![\"\"](\"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Mocha-home-day1-canter.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAmazon chose INTO THE FIRE as one of the best SFF book releases for February.\u00a0 Hurray!!<\/p>\n
I know I’ve been absent for far too long in the run-up to a book release, and though it was all Stuff Happened, and then More Stuff Happened, and then Stuff Happened Right on Top of Stuff Already Happening….it did leave all of you hanging around the old clubhouse…or just looking at the unlighted windows…too long.<\/p>\n
A brief list of the Stuff:\u00a0 continued requests for another round of questions and problems to be fixed in the book (you’ll be glad these occurred!!)\u00a0 that lasted through November.\u00a0 Then I got sick, about the time I had to prod husband to go see the doctor again THIS WEEK because some bad things were happening with him.\u00a0 Our son graduated from community college mid-December, and I literally crawled out of bed to make it down to the city to see his graduation (YAY!)\u00a0 and then fell back into bed, feverish again, and was able to sing at only one service on Christmas Eve.\u00a0 (The day before that, my horse Mac died….and there I was with a dead horse in the horse lot on the holiday weekend.\u00a0 A friend trailered over his tractor, with a front-end loader, and removed the body to their ranch.\u00a0\u00a0 Then returned on Christmas Eve to pick up his tractor.\u00a0 Somewhere in there (my memory is tangled) husband seen his doctor, and gotten an appointment with a surgeon,\u00a0 been sent for a scan, and had surgery on, um, January 3.\u00a0\u00a0 Meanwhile, I’d been employing idle hours (! not many of those!) since about October looking at horse ads because we knew Mac was old and might not last another year, though in the week before he died he had looked spryer than for awhile.\u00a0\u00a0 Now I looked harder, figuring it would take several months to find one of the type I wanted) and while husband was in bed after surgery,\u00a0 I spotted a nearby ad for a horse the right age, training,\u00a0 and size…only 20 miles away.<\/p>\n
This led to a frantic week of discovering that yes, the mare was a good match…getting her to a vet for the pre-purchase exam, and then having her delivered…and having to rush off to Austin, in the face of oncoming severe (for us) weather, to get her a blanket and some other stuff that her seller had said he’d bring, only he didn’t.\u00a0 And due to the pre-January 1 and immediate post-January 1 stuff, I didn’t have necessary legally required reports written yet…due on January 31.\u00a0 And the mare did not fit any of my saddles, which (not having been used for over 10 years) were not (as they should’ve been) perfectly clean and ready to be unwrapped and used.\u00a0 But they didn’t fit anyway, so…<\/p>\n
However, I have a rideable horse, when I finally get a saddle, which I would have by now (maybe) if the saddle fitter hadn’t had to change our appointment to the end of next week.\u00a0 In younger, fitter, and slimmer days I’d have been on her bareback already.\u00a0 Now…it hasn’t happened yet.<\/p>\n
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This image makes her too “red”–she’s a smoky buckskin, sort of peanut-butter colored in shade or on a cloudy day, and with very gold highlights in full sun.\u00a0 This was the cold, cloudy, windy day she arrived.\u00a0 Like most horses in a new field, she ran around a lot.\u00a0 We’ve been doing a lot of ground work, since I wasn’t confident enough to get on her bareback from the get-go (here’s another picture to suggest why not…)<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Mocha-home-day-1-gallop2.jpg\")
\u00a0 When younger, I could ride a gallop bareback (fun!) but at 70+ just not ready for that, after 10 years + without any riding.\u00a0 But…a saddle that fits her WILL be acquired, and I WILL ride her and when I’m fitter, I’ll ride her bareback as well.\u00a0\u00a0 So there’s been work on leading politely (she wasn’t bad, but she sometimes thinks she should be leading me),\u00a0 taking the bit without a fuss, not freaking out at everything resembling a whip. etc.\u00a0 She was used as a general riding horse and roping horse by her former owner,\u00a0 who got too big for her (way taller than me and somewhat heavier) and has a lot of experience in both ranch work and rodeoing, riding alongside traffic, riding in cities (in and around the big statewide livestock shows and rodeos), parades, etc.\u00a0 She’s an interesting mix of Quarter Horse and Arabian, both in conformation and disposition.\u00a0\u00a0 No papers, which doesn’t bother me.\u00a0 Eight years old, 14.3 hands high, the kind of dings in the pre-purchase exam you expect to find in an 8 year old ranch\/roping horse but nothing disqualifying.<\/p>\n
So that’s what’s been taking up my time.\u00a0 With two reports (the ones due 1\/31) turned Wednesday, and the one due 2\/10 almost finished, I’m beginning to get glimmers of what might come after INTO THE FIRE.\u00a0 Nothing strong enough to talk about yet.\u00a0 I do want to go back and finish the bits started about the great reunion of characters on Waystation Huygens…<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amazon chose INTO THE FIRE as one of the best SFF book releases for February.\u00a0 Hurray!! I know I’ve been absent for far too long in the run-up to a book release, and though it was all Stuff Happened, and then More Stuff Happened, and then Stuff Happened Right on Top of Stuff Already Happening….it Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445\/revisions\/448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/elizabethmoon.com\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}