Limbo
I had a really good day on PEGASUS yesterday.* Today I’ve had a bloody awful one—the kind of day when it takes you an hour to write a sentence and then it’s the wrong sentence.** Yesterday I reached the end of part one*** which is roughly the halfway point, and is also the point at which things start going a little ropey—the point at which I had to go into super-galvanised, never mind continuity now,† we have a deadline mode, last time through. †† So I was thinking okay, great, I’m now girded for battle, today we will sally forth to the sound of trumpets.††† And then out hurtling this morning I thought of two or three small matters I could improve upon in the first half ‡, swanned down to the mews for lunch planning to knock them off in half an hour . . . and staggered to my feet again at 4:30 having gotten almost nothing done—having certainly not got started on the second half—to zap back to the cottage and HOUSECLEAN‡‡ because the day I don’t shovel out the upstairs hall, hoover the stairs and clean the bathtub will be the day they both go upstairs for a pee. It being Thursday, which is to say handbell practise.‡‡‡
Which reminds me, you never saw The Brown Velvet Jacket. But nobody at the wedding did either: this was the reality of the thing. 
(The bulge in the pocket is gloves.)
The overcoat I bought for $10 at one of those grotty used-clothing stores on Canal Street in lower Manhattan several million years ago, although even several million years ago $10 was cheap for an overcoat.
I felt like a complete twit Saturday morning, which was a beautiful autumn-mild day (when Niall picked me up he was in his shirtsleeves), but I told myself sternly, it’s October, and you’re going to be standing around endlessly outdoors. And I was extremely glad I’d been wimpish and irrational because it was cold—one of those niggling, sniggering little you-thought-it-was-mild autumn breezes keeping us company. There were four of us this time—Daniel came along—and I apologise for not having any photos of the event itself, but there was a certain grumbling in the ranks after last time and I don’t want to press anyone too far.§ But never mind the handbell ringers: the bride’s dress was to die for. Not only did it have sleeves§§ but it was fitted tight around the waist with a series of little fat white-satin-covered buttons up the back, and the skirt fell down in great drifts caught up in little ruched waves held in place with big white satin roses. Almost made me want to get married again.§§§
But you’ll have to make do with the brown velvet jacket. 
(It really annoys me that my beautiful deep purple shoes are coming out lilac. It’s a nice lilac, but the shoes are PURPLE.)
Good velvet roses.
* * *
* Ferret magic, possibly.
** But there’s nothing interesting in the want ads. I’m sure I don’t want to know what a ‘delicatessen development co-ordinator’ is. There’s also an ad for a housekeeper in a ‘care home’ which reads: ‘Can you clean? Are you a perfectionist?’ A perfectionist? Dear gods. If you are, please don’t waste it on floors. Clean enough to eat off of is plenty.
*** Or part two, depending on how you’re counting. It’s either two parts or four. When it was still all one book, the end of what is now the first book was the end of part one.
† So the heroine had pink hair on page 27 and green hair on page 84! So she redyed it!
†† And speaking of deadlines . . . various people are at some pains to point out that Putnams gave me more than enough rope to hang myself by letting me turn PEGASUS in in October . . . and it’s unfinished? I want more time? Am I sure there isn’t anything interesting in the want ads? Something like delicatessen development co-ordinator? So the publishing oracle now says, in the nebulous way of oracles, get the finished version in as soon as I can and they’ll see. Gah. So keep those candles burning please. If they meant to say forget it, they’d’ve said forget it. So we’ve still got the pedal down for autumn ’10. But . . .
††† Not so much trumpets. More of a bad mezzo-soprano facsimile having a go at There Is a Tavern in the Town.
‡ One of the frellers in any novel—one of the frellers in any of my novels anyway—is seeding the clever ideas I didn’t have till page a hundred and twelve through the first hundred and eleven pages. And remembering to continue to drop references to the blinding flashes of insight I had into plot, character, tone, theme, aim, the purpose of the alligators who demanded to be added to chapter two, etc, through the rest of the book, instead of forgetting them around about page a hundred and twelve because I had this clever idea. . . . It’s like singing through your eyes^, the business of gllrrtzzing a story together: perverse and inexplicable. I’ve never ‘had’ a clever idea that felt like mine; they always feel like ‘you moron what took you so long?’ About the only thing I’m allowed to claim is acknowledging that I’m being kicked in the head by a story, and choosing to try to write it down. Before it kills me.
^ See Tuesday’s entry
‡‡ I am not a perfectionist. And I wouldn’t waste it on floors anyway.
‡‡‡ B twin, we’re waiting.
§ Well. I can’t think of anything you could do to Niall to make him drop you if you’ll ring handbells with him. Let the air out of his tyres (repeatedly), bear false witness about him to his boss, teach his wife to play the bagpipes. Whatever. You ring handbells, Niall’s your friend. But I don’t want to tick Colin off; he’s the first third regular local handbell ringer we’ve had in a long time.
§§ I so don’t get the monumental fashion for strapless wedding gowns. Sue me: it’s not a good look for most women.
§§§ Peter and I aren’t really the re-taking of vows type—our twentieth comes up year after next—and it’s probably just as well I’d look extremely silly in a traditional wedding gown at my age. Well . . . what about the same dress in cranberry satin?
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