L’esprit d’escalier

I’m a bad blogger.

I’ve been shirking my duties to entertain you lot, but for good reason!

First is work-related. There is a rant coming of epic proportions, and I’m trying to make it less angry-sales-rep-rawr and more constructive-advice-to-booksellers. But it’s tough right now since I’m still in the rawr phase. I’ll probably be in it for another month at least, but I’m hoping to get the post up this week.

Second is writing stuff (yay!). I’ve mentioned before that Annalea’s not terribly forthcoming with me. I have added notes and taken them away from her gdoc, trying desperately to figure out how the pieces of her puzzle fit together. She shuffles some around when I’m not looking, hides others in the cabinets, or under the plants, snatches one from my hand just as I see where it belongs and puts another in its place.

She’s mischievous like that.

I spent a good chunk of last week trying to pry a scene out of her, and finally posted it around 1:00 this morning. It was, I think, one of the hardest I’ve written for her in over a year. I know what happens from there on out, but this was a blank space – I knew the conversation had taken place, and that it hadn’t necessarily ended on an ideal note, but I didn’t know exactly what had been said.

It was awkward for her – Anna’s armor is, quite often, nothing more than her pride. Here she was, going to someone above her station, hat in hand, feeling as low as she ever had. It was hard getting it right for her – her words, her thoughts, her reactions. And the person she spoke with really isn’t the villain here, either (though the villain has made his appearance, now, finally), so it was tough to coax that bumbling chat out of him, too, and finding the line between him being an ass and simply coming from a different kind of mindset.

Of course, now that the scene is finished, Anna’s dangling another puzzle piece in front of me. She seems to have peeked over at the puzzle on her sister’s table and found a piece gathering dust. “I want to borrow him,” she’s saying, and Threnn’s too busy staring at something small and shiny and red to do more than shrug.

This hypothetical conversation between Anna and Robert Bell (a minor character who has appeared briefly several times in Threnn’s stories) came to me almost in its entirety as I was walking to get my coffee this morning. It’s a good one. Actually, it’s a very sweet one. I know I could take that puzzle piece from her, and if I turned it over in my hands, I’d have it done in less time than it’s taken to write this post.

But I don’t think it belongs in the story that I’m writing right now. It doesn’t hurt the tale, really, but I can’t say it quite fits, either. If it was a movie, it would be a deleted scene. I think it’s canon for her, because it’s the second time she’s tried co-opting this minor character that I’ve hitherto associated with Threnn, but I’m not so sure it’ll ever actually be written.

We’re going to argue about this, Anna and I, but I think she can see the other pieces wanting to fall into place, too, and this is a digression neither of us desperately need. The backstory is… nearly done. Two more posts/chapters/installments/whatever-you-call-them, maybe three, and then I’ll see about this other scene. If it’s anything as vivid as it is right this second, it’ll end up somewhere.

I have a folder called “Stuff the Author Knows” on my machine at home. It’s mostly for things I’ve cut out of my longer stories – worldbuilding stuff that I don’t want to forget, scenes that don’t fit anywhere now but might later on, characters who don’t quite belong to the story in which they first appeared. I’m starting to think I need to add one to my gdocs, too.

So, yeah. Bad blogger, no biscuit.

I have some. No, really, it was over there just a second ago…

There is a garden in my backyard. The onions and green beans seem to be casualties, and I have a feeling that once upon a time, there might have been some corn, too, only if it ever existed, all evidence of it has been wiped off the face of the planet.

There are, however, the beginnings of peppers (red, green, and jalapeno), and some promising looking tomato plants. And basil. My basil will take over the world. These things are thriving. I am envisioning tomato, basil and mozzarella salad, fresh from the garden later this summer. I’m not quite brave enough to try making my own mozzarella, but there is at least one really good Italian deli between my office and the train station where I can get some.

The pool is also open. The water is at, oh, 72 degrees. Which you’d think would be plenty warm enough. That’s room temperature, right? I stood there on Saturday, up to my waist, my legs going numb, and had to berate myself before I could dive in all the way (“You fucking wimp. Move.“) Rinse and repeat for Sunday. Once you’re in, though, it’s pretty nice. Now if only we can have some nice weekends this summer – my parents and extended family got more good swimming-time out of it last summer than we did. I’d like to not spend so many Saturdays staring forlornly out the window while it pours and thunders this year, thanks.

Writing: rrrgh. Some. Lori has linked to a shiny new tool on her blog, and I’m mulling over the idea of playing with it, too. Problem is, I’m working on three stories at once (“Four!” insists poor Lil, as the demon that’s been chasing her for several months cackles). All told, the three amount to about 11,000 words and none of them are finished. Threnn’s has maybe one more scene until she’s (mostly) caught up to the present. Anna has two stories going at once – from a year of near-silence to suddenly-won’t-shut-up – and they’re kind of coming out in alternating sections.

Lil’s only about 2,000 words into her run, out of… I’m aiming for 6,000 or less. So, if I do stick a counter up here, I suppose it makes more sense to wait until I go back to Lil.

It doesn’t help that one of my ficlets would like to possibly be something longer, either.

Okay. We have far, far too long until BSG’s endgame begins. Nothing new (from what I understand) until 2009. Which means… let the speculation begin!

If you haven’t seen the most recent episode, “Revelations,” DO NOT CLICK THE MORE BUTTON.

Because, darlin’-pretties, there will be many spoilers after you (insert Hybrid-voice here)… Jump!

Continue Reading »

I have a BSG post coming, in which those of you who are caught up may frolic and post spoilers and speculation.

But right now, I’m tired, achy, angsty, more than a little mopey, and all-around dun wanna.

Commiserate with me or cheer me up in the comments.

A challenge from Marty? Clearly I must take this test! (Actually, he beat me to it. I noticed that Athenae over at First Draft had taken it, too, and thought about posting my results, but I am lazy until provoked*.)

I’d be a damned good husband:

89 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

But I’m a pretty crappy wife:

41 As a 1930s wife, I am Poor Take the test!

*Hmm. Maybe I should make you guys provoke me to write.**

**I’m going to regret posting that, aren’t I?

Here we are, in the middle of a heat wave, and my teeth are chattering. I can’t feel my fingers, and the tip of my nose went numb hours ago. As soon as May 1st rolls around, our office building turns on the air conditioning. It’s not a system based on the outside temperature, but on the day of the year.

They say they’re keeping it at 70 degrees. Which, I’m sure it is in the Offices of Important People.

But for lowbies like me, I need to bring sweaters and gloves into work in August. As much as I love my little spot in the corner by the supply closet (that isn’t sarcasm; I like it here. No one ever visits), I am also right beneath one of the air conditioning vents. So it’s not just cold air skirling about insidiously. It’s not a cold that creeps, and makes me shiver by increments. Oh, no, it’s a full-on icy gale blowing down on the top of my head, and there’s nowhere I can move to get away from it. I can’t even wait until everyone’s gone home for the day and climb up, ninja-like, atop my overhead bins to close the vent on my side. It’s one of those permanently-open ones.

Tonight, I’m going to find my fuzzy sweater and bring it with me to bundle up for the rest of the summer.

Other stuff I’ve been doing instead of blogging:

I planted a garden. Yes, me, the Bane of Things That Grow. It’s not a very big garden, just yet, and I’m not even sure everything will survive. See, initially, I figured I’d grow some herbs in window boxes, so I could have them well into the fall. When I was out buying the flats of herbs, I saw some tomatoes.

I can grow tomatoes. I’ve done really well with them in the past. Since flats were something like 8 for $12, I went a little overboard – peppers (red, green, jalapeno), onions, butternut squash and green beans. I figured they could all go into big ol’ pots and do just fine.

Well. Somehow I forgot that when you buy a flat, you’re not just buying one pepper plant. You’re buying anywhere from 4-6. Big ol’ pots just won’t cut it.

My father, who owns just about every tool known to man (or if he doesn’t, knows someone within three houses to either side of him who will let him borrow theirs), has a roto-tiller. Down he came, last Saturday when it was super wicked hot, and tilled the little garden my mother and I had sectioned off with leftover paving bricks during the Home Improvement Hell a couple of summers ago.

I couldn’t just go ahead and plant when he was done, though. We have some pretty stubborn grass that had grown in that spot, so I had to go through on my hands and knees and get rid of the stuff the roto-tiller couldn’t. By the end of the day, I was pretty disgusting. No planting got done.

Sunday, Red Sox game in the afternoon (Poppacow, this is for you: WOOOO-HOOOOO GO SAWX!), and then it was nearly dark when we got home. I was too gorram hot and tired to go out and plant.

Which leads us to last night. Got home, changed out of the work clothes, found my trowel and lugged my sad potted vegetables-to-be out to the back. Stuck ‘em in the ground. I think the squash and the green beans are pretty dead. The window boxes that were their temporary homes didn’t have holes for water to leak out, and they were in there while it rained for three days straight.

Funny thing is, I usually kill plants by not watering them enough, and here I’ve gone and drowned the squash and beans.

Go on, laugh.

Tonight, I’m going to give the herbs a little more room. Now that I have a couple of window boxes freed up, let’s see if I can separate out the basil without destroying it.

Aside from that, I’ve been plinking away at three stories at once, with a third waiting patiently in the back of my head. I think it knows better than to try competing for attention against the al’Cair women, but every once in a while it passes me a note that says, “Ahem, you think that when I’m done, I might be worth submitting to Escape Pod. Let’s not forget that, yeah?”

So, productivity in a couple of forms. Maybe I’ll break out the camera and put some pictures of the fledgling garden up here. You guys can have virtual conversations with my tomatoes, and maybe they’ll hear you and grow into tasty edible things.