Site News

Sorry, you guys, I went in to take the new images I'd uploaded out of the RSS feeds, and it threw them all to the top of the tracker. aargh! They'll cycle through.

If you haven't voted in the Rose and Bays, now might be a good time. I'm in third, way behind first place "Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight" by C.E. Murphy, and not far behind second place "Daron's Guitar Chronicles" by Cecilia Tan.

Ravelry's had the story for a few days now, and so it's your turn: Vote for the History and the Gulch using the links toward the top of the page, and you'll get access to "Two Pairs of Mitts, Part One" as your reward! The pattern will follow next week.

Part 1B is up at Ravelry, including the pattern for Arta's mitts. Tomorrow I'll post a picture of them once I'm back from breakfast with the Portland WebLit Mafia. Monday all of Part 1, except for Arta's pattern, will go up as the voting incentive. Arta's pattern will go up next week. Now I'm working on Ellika's pattern.

I'm knitting again! Yay! And knitting of course means Ravelry! If you're on Ravelry, we now have our own group: Intimate Knitting of the Greater Kingdom. I'll be posting patterns there for things like a pair of mitts Ellika wears (not mentioned in the story). Backstory for the pattern will be included. Once it's released on Ravelry, it'll probably become an incentive here for the non-Ravelers. Come join, and if you are on Ravelry, friend me!

Just a quick update on how the writing's going. I'm now staring at the blank page that will be chapter 12, which is actually a good thing; it means I've caught up with all the bits of chapters that I tore up late last year.

The story now stands at 86k words, or 229 pages trade paperback. This is before I go through and do a "10% edit," dropping it to 77k or so. I'm hoping I can finish the story in 30k words--I'm trying to shoehorn it all in to 100k total, but I'm thinking I might run over before Netta gets it.

There is now a "Crowdfunded Creativity" award (that's a term that's new to me, but it's apt). It's called the Rose and Bay, and among its categories is one for fiction. Anyone wanna nominate me, either for the Gulch or the History?

ETA: Cap nominated the History. Thank you!

Merry Christmas, everyone! No1 Daughter is running around the house in her new Totoro beanie and "Spanish Inquisition--Unexpected Since 1478" t-shirt. No2 Daughter is playing with a teeny RC car and driving the dog bananas. I am gloating over what to buy with my $10 iTunes gift certificate (ideas?). Sir is hanging out in his new flannel nightshirt from Yule, and we're all eating slices of No2's chocolate orange. In other words, a merry Christmas!

Then take advantage of free shipping at my SpreadShirt.com shop! Many styles and colors of tees for both men and women, with these logos:

I'm trying a new navigation scheme on Scryer's Gulch. If it works, I'll be using it when the History returns, but I won't be converting the drafts to it. Essentially, it uses web comic navigation:

<< first   < previous   x of x   next >   latest >>

Right now there's only one episode of the Gulch, but that'll change next Monday. Is that better? Will that help everyone with all these navigation problems?

I'm not *stuck* on the rewrite, but I'm finding myself uninspired. I've gotten advice from many writer friends that switching to another project for a while freshens everything up. I've been pecking at Scryer's Gulch for a while now, and I think soon I'll have something to post. When I do, it'll be updated only once a week in its own section, discrete from the History.

You may note a new block to the left: "My Bookmarks." Well, you may note it if you're logged in. This block allows you to quickly bookmark any page on this site and have the bookmark display in that block. You can mark the last page you read, or the next page you want to read, or whatever you'd like.

So there you are.

Those of you who follow me on Twitter have heard this: Yesterday, our upstairs toilet simultaneously clogged and kept running, which meant that the water had no place to go but out. It flooded the bath, into the upstairs hall, then went inside the staircase wall to the basement. A torrent. We didn't discover it for a half-hour, but thank gods we discovered it before we took off for the day. A little water came through a light fixture in the kitchen ceiling, but it stopped and we figured everything was okay. We cleaned up the water and went on our way.

I'm sorry, you guys, I just can't think of a bonus story today. My head is stuffed with cotton wool and I'm fighting nausea. I do confess to picking at the edits, but that is easier in their way than coming up with a story. I will do my best to get a bonus story out this week, but it's not going to be today.

I posted the prologue for the finished book, though it is still subject to change right up until we go to print. I disabled the comments there because they all pertain to earlier versions of the prologue, not to this one. You can comment here on the new prologue.

And yes, this is today's story update.