dancinghorse | Signing Books and Neeping Lessons

After yesterday's whine, I'm pleased to report that while shutting down the puter prior to feeding horses, I caught the new chapter opening on the way by, decided it didn't work, and did two paragraphs that do work before heading out to the barn. Under all the jangle and frustration, there's still some first-draft capability. This is encouraging.

The panel/signing went extremely well. In spite of its being a summer evening in Tucson, which is usually dead season for events like this, every chair was occupied and the audience was lively and enthusiastic.

janni was there, and Joanna Russ came and had some lovely contributions to make, and I met one of my favorite mystery authors, Margaret Falk, who is another horse nut and a brand-new Pooka fan. My fellow panelists were very pleasant people and we enjoyed ourselves; from what I could tell, so did the audience. We talked about genre crossovers, the market as it is today, and how outside interests feed into one's books. The store asked me back for another roundtable, this one with romance writers. I do so love being a Crossover Writer.

And yes, people bought copies of Queen of the Amazons as well as various earlier releases.

After the panel, some of us went out for dinner. More pleasant conversation--I was sorry to run out at the coffee stage, but I had to get home and batten down the farm for the night, and get up at 6 to get ready for early lessons. I made it to bed at midnight, was good going considering.

This morning's lessons went well. Keed is really getting it--he's started legyield and his trot work is getting more and more sophisticated. He's starting to look like a Real Dressage Horse. He isn't a competitive mover, but he's light and pleasant to watch and Really pleasant to sit, and he's having a ball. He probably wouldn't show well much past third level (versus Pook and Camilla, who have Movement To Kill For), but he has all the movements in him and as long as he's having fun, he can do whatever he wants. He looks awfully pretty doing it, too.

And speaking of Movement to Kill For, Pook was doing great...until we came around on a 20m trot circle and he started to rush and I half-halted and he sat down hard and...pulled off a shoe. Again. I'm tearing out my hair. He had boots on, and he reached right up past the right one and hooked the side of the shoe up toward the toe and rrrriiiipppp!

He did get the outside-aids thing and I was starting to get it myself, so that was good. Now to figure out the engine being too powerful for the chassis thing. His rear wheels run right up past his front wheels, and he isn't strong enough yet, or educated enough, to get his front end out of the way in time. Joni said he scooched when I asked him to balance, sat 'way down behind (overcollected, to be precise), but his front end didn't lift as it would have if he'd been trained to the level a horse usually has to be at to have that much Sitz.

He's too talented. That's his problem.

So now I have yet another call in to the shoer, and a plan to ride him up and down hills in walk so he can practice in slo-mo, and a message in to some trainers online who might have some suggestions. Joni observed that too much talent can be even more trouble than not enough. So much of training presupposes that the young horse can't do this that or the other--but Pook can do it, he just doesn't know what to do with it. Then he gets into trouble. And right now, butt-high and awkward anyway, he's trying to learn to trot a simple, basic 20m circle without falling on his nose, except he's not a normal horse so instead of falling on his nose he revs his engine and strips his front wheels.

And now I have gone Thud and am contemplating a two-week interlude in the bunker. I need to hole up and write for a while.