Cards & Trolls & Motivation
Dec. 18th, 2010 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ellenkushner In this busy social season, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deliasherman has her heart set on finishing revisions of THE FREEDOM MAZE for Big Mouth House before we leave for Florida on the 26th. When I mention Cards, she looks perilously close to tears. This would not be a big deal, except for the fact that in the past two years it was my *ehrm*KLEZMER NUTCRACKER shows & performances that kept us from getting down to it . . . So the oldest people in our lives probably think we've dropped them off our List. They think we no longer care about them. Or, worse yet, that we are Rude. So I am going to try to rectify that by sitting down this weekend with our 150+ List, our antiquated Filemaker Pro program, and maybe a little whiskey (which could also help my stupid cold?) and, well - the last 2 years' of Holiday Letters, which we actually did write but never managed to send? and were waiting for final edits because Delia thinks my drafts are too long & too personal, while I think hers are too stiff & formal? because her target audience is her school headmistress (who still sends personal notes addressed to each in a fine italic hand) and mine is, oh, I dunno, everyone? So last year we got as far as deciding that we would make the switch over from mailing dozens of nicely-decorated sheets of updates to just e-mailing them (the coward's way out, as I know that I am mostly too busy around now to open the enclosures that my other friends send me - whereas if they mail me something, it will at least turn up on the breakfast table competing with the pile of New Yorkers & Village Voices....)
Oh god. Maybe we should just go back to sending out attractive little pictures with pre-stamped greetings of General Good Will. But then how will anyone know what's become of us? Am I overthinking this? The sub-categories are boundless: 1) Cards to elders to show we care. 2) Letters to elders & friends who don't read LJ or Facebook, but who care & should be kept informed & we don't want to lose touch with. 3) The same in foreign countries, but try to figure out who we needs to be updated but we can just send them an e-version instead... Oh no head explosion now.
Moving right along (I did begin this post 12 hours ago):
Thank you,otterdance (née Lynn Flewelling), for your link to (and excerpts from) Chuck Wendig's, um, revised version of The Writer's Prayer - I particularly like:
Every word journey is a Journey West. I am Lewis, and I am Clark. I am not the Donner Party.
I recognize that writing a novel is hard. And I don’t give a lemur’s left foot. I don’t give a good goddamn. I don’t give two shits in a wicker basket. The best things in life are hard. Like hunting pterodactyls. Like getting married.
In other news: A review of Troll's Eye View has finally mentioned my story. Finally. At last. Tangentially. But there it is. We live for these little triumphs.
deliasherman has her heart set on finishing revisions of THE FREEDOM MAZE for Big Mouth House before we leave for Florida on the 26th. When I mention Cards, she looks perilously close to tears. This would not be a big deal, except for the fact that in the past two years it was my *ehrm*KLEZMER NUTCRACKER shows & performances that kept us from getting down to it . . . So the oldest people in our lives probably think we've dropped them off our List. They think we no longer care about them. Or, worse yet, that we are Rude. So I am going to try to rectify that by sitting down this weekend with our 150+ List, our antiquated Filemaker Pro program, and maybe a little whiskey (which could also help my stupid cold?) and, well - the last 2 years' of Holiday Letters, which we actually did write but never managed to send? and were waiting for final edits because Delia thinks my drafts are too long & too personal, while I think hers are too stiff & formal? because her target audience is her school headmistress (who still sends personal notes addressed to each in a fine italic hand) and mine is, oh, I dunno, everyone? So last year we got as far as deciding that we would make the switch over from mailing dozens of nicely-decorated sheets of updates to just e-mailing them (the coward's way out, as I know that I am mostly too busy around now to open the enclosures that my other friends send me - whereas if they mail me something, it will at least turn up on the breakfast table competing with the pile of New Yorkers & Village Voices....)Oh god. Maybe we should just go back to sending out attractive little pictures with pre-stamped greetings of General Good Will. But then how will anyone know what's become of us? Am I overthinking this? The sub-categories are boundless: 1) Cards to elders to show we care. 2) Letters to elders & friends who don't read LJ or Facebook, but who care & should be kept informed & we don't want to lose touch with. 3) The same in foreign countries, but try to figure out who we needs to be updated but we can just send them an e-version instead... Oh no head explosion now.
Moving right along (I did begin this post 12 hours ago):
Thank you,
otterdance (née Lynn Flewelling), for your link to (and excerpts from) Chuck Wendig's, um, revised version of The Writer's Prayer - I particularly like:Every word journey is a Journey West. I am Lewis, and I am Clark. I am not the Donner Party.
I recognize that writing a novel is hard. And I don’t give a lemur’s left foot. I don’t give a good goddamn. I don’t give two shits in a wicker basket. The best things in life are hard. Like hunting pterodactyls. Like getting married.
In other news: A review of Troll's Eye View has finally mentioned my story. Finally. At last. Tangentially. But there it is. We live for these little triumphs.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-12-19 05:00 am (UTC)Keep on being your awesome selves!
xx
no subject
Date: 2010-12-19 05:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-19 06:36 am (UTC)And that part was my favorite too. Also "Like making a golem who will build a robot who will raise your robot children."
And hey, I mentioned your story! (Though it wasn't exactly a review, also I am doubly biased, as a relative and a fellow Oldest):
http://parentsblog.scholastic.com/librarian_mom/2009/07/the-responsible-ones.html
no subject
Date: 2010-12-19 06:21 pm (UTC)incinerate staggering ratiocination louis vuitton condom photos woo ,
Date: 2012-05-19 09:54 am (UTC)