Jumping in again

Obstacles to writing: cats.
We have two cats now. They are both cute and purring, but also both senior females used to being the only cat in the house.  The newer cat, Khandi, has been settled in my writing room, because we needed to keep her in a room with a door that closed for the first few weeks. Now she has been with us almost a year, but still regards that room as her bastion and refuge, not to be entered by any other cats. Established cat, Priss, still regards the whole house as hers, and my writing room as her place to snuggle with me and interfere with composition.
Now they both interfere with composition by hissing and batting at each other at random intervals. It somewhat interferes with getting into the zone of steady writing.

I skipped the 3-Day Novel Contest last year, because the online submission through Geist (who are handling it now) was a pain and a half, and because Melissa's personal touch (the daily email of encouragement, etc.) was gone. Same admission fee, and you had to print out your own certificate of survival at the end. Pfah.
But it's really a contest between me and the screen, isn't it? The way writing always is - sit down and put your fingers on the keyboard. Just more compressed, instead of continual. So I'm giving it another shot, although I have no plot or characters or setting.
I did have an idea, rather Neil Gaiman-ish, of slipping between a fantastical world and everyday world, echoing each other, with fairy-tale tropes (I mean the original fairy-tales, with ogres and bones, not sparkles and cute animals). Whether that's going to develop into an actual story I do not know as yet.
Okay, time to grab another cup of tea and get down to writing. And since this is the 3-Day, I will not allow myself to backtrack or delete text, except for correcting obvious typos.
Oh lord, that is going to be hard.
See you all later!

putting things away on shelves

New stuff!
For Christmas I got a hand-me-down Mac Mini and keyboard, and a monitor twice the width of my previous one. Through the successive efforts of my son, my husband, and even me, I have Snow Leopard loaded and have downloaded some necessary applications (Scrivener, Bean, Dropbox). This all took a while, because I'm dilatory and disorganised. But here I am now, posting from the new machine.

On the less technologically advanced side... As I bicycled to work one dim grey morning, I was distracted by a looming darkness on the sidewalk. Because I'm a natural scavenger, even of looming darkness, I stopped, and discovered it to be two wooden bookcases (about 7' tall and almost 4' wide, maybe 8" deep) leaning against a power pole. That is tall, actual wood not particle board, shallow bookcases meant to contain books rather than sculptures and curios. Exactly what I need to get the stacked books and papers off the floor of my study.
You'll have noticed that bookcases of that size and presumed weight are going to be awkward loads. I was on a bike. So bungy-cording them, even one at a time, onto my bike-basket was not going to be an option. I stood pensively for a bit, thinking of my sleeping husband, and whether I should bike to work and phone him to bring the van and fetch them, or go home and wake him up to help me fetch them home. And what if someone else came along in the interim? If I'd had a cell phone, I might have called right then, but... Or was I overestimating the eagerness of the visible traffic - people heading in to work in compact cars - to load themselves up with two large bookcases?
Since I'd been on my way to a morning weights session, it was still pretty early. Soon traffic would pick up. Seize the day, I thought, and turned around. I bicycled quickly home, got the van and drove back. The bookcases were still there, hurrah!
Unfortunately, I could only park about 4 car lengths away (see: early morning, people not left for work yet). A challenge. Next question being whether I had overestimated my personal carrying capacity? I tipped the first bookcase and walked it down to horizontal on its side.  Oh good! It wasn't taller than me or my shoulder-height, sideways. I put myself midways of its length, tucked my shoulder under the uppermost side, and lifted.
Good thing I've been working out with weights.
If you find yourself doing this, gentle reader, be cleverer than me and fold something up to protect the bony point of your shoulder. I collected a nice dark bruise to mark the spot. The other bruise I acquired was at the upper curve of my calf, where the lower side of the bookcases bumped with each step. I proceeded to the van with a sort of chicken-hop, unable to take long steps because my knee would bump the shelf (this was on my left, because that's the good knee and I was reasonably sure it wouldn't buckle unexpectedly). Anyway, I understand why chickens don't routinely carry awkward loads on their nonexistent shoulders.
I couldn't set the case down, for fear I couldn't hoist it back up again, so finally reaching the back of the van, where I could prop one end up, was much relief. Pushing it into the van was dead easy. Pant, pant.   Then trotting around to the side door to move Mark's swords & stuff over so they wouldn't be trapped, then climbing into the van to push and pull the bookcase over to where I could slide the next one in beside it. Minor adjustments.
Back out for case number two. With really no excuse now for not having something over my shoulder to cushion, except that I didn't think of it until I found the bruise the next day. Case number two was heavier, subjectively, and I was slowing down. But! I reached the van, rested the top of the case and slid it in horizontally to lean against its twin. Hurrah!
Except that due to the width of the cases, and the aerodynamic slope of the van's back door, I wasn't going to be able to close the door. Not so hurrah.
Okay, we can deal with this. So I climbed into the van, moved the bag of swords again, and started wrestling with the bookcases, trying to lean them over enough that the upper back corner (of their current alignment, not their functional, upright alignment) would be low enough to clear the doorway. If you've ever, in a confined space, tried to manoeuvre two objects larger than yourself, one of which is leaning on the other, you may guess my degree of success. Fortunately, partway into this, I realised that they were both pressed against the back of the passenger seat--which can be moved forward. Hurrah!
So, I drove home, parked the van, and grabbed my bike. It says something about the subjective nature of time that I was still able to fit in a slightly abbreviated workout.
I left both cases in the van, so that Mark and I could share the fun of getting them up the twisty stairs. This involves a sort of slow-motion bootlegger's turn on the landing, with one person backing into the bedroom, then the other towards the bathroom, so that the long object can be aimed towards the study. In, and stood against the wall, repeat with next object.

All that though was nowt, nowt, to the fun of the next bookcase, oak veneer (if anything is heavier than oak, oak veneer would be it) and more like 5' wide, bought on usedvictoria. Mark and I together could barely get it into the van, and the counsel of wisdom would probably have been to say 'Um, no, this isn't going to work for us, sorry'. But I am not wise and dammit I am going to have bookshelves.
This case was too wide to lie flat in the back of the van, and lay a few inches above the floor, propped by the wheel-wells and creaking gently with the motion of the vehicle. Where it could not stay, for the van was needed immediately for loading other things. We got it haltingly out of the van, along the walk, and up the porch steps, where it stood oakenly.
Fortunately the next night people were over for dinner, and there was enough enthusiasm and muscles to get the behemoth bookcase up the stairs and into my study. Where it effectively blocked access to my desk for another week. But now it is upright, and braced against the wall (all credit to Mark the Wonder Husband), and books are moving into it.

I've thus been able to clear away the boxes of books and papers that were waiting for shelves, and reveal more floorspace. I brought out the blue-and-white oval rug and put it under the blue chair to mark out the reading space as distinct from the writing space, and I can pin up the maps and posters that were waiting for confirmed wall space.

Pics to come.

TMI about bruising

Leg latest: I am now permitted to unvelcro the immobilizer briefly and gently bend my knee. The first thing I did was wash my leg. Mmmm, warm water, soap. Mmmm. Not that the leg was grubby or itchy or anything, since the immobilizer breathes quite well, nothing like a cast. But it was good to be clean. It will be some weeks before immersion is possible, or showers, so I'm making the most of the pleasures of the sponge bath. (Wash down as far as possible, then wash up as far as possible, then wash possible.)

The bruises are now yellow and purple, with a particularly vivid saffron and deep rich purple on the back of the thigh, really quite beautiful. (I wonder if it could be tattooed?) The outside of my knee is more drab, with a speckled stripe of brown-purple and green-yellow.
The thigh and calf look almost normal, though the calf is flabby (uck!) and I'm looking for some isometric exercises for it. There's a band of swelling across the knee, so the kneecap is utterly without knobbiness. And the knee is very stiff. I managed a slight bend on Monday, and about a degree more today. I'm hoping it progresses through the week. I tried a cold pack while bending, and that seemed to help.

 Taken the next day - a bit faded, but look at that yellow.

Recent big achievements include figuring out how to lie down on my other side, and going up and down our front and back steps with Mark acting as spotter instead of hoister. 

Other than that, I keep thinking I've got my energy back (after all, I'm not in actual pain), then having to nap for 3 or 4 hours. It's difficult to judge, because I feel quite lively until I fall asleep. Mark has been a hero, bringing me washing water and tea, changing the bed, and nagging me to write. Plus keeping up with his orders, casting more pieces, cooking, washing dishes, and defrosting the fridge (a job both of us put off until the glacier knocks in the cupboard.)

Last week men came and took away two of our upstairs windows to be disassembled, repaired, and returned in about two weeks. So my writing room and Mark's office are without natural light, and much of the furniture has been moved into our bedroom, which was already crowded with my books that have overflowed the available shelving. On the whole, this is probably a good time for me to be confined to downstairs.

Writing is slow but steady. I'm near the point where I should start integrating Storyline Two into Storyline One, which means also majorly revising the timeline of Storyline One. On the one hand, that's going to be a lot of to-and-froing, and on the other hand it will be reworking stuff I've already written, which will be a nice change from actual writing.


Problems one doesn't think of ahead of time: Having (realistically for a modern setting) created an ethnically diverse cast, how do I kill anyone off without falling into 'Black Guy Dies First' or similar? I may have to write in a disposable default character. Sigh.
Oh, yeah - TV Tropes warning for above link!

in the blue chair

I may have mentioned this, but I'm certain I haven't provided visual evidence. Remember I wanted a blue velvet chair, either wingback or rocking, to go in the Reading Corner of my Writing Room? I found one while thriftshopping with Elisa a couple of months ago. It is rocking/swivelling, so unfortunately it can't be my supervillain setting when the heroes finally reach my lair, but that's okay, because rocking has more longterm applicability.
As you may know, Bob, I already have the supervillain fluffy cat, though it is calico and not white. Do supervillains ever have calico or ginger cats? Just wondering. Priscilla has claimed the blue chair, and rests up in it for most of the day when I'm not home, storing up energy for her upcoming role as cat of the supervillain.

 Hm, I don't think supervillains have crocheted throws, either. Will I have to settle for Storytelling Crone instead of Supervillain?

ergonomic cat

As you may recall, my 'writing room' has a HAG Capisco chair, which is super-ergonomic and ... has no provision for a lap.  Especially if I'm sitting in it backwards, which I do a lot.
Since the cat loves my writing sessions because I remain sitting for a couple of hours at a time, furnishing her with a lap, I wondered how she would cope.
She found a way.

 

In other non-writing news, I have successfully made apple peeling jelly, from this recipe here! I reduced the sugar and added a grated quince (from my brother's trees) for more pectin, and some ginger slices, not being a cinnamon fan.  

I don't know that I'll do this a lot, but I feel fairly virtuous about it, despite the extra electricity use.  And I can still compost the peels & cores afterwards.

You may have noticed, faithful reader(s), that I haven't said much about nature's goddamn bounty this fall. This is because something like 80% of the Spartan and Golden Delicious apples have Gone Away to be made into cider. So you may hear some groaning when bottling time arrives. 

In actual writing news, I have received 6 pages of editorial comments on the Dread Synopsis, which will require substantial revision (naturally). It seems I went too far on the expansion of historical scope / events / characters. Plus need to clarify motivations, provide closure to plot threads, etc. My agent includes this observation, which I found very interesting, so I share it with you:

As I read over this synopsis and thought about what kind of book succeeds I realized that what editors really want is a novel that feels like it has scope, but which isn't actually too complicated in plot because too much complexity undercuts the suspense and pacing.

There you are, actual writing advice. Now I need to take it into the revision.

fall harvest

Last year I cut the grapes back severely in the back yard. But in the summer I got distracted and let them grow madly again, so the grape harvest was not so magnificent a thing as it might have been.
Blueberries would snicker at our grapes, and kick sand in their faces.

On the other hand, with my Snackmaster! I'm collecting a fair bagful of raisins. Not seedless, but tasty. The grapes are tasty too. They may be Pinot Noir--it's been so long since the vines were begun that neither of us remembers. Maybe Cabernet. Then there's the green grapes on the arbour; no idea at all about those.

Behold! A study of my own. Chris's loft bed and shelves have been moved out (thank you, usedvictoria.com) and I have bought a desk ($150) and an ergonomic chair (HAG Capisco) ($80) and dug out my old camping carpet ($25). Then bamboo blinds ($10) against the afternoon sun.
The small bookcases are temporary, because the plan is to fill both long walls with bookshelves, as per ch. 8 of The New Yankee Workshop by Norm Abram, Little Brown 1989. Then I can clear my stacks of books out of the window seat and the computer room. And the latter becomes Mark's office properly, so that he can sort, photograph, and enter antiquities in one place.

The cat approves the carpet as a good place to disembowel her catnip budgie. Next she would like me to get a comfy chair (free) for research, reading, and cat-petting.

on my way to bed

Because this weekend is the 3-Day Novel Contest, and I must be well rested. And sparkling with brilliant ideas and thick with fully-rounded characters and chattering with witty dialogue! Or at least rested.

In other exciting news, Mark suggested that I take over Chris's old room for a writing room. He's been using it to sort & store antiquities and take photos for the website, but if I got my desk and the futon-couch out of the 'computer room' he'd probably have room to do that in there.
I could move my stacks of research books into one place and put them on shelves - of course we'd need to build floor-to-ceiling shelves on two walls. Maybe move my children's books in there as well.
A room of my own, just for writing.

I had been longingly browsing shed designs (Summerwood lets you customise your designs online, plus has immense design galleries to play around in) and occasionally looking at cabins at realtor.ca. (I classify this as house-pr0n, lusting after things impossible to perform) But having my own room would be pretty much as good as having my own building, with access to electricity, refrigeration, and tea.
So now I'm browsing Where I Write and the Guardian's series on Writers' Rooms.

Bed time! I'll try to post my 3-Day progress.