Haunted Mirror

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--



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.

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.

I read Outlander yesterday.

It was a singularly unproductive day. (*_*)

It was an excellently written piece of work. I'm pretty divided about reading more of them, though.
The most beautiful moment in the book to me was when Jamie walks away from Claire, the most truly romantic. I must be a sot.

[BTW: eBear's laudable lyric-quoting post titles got it started, but mine are mostly quotes from the day's writing, as a sort of earmarker for me.]

Uq, it's nice to not have to type everything after writing it. At the same time, my pacing's off. I bummed around today.

Well, except for a Hospice Care Volunteering Training hour. We'll finish in  few weeks, but meantime, I've scored major information on death and people dealing with dying.

Which is a pretty big deal; fantasy deals with deaths all the time, and I'm going to milk this for all it's worth.



Here, a One Sentence Review on Neverending Story:

The script-writers picked a good cut-off point, but Ende reminded me of his Momo-self in the Other Half; and PS I love Atreyu.

Just in case you never wondered what Aolon's capital looked like...well, you should because the Italian city I found that looks like it is amazing, and I can't believe I stumbled across this:
Today's Google Image Search hot topics were: Dogtown and Z-boys (as well as Zephyr Skate Team and Stacy Peralta...where's his spinning hair picture? *grumps*), air trolley (you'd be surprised...), streetcar/night, flower boxes (Holland/Netherlands) and city stairways.

Which brought me to Dolceaqua, as well as Kaymakli, a totally underground city among the many built in Turkey-area at the time of Arab invasions.
Good idea. People are such geniuses. I mean, they had an air system, still camoflagued entrances, and multiple levels.
    You think you're coming up with something fantastic for your speculative fiction, and there you have it. Just do random collage-bits image searches for thematic elements in your worldbuilding and it'll come to you.

Now, onto the to-the-death duel I have on with the books to be read on my shelves...


Shoubu! Stats:
Truth of the matter? It's all still there.
Headway made only against the incomers. I do want to read Name of the Wind and Water Mirror, but...
Well, I have two days. I'm not working.

And my Aolon Wordcount is:

29791.

I'm gonna make it. I may even have a novel by the end, too.

I finished the fourth of five volumes in my epic today. This brings the book up to approx. 143,000 words. Yes. I told you it was an epic. It is not a series, to spawn two/four/six more books, mercifully: it is a series contained in one book, almost.
        Yes. That is still too blasted long to query until I've got three NYTimes Bestsellers on my resume. *sigh*
I'm so excited to have come this far, though and be ready to start the last leg...when I have time, in November. ^_^

In the other room, by brother is reworking the production on our song of the Roads poems by Tolkien as I have demanded. Merely in the interest of higher art, which he understands. Our younger siblings are kicked outside to play, not just by us, but by the lovely doomed sunshine of the day.

I go back to work after four days off tomorrow. I needed them. But writing is on the back-burner again as of tomorrow.