ksmith | Stuff

In my continuing effort to eliminate all that is IE/OE from my life, I downloaded Opera onto the old desktop PC last night.

So far it seems to be working well, although the graphical layout will take some getting used to. Email has its quirks as well, and there was at least one webpage that didn't load as it would on IE--no Flash, and no links, just a stationary useless image. I could open up my online banking site, though, and that's important.

Spent the last few evenings cleaning my office. Papers and receipts are now filed, and there's room atop the desk now for coffee cups and such. I like a lack of clutter, for all I'm a bit of a slob at heart. Something about it opens up my mind, as though every item I toss or file sweeps one more mental cobweb away. The retirement decision helped in that regard as well. There's something about that tiny light in the distance, serving as a goal to aim for.

Giving a Pilates class a try on Friday. It's a local studio with 1:1 instruction. It's not cheap, which means I won't be able to make a habit of it. But Pilates is one of those methods where you really need to get the form right in order for it to do its job, and I was concerned that just following the DVDs wouldn't work like it should. So hi ho, hi ho, it's off to sweat I go.

A few years ago, while nursing a panic that the first three Jani books would be the only stories I could ever think up, I pushed myself to work out a fantasy storyline so that I could have something in the set-aside drawer. Then I sold two more Janis, and was compelled to set the fantasy on a shelf. I did talk it over with a few friends over the past few years, though. One hated it, but a couple liked it. However, the one who hated it caught me at a low ebb, and her verdict derailed any urge I had to pursue the story. This was over a year ago.

Then at Wiscon, at a panel about female protags, I mentioned story arcs and

malkingrey's essay on the genre tale as Romance. Not small 'r' romance, but capital R Romance, with larger-than-life characters and heroes' journeys and other marks of the story writ large--oh, I hope I'm not garbling this, so go track down the essays.

Anyway, as I was talking I mentioned the long-shelved fantasy, and how while it tended to follow a pattern used many times before, I liked the protagonist and wanted to see her succeed and do well in that world writ large, or at least improve her lot in life, and dammit, that made it a valid story for me. Then a week or so ago, one of the friends who liked the story asked me if I had ever done anything with it. I told her no, and told her why--the need to write J5, and my other friend's unfavorable assessment. This friend felt Other Friend was wrong in this case, and the story was good. This fed into my growing sense that I would enjoy exploring that new world, its history, and its future.

In classic TOUGH GUIDE style, I have drawn maps. Fleshed out political issues and conflicts--any book of mine will have political issues and conflicts, as well as hidden scandals, complicated relationships, and people who are not as they seem. After I finish J5, I will try to go back to this story again, and see where it takes me.