Sarah Monette's Blog, page 90

I'm starting to behave like an actual working writer again.

afternoon = doldrums of creativity

words since last report: 1875
word total: 2455
word goal Still 5-7k, looking pretty good.
tyop du jour: n/a
darling: n/a
mean things: A lecture on Wordsworth first thing in the morning.
quirks: This werewolf, who still looks not unlike Claudia Black, wears t-shirts that say things like MY DOGMA ATE YOUR KARMA.
reason for stopping: Like I said, doldrums. Also, I think it's time to take a cool bath.
exercise: Walkies!
work outside the box: Provender provided.
feline assista

Work--I does it.

Yesterday, I fixed the first half of "Thirdhop Scarp," which gets us all the way up to the yawning abyss into which my plot falls like a lemming, and which I still do not know how to bridge. Also, between yesterday and today, I've written 580 words of "The Werewolf Laura Stiles."

Words today: 580 (counting yesterday in with today for the sake of the metrics).
Words total: 580
Word goal: 5-7k. You know, like you do.
Tyop du jour: He turned to the cluck.
Darling likewise: He'd seen the wolves of the Mo

First lines of things I should be writing.

As cristalia points out, today is the first day of the second half of 2009. I'll take my arbitrary, manufactured symbolism where I can find it, so here's that first-line meme, this time in order of urgency:



1. Maiah woke abruptly from a dream of the Great Lock of the Istandaartha to the grip of his cousin's cold hand on his shoulder. (The Goblin Emperor, novel)

2. Vethulf and Skjaldwulf did not get along. (A Reckoning of Men, novel, with matociquala)

3. Marmaduke Stone is waiting for the phone to r

5 Things

1. Am sitting up like real person today! This cold has totally kicked my ass.

2. It is not, however, swine flu (thanks for the thought, Bear). Had fortuitous doctor's appointment yesterday (scheduled weeks ago on account of getting prescriptions renewed, like a person does), and he said it's just a cold. Added that if it was swine flu, I'd feel like I'd been hit by a truck, and yeah. I only feel like I've been hit by a go-kart.

3. Apparently, "swine flu" is a phrase that attracts typos like honey

UBC: books read while sick

This may become a Continuing Series, as I am, in fact, still sick. However.

Yoe, Craig. Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-Creator Joe Shuster. New York: Abrams ComicArts, 2009.


This is right up there in the running for Weirdest Book I Have Ever Read (Wisconsin Death Trip is another contender). In 1954, having been royally fucked over by Harry Donenfeld, Joe Shuster was reduced to illustrating a low-rent BDSM pulp publication called Nights of Horror. The stories were badly written an

home

back from mpls
with many books and a terrible
head cold

thank goodness for air conditioning

PSA from Minneapolis

For those of you still trying to find a copy of The Virtu: as of yesterday, Uncle Hugo's Science Fiction Bookstore had two paperbacks left in stock (along with copies of all my other books). Also as of yesterday, the two paperbacks (and the other books) are signed.

If you're interested, email the store at unclehugo (AT) aol (DOT) com.

Due South: "Asylum"

"Asylum" (DS 3.11)
Original air date: November 16, 1997
Favorite quote:
ROBERT FRASER: Close the door, son. Anyone would think you were born in a barn.
BENTON FRASER: I was.

--or--

FRASER: You know, I once spent thirteen hours hanging like this underneath a suspension bridge with a mountain cat swiping at me from above. She tore my lanyard, ripped my epaulet . . .
RAY: And what happened?
FRASER: Well, fortunately the nuns at Fort McLeod practiced invisible mending.

Spoilers.



What we learn from this episod

Project Valkyrie: Waterlog

TIME: 45 min.
DISTANCE: 5 mi.
TOTAL DISTANCE: 211.7 mi.
DISTRACTION: Due South, "Asylum" (yes, that does mean there's another DS write-up in the near future)
NOTES: Remembered weight-lifting gloves this time. Much better.
SHIRE RECKONING: We can see ruins on the Hills.

The Strange Story of Mamah Borthwick's Tombstone

I had to take the car in today and in the waiting room, my eye was caught by this article in the Wisconsin State Journal .

I had never heard of Mamah Borthwick, but there is an opera about her, as well as two novels, Loving Frank (2007) by Nancy Horan and The Women (2009) by T. C. Boyle And there's a nonfiction book, Death in a Prairie House: Frank Lloyd Wright and the Taliesin Murders by William R. Drennan.

I hope that the cemetery board will agree to permit the tombstone and undo, in however smal