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On the long road home.....
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Jul. 5th, 2008 @ 10:47 am
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I’m currently on the road back home. We are on Interstate 64 in Kentucky headed towards Lexington (southeast). It will probably take us another 7 hours to actually get home. But I’ll be glad to get home after such a traumatic week. I’ve never cried so much in my entire life as I did the last three days. But my sweet cousin Linda is buried in her final resting place in a beautiful cemetery in Rossville, IN. I miss her. But she is no longer in pain. We buried her with her favorite t-shirt and shorts (something she always wore) so she could be comfortable. Her husband drove us around the area last night just like Linda used to enjoy…..driving to nowhere in particular. Then the three of us went to
Dairy Queen and ordered vanilla cones dipped in chocolate (her favorite) and had a toast in tribute to her. And it being the Fourth of July here in the States, we had fireworks in celebration of both our country’s independence and for us: a celebration of Linda’s life. I have vowed to stay in closer contact with her two brothers as well as her parents. Certainly I am no replacement for her, but I intend to be there always for them. I also will keep in close contact with her husband. He’s a great guy who gave my cousin the happiest 4 years of her life. My heart aches for him as well.
Thank you to everyone who’s given me so much support in recent weeks. ( especially ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sasha_b ) Certainly this has been the toughest time in my life thus far. And now I face a very difficult task of completing my Portfolio class by the end of the month. Duane told me that Linda was planning on attending my graduation ceremony at college this December…thus he is going to try to drive down for it himself. There were so many things we had planned to do together….vacations and such…that we never got around to doing. So I also vow to make those trips. Life is too short.
Well. stopping for gas so I should get this posted now. Thanks again for all the support. I will not truly be back online fulltime until the end of July…but hopefully I can stay in touch with all of you. Current Mood:  crushed Current Music: Creed |
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Hancock
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Jul. 5th, 2008 @ 09:22 am
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Denise & went to see Hancock last night. Bottom line: it's a decent, entertaining movie with some excellent acting. Unfortunately, it could have easily been a great movie, and it isn't.
( SPOILER ALERT!!! Don't click on this unless you're fine with having the plot of this movie spoiled.... )Current Music: Kim's Chords (Non-LP Version) - Sonic Youth |
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Draft Three is Dead. Long Live Draft Four!
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Jul. 4th, 2008 @ 07:54 pm
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Draft three is done at 87,700 words. Looking back, I did the last chapter backwards and I need to flip two scenes, and there's a lot of work to be done between now and 8/1, but still... ::Insert Kermit-style cheer here::
Part of the problem with being a "full time writer" is that you don't actually get to spend the whole day writing. Taking the past few days as an example, my full-time writing has also included lawn mowing, gutter cleaning, setting up my parents' computer*, running a check to the bank for my wife, chasing down and medicating one neurotic dog who is already so freaked out by the firecrackers that she won't even let me use the bathroom in peace, cleaning the house, and oh yeah, minor things like meals.
I've settled into a routine with three writing stints: one stretch in the morning, one after lunch, and one in the evening. If I do 1000-1500 words each time, I come out with a respectible day's work. But it's a nice little reality-check to the daydream about quitting the day job.
Thanks for all of the comments and suggestions about the collection intro. Sorry I haven't been quite as responsive as usual, but if you've been reading, you know why.
Finally, I noticed that the "Friend of" list just crossed the 600 mark. Which doesn't actually mean anything, but it's fun to see the numbers turn over. I know a few people de-friended me the day of the pig/frog post, which I kind of expected, but it's nice to see more new people stopping by.
And now I'm off again to:
A) Start re-reading The Mermaid's Madness
B) Start writing that introduction
C) Start writing a letter of reference for a friend
But before I go back to the writing, I have to:
D) Clip a dog's toenails so she stops tearing up our door**
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*They fed me dinner, so I'm certainly not complaining!
**Because the cats have already been vaccuumed.Current Mood:  accomplished |
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Books of 2008, #40.
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Jul. 4th, 2008 @ 10:30 pm
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 The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis
by Elaine Morgan
It was incredibly easy to read and to follow; really, a delight for this type of literature. Overall, my great dislike for the savannah theory probably helped a bit, but I feel a bit more inclined now to believe that humans have an aquatic past than I was upon starting the book. I've enjoyed theories concerning neoteny in the past, but they've always left the question of why very open, which I don't much enjoy.
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Happy July 4th!
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Jul. 4th, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
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I just want to pass along a brief history lesson to commemorate the holiday.
After John Adams was president alongside the Alien and Sedition Acts, which very much became law because of external threats from France, and (among other things) meant you could go to jail for criticizing the government, he was voted out of office and replaced by the pro-common man Thomas Jefferson. The Acts were thrown away.
Through the War of 1812 people were calling for the Constitution to be suspended because of the threat from England. President James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, refused to do so at a time when this fragile nation was in far worse of a position to defend itself against threats of any sort than we are today--and still refused even as the British army marched on American soil and was busy burning the White House, the Capitol, and much of Washington D.C. to the ground.
The American presidents are elected leaders we have thanks to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. We owe our freedom to both of those documents, and the president is sworn upon taking office to uphold the Constitution.
It would do us well to remember that every July 4th.
Happy Independence Day!Current Mood: free Current Music: "The World Turned Upside Down" |
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Jul. 4th, 2008 @ 11:29 am
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Imagine us here, then, in the coming days . . . .
This is where we went to finish Changeling and The Privilege of the Sword, when they were both due the same week in 2005! I've been dreaming of it ever since. Thanks to Leigh & Eleanor for letting us have it. |
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a few last words on books
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Jul. 4th, 2008 @ 10:16 am
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• The elegant and affordable paperback edition of Delia Sherman's Changeling will be released on July 17th!
• We've sold Finnish rights to Thomas the Rhymer (to Vaskikirjat). I'm so happy. The translator, Johanna Vainikainen-Uusitalo, I met at the Dutch Worldcon shortly after the book came out, and she says she's been dreaming of translating it ever since - we've already had some great discussions about the (non-)intersection of British & Finnish mythic material . . . and she's a friend of author Johanna Sinisalo, whose wonderful Troll won the Tiptree. Is there a trip to Finland in our future? One can only dream. . . .
• A friend of a friend sent word of her new book, Surprised by God: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Religion (Beacon Press, August); author & rabbi Danya Ruttenberg wrote me: It's part-memoir, part cultural criticism, about the personal and political implications of taking on a religious discipline. It's the story of my own post-dotcom, punk rock Third Wave move from atheism into traditional (feminist) Judaism... ( Read more... )
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The Rove-ization of the campaign
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Jul. 4th, 2008 @ 10:03 am
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Here's an example of Rove-ian tactics, now that the McCain campaign has brought aboard a crowd of mini-me Rove-acolytes. Look at the howls of outrage that greeted Gen. Wesley Clark's comment last Sunday. From the volume of the screeching from the McCain camp, you'd think Clark had called McCain a coward who shirked his military duty.
But that's not what he said. The remark they're hopping on is this: "Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.” Clark did say that, but the comment is out of context. Clark was being interviewed on FACE THE NATION, and the interview went more like this: Clark was questioning McCain's actual experience to be Commander-in-Chief. He said: "I certainly honor his service as a prisoner of war… But he hasn’t held executive responsibility. That large squadron in the Navy that he commanded—that wasn’t a wartime squadron. He hasn’t been there and ordered the bombs to fall."
Moderator Bob Schieffer interrupted at that point, saying that “Barack Obama has not had any of those experiences, either, nor has he ridden in a fighter plane and gotten shot down."
Clark responded: “Well, I don’t think riding in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to be president.”
You see: Clark used the image that Shieffer put out there, and responded properly. There was no disrespect for McCain, and in fact, Clark made a comment that is perfectly valid.
But you'd think from the McCain camp that Clark had gone after McCain with a carving knife.
What's horrible is that the media rode the controversy -- just as they did with the Swift Boat ads. What's disturbing is that Obama caved almost immediately and 'rejected' Clark's remark rather than saying "Hey, that was a remark taken out of context, and there's nothing wrong with it. The truth is that getting shot down isn't a qualification to be president, any more than being black or being a woman qualifies you to be president. What qualifies you to be president are the ideas, the policies, and the vision you bring to the table."
Interestingly, you can see Rove-ian fingerprints all over the McCain response. The McCain campaign trotted out retired Col. Bud Day to froth at the mouth. He said: “This backhanded slap against John as not being a worthy warrior because he just got shot down is one of the more surprising insults in my military history."
As the NY Times column by Paul Krugman points out, this is the height of irony, since Day appeared in the '04 Swift boat ads questioning John Kerry's military service. Wow. Kettle, meet pot. That's ignoring the fact that Clark never said McCain wasn't a "worthy warrior" and had in fact a moment before praised McCain's war service.
Welcome to Karl Rove's third presidential campaign. Expect more of this crap. The question is: will it work this time? Will the media continue to just gleefully pile on whenever a misdirected and questionable 'scandal' erupts in the campaign? Will the Dems continue to respond as spinelessly as they did during the Kerry campaign when it happens?Current Music: Roundabout - Yes |
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Jul. 4th, 2008 @ 04:02 pm
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After doing five hours of heavy yard work in the sun, between the sweat and the SPF50 sun block and the streaks of murky black soil on my skin, I almost smell like fieldwork.
I sure wouldn't mind that 30 day excavation contract in London right about now. Speaking of which, I won't be going to France; the university declined taking any more foreigners on board. It's probably a good thing, though, because it appears the husband will be away for those very two weeks recording the new album, so we'd have to find a place to board the grey monster for two whole weeks.
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Am I weird?
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Jul. 4th, 2008 @ 11:29 pm
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I’m a writer and thus I suppose the answer to my above question is immediately ‘Yes’.
But given that all writers are weird, I’m wondering if I’m weirder than other writers.
Sometimes when I write a story, either long or short, I get this ‘feeling’. It’s more than just the constant chatter in my brain by the characters, it’s more than my mind wandering over the words written or yet to be written during the day (and night). It’s even more than finding myself visualising a scene and translating that visual into the written word, usually in my head.
It is a palatable attachment.
I desire to write, to share what I ‘see’ and ‘hear’, with other so bad I can taste it.
It is a struggle to work. I can be conversing with someone and a minor detail or word can trigger the muse awake, and my characters jump to life.
Driving is a nightmare, especially alone. I could turn on the radio and blast my mind into numbness, but I fear losing the hold, the words and the vision, (not that that has ever happened).
Sleep doesn’t come easy. I stay up waiting for the rest of the family to retire and I can immerse myself into writing. And the clock ticks silently by until I realise that if I go to bed immediately I will only have 4 hours sleep. Yet I am wide awake and though I lie under the bedclothes in a darkened, almost silent room, with only the night sounds, or worse the predawn sounds, there is no silence within my head. Eventually I sleep; I know that because I am conscious of waking.
Despite only a few hours sleep I wake refreshed. And so do my characters.
And the cycle starts again.
For days I can feel them, see them, hear them, taste them. I desire to be with them, to be involved in their lives, to be the one who lets them out into the world.
My head bursts with words, my stomach churns and there is this particular taste in my mouth. And the words come. And come and come.
Then at some point, it ends.
The vision is there still, the muse still lets me hear the conversations, I still want to write. But the impatience, the overriding need, the taste of it isn't.
That doesn't mean I can't write, that I don't, just that I am not driven to write this particular story. It means that I can slow down, take time and think things through. And write.
Oh and sleep. |
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Jul. 4th, 2008 @ 07:38 am
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iai -- good class, after all, which will be behind flock.
judo -- Ouch.
No, really. Ouch. First I got pinched really good taking an ouchi gari from D when he kind of fell into the throw, necessitating that he put his entire upper body weight onto the pinched place (under my upper arm) to right himself. Ouch!
Then, did you know the under arm seam of a judogi can feel like a knife? Especially when sawed across that tender under arm area for extended periods? Something H does to hold me off him in matwork has done that twice. Must figure a way around this . . .
While I was waiting in the parking lot for sensei to show up, a carload of young guys and a girl showed up and wandered around looking at the business signs. They went to our door, then to the main door and went inside. They were looking for us, apparently, so when they came out I asked if they were looking for judo. They said yes, and I said they should hang out or come back @ 7:30. They asked if I was in the class, but I avoided answering and answered the previous question about the club not being associated with the aikido place (with which we share space), which is why the practice times are not on their website.
They said they would come back.
When sensei came I said there was a carload of folks who showed up and asked about classes. "But I didn't like the looks of 'em, so I told them to go someplace else."
"Oh, really?" (I had him going there, he looked a bit bemused.)
"Well, no. I told them to come back between 7:30 and 8. But I didn't like the looks of them."
At which point A chimed in and said they looked like MMA guys, which is of course what I meant. And I said, "I need more of that like I need a hole in my head. Let's do kata tonight."
The one guy in the tank top and shorts -- white shorts, with a design that looked in my peripheral vision to mimic a black belt -- came back. Sensei had just listened to his message on the answering machine, so was able to greet him by name, and told him to have a seat and make himself comfortable. MMA whelp asked if he could join in (he didn't bring a gi, so I don't know what he'd do for clothes), and Sensei said, "why don't you watch this class. You can join in next time."
Mind you, the older guy who showed up with a gi and had experience in aikido was invited to join in.
Opposite poles. ;-)
We didn't do any kata. :-(
naginata -- grr! But I think I'll get my naginata in the Mini-me's hands this weekend, because I think it will help her posture in judo.
work -- heh! ^_^;
family -- The Boy is off to Maine for vacation with friend & family.
school -- grr, classes
reading -- Forgot my Samson yesterday, so Tale of Genji it was. He's pining after the Lady of the Evening Faces. Who died the night he spirited her away for a romantic getaway in a rundown estate.
writing -- On hold until I have a day off. It's probably not as bad as I think it is.
It's probably worse.Current Mood:  weaknd plz, kthxbai Current Music: Silver And Cold - A.F.I. |
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Seen earlier
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Jul. 4th, 2008 @ 01:36 am
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Jul. 4th, 2008 @ 02:50 pm
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Duh. As I trawled through my old entries, I found some pretty embarrassing typos in the post about whether musketeers were supposed to aim their weapons or not. Oh well--at least they've been corrected now. |
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(seasons) Metrics for 7/3/08
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Jul. 4th, 2008 @ 01:53 am
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starting count: 84380
ending count: 85095
change: +715
starting line:
Shit.
ending line:
For the second time in ten minutes, Diana’s world came to a stupefied halt as she stared at the girl who had haunted her dreams for most of the past two months.
darling:
She really hadn’t changed much: same blonde hair, same blue eyes, same cold haughtiness wrapped in almost childlike innocence. Funny how some people would look the same at sixty as they did at sixteen.
**
Someone's dead! And the showdown has started. We have Chrys, Nikki, Thom, Diana, Cleo and Alex all in one place.
Can we say boom, ladies and gentlemen?Current Mood:  sleepy Current Music: Biography - Dolly Parton |
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Hail and Farewell for now
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 11:24 pm
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Delia & I are off to the wilds of Maine tomorrow, to a magical house over the water lent us by her oldest friend, for a lengthy and much-needed writing retreat: she to finish her revisions on The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen (sequel to Changeling) and I to try to finish a couple stories and start a script for a kids' play - oh, and finish that comic script! By July 15 we must make our way toOdyssey to teach, and from there proceed at a stately pace to Readercon. So don't look to hear from us for awhile: in Maine we will have access only to dial-up connection, mostly - and a good thing, too, or I would be spending every available minute for the next few weeks just playing with Wordle, a cool new toy that matociquala found for us:
This is of the opening and closing paragraphs of The Privilege of the Sword. Enchantment, thy name is Wordle. |
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Oops.
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 09:26 pm
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Haven't blogged in a few days. Nothing terribly exciting. The wordcount slows to a trickle mid-week because my brain activity slows to a trickle. I'm hoping to get some good page-count this weekend so I can get this off my desk and concentrate on other things.
And...that's all I got for now.Current Mood:  boring |
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sexy art from Colleen
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 08:06 pm
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Updates, Thoughts, and a Question about Der Goblin Held
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 07:54 pm
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1. The flaming clowns from yesterday were dispatched through a number of clever devices built with skateboards, model rockets, roofing tar, marbles, and the old baby monitor. Once that was all taken care of, I managed another 3000 words to finish up this chapter, leaving only the wrap-up to go. There are a lot of loose ends to deal with in this book, but the fighting is done. Call it another 3-5K and I should have a third draft.
2. Ever repeat a word so much it starts to lose its meaning? Writing a book is like that, only with 90,000 words.
3. I need a little help from the LJ mind. In addition to the novel, I also told my German editor I'd try to write an introduction for my collection. The trouble is, I've got no idea what approach to take with this. So I thought I'd ask all of you. What sort of things do you like to see in the opening pages of a collection or anthology? What approaches bore you to tears? What special insights would you want into either the stories or the author?
4. In the first chapter of the latest Simon Green book, our hero shoots several demons with a gun that fires projectiles made of frozen holy water. It's a brilliant idea ... or rather, it would be, if I hadn't seen the "ice bullet" myth so conclusively busted on an episode of Mythbusters. Maybe this is supposed to be a magic gun, I don't know. But I think Mythbusters should be required viewing for would-be authors. |
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 06:16 pm
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Google Must Divulge YouTube Log
No. Just...no.Current Mood:  pissed off Current Music: Taxi No 9211: Udne Do |
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That 100 Books Meme
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 08:50 pm
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http://lostfort.blogspot.com/2008/07/that-100-books-meme.html
Since that dang meme pops up everywhere, I felt I can't escape any longer. Here we go.
Instructions:
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who've read six and force books upon them.
1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte
(4 Harry Potter series – J.K. Rowling)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty-Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles– Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – J.R.R. Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – C.S. Lewis
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin – Louis de Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
47 Far From the Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafón
57 A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love in the Time of Cholera – Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby-Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From a Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – A.S. Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web – E.B. White
88 The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
The list somewhat mirrors the fact I've attended school in Germany; I think there are some books I didn't bold that are on the school canon in English speaking countries. Though we did have to read Orwell.
I put Harry Potter in brackets because I only read the first two and skimmed 3 and 4 - YA isn't for me most of the time; the reason there's no C.S. Lewis ony my list. And even The Hobbit is a book I read only once while I reread Lord of the Rings regularly. Same for Pullman.
I'm missing more Dostoyevski on the list and German and Scandinavian authors are sadly underrepresented - is there one at all?
I also didn't italic books I intend to read because there are none of those left I want to read - life is too short and there are too many interesting books to spend time reading stuff that doesn't call to me. My You Must Read That for the Examn days are over. *grin*
Anyone want to play? |
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Things You Don't Expect To Find In The Almost-D.C. Metro Area, Part Two (16 Pictures)
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 03:48 pm
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More of the ongoing shots I took on June 22nd hanging out with Walt / whiskeyrivers in western Loudoun County, Virginia.
Still at Great Country Farms in Bluemont...
( +15 )Current Mood: maudlin Current Music: Scott Joplin |
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Things You Don't Expect To Find In The Almost-D.C. Metro Area, Part One (16 Pictures)
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 03:16 pm
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In between my Shenandoah Valley scenic roamings I got to spend a couple of all-too-short days in Northern Virginia with my friends Walt / whiskeyrivers, Tamara / mauzybroadway, James Stewart, and other folks as they were able. Sunday was spent mostly with Walt, as he showed me around various places in western Loudoun County that he'd been wanting me to see since last summer. Now eastern Loudoun is being developed to the hilt, but I'm all in favor of the western county's secession movement, and you'll probably figure out why when you see the pictures.
(I should also point out that I used to live in western Loudoun County, near a little town called Aldie, which is still filled primarily with farms and 18th and 19th century buildings.)
Unfortunately I don't have the pictures yet of me jumping on the big inflatable pumpkin trampoline, or crashing a self-powered scooter into a rock . . .
On Route 7 between Leesburg and the Shenandoah River.
( +15 Pictures )Current Mood: warm Current Music: Scott Joplin |
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A Minimalist Progress Report
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 02:08 pm
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I did write yesterday to the tune of about 2200 words (the book's now up to the Summer of 1736 with pioneer settlement underway), but I can't post any of it as I had to save yesterday's work on an old floppy that goes THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK THUNK in both computers here at my summer work desk. Though I can also say I didn't quite finish the chapter last night, as I (1) changed what I was going to write about and thus made the final section much longer, and (2) had half a brain stoppage, in which I knew what needed to happen but I wasn't sure how to pull it off. True to the brain stoppage form, the answer popped into my head earlier this afternoon.
I also just got an e-mail from Marge Simon letting me know she was buying my not exactly doom-and-gloom post-apocalyptic poem "Today in the Power Outage" for Star*Line. It's slated for the May / June 2009 issue. Woot! Even if I'm not getting any short stories written while working on Shenandoah, I am at least still cranking out the occasional verse.Current Mood:  chipper Current Music: Emily Easterly |
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Meeting Obligations
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 12:10 pm
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A lot of factors went into the timing of my career shift - tons of internal-to-the-law-firm politics, a careful study of books that I had under contract and proposals that I wanted to complete for new series, the heartfelt desire to preserve a long-scheduled vacation.... Ultimately, I was able to pick a Freedom Date (June 13) that met all of my goals and obligations, except for one: I was scheduled to speak at the American Association of Law Libraries annual meeting in Portland, OR, on July 13.
The cost of the trip made it prohibitive for me to go, once I was no longer employed. Not only was there the conference registration fee, but there was airfare (climbing higher, even as I checked the cost!), hotel, and meals. And there was the very real consideration that the time I'd be there was time that I wouldn't be advancing my writing goals.
But I was a speaker. And I had a co-speaker, J. When I contacted J and told her the bad news, she responded like any librarian would. First, she offered a practical solution, suggesting that I room with her, for free. (I was truly grateful, but the other costs were still too high.) Next, she proposed a technological solution - we could record my parts of the presentation, then update the Convention folks with our new tech needs. She would speak between my recorded bits.
So, yesterday, I drove up to Central Pennsylvania, to record my parts of the presentation. The trip was a bit long - 2.5 hours there and 3 hours back (given traffic.) But the drive was easy and a lot of the scenery was beautiful. J and I had a nice lunch, catching up on careers, love of reading and writing, and life in general.
One of J's coworkers helped us with the techie aspects of the recording. I did my best to wow and engage an absent room of 350 attendees. The recording worked flawless (mechanically).
I have felt guilty that my career choice had a negative impact on an innocent "bystander", but J rose to the occasion with a spirit to make every librarian proud. And now, I've discharged all of my library obligations...
Mindy, committing to spending six months on the writing career before building the library consultant career more.
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Uninspired to Blog
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Jul. 3rd, 2008 @ 08:41 am
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