Knight, Lady, Fairy, Survivalist

One of the parks I go through on long rambles/runs/sometimes bike rides recently sported this fellow. It’s a bower, or a shelter. Each time I pass it as the branches brown, I imagine a knight’s lady nestled in it, and what she might be thinking. I tell myself little stories a la Malory, or imagine that the fairies came through one night and this was a place for Titania to rest.

It was probably kids messing around with camp shelters, or one of the area homeless with a survivalist bent. Or maybe there was a rip in dimensional fabrics, and whoever curled up to sleep here awoke in a different place, a different time.

The world is full of stories. You can’t get away from them.

Play, Mask, Cane

I spend a good bit of time thinking about the little old lady I want to be. From growing my hair out now (I will never, ever have short hair again, I swear unto my patron goddess) to checking my smile to make sure the lines I want will etch themselves on my face, to pricing swordcanes (look, just because I’m old shouldn’t mean I’m helpless) to working on brain flexibility–you get the idea.

I have a horror of losing mental acuity. For a long time I thought a lovely, agile brain was the only thing I had to recommend me. Nowadays I value myself slightly more, but the habit of regarding my own prospective mental loss with intense horror has remained. That’s why I keep going back to the piano, and playing around with languages. I’ve shifted to Korean and (my first love) Latin, since I’ll need to spend serious time on them both–French and Spanish are lovely, but it feels like cheating to practice them at the same time I’m studying Latin, you know? Also, Duolingo has just released their Japanese pack. That seems like a good way to spend multiple hours.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying something I’ve been mulling over for a while. It’s never too late, and you are never too old, to find something that delights you. Getting in the habit of looking for delightful things and playing with new stuff is an investment in your future self. If what makes you happy is problematic or nerdy or strange, don’t let that stop you from gaining what enjoyment you can from it. We’re here for such a brief period, might as well find neat things to play with in the meantime.

People tend to calcify as they get older, and it seems such a shame. Practicing juicy flexibility now, in order to retain it as long as possible, looks a much better way to be. Besides, if one approaches things like, say, new technology, in the spirit of play, being okay with making mistakes and poking until you find out new ways of using it, learning is ever so much easier. When you’re “just playing,” a lot of mistakes are recoverable.

It helps to be in the habit of going, “Huh, I’m wrong, let’s find out some cool stuff together!” or “I don’t know, let’s look it up.” Parenting taught me that it’s okay to admit being wrong and trying again. It is, in fact, not just okay but preferable. Kids tend to respect an adult who admits, “Hey, I fucked up, let’s revisit that.” It cuts out so much bullshit.

We could all do with a little less bullshit.

So, my advice for today: spend some time thinking about the old person you want to be, or even just planning for your future self. The mask you wear will become your real face, if you do it long enough. It’s far better to consciously choose than to let it be thrust upon you, or being blindly reactive.

Also, if you see me with a cane…beware.

Catch-Up Wordage

Well, I’m awake, it’s a Monday, and I have a medium-long run planned. Yesterday was a silly 200-word day, but at least I got a lot of housework done.

I found a new favorite yoga pose this morning–Stargazer. It feels incredibly good to open up the side, and stretch out my ribs. I also came across this Vimeo short, Nano. I’d watch a whole movie of this, and read the books too. Hell, I’d write books about this. (In all my copious spare time, heh.)

So today is catch-up wordage on everything, and bracing for Cormorant Run‘s release day. I’m already feeling the nerves, so I’ll probably have Purple Rain in rotation and dance around my office every time “Let’s Go Crazy” comes up. That is, if I have any nerves left after an 8km run.

The current list of projects is: DEADROAD, Sekrit Projekt, Epic Fantasy, Roadtrip Z, and Damage. The last has taken the place of Dog Days, because the agent wants it. Hopefully I can get the Sekrit Projekt finished before too much longer, so I can throw its zero into the bin and move on. It’s…been a while, for that particular simmering book. I may have to break it up into two, and release the first part as a novella. It depends on the finished length, and how intense the guerrilla war in the latter half of the book gets.

So that’s my Monday. The world is still on fire, I’m still trying desperately to preserve my tiny corner of it. I have a lot of hopes riding on Cormorant–it’s so, so different than anything I’ve done before, and though I know a lot of the early reviewers didn’t “get” it, I have faith in my Readers. Who are, after all, the smartest bunch on the planet.

Smarter than me, that’s for damn sure.

Over and out.

Much Heat, Many Halp

Day 2 of getting up early to do some yoga is going about as well as can be expected. It didn’t cool off much last night, so sleeping was intermittent at best, especially since Miss B decided that the open window meant OMG PROTECT MAI HOOMIN WIF SNUGGLE. She also decided to “help” me with every. damn. yoga. pose. Not content with that level of supervision, she also tried herding me all the way through our morning run, along with several bees who apparently find my hair extremely fascinating. (It’s not my shampoo, I’ve changed that several times.)

I am reminded of Shel Silverstein–some kind of help is the kind of help that helping’s all about, and then there’s this.

Now, exhausted by her efforts, Miss B’s cast herself onto the office floor next to a snoring Trundles (who has decided my bed is too warm and too soft, Goldilocks) and is eyeing me warily, in case I decide to Do Something Else She Needs To Help With.

At least all the sweaty stuff is done and I won’t have to venture into the heat until after dinner for Odd’s Daily Constitutional. He hates warm weather, and reproaches me about it almost as much as he complains about rain. It’s not really his fault–he’s a walking yeast factory, and with his compromised airways hot days mean he can’t breathe as well. Pretty soon he’ll move out of my office and into the hall, where he’ll find cool spots on the hardwood and move every ten minutes or so, groaning all the while.

That’s all the news from this morning, other than me trying to decide which project goes where in the next six months. I have a list, but I want to depart from it, and I have to find time to write another novella. That was fun, and it makes sense for me to broaden my genres, so to speak.

Maybe a cuppa while I ponder everything, since there’s a nice breeze through the window and it’ll be too hot come afternoon. And before you ask, no, I abhor iced tea and iced coffee. Call it a quirk.

Over and out.

Good Morning Monday

It’s Monday. *blinks, blearily* Yesterday significant wordcount on Roadtrip Z fell out of my head, and I got the week’s Patreon offerings prepped and scheduled. So there was that, even if some of the housework didn’t get done. (Hint: I didn’t hoover. I somewhat hate hoovering. I may also have skipped cleaning the espresso machine, which I do not hate but which can be done today.)

So this week is for Afterwar revisions and prepping Love, Bite for release. It will be out earlier than the end of next month, I just put that date on it to give me time to get all ducks in a row. I should do some blurbage for it, too. I might as well, though I intended not to go back to it until the 10th. Needs must when the devil drives, et cetera, et cetera.

I’m not feeling like I’m quite ready to go back to Afterwar. It’s the biggest book I’ve attempted so far, and it makes me cry more than I want to admit. Parts of it hurt to write. Not just the usual “oh, this is awful” or “God, these poor people” but actual physical pain. I’m hoping that translates out into truth-on-the-page, and isn’t just my brain playing chemical imbalance tricks on me. I’ll attempt to get myself into a revision mainframe today, and we’ll see what happens.

…I had plenty of other things to put in this post, but I just spent a few minutes sitting and staring while everything I have to do today whirled inside my head like a badly unbalanced washing machine. Time to Make A List, or nothing will get done.

Over and out.