the toad beneath the harrow, that would be how I feel this morning

The nightmare from which I awoke at 5:00 a.m. this morning was clearly sponsored by the entrance to Hell known as Felbrough.

( More details? Are you sure? )

Have done SOMETHING to my lower back. Harbor a dark suspicion that it was something to do with the nightmare. The person who invented the heating pad should be canonized.

Another rejection letter yesterday, this one for not being "different" enough. Wtf? There are times when editorial comments on rejection letters are really helpful, and then there are the times I wish they'd stick to the old reliable, "we regret that your submission does not suit our current needs." 'Cause, sure, it's as helpful as a screen-door on a submarine, but it gets the job done, and it doesn't send me into a hopeless hermeneutic spiral of trying to deconstruct the fundamentally undeconstructable. Grump.

TDIRS: Over Sea, Under Stone

Continuing my new theme (and I apologize if people are getting ready to tear their hair out from sheer boredom), I'm starting a reread of The Dark Is Rising Sequence. Unlike with the Narnia books, this isn't the first time I've read TDIRS as an adult, but it is the first time I've read it paying attention to anything beyond the story.

I'm taking the books one at a time.

[ETA: Works Cited! I can't believe I forgot the Works Cited! Bad Truepenny! No cookie!]

[ETA2: removing The Hobbit from my contextualization, because papersky pointed out to me that, in fact, The Hobbit was first published in 1937, and therefore it provides historical background, not contemporary context. My edition of The Hobbit was published in 1966 and is mysteriously silent about its past.]

( Over Sea, Under Stone )

bookkeeping

Finished that short story I was bitching about in passing back here.

Totalled at 5,100 words, which is pretty reasonable for me. I can write stories under 5k, but it doesn't happen very often. I like a story that's long enough to sink my teeth into. And this one may get tightened up (or lengthened, who knows?) in the editing.

Of those 5,100 words, 793 were written today. And they got the story finished, which is a good thing because I was frankly starting to wonder.