Catching up

[desperance]

I am told I am a lazy sod. By a Frenchman who knows the proper use of the word 'fardel', so I suppose it must be true.

Which being true, it excuses me from blogging: so I do not need to tell you about my weekend, how I spent the central day of FantasyCon being so ill that nothing passed my lips between a glass of grapefruit juice at breakfast (oh, and one sip of execrable coffee: for yes, coffee can be made so bad I will not drink it) and the stomach-settling curry I had for dinner (lamb achaari, since you ask, and probably the finest of my life). Which having not told you that, therefore it would make no sense if I went on to tell you that although I was ill, I still don't believe I lost half a stone over the weekend, which my bathroom scales just tried to tell me before my bath. After my bath, they asserted that I was back up to my regular weight; and I don't suppose I absorb half a stone of water every bathtime (a pint of water weighs a pound and a quarter, so that would be the better part of a gallon), desiccated creature though I be...

Nor need I tell you how foolish it is to get excited at the least whisper of a murmur of interest from a publisher, and yet I still do it, even when they just ask to read something. I must stop this; I am too old to drink hope for my portion. Youth thrives on it, but cynicism is my cup. Despair comes later.

I don't need to tell you about the cats, obviously: how one or other of them did that unravelling thing with the toilet rolls in my absence, a new discovered game; nor how one or other of the little sausage-thieves may have learned how to open the fridge, unless they just got lucky; nor how Mac came to watch me have my bath, sitting on the edge there and playing golf with the soaps (when the bath is empty, he tries to get them down the plughole; when I'm actually bathing, he just knocks them into the water-hazard). I think he likes the warmth and the steamyness (Misha used to get into the bath as soon as the water drained away, and chase her tail in the tropical fug) but I don't have to tell you that either. Either of those.

Warmth is very important just now in all our lives, because it's turning chilly but I haven't put the heating on. Living as we do in a cold house (it's long and thin and faces north) which is very well insulated, at this time of year downstairs is uncomfortably cold but up here is actually still okay. Which is good for me, work-wise: and a working Chaz is good for Barry, because he likes to sit under the desk-lamp. Which puts him strategically between me and the screen, so I type peering over his shoulderblades or else between his ears (as I am as I speak), until he condescends to go to sleep. Mac sits on the printer, which I guess is also warm. Which I am excused from telling you.

What more need I not say? Virgin Trains has still not sorted out the chaos with my tickets, though it's been nearly a month now and I should be travelling in three weeks. So far they have charged me twice and still not delivered what I booked. And now they're not answering my e-mails either, nor my letters. Snarl.

Life goes on, books get longer. They don't get any better; by definition, they stray further from the ideal with every word I write. Still'n'all, we get them written, by and large. Mostly large. (Actually "by and large" is a nautical term, covering the range of sailing from close-hauled to before the wind: which I learned, of course, from Patrick O'Brian. I love that stuff, but I need not tell it you, for I am lazy; and lazy men tell no tales, no indeed.)

The rest is silence. Whereof we cannot speak, etc. I should probably go to bed; that's what a lazy man would do. Or a cold one.

Comments

[athenais.livejournal.com]

I learned the origin of "the whole shooting match" from Patrick O'Brian as well as "by and large." Books are so educational.

You are Christopher Robin and Mac is Pooh Bear coming to see you have your bath.

[gauroth.livejournal.com]

I am so sorry you weren't well at FantasyCon. I also hope that the publisher is wise enough to take you on - do you accept prayers, virtual candles (virtual because I am the Anglican daughter of Presbyterian grandparents who can't be having with that kind of thing and would probably haunt me) and good wishes? I'd sacrifice a black cockerel, too, but there's such a mess to clear up afterwards...

Warmth is important, and a duvet is our friend; but thermal underwear is even better. That ought to be a proverb, don't you think?

Keep warm; and please tell moshui that I am looking forward to his first book with great excitement. I hope that there will be many, many more.

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Hmpf.

Well, and it's a good thing I said that, too. Because, lo and behold! you did write something. It is a sorry state of the world when you have to call writers names before they will consent to pound the keyboard.

I hadn't noticed you looked ill, though I did notice you drank water during your reading (which, I supposed, was in the sportmanslike spirit of the deed, just requiring something to whet your whistle here and there, and chastely opting for water).

I haven't got cats to greet me home and unravel my toilet paper, but I've got a great big thriving mess, which greeted me with all the stolid multiplicity of its bulk, which I added to from the books I had bought or won at the Raffle. It's not quite as colourful and amusing, but 'tis enough, 'twill serve.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It is a sorry state of the world when you have to call writers names before they will consent to pound the keyboard.

See now, if you were an editor rather than a translator, you would know that this was a perfectly normal state of the world.

And yup, water. And not much of that (which is why I can give the lie to those people who thought I was hung over - hah!), just the odd sip all day, half a glass when I was signing. Until the evening, when the blessed Ian Watson took me out for curry and wine. Which made me all better, really.

[martyn44.livejournal.com]

As children in the bath, my younger brother and I played the game of skooshing the soap around the sides of the bath to see how far it would go.

But you don't really need to be told that.

Hale and hearty. Now there's an expression that sounds nautical. Hope you are.

[song-of-copper.livejournal.com]

Hmm, this Fantasycon malarkey seems to have been a sweltering miasma of appalling microbes. You're the second attendee I've heard of who Came Down With Something Nasty. x__x

I shall have to raise a toast in tea to your returning health. :-)

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

A fardel is a kind od bear, isn't it?

So "By and large, and in the main" is doubly nautical, then?

[mantichore.livejournal.com]

Not a kind. Fairly hard to bear, I'd say.

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

Caspian also used to love just emptied baths. (He liked to try and drink them, too, which led once to an embarrassing falling-in incident about which we may not speak).
Publishers must always be greeted with excitement. Otherwise, like fairies, they cease to exist...