Moose Girl Dream Dance, Hurrah!

[mrissa]

One thing last year's Year Of Sick seems to have given me is the ability to nap. I could never really nap before unless I was sick. Now I can if I need it. For example, the alarm went off at 4:45 this morning so we could get markgritter to the airport. I got up (@#%&$%#$) and took him to the airport and read lj and went and got breakfast with timprov when Perkins opened. (And let me state for the record that "when Perkins opened" is not a phrase that should have any meaning, because what good is Perkins if they don't stay open all night? It's not like you go there for the food. Imagine the horror that would have been my college years if we'd had to spend our 2:00 a.m. Perkins runs at Happy Chef instead. Even if we would have pressed the button.) And then I hung out with T. until he went to bed, and then I worked a little bit on easy revision stuff, and then I read a bit, and finally I went back to bed! And slept! And now I feel better! And not so much like someone dumped toxic waste in my shoulders! And more capable of abusing the exclamation point!

In my nap-dreams, dichroic was starting to write a book with elk in, so I was telling her what it's like to write books with elk in. (The answer, in case you're wondering: very hard. The books I've written with elk in are much harder than the ones that left the elk out. My advice from this experience: skip the elk whenever possible.) (On the other hand, it was nice to have someone with whom I could be "The Moose Girls.") Also in my nap-dreams, papersky was telling me that she'd seen my books last time she'd been in China, she just hadn't picked up copies because she didn't know me at the time and also she doesn't read Chinese. I started trying to argue with her that I don't have any books* out in English, much less Chinese, but she was able to describe details of the plots as summarized for her by her Chinese friends, so I had to conclude that my books were indeed out in Chinese. Then I got a check from my Chinese publisher, and dichroic and I did a Moose Girl Dance over to the bank to cash it, with papersky walking alongside us holding the dog's leash and shouting, "Hurrah!" at appropriate intervals. (What is a Moose Girl Dance like? Very stompy. Somewhat noisy. Upsetting to the dog. But the dog liked papersky and would behave for her, so that worked out all right.)

This is why Heathah's husband tells me not to tell people my dreams, but in truth I'd rather have my brain than someone else's.

And I need to remember that when I get back to non-trivial revision bits, but first I need lunch.

Oh, and I know which story I'm writing longhand in my new paper journal now! "Carter Hall Judges the Lines." It's the one for you, wilfulcait. It will be fun. There is peewee hockey, and there are Greek goddesses, and I'm excited to be writing it. And it's good to be excited about what you're writing at least some of the time.

*Edited to add: I should note, before markgritter reads it and starts the old argument up again, that he would have me say I don't have any novels out in English. Because I do have books out. Every time we do this, I argue that work-for-hire doesn't count, and every time he says it's a book and I wrote it and they put my name on it and published it and gave me money, not vice versa, and therefore it counts. Take whichever side you please.

Comments

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

Somehow I think I am more likely to do a Moose Girl Dance than to write a book with elk in. (And if I did, if would be more like the land we own up north from here: no visible elk, just traces they're been by.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Yah, that part definitely went in the "which wasn't likely, and we didn't expect it" segment of my dreams.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

"My books are out in China", along with "finding books I'd forgotten I'd written in second hand bookshops" are dream-things I used to experience in part of the set of repeated dream-elements long before I actually had books out in China and books lying around in second-hand bookshops.

Some people (Dunne, for instance) might say this is a significant piece of evidence for how one's mind come unstuck in time in dreams, and that you too will one day have books, perhaps even books with elks, out in China. Other people might identify it in some other way.

I'm glad the dog liked me. I'm sure that's a good sign.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

The dog likes many of the people I like, so that works well. Sometimes she's shy of people for reasons I don't understand, other times for reasons I do understand but can't very well say. ("She thinks you smell funny" is very clear to me, especially with people who use perfume that doesn't go with their soap or body chemistry very well. But it is not socially acceptable to point this out to people unsolicited, and "oh, is she shy?" does not count as soliciting opinions about one's scent. And sometimes it's not that, and it's not body language or tone/timbre of voice, and I don't know what it is.)

Anyway, I will hope for mind coming unstuck in time in dreams, because it seems like a good thing in this case.

Not knowing what it is (reactions)

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

I figured out recently why one of our family cats is not dear and beloved to my heart. She does not like being picked up and squirms horribly, which is off-putting. She is very affectionate, though, and will come up and want petting, as long as you don't pick her up.

My own cat stays at my parents' house now. He grew up with being picked up, tossed around the room, being fed hamburger steak from the computer desk, and ignored in the shower when he would come stand on the bathtub to watch. So he's good with bodily handling as long as you don't distract him from his missions too much.

But Esme, the cat in question, has a shrill, high-pitched voice that irritates me. I finally figured out that the specific tone is one I find annoying. You say you're more scent-oriented; I tend to be sound-oriented, with sight a secondary sense I try hard to work on. But certain ranges of sound tend to provoke strong reactions.

Re: Not knowing what it is (reactions)

[dichroic.livejournal.com]

I have a cat who both doesn't like being picked up and has the annoying whiny voice. Plus he's such a scaredy cat he only likes to come be petted when you're busy with something (working on the computer, knitting, sleeping) so that you're not likely to make sudden moves. Of course, these are exactly the times when we silly monkeys tend not to want to be head-butted for petting, or have someone walking across body or keyboard.

So yes, not my favorite feline individual.

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

If you have books available or formerly available on the open market with your name credited as an author, then yes, I think you have a book out!

Work-for-hire may or may not be superior to work over which you have more rights and is sold as a novel, but contract work is still published. (Which is very, very cool.)

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I got the box of the first two books I wrote for actual cash moneys, and the packing slip said, "Arthur copies." And I read it and went, "Arthur...oh! I'm the arthur!"

It amuses me to see when people notice what the books and magazines on our end tables have in common. One friend asked me, "Mris...why is your name on the spine of this book?" I said, "Because I wrote it." And then she was extravagantly pleased for me, but I found it a bit amusing: she knows I write, but she apparently hadn't realized that I'd gotten anywhere with it.

[evangoer.livejournal.com]

I'm with Mark and this makatlaw fellow!

And you should be extravagantly pleased. I've written lots of books, but none with my name on the spine. Most of them won't ever even have spines.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Spineless books? Very sad!

Authorship

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

I need to get somewhere with my fiction writing so I won't be frustrated, but I know I need to spend the time to get better with it! It may be harder for me to concentrate than other people, but that's not much of a reason to stop: hard is hard. There will always be something (teaching classes, money woes, legal work) to put time into. Of course, I choose to put time into thinking or dealing with those things, at least to some degree.

I'm sorry about the guys who bothered you on your walk with your doggy. The old saying goes, "Men are afraid women will laugh at them; women are afraid men will kill them." There's some truth to that, and I'm sorry that you were threatened.

Re: Authorship

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

I fear that getting somewhere with your fiction writing is unlikely to be non-frustrating. I say that based on not only my current position but also on reports from further along the process.

But it's a different kind of frustrating, and that can sometimes be enough.

Re: Authorship

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

It will depend on how much I welcome the challenge. To write a novel, have it unsold, and then continue to write more? It must require a certain state of mind, dogged determination and plain old faith.

I also submit that it's a problem of a different order than the other problems in my life, and that could make for a nice challenge.

Oh! I finished your Teraphim story recently. Was it a stand-alone, or have you done other Bible-based interpretations? I particularly liked the character of the nephilim, the gardener who was the son of an angel and a human. He wasn't a ruler of men; he was a great gardener, which I thought was a very good matching example of finding the role in society where you fit.

Re: Authorship

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

So far it's a stand-alone, but I'm not ruling out more works with the same characters or in the same world.

I am extremely skeptical about rulers of men and other grandiose roles. That's likely to show up elsewhere in my fiction, too.

Rulers of Men

[mackatlaw.livejournal.com]

I'm also fascinated by the powerful, not so much by the trappings, but by the responsibility. People living together in large groups require leadership of some sort. What amount and what type depends on your political theories, but someone or a select group needs to make the hard decisions. But "with great power comes great responsibility," etc.

The Romans used to have someone follow the emperors around at court and whisper, "You too will die." It reminded them that no matter how powerful they were, death was more powerful and they were mortal.

What other fiction about rulership and grandiosity do you recommend I check out, particularly by you?

Re: Rulers of Men

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

We seem to have missed each other here: by skeptical, I don't really mean fascinated. For example, in my first two novels, I upset one of my first-readers by having the powerful Dream King in one world be a nurse in this world rather than something more powerful and grandiose. And in my more recent YAs, there's a thoroughly Icelandic skepticism of kings and kingship, with a deliberate absence of grandiosity.

However, one of my next projects will probably be What We Did to Save the Kigndom, whose protagonist is kind of the female, sorcerous equivalent of Richelieu; check back with me then.

[laurel]

Total agreement on Perkins (and Happy Chef, for that matter; though I'm always watching for ones that still have the Chef and wondering if the button works).

Kevin and I are prone to frequent ranting about Perkins and Embers that close as it's Just Not Right and also defeats their entire purpose. I also am not happy with Byerlys that don't have restaurants where I can get wild rice omelets and other such things, but that's not nearly so bad.

When I was in college in Sioux Falls, more people seemed to head to the Village Inn than Dennys or Perkins (I'm not even sure we had an Embers). I preferred hanging out in my dorm, but I had an exceptionally cool dorm (in later years; in early years I didn't, but I also didn't drive or know many people).

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

At my high school, the late-night restaurants were divided up by high school, mostly: Ralston kids went to the Village Inn on 108th, Westside kids went to the Perkins on 72nd, and so on. The up side of this was that you were more likely to run into people you knew; the down side was more or less the same.