Jane and I took a driving trip to Seattle…and we talked through the outline for the next book. Starting on it today.
New book plotted…
by CJ | Jul 20, 2015 | Journal | 25 comments
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Hurrah! Hope you enjoyed the trip, and were productive on the book.
For some reason I hear in my mind’s ear:
Where are you going, my little one, little one?
Where are you going, my baby, my own?
Turn around and you’re two.
Turn around and you’re four.
Turn around and you’re a young bride going out of my door.
Many happy, such book!
I’m personally hoping you are able to do as you have done in previous years and make signed copies of recent books available through CC. I’ve got dibs on a copy of Tracker for a Christmas present.
woohoo! I’m looking forward to it already. 😀
Wow, Tommie, that goes way back… I remember we had a copy of Harry Belafonte singing that song…..slightly different words, but same song….
It must be so satisfying to have a book project planned and more so when it’s completed.
I am so enmeshed in “real-world” junk right now, with a deadline approaching in a little more than a month, and I can’t handle that plus do income-producing work to improve my situation, while trying to meet that deadline. Very deeply frustrating, disspiriting.
But I am longing to read something, and I think when I have another break, I’ll dip into something new. — It’s been so long since I last read in either book I had going (Foreigner 3 and a reread of Chanur’s Venture) that I’ll need to restart rather than pick back up. So instead, I’ll likely start something I have not read before and go with it, for breaks for a while. But I’ve promised myself to structure things so I make time for reading again. I miss it, and my free time has been going to my own projects or to video (TV or movies) lately. Instead, I need some time to read.
I still need to find where I mislaid the book I have on learning German. However, it has to be in my bedroom, so it shouldn’t take too long to find. I don’t think I took it into my office bedroom.
I’m looking forward to the upcoming Visitor and the forthcoming Complete Morgaine.
Troublesome Chanur:
For reasons beyond hani or human ken, DAW/Penguin still do not have Chanur’s Homecoming out in ebook format.
They do have the other four volumes out, including Chanur’s Legacy. In fact, it appears they now have a bundle, “Chanur 4 Book Series,” but have skipped Chanur’s Homecoming.
Odd.
I bought all four volumes in ebook form some time back, and of course, I’ve had all five in paperback for years.
I am very sure readers would love to have Chanur’s Homecoming too. Somehow, someone at the publisher has got mixed up or dropped the ball on this. It would be good for them and you and us (the buying public) to have all five volumes available in ebook format.
Of course, we wouldn’t mind if there were a new book to come along involving the Compact…. 😀
Ahem, know the tarot? Think of the 4 of Cups. 😉
“Please, sir, I want more…” 😀
And yet the young man apparently concentrating on the three cups out of his reach ignores the one being offered to him. 😉
That is, presuming you’re not referring to the new book. 😉
Now I find myself wondering what the 4 of Cups (I don’t know the Tarot) and Goldilocks and the 3 Bears and Oliver and David all would be like together. I have the oddest feeling that would be a Doctor Who episode, too.
But with cups and bowls and porridge and gruel and soup…well, they’d eat. How well they’d eat might be a question.
Goldilocks: What was with that girl, anyway? Breaking and entering or exceedingly free-spirited, goes through all three bears’ stuff, ends up suspiciously in “Baby” Bear’s bed. Which, curiously, Baby Bear seemed not to mind too much…. Besides the whole bit with the porridge. And who goes out on a stroll and leaves their porridge sitting out to cool? It would be a solid, cold mass by the time they got back.
Heheheh, not the first time I’ve spoofed that tale. Hmm, I wonder….
May the new book go well
Plotting another Foreigner book? Oh, Joy! Hope you had a nice drive. Did you wave at my little 1st cousin 2x removed who is now living in Tacoma?
Signal boosting this: Smithsonian Institution is running a kickstarter campaign: “Reboot the Suit” to conserve and 3-D digitize the spacesuit Neil Armstrong wore on the moon with the goal of putting it on display for the 50th anniversary of the moon walk in 2019 (50 years !?!?) Not putting a link but googling “Kickstarter Reboot the Suit” ought to get you there. Definitely a worthy cause. They’ve already raised over $400K of their $500K goal with 26 days still to run on the campaign. I hope they go way over goal.
After a couple of months of detente, something triggered a fight between Junior and Zorro. They woke us up at 5:00 this morning yowling and de-furring each other (cue fight music, ripping shirts, hitting with folding chairs, et. al.) DH is putting down the foot: if they can’t get along, Junior must go. He’s a sweet cat, but obviously old and set in his ways, and probably ought to be a solo act, or at least a situation where he can definitely have seniority. The Feliway only seems to partially work; we don’t have enough doors to put cats behind separately and have them not wake us up at food o’clock.
You folks with multiple cats, do yours ever get a wild hair and start beating on each other? How do you cope?
Three cats, one 14 y.o. female snowshoe (Willow) with a lot of attitude, one 12 y.o. tortie (Amanda) who’s usually mellow and might be rather stupid (or just uber disinterested), one 5 y.o. male Russian blue (Marley) who’s sweet and generally easy-going. Willow is the dominant cat, tends to dislike Marley just because, and hisses/growls/shrieks for no apparent reason. Amanda will occasionally test the dominate position. Often at 2am. I usually holler, will get up to see wth, and have been known to growl/yowl while chasing a cat around. Had a friend years ago who suggested the growling with getting kittens to behave and learn manners –she said you sound like mommy cat telling the kid to knock it off or I’ll rip your lips off. The water bottle or squirtgun works very well. And I do admit tossing one cat years ago in the shower who would not quit climbing the curtains — did after that.
Water pistol.
Sei and Shu occasionally get in a mood, somebody gets clawed or bitten and tempers flare for an hour or so. If all else fails throw a half a cup of water on the catball and expect it to explode in different directions. If not, pursue, continue soaking the combatants.
It might calm things down, if the aggressor figures out he gets soaked every time there’s a cat fight.
Ours are really kissy-kissy buddies, but even so, there are spats. For ours, the water pistol has never been necessary. Voice: “Knock it off!” —is enough. If it weren’t, they’d get soaked.
DH threatened to put them both in the tub and turn on the shower. “Now you can fight all you want.”
Hmmm, do they make the equivalent of chaps for arms? Don’t know as I’d wanna be the one “putting”. 😉
They’re called “welding gloves” 😀
Oh, I once had a very sweet-natured young cat of mine, who objected mightily to a bath. I had on a denim jacket, fortunately. He climbed up me, down my back, and clear up the utility room wall to above my eye level, before regaining the floor in a very drowned-rat-looking pitiful sight of a state, yowling how unfair it was and shivering.
And yes, his claws got me some, even through the denim jacket and jeans. But he didn’t mean to get me, all he wanted was to escape the terrifying bath. He could not understand why I’d gone so calmly berserk and was attempting to bathe him. (Simple: flea shampoo.)
He’d fortunately gotten enough shampoo and enough rinse that I could declare no need for a rematch, and I wouldn’t have had the heart to, except if he’d needed a rinse.
I toweled the little acrobat quite dry and told him it was OK, he was safe, he was a good kitty, it was OK. But he was not overly impressed. He did appreciate getting dried and cared for, though. Some while later, he decided he could forgive me and all was well again.
He was a very good cat, too. Mild-tempered. Just didn’t like baths at all.
—–
My current two have an odd dynamic. Goober is Mr. Non-Assertive. Smokey is Mr. Assertive, even though he’s a few years younger.
They usually get along and they will groom or sleep together at times. They will double-team me to get what they want. They’re allies or buddies most of the time.
At times, they have a spat, and there are things that I know are ongoing between them that they dislike. But even their most serious spats are pretty mild. Smokey is usually the instigator. Goover rarely gets fed up and objects. When he does, he never is convincing enough to get Smokey to stop it for good or win the Alpha spot for himself. Smokey is good-natured enough that even though he wants to show who’s boss periodically, or Goober gets fed up periodically and fusses back, Smokey has never taken it too far. Their spats are generally mild, more commotion than real substance. Occasionally, I object and tell them to stop it, or threaten to move in on them and stop it. But I’d rather let them work it out between themselves, cats for cat ways, humans for human ways.
So they mostly get along and things are not usually bad between them. I’ve learned too (still am learning) what to take seriously and how to respond or not respond, to get them to change their behavior. Sometimes, I get it right, sometimes I don’t. They sometimes work through whatever the issue is so it doesn’t come up again.
This summer has had a new issue where Smokey has tried to push out Goober from the neutral, sacred, shared spot of favor, being on the bed together with me. I objected to this, which added to it, but then convinced Smokey he couldn’t be on the bed either (but still thought he could keep Goober from it). To add to it, it’s hot and I’ve been a restless sleeper.
I am hoping that when it turns cold again, they will declare a truce and settle the issue, so Goober and Smokey can once again share the bed with me. I was (am) very unhappy with Smokey that he’d try to prevent Goober from sharing the bed. To me, this is a major break of the rules. Goober deserves to be on the bed just as much as Smokey. Goober was here for years before Smokey was, and Goober’s older, and he is more gentlemanly about it: He would rather not fight ever, if he could.
I’ve been trying to convice them both that (1) Smokey does not have the right to kick Goober off the bed, and if he misbehaves, he has to get off the bed too; and (2) Goober is welcome on the bed and so is Smokey, as far as I’m concerned. They should have equal rights to the bed and to be with me, and it should be neutral, shared territory, where we can all be together and they can be safe and accepted, and get attention.
I’ve at least convinced Smokey that if Goober can’t be on the bed, then Smokey has to get off too. I have not yet been able to convince or show them that they are both genuinely wanted and welcome on the bed, to share it.
I’m hoing it’ll solve itself this winter, and whatever the underlying issue is with Smokey, he’ll abandon it so they are both welcome again. I keep trying to get the idea across, but my best chance is, they’ll settle whatever the real issue is.
So…cats are cats, they’re weirdly cat-like sometimes, not operating by any human way of being. But being cats, they and we do share a good bit. It’s figuring out how to get across that barrier or interface that’s the tricky part, for them and us. It’s odd when it seems they do better at figuring us out than we do about them.
But both sides seem fascinated by the other, so I suppose it works out, ultimately.
(Smokey is trying to get me to pay attention to him. The little guy is always hungry for attention and food, no matter what else is going on.)
(Goober is generally more content to be with me than to need lots of attention, though he has his moments. Goober is more the cat who walks by himself, and yet he’s companionable too.)
They’re a complex crew, are cats. Always interesting.
Yes, you big ham, I see you, I’ll pay attention to you…. Big ol’ dork. 😀
First I hiss. Next I yowl/growl. Then I get up and loom while cursing in cat. The first usually works, though they walk carefully around one another for a while afterwards. If my psychic interception is correct, they are also asking one another, “Why did you go and provoke the big, mean, ugly she-cat like that?”.
Mental picture of Sei and Shu’s pets walking around with holstered water pistols and bandoliers of water bottles…
CJ, Is the new book going to be called Convergence or is that only a working title?
Convergence. We’ve reached a new phase of the Foreigner story. So I thought a new form of title might be a nice thing. Thought I’d fly the notion past you guys. I don’t want to lose the signal to readers that this is a Foreigner book, but also there’s a limit to how many sensible -er words one can come up with. And this would be the book to make that shift.
When do you anticipate Convergence to be available?