Life, Miscellaneous

Needs More Coffee

I had to add “coffee” to my to-do list this morning just to give myself something to cross off. But I haven’t been able to cross it off yet.

This is, I suspect, how Monday will go. Especially since there’s a holiday and I’m off running for a week to give my plantar fascia plenty of rest. Which means I’m going to be at sixes and sevens during the holiday itself, though I’m sure I’ll be too busy to notice. And there will be ham, so that’s good.

I did finish the zero draft of HOOD‘s Season Two before the weekend. It happened all at once, with very little pain, but the reverberations inside my head are a little unpleasant. I was probably due for a book that finished before I was really set for it, having always had to lunge after a retreating enemy so often. Catching the opponent’s army before it gets a chance to escape is a nice Cannae, so to speak.

Middle books in trilogies are always difficult. They get easier when I tell myself if the reader hasn’t read the first book, they’re going to expect to be a little at sea, let them be. I know a lot of editors want you to make every book in a series the first in terms of info-dump, but that’s never been the way I’ve rolled. I never expect to know everything when I read a series out of order, and I write for such sharp elves as myself.

I have always found it’s better to never underestimate one’s readers. My constant refrain when an editor asks me to dumb something down is Readers are smart, they’ll figure it out. I’m no cryptographer, but I like thinking through a puzzle on my own, and I suspect most–if not all–readers do as well.

Anyway. I had interesting things to say, I’m sure, but they’ve fled into the retreating fog of under-caffeination. I’ve to go looking through old book soundtracks for something nice. it’s Soundtrack Monday, after all, and there’s so much music out there. Maybe I’ll do a Viral Agent tune. (I always wanted to go back and do Fray and Bay’s story. They’re a fun pair.)

But first, coffee needs to be finished. I might even go back to the well for another jolt; today feels like it’s gonna need it. We’re in the home stretch for NaNo, after all, and there’s a food coma approaching on Thursday to get ready for.

Over and out.

Doggo, In Comfort

I came out of the shower the other day to find that Miss B, unhappy with the texture of the coverlet, had decided to arrange my bed to suit herself. Of particular interest is the …well, what do YOU want? look she’s giving me.

She’s becoming a cranky old lady, this beautiful doggo of mine. I just had to laugh, because I stood near the loo door and was all, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Challenged thus, Milady simply closed her eyes and blew out a heavy, exhausted I’m gonna ignore you now sigh, and she proceeded to make good upon her threat.

I don’t begrudge her a single instant, of course. We have so little time left; she can spend it burrowing into the covers every day if she pleases.

Just don’t tell her that, please. She’ll rapidly become insufferable.

Back to the Whetstone

Roaring lioness
© | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Oh, my best beloveds.

Last night I went on a regular tear (on Mastodon and Twitter) about a certain article I couldn’t find. It was about Susan Pevensie making her own kingdom. I had it confused with Sarah Gailey’s most excellent Women of Harry Potter series, which I read at about the same time.

Lo and behold, this morning a very kind person on Mastodon knew what I was talking about, remembered it, and dug it up. So, without further ado, here’s the link–and it also has a companion piece about Susan at school. (The writer is also a fanficcer and novelist, if you’d like more.)

Sometimes we forget, dealing with the dregs, just how magical the internet is. My faith in humanity is quite restored this morning.

I probably needed it, because I spent last night reading Hurlothrumbo’s The Merry-Thought, all four in the series. Tudor England was a trip, yo. Then this morning I read a little Kwaidan, because I woke up from dreams of ladders and disasters, turned over, had another dream about thieves in my garage, and woke up in a cold sweat. Reading’s generally what I do to calm myself after terrible dreams, especially if my tossing and turning hasn’t disturbed the dogs, but maybe Japanese ghost tales filtered through a Greek-Irish lens was not the best choice, because I feel a little sideways.

But finding those two articles on Susan again made it all worth it. CS Lewis was a misogynistic turd. A very talented one, and you can see the ur-characters he was trying to repress peeking through the bars of his smallness-of-mind and religious poisoning… but still, his hatred of adult women, like Tolkien’s, is very telling. (Even if I do love Puddleglum and Reepicheep and Tumnus and and and…)

In any case, I’m glad for modernity, and for the ability to type into a glowing box, and for literacy, and for the vast treasure-trove of books on Gutenberg.org, and so on, so forth. Often I overlook the good things about the internet because the bad things–trolls, thieves, bots, nastiness–are so very, well, bad. It’s nice to be reminded of the good as well.

I suppose the dreams were a signal that my internal creative pressure has reached the requisite pitch, since physical misery bled off a lot of energy earlier in the week. It’s back to the whetstone to sharpen some words.

Even if a lion tries to keep you out of heaven, there are kingdoms to make here. And, after all, is it really heaven if a misogynist lion can keep you out?

Distinctly Non-Optimal

Woke up with The Sky is Crying inside my head, which is one of the songs I’d play to get reliably into Harmony. For some reason, Linda Ronstadt and Stevie Ray Vaughn were the go-to tunes for that book, along with some Alison Krauss and Joey Fehrenbach’s The Prophet.

I’m kind of sad a YA publisher didn’t pick up Harmony, but then, they would have wanted me to change things so Owen saves Val, and they would have wanted me to make “finding a boy” instead of “survival” the protagonist’s goal. So, it’s not so bad. I would have refused and fought, of course, and that would have taken a lot of energy I didn’t need to spend.

Anyway. Yesterday was distinctly non-optimal. I thought I was recovered from the food poisoning over the weekend, but on my way up the stairs with a huge load of laundry I felt like the DVD of my life started skipping in the player. I came back to myself half-lying on the stairs, clutching the laundry basket and distinctly woozy. I had to go up one stair at a time without standing, hauling the laundry basket up with me. Fortunately there were only about five stairs left, then the dog-gate at the top, at which both Boxnoggin and B were anxiously awaiting my return.

Once on level ground I managed to get the laundry into the living room and toddle to bed, where I passed out until the Little Prince texted to say he was on his way to a D&D session hours later.

Needless to say, dinner was leftovers. I just didn’t have the strength, and only stayed awake long enough afterward that I wouldn’t be up at 4am. Then it was back to bed with a raging headache, and I remember nothing until waking up this morning.

It’s funny, how when you get physically miserable you can forget what health feels like. I’m ever so much better today. Those salad rolls packed a wallop; I wonder what contaminated them? I probably don’t want to know. In this singular case, I can let ignorance be bliss.

I don’t think I’m too far behind. My Week Three of NaNo post will drop on the Substack today, so that’ll be good. I had thought to prep Week Four yesterday, but it looks like that’ll be today’s task. If, of course, taking the dogs on their daily ramble doesn’t wipe me out. I have high hopes, but apparently recovering from anything takes me three times as long as I think it might. No matter how I pad out recovery time, it’s never enough. The body takes what it takes, I suppose, and the mind’s not far behind.

The dogs are overjoyed that I’m back up and moving around. They spent yesterday attending me closely, and I still have somewhat of a crick in my neck from being wedged between them most of the afternoon and all night, too. Little furry stoves, helping me sweat out the illness. Boxnoggin in particular is very solicitous, probably because he likes salt; he was licking my forehead at intervals yesterday. No doubt I was producing enough good ol’ NaCl to season his dinner.

Today’s going to be better than yesterday. Once I finish this coffee, no power in the ‘verse will be able to stop me.

Or so I keep telling myself…

Soundtrack Monday: Oo-de-Lally

I’m finishing up the zero draft of HOOD‘s Season Two this week, so this Soundtrack Monday will reflect that. HOOD owes a great deal to many retellings but the sheer zany joy of Disney’s is what I return to when the others get too bleak, and I often find myself humming pieces while I write. Chiefly Oo-de-Lally, of course, Alan-a-Dale as a strutting, gittern-plucking rooster enchanted me as a child.

I can still hear Little John, each time I see a feathered cap or a longbow–Pretty hard to laugh, hangin’ there, Rob. Or Prince John, moaning Mama!; Sir Hiss the snake minister fills me with both hilarity and dark foreboding. Fortunes forecast, lucky charms!

I also sang Robin and Marian’s theme to the kids often as a lullaby, while rocking in an old squeaky chair I had also rocked my sisters in. (Love, it seems like only yesterday…) But today, it’s Oo-de-Lally all the way, especially since I have to figure out what Robb gets caught for to end Season Two.

If you’re curious, I have a whole playlist for the serial. It’ll change as we head into Season Three, of course–the whole game is getting more serious, and Marah’s faced with a jailbreak (Giz and Alladal may have to team up for that one) and having to rescue King Richard (who has hopefully learned a lesson or two about haring off when he’s needed at home, kthxbai) to boot.

All in all, Season Three will be a challenge of the sort I like best. But for today, it’s a musical interlude with a singing rooster, a pair of foxes, a wolf in a doublet, and anything else the stew inside my head bubbles over with.

Oo-de-lally indeed. Golly, what a day.

Salad Rolls of Fate, Intervened

I meant to spend the weekend finishing HOOD‘s Season Two zero draft, and possibly knocking off a chunk of Finder’s Watcher as well, but unfortunately Fate (in the form of a couple salad rolls, I suppose) intervened, and I spent Saturday night with a rather violent bout of food poisoning.

To be absolutely fair, it might not have been the salad rolls, but they were the only thing consumed in the right timeframe. Well, there was some cake a bit later, but… anyway, the point is, Saturday night was the kind of party nobody ever wants to have.

Except maybe the dogs, who were extremely excited at the break in routine, and wanted very much to get their noses into whatever I was producing from the top end (Mum is a magical food-making machine!) while not quite so enchanted with anything produced from the, erm, the other end. (Mum, that… doesn’t seem right…) Additionally, when I collapsed halfway between loo and bed–mostly because why bother trudging all the way back to pillows and sheets when I was just going to be back in the loo posthaste–they took turns nosing and snuggling me, either to encourage me to get up so the predators didn’t think I was weakened or to see if maybe I had produced more magical food.

In other words, it was an experience, and I spent most of Sunday staring blankly at whatever task was in front of me. There’s never an opportune time to get food poisoning, but I suppose it was lucky that I’ve been working ahead on just about everything. I would have prepped Soundtrack Monday and the final post for my NaNo series yesterday, but I was having trouble stringing words into coherent clauses, let alone sentences. I did get the red sauce and focaccia for the week done, since I’d spent most of Saturday (before the cyclone hit) doing prep work, so everything was to hand and easily done.

Consequently I’m feeling rather low this morning. Physical misery puts a pall over everything, and I’m tender in every direction from my midsection. There’s two scenes left to write in Season Two, but I can’t decide just what Robin Hood should be caught doing. Murder (utterly justified)? Theft (for a good cause, of course)? Something else? He isn’t talking, which doesn’t surprise Maid Marian one bit, so I suppose I might have to send Guy of Gisbourne in to irritate Robb into making a move. Sub rosa, of course, since Giz is already occupied in escaping an exploding spaceship.

I should note that characters have a funny dual existence inside my head. On the one hand, there’s the story; on the other, they’re all at a round table inside my head, jostling and discussing and telling different lies to each other. Sometimes one has to set a character against themselves or dangle something they want very badly before they’ll start talking. It’s not enough to know what happens next, I need to know why, and sometimes with a cagey character, I’m forced to play dirty.

Anyway. I should make a list, otherwise nothing will get done today; yet I don’t want to because I’m pretty sure only half of what I’d put on the list will get done at all, for no other reason than I’m still not feeling quite myself. Better than nothing, I suppose.

Off I go, chickadees. I hope your weekend was less… interesting… than mine.

Mug, Battle-Scarred

You can’t see it, but this mug is battle-scarred. It’s missing a handle and has minor smoke damage from the Great Bookstore Fire. It’s also one of my favorites, old soldier that it is, and ready to stand duty any time it’s taken from the cupboard.

And, as a bonus, it says I am going to hex your face off. Because I believe in fair warnings.

It’s been a heckuva week, my chickadees. I’m so glad it’s Friday. How about you?