Solstice present!

The guy who plows the driveway/parking area next door remembered not to plow me in!

Since the mail carrier won't deliver if he has to climb over snowdrifts (which is not at all unreasonable), and since it is really hard to dig through the snow piled up by a plow - and since I live in a congested urban area where my front door is practically on the sidewalk, and don't have any alternative spot to put a mailbox - I'm really grateful. I hope the trend continues!

Memo

To: Pretty Boy Floyd

Regardless of what you may have read on the internet, dead mice applied externally are not a remedy for the H1N1 flu. The resulting flurry of activity from your human - flailing, cursing, and a frantic search for paper towels and/or plastic bags - are temporary only, and not to be confused with "getting well."

Thank you.

Drumroll, please

It's officially official, and I can announce the project that's been taking over my life for the last few months, and is likely to occupy it for a few months more. This from the publisher:

"Stargate Atlantis: Legacy is an exciting new book series from Fandemonium Books coming in 2010. As the fantastically successful New Jedi Order series did for Star Wars, Legacy takes Stargate Atlantis fans on to uncharted new ground, exploring what happens next after the end of season five. With no reset to zero, the jeopardy for our favorite characters has never been greater as they face entirely new challenges and dangers, as well as old foes revitalized. Sheppard, McKay, Teyla, Ronon and the rest must face Wraith, Genii, and their most dangerous foes yet in a galaxy-spanning adventure to uncover the true legacy of the Ancients -- a battle from which all may not return.

Book One, The Return, by Melissa Scott and Jo Graham, will be out in September, 2010. Melissa Scott is the author of more than twenty science fiction and fantasy books, including Trouble and Her Friends, Five Twelfths of Heaven, and, with Lisa A. Barnett, Point of Hopes and Point of Dreams. She has won numerous awards, including the Campbell Award in 1986. Jo Graham is the author of three historical fantasy novels, as well as the Stargate Atlantis novel Death Game. Book Two, The Missing, by Jo Graham and Amy Griswold, will follow in January, 2011."

I am unbelievably psyched to be working with these folks. You've heard me raving about Jo Graham already. Meg Burden is a talented YA author (Northlander and the forthcoming The King Commands). This is Amy Griswold's first professional sale, but I can almost guarantee it won't be her last.

And I'm looking forward to doing another series tie-in, particularly since the events of the novels take place after the end of the fifth season, and we're being allowed to move the story and the characters forward. It's always a privilege to work in other people's universes; to be able to do it with the brakes off.... It's going to be seriously fun!

FYI

If you're looking for a perfect stocking stuffer, Jo Graham's first novel, Black Ships, is out in paperback.

I've raved about Jo's books before, and will continue to do so - wait till you see Stealing Fire! Black Ships is a retelling of the Aeneid from the point of view of Gull, priestess to the Lady of the Dead, who becomes Aeneas's Sybil. It's an astonishing reimagining of Virgil - her version of Dido is both chilling and heartbreaking - and the characters are unforgettable. I actually got up at 7AM on the Sunday of a convention so I could sneak down to the hotel lobby and finish the book.

So if you have fans of historical fiction or the classics on your holiday list, or if you're just looking for a different kind of fantasy, this is the book for you. And it's in mass market paper!

Just a Teaser....

You may remember me raving earlier this year about author Jo Graham (Black Ships, Hand of Isis; a new book, Stealing Fire, will be out in the spring). Well, she and I and Amy Griswold and Meg Burden have just signed the first two contracts for what we hope will be a 6 book TV tie-in deal. I can't say a whole lot more just yet, but....

It's so much fun. And I think it's a good novel, one that could stand alone, as well as doing justice to the show.

The ms. is due in January. I'll have a lot more to say before then, I'm sure!

Rollercoaster Summer

The summer has been a bit of a rollercoaster once again, not helped by the cool, wet weather and the reappearance in New England of potato blight - which, to make things even more fun, also affected the tomato crop. So I've been busy, with things both good and bad, but it's time to try to bring this blog up to date.

The bad stuff first. My father died in August. He'd been failing since January, when his doctors lost control of the congestive heart failure he'd been fighting for a couple of years. However, considering that he'd had serious heart problems for 37 years, starting with heart attacks and bypass surgery at the age of 38, I can't say it was exactly unexpected. And yet, considering how many times he'd rallied and beaten the latest problem, I'm still a little shocked. (He used to say, with some justice, that every time he developed a new symptom, medical science had just created the device to deal with it.)

The only good thing was that I was able to spend a bit more than a week with him in July while my mother was traveling - it was one of those situations where he was in fairly good shape, but wasn't able to stay alone just in case - so I feel as though I had a chance to say a proper goodbye. It was a good visit, carefully orchestrated: every morning we'd make our breakfasts, then he'd go read on the deck in the (sweltering!) sun and heat, while I'd write. At noon, he'd come in and announce where we were going for lunch that day - usually some extremely interesting dive that my mother didn't particularly like. (All this, he said, was in the interests of giving me inspiration for my books - it had nothing to do with, for example, how good the hot tamales are at Izzy's. Or the country cooking at Homer's. Or the gyros at Leo's.... You get the idea.) Then he'd take a nap, waking around 4 for a milkshake. (He had lost nearly 40 pounds, and needed to gain weight.) Then supper was promptly at 6:30, and the Tour de France coverage started at 7. And in between, we were able to talk. So, while I'm grieving, I at least don't feel that there was much of anything left unsaid.

At the same time that all of this was going on (and I've been to Little Rock more times in the last 3 months than I've been in the last 3 years), I've been getting quite a bit of writing done. The bootlegger story is into the solid draft stage, with 4 chapters complete; I have a lesbian pirate story coming out in a Lethe Press collection, Sisters of the Coast, sometime soon. (I'm guessing next summer, and will post the date when I have it.) I have a handful of other projects in the sketching and plotting stages - glass airships! The Sea of Louisiana! Weird science in Napoleon's army! And on top of that, I'm in negotiations for a group project that will be massively fun. I hope to have a proper announcement on that within the next couple of days, actually.

So.... A rollercoaster, indeed. But I think maybe I'm starting to hit the fun part of the ride.

A Weekend Away

I'm back from a weekend at Balticon, which was completely lovely - hung out with some old friends, some new friends who already feel like old friends, talked story with them all until I was giddy, and even danced a quadrille. I bought books, and heard good panels, and didn't even go over budget. And now I have more ideas percolating than I know what to do with.... But that's a good thing, right?

(However, I have noticed that it takes me longer to get over staying up til 2AM for 3 nights running. It's a good thing the day job is slow at the moment.)

And when I got home, there was an email waiting to say that my story, "One Horse Town," was being included in the Year's Best Lesbian Fiction 2008.

An excellent capper to an ideal weekend!