Sarah Monette's Blog, page 82

Distillation of today

71,000 words! Only 39,000 to go, and we're starting to reach the tipping point where instead of thinking, oh my god it's like building the Great Wall of China with a spoon, I start thinking uneasily, There sure is a lot of STUFF left to cram into this book. This is a good sign.

Lost a big chunk of the day to the ophthalmologist--they always dilate my eyes, so that's an hour and a half actually in the doctor's office* and then another three or four hours afterwards where I'm as useful as a scre...

state of the mole

(I really need an icon for this book. Unfortunately, I can't think of anything suitable.)

69,029 words. I will make it to 70,000 tomorrow. I kinda wanted it tonight, but the novel explained to me that this next bit needs more thinking, and I have become leery of the whole words-for-the-sake-of-words thing. (Why I will never do NaNoWriMo, short version.) Sometimes, you know, that's what you need, is just to push the damn hippopotamus another two inches up the hill, but it's too easy for me to g...

5 mixed things on a Sunday

1. RIP, Robert Holdstock. (via Ansible)

2. Tobias Buckell has a lovely thoughtful essay on Rastafarians and dreads.

3. mirrorthaw and I went to see Hayward Williams last night (blues-country-indie rock and a voice you can wrap around yourself like deepest, darkest velvet). He was excellent, as always.

4. 67,500 words on The Goblin Emperor.

5. Pat Rothfuss previews Worldbuilders, the Heifer International auction that will eat feed the world--the official unveiling is tomorrow. (Reminder: I am dona...

I made it in my sleep. I wonder what it does.

It amuses me that one of my most immediately recognizable dream-genres is the Escape from Dystopia Dream. Sometimes they're nightmarish. Sometimes they aren't. Generally, I find them more interesting than the vast unwashed masses of my dreams (I love enjoy am fascinated by dystopias, so it's really very generous of my subconscious to generate them for me), and sometimes, as a bonus, they give me story ideas.

This one was clearly YA lesbian SF noir.

Behind the cut is, not so much the dream itsel...

5 things

1. Thank you, everyone, for the birthday wishes on Wednesday. So far, thirty-five is going pretty well.

2. One of my birthday presents was a ring made by Sara Jayne Cole. I think I've linked to her work before, but I gotta say, it's worth linking to again. (Disclaimer: she is a friend of my mother's.)

3. My birthday present to myself--and mirrorthaw --was buying a new bed with the advance from the goblin book. Since the bed we were sleeping on was the one I bought when I moved to Madison in 1996...

A rose by any other name ...

Publishers Weekly reports on Harlequin Horizons' name change to DellArte Press.

The thing that irks me slightly about the article is that it makes it look as if the RWA yanked Harlequin's credentials because they started a self-publishing arm, whereas, in fact, to the best of my knowledge, the RWA does not object to self-publishing. What they object to--what they objected to in Harlequin's case--is vanity publishing. (SFWA's statement makes this explicit.)

It is possible that the difference bet...

personal epiphanies of the less uplifting variety

I came to the lowering realization today that if I were put in a quest fantasy, I would not be the Plucky Farmgirl or the Hard-Bitten Mercenary (Starhawk FTW, in case you were wondering). No, I would be the Whiny Princess, courtesy of the AGONIZING FOOT CRAMPS caused by the tendinitis in my feet whenever I do something radical like, say, exercise.* My feet believe my purpose in life is to lie on a divan and eat bonbons. See? Whiny Princess, unmistakably. I figure my best hope is to get into a...

PSA: Muppets!

For anyone who has missed it, the Muppets are embarking on a bit of a renaissance on YouTube: MuppetsStudio's Channel. I cannot, personally, recommend Beaker's "Ode to Joy" highly enough.

seen today on the internet

1. Jackie Kessler explains Harlequin's disingenuous new venture: Harlequin Horizons. The RWA rocks.

2. This is a beautiful website about Kirkbride Plan buildings.

3. via matociquala , underwater hydrogen sulfide river.

There should have been a sixth thing yesterday

which is, thank you all very much for the good wishes and congratulations and commiserations about this complicated moment in my publishing career. It helps a lot to be reminded that actual readers do want my next book.

Got to 60,000 words yesterday; already at 60,500 today. Excelsior!