Post

[desperance]

Out front of my house there's a wee fence, with a gate in it. It's only a yard from the house, but hey, it's a territory-marker.

Also, the gate squeaks. Loudly. I love this: it's an early-warning system, that I'm about to get a visitor or more likely something unnecessary shoved through my letter-box.

This time of day, late morning, it's postman-time. I'm not as neurotic about the post as I used to be (E-Mail Changed My Life, vol 17, ch 3), but I still like to hear its coming: squeak of the gate, patter of envelopes, slam of letter-box closing behind 'em.

This morning, because I have been having Days Off, I was downstairs reading Scott Lynch in the living-room when I heard the squeak of the gate, and a moment later saw the postman walk away from my house.

Oddly, I hadn't heard the patter or the slam (and my letter-box has a devil of a spring on it, it makes a big slam). Barry didn't even jump off my knee, the way he usually does when the post comes.

So we went to look, and there was none. No mail. The postman had come to my door, and not delivered. It was a content-free posting.

So is this. I have, as I say, been having Days Off: ever since Tuesday, when I got up and sat here and wrote, um, two sentences, and beached.

This is, of course, ridiculous. I'm a chapter-and-a-fight from the end of the book, and I know what happens all the way. I'm not stuck. I'm ever so slightly unwell, but it's only a wee bit of a cold and I only seem to have symptoms half the day; there is no reason why I shouldn't be working. Granted that my play is back, which serves me an excuse, but it's an increasingly ineffective one: Tuesday I could slope off to rehearsals mid-morning, yesterday mid-afternoon, but today not till the evening. Even so, conspicuously, not working. Not even thinking about it. Not till tomorrow. (There was, um, a poetry book? No, an album. A Ralph McTell album, called 'not ... till tomorrow'. God knows what that meant.)

So we opened last night at the Customs House; tonight we close. I call that a tight little run. The play's good, it's working well: better, perhaps, than the first run. Tighter, edgier, I think. Here's a review of last night.

Comments

[dedbutdrmng.livejournal.com]

Ooh, are you reading 'The Lies of Locke Lamora'? I just finished it. Loved it.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee, I'm ahead of you. Halfway through "Red Skies over Red Seas" or "Red Seas under Red Skies" or possibly vice versa. Red stuff and wet stuff, anyway. I like this one too. Not completely uncritically - I wanted to do an editorial job on "Lies", make him rework parts of it, which is unusual for me - but yup, a new star in the firmament, definitely.

[dedbutdrmng.livejournal.com]

Oh, I didn't need to know there was another one. this upsets my (very thin) wallet. I thought 'lies' was a bit slow to start but by about a third of the way in I was utterly captivated. I like a good caper.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. The bad news? There will be seven, to start with; and then I suspect another seven. "Red Seas under Red Skies or Vice Versa" is only in hardback at the moment; even before I read him, this guy moved into the (very short) list of people I buy in hb if I can hook a deal.

[dedbutdrmng.livejournal.com]

Damn him. Damn him to hell.

I do have to admit he had me hooked just by calling them 'the Gentleman bastards sequence'. But his dialogue just jumped off the page, I had an immediate picture of the people talking just from their words. I'm always impressed when that happens.

At one point he made me think of you, that feeling that you're visiting a country you've sort of heard about rather than another world. That's my marker for good fantasy.

I mistakenly picked up the first three Dragonlance Chronicles for fifty pence recently. That's now my marker for bad fantasy.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

At one point he made me think of you

Coo. Thank you.I mistakenly picked up the first three Dragonlance Chronicles for fifty pence recently. That's now my marker for bad fantasy.

Eek. Had no one warned you? (Thankfully, you will never now find out from personal experience, but actually they get worse after that...)

[dedbutdrmng.livejournal.com]

No. I wasn't warned. Usually 'game tie in' has me suspicious anyway but a friend had lent me Dan Abnett's rather wonderful Games Workshop tie ins and they lulled me into a false sense of security. And this trilogy has the gall to compare them to LoTR on the front of it. I didn't think anyone dare do that without some back up. I was wrong, they dare.

Still, it's big, make a good doorstop.

I'm reading the second of the Hawkwood books by James Mcgee now. Rollicking!

[julesjones]

Good review, that. I hope you get funding for another run that comes within reach of Manchester.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

*sighs*

It would be lovely, but don't hold your breath. I suspect the play is about to vanish, after its triumphant tour next week. It's one of the oddities, I'm discovering, about theatre: you do all this work and then, poof!, it's vapourware. With books, at least you have, y'know, books...

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

No argument. But it is a very nice review.

Did the possible Leeds performances come to anything?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Nope. Those too turned out to be vapourware.

[julesjones]

Alas, alack, for I could have got to those...