Insert Cleverly Evocative Title Here
May. 20th, 2004 08:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancinghorseIn which Our Heroine gets down in the dumps (again) about everything, has to take the cat back to the hospital (we find out tomorrow if they need to keep him any longer), decides the universe sucks and her writing career is on the skids and she really needs to Simplify (again), and really, if you think six weeks is long to wait to get paid, try three and a half freaking months. And counting.
That was yesterday. Time to pull up the socks (again) and push away the panic (again) and do the counting of the blessings (yet again) and do at least one acceptable first-draft page. And then get some sleep.
Then there were Omens. The Mother Ship always sends those at these junctures. Currently we have a person looking for a Lipp--as Lipizzan Yenta to the Stars, I get a lot of those, but haven't for a while--and the Mt. Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly interviewing alumnae writers. That's like Wendy Wasserstein and Mary Higgins Clark and last year's PEN winner. And moi.
OK. So I guess the Lipp thing has to keep on keeping on. And ditto the writing thing.
Today was about Focus. First, trail ride on ze keed--with Arizona's summer well and truly here (though the ice still hasn't broken on the Santa Cruz), if I want to ride more than one or two, I have to do at least one in the morning. Keed was in touch with his Inner Ayrab today; lots of spooks and spins and eeks. The best one was the Rottweiler at the gate, bellowing just as the pool pump started up. But he settled down, and it was beautiful--not too hot yet, not too windy, spring flowers drying out and crisping, and lizards and butterflies in full swing.
Then, inside through the heat of the day, to read proofs of the Kingdom of the Grail mass-market. It's been five years since I wrote it, so it's new all over again--interesting to see where I was in my head at the time. Of cuss it makes the current mip feel weary, stale, flat, and only marginally profitable, but first draft always feels that way, so that's nothing new.
This evening I rode two horses. I do love the Vienna method--where you ride every stride and concentrate on one particular thing in each session, and the session runs around 20 minutes. The horse gets amazingly fit and keeps a great attitude if you do it right. Also, you can ride a succession of them in a short time, get good work done, and keep three or four going at once.
Capria wanted to work on canter. This meant we worked in walk, then canter, then walk, and that was it. No trot work. Which is frankly heretical for a dressage schooling session, but hey. Level 6 of Hell has plenty of cool people in it. Capria has been a walk-trot horse for dog's years, because I've had such inconsistent hands and she's so easily upset by disturbances in her balance. Now my hands are steadier and she wants to canter. We worked on steering through the seat, balancing with leg and seat, and sustaining balance with the hands. She liked it. I liked it. We were happy.
Pooka didn't care what we worked on as long he got his ride. More work on steering through the seat--he is completely not into being ridden from front to back At All--and he tweaked at me for lifting my left leg when I want to use it, so I kept it down and he said that was good. Ended up with some very good trot work and an excellent trot-walk transition, no me on his neck (occupational hazard with young, green, very big-moving horse with oversized drive train), which made us both very happy. He wanted More. I said no, this is a good note to end on; we stop here. He got his saddle off, and he wanted to go for a walk. So we went for a nice ramble in the last of the evening light. Crescent moon and Venus in pellucid sky. Dusk on everything, but the cream-white flowers of the yucca were glowing.
He could have stayed out until dark, but his dinner was waiting and so was mine. I do like it when the horse prefers to hang with his human rather than head for the food.
Now must write some first-draft Pages before I go thud for the night. I currently have one set of proofs, one second draft, and two first drafts in the Must Do Now pile, so the more organized I am, the better.
Er. Organized? Moi?
That was yesterday. Time to pull up the socks (again) and push away the panic (again) and do the counting of the blessings (yet again) and do at least one acceptable first-draft page. And then get some sleep.
Then there were Omens. The Mother Ship always sends those at these junctures. Currently we have a person looking for a Lipp--as Lipizzan Yenta to the Stars, I get a lot of those, but haven't for a while--and the Mt. Holyoke Alumnae Quarterly interviewing alumnae writers. That's like Wendy Wasserstein and Mary Higgins Clark and last year's PEN winner. And moi.
OK. So I guess the Lipp thing has to keep on keeping on. And ditto the writing thing.
Today was about Focus. First, trail ride on ze keed--with Arizona's summer well and truly here (though the ice still hasn't broken on the Santa Cruz), if I want to ride more than one or two, I have to do at least one in the morning. Keed was in touch with his Inner Ayrab today; lots of spooks and spins and eeks. The best one was the Rottweiler at the gate, bellowing just as the pool pump started up. But he settled down, and it was beautiful--not too hot yet, not too windy, spring flowers drying out and crisping, and lizards and butterflies in full swing.
Then, inside through the heat of the day, to read proofs of the Kingdom of the Grail mass-market. It's been five years since I wrote it, so it's new all over again--interesting to see where I was in my head at the time. Of cuss it makes the current mip feel weary, stale, flat, and only marginally profitable, but first draft always feels that way, so that's nothing new.
This evening I rode two horses. I do love the Vienna method--where you ride every stride and concentrate on one particular thing in each session, and the session runs around 20 minutes. The horse gets amazingly fit and keeps a great attitude if you do it right. Also, you can ride a succession of them in a short time, get good work done, and keep three or four going at once.
Capria wanted to work on canter. This meant we worked in walk, then canter, then walk, and that was it. No trot work. Which is frankly heretical for a dressage schooling session, but hey. Level 6 of Hell has plenty of cool people in it. Capria has been a walk-trot horse for dog's years, because I've had such inconsistent hands and she's so easily upset by disturbances in her balance. Now my hands are steadier and she wants to canter. We worked on steering through the seat, balancing with leg and seat, and sustaining balance with the hands. She liked it. I liked it. We were happy.
Pooka didn't care what we worked on as long he got his ride. More work on steering through the seat--he is completely not into being ridden from front to back At All--and he tweaked at me for lifting my left leg when I want to use it, so I kept it down and he said that was good. Ended up with some very good trot work and an excellent trot-walk transition, no me on his neck (occupational hazard with young, green, very big-moving horse with oversized drive train), which made us both very happy. He wanted More. I said no, this is a good note to end on; we stop here. He got his saddle off, and he wanted to go for a walk. So we went for a nice ramble in the last of the evening light. Crescent moon and Venus in pellucid sky. Dusk on everything, but the cream-white flowers of the yucca were glowing.
He could have stayed out until dark, but his dinner was waiting and so was mine. I do like it when the horse prefers to hang with his human rather than head for the food.
Now must write some first-draft Pages before I go thud for the night. I currently have one set of proofs, one second draft, and two first drafts in the Must Do Now pile, so the more organized I am, the better.
Er. Organized? Moi?
