What, if anything, are your New Year Resolutions? Given that my book Siege of Stars is getting panned by nearly everyone who chooses to comment on it (most readers retaining a dignified silence for fear of hurting my feelings) I have resolved not to do too much extracurricular writing in 2009. So, what shall I do instead? Already, my diary is filling up.
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I, Editor by Henry Gee
This is the Nature Network and therefore Terribly Extremely Very Serious foothold for Nature Senior Editor Henry Gee. If you want fun and games, visit http://cromercrox.blogspot.com/
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2009: Note To Self
- Date:
- Monday, 22 Dec ember 2008 - 12:05 UTC
In case you’ve been living in a cardboard box on Mars recently, 2009 is Darwin Year, so I expect to be involved in a variety of Darwiniana in the coming months. In fact, I have been deeply involved in two editorial projects involving the Great Man, so I am in danger of being Darwinned Out even before the momentous anniversary takes place.
Outside office hours I intend to do more music. My excursions with Stone Pony are always enjoyable, so I hope to play as many gigs with them as they’ll allow me (next up is the King’s Head in Letheringsett on the Saturday after Christmas – see you there!) and there might be more moves afoot with Antic Hey, the Stone Pony side-project whose debut CD Blue Horizon looks like it might emerge from the mastering suite some time soon.
Apart from that, the Jardin Des Girrafes needs a lot of work. When we bought the house just over two years ago, it had a lovely lawn, but we have since learned that it stays lovely provided nobody walks on it. The garden doesn’t receive sufficient sunshine to regenerate it quickly enough to offset the damage of people and animals. For six months of the year it looks like a recreation of Passchendaele, complete with craters dug by Heidi …
with help from Beelzebun Demon Bunny of DOOM, the world’s first egg-laying rabbit …
… and her avian friends.
This year’s big project, therefore, will be to abandon all thoughts of lawns and, instead, remodel the garden with gravel paths (all weather, nonslip) and dog-proof shrubs. Verily, I shall be Roger the Shrubber.
Some friendly diversion will take place in February with CISB09, which I’ll think about more once I’ve put to bed the next issue of Mallorn; thought about the session I’m meant to be co-leading at ScienceOnline09; finalized forthcoming foreign trips; fleshed out a keynote speech to a small SF convention … and … and …
Did I mention my diary was filling up?
Last updated: Monday, 22 Dec 2008 - 12:05 UTC
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Comments
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What? Oh, I actually enjoyed it. My only criticism would be the lack of dramatic tension: the characters are plodding through the plot to get to the next bit. But I think the solution is to write the rest of the trilogy, complete with drama and cliff-hangers, and then sell the whole thing as one big
bonkblockbuster.You should also buy a cow, so you can also fill up your dairy.
I wasn’t fishing for compliments, Bob, honest …. :)
At this very moment Siege is being critically edited by a couple of good friends (they know who they are), one with the appropriate medication, the other with a strait jacket, so another edition might be in prospect. The other two volumes have been written (of copurse!) but will need a couple of rounds of editing before they see the light of day.
Mrs Gee and I wouldn’t mind a cow, though alpacas are the ungulate of choice among Norfolk smallholders. At the moment I have fenced off a part of the Jardin Des Girrafes with a view to remodeling it in a relatively dog-, chicken- and bunny-free environment. Mrs Gee took one look at this enclousre and wondered about the thrill of fear that this
erectionconstruction might have caused amongst our neighbours. She has dubbed it the ‘llamery’.The whole trilogy would make a fairly hefty doorstop (though still only half as long as The Lord Of The Rings.
The other two volumes have been written (of copurse!) but will need a couple of rounds of editing
enclousre …
… as will my comments. Why is it that some typos always seem to get free?
I have fenced off a part of the Jardin Des Girrafes with a view to remodeling it in a relatively dog-, chicken- and bunny-free environment. Mrs Gee took one look at this enclousr
If you have fenced off a part of the Jardin to keep dogs, chicken and bunnies out, it would be an exclosure .
Happy gardening in 2009!
Raf – you are entirely right, of course. I stand corrected.
Damn – I thought you were going to announce plans to regenerate your lawn and then I could have copied!
Henry, I realise the email I sent you about a month ago must have been to the wrong address. Anyway, here’s my reaction:
Henry, I allowed myself to be distracted from what I should have been doing long enough not only to read right through “Siege” but also the e-versions of parts 2 and 3.
WELL! The ending is definitely a (gentle) poke in the eye for Christians (and the dead shall be raised incorruptible) but even a nudge for the Judaists. On the other hand, I am very happy with sex, but less so with violence, and most unhappy when the two meet. After reading about the Royal C*** … well, I’m too old to have nightmares about this sort of thing, but I still have a strong desire to take out my imagination and give it a thorough scrubbing with carbolic soap. I find that the whole thing is a bit of a ramble, and a mildly disorientating one – I suppose it could be tightened up … BUT I kept on reading, which is fairly unusual for me if I don’t have an ulterior motive e.g. review in mind, especially when it’s on my PC screen and not hard copy.
We have to use the exclosure strategy fairly frequently here, with the horses. Semiarid region, and horses are rough on the land and the vegetation in any case. Doesn’t help when one of them is an escape artist, and thinks that the grass is always greener, the mares are friendlier, etc.
My New Year Resolutions are still at the primordial stage, but most involve writing and submitting manuscripts, or, like Henry’s, working in the yard. I plan to finish building the dry streambed in back (mainly involves hauling rocks), and have a small porch added on to the house. A couple of raised beds for vegetable and herb gardening would be nice too.
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Hmmm….
Spam, earlier today, possibly
@ David: you deserve a medal, which may be redeemed in the form of a libation of your choice next time we’re
propping up the barattending a Tolkien Society meeting somewhere or another.I’m too old to have nightmares about this sort of thing, but I still have a strong desire to take out my imagination and give it a thorough scrubbing with carbolic soap
I remember writing that scene, in that it set me up nicely for a difficult day at the office. But seriously, I doubt whether anything in the Sigil is any worse than real atrocities that go on in the real world, all the time.
@ Kristi: I plan to finish building the dry streambed in back (mainly involves hauling rocks), and have a small porch added on to the house. A couple of raised beds for vegetable and herb gardening would be nice too.
Is your dry streambed a real stream, or is it more of an ornamental; feature, like a ha-ha?
I am going to check Web of Science right now to look for the latest paper by Wow Gold et al.
Gold W, Ewing K, Banks J, et al. (2006) Collaborative ecological restoration. SCIENCE 312: 1880-1881. Cited by JB Zedler (2007 Ecol Rest), who, aamof, also cites me.
Well, you can always have the Spam, wow gold, baked beans, and Spam. That hasn’t got much Spam in it.
Henry, not a ha-ha. The dry streambed is built around a swale; it runs across it, and then along the slope and upper edge. The swale drains several adjacent yards, and is necessary because of the way water moves, rather than soaks in, when it does rain here.
is necessary because of the way water moves, rather than soaks in, when it does rain here
I see. Here it just rains. And rains. And then, when it’s done raining, it rains some more. The Maison Des Girrafes is a quag for the winter, so the gravel paths will be necessary just to get between the house and the chicken coop without slipping up.
Maybe you could use one of these:
I will eat no Spam in the coming year.
Actually I intend less freakout, more sleep, more travel, more company of adults, more music. Also more enjoyment of my child, which isn’t something you really do intentionally, but she’s old enough now that the no:conversation ratio has edged into very pleasant territory.
Things have calmed down here enough that for the first time in, oh, maybe five years I can go about my work in a sane manner instead of hedging frantically. In the midst of all the problems with the ex’s illness and the sudden divorce, I had no idea what line would win, so I threw myself into a bunch of things at once — a potential career in academia, a freelance career, a nonfiction book that showed up and said “write me”, the custody nonsense, caregiving and forays into the social-service system. It worked (except the last), but I wouldn’t want to go through it again.
There’s a decided job slowdown coming after January, which is fine by me; yes, the money will be tight (more than tight if things don’t pick up by March or April), but (because I’m thick) I just realized that my main clients are doing what they can to throw work my way until things pick up. In the meantime, though -and this may sound odd to those accustomed to salaried work – it’s a great relief not to have to put on the middle-class suburban charade.
I spent 15 years living as a starvingartist before I married and had a child. I thought it was great, but he starvingartist life’s not terrific for kids. So I’ve done the necessary to keep the house, drag the child hither/yon, ferry her to activities and lessons where the other kids were, all this baloney. It’s been an exhausting double life. But now – hey! – no money, no onslaught of work, no suburban utopia full of dance lessons and gymnastics camp, no point in sending college money to the brokerage. Much easier, much nicer. Won’t last forever, but I intend to enjoy the break, rest up, and get some work done while it does.
Speaking of nice, the grocery stores here are full of Mexican food now, so I bought some “peanut marzipan” yesterday. Delish. Tastes a lot like the peanut butter frosting I used to make for myself when I came home from school, unbeknownst to parents, in jr. hi school.