Jane Lindskold's Blog, page 10

Maybe a New Story For Bubonicon

Persephone Watches Me Write

Keep a good thought for me, okay?  I haven’t been able to write since my rotator cuff surgery twenty weeks ago.  Part of this is physical.  My arm and hand are still recovering.  Also, to be completely honest, I didn’t react well to the anesthesia.  I could read and edit (which is how Weber and I moved the forthcoming Friends Indeed, the fifth Star Kingdom novel, along), but new composition was beyond me. 

My sense of confidence was flattened, and my sense of identity was rocked.  I’m a writer and as a writer who couldn’t write, I was seriously shaken.  Honestly, after the first couple weeks, this inability to slip into a story was as bad as the considerable pain from the surgery.

So it’s a major deal that I’m writing again.  I’m composing longhand using a pencil, which is messy but puts less strain on my arm.  I’m not done with the story and maybe I won’t be able to finish.  But I’d love to be done in time to read it at Bubonicon.  My reading slot is 7:15 pm on Friday.  If you’re there and free, come and find out what happened.

I’m also on the opening panel of the con, which is about Favorite Dragons.  I’m going to bring Betwixt and Between, who had a major role in my first published novel, Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls.  He’ll probably talk, but I’m not sure any of us will have Sarah’s ability to hear what he as to say.

My other panels are on Saturday.  We start off talking about things we wished we’d known when we started writing.  The range of ages and professional backgrounds among the panelists is terrific, and, as moderator, I expect to have a wonderful time.  Then, later, I’m taking part in SnackWrites, which has become one of my favorite events.  And, if my arm and energy let me, I’ll be there for the mass signing.

Bubonicon has a terrific line-up this year.  Normally, I’d say more, but I’m going to save my hand and arm for writing, and suggest you look them up on-line.  Hope to see you!

Endurance

Reaching For the Eaves

This week, my PT took a shift that, weirdly enough, reminded me of what it takes to write a novel, as well as what it takes a cardinal climber (the vine in the photo) to reach for the eaves.

When I started PT, the emphasis was on stretches.  Gradually, limited weights were added.  My routine was the same seven days out of seven, with the guideline that while aching was okay, pain was not.  Let me tell you, sometimes the line between the two was pretty thin, but permission to quit before ache became pain has kept me from reinjuring myself.

(For those of you coming in late on this tale, just over four months ago, I had surgery to repair some severe tears to my right rotator cuff.)

Gradually, I’ve worked up to something like twenty-two exercises, which I split between morning and afternoon sessions.  Yeah, it takes a lot of time, and there are days I’ve been sore and beat.

This week’s change is that some of the exercises involving weights have been shifted to every other day.  This is because, even though the weight involved isn’t much by some standards, it’s heavy enough that resting between sessions will do me more good than pushing to lift every day.

The same is true of writing a novel.  Despite the push, push, push philosophy advocated by events like NanoWriMo, in my career as a novelist (my first book came out in 1994), I’ve found the same is true.  I’ve been around long enough to see how many of those who push themselves to exhaustion are no longer writing or are suffering serious health consequences.

Putting down good roots is what makes a plant flourish, too.  The cardinal climber in the photo started from several small seeds that germinated back in May.  They’re just starting to flower, but they’ll keep going through the end of summer.

Sometimes in our go-go-go culture, it’s hard to view pacing oneself as a virtue, but in many things it’s the only way to keep “ache” from becoming pain.  The lesson is all around us, if we only pay attention.

Take care!

Fortuitous Reading Trails

Rainbow With Hint of Double

“Hot with chance that rain will tease you with a drizzle” pretty much describes the weather forecast here in my part of New Mexico over this last week.   There was one shower that was so light we didn’t even bother to go inside.  Instead, we stood outside in the rain, enjoying a magnificent double rainbow.

In the picture above, you might not be able to see the second bow, but you can see where the raindrops hit Jim’s camera lens.

Fortuitous rainbows remind me of how my reading lately has been shaped less by plan than by a sort of fortuitous trail.  Years ago, I bought a book by Con Slobodchifoff titled Chasing Doctor Dolittle. The book examines the question of whether or not animals use language, and includes a discussion of what makes a language.  This turned out to be really fascinating, and led me to read Temple Grandin’s Animals in Translation, which in turn led me to read The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks, which in turn led me to read Temple Grandin’s Thinking in Pictures.  (Note: all of the books in this paragraph are non-fiction.)

Another reading trail started when a friend loaned me a copy of Robert Heinlein’s Grumbles From the Grave, an assortment of Heinlein’s letters on various topics spanning several decades.  This led me to listen to audiobooks of some of Heinlein’s novels.  Orphan of the Stars held up well for me.  I’d never read The Star Beast, but found it okay.  The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress didn’t hold up well for me, but that might have owed more to the audiobook reader’s peculiar choice of accents, especially for the Manny, the story’s narrator.

Other fortuitous reading came from ordering several books from a catalog including The Wisdom of Wolves by Jim and Jaimie Dutcher (of Sawtooth Wolfpack fame) and A Field Gide to Demons, Vampires, Fallen Angels, and other Subversive Spirits by Carol K. Mack and Dinah Mack.  This last, in turn caused me to cross reference to various sources in my extensive collection of folklore and mythology, up to and including reading a large parts of a book about the Talmud.

Just to reassure you, this was my reading over several weeks.  I do hope to return to my Friday Fragments listing of my weekly reading, but right now just one blog a week is about all I can manage between PT sets and routine chores.

Take care.  Stay cool!

Taking Time for Tinkertown

A Gateway into Wonder

A bright spot in a rather tough week was a visit from our friend the Bartels: Julie, Ken, and Nora.  Sunday they picked us up and we drove up into the Sandia Mountains (east of Albuquerque).  On our way up to the Crest, we stopped at an idiosyncratic and wildly imaginative museum.

Tinkertown is sort of like a dollhouse grown large.  Sort of like a craft festival gone mad.  Sort of like, well, nothing else I can think of.  Ross Ward, the creator, believed in upcycling before the word had been coined.  He could paint.  He could carve.  He could do metal work.  His displays often included handwritten notes explaining an element in a diorama or just making silly comments on the scene (like noting the type of tea Mary Poppins drank during her trip to the Western U.S.).  I’ve included a link to the site, in case you want to know more.

The ages of our little group spanned early seventies (Jim) all the way down to not quite sixteen (Nora).  Not a single one of us were bored or restless.  Jim took photos of some of the dioramas, and on Monday he and I spent a quiet half-hour using the zoom feature on his computer to get a closer look at some of the displays.  We’re actually considering going back and taking more pictures, because it’s impossible to absorb everything while walking along.

One of the things I love about the displays is how little ego is involved.  Ross Ward’s dioramas included his own carefully carved figures, but also plastic “junk,” objects from tourist traps, bits of repurposed hardware, and, well…  If you’ve ever read either E. Nesbit’s The Enchanted Castle or Edward Eager’s Knight’s Castle, the displays show the same delight in making a pretend landscape out of whatever seems beautiful and fun at the time.

I’m off to PT in just a bit, so I’ll close here.  Hope you all are well.  May you find beauty and happiness in unusual places.

Coffee For Squash

Dinner! (With Floral Centerpiece)

We’re having the most clement summer we’ve had in quite a while, and our garden is responding.  (I should note that this is “clement” for our climate.  We’ve had a lot of days over a hundred, and until last week were averaging 106 F.)

Featured in the photo are the basic elements of last night’s stir fry: zucchini, eggplant, and two kinds of beans.  We grow “normal” string beans, but since these often stop bearing in high heat, we also grow a type often called yard long beans or asparagus beans or lianas.  This year—as I think you can see— they’re doing really, really well.

Our squash is also doing better than usual.  Whether this is because we’ve had a little more rain and slightly cooler temperatures or because we’re trying a new experiment, I’m not sure.  The experiment is something we overheard when at a local greenhouse.  A fellow said he’d heard that surrounding each plant with coffee grounds would keep the squash bugs away.

Well, we drink a lot of coffee, so we figured we didn’t have anything to lose.  We started saving used coffee grounds so we’d have them when the plants germinated.  After they had and had produced their first “true leaves,” we surrounded the plants with coffee grounds.  We kept doing this as the plants grew, eventually going to a coffee chain to get a bag of coffee grounds since even we couldn’t drink enough coffee to keep up with the demand.

So far, the plants seem to love it.  We’ve seen one squash bug, and one egg mass on one leaf.  Given that we have at least sixteen zucchini plants, this is pretty good.  We’ll see if our good luck holds, but so far—as you can see from the photo—we have been doing very well.

Oh!  I should note that this is far from the first such harvest, just the first I remembered to get a photo of.  Our tomatoes should start ripening soon.  We took a gamble on some Amish paste (an heirloom type).  The plants are doing well, but no fruit has set, probably because of the heat.  However, the punta banda we grew from seed (courtesy of Native Seed Search) have lots of fruit which should be ripening soon.

Otherwise, the main activity around here remains PT as I work on recovering from rotator cuff surgery.  No writing, but I hope that will happen soon.

Be well, take care, and enjoy the summer.

Reaching For the Sky

Sunflower: Yes, It Really Is That Huge

As I was settling in to compose this week’s Wandering, a message popped into my inbox notifying me that from now through August 8, 2024, Trantor Media is offering the audiobook of my novel Library of the Sapphire Wind for a walloping 60% off.  Even better (from my point of view), I’ll be paid my full royalty.  Here’s a link to Trantor’s dedicated page.

This means you can get a fun and exciting book to amuse you while you’re on the road for your summer holiday or, maybe even better, to distract you if you’re not on holiday, but want to feel you are.  Library of the Sapphire Wind is the first book in a series that now stands at three books, and I hope to continue on with.

If you haven’t heard about Library of the Sapphire Wind, it’s a very unusual portal fantasy.  For once magic and adventure in other worlds isn’t reserved for tweenies and teens.  Instead, someone actually has the sense to summon adults to help solve world shattering problems.  You can read more about the novel here here, and read my interview with Elizabeth Ashby, the audiobook’s reader, here.

Otherwise, I’m doing okay as I continue with PT following rotor cuff surgery on my right shoulder.  I’m still not writing much more than little fragments, but rumor has it that Toni will have her edits on Friends Indeed, aka Star Kingdom 5, to me and Weber before too long.

The featured photo is of one of the sunflowers in our garden at its prime.  It seems to have been hit by the increasing heat (we’ve been over 107 since the weekend) and we’ll probably be cutting it down soon, but right now we’re letting the birds enjoy it.

Oh!  And I wanted to thank those of you who stepped in to support DreamForge Magazine, which made it’s Kickstarter bid and is reaching toward stretch goals, even as I type.

Take care.  Stay cool and enjoy the summer.

Stretching Out

Roary Stretches

Before I get to my own personal stretch goals…

DreamForge, a more than magazine near and dear to my heart, is nearing the end of its Kickstarter.  They’re just short of what they need to make their goal, and would love to be able to offer a few stretch goals before the end.

DreamForge is a magazine featuring positive SF and Fantasy stories (and even occasional horror).  “Positive” doesn’t mean stories that are vapid and fluffy.  Positive means that in the end you’re not severed up a cheap shot gut punch, as is common in dystopian fiction.  DreamForge is also fully illustrated, in color, which is an increasing rarity these days.  AND, as part of the Kickstarter, you can select incentives for digital, print, or both formats.  There are some other cool goodies there, as well.

Why do I say DreamForge is more than a magazine?  An outgrowth of DreamForge the magazine is the Dreamcasters on-line group.  Although geared toward those who want to write, Dreamcasters also has appeal for anyone who has ever enjoyed attending panels about creativity at their local con.  It’s an affordable option—and if you sign up via Kickstarter, you get extras.

Finally, I’ll note that in my role as Senior Advisor and Creative Consultant, I hope to make an appearance along with Scot and Jane at their Super Supporter Hangout Kickstarter incentive.  Jim may be with me, and you can get a glimpse of our living room and maybe even one of the cats.

By the way, none of us make any money from DreamForge.  We do it for love of the genre, of writing, and of having a future we can believe in.

So, help us to stay around for another year.

I’ll wrap this up and head off to my own personal stretch goal, which involves weights, resistance bands, and whatever else Armand the Physical Therapist can come up with to help me get full use of my arm and hand back after my rotator cuff surgery.

Next week, I hope to have started writing again, but we shall see…  It’s still something of a struggle to get my thoughts in order when my time is so broken up and I get so very tired.

Take care!

Experiment Apricots!!

Mei-Ling (photo at reader request)

This has been a spectacular year for apricots.  Our friend Michael Wester has several trees, and his usually give fruit.  We try to go over and pick some of his fruit every year, because over on our side of town, late frosts often nip the flowers and so there isn’t much fruit.

We currently don’t have an apricot tree, but our neighbor does and several limbs overhang the fence.  This year Rose’s flowers made it through the frost barrier.  Before we could finish the two gallons or so of fruit we’d gotten from Michael, we had apricots pattering down into our yard.

What to do? Well, in addition to eating a lot,  so far we’ve dried fruit leather, dried apricots, gotten a jar of scraps fermenting into vinegar, put some fruit in the freezer, and now I’m experimenting with cookies.

There was one recipe I loved the look of, but Jim doesn’t like cocoanut, so that was out.  I tried another.  While it came out really well, I want to do another version, cut the sugar back, and ramp up amount of fruit, since the first batch tasty “fruity” but not as “apricoty” as I would have liked.

The vinegar experiment has been fun, but it will be a few weeks before I know how well it works out.  Even if it isn’t the best, it’s been cool to try.  I also read three books on making and using vinegar, which was stimulating in itself.

All of this has been a good distraction from the aches and pains as my PT for my rotator cuff ramps up to new levels.  I also like that my desire to create and innovate is coming back.  My hand dexterity is getting better (I typed this!!), but I’m still a ways from hours on the computer. 

Take care and let me know what summer adventures you’re having!

More Bats!

Fava and Dandy

This week has been bats both in the sense of a bit crazy, as well as in the sense of good fortune.  (Bats are am emblem of good luck in Chinese culture.)

First of all, I’m happy to announce that DreamForge magazine is launching its new year with a very cool Kickstarter.  The Kickstarter not only includes some great deals on print and/or digital subscriptions, but also opportunities to become a part of the DreamCasters on-line writing group, and to bid on a variety of manuscript reviews and other treats for the writer in your life (or even for yourself).

Officially, the magazine’s current name is DreamForge Anvil to reflect that it not only includes great non-dystopian Science Fiction and Fantasy (as well as the occasional zombie tale) but also articles about the craft of writing.  It is fully illustrated, in color, which is an increasing rarity.  If you opt for the print version, you can count on the stories being printed in a readable font.  I highly recommend.

My second bit of crazy good is that today marks twelve weeks since I had surgery to repair my right rotator cuff.  Yesterday, I met with the surgeon and he seems happy with my progress.  He also told me that while the difficulties I have had with my finger dexterity are not common, they are not unknown.  Interestingly, they can occur either when a shoulder has been injured (as with me) or when a hand has been injured, then the shoulder may experience difficulties.  The important thing is whether or not the difficulty improves over time.  Since mine is, I should get my finger dexterity back in time.

So, I’m not “all better,” but there’s hope that if I keep up with my PT and don’t do anything too stupid, I’ll continue to improve.

Finally, several of you asked if there are audiobook pages for the first two of my Over Where novels.  I’m happy to say you can find the page for Library of the Sapphire Wind here, and for Aurora Borealis Bridge here.  The pages not only include audio samples, but other little extras, including easy links to various vendors who carry the audiobooks.

That’s it for this week.  Once again, I handled my own typing, which was a bit of a challenge, but I’m just happy to have been able to do it!  Soon I hope to start doing the Friday Fragments again, but not quite yet.

Take care… 

Trying Typing

Xeric Elegance

I’m over my setback and even trying to do a bit more typing, although I’m pretty fumble fingered, so typing is trying!  But this is the first WW I’ve typed since surgery on my right rotator cuff eleven weeks ago.  That’s why it’s going to be really short.

I do have a bit of news, and since one of the most FAQ is about audiobooks of my works, I thought I’d share it.

Late last week I had an e-mail informing me that a special fan page has been created for the audiobook of my novel House of Rough Diamonds.  You can find it here.  I’m not sure if there are similar pages up for the first two novels in the series, Library of the Sapphire Wind and Aurora Borealis Bridge, but I’ll let you know if I find out.

As of now, there are no plans for audiobooks of the Firekeeper Saga, but I hope that if these books do well, Trantor Media will be interested.  If you’re interested, they’re probably to people to let know.

On that note, I have PT at the clinic today, and I don’t want to overstress my arm, so I’ll sign off.

Take care!