Marcella Burnard

Snow Day

2012-01-18T14:57:00.000-08:00

We've had several questions about what it's like to be aboard the boat in the snowy, blowy weather currently hitting the pacific northwest. In general, the answer is - not a whole lot different from being in a house - except that when the wind blows, our house bobs around on the water. We have heat. So we're warm and cozy inside. Outside, not so much. The wind has risen to 20-25mph. Snow is still slanting in, hissing over the fiberglass. It sounds ominous. We take the hint and venture outdoors as little as possible. The nice thing about Seattle is that we aren't particularly good with snow because we don't have to be. We can hunker down for a day and wait for it to go away. That's the forecast. 40 degrees and raining by Friday. Yay. Seattle isn't built for this nonsense. Now. On to the photos:

This is the view out the starboard side window. You can see the snow is melting off the boats - all of the boats have some heat inside and little insulation. So our heaters end up melting the snow. We went from solid white windshields this morning to rivulets of snow melt this afternoon.

This is out our door. You're looking at my neighbor's dock box and dinghy. Yes. The sky really is that color and it's a solid, unbroken mass of that color with small, stinging pellets of snow driven on the wind. Not much accummulation, really, but it is more than it looks like in this photo.

Same shot, wider angle. This photo is crooked because I'm standing on the boat and the wind is bobbing us around on the water. Yeah. The water is indeed the same color as the steel pole in the foreground.

This is our dinghy. Resolution isn't what I'd like, but really. That's 3+" of snow on the seat...at 1' above sea level. I can't say this storm is a nonevent - because there will inevitably be a series of hilarious and painful Youtube videos about people who attempted to drive in this stuff. Hilly terrain and wet, heavy snow = auto insurance nightmare. But really, about the only thing we'll get out of this is a really spectacular flood on Friday, Saturday and Sunday when the rain comes back in to wash it all away. A bunch of the farmers in the flood plains are already bracing.

For us, though, it's a lazy day of tea and comparing notes with the family to see who still has power. By Friday, this will all be a memory. Which is good. I need to go to the grocery store.

The Baker's Dozen. Bonus Nerd Holiday Goodness

2012-01-12T13:40:00.000-08:00

If you didn't see the 12 Days of Nerd Christmas, hie thee to author Laura Bickle's blog. You can scroll through the days. Each offering is geekier than the last. Notice anything missing? I mean, there's kryptonite. And a Zombie Apocalypse ready Barbie. But where are the zombies??

Don't you worry, cookie. I got your zombies. Right here. Behold.

These horrifying menaces came to me courtesy of Jen Barrick. I plagued Jen for an online source for her cookie cutters, but alas. That has proven elusive. She found the zombie gingerbread cutters at a local grocery store, then provided proof of life after death with the telling blood red gel icing. Sheeyeah. Icing. Suuuure it is.

As to the rumors circulating that I have since been infected with the zombie plague? All I can say is these little guys sure were tasty.

Newest Adventure

2011-12-09T11:14:00.000-08:00

This week brought a bit of good news for those of you waiting for the third book in the Enemy series (the follow up to Enemy Within and Enemy Games - tentative title: Enemy Storm). While that book is in the works and has no release date as of yet, I may have a brief diversion to offer: an erotic novella set in the Enemy universe. If you read Enemy Within, you may recognize the hero of this novella, called Enemy Mine. (Yes, I know about the 1985 movie - I'm bummed I don't get to cast young Dennis Quaid in my novella - but he's all wrong for the role. Sigh.)

Berkley will be publishing Enemy Mine in April of 2012 as an e-book only. This week, my editor emailed to say she had no revisions and the story was headed straight to copy editing. Yay! That no revisions thing is a great tribute to my very thorough critique partners. Thank you, guys!

I don't have a cover yet, but the moment I do, I'll post that.

What possessed me to write a short erotica? I wanted to see whether I could. When I started the story, I doubted that I could write erotica. One of my good friends, Jeffe Kennedy, writes BDSM erotica, as well as contemporary fantasy. She acted as my writing mentor, pointing out where I'd gone astray with the romance or the emotional content. Between her explaining certain psychological aspects of erotica content and author Laura Bickel's excellent editing advice, the story went together relatively easily. I even flattered myself that it wasn't terrible. My local critique group, comprised of Darcy Carson, Lisa Wanttaja, Melinda Rucker-Haynes, DeeAnna Galbraith and Tina Larson helped iron out the rough bits.

Now. The story. Here's the back cover copy:

"It was a priority-two alert for beautiful Commander Cashel Khaleize: a contract put out on the life of Xiao Zhong. Professionally, Xiao was the Captain she reported to. Personally, he was man she desired. But as female Guild Assassin Mekise Tollenga closes in, Xiao wonders if even Cashel can be trusted with his safety. And with a tenuous bond between them, Cashel wonders how far she’s willing to go to earn that trust."

Lessons in Life, Death and WordCount

2011-11-28T18:13:00.000-08:00

I learned some important things today.

If the cat is desperate to get out of the boat and onto the dock, there's a good chance there's a dead critter somewhere on said dock that he wants to get in his jaws. :P
I am capable of writing more than ten pages of fiction in one day.

No. These things aren't really related, but fortunately for me, life is slow enough right now, that these were the day's stand out issues.

That I can write lots of words per day really shouldn't come as a surprise. I've done it before. On rare occassion. And I didn't know why or how I'd managed to pour on the wordcount. Add into it that this has been a truly lackluster NaNoWriMo for me and you may begin to see why I'm suprised by 13 pages of new content in one afternoon. Is it any good? Oh, heck no. It's pure brain dump. Rough draft in its roughest form. But I can fix that.

I'd gotten up this morning with the determination that I was going to write and I was going to do my darnedest to write fast. There was a scene knocking around inside my head. Good. I at least had some notion of what I intended to get on virtual paper. But it didn't click for me until a fellow chapter member posted a link to a blog written by Rachel Aaron about how she'd significantly increased her productivity. It's a great post that does a terrific job of identifying and quantifying what made my rare high word count days work. As soon as I read the breakdown, the 'of course' bell went off in my head.

Now, I know what I need to make each day a high word count day. Time, a rough story map, and investment in a scene. Read Ms. Aaron's breakdown in the link above. It's detailed and well presented.

It is a bit more involved than keeping the cat away from the poor disemboweled duck we found on the dock this morning (otters? an eagle? messy and sad.) The cat glared at me in horrified astonishment when I muttered a brief blessing over the duck and nudged its corpse into the water.

I think I'd rather keep trying to increase my word counts than have to prevent the cat from dragging dead things back home.

The Wrong Aliens

2011-11-17T17:00:00.000-08:00

NOTE: Reposted because I had to edit the post just to prove I knew the difference between its and it's.

This is a good news/bad news post. The good news: the 'habitable zone' - the distance from a star in which life could conceivably survive is growing. Space Daily reports that models suggest Pluto may have a liquid ocean under its ice cover. New Horizons is going to check that out. Since water seems the most likely place for us to find extra terrestrial life (as we know life, at any rate), the habitable zone suddenly extends much, much farther from the sun than most of us ever imagined. A book written by a pair of scientists in the late 90s called Rare Earth, does a great job of laying out the case for complex life (animals, plants, etc) being exceedingly rare.

If New Horizons finds an ocean on Pluto, none of that case changes. We aren't likely to find a society of merfolk swimming the dark ocean of our erstwhile ninth planet (now, officially a 'planetoid' - it's been pretending all this time. Who knew?) We *might* find single celled organisms. If Pluto were to offer up a jackpot of submarine life, we'd find a couple of multi-celled critters. Honestly? Assuming a probe were ever to actually make Pluto, land, bore through the ice and end up in the ocean with all sensors still intact, we'll be lucky to find some kind of primordial goo.

Remember. This is the good news.

The bad news: If the insulation of liquid water expands the habitable zone so dramatically, are science fiction romance authors pairing their heroes and heroines up with the wrong kinds of aliens? Maybe we should be coming up with unlikely love stories between an air breather and one of those Plutonian merfolks I mentioned probably didn't exist...

Granted, we're assuming that Earth isn't the only planet in the universe positioned in such a way as to support complex, humanoid life. It's probably also worth assuming that *our* form of complex life might not be the only form of complex life in the universe. But isn't it interesting to contemplate how a species that evolved in a dark, cold ocean would go into space? Why would they? And what would their senses be like? Vision wouldn't work. Not in the dark. Unless it's thermal.

Okay. Now this is getting interesting.

Image Source: http://www.creativecrash.com/marketplace/3d-models/space/planet/c/pluto

Time to Prune

2011-11-10T18:47:00.000-08:00

It's the dark time, despite today's sunset (which happened around 4:30pm). Our unseasonably fabulous weather comes to an end, the weather service tells us, around midnight tonight when a storm is supposed to blast in and leave us all shivering. Tis the season, I guess. But it's also, to quote Richard the III in a really terrible way "... the winter of our discontent..." Winter? Not yet. But for me, November really is my season of discontent. It's the full first month of dark - by which I mean the time between Halloween and Yule. In the northern hemisphere, the plants are dying back - all of the exuberent summer growth and expansiveness - shrivelling.

I feel a little like a part of me wants and needs to do the same - as if I could prune back aspects of my life in order to conserve resources and thereby ensure I survive the winter. Yeah, yeah, I know. Unless the zombie apocalypse hits between now and March 21st, 2012 my survival isn't really in question, but work with me. We're surrounded by animals going into hibernation, vegetation pulling resources and energy back into the vital core. It's only natural that we respond to those same rhythms.

I've noticed a pattern. I get really, really down in November. I'm angry, anxious. I feel like I might be going right off my rocker in a subtle, but terrible way. That's when I start cutting. I begin examining my life and pruning away the bits that aren't serving me or that are actively dragging me down. Time and again, I'm stunned and dismayed by how much of my time and energy has gotten syphoned away. I saw that as if I weren't complicit. Clearly, I let my time and energy get scattered. Randomized is how we described it at work. That's how I feel until I start chopping back all of the useless energy and time sucks. Some of that is hard because it's family I have to say 'no' to. Some of that family understands. Some of them do not.

It won't matter. When you feel like you're living your life for everyone but you, when the things you hold most dear are shoved into the background - it's time for a bit of compassionate pruning. No need to be mean when saying 'no' to someone. Recognize that helping others is only helping when there's an exchange of some kind. When there isn't, you aren't helping. You're enabling. And that's not healthy for anyone.

All Hallows

2011-10-27T09:15:00.000-07:00

Find me at the Darker Temptations blog today, talking about the Witches' Holiday.

Interview and Book Giveaway

2011-10-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

I am being interviewed today on My Bookish Ways. Have a look, say hello, maybe win a signed book.

Steamcon Recap

2011-10-17T20:51:00.000-07:00

Steamcon III is over and done. Much fun was had. Too much money was spent. And every single photo I took on my husband's little point and shoot is orange. All of 'em. I want my camera back. I swear to you, just in time for Halloween, his camera is possessed.

Workshops: I stuck to the science themed workshops - one on the physics of aether as espoused by Victorian science was really fascinating. I'd had no idea that the idea of aether was as difficult to kill as it turns out it was. Apparently, it held on until the 1920s. There was even some speculation that Dark Matter is modern physic's aether. Very fun stuff. The other workshop was on the physics of the ocean - submarines, living, working, and functioning at depth, what the life forms look like at various depths and pressures. Also a good time. Naturally, we talked about the challenges of reaching the bottom of the Mariana Trench - something that has been done only three times and only one of those with a manned craft. That was in 1960 with The Swiss-designed, Italian-built, United States Navy bathyscaphe Trieste. Evidently, it's easier to get people to the moon and back than down to the bottom of the ocean and back.

Let's see. Games, music, afternoon tea, costumes...the DH went to workshops on making props and on modifying found objects, since crafting is one of his interests. We did discover the hard way that his glass flask with the cork stopper leaked. I was okay with that. Diet Mountain Dew carried in a clear glass bottle slung from a belt? It just looked wrong.

We had a great time, but, boy. I'm exhausted. So now I'm sitting here with a purring cat, a cup of tea, and a box of pumpkin spice cookies from the grocery story. I can recommend everything but the cookies. All spice, no pumpkin. Overpowering spice. Too bad. I guess I have to make that maple pumpkin pie afterall.

Where to Find Me

2011-10-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

I'm over at the Word Whores (It's not bad, I promise! We just sound naughty.) talking about why I think there's no such thing as a sidekick.

Ode to a Dead Camera

2011-10-13T12:28:00.000-07:00

It's a fabulous, sunny (if chilly) day in Seattle, one of those rare mid-October sunshine breaks that lights this area with gold. Yes, okay, it is a bit of poetic licence maybe, but really, from a physics standpoint, at this latitude, it works. Height of sun in the sky - or lack thereof - plus angle of light passing through atmosphere leads to the yellow, orange and red wavelengths getting through and altering the color of the sunshine. The sky turns an amazing, deep blue. But the only way you're going to get warm in this sunshine is if you're in an enclosed greenhouse. Most of the heat gets shunted away with the shorter light wavelengths.

Trees are changing color. Liveaboards at the marina are putting up Halloween decorations. It's all festive and lovely and I can't take a photo. My digital SLR was a casualty of our cruise. It was sitting on the table when we hit some truly crappy sea conditions. We were so busy managing the boat, I didn't have a chance to get that camera tucked away. We hit a wave sequence and wham. The camera bounced from the table to the floor. It won't take pictures at all now. Autofocus *tries* but the lens won't move. Off to find a repair shop. Hoping the camera can be fixed and that it won't cost me more to fix it than it would to replace it. Turns out that after living without it for a little while, I really miss it.

Where the Geeks Are

2011-10-12T09:49:00.000-07:00

It's Geek Out weekend for me. I'll be at Steamcon III, the Seattle area steam punk gathering, and while I'm not appearing in any official capacity, I will have copies of books with me if you'd like to say hi. I'll be the one in all black...mm...doesn't narrow it down much. Okay. The best I can do is my name badge. It really does say Marcella. And there can't be *too* many of those wandering around. It's a nautical theme for Steamcon this year and my costume -- is lame. Does the fact that I actually *was* out at sea for five months by me any costume sympathy?

Regardless, if you're at the con, stop me. Say hello. Mock my costume. It's all good. Give me your take on the best panels of the con.

At the end of the month, I'll be presenting a workshop at the Emerald City Writers Conference, called Acting on the Words. It's an hour long class focused on meshing action and dialog with high emotion. While the workshops are free to Conference attendees, they are limited only to those people who have a paid Conference ticket. The Bookfair, however, is open to everyone. It will be held Saturday, October 29 from 4:30 until 6. Have a look at the list of authors. It's huge. I'll be holding down a portion of a table, too. I will have candy. Stop by. I'd love to see you.

You Know Your Cat Is Trying to Kill You When

2011-10-11T18:41:00.000-07:00

I post this not as a whine - mostly - but as a public service to all you writers working on fight scenes. You see, my cat tried to kill me this morning. There I was sound asleep. The 13lb girl you see at left here, jumped a very long way, and landed, all four feet in one spot, on my lower belly. I was awake. That everyone else on board wasn't, given my shriek of dismay, surprised me.

Once the initial shock of the punch to my lower gut wore off, I subsided into bed with only a grumble or two. The force vectors behind those paws didn't bear thinking about. It's not too bad, I thought. Doesn't really hurt. Good.

Oh, but then.

Have you ever seen one of those time lapse films of a flower blooming? That's what happened with the discomfort level. Over the next ten minutes, sharp, cutting pain uncurled a tendril here, then unfurled another over there. Nausea rolled through, subsided, then rolled through again. The hurt finally settled into a crampy, dull ache with only the occassional stab to remind me that my cat had tried to disembowel me and had been foiled by the bed clothes. Twelve hours later, I'm still tender and sore, walking slowly, and breathing through the occassional bout of nausea. I leaned up against the counter to wash dishes a few minutes ago - that was a mistake. Ow.

So the point is this: If you're writing a fight seen and one of your characters takes a gut punch, you now have one person's description of what that feels like. I don't recommend any further research.

A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

2011-10-10T16:25:00.000-07:00

This is Karin (say CAR - in) rocking the book tee from Enemy Within and mimicking the front cover pose. If a picture is worth a thousand words, Karin completely makes my word count quota for the day.

The "You Can't Be Serious" Rant

2011-10-09T09:01:00.000-07:00

If you're a migraine sufferer, you know that migraines aren't just headaches. They're neurological events with symptoms that can arise 24 or more hours before the pain hits. Depending on how your symptoms manifest, you may spend a day being unusually clumsy - walking into doorframes, dropping things more than usual, misjudging distances - or as symptoms begin, you may hear ringing in your ears. You may experience visual aura (which is the medical way to say 'can't see') as the blood vessels in your eyes spasm.

The really scary migraines mimic stroke. You can't think of words, or you speak to say 'going to take a bath' and it comes out gibberish. You can *hear* it came out wrong, but no matter how you try, you can't get the correct words out of your mouth.

Have I established a picture for you? Migraine = bad. A person suffering a migraine is neurologically impaired over and above the pain and nausea associated with the killer headache.

Modern medical technology created drugs to stop migraines cold. For those of us who are very, very lucky, those drugs work miracles. Take a pill and within 20 minutes to an hour, the pain and nausea are gone. So, too, are most of the neurological symptoms.

Here's the rant. Miracle drugs for migraine sufferers - life is good, right? Except, how do the geniuses at the drug companies choose to package their medications for people who are in the midst of suffering a *neurological event that may leave them blind and shaking from the pain*? Sealed in itty bitty blister packs. You have to peel backing from the pack in order to punch the pill out. This entails getting a fingernail beneath a tiny sliver of plastic coated aluminum. And you're supposed to do this while you can't see. While you're so sick you wish you could die. While the signal processing between your brain and the rest of your body is returning a 'all circuits are busy, please try your call again later' message.

It's as if the drug companies got together over beers and someone said, "Hey! You know what would be really funny? Put these great migraine meds in packs that no one actually suffering a migraine could possibly get into! Ha ha! Isn't that a riot?" And they were all drunk enough to agree.

I'm lucky. I live with someone who doesn't suffer migraines and who is more than willing to peel blister packs for me. But let me tell you. When he's not home and a headache hits? Yeah, drug companies. Are your collective ears burning? That's this migraine sufferer. Cursing you.

Image Source: http://queasy.deviantart.com/art/pollution-migraine-107250067

The Great Otter Attack

2011-08-17T15:10:00.000-07:00

This little guy and his mum are river otters we spotted playing in a dinghy in Snug Cove. They aren't the otters in the tale I'm about to tell, but they were characters in their own right. They didn't give a hoot that I was standing two feet away clicking photos as fast as the camera would take them. They were engaged in their own business and I didn't figure in to their antics. Except as a focus for the little one's hamming for the camera.

The Great Otter Attack, however, occurred in the Gulf Islands. Degnen Bay. It began with petroglyphs. We'd read in a guide book that the approach to Degnen Bay had a spectacular, if hard to find, petroglyph marking the entrance to the bay. The island itself had several stellar examples of ancient petroglyphs. We thought that sounded pretty cool, so off we went to anchor in the little bay. The spot is popular with people who live on the island, so the bay is full of boats on mooring buoys. We found a spot in shallow water where we could safely put down an anchor and pull up our dagger boards. After a pleasant evening and a try out of the new barbeque, we closed up the boat and headed to bed.

Fast forward to o'dark sometime of the night. DH and I are sound asleep, when suddenly, three hearing cats (the fourth is stone deaf - she misses alot) materialized in the master cabin, jumping up and down on me in a panic. I awoke. The boat was rocking back and forth as if a power boat had come through at speed. Except I didn't hear a boat. THUMP. Something hit the hull and the rocking intensified. My heart answered that thump by knocking against my ribs. I figured the tide had gone out farther than we'd thought it would and we were banging against rocks. I spill out of bed and peer out the windows.

Plenty of water all around us. No more noises. No hitting anything, but we're still rocking. Frowning, I climb the steps up to the door and look out the back.

Something walks across the transom.

Every last bit of air gets sucked out of my chest. OMG. One of the cats got out and is locked outside! I glance over my shoulder. Three cats on the table watching me with huge, we're-freaked-out eyes. Erie's asleep in her basket in the aft cabin. Okay. Not one of MY cats...I glanced back out.

Something ELSE walked across the transom.

"There's something on the boat!" I hollared.

The DH pokes his head up to look at me.

SPLASH

That's when it hit me. Otters. The stupid otters were chasing one another between the hulls of the boat, bouncing from one hull to the next - which made us rock, then they'd shoot out the back, up the swim step across the transom and back into the water.

Apparently, the sight of me in my jammies was enough to convince them that playtime was over. They took off and didn't return. Once the initial burst of terror receded, the whole experience was pretty cool and we regretted not getting to watch them playing chase across our boat. On the other hand, we didn't particularly want otters on board - especially since we sleep with the forward hatch open and we could envision an otter falling through - into the boat. No way that would have ended well...No matter how cute the little buggers are, they're only cute from a distance. Really.

Petroglyphs? Never saw 'em. Walked all over that island it felt like. Never found the petroglyphs. Let this be a lesson: Don't leave the directions aboard the boat when you row ashore.

How to Up Your Contest Scores in Three (not so) Easy Steps

2011-08-06T18:18:00.000-07:00

This blog post is the result of a conversation Jeffe Kennedy and I had while she was in the midst of contest judging. As we compared notes, we realized we were seeing the same issues time and time again. So here's *my* version of How to Up Your Contest Scores in Three (not so) Easy Steps!

1. Cut to the chase - All of that lovely set up you've done showing us how your heroine's life sucks, yet what a wonderful gal she is? Yeah. Cut it. All of it. Drop us directly into the moment of crisis - the moment when everything goes to hell in a handbasket. Here's where my advice will differ from Jeffe's because I'm very much into the whole action/adventure thing. Your opening line should be the moment that your character's life is changed forever - he or she doesn't have to realize that's what's happening - but your reader should. Line one of my first book, Enemy Within: "Sun glinting off the barrel of a gun stopped Captain Ari Idylle dead in her tracks."

The first line from Jeffe's novella, Feeding the Vampire: "“I’ll do it,” I said."

Neither of those openings gives you a whole bunch of information, but both openings tell you that each heroine is about to have a day unlike any that's come before - even if neither of us tell you a single thing about the days that came before. Some of our other works give you a sentence or two of normal life before everything comes crashing down, but if you hear yourself saying "But you need to know this in order to understand..." No. Really. We don't. You need to know that in order to motivate your characters so they can stay true to themselves even while circumstances force them to change. Your readers only need tidbits of backstory sprinkled into the text AFTER the inciting incident (the alien abduction, the zombie attact, the hot guy in the beat up car dented her new BMW, whatever).

If you're receiving feedback like: Backstory dump, or Story starts in wrong place - this is where you want to start. Dump us straight into the action of your story along with your character and we won't be able to help but get yanked in along with him or her.

2. Internal conflict, external conflict. Know the difference and understand that romance requires only internal conflict. External conflict is icing. If you are writing a romance novel, your characters must be a danger to one another on an emotional level - this is internal conflict. It can be as simple as he's a cop and she saw the hell her mother went through every day because she loved a man whose work put him in the line of fire - then he died in the line of duty and the heroine swore she'd never do that to herself. In order for that romance to work, he has to convince her to accept risk and love and potential loss as a part of life. That's internal conflict. The drug war involving local street gangs is external conflict. In a romance novel, external conflict should, ideally, heighten the internal conflict in some way (either forces the hero or heroine to accept the need to change, shows up the vast differences in belief structures, etc) I like knowing why my hero and heroine are a danger to one another. So I ask that specifically when I'm first planning out a story. How is this guy a risk to her? How is she a risk to him? In one of my stories that's still in the planning stages, the hero has to drain the heroine's lifeforce in order to gain his freedom. He's a risk to her not just because he has to kill her, but because he has access to her every memory and there are some memories she's not willing to live with. She's a risk to him because she has the skill and knowledge to destroy him. They each have the other's lives in their hands. Did I mention they're sharing a body? Yes. This *is* intended to be a romance. So how are they going to work all of that out? There. You now understand internal conflict. So many obstacles, yet somehow, these two have to unbend enough to work together and maybe even fall in love. The external conflict - a bad guy kidnapping and hurting kids - works to force these two characters to face their fears, resentments, and prejudices. It is the external conflict that, finally, forces them to either break down the walls between them or they both die.

So. To be clear. Romance requires ONLY internal conflict. Without internal conflict, you don't actually have a romance story. This is fine, if you aren't writing romance. But if you want to sell a story as a romance, you can't pretend a few sex scenes between waves of rabid zombies attacking equals a romance. It doesn't. Your hero and heroine have to have a reason they cannot possibly love one another. Then they have to proceed to get past that (or not - if you like tragedies). Use your external conflict to force them to get past their 'you are the last person on earth' protests.

As a note: I'd once been told that in a romance, you should resolve your external conflict (kill the bad guy) first, and resolve the romantic conflict last. I've since seen some authors changing that up a bit. So take that bit of advice with a block of salt. If you're seeing feedback about 'where's the romance' or 'all external, no internal conflict', start here.

3. Put it in dialog. As much as possible, get out of a character's head and get him or her talking. If they think it, why can't they say it? If a hero says what he's thinking about heroine, you give your heroine a chance to respond verbally. That interchange will tell your readers far more about those two people than entire paragraphs of what they're thinking. Instead of Sam looking at Rene and thinking, "Whoa, she's cute!" Let him eye her, sidle up next to her, wondering what it was she was carrying over her shoulder and say, "What's a gorgeous gal like you doing in a post-apocalyptic dump like this?" Rene awards Sam a hard stare and drops the limp body of a dead man at his feet. Sam blinks down at the dead guy's wide open eyes. "Ditching the body of the last smart ass who tried to sweet talk me," Rene retorted.

Because humans are social animals, we're infinitely more fascinated by two people talking than we are by anyone thinking. Get the thoughts into dialog *especially* if they're remotely embarrassing or compromising! That's where the fun is. Let your characters out to play. You can always pull them back later.

If you're seeing feedback about 'too much exposition' or 'why are they thinking all this' start here.

Not Winning a RITA

2011-07-10T18:57:00.000-07:00

So for those of you who missed the main event, my first book, Enemy Within was a finalist in the Romance Writers of America RITA contest. This contest is billed as the Oscars of the romance industry. It was a huge deal (to me) to final in two different categories: Best First Book and Paranormal. I'll say right away the book didn't win in either category.

And that was surprisingly okay with me. I think my friends and family were more disappointed than I was. My friend and RWA11 roommate Jeffe Kennedy had taken on the task of texting my husband the play by play. After the fact, she showed me the profanity (on his part) laced reactions. My biggest regret of the evening was that I had a huge, long list of people to thank. I only regretted not getting to say thank you in that public venue.

I'd been strangely ambivalent about the possibility of winning a RITA in the first place. Isn't that odd? When my agent, Emmanuelle Morgen, asked why, I'd said something about there being no where else to go. She assured me there were all sorts of pinnacles to strive for after a RITA - the NYT list, foreign rights, movie deals, hard back...I think I may have asked whether winning a RITA would ensure another book contract. We won't go into the response on that one. I may have acquired a new bruise.

Kidding. I guess my trepidation about possibly winning a RITA with a first book stemmed from the fact that I feel like I'm still learning about writing. I haven't mastered it in any way, shape, or form. (Some days, the whole writing thing stomps all over me - so there's a ways to go for mastery.) Is it stupid to say that while Enemy Within is a romance novel, the romance wasn't really the point of the story? And the RITAs really are about the best romance has to offer. So, no. I wasn't disappointed.

But I also won't stop entering the contest.

Meanwhile...

2011-06-25T16:24:00.000-07:00

You've noticed we're behind in posting. We really aren't still in the San Juan Islands. No, we cleared into Canada some time ago and have been cruising, taking photos and problem solving since. We're at a pause for the next week while I go to New York to attend the RWA National Conference. Keith and the cats are in Victoria, BC docked right in front of the Empress Hotel. They'll hold there until I get back.

The problem solving involved felines. Hatshepsut came down with a urinary tract infection. We found a fabulous vet clinic in Nanaimo - the Clinic for Cats - a short cab ride from the marina. They diagnosed her and gave us Clavamox pills. Woo hoo, done deal right? We sail away from Nanaimo, anchor at a marine park. Hatshepsut promptly has a reaction to her meds. She was miserable and we were in the middle of no where. We pulled up anchor and hurried into port. We were too far south at this point to return to Nanaimo. We called the Clinic for Cats, explained what was happening and told them where we were (Sydney, BC). They said, "Give us five minutes, we'll call you right back." They did. They'd found a hospital near us, sent all the records, told them to expect us, called us back and told us the hospital was waiting for us - they'd give Hatshepsut a shot and all would be well. Sure enough. The Sydney Animal Hospital gave Hatshepsut a long acting antibiotic shot called Convenia. No more need for the Clavamox that had been making her feel so horrible.

Okay. Everything's fine, now, right? We haul the girl back to the boat, sit down, and notice that Cuillean isn't acting right. Uh oh. From watching her, I figured she had an impacted anal gland. This means another vet visit. Those things will rupture and you don't want that. Except that it wasn't. I'd gotten it wrong. I knew this when I saw the blood on my cat. She had an abscess and had pulled the scab off. She was bleeding. All over the boat. It wasn't dangerous, and once she'd opened the abscess, she felt much better, but it still required a trip to the clinic. So first thing Saturday morning, we were back in a cab headed to the Sydney Animal Hospital with another cat. Cuillean was dehydrated, needed a bit of minor surgery to finish draining the wound, and she needed antibiotics. They took very good care of her and we had her back aboard that afternoon. She's healing well, now, and we're hoping that's the end of the feline veterinary adventures.

We do have more photos to post and stories to tell about river otters using the boat as a jungle gym in the middle of the night. We'll get those posted. Eventually. I swear.

Roche Harbor, San Juan Island

2011-06-06T22:25:00.000-07:00

The resort of Roche Harbor. This is the family home and remaining company town from the largest limestone quarry west of the Mississippi. The hotel was built by John McMillan, the quarry owner. It housed customers and other guests (including presidents and actors). The main pier is from the original quarry structure.

The new docks. The service at Roche Harbor is the greatest. We called for a slip assignment and staff met us at the dock to help catch a line, give us directions to everything and to offer to send over the pumpout boat.

Looking to shore, the little houses in the back are what remain of the company houses built for families (they're now restored accommodations for the resort) - the single men lived in barracks.

This was originally McMillan's residence. It's now a restaurant where the food and drinks were really super. Crab bisque. Mmmmmm.

McMillian had a church built. It was bought and converted into a Catholic chapel some years ago. It is still privately owned.

One of the remaining lime kilns. The resort has done a great job of preserving the remains of the quarry and of putting up signs explaining the history and the process behind the limestone business.

This is the McMillan family mausoleum. In the center is a huge stone table with stone chairs all around it, one for each family member. Their names and dates are etched into the backs of the chairs and their ashes are interred in the seats. This was a great stop full of lovely hikes and full of all kinds of history. On the way to this site, you pass by a sculpture park. It's a huge field with sculptures scattered around the landscape for you to discover and to stumble upon. It was the best art museum I've ever been to and was the icing on the historical cake made up of Roche Harbor.

Reid Harbor, Stuart Island

2011-06-06T22:04:00.000-07:00

Reid Harbor from shore, looking out of the harbor. That's the park pumpout dock there in the foreground.

The dinghy dock from shore. This shoreline is steep, very much like the shore you see on the opposite side. It was quite a hike getting to the county road that would take us out to the lighthouse.

Look at the color of that water. It was gorgeous.

A family on the island runs a trading company. They have two 'out' stations on the island like this. Both provide water for hiking tourists. This one is right beside the island school house - lovely construct. Couldn't get photos, though. School was in session and we didn't want to distract the students. The trading post offers tee shirts, hats, sweatshirts and children's items. Payment is on the honor system. Take your item and mail payment in the envelope they've enclosed.

Haro Straight and the end of our hike. We found this overlook, sat down, had lunch and kept our eyes out for orca feeding in the straight. That is Canada off in the distance. Beautiful stretch of water. Beautiful day. No whales.

Reverse hike. We're at the lowest point of our hike back. We still have to scale the steep granite ledge on the left hand side of the photo in order to get back to our boat. Didn't bother counting calories this day.

Sucia to Reid Harbor by way of Friday Harbor

2011-05-26T21:44:00.000-07:00

After all the geeky photos of Sucia Island Marine State Park geology, Keith and I went back to the boat intent upon starting the engine to charge the house batteries while we had a nice hot shower. The hot shower part was no trouble. The solar shower had heated our five gallon bath water to 116 degrees.

But starting the engine? Mm. Is it supposed to make that noise? Didn't think so. This can't be good. Our house batteries were dead. Too dead to start the engine. Fortunately, there's a third battery held in reserve. We switched over to it, and the engine started right up. Okay. Back on track. At least our dead house batteries are being charged by the engine. We'll shower and get cleaned up. Everything will be fine. First, showering two people in five gallons of water in what amounts to a closet is no mean feat. You'll get no photos of that. Second, everything was not fine. The moment we shut down the engine, the house batteries began bleeding off their charge. Batteries aren't supposed to do this. It was clear we had at least one dead battery.

Keith set to diagnosing the issue while I fired up the BBQ. That's when I saw this headed directly for us on the current. It's a tree. An entire, freaking huge tree. I know it looks like a black dot. But that black dot had a bead on us and circled in for the kill. Several times. When it became apparent it was going to hit us, I ran for the boat hook to fend it off. Keith apparently thought I was going to end up in the water, cause he dropped everything and came running when I began swearing at the tree just as it came close enough to poke with the boat hook. It hit us, but I'd slowed it way down and shunted it to one side, so the impact didn't even mar the gelcoat. I stood watch with the boat hook for a few hours until the outgoing tide sucked the monster out to sea. I wasn't sad to see it go...it would have been a long, cold night out there in the dark trying to figure out where it was.

Keith found the dead battery, disconnected it, started the engine again to charge up the remaining house battery and said, "this'll get us through the night." Yeah. You see it coming, don't you? He uses a CPAP - a breathing machine. To run it off of the batteries, he has a tiny 400 Watt inverter that plugs into the 12 volt plug. At 4AM, the final house battery gave up the ghost. We discovered this the hard way because the inverter has a power interruption alarm that sounds like the hounds of hell are screaming in your ears. And I wear earplugs to bed. We levitated out of bed, pulled the inverter plug, calmed freaked out cats and humans, and watched the diesel heater choke and quit (it needs a tiny trickle of electricity to run - this battery had nothing to offer). We trudged back to bed and hoped the adrenaline would fade enough that we could get a few more hours' sleep.

Once the sun came up and we gave up pretending to snooze, we switched to the reserve battery, started the engine and diverted south to Friday Harbor on San Juan Island where we could blow yet more money replacing stuff. You do realize that when you're on a boat you walk everywhere? The West Marine in Friday Harbor is six blocks up from the marina or so. We had to carry two lead-acid batteries back to the boat. And then carry our spent batteries back to the store for core recycling. Suffice it to say it was a very long day. But the batteries are in and working beautifully. After a brief delay to accommodate a brush with the flu, we set out for Reid Harbor on Stuart Island. And look. We got to sail.

We have the screecher up as we approach Spieden Island. The screecher is a large sail designed for use in light wind. Very versatile sail - it's on a track that allows us to shift the leading edge of the sail from one side of the boat to the other depending on wind angles. In this case, we had 11 to 13 knots of wind coming over our starboard aft quarter. Very comfortable and easy point of sail for a cat.

Yes. We could have put up more sail and gone faster, but it was such a nice day, we didn't see the point. Then we realized that the currents were taking us awfully close to the island with its danger marker (the tiny black and white thing in the photo left). Keith said, "Time to start the engine and furl the sail." I went top side to pull the furling line. The sail began rolling up on its furler. Then the line jammed. I may have said a bad word. The sail would not budge. I even tried getting a wrap on the winch to see if I couldn't pop the jam free. No go. And we were still getting closer to that stand off marker. I told Keith I'd deal with the sail, to go ahead and start the engine. He did and eased us around the tip of the island.

When the furler on that sail jams, the only rememdy is to take the entire thing down and stuff it into the sail locker until you're someplace either at anchor or at dock. It's not a big huge thing to take the sail down in light wind like we had. In fact, once we rounded the tip of the island, we had no wind except what our motion generated. In 15 knots of wind, that great big sail is flat dangerous when it jams. No offense Shaeffer, but after putting in the rope guides and even switching to a smaller line size as suggested to prevent the countless jams just like this one, I think I can say this furler bites. If I had $2k I didn't know what to do with, I'd replace that itty-bitty piece of ... hardware with something reliable. Not that I'm bitter about hanging off the bow of my moving boat trying to release a pin so I could drop a sail that shouldn't have needed to be shoved in a messy lump into a locker. I'm also not bitter about spending precious hours of what should have been time relaxing at anchor having to manually unwrap and then rewrap furling line just so I could get the sail back up and working again. Yeah, that sunburn is totally the furling system's fault.

Eh-hem. So the sail is back up. It's furled now. But I doubt we'll entrust the safety of our boat and our family to that furler any more. It makes me sad. I really like that sail. Next: less whining, more photos. Stuart Island and Roche Harbor.

Sucia Island Marine State Park

2011-05-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

Sucia Island sits on the northern edge of the San Juan Islands. Geologically, it's a very different place than the rest of of the islands. Most of the San Juans are a submerged mountain range - dense, black granite - lots of cliff faces, steep hills, and craggy bits. Sucia is ancient, uplifted seafloor and riverbed. Part of the island is comprised of 70 million year old rock, the rest is 50 million years old stone with modern soils developing on top. So bring on the photos!

Geology of the island - the yellow layer is the 70 million year old portion of the island.

This is the cove where we moored at Sucia. The dark spot there in the rocks is a cave. Two river otters were nesting in there from what we could tell. We had a great time watching them hunting and playing in the shallow water.

Copernicus at the mooring buoy in Fox Cove at Sucia.

This is a mushroom rock. Apparently, sandstones can weather on the top to something like concrete, then when the softer underlayers are exposed they weather faster, creating these features.

70 million year old mud. The entire shoreline was made up of this rock. Maybe we really were walking on dinosaurs.

The mudstone flats exposed by a minus tide.

Anemones exposed in tide pools in the rocks.

Anacortes to Sucia Island Marine State Park

2011-05-20T21:39:00.000-07:00

Leaving Anacortes. Our joke was that we'd fixed the heater (with the dealer's help) and thus ensured weather that would mean we didn't need it. Nice theory. Evenings are chilly. We've been using the heater pretty religiously. It's a thing of beauty. Once Keith and Doug from Scan Marine chased down the problem (we were sucking air into the fuel supply - had to eliminate that), the heater began performing brilliantly. It really *does* heat the boat to a nice, toasty temp.

Sucia and Matia Islands off the starboard bow. It was a gorgeous day, but the incoming tide was running fast and hard. At one point, crossing Rosario Straight, I went from being in 300 feet of water to being in 50. And rip tide had the water white capping in just that spot. I spun the wheel, turning nose to tail and took us out the way we'd come in - I assumed I'd found a reef and needed to get off of it. The only problem was that when I turned around, we were nose into the current, and we were standing still in relation to the shore of Orcas Island...this is a bad thing. I opened the throttle and flat got us out of there. So much for fuel economy. After that shot of adrenaline, we made it around Lawrence Point on Orcas and started up the northeast side of the island, taking Clark Islands Park off starboard. More swirly currents. Saw porpoise feeding in the rip tides between Clark Island and Orcas. Again, I was in 300 feet of water, when suddenly, I had 14 feet showing on the depth sounder in the midst of the rip. It bounced down to 24 feet. Then up to 12. Then to 33 feet. I had the pod of porpoise underneath my boat, screwing with me. They tired of the game and peeled off as I left the churning current.

We by passed Fossil Bay in favor of secluded Fox Cove. The beach in this photo is from the boat after we'd tied up to a mooring buoy. Campsites line the shore, though few people were there mid week. The cove has four mooring buoys, but save for the fishing boats that came through the cove en route to where ever, we had it to ourselves. Fox cove is on the south western side of Sucia and is protected from the open water of Boundary Pass by Little Sucia Island.

The north shore of Fox Cove, golden in the early evening sunshine.

The view past Little Sucia into Boundary Pass. That smudge on the horizon is Canada. Well. One of the Gulf Islands, anyway. We watched the BC ferry pass, as well as huge commercial cargo ships, and were glad we had the protection of that little island to break up the wakes. The park has no lights. The nights were brilliant and clear. The moon rise that first night looked like something out of a horror show. The eastern horizon turned dusty orange. Then the orb of the nearly full moon, distorted by layer upon layer of atmosphere to twice its normal size, edged into the sky. If my camera wouldn't have reduced it to a simple bright patch of sky, I'd have attempted a photo. But a night shot? From a boat? Yeah. That wasn't going to happen. Sorry. I deeply regret not being able to capture a truly eerie photo from that moon rise.

This is a photo from the next morning. It's a cave. *The* cave where a pair of river otters were nesting. We watched them all morning. They'd tumble out of the cave and spill into the water, hunting fish and clams. Then they'd climb up on the rocks and rub their faces against the stone while their tails s-curved back and forth. It was a great show and we hated to disturb them by getting the dinghy down, but we both really wanted to go ashore to explore. The otters didn't actually seem to mind, even if they steered clear of us as we rowed into the beach.

Next up: More geology than you'll ever want.

Cornet Bay to Aborted Deception Pass Attempt

2011-05-15T21:32:00.000-07:00

The landmass lost in the lowering clouds is Fidelgo Island. A pair of bridges connects the island to Whidbey Island and to the mainland on the east. This bay approaches the narrow passage between Whidbey and Fidalgo Islands. It's a treacherous bit of water. The currents run so fast through this passage that we've seen boats with their engines wide open, still being pushed backward by the current.

This photo to the right offers a glimpse of the bridge. It's the smudge showing just above the low-lying islet in the middle. We have to time our attempt through the passage. We'll wait for slack and make our run. The state has parks on either side of the passage with dock space for those of us who prefer to tie up and wait for the current to die down. The danger of running the passage at peak current is that once the water is running past your rudders faster than you're going, you've lost steerage. A narrow passage lined with granite isn't a spot where you want to have no control over where you go.

As you can see, our copilot is gravely concerned.

Oh, wait. So's the captain and his cohort. I took us up the inside of Whidbey Island into Cornet Bay, the state park just inside Deception Pass. Keith comforted Autolycus. Or was that the other way around? Hard to tell at the point of this photo. We planned to spend the night tied up to a float in the state park (floats mean no power, no water, but they also mean no anchor dragging). Turned out, we got to the park and tied up just in time. It was the opening weekend of boating season and an entire fleet of racing boats came in to tie up. It was the 'Round Whidbey Island Race. These folks rafted boats four deep. They grilled burgers and hotdogs in the rain, then got up the next morning early to make their run through Deception Pass so they could raise sails and finish the race around the outside of Whidbey.

Autolycus, before the docks filled up with boats, enjoying a little shore leave.

Madam Erie, inspecting the docks. She was not impressed. The wood seemed to confuse her.

Note about Cornet Bay: bouncy. The state park has boat ramps right beside the docks with no break water between. Fishing boats launch from those ramps and go screaming off in search of whichever seafood suits them. It made for pretty uncomfortable moorage. Especially at the prices the park charged for mooring up to a float with no amenities. We're pretty much crossing this stop off our list.

Deception Pass: We got up with early and made to get underway before breakfast, intent on making our run through the pass at slack. Two things happened. The cabin heater gave out again. And as I was on deck casting us off, one of the lines caught on my PFD. I yanked on the line to free it. It had wrapped around the "Jerk to Inflate" tab on my life vest. The CO2 canister fired. PIFF. Good news: The life jacket works and no sea water was involved in finding that out. The bad news: Useless once inflated. We had to find a re-arming kit at a marine store to make it usable once more. More bad news: I couldn't breathe with it inflated. I have the vest adjusted for comfort while it wasn't inflated, which meant that once it blew up like a balloon, it was way too tight. I couldn't get out of it. Keith had to help me escape the neon yellow monster. A quick consultation later, we diverted to Anacortes - back the way we'd come, into the La Connor cut and into Padilla Bay, then into Anacortes. Naturally, the West Marine in Anacortes didn't have the parts we needed to repair my PFD. Since, with my lower center of gravity, I do all the deck work, I have to have an autoinflating PFD while outside the cockpit. Keith gave me his. He wore one of the bulky, orange life jackets whenever he had to be on deck, too.

PS: Restaurant tip in Anacortes: Adrift - seafood/burger restaurant. Excellent food. Keith had the crab au gratin. I had coconut green curry catfish. Sounds weird, I know, but the flavors were subtle and fabulous. Key Lime (the real thing) tart for dessert. Mmmm. We're going back.

Next up: San Juans, the PFD fix, Rosario Resort and wildlife!

More Book Photos

2011-05-14T16:03:00.000-07:00

This is an edit (with corrections in the original text) of a previos post. I'd hoped that Blogger would be smart enough *not* to publish it as new...apparently, it's not. Sorry.

Science Fiction and Fantasy author, Noel-Anne Brennan with a tricky, reverse-bound copy of Enemy Games...or maybe the photo was taken in a mirror...whichever entertains you more. She preferred to suggest that aliens delivered her copy to her.

This is Sammy in Texas with her copy of the book. Did someone tell her I'd modeled the hero on one of my felines?

True friendship is reading a book one of your pals wrote, even when it's in a genre you don't like. This is Faye from California. She's a voracious reader and she has as many cats as I do. Some of hers are even more neurotic than mine. Is it any wonder we're friends?

And this is Cosmo. He's 18 and very dear to my heart. He belongs to Carol White. Kind of her to let him read the book first. Does he dog-ear pages, Carol?

Poulsbo to Oak Harbor

2011-05-11T21:21:00.000-07:00

Keith at the helm, consulting his copilot. Note the blue skies. We were coming out of Poulsbo, headed north to the port of Everett.

Here's a close up of our copilot, Madam Erie. That's her basket beside the helm station. She's at her post every single morning, ready and willing to help manage the difficult task of sleeping through all the rough spots and of demanding belly rubs at critical navigational challenges. She's a true professional.

The Agate Passage bridge connects the Kitsap Peninsula and Bainbridge Island. It's a narrow passage and the currents can get pretty tough through here, but it's a walk in the park in comparison to some of the narrow spots we'll navigate further north. See our sails all still furled? See how smooth the water is? Yeah. Not a breath of wind.

This is coming into Oak Harbor on Whidbey Island. You'll notice that just 24 hours after the photo above, we're back to slate skies and occasional rain. It's still pretty.

The town of Oak Harbor. It's tucked back up in a very shallow bay. Getting in is a bit dicey. The channel is narrow and dog legs a few times. In this gray, foggy weather, it's sometimes hard to see channel markers from far away and I like to see channel markers from far away. Really. Getting into harbor was a two person and binoculars navigation job. Bonus: Keith found a Chinese restaurant that delivered to the marina.

There are two channel markers in this photo - one red, one green. If you click on the photo, it may enlarge for you and make it easier to see them. We have to go between those channel markers. This is as we're leaving Oak Harbor the next morning. We'll take the red marker to port (we'll pass on the right hand side of the marker, taking it to our left). Cutting that marker means running aground on that point that seems so very far away from where the piling sticks up out of the water. We go slowly through here and watch the depth sounder to make certain we're keeping to the channel. This is habit, paranoia and best-practice. Our boat has dagger boards that will kick up if we touch bottom. Great feature - we go from drawing 6' of water to drawing 2'. But depending on what you 'touch' and on how fast you're going when you do it, you can damage the boat. Other sailboats with a fixed keel can do significant damage running aground. The lucky ones go aground in mud. The unlucky ones hit rock. And there's a saying about running aground. "There are those of us who have and those of us who will."

Next up (tomorrow, when I'm not falling asleep at my keyboard) photos from Cornet Bay, the aborted run on Deception Pass, and the diversion to Anacortes following the accidental inflation of my life vest.

Release Day

2011-05-03T17:16:00.000-07:00

Here it is. The Silverdale, WA Barnes and Noble didn't know quite what had hit it. My mom, my husband and my entire critique group (they drove an hour to get to us!) descended in search of Enemy Games. We found eight copies in the romance section. I asked (and received) permission to take a photo or two. So Darcy redecorated the shelves - all with Enemy Games. Just for this shot. Really. We put it all back!

Then off to Red Robin for a bite of lunch - one last hurrah before DH and I sail north tomorrow morning with the tide. From the left - Marcella, Tina, Darcy and Lisa. These ladies worked hard helping keep me on track. Not pictured in the group, Melinda and DeeAnna - move away will you? :D They worked hard keeping me on task, too and we missed not having them with us.

From Florida, Lizz and Goat the Foldie model a copy of Enemy Games.

Brenda sent photos of her copy, downloaded to her Nook Color.

It's been a great release day. Thank you to everyone who has Tweeted, sent Facebook messages, emailed, texted or otherwise called. On to book three! Working title: Enemy Storm.

It's All Fun and Games Until You Have to Put It Away

2011-04-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

Here's the first load of five months worth of gear. Not bad, right? We should be able to put this all away. But stop and think for a moment. How do you pack for five months away? Sure, you'll have access to grocery stores. Do you have medications? Special products you prefer? Do you know you'd be able to find whatever brand of widget you count on when you leave your familiar foraging grounds? What about the rest of your family? You already know my pain regarding the catfood. We worked it out. I found a way to make Hatshepsut's raw in manageable batches (a theory we've successfully tested) and I've packed in fifteen cases of Wellness for the other cats. All well and good. Because of my allergies to silly things like perfumes, I have to pack five months worth of soap that won't give me hives. Let me explain how you don't want to find out the hard way that you can't count of 'unscented' to actually mean 'no perfumes'. Allow me to also point out that there are just someplaces no one should ever have hives. Read the label of your unscented soap. Odds are high there's a 'masking scent' unless you shop the same place I do --- did. Naturally, the soap thing is only a tiny example of the things you take for granted simply because you can. Okay. Here's the picture of the LAST load:

Yeah. It was unbelievable, but we got it stowed and the cat tents built. (Kids and their fortresses, I swear.) The load is even mostly balanced. One of the challenges of a catamaran is weight distribution. You want the hulls reasonably on level. It's also a good idea to not overload the boat. While we doubt we're over the safe weight limit for this boat, we do know we won't be going anywhere fast initially. Our plan to cast of Wednesday failed when we realized how many things we'd forgotten in our haste to pack. That and the weather really, really sucked. That's the politest way I can possibly describe that. We fetched our remaining crap, finished last minute errands and had dinner at Moshi Moshi in Ballard. Thursday, I drove the car over to drop at my parents'. We didn't want the car sitting unattended for five months in the marina parking lot. Keith went to see a movie. The weather wasn't much better. KING 5 reported a funnel cloud in Skagit Valley. It was stupidly cold. Hello? Ma Nature? April? At any rate, I'd been told somewhere that sailors couldn't begin a journey on a Friday. Here are the reasons why - with all the bad luck available to sailors, maybe I *should* double that life insurance...The story about the British Navy trying to dispel the superstition by building a ship named HMS Friday? Urban legend, but a fun one. So here we are. Saturday. I swear. We cast off Saturday. First port: Poulsbo for the release of Enemy Games!

Second Book Sighting

2011-04-21T22:10:00.000-07:00

Enemy Games is out in stores on May 3rd. One of the perks of having written the book is that I get a box of books a week or so before the actual release date. This is so I can read through the book before it releases and obsess over all of the typos, repeated words and other assorted mistakes we either failed to catch or that otherwise slipped through the cracks in the final editting phases. Yes. That sound you hear is me, pounding my head against the desk. The errors so far are relatively minor, but I am SO annoyed I missed them. I guess it's true. You can only read through a manuscript so many times before you simply stop seeing what's actually on the page. Arg.

On another note, though, I love this cover. I'd spent some time on the internet surfing for images of abandoned, run down industrial-looking sites. There are some amazing photographs of that sort of thing out there in the world. I forwarded a few to Berkley's art department. They were photos that I thought captured the feel, if not the exact impression, of the space station in the story. The cover artist really did a nice job of capturing that run-down, held together with bailing twine and a prayer look I'd wanted to convey - even if there really aren't windows in space.

I picked up the box of books from the post office, opened it, admired the book, then ran for the car. It wasn't until much later that evening that DH and I really took a good look. Did you catch it? The print beneath my name on the front cover? I hadn't. When I did, I had to do a double take. Here it is, blown up.

Yes. That says 'National Bestselling Author of Enemy Within'. I stared at it for a full minute, at least, because this was news to me. The first book had hit a list? When? Where? Still uncertain, I emailed my agent. She called the editor and then rang me. Apparently, at some point unknown to me, Enemy Within DID hit a best seller list with one of the national bookstore chains. (We're trying to find out which one - more for curiosity's sake than anything else.) It's funny. It feels a little like cheating, when most of us think of the New York Times list or the USA Today list, but since neither of those lists is an actual report of books selling the most copies, maybe the bookstore list, which is a direct reflection of sales, is equally valid. Either way. I'm tickled. And heck. Maybe it's a start?

Almost Time

2011-04-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

The boat heater is in and it does an adequate job. The interior of the boat is sparkling clean. The exterior - well - after some drama, a few small, third degree chemical burns and a new pressure washer, the outside of the boat was clean for a brief moment in time. Seagulls target clean boats. It's like a video game to them, I think. But several projects yet remain.

The canvas enclosure is green. It should be white. Once we've been through another round of Better Living Through Chemistry, it will be white and put back up. Then we need a radar reflector. The Inside Passage supports some commercial traffic, not the least of which is the ferry that runs from Bellingham, WA to Whittier, AK. Those larger boats rely on radar to show them what's out there on the water. Fiberglass hulls don't do a very good job of reflecting radar back. Thus, a metal reflector hung in the rigging so the big guys have a shot at seeing us little guys. The cats have ripped the fabric covered headboard in the master cabin to untidy shreds. I'll recover that with something less attractive to kitty claws. We hope. Every trip out to the boat now, entails carting a load of stuff down the dock to stow aboard for the voyage. Fifteen cases of catfood. Dishes. Silverware. Pots, pans, clothes, towels...everything we'll need to function as a household. We don't have an exact target date for actually getting out of Dodge, but the week of April 25th is starting to look promising. Point of fact: we have to be gone by May 1 when our subleasees take possession of the slip.

We keep hoping that Mother Nature will get the memo about spring between now and the time we shove off.

Another Hurdle Cleared

2011-03-27T11:08:00.000-07:00

Houston, we have cat food.

Yeah. I know. Not the most titillating subject for a post, is it? Still. One of the biggest concerns we had about embarking on a five month sailing trip - a trip that includes our feline companions - was how to feed them. Three were easy. They'll eat canned Wellness cat food. The lady to the right, Hatshepsut, will not. She is exceedingly particular. Homemade, raw cat food or hunger strike. Stop rolling your eyes. Yes. My cats are spoiled rotten little brats. I freely admit this. I'm also clear who created and who perpetuates the problem. It's all the DH. :D

Feeding raw is easy when you live in a house with a real refrigerator and freezer (and when you have a veterinarian with training in feline nutrition to give you the information you need to keep the food nutritionally balanced). On the boat, with a freezer the size of a loaf of bread, it's much harder. I couldn't make five months of raw food and just stash it in the freezer. There must be some kind of option, right? So off I went to Earth Pet, our local pet store. I stocked up on five months of Wellness (15 cases of 3 ounce cans) and treats. I asked for suggestions about how to handle Hatshepsut's strong dietary preferences. The excellent staff shook their heads and said, "Wow. Let us think on that. She won't eat anything canned, huh?"

It was at our last vet appointment (all the cats had to have health certificates in order to enter Canada), a possible solution presented itself. The clinic carries a package called Wild Kitty (I don't name these things). It's a 'kit' for making cat food. You mix the packet contents with one pound of ground chicken or turkey and voila. Raw cat food that I can make just about anywhere there's a grocery store, and I can make it in small enough batches that my teensy freezer can accommodate it. I bought a pack to try out on the youngest, since she was the gating factor in the whole cat food saga.

When I opened the kit packet, all of the cats thought the contents smelled pretty interesting. I reconstituted the freeze-dried ingredients as instructed, then mixed in the ground chicken. Cuillean hopped up on the counter to help herself to a taste test. I gave her a spoonful. Cuillean approved. I offered Hatshepsut a taste. She tried to bury it. Erie comandeered the sample and licked the plate sparkling clean. I gave her more. She ate that, too. Autolycus, by this time, realized his sisters were getting something he wasn't. I offered him a plate. He had to think about it for a split second, but then he licked his plate clean. Perfect. The three cats who didn't need a raw food option all love it.

The one I needed to have eat it, didn't.

I had to resort to big guns. I added soemthing called 'Healthy Powder' to the mix, stirred it up and offered another taste to Hatshepsut. She actually thought about it trying a bite...and she didn't attempt to bury it. Progress. Clearly, bribery was in order. I adorned her sample with a few kibble. No go. I sprinkled crushed Wildside Salmon treat over the top and...SCORE! She ate it. She *liked* it. She didn't polish her plate, but it was a close thing. Yay!

Now, of course, I have to go buy a five month supply of Wild Kitty cat food kits...and Wildside Salmon treats.

Contest News

2011-03-25T18:14:00.000-07:00

These were the butterflies in my stomach last night and this morning. I'd entered Enemy Within in the romance industry award contest. The RITA is the romance industry's top award for romance fiction. We like to say it's our Oscar, on par with science fiction's Hugo award. The main difference being that authors cannot enter their own books into the Hugo - they must be nominated (like the Oscars) by *other* industry professionals. Romance Writers of America allows authors with a qualifying work to enter the contest directly, though books are nominated as well. Thus it is that RITA finalists are called finalists rather than nominees.

Today, the phone calls went out notifying finalists. RWA had announced the date a few weeks ago and all of us who'd entered a book had quietly marked our calendars. We swore the nerves wouldn't get us - that whatever happened, happened. And yet. Whenever you put your work out and ask others to pass judgement on it, the neuroses strike deep. You assure yourself you wrote the best book you could, but the fear rises from out of nowhere that your best simply isn't good enough. I managed to hold off the jitters until Thursday night.

I thought I'd done a good job of keeping my cool this morning, too. Got the DH off to work. Got showered and sat down to work on a blog post for my other secret life at Word Whores. Yahoo IM popped up. My friend, Jeffe Kennedy, who usually spends her early mornings working on *her* books, asked if I'd heard anything yet. It was 7:45am. Then MSN Messenger pinged. My friend and fellow critiquer, Melinda Rucker-Haynes, wanted to know what was happening. Anxiety pitched high at that point. I figured that no one would call prior to 8am my time, IF they were going to call at all.

At 8:02, the phone rang. Relief dumped through me. Enemy Within was good enough in at least one category. Assuming that long distance phone number wasn't someone calling to ask for money for some cause or the other...It wasn't. It was RWA National calling to tell me Enemy Within had finaled in the Best First Book category. YAY! Shaking, I hung up and IM'd both waiting friends. Melinda initiated a video call so she could ask me exactly what had been said in the phone call. That's when the phone rang again. 8:09. The book had finaled in the Paranormal category, too. Melinda got to watch and listen while I took that call. WOO HOO! I am thrilled and excited and can't think straight.

Then I realized. I have no idea where along the Inside Passage the DH and I will be come late June...where the heck am I going to catch a flight to NYC for the RWA National Conference and the awards ceremony? Who cares?? I'll walk if I have to. Congrats to all the finalists! See you in NYC. Just promise to catch me if I pass out?

Wait, Don't Leave

2011-03-23T15:12:00.000-07:00

An interesting thing happens when you make a major life decision like 'hey, DH resigned and we're going sailing for five months!' Everyone around you congratulates you, says how great it all sounds, and mentions envy at some point. Then they start coming up with ways to make it so that you aren't really gone.

No lie. Friends immediately say 'you'll be blogging about the trip, right? You'll be on email and text and phone? So we know where you are?' Of course. Though I think we all know who the 'we' in the blogging question is here, right? My World of Warcraft buddies say 'will you have internet? Will you still be in game?' Sorry. No. The cable won't reach all the way into Canada or Alaska. And since Clearwire is now the subject of a class action lawsuit brought by customers complaining about lack of bandwidth on the service - our initial internet plan is ruined. No WoW for us. The withdrawals are going to be murder. I get the shakes just thinking about not being able to blow up bad guys for 166 whole days. Then, just last week, my dear sister called me. "Will you be in my wedding?" Of course I will! When? "Some time this summer." I bounce my forehead against my desk. "We can video conference you in," she says. Actually, I don't think we can, but that's another technology issue. Now, granted. I've known that she had a wedding in the offing. And to be fair, I knew that this summer was under discussion. I don't know why it didn't occur to me that my sister might want me in her wedding. I'm apparently a thoughtless goof.

Beyond that, the questions of what we'll do when we get back have already begun. What will we do? Where will we go? And we haven't even cast off yet. I suppose it's human nature to want to know whether your friends will come back to civilization and take up the mantle of responsibility again - or whether they're going to descend into some itinerant beach bumdom from whence they'll never return. The answer to that question is currently up in the air. Some friends are okay with that. Some aren't. If you're one of the friends not okay with a shrug as an answer, we're telling you that DH will likely contract when we get back. Take it for what it's worth and be aware that the story may change come October.

The Heating Dilemma

2011-03-18T09:25:00.000-07:00

We're in the midst of trying to figure out how to stay warm aboard the boat while we're not plugged into shore power. This isn't as easy as it sounds. The interior of the Gemini 105Mc is very efficient. This is a nice way of saying there isn't a spare inch of space that isn't used for something, somehow, someway. Lovely, if you aren't trying to be - er - frugal about your heating solution. Our first choice, based on price point, availability, and ease of installation was a propane fireplace like the one left - the Dickinson Marine Newport Propane Heater. Nice unit with good heat output. Sealed burn chamber so that moisture is vented. (Propane produces water as a burn by-product and moisture inside a boat equals mold and mildew.) Biggest challenge: Where to mount the unit. We thought we'd solved that problem and went cheerfully into a store to order a heater. "You do have twenty inches of clearance above the heater, right?" the sales clerk said. We groaned. We'd be lucky to get eight inches of clearance. We left without ordering anything and trudged down to the boat where we stood staring around the interior. Harsh words were said. I don't think either of us has sworn as much as we have since buying a boat...but that's another story. We finally agreed we could make it work. It meant redesigning the settee a bit, and it might not be pretty, but we could make it work.

My father had another suggestion. He sent us to look at the Scan Marine website. http://www.scanmarineusa.com/ Apparently, Wallas diesel-fired heaters can be mounted in tiny spaces with very little clearance. The price tag is higher than the propane heater. By three or four times. It's a forced air heater - a little like the furnace on your house. Forced air in a boat is good, it helps dry up the moisture that accummulates aboard and helps suppress mold and mildew. All good things. The complicated part is running air ducts. The Gemini is made in layers - an outer hull and an inner living space that gets set down inside the hull layer. Access between those layers is challenging at best. So while we have a perfect location (we think) for the Wallas furnace, we're still working out the duct logistics.

All this to say we still have no clue how or if we'll manage to stay warm aboard the boat as we head north. The tempation to skip heat altogether and just walk around wearing down sleeping bags has also been running high.

Change

2011-03-10T19:15:00.000-08:00

On March 1, my husband resigned his position after eight very successful years. He'd been working with a group of bright, motivated people. There were challenges, which is the point, isn't it? He'd been promoted and was being developed to move on to the next level. So why now?

Blame a funeral. In the first half of 2010, a friend of DH's died. He was our age. He was out of the golf course with friends and simply collapsed and was gone. One of those heart attacks that offers no second chances. We attended the funeral, feeling the weight of this man's bereft wife, children and friends. When it was over, DH and I got back in the car and sat there for several minutes. "I'll miss him. And if this has taught me anything, it's that I don't want my tombstone to read 'he was a good employee'," DH said.

We drove home and began planning an adventure: Sailing the Inside Passage up to Alaska and back. Our planning stage was supposed to have lasted far longer - as in a decade. DH wanted to semi-retire (you know - work part of the year and then take three months of vacation) once he hit 50-55ish. We'd put our plan into action at that point. Then, one cold Friday night in February as we sat looking at our financial numbers, our family configuration, our health and our ages, a number of factors snapped into perfect alignment all at once.

We realized. It was go time.

So we're gearing up. DH works through the month of March, then he begins hardcore work on prepping the boat. This includes putting in dedicated heat that doesn't rely on shore-side electricity. I'll abandon him to that work while I fly to Los Angeles to the Romantic Times Book Lovers Convention. When I get back, I'll have to get us moved aboard, provision within reason - it's not like Canada doesn't have grocery stores - and finish putting our shore-side lives in short term stasis.

We have no clue how far north we'll get. We're trying not to have an aggressive schedule. The point is going to be on seeing and experiencing, not on 'hurry up and get there'. People have begun asking me whether I'm excited or not. Between bouts of horror and terror at what we've done? Sure. I suppose I'm looking forward to getting out on the water in a 34'x14' boat where I'll be ensconced with my husband and our four felines 24 hours of every day for 166 days. At least. Have I mentioned I love music? Music my dearest husband does *not* love? Yeah. Haven't worked that one out yet. Headphones are only good to a point, you know?

Kidding. The Gemini has two aft cabins. We've designated those as private space. One is mine. One is his. We each have a place to go where we can shut a door behind us and pretend to disappear. I still can't blast Pendulum or the Silver Sun Pickups at will, but I can probably get a break from all the 'togetherness' if need be and so can he.

So here's the important bit. We'll be back and we'll return to contributing to the local economy via a return to work - where? Up in the air until our return. Our phone numbers don't change, neither do email addresses - though admittedly, we aren't certain we'll have internet aboard. We may be limited to internet cafes in ports on an irregular basis. This blog will suffer (more that it does already) from that neglect. But when I have connectivity, I will do my best to post photos and descriptions of where we are. I will maintain my Facebook account as much as possible and my Twitter feed @marcellaburnard (may be intermittant as cell reception varies). I will continue to post every Friday to the Word-Whores blog (http://www.word-whores.blogspot.com/). So we won't vanish for those months that we're out. Unless the kraken gets us. Or sasquatch.

Cat Food Recall

2011-03-02T09:47:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, WellPet, the maker of Wellness brand pet foods issued a recall of its Wellness canned cat food. The recall text is here in its entirety:

WELLPET LLC VOLUNTARILY RECALLS CERTAIN LOTS OF CANNED CAT FOOD No Other Lots, Products or Dates Affected

Tewksbury, MA (February 28, 2011) - WellPet LLC announced today it has voluntarily recalled certain lots of Wellness® canned cat food.

While recent laboratory testing found that most lots of Wellness canned cat food that were tested contain sufficient amounts of thiamine (also known as Vitamin B1), some of the lots listed below might contain less than adequate levels of thiamine. However, out of an abundance of caution, WellPet has decided. to recall all of the lots listed below.

Cats fed only the affected lots for several weeks may be at risk for developing a thiamine deficiency. Thiamine is essential for cats. Symptoms of deficiency displayed by an affected cat can be gastrointestinal or neurological in nature.

Early signs of thiamine deficiency may include decreased appetite, salivation, vomiting, and weight loss. In advanced cases, neurologic signs can develop, which may include ventriflexion (bending towards the floor) of the neck, wobbly walking, circling, falling, and seizures. If your cat has consumed the recalled lots and has these symptoms, please contact your veterinarian. If treated promptly, thiamine deficiency is typically reversible.

The lots involved in this voluntary recall are:

Wellness Canned Cat (all flavors and sizes) with best by dates from 14APR 13 through 30SEP13
Wellness Canned Cat Chicken & Herring (all sizes) with 10NOV13 or 17NOV13 best buy dates.

Consumers who still have cans of cat food from these lots should stop feeding them to their cats and call us at (877) 227-9587 Monday through Friday, 9:00 am– 7:00 pm Eastern Time. Consumers with further questions should visit our website at www.wellnesspetfood.com or call us at this same number.

WellPet discovered the lower thiamine levels during independent testing conducted together with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in response to a single, isolated consumer complaint received by the FDA. Although WellPet has received no other reports concerning thiamine in its products, WellPet has taken additional steps with the manufacturer to ensure that this does not happen again.

"As a pet parent myself, I'm concerned for the health and welfare of all pets, and as a company we are committed to delivering the most nutritious natural pet food," said Tim Callahan, chief executive officer of WellPet, the maker of Wellness products. "Even though the chance of a cat developing a thiamine deficiency is extremely remote, we are voluntarily recalling all of these lots of our canned cat food as an extra precaution."

The foods being recalled are safe - there's no contamination - they may simply be low on a B vitamin. If you are feeding Wellness canned to your pets, you can return unopened cans for replacement. I had three cases of food from the recalled lot, but decided to keep them since there's really nothing wrong with the food. B vitamins are safe and simple to supplement, so I'm going that route - adding a low dose veterinary multi-vitamin to the food. B vitamins are water soluable, so any excess is washed out of the body. Which means added load on the kidneys, so if you have a cat in renal failure, check with your vet before adding anything to your feline's food.

Copernicus

2011-02-24T08:47:00.000-08:00

Eight years ago today, Copernicus died. He was eight years old. Sure, he'd been sick, but it had been with something that shouldn't have killed him. He'd developed a urinary blockage, something that can and will kill a male cat if it isn't caught and treated, but we were right on top of it the whole time. I caught it early, had him treated, and when he kept blocking, we opted for surgery. Aspiration pneumonia ultimately took him.

It's tough to explain why this was such a devastating event in our lives. Copernicus and his sister, Erie, were the first cats my husband and I adopted after we were married. He was our number one furry son. (Erie, at 16, is arthritic, stone deaf and very opinionated, but she is still very much with us. She demands belly rubs every single night.)

He adored me. I'd never been adored before. Not quite like that. Loved? Oh, yes. Absolutely and unconditionally, by parents, grandparents and my husband alike. But they never trusted me to stop the rain. They never believed that I had the power to cause earthquakes...well...DH seems to think volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and destruction on a massive scale is my fault, but that's another story involving past lives. No, when blessedly minor earthquakes struck the Puget Sound region, Copernicus would come find me, where ever I was braced, and level an accusing, exasperated glare upon my person. "Mom. Knock it off." I was his favorite ladder. His favorite pillow and his favorite bed. We suspected, once or twice, that he resented the claim the DH seemed to have on my affections, too. That was a little weird.

Copernicus purred simply because I entered the room. In the evenings, as we would get ready for bed, he'd come pull the towels off the towel rack, giving them a precise, practiced yank that flipped one towel beneath him while the other settled over the top of him. I was expected to lean over the breathing bundle of towels and whisper sweet nothings to him. The bundle of towels would rumble with pleased purring. That same purr lulled me to sleep each night as he snuggled in beside me, his head pillowed on my arm.

For the eight short years I had Copernicus, I walked on water. We had rough days, days where we hurt one another's feelings. But it didn't ever seem to dent his esteem for me. Maybe it goes without saying that I thought he was the handsomest, sweetest, bravest, and cleverest of felines. He seemed to think he was, too, until he started feeling so poorly. After his passing, other cats entered our lives and our home. They, too, are sweet, beautiful, brave, clever, loved and spoiled. But Copernicus was our number one feline son.

So after years of planning, saving and scrimping to buy our dream boat, when we finally signed the papers on a catamaran of our own, there wasn't much discussion about what it should be named. After I told DH in no uncertain terms that we would NOT be naming the boat Nostromo after the ship from the movie Alien...

Axe Murderers

2011-02-04T08:59:00.000-08:00

Faye (who might could have been an axe murderer, herself) read my post entitled "The Internet is Full of Axe Murderers" and pointed out that I'd never quite explained the whole axe murderer thing. Any new technology brings with it a pre-existing set of baggage - like cell phones and brain cancer. You know that one, right? Use youre cell phone too much and it'll microwave your brain, giving you cancer. (Research has found no such link, but studies are ongoing and the story changes every other week. So use your cell phone at your own risk.) When the internet was bright, shiny, and new, it inspired fear. The most obvious fear was over 'meeting people you couldn't see'.

You'd get to chatting with someone on the internet - via email, IM or some other old-fashioned mode of communication. The person is nice. You suggest getting together in person for coffee. Your family is horrified. "Make sure you meet in a public place! I mean, you never know! This person could be an axe murderer!" No. I have no clue why someone would believe that people on the internet were supposed to be more predisposed to violent crime than, say, that creepy guy who lives at the end of your block. Obviously, what with the Craigslist murders and whatnot, there are complete nutjobs out there in the world determined to do damage anywhere, anyway possible. But that was true long before the internet came along. So.

The amusing aside is this. I'm a member of an international cat fancier's loop called Feline-L. The people on the list are some of the most helpful, friendly and caring people you'd ever care to know. Most of us have never met in person. So, one year, a group of Feliners decided to have a Gather. A location was found, hotel secured, and Feliners from all over the US and Canada descended. We emailed all sorts of jokes about axe murderers met over the internet.

The Gathering went off beautifully. People met, mingled, chatted, and ate Kitty Litter Cake. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Kitty-Litter-Cake/Detail.aspx. For those of us who couldn't make the actual physical event, the participants set a time and sent a URL for a webcam. They'd group up and wave to those of us watching. At the appointed time, many of us sat at our computers, glued to the screen as people we hadn't yet met began assembling in front of the camera. Finally, there they all were. And was that . . ? Yes, indeed. It was. An axe. One of the women had brought it, because, as she said, "No Gathering of Internet Axe Murderers would have been complete without the axe". Okay. The story loses something in the telling. It was funny. You'll just have to trust me. Because of course I'm on the internet and you can believe everything you read here.

In Pursuit of Warm, Sunny Adventure

2011-01-25T18:37:00.000-08:00

We returned from a week cruising the western Caribbean. It's apparently been a messed up cruising year what with one cold front after another slamming through the region. When we arrived in Tampa, the storm front that had brought snow to Atlanta had just moved past. Tampa was chilly. But we got lucky. Our first port of call was Key West. It was deliciously warm and humid. DH and I walked around a bit, found the Civil War era fort, toured that and then walked back to a bar set up on a dock over the water. Directly across from us, anchored between a couple of mangrove thickets was an early version of our boat - a Gemini 3200. With more time in Key West, we might have been able to connect with our fellow Gemini owner, but the cruise ship waits for no one. So we boarded just as a major rain squall rolled in and unloaded. We spent a glorious day at sea in bright sunshine and warm temperatures. Belize was next. We cruised into Belize City and went on a tour of a cavern system that the Maya had once used as a sacrificial site. The photo above left is the ceremonial entrance of the cave. It's called the Dragon's Mouth. Forgive the lack of focus and definition - cell phone photo. Because of the tight passages in the cave, the guides weren't keen on letting me take the good camera in to be smashed against the stone. The cavern system is active. It is still forming. It is also still an active archeological dig. We were allowed only in the top two tiers of the cave where agricultural sacrifices were performed - petitions for a fruitful harvest and such. These rites did include blood as needed, but required little more than a few drops from the petitioners. In the deeper levels of the caves, human sacrifices were made. One of the reasons we weren't allowed into those areas. I was fine with that. I had no wish to descend that far into the Mayan Underwold, much less walk the same path a sacrificial victim had once walked. No, thank you. My one regret: I couldn't get a photo of the bats clinging to the roof of the cave. They were cute (fruit and insect bats, not vampire bats - which Belize has.)

Then we were on to Honduras. We had a gorgeous full moon that night and one of those sunrises that takes your breath away. I'd gotten up early to watch the moon set and the sun rise. As a result, I was witness to the fact that no matter how experienced the captain, docking is just a pain in the butt. We were aboard the Holland America ship Ryndam. It's one of the smaller vessels in the fleet. Still, the channel into the the docks in Roatan was only slightly wider than the ship itself. And the captain had to back in. All was going well. He had the boat lined up with the middle of the channel. The moon set. The sun rose. A 20 knot wind roared up out of no where. We were broadside to it. In an instant, that great big hunk of steel was up against the channel markers with no hope of manuvering off. The only option was to gun it, get out of harm's way and realign for another run at the channel. (Just to make sure there was no pressure or anything, there are two rusting wrecks on the reefs.) DH and I felt immeasurably better about our adventures in docking our little 34' cat. . .and believe me, we've had a few. There are sections of the air out at the marina that still glow bright blue from the swearing we've done. The captain lined the boat up with the red channel markers (red right, returning) and waited for the wind to shove the ship just past the point that the boat would hit the marker and he poured on the power. It did the trick. He got the ship into the channel and into the lee of the island where he could then dock without having to fight the wind as much. Honduras was beautiful. Hills and mountains covered in lush, vibrant foliage. We parked our backsides on the beach and I swam in the 80 degree water. We managed to fry DH's upper torso to searing red. Oops.

Mexico was next. We landed in Costa Maya on the Yucatan Peninsula. I knew the Yucatan was covered in jungle. I remembered that much from fifth grade geography, but I had it in my head that jungle = mountainous. I couldn't have been more wrong. The Yucatan Peninsula was flat and only barely above sea level. The entire thing is geologically recently uplifted sea floor. The soils are young and thin. The whole of the region is riddled with sink holes and caves because of the porous limestone being hollowed out by running water. From the coast, the Yucatan looked barren and parched. Once we docked and went inland a little, the foliage thickened and grew taller and more in keeping with my Hollywood-inspired notion of 'jungle'. But the land was still flat as a pancake. Then we looked up at the tops of the trees and there was Mayan temple. No wonder so many of the Mayan cities were lost. You could walk right up to them and unless you tripped over the stairs, you'd never know they were there. We visited Chacchoben, a nice sight because it's smaller and not quite as crowded as some of the better known ruins. The complex has not yet been fully excavated or catalogued. Apparently, satellite imaging has given archeologists the locations of thousands of sites throughout Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras. With so many investigations to be done and so few resources to go around, Chacchoben has been left only partially excavated and reconstructed. At this site, we hiked through 'hills' covered with dirt, trees and oddly shaped limestone rocks - the remains of another structure - one that has yet to be investigated. I loved walking through the banyan and palms, while a toucan (a real one!) made a fuss overhead, knowing that entire new chapters of history waited to be dug out of the dust.

It was our final hurrah. We turned around and headed back after that. Tampa was 47 degrees when we arrived. No one was happy with that. 85 and humid in the Yucatan one day, 47 freaking degrees the next. My grumbling alone should have super heated the atmosphere. I leave you with this last photo. Me. Kitted up for caving. Hey. No one ever claimed safety was pretty.

The Internet is Full of Ax Murderers

2011-01-14T09:58:00.000-08:00

This is fantasy and science fiction author Noel-Anne Brennan. We're friends, even though we've not yet actually met in person - have I mentioned that I love the internet? She's coached me through all of the rejections and writing frustrations the calling is heir to. Because she's been so generous in sharing advice and experience, she was one of the first people I called when my first book sold. Into the bargain, she's a cat person, and she makes and sells her own jewelry. (http://tigermoongems.com/) So how cool is it that in the midst of some of the worst snow of the winter, Noel-Anne found my book in a local bookstore and took the time to grab a cellphone photo?? Find Noel-Anne's books here: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_17?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=noel-anne+brennan&sprefix=noel-anne+brennan

This is my dear friend Louie. At the risk of exposing myself and Louie as terminal geeks, we're gaming guildies. Currently, it's World of Warcraft, but our association as slayers of evil, online bad guys goes all the way back to Ascheron's Call. I refuse to post any info about that game which might expose the year it was released. I can say I had the great pleasure of meeting Louie in real life (irl for my fellow gamers) when he flew out to visit the Seattle area. Now my fellow guildies and I are lobbying for him to visit again, but this time with his lovely wife and daughter. We're hoping to entice them into moving to this side of the country. We're selfish that way. He wore my book tee shirt to work under his police uniform. Can you blame any of us who know and love our epic hunter, Zar, for attempting to lure him and his family closer?

Harbinger of a Good Day

2011-01-07T09:16:00.000-08:00

This is Cuillean, a shy and delicate girl, suffering, as many of us do, from an excess of weight. (We're working on that.) She's my cat, as opposed to hubby's. And she's skittish. In fact, to this day, when DH walks in or makes a sudden move, she runs. This in no way should reflect on the gentle, caring person he is - the DH adores his felines, too. It came as some surprise, then, when a few years ago as DH was packing his gym bag, as he does every morning in an effort to manage his health, Cuillean climbed atop his gym bag and settled down. He turned around to put his work shirt into the bag and stopped. He blinked. "Cuillean," he said. "That's my bag." She murped and jumped down.

You can see this coming, can't you? She did it again the next morning. Only, she declined to get off the bag when spoken to. DH did the only thing he could do. "I'll just have to pet that cat on my bag," he said. Cuillean had successfully conditioned the human. Thus began the ritual of 'Morning Pets'. It no longer involves the gym bag. Now the alarm goes off, DH shuts off the alarm, rolls to his back and turns the covers down. I roll to my side facing him. He pats the mattress five times. Cuillean jumps up on the bed, strolls into that spot between us and gets her ration of chin and butt scratches. Then she flops over on her side and kneads my husband's armpit. This is unbearably cute when Cuillean isn't in need of a claw clip. This goes on until something startles the girl or until the second alarm goes off. Yes. We now set the alarm a half an hour early just to accommodate Cuillean.

DH has mentioned that there's a direct correlation between quality morning pets and the quality of his day. No morning pets, crappy day. Good morning pets, much better days. I can't help noticing how something so small, so inconsequential - a cat sitting on a bag - grew into a meaningful, emotionally fulfilling ritual. I'm taking an online course wherein I'm encouraged to write in fifteen minute increments. Starting with something small. Think I'll go set my timer.

This Way Lies Madness

2010-12-30T09:21:00.000-08:00

Been awhile, hasn't it? Have I mentioned that holidays make me insane? This year's trip into hair-tearing nuttiness was bad. Somewhere in my life, I absorbed the notion that it's my job to recreate everyone else's childhood holiday memories. Societal expectation? My own? Who knows. Over the years, I've managed to whittle back a few traditions at a time. We no longer have a tree at all. We're both allergic to the real thing (this was a terrible blow, because who doesn't love the house smelling of pine in midwinter when it's dark and nasty?) We'd gone to a fake tree, only to realize there was a warning label on the box saying "Cancer causing, blah, blah, lead, blah, toxic, blah" and the cats liked chewing on the fake tree branches. End of tree. Which only made us cling to other traditions - like the baking and goodies. Which, naturally, are *my* tasks. For whatever reason, this year, the To Do list just got longer and longer. I became crankier with each passing hour. The picture here is the a holiday tradition I started two and a half decades ago while I was still living with my folks. It's a favorite. Christmas Brunch. I comb recipes starting in October, looking for showcase dishes. No dish is ever repeated (so far - this may change). The brunch menu is a secret each year until everyone sits down to eat. Typically, we have at least one dish that's a huge win - and one dish that's an epic disappointment. This year, dessert was a disappointment - but one we were able to salvage. It all worked out. It was over brunch that we realized that our entire holiday seemed to revolve around food most specifically sugary, fatty food. And my stressed out gnashing of teeth. We kicked around ideas for changing things up a bit. How do you take the emphasis off the cookies, candies and breads you don't eat at any other time of year? How do you ease the burden of holiday stress and expectation?

You get the heck out of town. We have a list of three places we'll investigate for next year. Why shouldn't we go hang in a nice hotel and let someone else do all of the holiday cooking for us in a location we love? We don't have kids. Just cats, who, if we return with quality catnip, won't care what day of the year it is. I'm thinking of loading up the Kindle with lots of yummy books. I'll sit in a comfy lounge, sipping a nice drink. Happy future holiday...

Nuts?

2010-11-09T10:46:00.000-08:00

The book is out. My faithful and wonderful family and friends are buying and reading. I had some concerns about this stage of the game. We writers are an odd lot - and I use the plural because I refuse to believe that I am alone in my neuroses. We obsess over getting the book finished, then over whether it's been tweaked enough to be sent out. Will anyone like it? Will anyone buy it? Lo and behold, an agent or editor picks up the book. A contract is signed. Much rejoicing ensues. Lots of magic (aka: hard work) happens betwixt contract signing and release day, some of it even performed by the author. As release day approaches, the same questions hound the writer, again. Will anyone buy it? Will anyone like it? The book comes out. People buy it. Lots of them, people you know. It's touching that your friends and relations want to participate in this massive event in your writing life.

This is where interesting stuff starts happening. A sister says, "It's really, really good! I was surprised!" A couple of friends confess they've never really liked science fiction, but they'll give it a try - so far they say they've been pleasantly surprised. The ones that have been hardest? The friends who don't care for romance novels. At all. They, as a group, have approached Enemy Within with the most trepidation. I've tried to assure everyone I know who's been kind enough to buy the book that it's perfectly okay to say, "wow, not for me."

Thus we come to my culinary tie-in for this week. Books are like walnuts in chocolate chip cookies. You either love 'em, are neutral on 'em or loathe 'em. There's no value judgement, unless you hate nuts in cookies, while your father loves nuts in cookies, so you lose and Mom makes the cookies with nuts. That *might* have been a value judgement. It's also possible that I took that sort of thing personally as a kid. Back to the book thing. My point, before traipsing through painful, walnut-infested memory, is that I've tried to assure my friends that I won't take it personally if they dislike my book - because Oprah books? SO not for me. I don't need help being cynical or depressive, thanks. I am humbled and grateful that anyone is willing to take a risk reading something they wouldn't normally. Like it? I'm thrilled. Discover it isn't for you? No problem! Thanks for giving me a few hours of your life!

Still. I'd like to note for the record: I'd rather be a chocolate chip than a walnut. Just saying.

All Grown Up

2010-11-04T18:35:00.000-07:00

Here it is. Enemy Within is on bookstore shelves...at least it is until my dear and amazing friends find it. I've had a report from Erin that a downtown Seattle bookstore had seven copies of the book yesterday. They were down to one copy today. Louie, on the East Coast, went to three different bookstores before he found a copy. In one of the stores, he may have made a few forceful and colorful suggestions about the store getting the book into stock when they told him they had no intention of ordering any. Feedback so far has been kind. One of my Feline-L friends tried to put the book down at chapter seven last night so she could go to bed. She sent another email at midnight her time saying she was on chapter twelve. Sure, the book has had a few so-so reviews. Goes with the territory. No one author can be all things to all people. What it does mean, however, is that Enemy Within is now legal - all grown up, and out there in the world. And yes. That's me holding said book and looking...glassy-eyed. I won't lie. This has been so much fun. But I am very tired. I'd like to climb back into geeky writer role and do nothing but pile up page count for a few days. And maybe vacuum up the crunchy fallen leaves one of the cats insists on dragging into the house for her amusement.

One final bit of amazing news. Enemy Within was nominated for best futuristic romance in the Romantic Times Book Reviews 2010 Awards. Here's the list of nominees: CLOSE CONTACT by Katherine Allred, ENEMY WITHIN by Marcella Burnard, MIDNIGHT CRYSTAL by Jayne Castle, REBELS AND LOVERS by Linnea Sinclair, BEYOND THE NIGHT by Joss Ware. Some of my favorite authors are in this list and it's an incredible, geeky thrill to be nominated alongside them. Congratulations to each of the nominees.

Release Day!

2010-11-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

Marty

It's here! These are the first photos of people with the Real Live book! Marty stayed up until midnight her time in order to download a copy from the Apple Book Store. Her's was the first shot I received. Next in was a shot from Karin.

Karin

Diana was next . Point for getting Kismet in the shot. Then Lizz provided the first photo of the paperback version of the book. That's Winston posing so graciously beside the book. I'm collecting photos of the book 'in the wild' and posting them to my Launch Party Facebook event. Many of them will also end up here. One Friday, I'll pool all the names of the people who've sent photos and do a drawing for a tee shirt with the book cover on it (give me your name and location - just state or country is fine, email, too, if you'd like to be entered in the tee shirt drawing)

Diana and Kismet

Winston

Scared

2010-10-28T14:22:00.000-07:00

This is Hatshepsut peeking out from behind the blue blanket. It was vet day for her and for Cuillean. Time for that once yearly event wherein I insist they allow a stranger to look at them, listen to their lungs and hearts, and maybe even draw a bit of blood. Big Drama, and, listening to their howls of protest, Big Trauma. When it was all over, though, not much had happened to either girl. I know there's no reason to fear a stethoscope - but try telling that to a feline yanked from her territory and transported to a strange location where some guy she doesn't know is pressing a cold bit of metal and plastic to her ribs. We'd stepped firmly outside the feline comfort zone. The worst part all morning was that the vet suggested both girls could use a diet.
Sigh. Couldn't we all?

It occurred to me as I chuckled at my girls' histronics that maybe I shouldn't laugh...it's fast coming up on NaNoWriMo - National November Write a Book in a Month kickoff. A number of my fellow writers are girding their pens and computers to take part this year. I did NaNoWriMo once. It scared me silly. See? Now you're laughing at me. What was so inherently frightening about writing 2k words a day? I'd never done it. It was outside my comfort zone and I seem to recall indulging in a fit of Big Drama of my own. Fast forward two years to being on deadline – something else I’d never done – ask my beloved husband about my sang-froid. I was calm, composed…you aren’t buying this are you? Okay. I was a total, psychotic nutcase. My family took to speaking slowly, in low, soothing tones whenever I looked up from the keyboard. Sort of like the tone of voice I’d used in the car to quiet wailing felines.

And yet, after a few years of acting school, and lots of years of writing stories, I’ve discovered that I feel most alive when I’m outside my comfort zone. I might be quaking in my tennis shoes. I may have adrenaline burning a hole in my chest from the inside out, but I’m awake and alive. I don’t advocate leaping out of your comfort zone and straight into danger. I don’t recommend becoming an adrenaline junkie. But inching your toe out of your safety zone once in a blue moon clears out the cobwebs. Try writing something that scares you (for me it was a torture scene). You don’t have to share it with anyone, but see if, once you’ve done it and the relief eases, whether you don’t feel just a little bit exhilarated.

The cats? They were exhilarated to be home and let out of their carriers so they could run off and commence snubbing me for betraying their trust.

Change

2010-10-26T10:35:00.000-07:00

Yes, the ubiquitous fall foliage shot. It's thematically correct. Really.

A friend, Jeffe Kennedy, updates her blog every single weekday. You'll notice I don't. We were chatting yesterday about a group blog we've both signed on for - the Word Whores. There are seven of us. We’ll each have a day of the week to post our musings. The group came up with a list of 52 topics for the year that we would each write to. Yeah, there's a story here regarding how all of this came about, but it's not mine to tell...this is Allison Pang's (as opposed to Frankenstein's) monster. That and I suspect the story of how the Word Whores got started will be part of our 1/1/11 kick off of the blogsite. More on that as events warrant.

Back to my envy of Jeffe's disciplined blog posting schedule. I'd made some comment that I'd get started writing my blog posts in advance so they could be scheduled to post automatically. That way, my chances of missing a posting were lower. Jeffe seemed surprised by that - she was just going to blog on her scheduled days as they happened and wasn't I disciplined to write my posts ahead of time.

I quickly disabused her of that notion, pointing to my sporadic updates of my own blog. I so envy people who seem to be able to arrange their lives in such a way that they can sit down every single day and actually pull words from their heads. My life defies that sort of thing. As soon as I say “Henceforth, I shall rise at this hour, sit my butt down in my office chair, and WRITE”, life replies “Oh yeah?” and throws some crisis into my path that requires I be someplace else at precisely the time I’d fenced off for work. Jeffe gently pointed out that if I wanted to be one of ‘those’ people who could sit down at a specific time each day to write, I had to be willing to disappoint my friends and loved ones by saying no some of the time. I had to get to a point, she suggested, wherein I could say I can’t do x – this is a work day for me. “It seems like some people just don’t consider writing serious work,” Jeffe noted.

Oh. Including me, apparently. If I took my own work and time seriously, I’d guard it. I began seeing how I’d created (and how I continue to contribute) to the problem. Okay. Issue identified. Now. To change…

Selection Pressure

2010-10-14T13:39:00.000-07:00

If you required any further proof that I'm a hopeless geek (see previous post on the matter), I bring you the IM conversation I had on Tuesday with Jeffe Kennedy and KAK.

Me: You know. I never see anything about zombie dietary preferences. Do they like the brains of smart people better than the brains of less intelligent folk? Or are less intellectual brains sweeter because there's not so much stuff in there? And then, what sort of selection pressure would zombie predation put on homo sapiens? Would it select for intellect one way or the other?
kak: think the plaque build up on diseased brains makes 'em like rice-candy?
Me: LOL! EW!!! Crunchy!
Jeffe: I think plaque would be more chewy, actually
kak: hmm, chew toys for zombies
Me: Brain flavored nougat?
Jeffe Kennedy: and the glia has a decidedly different texture, where they're usually more like oatmeal, when alive. or jelly
Me: So if it maintains any shape outside the skull, it's gone bad?
kak: twizzlers, now in Brain flavor!
me: Assuming disease = bad
Jeffe: pretty much the brain only retains shape outside the skull if you've preserved it first. formalin for the win! so we always perfused and preserved brains before removing them #morethanyouwantedtoknow
Me: So that makes the whole notion of zombies as mindless sort of not work. They'd have to know that in order to get a meal of brains, they'd have to preserve the skull. Otherwise, they're scraping gray matter off available surfaces.

No. I don't remember how we got on this topic when ostensibly we were critiquing the first chapter of my third book. I wonder if that bodes ill for that book? I don't even particularly care for zombie movies, though if the World War Z movie is made and is half as good as the audiobook was, I'll be right there. Yes, okay. I'll confess a fondness for the first Resident Evil movie, but I'll maintain that's an infatuation with the soundtrack (and the "You're all going to die down here" Red Queen) as opposed to the whole zombie trope. I appreciate the social commentary that zombie stories represent. Regardless, it had never occurred to me that I might end up writing a zombie story. But I find the moment once I start asking questions that intrigue me, questions like 'what sort of selection pressure would zombie predation place on the human race' I'm doomed. I have to write about it. I have to play with the idea on paper. Or in pixals as the case may be. So how about it? Do you suppose zombies hunger indiscriminately for brains? Or are they capable of detecting and appreciating the nuances of texture and flavor that accummulated knowledge might represent and then hunting specifically for the brain type they crave? How does that impact the few human survivors and the dwindling generations that follow them? Don't be shy. This is for pseudo-science!

Terminal Geek

2010-10-05T18:56:00.000-07:00

It is my assertion that geeks are born, not made. Yes. This is me at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and proves my point. I'd always hoped and prayed that I'd grow out of being a geek. Mom assured me it was a phase. This photo proves otherwise. In it, I'm clearly well into adulthood and clearly still a complete geek. I'm not certain what gives that away - the superhero glacier glasses, the Big Cat Rescue tee shirt, or my obvious delight at having just seen the crawler that carried the space shuttle to the launch pad.

Whichever, it's plain I won't outgrow the geek thing.

I posit that there's this geek continuum. Everyone has a measure of geekiness within, but once the measure passes a certain point, those of us affected are doomed to lives of social awkwardness compounded by a damning sense of fashion and a fascination with arcane (and typically useless) bits of information. This is why I write books. The truly odd collection of data stored in my head actually comes in handy. Attempting to use that same data at a party is a guaranteed conversation killer. I've also observed that everyone else at said party has the disturbing tendancy to sidle away whilst throwing me sidelong looks. Maybe I should stop watching all the forensics shows?

In an attempt to throw off my geek shackles, I even went to acting school. I'd learned not to talk serial killers at supper. Point for me. I flattered myself that I'd done a great job of pretending to be a normal person - maybe not hip, maybe not entirely cosmopolitan - but reasonably normal. I'd discovered that black jeans, a nice black turtle neck and a sedate jacket of some kind had a chance of making me look much less like a fashion victim. It's what I wore to the recent Emerald City Romance Writer's Conference. I'd even put on makeup. I looked respectable, I thought. Respectable and normal.

I was so pleased with myself for pulling off the disguise. Then, my lovely and hard-working agent, Emmanuelle Morgen mentioned she'd like to see Steampunk proposals. I might have said I had two chapters of just such an animal, did she want to see it? "Oh, yes!" she replied, her face lighting. "You're just the nerd to do Steampunk!"

Born a geek - die a geek. Might as well embrace it. But I swear I won't talk serial killers at the dinner table unless you ask. But I will tell you about the Lego blaster still in my possession.

Making a Difference

2010-09-20T11:35:00.000-07:00

I flew to Ohio to watch a childhood friend retire from the military. Kurt and I have known one another since forever. My father and his were in the Air Force and both worked in the Precision Measurements Equipment Laboratory together. Legend has it that when my mother, pregnant with me, called my father to say her water had broken, my father thought she meant the water pipe to the trailer where they were living had broken. Kurt’s dad apparently turned to my father and said, “I think you’d better go home.” Kurt’s eldest sister Cindy babysat me. She was twelve. I was two. For this reason, Kurt and I say we grew up together, even though, when your folks are in the military, it may be years between visits, depending on where each family is posted. Still, there’s a bond between Air Force brats who are also geeks. Call it finding your tribe. We never really let go, no matter how much time has passed since last we spoke, much less visited. I identify Kurt’s family as my auxiliary family.

It was four days of truly odd human psychology – most of it, my own. As I sat watching the ceremony and the attention lavished on my good and deserving friend, I sat observing a life that might have been mine. *If only* I’d pushed a little harder, I could have squeaked into the Air Force Academy. *If only* I’d focused in, I could have gotten a degree in astro-engineering, too, and come at a career similar to Kurt’s from the civilian side. Even at the reception and party, I listened in fascination and in horror as I heard myself say stupid things like “I tried to be one of Kurt’s upper classmen. Washed out at the physical.” While strictly speaking, this may be true, why was I saying it at all? As if my life right now, the way it is, weren’t enough? What strange and remote human drive propelled me to make what amounted to excuses for not ending up in the military with a retirement ceremony of my own?

I suspect it has something to do with what Kurt said about making a difference. During Kurt’s career in the Air Force, he’s had direct and lasting impact on the security of the nation and on the safety of US troops. That’s a solid, shining example of making a difference in the world. I’m an author. And while I’d like very much to believe that the arts make a difference in the world, too, I have to be content with making a difference in one person’s life at a time. First, I aspire to write books that are considered ‘keepers’. Then I remember that maybe what Kurt and I do is related – auxiliary family after a fashion. Because people are willing to serve in the military, people like me get to write what we want (within non-libelous reason) and hopefully touch someone long after we’ve turned to dust.

Spreading the Sailing Bug

2010-08-31T15:22:00.000-07:00

Jeffe Kennedy and her SO, David, came to stay aboard the boat this past weekend. They wanted to see what this living aboard thing was all about. Maybe I'd failed to mention the word 'cramped'. After David banged his head a few times on the cabin top (tall person aboard a boat = perpetually bruised forehead) I suspect they'd worked it out. Or maybe it after they'd spent a night in the barely a double, aft cabin. The trade off is that the photo at left is the view from our foredeck.

Jeffe swore to me she brought sun with her whenever she vacationed. She did not lie. For three days, the sun shown and the skies stayed blue. Neither Jeffe nor David had sailed before, so we cast off, raised sail and took them across the Sound to Poulsbo. The moment the sails were up, Keith turned the helm over to Jeffe, who eventually relinquished it to David. We wandered Front Street, which is lined with art galleries, shops, restaurants and bakeries. Poulsbo's heritage is Nordic. The first settlers chose Liberty Bay because it reminded them of the fjords where they'd once lived. We poked through shops, found a restaurant with a deck in the sun and sat baking ourselves while we ate too much. We spent the night and woke to find the wind had risen in the night. We cast off after breakfast and headed back to Seattle. Keith handed the wheel over to David the moment we cleared the boats at anchor. We never got to raise sail on the return trip. The wind had turned from the north and was blowing out of the south east. Had we been on a monohull, we could have sailed, but the catamaran needed a better angle off the wind than we had. So it was a quick motor across the Sound.

Yes. Two cats were seasick. One on the way to Poulsbo, one on the way back from Poulsbo. This is an improvement over both being sick both ways.

A boat set up for people to live on is always more cramped than a boat with no liveaboards. Take all of our stuff, add cats, two litterboxes, a suitcase, four adults and shake. All in something short of three hundred square feet. Did I mention the head had kind of stopped working? Yeah. That was special. Once we'd docked and tied up, Jeffe and David packed up, anxious, I think, to get to their hotel where they'd have a bed the could sit up in without risking a concussion. Or maybe it was to find a toilet that flushed. Which ever.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. I got to hang with friends and Keith got to infect someone else with the sailing bug. Oh yes. A successful weekend on all counts. David and Jeffe departed discussing the merits of purchasing their own sailing craft. Keith and I count our twisted way of life validated.

Fishing for Story

2010-08-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

The Great Blue Herons who fish from our docks are a study in faith, patience, and persistence. Okay. Crankiness when you need to pass them on the dock, too, but that's another story. It's fun watching these huge birds fish. They stand stock still, eyeing the water. Ever so slowly, they bend their knees (backwards, I might add) and ease their faces closer to the surface of the water. You don't know who to root for - the poor fish about to be eaten or the hungry heron looking for supper. The bird waits. Waits. Then strikes. I don't know if the pressure of the audience enhances performance, but the birds I watch rarely miss.

I'm studying the local wildlife because I have the time on my hands. The stories that usually play nonstop in my head are quiet. Funny how panicky I get when I sit down at a blank page and hear nothing. Rather than get maudelin and self-absorbed over the creative ebb, I watch the herons. Sure. I could wrap this up all neatly with some observation about how the herons teach me to wait for precisely the right moment to strike, or how standing still is a big part of getting what they're after. All of which would be great if I wanted fish rather than another completed novel. Okay. I *am* joking about the fish thing. I'm not that dense. Most days.

Regardless, I love watching these distant relatives of dinosaurs hunting and flying and walking around on their spindly, backwards-bending legs. They're querelous birds when they're disturbed and fierce about protecting their nests. When they leave wet prints on the concrete dock, the spread of their toes is the size of my hand. I'm trying for a photo of that...so far, herons score; Marcella shoots digital camera and misses.

The High School Science Teacher Threat

2010-08-20T15:48:00.000-07:00

When I was in tenth grade, I took my high school science classes out of order. Apparently, sophmores were supposed to take chemistry first, then biology as juniors. What can I say. Didn't get the memo. I ended up in biology, sans the school's prerequisite of chemisty and did just fine, thank you. 99% of the credit for that fact goes to Mr. Peter Wiles, my biology teacher that year. He'd been involved in loads of early nuclear research for the Navy. He'd mention it in passing during one lesson or another and the entire class knew there were some hair-raising, compelling stories Mr. Wiles could tell. He wouldn't. Instead, he spent his entire day motivating a school full of moody, angsty, sometimes surly teenagers. And he made it look easy. He was one of those people you want to think well of you - someone you didn't want to disappoint. He had no problem being friends with his students. I was full of pride the day his wife came to class and when Mr. Wiles introduced me, she brightened and said "Oh! Pete's talked about you!"

At some point in the class, he assigned a project wherein he gave us a multistep experiment to perform. We were to write up the hypothesis, the experimental protocol, document the actual experiment and then write our conclusions. It took us weeks to wade through, but we finally turned in our papers. Some days later, he returned our papers. Typically, he handed out tests and papers in ranked order - highest scores to lowest scores. I assume he did the same thing that day. He gave back papers and had something good to say about each one he gave back. With each paper he returned, my heart sank and my alarm grew. Never before had my test or paper not been returned within the top five. High school wasn't a good time for me. I had very little to cling to. My academic performance was about it. Here it was. I'd screwed up so badly, I'd gotten the lowest score in the class. Worse. I'd disappointed my friend.

Mr. Wiles, with one paper left in his hands, came to stand beside my desk. He stared at the paper a moment, then looked at me. I must have looked terrified. I was. "I saved your paper for last, because it needs some explaining. Highest score. Not just in this class. Out of all of my classes. It's brilliant," he said. I blinked. "The writing is clear. Concise, but detailed. Specific. If you don't become a writer, I'll haunt you until the day you die."

A few weeks later, the substitute teachers started. Shortly after, we knew. Mr. Wiles had lung cancer. He didn't finish the school year, opting for treatment instead. By early in my junior year (when I had to take the chemistry I'd missed the year before), he was gone. But his threat to haunt me and his legacy of faith in my ability lived.

Took a few detours, but I'm a writer, Mr. Wiles. Do I get extra credit because I'm writing science fiction??

Earth Shattering Kaboom

2010-08-18T08:51:00.000-07:00

Cuillean

Yesterday, this lovely lady thought her world had ended.

Let me start at the beginning. I write slowly. Some days are slower than others. I made ten + pages yesterday, but it took more than twelve hours to do so. It's one of those things. I'm not happy with how things are going in the story, but the only way to resolve that is to keep going with the story even when every instinct is screaming 'Wow! This sucks rocks through a cocktail straw!'

I'd been toiling away for a few hours when KABOOM! A compression wave hit and I felt that explosion in my chest. The entire boat dipped and reverberated with the sound. KABOOM! By this point, Cuillean was on full alert staring at me as if expecting me to explain. "Darlin'," I said, getting up to see whether or not Seattle was still there, "I got nothing." The cat decided that hiding the bedclothes was her best option. She beat a hasty retreat.

I sat back down and realized I'd been writing in silence until whatever had just happened had...well...happened. Huh. My heroine in this book is deaf. No wonder I'm writing without music. How interesting that out of the blue, I should get such a graphic demonstration of what it's like to *feel* sound. I went back to work with the inkling that the rocks getting sucked through the cocktail straw of my writing were getting a little smaller. Maybe. (Problem solved after calling it a day and whilst washing the dishes - If you don't like the scene, maybe you should change the POV character, silly. Duh.)

The earthshattering kabooms? President Obama had come to Seattle for a brief visit. A private float plane pilot failed to check air space restriction bulletins before taking off that day. He violated Air Force One's air space. The Secret Service scrambled a pair of National Guard F-15s out of Portland and gave them 'get there yesterday' clearance. They took off and hit their afterburners. The cat and I had nearly wet ourselves over a pair of sonic booms. I'm an Air Force brat. I grew up with sonic booms. You'd think I'd remember - at least enough to trust my city was still standing. I'm so ashamed.

But not as ashamed, I bet, as that float plane pilot.

Same Words, Different Language

2010-08-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

Years ago, we won't discuss how many, I mentioned to a college professor that air and water move in the same way. She looked aghast and said, "They do not!"

Who was right?

Turns out, we both were. Using the same words, we were talking about two very different things. I was talking macrocosm. Water and air as mirrored oceans. The motion of the mediums reflect one another, in that both air and water move in currents and tides, swirling and twisting. My professor was thinking microcosm. She'd focused on how objects affected by air move as opposed to how objects affected by water move.

I had a deja vu miscommunication yesterday during a sail back from Liberty Bay. I had the helm. The beloved husband went forward to raise the sails. "You're stuck!" I hollared. "Untangle the lines beneath the boom, then you'll be able to finish raising the main." He looked down, confusion in his face. "I don't understand how lines beneath the boom mean I can't raise the sail!" he said. I blinked. Understanding had no bearing on the fact that the reefing lines had tangled and bound the sail, preventing him from lifting the sail all the way. We got it figured out with no blood shed. It wasn't until we'd gotten back to dock and put everything away that it occurred to me we'd had a language malfunction similar to the one I'd had in college.

I'd said 'lines under the boom' and meant the reefing lines that run through the boom. He'd looked under the boom and saw the coiled halyards at his feet. No wonder he hadn't understood how those lines were impeding the sail (because they had nothing to do with that sail and *weren't* involved at all). I hadn't been specific enough. Had I said, "the reefing lines are tangled," he'd have known where to look and would have instantly understood the problem. Mental note: saying the word 'lines' on a boat that has several such critters is not sufficiently descriptive.

That's when I had a horrifying epiphany. I'm committing the sin in my day to day life that I've learned I'd better not commit in my writing life: failing to put what's in my head on the paper. Somewhere along the way, I learned in writing not to say 'the trees' when I want you to envision 'the aspens' or 'the maples' or 'the stand of fir, hemlock and cedar'. I suppose it's long past time to learn to be equally specific when I speak. Why does that seem so much harder?

A Weekend Sail

2010-08-09T11:18:00.000-07:00

Autolycus

My husband and I live aboard a sailboat with our feline companions. The orange guy in the portal is Autolycus, an eleven year old bobtail male. Cute, ain't he? Great purr. Big personality. Likes to sleep on my head. Very endearing. The down side is that Mr. Congeniality gets sea sick. Really sea sick. Saturday dawned cool and rainy just to piss off all the people tied to the log boom on Lake Washington to watch the Seafair hydro races and the Blue Angels. We got up, went to breakfast, came back, and cleaned up the boat in preparation for guests. This tipped off the cats that something unusual was happening. And by their definition, unusual = bad. Our guests arrived, we showed them around a bit to familiarize them with the boat, then we cast off. The moment the diesel engine started, the hearing cats hid. The deaf girl got up and came out to the cockpit. She *loves* going for a sail. The other cats shun her. We had 12 knots of wind out of the south and increasing rain. I bundled up in my foul weather jacket and my life vest (no going on deck without a PFD). Cleared the deck and then invited our guests forward so I could show them the sail workings. We set the main and then trooped back to the cockpit (and inside the dry, warm enclosure). Keith killed the engine. I helped set the head sail. We fell off and were sailing. Good speed. Easy beam reach and the while there was a little bit of chop, it really was a pleasant sail. Until I went below.

Hatshepsut had deposited her breakfast on one of the sleeping bags - the bag the deaf gal uses as her bed. Erie, our deaf matriarch, was not impressed. It's okay. Really. The bag is washable.

Then a line caught on a hatch. It scared Autolycus, which translates into the cat yakking up his guts. Great. Which set off Hatshepsut. Again. How can she have anything left to throw up?? Then the terror poop began. It isn't like cats poop roses to begin with, but there's no mistaking terror poop. Nose hairs curl in protest. Eyes water. Our youngest guest desperately wanted OFF the boat at that point...except that we were in the middle of Puget Sound. I opened all the windows. I cleaned up. I sat our guests out on the transom where they had fresh air. By the time the rain really began falling, we'd made it most of the way back to the marina, Autolycus had yarfed on both dry-clean only bed covers, and the smell from the terror poop had dissipated.

I shudder to think what sort of impression sailing with us left on our guests. They bundled up and went back to a house with central heating. Keith helped me get the dry cleaning up the dock to the car. We dropped it off then went to grab a burger. (You cannot live with children or animals and remain squeamish.) He brought me back to the boat where I did the washable laundry while he went to a Rush concert. Yeah. Laundry covered in cat barf versus Rush. I got the better end of that deal.

Bad Influence

2010-08-05T19:06:00.000-07:00

I'm being a terrible influence. My eleven year old niece wants so badly to be a digital kid. Her mother and my mother (her mom and grandmother) aren't comfortable with computers or with internet safety, so they won't allow her access to Facebook or to chat programs. I'm a geek. My niece shows signs of wanting to become a geek. It is incumbant upon me to encourage that tendency in the child. As a result, I've shown her World of Warcraft. She wants an account. I'd get her one and bring her into the server I play on so she could be 'shepherded' by a group of adults, but the internet connectivity where she lives bites. Hard. So, no WoW. She wants a Facebook page. Her mom and grandma flat refused. The smart girl came to me. We discussed the dangers of Facebook and I told her why her mom was afraid to let her have an account. Silly adults. We think kids are innocent - that they aren't aware of the dangers in the world. We're wrong. (Which isn't to say that kids don't need help and guidance navigating the internet and the perils of social networking - they do because there's a huge gap between what is *known* and what is *understood*.) The girl knew that people predate other people and that some people hunt via the web. So I offered to talk to her mom and see if we couldn't set up a Facebook page without a photo, an address or email info. The kid just wants to play one of the zoo games with her friends from school. We're still negotiating that one. But my win? IM. My niece wanted to be able to instant message people and have an actual conversation. So I showed her Windows Live Messenger (it's installed already and I'm the only contact on the list). Tonight, she IM'd me. I was so proud. Her spelling and her typing skills post fifth grade are far better than mine were at that age. And, no. The conversation wasn't all that scintillating, but that's not the point, is it? The point is that I'm successfully corrupting my sister's only child. I sent her a YouTube video link to watch. I did this before I realized the kid would think it was so hilarious that she's want to show it to grandma and grandpa...Yeah. YOU explain what ROFLMAO means to an eleven year old whose mother wants to go on believing the kid has never heard a 'bad' word. She IM'd me that grandma was laughing and I was in trouble. Great.

Vacation Discordia

2010-07-26T11:48:00.000-07:00

We took a two week vacation aboard our sailing catamaran. The two weeks was hard won. My husband doesn't like to use up his vacation all in one go. I think there's value in taking the extra time to let all of the work nonsense trickle out of your brain cells. He agreed to give it a try. We cruised the San Juan Islands.

The trip had its good points. The weather was gorgeous. We came back with tan lines - no mean feat in Washington State. The scenery was lovely and the wildlife sightings were fascinating glimpses into behaviors we'd never before observed (no whales). The cats weren't seasick and actively seemed to enjoy the anchorages.

The trip had its bad points. There was the involuntary test of the automatic flotation device...no, I won't tell you about that one. Suffice it to say it isn't my story to tell. There was the midpoint maritial melt down. Oh, yes. Every vacation we have ever taken we've had some fight or the other. If we're lucky, it happens early so we can enjoy the rest of the vacation. It can be about anything. Anything at all. The point is the stresses of keeping body and soul together on a day to day basis trump relationship maintenance. It takes us several days of being removed from routine for relationship issues to finally get some attention. In this case, we discovered some very important and difficult truths: I love cruising. My husband does not. I'm an active, adventure-seeking vacationer. My husband in a cultural vacationer. Give me wilderness, trees, mountains, geology and wildlife. Give him museums, bookstores and the odd chocolate shop.

As the tan lines fade, and the stresses of bills to be paid mount, how do we reconcile our differences? Compromise. Not always easy. Very rarely sexy, except were it helps two people each feel like his and her needs might be met. I get to pick a vacation. Then he gets to pick a vacation. First up - an eleven day walking trip across Tsavo National Park in Kenya. (My idea...but he'll go with me because he wants to share the life experience, even when it's one he wouldn't chose. Isn't that sweet?)

In retaliation, I expect to be taken to London and/or Paris for a multi-museum tour. As if that will be a hardship. What do you suppose he'll pick as a vacation after I tell him I want to go to Antarctica to see Blood Falls??

"Rationality is a Myth..."

2010-06-21T10:38:00.000-07:00

Today's link takes you, not to a science article, but to a one about earthquake insurance. I don't care about your insurance portfolio. I barely care about mine - which may prove the article's underlying point regarding human psychology. Apparently, just because we have the science to make frightening risk predictions, it doesn't mean the human animal has the capacity to rationally quantify and cope with that risk assessment. And that's what fascinates me. My favorite quote: "Human beings are hard-wired to believe in their heart and soul that disasters don't happen and won't happen to them," says Dennis Mileti, a retired University of Colorado sociology professor and noted researcher. "Human beings are not rational when it comes to risk. Rationality is a myth invented by the Italians in the Renaissance." Evolutionary biology seems to hint that our brain development hasn't necessarily kept pace with our technology and science. What we understand intellectually doesn't always, or even often, translate into rational action. And we're only talking about a Californian's need to buy earthquake insurance. How does this sort of evolutionary biology meets hard tech in a life-threatening environment affect astronauts? Really, can humanity as we know it expand out into the stars only if the rose-colored, disaster-won't-happen-to-me glasses are in place? Are denial and a certain naiveté our best weapons when it comes to facing down almost certain death? Or can the brain be trained to overcome its own biology? If yes, is that adaptation? Or evolution?

Science Not So Fiction

2010-06-18T14:08:00.000-07:00

My husband and I live aboard a sailing catamaran most of the year. Yesterday, I discovered water in the port bilge. These boats aren't supposed to have water in the bilges. The joke is that you clean the bilges of these boats with a hand broom and a dustpan. Fortunately, I know where this water is coming from - the hotwater heater leaks when it's turned on. The chances of the boat sinking because of this leak are slim. This morning, while trying to cook my breakfast and boil water for that all important first cup of tea, I ran out of propane and had to grab the wrench and go switch out the tanks. This is a slightly hazardous job. Propane is a heavier than air gas and it is highly flammable. Boats blow up because of undetected propane leaks and a single stray spark. My point? The whole living aboard the boat thing has given me new respect for the notion of spacefaring in a self-contained craft. This boat is three years old, yet we already have a list of kludges and fixes (and a list of those things which may be safely ignored - like the water heater leak) so that we can operate. This is only a sailboat. Our margin for error is really pretty big. Can you imagine trying to keep a boat in repair and in shape in space? Mess something up there and it's possible you won't be able to breathe. Leaks in zero-g would be catastrophic. Sure, my fresh water leak is inconvenient and wasteful, but all I have to do is put into a dock, grab a hose and refill my tanks. What are my options in outer space if one of my fuel tanks or water tanks springs a leak? Or worse - one of my O2 generators blows out? Yeah. In some of my books, the science fiction surrounding some of the stuff that goes wrong with space craft isn't entirely fiction after all.

Coronal Rain

2010-06-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

We have a stellar furnace at the center of our solar system and we know remarkably little about it. A new Solar Dynamics Observatory is apparently changing that. The link is worth a click through, if only for the photos. They are lovely. Be sure to click on the slideshow thumbnail on the right. Just the first photo of the sun turns our central star into something that looks like it belongs in a horror show - it's beautiful and kind of terrifying all at once. You can imagine that bright/dark star over a world of fiends. As to the point of the article, apparently, when plasma erupts from the sun, it arcs along magnetic lines in the corona and the plasma then falls back to the surface of the sun in vivid splashes - if one is allowed a watery metaphor for something registering 60,000 degrees Kelvin. The plasma falls in 'droplets' and are referred to as coronal rain. The mystery had been in why the drops fall so slowly. The new observatory offered enough detail of the sun's corona to allow scientists to realize that masses of hot gas are buoying the 'rain', slowing its descent through the solar atmosphere. Interesting, no? Nice possible romantic moment - escape your bad guys and sit watching a plasma eruption and the subsequent rain. From within the safe confines of your starship, of course. Or have to navigate close enough to a star to have to deal with the massive heat as well as the super-heated gases, as well as the potential plasma eruptions. Dodge one of those and remember that you have to dodge the coronal rain as well. Mm. Nothing like the threat of imminent death to get the creative juices flowing. Now. Where were those matches?

Life As We Don't Know It

2010-06-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

Take a creative writing class and call me if someone doesn't say at least once "Write what you know". I've always wanted to ask how someone could write what they don't know because - well - how would you even begin? That's why, no matter how strange and alien a world may be in a science fiction novel, every alien aspect is described in terms of what we humans can reasonably know. Our aliens must be modeled on perfectly mundane, earthbound critters, if only because they're all we've got. Maybe. Based on a chemical puzzle, scientists hypothesize that Titan may be home to an alien cellular life form. If Titan is host to a brand of E.T., it certainly will not be life as we know it. Life on earth evolved in a watery soup and that watery soup remains captive in every cell in our bodies. On Titan, the soup wouldn't be H2O - it would be liquid methane and ethane. Which may mean that life as we don't know it is odder than we ever imagined. And possibly stinkier than we imagined.

Possibility

2010-06-09T12:14:00.000-07:00

The other night, I was watching an episode of "Monster Quest". My husband leaned over to glance at my screen and smirk. "Not much science in that show, is there," he said. No. It was distinctly not a question. Truthfully? The observation is accurate. Far too few TV shows, even on the ostensibly science-friendly Discover channel, contain much in the way of actual science. I mourn the lack. However. For my purposes as a writer, while science tends to be my preferred tool for story generation, ultimately, stories don't care whether the science is good, bad, laughable, or complete drivel. Stories care about possibility, about what could be...if. So I sat through an hour of some guys ghost hunting in the Lizzie Borden house - an hour during which remarkably little happened. In the end, the investigators came away with one EVP (electronic voice phenomena) that defied explanation and that passed muster when put through a voice recognition specialist's tests to verify that it was indeed a voice and not just white noise. While ghosts and everything surrounding them is currently considered 'paranormal' and not 'scifi', what happens if science and technology finally bridge a gap and prove that ghosts occur? Are they then scifi? Will humanity find a way to A) communicate with the dead without use of mediums and B) find some way to profit from the whole deal? There's an old Star Trek episode (original series) wherein a transporter accident appears to kill Captain Kirk - he randomly appears as an apparition to various members of the crew until they work out that he's been trapped in some kind of space/time anomolie. They subsequently figure out how to sync the transporter to Kirk's space/time and recover him just as the air in his space suit runs out. Surely there's a SFR story in a recurring EVP haunting a heroine who has to figure out she's picking up either an alien dimension or an alien whose communications tech doesn't work like ours does (radio waves are so passe).

Teleporting

2010-06-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

Scientists in China have managed to teleport information sixteen kilometers using photon entanglement. The scientists entangled two photons of light, then sent one about ten miles from Beijing. When they altered the state of the proton in Beijing, the proton ten miles away changed state in the exact same way at the same time. According to the article, it's one thing to mess about with protons, and quite another to assume that we'll shortly be putting the airlines out of business by teleporting to our vacations in Fiji. (How I wish that weren't the case...flying is not my favorite mode of transportation.) The experiment may yet lead to new computing and communications techniques allowing for faster, more secure transmission of data. Put computer modules inside a cyborg that calculate using entangled protons and you can effectively deprogram that cyborg by removing him or her from the planet - you'd unentangle the protons over distance. Presumably, as technology and knowledge advances, the distances over which protons remain entangled will increase, but still. Would it hurt in some vaguely physical way to have embedded processing modules essentially die inside your head? How easy (or difficult) would it be for someone to modify the protons of your onboard computer - re-entangle them to protons - and therefore programming - they control?

First Deadline

2010-06-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

I'm taking a break from science today in the hopes that others can learn from my mistakes. This past Sunday, I finished and turned in my second book. It was the first book I'd ever done on deadline. No. A real deadline - as in - someone waiting and counting on you deadline. I was two weeks late. Not the impression I'd wanted to make. How to fix this so it never happens again: the two words no artist ever wants to hear, but which, if said artist aspires to becoming a business person, must be said - Project Management.

1. Establish a post mortem habit. After every single project, assess what went well and identify what did not work. Include in that list everything that held you up, randomized your time and attention, and that dropped roadblocks in your path. Put everything down - making breakfast, doing the laundry, having to fix the flat on the car...you aren't evaluating yet. You're listing. After you've listed, you'll evaluate. You will pick the things on that list of distractions that you're willing to allow to go on distracting you. May I suggest that you automatically allow spouses, children and pets to go on being distractions (within reason)? I understand divorce court really chews up available writing time and resources.
2. Identify areas for improvement and change. From your list, do you notice that you allowed email to randomize you? Or Facebook, Twitter, your blog, IM, etc? Give yourself x number of minutes per day to do those things, then stop and work. If you finish your day's goal, you can go play on your time-killer of choice. Not until then. Set aside one day per week for errands. Stick to it. Teach your family to clean up after themselves so that when you do vacuum, it lasts longer than three minutes. Ultimately, this second step boils down to learning to manage yourself and to…
3. Manage expectations. This was my biggest failure. I did not manage my family's expectations. I'd already written and sold a book and done it all while taking care of them...why should this second book have been any different? Because I had half the time in which to produce that book. I had no idea what that meant. Neither did my family. Now we do. I will actively manage their expectations of how many 'can you get, do, make, be, pretend...' things I can do in one week while still making deadline.

Sure. I'd built deadlines for myself before. They had no teeth. If you want to test yourself and your project management skill, give yourself six months. Build a 90k word book from idea to finished - not polished - just finished and edited and rewritten so it isn't 100% rough draft. And then remind yourself that this is the job you aspire to. Some days, that will be cause for deep despair. But then come the days when it's utterly exhilarating.

Geometry in Space

2010-05-31T09:38:00.000-07:00

I wonder if the first sailors expected vast stretches of nothingness when contemplating an ocean crossing - especially the ones who went just to see what might be on the other side. Whenever I contemplate writing the space flight portions of books I find I have to constantly challenge my assumption that traveling through interstellar space would entail vast stretches of nothing but vacuum. Recent photos from a series of new telescopes the world (and orbiting said world) over provide terrific views of the galaxy as a dynamic, living system which sometimes defies explanation. The 'impossible star', a star forming in the constellation of Scorpius, apparently exceeds the theoretical limit for a star's mass. What a thing for characters to see while tooling around interstellar space - phenomena that challenge the known laws of physics.

The Airship Future

2010-05-07T20:26:00.000-07:00

For the well-read paranormal enthusiast, what could be better than the confluence of Steampunk and Science Fiction? In an article for Discover.com, E-Green Technologies describes their Airship, the Bullet 580, as a 'truck in the sky', albeit, a truck made of kevlar. Now that a steampunk staple has been brought out of the pages of fiction and into reality, can we look forward to joining the Air Corps? More importantly, will the Air Corps get to wear wicked cool leather enhanced uniforms and carry aether charged weapons? Where do I sign up?

Sonic Weapons

2010-05-05T07:58:00.000-07:00

Those of us with a maritime bent know about modern sonic cannons used to defend commercial shipping interests from pirates. Now comes an article about turning sound to medical use or to far more devastating military purposes. The technology exists and is being developed by scientists at the California Institute of Technology. The scientists developed a way to focus sound waves in one specific location while amplifying those waves. Taken to extremes, you melt large metallic objects (and the lifeforms therein). Applied with skill and finesse, you destroy disease processes in the body without damaging surrounding tissues. Does that expose one of the great truisms of humanity? It's not the size of the explosion - it's how you use it?

Solar Sailing

2010-05-03T21:20:00.000-07:00

A British satellite is slated to be launched next year as proof of two concepts. One: that solar sails can provide solar wind powered propulsion for space-going vehicles. Two: that humans can send satellite 'garbage collectors' into orbit to clear away our space litter. The obstacles: no space craft has successfully managed controlled space flight using only solar sails and the existing swarm of space debris currently in orbit around the planet, which makes navigating orbital space a hazardous proposition. From a fiction stand point, sails of any kind are appealing and not just because I sail. On water. Sails in space sounds like fun if one can find adequate energy sources to power the sails. Could radioactivity leaking from a black hole propel a sail? Or suppose it's your satellite that's going up to collect garbage and destroy antiquated, abandoned space craft by burning it up on re-entry? Until you realize that one of your pieces of 'garbage' is fighting back...

Sixty Second Science

2010-04-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

Scientific American produces a series of podcasts, audio only tidbits, covering a science headline per week day. I love these things. In a minute long (plus a tiny bit of change for titles) podcast, I get an quick, fun overview of a broad range of science. If one of the subjects tickles my creative fancy, it's an easy matter to go do a bit of further research. The podcasts are valuable, too, from a vocabulary standpoint. If your characters are scientists, there's great joy in being able to say 'that gene transfer took place between two entirely different taxinomic kingdoms' and have it actually mean something. (From the April 30, 2010 podcast)

Hacking the Brain

2010-04-28T12:16:00.000-07:00

An article at Wired.com suggests that the brain is the next great hacking frontier and contemplates the possibilities for securing neural interface devices. The article focuses on the lack of attention being paid to creating robust security for such hardware as deep brain stimulators used to treat a variety of illnesses, or for the systems being developed that would allow an amputee to mentally control a prosthetic limb. May I just say "story goldmine"? Whether you have a character hacking a cyborg's interfaces in order to commit third person murder, or a futuristic tech shop specializing in security layers for people whose neural implants weren't entirely on the up and up, or whether you character is a hacker who happens , one day, to drop into the wrong brain - there's far too much fun to be had here. In fiction. In reality, I'd rather know that anything wired directly into my brain was safe against some random gold farmer.

Defining Life

2010-04-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

A book came out several years ago called Rare Earth. It was written by a pair of scientists arguing that the human race is likely alone in the universe because life as we know it thrives only within a very narrow band of set circumstances. Did you catch the same caveat I did when I first read the book? "Life as we know it". Turns out, since the book was published, life as we know it, and the conditions under which it can and will thrive, has been expanded several times, so, too has the habitable zone - the boundry in a solar system wherein one could assume life forms might be able to survive. What if "life as we know it" is too limiting? The major issue, of course, is that life as we know *is* all we know. It's dreadfully difficult to look for something when you can't describe it. Scientists can't agree on whether or not viruses are alive. How can you search for life that isn't as you know it when you can't even define what you do know? Now, physists are suggesting SETI - the folks scanning the radio frequencies of the skies for an ET phoning anyone at all - is too narrowly focused, that the search for alien intelligence is defined based on human, radio technology that is increasingly being left in our own past. Scientists urged investigators to broaden not only their search, but also their thinking by looking into our future and make some educated guesses about how other living things might give us clues as to their existence. The linked article offers another link to a detailed list of some of the scifi suggestions. For those of us feeding our imaginations, the next obvious question is what happens when your theory pans out and you find signs of an alien civilization? How pleased (or not) is that race about having been seen? And depending on how "life as we know it" they are, how much trouble is your hero or heroine in?

Earthbound Science

2010-04-23T09:16:00.000-07:00

The main premise of a science fiction story is that science is in some way, shape or form going to figure into resolving a major plot point. Most of us (I include myself there) assume that requires galactic-scale science. It needn't. In the War of the Worlds, an alien invasion that no human-made power on earth could stop was nevertheless doomed from the moment the first alien ship touched down. Earthbound viruses killed the invaders when nothing else could. (Irony? Viral invaders kill the alien invaders?) It's fascinating to me that some of the most elegant solutions to complex problems aren't always huge, grandiose schemes of technology, engineering and discovery. They're humbler. Simpler. Like viruses, which are so simple, there's considerable debate as to whether they're actually alive. Or like this potential carbon-sink - something that could pull excess carbon dioxide from the warming atmosphere and lock it into the ocean - researched by scientists in Australia. Whether that carbon-sink can have a significant impact on global warming remains to be seen, but the idea itself is a lovely example of being willing to look anywhere and everywhere for a solution to what looks like an intractable issue. It's tempting, when writing on a galactic scale, to believe that big problems require bigger solutions. Sometimes they do. But occasionally, a little virus, or a single flea infected with plague, or a bit of iron-rich whale poop will solve all sorts of problems.

Counting Stars

2010-04-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Every once in awhile during a story, my characters stop and count the stars. It's a way to keep from taking the backdrop of space for granted. Think of your last road trip. Did it really pass in a blur? Or was there something, no matter how tiny, that made you catch in your breath for a second? When I need something for a space-faring hero to show a heroine or other way around, I go to Hubble Telescope site, and to the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day. The Astronomy Picture of the Day isn't strictly photos of celestial phenomena as evidenced by a spectacular shot of lightning generated from volcanic ash clouds. In that photo, you're seeing something that science cannot fully explain, yet. Theory has it that static builds up in the dust, gas and heat, thereby generating the lightning, but research to verify the hypothesis is ongoing. Where am I headed with this? What's out there between the stars? Dust and gas. Suppose your spaceship passes near a dense, dark nebula that's thick with dust. A nearby star has been exhibiting an upswing in radiation emissions, exciting that dust and gas. If lightning doesn't require oxygen in order to fire, a hero and/or heroine could catch a deep space lightning storm. Or perhaps a spaceship cuts through a patch of dust and the static generated by the dust passing over the hull leads to new adventure? Do they glow and give away their position? Does the static blow their electrical grid? Or short their onboard computers? How many ways do you want your characters to survive by the skin of their teeth just after they've paused to count the stars?

Space Weather

2010-04-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

Haven't you ever wondered what an ion storm is, much less where one might come from? While http://www.spaceweather.com/won't answer that specific question, it provides plenty of fascinating solar weather data - sun spot activity, solar wind, auroral activity and even for the next day or two, the expected trajectory of the space shuttle transiting the continental US on its return from the space station. Still. It's time to find out whether interstellar travel is subject to phenomena that we'd perceive as weather.

Creepy Crawlies

2010-04-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

One of the things about being a science geek: It is not for the faint of heart. Worse? Being married to a science geek when you are not one. Feel my husbands pain. I adore all the creepy, gross, hope I never meet that in a dark alley wildlife and critters that run around this planet. Meet Bathynomus giganteus. He lives here. When you vacation in Mexico, it might be this isopod nibbling on your toes when you take a dip in the Gulf. Not really - they don't like the shallows. File this under 'things that make you say 'ew!'' and then forth and create those scifi Bug-Eyed Monsters.

Backwards Planets

2010-04-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Astronomers are revisiting their theories about how planets form after finding evidence of planets that orbit their stars opposite the star's rotation. You've seen the animation of the interstellar dust cloud turning majestically in space. Over time, the dust clouds coalesce and planets form, all following the same path around the central star. It's a lovely idea that has now been called into question given the new data. Personally, I love the image of a planet going the wrong way round its star if only because I suspect most of us feel like that defines us and our lives. Now. How can I work a retrograde planetary orbit into some character's daring escape from overwhelming odds?

Brain Controlled Tech

2010-04-12T14:54:00.000-07:00

To further Friday's post regarding the line between human and cyborg, I offer a link brought to my attention by fellow SFR Brigade member Charles. Researchers, in the pursuit of brainwave controlled prosthetics, used EEG to post a Twitter message. No one I know would claim that controlling computer generated speech software with brainwaves qualifies a person as a cyborg. Still, move that development one hundred to two hundred years in the future. No one is wearing a mini-EEG reader external to the skull. Miniaturization has reduced it all to something tiny that can be implanted either into the skin of the scalp, or into the tissue of the brain itself. And then what are you controlling? Computer generated speech? Your car (or hover craft)? Your station on a ship?

Augmenting Senses

2010-04-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

For the cyborg fans among us, it appears that science is on the cusp of integrating technology with human information processing. It's on a limited scale, at the moment, but if you're familiar with the D20 gaming system Shadow Run and the novels the game has spawned, then you're familiar with the concept of hardware implants designed to let human consciousness mesh with computer generated visualizations. The questions (and therefore story points) just keep popping up. At what point do technological enhancements turn a human into a cyborg? What happens to the human brain when the admittedly cool tech like that detailed in the article linked above makes it so that our brains no longer have to learn to operate on a spacial basis? Is there inherent mental/physical benefit - beyond being able to find your way from point A to point B - in having to learn how to read a map or visualize your city and your position therein? Can something as simple as a pair of glasses giving directions really influence how humans evolve? In what way? Aren't there at least a thousand stories in this single article? I have mine. The third, as yet untitled, book in the Enemy series (Enemy Within, Enemy Games - from Berkley Sensations in November 2010 and Spring 2011) includes a heroine using technology to enhance and sometimes to compensate for her senses. What's your story?

Fluid Morality

2010-04-07T08:00:00.000-07:00

Scientists have discovered that magnets can alter a person's perception of morality. Granted, in this limited study, the change was minor and temporary, but we're writing science fiction here and this is the stuff of major bad guy weaponry. Why have Dr. Doomsday get off his evil genius backside when he can apply his magnetic mind altering device to a captured good guy and have said hero do the dirty work? Or does Dr. Doomsday alter the heroine's moral compass enough that she'd date him? If she does date him, how does that alter Dr. Doomsday's morality? Something about wanting a bunch of baby evil geniuses underfoot has a way of changing a man's priorities - if not his morality.

Planetary Rumblings

2010-04-05T18:02:00.000-07:00

If you'd read or heard that the Chilean earthquake had knocked the earth slightly off of it's axis, thereby shortening our day by 1.26 milliseconds, fear not. It turns out that, in the long run, the planet has a series of coping mechanisms designed to put everything right again. How interesting would it be to work some of those properties into a science fiction story wherein a planet's changing orbital patterns can be used in some fashion to thwart the bad guys? Or the good guys, depending on your bent.

Imagination Runs on Strange Fuel

2010-04-02T09:53:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite video podcasts is "Stuff They Don't Want You to Know". This 3 to 7 minute podcast definitely qualifies as 'weird' and only vaguely as 'science'. It spins off into conspiracy theories and other fun (and story rich) stuff. Past episodes have covered the Hollow Earth Theory, and the end of time (2012 and the end of the Mayan calendar). Scientific? Not so much. Fodder for all sorts of strange and twisted story making? Oh, yes.

If you use the Zune software to subscribe to this feed, you'll need to lower the video resolution settings to get smooth playback. This feed is available via ITunes, Zune and as an rss feed directly from the website.

Weird Science

2010-03-31T11:54:00.000-07:00

Full disclosure: I'm a science junkie. The more likely the science is to kill us, the happier I am with reading or watching it. I watch all of those shows about super volcanos and mega-tsunamis. For my purposes, the science doesn't even have to be good. I'm interested in anything that'll spark an idea, an automatic "Oo, I don't care if it's true - what if it could be?" That's where stories start, with possibilities, with disasters, and with accidents that shunt someone's original research premise off into the truly strange, and, if I'm lucky, into the terrifying.

Three days a week or so, I'll post a short brain dump and a link to a science story that's piqued my curiosity. All of this because I write science fiction romance for Berkley Sensations. My website will tell you about it, but now, without further ado, the first link to an article that has me rethinking spaceship hulls.