Some Sunny Day, Baby
First, an excellent pair of posts about street kids and verisimilitude. Kaigou has taken the trouble and time to point out why the treatment of street kids in fiction (especially urban fantasy, but not limited to that genre) is often wildly inaccurate, and what an author can do about it.
Part one is here, and
Part two is here.
These posts are not just useful for characterization and plot holes, they are also true. If you know anyone who has ever been on the street, these might help you understand (and hopefully, interact with) that person a little better.
Ace Backwords once did a strip with a cartoon mouse leaning against the frame. “Streets?” he said. In the next box, someone had fallen and bounced off the pavement, twisted and tangled. “Hard.” the mouse says. In the last box, the mouse addresses the audience. “Any questions?” Which pretty much sums it up, though it’s not quite useful as a guide.
It was difficult for me to read these posts because they are so dead-on, though I am relieved someone else feels the way I do about toilet paper. Nothing like finding out someone else shares your security item. Anyway, both posts are HIGHLY recommended. Read ‘em even if you don’t write.
Yesterday was a busy day. I got workbooks for the Princess, did some yardwork (yes, I still hate raking; but it’s kind of okay sometimes when I do it and when I can start and stop at will to stare off into the distance) and baked white bread and challah. (mmmh egg wash!) I ALSO finished the copyedits on Night Shift, though I forgot the glossary. (Insert “D’oh!” noise here.) I finished up by going for a short walk in the freezing cold and now have developed some kind of cough. I know it probably wasn’t the cold air, but still, I’m feeling hypochondriac enough to obsess over it.
Wah.
I seem to be feeling the cold more intensely these days, and the only thing I can think of is that the weight loss has robbed me of insulation. I am still nowhere near skinny but I am roughly half the size I was, and that’s a lot of (pardon the term) blubber that ain’t keepin’ me warm no more.
I’ve also been rereading Kaigou’s posts and remembering times when I’ve been colder. And I’m looking around this house, which is damn near a palace compared to a lot of places I’ve lived. Not only is it damn near a palace but it’s also arranged the way I like, and if things get messed up or accidentally broken nobody has to cry or make up for it in pain. And it’s quiet, no screaming or yelling except when the kids are excited and happy. No suddenly-shifting sand underfoot. Here is solid ground, and I am glad of it.
So today I’m going to take it kind of easy. I’m ahead of schedule, so if I just knock off a few of the first revisions on Hunter’s Prayer and take a stab at the glossary, I should be ahead of the game. It’s a nice place to be.
