Scorpion, Rock
June 16
[Today's title is taken at random (comma and all) from Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable in an attempt at bibliomancy, and I suppose it's somewhat relevant to my life; the novel I'm writing has scorpions in it and, you know, I rock]
9:00 p.m.
Whoo. It's a Sunday! Sundays are normally drifty, long, weird, surreal days, days experienced as if viewed from the inside of a slightly dirty aquarium filled half with formaldehyde and half with rubbing alcohol; unproductive days.
Not today. The key to avoiding this fuzziness seems to be to get up, urinate, brush my teeth, drag myself upstairs, and immediately begin writing. I'm serious; six minutes after I got out of bed this morning, I was sitting at the keyboard, typing a review of Coraline, which I've been thinking about for a week and a half.
I finished writing the review around 12:30 (I would've been done much sooner, but the work was interrupted a couple of times by screaming and a cop on the front porch; don't ask, please). I'm quite pleased with it. My reviews for A Certain Magazine have to be pretty short, so this review was a nice change of pace -- I get to review a major book and babble on at greater length. I hope the editors like it...
This afternoon sweet, lovely Heather and I drove up to Berkeley to Café Strada. It's a great café, but I don't go to it often, because it's not convenient to BART; it's about a ten minute walk from the station, and for the most part, Au Coquelet suits my needs adequately. It was a beautiful day, though, and Strada has lots of nice outdoor seating, so we braved the bad parking situation -- and actually got a good spot without driving around for too long! We bought sandwiches, and I had lemonade (they have yummy lemonade). I read 69 by Steven Schwartz, which is an erotica book inspired by Geoff Ryman's 253; it's 69 chapters, each from a different point of view, each 69 words in length. It's quite good, set at a sex party.
We sat outside, under the trees, with little birds flitting around. Heather wrote, and I read various things, and finally wrote a bit myself, doing about 1200 words on Rangergirl. I think it came off well, though I had to do some difficult things in this scene. It's probably some of the best writing, style-wise, that I've done in the book so far; we'll see if I still think that during the revision process!
We returned home in the evening, and watched Sweet and Lowdown, which is just a lovely movie. Heather worked in the garden, and I made some corrections to my review (Heather proofread it for me at the café) and sent it off. I called my Dad, wished him a happy Father's day, worked a bit more. Then I dragged Heather away from her gardening to frolic for a bit, and now I'm back up here, writing a journal entry. I'll probably wait until later tonight to post it, in case something else interesting happens... it's early yet...
Interlude
So I made a "What Is Tropism" thing and linked it from my main journal page, so in case random visitors cruise in, they can get some idea of what's going on, what they're in for, etc. It's a pretty vague and crappy description, admittedly, but I think it's better than nothing...
11:45 p.m.
I made the best grilled cheese sandwiches of my life tonight. Perfectly buttered, perfectly grilled, the cheese a liquid wonder... perfect. Wheat bread and pepper jack cheese. I made one for myself and one for Heather (who updated her journal tonight!), since Heather was busy dyeing her hair and spattering herself with redness and could not make a sandwich herself. I also had some meatloaf Holly made, and her meatloaf transcended any truckstop blue-plate-special associations; it was meaty, loafy, yet sublime. Mmm.
I also read some mainstream literary (or "li-fi" as we call it 'round here) stories and got annoyed because they began nowhere and arrived nowhere and consisted largely of people sitting at a table in a restaurant, talking about inane things. Then, the end. Call my tastes unrefined, but: ho hum.
I wrote another 500 words on Rangergirl, longhand while sitting on the couch (I believe it was Mark Twain who was famous for writing in bed; oh, the writer's lot is a difficult one!), and finished the scene I began at the café today. It's either emotionally powerful or else melodramatic and overwrought; I'm too close to the scene to say for sure which.
And that's all, really. I may read a bit before bed, but I think I'll upload, now.
Words written since February 1, 2002: 91,330
Words written since last entry: 3,400
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