scribbling damselfly

Today, I was supposed to meet a friend and traipse through a local reserve (which, despite the fact that the track leads past a sewage treatment station, really is quite a nice walk — and hey, I was an engineer, sewage treatment stations are kinda interesting, if you ask me). The world, however, has other ideas, and is sending down sheets upon sheets of rain. Much as I like jumping in puddles and trekking through mud, I am just not feeling that stoic today.

So instead I shall stay at home, with my proofs and my drafts and my books. Because, oh yes, I had an appointment at the dentist this week. The dentist, you see, is situated near the central library. And the library is a dirty enabler, always pushing new books at me, whispering that I'm perfectly capable of reading seven books while labouring under so many deadlines I've stopped counting because it's getting counter-productive.

So while I'm amusing myself with reading writing, here, have a couple of things that have amused me over the past couple of days:

Well, okay, this one amused me months ago. But it amuses me still, so it counts. I think Mozilla should seriously consider using this graphic in their restore session prompt. It would make me ever so much happier.

How cute is Firefox?!

And this, I have been humming this for days.

Wednesday's mail brought a lovely surprise: a book from my publisher.

My book!

The reading copies are printed and bound, and my lovely editor thought I might like to see a copy. I would post a photo but that would show off the cover, which my publisher has asked me not to do until before October, so for now you'll simply have to take my word that it is shiny and, furthermore, shiny.

Although I must say it is very surreal to be sitting at my desk, working on the proofs of a book that appears, according to the evidence of my eyes, to be already published.

Some years ago, my brother (who does 3D imaging and computer modelling, among other things) was applying for a job, and needed some samples of his work on the web for potential employers to view, so I set up a subdomain off my website for him to use.

Yesterday, in cleaning out my hard drive, I found the subdomain and wondered if he was still using it, so flung him a quick email to check.

His answer?

i would like to expand the subdomain in a hostile takeover bid.

The subdomain has become the superdomain. Owner of all domains.

if you could just go ahead and clear all your hard drive of anything not relating to me that would be good.

i would also like the space quest series of games installed.

For those of you keeping score at home, yes, this is the same brother who wrote the ransom note from the ants.

One of my colleagues at the dayjob picked up her new baby on Friday night, and yesterday she brought said new baby in to work to show her off.

Meet Lily, a (just) six-week-old Yorkshire Terrier:

For reference, the curve of that tiny little spine, from nape to coccyx, barely fills my palm.

I don't go for small dogs, as a rule, but the cuteness involved in this one overcame literally everyone at the office. Not a scrap of work was done while Lily was visiting; everyone preferred to crouch on the floor and watch the puppy bumble and stumble.

Yesterday, as I am wont to do every couple of months, I realised I had yet again left my contact lenses in far longer than the recommended 30 days, and that might be why my eyes were feeling exceedingly scratchy in the mornings. Thus, once more, I am giving my eyes a rest from the glad wrap and viewing the world through glasses.

Totally different experience. I have no peripheral vision, I'm still not quite used to the slight warping of my depth perception, and I keep forgetting that I can't see properly without these danged things hanging off my face and squinting at the blurry world wondering if perhaps it needs fine-tuning, like an old TV that continually drifts off its station.

The worst thing about glasses is that you need to be wearing your glasses in order to find where you put them down.

And they're really annoying in the rain.

This writing caper would be a whole lot easier if my process was linear, and I knew all the character's motivations and plot events and whatnot before writing the book. Instead, here I am, floundering in the shallows of the revisions, and I still don't entirely know what is motivating two of the characters. Two fairly substantial characters. How did I make it all the way through the alpha and beta drafts without knowing what they were up to? It's a mystery to me. I have spent a goodly portion of the afternoon pondering and musing and brainstorming, but so far to little avail. Blergh.

I'm feeling somewhat whimsical and philosophical this morning, so, a discussion question: love at first sight — does it exist?

Me, like all good fence-sitters, I can't quite decide — but if pressed I would have to say nope, it's wishful thinking and retrospective and hindsight.

I've certainly seen and experienced "like at first sight" (which is no small thing, I think), and there are people I've met who became family in that very first instant, even if I didn't always know it at the time. (I can be inattentive at the best of times. It's a feature, I tell you, not a flaw.)

Discuss, muse, theorise… basically have at it. Challenge me. Give me stuffs to ponder.

Or, alternatively, my cousin is on the look-out for stories of when you were away from home (100-200 words, moral or lesson optional). So if you find the concept of love at first sight far too boring, tell me one of your travel stories. Bonus points for those who can combine the two! (And by bonus points I mean, er, you win nothing particular.)

I hafta say, the number of people who oppose or fear or distrust the toe sock is a little worrying to me.

If I owned more than the single pair of toe socks, I would wear them every day for weeks and months on end, and treat you all to photographs every day, in the interests of teaching you not to fear, or at the very least wearing you down into submission. Sadly, I only have the one pair, and photos of them are going to get same-ish mighty quick. So you are all off the hook. For now.

I've been doing my best, as per my previous plan, to work on several projects at once. Originally I thought this would only encompass the gamma draft of the sequel to Shadow Queen and the alpha draft of the faerie novel. Life intervened, however, and I added an outline and blurb for a paranormal short(ish) story and the proofs for Shadow Queen to that. Hafta say, this multi-tasking is breaking my brain. Don't quite know how grown-up writers manage it.

I'm also not entirely sure how helpful I'm going to be to my publisher in proofreading Shadow Queen at this point, since I appear to be reading what has been hammered into my head by previous drafts, rather than what is actually on the page.

The proofs for Shadow Queen arrived a couple of days ago. While it's still an unbound slab of A4 sheaves of paper, it now has purty fonts and layout. In other words, this thing is beginning to look suspiciously like one of those critters you find on the shelves in bookstores.

I'm so new at all of this that I had to ask my editor what I was supposed to be doing this time with the stack of pretty paper. Looking for typos and stupidities I introduced while attempting to fix previous stupidities, it turns out. Which is actually pretty good timing, because reading through the first book now will help me notice inconsistencies as I attempt to conjure up a coherent gamma draft of the sequel. Or that's the plan. No plan survives first contact, though.

Also: I am wearing my toe socks today. Toe socks are made of awesome.

Me, reading aloud the name of the cracked.com article: The five greatest things ever accomplished while high…
Nurse: I sat in the lotus position while stoned once…
Me: you realise I have to blog that "achievement", don't you?