bits and bobs
Ted went Christmas shopping in Dublin yesterday, where he says he did not find anything at all that he was looking for for me. On the other hand, he did find the man who sells honey-roasted pecans and cashews and cinnamon-and-sugar-soaked dried apple slices, and this is probably worth the price of admission. Except, of course, the danger of knowing where that shop *is*, now…. :)
We are not, at this house, in a turkey stupor, because we’re not holding Thanksgiving until tomorrow (when our ONE IRISH FRIEND WHO *LOVES* US is coming up), and so today instead of feeling, well, stupefied, I’m feeling rather mellow and sleepily pleasant and have plans to write a couple thousand words on “Cairn Dancer” and clean the living room while Ted makes bread rolls and french-fried onions and whatever else he’s planning to make today in preparation for tomorrow.
Here’s the thing (I said, quite randomly) about drawing: I’m not good enough to draw pictures just out of my head, and while I’ve got at least one CD of artist reference photographs, it’s a CD and not actually very convenient unless I either have a computer handy (which, since we only have one right now, I don’t really) or if I want to print them out, which is inevitably more bother than I want to put into it. I often use magazines and stuff to draw from, but I don’t actually *buy* magazines (especially here, where they’re unbelievably expensive) and the people in them are all digitally touched up anyway. There must be good books of these sorts of things, though. Anybody got any suggestions?
(I could, I suppose, print out copies of my own photographs that I’ve taken. That only just occurred to me. Still goes through the ‘have to print it out’ thing, but at least I know I like the source material. :) This is a good idea! Why didn’t I think of it before?)
I may go out today and buy a couple of floor lamps. I really hate the overhead lighting in the living room. Oh, wait. I have a better idea. I could wait until Kate gets here with her *car*, and *then* go buy floor lamps, which would mean not having to negotiate awkward packages and taxis! Wahah! I am CHEENUS!
One of the things I noticed in doing the copy edits for THE PRETENDER’S CROWN is that I didn’t miss the 30+ pages I took out of the first 200 or so. Not really. I missed them because I knew they’d been there, but it was kind of an active effort on my part: ah, yes, and this is where that whole section would be…. So apparently they could afford to be chopped, and maybe I’ll put them up on cemurphy.net as DVD extras when the book is released. It’s unusual for me to even consider that, because normally when things get dropped it’s because the story has changed so hugely that they no longer fit anywhere at all, whereas these are sections which still work perfectly well within the context of the book, it’s just that they weren’t strictly *needed*. So I’ll probably take advantage of that, since it won’t often happen. :)
All right, this is once more starting to look a lot like procrastination, so I think I’ll go shower and do some work on my short story and stuff. *scoots off*
(x-posted from the essential kit)