Dancing Around the Four Sides

I dreamed about things burning -- certainly because of the burned-out house I visited yesterday.

Dreamed I was somewhere outside and my desk and chair were in the fire. I pulled the desk out too late; the damage was done. "I'll have to start over" I said, and I looked at the ruined chair and was glad I'd only paid $5.

The trouble with starting over, of course, is in knowing where to start.

This morning I think I'll start with more coffee.

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The trouble with starting over, of course, is in knowing where to start.

Hee. An excellent point. And I'm betting that dreaming about fire symbolizes renewal or rebirth.

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I've been trudging around town doing family chores for a couple of hours: groceries, pharmacy, gas station. Really need to vacuum and maybe start some laundry, and I am sooo not motivated because I stayed up too late reading last night.

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Ooooh, what are you reading? Must be something good.

Perspi, Mare, and I all stayed up way too late last night brainstorming a possible plotbunny. My brain is pretty much frazzled today. *g*

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It's "A Test of Wills" by Charles Todd. It's the first in a series of mysteries set in England in 1919. The protagonist is a Scotland Yard inspector named Ian Rutledge who was treated for shell-shock during World War I and is still suffering the after-effects, mainly related to his intense guilt over executing a soldier under his command when the man refused to go over the top.

For a piece of historical fiction, it has very little scene-setting, with most of the story taking place in the thoughts, action and dialogue of the characters. Once I got used to that, it was a really gripping read.

This week, all on the same day, I got in an order of four books from the deep clearance sale at Daedalus Books and two free paperbacks from PaperBackSwap -- the Ian Rutledge book was one of those, so I'm pretty much set for a while for reading material. :)

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Heh ... no wonder you were interested in the Pat Barker Regeneration trilogy! A Test of Wills sounds very familiar -- I think I have that written down somewhere on a "To Read" list.

For a piece of historical fiction, it has very little scene-setting ...

*nods* That's one of the real challenges in writing historical fiction -- the question of how many small details to add in order to make it "real" to the reader, and at the same time not overwhelm them with too many details. It's a real tightrope to walk, sometimes.

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Actually, you got me hooked on Pat Barker first. :) Then I branched out to this series. Corgiguy was busy reading a history of World War I while I was reading the "Regeneration" trilogy, so our suppertime conversation was about 90 years behind the times there for a while.

One of his degrees is in history, and he reads histories constantly, while I tend to get my history through novels.

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Oh, my.

If I were to start reading that? Chances are I wouldn't sleep until I'd finished.

This is why I don't read more novels than I do.

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I stayed up until a little past midnight three nights running to finish it. Since my husband's alarm goes off at 5:10 a.m., I've been shambling around like a zombie from sleep debt today.

I can exercise restraint about many things, but reading (and chocolate!) are not two of them. :)

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takes-a-fairy.livejournal.com

*yawns dramatically*
Well, my coffee has been made for 3 hours and I've not managed to pour any yet: nor to feed myself the first meal of my day. I guess I'll attempt lunch.

Kool and rainy (compliments of Fickle Fay) and generally very relaxing, sleepy weather here. It's nice not having mosquitoes all over me ~~because it's raining~~ when I go out. ~~Making a quick trip to the store soon.~~

I didn't dream anything worth remembering or I'd remember it, wouldn't I? =D
Still no news on whether I'm getting the print job or not. Would be nice.

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I have to ship Doug's computer back to him today, and then ... I think I need to come back here and paint. And it's so hard to do that alone, sometimes, and I'm actually considering dragging my little easel and supplies up here where I can have my net-friends for company.

I'll definitely have to put down a dropcloth if I do that, though, because the carpet in here is very nice and needs to stay that way.

It's starting to occur to me that as long as I treat my art like something that will never make any money for me and must therefore take a back seat to everything else, that is precisely what will happen.

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... as long as I treat my art like something that will never make any money for me and must therefore take a back seat to everything else, that is precisely what will happen.

*nods*

I'd say that's a true statement.

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I've just decided that one of my very first priorities has got to be finding a group of other artists to meet with for "open studio" time.

There's one that paints on Fridays, based out of the Edina Art Center, and I'm sure there are more. I just need to look. A little bit of structure and interaction goes a long way, for me.

I'm realizing that while I've physically moved, my brain is still largely stuck in an attitude borne of living in South Florida -- a sort of "Of course it sucks and I can't do anything about it" outlook that was pretty true where I came from (I know, 'cause I tried so hard for so long) but ... I did do something about it and now I have to give myself a chance.

It's really hard not to just give up and go get a nice, reliable day job -- shoving the art to the back burner -- before I've even tried or given it any time.

Tonight there's some kind of shindig at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, and I am going. :-) Got to meet people, talk, see new art, drink a little wine. It'll be good for me.

ETA that I've just activated my business check card ... so that I can go a couple blocks over to the Robbin Gallery and join as a member. Thus plugging myself in to another network of artists.

ETA 2: and buy a nice dropcloth.

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jadesfire2808.livejournal.com

I'm now officially on holiday - no work until Monday week and so much time to just sleep and write and sleep and record fic and sleep and eat and sleep and cook and sleep and watch DVDs and sleep. *happy sigh* I'm so excited! ;) There's actually a list including more details on all of the above, but SLEEP is written in big letters at the top of it - I was awake at 2.30 this morning and just...yeah. But one of my plans is to work through Big Bangs and everyone's back catalogues that I've yet to make inroads into - I want to get back into House soon (probably once SGA is done) so may start pestering everyone with comments, just because I have the time! In between sleeping, of course.

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. *makes like a zombie*

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Yay! For vacations and for slipping back into Housedom.

And on that note, out the door I go for a while.

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Good sleep is so wonderful. And so are stay-at-home vacations. (I'm such a dedicated homebody that I'd probably never leave the house if my husband, who likes to travel, didn't get grand ideas every now and then.)

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diysheep.livejournal.com

Where roughly are you now. I've been following, but it's six in the morning and I can't remember - just judging by all the old deserted buildings it's somewhere in the belt isn't it?

It's just that you always give the weather report and I have trouble wrapping my head around the 80 degree thing. That means it's nice, but you may want to take a jumper for later right?

PS

I dreamed about Michael Palin and super intelligent talking invisible chickens last night. They were a pain. You could only track them by their footprints. I always worry what my subconscious gets up to when I'm not around. When ever writing pops up in my dreams I have trained myself to read it. Most of it is gibberish - sometimes words, sometimes just letters stuck together, but I really did like this word from a dream poem: Fembles - very Alice Through the Looking Glass.

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