Gail Carriger

Last few days something along the lines of as follows:
Blink, blink. Cough, cough. Argh, student Petri dishes have got me at last! Head cold. Why must this be? Work, must work. Accidentally give snarky lip at work (best to keep brains and humor under control). Trouble, drama rah rah rah. Return home. Can't breathe, can't sleep.

Next morning = emotional moment over move. Check email, royal slap down from boss. Well, isn't that nice? Bum about house in PJ's drinking tea and eating soup. Visit loo a lot. Drive to teach. Risky, 'cause I'm all fuzzy in the head, but I make it. Nearly fall asleep over computer just before class. Manage to make it through teaching but there are a lot of long silences and I'm not sure if they actually learned anything about Design Analysis but at least I stayed upright. (It's the little things.)

Phone message, more problems with the move. Phone call, I'm on my own for dinner. Home to cold dark. More soup. Check email one last time. Royal slap down from fellow author. Has got me thinking about making some more changes in 2010, what the hay, might as well go for broke, right? Decide not to be rash, put down phone, crawl into bed. Can't sleep ~ back to the breathing thing again.

You know what they say about those days when you're not meant to get out of bed? Yeah. I may have to pack in this whole week the way it's going.

On to better things! Lovely Travis Heerhann is chatting with me on his blog. Travis is another alt-history fantasy author. His setting is Medieval Japan, which intrigues me greatly. We met at the bar at World Fantasy, as you do . . . He interviewed me all about writerly things, here's a sample.
TH: Can you give a brief arc of your career as a writer/author?
GC: Well, let me tell you! I had a stunning debut at age eight with a brilliant saga of calico cat goes adventuring on flying carpet. Sometime after that, I hit high school with a vengeance producing several acclaimed exposés on the nature of Roman battle tactics. Sadly, I experienced a real dry spell during my university years concentrating on rightly snubbed short lived treatises on gender dynamics in Ancient Greek plays.
Yeah, Soulless would be my debut.



Gail's Daily Dose
Your Infusion of Cute:
I want I want I want!

Your Tisane of Smart:
Medieval ship remains found in lake. I love under water archaeology. If I had my life to do over again that's the area I'd focus on.
Your Writerly Tinctures:
Working with difficult characters? Writing tips from io9.

CAKE in Space: Back from agent, but now I don't have time for it.
In which Lord Akeldama is described as the dandiest, fanciest vampire evah.
SPOILER ALERT! Amazon has posted Changeless cover along with blurb. Blurb gives bits of Soulless away so don't read if you haven't read the first book!
Blameless: Back from editor with edits still to do.

Quote of the Day:
"Why do children frequently possess none of the physical or mental characteristics of their parents? Because the magnetism of the mind of the mother, under the influence of some mental impression or impressions she receives, controls the development of the unborn child."
~ Dr. Edward B. Foote, 1971

Supper for Today, 1876, in a London Townhouse

• Beef Broth
• Sirloin of Beef and Horseradish
• Mashed Potaoes
• Yorkshire Pudding
• Imperial Rice Cake - with blanched almonds and made using laurel water

I have a wacky British mother, Gentle Reader. She is an excitable, dark-haired, bucket of cheer, possessing absolutely no tact and a heroic plant messiah complex. She has taught me many things: the correct practical application of the word cozy; not to under-water my hydrangeas; how to cook the most crispy bacon; and the fine line between gossip and attention to detail. But, by far the most important thing my mother ever did, was instill in me the proper respect for tea.

Please don't misconstrue, I do love the occasional espresso. I lived in Italy long enough to become shockingly snobbish about coffee. But real, true, beverage art resides in the brewing of a proper cup of tea and no one shall ever convince me otherwise. Nothing can compare to the joy of a fresh hot cup of tea, nor to the misery of finding the forgotten ends cold and rendered unpalatable. I own five teapots, and the household collectively owns eight. On a regular basis I use a little red two cupa, a brown four cupa, and a massive black twelve cupa. None of my teapots drip for this is a grave and unforgivable sin. When I worked regularly in academia I also kept a four cupa teapot in the lab. Love me, love my teapot.
Tea is not just important, it is a moral imperative. I keep back-up teabags on or about my person at all times. I have excavated temples in Tuscany, flirted with colonial bulls in Cuzco, and wandered the wilds of Europe and my tea has traveled with me every step of the way.


In England, when a visitor walks in the door the kettle goes on. There is a land where ones choice in tea brand marks ones station in society. Let me just say for the record: I have been known to drink PG Tips, but I am not a PG Tips person, I am a Twinings Gold Label girl. As my dear friend Dr. David Walker once remarked: any civilized individual knows well one thing above all else and that is the difference between milky but strong and weak with only a dash. How one takes ones tea, and what variety one prefers is a marker of ones ethical standing, ones choices in life, and ones strength of character.
Someday I'll tell you all about my carefully developed theories on how an alcoholic beverage can be used to predict British personality prototypes, but for now I'll leave you with this . . .

We had a kettle; we let it leak:
Our not repairing made it worse.
We haven't had any tea for a week...
The bottom is out of the Universe.
~Rudyard Kipling

Gail's Daily Dose
Your Infusion of Cute:
The lovely Corey recently posted her photos of the De Young's flower arrangement as reflecting art.

• Winter pea soup made with beef broth and sweet herbs
• Veal pie made with breast of veal, sweet meats, nutmeg, salt, clove, oysters, and ham inside puff pastry and served with veal and cream gravy
  
• Boiled potatoes
  
• Custard pudding - lemon-peel, nutmeg, and bitter almond custard inside a puff pastry served with melted butter

Gail's Daily Dose
Your Infusion of Cute:
Loving this shop. The shoes are particularly cool and reasonably priced.

Your Tisane of Smart:
Today in 1876 Alexander Graham Bell made the first successful phone call to his assistant Thomas Watson. Bell was Scottish by birth, but moved to Canada as an adult, eventually spending half his time there, in Brantford, and half his time in Boston. He didn't become a citizen of the US until much later. He also invented the metal detector and dabbled in hydrofoils, aeronautics, and eugenics (including boards that advocated the compulsory sterilization of people deemed to be defective). I mention him here, Gentle Reader, because as a writer of steampunk I see Bell as an excellent basis for mad scientist inventor characterization.

Your Writerly Tinctures:
Going up to bat for the little guy!

CAKE in Space: Awaiting a rewrite.
Soulless: Working on proofs.
Changeless: Itching to make fixes, but out of my hands.
Steampunk short:

Quote of the Day:
"The way you cut your meat reflects the way you live."
~ Confucius

Some Excerpts from 1871, Medical Common Sense & Plain Home Talk by Edward B. Foote, M.D.

• The human machinery becomes clogged with poisonous humors.
• As a female germ can not produce a child without the addition of a male germ, so there latent impure particles in the blood can not generate disease without meeting their affinitive poison.
• Theses latent impurities, like the spoor of a minute plant buried far underground, must be of the right quality to unite with and engender specific diseases, or a person, however exposed, will escape.
• Free circulation of vital or nervous electricity, and unruffled mind, and good blood are essential to health.
• Leading us to the irresistible conclusion that the first duty of a physician to a patient is to see that his nervous system is set right, his mind emancipated from all depressing influences, and his blood restored to that condition which enables it to impart the tint of health to the skin, strength to the muscle, and abundant juices to all the tissues.

Gail's Daily Dose
Your Infusion of Cute:

Your Tisane of Smart:
"Launch Pad, the annual astronomy workshop for writers is accepting applications until March 15th for this summer, July 14-21. Joe Haldeman and Phil Plait of badastronomy.com are the special guest instructors. NASA picks up travel, lodging, and most expenses in return for the chance to bring modern astronomy to the audiences of the writers. See Mike Brotherton and the official Launch Pad website for more information.
Someday I would love to go to this, great research for CAKE in Space, but not this year . . .
Your Writerly Tinctures:
Locus is taking their annual survey on SF/F readers. You can take it whether you subscribe or not.

CAKE in Space: First draft with beta 1.
Soulless: Waiting on galleys, got cover art.
Changeless: Back with editor
Steampunk short:

Quote of the Day:
"I can’t help but to write, I have a inner need for it. If I’m not in the middle of some literary project, I’m utterly lost, unhappy and distressed. As soon as I get started, I calm down."
~ Kaari Utrio

So after much discussion and dithering, #2 comes from behind for the surprise win. (It's turning into a bit of a Scarlet Pimpernel on me, Gentle Reader: we seek it here, we seek it there, we seek that copy everywhere...) Methinks they were swayed by the demographic breakdown . . . but who knows.

( The winner and still champion... )

Result: who knows if it will sell the book, but I get to be one of those authors who wrote her own cover copy, that's got to count for something.



Gail's Daily Dose
Your Infusion of Cute:

Your Tisane of Smart:
"It is well, therefore, to understand that every organ is notified on the telegraphic system, if anything offends the spirit of the human being, and these organs are often taxed or compelled to give back part of the nervo-electricity with which they are performing thei offices."
~ Edward B. Foote, 1971
Your Writerly Tinctures:
Orbit's One Dollar Ebook Site offering Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks this month.

Soulless: Waiting on galleys.
Changeless: Waiting on notes from editor.
CAKE in Space: First draft with betas.
Short:

Quote of the Day:
"Writing is the best way to talk without being interrupted."
~ Jules Renard

On Victorian Money (from Baedecker's London 1896)

• sovereign or pound (gold) = 20 shillings
• half-sovereign (gold) = 10 shillings
• crown (silver) = 5 shillings
• half-crown (silver) = (2 shillings & a six penny piece)
• double florin (silver - rare) = 4 shillings
• florin (silver) = 2 shillings
• shilling (silver & same size as a sovereign) = 12 pennies
• six penny (silver) = 6 pennies
• three penny (silver) = 3 pennies
• penny (bronze) = 4 farthings
• half penny = 2 farthings
• farthing

In 1896 1 sovereign was approximately 5 American dollars, 25 francs, 20 German marks, or 10 Austrian florins.

The Bank of England issued notes for 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 pounds or more. These acted more like a cashier's check than paper money today. They were generally not used in ordinary life. This means that most people "dealt in coin." The exception was gentlemen and ladies, for whom any direct handling of money was considered common. When shopping they either had a servant with them to handle the coin (including gratuities), or paid on credit (AKA account). The shop would send a bill around to the townhouse at the end of the month, which would then be paid by the house steward, accountant, or personal secretary. A gentleman handling his own money is either no gentleman or engaged in nefarious activities.

Baedeker advises letters of credit (AKA circular notes) drawn on a major bank for travel, to be exchanged for local currency upon arrival. He also advises never carrying a full days worth of coinage about your person.

"In England alone of the more important states of Europe the currency is arranged without reference to the decimal system."
~ Karl Baedeker, 1896

Gail's Daily Dose
Your Infusion of Cute:

No, not instruments of torture, curling irons from the Victorian era.
Your Tisane of Smart:
Smart or creepy? The Cubicle Doorbell
Your Writerly Tinctures:
Flying out to BEAs in New York this May, v. excited!

Soulless: Waiting on galleys.
Changeless: In to editor.
CAKE in Space: First draft with betas.
Non-Fiction Millstone: Visiting old prof.

Quote of the Day:
"Whoever said money can't buy happiness simply didn't know where to go shopping."
~ Bo Derek

From the First Draft of Book the Second

winch on about the horrible weather

travel by couch

a bowl of unseasoned portage

a great navel battle

so as not to loose face

by gory, what now?

reek havoc


Gail's Daily Dose
Your Infusion of Cute:
Jeeves as an alarm clock. Yes, but does it also provide you with tea on a little tray?
Your Tisane of Smart:
Revenge as a business model
Your Writerly Tinctures:
A Writer's Guide to Amazonomancy Lois McMaster Bujold explains what your Amazon sales ranking means.

LPTC, Part the Second: Third Draft, Beta Edits:
CAKE in Space: First draft with betas.

Quote of the Day:
"Most people know that telegraphic operators supply the electricity which they send over the wires, by galvanic batteries, prepared according to te usual processes explained in our school books of Philosophy.
~ Edward B. Floote, 1871

I've been thinking a lot about language recently. There seems to be one of those cosmic coincidental "you, pay attention to THIS" signals blasting at me right now. Podcasts, news, book edits have all been centering on not just the use of language but its social function. I've had to rediscover the idea of language (as opposed to just the practice) in the past year, partly as a consequence of moving from writing YA to writing adult in a Victorian setting, and partly as a result of living in Peru for a month and getting a crash course in Spanish (let's not talk about Quechua). I also have a character prone to malapropisms, fun to write, but harder than one might think.

All this has made me reflect back on my undergraduate philosophy days, when I somehow thought it useful to garner a minor in epistemology. Old Wittgenstein sure had it in for language, and English wasn't even his native tongue. Did you know, Gentle Reader, that the English language contains almost a million words? That's five times the highest number of words in any other language. (Lederer 2005) I wonder what that says about English speakers. Why must we hog vocabulary? And what it says about those who choose, through ignorance or vindictiveness, to speak and write only about a thousand words of English; to live limited.

Of course, by population of native speakers on Earth, English still lags, but it is the dominant international language and, of course, there is one place it reigns undisputed King - the Internet. An illogical choice for a regent, English, with all its crazy complexities of grammar. Nevertheless, it has risen to the fore and it is being abused. I'll admit it: my greatest fear of cyberspace is not identity theft, or hacking, it is complete bastardization of the English language. As a lecturer I used to see it leaking into my student's essays. The horror! The horror! I judge people by their emails and blog posts, much as I would judge someone speaking to me by their vocabulary choices and accent. This isn't intentional, and I'm not saying I myself have no literary failings, but it is inherent in my upbringing (raised by a Brit, inveterate reader, school in England). For example, I believe people who use phone text terms in cyberspace are rather common. As we see more and more culture on the Internet (and as the Internet), whether near or far from the anthropological definition of the word, we will all see more and more of a segregation of that culture based on use (or abuse) of language.

What's my point? It is not simply what you write that matters, it is how well it is written. This isn't just the usual griping about grammar, in my case it's sadness over loss of vocabulary, style, and flow. When I use the word ratiocinative, it's because it is the correct word for the job. Not because I'm pedantic. English is a beautiful language, rich with wondrous words, stylish ways to write sentences, and a million different methods of transmitting meaning. What I am lamenting more than anything is the loss of English as an art.



Gail's Daily Dose
Your Infusion of Cute:
Children say the funniest stuff
Your Tisane of Smart:
Researchers Confirm: Language and Speech Are All in the Mind
Your Writerly Tinctures:
Stephen Fry on Language and all its joys. I don't entirely agree with him on the subject of right or wrong in language. He uses clothing as a metaphor and (as with clothing) I have strong opinions on correct usage, but it is still worth a listen.

LPTC, Part the Second: Second Draft, Beta Edits:
CAKE in Space: First draft goes out to betas this Sunday, must remember to print.

Quote of the Day:
"Writing counts."
~ Allyson Dickey

From the First Draft of Book the Second

• A lady of regal baring
• Pail blue silk walking dress
• 
• Bare it with grace
• Toe headed boy
• 
• he has been so very dower
• "Ewe," he said, disgusted.
• 
• Beyond the pail (Meaning of Beyond the Pale)
• 
• finial irrevocable proof
• 

Gail's Daily Dose
Your Infusion of Cute:
The Victorian Dress Elevator

Your Tisane of Smart:
Marilyn Monroe hormone discovered: linked to hour-glass body, women wanting to trade-up men, and the kind of women "other women don't like"
Your Writerly Tinctures:
Writing a dialect

LPTC, Part the Second: Second Draft, Beta Edits:
CAKE in Space: First draft goes out to betas this Sunday, must remember to print.

Quote of the Day:
"Trying too hard to create that authentic-sounding accent using phonetically spelled aberrations of the English language will, more often than not, simply annoy your reader."
~ Cameron Michaels
I'm depending upon my editor to tell me if this is the case.

Well, Gentle Reader, it is like sludge getting through these last few chapters on the read through of Book the Second.

Incidentally, the minions have voted, and the winner of the most laughs for an actual British Navy ship name in service in 1874 is...
The Spanker
Its prize: a brief but vital appearance in Book the Second.
Thanks to those who participated ~ you all have dirty, dirty minds.

Gail's Daily Dose
Your Infusion of Cute:
Engineer's Guide to Cats

Your Tisane of Smart:
Charles-François Galand (1832-1900) was a French gunsmith who manufactured revolvers for civilian and military use, including the Galand Revolver, the Tue Tue, the tiny collapsible Le Novo and the Velodog.
I'm sorry, but who doesn't want a gun called the Tue Tue?

Gentle Reader, I present to you, this week's weird Victorian term explained: herbaceous border
This style of gardening, begun in the Victorian Era, remains a hallmark of the English landscape to this day: shorter plants to the font, and taller ones to the back, arranged closely together.

From Pullham photo by Charles Hawes
Despite its name, herbs do not necessarily have to be involved in a herbaceous border, although they often are.

Water Perry Gardens
Usually herbaceous borders are a riot of different colors, running alongside a path or a wall.

Hatfield

Gail's Daily Dose
Your Infusion of Cute:
8 Ideas for Decorating a Victorian Bedroom

Jordan House, Virginia

1873, a typical Victorian bedroom, cluttered with antiques (highboy chest of drawers - Georgian, mirror above the washstand - Federal). I imagine Alexia's room in town as much like this. Note how dark everything is - clearly interior design of the period was intended to easily accommodate vampires or werewolves by blocking out the sun (from picasaweb). Going to Minnesota? Why not stay at the Victorian Oaks Bed & Breakfast, so cute!
Your Tisane of Smart:

Your Writerly Tinctures:
Betsy Mitchell waxes forth on TI. Don't know what a TI is, if you are an author, you probably should.

LPTC, Part the Second:
LPTC, Part the First Edits: 28%

Quote of the Day:
"What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it."
~ Charles Dudley Warner

Gentle Reader, lately I have been doing research into existing gadgets of the Victorian Era as starting off points for steampunk machinery for Book the Second. This is one of my favorite things about being a writer, learning so very much along the way.


Thomas Edison and his early phonograph (probably 18 April 1878) by Levin C. Handy - Public Domain. Cropped from Library of Congress Brady-Handy Photograph Collection.

Gail's Daily Dose
Your Infusion of Cute:

Your Tisane of Smart:
Squid tentacles revealed to have suckers full of teeth
Your Writerly Tinctures:
For those of you who are chronic Writers of the Future contestants (looks hard at pheron ), Adventures In Sci Fi Publishing podcast just produced an excellent round-table of interviews with this year's winners. I highly recommend a listen. WOTF also has a blog.

LPTC, Part the Second:

Quote of the Day:
"It is your husband who concerns me and no way to get through to him at present."
"Yes," said the Earl's wife, deadpan, "I daily face a similar dilemma, frequently when he and I are in conversation of some kind."
~ Self, LPC: Book the Second

Am currently embroiled in trying to think up a series title for Alexia's little adventures. This is oddly difficult, Gentle Reader, but required by The Contract, so must be done. It occasioned me rummaging about in my research books for inspiration and getting sucked into Medical Common Sense and Plain Home Talk by Edward B. Foote, M.D., 1871. This book contains such delicious chapter titles as:

• The Causes of Nervous and Blood Derangements (Violating the Moral Nature, Bad Habits of Manhood and Womanhood)
• Common Sense Remedies (Therapeudic Electricity, Animal Magnetism)
• Private Words for Women (Derangement of the Monthly Flow, Nymphomania)
• and (my personal favorite) Three Phases of Monogamic Marriage Daguerrotyped

Chapters also contained gems of wisdom in support of:

• female doctors
• "practical involuntary masturbation"
• ladies being allowed to "pop the question"
• and the vital importance of married couples "sleeping apart" (by reason of the fact that if they sleep too often together they will grow to look like one another)

Very sensible stuff.



Gail's Daily 3
Your Pill of Cute:

Your Gel Cap of Smart:

A Victorian message in a bottle uncovered at a church in Durham. As requested by the note, renovators noted down certain information, then resealed and replaced the bottle!
Your Writerly Vitamins:
Chicago Manual of Style Online

CAKE in Space:

Other People's Words:
"From five to eight hours bodily contact in those magnetic elements which, when diverse in quantity and quality, produce physical attraction and passional love, promotes permanent unchange of individual electricities, and the absorption of each other's exhalation, leading directly to temperamental inadaptation, and to the married pair growing alike physically. "
~ Edward B. Foote, M.D.
(original spelling)