Robin McKinley's Blog, page 188

More Singing.

 

Blondel gave me an effing lied to learn today—you know, effing German art song.  Schubert wrote a lot of them.  So did Schumann.  This is one of Schumann's.  Ugggggggh.  I'm afraid of lieder . . . in a way, curiously, that I'm not afraid of opera.  I may not be able to sing it* but I get it about going over the top.**  Lieder are about precision, not one of my talents in any medium, and understatement, not one of my . . . well.  Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sang a lot of lieder.  He scares me.  ...

Sunday morning

(This had been going to go up yesterday.  And then we went hurtling and the scenery won.  So I changed a few verb tenses and . . . )

I had about four hours' sleep Saturday night.  I turned the light out at a perfectly respectable hour*, or let's say a retiring hour I find appropriate to an alarm clock going off at 8 a.m. later that morning.   And then I didn't sleep.   After most of an hour of lying in the dark with my eyes burning with openness, I turned the light back on again.

           ...

Hampshire. December. Sunlight.

 

That's:  Hampshire.  December.  Sunlight. 

 

We're in the field, just by the way, rather than on the path, because the path is hip-deep.  And hip-deep is a conservative estimate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Blue!  Sky!  Fluffy!  White!  Clouds!

 

 

 

 

 

 Be still my heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 Mmmmmm.  This is one of those 'I live here' days.*

 

 

 

 

And a few hurtling hellhounds.

 

 

 

 

 In the next frame, which I didn't get, he's gonna nail yo' ass. . . .

           This is Darkness' standard ploy:  he waits till he can cut across Chaos...

Guest post by Black Bear

The Long Awaited Frogblog

I've been promising Robin a blog about my non-furry pets for nearly as long as she's been needing guestblog entries, and that day is finally here.  I'd been putting it off, partly because I knew I was going to move them to a new and better terrarium in the fall, and partly because I had a suspicion that the old terrarium would be…shall we say…recycled in some way?  At last both prophesies have come to pass, and so now it's my pleasure to introduce you to the dart...

The Long Awaited Frogblog

I've been promising Robin a blog about my non-furry pets for nearly as long as she's been needing guestblog entries, and that day is finally here.  I'd been putting it off, partly because I knew I was going to move them to a new and better terrarium in the fall, and partly because I had a suspicion that the old terrarium would be…shall we say…recycled in some way?  At last both prophesies have come to pass, and so now it's my pleasure to introduce you to the dart frog hobby!

The first obvious ...

Wet, wet, wet

 

 It's raining again.  Sob.* 

            Hard frost last night;  I have to get a new max/min thermometer, I like gloating over the news it brings.**  But Wolfgang's roof was white when hellhounds and I ambled out to go back to the cottage*** and I drove home very gently.  And then we had a lovely blue, sunny hurtle this morning† and I spent most of the afternoon bent over the computer and ignoring the increasing darkness outside the window †† and when I took hellhounds out before tower...

My Head Is Spinning

 

I spent an hour and a half on the phone with Merrilee today.  She had an agenda.  She's having a meeting with a bunch of publishing people next week and McKinley is on that agenda.  And I think she still has fantasies of turning me into . . . well, I'm not sure.  I start glazing over when she goes into Manhattan Business Mode.  I live in a small town in Hampshire!  I spend my life covered in hellhound hair and MUD!*  Yes, I write stories!**  Then someone takes them away and makes them into b...

The Teckel Housekeeper – Guest Post by Lucy Coats

Hero was always destined to be my Writer's Dog (along with taking part in all those sporting activities like pheasant-finding which she's still too young for yet).  What I didn't realise (having never had a half-grown teckel before) was how useful she would be in the housekeeping department.  Well, I say housekeeping.  It's more hoovering, really. It started with the Exploring of the Computer (and meeting Robin's picture.)  Hero is, of course, a teckel of impeccable taste when it comes to...

Skyscrapers

I can't remember if I told you that a web incarnation of the big trade mag Publishers Weekly, PW Daily, was going to be so fortunate as to display two 'skyscraper' ads for FIRE and WATER.  My editor sent them to me a little while back, saying that they'd be going out yesterday.  Immediately on point for possible blog material I asked if I could post them here the day after, and she said yes.  Aren't they pretty?*

* Well, we didn't have lo-text Monday this week, because we were going to have lo...

The long version

 

Since my NaNoWriMo* 'pep talk' manifestly went out several days ago** and today is the last day of the nationally novel-writing month of November, this seems to me a suitable day to hang the original long version here.  I assume the short version is or will be up on the site somewhere–I'm not sure when they hang the current year's–but this is what I originally wrote, before I had pointed out to me they only wanted 800 words.***

* * *

As I write this less than twenty-four hours before...