I have run out of spoons.
I've been having a bad few weeks in terms of pain, and of course that eventually compounds to a point where transferring thoughts into comprehensible strings of words is sort of difficult. (And as I've mentioned to clarify, being misunderstood is my Kryptonite.)
I did find one work-around earlier today, where I was having almost no luck describing a house that a character lived in and finally gave up and opened up Sims 2. There were no adjectives necessary! I didn't need to remember the names of colors! There is now a perfectly functional graphical representation of roughly what I was going for, and there is no longer almost any imagination required. I can just describe what is there. Magic. (geeklovepoetry or angel_of_olore, if either of you want Den's house for your neighborhoods, let me know. Everything in the bathroom color coordinates, it's absurd.)
I've been reading The Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet, by Edith Pargeter (who, the cover informs me, also writes as Ellis Peters; the fact that this was ever enough of an issue that her publisher decided both names needed equal billing discourages me from ever using a pen name), which is a weapon-sized collection of four more abstractly-titled novels about Welsh history. I bought it at one point at Barnes & Nobles, many years ago, for something like $4, and have been attempting to get through it since. It's actually very, very good - it's just densely, thickly written, and if I lose my place or set it down for a few months I really need to start back at the beginning. I've only finally pushed past all the parts I half-read before, and I'm really enjoying it.
The excerpt below is a mild-to-moderate spoiler for a character's arc, although I really doubt anyone is going to be overmuch harmed by reading it unless they're right at this moment reading the first novel, or want to go back in time and be appropriately surprised by Welsh history. This struck out at me really, really hard, and, okay, I cannot communicate with flailing hand gestures online, but I think at least a few of you might see why. It's a character psychology thing - a simultaneous Glaring Weakness, and awareness of that weakness, and drive to warn others about it without actually changing anything. I don't know, it's great.
"And you will take me with you?" he said, still fearful of believing.
"If you are of mind, if you will take up this warfare like a man taking the cross, and be faithful to it, yes, then come with us. And most welcome! You need have no fear of that."
"And I may come forth? Into the light of day again?"
"Into the dusk of a chilly evening, and with a long ride back in the dark," said Llewelyn smiling, "if you say yes at once."
"Tonight? Dear God," he said, beginning to shake and to shine with the intensity of his joy, "the midnight will be brighter than anything within here." And he cast one wild, glittering glance all round the great chamber, and a stony, gaunt cavern of a place it was, for all its rugs and hangings. "Oh, I would say yes, and yes, and yes, to whatever you please, only to get out of here. Don't tempt me with too much, too suddenly. This, at least, I might not do lightly, nor you, either. There must be something to pay." He started suddenly forward out of the chair where he sat, and went on his knee in front of Llewelyn, and lifted his hands to him, palm to palm, so that his brother, surprised but indulgent, had little choice but to take them between his own, which he did warmly. "I make my act of submission to you as my prince and overlord," said David, in a voice ragged with passion, "and I do regret with all my heart those follies and treasons I committed against you. From henceforth I am your man, and you are my lord. And that I swear to you -"
"Swear nothing!" said Llewelyn heartily, and clapped a hand over his lips to silence him. "Your word is enough for me," he said, and took him strongly under the forearms and plucked him to his feet.
David stood trembling in his brother's hand, half-laughing, yet not far off tears, either, with the excitement and relief of this unexpected deliverance. "You should have let me bind myself," he said, "I thought you had learned better!"
"Fool! said Llewelyn, shaking him lightly. "If your word was not bond enough, why should your oath be? Nor do I want you bound. I want you free, and venturesome, and with all your wits about you. And we had best be moving, and take it gently on the road, for you'll find yourself stiff and awkward enough in the saddle after so long without exercise." Then he leaned and kissed his brother's cheek, and of solemn words there were no more.
When I read this I actually had to stop and put the book down for a moment, because it's both incredibly heavy-handed foreshadowing and an awesome character note. "You should have let me bind myself." That resonates so hard with something in my head and I can't even tell what - either something I've written, or read, or will write eventually. And obviously reading this book is not doing anything good for my sentence lengths.
In other news, Heroes is absurd but for some reason watchable again, Supernatural surprises me every episode with what they're willing to explicitly make canon, I have successfully badgered at least three people into watching Merlin, and if someone could devise a way to make video export instantaneously my work would be so much less headdesk-y.
House spoiler for most recent episode:
So, I haven't seen the episode but I did read a few summaries, and - okay, I can't even type this without wanting to go back and correct for the absurdity. BLEEDING FROM THE EYES. Not me, thank god, or, well, any other actual Endometriosis patient in all of history, but now when I need to explain Endo to people I guess I can just handwave and say 'Oh, you know, it's that thing that made the House patient bleed from her eyes.' This may or may not be better than my current standby of 'It's an autoimmune thing that glues your organs together with blood cysts.' Both are nicely vivid, though.
I did find one work-around earlier today, where I was having almost no luck describing a house that a character lived in and finally gave up and opened up Sims 2. There were no adjectives necessary! I didn't need to remember the names of colors! There is now a perfectly functional graphical representation of roughly what I was going for, and there is no longer almost any imagination required. I can just describe what is there. Magic. (geeklovepoetry or angel_of_olore, if either of you want Den's house for your neighborhoods, let me know. Everything in the bathroom color coordinates, it's absurd.)
I've been reading The Brothers of Gwynedd Quartet, by Edith Pargeter (who, the cover informs me, also writes as Ellis Peters; the fact that this was ever enough of an issue that her publisher decided both names needed equal billing discourages me from ever using a pen name), which is a weapon-sized collection of four more abstractly-titled novels about Welsh history. I bought it at one point at Barnes & Nobles, many years ago, for something like $4, and have been attempting to get through it since. It's actually very, very good - it's just densely, thickly written, and if I lose my place or set it down for a few months I really need to start back at the beginning. I've only finally pushed past all the parts I half-read before, and I'm really enjoying it.
The excerpt below is a mild-to-moderate spoiler for a character's arc, although I really doubt anyone is going to be overmuch harmed by reading it unless they're right at this moment reading the first novel, or want to go back in time and be appropriately surprised by Welsh history. This struck out at me really, really hard, and, okay, I cannot communicate with flailing hand gestures online, but I think at least a few of you might see why. It's a character psychology thing - a simultaneous Glaring Weakness, and awareness of that weakness, and drive to warn others about it without actually changing anything. I don't know, it's great.
"And you will take me with you?" he said, still fearful of believing.
"If you are of mind, if you will take up this warfare like a man taking the cross, and be faithful to it, yes, then come with us. And most welcome! You need have no fear of that."
"And I may come forth? Into the light of day again?"
"Into the dusk of a chilly evening, and with a long ride back in the dark," said Llewelyn smiling, "if you say yes at once."
"Tonight? Dear God," he said, beginning to shake and to shine with the intensity of his joy, "the midnight will be brighter than anything within here." And he cast one wild, glittering glance all round the great chamber, and a stony, gaunt cavern of a place it was, for all its rugs and hangings. "Oh, I would say yes, and yes, and yes, to whatever you please, only to get out of here. Don't tempt me with too much, too suddenly. This, at least, I might not do lightly, nor you, either. There must be something to pay." He started suddenly forward out of the chair where he sat, and went on his knee in front of Llewelyn, and lifted his hands to him, palm to palm, so that his brother, surprised but indulgent, had little choice but to take them between his own, which he did warmly. "I make my act of submission to you as my prince and overlord," said David, in a voice ragged with passion, "and I do regret with all my heart those follies and treasons I committed against you. From henceforth I am your man, and you are my lord. And that I swear to you -"
"Swear nothing!" said Llewelyn heartily, and clapped a hand over his lips to silence him. "Your word is enough for me," he said, and took him strongly under the forearms and plucked him to his feet.
David stood trembling in his brother's hand, half-laughing, yet not far off tears, either, with the excitement and relief of this unexpected deliverance. "You should have let me bind myself," he said, "I thought you had learned better!"
"Fool! said Llewelyn, shaking him lightly. "If your word was not bond enough, why should your oath be? Nor do I want you bound. I want you free, and venturesome, and with all your wits about you. And we had best be moving, and take it gently on the road, for you'll find yourself stiff and awkward enough in the saddle after so long without exercise." Then he leaned and kissed his brother's cheek, and of solemn words there were no more.
When I read this I actually had to stop and put the book down for a moment, because it's both incredibly heavy-handed foreshadowing and an awesome character note. "You should have let me bind myself." That resonates so hard with something in my head and I can't even tell what - either something I've written, or read, or will write eventually. And obviously reading this book is not doing anything good for my sentence lengths.
In other news, Heroes is absurd but for some reason watchable again, Supernatural surprises me every episode with what they're willing to explicitly make canon, I have successfully badgered at least three people into watching Merlin, and if someone could devise a way to make video export instantaneously my work would be so much less headdesk-y.
House spoiler for most recent episode:
So, I haven't seen the episode but I did read a few summaries, and - okay, I can't even type this without wanting to go back and correct for the absurdity. BLEEDING FROM THE EYES. Not me, thank god, or, well, any other actual Endometriosis patient in all of history, but now when I need to explain Endo to people I guess I can just handwave and say 'Oh, you know, it's that thing that made the House patient bleed from her eyes.' This may or may not be better than my current standby of 'It's an autoimmune thing that glues your organs together with blood cysts.' Both are nicely vivid, though.