Playing my own violin -- no, wait --

I find the phrase "tooting my own horn" irresistibly funny in a nine-year-old kind of way, but I have to say that the subject line of this post does not quite seem to have the same meaning. You cannot just go inventing new cliches. Well, you can, absolutely of course; but they are wayward creatures and will wriggle free of your intention. Like most aspects of writing, really.

Which is why I'm posting these two links. I got up this morning drearily contemplating trying to keep working on the last scattered pieces of Going North, and to my great delight found this:

https://james-davis-nicoll.dreamwidth.org/12442719.html

And not quite a year ago, in a very similar state of mind, I found this on my reading page:

http://www.marissalingen.com/blog/?p=2413

I was and am grateful to be reminded that I have finished books that people liked and remember; and that I didn't feel any happier about most of them when I got to the last part of each. There is a scene in some book I read as a child, or maybe it's a stereotyped scene that occurs in several books, in which somebody tries to repair a watch or other complex machine, and triumphantly puts it back together only to realize that there are some little pieces that certainly came out when the item was disassembled but that will not go back in anywhere. With a book, this situation may be normal, or at least, the book will still work even if you have left out some of what you fondly believed to be vital parts.

I think that is enough analogies for now. They are eyeing one another jealously and will soon be plotting to do one another a mischief.

May your days be more manageable than mine.

Pamela