Pluto and Persephone, Edmund Dulac

I’ve wondered about this too: what is a sequence

I always enjoy: kay kenyon

Now I’m going to have to watch Starship Troopers again! It’s been a while… always entertaining

Night Fairies, Hans Zatzka

November and December were lousy months for me and I’m glad to see the back of them. Normally the end of a year is a fun time, but as 2011 slid to a close, I was trapped in a pas de deux with a torturous flare of  systemic lupus and not at all a happy dancer. So here I sit, recovering on the ledge of January, peering into the mists of a new year and wondering how the writing will go this year. No looking back for me. Well, in a minute…must give a brief, backwards glance to the 2011 Goals–such as they were.

2011 Goals

• Plan Spring workshop: writing and revising TAKEN — Done; some progress made but not much.
• Work on one short story during the year — Not done.
• Write an essay on the writing craft — Not done.
• Read my research books about vampires — Not done.
• Upgrade pendrifter’s content — Not done.
• Read The First Five Pages – got to Chapter 4.
• Do the March Edit: The Foreigner — Not done.
• Attend Literary Orange Writers Conference, UC Irvine — Done. Good conference.
• Attend World Fantasy Convention, San Diego. — Done. Great conference.
• Write Silk Road article for Travel Thru History website — Done and published.

Dreams and Resolutions didn’t even make it onto last year’s list, but I had a couple more successes that were not planned: I did a Creative Visualization presentation to a writer’s group that went very well and was great fun and I self-published to Amazon’s Kindle Grave Shadows, an ebook of my dark fantasy short stories, and it’s still selling! Of course I won NaNo and now have manuscript #6 in the files so can’t beat myself up too badly about all that I didn’t do in 2011.

Enough with the backwards gaze, looking forward…

2012 Goals

• Priority:  Finish writing A Lamentation of Swans
• Plan a new novel: Death By Night (I think it’ll be Death By Night. We’ll see.)
• Attend Literary Orange Conference 2012, UC Irvine
• Write at least one pendrifter post each month. I’m really going to try to keep this commitment. I appreciate that I have readers and I need to give them something to read!

I expect things won’t go smoothly and I’ll go through my usual scatterbrained rotation among the novels, but I’m really, really, really going to focus on completing A Lamentation of Swans. (Do or do not; there is no try.–Yoda)

Portrait in Profile, Theodor Baierl

Didn’t think I’d make it this year. Such a relief!

Alvida’s Window, John Bauer

31,134. More than halfway through this year’s November Novel, and it’s not been as smooth as I’d hoped, in fact, it came close to disaster, and I almost gave up,  but I managed to rescue the manuscript. Still, it’s been a tough wrestle with the pen. Was afraid I wouldn’t make the goal this year, but looks like I’ll manage it.

“The last seed
falls from the sunflower-
empty pond.

The long awaited
rattle of rain on rooftops-
Thanksgiving Day.”
-  Michael P. Garofalo, Cuttings  

.

The Harvest Moon, Charles Rennie Macintosh

It’s that time of the year–November–when, as Emily Dickinson said, the rose is out of town. Rain came, the air is cool and fresh and gray. It’s the writing month, the only month of the year when somehow I manage to write everyday, 7 days a week, no matter what. Every month is writing month, but only in November is it absolutely true, every day. What I want is to have 12 Novembers–to be productive all year, every day.

Lake of the Rose is this year’s NaNoWriMo book. I see it as a horror novel, but who knows how it’ll really turn out. I won’t know for sure until November 30. And maybe not even then. Writing is not paint by numbers–at least I don’t think it is, despite genre conventions. I do have an outline, somewhat, and characters, and a story; heck, I’ve even got a premise! So we’ll see.  No pressure, not even a pinch; all will be done at my own cool pace.

******

“Walked for half an hour in the garden.  A fine rain was falling, and the landscape was that of autumn.  The sky was hung with various shades of gray, and mists hovered about the distant mountains – a melancholy nature.  The leaves were falling on all sides like the last illusions of youth under the tears of irremediable grief.  A brood of chattering birds were chasing each other through the shrubberies, and playing games among the branches, like a knot of hiding schoolboys.  Every landscape is, as it were, a state of the soul, and whoever penetrates into both is astonished to find how much likeness there is in each detail.”
-   Henri Frederic Amiel 

Back from the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego; had a fabulous time! Got to meet one of my favorite writers–Cecelia Holland. The panels were lively, particularly the ones moderated by Ellen Kushner and Elizabeth Bear. I loved the panel on mermaids, undines, and sirens, and took pages of notes at the panels on undersea civilizations, airships, and Lovecraft. The conversation between Connie Willis and Neil Gaiman was a kick to listen to. All in all, it was a good con–the best kind!

Met some wonderful people, made new friends! Of course I’ve come home loaded with books, books, and more books, and I gave my wallet an extra kick by bidding on a painting by Todd Lockwood and winning! Intruder now hangs in my living room.

Congratulations to all the winners of this year’s World Fantasy Award.

I could go on but I must collapse now. Levi has already given me a bite for leaving him alone for 4 days, and tomorrow I’ll be back at the day job thinking longingly of fantasy land.

Oh, before I forget, it’s the eve of Halloween! A perfect time to gift yourself or someone else with some spooky reading–Grave Shadows available at the Kindle store. Buy, read, review–and thank you so much!

World Fantasy Convention 2011

Can’t wait to escape for 4 days of fantastical fun in San Diego!

Apple Blossoms, Sir John Everett Millais

Shoot it before it grows.

There appears to be a strange divide going on among Kindle-philes and bibliophiles–some sort of weird prejudice, biblio-bigotry, whatever (not to mention all the moaning and gnashing of teeth about the demise of the book–NOT). I for one shall not be falling into this ridiculous divide. I for one love my Kindle and love my hardback and paperback books and I’m not giving up either one. Admitting to owning a Kindle has people thinking you’re never going to buy another paper book for the rest of your life (and I suppose this will be true for some)–what the hell? Who comes up with these idiotic prejudices?

As a lifelong bibliophile, no way am I going to give up the pleasure, the transcendent pleasure, of the hardback beauty and its softcover cousin, of breathing in freshly-minted pages, falling in love with beautifully illustrated covers, and spending hours with my eyes glued to intriguing typescript while the alluring voice of an invisible narrator pulls me into the imaginary worlds of imaginary people dealing with all sorts of cool realities, hyper-realities,  and surrealities– terrifying, laughter-inducing, mysterious, mind-boggling, hallucinatory, etc. etc. all laid out on crisp, creamy-white pages.

However, my Kindle is handy for books that I’d rather not have taking up space in my book cabinets ’cause that space is reserved for my keeper treasures by my beloved writers and any book I want to have and to hold ’til death do us part–and, umm, that number is ever-growing. But a good book is a good book regardless of packaging, and I can fall into a good story in whatever form it comes. That’s just how I roll.

For all my delight in antique books with color plates, old houses, art, Victorian jewelry, beautiful woods and things made out of beautiful woods, and gorgeous fabrics,  I delight in the shiny technologies of the 21st century. Science fiction was my first love and like somebody somewhere said, the future is here.