Criminy!

I actually did some writing last night... editing, mostly, on the short story/novella The Woodreeve's Tale. It is set in Enea, the same world where my epic fantasy The Quest for Kullervo lingers unfinished. TWT reflects the tremendous influence W. Morris and Dunsany have had on my writing style, and Eddic influences as well, all of which probably render the thing unreadable to most if not all save myself. But it is great fun to write, if nothing else; and having from the beginning written it with little or no consideration for a wider audience, I have humored my Morris muse, and borrowed extensively from his and the Edda's word-hoard. I agree with Tolkien when he says: "Why deliberately ignore, refuse to use the wealth of English which leaves us a choice of styles -- without any possibility of unintelligibility... I can see no more reason for not using the much terser and more vivid ancient style, than for changing the obsolete weapons, helms, shields, hauberks into modern uniforms." Hopefully I will not be completely unintelligible.

Unfortunately, to my great dismay I have found that a sizable part of the story was lost when our laptop crashed earlier this year. I had only recently transferred the files from it to our desktop PC, deeming them intact; but apparently all the work I did in "Safe Mode" on the laptop was not properly saved, which amounted to the bulk of the meager amount of writing I have done this year. So I am pretty much back to where I was in January/February, with Mar and the thanes leaving their ship, the Gnod, beached near the mouth of the dead river. I tire of this re-writing and re-membering rubbish. Not exactly how I wanted to "ease" back into the writing mode of life.

Now I have a two-day long meeting to go to tomorrow and Tuesday, for my regular job, the one that helps pay the bills. Rubbing elbows with Company people. It's like pulling fingernails for me. And it's my birthday. Jeez, I hope I can make it through the meetings without zoning out completely.