Now, this is where we write to avoid writing

[pameladean]

I am certainly doing this entry to avoid working on my book, but it's been long enough since I did an update that I feel entitled.

Ever since I hurt my shoulder whenever that was, typing for more than ten minutes has caused a pins-and-needles sensation in my left hand. It grows less with time, but I don't think this is anything to be messing around with. So I've been writing the book in longhand, which doesn't cause any pecular symptoms except for an inability to revise meaningfully above the level of tweaking the vocabulary around a bit. This difficulty will not be anything more than an annoyance for several more chapters, by which time I hope to be able to type the stuff in.

Please don't recommend transcription software, or whatever it's called. It would break my brain. Obviously if I must, I must, but that point is a long way away.

I managed to reread The Dubious Hills -- for those of you who have arrived late, the work in progress is a sequel to that book and also to The Whim of the Dragon -- for the third time since I put together the book proposal. This is the first time that I've actually managed to read it as a story rather than skimming along the top and noticing everything I'd have done differently and the occasional forgotten beauty, and thinking ARGH about the former and, DID I REALLY WRITE THAT about the latter. I have no idea what the voice of the book will be like when the characters are all (heaven help me) in one location (I'm insane to contemplate this), but I'm interested to see that while recapturing the voice of the Secret Country books was very easy, recapturing that of Hills was almost impossible. I thought it would be hard, but not in the ways that it actually was hard.

The scene in question is a chapter or two away, but I know how Ruth will react to first seeing Arry, and this is comforting.

My rejected work in progress has ceased to sulk in the corner and is leaping up and down and flinging short-story ideas around like mylar ribbons. They can just wait. Short stories are infinitely more trouble than novels, infinitely more sanity-threatening, infinitely more likely to make me want to go hide in a cave. Pesky things.

P.

Comments

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

The second time I did nasty things to my left hand and wrist, I found that I could type a bit faster than the Data General terminals at work could keep up with me -- with only my right hand. And I'm lefthanded.

So it's possible to type one-handed at a decent speed.

Note: That's when I began insisting in fandom that my initials were DSG rather than DG.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

The Dubious Hills is as close to a perfect work as anything ought to be. I use it as an example a lot of the time when I want to point to something wonderful for whatever reason.

DO you want to know what I think is going on with its voice? There's this chill early spring breeze blowing all through the book, tangling the hair and causing shivers and making the toes and fingers burn. That's in the voice. The wind off the hills, the stars on a clear chill night, runny noses. Simple sentences in complex conversations. The low-angle glare of the sun. Wet earth.

Is that helpful? There's something, too, about being fourteen. I don't remember if anybody actually is fourteen, but they all might as well be. It's the same thing about being fourteen that's in Juniper, Gentian, and Rosemary, though the books are not the same in very many ways.

It's probably not helpful. Oh well.

[pameladean]

It is, though.

Arry is fourteen.

That breeze is literal at the very beginning of the book, and I am so delighted that someone felt it blowing throughout. Thank you very much.

P.

[ritaxis.livejournal.com]

I thought Arry was fourteen (the last time I reread the book was two months ago, but my memory is like a broken sieve). I don't think she would be the same person without growing up with that quality of the air and light.

I think that whatever you write about her, you might be addressing the way it feels to have your certainties inverted. Does she make pronouncements about things and then wonder where they came from? Does she retain that manner of speaking? Does she think of her old way of life like the envoy poem to the Alice book (you know, that thing about golden afternoons of childhood slipping away) -- something sweet and lost? Or does the world stay stark and bright? How lonely and homesick is she? How excited by her new experiences (and does she end up at the library she set out for?)

I shouldn't do this to you, but I think it's delicious to think of you over there contemplating how to write more about Arry.

[pameladean]

Actually, it's nice to realize that I've pretty much answered all those questions, though of course any character may throw one a curve ball at any moment.

P.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Of course you're insane to contemplate this, dear, but we're glad you are.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear about the trouble with typing. Is there any physical therapy you can do for it?

[pameladean]

I should think there might be, but there's no way to pay for it.

P.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

I wish I had an answer for that.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

*fascinated*

[redbird]

Have you considered physical therapy? It's doing my shoulder quite a bit of good: I realize, of course, that we may have different shoulder problems, but it seems worth mentioning.

[pameladean]

No health insurance and, at the moment, effectually no income. Otherwise I'd have gone in to have it looked at much sooner. I'm just relieved it's got as close to better as it has.

P.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

I cannot tell you how gleeful it makes me to hear you're working on more books in this world. I love the Secret Country trilogy beyond words, and the prospect of seeing Ruth and the others again just makes me terribly happy.

I got a similarly horked shoulder, and generally have a knot between my shoulderblade and my spine when it acts up. If you can find that spot, the best thing I've found to relieve some of the ow is to have somebody apply direct pressure--not massage, not moving around, just hard pressure--to that spot for several minutes. It's not very interesting for either party, but it does help me fairly noticeably. It's most effective to lie on my back and have someone slide their hand between my back and the couch (or whatever; something firmer than a couch is really best) and make a knuckle against the spot, which lets them apply upward pressure without a great deal of effort, and also puts my body weight into it so the pressure is increased. Perhaps that might help some! Also, when I've had this done by a massage therapist, I've been sent home again with directions to drink *lots* of water, to help get rid of toxins built up and released from that kind of thing.

[mizkit.livejournal.com]

That should be "I get a similarly horked shoulder," not "I got." My grasp of the English language is not that embarrassingly bad, I swear it. :)

[pameladean]

There there, I thought that was a simple past tense, that at some point you had acquired a similarly horked shoulder, and that the horkedness manifests from time to time.

I'll try your suggestion; thanks.

P.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

(Here via [Unknown site tag])

I'm about two-thirds of the way through The Dubious Hills, and loving it. And now there's to be a sequel! Joy!

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

And that should be yhlee in the tag.

[pameladean]

I'm so glad you like it.

The book should be out in 2007.

If it doesn't kill me first.

P.

Book, I command thee to be less hard on Pamela!!

[shalanna.livejournal.com]

There--that'll do it. Book will now behave better.

I can't wait to read THIS one. The two you're trying to continue are different in feel, to me, so it's going to be interesting to see how you're doing it. Of course it'd be interesting anyway just to see a book of yours, but this should be doubly special. I second that bit about the wind. It's the west wind, blowing gently through.

Don had physical therapy for his shoulder, and what they had him do at home was use this pulley thing that went up over the closet door. Then he was supposed to sit in front of the door and pull the pulley with his other hand so that his sore arm went straight up and then slightly back, and then down again. He did regain full motion in it (he had a frozen shoulder after a car accident), but he wasn't faithful about the exercises. Just a now-and-then thing seemed to help him. So maybe this would help you. The pulley was basically a jump rope. The alternative seems as if it would be to have R. or D. stand behind you and pull your arm slowly up and straight up and back (while you're sitting) . . . and then let it down. Maybe that would be like the exercise Don did. It helped get his arm going again. The arm doesn't really go BACK, mind. It feels like it's slanting slightly backwards, but it's not really. Then you'd move it so it's sticking out straight from your shoulder and hold a moment. Do this for five repeats. But don't do it AT ALL if it hurts. Don had pain, but he was with a physical therapist at their treatment center, and by the time he was doing it at home, he knew how to do it without straining something. His problem wasn't nerves, and yours sounds like it is, so that may be totally wrong to do, anyhow.

Income . . . pesky. Can anyone in the household tutor middle school students in math (or maybe English--but down here, English tutors are plentiful and math types aren't)? What I'm thinking is that some of the schools keep lists of kids whose parents would like them to be helped with homework in a particular subject, and some of them pay $5 to $7 an hour. That's not much at all. But it would be something. I did the volunteer version of this last year, and what I'd do is come to the school from 2PM to 4PM and sit in a seminar room, and they'd send in one student at a time with homework and questions to last about an hour. So that was two students a day. I don't know if any of them remembered much about graphing other than slope of a line, because I acted out the "lean backward with negative slope" bit and it seemed to amuse them to see me standing funny windmilling my arms. O'course that gig didn't pay at all. But some do. It did cost me the gas to drive out there. Arrrghh, I dunno if that would help at all. It's so inconvenient not to be an heiress!! I'll keep trying to win the lottery. I have big plans for writers' retreats and grants and such.

((HUGS))

[lcohen]

since it is always all about me, i will tell you that all of the writing and not writing bits of this made me smile and smile. the hurty shoulder bits make me sad, though--i hope that situation improves posthaste.

book! you're writing a book and i will get to read it!

your writing here and in your books is filled with moments of extraordinary beauty--i love your eye.

[white-serpent.livejournal.com]

I found your LJ a few months back via a link from Will Shetterly's blog and have been watching it for updates on your writing.

I'm looking forward to reading the sequel to The Whim of the Dragon and The Dubious Hills. (I admit it; I'm looking forward to any new book from you.)

I actually think it's easier to write things longhand in that the computer itself provides me so many opportunities for distraction. (What I'm basically saying is that I'm easily distracted.) Of course, longhand has downsides... it's hard to edit, and you end up typing everything in later anyway. :/

A few years ago, I had a broken wrist and tried voice recognition software. Unless it has improved a *lot*, I definitely wouldn't recommend it. It's frustrating to train it, then speak slowly and clearly, and still end up with gibberish. It's even more frustrating when the software's expensive.

Given you can write longhand without pain, though, you might want to consider whether your computer setup is a good one. Even when your shoulder's better, you might be better off changing things. Four years after my broken wrist, I've switched to using my mouse with my left hand, and I always use the ergonomic split keyboards and so on or my right wrist ends up sore. I can play the piano without pain, though. Strange how that happens.

By the way, I have a weird question for you. I seem to recall seeing hints here and there that The Secret Country and The Hidden Land were originally supposed to be a single book but were split prior to publication. (I believe that because of the circular structure-- SC starts with the "play" scene with Randolph, HL essentially ends with the "real" one.) I've actually seen someone say they read them as one book and they were originally published that way, but I have the 1985 edition of SC and the 1986 edition of HL and they're very definitely separate (and the SC copyright page definitely states that the book has never appeared in print before). Am I missing something? Was there a foreign edition or a book club edition that combined them, maybe? Neither the Locus index nor your website lists one.

[pameladean]

Hi; welcome.

I can write without pain with my right hand; it's the left shoulder that got injured. Actually, I can type without pain too; it's just that eventually I get the pins-and-needles feeling, which I believe to be a pretty severe warning.

As for the first two Secret Country books, they were written as one book, and a number of people read them in manuscript, including the person who eventually became my agent. But I split them before submitting them for publication, and they were published as two books. There has never been an omnibus edition or anything of that nature. There have also never been any hardcover editions, another thing people swear they remember.

P.