WordPlay

Due to computerlyness of an indelicate nature, Wednesday will come on Thursday this week.

Yes, I love Alabama.  I have a hankering to ease right on over to that iTunes store and replace my tapes from…oh, so long ago…

Well, if you know that tune, you can hum along while reading. Because as Blog Rolls go, I am quite pleased with mine.  These are all Backlist eBooks authors, and boy do they have a lot to talk about–from the industry to the tech of the industry to what’s happening at home to…ohhhh yeah…teenaged boys.

Here’s a sampling of their latest. And I would have written this blog a lot faster if I hadn’t gotten caught up in reading them–!

(PS the links open in a new window, so you don’t have to flip back and forth.)

Lorraine Bartlett: What I didn’t Want to Hear

Marsha Canham: Guest blog, pithy thoughts from Bob Mayer

Jeffrey A. Carver: Ebook Special Prices!

Jacqueline Lichtenberg: Worldbuilding – Building a Fictional, but Historical, World

Phoebe Matthews: FortuneCookie says: MONDAY SPEND TIME WITH FRIENDS.

Jill Metcalf: Memory Flashes

Maryann Miller: “Screen-Free Week” Starts Today: What to Do without the PDA?

Pati Nagle: Nambe’: Life is Full of Surprises

Terry Odell: Guest Blog: The Story of my Life (Egyptian Revolution)
Karen Ranney: Rant Alert

Patricia Rice: All Things Digital

Gerald M. Weinberg: “Smashwords vs Kindle” — Are Your Lights On?

Linda Wisdom: I’m Interviewed Today

Roll on, readers, roll on!

…Is the sound of a totally broken blog.

I’m working on it.

Edited: Fixed.  Give Me Chocolate.

Sometimes mysteries are a wonderful thing. Take my new mystery shirt.

The mystery shirt arrived yesterday, along with two cute belly bands for a certain young dog who is still refining his “pee etiquette.”  It came without note or comment, straight from the vendor.  The shirt is a handsome royal blue, and is embroidered with a noble Beagle…and all three of the dogs’ names.

I’m wearing it, and it is wonderful. I’m going to wear it at the trial this weekend, too.  I would wear it all three days if I thought I could get away with it (but honestly, one way or the other, someone would notice…).

Whoever sent it gave me more than a shirt. He or she sent a moment of hope during this difficult time for ConneryBeagle, and a delightful spontaneous burst of uplifted spirits.

Suddenly, I feel like I matter…I feel like Connery matters. And that’s a good way to feel.

I also dare to feel hope of success in being able to help Connery through the newly released anthology, whatever the answer to his woes.

So really, there was a whole lot more crammed into that package than a shirt and belly bands.  And that makes it my new Tardis shirt!

The Heart of Dog Anthology is available at:
Smashwords ~ Barnes & Noble Nook ~ Kindle
Direct PayPal/Check Options
Connery’s Backstory

And we can use every single bit of “spread the word” help we can get, from “liking” the book pages at these places to tagging on Amazon (scroll down–you’ll find tags you can agree with, and tags help people locate the book) to tweeting to “liking” posts on FaceBook to …

Well, you get the idea.

Baby Connery looking at A Coveted Thing of Importance--an expression he carried over to adulthood.

And here’s a bark-out to Jeffrey Carver for the blog mention, and another to Lorraine Bartlett/Lorna Barrett and her awesomely cute blog post for Connery.

ConneryBeagle: BAWHSOME!

Yes, that’s right.  The days are longer, the days flirt with surprising spring temps, the ground grows achingly dry, and it’s all just a great big TEASE.

Dart is completely convinced.

Dart: SNOOOOOZE

Duncan is completely convinced.

A preliminary offering of spring horse hair

Never mind those singing birdies, the snow could come boiling over the Sandias at any time.  Never mind that balmy sun…the night temps are pretty frigid.

So keep the horse blankets ready, the trough water heater plugged in, and the winter coats to hand. Tease season, you are not fooling ME!

Dart Beagle: Oh yes you are.

Huh.  Guess I’ll just see if I can get under that hay pallet to rescue Duncan’s shedding blade from the resident pack rat.
~~~~

In other matters, it’s not tease season at all–it’s harvest season!  Because it’s Read an eBook Week, and there is a way cool sale going on at Smashwords.  The coupon codes are right there on the individual book pages.  And my books are included, along with some of the short stories!

Here’s my author page at Smashwords, from which you can reach any of the books/stories.

Here are the titles on sale:

Hidden Steel
Making the Rules
A Feral Darkness
Deep River Reckoning
The Scoria
A Bitch in Time

PS: Look what Dart found in the snow

Well, INCHES matter.

One inch, said the weather critters of the impending snow. Three if over 7500′ altitude (we’re just below 7000′).

Fifteen inches later…

Snow means a waterpack on the mountains, and good slow water soaking into the sucked-bone dry ground.

But so much snow all at once? On our gravel driveway and hilly dirt road, that equals “snowbound.”

I dug out the barn. I worked on the driveway.  I took ibuprofen!  I dug some more and helped a kid who got stuck at the corner in the family van.

I stared at the remaining snow blocking my car and said, “No.”

But!  I still got the mail from the rural community box.  I might not have 4WD, but the mailman does.  And I have four HOOF drive.

Duncan was somewhat excessively proud of himself and his patience while I leaned, jostled, and made aurgh noises, trying to manage the awkward angle of that flat, tray-type mail niche.

DuncanHorse: ONE of us is dignified.

But hey–we trundled right on past those those stuck cars we passed along the way.

Dart Beagle hasn’t seen snow–just the massive hailstorm from October (still undergoing repairs…).  So this All at Once deluge was of some surprise to him.

I took lots more pictures, but the camera ate everything but this. Boo!

Dart Beagle: I MUST EAT ALL THE SNOW!

Dart Beagle: I MUST PEE ON ALL THE SNOW!

Which is a pretty convenient sequence when you think about it.

Connery Beagle: I love my dogloo.  You fool.  BAWH!

[Connery's just being dramatic.  He spent most of the time inside.]

The camera ate the pics before the entrances were tromped open. Boo!

So it’s a good thing I went out and took piccies of the wild Christmas trees two days before all this snow fell.

What, you don’t have wild Christmas trees? Around here we apparently grow them on the National Forest land.

Yes, the sky was that blue.

PS And Sunday, because of the immediate warming trend and the strength of the mountain sun, we had…wait for it…THE MELT.  *splooge*  Like butter in a microwave.  Turns out there’s an awful lot of water in all that snow…

This is my brain on Project Overload.

===BOOM!===

This is my brain on concatenating software and hardware failures, projects gone nuts, dogs gone sick, appliances gone crazy (I kinda know how they feel).

===BOOM!===

This is my brain with a really clever blog post half-written inside it (so totally clever you just wouldn’t believe it!), but which is NOT GOING TO MAKE IT TO THE KEYBOARD tonight.

===BOOM!===

I hope you have enjoyed this little demonstration of brain splooge.  With any luck, I’ll be back on Wednesday with something entirely more clever.  If not?

Talk to the brain.

(===BOOM!===)

Several weeks ago, someone here casually offered up the perfect name for my as-of-yet  unpurchased Nook.

Nookita.

But OH! I have searched the archives through and can’t find who did it!  I think…Karen?  Alas for my brain…

Well, that was several weeks ago. At the time, I was still an e-reader wannabe.  A rather feverish one, in fact.

What brought this on, you might wonder? After years of watching from the sidelines without a whole lot of interest?

Synchronicity.

Couldn’t afford an ereader at previous prices. Couldn’t read fiction on a monitor.  (Or anything of length.  Eyes.  Overworked.  Tired.)  Didn’t see anything on the market that gave the ereader added value.  Felt overwhelmed by the learning curve.

And then came:

• Cheaper devices
• More devices from which to choose
• Devices with better connectivity

And

You will laugh…

Backlist eBooks.

Because suddenly, ereading can give me access to books I can’t get any other way–books I wanted, books for which I’d hoped to see new editions but knew better.

And, as it turns out, the very process of preparing my own out-of-print books for “me-release” also gave me quite the education–formats, download process, resources…suddenly it wasn’t so overwhelming any longer.  Suddenly it hadn’t really been that hard all along.

Yeah.  The more I interacted with it all, the more I realized, “Ooh baby!”

Don’t get me wrong.  I love paper. I love the feel of it, the smell of it, the heft of it.  I love flipping pages.  I love staring at the covers, picking out my favorite elements, and seeing the spines lined up on my book shelves.  (I maybe don’t so much love lugging around book boxes during a move, but I’ve done enough of that in the past couple of years to hold me for a while.)

But the very coolest thing about ereading is that it isn’t either-or.  It’s opportunity.  It doesn’t replace, it works in tandem with print.  Well, sure, some people might feel differently, but that’s the point.  We get to do it the way that works best for us.

Well, so far, Nookita is working out JUST FINE. She’s earning her keep in a big way.  I’ve already bought and downloaded a number of Backlist eBooks titles, I took her to the agility trial for the day we started late, and she’s heading out with me right now as I go into town, snug in her fancy case (heh–a padded mailing envelope, cut down).  Plus, because my books are available via Nook, I can see them that way, too!

Welcome to the new world, me!  Welcome to me, Nookita!

We see that.

Seriously, we do.

We don’t like it.

Because no, your little product placement moments aren’t half as clever as you think they are.

You know, those moments when the camera lingers lovingly on a beer label–a beat too long–after our character has ordered it distinctly by name.

The moments when the camera pans over a car dashboard, spaghetti-western close-up style, usually while our characters discuss a particular feature.  “Oh, don’t worry–with the SuperDooperCar’s stupendously amazing built-in GPS, we can’t get lost!”

The moments when our heroes *gasp* LOSE INTERNET signal during a crucial undercover moment but!  Never fear!  SooperUltraDevice saves the day!  *insert loving close-up, multiple repetitions of the device name*  This is especially ironic in light of the way no one on TV ever has trouble with their cell phone connection.

(Me, I haven’t yet lived in a place where I get adequate cell connection even at home.)

And to think I thought it was amusing when they figured we wouldn’t notice seasons of distinct default ring tones on the phones of characters you just know would have picked something personalized.

So, Dear T.V. Producers, in case you thought it didn’t matter or that we wouldn’t notice or that we wouldn’t be annoyed, completely kicked out of the story you were telling, or thinking twice about watching shows we otherwise love…think again.

We know who you are.

And we don’t like it.

(This moment brought to you by ONCETOOOFTEN.COM)

…Monday

Once upon a time, I was young.

Just about to hit my teens, in fact, and discovering–via the magic of reruns–the world of Classic Trek. Star Trek, The Original Series. TOS.

Totally groovy.

And boy, did I watch that show. I watched it, made copious notes about it, created character & episode guides, role-played it, dove upon the first David Gerrold and James Blish books with a scary glee, and blithely ordered The Making of Star Trek from a bookstore across the city, having no reference points and no idea that a closer bookstore could have ordered it.  The Maternal Unit was Not Pleased.

(Hey, I’d called everywhere looking for that book…that was just the first store where they offhandedly said, “Oh, we can order that for you if you’d like…” What did I know from special ordering at age 12?)

Oh yeah, I had the episodes memorized. You betcha I could tell which one was which from the first moments of the show. You betcha that even at that age, I was in awe over City on the Edge of Forever–and snorting over the line, “Brain and brain, what is brain?” (Alas, those were formative years…I still mutter that to myself on challenging days…)

I was also a Kirk girl. Oh, so bold and noble and heroic! So dashing and commanding and full of ideals! (Even if they did dress him in that greeny-gold that looks good on no one.) Yup, I fell for that hook, line, and sinker. And as I moved on from that–enjoying the various movies and the various series, if never with quite the same fervor (but well enough to have all the episodes of TNG on tape and leap at the chance to write a book for the tie-in line!), the Kirk thing stayed with me. Sort of a default.

But this interesting thing has happened. This year, I picked up one of the earlier Trek DVD sets. Not one of the really fancy remastered oooh special effects sets, but it definitely has all the scenes with all their little pieces (which the reruns most definitely did not!). I use DVDs to keep my brain occupied as I exercise on the elliptical, so of course this purchase was totally righteous.

Totally.

And here’s what I’m noticing: It’s a better show than I thought it would be. There’s been much ado and sneering about the better special effects, the better tech, etc, of later Trek franchises, but all the clunky stuff pretty much falls into the background when you’re caught up in the story. And yeah, you have to know the time in which it was set, to better appreciate some of the inadvertent sexism.  But the same can be said for many classic accomplishments.

And– *wince* –those poor red shirts…

Here’s the other thing I’ve discovered: I’m no longer a Kirk girl. I’m a Spock girl now.

Back away, Kirk-lovers, I’m not dissing the Captain! Still all the things he was before. But what I didn’t notice, at that young age, was what stood beside him. The fact that Spock, for all his supposed lack of emotion, feels more deeply, with more nuance, than any man who finds himself free to emote at will. The fact that Leonard Nimoy, in order to convey the conflicting layers of his character, turned in a series of wonderful performances.

It’s his face I find myself watching, when I have to choose.

So yes, I was a Kirk girl, and now I am a Spock girl, watching with awareness and a certain fascination at how much time changes perspective–as well the actions and behavior, fictional or not, that touch us.

It’s too bad about that brain thing, though.