Juices Flowing Again

My friends and colleagues in the writers group were very sympathetic and generous with suggestions about how to beat the block I complained about in the last post.

I want to thank them all, again, very much!

We need Edmund to experience some Man versus Nature. This shouldn't be too hard, since he has never before traveled more than fifty miles away from home. I only have vague ideas about this as yet, but just knowing the material should be there is a help.

Next, he has an encounter with an old woman, who treats him kindly. But, since Edmund is not terribly observant, and generally is not the shiniest battle axe on the wall, or maybe I should say the sharpest, he doesn't perceive her true nature and, since he's pretty pigheaded, she is only able to give him relatively small, unimportant gifts; useful as far as they go, but limited.

However, the very existence of this episode created the need for a later, parallel or at least similar episode. The second person who encounters the kindly old woman is more perceptive, and thus understands that she is a witch wife, albeit not a powerful one. This second person is also rather more amenable to suggestion, so the kindly crone can give the second person some useful help.

These episodes also involve details that tie this story forward to another, set centuries in the future of this world. Indeed, I'll now have to start looking for ways to incorporate similar details into other stories set in this world.

In other words, while the problem of Edmund's quest and specifically his travels hasn't been solved, it no longer seems insoluble and overwhelming. I'm working again, and that's a marvelous feeling!

Ups and Downs

Maybe the editing gig will be more fun than I expected. Still, never again! I don’t deal well with the guilt of judging a submission to be sub par and rejecting it. I do quite like reading the good entries though; so, I guess it all evens out. Got three months of it ahead of me, the deadline being April 30. Oh well, I suppose it’s good experience.

An experience that I’m finding a bit frustrating is the article for The Braille Monitor. The contact from whom I need a few more details in order to finish the article still hasn’t e-mailed me back. I suppose it’s time to light just a small fire under her. After all, she’s the one who wanted publicity in the first place. I want to get the article finished and sent to the editor before he completely forgets having talked to me about it. Hence the necessity of nudging the contact. Blah! I hate being pushy. But, if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes. Sigh

By far the biggest problem of the past few days has to do with my high fantasy story, “The Lady of the Stars.” One member of my writers group made the just and reasonable observation that, if the Steorraburg (the palace that is home to the title character) is a place of legend and quest, it needs to be more than three days’ ride away from home. There is, it has always seemed to me, a compelling reason for the journey, especially the journey home, to be as short as possible, a reason that the reader, not having gotten that far yet, couldn’t be aware of. Still, his point is a good one. If I’m going to do this, I ought to do it right. After a few days’ thought, I have come up with a somewhat weak but workable way around the problem of the journey’s length.

But that minor success exposed a major, potentially project-stopping problem. I have nothing, nada, absolutely zipparoony in the way of minor, wayside adventures for my young, would be hero. No fragment, or scrap or shadow of an idea either in the computer or in the dim recesses of my mind. I always thought the violent imagery of racking or cudgeling one’s brains was extreme, hyperbole. I’ve learned better. Never before have both my personal slush pile and my imagination failed me...utterly and completely. I have no notion what to do except maybe to proceed with working on the parts I do have some vague notion about as well as with the swordsmanship research in the hope that inspiration might strike. But, it’s discouraging. I was enthusiastic about this project, and actually dared to voice the hope of finishing it in the foreseeable future. That audacity, that arrogance must have been what caused the problem that has drawn me up short. It’s very upsetting!

Oh well. Better go look at today’s batch of submissions. I meant to do it earlier in the day, but somehow the day got away from me.

Candlemas

listener makes her own candles. Above is a photo of newly made candles that she finished yesterday.

Candlemas is also known as The Feast of Our Lady of the Candles.

The feast's roots are traceable to the Celtic festival of Imbol. Also read this fascinating page from The Wheel of the Celtic Year to learn about the connections between St. Brigid and Candlemas. Thanks to Alan for these two links.

However you look at it, we're coming out of the darkness of Winter into the light of Spring.

What I'm Up To

The article I'm writing for The Braille Monitor is almost finished. In fact, I'd hoped to have it done by the end of the week. But one of my contacts, from whom I still need some info, hasn't supplied that info yet; so, I'm stuck waiting. I hate that.

It's particularly irksome because I'm rather busy just now. Starting Monday, I'll be reading through and selecting pieces for a book to be published this summer by the NFB Writers Division. While I understand the justice of the person who originated the idea doing the editing and selecting, still I wish to heaven the idea had never entered my mind. I've never done any editing before, and the prospect alarms me.My only hope is that there won't be many entries.

I'm also currently working on a Fantasy story for which I need to do research into swordsmanship. While this promises to be fascinating, it will also be long drawn and tiring. But then, what isn't tiring? *sigh*

I probably won't have much time for reading over the coming few months. Recently, i've been reading Edgar Rice Burroughs's Barsoom (Mars) series.Great fun. The first four books are unashamedly pulp fiction but the fifth, The Chessmen of Mars that I just finished, is rather more polished and literary. It's still a tale of high adventure, involving a beautiful princess, a loyal and faithful warrior aspiring to her hand, fabulous and grotesque monsters, an evil monarch and chivalrous friends found along the way who are willing to die for honor. But the style is less overwrought and consciously mannered than that of the earlier books. I enjoy the series, endlessly inventive as Burroughs' mind is. I'd like to read others of his series at some point, but when that may be, I don't know.

RIP Robert B. Parker

I was sorry to hear of the death Monday, January Eighteenth, of mystery writer Robert B. Parker. Still, he died at his desk, working. Surely, that's the way any writer would choose to go.

RIP

Help Out In Haiti

Many organizations are taking part in the international disaster relief efforts in Haiti. The two that yours truly has donated to are UNICEF and Habitat For Humanity. Won't you join me in lending a helping hand to our Haitian brothers and sisters who have lost their archbishop, their cathedral and much of their capital city as well as unknown numbers of their fellow citizens?

Benediction

- photo by listener

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.

Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake. Amen.

- St John Chrysostom

Another Vermont Road

- photo by listener

West Virginia may be almost Heaven, but this sure looks like a piece of Paradise to me. (Be sure to click on the photo foor the large version.)

Upon the hearth the fire is red,
Beneath the roof there is a bed:
But not yet weary are our feet,
Still round the corner we may meet
A sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen but we alone.
Tree and flower and leaf and grass,
Let them pass! Let them pass!
Hill and water under sky,
Pass them by! Pass them by!

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon and to the Sun.
Apple, thorn and nut and sloe,
Let them go! Let them Go!
Sand and stone and pool and dell,
Fare you well! Fare you well!

Home is behind, the world ahead,
And there are many paths to tread
Through shadows to the edge of night,
Until the stars are all alight.
Then world behind and home ahead,
We'll wander back to home and bed.
Mist and twilight, cloud and shade,
Away shall fade! Away shall fade!
Fire and lamp, and meat and bread,
And then to bed! and then to bed!

- J.R.R. Tolkien
from The Fellowship of the Ring

The More Things Change...

In Eighteenth Century England, the target was Roman Catholics. In the Twenty-first Century United States, it's Muslims. As a species, we don't seem to be making much progress.

It is unnecessary to say, that those shameful tumults, while they reflect indelible disgrace upon the time in which they occurred, and all who had act or part in them, teach a good lesson. That what we falsely call a religious cry is easily raised by men who have no religion, and who in their daily practice set at nought the commonest principles of right and wrong; that it is begotten of intolerance and persecution; that it is senseless, besotted, inveterate and unmerciful; all History teaches us. But perhaps we do not know it in our hearts too well, to profit by even so humble an example as the 'No Popery' riots of Seventeen Hundred and Eighty.

- Charles Dickens
in the preface to Barnaby Rudge, 1868

Snowy Day

When I took this photo at 8:30 this morning, I heard Chickadees singing their Spring song!
"MY tree! MY tree!" This is the earliest I have ever heard it sung; usually it's just one early bird.
This was a whole chorus of Chickadees!

- listener

Maybe the chickadees know something we don't? *grin*

Vermont Roads

Vermont's interstate has two lanes on each side and no billboards.

- listener

Though none are in evidence, this picture puts me in mind of the line from "Moonlight in Vermont:"

Telegraph cables, how they sing along the highway, and travel each bend of the road

A Musical New Year

Just as it is traditional to sing "Auld Lang Sine" at Midnight in English speaking countries, in European countries it is traditional to play The Radetzky March at New Year's Day concerts, usually at the end.

Blue Moon

Besides New Year's Eve, tonight is also a blue moon. Thanks to listener for the reminder and the photo.

Ring Out, Wild Bells!

photo by listener

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

- Alfred, Lord, Tennyson: In Memoriam A.H.H., CVI