Barbara Hambly's Blog, page 58

By the way...

You can follow me on Twitter (though I'm not sure why anyone would want to do that) as BarbaraHambly.

Can anyone advise me on how to put my Twitter posts here on the side of the blog? (I've seen it done, I just don't know what buttons to push...)

WoW - Maybe Thursday we can turn in some of the rather far-flung - but completed - quests I've got in my quest-pile?

We're live!

The Further Adventures Of... section of my website is up and running!

So far, it contains four of my short stories about characters from my serieses.

"Firemaggot," a 15,000-word novella about Antryg and Joanna, is new... concerning what happens when one of Joanna's cats drags home a very small, dead, undeniably not-this-worldly monster spawn. (It's the mid-80s: Antryg and Joanna are living in LA, Antryg is without magic and hiding out from the Council of Wizards... There's no Internet to searc...

Chilly afternoon

Washing towels, making soup... going through the monumental fiddly hassle of adjusting my PayPal account to receive payments FROM THE NEW SECTION OF THE WEBSITE THAT IS OPENING SOON!!! Cold sunlight, hot tea, warm cats.

And, I realize belatedly, it's my eleventh wedding anniversary. Happy Anniversary, George.

The Further Adventures Of... should be up and running soon, thanks to the efforts of my wonderful sitemistress. "Firemaggot," the Antryg and Joanna story (is 15,000 words a novelette?), is...

Chilly morning

Mist burning off while taking my walk. The heater on, to take the chill off the house. Cats sleeping in the sun.

Hot tea and oatmeal, and a day of quiet work ahead.

Spent a good deal of yesterday (between naps) name-listing and course-correcting on Blood Maidens; making sure that when Asher has to go find one of his Foreign Office colleagues in St Petersburg, I don't have to break off and look up, what's this guy's name and what part of town do they meet in... not to mention figuring out who WO...

Notes and queries

I have sent off the final edit of Dead & Buried - with one touch of the magic button - back to London to my lovely editor. I am extremely pleased with the book. (How can you not be pleased with a book where you get to meet members of Hannibal's dysfunctional family?)

For the rest of the day I get to work on the re-write of "Firemaggot", until it's time to put on my questing-boots.

I have come to the regretful conclusion that, although I'd hoped to illustrate Website stories, that isn't going to...

Game face

My long day - so long that I go home between my morning class and the evening one. People ask me, "Oh, can you catch a nap...?" but I'm unable to power-down - for one thing, I'm afraid I'll oversleep and miss the class, i'm that tired. I feel as I felt between matches at karate tournaments in the '70s: got to keep the energy level up.

I'm almost through reading over the electronic edit of Dead & Buried - new publisher, new editor. The wonders of electronic edits: push a button and the whole sh...

A Busy Man...

I generally don't post "Silly Student Answers" but on this exam, I was much bemused to note that two people (despite my REPEATED explanation of his true job description) thought that Winston Churchill was President of the United States at the time of Pearl Harbor, and one thought that he was Emperor of Japan at the time of Hiroshima. Probably the first major statesman to be credited with fighting on both sides of the same war at the same time. (Even Josef Stalin did that serially rather than ...

Home Safe - Flying Snow

The first spits of snow were beginning to fly as my lovely and considerate Guest Liaison dropped me off at the Denver Airport this morning, having assured me that "Oh, they can take off in LOTS worse than this..." And Connie Willis blithely informed me, "Oh, the storm isn't due to hit until this afternoon..." (The plane was scheduled to take off at one).

I am home, and tired. It was a lovely - and VERY well-run - con. A good chance to re-acquaint myself with Connie Willis, Nancy Kress, John Pi...

MileHi Con

The Con doesn't start until late this afternoon, so I have a quiet morning - quieter than it would be at home, in fact. There's nothing like being in a strange city, in a hotel-room, with nothing required and no way to go anywhere, to get excellent rest and mental quiet.

It'll be a busy weekend.

The guest-liaison here is a champ; the hotel folks are so helpful and friendly. The wireless connection in the room actually works. (I've been in hotels where you had to sit on the floor on the third-fl...

Stress

Well, it's been a stressy couple of weeks; my apologies for not posting. A week ago - in the pouring-down rain on the freeway - the Universe decided that It's Time For Barbara to get A Different Car. Fortunately this took the form of the cylinder-head blowing out rather than a wreck, but the price quoted by the dealership (to which I'd been taking the Old Car for repair for the past almost-200,000 miles) seemed exhorbitant, both to me and to the knowledgeable friend I called for a second opin...