Judith Tarr's Blog, page 11
October 13, 2011
Life's Little Adventures, Stupid Pooka Tricks Edition
So we had a great Camp--our first full-on family group, with all of them riding, interacting with horses, and sharing various chores and adventures in Farm Life. I got a wonderful present: all the gawdawful desert broom cleared out of the yard. And it went well and they all want to come back. The horses agree. Thirty-six hooves up.
Tuesday was the last morning of Camp. As the Campers prepared to leave for the airport, I went out to feed horses and found Pooka standing in a pile of pawed-up dirt with his back leg truly ingeniously wound through the fence. He'd been there at least an hour. Probably not all night or he'd have been in much worse shape. He'd been getting all squealy at the mares in the stalls, and forgot to aim his patented testosterone-fueled full-body explosive kick away from the fence.
I cut him out; the fencing was wrapped securely around his swollen leg, but the cuts and scrapes were minor. What concerned me more was his extreme shakiness and the weakness of the "good" leg that had been holding him up for who knows how long, plus his back was one huge quivering knot.
Vet-emergency time. Talk about your full-on horse experience for the departing Campers. I stowed him safely, with hay he was too shocky to eat, and dealt with the rest of the crew, then put him in a stall with a small amount of soaked hay--if he would eat, he'd also get water on board. And the vet was alerted to a possible colic emergency as well as who knew what kind of damage to the structures of his legs and hindquarters.
The vet arrived after an hour or so. Checked him out thoroughly. Diagnosed a whole lot of muscle soreness, but no tendon or ligament damage, and no imminent colic. Prescribed three days of wrapping to help with the swelling, six days of bute (horse aspirin), and two weeks of stall rest followed by gradual turnout and slow return to work. "And massage therapy would be a good idea." Longterm prognosis: full recovery. Short-term prognosis: Booooored Pooka. And no Roundup for him.
Generally. He is not happy about his nighttime jail sentence. Tried to explode out this morning, did passage beside me to his daytime stowage, but settled down once there and has not been pacing or swearing. He was excellent about having his wrap changed. Evidence:
They now make Vetrap in cool colors. He gets to be a Star.
S came yesterday in her capacity as Masseuse to His Highness, and worked on him for an hour. He was an ouchy pony. She agrees that keeping him immobile is not a good idea, but letting him hoo-ha around ad lib isn't genius, either. I'm to do gentle groundwork and wiggly bits in hand for a week or so, then open up the paddock so he can climb the hill and mosey around. Then in two weeks, see how he is and ease him back to work.
He's not as sore today as we feared, though he's not his perfect self yet, either. He won't be going to Sonoita after all, but I'm pondering a possibly even better Plan B, so we'll see. Meanwhile he gets lots of attention, and I'm deciding on who gets ridden in his slot for the next month. I have plenty of volunteers.
Tuesday was the last morning of Camp. As the Campers prepared to leave for the airport, I went out to feed horses and found Pooka standing in a pile of pawed-up dirt with his back leg truly ingeniously wound through the fence. He'd been there at least an hour. Probably not all night or he'd have been in much worse shape. He'd been getting all squealy at the mares in the stalls, and forgot to aim his patented testosterone-fueled full-body explosive kick away from the fence.
I cut him out; the fencing was wrapped securely around his swollen leg, but the cuts and scrapes were minor. What concerned me more was his extreme shakiness and the weakness of the "good" leg that had been holding him up for who knows how long, plus his back was one huge quivering knot.
Vet-emergency time. Talk about your full-on horse experience for the departing Campers. I stowed him safely, with hay he was too shocky to eat, and dealt with the rest of the crew, then put him in a stall with a small amount of soaked hay--if he would eat, he'd also get water on board. And the vet was alerted to a possible colic emergency as well as who knew what kind of damage to the structures of his legs and hindquarters.
The vet arrived after an hour or so. Checked him out thoroughly. Diagnosed a whole lot of muscle soreness, but no tendon or ligament damage, and no imminent colic. Prescribed three days of wrapping to help with the swelling, six days of bute (horse aspirin), and two weeks of stall rest followed by gradual turnout and slow return to work. "And massage therapy would be a good idea." Longterm prognosis: full recovery. Short-term prognosis: Booooored Pooka. And no Roundup for him.
Generally. He is not happy about his nighttime jail sentence. Tried to explode out this morning, did passage beside me to his daytime stowage, but settled down once there and has not been pacing or swearing. He was excellent about having his wrap changed. Evidence:
They now make Vetrap in cool colors. He gets to be a Star.
S came yesterday in her capacity as Masseuse to His Highness, and worked on him for an hour. He was an ouchy pony. She agrees that keeping him immobile is not a good idea, but letting him hoo-ha around ad lib isn't genius, either. I'm to do gentle groundwork and wiggly bits in hand for a week or so, then open up the paddock so he can climb the hill and mosey around. Then in two weeks, see how he is and ease him back to work.
He's not as sore today as we feared, though he's not his perfect self yet, either. He won't be going to Sonoita after all, but I'm pondering a possibly even better Plan B, so we'll see. Meanwhile he gets lots of attention, and I'm deciding on who gets ridden in his slot for the next month. I have plenty of volunteers.
October 12, 2011
We're All Waxing Poetic Today
Everyone's doing it--ganked from
![[info]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1380451598i/2033940.gif)
suricattus
and
deborahjross
Casting one's prose as poetry--mostly modernish free verse.
From untitled collaborative alt.hist. Mess-in-Progress:
These were gnats in the face of the infinite,
and it looked as if tonight there might be stars to count.
He had a new telescope,
which could see farther than any he had had before.
If the skies cleared,
who knew what marvels he would discover?
In the meantime he amused himself
with a variation on his new conceit
of space intertwined with time
and spinning off worlds like stars
from a skein of galaxies,
working out equations in his head,
and now and then jotting one
on the wall by the fire.
That particular wall was covered
with a knotwork of intertwining calculations,
drawn in charcoal and chalk and grease pencil
and even India ink,
depending on what had been to hand
when the inspiration struck.
The wall was getting full.
Aurelia would insist
on painting it over again,
had already threatened him with it.
"Write it on paper like a civilized man," she said,
"or lose it. I want my wall back."
"There's no need of paper,"
John had said to her then,
and said again now,
"when there's all of nature to contain it."
suricattus
and
deborahjross
Casting one's prose as poetry--mostly modernish free verse.
From untitled collaborative alt.hist. Mess-in-Progress:
These were gnats in the face of the infinite,
and it looked as if tonight there might be stars to count.
He had a new telescope,
which could see farther than any he had had before.
If the skies cleared,
who knew what marvels he would discover?
In the meantime he amused himself
with a variation on his new conceit
of space intertwined with time
and spinning off worlds like stars
from a skein of galaxies,
working out equations in his head,
and now and then jotting one
on the wall by the fire.
That particular wall was covered
with a knotwork of intertwining calculations,
drawn in charcoal and chalk and grease pencil
and even India ink,
depending on what had been to hand
when the inspiration struck.
The wall was getting full.
Aurelia would insist
on painting it over again,
had already threatened him with it.
"Write it on paper like a civilized man," she said,
"or lose it. I want my wall back."
"There's no need of paper,"
John had said to her then,
and said again now,
"when there's all of nature to contain it."
October 8, 2011
Taking a Breather
Oxygen-acquisition time between making the house fit for guests and foraying out to gather food to feed same. It's a short and rather atypical Camp this time, more horses and people-in-desert than writing. Should be a good time as always.
We've gone pretty much straight from a long, hot summer to a breath of winter. Lows in the low 40sF, high yesterday in the 60s and today will allegedly crack 70. Horses are still in summer mode, have barely started their coats, so it's been blanket brigade for all. The icon is from another year, but that's WinterPooka, who is NOT AMUSED EPONADAMMIT. Where did his summer go? He wants his summer back. He was hyper this morning, even with his blanket on.
I find it bracing. And energizing. Though I won't mind too much if we get more warm(ish) weather, until the horses have enough coat to handle it on their own. Blanket Brigade is strenuous.
Allegedly it will warm up along about Wednesday--though there may be more coolness behind that.
Yes, we do have seasons here. Lots of them. Just not the standard-issue ones.
And now I go forth to hunt and gather. Must feed the hungry hordes.
We've gone pretty much straight from a long, hot summer to a breath of winter. Lows in the low 40sF, high yesterday in the 60s and today will allegedly crack 70. Horses are still in summer mode, have barely started their coats, so it's been blanket brigade for all. The icon is from another year, but that's WinterPooka, who is NOT AMUSED EPONADAMMIT. Where did his summer go? He wants his summer back. He was hyper this morning, even with his blanket on.
I find it bracing. And energizing. Though I won't mind too much if we get more warm(ish) weather, until the horses have enough coat to handle it on their own. Blanket Brigade is strenuous.
Allegedly it will warm up along about Wednesday--though there may be more coolness behind that.
Yes, we do have seasons here. Lots of them. Just not the standard-issue ones.
And now I go forth to hunt and gather. Must feed the hungry hordes.
October 4, 2011
If it's Tuesday, it must be Belgian chocolate
I am trying to lj more. Make a habit of it again. So.
I am glad you all liked the Photoblogging. I like Photoblogging. And I do love photos of truly kickass clouds. Which those were.
We might get more this week. The monsoon never really ended, and we seem to be headed straight into the fall storms--as in, there will be Blanket Brigade tomorrow night and/or Thursday as we drop from a high of near 100F to a high of below 70F, and lows in the 40s. With wind and possibly rain. Horses are not adapted and their coats are still rather on the short-and-thin side. So, blankets. It's early for that: usually we don't get our fall weather break until nearer Halloween. I fully expect at least one more siege of this year's patented flamethrower weather, but its back is breaking. We're nearly done.
Still riding Pook in the mornings, though with the sun rising later, we won't be able to do that much longer--won't have enough light to work with before breakfast. I'm proud of us that we've kept it up for so long, and been as consistent as we have. Who knew? He looks seriously buff. Very much a Round White Object.
I had hoped to get to World Fantasy this year, bought a membership, but realized a few weeks ago that it wasn't happening. My membership is sold and I am sad to miss all the friends and lj-peeps who will be there. I'll be doing the Fall Roundup at the Empire Ranch the following weekend instead, with Pook and one or two of the others--small demo of Lipi-love and horse yoga. That should be fun: very much of an Old West adventure.
This weekend there is a short Camp. That will also be fun, and entertaining, and educational. I have a ton of things to do to get ready, but ohgodtired. This summer's heat and fibro kicked me hard. Will take a while to recover.
On Friday we got together with Yoga-Jenny and plotted wonderful things. Yoga, horses, and writing. Short beta on the weekend before the Winter Solstice, and full monty over the equinox in March--ten days all told. We've got the Inn at Civano on board, we'll use DHF, we'll use River Valley where Jenny keeps her horse, and the Fat White Movers and Shakers are all in favor. Especially Camilla. Yoga is Camilla's thing. She listened intently while we plotted and discussed. She has Plans. Clearly.
As for us, we live to serve.
I am glad you all liked the Photoblogging. I like Photoblogging. And I do love photos of truly kickass clouds. Which those were.
We might get more this week. The monsoon never really ended, and we seem to be headed straight into the fall storms--as in, there will be Blanket Brigade tomorrow night and/or Thursday as we drop from a high of near 100F to a high of below 70F, and lows in the 40s. With wind and possibly rain. Horses are not adapted and their coats are still rather on the short-and-thin side. So, blankets. It's early for that: usually we don't get our fall weather break until nearer Halloween. I fully expect at least one more siege of this year's patented flamethrower weather, but its back is breaking. We're nearly done.
Still riding Pook in the mornings, though with the sun rising later, we won't be able to do that much longer--won't have enough light to work with before breakfast. I'm proud of us that we've kept it up for so long, and been as consistent as we have. Who knew? He looks seriously buff. Very much a Round White Object.
I had hoped to get to World Fantasy this year, bought a membership, but realized a few weeks ago that it wasn't happening. My membership is sold and I am sad to miss all the friends and lj-peeps who will be there. I'll be doing the Fall Roundup at the Empire Ranch the following weekend instead, with Pook and one or two of the others--small demo of Lipi-love and horse yoga. That should be fun: very much of an Old West adventure.
This weekend there is a short Camp. That will also be fun, and entertaining, and educational. I have a ton of things to do to get ready, but ohgodtired. This summer's heat and fibro kicked me hard. Will take a while to recover.
On Friday we got together with Yoga-Jenny and plotted wonderful things. Yoga, horses, and writing. Short beta on the weekend before the Winter Solstice, and full monty over the equinox in March--ten days all told. We've got the Inn at Civano on board, we'll use DHF, we'll use River Valley where Jenny keeps her horse, and the Fat White Movers and Shakers are all in favor. Especially Camilla. Yoga is Camilla's thing. She listened intently while we plotted and discussed. She has Plans. Clearly.
As for us, we live to serve.
October 2, 2011
Farewell to the Monsoon
Not that it's really left yet; we're looking at rain chances all week, thanks to former Hurricane Hilary (Hillary the cat says he is much fluffier and warmer, which is true), but there are signs that even our endless Southwestern summer is winding down.
In downloading a backlog of photos from the camera, I found some photos from our summer--kickass rainbows and serious coolness of clouds. So of course I thought, Photoblog!
Here, under the cut, are a few of the more interesting ones. That's what our sky is like from June through September, give or take a fair number of cloudless days and a very few actual grey-and-rainy days. Maybe one or two of those. Just to mix it up.
Also, as a bonus, the Birthday Rose has been blooming in spurts--as they do. It's taking a rest now but should bloom again in November.
This is actually from the late winter--storm cloud sitting on Rincon Peak, the day before Pooka's birthday. Yes, that's snow. But the cloud sitting on the mountain is typical of its species all year long.
On the Fourth of July came the full-on monsoon. Two weeks in, it gave us a spectacular double rainbow.
August was stingy with the rain but spectacular with the clouds, lightning, and sunsets. Here's a classic from late in the month. To the west, this:
[image error]
And turning around toward the north:
Somewhat later, as the dark started to fall, we had this:
In between the two, Tia pointed out that there were some amazing mammatus clouds right, you know, there.
That was some spectacular evening.
And of course there cannot be blogging without Obligatory Cat PrOn.
First, Hillary (Not The Hurricane) and Trouble practicing their sleeping skills.
We decorate, here, with live cats. Minnow models the golden-platter option. Cats are well above silver, after all.
And finally, the Birthday Rose in situ (aka the only shelf the cats don't jump up on for a quick bite of salad).
I had to cut the roses just as the buds opened, otherwise the wind would flash-dry them and I'd have insta-dried roses. The relentless hundred-degree-plus heat did odd things to their coloring: they were mostly pink. In normal conditions they're bluish lavender, and they dry to a lovely mauve color.
In downloading a backlog of photos from the camera, I found some photos from our summer--kickass rainbows and serious coolness of clouds. So of course I thought, Photoblog!
Here, under the cut, are a few of the more interesting ones. That's what our sky is like from June through September, give or take a fair number of cloudless days and a very few actual grey-and-rainy days. Maybe one or two of those. Just to mix it up.
Also, as a bonus, the Birthday Rose has been blooming in spurts--as they do. It's taking a rest now but should bloom again in November.
This is actually from the late winter--storm cloud sitting on Rincon Peak, the day before Pooka's birthday. Yes, that's snow. But the cloud sitting on the mountain is typical of its species all year long.
On the Fourth of July came the full-on monsoon. Two weeks in, it gave us a spectacular double rainbow.
August was stingy with the rain but spectacular with the clouds, lightning, and sunsets. Here's a classic from late in the month. To the west, this:
[image error]
And turning around toward the north:
Somewhat later, as the dark started to fall, we had this:
In between the two, Tia pointed out that there were some amazing mammatus clouds right, you know, there.
That was some spectacular evening.
And of course there cannot be blogging without Obligatory Cat PrOn.
First, Hillary (Not The Hurricane) and Trouble practicing their sleeping skills.
We decorate, here, with live cats. Minnow models the golden-platter option. Cats are well above silver, after all.
And finally, the Birthday Rose in situ (aka the only shelf the cats don't jump up on for a quick bite of salad).
I had to cut the roses just as the buds opened, otherwise the wind would flash-dry them and I'd have insta-dried roses. The relentless hundred-degree-plus heat did odd things to their coloring: they were mostly pink. In normal conditions they're bluish lavender, and they dry to a lovely mauve color.
September 29, 2011
Is This Thing On?
With all the craziness in social media these days, I tend to wander around and end up on twitter or facebook because that's where people seem to be interacting, and I'm on Google+ but I haven't had time to really do anything with it yet. (I notice it went public--the sex spammers have started to show up. Yick.) But lj soldiers on, and there are some things that just work best in that comfortable, and simple, interface.
Now to see if I can keep up with the regular lj-ing. I get tired and scattered and time flies so fast. Summer went by like a blast from a flamethrower. We need t-shirts, artistically scorched and charred. "I Survived Tucson Red-Hot Summer Non-Tour 2011." Second-hottest summer on record, which is saying something.
It's still a mite warm out there, and the summer rains have not given up yet. We had actually less rain than usual, but it tended to come in big fat splooshes, and we've had many times more rain in usually dry September than in the whole of usually wet August. Not that August was actually dry. It was horribly humid and seriously hot. The fibro went New England on it, and made riding painful enough to be a problem. As in, crikey, I'm as stiff as I used to be under Torture Lady's reign, and I don't like it one bit. It's miserable. I want my feel for the horse back!
Evening riding times weren't happening, either, with day after day of major lightning and a sadistic tease from storms that never quite hit here. But, I discovered a thing. A very good and useful thing.
If I went to bed before 11 p.m., I could get up around 6 a.m. and have time to work Pooka, who spends the nights out in the arena, before breakfast. And I did. I managed it. Two, three, four days a week. So he got to stay in work, longeing if the riding was too not-happening. The others were crying neglect, but for the most part he got his innings and was (and is) a happy pooka.
I'm still aiming at 11 p.m., and finding that it really does help with the energy levels, though the brain generally does not come online until 10 a.m. But that's system default, and is why morning barn chores happen in the morning.
So that was summer. Work happened, with a very large client edit that took over the local universe. I sent the final version of that, finally, out this morning. Other projects came and went, and will now take center stage, and yay for that.
And now it is, officially, fall. In Arizona that means a few more weeks of daytime heat, but the nights are getting cooler, and the mornings are just cool enough to get Pooka into his cranky pants. But they're not nearly cool enough for his blanket yet, so he can just suffer. Or get a longe or a ride, which always improves his mood. Lessons got deferred because there was no point, but we had one yesterday to get back into the habit, and he's not entirely sure about this use your whole body thing, didn't we already do that and do we have to do it again?
The rest of the crew are prospering. Fibro hips means no greenies under saddle, but Capria and Pandora can handle me being essentially immobile and seat-deaf, so they've had a decent share of attention. Gabriella is now well integrated into the herd, is Pandora's grooming buddy and Carrma's BFF and has declared detente with the Girlz. Still some fireworks now and then, but they all do that.
Now we're galloping into winter--and unlike Westeros, Baja Arizona can't freaking wait. We have a short Camp next weekend, but otherwise all the bookings disappeared, canceled, or never committed. 2012 is open except for April. We're plotting something with yoga maybe around the Solstice; and Pook and I are going to the Empire Ranch Roundup November 5th, at which we will do something, not sure what yet, but I'm sure we'll improvise. I might pop in on TusCon for a day. And I'm doing the Tucson Book Festival in March, must not forget that. They finally found me, yay.
Yes, that's what it's like inside my brain these days. It hops around a lot. Goal is to get the body back in line and working horses consistently, and get the brain back ditto and concentrating on fiction, though there are mentees and Sekrit Projekts and other things piled up as well.
Meanwhile, DHF-the-land has had a few things to say. One day in June when I was having a bit of a War Mare moment over by the stock tank and under the Party Tree (which survived the freeze and is growing green again), I looked down, and there beside my foot was a beautiful basalt spearhead. Message received. Wow factor on high.
And that was a memorable thing, and a lovely thing, and then it became a thing.
I now have a large bucket full of projectile points and tools. Arrowheads, spearheads, axes, adzes, scrapers, grinding tools. All sizes. From all over where the horses are. They shine out at me in the dusk. They poke my foot in the morning. They turn up in the barn. In the stalls. Sometimes in the driveway.
And yes, many of them are made of dragons' teeth.
My life in a fantasy novel, let me show you it.
Now to see if I can keep up with the regular lj-ing. I get tired and scattered and time flies so fast. Summer went by like a blast from a flamethrower. We need t-shirts, artistically scorched and charred. "I Survived Tucson Red-Hot Summer Non-Tour 2011." Second-hottest summer on record, which is saying something.
It's still a mite warm out there, and the summer rains have not given up yet. We had actually less rain than usual, but it tended to come in big fat splooshes, and we've had many times more rain in usually dry September than in the whole of usually wet August. Not that August was actually dry. It was horribly humid and seriously hot. The fibro went New England on it, and made riding painful enough to be a problem. As in, crikey, I'm as stiff as I used to be under Torture Lady's reign, and I don't like it one bit. It's miserable. I want my feel for the horse back!
Evening riding times weren't happening, either, with day after day of major lightning and a sadistic tease from storms that never quite hit here. But, I discovered a thing. A very good and useful thing.
If I went to bed before 11 p.m., I could get up around 6 a.m. and have time to work Pooka, who spends the nights out in the arena, before breakfast. And I did. I managed it. Two, three, four days a week. So he got to stay in work, longeing if the riding was too not-happening. The others were crying neglect, but for the most part he got his innings and was (and is) a happy pooka.
I'm still aiming at 11 p.m., and finding that it really does help with the energy levels, though the brain generally does not come online until 10 a.m. But that's system default, and is why morning barn chores happen in the morning.
So that was summer. Work happened, with a very large client edit that took over the local universe. I sent the final version of that, finally, out this morning. Other projects came and went, and will now take center stage, and yay for that.
And now it is, officially, fall. In Arizona that means a few more weeks of daytime heat, but the nights are getting cooler, and the mornings are just cool enough to get Pooka into his cranky pants. But they're not nearly cool enough for his blanket yet, so he can just suffer. Or get a longe or a ride, which always improves his mood. Lessons got deferred because there was no point, but we had one yesterday to get back into the habit, and he's not entirely sure about this use your whole body thing, didn't we already do that and do we have to do it again?
The rest of the crew are prospering. Fibro hips means no greenies under saddle, but Capria and Pandora can handle me being essentially immobile and seat-deaf, so they've had a decent share of attention. Gabriella is now well integrated into the herd, is Pandora's grooming buddy and Carrma's BFF and has declared detente with the Girlz. Still some fireworks now and then, but they all do that.
Now we're galloping into winter--and unlike Westeros, Baja Arizona can't freaking wait. We have a short Camp next weekend, but otherwise all the bookings disappeared, canceled, or never committed. 2012 is open except for April. We're plotting something with yoga maybe around the Solstice; and Pook and I are going to the Empire Ranch Roundup November 5th, at which we will do something, not sure what yet, but I'm sure we'll improvise. I might pop in on TusCon for a day. And I'm doing the Tucson Book Festival in March, must not forget that. They finally found me, yay.
Yes, that's what it's like inside my brain these days. It hops around a lot. Goal is to get the body back in line and working horses consistently, and get the brain back ditto and concentrating on fiction, though there are mentees and Sekrit Projekts and other things piled up as well.
Meanwhile, DHF-the-land has had a few things to say. One day in June when I was having a bit of a War Mare moment over by the stock tank and under the Party Tree (which survived the freeze and is growing green again), I looked down, and there beside my foot was a beautiful basalt spearhead. Message received. Wow factor on high.
And that was a memorable thing, and a lovely thing, and then it became a thing.
I now have a large bucket full of projectile points and tools. Arrowheads, spearheads, axes, adzes, scrapers, grinding tools. All sizes. From all over where the horses are. They shine out at me in the dusk. They poke my foot in the morning. They turn up in the barn. In the stalls. Sometimes in the driveway.
And yes, many of them are made of dragons' teeth.
My life in a fantasy novel, let me show you it.
September 4, 2011
I Can Save Myself!
For
sartorias
,
la_marquise_de_
, and others of like persuasion: Look!
Read the article--and note the poster. :)
sartorias
,
la_marquise_de_
, and others of like persuasion: Look!Read the article--and note the poster. :)
August 8, 2011
Write-a-Thon Wraps, Horseblog Don' Wanna, Must Be August
Horseblog today! We're all about the Don' Wannas. And the Doihaftas. It being Monday and all.
The Clarion Write-a-Thon is over for the year, and thanks to all you wonderful donors, it exceeded its goal. Clarion's Class of 2012 thanks you with all their hopeful little hearts.
I managed to go from 24,405 words of alternate-historical extravaganza to exactly 35,800, which is not breaking any speed records but it is new words. There was some backtracking and tweakage, and a whole lotta research involved, as can happen with the historicals.
Lessons I learned from this Write-a-Thon and the one before:
I am not motivated by writers' challenges. The book takes however long it takes. If it needs to stop and regroup, or do some more worldbuilding, or fill in some research gaps, it will.
The Muse laughs at a daily word goal. She'll deliver however many she's delivering. And that's all she's saying.
But she does like the part where she reports on her progress at least once a week. That keeps her eye on the prize. Also, shows her that the pages are piling up. She likes pages piling up.
Next year's Write-a-Thon is totally worth doing, if I keep the goal suitably vague, because Clarion needs and deserves support.
So, now it's back to our normal cacophony. We're dog-dayed out already, with heat and humidity and not much rain of late, though we're kind of glad yesterday's big rains juuuust missed us, literally by a few hundred feet, what with the 80mph winds and the roofs being sucked off houses. We don't need that, thankyouverymuch. The horses are all terribly itchy and scratchy and be-flied, though I'm hoping my new expedient for getting the fly predators to do their job without getting eaten by ants (involving two buckets and a moat) will help.
And, if you've read this far, I should mention that Camp Lipizzan has run into a series of disappearances, cancellations, and "I'll call ya"'s, with the result that there are currently no bookings for fall or winter/spring 2011. Late April is booked. I am waiting (waiting) (waiting) on a response for either mid-October or early November, but if anyone wants to book a date, book it and we'll work around it. We're back to two full guest rooms, so multiples are possible. We are, be it noted, within driving distance of San Diego, and I have 98% decided to pass on WFC this year, so if you would like a writing retreat before the con, give me a ping. A Camp right after the con is also possible, but I'll be prepping for the Empire Ranch Roundup, so that will be front-row center. If you're a lover of the American West, and want to be part of the show (since we're taking horses up to the ranch for exhibition and demos), this could be the thing to do with your post-WFC vacation.
There are some very intriguing plans in the offing, related to yoga, writing workshops, and a local B&B, so watch this space. :)
The Clarion Write-a-Thon is over for the year, and thanks to all you wonderful donors, it exceeded its goal. Clarion's Class of 2012 thanks you with all their hopeful little hearts.
I managed to go from 24,405 words of alternate-historical extravaganza to exactly 35,800, which is not breaking any speed records but it is new words. There was some backtracking and tweakage, and a whole lotta research involved, as can happen with the historicals.
Lessons I learned from this Write-a-Thon and the one before:
I am not motivated by writers' challenges. The book takes however long it takes. If it needs to stop and regroup, or do some more worldbuilding, or fill in some research gaps, it will.
The Muse laughs at a daily word goal. She'll deliver however many she's delivering. And that's all she's saying.
But she does like the part where she reports on her progress at least once a week. That keeps her eye on the prize. Also, shows her that the pages are piling up. She likes pages piling up.
Next year's Write-a-Thon is totally worth doing, if I keep the goal suitably vague, because Clarion needs and deserves support.
So, now it's back to our normal cacophony. We're dog-dayed out already, with heat and humidity and not much rain of late, though we're kind of glad yesterday's big rains juuuust missed us, literally by a few hundred feet, what with the 80mph winds and the roofs being sucked off houses. We don't need that, thankyouverymuch. The horses are all terribly itchy and scratchy and be-flied, though I'm hoping my new expedient for getting the fly predators to do their job without getting eaten by ants (involving two buckets and a moat) will help.
And, if you've read this far, I should mention that Camp Lipizzan has run into a series of disappearances, cancellations, and "I'll call ya"'s, with the result that there are currently no bookings for fall or winter/spring 2011. Late April is booked. I am waiting (waiting) (waiting) on a response for either mid-October or early November, but if anyone wants to book a date, book it and we'll work around it. We're back to two full guest rooms, so multiples are possible. We are, be it noted, within driving distance of San Diego, and I have 98% decided to pass on WFC this year, so if you would like a writing retreat before the con, give me a ping. A Camp right after the con is also possible, but I'll be prepping for the Empire Ranch Roundup, so that will be front-row center. If you're a lover of the American West, and want to be part of the show (since we're taking horses up to the ranch for exhibition and demos), this could be the thing to do with your post-WFC vacation.
There are some very intriguing plans in the offing, related to yoga, writing workshops, and a local B&B, so watch this space. :)
July 28, 2011
Back from the Outer Darkness
I'm one of those who has been cut off totally from lj, unable to post or comment, so we'll see if I can post this at all. I've been trying all week.
My word count for the Clarion Write-a-Thon last week was somewhat direly low, at 878 words for the week. I had an editing job come in, my niece is in town, and there was Coolergeddon, in which I was not able to get anyone official to fix my broken evaporative cooler, but a friend nobly offered to do the job--and had to come twice because the first fix didn't stick. (All those dust storms clogged up the innards but good.) But mainly, when it came time to write, I was researching instead. Necessary side effect of writing historicals, even alternate ones. We're picking up speed again this week.
Here's what just happened, because I couldn't resist:
"If there's a drug that brings back the dead, I'd like to know which agent of the Devil they're buying it from, because surely no Christian man would touch such a thing."
There has been bloggage, too. I riffed off this amazing lj post in a sort of Horseblog (but this time mainly writerblog) at Book View Cafe. These are thoughts I've been trying to articulate for years. Still pondering some of them.
Throughout all this I have been experimenting with a form of discipline. Mostly it involves going to bed scrupulously before midnight--which can be hard because my brain wakes up for writing around 4 p.m. and wants to work until 1 or 2 a.m., but the rest of me has horses and freelancing and chores and such and by 10 p.m. it's done for the day. So, I'm trying out a little forced brain-waking, and working Pook in the mornings before breakfast (his and mine), then in the evenings I have a little time for the others, if it's not storming. If the sun wakes me up when it comes up, I might as well use the time. Not every day; some days I really do need to stay horizontal until the horses start to get demanding. But often enough that Pook is on an actual regular schedule, mostly. Allowing for weather, of course.
It's been an excellent monsoon so far. Almost 5 inches of rain here since the 4th. Occasional breaks in which the humidity isn't quite so bad, which means the coolers work for a change, and the mornings are beautiful.
This morning we actually managed a lesson.
I'm quite a bit stiff, of course, with the humidity. Today is one of those lovely breaks when it's relatively not-hot and not-humid, which meant it was beautiful in the early morning. He was feeling mellow, I was borderline functional, we did a little groundwork (rocking back/collecting/engaging in hand), then I mounted and we took it from there. The exercise was to engage and collect in walk, then lengthen, then collect, back and forth. Next step was to do so in counterbend on a circle. Counterbend made him (and me) find it a little more challenging to fall on his favorite right shoulder.
Step three was to add in halts between the collection and the lengthening. Still in counterbend. Get the collected walk really up and energetic, keep the energy in the lengthening, make sure the halt was good and forward and engaged in between. Then, step four: add in trot. In counterbend. For him, the best setup was from collection to halt to trot to halt to lengthen. Collectamatic, there.
Left side, challenging. Right side, easy. Too easy--so round five was all of this in shoulder-in. When we had it going right, we did it going left. Engage/collect through core, keep it all going with the seat, rein for support, leg for increasing energy. If he wants to fall on a shoulder, open the rein. He'll try to snooker me into bringing it across his neck so he can lean on it.
Round six, for homework, will be haunches in, and when he has that, we incorporate canter departs. I have Issues with that, but we shall overcome.
We wore out the pony. Physically he's awesomely fit--he never breaks a sweat except under the saddle--and he felt wonderfully strong in the exercises, but when we stopped, he unreeled his neck and turned into a puddle. Worked his brain too hard, we did. But he was happy.
My word count for the Clarion Write-a-Thon last week was somewhat direly low, at 878 words for the week. I had an editing job come in, my niece is in town, and there was Coolergeddon, in which I was not able to get anyone official to fix my broken evaporative cooler, but a friend nobly offered to do the job--and had to come twice because the first fix didn't stick. (All those dust storms clogged up the innards but good.) But mainly, when it came time to write, I was researching instead. Necessary side effect of writing historicals, even alternate ones. We're picking up speed again this week.
Here's what just happened, because I couldn't resist:
"If there's a drug that brings back the dead, I'd like to know which agent of the Devil they're buying it from, because surely no Christian man would touch such a thing."
There has been bloggage, too. I riffed off this amazing lj post in a sort of Horseblog (but this time mainly writerblog) at Book View Cafe. These are thoughts I've been trying to articulate for years. Still pondering some of them.
Throughout all this I have been experimenting with a form of discipline. Mostly it involves going to bed scrupulously before midnight--which can be hard because my brain wakes up for writing around 4 p.m. and wants to work until 1 or 2 a.m., but the rest of me has horses and freelancing and chores and such and by 10 p.m. it's done for the day. So, I'm trying out a little forced brain-waking, and working Pook in the mornings before breakfast (his and mine), then in the evenings I have a little time for the others, if it's not storming. If the sun wakes me up when it comes up, I might as well use the time. Not every day; some days I really do need to stay horizontal until the horses start to get demanding. But often enough that Pook is on an actual regular schedule, mostly. Allowing for weather, of course.
It's been an excellent monsoon so far. Almost 5 inches of rain here since the 4th. Occasional breaks in which the humidity isn't quite so bad, which means the coolers work for a change, and the mornings are beautiful.
This morning we actually managed a lesson.
I'm quite a bit stiff, of course, with the humidity. Today is one of those lovely breaks when it's relatively not-hot and not-humid, which meant it was beautiful in the early morning. He was feeling mellow, I was borderline functional, we did a little groundwork (rocking back/collecting/engaging in hand), then I mounted and we took it from there. The exercise was to engage and collect in walk, then lengthen, then collect, back and forth. Next step was to do so in counterbend on a circle. Counterbend made him (and me) find it a little more challenging to fall on his favorite right shoulder.
Step three was to add in halts between the collection and the lengthening. Still in counterbend. Get the collected walk really up and energetic, keep the energy in the lengthening, make sure the halt was good and forward and engaged in between. Then, step four: add in trot. In counterbend. For him, the best setup was from collection to halt to trot to halt to lengthen. Collectamatic, there.
Left side, challenging. Right side, easy. Too easy--so round five was all of this in shoulder-in. When we had it going right, we did it going left. Engage/collect through core, keep it all going with the seat, rein for support, leg for increasing energy. If he wants to fall on a shoulder, open the rein. He'll try to snooker me into bringing it across his neck so he can lean on it.
Round six, for homework, will be haunches in, and when he has that, we incorporate canter departs. I have Issues with that, but we shall overcome.
We wore out the pony. Physically he's awesomely fit--he never breaks a sweat except under the saddle--and he felt wonderfully strong in the exercises, but when we stopped, he unreeled his neck and turned into a puddle. Worked his brain too hard, we did. But he was happy.
July 18, 2011
Research Slowdown and a Little Monsoon Madness
Another week of the Clarion Write-a-Thon, another chunk of words. Forward progress slowed down this week for research and blocking out of the next section, and a few words got tweaked in earlier chapters to fit some new directions.
The facebook portal appears to hate my pretty word-count meter, so I'm going to see if just spelling it out makes a difference.
We now stand at 30,750 words of a projected 100,000. Not counting notes, research, plot tweakage, and Evil Afoot.
This is part of how it goes:
She stared off past him, into some distance that only she could see. "It's moving too fast. As if something else--some other hand--is driving it. Something that should not be there."
No Kidding, there.
We had a break in the monsoon last week. The dry air was incredibly welcome, though one of the coolers finally decided to quit, and I couldn't get anyone in to fix it. A kind friend is on the way today to see what he can do--dodging storms. We've had a couple already today, and a good one yesterday. This for us has been a most excellent monsoon. Which we need. Badly.
Before the storms rolled in yesterday, I drove up to Sonoita to the Empire Ranch. This is a 150-year-old ranch, now historically designated in the process of preservation, and the Foundation has invited me to bring a Lipizzan (or two or three) to their Roundup in November. Pook will go, of course. And a mare or two, if we do a yoga demo as well as the Pretty White Stallion part. We'll come up with something interesting to do, and a nice narration for the announcer to read, and take it from there. Should be fun, and the setting is absolutely beautiful.
In fact if anybody wants to come and join us, it's November 5th....
The facebook portal appears to hate my pretty word-count meter, so I'm going to see if just spelling it out makes a difference.
We now stand at 30,750 words of a projected 100,000. Not counting notes, research, plot tweakage, and Evil Afoot.
This is part of how it goes:
She stared off past him, into some distance that only she could see. "It's moving too fast. As if something else--some other hand--is driving it. Something that should not be there."
No Kidding, there.
We had a break in the monsoon last week. The dry air was incredibly welcome, though one of the coolers finally decided to quit, and I couldn't get anyone in to fix it. A kind friend is on the way today to see what he can do--dodging storms. We've had a couple already today, and a good one yesterday. This for us has been a most excellent monsoon. Which we need. Badly.
Before the storms rolled in yesterday, I drove up to Sonoita to the Empire Ranch. This is a 150-year-old ranch, now historically designated in the process of preservation, and the Foundation has invited me to bring a Lipizzan (or two or three) to their Roundup in November. Pook will go, of course. And a mare or two, if we do a yoga demo as well as the Pretty White Stallion part. We'll come up with something interesting to do, and a nice narration for the announcer to read, and take it from there. Should be fun, and the setting is absolutely beautiful.
In fact if anybody wants to come and join us, it's November 5th....
