Rowan Speedwell's Blog, page 6

And… they’re off!

In less than an hour, I leave work; and not too terribly long after that I will be boarding the City of New Orleans Amtrak train for a 19-hour ride south… to GayRomLit!!  Marie Sexton and Heidi Cullinan will be on the same train and we will be sure to meet up for drinkies or something of that nature. Then I will kick back and stare out the darkened window into the night, and Think About Things. Hopefully, about what I’m doing with Going Like Elsie.

     I have to admit that I also brought materials for blackwork embroidery, because sometimes I need my hands to be busy. I also am bringing my netbook in case the Thinking About Things results in sensible progress on the story. And I’m bringing music. And granola bars. And my Kindle. And… let’s just say I’ve got plenty to keep me busy for 19 hours, even if sleep weren’t part of the equation.

    I will hopefully have a post with lots of pictures when I get back!!!

    Laissez les bon temps roulez!!

[image error]

And… they're off!

In less than an hour, I leave work; and not too terribly long after that I will be boarding the City of New Orleans Amtrak train for a 19-hour ride south… to GayRomLit!!  Marie Sexton and Heidi Cullinan will be on the same train and we will be sure to meet up for drinkies or something of that nature. Then I will kick back and stare out the darkened window into the night, and Think About Things. Hopefully, about what I'm doing with Going Like Elsie.

     I have to admit that I also brought materials for blackwork embroidery, because sometimes I need my hands to be busy. I also am bringing my netbook in case the Thinking About Things results in sensible progress on the story. And I'm bringing music. And granola bars. And my Kindle. And… let's just say I've got plenty to keep me busy for 19 hours, even if sleep weren't part of the equation.

    I will hopefully have a post with lots of pictures when I get back!!!

    Laissez les bon temps roulez!!

[image error]

And . . . they’re off!

In less than an hour, I leave work; and not too terribly long after that I will be boarding the City of New Orleans Amtrak train for a 19-hour ride south… to GayRomLit!!  Marie Sexton and Heidi Cullinan will be on the same train and we will be sure to meet up for drinkies or something of that nature. Then I will kick back and stare out the darkened window into the night, and Think About Things. Hopefully, about what I’m doing with Going Like Elsie.

     I have to admit that I also brought materials for blackwork embroidery, because sometimes I need my hands to be busy. I also am bringing my netbook in case the Thinking About Things results in sensible progress on the story. And I’m bringing music. And granola bars. And my Kindle. And… let’s just say I’ve got plenty to keep me busy for 19 hours, even if sleep weren’t part of the equation.

    I will hopefully have a post with lots of pictures when I get back!!!

    Laissez les bon temps roulez!!

Quick update

     Just a short blurp ("blurp"?  It's been One Of Those Days) BLURB to say I am SORRY that I haven't kept up with things, and let poor Bitterwood's release slide by without mention. I am a Bad Mom.

     But I have good excuses–I am going NUTSO trying to get everything together for the GayRomLit Retreat in New Orleans NEXT WEEK.  O.O  I'll be taking Amtrak down Tuesday night and meeting up with the lovely JP Barnaby at the lovely Bourbon Orleans (pronounced in ze French fashion, s'il vous plait) Hotel, where we will socialize, drink, schmooze, visit with friends and fans and those we admire (you know who you are), and get massages. Yup. I'm officially insane–I have signed up for a very expensive massage. But what the hell; you only live once.

    So Bitterwood is out, and that's all I can say about that, although my friend Lexi really liked it. It's not a bad book, and it has the excellent quality of being short. And I like the characters. I've also sold a Christmas story, Angel Voices, which should be published around the 18th of December, again by Amber Allure.

     JP and I are tossing around the idea of a collaboration, on an epic fantasy. JP makes no bones about being brutal to her characters, and I'm finding that I'm the same way, so whatever we come up with will be full of angst. Romangst. (Sorry, I can't claim that one; it's not original to me. But I like it.)  As long as there is ultimately a happy ending, I'm good with it. I have some ideas about structure and character, and a kick-ass opening scene, which I will write as soon as I find the time.

     I'm working to get my swag together for GayRomLit. Those on my vampire-ghost tour will be getting a calligraphy print of a book quote, matted; a beaded string bookmark with antique typewriter keys as beads; a rainbow lollipop; a packet of postcards of my covers PLUS the fabulous "From the sketchbooks of David Philip Evans" drawings my friend Shannon did; a hummingbird bookmark; and, if they arrive on time, a little notebook in a teensy fleece hoodie. I hope they get here on time; they shipped yesterday via UPS, so I have hope. They are SO cute.  All packed in a little tote bag with a rainbow peace sign on it.  I'm also donating the postcards and bookmarks to the general GayRomLit swag bags. I hope they don't end up in the garbage like the pens and crap tend to do. I kind of like them.

     AND then I signed up for NaNoWriMo.

     I have to. I need to finish Going Like Elsie by late November so I can submit it to Riptide, which new publishing company invited me to submit. So I kinda gotta.  Then it will back to Turbulence, my paean to small town America. Sorta.  Hopefully NaNoWriMo will push me to finish the first so I can get started on the last.

     The christening gown is ALMOST finished.

     That is all. You may now resume your regularly scheduled activities.

Go here…

http://cupoporn.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/wed-ww-living-the-dream-by-rowan-speedwell/#more-5514

I'm guest blogging on Marie and Heidi's blog Coffee & Porn in the Morning (http://cupoporn.wordpress.com) on my not-so-sekrit OTHER obsession. Check it out!!

The fall, she is falling.

     Bitterwood edits are done and sent back to Amber Allure and the lovely Karin Story. (That's my editor. I haz an editor! And isn't that a great name for an editor? Fills me with all kinds of hope!) The book is still on track for a September 25th release, because the folks at Amber, they are fast.

     Today I got the second email regarding Kindred Hearts where someone was compelled to stop reading IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BOOK to write me and tell me how much they are enjoying it. This blows my mind (sorry, Sixties' flashback). That someone is so moved by something I wrote just flabbergasts me.

     Work proceeds apace on my niece's christening gown; the bodice is embroidered and I'm working on the skirt embroidery. Time is fleeting and I need it done by the first weekend in October. IN THE MEANTIME, I'm trying to work on Turbulence, a sort of spin-off of Finding Zach (although there are no cameos planned for any of the major characters in that work); thinking about Going Like Elsie, my hermit/rock star romance; thinking about my straight Regency, A Lamb for Isabel; editing Angel Voices, a Christmas story that I need to submit, um, yesterday; and get some freelance editing done too. Oh, and finish my swag for GayRomLit and do a little thrift store browsing for Victoriana for my steampunk adventure.

     And then there that little issue of the electric in my house going all wonky. I've lost a "leg" of the circuits or something like that, which basically boils down to the fact that my kitchen mostly doesn't have power and I have industrial-strength extension cords snaking around my house. Ahh, the joys of homeownership.

     Finally, I just ordered some Blue Stop for my fibromyalgia. Heidi Cullinan gave me some and it's wonderful, especially for my hands, which hurt quite a lot, to the point where I can't lean on them or rest my head on them, or anything like that. But I ran out and the weather is getting cooler, and that's when the fibromyalgia kicks in. I got the two small jars so I can carry one in my purse and leave one at home. I have a feeling it will become like my Excedrin and my inhaler—one in every place I spend any time: car, office, bedroom. But if it takes the pain away, it will all be worthwhile!

Post the second

     It seems every time I figure out how to do something in WordPress they change the rules. So I couldn't get text and image together, which is why there are two posts today, one with the cover for Bitterwood, and the other being this one. Which really doesn't have much to say except "yay" for the cover and that I'm back from Pennsic and focused now on getting ready for GayRomLit in October. And in finishing John Roger's story. And in writing the Christmas story that will be submitted for the Dreamspinner's Advent Calendar, which is due September first and which I started… erm… today. Nothing like deadlines to inspire the creative force.

     The story is going to be short and angsty, I think. Which is good, because I like angsty, and because I have a short amount of time to write it. I'm just going with the flow and managed to knock off 1600 words over lunch. I think I'm in love.

Bitterwood has a cover!

Social, Not Working

     Pennsic preparations are underway; my bins are packed (that sounds vaguely off-color; I have no idea why) and ready to load in the car, and pretty much everything else is properly in train. This means, however, that I will be off-line for about ten days, which, considering I live and breathe by my mobile apps, will be not unlike quitting smoking cold turkey. (Not that I've ever smoked, and cold turkey? Yum, especially with mayonnaise and home-grown tomatoes on fresh bread…) 

     This has become an issue the last couple of years, what with the writing life and the social networking I do. (Who'da thunk I'd suddenly develop a social life?)  I pretty much don't write during Pennsic—hell, I pretty much don't READ during Pennsic, and anyone who knows me is right now dropping dead of shock. Because I read constantly. But at Pennsic, there's so much to do, and so many people to talk to, and so many bottles of Gatorade to fill for the Ayreton Angels Fighter Support Squad, that I just don't have time to read. I do sew, and sometimes draw, because you can do that and talk at the same time, but I don't read or write, which are both activities for which I require quiet and solitude.

     The internet isolation is especially knotty this year, because of JP Barnaby. JP writes wonderfully angsty stories, some with BDSM, some without, but all with immense tear-jerking properties. In fact, she just sent me a heart-in-your-throat short short story under the subject line: "Your crying jag for the day…" Beast. I love her. AND she and I are going to collaborate on a novel. Or perhaps a series; we haven't quite worked that out yet. The other day, we shot ideas back and forth like water balloons at a picnic. It's still in the bare bones stage, but we think it will be a fantasy novel with kings and executions and gods and reincarnation and social reconstruction and battles and wizards and street kids and of course TONS of angst:  betrayals and murder and poison and forced prostitution and slavery and tattoos. Because that's what we do, JP and I:  we torture our characters.

     So I will be pretty much incommunicado and left to percolate ideas with no way of sharing them with JP, and she will be working on her next Little Boy Lost installment without me as a critique partner (waaaah!!) hopefully, because she has a deadline. And I still need to finish the story I'm working on before I can commit to an undertaking like the collaboration I really want to be working on. It will be interesting to see how we work together; I tend to take a looooong time to write, and JP whips those puppies out like one of those tennis ball machines.  So I hope this will inculcate in me the drive to write faster, because I pretty much need to do that. Not so much faster as more, on a daily basis. I'm gonna have to start writing at home, instead of just on my lunch hour.

     Maybe I will develop a better work ethic….   Nah.

     On a separate note, my mom called last night, to tell me she'd gotten to the part of Kindred Hearts where Charles is in the Battle of Waterloo, and she said she had been on the edge of her seat it was so good.  I love that!  On the other hand, she doesn't like men who cry, whereas I do. (See "Angst," above.) I'm just happy that she's reading it and finding it readable. Because she is, after all, my MOM.

Zen and the Art of Hand Sewing

I have in my hot little hands the contract for Bitterwood, from Amber Quill Press. It will be published under their LGBT impress, Amber Allure. I am FedExing the signed version back today. With luck, and speedy editing, it will be released in ebook format in September, and in paperback in October—hopefully before GayRomLit in New Orleans. I would love to show up there with three books under my belt. We'll see.

In the meantime, Pennsic looms, and I am sewing. This happens every year before Pennsic, when I drag out my garb and say "OMG—I need new clothes!!!" Pennsic garb has very specific parameters. It has to be cool, because temperatures shoot into the 90's, sometimes. It has to be layerable, because they also drop into the 50's sometimes. And it has to be washable, because above all, Pennsic is dirty. It's in the foothills of the Alleghenies, and the area is rich in a peculiar red clay which, when it turns to mud (as it frequently does at Pennsic), gets into your clothes and dyes them funky colors.

Fortunately, the two Irish style dresses (lace up the front, sleeveless) still fit, as do the linen shirts I bought last year to wear under them (because I SO do not go sleeveless). But two linen shirts will not do for ten days worth of sweltering heat. And I am very much afraid that it will be sweltering. 

So this past weekend, I used one of the old shirts to design a pattern for a simple shirt, and cut out enough white linen for two more shirts (one handkerchief weight, which is very light and sheer, and one of light weight, which is not so sheer. I made bloomers out of it for last Pennsic). Today on the train I started sewing. 

I love hand sewing. I love embroidery, cross-stitch, needlepoint—practically anything done with thread or yarn and a needle. While I like crochet and do that very well, I suck at knitting, am ambivalent about spinning, and have never learned weaving, so those things aren't very zen for me. But hand sewing… for me, that's zen.

The funny thing is that people tend to HATE hand sewing. Even if they embroider or do other needle arts, they resist hand sewing, complaining that's slow, difficult, aggravating and frustrating. Me, I hate to use a sewing machine. They're noisy, you're stuck in one spot, you have to pay attention to it, a machine is involved so of course things are going to go wrong—and when you screw up and sew the wrong sides together or something, you have to pull out acres of stitching and the stitches are teensy-tiny. Hand sewing is portable, you can pause and look at something or carry on a conversation, it's slow and it's in your hands, so if you're doing something wrong, you catch on a lot faster. 

The thing is that you have to understand what you're doing when you hand sew. You have to become one with the fabric, one with the thread. (Okay, that's me being silly, but in a sense it's true. If you understand your materials, you're halfway there. And that goes for a lot more than sewing, but that's a post for another time.) 

Hand sewing and machine sewing, for one thing, are nothing alike, except for the fact that you are attaching one layer to another. The same thing might be said about hand sewing and stapling (which I've also used in garment construction. Works great instead of basting for matching plaids). For one thing, machine sewing isn't really sewing. It's something called "couching," which is when you lay a thread down and hook another thread over it to hold it down. That's the purpose of the bobbin thread: to hold down the top thread. The thread only goes through the fabric once, and therefore doesn't build up any friction. 

In hand sewing the thread goes through the fabric over and over again. This creates friction. If you have a thread that's rough, or multiple fibers, the wear will roughen it even more. This is when you get knots. So for hand sewing, I either use a good silk thread, or a waxed linen or cotton thread (waxing it with beeswax, or, my favorite, a thread conditioner called Thread Heaven). Waxing the thread keeps the fibers from unraveling and reduces the friction. This helps if you use polyester thread, too. 

Friction causes the problems. But then again–doesn't friction ALWAYS cause the problems?  No, not really–consider sex. But in sewing, it definitely does.

My favorite time is when I'm sewing linen with silk thread. The peaceful little stitch: the little twist of the needle to straighten the thread, the smooth slide of the thread through the loose soft weave of the linen, the gentle tug to set the stitch—it's very zen. Yes, you can carry on a conversation, yes, you can pause and look out the train window, yes, you can think about the scene that you should be writing this lunch hour instead of this blog post… but you don't have to. You can just think about the sewing instead. Even if the thread does make a knot, it's easy to fix, and if it's on linen, you may not even need to, since the weave is so forgiving. And when you finish a seam or a hem or a whatever, you can look at the neat row of stitches and feel a sense of accomplishment. It's restful. 

It requires patience. It requires serenity. It requires a willingness not to rush, not to hurry, not to get frantic meeting an arbitrary deadline. It requires good materials, or cheap materials properly prepared. It's like the fabric version of cooking—sometimes the beauty is in the task and not in the results, whether it's a cassoulet or a plain white shirt. The journey, not the destination.