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truepennyThe Mirador, Chapter 14: 4,016 words
Two artificial and unnecessary subplots axed, making this another very small chapter.
I think, if I'm doing the math right, that I've managed to cut the draft back down so that my word limit is no longer in dire peril. Which is good, and indicates that, yes, Part Two had a lot of deadwood.
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matociquala and I have diametrically opposed reactions to the end stages of a book. She becomes a juggernaut; I become a squirrel in a cage, constantly looking for a way out and desperate for distractions.
So, yesterday, I started stripping the ugly slate-blue paint off our backstairs, something that I've only been wanting to do since we moved in two years ago.
Of course, under the first coat of ugly paint was another coat of ugly paint, and then another coat of ugly paint, and then some ugly munge-brown stuff that we think is probably primer. And then wood. Which seems to be a very pleasant reddish color. (I associate the color with cherrywood but I know absolutely fuck-all about house design of the early 20th century and even less about tress.) I spent a lot of yesterday afternoon ferociously menacing the top stair with a plastic paint scraper, and that's probably how I'm going to spend today as well. That ugly munge-brown stuff is a bitch to get off.
But I also spent a fair amount of time waiting for applications of paint stripper to dry, and while I was doing that, I finished Blood & Iron (which I can't quite count as a UBC, because of course I have read it, in several different drafts).
Entirely apart from my friendship with Bear, and even apart from my previous familiarity with Blood & Iron, I enjoyed this book tremendously. Because it's thoughtful and careful and uncompromisingly honest; because it says that war is stupid, even when it's necessary; because I love the way Bear imagines Faerie and its Queens and its complicated relationship to mythology and folklore and ballad and superstition--and Heaven and Hell. I admire it intensely for refusing to have Good Guys and Bad Guys, and for pointing out, patiently, that humans aren't on the top of the heap because we are noble and virtuous and pure of heart. Or because we somehow deserve it.
Americans have a very uneasy relationship with predators. Partly because we are predators; partly because we think we shouldn't be predators any longer; partly because our predatory nature is becoming increasingly removed from the actual business of hunting and killing animals weaker than ourselves. Oh, we still do it all the time, but we do it by proxy. In our day to day lives, we're predating metaphorically on each other, in the endless stupid competitions and games of oneupmanship that characterize politics and business and every other branch of human existence.
And partly because our romantic streak loves them, and our Puritan streak wants them exterminated.
One of the things fantasy can do is give the wilderness a voice. And one of the things Blood & Iron does is remind us that the standards we persist in applying to the wilderness are artificial and wrong and even more dangerous than the wilderness itself.
Two artificial and unnecessary subplots axed, making this another very small chapter.
I think, if I'm doing the math right, that I've managed to cut the draft back down so that my word limit is no longer in dire peril. Which is good, and indicates that, yes, Part Two had a lot of deadwood.
matociquala and I have diametrically opposed reactions to the end stages of a book. She becomes a juggernaut; I become a squirrel in a cage, constantly looking for a way out and desperate for distractions.So, yesterday, I started stripping the ugly slate-blue paint off our backstairs, something that I've only been wanting to do since we moved in two years ago.
Of course, under the first coat of ugly paint was another coat of ugly paint, and then another coat of ugly paint, and then some ugly munge-brown stuff that we think is probably primer. And then wood. Which seems to be a very pleasant reddish color. (I associate the color with cherrywood but I know absolutely fuck-all about house design of the early 20th century and even less about tress.) I spent a lot of yesterday afternoon ferociously menacing the top stair with a plastic paint scraper, and that's probably how I'm going to spend today as well. That ugly munge-brown stuff is a bitch to get off.
But I also spent a fair amount of time waiting for applications of paint stripper to dry, and while I was doing that, I finished Blood & Iron (which I can't quite count as a UBC, because of course I have read it, in several different drafts).
Entirely apart from my friendship with Bear, and even apart from my previous familiarity with Blood & Iron, I enjoyed this book tremendously. Because it's thoughtful and careful and uncompromisingly honest; because it says that war is stupid, even when it's necessary; because I love the way Bear imagines Faerie and its Queens and its complicated relationship to mythology and folklore and ballad and superstition--and Heaven and Hell. I admire it intensely for refusing to have Good Guys and Bad Guys, and for pointing out, patiently, that humans aren't on the top of the heap because we are noble and virtuous and pure of heart. Or because we somehow deserve it.
Americans have a very uneasy relationship with predators. Partly because we are predators; partly because we think we shouldn't be predators any longer; partly because our predatory nature is becoming increasingly removed from the actual business of hunting and killing animals weaker than ourselves. Oh, we still do it all the time, but we do it by proxy. In our day to day lives, we're predating metaphorically on each other, in the endless stupid competitions and games of oneupmanship that characterize politics and business and every other branch of human existence.
And partly because our romantic streak loves them, and our Puritan streak wants them exterminated.
One of the things fantasy can do is give the wilderness a voice. And one of the things Blood & Iron does is remind us that the standards we persist in applying to the wilderness are artificial and wrong and even more dangerous than the wilderness itself.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-16 07:36 pm (UTC)It is a bit pricier than the stinking chemical kind of paint stripper, I admit, but you wouldn't have to wait for it to dry.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-16 08:13 pm (UTC)Yes, I've always admired that about Bear. I tend to go a bit squirrel-y myself.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-16 08:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-16 08:54 pm (UTC)And there will be another book. I am so glad. Not to hurry you too much, I know good writing takes time, and besides, no what what you do, it will be months and months before I have it in my hot little hands. But, wow!
I need a rest, anyway. Too much excitment for a hot Sunday. You really handled everything very well. Any other compliments I could give you might be spoilers for someone.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-16 10:36 pm (UTC)(The next book is the one that's due in two weeks.)
no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 12:33 am (UTC)We have ugly paint at my house, too. In fact, the previous owners painted the hardwood floors upstairs *without moving the furniture*. So in my daughter's room, for instance, there are patches of four different colors of paint, in the outlines of bed, bureau, desk, etc.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-17 12:56 am (UTC)You might try just getting the paint off first, and THEN dealing with the munge; whatever it is, it sounds like the paint stripper is having trouble with it. The problem is that you don't want to go layering too many chemicals on top of each other, especially given the lack of ventilation in that stairwell.
You will not be surprised to learn that I attacked my own window-munge with a solution of baking soda and hot water, which actually worked. Using water did raise the grain of the wood a bit, but I wiped them with mineral spirits to speed evaporation and then sanded them down before varnishing and they turned out rather nicely.