There Will Be a post A Little Later

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

I’m finishing a short story.

Some years ago I wrote a a short story for an anthology. The anthology was fantasy and despite the story screaming in my mind being science fiction, I went ahead and mutilated the world/set up to fit. Just so the world would shut up for a moment.

But I always wanted to write the story properly. Series of short novels, I figure.

If it works, this short story will be the first couple of chapters of the novel, but also self-contained as a story.

It’s just going slower than I wanted it to. And I still have to put up a Christmas tree… And the Misoite cats will probably help.

Wish me luck.

54 thoughts on “There Will Be a post A Little Later”

  1. Let’s have some image story prompts from the commenters, rather than Sarah, just for fun. I’ll start with a sculpture I like to call “The Dragon and the Dentist”:

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    3. BTW, that sculpture is real, and was priced (in 2005) at $5,000. In my opinion, whoever bought it got good value for their money.

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    2. Kitties are wonderful help putting up a tree

      Dep729 you say that but I do not think it means what you think it means.

      The thought of the Misoite engineer cats helping to put up a Christmas tree is a little bit daunting,

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      1. Trust me, I do know. There is a reason we have very few glass ornaments, round or not.

        Keeping said tree up, is also a challenge.

        The only problem we didn’t have was getting the tree in the stand straight. Because we didn’t do it. The tree farm we bought trees from had a specific stand type, buy one, return with one year after year, and they put it on. Straight, every single year. Even lights were easy (ish, baring cat help untangling. I swear they got put away not tangled!) Helped that when taken down prior year, made sure working. Before putting on made sure working. Then on tree added the Hallmark fancy ornaments that used the light sockets. Only problems then were making sure light wires were protected from cats. Then add remaining ornaments. Ornament safety is don’t buy ornaments the cats can break. Might have to do a search for multiple, but at least they couldn’t break them. Also did not use wire hooks (cat safety). We never, after first year, used tinsel because of the cats.

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        1. Indeed we’ve had cats since 1991 and tinsel is a no-no. I never really liked it anyway it was an even worse contributor to mess than the needles as the tree dried. Surprisingly we’ve ONLY had one tree climber one of our first kitties.

          The Nativity scene on the other hand has gotten pretty severe abuse. One manger had a straw roof and that became kitty fodder later found in the cat box. Also it can be VERY hard on angels and shepherds (and sheep!) we’ve lost a couple of those. Running joke is the reason the angels told the shepherds “Be not Afraid” was because there were several 40′ cats guarding Mary, Joseph and the Saviour. You don’t cross a 40′ cat…

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        2. You can’t have icicles if you have doggos. Unless you want to have to chase down doggo and remove the second, shiny, tail sprouting below the original…..

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          1. My parents had a dog with the Christmas nickname “Tinsel Tail” for a different reason; he would wag his tail on the tree and it would get covered.

            That dog did not go in for nutritional indiscretions, thankfully, though he was the reason my dad got a Fido Shock (low-grade electric fence) for the garden.

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          2. I’ve never been found of the tinsel icicles anyway. We’ve had cats since ’79. Started having trees in ’89. Between toddler and cats, tinsel was a huge NOPE. Haven’t had a tree since before we got Pepper as a puppy, so she has never been a problem.

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    3. Which is why RedQuarters is treeless this year. Jase is a bit too helpful, and has started gnawing on bristly things, just to sample the texture. (Although he was not fond of the rosemary branch I dropped on the way to the kitchen.)

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  7. And, dear hostess, don’t feel the Lone Ranger (as SSG Jenkins used to say) not having your tree up; dress designer and aspiring computer designer just put ours up last night.

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    1. We haven’t put up a tree or decorations now for years.

      Not that we can’t afford one, but trees locally, unless we go in to the national forest to cut our own, are horribly expensive. Then the tree farm we usually use “farmed out” it’s operation (great-grandparents and grandparents retired, no one wanted to run the tree farm). Leasers ran the local tree lot for a year or two, but stopped doing that.

      I’ve even stopped buying annual dated Christmas decorations. If I’d kept that up, this would be 47th ornament (1st Christmas, and first ornament, was 9 days after we got married).

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      3. Our first Christmas, I took a small pine from the yard. A very sappy pine. That Boxing Day, Home Depot had an artificial tree on a deep discount (IIRC, a 7′ tree for something like $25. This in 2003.)

        We kept the tree until a couple years ago. The 4′ table-top tree Was Not Acceptable, so the ‘zon sent a 6’ tree for this year. $SPOUSE is happy. Kat-the-dog is happy. So, I’m happy.

        Glass ornaments were tolerable, even when I had Isis and Ishtar, two 6 pound troublemaking kittehs. No problem with the Italian Greyhounds, but Sara the Lab-Aussie and Angie the Border Collie were far too inquisitive about shiny glass ornaments. Kat’s pretty good about ornaments, but the ones we hold dear to us are too high for her to check. Others, she can nose.

        We donated the glass ornaments to the church but they didn’t survive the extremely clumsy minister. That was an interesting church, now disbanded and the building sold to an independent, active congregation. (Far better than the half-dozen people we had at services before we left.)

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    1. Got a text from my sister in Sacramento (the chemist) this morning.

      She is a long-time lead-member of the Cathedral Choir; as is typical this time of year, they were rehearsing for assorted appearances and last night with some musical instruments.

      Her birthday is the 17th. Last night, the entire choir, accompanied by piano, string quartet, trumpets, a trombone and a french horn, sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her!

      They’re a good choir; I’ve watched them streamed on Youtube.

      My personal birthday gift request is uniformly ‘do not sing’. I appreciate the sentiment, but so few people can sing the result is slightly painful.

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      1. Aww, that’s nice. I’ve gotten that once or twice.

        She’s probably not free to see Amahl and the Night Visitors/The Four Lost Santas this weekend if she’s performing, but I’ll wave good performance vibes in her direction when I see it. (I’m associated with the company performing it, currently doing photography for them since I’m not available for stage work.)

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  9. One of my coworkers received a tube-mailer recently. Opened it up and popped out a fully-decorated 24″ Christmas tree. Add two AA batteries and place where needed.

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      1. I know how it is with programmers. I was one. I will not code now because that is a rabbit hole I do not need to go back down. Dan needs to stop this. Not good for his health, no matter how healthy he is. Worse for those of us over 60. Being essentially forced to quit (not fired, just not wanting to be collateral damage office statistic) was the best thing to happen. My 2 cents. Yes I know how programmers get roped into working these hours. I hope he is at least logging them. It is still wrong to get forced into doing so.

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  12. I haven’t got the two small trees up, because I’m going to have to tie them down. The cats have already knocked them down. But I have plenty of paracord and a good knowledge of all the useful knots.

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