Random Jottings
Feb. 5th, 2007 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanIt's the middle of the book. For my books, this means that the event that most people would begin with is not very far away, and that if you cock your head sideways and squint through a particular part of your glasses, you can see certain thematic threads assembling themselves. The part I don't care for is that even I can't keep all the new characters straight, so how is anybody else supposed to do so? But that is a matter for revision.
Apparently at this stage babbling on LJ is mandatory. There was no LJ the last time I was writing a novel in any kind of controlled fashion. I am not sure, on reflection, how controlled the fashion is in which I am writing this one, but it so far has started at the beginning and gone on to the middle.
In any case, random events I'd like to have tied to something vaguely resembling a timeline:
Six days before I was scheduled to fly out to California, Ari turned up limping severely on his left hind leg. Recalling unhappily how he ran around with a broken front paw for ten days because the vet didn't think he was in enough pain for broken bones, I appealed to Raphael, who drove us to the emergency vet at the University of Minnesota. Mercifully, they were not at all busy. There was a large dog who had eaten his leash and looked very sheepish about it, but nobody else in the waiting room. Ari pulled the classic move of walking normally when the vet was looking at him, but she said she could consistently localize back pain rather than leg pain. I let them do an X-ray. No arthritis and no broken bones or joint pain. They figured he had probably pulled a muscle in his back. So we went home again with a prescription for a controlled substance, a painkiller that you put under the cat's tongue (right), or at least somewhere it can leach into the membranes of the mouth. It's given to horses too, I gather. He didn't care for it much. He was also supposed not to jump or to run around the house. (Right.) I blocked off the access to his favorite high-rise sleeping place, a box of styrofoam peanuts atop an eight-foot-tall bookcase; and we kept him upstairs for two weeks. I was very nervy about leaving partway through this incarceration, but Raphael looked after him perfectly well, and he had no limp when I got home again.
I've never had such an accident-prone cat, although Sukey Tawdry used to get into fights and develop abscesses. Once she became an indoor cat, however, she did not break bones or pull muscles.
He is, however, the BEST cat.
P.
Apparently at this stage babbling on LJ is mandatory. There was no LJ the last time I was writing a novel in any kind of controlled fashion. I am not sure, on reflection, how controlled the fashion is in which I am writing this one, but it so far has started at the beginning and gone on to the middle.
In any case, random events I'd like to have tied to something vaguely resembling a timeline:
Six days before I was scheduled to fly out to California, Ari turned up limping severely on his left hind leg. Recalling unhappily how he ran around with a broken front paw for ten days because the vet didn't think he was in enough pain for broken bones, I appealed to Raphael, who drove us to the emergency vet at the University of Minnesota. Mercifully, they were not at all busy. There was a large dog who had eaten his leash and looked very sheepish about it, but nobody else in the waiting room. Ari pulled the classic move of walking normally when the vet was looking at him, but she said she could consistently localize back pain rather than leg pain. I let them do an X-ray. No arthritis and no broken bones or joint pain. They figured he had probably pulled a muscle in his back. So we went home again with a prescription for a controlled substance, a painkiller that you put under the cat's tongue (right), or at least somewhere it can leach into the membranes of the mouth. It's given to horses too, I gather. He didn't care for it much. He was also supposed not to jump or to run around the house. (Right.) I blocked off the access to his favorite high-rise sleeping place, a box of styrofoam peanuts atop an eight-foot-tall bookcase; and we kept him upstairs for two weeks. I was very nervy about leaving partway through this incarceration, but Raphael looked after him perfectly well, and he had no limp when I got home again.
I've never had such an accident-prone cat, although Sukey Tawdry used to get into fights and develop abscesses. Once she became an indoor cat, however, she did not break bones or pull muscles.
He is, however, the BEST cat.
P.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-02-05 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 01:49 am (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 04:08 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-05 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 01:48 am (UTC)From here, she is a mighty fine cat.
P.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 02:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 07:50 am (UTC)They are about the same age, I think.
P.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 01:24 am (UTC)In which direction?
no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 01:47 am (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 08:01 pm (UTC)I swear the next time we get antibiotics for a cat I'm going to a compounding pharmacy and get it fish-flavored. That bubble-gum banana fake strawberry stuff is insulting to the feline palate, and I'm tired of its getting all over my house, including up my nose.
P.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 01:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 07:59 pm (UTC)P.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-11 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-06 10:18 pm (UTC)I friended your LJ so I could read it more easily - I hope you don't mind! I'm a big fan, particularly of Tam Lin. I wrote you about it when I was in college *mumble* 12 years go or so, and you were kind enough to email me back. :-)
I wanted to let you know too, that a bunch of my LJ friends decided to read/reread Tam Lin as a group, and set up a comm to discuss it. You're under no obligation at all to check it out, but I thought you might find the comm name amusing at least, since it's based on something Thomas said to Janet. :-)
http://community.livejournal.com/amildsortoforgy/
Best wishes,
Maggie
Of course
Date: 2007-02-06 11:22 pm (UTC)I'm quite interested in your community, but it does sometimes seem that the presence of the author has a rather dampening effect on discussion, especially if people don't like the book or dislike some aspects of it. This is a perpetual dilemma.
P.
Re: Of course
Date: 2007-02-06 11:39 pm (UTC)I figured I would mention it though - because I thought you might be entertained by people liking it enough to want to talk about it together on LJ! Most of us are re-readers, some of whom have read it many times, and know it well, and others wanted rediscover it, since my one friend and I are always quoting it. I think we have just one or two who are reading for the first time. :-)
I did save your email with your answers to my questions, and it was nice to be able to have your thoughts Peg and the bunk bed for our discussion on the ghosts! Though at the time you couldn't remember who you had meant the "two dearer" to be - or had wanted to leave it for an exercise for the reader! It's the one thing I could never figure out! :-)
Best of luck with your new book!
Maggie
Re: Of course
Date: 2007-02-07 06:43 am (UTC)As for the group, it's not so much that I'm worried about getting my feelings hurt as I am that knowing the author was reading would make people self-conscious about expressing themselves naturally.
P.
Re: Of course
Date: 2007-02-06 11:43 pm (UTC)P.