"Brightwell" is the working title of this here Cotswold book I'm working on. Have I mentioned that lately? Anyway, now you know.

There is an unsettling male character in the story, who up till now has been called Jachin. I'm having second thoughts, in case this is a name that readers won't be able to readily pronounce in their heads and so will stumble over, thus distracting them.

By way of an alternative, I think I need something from Irish/Welsh mythology that's also easy on the modern tongue, with ominous associations if one really went digging. Nothing too obvious. Something tied to fire would be good.

Comments? Suggestions? Observations?

So, I did it. I made the schedule I talked about here, and have (of course) already deviated from it. ;) However, it has definitely helped me to become more aware of the time I have available during the week, and how I can best use it. I'm sticking with the experiment - I am getting up earlier on days off from the Day Job, which is good for getting in a solid hour of catching up on blogs & email before I start on the writing/revisions.

Also, I was talking with my friend (and brilliant author!) triciasullivan via email the other day, and as usual she had much wisdom to share. Here's some of what she had to say (quoted with her permission - although she laughed at me for thinking she's wise *g*):

The physical act of making a timetable will help to pull your intentions together and let your brain know this is serious, you really mean it. And it's fun.

Yes! It was fun! I'll have to post a picture of my super-colour-coded timetable. LOL!

Fail? No. Try and think about it this way. Writing is hard. There are a lot of obstacles and distractions. The timetable and the intention behind it are not a magic bullet. But if you DON'T take an active role and responsibility for carving out the time, it ISN'T going to happen by itself. So this is a huge positive step, and you're not looking for perfection. You're looking to use the timetable as a tool to help you do more than you would have done without it. If you find it's giving you more aggravation than results, you can take another approach. Don't shackle yourself, just get on your own side.

Isn't that perfect? Don't let her tell you she doesn't know what she's talking about! I'm very lucky to know her.

So yes, I am struggling with the process, but I am also aware that I've made a commitment to trying harder at fitting in my writing around all the other things in life. Or should that be the other way round? I'm fitting the other things around my writing! Any tool that helps me to take this work more seriously - to give it the importance it deserves - is worth trying. And whatever doesn't work can be thrown out and I can try a new approach. Nobody is judging me apart from me.

One thing I've discovered - or maybe just confirmed - is that I don't find it easy to work in complete isolation. However... neither can I write with music playing. And yet, I can work pretty well in cafes. Ah, the contradictions of being a writer. However, most cafe-music is more like... muzak, so I don't find it particularly distracting. And I like the hustle and bustle of the cafe environment; there's stuff going on, but none of it directly involves me. Maybe that's why I worked well when I wrote THE IRON WITCH. Most of the first draft was written at my mum's, sitting at the dining table. She would be doing things around me and in the next room, but I quite liked it. I had company - I didn't feel completely alone - and yet I could still concentrate.

Most of BEAUTIFUL GHOSTS was written in a cafe, and that flowed quickly.

What I'm finding with revisions is that my mind wanders off far more easily than when I'm writing a first draft. I really procrastinate and resist the process. That's why I am allowing myself to keep Twitter open while I write. I was discussing this with a friend the other night - Twitter feels a bit like having that 'cafe buzz' in the background; people are chattering but it doesn't have to impact on what I'm doing. However, if someone sends me an @ repy or mentions me, I can jump in and say something then get straight back to my work. For me, this seems to be working. So far... ;)

So Amanda Palmer played in Falls Church on Thursday this past week. I hadn't actually realized she was going to be in town, but the webgoblin's post alerted me to it, and I decided to go (even though I had some looong work hours going on this week). I am so glad I did. The show was fantastic. I've seen a lot of live shows (200+ or more, by now) but for only a small percentage does it really feel like the artist is coming out there and just giving their all to the performance. This show was one of that small percentage. (Which is what prompts my belief that Amanda should no longer be known as simply "AFP" but now by the extended name of "AFP: Fierce Fabulous." Because she really is.)

Anyway, I walked over to the State Theater from East Falls Church Metro because Mapquest promised me it was not more than a mile. It probably wasn't, but it kind of felt like it was, given that I was wearing heels. Oy. Fortunately I got there just before Amanda's pre-show interview and found the webgoblin, his wife, and their two friends (and Eden from Balticon, too, although she wasn't at the table) at their reserved dinner table. Amanda came on shortly thereafter for the interview, which was neat. She talked about a bunch of things, including whether her fans ever got too obsessed, and then The Nervous Cabaret came out and played. They were totally not what I expected from the name, but were a lot of fun. (Somewhere in here we also ordered food and drink. cleolinda, I ordered a Woodchuck and thought of you. Hee.) During the break between sets I went out quickly to find an ATM and also buy a tiny AFP button (so cute!) and met bethofalltrades, whom I have seen in my circles around LJ and Twitter but had not met. I also mentioned that some strange guy had sent me to the merch table, and got another little button for that (Yay, Neil!).

Amanda was on next and her set was totally fun. From my completely garbled notes on my phone notepad, it looks like the set list was:

Astronaut (yay!); Missed Me; Guitar Hero; Ampersand.

Break:
Here there were questions from the audience, including "Is the real reason this show is early because you are going to see New Moon with Neil?" (which she didn't really dignify with an answer, hee!) and "Why haven't you read all the Sandman books?" (Amanda then asked how many people had read all of Sandman, and waaay more people than she expected raised their hands), and also "Why did you shave your eyebrows?" She also read one of Neil's stories from Who Killed Amanda Palmer?

There was a question regarding how hard life on the road can be and whether she gets a break or weekends sometimes, to which Amanda replied: "We don't do weekends; weekends are *not* rock and roll." And then commented on her social life and said she's been learning to go places without her computer: "It's hard, but you can do it. Leaving your phone at home? It's hard, but you can do it. I'm going to start a seminar called, 'Doing it with Amanda Palmer.'" (Hee!)

Back to the music:
The Point of It All; Runs in the Family (yay!); Mandy Goes to Med School (Now! With Audience Participation! (which was great)); That's Not My Name (The Ting Tings); Coin-Operated Boy (yay!); House of the Rising Sun.

Encore:
One of Us Cannot Be Wrong (Leonard Cohen cover, maudelynn, I got this on video JUST FOR YOU); Oasis with Twist & Shout in the middle; Leeds United.

It was a great set.

I ended up staying for awhile afterward, since Amanda was signing things and taking photos. I hadn't really brought anything to sign but thought a photo would be nice. And then last minute I remembered I'd picked up the postcard for the show from the table, so I got that signed after all. :)

I took a fair few photos (which are here).

Also, thank you @amandapalmer, for posting a pic of the whole audience. I'm there! Behind the guy holding up the glass on the left.

( My favorite pics under the cut. )

...

In other news, today I went to my cousin's house for dinner and a visit with him, my sister, my BiL, and the baaaaaby. We got to see Chris's new house he's been fixing up, and he fixed us some awesome Midwestern fare for dinner (steaks, green beans, mac & cheese, corn on the cob...mmmm.) Also he took us downstairs and showed us a bit about how his DJ equipment works (he DJs in Adams Morgan every weekend). That was totally fun.

( Photos, OF COURSE. )

...

And now, linkspam, in great part from my Twitter Posse. (YO!)

Random Stuff Vaguely Related to Me

This is bizarre, but kind of interesting:

TheWhuffieBank.org - A New Social Currency

Apparently I am worth 95 "Whuffies" per month: OK then! (By way of comparison, Neil Gaiman is worth 25,775 W per month. Cleolinda is worth 1,845. (Heh, ask_deadpool is only worth 57. Ironically, on Twitter (which seems to be one way they measure), "he" has 4 times as many followers as I do, and is listed 3 times as much. So...not sure how accurate this thing really is.) I am not entirely sure of the point of this, either, although it appears eventually people with high standings could get, like, real stuff for it. Weird but interesting idea.

My grandma sent me this e-card. It is cute. Yay, pumpkin pie! I looooves it.

Via geekgirldiva: the Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test (Apparently I'm a "Modern, Cool Nerd; 61 % Nerd, 74% Geek, 17% Dork" I'm rather puzzled as to why it came out Nerd when I scored better on Geek, but not puzzled enough to try and figure it out. HEE. Here's the text:

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent, knowledgeable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one up there, winning the million bucks)!)

Comics Nerdosity

The Merry Marvel Marching Society: The Voices of Marvel/Scream Along with Marvel" records re-mastered

You guys, this is freakin' awesome! It's audio files of two short records that were sent to the Marvel fanclub in the 1960's, with Stan Lee and a bunch of Marvel folks talking, plus songs. It's like a little bit of Marvel history. Seriously give it a listen.

Speaking of comics, Incorruptible, with Mark Waid, looks great.

Copyright Issues Again

Also in comics, Copyrighted comic book cover art used without permission:

A website called the Home of the Green Arrow, which supports the far-right British National Party in its "fight to secure a future for the indigenous peoples of these islands in the North Atlantic which have been our homeland for millennia," has co-opted Jock's art from the DC Comics miniseries Green Arrow: Year One for its banner. "This is leaving a horrible taste in my mouth," the artist wrote this morning on Twitter. He has contacted DC's legal department.

NOT COOL, BNP.

And speaking of copyright infringement, Shaun of the Dead director ripped off by The Times

Oh no you di'int! I love Edgar Wright. YOU DON'T STEAL FROM EDGAR WRIGHT.

Here's the original tribute.

The Guardian covers the story

And speaking of infringement:

Completely ridiculous UK government plan to create "Pirate Finder General"

These changes will give the Secretary of State (Mandelson -- or his successor in the next government) the power to make "secondary legislation" (legislation that is passed without debate) to amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988).

What that means is that an unelected official would have the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright.

See the follow-up as well: Britain's new Internet law:

[The Digital Economy Bill] consists almost entirely of penalties for people who do things that upset the entertainment industry (including the "three-strikes" rule that allows your entire family to be cut off from the net if anyone who lives in your house is accused of copyright infringement, without proof or evidence or trial)

...

£50,000 fines if someone in your house is accused of filesharing. A duty on ISPs to spy on all their customers in case they find something that would help the record or film industry sue them (ISPs who refuse to cooperate can be fined £250,000).

But that's just for starters. ...

Writing and Publish-y Stuff

From blackholly (I think it was), Wall Street Journal article on "How to Write a Great Novel" (authors sharing their methods of writing).

Speaking of writers, Biographer Talks Ayn Rand and Her Hollywood Days

J.C. Hutchins discusses How the internet will change--but not kill--the tradtional publishing model.

Random Leftover Links

clockwork_zero, maker of faaaabulous steampunk jewelry (I have a great necklace and there are some earrings that will perhaps be in the works soon; ellen_datlow pointed me towards her in the first place and has several earrings I believe) has posted some Tips for Etsy Sellers (and it looks like she may be posting more) on her blog.

Gateses Give $290 Million for Education

A separate $45 million research initiative will study 3,700 classroom teachers in six cities, including New York, seeking to answer the question that has puzzled investigators for decades: What, exactly, makes a good teacher effective?

They should really just go study my mom, who is the MOST AWESOME TEACHER EVER. Really, she is. See also, my grandmother, back in the day.

And via alliancesjr, this made me laugh.

...

And now? BEDTIME!

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I have now added gift certificates to my Esty shop. You can of course ask me for any other amount.
http://www.etsy.com/shop/dragonladych

With all the fuss I made recently about seeing Tom Jones in concert and how I felt sorry that I will never see his "old" band? I still had the time of my life as you could read here, but I am still sorry about this "last minute" change, it had all been part of my daydreaming for so many years.
Anyway what is done is done. I hope I will see these guys one day in whatever band.
What I can also do is plug them when I can. So if you live in the States and like great homemade candy, you might want to check out Herman Matthew's page : http://www.hermanmatthews.com/journal.php. Herman was the drummer in Tom's band for many years.
If you do buy some of his peanut brittle do let me know how it was. I can't have any since he only ship is the US (for now) and I can't eat peanuts anyway.

Many Happy Returns to swisstone

This new and negatively-expensive mobile phone of mine - which would have saved me money even if I'd never taken it out of the box: ask me how! - not only takes photos (which I knew) and videos (which I didn't know: it has just struck me, I could show you the boys in action! chasing Evil Red Dot up to the top of the door!! if I can figure out how to upload from object to internet), it is also an FM radio! Who knew? And why didn't you tell me?

Tragically, the radio function only works through the headphones, so it won't act as a substitute travel-radio; I doubt I'd fall asleep with things in my ears. Tho' I suppose a man might try...

In other news: lord, I am so mucky. Everyone is used, I think, to my spilling dinner on my clothes, but I do also need to change every time I cook. Which includes every time I bake: which, when making sourdough loaves according to my New Improved method - knocking the dough back three or four times before the final proof - really ought to mean every hour on the hour. I don't have that many clothes. Which means that if I slip out to the shops between one rise and the next - well. Mucky. All over flour, and in public too.

The solution, of course, would be some kind of cheffy apron. In sexy black: I'm sure they are available. But it'd need to include sleeves, because I'm always dangling my cuffs in the dough, and I don't think those are commonplace; and I'm not at all sure I'd wear it anyway. I suspect I'd either laugh or cringe or both; and then only remember it when it was too late, when I looked down and saw the state of me.

*goes off to knock back dough, in a state*

Book signing turns out to be… somewhat of an interesting experience.

I met m’friend Ian Whates in the Whethertheremaybespoons on Wednesday - along with N, who had had to cycle up the road to meet him due to my being horribly late and unable to get in touch with Ian to tell him by any other means (all the trains had been cancelled due to death again, so I had to make my way back from MK by bus). But never mind, I made it!

The pub had more or less run out of beer, but this didn’t stop it being full of pissheads – not conducive to concentrating on what your signature is supposed to look like. There was a man who kept trying to join in our conversation, saying, “Did you just mention the IRA?” – er, no. He claimed to be ex-SAS, tried to call N a coward for not being a soldier, tried to smoke in the pub, swore a lot, and for some reason repeated something that sounded a bit like: “F*cking Maria Carey. F*cking N-Dubz.” Possibly. Needless to say, we moved.

Whatesy then joined us for a beer in the Labour Club, before I disappeared upstairs to do my bit as a bard and raise the Arwen. I was very impressed by the poetical offerings of young Joe Hilton Marion-Bunn. He reminds me a bit of Simon Lee.

But this week was all about the stand-up. I spent the last couple of weeks doing as much as I could to promote the gig – lots of internet presence, mentions in the local paper, flyering events etc. I was a bit worried as the Credit Crunch is biting particularly hard for people at the moment, but this was a gig that I would say was pretty excellent value for money, and we still had a good sized crowd in.

( So, here’s a bit of a review. )
But what an excellent night… now planning another. Ooooh!

I spent the afternoon updating my Etsy shop. You can now find most of the pieces I showed you in the past weeks.

I will also be offering gift certificates. You can either buy them at the shop, or email me for one. (dr4gonlady at hotmail dot com)

I am also trying to get my book projects to move, these things can easily take years so I am taking one step after the other. And I have various illustrations in the works.

Thank you. That was ... exact.

Damn. a_d_medievalist caught me at a weak moment, and dropped five questions in my lap. So:

1. Who's the bloke in the pic?

Ah. *sighs* I don't know his name. *sighs again* He is the fallen angel Luke, on the cover of my novel Dispossession. What happened was that I told my editor I wanted to write a novel about amnesia, and a guy having to investigate his own life. She said "Does it have anything supernatural in it?" I said no, it's about amnesia. She said "Oh." I said, would you like something supernatural? She said "Yes please." I asked how she felt about angels. She said "Love 'em." Fallen angels? "Sexy."

Which I agreed with. So I wrote her a novel about amnesia and a fallen angel. And then she spent an afternoon interviewing young male models, making them take their clothes off right there in her office - and she didn't invite me to the session! Can you believe it?

2. What inspired you to set your tales in a non-Europeanish fantasy world?

Heh. It was sort of the other way around, to start with: what inspired me was meeting Tolkien, when I was twelve. So then I spent my teenage writing bad imitation Tolkien, and it wasn't until I acquired some critical judgement that I swore a great oath to write no more fantasy till I had something original to write about. Twenty years later, I read a brochure advertising a reprint of Stephen Runciman's history of the Crusades, and it was like a bolt from the blue, it was perfect. So I wrote the Outremer books, set in a fantasy Palestine where all the pre-Islamic myths are true, there really are djinn and 'ifrit and ghuls and so forth. And camels, and desert. Lots of desert.

Then I wanted to write a wet book, so it made perfect sense to move up to Istanbul and my take on the Ottoman Empire; I like to say that Selling Water by the River is an alternate-world story told in Outremer.

Aaaand then I went to Taiwan for the first time. And, yup. Not so much inspired as obsessed. Mandarin classes and all. But I had to let Daniel Fox write the books.

3. How old are the moggies?

Um. Everything's approximate (when Barry was found in the street in a Terrible State and taken to the vets, they thought he was elderly, on his last legs if not his last life; then they looked at his teeth and decided he could only be a year old at most), but Baz is about four now and Mac's about three. Unless I've missed a year. Time kinda passes me by sometimes. (I am myself L, you know.) I think they'll be five and four come the spring. Which means it's high time they settled down, he said, beetling his brows ferociously at 'em.

4. What is your favourite fish (and why?)

To cook and eat, or just generally? Assuming the former, the question is impossible. The range is vast, and so is my interest. I'm very fond of whitebait and sprats and such, fish that you cook whole and eat whole; I'm very fond of halibut, a fish so vast I've never seen a whole one. Possibly my favourite fish-cookery moment was when I walked into the fishmonger and stood there blinking for a bit, before I found my voice and asked for a pound of that and a pound of that. One was a whole swordfish, freshly flown in from the Med; the other was a basket of samphire, freshly gathered from the salt marshes of Norfolk. I went home and invented the swordfish-and-samphire stirfry (with cashews and walnut oil).

But my favourite way to eat fish is currently sushi & sashimi, so I guess my favourite fish at the moment is whatever is freshestest...

5. Desert Island Discs?

Eek. More favourites. I am so bad at this...

Individual tracks will always vary, but I need Tom Waits and I need Tom Robinson and I need Janis Ian and I need Elvis Costello. And I must have Jessye Norman singing "There's a man goin' round takin' names" (also at my funeral, please note). And I must have Bach and I must have Faure's Requiem (with a boy soprano, please) and I must have Sondheim and... Wait, how many am I allowed, again...?

And for my luxury I'd like Gore Vidal, please (yes yes, I know the rules say "nothing animate" but I don't think he'd move much, he'd just sit quietly and talk a lot - but if I can't have Gore, I'll have Radio 4, thanks), and my book has actually changed recently. It used to be The Lord of the Rings, as being inarguably my favourite book over the years if "favourite" is the one you read most often; but now I want Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle. Which is longer, and just as engaging, and more gobsmacking. How can one man know so much...?

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Bad shoulder. Ouchie in a bad way.

Hot chilli noodles (for Chazian values of hot). Ouchie in a good way.

Hot bath (for Chazian etc etc). Also ouchie in a good way.

Two out of three ain't bad.

In other news, wrap your astonished heads around this: a whole evening, a whole literary evening about barnacles, and nobody mentioned the goose. I almost squawked. What were they thinking?

For those of us concerned about Rob's health, Ansible is posting updates. He's been hit with an e. coli infection, and this morning he was at least stable...

And stepping sharply downhill from there: those of you who are members of RWA, or other writers' organisations which have expressed an interest, could you consider dropping them a line to say that Harlequin's latest volte-face ["Most importantly, however, we have heard the concerns that you, our authors, have expressed regarding the potential confusion between this venture and our traditional business. As such, we are changing the name of the self-publishing company from Harlequin Horizons to a designation that will not refer to Harlequin in any way. We will initiate this process immediately. We hope this allays the fears many of you have communicated to us.] is not half voltey or facey enough? Changing the name of their vanity press does not excuse its existence. Nor does this suggest that they will cease encouraging the writers they reject to turn there instead. Nor - oh, figure it out for yourselves. It's just creepy slathered upon creepy.

My watch stopped. Usefully, it said on the back what battery type it took, so I ordered some via the Web and when they arrived I went to fit one. Fifteen minutes later I had only gouged myself slightly in levering the back off - there is a little slot for levering, but it is so small that nothing larger than a knife-tip will fit, and they ain't good for levering with.

So I fitted a new battery, saw that the second hand was now ticking, and went to replace the back. Of course it is such a tight fit that there was no chance of getting it to clip in place with bare hands, so I did what I've done before - sandwich it with something protective and then clamp it together in the vice.

That worked fine, except that somewhere in the process the watch stopped ticking, and even after removing the back again and trying two different batteries it doesn't want to work again. Sigh.

Fortunately it's not my only watch, but... Argh!!

I dreamt about the dread book last night. This morning it finally began unspooling in my mind.
My shoulders are set solid.
The Dragon headphone batteries are flat.
Bah, humbug, operation of the law of s*d...