Coat of Scarlet: A Clockpunk Tale, Part 2

by Siri Paulson Read Part 1 first! Two days after the visit from the airship pirate, Marius was engrossed in the tiny stitches of a buttonhole when the shop door darkened. There was Niko again, frowning at the vest Marius was holding as if it had personally offended him. Today he wore a blue damask justacorps coat, snug enough through the torso to hint at his muscular shape, then flaring over the hips to end at the knee and show his finely turned legs in their white breeches to best effect. The fabric and cut of the coat were high-quality, Marcus saw, but the gold trim and other finishing details were not nearly as fine as on the coat he had left for mending. “What is that?” the pirate demanded, gesturing elegantly towards the vest. Marius realized he’d been staring. He set his needle hand moving again. “It’s a commission. Something for a party, I understand.” He’d been lucky to get such a complex job. Maybe, just maybe it would lead to more, extravagant outfits with details like cuffs and pleats and lots of fiddly little braids, or even a mantua for a lady, where he could really shine… “And what of my coat?” Marius looked up, blinking as his concentration fell away. Niko looked as imposing as he had the first time they had met, and he moved with an ease that implied that Marius’s stitches on his injury were doing their work well. But something about the way…

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Fits and Starts

Did you know that writers are not just brains-in-a-jar? We actually have bodies. I know, I’m shocked too. It turns out that bodies have needs. I’m fairly good at remembering to feed, water, and rest mine (mostly because I turn into a giant grump if I don’t). Moving is harder (see this Awkward Yeti comic). I’m currently trying to establish a daily yoga habit…again. Here’s how it has been going: Last fall/winter: Okay, I can’t stand inaction anymore. It’s too painful (literally). I have to make a lifestyle change. January: Did a “30 Days of Yoga” challenge. It took me slightly longer than 30 days because I missed one here and there, but I was pretty consistent and finished within an extra week or so. It felt great! I was less creaky and sore! More flexible! Yay! February: 30 days is over and I feel much better. Now to keep it up! But I don’t have the challenge to guide me anymore. I have to make up my own yoga practices (or at least make decisions about which online yoga video to follow). This is hard. March: Down to once or twice a week…maybe. But I still feel a lot more limber. Now I don’t have to do yoga ever again! … June: I’m getting kinda creaky. Better pick it up again. Once or twice a week will be enough, right? July: No it will not. Ow. August: 30-day challenge, here I come again! OOPS, I got too enthusiastic. Ow.…

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The Gardening Saga Resumes

If you were around these parts last year, you might remember that my spouse and I kinda gave up on our vegetable garden for a year, covering it over with landscape fabric and mulch to try to suppress the perennial weeds (bindweeds) that had overtaken it. This year we’re trying again. But we’re trying to be smarter about it. Half of the vegetable bed is just plain covered over again. The other half has been divided into a grid system invented by my spouse, with strips of fabric surrounding 1′ X 1′ squares of open soil. (Think plaid.) The fabric parts have been mulched again, and the rest of the mulch will cover the open soil. That way, there will be a strong weed barrier over much of the garden, a weaker barrier over the rest. and we should be able to keep up a little better. At least that was the plan. But due to our work schedules, we can’t do much (or any) gardening during the week, and our last three weekends have looked like this: out of town; rainy; hot as Hades. So we haven’t finished the mulching, and the bindweed has popped up again in the squares. At least the fabric is holding them back for now. Despite our neglect, most of what we’ve planted is thriving. (Thank goodness for my in-laws, who water diligently while we’re at work!) The tomatoes in particular are loving the heat. We still have some squares to fill; I’m thinking…

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Fear of Change

I’m staring down the barrel of some rather scary changes at my job (the job I do when I’m not writing or editing or doing other stuff for TDP, that is). First of all, I’m in the civil service, there’s an election this week, and we’re anticipating a change of government for the first time since I started working here. Second, my office is moving early next year, and our work environment is set to change rather dramatically. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t facing both of those things with fear and trepidation. I’ve gotten…if not always comfortable, at least used to the way things are now. I know what to expect. I know which direction to turn when I get off the elevator. I know what the current government’s priorities and positions are, and how those translate to my job. I can see the CN Tower from my cubicle. Did I mention I’ve been in the same job for, um, a while? And that I’m not great with change? But change there will be. I can be dragged towards it kicking and screaming, or I can face it with hope that eventually, somehow, something better will come of it. The former is awfully tempting, but the latter involves more grace and more self-kindness. If I hadn’t taken the plunge and quit my former job and moved to Toronto way back when, I wouldn’t be sitting here in this 95-year-old brick house that I love. If I hadn’t…

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Looking Back

The other day, I made a list of all the stories I’ve written for Turtleduck Press. The purpose of the exercise was to have a handy reference to use for possible reprints (reselling the stories to other markets). But along the way, I got to reread some of them and remind myself what I’d done… Assuming I haven’t missed anything, I’m up to 18 (!) stories published through TDP. (Some of them are in our anthologies, others are freebies, and we decided to take the oldest ones down.) Yeah, that’s a lot…even I was surprised! But the math adds up. We’ve been publishing short stories since January 2011, and I’ve published 2-4 stories here every year since. (Okay, the math doesn’t quite add up. There was the serial that spanned a year, and now I’m embarking on another….) They’re all lengths, from under 1000 words up to 10,000, and all genres, secondary-world fantasy and Gothic and post-apocalyptic and steampunk and even poetry. Doing our anthologies has taught me how to write in the 7,000 – 10,000 word range (technically known as novelettes). Lacking inspiration with deadlines looming has taught me how to write very short, but still complete, stories. 😉 Oddly enough, I haven’t done much in the traditional short story length, 2000 – 5000 words, for a while. (Less oddly, I haven’t yet sold any stories in that mid-range length to markets outside of TDP, either.) Rereading my old stories has made me realize that I write with a…

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Coat of Scarlet: A Clockpunk Tale, Part 1

by Siri Paulson Marius glanced up from the airshipman’s breeches he was mending as the front window of his shop darkened. Someone had passed close by and was now standing in the doorway, blocking the light. A tall, bulky someone. Marius bit back his annoyance. “Come in, good sir, and tell me what Marius the Tailor can do for you.” A deep voice rumbled, “I’m told you have the finest eye in town.” Marius stared at the long justacorps coat his visitor carried, dyed in the richest red Marius had ever seen, outside of royalty. He strode to the table where Marius was sitting near the window and dumped the coat on top of the trousers. “Can you mend this?” The coat was a fine velvet. He resisted the urge to stroke it. “Is this…cochineal dye?” “That’s not your concern. Can you do it or not?” Marius flipped the coat over. A long slash ran through the right front, cutting through intricate gold braid detailing that matched the wide cuffs and pockets. The frayed edges of the braid made his heart ache. But the velvet fabric had been cut cleanly. If he patched the lining together from the inside, mended the tear with his tiniest stitches, and then covered it over by matching the braided pattern on the left front… “Yes,” he said, and looked up. His customer wore an ivory brocade jacket, a beautifully cut white linen blouse, and a tricorn hat. The only thing that ruined the effect…

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Ten Things I Learned On My Spring Vacation

I’m back from vacation! Did you miss me? (Don’t answer that.) If you’re anything like me, coming back to real life is always hard, although it’s also good to be home. And if you’re anything like me, you love to overthink analyze everything. So here goes: Things I Have Learned About Myself On Vacation. 1. When I’m on vacation, I really just want to go on leisurely walks…explore neighborhoods to find delicious restaurants and fun coffee shops…nap/lounge around…rinse and repeat. This is also true on long weekends at home, or even longer staycations–except of course it’s cheaper to do it at home. 2. But it’s nice to be away from all the “shoulds” of home, and my ongoing mental to-do list. 3. I always think I’m going to get lots of writing done. This is a lie, especially if seeing/visiting family is involved. (I miss my folks and want to spend tons of time with them when I can. Thank goodness I’m an introvert and need recharge time, and thank goodness they’re all fine with that.) The only time it ever happens is if the vacation is designated as a writing retreat and nothing else. Even then, 4 or 5 solid hours a day is my limit. Otherwise, it’s 1 or 2 hours, tops. 4. Maybe that’s okay. After all, a person needs some time off from the little niggling voice in the back of the brain that says “You should be writing!” 5. My mattress is clearly too soft,…

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Ooh, Shiny! The Art of Learning New Things

Late last year, I accidentally started learning the guitar. I didn’t mean to. See, we were cleaning up for the holidays, and my spouse’s guitar has been sitting on a stand in the corner of the living room, looking decorative and getting dusty. He picked it up to dust it and ended up plucking away on it, for the first time in a couple of years. Then I stole it and started plucking away on it. Then we started looking up chords for Christmas songs so we could sing and play together. Four weeks later, I bought my own guitar. Of course, a month after that I got hit by this year’s Death!Cold and have had no energy to practice until just these last few days. But in the intervening time, I built my calluses, learned all the common chords, can muddle my way through a couple of songs, learned the blues scale, and am working through some basic bluegrass stuff. It’s intoxicating, learning a new thing. Last year it was French. Spouse and I decided to brush up on our rusty high-school French, mostly by way of reading Harry Potter et la Chambre des secrets out loud during our commute. It worked surprisingly well. We got to the point of carrying on conversations with each other, and just barely making ourselves understood during a trip to Montreal, before running out of steam. But I haven’t lost everything. I’m still quite a bit better at reading French, and slightly better…

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Remembering Ursula K. Le Guin

Did you all hear the news that legendary SF author Ursula K. Le Guin passed away recently? Her death leaves a great disturbance in the Force, to cross a few genre threads. She was one of the giants of science fiction and fantasy. And, thankfully, she was acknowledged for it during her lifetime — she won all the major genre awards (Hugo, Nebula, Locus, and the World Fantasy Award) and was only the second woman to be named a Grand Master of Science Fiction (after Andre Norton). I was always awed by her mastery of storytelling at any length, whether short story or novella or full-length novel. And storytelling for all ages, from picture books to YA to adult — very few writers can do that! Her writing was both precise and poetic, crystalline and immediately recognizable. She was interested in ethnography and sociology, how peoples relate to each other, what cultural assumptions we make without knowing. (For example, The Left Hand of Darkness is, famously, all about deconstructing gender.) But she was brilliant at character, too, and worldbuilding. How can one person be so good at so many aspects of writing? Yet she was. Personally, I’ve read about 10 or 15 of her books. Earthsea (a trilogy at the time) was my first exposure, as it was for many. Later I went on to The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness, her later Earthsea books and her collections of shorter works. I never got as far as her poetry…

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The House Robot

The House Robot A free short story by Siri Paulson     Priya’s house was the last one on their street in Jaipur to get one of Reenu Mehta’s house robots. By that time, everyone knew how many things house robots were good for. You could order them to do your laundry – cheaper in the long run than paying a washerwoman. You could teach them to cook basic curries and naan faster than you could do it yourself. Some of them would even diagnose female complaints and tell you what medicines you needed. Only a woman engineer could have thought of that, the aunties said approvingly. So Priya talked her mother into putting aside some of Priya’s teaching salary, little by little, until they could buy a second-hand house robot. It was just as useful as advertised, and, even better, her mother was able to boast to her friends about what a good deal they had gotten. During this time, Priya’s uncle drove in from the village once in a while to see how they were getting on after the death of her father. At first he had brought money, but that had stopped after Priya’s mother turned down his offer of marriage. It was only right, he said, that he should marry his brother’s widow and so look after her. But Priya had seen the way he looked at her, and she knew it was not her mother he wanted. Since then, he only came by to issue…

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