Category: Writing

2500 word day

I’m supposed to be editing, but I ended up adding and deleting and adding and deleting…. and the adding was 2500 words more than the deleting.  So I’m going to have some hot chocolate and run a couple of loads of laundry and call it a day.

Oh, and it’s official. I am no longer looking for work.  I wrote a long, sick, sad post about it, but I am just going to suck it up and say NO to gainful underemployment.  Or as John frequently remarked, “I’m far too well to come to work today.”

Maybe Jeff wants to watch some more Agents of Shield.

 

 

List of projects

My current list of writing projects, which represents pious hope rather than firm commitment, is now in my portfolio.

Paul took me for a walk yesterday.  It was quite pleasant, and we all watched tv afterwards.

I forgot to mention (what a CRAPPY grandmother) that I saw Alex on Sunday.  It is simply astonishing how much gas that kid makes.  He farts pretty much continuously. He gave me another sly little social smile.  He likes being held, that’s for sure.

Autumn is still terrorizing Margot.

 

 

 

Checklist for my novel

Jeff was kind enough to send me this.  I think I hit five out of six.  However, I shouldn’t call it anything before it’s published.

For me I want a novel I write to do the following:

Take you someplace you haven’t been before – in this case into an implausible but internally consistent mode of being alien.

Make you think.  If an SF novel doesn’t make you think at least a moment about ‘what it is to be human’ or ‘the utter strangeness of how it is we are starstuff that does laundry’ then it’s missing an essential nucleobase from its DNA.

Make you worry.  If you don’t worry about what is going to happen to the characters next or what traps lie in store, you’re not connected to them.

Make you laugh.  Either to release pressure or to make a point which cannot be deftly made in exposition.

Leave enough to your imagination that the book can be your co-creation.

Play fair with the story.  My biggest resentments with Dunnett have to do with how the breadcrumb she left regarding our hero’s paternity is nanometrically tiny in the second series and non-existent in the first. (Yes, she recreates the paternity issue as the warp drive of the plot in the second series, but I don’t give a shit about how plot is repetitive.  If it wasn’t repetitive, it wouldn’t be plot, and it ain’t the premise it’s the people.)

Represent a notion of justice, equity, fairness and truth by the speech and actions of the protagonist and her associates. Novels are a very sophisticated way to broach these issues because even though you can be invested in the actors you can’t get killed.  Further, you can represent extremes of morality or fine gradations, thus providing emotionally meaningful denouements or hair splitting distinctions, which is intellectually fun.

Be grounded in the physical reality of human life without being enslaved by it.

 

That’s all I can think of right now.

 

 

 

 

Delightful time

I had a simply wonderful time at the fOlks’.

I made biscotti.  I wrote about 300 new words and deleted about 500 old ones.  mOm and I completely worked our way through the edits for the first 112 manuscript pages.  (She read, I typed…. goes very fast that way).  I plan at least one more pass to ensure that I’ve incorporated all of Diane’s suggestions.  We laughed A LOT and it was like a fantasy come true.  I’m in my favourite room in the whole world WORKING like a RENTED MULE on something that will hopefully make people laugh, think, and maybe if I’m really really really lucky, influence the course of a scientific investigation (the highest praise for SF, screw the awards.  mOm knows I am not in it for fame, or awards.  I’m doing it for her. I’m writing SF for my mother, and so if she likes it (and she does) I’m okay.  (Diane occasionally provided editorial evidence that she was enjoying it.)

I got 600 words into my January homily.

I taught mOm how to cook neeps without them disintegrating.  (Starfit fry cutter and then steam for two-three minutes).  I cooked some beef tenderloin for pOp so that it was neither burned on the outside nor underdone in the middle.

We went to Dan’s, and saw the swans, and the million dollar properties up the hill in Saanich.  I saw Diane and got a sense of when I’ll be able to get the next batch to her. We laughed at the antics of the birds – pogoing Mountain Jays and pugnacious hummingbirds.

I had a dream where I found $50 folded in half and blown up against some weeds on a sidewalk in a town I’ve never been to.

We got a network cable run into the guest bedroom (Alex has already indicated her approval of this message.)  The cable is long enough to run out to the gazebo.  Happy days of writing with the birds, bees and a pan-pipe playing piggy are now in prospect.

We went through mOm’s Narnia-scale wardrobe of fabrics and I got a 25 cm tall stash of various kinds of fabric for baby and steampunk projects.

Katie’s quilt was ready, so I brought it back across the Salish Sea.

It was good and productive and I’ve written 500 words since I got back and tightened up some of Part II.  I am much less afraid of the editing process.  I am not a perfect writer.  Perhaps I shall learn to be a consistent one.

I have the names for all three books now.  Midnite Moving Company will be set in the same universe but about Jesse and Michel.  We see much more of Jesse and Michel in Part II.  Since mOm is eager to read even a messed up first draft of that, I should get on it.

Yay, it’s an Alexander day!

Alex will be at church with Katie, or so it was arranged and I piously hope will come to pass.  I do coffee today so it’s even money whether or not I get to be upstairs for the homily portion.  Sue is taking me in early and I’ll do an inventory and see if there’s enough of whatnot for coffee etc., then cross the street and pick it up.  Happy daze.  Should be a good homily though. Marilyn asked me to do another homily for January 4 – one of the worst attended days of the year – so I’m going to do what I can to boost the numbers.  If you’re reading this, why not come to church that day!!??

THE GREAT YULETIDE COOKIEPALOOZA happens next Friday.  It will turn into a filk.  A messy messy housefilk, with crumbs and greasy thumbprints on the music.  Yes, indeed.  Thanks to Tom and Peggy for hosting.  We will also have the AMERICAN CONTINGENT, being the uber crafty Jeri-Lynn and the suavely geeky Jeff.  Who are just so awesome.  Cindy and possibly others will attend also.

It’s raining.  After yesterday’s glorious sun (which I got to walk around in, thanks to Paul not understanding that the Brighton Costco parking lot at 11 am is the worst fucking place in the known universe and how long precisely has he been living in Burnaby grumble grumble, but no harm done).  I drove through the parking lot and then drove back to Planet Bachelor and walked home from there, accompanied by Keith who just felt like continuing the conversation, which was pleasant, and made the walk back go in an eyeblink.  I needed the exercise.  I really wanted to pick some stuff up at Costco because there’s some bread there I can’t find anywhere else plus cheap butter and you know, baking, but perhaps I can borrer the car.  Apart from the walk and the abortive Costco trip I basically stayed in bed crying all day, but I’m feeling much better now.  Tammy is coming in December! Conflikt 8 (I can scarcely credit it…) is coming! And I still haven’t registered or figured out how I am getting there.  If I’m staying extra long I may need to like, bus it.  Bleaaugh.

I love my mOm and pOp.  mOm provided the correct stream of unfiltered bubbliness (occasionally going off mike to inform pOp of my responses) to assist with my bad case of the Marthambles – why, she’s better than a dose of Dr. Tufts finest elixir.

Still no cat.  I suspect what has happened is that the daughter has flung herself on the ground and pleaded her mom not to let Autumn go and the mom has been too embarrassed to tell Jeff she’s changed her mind, but perhaps Jeff is right and it’s just taking longer than expected.  Sometimes I think this culture is so indulgent to its children because these are the last good days and everybody’s trying to make them seem extra special.

I removed an incredible amount of hair surplus to requirements from Margot yesterday.  She was not amused.

Day five of Vitamin D, Vitamin C, B6, probiotics and MSM.  I am definitely feeling less achey, except for my hands, which is making me not want to play my Otto.

Jeff’s playing computer games on line with somebody, I assume Andrew – I can hear him talking to somebody on the headset.  “I think we just combined to kill one of our own tanks!” is the latest.

With sadness, I have cancelled the piano lessons.  He wasn’t listening to my course corrections and I’m not paying a man $35 bucks an hour to ignore me when I can have it for free any time I want on the internet.

My most recent painting is an unmitigated disaster.  I am going to paint over it.  I got the colours right but the design has much suckage – I think I’ll paint over it as a zombie heart.

Now to make a chocolate cake for church and figure out what I am going to wear.  And I have to remember to take a tape measure, for I mean to measure some crania, I do, I do, for future hatmaking endeavours.  Hats and spats. Cravats with cats. Fingerless gloves and pleather utility belts. I have to figure out how to make a living, and since there seems to be an inexhaustible interest in the steampunk aesthetic, I shall pursue that hobby for a while.

 

Poem

The Other

I have a little other
I keep him safe with me
I cannot let him out to play
on that we can agree
He is a he and I am she
He’s grey and I am pink
All day lies he’s telling me
to say aloud and think
I’d like to think I’m smarter
I can keep him in his cage
perhaps instead to barter
his freedom for my rage
When I am whole and thinking straight
He cannot make me speak
when I’m frightened or upset
out the harsh words leap
The racial slurs, the horrid words
we use on young and old
“It’s just the way that I was taught
and how the tale is told”
My little other likes to laugh
at other folks’ expense
and wastes his brain in throwing shade
and vilest arguments
And with him I must abide
and I can never still him
He will always live inside
and I must never kill him
For if I do I will not know
that I am moving forward
I have to chase him as he goes
like naughty children doorward
He is my care long as I live
I wish I’d never met him
But he is not the boss of me
No, if I don’t let him.

Would you believe that close

Oh, man, Jeff would have laughed his ass off if he’d seen me doing the trash yesterday.  The garbage truck comes down the alley one way and then back up t’other, so I had some warning, but I ran around like a hopped up honey badger throwing the garbage and recycling together.  I spent so much time cleaning out the fridge in the early hours of yesterday morning (and by Toutatis, it needed it) that I didn’t actually have things ready to go when the truck rumbled by.  Fortunately everything was in order when they came back up the hill.  And even more fortunately, the lingering smell of DEATH, CORRUPTION AND HORROR in the kitchen should be entirely gone as everything narsty is gone as well.

Yesterday I went to the single most bizarre job interview EVAR.  It was a masterpiece, a confection of weird, a symphony of surreal.  JUST IN CASE I get the job, I shall not describe it further. I was already in New Westminster, so I phoned Katie and she said c’mon by, so I did.

Alexander farts a lot.  He also blew his first raspberry yesterday. (We howled.) He is already lifting his head; he’s average size but holy crap he’s strong.

Then I walked over to the beer store and went home.

I have printed off the first section of the novel and will be mailing it the the editor today.  Heaving sighs.

I am also going to be sending something to Sandra, but she doesn’t read this blog any more so it will still come as a surprise to her.  I still have some t’s to cross.

Ain't he cute???
Ain’t he cute???

 

Two births in one day

I know that sounds strange, but it’s true, and I can’t really talk about the other birth; it’s a creative birth, happened right in front of me, on line, in real-time, and I was a midwife.  And that sounds very self-serving.  I will be still and just post part of what I wrote for the occasion.

 

being a bard

you write even when your heart

can’t be in it

the people depend on

the story and song you bring them

without story the people die

and without song

they don’t remember the story

;

the bard can’t always be there

.

facing illness

rejection

ill-temper in others

and whatever griefs and shames

and inversions of purpose

may be the bard’s

forward

!

you think you have

a dry stick in your hand

you strike the earth and water comes up

and you have a hand on a tree

and sun in your eyes through the leaves

.

Singing

I have worked up the chords for Just Might Stick Around (it’s in E minor, just like most of Cohen’s tunes).  It amazes me that there is A WEBSITE that has THE SINGING RANGES of various popular singers.  So I was able to google “What is Leonard Cohen’s singing range” and POOF.  All this information, there really is too much of it.

Do you like owls? I do too.  These youngsters are adorable.

Keith came over yesterday and we sat on the back deck in the steadily diminishing sun, and watched Beasts of the Southern Wild (a problematic movie BUT I loved it anyway) and around a store bought roast chicken I assembled baby steamed baby carrots and broccoli, plus when I heard Keith was coming I decided to make garlic bread; the lads fell on it with a will and there’s leftovers for lunch.  At 4 I go over to Tom and Peggy’s to sing and commune with some of the finest, best, most amiable, intelligent and hospitable friends any sane human can ask for.   WE ARE GOING TO SING CAT FABER’S WORD OF GOD IN CHURCH TOMORROW. Means nothing to you, but Tom has been waiting for this day for 10 years.  In his glee I reflexively bask. Cat has written some awesome tunes, which you can read lyrics for here here here here and here, and that’s only a fraction.  A teeny fraction.  She rounds off her accomplishments by being a rather exceptionally pleasant human.

My character George on the subject of death.  “I will continue. My perception of that continuance will not.”

Prior to sings0ngapalooza, novel assembly tasks.

There’s a Vogon Poetry Generator on the interwebs!  Isn’t it cute?

 

See, see the Intelligent sky
Marvel at its big kimshee depths.
Tell me, Liz do you
Wonder why the honey badger ignores you?
Why its foobly stare
makes you feel groggy.
I can tell you, it is
Worried by your sploogey facial growth
That looks like
An egg.
What’s more, it knows
Your frigate potting shed
Smells of Kermit.
Everything under the big Intelligent sky
Asks why, why do you even bother?
You only charm compost.

Rehearsal was excellent, more of the same tonight.

One think and another

Okay TODAY my calves hurt (but nothing else does, thankfully).  I made coffee this morning using the really yummy medium blend that Leo and Linda left us.  We haven’t had the coffee maker upstairs for the best part of a year, so that’s interesting.  And motorvating.

I love ice cream, but not when the people who sell it don’t know how to store it.  I’ll leave the rest of it to Jeff if he can stand it, but I am vastly preferring my version of the I Hate to Cook Book’s chocolate cake.  Which reminds me, must put cake flour on the shopping list, as it really makes a difference for baking.  Also on the list, more acrylic paint and please some more canvasses, smaller this time.

Chicken’s on to thaw for chicken schnitzel for lunch.  Have to figure out which veg to serve, and that means cleaning out the fridge.

Anil Dash on 15 years of blogging (I just passed my tenth anniversary, but like, who cares… except me, I am going back through the entire blog and pinching all the good stuff to put in yet another project called “Broad Hints” which also has recipes and other stuff.  Sort of like a ‘cream of condensed Allegra’).

I am learning Big Hard Sun by Indio.

 

Church at the beach

Well, I took those 478 steps yesterday to Wreck.  When Mike and I got there, there was an immense fog blowing across Marine Dr.  For maybe thirty seconds we debated going down to the beach, as it appeared a breezy and clammy time was to be had, but by three o’clock the fog had moved across the inlet where it formed an amorphous but solid appearing wall, 15 stories high.

There were alcohol and food vendors there and no cops.  I got a little singed but the sun wasn’t very fierce. Mike brought his Taylor and I brought Otto, and we sang and played, Dylan and other gods and goddesses.  There was a very light breeze and all in all it was very very pleasant.

We took it easy going up the stairs.  I concentrated on breathing and body mechanics to ensure that I didn’t strain anything.  I got home and because I am no fool I showered and changed before bed; that beach at the end of the season is like a very scratchy petri dish.

Damn, it was nice. I tripped on rhodopsin for a while, experiencing that wonderful progression of colours and geometry that happens when you stare at the sun with your eyes closed for at least ten minutes and then cover your eyes.  First, your visual field goes an inky, depthless black.  Then purple, a colour so strong and overwhelming that you gasp as it comes on, fills from the centre to the periphery. Then the centre turns a malignant orangey copper, and from that springs a deep magenta, so it looks like a pop art eye. Expanding out from the magenta is that same inky depthless darkness, now almost deep blue, with teal semi circles radiating out from that centre.  Very gradually, everything turns a pale silvery green; then brittle diamond shaped lozenges of fiery orange, yellow and red, march up and down your visual field like the very finest mushroom high. Unlike every other time I’ve done this, the colour progression repeated thrice before the last of the visual effects died off (obviously nowhere near as strong, but it was interesting to look at even as attentuated as it was). As always, I feel as strong as Jack the Bear after I do that, and I am much refreshed both mentally and physically.

A week or so ago I listened via NPR to the new Leonard Cohen album, so his voice was still in my head when I was in the shower last night.  Michel, one of the characters in the novel, still didn’t have a song, so I was thinking… Michel lived in Montréal for years, maybe a song in the style of Leonard Cohen?  Michel is staying in town simply and solely to get his mitts on Kima, so I thought ….  (and this is not a song a Sixer would ever write.  They do not infantilize lovers; they don’t smile, they don’t wear hats.  So this is what happens when pop culture gets through with Michel.  In real life, he’d say nothing, sing nothing, present her with nothing except himself.)

 

I just might stick around, baby

I just might stick around

Normally after a week I see

Nothing new in town

A light is glowing in your eyes

My very breath is bound

I just might stick around, baby

Maybe I’ll stick around

If you didn’t know you were special, baby

If you didn’t know you’re great

I’d hop a freight, jump aboard a freighter

Tip my hat, say see ya later

But no one else has quite your style

Not your figure, nor your smile

Yes there’s something new in town

I just might stick around

Someone asks George what 5 things he’d change about his life

From his Reddit AMA:

 

What are five things you’d change about your life if you could?

Thank you for your sneakily courteous question, which is actually five questions.  I suspect my list looks much the same as anyone else’s.  I want to achieve my career goal of becoming an astronaut (or taikonaut, or cosmonaut).  I want to be a father, possibly a better one than my own, but we judge these things differently in my culture.  I wish I had better time management skills; I work to a different timescale and speeding up to human tempo is hard work. I’d find out what happened to a woman I introduced to Kima a long time before she was ready, since I would like the chance to apologize.  All my efforts to locate her have been fruitless and I feel very bad about that.  And ….I’d never talk to another lawyer.  I like my lawyer as a person, but the legal system in this country is what happens when you condense stupidity and then fossilize it.

Yay, writing again!

The folks haven’t contacted me about the job I applied for – they wanted my availability for an interview and I guess are too busy to get back to me.  This seems to happen a lot. I hold my breath hoping for good news and don’t get any, and then all of a sudden I realize that I’m supposed to be writing.  Anyway, This Bit is working out well.

King Canute, your agent’s on the other line.

Filking tonight and giving Keith a ride to the ferry in the morning.  Then churchy stuff in the afternoon (another pointless workshop called Focusing on What’s Important, but hey, there will be food), and Water Ceremony on Sunday.  Apparently some money has fallen out of the sky for growth.  I think we should buy a yurt, decorate it loudly, and have church in a different location for a year to go out among the people.  Church in a yurt.  Beautiful. I think I wanna yurt.

Back to Michel and his bad stupid foolish holy crap day (writing).

Why I don’t date, part 49/b.

Guy responds to me liking his profile.  He comes clean about his weight.  I know that it’s a good thing he’s done this and praise his honesty.  I ask him how his feet are and never hear from him again.  All I wanted to do was find out if he can walk half a kilometre on level ground unassisted, and I specifically said I don’t do hills.  I guess that was pushing too hard.