The Iceman Cometh: 2009

Christmas night... 6 days to go in 2008. I will not post again until January. Much work to be done at the store, and here at home: rolling away the remnants of this Yule, not to be seen again until November 2009 or thereabouts.

I am pissed. I lost pretty much all the writing I got done last week. It was only a few paragraphs and some scattered editing, but it was good work, done in a good spirit. Windows updated and I apparently had not saved my work, only minimized the fucking window. Fuckfuckfuckfuck-frickin'-fuck.

Can't even think about picking up where I left off. Where I left off is now in an alternate reality, some corkscrew dimension where I actually behave like a sentient biomass. What the hell does one do when one's own gross incompetence is the reason for one's artistic malaise???

I mean, fuck.

Song of the Woodland Wolf

No carle the axe whetteth on oak-laden hill;
No shaft the hart letteth to wend at his will;
None heedeth the thunder-clap over the glade,
And the wind-storm thereunder makes no man afraid.
Is it thus then that endeth man's days on Mid-earth,
For no man there wendeth in sorrow or mirth?

Nay, look down on the road

from the ancient abode!

Betwixt acre and field

Shineth helm, shineth shield.

And high over the heath

Fares the bane in his sheath;

For the wise men and bold

Go their ways o'er the wold.

--William Morris, The Roots of the Mountains

Eyeing the saddle, though not back in it yet

Been writing some this week, fleshing out a chapter in my novel The Woodreeve's Tale. The plot grows more complex, despite my initial wish for a simple, straightforward adventure narrative. The Woodreeve's apprentice, the Witch, the thanes, even the Black Paladin are all beginning to demand a more sensitive approach to their motives.

It is becoming the bane of my writing. I can no longer write simple characters. They clamour for my attention (even the undead ones do). But no matter. I'm enjoying myself, and that -- more than any narcissistic need for validation via publication -- is at the moment what's got me writing again.

New DVD's reviewed below!

Tropic Thunder, Doctor Who: Season 4, and Mongol are now rated and added to my movie list.