I am the flibbertigibbet. Goo goo g'joob.

Honestly, I am so lightweight at the moment, the merest puff of a notional wind is enough to send me gadding somewhere else. I was just mentioning on a list yesterday how my first novel was a commission, and the first full-length text I ever finished; perhaps I have not grown up so much as I was hoping to imply. The thing that grinds most at me since I came here to California is that I have finished nothing of any length or weight: a few short stories, in wildly varying genres, but apparently I cannot settle.

As witness, even now: here I am with Mars Imperial (the new contextual, overarching, all-embracing series title) all buzzy in my brain, and so far I have written a short story, started a YA - and as of this morning started a mystery, just because I was lying in bed while m'wife was in the shower and the opening lines occurred to me and what's a man to do?

"My lord?"
"Herver, I would damn your eyes, if you had any." The words might be crisp, but the tone was mild; Lord Anthony Berkeley was not under any pressure. Yet. In point of fact, he’d barely fastened his collar-stud and was only beginning to think about his tie.

(Why yes, this is unashamed Peter Wimsey fanfic. Lordling with time and money on his hands, faithful retainer in the background - both of them survivors of the Venusian wars, both carrying their own scars - and of course they solve crime. On Steampunk!Mars. Possibly with airship pirates, though that might be an indulgence too far.)

A question! Of horse-and-carriage terminology!

So if an ostler (or hostler, apparently, here in the US - I have never seen that in the wild, I think) cares for horses at an inn and a coachman drives a carriage, what should we call the man responsible for the care of the carriages themselves, and/or the man in overall charge of the coach house? There must be a word. Or do the vehicles too come under the care of the grooms and stable hands? (If it's relevant, I'm actually thinking about big private houses here, not public businesses. Nineteenth-century, more or less.)

Heh.

If you had told me, when I rose this morning, that I would write two thousand words on Steampunk!Mars before we went to SETI for an evening talk, I would have been delighted.

You should have told me, damn it, that it would be two thousand words of the Wrong Book. I am not supposed to be writing Wimsey fanfic, no. I am supposed to be writing YA adventure. Le sigh.

Still. We're off to SETI, where the guy who runs the Kepler Mission is going to talk to us, about that and about Tatooine. I was all set to make that my clever question, to show how clever and up-to-date I was, how very tuned in - but then we got an e-mail from SETI this morning, saying that he would of course address this very issue. Le other sigh.

But hey. 2000 words. And I'm really enjoying it (obviously). Even if it does no more than concrete my thinking (again), it's still worth it. And, y'know. Wimsey fanfic. I have never written fanfic in my life, but this is fun. Steampunk fanfic! Never mind photography, his valet Herver has mechanical eyes...