Careful! Those Words Are Loaded!

Many things to talk about, and I may run out of time, but here goes:

First, I haven't written yet today, though I did get in my 1500 yesterday. I'm getting a little bogged down in the story at the moment actually. I still like it and I'm becoming dangerously attached to a certain one of my characters, but the darn thing just keeps getting longer! This is good, because it looks like my story is definitely fully novel-length (always an issue for me, the queen of the 80-page novella...), but it's also bad because I'm trying to write quickly, so I don't give up or get distracted, but as each chapter blossoms into four or five chapters, I get the sense that I will never finish. I will be writing this book forever. At least I like it.

A brief note about some changes to my profile: I added more interests to help (theoretically) people find this who might like it. I don't spend a whole lot of time online, except to write these entries basically, so it takes a while for me to find new blogs/journals and very, very rarely comment on other people's entries. I should do that more often, actually. I also added a link. I will discuss why I've chosen those links in the future, I swear, just as soon as...Well, you know. I have a dream. My dream is that someday I will live in a little house in the country. I will have a studio where I can paint and sculpt and not have to worry about moving stuff off the table when company comes over, or you know, we have to eat. And I will have lots more time to do all the things I like to do, like read books, and sleep. Yeah. ; )

( Little Rant on RDR/WB Trial )

In other news, I went to hear Mary Oliver read last night. I bought two of her books two weeks ago, but I didn't want to write anything until after I'd heard her speak, as authors sometimes give insight into their work that changes the whole way you look at and think about it. And I liked hearing Ms. Oliver read her poems. She unconsciously ADDED PUNCTUATION where it BELONGED in the poem, so it was much easier to understand what she meant when she read it than when I read it. I still don't much care for any of her poems (OK, to be fair, there are one or two I kind of liked, but not in the profoundly passionate way I love the works of certain other poets. Actually, I usually detest the modern poems I read in literary journals, etc. I like Keats and Robert Browning, and even Shakespeare. I am starting to think there's really no hope I'll ever get any of my poems published...).

Somehow, hearing the awed and thoughtful "Hmm"s of the audience as she ended each piece only made them seem triter and less important to me. Somehow, I didn't hear anything new in her words. I don't know if, forty years ago, her poetry was new and important, but not only were there no really profound thoughts for me, her own profound thoughts never really changed over that whole long career. Her recent poems express the exact same feelings her earlier ones do. I actually find it kind of sad to think a person could live such a long time and not learn anything she hadn't learned by the time she was 25. Sigh. Someone who went with me suggested that I couldn't appreciate the insights she got from the little nature of New England, because I've been jaded by the grandeur that surrounds me every day. It's hard to have a small thought in a place like this. ; ) I did find it interesting that she saw a dipper once in Colorado fifty years ago and decided then to be a poet. Something kind of like that happened to me. ; )

Indeed, I was inspired to write two poems last night. And, on the way home, I saw a black (!!) fox, and a great horned owl. The fox was a red fox, of course, (Vulpes vulpes), but it was black with white specks, not at all unlike the black form of the yellow-bellied marmot I've seen around here sometimes, or even the black form of the fox squirrel. But I didn't know they came in that color! It wasn't the "cross fox"; it was just black. And the owls were calling outside my window all evening as the horned moon set behind the mountains...It's hard not to write poetry around here, come to think of it!

And, I was very happy this morning because my two favorite bloggers had new entries...but I think I've really run out of time, and space (I've run out of space-time!! Never mind...), to write about them. And I wanted so much to mention toilets in Australia...Yes, well, I'll talk about all these things eventually, I'm sure. Let me just add that everyone should have an Italian cousin with whom they can discuss art and tax shelters, and wasn't I going to write about the art museum? And didn't I say I'd talk about my future, as dictated by very bad fast food? And it's snowing again...actually mixed rain and snow. Well, there's always tomorrow. ; ) And now the sun has come out again. And a bunch of Cassin's finches (the first I've seen this spring!) are bathing in a puddle in the driveway. And we finally got the bat box hung this morning...

-Susie

Ranting and Raving...and Resting

First of all, I guess I should apologize (to myself of course; nobody reads this. Except my fangirl Zibby. Yea for fangirls.) for not posting yesterday. I was around, but I was tired and I just didn't post. I know, I know. Anyway, some good news--I'm about a third of the way (or maybe less, as it keeps getting longer and longer) through my Current Project and have given the first six chapters to my first readers, namely my mom (who has always been the first to read all my writing since time immemorial) and, again, Zibby, my loyal fangirl. : ) In the last two days I wrote a total of only 2,798 words, most of them today. Today was a good day, writing-wise, and I would like to do a little bit more, but knowing me, I won't. The weather was gorgeous: sixties I expect--I wore a t-shirt all day and was very warm on my walk. The violet-green swallows are everywhere all of a sudden and flickers are displaying (and dying, unfortunately) outside (and on) my windows. I can see the wood pile on the North side of the house for the first time since January! It has collapsed under the weight of the snow.

A couple of things...first, my favorite blogger on Blogger has a nice post today on a topic I have wondered about ever since I first read Harry Potter. I also had fun reading about her childhood pronunciation of a certain Belgian detective's name, as I had literally just been talking about the same thing with my brother (and also my mom). Which of course reminds of a movie quote (so many things do...): "I'm a Belgie, not a Frenchie!" (From Murder By Death) It really made me think about the way I spell unusual words, actually. I agree with Lynneguist on yeah and yea (though Zibby, for example, does it differently), though eh has always been a source of confusion for me. I've only seen "eh" as in "how's it going, eh?" spelled, obviously, e-h. But how does one spell that sound that goes along with a shrug? I've seen "meh" which would rhyme with that word, and not sound like May. Hmmm...So, picture a recent invalid answering the question "how do you feel?" Eh, right? It's not uh, exactly, and certainly doesn't rhyme with day. It's a single-syllable equivalent of "come si, come ca" (except ca would be spelled correctly in an ideal world...), or even "it comes and goes," or "some days are diamonds, some days are stones." : ) Who knows?

And now, a little rant. So, I entered Amazon.com's "Beedle the Bard Ballad Writing Contest." I am a poet. I know what a ballad is, so I thought it an exceedingly stupid name for the contest whose rules (OK, actually it was in the FAQ) explicitly stated that the entries did NOT have to be poems, but simply had to be in English and less that 100 words long. I know. I checked, because I was concerned, because, obviously, I wanted to win, darn it. So, I was rather surprised when almost all of the semi-finalists consisted of unmetered doggeral rhymed couplets. Yeah. Now, I don't mean to sound like a bad loser. I just mean that, in the words of another commenter, I feel "misled." I really enjoyed writing my entry, however, and I still would love to share it with the world, simply because I take joy and pride in my work. Really. As for the entries, I voted for the ones I liked, like a good sport, and I wish them both the best of luck. In the adult category, I thought only Laura H.'s entry was passable at all, and I rather liked it. The teen group was much better by far. I enjoyed several, but I chose Rhiannon of Australia's because it was sweet, it read very well, and it made me smile. So, good luck, ladies! I hope one of you gets to read this one-of-a-kind book! Actually, I'm not jealous about not getting to see the book (seriously!). I knew my chances there were miniscule. I had, however, started fantasizing about all the books I'd buy with that second prize! : D

So, here's what I wrote, and some background, through a link, because my posts are too long anyway...

( What song do wizards use to celebrate birthdays? )

So much more to say, as usual and so little time to say it. Anyway...back for more tomorrow I expect! Good night!

--Susie

P.S. I also found the livejournals of two old friends, who will either be happy I finally have a web presence so they can catch up with what I'm doing, or they will run away screaming and changing their online personae because I'm a crazy stalker... ; )

It's May! It's May! The...Busy...Month of May!

I know my last post was actualy on May 1st, but I didn't realize it at the time. Well, I got enough sleep last night for the first time in a week, though I also took another nap yesterday afternoon. It's almost becoming a habit. Anyway, many things to talk about, as usual, and very little time. I'm feeling like the White Rabbit lately, instead of my usual mad March hare. "Oh dear, oh dear! I shall be too late!" 1,016 words today. Unfortunately, they were for a different project than the one I'm nominally working on! I think I'll get back to that this evening, however. It was a beautiful warm spring day. The violet-green swallows are back around the house after two days of snow. They should be nesting soon.

So, yesterday I spent the whole day wading in a creek counting cutthroat trout redds. There's a crossword puzzle word for you, along with lek and furcula. A redd is basically a trout nest--a depression in the rocks on the bottom of the stream wherein she lays her eggs. (Actually, the eggs are distributed in the "tail spill," a lump of rocks just behind the depression.) It was actually easier than it sounds. The day was overcast and chilly, but the water was crystal clear. There aren't really any other fish in our creeks besides the trout and not much disturbs the bottom. The redds are easy enough to find because the fish carefully clear away all the algae and sediment from the rocks, so the first thing you notice is a patch of clean grey and white rocks amidst the surrounding dirty brown. Glimpsed many fine birds, though I purposefully left my binoculars in the car (gasp! I know. How could I?), because I knew if I had them, I'd spend the day looking at birds and not in the water! Still--Cooper's hawk, swallows, cinnamon teals, red-winged blackbirds, snipes, and a Canada goose on her nest, watching us warily as we walked around her with her neck stretched out and down and her beak slightly open, silent and very still. And we counted about 60 redds. So, it was a fun, though tiring day.

But it wasn't over yet! After a shower and a brief nap, which was seemingly involuntary (I don't even remember lying down!), we went out to hear the author Joanne Harris (Chocolat, among many others). She was a very good speaker--funny and interesting. She seemed very tired by the end of the evening (and a number of quite stupid questions from some members of the audience), but was friendly and engaging. She said a few things that particularly interested me, the first was that she seems to work a bit like I do--no fixed schedule, though she writes whenever she can, and she also has several projects going at once. I particularly loved her theory of inspiration. Apparently, goblins come out at night and give you the ideas while you're sleeping. As she says, "It must be true. No one's ever disproven it!" She also described her birthplace as "twelve miles from Wuthering Heights," that is, near Leeds, the largest city in Yorkshire.*

She had a few things to say about "our Jo" as well. She said she'd met J.K. Rowling "several" times, and offered the following about Harry Potter: first, that it was wonderful for getting boys to read (much agreement from the audience), and second, that it was so popular for two reasons: (Hmmm...my sentence construction is starting to look a bit like Deathly Hallows) that is was simply a good story and not "a book about issues" (her example of an "issue" was a crackhouse in Glasgow), and also that "it doesn't take people too far out of their comfort zone." I agree wholeheartedly with the first point (although HP raises a number a issues, it doesn't really resolve them; they are mostly just set-dressing, unfortunately), and partly with the second. Yes, Harry Potter relies heavily on familiar fairy tale and (later) Biblical themes and conventions, but it also challenges what a children's book is and can be about, and pushes a little bit into the idea of Death not being Evil, which I appreciate a lot, certainly.

Ms. Harris was mostly talking about the sequel to Chocolat, The Girl With No Shadow. I haven't started it yet (as I'm working on a few other things currently that I'd like to finish first!), but it sounds fun, and perhaps better than the first one, which I read quickly, but joined my very short list of "books whose movies I liked better" along with The Black Stallion and, amazingly enough, Sense and Sensibility (the 1995 version), even though they changed a number of things from the novels.

She also told us a bit about her experience teaching at Leeds Grammar School (she didn't say which years exactly), where she was the only female permanent member of staff at the historically (and then) all-boys school. She also has a book either about or inspired by those same years...Actually, all in all, although I was not hugely fond of Chocolat, after hearing her speak, I am very interested in reading more of her work. Several audience members praised Five Quarters of the Orange as some of the best writing they'd ever read. That is enough to tempt me, certainly! : )

This morning I got a chance to rest a little. (In fact I made waffles while my favorite neighbor Ethel M. (more about her another day!) ruminated in the yard outside the kitchen window...) Then, this afternoon I went to see a play by a local playwright, Bob Berky, called The Fourth Nail. I heartily do not recommend it. On the one hand, I was happy to support the local theater and a writer, and the actors were all good (including Mr. Berky himself), but, on the other hand, the play was terrible. I was surprised, as Alexandra Fuller (herself a wonderful writer!) gave it a rave review in the weekly paper...(Yes, yes, I know. I live in a tiny town. We have a weekly paper. I have to drive ten miles to the Post Office on Wednesdays to get it. And yet, this tiny Wyoming town is filled to the trout gills with writers and artists and culture. Ask me about our art museum...Another post...) I guess I'll never trust "Bo's" opinion again... ; D

In the first minute or so, my thought was (I'm not sure what exactly this says about me, actually...) "I've written better plays than this!" My second thought was about the historical inaccuracies. You see, the play was not really about the Crusades (it was set in 1099), but nor was it a fully grown satire of our own time (as some reviewers had said). No, in the end it wasn't really about anything. It was a set of mostly unrealized ideas hinting at profundity, but never really coalescing or imparting any truth or wisdom. The play had a lot of promise: it featured an alchemist, a wise fool, a blind king, and two inept knightly con-men, and the first act had some humor and was interesting enough (except for the scenes featuring the alchemist and fool together), but the second half was flat, dull, and utterly meaningless, with an entirely unsatisfying ending, that the author clearly thought was strong. I kept thinking that such a premise in other hands would have been wonderful. I will also add that it pains me to pan something, because I love the theater and acting and writing, and I too have written many things, including a few that weren't nearly as wonderful as I thought they were at the time. But I think I was not alone. The applause at the end (by the audience of 15 for the Saturday matinee--very sad in and of itself, as I think it's really special that we have theater in this little town, in this big empty state mostly filled with ignorance and superstition) could only be described as polite.

As usual, I would love to stay and say more, but time is short, and I need to write a scene introducing the queen...Actually, she's just the mother of the future king, but I'm not going to give it away. I have five days worth of writing I missed and will never make up, though tomorrow is an empty day otherwise, and I plan to work through most of it. So, here's hoping I do!

-Susie

*Oddly enough, we were discussing the use of miles versus kilometers and Imperial versus metric measures while counting redds. My understanding is that, colloquially, some English people still use miles to measure distance. Of course, Ms. Harris has a French mother, and likely tailors her talks some for an American audience. Anyone have any insight on that?

I also could say many things about both Wuthering Heights and Yorkshire, but I will refrain for now. Interestingly, Ms. Harris spoke French at home, despite living in Yorkshire, and learned English in school, at age seven. She also dropped her Yorkshire accent somewhere along the way and now speaks with a very clear English accent, such as one often hears in the movies. Rather a pity, really. ; )

Also, trivia and a question...Matt Lewis (Neville in the Potter films) is from Leeds. Can anyone tell me what the deal is with the golden owls? (In Leeds. I know about the owls in Harry Potter!) : )

We Are Not Amused

I wanted to write about birds today, but other things got in the way. First things first: the weather is cloudy and the evening sky has that lovely lavender-bluish tint it gets around here. There was some wind earlier and I hate to say, I stayed inside the whole time, which is not (happily) to say that I didn't see any wildlife. Gosh I love living here! Anyway, I was very busy all day, as I often am on Wednesdays and didn't have a chance to sit down and write until six! As I often do in such a situation, I said to myself, "Oh it's so late, I can't possibly work now! I don't want to!" but then I thought of what I'd say here, and the shame if I missed a day blogging/journaling because I didn't have a respectable wordcount. And I think a lot of what I wrote today was rather crappy, but I resisted the urge to edit and just forced myself to pound out the story. And the result? 1,708 words! I guess discipline can be taught!

Now, a few rants have gotten in my way this evening, I'm afraid. Firstly, the New York Times Sunday Crossword. Humpf. (Perhaps now would be a good time to explain that we get the NYT Sunday puzzle on Wednesday. After driving 10 miles to the post office. Yeah. Rural Wyoming. What can I say?) The puzzle was pretty easy, though some clues left me wondering about the mental health of the author, and I thought it was nice that they had all the planets in order. Well, almost all...All eight planets... To me, though, Pluto will always be a planet. So there! : )
Onto other rants. So, normally, I wouldn't admit to reading Newsweek, but two things stood out that I had to share (I'm sorry!). The first was a little "articlet" in the back about the Rowling/WB/RDR suit. Besides getting some facts wrong (My understanding is that the author of the Lexicon, Steve Vander Ark is not a defendant, but was a witness, also JK Rowling is co-plaintif with Warner Brothers.), and being unnecessarily inflamatory--and I'm taking the bait, the irony is not lost on me--("Harry Potter Author Makes Fan Cry"), it also brings up one of The Things I Hate Most In The Entire World which is "the Evil Rich Argument." Grr! Without incriminating myself (Why yes, I am a millionaire. How else do you think I can afford to write poetry?), I'd just like to say, rich people are not inherently bad. You may quote me on this. ; D
The fact is that fame has not made Jo greedy. In fact, people who try to paint this suit as about money are willfully ignorant, destructive and/or just total morons. Believe me, the idea that the Lexicon could unfairly or harmfully compete with "The Scottish Book" or hurt the movie franchise is absolutely and utterly ridiculous. And having been an avid fan of PotterCast since near the beginning, I'd like to give Steve the benefit of the doubt and bet that he wasn't just interested in grabbing a buck (or thousands) off the fandom, either. After all, the website is still up. (However, that doesn't excuse the fact that a librarian who's written about copyright law before should have known better, and it also says nothing about RDR Books who seem to have been misguided throughout the whole process, and who of course would make more money off the book than the author anyway.) The fact is that copyright infringment is WRONG, damn it! It is always wrong. That Jo is rich does NOT make her less entitled to sue over it. The fact that she's now rich only means that she can afford to sue over it! And I, for one, am grateful!
The other thing in Newsweek was the following quote from (ahem) our dear Vice President: "I have no doubt that we are in the midst of a global warming. Or, as I like to call it, Spring." Antipodeans are not amused. Neither am I really, but I understand physics...and astronomy, and natural science, and geography, and things like that. But maybe I'm just too educated to be a real American. And please, nobody write in and tell me he's from Wyoming and people in Wyoming don't know any better. My Mom already told me. : P

Sigh. Well, I feel better getting that off my chest. Plus I have fresh, warm, homemade chocolate-chip cookies...Oh well. I'll write about the birds tomorrow.
-Susie

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers...

Today is a momentous day in my life as a blogger. I have a fangirl. Yes, yes. zibbycomix is my fangirl and she is a great fangirl to have. : )
In other news...I know this is only my second day, but already I'm inspired to write about Harry Potter. OK, this isn't exactly about Harry Potter. As you might be able to guess from the subject line, it's about J.K. Rowling's lawsuit, currently in between the closing arguments and the decision. I thought I'd just mention this today for two reasons, one, everybody else is blogging about it and if everyone else jumped off a bridge I would sure as heck join them because I don't know how to grow wheat or mill flour and I wouldn't survive very long without bread...or cake...or brioche even. Two, both MuggleCast and PotterCast discussed the trial in their podcasts this week. I would urge anyone who doesn't know what's going on to go over to The Leaky Cauldron and read their excellent and very professional and responsible coverage of the whole case and listen to their commentary on it this week. I found it both informative and edifying.
Now, I am not a lawyer, and like Shakespeare, whose birthday is coming up on Wednesday (which I know because it's the same day as the birth of my littlest nepot), I never much cared for the profession. However, I have two (Wow! Count 'em! Two!) personal connections to the issue which I think might be of interest to readers. The first, of course, is that I am an artist, and a starving one at that, and copyright/fair use, etc. are important issues to me. I think it's pretty obvious that, in general, I side with original authors. Now, as I said, I have not been trained in the law and have not seen all the evidence in this case, but it seems pretty clear to me that Jo and Warner Bros. should win here, even though the fair use law is disturbingly vague.
Why is it disturbingly vague? Well, this relates to another of my favorite subjects and one I think about especially on my birthday, and that is America. For those of you who don't know, April 19 is Patriots' Day, because on that day in 1775 the battles of Lexington and Concord were fought. To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson's "Concord Hymn", "By the rude bridge that arched the flood,/their flag to April's breeze unfurled;/here once the embattled farmers stood;/and fired the shot heard round the world." This date has been celebrated in many forms here in America (see Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "Paul Revere's Ride," which is my birthday poem, and which I have read (and lately recited) on my birthday for about sixteen years), along with December 16, 1773 (National Checking Account Marketing Day, but that's for another post). Some of you may have already noticed that the Battles of Lexington and Concord took place more than a year before the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. But no one ever mentions that in school (at least I never heard it there). Is this a classic case of the victor rewriting history? Perhaps, by my point (I usually do have one...) is that The Law has always been a sticky subject for Americans.
The reason for this, I think, is that America's ideology owes a huge amount to John Locke who wrote that human beings have the natural right to live in a free society and that if they find themselves burdened by unjust laws they have not only the right, but the duty to overturn said laws and (as the American experiment proved) even to depose their king (but perhaps not dispose of their king a la les francais). (See New Hampshire's motto: "Live Free or Die.") The idea of self-reliance and self-governence has therefore always been a strongly held tenet of the American people. The classic American heroes (think cowboys and even outlaws in the Old West...or currently, here in Wyoming...) are those men and women who did what they felt was right, or even did whatever they pleased, with conviction. As Mark Twain said, "America has no native criminal class...except congress." In other words, in America, unlike in most countries worldwide, any idiot can be a criminal. This is what makes America great. Really.
We also love the idea of the underdog, having convinced ourselves that we were once underdogs too. But the underdog is not just the weaker of two parties. The true underdog is the person who stands on his own against injustice, who fights on principle alone. And that's the crux of my argument. The person who seems to be standing on principle alone in this case is J.K. Rowling. She is protecting her intellectual property in the name of all current and future authors and all of the diverse and wonderful people who make up this thing called fandom. Now, I'm not saying an encyclopedia of an existing work of literature is a bad idea, but this particular one, as it quotes numerous passages of the original work without citations or scholarly merit must be stopped for the benefit of future works by other authors, but more on that in a second.
First, I want to go to my anecdote. I am sorry this case went to court and that a lawsuit occurred at all. This is a very sad situation for reasons I'll list at the end. My father invented something called "Totally Free Checking." You've probably seen banks across the country advertizing "totally free checking." Most of those are not "in" with my father's program (wherein the checking is actually, you know, totally free, unlike in most banks which say they have "free checking" but really don't). Why is this? My father copyrighted the phrase and the concept. It is his intellectual property. The reason is, when the first infringement occurred, he had to make a decision: "Do I keep on selling my product as best I can and help my clients, or do I spend the rest of my life in a series of lawsuits fighting every single instance of infringement?" Now, before you cry "exaggeration," know that many people have done exactly that. My father chose the former with the consequence that he didn't throw away all our money on lawyers' fees and bank customers have to hear a lot of false advertizing when looking for a friendly neighborhood bank within five miles of their home or business. ; )
So, my point is that the fair use law is vague, therefore precedence becomes immensely important as precedence is a legally binding factor in the courts of America. So, although Jo would not lose any money over "The Harry Potter Lexicon," other authors could lose everything over similar products (related to their work) in the future. Personally, I have never bought any "guide" books to Harry Potter and have no intention of doing so for two reasons: one, I can think for myself, thank you, and two, I doubt they'd say anything meaningful I didn't already know or learned for free elsewhere. But, I am concerned that well-meaning but ignorant relatives buy anything with a particular brand name on it for kids they know without thinking about the money trails or who might be getting hurt. Not that there's anything wrong with that, well-meaning relatives! But, it's something that I think about and therefore matters enormously to me.
Unfortunately, I think that no matter who wins this case, the consequences for my favorite fandom will be profound. If Jo delays her own companion book to the series because of this, or worse, abandons the project entirely, in the words of The Princess Bride, "I shall be very put out." Either way, I think we can say goodbye to Jo's fansite awards, and say hello to a less open and more bitter and disillusioned fan base. Over all it's just a sad business that probably could have been resolved in another way. On a final note: just remember that before the Fall of Rome, philosophers were complaining about frivilous lawsuits and a surfeit of lawyers.
-Susie