with your crown beneath your wing
The meteorologists are promising the mercury will climb to 61F today, and I can only hope they're not mistaken. My plan to make peace with the cold this winter isn't going so well. Yesterday, when the writing was done, I wanted to take a walk, but we only made it as far as the southern edge of Freedom Park before the cold turned me back towards home. I think the temp was somewhere in the high 30s, with wind. Ugh. Anyway, maybe I can get a halfway decent walk in sometime today, if it really does warm up.
Sophie may be headed back to the vet again this afternoon.
The writing went very well yesterday. I did 1,498 words on "Bainbridge" and made it all the way to the end of Section VI. Today I'll begin VII, "Counsel Among the Dead." Presently, the story stands at 6,937 words. With luck, I'll finish it Thursday afternoon. I think this is the first time I've ever allowed myself to write a story for an audience. Well, maybe I did that with "...Between the Gargoyle Trees," because I knew no one would be reading it who hadn't already read all the other Jimmy DeSade/Salmagundi stories (or at least had access to them). So I didn't worry about reintroducing characters. I didn't worry about it being a stand-alone story, which it isn't, and I think it was a better story for that. That's how it's going with "Bainbridge." As this story will likely never appear anywhere but Alabaster, at the end of a book containing all the Dancy stories, I'm allowing myself to take certain things for granted. I assume the reader knows Dancy and will have read all the preceding stories in Alabaster. I assume the reader will recall bits about her mother from Threshold. I assume the reader has read Murder of Angels. These are the story's three critical assumptions. So, what I mean about writing for a particular audience is that I'm writing this story for myself, of course, but with those readers in mind, the ones who've read these books and stories. I don't think I could have been true to this particular story any other way.
Thanks to folks who sent Cephalopodmas gifts and well wishes. They were greatly appreciated, here at the tail-end of this crappy year. Spooky and I exchanged gifts on Dec. 22nd. It was apparently an action-figure Cephalopodmas. I gave her three Final Fantasy X-2 figures (YRP!), and she gave me two Corpse Bride figures, as well as a really fantastic Dresden Dolls DVD, which we watched Sunday afternoon. Next year, I shall have a Cephalopodmas tree and do this thing up right.
I'll be starting the eBay auctions again today. And over the next couple weeks I'm going to be doing my best to draw new subscribers to Sirenia Digest. Having chosen novelizing over Bullet Girl, and since I don't yet have a contract for the next couple of novels, income from eBay and Sirenia is going to be extremely important to me and Spooky in the months to come. Aside from buying my books, there's no better way to show your support for my work at this time than by getting a subscription to Sirenia. Oh, and we'll be announcing the winner of Monster Doodle Sculpture #5 in the next few days (selected from the subscribers).
Okay. Time for the words to start flowing. Think warm thoughts for me, or, as the Nebari say, Ena sn'ial.
Postscript (3:59 p.m.) - Can someone explain to me the advantages of an RSS feed, how I can get this blog into syndication, etc?
Sophie may be headed back to the vet again this afternoon.
The writing went very well yesterday. I did 1,498 words on "Bainbridge" and made it all the way to the end of Section VI. Today I'll begin VII, "Counsel Among the Dead." Presently, the story stands at 6,937 words. With luck, I'll finish it Thursday afternoon. I think this is the first time I've ever allowed myself to write a story for an audience. Well, maybe I did that with "...Between the Gargoyle Trees," because I knew no one would be reading it who hadn't already read all the other Jimmy DeSade/Salmagundi stories (or at least had access to them). So I didn't worry about reintroducing characters. I didn't worry about it being a stand-alone story, which it isn't, and I think it was a better story for that. That's how it's going with "Bainbridge." As this story will likely never appear anywhere but Alabaster, at the end of a book containing all the Dancy stories, I'm allowing myself to take certain things for granted. I assume the reader knows Dancy and will have read all the preceding stories in Alabaster. I assume the reader will recall bits about her mother from Threshold. I assume the reader has read Murder of Angels. These are the story's three critical assumptions. So, what I mean about writing for a particular audience is that I'm writing this story for myself, of course, but with those readers in mind, the ones who've read these books and stories. I don't think I could have been true to this particular story any other way.
Thanks to folks who sent Cephalopodmas gifts and well wishes. They were greatly appreciated, here at the tail-end of this crappy year. Spooky and I exchanged gifts on Dec. 22nd. It was apparently an action-figure Cephalopodmas. I gave her three Final Fantasy X-2 figures (YRP!), and she gave me two Corpse Bride figures, as well as a really fantastic Dresden Dolls DVD, which we watched Sunday afternoon. Next year, I shall have a Cephalopodmas tree and do this thing up right.
I'll be starting the eBay auctions again today. And over the next couple weeks I'm going to be doing my best to draw new subscribers to Sirenia Digest. Having chosen novelizing over Bullet Girl, and since I don't yet have a contract for the next couple of novels, income from eBay and Sirenia is going to be extremely important to me and Spooky in the months to come. Aside from buying my books, there's no better way to show your support for my work at this time than by getting a subscription to Sirenia. Oh, and we'll be announcing the winner of Monster Doodle Sculpture #5 in the next few days (selected from the subscribers).
Okay. Time for the words to start flowing. Think warm thoughts for me, or, as the Nebari say, Ena sn'ial.
Postscript (3:59 p.m.) - Can someone explain to me the advantages of an RSS feed, how I can get this blog into syndication, etc?