Hopping Down the…?

Easter is drawing near, so why not a film involving something with… sort of, after a fashion, rabbity ears?

There’s an excellent blend of sweetness and melancholy there, too.   Just like a Laura Secord egg; delicious, but makes the heart hurt a little.

Today’s pen: Pelikan M20
Today’s ink: Herbin Poussière de Lune

The Imbecile Confession

But let’s start with a strangely-configured progress report:

Day	What	How Much	Duration	Pen	Ink
7 March 8 March 9 March 10 March	Attending to the uncreative aspects… …of creative writing. As above, plus first draft of “Human Endurance” Second draft of “Human Endurance”	See explanation below Total of 641 words.	Two… …solid days of it. 45 min…  of writing. 35 min.	Pelikan M20 Waterman Executive Pilot Vanishing Point Sheaffer Imperial Triumph	Herbin Poussière de Lune Herbin Lie de Thé Waterman blue-black Montblanc Racing Green

So, what’s all that about, then?  Well, it all started last Sunday, when I went to a writing workshop under the direction of a Hugo-winning Canadian author.  The workshop had nothing at all to do with how to find a market for what one wrote; it was all about how to lay a solid foundation for a novel, based on notions the fellow had developed in the course of writing a lot of SF, but which apply to most genres as well.  Jolly useful information, too, but what developed out of it was what I can only think of as blindness resulting from a curse or a brain lesion fell away.  On Monday, I found I was able to uncover all sorts of paying markets for the sort of stuff that I write.

Had I looked previously?  Indeed so.  Not only that, but I had looked in basically the very same places I investigated on Monday on those previous attempts.  Having made this startling… I will say “discovery” because it was new to me, even though already well inhabited and supporting thriving cultures, I decided to get properly serious about making some submissions to places that offer money for stories.

Money for stories.  Fancy that!  Exactly what I have been trying to discover the alchemical principles for!

There is a substantial element of regret in this discovery, as over on the fiction site I have been rendering some of what I think of as pretty good stories unappealing, because most markets want stuff that hasn’t appeared anywhere previously.  I knew I was doing this, too, but in my earlier innocence, I saw no real alternatives by way of becoming known at all as a writer of fictions.  Had the blindness lifted six months earlier, I would have a lot more shot in my locker.

The way in which I intend to address this startling discovery of the obvious is probably self-destructive too, although hopefully only in the short term.  I’m going to carry on here much as I have done, intermittently becoming the sort of specialized interesting I once was while mainly just letting the world know that I’m plugging away and still rotating my pens.  Over there, I’m going to stop being quite so profligate with my new material, which is where the self-destructive comes in– little flash fictions, such as that one I did up today, will appear in what I intend to be a pretty regular way (long intervals, though) while longer stories will get driven around the markets in search of a paying audience.  Once they have found a paying audience, and served their time of exclusivity, I will then post them on the fiction side of my online world; I will then be able to include an annotation along the lines of “Originally presented in the Fall 2016 edition of A Rather Splendid Periodical that Pays Good Rates to Authors“, which will be ego-boosting for me and hopefully drive some more eyes in their direction(s) so they may continue to pay the creative types.

Once I’ve got as many stories with of those annotations as not, I may begin to feel less like a great blundering infant.  I hope so.  These diapers look ridiculous.

Day	What	How Much	Duration	Pen	Ink
29 February 1 March 2 March 3 March	Second draft of  “The Mermaid’s Husband”. Second drafting like a lion! A little reworking of “The Blue Room”, then persisting with “The Mermaid’s Husband”. Crossed the finish line– time to go to the pits and get my fingers changed for fresh ones.	909 words. 1,384 words. 1,049 words on the latter… maybe 200 on the former. Total of 7,206 words.	45 min. 55 min. 50 min. 55 min.	Pilot Vanishing Point Parker 51 Sheaffer Imperial Triumph Pelikan M20	Waterman blue-black Diamine Marine Montblanc Racing Green Herbin Poussière de Lune

I also managed to get an entry up on the fiction site, which is not fiction.  It’s either explanatory or inflammatory.  Possibly both.

Day	What	How Much	Duration	Pen	Ink
22 February 23 February 24 February 25 February	First draft of  “The Mermaid’s Husband”. Finished the first draft. And so onto the second draft! Blazing second draft action.	Seven manuscript pages. Five page. 660 words typed. 1326 words.	40 min. 35 min. 50 min. 55 min.	Waterman Executive Pelikan M20 Pilot Vanishing Point Sheaffer Imperial Triumph	Herbin Lie de Thé Herbin Poussière de Lune Waterman blue-black Montblanc Racing Green

Belated Valentines

Well, I know I missed the day itself, and really should have offered this last week… but I didn’t see this until this week.

Oh, yeah… it’s maybe not totally work-safe.

Today’s pen: Pelikan M20
Today’s ink: Herbin Poussière de Lune

Highway Condition: Winter

We’ve have an odd bit of weather lately– warm enough to rain, then filthy cold like we expect, followed by what the weather forecasters tell us is “normal” for this time of year, being cold that doesn’t instantly snatch the ears and nose off your head.

Now there’s a gale and a promise of freezing rain.

So, for today’s film feature, something with a duofold purpose.  Those sick of winter get to look at some desert, and we all get to see how people are currently driving outside my window.

Today’s pen: Pelikan M20
Today’s ink: Chelpark Black

Day	What	How Much	Duration	Pen	Ink
2 February 3 February 4 February 5 February	Second draft of “The Yellow Oracle.” A lot of effort to get connected to a writers’ workshop. Third draft work on “The Third Act” and The Healing Power of Crystals.” Third draft of “The Dutch Walk.”	1,111 words, for a total of 5,402. Success! Done and done. Sorta done; there’s a suggestion by one reader that needs some pondering.	55 min. 40 min. (and some Facebook) 50 min. 35 min. (allowing for cold symptom effects)	Parker “51” Pilot L-150MS Pelikan M20 Sheaffer 300	Jentle blue-black Herbin Bleu Myosotis Chelpark Black Pelikan Violet

Seeking Safe Harbour

I have just spent a foolish several minutes looking at Facebook.  One of the Faces there is rather politically active, and posts rather a lot of alarming things on the effects of the current politics of North America.  Alarming… but properly cited and factually founded, so one can’t just say, “Put a sock in it, Chicken Little.”  I am therefore flustered, blue and feeling generally helpless.

What I need is someone to show me the way through shoals, to lead me to a quiet anchorage where I may ride easy at anchor.

Which brings me back to something I said last week I was going to mention at some future date:

There is a peculiar joy connected to an NOS pen. It’s like a time-capsule, or a gift from the past.

 

I’ve got an extremely unsatisfactory page for this little darling already set up on my site, and I regret the lack of satisfaction that page offers to readers because it completely belies the degree of satisfaction which I have derived from the getting of the pen.  This is not, to be honest, because of the pen itself; it’s a nice enough little item, it has a pleasant soft pen, and it arrived with all the original bits and bobs that Pilot stuck into its pen boxes c. 1970.  The satisfaction comes, rather, for the efforts of the person who sold it to me.

I should mention that I did not stick at the basic $10 shipping.  No, I splurged for the tracked shipping.  It cost sixteen dollars.  I don’t know how Japan Post manages to do international tracked shipping for half (or less) what it costs Canada Post, but I suspect it’s less a case of how they manage as how Canada Post is mismanaged– I love my national carrier, but the despotic rumps that have been placed upon its executive cushions seem bent on making it a hollow wreck.

Now, having spent this magnificent pittance on the shipping, I certainly got my money’s worth.  Here’s the final version of the tracking:

Somehow, across the world’s great ocean, Japan Post got it right pretty much to the minute.  I was getting an email notice for each update, too.  It was almost oppressive.

As much as I’ve credited Japan Post for this, I also look at the seller as an author of my contentment.  After all, he (I’m pretty sure it’s a masculine name, as shallow as my study of Japanese is) could have not bothered to offer the enhanced mode of shipping.  He could have neglected to put that pen in a box into a nest of crumpled newspapers inside yet another box, too.  This is exactly what I urge and apply as a good practice for pen-shipping, but there’s not a lot who follow this line of thought, and it’s always charming to discover one who shares one’s views.  Also charming, something entirely not-pen and not-packing that was lurking in tidy parcel which arrived at my house at a little before three o’clock last Monday…

Tiny origami bird! Squeee! (Yes, a large bearded man will go “squee.” I’m secure in my masculinty)

Profoundly, wonderfully unnecessary.  I feel like a goon, retrospectively, for not including similar things with the pens I’ve sent into the world (a feeling which will no doubt recur, as my skills in that direction are rather shaky and being not Japanese it might seem affected).

Excellent experience, then.  At the risk of damaging this person’s abilities to give such attention to his sellers by directing a flood of them to his door, I will now give a link to his store-front.  E-sell_jp sounds like a dreadfully mechanical sort of seller, doesn’t it?  Don’t let that put you off, if his stuff appeals.  He takes care.

Ah, yes.  That feels better.  Distracted once again from the state of the world.

Today’s pen: Pelikan M20
Today’s ink: Chelpark Black

…and as for the rest of the week:

Day	What	How Much	Duration	Pen	Ink
26 January 27 January 28 January	Second draft of “The Yellow Oracle,” because I might as well press on and get it to my readers for comment. Second draft, “The Yellow Oracle”. Second draft, entering the final lap.	910 words. 894 words. 774 words	45 min. 50 min. (this is the bit where I check that some words mean what I think they mean) 40 min.	Faber-Castell 664 Pelikan M600 Parker “51”	Diamine Evergreen Diamine Prussian Blue Jentle blue-black

Day	What	How Much	Duration	Pen	Ink
19 January 21 January 22 January	First draft of “The Yellow Oracle” (yes, still). The bonfire of climax begins to collapse into the embers of denouement. Typing of the second draft begins (because I left the thing I meant to work on at home).	Seven manuscript pages. Nine pages. 552 words	35 min. 55 min. 35 min.	Pelikan M600 Pelikan M20 Sheaffer Targa	Diamine Prussian Blue Chelpark Black Herbin Lie de Thé

Also, I will mention now rather than later that tomorrow is Handwriting Day.  Other than setting down to write some things, I’d suggest a possible means of observance might be pursuing a new, custom-made pen; Shawn Newton is committing another fund-raiser upon the world, and since I can’t support it as much directly as I would like, I try to urge others to jump in.

Gospel

I had something else lined up of Friday Film, but the FPGeeks threw this at me and, since this is one of the people I describe as “That’s what I want to be when I grow up,” I thought this it the thing to share now.  Plus, National Geographic!

…and he’s got a cat!

Today’s pen (to which some of my own humble skills have been applied): Pelikan M20
Today’s ink: Chelpark Black