Robin McKinley's Blog, page 124

Bell doodling

 

Today, as so often, began last night.  Because I had a guest post from Oisin I had booked an appointment with a friend in America for a phone conversation during the usual blog-writing time.  Appointments for such conversations are necessary first because I tend not to answer the phone—nasty noisy pushy thing—second because you never know which house I'm in and the last thing I want is people ringing me on Pooka—Pooka's my friend!  Don't make her do the noisy-insistent thing at me!—and third because the landline at the cottage is now so thoroughly frelled that it sometimes takes the sacrifice of several black goats* before a usable connection is made.

            I'd emailed Rima that I was going to be a few minutes late and I'd email her again once I got back to the cottage.  Got back to cottage.  Turned tiny backup laptop** on while taking harnesses off hellhounds***.  When I went back to the computer it had large flashing coloured warnings all over its face saying your virus protection is out of date.  Prepare to die.  Mwa ha ha ha ha ha.  So I, poor fool that I am, and since I know that both the desktop and the mews laptop are healthy, assumed it was a simple matter of pressing a button that would make the virus protection update itself. . . .

            Most of half an hour later I was hoarse from screaming†, my neighbours had all decided to spend the night at a hotel, and the hellhounds were crammed into the back of their crate pretending to be dust motes.  My virus protection will only download at 3 pm because that's what the Archcomputerangel Raphael told it to do.  It's not 3 pm, it said, stop trying to bully me.  And by the way, your virus protection is out of date.  Prepare to die.

            Rima and I did eventually have our conversation.  I emailed her from Pooka. 

            But not sleeping awfully well last night was not on account of the bats.††

            Vicky is especially scary on Sunday mornings because she's awake and I'm not.  She gets up early.  She's had her coffee, and her breakfast, and she's thought about stuff, and she's ready to deal.  I reeled up the ladder, flopped on the bench, and became uneasily aware that Vicky was talking at me.  She kept trying to make eye contact.  Go away!  It's Sunday morning!  I can't possibly walk and talk at the same time!  Or even sit and talk!  I'm gathering my meagre resources to pull on a frelling rope here in a minute! 

            We need a flyer that can go in the order of service one Sunday, she was saying (or words to this general effect).  As part of our push to raise money for the bells, we need to be seen to be doing something to encourage more people to learn to ring†††, especially young people.

            Eh?

            We need something that sounds fun and nonthreatening, she went on (or more words to more of this general effect).  Maybe you [note:  you] could do something with heavy metal?

            Or how bell ringers get to make lots of loud, annoying noise, said Niall helpfully.  I attempted to give him a I'll-get-you-later glare.   She wasn't trying to make eye contact with him. 

            What?

            So I thought, Vicky went on relentlessly—Vicky in mission mode is the irresistible force and the immovable object, especially on Sunday morning—you and Penelope‡ could get together and come up with a flyer.  The church will print it up for us . . .

            Blergh. 

            I am so not an advertising type—and neither is Penelope, although she's one of these people who can put her hand to most things.  But it was a beautiful Sunday morning, once I had adjusted to the morning part via massive injections of caffeine, and while I was out hurtling hounds‡‡ I considered this matter of the flyer. 

            And I was, if I say so myself, inspired.‡‡‡

Yes, the bell is imported. With a stapler.

           

* * *           

* 'Sacrifice' in this case means 'tickle the tummies of and send on their way'.  It's possible my problem is that I'm not doing this right.  

** If it were new, it would be a netbook.  It's not new.  So it's a tiny, knapsack-sized laptop.  The keyboard is big enough to use, which is all I care about.  Pooka, I love you, but your keyboard is a nightmare.  

*** . . . disgruntled by the prospect of staying downstairs.  We had to stay downstairs because the phone that (usually) works is downstairs.  Also, the mouse on the desktop upstairs in my office is fritzed.  It's not nearly old enough to be fritzed yet.  Technology hates me.  This is not new. 

† I really have to stop this.  I'm ruining my singing career. 

†† Which have wildly erratic schedules.  I think they're all teenagers.  

††† Penelope writes reviews for the local paper and poetry when she has time.  She and Peter get together over a cup of tea most weeks in pursuit of the latter.  So in the New Arcadia bell tower Penelope and I are the writers.  

‡ This is a perfectly valid point, by the way.  The church is underwriting our ten thousand smackers and that's a lot of money for our little church. 

‡‡ And listening to AC/DC on the Walkperson.  Heavy metal is so uncool. 

‡‡‡ This is a very rough sketch.  It's too big—it has to fit in half a sheet of A4^—and I have to sort out my spacing^^.  Still.  This is it.

 ^ 11.7 x 8.3".  British standard paper size.  Just enough off 8 ½ x 11 to be weird.

^^ Spacing.  Ugh.  Spacing is way too much like maths.  I can redo the people all right, but the lettering, even if I use the computer, is going to be bad.

 

GUEST POST BY OISIN

 

LOOK LOOK LOOK LOOKLOOKLOOKLOOK!!!!  IT'S NOT A BIRD OR A PLANE OR SOME GUY IN SPANDEX ABLE TO LEAP TALL BUILDINGS WITH A SINGLE BOUND!  IT'S WAY BETTER THAN THAT!  IT'S A GUEST POST FROM OISIN!!!*  YES!  REALLY!

 Music Teacher Stuff

 I promised a blog a Very Long Time Ago…. but there was lots of water that needed pumping under that bridge first.

Talking of "first", the very first thing to note is that teaching music (one-to-one), whether it's piano, flute, organ, theory (which I do) and ocarina, kazoo or bicycle pump (which I don't), isn't altogether about teaching music.

Does that make sense? No? Good! Now you are nicely set up for the rest of the blog. Try to stay with it …

It is devoutly to be hoped that at the end of any given period of time, the pupil will become more proficient at their instrument. In the intervening times, though (and they certainly will intervene), there is much else to be done. Take nerves and confidence, to name but a million: a Gibbering Pupil is seldom an Accurate one, let alone Musical.** Here we come to the first frustration: schoolchildren are sponges, and given a modicum of talent, progress can be made astonishingly quickly and with little or no nerves, even under exam conditions. However – to do this they Have To Concentrate. And they so often don't, especially boys who have their daily quota of Macho Poses to strike. Girls, on the other hand, are swots (universally known, and attested by the News of The World). Adults, by comparison, are not sponges, but can concentrate like fury. Their other major attribute is that they often gibber at the drop of a hat, which rather spoils the effect. So dealing with nerves is an essential part of the whole music-teachery thing. You have at times to even get past the "but you know what you're doing and YOU'RE LISTENING TO ME!" stage***, which mostly affects adults, but can affect children as well, especially if they have a nasty, but too-fashionable case of Low Self Esteem. Scraping off the ceiling may be needed from time to time, but the goal is to allow gravity to take its normal course, and keep them on the piano stool.

To this end, I use humour (as if you hadn't guessed) a great deal. The pupils I have trouble getting on with are the mercifully very few who have little or no sense of humour. Quite besides putting pupils at their ease, I find that you can put many more serious points across with a smile. And for me, smiling, and even the occasional guffaw is GOOD! In the past I have inherited pupils from teachers who regularly reduced them to tearful messes at the end of a lesson, but I don't subscribe to that. Apart from anything else, I would hate to teach like that, and if I hated teaching, I couldn't do it. My purpose is primarily to show how much fun, enjoyment, rapture, or whatever, there is in music. The incentive to work at a craft or a skill, nine times out of ten, is the pull of the sheer pleasure of being able to play a particular piece. (To that end, I have often allowed a pupil to go for something that properly is out of their current league, on the grounds that they can haul themselves well ahead by the efforts they put in to master it). On that front, I know of many teachers who choose the exam pieces for their pupils. While it is true that you often have a feel for what would suit the pupil best, I feel that the choice of pieces MUST be theirs. I always play all the set pieces and let them choose. Sometimes, relatively rarely, they make a bad choice; this manifests itself in a firm declaration at a later stage – "I don't like this piece!" Then we try something else. Another manifestation can be simple unwillingness to go anywhere near the piece between lessons – this brings up the whole unpleasant topic of Doing No Practice At Home.

No pain, no gain – yet another modern cliché, but, sadly, true. Playing an instrument is a skill as well as an art, and skills require daily development. Even adults have been known to succumb to the I-haven't-done-any-practice-this-week-so-I'll-cram-it-all-into-one-last-ditch-panic. With adults, there are often any number of valid excuses for lack of practice, but for sheer creativity you can't beat an 8-year-old. The prize has to go to one child: as one lesson progressed it became increasingly obvious that she had done no practice whatsoever that week. I finally broached this delicate subject, and to her credit she capitulated at once, admitting the enormity of her offence. Mitigation (and fame) came in the elegant simplicity of her excuse: "my sister got a new rabbit!" No contest – surrender of fierce teacher …

The whole practice thing becomes ever more delicate, I find, in a low expectation both of achievement (that isn't immediate and instant) and of input required. This expectation is one that is rife in our modern instant gratification world, and also in parental attitudes. No longer do the words "I'm very sorry, but at this rate you are wasting my time and your parents' money" reduce the pupil to abject contrition, if not tears (the only good use of tears is in this situation). Blank looks and "oh well, I'll stop lessons, then" are the most likely result.

Which moves us swiftly onto the Thorny Problem of Money. I used to trust people to pay me when they properly should. A turning point came when, 10 minutes into a lesson, I received a call from the parent: "little Johnny isn't there this week". The empty piano stool indeed confirmed that statement. "He's had (!) to go to a party". All bad enough, but the clincher came when the mother did not expect to pay for the lesson, as "little Johnny" had not had one on that day!

I now have contracts and stuff† – I still offer monthly terms, but if this is abused I join many of my fellow inculcators and demand payment for the term in advance.

I also get new pupils or their parents to sign a sheet that I have produced laying out my terms. These do cover things like payment and absences, but they also cover the aims of the whole operation: to develop as a musician, and to have fun while doing so. I set out realistic levels of practice, too, as I find that vague notions of 30 minutes' practice a day fill the minds of some prodigies' parents. Better to make it 15 minutes CONCENTRATED practice a day for at least 5 days a week, with as much fun playing on top as possible – progress will ensue. Anyhow, 30, or even 15 minutes is far too much in the early stages – there are only so many things you can do with 2 notes in each hand … This document also covers the expectation that a minimum course of lessons will be followed. Exceptions for severe cases of Beri-Beri and Bubonic Plague are almost guaranteed – never let it be said that I am an unreasonable man. 

TO.  BE.  CONTINUED.  YESSSSSSSSS!

* * *

* Hey.  I couldn't possibly make this stuff up.  I'm only a fantasy novelist.  Dragons I can do.  Pegasi.  Even unicorns.  Music teachers . . . nope. 

** Sigh. 

*** SIGH.

† Especially stuff.  You should see his studio.  It makes my office look like . . . um . . . like . . . um . . . like they both came from the same Bedlam Planet.

Rose Dreams

 

 

An annually dreaded moment happened today:  the arrival of the new David Austin Rose Catalogue.  It's not like I don't have both his and Peter Beales' sites favourited*, and it's not like they're not both places I go when I'm cross/tired/cranky/frustrated/procrastinating. **  But there's something about a shiny new paper catalogue. . . .

Ooooh. Aaaaaugh.

 This particular rose, the lead-off for this year's introductions, is called 'William and Catherine' (Catherine??).  Snork.  I may have to give it/her/them a go anyway.   Austin is claiming that it/her/them is 'extremely healthy' which would be a first in a repeating white rose.

Ooooh. AAAAAAUGH.

 I grow St Swithun (on the left) and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (on the right).  I do not yet grow Teasing Georgia or Snow Goose (in the middle).  Yet.

OOOOOOH. AAAAAAAAUGH.

 I grow Mortimer Sackler–that's the flowering pink triffid on the right–in a pot by the front door of the cottage.  Apparently I will be in trouble soon.  I have noticed she's a little more exuberant than I was entirely planning for.  Oh, I also grow Scepter'd Isle–middle on the left–and Wedgewood, bottom left.  And clearly I have to add Maid Marion–top left.  I missed her last year somehow.   One of the nice things about keeping a list–of, say, roses to be acquired–on your iPhone is that it keeps looking short even when it . . . isn't. 

. . . . But this also brings me nicely to what I've been meaning to blog about for several days and things keep intervening.

            There are two high-ticket items in the auction.  One of them is the personally tailored masterwork by that hitherto little-known composer, Robin McKinley.***  The other one is the limited-edition ROSE DAUGHTER illustrated by Anne Bachelier.  

http://www.cfmgallery.com/Anne-Bachelier/Anne-Bachelier-Books/Anne-Bachelier-Rose-Daughter.htm

And before you freak out because you're not high-end gallery-art collector types—with which I sympathise:  keeping oneself in reading books† tends to be quite enough—I wanted to flash a few of the illustrations at you.   I think those are all the plates on the CFM site, but I think they look a little bland lined up in rows like that, if you don't know Bachelier's work and don't know that 'bland' is approximately the last word applicable.  They're much more fabulous in situ in the book.  Bachelier is not to everyone's taste—but then neither am I, and neither is anyone whose work is genuine and individual—but I adore this book.  As an explicit rendering of my ROSE DAUGHTER, no, it's not, but if you're asking me it's not supposed to be.  What it is is a magnificent dreamscape of Beauty and the Beast with my ROSE as a jumping-off place—or a jumping on place, where she can bring her vision back and tie the red thread of story to it so all may follow. 

Roses. Well of course. It's a slightly shiny, jacquard-y fabric, like expensive bed linen.

 

Title and facing page. They're all already signed, but Your Name Is Added Here.

 

First page.

 

Random gorgeous picture from the middle somewhere.More random gorgeousness.

 

The glasshouse. (And yes, all the illustrations are tipped in.)

 

Oh, and yes--ahem!--I own one or two of the originals. (Don't strain your eyes. It's Purcell's Evening Hymn.)

* * *

* http://www.davidaustinroses.com/english/Advanced.asp?PageId=1988

http://www.classicroses.co.uk/

** Now joined by Etsy http://www.etsy.com/ and Ravelry http://www.ravelry.com/ , both of which wave cheerfully and say, hi, hellgoddess!, when I go there.  Well, 'Robin' was already taken when I needed a username.  A username I could remember.    

*** But four of you are going to club together and commission me to write something for French horn, bodhran and two mezzo-sopranos, right?  Fine.  Just don't make me learn to orchestrate. 

† And yarn.^ 

^ A friend has just been yanking my chain about my knitting needle collection.  Feh.  I'll do a knitting-needle post some night and you'll all just crumble away with admiration.+ 

+ You non-knitters . . . I don't know . . . you'll have to go bowling that night or something.

Okay, I knew I was pushing it.  WordPress has eaten one of the photos and added its caption to the previous photo.  'More random gorgeousness' was another photo.  But it's late and I'm tired and I'm not going to try to re-insert the missing photo, and WordFrellingPress won't let me cut the superfluous text.  At least the formatting is back (I hope):  it disappeared the first time I hit the 'publish' button.

 

Epic hellhounds

 

The moment I have long dreaded arrived this evening.*

            The hours I spend (not) listening to the bats in the walls are not, perhaps, optimally spent.  It's very very late when these concerts are going on and what I want to do is SLEEP, but this option being unavailable, I tend to read and/or knit.**  This means that lately by the time the bats go to sleep so that I can, when I finally get up again I have to sprint through the rest of my days even later and more overwhelmed than usual.***  Today handbell practise was at Gemma's house† which means an extra forty-five minutes of commute†† aaaand of course we ran late††† so when I got home‡ I was in a hurry to get hellhounds out and hurtled as efficiently as possible.  I was thus led into error.

            We hustled down to one of the big rec grounds where I have occasionally let hellhounds off lead, despite my general ban on letting them off lead anywhere in town, because my long view is pretty good, especially of the bottom gate where, if there's trouble, it usually arrives, and hellhounds were doing major airs above the ground‡‡ and caroming off the hedgerows and me and making me not only crazy but oppressed by the old guilt-guilt-guilt-you-have-running-dogs-they're-supposed-to-run-guilt-guilt-GUILT. 

            There was nothing coming.

            There was nothing coming in ANY direction.  We were ENTIRELY ALONE. 

            I let them off lead.  And they took flight, the way they do—'airborne' is a poor, mingy sort of word for it.  They had just made their first .07 second steel-grey-and-fawn-blur lap around this several-acre field, and I was just turning round where I stood to keep them in sight—for the joy of watching them run more than any intimation of doom—and saw another dog emerge from behind the hedgerow.  On lead, trailing a person.

            I'm sure the adrenaline spike left a hole in my skull, I just haven't wanted to check.  My guys are entirely friendly, but they're also entirely manic, and will climb all over another dog, poor thing, and there are two of them.  Most dogs don't like this much, and I don't blame them.  And it's one of my own most-hated things when an off lead dog comes and jumps all over mine on lead, even if it's friendly.‡‡‡  And—what if this one wasn't friendly?  It was about twice the size of one of mine. . . .

            This is all happening in less than a flash, you realise.  The hellhounds were sweeping full-tilt around toward the other dog and its (riveted) owner.  I saw the ears and the tails go up as I drew a frantic breath to scream Chaos' name.  Of the two of them, Darkness might conceivably come when called in full hurtle with an object in view—Chaos at best tunes out more than he tunes in.  No frelling prayer he was going to hear me with another dog in range.§

            I screamed—Chaos' name first, then Darkness'.   I'd taken my first one or two pathetic human running steps toward the blossoming catastrophe.  And . . .

            Chaos faltered.  And looked back toward me.  And, I think, saw Darkness, slightly reluctantly but still immediately and obediently arcing back to me.  And Chaos followed.

            They were still in high hurtle mode, and when they got to me they climbed all over me, and there was more biting than I usually allow on these let's-play-with-the-hellgoddess occasions but I was way too glad to have them back to care and what's a few bruises among friends anyway?  And I had called them in before they'd finished running off that first ten minutes of total speed-madness, and they weren't at all snarky about my putting them back on lead . . . and I think they're total stars.

            Mind you I am never letting them off lead in that field again. 

* * *

* All right, one of the moments I have long dreaded.  There are others waiting patiently and cackling to themselves.  And giving me a prod occasionally to make sure I still care.  AAAAAUGH.  Yes.  

** Please do not all fall on me in a body crying READING AND KNITTING ARE OPTIMAL ACTIVITIES.  It depends on what you're reading.  Or knitting.  At 5 a.m. you tend to choose things least likely to wind you up and make you want to throw them against the wall,^ since you're still hoping to get some sleep eventually.  

^ Although yes, I know I should blog more about books.  (I also know I keep saying this.)  I've read three this week worth a mention.+ 

+ And one that is not.  

*** Also, there's this auction. . . .   

† She lives in a tall thin house at the top of one of Mauncester's surprisingly steep hills.  She says her best friend is from the southern Himalayas and that the friend says Gemma's garden reminds her of home.  Sitting in Gemma's kitchen^ you look out mostly over the tops of trees and empty space—the garden drops away in a tiered precipice at your feet—with the occasional roof-peak poking through.  It's fabulous.  And the tall thin house contains five people^^ and is in the middle of a city, and yet you have this sense of peace and space.  And if you live there you have very strong thighs, and carry pitons in your pocket. 

            We rang both bob major and bob minor—throwing poor Gemma in at the deep end with the bob major, but if you have four people, either you ring major, or one of you has to sit out and knit—and golly is it hard work ringing slowly enough for a beginner to begin to find her own way through the thickets rather than rely on being dragged or shunted^^^.  Do I know the 3-4 to bob major?  Do I know the 3-4 to bob major?!?  Um.  Yes. 

            When Gemma went off to make tea however Niall and Colin caught me in a tackle as I was about to follow her and mooch about the garden, and forced me to ring Cambridge minor.  Which was in fact not quite as horrific as I was expecting after being really embarrassing on Tuesday.  Which is still not saying I can get through a plain course to the end.  Siiiiiiigh.  I AM going to ring Cambridge in hand^^^^, I AM.  YES.  But I'd wasted most of my practise time today arguing with frelling Abel, which is the full computer version of Pooka's bell ringing ap, the latter being a little too stripped down for certain purposes. . . .

            I was thinking on the way home that it's a pity more of you don't live in Hampshire and aren't getting married.  I could auction off handbells at your wedding. 

^ Eating flapjacks+ made with local honey.

+ English flapjacks are what I grew up calling oatmeal bars, something like this:  http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/401/flapjacks.aspx

^^ Approximately, said Gemma thoughtfully.  The children tend to bring friends home unexpectedly.

^^^ The 'ringing by beckoning/available gap' method.  It only works if everybody else is dead accurate. 

^^^^ Or for that matter in the tower.  SIIIIIIIIGH.    

††Although that's forty-five minutes I didn't spend boiling around the cottage sweeping up hellhound hair and dropped geranium petals (again) and throwing the nearest twelve pairs of All Stars under the bed^ and stuffing the dirty laundry into the laundry bags instead of all over the floor, scrutinizing the bathroom sink, tub and toilet for having been scrubbed out within recent memory^^ and that there are enough clean mugs to offer everyone a cup of tea. 

^ First checking carefully that I'm not going to hit any roosting bats 

^^ Ie fifteen minutes before I invited the last person round for a cup of tea.  I disapprove strongly of drop-ins.  

††† This partly because Gemma's two sons made injudicious appearances and were grappled into having a go at plain hunt on handbells.  We're a vicious crew, we handbellers.  We take prisoners.  We missed her husband and daughter.  Next time. 

‡ And after Niall spent 4.5 seconds sorting me out on Abel.  

‡‡ With audio 

‡‡‡ Pretty well 100% of irresponsible moron dog owners out there don't get it that WHATEVER the personalities involved are, an on lead dog is at a DISADVANTAGE with an OFF LEAD dog.  Jeezum crawdaddies, you humans, don't you have any brain to engage? 

§ Yes, any dog can be trained, and therefore my training methods are at fault.  But sighthounds are notorious for being a trifle training resistant—what they're good at is what they're bred for, which is chasing things, and I'm wasting mine really, since they bring their (occasional) kills to me naturally—and if Chaos has had a chance to draw a bead on something, you could hit him over the head with a giant sequoia and he wouldn't notice.

Frell and broad beans

 

Frell and damnation, it's already the middle of the night and I still have a blog post to yank out of aetherwhere.   I've shipped off a lot of photos to Blogmom so that she can start creating the masterwork that will be this auction.  I was just saying to her that I take some comfort in the thought that my bells will not need serious restoration work again for another century or two.

            Meanwhile I'm very pleased that people on the forum are expressing interest and enthusiasm.  I feel my neck is sticking out pretty far.  I will be glad if this auction is a relative success not only for my bells' sake but for mine, so I don't look like an utter drooling prat.   So thank you all once already, and please keep those bid-button-pressing fingers limber.

Gonetotervs:  Another suggestion to raise money — if you still own the e-rights to any of your earliest short stories, put them individually on Amazon for $2.99 and see how many of us will buy them…..

Merrilee and I have a Cunning Plan—although probably not in time for the auction.  Watch this space.

Texturedknitter:  Lots of attractive things in your auction list. I've never cared about collecting autographs, but regret now that I didn't get one at Balticon, lo those many *mumble* years ago.

Nothing to regret!  I'm still writing my name on things!  (I've still got the Balticon 1898 mug somewhere, holding pencils or paperclips or dragon baby teeth or rose petals or something.  The date on it is a little startling, I agree.) 

Also, maybe offer a little bat doodle thank you, alternate to the bells doodle thank you? I'm kind of unreasonably fond of the bats (distance helps with this, I expect).

I'm fond of the little frellers myself.  I like hearing them enjoying themselves in the accommodations provided . . . just not so much at 5 a.m.  I'm not quite sure how we're going to arrange this, but doodle-buyers will be allowed some say in what the doodle will be.  Certainly anything that appeared in last night's extravaganza is fair game.  Although doodles evolve, as anyone who doodles knows.  Last night's Hermione or spider or running hellhound may not be next week's Hermione or spider or running hellhound.  The map of Damar will probably stay fairly constant however.  

librarykat:  once things get going, I'll see what I can bid on, or simply donate (depends on how crazy bidding gets)

Donations are good*—but you can at least buy a doodle!  (Or three!)  I'm hoping to offer both $5 and $10 doodles (there is also going to have to be some add-on for postage, but I haven't faced this yet), but I'm dependent on what Blogmom tells me about the tactical technology of all this.  I'm also hoping that there is some clever way I can say/offer that if any biddable item is particularly hot, if it's something I've still got spare copies of, I'll make available extra copies at top bid price. 

Diane in MN:  Which we are going to be expected to sell tickets to. We've already had one pep talk, not to say exhortation, from Vicky about this.

Oh gods. I spent four years in high school having to sell things as part of fund drives, and made a solemn vow that I would NEVER SELL ANYTHING AGAIN. Which has meant, on more than one occasion, buying a lot of raffle tickets that I wasn't about to try to unload on my friends and acquaintances. You have my very sincere sympathy for this. Do you suppose Vicky would let you off if your auction brings in a pile of cash?

THIS IS EXACTLY THE PLAN.  THIS.  IS.  THE.  PLAN.   I am totally hoping to lay a startling cheque in Vicky's lap and add 'and I'm not selling any frelling tickets.'  So, listen, everyone, not only are you contributing to the bell fund, you're contributing to GETTING ME A REPRIEVE FROM TICKET SELLING.   Going around confronting people with stuff you want them to buy is the worst.  You know all those studies that say that public speaking is the majority number one fear?  I can do public speaking.  But selling things?  The mere idea makes me feel slightly ill.   Brrrrrrr.  So, bid in the auction.  Buy doodles.  Please.  I'll stay up late drawing portraits of your Aunt Fanny and setting Chesterton's Lepanto to music.   Anything.  Just don't make me sell tickets.    

CathyR:  Can't wait for the auction! *so excited* !!

This is the right attitude.  We support and encourage this attitude. 

AJLR:    *sits poised on edge of computer chair, with finger flexed over the PayPal button*

Yes!  Yes! 

B_twin:  I'm eyeing off that copy of ROWAN and SUNSHINE…

AJLR:  OK, BIDDING WAR in prospect!  And if R and I have to live on bread and dripping for a week in aid of Robin's bells, well, I'm sure he won't mind…

Someone married to a bellringer has to understand.  (Please quote me.)

Glinda:  I'd go for a bell doodle. Or a bat doodle. Or how about both together, for a bit more money?

This is the idea behind the $5 and $10 options.  Or two doodles. 

Black Bear:  Hey all, eyes off that copy of Rowan!!!

AJLR:  Gonna make me, huh, huh?

*squares up to Black Bear* 

Umm . . . ROWAN is one of the ones I have extra copies of . . . ::whistles nonchalantly:: 

Amyrose:  What about just selling autographed copies of various books? I would gladly pay $10-$20 in addition to the price of the book, especially since it's for such a good cause.

 I'd consider this.  Anyone else out there interested? 

Of course, then who would ship them out? And who would order the necessary books? I suppose that would be a logistics nightmare.

Well, me.  That's who's doing all the grunt work anyway.**  But I wouldn't expect the demand to be all that overwhelming.  Famous last words, I suppose.

But – *wistfully* – it would be nice to get a copy of Spindle's End with a signature. And maybe a doodle of a spider… or a fox..

I could do that.  Oh, fox!  I could do a fox.

PamAdams:  I would certainly buy a doodle or maybe two. (Plus I'm hoping for some Peter books–any chance for King and Joker or Skeleton-in-Waiting?)

Another thing about an auction list is you probably can't let it get too long and overwhelming or people will take one look and go back to reruns of THE WEST WING.  Unless you're Sotheby's, which I am not.  And I think KING and SKELETON don't appear because we haven't got spare copies.  Peter had this appalling habit of giving ALL his copies away and neglecting to order more.  And then the book goes OP and that's that.  

AnguaLupin:  …Now I really have to find money in the budget to bid on the Serious Doodle. 

Oh good.  Yes please. 

Mrs Redboots:  Is there anything the Hellgoddess can't do????

Write books that sell millions of copies.  Knit like you can.  Ring a touch of Stedman Triples.  Ring even a plain frelling course of Cambridge minor in hand.  Stop my roses from getting blackspot.  Convince my hellhounds to eat every day.  Sing like Beverly Sills/Marilyn Horne/Janet Baker/Joyce DiDonato/Bryn Terfel.  Fly like a pegasus.  End world hunger. . . .

I love the doodles!

Oh good.  Thank you!  Thank all of you! 

Meanwhile . . . you won't remember this, but a couple of months ago I made reference to a Secret Gardening Project.  Look. 

First fruits. Er, vegetables.

My very first edible crop . . . of anything but apples off my predecessor's tree, and my little patio peach and nectarine trees (this year's harvest are ripening nicely, thank you).   Peter used to grow our vegetables but his back has not been cooperating this year with the basic gardening concept of lots of bending over.  I saw a tray of six-inch broad-bean seedlings out in front of the florist's and thought oh . . .  feh . . . nothing ventured.  And they take up a huge amount of room, demand to be watered all the time, and totally refuse to be staked in any way I understand staking*** . . . and then you get this weeny handful of pods after all that, which are mostly pod.† 

Mostly pod. Sigh.

            But then you bite into a broad bean that was still on the plant an hour ago and you say 'oh.  Wow.  Yes.  This is why.'  So I probably will do it again next year.    Maybe I'll try a few more plants.   Maybe . . . 

* * *

* I'm also thinking that after all of this I will have to figure out how to get a recording of us ringing our newly cleaned, pressed and mended bells.  I'm the one going CLANK. 

** And Fiona, of course. 

*** Note to self:  broad beans are not dahlias. 

† I should get about this much again, I think, unless the next lot of pods decide they're not having a good time and decamp to the Bahamas.

Handbells and doodles

 

Last night on Twitter I labelled my blog entry 'brainblasted' which doesn't leave me anything for tonight.  There were going to be handbells at Niall's house tonight and I'd originally said I'd come.  Tuesday night handbells are usually half across southern England and I don't have the time, especially because if I went I'd be hitching a ride with Niall and I hear dark rumours from Colin about handbell evenings not breaking up till past 10:30*.  But then the Stedman last night pretty well knocked me out and I also heard from Colin that it was going to be a mob tonight.  I don't do mobs.  Tower ringing is different when it's one ringer = one rope and I personally can pick up quite a lot standing behind someone ringing something I want to learn.**  There's nothing that teaches me handbells except ringing the suckers or Pooka, and if it's Pooka I can do it at home and furthermore no one is expecting me to make conversation between touches.  So I emailed Niall today ordering him to tell me truthfully how many people were coming tonight, because I know Niall of old, and he thinks everyone should be ringing handbells all the time and there's no point in hoping he might let you off.  He wrote back no, no, it was not going to be a mob and I had to come.  I do not have to come, I replied.  You do!  he wrote.  Or I'll cry!

            Oh, the dilemma.  I wonder if I could have got Colin to provide photographic evidence?

            Anyway, after I stopped laughing I was too weak to resist further.  So this afternoon was a hammered-on-the-hot-anvil-of-intellectual-tribulation while I rested from PEG II with frelling handbells on Pooka and rested from handbells with frelling PEG II.  Something that is becoming more and more of a problem*** is that as I begin to ring more than bob minor on handbells I'm having trouble keeping all the ratbag methods separate in their little abysses of brainsuck.  Adding bob major on was just about cope-with-able, because it's the same pattern as bob minor, you 'just', in the fine old bellringer's parlance, you just add two bells.  Gah.  But it's true, what you flounder in in a more-bells version of a method you already (sort of) know is different from what you flounder in when it's a whole ghastly new method that you're learning from scratch.  This is accentuated in handbells as most things are accentuated in handbells.  But I'm now trying to ring bob minor, bob major, St Clements, which, okay, is a plain-bob type method (but EVEN SO) . . . plus multiplicitously-frelling Cambridge minor, and Grandsire triples.†  Grandsire is one of the basic methods but it's a rogue;  it's put together unlike pretty much anything else, and the crucial awfulness for handbell purposes is that the zigzagging that makes a method a method usually occurs while the treble leads, but in Grandsire's case it happens after the treble leads . . . which is HIDEOUSLY CONFUSING since one of the bricks you're resting your handbell foundations on is learning to scrabble out of your daze of confusion† when the treble leads and frantically do something else.    

            But I had made the fatal error of wistfully mentioning Cambridge because while we're beating the h—I mean, giving Gemma the time and practise and encouragement she needs as a beginner, the three of us are not ringing much for us, and somehow this led to my agreeing to Colin and me coming half an hour early tonight so we could have a whack at Cambridge before everyone else arrived.  With the result that my brains were already melting out of my ears before we began on the bob major, which I haven't rung in . . . months.††  Because the 3-4 pair is my speciality and no one else wants to ring the 3-4††† I rang it the rest of the evening which was about ninety hours long. . . . And then Niall said brightly, oh, Robin, before you go‡, wouldn't you like to try the 3-4 to Grandsire which you told me you were practising?  Well . . . yes.            

Meanwhile . . . I told you I'd give you some clue, for the auction, what you're getting into with my definition of 'doodle'.  This is what you're getting into.  A 'thanks' card will feature a doodle.  The 'illustrated' books will feature . . . a certain amount of creative marginalia, and probably some kind of gleep on the title page.  But here, as examples of what happens when a writer goes to the bad, is most of an evening's silliness—grown increasingly silly over the course of two glasses of cheap fizz.  I leave you to decide which are the more alcohol-fueled.

I hope this will enlarge enough for you to read the Helpful Labelling.

 Note that after I hung this post, when I clicked on the photo the first time the little magnifying glass with the plus sign in it did NOT appear.  So I tried again and it did.  So it's worth trying a second time if your computer/broadband/town is suffering from gremlins.

 * I have a blog to write 

** A lot of people can't.  Penelope says standing behind is useless for her. 

*** Everything is a problem with PEG II. 

† Remember that because of the unique horror that makes handbells handbells, ie ringing two method bells, learning each pair in a method is virtually like learning a whole frelling new method.  In the tower, with ONE bell, you only have to learn ONE line, plus where in the pattern each bell starts.  Each pair of bells in handbells overlaps within the pattern differently.^ 

^ This—probably—works out eventually when you start ringing bobs and singles, which further screw up what you're doing.  But learning the plain course of a method requires as much more work than in the tower as there are pairs of bells.  This is why handbell ringers are rare and even crazier than tower ringers.+ 

+ You are?  Nonsense.  You're deluded.  

†Spitting brick dust, to maintain a dubious metaphor 

†† Yaaaaaay Pooka!    

††† Inside pairs are always the bigger ratbags.  So in a major method with eight bells you're going to have a rush of people for the 1-2 and the 7-8.  I originally made myself learn the 3-4 just to stack my chances of ringing more.  This turns out to be a double edged sword. 

‡  Yes.  I left first.  It is nearly one a.m. as I write this.  They are probably still ringing.  I will have to consult Colin tomorrow about how long they went on.  If I ask Niall he will have 'forgotten'.

Sing n Ring Monday

 

Mondays are always crazy because I have both a voice lesson in the afternoon and evening tower practise:  Monday, Sing 'n' Ring day.  Craziness level today was hiked up a notch or two by Nadia phoning me this morning to ask if, due to complications beyond anyone's control, I could do her a favour and have my lesson an hour early.  Blah.  Erk.  Sure.*   

           On arrival she made the mistake of asking me how I was and I said Let me tell you what my blog was about last night.  She, as a professional musician and married to another one, can widen the scope of this depressing discussion.  Pirates, as I said last night, have been with us as long as there have been goods to be pirated.  I'm sure there were cheap rip-offs of the first wheel before whoever it was finished knocking off the edges and laid down her chisel.**  But am I dreaming an old person's dream that awareness of the reality of intellectual theft used to be a trifle better and more general?  It's the way that people just won't get it that makes me want to throw myself off a cliff—and Nadia told me a few lip-smacking personal experiences of this.  But the nub of last night's rant is that the free-internet weirdness has contaminated us to the point that an intelligent and honest person can download a pirated book without her alarm bells going off—which makes me want to throw myself off that cliff twice.    

            Two links about this painful subject for your delectation.  The friend that unwittingly began this firestorm sent me the first one today as a part of our—ahem!—ongoing conversation:  http://www.epubbud.com/forum.php#/discussion/44/is-it-legel 

You want to read some of the initial posts to get the flavour, but be sure to hang on for poor Rachel Vincent***'s replies, which you have to scroll down quite a way for.  I don't know how she's keeping her temper, but gold stars to her for trying.

            And second, both Nadia and I remembered the story about the composer who tried the direct approach, as one human being to another, to persuade people not to steal his music, and the email conversation he had with a particular teenage girl.  Neither of us could remember any names and I didn't think I had a prayer of finding the link, but it's clearly a popular story because Google coughed it out at the top of the list first try.  Read it and weep.  Or not, of course.  http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/06/fighting_with_teenagers_a_copy.php

            For those of you worrying about related topics on copyright and whether or not the originator of content is getting paid enough to keep herself and her hellhounds fed, EMoon has done an excellent rundown on percentages and discounts and so on on the forum thread for last night.  I'd give you a link, but WordPress only links to the thread† not to a specific item.  So keep scrolling.  A lot of the discussion is interesting , you won't want to miss it.

            I find my voice lessons very tiring ††—all that being listened to—and then tonight Colin had a brain spasm and we spent the entire evening ringing long touches of Stedman doubles . . . which is a frightful enough prospect even when you have a tenor behind which we did not.  There were just the five of us ringing all ungrounded and uncovered.  And incessantly—since there were only five of us.  So I'm trashed.  But I didn't want to not mention the auction again tonight.  I will try to be a bit more organised and coherent and forward-moving about it tomorrow, but I wanted to say that I am, cautiously and within reason, open to suggestion.  The point of this exercise is to RAISE MONEY FOR NEW ARCADIA'S BELLS and therefore if there's a better way to do this that I can provide without making myself wholly nuts I will.  So, for example, someone has suggested that she'd be happy to buy a small signed cartoon but she'd rather have a bat than a bell.  I can do that.  I can maybe have a short list of available options for—$5? $10?—donations.  OP books that prove especially popular—ROWAN appears to be rousing battle frenzy in the forum, for example—I can put an extra copy or two up—and if my silly idea about 'illustrated' books proves popular I can do more of those:  maybe $10 above the cover price as bottom bid, and for every $5 increment another doodle.  Or something. 

            A last word about payment:  I'm sorry some of you have a strong aversion to PayPal.  Items bought in the auction are going to be paid for via PayPal because that is the only practical option available that will not drive Blogmom and me round the twist.  I want to raise money for my bells, but I want to keep my remaining shreds of sanity—and my blogmom's remaining shreds of sanity—worse.  Black Bear has or is going to put up a how-to about PayPal—and as more than one person has said on the forum already, you don't have to have an account to make it talk to your credit card.  Okay?  I hope okay.

            I am now going to go read a new, full price paid-for paperback book in a hot bath.

 * * *

*And it's not like I then had an extra hour afterward.  Nooooo.  It doesn't work like that.  Peter came in as far as Mauncester with me and we arranged that we would meet after my lesson at the café at the yarn shop.  Well, we had to meet somewhere, didn't we?  Which involved stopping in Mauncester and parking the car and so on and if you've gone to all that trouble. . . .  I of course had no intention whatsoever of having a cup of tea, but I was going to encourage Peter to do so while . . . 

            There are too many knitting books in this world.  I'm a little frightened of my stash—I'd better be serious about learning to knit this time—but my general book mania is over half a century old and very well established.  New obsession?  Great.  Where are the books?^  Knitting obliges way too generously.^^  And it's easier not to admit I have a problem when book shelving has been hopeless for decades.  The tote bags full of yarn spilling out from under the piano are more eye-catching because new.  I didn't buy any books today . . . well, not exactly.^^^  I was having just a quick look through the ON SALE patterns, and there was . . . the Rowan 30th Anniversary Album.  Rowan is a frelling brand of frelling yarn, okay?  But they totally fancy themselves as the Pre Raphaelite Brotherhood with lashings of John Singer Sargent and Joshua Reynolds.  Their knitting pattern books look like portfolios submitted to the Royal Academy for the next season's show.  You're supposed to knit these things?  Oh.  They're fun to look through—sort of—but at least for someone who is still making hellhound squares it's a bit like Sara Crewe looking in the window at the Large Family.  But . . . the 30th anniversary album has this in it:

http://www.ethknits.co.uk/Rowan/Rowan-Patterns/Rowan-44/Botticelli_2.jpg

There's a picture of it on the back cover taken from behind and there are more roses on the back.  I've been picking it up every time I go into the shop since I first started going there in February or whenever it was.  And there it was today at fifty percent off.  Of course I bought it.  Don't be silly.  I may just cut the back cover off and frame it.

^ One major disappointment about method ringing is that there aren't nearly enough books about it.

^^ And some day I do have to learn to crochet.  Most of the best add-on roses are crochet, not knitting.  Like any of these:  http://www.crochetspot.com/crochet-flower-pattern-rose/ 

http://hookhound.blogspot.com/p/rosa-crochet-flower.html 

http://www.sugarncream.com/pattern.php?PID=4136&cps=21191 

There are knitted roses.  It's just the crocheted ones are mostly better. 

^^^ This is not necessarily strength of character.  Peter finished his tea and came looking for me.  A husband standing in the middle of the floor glaring at you is as hard to ignore as a hellhound doing the same.

 ** First known, if unrecorded, example of corporate espionage. 

*** http://rachelvincent.com/ 

† . . . I think.  If anyone knows differently, please tell me. 

†† I have a new song to learn!  That Nadia has assigned me!  Like I'm a real voice student and everything!!!!  It's even in Italian!^

 ^ Sebben Crudele, from that notorious Italian Arias book that every classical voice student has to sing from, or you don't get the secret handshake and the tattoo.

Major Rant Alert

 

I got a chirpy email from a friend in which she extols the virtues of a new ebook site she's found that she's sure I'll want to check out as soon as I have my own ereader and mentions (chirpily) in passing that she downloaded a free copy of SUNSHINE.   

            The frelling gods frelling wept.

            I will tell you this for free:  if there's a big bad nasty out there that is going to destroy the whole business of producing stuff for people to read—and the digital world is changing so fast, it seems to me even the word publishing is starting to sound a bit hoary—it's piracy.  There's masses and masses of stuff out there—in our digital universe—about piracy and its effects, and I'm not going to thrash it all out again here because among other reasons I'd burst a blood vessel.  This is the top link in a Google search for 'author blogs piracy':  http://www.the-digital-reader.com/forum/blog-posts/ebook-piracy-one-authors-opinion/ and if you need a quick brush-up you can find it here.  He doesn't even froth at the mouth.  I'm proud of him.  I'm frothing at the mouth.

            How much worse is it—how much more hopeless is it, trying to keep a lid on it, since piracy will always be with us*—if the good guys are stealing from us too?  How many of you out there have done something similar to what my friend did?  No.  Don't tell me.  I don't want to know.

            My friend said, oh, I didn't think, because it was one of your older books.  What?  How do you—any of you—think writers earn their living, supposing they're among the lucky five or ten percent of published writers who can make a living by writing?  The money we receive from publishers is absolutely and strictly tied to sales.  The 'advance' we receive, usually on signing a contract, is against sales.  If, at the end of the day or the year or the print run or when they yank your book out of print, you haven't earned back in sales as much as they paid you for your 'advance', you're in deep trouble, because they're losing money on you and unless they think you're about to morph into J K Rowling with your next book, they probably won't take your next book.  And there you are reading the want ads and wishing you'd learnt sheep-shearing when you had the chance.  Royalties?  Yes, a writer eventually receives royalties, if her book sells well enough to earn back her advance and keeps selling . . . but of that five or ten percent of writers, which includes me, who do manage to earn a living by writing, a vanishingly weeny sub-percentage ever builds up enough royalties to, you know, retire.  We live from advance to advance.  We can't afford to retire.  I can't.

            And we need those advances to earn out by sales.  Our future lives as writers depend on it.

            Yes, of course, lots of people who buy cheap or free pirate editions wouldn't pay full price for the legitimate book.  But some would.  Who doesn't like a bargain, if they don't realise what it's costing someone else?  And some of those that wouldn't buy the book would go to the library.  Libraries buy books—and a book particularly popular with librarians will sell more copies, because they'll talk it up to each other and to their clientele.  And there's the whole model thing.  There's now a model out there that says that everything on the internet is free, and everything on the internet should be free.**  We need to keep that model of money being paid for goods and services alive and healthy.  By paying for goods and services.  Because the providers of goods and services themselves need to pay mortgages and taxes and school fees and car insurance.

            So when you're out there cruising for bargains, engage your brain.  And if, brain engaged, it looks too good to be true, it probably is.  None, repeat NONE, of my books is available for free.  That includes the out of print ones—I still own the rights.  What happens to used copies of paper books is out of my hands.  But you should pay the going rate for an ebook—which I realise is a very mutable concept—and you should buy it from someone who has the right to sell it—which will also give you some clue about that going rate.  And what I say about me is pretty universally true of all living and recently dead—copyright lasts for a while after you pop your clogs—authors.  There are a few loss-leader experiments with free books—but they're the exception.  They are not the rule.  Be suspicious.  And if you find a pirate site—tell someone.  Publishers have entire departments to deal with piracy these days—they have to.  It's their livelihood too.  They want to know about pirates.

            It was only an accident—an offhand, throwaway remark—that my friend even told me about her free download of SUNSHINE.  That's the thing that completely haunts me.  And I almost didn't even notice, because it would never have occurred to me that someone I know could be this, well, daft.  The purpose of her email was to remind me of something I'd promised to do . . . ahem . . . a while ago, and I went 'aaaugh' and rushed off to do it.  It wasn't till I settled down to answer her email properly that I registered the 'free' and 'download'.  Even then I thought she must have just left a sentence out about, I don't know, for every eighty-seven ebooks you buy you get a free one or something, and she chose SUNSHINE.

            It has not been a great day.  I'm even shorter of sleep than usual for a getting-up-for-service-ring Sunday because the Bats in the Walls*** were unusually chatty last night†, it's been doing TORRENTIAL RAIN all day with occasional apparent breaks which delude you into believing you could get hounds hurtled before the next downpour and, speaking of hellhounds, Chaos took two hours to eat lunch.  That tragic look of his would melt the hearts of entire audiences of bankers, newspaper-empire owners, and politicians, if I could figure out how to deploy it.  I think he'd have trouble learning his lines for an open audition of HAMLET. 

* * * 

* If there are goods, there are pirates of those goods.  There were book pirates back in paper-book-only days too. 

** Economics is one of the many things I don't understand very well or very much of, but how anyone over the age of, say, twenty, can claim that we should shovel everything onto the internet that we possibly can and that all of it should be free, is absolutely beyond my comprehension.  

*** A little known H P Lovecraft sequel.  I hope it ends better than the original. 

† I was lying there listening to the flap-flap-flap cheep cheep cheep rustle-rustle-scritch cheep cheep CHIRRUP SQUEAK and thinking that if I were Melampus I'd know the secrets of the universe by now.  Or at least some really interesting details about the bug populations of my neighbours' gardens.

 

Auction

 

So, about this auction.

            New Arcadia's bells need £10,000* worth of restoration work.  We've raised about £1800** so far.

            We need money.  We need a lot more money.  We have a couple of small grants coming, and at least one more promised;  and a few ideas about how to squeeze some more change out of the locals;  and one promise of a splashy charity do.***  But we need money.  This is not polishing-up-the-brasswork restoration:  this is crucial, necessary keeping the bells ringing work.  We're ringing on borrowed time now. 

            So Days in the Life is having an auction. 

            I've been meaning to get this auction off the ground for . . . um . . . months.  But it takes, you know, DECISIONS, as well as the sheer frelling nuisance of finding copies of books I want to have in it.†  As well as the courage to fess up to the sillier items.

            So here is a rough guide to most of what's going to be in it—there will be a surprise or two in the finished list—so you can sharpen your expectations and your bank balances†† and then I have to get the photos and the list together to send to Blogmom, and she's going to create the actual machinery to do the thing. 

 * * *

First a few of Peter's books.  These are all OP in these editions and the sad truth is that most of them are OP generally, although you can (mostly) find them on Abebooks and so on.  All books—mine and Peter's—will be signed.  Of course.

UK hardback of THE ROPEMAKER and its sequel ANGEL ISLE, as one item.  This is Peter's, ahem, epic fantasy.  (ROPEMAKER is dedicated to MEEEEEEEEEE.)

American hardback of CHUCK AND DANIELLE, which is about a whippet who is scared of everything.  It's based on our smallest whippet—AKA wimpet—of the previous generation of hellish sighthounds.  It's adorable.  Trust me. 

UK hardback of TULKU, which might be my favourite of Peter's books.  Might.  But it is the one I'd just read and been totally bowled over by when I met him for the first time.  ::Swoon:: 

THE KIN, the big gorgeous American hardback single-volume edition of the four short books.  The introduction begins:  'It is Africa, about two hundred thousand years ago.'  And the numbers of homo sapiens sapiens are increasing, and they need to find more places to live.  (And between chapters of the adventure there are the Oldtales, which are the stories the Kin tell each other about where they came from and why things happen the way they do.) 

The UK hardback of TIME AND THE CLOCKMICE ETCETERA.  Possibly Peter's most criminally underknown, undersold and neglected book.  (Grrrrr.)  Illustrated by Emma Chichester-Clark and funny and clever and charming and very Peter, and Emma's illustrations are perfect.   Lovelovelovelove.

 The UK Paper Tiger reprint of THE FLIGHT OF DRAGONS.  A cult book and, as is almost the definition of cult books, drifts frustratingly in and out of print.  Illustrated by Wayne Anderson.

 * * *

And now mine.  These are all American editions;  most of them didn't have British eds: 

One hardback of THE DOOR IN THE HEDGE and one original paperback ed of the same.  That first paperback cover—black, with some of the Twelve Dancing Princesses' boats visible on their way to the ominous-looking castle in the middle of the lake—is still my favourite of its incarnations. 

One hardback of IMAGINARY LANDS and again one paperback of the same.  (The paperback's cover art is by Thomas Canty, for any collectors out there.)  This was the anthology I edited and I enjoyed the writing-letters-to-authors part but I am a rotten businesswoman.  It's probably just as well it never earned out.  I'd've had to figure out how to pay everyone royalties.  (It contains a story by Peter Dickinson.  It also won the World Fantasy Award for best anthology that year, and I'm pretty sure James Blaylock won for best short story.) 

One each of my two picture books, MY FATHER IS IN THE NAVY and ROWAN.  While my father was in the Navy, the story is not autobiographical.  ROWAN, as I'm fond of saying, is the only true piece of autobiography I've ever written†††.  Except for the fact that it all happened when I was in my thirties and not when I was a little girl, it's exactly how I bought my first whippet, Rowan.  

A pre-Newbery first edition, first printing of THE HERO AND THE CROWN.  (If you want an ordinary hardback reading copy of HERO, it's still in print.)  

And a first edition, first printing of the original hardback of SUNSHINE.  With the dark-red background and the chandelier, and the embossed gold type.  Still my favourite art.  

* * *

A few non-auction, simply-for-sale items:  Peter will donate to the bell fund any money from sales of THE WEIR, his book of poetry, made during the course of the auction.  The limited edition hardback is £40 [US$63.33];  the paperback is £8 [US$12.66]. 

I have a small hoard of the original, long version of the ROSE DAUGHTER afterword;  Greenwillow printed them off as booklets with the hardback cover art.  The text is still on my website, but I'll sell a few copies of the booklet if anyone would like them. 

I'm also thinking that for anyone who would like to contribute to my and New Arcadia's continued campanological happiness but doesn't really have the disposable cash to get into bidding for a book, I'll offer a small cartoon of a bell, and best wishes from the bells and the signature of the famous author/hellgoddess/artist manqué Robin McKinley.  I'll draw one of these and post a photo . . . when I get around to posting photos . . . so you can see what absurdity I'm talking about.  But I can draw/write as many of these as anyone wants.

* * * 

And, speaking of silly things . . . it gets sillier from here on.  If this were Peter, he'd be writing snippets of poetry.  But it's not.  I can't write poetry to order—except bad haiku, which is going to be a contest some day, but not today—but I can draw, if you're not too exacting about the definition of draw.  I think I've told you that I thought the non-writing art form I'd get back into some day was drawing, not music.‡   So I'm thinking I might offer slightly—very slightly—illustrated copies of, say, one each DRAGONHAVEN, CHALICE and PEGASUS, which usefully feature a critter each suitable for mad rendering.  These would, I can assure you, be unique.  

Now we're into the territory of stuff that I'm going to put discouraging bottom bid limits on because I'm half hoping no one will bid.  First:  a more elaborate sketch of a critter or critters, and while I will to a limited extent Take a Request from whoever pays the top bid, if you're going to be too hard on me I'll revert to the hellhounds.  So, offered for your bidding:  one cartoon of hellhounds/sundry critters. 

Second:  knitting.  One square/potholder/faceflannel/washcloth with a ROSE in bas relief.  What-you-call-it in knitting. 

One square/potholder/faceflannel/washcloth with a PAWPRINT in it as above.  I've downloaded patterns for both these from Ravelry, and I'll post links when I put the photos up.  The only remaining question is if I can follow simple directions without stabbing myself to death with my own needles.

And. third, the ultimate silliness:  I'll write you a piece of music.  Details somewhat negotiable.  I'll write you a canon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canon_(music) or fugue http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugue starting with your name, for example—again, somewhat depending on how strict you are about your musical definitions—or I'll set a couple of lines of poetry, or if you play an instrument I might conceivably have a teeny tiny clue about, I'll write something for you and it.  The bottom bid limit on this one is going to be extreme, because it would be a lot of work—even though I'd enjoy the flapdoodle out of having the excuse.  But there's nothing stopping several of you getting together and . . .

 * * *

* Call it $16,000 American. 

** About $2850 American. 

*** Which we are going to be expected to sell tickets to.  We've already had one pep talk, not to say exhortation, from Vicky about this.  Since I can think of few things I could be worse at than hustling ticket sales, I suspect that everybody on my Christmas list is going to get charity revue tickets.  You don't want to know me this year. 

† You may remember that Fiona was a heroine in this arena last time she was here. 

†† We're probably doing this by PayPal as the least harrowing for me.  

††† . . . as fiction.  The blog doesn't count here.  

‡ Life's a freller.  We knew that.

Epic Fantasy, guest post by Elizabeth Moon

 

You forum readers will have already seen E Moon's response to last night's post/link.  When I saw it this morning I emailed her instantly, saying, May I PLEEEEEEEEZ have it for a guest post?!?

            She blinked once or twice . . . and then rewrote it to be a little more guest-posty and a little less first-reaction-at-the-end-of-a-long-day-y.  

I don't keep track, I have very little idea who the epic fantasy writers of today are.  I know the work of a few of the writers in the Clarkesworld post, but I don't know a lot more of them.  A group like this is always going to be incomplete (I can think of a few round-ups and round tables I think I should have been on and wasn't) but I looked through the list of contributors in this case twice, expecting to see Elizabeth Moon's name there.

            But this is even better.  We have her here.* 

* * *

Yes, I write epic fantasy. Yes, I know what epic fantasy is, and I write it. Not ONLY epic fantasy, but yes, epic fantasy. And I'm not ashamed to claim it, and you can't argue me out of saying that's what I do, and of all my invented worlds, the one of the epic fantasy is closest to my heart.

Some of the people talking at the topic over at Clarkesworld got it right. Some were…inadequate (not of course our Hellgoddess.)

It's not style–though a good epic fantasy will create the style it needs. You can't make an epic fantasy with fancy language (that's not how Tolkien did it, fancy languages though he invented.)

It's not setting–or, as with language, a gorgeous setting, richly detailed, is not enough. A true epic fantasy will generate the setting it needs, from the bones of the earth up to the stars. Plenty of stories have richly-detailed gorgeous settings but lack the epic quality of the story itself.

It's not the kind of scope that means lots of people, lots of territory, lots of action: that's Cecil B. DeMille cinematic extravaganza. It IS the kind of scope that connects a human heart to its deepest depths to a great problem most cannot connect with. All the way down, all the way in, to the roots of the heart, linked to all the way out, and all the way up to the stars and beyond. 

It's not a great problem alone.  A story can blow up planets and not be an epic.  It's a problem with consequences that affect many–whatever "many" is in the era the story's written–and faced by one or a few individuals who accept the challenge and succeed against enormous odds.

It's not grand characters–kings, queens, wizards–in extravagant costumes with armfuls of magic items and shiny weapons…though somewhere in there, someone may have any of those. It's one or more individuals who are ordinary in themselves–or apparently so–and must do the extraordinary with whatever resources they have or can find. 

It's the inverse, in that sense, of classical tragedy as defined by Aristotle, where he said the appropriate protagonist was a king or queen.  In epic fantasy, the appropriate character is a hobbit, a woodland elf not a high elf, an apparent vagabond ranger…or a sheepfarmer's stubborn daughter.  If there is a king, it's a king-to-be, such as Aragorn, or one who, in the minds of the populace, isn't capable enough.  Seemingly ordinary people matter in a way most of us can't believe we do.   They are chosen–not the great–to do the great deeds, and for that very reason they enable us to feel a flicker of greatness in ourselves as we recognize both their humanity and their ability to stretch beyond. 

And yet the structure IS Aristotelian.  Although in epic fantasy the great problem is external to start with, the struggles the characters have are also, in the sense of "fatal or near-fatal flaws," internal. It's not enough to have superheroes who battle supervillains, pitting their superpowers against the supervillains' superpowers–that's not epic. No, the hero of an epic fantasy has daunted courage, fumbling intelligence, clouded judgment…must overcome his/her own traits and make them into something else, all while coming to grips with that grand outside problem. 

Robin got it right: first, the epic is Story, and must pull through, like a phrase of music, however long or short that epic may be…one volume or twenty, the story's impulsion must move on, gaining power as it goes, making the incredible inevitable when seen back up its stream.  A gravitational pull (which is why Robin's "Miltonic" is exactly the right adjective) carries it and its burden of characters, setting, challenge, events through the long journey without a pause, never letting the connection between character and challenge be lost. 

Transformation, in epic, is as much bigger than the "growth" the usual story protagonist manages as the epic challenge is greater than the problems of ordinary characters.  Transformation goes deeper, affects more of the character.   At the end, the once lumpy and awkward caterpillar in the confining chrysalis breaks out, and has that triumph…but is so changed that it's rare for an epic hero to go home and live a quiet life–sit by the fire, grow a few vegetables, settle down with the family, bore the grandchildren with familiar stories.   

Frodo couldn't.   (Sam could, and that's particularly interesting since without Sam, Frodo wouldn't have been successful.   Tolkien was showing something very, very interesting about character in that.)  Aragorn couldn't go back to being the mysterious Strider, free to move about anonymously.   Merry and Pippin outgrew (literally)  hobbits, and were "lordly" now–but they weren't Men, either.   Gandalf's work in that age was over.  The very world they saved was not the same world after being saved…no more Lothlorien, timeless dream of beauty.  No more hidden and unscathed Shire, that safe haven for little people.  

Victory's consequences include loss.   Epic fantasy allows the eucatastrophe, the victory and the victory feast, but does not tolerate cheap grace.   For all the apparent exaggeration from ordinary stories, epic fantasy is brutally realistic about the costs of greatness, the way a great mountain is brutal with climbers.  For writer, as well as characters, the risks are high.  

For the reader?   Since epic fantasy reaches down in the deepest, darkest, oldest parts of the human heart and spirit, it can touch those ancient fossils buried in each of us…what we think of as dead, petrified…with the power inherent in epic.   Coils shift once more; ancient eyes gleam through the dark:  and the reader's own transformation begins.   Up from the depths and out to the skin the signals run: breath and heartbeat quicken, hairs lift on the arms.  But not with fear alone…with hope as well.  Dulled senses awake, as if on a spring morning at dawn;  color returns to the inner and outer world.  The lost is found: the oldest courage, the youngest hope, break free again, come into consciousness again, if only for a time.  

So. To claim that I write true epic fantasy is to risk being laughed off the stage. Who am I, to be on the same stage as Tolkien and Homer? Nobody. Not in the same league. Nonetheless…I do claim it.  I write epic fantasy.  

 * * *

* Hey,Elizabeth!  There's going to be Part Two in August!