Besides my blood-pressure, of course.

I’m impressed that my travel karma is inserting pre-emptive scheduling chaos although this does give me the opportunity to plan ahead for it.  Makes me wonder what time I will actually arrive…

‘Shades of Milk and Honey’ is a captivating debut novel from Mary Robinette Kowal set in an alternate Regency England, where magic and manipulation rule the day. Though Dorchester society is magical, it is not that different from the regency society we know: Advantageous marriage is still a woman’s only way to thrive in society. At the age of twenty-eight, Jane Ellsworth is unlikely to find a husband, so she concentrates on honing her magical skills, while her sister, Melody, is courted by many beaus. But when the family’s goo name is threatened, Jane must do whatever it takes to put things right – and she might just find love in the process. Witty, intriguing, and romantic, this is a must-read.

Support your local independent bookstore.  Strand Bookstore: Shades of Milk and Honey; by Mary Robinette Kowal.

That’s right, the structure in the photo to the right is made from blocks of salt. Blocks. I know salt isn’t a particularly rare commodity on Earth but this still boggles me a little.

Check out the full article  about the New Salt Hotel Built in Bolivia

Five out of Five stars for being imaginative.

(Said with the movie intro voice)

“In a world where people time travel, there is a woman.”

(Sounds of gunfire going off in the background, propellors starting up)

via Tales of a Newbie Writer: Book Review: First Flight.

I found myself proclaiming to my friends that I’d found ‘the perfect book’ yesterday. I didn’t mean that it was THE perfect book for all time and all people. I did mean that I’d found the book that feels as if it was written expressly for me, because it fits my tastes perfectly. And luckily for the rest of you, it’s also well-written, so there’s a chance that you’ll find it just as enchanting as I did.

She goes on to talk about why she likes it AND THEN offers to give away two copies. Here’s the end of the review with the giveaway details.

Recommended for: historical fiction and subtle fantasy fans, Regency-era devotees, readers who view Austen as the comfort food of the book world, and anyone looking for a beautiful read with strong art overtones and a classic feel.

——

I’m giving away two copies of this book, because I loved it, and I want other people to love it too. Also, when I tried to buy it at Borders I found that they’re not carrying it in stores. Travesty!

To enter:

Leave a comment on this post with a word or phrase that makes you think of milk or honey. Synonyms, colors, associations, whatever you want – write it down!

Please include a method of contact. Giveaway is open internationally. Comments will close on September 15 at 11:59pm EST, and I will notify the randomly selected winners via email.

So drop by the Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia to enter her giveaway.

Melia adjusted Dora’s salt-suit, feeling as if it were futile because the two-year old would have the sweatband off her head the instant Melia’s back was turned. She caught her daughter’s hand reaching for the soft, green mesh. “No. You have to leave that on.”

Dora twisted away from Melia and pulled the sweatband off. “No.” She threw it on the ground and reached for the high thin turtleneck that caught the sweat from her face.

Melia’s ex-husband, Theo, leaned against the doorway, waiting to take the children to his house. “Just let her leave it off.”

“Daddy!” Dora toddled to her father with her arms raised.

Theo scooped Dora up, ignoring Nikolas, who seemed oblivious as he rocked in place, staring at a sunbeam on the wall.

Melia’s smile felt tight. “We don’t waste salt.”

Read the entire story, Salt of the Earth at Redstone Science Fiction and don’t forget to check out the other stories and fiction in the issue.

(I’ve closed comments here, but they are open at Redstone.)

(Note to debut authors: when your book launches your brain is liable to have a repeating track of “Is this really happening?” rendering it largely useless.)

Part of what I like about I Should Be Writing is that Mur talks about her personal writing journey and the lessons she is learning during it. She touches on stuff that pretty much every author goes through.  While my part of the interview doesn’t happen until about the 27 minute mark, it’s worth listening to the whole podcast.

Which you can do at… ISBW #153 –  Mary Robinette Kowal Interview : I Should Be Writing.

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Periodically, I’ll post one of these and an explanation for how it got there. Some of them may be amusing, others things may talk about Regency history, still others will just be odd. Since many of them also involve spoilers, they’ll be password protected to keep the unwary from stumbling into them.

What sort of things can you look forward to? Here’s a spoiler-free example.

In Chapter 10, Beth (Miss Dunkirk) decides to rename her horse, which was previously called “Bacon.”

She asks her brother:

“Bacon? Who would name a dainty mare that?”

“I think it is the pattern in her sock. The area where the roan blends down to the white does look very much like the marbling in bacon.”

Who indeed? The answer is that Beth is named after my friend Beth Wodzinski, the editor-in-chief of Shimmer magazine.  Part of her email address was “mmmbacon.”

I’ve got one more for you today. To access it and any others I post, you just need to know the name of the mare that Jane rides in Chapter 10.

Friday

Dragon*Autographs
01:00 pm Location: M301 – M304 – Marriott (Length: 1)
Edited to add: An airline itinerary change has me arriving AFTER my session. Sorry. Feel free to find me after any of the other panels/events.

Dragon*Reading
05:30 pm Location: Roswell – Hyatt (Length: 1)
I’ll be reading from Shades of Milk and Honey and performing The Broken Bridge, which is the shadow puppet play that occurs in Chapter 10.

Saturday

Broad Universe Reading!
11:30 am Location: Greenbriar – Hyatt (Length: 2.5)
Description: Discover new writers, rediscover ones you know! Up and coming women writers read from their own works and others. (I’ll be reading a new short story.)

Sunday

The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
11:30 am Location: Hanover C – E – Hyatt (Length: 1)
Description: A roundtable discussion about science fiction and fantasy book covers by industry pros, discussing what’s good, bad and could be better.

Monday

Joining a Writer’s Group
11:30 am Location: Manila / Singapore / Hong Kong – Hyatt (Length: 1)
Description: Whether it’s a national organization like SFWA, RWA,or HWA or a local group…What’s in it for you?

This week he came back with the novel in hand and asked me to sign it. He said that his wife has already started it and likes it so far. The really neat thing though? He said that he hasn’t read a book since high school but is planning to read this.

How cool is that?

Also, we got strawberries today.

Edited to add: I’ve got enough folks to look at this draft. If you are up for being a round 2 reader let me know. I’ll likely have a revision ready to go on Tuesday.

Since it’s a monster, if you’re up for reading it let me know and I’ll email you the manuscript.  Here’s the sampler.

Kiss Me Twice
by Mary Robinette Kowal

By the time Scott Huang took his second step into the precinct, the department AI had taken four hundred and fifty-seven images of him. The flesh and blood officers on the night shift were coming back to the station to log out, but the other F&B members of the homicide department wouldn’t turn up for work till eight. As Huang reached his desk, the cameras on Metta’s desktop interface swiveled in his direction.

“Well, hello sailor.” Mae West’s voice purred from his desk. Over the interface, Mae West’s head appeared and looked him up and down.

“Diamond Lil!” Huang had a weakness for starlets from the days of mono-vision, black & white in particular and Metta customized her interface for him regularly.

But this, this was special.

People have already been asking when the sequel to Shades of Milk and Honey is coming out. I have an answer for you. Glamour in Glass is going to come out in early 2012.

The reason that the release has been pushed back is that there aren’t as many copies of Shades of Milk and Honey out as we would like for the initial print run. I mentioned that some stores are already sold out. That’s good, but I should also mention that they are sold out of all two copies.  By pushing the release of the second book out, we’re giving more of a chance for demand to build.

It’s interesting, I didn’t realize how much brick and mortar sales matter but they are really important for a number of reasons.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

1. Bookstores pay attention to what books walk out the door.
2. They keep a log of what people request.
3. If people special order a book, there’s a fair chance that the bookseller might stock a second copy.
4. If enough people request or order the book, the bookseller is more likely to read and then handsell the book.
5. Shoppers will browse in a bookstore in ways that they don’t in online stores.
6. A book on the shelf has a greater chance of being picked up on an impulse buy, thus widening the audience.

So, it turns out that generally speaking buying a book from a brick and mortar store is better for the author than ordering it online. While the royalty amount doesn’t change, what does change is the engagement of the sales force which can lead to higher sales. Plus, a good bookstore will be able to pair books with appropriate readers.

In other words, if you like an author — any author — and want to see a book succeed, go to your local brick and mortar store and ask for the book.

Besides the usual programming with writers, gamers, editors, artists and scientists, they also hold a seminar for educators and librarians, a writers’ conference with workshops by award winning authors and editors, and annual student art and writing contests. They are doing a lot of wonderful outreach which can only strengthen the field.

The other Guests of Honor are: Artist Guest of Honor, Nene Thomas; Gaming Guest of Honor, Monte Cook; Comics Guest of Honor, Kurt Busiek; Costuming Guest of Honor, Kelldar; Editor Guest of Honor, Jackie Gamber; and Toastmaster, The great Luke Ski.

I’m very much looking forward to attending and hope to see some of you there.

Kowal has a good time with the tropes and tweaks of this sort of story, making both sisters sympathetic and tossing a few obstacles into the way, but Shades sparkles to particular life when its characters are working, thinking about or discussing glamour — the way it works, the relevance of passion, the power of a muse.

You can read the full review at the Eugene Weekly.

As the inventor, I graciously share the recipe for all: 1 shot Velvet Falernum over ice, fill with a nice champagne, add a dash of Rose’s Lime Juice, and topped with a maraschino cherry. DELISH! And for those of you who don’t know Falernum…it’s divine.

“This famous Bajan ‘Gold Medal’ beverage and mixer with a uniquely refreshing flavour was developed by John D. Taylor of Bridgetown, Barbados in 1890. This sugar cane based liqueur born and bred in Barbados is a staple of every Bajan’s bar. Its uniquely refreshing flavor comes from a refined infusion of lime laced with fine cane syrup and ‘botanicals’ including almonds and cloves.”

I hope to see some of you there tonight!

This is what a book crush is all about, this finding of a volume that is your perfect fit, the book you’ve been waiting for without ever knowing that you were waiting for it. This is one of those books that, upon finishing the last page, I closed the book, breathed a deep dreamy sigh, and floated off to bed on clouds of joy and wonder. And I’m afraid there is no way that I can explain to you why I’m so overjoyed to have found this book and why I occasionally have to clasp it to my bosom and twirl about the room in happiness. But I’ll try.

You can read the entire review at PowellsBooks.Blog

But the really cool part? From the actual press release.

Join us for a celebratory cocktail before the show!  We are featuring a concotion known hereafter as a “Shade of Milk & Honey” and it’s DELICIOUS!  All bar proceeds benefit Variety Children’s Charity of Northern California.

They’ve named a drink after my book.

A drink.

I feel like I’ve arrived.  Please come out to listen and imbibe.

Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor – entrance between Quiznos & Citibank
582 Market Street at 2nd, San Francisco

www.sfinsf.org / sfinsfevents@gmail.com

DON’T DRIVE – Parking sucks in San Francisco.  MUNI & BART Montgomery Street Station is right outside the front door.

Stage One: Defining the parameters

Budget: Before anything else happened, Rob and I sat down to talk about how much we could afford to spend. Money, sadly, defines pretty much everything that follows. In our case, we wanted to keep the budget under $500, which is unreasonably small for a commercially produced trailer but about as much as we thought we could throw into the pot.  For a trailer with commercially produced new footage, you can expect to spend a minimum of $1000 per minute.  In our case we had several things going for us, mostly that we work in film and theater so had a number of favors we could call in. Most of the budget would go to materials and hiring the talent.

Venue/Audience: These often linked, but not always. In our case, knowing that we wanted this trailer to be online does affect several things. It means that we know it will be mostly viewed very small. We know that it will be watched by people who are in the midst of doing other things.

Length: The next question was defining the length. Both of us thought that shorter was probably better and were leaning to something in the two minute range. Any shorter and it would be hard to have content. Longer and people would click away.

Style: Only now do we start talking about what it looks like. (You’ll note that we still aren’t discussing content.)  We sat down and tossed around several ideas. Since I’m a professional puppeteer, it made sense to take advantage of that. Among other things, visually this would make the trailer stand out from other ones.

But what style of puppetry. I narrowed it down to period appropriate puppetry styles which meant either hand puppets, shadow puppets, marionettes or  possibly toy theater, though stretching the definition of “period.”

Marionettes I discarded immediately because they are too expensive to build. Hand puppets have a Punch and Judy connotation which is wrong for the feel of Shades of Milk and Honey. Toy Theater has a similar look to animation but without the fluidity.

Shadow theater… There were two main reasons we settled on shadow theater. One: I actually have a shadow play in the novel. Two: At this point in England, silhouettes were very popular and they were called “shades.”  It seemed too perfect to resist

We did update to a modern form of shadow theater, called shadow mask, because it allowed us to have a stylized form with the fluidity of actors.

The stark black and white also meant that we could make the glamour look really spectacular. We asked our friend Remo Bacall, the BAFTA award winning special effects supervisor from Lazytown, if he would be willing to create the glamour fx.  He was, which gave us the ability to add fully rendered color to our shadows scenes.

Content: Only now do we start talking about content.  The reason we wait so late for this is that content is frequently dictated by what you can afford and what looks good in the style you are using.  I should clarify that “content” is not the same as subject matter. The subject matter is the novel. The content is what we use to talk about the subject mater. Make sense?

In the next post, I’ll talk about how we defined the content.

The official press release is below. One thing that it doesn’t mention is that I’ll be performing The Broken Bridge, which is the shadow play that occurs in Chapter 10 of Shades of Milk and Honey

Do come!

FANTASTIC FICTION at KGB reading series, hosts Ellen Datlow and Matthew Kressel present:

Laura Anne Gilman is the author of more than a dozen novels, including the Nebula-nominated FLESH AND FIRE and HARD MAGIC, part of the best-selling “Cosa Nostradamus” urban fantasy series. She has also sold more than twenty-five short stories, published in magazines and anthologies such as POLYPHONY and REALMS OF FANTASY. Her forthcoming novels include WEIGHT OF STONE: Book 2 of The Vineart War, and PACK OF LIES.

&

Mary Robinette Kowal is the author of SHADES OF MILK AND HONEY (Tor 2010), the fantasy novel that Jane Austen might have written. In 2008 she received the Campbell Award for Best New Writer and in 2009 her story “Evil Robot Monkey” was nominated for the Hugo Award. Her stories have appeared in STRANGE HORIZONS, ASIMOV’S, and several Year’s Best anthologies. Subterranean Press released her short story collection, SCENTING THE DARK AND OTHER STORIES, in 2009. Mary is also a professional puppeteer.

Wednesday August 18th, 7pm at
KGB Bar, 85 East 4th Street (just off 2nd Ave, upstairs.)

http://www.kgbfantasticfiction.org

Books will be available for purchase thanks to Bluestockings Bookstore

The reason I trekked over the city is that signing books at a store does a number of things:

1. It makes it easy to meet the staff
2. Autographed books are placed face out
3. They tend to sell better
4. There are typically fewer bookstore returns of signed books
5. Let me repeat the bit about meeting the staff. They are the ones who can handsell your book to a customer.

Blake Charlton and Paolo Bacigalupi took me on a ride-along when they dropped in to sign stock in Boston.  Watching them was interesting especially since I’d no clue how to go about it.

Here are the steps as I understand them for a drop-in signing, as opposed to a pre-arranged visit.

1. Find your book on the shelf
2. Carry the books to the nearest information desk
3. Introduce yourself, ask if they want you to sign them.
4. They will say yes.
5. Have your own pen. Be charming while signing (Blake is very good at this) and thank them.

Today I employed those steps and hit the Barnes and Nobles in town. All of the ones in Manhattan have signed copies now, except for the 86th street store which was already sold out of Shades of Milk and Honey.  (Yay!) Tomorrow, in between meetings, I’ll hit the independent stores. Or rather, I and my phone will find out which stores carry it.

Any other useful tricks?

For those who have been following my travel adventures,  you will be pleased and baffled to know that I had no transit problems on this trip, at all. Bear in mind that I was travelling on Friday the 13th.

It confuses me too.

Upon my arrival, I went straight to the Puppet Kitchen where I got pulled into helping build a duplicate of one of the dog puppets we built when I lived here before.  It was fun and felt like I’d come home. I do miss building puppets and working there.

Afterwards, I went out for drinks and a light dinner with friends. My current plan for the evening is to go to bed and sleep.

• Why do you like to write science fiction and fantasy?
• Which conventions are your favorites and why?
• How has your voice acting and puppetry affected your prose? And vice verse?
• Why shouldn’t all authors read their own works for audio books?
• Why are so many people attracted to Regency England with its uncomfortable clothes, strict conventions and lack of indoor plumbing and electricity?
• Do you use first readers or critique groups?
• What are you writing (or rewriting) now?

Read the full interview at Science Fiction and Other ODDysseys

Sorry for the delay in posting the poll for the Shades of Milk and Honey giveaway. In the future I will make a note not to schedule posting a poll on a day when I am scheduled to travel to a convention.

We had 58 entries attempting to caption the picture below. I’ve narrowed the selection to my top 10 favorites.

Here are the questions she asked me.

1. Who is/are your main writing buddy/ies?
2. How did you make the shift from puppetry to writing? What was the attraction?
3. What are your writing fetishes? i.e. what can’t you write without?
4. What inspired Shades of Milk and Honey?
5. Donuts (or doughnuts) or danishes?

Read my answers on her website in her Scenting the Drive-by interview.

While I was sorting that out the flight attendant told me not to feel rushed because we didn’t have pilots yet. Sigh. We wound up leaving about forty-five minutes late but they made up the time in the air and we were only twenty minutes late arriving in Portland.

Rob met me at the airport and helped me lug my copious luggage home. I’m so used to travelling light that all the gear I needed to drag along for the con changed my routines a bit. The next leg of the Shades of Milk and Honey booktour will be worse in some ways since I’ll be packing for NYC, San Fransisco and Eugene. Whee!

Speaking of which, don’t forget to come out to see me at the Cedar Hills Powell’s tomorrow night at 7pm.

Shades of Milk and Honey

Here is an excerpt from the Shades of Milk and Honey audio book.

Friday, most of my focus was on the Launch party. I was extremely fortunate that my parents were in town along with my brother, Steve, and his girlfriend, Jamie. My niece and nephew also pitched in to help get ready for the party. I will tell you right now that nothing beats my family for getting things done.

We also had good friends like Valerie Schoen who came a little early to help set up. By the way, the green sari that is draped across the table is what my green spencer was made from.

While I’d initially had the opposing worries that a) no one would come or b) we’d run out of food (there is no logic here, don’t try to find it) neither turned out to be the case. When the party first started there was a big rush of people and at one point it really was wall to wall. Some folks came in costume, which made me ridiculously happy.

I did not take nearly enough photos. If you were there, and took any, please send them my way. Looking at the photos, I wish that I’d remembered to put on the fichu and that I’d decided to go all the way and do a center part for my hair.  Next time.

What else…

Oh! I had my nephew on book sales duty and we sold out in the first hour. I later found out that not only did we sell out but that the dealer’s room had as well and that Samuel Montgomery-Blinn, of the lovely new SF magazine Bull Spec, called around to all the bookstores in Wake County and they are all sold out. Hurrah!

Things I learned:

1. Contact a local bookstore about “off-site sales” instead of bringing your own. We did this, which means that all the copies we sold count as bookstore sales and that’s good for my BookScan numbers.
2. Have helpers and a task list
3. Assign someone to be the “stage manager” to deal with last minute things while you get into “greet the guests” mindset
4. Attractive invitations apparently make a difference.
5. The background music should only be noticeable if there’s a lull in the conversation
6. Having party favors with the name of your book works very, very well.

After things wound down, I talked my Dad into breaking out his musical saw.  It is not at all period correct but something that I love.

I only took photos before the party really started, but here are some so you get an idea of the space.

Take Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and add a dash of magic and you have this delightful story by Mary Kowal. This is the story of two sisters, Jane, who is more magically talented, and Melody, a stunning beauty, and their quest to find love and stability. Both girls hope to marry well despite their lack of inheritance, and are pursued by various suitors. They are quickly embroiled into the intricacies of their neighbors’ lives, and the resulting series of events is sure to entrance the reader. For those who love reading Jane Austen’s books, this will at least temporarily satisfy the craving. A touch of magic inserted into the story is enough to enhance, but not overwhelm the story line. A quick, light read, with characters that the reader will feel right at home with.

— Rebecca Gerber

Friday

10:00 AM — RCC 306B
Longevity Panel
Mary Robinette Kowal, Henry Stratmann

2:00 PM – RCC 306B
Editing: The Necessary Evil of Publishing
John Hertz [m], Dan Hoyt, Chris A Jackson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Stanley Schmidt, Lawrence M Schoen

3:00 PM — RCC 203
Revive Fandom’s Relevance to the 21st Century
Mary Robinette Kowal, Mur Lafferty, Amy H Sturgis

8:00PM –Raleigh Hospitality Suite, 3rd floor, Marriott
Shades of Milk and Honey Launch
This will be a gentle reception with Regency music, games and a shadow puppet play.

Thursday

3:00 PM – RCC 305B
Schmoozing: How to Network at a Con
Davey Beauchamp [m], Dan Kimmel, Mary Robinette Kowal

4:00 PM —  RCC 305A
Reading
I’ll be reading from Shades of Milk and Honey. Not surprisingly…

And just a reminder…

Tomorrow (Friday) is the launch event for Shades of Milk and Honey.  Do come, please.  Even if you aren’t attending the convention, you will be welcome at the reception.

8:00PM –Raleigh Hospitality Suite
Shades of Milk and Honey Launch
This will be a gentle reception with Regency music, games and a shadow puppet play.

But if you can’t  and want a signed copy of the book, you can order a signed copy of Shades of Milk and Honey Signed Edition  from Powell’s Books.

I found Shades of Milk and Honey to be the utmost charming read that features the touch of magic and the fantastical. While in some ways this is an adaptation, in other ways, it’s completely different.

Read the full review at  The Book Pushers.

Thursday

3:00 PM – RCC 305B
Schmoozing: How to Network at a Con
Davey Beauchamp [m], Dan Kimmel, Mary Robinette Kowal

4:00 PM —  RCC 305A
Reading
I’ll be reading from Shades of Milk and Honey. Not surprisingly…

Friday

10:00 AM — RCC 306B
Longevity Panel
Mary Robinette Kowal, Henry Stratmann

2:00 PM – RCC 306B
Editing: The Necessary Evil of Publishing
John Hertz [m], Dan Hoyt, Chris A Jackson, Mary Robinette Kowal, Stanley Schmidt, Lawrence M Schoen

3:00 PM — RCC 203
Revive Fandom’s Relevance to the 21st Century
Mary Robinette Kowal, Mur Lafferty, Amy H Sturgis

8:00PM –Raleigh Hospitality Suite
Shades of Milk and Honey Launch
This will be a gentle reception with Regency music, games and a shadow puppet play.

Saturday

10:00 AM — RCC 306A
Creative Insults
Dan Hoyt, Mary Robinette Kowal, James Daniel Ross, Alex Wilson

1:00 PM – MAR Alumn
Writers Workshop — Section 3
Mary Robinette Kowal, Lawrence M Schoen

5:00 PM — RCC Boardroom
Kaffee Klatch
Come chat!

9:00 PM — RCC 306C
Great First Lines
Mary Robinette Kowal, Lee Martindale, John Pierce, Matthew Rotundo

Sunday

RCC Exhibit Hall — 10:00 AM
Autographs
Carl Frederick, Chuck Gannon, Mary Robinette Kowal

Shades of Milk and Honey is today’s Big Idea at Scalzi’s Whatever

I’m interviewed about Shades of Milk and Honey at Starship Sofa

WIRED’s GeekDad column covers the trailer.

AND my wonderful agent is giving away a copy of Shades of Milk and Honey on her blog.

I have to say that sitting here in my bathrobe with a cat curled up in my lap today does not feel externally different from yesterday. There are no fireworks going off outside. And yet… I’m aware that I’ve published a novel.

That sentence alone makes my head boggle.  Which really is a little absurd when you consider that I’ve been building up to this with short fiction for quite a while now. And yet… I’ve published a novel.

Right now, my novel is sitting in a bookstore .  It’s available in libraries. People can listen to it in audio. Or download it as an ebook.  It’s hard to wrap my head around all of that even though I also understand and expect it.  It’s the difference between my internal map and and my external map and it will take me a few days to align them.

I suppose one of the reasons that this takes alignment is that I still think of myself as primarily a puppeteer. That’s been my job for the last twenty years.  But gradually, writing has been shifting to become my dominant art form.  Publishing a novel is a pretty clear marker, you know? Late tonight I’ll get on a plane to go to North Carolina for NasFic and when my seatmate asks the inevitable, “What do you do?” I think I might have a new answer.

“I’m a writer.”

When one decides to write a historical novel, even if it is a fantasy, one must brace oneself for copious amounts of research. Research which feels as though it will never end. The curious thing about all this research is that much of it does not show up on the page. While writing Shades of Milk and Honey, set in an alternate England in 1814 I learned a number of things which surprised me. Here are a few my favorites.

Visit Tor/Forge’s Blog to learn more about out these odd historical details

• What it means when a letter was crossed.
• There is no such thing as a left shoe.
• How to turn the table.
• Hello is not a word.

via .

There’s more information about the novel and the people behind the traler at http://www.ShadesOfMilkAndHoney.com/trailer. I will shamelessly ask that you pass that link around to anyone that you think might like it.

Meanwhile, I thought you might like to know a little about how the trailer is made. We’re using a style of puppetry called Shadow Masks. The style was originated by Larry Reed of Shadowlight in San Fransisco and it combines the grace of a human performer with the stylization of shadow puppetry.

All of the set pieces are created with small cut paper vignettes on an overhead projector, while the performers work next to a paper screen with the masks. So when the Lady (Sarah Frechette) is sitting at the fortepiano, that’s a practical bench and a shadow fortepiano. Sarah is a puppeteer by trade but we also had two members of the Oregon Regency Society in to play the seamstress (Suzannah Hamlin) and the gentleman (Jason Stanley). They do a wonderful job and I wish you could see some of shots we didn’t use, which really show off their beautiful sense of movement.

The magic, which in the world of the novel is called glamour, is CG and created by Remo Balcells, a BAFTA award winning special effects supervisor, and his assistant Johnathan Nation.

Shades of Milk and Honey is the hotly anticipated debut novel from Mary Robinette Kowal, who has already made a name for herself in science fiction with a series out outstanding short stories. It’s a Regency drawing-room romance, told in pitch-perfect style, with one important difference: these mannered and well-bred nobles are able to do magic. By conjuring “folds from the ether,” well-brought-up men and women are able to create optical illusions — or even breezes and smells — though such workings are quite exhausting and too much conjuring can leave the practicioner comatose, brain-damaged or dead.

You can read the whole review at Shades of Milk and Honey: Kowal’s debut novel is a drawing-room romance with magic and art – Boing Boing.

For this fitting, she wanted to confirm that everything had lined up before she stitched together the lining and the exterior. Since she had trued the garment, it was always possible that things had shifted.

Indeed, we had to make adjustments to the sleeves to account for the fact that one arm is slightly longer than the other. This, by the way, is entirely normal.

Check it out. Put your elbows on the table in front of you and press your arms together with palms touching.  Now look at your finger tips. Chances are that the tips of your dominant fingers will be slightly longer than your off-hand.

The other point of conversation that was interesting was on how to handle the closure on the spencer.  Buttons or hooks-and-eyes were both in use in 1814 and it wasn’t clear, looking at reference material, which one would be more likely for a double-breasted spencer like this.  Even garments that  look buttoned may have decorative buttons and a hook and eye closure.  I think we finally settled on self-covered buttons of the same green as the rest of the spencer.

I’ll have it on Tuesday — for Shades of Milk and Honey‘s book release day!

So… it was do or die. Through a variety of circumstance ranging from corrupted uploads to paying work coming in, which always supersedes a freebie, to export errors we’d cut it really close. Still, we had no expectation when we went down there that we’d stay up all night.

We left around 9:20 this morning and my writers group meets not far from the editing suite, so I’ve arrived about forty-five minutes early to have coffee and breakfast.

I ordered a half-caff latte. Shocking, I know.

It really is silly that it sounds like a total wimpy beverage and will in fact leave me a little wired. I have no complaints about this. The bike ride also helped, but I’m going straight home and to bed.

Tonight he emailed to say that he was “quacking off the renders.”

You know… I didn’t think there was a profession out there that made puppetry phrases look completely prosaic. “Quacking off?” I have no idea what it means, but it sounds fantastic.

But since they’ve shipped, some bookstores go ahead and stock them as soon as the box arrives.  Not that I’m eager to see it or anything, but… I will mail a hand fan and a signed book plate to the the first five people who spot the novel in the wild.

Just capture it with a camera, post the picture online via your electronic means of choice then come back to my website and drop the link in the comment thread.

We are also eight days away from the release day of August 3rd. Not that I’m counting.

To celebrate, I’m going to give away two signed copies of Shades of Milk and Honey.

How do you win? Between now and August 1st post a caption in the comment thread on my website to go with this illustration from 1800.

On August 2nd, I’ll open a poll with the various captions listed and give a copy of the novel to the most popular caption AND to my personal favorite.

Edited to add: Yes, you may enter more than one. However, with this addition I’ll narrow them down to my top favorites before posting the poll.

Dave Klecha gave me a ride to the airport and my flight is currently on time. I suspect that it will leave without problems because the alternative would be staying here another day and that would be very pleasant.

I had a lavender-vanilla bean creme soda that was really lovely. We started with the local cheese plate, moved on to a beet carpacio salad that flirted with perfect, and I had their gnocchi with spinach. For dessert a true key lime pie.

Highly recommend the restaurant, if you are in the area.

Today we finished recording An Artificial Night around four-thirty. This pleases me because they had scheduled three and a half days and it only took three.  It really is funny how I can read smoothly for three pages and then hit a sentence that I can’t seem to get out.

After work C– drove me into Grand Rapids on his way home and dropped me at a coffee shop. Merrie Haskell came to fetch me and take me back to her lake cottage for a little bit of relaxation before heading back to Portland tomorrow.

All in all, it’s been a very good trip.