Haunted Mirror

anachred @ 2008-05-13T10:25:00

2008-05-13T15:39:28Z

Though this picture is not from yesterday, I thought I'd share some of the cute animal babies.
[cute animal baby warning! NSFKittyHaters]

This, btw, is angled from the loft where Mama Derry had hidden them. I am not this short unless YOU happen to be 7 feet tall.

The Irony has become Beneficence

2008-05-12T20:19:42Z

Okay, you know how I said we had a baby horse this morning, as well as acquiring a puppy, and having just got a llama Saturday?

The only goat that got bred this year (and late, late) just

Had Twins.

This will go down as one of my odder days ever.

Cosmic Irony and Birthdays

2008-05-12T17:08:56Z

This morning I had to get molasses into the water at the barn, which involved re-establishing the correct pipe-line as we pumped water out of our storm-cellar yesterday (into big blue barrels, for garden watering, to be suitably earth-friendly).
A goat got under the molasses stream as I poured. I hope she gets that snout soundly licked...

All this because a baby horse arrived this morning!
My mom got to find it and cut the umbilical despite leaving at 4 a.m. to pick up our English Shepherd PUPPY. She phoned me from Arkansas to tell me she's a doll. I still smelled of spilled molasses at this point, though that didn't win over our new teen LLAMA, though I got a good close look at him in the barnyard after I crept over toward the pony-child.

I love baby animals, but my mother noted that it was ironic that I'm the least of the animal lovers in my family, and we have all this happening on my birthday.

role in a small production?" "More of a role-play...

2008-05-11T02:12:37Z

Good Writing-Career News:
Someone asked to see more of my poetry, though the one I sent wasn't quite right.
I think I can deal with that.

Because You Always Wanted to Know:
Brahms' Violin Concerto--Music to Mop By!

My Family Now Has a Llama.
There's really no way to expand on that.

Napoleon Dynamite spectrum of cute

2008-05-09T22:57:31Z

I really am trying not to be too easily engaged by the story that header's line comes from. I think I'm failing.

Reviews in Brief:
So I'm reading Skulduggery Pleasant aloud to my younger sibs now. I think it's the funniest book I've read since...maybe Douglas Adams? Seriously good stuff, Ford. Rates more than a "mostly harmless".

Airborn--enter zeppelins! enter fantastical flying cats! enter sky pirates! enter desert-island-stranding!
Good stuff, that.

What else? Oh. The Unknown Ajax, despite revolving around some literary reference I don't know (I have a sick feeling it's Shakespeare) was much good.

fish-broth ready

2008-05-05T17:22:35Z

I had a thought (which I think is a good one) about revision, about the mechanics of it. My hypothesis:

It requires the same creative synthesis of information to process critiques into a plan to revise as it does to write a story.

The reason I came upon this is in some of my critiques for Knight-Errant, a lot of the same keywords were hit upon, but opposite ideas forwarded as to what needed to be changed. In other words, if I'd simplified the statements down to bullet-points and mathematically set them against each other they would be opposites.

Instead, trying to picture what I could do about the flaws both were trying to express, I came to an image of what both were saying that meant a third suggestion of what I needed to do. It will accomplish the change, though not directly taking what either said.

And that is a process only the writer can do by looking at the advice and seeing the story and superimposing their vision of the story on both and adjusting it until something works.

I think I am complicating a very simple concept, but does anyone else have any thoughts on the hypothesis?

"Seditious grandmothers enabling Rogues...what's up with that?"

2008-04-29T21:31:08Z

Draft of Seditious Intent done! Though it's a really crappy one, I've decided that's okay. I've got Story, we're good for the moment.

Two books I think everyone who ever drops through here should read:

The Face in the Frost (John Bellairs)
one line press? I just finished reading this and am now insanely eager to OWN a copy. Munnies must come first, munnies must come first...

Women Who Run With the Wolves (Clarissa Pinkola Estes)
a book about love, life, and stories from all over that teach us (especially women) about it.

I'll add reasons here once I'm done reading the chillens more Skulduggery Pleasant.
ETA~ I's back! So, without any further ado,

The Face in the Frost was recommended to me and the ViableParadiseXI group more than once. When my pet librarian (NoDisrespectedIntended) had it in her smorgasbord (NDI) of YA-interest fantasy/SF, I knew I should pick it up. Then I read the first page.
Hooked.
It took me a while to pick it up once I had it home, because something else took precedence and I forgot why it snagged me so neatly.
But it's got the very homey/real-life sort of humor in it's main characters juxtaposed with terribly drastic magic and some gothic wonders of event. It's like the Hobbit in humor and juxtaposition like that--and the zany wizard hero reminds me of Harry Potter 'verse, only more grounded in reality.
I hope Amazon has a preview of it, and I hope you read it, too.

Women Who Run With the Wolves is a work by a psychologist who seems to truly love folk-tales. Each chapter dissects the wisdom (Woman Wisdom, particularly) of stories from a wide array of cultures and how it applies to being a whole person and healing from hurt. It also speaks to men, because so much of this is tied up in the life-partner relationship and the ways families interact.
I'm quite a few chapters in and each seems to bring to light a new truth.
I also love the abstract approach, the focus on the elements of the story being the truth-carriers. Even when initially the ideas really weird me out.

I can deal with being weirded out--sometimes that's the only way to learn something new, something you need to know.

anachred @ 2008-04-28T16:29:00

2008-04-28T21:40:22Z

Anyone want to critique Knight-Errant or Heart's Desire, a fairy-tale style fantasy short story? It's 4k. Help me out if you can!

The people who have read so far have liked it a lot and not given me much to work with for rewriting. *g* Any volunteers will also be welcome to help me get this story a real name!

I think I might finish a book pretty quick here. I also started a new short story in the world of "Kansai Hop" (more generally useful: like a slightly less boys-book Artemis Fowl universe) which I will cut but still put most of the opening here. Despite the fact that it's not Teaser Tuesday or anything.

Larry ambled down to the marquee, bland expression fine tuned so he could internally sneer at the knocked-in neighboring sign for the ugly wonder of a Funeral Home. ...

He had repudiated elvish snobbery enough to not hold his kiosk to bizarre standards, but a half-way-to-nothing horror like that was just too awful. In the little gas station there was at least a wholeness of impression now only added to by the damage from last week's ice storm nightmare.

Flying branches occasionally had a sense of humor. The wind had taken out letters on one side of the marquee so it read “B w iser, 2.99”. The hole knocked in the other sign was just like a pock on a face. A pock on overly severe, and self-serious face.

A car drove in, and as it pulled by, slowed down. The window rolled down and a mixed-race woman with full lips and the cheekbones of a Cherokee grinned at him.

“Pointy,” she called, “you're glamour's showing.”

Whoa...mixed race in more ways that one. She pulled up to the front before he could think of any graceful retort, and unfolded from the Escort with a definite litheness of bearing you could tell anywhere. He seethed a bit, as he retrieved the extant marquee letters, because of all of the elfin traits that got to him...

His cell-phone rang as he was going through the door, so he didn't have to try and greet the gal musing over the drinks case. Too good to be true—it was his brother, the self-styled “Doc” of the Magical Moderation outfit.

“We just traced a Queen's agent to your doorstep, Lahridan. She still there?”

“Yup.”

“You'll hold her for us, then? We're setting it up a bit better, getting another operative over there.”

“I have a paycheck to earn, here.”

She came up, still smirking, and threw a few packs of Trident and one of the huge bottles of Arizona Green Tea on the counter.

“Just a few extra seconds, okay?” Doc pleaded.

“Fine.” He flipped the phone shut and put it in his pocket. “How are you doin' today?”

She dropped her eyes from his as she got out her wallet, as if unnerved by his blank smile.

“Sorry, I'm sure you could have been as rude to me about what I am,” she said. “The Fair outside their normal venues just get to me, y'know?”

“I have no idea what you are,” he said, after checking to make sure Tom was still in the back. “No worries.”

She looked up. “Oh. You...”

“I've disinherited the elfin from my brain-space. That'll be five-fifty,” he repeated, now he had her full attention.

While he got her change from a twenty, she looked him over.

“That's...brave.”

“Think so?” Their eyes met now—hers were a startling dark blue with white slivers. She was actually kind of gorgeous, if she weren't so clearly caught up in elfin politics... “Have a nice day.”

She turned to the door just as a glamoured dwarf, projecting himself as full-sized (though fooling neither of them), plastered himself against it and made it neatly one with the frame. Larry sighed. His customer just as calmly opened her tea and began chugging it. He leaned on the counter, resolved to be bored with it rather than infuriated—he was so fired. There was a lot he was good at when it came to magic (and therefore, was bored with) but deconstructing dwarvish spells was not one of them.

This is placed in a specific time in bordertown Claremore, BTW. ^_^

anachred @ 2008-04-23T18:54:00

2008-04-24T00:08:12Z

To be contrary, since this is the only meme I've seen many times without wanting to get up and do it, even once,
I hereby tag:
topayz4
dawtheminstrel
jeffsoesbe
jeanhuets
ckastens

Let me briefly mention that this ought to be a quick meme--closest book to you and all that (though in my case, which book is the closest? Today it was easier than most days). But actually, I had to save a jar-lid full of diotomaceous earth (sp. non-confirmed) which is a non-poisonous bug-killer of the crushed seashell variety to keep it from being blown over my bed even MORE by the lovely spring breeze.

But Plus for the lovely spring breeze!

From, as someone recently noted, the mother of all Gothics:

"Grace!" exclaimed Mrs Fairfax.
I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachination; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise.

Jane Eyre
which has some rather melodramatic language, but is rightfully respected as a pinnacle, not typical, of its kind.

The rules for the woefully tagged:

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences from the page on your own LJ, along with these rules.
5. Tag five people and post a comment to the post where I got tagged.

anachred @ 2008-04-22T13:45:00

2008-04-22T19:09:51Z

I went to Eureka Springs with my family yesterday. That was fun, and the place is lovely. I'd love to go with people who shop, and also some sort of expendable cash.

But the real highlight of this trip for me is going to be Pea Ridge, a Civil War historic national park, a totally unexpected sort of thing.

I find the Civil War depressing--reading a book about the overarching politics and basic history was enough for me to feel informed on the issue. Delving into the atrocities and such is not appealing to me. This trip was more than an expedition into forest trails and coming across a great abrupt bluff with spars of rock spearing up below. I read the meatier information blurbs avidly, listened to Mr. Docent when he went into the more fascinating branches carefully.

Someone, I think at a Conestoga panel, mentioned that if you want to learn about war, read up on specific battles. They mentioned a few they thought were noteworthy, but I don't write epic fantasy (*much*) and didn't think more of it.

Until watching the video of the battle here (which in a few ways, including scale is a significant one) then driving and looking out over the actual area and putting a picture together in my mind that was so compelling and new of what it looked like to fight a war.

Generalizations are the bane of Truth, you know it?
And specifics are awesome.

More Reviews

2008-04-16T04:31:49Z

So today's rather-than-writing programme included LotR behind the scenes snippets, The Cat Returns (Ghibli anime--not as wonderful as Miyazaki but I love that Baron), and a few stories out of the Wizards anthology.

I also am behind by about a week getting my thoughts on The White Darkness together here. So.

Geraldine MacCaughrean's YA The White Darkness again tackles a whole different sort of story than she's written before with close attention to how this particular story needs to be told. This one is about a girl who loves Antartica, and especially "Titus" Oates, of Scott's doomed party of explorers. And the story here MacCaughrean decided to match to that historic background. I'd describe it as--

Relentless. I saw a review complaining that there was no really good twist in the stories, they were predictable, blar-de-blar.... But it's not supposed to be really twists. When each thing happens, it is something that Symone has been ignoring her own internal doubts about. That is never explicitly stated--and that's why I think that person missed it.

This book really pushes the heroine into the pain and darkest-night of a quest like few things I've read--and it's not even in that vein of literature. And she grows, and has some healing, though she's always going to be in pain from things that have affected her before the story even starts.

OSC's The Stonefather in the Wizards anthology was likewise not really any vastly plot-twisted sort of a story, and I still found it really good. Now, I don't demand plot-twists. I don't like unoriginality, but I'll take certain forms of it over a hard-to-follow storyline any day. This one was not hard to follow. It was just true, like I want my fantasy quests to be. True in some way I can't define.

I've enjoyed all the stories in Wizards a lot, so now I know how to look for short stories I want to read. ^_^ Magazines are harder for me to get into.

The Dream of a Story, and The Physicality of it's Death

2008-04-14T18:55:02Z

I just realized why too much time can be the death of a story idea. I had thought I was just outgrowing them.
Wrong. A story idea is not grown out of; it's is the germ of a story, and the cool that comes to it in the writing is all that makes it or breaks it. Something patently ridiculous can be treated so well it becomes classic.

No, it's the "dream" of the story. You know how Bear and others talk about the book you wrote, the book you meant to write, the book that others read as three separate entities? The dream is where the story you were going to write is. Then you write something different, and either try to draft it back closer to the dream, or consent to the new construction of it and reshape it accordingly, before opening it to readers. Who then dream out a story that may or may not look much like what you wrote.

Anyway. You can lose the dream before it hits the paper. The story dies.

I hate it when that happens.

Also: people are writing about the novels they've written.

!?*@*?! Just what everyone wanted to know about me!!!!!!

My first novel was a project to create a "Pilgrim" American Girl story. With some other homeschooling girls I was trying to become an American Girls Historian. It was almost completed at 5 pages for a long time--a few years later by "parental pressure" I finished it. I thought (and still think) this gesture rather moot, as I'd already proved myself to write to the finish of a good story.

See, I'd moved on quickly. If Gen sold out at 6, I became a hack at 12, a two-year old writer.

The Developing Years: total yield 12 (or more)

I wrote three novels, a Christmas present for each of my parents and my brother Daniel. In the SPY series (for Dan) there were to be three sequels. A fourth was planned but put off until I was mature enough to write it, and lost to the cosmos.
The Rose and Her Sword was my dad's series (by merit of it's martial art/military plots, I believe.) It had two sequels, one of which was a typical bad second in a trilogy which is a shame since I lost the first copy of it and spent months rewriting it completely. The third was better than the first in the ways that these books were good (which was not writing maturity, but more than just perseverence). And really long. The various slender notebooks I filled with this story are a mute testament to the time on my hands as a homeschooled hermit.
Casey Anna MacDougal was about a girl finding her niche in some sort of a castle community. As it had fallen short in terms of pagecount, it was my mother's, as I knew she wouldn't mind.

I also wrote--
"Gypsy on Ice" (foster-child who discovers her passion for figure skating and a family)
"Storyteller on the Sea" (Pirate's daughter serves as cook on the ship of a former captive of her fathers and tells stories to prove herself. This was a gift for my best friend Amy, who received it years later when I'd finally typed it in) One of the short stories developed into a novella of its own.

The Transitional Novels: a terrible trio
Queen of the Plains: a very nice effort on the score of world-building--the queen's a wild teen who must reconcile her father, king of the neighboring nation, by proving she's his child when she can't even impress her courtiers, after her Highlands upbringing.
Dragon Whistler: an actual fantasy, where the dragons are spiritual creatures taking all sorts of forms, and where the evil ones are succeeding in taking over because No One Believes in Them Anymore. *Keith Green reference* I still like parts of this story in terms of imagery.
Starbend: is not a hopeless cause. I still scratch at it every once in a while, and one of the "dreams of story" I think I've lost to too much time is it's sequel. Which was cool except I didn't have a plot for it, really.

Pretensions Demand I Mark These as Potentially Publishable and Being Taken Seriously: four 'n more

World Domination 101: workshopped @ VP, in revision--four teen Supers with mediocre powers have to come up with a makeshift team-work trap to take out a supervillain with the rest of the thousands of superheroes at his disposal to keep him from creating a supergovernment.
A Sequel: a sibling to a character from WD101 attempts to pull "intervention" on a super-crime dynasty's heir--a girl who can turn parts of herself into metal of different shapes. His mission: recruit her to the good side while not becoming target-practice...and beginning to doubt the system he works in himself.

Aolon: is an attempt to create a multi-generational, anthropologically intriguing story of a nation's witches and priests. Sort of. I don't really know what's going on but it's first draft is finished. So yay... >_<

Watchfires: is mostly sidelined, but is under rehaul. Shapeshifters must intervene against being branded were-wolf, etc. abhominations and keep the sanctity of the forest they were given those shapes to guard. The forest is not sacred--it hides the abhominations they're being mistaken for. Needs a lot of work, may be worth it.

And right now I'm writing what's for now titled "Evernorth" a quest-story I thought would span continents and many pages, but is moving along at a clip rather startling and still underperforming. Problematic.

The queen's face also shattered.

2008-04-12T18:23:54Z

I found out something fascinating and horrifyingly exemplar of the sort of country we have bullied ourselves into having this week. On the lines of "make everyone a criminal, fast!" like Internet

It involves wild horses. I kid you not.

While driving to an Agritourism event, it came up that my boss, legally, can't bury large animals on her property: if you need to bury a sheep (or other large animal) it has to be done more than 100 [ft? yards?] away from any neighboring property, where there is not rain-water runoff, etc. The only other option is to take it to a certain incineration plant, the only one that does large animals, one that's actually got a national monopoly on the trade. (Why?! Why monopolize this? I ask you.)

It's in Oklahoma City, a good 2~3 hours away from here. It costs more gas, time, and heartache to do this than any sheep, no matter how valuable it may have been, is worth when dead. This is irrationally hard work for a farmer who's time and money are at max, and who has enough heartache to live with from the weather, thank you very kindly.

So where do the wild horses come in? They come in because there are horses that would be destroyed because they're not worth their keep (time/money/heartache, again). And if they were euthanized, they'd have to be...

You got it: taken to Oklahoma City. Or whatever your state's monopolizing incineration plant site happens to be.
So, happen it be easier to dump your horse on certain unguarded land... Apparently in Tennessee this is much more prevalent, but there's a known place to do it in this area of OK, too.

Have fun creating that wild apocalyptic novel! Your loss if you can't fit in wild herds of three-legged, one-eyed, angry horses ravaging the land. Too bad for everyone writing as if this wild stuff didn't really happen...

Skulduggery Pleasant

2008-04-08T02:28:45Z

"AND HE'S THE GOOD GUY."

    So, I read this book in the last couple of hours. It was so. blinking. good.

I'd review it, but I'm incoherently happy with it. "There is too much. I will sum-up."
    ~   I read a lot of books I think are funny. I rarely laugh aloud. This kept me laughing consistently in a few different veins of humor. And Skulduggery himself was funnier than he's even made out to be.
    ~   It gets to the action-adventure movie kind of fights blocking...but not belaboured.
    ~   Stephanie, the heroine, has very unusually realistic ways of thinking.

If you can bear YA, try it. If it's not for you, I'll understand--or, not really. But I'm not so cool as to kill you.
Remember this now:

The best read of the year so far.
Oh, it's been a salubrious April already...

I wanted to kill those dragons.

2008-04-07T20:13:46Z

Too many people know I'm a writer now.
This is ironic, as it shocks me when people DON'T know.

It's more that people ask if I've gotten published. This is pretty much the wrong question, but they don't know that and it's fine. I just wish I had a different answer for them. Even just, "racked up 60 agent rejections since last year!" Nope, I've got a few poems submitted to magazines. I'm still writing more than I edit.

Anyone else here with me?

I know some people who don't talk about their writing except to other writers because of this. I'm a naturally open person, though. I want people to know my goals and hopes.
I also would like to get a move on with that dratted manuscript. *kisses WD101s boo-boos, to make it all better* No, no, I love you honey, it's just that you're all covered in mud right now...

But hope springs eternal! I'm writing a portion of my new novel out of chronology to try and buff up to submit to a certain YA epic-fantasy edition of a certain favorite magazine of ours...

And I want to read this (my four-day weekends are too short!) :

Love that tag-line. :)

as the crashing down of great waves

2008-04-05T00:31:58Z

I had one of those awesome days that isn't anything but a string of good incidents which included:

~ sitting in the midafternoon sunshine on a stack of pallets (for scrap wood) with a fluffy cat in my lap and a fun book to write at hand
~ watching a tear-jerker movie in a tiny box and enjoying it
~ getting things done! Like planting spiny poppies.

People need to share more about these kind of days, as a Xanga-keeping friend reminded me.

It's the rants that give people something to comment on, though; noted that in the entries from last April.
So.
Rant for the day...
Why did I hold off on The Game just because it sounded so run-of-the-mill? It's Diana Wynne Jones! She's never doing run-of-the-mill--it's never been one of her faults, and I should have realized it.
This isn't quite the right sort of rant, since I enjoyed it all the better for waiting until it grabbed me off the pile.

the key for him was closer to the sea

2008-04-02T19:26:53Z

I like picking out titles from stories I'm working on. It's not just a gimmick that makes me feel clever (no doubt leaving everyone confused and uninterested: my specialty) but it helps me pick out the writing that conveys the essence of the story in a short bit.

Can you guess anything from today's quote? I'd think so, but I'm not sure.

As for the new project, I have 5 *blinking* pages. Handwritten, with a half-page really.
I really don't know how to write anymore, or I started too soon on this one. I don't know what's wrong with me...

breathing deep at his own doubt

2008-04-01T02:45:19Z

Today, I wanted to write the beginning of a novel.

If you think my day was a disaster by the tone of that statement, I can't oblige you with hilarity of that (or any) sort. It was a very middlish-of-the-road as a housewife sort of day.

Well, the alarms going off at 6, and then 7, 7:30, 8:15, 8:30, etc. were about pending disaster, and quite obnoxious (also nervewracking: severe weather here is to be taken seriously) but I didn't get too cranky over it. It did rather set the tenor of the day.

While Severe Thunderstorm Warning is pealing out from the weather-watch unit in our living-room at almost noon, our neighbor calls to ask if it's heading our way, and would I go up and feed Auntie and make sure she's not worrying about the Ravaging Winds, Lightning, and Flash-flood capable Rains?

Why yes, of course I can do that.

I did, however, turn out an okay dip with leftover oddsbobs at lunch time with an expanded pea-soup (it came out very well: stock is a great thing) and a sweet-potato-pie that looked picture-perfect and tasted delightful.
No marshmallows. That's a redundancy that steals the potato's glory.

I think my wordcount is around 250. Twice that much if you count world-building words. They ought to count. I had just as much of a headache then!

"Pointy, your glamour's showing."

2008-03-25T18:18:26Z

I am really having trouble being productive on my days off. I think it's because I don't have a novel centering them, which is the usual arrangement. I finished the last novel project I'd been concentrating on months ago. I've been focusing on editing since then, and short stories, but it's just not the same.

And still, I'm not to the place I should be on research. Yet because my days aren't centered I find it hard to get around to the reading that I should be doing--it's what I pad the crevices of my days with.

I find vicious circles rather fascinating. They fall in the same category as paradoxes--the conundrum, I guess. Tautology.

I may have something fascinating to say about Alaska, or the Wild Woman, or quilting in a bit, but for now I pulled this quote from "Women Who Run With the Wolves" and think it's rather a gem:

She cannot develop by standing around being everyone's bootjack.

This is in a discussion of the psyche insights of the story about Vasalisa & Baba Yaga & the Doll her mother gave her. It's so far the most fascinating chapter, but I love the way this book lionizes the feminine intuition at large.

Good Morning!

2008-03-23T12:56:31Z

What will dawn on this morning?
The same smiling, weary sun
That opened the day coast to coast
In India, Israel, Italy...Ithaca?

The sky fades with twilight to washes
Of Easter Egg pastel chalks
Between the fiery smears of something alive--
Sunrise?
I think that I can find the Morning Star
If I looked hard enough.

Let us look
Careful, fearful,
In awe of the still, small light.

There it stands in an aspect over us
That makes me wonder
How the sight of earth looks to him

My Morningstar is here.

Look! A burning face at the edge
Of this cold world.
Did I say weary?
This looks like passion dawning
to bring light to life and smite the dark
To wage war on the shadows--
So the sun has risen.

From the account of Mark:

After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone an sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."
So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my broters to go to Galilee; there they will see me."

While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.' If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and get you out of trouble." So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.

Good Teacher, Storyteller, PROVOCATEUR

2008-03-21T22:26:03Z

From The Account of John:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

There came a man who was sent from God; his name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all men might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that with was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

John testifies concerning him. He cries out saying, “This was he of whom I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'” From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father's side, has made him known.

Then the chief priests and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin.

“What are we accomplishing?” they asked. “Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.”

Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carryout your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for his is a liar and the father of lies.”

Again, the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many great miracles from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”

“We are not stoning you for any of these,” replied the Jews, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in you Law, 'I have said you are gods'? If he called them 'gods,' to whom the word of God came—and the Scripture cannot be broken—what about the one whom the Father has set apart as his very own and sent into the world?”

Then Jesus cried out, “...When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.

“As for the person who hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but save it. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn them at the last day.”

“Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.”

Once more Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will look for me, and you will die in your sin. Where I go, you cannot come.”

This made the Jews ask, “Will he kill himself? Is that why he says, 'Where I go, you cannot come'?”

...

Even as his spoke, many put their faith in him.

Pilat then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?”

“Is that your own idea,” Jesus asked, “or did others talk to you about me?”

“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate.

Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

“What is truth?” Pilate asked.

But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.”

The Jews insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”

When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”

Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above.”

[In spite of which we like to think
That we are sound, substantial flesh and blood-
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.

T. S. Eliot]

anachred @ 2008-03-18T22:54:00

2008-03-19T04:12:27Z

Right. Just what I needed: a new, demanding story idea and opener!

Well, I wrote more of it than this, but for the Tuesday that is coming to a close I give you:
Jamie Duluth was considered to be in the world's top tier of Spirituals. He was also going to be a legacy student at Friedenheimer Institute of Higher Attainment. He wanted to be a normal kid. Honest.
...Oh, just leave me alone!

I'm actually in one of my idea-spurts, so this is not totally unexpected.
It is also totally explicable in terms of my reading:

today I just finished Hound of Rowan--Book One of The Tapestry (clever, how they avoided any sort of numerical obligation there) in which the tradition of [magical] boarding school novels is kept alive and fun. The school is on the New England coast, which I think is a highly rational place for magical doings, and while the elements underlying everything were very familiar and definitely Harry Potter look-a-like, the characters were more subtle, as was the prose. It was more pleasant, literarily, though less on the crack.

You know, I'd been planning to phrase that somehow around the words I've used before like zany or wild (neither of which I really ever used for HP, I think), but that...that will do.
Less on the crack.

Read also: The Extraordinary Adventures of Alfred Kropp. This is an action flick with an only lovably bumbling but humorous hero involving high-speed chases with Knights descended from the Round Table, and is actually even better than that.

Both of these take on familiar storylines and make them fresh. You know, swords that bestow powers to wield them, being a savior-figure upon discovering magic (though there was a caveat to it I liked), detentions to scrape off barnacles...oh, that last, yeah. No, I haven't seen that elsewhere. There is yet hope for literature?

anachred @ 2008-03-17T20:06:00

2008-03-18T01:15:26Z

Right now, I'm disappointed with myself.

It took me a bit to realize that's what was going on, because I'm unfamiliar with the sensation, at least as a regular thing.

You may imagine, I'm being confronted with the worthlessness of Beastly without even more extensive revisions and I just don't know where I'm going to call up the ability to make it better, when that's all I've been trying to do the last three times I did major edits, and clearly didn't do much good.

But.

It's St. Patricks Day! And there is green! Not just in the cheesecake I made or with the daffodils on the table, but on Google, and random recipe sites and such.

Also, Irish tenors on boats to "No Cats In America".

*Don't mind the desperate tone in here...

cruel she had been

2008-03-16T02:08:02Z

There should be a special word for the agony a writer goes through when they realise what that other person is hearing/reading is No Good. Not something funny sounding (enough phrases for that already). Something that sounds excruciating.

In happier news,

I remembered a part I didn't write lyrics for in my Tribute Favorites poem of my last post, so here is what I made up when watering goats today:

Every cold dawn
On a long road
Winding on and on
I remember illusions
That I have loved
And I want to create
Some more!

[The tag...]

penny requiem

2008-03-14T01:07:32Z

These are the sort of things you create and try not to think about what profound throughts you could have been thinking if you'd resisted the urge...
Guess the tributes! [not really. spare yourself the "What If?" agonies of wasted time.]

Rainbows on bubbles and great winged horses
Snowdays with Tumnus and werewolf keen noses
Gamboling kitsune, sly leprechauns
My favorite illusions, once seen and they're gone

Kings born in exile with old broken sabres
Changelings and deep wells and candles and prayers
Angry steep mountains with snow to hunt dwarves
Mad wives in attics and those fey secret drawers

Time full of wrinkles, impossible heroes
Wrestling with Grendel and magical bureaus
Avatars running from demigod des'ny
My fav'rite illusions are running away with me.

Alphabets forming from thornbush and briars
Phookas that prefer to ride on two tires
Redheads, tea, dragons, elves, shoes, steel, owls, rain
Here let me tell you my favorites again...

Hint: I cheated.

So, this instead of finishing another major edit on Beastly. I will scoping out new guinea pigs predictably later than I like and sooner than is good for you.