Barbara Hambly's Blog, page 36

The story so far...

First round of exams - which is why I haven't posted. Reading them is very tiring and time-consuming, as I try to explain - 75 times - why Student X didn't get full-credit for that identification - I'm tired of writing "Why is this important?" and "How did this event change the history of the colonies?" How much would it cost to get a stamp of this? So many of them don't understand the concept of cause and effect (despite the fact that I explain it in lecture MANY times in the course of the semester, and the book is quite clear that increased British control of colonial shipping => smuggling => increased British interference => colonial resentment => revolution...

When I sneak away and work on The Magistrates of Hell - which is almost ready to go out the door - I feel guilty.

And I'm behind on preparing lectures. And making the dog's dinner for the pet-sitter to give her, and making my own bento-box dinner for at school this evening, and cleaning the guest-room for my dear friend who's coming to visit.

I'll post when I can.

Coming in for a landing

I'd hoped - it's been a weekend crowded with the offices of friendship - to finish the "polish" on Magistrates of Hell this weekend: to all intents and purposes, it'll be done (and I appear to have fairly minimal cutting). It doesn't look like that's going to happen, though I'm doing the next-to-the-last scene; sort of like a football team that can't make those last three yards.

As far as I'm concerned, the most important part of the books is how it ends: like a dragon landing on the point of a pencil. It's got to be right. The whole book is about the ending - and the beginning. It's what defines the story: how does it start, and where does it end?

And there's a LOT of school-work to get done today, not to speak of laundry and obligatory things like exercise and cleaning cat-boxes and ironing all my Hawaiian shirts so I don't go to the college all wrinkly tomorrow.

Farenheit 451

I feel like I'm in the process of betraying Human Civilization. I've been helping out the History Department by "weeding" the college library collection: they're moving into a much larger library but will have space for 20,000 FEWER books; the rest will all be computer terminals and an eating area. (?!?) (That in itself sounds like something out of a Douglas Adams book...)

I felt appalled when I went in for the first time to do this - appalled and totally unqualified. (How DARE I rob the sterling students of the college of research?) Now that I've done it for a couple of hours, I realize that yes, a lot of those books can go. Some of it's because they're WAY too high-level for the level at which the school is teaching History these days - without budget, I know we're NEVER going to be teaching historiography again. This doesn't mean I dumped all this books on the subject. I cleared out a lot of them, left - or marked for "Second Opinion" - about a third. I was heavy-handed in this section because a) how many books on historiography do we really need and b) more cuts here mean fewer cuts elsewhere. (Not to mention a lot of crumbly-backed volumes from the '60s about how the author's pet theory was going to revolutionize the world. It didn't. That was 40 years ago and it didn't.)

I did leave the "history and computers" book from 1972 which advised the researcher to lay in a goodly supply of punch-cards. We need to know our roots.

I'm up to WWII (in the Dewey system, that's not far in). One, or at most two, "I was there" accounts of each major battle. We don't need seventeen books about the Battle of Tobruk. Really honestly we don't.

Sometimes I feel like one of the burn-squad in Farenheit 451. Other times, I feel like I'm in an episode of Hoarders. I'm occasionally reminded of Richard Brautigan's book, "The Abortion," in which the hero (I believe) was in charge of a giant cave in New Mexico in which were stored any UNPUBLISHED book written by anyone who wanted their work to go down into Posterity, but couldn't find a publisher. (This was in 1972 - WAY before e-book self-publishing).

The books will be sold - or, the library has "Free Friday" where you can go in and just take 10 books from the Free Table. I'll be there with my little wheely-cart.

A weirdly appropriate way to be spending Banned Books Week.

Charity Run

Ok, I've done the thing.
I've signed up to be in a 5K walk-run to benefit animal charities, to be held October 23.
And, I'm soliciting donations. I'm trying to raise $250 worth.
This event takes place at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. It's called Race For The Rescues and there'll be a 10K, a 5K, bunches of shopping, and a costume contest (presumably for the animals?).
Go to RaceForTheRescues.org - I have a web-page there where you can make a donation. I'm part of the team for the organization Molly's Mutts & Meows (whose web-page information I'll link in my next post - I've been working all day and I'm REALLY tired right now). They're a pet adoption group I've been semi-involved with for a couple of years now - VERY good people, and working hard to pull critters from shelters and get them into caring homes (vaccinations, spay/neuter). They're one of my charities of choice.
I tried to put up the picture of George's old cat Baby when she sank out of sight in a box of packing-peanuts, but couldn't make it go, so there's a generic Cute Rescue Cat on my donation website. Go there, have a look, donate some money, and I will pin your name on my t-shirt when I go do this thing in October. (And it jolly well better not be raining!)
More info as time goes on.
And, thank you all. Rocky, Jasmine, and Gus would thank you if they weren't all swacked on catnip.
Damsel thanks you. She's a good girl.

Controlled substances and drug wars

Totally forgot that when I bought cat-food, I also bought a new Cosmic Kick-Ass Catnip pillow. Brought the bag into the house this morning, Rocky made a bee-line for it, dug into the bag, dragged out the catnip pillow, while Gus watched in fascination and envy. Rocky has been licking it and rubbing her face in it, alternately, her pupils like ebony dimes; she drove Gus out of the room completely in its defense, but Jasmine - usually the sweetest and most passive of kitties - took it from her. They're currently doing the glaring-and-hiding-and-glaring-and-hiding bit. Nothing like bringing in the thing most important in the world, to unveil their deepest souls.

An afternoon of work, I hope - and laundry.

Abigail Adams #3!

This is to let everyone know that Sup With the Devil - Abigail Adams #3 (by Barbara Hamilton) - is either available or just about to be released (Penguin Books never tells me anything). They sent me an advance copy, after a very long pre-production period - AND, sent an early copy of the mass-market paperback edition of Abigail #1, The Ninth Daughter. I am beyond delighted!

And, thank you everyone who answered my Facebook question. I should go and see if I can in fact ask someone to be a Friend, but I think I'm going to take a short nap instead, having taught this morning. Sleep always takes priority over fumfering around with Facebook.

With luck, I can spend the evening - and the weekend - working on the vampire book.

Facebook questions

Two questions.
How do I add a friend on Facebook? I see no button to do so on my page.
I began to ask this question on Facebook, but whenever I started to type a post, the screen grayed out and a box popped up saying, "Say who you're with." There was a button for OKAY but no button for NO THANKS. How do I get rid of that when it appears?
Any help would be appreciated.
Facebook kind of gets on my nerves when it does things like that.

Birthday Part Deux

My family experiences a phenomenon (which I gather isn't that unusual) of birthday clustering: everyone in the family (including those who marry into it) are either late-summer birthdays, or Christmas-to-January. This afternoon was the Gang Family Party for those of us whose birthdays fall within a week of Labor Day: self, niece, nephew. Nice lunch, cake-n-icecream, long drive home, work until bedtime. Already school stuff is piling up, and as I plow into the polish on Magistrates, there's a LOT to be done... even before I embark on the always-maddening process of cutting for length. (90,000 words max).

This is the point of the process where ramifications start to arise: How did Ysidro reach the conclusion that he has to go zombie-hunting? What is the relationship between Lydia's faithful maid Ellen and the new baby Miranda's nanny? At what point does Asher realize that the person who's providing him with cover from the Germans is likely to betray him? And how do I deepen the various points aforementioned without adding words to my already rather purple prose?

First week down

Finished the first week of classes - came home and took a long nap, and feel much better. Hope to spend a couple of hours tonight working on Asher & Ysidro. I always find my writing improves if I've had a few days away from it, though this feels counter-intuitive when I have a deadline looming, and as I think I've said before, it's something non-writers find difficult to understand.

What I really need is down-time: video-games, Georgette Heyer novels, an evening studying Japanese. Since this isn't possible with three classes, I do what I can.

And, I enjoy teaching - which is a little odd, since I tend to be withdrawn in social situations. But I love walking around campus this first week or so of classes: love the energy of students and professors, love being amused at counting how many people in my line of sight are on cell-phones. (The construction on campus - and the effects of the budget-cuts - are getting on my last nerve, especially since one of the things cut was janitorial upkeep in the womens' bathrooms, which have gone from being simply disgusting to being a health-hazard).

I suspect I will neither sort out my desk nor tidy up the study until Christmas.

Educating the masses

First night of class successfully concluded. Because of what are politely known as "construction delays" in the classrooms that were supposed to be done by the start of Fall Semester, the class venue was shuffled into what is essentially the day-nursery at the college, which has fewer seats than even the number of students on the pre-enrollment roster. Forty pre-registered students... and FIFTY more showed up, trying to add the class, because of budget cuts which have reduced the number of sections available. Fifty is an entire class. The situation infuriates me.

Ten of the pre-registered students didn't bother to show up for the first class, so I held a lottery for their places - and turned away forty students who need the class to get into a 4-year college. 

And then a long drive home over the hills in the dark. They're still working on the 405 Freeway, so it's surface-streets and wind-ey canyon roads and glimpses of strange little canyon houses in the darkness, until all of a sudden you come up a rise and find yourself on Wilshire Boulevard.

And again tonight.