Barbara Hambly's Blog, page 22

Antryg & Joanna novella #3 - "Plus-One" - i...

Antryg & Joanna novella #3 - "Plus-One" - is up on barbarahambly.com, "The Further Adventures Of..."

Like the other two, it's about 14,000 words - novella length (I can't seem to write short) - and $5 a download in all formats. (The price of a smoothie at the beach). (That includes pdf, if you don't have a reader).

I'm pleased with it - it's Antryg Goes to Vegas, more or less.

If anyone has any trouble downloading (I guess the hyphen in the title gave Deb some trouble... sorry, Deb...), please let Deb know.

Hope you like it!

Tonight (Monday) is my Twitterchat - and I'm most cur...

Tonight (Monday) is my Twitterchat - and I'm most curious how that's going to go. Hachtag is #severnchat - the nice publicist from Severn House is going to walk me through this.

Tomorrow (I hope!) the new Antryg & Joanna story, "Plus-One," should be up on the website. Like the others, it's a 14,000-word novella - I'd hoped to get Antryg out of Los Angeles in this one, but this was such a good idea I'm afraid he doesn't get farther afield than Las Vegas... which perhaps counts as another universe.

I'd also hoped to have a John & Jenny story to put up, but that's taking a bit more time and thought, so I'm releasing "Plus-One" now, and the John & Jenny tale (I hope) next month.

See you tonight on Twitter! 5 pm PST, 8 pm EST!

Bbq wedding at the home of friends in the mountains yeste...

Bbq wedding at the home of friends in the mountains yesterday; acting as sous-chef to a couple of class-A cooks, talking with friends, listening to the guys play guitar and banjo in the garden (also class-A). Riding in the back of a pickup truck to watch fireworks by the lake after dark. The garden wedding was beautiful; fairy-lights and tule around the decking up and down the slope. Because of the rough terrain, the flower-girls in their blue-and-silver chiffon, the bride in her gorgeous silver beaded gown, all wore color-co-ordinated sneakers - a very nice touch. KILLER pulled-pork sandwiches.

A day of laundry, tea, quiet work, and bathing the dog (to her indignation and horror).

Up very early this morning making devilled eggs. The fami...

Up very early this morning making devilled eggs. The family showed up in installments - my sister helped me set up the shelter, set up tables, lay out Mass Quantities of green salad, tomato salad, corn on the cob, baked beans... An excellent family bbq (except that I got sunburned, which I'm NOT supposed to do). The nephews went out to the summerhouse and smoked cigars. The nieces went out to the summerhouse and smoked cigarettes. There was croquet, music, huge quantities of food, a LOT of conversation, then everybody helped me break down the tables, break down the tent, washed the dishes (thank you, Mom!) and they all went away.

I think I'm going to spend the evening slaughtering monsters, as I'm way too sunned-out and tired to get any work done (much less act as referee in the ongoing cat-fight between Rocky and Cupcake, which has re-opened hostilities outside the study door).

A VERY lovely 4th of July. I'm not a big fireworks fan, so as far as I'm concerned, the day is done.

Done. Ninety-four thousand and change - quite a lot of ch...

Done. Ninety-four thousand and change - quite a lot of change, actually - but I'm EXTREMELY pleased with it. I get fifteen minutes of agonized desolation and then have to start on the next Asher and Ysidro book.

My niece was in town - attending a conference - which gave me the chance to actually make food instead of just eating raw whatever I find in the refridgerator and going back to work. I HIGHLY recommend my friend Laurie's Party Know-It-Alls blog (http://www.partyknowitalls.com) for my nephew Ryan's phenomenal quinoa-cucumber-pomegranate salad.

The worst thing about switching from finishing a book to starting a new one (other than the agonized desolation, which always follows completion of a book) is that from reading a very polished final draft, I go back to stumbling through my own clumsy, repetetive, adjective-enlarded first draft thinking, "Oh my God, this is HOGWASH!"

But I must say, it'll be good to be back dealing with Ysidro's snottiness and vampire politics... and good to start planning the next January book, which I'm already looking forward to. (I have three vampire books, two January books under contract, alternating) (And whatever short fiction I can do for the website...) (And getting my ass TOTALLY kicked in on-line Scrabble)

Whew! Finished the cut-and-trim... and I have to go back ...

Whew! Finished the cut-and-trim... and I have to go back through the whole manuscript and cut another 3500 words before I can turn it in. And I'm ENORMOUSLY pleased - with the story, with the characters, with the sub-plots, with the new printer, bless its sleek little black self. I managed to slip in a number of Poe references, which pleases me (since at the time of the story, Poe has written barely a handful of poems and was working mostly as a reviewer) (he's hiding out in Washington from the husband of a romance novelist whose work he has derided - and is looking for a job because writing, then as now, doesn't make ends meet).

But, it's been a LONG day.

Lots of tea. Lots of laundry. Lots of words that don'...

Lots of tea. Lots of laundry. Lots of words that don't need to be in this story.

The length-limit on the manuscript forces me to examine every paragraph. How can I make this dialog more concise? Which of those adjectives don't I need? Have I given the reader this information elsewhere? Does the reader NEED to know this at all? If I swap out the Nasty Scythe of Cleaving for the Great Big Poundy Hammer of Flatness, can I defeat the monster that killed me Tuesday night...?

Thirteen chapters in and about seven thousand words yet to cut.

The odd and awkward thing about Mr. J Goes to Washington ...

The odd and awkward thing about Mr. J Goes to Washington (working title) is that for a good two-thirds of the book, since I wanted to get away from starting every story with a corpse, it's a missing-person case: lots of small events that add up to, "What's Wrong With this Picture?" This requires VERY careful writing, like making a mosaic out of very tiny pieces. Thus, when the corpse does show up, it's the key to the solution, not the problem that needs unravelling.

So the problem of writing becomes, how does one carry the story when there's no corpse? It is a MYSTERY, not a MURDER-MYSTERY. (Excellent examples of this: Gaudy Night , by D.L. Sayers; Miss Pym Disposes , by Josephine Tey; Brat Farrar and The Franchise Affair, also by Tey.) Except of course in Mr. J Goes to Washington there's a number of corpses involved because part of the plot involves body-snatching.

A quiet gray morning again. Grocery-shopping, because I'm going out to lunch with a friend tomorrow.

Just installed the new printer - or, rather, plugged it i...

Just installed the new printer - or, rather, plugged it in and it magically self-installed. It's smaller, lighter, a bit noisier, somewhat more flimsy than that old iron stove I've had for the past 15 years, but for $200 it's a great deal. Plain vanilla b/w laser. For my birthday I'll probably buy myself a color inkjet multi-function (since my old one is getting a bit long in the tooth and I want something that'll do photographs), but I'm pleased.

I suspect it's too small for the cats to sit in, which may be a problem, because they'll certainly try.

Gray morning, soft gloom that makes the blood-red roses b...

Gray morning, soft gloom that makes the blood-red roses brilliant. Red roses and waxy white gardenias just coming into bloom, like a wave hello from George: he bought me that monster gardenia bush by the porch steps, the scent like a greeting in the summer (it was his favorite flower).

A day of work, tea, laundry, peaceful and perfect. A couple of summer occupations/projects coming up: a) install the new printer is the one for today. As has been the case every summer, my friends and I have season tickets to the Hollywood Bowl - picnics in the twilight - and this year (as last year) we're also planning to catch Shakespeare in the Park with the Independent Shakespeare Company, which does open-air performances in Griffith Park on the site of the Old Zoo. I've also signed up for a 5-week class in Conversational Japanese - which I'm hugely looking forward to - and am checking possibilities of getting back into dance.

But mostly, it's nice just to sleep until I'm ready to wake up. I always find my writing improves under those conditions.