Two links don't make a chain

Here's a couple of things that turned up while I was sleeping, while the world turned beneath me:

M'webmistress, shewhomust points me here, to where a gamer talks about Dragon in Chains, in terms of how useful it is as a resource for dungeonmasters building an Oriental world. Heh. Not sure I've ever been a resource before.

And here I am my own self - or indeed here - on Jim Hines' First Book Friday spot, talking about my first book. Books. For with typical extravagance, there appear to be three of them...

Paper, Scissors, Stone ... Lizard!

House of Doors and House of Bells are both set in a country house that I've written about before, in The Keys to D'Espérance. It's a known entity. Furthermore, House of Doors is set in the Second World War, when the house has been turned into a hospital for burned airmen. That gives it a milieu, a look and feel that's very familiar, that frankly didn't take a lot of think-work on my part to set up.

House of Bells, on the other hand? Is set in the '60s, when the house is being used for a commune. Or an ashram, or a cult. An alternative community, let us say. I don't know much about it yet: the community will be defined, as they always are, by its constituent people, who will introduce themselves on the page as I write.

But it needs a name, that is not D'Espérance; and that will also be a contributory factor to the community's development, names are important. And I don't know what it is. Which is unusual for me, I usually start with a name and build from there, as I start books from their title.

I've put in a placeholder, which is also unusual for me: I normally stop until I'm ready to go forward.

But anyway: I went for a walk, to see if I could find a name among these suburban Californian streets.

Nope. But I found a lizard. Just scuttling across the sidewalk right in front of me, and diving under a bush. City lizard! It wouldn't happen in Newcastle.

In other news, I have bought Karen a blender, and made soup for lunch. An onion-and-leek-and-celery-and-celeriac soup, which I shall adorn with fried apple and crispy bacon croutons, because that will be lovely. And because I can.

Dear Spampersons...

...If your subject line says "You have received a Hallmark Postcard" and your body text is ostensibly a security warning from a bank, do you not think that I might spot a flaw in your cunning plan, and so think twice before I download the executable so helpfully attached? I mean, honestly...?

My virtue, let me show it you

It's 3.30, and since lunch I have been pottering about with my shirt off, alternately writing paragraphs and grubbing dandelions out of the back lawn. Now about to get serious with what is probably my last work-session of the day (Karen's coming home at five and we're heading out to an appointment) - which means that on a hot cloudless day above all, my mind turns inexorably to thoughts of gin. But it's only 3.30, and I should probably keep sober; so am heating water for a cup of tea. Sencha and wasabi edamame, they will just have to see me through...