Rosemary Kirstein

I’ve been having a bit of back-and-forth with Createspace and Amazon.ca, occasioned by my astonishment at finding that the Canadian price of the paperback of The Steerswoman on Amazon.ca was more than twice the price on Amazon.com!  Even allowing for the exchange rate!

As it turns out, the issue was that Amazon.ca is not yet itself selling the book — it’s just listing it for sale through Amazon.ca, but by third parties.   Other booksellers, that is; and these guys are buying it from sources in the US, importing it, and passing on all that extra cost to you, the purchaser.

But don’t worry; within a few days, Amazon.ca will itself be selling the book, and its price should drop to some reasonable amount.  I’ll be keeping my eye on it, and I’ll post a note here in my blog, when I see it happening.

In other news, still doing the hair-tearing part of writing…

In other other news: I’m reading Mary Oliver‘s collection of essays, Upstream.  I do not understand how this writer escaped my notice until so recently — she’s certainly been around long enough for me to have come across her.  And yet, somehow, I didn’t.

From the title essay:

“In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.”

I stumble across things, writers that I wish I’d known about years ago…

From “Sleeping in the Forest”:

“All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.
All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.”

The more I read of her, the more I find this sort of clarity of perception as being — how shall I say it?  Very steerswomanly.  To be that aware, and that observative, and that curious and questing.

From “Worm Moon”:

“In March the earth remembers its own name
Everywhere, the plates of snow are cracking.
The rivers begin to sing. In the sky
the winter stars are sliding away; new stars
appear as, later, small blades of grain
will shine in the dark fields.

And the name of every place
is joyful.”

It was Terri Windling who directed me toward Mary Oliver, through her blog, “Myth and Moor.”  Terri’s blog is, by the way,  a wonderful resource for thoughts about art, and creativity.   I’ve got it on my blog feed, so that I never miss a post.

My exploration of Mary Oliver’s writing has just begun, and I’m taking it slowly — you need to read poetry slowly.   We’ll see what comes up as I read more…

Well, I thought I’d be able to do more of my own stuff last week, since it was the between-chemos week. Alas, I just ended up doing stupid amounts of extra hours at the day-job! Because I felt strong, and I could do it! And stuff was piling up. And I didn’t want to face the deadlines on urgent things hitting this week, with tons of stuff still left over from the previous weeks.

The main thing I want to be doing at the moment is getting the next ebooks out!

And of course, actual writing.

Interestingly, I seem to be able to think about writing, and intermittently do some, while they pump in my chemo. I’m there, I can’t go anywhere else. I’m pretty much stuck. It’s actually rather liberating. If people don’t interact with me a lot, my brain has a chance to go to that writing place, and do some reviewing and planning, revising and writing — to a degree. If it’s noisy, I plug in Pandora.

Of course, I can do this because I still feel pretty good. Some of the people around me in the chemo suite are visibly more unhappy than I; and I do know that things will become more difficult further down the line. I have no illusions about that.

Still, three down, five to go!

In other news: The Con or Bust auction will be starting up on February 10, and as usual I’ll have something in the auction. Possibly another hand-bound blank book; that’s what I’d like best to do. If I’m not up to that, at least some signed paperbacks.

And if you like auctions of SF/F related material, the Endicott West/Terri Windling clear-out is still going on, this time with a collection of pre-Rafaelite-related items. INCLUDING a hand-painted motorcycle jacket executed by artist Cortney Skinnner! He’s going to touch it up a bit before its next owner receives it. I saw it when it was new, and it was pretty impressive! Check out the photos.

Well, I’m off work today, being a bit shakier after this chemo session than I was after the previous. A trend, but not a steep one yet. I’m somewhat overloaded with being around people, too. When you have cancer, people look at you! All the time! And monitor things and test other things, and ask you to report on general other things. For a natural introvert, it can get a bit wearying.

However, we just had a couple of visits from two sets of dear friends, which was time well spent, I say.

But I’m glad not to have to be in the office today…

the view from the front porch

Endicott West, the artist’s retreat in Tucson where I spent Thanksgiving of 2012 hidden away from the world (for the most part), and about which I silently blogged every day, has been shut down and, alas, sold.

Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman are there right now with Deb and Mike Manning, closing it up.

But should you want a piece of history, they are also auctioning off some of the books that have been residing there.   Check out the details at Ellen’s website.