In Which There Will Be Space Cookies And Firmly Possible Things

16 November 2003

Yesterday was all about lasagna and cookie cutters and work. I got cookie cutters in the shape of Minnesota, a shooting star, a moose head (I had previously only had the complete moose), and a rocket. I will refrain from making the pepparkakor all in the shape of Minnesota this year, but if I didn't have the rocket and all, it might be a near thing. I think science fiction writers who like to bake should be able to make rocket cookies. I think this is a good thing. Ooh, and I could maybe cut polenta into those shapes, too. Rocket polenta. Timprov already makes polenta with a booster kick to it. Hmmmmm.

Anyway, dinner at Ciao Bella with some of my family and some of their family was good fun, although the restaurant got pretty loud towards the end. That's my main complaint with Ciao Bella. At first (we had a 5:30 reservation), we could all talk in one conversation, but by the time we finished dinner, cross-table talk had to be quite deliberate and brief. Ah well. The wild mushroom lasagna and the huckleberry cheesecake were lovely. Actually, it was more the gelato on top of the cheesecake that was good. I think if I have dessert there again, it'll probably just be gelato.

The server had the thickest Minnesota accent in the world, and she kept rounding the vowels, ge-lahhh-toooohh. I was much amused.

And there were articles to work on, and articles and articles. And today, more articles. I'm glad to be doing these and getting paid for them and all that, but it'll be nice to have them done. Soon. I was pretty productive yesterday, and I see no reason today shouldn't be that way, too. Yay, productivity. Yay, crossing things off the list.

(The library list...uff da, the library list. I'm going to have to go onto a fourth page of library list. There's just no other solution for it. Maybe I'll make some kind of dent now that I'm coming into the no-book-buying-for-myself season. I'm not betting the farm on it, though: many of the items on the list are authors, not specific books.)

I started reading Tamora Pierce's Lady Knight last night. I'm not sure what I think of it, or of the series on the whole. It feels in some ways like it's too much of a revisitation of the Alanna series to me, and yet there are clear differences any fangirl could rattle off without blinking. I'm glad Pierce is on to another project in Tortall, though. I like hearing more about the world and characters, but "and then there's another girl knight"...I don't know. Pierce has had better premises, let's say that.

I have a story up at Alien Skin now! Not sure when it went up, but there it is. I originally called it "Taste of Blood, Scent of Bubble-Gum," and at least one person really liked that title (wasn't me, though), but they retitled it Taste of Blood and Bubble Gum. It's an older story, and not my happiest shiniest one. But not everything has to be shiny and happy.

Good thing for me.

I'm now convinced that my brain is Just Being Difficult. I got the urge to do edits to The Grey Road this morning. Now is not the time to edit The Grey Road at all. At all, at all, at all. But I got the urge to read all my own books in order and mess with them. And while I am not claiming Fortress has attained a transcendent level of perfection, it's definitely more finished than The Grey Road, so my brain latched on to that. Down, brain. Now is not the time for that particular book to get combed through.

In fact, I'm feeling so enthusiastic about editing that I'd like to go through and edit books I haven't written yet. When I was waking up, my brain supplied, "And after that, I could do edits to that Europa YA adventure thing!" Not written yet. Impossible to edit at this time. Shut up, brain. I will tell you what we are doing today, and it will be firmly in the realm of the possible. Dammit. We will not attempt by sheer force of will to make leaps in spacetime. We will listen quietly and happily to the Steven Brust song currently playing, and we will breathe, and then we will write.

Back to Novel Gazing.

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