| The cost of cats |
[09 May 2008|06:08pm] |
There has been a fly in the house today. Between them, the boys have notched up one (1) box of eggs [Mac] and one (1) much-valued china bowl [Barry] in their frankly reckless pursuit of the thing. I would have hung up its trophy head regardless of the expense, but alas: Mac caught me the fly, but he eated it.
I do feel mildly revenged, though. Their tea-tin said "tuna flakes", but it wasn't. "Undifferentiated mush", I would have called it; in a restaurant, I would have sent it back. They're eating it anyway, and I'm sneering at them.
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| Learning new stuff |
[09 May 2008|01:25pm] |
Famously, I dislike research; equally famously, I love to learn new stuff. (One of these, you understand, is Wurk; the other is the satisfaction of curiosity, of which I have a catload.)
This morning, in the pursuit of New Stuff not unrelated to my last post (see how far I will go into the convolutions of syntax, in order to avoid any suggestion that I have been researching?), I learned that there is a profession called cosmetology, and that "In the United States of America, all states require barbers, cosmetologists, and most other personal appearance workers (with the exception of shampooers) to be licensed". It's the exceptions that prove the rules delightful; but I think we will forswear cosmetologists and keep all such work under the purview of a competent barber. What more or better licence could he want, after all, than the patronage of the Half-Emperor? (Don't say "the other half". I still haven't worked out what this means, but I'm fairly sure there isn't one.)
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| One of those things that happen |
[08 May 2008|11:09pm] |
So I was sitting in my bath, musing upon... Well, not musing upon anything much, really: listening to the radio, rather, as I do. Only it struck me suddenly that I'd quite like to write about the adventures of a barber who served the upper crust; and that would probably be a steampunky elite, which would add to the fun of it all; and - hey, could it be called...?
Yes, it can. I have googled, and the name apparently did come out of nowhere; for this little time, I guess I have made a Googlewhack.
The title and first line are:
I SHAVED HALF-EMPEROR CYRRHENIUS
These? These are the steadiest hands in the demi-monde.
[And don't ask me about these halves and demis, I haven't worked that out yet...]
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| My beginnings. Let me show you them. |
[06 May 2008|02:07pm] |
I don't talk much about process here, let alone structure, because I don't have the analytical approach to my own work, any more than I do to other people's. It's why I can tutor but I can't teach: I have a realm of practice and experience, and no theory at all.
However, even to someone as unstructured as I am in my approach, some things are obvious. My stories - many of my stories, most of my stories - tend to start the same way, with an abstract or dogmatic assertion ("The dead don't go away") followed by a paragraph of discursion ("They inhabit other people's lives, fragments of our own"). And then there's a line-break and we start again, introduce main character, setting, so forth. It's almost operatic: we have to have an overture, before the curtain goes up.
( This story appears to have three overtures. )
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| Best. Curry. Ever. |
[05 May 2008|10:01pm] |
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Well, maybe not technically the finest lamb curry ever made - but it may well be the finest that I ever made. It's sort of Rajasthani, with much garlic and onion and many dried red chillies (I used the 'Facing Heaven' variety that's actually Chinese, but hey, it's interstitial, 'k?), lamb still on the bone, cooked in a spicy yoghurt sauce, and I just didn't want to stop eating it. I'm sorry you weren't here to share - but then, if you had been, I couldn't have eaten so much and there wouldn't be any left for tomorrow, would there?
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| Well, this is interesting (I think?) |
[05 May 2008|07:28pm] |
Famously, I don't make notes of ideas as I have them. Neither do I, from choice, write synopses; I like not to know where a book is going, to discover the journey hand in hand with the reader, as it were. (This is for values of 'like' that include total panic at frequent intervals, obviously; I just think that for me, it makes better books. If I plan a story out, then I follow the plan like a route-march, which all feels a little mechanical; if I let it happen day by day, then there's a whole lot more that gets a chance to feed into the story, including all the character development as we go. Plot is what people do, and if people change en route then the plot can change with them, unhindered. Someone once said that being asked to write a synopsis for a book they hadn't written yet was like being asked to draw a map of a country they hadn't visited; I like that...)
Anyway. A while back, a year or more, I was writing a sort-of horror book for kids, at the same time as I was writing an SF novella for grown-ups, turn and turn about; but then rewrites for something else came in, and I had to put at least one of those projects down, so it was the kids' book that was set aside. I had just reached a good stopping-point, five chapters in; also I had just had the sudden revelation that made sense of the plot-thus-far, I knew at last just where it was heading.
So I wrote the novella, and then I worked on the rewrites, and and and; and I never got back to the kids' book till now. Where of course I realise that I have entirely forgotten that sudden revelation, and I now have no idea where the book was headed.
I worked through the extant 20K words, revising and cutting, to see if that would help; it did not. I didn't make notes, because I don't, and whatever that inspiration was, it is lost.
So this evening I went for a stroll to think things through, and came back with a totally other idea that works absolutely. Whether it works as well as the original, we will never know; but for certain sure this is not it, and for certain sure this works extremely well. Which I think is the first time I've ever had a significant chunk of book branch off in two contrary directions (it's one of those nodes in the multiverse, is what it is: somewhere out there is another world, where I did remember the original version...).
I think this is cool, and it totally justifies my shruggish attitude, "if I forget something lovely, hell, I'll just think of something else..." There is always another idea out there, waiting.
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| Cinco de Mayo |
[05 May 2008|12:37pm] |
It is the fifth of May, Cinco de Mayo, in which we commemorate the day the Mexicans, ah, held up the French for a little bit...
In celebration of which, of course, we make mayo. Dunno what to do with it, quite, as this morning's plan for dinner is that I shall make curries. Lamb curry and aubergine curry and dhal, I think.
And meantime it's a gorgeous day out there, warm and still and hazy, and I shall do a little yardwork, as I have a little yard. The chives are trying to flower, which I shall certainly not allow this early in the season. Chive-buds in the mayo, then...
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| One of our ingredients is missing |
[03 May 2008|08:58pm] |
I b'lieve I may have mentioned hithertofore, how I once made a mac-and-cheese but neglected to add the cheese? Well, I have now precisely mirrored that, by making a mac-and-cheese and neglecting to add the mac.
In my own defence, I should like to point out that there was also cauliflower and bacon and mushrooms galore, so the odd pasta shape was neither here nor there - well, specifically not there, until I was just about to add the tomatoes on the top. And then I did realise, and hastily stir in the orecchiete, so all was saved in the end. But still. Yup. Mac without the, um, mac...
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| Mushroom soup à la Chaz |
[03 May 2008|04:42pm] |
By popular demand:
First, fetch home enormous quantities of mushrooms: so many that you don't have to stint, you don't have to think of stinting, you can toss them gaily to your cat and not worry because you know you still have far too many.
Next, make a beef stock with onions and carrots and celery and, y'know, beef. Reserve the vegetables with the stock.
Fight off the cats and eat the beef yourself, in sandwiches and hash and such.
Now melt butter in olive oil in a big pan, and soften a sliced onion therein. Add chopped & crushed garlic, then turn up the heat and start breaking mushrooms into it. Don't bother to slice: this is faster and far more efficient with the fingers. Stalks and caps, we don't discriminate. The more the better; just keep going. Stir merrily while you add. They should give off a little liquor as you go. Goodie-good.
When you have a large quantity of cooked shroom, mix it into the beef stock and veggies and feed it measure by measure through your new blender until it is the smoothest of smooth soups and a sort of browny-grey colour. If there is a word for this colour, I don't know it: dark-avis'd and savoury, I say. If it looks too thick & heavy to lick off the spoon, add more liquid: but it should be thick.
Heat it to a simmer, adding salt and pepper until the taste is immaculate.
This is your basic soup, and you can stop there if you want. Everything hereafter is embellishment.
In another pan, melt more butter and add another couple of cloves of crushed & chopped garlic. Break in a few more mushrooms, because you have after all got plenty. Fry till scrummy, then stir the panload into the soup, for nuggets of fungal texture.
In that still-sizzling pan, add yet more butter and garlic, and fry mushroom-caps whole, one per serving. When they're done, decant the soup into bowls and top each with a mushroom cap, inverted. Spoon a spoonful of sour cream into each cap. A scatter of chopped chives or parsley, a drizzle of truffle-oil and you're done.
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| In other news |
[03 May 2008|01:42pm] |
I really, really must not spend money where there is no need. I saved two hundred quid today by virtue of hanging on to that thought, but I was perilously close to spending it. For I am a bag-and-jacket queen, and pockets will get me, every time. Nearly every time. *is susceptible*
We have a department store in Newcastle, called Fenwick's. It's one of those organic survivors from its original base, growing slowly by knocking through into its neighbours and adding extensions at the back and building upwards and and and. When I first came to the city, we thought that you needed to be born here to know your way around Fenwick's, we thought it was genetic. A quarter of a century of study has led me to dispute that; I can now find my way around quite easily. At least I could, until this week. Realising that I had pretty much solved their mazes, they went all sneaky, and turned the escalators around. Really truly: those that went up now go down, and vice versa. Aaargh! *is confused again*
They knew, of course, that people would be thrown by this: why do it, else? So they have stationed young persons at the heads and feet of every escalator, to point out that it now goes the other way. I am all in favour of young people standing around being decorative, I think there should be more of it, but they must be bored out of their minds, because this is the most pointless, useless job in the universe. Of course our feet take us along well-established habitual routes, to what is now the wrong escalator; we get there, and we look at it, and we see that it is going the wrong way. And then we see the young people, who smile and shake their heads. And we roll our eyes, and go away again. If we linger, they say "Sorry, they've turned them all around." Which, yes. This is self-evident. Presumably the kids get paid, but I don't think it's enough.
Still, I wove my way through the store, and did not come home with a new bag or a jacket or a camera, though it was a pretty close call. I did come home with mushrooms, and now I am going to make Soup. Capital Soup, because I have more mushrooms than you imagine. Probably not more than you can imagine, I have some respect for your abilities in that direction; but still, many many mushrooms. Five or six pounds, at a guess. For a quid. So, yes. Fungal soup, with an excess of fung.
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| Work is the plan, the plan is scattershot |
[03 May 2008|01:36pm] |
Today's intentions:
early morning, I worked on my responses to a follow-up questionnaire from a guy doing a Tolkien study (Complete his survey! It doesn't take very long, and he'd be very grateful);
late morning, I went into town and wrote the first page of a new story, which I need to have finished by the end of this month;
early afternoon, I expect to noodle around with a novella;
late afternoon, I expect to noodle around with a YA proposal.
I have no application. None at all.
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| Eek! |
[02 May 2008|03:05pm] |
In which the boys conspire to stop me dwelling on stuff...
My house has more stairs than seems feasible, given its smallness. Specifically, there's a flight up to a half-landing, from which two further flights ascend, one at right-angles to the first and the other doubling back on it. This means that the top landing has a looong drop down over the banister to ground, at the foot of that first flight. My cats have always enjoyed jumping on and off that banister; Sophie-cat used to use it as a halfway point to jumping onto my shoulders. I became quite blasé about their blaséness. Ahem. The boys exist to shatter my complacency.
I have a chest of drawers on the top landing, which stands a few inches higher than the banister. At the moment there is a couple of ficus trees on it, in big pots. Both boys like to hang around there, shredding the leaves and ripping off the branches (I do not believe the trees will survive this season) - and playing tag around the pots, pouncing viciously on each other.
When they do this, if I'm watching, usually one of them will back away. Onto the banister. And go on fighting. Above a fifteen-foot drop. The banister is varnished, rounded wood, and its poor footing is evidenced by the quantity of deep scratches in that varnish, where cats have found themselves hanging on for dear life.
Eek.
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| Bagpipe music, redux |
[02 May 2008|01:39pm] |
If I had batteries in my camera, I could take a picture, just to prove him. As I don't, you'll have to settle for a description. He's in his thirties, give or take. He's wearing a white T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms, trainers. And he's walking up and down the nearest path in the park over the road, parallel to my windows. There are literally square miles of moorland behind him, where he could move pretty much out of human earshot, but no.
He's not a bad performer on the pipes, and he has a decent range of tunes - but he has no stamina. He plays for thirty seconds, forty-five max; then he pauses, then he plays something else. This constant on-offedness makes it impossible to tune him out. Which makes it impossible to work.
If I had a sniper's rifle - well, if I had a sniper's rifle I would be in prison by now, for more significant murders than his. But. I wish he would stop, or go away. And what I really resent about this is that I am fond of bagpipe music, as a rule: definitely not one of those people who finds it antisocial by nature. Just, he has caught me in a really sour mood, and I would like to lose myself in my work, and he's preventing me.
Also, right now, he is playing the Skye Boat Song. Which is an offence against nature. I can haz that sniper's rifle nao?
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| Bagpipe music |
[02 May 2008|01:10pm] |
The glass is falling hour by hour, the glass will fall for ever,
But if you break the bloody glass you won't hold up the weather.
Or in other words, I just counted: there are four five companies or crews or individuals out there who owe me money. The big one, the main one promised to give me a verdict on a book "by the middle of next week", but that was a month ago. The others are either late, or have sent the wrong amount (and I will leave to guess in whose favour the error lies), or just aren't responding to contacts, or have lost my address. Twice. While I undergo the worst crisis of the last dozen years, and literally do not know how to pay next week's bills. I have always, always danced on a knife-edge, but I do believe I've lost my footing finally.
And right now someone really is playing bagpipes in the park, and I do believe they're channelling Louis MacNeice.
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| Thursday mornings make a post |
[01 May 2008|10:28am] |
Okay. It is, fairly obviously, Thursday morning. I have made the last little changes to the last of the subsidiary Dracula docs (I hope), and sent that off. I have first-drafted the book review. I have, basically, nothing left to do, that I'm obliged to; all my current commitments have been fulfilled. This is not, of course, to say that I have nothing to do. Work-wise, I still have the big SF novella to revise/rewrite/whatever; I have the Alexandria story to continue; I have numerous other stories I could start. But all of that is independent working, undriven by promises or deadlines or dosh. At the moment, I'm not so good at doing stuff for its own sake. I lack the whip of authority.
I could spend time on the house instead, or on the garden. There is much to do. If you could see this office, eg... (The path I tread between door and desk is, um, less than eight inches wide at its narrowest. Pretty much, the rest of the floor is cluttered with boxes & papers and furniture and so forth. It's not entirely my fault - quite a lot of that stuff was far more sensibly stacked on shelving, before the cats played there - but, well, nobody but me is going to pick it up. It just daunts me. I think probably a Total Rearrangement is the only long-term solution - like, the desk could go over there, and that sideboardy thing could go altogether, and... - but my back and I are no longer up to Totally Rearranging without help, and I'm not good at asking my friends for help. Odd as this may seem, given how very much I depend on them. But I'm whiffling...)
I could spend time on some necessary admin, the kind of stuff I still put off and off despite being all grown-up and mature now. There's a phone call I need to make, to chase some money that I need; but I'm dreading it (Chaz vs the Faceless Multinational: this is not my kind of battle) and I'd almost rather forgo the money. Almost. Certainly I can forgo it till tomorrow... Or there's some stick-books-in-envelopes admin I could do, with the added advantage that I would then have to go out to post them. Once out, of course, the world is my oyster and this house and all its contents is a clam, closed up, behind me...
Basically, what I'm saying here, today would be a very good day for my editor to get in touch about the novel. All my ends are loose, else, and I'll just flail around. I need some focus back.
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| Sale! |
[29 Apr 2008|11:45am] |
I thought today was an off-day, but I was wrong: it is in fact a day off. Tho' I might write something later.
This morning, I have just been reading. The last thing I read was my e-mails, including the highly satisfactory news that I've just sold another short-short SF story to Nature magazine. I can still count my SF stories on one hand, but only just - "the fingers of one hand" no longer applies, I need the thumb as well - and I've sold them all. *is a srs SF writer*
Now I'm going out into the sunnyshine, and I shall walk down to the pub; where I will meet m'friend Harry and do drinking, and then we shall eat Vietnamese fudz for lunch.
After that, who knows? Might write something. Might read something else. Might go on drinking. Any or all of the above.
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| For I have been to Ludlow Fair, and left my necktie God knows where |
[27 Apr 2008|09:54pm] |
Actually, I haven't been anywhere near Ludlow; I've been to Alt.Fiction, my favourite one-day con, in sunny Derby (which, rather oddly, has a Canal Street but apparently no canal; I went from end to end, and there was no water to be found beyond an overflowing drain. Which doesn't quite do it, somehow. Gutter Street, they could fairly call it, but that's about the limit).
Alt.Fiction has many, many writers talking lots; I myself did two panels and a workshop. All of which were crowded, because the other thing Alt.Fiction has in abundance is readers. (Hi, folks!)
Excellent day. And then there was the increasingly-traditional Going for a Curry with the Crowthers and the Campbells, which is a fine thing; and then I was drunk and tired and went to bed.
And today began with a hotel breakfast, as they do; and then there were three hours on a train (in first class! 'cos it was dead cheap! hurrah! but the coffee-machine wasn't working! boo! and no one could actually, y'know, make a pot of coffee!) during which I wrote six pages. I really should travel more, it's very productive.
And Ferrari won the Grand Prix, which was an excellent thing; and otherwise I have mostly watched TV (a drama about Jane Austen, which I don't know if it reflected real life at all but I liked it, and Olivia Williams was magnificent as the eponymous Jane) and reacquainted myself with the cats. Mac has squirmed and wriggled all over me, with much purring; Baz kept his distance for a while, then came and sat on me v firmly. For thus do they express their several and determinate natures.
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| Review |
[23 Apr 2008|11:19pm] |
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) thisplacehere likes the set-up for Dispossession, and is not so taken with the resolution. Ain't that so often the way? It is even possible that he has justice on his side; at this distance - it was the first book I wrote in this house, which makes it twelve years ago - I only remember the fun stuff. Which is the set-up, and my beloved Luke the fallen angel. For yes, I was writing urban fantasy before anyone invented the term; and Luke still sits in my head, all bright and smeared and sharp. Kinda like an ice-pick. I wrote a short story about him too, subtly entitled "Luke, Homeward Angel"...
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| And I also forgot... |
[23 Apr 2008|06:01pm] |
Today (as every day, yes yes) is full of forgetting.
The thing I forgot to say about my new vacuum flask is that it is rated at "half a quart". Which is like talking about half a pair of hounds: one understands entirely, but you might as well say "two quarters". It's a descriptive inefficiency, and not useful.
It's a damn pint, okay?
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