http://nancykress.blogspot.com/2008/07/odyssey-day-1.html

Yesterday I arrived at Manchester, New Hampshire, to teach Odyssey as a guest lecturer for a week. The flights were uneventful, which is what one hopes. I was met at the airport by Jeanne Cavalos's administrative assistant, Susan Sielinski, who took me to the campus of St. Anselm's College, where the workshop is being held. This is return to student days: I have a dorm suite, complete with bunk bed, hard wooden desk chair that appears to date from the Punic Wars, and whirring fans to offset the lack of AC. It's the sort of room that really needs a pyramid of Budweiser cans on the windowsill to complete the decor.

After dinner with Jeanne and Susan, I met with the Odyssey students for informal talk and a Q&A about the short story of mine they had been assigned, 'By Fools Like Me." Afterwards, I hung around with some of them in the dorm, drinking beer and chatting. The sixteen writers have been here for four weeks already, writing approximately a story a week, critiquing every morning and writing every afternoon and evening, reading each other's work, conferencing with Jeanne (and now me). It's a full schedule. They're a lively and dedicated group.

Tomorrow I start critiquing with them in class. I'm looking forward to it.

I woke up to wonderful news this morning that nicely balanced out the awful news of Saturday morning: within just 48 hours, enough donations streamed into Clarion West to buy replacement laptops for all four students who'd had their laptops stolen. You can read the details at Neile Graham's blog.

It makes me so happy to see instances of such generosity. As often as crappy things can happen, and people can do horrible things to each other, people can also be so caring and generous to total strangers. It really is inspirational.

And it's a good way to wake up on a Monday.

I've had a really good couple of days, too. Last night, we enjoyed the BBC iPlayer to the fullest by watching the final Wimbledon championship match between Federer and Nadal, and wow. I have never seen such incredible tennis played, or such an evenly matched championship game. Either of them could have won, up until the very last moment. It was amazing.

Yesterday I took a day off writing, partly because I've made a habit of taking off one day every week, and partly just because the pregnancy exhaustion won over my work ethic - I ended up napping with Maya on the futon for an hour instead, and I really needed it, even after a decent night's sleep. (I have never in my life felt so purely tired, All The Time - and without even having any real lack of sleep to account for it. Sigh.) This morning, after breakfast, I was also exhausted - I kept mumbling to Maya, "I'm just soooo tired", and she gave me very sympathetic looks as she snuggled into my side - but I ended up having a great writing session anyway. I finished Chapter Twenty-Six and started Chapter Twenty-Seven, the very last chapter of the climax, the one that starts and ends with Kat's final confrontation. It's exciting to write, so I hope it will be exciting to read.

Now I'm going to give in to the pregnancy exhaustion and cuddle up with one of my new books (and with Maya, of course).

Kat by Starlight

64,222 / 70,000 (91.7%)

Spawn sat through the entire episode of Doctor Who last night (well, she did once she'd finally settled the beanbag to her satisfaction, a twenty-minute process which involved a great deal of manoeuvring and at one point landed her with her back to the television and a puzzled expression on her face) and, when the credits started rolling, she looked up and asked "More? More Doctor?"

Ah, a girl after my own heart.

In actual book-related news, we have a title!

The book previously known as Bound is now Shadow Queen.

The series itself (there are currently two books in the series, with plans for a third) is still lacking a title, but that will be finalised sooner rather than later, since Allen & Unwin are still planning a January '09 release.

January! It's still a somewhat boggling concept.

Originally published at scribbling damselfly. Please leave any comments there.

Over the weekend I had a couple of visitors from California, my friends Nepunnee and Brian.  I always love having house-guests, though my work schedule unfortunately afforded me precious little opportunity to spend more than a few opportunities with them.  I did, however, have a really wonderful brunch with  both of them, and a gathering of other friends yesterday morning, at one of my favorite local breakfast spots, Beaterville.

While chatting, sitting outside in the beautiful sunshine, I heard this amazing little tune, stifled by fabric.  Nepunnee revealed the source of the tone, reaching into her pocket and pulling out her cellphone.  "What is that tune?" I asked, "I know I've heard it before." 
"It's Peter Bjorn & John" she said.


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Well, a happy Sunday to everyone.  I hope that you're enjoying your weekend.
I was speaking with a friend in the bar the other night, and the fix came up in conversation, and he asked if I ever have Guests write the Fix for me some days.  I think some of you will remember how, back in February, I had a week of guest Fixes, written by friends of mine.  Well, I'm interested in hearing some more.  I'm looking to compile a collection of 7-14 guest Fixes, written by those of you out there, featuring songs and artists you would love to introduce to more people.  I encourage you to choose artists you feel strongly about, and songs which you really like -- and to write about what makes those songs special to you.

If you're interested in this, please drop me a line.  Let me know whom you might want to write about (so I won't accidentally Fix it before you do) and all that.  When I get 7 of them (and I already have one) then I'll pull together another Guest week!

But onto today, the final song in our week of cover tunes -- I hope you've all enjoyed it as much as I have.  Today's song is Have I Told You Lately, by one of my absolute favorite singer/songwriters, Van Morrison. 


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Just to keep my bird sightings in some kind of order, I'm making a list.

I'm only including the birds spotted in my garden. I might do another list of overall sightings, but that can wait for another day.

cape sparrows - nesting in the giant cactus thing.
pigeons/laughing doves - ubiquitous
grey loerie
crested barbets - in hiding, Tarantino was killing them with remarkable ease
black-collared barbets - occasional visitors
red-headed finches - occasional visitors to the bird table - make a god-awful mess
fiscal shrike
cape wagtails
Indian mynahs
Hadeda ibises - tend to steer clear of our garden thanks to the moronic dogs
speckled mousebirds - occasional visitors
African Hoopoe
red billed green wood-hoopoe - occasional visitors
cape robin-chat - only once
pied crow - very occasional


Most of these images are from the website of photographer Warwick Tarboton so if you see anything you like there, do contact him about sales of prints.

( Spoilers, naturally. )


* Way, WAY different from Donna's ring. You can buy a replica of the Master's ring here, if you are wooby over the Master, unafraid of possession, and have £90 to spare. Amusingly, the hand model for their photo is wearing red nail polish.

** Way, WAY different from the Master's ring.

*** Like in your internet browser cache. More or less literally.

http://rijksmuseum.nl/collectie/zoeken/publicasset.jsp?id=SK-A-4821&lang=en

Spread out on a richly prepared table are a variety of cheeses. All around are dishes with fruit, glasses, a jug, nuts, bread and a pear. Bright colours dominate in this still life by Floris Claesz. van Dijck: a white damask tablecloth on a heavy, red oriental rug, yellow cheeses and yellowish-red apples. A still life with fruit, bread and cheese was known in the seventeenth century as a breakfast piece, an 'ontbijtgen'. Ten such paintings are known by Floris van Dijck.

http://pbackwriter.blogspot.com/2008/07/skiffy-ten.html

Ten Things for the SF/F Lovers

And I thought I hated SF writing workshops -- A Workshop Lexicon by Bruce Sterling.

Because if they behaved, they'd be boring -- Lee Masterson's article Aliens and Faeries: Non-Human Characters Acting Badly

If Hawking won't lend you his copy -- Free to read online from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics -- Martin V. Zombeck's Handbook of Space Astronomy and Astrophysics

"Elf, dwarf, centaur -- you know the drill" -- On World Building by China Miéville.

Need stars, lots of stars -- Check out the Physics and Astronomy links online at Physlink.com

Look, Flash -- it's Eujyuidd Xi!: For those times when you have a world but can't think of a handle for it, The Planet Name Generator.

Also from Seventh Sanctum: for those times when the Singularity arrives, and your SF protagonist can't find his Dimensional Awl or Vortex Nanogrinder, the Science Fiction Tool Generator.

CH71 FRI 3:30PM GMT: Venus City ~ While exploring the interior of a derelict starship, a respected scientist is trapped inside of a stasis field and is sent backward in time to prevent a disastrous occurence -- a skiffy idea brought to you by The Science Fiction TV Show Synopsis Generator.

Free homework -- Jeffrey A. Carver's online writing course site, Writing Science Fiction and Fantasy

Get over Starship Troopers already, will you? -- Author William Mielke's post Writing Science Fiction -- Ten Cliches to Avoid

I got about 5,000 words of revision done this weekend. The new beginning is finished and I have worked events back around to the first draft so for a little while things should go a bit faster.

I'm feeling pretty good about where things are at and I figure I only have the rest of this revision plus eight or nine more and I'm done!

In other writing-ish news, I've been looking at the many, many half-finished stories on my hard drive and decided that at least two of them are also novels.  So...plenty of writing to do.

Brushing Up on Looking Down
By Angela Gabriel

Summary: Sam enjoys some father-son bonding time. Drabble.

Characters: Sam and his son.

Rating: Strong PG-13 (Genfic).

Word count: 100

Disclaimer: Don’t own them. Not making money off of them.

Author’s notes: Written for the 100_ghosts prompt: king. Title from “I Just Can’t Wait to be King” from The Lion King.

( “Oh, I just can’t wait to be king.” )

They say that relocating to a new state, starting a new type of job, and ending a relationship are three of the most stressful things one can go through (at least under First World political circumstances, for people with their health and only the genteel sort of literary poverty to which I have become accustomed), and doing all three at once over the course of a month is no picnic either.

But we can mark one stressor off -- I just got a call offering me a 2 bedroom apt in Berkeley for the same price I was paying for my 3 bedroom in Jersey City nine years ago. Not too bad, and if stuff gets rough I can always stick someone in that spare room.

Now I have a place to mail my stuff too as well!

"The ISFDB does not index online magazines without ISBNs or ISSNs, as the index information cannot be guaranteed to be stable. "

Um? Is that really a reason? It's not like we're saying, "index livejournal posts!" but seriously, you indexed Fantasy as a print magazine,but not now that it's online? BAH! This makes me sad. I always liked it as a resource, but to intentionally cripple it like that? Loserness! I mean, the Asimov's from 1979 is great to know, but what if I wanted to know stuff about people since then?

 

Okay, I know I'm not making this up: some company makes distinctive, bright yellow backpacks, with lots of strappy things and water bottle holders and stuff like that, and I can't find them online. Apparently it's not EMS, North Face, Eastpak, Jansport, or LL Bean. Does this ring any bells with anyone?!

Today, Mickey has eaten three small meals totalling 1.5 cups of cooked rice with either a little minced white meat chicken or the juice from cooked chicken livers. He ate with enthusiasm, and after meal #3 came into the kitchen to see if there was any more to be had. I need to talk to the vet and see when I can increase the amounts/start adding his regular food. He's moving around a little more, rubbing his head against my legs, and in general seems to be feeling better than he did yesterday.

King has been limited to two small meals of cooked rice, the first with some diced chicken livers and the second with some livers and a half-cup of his regular dry food.

The nurse had wine with her dinner salad.

So far, fingers crossed, all food has stayed in the stomachs for which it was meant. King doesn't understand this limited food thing, but I think it's best for him, at least for today.

Interested parties are directed to the text-based computer game Amnesia (1986) by Disch, which was ahead of its time they say.

I have no idea whether that download is legal or not, but if you are down for some crime, why not try it?

Last night, we watched Balls of Fury. (Next week's post: Why one should never let one's stepsons select the movie for family night.) That film's one redeeming value was making other movies look good. ie. Star Wars Ep II suddenly seems to have brilliant dialogue! D-War has edge-of-your seat adventure! Will Ferrell is funny!

It also had THAT THING, you know, when the ugly/fat/nerdy guy ends up with the totally hot chick who is able to see his value and fall head over heels in love with him?  Yeah, THAT THING.

So, my question is, why does it never happen the other way around? Why doesn't an ugly/fat/nerdy chick end up with a totally hot guy who sees her true value and falls head over heels in love with her? And I don't mean movies like Never Been Kissed or She's All That or anything with Molly Ringwald in it because we all know that those chicks are seekritly HAWT, and the whole point of the movie is having the dreamy guy realize how sadly overlooked said HAWT chick's hawtness really is. No, I mean, why aren't there movies that have GROSS girls getting the guys? And specifically, I mean a Will Ferrell/Seth Rogan/David Spade/Dan Fogler level of grossness.

Is it because deep down inside, we believe that fat/ugly/nerdy chicks don't deserve to find love?

Had a very nice day of scribing with the best judge yet to scribe for (or maybe I'm just getting better at writing quickly and legibly both at once).  Somehow, this did not translate into copious quantities of take-home message; perhaps that part of my brain was fried while I was "helping" man the cross-country in-gate (for values of helping that include drinking my friend P.'s water while she did the actual job) and then grabbing (politely, after asking, to avoid spooking or upsetting anyone) ear tags as horses came out of stadium.  All I've got left is this:

People.  When you're doing a free walk, you have to let go of your reins.  Horsie is extremely unlikely to offer a stretch when he is giving no space to into which he can do so.

Thank you.  I feel better now.

Tucker had gotten to go out during the day despite the show, so we skipped the longe and I just climbed aboard.  I'd decided that if I had to err (and of course I was going to err), it would be on the side of relaxation and looseness rather than, as yesterday, on the side of precision and firmness: both good things, and at some point necessary, but all too easy to turn into rigidity and tension when things don't go quite as planned.  So I breathed, and sang a little under my breath, and did the stretch T. showed me the other day to loosen up hip and groin: just a standing quad stretch while in the saddle, same as I did when I ran and have done many times since, but it never occured to me that it could be useful on the horse, to help sink leg and seat into the right position.  Turns out it is!  Good thing to know.  And Tucker came out a little bit electric, and I felt plugged in from word one, and y'know, neither of those things hurt, at all.

So we did our walk work, and we did our trot, and our canter, and we took our break, and I kept an eye on all the things I'd been struggling with yesterday--the forward lean in my torso and drop of my chin, the high-and-tight position of my right shoulder, my tendency to let the reins get long and to end up with my hands in my lap, Tucker's desire to offload his left hind onto his right shoulder and to be a little fussy in the contact--but without letting myself get caught up in them, or angry about them.  Instead, I noticed, and I went about my business, and I made an effort to correct, but refused to force anything, and my leg was solidly down and around the horse, and I was keeping my hands soft and thinking forward with them again, so as to avoid jamming him up crooked behind the contact...and there were a few moments that were almost a little dicey, but I stayed soft, and so did he.

And somewhere in the second set, a miracle occured.

I'm not sure if it was during the canter work, or during a sequence of canter/trot/etc. transitions, or what, exactly, happened.  (In any case, I have relearned yet again that when you have a horse with a just-nice-enough trot but a genuinely-good canter, you use the canter to improve the work in the trot rather than muddling along in the gait that comes less naturally.  Not that I have ever muddled.  Ahem.)  But suddenly--or maybe I just noticed it suddenly--we were right where I wanted to be: harmonious and balanced and light, able to set his feet wherever I wanted them, all swinging back and flexing hocks and solid connection.  Ah, bliss!  It wasn't that there weren't still things to work on, of course.  Tucker was a little stiff in his hind legs in the trot/canter, especially tracking left, pushing off his hind legs in the transition instead of stepping them genuinely through, and conversely, he was offering so much carry behind and lift of the forehand--honest-to-goodness sit--in the canter/trot that I was a little flummoxed how to keep all that power flowing forward.  But it all became minor, minor, minor, because the horse's body was available to me, and I was aware of what he needed, and so we could work it through and explain things to each other in a way that made sense to us both.

I didn't want to push it.  We worked on those transitions, got them consistently more where I wanted them, played a few minutes more just to enjoy ourselves, and knocked off for a walk in the woods (after which, while I was putting him away, Tucker was hilarious: oh so very, very polite while simultaneously making it clear that he knew it was bran mash night and would I please hurry and finish setting his meal up like yesterday?).  But I am still walking on air, two hours later.  It's not that we did anything particularly fancy.  It's just that--this is the best dressage school-type ride I've had on him in ages.  There may have been rides in which we achieved better work, but the level of communication there tonight, once that miracle occured, was miles above our usual standard.  Clarity.  Grace.  The work at hand was still work--don't get me wrong--but at the same time it was easy, because we understood each other, Tucker and I, and went at it together.

I've been talking with a few of you, lately, about how I've come to think that riding and training (and teaching to ride, and teaching to train) are different skills.  Related, yes.  Overlapping, one hopes!  But not identical.  Easy to mistake, though; you can, it turns out, get pretty far with only the former, faking the latter.  Part of me is sorry about all the time I wasted not understanding that.  Part of me (most, to be honest) is daunted by realizing that I'm only just taking those very first steps down the road to knowing how to train as well as to ride.  But the rest of me thinks that here I am, and if all that fumbling in the dark is what it took to get me here, then it wasn't wasted time at all, and worth every last stubbed toe.  (It has to be, I suppose, given how many more I'm sure to get along the way.)  Breath-taking!

Tomorrow off, and probably just as well.  I have no idea where we'd go from here, and any ride would inevitably be a disappointment.  Isolated thunderstorms for the next few days, but I think I'd like to do a conditioning ride on Tuesday if the weather cooperates and we can get out back.  Maybe a little galloping, or maybe some bombing around the trails, finding a better balance between initiative and attentiveness.  Lesson on Wednesday, then, and I think I'll try to ride Thursday as well, and set up a jump lesson with L. for Saturday if she can fit me in.

Onward.