A day full of adventures

 

. . . which I think I don't want to risk hanging up here because I'm not sure how the more interesting ones are going to work out and—rather like not talking out the plot of a story you're writing, which might screw up the writing*—I don't want to talk out the story of my life just now.**  What if I'm right/wrong?  What if what I'm predicting is better/worse than I imagine?  What if a gremlin is listening?  Gremlins are always listening.  You don't want to give them any more help messing you over than you have to.***

            Last night I wrote that while I'd stumble to a halt pretty soon if there weren't indications that someone was actually reading this blog, why you were reading it I preferred not to think about too closely.  White_roses posted to the forum:

I'd say we read because it's a funnier-seeming spin on self-created havoc than we could make by ourselves. We can associate with you, and your issues, and the Yarn Collection/Multiple Project theories. Reading the blog lets us know that, while you create amazing literature, you're a regular person: insane, just like the rest of us. It creates a sense of kindred spirits, of friendship, even though we might never actually meet you.

Oh good.  (And thank you.)  That's what I'd like to think I'm doing.  And on days like today—when one of the things causing me to leave head-shaped marks on the wall is/are certain manifestations of the reader/writer credibility gap, frequently apostrophised here as Othering—I can use the frelling comfort.  I'm well aware that I have certain advantages, the chief one being that I'm a professional writer—I'm used to word-wrangling.  I'm also not raising any children, demonic little time-sucks that they are.  But the bottom line is that I'm a lot more like you than I am unlike you. 

            Insane, in fact, if you like.†

 * * *

* The usual reason expressed is that you risk losing the impetus you need to write it.  This may be true in some cases, but my own experience—and you will know that I don't talk about work in progress^—isn't about impetus per se, since a story that really wants to be written is a violent and impatient creature, but that you're hanging harness on something that isn't anything like tame enough yet for it.  Like a bad trainer you may force it to do something that it will, by that force, do clumsily, and which it would have done gladly if you'd given it a little more time and freedom to find its own way.

^ Barring the odd ARRRRRRRGH I'm going to get a job as a HAT CHECK HAG

** Speaking of the writer's life.  Allow me to proffer excerpts from two emails that arrived yesterday.

I am a children's librarian for a private school (ages 3-14). . . .  I have been reading your books for years, starting with Beauty and The Hero and the Crown, and passing them on joyfully to my students for over 23 years.  I have never written to an author before today, but I just couldn't help myself after finishing Pegasus this morning. . . . I read about 100 books for young adults every year and so feel qualified to say that I think this is your best work yet.  Thank you for hours of enjoyment.

 Purrrrrrrrrrrrrr. 

My name is Rglmmph and I am in 7th grade advanced english [ital mine, lack of init cap Rglmmph's] . . . and I have a few questions. First off, why is The Hero and the Crown so confusing? My english [sic] teacher already made us read 6 chapters and not to be rude,

I always like 'not to be rude'.  Not to be rude, but your heroine sucks pond scum.  Not to be rude, but DEERSKIN/SUNSHINE/DRAGONHAVEN is the dumbest book I've ever read in my life.  Not be rude, but Stephen King/Anne McCaffrey/Edmund Spenser did it better. 

but I have no clear idea of who the main character is and what the plot is.  

Seriously?  Six chapters and you have no idea who the main character is? 

. . . What should I do to better understand your book? I feel like every paragraph has more and more confusing stuff in it. Is there a particular way I should read this book? Should I just read the dialoge [also sic] or the details or both?

Usually when you read a novel you read all of it, yes.  Usually there's stuff you need to know in both dialog[u]e and, er, details.  But then advanced english has clearly changed a lot since my school days. 

*** One thing I can tell you though is that my voice lesson went far better than it had any business doing^, since one or two of the adventures earlier in the day had knocked me pretty sideways.  I went gimping in there thinking Nadia is going to get bored with me and my excuses^^ but in fact barring that I'd managed to leave the accompanist's copy of The Roadside Fire behind, which meant she couldn't keep an eye on what I was doing or play the melody to keep me on track, it went amazingly well.  (We worked on The Minstrel Boy instead, which I did have the copy of.)  If Oisin doesn't stop flapdoodling around on the flimsy excuse that he has 1,000,000,000,000 things to do already^^^ and get the New Arcadia Singers organised, I'm going to have to start singing on street corners or something.

            The other thing I can tell you is that we rang St Clements minor tonight in the tower.  St Clements is my new handbell trick—Colin and Niall and I rang it last Thursday, and very smug and self-satisfied I felt about it too.  Smug and self-satisfied is a really bad idea with Colin around, it brings out his Inner Tease (which is never all that inner anyway).  So he called for St Clements tonight to yank my chain, and my chain was duly yanked.  It's a whole frelling different thing on one bell in the tower.  It's a bit like walking down the same piece of street in All Stars with hellhounds for a hurtle, and in lady clothes without hellhounds to meet Peter at the Bard and Orpharion~ for dinner.  What you're watching out for and guided by are entirely different (do I have enough plastic bags if Chaos is in one of his Crap Factory moods?  Is that another dog?  Is that other dog off lead?   Did I remember to bring a crossword puzzle?~~  Is that mud?  Is it coming after me?).  It's still the same stretch of road. 

^ All you singers out there:  what's your opinion on dairy products?  Regular readers of the blog may remember my going off the nutritional rails with a sticky toffee pudding and ice cream at the Questing Beast with Tilda and Peter a fortnight and a bit ago.  I don't eat dairy because it blows up my digestion and gives me rheumatism, but I can usually get away with something like ice cream on my sticky toffee pudding if I don't do it more than about twice a year. But on this occasion it's taken up till a few days ago—so nearly a fortnight—before my vocal cords stopped feeling like they were coated in an unpleasant substance.  Nadia says that it's more likely that I've been having a head cold that never quite manifested, but that reactions to dairy this prolonged are not unheard-of.  

^^ Although she teaches school kids.  She's used to the often quite spectacular excuse-making faculty of the human animal. 

^^^ Who among us does not? 

~ I was going to use Rauschpfeife because it's supposed to be really loud and good for scaring people—there's a stop on the pipe organ called Rauschpfeife—but it being a woodwind it's probably not the best instrument for a bard.  The Bard, Accompanist, and Accompanist's Rauschpfeife, possibly.  It's kind of a lot to fit on the average pub sign though. 

~~ I've told you, haven't I, that Peter and I out for dinner tend to do American crossword puzzles together?   Somebody does across and the other one does down, and we take turns.  

† And no, I didn't stop at the yarn shop today.  Sigh.