missing scene from The Ivory Merchants - Peter, the night before leaving for the north

"Are you all right about this, Pete? About tomorrow-well, about the whole thing, really."

"The whole thing?" He flashed her a quick grin, half-rueful, half-exhilarated. "I expect... I think the whole thing will be a lot easier than today, at any rate.  Are ( Read more... )

Not in total review - but in terms of fannishness and writing.

From January to May, more or less, I wrote the last seven chapters of The Ivory Merchants - that took about 36,000 words.Then I wrote two Narnia Fic Exchange 2014 stories - a "real" one, "the marks of that which once hath been", which was about quasi-sisterly relationships, and the ( Read more... )

Lots of cultural experiences over the past week, including some classic Doctor Who, (Fourth Doctor, with jelly-babies and scarf) and  the first two Vorkosigan novels.  But as well as those, a couple of the seriously greats:

Last Thursday I was at a performance of Verdi's Requiem.( To which I can only say... )

From Gutenberg:   an 1860s book, listing and discussing then-current and earlier slang.    Which I thought was terrifically interesting in itself, but also useful as a language resource for historical fiction.
(And I was also interested to see how many words which feel very Australian to me were in there.)

A notional board game to illustrate the ( Read more... )

I was blown away by so many of the stories in the NFE (I haven't yet read more than a few in the Madness Round).  I am just speechless at how brilliant some of the writers are -- it was a real feast of reading.  Thank you, Snacky, for running this! (And aurilly, too, for the tag-wrangling part.)

And I received a brilliant story, Concerning the ( Read more... )

The first episode of the new series unexpectedly came my way over the weekend, so I watched it, mostly to see what I thought of Peter Capaldi. (I abandoned Doctor Who at "The Girl Who Waited", in Season Six. Pah!) 
I thought he was what you'd expect -- a solid, experienced actor, able to work the script to good effect.  The script itself I didn't ( Read more... )

So, over three days I'm brushing up on basic first-aid - which has been grim but fic-thought-provoking, in terms of how things like crush injuries or hypothermia play out. 
Also mildly interesting legally.  It seems that having achieved a certain level of certification in first aid, the certified person is legally obliged to help (I nearly said " ( Read more... )

"Aslan?" he hissed. "Aslan?"

The Lion turned his head, and looked at him.

"Aslan. I didn't know you could be here, outside Narnia."

"Did you not?"

Edmund thought about that. Now he wasn't sure if he had known, or could have known if he had thought about it, or... he gave it up; the question of deciding what he really knew was too hard, and it was ( Read more... )

I posted another chapter last night on my long story 'The Ivory Merchants', and happened to glance at the publication dates and so on, and saw to my staggerment that I have been writing it for a year!  Or actually, for a year and a day, as in fairy tales, and as set out in TVtropes.  By rights (as understood in the fairy-tales) I should have won my ( Read more... )

So there was this wild elephant, which is an intriguing, heartening story,

and this paper elephant, which is astonishing in terms of origami,

but as far as fic goes... total deadlock, and nothing happening.  :(

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