Shannon Page

I braved the muck and rain to harvest some brave strawberries today…

Other than that, the garden is getting along without me. Drowning out there, I suppose.

So I was forced to stay in and work on Hobgoblin. After some epic cat-vacuuming behavior, I got down to it, and added a very necessary scene to the end of chapter 7. Then I set it aside a while and went to yoga; then returned and realized the chapter was now one ridiculously long day, and it couldn’t be, because reasons. So I fixed that. Now I’m ready to start chapter 8 again!

Truly, it all does get better with every iteration. I mean, I have to believe that.

In other news: I probably won’t be on the interwebs much for the next few days, unless I can get my hands on our new iPad. I have to take this computer into the shop. I took it in last week because it keeps dropping its internet connection (many times a day, very annoyingly); they tweaked and adjusted and cleaned and fixed a number of things, and said if that all doesn’t fix it, then it needs a new AirPort card. Well, that didn’t fix it. So I’ll probably have to leave the computer there for repairs. Which is fine, as I’m headed up to Seattle Saturday for a couple of days. (which is where I might get to see my new iPad…) (not to mention other desirable things…)

Later!

No luck on the London house-trade queries so far, though I did get an offer from Brazil. Which, tempting as it looks (sun! beaches!), isn’t quite going to work for attending the con in Brighton.

It does lead to all kinds of interesting fantasies about future house trading and travel, of course. For a frugal homebody like me, house trading is much more appealing than hotel-staying. Sure, it’s not MY home, but it’s A home, with all the comforts and space that implies. Plus, you know, free. Just gotta get there.

Elsewise–very busy day–productive, though. I’ve edited all the stories for the anthology, and sent all but one out (waiting on a proper email address). Did some other interesting secret-for-now things. Replanted a wayward fern in the aquarium. Went for a swim. Avoided the garden, because apparently it is winter again, cold and nasty and rainy. Oh well, spring was nice while it lasted.

Now: book and bed.

I’ve been sort of puttering in the same chapter of Hobgoblin for a few days now–mostly thinking about it, making a few notes–because I knew there was a problem and I didn’t know how to fix it. In fact I hadn’t quite defined the problem…I was getting closer, but it was remaining elusive.

But then this morning it all fell together. In my mind, that is; I still have to go back in and apply all this to the book. Which will mean changing a few things in an earlier chapter–moving something back there from a later chapter, and adding a short scene–and then bringing the solution forward into this chapter.

Basically, I realized I hadn’t fully nailed down Who Knows What, and When; and the related issue of Who Believes What, and When. So I had characters sort of dancing around issues, going first one way and then the other from scene to scene, making no overall sense. But now I’ve worked that all out–I know where everybody stands on The Thing; now I just have to go, you know, write it.

Which I didn’t do today because I worked on editing anthology stories all day, which is a joy and a delight, but it still does take time.

And I didn’t work on Hobgoblin this evening either, because I drove to Beaverton to see John Scalzi enjoy a box of donuts.

Oh and also read and sign, and be his generally delightful and fabulous self. He is truly one of the good guys. I’m glad I went.

So I bought airline tickets to London today. I guess we’re actually going to World Fantasy!

(shudder) oh so much money….

No, can’t worry about that; I’ve run the numbers thoroughly, and I can make this work. And it will be SO much fun and SO worth it professionally.

I also signed up on a home-exchange site. That took most of my morning. Fortunately, it was a sunny day, so I was able to take lovely pictures of the house and yard and all. (And I hope I don’t get dinged for false advertising, showing a sunny Portland house while asking for a trade in October/November…)

So now I’m worried no one will want to trade for late fall, here. But, I’m doing all I can to make it happen. I searched the website for Londoners wanting trades, and sent one query. I’ll keep searching, and sending, and we’ll see!

Miss H. and I went on an outing today, we drove down to Aurora, where I’d never been before. It’s basically a giant antique mall disguised as a little town, half an hour south of here.

And I bought…wait for it….

Another rug!

That’s not where it goes. I have no idea where to put it; I’m totally out of floor.

But it was so inexpensive!! It’s like the lady had no idea what a good rug it was. I mean, under $100! It was my sacred duty to bring it home.

I got other little things too, including a deviled-egg-serving plate (I lost my last one in the divorce), and some useful knick-knacks. And the sun came out for our drive home, so we put the top down and let the wind blow our hair around.

Lovely day.

I have finally found some time to work on Hobgoblin, yay! I’ve edited up through chapter 6. Of course, it’s not till chapter 8 or so where it starts to really need work, but this feels like good progress.

Also I got some more anthology stories edited and out; not quite halfway done with those.

Also-also I got some acquisitions-editing-reading done. (I still LOVE it that I can lie on the couch and read, and that’s work!)

You can tell from all of the above that it was too rainy to go play in the yard today…

Oh my gosh you guys, I was so sleepy last night when I posted, I forgot to tell you about the horrible discovery I made about my next-door neighbor!!

Actually, let me backtrack, because what I learned also helped me solve a mystery that had been driving me nuts. Ever since the weather got a little better and I’ve been keeping windows open, I’ve been hearing this random, occasional “pok” sound. Like a very, very slow ping-pong game. I could NOT for the life of me figure out where it was coming from, though it was obviously nearby.

Though sometimes it sounded farther away, and sometimes it sounded really close. I actually almost peered into a fenced back yard down the block last week, because I thought I heard it coming from there, but when I walked by, there were people in the yard, and, well, I wasn’t going to peer through their fence when they were back there.

So the mystery continued. I started thinking I was going to have to move away, just to preserve my sanity. POK…. POK……….. POK.

POK.

But then yesterday I was out in the yard, puttering around as I do, and I saw my next-door neighbor in his yard. He had a bag of peanuts, and he was filling a couple of little container-device-things that he had nailed to trees.

And as soon as he filled one, a squirrel ran up, lifted the lid, got a peanut, and scampered off, leaving the top to fall back down with a little “pok”!

MY GOD, MY NEIGHBOR IS FEEDING THE LITTLE BASTARDS! (in fact, probably lots of neighbors are, which is why the sound gets closer and farther…)

And of course they leave the peanut shells all over my yard. AND BURY THEM IN MY POTS.

Because of course the little bastards aren’t satisfied with peanut-feasting all over the neighborhood: they still have to come into MY yard and dig up my pots and chew on my plants and kill seedlings and generally wreak mayhem.

I still may have to move. This neighborhood is not safe! Who would have thought my very NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR had gone over to the dark side?

Oddly, now that I know what the POK sound is, it bothers me both less and more. At least I’m not crazed with wondering any more. And I suppose I could silver-lining it and tell myself that every POK I hear is a squirrel not at that moment in my yard, but I’m not quite that Zen yet. I just imagine them writing all their friends all over the country: “Hey, free peanuts in southeast Portland! Right next door to a bunch of juicy plants and freshly dug soil! Come on down!”

Little bastards.

What do May showers bring?

Muddy yardwork, at least. But it makes the weed-pulling easier. I miss that hot weather we had! Though I can’t argue with getting the garden watered for free.

I have about a billion strawberries that are allllllllmost ripe. Just a day or two of sun should do it.

Sun? Hello, sun? Any time now! I want to take my socks back off!

So, I’m pretty new at this editing thing–at least professionally–and I know all my experienced editor-friends are smiling gently at me and rolling their eyes.

But hey, everyone has to learn sometime, right?

And I AM learning so much, it’s marvelous. Working with these stories, pondering what makes a good story work and what makes an unsuccessful story not work–it’s subtle, but also obvious; subjective, yet not. It’s already finding its way back to my own writing, as I finally got back into the edit of Hobgoblin today, and saw things I hadn’t seen the last sixteen times I went over it. Easy-to-fix things. At least so far.

The thing that has amused me the most this week has been something that is entirely DUH-level obvious once you realize it, but I hadn’t seen it till I got there. I was remembering reading all the anthology submissions, which I did as they came in–the good, the bad, the ugly. I read every word of all of them (and there go my friends rolling their eyes again)–but I needed to do that, for my own sense of what I had. And, as I mentioned, to think about why stories work and why they don’t.

So I chose sixteen stories (and I’ll post the table of contents when all the contracts are in), and notified the authors, and then prepared to edit…dreading, before I got into it, the amount of work to be done. Because I’d just had this experience of reading this huge pile of good, bad, and ugly, all jumbled up. And thinking about each story, what it would need…

I’ve edited three stories so far, and…well…they hardly needed any editing at all! Because, DUH, I chose good stories. NOT ones that needed much work–by me, or by the author. I mean, of COURSE. But I didn’t see it till I was sitting there with the stories going, Gee, that was easy.

Yeah, okay, I’ll get there.

In other news: I almost have peonies blooming…any day now:

But then I met Miss Q for tea in Ladd’s Addition, and afterwards we walked through the rose gardens, which are in full bloom:

We took the time to stop and smell the roses. They were lovely.

Another busy day, and one with All the Weathers–sun, clouds, wind, drenching rain, more sun…whatever it was, five minutes later it would be something else.

Got one freelance job done; another one came in. Hey-ho.

Oh, and there is news on the Substitute Innkeepers deal for this winter: it’s going to be three months, not four. The owners have decided to cut their own trip a little shorter, and frankly, that’s going to make some things a lot easier for us. We’ll now start mid-November instead of November 1, and end mid-February. (Don’t worry, Mom, Thanksgiving is still a go!)

This way, we can get back from World Fantasy and maybe even have a day or two to get over our jetlag before packing up and going to Orcas Island for the winter.

Hmm, now I really need to get planning on that trip…