Ragamummages and Princesses
In the Antryg & Joanna novella "Corridor" I mention creatures called Ragamummages - the things your cats stare at, when they're staring at the ceiling in the twilight. For the invention of these I credit George Alec Effinger, who said he always wanted to use them in a story but never found the right place to put them. He and his first wife, Diana, came up with them, he said. Mummages are small and invisible, like insects, but cats can see them, and when they die, their skeletons become visible as dust-bunnies under the couch. (I'm sure George wasn't the first person to come up with a theory of what it is the cat stares at - I think HP Lovecraft did something similar, and who knows how many other fantasy writers in between. Certainly my cats watch and stalk - and apparently occasionally catch - mummages all the time.)
The second of my two Princess stories is almost done. This is a Sun WOlf and Starhawk tale, which I'd hoped to release simultaneously with Corridor. Having grown up on Fairy Princess stories - especially the gorgeous Disney feature cartoons like Cinderella, Snow White, and SLeeping Beauty - I have an interest in the "topos," as my Renaissance Lit professor termed it: the trope, or meme, or whatever you call a recurring image/idea, of the lovely Princess around whom the action of the tale centers. What's actually going on with these girls? I had two Beautiful Princess stories in mind, one of which, the John Aversin story "Princess," is already on the website. The second, "Fairest in the Land," is another take on Beautiful Princesses, with Sun Wolf stepping in as rescuer and not too happy about it - it should be up before Christmas. It's been very good to be back writing the old scoundrel, after all these years.
In the Real World, the semester is wrapping itself up. It's been difficult and VERY tiring, and of course now that the crunch is on to turn in the short-paper homework assignments, I'm sorting through the usual tangle of things that were plagiarized off Wikipedia and FreeEssays. At the beginning of every semester I explain, at length and with pictures on PowerPoint, what is and isn't plagiarism: DO NOT cut-and-paste and pretend YOU wrote it. Do they not listen? Not understand? Do they forget? Are they on meds? (A report a couple of years ago about drivers estimated that one in ten of your fellow motorists on the freeway are on some controlled or uncontrolled substance, so the ratio is probably the same for the classroom).
They're always so hurt - and so surprised - when I turn their little asses over to the Dean of Students (even though I told them at the outset that's what I'd do). What did they think was going to happen? It's not my job - or it shouldn't be, anyway - to guess what's going on in the student's life or head when they don't follow directions that are clearly given both orally and in the Class Syllabus.
And I need to repair or replace a substantial portion of my roof, so I guess the people who were going to get nice Christmas presents this year, aren't.
Fooey.
The second of my two Princess stories is almost done. This is a Sun WOlf and Starhawk tale, which I'd hoped to release simultaneously with Corridor. Having grown up on Fairy Princess stories - especially the gorgeous Disney feature cartoons like Cinderella, Snow White, and SLeeping Beauty - I have an interest in the "topos," as my Renaissance Lit professor termed it: the trope, or meme, or whatever you call a recurring image/idea, of the lovely Princess around whom the action of the tale centers. What's actually going on with these girls? I had two Beautiful Princess stories in mind, one of which, the John Aversin story "Princess," is already on the website. The second, "Fairest in the Land," is another take on Beautiful Princesses, with Sun Wolf stepping in as rescuer and not too happy about it - it should be up before Christmas. It's been very good to be back writing the old scoundrel, after all these years.
In the Real World, the semester is wrapping itself up. It's been difficult and VERY tiring, and of course now that the crunch is on to turn in the short-paper homework assignments, I'm sorting through the usual tangle of things that were plagiarized off Wikipedia and FreeEssays. At the beginning of every semester I explain, at length and with pictures on PowerPoint, what is and isn't plagiarism: DO NOT cut-and-paste and pretend YOU wrote it. Do they not listen? Not understand? Do they forget? Are they on meds? (A report a couple of years ago about drivers estimated that one in ten of your fellow motorists on the freeway are on some controlled or uncontrolled substance, so the ratio is probably the same for the classroom).
They're always so hurt - and so surprised - when I turn their little asses over to the Dean of Students (even though I told them at the outset that's what I'd do). What did they think was going to happen? It's not my job - or it shouldn't be, anyway - to guess what's going on in the student's life or head when they don't follow directions that are clearly given both orally and in the Class Syllabus.
And I need to repair or replace a substantial portion of my roof, so I guess the people who were going to get nice Christmas presents this year, aren't.
Fooey.
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