Entry tags:

daily life, links and reading recommendations

Daily life: Persistence and rewards
"Every morning between 9 and 12 I go to my room and sit before a piece of paper. Many times, I just sit for three hours with no ideas coming to me. But I know one thing. If an idea does come between 9 and 12 I am there ready for it."

--Flannery O'Connor.

Topics in this post: Research from the sources, step #1 to kicking an Internet addiction - get a research assistant, a quick kick-start, my magical formula for writing fiction, accessibility on Election Day, anachronisms and ethics in historical fiction, my Muse pops in again, scanning breakthrough, putting that bachelor's degree to work, a splendid week, past the danger, trying to keep on track, review of Scribe's "Roman Enslavement," why historical research isn't as boring as it could be, and my Muse saunters in, simplicity itself, another three thousand words, strong winds and smooth sailing on the writing sea, hard BDSM the slash way.

(No writing progress report till the end of the month. But you'll see in this entry that I'm doing well.)

For newcomers: Background to my writing entries | Background to my mentoring entries | Background to my simplicity entries | Background to my home entries.

*** 1 November 2008. Writing and Mentoring: Research from the sources.

I was up till 11:30 this morning, finishing up on the Web. It wasn't quite one of my twenty-four-hour Internet sprees, but it was darned close. It was all in a good cause, though; my Internet computer is now stored away, and my Muse is already showing signs of life.

In an effort to actually get things done before he takes over my life, I'm continuing (offline) the research for the two Mercy's Prisoner stories. Halfway through a dull but informative 1901 article on tuberculosis, I saw the magic words: "The symptoms for pulminary tuberculosis are similar to those for bronchial pneumonia."

"You have information I need," I told my apprentice a short time later.

"Yes, Sir," he said once he had heard what I was looking for. He added dryly, "I'm the expert on that."

So he told me what it's like to have bronchial pneumonia. It made me grateful yet again for my good health.

*** 2 November 2008. Writing and Mentoring: Step #1 to kicking an Internet addiction: Get a research assistant.

Woke up this morning with my eyes feeling lousy. I would have liked to have blamed it on the five minutes of video viewing I indulged in right before bed, but the more likely cause was my spending an hour reading the PDF copy of the 1901 book I downloaded from Google Books.

So I called up my research assistant.

"I need you to check the Internet Archive for me," I told my apprentice. Five minutes later, he'd found copies of the other two medical books I downloaded from Google Books, in accessible editions. He promised to e-mail them to me, in order to save me from a potentially dangerous trip onto the Web. The danger comes from my Internet addiction, of course; there are just too many interesting items at the Internet Archive.

My apprentice is worth his weight in gold.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to read the PDF versions of the refrigeration/plumbing books I downloaded from Google Books, since it's mainly their illustrations that I need to look at. But I don't imagine they'll take as long to read as the lengthy treatise on tuberculosis that I was perusing.

Before I forget, I ran across this lovely passage in a 1909 book: "Household Companion: The Family Doctor," by Alice A Johnson et al.

o--o--o

Dissipation is a predisposing cause of consumption. In this way consumption is the wages of sin. Dissipation is a scattering of vital forces by excessive indulgence of any kind. It always strikes at the most vulnerable point, and this is true when the indulgence even seems to feed the body. Whatever makes for lowered vitality makes for consumption, and dissipation of every kind makes for lowered vitality. Dissipation which directly or indirectly grows out of the affinities of the sexes, self-abuse, sowing of wild oats, beau catching and all the arts and devices which go with it in these times, may make soil for tuberculosis by exhausting the nervous system. Loss of sleep, excessive eating and drinking, excessive use of tea, coffee and tobacco all are predisposing causes.

o--o--o

Ah, yes, self-abuse. The source of all troubles in the world. But apparently you're no better off if you sow wild oats or even court beaus. Clearly, the only way to aviod tuberculosis is never to let a romantic thought enter your mind.

Actually, I don't have any problem with the general idea that excessive anything can lead to illness. I'm just amused that the authors zeroed in on sexual activity. Why not excessive time at the office? Excessive time doing charity work? Excessive time caring for babies? If anything would lead to illness, I would guess that it would being kept up several nights in a row with a child who has colic. But I guess that doesn't fit the authors' vision of "all the arts and devices which go with [dissipation] in these times."

*** 2 November 2008. Writing: A quick kick-start.

Guess who came to dinner?

"What are you doing here?" I exclaimed. "I've only been offline for twenty-four hours!"

My Muse merely preened himself and handed me 1100 words.

*** 3 November 2008. Writing and Simplicity: My magical formula for writing fiction.

(Amount of time spent reading other people's fiction) - (Amount of time spent being exposed to other words) = (Amount of time spent writing fiction).

That's my magical formula. Actually, the amount of time I spend reading fiction can be about half the amount of time I spend writing fiction. The important part of the equation is that any exposure to words that aren't other people's fiction - including reading my own fiction - cancels out any benefit I receive from reading other people's fiction.

Here's one example of the formula in action, from a day in October 1995:

(Amount of time spent reading other people's fiction: 3:30) - (Amount of time spent being exposed to other words [library browsing]: 0:30) = (Amount of time spent writing fiction: 5:30).

And here's another example, from last June:

(Amount of time spent reading other people's fiction: 1:30) - (Amount of time spent being exposed to other words: 6:10 [mainly posting at online forums]) = (Amount of time spent writing fiction: 0).

And how did I get end up with that six hours spent posting online, you may ask? Well, here's an example, jotted down some time during this past year:

o--o--o

Saw a post at meta_roundup linking to a post on a topic I knew about. Surfed to find links for my reply.

Saw that Lulu had a new blog. Added it to my Friends list at InsaneJournal. Posted announcement at syn_promo that I'd added the feed.

Went searching for an e-book version of a book I wanted to read.

Downloaded pages from links that I'd already gathered offline from my Friends pages. This took a while, because I kept pausing to read.

Decided to download the one part of Wikipedia that I could transfer to my other computer.

Downloaded Orbit download manager to do this.

Discovered that I needed an unzipping program to open the files. Went searching for that.

Spent a long time on the phone with my apprentice trying to figure out how to get the unzipping program to work.

While waiting for all this downloading to get done, read the most recent posts on Friends pages. Found a new community, joined it, and posted at it.

Went onto the Erotic Romance Writers Forum and posted.

Went searching for e-book versions of another author I was interested in.

Went searching for paperback versions of that author's books.

Now thoroughly Internet addicted, downloaded the latest issue of Wired.

Still couldn't get offline, so went and browsed at the TeleRead blog, chasing links.

Checked Wowio and Project Gutenberg for new books.

Did totally unnecessary keyword search at Google on "Victorian prisoners."

o--o--o

Clearly, Internet links are my Achilles' heel in keeping to my magic formula.

Well, now I'm offline. At the moment, my daily schedule looks like this:

* Read fiction while eating.

* Research or edit.

* Upkeep (sort computer files, answer business correspondence, etc.).

* Housework/exercise (tidy house, which currently involves hefting a lot of boxes).

* Leisure.

If my Muse pops up, fine, but I'm not pressing that matter because it's going to take a fair amount of fiction reading before my writing skills stop being so rusty. My main concern is to read lots of fiction and to get enough exercise that I'm not tired throughout the day. In order to satisfy my desire to actually get things done, I'm doing lots of organizational work: moving files and boxes around.

Once my Muse turns up in any serious way, my schedule will simplify:

* Write.

* Edit what I've written.

* Read fiction while eating.

* Dance while plotting the next scene.

I'm feeling mildly bored at the moment. This is akin to finding healthy food bland right after one goes off a long-time diet of junk food. After a while, if experience teaches me anything, this schedule will begin to seem normal.

Meanwhile, what am I getting done writing-wise? Well, I started on the second collation of The Breaking, which I'm having to do because I accidentally edited my backup file rather than my main file (a second time). The collation is proceeding quickly. I still have to finish the final editing on that novella.

Um . . . that's it. Just boring stuff while I await my Muse's arrival.

(They also serve who only stand and wait.)

*** 4 November 2008. Home: Accessibility on Election Day.

The late bird gets the worm.

Doug went to the polls early to be sure to vote before the crowds arrived. He got there just in time for the early-morning rush and stood in line for an hour. I got up late, arrived at the polls at four p.m. - just when the late-afternoon rush was predicted for - and whizzed through. No line.

Last time I voted, the accessibility issues were a mess. My county had just installed new electronic voting machines. The voting information sent out beforehand said that a large-print option would be available, and that I should ask for information on that when I arrived.

So I did. The person who was supposed to supply me with that information said, "I don't think we have anything like that." She consulted her supervisor. He knew about the large-print option but wasn't sure how it worked. He had to consult a third person. The third person, after showing me how to access the large-print option, hovered over me, obviously uncertain whether I could get through the voting process without handholding.

This time through, my county specifically supplied printed information beforehand on how to access the large-print option.

They supplied this information to the voters in standard-sized type. *Sigh.*

Everything worked fine when I got to the polls except that neither the printed instructions nor - if I recall correctly - the electronic instructions warned large-print readers that the final screen would have to be scrolled. I understood the significance of the up and down arrows and was able to figure out how to work them. But I doubt that anybody not Net-savvy (i.e. much of the elderly population, who constitute the majority of large print readers) would have been able to figure it out easily.

Doug said afterwards, "Disabled voters could just ask someone to help them." I refrained from hitting him.

The only other disconcerting thing was that I miss the curtains on the old polling booths. I can't figure out why the screens are pointed in a direction that everyone can see as they come forward to vote. Why not lay the screens flat so that nobody except the voter can see them?

All this was minor glitches, however. The nice thing about voting in a community where you've lived for most of your life is that you know that, if things go horribly wrong, you can always beg for intervention from the gentleman who checked you in, who has been your neighbor across the street for the past thirty-four years.

*** 5 November 2008. Mentoring and Writing: Anachronisms and ethics in historical fiction.

I had an interesting discussion tonight with my apprentice about his perspectives on historical fiction. It started with me asking him what he thought of Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe series, which I'm currently reading. He said that he felt that Sharpe's rise in rank and social status was too smooth; my apprentice would have expected him to have encountered more social problems in the officers' mess than he is portrayed as having.

This led to my apprentice saying that he had a similar problem with Horatio Hornblower angsting over common Napoleonic customs such as flogging; such angsting didn't seem historically authentic to him.

By contrast, he said, Aubrey Martin in the Master and Commander series may feel sorry that he has to flog someone, but he doesn't question the actual custom of flogging; he accepts it uncritically. Likewise, my apprentice felt that Naomi Novik - though she fiddles with Napoleonic society to the extent of creating female aviators - nonetheless portrayed in an accurate manner the common mores of that day.

"I'm afraid to ask," I said, "but how do I do in that score?"

I won't record here his answer (which started with the discouraging revelation that he hadn't known that my historical fantasy stories were historical fantasy - as opposed to fantasy - until I told him). Instead, I'll say that I was struck by his desire to encounter typical historical attitudes in historical fiction.

I understand that impulse, of course; as a reader of historical fiction, I find it boring to read a story in which modern attitudes are transplanted wholesale into a setting where they would be unlikely to flourish. (I call this The Star Trek Effect.) But the fact is that, whatever period I'm writing about - past, present, or future - I tend to write about people who aren't typical for their society. I usually write about the outsiders, the rebels. So if my historical fantasy characters rebel in a direction that happens to coincide with my own society's beliefs, I don't have a problem with that. If my characters manage to convince their society that they're right, I don't have a problem with that either.

The problem I would have was if this ethical struggle were portrayed as something where "our" side was obviously right. I don't think I've ever done that in my stories (at least, not the ones I've written in the past thirteen years). I've always assumed that, if - say - several centuries' worth of societies argued about whether slavery was ethically acceptable, then, regardless as to whether one side of the debate was dead wrong, the actual issues concerning slavery must be complex.

I use that example (a particularly touchy example to cite on the night of Barrack Obama's election to the presidency) because I remember the shock I experienced in college when I discovered, during a seminar on Aristotle's Politics, that I was expected to defend my belief that slavery is wrong. "But . . . but . . . but obviously it's wrong!" turned out not to be an adequate statement. And I became embarrassed when I realized that a great deal of my security in the self-evidence of the wrongness of slavery came from the fact that I lived in a society where slavery is largely unnecessary. I don't need a slave to spend two days a week doing my laundry; I have a laundry machine.

Many years later I would acquire a desperate need for a research assistant. Fortunately, I located an assistant (my apprentice), but it took me a three-year search to find a volunteer for this position. This gives me an even greater understanding of the circumstances that would lead people to justify slavery in their minds.

I think this is where historical fiction is valuable. Not by necessarily portraying the past as monolithic in its beliefs; in the Napoleonic Era, men like Sharpe and Hornblower did exist, even if they were very much in the minority. Writing about minority beliefs and experiences of the past is no disgrace, it seems to me. But if, as historical novelist, I give my readers no sense that their own fond beliefs may be built on shaky foundations - if I never give my readers the opportunity to either change their beliefs or strengthen the foundations of their beliefs - then I've done them a disservice.

*** 5 November 2008. Writing: My Muse pops in again.

Yesterday's spell of fiction-reading - three-and-a-half hours - seems to have done me good; I wrote three thousand words before breakfast.

Three thousand words in the wrong story; my Muse seems determined to hare after stories that aren't on my list of winter projects. But this wasn't too bad a deviation; he had me working on the Eternal Dungeon story that comes right after my current novel, "On Guard."

I'd been trying for a while now to figure out how to write up scenes from three different time periods, all of which occur between the last scene of "On Guard" and the first scene of the main plotline of the following volume. My Muse decided we would put them all into one story. Oy vey, he does like to do that to me. But once I started typing up the scenes, I saw why he wanted to do it this way; having the time periods occur side by side raises the dramatic tension immensely.

Now, if I could just persuade him to finish up Law Links, I'd be a happy camper. I really want to get that novel off to beta readers before the end of the year.

Later:

So much for my theory that I'm in a middle-age decline. I got five thousand words written today. And I'm not even feeling in a particularly creative mood.

Clearly, the key is to keep feeding myself well-written fiction. Three or more hours of reading a day would be ideal; I've alloted myself a minimum of two hours of reading a day, because that's how much I get done when my Muse is jogging my elbow.

*** 7 November 2008. Writing: Scanning breakthrough.

Oh, marvellous. I actually managed to scan and OCR a novel without spending an hour afterwards getting the formatting right. I've been working for six years on reaching this point - on simply being able to scan and read. (Well, I had to add paragraph breaks and fix some of the quotation marks, but that only took me seconds.) Total time spent scanning a 236-page novel and formatting the resulting text file: one hour.

This isn't to say that the resulting file is perfect now. But the other formatting problems I'll deal with as I read the novel.

So now I have Rosemary Sutcliff's The Silver Branch awaiting me, along with the knowledge that I can painlessly convert the rest of her novels to electronic text, at my leisure. This certainly lifts my spirits; up till now, OCR has been a mild form of torture. Because of that, I was worried about whether I would run out of other authors' novels to feed my Muse this winter. Now, if Bookshare.org fails me, I can simply scan my own copy of whatever novel I want to read - or, at worst, borrow or buy the print novel and scan it, but that won't be necessary very often; I own most of the books of my favorite authors.

Meanwhile, my Muse sent me 2200 words this morning. From a Three Lands novel I'm not planning to publish for several years. *Sigh.* Obviously, my problem this winter is not going to be getting my Muse to show up - my problem is going to be getting him to work on the novels that I've scheduled to publish next year.

Needless to say, I'm thrilled beyond words that he's been punching in the time clock every day. I really had underestimated the effects that my Internet addiction was having on my writing productivity. It's now starkly obvious that the main reason my fiction-writing productivity has plummeted in recent years has been the same reason my fiction-writing productivity plummeted between 1990 and 1994: nearly all of my daily reading has been of nonfiction, which puts my Muse to sleep. The only periods since 1997 (when my Internet addiction began) that my fiction-writing productivity soared was during the periods when my addiction primarily took the form of online fiction-reading.

I had thought that getting my Muse to work this winter would be as easy as pulling fingernails off my hands. What a relief to learn that I was wrong.

*** 8 November 2008. Mentoring: Putting that bachelor's degree to work.

Below, a passage from a letter I wrote to a fellow classmate of my Great Books college (St. John's in Annapolis), whom I met again years later under unusual circumstances. As I put it to my apprentice, "One just doesn't expect one's college classmate to grow up to become a slave."

o--o--o

I held the first of what I hope is a series of leather seminars with my boy tonight. Our reading was an article from the first issue of [the DS newsletter] Simply Service, "Resistance Management." (Why do so many DS articles have titles that sound as though they were created by psychoanalysts?) It was a 75-minute seminar, and it turned out to be great fun. I was a bit uncertain beforehand as to how well a two-person seminar would go, particularly since I'd never led a seminar, but it ended up being similar to the don rags that I hold for my boy periodically, except that we spent more time discussing abstract issues and only got to the point of turning our thoughts to our own relationship toward the end of the seminar.

(I hope that the alumni office never asks me how I'm applying my education.)

o--o--o

End of letter, which I entitled "Pay-off for my student loans."

I've spent a total of nine hours in the last two days on family matters, which is far too much, but I don't regret the time spent on the seminar. It's not simply that the seminar was fun and enlightening; it's that I don't get to spend enough time in formal ritual with my apprentice.

I had thought, when I first met my apprentice, that most of our ritual would come from the leather world or from the Anglo-Catholic world that I had spent my adolescence in. And indeed, we drew upon both in order to develop our protocol. But I'm finding that some of the most deeply meaningful protocols and ritual for me come from my college years: formal modes of address, formal clothing, standing to show respect, bowing and curtsying at waltz parties (the leather world has variations on this, of course), and don rags (which are the method of "grading" at St. John's - you meet formally with your instructors and discuss your academic progress).

And now seminars. One of these days I'll have to add in oral exams.

It makes me regret that, by the standards of medieval society, our world is so impoverished in ritual. If I got this much out of the small amount of ritual that my college provided me with during a mere five years of my life (yes, five; my own don rags didn't go very well), think of how I would have flourished in a society where ritual permeated everyday life. As it is, it's hard for me to add any ritual into my relationship with my apprentice unless I've already participated in it under other circumstances.

*** 8 November 2008. Writing and Simplicity: A splendid week.

Totted up my total hours for the week, and things look just marvellous. I spent a reasonable amount of time on exercise, upkeep, research, and editing. I spent seventeen-and-a-half hours reading fiction, which is nearly a record since I began recording my hours in September 2006. I spent seven-and-a-quarter hours writing, which is also nearly a record. (To give some measure of comparison: my largest monthly total for writing since September 2006 has been fifteen-and-a-half hours.) Altogether, I wrote eleven thousand words, which is four thousand words more than I had set myself to write this week. I'm halfway through finishing the Eternal Dungeon novella I'm working on.

But I mustn't slack. The amount of time I spent on activities unrelated to fiction went sharply up at the end of the week, and will continue to stay up tomorrow as I go online to check my e-mail for the first time since the beginning of the month. I need to settle back into my daily fiction-and-exercise routine as soon as possible after that, to get myself back on track.

*** 9 November 2008. Simplicity and Writing: Past the danger.

I got through my e-mail-check day reasonably well. My Muse, not surprisingly, has wandered away, but that's okay, because I have editing that needs to get done, as well as research from the texts that my apprentice downloaded and e-mailed me. And my inbox could do with some clearing, even though I had the novel idea today of actually answering all my new e-mail. Wow, what will I think of next?

So I'll do work on the above tasks tomorrow and gradually work my way back to a Muse-friendly state.

Meanwhile, I got another thumbs-up review from Rainbow Reviews, this one of the Life Prison novella. It was by a different reviewer from the previous reviews at that site, which was nice, to get a vote of confidence from yet another reviewer.

I just wish that there were more gay fiction review sites out there. (I know, I know, I've grumbled about this before.)

*** 12 November 2008. Home and Writing: Trying to keep on track.

Another day when I spent most of the day dealing with family matters. It's enough to make me feel that I haven't become enough of a hermit. Seriously, I just want to go off to a cave somewhere and lick my wounds.

Despite that, I wrote thirteen hundred words in the Princeling series. I attribute it to the four hours of fiction-reading I did last night. Which reminds me . . .

Scribe: Roman Enslavement. ¶ Heterosexual fiction, slave fiction, historical fantasy, erotic fiction, slave fiction, spirituality themes. ¶ Online fiction. ¶ Mature content.

"I've just willingly read fifty-five chapters of Mary Sue het," my apprentice told me in wonder tonight.

I know how he feels. He was reading Scribe's "Career Girl Blues" as a prelude to reading its sequel, "The Further Adventures of Clive, the Leather Hairdresser" (just the name makes you want to go read it, right?), but I just finished reading Scribe's het slavefic "Roman Enslavement." I tackle erotic het about once in a blue moon.

In this alternative universe (AU) story, a virgin woman (the virgin part is important to the plot) finds herself accidentally locked inside a museum overnight. She falls asleep on the altar of the goddess Dischordia, who, unfortunately, is annoyed and transports her back in time to Rome. There, in short order, the virgin woman (don't forget that virgin part) is enslaved.

The tale has the usual ingredients of Scribe's fiction: so-so style, sometimes ineffective character development, page-turning plots, and the occasional appearance of a character you want to take home and claim as your own.

So what does happen when a kick-ass heroine from the modern world finds herself in a society where she has no rights, even to her body? (Yes, you guessed already where that virgin bit was headed.) Scribe could have gone for the easy solutions: hurt/comfort, a master who lays the world at his slave's feet, a slave rebellion. Instead, Scribe examines the claustrophobic consequences of living in a society where all the odds are against you. Despite the author's willingness to offer an upbeat ending (one really needs to know that, by the twentieth depressing chapter), she doesn't try to make the world appear safer than it actually is. In that respect, of course, she is talking not only about an AU Rome, but about our own world.

"I'm not writing this as a manifesto against rape," comments Scribe defensively in an author's note, which suggests that she feared that some of her readers would feel she didn't handle the topic of sexual consent in a strong enough manner. In actual fact, I found the protagonist's helpless submission to her rapist's demands to be far more terrible than any screams would have been. It was something of a relief to learn that, by the end of the story, the protagonist hadn't lost her kick-ass qualities. A victory of personality over environment, one might say.

The work-in-progress sequel, Roman Enlightenment [warning: the blurb includes major spoilers for Roman Enslavement], reverses the plot, sending a Roman character into the future. Where Roman Enslavement presented tragedy, Roman Enlightenment opts for comedy as the Roman struggles to understand his surroundings.

"It's called a safety belt."

"Safe?"

"Yes."

"If safe, why you tie me to seat?"

*** 12 November 2008. Writing: Why historical research isn't as boring as it could be.

I've been reading Joseph Ragland Long's The Prevention and Cure of Tuberculosis (1905), a rather dry treatise my apprentice downloaded for me from the Internet Archive. I'm hooked. Here's a few passages:

"To keep the skin clean and in good condition, cold baths, even when taken every day, are not always sufficient, and soap and warm water should be used at least once a week."

"Dr. Andvord, of the Tonsaasen Sanatorium, reported that his patients remained in the open air from five to nine hours a day at a temperature of 13 F. below zero, and felt quite well."

"In all such questions as marriage, sexual relations, and childbirth, the physician's advice should be sought. Much unhappiness and family misfortune can often be avoided by asking and conscientiously obeying the physician's advice."

These would be the same physicians who are advising their patients to take daily cold baths and to spend nine hours a day in sub-zero temperatures? At any rate, thanks to this book, I now know the dire danger of kissing parrots.

*** 13 November 2008. Writing: And my Muse saunters in.

Sixty-five hundred words today, without me lifting a finger to help my Muse. Whew. When he gets energetic, it's just a matter of me standing back and letting him get to work.

I've got roughly two scenes left to write in the Eternal Dungeon story I'm working on, "Sweet Blood 1: Bonds," even though my Muse wandered off for the second half of the day to dump into my lap a chapter from "Sweet Blood 4: Battlefield." Methinks my inability to get my Muse to finish stories is related to my inability to get my inbox completely cleared. I do tend to get more excited about new mail than about old, and it seems that my Muse is of the same nature.

*** 13 November 2008. Writing and Simplicity: Simplicity itself.

Boy, does my schedule clear out when my Muse arrives. This is what I had planned for today, before the arrival of my Muse:

o--o--o

WRITE
--"Sweet Blood 1: Bonds" (The Eternal Dungeon).
EDIT
--"Mercy's Prisoner 5: Curious" (Life Prison) - light editing.
--"Sweet Blood 1: Bonds" (The Eternal Dungeon) - light editing.
--"Mystery" (The Three Lands) - light editing.
--"Rebirth 1: The Breaking" (The Eternal Dungeon) - final editing.
RESEARCH
--Mercy's Prisoner 4: Foreign Language (Life Prison).
----Joseph Ragland Long: "The Prevention and Cure of Tuberculosis" (1905).
----William Osler: "Modern Medicine" (1900).
PUBLISH
--Website layout.
FAMILY
--Phone calls with my apprentice.
READ
--Mary Stewart: "The Last Enchantment."
--Scribe: "Clean Sweep."
--Scribe: "Learning, Leather, and Love."
EXERCISE
--Walk to the Center: Bank.
UPKEEP
--Business correspondence.
LEISURE
--[A long list of personal correspondence I need to do.]
SIMPLICITY
--Schedule.
--Journal.

o--o--o

Of course, I wasn't planning to do all those activities, but when my Muse isn't around, I give myself lots of options, so that I won't end up asking, "What shall I do? Oh, I know, I'll go on the Interent."

(My apprentice had a similar story to tell me this week: "I turned off my computer, and whenever I wandered into my bedroom, I wandered back out to clean the living room, because my computer was off, so there wasn't anything else for me to do." He then told me not to laugh, which I was inclined to do, because I'd advised him last year to keep his computer shut off when he had other work to do.)

At any rate, here's my schedule for tomorrow:

o--o--o

WRITE
--"Sweet Blood 1: Bonds" (The Eternal Dungeon).
EDIT
--"Sweet Blood 1: Bonds" (The Eternal Dungeon) - light editing.
FAMILY
--Phone calls with my apprentice.
READ
--Mary Stewart: "The Last Enchantment."
EXERCISE
--Dance.
--Walk to the Center: Bank and grocery store.
SIMPLICITY
--Schedule.
--Journal.

o--o--o

That's it. I'd just as soon cut out the visit to the bank and the grocery store, but I've been putting off the bank visit for a couple of weeks, which is driving Doug mad. The grocery store is only a few yards away from the bank, so I can pop in afterwards and get a couple of items I need. Then back home to write, edit, read, dance, and write again.

Honestly, I think my Muse is far more advanced at simplicity than I am.

*** 14 November 2008. Writing and Simplicity: Another three thousand words.

Man, am I doing well this month. It's only halfway through the month, and I've already done three-quarters of my monthly quota of thirty thousand words.

I was trying to figure out last summer the magic trick that would help keep me to a daily schedule. It's now obvious that the trick is setting writing goals for myself: getting a certain amount of words done every day (in the winter), and getting certain stories published every week (in the summer). This is proving to be the central point of my horarium, my liturgy of the hours.

I only wish I could tie this in more with the other aspects of my life. I know that there are interconnections between my mentoring and my writing - after all, my apprentice is also my research assistant. And because my apprentice started off as one of my readers, we have conversations like this one, which took place tonight:

"I only have a scene and a half left in the Eternal Dungeon story I'm writing."

"I'll get off the phone now so that you can finish it."

Blessed is the apprentice who values his mentor's service to a Muse. But there are many other aspects of my mentoring, and of my other roles in life, that don't seem to connect, in any direct way, with my writing. I think my New Year's resolution will be trying to figure out where the connections exist.

*** 15 November 2008. Writing: Strong winds and smooth sailing on the writing sea.

Man, it's been a long time since I wrote for two hours straight at a single sitting. Altogether, I had three writing sessions today, for a total of six thousand words. I feel like blowing smoke off the end of my gun.

I attribute part of my good fortune to Layle. He's such an easy character to write a point of view from. Every time I start to lose interest in a scene, he goes into a paroxysm of angst over something new, and I wake up again.

Later:

Fantastic figures for my working hours this week; I've broken all previous records. And my wordage is equally fantastic; I only wrote on four days this week, yet I churned out 17,000 words.

I'll be done soon with "Bonds"; then I'll take a break for a leather seminar with my apprentice, finishing up some correspondence, a visit to the Internet to pick up e-mail, and (since my Muse will have wandered away by that point in the break) more research for Mercy's Prisoner.

*** 16 November 2008. Writing: Hard BDSM the slash way.

I've gotten to the end of Scribe's "Clean Sweep" (part of The Further Adventures of Clive, the Leather Hairdresser). The ending (while sweet in its own right) always makes me laugh, because Clive spends the entire story warning the protagonist that he plays hard, and urging the protagonist to consider whether he's up to the test. And then, when the "hard" scene actually arrives . . .

"I'm going to spank you now, Trent. You have to understand that this isn't a punishment. You haven't done anything wrong, pet. It's just part of my love-making. There will be some pain, but the feelings it raises are so special."

Oh, dear. I suppose that translates as "hard" to some of Scribe's vanilla readers.

ACTIVITIES SINCE MY LAST DAILY LIFE ENTRY

Fiction written and edited:
--"Mercy's Prisoner 5: Curious" (Life Prison).
--"Sweet Blood 1: Bonds" (The Eternal Dungeon).
--"The Golden Chain" (The Three Lands).
--"Petty" (Princeling).
--"Sweet Blood 4: Battlefield" (The Eternal Dungeon).

Fiction edited:
--"Mystery" (The Three Lands) - light editing.
--"Rebirth 1: The Breaking" (The Eternal Dungeon) - final editing.
--"Law Links" (The Three Lands) - light editing.
--"Sweet Blood 5: Consequences" (The Eternal Dungeon).

Fiction sent out to be betaed:
--"Edgeplay in Mayhill 1-3" (Loren's Lashes).

Fiction read:
--heartofslash: "Army of Two" and "The Long Haul" (military slash fan fiction).
--Harold Keith: "Rifles for Watie" (historical military fiction).
--Mary Stewart: "The Last Enchantment" (Arthurian historical fantasy).
--Maculategiraffe: "The Slave Breakers" (original slash slavefic).
--Scribe: "Roman Enslavement" (original het slavefic).
--Scribe: "Roman Enlightenment" (original het slavefic).
--Scribe: "Clean Sweep" (original slash BDSM fiction).
--Scribe: "Learning, Leather, and Love" (original slash BDSM fiction).
--Rosemary Sutcliff: "The Silver Branch" (historical military fiction).

Research reading:
--Robert Macy Starbuck: "Modern Plumbing Illustrated" (1909) - for "Mercy's Prisoner 3: Milord" (Life Prison).
--William Osler: "The Principles and Practice of Medicine" (fourth edition,
1901) - for "Mercy's Prisoner 4: Foreign Language" (Life Prison).
--William Osler and Thomas McCrae (editors): "Modern Medicine: Its Theory and Practice. Volume III" (1907) - for "Mercy's Prisoner 4: Foreign Language" (Life Prison).
--Joseph Ragland Long: "The Prevention and Cure of Tuberculosis" (1905) - for "Mercy's Prisoner 4: Foreign Language" (Life Prison).

Podcasts listened to:
--Slashcast (Episode 20).

Music listened to:
--Abba: "Gold."
--The Lost Patrol: "Creepy Cool."
--"Essential Choral Classics."
--The Chromatics: "AstroCappella 2.0." (Astronomy rock. Seriously. Look it up. The singers are from NASA.)