Item the first: For anybody who thinks they might want a Giant Ridiculous Dogge on their very own, my mom and her partner have a bitch in whelp, and are expecting puppies on the ground in January if all goes well.

You can read thecoughlin's informational post here. If that intrigues you, the Eiledon Briards website is here.

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Item the second: Climbed tonight with buymeaclue and TBRE and The Jeff. Did not climb particularly well, mind you, but I did get out there. Better luck on Monday. *g*

Around 600 words on The White City today, and still waiting for it to tell me how it goes. I wrote the last scene (denouement), and the closing sentence, but I'm missing like four scenes that comprise the climax.

It's interesting writing Sebastien in a situation where he is NOT in charge.

Tomorrow is a work day. God damn it. I will have focus and I will get somewhere.

Well, time to stare at it  for a while again.

Teacup today: cabbage roses, a gift from ctwriter.
Tea today: Mokalbari East
Temperature this morning: a balmy fiftyish


Sebastien is having a fraught conversation with somebody he's never met before, who knows him uncomfortably well. I have just skipped the climax and am working on the denouement.

ETA: And a very brave neighborhood cat is apparently using our back porch as a base of operations, as there are two Green Bits (TM) on the steps. I wonder if that was the end of our Kitchen Smouse.

Finished candles.

I really like the blue one.

I should eat something and work for a bit before it's time to go climbing with buymeaclue, The Jeff, and TBRE.

In other news, the rain and warmth came overnight, and now the snow is gone. It was a special delivery, just for Christmas.

Just finished and filed my review of Sherlock Holmes for Tor.com (short version: it was awful and I loved it), and before that, I made some candles. See, I used to commit chandlery fairly often but had fallen out of the habit, and yesterday cristalia mentioned she was thinking of taking it up, which inspired me to break out the wax and crayons.



I'm still staring meaningfully at The White City, trying to figure out how the damed thing works. It would be nice if I could finish it by year's-end. But it all depends on if the story tells me how it ends.

 I guess tomorrow I start rereading it again.

It's finally raining out there, and the wind is gusting fiercely, but it's 41 degrees, which seems positively balmly.

My mom made me a totally awesome pair of pink and purple socks!



I guess now I get to sit and stare and think about how to fix The White City so it works. Maybe I will spin and listen to NPR. That seems a sitting and staring sort of occupation.

So close to the end. So close. Two ot three days' work, if I can just figure out what the work should be.

Meanwhile, today's teacup is one sent to me by stwish, made by his friends at Earthbound Arts (I also have a mermaid and a faerie queene--ornaments--from there, and both are lovely)  And today's tea is the last of the crepe faire from Stash--the last crepe faire ever, I suspect, as they've discontinued the flavor.

I have read and edited that which I have written of The White City. And wonder of wonder, I like it. A lot, actually.

And still I have no idea at all how to end it. I mean, I know who the killer is and stuff. But I don't know how to build the climax and a thematic resolution that will make a satisfying finish to the story. Also, I have to go back and put in some more clues who the killer is. Making things feel inevitable and not arbitrary is a significant portion of the storyteller's craft.

I sense a lot of staring and pacing in my life for the next week or so.

"No really. I am working!"

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Pursuant to the spinning, I'm thinking again about the stuff we strive to get right in fantasy. So much of the work set in the past, or alternate pasts, gets the details of life so very wrong. People have no trades, or if they do they are desperate to escape them. And actually, people who work with their hands often like what they do. Making stuff, after all, is quite satisfying.

Some authors do this very well--Connie Willis, Barbara Hambly. People work in their books, and the worlds feel real.

Another thing that always seems to fall out of fantasy written by modern authors is how integrated life was. People did not have work and leisure; everything ran together. You sat and spun while someone told stories, or you sang songs and worked the winch, or talked and shucked peas. And good tradesmen were respected in direct proportion to their indispensibility. A village blacksmith or potter is a hard thing to live without.

Our modern emphasis on book learning, I think, creeps in there and corrupts how we talks about other cultures.

Christmas pronounced a success. (My immediate local family--none of us are actually Christians, but we celebrate a secular Christmas anyway, and often these days it even falls on the actual day. It didn't always, because my mom was a hospital employee for 25 years.)(See above, December Non-Denominational Gift-Giving Day.)

We made out first ever Yorkshire puddings, which came out awesome and we were all boggled at just how easy it is. Next time, a little longer in the oven, and we will use a metal muffin tin instead of the silicon muffin cups, because, well, the silicon cups were too slippery and the puddings just levitated themselves out of the cups rather than getting tall. Not enough friction!

(The muffin cups were a gift from truepenny: this was their inaugural run. Thank you!!!)

Here are the socks and the blanket my mom knitted me, because I promised to brag about them.

And here is my first ever hank of yarn, which I gave to my mother. It's "art yarn," which is to say it's not art yarn at all. It just sucks. But hey, it's mine and I made it.

We tried the prime rib recipe from Cook's Illustrated, and came to the conclusion that while it is good, our family recipe process is better. (We were all actually capable of stopping eating after one slice. Which never happens the way we usually do it.) However, their au jus recipe rocked, though next year we're leaving out the wine.

And Yorkshire puddings are a permanent addition. In two years, they'll be an ancient family tradition.

And then I beat the freezing rain home and let the dog out.

Now I'm going to make some tea and put on my wrist braces and go sit under my new blanket and work on The White City, because TBRE is out in the world tonight and I have the whole luxurious house to myself.

Oh, and gotta water the tree.

One of my crunched toenails fell off!

( behind a cut for the squeamish )

Your ew gross for the morning.

Your December Non-Denominational Gift-Giving Day Present from the Shadow Unit crew: "On Faith."

Come and get it.

It's a December Non-Denominational-Gift-Giving Day miracle! Two much-delayed checks have arrived today, along with a copy of the Russian SF magazine Esli, with truepenny-n-my space pirate story "Boojum" innit.

woot!

And now time to start that haaaaaaaaaaaaaaam. As soon as I find the recipe...

...and there was nobody there to tell me that i couldn't keep her.

And this is why the Inauthentic Borscht recipe calls for grating the beets in a clean sink. (I pour boiling water into mine to rinse after I scrub it down, before using it as a food prep surface.

Mmm. Beets.

Watching the giant Wookiee muppet dog run around the back yard gives me a very good idea of what the hair movement on a sasquatch would look like.

So there's my 1.5 attempt at spinning. The outside is better than the inside, but still very very erratic. And now I have to figure out when the spindle is full, and how to ply it....

(This is lovely wool that asciikitty sent. It's more teal than blue in person.)

It's the 1.5 because here is the .5 attempt, with combed 100% virgin silver Briard:



That's the belly of the GRD's stuffed lion, if you want to know. *g*

1) Tomorrow, at some point, there will be a new episode of Shadow Unit. I can't tell you when exactly, but it's called "On Faith" and it is our Very Special Holiday Episode.

It was written by Sarah Monette, and don't forget to check for easter eggs. *g*

There might also be a S3 trailer. Maybe.

2) Good climbing night tonight. I only did four walls, but one was a new 5.8 on the 45-foot overhand, which includes a little roof--and I didthe first thirty feet of it in one big push, which made me feel really good about myself. Two other routes were 5.9s on the slab that had previously eluded me. I didn't do 'em clean or neat, but I did 'em. And next time I will do better. (I also sent a 5.8 I have gotten before.)

Joy was redoubled by listening to two nice climber boys from Colorado bitch about how our 5.8s are like everybody else's 5.10s. I mean, I know it, but it's nice to have confirmed.

3) I am making borscht tomorrow, dammit. TBRE and I are both giving blood. We have an excuse to need beets and beef. (It was also a good excuse for steak tonight.)

4) I'm on page 57 of rereading The White City and it hasn't fallen apart on me yet. There's always the next bit, of course...

5) Crowded House's "Transit Lounge" is so a gamma song.

One of the things I love about fandom is that, at its best, it's a potlatch society. It's one of the last few places in the Western world where a person's social status and the respect in which they are held is determined by the quality and magnanimity and effort involved in what they give away.

I've been involved in Criminal Minds fandom and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. fandom and SFF fandom, and I used to tell people I wasn't a real fan, because I didn't contribute enough to the communities. But I guess I do bring something, and I should value that.

I think of Yuletide, for example, or the people who write fic and turn it loose in the world for other people to read and enjoy, or the people who write meta and reviews and amazing critical analysis, and the people who run conventions, and the people who organize fan fundraisers, and the people who read carefully and comment and maintain rec lists, and the people who critique and educate about social issues, and the people who maintain lending libraries of out-of-print works, all for the joy of sharing something they love and feel strongly about.

Giving stuff away--and I don't mean obligatory gifts, the oh my god I have to find something for my mother in law that costs at least seventy-five bucks gifts--is a small human act of heroism. When we give time, or kindness, or something we know somebody else will love (or needs), we are reflecting, for a moment, our best selves. And in the act, we receive, as well: giving benefits the giver. Not in gratitude, but in oxytocin; the elevation that comes from community, from purpose. The love hormone, they call it, but what it really is is the social bonding hormone.

It's the thing that makes us a tribe. And the Internet makes that tribe world-wide.

I remember one time when I was so sad. I had walking pneumonia and a broken heart, and I was taking the bus home from work in a howling nor'easter and I had a mile to walk with no sidewalk from the bus stop to my door. And as I was getting off the bus, a pretty girl smiled at me. Just the gift of a smile, no reason. Maybe I looked as sad as I felt.

I still remember her, and that smile was in 1995.

As I've gotten older, this has become more and more clear to me. All I am, all I do in the world, the only value any of it has is where it benefits the world around me.

We all die. No, really. We strut our little time upon the--well, you know it. Trying never to die is futile and sad; but the prospect of that inevitability, I think, can be comforting. When we look at our own impermanence (as individuals, as cultures, as a species) then it starts to come plain that the moral value that brings the most good into the world is compassion.

Compassion is hard and scary. It means putting ourselves at risk and really listening to other people, even when we disagree with them. Even when they want to destroy us, or are completely oblivious to our needs. It does not preclude self-defense or anger, of course. And it does not mean that we have to martyr ourselves to the cruelty of others.

But it does mean that maybe, when it costs us nothing to give something away, we can do it. We can fold that neglected laundry we pull out of the dryer in the communal laundry room of life. That's a gift, after all.

Somehow, we've gotten this idea that giving is about stuff. And all that stuff we collect can make us more comfortable, but our enduring legacy is the attention we pay. The good stuff is the ways we help the world, the little pleasures we bring to others, the trees we plant, and the houses we build.

And so many of the things we can give away cost us nothing. Nothing we need, anyway. A little self-importance, a little of our self-image as Important Busy People Who Own The Road.

I like to let people into traffic. You know, I'm almost never in that much of a hurry to get somewhere. And the surprised and relieved looks they give me through the driver's side window are so very gratifying.

We are so small, and the night is so large. If we don't hold the light for each other, who will?

So this is just to say thank you to everybody who's let me into traffic over the years. For all the little kindnesses and efforts on my behalf, or just generous gestures broadcast. For all the aha moments, and the belly laughs or snickers, the things that made me go huh I'm not sure that's right.

Thanks for all the comments and arguments and small generousities. Thanks to everybody who's given me the gift of their attention, either here or to my published work: even if you hated what I had to say, you listened. (and thank you to asciikitty and coffeeem, as there is !fiber! in my mailbox today to go with my shiny new spindle.)

I'll do my best to pass it along where I can.

Happy sun return. Happy new year.

On the job this morning, working on The Steles of the Sky and The White City and drinking rose congou tea until it's time to go help fetch ashacat and Naveen home from the hospital. Then, go climb, come home, and work some more. How on earth did it already get to be Wednesday?

Temperature with wind chill this morning, four degrees. It's cold in this house this morning. Need more toast!

Gray morning out there in the morning, the sky just rimming apricot around a vault of faintly luminous slate. You wouldn't know the sky was up there if you weren't looking at the stark claws of naked trees against it.

The sky is so much brighter when there's snow across the ground.

Out in the street, the garbage trucks are grumbling from driveway to driveway, grim flat-nosed workaday goblins. Pragmatic and unsentimental. I wonder what they make of the fairy lights that drape every house on my block.

I think I need to throw on a sweater and take the dog for a walk before the sun comes up.

This is where I live.

Got some work done on The White City tonight, Mostly, it amounted to comma fiddling in the opening scenes--I haven't touched it since September, and I will have to get back into its skin to work on it, of course. But the writing in the early bits is quite creditable, and it's easy to fall back in love with these characters.

Of course, the structure is still broken, and the mystery plot is flopping on the floor like a dying and unhappy fish, and then there are those scenes that are currently indicated by something more or less reminiscent of this: [Put a scene in which Abby Irene figures out that Sebastien is withholding information here].

It's funny. The more I learn about writing--the better I get at it--the worse my first drafts get. They're all big loops and lines now, incomplete arches and spans. Sweep and movement, and the structures don't hold.

But I enjoy the process of taking those pieces and building a narrative out of them, and the narratives themselves are growing more complex and self-supporting. I've been saying for years that writng is too complicated to do well consciously--that for me it takes iterative passes and a lot of it needs to take place down in the subconscious. And this... more relaxed startegy seems to be helping with that, now that I've successfully internalized my tools.

It took a lot of conscious application to develop those tools, mind you--study and intellectualization. But now I think I might be learning to jam.

Which is what we play all those fucking scales for, after all.

The only problem with the baby ashacat made is that I have a great big winter CSA order burning a hole in my crisper drawers.

And some of it wants to be borscht, dammit. And I have no time.

I have celeriac and beets and tiny potatoes and tiny sweet potatoes and parsnips and carrots and red cabbage and delicata squash and butternut squash and winter greens and no time to eat any of it.

Also, my good knives are still at the Grinch's shop at the North Pole. It's like an itch.

Next Thursday, little vegetable drawer. Thursday. You and me. We're going to have some fun together.

And I'm probably going to make Chaz's tiny potato salad for the Xmas eve open house thingy, and maybe I will just make a damned pot of borscht, even with the bad knives. I've cooked with worse and it's seasonal, dammit. Though I'll have to get more garlic.

National Geographic photo essay on the current state of prosthetic bionics.

I especially commend you to the photographs of kindergarten teacher Amanda Kitts. This is the technology that will someday lead to the kind of prosthetics I wrote about in Hammered.

Jenny Casey's birthday, by the way, is in 2012.

I haven't posted much over the past week, mostly because I've been down and depressed. It's hard, ever, to point to a why to depression. Maybe it's because the rest of the country has snow, and we don't, maybe it's because I haven't been taking care of myself as I should have been, maybe it's because my allergies have been intensely bad, maybe it's because I have this novel in front of me which seems insurmountable right now. Maybe it's chemical and has no source. I've never been on meds, a personal choice, and I don't really talk much about being depressive. When actual crises occur I'm generally pretty good about rallying and Being Okay. But sometimes for no reason at all, my brain hides in a corner of itself and even a blog post seems like too much, let alone cleaning the house or getting around to that pickling I have to do before the produce goes bad.

I really want it to be Christmas. I love giving gifts when I can, and I want everyone to open them. I want to cook for them. But I wonder if in pushing myself so hard to take care of other people's holidays I don't totally lose my own, any sense of being off duty and just having fun. I sympathize with my grandmother who had to host these holidays, and so never got to relax.

We are also a house preparing for one of our members to go to grad school. I'm so proud of mishamish , and he did very well on his GREs, but part of me is filled with tremendous guilt that I'm not going back, that at this point it's probably a fact of my life that I'm never going to get the PhD that I took as an obvious path in my early twenties. A given. Of course I would.

I grew up with a mother in her doctoral program, surrounded by grad students as my babysitters and later friends. That culture was deeply ingrained in me. I loved it, I wanted to be an academic, passionately.

And then I dropped out of my MA program because my husband needed me to go with him to Japan. Because if I stayed there was no point to having gotten married. And I never went back.

I think of myself as an academic, it's part of my identity, but it's a lie. I'm not one. I don't have a graduate degree of any kind--I have a half-finished master's and a handful of journal articles. And for a long time I didn't go back because the Navy moved us around too much, or because I didn't care for any of the Cleveland-adjacent universities. And now...I just can't imagine where I would find the time. I can barely stomach taking a year off writing to have a child, and I know from my old experiences that being in grad school means I just don't have leftover energy to write. (And I just couldn't get a creative writing degree. I don't believe in them, I just don't. Not for me, not in this life.) With my schedule ramping up as it has, and three novels to write in a year, how could I possibly do it?

But part of me knows that's an excuse. I could. There are great universities near here and I'm pretty settled in Maine. The raw fact is I don't want to, and there's the root of the guilt. All the energy I could put towards a doctorate and a dissertation swirls in my heart and I think: but how many novels could I make of that instead? Every book I write is a dissertation's worth of research and discipline. I don't have any doubt about my ability to finish a program--I'm really pretty good at school, and always have been. But there will come a moment when I'm not writing the novel I see in all that research, and writing a thesis instead, and I will be miserable. There will come a moment when I look back and see the gap, when I could have been doing the work I so desperately want and wasn't doing it, and I will be be miserable.

I don't want it enough. I don't want it more than I want to write all the time, to get all these books in me out while I'm still living and able to do it.

And that means I've chosen my path, right? I should find strength in that. But I find only guilt, because I was supposed to be an academic. I was supposed to be this other person with letters behind my name, like my mother, like so many of my friends. And I will never be that person. And I tell myself that my books have been taught in universities, and surely that is as fine a destiny. I know well that most English grad students want to be writers. But in the story of me, this was supposed to be something I had done by 25. I graduated early from high school, and had all that promise, and dropped out. So the guilt is still there. Because I loved something and I gave it up for a man, which I never thought I would do, and I am not going back to it, even though I could.

Goddammit, why isn't it snowing?

Goals for today:

Clean off table
Do a little Christmas baking
Do laundry (ongoing)
Make dinner and dispensatory casseroles
Mail last round of DNDGGD* gifts
Work on The White City**
Pick up ornament hooks someplace

In the category and occasional series of Things That Actually Work As Advertised, at tanaise's urging, and due to a really good sale, I ordered myself a cotton henley from Lands' End. It came yesterday, I am wearing it, and it is awfully nice. Warm and thick and long enough even for my very long torso and broad shoulders. That is all and I thought you might like to know. (This is not a paid promotion. They also have turtlenecks.)



Tea today: gunpowder green
Teacup today: thatpotteryguy's medieval mug

Now, about those cookies... oh, right, I should eat something first.

The wonderful P. D. James on NPR.org

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*December Non-Denominational Gift-Giving Day. They were supposed to go out yesterday, but, well, baby!

**Oh, lord, what a mess. Well, soonest begun is first ended. And other pithy Yankee sayings.