Barbara Hambly's Blog, page 10
January 6, 2016
Twelfth Night afternoon, and pouring rain. Taking down th...
Twelfth Night afternoon, and pouring rain. Taking down the Christmas Decorations (as tradition dictates) and listening to the BBC recording of Antony and Cleopatra - Kenneth Branagh and Alex Kingston, phenomenal! Worlds better than the only film I've seen of it.
The holiday season is officiall Over as of tonight. Four weeks of writing and painting (and sleeping) ahead. I'm down again with a slight sinus infection - nothing serious, except that (I'm sure because of my illness most of last year) I get very tired, very quickly: I suspect I'm going to blow off Anime LA, which is now a long drive in the rain. (And I think it's supposed to be raining again by the weekend). Many small tasks to do before Gallifrey in February.
The holiday season is officiall Over as of tonight. Four weeks of writing and painting (and sleeping) ahead. I'm down again with a slight sinus infection - nothing serious, except that (I'm sure because of my illness most of last year) I get very tired, very quickly: I suspect I'm going to blow off Anime LA, which is now a long drive in the rain. (And I think it's supposed to be raining again by the weekend). Many small tasks to do before Gallifrey in February.
December 30, 2015
The nice folks at Open Road tell me that downloads of Sil...
The nice folks at Open Road tell me that downloads of Silent Tower will be on sale, New Year's Day only, for $1.99 - this is allegedly the location: http://www.earlybirdbooks.com/.
A very quiet Christmas, and what will be I think (and hope) a quiet New Year's Eve... I generally leave the New Year's Party at 11, rather than deal with traffic going home. Today is wall-to-wall laundry: By all means, let's start 2016 with clean socks.
Finals and grading is done. Winter Break will be taken up mostly with sleep and putting together as much of the first draft of the next vampire book as I possibly can (since Spring Quarter will be a little rough). Also with prepping for the Gallifrey One Dr. Who convention here in LA. I'm entering stuff in the Art Show for the first time - all of it NFS (it takes me WAY too long to finish a painting, to be able to part with it), but all of it with prints to sell. (Paintings of Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Tenth Doctors, the War Doctor, the Master, and a very silly slushy-romantic book-cover for a non-existant slushy romance about Romana). Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and John Hurt are going to be headliner guests (along with Michelle Gomez, but I didn't do a painting of her because there was no time).
I also made a serious Classic Series Time Lord outfit, worked on mostly last winter when I was so sick. (When you are of a Certain Age and stature, nobody wants to see you dressed as Sailor Moon).
And did I mention I'm going to spend most of the next six weeks sleeping?
A very quiet Christmas, and what will be I think (and hope) a quiet New Year's Eve... I generally leave the New Year's Party at 11, rather than deal with traffic going home. Today is wall-to-wall laundry: By all means, let's start 2016 with clean socks.
Finals and grading is done. Winter Break will be taken up mostly with sleep and putting together as much of the first draft of the next vampire book as I possibly can (since Spring Quarter will be a little rough). Also with prepping for the Gallifrey One Dr. Who convention here in LA. I'm entering stuff in the Art Show for the first time - all of it NFS (it takes me WAY too long to finish a painting, to be able to part with it), but all of it with prints to sell. (Paintings of Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Tenth Doctors, the War Doctor, the Master, and a very silly slushy-romantic book-cover for a non-existant slushy romance about Romana). Peter Davison, Colin Baker, and John Hurt are going to be headliner guests (along with Michelle Gomez, but I didn't do a painting of her because there was no time).
I also made a serious Classic Series Time Lord outfit, worked on mostly last winter when I was so sick. (When you are of a Certain Age and stature, nobody wants to see you dressed as Sailor Moon).
And did I mention I'm going to spend most of the next six weeks sleeping?
November 3, 2015
Good LORD, I can't believe it's November already!...
Good LORD, I can't believe it's November already! And, it's finally turned a little bit cool. And I've gotten through the very tiring, two-condensed-classes-get-up-at-4-am portion of the semester, and it's amazing how much work one can get done when one has had enough sleep.
Just to let everyone know, I will be appearing on a panel "Writing Then and Now" with Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and John Dechancie at the Palms/Rancho Park Public Library on Saturday, November 21, at 2:30 - I think there will be "gang-dinner with the authors" afterwards. Considering I'll be teaching that morning in Woodland Hills, that'll be a damn long day!
I think I've mentioned I'll be at Gallifrey One, the LA Dr. Who convention, in February. Since I spent the whole time in my Illustration class a couple of years ago practicing with various Dr. Who photographs as subjects, I'll be showing some of that side of my work in the Art Show, and - I hope - selling prints. (The paintings themselves take WAY too long for me to want to part with them). (Other students in the same class used stills from old movies - I think there were three Vincent Prices and two Orson Wellses going, plus a very nice Lyndon Johnson - LBJ had an amazingly interesting face).
Just to let everyone know, I will be appearing on a panel "Writing Then and Now" with Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and John Dechancie at the Palms/Rancho Park Public Library on Saturday, November 21, at 2:30 - I think there will be "gang-dinner with the authors" afterwards. Considering I'll be teaching that morning in Woodland Hills, that'll be a damn long day!
I think I've mentioned I'll be at Gallifrey One, the LA Dr. Who convention, in February. Since I spent the whole time in my Illustration class a couple of years ago practicing with various Dr. Who photographs as subjects, I'll be showing some of that side of my work in the Art Show, and - I hope - selling prints. (The paintings themselves take WAY too long for me to want to part with them). (Other students in the same class used stills from old movies - I think there were three Vincent Prices and two Orson Wellses going, plus a very nice Lyndon Johnson - LBJ had an amazingly interesting face).
October 27, 2015
The first half - the heavy half - of the semester is over...
The first half - the heavy half - of the semester is over; until Christmas I'll be teaching two days a week instead of four. It's not the teaching that drags me down but the drive, I think, and the schedule itself: coming home very late Wednesday nights and then having to get up very early Thursday mornings to get to the 8 a.m. class. It's truly amazing how much better I feel when I'm getting enough sleep and enough rest.
I've gone back to working on a fantasy while doing the preliminary reading for the next vampire book - slow going, because the fantasy has to be entirely done on spec (very few publishers are taking things off outlines anymore, even from known writers). A new series, one I've had kicking around in my mind for years (to my Antryg fans,very few publishers are going to pick up old series - hence, The Further Adventures in the first place). I'm enjoying myself very much, but find I get tired very quickly, something friends who've had pneumonia warned me about. It can take over a year to recover one's energy. After a gruesomely hot summer, the cooling weather helps.
A quiet day of laundry and tea.
I've gone back to working on a fantasy while doing the preliminary reading for the next vampire book - slow going, because the fantasy has to be entirely done on spec (very few publishers are taking things off outlines anymore, even from known writers). A new series, one I've had kicking around in my mind for years (to my Antryg fans,very few publishers are going to pick up old series - hence, The Further Adventures in the first place). I'm enjoying myself very much, but find I get tired very quickly, something friends who've had pneumonia warned me about. It can take over a year to recover one's energy. After a gruesomely hot summer, the cooling weather helps.
A quiet day of laundry and tea.
October 22, 2015
STORIES ARE UP!New Further Adventures tales - "And P...
STORIES ARE UP!
New Further Adventures tales - "And Pretty Maids All in a Row," (Antryg & Joanna), and "Damselblossom," (John & Jenny) are turned in to Smashwords and Amazon Kindle Direct, at $4.99 apiece. It should probably take a day or two for the stories to appear. "Pretty Maids" has the additional tidbit of a picture (albeit a sketchy one) of Antryg & Joanna on the cover.
I will keep an eye on both sites, and if anything goes awry (or if I get a kick-back message), I will keep you posted. But, so far, so good.
New Further Adventures tales - "And Pretty Maids All in a Row," (Antryg & Joanna), and "Damselblossom," (John & Jenny) are turned in to Smashwords and Amazon Kindle Direct, at $4.99 apiece. It should probably take a day or two for the stories to appear. "Pretty Maids" has the additional tidbit of a picture (albeit a sketchy one) of Antryg & Joanna on the cover.
I will keep an eye on both sites, and if anything goes awry (or if I get a kick-back message), I will keep you posted. But, so far, so good.
October 21, 2015
Lectured on the Cold War yesterday, to my History 2 class...
Lectured on the Cold War yesterday, to my History 2 class. Even weirder than speaking about what I remembered (boy, did that picture of Nikita Kruschev bring back memories!) was the realization that NOT ONE SINGLE ONE OF THEM had been alive during the Cold War. The Berlin Wall came down in 1991. That was 25 years ago. There are days when I actually do feel like a time traveler.
HOWEVER, I have finally finished - and had appropriately formatted (I hope!) TWO NEW FURTHER ADVENTURE TALES. (And about damn time!).
Antryg & Joanna - "...And Pretty Maids All in a Row." An LA drug-dealer seeks out a wizard for advice with his love-life, and Antryg is pretty sure that there's more going on than meets the eye.
Winterlands (John & Jenny) - "Damselblossom." A visiting wizard arrives at the Hold with a warning of the imminent arrival of a horrendous monster from the sea, and John and Jenny are much less upset about the news than the Silver Mage thinks they should be.
Additionally, I finally made the time (and time is at a premium around here due to months of illness which put me way behind in all my work) to do a little thumbnail sketch of Antryg and Joanna for the cover of Pretty Maids, thus proving conclusively that yes, I would cast Tom Baker as Antryg. I hope eventually to do illos for the covers of most of the Further Adventures, but that will take time.
I will get these posted, I hope, by the end of the week, on both Smashwords and Amazon Kindle Direct, at $4.99 apiece.
HOWEVER, I have finally finished - and had appropriately formatted (I hope!) TWO NEW FURTHER ADVENTURE TALES. (And about damn time!).
Antryg & Joanna - "...And Pretty Maids All in a Row." An LA drug-dealer seeks out a wizard for advice with his love-life, and Antryg is pretty sure that there's more going on than meets the eye.
Winterlands (John & Jenny) - "Damselblossom." A visiting wizard arrives at the Hold with a warning of the imminent arrival of a horrendous monster from the sea, and John and Jenny are much less upset about the news than the Silver Mage thinks they should be.
Additionally, I finally made the time (and time is at a premium around here due to months of illness which put me way behind in all my work) to do a little thumbnail sketch of Antryg and Joanna for the cover of Pretty Maids, thus proving conclusively that yes, I would cast Tom Baker as Antryg. I hope eventually to do illos for the covers of most of the Further Adventures, but that will take time.
I will get these posted, I hope, by the end of the week, on both Smashwords and Amazon Kindle Direct, at $4.99 apiece.
August 24, 2015
The end of a restful summer. Various orientation days at ...
The end of a restful summer. Various orientation days at the college this week - classes start a week from today. The January novel (due Oct. 1) is down to trimming and snipping - there's a word-count limit - but other writing projects are a bit lagged. I finished four paintings and even did a little weeding of the books - volumes purchased for research on past projects, in areas I'm pretty sure I'm never going to re-visit. Re-homing the laser-discs; letting go of things kept for sentimental reasons, now that the ashes have cooled.
Have been re-reading Luc Sante's amazing book "Low Life" - a history of crime and vice in nineteenth-century New York - and am delighted to hear that he's coming out with a similar volume about Paris... which is one of the cities I study.
New projects when I've sorted myself out a little.
Have been re-reading Luc Sante's amazing book "Low Life" - a history of crime and vice in nineteenth-century New York - and am delighted to hear that he's coming out with a similar volume about Paris... which is one of the cities I study.
New projects when I've sorted myself out a little.
July 19, 2015
The Further Adventures
New Stories About Old Friends: for those who don't know, I continue to write short stories and novelettes about the characters of my old Del Rey fantasy serieses. These are available on Smashwords (smashwords.com) and on Amazon Kindle Direct. Most are $4.99. Smashwords supports all the major platforms (epub, kobo, mobi, pdf, etc), and I believe markets to sites for Nook, ePub, etc. Kindle Direct is - well, for Kindle.
So far, there are 5 Antryg and Joanna novelettes, 3 tales about Sun Wolf and Starhawk, 4 stories about Benjamin January (actually, two of these are about what Rose does while Ben is out of town), 2 each concerning John and Jenny in the Winterlands, and the gang at the Keep of Dare. Also available are the 4 stories that I wrote, over the years, for Sherlock Holmes anthologies, two of which are fantasy and two of which are "straight" Holmes stories: two are narrated by Watson, two by Mrs. Watson. Lastly, there is the vampire-on-the-Titanic novelette, "Sunrise on Running Water," in which Don Simon Ysidro from my vampire series has a very brief cameo (he has FAR too much sense to be on the Titanic himself).
I used to sell these stories on my personal website - I no longer do.
But, I will continue to write new stories about old friends, and post them on Smashwords and Kindle Direct (and announce them on LJ and FB... Twitter just makes me crazy).
I hope you all enjoy them!
So far, there are 5 Antryg and Joanna novelettes, 3 tales about Sun Wolf and Starhawk, 4 stories about Benjamin January (actually, two of these are about what Rose does while Ben is out of town), 2 each concerning John and Jenny in the Winterlands, and the gang at the Keep of Dare. Also available are the 4 stories that I wrote, over the years, for Sherlock Holmes anthologies, two of which are fantasy and two of which are "straight" Holmes stories: two are narrated by Watson, two by Mrs. Watson. Lastly, there is the vampire-on-the-Titanic novelette, "Sunrise on Running Water," in which Don Simon Ysidro from my vampire series has a very brief cameo (he has FAR too much sense to be on the Titanic himself).
I used to sell these stories on my personal website - I no longer do.
But, I will continue to write new stories about old friends, and post them on Smashwords and Kindle Direct (and announce them on LJ and FB... Twitter just makes me crazy).
I hope you all enjoy them!
ALL the stories from the Further Adventures section of my...
ALL the stories from the Further Adventures section of my website have now been uploaded to Kindle Direct!
(The one exception is the Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Antiquarian's Niece, which is available only on Smashwords)
Whew!
A lot of hoops to jump through.
All future Further Adventures tales - and I hope to continue producing them at the rate of a couple or three a year - will go straight to Kindle and Smashwords; I will no longer be selling them through my website. (Although if, at some future date, I am able to start doing paintings of characters, those may be through the website - Heaven only knows when that might be, though).
MANY thanks for your patience through this process. I hope, in addition to ME not having to deal with PayPal, that I've opened the door to readers who don't necessarily want to deal with PayPal either. The digital publishing scene has changed considerably in the six years I've been running "Further Adventures" through the website, and I hope this change-over will be of benefit to everyone.
The website itself will continue, of course, as my website, and I'll try to be better about keeping news updated there.
Bless you all.
(The one exception is the Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Antiquarian's Niece, which is available only on Smashwords)
Whew!
A lot of hoops to jump through.
All future Further Adventures tales - and I hope to continue producing them at the rate of a couple or three a year - will go straight to Kindle and Smashwords; I will no longer be selling them through my website. (Although if, at some future date, I am able to start doing paintings of characters, those may be through the website - Heaven only knows when that might be, though).
MANY thanks for your patience through this process. I hope, in addition to ME not having to deal with PayPal, that I've opened the door to readers who don't necessarily want to deal with PayPal either. The digital publishing scene has changed considerably in the six years I've been running "Further Adventures" through the website, and I hope this change-over will be of benefit to everyone.
The website itself will continue, of course, as my website, and I'll try to be better about keeping news updated there.
Bless you all.
July 17, 2015
ALL the stories from the Further Adventures section of my...
ALL the stories from the Further Adventures section of my website have now been transferred to Smashwords! Yay! They are available there in a wide variety of formats.
I've uploaded all the Antryg stories (5), all the Holmes stories (4), all the Sun Wolf and Starhawk stories (3), onto Kindle, plus the John and Jenny story "Princess" and the Keep story "Pretty Polly." I should get the Ben January stories, the other John & Jenny tale, and the other Keep story up tomorrow or Sunday - I've been under the weather lately and it's tiring. "Sunrise on Running Water" - the story about Don Simon Ysidro's vampire friend who voyages on the Titanic, with predictable results - is hung up in Kindle's approvals process: temporarily, I hope, but it is readily available on Smashwords in mobi form.
Thank you all for your patience! Now maybe I can get back and finish Ben January # 14!
I've uploaded all the Antryg stories (5), all the Holmes stories (4), all the Sun Wolf and Starhawk stories (3), onto Kindle, plus the John and Jenny story "Princess" and the Keep story "Pretty Polly." I should get the Ben January stories, the other John & Jenny tale, and the other Keep story up tomorrow or Sunday - I've been under the weather lately and it's tiring. "Sunrise on Running Water" - the story about Don Simon Ysidro's vampire friend who voyages on the Titanic, with predictable results - is hung up in Kindle's approvals process: temporarily, I hope, but it is readily available on Smashwords in mobi form.
Thank you all for your patience! Now maybe I can get back and finish Ben January # 14!
