Author: Marko

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social week: it’s like shark week, only with more bourbon.

I turned in some on-schedule edits on Saturday, so I rewarded myself by drinking Cuba Libres and playing the truly excellent The Last Of Us  on the PS3 for the rest of the weekend.

This week will be the highlight of the year, socially speaking (at least for this work-from-home hermit). That’s because it’s Readercon week. I get to head down to Burlington for the annual Mingling Of The SF/F Writers, where I’ll get to meet friends again and make new ones, all while talking about SF/F and the writing business in general. This will be my third year there in a row. It’s the convention where I did my first public reading, and I consider it my home con, so to speak.

When I get back from Readercon, there will be a new round of edits waiting for me, and I’ll have to jump back into the mountain of writing work that has piled up for me, but this week is for HAPPY NERDY SOCIAL TIMES. (If you’re going to be at Readercon, stop by and say hello!)

 

gadgetry.

carputer.

I used a dedicated Magellan car GPS in the Grand Caravan (a.k.a. Frostbite One) for years, until I got a new iPhone and found that it made a better GPS than the dedicated unit. That worked pretty well for a while, until I upgraded my iPad mini to a 3G/LTE version and figured that a 7.9″ screen would make an even better GPS.

And boy howdy, does it ever.

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Let me tell you that an iPad mini with a cellular data connection makes a ridiculously useful car computer. I use the iOttie dashboard mount, which is rock-solid. Most of the time, the iPad is in GPS mode via the MotionX GPS app. (Safety disclaimer: I only use the screen for navigation purposes and to switch music while I’m driving, not to browse the Intertubes or do Facebook updates at 65MPH on I-89.)

Other things I can do in the car now: stream Pandora to the car stereo, listen to my iTunes music or audiobooks, use the iPad as a dash cam via the rear-facing camera, look up stuff online (only while standing still,  see above disclaimer), and basically do everything else I usually do on the iPhone, albeit on a much bigger and easier-to-use screen.

The iOttie mount is not only extremely sturdy, but also easy to operate. Getting the iPad in and out can be done with one hand because the little arms that secure it are spring-loaded and actuated when the back of the iPad is pushed into the mount. I hook up the iPad to the USB charger in the 12V socket because the GPS location services are really battery-hungry, and because it’s nice to arrive at your destination with the device fully charged.

It’s not as elegant as a built-in vehicle GPS/entertainment screen in the dash, but I highly doubt that any car manufacturer offers a factory solution that has more capabilities. And this carputer is detachable and goes from car to backpack in about three seconds.

This future: I like living in it.

books. friends. shameless self-promotion. writing.

meanwhile, over at kat’s place.

My friend Katrina does a recurring blog feature called Prime Writing, and the latest installment features some dorky dude who wrote a novel about spaceships and stuff:

http://www.katrinaarcher.com/journal/2013/06/24/prime-writing-marko-kloos/

You may want to check it out. Said dorky dude talks a bit about his novel and how it came about.

castle frostbite. weather.

my kingdom for a backup generator.

Spring has totally sprung, y’all.

Yesterday, the thermometer at Castle Frostbite recorded 88 degrees. Unfortunately, we lost power in the short but intense thunderstorm front that moved through the area in the evening, so it was also 88 degrees under the roof where the grown-ups sleep. We were in the middle of cooking dinner when the power went out, but the salmon cooked with the residual heat from the stove, so at least we didn’t ruin a $20 slab of good Alaska salmon.

Did you know that it’s kind of hard to fall asleep when it’s close to 90 degrees and you can’t run a fan or air conditioning because the electrons are leaking out of a broken line somewhere up the road? And did you further know that when the power comes back on at 2:30am, after you had finally fallen asleep, it’s even harder to go back to sleep?

So yeah, we’re dragging a bit today. I’m at the auxiliary office, a.k.a. the coffee shop, doing my writing for the day after dropping the kids off at Splash Camp. When I get home, I think I’ll check the acoustic integrity of the mattress for an hour or so. 

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strange foreign customs, part XIV.

Lyra will be in first grade in the fall, which reminded me of a German tradition I had forgotten about: the Schultüte.

Since about the beginning of the 19th century, German school kids get a Schultüte on the first day of first grade. It’s a big cone made out of heavy paper, decorations on the outside and tied shut at the top with a bow. They look like this:

286px Schultuete

The Schultüte is filled with candy and small items useful for school (like colored pencils or erasers). They’re usually purchased commercially, but some families make them from scratch. The Schultüte is an extremely common thing in Germany, but I don’t think any other culture has the same custom. I don’t know how it started, and even the German Wikipedia article is fuzzy about the origins of the Schultüte, but it’s been the thing to do for a first-grader’s first day going on two hundred years now.

(In Germany, Kindergarten is not part of the regular school system like in the U.S., so the start of “real” school is the first day of first grade.)

I’m thinking about making one for Lyra, but doing an Americanized version: candy, McDonald’s coupons, an iPod, a brick of .22 ammo…

family. parenting.

ham and cheese.

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The goober on the left has her last day of Kindergarten today. The goober on the right has his last day of second grade. Kids in Upper Cryogenica have to make up lots of snow days, which in some years can mean they won’t graduate until late July.

These kids? They’re freaks of nature. They love school, and both are bummed that the school year is ending. I expect that’s going to change by middle school at the latest.

(There’s this girl on their bus who always has the same hopelessly resigned expression on her face, like she’s being shipped off to the gulag every morning. I think I know now why the bus driver really seems to enjoy having my chipper and chatty kids board her bus.)

Next up: five weeks of SUMMER CAMP. Because they have to learn how to swim, the great outdoors never hurt anyone except when they drown or get eaten by bears, and being bug-bitten while baking in the summer sun builds character.

writing.

from the desk &etc.

Being a writer is an awful lot like having a lot of homework every single day of your life.

Yesterday I delivered the manuscript for Lines of Departure, the sequel to Terms of Enlistment, to my editor at 47North. It’s 28 chapters and 95,000 words, but I ‘m sure those numbers will change before publication as it goes through the editorial process. My dear wife, who is my first beta reader (and thanks to her M.A. in English also a capable critic) says that while the first one was good, the second one is quite a bit better, and I tend to agree. Not only did my writing improve over the last few years (Terms of Enlistment was completed in 2009 and had a significant edit in the Great Manuscript Massacre of 2010 when I ripped out 20,000 words), but I was able to pace Lines of Departure more briskly because I didn’t have to spend half the novel on boot camp and world-building.

Anyway, it’s done (until I get the first round of editorial notes), and now I’ll rinse my brain with video games and movies for a few days before I tackle the next projects. There’s a novella in the Terms of Enlistment universe (Measures of Absolution, which I will release on the Kindle and directly in the other ebook formats on August 8th), two novels that need to be finished (one contemporary YA, one urban fantasy mystery), and a brand new YA-leaning fantasy novel in the Ink and Blood universe. If I haul ass, I may be able to make 2013 a personal record year for novels completed. Three novels plus one novella is very much in the realm of the possible. But can our hero go for four? There are after all six and a half months left in the year.

I may not even have time for post-novel ennui this year.

bullets & links. writing.

random bullet points.

–I’m still hunkered down in my writing dungeon here at Castle Frostbite. I have to deliver the manuscript for Lines of Departure by the 31st, so I’m busy putting the final touches on it. If you’ve sent me email and I haven’t yet responded, I’m sorry. I’ll get to the essentials like email, showers, and the regular consumption of foodstuffs once this manuscript is in send-it-off shape.

–Because Lines of Departure isn’t due out until January, I’ll do my level best to put out some new material in late July/early August. It will be a novella called Measures of Absolution, and it will answer some questions I got from a lot of readers, namely “What the hell was going on in Detroit?” The story is told from the perspective of one of Andrew’s old squad mates, and it will go into the how and why of the Detroit riots, and why exactly the rioters had military-grade hardware and tactics.

–Six weeks until Readercon! I guess I should start stockpiling all that Basil Haydens I’ll need to ferry down to Burlington.

—Terms of Enlistment has clawed its way back up to #2 on the Military SF list on the Kindle, and it’s back into the Top 20 for all SF (print, Kindle, and audio.) When 47North released its own edition, the novel lost its rankings and had to start from zero again, and I’m happy to see that it has regained most of the steam it had as a Frostbite Publishing(tm)! product.

–I watched Snow White and the Huntsman with the wife the other night. It was a truly awful movie, and we had our very own impromptu Mystery Science Theater 3000 savaging, which was probably the most fun anyone’s ever had with that flick. It is getting to the point where just seeing Kristen Stewart on the screen makes me sleepy almost instantly. She’s the thespian equivalent of thorazine.

–Pilot has a new fountain pen out, the Metropolitan. It writes ridiculously well, and I have no idea how they can produce such a nice pen, package it in a decent box with a converter and an ink cartridge, and sell it for under $20 without losing their pants, but that’s what they’re doing. I usually recommend the Lamy Safari to fountain pen noobs as a great starter pen that won’t break the bank, but the Pilot Metropolitan has the potential to knock the Safari off the #1 spot when it comes to “Best Fountain Pen under $50”. It has a lacquered metal barrel and cap and looks and feels a lot more expensive than $18.

–We got a Roku 3 for the TV in the grown-ups’ den upstairs, and holy shit, why didn’t I get one earlier? It will truly come into its own once they hook us up to the fiber-optic cable that’s tantalizingly hanging off the poles in front of Castle Frostbite, but even with our poky 1.5Mbit DSL line, it’s perfectly usable. (I got the Roku instead of the Apple TV because it supports Amazon Instant Streaming, which the Apple TV doesn’t.) Now we can catch up on that British series everyone’s been raving about. Downtown Abby, or something? I’m guessing it’s about a hooker.

Well, it’s back to work for me. Have a great Friday, and when five o’clock rolls around, hit that liquor cabinet harder than #3 hit the wall at Daytona!

 

in the news.

free targa top, courtesy of the fire department.

And that’s one vintage Porsche 911 less in the world:

Man seriously injured after crashing Porsche.

That’s in New Hampshire (albeit wayyyy north of here, in Coos County near the border with Maine), and that is was a 1967-vintage Porsche 911.

One of my frivolous middle age pipe dreams is to own a restored Porsche 911 built in my birth year, 1971, but that desire has no basis in rationality. As the owner of that 1967 911 found out, cars of that vintage have pretty lousy safety equipment. A 911 of that vintage usually has an air-cooled 2.0l 128hp flat-six in it, which was a stout amount of power for a sports car of that time, but I could probably outrace one in a modern minivan, and with air conditioning, Bluetooth, a kick-ass stereo, and better handling characteristics. But those old babies aren’t about that.

Of couse, as this accident shows, you can hurt or kill yourself with just about any motorized conveyance if you don’t know or respect its (or your) limits.

castle frostbite. family. parenting.

lyra, age 6.

People of Earth!

Your tiny Empress turns six years old today.

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<insert obligatory kvetching about how time flies, something something diapers blah blah before you know it &etc.>

The tiny Empress has really made strides this year socially. She’s been in Kindergarten since July, and she loves it with a fierce, white-hot intensity. That kid right there? She will be the Queen Bee or the Chief Delinquent in high school, and possibly both.

Love ya, kiddo. But no, you can’t have “just pound cake” for dinner. We have to throw in some alibi vitamins somewhere.