So, today our friendly local vicar, Mark, in full knowledge of what I write, has asked me to go into our local church primary school on Wednesday and talk to the 5-11 year olds for 10 minutes about being an author. Preferably working something about God in there too.
I’m thinking I’ll say something about how I wanted to write when I was their age, but for a long time I thought God would want me to do something harder – like giving away all my money and going out to the Congo to feed starving children. It took me a long time to believe that just because I wanted to do something, didn’t necessarily mean that God automatically didn’t want me to do it. He might have actually given me that talent because he wanted me to use it.
Then I’ll probably say something about how I write books with gay heroes because God loves gay people, and sometimes it’s extra hard when you’re growing up and you’re gay, because people are mean to you. And there are lots of books with straight people as the heroes, but not very many with gay heroes, which isn’t very fair, particularly when people are already making you feel like you’re all alone. So I like to write happy books where gay people get to do exciting things like fly fighter planes and fight pirates, and they find someone to love and live happily ever after with. Because it’s hard to feel that God loves you if it’s only the straight people who ever get to do anything interesting or fall in love or get married.
Then I might talk about C.S Lewis and Tolkien, and what I learned from them when I was little. I’ll say that I’m an author because I think the stories we tell ourselves are very important. They teach us right from wrong, and how to be brave, and they can sometimes be the only thing that tells us that someone else understands us and still likes us. Then I’ll wrap up by saying that that’s why I think that sometimes God really does call people to write books instead of running soup kitchens. So if they have special things that they love doing, maybe they could think about how to use them to make the world a kinder place.
Is that likely to fill ten minutes, do you think? Does anyone know how many words approximately it would take to fill ten minutes, if I wrote the whole thing out and memorized it? And do you think it’s pitched about right for 5-11 year olds? I’ve never done any public speaking before, ever, and I have no idea what to do.
Woohoo, I’ve finished chapter 19! I have a strange plan with 21 chapters, but already suspect that I’ll need to renumber everything because some chapters are very short and some are very very long. Nevertheless, a large part of the climactic battle is behind me, everyone now knows whose side they’re on and what they’re fighting for, and there’s only the single combat, the terribly awkward conversations between Ben & his Dad and Flynn & Chris, and the aftermath to go.
So far I’m keeping up with NaNo with less misery than I was on day 2, though it’s still proving difficult to fit in other things, like cleaning the bathrooms and going grocery shopping.
Quote of the day, in which I lampshade the fact that I have no regard for things that could actually happen:
“Don’t give me that crap, Tolly. I’m flying a ghost kite above a portal between worlds I opened by the power of prayer. Don’t expect me to play by the laws of physics now!”
Well, I was right about yesterday having to be paid for. Today I managed to make my word count, but only at the expense of feeling rotten, eating constantly and being irritable when my family asked me to do completely outrageously selfish things like say hello to them, answer the phone, or cook dinner.
It shouldn’t be this hard this early in the month, is all I’m saying!
was a good day for me. I wrote 2,605 words and finished chapter 18. (As you can tell from this single sentence, I’m not doing NaNo properly. I’ve got 110,000 words of this book written already, and this is just giving me the push I need to get over the ‘I don’t really want to finish’ self sabotaging end-of-novel hump.)
I also won a book, (yippee!) by confessing to my fears over at Shrinking Violet Promotions. That was a wonderful surprise. Thank you to the shrinking violets 🙂 Once I get it, however, I will have to go on a quest, amass a small band of helpful followers and journey into the underworld to defeat the monster, before returning to my small village bringing home the wisdom and OMG skillz I have acquired on the way. I’m hoping that going down to the local shop and returning with some blu-tac will qualify.
I also had to go to my weigh in at Slimming World (if I don’t go, they fine me!) and despite feeling certain I’d gained weight, it turned out that I’d lost 2.5lb and was ‘slimmer of the week.’ I do not understand how this diet works, since it involves me eating massive amounts of food, but 10.5lb lost so far suggests that it does work, whether I understand it or not.
Altogether a good day then. I’m almost afraid to go to bed, because all this means (according to the principle of cosmic balance otherwise known as sod’s law) is that tomorrow is likely to be awful.
(As copy-pasted from Joyful_molly.)
30 October, 2010
Hampton Hotels has a “Save-A-Landmark” program to support refurbishment of national landmarks. The “Friends of Falls of Clyde” have nominated this wonderful national historic landmark for a grant. A desperately needed grant, I have to add. Alas, the whole thing is a competitive arrangement, so I recommend/ask/beg you all to vote for the “Falls of Clyde”.
READ MORE ABOUT THE “FALLS OF CLYDE”
HAMPTON LANDMARKS HAWAII
CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR THE “FALLS OF CLYDE”
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COUNTERPOINT: DYLAN’S STORY is the story of Dylan Rutledge’s life, from the age of eighteen until his early thirties, and of the two men whose lives were intertwined with his at different times and in different ways.
At eighteen Dylan Rutledge has one obsession: music. He believes his destiny is to be the greatest composer of the rapidly approaching twentieth century. Only Laurence Northcliff, a young history master at The Venerable Bede School for Young Gentlemen, believes in Dylan’s talent and encourages his dream, not realizing Dylan is in love with him.
But Dylan’s passion and belief in his future come at a high price. They will alienate him from his family and lead him on a rocky path fraught with disappointment, rejection, and devastating loss that kills his dream. A forbidden love could bring the dream back to life and rescue Dylan from despair and bitterness, but does he have the courage to reach out and take it? Will he deny the music that rules his soul?
I can’t remember if I’ve talked about this one before, but it’s brilliant. Even better than Ruth’s The Phoenix, which has been one of my all time favourites in the genre. I’m not feeling up to a full review, but I’d kick myself if I didn’t say what a great book this is. Lovely period setting, a complex plot that tackles all kinds of interesting things about music, what it’s like being the kind of genius composer who is years ahead of his time, and what happens when you meet the rare people who can appreciate that gift. It’s got a real gut punch of emotion, and it has the sexiest hero I’ve ever come across in m/m. Highly recommended.
~*~
Andrew Waters, son of an American diplomat and a Chinese mother, already has two strikes against him when he joins the crew of the USS Pilgrim not long after Pearl Harbor–his mixed heritage and his pacifism.
He never expects he will fall in love with his handsome commanding officer.
The crew of the Pilgrim is captured and sent to the notorious Changi POW camp. The man Andrew loves will die without proper medical treatment. To save his life, Andrew makes a choice that could cost him not just his future but his life.
This is not so much a romance as a beautifully written war story with a gay hero. That is, love plays its part, but there’s a lot more than that going on, storms, brawls, hunger, captivity, human cruelty and ingenuity. All the kinds of things that I enjoy – a succession of really well realized settings and complex characters in complicated situations, philosophy, the sheer enjoyment of beautiful language. Definitely transcends its genre and becomes a work of literature rather than mere entertainment. (Though it’s hard to put down and a real page turner as well.)
I realize I’m behind the times with both of these, but I think it’s worth saying how good they are, even if I’m a bit late to the party 🙂
Just not the type I really should have focused on.
I finished the big stuff on Rose’s dress, but as you can see, the shoulders are so wide that they fall off on one side. I’ll have to tweak it somehow – maybe a dart in the centre of the back? – so that the neckline comes in a bit. It still needs boning down the front, which is why it’s a bit crinkled. It also needs hemming, which I can’t do until she has the pocket hoops to wear underneath. And it could probably be pulled in a little more, so it can’t really be called finished, but at least it’s largely assembled. Read the rest of this entry »
My first memory is of exile – a cabin in the the boat that was carrying us away from our home in Northern Ireland. But I was born in N.Ireland only because my family was there temporarily with my father’s job. So when my own family followed the same pattern, moving frequently, following Andrew’s work, it seemed natural. In fact the longest we’ve ever been in one place since we got married was 7 years. It suited me because by the end of the third year in a place I was getting fed up with it and wanting to move on. (This happens to me with writing too. Inspiration seizes me and for a year or two I’m all about boats, or planes, or Jedi knights, or whatever, and people are just starting to associate me with that thing when I start feeling the need to do something else.)
That said, this time things feel different. I’ve fallen into the Fen country as if I belong here and put down roots I didn’t know I had. Contrary to all my expectations, I love the flat lands and the big skies that come down around you on all sides. I love light moving on the water. I love the dances and the pub sessions where everyone’s welcome to do their turn, whether they play well or not. I love the fact that there still is a community here that gets together in pubs and sings.
I went to Ely this morning to post some books for Bookmooch, as our local post office is shut for refurbishment. I was coming home, and all around me the tractors were out in the fields, scrubby after harvest, ploughing them up for winter crops. I never realized before how beautiful a freshly tilled field is. It looks clean, hopeful. And that’s welcome to me at this time of year, when it feels that everything else is grinding to a halt, hunkering down and preparing for the long endurance test of surviving the winter. Freshly tilled fields mean that someone has faith in the future.
That must be why there are so many festivals around Plough Monday, and I’ll dance at the next one with more fervor. I wish I could look at this time of year as harvest time, but for me it’s the beginning of the time of death. It was very good to come home through a landscape that took that feeling and turned it into an act of clearing the ground in hope for something new.
Can anyone recommend any great books featuring elves which I really ought to read in order to catch up with what has been done by novelists writing about the realm of Faerie recently? I’m trying to put together a society for the elves in Under the Hill, and it occurs to me that – since I don’t know what other people have done – I don’t know what’s cliche and what isn’t.
I have pretty firm ideas about what’s elvish and what isn’t. Tolkien’s elves = elvish, Terry Brooks’ elves = not elvish. Michael Swanwick‘s elves = elvish, Katherine Kerr’s elves = not elvish (though her fae folk are much more so.) They’re difficult to get right, IMO. Even Terry Pratchett, who is otherwise a complete writing hero of mine, didn’t get the nuance or the ambiguity I think they need, choosing to make them straightforward monsters instead.
Anyway, what great classics of elvishness have I missed? Has anyone read the Iron Elves series by Chris Evans? Are they any good? I certainly like the titles 🙂
I have finally finished my pocket hoops, the first step towards making myself slightly posher 18th Century clothes. They look like small covered wagons and involved about the same amount of engineering, since each one is boned with three lengths of steel. They also have padded channels at the top to make the tops rigid. I will be able to keep a brace of pistols and a small library in them, but a slight disadvantage is that they’re so big I can’t reach to the bottom of them. I also have to go sideways through doors. Which is as it should be, of course. Read the rest of this entry »
