12 Sep 2013

Writing Retreat Report

posted in: personal news, trains, work in progress, writing retreats | 0

This retreat has been one of the most productive ever. I’m getting good pages written every day, and more importantly, I had a conceptual breakthrough that showed me what I was doing wrong in several chapters as we approach the end. The realization meant I had to back up and go at those chapters differently, but that’s how these things go sometimes. This change will affect how I write much of what is to follow. I feel so confident of this that I’m going to give you a sneak look at a crucial scene near the end of the book. Here it is. Don’t tell anyone what happens, though. This is probably about 850 manuscript pages into the book.

I’m also getting outdoors and exercising—alternating between rollerblading and biking on some of the excellent bike trails around here. I rode for the first time on the lovely Cape Cod Rail Trail, which winds through the central part of the Cape. It was on this ride that I saw my dream setting:

House by a lake (okay, a pond), with private floatplane drawn up to the shore. Does a dream house get any better than that?

Several times now, I’ve taken to the Cape Cod Canal bike trail, which is about the most scenic and relaxing afternoon/evening outing ever. It’s also an outlook of choice for the Cape Cod Central Railroad’s excursion trains. Here’s where they stop to turn the trains around for their return to Hyannis. And by that, I mean that they uncouple the engine from the front and take it around and attach it to the rear, making it the new front.

Here they are, hitching it up.

And away they go. I don’t know what that E-unit locomotive is doing on the back end. It looks like it’s acting as a booster. But I wouldn’t have thought the train long enough to need it. Anyway, it’s a nice-looking engine, grumbling farewell as it moves off.

I didn’t think until too late that I could have taken a nice movie of its departure. Oh well, maybe next time.

9 Sep 2013

Off to Do Some Writing

posted in: personal news, work in progress, writing, writing retreats | 0

By the time this posts, Lord willing, I’ll be on Cape Cod beginning another writing retreat. Among the things I like about the Cape, besides the chance to leave daily cares behind and focus on my book, are the great seafood, local micro-brews, and wonderful bike paths for exercise, fresh air, and positive reinforcement for making progress, whether it’s getting words on the page or thinking through some stubborn plot or character problem. This time I’m taking rollerblades and my recumbent bike. I hope to have good things to report, a few days down the line.

5 Sep 2013

Speaking of Biking . . .

posted in: outdoor fun, personal news | 0

I don’t know if I mentioned this earlier, but I’ve added bicycling to my own exercise routine. I still love rollerblading, but it’s so weather dependent (you want the path to be really dry and relatively clear of twigs and leaves, etc.) that I was losing too much outdoor exercise time to weather. Yes, I walk Captain Jack every day, but that’s not the same thing.

Regular bikes hurt my back, but last winter I took advantage of a sale to buy a recumbent bike. I love it! There was a definite learning curve in riding it: the balance and steering feel very different from a regular bike, but after a while I got the hang of it, and now I get out on it at least as often as I do on skates. Here’s what it looks like:

It’s low slung, and I do feel a little vulnerable riding on the street with it. But practically all the riding I do is on the bike path that starts two blocks from our house, and goes for eleven miles, so mostly I’m off the street, anyway.

If you hear a ding behind you, that could be me! Passing on your left!

 

1 Sep 2013

The Roof (Part 1) Is Done!

posted in: personal news, solar power | 0

The roofers came as promised on Friday. The whole job, including scraping off three ancient layers of asphalt shingles, took just seven hours, maybe a little less. Here are some pictures I took as they worked.

There was a certain amount of noise inside the house while this was going on. 
There isn’t enough money in a politician’s slush fund to get me up on a roof like that.

This high-wire act involved installing a ridge vent.

And there it is, all done! Well, except for my spending what seemed like forever vacuuming out the attic, and walking the grounds looking for stray nails. The workers have these cool, rolling magnets that get most of the nails. Nevertheless, we found probably a dozen more that they missed. The magnets did find the great little pocket flashlight that I lost in the grass a couple of months ago. Unfortunately, by the time I thought to ask the crew boss to be on the lookout for it, it was already deep in the dumpster.

So one side of the house is done. Next step, putting up the solar panels, sometime in the next few weeks. And after that, we turn our attention to the far side of the house.

29 Aug 2013

Waiting for G/o/d/o/t/ the Roofer

posted in: personal news, solar power | 0

Today was an early riser for me. Roofers were coming to strip and reroof the southwest side of the house—the side you can see in Google Earth, if you know where to look. Those who know me know that early mornings are not my forte. But the contracting boss was here, the cars were moved out of the driveway, and I was drinking coffee, waiting. Then the word came: Called due to rain, and forecast rain. Try again tomorrow. (Sigh.)

We’ve spent a lot of time emptying the attic on that side of the house, knowing that there will be a rain of asphalt and tar-paper debris down through the cracks between boards. This cleanout included getting rid of boxes belonging to long-departed electronics, unearthing boxes of books stashed for safekeeping for a friend (twenty years ago—a good argument for ebooks), and lots more. Well, it’s good we got that done, anyway.

This is all in preparation for the solar-electric panels that will be installed on that side of the house, soon after the roof is done. (Fingers crossed.)

We’re still planning a dormer on the other side of the house, to add a bathroom and guest room. But that’s been put on hold until the solar panel project is finished. Oh, and the loan approved. Heh, heh.

10 Jul 2013

Kinda’ Cool Response to Something I Said

posted in: personal news, quirky, writing | 0

I said it about fifteen years ago (maybe more), on my web page Advice to Aspiring Writers: “Write from the soul, not from some notion about what you think the marketplace wants. The market is fickle; the soul is eternal.”

Yesterday, someone quoted those words on a Facebook page called The Writers Circle. I wouldn’t have known about it, except someone emailed me to ask if that was me, and to express agreement. I went to take a look. Yep, that’s my face. (If it’s scrolled off the main page, the entry is here.) There I am, sandwiched between Isaac Asimov and Graham Greene, offering sound bites of alleged wisdom about writing.

Still—I meant what I said back then, and I mean it today.

If someone pushed by asking, “Is that why you wrote a Battlestar Galactica novel?” I might respond this way: First of all, I wrote the BSG novel because I thought it would be fun. Secondly, I would distinguish between guidance offered to a writer struggling to find his or her own voice, and an assignment taken on by a working professional (whether the assignment was just for the bucks, or for fun, or some other reason). Thirdly, if I did take on the BSG book because of what I thought the market wanted, the laugh was on me. It didn’t sell worth beans, despite the large audience for the TV show. (Which led to some interesting speculations among my friends and me about the future of media tie-in books.)

It seems the quote struck a chord, because last time I looked, it had over 3400 “likes” and 777 “shares”! I don’t really “do” Facebook, but I think that’s pretty good.

I read some of the comments, which ranged from “Yes!” to “That’s what I’ve always said,” to “He’s kind of cute,” to “There’s no eternal soul, you idiot.” To which I say, Thank you, thank you, thank you, and yes, I believe there is.

Gotta love the internet.

24 Jun 2013

If You Enjoy Air Travel…Don’t Do This

posted in: air travel, personal news, quirky, videos | 0

When Julia and I flew to the Carolinas, we took Spirit Airlines, about which the only good things I can say are, the tickets were cheap and the plane didn’t crash. Did you know there’s an airline that charges for carry-on bags—a lot, if you pay in advance, and more if you pay at the airport? (Hint: Spirit Airlines.) And an airline that charges for seat assignments if you want to pick a seat when you book? (Spirit Airlines.) And charges for a boarding pass if you don’t go to the little kiosk to print one? (Yes. Spirit Airlines.)

The whole experience reminded of this song, “Cheap Flights”:

This is also good:

24 Jun 2013

Family Reunion

posted in: personal news | 0

I was away for a while at a Sherrick reunion—that is to say, a gathering of many of my cousins on my mother’s side of the family, the Sherricks. It was great. I love my cousins, and I hadn’t seen a lot of them for many years, not since the then-patriarch of the family, their dad and my Uncle John, passed away ten years ago. There were a couple of spouses I had never met.

We all gathered in a beach house on the coast of North Carolina, close to where some of them are living now. Julia and I represented the Carver family, while Allysen stayed with the still-recovering-from-bike-crash Lexi. We got a lot of sun, surf, and good company. What a family of over-achievers. One, an agricultural economist, sits on Obama’s agriculture board and rebuilds houses in his spare time. One manages field development of products for a very large agricultural supply company. Several are teachers. One is recently retired after a career as head ranger at multiple national parks. That’s just a sampling, and that’s just in my own generation. The kids are scary smart.

So we talked and laughed, and lost sunglasses in the ocean, and played Cranium, and drank beer and margaritas. The leader types organized dinner teams, and each team planned in secret and created amazing dinner experiences. I didn’t cook, but I did my bit by making frozen margaritas.

Here I am, caught in a moment of scintillating conversation.

And here’s some of the crew trying to take an inflatable raft to sea. Yes, there are people on that raft. And probably one or two under it, at any given moment.

15 Jun 2013

Is Some Club Reading My Book?

posted in: ebooks, personal news, publishing, science fiction | 0

Most days I sell between zero and a few ebooks total in the Barnes and Noble Nook store, a steady drip-drip-drip of sales. (I do better, thankfully, in the Kindle store, and even better for some reason in the Kindle UK store. Still, even there, sales have lagged in the last month or so.) But the other day, there was an abrupt spike in the Nook store: 19 sales for the day, almost all of which were The Chaos Chronicles, Books 1-3. The next day was less, but still better than usual. What’s up with that? I wondered, marveling happily. (I should note that, for many writers, these numbers would be reason for scowling, not smiling. But I was smiling.)

I still wonder what was behind it, but my best guess is that some reading club has decided to try my Chaos books, and they all ordered from the Nook store and not the Kindle store or Book View Cafe (and I wouldn’t know about the Apple/Sony/Kobo stores, because reporting is slow there). Is this true? Does somebody know? Or is it just one of those unexplainable synchronicity things?

Everyone* in my vast organization wants to know. And we hope that all the rest of you will follow suit, or encourage someone else to.

*My wife, and me.

6 Jun 2013

Life Takes a Hard Turn, Literally

posted in: personal news | 0

Monday I got the kind of text message you don’t want to get, from our daughter Lexi. “Hit by car. I’m okay, but going by ambulance to hospital.” !!! She was biking home from her lab when a car turning into a parking lot hit her and sent her flying.  She escaped without broken bones or head injury—pretty miraculous—but she has one badly banged up knee and one very badly banged up knee. After a full night in the ER, she came home on crutches and heavy painkillers. She’s camped out on the sofa now, moving as little as possible and awaiting a further doctor visit (today) and probably an MRI to find out the extent of her injuries. At best, large and nasty bruises. More likely, some ligament damage, and who knows what else.

We’ve been planning a trip to a family reunion, but now we’re holding off a bit longer on that, since we don’t know how soon she’ll be able to travel.

She’s had a steady stream of supportive friends coming to visit. At least we’re finally getting to meet some of her coworkers and friends! They’ve all been great—two of them hanging out in the ER for hours with us, and the rest coming to the house bringing food and flowers. If you have to be immobilized and in great pain, it’s good to have friends like hers.

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