Robin McKinley's Blog, page 187

Guest post by Jeanne Marie

I know we're due the second half of Jodi's spinning post.  But this just in, and . . . well, read on. –ed.

A Modest Proposal 

My boyfriend, Hero, and I have been seeing each other* since the Summer Solstice.  Mutual meeting of parents has occurred, as has much talk of the Big M-Word, and hopefully some time spent dating in the same city. We even looked at and tried on rings over the Thanksgiving break. 

Adding to the amusement is that Hero's 40th birthday was coming up.**  I woefully told Hero t...

My husband the OBE

  

 

Or, Peter's Birthday Adventure*

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The OBE and his wife

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, long-term readers will remember that Peter was on the Queen's Birthday Honours List last June with an OBE for Contributions to Literature.**  And that then he had to loiter and dally, waiting for the royal summons into the presence for the object itself to be bestowed.*** 

           

 

The object itself.

 

 

 

 

 

But when the invitation finally arrived it was to Windsor Castle, not Buckingham Palace.  In the first place . . ...

Squealing

 

This came in my email today and I love it so much I have to show it to you: 

 I just want to say that I love your books* and look forward to reading your new ones in the future**. I have just finished reading Chalice and was wondering if you might be planning or writing a squeal in the near future? Hope all is going well with Pegasus and you finally get some sleep. Have a Happy Holidays*** and a bright New Year!†

 It is particularly apropos as I lurch and stagger toward that...

Post-human

 

I'm not sure I'm recognisably human this evening.*  I've had about seven hours' sleep in the last forty-eight** and I'm at that stage of tiredness where I find myself, for example, out with hellhounds for their second hurtle and trying to remember where I am, what I am doing, which way I am going and why I seem to be in the process of being drawn and quartered by invisible demons.***

            PEGASUS† however grinds on.††  I'm so near the end by now, despite the disagreeable distractions o...

Sunday evening . . . unnnnngh

 

I should be working on PEGASUS. 

            In the first place, I am very short of sleep.  No, no, I was all ready to go to bed at the proper hour last night, erm, early this morning.  I was just moving the current bathtub book* from the side of the bath, and muttering to myself as I dried it off**, to the bedside tor, because until I finish PEGASUS I apparently need light frivolity last thing at night:  mostly I read homeopathic journals in the bath*** and large insufficiently...

Guest Post by Jodi Meadows

A continuing epic adventure of socks and spindles and fanciness

Part two point five: THE SPINDLING (demonstration)

Alternate title: In which I completely lose control over my numbering system.

If you missed or forgot the previous posts in this series, here are links for The Yarning and The Spindling part one.

Some of you might have gone to look at Abby's videos (linked in the last post) for a spinning demonstration. Yay if you have! Since she (unknowingly — creepy!) taught me how to spin, I do...

Chapter Something

 

It has not been a great few days.  I managed to fall down on level ground, cold sober, and without assistance from hellhounds—my feet just went out from under me, WHAM.*  One of those where you have no recollection of falling, you know?  One moment you were upright and the next minute you're horizontal, and you hurt.  Although I acknowledge it makes a graceful shape, I wish to protest the evolutionary choice of the middle finger being longer than its fellows:  when you stretch your hand out ...

I should be . . .

 

I should be reading PEGASUS.

            Last night on Twitter I posted:  MY EDITOR HAS JUST JUST CHOPPED TWO DAYS OFF MY DEADLINE. AAAAAAAUGH. ::frenzied readjustment daily page count:: *

            I'm already strung like piano wire.  Twangle.  Twangle. **   What's the melting point of piano wire?  TWO DAYS?  I'VE JUST LOST TWO DAYS?

            And some poor well-meaning person, trying to be reassuring, responded to my Twitter cry:  it's only a readthrough!  It's not a rewrite!

            A...

. . . And a few cavorting* hellhounds

 (PS:  I am a MORON.  This was supposed to go AFTER B-twin's mini-pupdate.  But it's late and I'm tired and I rang BRISTOL tonight which is very, very, very scary**, and I didn't remember to post BACKWARDS and I'm afraid to delete B-twin's because Wordpress will probably say 'well if that's the way you're going to behave' and delete the original too.  So.  Anyway.)

 

Remember that I'm taking blind photos of tiny little spots streaking across the landscape, and I get home, stick my camera's...

Guest blog – mini Pupdate

from B-Twin

Belle's pups are 6 months old. They are bouncy, energetic, super-smart and entirely loveable.

Brighid (aka "Big Girl")

Brighid is pretty level-headed for a young dog. She thinks about everything. Has worked out that if you rush up to someone then sit beside them that you get patted. She also weighs a ton. LOL (I'm reminded of the line in The Princess Bride movie "On the Brute Squad? You ARE the Brute Squad." *snork*)

Belle and Bramble

Bramble (left)  loves her mummy. Actually, Bramble ...