…I’m starting back to work on Bren’s situation (I know: yay!) and will be working on Heavy Time and Rusalka. Our first half month of operation has gone very well, all things considered. We’ve had a couple of glitches where we’ve had to e-mail back and forth to solve a download issue, and I’m going to want to put out some corrected files, but over all, we’re doing pretty well for three novices who half a year ago didn’t know any of this stuff. 😉 We’re happy you’re enjoying what we’re doing, and we have plans for the upcoming year, which we will announce piece by piece, mostly because we want to be able to deliver what we promise.
It’s cold here. We’re not budging. I don’t know what we’re going to have for dinner, but I’m not braving the weekend shoppers…we’ll think of something! There’s actually milk in-house. I might try some mac and cheese. Haven’t done that in 10 years.
Glad to hear you’ll have some more books avaliable on Closed Circle soon. I’ve been following the store’s progress for some time and I hope it’s doing well.
Mac and Cheese is a most excellent meal. I’m not much for cooking, though. So, I wouldn’t take my word for it.
Not even remotely related to mac n cheese, but something I thought I would pass along: homemade pudding is really yummy, and has a different feel to it than packaged. It’s smooth and creamy, instead of being thick and gloppy. Also, if you ever wind up with leftover buttermilk, buttermilk panna cotta is really good too. It’s essentially buttermilk-flavored gelatin with a bit of sugar and vanilla. Tangy, sweet, light and delicate.
🙂 We’re going to be working on CC books in the evening, while doing our regular writing by day…now that we’re up and running. The concentrated push took our full attention for about a month, but now we just settle back and do what we really do—writing books!
The family mac n cheese recipe, if you like.
package macaroni or ziti. Cook. Set aside.
30 minutes before dinner: set oven to 350, line bowl with foil (this is messy and can’t be scrubbed off easily). Add pasta to pan. Cubed cheese, preferably colby, 1 cup. Milk, 1 cup. Salt and pepper. Stir until mixed, place in 350 oven, no lid, bake 30 minutes.
Lunch time recipe for the kids: macaroni cooked. Then the sauce: Whole milk, butter, about a tablespoon of cornstarch, salt, a pinch of mustard powder–stir with a whisk and continue to stir while heating. Cook until starts to thicken up. Pull off heat then add shredded sharp cheddar cheese and fresh ground pepper. The cheese will melt into the sauce making it nice and thick; add the noodles back in and mix. Takes about 20 minutes.
Don’t forget to skate and relax a little! 🙂 😀 😆
Speak for yourself, Cherryh! 😀 I only wish I could be working on new stuff. I’m editing the ring books as fast as I can, then I’m going after the cafe press store, then I’ve got the new books with new covers…AND we’ve got nationals and at least three conventions in the works for the next couple of months. But (she says, getting out the cattle prod) get back to work on that Bren book. I wanna know how it ends!
😆 what ya gotta do, Jane-person, is teach me to run the arcane machinery behind the curtain. Then at least I can troubleshoot glitches. [Right now I have to depend on Jane to do Anything with the CC site, like upload a file, install a new cover pic, etc. This puts one heckuva load on Jane.]
Butter, a very little bit of flour, milk (evap works) shredded or cubed cheese, the sharper the better….stir until thick add a little sage and pour over cooked pasta. It’s just as quick to make this as to open a box of “instant”….I think it’s the first thing I learned to cook
Tastes better than the instant, too.
Love mac & cheese(sharp),it’s also my first cooking triumph. Then I learned that I could get
my husband to eat any veggie as long as it came with a cheese sauce. Southern boys seldom reached
beyond the meat and potatoes.
I’m getting impatient with your publisher,are they
holding the next ‘Bren’ for ransom or something?
I haven’t even gotten the galleys yet. My publisher is still reading it.
I may have to actually download HT/HB…ever since your question on that line in HB, I started rereading my old paperbacks. Wow, that type in the old paperbacks is small!!!
I’ve gotten used to being able to change the font size in the eReaders 🙂
– S
😆 I should have them both up fairly soon. I know what you mean. First my focus-point made me hold books quite far from me; then it exceeded the length of my arm. And now that lengthening focal point means the telly may be in focus, but reading fine print at that remove is just unreasonable. 😉 Calibre’s e-Pub reader scales-up really handily, of the computer-readers, and I know the new dedicated readers do. The next optional download these things need, so help me, is the local phone book.
I still like Mobi way better than epub! Love playing games with the default font, too. 😀
Or the back of the children’s motrin bottle. You know you are really too old to have children when you can’t read the dosage info without reading glasses or bifocals……
Unless you’re nearsighted, when over the hill means you have to take your bifocals off to read the fine print.
My sister used to have me hold the menu across the table when we ate out. In my stocking this year I got really neat little magnifiers with lights to read fine print
Even with glasses phone books are demanding 😉 but with a download the phone co. would probably want cash!! 🙁
Dear CJ,
if you have a couple of minutes free (yeah, right), could you give me some info on what you use for editing your books to push thru into the ebooks? I’m pushing my kids stories (these aren’t commercial – they’re just stories I tell my kids) onto my kindle for two reasons – 1/ they get an absolute kick out of seeing the stories I usually tell them ad-lib appearing on a kindle as a “real story”, and 2/ I’m using it into tricking one of them into reading more (she’s finding it difficult to get the hang of reading, and needs a little more practice; this is a low pressure way to do it). I’m currently just writing text files and converting with calibre, which works fine. BUT, I’d like to have chapters, page breaks etc turning up on the kindle side. So … what do you use for writing/processing pre-calibre? I’m guessing it’s not emacs and latex, but maybe it is!
Warm regards,
pjr.
Sure. We use a combo of Word Perfect and Namo. Start in Word Perfect (Word will work, but it’s messy with the code.) Do your editing in the word processor, then ‘publish’ option, ‘publish to html’, get it into the Namo (html editor), and get the code cleaned up. (Nice thing about Word Perfect, you can SEE the code and clean it up in the comfy word processor.) To do a chapter head, use the heading 1 code, or about 14 point type in the word processor. And to create your ‘book,’ download a shareware called Mobipocket Creator. Prepare an 8×10 cover for your project: have that ready as a file. Have any ‘front matter (title page, etc) as a file. And of course have your story file. Then invoke Creator’s “Blank Document” option, and follow instructions. It will prepare a DRM or non-DRM file for use on your Kindle.
Great & thanks – I’ll give it a try! pjr.
MMMmmmmm, mac & cheese! If I was closer, I’d bring over some homemade oatmeal bread and spinach dip to go with it. Enjoy your holiday! 🙂
Hello Azureblu ,
Not sure if you are wondering about ‘Deceiver’ or ???
Tho , Amazon has preorders of Deceiver
http://www.amazon.com/Deceiver-Foreigner-C-J-Cherryh/dp/0756406013/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261957904&sr=1-2
Which they say will be released …
This title will be released on May 4, 2010.
Hth , JimL
Hello CJ , Would or Are you thinking of doing your own publishing of any newly created series as Ebooks ?
Tia , JimL
Yes, in short. I’m thinking about that.
Ah, mac and cheese. Last time I made it, I was over at a friends, and we used the recipe in Chef Bobo’s Good Food Cook Book. It was very tasty.
(Next best: using mozzarella di bufala on a pizza.)
babydr,
I think that “Deceiver” is the next one,so yes,I
guess that it is the one that Amazon has up for
preorders.
CJ,do you get more from your books at Amazon than
from a bookstore? I’m still amazed that you can’t
make a comfortable living as an author,there’s
something so wrong about that! It really shakes my
fundamental love of books that my treasured writers are not being paid a living(comfortable)
wage!!
No, no more from Amazon. Even on e-books, Amazon takes 55 %, and the publisher takes 35% and the author gets between 8-10% of the cover price. This is how Amazon can do deep discounts. WIth bookstores, most bookstores operate at 40/60, with the larger side going to the publisher, but the author still gets 8-10%.
Since you are busy working on Heavy Time and Hellburner, I think you’ll enjoy this. It’s about gravity wells:
http://xkcd.com/681/
Click on it for a large version.
You’ll see why Shepherds have nightmares about Jupiter’s gravity well.
I went to see Avatar, and the entire movie reminded me of you. The lead fella is actually named Tully…
Scary. One of these days I’ve got to post the original ‘Banichi’ sketch. But the only person besides me who has a copy of that is Michael Whelan, the cover artist, so I’m sure it’s coincidence.
The colors in the tv ads are really lush(Ok,I confess,blue IS my favorite color)! Don’t know the story line. Looks very interesting,is it
based on a book?
Think “Dances with FernGully” and you have the plot. I am meh about the whole thing because my astigmatism means I can’t see 3d which is the entire point. My friends who are genre fans said it was good for the spectacle aspect and not so much the watered down plot (hence the Dances with FernGully). I’ll see Sherlock Holmes a second time instead I think. I fall for bromance every time.
I have admired the cover art done by Michael Whalen for the “Foreigner” books!
It’s a shame that “Avatar” didn’t come thru with a
plot!
I’ve always thought that good Sci-Fi movies are
pretty hard to find,I was hoping that “Avatar” had
something going for it. Oh well,at least we have
some very good books and they have more ‘meat’ to
them than any movie can give.
Avatar is not based on a book. Cameron alleges to have written it some 15 years ago, and had to wait until the technology made the making of the film possible. There is considerable debater on the similarities in this movie to Ferngulley, Delgo, and The Battle for Terra. The presentation of Avatar outdistance those by a couple light years.(IMHO)
The color blue is used on the Na’Vi, probably because it is one of the easiest colors to composite, in CGI.
I too, gave thought to the Atevi, in terms of size.
As far as astigmatism goes, I wore my glasses. The 3D glasses fits easily over those. The 3D is anything but over the top, and the 2D is still an amazing feat of technical prowess.
And… I sure would like to see that Banichi sketch.