Dear People,
There’s only ordinary news this time: I’m seriously into the plotting of my new RCN novel TO CLEAR AWAY THE SHADOWS. I’d like to be farther along–indeed, I’d like to be well into writing the book–but things are finally moving in the right direction.
A friend commented, “You’ve got to expect some confusion after a life-threatening trauma,” but in truth I hadn’t thought of the wreck (see Newsletter 104) as life-threatening. It clearly was, but not in my mind.
But there’s another part of it: I don’t cut anybody else slack, and I’m not going to start with myself. If I’m writing, books appear. No amount of bullshit is going to change that.
I just glanced at the Wikipedia entry on Karl Edward Wagner (which is pretty good in general). It says however that Karl wrote a second Bran Mak Morn pastiche (Queen of the Night) which was never published. Karl told his Zebra editor for months that it was almost done, then got an answering machine to screen her calls to save himself the bother of lying. Zebra even had covers printed for the book because they believed him–he was a very good liar–and the lie lives on in Wikipedia.
In fact Queen of the Night wasn’t even started: Karl’s relatives weren’t able to find so much of a page of it after he died almost twenty years later. He’d kept some of the Zebra cover flats, though,
Bullshit doesn’t bring books into existence.
I guess I’m more antsy than usual about my progress because Baen just had me do catalog copy for To Clear Away the Shadows. It’s scheduled for publication in July, 2019. I haven’t even completed my plot yet. I may well be the only person worried thtat I’ll be able to turn the book in; but believe me, I worry enough for many.
I’ve alluded to the wreck. It genuinely messed me up mentally, at least partially because it brought Nam and my complete helplessness there to the top of my mind. I don’t think I have any remaining physical problems, but for the past couple of weeks I’ve been feeling weak and tired, and my balance is off. I turn 73 on September 24, however, and that by itself is a good enough explanation for how I’m feeling.
Certainly the wreck didn’t help me. I advise all of you out there to avoid similar events.
I’ve just had the initial service on my new motorcycle, a Yamaha SR-400. It’s a delight: light, handy, and perfect for my needs as a backup bike. (The Suzuki DL-650 remains my primary machine.)
The Yamaha isn’t fast but it’ll hold 70 comfortably on a divided highway and 80 without discomfort. Supposedly it’ll do 90, but I have no intention of testing that. My normal use is to run 17 miles into town and back on two-lane roads, and I couldn’t have a better bike for the purpose.
It’s a single cylinder bike and accelerates slowly, but that’s slowly by motorcycle standards. I suspect it compares favorably with most cars. It’s a trifle buzzy at speed, but not uncomfortably so on a short run. For a cross country trip I’ll use the bigger bike (or more likely an airline).
The Yamaha is kick-start only. Now that I’ve gotten the hang of it (and built up my right calf a bit), that’s no trouble in warm weather. I don’t know about winter, but I think I’ll be able to handle it.
An acqaintance (whom I know to be shallow) asked me how I liked the new bike. Without thinking I gave her the pros and cons, just as I would most people. She apparently thought that in answering her question I was asking her for advice. She said, “Couldn’t you just trade it in on a motorcycle with an electric starter?”
Yes, I could, but instead I learned the tricks of kickstarting it (which took a week or two, as expected). And I also realized that when dealing with shallow people, the correct answer would have been, “When I get used to it, I think I’m going to like it a lot. And it’s really pretty!”
I’ll admit that only a few days before she asked me, I’d stalled the brand new bike in traffic on a very hot day. As a result I was thinking–and probably describing with some determination–about how not to have to repeat that experience any time soon. A month later I might not have bothered to mention it.
Still, just as stalling in traffic was a learning experience, so was the result of being inappropriately detailed in answering a question.
The Storm, a sequel to The Spark, is due out in January, 2019. Todd Lockwood’s art on this one is again excellent. I thought of the hero’s new dog, Sam, as being rather larger; but that probably only matters to me and to Toni Weisskopf. (We’re both dog people.)
There’s also been some local news. The Jim Crow-era monument on the UNC campus was pulled over by a mob last week. I don’t blame anybody for being offended by the statue (Silent Sam). It was of a common Confederate soldier–a grunt–but the folks putting it up in 1913 were unusually frank about their cultural stance.
The dedication speech was given by Julian Shakespeare Carr, a major regional industrialist (Carrboro, the bedroom community adjacent to Chapel Hill, is named after him). In the speech Carr bragged about having on that spot horse-whipped a Negro woman who had insulted a White woman.
The thing is, I believe mob violence is a bad thing in a civilized society. Yes, I understand people believing that the authorities aren’t moving fast enough to deal with an Obviously Bad Thing.
But Kristalnacht should not have happened.
Lynchings should not have happened.
And a mob shouldn’t have pulled over Silent Sam.
Think about society as a whole, people. Don’t step outside it to right wrongs that you think are particularly heinous.
–Dave Drake
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