The lost post

[desperance]

The pavements of Newcastle (mainly) are littered with story ideas, snippets of dialogue, titles and characters and all the marginalia of the writing life: twenty-five years of Chaz wandering around and thinking of stuff and then forgetting it before he gets home, for lo, I am not a notekeeping man.

In recent years, this fictional accumulation has been much enriched by the addition of unremembered blogposts, witty little jewels that I thought to send to LJ and, uh, forgot.

Sometimes I remember that I have forgotten them; this doesn't really help much.

As today. I was going to say something lovely to y'all, and I don't know what it was. So it goes.

Still:

Spring is here, spring is here! Life is skittles and life is beer.

Except that it isn't really, of course, either half of that equation. Skittles fall over and beer is bitter, and we're expecting a cold snap at the weekend. But still. The sun is warmly shining as I type, and the rhubarb and garlic in the yard flourisheth as the green bay tree. Which also flourisheth, by definition.

And I have finished my retelling of Dracula, or at least reached the end of a first tentative draft. They may hate it, for I have radically remade the ending, or at least chopped it off a few hundred miles short of where Stoker took it. The trouble with Dracula, I have decided, is a constancy of comings and goings; wherever the story takes you, you have to come back and go there again. And, oftentimes, again and again. This is wearisome. It's probably Deeply Significant in some thematic meaning, but still. Wearisome.

So, anyway. I have more or less achieved the required brevity, largely by dint of not doing that. Farewell, endless shuttling back and forth thematic meaning! This draft stops in London. This may go against company policy; we'll find out soonish. I'm going to read it through and send it off, and then go to the pub. Beer is bitter, and bitter is good. There will be no skittles.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Beer indeed good. Also rhubarb. Ours is thinking about growing, but the marquis is having to wage a constant war against the slugs.
And, ooh, Dracula. Sounds interesting...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I have indoor slugs; they can't be bothered with the plants outside, they all come inside and grow fat on my leavings (and the cats will not hunt them, despite all my encouragement...!).

The Dracula thing is a wee publisher producing brief retellings of classic (out-of-copyright) novels for kids and reluctant readers: I've done The Lost World as well. In five thousand words. The Lost World was comparatively simple, as it's a short book anyway and very plainly told. Dracula, not so. Hence this heretical reinterpretation (I cut Renfield altogether, thereby leading a friend of mine to exclaim over the dinner-table that I clearly didn't understand the book at all...).

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

Ducks will eat slugs. Cats and/or Chaz will eat ducks. Cats will eat Chaz given half a chance.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Is true, is all true. Alas, cats will eat ducks long before ducks get a chance to eat slugs...

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

Indoor slugs are bad. Had them in Cardiff.
5000 words? Hum... I can manage 'Dracula bit, Lucy died. Dracula bit, Mina cried. Jonathan hunted. Dracula fried.'

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hee. I like that. 4,988 words under-budget!

Slugs

[frumpo.livejournal.com]

The beer in a bowl thing works well but I'm not sure whether you'd end up with drunken cats if deployed indoors. I put a small bowl of beer in the garden on Sunday night and 31 slugs drowned themselves in it. By Monday night there were too many to count...

I'm using Rebellion Red beer from Marlow. I once saw an experiment described where different beers were tried. Slugs liked real ale best of all, quite liked Guiness and weren't at all impressed by lager.

Re: Slugs

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Attaslugs!!