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Friday, July 10th, 2009
pepysdiary	10:00p	Tuesday 10 July 1666 http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1666/07/10/ Up, and to the office, where busy all the morning, sitting, and there presented Sir W. Coventry with my little book made up of Lovett's varnished paper, which he and the whole board liked very well. At noon home to dinner and then to the office; the yarde being very full of women (I believe above three hundred) coming to get money for their husbands and friends that are prisoners in Holland; and they lay clamouring and swearing and cursing us, that my wife and I were afeard to send a venison-pasty that we have for supper to-night to the cook's to be baked, for fear of their offering violence to it: but it went, and no hurt done. Then I took an opportunity, when they were all gone into the foreyarde, and slipt into the office and there busy all the afternoon, but by and by the women got into the garden, and come all to my closett window, and there tormented me, and I confess their cries were so sad for money, and laying down the condition of their families and their husbands, and what they have done and suffered for the King, and how ill they are used by us, and how well the Dutch are used here by the allowance of their masters, and what their husbands are offered to serve the Dutch abroad, that I do most heartily pity them, and was ready to cry to hear them, but cannot helpe them. However, when the rest were gone, I did call one to me that I heard complaine only and pity her husband and did give her some money, and she blessed me and went away. Anon my business at the office being done I to the Tower to speak with Sir John Robinson about business, principally the bad condition of the pressed men for want of clothes, so it is represented from the fleete, and so to provide them shirts and stockings and drawers. Having done with him about that, I home and there find my wife and the two Mrs. Bateliers walking in the garden. I with them till almost 9 at night, and then they and we and Mrs. Mercer, the mother, and her daughter Anne, and our Mercer, to supper to a good venison-pasty and other good things, and had a good supper, and very merry, Mistresses Bateliers being both very good-humoured. We sang and talked, and then led them home, and there they made us drink; and, among other things, did show us, in cages, some birds brought from about Bourdeaux, that are all fat, and, examining one of them, they are so, almost all fat. Their name is [Ortolans], which are brought over to the King for him to eat, and indeed are excellent things. We parted from them and so home to bed, it being very late, and to bed. (Comment on this)
truepenny	4:24p	Waterlog TIME: 43 min. DISTANCE: 5 mi. TOTAL: 227 mi. NOTES: An advantage of exercising in the afternoon: since it is the least productive part of the day for me, I actually look forward to getting away from the computer. DISTRACTION: The Dead Zone 1.3, "Quality of Life" SHIRE RECKONING: Two miles to the foot of the Weather Hills! 1. There was too much slow-motion portentous hockey in this episode, but they get points for the kid demonstrating agency and common sense. 2. Anthony Michael Hall is sure working that Martin Sheen impression for all he's worth. 3. David Ogden Stiers is lovely lovely lovely. Also hateful. (Comment on this)
lilithsaintcrow	2:18p	Hidden Hinges, and the Messy Death of a Metaphor Crossposted from the Deadline Dames, where this week we’re answering reader questions. Come on over and play! My brain is oatmeal today, because yesterday I finished the first draft of the third Strange Angels book. So if I occasionally sound like a babbling idiot, that’s why. There’s a snapback involved in finishing any huge project. This one is all the more intense because I don’t get a break–I go right into last-minute Weasel Boy revisions and short-story reworking. Come August, when everything is turned in, I am going to be so, so useless. Last week I talked about how writing is not a bloodless art. Several of you have asked me about the “hidden hinges” I mentioned at the very beginning of that piece. (Warning: I am about to beat a metaphor to death in this post. I AM NOT KIDDING.) Now, this is purely personal terminology, YMMV and all that. I do structure my books vary carefully and put things in certain places for a reason. I tend to visualize a book like a tapestry or a fall of cloth hanging in a certain configuration, and the external and internal hinges are the places where I’ve inserted a hook or something to get the fabric to make the shape I want. It requires both fine close work (trees) as well as stepping back to take a look at how the whole damn thing is hanging (forest.) What I call “external” hinges are big plot points, major parts of the plot. Smaller plot points are the folds of the fabric itself. Internal, “hidden” hinges are smaller, pretty much invisible underpinnings, and they come in two types: the personal and the reader’s hinges. This won’t make a lot of sense without an example, so here goes. In Working For The Devil, the sex scene with Dante and Japhrimel is an external hinge. It moves the story forward and introduces the basic tension in the second half of the book, the tension that was foreshadowed both by Japh’s treatment of Dante and by Dante’s own feelings of being an alien in her own world. The reader’s hidden hinge in that scene is where Dante talks about Japhrimel telling her things she had always wanted to hear. That feeling–that you’re waiting for the lover who will whisper the right thing in your ear–is amazingly human, and it is the reader’s entry into the scene, for all it occurs near the end of it. It’s not quite a payoff, but it is a hidden hinge and part of the reason why that scene works. The personal hinge is just that–personal. It’s the part of the scene that makes it work for the writer, and no, I’m not going to tell you what my personal hinge in that scene is. It’s not what you think. The personal hinge is the writer’s entry into the scene–it gives the writer what the scene is “about,” it emotionally invests the writer so that the writer can make it possible for the reader to be emotionally invested. It happens in the oddest places, and most times the reader’s eyes skip right over it. I have yet to identify a hidden hinge in a fellow writer’s book, and I have yet to have anyone guess any of mine correctly–or even mention them. This is why reading is so important for writers. You have to read widely, in a few different genres, before you start being able to identify where the outer and the reader’s hidden hinges are. Sometimes the hidden hinges are missing–try as I might, I cannot find them in a lot of big “blockbuster” books. (Clancy and Dan Brown come to mind here.) This could be because there is no emotional point of entry for me in those books personally, or it could be because they’re not there. (I will leave that question where it lies.) I can read them for other reasons, but the satisfying emotional gestalt of story is missing. Hinges are different than worldbuilding. Worldbuilding is how you dye that fall of fabric, but without the hinges it’s just a shapeless mass. Hoisting it properly and making it hang to make the finished shape you want requires structure–both the bigger structure of external hinges and the smaller detail-oriented structure of reader’s hidden hinges. If the external and the reader’s hidden hinges are at variance or improperly balanced, the work isn’t going to “hang” right and will feel lopsided or misshapen. External hinges without internal hinges make for a choppy mess of events with very little internal logic and no reason to care about why these characters are doing those things. Internal hinges without external hinges are very hard to do, because a story without something happening, even if that something is purely internal, is not quite a story. Sometimes the reader’s hidden hinges can double as external hinges in a story with not much “going on” on the surface, but that’s a hat trick for other writers, not me. Purely internal stories are okay, but I prefer a little more bang and flash. Again, that’s a personal taste. I didn’t find out about internal hinges until after my sixth novel or so. Before I had a fuzzy idea why some things worked, because I’d read so much and had caught the rhythm of storytelling. But around my sixth finished book I started being able to see the structure of a whole book inside my head like a 3-D model, and I was pretty much useless and excited for a week thinking about it and applying that sight to stuff I’d already written. Which held up okay, I guess, for someone who couldn’t see what they were doing while they were building it. I’d been working blind up to that point, just doing things instinctively, and now I could finally see what I was doing. It was awesome. This is part of why I am so adamant that writers cannot stop at their first finished piece and just flog that one, endlessly. I may be a dolt because it took me six effing books to get the structure model inside my head, but I would never have gotten there if I was still flogging smoke and being That Writer. There are two things about novel writing that new writers largely don’t get: that it takes a phenomenal amount of sheer bloodyminded practice/hard work, and that it’s different each time. Each novel’s process is different–the shape under the cloth is unique. Understanding how to get the cloth to fall the way you want requires that you practice enough to understand how cloth behaves, to get it to do what you want. I warned you I would beat that metaphor to death, but I think I’ll stop now while it’s on the floor begging for mercy. I don’t have the heart to finish it off today. I must be getting soft in my old age. Either that or I’m exhausted from finishing that most recent book and looking at dyeing a whole new batch of cloth… Oh, crud. The metaphor just died. Guess I killed it after all. Keep writing! Posted from A Fire of Reason. You can also comment there.
oursin	9:31p	Gladys had this bang to rights My beloved G B Stern was so very right in her apercu that 'Wednesday Fortnight always comes': I had accepted by telephone an invitation to do something or other which I did not want to do, or go to some place where I did not want to go--I forget.... I had accepted because it was far enough ahead that it seemed the path of least resistance to say yes. 'Wednesday Fortnight? Yes, all right.' And to myself, lightly: 'Wednesday Fortnight never comes!' But Wednesday Fortnight came at a fast gallop, and I was seeking sympathy from Robin for tomorrow's ordeal.... for he too had been tricked often and often by the comfortable illusion that Wednesday Fortnight never comes. But we both vowed not to be caught like that again. Wednesday Fortnight always comes, said Robin.* I'm perhaps not quite in the exact same position, but a year ago I agreed to give a conference paper on a topic that I didn't feel any enormous enthusiasm for, and no particular inspiration, to oblige colleagues who were running a conference and needed a paper on just that particular area to fill a yawning gap in coverage. And I blithely thought that, well, maybe inspiration would strike, or I would be able to reread the relevant literature, and generally place myself on a rather sounder footing than I feel with the conference rushing towards me at the end of the month. It is not as though this hasn't happened before, that I take on some commitment and find that in the event it has to struggle with a pile of other commitments also demanding my attention at the period in question. I also wonder why I thought I would be likely to undertake a rereading even of the major works in the recent historiography of Victorian sexuality, several of which I find immensely irritating. If I'd even had the time to do that I can think of things I'd rather do with it. So perceive me engaged in the tapdance of not having all that much to say but having to say something anyway and trying to get a paper written saying it. *Another Part of the Forest (1941) This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1058453.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
truepenny	3:08p	who will rid me of this afflictive ice-cream truck? Ice-cream trucks were not a part of my childhood. Possibly this is why I find them hostile rather than charming. But I can tell you one thing. If it was my job to drive that thing around all day while it played the first four lines of "Pop Goes the Weasel" over and OVER AND OVER, I would be a gibbering lunatic inside of a week. Stark. Barking. Mad. ::listens apprehensively:: ... I think it's gone. Which means, of course, because I watch horror movies, too, that it's IN THE CLOSET! AIEEEE!!! (23 Comments |Comment on this)
oursin	7:50p	PSA I am utterly delighted to be able to announce that Helen S Wright's A Matter of Oaths (1988) is now available for download from her website. I look (so far fruitlessly) for secondhand copies whenever I go into a likely bookshop so that I might have them available to press into the hands of friends who may not have read it. Now I can point them there. Helen is also on Dreamwidth as arkessian. This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1058229.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
ozarque	8:18a	Eldering; eating less, continued... Thank you for all the suggestions and advice you've posted for me; I appreciate your help very much. I have to start by telling you, right up front, that neither George nor I is willing to tackle setting up a compost pile or a worm bin. We understand why that would be a good thing to do, we understand that it doesn't have to involve a lot of work, and we admire people who do it, but we're just not up for it. We have tried it several times over the years and have been sorry every time, no doubt because we've always done it badly. It's like dusting; it turns into something we both try to avoid dealing with; it turns into something we fight over -- about who did and who didn't take care of it, and why, and how inexcusable that is of the person alleged to have shirked the essential tasks. And then I have to tell you that neither one of us is willing to take on keeping even one chicken. Keeping a chicken means building a structure to shelter that chicken and putting up a fence to keep that chicken home, and making sure that chicken's water doesn't freeze in the wintertime, and more. Our little dog is all the livestock we're willing to look after. [Elders, right? They ask for your advice and then they don't take it. I know.] The books on cooking for one/cooking for two/cooking for students don't speak to our needs. It's not that George can't figure out how to shrink recipes so we don't end up with too much. The problem is that he always looks at the amount of food he's getting ready to cook and thinks, "That can't possibly be enough!" and then he throws in just a little more of this and just a little more of that. Intellectually, he knows about quantities; emotionally, it doesn't look right to him, and he keeps fooling with it until it does look right. Ideally, he would always make just enough for us to have two dinners from whatever-it-is; instead, it ends up being three dinners. Every single time. George would agree with you that this isn't rational, and then he would tell you that by damn if he's going to do the cooking he's going to do it his way, and that at 74 he's entitled to do it his way. And I wouldn't be willing to argue with him about that. Now we have at last come to the end of the contrary part of this post and have arrived at the courteous part. All your advice about making more efficient use of our freezer ... that has been truly helpful. So many good ideas; so many excellent tips; thank you. I'm going to read all of that again, and make notes, and see what parts we can put into practice. (20 Comments |Comment on this)
genreal	11:00a	Not Hot for Teacher http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Genreality/~3/CzlRDjv1cCI/no-teacher-required http://www.genreality.net/?p=1818 Carrie’s post this week about her current stint as a writer-in-residence made me reminisce about my own experiences with education. My mother always wanted me to be a teacher. When I was young she would frequently drop hints about what a great profession teaching was, how important teachers were and how much she’d like me to be one. My mom also loved to teach, and while she never worked at a school she taught dance as well as Bible study. Unfortunately I’ve always felt I am the very last person on earth who would ever work in a school or classroom. After a first grade teacher locked me in a dark closet for most of a school day (my crime: I wouldn’t stop crying after she screamed at me) I didn’t just fear teachers, I hated them — all of them. And boy, could I hold a grudge. Mom had to drag me back to school that next day and pretty much every day for the next eleven years. I ditched whenever I could, which was often. Some years I spent more time in detention or on suspension than I actually did in my classes. The only education I wanted came from reading books, which I loved, and a number of wonderful ladies who worked at the public library. I would read anything, and when I ran through an author’s complete works the ladies would guide me on to someone new. The public library became the only classroom I ever felt comfortable in, and I knew it was the right place for me to learn on my own. If Lincoln could teach himself from books, so could I — no teacher required. After I (miraculously) graduated high school, I joined the military. The service doesn’t care about one’s childhood traumas; everyone is the same in uniform. Basic training knocked most of the snot out of me, tore me down and put me back together as something new: a useful person. It sounds cruel, but the demands of military life were exactly what I’d needed. Working in the military’s medical field, I also learned quite a bit – not from teachers, but from instructors who wore the uniform just as I did. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, specialty technicians, hospital administrators – they all had a crack at me. The best part was that we were equals. When a recall happened, or we went on mobility, we all reported together. We all shared the work. We wore the same hospital whites, dealt with the same patients, and even ate in the same chow hall. Rank was earned, not bought or bestowed; everyone had the same chance to get ahead and do better. I loved it. Eventually I became a military instructor – not a teacher, you understand, because I’d never be one of them. No, I just took on the requirement of training others to do what I did. That was how the service worked. You learned, and then you passed it along. We trained in the field, not the classroom, where the real learning happened: in real life with real patients under real conditions. In time I left the military, and while civilian life was not anything like the service, I brought enough training with me to deal with that. In the various jobs I held I was again called upon to instruct others. One company flew me around the country so I could train other employees to do what I did. I was cool with that, because I wasn’t teaching, I was sharing my experience and knowledge with people who were doing the same job. When I retired, pursued publication and began selling books, I figured my instructing days were over. Then along came the internet and my involvement in my first online writing community. The other writers mostly talked shop in chat rooms, and I joined in when I could. Because I was a published author, other writers began asking me questions about the work and the biz, and my unconventional answers seemed to surprise them. My kids also started school, and while keeping a stern eye on their teachers, I also got involved in giving talks to their classmates about writing. I had a blast with the kids, too. Inspiring them and opening their minds to the possibilities as well as showing them the reality of being a professional writer was great fun. While plenty of authors teach workshops and seminars at colleges, not a lot get around to small towns and public schools, so in time word spread about me and suddenly it seemed like every public elementary school in our county wanted me to come and talk to their kids about writing. Then the middle schools started calling, and then the high schools . . . I also got more involved in the internet writing community. Back in the early days of NetPubLand there really wasn’t a lot of practical information online about writing professionally. Some sites offered some helpful tips, but I preferred talking with real, breathing writers who were actually doing the job, not trying to teach it to anyone else. One of my first and finest mentors, Holly Lisle, had encouraged me to look for ways as a writer to pay it forward. Talking honestly with other writers and getting some real, solid information out there seemed like the best way; I knew I was pretty good at working out writing problems, motivating others to keep at it, that sort of thing. I think because I was a self-taught writer and had developed my habits and disciplines on my own, I knew how to do some stuff that was helpful to other writers who, like me, hadn’t gotten or couldn’t afford a formal education. I’m not sure how we began getting together to have a scheduled chat every week. It just seemed to evolve out of our conversations in the chat room. I called it the Think Tank, but I wasn’t the teacher – I was a moderator; someone to offer an opinion while keeping things on track. Then I began writing up some online workshops to post on the writing community boards, but that was only in response to some requests, and to pass along what I knew about a particular writing topic, debate my opinions with my equals in comments, and somehow figure it all out together. Years passed, the writing community changed hands, and we parted ways. I missed it terribly, but I still kept giving talks at local schools and encouraging other writers via e-mail and the occasional chat. I guess from there it was inevitable that I’d start a blog about writing. Actually I didn’t want to; the young writers I met at my school talks and my online friends kept harassing me until I did. I took on the task of writing daily about writing, and Publishing, and everything in between, and found that I enjoyed that even more than my years in the Think Tank. I was in my element, sharing ideas and talking shop, and making it all into a more permanent, more easily accessible form of my Think Tank. I put a couple of different workshops on the blog, but when I noticed many of my online pals complained about how dull things were when everyone went off to RWA’s National conference, I decided to show them that they could have as much fun online, and posted the first Left Behind and Loving virtual workshops on my blog. It was wicked fun, so I did the same the next summer. I invited other writers to join in, and they did, and that started spreading. Next week will be my fourth annual LB&LI, which is open to anyone on the planet to attend, and any writer to participate in by holding their own online workshops. Similar events are being held in other segments of the writing community this year, too (which I think is wonderful.) In the forty years since that abusive teacher taught me to fear and hate her profession, I’ve learned a lot. I’m glad I’ve been able to share what I know with others, because every time I do I feel like I’ve stopped someone else from being locked in a dark closet; one made of doubt and uncertainty and ignorance. Feels very good, and absolutely right. But I also know that no matter what I do, I’ll never be a teacher. Sorry, Mom. (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
idairsauthor	11:06p	Death and the WOFverse ( You are about to view content that may not be appropriate for minors. ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
truepenny	10:03p	wailie, wailie I have lost the index card on which I kept track of the submission history of the zombie coyote story. Now, as I never throw anything away (just ask my poor long-suffering spouse), I know it's here somewhere. But, on the other hand, as I never throw anything away . . . This is hardly the Fall of Carthage, as tragedies go, but it means that I no longer have a record of where I have and have not subbed that story. And since it was teetering on the verge of being trunked, that means there's an awful lot of markets to which I can no longer say with certainty whether I submitted it or not. (Memory like a steel wossname, yes.) And this in turn makes me feel grumpy and incompetent and who told me I was fit to be let out on my own? (Comment on this)
Friday, July 10th, 2009
artnouveauho	1:03a	That's no moon In rehearsal today, one of the choir guys was knitting during the break. What was he knitting? A DEATH STAR. Without a pattern. I think the Awesome Dial just got cranked to 11. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, July 9th, 2009
truepenny	5:44p	UBC: The SS: Alibi of a Nation Reitlinger, Gerald. The SS: Alibi of a Nation, 1922-1945. 1956. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: 1981. This is, unfortunately, not a very good book. Mr. Reitlinger lacks the gift of explication almost entirely, and to explain the SS, you need the jumbo super-size gift of explication. Also . . . well, the word that keeps floating around my head is "gossipy." He says things like "Bouhler was a really silly man whom no one thought anything of." His argument, which he finally gets around to making explicit in the last chapter, is buried for most of the book beneath the avalanche of petty details, and I allocated more brain space than should have been necessary to critiquing his paragraph structure. What he does do well is chart the intensely creepy and unjust process by which, ten years after World War II, those Nazis who weren't either executed within the first couple years or captured by the Russians were being let slide, step by step, out from under. Death sentence commuted to life sentence, and men with life sentences were being let out after ten, or five, or three years. Many Nazis weren't prosecuted at all. Nazi generals were receiving municipal pensions in Germany. Now, I have ethical issues with both capital punishment and long-term incarceration (not to mention extreme doubts about their efficacy), but the way in which the Allies took this grand moral stand--shock! horror! Nuremberg trials!--and then backed down, and down, and down some more, until you get Nazis being presented as martyrs, and being championed by Senator Joseph McCarthy of abhorrèd memory, and simply not being held accountable: that's not justice, either. (6 Comments |Comment on this)
pepysdiary	10:00p	Monday 9 July 1666 http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1666/07/09/ Up betimes, and with Sir W. Pen in his coach to Westminster to Sir G. Downing's, but missed of him, and so we parted, I by water home, where busy all the morning, at noon dined at home, and after dinner to my office, where busy till come to by Lovett and his wife, who have brought me some sheets of paper varnished on one side, which lies very white and smooth and, I think, will do our business most exactly, and will come up to the use that I intended them for, and I am apt to believe will be an invention that will take in the world. I have made up a little book of it to give Sir W. Coventry to-morrow, and am very well pleased with it. Home with them, and there find my aunt Wight with my wife come to take her leave of her, being going for the summer into the country; and there was also Mrs. Mary Batelier and her sister, newly come out of France, a black, very black woman, but mighty good-natured people both, as ever I saw. Here I made the black one sing a French song, which she did mighty innocently; and then Mrs. Lovett play on the lute, which she do very well; and then Mercer and I sang; and so, with great pleasure, I left them, having shewed them my chamber, and 1000l. in gold, which they wondered at, and given them sweetmeats, and shewn my aunt Wight my father's picture, which she admires. So I left them and to the office, where Mr. Moore come to me and talking of my Lord's family business tells me that Mr. Sheply is ignorantly, we all believe, mistaken in his accounts above 700l. more than he can discharge himself of, which is a mighty misfortune, poor man, and may undo him, and yet every body believes that he do it most honestly. I am troubled for him very much. He gone, I hard at the office till night, then home to supper and to bed. (Comment on this)
lilithsaintcrow	12:31p	We’re Almost There I am one scene–count it, one–away from finishing the third Dru book into a reasonable first draft. If I put my head down and work today, I will have it done. This is the point where momentum has taken on its own life, where I no longer have to worry about labor. Now the head’s out of the canal and I’m still pushing, still expelling the rest of the thing. As soon as I send it off to the editor I will have a day or so of ARGH while my brain-muscles quiver uselessly (I think that’s analogous to the placenta coming out,) then the rebound period. Yes, I did just use a giving-birth metaphor. I’ve got kids, I figure I’m allowed. One more scene, 2-3K, then tweaking the lead-in to the very last scene. Then I’m done, I write a self-deprecating email (heavily laced with anxiety and just plain nuttiness) to the editor, who no doubt thinks I’m daft already, and then… …I never can think beyond the actual finishing of the book when I’m at this point. All my braincycles are taken up. I can barely even feed myself at this point, and forget cleaning or laundry. Screw it all, I’ve got a book to finish. After this I’ve got another book in light revision, short stories to tweak and send off, and… …oh, God. Can’t think about that. Brain will splode. Clowns will eat me. AAAAAUGH. See what I mean? I’ll be useless until I finish this. So I bid you a civil adieu. Posted from A Fire of Reason. You can also comment there.
papersky	3:31p	Half a Crown nominated for the Sunburst Award! Full list of nominees here. It's lovely being nominated for a Canadian award. Despite being in Cardiff right now, I'm feeling as Canadian as possible under the circumstances. Actually, I've been feeling very enthusiastically Canadian all day, as I've battled British dumbed down libraries and the NHS, either of which would be enough to make people emigrate. (28 Comments |Comment on this)
oursin	7:19p	More caryatid woman in fiction annoyance Recently reread Margery Allingham's The Beckoning Lady, which is relatively late (early 1950s) and a bit weird even by the really not very exacting standards set by her work. But that's not what the problem is. Okay, Campion is still an awful cipher compared to Wimsey, even if he is going around in a state of grouch because his bezzie cop buddy, Inspector Charlie Luke, has fallen for an unsuitable woman. There is the usual assemblage of eccentrics and 'characters'. But this book really made me think about the Problem of Amanda. Because the initial concept of (Lady) Amanda Fitton, later Campion, was really promising. They meet in Sweet Danger in which she is still more or less a schoolgirl, becomes his plucky sidekick, fond of mucking about with engines and generally mechanically minded, and clearly has her sights set on Campion as future mate (go figure). She turns up again in The Fashion in Shrouds, working in a crack aeronautical engineering firm - appointed well before the owner of the firm becomes Campion's brother-in-law. The demands the plot makes on her are largely to pose as being engaged to Campion and then to break this off with maximum publicity (oh, go on, you can tell how this one ends, can't you?). So we have here a woman who is massively competent in a non-traditional for women area, who is employed and respected by a man whose views on women are sickmakingly expressed in his 'marry-me' speech to Valentine at the end of The Fashion in Shrouds, which is essentially about giving up her successful career and being his helpmate. In Traitor's Purse, set shortly after the outbreak of war, Amanda and Campion are engaged but show no sign of proceeding to actual wedlock. This is the one in which even Allingham seemed to be finding him annoying, as she bops him on the head, gives him amnesia, and has someone else putting amorous-type moves on Amanda, in the context of a major threat to national security. However, to the best of my recollection Amanda doesn't really do much, doesn't twig about the amnesia (and Campion is desperate that she not find out), although she does quite quickly get disillusioned by alternate suitor. At the end of Coroner's Pidgin when Campion finally gets home to her he finds her with a young infant, whom she (who has surely been making new and improved Spitfires for the duration) refers to as 'my war-work'. At the end of The Beckoning Lady, during which she does do a fair amount of displaying her extreme technical and practical competence in odd corners of the narrative, as well some laidback mothering, she and Campion talk about having moar baybees. In The Tiger in the Smoke, as I recall, she does nothing but sit on the sofa sewing (or possibly knitting - anyway, doing something of that nature when one thinks it far more likely she would have been taking engines to bits or constructing a computer or whatever) more or less in silence (is she pregnant in this one? it's so long since I read it). It really does make me go hey for Sayers and Harriet Vane and Wimsey realising that chivalry is just an excuse to have all the fun. I seem to recall that Agatha Troy Alleyne had a bit more going on as well, but it's years since I read any Marsh. This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1057792.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
booksquare	4:36p	Rogue Digital Conference at RWA Conference http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/booksquare/~3/3fRVDNmhO60/ http://booksquare.com/?p=3332 We’ve got a time: 8:30 AM And a date: July 16 And a Room: The Harding Room Digital issues — from ebooks to territorial rights — are the hottest topics in publishing today. Throughout the publishing industry, changes to business-as-usual have a direct impact on authors. Traditional publishers are experimenting with formats, business models, clever ways to connect books and readers. Digital publishers, in the meantime, are leading the market with modern thinking and smart business models. And new businesses, new ideas, and new approaches to storytelling are being developed. Are you ready to take advantage of these changes? To help you, a group of experienced professionals have created a Rogue Digital Conference, to be held prior to the start of this year’s Romance Writers of America Annual Conference. to talk about the rapidly changing digital landscape. Note: While we have some great sponsors including: Books on Board, Red Sage Publishing, Samhain Publishing, Quartet Press, and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, this is a streamlined event and we would ask you to bring your own tea, coffee, hashbrowns or donuts. That’s right, it’s BYOTCH-D. Kassia Krozser of Booksquare.com, a frequent speaker on the publishing circuit and co-founder of a new romance epublisher, Quartet Press, will start us off by focusing on digital issues, particularly the contrasts between traditional print publishers and digital publishers. She will be highlighting the efficiencies of the latter, challenges (and strengths) for the former, and questions authors (and maybe readers) should be asking. Kassia will touch on timing of reversion of rights, territorial rights in the worldwide digital audience, chunked content, and the spectre of being paid on the net. Sarah Wendell of SmartBitches.com, co-author of Beyond Heaving Bosoms, and lecturer will discuss digital promotion and some self publishing numbers shared by authors as well as the results of the Smart Bitches eBook Reader Olympics. Jane Litte from DearAuthor.com will share with you the five questions you need to ask your agent about the Google Book Settlement. She will discuss how evolving technology may affect the number of ereading devices in the future such as transreflective LCD screens, the popularity of netbooks, tablets, and dedicated readers and the rise of the smartphone. Angela James of Samhain Publishing will present the digital publishing model and how it works along with the pros and cons of publishing with a digital publisher (aka why you may or may not want to go this route with your next book) with a straight look at the money. Maya Banks and Lauren Dane, two epublished and print published authors,  are ready to share the hard numbers about digital publishing and why they’ve both chosen to keep one foot in the digital publishing pond. Please join us! (Comment on this)
ozarque	8:59a	Eldering; eating less... It started with an e-mail from idiotgrrl suggesting a blogpost on "Dainty Little Bites," by Kate Harding, at http://kateharding.net/2009/07/07/dainty-little-bites-discuss/ , and recommending the comments as well. Internet Explorer refused to show me the page and inflicted on me the cottonpicking Whirling Pizza Of Death until I gave up and did a Force Quit; but my even quainter Netscape 4.0 provided both the post and the comments promptly and efficiently, and idiotgrrl was right; it was a good read. [I didn't make it through all of the one-hundred-plus comments, but I plan to go back and do that later.] What it made me think of, however, was the food dilemma at my house. George and I, thanks to his extraordinary cooking skills and the fortunate fact that we like all the same foods, eat very well. Every night when I sit down to my dinner, I am so grateful. In all the years since he took over the dinner-cooking, he has had only two failures; I think that's a Pulitzer-class record, myself. He makes the best Mexican food I've ever eaten, and the best Italian food I've ever eaten and the best salads I've ever eaten; he is a spectacularly good cook. And he bakes our bread -- the five-minute artisan kind -- himself, one splendid loaf after another. However, as the two of us get older, we need less and less food. I marvel at the quantities of food we used to eat; those days are long gone. We now get four dinners out of one package of four chicken breasts; the spinach pie we used to eat completely at one sitting now serves us three times; making basmati fried rice used to mean two cups of rice, and now even one cup is too much. We're not dieting, and we're not Holding Back; we've just reached a stage in life where we need very little food. I remember, when I was a little girl, marveling at how little food my grandmother [who lived to be ninety-six] ate; George and I have reached that stage. We have a small glass of red wine with our dinner every night, and I consider us blessed. Fortunately we both are happy with leftovers and we don't mind having the same thing Wednesday night that we had Monday night. No matter how careful we are, however, and no matter how hard George tries to cook only in modest quantities, we end up having to throw away food because it won't keep long enough for us to finish it. And that's a problem. When our son Michael was living just down the road, we could always count on him to take any leftovers that were too much for us, with much enthusiasm. He was very fond of George's cooking. And while his partner Quinn was still living there after his death, we could at least count on being able to pass on our leftovers to her chickens and guineas. [Because Quinn eats only organic foods, she wouldn't eat them herself, but she was willing to risk non-organic with the poultry.] Now that Quinn has moved, we don't have even that option. When we had big dogs, they took care of any and all leftovers; our tiny Maltese won't touch them. We don't have any neighbors close by now that we're on a "Hey, would you be interested in some leftover chicken salad?" basis with. And health regulations -- very wisely -- mean we can't donate our leftovers to a food pantry or the local nursing home. So... We end up, despite our best and most careful efforts, throwing away food, and that bothers me. I hate the idea of throwing away good food in a world where millions of people are going hungry. Now, not to worry, please. Our appetites are not a symptom of depression or dementia or any other sort of illness. Neither of us is underweight. I'm sure that if we spent our days outdoors doing farmwork we'd eat more food, but we're not going to do that. If we spent our days outdoors playing tennis or swimming or hiking mountain trails, we'd eat more food -- but we're not going to do that either. We spend our days, basically, at our computers, and reading books, and doing crafts, and making music, and that -- Providence willing -- is what we plan to keep on doing. (38 Comments |Comment on this)
genreal	9:04a	This Left Feels Right http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Genreality/~3/bOm5k_zf0xE/this-left-feels-right http://www.genreality.net/?p=1801 Often when plans go awry people say they took a left turn, or it came from Left Field. I have no idea how that saying came about, but I just wanted to explain the title. Because todays post from me is just an excerpt. An excerpt from a novella with a character that, for me, came from Left field. Fun and quirky are words not often used to describe my writing. In fact, only once has it ever happened. NO ANGEL is the final novella in my single author anthology Most Wanted. It’s a paranormal, which is also not my normal niche, but I’d planned to write a story about a kick ass demon huntress, (Yes, I know, they’ve been so done already). As I wrote, my huntress took on a personality of her own.(This is where I find the true magic of storytelling) A sort of quirky one, and I loved it. And I loved writing this story so I thought I’d share a scene from it. PS: It’s an explicit sex scene. A romp that had me laughing out loud even as I wrote it. EXCERPT Safety always being her first concern, Anna wouldn’t normally bring anyone back to her hotel, but this time her impatient nature was getting the best of her. Plus, she’d scanned his energy with her second sight and his bright green vibe was all smooth and happy. The guy didn’t have an evil bone in his body. There’d been no hesitation in her when she’d climbed into his truck and directed him down Bernard and across two more streets to her motel room. It wasn’t the Ritz, but it was cheap, close to downtown and only a block away from the waterfront. She used the old fashioned metal key to open the door and ushered him in. Surprisingly, he took charge immediately. He pulled her to him and kissed her so passionately she was ready to burn the clothes off his body. Large masculine hands ran down her back and cupped her ass, lifting and pulling her tight against him. Wrapping her arms around his neck she trusted him to take her weight as she lifted her legs and wound them around his waist. Their tongues dueled and she rubbed her hungry sex against the massive hard-on she felt behind his zipper. His fingers dug into her butt and he dragged his mouth out from under hers. “Bed,” he panted, as he stumbled a few steps into the room and fell forward onto the queen sized mattress. They bounced and an inelegant oof! flew from her lips. Her bruised backside throbbed but she quickly forgot about that as his body rubbed against hers in all the right places. “Sorry” he muttered as his hands reached down and shoved her hoodie out of the way. He grabbed the hem of her tank top and swept it roughly over her head. She laughed, delighted to find a man who wasn’t scared to get a little rough with her. “Don’t apologize,” she said, panting and reaching for the hem of his T-shirt, matching his eagerness as she pulled it over his head. “Just fuck me.” Gabe hesitated when he unsnapped her cargo pants and discovered the weapons halter snapped low around her hips and belly. “A girdle?” he asked, eyebrows almost hidden by his hairline. She laughed and ripped the snaps open. Arching her back she tugged the harness out from under her while he was distracted by the naked breasts she’d shoved into his face. He sucked a nipple between his lips and she gasped, dropping the weapons to the floor next to the bed before going back to work on his pants. Their arms tangled as clothes were shoved aside as much as possible. When both their pants were around their ankles she raked her nails over the firm butt she’d admired earlier. “Condom,” she said on a gasp as the head of his cock brushed against her slick sex. He growled and she laughed as he made an awkward reach for the pants still around his ankles, and rolled right off the bed! “Fuck!” he cursed. “Well, we’re certainly trying,” she said as she sat up and looked down at him. Mostly naked he looked both adorable and ridiculously sexy at the same time. He dug in his pants pocket before he toed off his boots, shoved his pants off his feet, and stood up triumphantly. “Socks,” she said, staring at the thick cock bobbing in front of her face. Maybe it was because his hips were so slim, but damn he looked big. Big and red and juicy. She licked her lips and he groaned. “No, don’t look at it like that or we’re going to be done before we start.” He bent forward hiding himself from her view as he got rid of his socks. “Your turn now,” he muttered. She lay back on her elbows and giggled as he struggled to untie her boots. Then in one big flourish he pulled her pants and panties free and threw them on the floor before kneeling on the bed between her legs and rolling the condom on smoothly. “My socks,” she said. “I don’t care about your damn socks,” he growled. He came down on top of her, smoothly fitting his hips into the cradle of hers. His fingers skimmed over her pussy lips and suddenly she didn’t care about her socks either. He pressed a couple of fingers into her sex and she arched against them eagerly. “More,” she demanded. “You want more,” he said pulling his fingers out. “You got it.” With one swift and sure stroke he filled her. She dug her feet into the mattress and arched into him with a moan. Their joking stopped as Gabe braced himself on his elbows and began to fuck her. His hips pumped steadily in a strong smooth rhythm and she happily dug her nails into his ass to help him along. He buried his head in her neck, his hot breath sending shivers through her body as she moved with him. In and out his cock went, stretching her to the point that her sex burned with need. Her moans blended with his grunts as they worked up a sweat, straining to get closer. Closer and closer she got to cumming, her body getting tighter and tighter. “Faster,” she commanded, digging her nails in. Everything in her focused on the point of their connection. He picked up the pace, going faster, harder, deeper until he was hitting the sweet spot and her cunt started to ripple with pleasure. “Yes!” “That’s it, baby. Come for me. Come for me.” He slammed into her and ground his groin against her, rubbing her clit and sending her off into spasms of pleasure as the world exploded into ribbons of color in her minds eyes. She was vaguely aware of him throwing back his head and arching into her as his triumphant shout of pleasure blended with her cries. Limp with satisfaction, she let her hands fall back to the bed and he collapsed on top of her. She couldn’t bite back the cry of pain as she was sharply reminded of her earlier butt kicking. “Sorry,” he muttered and rolled off her. He lay beside her as they both fought to suck air back into their lungs. “You okay?” “Oh, yeah,” she said. “Very okay.” “Christ, your hot,” he said. “I appreciate the thought,” she said. “But please don’t say His name like that.” Gabe turned his head and looked at her. “Huh?” “Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain.” His eyes widened and she once again thought how pretty they were. Before he could say anything else she rolled onto her side and stroked hand down over his sculpted chest. “That was good,” she said. “Will you fuck me again?” * * * * * * * * UPDATE on the BIAM Challenge…..Darlene is still kicking butt! I did get SOME work done this week. Well, I got lots of work done, but only some writing. Just over 3,000 words added to my pitiful count form the first week. But hey, I’m not out yet, Darlene. I’m just gearing up. Darlene’s BIAM Goal: 90,000 words. completed to date: 29,539 words Sasha’s BIAM Goal: 90,000 words completed to date: 6,245 words Those that didn’t check in, please feel free to post your progress in the comments. (Comment on this)
jemck	10:09a	Cable vs wire(less)? We get our broadband down the phone line, so that'd be copper wire, I'm guessing? It's been pretty good till a month or so ago. Since then, the service just keeps disappearing on us. Y'know, the 'cannot find server', 'can't find website coz you may not be connected' type messages appear. This is happening at least once a day, sometimes two or three times, usually in the evenings but often enough to be a pain during my working day. Someone has to unplug the router, wait a bit, and plug it in again and then we all have to deal with all the 'your settings have changed' stuff. Pipex's customer service has nose-dived since they were taken over by Tiscali. They've screwed up my billing three times now in the past six months, and their tech support is a shadow of its former self. All they can say when I've rung up about this is, firstly, oh, it must be your equipment. Er, no, actually. I can be sure of that having rung Linksys tech support when one of these outages prompted our router to entirely reset itself to factory settings a coupla weeks ago. Linksys tech support guy was brilliant btw and got me entering various things to do pinging and stuff to check the whole set up here. It works. Tell Pipex guy that and he says, ah, right, that's the problem. Did you give Linksys your user name and password, he ask in a reproving-silly-girl tone? Say what? For a start, no, I had no need to tell Linksys any of that and as it happens, when I had to enter such stuff at my end, Linksys guy was quite clear I shouldn't tell him. And how is that relevant anyway? So Pipex guy's next thought is it must be the wire from the exchange. If I do assorted monitoring stuff over the next 24 hours, if I can report back three outages, he will progress it to the 'second line support team' who will look at reporting any problem they find to BT who will see about sending out engineers. As well as this monitoring and reporting, he wants me to unscrew the cover on the main BT socket and plug the phone line in differently and stuff that I honestly failed to follow, what with his very dense Dutch accent. Say what? Or, I could look at switching to Virgin cable, since this house is all wired for that on account of the previous owners and now the prices would be comparable with what we currently pay for phone/broadband. My own theory, which may or may not make any sense, given I don't do tech, is that the local phone system just isn't up to the load it's now taking. Coz when we first set up our home wireless network here, there was one other within scanning range for the Trend Micro security software. Now there are eight. I don't see BT engineers looking for a fault on the line being able to do anything about that. Re-setting all my email addresses etc will be a right pain but I'm thinking that may just have to be done. Thoughts? Comments? Advice? (23 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, July 8th, 2009
truepenny	5:31p	Waterlog TIME: 43 min. DISTANCE: 5.3 mi. TOTAL: 222 mi. DISTRACTION: The Dead Zone 1.2, "What It Seems" SHIRE RECKONING: Still slogging toward Weathertop. Okay, I'm sorry, that is not Sheriff Bannerman. There are many other things I could say about melodrama and undoing all the really lovely subtle stuff King does in the novel about the part wherein Johnny Smith is NOT a hero, and knows it, but I'll just go with the complaint that, you know, King HAS an explanation of what the "dead zone" is, and it's (a.) creepy, (b.) poetic in an intensely practical way, and (c.) plausible. All of which puts it ahead of the platitudinous blather provided by the show. otoh, it is a pleasure to watch David Ogden Stiers doing what he does best. (Comment on this)
pepysdiary	10:00p	Sunday 8 July 1666 http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1666/07/08/ (Lord's day). Up, and pretty well of my pain, so that it did not trouble me at all, and I do clearly find that my pain in my back was nothing but only accompanied my bruise in my stones. To church, wife and Mercer and I, in expectation of hearing some mighty preacher to-day, Mrs. Mary Batelier sending us word so; but it proved our ordinary silly lecturer, which made me merry, and she laughed upon us to see her mistake. At noon W. Hewer dined with us, and a good dinner, and I expected to have had newes sent me of Knipp's christening to-day; but, hearing nothing of it, I did not go, though I fear it is but their forgetfulness and so I may disappoint them. To church, after dinner, again, a thing I have not done a good while before, go twice in one day. After church with my wife and Mercer and Tom by water through bridge to the Spring Garden at Fox Hall, and thence down to Deptford and there did a little business, and so back home and to bed. (Comment on this)
oursin	9:31p	And yet another five Five words from ase - you know the game by now, surely, if you would like five words that I associate with you, either as a stimulus to posting or for private meditation, comments with 'Words'. ( Blogging Identity Travel Byatt Coffee ) This entry was originally posted at http://oursin.dreamwidth.org/1057776.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
infothought	3:02p	My _Guardian_ column on David Rohde kidnapping, and Wikipedia suppression http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/archives/001438.html "The moral quandary of involving Wikipedia in online 'censorship'" http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/08/wikipedia-censorship-seth-finkelstein "The suppression of news about a reporter's disappearance saw the New York Times and Wikipedia work together – but raises issues about control of information" Note this title was written by an editor. I didn't suggest a title of my own. It's not really wrong, but as a title, I'd say it doesn't quite sum up what I was trying to examine in that column. I was attempting to consider a broad moral question, and then use Wikipedia as a worked example because the issues are so visible there (due to all the public arguing which goes on it, and how much internal deliberations tend to get leaked). Not that Wikipedia has any special status - in fact, I was writing against any idea of Wikipedia exceptionalism. As I think of it, the column is trying to look at two topics: 1) Why did this hiding of information succeed overall, and what are the implications? (remember, we're constantly told it can't happen - but obviously, gatekeepers remain) 2) Who gets to keep out information, and why? Of course, there's only so much of this that can be covered in the space available. But that was my attempt at saying something which would be worth reading, amidst all the other punditry on this topic. [For all columns, see the page Seth Finkelstein | guardian.co.uk.] (Comment on this)
lilithsaintcrow	12:43p	No More Today, Thanks Usually my front door is open, and friends know they can drop by anytime. But today…I’m keeping that sucker closed. I am Not At Home, even though I am at home. What’s the problem, you might ask? No problem. Just that I need to take a rest. I need to work, to sink into the worlds inside my head and get them out onto the page without interruption. Until tomorrow morning, I’m not up for anything except a true crisis. You’re in a Mexican jail at 3AM and you have only a cell phone and my number? Okay, cool, my first visit is the American Embassy and then I’m on a plane to come get you, don’t worry. But other than that, please, let me be alone today. I need it very badly. It’s a funny thing–I am probably the least social person I know. And yet I almost always have a full house–kids, friends, friends of kids…I need large chunks of solitude that I hardly ever get because I have the wee ones. Sometimes it gets to the point where I retreat to a bathroom, close the door, and just sit on the floor for a little bit enjoying the idea of being alone as far as I can with cats and a seven-year-old yowling at the door. “MUMMY! WE DON’T EXIST IF YOU’RE NOT LOOOOOKING! COME OUUUUUUT!” I exaggerate. But not by much. I am perfectly happy for long stretches of time in my own company. Which I see a lot of people just aren’t. Takes all kinds, I know…but I sorely need a break today. Bukowski wrote a lot about needing solitude the way other people needed oxygen or food. It’s not quite that bad for me…but I understand. So, my dears, I am off to be alone today. Of course, the kids are all home, so I will probably be driven to barring the bathroom door at some point. I wonder if I can run a cord for the laptop in there? I will sit in a dry bathtub and write this scene that has to go in… ETA: I find it amazingly ironic that Wordsmith’s quote of the day runs thus: “Solitude has but one disadvantage; it is apt to give one too high an opinion of one’s self. In the world we are sure to be often reminded of every known or supposed defect we may have.” -Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824) Posted from A Fire of Reason. You can also comment there.

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