There’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the new Vatta book has hit 50 pages, and though it’s going slowly, it’s still alive so far. Ky and Rafe and Stella sound like themselves, and the twins are a hoot. The bad news is that Audible has gone bananas, peanuts, and crazy-cake Read More…
Category: the writing life
Maybe…We Have Ignition
This is a tentatively-hopeful statement that the third Vatta’s Peace book may actually be alive. I can’t answer questions about it, and please do not, at this point, make suggestions (suggestions killed another book I thought was really coming alive), but I have a question for the Vatta fans. Of the military survivors of the Read More…
Mail Writers Get, Sad & Happier News, and Other Bits & Pieces
In reply to a much, much earlier post, someone happily explained to me that he could “change my life forever” because HE is a professional writer, and only he has the skills to help me. He claims a specialty in academic writing. This is of a class of mail writers receive that assumes if someone Read More…
Updates
The gorgeous but unpredictable little mare who bucked me off and kicked my husband (same maneuver; she probably didn’t intend to hit him) in mid-February finally sold to someone in California, hurray, hurray. Until she’s transported, she’ll be out of that barn and into another site to gain weight for the trip (she’s not bony, Read More…
Changes
You will have noticed, I’m sure, the new button on the front page for Privacy Policy. I hope it covers what it’s supposed to; I tried, but one never knows when a new government regulation shows up, and especially not from a government not one’s own. You may also have noticed that there aren’t any Read More…
Recognition
When I was in that stage of adolescence when you may (if not in angsty despair) daydream longingly about being famous someday so people will admire you and you’ll have tons of friends and all the people who think are being nasty to you now will be stricken with either remorse or envy (or maybe Read More…
New Vatta-verse Story
I have a new Vatta story in Infinite Stars, a new anthology edited by Bryan Thomas Schmidt that’s out today. https://titanbooks.com/infinite-stars-9264/ . It fits between the end of Vatta’s War and the beginning of Cold Welcome, and is the story that I originally planned Ky’s first meeting with Jen–that I posted here or thought I Read More…
Copy Edits!
Copy edits arrived this morning. The work space is set up now, with dictionary and Chicago Manual of Style at hand, and several sharp pencils. This is the *next to last* step for me (checking page proofs is the last) and one that’s very important. Even so, if you find a typo in the final Read More…
Next Step
Next INTO THE FIRE duty will be copy edits–they should arrive here at the end of September and I need to get them back to the publisher before October 13. Thank goodness for overnight package service!!! Between now and then I will be working on the introductions for the new edition of the original three Read More…
Inside the Writer’s Mind
How, some of you may wonder (I hope you wonder) do writers keep their various story-verses separate while writing, and especially while switching from one to another? Are we all incredibly organized, with minds like a giant university library’s special collections, each in a climate-sealed room with those movable shelves you can “walk” by turning Read More…