Robin McKinley's Blog, page 138

Things Involving the Learning of Wiggly Lines

 

My head is still spinning.*  It seems to have been a head-spinny kind of day.  I'm waiting for the protein to rise to my brain** so that the above-shoulder area will settle down a little and possibly produce some coherent sentences, both fictional and non-. ***

            . . . Okay.  It's true.  I went back to the yarn store.†  So, you want to know why, right?  Before you suck in your breath to castigate me.  You're going to have to start putting up with a certain amount of secrecy about my proliferation of knitting projects.  Because one or two (or three) of them†† pertain to people that I know at least occasionally read the blog.  So I went back to the yarn store in pursuit of one of these Secret Projects, having got the details wrong first time.†††  And the other reason is . . . I've been talking to one of my enablers again.  The great drawback to enablers is the way they . . . enable.  And I asked her, when you get Stash Fever, how do you know how much of a given ecstatically thrilling yarn to buy?  —I having, with a month's experience behind me, realised that one of my initial purchases is not really suitable for legwarmers, unless I start living a delicate ladylike life, which is not (ahem) terribly likely.‡   Oh, said my enabler airily.  It depends on what you find out you like to knit.  I like to knit coronation robes with eighteen-foot trains, so I have to buy sixty-six quadrillion leagues of anything I really like.‡‡ 

            Oh.

            So I pulled out a Rowan magazine‡‡‡ and started trying to figure out how many skeins of their Skittish Gorilla weight yarn I would need to make . . . well, anything, really.  And then I took out the tag that I had thoughtfully brought with me so that I could check the dye lot from one of the skeins I had bought a month ago§ and . . . bought some more skeins.  Ahem.  I basically bought every skein they had left in my dye lot, but that wasn't actually very many.  No, really.  It's a small shop.§§ 

            And then I had to pelt home, as if a hellhound were after me, because there were handbells.  There's been what may be a Startling Development, which is that Fernanda may have run away to sea.  So there were only three of us tonight, and there may continue to be only three of us for the foreseeable future.  —GAH.  I am now used to eight bells.  The treble comes down to lead way too fast and often when there are only six bells:  on eight you get into the sloppy habit of believing that you've got a little breathing space between leads.  Not with only six.  But what's worse is . . . at tea break the three of us sat there looking at each other and then said, more or less simultaneously, I have a great idea!  Let's learn a new method!  AAAAAUGH.  I thought it was a great idea at the time, flushed with sugar§§§ and caffeine and secure in the knowledge of Pooka and her bell ringing ap.  It is now past midnight and I'm tired and I still have to sing, and St Clements minor has too many wiggly lines, especially when you're ringing two bells.  And I know from bitter method-learning experience that Thursday rolls around again with uncivil speed.

            Right.  Singing now. 

* * *

* BACK, Jodi!  BACK!  Not that kind of spinning!

** Roast chicken for supper.   And an enthusiastic vortex of hellhounds adding interest to negotiating the space between the roast chicken sitting aromatically on the kitchen counter and your chair at the table.  And gods help you if you go back for seconds.

            These are, you understand, the hellhounds who refused to eat their lunch and made me late for my appointment with Dentist from R'lyeh.^  The moment they saw me fold up in despair, and prepare myself for leaving them lunchless, and spending the afternoon in a fog of prospective woe^^ . . . they changed their minds and ate, delaying me even more. 

            They were really only doing their best.  Any loyal dog is going to try to keep his beloved mistress away from Dentists from R'lyeh. 

^ Maybe I could skip all the pain and trauma of the actual visits, put a permanent lien on my bank balance, made out 'on demand from Dentist from R'lyeh', and stay home.  There is a new hazard about the Dentist from R'lyeh:  his office is very near the yarn shop.   

^^ Remember that these guys, if they miss a meal, are less likely to eat the next one rather than more—and that by the end of 24 hours without food they are miserable.  That comforting old cliché about how not to let your dogs get the high ground, 'a hungry dog will eat', has a very large caveat subheading:  except hellhounds.   I regularly remind myself to be grateful that at least they aren't scheming little ratbags with it or I'd've been forcibly retired to the small room with the quilted walls by now.  

*** I also still have to sing.  I'm singing The Roadside Fire^ for Oisin tomorrow.  Eeeeeep.  It's going to be gruesome.  Nadia's one shortcoming is that she doesn't play the piano any better than I do, and so does not accompany.  Lots of voice teachers don't—they're voice teachers—but Blondel did, and to me anyway learning to sing something with the accompaniment—assuming that it was written with an instrumental part for the singer to collide with—is a crucial part of finishing learning the piece.^^  But the piano or the six Theremins or twelve contrabassoons or what-have-you still is/are to me One More Thing in the herding-cats experience that is singing, and I don't care how well I thought I knew the mere tune when I took a new piece in to Blondel, it was always a nuts, bolts and blood ordeal, singing it against—er—with the piano.^^^ 

            I'm not sure whether this is going to improve or—er—dis-improve the chances of the New Arcadia Singers becoming a reality.  It may dis-improve my chances of being chosen to be a member.  Sigh.  But how dumb would it be not to be able to sing for your choir director?^^^^

^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTnGLVtGXX4

^^ Also possibly because I'm a kind of ersatz pianist and I had+ fantasies about being some kind of very low level accompanist myself, I think there ought to be a better word than accompanist.  Have you seen—for example—the piano part for some of Benjamin Britten's (himself a serious pianist) songs?  Cheez.  This is two-soloists-with-a-single-aim++ territory.

+ Okay, still have

++ One hopes

^^^ Why didn't I take up knitting?  Oh . . . I did.  In hindsight, I'm sure it's significant that 'why didn't I take up knitting' has been my outcry for decades against whatever is driving me nuts at the minute.  I guess I now need a new scream.  Why didn't I take up alligator wrestling?  Tornado chasing?  Pooktre tree shaping?

^^^^ Why didn't I take up collecting abacuses?   

† Fortunately the woman who is usually there—who has been there every time so far when Fiona and I come panting in for our fix^—was not there, so I could saunter casually up to the till like any old normal customer and engage in desultory banter about dye lots and the extreme depravity of Rowan yarn's magazines^^, where everything is more beautiful than the thing before and just buying the yarn will cost more than 1,000,000 pairs of limited-edition Blondie All Stars^^^ and that's before you've put eleventy squillion hours of good income-producing time in on knitting up the freller.  Supposing you knew how.  Protected By Sheer Sandblasted Ignorance.  Sigh.

^ We're going to a new shop next time 

^^ http://www.knitrowan.com/patterns/Rowan-Knitting-and-Crochet-Magazine-44.aspx for example.

^^^ And why would you want 1,000,000 pairs?  1,000,000 different pairs, now . . . (with perhaps a few repeats for back-up).

†† Four.  Since you're asking.  Well, five.  But they're all extremely simple minded.  I'm not entirely stupid.  Just a little excitable.

††† Sigh.  Trying to extract salient details without saying LOOK I'M ASKING FOR A REASON, OKAY?  JUST UNGLEBLARGING TELL ME, can be challenging.

‡ That sound you hear is hellhound laughter.

‡‡ Yes, I believe she does have a stash problem.

‡‡‡ AAAAAUGH 

§ I ask you.  Am I amazing or what.

§§ And I didn't buy any books.^   So stop looking at me like that.

^ Well.  Not about knitting.

§§§ There's also a café across the street from the yarn shop.  With a take out bakery.  Carrot cake to die for.  Lemon icing.  Not cream cheese.  My new hero, whoever the baker is.

On First Books Followed by Second Books

 

Jodi sent me this: 

http://www.gayleforman.com/blog/2011/03/08/the-spoiler-conundrum/

Gayle Forman about spoiling the first book by talking about the second book.

So I read it.  Yes. 

                 And if you're scratching your head and thinking, Gayle Forman, I know I know that name, here's one place you may have seen it:  http://robinmckinleysblog.com/2010/08/14/friday-the-13th-or-ya-is-not-a-dirty-word/

                 She had just written an excellent blog on the Gosh! Adults read YA! Imagine that! phenomenon (and she was a lot politer about it at length than I was able to be even briefly*) . . . and she is also the author of the (note:  YA) novel IF I STAY, which is wonderful and brilliant and a major tear-jerker**, and which Jodi and I both had trouble figuring out how to review because it's another one where pretty much everything about it is a spoiler.  (There are gazillions of rave reviews about it out there, and all of us had to choose our own little tap dance about this.)  Jodi was much more virtuous about merely saying 'it will make you cry but read it anyway' than I was;  I gave you (and am giving you again) the set up which is that Mia's parents are killed in a car accident that leaves her and her little brother dangerously near death in hospital.  The title refers to the choice she has to make:  is she going to struggle back from her coma and re-enter the land of the living, with the almost unbearable struggle with her absolute loss and her severe physical injuries that would entail . . . or is she going to let this world go, and follow her parents?

NOTE THAT WHAT FOLLOWS MAY COUNT AS SPOILERS.  IF YOU HAVEN'T READ IF I STAY YET, STOP READING THIS BLOG AND GO SHAMPOO THE CAT, OR ENTER THE DETAILS OF YOUR STASH ON RAVELRY, OR PRUNE THE GZUMBLEBERRY TREES.  Or, of course, fish IF I STAY out of your TBR pile, and start reading. 

            There's a sequel to IF I STAY.  It's called WHERE SHE WENT.  Hmm. 

Forman writes:

Because of course, the very existence of WHERE SHE WENT is basically a spoiler. Though I tried to fudge it for a while, by saying it was a book that takes place three years later and is from Adam's point of view (I figured that vagueness, plus title, could mean Mia decided to depart this fair world), now there are ARCs and jacket copy floating about. It is pretty darn clear that the book is about Mia and Adam. Not the ghost of Mia and the human Adam, though Adam does spend a fair amount of time battling ghosts. Not an angel Mia. A flesh-and-blood Mia.

Forman also says that when IF I STAY first came out, she tried not to tell anyone anything—that ideally a reader would sit down with this unknown book and be blown away by what happens—like poor Mia herself is.  You should be shocked by the accident.  Yes, you should.  But . . .

            . . . I think you will be whether you know it's coming or not.  I agree that you want to plonk, plonk, plonk plonk, plonk, plonk spoil as little of a story as possible when you're recommending it.***  This is really my argument against (plonk, plonk etc) what happens to books in way too many literature-study classrooms:  taking the poor things apart like pickled frogs in biology lab, and labelling all the bits.  You're not going to be able to put it back together again.  Most books won't stand that kind of vivisection—I think. 

            But at the same time . . . the story's the thing.  Not the plot—again, I think.  The story, which is to say the telling.  The kind of spoilers that show up in book reviews—including blogs, chat rooms and publishers' advertising—won't wreck that.  They may muddy its hems a little (and I have a whole rant about plot-summary flap copy).  Have I spoiled LOTR for anyone by telling you how THE TWO TOWERS ends?†  I doubt it.  It's the long, long, long weary exciting life-or-death thing that gets you (or doesn't), not so much the individual adventures along the way.††   I'm also someone who doesn't think there are any really new stories—just retellings of old ones, juggled around and jigsawed a little differently.  It's how you retell your chosen old hoary tale that matters.†††

            I admit I'm a little startled that Forman has (apparently) given quite so much of WHERE SHE WENT away.‡  I'm sure she and her publisher went round and round about this and they decided the buzz was going to be worth the spoiler.  And she's such a good writer I'm sure they're right.

            I of course think daily‡‡ about the first book-second book thing, and how much (or not) you can say about the second without massively spoiling the first.‡‡‡  It annoys me a lot that I can't occasionally whiffle a few intriguing snippets of PEG II at you here§, but for reasons plain to anyone who has read the first one, this is not a good idea.  Which  is to say that that my searchanddestroybots are still programmed to hunt down and pitilessly seize anyone caught giving the ending of PEGASUS away to anyone who hasn't read it yet§§ . . . but a good story survives givings-away.  Or why would anyone reread anything? 

* * *

* But then I'm twenty years older than she is and my patience has worn thinner. 

** It's an interesting phrase, 'tear jerker'.  I have an apocalyptic vision of gremlins with burning tweezers.  

*** Whereas if you're saying 'don't bother' I am very grateful for every detail.  Especially how it ends.   Is the prom queen swallowed by the giant boa constrictor?   Does the alligator from the wrong side of the swamp marry the prince? 

† No.  Because everyone reading this blog has either already read it, or can't deal with Tolkien and isn't going to. 

†† There are stories that are pretty dependent on their plot twists.  Anybody not know the secret of, say, THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD?  You'll probably want to go back and reread it when you find out.  Well, I did.  But then I read stories as naïvely as I possibly can.  If I can see the ending coming—especially in mysteries—I grow cranky, because I feel the author isn't doing her job.  In fact I had to give up reading Christie because I got so I always did know who the murderer was.   And there isn't much to Christie except the plot. 

††† Some more overtly retold than others (says the woman who has retold Beauty and the Beast several times).

‡ I didn't watch the video.  Either video.  I'm okay with the existence of WHERE SHE WENT, but I don't want to know any more before I read it. 

‡‡ Hourly.  Minutely.  Secondly.  Aaaaaugh.  

‡‡‡ Although the end of PEGASUS is a bit like IF I STAY ending a page or a chapter before Mia decides.  Where PEGASUS ends is clearly still the middle of the story.  I don't think Forman had to write the next one—except, of course, that she did, because the story came to her and said Write Me.  I'm Talking to You.

           And while nobody dies in PEGASUS I make no promises about PEG II.  As I keep saying, it isn't up to me. 

§ Authors are supposed to have blogs because they're marketing tools.  Ha ha ha ha ha ha.  I'm sure reading about bells, roses, knitting, hellhounds, music and the rest has enormous (positive) effect on my book sales.  Blergh.

§§ Those captured will be relentlessly locked in small dark rooms with no chocolate, yarn or books.

Guest Blog: Part the First by OISIN*

 

"Guest" – hmmm; not so sure about that. I feel as I imagine Salman Rushdie must have felt while in hiding, or possibly as someone would have felt staying in a British Guest House in the 1950′s.**

I peer nervously through the curtains to see if there are swathes of curiously (but exquisitely) knitted Cthulus advancing across the lawn. Incidentally, I am VERY disappointed by the Goddess' actual description of Cthulu*** – I had it (him/her?) down as being rather like the BBC children's characters of the 1960′s, "The Clangers" (Google them, they're worth it) who were blue knitted aardvark-like creatures who lived in the moon eating blue-string pudding and "speaking" via Swanee-whistle like noises. What really eats into my sleep, though,  is the prospect of armies of Nebraskan bagpipers (all marching furiously to escape the noise). Come to think of it – a cruel experience – just one piper would be enough, and they wouldn't probably even have to leave their State boundary … #

Never have I been so glad to realise that, far from being two countries separated by a common language, there is also the small matter of several squillion tons of seawater (and a shark called Clive) between us. Curiously, this Vendetta has also made me aware of some INvulnerabilities and misapprehensions about me:

Misapprehension No 1: I like PDQ Bach – I often play his Notebook for Betty-Sue Bach## – it's soothing.

Misapprehension No 2: I won't have a resolved chord in the house at any price. ###  The last time I had one I was infested with squirrels and the cat was sick.   (Not MY cat, as I haven't got one, but it was next-door's, and it was sick on MY grass.)

Misapprehension No 3: I am of a very curious nature, especially when challenged to listen to someone with "the singing ability of decaying brie" That I must hear!! Presumably a smoother creamier tone than a lump of bright red Edam, and without the forgettable elevator music quality of processed mousetrap …

Slightly more potent in terms of ego damage was the assertion that I am "marvellous in an understated sort of way". Understated by WHOM, exactly? Ask The Goddess if I'm understated – she'd better not agree. +

Much more to my taste was "Grand Masterful Wonderful and Most Splendid Oisin". No more than my due, mind, but very nicely put – thank you!

Thanks are also very much due to those who worked so hard on the pomes – poetry is, well, poetic, and usually DBM (Dead Blooming Meaningful) to boot. There were some splendid offerings. I have asked Robin if she will reward these creative souls – probably not with a poster, but maybe with something like refraining from blighting their lives in some indeterminate way, at least for a few minutes.++ I was also very impressed by the Greek Goddess who had obviously just stepped off the catwalk for the blog picture; I don't have a mental picture of my Grecians being quite so elegant, as they're usually too busy turning someone into a tree.

So, my people – well, Robin's people, really (borrowed finery and all that) – this all started with a discussion about a Guest Blog from a 'Umble Piano Teacher, but there seem to be two problems. One, as you will have gathered by now, I Ain't 'Umble,+++ and two, you seem to want a variety of things from me (apart from seeing my Life Ruined and My Home Invaded). The Teacher-thing  I will do, of course, but there is also the Accompanying-thing,†  and the Organ-thing (yes, they are indeed WONDERFUL creatures – just imagine being able to control an instrument some sixty feet wide, sixty feet high and twenty feet deep and use it to frighten passing krakens!)†† There is also the Amateur Theatre thing, including My Life and Times with a Noctopus and also with choirs (similar to octopi, but harder to handle). Most of all, there is the Big Encouragement Thing, which is what most of this is about, and will feature remorselessly in anything I am allowed to write.

So – where to start, where to start?††† Obvious question deserves obvious answer: with a stiff drink and an open fire (for those of you in such climatic wastelands as California, it's c-c-c-coooold here)……

 á bientôt… (French, for: á bientôt)

* * *

* YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY^

^ Etc–ed

** I knew there was a reason I stayed in America (and Japan) till the mid-sixties.

*** Piano teachers are necessarily made of strong stuff.

# No, you're hearing the one who plays pibroch at the corner of Clavering and Fullfrellinghollow in Mauncester.   Most people prefer Cthulhu.

## True.  The sheet music lives on his music stand.  One might almost opine . . . significantly.

### He's forced to say this while he still chooses (for obscure reasons) to encourage my composing.^

^ I daresay I'm fun to watch.

+ No!  Oh, no no no no no no!^

^ Is every 'no' worth another guest blog?  NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO

++ But . . . but . . . I'm a HELLgoddess

+++ Smurgle.  Rmmmph.  GRRRRBLGGGRGGGG.

† Whimper.

††  See?  Cthulhu doesn't stand a chance.  And I wouldn't risk a bagpiper I was fond of.

††† He hasn't even STARTED yet.  MORE GUEST POSTS!  YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!^

^ Is there an echo in here?

SILVER PHOENIX and FURY OF THE PHOENIX by Cindy Pon

 

'The eunuchs said the windows were ceiling height to allow the concubines their privacy, but Jin Lian knew it was also a way to keep them trapped.  These quarters had walls taller than any courtyard tree.  No one could survive the drop to the other side.  Not that any concubine in possession of her wits would ever attempt to escape the Palace—or her duties to the Emperor.'

            The first paragraph of the prologue of SILVER PHOENIX may make the average modern first-world female reader rock back on her heels slightly.  Jin Lian's baby is born—and smuggled out of the palace immediately, the same night he is born, because he is clearly mixed race:  and therefore clearly not the Emperor's son. 

            At the beginning of chapter one, seventeen-year-old Ai Ling has been given The Book of Making by her beloved mother—which is a book on how to, ahem, please your husband. '. . . she wasn't prepared for a betrothal so soon.  She would be given away, traded off like cattle, fortunate to see her parents perhaps once a year—if her future mother-in-law allowed it.'

            The betrothal doesn't happen.   'She fought the shame mingled with anger that filled her . . . Gossip would follow, for an unmarriageable daughter was a bad daughter.'  But what was the old scandal that Lady Wong referred to:  '"I'm concerned about your family's reputation, Master Wen. . . . Weren't you thrown out of the Emperor's court in disgrace?'  Ai Ling knows this is nonsense;  her father is a scholar, and the most honourable of men.  But the reader thinks with a small shock, Master Wen?  It was a Master Wen whom Jin Lian asked for help.

            A few months later, without warning and with explanation, Ai Ling's father declares that he must return to the palace.  "'It shouldn't take more than two months.'"

            But he doesn't come home.  He doesn't come home, he sends no word, and Ai Ling and her mother are running out of money.  And then, because they are vulnerable and Ai Ling is pretty, a local merchant offers to take Ai Ling as his fourth wife—as the payment for a debt he claims Ai Ling father owes him—and he has forged a document to support his lie.

            And Ai Ling decides that the only thing she can do is run away—run away from the little provincial town she has lived all her life, and try to go to the palace herself, and find her father.

            There have been a few eerie hints in the first thirty pages of SILVER PHOENIX;  Ai Ling seems to hear the thoughts of both Lady Wong and the repulsive merchant, and her father, before he leaves, gives her a jade pendant that was given to him by a monk: "'He told me to give it to my daughter, if I should ever leave her side for long. . . . But when I said I had no daughter, he merely waved me away.'"  But at her first stop, after walking all night and sleeping most of the day, Ai Ling is eating dumplings at a restaurant and watches a woman singing to a group of enthralled men:  ' . . . Then she noticed the woman's top was sheer, very clearly revealing three breasts. . . . A Life Seeker . . . [Ai Ling] remembered the drawing from The Book of the Dead. . . . Emperor Shen of the Lu Dynasty issued a mandate which forced all Life Seekers to wear sheer tops, denying them the right to bind their breasts, and therefore baring their identity to the world.  It served as a warning for most, but an enticement for some. . . . It was as if she held the book in front of her. . . .   Legend has it that the extra breast was given to replace the heart she does not have.  The creature is not mortal and maintains life through copulation with men. . . .'  In the Life Seeker's audience is the merchant Ai Ling is escaping;  and as Ai Ling flees, another man grabs her—and her jade pendant flares white and hot, and suddenly her assailant is himself attacked by wasps.  Two pages later she's dragged into a lake:  'The sinister thing writhed, like a massive eel, its body as thick as a man's, its length endless.  Luminous eyes, glowing emeralds, stared at her, unblinking. . . .Ai Ling.  Your family is in ruins because of you. . . . Your mother has not stopped weeping since you left. . . .'  Her pendant flares again, giving her air to breathe, but it cannot stop the awful visions the monster sends:  'Your father is dead.  Go home.  . . . The muscular tail squeezed tighter, smothering the precious air she had been given.  It crushed her until she was nothing.  Nothing but darkness and hot salty tears.'

            Yowzah.  And it goes on like this for . . . over six hundred pages.

            There's very little I can tell you about the plot that isn't some kind of spoiler—or at least the best parts are all spoilery,  and the story is such a great ride I'm  going to leave it alone.*  Wait, here's an excerpt from the back of the hardback of SILVER PHOENIX:  'Her spirit surged.  She concentrated on the immense cadaverous heart, focused her grief and ire.  What she could heal, she could also destroy.  Her spirit whirled around it in a frenzy.  The heart erupted and splattered.  The beast howled once before it fell to its knees.  It toppled, nearly pinning Chen Yong beneath its rotten bulk. . . .'**  Oh, Chen Yong is the handsome young man who saved her from the lake monster.  Speaking of meeting cute.  Shall I mention that he's mixed-race—in a country where this is unusual?  And that he's also on his way to the palace in the hopes of unravelling the mystery of his birth?

            What caught and held me is the combination of the unambiguous Girl-Who-Does-Things adventure, especially Girl-from-Female-Oppressing-Society-Doing-Things-Anyway adventure (and from that last snippet you'll have gathered that Ai Ling turns out to have some fairly exotic powers), with the splendidly lush background.  I don't know how much of it is Chinese legendary history and how much is Pon's own imagination, but it's a lively mix.  And the very best part is the food.***  There's an ongoing joke about Ai Ling being hungry all the time, but these books made me hungry all the time:  'They ate the tricolored flower—named for the pale chestnut, red date, and purple yam layered into the sweet sticky rice, steamed in a flower-shaped bowl . . . Oh, the braised pork with rice is my favourite.  With a tea-stewed egg. . . . roasted pheasant, tender spring vegetables, hand-pulled longevity noodles, spotted porcelain river crabs, and emperor lobsters, named for their large size . . . Breakfast was hot rice porridge with salted fish, pickled carrots, and spicy bean curd. . . . The steamed silk-thread bread was light and slightly sweet.  This was paired with cold spiced lotus roots and bean curd mixed with a savory minced pork sauce. . . .'  Sometimes things are just like food:   'The plum blossoms emerged early in the front courtyard, their delicate pink petals scented like rice tea.' 

            SILVER PHOENIX came out in 2009;  according to the ARC, FURY OF THE PHOENIX is coming out next month—April 2011.  What are you waiting for?

            * * *

* There's one thing I'm trying to figure out how to mention without giving anything away.  The story arc over the two books is . . . kind of curly.  There's a fantastic climax at the end of the first, and when it turns out the second has alternating chapters that include a long complicated flashback concerning the first book's chief villain, I thought, this will never work.  Wrong.  I liked the second one even better.^

^ Except. . . .  I should probably keep my mouth shut but it's so . . . I loved the jacket of the first one—I have the first edition of the Greenwillow hardback.  It has a gorgeous Chinese girl in a great PINK robe+ against a light, bright background with glimpses of a Chinese-y dragon and a building with curly corners++.  The second one . . . has a murky standard-Western-teenage-girl face only half visible in the darkness and pretty much no character of any sort.  What I've got is only the ARC, however, so maybe they've done something more interesting for the final book.  I hope so.

+ The colour has no bearing on my aesthetic appreciation of course.

++ Which I thought was Japanese, but there's a lot of cross-pollination in the Far East.             

** Or if you prefer:  'Taking a deep breath, Ai Ling vaulted through the air and plunged her dagger into the back of the serpent's head.  The sharp blade sank in to the hilt, and there was a sizzling sound, reminding her of meats spitting above hot coals at the market.  She tried to pull out the dagger to strike again but could not budge its glowing hilt, burning cold within her hand.  The demon shrieked and slammed its tail on the ground . . . Chen Yong jumped forward and sank his sword into the thick body, right below its human face.  The demon hissed and bucked as blood the color of pitch flowed from the wound. . . .'   There's some fairly graphic ick in these books, but it seems to me to fit the telling.

*** I also admired Pons' straightforwardness about sex;  that first chapter where Ai Ling is embarrassed by The Book of Making is a fair indication:   sex, not swoony romance, is an important component in human life, and Pons treats it as such.  A lot of the engaging 3D quality of this book is that food, sex, and slicing up demons all get honest treatment.

Making roses – Guest blog by B_Twin

Or — One Way To Be Stressed

A friend asked me a few months ago if I would make a wedding cake for her grandson.  I agreed. (I'm a Sucker^.) I do deserve a whack over the head though. I really don't like making chocolate mud cakes for Other People's Important Occasions^^.  Especially not when they need TWO 12″ cakes (for dessert) and one 8″ display cake.  *whimper*

The decorations were left up to me, the only stipulations being Simple Design, Roses. And gold ribbon. I was also given a sample of the dress material.

Roses that are a champagne colour… Oh lordy…. The best match I could find in my garden was Julia's Rose.

Example 1: Julia's Rose - bud

Example 2: Julia's Rose

Example 3: Julia's Rose

(Have I mentioned that there is a lot of colour variation with this rose due to season / weather / CuzItFeelsLikeIt ?? arrggghhh)

So here is a quick photo essay of how I made^^^ the roses…. :)

Step 1: Make the base / centre, let dry.

Step 2: Start making petals

Step 3: Wrap first petal around the base.

Step 4: First "row" of petals

Step 5: Second "row" of petals

Step 6: Start to colour the roses

Step 7: Add a third "row" of petals to the full size roses. Set the shapes using inventive techniques...

Step 8: Dried flowers ready for final petal colouring and calyxes

Step 9: "Steam" the flowers to set the colours

Step 9b: "Buds" after steaming

Step 10: Making the arrangement

The final arrangement on the cake

The only downside is that the colours really haven't photographed well. :/

—–

^ Not in the Cannot Go Out In Sunshine sense though… *PHEW*

^^ Ganache and I have this… mutual dislike for application. I like eating it. Just the 'spreading on the cake' part gives me Stress.

^^^ It is a well established in Cake Decorating that everybody makes roses differently. This is the way I blunder through the exercise! *

* Yes, well, 'amazing' is the word that pops into my mind.  –ed.

Oisin winners

 

I am awash with Sticky Toffee Pudding.  It rises to the brain worse than champagne.*  Tilda and Peter and I went out for dinner tonight at our best local foodie pub, the Questing Beast, and I am now staring at a (nearly) blank computer screen and trying to figure out what to do with it.  Uh.  Put words on it.  Uh. . . . **

            Blog.  Yes.  Blog post.

I think Oisin has had altogether too good a time reading the Harass Oisin thread.  This wasn't really the idea.  I wanted him to tremble and be abashed.  I should have known better.  However he does claim that he will not only write a blog post, but that some of the—er—more straightforward suggestions, as opposed to the threats of whackings and noise, have given him scope for several.***   Tilda has just been saying that she'd like to see the computer-organ set up, and I have said to her as I have said to other people that I don't think that there's any way to photograph the present manifestation.  Oisin's music studio is not large to begin with, it contains a pretty complete standard computer desk-and-associated-accoutrements and a medium-sized baby grand piano as well as the organ and all its computer bits, plus the makeshift keyboard shelves and bench and . . . and Oisin makes me look tidy, organised and Spartan.†  I'm not sure I could scramble far enough away from the fugacious organ console to get it all in a photo, and even if I could there'd be nowhere to stand.††  So we'll wait till the new keyboards arrive and he's figured out how he's going to build them all in and . . . †††

            Meanwhile, the moment you have all been waiting for.  The contest winners.  Because this thread has afforded me almost as much pleasure as it has Oisin (if perhaps for different reasons) I decided to give away three posters.  Then I decided to have one further supernumerary random drawing, but from the pool of my private selection of the posts that made me laugh the longest.  This last, fourth winner gets to choose their prize:  you may certainly have a poster, but if you'd rather have a book, either PEGASUS or anything from my backlist that I happen to have a spare copy of, you may go for that instead.  Thus the reward of virtue.  Or of a teeming imagination and an irresponsible attitude toward the rest of your life.

And so I give you the first three winners:

Jennifer

cmarschner

s2slinde

And the Immoderate Hilarity prize goes to:

nycteris

Jennifer, cmarschner and s2slinde need to send me street addresses and what if any name you'd like me to write on the poster other than mine.  Use the email address on the web site‡.  And if any of you are among those that don't want the poster and merely want a guest blog from Oisin, please email me that and I'll do another drawing for the poster.‡‡   Nycteris, I need your street address and whether you want a poster or a book (and any inscribed name, etc).

Congratulations, live long and prosper, blah blah blah.  And thanks to all of you for the gallant way you rose to this somewhat unusual challenge. . . .‡‡‡

 * * *

* I'm used to the effects of champagne.  Ahem.  

** My mind keeps reverting to the Sticky Toffee Pudding.  

*** I will believe this when I see it/them.  Mind you, I would be very happy to see it/them.^  Guest posts are one of my favourite things.  Right up there with Sticky Toffee Pudding.  And Green & Black's, of course. 

^ Although if he tries to answer any of those questions about what the hellgoddess' singing voice is like or what it's like to (try to) teach her music, he is going to be in more trouble than he has ever imagined.  

† About the only thing there isn't in Oisin's music room is yarn.^  Hmmmmmm. 

^ Yo, Nycteris!  Be careful! 

††Although the height the piles of sheet music would provide might yield an interesting perspective. 

††† And then I'll volunteer to help shift some of the sheet music, and . . . ^

^ And then he'll say, You want to do WHAT?  You think you want to do WHAT???  And then I'll blanch and remind myself that not everybody, by the simple effect of running a blog for a few years, is accustomed to the idea of pinning photographic evidence of their lives on line.

‡  http://www.robinmckinley.com/contact.php  You know the one.  That one with the banner IMMEDIATELY ABOVE it that says PEGASUS II COMING IN 2012!  And which people nonetheless manage to sail right over to write me frantic emails about whether there's a sequel to PEGASUS.  Sometimes they add that they're extra-frantic since I say I never write sequels.  So, they've paid enough attention—somewhere, some time—to be aware that I specialise in one-offs . . . but they can't read a line of italicised print adjacent to the email address they're looking for.  Singleness of purpose is a wonderful thing.  Not necessarily in a good way.

‡‡  And if you ask nicely you can have a splinter when Oisin breaks up the interim organ bench.

‡‡‡ Fantasy writers.  You never know what they might get up to.  Of course fantasy readers. . . .

The hellgoddess knits

 

 PLEASE NOTE THAT THERE WILL BE A HARASS OISIN THREAD ANNOUNCEMENT TOMORROW.

That look of fixed concentration

It's already the middle of the night—no, no, midnight is early night—but Tilda and Bronwen have only just left.  Knitting is so much more fascinating than mere conversation.*  Tilda arrived yesterday declaring that I was going to show her how to knit, and she was then going to complete a hellhound blanket square. 

            I showed her how to cast on once.  She then proceeded to cast on perfectly.

            I showed her the knitting stitch once.  She said, oh, okay, took the needles away from me . . . and knitted a perfect hellhound square.**

            Sigh.  I mean, great . . . we have another knitter.***  But I feel she could have had to struggle a bit.†  She did not have the No No I'm Too Stupid I Will Not Be Able to Learn This moment.  I could say this was from my brilliant teaching, but it wasn't and I won't. 

The things that fuel a hellgoddess: Peter's mayonnaise and champagne

Bronwen, who clearly really likes duelling with sea monsters, came down again today but—thanks to the sea monsters—was again about two hours late.  Niall had just left, leaving Tilda draped over the sofa in a blurry-eyed, brain-blasted state, having suffered two hours of handbells—and two hours of handbells when you're a beginner can be fatal.  I had to take poor neglected hellhounds out for a sprint, and met Bronwen toiling up our slope.  When rather less neglected hellhounds and poor exhausted me returned to the cottage, there were Tilda and Bronwen sitting companionably side by side on the sofa . . . knitting.  Bronwen had taught Tilda to cast off, which is a good thing, since I'm still doing it with my fingers.††  She also taught both of us to purl . . . yes, Fiona had already taught me to purl . . . was it only Tuesday†††? . . . but I'd got sufficiently freaked out at this business of having to count the stitches on the ribbing for my legwarmers that I reverted to hellhound squares and had managed to forget again.  So I purled a hellhound square.  Which of course looks exactly like a knitted hellhound square.‡   Now I'm starting the legwarmers again. . . .

Meanwhile . . . as I approach the one-month anniversary of my learning to knit, I have four projects on actual needles with actual stitches on them.    There is nothing wrong with this.  One of my enablers has just been emailing me that in her rich, varied experience of knitting and knitters, how many projects you have going at one time tends to correlate with whether you're the kind of person who reads one book straight through from start to finish before you start the next . . . or whether you're the kind of person who is reading several at once.  Oh good.  I'm consistent.  

The particular quality of this fixed concentration is because I'm frelling purling.

 * * *

* Although this seems to me another of knitting's great virtues.  If you're all sitting around knitting, you are not obliged to try to find something to talk about.  If there is something to talk about, great, splendid, but I am a lifelong failure at chat.  I tend to rate people anyway by whether they're easy to be silent around, but knitting takes the stress out of finding the answer to this question.^ 

 ^ Tilda and Bronwen both being repeat visitors you can guess that they had already passed this test. 

You will also note the extremely neat and tidy ball of yarn.

 ** She arrived at handbells this afternoon brandishing it and saying, Look look!  Now you have to show me how to cast off!

            Now this is where it gets scary.  Niall said, You know, I should learn to knit. . . . ^

^ Don't worry.  I will certainly ask him about this rash statement again.  In fact I may ask him repeatedly. 

*** There has even been . . . please don't damage yourselves laughing here . . . some idle conversation about going to the yarn shop tomorrow.  The truth is we probably won't have time:  I'm still sleeping twelve hours a night (apparently) and Beltower takes precedence—yes!  Even over yarn!^—because I need serious mentoring in this latest frelling computer method ringing simulator.  Gaaaah.   It's the usual thing:  I am doing too much anyway, computer programmes and I are not the best of friends at the best of times and Beltower is a lot more complicated than it needs to be.  Why don't supergeeks understand that the rank and file might like to learn

FIFTEEN stitches?!?!!! How does it DO THAT??!???

to do little teeny bits of geekery too?  There is no hellhound-blanket equivalent to learning to use Beltower.  Tilda had demonstrated hers to me the last time she was down here, but she had spent a lot of time figuring it out and setting it up.  I spent maybe two hours scrimmaging with the damn thing and it won.  Shortly after this ajlr sent me the link to the review of my beloved bell ringing iPhone ap and—remember 'doing too much anyway'—it is extremely easy to decide to spend your limited time doing something you can do and neglecting something you can't.  Pooka is brilliant for handbells but I have yet to find a computer programme that is any use at all teaching me to ring on tower bells.  But Tilda is convinced that Beltower will teach me to ring horrible Cambridge places^^ and we are going to have an intensive tutorial tomorrow.

^ Yo.  Cut me some slack here, in the cordage of your choice.  She has a perfectly good yarn shop at home in . . . + . . . wherever. 

+ I've been trying to decide if I can invent a secret coterie of Finnish method ringers, with bell towers in underground silos etc, so I can declare she's from Finland.  I like Finland.  If I ever start travelling again I want to go to Finland.

WORKING stash

^^ She demonstrated her prowess tonight ringing Cambridge major at New Arcadia practise.  I would be ecstatic to ring Cambridge minor.  However.  News flash:  I am beginning to get the hang of Grandsire Triples.  Only beginning, mind you.  And Edward is still calling carefully, so the wavery little git on the three is not too taxed.  Still.  Progress. 

† People who can ring Cambridge Major don't struggle.   You can pick them out in a crowd because they walk on a little cushion of air between their feet and the mere ground.

†† Tilda is now working on her third hellhound square.  Bronwen also did one.  All Visitors During the Next Eight Months Will Be Required to Produce a Hellhound Square.   Needles and Yarn Will Be Supplied.

††† If you're counting, she also showed me three weeks ago, but we decided that one thing at a time was good.

‡ Ah the quaint physics of knitting.

Blah erg (revisited)

 

Those of you who follow me on Twitter know that the day did not get off to a good start.  The ME had come back yesterday and I'd much rather have a warm furry orange cat sitting on my head and getting in my eyes and making my skull vibrate with his purring than the ME—which also gets in my eyes and makes my skull vibrate but not nearly so amiably.  I slept something like thirteen and a half hours last night and still could hardly get out of bed this (late) morning.  I was more or less dressed** and wandering around the cottage trying to remember what the hoover looked like because I was due to have handbellers tonight when the phone rang and it was Peter to say that the Mystery Plumber had rematerialised out of the deeps of the void where he's been hiding the last month or so and that when he'd finished with the mystic incantations at the mews he'd come on down to me.  An hour plus, said Peter (said the Mystery Plumber).  I'd better get hellhounds out now, I said, looking over my shoulder in case the hoover was sneaking up on me.  (It wasn't.)

            My experience of the Mystery Plumber's sense of the passage of time ("Oh, yeah, I'll get back to you by the end of the week") made me just the faintest bit wary of his definition of an hour, plus or unplus, so hellhounds and I sprinted out, to the extent that I could find a sprint to strap on, like a rocket launcher in a cartoon, and were back in about thirty-five minutes.  . . . He's on his way, said Peter.

            I have an overflow control something that isn't working with the result that it overflows all the time.  With the result that that entire wall of the house is getting damp and the paint is starting to bubble off the wall by the kitchen door (joy).   So first we went up into the attic and moved the boxes of giftwrap, ribbons, and the box of boxes suitable for putting gifts in to wrap, my old riding gear, a Rather Large Pile of knapsacks and totebags***, a few pairs of All Stars†, and half of a very, very, very long rack of hanging clothes.††  He could then get at the large dome-like plumbing-related object in question.  Whereupon he ascertained . . .

            I have no idea what he ascertained and I don't care.  What I do know is that he had to flounder around in the linen cupboard††† and then take everything out of the cupboard under the kitchen sink‡ . . . so that he could discover that he couldn't do what he was there to do.  Which is stop the overflow overflowing.  Because the carpenter-shaped body‡‡ responsible for my cupboard under the sink managed to build the thing so that a standard human arm cannot get at the stopcock that shuts off the water,‡‡‡ and the Mystery Plumber can't do anything unless he can turn off the water first.

            At this point, more or less, he decided to leave.  I get to ring up Southern Water and tell them that they have to come make their exterior stopcock work, and then find a carpenter with a better practical grasp of human anatomy to do something about access to the inner one.§  And then Mystery Plumber has to rematerialise and do it all over again (although I think we get to leave out the groping in the linen cupboard next time).§§

            Some time during the foregoing poor Tilda arrived.  GO AWAY!  I'M HAVING A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN INVOLVING PLUMBING!

            Tilda having run away and Mystery Plumber having left, I sat down in the middle of the floor and howled.§§§  And then I turned my computer on and sent an email that I was cancelling handbells this evening.

            . . . But don't be silly.  Of course I wasn't going to get away with this.  CANCEL HANDBELLS?  Women have died for less.  Niall answered by return electron that we could have handbells at his house.  So I snivelled for a few minutes and acquiesced to the inevitable. 

            I wasn't at all sure I had any functioning brain for handbells, let alone tower ringing at Crabbiton afterward, which had been Tilda's and my original plan, but thanks to Tilda's presence, which is to say we spent a certain amount of time breaking . . . I mean, introducing Tilda to handbells,# I was not too taxed.   Even with the ME digging its claws into my scalp I can ring plain hunt for a beginner.  And handbells had a curiously rejuvenating## effect so Niall, Tilda and I did go on to ring at Crabbiton.  Where Wild Robert took one look at us, grinned all over his face in the patented Wild Robert manner, and had us ringing something called Union which Tilda and I had never heard of and is like Stedman only different.  It is, theoretically, easier than Stedman, except that the evil Stedman single—the call misnomered a coathanger, it looks nothing like a coathanger###—is even longer as a Union bob which gives you more time to be confused in.  Wild Robert at least had a good time.

            And then Tilda and I came back to the mews and ate roast pheasant with Peter.+  My pheasant, of course, had shot in it.  CRUNCH.  Blah.  Ow.  And now I have to go home to the cottage and face . . . 

* * *

* The claws in the scalp sensation is somewhat similar but since the ME doesn't slip off it's just doing it for meanness.  

** Just in time to take delivery on . . . um . . . two more knitting books.  I have no idea where they came from.  I'm sure I didn't order seven.  The titles look kind of familiar though . . . they must have come to me in a dream or something . . . the same dream in which I sleepwalked to my computer, sleepextracted my credit card and sleepordered them.  Pity the credit card was awake.  

*** Which is of course now shrinking due to the demands of keeping one's individual knitting projects orderly. 

† The bulk of them are on their very own dedicated All Stars shelves.  No, really.  All 400,000,056 of them.  

†† As I keep saying, I'm nearly sixty years old and I never throw anything out.  Except that's not true.  I throw lots of stuff out.  I even like throwing stuff out.  I just keep acquiring it.^  And the truth is furthermore that I like clutter.  I like clutter.  It's not the mere sad result of an inability to throw enough stuff out.  It's a sort of extreme nest-building. 

^ I wonder if hypnosis or CBT would work for sleepordering? 

††† The very full linen cupboard.   One of the things I like is bedlinen.  

‡ AAAAAAUGH  

‡‡ Well, one assumes.  Whoever he/she/it was perhaps is from some other, longer-armed area of the plumber/electrician/carpenter/builder void.  

‡‡‡ Sometimes I wonder about my predecessor.  There are other anomalies.  Like the drawer that threw its contents on the floor every time you opened it.  Or the window that doesn't fit in its frame and has had an interesting little sub-frame rather ineptly built to stop it falling out.  

§ Atlas can do this however.  Yaay.  Atlas, my hero.  He also fixed the drawer.  I still have to replace the damn window. 

§§ The sharp-witted among you will have understood with lightning-like acumen that this means taking everything out of the cupboard under the kitchen sink at least twice more.  Once for Atlas to cut a bigger hole, and once for Mystery Plumber to defeat the overflow monster. 

§§§ Hellhounds enjoyed this very much.  Ooh, can that nice man come back again soon? they say. 

# And she admitted afterward that she found them unexpectedly . . . interesting.  Mwa hahahahaha.  This from the woman who had originally declared she could see no purpose in handbells whatsoever.  

## No, no!  I didn't say that! 

### The line written on a page is supposed to be vaguely coathanger shaped.  It isn't. 

 + Tomorrow I may tell you how I taught Tilda to knit. . . .

Important announcement

 

The Harass Oisin thread will be officially closed at 3 pm (GMT) on Friday:  Friday as in the day after tomorrow.  Not some other Friday.  This Friday.  So anyone wanting to get their lob over the wall for a chance at a signed PEGASUS poster needs to do it now.  *

There are many excellent suggestions** and much–erm–unique creativity demonstrated.  But I'm very glad that someone (Annagail, as it happens) finally mentioned both Rossini's Cat Duet and Florence Foster Jenkins.

* * *

* Do it on the original Harass Oisin thread.  Only posts to that thread will be counted in the drawing.

** Someone, Aaron I believe, expressed dismay at the strong threatening tenor [sic] of the entire thread.   It's been five months since he promised me a blog post (or two).  We're past the blandishment stage.  And Oisin's made of strong stuff.   Anything less than commination he would merely brush aside.

Cats and Yarn. Not together.

 

There has been so much going on lately* that I haven't got round to telling you that I've been on helladolescentcat duty this last week. 

Definitely not a kitten any more. Still orange though.

By the size of those feet he's going to be a large orange panther by the time he's done, but at the moment he eats three gigantic pouches of food a day, and there's still almost nothing there under your hand except fur.  And no, I haven't taken the Mobile Knitting Unit with me ** when I go round to say hi (and open another food pouch). 

He's still friendly though.

I washed my face this morning. Really. I did.

None of the photos of him climbing on my HEAD came out. My aim is not very good when I'm blinded by cat.

I don't know if he's a chest cat because he likes being high up or because my lap isn't very solid and he keeps falling through.

If you're bored with doing nothing but lying on people's chests, I could teach you to knit. . . .

* * *

 * Remember the knitting books by post that were supposed to have arrived yesterday so Fiona could try to find a gentle way to tell me that she's ordered the ambulance and I'm going to be taken away to a nice quiet room with padded walls until this fit passes?^ 

            They arrived today. The knitting books.  Of course.^^  They're all frolicking together, the books I bought yesterday, the books I bought several weeks ago^^^, and the books that just arrived in the post. 

            All . . . um . . . five of them.  That just arrived in the post.  Um.  I forgot I added my first YARN HARLOT book= at the last minute.  And two of them are teeny!  Really teeny!==  And one of them is one of those Everything About Knitting Is Here, and isn't exactly small, but is designed (supposedly) to go in your knitting bag.===

^ I'm sure she would give my stash a very good home. 

^^ Mine!  Mine!  Mwa hahahahahahaha!

^^^ It's only been three weeks.  (Fiona says.  And she was there.)  THREE WEEKS.  Whiiiiiiiiine.  I know that I am . . . prone to enthusiasm, but this is a little ridiculous.

=KNITTING RULES.  http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1580178340/yarnharlot-20  In case you're interested.  As recommended by one of my Chief Enablers as a good one to start with for a tottery, confused, just-starting-out knitter.  I mean, even I had heard of Yarn Harlot. 

== They're about knitting little teeny things.  But you're going to get the guided tour of my Knitting Bookshelf some night when I can devote myself to it.

=== Although a murky Knitting Truth seems to be trying to manifest itself here.  Don't you need a knitting bag per project?  And possibly a bag, a back up bag and a Mobile Knitting Unit per project?¬  Or am I just starting out perilously by choosing a hellhound blanket as my introductory foray?  The skeins of yarn alone for the blanket won't fit in the original purple—um—I think those are peonies, aside from the extreme purpleness of the purple—flowered Proper Knitting Bag with a Yarn Feeder Hole, so the second tier are in the tapestry bag.  Then there's the original Mobile Knitting Unit.  And I keep dithering about where to keep the squares:  in the working knitting bag so I can gloat over them, or in the tapestry stash-and-support bag so the working bag can be stuffed as full of pending yarn as possible?

            The dreadful question then arises . . . where do you keep your Everything About Knitting Is Here knitting-bag-sized book?  You're not going to tell me I have to keep remembering to move it around from one bag to another?¬¬

¬It does seem to me quite a good way of occupying some of those tote bags cluttering up the place.  I love tote bags.  And I am drawn as by a magnet to shoulderbag and knapsack sales.    

¬¬ If you are, I am going to be very rude.

** I am delighted to say that I've been sharing cat duty with one of my other neighbours who has a cat herself.^  And she's been doing the litter box.

^ The black cat who lies in wait for Wolfgang in the small hours and then tries to run under his wheels when we turn up the little cul de sac.  I may have told you before, I am so frelling paranoid about this cat that I've got an actual plan for when I run over the damn thing.  Although since the advent of the hellkitten Black and Brainless has been less conspicuous.  I would consider this a clear win for the presence of the hellkitten—I am not, you may remember, thrilled by the idea of another cat in the neighbourhood—except that I notice he still has his balls.  When do you usually neuter male cats?  I seriously do not want a blasted entire tomcat patrolling my patch.