One of the things we talked about last night with good friends, all of us unwinding from a long stressful week, was Anna Russell.
And today, I learned this:
A great loss for both the world of opera, and the world of humour.
Category Archives: Links
ESTC Update
Total word count, ESTC: 41,207
Total words today and yesterday: 1,172
|
|
|
41,207 / 50,000
(82.4%) |
You know that whole dramatic “how will I ever fit all the info that has to go into Chapter Two into Chapter Two!” thing I’ve been wibbling and worrying about?
Short. Very, very short. Three pages of point form notes, which will probably expand to six once I write it out. Which leaves me lots of room for all the other stuff I want to write, like rituals in the final chapter and another three or so pages of meta stuff on rites of passage that belong in Chapter Two as well; all the things I wanted to include but was afraid wouldn’t fit. Yay me.
Oh, and I made pretzels this morning. Next time I’ll use one cup less flour and cut the sugar in the dough by maybe half. Very excellent nonetheless. But then, I’m a salt devotee, and I adore big dough pretzels.
And there’s nothing like the Colonial theme from the BSG season 2 soundtrack to get me motivated. Of course, it also has other associations for me, but damn, it’s a fine, fine piece of music.
Erudite Bookworms Read Pride & Prejudice
I scooped the Janeites over at AustenBlog!
Although credit for originally finding it goes to Scarlet, who sent it to me because of the squee-worthy bookworm cuteness.
How To Write A Book, By Authors
I meant to link Maureen Johnson’s How To Write A Book when I read it, but it got lost in the whole new contract-work-boy-trip thing. It wasn’t until I read her sequel to it a day or so ago that I realised I’d completely forgotten to link it originally. So here you are:
Maureen Johnson on how to write a book, Part 1 and Part 2.
Justine Larbalestier lays her method out here. (Check the spreadsheet! OMG!)
More authors are leaping on the bandwagon. Stay tuned.
So Not Less The Drama
Liam, of course, had a wonderful afternoon yesterday with his godparents and came home all smiles. Ate like a small horse. Slept for an hour and a half. Bit no one. (Or so I assume, because I didn’t hear about it.) And then he ate a huge bowl of pasta and veggies in homemade cheese sauce for supper, had a fun bath during which he gave us very wet and tender hugs, and went to bed cheerfully. With those damn molars, it’s like Jeckyll and Hyde around here sometimes.
Filling the gas tank to the literal brim gave me an indecent amount of pleasure. Our gas tank hasn’t been full since sometime in late May. I just keep putting five or ten dollars in when gas prices dip down closer to a dollar, or when we need it. Pumping gas doesn’t rank as one of my favorite tasks — I don’t hate it, I’m just neutral about it — but I enjoyed every moment this time. It was extraordinarily satisfying.
HRH and I had a good dinner of leftover ribs and new potatoes drowned in butter with freshly ground sea salt and pepper. Simple, and utterly delicious. We watched a very good PBS program on the making of the Mars Pathfinders, followed by the second-ever RockStar: Supernova episode that I’ve seen, which I somehow feel that I enjoyed much more than I should have. It’s just become appointment television. (Gentle Readers, I am in a band, you know. We do play The Ramones and Metallica. And I’m fascinated by the art of arrangement.)
I received a deeply appreciated message from one of my oldest friends this morning, pointing out some positive truths that helped reinforce today’s saner perspective for me. I don’t have to always be perky and cheerful and resilient. Stress happens. Nerves understandably fray. And the stress gets worse because I care so much.
Today, I have a stack of Haydn string quartet CDs to rip to my computer as I work, because one can never have enough string quartets in one’s playlists. Then I may move on to ripping my Beethoven quartets. Then Schubert. Who knows? I lead such a wild and crazy life.
Film News!
Brendan Fraser has signed to play Silvertongue in the upcoming film adaptation of Inkheart!
I may die of happiness. Assuming they do the adapation well, of course. But then, we’re talking about Brendan Fraser, whose presence onscreen can make up for a lot.
Song For Cricket
As part of the August Writing project I’ve been writing poetry each day — some long, some short, some freestyle, some with personally chosen challenges like exactly ten syllables per line, and so forth. (And no, you won’t find them, because they’re all community-locked.) The past two days I have written deliberately bad haiku about Cricket being in heat and yearning for the boy cat love, because it amuses me.
The Baron has taken this and run with it. This is “a Cramps kinda stomper”, as he puts it, raw and raunchy, which incorporates some of the lines and phrases I wrote in the haiku. You can practically hear the grinding punk music thrashing away in your mind as you read the lyrics.