Man is the creature that makes lists

Oh, all right, then. Since you ask...

HIDDEN CITIES by Daniel Fox, out from Del Rey in March: vol three of MOSHUI: The Books of Stone and Water.

DESDAEMONA by Ben Macallan, out from Solaris sometime in the spring, I think. Vol one of a series, but only if it sells well. Buy, buy! Pre-order...!

HOUSE OF DOORS (working title) by Chaz Brenchley (hey look, my own name!), out from Severn House, presumptively in the autumn. If I get it written by the deadline. A ghost story, kinda. And I like that title less and less. *waits for inspiration*

ROTTEN ROW, a (long) novella, by Chaz Brenchley, out from PS Publishing before the summer. If they stay on schedule. Science fiction! My first SF book! At last! The world's only been waiting, what, forty years or so for that...

(UNTITLED COLLECTION) of short stories, by Chaz Brenchley, out from NewCon Press in time for FantasyCon. If I get my act and the manuscript together, if Ian doesn't repent of a rash promise made when possibly not sober. All the stories worth collecting except for all the gay ones (which are promised to Steve Berman for Lethe Press, for a collection in 2012).

So there it is. Time for a coffee now.

How loose are my ends

I do of course have many things to do, and some of them quite urgent: but the most pressing are the most scary, and hence to be avoided as long and as late as possible.

Besides which, I handed my copy edit over to Fedex on Friday, and am still a little like snapped elastic. I keep checking on the internets (I love tracking!): it's currently in Memphis, Tennessee. Odd, that it should have gone there when it's headed for New York, NY, but I'm sure there's a reason for it.

Besides which, it's mid-afternoon, which is never my best or most focused time. Come this evening, I shall open a bottle of wine, knot my flailing ends together and settle down to some serious form-filling. Meanwhile...

Meanwhile, I need to bake some bread: which has become a process elongated in time even as it is reduced in effort. My sourdough practice is terribly simple, it just takes for ever. Mix dough, leave it. Tip it out, draw it together, leave it. Knead it for ten seconds, leave it. Put it back in the bowl, leave it. Etc. The intervals grow longer, from ten minutes to overnight; then I bake it first thing in the morning. But during this first half-hour or so there's a lot of being around and not doing very much.

I thought I might sort out my loose recipes, but I lack a solution into which to sort them. Some are gleaned from magazines or other sources, but most are print-outs, either from the internet or from my own files. With the computer being upstairs and the kitchen not, it's easier to print out a copy and take it down. Trouble is, with computer files being searchable and the box-of-print-outs generally not, even when I want a recipe I know I printed out six months ago, it's generally easier to print it out again. This is ... sub-optimal. But how to resolve it? A box of loose recipes is never going to be usefully searchable. An organised indexed system is ... well, never really likely to happen, in all honesty. That's what one has a computer for.

I suppose technically one could fit up a second monitor in the kitchen and relay the recipe down, but again. Never likely actually to happen.

Loose-leaf binders might possibly be the thing. I have ancient ones of those, all full of important documents from thirty years ago. Um...

What do other people do? You, what do you do with all your loose recipes?

Further to my last

...The situation in re printed copies of recipes is not helped by my occasional activation of another plan. I have this abiding notion that when I cook a recipe from a book, the smart thing is actually to bring the book up here, type up and print out the recipe. In part this is to save the book from smears & spillage, but in main it's to allow me to find the recipe again next time I want it. When you have, um, as many cookery books as I do, and your memory is as incompetent as mine - well, there are recipes out there in the wild that I loved once and have never found again. If they're all on my computer, the argument goes, then I can find 'em at the press of a button.

The alternative would be an index of the contents of my library. Which, again, not ever so likely to happen.

Nor does the typing-up happen much; but sometimes, yes. And then the printing-out. And then the printing out again...

The astute among you will have realised, I am not so much downstairs sorting out the recipes, but much more upstairs typing on the internets.

Sigh...