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Saturday, November 21st, 2009
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2:15 am - Ow
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I'm going to have to admit I'm getting old.
Went crazy all day at the Knitting and Stitching Show but barely managed to get round the whole thing (where once I'd have sailed round then done a second ciruit to buy the non-impulse stuff) ... and this morning my legs were cramping madly. Death warmed over, man.
And everything I did buy... boringly practical in the 'materials needed to make backgrounds etc for projects I have in mind' etc. I mean... practical.
Of course, in the twenty four hours since coming home I've worked out where I went wrong in my purchases (where's the lighter blues and pastels huh?) and why I should have bought the things I didn't buy. But still, nothing there is wildly silly.
o.o
Next thing you know I'll be buying a magnifying glass for detail work
(and yes, I was hovering over a nice looking one on offer cheap -- thinking that it'd be useful to have one around.)
I don't recall agreeing to any of these changes to my contract :D
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| Monday, November 16th, 2009
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11:58 am - By Opposing, End Them
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![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) jmeadows pointed me at this post about spinning and writes about it herself here.
It is about yarn, of course, but also all about writing.
[And yes, I am far more likely to compare writing to cooking, or carpentry, or crafts than talk about muses and ART! That those comparisons work an have purpose, I think lends support to there *being* commonalities]
I read really happily with some air-punching -- then hit the bit about "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few." and immediately turned to Jodi and said ... 'and the step beyond that is refinding the possibilities'... (she very kindly didn't point out that I wasn't being particularly clever with the observation or tell me to keep reading :) but yanno how sometimes things other people say grab you and tell you what you already know and it feels great?... It's not an epiphany but it's kind of a little sister wearing some of her clothes and making you smile.
That post is *all* about writing.
Anyhow, part of how we got to this bit of conversation was through me saying how my writing is now pretty consistently good... and I am under the impression (okay possibly suffering from the delusion) that while writing well doesn't mean I sell more short stories it does mean that what I send out tends to stay away longer simply because good writing is that tiny bit harder to reject.
True, believing that is actually more frustrating and means they're rejecting the *story* (and you) not the writing... but... it also means that when someone reads your story they're more likely to be reading something close to the story you meant to tell.
Which is why I'm writing. Because I want to tell you a story.
And I'm prepared to work at that goal.
To put some effort and time in to learning how things work, and then using them inappropriately if that's what seems best.
So yes, when I get time I keep plodding away and doing something really stupid with the end of Innocent, and taking what could be a perfectly simple romance and making it complicated and... whatever... And yes, I could write the other story, the one that doesn't try to do this -- It wouldn't be harder to.
But I'm not writing this book because I want to be a Writer-tm... I'm writing it because I want to tell you this particular story. (Okay there are an awful lot of other stories I also want terribly badly to tell you but right now I'm telling this one)
And I'll make the mistakes I need to make to find a way of doing that.
[But while I'm accepting that I will make mistakes, I'm not about to elevate them to being a symbol of my humanity... they're things I will get wrong because I didn't get them right. Nothing to stress over, but nothing to glorify either -- that way lies sloppy overly muse-dependant sentimentalised hackery -- as opposed to the 'someone pay me for what I was doing anyway... thank you' hackery :D ]
[And now I'm thinking about where yarn fits in with ART! -- I could throw words at a blank page. Random, lucky-break, objects trouve can be art. But I think at that point become an agent rather than an artist. I suspect that to be an artist a person must be trying... challenging their chosen medium. You allow in mistakes at that point not because mistakes are inevitable and so you don't bother trying to avoid them, but because an absence of mistakes =/ perfection. Just as someone who never has the opportunity to be bad isn't precisely a good person...]
[I have heard so many versions of 'the Amish/lacemakers/Islamic artists' put in a deliberate mistake to show their humility that I am entirely seeing this as a marketing thing... 'Hey, theres a mistake here! I'm paying you less.' 'No, that's no mistake, that's the deliberate error which proves it's otherwise perfect! (phew let's hope he doesn't spot another)'... Err, yes, you did know I'm a trained craftsperson, yes? :) ]
[BTW I find the idea that writing some work of heart-breaking literary genius or urban fantasy romp makes you somehow a smarter person, or a superior human being, or whatever.. (or even that writers are good liars... because yanno, not actually seen that demonstrated particularly well either...). As far as I'm concerned it doesn't make a big difference whether it's words or wool being spun into a yarn... there's something to be said for anyone who takes the trouble to acquire a skill set, or foster a creative urge, but some of those who can will be total dicks... and some of the wisest people in the world won't be able to make head nor tail of the craft. It's just a skillset, people, not a marker of enlightened thinking or anything.]
Oh, I could maybe sleep some more and stop rambling at lj :D
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| Sunday, November 15th, 2009
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2:34 am - The Trooff About SFF
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Fun that this post at SFWA came up today -- NASA finds Water on the Moon.
Because The Hard Place has water being used to mine asteroids.
Now the story got around a little, and picked up some favourable editorial comment... and that included editors not the slightest bit bothered by my making water *not* be the rarest thing in space. It also included an editor who ruled the entire idea of there being water out there as preposterous... and thus the story got a fail grade for science content :)
You know, I'm honestly not sure what the hard science in science fiction is supposed to be -- science as religion I would guess, because it's nothing like science-the-useful-methodology-for-exploring-the-physical-world etc.
And, these days the trend for defining what the science in hardSF should be seems to be the removal of the imaginative -- which of course makes it less likely to be predictive (no, I don't believe predictivity has anything to do with SFF but people do love their urban legends)... throw a thousand random ideas up and some of them may prove visionary... throw the same idea against the wall a thousand times and chances are it'll be a tired and silly looking idea quite quickly.
A good story survives the science being wrong because SF is a subset of fantasy. You take people to another world, and it only needs to be contextually real, genuine to itself... to 'work' (unless you're trying to write for those people who view SF as some kind of remedial learning program)
How many stories will be made obsolete if there's lots of water in space?
None.
Stories don't become obsolete because their science ceases to be cutting edge, they become obsolete because they stop being good stories. Because they stop moving people or making them think. Because they stop being relevant or 'true'. (And if a story never does those things then it can be new and shiny but that's ticking away on a very short shelf-life anyhow)
...
BTW I heartily recommend Stargate Universe as the best place to see every single thing you can do to a decent story so as to kill it. Really. It demonstrates all the common beginner (and advanced) errors, episode by episode, and there's absolutely no chance of being distracted from the learning experience by the story.
Just... try not to get your brain burnt out by the excruciatingly naff teching of the tech.
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| Saturday, November 14th, 2009
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5:05 am - And In The Tradition of Friday the 13ths
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2:54 am - Everybody Wants to Be A Kat
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:: dies laughing ::
And yes, I think there are plenty enough writers called Kat without others joining the bandwagon but clearly it is *the* name to have.
Today was a day of surprises, including Cousin R turning up on ten minutes notice. He's the paternal side and I'm not sure he ever met Uncle B, but it did mean mother had someone to talk to about going for the funeral etc. Also, it's been a fair while since I'd seen him and... it was just nice to see him. (He's grown quite smart-cuddly-handsome)
Then I skipped out on the visit to buy a get-well card for the neighbour up the road -- who got taken off in an ambulance last night... She's alive but we don't have anything much more in the way of news. She's a lovely old Yorkshire lady and the only one left on the street who's lived here longer than we have. And while buying the card I realised how many sickly sweet or jokey ones there were, and how few for people to express genuine emotion in a straighforward way... I pretty much nabbed the only simple 'hope you're feeling better soon'... It's kind of creepy that so many of the rest are of the 'sowwy you're pawly' or 'at least you're not dead' variety, as if concern for another human being was either something to be approached sideways and jokingly (I guess in self-protection mode) or only for people close enough to send cards with 'thinking of you always' or 'missing you' levels of sentiment.
...
At some point this weekend or on Monday the coroner will be finished with my Uncle and we'll have an idea of when the funeral might be -- this would be somewhat more straightforward if he hadn't walked away from the hospital (where he'd been sent for a blood test) because he wasn't feeling well enough to bother. We do know that he'll be buried next to my step-cousin... the one found by a dogwalker some months after he'd died. My aunt has had a lot of experience of organising funerals (including a second son who died abroad)... and I feel pretty lucky right now that I am entirely ignorant of how these things are arranged because I've never had to be the one making sure they get done.
...
I have never been at all suprised that truth should be stranger than fiction. Writers just don't have the required imagination.
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| Thursday, November 12th, 2009
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1:15 am - "See... I AM AWESOME!"
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12:28 am - And...
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I've been getting very little sleep the last few days -- an hour or two unconsciousness at a time... and it's been a while since we had a death in the family... and coming so close on the scare over Mother's health... Well, I'm not sure how I feel is at all 'normal'
My maternal uncle died today at around about 4.30 pm. He was her younger brother and I know a hundred stories about his childhood and youth, though I haven't seen him in years... he was living in Cornwall and then moved back to Cambridge and the few visits Mother made were under resident brother's escort (since they didn't really have guest accomodation).
I'm never going to answer the phone again, to be met with his instantly recognisable voice, and accent, saying 'Allo? Loute?'.
And quite strangely as I think about that I'm finally tearing-up and wondering... because he really couldn't have been mistaking me for my mother... I always assumed he just expected her to answer, but I never asked. I don't know.
I just know that from now on I won't hear that voice anywhere outside my head.
Mother had me fill out a little label and put it on the back of the little wall plaque that's the closest thing to a religious image that she keeps... it's been a long time since we added a name. And yes, very aware that for part of the year there was the genuine possibility that *she* would be dead...
I'd been encouraging her to go visit again earlier last year. We put those plans on hold while she was feeling increasingly poorly, and I'd been going to push her to it a little next spring -- it tended to be complicated and annoying to arrange and they used to argue over politics etc sometimes (and with the phone that's easier to be comfortable about than being in a small house together, one of you a guest, afterwards :) ) but... this is exactly how it shouldn't have been... that they really really wanted to get together and just didn't quite. And he was the last person who she could talk about their childhoods, the family homes, check names and events with, and have him know from his memory not from what they'd been told. The last person who knew her when she was Belgian (and shared the memories of being rich and their parents and grandparents and uncles and aunts and cousins and frex could happily tell her that 'no X didn't have stomach cancer he'd had prostate troubles but you didn't mention that kind of body part to women'. There are still the cousins in Antwerp, but they're all the half-generation younger.
It was very sudden.
And now we're basically in limbo... waiting on whatever arrangements there are to be made, and wondering if it'll be possible to get Mother to the funeral. I think it'd be a good idea to try, the term closure is overated but... I think it'd help. Only, it's a fair bit of travel and she hasn't been out of the house at all yet.
Things may come clearer tomorrow.
Today there's just the strangness of mising someone I didn't really talk to a lot but who was... there. An essential part of my mother's life. Someone I sent a birthday card to each year. Who I'd exhange a few jokes with or a scrap or two of news between answering the phone and passing him on to Mother.
You know. Non-nuclear family.
The stuff you don't choose but that tends to have more info about you than other people ever will, just because they've been around forever.
[And I guess that makes NRB a baron and count. Although there are several part-blood family members over the channel who were already using the titles... in bickering competition with each other]
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| Saturday, November 7th, 2009
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12:47 am - As Above, So Below
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In spoiler free comment -- Supernatural continues to be clever rather than pretentious :) (also a show that can be watched repeatedly and actually get better for the depth of focus... one in the eye for patronising gits who think TV should be getting away with being less satisfying than the proverbial Chinese take-away).
...
And as a thought for the day -- "The universe is full of elegant and satisfying answers, but their truth and relevance to the individual is in proportion to ones relationship with the question."
(aka in reductio ad absurdum -- 'Ask a silly question...')
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| Sunday, November 1st, 2009
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7:20 am - After The Fire
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Then you have the answers. Which, as it happens, turned out to be mostly 'no'. But I'm enjoying my enjoying my usual leaf-smoke-scented post-ritual buzz, mellowed into contentment. Sacrifice is what it is, and I've learned from it (and the lesson is not -- oops, sorry I asked).
Plus, there was magic in the day, and it looks like the remaking went well.
And I'm not about to spit on my luck.
[btw people, if you decide to take a leak the other side of a gate from where there's candle and flame flickering and someone talking softly in otherwise pitch darkness* on Halloween night... Well, just consider that it might be a good idea not to.]
* and yes I totally forgot about the automatic light sensor but it didn't fire up once.
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| Saturday, October 31st, 2009
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8:59 pm - Do You Remember?
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I've been getting a little worried about Caspar, the cat who lives next door whose at least partially blind in one eye (and whose people claimed that he always had the bad eye when we casually mentioned it -- as if we wouldn't have noticed that he was a perfectly normal kitten). Anyhow, I'm pretty sure they're leaving him outside a deal more than a one-eyed cat should be (given he's small, loses most fights with other cats, and we're as urban as you can get with lots of parked cars and speeding motorists using the back and front road as rat runs) and his repeated requests to be let in have a lot more effect on me than his people.
Which was how I happened to be talkin with him this morning about disturbing the wren I'd been watching(because he was birding from the top of our fence -- his black and white patches blend extremely well into the half black daubed paintwork and exposed weathered wood of the backside of the neighbour's fence). And that was when somewhere between eight and a dozen long-tailed tits flew in. (No we really are absolutely in the town, almost as town centre as you can get, and they shouldn't be flying anywhere near, but... and yanno halloween) They're just beautiful in flight, even though they always seem to be yelling at each other, chirruping high and very loudly, tails tucked then spread. And I had to wave them on because they were coming in to land almost within paw-reach of a very very interested Caspar who was suddenly not at all worried about my intentions (which were 'you - your side of the fence, please'). They chirruped annoyance and moved on, and I was nearly back indoors when I realised they'd done a wide circuit and come back -- resulting in me pointing at the cat, while telling a long-tail sat about four feet from me in the hazel (and I think two friends in the jasmine 'don't you see? it's a bloody cat?'. After which Caspar was entirely insulted and wobbled along the couple of yard of fence onto his balcony, and started calling his people again (still to no effect)
But oh, with the autumn sunshine, and the chill, and the black and white and powder-puff pink and the apple and jasmine... It was beautiful.
And if you don't know the other story... some many years ago I was walking Isa and there was a godawful row of chirruping... and I saw a ring of blue and long-tailed tits one the ground, a bunch more yelling encouragement from the trees, and in the centre two little hawks engaged in combat. So I went across, and the ring flew up but the two fighters didn't. And I picked them up, one in each hand, still locked together, and gave them a brief lecture the main point of which was 'I could have been a cat -- that'd have sorted both of you' while I untangled their claws from each other, and checked for damage done. Then I opened my hands and felt them roll over and kick off into the air. It was... magic.
(And deus ex machina)
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| Wednesday, October 14th, 2009
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1:52 am - On The Premises
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And my short story "The Hard Place" (originally - Between a Rock and a Hard Place) took 3rd prize in this quarter's (or maybe that's third's?) On The Premises short story competition.
I'm quite chuffed. (And also rather lucky that the premise entirely fitted an existing story that happened to not be out at another market in time for me to enter it)
[You know, I like when other people enjoy my stories -- but I also rather like when their appreciation involves money.]
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| Monday, October 12th, 2009
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3:11 am - That's All That Matters Now, No Matter What.
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I was never a Boyzone fan -- but it was Stephen Gately's voice caught my attention (and handed me over to Ronan Keating) so that I listened to this song.
There's music that soundtracks your life -- that knocks you off your high horse or picks you up and dusts you down, that makes you cry or starts the mend on a broken heart, that encourages you to say hello or helps you say goodbye. (It can be poetry to music or a few lines of doggerel sung from the heart -- what matters is whether it speaks to you, whether you invest it with meaning)
I've not learnt a lot of lyrics by heart since I was a teenager (prior to that I used to absorb sponge-like) -- but this song I can happily sing to myself. And when I do, it's his voice I'm singing along with.
Without Stephen Gately, I might never have listened -- there are a lot of songs written that I've never heard and likely will never hear, even though they play in the background while I'm in HMV or embellish the soundtrack to a favourite tv show -- and my life would be just a little different (or maybe a lot different) if I hadn't heard this one.
I'm not a grief-stricken fan. There are quite a lot of people in the world whose lives mean more to me. But when I heard he was dead I remembered him for this song. For making it stick in my head. For the little bit of my world that he influenced.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQyRJy-EV6c
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tmbu7T2Xso
Thank you, Stephen.
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| Friday, October 2nd, 2009
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7:07 pm - Well There's Nice
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In other news, I'm a top ten finalist at 'On the Premises' and I got passed up to General O'Neill at Stargate Command John O'Neill at Black Gate.
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| Monday, September 28th, 2009
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6:27 pm - But This Summer Isn't Over Yet
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Anyhow, this morning started way too early because my brother'd rung the hospital at 8 am and they couldn't tell us when our clinic appointment was today -- there wasn't any record of one. So, his duty done, resident brother went back to bed and left me to seek out intelligent life. After several phone calls to various places it was confirmed that the appointment hadn't been made last Friday and one was duly made for 2.10 pm
( Hey, I'm starting in media res... )
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1:08 am - Seih Ou Tei, Seih Ou Tei, Sei Ettain
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I would much appreciate it if anyone who feels I owe them would let me know -- IM, email, or a comment here as suits you. And if anyone is aware of someone who considers themselves to hold a marker from me, please pass on this request.
Thank you.
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| Saturday, September 26th, 2009
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1:05 am - ICONS!
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There is a bunch of news I should probably be talking about but don't want to... along with some writing comments that would be fun... but a good meme is more fun!
From stillnotbored
Comment to this entry saying 'ICONS!' and I will pick 6 of your icons. Make an entry in your own journal and talk about the icons I picked.
These are the icons stillnotbored picked for me to talk about.
( Read more... )
[And I *really* need to clean out and update the icons I don't use so much...]
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| Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009
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2:40 am - And If You Thought That Last Post Sounded Weak
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Apart from trying to survive the summer...
A couple of weeks ago -- with me having pushed and persuaded and been yelled at for some months -- the GP discovered my mother was anaemic... Not a little bit anaemic but OMG take these tablets invasive testing begin anaemic.
She is in the middle of tests for various cancers.
Which we do not think she has, but...
As she says, she keeps telling them that she's been ill like this since February (and gradually worsening before) but the GP insists it must have been sudden onset and therefore cancer. Of course, if it isn't cancer we'll be back in the territory of puzzled that doctors never seem to get out of...
As I say, I've been having to push on getting her to act on this. She has in return been screaming and yelling and crying at me (which, yes, is worse that the rest) and being less than pleasant to live with.
And the tests are scary and that makes everything worse.
Which is just another taster of what LIFE means to me at the moment. Also why it'd be pointless my going to see the doctor about the sleeping problems... I can hardly deny I'm a bit stressed lately.
So why blog this when I've not talked about it and don't particularly want to talk about it? Or about any of the rest?
The other day I heard another version of the 'Kat doesn't try' crap.
And I am just fucking sick of being told I don't try hard enough. That I should do more.
That bullshit was started by someone who did not have my best interests at heart and for their own reasons. And yes, for some other people it's a comfort...
Fuck you.
I do not have a lot of zen right now. Yeah, that's weak of me.
(Try something on and I will very likely go for your throat. Really, this would not be a good time for dominance games)
Sorry.
I've generally found that the nice people in the world grew up not that nice where niceness wasn't considered as a virtue.
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12:54 am - ...
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My mental gears are grinding really small to absolutely no purpose right now.
I heard from the Ombudsman (well the ombudsman's underling).
For the first page and a half of a two page letter he outlines the case, more or less dismisses the excuse Lloyd's gave for not refunding my money... and then introduces a whole new reason why Lloyd's is NOT liable.
The contract between buyer-credit card company-supplier doesn't exist here because the ombudsman has determined that making payment to the supplier is NOT entering into a contract with the supplier. Therefore the credit card company is not liable for the contract with the supplier being broken as there was no contract.
...
Lloyd's didn't claim this. At no point did either Consumer Direct or the Ombudsman's office mention it as a problem. For ten flipping months I have been advised repeatedly by government agencies to pursue a claim against the credit card company NOT the supplier.
There is serious irony here in that both Lloyd's and the Ombudsman were entirely happy with my being allowed to handle the phone calls/paperwork on behalf of my brother...
Anyhow, just so any Brits reading know... this get out clause for the credit card company applies ANY TIME one person makes arrangements or handles queries about a purchase for which another person pays. Which actually means, since I live in a three adult household, that most of the purchases we make have not had the oft advertised security of credit cards over cash payments. Every household item -- because my Mother is the homeowner of record -- every telephone and gas bill, every maintainance job, the bloody council tax... And yes, if I arranged a holiday and Resident Brother paid for it... not covered.
(And in case you're wondering, Resident Brother was there for every single meeting with TPS Ltd and there is no evidence available to the ombudsman to identify who was going to be the eventual 'owner' of the computer)
So, after ten months I'm back to exactly the place I was right after TPS Ltd refused the refund. Just older, tireder, and not sure how much longer I can 'borrow' the hated laptop for.
At least I did manage to phone up* and discover that I have seven working days to appeal the decision (though he couldn't think of any reason I would have to want to appeal -- which kind of makes me want to find one).
That's right... it took three months to get to the head of the queue and another to review the case... but I have seven days to get an appeal in to their office (not seven days to send it, seven days within which it must reach their desk)
...
And so I called Consumer Direct -- who were very cheery, assurred me that I had rights, and referred my case to Trading Standards, who will ring back to advise me on how I can pursue those rights (which I suspect means telling me to go to the small claims court because like many other rights on paper they don't stand up well in the face of people who don't give a fig about being fair and respecting them)
I've spent most of the day feeling very tired with the odd spurt of indignation -- so much of the last ten months has been about trying not to think about this stuff, and not to fret about the £534 I'm probably not going to get back, that I slip into a thought-place where I'm honestly wondering what I hope to gain from fighting, because whatever happens I'll still be back at square one having to buy a computer, and I have to remind myself that it would be nice to have the money to buy the computer (without having to go without buying other stuff like new shoes and paying my share of the council tax) and that Technology Products Solution Ltd RIPPED ME OFF.
...
People call me a pessimist when I don't assume that things will turn out right even if all the right is on ones side... I suspect a lot of people get to go through their lives without running into LIFE.
*oddly enough he recognised the case from just my name... which made me wonder how much work they actually do round there.
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| Friday, August 28th, 2009
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5:01 am - I Hear The Voices When I'm Dreaming...
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So today's an anniversary of sorts -- I did the formal nine weeks from now, but today's where I remember knowing I would have to do something, and that it didn't matter if I'd been acting under a misapprehension, or whether or not said misapprehension was deliberately created -- obligations happen and need to be acknowledged.
Three years.
The weeks and months flew by really worryingly, but it feels like forever and a day.
...
Unlike four seasons of Supernatural... which took no time at all :D
The answers to the apparantly most important questions for fans are --
Both, but as that'd likely weird Dean out... Dean.
I am really really enjoying the demon/angels plot.
And my reaction to Wincest is pretty much the same as Dean's* with added 'and this would not have to end really really badly in what rose-tint drenched universe of my-little-pony horror?'
Also I entirely don't mind that they use, and thus repopularise, a bunch of folklore things that I like using in stories... because they don't waste them**.
*"Come on, that's just sick..."
** And I've never been about to claim I invented things that are only stuff people have forgotten anyhow...
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| Sunday, August 23rd, 2009
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5:34 am - Carry On My Wayward Son
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I knew 'Supernatural' was a good friend by the end of series one -- but I knew I was in loff when Dean realised he had to let Sam shoot the werewolf.
(And hey, a series that tortures protags the way I like to *and* brings them back from the dead TO DO IT OVER AGAIN! -- maybe I'm not the only weirdo who likes that kind of thing :D )
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