Lamp lit. On to fish or possibly oxen.

Last night I finished the last of "Carter Hall Lights the Lamp," and this morning I sent it to the people who said they wanted it, whose comments I could find, whose addresses I have. If you want it and do not see it in your inbox, please e-mail me at my gmail (marissalingen), and we will remedy this situation.

I strongly doubt that I will be finishing short stories at a rate of two per nine days this year. There will be books, and books cut into short story time in a happy wonderful way. But finishing some short stories is a good thing. Having more stuff to send out again is a good thing. Not languishing forever in an ever increasing pile of half-finished things is an indubitably good thing.

I'm never going to have the decks entirely cleared when I start a new novel -- that's just not how my brain works. But it'd be nice to have a bunch of loose ends tidied by the time I get to What We Did to Save the Kingdom or whatever it ends up being called. So. Onwards and upwards.

Meme and stuff

I did this in greykev's journal, so I'm playing by the rules and doing it here:

respond to this in my journal and....
1. I'll respond with something random I like about you.
2. I'll tell you what song/movie reminds me of you.
3. I'll name something we should do together.
4. I'll say something that only makes sense to you and me (or just me).
5. I'll tell you my first/clearest memory of you.
6. I'll leave you a quote that is somehow appropriate to you.
7. I'll ask you something that I've always wondered about you.
8. If I do this for you, you must post this on your journal.

Except that there are a lot more of you on my friendslist than on Kev's, so I will do as many of those things as seem appropriate, at least including 1 and 7, and I exempt you from 8 if you do participate.

My plans for the evening include finishing writing another chapter of Zodiac House (edited to add: done!), finishing reading matociquala's book (Carnival, and don't you just love that I have to specify which one, Bear? I would think that would be a neat feeling), working out, scruffing the doglet's head, and finding something else to eat. I am really not all that good at feeding just myself when I try to do it in pieces. It's better for me to eat in pieces -- better for the hypoglycemia -- but that's only true if I don't suck at it. Which I do. I end up whining at my body, "Oh, come onnnnn, I gave you a salad two hours ago, what more do you want?" The second avocado had gone south. I had planned on eating that avocado. Now I have to think of something else. Wailie woe. This is the drawback to feeling antisocial when markgritter is out of town and timprov's sleeping during the evenings: when I make dinner plans with friends, not only do I get to see them, but there is a firm notion of Food To Eat. Also I haven't got any food projects for just me this week because I have food projects for other people. So. Um. I think this is why I keep banana muffins in the freezer. Not that you cared, now that I've typed all this.

In other news, I apparently have a new title, "The Knee-Capping Princess of the North." As a title rather than a secret identity, I do not believe this supplants any of my superhero names.

That is all. You may return to your homes.

Zodiac House: Ox chapter

For those of you coming late to this party, I'm musing about writing this book and about children's books in particular, around different signs of the Chinese zodiac as I finish each corresponding chapter. Tonight it was the chapter of the Ox. The San Francisco Chinese Cultural Center page says, People born in the Year of the Ox are patient, speak little, and inspire confidence in others. They tend, however, to be eccentric, and bigoted, and they anger easily. They have fierce tempers and although they speak little, when they do they are quite eloquent. Ox people are mentally and physically alert. Generally easy-going, they can be remarkably stubborn, and they hate to fail or be opposed.

Hmmm.

One hopes not to write a bigoted children's book. An angry, fierce children's book, though? Well...not this one. But I don't see anything wrong with it, quite frankly. A lot of children's books are gentle, and that's fine, even good. Sometimes it's a welcome break from adult and young adult novels, which can be a bit stormy by comparison. But I think that there's a place for a kids' book to get angry about things that are upsetting.

Also, I'm a bit bothered by the role of anger in children's books. I'm thinking back as far as Little Women, possibly further, and the emphasis seems to be on controlling one's temper to the point that any anger is bad. And I don't think that's so. I think it's disproportionate anger that's bad. Being mildly annoyed is not the worst sin ever, or to take a newer source than Little Women, anger does not necessarily lead to hate any more than fear leads to anger. Sometimes anger leads to action. Sometimes anger leads to change. Sometimes anger leads to self-defense. Sure, kids have to learn to handle it when they're angry, but that doesn't mean by squishing it down and never acknowledging that it exists -- or that it could actually have a valid root cause.

Too much anger in a kids' book is likely to be strident and unpleasant to read, and kids generally have the sense to reject things that are unpleasant to read if they possibly can. Sensibly so. But that doesn't mean all anger in children's books ought to be a party-line rubber-stamp of the "sit down and calm down" lessons Jo March and Anne Shirley get. Some things in the world require us to sit down and calm down. Others require us to stand up. If we don't admit to kids that the difference exists, they'll never learn how to apply it.

Ew, is this more of a theme in Girl Books? I begin to suspect that it is, but I'd welcome any data for or against that theory.

(Although with the Anne Shirley reference I don't want to be unfair to L.M. Montgomery -- Emily Starr's temper is often a good and self-defensive thing, and in fact I wish it showed up more often where appropriate. And it seems pretty clear that Valancy's taking too much of the "sit down and calm down" lessons to heart are at the root of her problems in The Blue Castle.)

As for the rest of the Ox description -- well, I hope this chapter inspires confidence in the rest of the book for me. That'd be nice. It was patient enough with me, a titch at a time until the thing was done. Good way to go, I guess.

Anyway. If my dog is to be believed, there is an ax-murderer/serial-rapist lurking on the doorstep, just waiting to batter the door down, but only if he/she has insufficient indication that there is a watch poodle within. For some reason asking her, "Dog, why are you psycho?" is not helping matters. Further steps seem required.