Barbara Hambly's Blog, page 29

Dawn moon, mid-heaven, tangled in the bare fingers of the...

Dawn moon, mid-heaven, tangled in the bare fingers of the birch-tree. Going to be a long day.

Morning of teaching - lunch with a friend - feeling absol...

Morning of teaching - lunch with a friend - feeling absolutely flattened tired.

Part of this, I'm sure, is the room I'm assigned for this morning's class. As I said, it's like trying to teach in a storm-drain: four times as long as it is wide at least, and the acoustics are HORRIBLE. So, I am shouting for 75 or 80 minutes, and finding it pretty tiring.

Who thought that design for a classroom was a good idea, EVER?

I suppose it's what happens when one contracts with the lowest bidder.

As promised, here is the link (they say) to my interview ...

As promised, here is the link (they say) to my interview on Bombad Radio.

http://thegungancouncil.podbean.com/2012/02/12/episode-27-barbara-hambley-on-star-wars-writing-and-vampires/

Interviewed yesterday evening for the Star Wars Gundan Co...

Interviewed yesterday evening for the Star Wars Gundan Council's Bombad Radio - they told me it would appear on the Bombad Radio website (and that they'd send me a link, which I'll post the moment they do so). Nice chat about the Star Wars books (Children of the Jedi and Planet of Twilight), about the character Callista Ming (who I am, by the way, delighted to have contributed to the Star Wars mythos), about writing and advice for aspiring writers.

A day of quiet writing myself today, I hope. I've reached the point of looking at the story and starting to think about, "What's the personal dimension that it needs? What's going on in Benjamin's life, while he's hunting a missing mathematician in Washington DC with Edgar Allan Poe?"

Re-reading Lord of the Rings for the first time in over a...

Re-reading Lord of the Rings for the first time in over a decade. In addition to having dreams set in the period of my life in which I was most heavily into that world - New South Wales in the mid-sixties - I've noticed - without wishing to disparage Professor T - that there are the same number of named major equine characters as there are named major women characters: Galadriel, Goldberry, Eowyn, and Lobelia Baggins (since Arwen is barely a name mentioned in the trilogy) - Asfaloth (Glorfindel's horse), Shadowfax, Fatty Lumpkin (Tom B's horse) and Bill the pony.

I am nevertheless deeply enjoying the story.

And I reflect, while playing World of Warcraft or reading blogs of other fantasy writers, at the MASSIVE, widespread effects touched off by the appearance of Lord of the Rings in the early '60s: truly a seminal piece. Yes, there were others writing fantasy - CS Lewis et al. The same as there were other rock bands in Britain in 1962 besides the Beatles. But without the opener of the gate, the world would not be the same.

For those of you who'll be at the Gallifrey One Dr. Who c...

For those of you who'll be at the Gallifrey One Dr. Who convention in Los Angeles on the weekend of the 17-19 of this month, I'll be doing an autographing in the afternoon (VERY small potatoes compared to the media guests, naturally), and a kaffeeklatsch either 11-noon or noon-1. So, if you want to have a cup of tea with me, that's where I'll be.

Moonset now, and prepping for a VERY long day.

I love teaching, but it's an energy-drain. With luck I'll...

I love teaching, but it's an energy-drain. With luck I'll get some work done this afternoon and tonight (no dungeon-crawling this evening!), but tomorrow is the Long Day... and glad to get the extra class that makes it so! Today, an assortment of school-prep tasks before I can settle to work (including writing letters of recommendation for one of last semester's A students for the Cal State nursing program), plus taking Rocket to the vet for a routine check-up.

Gus is still determined to make Rocky his pal, so Rocky gets lots of exercise running away from his attentions, or chasing him in order to beat him up. However, Gus was raised in a dysfunctional relationship (his deceased BFF Apollo would bugger him regularly), so sees nothing odd in this.

First day of classes - always an interesting energy on ca...

First day of classes - always an interesting energy on campus. With more class sections cut, and fewer students able to enroll in classes they need, that energy feels darker and more tense this semester, but on the whole it still feels positive. Swarms of people rushing around. Day classes have a different energy - certainly a different clientele - than night. I introduced myself to the class, and explained to them that a) this is not an easy course and b) History is not an easy subject, but was actually able to admit nearly all of the would-be adds: it's a humongous room.

We'll see what tomorrow night's class brings.

I have discovered one thing about playing the DIablo III Beta-test - it can cause dreams about killing zombies.

I know I should try to get some work done this evening, but I strongly suspect it's not gonna happen. I don't even really have the energy to kill those giant onions in Eternal Sonata, and that's about as benign as Xbox gaming gets.

Correction: cricket pitching is insanely overhand. I'll h...

Correction: cricket pitching is insanely overhand. I'll have to find out if it was underhand in the early 19th century.

When I played cricket in high school in Australia, I was as terrible at it as I later was at the tackle baseball we played at karate club picnics. In both cases, it took me and three other girls to play right field... poorly.

A quiet day of laundry and tea, before classes start tomo...

A quiet day of laundry and tea, before classes start tomorrow. Friday was "Faculty Orientation." It seemed to me there was a good deal of "flavor of the month educational schemes" flying around, but then I'm fairly old-school about teaching. I came home exhausted, ravenous, and with a splitting headache... to find in my in-box THE BETA-TEST FOR DIABLO III!!! Whoo-hoo!

NOT something that's adviseable for the first week of classes.

But, there's NOTHING like a good dungeon-crawl.

Add to this the difficulties of First Draft ("Oh my God! I've forgotten how to write!") (Actually, ALL my first drafts are this bad...). I'm coming up on the first big Town Ball game (since the story involves the early stages of what was called town ball or base ball), so I guess I'll be trolling around YouTube looking to see if anyone has actually filmed a re-creation of the sport - which sounds like baseball played with cricket equipment and cricket-style underhand pitching.

In between getting my notes in order.