts them where the cats will find them and disperse them*

It rained like a sonofagun yesterday; and we still have snow cover! Also? Flood warnings. And! The plowman has delivered his bill, a sure sign that winter is well and truly over. It's time; this one has gone on just a thought too long.

And a note to a person not myself: Yessir, it's true that the project we're collaborating on isn't due until April 1. That means I need the materials from you before April 1, so that I can put them into Mandated Order. Ideally, I should receive those materials at least a week before April 1, and not the morning of the day. Thanks.

Progress, for some value of progress, on Longeye:

50278 / 100000 words.
50% done!