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edenfalling1. A few days ago, someone did another non-traditional poetry installation. It consists of a series of clear plastic bags, filled with water, tied to the railing along Cascadilla Creek between Tioga St. and Aurora St. Inside each bag is a short poem.
This is not as reader-friendly as the poems tied to the shrubbery from a couple weeks back. For one thing, these poems are handwritten, which makes them slightly harder to read in the best of circumstances. Some of the inks bled into the water, staining the bags interesting colors but rendering the poems completely invisible. Some poems have partially disintegrated. Some poems twisted in the bags so they are curled up and, again, impossible to read. Even the ones that are both in clear water and facing in a visible direction are difficult to read, because of the creases in the plastic bags and the refraction of the water.
But it's a nice idea, and the two poems I've been able to read were interesting.
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2. I filled in for my absent co-teacher at church today. I was expecting to teach a lesson on Beltane, but when I received the lesson plan on Saturday, I discovered that the curriculum had been adjusted.
We did a lesson on Earth Day instead.
Now, this is less far-fetched for UUs than for many other religions -- we do, after all, include "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part" as one of our Seven Principles -- but still. I was under the impression that Earth Day is a secular thing. *sigh*
Also, I have now led guided meditation twice, and I have led basic yoga exercises. This is not at all what I am used to in a religious education program!
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3. I'm still poking away at "Intervention," which is now at 11,450 words. I actually wrote more than that tonight, but I also rewrote some previous scenes to tie in better with current and future plot threads, and to give Jahiem a few lines via ship-to-ship com, which required me to cut about 150 words from a scene to remove a suddenly extraneous com conversation.
"Intervention" requires a lot of thought and logistical planning: to keep track of who is where doing what when, to track who knows what when, to make sure the characters' actions are practical, to integrate technology into the plot or explain the absence of tools that should be in use, to hopefully not violate physics and biology too badly, and to clue in readers what's happened in the time jumps between scenes. I am very glad I am writing it all of a piece rather than trying to serialize it, because I keep running into things that I need to have laid groundwork for in previous sections, and every time I go back and stick that groundwork in, I have to make two or three other adjustments to pick up the logical consequences. It's like putting together a puzzle, only each time I slot another piece in, the other pieces change shape around it. *beats head against desk*
Also, when I'm finally done I will have to go back and work in some more descriptions of people dying, of the Cordites dealing with the sick and the dead, and the Red Cross people having, you know, emotional reactions to the tragedy they find themselves in the middle of. Because right now, it's a rather dry story -- there's some worry, and a fair amount of people expressing anger because it's easier to get angry than to break down crying (and also, they are genuinely angry at the way the Cordites are dealing with the plague and their attempts to help, and at the mineral Macguffin's interference with their diagnostic technology), but there should be more depth.
But I would like to get the actual plot finished before I do too much elaboration work on scenes (or puzzle pieces) that may well get shuffled around a lot more before I am done.
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4. The new ink cartridges did indeed seem to fix my printer, so apparently the problem with the black ink was just a dud cartridge. :-/ Anyway, this means I ought to finally print ch. 14 of "Secrets" and edit it. Except, oh god, I do not want to deal with that right now. I really, really don't. I don't even know why, but every time I think of that I have this... I dunno, non-physical total body flinch.
Very weird. I should buckle down and edit it anyway. Perhaps Wednesday, which I have off from work?
This is not as reader-friendly as the poems tied to the shrubbery from a couple weeks back. For one thing, these poems are handwritten, which makes them slightly harder to read in the best of circumstances. Some of the inks bled into the water, staining the bags interesting colors but rendering the poems completely invisible. Some poems have partially disintegrated. Some poems twisted in the bags so they are curled up and, again, impossible to read. Even the ones that are both in clear water and facing in a visible direction are difficult to read, because of the creases in the plastic bags and the refraction of the water.
But it's a nice idea, and the two poems I've been able to read were interesting.
-----
2. I filled in for my absent co-teacher at church today. I was expecting to teach a lesson on Beltane, but when I received the lesson plan on Saturday, I discovered that the curriculum had been adjusted.
We did a lesson on Earth Day instead.
Now, this is less far-fetched for UUs than for many other religions -- we do, after all, include "respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part" as one of our Seven Principles -- but still. I was under the impression that Earth Day is a secular thing. *sigh*
Also, I have now led guided meditation twice, and I have led basic yoga exercises. This is not at all what I am used to in a religious education program!
-----
3. I'm still poking away at "Intervention," which is now at 11,450 words. I actually wrote more than that tonight, but I also rewrote some previous scenes to tie in better with current and future plot threads, and to give Jahiem a few lines via ship-to-ship com, which required me to cut about 150 words from a scene to remove a suddenly extraneous com conversation.
"Intervention" requires a lot of thought and logistical planning: to keep track of who is where doing what when, to track who knows what when, to make sure the characters' actions are practical, to integrate technology into the plot or explain the absence of tools that should be in use, to hopefully not violate physics and biology too badly, and to clue in readers what's happened in the time jumps between scenes. I am very glad I am writing it all of a piece rather than trying to serialize it, because I keep running into things that I need to have laid groundwork for in previous sections, and every time I go back and stick that groundwork in, I have to make two or three other adjustments to pick up the logical consequences. It's like putting together a puzzle, only each time I slot another piece in, the other pieces change shape around it. *beats head against desk*
Also, when I'm finally done I will have to go back and work in some more descriptions of people dying, of the Cordites dealing with the sick and the dead, and the Red Cross people having, you know, emotional reactions to the tragedy they find themselves in the middle of. Because right now, it's a rather dry story -- there's some worry, and a fair amount of people expressing anger because it's easier to get angry than to break down crying (and also, they are genuinely angry at the way the Cordites are dealing with the plague and their attempts to help, and at the mineral Macguffin's interference with their diagnostic technology), but there should be more depth.
But I would like to get the actual plot finished before I do too much elaboration work on scenes (or puzzle pieces) that may well get shuffled around a lot more before I am done.
-----
4. The new ink cartridges did indeed seem to fix my printer, so apparently the problem with the black ink was just a dud cartridge. :-/ Anyway, this means I ought to finally print ch. 14 of "Secrets" and edit it. Except, oh god, I do not want to deal with that right now. I really, really don't. I don't even know why, but every time I think of that I have this... I dunno, non-physical total body flinch.
Very weird. I should buckle down and edit it anyway. Perhaps Wednesday, which I have off from work?
