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Back from the Outer Darkness
Jul. 28th, 2011 04:52 pmI'm one of those who has been cut off totally from lj, unable to post or comment, so we'll see if I can post this at all. I've been trying all week.
My word count for the Clarion Write-a-Thon last week was somewhat direly low, at 878 words for the week. I had an editing job come in, my niece is in town, and there was Coolergeddon, in which I was not able to get anyone official to fix my broken evaporative cooler, but a friend nobly offered to do the job--and had to come twice because the first fix didn't stick. (All those dust storms clogged up the innards but good.) But mainly, when it came time to write, I was researching instead. Necessary side effect of writing historicals, even alternate ones. We're picking up speed again this week.
Here's what just happened, because I couldn't resist:
"If there's a drug that brings back the dead, I'd like to know which agent of the Devil they're buying it from, because surely no Christian man would touch such a thing."
There has been bloggage, too. I riffed off this amazing lj post in a sort of Horseblog (but this time mainly writerblog) at Book View Cafe. These are thoughts I've been trying to articulate for years. Still pondering some of them.
Throughout all this I have been experimenting with a form of discipline. Mostly it involves going to bed scrupulously before midnight--which can be hard because my brain wakes up for writing around 4 p.m. and wants to work until 1 or 2 a.m., but the rest of me has horses and freelancing and chores and such and by 10 p.m. it's done for the day. So, I'm trying out a little forced brain-waking, and working Pook in the mornings before breakfast (his and mine), then in the evenings I have a little time for the others, if it's not storming. If the sun wakes me up when it comes up, I might as well use the time. Not every day; some days I really do need to stay horizontal until the horses start to get demanding. But often enough that Pook is on an actual regular schedule, mostly. Allowing for weather, of course.
It's been an excellent monsoon so far. Almost 5 inches of rain here since the 4th. Occasional breaks in which the humidity isn't quite so bad, which means the coolers work for a change, and the mornings are beautiful.
This morning we actually managed a lesson. ( Yes, I know what you were waiting for. )
We wore out the pony. Physically he's awesomely fit--he never breaks a sweat except under the saddle--and he felt wonderfully strong in the exercises, but when we stopped, he unreeled his neck and turned into a puddle. Worked his brain too hard, we did. But he was happy.
My word count for the Clarion Write-a-Thon last week was somewhat direly low, at 878 words for the week. I had an editing job come in, my niece is in town, and there was Coolergeddon, in which I was not able to get anyone official to fix my broken evaporative cooler, but a friend nobly offered to do the job--and had to come twice because the first fix didn't stick. (All those dust storms clogged up the innards but good.) But mainly, when it came time to write, I was researching instead. Necessary side effect of writing historicals, even alternate ones. We're picking up speed again this week.
Here's what just happened, because I couldn't resist:
"If there's a drug that brings back the dead, I'd like to know which agent of the Devil they're buying it from, because surely no Christian man would touch such a thing."
There has been bloggage, too. I riffed off this amazing lj post in a sort of Horseblog (but this time mainly writerblog) at Book View Cafe. These are thoughts I've been trying to articulate for years. Still pondering some of them.
Throughout all this I have been experimenting with a form of discipline. Mostly it involves going to bed scrupulously before midnight--which can be hard because my brain wakes up for writing around 4 p.m. and wants to work until 1 or 2 a.m., but the rest of me has horses and freelancing and chores and such and by 10 p.m. it's done for the day. So, I'm trying out a little forced brain-waking, and working Pook in the mornings before breakfast (his and mine), then in the evenings I have a little time for the others, if it's not storming. If the sun wakes me up when it comes up, I might as well use the time. Not every day; some days I really do need to stay horizontal until the horses start to get demanding. But often enough that Pook is on an actual regular schedule, mostly. Allowing for weather, of course.
It's been an excellent monsoon so far. Almost 5 inches of rain here since the 4th. Occasional breaks in which the humidity isn't quite so bad, which means the coolers work for a change, and the mornings are beautiful.
This morning we actually managed a lesson. ( Yes, I know what you were waiting for. )
We wore out the pony. Physically he's awesomely fit--he never breaks a sweat except under the saddle--and he felt wonderfully strong in the exercises, but when we stopped, he unreeled his neck and turned into a puddle. Worked his brain too hard, we did. But he was happy.
