Algonquin Cat

I had an erratum to confess anyway. The author is Val SchaffNer. I always spell it wrong.

And since this seems to be the book that is least familiar, I thought I should say a little more about it, so no one feels that they have been cruelly Led Astray by it being on the same list with Swordspoint and Watership Down.

Algonquin Cat is a children's book. The illustrations are by Hilary Knight (of Eloise fame), and they are to die for. Despite the fact that it is a children's book, I find it actually much more satisfying to read as an adult, because I get all the jokes about actors and publishers and writers and the Algonquin Round Table. The book has a very sly and subtle sense of humor, and is perfectly self-aware.

It and Watership Down are the only two animal protagonist books I like (leaving aside The Wind in the Willows, which is really about little Englishmen in animal suits). Tailchaser's Song is an abysmal effort to do Watership Down with a roguish wink to the audience--not as honest as tongue-in-cheek but also refusing to take its own premise with the gravity which such endeavors require--and I resent the blatant manipulative tear-jerkeriness of Black Beauty and its ilk. And the animals-with-human-intellect school don't even seem worth the bother. Why write about a cat if it isn't really a cat?

So now at least you have an idea of what you'll find.

State of the Truepenny, on this, the 27th January in the year of our lord 2003

My dreams last night were so Spuffy even I was nauseated.

The CPU has finally deigned to make its dying duck noise when MH could fiddle around and diagnose it properly. Power-supply fan. So I'm back with the laptop until the matter can be dealt with. I love living with a technerd. Have I mentioned this?

Got to the point where I have to put the new scene in Ch. 8 and have gone tharn. Will work my way back around to dealing with it sooner or later, but right now just cannot get a handle on the damn thing.

Sinus headache. Bleah.

Have started having other creative thoughts welling up around The Project. I've been pretty burned out since early December--i.e., NOT having creative thoughts unrelated to The Project--and I find that a very frustrating state of existence. Am trying to be zen about it and not rush myself.

Am very bad at being zen.

Lard Saruman

Okay, that's just gross. I mean, really.

Also v. clever, ingenious, demented, and disturbing. But mostly gross.

Actual blogness

Teresa Nielsen Hayden (who is one of those people that, if I'm ever in the same room with, I will make an unutterable fool of myself in front of. I know this. Just as I do, in fact, make an unutterable fool of myself in front of Neil Gaiman every single time. *despairs*) has a wonderful entry in her blog for Jan. 26 about, well, I guess Americana is maybe the right word. I don't know. But it's a wonderful entry, and it has links to all sorts of amazing things, like the web page for the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum in Kansas City. So if you're seeking better procrastination via web surfing, this should do the job for you.

Wow.

Just sold my fifth short story, this one to Lovecraft's Weird Mysteries. Considering that I made my first sale less than a year ago, I can't help feeling that this is not so terribly shabby.

And heres_luck wanted me to say that she was the first to offer tangible--comestible, even--positive reinforcement, in the form of apricot twists. Yea, verily, she is a goddess.