Back from the Outer Darkness
I'm one of those who has been cut off totally from lj, unable to post or comment, so we'll see if I can post this at all. I've been trying all week.
My word count for the Clarion Write-a-Thon last week was somewhat direly low, at 878 words for the week. I had an editing job come in, my niece is in town, and there was Coolergeddon, in which I was not able to get anyone official to fix my broken evaporative cooler, but a friend nobly offered to do the job--and had to come twice because the first fix didn't stick. (All those dust storms clogged up the innards but good.) But mainly, when it came time to write, I was researching instead. Necessary side effect of writing historicals, even alternate ones. We're picking up speed again this week.
Here's what just happened, because I couldn't resist:
"If there's a drug that brings back the dead, I'd like to know which agent of the Devil they're buying it from, because surely no Christian man would touch such a thing."
There has been bloggage, too. I riffed off this amazing lj post in a sort of Horseblog (but this time mainly writerblog) at Book View Cafe. These are thoughts I've been trying to articulate for years. Still pondering some of them.
Throughout all this I have been experimenting with a form of discipline. Mostly it involves going to bed scrupulously before midnight--which can be hard because my brain wakes up for writing around 4 p.m. and wants to work until 1 or 2 a.m., but the rest of me has horses and freelancing and chores and such and by 10 p.m. it's done for the day. So, I'm trying out a little forced brain-waking, and working Pook in the mornings before breakfast (his and mine), then in the evenings I have a little time for the others, if it's not storming. If the sun wakes me up when it comes up, I might as well use the time. Not every day; some days I really do need to stay horizontal until the horses start to get demanding. But often enough that Pook is on an actual regular schedule, mostly. Allowing for weather, of course.
It's been an excellent monsoon so far. Almost 5 inches of rain here since the 4th. Occasional breaks in which the humidity isn't quite so bad, which means the coolers work for a change, and the mornings are beautiful.
This morning we actually managed a lesson.
I'm quite a bit stiff, of course, with the humidity. Today is one of those lovely breaks when it's relatively not-hot and not-humid, which meant it was beautiful in the early morning. He was feeling mellow, I was borderline functional, we did a little groundwork (rocking back/collecting/engaging in hand), then I mounted and we took it from there. The exercise was to engage and collect in walk, then lengthen, then collect, back and forth. Next step was to do so in counterbend on a circle. Counterbend made him (and me) find it a little more challenging to fall on his favorite right shoulder.
Step three was to add in halts between the collection and the lengthening. Still in counterbend. Get the collected walk really up and energetic, keep the energy in the lengthening, make sure the halt was good and forward and engaged in between. Then, step four: add in trot. In counterbend. For him, the best setup was from collection to halt to trot to halt to lengthen. Collectamatic, there.
Left side, challenging. Right side, easy. Too easy--so round five was all of this in shoulder-in. When we had it going right, we did it going left. Engage/collect through core, keep it all going with the seat, rein for support, leg for increasing energy. If he wants to fall on a shoulder, open the rein. He'll try to snooker me into bringing it across his neck so he can lean on it.
Round six, for homework, will be haunches in, and when he has that, we incorporate canter departs. I have Issues with that, but we shall overcome.
We wore out the pony. Physically he's awesomely fit--he never breaks a sweat except under the saddle--and he felt wonderfully strong in the exercises, but when we stopped, he unreeled his neck and turned into a puddle. Worked his brain too hard, we did. But he was happy.
My word count for the Clarion Write-a-Thon last week was somewhat direly low, at 878 words for the week. I had an editing job come in, my niece is in town, and there was Coolergeddon, in which I was not able to get anyone official to fix my broken evaporative cooler, but a friend nobly offered to do the job--and had to come twice because the first fix didn't stick. (All those dust storms clogged up the innards but good.) But mainly, when it came time to write, I was researching instead. Necessary side effect of writing historicals, even alternate ones. We're picking up speed again this week.
Here's what just happened, because I couldn't resist:
"If there's a drug that brings back the dead, I'd like to know which agent of the Devil they're buying it from, because surely no Christian man would touch such a thing."
There has been bloggage, too. I riffed off this amazing lj post in a sort of Horseblog (but this time mainly writerblog) at Book View Cafe. These are thoughts I've been trying to articulate for years. Still pondering some of them.
Throughout all this I have been experimenting with a form of discipline. Mostly it involves going to bed scrupulously before midnight--which can be hard because my brain wakes up for writing around 4 p.m. and wants to work until 1 or 2 a.m., but the rest of me has horses and freelancing and chores and such and by 10 p.m. it's done for the day. So, I'm trying out a little forced brain-waking, and working Pook in the mornings before breakfast (his and mine), then in the evenings I have a little time for the others, if it's not storming. If the sun wakes me up when it comes up, I might as well use the time. Not every day; some days I really do need to stay horizontal until the horses start to get demanding. But often enough that Pook is on an actual regular schedule, mostly. Allowing for weather, of course.
It's been an excellent monsoon so far. Almost 5 inches of rain here since the 4th. Occasional breaks in which the humidity isn't quite so bad, which means the coolers work for a change, and the mornings are beautiful.
This morning we actually managed a lesson.
I'm quite a bit stiff, of course, with the humidity. Today is one of those lovely breaks when it's relatively not-hot and not-humid, which meant it was beautiful in the early morning. He was feeling mellow, I was borderline functional, we did a little groundwork (rocking back/collecting/engaging in hand), then I mounted and we took it from there. The exercise was to engage and collect in walk, then lengthen, then collect, back and forth. Next step was to do so in counterbend on a circle. Counterbend made him (and me) find it a little more challenging to fall on his favorite right shoulder.
Step three was to add in halts between the collection and the lengthening. Still in counterbend. Get the collected walk really up and energetic, keep the energy in the lengthening, make sure the halt was good and forward and engaged in between. Then, step four: add in trot. In counterbend. For him, the best setup was from collection to halt to trot to halt to lengthen. Collectamatic, there.
Left side, challenging. Right side, easy. Too easy--so round five was all of this in shoulder-in. When we had it going right, we did it going left. Engage/collect through core, keep it all going with the seat, rein for support, leg for increasing energy. If he wants to fall on a shoulder, open the rein. He'll try to snooker me into bringing it across his neck so he can lean on it.
Round six, for homework, will be haunches in, and when he has that, we incorporate canter departs. I have Issues with that, but we shall overcome.
We wore out the pony. Physically he's awesomely fit--he never breaks a sweat except under the saddle--and he felt wonderfully strong in the exercises, but when we stopped, he unreeled his neck and turned into a puddle. Worked his brain too hard, we did. But he was happy.
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