Category Archives: Writing

Bright Sides

I am trying to be thankful that this storm has given us a dozen centimetres of ice pellets so far instead of the skating rinks other areas have received. Except I just got home after dropping the boy at the caregiver’s and HRH at the metro, then doing a brief stop in at the grocery store for essentials, and after trying to drive through the gales of wind and the accumulated ice pellets that behave like wet sand, it’s moderately difficult to be thankful. Particularly when winter just keeps on going. (Lying groundhogs — the Canadian ones said spring would be early. Can one sue a rodent?)

There is almost no one on the roads, and the grocery store was deserted. That’s good, I suppose.

I was going to write an open letter to winter, but Mousme beat me to it and did it better than I could have done, too. It’s more succinct, and certainly more polite. Oh look; it’s now snowing big fluffy Christmas flakes out there. Whatever; I just don’t want it to turn into freezing rain.

To work! I’ve had to reschedule the topic I was going to work on today, after discovering last night that the two books I was intending to use for reference were useless. I shall move on to one I was less mentally prepared to write.

Milestone!

My first rejection letter! Yes, the YA novel I sent out at the end of December did not succeed in its mad quest. I’m actually quite amused that I opened it, read the form rejection, and thought “Yay, this is the first rejection letter I have ever received!” It was indeed a mad shot in the dark, and now I will settle down and sensibly query agents.

Saw the doctor this morning; all is well regarding deeper sleep and pain levels, and my current prescription has been confirmed for the next six months. I am, in fact, at liberty to double my dose if I so require, and to call it into the office so they can put a note in my file. Hurrah for doctors who trust you to know your own pain levels! She also approved of the supplements I’d researched and begun taking on my own for various aspects of the complex, and told me that the recommended Vitamin D intake for North Americans has been revised from 400 IU to 1000 IU and to be sure I was getting enough, as it might impact the fatigue and pain as well. 1000 IU? That’s insanely high. As she put it, one would have to sunbathe fully nude for two solid hours every day of the year in full sun to absorb that amount. (As it happens I’m only a few IU short of the recommended dose thanks to my supplements but I thought I’d share, as you never know.)

At the doctor’s office the boy entertained the other patients waiting with his antics, particularly when he emptied a small cart and dubbed it a gondola train car. This was directly followed by him bringing a spiral-bound book to me and asking me to read it. “Okay,” I said perfectly evenly as he scrambled up onto the bench next to me, “this book is called… ‘Diabetes Explained’.” There were several muffled snorts of laughter, followed by more when he excitedly pointed out that the illustration showed insulin as a series of little gondola train cars carrying glucose to the bloodstream, shown as a track. So I sat there, seriously discussing glucose, insulin, stomachs, hypoglycaemia, and type 2 diabetes with the boy while the other patients pretended they weren’t listening. It was very amusing.

It’s a very mild day out there, which has done a lot for my mood. Especially since the boy was home sick with me yesterday, and I was polishing the copy-edits. It was nice not to have to fight the car heater or bitter winds for once while we were out. It was so nice that we made a day of it. After the doctor’s office we went to the bank, where he sat on the ledge of the automatic teller and asked what everything was, then held one of the statements and said, very importantly, that it was his List. Then we went to the second-hand book store, where I only found one of the books I was looking for, but three for him when we browsed the children’s books. And then, feeling very capable of handling an excited toddler in a restaurant on my own, I took him next door to the rotisserie where we had lunch out together, including dessert. I ended up eating most of the miniature brownie ice cream sundae that came with his meal, because he was perfectly content to scoop up the hot fudge sauce with his finger and lick it. And on top of that the waitress gave him an orange lollipop, the first one he’s ever had. They are decidedly “very good, Mama”.

My rejection letter isn’t the only thing that arrived in today’s mail; I missed a parcel delivery while we were out (of course). I believe it is a Buzz Lightyear baseball-style spring jacket for His Little Highness I won on eBay. I shall tuck it away to present as a gift or reward for a particularly good week.

The copy-edits have been returned to my editor. I now have four weeks to finish the hearthcraft book. I am simultaneously feeling confident and panicked. When I began, I was hoping that the body of the work would be finished by now, and March would be a month of fine-tuning and polishing. Things like this never work out the way one anticipates they will.

Irrelevant Photo Post

This is my office. It is currently a mess because I am writing one book to deadline, just finished the copy-edits of another, there is a sick toddler/preschooler in the house, HRH is away at rehearsals or performances most evenings, and I am trying to whack away at Gounod and Faure whenever I have a spare moment. Oh yes, and I am fighting that fibro/chronic fatigue thing that makes me choose between tidying up or writing.

For some reason, I thought a photo essay about the place where I spend a lot of my time might amuse you.

This is the north-east wall, the one that’s on the left as you walk in. Seen here is the mishmash of stuff that collects on my office shelves and on top of the books when I need them out of the way of wherever they were originally put. There are still things I took off the old vertical corner shelf that used to be where my corner desk now stands, from a couple of months ago. Candles, empty picture frames, that sort of thing. As I’m in the middle of writing a book, there are books piled on the front of the shelves that I’ve borrowed from people. Closer to the window you can see my two-tier office altar, where I’m drying rose petals at the moment. The shelf under it holds all the reference books for the book I’m currently working on. Well, most. Some, anyway. I do try to keep them all in one place. The window faces east. There’s another bookcase that size between the door and the one in the picture; this only shows the front half of the room.

Next we have my new-to-me corner desk. It’s not developed a lot of personality yet, as I’m trying to keep it neutral for the moment, and keep it relatively clear to spread books and papers out while I work. At the left are more reference books I’m using immediately for the current project. The walls above it are still bare from having had that vertical shelf there for so long. I still don’t know what to put up. There is a cluster of witch balls hanging from the ceiling at the moment. It’s hard to figure out what to hang in a corner, as the two walls meet and the display space is awfully close. Besides, to my right is…

… the collage wall, where I have hung a collection of various things including a print of the alternate Promethea #1 cover, an original photo of the moon taken by a student, fine art postcards, an original oil painting of a deer by my husband, an original charcoal sketch of a raven woman (also by HRH), a hand-painted Pictish banner, and so forth. You can only see the lower half of it. This collage is fluid, and shifts slowly as I phase things out and include new ones. In the upper left of this photo (and the right of the previous one) is a small creativity shrine that was made to be a salt box/cellar thing. (It currently has a lot of swan representations on it for serenity and insight, and usually a votive candle.) Behold also my pencil cup, various writing notebooks, the external hard drive (love!), a statue of Freyja, various foxy things, various small stuffed talismanic animals (the original Montreal NaNo psychic ferret among them!), my laptop (which doesn’t usually live here, but on the bedroom bookcase), the Chicago Manual of Style and a Webster’s among other reference books. What you can’t see underneath it is a mess of cables, a shredder, and two fourteen-inch piles of books that I have not yet read.

Turning again, we see the closet door swathed in a white sheer curtain (the door is mirrored — shudder), the cello on the floor, the case tossed over the cello stand in the corner, and the music stand bearing the Gounod and Faure. To the right you see my filing cabinet, more books (Is it a flat surface? It’s got books.), my red toolbox, a tote bag, and the carton the hard drive came in. Right at the bottom right-hand corner you can see the edge of the child gate that renders this room the only boy-free zone for the cats, as well as the little cat door we cut in it. That’s the viola case leaning against the wall and the music stand.

And finally, we have the often-present black kitten giving you the “What? I’m allowed to be here” look.

I’m never quite satisfied with my office; I always feel that it’s missing something, or not quite right. It never matches what I visualise it could become. Part of that is the fact that I live in it so much that it never has the chance to rest and become something; I’m always moving things around and reorganizing. It looks and feels quite different at night as well, and when the sun is shining. I would love a comfy chair in which to curl up and read, or even better, a chaise longue! But there’s no room for it.

Well, there you have it: a brief snapshot of my life. It will be different tomorrow, of course, and once the hearthcraft book is done I’ll be changing pictures and books to focus on something different again. And come spring, there will be flowers and boughs of buds, too.

Argh!

Stet!

No, un-stet!

Stet!

Un-stet!

*headdesk*

Look, squirrel-mind, just take a stand and decide if you’re accepting the global change to make all elements lower-cased, or not. Then do the same with each appearance of the term ‘Mother Goddess’. (I know, I know, that one’s hard, because sometimes it is legitimately ‘Mother Goddess’, and ‘Mother’, and other times it is correctly ‘mother goddess’ and ‘mother’. Just decide which is which and stet/unstet it confidently. Trust yourself.)

Also, good on you for initiating the global change of ‘Neopagan’ to ‘Neo-Pagan’, squirrel-mind. If we had cookies, I would give you one.

Do it, then go cuddle your son and think of something fun to do. Like baking cookies, for example. Then you get your reward as well as entertaining him.

Hello, Monday

Despite the fact that Liam is cheerful, has a good appetite, and is sleeping well, the runny nose he had yesterday has developed into a more recognizable cold. The stuff coming out of his nose is no longer clear, and while he’s not sneezing any more he does have the tendency to smear mucus all over his face with a hand and then go on playing with toys with that wet hand. (Yuck.)

So, home he stays.

This really sucks, because I needed today to do the final check and polish on my copy-edits. I’ll do what I can during his nap and tonight after he’s in bed. And now on the laptop, while he indulges in Kids CBC through the morning, a treat he usually only gets on Saturdays.

(I am trying to see this as a positive thing in that we’re saving a day’s worth of daycare fees, but it’s hard.)

Hello, Wall…

I have spent the day wandering aimlessly through the copy-edits, forgetting what I’m looking for and waffling between agreeing with the copy-editor and asking to stet some of the capitalization changes. On the up side, I’ve discovered that I want to change how I present the term ‘neopagan’ (Neopagan, neo-pagan, Neo-Pagan, neo-Pagan… gah) because this would make the fourth time it’s been edited differently in a book of mine, and darn it, I’d like to at least present a façade of consistency. (Why did this not occur to me the other three times I went through copy-edits on a book? Who knows?) I changed a few other things I thought were fine on the first pass, and stealthily added about eight hundred words to the hearthcraft book while doing on-line research to avoid working on the copy-edits, plus more in a new document that I’ll have to rewrite and paste into the main file next week. It’s been the kind of day where if I knew this morning what I know now, I would have just spent the day on the chesterfield with a notebook and a pile of real books to sort through, and perhaps accomplished something more useful.

No, wait, I made two loaves of bread and some sweet buns. That was useful. Of course, I forgot about planning dinner, so that may cancel out the production of useful bread products.

Jan came over for our regular Friday writing thing and we had a couple of conversations about conferences and the pagan community that made me think about how I respond to both of these things thanks to past experiences, and decide that maybe, just maybe, the next time I’m asked to be a guest I might say yes.

Tonight is opening night for the show HRH is stage managing, so break a leg, all! (Or a string, if you’re in the orchestra.)

Er

I just finished the first pass through the copy-edits.

I feel somewhat guilty. It’s really not supposed to be this straightforward. A tiny part of my brain is suggesting that maybe I just wrote a really clear, solid book, but the rest of my brain is jumping on it and screeching at it to shut up, because that’s tantamount to saying “Things can’t possibly get any worse!”

I’m going to get up, walk away for a bit, and then come back to start a second pass. And there are some things I want to check, particularly about capitalization/lowercase issues; I think I may stet about half of them. But overall, um, I’m kind of done.

ETA: It is Very Nice that another tiny bit of my brain just went, “Oh, yay! We can go back to writing the hearthcraft book now!” It’s good to see that somewhere inside, I am still excited about this book.