Blog Archives

1st December 2007: 43 Today

Or, as I might say if I were an atevi, I am fully 42. This year I managed to remember how old I was all year, so points for that. If I carry on telling people I’m 42, it’ll be

Posted in My Books

23rd July 2007: Rome

So, you want to visit Ancient Rome? You’ll find it’s been invaded by Vandals and Visigoths and Ostrogoths and Renaissances and Baroques and Italians driving vespas, and most recently of all by the tourist hordes. “If you come to the

Posted in Human culture, Life as it blossoms out in a jar or a face

15th May 2007: Jeopardy, pacing of revelation & how you treat characters

I was having a conversation with Zorinth on the way home on the train largely about a (really nifty) story idea of his, and one of the things we were talking about was the things novels need in order to

Posted in Small Change, Writing

21st March 2007 Lovely rice pudding for dinner again (whining about proofs)

The thing I hate about proofs is — no. Among the things I hate about proofs are: the way they arrive sufficiently soon after the copyedit that I’m still sick of the sight of the book; the way I’m totally

Posted in Small Change, Writing

16th February 2007: Conversation with a Pigeon

Actually, you don’t have to fly away when I come into the kitchen. It was me who put out those oat-crumbs you’re eating. I threw them out into the snow earlier, and the last time I came into the kitchen

Posted in Among Others, Human culture, Whimsy

26th December 2006 Inevitability

Yesterday afternoon we watched a DVD I bought myself for Christmas. The box is all in French, but in English it seems to be called The Gathering Storm and it’s Churchill biography, or as it’s dramatized like a story, fanfiction.

Posted in Human culture, Small Change

22nd December 2006: Bach in Karhide

Listening to my Bach’s Christmas Hits tape while I was wrapping presents this afternoon, it struck me that two songs in a row seem to be about Ehrenrang. Now I don’t understand German, so I don’t know what they were

Posted in Books, Life as it blossoms out in a jar or a face

1st December 2006: Forty-two today!

Hooray, hooray, I’m forty-two today. Anyone I told I was forty-two already — I was confused, OK? When I was a child I’d never have believed I could be confused about how old I was. It’s such a central fact

Posted in My Books

29th November 2006: That burned before the icecap reigned

The sun is coming through the window at an odd angle and casting the shadow of the things in my desk-tidy onto the wall in a sharp relief. There are various pens at angles, a quill, two pairs of scissors,

Posted in Unfinished book stuff

20th September 2006: Some reflections on life validating experiences on trains

We own our apartment! Both sides of our apartment! And I actually got a proper night’s sleep last night, for the first time for absolutely ages. I wake up somewhere around six pretty much no matter what time I get

Posted in Life as it blossoms out in a jar or a face, Whimsy