The progress is still painfully slow, but I am nearing the end… of the first draft. I’ve just realized I need to get some themes better inflated now that I’m approaching the endpoint, so the second draft isn’t going to be quick and easy, either. Probably. I’m bracing for it.
And while I complain about the speed of production, the fact that this first draft is going straight into a machine provides me with a small comfort– it’s now twenty pages long, which by my standards is a fairly lengthy number.
The Long Weekend was indeed very long for us. We got to watch a well-loved family member slowly expire. In the current climate of pandemic, our loss is bearable and small, but we feel it.
Hercule Grey, 2004 – 2020. The late Doctor Awkward Puss.
He was in his seventeenth year, so his passing was not entirely shocking. It was, in a way, a good death, because it was timely. We’ve lost too many to sudden tumors that manifested when they were relatively young. Old Doc just sort of stopped, like a clock that wound down, at an age where such a thing might be expected.
There was a small element of relief in it, too. For the past couple of years, he’d been a scrawny old man– my wife described him as “a furry bag of feathers”, and while he got plenty of rewarding cuddles from the newer members of the flock, he (and we adult humans) were perpetually concerned that the boisterous play of the young ones might do him an injury.
We have some pictures of him taken in what turned out to be the last two weeks of his life, which I will not be sharing. I have never forgiven the tabloid industry as a whole for the cadaverous LAST PICTURES OF DAVID NIVEN! which hung off the ends of grocery story tills, and I’m not going to share similarly gaunt images of one who should be remembered by the world at large in a different light. I will remember him in his appropriately sleek form, before his powers waned.
One of the last good pictures of Hercule, in which he is supported by Bram and Kees. Bram may be even more affected by his death than my wife.
A couple of post-scripts:
the name:
Hercule not after Poirot, but after Cyrano de Bergerac. As a kitten, he had a rather pronounced beak
Grey slightly after the fiendish probe-jabbers from Zeta Reticulum with their similarly-shaped eyes, but more so because my wife found his nature and presentation put her in mind of Joel Grey.
I am of course aware that this post (planned for this slot since Sunday) is going up on the same day as the announcement of the death of Diana Rigg. I could wish it were otherwise, but I’m sticking to the plan because I need to release the pressure. I will remember her mainly from her time in The Avengers, not because I insist a woman must be young and beautiful to be worth imagining, but because I watched The Avengers a whole lot during the first decade of my life. Emma Peel, competent and formidable, is firmly encoded in my core recollections.
I should probably also mention that there was no writing at all yesterday, as my wife was in the hospital to have a hernia de-herniated. She is fine, and as I like to point out when this sort of thing happens, the entire cost of the day was the gas burnt in a total of less than twenty minutes driving.
Well, OK, there was the pain-killer prescription, but between work insurance and the province’s Hey You Don’t Make So Much Let’s Help You Out drug benefit, a week’s worth of Tylenol 3 cost $7.96.
I think another problem I’m having, vis a vis output, is that I’m not doing my usual first draft routine of long-handing it. The difference in which parts of the brain are engaged in the physical act of scribbling versus key-tapping does seem to incline toward the former for an easy flow of creativity. At least for me.
What makes this worrisome is that I’ve just got news of an anthology opening for submissions that this story would rest in very nicely. I must, to slightly bowdlerize Chuck Wendig, art harder.
Not huge accomplishment, but a flow. I’m starting to wonder if shaving my beard off (in the interests of better mask/head interface) has mystically affected my writing powers.
†It hadn’t occurred to me that I was putting these inks into the same rotation when I filled the Lamy. Having now written some things beside stuff from yesterday, I’m more convinced than ever that people who are lamenting Montblanc’s discontinuation of that ink should take comfort from the Diamine offering. At least in fine points, it’s difficult to tell the difference until your nose is on the paper.
There’s a word that’s had its value undercut. Awe, after all, runs in the same groove as religious joy and existential dread… indeed, sometimes combining the two.
No, I’m not quite sure what to make of the ending either.
Oh, you know the stereotype; cool, efficient, probably wearing a black turtleneck.
Stereotypes, man. I should be wearing a lot more flannel, according to international concepts of my nation.
Now, the usual Thursday entry, which will display what an atypical week this has been in more ways than one. It’s not just the impending Pelikan Hub that has kept me from my usual industry– there’s been a lot of stupid demands on my time this week, and they rendered me dull or incapable of using my free time as I would wish. This was, by the way, AFTER choices of ink were made– that degree of dull unoriginality happens without any outside influence, and with a huge array of bottles from several brands all laid out in front of me.
Day
What
How Much
Pen
Ink
16 September
17 September
18 September
19 September
First draft of “Whistling Through the Graveyard”.
Third draft of “Disruptions on the Line” (nee “Underground Follies”).
While this particular example is both funny and speaks to a personal inclination, I’m not a fan of the type.
They make plenty of them! It’s not even a fountain pen! LEARN TO SHARE!
Today’s pen, which you may use it you ask nicely (and I’ll just hold onto the cap): Pelikan M30
Today’s ink, available by the bucketful: Diamine Marine
A merry NaNoWriMo to all those who intent to expose themselves to that particular source of stress this year. I will pursue my usual policy of continuing to write through the month at my own pace, but to those who think they can manage a novel in four weeks, I offer a hearty bonne chance!
