Solar Clipper Diary

Once more this year, I’ll be participating in the annual pilgrimmage to Hunt’s Valley, MD, to participate in BaltiCon.

I’ll be getting in late on Thursday the 24th and flying out before dawn on Tuesday the 29th. I’m not sure how many panels I’m on. The PDF isn’t exactly friendly and it doesn’t list things like signings and readings, etc. I think the earliest panel is 5pm Friday and it takes off from there. Saturday afternoon I’ll be part of a Writing Jam using Real NASA Science to seed a science fiction story. Sunday I’ll be on a panel with Scott Sigler talking about the GFL expansion story (that I haven’t written yet).

And this year, for the first time, I’ve got panels in both New Media and Literary tracks.

Must mean somethin’

Hope to see at least a few of you in Hunt’s Valley next weekend.

Unfortunately, I’ve got nothing new that’s significant. We’ve heard through the grapevine that my editor is seriously ill which is why she’s disappeared from the face of the earth. I’ve tried contacting her husband and partner in the business to see what the story might be, but so far no response. Apparently the condition is so dire that it’s keeping him away as well.

We’ve gotten to the point where I’ll be examining this relationship very closely. It’s based on the idea that we can do better together than I can do by myself, and I’ve maintained the position that we can. I know a lot of you believe that I’m foolish to maintain in the face of what you see as disrespect. I don’t really care about that. What I care about is producing quality products at reasonable prices for a strongly dedicated audience.

I’m getting to the point where that is in doubt. While I hate to add to any bad situation that they are in right now, the lack of information makes it extremely difficult to make informed decisions.

For those of you wondering how long this will go on. I’ve got two more weeks in March where I can’t do anything because I’ve got other commitments that need to be addressed. April will see some action and you have my word that something will happen in the next 45 days.

Oh, and happy Ides of March.

UPDATE: As I was writing this, Ridan was in the process of getting in touch with me. I’ve had email and more information about the hold ups. Robin will be up on various forums to make some public announcements and I’m cautiously optimistic that we’ll have new content soon.

Well, it’s coming up on mid-January and in honor of Friday the Thirteenth, this is probably a good time to tell you what’s happening.

In a nutshell, nothing.

The edits for Double Share are still with the publisher. I haven’t heard from her for over two weeks so I’m operating in the dark. I know you want me to say, “That’s it, I’m going it alone.” I’m not going to. At least not yet.

Last year was a year of huge transitions — for me, for Ridan, for the industry. I’m still willing to give Ridan a chance to get their act together because, quite frankly, I like what they do. The results we’ve achieved so far would not have been possible without their help and it seems a bit short-sighted of me to yank the rug out at this point.

I am taking steps to get more of my work out on my own. I published Ravenwood last October and the sequel is almost done. I’ll publish it as soon as it’s ready. I’ve already got the cover art and only need to finish writing the story and get it through some editing before publishing it in print, ebook, and podcast. South Coast and its sequel, Cape Grace, will probably be self-pubs as well. I’m holding them for the moment – first because the sequel isn’t written yet, and second because I want to see if Ridan can get things together.

What will happen in the future? I don’t know. I do have remedies. My contract with Ridan allows me to send a letter and get all my rights back with 30 days’ notice. I’d have to re-do the covers and re-issue them in my own name, but it’s possible to do. I know how it’s done. It’s not a *long* process, but it’s time that takes away from this year’s goals. When will enough be enough? I don’t know. Sorry. I can’t predict that kind of stuff reliably.

I can’t remember if I wrote about this here or not and I’m too lazy to go look but the goals for 2012 are:

1. Six new novel length works – a new Ishmael Wang trilogy, two more books in the Tanyth Fairport universe, and Cape Grace.

2. Podcast all my work and do a couple extra books besides.

3. Get some writing classes behind me to know better which rules I’m breaking and to learn some new ones to flout.

4. BaltiCon, WorldCon, MileHiCon, and COSine.

5. A novella in Scott Sigler’s GFL universe. A novella in Tee and Pip’s Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences universe. At least one more novella from Odin’s Outpost.

It’ll be a full year … and that’s besides getting the last three share books out in print and ebook formats.

Wish me luck. I’m going in.

Not a lot of news.

Ridan says I’ll have edits for Double Share soon and they’re going to work on getting the last two books out by April-ish. The backlog is working out. I know one of the books ahead of me in the queue has been released. (Congrats, Todd.)

I hired a cover artist for the first Tanyth Fairport trilogy and I’m hoping a fresh face on that book will help over the holiday buying season (which, for ebooks, starts after everybody gets their shiny new Kindle for Christmas, so there’s time).

A regular influence around here, Debora Geary, has released the last book in her first trilogy — A Reckless Witch. I was a beta reader on it. It’s good. If you’re a fan of her work, go grab it. If you’ve never heard me talk about her before, go grab a sample of her first book and see if she has something you’ll like.

NaNoWriMo has been good to me. It’s not over yet, but I’ve finished the rough first draft of Tanyth Fairport’s book two — Call of Zypheria. I’ve started on book three – The Hermit. I’m hoping to get a good chunk of it drafted out before December starts on Thursday. Word counts were not what I had hoped for, but the stories are better than I’d imagined so it was a good trade.

Last, I’ve been threatening to do this for weeks but I got a bug in my ear today and decided it was time to put a desk on my treadmill.

Here’s the before – Just the basic treadmill:

I went to Lowes and got a 36″ long 1 1/4″ stair tread. It’s rounded on one side and has a nice heft to it. I wanted something that would be solid.

Here’s the after – Treadmill with desk installed:

I had a few strips of 1×2 left over from other projects so I tacked a lip on the square edge to keep things from rolling off the table and onto the treadmill.

I used a modification of a design I saw on Instructables that used a pair of runners under the board to hold it steady laterally. These two arms underneath bracket the pedestal snugly.

For safety, I added a couple of screw eyes and a 48″ flat bungee cord to form a back end. It’s only intended to keep the unit from slipping forward off the handles, but the slight tension on the cord makes the runners grip just a bit more than they did with out. The friction fit is pretty good. Here’s how the bungee hooks underneath.

And – voila! Laptop on the desk.

Total cost: $17. That included the stair tread ($9), the bungee ($3), a dollar for a pair of screw eyes, and the rest was the box of finish nails. Took me about twenty minutes to assemble (not counting the time I spent tracking down hand tools).

That’s it for now. I’ll have another update by year end.