Laura Anne Gilman's Blog, page 31
July 11, 2015
A Tale of Two Cats..
Cat1: “Mom is moving furniture! Run! Hide!”
Cat2: “Mom is moving furniture! Quick, get rolled up in the carpet!”
no points for guessing which was which.
Cat2: “Mom is moving furniture! Quick, get rolled up in the carpet!”
no points for guessing which was which.
A Take of Two Cats..
Cat1: “Mom is moving furniture! Run! Hide!”
Cat2: “Mom is moving furniture! Quick, get rolled up in the carpet!”
no points for guessing which was which.
Cat2: “Mom is moving furniture! Quick, get rolled up in the carpet!”
no points for guessing which was which.
brief updatery
Day 3 of the proofing page proofs. My right hand, from mid-palm to mid-forearm, would like me to stop now, as it _aches_ from using the mouse near-constantly, despite elevation and icing and taking the night off to go be social.
Mostly, I'm in favor of the new-fangled digital ways of doing things. But I'm seriously missing the old days of marking up a paper proof, right about now.
(and yes, I'm doing my stretches. They're not helping - or if they are, they're keeping it down to a mild roar rather than incapacitation)
However, in happier news - I'm wearing a long-sleeved shirt! Seattle summer, I'm glad to see you back to your more-usual self...
Mostly, I'm in favor of the new-fangled digital ways of doing things. But I'm seriously missing the old days of marking up a paper proof, right about now.
(and yes, I'm doing my stretches. They're not helping - or if they are, they're keeping it down to a mild roar rather than incapacitation)
However, in happier news - I'm wearing a long-sleeved shirt! Seattle summer, I'm glad to see you back to your more-usual self...
July 9, 2015
Status Report: busy, not-melting.
Today - and the next few days - will be given over to the page proofs for SILVER ON THE ROAD.
As seen via a series of tweets:
I can’t be the only writer who, when faced w/ page proofs, finds it uncomfortable/difficult to read even a beloved book One More Time? Y/N?
2nd-guessing foreign language usages in this book, now. Trusting my native advisors, and accepting responsibility for all errors.
How many pages of page proofs can the author proof if an author must proof page proofs? (300 pages to go…)
oh, @MetMarket, telling me you have dark chocolate-covered graham crackers and then only having milk chocolate is just CRUEL #sadtrombone
I’m missing every typo in his book, aren’t I? Must trust proofreader…. (never trust the proofreader).
No sunset photos tonight, and probably none for a while - they're subtly beautiful in shades of pale blues and pinks, but the awareness that the beauty is caused by the smoke drifting down from the BC wildfires makes me less eager to capture them.
Meanwhile, after a week of unreasonable heat, the wind off the balcony is refreshingly cold and smells of ocean and ozone. If I could sleep with the door open, I would (alas, the cats cannot be trusted with overnight, even with the gate up).
And that's all I got. How YOU doin?
As seen via a series of tweets:
I can’t be the only writer who, when faced w/ page proofs, finds it uncomfortable/difficult to read even a beloved book One More Time? Y/N?
2nd-guessing foreign language usages in this book, now. Trusting my native advisors, and accepting responsibility for all errors.
How many pages of page proofs can the author proof if an author must proof page proofs? (300 pages to go…)
oh, @MetMarket, telling me you have dark chocolate-covered graham crackers and then only having milk chocolate is just CRUEL #sadtrombone
I’m missing every typo in his book, aren’t I? Must trust proofreader…. (never trust the proofreader).
No sunset photos tonight, and probably none for a while - they're subtly beautiful in shades of pale blues and pinks, but the awareness that the beauty is caused by the smoke drifting down from the BC wildfires makes me less eager to capture them.
Meanwhile, after a week of unreasonable heat, the wind off the balcony is refreshingly cold and smells of ocean and ozone. If I could sleep with the door open, I would (alas, the cats cannot be trusted with overnight, even with the gate up).
And that's all I got. How YOU doin?
July 8, 2015
home again, home again
A week after the cats & I were forcibly (not really) removed from our home to stay w/ twinling's family (who have central air) during the totally-out-of-character-for-Seattle heat wave, we are back.
I will not lie - as much as I love my adoptafamily, and as wonderful as they were to hang with for a week, it's good to be back in my own space again.
And the cats are thankful not to be sharing space with Two Very Large And Enthusiastic Dogs, however friendly.
I will not lie - as much as I love my adoptafamily, and as wonderful as they were to hang with for a week, it's good to be back in my own space again.
And the cats are thankful not to be sharing space with Two Very Large And Enthusiastic Dogs, however friendly.
July 7, 2015
Brief updatery
3rd draft of the WiP, done. 4th draft.... will start tomorrow. Wearing editorial hats today.
I suspect, for the remainder of the summer year, my "only drink coffee in the morning" rule will be put on hold. Consider this your only warning. :-)
I suspect, for the remainder of the summer year, my "only drink coffee in the morning" rule will be put on hold. Consider this your only warning. :-)
July 6, 2015
The light at the end of the tunnel is a chain-smoking dragon.
After much hair-pulling and coffee-drinking, Book 2 of The Devil's West and I seem to be writing the same story again, just in time to bring things to a close....
Seriously, this would be SO much easier if the lizard brain would talk to the mammal brain during the FIRST pass of the draft, not the THIRD. But nooooooo, the damned lizard has to go and leave all these juicy bits, and force the mammal brain to slowly figure out how they all tie together, and what the characters are supposed to do with them.
Grrr.
And I'm pretty sure a fourth pass is going to be needed before I'm satisfied enough to let m'editor see it, so he can tell me what is needed in the fifth pass....
"Writing's easy," they said. "You can just whammy out a story every month, two books a year," they said. "Easy money," they said!
Where's the damned money and my cosplaying fandom, is what I want to know.
(or, failing that, whisky and a wedge of pont l'eveque.)
((cosplayers for the Devil's West would be so awesome, I don't even know how to say it. Except it would be so awesome and if anyone ever does I DEMAND pics. Um, please?))
Seriously, this would be SO much easier if the lizard brain would talk to the mammal brain during the FIRST pass of the draft, not the THIRD. But nooooooo, the damned lizard has to go and leave all these juicy bits, and force the mammal brain to slowly figure out how they all tie together, and what the characters are supposed to do with them.
Grrr.
And I'm pretty sure a fourth pass is going to be needed before I'm satisfied enough to let m'editor see it, so he can tell me what is needed in the fifth pass....
"Writing's easy," they said. "You can just whammy out a story every month, two books a year," they said. "Easy money," they said!
Where's the damned money and my cosplaying fandom, is what I want to know.
(or, failing that, whisky and a wedge of pont l'eveque.)
((cosplayers for the Devil's West would be so awesome, I don't even know how to say it. Except it would be so awesome and if anyone ever does I DEMAND pics. Um, please?))
You heard it here first....
Due to an unexpected schedule shift, I now have two slots open for editorial consultation/full manuscript editing in the autumn. Contact me at lag@lauraannegilman.net if you're interested, and we can discuss.
(I don't quote rates until I know what you're looking for - every client has different needs, and I don't charge for work that doesn't need to be done!)
(I don't quote rates until I know what you're looking for - every client has different needs, and I don't charge for work that doesn't need to be done!)
July 5, 2015
Come, amuse me!
I'm ears-deep in the final pass of Book 2 before it has to go to Mine Editor, and the stress levels are high enough to match the current temperatures (still in the 90's, please dog make it stop).
So.
Clearly, what I need to jumpstart the pre-release chatter for SILVER ON THE ROAD is for a celebrity to be spotted/photographed reading it. Based on, well... the blurb for the book, your best knowledge about my work, and your sheer perversity, er, good taste, who do you think would be my best celebrity "pusher?"
So.
Clearly, what I need to jumpstart the pre-release chatter for SILVER ON THE ROAD is for a celebrity to be spotted/photographed reading it. Based on, well... the blurb for the book, your best knowledge about my work, and your sheer perversity, er, good taste, who do you think would be my best celebrity "pusher?"
July 4, 2015
We Hold These Truths to Be Self-Evident....
our forefathers may have been assholes even by the standards of their day, but they did some good shit, too. Read that second full paragraph out loud....
----
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
----
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
