It seems like all I've talked about the last week or so is the weather, so it's time for something fun, yeah? How about a little Crescendo excerpt? The entire first chapter is available on my website and at Storm Moon Press (where you can still pre-order at 20% off, yay!), so I thought I'd give you a peek of what comes immediately after.
First, a quick (*sigh*) weather-related update for those who've been asking: Floodwaters have mostly receded. Repairs are going well, though I think a new species of hyper-intelligent mold in my basement has just discovered fire and the wheel. Irritatingly, utilities decided to shut off a bit over two days ago and have barely done much in the way of coming back on. Even the phone's been out. I'm sneaking on now in a rare moment of up-time and praying that everything stays on for good this time.
Now then, back to a nice fat 1500-word excerpt from Crescendo. Please note this may not match the version you see in the final text (in other words, this is still mid-edit, though it's certainly clean enough for public consumption.) All the, er, fun? Beneath the jump.
Showing posts with label Irene. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Irene. Show all posts
Friday, September 2, 2011
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Crescendo Release Date Moved
Hi all. As I'd suspected on Monday, the Crescendo release date has been moved due to hurricane Irene. The next available slot in my publisher's schedule is November 18, so that's when Crescendo will be releasing. Folks who pre-order will still be able to download it two days early.
This mess? Is what it looked like yesterday just four miles from me.
I don't usually get up on my soapbox, but if you live anywhere near any of the hard-hit areas and can donate blood to the Red Cross, it's desperately needed. If you're not (or are) in the area and want to help, you can donate funds to the Red Cross. Or text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10.
My home is far enough from any of the nearby rivers to have missed the serious flooding, but I did and do have a mess to clean up. The job is compounded by the fact that towns are completely isolated here--few to no roads open in and out, supermarkets closed, sketchy or no power (mine just went out for an hour while I was trying to make this blog post), bridges (and highways, oddly enough) washed away, etc. While I'm in the middle of all this, please don't worry if it takes me a few days to answer an email or if I drop off the radar completely. Like I said, power outages are still an issue, and I don't have a smartphone, so when it goes I lose my internet and can't get out to go find it somewhere else.
In the meanwhile, I hope you'll consider donating blood or money or both (er, but not blood money, kay?) to help the thousands of people who've lost everything this week and are still stuck in Red Cross shelters, waiting to go home. Also please consider shopping with Candlemark & Gleam, a lovely independent speculative fiction press who is donating 100% of the sale price of their ebooks to Vermont victims of Irene.
This mess? Is what it looked like yesterday just four miles from me.
 |
| Yeah, that's the National Guard not having any more luck than anyone else. |
My home is far enough from any of the nearby rivers to have missed the serious flooding, but I did and do have a mess to clean up. The job is compounded by the fact that towns are completely isolated here--few to no roads open in and out, supermarkets closed, sketchy or no power (mine just went out for an hour while I was trying to make this blog post), bridges (and highways, oddly enough) washed away, etc. While I'm in the middle of all this, please don't worry if it takes me a few days to answer an email or if I drop off the radar completely. Like I said, power outages are still an issue, and I don't have a smartphone, so when it goes I lose my internet and can't get out to go find it somewhere else.
In the meanwhile, I hope you'll consider donating blood or money or both (er, but not blood money, kay?) to help the thousands of people who've lost everything this week and are still stuck in Red Cross shelters, waiting to go home. Also please consider shopping with Candlemark & Gleam, a lovely independent speculative fiction press who is donating 100% of the sale price of their ebooks to Vermont victims of Irene.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Irene Update, Crescendo News
Good morning, all! Those of you who frequent Fantasy Unbound know this to be a pretty relentlessly happy place, but I'm afraid I have some potentially bad news for fans of Crescendo today, and it's going to involve a little bit of explanation that veers toward the sort of thing I usually would rather not discuss, but since it affects anyone waiting for Crescendo, I think you deserve to know. (If you're short on time, scroll down to the bottom for the tl;dr version.)
Good news first about Irene, though. Actually, it's all pretty related, so . . .
Irene veered east at the last second, and the eye of the storm--and the most damaging winds--missed us. Miraculously, we kept power (excepting a long series of brownouts during landfall), despite hundreds of thousands of people all around us losing theirs. We have water damage, my whole house smells like a swamp, the local river flooding is catastrophic and only getting worse (people in town have water up to the second floor of their homes, and the rivers won't even crest until tomorrow), and my dad still hasn't been allowed back to his house to inspect the damage (he lives about 100 feet from the beach), but we're all safe. (Give it a week; I suppose the mold might kill me? :-p) I hope everyone else was at least as fortunate.
Now, to explain what this has to do with Crescendo, I need to back up a few months.
Very late into the process of getting Crescendo ready, I learned my dear publisher, Guiltless Pleasure, was closing down due to a serious illness with the owner (she is well on the mend now, thank goodness). Storm Moon Press stepped in and offered to publish Crescendo on a ridiculously tight timeline, since the release date had been set a year back from Guiltless Pleasure and I very much wanted to stick to it if I could.
This meant that everything was crazy compressed, and there was much less time to focus on things like edits and production than anyone was entirely comfortable with. Neither myself nor my new publisher were willing to deliver anything less than the very best we were capable of, so we all started putting in long, intense hours to make it happen.
That meant every hour of every day was both precious and critical to hitting the release date. Fast-forward to Irene. I lost half a week preparing for the storm and the inevitable flooding, since this isn't the sort of thing we're generally ready for up in these parts. Stupid things like buying batteries for my flashlights could take hours and trips to several sold-out stores. All the furniture (and junk stored) in the basement needed to be moved. Good thing we did, as I was up all night helping my sump pump bail the basement out. The flooding's slowed but hasn't stopped, even though the rain has, because of the situation with the rivers. Now there's a big pile of cleanup to come, and more lost hours and days from my edits.
So, I'll be late turning these in to my publisher. Which in turn throws off my publisher's schedule, since mine is by no means the only book they're publishing this fall. This means they now have to scramble to work proofreading, layout, conversion, and galley proofing into an already packed schedule. This means there is a very good chance that Crescendo will miss its release date. I want to stress that this has nothing at all to do with Storm Moon Press, who has bent over backward at every point in the process to deliver the best book possible.
I'm trying to do the same, but it's looking like it's time to beg your understanding and patience in the event the book misses its scheduled release by a couple or few weeks. A lot hinges on how capable I am of making up for lost time in an already very full schedule, and of how much lost time I'll actually need to make up for--I won't really know the extent of the flood damage (or the consequent cleanup, which is already monstrous) until the waters crest and recede, and I may yet still lose power to said floodwaters at any point (and those who already have lost power have been told not to expect it back for over a week, nor can many evacuate to somewhere that does have power because the town has turned into an island). Just as much hinges on how how quickly the manuscript can be worked into my publisher's production schedule if/when I miss my due date. (I must stress again that this is entirely beyond their control.)
So, the tl;dr version? Weather sucks. Crescendo might be a few weeks late. Please don't kill me :-p
Good news first about Irene, though. Actually, it's all pretty related, so . . .
Irene veered east at the last second, and the eye of the storm--and the most damaging winds--missed us. Miraculously, we kept power (excepting a long series of brownouts during landfall), despite hundreds of thousands of people all around us losing theirs. We have water damage, my whole house smells like a swamp, the local river flooding is catastrophic and only getting worse (people in town have water up to the second floor of their homes, and the rivers won't even crest until tomorrow), and my dad still hasn't been allowed back to his house to inspect the damage (he lives about 100 feet from the beach), but we're all safe. (Give it a week; I suppose the mold might kill me? :-p) I hope everyone else was at least as fortunate.
Now, to explain what this has to do with Crescendo, I need to back up a few months.
Very late into the process of getting Crescendo ready, I learned my dear publisher, Guiltless Pleasure, was closing down due to a serious illness with the owner (she is well on the mend now, thank goodness). Storm Moon Press stepped in and offered to publish Crescendo on a ridiculously tight timeline, since the release date had been set a year back from Guiltless Pleasure and I very much wanted to stick to it if I could.
This meant that everything was crazy compressed, and there was much less time to focus on things like edits and production than anyone was entirely comfortable with. Neither myself nor my new publisher were willing to deliver anything less than the very best we were capable of, so we all started putting in long, intense hours to make it happen.
That meant every hour of every day was both precious and critical to hitting the release date. Fast-forward to Irene. I lost half a week preparing for the storm and the inevitable flooding, since this isn't the sort of thing we're generally ready for up in these parts. Stupid things like buying batteries for my flashlights could take hours and trips to several sold-out stores. All the furniture (and junk stored) in the basement needed to be moved. Good thing we did, as I was up all night helping my sump pump bail the basement out. The flooding's slowed but hasn't stopped, even though the rain has, because of the situation with the rivers. Now there's a big pile of cleanup to come, and more lost hours and days from my edits.
So, I'll be late turning these in to my publisher. Which in turn throws off my publisher's schedule, since mine is by no means the only book they're publishing this fall. This means they now have to scramble to work proofreading, layout, conversion, and galley proofing into an already packed schedule. This means there is a very good chance that Crescendo will miss its release date. I want to stress that this has nothing at all to do with Storm Moon Press, who has bent over backward at every point in the process to deliver the best book possible.
I'm trying to do the same, but it's looking like it's time to beg your understanding and patience in the event the book misses its scheduled release by a couple or few weeks. A lot hinges on how capable I am of making up for lost time in an already very full schedule, and of how much lost time I'll actually need to make up for--I won't really know the extent of the flood damage (or the consequent cleanup, which is already monstrous) until the waters crest and recede, and I may yet still lose power to said floodwaters at any point (and those who already have lost power have been told not to expect it back for over a week, nor can many evacuate to somewhere that does have power because the town has turned into an island). Just as much hinges on how how quickly the manuscript can be worked into my publisher's production schedule if/when I miss my due date. (I must stress again that this is entirely beyond their control.)
So, the tl;dr version? Weather sucks. Crescendo might be a few weeks late. Please don't kill me :-p
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