Robin McKinley's Blog, page 117

Speed of . . . writing. Guest post by Elizabeth Moon

 

Two recent articles—one in the New York Times  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/18/magazine/dear-novelists-be-less-moses-and-more-cosell.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=books   and a responsive one in the Guardian  http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/sep/19/literary-productivity —discussed the relationship of writing speed to writing quality, while lightly scolding some "literary" writers for their extremely slow production, with years (sometimes many years) between books.

            Both articles pointed out that some writers of literary merit produced a book a year without any apparent diminution of their books' quality, but other, more current ones do not–in fact, write very slowly.  In the current literary world, slowness is equated with quality more often than not.   Comments from readers to both articles reinforced the stereotype (slow writing is better writing; rapid writing "churns out" or "whips out" low-quality writing).  One or two writers who produce both literary and commercial fiction were quoted as saying that they write very differently–and at a different speed–depending on their perception of the "artistic merit" of the work itself. 

            As a writer who has produced at the book-a-year rate for over twenty years, I have my own opinion of these ideas (yes, that is steam coming out in puffs…). 

            First, on the matter of speed over quality:  there's no linear relationship between writing speed and quality.  These are independent variables.  Some writers are naturally faster/slower than others; all writers have a natural speed of production, one at which they write the best work they can write.  Rushing to exceed that natural speed–for whatever reason–risks harming the work.   Artificially slowing down also risks harming the work.   Most people understand that rushing can damage any work, from writing to building a shed…many do not understand that artificially slowing down can have the same effect. 

            Consider a simple physical act like walking.   If you are out walking on easy ground, neither late for anything nor slowing down to stay with a slower companion, you will pick up your natural rhythm and your natural walking speed.  Both hurrying and slowing are less natural, and require effort to maintain.  When I hiked with my husband, I was always hurrying, stretching my legs, taking faster steps; when I walked with a toddler, I was always taking uncomfortably short steps.  As a result, I spent effort on the act of walking, not on the "content" of the walk: sights, sounds, smells, etc.  The same is true of crafts: the skilled woodcarver tends to be faster than the novice, but each has his/her own natural speed–at each level of skill–when control of the tools is best and the connection between idea and action is strongest. 

            So with writing.  The natural pace of writing for me does allow a book a year; when I try to slow down intentionally, I begin to lose both contact with the book's energy (if the book were a horse, its "impulsion")  and lose interest in it.   I know from past experience (pre-publishing writing) that writing slow means I write worse.  The quality of my writing (whatever level someone cares to give it) is best when I'm writing at my natural speed.   In working with novice writers, I've found that the slowest are not the best.

            The Guardian comments included a reference to a New York Times podcast in which Irish writer John Banville is said to have explained that his writing method (and speed) varies with the intended "artistic merit" of the work.   He writes his literary works in longhand, at approximately 100 words a day, and his commercial fiction on the computer, at 1000+ words a day.   I admit I'd never heard of John Banville or his commercial pseudonym, Benjamin Black, so I have no way to compare the quality (in my opinion) of the one to the other.  But I had an immediate allergic reaction to the idea of any artist deliberately choosing to do work which he considers inferior, disrespecting both his/her audience and the work itself. 

            Riding instructors point out that every time you get on a horse, you either make the horse–and your own riding–better or worse.   Whether you're riding the same horse or a different one, out riding for pleasure or taking a lesson or in competition–every single time, your riding improves or backslides.  So does the horse.   The dullest borrowed plug, then, deserves the best riding you can give it–sitting correctly, being light with the hands, giving clear aids–just as if it were a champion in the show ring.  Slopping about in the saddle, letting your legs flop around, inconsistent use of the aids–all those will reinforce your own bad habits and teach the horse that riders are lousy communicators.   If you ride as well as you can on every horse on every ride, you will continue to improve as a rider, and the horses will become more responsive as they experience good rider communication.   

            The same is true of singing, a point my voice teacher is finally getting across to my rebellious vocal apparatus.  Singing well is not just a matter of learning specific skills, but of making those skills habitual–you learn to sing well reliably by singing well every time you sing.   Either the tone improves, or it worsens.  Either the vowels tend toward the best, or slide back to the worst.   I have more years of skilled riding behind me than I do of skilled singing, so I'm finding the singing difficult–but I can see the point that the vocal equivalent of slumping in the saddle or paying no attention to leg aids creates the same type of problem for the singer: bad habits persist and good ones never develop.  

            The same is true of any craft, including writing.   The writer who thinks of commercial writing as having less or no "artistic merit" will not only produce commercial fiction of less artistic merit, but will also impair his/her literary fiction.  Bad habits transfer from practice to performance.  Writing a thousand words a day of fiction you know–and intend to be–inferior will affect the hundred words a day you expect to be superior.   I can understand that one project might slow a writer's natural storytelling speed because of the nature of the project without affecting the quality; what bothers me is Banville's apparent linking of writing speed to artistic merit and his choice to do less than his best.  Still, the possibility does exist that the thousand words–simply by being more practice–might have a beneficial effect on the hundred–but only if the thousand words are as good as, or better than, the hundred.   In another interview, Banville says he regards his crime novels as "craft" while his literary novels are "art," so at least he's not dismissing the need for craft in the commercial fiction, and craft is the foundation of art.  But by considering his crime writing "cheap fiction" he disrespects not just crime fiction but his own talent.

            Since slow production is (at present) considered one of the hallmarks of serious literary fiction with "artistic merit," I wonder whether some authors simply lie about the relative worth and the speed of production of their literary v. their commercial (if they do commercial) work.   Do they really produce only 100 words a day, or are they also (as, looking at Banville's bibliography, seems possible) producing a great deal of other work simultaneously, writing only part of the day on the new literary masterpiece?  Do they in fact work as diligently on their commercial fiction as on their literary fiction, but pretend not to, sneering at their own commercial projects in order to preserve their lit-fic persona?   Street cred in lit-fic circles depends a great deal on the approval of certain academics and critics.  When those who gatekeep the halls of literary fiction believe that good writing must be slow and determinedly anti-commercial, the writer with lit-fic ambitions might well cooperate with the prevailing myth.  

            I'm convinced that artists and craftspersons produce their best when they treat their craft–and its intended audience–with respect, when they give the best that is in them no matter whether a given work is large or small, complex or simple.

Absototively.  Go EMoon.  –ed

Singing for a Wedding

 

It was fine.  I think.  The wedding.  Singing for the wedding.  Well, as I tweeted, nobody died.  And they were still smiling when we sat down.  But then most people at weddings are in kind of Permanent Smile Mode, aren't they?  I know I've been to weddings when you doubt that what's going on behind the permanent smile is smiley, but through the haze of We did it!  And I'm alive!, this afternoon, I wasn't noticing the quality of anyone's smile. 

            EMoon tweeted that your first choir performance is the worst, and it gets better.  Well I hope so.  CambridgeMinor also tweeted that I'd probably end up enjoying it—that anticipation is always worse than the event.  Well, that's also true—I did enjoy the actual on-my-feet-making-a-noise part but the anticipation just about did kill me and I've been in the post-adrenaline fog the rest of the day which is impractical in terms of getting on with life and as a long-term prospect as a choir member Will Not Do.  But.  Hey.  One down, 46,712 performances* to go.**  It gets better.  EMoon says so.

            I was so appalled at my immediate future that I didn't hear anything on the morning hurtle as hellhounds and I panted from tree-shadow to tree-shadow in the unseasonable oven-like temperature, while DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT [American] HISTORY*** via http://www.audible.co.uk/  was trying to tell me something about some bloke named Clinton.†   And then I had to figure out what I was going to wear—what I could bear to wear as passing for Sunday-best with the weather pressing down on you like Shelob. 

            You may recall that I have been known to complain as a bell-ringer about what day-eaters weddings are.  Singing in the choir is WORSE.  We were supposed to get there twenty minutes before the wedding started—at least as a bell ringer you start counting from when it's supposed to end.  And—as a bell ringer—I know that weddings always run late.  This one was no exception.  We sat in our choir stalls for a total of two hours—and the grand sum of our contribution was maybe seven or eight minutes of  singing††—ringing a wedding is usually about twenty minutes.†††  Feh.  I had brought my knitting of course‡ even though I put it away once the show started.‡‡

            Harpergray wrote:  When my choir sang at weddings, we usually kept our eyes out for the dresses (of guests and party), and adorable children in the wedding party. General people watching, which in most cases was of a benign nature.

            Yes.  This proved to be more fun than I was expecting.  I am a people-watcher‡‡‡ but I had been so preoccupied with them staring at us I forgot that this would work the other way too.  A wedding takes on its Major Life Ritual aspect when you're right on top of proceedings, even when you have no clue who these people are.  There weren't really enough great frocks§ but the adorable children quotient was high—especially one little girl in the wedding party who was, I'd guess, in her first grown up dress. 

            And then there was the singing.  I was beautifully placed, because once the men swept forward to create the back end of the horseshoe with the sopranos and altos facing each other from the choir stalls, I was pretty well hidden.  Our copies of the Cantique are bound into hard covers and I'd been planning to carry mine to put the appallingly flimsy little wisp that is the Locus Iste on, to stop my hands shaking.  But everyone else was only picking up their Locus Iste wisps so I thought, okay, fine, I can do this.  And my hands didn't shake enough that I couldn't still read the words.  The best thing was that as they gave us our first note—the Locus is a cappella, drat it—and we all started off I thought, oh, yeah, I do know this one. 

            The Cantique is longer and while you have the benefit of organ accompaniment, we were singing during the signing of the register, which was causing a certain amount of distracting hilarity behind us.§§  But this too was negotiated without any throwing of custard pies.§§§

            And then at the end as the choir exited through the side door . . . the bells were ringing.#

 * * *

Mirkat wrote:  A bookmark!!! why didn't I think of that. Have ordered a doodlier doodle post-haste, of Robin – deep in the fog of a new novel – running into a pole. Or the like. There wasn't much to convey in 40 characters. Just so long as it's relatively skinny enough to fit on a handy bookmark (2-3 inches?). Am I asking too much? 

Erm.  Well, yes.  With the exception of the bats in the belfry doodle and the odd special commission## which are larger, doodles are a standard size, which is to say UK paper size A6###.  A doodlier doodle will be more crowded than a plain one, but they're all A6.  And I don't do the Sistine Chapel on the inside of a thimble—I'd have trouble drawing anything to fit 2-3 inches.~  At least around here every stationer's now has a laminating machine, and you can get a little home dealie for about £20.  I have one.  You run your doodle through and lo! it is plastic, and all is well.~~  Personally I have very few bookmark-shaped bookmarks.  I use postcards and business cards and photos and (laminated) newspaper clippings and good bits cut out of old illustrated calendars and so on.  And if any of the authors I follow start selling doodles, I'll buy several and laminate them before I have the opportunity to spill tea or chocolate on them.           

* * *

 * Not that I'm trying to be difficult or anything, but before Aaron points this out, if I live 50 more years—hey, I'm planning to go out old^—that's 18,250 days I've got left.  That means two and a half performances a day for the rest of my life.  Hmm.  

^ Fifty would be good.  I'd like to hang on for that first cartoonists' round-up Antiques Roadshow. 

** Not including the Muddlehamptons' winter concert because I will be humming at the Met Live GOTTERDAMMERUNG.  But . . . counting Oisin's and my new barbershop quartet which will unveil itself to a disbelieving world this time next year.  

*** Part Four apparently successfully downloaded at last. 

† So I listened to it all over again on the evening hurtle.  Oh, that bloke.  I knew the name was familiar . . . ^ 

^ JOKE.  Although given that how well any president does seems to be depressingly and increasingly dependent on the luck of the national/global draw, would the first (white) woman president have got beat up any more or less than the first black (male) president is? 

†† Plus the soprano descant on the final hymn.  I don't know how many other people heard us, be we heard us. 

††† The happy couple pays through the nose for the privilege too.  It would be entirely unfeasible to pay us individually, but I asked Cindy if the choir coffers are enhanced and yes, they are, to the tune of better than twice what the New Arcadia tower charges—and while the ringers do themselves get paid, half of it goes into the tower fund.  Weddings are expensive.  And I'm not at all sure the Muddlehamptons are worth it.  Eeep. 

‡ I have got to get used to the guillotine jokes.  As we were leaving one of the tenors fell in step beside me and said, I kept looking round for the guillotine.  The what?  —Oh.  

‡‡ Although since I had thoughtfully chosen to sit at the far end of the first-soprano front row I might conceivably not have had to . . . ah well.  

‡‡‡ I defy you to find a writer—or for that matter someone who draws^—who isn't.  

^ Since I am including myself in this category I hesitate to use the word 'artist' 

§ I wonder how many gorgeous 1st-October-in-England frocks remained hanging in their cupboards however while their would-be wearers groped for something short and sleeveless. 

§§ Worst for the basses, who have to start off All Alone. 

§§§ It is of course possible that this is only because no one thought to equip themselves beforehand. 

# . . . Not very well.  Never mind.  Not my tower. 

##  !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I've received my first COMMISSION!!!!!  

### http://www.ukofficedirect.co.uk/iso_paper_size_cp.aspx   So, officially, about 6" x 4".  But I have several brands of A6 pads and they vary kind of a lot in practise. 

~ A hellhound face.  A rosebud.  One vampire tooth. 

~~You're probably destroying their eventual value on the Antiques Roadshow, but in my life anyway plastic has a much greater survival rate.

Giggling, various

 

Rain.drop7:  You shouldn't have said the thing about a doodle Mona Lisa, Robin. . . .

You have opened the door to a whole world of new, complicated doodle ideas. Just remember that you brought this upon yourself.

 

Hi, my name is Muffy

 

Never tease a doodler.  They are all mentally unbalanced and prone to whimsy.  NOTE THAT IF ANY OF YOU ARE POSSESSED BY THE DEMONIC SPIRT and decide to ask for anything of this sort . . . and I'm aware that I may have made a serious error here . . . there are not necessarily all that many famous paintings that would doodle well, at least not by me.  You need a single, strong, fairly simple, immediately recognisable image—so for example Birth of Venus, yes, Monet's frelling water lilies, no.  And it still needs to be something I can do—and something, you know, twistable.  Mona Lisa's smile has of course been cartooned, parodied, lampooned, pastiched, and doodled many many many times.  Just not by me.  Before now. 

 * * *

Meanwhile . . . fourteen hours.  Whimper.* 

Diane in MN:  on the . . . bright side, it's a wedding, so the happy couple are the main attraction, not the choir, and the crowd should by rights be looking at the bride. 

They'll be spending the whole rest of the wedding looking at the bride.  For the three and a half minutes of our anthem they'll be looking at us.  And furthermore the extremely pretty yet restrained blue frock I was planning to wear has long sleeves and it's going to be another Death Valley scorcher tomorrow. 

Harpergray:  . . .  as a denizen of the front row, you also have the opportunity to watch any shenanigans that happen to occur during the course of the wedding. 

Don't get my hopes up.  It would be worth it if someone fell down or dropped the ring in the font, or a pew broke or something.  Unfortunately one can't really wish for these things at a wedding:  it's too unkind.  Even knowing that it would become their favourite story in thirty years or so . . . it's still too unkind.  Which means you can't really enjoy it if it happens.  I hope there are some good frocks.  The one drawback to the excellence of being hidden away as a bell ringer is that you rarely get a good up-close view of the assembled.

            But you know the worst thing?  I won't be able to knit.  Maybe I should rethink the second sopranos.  The second sopranos are in the second row.  They could knit.     

Ajlr

CathyR: Just deciding where to hang my doodles, once they're framed …

FRAMED?

Well, did you think they were going to be hidden away in a drawer somewhere? 

No, I thought you were going to lay them into the books.  Good grief.  With or without recourse to glue sticks, depending on how you feel about this kind of thing.  But that's what I'd do.  That or I'd laminate the freller(s) and use them as bookmarks.  

Just think how many sittingroom/bedroom/kitchen walls everywhere are going to be proudly sporting examples of McKinley-iana. 

I'm starting to feel a little squeamish here. . . . 

There will probably be entire episodes of the 'Antiques Roadshow' devoted to it in about 50 years' time… 

Oh, not entire episodes.  Special drawing episodes.  Phiz, Hogarth, Heath Robinson, Watterson . . . McKinley.

I'm sorry to hear about the ME having another go. I have lots of fingers crossed that it b*ggers off very soon. 

LISTEN TO THE WOMAN.  YOU'RE NOT WANTED, GET IT?  GO.  AWAY.

blondviolinist 

There will probably be entire episodes of the 'Antiques Roadshow' devoted to it in about 50 years' time…

Specialist: "What we have here are several excellent specimens of a McKinley doodle. McKinley began creating these in 2011, as a fundraiser for her local bell tower. May I ask where your grandmother got these doodles?"

Owner: "Um, well, I think she bought them on an online auction."

Specialist: "Ah, yes. If so, then these may be some of McKinley's early doodles. Now let's look at the composition. This particular doodle here features two sight-hounds, captured in McKinley's inimitable 'line' style. The fact that there are *two* sight-hounds means that this is what McKinley experts call a 'doodlier doodle.' The second doodle, which features a fanged and smiling pastry, is also a 'doodlier doodle.'"

Confused but smiling owner: "Yeah, I never did get why the pastry had fangs."

Specialist: "Ah, yes. That would be a reference to one of McKinley's novels, Sunshine. It features vampires and cinnamon rolls as big as your head. Did your grandmother have any of McKinley's books."

Owner: "Oh, that explains it. I found the fanged muffin drawing inside this vampire book. The other doodle she had framed and hung next to the picture of her old dog."

Specialist: "Well, thank you very much for bringing these in. It's a pleasure to see such excellent specimens of McKinleyana." 

:: falls down laughing :: **

* * *

* Although I am not unaware of the multitude of contradictions I am displaying here.  One can certainly be a professional writer and a hermit, although one's publisher is likely to love one less if one refuses to let oneself be publicised^, but one's pretensions to hermitry are permanently blown the moment one starts keeping a public blog.  Sure, I employ a lot of smoke and mirrors, but the stuff I hang on Days in the Life is genuine, it's just selective.  And so what do I frequently choose to air on my public blog?  My own crippling stage fright, with lashings of agoraphobia and misanthropy, and including the fact that I keep leaving my comfortable burrow and going out and doing stuff that is going to bring all of this on.  Including writing a blog. 

            Go figure.^^ 

^ Only the books matter, frelling sod it.  The rest is just more or less amusing balderdash. 

^^ Oh, and it gets worse.  I have to miss the New Arcadia Theatre Society's variety show, which I would have gone to just to hear Oisin play and sing Noel Coward, so I wheedled a private performance out of him this afternoon.+  Later, as I was leaving, I said, okay, next year, you, I and two other people can sing something for your variety show.  Great, said Oisin, much too quickly.

            I think you probably shouldn't tease music teachers the way you shouldn't tease doodlers. 

+ Very little wheedling was needed.  Oh, I could use another run-through, he said, and sat down at the piano.# 

# Note that it is ENTIRELY BEYOND ME how ANYONE PLAYS AN INSTRUMENT AND SINGS AT THE SAME TIME.~ 

~ Okay.  It's true, I can do There Is A Tavern in the Town.  Sort of.  But it makes me feel like I'm patting my head and rubbing my stomach while doing a quadruple backward somersault without a net and reciting Lepanto.  In Hungarian.   And people do the playing-and-singing-in-public thing for a living?

** Note that there are the plain as well as the doodlier version of the fanged muffin.  The doodlier one includes a glass of champagne.

More Squeakery Freakery. And some auction comments.

 

Unnh.  Post-viral ME.  Unnnnnh.  I did make it through handbells, during which Gemma reached her crucial handbell epiphany and started ringing entire plain courses of bob minor.  I am torn between admiration and rank jealousy since it took me months and months and MONTHS to reach that stage.  I said as much (in a mild, generous tone) and she says it's pattern recognition (which it is) and that doctors are drilled in pattern recognition.  But the best thing about it is that ringing your first plain courses of bob minor on handbells is like learning to ring your first method 'inside' on tower bells—if you get that far you're probably hooked.  And we need handbell ringers. 

            I then tied myself together with string and incantations and went off to the Muddlehamptons.  One of the signs of Ravenel's return is that they started sharp on time . . . which meant I was late.  Oops.  He was already jacking us up with his personal brand of metaphorical air pump.  Gods.  It's not like Gordon is exactly mild-mannered but Ravenel is Ian McKellen as Magneto, only with more tunes. 

            Okay, the good news is that we're not singing the Os Justi for the wedding.  The bad news is that the wedding is this Saturday.  I had managed to make myself believe it was next Saturday.  It's the day after tomorrow.  About thirty-six hours.  Eeeeep.  Somebody, quick, remind me that the purpose of joining a singing group is that you SING?  Like, in PUBLIC?  Whose stupid idea was this?  And furthermore whose stupid idea was it to sing soprano, so I'm in the front frelling row?

            What we are singing is relatively straightforward*, which is to say that while I will be spending a good deal of the next thirty-six hours dragging myself through it on the piano, I can sing it, or anyway I can sing it barring the nasty business about there being an audience**.  But there is a little additional gleep, which is that we're expected to sing the hymns—and the sopranos have a descant on the last one.***  The names of these were duly read out and everyone was nodding wisely, oh yes, we know all these . . . and I leaned out precariously over the choir rail and said in my rich American accent, pardon me, I haven't got a clue about Anglican hymns, can you let me borrow the music?†  

*  * *

So.  The auction.  Yaaaay.  You are so fabulous.  F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S.  A few practical points:  those of you who want ordinary for-sale books, please go on ordering them.  I think SWORD is the only one I'm already out of stock on, but I'd rather not reorder till I know how many I'm going to need finally.  And it occurred to me that this is a practical-for-me way of keeping this part of the auction/sale relatively straightforward—ordering the correct number of extras after the 9th of October.  Even Fiona can only do so much in the keeping-me-sorted-out-and-headed-in-the-right-direction department.

            I'm also a little startled about some of the bidding.  I'd be willing to lay on (say) one or two more doodle-icious CHALICEs and DRAGONHAVENs at the top bid prices, if either or both runners-up are interested.  If the answer is 'yes' please let Blogmom know since she's the one keeping track.  I will also offer another pre-Newbery first edition HERO if the runner-up felt like paying the top bid price. 

Feye:   Aaaand there goes my paycheck 

Good attitude. 

Rain.drop7:  YAY! I am so excited!!! 

Excellent attitude.

…although my compulsive, overly-competitive alter ego always shows up during auctions, and my bank account suffers for it… 

This is why I stay the ginglefrank away from eBay.  I compete with myself.  Remind me to show you my collection of knitting books some day.  

Oh well. It's for a good cause. 

I've been having this fantasy of ringing a quarter peal for Everyone Who Bid on/Entered My Bell Fund Sale/Auction.  Hmmm.  You may have to wait till I can ring Grandsire Triples inside reliably. 

Shalea:  Going to be able to knock out a few Christmas presents, I see. 

Speaking of fantasies, this comment roused in me an immediate vision of someone pulling a doodle out of their Christmas card and saying, But . . . that looks like a muffin . . . with fangs?  

CathyR:  Just deciding where to hang my doodles, once they're framed … 

FRAMED? 

harpergray:  I have nearly started drooling while looking over the auction and sale page!! 

It's not a problem.  You just want a handkerchief. 

And Boyfriend has said that he will buy me something for my birthday…oh, Boyfriend…

Good Boyfriend. 

Of course, now I actually have to choose what I'd like most…a pleasant dilemma, one feels. 

Please apply the languishing, the heavy sighs, the eye rolling and the murmured phrase, oh, I just can't decide. . . . 

abigailmm:  I requested a doodle of a hellhound lying down with head stretched up. What I had in mind . . . is what you described so beautifully earlier this summer –



Although they were in their best Ancient Hellhound God Lying Down Posture when I reappeared, where nothing on this mere mortal earth can maintain the curve of their bellies, their long straight necks have disappeared into the sky, and their bright beaming eyes are in danger of making holes in the walls. 

I can probably do this one first because I have an excellent instinctive awareness of hellhounds which will (probably) translate onto paper and second because it's about line and line, as previously observed, fascinates me.  But this doodle request also makes me realise, and I am therefore warning all of you, that there is a corollary to think simple which is think silly.  I'm a doodler not a, cough cough, artist, you know?  And you can get away with silly when you're not good enough to bring off, well, art.  Beauty.   The Hellhound God Lying Down Posture is beautiful, at least to those of us susceptible to hellhound beauty.  So be a little careful what you ask.  Or brace yourself for the Doodle Version.  I could do a doodle version of the Mona Lisa, no problem.  But it wouldn't be art.  And it wouldn't be beautiful.

As with others, I say, produce these at whatever reasonable schedule lets you have a life. I want my doodle, but not at the expense of other important things. And thank you. 

Life?  LIFE?   I haven't had a life in years.  I don't seem to know what to do with one.  

               And you're welcome.  Thank you all. †† 

* * *

* Faure's Cantique de Jean Racine, and the first of the three Bruckner Graduals, Locus iste, which is a snip compared to the Os Justi.  They're going to be singing all three for the Second Concert in a Row I Won't Be in^ but I seem to have decided while I believed I was still thinking about it that I am going to keep going to practise and learn all this music for laughs.^^.  How am I going to learn to sing-with if I don't sing-with?  I'm also frelling determined to lick Os Justi.^^^  For laughs. 

^ Although given my attitude toward my first wedding sing I find that I am not entirely sorry about this.  Also by the time they manage to schedule a concert I don't have an ironclad excuse to get out of I will have caught up with my learning curve.  I will be not only singing-with nonchalantly, while the altos, tenors, basses and second sopranos are doing gods know what in other parts of the universe, I will also be beginning to assimilate this at practise instead of having to race home and pick out all the tricky bits on the piano—and being disastrously thrown off by all those other voices singing all those other lines at next practise. 

                Goals.  Everyone needs goals.  

^^ I can hum during the intervals of GOTTERDAMMERUNG.  While I knit.  

^^^ Maybe I'll even manage Nadia's suggestion, that I make them want me.  When Griselda isn't there—as tonight—the first sopranos can use all the help they can get. 

** In thirty-eight hours.       

***  Two hundred wedding guests vs. eight sopranos.  Great.  No problem.  

† Since I don't really read music—yet—I would need to borrow it anyway but one of the peculiarities of many—most?  Or just the ones I've seen?—Anglican hymnals and so far as I can tell all programmes, bulletins and orders of service^ is that they only give you the lyrics.  Do Anglican babies get a jab at birth with the vitamin K for basic hymn tunes?  How the frell are the rest of us supposed to know them?  

^ with reference to an earlier conversation about what you call the piece of paper they hand you at the church door that tells you what's going to happen, 'order of service' to me has only ever meant special services, like weddings and funerals, not ordinary Sunday meetings. 

†† More tomorrow.

Oh, the usual. Bells.* Hellhounds. Singing.

 

The main thing to say six days into the New Arcadia Bell Restoration Fund auction/sale [see SIDEBAR—yes!  Yes!  It's right there] is . . . THANK YOU.  You're amazing and wonderful and I'm very grateful.**  I was going to try to do a bit of a round-up about comments and the view from here and future projects and so on tonight but I'm too frelling brain dead.  So I hope I'll do it tomorrow.  Meanwhile . . . THANK YOU.

 * * *

It's been another one of those days that started last night . . .  in this case when the hellhounds did NOT eat supper.  Again.   They do this to confound.  Also because I have been talking about them on the blog.  We're just going to have to come to terms about this:  I can't afford to lose such great blog material.  Even if it's not always such good great material. 

Diane in MN:  It's just a good thing they're cute.

Puppies are cute so we won't kill them before they grow up and turn into dogs. Obviously being cute has survival value for dogs as well.

Sometimes when there are so many things I should be thinking about that the brain overheats, and waving the smoke*** of burning transmitters and plastic shielding away from my eyes I search urgently for some intellectual cul de sac . . . and I wonder what dogs think they're doing when they're trying to charm you into doing something you don't want to do.  They know they are using the persuasive tools available to them, but what does it mean in dog terms? 

if I ever find myself in the dreadful position of not having a hellhound of my own

Bad thought, don't go there. I get as far as "If I ever had to size down . . ." and then shut the door on it.

Yes, the problem with Great Danes is that there is nothing but more Great Danes in that category.  Sighthounds offer a few more possibilities.  Clearly I'm a whippet specialist, and they're small.  But if I got desperate—the dog-tenacious among you may remember that I found this area rather a sighthound-puppy desert when I was in the market—I could be happy with some of the retired greyhounds I've seen†, retired greyhounds being famously known as 40 mph couch potatoes.  But the Joe Gores remark on the blog's quote thingy keeps obtruding here:  Old age means realizing you will never own all the dogs you wanted to.  Yes.  But given that Salukis are notorious for being both the most stubborn and the most resistant to eating of the sighthound group, it's probably just as well I'm already old.

 * * *

Anyway.  The day got off to another stupid start because I so wasn't expecting hellhounds not to eat supper, and this startled me into staying up later than planned waiting for them to recover their senses . . . dumb, McKinley, really dumb.  And the truth is that I'm still a whole lot thinner on the ground semi-post-flu than I want to admit to so today has been a little blurry and I seem to be seeing things from a lower vantage point than usual, like maybe I haven't noticed I'm on my hands and knees. 

            I did make it to Wild Robert's Occasional Wandering Bell Practise tonight.  Every now and then you get a mysterious email saying something like 'Crabbiton. 28 Sept. W.R.'  Us acolytes live in a state of permanent yearning for the next such Delphic instruction and it's another of those cases where you go unless you are positively chained to the wall with a guard at the door and barbed wire around the perimeter.  It was not one of our more brilliant nights however:  to give you one trenchant example we tried to ring Cambridge minor and I counted as one of the people who knew what she was doing.††

            It was not all bad however.  I tackled several of the other middling ringers about going to the Forzadeldestino practise on Wednesdays, and, you know, lowering the level.  Most of them made 'avert' signs and retired hastily to the other end of the nave.  Forza does have a bit of a reputation.  But one of my fellow middlers said why yes, I keep meaning to go.  I'll see you there next Wednesday.  Um . . . okay. 

* * *

And now, brain dead or bright, lively and ready to tackle a cure for malaria or an internal noncombustion engine or the creation of a dog food hellhounds will always eat, I need to sing.  Os Justi with Ravenel and without Griselda is now only about eighteen hours away.  I was thinking this afternoon as I was doing a few vocal exercises in a scrap of time before the predicted collision between the irresistible force and the immovable object and making what in my case is the rafters ring, that there is a serious drawback to developing your voice.  More people can hear you.  Possibly I should have thought of this before I started voice lessons. 

* * *

 * And knitting.  I knitted while I sat out.  Of course.  

** So are the bells grateful.  Bong.  However I am also grateful for a fact beyond x amount more money to buy gudgeons and headstocks and things, which is that my auction and I are on the list of how bell ringers are contributing to the effort to raise money, which Vicky presented to the church council ten days or so ago—shortly before the auction actually went live here and you lot had the opportunity to begin proving what magnificent, open-walleted human beings you are.  Whew. 

*** At the abbey last week, at the end of practise, as we were pulling ourselves together—some of us needing quite substantial pulling together^—to escape and go home, I smelled burning.  It was unnervingly strong.  Especially unnerving when you're in the ringing chamber of an ancient building the size of a small country, said ringing chamber reached by a route labyrinthine enough to rouse unwelcome thoughts of minotaurs.  Bronwen smelled it too.  So I asked Albert, acting ringing master that week, and he said, oh, don't worry, it's just the bug zappers.  Bug zappers?  By the smell they were frying squirrels.  Not that I have any objection to fewer grey rats with fluffy tails in the world, but it makes me worry if a stricken ringer, staggering back from a touch of Grandsire triples that more closely resembled a burning squirrel, stumbled a little too near one of these high-performance sizzlers. . . . 

^ I wonder if anyone has suggested an official abbey ringing chamber dustpan and broom, to live in a clearly marked cupboard—and bring your own heavy duty tote bag? 

† The smaller, whippet-shaped ones 

†† I was moaning to one of the other ringers that I frelling know the frelling line.  Frelling frelling gods I know the frelling line.  I just can't ring it.

Lurchers and lurgies

 

Look, look!  Blogmom has been CLEVER and put the auction/sale in a sidebar –>

So anyone who has been out saving the world or discovering faster-than-light travel or a cure for vampires* and hasn't been round to Days in the Life recently **, please go check out the Preserve the New Arcadia Bells Sale/Auction!  Please!

 * * *

Hellhounds ate their supper last night too although Chaos had to skulk and slink and act like he wasn't going to—and for all I know he was seriously weighing the alternatives and ultimately might not have, because he is, as we know, a fruit loop, and the fact that he is still demanding lunch and dinner EARLY, and this despite the fact that he has eaten supper two nights in a row now, has nothing to do with anything.  And if you found that sentence hard to follow, welcome to the world of living with hellhounds.  It's just a good thing they're cute.

            I had a friend, let's call her Luna, visiting today.  This is someone I've known for about twenty years—which is to say more or less from the moment I moved over here.  And she's from Maine.  Irony Alert.  But we had friends in common and she has taught the odd McKinley novel*** and one thing led to another, even if the leading is made more complex by the 3000 or so additional miles my emigrating appended.  Still.  We have managed to meet up a few times.†  I picked her up at the Mauncester train station today and then we drove to the edge of town for a walk by the river.  And there, as hellhounds and I often do when we're walking ways frequented by other human beings, we met a Hellhound Fanatic.  First she spoke to the hellhounds, which was all good to them††, and then she spoke to Luna and me, telling us about the hellhound she had once been possessed by, and how friendly and charming and affectionate and beeeeeeeoooouuuuuutiful it was . . . and how hellhounds are among the most ancient of dog breeds and we know this because they show up on medieval tapestries and so on, no doubt because their beauty catches the eye of many artists.†††  Yes.  It is very nice talking to you, madam, and you clearly have the right idea about hellhounds, even if you seem to have forgotten that they are also nightmares in fur with enigmatic attitudes toward food and a perfection of obstinacy that Plato would admire.  And I thought:  if I ever find myself in the dreadful position of not having a hellhound of my own . . . I will be exactly like this, stopp(eth)ing one in three and holding them with a skinny hand.‡   I often imagine having more critters‡‡ but . . . I really don't want to imagine the assembled multitude not including at least one gorgeous, long-legged tuck-bellied large-eyed hellhound.  But ask me again the next time the current crew go comprehensively off their food.‡‡

 * * *

The lurgy continues to ebb‡‡‡ although I am disgracefully hoarse as a result of catching up on about a decade's conversation with Luna and I'm not sure singing tonight is on.§  I can feel the ME tapping its fingers thoughtfully but at the moment it's not making any hostile moves.§§  CathyR tweeted me this a few days ago:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-14883651 :  'Chronic Fatigue, Surrounded by Uncertainty'.  Yep.  That's about it.  I appreciate the low-key tone of the article—it's a big improvement on most of the stuff that was circulating when I first went down with ME/CFS, shrieking and name-calling about wimps and yuppie flu—and I particularly appreciate the suggestion that 'there is an emerging consensus that CFS/ME is not a single illness'.  Don't mind me, I've been saying that for over a decade. 

            But as long as that is the case, I think CFS/ME (or ME/CFS) is rather a good name for it:  apple/banana like the man says, because at the moment we can't be clearer about what we're talking about.  And I wish they would stop suggesting that a combination of cognitive behavioural therapy and graded exercise is good for everyone.  It isn't.   I'd already had a lot of (psycho)therapy by the time I went down with ME, so the concept of as it were handling yourself rather than just living your life as if all your bits, physical, mental and emotional were reliable, was old news.  Once I began accepting that I had ME and that I was going to have to learn to cope with it—and it was the acceptance that was the big bad deal—the learning to cope was grim, nasty and infuriating but relatively straightforward.  I didn't try cognitive therapy§§§ and I'm sure it can be very useful for someone who hasn't before had to look at themselves as a Rube Goldberg contraption.  But the graded exercise thing MAKES ME NUTS.  And as a long-term and more-or-less public sufferer of ME I feel responsible for repeating that graded exercise presented as a treatment for ME makes me nuts.  As a rule it is a frelling frelling bad idea.  ME is all about learning NOT to drive yourself, for pity's sake—it's about listening to what your body wants, not what your intellect (or your boss, or your doctor) tells you you're supposed to want.  Cognitive therapy is about coping.  Graded exercise is essentially about forcing.  Do not go there.   Or if you insist on going there . . . go very very cautiously, and the moment your body or your energy level says um, I'm not really liking this very much, LISTEN.  NEVER MIND THE EXPERT OR THE CHART OR THE PROFILE OR THE WHATSIT.  IT'S YOUR BODY.  IT IS, FURTHERMORE, YOUR UNIQUE BODY.

            Okay.  Stopping now.  And I'm going to go very delicately over to the piano, and if my still rather lurgy-ridden body says no I'll go to bed early.  

* * *

* This last could be taken a number of ways 

** And for anyone who is new to this blog, that's a muffin with fangs.  You figure it out. 

*** shock horror, yes, very odd 

† Once at Dysart's Truck Stop http://www.dysarts.com/ which is where I first encountered the concept of cinnamon rolls as big as your head.  

†† Mostly I am glad they believe that All People Are Good People.  Mostly. 

††† And a few doodlers. 

‡ There will certainly be a glittering eye.  I hope to escape the long grey beard. 

‡‡  No, no!  Nooooooooo!   

‡‡‡ Hey, you know, maybe they won't.  Maybe one of these times will be the last time.  Maybe . . . maybe this was the last time!^ 

^ If you want to live with hellhounds, I recommend indestructible naïveté as a coping mechanism.+ 

+ See below.  I'm good at coping mechanisms.  

‡‡‡ http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lurgy 

§ I can still play Os Frelling Justi over on the piano a few hundred million times in preparation for Thursday.  Not to mention that Nadia is expecting to sing it with me helpfully next Monday.  I think I'll run away to Spain.  I want to see Gaudi's Barcelona. 

§§ It usually does boomerang after I get over something like flu or a head cold.  This assault is often worse than the original ailment.  Such fun. 

§§§ Although I did go back in to straight psychotherapy to learn to 'forgive' myself for having ME.  I have told you many, many times that self confidence is not one of my strong suits, and even while I knew the lazy whinger who can't pull herself together view of ME was bollocks it was still dismayingly hard to resist.

Singing, Croaking and Crunching

 

So, you may remember something about this:  there's an auction/sale going on for the benefit of the New Arcadia Bell Restoration Fund:  http://robinmckinleysblog.com/bells/

 * * *

MAJOR NEWS ALERT.  HELLHOUNDS ATE SUPPER LAST NIGHT. 

            It's been maybe a fortnight since I found a homeopathic remedy that stopped Darkness from having a (noisy) bellyache the next morning if he missed supper and therefore refusing his next meal.*  At which point since I was by then extremely as it were tired of staying up till dawn waiting for hellhounds to eat, I said sod this for a lark, started giving them half a square of knitting, three games of Montezuma or twenty pages of revising/studying-what-I've-just-been-listening-to of DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY** to eat or not eat . . . and then turning the lights out and going to bed.***

            By last night I was so accustomed to the new system—which increasingly has involved starving to death hellhounds at lunch and dinner, which is fine, and I'm delighted they're eating at all, but I'm not going to risk giving them as much in two meals as their delicate guts are used to receiving in three, which also means that I've been watching them go on losing weight the last few weeks, although this has at least slowed†—that I was ringing handbell bob major on Pooka, confident that I wasn't going to be interrupted by a hellhound wanting another handful of kibble††.  I nearly dropped Pooka when I heard the crunch of teeth.  What?  What?  They're eating supper???

            Can't wait to find out what happens tonight.  No, I take that back.  I can wait.  I would rather wait.

 * * *

Meanwhile . . . I did go to my voice lesson today.  I'm better.  I'm still kind of pathetic††† but I'm better.  I had tried singing last night and it was pretty grim, but I could at least ask Nadia how to think about learning Os Justi, which you may remember I am dreading extremely this Thursday, with Ravenel back and Griselda gone and not only way too much frelling counterpoint but only two of us squeakers for those dreadful top As.  Also I had my next courier delivery.‡  So I went.

            Today when I did a few exercises beforehand it was still like trying to stretch tempered steel but at least I was making some noise.  The funny thing was that the iron-bar sensation seemed to have to do with having missed three days rather than about the current affliction.  Nadia said, yes, that's right.  Sopranos and tenors in particular can often sing over a head cold.  If your throat doesn't hurt or tighten or feel dry or tickly . . . you might as well sing.  So I sang at Silent Worship which I am getting used to in the Italian . . . and about Os Justi Nadia gave me all kinds of excellent advice which I will/will not be able to use at my level of thud and blunder but still made me go oh! and grope for a pen to write it down . . . about keeping my line through the frelling counterpoint she said briskly, we can practise.  Do you want me to sing the alto or the tenor line?  EEEEEEEEP, I said.  So we're saving that for next week . . . after I have mortified myself this Thursday. . . . 

* * *

* Or rather two remedies, one of which enhances the other.  The homeopathic grail is always the One Single Perfect Remedy which solves EVERYTHING.  There are people who claim to find it regularly for a wide assortment of clients, but that holy group would not include me.  Down here in the mud and the snarling and the imperfections I pursue Anything That Works at all, which may be a foot in the door of cure.  And then again it may not.  I've probably said this to you before:  I honestly do believe that homeopathy has an answer for everything.  The problem with the package is the delivery system.  And the biggest problem with the delivery system is the poor sweating homeopath.  Which clues should you be paying attention to^, in both the symptoms of what needs to be cured or ameliorated and the basic character of the client?  And in what order of importance should you be paying attention to them?  Hint:  if the client knew, they wouldn't be there.  That the client believes this or that is the most important does not mean it is the most important.  And then, of course, when you have a client that doesn't talk^^. . . .  So with Darkness, the only clear physical symptoms I had were 'borborygmi = refuses food'.   There are THOUSANDS of remedies out there and a lot of them include growling guts and loss of appetite in their 'picture'.  Whimper.^^^  Homeopathy is a fascinating study, and you do develop an ear/eye for which bits of the individual presentation you need to prescribe accurately#—but it's not a skill like learning to read music that improves with practise and once you can do it you can keep doing it.  Homeopathy is always a best guess, a calculated leap in the dark (although the guess may be very good indeed and the leap reckoned to a fare-thee-well).  Anyone who says otherwise . . . um.  They are not the teachers at whose feet I sit. 

^ This seems to me a particularly rich and fulsome example of the idiocy of the Word grammar check, which I keep turned on because mostly it amuses me and there are working days when any humour is welcome.  In the previous phrase, 'Which clues should you be paying attention to', 'be' is highlighted, and the suggestion is 'is'.  

^^ Although it may be another clue.  Why is your client obsessed with the cut on his finger when he has gallstones, migraines, and two broken legs?  Note, however, that it's totally unethical to treat what you think needs fixing without involving your client in the decision.  —I'll give you something that promotes wound healing, sure, but could we look into the migraines a little more? 

^^^ And on the subject of how specific a remedy has to be:  that it works on Darkness if he misses the last meal of the day does not necessarily mean it would work on him if he missed the first meal of the day.  Nor that if it works now, or in early autumn, it would work midwinter, midsummer, or exactly this same time next year.  Or that it would work on anyone else, including Chaos, who has a different assortment of won't-eat fetishes anyway. 

# And a client who talks is not necessarily to be preferred.  Although when you're staring into the steady eyes of your more-obstinate-than-an-army-supply-train-of-mules hellhound you may, at that moment, think so. 

** Remember 'don't praise technology'?  By yesterday second hurtle I was feeling enough more like a human being than a bowl of cracked mayonnaise^ that I decided to go on listening to DON'T.  Turned Pooka on . . . plugged in the earphones . . . pressed 'play' . . . AND THE BLACK SCREEN OF APPLE MACINTOSH DEATH APPEARED.  AAAAAAAAUGH.  I was in sufficiently rough shape that it was taking me a long time to do anything so I hadn't actually finished my meltdown when Pooka coughed a couple of times and came back to life again.  I looked at her.  She looked at me.  I flicked to DON'T part four and pressed 'play'.  ERROR, it said. NO DATA. 

            Oh, and the other fabulous thing?  That crash rattled most of my aps back to their default position.  Which I therefore have to RESET.  Which is not only a big pain in the ass but involves REMEMBERING HOW. 

^ Yesterday was singing-for-the-bishop day.  I hope it went well . . . but golly am I glad I'd dropped out weeks ago. 

*** Hellhounds never eat if I just put it down and leave it.  I need to be there, cheering them on. 

† It has also involved a good deal of muttering along the lines of 'if you're so hungry, why don't you eat supper?' 

†† I know.  But you weren't here for their first two traumatic years.  Supper goes in cautious, one at a time handfuls because it's supposed to top them off, with picky eaters it's usually a good thing if you can arrange it that they clean their plates, and even when hellhounds are in an eating mood their appetite varies EXTREMELY. 

††† And I am not looking forward to the ME rolling in like the Blob over Phoenixville which is the usual denouement to an 'acute' like flu, or Head Cold with Full Body Involvement, which I think is what this is/was. 

‡ Oisin and Nadia's husband are clearly outfitting the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for a world tour.

When There Are No Words There Are Still Doodles

 

You've still got a fortnight left to buy or bid on something!   The New Arcadia Bell Restoration Fund auction/sale is live:  http://robinmckinleysblog.com/bells/ 

. . . . Bluuuuuuh, continued.  Service ring this morning was interesting.  I was clinging fuzzily to the treble and then Niall called for frelling Cloisters.  It's not that it's difficult—it isn't—but it does require that the treble wake up and pay attention.  Then I came home and drank tea till I was in danger of rattling off my chair. . . . I am going to my voice lesson tomorrow.  I don't know what I'll do once I get there, but I am going.  And, gods save both of us, I have an old friend I haven't seen in over a decade passing through Mauncester on Tuesday.  It would be nice to be speaking in complete sentences.  I suppose I could just shove doodles at her. . . .

            To all of those anxious people posting to the forum and writing me little apologetic emails:    I am not keeping track.  You won't be drummed out of the forum if you don't pony up for my bells.  Bidding in the auction and/or buying a doodle or a book is supposed to be fun.  It's not required.  Sure, I want to raise funds for my bells, but trust me, I know about being short of money.  If your roof fell off last night, you can buy another shingle for the price of a doodle.  I totally understand.  Also, because I am me, I will probably totally screw something up during the auction/sale—there will be opportunity for any screw-ups or falling into technological chasms to be sorted out because there will be me to sort out.  This is the good side of not being amazon, okay?  Don't worry. * 

And now . . . how about an opportunity to win a doodled up book?  All you have to do is spread the word.

Tweet it, Facebook it, blog it! Win a doodle-licious book!

Help us publicize Robin McKinley's Sale and Auction in support of the New Arcadia Bell Restoration Fund!  Tweet it, Facebook it and blog it and you will be entered in a random drawing for a signed and dedicated doodle-licious Robin McKinley book of your choice with five** doodles to be scattered through the text at the author's discretion. 

http://robinmckinleysblog.com/contest/

Handbell ringer having a Very Bad Day

 

 

Tower bell ringer having a Very Bad Day

Please note that this person, while unfortunate, will nonetheless be welcome back next week, because he*** is still following the Tower Bell Ringer's First Rule which is never let go of the tail end.   

* * *

 * I love it.  Me saying 'don't worry.'  hahahahahahahahahahaha  

** Blogmom originally said ten doodles and I said GLEEEEEEP.  Even the auctioned books only start at three.  But you never know, I might be inspired.  

*** I think both these victims of circumstance look rather he-ish.  The main thing is that you can tell by the fact that their shoes have discernable heels on them and are therefore definitively not All Stars that neither of them is me.

Uggggh

 

Don't forget.  The New Arcadia Bell Restoration Fund auction/sale is now live:  http://robinmckinleysblog.com/bells/  * 

So, the sale/auction is up** and all I have to do is sit back and watch the orders roll in, right?  WRONG.  In the first place I'm writing my brains out*** and in the second place I have to worry that there won't be too little/too much response.  Too little will make me look foolish among my bell ringers† and too much will force me to grow an extra pair of hands.††

            And . . . meanwhile . . .  I have FLU.  How frelling unfrellingfair is that (frelling)?  I've been rather achier and painier this week than usual, and one of the ill-natured afreets that stalk me is the possibility that I'll get to the point that I can't control my rheumatism by diet any more so it was a somewhat perverse relief when the headache and the sore throat started, followed by the prickly skin that means 'fever'.  I left home tower bell practise EARLY last night.  Shock.  Horror.  I might conceivably not have gone at all, but Vicky was away and I Had the Keys.  I think I've told you before that breaking into St Radegund when it's locked up is an operation like something out of a John Le Carre novel.  It's even more interesting when you're seeing double.

            And then because fate is like that I had a wedding to ring today.  I didn't know I was ill till yesterday, or Niall could have taken charge of the keys for practise last night—and you don't pull out of a wedding ring the day before unless you're positively strapped down in an oxygen tent.  And I am still walking, as hellhounds can testify.  I comforted myself, as I tottered down Main Street toward the church this afternoon, that Monty was ringing, which meant we'd stick to call changes.  I could probably manage call changes.  There was a slight exhale of held breath when my head appeared at the top of the ladder into the ringing chamber.†††  I suspect I probably looked like a woman on her way to an oxygen tent last night—and there have been have been wedding rings when we were seven because the eighth was in hospital having the cast put on.  I fear it was another pull-off that went BING BING BING CRASH CLANG CRUNCH.  It wasn't me!  I was on the two!  That second flawless bing was me!

            . . . Okay.  Bleaugh.  I'm sure blog honour is satisfied.  I'm going to go lie down again.  I can feel the pressure of beady little hellhound gazes going, yes!  Yes!  Sofa!  Yes!‡  

* * *

*I apologise to my regular readers:  you are going to get very tired of this nightly reminder.  But not all of you are regular and I want to make sure that anyone just passing through any time between last night and the 9th of October who might buy or bid on something is prompted to do so.

 ** And there are already bids on the knitted rose dishcloth.  Rats.  That means I'm going to have to make the freller.  Well, okay . . . it means I'll finally finish something.  Maybe this will inspire me on all those other projects. 

*** When the report with the estimate on our bells came in and I was possessed by this deranged idea to have an auction, I thought the writing end of my life was proceeding according to plan. 

† And the looking foolish is being taken care of more than adequately by ringing at the abbey.  Which I am let off a repeat performance of for a fortnight because next week they're having a special Gadzooks Gorblimey on Forty-Two practise.  The week after that, however . . .

            There is some comfort in the fact that everyone I've told my tale of woe to has said oh, Forzadeldestino, it's a monster, don't worry about it.  The only difference is that there are the people who say 'you get used to it' and there are the people who say 'I won't ring there unless an entire squadron of angels beg me on bended knee'.  

†† And the directions for growing an extra pair of hands are not at all clear.  I don't think they were translated from their original Betelgeusean very well.  The technology is so old on Betelgeuse they probably don't feel they have to explain concepts like 'zork' and 'capatootle' completely. 

††† Roger, whom I would describe as insane, except that that epithet applies to all ringers^, has decided to take it as a Personal Affront that I joined the Muddlehamptons instead of St Radegund's choir.  Yo, honey, I don't want the responsibility of being in a regular Sunday-service choir:  it's bad enough I have to fall out of bed for service ring.  At least I can go home afterward and inject some more caffeine.  The Muddlehamptons are free lance;  they do concerts and special appearances^^;  St Radegund's choir is nailed to the service year.  Today he said:  We need sopranos!^^^  You could have come early and helped fill out the choir!

            Today I wasn't singing anything,# thank you very much, unless possibly you needed a croak among the basses, and Roger, you insane person, I don't know the music.  You could pick it up, he said.  I looked at him.  He looked at me.  Well, I said##, if you ever know you're going to be short some time, you could phone me.  But you'd have to put me next to someone who knew what she was doing.

            I may regret this.  St Radegund may regret this.  After all, they haven't heard me yet.

^ Go on, one of you other ringers.  Disagree.  Go on, I dare you.   

^^ For pity's sake I'm going to have to think about what I'm wearing for that grazdibbled wedding in a fortnight.  Usually, for concerts, I'm told, we wear The Uniform, which is a white blouse and long black skirt for women—men have to wear dark suits, white shirts and conservative ties.  For this wedding I'm told we're supposed to be Sunday best dressed.  I don't frelling do Sunday best.  And somehow I don't think the black leather mini would go over. 

^^^ I've said to you already, haven't I, what's the deal with sopranos?  Forty-odd years ago they were two a penny.  As soon as you said 'soprano' choir directors wilted.  If you wanted not to be invited to join a choir, say, 'soprano'. 

 # Although I am wondering why, when I've clearly spent most of this week coming down with this thing, whatever it is, I had been singing better than usual.  Whatever.  I am going to be singing again by Monday.  For one thing I have another delivery.  I am now apparently the official courier between Oisin—who is also a purveyor of sheet music—and Nadia. 

## Hey, I have flu.  I'm not at my best and crankiest. 

‡ I have to get up tomorrow morning.^  After ringing two last Sunday I certainly have to go to service ring.  

^ This is another of those 'don't talk to me about the inherent Wisdom of the Body unless you want to get punched in the nose' things.  It would be nice if I could sleep.  I'm ill, I need sleep, right?  Tell that to the admin.  Of course my admin is probably permanently torpedoed by the ME, but it's exactly the same principle.  ME, characterised by permanent exhaustion . . . and chronic insomnia.  GAAAAAAAH.

It's alive

 

Okay, here we go.  Knock yourselves out.  Please.

http://robinmckinleysblog.com/bells/

It runs from NOW till 2 pm Chicago USA time* Sunday, 9 October.**

* * *

* Because Blogmom is running the back end, and that's her time zone

** Doodles may run longer.  We'll see how it goes.