Michael Livingston, in addition to being one of my favorite people, also happens to be a scholar of Middle English. I have just finished listening, twice, to his Chaucer’d excerpt of John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War.

In a fit of rage against working on my syllabi for the coming term, I took a snippet from John Scalzi’s novel Old Man’s War (chapter 9 for those playing at home) and, well, Chaucer’d it. That is, I took Scalzi’s text and translated it into Chaucer’s dialect. Details follow the audio.

That’s right–audio in Middle English. Tee-hee, quod she. I mean, look at this.

“I can take a shot,” Watson said, sighting over his boulder. “Let me drill one of those things.”

“I kan tak a shote,” quod Watson, lookynge right over his rokke. “Graunte me striken oon.”

Whew. Already I feel better. I just dropped my computer off with Karl Swan, who not only promised to have it back to me within 48 hours, but also pulled some files off for me right then. Though I’d done a backup on the 27th, I’d also done a significant amount of work between then and when the computer imploded on the 29th.

So, I now have the current draft of my novel, current drafts of the two short stories I had been working on, and the logo design that had just been approved when things went pfffht. Everything else, I have on the backup.

Such relief.

We decided to go with a system wipe and restore. He made me feel like I was not an idiot, which was nice. When I get my computer back, it will be clean and with my documents already loaded on. So, I will not have to continue going crazy trying to fix it.

I read Wax, the second standalone story/chapter in the mosaic novel New Amsterdam by Elizabeth Bear for Subterranean. They’ve just posted the audio files at Subterranean Online

Abigail Irene Garrett drinks too much. She makes scandalous liaisons with inappropriate men, and if in her youth she was a famous beauty, now she is both formidable–and notorious. She is a forensic sorceress, and a dedicated officer of a Crown that does not deserve her loyalty.

She has nothing, but obligations.

Sebastien de Ulloa is the oldest creature she has ever known. He was no longer young at the Christian millennium, and that was nine hundred years ago. He has forgotten his birth-name, his birth-place, and even the year in which he was born, if he ever knew it. But he still remembers the woman who made him immortal.

He has everything, but a reason to live.

In a world where the sun never set on the British Empire, where Holland finally ceded New Amsterdam to the English only during the Napoleonic wars, and where the expansion of the American colonies was halted by the war magic of the Iroquois, they are exiles in the new world–and its only hope for justice.

Now, why would I spend today down in our dark basement when it was gorgeous outside? That would be sheer folly. So I painted the front porch and did some weeding.

I also worked on “The Bride Replete,” which is the first non-novel thing I’ve touched in ages. It feels very good. I’m not ignoring Shades, I’m just still in the resting and rereading period with it.

Okay. This was the coolest thing in the world, for me. I went to the bookstore to pick up Christmas gifts for my family to save me the cost and hassle shipping them to Chattanooga. With one exception, I wound up selecting books written by people I know. I like all of these people, and have been very happy for their success, but I turned into the total fan-girl in the books store. Two years ago, I don’t think I knew any novelists.

Sadly, I can’t tell you which books they were because my family reads the blog and I’ve already tipped my hand that most of them/you are getting books this year.

View my progress report for Shades of Milk and Honey. As of this posting I have to write 8,953 words in two days to “win” NaNo. I think I have another 20,000 words after that to finish this draft of the novel.

I’ve been having trouble with my internet in the room and complained multiple times to the hotel. They sent their engineer up–who announced as he came into the room, “I’m not particularly computer savvy.” Oh, how true that was. He poked at buttons on the computer and said, “I’ll have to close these windows,” and generally pretended to do something.

I continued to have no internet and to complain vigorously. They finally agreed to move me to another room. So during all of that, I didn’t do much blogging or work on my NaNo. Today, I got up and opened my novel for the first time, since he came in, so I could do some NaNoWriMo.

It consisted of the title page.

He had deleted the novel.

I hyperventilated for a second and then realized that I back up on a regular basis. Which means that I only lost half a page. I was ready to kill though. To their credit, the hotel recognized that this was a huge deal and that, even though it all turned out all right, they had really screwed up. They gave us one night for free.

Moral of this story: Auto-backup is your friend.

Today is Steven Savile’s birthday. To celebrate, I am reading his novel Inheritance. So far, it is grim and horrific. Those aren’t normally compliments but are completely appropriate for a vampire novel. He also has managed to get humor in there too, which is astounding in a book with the undead rising all around. I’m looking forward to seeing how this one ends, although, I’ll have to give up my habit of reading at meals with this one.

Steve, next time we’re in the same place, I’ll buy you a pint.

I edited two stories and submitted them yesterday. My requested rewrite went off to the editor last week, so now it’s just a waiting game. I finished proofing the Autumn issue of Shimmer, which goes to the printer on Tuesday. In short, no more writing reasons to put off Good Housekeeping, so I pulled it out last night and started working.

41,609 / 50,000 (83.0%)

608 words, fifteen minutes.

I should have worked longer, but Rob had rented De-Lovely so we watched that.

First:

God, he was still gorgeous.

Last:

Her dark eyes under the tangle of her hair gave Cassandra a half-fey look.

I got a rewrite request for one of my stories so I’m going to take a break from the Good Housekeeping novel. I’m giving myself today and tomorrow off, which will push my self-imposed deadline from the 20th to the 22nd.

35,387 / 50,000 (70.0%)

2,284 words.

For those of you keeping score at home, I wrote for an hour and forty-five minutes today.

First:

Mom bit her lip, but didn’t respond.

Last:

Brownie Thistlekin stepped forward, twisting his broom in his hands.

I spent some time revising one of my novels. It felt really good. I haven’t touched it in a year and I was happy that the story held my attention still. What makes me even happier is that I’m a better writer now. That’s nice.

I had a chapter, which I’ve known for a while was a problem. I kept trying to fix it by tweaking things and today, after some encouragement from Joy, I tossed it and rewrote from scratch. My God that felt liberating. It’s stronger, does what I want it to do and was surprisingly easy. Why did I wait so long?

The Fantasy Novelist’s Exam is a very amusing, and fairly telling exam, that I’m sure was written by someone who had read one too many bad Fantasy Novel. I’m happy to say that Good Housekeeping doesn’t fail any of the questions. Well, maybe number 15, but not in the way they mean it.