Barbara Hambly's Blog, page 60

Grove of the Ancients

I have neither touched nor thought about WoW for a week - pulling together the working draft of Dead & Buried - but as far as I know, will be in the Grove of the Ancients (where we left off last week) at 6 PDT tonight.

MUCH to do today before that, and for added complications, I've come to the conclusion that I really do need to get myself a new chair. I never had this kind of back-and-arm pain with the old (and unfortunately extremely expensive) one, which had to go to Heaven at the beginning of

Rainy Night in Darkshore

MANY thanks to those of you who stuck around and went questing when I FINALLY got past that frakkin' patch. I should have done my usual patch-test on Wednesday, but the pressure of the deadline on Dead & Buried - though I'm hugely enjoying the story - is a terrible drain of both time and energy. I just didn't do it. 

I'm sorry I'm so slow at everything - I can't even read comments, much less return them, while running across the countryside, so I think I miss a lot. Tonight was particularly diffi

Well, curses

Damn. I signed onto WoW and there's a giant patch that my computer is choking on. It CLAIMS it'll be 25 minutes... so far. (This is after 10 minutes of downloading a pixel at a time). And there's no real way I can go on and tell people I'll be late there, or not at all.

I will get on when I can tonight (if it's before 8, when I need to return to working) - If I don't make it, let's go for next Thursday. I am beyond annoyed.

My bad

Sorry, in reference to the Barbara Hamilton murder-mystery Ninth Daughter , I said it took place before the Boston Tea Party in December of 1774... I meant 1773 (as was pointed out to me). Because Marked Man (the second of the series) takes place in the early spring of '74 (before the British retaliation for the Tea Party), and I've been immersed in the manuscript of that, I mis-keyed.

I don't feel it would be appropriate for me to talk about the reasons one author might start working under a pseu

Little Nemo

Thank you all, so much, for your kind words about Little Nemo. He was indeed a dear boy.

I've spent the afternoon - after dropping off my friend at the train station to head home - doing moderate-paced, steady, physical labor in the garage: letting go of all sorts of junk. I filled the dumpster, put some stuff in the sheds, and have a respectable car-load to take to the GoodWill (which I will NOT do today - enough is enough). I put aside 14 boxes of manuscripts - mine and George's - for the Eaton

Tough stuff

Came home from an excursion with a friend this afternoon to find my youngest cat, Little Nemo, dead on the bathroom floor. I wasn't terribly surprised - there are poor genetics for the males of his line, and both his brother and his uncle died in exactly the same fashion: suddenly, very young, from blood-clots. This does not make losing him any easier.

Presidentresses

My lovely SiteMistress on my website asked me to address this reply to a question they had there, which was, Why did I choose to write Patriot Hearts the way I did, dividing it up into 1-year shots: 1787, 1793, 1800? which I gather some people found confusing.

I think part of the reason it was suggested that I do it that way - and I took to the suggestion enthusiastically - was because of the amount of time and space the book covers, and as a way of focussing on, What is the story being told here

Deadlines and timelines

Fond as I am of Second Draft and First (or Big) Polish, the current deadlines make it pretty impossible for me to go on a quest this week. I'll probably go on WoW briefly at some point to look for a Druid trainer - where IS the local Druid trainer in Darkshore? Or do I need to go back to Teldrassil? - most of my time, from waking til lights-out, is spent working. My hands really hurt.

And, I need to have the Rat Guy come to the house because I think I've got Little Friends in the garage again, wh