In Elder Days, in years of yore, I was revising this set of cuneiform tablets collectively titled Three Katherines of Allingdale, and posting the odd shard about it to this journal.  At the beginning of this year, I was comprehensively stuck, and turning to other projects until some idea or other worked loose.  My life then performed several ( Read more... )

Are BARRED from my dreams until with strange aeons, even Death shall die. And they shouldn't get up their hopes too much then, either ( Read more... )

I caught one! Right at the beginning of Katy Elflocks, before I knew or thought I'd need to care about the details of the wider kingdom, I had Luke's father give him his ridiculously destructive magic sword as a parting gift - and it is explicitly the case that the old king has borne it into battle and knows what it's like, albeit clearly he doesn ( Read more... )

Killer-Kate and Luke Lackland: Set down thirty years of the Royal Court's agenda in the remote and boondocky Northdales, and the dales-folk's frequently underwhelmed response thereto.   As I mentioned here, this is all important for the shape of the tale, but not particularly obtrusive.

Raised a few questions, received no big surprises, caught no ( Read more... )

I've found I can't keep re-writing this, because it gets every way worse each time, and there's nothing I really ought to change in it; so here's a few words re-posted from my comment on John Scalzi's tribute thread to the late Anne McCaffrey, one of my great influences from my early teens: -

I was twelve, and in various ways less than happy, when I ( Read more... )

Due to the severe degeneration of my lifestyle during the final push to complete my first draft, I shall be devoting most of this weekend to clearup and recovery. Last night I got my first really decent sleep in more than a week, so I'll take that as a good beginning. Much or little blogging may fit into the corners.

I was going to illustrate ( Read more... )

Spent an interesting evening upholding the funky monkey side of a friendly debate between Pan narrans, the Storytelling Chimp, and Homo faber, Bob the Builder.  A rum do rather, what with my being the science technician, and the other party the theatre manager.  The venue was the lobby-bar of the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, that magnificent folly ( Read more... )

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To recap once again on this month's challenge, it is:

Paying My Moral Debts
I'm going through the list of all the free stuff I, personally, am currently getting only because other people are enthusiastic and generous. Then I'm seeing how much I can commit by way of fair return, and how much of that should or can be financial. The coming month is ( Read more... )