Words spill across my page
Like footprints of another age

Hmmm, wish I had a poem to go with the rest of that! Rather Macbeth-y, but the wise man steals from geniuses!

I must go grade, and so the continued defense will need to be put off until tomorrow or whenever I have time to sit down and really blog, but for now I will dance an exhausted but happy Snoopy dance because I have written, precious, I have written, and it is good to write, oh ever so good!

The short story form used to really elude me. It's a terrifically difficult form, the equivalent of a sestina in prose. (A real sestina, that is. One that rhymes, makes sense, uses iambic pentameter, and doesn't cheat on the ending words! Hrumph! Sestina purists of the world unite!) I'm still working on the form, but I've certainly improved - at least, improved enough to make my short stories salable, even if they aren't all Hugo-worthy. Anyway, ArxPub, my wonderful publishers, puts out a yearly promotional zine and asked if I could whip up anything. Fortunately, I had a many-times rewritten first chapter that was going nowhere because...ta DAAAAA! It's a short story, not a chapter I. Now that my imbecilic author self has realized what it was all along, it's coming along fabulously, of course.

And it's so good to stretch those creative muscles, to come up with a map of the grounds of Liadan, and names for its various bits and pieces and environs, and to play in that whole world again. It's also incredibly helpful because the story is about King Aiden, who is Gavron's father - and since I'm doing the Gavron novel next, I'm finding that this short story's working as "backstory" for me! :D Hurrah! That, and this story ties into Graithne from Niamh - I think Eamonn, the Lord of Liadan is her...grandfather? Great-grandfather? Yeah, I think that's it. So you see how Liadan is going downhill even in Aiden's time, which explains why Graithne's whole story turned out as it did. (No, Graithne's story isn't in Niamh - it is, I think, it's own story. Personally, I'm looking forward to Liam kicking some Liadan derierre! FWAH!)

Right - any sense made of that? Most likely not! Nutcase I am - and teacher with papers to grade. Hmmm, could I put on West Side Story and grade at the same time...?

Mood: Content
Music: Faire Celts, "Can You See the Border" - blaugh track. Will have to skip ahead to "I am Going to the West."
Desire: To choreograph a ballet a la An American in Paris. Oh, and begin that screenplay that I came up with in the shower this morning, tentatively called The Longest Road. Hurrah! Projects galore!
Prayer: Keep me humble, Lord. And could you return my laptop to me?