Sunday, January 4, 2009

Wrapping Up the Holidays

The Significant Other (SO) and I and the dogs made an epic winter road trip to Kansas City for the holidays. (Note to dog travelers: invest in the Kurgo Wander Hammock for your car. Our dogs loved it and mostly slept for the entire two thousand mile journey.) I squeezed in some writing when I could, and the grand total for December was... 12,636. No blogging, though, so let me catch up on a few things.

Death and the acceptance thereof seem to have been the theme for the past two weeks.

First, condolences go out to BC-S, whose mother passed away unexpectedly after making hard-earned progress during her three-year fight against carcinoid cancer. BC-S wrote a really wonderful eulogy for her, which serves as a poignant bookend to the one he wrote for his father three years ago. I'm finding it impossible to write a response to those eulogies that doesn't seem flat or maudlin. There is just such beauty in a life well-lived. Just read his stuff, and I'll get on with my own.

I wanted to plug a couple of things that I picked up for the trip, which tie in with the whole "beauty in death" theme.

The road trip score was provided by Gregory Paul's new CD, This Side of the Ground, which opens and closes with his take on a pair of death-themed folk spirituals ("Oh, Death" and "Wayfaring Stranger"). There's plenty of death in his original tunes too. Beautiful stuff, though, if you're into it.

The road trip libretto was Neil Gaiman's new novel, The Graveyard Book, which I loved even more than Coraline. It made me want to write an invitation to him on some sort of extravagantly embossed stationary (lavender-scented, of course), inviting him to a picnic at Mount Hope Cemetery. I'd make cucumber and watercress sandwiches and show him where H.P. Lovecraft's ancestors are buried.

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Today's writing totals:
Blog: 323 words
Novel: 0 words
DAILY TOTAL: 323 words

JANUARY RUNNING TOTAL: 1,194/15,500 words

12 comments:

Brad Green said...

Those are some nice totals you're racking up there. Keep going!

Bittersweet Sage said...

Hey BG, thanks for stopping in. The December word count came in almost 3,000 words short of my goal for the month, but given the madness of the holidays (and the fact that I got right back in my chair as soon as I could), I'm not feeling particularly guilty.

Anonymous said...

I finished The Graveyard Book over the weekend, and I really liked it too (more than Coraline and more than Interworld), despite a disappointing dearth of gore. Now that I know what's in the book, though, I wish it had a different title.

--cs10

Bittersweet Sage said...

To cs10:

I suspected that you might enjoy a children's book that kicks off with a mass familial homicide and then moves on toward the lighter fair of how best to enjoy consuming the dead. [I made myself hoarse reading the ghoul chapter aloud to BC.]

What other title would better capture the flavor of the book for you?

Anonymous said...

While I was thinking about the answer to your question, I wandered over to Neil's blog, where I was (rather predictably) derailed by an explanation of where the title came from. Also I came upon this, which is mildly hilarious:
http://community.livejournal.com/lolgaimans/

Maybe I can still come up with a good Adam Rex-esque subtitle.

Speaking of which, I recently read Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road, and I highly recommend it. The chapter titles alone are exquisite.

--cs10

Bittersweet Sage said...

To cs10:

Yeah, Adam Rex! Did I ever tell you how much I loved The True Meaning of Smekday? 'Cuz I really loved it. Lots and lots. I was going to give my copy to my nieces, but then I didn't, and I probably won't. I'm not sure that I could endure their blank expressions of non-gratitude for a book that makes me so happy. (I did loan them my box set of hard back Wrinkle in Time books, with the expressed decree that it was not okay to sell them at a garage sale. Brad thinks I made a very bad judgment call.)

Anyway. Title writing = hard. I will probably take nominations should I reach the point that a title for the novel becomes necessary. The original title "Needle's Eye" has become increasingly irrelevant.

(Stupid Michael Chabon... wasting perfectly good titles on mere chapters while the rest of us are bloodying our fingers trying to piece together two or three clever words to cover our naked... er... covers.)

Anonymous said...

In my experience, authors don't get a lot of choice about titles. The Marketing Department comes up with potential titles and decides which one to use. (And frankly I'm glad that they don't invite me to those meetings.) Of course, it seems likely that someone like Neil Gaiman gets to have more input.

Turns out I read The Graveyard Book just in time, because it won the Newbery Award last weekend.

Yay Adam Rex! I recommended Smekday to a certain Japanese friend of ours in Ohio recently, and I'm waiting to hear how she liked it. And have you read the sequel to Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich? It's called Frankenstein Takes the Cake, and it features the wedding of Frankenstein and his Bride. Hee.

Emma Bull's publisher is FINALLY reprinting Bone Dance, with a new cover that is very shiny if not exactly as evocative of the contents as the old cover.

--cs10

Bittersweet Sage said...

cs10 wrote: "In my experience, authors don't get a lot of choice about titles. The Marketing Department comes up with potential titles and decides which one to use."

Eew! I didn't know that. My only chance is to invent a title so brilliant and sellable that not even a marketing goon can destroy it.

cs10 wrote: "And have you read the sequel to Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich?"

I actually haven't read anything by Adam Rex except for Smekday. Is it all brilliant?

cs10 wrote: "Emma Bull's publisher is FINALLY reprinting Bone Dance."

Still haven't read Bone Dance, but I have watched this Hannah Montana video. Same thing, right?

Anonymous said...

Eiw! Look what you made me do!

Adam Rex was an illustrator before he was an author, so his other four books are picture books, and each of them is awesome in its own way. But the two Frankenstein books are not to be missed.

And you shouldn't worry too much about the title thing--after all, none of my experience has been with fiction.

Aaagh, my eyes are still burning. I think I'll have to go wash them out with my new Doctor Who series 4 box set.

--cs10

Bittersweet Sage said...

So, speaking of DVD box sets, whatever happened to that "Essential Buffy" list that you were going to make for me? Critter and I got mired halfway through Season 4, and I just don't see myself slogging through the rest of the series. I know some of the later episodes are real gems, though. Let me know what they are!

Anonymous said...

Sorry about that. I did actually start the list, but then got bogged down overthinking it. And then I got sidetracked by the impulse to rewatch all of season 6, possibly for the first time ever. It turns out that my sympathy for--and empathy with--that season has increased over the years.

Anyway, it might help me to narrow things down if you told me a few of your most and least favorite episodes (of the ones you've seen). (Because if you did it before I've forgotten.)

--cs10

Bittersweet Sage said...

I moved the Buffy survey here.