Cherie Priest's Blog: It's awards season, so here comes the shameless self-promotion, page 47

I want to be the girl with the most cake

Here's today's progress on my 19th century D.C. spy caper about a powerful Difference Engine that will end the Civil War - now with warhawk conspiracies, clockwork assassins, two presidents with more in common than they know, two spies with less in common than they think, a conflicted U.S. Marshal, and Bonus! not-at-all mad scientist who can save the world if someone will just give him a chance:
Project: Fiddlehead
Deadline: October 1, 2012
New words written: 3524 (not bad)
Present total word count: 73,702 words





Things accomplished in real life: Daily jog with the dog and the n yoga before breakfast; exchanged some emails re: Inexplicables with the Mighty and Powerful Liz; sorted out some convention travel; packed up Dad's birthday goodies and went to the post office to ship it; performed minor yardwork; took some undignified dog pictures.

Other: Tomorrow I'm having lunch with an old friend and her husband, so the word count will probably be a little lower - but I'll see what I can do. DEATHMARCH: ONWARD.

Never been a sinner - I never sinned

Here's today's progress on my 19th century D.C. spy caper about a powerful Difference Engine that will end the Civil War - now with warhawk conspiracies, clockwork assassins, two presidents with more in common than they know, two spies with less in common than they think, a conflicted U.S. Marshal, and Bonus! not-at-all mad scientist who can save the world if someone will just give him a chance:
Project: Fiddlehead
Deadline: October 1, 2012
New words written: 4077 (good)
Present total word count: 70,178 words





Things accomplished in real life: Daily jog with the dog and then yoga before breakfast; went out running some errands in the rain - not least of all an errand to hook my dad up with some birthday goodies; got stuck in a crazypants traffic jam, caused by a tractor-trailer that flipped on its side and wound up facing the wrong direction on the interstate. Thought I'd never get home.

Other: Today's total was a good total. Let's see if I can keep it up. Now I break for supper, but I might sit down again tonight for a head start on tomorrow's count, depending.

And now it's time to sing along

Here's recent progress on my 19th century D.C. spy caper about a powerful Difference Engine that will end the Civil War - now with warhawk conspiracies, clockwork assassins, two presidents with more in common than they know, two spies with less in common than they think, a conflicted U.S. Marshal, and Bonus! not-at-all mad scientist who can save the world if someone will just give him a chance:
Project: Fiddlehead
Deadline: October 1, 2012
New words written: 4260 (still barely respectable - only a little better than 1k/day)
Present total word count: 66,101 words





Things accomplished in real life since last post: Daily jogs with the dog before breakfast; resumed the yoga routine; phone calls with parents (each, respectively); visit with my cousins, who swung by to say hello and meet Greyson; important emails which must not be discussed here, yet; sent off the kitten to his new home; cleaned house; did all the laundry; began generally recovering from being sick, but not really until a couple of days ago.

Other: I actually wrote almost all of those words today, though in my defense, I spent a couple of days kind of generally unraveling some finer plot points and fixing mistakes. This is partly why that number feels like such a failure; it meets the bare minimum of a 1k/day average, but does no more - and I'm too worn out to keep writing right now. Maybe this evening.

Other, encore: Congrats to all the Hugo winners! I wish I could've been there to dole out hugs in person, but alas. Such is life. Maybe next year?

I only came here to talk

Here's recent progress on my 19th century D.C. spy caper about a powerful Difference Engine that will end the Civil War - now with warhawk conspiracies, clockwork assassins, two presidents with more in common than they know, two spies with less in common than they think, a conflicted U.S. Marshal, and Bonus! not-at-all mad scientist who can save the world if someone will just give him a chance:
Project: Fiddlehead
Deadline: October 1, 2012
New words written: 5552 (barely respectable - only a little better than 1k/day)
Present total word count: 61,841 words





Things accomplished in fiction: Shit: It has hit the fan.

Things accomplished in real life: Daily jogs with the dog before breakfast; found yet another fucking kitten and nearly had a nervous breakdown; canvassed the neighborhood to see if anyone was missing him (no); found some friends who were willing to foster/adopt him, on the off chance anyone *does* come forward looking for him; God bless those friends, I tell you what; cleaned up three batches of mysterious dog puke but the dog seems to be fine; light housework; 2 loads of laundry including bedding, which always seems to take forever; ran to bank and Walgreens twice; struggled to keep the peace between a dog who JUST WANTS TO BE FRENDZ WITH THE NEW PUPPY THING and a 4-pound kitten who would LIKE TO BE FRENDZ with the dog but is intimidated by those giant heavy ham-paws and a 13-year-old cat who is pretty damn sure that we've lost our MINDS bringing another damn animal in here and why is that DOG still here, anyway?; so the kitten occupies the guest room until my pals can retrieve him tomorrow afternoon; sent off proposal for Schrodinger's Project; exchanged what is probably the final round of edits re: INEXPLICABLES with my editor.

Other: People keep asking, so no, I won't be at DragonCon or WorldCon this weekend. WorldCon because it's very far away and expensive, and I didn't get my guest app in on time, and anyway I have MEGA DEADLINE staring me in the face. DragonCon is a little more complicated, yet also less so: You see, several years ago they decided that I wasn't destined to be a guest anymore. I don't know why. No one ever told me. That having been said, it's a great event - but it's not one that's very practical for me if I'm not attending as a pro. It's very expensive, even without having my badge comped,* and now that I'm in the southeast again it's not my sole opportunity to see my friends in the region. Basically, if I'm not working the convention as a pro, then it's really just a very costly 4-day party ... which I frankly cannot justify at this time.

Other, Redux: If you want to see me at future DragonCons, you're welcome to tell them so, and if they'll ever reinstate my pro status, I'll be happy to return. Here's their contact form . But please don't contact or harass the track directors, if you know who they are and/or have their email. It isn't up to them, I'm afraid.


* When I was a guest, that was my only concession. I paid all my other expenses.

Bereft of song lyrics

I am just not allowed to have a normal day. On my way out of the house to see the doctor this morning, I encountered a kitten wailing under the bushes beside the house. Took him to the vet. He's about 4 months old, male, unneutered, uncollared, unchipped, flea-bitten, and a bit thin - but very, very sweet. Doesn't behave like a feral at all.

I've put out the call on the neighborhood email list, asking if we've cat-napped someone's escaped kitten - and for now he's holed up in the guest room. Spainy wants to kill him. Greyson wants to lick him to death ... but is simultaneously jealous as can be that there's another animal in the mix; he's gone on a rampage, eating all of Spainy's food and destroying any of her toys which are within reach.

If no one claims this kitten, I have no idea what we will do with him. He's four pounds of lovable havoc, and I'm at a loss. I already have enough havoc with a cat and dog that don't get along, and a huge deadline, and an awful bacterial infection in my throat/ears.

Oh yeah.

I did finally get to the doc about that. He recognized my name, which was a hoot. Apparently his daughter's a fan. Gave me a laugh, it did. A sore-throated laugh, but a laugh all the same. Came away with a steroid shot in the ass and a 'scrip for antibiotics, so we'll see if that helps.

And yeah. We have another fucking kitten.




There's a very off chance he belongs to someone in the neighborhood, but when I put out the call on the email list, all I got were a bunch of responses to the tune of, "Yeah, this spring there have been a lot of black-and-white kittens. They don't belong to anyone, though. Congrats on your new kitten!"

This is that kind of neighborhood, with a ridiculous number of off-leash animals, and a lot of strays. But it's also a neighborhood with a handful of very busy streets, and I cannot in good conscience just turn this little guy loose. He's a lover from the word "go" and he very much needs/wants a family of his own, assuming he doesn't have one. I want to keep him around for a few days to make sure nobody's looking for him, but in just an hour there's been so much DRAMA that the prospect makes me want to go right back to bed and stay there. Alone. In the dark.

Please, if you're in the greater Chattanooga area, and you're in a position to take him off our hands - drop me a message and let me know. I realize this is asking a lot, saying, "Hey, could you watch this adorable animal and love it and squeeze it and maybe, in a few days, give it back to its proper owner?"

But I don't think that's likely to be in the cards, to be honest, and the fact is ... I'm at the end of my rope, here. Contact me via - cherie.priest@gmail.com

And every day my confusion grows

By some fair miracle, the dog let us sleep in until a quarter to ten this morning. I, for one, greatly appreciated it - for I am definitely sick. Tomorrow I'll hit up a doc-in-a-box and get some freaking pills or something; the old standbys of vitamin C and "lots of fluids"* aren't helping, and I have so much work to do that I can't sit around and just be gross. (Much as the prospect appeals to me.)

So. Yeah.

Today the car had a little bit of work done - nothing major, but necessary - and it was particularly annoying because we've been without transportation since yesterday. This is also the #1 reason I didn't go to the doc-in-a-box sooner; we didn't have our vehicle again until late enough this afternoon that my cocktail of cabinet-found meds had kicked in, and for awhile I was feeling nearly all right.

During this window of Almost Okayness I revised/reworked and sent off the proposal for Schrodinger's Project, and now I can forget about it for a few weeks - I think - and return all my creative attention to Fiddlehead. Speaking of, I do have a few thousand words to report, but I didn't get as far as I meant to, and I still have catching up to do.

I say that as if I have more than five weeks to finish this draft, and like every day isn't a hamster wheel hurricane of being behind on my progress. Hah.

Anyway, we have some friends coming over to meet the dog in a few minutes - and that'll be nice. He's hitting his early evening crazypants puppytime, and I'm happy to foist him off on other people for a little bit.

But I'll be back tomorrow with metrics. Doc-in-the-box or no.


* Most of which were not alcohol-related. No, really. Even water feels like swallowing lava.

You should hear how she talks about you

Had a marvelous evening last night, attending the 40th birthday party of an old friend - where I got to hang with a bunch of people I hadn't seen in ages. This included someone with whom I used to play V:TM, a guy I hadn't seen since a party in Seattle a few years ago, and my old boss and his wife from back when I worked on Mars.* (It turns out they own the gallery where the event was held. SMALL WORLD.)

James's 40th went a whole lot more smoothly than his 27th - which was an epic occasion indeed. We still tell stories about it, and if you know James, and you want a laugh ... demand to hear about "Captain Cave-James." Tell him your favorite band is "Beethoven." Ask to to see his baby seal impression.

[Aside: As someone was joking the other day, I seem to know a disproportionate number of Very Big Men. This is James. Old nickname: Mount Saint James. It is pure coincidence that both he and Travis have a fondness for viking helmets.]

Weirdly, by the time I got home my throat had almost swollen shut. I say "weirdly" because I don't have any food allergies, but the symptoms were similar and the onset was very, very fast. Today I don't have a fever, but I have a magnificently sore throat ... plus that stuffy feeling in my head that says whatever the problem is, it's settling in my ears. Bah. At least we finally got our health insurance sorted out.** If it gets too bad, I'll go to the doc-in-a-box and get some pills or something - but I don't think it'll come to that.

(We don't have a GP yet. Paperwork only got cleared a couple of days ago.)

Thank God the dog let me sleep in. Usually he's up like clockwork around 7:30; this morning I woke up at 9:37 and had a panic attack because I thought he must be dead or something. Dead? No. Zonked out on the rug at the foot of the bed (not two feet away from a big cushy bed of his own). When he saw that I was awake he yawned, rolled over on his back, and happily thumped his tail. I will be delighted beyond words if this is a new trend, and not a of fluke.

I admit, I get a whole lot done in the mornings when I'm up at 7:30 - but I will also admit that I kind of hate it. I like 9:30 much, much better. Still, I've been dragging all day.

Tomorrow, I have company coming to crash with me - my cousin and aunt, who are here to get that same cousin moved into the dormitory so she can start her senior year of college. She was born just before my senior year of high school, so just call me Oldie McOld, Mayor of Oldsville. But I'll be happy to see her/her mom all the same.

Fair warning: This does mean I'll be running low on the wordcounts. Yes, yes. I know. Full of excuses, I am. Don't worry. This'll all get written, one way or another.


* Long story.
** Another long story. An infuriating one.

My friend the witch doctor, he taught me what to say

Here's today's progress on my 19th century D.C. spy caper about a powerful Difference Engine that will end the Civil War - now with warhawk conspiracies, clockwork assassins, two presidents with more in common than they know, two spies with less in common than they think, a conflicted U.S. Marshal, and Bonus! not-at-all mad scientist who can save the world if someone will just give him a chance:
Project: Fiddlehead
Deadline: October 1, 2012
New words written: 3142 (respectable)
Present total word count: 56,289 words





Things accomplished in fiction: Found the scenes whereupon the story pivots. The axis, if you will. It's all downhill from here! Ha! I hope!

Things accomplished in real life: Daily jog with the dog before breakfast; went back out to the mall because someone forgot to remove a security tag from one of my husband's shirts; got lunch; went to pet store and got a cheap bed for Greyson to destroy - because he utterly demolished the one in my office, and is forlorn that I threw it away; did laundry; did minimal yard/garden work.

Other: I am going to finish at least the proposal for Schrodinger's Project tonight, if it kills me. I may not be able to start writing on it until October, but if the proposal doesn't quite match up to the editor's vision, then I might not be writing it at all, so, well, I guess we'll see.

This is not America

Here's today's progress on my 19th century D.C. spy caper about a powerful Difference Engine that will end the Civil War - now with warhawk conspiracies, clockwork assassins, two presidents with more in common than they know, two spies with less in common than they think, a conflicted U.S. Marshal, and Bonus! not-at-all mad scientist who can save the world if someone will just give him a chance:
Project: Fiddlehead
Deadline: October 1, 2012
New words written: 3055 (respectable)
Present total word count: 53,147 words





Things accomplished in fiction: Fun cameo re: a character from the other books; adventures with the postal service and/or Western Union, because you can't just mail things to an enemy nation. Not easily, anyway.

Things accomplished in real life: Daily jogs with the dog before breakfast; tidied the garden and ran the sprinkler, as it's been a little warm and dry here; cleaned the kitchen; went to the mall briefly with husband in order to replace yesterday's ripped jeans for THEY WERE MY FAVORITES.

Cat and Dog Relations: Same as yesterday. They'll coexist peacefully for exactly as long as the dog will not attempt to snorgle the cat. His periods between snorgle attempts grow longer by the day. He'll wear her down eventually ... but I think she's actually wearing him down, first.

Other: Thanks so much to everyone who helped with yesterdays' OMG WHAT IS IT? from my backyard. I think I've now got a pretty good handle on most of it, and can at least begin hunting around in a somewhat more educated fashion re: the rest. You guys are awesome!

Yard Occupants: Wherein Cherie is a Flora Moron

So I have a bunch of stuff in my yard, and I don't know what it is. I've tried a few websites and apps, and I'm just not having any luck - due in no small part to the fact that my vocabulary regarding plants is roughly equivalent to my vocabulary regarding theoretical neurocybermathyphysics (is that even a thing? I bet it's a thing).

Then I remembered: I have readers. HELPFUL readers.

Look, it's not that I'm 100% lazy. (I am only about 80% lazy at most.) It's just that I have other priorities right now, namely the looming Fiddlehead deadline and Schrodinger's Project ... but we're coming to the end of the season here, and I have this whole yard-full of stuff that might need some kind of management before fall/winter; so I feel like I should learn about it if I can.

So with that in mind, if you're the green-thumby type and you have some knowledge of southeastern fauna you'd care to share, well, I'd love to hear from you. I've taken close-up pictures and wide views of seven whatever-they-ares.

And here goes.
Click any image to view it bigger at Flickr.

I'm sure some of these are blindingly obvious if you know the first thing about plants, but since I don't know even the third or fourth thing about plants, well, you're just going to have to clue me in while feeling all superior and stuff.

Mystery Plant #1: A low-lying, flowering jobbie that comes in pink and orange blossoms, respectively. Looks kind of like a 'mum, but the flowers are only about the size of a quarter.




Mystery Plant #2: A tree-sized thing near the garage. Not sure if it's overgrown, or is actually supposed to be this big.




Mystery Plant #3: A positively ubiquitous plant - grows all over the neighborhood. On the left is a small one, just sprouted; on the right is one that's worked its way into my zinnias. Dark red stalks, dark berries. Grows as tall as a small tree if allowed to do so.




Mystery Plant #4: Looks like it might eventually blossom into some kind of flower? But the buds just get taller and taller, and haven't opened yet. This thing is about thigh/waist high on me, and it's growing elsewhere in the yard as well.




Mystery Plant #5: Is this a weed? It's growing out of the middle of the tiger lily greenery, though the lilies have died off for the season. Should I yank it? It is supposed to be here?




Mystery Plant #6: A tree-sized plant that we trimmed back, to keep it off some low-lying power lines (which lead from the house to garage, thus they are quite low, relatively speaking). It has long, thin thorns - one of which stabbed me in the knuckle, not that I'm bitter.




Mystery Plant #7: A bushy plant that got a bit taller than this, before I trimmed it back to give the roses some breathing room. (Those are roses behind it, against the wall.) It has cheerful purple berries.




Anyway, there you have it! I've successfully identified most of the yard occupants with the help of friends, but these are the last ones that elude me. So I thank you in advance for any enlightenment you may be able to provide.