Owls' Court

The Not-Resolution Post

I think New Year's resoultions are pointless. If you have to tie something to a new calendar, then chances are pretty good that it won't last long. I've never been a fan of them, mainly because if I find something in my life that needs improvement, I work on it then; I don't put it off. Observation has also yielded the conclusion that very few New Year's resolutions are kept by anyone, so why does anyone bother?

I re-evaluate my choices and decisions at least four times a year, but that's encoded into the spiritual path I follow. Seeds, growth, harvest, and reflection are natural parts of the life cycle, and each part of that cycle offers a unique view of how life's going for you. My time of introspection comes in the late fall, after harvest, when the earth wraps itself in a shroud and the light fades from the world.

Luanna gave me a tiny little gift book entitled Goddess Within along with the Tin of Evil Christmas Goodies, and in it I found a quote which sums up the conclusion I've come to during this time of introspection, rebirth, and new light.

I don't waste time thinking, "Am I doing it right?"
I ask, "Am I doing it?"

I second-guess myself so much and worry about how I'm doing things that I often forget that the point is to experience life, not to grade yourself on it. Did it get done? Did you enjoy it? If not, why? And why hit yourself over the head about it if you didn't? And especially, why beat yourself up if you did it, and did it well?

It's not a resolution; it's a realisation. This has been a phenomenal year for me. The next calendar year looks like it's going to be an even bigger one for a variety of reasons. Understanding that I'm worth it all means so much. And allowing myself to just do things without criticism, without self-castigation, and without judgement is a beautiful part of it.

Oh, Never Mind

Total words to date: 10,681
Total words today: 2,620

It's like pulling teeth. Well, I passed the 10K mark, and that means I'm over 1/6th finished. Yay me. I'll be satisfied with that.

Besides, now I have to go make dinner. What am I serving? Why, Rue's Baked Ziti with Meatballs.

Best-Laid Plans

So. Erm.

Remember I said I wanted to be 1/4 finished the green witch book by the end of this week? (That means Friday, in my world. Friday is the end of my work week. I usually teach on Saturdays.)

Well. Since I wrote two reviews today which took for-ev-er, I lost a day on the green witch project. In order to hit 15K, I'd have to pull off 7K tomorrow.

So not going to happen.

(What did I do Wednesday, you ask? I went in to the store to do my regular Wednesday thing in the office, of course. Plus we took a long round-trip in traffic to feed our cat-friend Jake, and went grocery shopping. It was a full day, all right?)

7K? That would indeed be a miracle, and let's face it, a very long shot. 5K, now; that might be possible; extreme, but possible. Perhaps I shall work on lists of herbs and their properties; that's always good for word count, too, and making lists doesn't take as much deep thought as other kinds of writing which need more attention (which is not to say that I don't take herbal lists seriously, just that I'm so familiar with the information I can rattle it off without furrowing my brow and rewriting the same line a hundred times until I finally say what I think I want to say). I can sit back and brainstorm into the microphone while listening to playlists and petting a cat. And then maybe I'll work on the earth-associated deities section. It all has to get done at some point.

I did accomplish a lot today while my brain was on the fritz -- the reviews (finally), updating several pages on the website, creating the new book promotion page, scanning and uploading some more logo images on HRH's Stonedance site -- but none of it, alas, racked up word count on the green witch book. Perhaps I will revise my admittedly extravagant goal to something slightly less extravagant but still optimistic. For example, if I write 4K tomorrow, I'll make it past 1/5th of the book this week. Maybe I'll aim for that instead. And then, if I awaken on Saturday feeling bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and keen to write green witch stuff (I have a very vivid imagination, all right?), then anything after a 12K total is gravy.

Shameless Self-Promotion

I can't focus enough to formulate sentences about someone else's book I'm reviewing, but I'm sound enough of mind to create a whole page showcasing Power Spellcraft for Life for my site! (Hey - it was cut and paste and rearrange from the original proposal. It wasn't rocket science.)

And I undid all the good my no-caffeine streak did me by having a half glass of Coke, and oh dear, we are now quite wired. I wish it was useful in getting that second review finished, but no: energy we have a-plenty, but our focus is still shot.

la la la

I just finished one of my two book reviews for the next issue of Wyntergreene (due today, of course). I do reviews the same way I write books: make notes by hand and go back later to type them out and expand them. Having done so magnificently for the first book (Irish Witchcraft From An Irish Witch for those who are interested, and yes, once the print issue is out in mid-January I'll upload the review to Owldaughter as well), I took a break to have one of Lu's two-layer Rice Krispie bar things -- one layer was chocolate, and I think the other was peanut butter, or maybe maple, or maybe it was maple-flavoured peanut butter from being next to something maple in the tin for too long, who knows? -- and I am now blissfully distracted by the surge of sugar and la la la I can't focus on the next review to save my life.

The Problem With Proving a Negative

I am thankful. Booksquare thinks that Dan Brown's writing is dreck, too.

The column is inspired by Laura Miller's excellent Salon article, "The Da Vinci Crock," which is also really worth a read; if you don't have an account, go for the free day pass (it only takes 20 seconds to get it).

Recent history offers many examples of Americans' inability to tell fact from fiction, but none more tangled than the story of Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code." The book is among the most popular novels of all time, with 8 million copies sold since its publication last year and what seems to be a permanent reserved slot on the bestseller list. You see people reading it on planes and trains, and if at a social event you happen to mention that you write about books for a living, someone is sure to pull you aside eagerly to discuss it. This baffles and annoys a lot of literary types, many of whom haven't read The Da Vinci Code or couldn't get past the first few hackneyed pages. Why is the public so preoccupied with this cheesy thriller? they wonder.

The Da Vinci Code has characters so thin they're practically transparent, ludicrous dialogue, and prose that's 100 percent cliché. Even by conventional thriller standards, the book isn't particularly good; the plot is simply one long chase sequence, and the "good guy who turns out to be evil" is obviously a ringer from the moment he's introduced. Dan Brown is no Robert Ludlum, so why has his thriller so outdistanced the work of his betters?

The answer is that what readers love about the novel has nothing to do with story, or character, or mood, or any of the qualities we admire in good fiction. They love it because of the nonfiction material the book supposedly contains, a complicated, centuries-spanning conspiracy theory. The people who buttonhole me at parties and barbecues to talk about The Da Vinci Code usually can't even remember the names of the novel's two main characters or anything that happens to them. What entrances these readers is the possibility that a secret society has protected a religious and historical secret for almost 2,000 years, a secret that could undermine Christianity as we know it.

Miller goes on to point out that although Brown can always claim his shaky history is fiction, things get awkward when the authors of Holy Blood, Holy Grail smack him with a lawsuit claiming he lifted his "history" straight from their non-fiction book... which claims to be based on historical fact, but which has, in turn, been seriously debunked in recent years. Erm. As Miller says, " In The Da Vinci Code Brown had one really good idea: to use a rudimentary thriller plot to spoon-feed readers the Grail theory concocted by Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln. You get the impression Brown never expected The Da Vinci Code to take the world by storm or that it would invite the kind of scrutiny his novel cannot withstand."

The main problem with a book like this arises from the fact that it's nigh-impossible to prove a negative. You can't dismiss conspiracy theory, becuse it just further feeds the conspiracy through being a cover-up. People love the idea that there might be something secret and shadowy out there. The lack of solid scholarship about any of it, which is what frustrates the academics, merely enriches the popular imagination.

New Reviews

Two new book reviews have been uploaded to Owldaughter:

Raising Witches: Teaching the Wiccan Faith to Children by Ashleen O'Gaea;

and

Grimoire for the Apprentice Wizard edited by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart.

And see, I am so very good; nowhere in the second review do I mention the artwork at the bottom of this page.

The Little Things

I found decaf Lady Grey tea at the supermarket yesterday.

I shouldn't be on the verge of tears simply because I have a cup of decaf tea in front of me instead of bouillon or a tisane. I have so missed tea.

Life is good.

And yes, the headaches are now officially gone; I think they were indeed a result of going no-caffeine (except for the occasional chocolate - it's Christmas, and I'm not a saint). And now that the holiday madness is over, I'm not as exhausted. Huzzah! Normality! (Or what passes for it in my life, anyhow.)

Sold!

I have just received my very first e-mail message informing me that one of my imaginary friends (a.k.a. someone I know from the Internet, but have never met in person) has pre-ordered my book.

I'm completely thrown, and terribly giddy. I know there will be plenty of people who will buy it (many because they're interested in the subject matter, and not just because I wrote it), but this is the first official sale I know of.

Anne, you've made my day!

If You Are Interested In Stories With Happy Endings, You Would Be Better Off Reading Some Other Book...

HRH took me out to see A Series of Unfortunate Events yesterday and goodness my, they actually managed to capture the books. It's dark. Really dark. I don't think some of the parents understood how dark it actually was, as they grew increasingly concerned while the movie unfolded. (Does no one read? No, wait; don't answer that. I know.) The kids were riveted, though.

The production design is wonderful (think Edward Gorey as seen through a Tim Burton lens), and while Jim Carrey has never been one of my favourite actors, they managed to rein him in enough to fill the creepy role of Count Olaf in all his manifestations quite decently. Liam Akin and Emily Browning were simply excellent as Klaus and Violet Baudelaire (despite Klaus' lack of perpetual glasses), and while their lines are a bit less erudite than those in the books, they still manage to portray "inventor" and "well-read" clearly and convincingly. Kara and Shelby Hoffman share the role of the toddler Sunny, "who bites things," and who was given subtitles so that the audience could understand what she was saying, similar in fashion to Snicket interpreting her gurgles in the book. The mix of accents makes for a slightly skewed perception of the environment at first, but the awkwardness soon blends into the general surreal steampunk evil which pervades the film. The costume design is just as delicious as the steampunk backgrounds. The casting of of Meryl Streep as Aunt Josephine was a stroke of genius, as was Billy Connolly as Uncle Monty. And Thomas Newman's score is a must-own.

Jude Law narrates the film as Lemony Snicket, and while I always read Snicket's voice as lugubrious and morally stentorian in the books, Law's gentle and sorrowful voice seems to complement the visual melodrama quite well. This film begins with the first half of book one, then covers the basic plots of books two and three, and ends with the second half of book one, and the story ends up flowing surprisingly well. Law's narration helps bind it together. The links between the stories and the hidden secrets are made a bit more obvious, which also helps strengthen what might have otherwise been a very shallow plot. Yes, it's a bit episodic, but it works in this instance; the film is about "a series of unfortunate events," after all.

And don't walk out as soon as the happy yet shaky ending fades away... the animation of the end credits is among the best I've seen. (You can leave once the cool bits are done, though; we stayed in case there was a theatrical Easter Egg, and the only thing that showed up was a dreadful one-verse ditty sung by Carrey which was evidently cut from the film.)

If you're a fan of melodrama, take this one in. It's not a must-see on the big screen, so you can wait to rent it (or maybe I'll have a Melancholy Movie Night when the DVD is released, who knows).

Have I mentioned how sick I am of people comparing modern children's books to Harry Potter? Every second review I read of this film either smashes it (or the books) because it isn't Harry Potter, or gushes because it's like Harry Potter (have they read either series?). Honestly. Get over it, people. There are other children's books out there, and this series is nothing like Rowling's series, nor is it meant to be. Okay; there are orphans, and bad things happen, and there's a conspiracy. But that's where the similarity ends. For heaven's sake, those three things happen in practically every Dickens book as well, but you don't hear me whinging that Snicket or Rowling ripped him off, do you?

Metaphysics, Anyone?

Powell's has my book listed under Christianity - Cults and the Occult.

I can't stop snickering. Powell's does have Spirituality: General, Alternative Spirituality, and Magic, Witchcraft, and Paganism sections. Apparently whoever keyed in the data completely ignored the publisher-supplied sales material which clearly classifies the title as "New Age," and uses the word "Wiccan" as well.

A Good Day's Work

Today's word count: 4,743
Total word count: 8,061
Favourite typo: Every time I say the word "blood" DragonSpeak gives me "light," even after training both words separately half a dozen times. Maybe it's trying to tell me something?

I'm now 1/7th of the way along, and more than doubled what the original word count was. This has been a good, solid day's work. I now know all the places which require serious focus, and what chapters were neglected in the brainstorming and note-taking part of the process. I have about six chapters which will be three-quarters finished once I've expanded the note-form dictation into full sentences and link them properly. There are two chapters that presently have nothing in them at all. So the manuscript's simultaneously in better and worse shape than I'd expected.

But now I'm walking away from the computer, because I feel vaguely cross-eyed, and can no longer distinguish good writing from bad.

insert squeal here

Amazon.ca has corrected the lowercase typo -- and there's now a shot of the book cover! Which means I suppose I can post it now too, as it seems final and official and such:

Amazon.com has the cover up as well, but hasn't fixed the lowercase typo; Indigo doesn't have the cover up yet, but is the only one of the three to have a sampling of the back cover copy. ("Important information not covered in similar works"? I'm not sure about that, but it's a nice marketing claim.)

Green Means Go

Voila!

Today's word count (so far): 1,943
Total word count: 5,261

Almost two thousand words before lunch! I feel so accomplished.

That's 1/11th of the book complete, up from 1/20th. Another thousand words or so and I'll have doubled my previous word count. And this is just transcription of the handwritten notes. Sometimes I'm expanding as I go, but I'm mostly just dictating them into the manuscript. I'm leaving room to write out the meditations and visualisations; I know where they'll go, but I'm not in the right headspace for those just yet. Transcribing notes is a fabulous way to punch up the word count and to shore up the ego, but not all days will be like this. This represents my first step towards fleshing out the skeleton of the outline; once all these notes are down, then I know what chapters need more work, and can continue to flesh things out accordingly. My handwritten notes are all over the place. Sometimes I indicate which chapter they're meant to go into, and write a page of actual text; other times I just scribble down unfinished thoughts or write down random musings, which makes figuring out where to insert them into the manuscript an interesting task. It's always an adventure, though, as I rediscover very cool thoughts I had a couple of months ago: my current thinking gets a kick-start, and things get percolating again.

I still have twenty pages of notes to transcribe today, so I'm looking forward to seeing what the grand total of the manuscript will be at the end of the day. Regular readers will know that 2,500 words is what I like to complete as a daily quota. Remember, I want to be at about 15K by the end of the week. Optimistic perhaps, but maybe not so unattainable after today.

Advice for the Writer At Heart

From his weblog Whatever, here's a link to John Scalzi's Utterly Useless Writing Advice. This is one SF writer's view of the whole industry. The basic answer to "How do I become a writer?" is, of course, to Just Write. Being a professional writer is a different story, however, and involves writing stuff you (a) don't necessarily know about when you perceive a need that must be filled (ah, the joy of research!), and (b) understanding that at times you will probably have to write stuff you don't want to write. It's a job, like any other, and in any job there's friction between "want" and "must."

Sunshine

I finished Robin McKinley's Sunshine a day ago. I'd been looking forward to this book, as it had been positively reviewed. I usually really enjoy McKinley's stuff. This time, though...

Well, the whole thing felt like a stream of consciousness narrative that never really connected with the actual action. The plot is a terrific concept, and takes place amid some fantastic world-building. It's just that despite being inside the protagonist's head all the time, it never really seemed as if I knew her, or how she felt.

I'm still puzzled as to why exactly I didn't get into it. Vampires, creatures, urban magic, post-apocalyptic, secret forces keeping an eye on the Others, people just tryingto be normalin the face of it all... it's got terrific ingredients. And at no time does it use them to shock the reader; they're all matter-of-fact and well-integrated into the world McKinley has created. So it must have been the writing style which tripped me up. Sunshine is not at all like her other books; it presents a radical shift in tone and presentation. While I usually commend an author for doing this and breaking out of a safe tried-and-true niche, I guess I didn't expect such a drastic difference from Spindle's End, for example, which was the last McKinley book I read. Granted, the subject matter is very different, and I expected an equally different delivery -- I guess it just wasn't what I wanted at the time.

I'll read it again in a couple of years. I can tell it's a good book. I just can't wrap my mind around why it slipped past me.

In the Dead of Winter, Green

Ideally, I'd like to expand the current 1/20th of the green witch book to a full 1/4 over the next week. This is theoretically possible, because of the piles of notes I have which unfold quite neatly into pages of writing. Whether I can overcome my current computer aversion or not will be key to my success. Also, I think I'll be further experimenting with DragonSpeak; I wonder what will happen when I dictate my notes and talk them through. This necessitates a move from the Little Computer (a.k.a. the laptop) to the Big Computer (a.k.a. the desktop), because I can't install DragonSpeak on the laptop (it has something to do with how my laptop's CD-ROM drive reads newer CDs). Someday, I'll get one of my geeks over here to show me how to network my two computers together so that I can copy programs over, and then there will be no stopping me.

I wonder how many writers actually get anything done over the holiday season. There's shopping and cooking and family and a very different headspace in residence, not to mention the recovery necessary. My mind has been so firmly fastened on other things that I've only had a few moments in bed to feel guilty about my lack of output before I'm asleep. I know I'm sick of research mode, which means that I have to finish switching gears into writing mode. I didn't have this problem with the spellcraft book, because the core of it was based on my two-part workshop. While I've lived green witchcraft, I've never formulated a lecture or a class around it, so over the past couple of months I've been reading and thinking and writing notes. My handwritten notebook is half full, so I've certainly been doing work; it just doesn't feel like it because I have a really lousy Official Word Count to show for those months of work. On top of this feeling of guilt for having Not A Lot To Show For All That Time, I might have the contract for that Wicca book handed to me in January, which means the deadline for the poor green witch book will get bumped and my focus will narrow drastically to the new project. Prep for the new project won't be as long and personal and meandering and introspective as this prep for the green witch book has been; goodness knows I have plenty of classes and lectures addressing the various subjects I outlined in my emergency Wicca proposal which will serve as the source and skeleton for what I'll write. But I feel sorry for the little green witch book, which is gestating so slowly and patiently in my subconscious, and which might end up cryogenically frozen until I have the time and headspace to go back to it.

So you see, I feel honour-bound to do as much as I can this week, and then again during the first week of January until I hear from my editor. I will immerse myself in green in this dead of winter, and nuture my book along as far as I can, just in case. For who knows what the rest of January will bring?

Gods Bless Us, Every One

It occurs to me that those persistent low-grade headaches (which are now mostly past, thank the gods) might have been caused by caffeine withdrawal. I may only be an occasional coffee drinker, but I used to have at least one pot of good tea every day, and maybe a glass of Coke too. Cutting all that out could very well have triggered the headaches. Anywhats.

Christmas with my family and HRH's family was delightful. Apart from tons of food (including my mother's home-made tourtiere for Christmas Eve dinner), we were terribly spoiled in the gift department by new sheets, fluffy towels, two T-Fal frying pans in different sizes (thank you, thank you, thank you!), new clothes, a tea press and yummy caffeine-free tea (convenient), tons of chocolate (so much for the no-caffeine thing!), a handmade citrine pendant from HRH, an heirloom locket from my gran, and a selection of DVDs and CDs from my wish list. It was a wonderful two days as we shared quality family time and love, which is precisely what the holiday season is all about to me. We all cried three times as we exchanged gifts; I think that's a record. And of course, there was one very special gift given to my parents on Christmas Eve, and to HRH's parents on Christmas Day. It's on order, so to speak; it won't arrive until August. It will, however, be worth the wait.

Aaaaand... my holiday gift to me was snapping up the $65 USD secondhand copy of Turville-Petre's Myth and Religion of the North: The Religion of Ancient Scandinavia when the ABEbooks e-mail notification landed in my in-box this morning. Even with the $10 USD shipping charge from the UK, it's the cheapest price I've ever seen over the past two years that I've been coveting it as one of the authoritative resources on the subject. Let's hope they still have it in stock and someone else didn't get to it before I did.

Dad was quite impressed when he saw my LCD monitor; I wonder how long it will take before he has one too. I'm still mucking about with the settings, trying to get the perfect blend of contrast and brightness; my tastes seem to change every time I sit down.

Hot and Cranky

As I have grown older, I have noticed that my patience and innate desire to not let people down has worn thinner. Yesterday, after Ceri and I had walked from Atwater to Peel through crowds of stupid people on sidewalks which had only a small strip in the middle free of wet ice, and I had endured the ear-splitting hell of HMV's music choice for all of ten minutes, I said, "I'm hot, I'm cranky, and we're splitting up now."

"I was about to suggest the same thing," said Ceri.

Even five years ago, I would have withheld my crankiness and travelled further along the shopping route with her for moral support during the stupidest day of the year. We'd met for lunch and art, and I needed to pick up a gift for one final parent since we hadn't found it elsewhere. She needed to pick up three final gifts before her departure for Halifax. We know that the 23rd and the 24th are insane shopping days. We knew exactly what we wanted, and where to get it. We would be each other's anchor of sanity. It was to be a focused, surgical operation.

And it was, until the HMV part of the trip. There weren't even that many people. Well, there were a lot of customers milling about, but not much more than a busy Saturday crowd, really. It was, as it always is, the music that killed me. And the winter coat and heavy sweater, on a day of rain and warm wind and above-zero temperatures. Plus the CD I needed was (yes!) out of stock, so I had to find something else the parent might like.

Hot and cranky. Oh, yes.

Ceri had only one more gift to get at the bookstore, so I didn't feel like a complete traitor for abandoning her. Once I was home I took a nap, and then HRH treated us by ordering in crispy sesame beef and General Tao chicken from our favourite Szechwuan restaurant, and we watched the entire second DVD of appendices in The Return of the King extended edition.

Today, I wrap. And as I wrap, I will continue to be concerned about my parents, who were driving the 401 in that horrible storm to overnight in Kingston yesterday. I couldn't get hold of them last night. They're due here around 5 pm, so I'll know then, I suppose, unless they call me before that.

Mmmm...

I love this season, because mixed nuts are widely available in the shops and less expensive than usual.

And oh, how I love Brazil nuts. There always seem to be more in the mixes during the holiday season, but still never enough nestled amongst the hazelnuts, pecan halves, almonds, and the cashews which I leave for HRH because he enjoys them so.

Mother Night

One of the things I love about the Teutonic religious systems is that they have actual days set aside to honour various ancestors. For example, December 24 is called Mother Night, a feast day where a family celebrates its female ancestors. I always thought it fit in quite nicely with the whole Solstice return-of-the-sun idea, and with the preponderance of male sun-associated deities born on or around Dec 25. Mother Night is something I've celebrated with a libation and a prayer to the disir the past few years. (There; probably something you didn't know about me. I'm not blindly Celtic-based, even though I'm dedicated to Brid and also serve the Morrighan through my tradition. In fact, I usually prefer to work with Norse deities.)

Selena Fox has written a great article on Holda, a Teutonic goddess of winter. While I'm more familiar with her older, wilder, shadow side referred to as Perchta by Fox, this article outlines the more munificent traits with which Holda is associated, which are remarkably appropriate for the season. I think I've just found the female counterpart to HRH's Holly King figure, whom will someday represent Santa to his children in story.

Solstice

How did HRH and I spend the longest night of the year, before this bitingly cold Solstice day? (Apart from sleeping, that is?)

Watching The Return of the King extended edition DVD, of course. All 250 minutes of it. Plus some appendices.

The phrase "pack a lunch" is meaningless in this context. "Lay in provisions for a siege" is more accurate. An enjoyable siege, mind you. A siege where I get to see more of David Wenham and Viggo Mortensen, and watch people build sets. (Ed. note: And Karl Urban. Did I mention Karl Urban?)

And for those who have been as concerned about my constant low-grade headaches: my blood pressure is no longer low, but officially normal (huzzah, little platelets! yay you!); and my doctor recommends drinking even more to keep myself properly hydrated. If it's as easy as that, I'm going to feel pretty foolish. I'm hoping the LCD helps, too.

LCD Joy

Here I am, coming at you from a new 17" Viewsonic LCD in a 1280x1024 setting. I have so much room on my desk that I hardly know what to do with it. (Yeah, right. At the moment there's a Maggie-cat, a glass of vegetable juice, and any minute now there will be a pile of papers and notebooks and reference material for book-writing. It's simply a matter of time.)

Already there's a major difference: my screen is about two feet away. I no longer feel as if the monitor is attempting to eat my face.

And I can see so much! It's huge!

This Viewsonic VX715 was an excellent buy for me. Blade and I have been researching and taking field trips and such over the past couple of weeks, and this is the result. Not only is it a decent LCD for my needs (my needs, Dear Readers, not yours, before you start pointing out refresh rates etc; I'm a text girl, not a games/video girl) but I got it for about 75$ less than what we'd originally seen it priced at. So in the end, I got a great LCD with a fabulous square footage, taxes included for under $500 -- which was my original uneducated optimistic budget quote to Blade. It's not the newest thing on the market, but it suits me just fine.

Plus it's an office thing, which means it gets worked into expenses come tax-time. So Happy Solstice to me, and to my book!

What Do You Mean, Christmas Isn't For Another Five Days?

Minus thirty-eight this morning. This would account for the frost on the inside corners of our windows.

I think -- I say, I think -- that the whole holiday season party thing is finally over. I'm assisting at a public Yule ritual tomorrow night, and I get to work in the store on Wednesday (which is really playing, because it's the only day I'm doing during the holiday season on the floor), but those are pretty much the last seasonal-associated events on the calendar, thank goodness. We've had at least two events scheduled every weekend in December, and one or two during each week. I've enjoyed it all, and it's been good to spend time with people I haven't seen in a while and to celebrate various things, but I'm thankful that now I can look forward to simply being with my family. I'm just so tired.

Ugh

Just finished my fourth rewrite of the memo that says, "This is unacceptable; if we publish it, our credibility will be severely damaged."

This will not make for a happy Christmas in someone's house. I feel terrible, but it would be worse to publish the thing.

Nesting

The urge to cocoon doesn't normally hit me at this strength in December; it's usually around mid-January. But here I am in mid-December sleeping soundly, not going outside unless I have to, and reading a lot. I've turned to drinking herbal tea instead of caffeinated, and I'm napping in late afternoon, too. It's unreal.

Also unusual for the season are the series of middling-to-bad headaches I've been having, which partially account for my preference to stay in. These headaches are much more a spring or fall thing. They're so pervasive that I've made an appointment with my doctor to talk about them next week.

The green witch book has been put on hold for the past couple of days as I've done the second tech read on the good book I'm editing, and a review of the three chapters we pulled out of the bad book and sent back to the author for a rewrite. They're still not good enough, so today my job is to write a page-long memo explaining why we can't publish it. The author may know a lot about the topic, but the manuscript just doesn't read like that's the case, and the salvage job would be too widespread and huge. Just because you know about something doesn't necessarily mean you have the ability to write a book about it. (Of course, I'm fairly certain that he doesn't know a lot about the topic at all, which is why I waved the red flag right away in mid-November.)

I do have to go out today, for a variety of reasons: gift shopping, a trip to the studio to critique HRH's latest oil painting in progress, a Yule tea with friends, groceries, and to teach a class tonight. I'll make sure to bring my bottle of Tylenol with me.

From an e-list I'm on:

There are more knives, swords, lances, and other sticky-pokies in the Key of Solomon than would fill a small cutlery shop.

If you have read or even paged through the KoS, this will amuse you. If you haven't, then the phrasing alone ought to make you chuckle.

Gorey Meets Shakespeare

In the mood for some macabre Shakespeare humour?

And It's Away!

After a couple of months of research and reading and copious notes, the actual writing of the green witchcraft book has now officially begun. The total word count is currently 3,318. I sort of had to sidle up next to it and pretend I wasn't really writing in order get it to work, but finally, the actual manuscript has form and content.

Other than that, I have been amusing myself with my new DragonSpeak program (thank you, Elim!). I picked up a headset on Monday morning and while I spent a few hours training the program to recognise my speech patterns and my writing style, it still comes up with some highly amusing interpretations of what I say. In general it's not too slow, although at times it pauses for a good long while as it fights to figure out what I'm saying. Highly ironic, as I enunciate for the microphone in a fashion which I'm sure is clearer than the average user.

Ah

When I got home from Tal's place last night and looked in the mirror, I finally understood why five different people had asked me if I was feeling all right. I had that tired red rim thing happening, which was odd because I'd slept well. My eyes have been really sensitive to dryness and random stuff floating in the air lately, though, so that might have contributed to the not-looking-so-good-ness. Other than that, we had a lovely evening with friends; we missed a handful we'd expected to be there, but we saw others we hadn't seen in a while.

Today we helped decorate the tree at my in-laws' house. We've missed out on this event for the past couple of years due to scheduling conflicts, so I wanted to make sure we did it this year. Their six and a half foot monument to the season is decorated in crystal ornaments and small white lights, and it's a beautiful experience to watch it grow from a plain green shape to a shimmering, glowing fairyland. Lots of finger food (scampi this year... mmm) and our beverage of choice accompany this yearly event, as well as assorted holiday music. It was good to do it again. Again, my eyes were really sensitive to all the stuff in the air, though. Very odd. And I'm still bouncing back and forth between being too dry and too sniffly. Maybe tomorrow I'll try taking half an antihistamine and see if that addresses the problem in a more balanced fashion.

How Very, Very Interesting

Anyone who's recently heard me be frustrated about seemingly striking out in a rather private endeavour can disregard current complaints. It would appear that while I was complaining over the past five weeks someone somewhere was snickering.

Decisions, Decisions...

Noon-thirty. HRH just left to do the second coat of paint on his parents' living room (we did the first coat yesterday). The class I co-teach starts at four today, but I'll likely be there for three.

I'm alone in the house.

Do I do some work on the green witch book...

or do I play Xbox?

Hmm. No one's here to see me die over and over while I learn the play system of X-Men Legends.

Xbox it is. Blade will be proud of me. He tells me that training's what I need to get past the table-top RPG issues with a character dying. So this either counts as therapy, or desensitisation; I'm not quite sure which.

I'll probably get frustrated soon enough and haul out my book notes. Those I can defeat.

Hands-On Computing

Last night, Blade and I went out geeking. We did a local tour to look at LCD monitors. Because, damn it, if I'm going to spend approximately six hours a day with it, it might as well be a really decent product that doesn't hurt my eyes as much as a CRT monitor.

In the first place we stopped at, I tapped one of the housings with my fingernail and it made a really hollow sound. "Is it supposed to sound like this?" I said. Blade thwacked it with his hand. "Nope," he said.

So we started thwacking each one we looked at. Hey, I don't want something that's going to fall apart if a cat rubs against it, okay?

Blade details our evening here. And yes, it was damned frustrating to discover that the model we liked is technically an archived model; retailers are behind the times. And of course no one has the more current model.

Grr.

It's Funny Because it's True

(Found over at Get Fuzzy, dated 6, 8, and 9 December 2004 respectively.)

Who Doth Ambition Shun

Stratford pairs Bard with Barenaked Ladies
Thu, 09 Dec 2004 10:26:11 EST

STRATFORD, ONT. - The Barenaked Ladies will be teaming up with the Bard this summer. The Stratford Festival announced Wednesday it has enlisted the wacky pop group to compose music for its 2005 production of As You Like It.

"This offers us an opportunity to present the audience with a marriage between recorded and live music," lead singer Steven Page said in a statement.

"As You Like It has more songs built into it than any other of Shakespeare's plays, and they help to propel the plot and characters."

The group will write and record songs and incidental music, to which the festival actors will sing live on stage.

Page called it a "gift" to be able to write music to accompany Shakespeare's words.

"It's hard to ask for a better co-writer, really, even if he is a little unbending in his approach to collaboration!" he said. [...]

The 1960s-inspired production of As You Like It, directed by Antoni Cimolino, will run at the festival from June through October 2005, with previews beginning in late April.

This isn't the first time the Festival has commissioned works from popular musicians to accompany Shakespearean productions. In 2001, Loreena McKennitt composed the music for The Merchant of Venice, and in 1963 Duke Ellington took on Timon of Athens.

Written by CBC News Online staff, and found here.

Texture and Light

Secret's in the paint: chemist finds ground glass in Renaissance works
Thu, 09 Dec 2004 11:40:24 EST

Paris: - Ground glass may have been the secret material employed by European Renaissance painters to create colours of remarkable brightness and translucence.

Barbara Berrie, a chemist working for Washington's National Gallery of Art, made the discovery while analyzing three paintings by 16th century Italian masters: St. Catherine by Lorenzo Lotto, The Alba Madonna by Raphael and Christ at the Sea of Galilee by Tintoretto.

After harmlessly scanning the paintings under an electron microscope, Berrie discovered clusters of silicon, oxygen, sodium, calcium and aluminum – all indicative of glass particles.

She discerned small quantities of the glass in a translucent green paint and two kinds of yellow paint used by all three artists.

While art historians knew that smalt blue was made of ground cobalt glass, this discovery shows that artists added it to a much wider range of tints.

The find expands the scarce knowledge experts have about the actual techniques of the Renaissance artists.

Berrie's findings will be published in the Dec. 11 issue of New Scientist, the British science and technology weekly.

Written by CBC News Online staff and found here.

The Day So Far:

Wake up at 9:12: Overslept. Eyes itchy and swollen, nose sniffly, sinuses throbbing; joy, allergies.

Sneezing ensues. Stubbornly resist antihistamine because being too dry is just as bad.

Break down and take antihistamine at 10:06.

Health check at 11:26: Still sneezing. Now the head feels like it's stuffed with hot dry cotton wool. At least eyes no longer itchy.

Health check at 13:08: Head dry, nose dry, throat dry. Copious amounts of water and hot apple cider doing absolutely no good.

Ah, winter: cats piling on top of the bed, stale air trapped by well-sealed windows, and dry electric heat. Argh.

Wallop

So I twisted my lower back somehow yesterday and there was no way I was going to orchestra to sit in agony for two hours, so I stayed home and finished reading Alice Hoffman's The Probable Future instead. (Good, but I think I read it too fast, as I usually do.) Eventually HRH and I turned on the TV to watch Smallville, which turned out to be a repeat of the last season finale followed by the premiere of the current season. And there, standing in the Smallville Medical Centre dressed in a blue medical uniform, was Dan Joffre, telling Erica Durance that she had to fill out medical forms for the guy hit by lightning that she brought in whether she liked it or not.

Dan Joffre?

At my exclamation HRH came in from the kitchen to see what was going on. I pointed Dan out, and explained that I'd done a couple of seasons of touring children's theatre with the guy about seven years ago. t! told me that he'd once briefly spotted Dan in an episode of DaVinci's Inquest. Now he's showing up on Smallville.

Small world.

And for a brief moment I thought, "Yeah, and what have I done with my life?" Then I remembered that I'm the series editor of a new line of books, a consultant for an entire publishing imprint, my first book will be released in May, and they signed me for a second one. Other people who worked in that touring theatre group with Dan are working in game development, or have their own companies. We're doing quite well, thank you. Quite well indeed.

Sigh

Regular readers know my ambivalence concerning the adaptation of books for the big screen.

God is cut from film of Dark Materials
By Sam Coates
Times Online, Britain

THE Hollywood adaptation of Philip Pullman’s trilogy His Dark Materials, in which two children do battle with an evil, all-powerful church, is being rewritten to remove anti-religious overtones.

Chris Weitz, the director, has horrified fans by announcing that references to the church are likely to be banished in his film. Meanwhile the “Authority”, the weak God figure, will become “any arbitrary establishment that curtails the freedom of the individual”.

The studio wants alterations because of fears of a backlash from the Christian Right in the United States. The changes are being made with the support of Pullman, who told The Times last year that he received “a large amount” for the rights.

Dear Readers... no, I can't even formulate the words. Later in the article the question of exactly what Pullman is supporting sort of comes up, which reminds me of what Alan Moore said when he'd sold the rights to League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and the studio created the monstrosity known as LXG, he shrugged and said something along the lines of, "They bought the rights to the idea, not the work I did." Pullman did what he wanted to in the books. Now the director thinks the specific identification as the Church as a figure of evil in this particular setting needs to be toned down so the movie will sell. Mustn't upset the ones who will be paying money to see the show, after all.

Director Chris Weitz has said: "[T]here may be some modification of terms. You will probably not hear of the church, but you will hear of the Magisterium. Those who will understand will understand.” Meaning, if you've read the books you know what's going on, so why are you complaining?

I know it's hard to balance being true to the original and re-telling the story in a new medium. But argh, you know? The need for this frustrates me.

And Stoppard was dumped as screenwriter? What's wrong with them?

Listen

Outside: freezing rain. (No, folks, it's not an ice storm until it gets serious. Last night was not serious. It was plain old freezing rain which made sidewalks treacherous and trees pretty.)

Inside: Good coffee, good company, excellent stories being told by talented local storytellers! Organized and hosted by Word of Mouth Productions, this evening featured a range of tales from wintry chillers to summer laughs. It was a terrific way to spend the evening. Despite the unhospitable weather, about fifteen people showed up, and the area at the back of the Shaika Cafe was an excellent venue. It's right around the corner from me, and I'd never been inside; I'll certainly return when I need to escape the four walls of my living/dining room.

It was a wonderful evening out, and I got to hear one of my favourite stories, Ti-Fleur and the Magic Fiddler, as well as learning new ones.

Inquisition Symphony

Apocalyptica's rendition of "Nothing Else Matters," one of my favourite Metallica pieces, is a perfect piece which encapsulates heavy metal reduced to four cellos.

And then, there's always the fun of distortion and the amps, too. But the purity of "Nothing Else Matters" is what gets me every time.

On Healing

Up at Witchvox this week: an excellent article by Gavin Bone which outlines a basic set of ethical guidelines for Neo-Pagan healers, which can be found here.

Lunch Date

Very enjoyable. Infectious energy.

I had forgotten how tall he is.

Gift Suggestions

For those who have been asking what to get us as gifts this holiday season, we realised that last night that we really, really need two good frying pans, one large, one medium. The coating on our current pans is all coming up, and it's not so delicious or sanitary.

And my personal Wish List is always open for business.

That is all I have to say.

Tis the Season Part Two

Icing sugar: 1 1/2 cup
White sugar: 1 cup
Cocoa powder: 1 3/4 cup
Flour: 4 1/4 cups
Butter: 3 cups plus some tablespoonfuls
Oil: 1 cup
Eggs: 2
Vanilla: 4 tsp
Water: 1 cup (plus two kettlefuls for tea to keep me going)
Cups of tea consumed: 1/4 (and stone cold, too)
Pans used: 8
Bowls used: 4
Number of times the beaters have been washed: 3

The frosting, which will use lots of icing sugar, cream, vanilla, and butter, isn't being made until tonight.

And for some reason, I'm now fighting the desire to make herb bread. I'm teaching this afternoon; I don't have the time to make bread! Sheesh.

Tis the Season

So far this morning:

Icing sugar: 1 cup
Cocoa powder: 1 cup
Flour: 2 cups
Butter: 2 cups (ye gods)
Eggs: 0 (but that's about to change)
Vanilla: 2 tsp
Pans used: 6 (two pans used three times each)
Bowls used: 2

I love holiday baking, yes, I do. So does HRH, who taste-tests every batter both before and after baking to ensure your ultimate enjoyment of the results. Such devotion to duty.

Let It Snow (But Not Tomorrow Because It's Ceri's Birthday)

I officially declare it the Yule Season in my household.

I have just put on my first holiday CD. Naturally, it's Holly Cole's Baby It's Cold Outside. Next will be The Waverly Consort Christmas which did indeed arrive as a special order after last Christmas, but better late than never.

A Definite Lack of Solutions

Odd day. Odd week, actually. Somewhat frustrating, to be truthful.

It began on Monday as I surveyed the office portion of the dining room. That stack of boxes artfully draped with a tablecloth finally had to go, and had to go right now. Never mind that I have coped with it for two years; that coping period ends today! So I found the perfect furniture solution in the 2005 Ikea catalogue.

(Yes, I know that you know where this is going. Anyone who has ever shopped at Ikea knows where this is headed. Stay with me, okay?)

Tuesday, HRH came home and we headed out to Ikea, the doors of which we have not darkened since before last Christmas. I know this for a fact, because my parents gave us an Ikea gift card and we still hadn't used it. So because it was a calm and quiet Tuesday night, we meandered through the whole place. Due to insane crowds we usually just nip into the self-serve stacks and skip the carefully landscaped mini rooms that never reflect reality: no cat hair, no Cheerios, no Fisher-Price bits and pieces, no Lego, no newspaper scattered all over the place, no stacks of books... just not real. Anywhats, along our meanderings we saw the item I had selected (an IVAR cabinet, if you're really curious) and then we meandered some more, and eventually down through the marketplace we went to pick it up.

Yes. Now the story catches up with you. Ikea, of course, because it handles stock so very well, is out of the unit I wanted, nay, needed this very night. My happiness had zeroed in on taking this thing home, building it, and, hallelujah, getting rid of the boxes. (Most of which, I must add, contain empty wine bottles. But I digress.)

Stupid Ikea.

So the anger began to coalesce in my stomach, and it simmered as we stood in line. We paid for the candles and handful of other stuff we'd picked up, and out we went into the cold night.

"Screw this," I said. "Let us eat sushi."

So we did. And they were happy to see us, and the wonderful hostess is pregnant again, and she gave us free glasses of some Jacob's Creek white, and they made me feel much better.

Then today, I took my cheques for deposit at the bank. No, no; it wasn't the disaster you think it was. They still know that they're supposed to accept these US cheques. This time, the aggravation came from the attitude of the guy who served me. First he called up my profile and said, "Oh, you don't have a US account." Yes, that's correct, Genius. "Then you'll want to hold on to these cheques." No, Genius, I don't; this money is what keeps my household going. And in order to do that, it really has to be in this account.

He gave me one of those 'well-if-you-insit-on-making-this-mistake-it's-your-financial-funeral' sort of looks. And my naturally polite demeanour began to once again simmer. If you're going to point out what I'm doing wrong in your opinion, offer me a solution. That's what you're paid for. And then:

"I hope you're not planning on leaving all that money there," he said as he handed me the print-out of my deposit. Now, my bank account has never been this impressive. I could buy a two- to four-year-old second-hand car without taking a loan, and still have money left over.

"What? It's my bank account," I said. Bank accounts are designed to hold money.

"Yeah, but it's not like it's doing you any good," he said dismissively.

Now, look. We're talking about my money. If you're going to make judgements about what I'm doing with it, then do something helpful, like tell me about GICs or open bonds or something. Don't just imply that 'You'll be sorry!' if I keep on my current path.

And then, I went to a specialty shop.

Here is where my day really implodes.

I asked for an item; it was out of stock. The owner said he could special order it and have it here in half a week. I received a scrap of paper with the SKU and the price, and was told to take it to the cash where the order would be entered into the computerised system, and my pre-payment would be taken. And it was just my luck that (a) the woman on the cash was a complete ditz who could not follow simple instructions as they appeared on the computer screen, and (b) that the electronic payment machine went on the fritz. The owner had to come out three times to fix the computer, and each time he was a little more irritated. Normally I'd give a cashier the benefit of the doubt; I've worked a cash for years and I know the problems that can arise. But I was watching the screen, and she repeatedly misinterpeted the simple instructions that even I could understand immediately at first glance, even though I have never seen or used this system. The final time the owner was summoned to the cash desk, a paper receipt book was produced so the ditz could write out a receipt for my partial payment, which consisted of all the money I had in my wallet since the electronic payment system was refusing all debit and credit cards. I'm fairly certain that the scrap of paper upon which my special order was noted down has been lost, and when I call to see if it has arrived there will be no record of it anywhere.

If this cashier was new, I could perhaps understand. However, she's been working there for years; I know, because I remember her from stopping by this shop at various intervals when the need arose. The computer system, too, is not new. It took forty-five minutes to get through a simple transaction which should have taken five.

Then there was bad traffic for no reason, and as a result of all this irritating stuff I had only a brief fifty-minute stopover at home before I had to leave again to pick up HRH. The only way I saved my sanity was by settling down with a Pratchett book and a box of After Eights, which I have craving for months. And wonder of wonders, it was during those forty-five minutes that the postman rang the bell to deliver a parcel of books to me, so I didn't miss it.

Turns out HRH had a bad day too, so, figuring that we both needed some fun, on the way home I took him to EB Games. I picked up a used copy of X-Men Legends for him and Fable for me, because it had been such a lousy week. Fortunately, the EB Games staff demonstrated excellent customer service, but that might have been because I possess two X chromosomes and I was in a games store. Whatever the reason, they're always great to me, and they suggested a 10% off card which cost $5 and saved me $11 on the purchase. Imagine! A helpful solution! They didn't just tell me that I wasn't buying the games right!

And then my inlaws fed me steak last night, and I have clean laundry which smells wonderful, and we spent the evening with one of HRH's cousins, so the day ended on a decent note indeed. Good thing. I was ready to obliterate the next unfortunate being who crossed my path.

A Tip of the Hat to the 2004 WriMos

I should say something congratulatory and inspirational to all thirty-seven (THIRTY-SEVEN, Dear Readers) Montreal writers who successfully met and/or surpassed the 50K goal set them by the NaNoWriMo project. Earlier in the month t! stated that he was pushing to see at least a 20% success rate among Montreal participants. Hey, lots of folks start off eager and bright-eyed, and then life gets in the way, or they burn out early, or lose interest, or discover that this writing thing isn't as easy as they thought it was; lots of stuff happens. Writing a novel is never a walk in the park; writing a 50,000 word rough draft in 30 days is Herculean and practically impossible. In the past couple of years, Montreal has consistently produced a comparatively high percentage of winners. So t! decided, based on the remarkable success rate of last year (the precise percentage of participants who finished in 2003 escapes me but it was in the high teens), that he wanted to see Montreal pass the 20% mark this year. Yesterday on the phone, he told me that with 33 winners, we had already passed that goal and the city stood at 21.5% on the final day of November with about ten hours to go. As of this morning there are four more writers who have passed 50K, and so the percentage has been bumped up even higher to 24%. That's a breath away from a quarter of the participants who registered. That's phenomenal.

Why is this percentage so impressive? Well, some of it has to do with our heroic local Municipal Liasons, t! and Ceri, who poke people, encourage, threaten, love, and support the Montreal writers as they work. Lots of it, however, has to do with the writers themselves. Montreal writers are supportive of people they've never even met, set each other goals, offer constructive competition (as opposed to the one-dimensional one-upmanship seen in other NaNo city forums), and pretty much everyone unofficially serves as an ML without getting the scary t-shirt. Montreal writers organise meet-ups on their own. Montreal writers create chat rooms in which people to gather while they write, in order to have immediate support. Montreal writers cheer a lot, even for people way, way ahead of them.

Plus we're good at what we do. But that's beside the point.

And this percentage doesn't take into account those who registered and set different goals for themselves whenthey realised that 50K was beyond them. "If I hit XK, I'll have conquered my last personal best," they say, and when they hit that personal goal they too are winners, although not factored into the final calculation. If you beat a score of 0 words, then you win, my friend, because you sat down and wrote something. Maybe your accustomed creative strength lies in art, or music, or drama, and you've never written anything before; maybe you registered on a lark, just to see what writing was like as it compares to your other creative outlets. Well, congratulations to you, too, because however many words you ended up with is that many more words than you had before. And everyone discovers something about themselves along the journey.

So the owlies raise celebratory glasses of Vanilla Coke to you all, fellow writers of Montreal. Whether you hit your personal goal set under 50K, the 50K goal itself, or if you just managed to set words down where you'd never written anything before, you deserve a tip of the hat.

See you all next year. Where we will aim for, say, a 30% success rate?