Robin McKinley's Blog, page 144

The Return of an Old Friend and a Surprise Meeting

 

Also to say that as washed-out, dumb-as-a-brick, you-overdid-it-yesterday*-and-today-you-will-PAY, ME-ascendant days go, this one has not been too bad.  But this is still likely to be a motlier**-than-usual entry because I haven't got the brain to tie it together.*** 

            I brought Wolfgang home today.†  If it weren't for the yawning ravine in my bank balance you'd never know.  He's all red and smooth and shiny and clink-clink-rattle-free†† . . . and when you put your foot down on the go pedal of a 16-year-old Golf VW as opposed to a six-month-old two-bobbin Citroen something happens beyond the distant hum of a worried sewing machine.  Also while I am going to try very determinedly not to run into anything again, driving the pristine little blue wonder was very hard on the nerves.†††   When one of the monster Hampshire buses comes flailing around a tight corner at me—as happened today, on my way to fill up the wonder's tank before taking it back to the garage—I want to dive into the hedgerow first and fret about the paintwork later.  

            On my way home from the garage I stopped at the vet surgery for wormer.  There was a vaguely familiar-looking gentleman at the counter in front of me, who stood aside while someone went off to rootle in the back room for what he wanted.  I gave my name and my hellhounds' names and the vaguely familiar gentleman winced and said something terribly British like 'one might want to ask how they're doing.'  I looked at him and he said, they were our puppies.

            Oh—!  The last time I'd had any contact with their breeder was nearly three years ago, when I was still completely at a loss about what was wrong with them.  It is still mysterious to me that out of eight puppies apparently only my specific two have a cereal allergy—but since that's clearly what it is, or at any rate going off all cereal has been the thing that works—I don't really care any more.  So I chirruped on for several minutes about how beautiful and charming and excellent my hellhounds are—and observed that he looked relieved.  But the thing I wanted to tell all you animal folk out there is that I couldn't remember his name to save my life.  I could look it up, I've still got it among the hellhounds' papers.  But his dogs' names . . . totally present and available.  Asked after them individually, while I could only say 'you', 'your wife', 'your daughter'.  The reason I remember the daughter's existence is because she was the one responsible for puppy socialisation (and an excellent job she did too).   But pigeon frelling feathers and stale cookie crumbs—I run into the hellhounds' breeder on maybe the only day in the last four years I haven't had hellhounds in the back of the car if I'm driving around New Arcadia.  So I finished by saying, if you would like to see them again, give me a shout. . . .

            I now have to pull myself together to cram madly for tomorrow's handbells, sigh.  I'm 99% certain that three hours of learning a plain course on the 3-4 to bob major yesterday on the train will have served chiefly (a) to dislodge the plain course on the 1-2 to bob major which I had learnt (mostly) and (b) to render me incapable of learning to ring a touch on the 3-4 to bob minor which is what is going to be expected of me tomorrow.  Brain, brain, brain, brain. . . . ‡

 * * *

* I am so glad I did not make it to handbells last night or I would probably be a little smudge on the floor today.   There is no credit union option for overspending your energy supply. 

** motleyer?  Eww.  More motley.  Whatever. 

*** I'm sure I've got plenty of green garden string . . . 

† And he smells like wet dog.  Five days in the body shop and he smells like wet dog.  Which is nonetheless an improvement on the alarming New Car Smell^ of the little blue wonder.  But I think I might nonetheless change the hellhounds' car bedding which I perhaps tend to be a trifle cavalier about. 

^ I always feel that if I breathe too much of it I'll start to glow in the dark. 

†† Except for the steering.  Sigh. 

††† Negotiating with a gear box where all the gears are trying to duck away and hide in the back seat is also bad for morale.  

‡ And one last piece of semi-news:  I may have my first voice lesson with my new voice teacher Monday week—the week after next.

          . . . This is the last day of the Everything Mozart Ever Wrote, Quite a Lot of It Several Times, twelve-day Nothing-But-Mozart-Fest on Radio Three.   They've done several of these one-composer-only marathons and as a rule I think they're a dumb idea;  nobody can stand being obsessed over to this level.^  Well.  Um.  I'm going to miss him^^ when it's all Strauss and Tchaikovsky and Schoenberg tomorrow.  Especially Schoenberg.

            However as I'm writing this the last Mozart programme is on, which is for listeners to ask for and dedicate favourite bits, and the presenter has just read out a dedication from 'Robin' to 'all things beautiful'.  Ewwwwww.  That's not me.  Just in case you might have wondered.  But the chosen piece is Horowitz playing the Rondo ala Turca . . . which might very well have been me.  Or something from the Marriage of Figaro.  I have pretty simple-minded tastes about a lot of things I'm afraid.  Chocolate.  Champagne.  Beethoven's symphonies.  Mozart's piano sonatas and The Marriage of Figaro.  

^ The JS Bach-athon still holds first place however for the Fatuous Prat award for dipstick audience comments.  Jeez.   This is a problem for an All-Star wearing guttersnipe listening to classical music:  it's the literature of music.  We're all so frelling exquisite.  And I've mostly lost my cheap-genre touch.  I know, I know, I could get it back . . . but I need to listen to the Eroica or La Traviata or K 331 again first.  Or Una Voce Poco Fa because I want to sing it.+ 

+ No, I don't yet know how good my new voice teacher's sense of humour is.  

^^ Although I'm pretty sure I said this about Beethoven too, and he wrote a lot more rubbishy bits than Mozart lived long enough to.

Very Long Tuesday

 

Bluh blah blerg gah arrgh.  I am very tired.  It started last night, with not sleeping.  So intelligent, not sleeping the night before a journey, for and during which it would be convenient to have at least a few wits available.*  Especially when you're driving an unfamiliar car to an unfamiliar train station.  The little blue wonder clung to the road like a good 'un however** and, better yet, it was still there in the car park when I got back tonight, having courageously resisted being kidnapped by aliens.  It's not quite a Smart Car but it's the next thing up, and it does give the impression that you could tuck it under your arm and walk away.***  And I haven't run into anything. †  And there was a message on my answerphone when I got home this evening that I can have Wolfgang back!!††  Yaaaaay!

            But it was about three and a half hours on the train.  I had brought my little laptop and three books†††.  So guess what I spent all but the last half hour of the journey doing.‡

            Handbells on Pooka.  Of course.‡‡

            So I'm sitting here brain dead and thinking blog entry?  Are you kidding? 

            But this will do.  Won't it? 

* * * 

* I was talking to another stay-at-home writer friend recently about travelling , and all the reasons not to do it.  Hotel rooms!  Where there are never enough blankets or pillows (or towels) and the sheets smell funny!   And the strange, rocky, sponge-like material the mattress is made of!  Or perhaps I mean strange, spongy, rock-like material!  Whatever it is it defies the laws of physics!^ And the Cthulhu-is-coming-to-get-you-woooooh noise that the central heating/air conditioning starts making the moment you turn the light out!   Getting the TV off the menu/Welcome to the Shadow Hotel in friendly fascinating Innsmouth page!^^  Peeling the individually wrapped specially for you soap out of the special individual wrapper, which has been fortified by steel wire!^^^

            And then there's the food!

            And the interesting things your neighbours are getting up to!  The family party, the party party, the exercise freak (get a gym, buddy!), the newlyweds or equivalent (unfortunately they got a room, and it's next to yours), the deaf insomniac addicted to Russ Meyer movies and . . . last and terrifyingly not least, the you-don't- know-you-can't-imagine^^^^ and you don't want to know.  Which is when you wedge a chair under the door handle and look nervously at the window.^^^^^

            At least I got home, today.

^ It certainly defies the hell out of sleep.

^^ When there's a remote.  When there isn't a remote, there will be no manual buttons on the TV.

^^^ This kind of thing reminds me of the dog toys you fill with food that the dog then has to work to get out.  It's supposed to keep them amused.+  I am reminded of that Gary Larson cartoon of the dog balancing a dog biscuit on his nose while the human is saying something like 'good boy, goood boy!' and the dog is thinking 'this time I'm really going to kill him.' 

+ It did not amuse the hellhounds at all.  

^^^^ And you have a professionally vivid imagination 

^^^^^ Bad attitude?  Me? 

** Even if I had to get out and push it up the hills.  This did perhaps serve to wake me up briefly. 

*** Or push it up a hill. 

† Yet. 

†† So I have a few more hours not to run into anything till I can get the little blue wonder back to its own berth.  Between the brick wall and the long queue of deliquescing vehicles.

††† Plus the complete 'book' of the Octopus and the Chandelier, which I finally managed to pry off Ossian.  As a member of the mere non-dancing chorus, I am not privy to the intimacies of the leads.  Us chorus just get wheeled out for a few numbers and reprises, and wheeled right off again.  I have really no idea what's going on, bar that there's an octopus.  And a chandelier.  

‡ Shut up you Twitter people.  I know, I've already tweeted. 

‡‡ Because I am not merely a moron but a moron^ who can't even remember that, being a moron she has to check her diary, I had told Niall I'd ring handbells tonight, having forgotten that I was going to be elsewhere most of the day, and likely to return home in a state more nearly resembling a slag-heap or a gate that someone has just rammed a car into than a conscious, thinking human being.  I've told you that the 'inside' pairs of a method are harder to learn than the 'outside'?  So in minor (six bells) the 3-4 are the hard pair.  In major (eight bells) you have two ratbag pairs:  3-4 and 5-6.  Niall feels that since Pooka clearly works as an educational device, witness the relatively distressing speed with which I picked up the ability to ring a fairly reliable plain course of bob major on the trebles (1-2), I should now move swiftly on to ringing one of the inside pairs because we suddenly seem to have a lot of beginners, or anyway people without iPhones, who have to learn handbells the hard way^^, by beating the crap out of other ringers.   

            Luckily I caught a later train than planned . . . realised I wasn't going to make it to handbells . . . and for the last half hour of the train I finally put Pooka away and read something.^^^ 

^ But a moron who rang a touch of Stedman Doubles last night on the two at Old Eden's tower.  I don't ring the two in Stedman Doubles.  I do now (at least sometimes). 

^^ There is no easy way 

^^^ Pooka or, more precisely, her earphones, were crucial to happiness on the trip home however.  It was rush hour, and if there was a seat, you took it, and you liked it.  But I happened to be sitting next to a gentleman who breathed with a noise like a Boeing 747 taking off.  I plugged in and tuned out . . . but was distracted, between courses, by the awareness that the stentorian gentleman was reading on a Kindle.  When he had to climb over me to get off at his station I Engaged Him Briefly in Conversation.  He really likes the thing.  He's says it's easy to read and surprisingly (he said) easy to use.  'I particularly like this part of an ereader,' he said, slipping it into an inside pocket of his jacket.  The jacket fell closed and you'd never know he was carrying anything bigger or heavier than a handkerchief.  My three books were occupying a dedicated heavy cotton tote bag.  If I ever do find myself travelling again. . . .

HERO and PEGASUS

 

Technology, proliferating in all directions the way it does, keeps preventing me from writing this sentence with any kind of clarity of antecedents.  The review I posted the link to last night that docks PEGASUS one star for the diabolicalness of the cliffhanger ending came to me via Twitter, and on Twitter I said to the reviewer that in response to all these people—in the blog forum, on Twitter, and on Facebook—throwing themselves into postures of fatal despair about the ending of PEGASUS, perhaps I should retell the story of the effect on the author of writing Aerin's first battle with Maur in THE HERO AND THE CROWN.  Whereupon way too many people tweeted or emailed back oh, yes please!  Tell us the story!  Please! 

            Well, oops.  It's easy to throw out titbits in Twitter's 140 character bursts without realising there may be repercussions.  I could just about get the story, such as it is, told in another 140 characters, and clearly should have.   It's just that HERO is the first story I almost died of which makes it kind of stick in my mind.  I've always sweated and bled with my characters—I still remember Beauty and Greatheart's gruelling final journey back to the Beast's castle in BEAUTY—indeed, as I think about it, that experience was very like what I wrote here last Wednesday, about adrenaline spikes when you have ME.  I wrote BEAUTY in a fairly continuous five-month white-hot adrenaline spike, not knowing what I was doing, trying to get this short story out of the way so I could get back to the novel*, and I lived it very intensely as, even then, I intensely lived all my stories.  So that slow awful exhausting journey was slow, awful and exhausting** even when I was writing it like a creature possessed.

            In HERO . . . I knew it was coming. 

Okay, the following is kind of a spoiler.  But not really.  As you're reading the book you're going to figure out what's going to happen before it happens.  It's all in whether you're enjoying the journey.  I'll leave out anything too explicit.

I knew one of the Great Dragons was going to turn up at the worst possible moment, I knew that Aerin was going to go face it, and I knew she would have a very bad time.  I think I possibly didn't know how bad or I might not have had the nerve to . . . nah.  The story makes you do what it needs you to do.***   The battle was gruesome enough—and I knew she must—she had to survive, because I knew she went on to meet Luthe and go after the Hero's Crown.  And I still saw Maur loom up before her/them/us and I quailed, I wanted to run away and hide.†  As I say, the battle was bad enough, but the aftermath, when she's not sure she's going to live or not . . . I wasn't sure either, about either of us.  I've told the story many times that I crept around the house for weeks, limping on my right ankle and holding my left arm curled protectively against my body, and breathing shallowly because even breathing hurt. ††  Every writer knows about being taken over by a story—the way the real world fades and the story-world gets brighter and brighter†††.  There are some stories that are positively dangerous to be taken over by—and my guess is that a story that is never dangerous to be taken over by probably isn't worth a lot, although that may just be my personal extremism showing.  But there are parts of any story that you can write and still have a life, and some that . . . you can't.  The aftermath of Aerin's battle with Maur was one where I couldn't.‡

            And frell frell frell it, but the aftermath of the end of PEGASUS is not dissimilar, and not only because people keep writing to say YOU WHAT?  THAT'S THE END?  I'M SUPPOSED TO WAIT FOR THE SEQUEL/SECOND HALF OF THE STORY?  WAIT?  YOU'RE MAKING US WAIT?  Um.  No one is sorrier than I am.  Trust me.  It's been so bad, not always, but off and on, that I'll wake up in the morning with a sense of unmitigated black doom and know that My Life Is A Ruin . . . and then I'll think (possibly after the first cup of caffeine starts to kick in, or possibly the Gladness of Hellhounds begins to penetrate) no, wait!  It's okay!  It's just PEG II!  And it's going to be all right!‡‡

            Something that a lot of people apparently still haven't forgiven me for is reading the battle with Maur out loud at a conference, long before the book was finished and between covers for people to buy.  My reading—and you are welcome to look this up in your beaten-up copy of HERO—ended with 'The dragon's fiery blood fountained out and covered her, and she fainted.'  There was one of those you-could-have-heard-a-pin-drop moments, and as it happened they'd put me in a room too small for the audience that turned up to hear me read, so there were people sitting on the floor in the aisles and standing pressed up against the walls.  And they all stopped breathing.  I have to admit . . . it was great.  I looked up from the page and . . . there were all these people staring at me.  In 999,999,999 cases out of 1,000,000,000 I hate being stared at, but in this case . . . oh the power.  The dominion, grasp and sway!  Mwa ha ha ha ha ha!  But I don't think I've been to a library conference since where at least one person from that audience that day hasn't come up to me and said 'I've never forgiven you for . . .' even if they're laughing as they say it.‡‡‡ 

            So I have some experience of ruining my readers' peace of mind, and torturing them with cliffhangers.  But I wrote HERO way long before the internet happened—and way way long before I was out there dangling in the virtual breeze and all too available for cries of outrage and remonstrance. 

            Ah well.  I'm hoping that after PEG II I can settle down and be a nice author again for a while.§ 

* * *

* You've heard all this before.  The novel I was writing is one of what have become the Twenty-Six/Forty-Nine Next Damar Novels, and is specifically the story Aerin has a glimpse of near the end of HERO, of three characters, two of them named Leo and Tommy. 

**Beauty's experience back at the Beast's palace after her visit home in ROSE DAUGHTER is straight out of nightmares.  My nightmares.  When she turns around and goes back down the corridor, and when she climbs out a window are both big yesssss! moments for me.  But when I saw that stuff piling up on the page during the first draft there was a big nooooo moment from the writer.  Stories are merciless.  They use everything they can find of you, and if they can't find what they want, they keep looking.  

*** The story made me end PEGASUS where I did.  You said you wanted to get two books out me, right? it said.  Fine.  The first one ends here.  Oh, stop snivelling.  You can end it where I tell you, or you can go back to one eleventy-hundred-page novel, and you and the hellhounds can starve before you finish it. 

† The truth is I spend a lot of time wanting to run away and hide.^  It's a good thing I'm the writer and get to stay at home.  With lots of blankets to pull over my head. 

^ The shout, Cambridge minor!  Grab your rope!, in the bell tower does it to me every time. 

†† With this story always goes the fact that Aerin lying in bed listening to her breath rustle in her lungs is straight out of my experience of having pneumonia when I was eleven—and almost died.  I rustled when I breathed for years after.  What was I saying about how stories use everything they can find of you? 

††† Yes, we're all mad.  Some of us dissemble better than others but . . . 

‡ Interesting factoids include that I fell down and broke my ankle toward the end of the writing of HERO.  My right ankle. 

‡‡ It's pretty frelling hairy, but . . . 

‡‡‡ Something else that comes up regularly is that that scene is only about halfway through HERO.  There's a lot left to happen.  'I couldn't believe that was only halfway!'  Yep.  Authors are evil.  But only because stories make them do it.

§  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, etc

It was going to be about a garden

 

Okay, this came in to my email as I was putting together a blog post about visiting a garden on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon and never mind that it's January.  And then my email went ping and*:  http://boilingsnowforwater.blogspot.com/2011/01/pegasus-or-how-to-write-story-about.html

 ::Serious preening::

Usually I post reviews to Twitter** but I was in the middle of cropping garden photos*** and was delighted at the prospect of some distraction.  So I thought I'd stick it up here.† 

. . . And now my footnotes have totally run away with me and so tonight we are having an entry in which Much depends from Little, like Damoclesian swords and threads.  Maybe you'd like to move your chairs just a little to one side. . . . 

* * *

* under the subject line 'awesome frelling pegasi' 

** See, you should be following me on Twitter.^  But then, you don't need chivvying to read PEGASUS, right?  

^ Twitter is fun.  It's a time-suck, sure, but it's fun.  It's your very own unique self-designed news feed.  If you aren't having fun with it, you've got no one to blame but yourself, which means you can fix it.  I recommend following @jscarroll, for example, not only because he's an awesome writer+ but because he tweets staggeringly excellent things like this:  http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lel1a9NV8G1qcmny4o1_500.jpg ++ which I hadn't realised is my motto.+++  Oh, frell, does the reference need explaining?  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_Calm_and_Carry_On  It has totally taken over as everyone's favourite cultural riff over here—I bought the tea towel [sic] before the phrase became the Michael Jackson of gimcrackery—but of the rash of nose-thumbing responses, this one's by far my favourite. 

+ http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_1_16?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=jonathan+carroll&sprefix=jonathan+carroll ~ 

~ Crumbs!  Check out the cover on this reissue!! (Southdowner!  This means YOU!) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Land-Laughs-Fantasy-Masterworks/dp/1857989996/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294610044&sr=1-9#_

I may have to buy it again.  Never much liked the old mass-market cover.  And I wish to point out (she says stiffly) this is not buying a book for its cover.  I already have the book.  This is just buying the cover.  

++ Not Entirely Safe For Work Etc.  I'm never quite sure how many fifth graders and Great Aunt Gladyses may read this blog.  Since there's a major disconnect between my private mouth and my professional fingers on the keyboard I'm never sure how much bubble wrap to apply either. 

+++ I've believed for many years that it's 'there must have been an easier way'.  

*** AND CURSING.  Gibbergibbergibbergibbergibber.  Gardens—photographing gardens—is a ratbag.  If I'm going to start behaving like someone with a serious camera I am going to have to grapple with this again.  Oh gods maybe I should have stuck with a simple-minded point and frelling shoot.  No, no, no, no, think of that first pic of the hellhounds. . . . 

† And while I'm at it, http://deirdrej.livejournal.com/3744.html , which she did post to Twitter.  This is a lovely review, but it made me laugh because she docks me one star (four out of five) because of the heinousness of the ending.  Well, yes.  I've abased myself elsewhere about this.  But remember I need to keep eating.  Cutting PEGASUS into two books means I get paid twice. 

            Which reminds me of something I've been debating saying on the blog.  Pre-blog—and even more drastically pre-Twitter—I only read the reviews that Merrilee sent me.  Generally speaking I don't find criticism helpful;  either I don't agree, or I already know I botched something, in much acuter detail than the criticiser does.^  And I'm one of these predictable oversensitive obsessives who broods about bad reviews, even when I think they're full of rat turds.  Which is just a waste of my limited and stressed-out energy, since my story-telling is pretty frelling uninfluenceable.   The story itself is my first, last and most of my middle authorities.  If it can't tell me what to do, it's probably hopeless.  Certainly a few select pre-publication readers, including creatures like husbands, agents and editors have crucial input . . . but it's mostly me and the story. 

            So when people send me links to reviews, sometimes I read them and sometimes I don't.  Do you know that cliché about how whether or not an editor accepts your book will be based on whether he/she enjoyed his/her breakfast that morning?^^  I'm a bit like that about clicking on review links.^^^  If I'm feeling strong and perky, I read them.  If I'm not, I don't.  Occasionally I click through before checking adequately about the strong-and-perky level.  Sometimes this is a big mistake.

            So I thought I'd say here:  Not everybody is going to like every book.  This is fine and normal and (counter-intuitively) a good thing (within limits).  It's a sign of character.   How unutterably bland something no one disliked would have to be.  And I know I'm a, ahem, leisurely writer.^^^^  I'm interested in the details of the world and the culture and the people, so a lot of that is going to get into the finished story.  If you want action on every page, Robin McKinley is not your writer.

            But . . . I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Reviewers need to learn the difference between this book did not work for me and this book eats discarded zombie parts.  It is your right not to like something.  It is flaming insufferable arrogance to assume that because you didn't like it it's not a good book.  And I'm not talking about reviews only of my books:  I will stop reading a slagging-off review of any book where there's no acknowledgement that the reviewer's opinion is subjective. ^^^^^

            And one more thing:  nothing gets you on my personal hit list faster or more permanently than being caught getting your facts wrong, and again, this is for any book, not just one I've written.  But for example if you're going to write a review saying that PEGASUS is no good because the furry unicorns aren't pink, you'd better be very frelling sure there are lavender unicorns in it.  Or if you're going to slam JANE EYRE because the protagonist has a mad husband locked up in the attic which makes her an unsuitable and unsympathetic heroine. . . . 

^ No one can punish you like you can. 

^^ This is an old cliché from a politer era, so the version I know doesn't mention the hot sex the editor needs to have had the night before. 

^^^ Ref previous footnote to this footnote:  ::whistles nonchalantly:: 

^^^^ Although I'm amazed at readers and review-writers saying that 'not much happens' in PEGASUS.  What?  Wow.  I am from another planet. 

^^^^^ Inaccurate positive reviews . . . well.  I tend to slide with those.  Although I've bought not a few books based on someone's rave review(s) and, having felt that I read some other book than the one they were talking about, gone back later to reread the original review and had my I Am From Another Planet reaction.  But beneath this evil-cow-like exterior there beats the heart of a starry-eyed dweeb, and at some level I believe that every good review is a tiny blow for reading and every bad review is a tiny blow against.   I'm motivated to let bad good reviews skate past the radar.

PRC Report The Last – Urbana Free Library (Black Bear)

 

I had the pleasure of attending not one, but two Pegasus Release Celebrations in this joyous season!  The Urbana Free Library, in Urbana, Illinois, put together a great PRC plan–you may recall seeing the flyer here, with attendant oohs and ahs.  So I decided I'd make the 2 hour drive to Urbana to check out this event and meet Rhymes-with-Carrot and her library school cohorts in person, if the weather was favorable.  (As it turned out, the weather was DISMAL.  Not dangerous, just….blearh.)  Two others from Indianapolis, MaureenE and Kathy_S, offered to join, and so we hit the road bright and early–completely failing to account properly for the time change between Indiana and Illinois.  So we were very, very early.  But our hosts were the soul of graciousness, and I will let Rhymes-with-Carrot tell you about it in her own words, with attendant photos by RwC, GeniferAnne, myself, and Kathy_S.

Our team of intrepid volunteers arrived at The Urbana Free Library about an hour before the event started. We started putting up tables and putting down tablecloths, and there was much scurrying to get everything we needed in place. But by the time our delightful Indiana attendees (MaureenE, Kathy_S, and Black Bear) arrived after braving lots of rain and a time zone change, we were mostly set up.

Sign-in table, by Rhymes with Carrot

The sign-in table, with our prizes! (And some roses, for decorative effect.) We had not one, but TWO copies of Pegasus for our raffle, in addition to the Pegasus posters. Our event also included a trivia competition, so we had copies of Rose Daughter and The Blue Sword for the winners, as well as a couple of bars of Green & Black's chocolate.

Food table, by GeniferAnne

 

We'd also had a group of volunteers bring baked goods for everyone to enjoy. I brought chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with PINK frosting, and Carol, UFL's teen services librarian, brought a pan of really delicious, fudge-y brownies. There also were three kinds of cookies, and the library provided coffee and peppermint chamomile tea, as well as…

 

THE CAKE.

THE cake. by Black Bear

This cake almost did not exist. Every time I see a picture of it, I sigh in relief and thank the Internet gods for Twitter.

Getting this party started! by GeniferAnne

Most of the attendees (Indiana contingent excepted) were other library science students in my program. We went around the circle to introduce ourselves and share either the first Robin McKinley book we had read, and/or our favorite. (Almost all of the novels had at least one fervent admirer!) There were several people who had never read any books by Robin, so they asked for recommendations from the rest of us.

 

The group, more or less--photo by Kathy_S

Since our attendees' reading experiences ranged from forum mod to newbie, we decided to have a trivia contest to test readers' knowledge of Robin's books. Writing them was a challenge, as I wanted them to be spoiler free, challenging but not impossibly difficult, and to draw on as many of Robin's books as possible.

The trivia cards - photo by Black Bear

I also tried to make the cards pretty.

There were four categories of trivia question. From the books (i.e. name three of Rae's culinary creations), about the books (i.e. which fairy tales has Robin retold?), about Robin (i.e. common topics on Days in the Life*), and, my personal favorite, Name That Quote. Hints were given liberally as needed and attendees participated in teams of three or four.

 

While MaureenE's team dominated early in the game, Black Bear's knowledge of Robin's backlist led her team to victory.* Books and chocolate were handed out accordingly.

Then, it was time for the raffle!

 

Rhymes-with-Carrot draws our first winner! Pic by Black Bear

Attendees were each entered once for a chance to win one of the remaining chocolate bars (pictured above), copies of Pegasus, and posters. As luck would have it, most of the prizes went to first-time readers, although a couple of longtime fans won as well. Brief conversation followed, and then it was time for everyone to go home.

I can't say enough wonderful things about the staff at The Urbana Free Library, especially, Carol, the teen services librarian, who enthusiastically agreed to sponsor our PRC and took care of all of the organization. Yay, Carol!

 

Rhymes-with-Carrot and Carol the Wonder-Librarian (Black Bear)

AND, as a special bonus, she agreed to share her brownie recipe on the blog:

Carol's Brownies:

Melt 1 1/2 sticks butter and 4 squares of unsweetened chocolate in a pot on the stove. Use moderate heat and stir til everything is melted. Add 2 cups sugar and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Mix thoroughly. Beat in 3 eggs. Stir in 1 cup flour (and even a cup of walnuts if you like).

Bake at 350 degrees in 13 X 9 inch pan. But please, please don't overcook them. They are fudge-y and delicious if you take them out when they are still a little moist. **

Note the pink tablecloths in the group photos further down the page. And there were Janet Baker/Susan Gritton arias playing on our sound system.

No champagne, unfortunately.

The cake, you'll recall, was pictured on the flyer (linked above.) We said, "We must have the cake!" Our baker said, "Yes! No problem!" followed by, "No cake for you without official written permission from Putnam!" 24 hours before the event. We panicked and sent several frantic e-mails and a slightly anxious Tweet. Robin, being thoroughly awesome, contacted her editor and got us written permission that night. The cake happened. And there was much rejoicing.

About 20 people came. No group photo, as people came and went.

When in doubt, the answer is ALWAYS Imaginary Lands.

*Addendum by Black Bear–I had NOTHING to do with this.  The girl next to me, whose name I fail to remember, was a whiz at the trivia.  I completely rode her coattails.

** And I can attest these brownies were amazing.  Just FYI.

Cargate

 

KILL ME* I AM SO FRELLING STUPID.  I RAN WOLFGANG INTO THE GATE AT THE MEWS.  ARRRRRRGH DOESN'T BEGIN TO COVER IT.  STUPID!  STUPID!!!!  STUPID!!!!!! 

            It was totally, totally, TOTALLY my own cretinous fault but there are one or two extenuating circumstances (sort of).  The drive into the mews is the long squiggly we're-an-IMPORTANT-county-family drive to the Big Pink Blot, which used to be the local big house** and therefore has to have a grand entrance to elide gracefully with the rest of the general pretension level.  The entire front wall that faces the road (from a judicious and dignified distance:  this is all about impressing the crap out of anyone approaching) is still there, including the brick pillars on either side of the gateway . . . and the gates.   The gates are just what you'd expect:  black-painted wrought iron with a few twirly bits.  They always stand open, and they open inward. 

            The drive is very badly lit.  That's very badly lit.  There are a lot of trees—and two faint point-zero-six candlepower lights set into the brick posts—on the outside.  They serve to make the entrance look like a good place to avoid—the sort of place M R James wrote stories about.***   They throw just-inside the gate into absolute darkness.  When you're on foot—perhaps flanked by two hellhounds—crossing that threshold after sunset is like walking into a wall.  We do it almost every day, this time of year.  Ugh. 

            Even during the day—or the so-called day, when it's overcast and January—the driveway, and especially the entrance, are murky.  It was overcast and January yesterday.  And I was thinking about the handbells† I was on my way from the mews back to the cottage to ring. . . .

            BANG.  Tinkle tinkle tinkle. 

            It was bad enough yesterday evening.  I knew I'd taken out a headlamp, and crunched the wing.  I got back to the cottage and immediately rang the garage.  They said Monday earliest even to get the parts.  And what I haven't told you yet is that I'm visiting a seriously-poorly friend on Tuesday—and I am visiting her, if hellhounds and I were going to have to set out tomorrow and walk all the way. 

            But it wasn't till this morning after the shock-horror part had worn off a bit that I took a really good look at poor Wolfgang's front end.  Whereupon I bundled hellhounds into the back and drove out to our old village, which is where our garage still is—and peering around nervously for policepersons, since I'm pretty sure we're illegal in this condition.  Blaze took a look at the situation and sent me back to the designated body shop, which is this ominous looking industrial estate/warehouse on the edge of New Arcadia . . . which looks like the kind of place Stephen King writes stories about.  There's also no door.  Having wandered whimpering in the general environs for a few minutes I eventually took a closer look at a battered, scuffed piece of detritus that wasn't quite a match for the rest of the wall and . . . it was the door.  Sign?  Label?  Doorknob?  Anything?  Ha.  That would have been much too easy.  I suppose this nonstandard approach to public relations does prevent them from being overwhelmed by work from a paroxysmal, inattentive public, but when you're already feeling a bit emotionally frail it does your head in.  Especially after I opened the magic portal and stepped into something out of the final battle in SUNSHINE only with more ambient dust.  When some fellow loomed toward me through the twinkling, toxic clouds, I almost screamed and ran away.

            Which would have been a pity, because he's a sweetie.††  He looked at Wolfgang and went ah, hmm, and I said, the car is sixteen years old, I just want it to run, and he said fine, we can do that.  And I said (pathetically), when?  And he said, well, we aren't doing anything urgent, I can get on the phone now about the parts, and . . . you can have it back Wednesday morning latest.  I breathed a deep sigh of 90% relief while the remaining 10% went into high gear about Tuesday . . .  And then he gave me the keys to the courtesy car.  There is a god.  At least a small, friendly one to do with absent-minded women who are too stupid to live.   Eep, I said.†††

            Windscreen wipers‡ here, he said briskly.  Lights here.  Everything's pretty straightforward.  Fill the petrol tank before you bring it back. 

            I was probably looking a little dazed.  You'll be fine, he said, patted the bonnet in a genial way, and disappeared back into the billowing whatsit‡‡.

            The very first thing I had to do is back up about a hundred yards, with a brick wall six inches to my left and a long queue of semi-derelict cars to my right and the gear box on my borrowed charger is weird, with all the gears sort of bundled down at the bottom somewhere:  once you've successfully made it into one gear the rest of them are more or less in the right place . . . but it's like a kid's drawing of a face, where all the features are crowded into the chin.  You expect eyes to be up near the forehead, the nose to be in the middle . . . my tiny blue rescuer also has the getaway force of a lame hedgehog—makes my sixteen-year-old Golf look positively frisky.  But the point is it exists.  And I didn't run into anything . . .  

            I now have to spoil this happy not-quite-ending with the tale of the frelling gate, but I think I'll save that for the next chapter.‡‡‡           

* * *

* I know you're not going to kill me till after I finish PEG II.^  Still.  Keep it in mind.

^ And the one theoretically next in the queue is ALBION, you know, the not-Sunshine-but-in-Sunshine's-world.  You might even want to wait after that one.  And the FORTY SEVEN NEXT DAMAR NOVELS of course.  And TAM LIN.  And NOT THE WICKED STEPFATHER STORY.  And . . . 

** They may have been important, but they had no taste.  And it's some kind of listed^, so the current co-op owners can't change much. 

^ http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/caring/listing/what-can-we-protect/listed-buildings/

Don't let English Heritage—who is in the business, after all—fool you.  Being listed is—or anyway can be—a nightmare.  Both the cottage and Third House are in a 'conservation area', which is to say the old centre of town, which is bad enough. 

*** You had better know who M R James is.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._R._James 

† Which is the real reason^ I was a trifle preoccupied during handbells last night.  Although we still got through bob major.  I would be much happier about the apparent/comparative rapid development of a bob major autopilot if this hadn't, of course, given Niall ideas.  I'm supposed to learn one of the inside pairs of bells for next Tuesday.^^  The trebles and tenors—the two outside pairs of bells (1-2 and 7-8 in major)—are easier.  That's easier, cough cough cough.  But an inside pair, so the 3-4 or the 5-6 . . . well, insert extreme metaphor here.   It's like expecting someone who likes to eat chocolate to buy a cocoa farm. 

^ Handbells are evil.  Make a note.

^^ Yes.  Extra handbells next week.   Supposing that my train back to Rumbelow, where the small blue charger will be sitting in the car park, doesn't spend an hour or two sitting in a siding/field somewhere.

†† He's even cute, if you go for the radical mechanic look.  The office is fabulous.  It looks like mine only with more tools^—although they have actual filing cabinets as well as the piles on every flat surface.  There was a large cardboard box labelled 1994 in the middle of the floor. 

^ Okay, and fewer books.

††† Actually, first I said, let me take the dogs home.  I'll be back in ten minutes. 

‡ It was sheeting with rain.  Just by the way. 

‡‡ There were also Strange Noises.  And I'm sure some of the parts lying around had nothing to do with cars.  

‡‡‡ As easy blog material goes, I could have done without this particular source.^ 

^ And I still haven't told you about last night's ghastly adventure, when WordPress refused to load my photos.  The NEW!  CAMERA! entry almost didn't happen.  Is Mercury retrograde or anything?

Camera, iii

 

Yup.  It arrived.*

It is, it is, it is. Yaaay.

I hadn't even started eating the wallpaper** or anything yet.  I should have taken a picture of the parcel, of course, but I didn't think of it in time:  I was too busy tearing into it because I was all primed for a meltdown, you know?*** and was therefore immediately convinced that the parcel wasn't heavy enough and I'd get in there and find a handful of Styrofoam munchies and some cardboard origami and . . . no camera. 

            Fortunately there was a camera.  I wasn't liking my vision of running (barefoot) down the street after the delivery van.  But the camera† genuinely is pretty tiny.  Somehow even the precise measurements on the page (or the camera-review site screen) don't translate into real thing in my mind, especially when I'm busy obsessing about the fact that it's two-thirds of a micron larger than whatever the next one in the size queue is. 

Oh, no! It's a lens cap!

And the real news?  It fits just fine in your pocket.  Don't camera reviewers wear jeans?  It fits in my pocket.  I think the significant point is that you're not going to want to put it in your pocket:  this is serious kit.  And speaking of serious kit, which is to say camera, the bad news:  there's a lens cap.  Groan.  I might as well order two dozen now and keep a spare . . . in my pocket. 

            I promised you—those of you other obsessives and/or anyone perhaps calmly and sanely†† in the market for a new camera—the skinny on this one.  Ajlr sent me the address of the site that sent this particular Panasonic immediately to the top of the chart:   http://www.cameras.co.uk/ and the specific review: http://www.cameras.co.uk/reviews/panasonic-dmc-lx5.cfm   This is, as Ajlr promised, a very reassuring site for those of us trying to get wet slowly and gently in the great heaving sea of camera reviews.

But eventually I took a deep breath and a stronger grip on my web-broadsword-equivalent, and took courage to read some of the longer, geekier reviews:  http://www.trustedreviews.com/digital-cameras/review/2010/09/19/Panasonic-Lumix-DMC-LX5/p1 ‡

Almost itty bitty.

http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/compact-digital-cameras/panasonic-lumix-dmc-lx5-review-49306130/ ‡‡

Bored yet?  Bored rigid yet?  No?  What's the matter with you?  http://www.photographyblog.com/reviews/panasonic_lumix_dmc_lx5_review/

http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/digital-cameras/1279717/panasonic-lumix-dmc-lx5

http://www.pocket-lint.com/review/4956/panasonic-lumix-lx5-camera-review

The lamp that the genie came in. Looks like a camera box. Very misleading.

         So.  Anyway.  I am sorry to report that I did have one or two other things I had to do today‡‡‡ so I have not learnt EVERYTHING about how to exploit the new toy to the top of her bent. § But I did go so far as to point-and-shoot The First Symbolic Photo.  Of course it's hellhounds.  And before you observe (loftily) that it's not quite in focus . . . this is, I guess, the Panasonic's infamous 'soft' jpeg habit, but their bed is nearly in the dark and the camera managed to take the photo in the available light anyway with the result that this is the first photo I've ever taken where they actually look like what I see.  I'm happy.§§  And I'm who matters. §§§

* * *

* As anyone who follows me on Twitter already knows.

** There is no wallpaper at the cottage.  Just paint.  And bookshelves.

This is where it starts getting surreal. Notes on identification. I needed the one about the digital camera unit. I might have thought it was a few styrofoam munchies if I didn't have instructions.

*** Or maybe you don't know.  I have noticed that I seem to use more italics, bold and CAPITAL LETTERS than most people.

†  THE.  CAMERA.  Speaking of capital letters and so on.

†† What?

††† I do get cranky sometimes when pundits start declaring that the object of their punditry is excellent in (almost) every way except it costs too much.  Everything costs too much.  Fancy kit costs too much by definition.  You brace yourself for this when you decide to go for the high end.  I suppose they're striking a blow for Jo/e Consumer who just wants a nicer-than-ordinary camera/car/Converse/coatimundi^, and sure, I wish my new darling cost about half what she did cost^^ but I find the standards the pundits are measuring by cryptic. 

^ I don't care!  Coatimundi is a much more amusing word than mere coati!  Why couldn't the scientists have decided in the other direction?

And those necessary instructions on How to Open a Cardboard Box. I'm sure the camera itself will be a snap after this.

^^ I did get a deal a lot better than the list price

‡ Anyone who does stick it out with any of the anorak corps reviews, be sure to read customer comments.  Half of them are seriously nuts and the other half are (usually) about really using the camera.  A well-informed anorak is an excellent guide.

‡‡ These guys, for example, seem to assume that as soon as you find out you could get a full-blown SLR for the price, you will rush out and do so.  I don't want an SLR.  I want the best single-lens compact I can get.

‡‡‡ Hurtle hellhounds in the rain, for example.  A uniquely rewarding experience.  Cancel the frelling washing machine man^ since the washing machine at present is only shooting everything sitting on top of it across the kitchen, which is a nuisance, surface area being, as you know, at a premium at the cottage, spilling a little water on the floor, and occasionally going tick-hiccup during the spin cycle when I'm standing there waiting for it to do something disallowed.  Arrgh.  There were also handbells.  I may not have had my total attention on the handbells this evening.  Please don't tell Niall.

^ No, he's a very nice washing machine man, and his wife and phone-answerer has obviously heard it all before and makes soothing 'mmhmm' noises at you.

§ AAAAAAAAUGH.  —You knew that was coming.

§§ Actually I'm more like amazed.  Clearly I really do have to learn to use this dazzling creature.

§§§ Ask me when I've struggled with the operating instructions a little more.

Awwwwwww. Hellhounds.

London, Editor, Train, etc

 

Yes, I made it to London.*  Yes, I met my new editor.  Yes, I am wholly and unutterably brain dead. YES MY NEW CAMERA COMES TOMORROW. **

            But you know the really important thing?  There was a WHIPPET on the train. 

            I was galloping, panting***, up the stairs to the London track and she was doing her Statue of a Classic Hound posture at the top—See Me, Worship Me—while the boring human with her was fishing for the ticket that would let them through the automated gate.  I didn't mean to follow them into the same car, but I couldn't help myself.  Whippet!  It's a whippet!  The train was pretty full, so when the seat behind them was empty I sat in it.†  The boring human took her—the whippet's:  the boring human was male—coat off, laid it on the seat, she jumped up, lay down, and that was it for the rest of the journey.  I kept thinking about my guys, who would be trying to mug all the other passengers.  While we were in the queue at Waterloo I did ask the perfectly nice young man in a hoodie—no one is really worthy of a whippet—if she was always this good, and he said she'd been sick first time but was used to it now.  And she trotted off serenely behind him on a loose lead.  I adore my hellhounds, but next time I want one of those. ††

            I had decided that given how crotchety the ME has been lately that I would take the morning slowly and go up just to have my cup of tea with my editor.†††  But by the time the frelling train finally got there I went snorting off the platform and sprinted across the pedestrian bridge in sheer fury.‡  Penguin UK is just about around the corner from Charing Cross—which is where the pedestrian bridge from Waterloo leaves you—so I went soaring in there and was awarded with a visitor's badge that said 'Robym McKinley' but fortunately no one examined it too closely.

            And my editor and I seem to have spent two hours talking about life and the universe.  If this was supposed to be a business meeting I think I just lost.  But she's from New Zealand, so we had a lot to discuss about living in a strange foreign country that sort of speaks your language but not really.  (You can tell she's not from around here just as you can tell I'm not.)  And we bonded over the excellence of British sausages. 

            I offer you photographic evidence that I have spent some time with someone recently. 

Couldn't resist this framing. The black wall is covered with framed books of Penguin's classic past. This one just happened to be well placed.

 That's one of the fabulous little cardigans Peter gave me for Christmas.‡‡  Oh, and that's also the black denim mini.  You'll have to take my word for it:  the full-length photos didn't come out.  I hadn't quite officially given up wearing it and then—I tweeted about this—the GUARDIAN magazine last weekend, in its fashion section, had a photo of an OLD WOMAN WEARING A MINI.  I couldn't find an on line link so I just had to shout about it.  And maybe wear one.  Now that I know it's a trend.  ‡‡‡

* * *

* In spite of the thirty-five minutes about halfway that the train sat in a siding.  This seems to happen to me a lot.^  Have I mentioned that they put the fares up again?  Return/round trip to Waterloo now costs over forty quid.  But no extra charge for unscheduled halts.

^ At least I could get a signal on Pooka this time.  But I was in a Quiet Car—no tech noise—so I had to text.  Hey! I've learnt to text.  The fellow in the seat behind me said sharply to the conductor, Who is that playing music?  This is a quiet car!  Tell them to stop.  —There was a pause, and the conductor said (politely) that he hadn't noticed anyone, but he'd be walking through the car again and would check.  I strained my ears and . . . okay, yes, if you're positively exerting yourself in your desire for trouble you could just about barely hear that slight hissy noise of someone's earphones overflowing.  Barely.  I was expecting this fellow to reach his arm through the armrest gap, grasp me hardily, and demand I stop with that over-loud screen tapping.   

**  Or better had, anyway.  Which means I have to get up tomorrow morning and wait quivering by the door.  And I do NOT want to lie awake tonight in a fever of dreadful anticipation.  The washing machine man comes tomorrow too.  Speaking of dreadful anticipation. 

*** I had FINISHING THE HAT with me—the Sondheim book—it's bigger than a laptop.  It's bigger than this laptop.  It's probably about four times the size of my little travelling laptop, which I left behind.  Even one of my knapsacks can stretch only so far.  Not to mention the stress fractures, and the making of holes in the pavement if you step carelessly.  

† The bloke with the oversensitive ears and the bad attitude was already wedged into his corner, curled up like one of Ali Baba's would-be thieves practising for his jar.  Yes, of course I wondered what his story was.  But asking didn't seem like a good idea. 

†† Yes, I know, he'd clearly put serious training into her.  But some dogs are naturally maniacs.  Our previous generation was a lot calmer than the incumbents.   Given that the grandchildren were little during the foregoing tenure, this is a good thing. 

††† The first thing that happened was that I cut myself without noticing and got blood all over my white shirt.  And then I may have mentioned the train sitting in a siding for thirty-five minutes . . . but that was only after we'd been drifting and stopping and drifting and stopping for a while.  We were finally fifty minutes late.  Good thing I wasn't going to the opera.  It was still not good for the blood pressure.   I kept looking at the whippet having a nice snooze and not worrying about train schedules.  Or cups of tea with editors. 

‡  It's kind of . . . interesting, having an adrenaline jag when your ME is in the ascendant.  You're not supposed to have adrenaline jags when you have ME:  one of the reasons you have ME is that your adrenals are exhausted.  I have no idea what the chemistry of the thing is, but I can tell you it feels like being taken over by an alien force, a Goa'uld, or some kind of zombie possession thing:  you know you are only marginally registering as alive, your entire body is made of bubble wrap and perished rubber bands^ and your brain is old grey soap suds and wet talcum powder . . . and suddenly you're boiling down the street leaping over slow pushchairs/strollers and zapping past gangs of hearty young men.^^  I confess to being a little worried what I'm going to pay for this tomorrow. . . .  

^ Aaaaaand you're carrying a knapsack that weighs about a third what you do.  But it's very comforting when you're sitting in a siding wondering if your train is ever going to move again, knowing that you have several days' worth of reading material with you+, and your second-worst preoccupation—the first being whether your texts are getting through to the person you're supposed to be meeting for a cup of tea—is how you're going to recharge your iPhone if you're here that long. 

+ Maybe I need to think harder about that ereader.  I haven't even quite put Kindle on Pooka yet.  Don't you sprain your finger, scrolling, if you try to read something on a screen that small? 

^^ Who are way too cool to do any more than amble anyway.  Not to mention being physically incapable of doing any more than amble in those trousers with the crotches around the knees. 

‡‡ But doesn't recognise when I wear it.

‡‡‡ Like I have ever in my life paid attention to a trend.  Well, I may if I like it.

Another blergy kind of day

 

I should have thought ahead and dragged something resembling a blog post together before we went out to dinner.  I'm now so full of excellent food I think my eyes are popping from the internal pressure and I don't bend in the middle very well which means sitting at a computer is slightly calamitous.  And then there's the Calorie Swamp in which my thought processes are all lost.  Thought . . . processes . . . unh. . . . *

            Yesterday was our anniversary but I . . . er . . . I went bell ringing.  No, no, it isn't as bad as it looks.  Or rather, it is, but it wasn't supposed to be.  I may have had a complete brain failure—it wouldn't be the first time—but as I understood it, one of Colin's some-time semi-beginners wanted to come to practise.  This last year or so this person is usually getting up at 4:30 am to catch the 5 o'clock train to London** but was at present still on holiday.  To drill someone who's just beginning to treble to methods you need five other ringers—there's not a lot of point in bothering*** with fewer.  So as I understood it I was agreeing to be one of the necessary five.  It was a reasonable assumption!  Colin's tower has been scraping for practise night ringers for a long time!

            And then there were nine of us.  I haven't seen nine at a South Desuetude practise in months.  Clearly I was being punished for making my husband sit home alone on our wedding anniversary.

            I really was punished too.  I couldn't ring worth a stale pretzel.  Rope?  I'm supposed to pull it?  Oh.  Gaaah.  I did get through a plain course of Cambridge with minimal shouting but I went wrong on a touch of plain bob doubles which is like falling off your tricycle. 

            But the truth is that the ME has been circling purposefully for a cosy midwinter visit.  I've been noticing brain function down at least since Saturday†, I made a shambles of service ring on Sunday morning††, I got eight hours of sleep Sunday night and was still barely walking yesterday†††, I got ten hours of sleep last night‡ and still only made it out of bed today§ because I have hellhounds.§§   And then I seem to have spent most of the day reading rose catalogues.§§§

            I'm conserving my resources, such as they are.  Because I'm going up to London tomorrow—finally, after cancelling I think three times—to meet my new British editor.  I AM NOT GOING TO CANCEL AGAIN.  At this rate the flapdoodling book will be out before I get up to London to say no, no!  You may not put a pink elephant on the cover!  Yes, I do like pink, but not in elephants!  In theory I'm going up a little early# to hit a show at some museum or other . . . in practise I may just tie my head on and wrap the rest of me in duct tape## and totter straight over to Penguin UK.   I'll tell you all about it if I am still speaking in complete sentences by tomorrow evening.## 

* * *

* Oh, who needs a brain.  There was champagne. 

** Some things even being wealthy can't make worth it.  Although in his case it might also have something to do with the wife and the several children. 

*** Unless of course you have fewer than six bells in your tower, or are one of these brave but insane bands who are teaching themselves to ring without any help from someone who already knows what they're doing. 

† But brain function always goes down when I have to make conversation with anyone but hellhounds and rose-bushes.  Georgiana and Saxon are lovely!  They still talk back!   Twenty years ago I think Peter thought I was joking when I said that my idea of company is someone else in the room breathing.  Don't talk to me for pity's sake!  Just sit there!  You can mutter to yourself if you like! 

†† There is usually more than one of us vying for the Sunday Morning Brain award for Most Closely Resembling a Liver Fluke however. 

††† Calling Dr Frankenstein, I need a rezap, and I need it badly. 

‡ I do not sleep for ten hours.  Ever.  Except when the ME is sitting on my chest like an incubus.  —I feel that the enduring myth of the incubus has at least as much to do with the fact that ME has actually been around for centuries and isn't a brand-new thing at all, as it has to do with the terrified male preoccupation with the idea that women are sexual creatures on their own authority.  I'm sorry to be missing the fantastic sex part of the legend however.  Exhaustion alone isn't at all interesting. 

§ I won't say 'this morning'. 

§§ Hellhounds:  beasts of multitudinous practical applications.  If I stayed in bed any longer I'd get bedsores. 

§§§ Except for the hours I spent reading reviews of digital photography books.  And cruising a few how-to sites, links helpfully sent by various of you digital photographers, for which thanks I think.  I tweeted about this—and the rose catalogues—I mean, of course there's a connection, MY NEW CAMERA IS ARRIVING THUUUUUUUUURSDAY, THAT'S LESS THAN FORTY-EIGHT HOURS AWAAAAAAAAAY, and some frelling helpful follower promptly sent me half a dozen rose-nursery links.  I KNOW.  I KNOW ALL OF THEM.  Well, I know all of the English ones, probably all of the British ones, one or two in Ireland, and quite a few in America.  I admit I try to draw the line before it reaches Australia.  I can fake some comprehension of growing roses in parts of the US—Australia . . . Australia has kangaroos and kookaburras.  Australia is another planet.^

            Anyway.  I now know slightly more about digital photography than I did yesterday.  Whether any of it will apply to the little black/silver thing that comes out of the box Thursday morning . . . only approximately thirty-four more hours will tell.^^

^I've been to Australia.  Twice.  I loved it.  It's still another planet.  

^^ I also seem to have two digital photography how-to manuals coming in the post.  I know, I know, but I'm old, I need the comfort of hard copy.  Also, I had to order THE MISLAID MAGICIAN, didn't I?+  And since I know the blog is full of knitters, and not all of them may read the forum, please attend to something blondviolinist commented in response to last night's book report: 

Confession: one of the reasons I like THE GRAND TOUR [which is the second in the series] is because Cecy & Kate use their knitting for coded communication. (Wrede is a knitter.) What can I say? Yarn as spy paraphernalia. It makes me happy.   

It makes me happy in prospect and I'm not even a knitter. 

+ Maybe I didn't have to order A MATTER OF MAGIC or WHEN THE KING COMES HOME . . . but I did.  Hmm.  Didn't I say something about not ordering any more books while I work off the price of the frelling camera—?

# Since I have a dog minder to attend to the hellhounds

## It won't show under the heavy cotton tights.  

### Er . . . this blog post is written in complete sentences, isn't it?  . . . Mostly?

And Now for Something Completely Different

 

Two books from opposite ends of the spectrum of the fabulous, the fantastic, the radically silly and the absurd: 

SANDMAN SLIM by Richard Kadrey is dirty, disgusting, vulgar, violent, poisonously testosterone-driven, so politically incorrect it ought to be prosecuted, and generally all-round offensively in your face.  Do not be sniggering over this one during your coffee break if the boss likes to cruise round and peer over people's shoulders.  Don't read it even in the guest room at sweet little Great Aunt Gladys':  I think the miasma that wafts off the pages when you open it would slink under the door, dissipate through the rest of the house, and make her cry.  I loved it.  It's amazing.  I think I may have thrown up a few times but what the hell.

            Hell.  Exactly.  Our . . . er . . . hero isn't quite the word, and protagonist sounds like something you could discuss in English lit class.  I don't think so.  Narrator.  Okay.  We're good with narrator.  Our narrator wakes up in a pile of burning garbage:  'My jeans are a little crispy, but the heavy leather of my jacket protected my back.  I'm not really burned, just singed and in shock.  I probably hadn't been on the fire too long. . . . Otherwise I might have crawled back into this world and ended up a charcoal briquette in my first five minutes home.  And wouldn't those black-hearted bastards down under have laughed . . .'  Our narrator has been in hell for the last eleven years, working for Azazel, Lucifer's second-favourite general.  'They always had me fighting weird animals.  I didn't know for a long time that it was another Hellion insult.  They made me a bestiari.  It was a Roman thing—a fun way to use their dumbest, gimpiest, most cross-eyed fighters.  Bestiari weren't good enough to fight people, so they fought animals.  Why waste a human gladiator on someone who had just as good a chance of cutting off his own leg as stabbing his opponent?  Plus, it was fun watching bears eat retards. . . . except for Lucifer and his generals, most of Hell's troops make the Beverly Hillbillies look like the Algonquin Round Table.'

            You'll know pretty soon if Kadrey and his narrator are for you or not.  You should already be getting the flavour.  '. . .  [Hollywood] Boulevard is only ever real at night when it's both bright and black and there are promises hidden in every shadow.  It's like it was designed and built specifically for vampires.  For all I know, it was.

            'Yes, there are vampires.  Try to keep up.'

            Our narrator—James Stark, but you should lose the James if you want to go on living—was sent Downtown by his old Circle:  six magicians whose egos got bent out of shape by Stark's anarchic brilliance.  So the chief guy, with help from some of the others, posted him—live—to hell.  He was supposed to stay there.  He wasn't supposed to survive—or come back and start hunting them down for a little payback.

            You've been warned.  But you're missing a treat if you decide to stick with Milton and Dante.  Even the acknowledgements are worth reading:   'Thanks especially to Tom Waits for letting me carjack some of his beautiful lyrics.  If I die first, you can have my bones for a xylophone.'  The nearest thing to a heroine is a particularly icky monster trying to go straight with help from a doc equipped with a kind of monster methadone, but she reverts to type when Stark needs some help in the serious rending and maiming line.  In the midst of battle she is described thus:  '[She] isn't using the guns any more.  She's back to teeth and claws, a meat grinder in tight jeans and Chuck Taylors.'  Italics mine.  But I wish to point out that the All Stars reference doesn't happen till page 325.  I was well and truly hooked long before.

Then there's SORCERY AND CECELIA OR THE ENCHANTED CHOCOLATE POT by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer.   How did I frelling miss this?  It came out in 1998, for pity's sake.  Have I been living in a vegetable bin all that time?  Slightly in my defense it has done some wandering in and out of print, because I've tried to buy it at least twice while I was staying in the houses of friends who expressed shock and horror that I didn't know it, but when I was hustled down to the local bookstore to put this sad state of affairs to rights, it not only wasn't on the shelves, it wasn't available.  In at least one case I remember the bookseller getting fairly expressive about this culpable error on the part of its publishers.  But there are lots and lots and lots of books in this world that need reading, and I kept forgetting about it.  I remember trying to order it at least once on my own imperative and was informed that it was just up there on the screen, that didn't mean I could buy a copy and take it home with me.  I'm so naïve.

            And then Amazon recommended it to me.  Amazon, you little freller.  I usually do pass a casual eye over what it thinks it might sell me when I'm in there looking something else up* but I rarely pursue any of their suggestions;  I can come up with a list of 1,000,000,000 must-reads for the year without any help.  But one day, from out of the pixelline mists, there . . . there was SORCERY AND CECELIA.  I ordered it on the spot, clinging, in an interweb, virtual sort of way, to the material details, like Janet hanging on to Tam Lin while the Faerie Queen turns him to a snake and a burning brand . . . and this time I succeeded. 

            Most of you have already read it, I'm sure.

            It's Georgette Heyer with magic.

            Any of you who haven't read it are now clicking away from this page to your favourite book-ordering site, right?  Good plan.  Excellent plan.  SORCERY is totally charming.  It's darling.  It's chocolate without the calories.  It's the kind of floaty frivolous fluff that makes you feel clever and refreshed and inspired at the end of the last chapter rather than embarrassed and furtive that you've just wasted several hours of your life on it.  I will doubtless read it again. 

            And just in case you need any further encouragement—you don't need to hear about the plot, do you?  Kate and Cecelia—Cecy—are cousins.  Kate's in London having her Season, and Cecy is at home in the country:  'It is dreadfully flat here since you have been gone, and it only makes it worse to imagine all the things I shall be missing.  I wish Aunt Elizabeth were not so set against my having a Season this year.  She is still annoyed about the incident with the goat, and says that to let the pair of us loose on London would ruin us both for good . . . Not that we are without amusement in Essex . . . Aunt Elizabeth and I called at the vicarage yesterday and spent a stimulating afternoon listening to the Reverend Fitzwilliam discoursing on the Vanities of Society and the Emptiness of Worldly Pleasures.  Aunt Elizabeth hung on every word, and we are to return and take tea on Thursday.  I am determined to have the headache Thursday, if I have to hit myself with a rock to do it. . . .'

            But if you needed any further encouragement than 'Georgette Heyer with magic', let me offer you this paragraph, which still makes me giggle with delight:  'For gossip, I know I can trust the fertility of your imagination to produce suitable material to amuse Aunt Elizabeth.  To leaven your accounts, you may wish to use a few of the following details:  The notorious poetess Lady Caroline Lamb continues to scandalise society with her exploits.  Lord Byron continues to scandalize Lady Caro with his uninhibited attempts to rekindle their affair.  (Forgive me if my blunt language puts you to the blush.  That's what gossip is for.)  Young men of temperament . . . continue to dress as Lord Byron does, in the hope that, since Lady Caro modelled her famous Corsair on her friend in happier times, stylish dishevelment will give them Corsair-like appeal to young ladies of temperament.'

            Hee hee hee hee hee.**         

* * *

 *This came up on Twitter a day or two go:  yes, Amazon regularly recommends Robin McKinley to me.  But then it knows me as Robin McKinley Dickinson.

** Okay, okay, anyone who isn't an old reprobate English lit major:  in this world, Byron was the famous poet, and Lady Caroline Lamb the madwoman who refused to believe their affair was over and got up to all kinds of wild—and pathetic—tricks to try to re-interest him.  I've always found it a depressing as well as a sordid story.  I love Byron's poetry, but he was not a nice man.  And poor Caro was nuts.