Weekly Lesson Neep, With 'Tude

The good news is, spring ends and things settle down.

The rather amusing (rather than bad) news is, da Pook has decided it's Shark Week. This is when he goes through a phase of lunging with teeth bared at assorted objects including keed, the manure cart, Teacher walking by...Oooops. Not a good idea, that last. He does Not try it with me unless he has a solid wall in between--he knows he'll die a thousand deaths. (Shaking one's finger really does work on a totally socialized horse. Backs him up right good and quick.)

This morning at breakfast, he kept leaving his hay to gallop madly back and forth. He chased every single rabbit and bird out of the arena--several times. He ripsnorted up and down. He asserted his stallioninity. Repeatedly.

Mind you I had to ride this maniac.

Keed did well in his lesson as always. Since he's so tubular, he has no strength in his back, so the usual "on the bit" performance was harder than usual, but Teacher was understanding and he had some nice, round moments. He did decide he'd had enough, get in touch with his Inner Ayrab, and start having eek attacks, but that just made Joni laugh.

Then I brought out the Wild Stallion. Apart from intermittent snaps and crackles, he was his lovely self for grooming and saddling. As soon as he was tacked up and his reins tied out of the way, he warmed himself up at liberty--had a fantastic time blasting around like mad, interspersed with periods of high boingitude. It's rather indescribable; it's a very high, elevated, cadenced trot with a lot of snap and brio, not a passage because it's too fast and springs too high, but it's not really a trot, either. He zings into the air, hangs there, snaps his knees up, floats down, repeats, all around the arena. It's "that cool passagey thing," as in, "can you get him to do that cool passagey thing again?"

Today's icon is another lynnesite photo--that's the gallop, where he looks like the Ford Mustang logo and moves realrealrealrealfast.

After he had got the yayas out, he stopped and posed. "This horse really needs to be a Breyer model," Joni said. He made sure we totally understood the him-ness of him, then I mounted and he was Mr. Mellow Lesson Pony. Relaxed, easy, not giving me anything for free--we are having serious discussions regarding outside aids and equal weighting of the hindlegs--but there was no hormonal sass.

Today's discussion was about a combination of our bad habits: my left hip that tends to rotate outward, and my tendency to throw away the outside rein and pull on the inside, combined with his tendency to drag the right hind (he does this all on his ownsome--so does his dad and his full sister; it's a family trait) and push with the left hind and go off all crooked to the left. On right circles this means we can end up on a leftward trajectory, what with me not being there with left leg and hand, and him being predisposed to throw the left shoulder and go staggering after it.

All horses are crooked. So are most humans--we all tend to drop one shoulder or hip, and go crooked unless we correct for it. A young, big-moving one like this, who is also hypersensitive and copping a 'tude, makes for an interesting challenge. We're working on it little by little, one step at a time, until he understands that the outside aids are to be moved away from, and that his hindlegs are to track and carry equally. Then he can start learning about bending, then about advanced straightness, then...

He actually broke a sweat, which for him is a big deal; and most of the effort was mental. He was trying hard. He got hosed off (which caused him to wriggle something awful) and petted and fed treats and told how wonderful he is, which suited him just fine.

And then I had to go out and run many errands, because I opted out of them yesterday. Went to the PO and my Return of the King DVD was in. SQUEEEEE! quoth I and ran home and spent the afternoon in Middle-Earth.

Dang, I want to live in Minas Tirith. Got the horse to ride up the levels and everything. (Though I tend in my biased fashion to think mine is prettier.)

That Vacation in Minas Tirith Really Paid Off

Nothing like a couple of days in Middle Earth to get the Muse off that damn beach in Aruba.

I sat down tonight to tackle first draft number two. Number one has been chugging along and the first part (of three) is done, and I spent part of the afternoon doing setup for the second part. (I do each book differently, but this one is a historical, so requires timelines, so an outline is a useful thing.)

Number two has been sitting there with all sorts of bits and pieces, an outline, a synopsis, and a lot of notes, but no first scene. Without a first scene it can't properly be said to have started, no matter how much of it is actually out there.

It now has the entire first chapter and part of the second, and is jumping up and down yelling, "ME! Do ME! Write ANOTHER chapter!"

Which is unheard of at this stage--the first hundred "keeper draft" pages are always a slog. I've been scraping out three, five, seven pages on a good day with first draft number one. It's now past page 100 and picking up speed, and is starting to make sense to itself, just as it should. Characters are talking, scenes are growing organically, it's in good shape.

Whereas number two--wowza. Too bad I need to sleep. This one is sheer unadulterated fun. Nasty bits! Torture! Character assassination! It has it all.

And lj regulars, when the thing comes out in a year and a bit, will know exactly where I got that first scene....