So, yesterday, I walked down to Fun Country, known locally as Palace Playland, only to find that the arcade is open Friday/Saturday/Sunday for the next few weeks, but that the amusement park…
…is closed for the winter.
That was a disappointment, but not particularly a set-back, since I have maps and pictures from previous visits. And, yanno, all was not lost, since I got to spend some quality time with my grandmother:
…more pictures going up at whim here
I moved in to my apartment in Archers Beach yesterday in the midst of the rags of Hurricane Isaac. It made for a damp occasion, but at least I didn’t have to carry boxes upstairs. Steve joined me in the late afternoon, and we went food shopping. After 32 years of shared living, it’s hard to know how much one person will use/eat. Ah, well, there’s Ahz’s Market, after all, if I run short.
Today started with breakfast at Michele’s Garden Cafe, then a short walk on the beach before Steve headed back to the Confusion Factory, the cats, and the work in process. I tried out several office situations and have identified the recliner, the breakfast bar, and, if needed, the kitchen table as writing zones. Good thing Ox is mobile.
It’s amazing to me how thin of company we are. The town really does shut down after the Season (defined on the far side by Labor Day), and the only people who are left are a few hardy tourists and…the people who live here. The nice thing about that is that the people who live here tend to assume that you must live here, too.
I also love being in town, so I can walk. Six miles and change today — and not all of it on the beach.
I posted some pictures of the day here.
As advertised elsewhere, I will be on-site at Archers Beach Old Orchard Beach during the month of September. This is a working research and writing trip — my first ever! This is what comes of mostly working in a totally imaginary universe. Not to mention that I’d scarcely last an hour on Solcintra port, given the Utter Terran-ness of my manners.
Be that as may be, I’ll be repurposing this space as a working blog. I’ve also set up a Pinterest board, here, where I’ll be posting such photographs of the town as I may make. Be aware that I am not a photographer of note.
Anyone who may be interested in these various iterations of an Author at Work is invited to join the fun.
Since it has been requested, and assuming I can figure out how to make it work, I’ll be adding a PayPal button to the sidebar. If you’re of a mind to support the site, the blog, the photographic endeavors, or the author at work — the button is your friend.
Here ends your Distant Early Warning.
That Carousel Tides is available as an audiobook?
It’s true!
Here are your links:
To celebrate summer, and the ocean, and the fact that Carousel Tides will! have! sequels! — I’m offering a Carousel Tides t-shirt! Details may be found here.
Procrastinators take note: Orders are open through June 30, so, really, you need to act with decision.
–Sharon Lee
As reported in Locus, Baen Books has given me the green light to write the sequels to Carousel Tides, tentatively titled Carousel Sun, and Carousel Seas. The manuscripts are due in early and mid 2013, respectively. Publication dates rest on the knees of the publisher, but I’m assuming mid-2014.
I’ll be working on-site in Old Orchard Beach during the month of September. I’m toying with the idea of keeping a diary of that month here on the website, if there’s interest.
So, that’s the big news. Thank you all for your support and your interest!
Sharon Lee
Plans are afoot to launch Carousel Tides into the world from the town that inspired it — Old Orchard Beach, Maine.
Beggars Ride Studio and Gallery, 39 Old Orchard Street, will host the event on October 30, from 7-9 p.m. Special discounted room rates are available to book launch attendees at the Seaview Inn, 65 Grand Avenue. More details and the Secret Word here.
Do plan on coming to the book launch! I’m really looking forward to seeing lots of friends — old and new — there!
Sharon Lee
* * *
Kate Archer left home years ago, swearing that she would die before she returned to Maine. As plans go, it was a pretty good one — simple and straightforward.
Not quite fast enough, though.
Before she can quite manage the dying part, Kate gets notice that her grandmother is missing, leaving the carousel that is the family business untended.
And in Archers Beach, that means ‘way more trouble than just a foreclosure.
A tourist town in Maine hosts a war of faerie magic in this engaging urban fantasy. The fireworks begin when Kate Archer returns to Archers Beach, Maine, to search for her vanished grandmother, Bonny Pepperidge, and to assume Bonny’s role as Guardian of Fun Country, an amusement park whose carousel animals are actually exiled fae criminals. Almost immediately, Kate runs afoul of neighbor Joe Nemeier, a drug smuggler who sets his assassins after her. Then she learns from the local earth spirits that Bonny may have discovered the whereabouts of Kate’s mom, newly escaped from a pursuing demonic captor. Lee brings these disparate subplots together in a pyrotechnic finale that plays out magically behind the ordinary facade of smalltown Maine life, evoking much of the romance and magic of her popular Liaden series. (Nov.) (c)
–Publishers Weekly