Rosemary Kirstein

Given that I don’t post here on my blog in any kind of a formalized schedule, how can you make sure you never miss a post?

Because, every now and then someone out in the offline world will mention to me that… well, that they sort of check on my blog every now and again to see if I’ve posted lately.  Whenever they happen to think of it… if they do happen to think of it.

To which my general reaction tends to be something along the lines of: “Dude! Why make it hard on yourself?”

It’s pretty easy to be automatically informed when there’s a new post here.  Several ways to do it, in fact, some more nerdly than others.

Simplest way?  Are you on Facebook?  I am, and whenever I write a post here, I immediately write a post on Facebook that has a link right back here.  Actually, that’s pretty much the only stuff I post on Facebook.  Just  a link to my latest blog post.   Look for “Rosemary Kirstein — writer.”  It’s  a “page”,  not a personal account, so it’s open to all, and if you hit “like” or “follow,” any new entries of mine will show up on your regular Facebook feed.  Then, just click the link to get here.  Easy!

(I do have another account, a personal one  that’s just for family and pals.  I have to do that, out of courtesy to my family and pals.  Otherwise, all their baby pictures, political griping, and complaints about their cousin’s alcohol intake might be promulgated out to total strangers every time I hit a “like” or “angry” button.  And that would be unkind.)

Next easiest?  Twitter.  When I post a new blog post, I tweet a link.  (And some sort of accompanying wisecrack.  Because it’s Twitter.  That’s what you do.)  I am @rkirstein.  I rarely tweet, other than the blog link — but I do retweet, so if it’s interesting to you to see what’s caught my eye, there’s that.    And by the way, if you scroll down on this very page, you can see a little widget in the second column that will show you, right here, whatever I’ve tweeted or retweeted recently.

Nerdier choice: A news aggregator. I use Feedly myself, to track the blogs that I like.  You can use it online in your browser, or download an app for your phone or tablet.  It’s free — and there are others that do the job just as well. 

There are other ways, as well, including “live” bookmarks in Firefox (and similar in whatever browser you’re using), well known to the more techno-nerdy among you, I’m sure.

So, there you go.

In other news: Progress made on Book 5.  Yes.  I don’t want to jinx it, but I seem to have successfully excised the loads o’ crap that intrenched themselves into the previous iterations.  The story is making sense.

Feeling very good about this right now.

Fresh air helps.

(PS: If you read my blog on your computer, and not a tablet or smartphone, remember to hover your mouse over any photograph; very often, there’s an extra message hidden in the “tool tips” hovertext.)

Just so’s you know…

Cassini’s last orbit is happening today, when it will dive into Saturn’s atmosphere (to become a shooting star for any locals who might be on hand).

It’s going to keep its cameras going for as long as possible.

NASA TV has “live” coverage starting at 7AM  EDT.  “Live” meaning as it comes in.  Not as it actually happens, seeing that the time-lag for radio signals from Saturn is currently about 83 minutes.  But “live” as in: you can’t get the news any faster than this.

Here’s the timeline:

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/grand-finale/cassini-end-of-mission-timeline/

And here’s an especially glorious collection of 100 Cassini images, selected by the New York Times.

Our faithful robot pals… out there exploring for us.

Next best thing to being there.

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…

Geary Gravel’s Fading Worlds books are coming back into print, starting with A Key for the Nonesuch.

Aside from being a pal, Geary is a writer whose work I really enjoy (these two facts are possibly not unrelated).  His Fading Worlds books answer the question: What if a regular, normal person was dropped into an Edgar Rice Burroughs-ish adventure?

Well.  Howard Bell does rise to the occasion.

And I happen to know for a fact that the second book, Return of the Breakneck Boys, is also in the pipeline for republication Real Soon Now.  And that subsequent volumes of the series are in the works.  (True fact.  I have had the pleasure of reading bits of them.)

Why there’s the famous author right now, chuckling in a worldly-wise manner over his aperitif.

Looks like at the moment only the paperback version is out, but I know that an ebook is soon to come.

Which I shall instantly snatch up.

ETA: Here’s the paperback version on Amazon.com.

(Inexplicably, the paperback and Kindle versions aren’t linked to each other… if you go to one and click on “see all formats” it does not show you the other format!  But it does exist in both formats. )

You’d think I’d learn.

I sat down to blog, and then realized that my website needed some updating in the sidebar sections (specifically, links to the new paperback version of The Steerswoman).

And then a few other tweaks…

And then some fixes…

And now: time’s up! Must go home and actually sleep.

Here are some quick pics from the eclipse trip:

A very nice family hanging out right next to us in Bicentennial Park in Maryville, Tennessee

Panorama — click to embiggen.

No photos of totality, as I was too busy lookin’!  (It’s the one time it’s safe to look.)

Indian Echo Cavern in Harrisburg PA