Fey page 22

It's up. Ignore the Geocities ad and it folds up small eventually (and soon I won't be using Geocities any more). Next week will be something slightly different, while I get caught up on outlining chapter 2 and get ahead a bit, so I won't have to worry about getting done on time every Friday. So if you'd prefer an 8-page story about why a certain family of satyrs left Greece back in the old, old, old days, or if you'd prefer to see an 8-page story about how Sorcha and Megan met, cast your vote in the comments. (Both stories are already done, so it doesn't matter to me, just so long as I have a few weeks to get ahead on "Drawing Borders.")

Bleary Emergency

Or maybe not. I haven't slept yet tonight (or this morning, either). I may not sleep until much later in the day. Darwin (my big boy greyhound) was a little restless this evening, but then he often is--especially if Bast (Her Highness, Fuzziest Cat in the Universe) decides it would be fun to gargoyle at him. She freaks him out. But around when I settled in to read a little before sleep, Darwin kept lying down for few minutes, then pacing, then lying down, then pacing. I took him out many times before I realized he wasn't going to do anything more than pee a little. I began to worry. I began to think bloat. He was licking his chops a lot. Dogs with bloat salivate more than normal. He did a few little pukes. Dogs with bloat retch. Bloat (aka gastric torsion) is a scary, scary thing, and greyhounds are rather more likely to get it than many other kinds of dogs. It can kill dogs fairly quickly. It can mean expensive surgery. Scary, scary, scary.

After waking my poor sister (er . . . do you have a test today, Sue?) to see if she knew any more about bloat than I do, we decided I should call the 24-hour emergency line at the vet's. Turns out, a 24-hour emergency line is really a call to find out the on-call vet's pager number line; you then call that and leave a message, then wait for the poor sod to wake up and call you back.

Anyway, he was really nice, and had me describe the symptoms. Just as I was doing so, Darwin threw up about a handful of soggy dog food. This is a good sign. With bloat, the vet assured me, the stomach twists (hence "torsion") so that the dog can swallow air in, but can't throw anything up (exept saliva or white foam--Darwin wasn't producing white foam). So the vet said I didn't need to bring him in, but to keep a close eye on him. He told me various things to watch for and what they might mean, and advised giving Darwin Pepto Bismol to help settle his tummy. I don't have any Pepto Bismol, and didn't ask for dosage on any of the other antacids mentioned, so now I have to google and see if I can find out if Rolaids are okay for dogs and how much I should give him.

So, phew. Probably just D's tummy objecting to me switching his brand of dog food.

RIP Superman

This time Superman really is dead. I just read that Christopher Reeve passed away on Sunday. As far as I'm concerned, he was Superman.

Good Choice / Bad Choice

Depending on how one looks at it, Kya: Dark Lineage could have been a very good buy, or a very bad one. It's good because it's fun, engaging, nice to look at -- all those things a good game should be (also occasionally frustrating as I'm not very skilled in controller manipulation). But it's bad because it had me up till 2am last night. "I'll just play until the next autosave." "I'll just play until I get back to the village." "I can't stop with this bit only half finished." "I'll just play until . . ." Until my eyes fall out, maybe. So far I've kept myself from playing today. Instead, I watched anime (first two eps of Yukikaze), and read Stanislaw Lem (The Cyberiad). Oh, and had a much-needed long hot soak in the tub (with Stanislaw Lem) (well, his book, anyway). Maybe tomorrow once all my work is done (or a good chunk of it, anyway), I'll allow myself a couple of hours of Kya.

There's a frog in the pond outside my window right now, making an astonishing variety of grumbles and clicks, in addition to the usual deep-throated croaks.

I Have Fans?

Does it count if they're blood relatives?

My nephew reads Fey. He liked it well enough to ask me the other day if I'd put any new pages up. I didn't even know he'd been reading it. I knew Sue was, but I didn't really think anyone else did. It's very, very cool that Ryan reads Fey, even if he is related to me.

Games Games Games

Went to TRU today. Mostly they had nothing interesting (not even considering this weird new fascination with Barbies--ick). But then I went into the electronics section, and they had a whole bunch of games marked down. I just got paid recently. Bad combination, that, cheap games and me with money. I managed to restrict myself to two. I got Kya: Dark Lineage for PS2, which looks like a fun action-adventure sort of thing, and Broken Sword: Sleeping Dragon for PC (I'm not sure my video card is fast enough, so I may be sneaking downstairs when Sue isn't home to play it). Broken Sword is an adventure game (ie lots of puzzles). I really liked the last one, and I've heard good things about this one. Yay! Now I'm gonna go play Kya and pretend I don't still have three other PS2 games and somewhere around . . . 8 maybe PC games. I'll get to them all. 'Specially since I'm planning to get a Mac in a year or so--I'll have finished all the PC games by then.

Tis the Season and All That

So Dad reminded me that Xmas is on its way, and I thought maybe I should do up my annual "list of things I like" because people always seem to want to know what I'd like for Christmas. I decided not to put a Mini Cooper on the list. No one I know has that much money. Anyway, for books, video games, dvds and cds, I made an Amazon.ca wish list. It's here. It has lots of strange and wonderful things on (though there are also lots of stragne and wonderful things they either didn't have, or I haven't added yet). Other things that are not there are stuff from Hobby Link Japan (like, say, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this . . . and I had better stop now). Also the archer set (4th one in the top row) from R & D. (I know, probably no one will get me any of those. Pout.) Gift certificates are always good, too, if you don't to wade through my list, or prefer not to shop online.

So enough selfisness--what would everyone else like for the holidays?

One More

Lovely white-haired character, that is. Brother Alfred from Judith Tarr's The Hound and the Falcon trilogy.

Aaah! Faerie Queen

Okay, this is some kind of disease. It has to be. I really want this one: Dolls of the World - Legends of Ireland - Faerie Queen

Princess of Ancient Greece

You know, I hate to admit it, but I really like this Barbie: Princess of Ancient Greece Barbie. Give her a better body (say a BBI Perfect Body) and maybe darken her skin a little, and she'd be a great 1/6 scale ancient Greek action figure. Need to balance out all those ancient historical boys, you know. Erm. If I see this on sale somewhere for under 10 bucks, I might pick it up just for the costume. A few of the others in the series are interesting, too. (Did I really just say I like a Barbie? There must be something wrong with me. The inflammation in my wrist has spread to my brain . . . heeelllllp . . .)

And More . . .

Almost forgot. I listened to the Last Exile soundtrack 2 while drawing this week's Fey. And that made me remember another pretty white-haired favorite character: Lord Dio (from Last Exile, hence the remembering bit). Last Exile is currently my very favorite anime series, though InuYasha, Wolf's Rain, and Witch Hunter Robin are close behind. And close after them is Rurouni Kenshin--it had me laughing out loud a few times. Now I have to go set the VCR to tape Mobile Suit Gundam Seed, InuYasha, and Witch Hunter Robin for my niece Selena (hwah, ha ha, my evil plan to turn everyone around me into anime fans is beginning to take effect).

Ow, Ow, Ow: Fey page 21

Stupid sore wrist. Stupid stupid stupid. Here's page 21. And page 20 is now fixed.

If, unlike me, you haven't yet managed to fuck up your writing wrist, and you do a lot of writing, or drawing, or whatnot, get thee to a stationer's or office supply shop and buy some of those pens and mechanical pencils with the big barrels and cushy grips. The ones endorsed by the Arthiritis Society are particularly good. Trust me. And learn to relax your arm and hand while writing. Also, invest in ergonomic gel wrist rests for your mouse and keyboard. That way, you might avoid the tendonitis or carpel tunnel syndrome or whatever it is that makes my wrist very, very hurty every few months or so. But I'll be fine. (whine, whine)

Such Pretty Silver Hair

I've recently picked up an assortment of naked action figures/fashion dolls to use as models for making 1/6 scale clothes and stuff (some to sell, some for me). I had some really nice comments on the hakama and gi set I recently sold on eBay. Anyway, this one particluar figure, a Volks "Neo-Go" (aka "Go-Guy")--a slenderer figure than the standard G.I. Joe-type--has me totally fascinated. For these figures, you buy the head separately, so you can choose the face and get one bald for rooting yourself, or pre-rooted in various colours. The pre-rooted heads come with really, really long hair, so you can cut it however you want. I picked a narrow-faced (rather cheekbony) head with white hair. And now I can't stop thinking about different costumes I could make. So I was trying to figure out why I'm so fascinated by this pretty white-haired boy doll, and I realized that there's a whole line of pretty white/silver haired men who have been favourite characters of mine. The ones I came up with without too much thought are:

• Skywise (Elfquest)
  
• Elric of Melniboné (Michael Moorcock's Elric books)
  
• Farin Silverhair (Diana Paxson's Westria books)
  
• Reiken/Seren (A Distant Soil)
  
• Deth (Patricia McKillip's Riddle-Master trilogy)
  
• Rohannon Melior (Rosemary Edgehill's The Twelve Treasures series)
  
• InuYasha (InuYasha)
  
• Sesshomaru (InuYasha)
  
• Yuki Tsukisiro, aka Julian (Cardcaptor Sakura/Cardcaptors anime)
  
• Yueh (Cardcaptor Sakura)

More or less in chronological order (of me encountering them). I could probably come up with more. So is this just my fascination with pretty hair (and pretty men), or is it something more general in fantasy? Maybe both. Anyway, boy doll with long white hair needs a name. And some clothes.

Fey Oops

Heh. I realized yesterday that when I added the text to page 20, I forgot to lighten the grey behind where the words go. So it's a little harder to read than I intended. I will fix it, but not this minute, because I'll have to go back to a copy from before I added the text (on account of I flattened it after). Anyway, at least it isn't impossible to read.

Fey page 20

And I only had to re-boot twice! Fey page 20

Writing: Eep!

I just realized NaNoWriMo is only a month away (registration starts tomorrow), and I still haven't revised last year's novel. I think I said I was going to do that in January . . . I guess I'd better start (erm . . . anyone wanna fly me to Scotland to do location research? I only need to spend a day or two each in Dunvegan and Aberfoyle).

This year, I can't decide if I'll do The Love Talker, the romance novel I once thought would be easy (I mean, I might as well get all the sick-making prose over with at once), or if I want to give Fairy Rings another shot and start it over from scratch. With a different title. And maybe a younger main character. Or maybe I should do something else. I could give Reading the Bones another stab. But then there's still all that research. Or maybe Bunk. But again, there'd be a lot of research to do.

Erm. Would you say I maybe have a few partially developed ideas rolling around? (Next person who says "I have this great idea; how about I tell it to you and you could write it?" dies a long, boring, painful death.) Anyway.

Going to dig out the The Secret Common-Wealth ms now.

League of Extraordinary Fiction (and not)

Er . . . I really haven't been reading much non-pictorial fiction, have I?

37. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. I like Jules Verne. Not a whole lot seems to really happen--not much action, anyway. And there are a lot of numbers and lists of species and other scientific details. And yet. It's just so damn fascinating! And I have a new word to add to my list of favourite words (which include things like eldritch and dirigible): poulpe. Okay, it's a French word, but they used it in the English translation I read. And it sounds cool. Poulpe. Yup.
    
38. A Deceptive Clarity by Aaron Elkins. I don't find Elkins' Chris Norgren books (main character=art historian/director of art museum) quite as addictive as the Gideon Oliver books (main character=forensic anthropologist), but they're still pretty good. I think they're more violent in a main-character-beaten-to-a-pulp sense, too. Anway, it was a superquick, fun read, wherein I learned something about art history and forgery.
    

So now I'm working on Five Weeks in a Balloon, which has the same not-much-action, lots-of-technical-detail components as 20,000 Leagues, but is also really fascinating. The heroes have just tethered their balloon to a tree for their first night over Africa.
Edit: Plus, I finally finished LoEG vol 2, which I'll write about in my next "Seq Art Reading" post.

(Slow) Non-Fiction Reading

48. Life Along the Silk Road by Susan Whitfield. I think I like the idea of this book better than the book itself. It borrows the structure of The Canterbury Tales to describe what life was like in the region of the Silk Road(s) at the height of its importance. So there's "The Horseman's Tale," "The Courtesan's Tale," and so on. Except it's the tale of each character, rather than a tale told by them (so I guess it's not so Canterbury after all). It's a great way to structure a history book--focus it on each character and what happened in their life. But it slips into events-and-dates history a little too often (unavoidably, perhaps) for easy reading. Whitfield is a Silk Road/Chinese History scholar, and it shows in her careful research. But it also shows in the writing. It isn't bad writing, it just isn't non-scholarly enough for a general audience (except a very determined one). Still, it was worth reading. I learned how very multicultural and dynamic that part of the ancient world was. Cool.
    

So, for a change my non-fic reading is . . . not very productive. As in I haven't been reading much of it. Next is a book on Shinto, then one on pigeons. Then maybe the bird evolution one I picked up ages ago. No, wait, there's a library book on airships first.

Why Harvest Moon?

Cool moon lore here: Watch Out for the Harvest Moon. (Link via SpaceWeather.)

Stephen Fry

From The Onion (via Neil Gaiman):

. . . there's a very dismissive British phrase, 'Jack of all trades and master of none.' But who wants to be the master of one trade, rather than having fun doing lots of things?

Exactly.