Category: family.

family. frontlines. frontlines: evolution the palladium wars.

May the first be what the fuck, where has the time gone

Looks like I blew right through April without a blog post. Whoops. (How are we almost halfway through the year already?)

We’ve had a death in the family, so the regular routine was thoroughly derailed for obvious reasons. It wasn’t a surprise–the family member was 81 and in failing health–but these things are never easy no matter how prepared you think you are.

We just got back from a week-long trip south to attend the celebration of life, and now I am back in the office and working on finishing ECLIPSE, Palladium Wars #5. I had aimed to have it done by the end of April, but life happens, and sometimes schedules get upended. But I’ve heeded the wise words of Stephen King, who said (in ON WRITING, his excellent treatise on the craft), that life isn’t a support system for art–it’s the other way around. If I need to step away from the keyboard for a bit to address important real-life events, that’s just the way it goes.

I’ll need a few weeks to edit ECLIPSE and get it ship-shape before I release it on KDP (to what I hope will be an enthusiastic reception and EXTREME sales numbers so my publisher can have proper regrets for dropping the series after Book #4), so expect that one in late June if all goes well.

Next up after that will be a new stand-alone for 47North with the working title of COHORT. I’ll let you know more about that one as soon as I can. As this is a 47North book, it will have a 2027 release date. In the meantime, please to be looking forward to the December release of CYGNUS, the third and final book in the Frontlines: Evolution series, and the best one of the whole lot as far as I’m concerned.

(That doesn’t mean I am done with Frontlines or its spin-off. Stand by for news on that subject soon-ish.)

castle frostbite. family. new hampshah. parenting. writing.

Gone fishin’

Girl Child likes to fish, and this is a good time of the year for it, so I have been driving her to her various fishing spots all over town in the last few weeks. I usually sit in the car or my folding camping chair while she is fishing, and I’ve come to appreciate the alibi to do some writing out of the house and away from most connectivity. We go out for a few hours, and I usually come back with a bunch of words that were written without the buzz and ding of notifications or the distraction from the dogs alerting me to the FedEx guy coming up our driveway with CLEAR INTENT TO MURDER US ALL.

The kids are still in Summer Vacation Loafing Mode, and we’ve been out with them to do stuff and enjoy their company. Switching up my writing schedule and adapting it to our other activities is kind of a nice change. It reminds me of the time when they were little and I had to get my writing done while they were napping or playing on the swing set. It’s a good reminder that art supports life, not the other way around, as Stephen King says in “On Writing”. (That’s one of my favorite books about the philosophy of the craft, along with Philip Pullman’s “Daemon Voices” and Lawrence Block’s “Spider, Spin Me A Web”.) The kids will be adults and out of the house soon enough, and then I’ll have all the quiet office time I can stand. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy squeezing in a few hundred words here and there between hitting the good fishing spots, the burger place, and the rock shop where Girl Child likes to spend all her cash. 

 

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family. history.

A decidedly mixed-breed pedigree

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I did one of those ancestry DNA tests a little while ago, and the results come as an absolute…lack of surprise.

German father (the green area), Croatian mother (the blue one), and my paternal grandmother was from East Prussia (the very top of the western part of the pink area.) No idea where or when the 2% Norwegian component came into the family tree, but I suspect that the 2% Baltic bit came from someone in my grandmother’s ancestry because East Prussia is adjacent to that area.

Interesting stuff, but I don’t read too much into it. Our family history is a part of our identity, but we choose our own paths in the end. 

castle frostbite. family. food and drink.

The Spirits of Christmas

Robin gave me a neat holiday gift this year: an advent calendar of cocktails. Each day, she handed me a little numbered and labeled bag with ingredients and a recipe for a different holiday-themed cocktail. If you’ve been following my instagram feed, I’ve documented most of them there.

The one in the picture above was the last little baggie on Christmas Day, Santa’s Whiskey Flip. It’s made with honey bourbon, brandy, calvados, and peach schnapps.

My favorite of the bunch was the Signal Fire, though. It’s basically a Manhattan with a bit of maple syrup and peaty Scotch instead of bourbon. A little sweet, bitter, and smoky all at the same time. I’ll be adding that one to the permanent repertoire in the Castle Frostbite bar.

That was a gift that took weeks of logistics and footwork for Robin, researching recipes and buying and stashing all the ingredients in secret. It was a lot of fun to try out a new cocktail together every night. Of all the Christmas gifts I’ve ever received, that was by far the most involved and thoughtful one.

 

aminals. castle frostbite. family.

Things a dachshund owner knows, #2,198.

This is why we tell guests and visitors to keep food items on the counters well away from the edges. People underestimate the vertical reach of a determined dachshund.

 

books. family. friends. travel. writing.

WorldCon recap.

I’m on the plane back from MidAmericon II, the 74th Worldcon, in Kansas City. Some cons are great, some are so-so, some are…not that good. But Worldcon is the main event of our genre, the big Annual Nerd Prom, where most everyone gathers regardless of what other regional cons they attend.

I went with a fairly light schedule. Being a new member of GRRM’s Wild Cards consortium, I got to attend a gathering thrown for the Wild Cards writers by Tor Publishing. (And let me tell you–when you’re a junior woodchuck novelist with a little more than three years of pro experience under his belt, having GRRM introduce you to Tom Doherty can be a slightly tongue-tying experience.) I love the Wild Cards gang–they are all amazingly accomplished and talented writers, most with decades in the business, and they all make me feel welcome and appreciated.

On Friday evening, we had the big Wild Cards mass signing for the new book, called HIGH STAKES. I figured I’d be sitting and watching GRRM’s signing line for three hours, but most people wanted signatures from all the rest of us in their books as well. (The event only allowed Wild Cards books to be purchased and/or brought into the ballroom, but one of my fans smuggled in a copy of LINES OF DEPARTURE for me to sign, which I happily did.)

There was also a Wild Cards panel that was an almost Pokemon-like death match between characters. GRRM put all our names into a bucket and pulled out two names at random to fictionally fight each other, and the audience got to decide the winner. My character Khan, a 300-pound underworld bodyguard whose left body half is that of an anthropomorphised Bengal tiger, is a straight-up bruiser suited for heavyweight physical fights, but he had to go up against the Amazing Bubbles, who was quite possibly the worst possible opponent for him in the entire lineup because his strength and reflexes were of very limited utility against someone who can ensconce him in a near-breakable bubble that limits his air supply. So I got eliminated in the first round and got to watch the rest of the fights from the bench. But it was all good fun, and the auditorium was filled with people who seemed to enjoy the format.

(I also had several people waiting for me after the event to get FRONTLINES books and posters signed, which was super weird and awesome at the same time.)

Other than the panels, I met up with friends both old and new. My long-time Internet pal and new IRL friend Ellie took me to the best barbecue joint I had ever been to, and there were a number of parties and the usual bar meet-ups and long nights chatting with friends. Whenever you go to a con like this one, it’s like a big family reunion, only you don’t have to put up with your weird uncle who thinks that the stickers on the back of traffic signs are secret markers for invading UN forces. You see people you haven’t seen in a year or more, but the conversations flow as naturally again as if you had seen each other last only a few days ago.

The crowning highlight of the weekend was GRRM’s Hugo Losers Party, which was held in a spectacular Gilded Age theater just two blocks from the hotels and the convention center. The party in Spokane last year was awesome, but this one easily topped it for setting and glitz, and I have no idea how he’s going to top that next year in Helsinki. Maybe there are castles for rent, or he can get the Queen Mary for the night.

I now have so many lovely, smart, generous, and funny friends in the business that I can’t go to a con without running into dozens of people I would gladly spend a whole weekend just drinking and chatting with. Our not-so-little SF and Fantasy tribe of writers and readers is for the most part a stellar group of folks that are welcoming to newcomers and just fun to hang out with, and I greatly value the friendships I’ve made in the genre since I started out at VP and then at my first official convention (which was Boskone in early 2009.) I can’t wait for Worldcon 75 in Helsinki.

In closing, here are a few shots from the trip I’d like to share:

That’s me chatting with Jo Walton. If I have a smug look on my face, it’s because she just told me that she read all the FRONTLINES books and really liked them.


My friend and fellow 47North author Melissa Olson, who was my tag-along for the Hugo Losers party. I roped her in by mentioning the free booze.


The venue for the party. Now that’s how you throw a shindig.


The convention plaza in KC.  Infinitely superior to the one in Spokane last year.


The Wild Cards cage match panel, moderated by George R.R. Martin.


That was breakfast on Saturday.


The Midland Theatre.


The other side of the convention plaza. 

aminals. family.

personal effects.

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Henry’s collection of bandanas. He got one every time he had to make a trip to the emergency vet. There are three of them in that picture, but I think there was at least one more I did not keep for some reason. As you can see, he was a little mischief magnet.

I am still heartbroken. I have barely eaten since Sunday and have had no desire to eat. (Henry would think this foolishness.) Things have gotten a tiny bit easier, and sorting through his things and looking at his pictures has helped a little. I won’t truly start to get back to real life until his ashes come home and I have some sort of closure.

I don’t want to keep depressing people with posts about my dog, but writing about him and sharing it has helped me to process the whole thing. When it happened, it was just too fast and traumatic to let me feel anything but numbness for a while. Still, everything in the house reminds me of the fact that he’s no longer there, and it will take time before it doesn’t feel like a fresh wound anymore.

Dogs. To think we opened our home and our hearts to these creatures that can wound us so very much when they take their leave. People have suggested we go and get another dog once we feel the time is right, but we have other dogs. Just having another dog is not the point, and never was. Henry was that once-in-a-lifetime dog for me, the one you bond with above and beyond all the others, the one that has your heart in a way the other dogs don’t quite manage. Before Henry, you could have asked me “Has there been a special dog in your life?”, and I would have answered, “What are you talking about? They have all been special.”

Now I can say, “Yes, and his name was Henry, and there will never be another one like him.”

And I don’t want to try and look for the thing we had in another dog. It happened on its own, not because I sought it out, and trying to duplicate it would be a disservice to him and diminish our bond, and it wouldn’t be fair to the new dog because this is a pair of shoes no other dog can ever hope to fill. (Or tear to shreds, as the case may be.)

No, I think I’ll leave it be, and rest in the knowledge that I had my time with him, and that I was lucky to have had it.

aminals. family.

losing one’s heart.

Henry’s death is hitting me hard.

We’ve lost dogs before, and I grieved for them every time, but this one is a deeper hurt that any of the others. The ones we lost before Henry had been barely born, or they were old and had long and happy lives behind them. Even Sam, my Golden Retriever who died accidentally back in 2002, was nine years old and had lived almost a full life. Henry hadn’t even come into his own as an adult dog yet—he was barely three, and still infused with the vigor and hotheadedness of youth.

I can’t really pinpoint what hurts the most about his untimely death. It’s the sum of all the contributing factors, I suppose. Part of it is the speed of his decline. There was no time for me to even prepare for the possibility that he might not come back.

Part of it is the bond I had with him. He was truly my dog, and I was his favorite human, and he loved me deeply. Sitting in this chair, I won’t ever see him rounding the kitchen corner again and then just taking a quick sprint and an effortless leap into my lap (whether I was working or not), for the customary expression of love where he tried to merge his face with mine and nip at my nose.

Part of it is the way in which we went. I was there at the end, but I will always hate the fact that he got to spend the last two days of his short life in a place he didn’t like, with people he didn’t love. I should have been with him then.

Part of it is the knowledge of all the time that was taken from him. After having suffered through this winter with the rest of us, he won’t get to experience spring again, won’t get to lie on the warm patio stones with the other dogs and joyfully bark at passing bicyclists and joggers. We won’t get to walk out in the autumn air again, just him in his chest harness and me holding the leash and letting him map the world with his nose.

The house is much too quiet now. All the activity that used to annoy me a little when I was trying to work—the scurrying, the probing of cabinet doors for an unlatched one, the patrolling of the kitchen for dropped food—all of it has ceased. The three remaining dogs are snuggled up in front of the pellet stove and quietly napping. Little Ygraine keeps looking for her playmate and protector on occasion, and it breaks my heart all over again because we got her as a companion for him, and he’s gone, and she will be all alone when the two old dogs are gone too.

I have a deadline, so I have to go back to work and write, and maybe it will take my mind off thinking about my little buddy, who will never sit on my lap and look out of the window for squirrels again. But I go back to work with a broken heart. It will come back together in time, as it usually does, but a piece of it will be gone for good, and it will have the shape of a stout, happy, smart, and loving black-and-red dachshund.