'Nnoying Cat is 'Nnoying

The only surprise, I guess, is the identity of the cat currently chewing olive-stones on my desk to find out if they're edible. And then spitting them out, biffing them back and forth a little and trying again, see if that makes a difference.

In other news, he's still not transparent.

Insulation works both ways

It's an odd time of year: suddenly warmer upstairs than down (because the only heating is downstairs, but that's off now, so the residual heat all gets caught up here), and warmer inside than out (because, y'know, spring sunshine and all: but it takes time to work its way in through all the goddamn insulation).

So. Good time of year to be virtuous in the garden, then. I have herbs to plant out: a couple of thymes (golden and vulgar, since you ask; for thyme past is contained in thyme present) and a rosemary (is it actually possible to have too much rosemary? I've never managed it yet. Rosemary goes in everything). Peas and beans too, I could plant peas and beans. And wish for slow worms to eat the slugs, if I can't have ducks.

And then I must, I really must do some work. I may have to go back to that transient notion of keeping one computer for work and one for internetting. It was awkward, faffing about with two keyboards and two mice, and having to swap files physically between the two - but that was the point, rather. When a tempting thing is awkward, an idle man is less likely to indulge. I definitely did more actual work those few days.

Or, of course, I could just take my lunch to the Lit & Phil and stay all day, leave the internet at home. I was in there for an hour or so this morning, wrote a thousand words, decided that was enough - and on my way out one of my other writerly friends murmured "Bailing out already?" Ouchie...

Oh, I dunno. I just need to work more. More better faster. *nods*

Is this a darling? Should I kill it?

This:

They put faith in her: however much they needed to, however little they had. She would not betray that. However much she felt betrayed herself, however little faith she had in Darro.

- is the sort of thing I do all the time, a rhetorical tic, a kind of literary echolalia. I do it almost without thinking, every chance I can see or make. I suppose I'd call it style or voice or some such, and I love it, I get a warm little shivery feeling every time; but I do worry that other people would call it self-indulgence. I write something with slaughter and politics and revolution and a dragon too, and people call it slow: and I think perhaps this is what they mean, that they trip constantly over the wordplay when what they want is plot. To me, this is plot - "plot" being just what people do, and why they do it - but I am aware that other people see things differently. I just - oh, I dunno. *flails helplessly*