What, besides baking potatoes, are they good for? Does anyone have any good recipes involving real food?
Today I am headed to the Redpath Waterfront Festival to tour the decks of a number of tall ships. I am exceedingly fortunate that I am able to legitimately call this part of my workday, as most of the ships in the Fleet of Nations on the world of Stormwrack are, in fact, tall ships. So ahoy, Mateys!
My latest Buffy rewatch ends Season Five with “The Gift.” I call it “Beware of God.”
If you’d prefer a pre-taste of my upcoming book CHILD OF A HIDDEN SEA, which is set in the same world as “Among the Silvering Herd” or my next related Tor.com story “The Ugly Woman of Castello di Putti,” here’s a post on mermaids I did for
My World… in Words and Pages.
Toronto continues to be a completely fun place to explore: here’s a store called Da Vintage Code. I love a good pun.
I have stumbled over a couple terrific art boards lately and have begun gathering up portraits of women as a result.
Many of the women on my Painted Ladies pinboard may be familiar to you–a lot of them are celebrity paintings by celebrity painters. Others, though, are newer or more obscure.
It has been fascinating collecting these, and what I’ve realized is that there’s a real difference between a photographic portrait–even if it’s fanciful–and something painted from scratch. The element of imagination is different: the painter imbues their subject with personality in a way that seems less about capturing reality and more about creating or amplifying it.
(From this you can tell I am not versed at all in art criticism.)
What was most exciting, though, was to stumble over Kneeling Girl, by Thomas Saliot. This is as perfect a picture of the protagonist of my next novel, a woman named Sophie Opal Hansa, as I could ever have wished to discover.
Today’s moving-related discovery: Revenue Canada will let us write off a ton of our moving expenses this year.
This week’s essay is on “Checkpoint,” which has one of my favorite Buffy monologues. She smacks down someone(s) who really deserve it. And, as usual, there’s a lively follow-up discussion in the credits. You’re all invited, every time.
Things of Monday, just to make you all tired: I wrote 1,329 words on the current novel yesterday. Then I walked Kelly to the Skytrain, hit two groceries, came home to unload, breakfasted, set up the camera to shoot birds, changed, and went to a 75-minute hatha yoga class–this last was possible only because it’s practically in my backyard, and therefore requires no commute. I ran two errands at two banks, came home, replied to 75 student posts for Writing the Fantastic, pondered the three questions I can’t quickly reply to, answered 25ish e-mails, made Tuesday-Wednesday lunches for K and I, simultaneously made chicken mole for several nights’ supper, committed personal hygiene, schemed with K about our 25th anniversary trip (changes to the plan are in the works!) made ten Scrabble moves, did one load each of laundry and dishes, lamented the cruel fate that allowed a Kleenex to slip into the washer via someone’s jeans. I also made the usual weekly tweets about the Buffy essay. Plus, now, this post.
Somewhere in there I had time to briefly contemplate how Return to Cranford
So, what did you do?
I began this blog entry in Cafe Calabria at about 7:30 this morning, having had an amazing brainstorming session. I’ve decided I will have a draft of the new novel, the third set in Stormwrack (where “Among the Silvering Herd” takes place), by June 28th. The idea is to have it Frankensteined by the time Kelly and I go to San Francisco for, among other things, Les Contes d’Hoffmann featuring deitylike tenor Matthew Polenzani.
There was an incredible sunrise pouring over the roofs of the buildings across Commercial Drive, but I wasn’t positioned to take advantage of it, photographically. So, since I can’t share today’s dawn with you, here’s Matthew:
photo by Kristy Boyce
The Color of Paradox
The Cage