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Dec. 30th, 2008 05:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lenora_roseChristmas has been replete with good company and good food and goodies. So far, the most often repeated story is that Colin's gift, an MP3 player considerably better than the current one, came in the weirdest wrapping paper of the year.
A toaster oven.
He threw me off, too; I would usually suspect him of stuffing any physically larger gift with smaller ones, but the tape on the top of the box was still store-pristine. It looked like it hadn't been opened.
Although I got an extra gift in consequence; the Brontesaurus was old enough it couldn't support the MP3 player, so between that and a widescreen that couldn't display wide (making pictures of me even less flattering...) Colin decided to upgrade me to a better computer.
This one now mutters low to itself instead of making that loud whine, though the higher-pitched harmonic is actually more bothersome, if the room is otherwise quiet.
He got his main gift from me today; I had to wait until I could arrange a larger vehicle and some extra help for hauling. (I also made him laugh by fretting whether he'd like it a few days ago - mostly by saying, "Just remember, I also got you some nice soap.")
He got a solid wood armoire to replace his dresser. Technically, the dresser was working (According to him, I missed at least one other drawer in need of re-gluing), but was ... not pretty, and being fabricated board, not worth repainting in his or my opinion.
We're off tomorrow evening to a cabin off by the Winnipeg River for New Year's and the weekend with a whole party of friends. I've already made the request that we not take goodies. I'm sure someone will anyway, and that soemone else will be disappointed if they don't, but I figured making the suggestion was a way to cut down on the Splurge.
We will have booze, though, if only enough for the toasts: I was just gifted two bottles of raspberry mead. I'm saving *one* for later.
Christmas reading: Finished Rich Burlew's Start of Darkness, a prequel to the Order of the Stick online comic. First because at the time I wanted light. Reading Elizabeth Bear's Ink and Steel, part one of The Stratford Man or the third book published in the Promethean age series, (But which I still keep thinking of, thanks to the author, as "Will and Kit's Bogus Journey".) It looks like one scene is there almost just so someone can cry "Marley's Ghost!" in appropriate horror. Ooops. Wrong story.
Actually, otherwise, I'm devouring it as fast as I can.
_________________
Writing-wise is weird:
No, I am not likely to continue that particular beginning this minute; I *am* working it through in my brain, and haven't forgotten Mr. Girard, or the deity, or Armageddon. I need to do some research for it, and I need to figure out a few more narrative threads. I do know I need to make one change in the very opening, which is that he stops poking about the web site (Or whatever they call it) because he's out of wireless range again. Which you wouldn't think would matter much, but will. One of the very next things that happens is unprovoked but not totally unforewarned invasion from a neighbouring country, so Mr. Girard would not stop checking things willingly, how he has a source of power for his palm-pilot.
Meanwhile...
Finno somehow snuck back into my brain. And so did a solution to one major problem with Bird of Dusk as a whole. So I started going through that, first reading to get this draft back in my brain, and then starting to hack and tweak. There's a section that feels slow to me even though there's not as many "Time passes" bits as I first feared.
A bit of weirdness, writing theory-wise. This was always one of those stories where I felt as if Finno, having already lived this crud, "told me" what happened*, then asked me to write it down. The story always had a kind of "fully-formed" feeling about it, and most subsequent drafts felt less like "I've improved my writing craft" and more like "I'm hearing the actual details of the story better. The first times he spoke, the broadcast was fuzzy."
Parts of this one feel like Finno told me the story in completion some time ago. Rather than taking dictation from the twitchy redhead sitting beside me, he's now resigned himself to letting me turn his story, with its knots and snarls and life-like failure to reach closure on several points, into smoother narrative. I have all the information about what happened and what he did, but other than the occasional "phone call" to double check on a detail, or him stopping by to take a peek, I'm no longer in contact with my source.
Actually, "He's resigned" isn't the feeling, quite. More, he now trusts me to get it right without hovering over me reading each page. Although he's not used to trusting anyone, much less me. Even though he decided he trusted me to be the particular writer to tell it in the first place.
Reassuring, kind of; I'm left alone, but he thinks I'm up to the job now.
I do sometimes wish I actually could buckle down to one story for the length it takes to get to the end. The reassuring thing is, even when I start with edits, I always make it further in the draft each time I try.
* No, writers aren't actually hearing voices, as such. The "He told me his story" is shorthand for a more complicated dance of conscious and subconscious that could probably only be properly explained by someone with a PhD in psychology, a second one in neurology, *and* a few best-selling novels under their belt. Bear with it.
A toaster oven.
He threw me off, too; I would usually suspect him of stuffing any physically larger gift with smaller ones, but the tape on the top of the box was still store-pristine. It looked like it hadn't been opened.
Although I got an extra gift in consequence; the Brontesaurus was old enough it couldn't support the MP3 player, so between that and a widescreen that couldn't display wide (making pictures of me even less flattering...) Colin decided to upgrade me to a better computer.
This one now mutters low to itself instead of making that loud whine, though the higher-pitched harmonic is actually more bothersome, if the room is otherwise quiet.
He got his main gift from me today; I had to wait until I could arrange a larger vehicle and some extra help for hauling. (I also made him laugh by fretting whether he'd like it a few days ago - mostly by saying, "Just remember, I also got you some nice soap.")
He got a solid wood armoire to replace his dresser. Technically, the dresser was working (According to him, I missed at least one other drawer in need of re-gluing), but was ... not pretty, and being fabricated board, not worth repainting in his or my opinion.
We're off tomorrow evening to a cabin off by the Winnipeg River for New Year's and the weekend with a whole party of friends. I've already made the request that we not take goodies. I'm sure someone will anyway, and that soemone else will be disappointed if they don't, but I figured making the suggestion was a way to cut down on the Splurge.
We will have booze, though, if only enough for the toasts: I was just gifted two bottles of raspberry mead. I'm saving *one* for later.
Christmas reading: Finished Rich Burlew's Start of Darkness, a prequel to the Order of the Stick online comic. First because at the time I wanted light. Reading Elizabeth Bear's Ink and Steel, part one of The Stratford Man or the third book published in the Promethean age series, (But which I still keep thinking of, thanks to the author, as "Will and Kit's Bogus Journey".) It looks like one scene is there almost just so someone can cry "Marley's Ghost!" in appropriate horror. Ooops. Wrong story.
Actually, otherwise, I'm devouring it as fast as I can.
_________________
Writing-wise is weird:
No, I am not likely to continue that particular beginning this minute; I *am* working it through in my brain, and haven't forgotten Mr. Girard, or the deity, or Armageddon. I need to do some research for it, and I need to figure out a few more narrative threads. I do know I need to make one change in the very opening, which is that he stops poking about the web site (Or whatever they call it) because he's out of wireless range again. Which you wouldn't think would matter much, but will. One of the very next things that happens is unprovoked but not totally unforewarned invasion from a neighbouring country, so Mr. Girard would not stop checking things willingly, how he has a source of power for his palm-pilot.
Meanwhile...
Finno somehow snuck back into my brain. And so did a solution to one major problem with Bird of Dusk as a whole. So I started going through that, first reading to get this draft back in my brain, and then starting to hack and tweak. There's a section that feels slow to me even though there's not as many "Time passes" bits as I first feared.
A bit of weirdness, writing theory-wise. This was always one of those stories where I felt as if Finno, having already lived this crud, "told me" what happened*, then asked me to write it down. The story always had a kind of "fully-formed" feeling about it, and most subsequent drafts felt less like "I've improved my writing craft" and more like "I'm hearing the actual details of the story better. The first times he spoke, the broadcast was fuzzy."
Parts of this one feel like Finno told me the story in completion some time ago. Rather than taking dictation from the twitchy redhead sitting beside me, he's now resigned himself to letting me turn his story, with its knots and snarls and life-like failure to reach closure on several points, into smoother narrative. I have all the information about what happened and what he did, but other than the occasional "phone call" to double check on a detail, or him stopping by to take a peek, I'm no longer in contact with my source.
Actually, "He's resigned" isn't the feeling, quite. More, he now trusts me to get it right without hovering over me reading each page. Although he's not used to trusting anyone, much less me. Even though he decided he trusted me to be the particular writer to tell it in the first place.
Reassuring, kind of; I'm left alone, but he thinks I'm up to the job now.
I do sometimes wish I actually could buckle down to one story for the length it takes to get to the end. The reassuring thing is, even when I start with edits, I always make it further in the draft each time I try.
* No, writers aren't actually hearing voices, as such. The "He told me his story" is shorthand for a more complicated dance of conscious and subconscious that could probably only be properly explained by someone with a PhD in psychology, a second one in neurology, *and* a few best-selling novels under their belt. Bear with it.
