bits and pieces

286 words on Kekropia in the last two days, plus a lot (that's a technical term) on ACtW. But last night I figured out what the immediate effect of this dratted argument is--as in, what it's in this book for--and that helps a good deal.

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Met a deadline today. Feel good about it.

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Today's quote, from an interview with Laura Anne Gilman to which arcaedia posted a link: "And remember that the moment you make your first submission, you ARE a professional, and will be judged by other professionals as such." This goes in the category of Things Every Aspiring Writer Needs To Know, and made little bells go off in my head like when somebody gets an answer right on a quiz show.

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Yesterday's quote, from the Department of ROFL, coffee_and_ink describing the experience of reading manga: "I'll be reading along, lalala quests lalala homoerotic buddy-movie roadtrips lalala angels lalala swords lalala tragic destinies lalala incest lalala ... wait a minute, what do you mean, lalala incest?!"

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And sosostris2012 posted a link to what has become my favorite random-thingy generator EVER: They Fight Crime!

( ETA a cut to protect the innocent )

My favorite may still be the first one I got: He's an oversexed albino rock star plagued by the memory of his family's brutal murder. She's a radical winged schoolgirl with a flame-thrower. They fight crime!

Valkyries

When I was little, I wanted to grow up to be a Valkyrie.

I got the blonde okay, but my genes didn't listen to me. When you top out at 5'4", you are simply not Valkyrie material.

All this is slightly beside the point.

For various reasons (::waves at matociquala::) I've been thinking about Norse names recently, and today (inspired in some strange way by the hot-pants wearing Hound of Tindalos) I just went ahead and searched that treasure-trove, The Pronouncing Index of Proper Names to the Eddas, for the names of Valkyries.

( the list, if you're interested )

I also found the name Borghild, and my mind took a vertiginous sideways swoop into an alternate reality where Star Trek was written by crazed Norsemen. Because obviously, Borghild is what the crew of a demented Norse Voyager would call Seven of Nine.

The Inner Valkyrie Project

So I've started trying to maintain an exercise regime again. [Insert long, complicated history of Truepenny's Boring Health Problems and Stressful (Tho' Equally Boring) Academic Problems and the interconnection there-between here.] And of course, because I am an American woman and have been properly brainwashed and indoctrinated, I find myself thinking about it in terms of losing weight.

Don't get me wrong. I'd love to be a size 6 again. But thinking about exercise and eating in terms of weight-loss is stupid. Because you psych yourself out. Every time you gain a pound, or fail to lose a pound, you cast yourself into the Slough of Despond and wander around thinking at random intervals, You utter sow.

This is not good for one's mental health, one's self-esteem, or one's resolve.

I was thinking about it in the shower, and thinking, The point isn't to lose weight. The point is to gain health. (Like making the next level in Angband and giving yourself CON points like a mad thing.) And this cross-connected in my head with my post about Valkyries earlier today.

My mental image of Valkyries was fixed when I was a wee sprog and my father gave me Rackham's Color Illustrations for Wagner's "Ring". Now (leaving aside for a moment the cultural context of which I did not wot at the time), Rackham's Valkyries are ladies of presence. (He can't draw dragons for shit, though.) I feel sure that they would scoff at the idea of doing anything simply to make oneself skinnier. And while I'm also sure they'd be very amused at my weight-training, I think they might, just possibly, approve.

So I'm listening to my Inner Valkyrie, and my exercise regime is about letting her out.