Jane Yolen's Blog, page 34
October 16, 2009
October 14-15, 2009:
I am feeling a bit frantic, a bit fraught. Too many bits and pieces, not enough time before book tour/conference season begins. This means I work on small things in a small way as well as big things in a small way. However, it is the method I have always used until (as Constant Readers of this Journal know) a single piece simply overtakes me and everything else gets set aside.
Specifically, I revised two more times the retold folktale SISTER BEAR and sent it back to the editor. I began...
October 14, 2009
October 12-13, 2009:
The ear, the nasal stuffiness, the raspy throat continued to plague me these two days, making a lot of stuff simply harder. Concentration shot because of labored breathing and a strange occasional clicking in my right ear which I found I could control by pressing on the lower part of the trigenimal nerve under my chin. Bizarre, but doable.
Heidi and I went for a morning at the Paradise City Arts Festival on Monday, and I actually bought stuff for me (for once)–an autumn coat (size small!!...
October 12, 2009
Interstitial Moment:
From a piece I wrote some time ago, the introduction. It says a lot about my love of Scotland.
A few years ago, friends of mine in St Andrews dubbed me a part–time Caledonian because I live in Scotland 4-6 months of the year. Actually, I was a Scotophile even before setting a foot past Hadrian's Wall. But unlike my husband and children and grandchildren, I do not have an ounce of Scottish blood in me, though there may be Scandinavian through the Ukraine connection, because Kiev was a great...
October 11, 2009:
Another not quite great night, jetlag and fighting with time changes will do that. After all, I went backwards across a five hour time difference. I managed all of the pill routines and the eardrop routines, then gathered myself for a couple of hours of busy-work on the computer.
After this, I looked at some of the new books and things that had arrived in the last few weeks: first copy of the new edition of THE SEEING STICK. The illustrations this time around are completely different–and more ...
October 11, 2009
October 10, 2009
The saga continues. . .
Yes, I slept 8 hours in my Massachusetts bed. Solidly. Hardly moving. But the towel over my pillow was spotted wth more gunk dripping from my ear, and I could feel that it was wet. I could hear nothing. I needed to see the doctor ASAP.
Heidi made the appointment for 9:45 a.m. and drove me over. The doctor cleaned up my ear, and said, "Yep–I can see through past your eardrum. No question about it. It has burst." When I asked why there had been no pain and yet the...
October 10, 2009
October 8-9, 2009:
To tell you right up front, I am home in the US, safe, though with no thanks to Delta who must have the single most screwed up system in Airline history. This is not a fun story to relate.
Thursday was my day-before-leaving-Scotland routine. It was complicated by work on the chimney and visits by lots of friends wanting to say goodby. But all doable. I was going to have dinner with Debby and Bob, and then Debby was planning to come by Friday morning at 8 to drive me to the Edinburgh airport...
October 8, 2009
October 7, 2009
I spent the morning packing away the majority of stuff for my move back to the States. Big things–the rest of the clothing, the research books I will need Stateside. Small stuff from the bathroom, jewelry, finding my various checkbooks and cheque books.
My friend Peter from the Borders came late afternoon. We went for Afternoon Tea at Rufflets and a walk in the elegant garden afterwards, then a bit later out to dinner at The Doll's House. Talking, talking, talking. And then he went off home...
October 7, 2009
October 6, 2009:
A Dealing Day. No, no, not drugs. What are you thinking? Dealing as in: I was dealing with stuff all day. Stuff like early packing for the trip back to the States. Stuff like helping out Bob Harris on his next steps for his writing career. Stuff in town like banking and cleaners. Stuff like saying goodbye with tea and sympathy to my friend Elaine whose husband died this summer of a terrible cancer. She and I have been having these "What lies ahead" conversations since Jim's illness last...
October 6, 2009
Interstitial Moment:
Poems are coded messages of fact and emotion. Did you know that poems were actually used in World War II as the base for the SOE, Special Ops Executive codes that the Underground used in France and elsewhere. Agents' ciphers hinged on poems, and one of the most famous was written by Leo Marks for his fiancée who died in a plane crash. When Marks was in SOE, he gave this poem to the beautiful French agent Violette Szabo to use as her cipher before she was dropped into occupied France in 1944 w...
October 5, 2009
October 5, 2009
My voice is truly lost. A nasty whispery rasp. I have been dosing with tea and soothing drops, I have mostly been silent. I hope this goes away soon.I am a voluble sort and have a lot of people to say goodbye to.
Andrew Peters and I worked all day on getting together a proposal for a new collection of poems after having our Poetry Peeps send us some appropriate ones. If the book is picked up, we will then make a broader call to all our writer friends.
I had tea with Debby and her...
