Robin McKinley's Blog, page 185

It's snowing.  And snowing.  And snowing.  And . . . There's only about an inch and a half** out there now, but it's coming down in that steady, concentrating way that is bad news.  Well, it's good news if you're a kid and want to stay home tomorrow and build a snowperson.***  It's bad news for those of us who get claustrophobia easily, don't like falling down, and have hellhounds.  And are worried about the fresh-veg deliveries† to the local greengrocers', fresh veg having become about...

A very little while.   The copyeditor, who is obviously a Higher Being, with titanium nerves and an All Night Brain, is going to have it back to my editor on the 25th, and . . . I'll have a week to turn it around.  A week!  A WEEK!  –Remember I was saying that one of my resolutions for 2010* was to spend less time on the blog?  I think it will be safe to predict that I will be remarkably–even unrecognisably terse that week. 

Meanwhile I am making hay while the sun shines.**  Or anyway...

It's a new year, it's a new decade*, it's our nineteenth wedding anniversary, it's the middle of the night and I've just . . . finished PEGASUS. 

More or less.  Don't break out the champagne**.  I've got a short list of yanks and wallops I want to make before 5 pm Manhattan time tomorrow and I am not looking forward to seeing it back again covered in yellow sticky notes from the copyeditor in a few weeks but . . . yeah.  I turned the last page about an hour ago and have been trying to...

An improbable hobby

"Please Mummy, may I….?"  How many times a day do we here these words when our children are small?   Mostly, we respond "Yes, of course", or "No, not this time", and think no more about it.

Our Free Dance 2009 – we are skating to Kirsty McColl's "England 2 Columbia 0", hence the shirts.

This particular request came in September 1994, when our daughter was just starting the 4th year at her London secondary school.   The school liked to offer the girls a choice of sport as...

It's cold again.**  It is cold enough that it took me several matches, a lightly singed glove and a lot of shouting this morning to get into Wolfgang because I had been terminally stupid enough to have absent-mindedly locked up last night on the way indoors because locking the car used to be standard op. 

            This evening, however, when I took Wolfgang to tower practise, upon arrival I couldn't get out the driver's door.  It hadn't wanted to open in the first place (although at least ...

We were halfway through supper—cabbage and baked squash*—when I realised Peter was drinking beer.  It's New Year's Eve! I said.  And you're drinking beer!

            I'll be asleep by midnight, Peter said.  But there's a quarter bottle of champagne in the fridge.

            The man who thinks of everything.**

            I have of course continued hammering and hacking . . . no, no, I mean daintily and gracefully adding the occasional faint brushstroke to the 99.99999% finished PEGASUS...

 Stories from the Teaching Studio 

            I once taught two sisters from the same family who had wildly different personalities. One sister was extremely sensitive to criticism. Any time I wanted to correct something Becca was doing, I had to couch it in the most delicate of terms to prevent tears and week-long depressions. "So, your third finger was a little low in that passage. Would you please try and get it a bit higher?"

            The other sister was oblivious to any kind of...

Brain dead . . . brain dead . . . la la la la la la la la . . . BRAAAAAAAIN DEAD.

            I did a gigantic thwacking glomerage* of PEGASUS today.

            I also hurtled hellhounds in a teeming downpour of clearly pre-refrigerated rain.**  Now I am ready to be grateful that it is and is supposed to be no worse than rain for the immediate future . . . but I'm still not happy.  The thermometer is hanging sullenly around 34-35°F and that's just nasty.  I wasted nearly two hours this...

The truth is that the news about Luke knocked me for six* a week ago, and the aging brain just has not been willing to settle down and focus on PEGASUS.  Today's the first good working day I've had since the accident.

            Which means in this case that at the end of a long unravelling day I have no brain left, and, worse, nothing to write a blog entry about.**

            So I thought I'd amuse you with a page of my notes.

            I assume every writer keeps cheat sheets*** of one...

A few hours ago I posted this on Twitter:  

I need more sleep.* Moan. There's always so much to fit in during, erm, holidays. 

This is true, but it suggests a very misleading image.  The only party I've been to lately was Peter's OBE.**  I have for the umpteenth day in a row forgotten to RSVP Edward and Alex's Christmas party, which is now the day after tomorrow.  The invite has been lying on the kitchen counter for weeks.***  Penelope, this morning at service ring, was asking me if I were...