Robin McKinley's Blog, page 195

7 October

 

ONE DAY.

. . . I was signing on to stick a guest post in, I'm late and exhausted and I have, of course, decided that PEGASUS is a disaster, and I was going to appear myself just long enough to write 'ONE DAY', tick tock tick tock . . . and something horrible has happened to the opening page.  Has it happened to all of you too, or is this a special treat for me the night before my new book is due which I have decided is a disaster?

Whimper. . . .

Summer in the Garden

Guest post by AJLR

I love gardening. I came to it relatively late, in the second half of my twenties, but since then I've been slowly learning how to grow different things, which plants prosper in particular conditions, how to keep things (mostly) alive and well and growing greenly. I'm fortunate in that I live in a part of the world – Southern England, right on the coast (about 300 yards from the sea) – that is friendly to a wide range of plants.

The garden that goes round our house is not...

6 October

 

TWO DAYS.  

Whimper.  I'm lurching* into whole new hitherto unknown and unguessed reaches of brain-friedness. **  Gosh, who knew?  Large lumpy grey landscape with a hissy little wind and bad footing.  And a slight smell of rancid grease.  Oh, and I didn't sleep last night again.***  Possibly you guessed.

            I'm still going to make it—make the deadline.  I had a major breakdown of faith last night—part of the reason I didn't sleep, always such a help in stressful conditions—but I've...

5 October

 

THREE DAYS.  

And . . . I am brain dead.  I am toast.  I am ash.  And behind on necessary-pages-got-through-today count.  I have produced Quality Page Tweakings . . . but not enough of them.  I really have cancelled my voice lesson this week—tomorrow—whimper—but I can't spare the two hours or the energy.  Very annoying really when I have spent some time* learning to shout HE WAS DESPISED!  (Are you hearing me?)  AND REJECTED! into gaps in the conversation.  (A man of sorrows!  And acquainted w...

4 October

 

FOUR DAYS. 

AND I'M BACK AT THE FRELLING BEGINNING AGAIN.  Just enough time for a sprint through the thing again, trying to claw the worst remaining inconsistencies out of the corners—the ones that glow in the dark:  the ones that don't can just stay there—and put (light-proof) bags over their heads, tidy up the hemlines, which people seem to keep putting their feet through,* and send out job applications to be a tissue-folder in a Kleenex factory.  AAAAUGH.   But at least I'm away from the e...

GUEST POST BY LIBRARYKAT

COMICS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS 

I've mentioned graphic novels so much in my comments and in posts at Pollyanna's Booklist that Robin asked me to write a little bit about them for all y'all. 

I've been reading comic books since first grade, I started by finding the comics in the newspapers when I was about five years old – and of course I watched so many cartoons on television (Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw, Snaggletooth, Mighty Mouse …).  It's getting real close to a half century o...

2 October*

 

Six days.** 

             And I have more mares' nests to unravel than I thought.  Damn.  The problem with mysteries is that they tend to be . . . mysterious.  So what is the cause of the incompatibility between pegasi and humans?  Is it real or is it villainy?  Yo, Story Council, don't you think it would be a good idea if I knew this now, instead of halfway through the second book?  The Story Council, who are all bureaucrats, are going to tell me, self-righteously, that if I weren't an...

1 October

 

Seven days.  For the next seven days everything but PEGASUS is a footnote. 

            I didn't go ringing last night*.  I cancelled handbells tonight.**  Although I admit I am going to try to go to tower practise tomorrow.***  And I got out in the garden for about an hour this afternoon† because even when your novel is due in seven days you can't stare at your computer screen for twenty hours straight.  At least not seven days in a row.  Actually, I think I did use to, but that was a long t...

The Last Day of September

 

 Out perambulating hellhounds this afternoon, passed a woman and her little boy.  Look at the dogs! he said, pointing at the hellhounds.

            Yes, said the woman.  How many dogs are there?

            Four, he said positively.

            I often feel that way myself.  Darkness and Chaos encompass multitudes:  any good mythology can tell you that.  Odin's horse has eight legs, Zeus showed up as a bull, why shouldn't my hellhounds be bipartite in some mortal-confounding manner?*  It...

Aggle redux, etc

 

 What I haven't been telling you is that the ungleblarging ME is back.  Sunday night I was thinking, mmphf, maybe I've overdone it a little* . . . and then Monday was a wipe.**   Bad.  Really bad.  Big major ick and bleeurgh which is the sound you make when you pour floppy and gasping off your chair.***  Sigh.  I spent all day Monday and this morning trying to convince myself to cancel my voice lesson this afternoon . . . and about noon-thirty today, having just tottered back in from a...