A Post About Our Imperfect Books

Today’s post can be found at http://www.sfnovelists.com, the group blog on speculative fiction that I maintain along with a group of over one hundred published authors of fantasy and science fiction. The post is called “Our Books, Warts and All.” I hope you enjoy it.

A Post About the Seasons

Today’s post can be found at http://magicalwords.net, the group blog on the business and craft of writing fantasy that I maintain with fellow authors Faith Hunter, Misty Massey, and C. E. Murphy. The post is called “Writing the Seasons” and it’s about using seasonal imagery in our writing. I hope you enjoy it.

Weekend Ephemera

First things first:  There’s a new contest up on my website and you should definitely check it out.  You don’t need to be familiar with my books to enter — all you need to do is read a story I recently posted there and tell me who should play the lead roles if it’s ever made into a movie.  Easy, right?  And if I choose your response as the winner, you’ll receive an autographed, hardcover edition of The Sorcerers’ Plague, book I of Blood of the Southlands.  So visit the site and check it out!

Remember the owl who showed up at our place a few nights ago and sat on the swing set?   Well, he came back last night, and he brought his brother.  The two of them were sitting together on the play set, looking around, making their little rasping call, waiting for Mama to bring them something to eat.  They hung around the house all night, actually, calling to each other, and fluttering from perch to perch.  They’re newly fledged and not very accomplished flyers.  One of them flew off the swing set last night without first deciding where he was going to land next.  He wheeled and turned and finally tried to grasp the trunk of a tree.  That didn’t work for long and eventually he had no choice but to drop to the ground in a most undignified manner.  He was fine and a moment later he flew back into the woods.  But he and his brother were back a short time later, ready to try it all again.  They’re very cool.

And now it’s the weekend.  Nancy is taking my older daughter and some of her friends out camping tonight.  So my younger daughter and I are having what we call a Daddy-Daughter-Day.  Not sure yet what we’re going to do.  A water park if these clouds clear and the temperature rises; otherwise a movie and sushi dinner (we’re both nuts for sushi).  Should be fun.

Hope all of you are enjoying your weekend.

Twilight Visitor

Last night, just around dusk, Nancy called us all into the family room that looks out on our backyard so we could see the young Barred Owl that sat perched on the edge of the swing set.  The bird remained there for quite a while, looking around, allowing itself to be checked out by a hummingbird that buzzed around it for several moments, and a pair of nesting Carolina Wrens that emerged from the forest to scold it loudly for coming near their home.  Occasionally the owl made a small screeching noise — kind of a rising, raspy whistle, which sounded nothing like the clear hooting call of adult Barred Owls (“Who cooks for you?!  Who cooks for you, all?!”)  Finally, it flew to the edge of the wood, where it was joined by one of its siblings.  Moments later, they retreated deeper into the forest.  A nice reminder that this was home to birds and deer and all sorts of other creatures before we built our house.  We’ll be looking for the birds again tonight.

Butterfly Census

Today was the annual butterfly census here in Sewanee.  Every year the North American Butterfly Association sponsors hundreds of butterfly counts across the United States, Mexico and Canada as a way of gauging changes in the butterfly population.  Butterflies are considered indicator creatures — if global climate change or pollution or habitat destruction are going to have an impact on our ecology, it’s going to show up first in things like butterflies.

Anyway, this is an event that I run every year along with a colleague of Nancy’s in the University biology department.  It was very hot today and there weren’t as many butterflies around as we had hoped, although we did wind up seeing thirty different species of butterfly and over 160 individual butterflies.  I’m totally wiped — we start the count at about 8:30 am and finish at about 5:00 pm.  We log a good twenty miles in the car and another seven or eight on foot.  And it was 94 degrees here today.

But we saw some very cool butterflies, including a few dozen Great Spangled Fritillaries and several different species of hairstreak, including this little gem, the Coral Hairstreak.  

Anyway, fun, tiring day.  Time for a beer, me thinks.

Rain, Rain, Go Away….

 We’re — what? — nine days into May, and we’ve had six inches of rain already this month. That’s not an exaggeration; if anything I’m understanding it.  Our lawn is a swamp.  The little pond near our house is as high as I’ve seen it and the stream that flows out of it is like the freakin’ Amazon.  Here in Tennessee we’ve been in a prolonged drought.  Not anymore.  The drought is over, the deluge has begun.  The sun appeared for about an hour yesterday afternoon, and it might have peeked through the previous morning.  But every day seems to dawn grey and dreary, there always seems to be a rumble of thunder in the distance, and when the sun does manage to burn its way through the cloud cover, the air becomes heavy and hot.  Rainforest air.

The forecast calls for sun on Tuesday, maybe Wednesday, too.  But until then more rain.  And maybe showers by the end of the week….

Crazy Weather

Crazy weather here.  Storms, winds, torrential rain.  And now it’s clear as can be and thirty degrees colder than it was this afternoon.  There were tornado warnings all around us and throughout our county this evening, but we’re all fine.  I hope all my friends in and around Nashville are all right, too.

A Couple of Photos

So, here are a couple of the photos I’ve taken in the past few days.  There’s a small hollow near where we live — it’s actually called Shakerag Hollow, because once upon a time you could go down there in the evening, wave a small white cloth, and thus signal to local moonshiners that you were in the market for their wares.  Alas, this is no longer an option….

Shakerag Hollow is filled with wildflowers every spring, and spring is creeping into the hills of Tennessee even as we speak.  I use a Canon 40D digital SLR camera with a 24-105mm lens mounted with both extension tubes and a Canon 500D close-up filter.  These attachments allow me to get extreme close-ups without sacrificing clarity.  I mount the whole set-up on a Bogen 3001 tripod with a Kirk BH-3 ball head.

The first photo is of a Rue Anemone (Thalictrum thalictroides) growing out of the skeleton of an old downed tree branch.  Everything was covered with dew that morning, so you can see water droplets on the flower and leaves.

This second picture was taken that same morning.  These are simply dew drops on the leaves of Dutchman’s Breeches (Dicentra cucullaria), but somehow the angle of the early morning sun has refracted the light, giving the water that incredible color.  It looks like I spilled juice on these leaves, but I swear, it’s just water.  And in fact, I didn’t realize what I had until I got home and looked at the pictures.  But I love the effect.

Nothin’ to See Here; Move On….

I really ought to have something to say, but I don’t.  I watched Obama’s presser and thought he did great, but I don’t feel like blogging about it because, frankly, I don’t have the energy for a political fight with my friends on the right. 

I’ve spent the last few days taking and processing pictures, and that’s been great.  I have some gems from the small hollow I hike in.  Wildflowers are blooming here and the place looks gorgeous.  But there’s not much I can add to that. 

I’m waiting for word on the new book.  Not much more to say about that, either.

I feel boring as hell, and I apologize.  I’ll try to offer more tomorrow.

A Good Trip, But….

Well, we’re back from Savannah, and I have to say that it is truly a marvelous city.  For those of you who don’t know, the city is laid out as a grid, with each section of the grid built around a square of green space.  Most of the squares have a statue or a fountain or a monument at their center, and all of them are filled with magnificent Live Oak trees, their branches covered with Spanish Moss.  Stately old homes and churches surround the squares; some of the homes have been converted to museums; others remain privately owned (I can’t even begin to imagine what one of them might sell for).  Most of them date from the early 19th century; all of them are beautifully maintained.   We walked all over the city, stopping in to view some of the museums, shopping in antique shops, and eating lots of great food.  During the three days we were in the city, we didn’t once use our car — we were able to walk everywhere, and the girls didn’t even complain.  Of course, we kept them well plied with ice cream and salt-water taffy, which helped a lot….

My one complaint:  Any of you know what no-see-ums are?  They’re also referred to as biting midges.  Look in your dictionary at the letter “l” in any entry — that’s how big they are.  Don’t let their size fool you, though.  They’re vicious.  You can’t see them until you feel the sting of a bite, which, in and of itself, isn’t too painful.  But then the fun begins.  A small welt rises where the little bugger bit you.  It itches like mad, so you scratch it a bit.  A moment or two later the welt is the size of a penny and the itch is driving you nuts.  But you’re having trouble focusing on that one because you’ve just felt that same like sting in about eighteen other places:  your forearm, your scalp, your leg, in between two knuckles, on your wrist, on your neck . . .  You get the idea.

Worst of all, the bites are as persistent as flea bites.  I’m still covered with welts several days after the worst of the no-see-um swarms, and all of them still itch.

So, yeah, I had a great time in Savannah.  But I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that the bugs made this trip a bit harder to enjoy.  I need to remember that the Southeast coast in mid-March, while lovely in terms of the weather, is also prime no-see-um country.  I had this problem at Cumberland Island two years ago and at Hilton Head six years ago, but I thought that being in a city would make this trip different.  I was wrong.  And I have the welts to prove it.