pipesmoker

Pipesmoker, Charles Lefebvre, Belgian

I’m feeling discombobulated and irritated today.  Most of Sunday I worked on Swanology and it’s turning out beautiful. I decoupaged the binder with a triple cutout of Rossetti’s Proserpine, and found a great site about ships and got a drawing of Gaius’s ship, the Dandanae, which I figured out is a type of ship called a flute (of Dutch origin), named for the wine glass because it was long and slender. Flutes were sturdy vessels, had generous cargo space, and required minimal crew. Used for coastal travel, they were a favorite with merchants.  Also found a great site about swords and got a beautiful full page print of Ferrant’s weapon.

But the writing didn’t go well. I only managed a paragraph of a new Mira scene and it may come to nothing. I wish I’d taken the last three days of this month as vacation.

whitney’s trip

I’ve been meaning to post some photos from my niece’s trip to England. She took dozens of course. She’s a student at UC, Irvine, and spent the summer quarter at Cambridge. These are my favorites: (click to enlarge)

Roman baths, Bath, England

Cambridge

Dining hall, Cambridge

Cambridge town

happy friday

Berber Woman, Emile Vernet-Lecomte, French, 1870

heck of a lot of bobbling going on

The Lady of Shallot, Emma Florence Harrison

Devon’s comment to my last post is a worthy reminder of having the long view. Not being a linear writer ‘though, like my friend Janet, I peek and peer through bits and pieces of the story lens and write this and that and hither and yon, never seeing more than a sentence, sometimes a paragraph, ahead. Meanwhile my thoughts bobble like those old-fashioned candy machines that jetted air and set colorful jawbreakers to bouncing about inside the glass. As Devon says, none of those questions that bobble through my mind are answerable at the time they bobble, and that’s fine with me. I let ‘em bobble ’cause that’s how that little voice in my head works.

But my patchwork quilt way of working does yield pages and pages and pages of story stuff and bobbling questions galore, and sometimes I’m able to sew a patch or two together. I’ve lived with A Lamentation of Swans for so long and filled notebooks with so much detail that lately some of the pieces have connected themselves and so I got that great conversation between Vinza and Annasara the other day, and made my three-scene goal for this month.

Quite a lot is growing in the story, but a good deal of it remains beneath still waters. I know it will float free in its own good time, and eventually (soon, I hope) I’ll be staring at the whole tapestry.

such fine talk

The Favorite, John William Godward

45431. Vinza and Annasara had an interesting conversation yesterday. I’m pleased with the 645 words that came. It was nice to listen to their voices; they talked; I wrote, but even so, after I was done, I wondered…does it work? Does it have purpose? What does the reader gain? What does it do for the story? I needn’t worry really, and how well the scene eventually plays depends on what comes before it and what might come after it. Shadows cast from a different light.

This morning I’m going to spend a little time connecting stray dots.

and you were thinking…

A Peal of Bells, Emma Florence Henderson

Another of February’s goals laid to rest–finished the third of 3 new scenes for Swans; wasn’t sure I was going to make it with only 8 days left. But it’s a great scene between Vinza and Annasara. I”m thrilled ’cause I managed to get a lot across and advance the story.

Thanks, Adrian, for your thoughtful comment. I’m probably fretting needlessly about it.  I’m glad I did that spreadsheet, laying out all the scenes I have so far. The manuscript has great big holes and a whole lot of “what’s going on here?” in it, but that’s okay for now. Got to keep putting one word after another.

As for Ferrant, he keeps poking me, and that sword of his is awful sharp.

call me when you’re ready, she said

A Roman Studio, Lawrence Alma-Tadema

41102. Shortened a scene. Rained this morning, but now the sky is sunny blue with flat white clouds. Worked on A Lamentation of Swans until my stomach reminded me a bit ago that it needed feeding, and another cup of coffee would not do. So I sauteed garlic, threw in some shrimp, boiled some angel hair, poured half a glass of zinfandel, and voila, lunch, late.

Have to put away the manuscript and get to work on the tax stuff, prepare it for the accountant. I’ve got a box lid of papers and receipts to organize and then can fill out the form my tax accountant sends each year to help me organize, and then I can pack it all up, drop it off at the accountant’s office, and wait for my checks. I usually get it together by the first week of February, but this year had too much going on to get to it. And I’m not all that eager now, but better today–when I’ve got the time. I don’t do the last minute tax thing.

What else–oh, finished my reading critique of the first five chapters of Janet’s latest paranormal book–a witch romance. She’s finished the first draft already and has promised to send more chapters. Must keep time open for those.

I’m in the midst of a nice scene between Gaius and Annasara, and that’s the problem–it’s a nice scene. And then there’s that Vinza issue that’s come up. I was wondering whose novel it really is, and I’m beginning to think it’s Ferrant’s. Really.

rowing among the waves

Clytie, Frederic, Lord Leighton

44712. Went ahead and merged my new writing with last year’s manuscript. Hope to move forward from this point.

Before sitting down to work on A Lamentation of Swans, took a stroll to the beach, coffee mug in hand, notebook and pen in my pocket in case something good occurred to me, sat on the bench, a swoop of freeform pink fake stone, and contemplated the gray wrinkled sea while cold-edged breezes reminded me that I should have worn long sleeves. Today’s not as golden as yesterday, moody sky casting forth a pewterish glare, rain predicted for tomorrow. Sat there long enough to finish my coffee. Of the three new scenes I planned to write this month, I’ve done one–between Vinza and Annasara. Considering one between Vinza and Ferrant; don’t know what the third one will be, don’t know about the one between Vinza and Ferrant yet either. The sea was not forthcoming.

On the walk home, saw flocks of crows and a squirrel in a tree grooming his tiny chin on a twig.

february summer

La Pensorosa, John William Godward

Absolutely beautiful day today! Can it get any better than getting paid on Thursday, having summer in February, and getting a long weekend! Wow.

So… met Janet for our monthly lunch and writerly discussion; the local library in her town just bought all of her books, and she’s got one more coming out this year, and her new publisher is reissuing her first book. Yay Janet!

Years ago, (hah! decades!) when I was a kid spending a year with Ma Stell, I remember finding a McGuffey Reader leftover from her school days. She’d been allowed to go as far as the fifth grade. Her father made her stop because he didn’t see the point of her going to school, especially ’cause she was a girl. She’d loved school. Ma Stell was my great aunt, one of eleven children; even in middle age, the memory of the day she wasn’t allowed to return to school remained painful. I can still hear the bitterness in her voice.

Rooting about in the closet in the guest bedroom, looking for something to read, I found this black book still with a bit of gilt on the embossed cover, published in the late 1890s. It had Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Edgar Allan Poe–although I don’t remember which Poe story. It might have been A Cask of Amontillado or The Pendulum, or The Black Cat, or it might have been Annabelle Lee or The Raven. There were no bookstores in our tiny bayou town (and I didn’t know there were such places as bookstores anyway) and school was closed for summer so no library. I spent whole afternoons reading and re-reading that book. It remained in that closet for decades after I’d gone away and on a return visit in the early eighties, I found it again. I should have taken it with me. The other book in that closet was “Curious George,” first edition. Should have taken that one too.

Anyway, I finished my scene by scene, chapter by chapter, “what I have; what I need” review of A Lamentation of Swans yesterday morning. Now I’m ready to type my notes into the spreadsheet and take a good long steady look at the state of the novel.

mariachi clouds

 

Bashi-Bazouk and His Dog, Jean-Leon Gerome 

Something delightful…scroll to the Valentine’s Day entry…

http://michellemiles.net/blog/2007/02/

Something fun…Joely Sue Burkhart’s Thursday Thirteen…

http://www.joelysueburkhart.com/blog/

 And the ass of the day award goes to the Kinko’s guy in http://www.postumdrinker.blogspot.com/

We’ve all run into his sort at one time or another. Gotta tell you, Lara, I gloated for you!

If you need to do a war…

http://scottoden.blogspot.com/

Need to learn about serfs and turf?

 http://lostfort.blogspot.com/

Just ‘cuz…

http://devonellington.wordpress.com/

Happy Friday!