M.K. Hobson's Blog, page 2

Table Rock Hike – 5/24/15

The survey marker at the top of the mountain

This was an awesome kick-off hike for the year. A rough road up to the trailhead, which meant I got to kick the ol’ Suzuki Grand Vitara into 4WD (which is always a thrill.) The first few miles of the hike (along an old logging road) were pretty gentle. Nothing especially grand. Then the trail went up into the forest, and the climb started. There were a couple of places where the trail could have been a bit more clearly marked, but I just generally kept going uphill and that seemed to get me there. As I climbed, the views weren’t as great as they could have been because it was so misty and overcast (though the sun broke through a few times.) This is a hike I definitely must do again when the weather is nicer. Though I did appreciate the cool. Sugar did too; she was happy all the way throughout the hike (though I found out later her dumb ill-fitting harness had abraded her chest) and when it was snacktime on top of the mountain she packed it right on back, going through the whole bag of dog food I brought.

Anyway, this first shakeout hike made me realize how many “gear gaps” I have—especially in my first aid kit—which will need to be filled before too much longer. The list is below.

Chronology: 

10:14 a.m. Trailhead
11:42 a.m. Rooster Rock Trailhead
12:17 a.m. Summit (after lunch break)
2:13 a.m. Back in car headed home (I dicked around on a couple of short side trails on the way back, so that’s why it took a bit longer.)

Injuries: As mentioned, Sugar got chest abrasions from her ill-fitting harness. I was at the front end of a cold, so I was snotty and hoarse.

Weather: Misty, light rain, cool

Mileage: ~11

Elevation gain: ~2080

Bugs swallowed: 0

Gear: HiTec Altitude V hiking boots with orange Superfoot insoles, REI silk liner socks under Darn Tough merino wool socks, gaiters over Nike dry windpants, Paradox long sleeve shirt, Carhartt rain jacket, Mountainsmith Tour lumbar daypack, plastic store water bottles

Identified Gear Gaps: I need better bottles, fresh first aid kit supplies, a whistle, matchlocker & matches, flashlight, knife, emergency bivvy, updated dog tag for Sugar, and spare car key

Now Available! “The Ladies and the Gentlemen”

The ebook version of The Ladies and the Gentlemen is now available for purchase!

Here’s the final jacket copy:

He’s a man without a name. She’s a sort-of-goddess. And they’re about to find out that even not-honeymoons can be dangerous.

Newly wed (but not exactly married), Emily Edwards is eager to begin her new life with the man-formerly-known-as-Dreadnought Stanton. They’ve left the perils of New York City far behind and are returning to California on a magical railcar that sees to their every need. But an unexpected stop in New Orleans—home to a mysterious coven of powerful witches known as “The Ladies”—threatens to derail their future happiness.

The Ladies are concerned about Emily’s continuing connection to the Spirit of the Earth, and they’ll stop at nothing to mitigate the damage they believe she’ll cause. If Emily and her not-husband hope to salvage their happily-ever-after, they’ll have to outwit the ladies—and the gentlemen—of the South’s magical elite.

The Ladies and the Gentlemen is a stand-alone novella in M.K. Hobson’s Veneficas Americana series. It is set after the events of the first duology (The Native Star and The Hidden Goddess).

I am also finalizing the print files and those should be available for sale within the next week or so. I’m honestly not sure if I’ve priced the ebook version of the novella correctly (this is my first time at this particular rodeo) so if you have thoughts, please share. I should probably drop the ebook version of the novella to, like, $1.99 or even $0.99 and then make the print version $2.99 … but until I upload the file to CS and see what kind of pricing they suggest, I’m not sure how it will math out.

Anyway, if you’re interested, please enjoy!

“The Ladies and the Gentlemen” – Prologue & Chapter One

So I’m pleased and relieved to announce that The Ladies and The Gentlemen is officially off to my copyeditor (the splendiferous Amy Garvey.) To celebrate, instead of teasing y’all with the first chapter (as I promised I would) I’m going to tease y’all with the first chapter and the prologue.

The prologue used to be the first chapter, actually—until my intrepid first readers pointed out that I should probably cut it, given that it’s mostly just fan service. It’s an assertion which I can hardly dispute—the chapter consists largely of canoodling and eating desserts (as the title “Just Desserts” implies)—but on the other hand, it does contain a bit of playful banter that proves quite critical later in the story. So if you’re the type of person who skips prologues, in this case, I would advise against it.  

Standard spoiler warnings apply. If you haven’t read the first two books, this novella (which takes place after the end of The Hidden Goddess) will contain spoilers—as will this excerpt. Read at your own peril. The management assumes no responsibility. &c.

The Ladies and The Gentlemen will be released in early April in ebook & trade paper (and likely as an audiobook later on—my agent is still working out those details.) Of course I will post an announcement when it’s available for purchase. Meanwhile—enjoy!

Prologue
Just Desserts

August 18, 1876

Warm summer rain from the gulf, smelling of humid white sand and sawgrass, peppered the patinated bronze roof of the Institute’s railcar and streamed down the leaded glass panes. Emily and her not-husband were in bed, among rumpled sheets, eating meringue. Or rather he was eating meringue and she was watching him with growing astonishment.

The astonishment was not because he was eating meringue on a railcar, for while it was an outlandish dish to expect to receive on such a conveyance, this was no ordinary railcar. It was a plush private railcar stuffed with demonstrative sorcery intended to impress and mystify gullible guests.

The meringue in question was produced by a magical cabinet in the galley that could sorcel up any dish, no matter how exotic, in any quantity. Over the past fortnight, as they’d lazily cobwebbed the eastern seaboard on their honeymoon trip, her not-husband had done his best to test the cabinet’s abilities. He’d ordered a baffling panoply of odd delicacies, mostly sweets: jellies and aspics and mousses and poufs. Today, apparently, he fancied meringue. And not just any meringue, but a very particular meringue delivered straight from Delmonico’s in New York City.

When he was a boy, he had explained, his family had often dined at the storied restaurant to create the public illusion of familial harmony for his father’s starched-shirt Republican cronies. His only fond memory of those dinners seemed to be of a dessert called a “Marshall Ney”—an extravagant confection comprised of molded tiers of meringue shells, vanilla custard, and marzipan.

Many years later, when it had become public knowledge that the dessert was a boyhood favorite of Dreadnought Stanton—now Sophos of the powerful Stanton Institute in New York City—the management at Delmonico’s had hastily revised the old standby, renamed it Meringue à la Stanton, and raised the price by a dollar. It wasn’t all that much of a revision, really (chocolate custard replaced vanilla and some sugared cherries were thrown in for good measure) and the dessert had been lambasted by the press (with The New York Times archly observing how apt it was to honor the nation’s preeminent credomancer with a dessert that was hollow, insubstantial, and full of air) but nevertheless, her not-husband seemed to wholeheartedly approve.

“I never got to eat it even once when I actually was Dreadnought Stanton,” he noted. “So now I intend to make up for lost time.”

Emily, though, having watched him eat three whole plates, was deeply concerned.

“You’re going to get fat as an Astor eating like that,” she observed. “I will have to get you an extra large yachting cap and some suspenders.”

“Well, it is part of the contract I signed with the Institute that I try not to look like myself anymore,” he said, offering her a spoonful, which she refused. She’d politely sampled several bites from the previous plates, but had found the intense sweetness positively nauseating.

“Have you considered growing a tidy little goatee instead?”

“An Astor wouldn’t be caught dead wearing a goatee,” he said, as if this was a discussion he’d had with one or more Astors on several separate occasions.

“I think you’re just looking for an excuse to eat three plates of dessert,” she said. “We’re going to live in California to get as far away from your old self as possible, isn’t that enough?”

He grunted, but did not comment. This had become his customary response whenever she mentioned California. She could tell that he was still trying to reconcile himself to the notion of living there. She knew he found her home state somewhat provincial (he had used the term ‘backwater’ more than twice) but apparently, it had been another requirement of the contract he’d signed with the Institute. They’d sent him to California to get him out of the way in the first place; back to California, it had been decided, he would go.

“I swear, I’d like to read this contract sometime,” Emily muttered. “Every time I turn around there’s another clause you haven’t told me about. Do you leave your slippers by the side of the bed for me to trip over because it’s a clause in your contract?”

“No, I do that because, like any other civilized human being, I like having my slippers where I can get to them.” He scraped the plate clean and set it on the bedside table. It would vanish when they weren’t looking, as the other dishes had, swept away by invisible hands. The same invisible hands made the bed (which likely presented a challenge to the invisible hands, for the pair of them hadn’t vacated it very often, maintaining it as their base of operations for every activity imaginable, including, but certainly not limited to, eating Meringue à la Stanton) and kept the gleaming polished surfaces free from what would otherwise be a monstrous accumulation of dust and engine soot from their extended peregrinations. It was all done silently, automatically, and without any human intervention. If they wished, they could go the entire trip without seeing another human being, which, for newlyweds, was certainly an ideal arrangement. It was also an ideal arrangement for them, even though they weren’t actually newlyweds, having realized once their honeymoon trip was underway that becoming “weds” in any legal sense was impossible, given that he’d sold the name he’d been born with to the Stanton Institute—in addition to granting the Institute perpetual rights to continue publicizing the (always-fictional) exploits of the (now-fictional) Sophos.

Together, they’d settled on a new name for him—William Edwards—but much as he was having difficulty reconciling himself to the idea of living in California, she was having difficulty reconciling herself to his new name.

“I mean, when it comes right down to it, I simply can’t call you Will, or even William,” she said, randomly reopening the conversation they’d been having for the past fortnight—a conversation which never ended, just washed in and out like the tide. “It just doesn’t feel—right.”

“Oh for pity’s sake,” he rolled his eyes. “You said the last name didn’t feel ‘right’, either. I’m beginning to think you’re somewhat particular.” He glanced over at the side table, probably to see if there was a random clot of cream he’d missed. But true to form, the plate had already vanished. “Anyway, you’re the one who chose the name William. You said it suited me because I’m a man of great will. Or perhaps because you’re fonder of Wordsworth than you care to admit. Something like that.”

“I am not at all fond of Wordsworth,” Emily blazed, offended at the suggestion. “And while, yes, you are a man of great will, I have come to realize that you have … other qualities.” She reddened beneath his lurid smirk. “…and if you insist on leering at me like that, I’ll start calling you ‘Willy’ and then you’ll be sorry!”

“I just don’t understand why it bothers you so much,” her not-husband said, as he went—horrifyingly—to retrieve yet another dish of dessert. She watched as she performed the familiar actions to activate the galley cabinet—speaking the name of what it was he wished to eat, then snapping his fingers three times. He flopped back down in the bed beside her and drew his knees up before him, attacking the confection with the same relish as he’d dived into the other three. “You’ve done a fine job calling me ‘dear’, why not just stick with that?”

“How about when I’m mad at you?” she said. A large part of her concern derived from her awareness of this eventuality.

“‘Dear’ works just as well when you’re mad at someone,” he said. “Better, even.”

Emily sighed. “And when I have to introduce you? ‘This is my not-husband, Dear’?”

“You will introduce me as your husband, Mr. William Edwards, just as we agreed.” He spoke with extravagant patience. “What business is it of anyone else’s if we’re not actually married? I would venture to guess that most social situations will not require the presentation of a certificate.”

“It’s just … hard to know who you are without your name,” Emily said. “Even though I didn’t much like your name before, it was your name. Now it’s not. And making up a new one is just so—presumptuous.” It was hard to find the right words for exactly what she was feeling, and she idly searched for better ones as she stared out the windows at the rear of the railcar, which opened onto an observation platform. A smallish crow, one of hundreds that squabbled for fish around the inland bays they’d passed, had chosen that moment to light on the platform’s ornate railing, and was peering in at them quizzically (its attention apparently focused on the meringue.) Inspired, Emily jabbed an illustrative finger at the bird. “It’s like suddenly deciding to call that crow a ‘slogdawdle.’”

“Slogdawdle?” he wrinkled his nose. “Who in their right mind would call a sleek, nimble avian creature like that a slogdawdle?”

“You are missing my point—”

“Especially one that so obviously possesses good taste,” he continued, saluting the bird with his spoon.

“Except that has nothing to—”

“Now, a tortoise stuck in a tar pit … that you might call a slogdawdle,” he allowed. “The word itself evokes something ponderously slow, something laboriously stuck. A giant tree-sloth bound with rubber ropes soaked in spirit gum—”

“It’s a crow!” She cried, exasperated. “That’s what it is, that’s what it’s called, and you just can’t call it anything else!” She paused, shaking her head at him in astonishment. “Honestly! How you can bring rubber ropes and spirit gum into a conversation plain defies imagination!”

“If it’s the new name that’s throwing you off, don’t call it anything at all,” he shrugged. “Negation is a perfectly valid method of definition. Call it a not-crow. Just like you’ve been calling me your not-husband all during our not-honeymoon.” He paused, admiring the gloss on a sugared cherry, turning it over on his spoon before devouring it. “Just call me ‘Not.’”

She knit her brow thoughtfully, then blinked at him, remembering a conversation they’d once had in Central Park. “Why, isn’t that what your mother used to call you?”

“Your problem,” he said, pointedly ignoring her question, “is that you’ve got me—the actuality of ‘me’—and my name—the symbological representation of ‘me’—all mixed up. But really, they’re two different things, and the one doesn’t have anything to do with the other. As a noumenon, a thing-as-such, I am who I have always been, whether you call me ‘dear’ or ‘slogdawdle.’ You merely have to separate the ideas. Put things in different little boxes in your mind.”

“But everything’s part of everything else … how can you possibly cut it up into little chunks and shove it into boxes?” She gave the poor little crow a sympathetic look, but it had already flown away. “That’s positively murderous!”

“It’s natural that you might find it difficult.” His tone was reassuring. “After all, you’ve never studied philosophy, or logic. I’ll get you some Kant to read, that’ll clear everything up.”

She considered this for a long moment. Then, in a rush, she seized the dish from his hands and began eating what remained of the pastry in enormous bites, determined to get it all down as quickly as possible.

“My meringue!” he cried. “What are you doing?”

“Saving you from yourself,” she said, mouth full. “That’s what not-wives do.”

She had to fight not to gag as she sank the spoon through layers of cloying sweetness. He watched in silence as she finished the whole thing. As she laid the plate aside, he leaned in close.

“It is awfully good, isn’t it?” He suggested, in a low, conspiratorial tone. She shuddered.

“It is tooth-searingly sweet,” she said. “Just like its namesake.”

He leaned in—for a kiss, she thought—but instead it was to lick whipped cream from the corner of her mouth.

“And which name would that be, exactly?” he asked huskily, and the matter of meringues— and names—was once again put aside for more pressing matters.

Chapter One
Not

Emily’s not-husband had no difficulty separating things in his mind. In fact, he was very skilled at keeping every concept he encountered neatly dissected, separated, categorized and pigeonholed—regardless of how much ontological murder this effort required. What Emily called him was a matter of complete indifference to him, for even before he’d sold his name he’d stopped calling himself by it. In his own mind, he continued to think of himself as he had since childhood, by the name he had suggested to Emily, far more seriously than his tone had suggested—and yes, after all, the name his mother had called him:

Not.

While the name should have been hateful to him, springing as it did from a spiteful desire to minimize him, in actuality the name was in perfect alignment with the thing-as-suchness of himself. It suited him better, certainly, than the names he’d grown up with. His family name—Stanton, weighty with the social and political gravity of the New York dynasty—had been an obligation he could never sufficiently uphold. And his Christian name—Dreadnought—had been a lie, and not even a plausible one. As a boy he’d dreaded many things—more things than normal, as far as he could tell. And furthermore, his mother’s curt amputation of his name actually had an astonishing effect—it magically transformed everything that was a lie into perfect truth. Shortening his name reversed its meaning—and was so much closer to who he really was that he often marveled at how an act could be so hurtful and yet so illuminating.

Thus, from the time he was very young, he’d thought of himself as Not. It had fixed itself upon his mental landscape. His mother had defined him entirely by negation, by what he was not—not a good boy, not a good son, not a good man.

But Emily defined him entirely differently. When he was with her, he somehow became not what he was not. She transformed him into a double-negative.

Thus, for the first time in his life, he was free. Free to eat as many dishes of meringue as he wanted in a magical railcar with a woman he loved. He was not obligated, not constrained, not condemned.

For the first time in his life, he liked what he was not.

***

The pair of them spent the rest of the afternoon napping like cats, listening to the rain pattering on the roof. But as the evening sun emerged from behind heavy pearl-colored clouds and slanted at a low angle through the windows of leaded glass, and the gilt clock in its gimbaled fitting chimed prettily, he knew they would soon be arriving at their evening stop. But he lay still and silent for a moment longer, appreciating the soft weight of her hand on his bare chest. It was the hand that the spirit of the earth had given back to her—the one with a kind of magical sensitivity that only she truly knew the extent of. Even though he had relinquished his ability to practice magic, he could feel the strange energy in that hand—warm and tingling, almost electrical. Reaching up, he clasped it, his thumb stroking the simple gold band—his old Jefferson Chair ring—that they had used to pledge themselves to each other. She wore it on her right hand—appropriate, he thought, for the oddly morganatic union of a sort-of-goddess and a man without a name.

“Until death us do part,” he murmured, raising her hand to his lips and kissing it. He whispered these words in particular, because he knew that he couldn’t put off telling her about the Summons for much longer, and he also knew that when he finally did get around to mentioning it, she would very likely murder him. Having gone to such extreme lengths to extend his mortal existence, he felt he had an exceptionally good excuse for not mentioning it up to this point. And while she would likely perceive his failure to tell her about the Summons uncharitably, as a lie of omission, he viewed it as simply a matter of timing. He was extending a kindness, really—inciting her to homicide would, after all, surely diminish the exquisite pleasure of their honeymoon.

He slid his bare foot along Emily’s calf, knowing that he didn’t have to do anything to wake her, that the bed would do it for him. The railcar knew their schedule better than either of them did, and it was diligent in ensuring their journey kept to schedule. Knowing that they needed to get up and dress for dinner, the bed would become colder and harder. The silk sheets would become oddly, but persistently, scratchy. If they dallied too long in opposition to the bed’s wishes, the bed might eject them bodily, diligent in its duty to help them keep their appointments.

“Is the bed going to start pushing us around again?” Emily mumbled sleepily.

“Turnabout is fair play,” he said, nuzzling her ear.

“I think it’s too smart by half.” Emily said.

“It doesn’t have any real intelligence, you know,” Not said. “The magic that runs this railcar is merely statistics, a timetable, and a bit of gentle mind reading. It skims the consciousnesses of its passengers just enough to anticipate which services are required.”

“I require another hour of sleep,” Emily said. “It doesn’t seem to have skimmed that.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s aware that you’d prefer to sleep,” he said. “But it also recognizes that even the most luxurious and accommodating confines will pall if one is exposed to them too long.”

Which was why the railcar stopped at frequent intervals to provide the pair with a measure of society and adventure and sight-seeing and leg-stretching. Every evening, at precisely 7 p.m., it stopped for dinner in a new city, always a city of a civilized and reasonable size, containing enough interesting attractions to be presented in the form of a neatly penned list of suggestions that appeared on the marble-topped table in the car’s grand mahogany-paneled sitting-room.

After dressing for dinner, Not went to retrieve this penned list of suggestions. In addition to these, he knew he would also find a heavy envelope sealed with red wax and embossed with the seal of the Stanton Institute—instructions from Mrs. Zeno. Having assumed the role of Executive Director, she’d made it her habit to send him daily notes instructing him on who would meet them at each dinner stop, what they had been told about “Mr. Edwards and his wife,” and what topics of conversation might prove most fruitful.

At these dinner stops, they met affiliate members of the Institute, graduates or adjuncts or supporters who maintained independent careers as magical consultants, local politicos, or business advisers. These dinners could be somewhat tedious—honestly, they put Not in mind of the ones at Delmonico’s with his father’s political cronies, minus the delicious desserts—but he knew they were important.

That night, however, there was nothing whatsoever on the marble-topped table. Neither the penned suggestions for that evening’s stop, nor the heavy envelope from Mrs. Zeno. That was odd, and he was still searching around for the missing documents when Emily emerged from the dressing room looking exceptionally pretty in a fresh, simple gown of heliotrope silk. The railcar always provided her with gowns in shades of purple, and he entirely approved of the railcar’s fashion sense. As she struggled with a pair of tight-fitting kid gloves, he helped her straighten her gown in places where she hadn’t been able to reach, stroking his fingers along the smooth seams. He had discovered that, much like a cat, she enjoyed being petted, and he enjoyed being free to do so.

“So, another town, another dinner, another set of Institute representatives?” She glanced over her shoulder, grinning at his surprise. “It’s pretty obvious, dear. They all wear magical charms on their watch-chains, and they all use the same weaselly language that every credomancer uses. It becomes very recognizable after a little while.” She paused, extending a hand in a silent request for glove-buttoning assistance. “So, who’s on the menu for tonight?”

“I’m not exactly sure,” he said absently, fumbling with the tiny pearl buttons. “Someone fascinating, no doubt.”

“If the Institute is trying to distance you from your name, why is Mrs. Zeno having us meet Institute members for dinner every night?”

“It’s part of the process to distance myself from my name,” he said, as he completed the glove-buttoning. “Physically imprinting myself in the minds of the Institute’s farther-flung members as someone in diametrical opposition to the image of ‘Dreadnought Stanton’ that the Institute hopes to exploit.” He paused. “The people we’ve met over the past fortnight have been told that Mr. and Mrs. William Edwards are distinguished Californians with a cattle-baron fortune, and that we are generous supporters of the Institute—a cover story supported by the fact that we’re traveling around in the Institute’s borrowed railcar.”

“So, it’s kind of like a king’s processional in reverse,” Emily mused, looking at herself in the glass as she adjusted the adorable little hat the railcar had selected for her. “You know, like the old kings used to go around after they were crowned to show their face to the people to build their power. But you’re showing your face to surrender your power.”

“Precisely,” he said. “I’m showing them who I am not.”

Coming in April: “The Ladies and the Gentlemen”

So I’ve been making steady, gratifying progress on The Unsteady Earth (which is the second book in the duology that opened with The Warlock’s Curse.) In January, I finally solved a plot problem that had dogged me all summer. Since then, I’ve been going at a pretty good clip. Not good enough, alas, to meet my self-imposed deadline of March 2015. So I’m sorry to report that the book won’t come out until later this year. But I promise, I’m doing everything I can to get it out in 2015.

As a little apology, I took a brief respite from the novel to finish a 30,000 word novella I’ve had in the works for ages now. It’s called  The Ladies and the Gentlemen and it features the main characters from my first two books (Dreadnought Stanton & Emily Edwards.) It is set just after the events in The Hidden Goddess. (Actually, it’s set between the last scene of The Hidden Goddess and the epilogue of The Hidden Goddess, but that’s kind of hard to explain.)

I wrote the bulk of this novella in 2012, just after I finished writing The Warlock’s Curse. It was intended to be one of the free stories I gave to my Kickstarter backers (and it still will be, by the way; if you backed my 2012 Kickstarter, you’ll get the ebook free. I’ll be sending out an email with more details.)

The Ladies and the Gentlemen just went out to my first readers on Tuesday, and it’s going off to my series copyeditor (the wonderful Amy Garvey) in mid-March. I’ll be making it available both as an ebook and a trade paperback (through the usual sources) sometime in early April.

Once I get the MS back from my first readers, I may tease y’all with the first chapter. Watch this space.

Fortnight of Writing: This Sh*t is Hard.

Gee, I’d forgotten how hard writing is.

Like, you have to figure stuff out and use your imagination.

It’s downright exhausting.

Anyway, at the moment there are three things sustaining me through this long national nightmare:

1) My Awesome Mechanical DAS Keyboard. I bought this keyboard well over a year ago, but this is the first time I’ve used it for any serious amount of writing. It is amazing. I can type SO FAST on it. It’s not typing, it’s typedancing!

2) This song played on repeat. I don’t know why this song, but this song:

3) My doggie.

(And of course my daughter, except she keeps trying to lure me away to watch Samurai Flamenco. Thank goodness we’ve already watched all the available episodes of Gugure! Kokkuri-San or she’d be tempting me with that too. She’s an anime siren.)

Current Word Count: 52,681 

Fortnight of Writing: Me and My Inner Buttinski

As I have mentioned on the Twitter, I have arranged to take the rest of October off to work on “The Unsteady Earth”, the egregiously-late sequel to “The Warlock’s Curse.”

My goals for the next couple of weeks are simple: walk at least 10,000 steps a day and write at least 5000 words per day.

Yesterday was my first day back in the saddle. The walking part I’ve got down pat; 10,000 steps is actually less than I usually walk, so it’s more like maintenance. I’m adding resistance (weight belt, kettle bells) to increase the intensity and offset the shorter time.

On the other hand, grinding out those words was *hard*. Oh man. My body-muscles may be in better shape these days, but my writing muscles are terribly flabby. I can only hope that they tone up quickly, as a couple of weeks is not much runway. I did my best to hush up the inner critic and just tried to tell a story. The problem is, it isn’t really my inner critic that gets in the way, usually, it’s my inner buttinski …. You know, the person (usually a close family member) who, when you’re trying to tell a story at a party, keeps butting in and redirecting you with “but tell them about this!” and “they don’t know about Aunt Edna’s mole! Tell them about Aunt Edna’s mole …” And they keep insisting on elaboration and explanation and detail and filling in gaps until you’re hopelessly wrapped around the axle and you never actually get to the end of the story because after a while you can’t even remember which story you were trying to tell …

I suppose this difficulty is the natural consequence of working on the opening chapters of the fourth book in a series, where a lot of narrative water has passed under the bridge, and the reader needs a gentle reminder. Unfortunately the inner buttinski and I are having a very hard time coming to an agreement on how gentle that reminder needs to be.

Oh well. On with my day. There is coffee to be had and words to be wrangled.

Today’s starting word count: 38,111

Time Traveler’s Ballgown: Finished! And Pictures!

So Nora and I attended the Time Traveler’s Ball last night, and it was a lot of fun. As promised, here are pictures of the completed gown (that one on the left is my favorite.) I am very pleased with it overall, but there are still a few things I want to fix/fiddle with:

Binding the lining armscyes w/bias tape. The sleeves, as I expected, were a nightmare. Straight from the pattern they were much too loose and baggy and also had way too much “poof” in the shoulders. We wanted a nice smooth flat-fitting shoulder, not a leg-o-mutton, so we had to alter and revise. And the revising took so much time that I lost all heart for recutting the lining, so the sleeves are not lined. Which is actually not a terrible thing, because a half-lined jacket means that I can easily turn it inside out whenever I need to make adjustments or repairs.
Resewing the trim on the underskirt. That stuff got whipstitched on with a quickness, and was already falling off when I took it out of the garment bag.
Maybe some more flowers & shit here and there. We were going to do little nosegays of fabric roses at strategic bustling points. Maybe someday.

But for the purposes of this event, we are done! On to the next project … when I decide what it is to be.

More pics … She’s very good at looking wistful, isn’t she? We took some at the ball but they all turned out dark or blurry, alas …

And one more picture, just for fun …

Time Traveler’s Ballgown: Last Weekend

So this was the last full weekend Nora and I had to work on her gown, and the good news is, it is all over but the shouting (where “shouting” = “setting the sleeves” which, in my experience, does usually involve quite a bit of shouting, swearing, praying to dark gods, and sacrificing chickens.) Also, there is some additional trim to add, but all in all, the gown is just about ready for the ball next Saturday! I am generally quite pleased with the construction. The fit and finish on this one, while by no means perfect, is more impeccable than anything I’ve ever made. Seams are neatly finished with bias tape, the chevron pattern on the front lines up as elegantly as was humanly possible given the curved seams, and I have learned the valuable lesson that I never, ever want to work with poly taffeta again, even as a lining. That stuff is evil.

Anyway, some pics. Enjoy.

 

Time Traveler’s Ballgown: Weekend One

Nora and I got a lot done this weekend, but a lot of it involved finishing & handwork so it doesn’t seem like a lot. But we got the dust ruffle attached to the underskirt, and we got a new gray taffeta ruffle attached to her petticoat (after ripping out the old shredded one.) We also finished the overskirt, did all the handsewing (waistbands, hooks and eyes, hanger loops etc.) Then we cut and fitted the muslin for the top (no pics of that, as it was getting late.)

We haven’t applied any trim, frippery, flim-flam, or furbelows yet (other than the ruffles.) We’re still pondering our options, honestly.

We have also been catching up on old seasons of Project Runway that we missed. That Elena in S10, she was kind of a drama queen!

Here’s a pic. More over on the Pinterest Board.

Time Traveler’s Ballgown – Weekend One

Nora and I got a lot done this weekend, but a lot of it involved finishing & handwork so it doesn’t seem like a lot. But we got the dust ruffle attached to the underskirt, and we got a new gray taffeta ruffle attached to her petticoat (after ripping out the old shredded one.) We also finished the overskirt, did all the handsewing (waistbands, hooks and eyes, hanger loops etc.) Then we cut and fitted the muslin for the top (no pics of that, as it was getting late.)

We haven’t applied any trim, frippery, flim-flam, or furbelows yet (other than the ruffles.) We’re still pondering our options, honestly.

We have also been catching up on old seasons of Project Runway that we missed. That Elena in S10, she was kind of a drama queen!

Here’s a pic. More over on the Pinterest Board.