Home Again, Home Again

[jimhines]

One of the obnoxious things about vacation is that the rest of the world doesn’t seem to care. Email, bills, day-job, it all keeps piling up. It’s quite rude. I’m thinking maybe the world needs to try to coordinate a little better.

Anyway, I’m back from the U.P. It was fun, relaxing, and far too short.

One of the first emails I got was confirmation that I could announce the sale of my story “Chupacabra’s Song” to Kaleidoscope, a YA anthology edited by Julia Rios and Alisa Krasnostein. This is the story I asked for help with a little while back, about Nicola Pallas (from the Libriomancer books) as a teenager, and her first encounter with chupacabras. My thanks to everyone who read the story and offered their thoughts about my portrayal of Nicola’s autism.

I also read Lisa Shearin’s forthcoming book The Grendel Affair [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy], which was tremendous fun, and started in on Beth Bernobich’s forthcoming book Allegiance [Amazon | B&N | Mysterious Galaxy], which is drawing me in nicely. (Related: The first book in Bernobich’s series, Passion Play, is currently on sale for $2.99.)

I got just under 10,000 words written on Unbound, which is less than I had hoped, but I’m not going to complain. I also spent a fair amount of time doing research reading, and that counts too, right?

I took a picture of the Milky Way. Due to the light distortion in the lower left, I have now declared war against the full moon. I’m still quite happy with the picture, though. I think I may have also gotten a shot of a meteor. Or maybe a satellite. I’m not sure how to tell. The verdict is satellite.

We also took a boat tour of Pictured Rocks and climbed Sugarloaf Mountain. (I’m not so sure about calling it a “mountain,” but I guess for Michigan it qualifies.)

I’ve got a few more pictures posted at Flickr.

And now is the time when Jim tries to catch up on everything from the past week. Whee…

Mirrored from Jim C. Hines.

Comments

[beccastareyes]

I don't know how to tell in photographs, since I can tell by eye by the speed. What was your exposure time?

[jimhines]

That one was either 20 or 30 seconds. But at this point, I'm 99% sure it was a satellite, after comparing it to some satellite and meteor pics.

Still cool, though :-)

[beccastareyes]

Oh, yes. I'm a fan of watching the Space Station if it'll fly overhead while I'm stargazing.

[mmegaera]

Speaking as a Pacific Northwesterner, it's only a mountain if it's either permanently snowcapped or has erupted in the last couple of thousand years. Or both [g].

[jimhines]

Yeah, I think a summer in Washington state and a year in Nevada ruined me for the midwest's idea of mountains...

[mmegaera]

You do have some beautifully enormous skies back there, though.