If you're curious, check the site; Smart Bitches has posted transcripts. (Ouchie.)
The real winning moment, however, comes from this article in the New York Times:
]]>If you're curious, check the site; Smart Bitches has posted transcripts. (Ouchie.)
The real winning moment, however, comes from this article in the New York Times:
"Ms. Edwards told an Associated Press reporter earlier this week that she did not know she was supposed to credit her sources. 'When you write historical romances, you’re not asked to do that,' she said." (emphasis is mine)
Then again, I'm guessing after about the first fifty instances of writing the story of the hot, studly, yet psychologically wounded Native American warrior who kidnaps the innocent white woman (wearing a strapless gown) and then does carnal things to her on the harsh prairie, all while ignoring the lack of indoor plumbing and supermarkets ... well, I suppose I can understand why an author would start lifting source material.
I'd ask in exasperation "How many times could you write something like that?!?" and "How many times would someone want to read the same story over and over?" but apparently the answers to both questions contain numbers larger than I'm prepared to comprehend.
Maybe I should write a romance novel about romance novelists who plagiarize romance novels. The thought of the recursive plagiarism thrills me ... well, not quite to no end, but for at least long enough to go down the hall and fix myself another cup of tea before resuming coding.
]]>Ballpoints are blunt instruments. Not getting the ink flow you want? Scrub the point of the pen against the paper as fast and as hard as you can. You'll either get ink, and go on with your life, or you'll throw away the pen and uncap a new one that will be just like the old one.
Fountain pens more delicate. It's like writing with a paintbrush. You don't scratch into the paper, you paint on it. Unless you have a very wet-writing nib, your fountain pen will never write as fast as ballpoints do. Oh, and most importantly -- don't drop the damn thing, because if you permanently bend the metal nib, you're going to incur a repair bill.
The process of writing with such a pen forces you to take time to think about your words. Got something to say? Uncap your pen. Tilt it down for a moment. You shouldn't need to prime the pen by writing a quick stroke on throwaway paper, but sometimes it happens.
Write. Slowly. Take your time between words; they matter more. I've noticed two tendencies in my writing since I began using my Souverän for correspondence: my tendency toward Austen-esque compound-complex sentences magnifies itself, or instead my sentences compact in upon themselves into a highly epigrammatic form.
Florid and descriptive, or short and impressionistic.
For me, satisfaction has come in the individualism of ink. I have a bottle of black ink that I've decided to give to a friend next week. When it comes to my pens, black just isn't me. I currently alternate between royal blue, a vivid purple ('Saguaro Wine'), hunter green, and this luscious teal called 'Blue Suede.'
I can't explain the appeal of taking a few minutes it takes to change the ink color in my pen. There's a deliberate nature required to enjoy the process of dumping the unused ink back into the bottle, cleaning the pen, adding a new color, then testing it. It inevitably leaves the inner side of my ring finger (which is braced against the underside of the pen) stained by my current ink choice.
I like that, and I don't know why. Perhaps it's not professional in this day and age to wear a ring-finger ink blot proudly, but I do.
It reminds me of the admonition I was given about modern-day attempts to read Jane Austen, an admonition that finally made Austen's words come alive for me. Most people get her wrong by trying to read her prose too quickly. Austen's sentences were not bite-sized, and not meant to be read at a fast clip. Try reading her words at the deliberate, observant pace they were written in, and they become different creatures entirely: creatures of luxuriant, exquisite observation. Before slam-dunking from paragraph to paragraph, take a moment to think, to pause, to use her words as a mental observation point, and remember that they were written by a woman who had to pause every few words to re-dip her pen before writing more.
I wish I knew who said that. I owe that person a beer. I think about it almost every time I pick up a fountain pen.
Think fast. Write slowly.
]]>I'm addicted. Horribly addicted.
I did a lot of research to figure out what would work for me. I'm a heavy, quick writer, with a pretty florid writing style, so it seemed like a broad-nibbed 'wet' writer was just the ticket. After spending some time playing in Artlite (the only fountain pen shop I know of within driving distance) I found a pen that I was ready to adopt. I got a surprisingly good deal on it; someone had returned it because they couldn't handle the very characteristics that made me seek it out in the first place.
My baby is a Pelikan Souverän M1000, and let me tell you, it's a blowsy spendthrift of a pen; it all but throws ink out of the nib. This pen will outlive cockroaches. Actually, this pen may outlive all ink. It's an absolute tank. It's the largest of the Souverän line and it's designed to eat smaller pens for lunch without pausing for refills.
But the better story is the second pen. While I love, adore, and baby my Souverän to near senselessness, I recognize that it's not good for all things. That nib is militantly broad, and it's not gonna tone itself down come hell, high water, or Republicans, nosiree. I wanted a very different pen -- a fine-nibbed, delicate filly -- for things like forms and precision work.
Enter Joyce, who piped up one day and said, "You know, I have a pen from my exchange student days in France. If you'll give it a good home, I'll give it to you. I hate thinking it's just lying there in a drawer."
I took it home, tried it out, and realized it would work very well. It was a school pen, lightweight, fine-nibbed, intended to be a very legible classroom workhorse...and it was malfunctioning like crazy. Ink blots the size of Christmas trees.
Back to Artlite, who looked at it, identified it as a Waterman of unknown origin, and handed me a box to mail it in.
A couple of days ago I got a call from Waterman. They were curious to know how I'd gotten a pen -- the Waterman Allure -- that was only manufactured in France. I gave them the story of Joyce. They told me a little about the history of the pen, and said that they'd shipped it to France for repairs, because nobody in the States knew how to fix it, and the total repair bill would be $30 and could they charge my credit card?
Done.
As soon as she's back from her globe-trotting, I'll introduce her to all of you.
(Yes, thank you, I've joined the ranks of the addicted. Wait until I start babbling about ink.)
]]>Here's to them, the people—whose voice on the phone can make an evening; whose visit can make a weekend; whose love and friendship can make a lifetime. Here's to them, who sit by and let me scribble about their foibles (and mine), who share their lives with me, and make incredibly long treks for geekfests.
Without you, I'd have absolutely nothing to write about but myself, and what an amazingly tedious drudgery that would be.
—Life's rich pageant
(15 June 2002, the 2nd anniversary of this site)
'cat.net started as a lark, and I think about the first year's worth of entries can be taken as such, and left at that. In time, it has evolved, and continues to evolve. What it has evolved into is a matter of debate.
Commentary on the absurdity of life?
Travelogue?
Memory repository?
Free-form expository essays?
Saccharine homage to feline ownership?
Yes.
For now, I'll settle for this:
chronicle (noun)
'Chronicle' suits; it holds the implication of a narrative thread without the potentially pretentious nature of 'journal,' the confessional nature of 'diary,' or the referential nature of 'weblog.' It's also why people either stick around for years, or read one entry and go away: it's a long-form performance in a typically short-form medium. Most of my friends—indeed, most people I know—keep their personal-site readings to the equivalent of short literary snacks. Check the feedreader, see what's new, follow the tasty links and get back to work.
If I've achieved my intention, 'cat.net is the antithesis of the cheap literary snack. There are expository paragraphs. There are semicolons, for crying out loud. It's elliptical and appallingly verbose and uses quotes out of context and comes as close as I've ever managed to representing on paper the odd syntax and word choice that epitomize the continual waterfall of verbal tics that for years my friends have called "amyGlish."
I'm not an easy person to get to know. My website's about as user-friendly as the rest of me: cranky, obtuse, distracted, often forgets to answer emails … but if you're patient, and keep at it, one day the words will sink in and hit you just right and you'll sit up and say, oh my goodness, that's really her, isn't it?
I've been kicking that explanation around for a few days, after a short phone call with my mother. The distant nature of my relationship with my family has long been a theme here, but this phone call was not notable except for a small exchange that stuck with me:
me: "I posted my hiking photos on domesticat. I don't know if you've seen them."
Mom: "Oh, I don't look at anything like that."
I thought about it, long after the phone call ended and I'd driven on to my next errand. A lark, this once was, but no more; the fact that she wasn't reading it meant she was missing something important. More than once she's said that she didn't really understand me, and that she wondered what was going on in my life, and it hit me—for years now, she's had access and an avenue into not just my life, but a lot of my thoughts, and she's chosen not to use them.
For better or worse, these words, despite (or because of?) their obtuseness, are me.
Her loss.
]]>Hogwash. I've been creaking around this domain for six years now, and while the OBPW makes a fantastic stepstool in my kitchen, it's of little other practical use to me. I keep trying to run off all but the most patient of you lot; what's one more post in that vein?
If this post is impenetrable to you, then worry not and read on; it's not for you, but you're welcome to tag along for the ride.
* * * * *
]]>Hogwash. I've been creaking around this domain for six years now, and while the OBPW makes a fantastic stepstool in my kitchen, it's of little other practical use to me. I keep trying to run off all but the most patient of you lot; what's one more post in that vein?
If this post is impenetrable to you, then worry not and read on; it's not for you, but you're welcome to tag along for the ride.
* * * * *
I am writing this for you, Patrick, precisely because I doubt you will acknowledge it, nor expect you to. We are both those kind of people, and we have that kind of friendship. It is for that reason that I am providing neither links nor explanation; if I thought I had permission to do so, I would explain more fully, but I don't think I do.
I think Friday (tomorrow or today, depending on when you read this) is going to be a pretty difficult day for you. We all have tough days, but given what's coming up in your life, I think you're about to have a couple of weeks' worth of them. Strung out. Possibly even in a row. You've had a hell of a brave face on for a while now; when I was in your place I hadn't half your grace.
I've admired you for it. You made a difficult decision that you felt was right for you, and those you cared about, and you stuck with it. I will admit that I haven't always agreed with it (to claim otherwise would be foolish and easily disproved) but I would be wrong not to publicly admit that the course you've chosen has done an immense amount of good for more people than just yourself.
One of the hallmarks of maturity is the willingness to put the greater good of others before the short-term good of yourself.
I wish I knew what you were going to need over the next few weeks. The problem is that I've been there myself, under somewhat different but stressful circumstances, and the only insight I have to offer is that nobody will be able to anticipate what you'll need in the next few weeks, yourself included.
Over the past few months I've watched this saga unfold with mingled sadness and longing.
Sadness, because I know firsthand that these are, indeed, life-changing events, and that no matter what, you will come out of these experiences with life knowledge that will be alternately instructive and burdensome. You will remember what happens in these next few weeks, and for quite some time—possibly for the rest of your life—these events will serve as a point of demarcation. Other events in your life will be seen as having taken place very specifically before or after these events.
Longing, because I cannot see your situation without the lens of my own experiences. I envy you the favorable odds you're facing, because I did not have those. As your friend, I would give anything to influence that outcome favorably. I don't know her, but I don't have to; I know you, and that is enough to care.
If I had only one piece of advice for you, it would be this: faith, family, friends. You're going to need those resources, and you lucky sonofabitch, you've got all three. Use them, dammit. That's what they're for.
I've half-joked with many a friend in the past month that when I next see you, I plan to offer you what's known as the "bottle of Scotch" treatment. It's a simple curative, really. We'll stop by a reasonably-priced liquor store, and we'll wander to the Scotch section. I'll pick out something that strikes a reasonable balance between price and taste. We'll argue over who's going to pay for it. (I'd like to pay for it, but whether or not you will let me is a matter of debate.) We'll drive to the nearest place with comfortable couches, open said bottle of Scotch, pour into the two tumblers that we hopefully remembered to grab from a cupboard and even more hopefully remembered to fill with ice, and then …
… I don't know. That's the beauty of it. The next part's up to you. Maybe we'll toast life, or life's foibles. Maybe we'll have one drink and that's it, or maybe we'll drink until life makes sense to one of us, and then drink until the one who figures it out can explain it to the other one.
The point? There isn't one; the process is the point. I'll be making good on my promise I made you. I'll be there, in whatever generally reasonable capacity you ask. (Cooking? Sure. Mowing your lawn? Right out.) The possibility of these actions solving a damn thing is pretty remote, but that's not why I'll do it.
It's because this is what friends do.
]]>| Misha: | So you talked about writing a book as I recall |
| Amy: | I did. |
| Misha: | I think it's time we made good on that idea. |
| Misha: | You and me, a writing show down, [to see] who can finish their book first. And since we're both perfectionists at these sort of things, we both know neither of us will declare ourselves finished prematurely. |
| Amy: | Interesting… |
| Amy: | and what are the stakes? |
| Misha: | I named the terms, you name the stakes. |
| Amy: | I'm a little ashamed to admit this, but I don't know what I could wager, offer, or promise that would appeal enough to you. I don't know enough about you. |
| Misha: | *hug* I was thinking something along the lines of loser has to take the winner out to a celebratory dinner. |
('Misha' == Patrick, aka ronincyberpunk.com)
This wager sat on the table since early January. I needed time to think about it, time for various reasons that might or might not come clear over the course of the bet, and I did not accept it until right before PHE.
We agreed that we would not start writing until midnight on Wednesday after PHE, since I had guests who were staying late after the party, and that I would be in Atlanta for a day or two after taking them home. Had we not, Patrick would have had a ten-day head start on me, and he kept insisting that if he was going to beat me, he was going to do it fair and square.
So we've begun. It's going to eat my time, my spare brain cycles, and will probably greatly increase my tea consumption, but I think it's worth a go.
]]>