Forrest > Recent Status Updates

The urging to plan a particular, regular time to create and the notion that creativity comes and goes hit particularly hard. So, I'm contemplating how or when to do a regular practice, knowing that sometimes my work will be crap, sometimes it will be brilliant. Either way, I need to be more intentional in providing myself regular opportunities to engage with my writing passion.

I don't think I will finish this in the next two weeks, which is a shame. I'm headed for Europe for a week of work, then a week of mostly walking in The Netherlands and Belgium. I won't take this book with me, in all likelihood, as I will want to be concentrating on my own walking.

Lots of little gems in this book.

I can already tell I'm going to have a lot of notes from this book.

This Wordsworth fellow . . . I think I should read some of his poetry, maybe.

Strange to trace the development of "nature" walks over time. The differences in attitude toward natural paths versus groomed walkways, along with differences among class perceptions of landscape and walking itself, not to mention regional preferences, show a more variegated landscape than the modern reader might expect.

Okay, so that's how you overthrow a galactic empire and establish your rule. Got it. Helpful information, just in case . . .

I need more labyrinth walking in my life.

I can't tell if this story is hitting it's stride or not. Time will tell.

I wondered when the Zhodani would come up. This is a textured cultural take on a small sliver of Zhodani society showing both the diversity that is possible in a society where there are no lies and all thoughts are transparent, while simultaneously showing the impossibility of such a society understanding a culture that dissembles, deceives, and lies.

I picked up a copy of "Le Livre Des Fourmis" today, so I'm back to having a physical copy of everything in my Want to Read list. Now to keep whittling that list down!

As I was listening to the skipping of an old scratched record (Jean-luc Ponty's "Cosmic Messenger" if you must know), I realized that the wincing I get from the choppiness of a skipping record is what I often encounter in Grain's prose. Either he's trying to cram too much into each sentence or there's something about the translation that makes it irksome. Splitting one sentence into several is a possible solution.

. . . a rumbling like from a squadron of unleashed poltergeists in the entablature.

This phrase has so many problems, I can't even begin to enumerate them. Well, maybe I can, but I really don't want to. Suffice it to say that I have more questions than answers about what is happening here.

An interesting start to the longest work in the collection, "The Path of Saint Mephis". I'm hoping this holds up as well as (most of) the other long works herein.

I finished the edits on my collection and sent them to the publisher. Boy, it is sometimes tough to have to stare your mistakes in the eye and fix them. I keep asking "how the heck did I miss that?" Oh, well, kill your babies and all that rot.