FF: The Bough Breaks

Roary Could Be One of Jenny’s Friends

Well, not really a bough, but the device on which I was playing the audio of The Age of Faith by Will Durant, so I guess my electronics have decided I’m not ready for the Dark Ages yet.  Instead…  Agatha Christie does P.G. Wodehouse.

For those of you unfamiliar with this column, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.  The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.  And it’s also a great place to tell me what you’re reading. 

Recently Completed:

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington by Jennet Conant.  Adequate, but the temporal/associational organization style doesn’t do the material much good. 

In Progress:

The Hotel  Cat written and illustrated by Ester Averill.  A before bed read.  I loved Pickles and Jenny and all the rest as a kid, and see no reason not to now!

Seven Dials Mystery by Agatha Christie.  Audiobook.  An English country house, spy thriller mystery with characters who would have been bright lights of The Drone’s Club.  Great fun.

Also:

I have an Big Announcement that I’ve saving for the WW this coming week, so I’ll just say that my research reading is joyfully scattered.

And A Very Short Story

Toad By Night

Lately, on my social media, I’ve posted happy comments about the return of toads to our pond, as well as about quail returning to our yard, which they did for the first time on Monday.  Many of my regular readers responded with comments about Spring finally being here.

And they’re right…  Spring is here, with toad and quail song.  Soon, instead of the light rain showers and pale greens of a stereotypical Spring, we’ll have high winds and fifty degree temperatures shifts.

Different ecosystems.  Different symbols.  Different worlds.  I wish more writers thought about these things.

Last week, what you could term either a very short story (or not) occurred to me.  I’ll gift it to you all today…

Two gamblers at a racetrack are narrowing down their choices.

Happy Harry says, “I’m torn between the black with the white star, Pride of Place, and the chestnut with the blaze, A Fall Beauty. But I think I’ll put my money on Pride of Place”

To which his pal, Horsey Harriet says, “Why?  A Fall Beauty has a good odds, and a better chance of winning.”

To which Harry says” Oh, it’s simple: Pride always goes before a fall.”

Later!

FF: The Shift Has Happened

Roary Has Reached A Year Old

As this week ends, I have made the shift to non-fiction, pretty much entirely.

For those of you unfamiliar with this column, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.  The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.  And it’s also a great place to tell me what you’re reading. 

Recently Completed:

The Renaissance by Will Durant.  Audiobook.  Moving into the end of the Italian Renaissance.  A balanced look at how many of the wonders (both of art and of thought) we remember were purchased in a fashion that led to the fall.  Some of Durant’s terminology is dated (he genders qualities as “male” and “female” for example), but if you can get around that, there’s a lot to enjoy.

Flashman and the Mountain of Light by George MacDonald Fraser.  Victorian imperialism told from the point of view of an anti-hero.  Not PC.  Great prose, and liberally footnoted both in text and with appendices.  I enjoy Flashman, but he’s not to everyone’s taste.

In Progress:

The Age of Faith by Will Durant.  Audiobook.  I was about half-way through this one before I decided I need a break from the history of an age often termed “Dark.”  I’m giving it another try.  Looking at some of the smaller Balkan realms.

The Irregulars by Jennet Conant.  I read reviews of this when it came out, then promptly forgot it until one of my sisters mentioned reading it.  A look at, as the subtitle says “Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington.”

Also:

A variety of scattered magazine articles, from scattered sources.

Super Wandery Wandering

Wandering On High

Some of you may have seen an “out of stock” notice for Wolf’s Search on my website bookshop.  I’m happy to announce that my new supply arrived last Saturday night, and it’s now back in stock.

What?  Website bookshop?  What’s that?  You can find it here.  Shipping via Media Mail is included in the price for orders within the U.S..  At least for now the prices remain the same, although if some of the dreaded changes predicted for the U.S. do happen, I may be forced to charge more because I’ll be paying more for shipping.  Signing and personalization is free, which is a good deal, when you consider that you pay extra for signed items from sports and media stars.

The shop includes a large number of my older works, and will for as long as I have copies.  Then they will go out of print, possibly forever.  Since not all my older works are available as e-books (I’m working on these, but I only have so much energy, time, and money), this may be the best way to find some of my older works.

Wandering off on another point…  As I recover from a long extended course of writing, I’ve been catching up on chores: shredding, filing, sorting.  Shredding is proving to be a lot like time travel, bringing up memories of trips gone by, even older technologies.  In one file I’d missed, I actually found a physical plane ticket as issued by a travel agent.  (Remember those?)

I’ve also been going through magazines and tearing out pages with interesting pictures.

It’s very odd, but while I’m a visual enough writer that I could sit with one of those artists the police use to create sketches of suspects and work toward perfect portraits of my characters, I often have trouble without a visual to start from.  I know what they look like, but since I don’t cast media personalities as my characters, I can’t say: “Just like the guy who plays X in Y, but only blond with blue eyes.”

But I love visual images, and browsing through them often stimulates my imagination, thus the file.

I’ve been mulling over a lot of things lately.   Most of these are either not coherent enough for me to discuss or would take a lot of research for me to write about here, because I tend to specifics, not generalizations.  I guess you could say they’d make better panel topics than essays or blog posts.

Right now my thoughts are a tumbling kaleidoscope of images, and I’m waiting to see what story they will shape.

FF: Seem To Be

Mei-Ling Often Sees Duppies

This week, I seem to be slipping back into non-fiction territory.  Even my fiction choice is historical. Folklore, for me, always walks a line, because it’s a different reality.

For those of you unfamiliar with this column, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.  The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.  And it’s also a great place to tell me what you’re reading. 

Recently Completed:

Kojiki translated and extensively annotated by Donald L. Philippi.  The title means “Record of Ancient Things” and the text was completed in 712.  A mixture of mythology, folklore, history, and legend­­—with a healthy dose of genealogy—this was created for political reasons, to explain the descent of the Yamato, but also from a desire to preserve older traditions.  I’m really happy to have the extensive footnotes and appendixes, all of which are well-written. 

Duppy Talk: West Indian Tales of Mystery and Magic by Gerald Hausman.  Jamaican folklore.  Great notes from the storyteller provide cultural context, and a sense of a magical realist world view.

In Progress:

The Renaissance by Will Durant.  Audiobook.  Moving into the end of the Italian Renaissance.  A balanced look at how many of the wonders (both of art and of thought) we remember were purchased in a fashion that led to the fall.  Some of Durant’s terminology is dated (he genders qualities as “male” and “female” for example), but if you can get around that, there’s a lot to enjoy.

Flashman and the Mountain of Light by George MacDonald Fraser.  Victorian imperialism told from the point of view of an anti-hero.  Not PC.  Great prose, and liberally footnoted both in text and with appendices.  I enjoy Flashman, but he’s not to everyone’s taste.

Also:

Still reading Archeology, but will probably switch over to Vogue for a different world view.

Secret Writerly Wisdom

Amaryllis Budding Forth

Life has been quieter than usual, even, and that’s saying something.  Although we’re working on getting parts of the yard ready for spring, we won’t be doing  much planting for several more weeks.  Heck, the majority of the garden won’t go in until early May.

I’m not writing anything I’m ready to talk about.

So, here’s my secret writerly wisdom: Writers who are writing are usually pretty boring people.

If they’re telling you about trips or cons or lecture tours or the cake they baked or their daredevil hobbies, they’re not writing.  What you’re soaking up is the Not Writing.

The realized writerly life is about as fascinating for the outside observer as watching paint dry.  There’s change and transformation, but even watching an amaryllis grow (they can grow several inches in a day) is probably more enthralling.

Oh…  Why is our amaryllis caged?  To keep Roary from biting it, of course!  He still tries, and we’re going to need to uncage it soon, but at least the buds are getting to form.

FF: For Those Who Asked

Persephone Wonders About Flying

I’m doing a bit better than I was on Wednesday.  Still a bit achy, though.  While slowed down, I finished then novel I was reading and have almost finished Kojiki.  I am not sure what will be next.

For those of you unfamiliar with this column, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.  The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.  And it’s also a great place to tell me what you’re reading. 

Recently Completed:

Someplace To Be Flying by Charles de Lint.  Still a good story.  I’m glad.

In Progress:

The Renaissance by Will Durant.  Audiobook.  Still in the papal states.  Rafael is dead, young.  Michelangelo is alive and grumpy.

Kojiki translated and extensively annotated by Donald L. Philippi.  The title means “Record of Ancient Things” and the text was completed in 712.  A mixture of mythology, folklore, history, and legend­­—with a healthy dose of genealogy—this was created for political reasons, to explain the descent of the Yamato, but also from a desire to preserve older traditions.  I’m really happy to have the extensive footnotes and appendixes, all of which are well-written.  Almost done.

Also:

Finished back issues of Smithsonian.  Now back to Archeology.  Why are archeologists so surprised when the facts show that women have always done a lot more hunting than previously believed?

Sparrow Time

Buddy, Can You Sparrow Time?

This past week was one of reorganization of thoughts and activities. This current week began with me being a bit under the weather. Therefore, I offer you a sparrow with attitude to spare.

I’ll catch you Friday with an update on what I’ve been reading. Meanwhile, remember, I’m always open to questions.

Now for a dose of sunlight and another cup of coffee.

FF: One Thing Leads To Another

Roary, Now Eleven Month Old

Last week, I finished Yoshitoshi’s One Hundred Aspects of the Moon, and found myself thinking about how I’d like to read some of his source materials, many of which serve as Japanese cultural underpinnings.  So I am doing so…  I come by my scholar nerd impulses honestly!

For those of you unfamiliar with this column, the Friday Fragments lists what I’ve read over the past week.  Most of the time I don’t include details of either short fiction (unless part of a book-length collection) or magazines.  The Fragments are not meant to be a recommendation list.  If you’re interested in a not-at-all-inclusive recommendation list, you can look on my website under Neat Stuff.

Once again, this is not a book review column.  It’s just a list with, maybe, a bit of description or a few opinions tossed in.  And it’s also a great place to tell me what you’re reading. 

Recently Completed:

Yoshitoshi’s One Hundred Aspects of the Moon by John Stevenson.  Years ago, Jim and I attended a show at the Folk Art Museum in Santa Fe that featured this series of Yoshitoshi’s later prints.  Very intellectually and creatively stimulating.

In Progress:

The Renaissance by Will Durant.  Audiobook.  Having spent a lot of time on the papal states, including looking at which popes may not have been as bad as often represented (including Alexander Borgia), we’ve moved to art and architecture.  Current focus: Raphael.

Kojiki translated and extensively annotated by Donald L. Philippi.  The title means “Record of Ancient Things” and the text was completed in 712.  A mixture of mythology, folklore, history, and legend­­—with a healthy dose of genealogy—this was created for political reasons, to explain the descent of the Yamato, but also from a desire to preserve older traditions.  I’m really happy to have the extensive footnotes and appendixes, all of which are well-written.

Someplace To Be Flying by Charles de Lint.  I’ve deliberately put off re-reading this until I could read fresh. 

Also:

Back issues of Smithsonian.  Now reading about dogs. 

This Is Probably a Metaphor

Sometimes It Takes Time

Many years ago, I planted daffodil bulbs.  They did okay for the first few years but, after a time, the particular combination of heat, dryness, and just plain weirdness of our New Mexico climate caused them to get weaker.

In a final attempt to save them, I transplanted the remaining bulbs to close by one of our downspout catch basins, where they’d get regular water.  (And, yes, I gave them bulb fertilizer, too, but I had been all along, so that doesn’t apply to this situation.)  The next year, when little green tips poked up in late February, I was very pleased.  However, no flowers formed.

Green tips, no flowers became the pattern for so long that Jim and I started thinking of our flowerless daffodils as a foliage plant, like hostas or coleus.  We decided to simply appreciate how those little green tips, which eventually became longer green foliage, indicated that below ground level plants were indeed coming back after the winter.

Imagine our surprise when this year we saw that in addition to the leaves, there was a flower stalk.  We watched, expecting it to wither, expecting it to get eaten or stepped on or otherwise damaged.  However, eventually, it bloomed!

We were so delighted that when a bout of high winds bent the stem, we cut that single blossom and brought it inside so we could enjoy it.  That one little flower may not seem like much, but it made us disproportionately happy.

A few weeks ago, I wandered on about the value of adaptability for a writer.  Persistence and patience have their place, too.  If you feel tempted to give up on a story, don’t trash it.  Put it on side.  Move on to another project.  Let that particular field lie fallow.

You may find, as with our daffodil, someday the right combination of (metaphorical) sun and water and fertilizer will cause it to blossom.