silver dinner dress c. 1880

I kept referring to it as the "blue" dress while I was sewing, but as you can see in the pictures, it's really quite silver.

on the cusp, alarmingly

Last November/December, as I was starting on the first Trace story, Scott and I were telling each other that westerns were about due to come into style again. "Deadwood" had already finished its first season, and we guessed there would be more to follow. How right we were.
In the last three hours I've seen three things that totally freaked me out.

1) I went to the mall today. All the new summer stuff is in the stores. Just a sampling:

• Linen skirts with cutwork embroidery around the hem.
• Double-layered, three-tiered gauze "petticoat" skirts.
• Sheer blouses with embroidery and pintucks, looking for all the world like a Victorian shirtwaist.
• Belts with conchos and leather strands.
• Heaps of silver and turqoise.

And a half-dozen other examples of pioneer-flavored looks in women's clothing for the summer. It's less peasant-y than when it came around in 1987, and they're pairing the flowy skirts with stretchy modern tops, or sheery fluttery blouses with slim capris, so the effect is still modern. I like it quite a bit, but I kept looking at all this vintage-inspired stuff and cackling like a nut. For the first time in my life I'm ahead of the curve.

2) TNT is releasing a new 6-part miniseries next month, titled "Into the West." It's the saga of two families, one Native American, one American Pioneer. I already knew this was coming, but not when. Sarah McLachlan covered her song "World on Fire" for it, cleverly changing the lyric, "planes crash" to "blades slash." How very, very, clever. The video is on Netscape Music.

3) On a different, more unsettling note, I keep running into this Cowboy Troy dude. (No, this has nothing to do with the resurgence of westerns, it's just freaky.) He calls his style "hick-hop," and it's exactly what it sounds like--rap set to twangy guitars. Is it different? Yeah, but not in a good way. Frankly, I can't process it. To my ear, he's skillfully amalgamated everything I hate about both types of music. He's apparently been doing it a long time, and won the attention of some heavy-hitters in Nashville, but the sound and the songs themselves strike me as mere gimicry.

I'm not sure why, either. Country music has a tradition of "scatting" and "talking blues," so you'd think there would be some reconciliation between that and what Troy is doing, but I sure can't find it. So what's the difference? The sound, the production, a simple difference in cadence between scat and rap? I don't know. Of course, I'm not a good judge of either style.

A few months ago there was a commercial out for iPod, I believe, that showed several city kids breakdancing in alleys and on streets, accompanied by hoedown music. The result was curiously poetic, and absolutely hilarious. Apparently, however, it wasn't as impossibly juxtaposed as I first thought.

busy weekend

Saturday was my semi-monthly real-life writer's meeting. I took them "End of the Line," and the reviews were rave. "Wonderful" was the word being tossed around. Also "fast," "exciting," "fun, "well-researched," and "stands alone well, but also enriches and builds upon what we already know of the characters."

Got to do a little fact-checking, but I figure I'll send it out by the end of the week. There's a limited market for things of this length, but I know it's good and I'm hoping F&SF will make room for it.

Rob lent me Writing the Blockbuster Novel by Albert Zuckerman. I'd seen this book before and was curious. It's not really germaine to my genre, because SF/F/H novels are pretty much never blockbusters, except of course for King---well, I can't say that any more, since Laurel K. Hamilton and J.K. Rowling have come on the scene. Never mind, I take it back.

At any rate, I don't expect Trace to be a blockbuster. However, the stories and the novel I have in mind meet most, if not all, the qualifications listed by Zuckerman in Chapter Two: High Stakes (risk losing your own soul, or let lots of innocent people die), Larger than life Characters (he's a six-foot-six cowboy who sees dead people--it doesn't get much bigger than that), Exotic Locations (the Old West), and High Concept (Ex-priest Civil War Vet who now works as a trail guide and who happens to be a spiritual medium--much to his dismay--is hired by a wealthy, mysterious benefactress who sends him on increasingly bizarre and supernatural "jobs" which may put his eternal soul in danger--even if he survives.)

I'm beginning to think my husband is justified in his gung-ho starry-eyed belief that this is going to be "Big!"

Sunday I went to kung fu, after having missed the last three classes. Not cool. My neck is still killing me--not because of the kung fu, that just exacerbated it. I turned the mattress and it seems to have helped, but not enough. I must get back into my qi gong routine.

Sunday afternoon, I sewed. Both the underskirt and the overskirt are done, except for hemming the one and trimming the other, both of which are things to be done in the evenings while watching TV. I had a slightly panicked moment on Sunday when I realized I had less than two weeks before ConQuesT. I should have plenty of time, but that's assuming there are no further interruptions, or I don't get sick.

The navy-blue underskirt looks fab. The overskirt I'm not sold on yet; I haven't decided about the draping, but that can be negotiated. But they both are very slim and drape nicely. I'm kind of eager to get to the bodice, truth be told. That silk handles beautifully.

Finally, and I was waffling about whether to share this news yet:

I have received an offer to publish Escaping Ariston, the first Quinn Taylor book. I'm not gonna say who yet, as no contract has been signed or even seen. It's a small but traditional press, they put out trade paperbacks as well as ebooks, and they want to publish Ariston in both formats. If I accept, and the contract goes through, Ariston should be out in print around Thanksgiving of 2006. So here's to small blessings, eh?

Promontory, 1869

Both ends have been joined; the golden spike is driven home. "End of the Line" is complete, at least in its preliminary form. Nineteen thousand, one hundred sixty-eight bleepin' words.

Sleep now.