Cultivator
Universe

There is something very nice about being able to demonstrate solid forward progress, but I'm in edit mode right now and haven't even subtracted any words to my manuscript, let alone added any. That doesn't mean I haven't been working.

I have written a ~1600 word summary of everything that happened previous to the book that Serena needs to deductively reconstruct. (Well she probably doesn't need *all* of it, maybe I'll be able save a couple bits for background trivia for the website or something.) I've also spent some time playing with imaginary languages in the theory that it's forward motion on the missing names thingy. (Nobody seems to believe this theory other than me, however.)

Next I guess I need to do a summary of the two plot threads and how they interact so that I know how the bits of deduction need to be redistributed in order to match with Bambi's half of the story. No more today, though. Black Flag has been neglected for too long and it's nagging at me. I gotta get some work done on Tortuga Station or I'll have a mutiny on my hands.

My “Cultivator Universe” userpic is currently my least favorite, and I will hopefully be using it fairly frequently now. I'll have to think about creating a replacement.

Which reminds me in a sort of round the corner way about the icon love meme going around, and that I have not yet asked anyone to tell me their favorite of my userpics. I would love to have people tell me they like one (or all) of my userpics, but it just seems to be cheating somehow, when I only have six: one of which is a photo of me, and the other five of which are my own artwork. It feels a bit like going around saying “So, which of my books did you like best?”

Getting back to the reason to use the “Cultivator Universe” userpic, I read Eyes of Infistar today, and added a couple things to the revision notes I had scribbled down at the end way back when. It was actually a pretty fun way to spend the day. I'm looking forward to this. I enjoy fixing problems when I know what the problems are. When I don't know what I'm supposed to be fixing I can get very frustrated, but this book has some very clearly defined problems for me to take care of:

1) Bambi and Serena's plot threads do not progress at the same pace.
2) Twice I changed my mind about what I wanted to have happen, and just kept on writing as if the changes had already been made — now I need to go back and make the changes.
3) There's this little continuity error at the climax, (precisely where you least want a continuity error and yet are most likely to make one.)
4) I'd like to see the kids' situation made more of, some great potential for humor was overlooked there.
5) Only six of the characters have been named. Everyone else is called ????.

Hopefully fixing all that will keep me busy for a good long while before I have to start worrying about hunting up some beta readers to pester. 🙂

Thank you very much for all the congrats and woohoos everyone.

I am always very happy to get to the end of a book, firstly for the joy of completion (yes, I know there are still revisions to be done, that's beside the point, there are always revisions to be done), and secondly because it means I'm allowed to switch to a different project. >:)

So long, elegant-and-witty-court-intrigue! Hello again action-oriented-space-opera-pastiche starring Bambi Wysorickovitz the barbie-doll-blonde investigator with purple eyes.

Kind of cool that I'll be back to working on this one just when the anthology with the related short story comes out. (So that no one coming in late will get confused, I am referring to “Frozen Witness” which will appear in stores as part of the POLARIS anthology shortly. The story is published as hard science fiction, and is not intended to be humorous, but nonetheless makes reference to a Dr. Wysorickovitz…)

Pavane in Pearl and Emerald
Word Count: 77636

Apparently the cover image for the Polaris anthology I posted the link to (and put up on my website) is not what the book is going to look like. Marketing has decided Polaris needs a new cover. Why? Because it has been deemed as “having a broader appeal than first realized.” Aha! They finally figured out that my story is only masquerading as hard science fiction, its actually a murder mystery, and therefore the anthology is a shoe-in for a mystery cross-over audience.

Okay, maybe not.
Still, “broader audience” sounds kind of cool. 🙂

I haven't done any words today though, so I need to get back to that. I've been having a slow week, and I'd really like to break the 80 000 word mark by Saturday.

[amazonify]0889953724:right[/amazonify]
The anthology that I sold “Frozen Witness” to is available for preorder from Amazon…

On this Page.

There's a cover picture up and everything.
*bounce*

My husband and I have been working on the Cantata cover image, and think its ready for a big render. Which means that we need to get the pdf of the inside of the book ready, so that we know how thick the spine is, so that we know how big the big render needs to be, precisely.

Going over the proofs of Frozen Witness, comes first though.

Click on the icon to see a test render of the full wrap around cover image.

The science team looking at my story “Frozen Witness” apparently had nothing to complain about except that I had one scientist a “leading expert” in two different fields. So she's now just an “expert”. :shrug:

As a bit of silliness…
I slapped together a script that would keep track of the phases of the moons on Ialfa for me. Having done that much work, I decided it would only take me a minute to add in an our world equivalency equation, so if you want to find out what your birthsigns are you can head over to:

http://www.lshelby.com/Ialfa/horoscope.php

The length of the day and the length of the year are different there, so the dates it gives you do NOT match up to our dates. I, with a birthday in February, was born in the house of the Monkey. So is one of my daughters, although her birthday is in August.

Maybe someday when I'm in a mood to do some more cat-vacuuming, I'll expand the script so that it can create actual horoscopes. 🙂

The contract for the anthology sale arrived yesterday, and I finally know how much money I'll get. I didn't know before, because the editor had said “counts as pro” and that's all I cared about, so I didn't think to inquire further. Only when a couple family members asked 'how much cash?' did it occur to me that there might be a reason to want to know these things in advance. I felt significantly less than professional when replying “Ah… I dunno. Does it matter?”

I guess it all goes to prove that I'm in this for the fame, and not for the merchandise. 🙂

I've now got three chapters of page layout sketches done for Flag in Flames, and I'm currently grumbling at the first page in chapter four which is being recalcitrant. Rather amusingly, one of my problems with it is the little matter of the space armor. My space pirates go into battle wearing armored pressure suits. When they aren't expecting to be fighting, they don't wear anything nearly that uncomfortable. Makes sense, yes?
So, where do they keep their space armor when they aren't wearing it? And when a pirate ship gets ambushed by another pirate ship, how long does it take everyone to scramble into their space armor, and how much of that do I need to show in order for the reader not to be bothered by the switch into space armor and back out again? (Maybe I should go the anime route, have them yell “Space Pirate PROTECTION!!!” and then do flashy lights and showers of flower petals until… TAH, DAH! bright new shining space armor materializes out of the N-th dimension, and the all the girls are suddenly wearing more makeup.)

My short story Frozen Witness has SOLD!
Yay! Bounce, Bounce, Bounce!

It was bought by author/editor Julie Czerneda for the science fiction anthology POLARIS – A Celebration of Polar Science, which will be published in 2007.

Apparently it will even get its very own, made to order, black & white interior illustration by Jean-Pierre Normand, and I will get to see and approve of the preliminary sketch. Is that cool, or what?

This is my third professional sale according to the standards set out by the Science Fiction and Fantasy writers of America (SFWA). Also, according to them, three short pro sales makes a pro. I'm not eligible for a SFWA membership, because it's my first sale in the speculative fiction genre, but it's still number three pro sale, so I'm going to consider myself a pro, whether I'm SFWA eligible or not.

“Frozen Witness” has arrived in the editor's inbox and I'm supposed to hear back in about a month.
“Velvet Lies” is in the mail. (Thank you, Zeborah, for your comments, they were a big help!)

And, I have 11 out of 19 Chapters worth of fixes done for _Talking With Winds_, which I'm hoping to get into the mail next week. Although, I keep *reading* it instead of fixing it. (I just get this huge kick out of Asond going around insulting everyone. I'm sure this means I suffer from some serious character flaws, but I can't help it.)