C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 105

Jane is done!

Catch her slideshow.

I spent the morning doing error-catch work on the files: experimentally, the downloads for CC (not CC itself, so don’t worry about your bookmarks) will be coming to you from a different server. There will soon be an e-mail enabling those of you who have downloaded books to get the shiny new covers, and updated text (where we found errors.) We don’t hope to be perfect. We know there are still a few—but we have to measure the effort of recreating 3 files on the server, and of correcting the error in each file, without creating a new error in the download: translated: if it is really, really bad we’ll go after it, but right now it’s a lot like trying to exchange three saucers in a room-wide close display of china without nudging anything else in the attempt. Right now—we are just declaring it done. And you will get that e-mail when we catch our breath. Feel free, however, to report any egregious file misbehavior or, like, the book turning to gibberish on page 240. The effort to edit and move these files has been about equivalent to moving, say, a hardware store 3 blocks down the street to a storefront where there are very different sorts of shelves. It’s the stray packets of washers that drive you crazy. Where does this go? What did it fall out of?

The c/e for Protector is on its way to NYC—again….

We normally cite by page and line number, thus: 2:14. Unfortunately Josh’s ‘Word” and my really bare-bones Word weren’t conceiving a page in the same way. So I had to re-do with snatches of actual text so he can search it.

One over-arching problem: the Chicago Book of Style, may it rot in hell, does not recognize my within-paragraph punctuation of period-space-em-dash ( . —) when a speaker changes addressee to, eg, give an order to a servant in mid conversation. This is admittedly an ‘old’ punctuation form. But do you know why I use it?

“I have no idea,” Bren said as the crashes and thumps went on outside, “what the man intends. —Jago-ji, is there any word from Banichi?”

This replaces: “I have no idea,” Bren said as the crashes and thumps went on outside, “what the man intends.” He looked at Jago. “Jago-ji, is there any word from Banichi?”

And it replaces it right in a sequence where you want the sentence to hitch up its petticoats and run, not schlep along with traffic directions left, right, up, down….if, for instance, he directs himself to Tano, next.

I’ve fought my publishers for that exception to standard for precisely that reason. It’s the difference between first-grade clunky address and (once readers know who is in the room) an address that flows rapidly.

Unfortunately c/e’s with their precious Book of Style can’t grok that, and they then start trying to punctuate what I write according to the Book of Style. Can’t be done. That means they start tinkering with my sentence structure or worse, my paragraphing. This c/e spawned as many as 4 successive paragraphs with only the absence of a terminal quote mark as a clue to what was going on, as she tried to make it follow the ‘rules.’

If she and I can reach an understanding about that one punctuation item, life will be good, because she’s smart and she’s good at tracking for common sense as well as grammar. I hope we can work that out.

A much better day…Jane got with Lynn, who is tracking a problem…

We’re not sure whether it’s a WP problem or our problem, but at very least she (Lynn knows database stuff as well as the site stuff: we can’t even run Excel) is onto something to investigate…and this means the month of work may not be for nothing, after all.

Jane took the morning off to enjoy herself.

I went off to the eye doc and got a clean bill, finally. The iritis is gone and I’ll be able to wear my contacts by about Friday. The sinus situation is ongoing, but is responding to Mucinex and a decongestant. I have also resolved to get a pair of glasses that corrects for distance and one that corrects for reading WITHOUT my contact lenses. I would have been far less miserable these last nearly 2 months if my glasses weren’t add for wear WITH the lenses.

It’s been a hard couple of months…

Ever since I got back from Fencon I’ve come down with a really horrid crud…it started out with respiratory nastiness that hung on and on—this was late September, and I’m still coughing in the tail end of November. Then the eye trouble, first a general infection, which meds from the optometrist helped, then the iritis, which CAN apparently be due to an infection…and which has disrupted my work because I can’t see the screen clearly…

Well, ONE of the causes they give for iritis is infection…and I’m winding down on the last (pricey) med that they’ve given me, and have another appointment Monday…

And I start getting nasty headaches—hard to tell exactly where, but I’m beginning to suspect sinus headaches, which became more likely when you consider I haven’t been able to breathe out of one side of my nose for several weeks, and yesterday, being too sick even to get out of bed, because I was just out of it, well, ugh, got a small discharge that clearly says sinus infection, and maybe impacted sinuses. Oh joy. I’m so thrilled. OTOH, it may be what’s going on with the eye troubles. I’m having another really crappy day when writing is just not happening… Note to self: take the flu shot BEFORE going to fall conventions. I don’t know what I caught, but my smoke allergy, the long drive to and from Texas in the smoke, and then the respiratory crud and now the ongoing sinus issue, are all one neat package, in causality, I think. A combo of decongestant, saline, and Mucinex are giving some relief, but this is just not how I wanted to spend the fall, thank you very kindly.

And Jane, who has spent 4 weeks of constant work, 18 hour days, getting the files ready for a massive redownload, has discovered that even on a new server for these files, the program still won’t work. She is indescribably bummed.

And may I wish us a Happy Thanksgiving, and our extra-US friends a very beautiful fall (or spring) day!

It’s a glorious peach sunset here, one of those sky blue pink affairs, in the aftermath of the latest rain (most of the day,) and they say it’s going to be blue and scattered cloudy tomorrow, before snow sets in for the weekend—and Jane and I are going to take it easy a day: the two figures Jane wants to use in her plan to continue the Gate of Ivrel graphic one day have arrived—she’s virtuously refused to open them until Thanksgiving—and it’s just time to take a day and relax.

We’ll probably be online, on and off, so to speak—and we hope you have as nice a day (and coming weekend) as we intend to! We’ve laid in a supply of cream pie, pumpkin pie, we have ham, we have sweet potatoes and squash, and we are just going to indulge—just for a day or so.

A movie coming that may be worth it…Oz, the Great and Powerful…

Catch some of the trailers. THere’s so much more to Baum’s worlds than has ever made it to the screen, and CGI can do some magic on this one… to be released in March.

Busy day. If you wonder what goes on around here…

Jane’s trying to make the files behave for all the e-books and line us up to try a different and perhaps more stable download source-site. She got to bed at 2, because my signup for the aforesaid site (helping her out, of course) went seriously awry—my fault—and caused a lot of hassle.

I’ve agreed to run the integrity check on all the files she’s producing, all the e-books and stories, in effect. So I need to get onto said site—to which she has to get me access, today—and check them, then redirect Closed Circles pointers to grab those files instead of the ones where they have been.

Waiting for that to land in files, I do some major outlining on the ending for Peacemaker. I get about halfway.

Then Josh sends me the Protector copyedits, and they’re really very good, but—there are some things that need re-correcting, and it means scanning the whole book for problems.

All day on that…I send that off. He’s not in his office. Good thing I saved copies.

well, that took until about 3. I decide to brave the new download situation and find my way into the new storage and check out Heavy Time. We’re pretty good. Some 2-3 problems, but what book hasn’t? I think what I have to do now is write the very simple code to put it instead of the current file on Closed Circle…but I want to ask Jane and she’s been busy.

Meanwhile—her computer closed down, failing to save an hour’s work. [It's not necessarily hardware, except in the sense that book design can push a program hard, and sometimes we overstress the system.] An hour’s work lost. She’s remarkably sane, considering.

I decided not to trouble her with a question. Lunch was simple. I need to fix supper. I’m really braindead, but I have still an evening of code-copying and page-scanning. And I forgot a dose of my eye meds. I’ll need to get that.

The good news is the eyes have stopped being flaming red and the whites are white even after I wake up in the morning. THis is good.

The bad news is I’m really s’posed to be taking it easy, but hey, it’s a day in the life of…the galleys just made eit more complicated than usual…

Still raining on the Dry Side and fish are swimming across roads in Seattle…

…It’s hardly let up raining. We went through a dry spell in August and September, and got some rain in October, but right now we are busily filling those lakes and rivers that provide cheap electricity and we are piling up snow on the mountains that will go on adding to the rivers once spring melt arrives. We’re getting one snow out of this at last report, on Thanksgiving, and then back to rain for the foreseeable future. Animals are pairing up, my friends.

It’ll do this in the northwest. If this were snow, yet, we’d be neck deep, but this is going nicely toward the river, and we’re good. One poor Seattle neighborhood, on the flat, has water up to their car headlights: hope all of you are high and dry. And yes, this is the sort of thing where you see salmon swimming across the roadway…if they were running right now. I’ve seen video of motorists getting out to assist a fat salmon that’s having a little trouble with not quite enough water.

Jane’s still keeping her insane work schedule, but we’re gaining on it. We’re going to try a download site that doesn’t have as many glitches. Same thing as far as what you’ll see, but the machinery should, we hope, have fewer problems referring back to us to fix. And of course—it’s not straightforward, and the system has its own learning curve.

Rain, rain, and rain…with snow on Thanksgiving followed by rain…

We’re snug, don’t have to venture out except on good days, have plenty to eat, the fireplace is operating (we have an electric fire with a little hidden heater) and we’ve brought up the portable radiator for the bathroom (one place in the house you want it warm! ) and over all, we’re comfy. The eyes are improving, the work is progressing, the leaves got wet and are NOT blowing into the pond, and all’s well with the world.

Officially starting that section of the current novel that winds up being the end bit…

It’s going to be a little shorter book than usual, because the story just works that way; but this is how it needs to be without starting up bits I can’t finish within the rhythms of this book. You can have outlines all you like, but you just have to make it have an internal rhythm that works. And this novel has some important business. But I can’t say. My lips are sealed.