Kim Harrison's Blog, page 32

The Drafter to be translated into German

I have some great news for my readers in Germany. Heyne, the publisher who has released the Hollows, ��has picked up THE DRAFTER. I don’t know yet if it will be paperback or hard cover, or even when it’s scheduled, but they have the rights to publish, and I’ll let you know when I get a date. So a big THANK YOU! ��to Heyne! I can’t wait to see the cover. :-) Also, if you live in New York, I’ll be there at the end of May for BEA. BEA is a closed meeting for publishers and booksellers, but they will open it to the public on Saturday, and I should still be there. More info as I get it.

Click to read cover blurb

Click to read cover blurb

Third sign of spring

I hope everyone had a family filled holiday. Here in Michigan, we get a nice Easter, weather-wise, about every third year or so. This was one of the best in a long time. Absolutely wonderful. Knowing that the rest of the week is going to be wet, I puttered outside, tidying up my office garden in prep for the rain. My fall flowering clematis really likes where it is, and it outgrew my trellis, so I fussed with that most of the time, cutting back and tidying. It looks great, and there are leaf buds on it. The fall-flowering species flowers on new wood, so a severe haircut serves it well.

Bleeding hearts are coming up with a vengeance, and soon I won’t be able to see out the lower windows when they fill them up. Hellebores are in full bloom, and when I dropped into my home improvement store for a new pond pump, and gave Tim a scare when I started gasping at the plants in the now-open garden center. I bought a bulb garden for my dining table, but managed not to take anything home that needed to go into the ground. As beautiful as they are, it’s too soon yet to even put spring perennials in. There are places where the ground is still frozen if you try to dig; the earth is not warm through yet.

But the surface is, and my crocus are just starting their peak. Just yellow ones so far, but soon I should have white and purple.

Second sign of spring

Last night, I knew exactly what I was going to post this morning after seeing Mrs. Joe Hansen sitting on the edge of my pond, successfully overwintering in a pond I’d say was way too small. I think she overwintered in the dirt around the pond, not the pond itself, but regardless, she was there yesterday, pulled forth from the ground by rain and frog song.

But no. Mrs. Joe Hansen is not who I will be talking about. I got to play detective this morning while out with my dogs. See, our yard is fenced to keep out the skunks and keep in my puppies, and when we find a tuft of white fur in our yard, our thoughts immediately go to rabbit.

White tuft = rabbits. But it didn’t look quite right–too corse and long. And why was there another tuff on the fence?

Well, I suppose a hawk could have rested there and left a tuft. We’ve got them in the area, even though we are within city limits. They were probably after our neighbor’s chickens, but rabbit is on the menu as well.

But . . . it was dark, and too early for birds. And then it hit me. Deer. A quick look around in the soft dirt, and I found another tuft of white and this time, prints. Yep. Deer. Looks like I’m going to loose my Hosta even before they come up if I’m not careful. They. Are. Hungry.

 

And our first contestant is . . .

I’ve got Starflowers beginning to come up in my yard! These are Michigan natives, so they’re perfectly fine coming up right now, even if it should snow on them, which it just might. They will have a nice rosetta of leaves and then send up a handful of stalks from the center with white starlike flowers, then die back completely around late summer.

I’m so pleased to see that they are multiplying, as I always worry about finding the right place for wildflowers the first time. It’s illegal to pick or collect wildflowers in Michigan, but you can buy them from licensed growers and sellers, and that’s where I got these. It makes me feel better knowing I might be helping to replace a little of what’s gone, and that they didn’t die is a huge relief. They’re the first up in my Michigan wildflower garden, which also has trilliums, Mayapples, Jack-in-the-pulpit, and Wood Poppy. Lots of Wood Poppy. I’ve got little pots of them resting in my bed to give to my mom this spring, potted last fall and left in the ground to settle in for a season so they have lots of good roots when I give them to her. They’re coming up pretty good too, but not as showy as the Starflowers.

And the winner is

My family thinks I’m a good gardener. They look at my yard, and see all the work I’ve put into it and assume that I know what I’m doing. They never see the plants that don’t make it, the stacks of empty containers, the mistakes I throw mulch over, or remember that��that that plant was over there last year, and now it’s starting all over again in a sunnier spot. I’m not saying that I don’t know anything, just that there’s a lot of moving around and trial and error in my yard, and all they see is the end result.

Something I’ve been giving a go with these past couple of years is Hellebores. They are not a native plant, so I was a little leery of them, but since they bloom in early spring, a nice source of pollen to whatever bee might be out and about at that time, I thought I’d give them a whirl. That they like shade is a big plus, and they are out even before crocus.

I’ve had them for about two years now, in three places in my yard as I try to find their shade intolerance. My original plant by the garage which gets a fair amount of sun for a shady spot, overwinters well and looks nice and green, but it doesn’t flower that much. The ones out front that get less light are pretty much wasting to nothing. If they survive the winter, I’ll move them. But the ones on the south side of the house in the shade of a large tree are starting to show promise, with unexpected flowers this year.

I may have found the perfect spot for my Hellebores. And as for the spot up front in the shade? I’ll just keep looking.

Something Peri and I share

It’s natural and unavoidable that the people we write about have some of our character traits, likes, and dislikes, even quirks. Rachel often carried some of my “wish the world was this way” to the page. Peri is no different, but she’s a lot less like me than Rachel ever was. Peri is more like the dark sibling, and the “wish the world was this way” parts are correspondingly less moral and more sensation oriented. You’ll see my appreciation for beautiful, powerful cars, my wish for technology to live up to what technology is supposed to be. Peri’s world is focused more on sensational gratification than introspective musings, but she does that too.

One thing Peri and do share is, ah, knitting. I’ll be honest about it. I’m a lot better at it than her. (grin) She has trouble finishing a project, which I didn’t realize until book two, but now that I do, she’s going to have to realize it as well. Peri and I knit for different reasons, though we both appreciate the zen-like relaxation that comes from quietly using multiple parts of your brain for a complex task made up of simple things. She knits for the meditation–because it’s an Opti approved stress relief. I knit more to exercise the problem solving aspect that comes from trying to modify patterns to suit you. Case in point, my Kim Harrison Ponies.

I made this guy this weekend while making sure my pattern has everything on it, and I still think I need to shorten that left leg up a little. Maybe three stitches. The flower garland is something new for me, too, since it’s spring and I’m not going to put a saddle and halter on this guy to give him away. The garland I created all on my own with no pattern whatsoever. The mane and tail turned out crinkly because I used already previously knitted yarn, which also makes him unique in my “stable.” ��This one I knitted to keep right from the start, but there are editors, agents, and even a few authors out there who have a Kim Harrison white steed. I give them to my heros, because every hero needs a white steed.

Click to read cover blurb

Click to read cover blurb

 

Low-Q snow

There are little bits of snow darting about my yard like fireflies. They look confused, none of them going in the same line as its neighbor, no pattern, no purpose or organization. It’s as if someone forgot to tell them that we’re done with snow now, and to head north for the summer.

Stupid snow.

I’m working on Peri II today, back on those same first seven chapters. It’s always the beginning that gives me the most trouble, probably because that’s where I’m setting up my rules, and once those are there, the story sort of tells itself. But I’m pretty hopeful that I’ve got a plan now that’s going to carry me through. It woke me up this morning, and that’s always a good sign.

rain

Rain. We finally got rain, and not the freezing kind, but honest rain.

You know in the post apocalyptic movies, I mean the ones for grownups, not the recent flush of coming-of-age movies, (nothing wrong with those, they just don’t touch on what I’m talking about) where there was an ecological melt down, not a social one, where everything goes to hell because we can’t grow food? And then it rains, showing that the world is finding a balance again, and that rain becomes a symbol of hope? That’s kind of what it feels like today, listening to the shushh of the cars on the wet pavement, the last bits of ice being washed from the gutters and shadowed spots.

But even as I feel that renewal, there’s the nagging knowledge that it’s a short rise in a trend of downfall.

Soon, if we’re lucky, we’ll get frog song. I can hear them if I listen carefully in the still of the night, but they grow fainter every year. They are such sensitive indicators.��My kids will never know the annoyance of too many frogs singing, and that’s a shame, sort of like I never felt the thunder of bison under my feet, in my ears–the power of the earth my world for a brief span of time.

Everything gets chipped away under the pressures of our needs.

Even the rain.

 

Rearranging my office is like rearranging my mind

It must be spring, I’m rearranging my office to better catch the shifting sun. It’s angle has shifted significantly, and the plants are starting to move toward the windows again. it was sort of a double whammy this time since I was coming off a rather intense rewrite, which always gets me in the mood to clean off my desk, and it just sort of spilled over to the couch and cabinet. A bag of stuff went out to the curb when I exchanged a filing cabinet (which Tim wanted) for a mini-wardrobe (which I wanted). Cleaned up the plants . . . changed out Mr. Fish’s bowl.

And then I took a week and sort of did the same for the website, starting the slow transition from one book to the next. Small changes right now, but they will grow upon themselves. At least THE DRAFTER has a page now.

Today, though, with a clean office and nothing more to procrastinate with, I’ll be hitting Peri hard. I cracked book two open yesterday to try and remember where I’d left off, and it took me about seven chapters of a fun read to remember the changes I’d wanted to make when I left her. So today I’m working on those same seven chapters, putting in said changes. At least, that’s the plan. I’ve also got to shorten the chapters, maybe move a POV from Michael to Bill, think about shifting that prologue from the, ah, coffee shop to maybe a car show ��. . . Decisions, decisions.

Cacti sprouts are starting to show some green.

 

Very slow spring, and that’s okay

I’ve got a very slow spring unfolding in my yard this year, and that’s okay because really, it’s only mid March. The cold kept me inside apart from a small stint raking out one of my front flower beds that took about an hour or two of easy work. They went to bed nice last fall, so there’s nothing too strenuous, and if it stays chilly, I will get to the entire yard before new green shows up which is kind of what you want so you don’t shock the new stuff. Anyway . . . green is coming up, and the first of my crocus, in the ground now for about five years, is making itself known. I give it a few more weeks and a ten degree shift up, and I’ll have the rest up as well.

Not much outside work this weekend, which pushed me inside where I used the last of our maple syrup to make maple candy–just in time for the new stuff that our neighbors are tapping just down the road. I do love shopping small. It makes me feel connected. So far, we’ve had a good tapping with warm days and cool nights. There’s only a small band of latitude where you can tap for maple syrup, and I’m glad I live in it.

Tim says it’s the best maple candy I’ve made, but he might be bias seeing as he was right there, helping me scrape it out of the pan. Honestly, eating it still warm from the pan is like an entirely different candy. If you want my 4 ingredient recipe, it’s in the HOLLOWS INSIDER. B&N Amazon

I can’t believe the price hasn’t dropped significantly on this one yet, but I think it’s because it’s so . . . unconventional, truly a labor of love on my part and a Herculean effort on my publisher to take my graphs, photos, forms, emails, and connected, unique story line and make it look professional. Remember the contests to get your own photos into it? (grin) Wow, I’ll never do it again, but it will always stand as a four-color, glossy, glow in the dark testament to the power of passion.

And it’s got Tim’s waffle recipe in there, too. (laugh)

P.S. Robins have been back for about a week now. Yay!