Quotes from Mercedes Lackey

Here are the contexts of the quotes tweeted from @sueannbowling from September 13 through September 19. All but the last are from Intrigues, the second book of the Colloquium Chronicles by Mercedes Lackey.

“I have known many young lovers, and most were fools.”  The Archivist, pointing out the most likely reason that Mags’ parents had left their own homes.

“Being taken by surprise by success can be as hazardous as being taken by surprise by failure.”  Setham, warning Mags that success in the game of Kirball could make him popular unexpectedly.

“No one ever anticipates great intelligence out of a games player or a fine warrior.”  Nicholas to Mags, after Mags gets on a Kirball team. “Low profile” need not include avoiding that kind of success.

“Ye learn a mite or two ‘bout eatin’ when ye ain’t got a lot t’ eat.” Mags, explaining to Bear why he is eating only a light lunch before Kirball practice.

“It’d be nice if some people’d think wi’ their heads, ‘stead uv some other parts.” Mags, when he realizes that many, even Heralds, are suspicious that the “foreigner” in a foreseeing may be him.

“The surest way to make some people to believe almost anything was to deny it.” More of Mags’ problems with the foreseeing of the King possibly assassinated by a “foreigner.”

“Anybody object to a bed?” Tourist Trap, by Sue Ann Bowling. The travelers have been asked if they mind overnighting at a supply cabin, instead of camping out.

Fall in Alaska

Strictly photos today, to show how much variation there is in how the leaves turn. We’re at the point where the birches and aspens range from just starting to turn to having lost all their leaves (especially with the winds we had Sunday.)

The last to turn, looking East about an hour before sunset Sept. 17. Notice that many of the deciduous trees are nearly bare. Mostly only the non-native trees are still green.

Looking North, still about an hour before sunset. Most trees that still have their leaves are gold.

North Pole Weather, 9/17/12

The sun rose at 7:21 this morning, and will set at 8:08 in the evening for 12 hours 46 minutes and 42 seconds of daylight. The equinox is approaching fast – next Saturday, to be exact. Because sunrise and sunset are defined by the upper edge of the sun, not the center, being on the horizon, it’ll be a couple more days – a week from today, in fact –before the day is really 12 hours long. Meanwhile the trees are getting yellower, the dead leaves are almost hiding the grass, and the squash and beans have had it – frost just about every night last week. The sun’s now 27° above the horizon at noon.

The forecast looks warmer, with lows mostly around 40. The cold I brought back from the Anchorage conference is almost gone, so I’ll try to get the beets harvested next week. Theoretically, I should cut the perennials back to about 6” and get ready to have leaves blown into the flower beds. Not to mention clearing the raised beds. Maybe. If I have time. If the weather cooperates. If the wind dies down! We don’t normally have much wind, but it’s a good thing I had the plastic covers clipped to the hoops, or they’d be in the trees!

Sunday our local paper, the Fairbanks News-Miner, reviewed my second book, Tourist Trap. I met Libbie Martin in Anchorage last week, and she told me the review was coming out, but this was the first time I’d seen it. Have a look at the News-Miner, and see what she said about the book.

Six Sentence Sunday

Welcome back to Six Sentence Sunday. I’m still posting from War’s End, where Coralie has found herself, her baby and her dog unexpectedly on a strange planet. Her dog has just led her to the pilot of the courier spaceship they were on. The pilot is speaking, and he has warned Coralie that the vines holding him to the fallen tree trunk are very sticky.

“If I’d had the sense to keep still, I don’t think they’d have ensnared me so badly, but no, I had to grab them and try to pull them away.  Just don’t laugh at me.”

Coralie studied him, trying to control the betraying twitch at the corner of her mouth.  “Maybe there’s something that would dissolve it in Ginger’s kit,” she suggested.  “Otherwise we’ll have to find some way to cut you free.”

“The kit’s there,” Kelty said, nodding toward the case.

But Kelty doesn’t know what’s inside the kit.

Do stop by the other authors’ blogs with ties to Six Sentence Sunday, and please comment. We all love comments! Click the logo to find the list of authors.

Quilling

Ever read Jane Austin’s Sense and Sensibility and wondered what Lucy was up to in making a filigree basket for Annabelle? I don’t mean her motive; she was obviously sucking up to Lady Middleton. But what was a filigree basket? And what did rolling papers have to do with it?

I must confess that my assumption for years was that the basket was something like crochet or tatting, with papers for temporary spacing. Then a fellow vendor at the Farmers’ Market straightened me out.

These can be worn as pendants.

She was selling quilled ornaments – Christmas ornaments, pendants, baskets of flowers – and said that there was mention of her craft in Sense and Sensibility. I tried googling Jane Austin and quilling, and found that such filigree baskets were made by gluing the rolled and shaped paper to wooden baskets or boxes.

In Jane Austin’s day, quilling was done by wrapping thin strips of paper around a

This is one of our wild Alaska flowers — fireweed.

literal quill. The roll was glued or pinched into shape, and the edge of the paper glued to the wooden base. Modern quilling can also be done with the rolls glued to other rolls to form shapes, and this is the kind my fellow vendor had for sale. The craft is popular enough that the paper strips – a little heavier than ordinary paper — can be bought precut in a variety of colors, and power tools do the rolling.

This piano shows what can be done with quilling.

I keep telling myself that I do not have room for such delicate bits of artwork – but if I see her again before the Market closes for the season, I’ll probably succumb.

Jarn’s Journal, Year 4 Day 30

Year 4 Day 30

They’re here!

I’ve been expecting their return for the last two fivedays, and even resorted to flights over the surrounding countryside. I spotted the first group, a day or two away, three days ago, and have seen several since. There are things I can find more easily than they can, and I have laid in a good supply of salt, tropical fruits, and obsidian.

I need to trade for tanned skins and cooking. I can get foodstuffs easily enough, with Patches’ help, but the computer is not much help in telling me how to cook them.  Same problem as the architecture program, but worse: the recipes assume I have a cooker that needs only to be programmed.

Perhaps I should have accepted the offer of Meerkat’s help? Her cooking could not be as bad as mine. But her company …. Not to mention the assumptions she was quite willing to make! The People are better company than Patches, and I might as well admit that company has become more important to me than tanned hides and cooking, but they are not R’il’nian.

Songbird and Giraffe were, predictably, the first to wish to see my new home, and the most charmed by it. I’ve managed a small heat pump which keeps food cool, and Songbird was amazed and delighted to see how meat would keep fresh for a few days without salting, drying and smoking. They are to be mated at this gather, and I assumed they would be staying with Rain Cloud’s group, but they seemed a little hesitant about that. They could go back with Dust Devil’s group, but do not seem enthusiastic about that, either.

I hope they make up their minds soon, Unless I am very mistaken, Songbird will be a mother before the next gather.

Jarn’s Journal is part of the back story of the Jarnian Confederation, the setting for my science fiction novels. Jarn is a human-like alien, a R’il’nian, who was stranded on Earth, in Africa, about 125,000 years ago at the height of the penultimate interglacial period. He has met and is increasingly dependent on a group of primitive humans, the People. The parts of his story blogged to date are combined in my author site.

Change of Schedule

I went to a writer’s seminar last weekend, and picked up a cold — I suspect on the plane, breathing recirculated air for an hour. Would you believe I’m not feeling at the top of my form?

This red dun shows the dorsal stripe typical of duns very clearly.

Further, one of the comments I received at the event was that blogging daily is too often.

I skipped Tuesday simply because I didn’t feel up to writing a review. Today should be wild card, but I’m skipping that, too. I think I will keep up with meteorological Monday, quote-context Wednesday, and Jarn’s Journal on Fridays, along with something from my fiction on Sunday. Six Sentence Sunday as long as it lasts, or possibly longer segments. Tuesday and Thursday I’ll normally skip unless I have something special.

Saturday in most cases for the next few months will be reblogs. One of the things I’ve found is that my old posts on horse coat color genetics are very popular even though I didn’t have much in the way of photos to illustrate them. Since the fair I have quite a few new pictures, so I’m going to bring out some of those old blogs, fancy them up with new pictures, and put them out on Saturdays — unless I have something else seasonal in mind, of course.

Anyway, from now on I’ll be blogging regularly on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Other days will be occasional — it’s time I did some serious editing on the trilogy!

Quotes from Anne McCaffrey

These are the quotes tweeted between September 6 and September 12 from @sueannbowling. All but the last of these quotes are from Dragonquest, by Anne McCaffrey.

“Adolescence was only a step of life, not a career in itself.” F’nor musing on how some dragonriders, able to impress a dragon in adolescence, never really moved on from that time.

“You solve one problem and five more appear from between. F’lar, when Lessa points out that Groghe wants the dragonriders to go to the red star and wipe out thread at the source.

“Nothing can be decided in heat or hatred.” F’lar, after Kylara has been responsible for the death of two queens, and effectively lost her mind as a result.

“It was one matter to keep dangerous secrets privy. Quite another to guard Craft skills to extinction.” Robinton’s thought, recognizing that many of the losses of information were due to Craftmasters dying before they had passed on all the craft matters kept secret.

“A man ought not to be afraid to say he didn’t know.”  Lessa, approving of Wansor’s refusal to state more than he knows when they are first viewing the Red Star through a telescope.

“They’re learning because they love.” F’nor, after her fire lizards have stood between Brekke and a possible second Impression.

“It was less trouble to read the message than to speculate about it.” Sue Ann Bowling, Homecoming. Derik, when he gets a high-priority message from his son Coryn, who supposedly knows better than to mark a message high priority. (Coryn is actually right on this one.)

North Pole Weather 9/10/12

The sun rose this morning at 7 am, and will set this evening at 8:33 for 13 hours, 33 minutes of daylight. At its highest it will be less than 30° above the horizon. Already I cannot drive south at noon without using the sun visor.

9:30 this morning. Yes, that’s ice. Thank goodness I got the potted plants in before I left.

We had our first killing frost Saturday night while I was at the Alaska Writer’s Guild conference in Anchorage. That much was obvious when I returned after dark Sunday night. The squash in pots on the patio was frozen, as was the tomato plant. A check with the flashlight last night indicated the plastic covers may have protected the lower parts of the squash plants, so I might be able to get a few more zucchini. Beans likewise had better have their last picking, and I guess it’s time to pull the rest of the beets.

This morning I found that not only was everything frozen and brittle, we had a thunderstorm with hail while I was gone. So I’m not sure how much of the garden I’m going to be able to salvage.

By 11:30 this morning the sun was shining.

I’m not sure when I’ll get the time. The plane from Anchorage to Fairbanks was supposed to arrive at 8 pm, comfortably before sunset. It was 45 minutes late, and dark enough I could not drive. Thanks to a fellow attendee at the conference, I made it home — but my car is still at the airport. The transit system appears to make it as difficult as possible to combine the only route where I live and the only line that goes to the airport. The best combination, if it’s possible, involves a 1-minute transfer downtown. If I miss the connection, it’s an hour and 45 minutes until the next bus to the airport. Other transfers involve at least an hour or two twiddling my thumbs in the downtown transit station.

Added complication? My first OLLI class is 2:45 this afternoon. I think I’m going to give up and call a cab — or the airport limousine service, which gives me better rates. If tomorrow’s post is missing or late, you know why!

To end on a good note: the local paper’s book reviewer, Libbie Martin, was at the conference and told me her review of Tourist Trap would be in the paper this month, before the last day of the Farmers Market (where the book is for sale) September 22. I hope it’s as good as the one she wrote for Homecoming.

Six Sentence Sunday

I’ll be pretty slow getting to other authors today, as I’m attending a writers’ conference. I’ll try to get around eventually, but it will be Monday or Tuesday.

My snippet is again from War’s End, following last week’s.

It took nearly half an hour before she found herself in the clearing that held Kelty, and Michelle was once again demanding to be fed.

The pilot was on the trunk of a giant tree that had fallen atop a tangle of smaller ones, and at first she thought that the vines wrapping the trunk were somehow also wrapped around him. But as she came closer, she saw that only a few, very thin vines actually crossed his body. “Don’t touch the vines,” he cautioned. “They’re sticky. Very sticky.”

Perhaps I should add that Kelty is in his fifties and not terribly athletic?

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