The Journal of Michael Merriam

We didn’t have tornado here in Hopkins yesterday, though the WCCO radio did say we had a funnel spotted at Highway 169 and Excelsior Blvd. Despite that, we never heard any sirens here. What we did get was lots of hail, some of it ping-pong ball sized. Nothing seems to have been damaged, which I am thankful for.

I started the day with a headache, so it seemed a good idea to head back to bed. What it did was make me groggy all day, so that I’ve never seemed to get things in gear. Not even Chinese buffet could save the day. S and I spend a fun and quiet hour building a small birdhouse and watching the Reverend Selena watch the squirrels. Tonight, we will head to St. Paul for an evening of hanging out with friends at the Muddy Pig.

I’m nearly finished with the final pass of Dark Water Blues. This is a last continuity check after I rewrote several sections. I should be able to finish it tomorrow evening, once I’m home from my every-other week visit to Lifetrack Resources. I really hope I can finish it tomorrow night or by Friday afternoon, if for no other reason than I am sick of looking at the manuscript.

Now I am off to make dinner and feed the Reverend before we head out.

Yesterday, we received fresh snow in Minnesota. It came down in a thick beautiful white cloud, covering the snow that had become dirty with car exhaust and road crud. It was pleasant to look at, though less so when we had to gout and drive in it. Not that there was anything wrong with the snow, just the other drivers. Winter is Minnesota is gorgeous, if a bit treacherous. That said, autumn is still my favorite season in Minnesota.

I have finished the first round of edits on Last Car to Annwn Station, topping them off on Wednesday. I could have charged right into the second round, but I have two more weeks to finish the edits, and this first round is always the hardest and most draining. I have several things planned this weekend, a birthday party, a convention meeting, a Minnspec meeting, and gaming with the regular group My plan is to go to these events and recharge myself for the next rounds of edits, which I will jump into first thing on Monday. I will be reviewing my notes over the weekend and letting my brain stew on what to do. I know I will be writing a couple of new scenes, doing heavy rewrites on a couple more, and cutting one or two, which will involve continuity clean-up. There are several places where I've made notes to myself in the document to fix this or add this scene or explain this better. It looks daunting from here, but I am ever hopeful it will go smoothly in the execution.

We are still having some health issues with the various residents of Merriam Manor, but hopefully things are on the upswing. Right now I think we all need a couple of solid night's worth of sleep. Lack of sleep has been one of our biggest problems lately.

I received a lovely letter from a reader and reviewer, pointing me to her review of Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep: (http://tammys1.blogspot.com/2011/01/should-we-drown-in-feathered-sleep-by.html) Also, I received my postcards for Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep this week. They are gorgeous and act as a coupon should you want to order the book. I will have them to giveaway and sign during this years appearances.

And now I need to go find us all some lunch, finish my laundry, do my homework for the Minnspec meeting, and prepare to run errands this afternoon.

I am plugging away on the developmental edits. I should be done with this first pass by this weekend. I've hit a string of scenes that are on the chopping block. Some of them are going to be condensed and rolled together, a couple might get cut completely because neither I nor the editor are sure how they advance the story, and a couple look to be made obsolete during the next pass.

I sold a short story, "Memory," to Ray Gun Revival. It's another bit of space opera, something I write from time-to-time. I'm always pleased to find a home for these stories. For any of my stories, actually. I am always a bit amazed that when someone wants to pay me money for the things I write.

Though it was a tough day, with a household member being terribly sick, we all got through it. The snow outside was just enough to make everything pretty again, covering up the dirty muck. I have brownies in the oven and coffee at hand. I'm recording the BCS Championship game, and plan to start watching it in an hour or so. For the record, I will be cheering for the Oregon Ducks.

We have survived SNOWPOCALYPSE 2010! Which is more than I can say for the tired old Metrodome.

Hopkins, MN got 20.5 inches of snow. I suspect I won't see my patio again until April. I did manage go clear a path to the walk, and the home owners association has cleared the walks down to the streets. The car is safe in the garage, though careswen almost got stranded at her office yesterday. She rode the bus into the office to see her clients, thinking (rightfully) that it was safer than driving in the ever-worsening conditions, but then things got so bad Metro Transit stopped running the buses. And the Mall of America closed. This morning I made sure the vents and exhaust for my heater were cleared, and brushed the snow off the gas meter so it doesn't freeze. I do not plan on venturing out again today.

Received a pair of 8X10 prints of the cover art for Should We Drown in Feathered Sleep that I can use at my readings next year. I am also supposed to receive postcards to hand out and put on freebie tables. The Reverend Selena approves mightily of the envelope from Harlequin, and periodically perches on it.

I have reach a scene in my rewrite of Dead Brew that, I realized this morning, I am actively avoiding. I had glossed over a difficult phone conversation between Sharisha and her father, but I realized I need to write this out. I need this scene to show the difficult relationship between them, because Sharisha's difficult relationship with her family is a key element of this book. Sometimes it actually is okay to tell and not bother showing (sacrilege, I know, but sometimes exposition is your friend). This is not one of those moments. So I need to change this 900 word scene to something more, and I am dreading it, because I know writing this scene will force me to consider my own sometimes difficult relationship with my late father.

Oh well. The snow is really pretty in the bright sunshine today.

*sigh*

Time to put on my big boy pants and write this scene.

It is cold. Really, saying anything else is just adding emphasize to how utterly cold it is. So, it is cold. Yeah.

Also, we have snow. This should come as no surprise, what with living in Minnesota, but it occurred to me that this will only be our second "White Christmas" since moving north from Oklahoma. We had a white Christmas the first year we lived here (1999), but have gone back to Oklahoma every year since, except for 2003 when the family came here and it didn't snow. So yeah, white Christmas, looking forward to it.

We still have no power in the garage. Neither does my immediate neighbor, but we can't find a tripped breaker or GFI anywhere, so tomorrow the electrician is coming out to take a look. If it involves more than mine or the neighbors townhome (or terraced house, depending on your part of the world) and garage, I may have to send them over to the association office to discuss what shall be done. I'm supposed to be doing my holiday baking tomorrow. We shall see how this turns out, with the possibility of having no power for part of the day. The electrician will be here at 7:30 in the morning, so I'm hopeful.

I reset my workspace, moving all the stuff that will be going to Goodwill or disbursed among friends into the study closet until such a time as we can have friends over to take what they want before loading up the rest and taking it away. I have the Dell laptop (the one with broken lid hinges) on a docking port and acting as a desktop. It's running like a champ, but this is also the machine that burped and crashed and lost everything a couple of years ago (fortunately I had backed-up most everything on CD, so I only lost a few pictures and a couple of days worth of writing). Right now it's still running Windows XP and MS Office 2003, but if (when) it crashes again, I'm wiping it clean and installing Linux and Open Office. In the meantime, I'll make sure to back up any documents I work on every night. I bought a little 2GB Cruzer Micro for just this purpose.

I'm working on Rija's Tale, moving along at a reasonable clip. All the short stories have stalled, which means they still are not ready. I add a sentence or two here and there to them from time to time, or make some notes, but I guess things need more time to percolate in my brain before they're ready to be real stories. In the meantime, we've reached the "Torture Rija" part of the novel. I'm sure my poor character is not looking forward to this (I'm not either, really). Of course, later she gets to bite someone on the nose, so hey. As a character, Rija is really starting to grow, going from reacting to having developed enough experience and confidence to act first in a tight spot. I'm also seeing a darkening of her character as she become less naive and angrier at her situation. Eventually I may have to work her away from the darkness and anger, but she is a somewhat amoral character to being with, and life's hard knocks are not making her any softer or kinder. We shall see where she goes from here.

Rija's Tale

it's snowing...

About the size of a quarter is falling hard and fast here in Hopkins, Mn. You folks east of me should get ready.

It just got very still and dark outside. The humidity rose sharply and the pressure changed (I can feel it in my ankle). The sky is an unpleasant shade of green.

This is going to end poorly, I'm thinking.

ETA: The first cell blew through at 50 mph. The second storm cell just hit here. 40 mph winds and small hail, followed by rain coming down in buckets.

Son of ETA: Calmer now, though still dark. Thunder and lightning with moderate rain. They are calling for severe t-storms tonight.

careswen should be home by now, but her bus picked today, of all days, to have engine trouble and break down. She just sent me a text, and the next bus on the line had picked them up, but damn, now she's going to be 30 minutes later than she wanted to be.

It is getting near blizzard conditions outside, snowing hard and blowing sideways.

Which was careswen's advice after yesterday's post, and good advice it is. Also, thank you everyone who dropped by yesterday's post and talked to about the blind and clumsy stuff. You people are great, and I really appreciated everyone's words and stories.

The Twin Cities Speculative Fiction Network meeting on Sunday went well, but I left it feeling...unsettled is the best word I can come up with. I suspect it is nothing more than an off-shoot of my own unhappy mood after the cabinet accident, but it is still persisting into today. I thought about blogging about it, but decided not to, since I haven't pinpointed what is bothering me, and it might well be my own silly brain being silly, in which case I just need a day or two to get some perspective.

I didn't work on Rija's Tale today, though I might tonight. Instead I started rewriting a short story, took care of some online business and bill paying, and did some job hunting and follow-up.

It is snowing here in Hopkins, Minnesota. Great wet flakes, the kind that creates heart-attack heavy snow to be shoveled, which makes me glad I live in a townhome and my association deals with that sort of thing. I've been out in it a few times today, to the mailbox and to the garage twice. I brought in firewood, because we haven't used the fireplace once this winter. We've been so busy and stressed with life, we never got around to having a nice fire. careswen emailed from work, asking if we could have one tonight, and I think that's a wonderful idea, so I brought wood in from the garage.

It took me almost fifteen minutes to convince the garage door to close, sadly. The snow, which is coming down in large, swirling flakes, was falling and blowing so hard it was spoofing the electronic eye on the garage door. I was about ready to shut it manually when it finally closed properly.

But I am making comfort food tonight for dinner (Cheeseburgers, for the curious) and then there will be a nice warm fire, and hot cocoa, and perhaps the Reverend will come down from the bedroom, meowing her little old lady meow and curling up on the floor near us. Maybe we will read, or watch something unchallenging and pleasant, or maybe I'll write while careswen prepares for her first day of grad school, which is fast approaching, and we will be inside, and warm, and together, and it will be exactly the thing to do on a cold, snowy Minnesota night.