This, that, and the other
I've been slaving away, trying to finish the final chapter of Hanyou's Prayer, and somehow my entire weekend disappeared. Gah. I'm a little...disappointed that I haven't been able to do it as quickly as I'd like, but I'd say ten and a half pages is pretty good for sporadic efforts in the mornings and evenings of Saturday, Sunday, and today, Monday. It's turning out to be an appallingly long chapter, but I am quite happy with its contents so far. (And, more importantly, the separate pieces of the chapter are working well together, despite my initial worries. It feels kind of ambitious to me, putting three separate scenes into one chapter. It's something I normally try to avoid, if only because I worry it will be too much.)
Other than that, my weekend's been pretty quiet. I read two books, re-reads of the second and third books in Garth Nix's fabulous Abhorsen trilogy. God those books are good, and how I wish there were more of them!
I still remember the wheedling and begging I engaged in to wear my mom down into buying the first book, Sabriel, for me. It was, as I recall, the sixth or sixteenth of July, 1996, a very warm, overcast evening. We were on our way home, ostensibly, though I can't remember why we were in that particular town in the first place... Anyway, we went inside the Mr. Paperback's and I was browsing the young adult section. I saw the cover of Sabriel and it called to me. I opened it up, read the first few pages, and was hooked. The mysterious combination of the paper and ink and print-run left behind a very bookish, very enticing smell behind, a smell that made my heart sing. (And it still does. ^_^ I open the book up, from time to time, just to inhale that fragrance...which probably makes me a freak, but that scent is so integral to my experience of that book.)
At the time, it was a six-dollars-plus-tax book, and therefore at least a couple dollars more than most paperbacks I'd buy. I remember the panic and despair I felt, knowing I had less than two dollars in hand. But I whined and begged and promised to pay mom back when we got home. So she bought it for me. I read that book as long as the twilight was still bright enough. And when I got home, I immediately went to my room, turned on the light, and read some more. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning reading. I fell asleep with it open, in my hands. I woke up the next morning and promptly finished it off. I've had that same, precious copy of that book ever since, and have, generally speaking, re-read it once a year or so, every year, rediscovering that same, absolute pleasure in the story every time.
When I found out that Nix had written two more books, I got hold of those too, as soon as I could. It was a little difficult for me to read them, at first, because they weren't what I'd expected, as far as sequels go, but I've come to love them very much as well. (The stumbling block was that the titular character of Sabriel was no longer the main character, and so I had to come to an understanding with the new protagonist. I still love Sabriel the best, though. XD) I will admit that I don't have the book of short stories, Across the Wall. It just didn't grab me the same--I don't believe that all the shorts in there were related to the three Abhorsen books.
(Interestingly enough, I only found out very recently that the cover art that so attracted me was done by some of my favorite artists of all time, the Dillons. They did the art for one of the most formative picture books of my entire childhood as well, Pish Posh, said Hieronymus Bosch.)
Huh. I have no idea why I started to reminisce. I'm sure I had a point in there somewhere, besides sharing this particular, bibliographic tale of love at first sight. Reliving the glory days certainly has its appeals...
Which reminds me! Speaking of the glory days, I'm seriously considering putting some of my original fiction (from my student days, hahaha) out to pasture here. I'm really not very worried that someone's going to come along and plagarise it and make a million dollars though, for safety's sake, I may end up f-locking them or something. It makes me feel a little weirded out that just anyone could wander by and read them. (Which is stupid because isn't the point of writing something to have it be read by someone else?)
I just...really feel at a loss with these few stories. I honestly don't recognize them; I wonder just exactly where inside me these stories came from, like maybe some other person hijacked my body and wrote these. But at the same time, I know very well that they're mine, that it really was me who wrote them, and they deserve better than to be moldering away in the metaphorical attic. (Really, the paper copies are stashed away in a box, and the digital copies are languishing in durance vile on my elderly, cranky desktop, which is prone to sudden, catastrophic, file-destroying failures. But then, at the ripe old age of almost-nine, it is entitled to a certain amount of eccentricity.)
I don't want to be...for lack of a better word, imposing on the f-list and be spamming up the place, you know? Anyway, it's something to think about. I don't know that I'll ever be organized enough to take on such a project! (Or indeed, dredge up the courage to face those poor old abandoned stories...)
Well. Breaktime's over. I think I'm ready to go back to Hanyou's Prayer and see about maybe making some mansexings happen. XD
~later
Other than that, my weekend's been pretty quiet. I read two books, re-reads of the second and third books in Garth Nix's fabulous Abhorsen trilogy. God those books are good, and how I wish there were more of them!
I still remember the wheedling and begging I engaged in to wear my mom down into buying the first book, Sabriel, for me. It was, as I recall, the sixth or sixteenth of July, 1996, a very warm, overcast evening. We were on our way home, ostensibly, though I can't remember why we were in that particular town in the first place... Anyway, we went inside the Mr. Paperback's and I was browsing the young adult section. I saw the cover of Sabriel and it called to me. I opened it up, read the first few pages, and was hooked. The mysterious combination of the paper and ink and print-run left behind a very bookish, very enticing smell behind, a smell that made my heart sing. (And it still does. ^_^ I open the book up, from time to time, just to inhale that fragrance...which probably makes me a freak, but that scent is so integral to my experience of that book.)
At the time, it was a six-dollars-plus-tax book, and therefore at least a couple dollars more than most paperbacks I'd buy. I remember the panic and despair I felt, knowing I had less than two dollars in hand. But I whined and begged and promised to pay mom back when we got home. So she bought it for me. I read that book as long as the twilight was still bright enough. And when I got home, I immediately went to my room, turned on the light, and read some more. I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning reading. I fell asleep with it open, in my hands. I woke up the next morning and promptly finished it off. I've had that same, precious copy of that book ever since, and have, generally speaking, re-read it once a year or so, every year, rediscovering that same, absolute pleasure in the story every time.
When I found out that Nix had written two more books, I got hold of those too, as soon as I could. It was a little difficult for me to read them, at first, because they weren't what I'd expected, as far as sequels go, but I've come to love them very much as well. (The stumbling block was that the titular character of Sabriel was no longer the main character, and so I had to come to an understanding with the new protagonist. I still love Sabriel the best, though. XD) I will admit that I don't have the book of short stories, Across the Wall. It just didn't grab me the same--I don't believe that all the shorts in there were related to the three Abhorsen books.
(Interestingly enough, I only found out very recently that the cover art that so attracted me was done by some of my favorite artists of all time, the Dillons. They did the art for one of the most formative picture books of my entire childhood as well, Pish Posh, said Hieronymus Bosch.)
Huh. I have no idea why I started to reminisce. I'm sure I had a point in there somewhere, besides sharing this particular, bibliographic tale of love at first sight. Reliving the glory days certainly has its appeals...
Which reminds me! Speaking of the glory days, I'm seriously considering putting some of my original fiction (from my student days, hahaha) out to pasture here. I'm really not very worried that someone's going to come along and plagarise it and make a million dollars though, for safety's sake, I may end up f-locking them or something. It makes me feel a little weirded out that just anyone could wander by and read them. (Which is stupid because isn't the point of writing something to have it be read by someone else?)
I just...really feel at a loss with these few stories. I honestly don't recognize them; I wonder just exactly where inside me these stories came from, like maybe some other person hijacked my body and wrote these. But at the same time, I know very well that they're mine, that it really was me who wrote them, and they deserve better than to be moldering away in the metaphorical attic. (Really, the paper copies are stashed away in a box, and the digital copies are languishing in durance vile on my elderly, cranky desktop, which is prone to sudden, catastrophic, file-destroying failures. But then, at the ripe old age of almost-nine, it is entitled to a certain amount of eccentricity.)
I don't want to be...for lack of a better word, imposing on the f-list and be spamming up the place, you know? Anyway, it's something to think about. I don't know that I'll ever be organized enough to take on such a project! (Or indeed, dredge up the courage to face those poor old abandoned stories...)
Well. Breaktime's over. I think I'm ready to go back to Hanyou's Prayer and see about maybe making some mansexings happen. XD
~later