Sendout insanity!

I've done it: another story (I'm not double-counting the resubmission of a story that seems to have gotten lost -- that still only counts as one), and two queries to agents about my second novel* have put me up to 13 sendouts. That's an all-time high, and more than my goal of a dozen. This is a very good and useful bit of preparation for NaNoWriMo.

I'm quite looking forward to NaNo again this year. I love the exuberance of it, I love the writing-for-the-joy-of-writing. I love the camaraderie. I love writing with abandon!

Can't wait!

*There is no need to inquire about the fate of the first novel. No, really. Please just don't.

Momentum

I just checked my sendout log, and it's official: I currently have ten — ten — pieces out at once. It's not the dozen I'm aiming for, but it's more than I've had out at once for a very long time (maybe even for ever). The pieces include two short plays (one serious, one funny, at least I think it's funny); two stories out to anthologies; five stories out to serial markets; and one radio play/podcast play.

In a few days I get started on my NaNo novel, so I'll be spending those few days outlining, and also doing my best to increase that sendout count to a nice big fat number so that as many pieces as possible are out seeking their fortune while I'm otherwise occupied. That's the good thing about sendouts: realio, trulio writing work is happening while you're actually doing other things! (I'm reminded of a television ad from my youth where a woman is playing tennis, reading, shopping, etc., and in each shot she turns to the camera and says smugly, "I'm cleaning my bathroom bowl!" TMI, honey.)

More Milford feng shui for writers.

Here's just another symptom of Milford being the Writers' Town: Seventh Street Coffee. (No web site, imagine!) This is the best place ever to sit and write. You can get tea in a mug as big as your head for just over a dollar, and they have free wifi, and the staff are all really nice and helpful, and there is this big huge wooden table to sit at and work. And they play interesting music in the background, and it's usually not too loud. And you can walk to it from my mom's house. I always get tons of work done here, and so does Houston, and so does Margaret.

Here are some photos:




One is driven to wonder which came first: all the writerly amenities and feng shui in Milford, or all the writers for whom the amenities and feng shui are so well suited. Either way, I'm not complaining.

Yesterday I got no writing done at all, however, for it was my birthday, and my husband and child and I went into NYC to see Spamalot. Seeing as it seems to be on its last legs, and it sank without a ripple in Melbourne after a run of about a month, we reckoned this would probably be our last chance. It was a very fun show! Not too profound, and most of the script is cribbed directly from Holy Grail, so some of the jokes were less piquant than they might have been had I not been laughing at them for thirty years. Still, the set was cool, the lighting was cool, the choreography was very camp and fun, the acting and singing were terrific — a good evening!



While we were walking around the city before the show, we happened across the studio where The Colbert Report is filmed. (Sadly, it was deserted, as this was a Sunday.) We're all three fans of the show, so we had to take photos, didn't we?



Well, it would be a shame to waste time in 7th Street Coffee by not writing stories, so — back to work!

Please welcome to the blogosphere...Margaret Dunleavy!

Today is Margaret's thirteenth birthday, and in accordance with Blogger rules, she may now open a Blogger account and start a blog. After a family discussion, we decided together that, for now at least, it needs to be an invitation-only blog, rather than an everybody-can-read-this blog. If you'd like to read it, then, please let me or Margaret (or Houston) know, and Margaret will send you an invitation. She is a fine writer, with a startling sense of humor, and I'm sure you'll enjoy reading her posts and observing her tumultuous progress through adolescence.

More on the giants of Flanders.

Check this out!



There's a seriously rockin' band at about the 56-second mark, and a chase scene at 2:30. And some fabulous puppetry at 1:07 and 3:52.

(We actually stopped off in this town — Steenvorde — during our travels in Flanders.)

Is it any wonder I so completely love the giants of Flanders?

Before there was steampunk....

...there was waterpunk!

Here is an example: the Upper Mill* in Milford, Pennsylvania:



I tried to take a movie of the wheels in action, but I haven't spent a lot of time using the movie function of my camera so it didn't turn out so good. I'll try again later in the week and see what I can get for you.

*Strictly speaking, this mill postdates the advent of steam power. But it didn't use steam power; it used unheated water power. Which is waterpunk, as far as I'm concerned. I think I feel a story coming on.

Milford Feng Shui

The town of Milford, Pennsylvania is a hotbed of creativity, particularly for writers of speculative fiction. I am not making this up. The workshop method that later became Clarion and similar workshops was invented here by Damon Knight and other spec-fic authors of quite a bit of renown. Not only that, but plenty of artists, filmmakers, and musicians have found that Milford is good for their productivity.

Houston and I tend to find the same thing. For example, today I sent out three pieces. I haven't done three sendouts in one day in months and months. One of those was a newly finished piece — I haven't finished a piece in about two months, either.

Wanna see why Milford is so good for the artist's soul? I took these photos yesterday as Margaret and I were walking around. (I think I took all of them; one might be Margaret's.)






And that's just a sample of the amazing foliage (as well as the less transitory scenery). And it's quiet. And small. And pretty much everything is within walking distance. And I'm in the middle of cooking another fabulous meal for my mom (boeuf bourguignon with ricotta-and-parmesan mashed potatoes, and Margaret helped me make some pumpkin pie, which we will have with whipped cream). Life is good here. And my productivity levels are soaring.

Home? Yes and no.

See these people grinning along with Houston and me? These are some of my friends who still live in the DC area. They're a big part of the reason I keep making sure I get a visit to DC in as part of our America trips. No matter how long we stay in DC, no matter how many lunch dates and beer nights we shoehorn into each visit, we never, ever get to see everyone — and that always hurts. But even that hurt is proof of the friendships that persist across years and years, and miles and miles.

DC is always full, full, full of things to do. When we first got in, Houston had a gig in Baltimore, so we incorporated a visit to Fells Point. Here's the famous Bertha's:



And, to continue a theme:



We also spent a bit of time in the really, really pretty and way-historic town of Ellicott City, where I took this photo of Margaret:



In other running around, we also took in the always-fun Maryland Renaissance Festival, an event that has particular resonance for and relevance to Houston, who spent one season as one of their paid actors. ("You mean those...those are actors? Not...obliging medieval time-travellers?") Highlights for Margaret included jousting and elephant rides (she watched the jousting and rode the elephant):





One of the highlights for me (apart from the unlimited supply of greasy food) was the Scottish band Albannach. If you go to their website, you can listen (free!) to their music stream. They sound way cool on recordings, but they're electric in person. I need to drop an email on the site asking whether they'd consider a tour to Australia, because I'd sure like to hear them again. Here's the best photo I could get; they move around so much when they perform that the others were kind of blurry:



The music isn't exactly slavishly traditional; instead, they beef up the drumming and the physicality, and the whole thing just rocks. If you get a chance to see them live, I recommend doing so!

The question hovers: do I still consider DC to be my home? The short answer is, as long as I still have friends here, yes. And no. It's changed since I left. And I also have friends elsewhere — DC friends who have moved away, Australian friends, net buddies who live in the aether with me. What is home? What is location?

You can order Canterbury 2100 from Australia now!

Go here: http://girliejones.livejournal.com/1097609.html. Order Canterbury 2100. Read my story, and the other ones. Life will be good.

Some travels other than my own.

The BBC is conducting an experiment: they've branded a shipping container with the BBC logo and installed a GPS in it. They're letting it be fed into the normal shipping lanes of the world, just like any other shipping container, and they're tracking where it goes. Wild! I love it!

Here's the story, and here's the map of its journey so far. And here is the Home of the Box. (It has a link to a video clip on how shipping containers have changed the world.)

As I write, the Box is in the middle of the Arabian Sea, after having spent a few days in the UK and some time on a ship that's been going through Gibralter and Suez. Where will it go next, and where after that? What does that say about trading patterns, and, by extension, all patterns of human interaction?

*sigh* I love geography.

Flanders: big hearts and other giants

Flanders — the region that spreads across nothern France, Belgium, and a bit of the Netherlands — is, globally speaking, a very small package. But when you open it up, out springs so much diversity, so much zest, so many complications, that you are forced to realize it's far bigger on the inside than on the outside.

I've already written about our adventures in Lille and Ghent (or whichever spelling you prefer), which are in French Flanders and Belgian Flanders respectively. On Friday we went to Cassel, a town built on a 600-foot hill that would be little more than a pimple on the landscape anywhere else. In Flanders, it's a veritable Olympus. Here's a photo of the view from the top. The photo is not so special in itself, but see how straight the road is. That one little kink closer to the hill just begs for explanation, compared to the laser straightness of the rest of the road. Alas! No explanation is immediately forthcoming.



The utter flatness all around explains both the historic importance of Cassel (it's been fought over since Roman times) and the ease with which the region has been overrun again and again. While there's nowhere for an approaching enemy to hide, there's also no way to stop them approaching except for long and bitter wars of attrition. And that, in turn, starts to explain the strangely complex social, linguistic, architectural, and political circumstances and tensions of today's Flanders. There are two main language groups — French-speakers and Flemish-speakers; you probably already knew that. But there are also accents and dialects within both, including a Latin-based dialect of (mainly) French, called "Ch'ti" (after one of its quirks of pronunciation). I was unable to fully get the nuances of local opinion about Ch'ti, as my French is (to put it as kindly as one can) not nuanced at all. But I did get the impression that it's somewhat looked down upon, even as it is undergoing a renaissance; for example, there's a bit of militancy about wanting it taught in schools.

The linguistic differences both symbolize and exacerbate political tensions in the region. They involve issues of whether a particular linguistic group can ever consider itself to be treated fairly if its language does not have equal status; historic defensiveness based on whether one "feels" French or Belgian or Flemish (or Ch'ti, for that matter); mutual suspicion based on conflicting definitions of who is allowed to consider themselves truly Flemish; even (slightly more good-natured) banter about whose beer or ham or waffles are the best. (I, myself, would be happy to keep sampling until I reach a decision; I reckon it might take me, oh, about a hundred years of diligent effort.)

My karate teacher said to me once, "Our greatest strengths are our greatest weaknesses." And it works the other way, too, particularly in the case of Flanders. Their greatest weakness might be how passionate they are about their identity. But that's a strength as well: that very passion makes them warm (and instant) friends, proud of their culture and eager to share it. Our day in Cassel was characterized by spending time (and drinking beer) with some of the most ebullient people I've met, who were part of the Albert Roussel Music Festival. This festival was the reason we were in the area: Houston was a composer-in-residence, and was having a piece performed that evening. The performance went really well! (I'm so proud of my husband.)

While we were in Cassel, I picked up a book on the giants of Flanders. This is a regional tradition whereby each little (and big) town builds, maintains, and carries in festivals these huge effigies. Each town has at least one of its own, sometimes more (two of Cassel's are Reuze Papa and Reuze Maman — loosely translated, "Big Daddy" and "Big Mama.") Here are some photos, snurched from Wikimedia Commons so I don't think I'm doing anything wrong....





Sort of like the crewes of New Orleans, each town has its group of people who take charge of building, maintaining, and carrying the giants. Here, for example, is the site of the Friends of Fromulus, one of the Steenvorde giants (we passed through Steenvorde during our time in Flanders). For me, these giants are symbolic of Flanders in many ways: intensely local, intensely cooperative, requiring and engendering great exuberance and flair. A countryside that can contain such creatures must be large of heart, if not perhaps of land area. I love the Giants of Flanders completely.

The next day we ventured back into Belgium (although the border is a political fiction, really: the land on one side is indistinguishable from that on the other, except that the road signs swap from French to Flemish), starting off with a visit to Ypres (Ieper), the central point of years of horrific and bloody stalemate during World War I. Here's where the reality of the war of attrition sets in: every half-mile or so (or at least it seems so), there is another small cemetery with a few hundred more bodies buried, and neatly marked with identical gravestones. Thousands and thousands — hundreds of thousands, all up. And these are only the British Commonwealth solders: not the Belgian, French, or (dare I say it) German soldiers who also perished in these fields.

Shaking off the gloom with difficulty (not helped by the miserably cold and wet weather, although that did give us a glimpse of what the soldiers had suffered for four years), we drove out to Dikkebus, one of the tiniest towns you can imagine, where there was another Albert Roussel concert. After the concert, we were very kindly invited to stay around and dine with the artists. (Sometimes being Houston's trophy wife yields unexpected benefits, over and above the ones I expect.) I had an evening the likes of which I hadn't had since...oh, since I'd been in the Soviet Union twenty years or more ago. We sang drinking songs together (I'd rather inappropriately taught Margaret a French drinking song back when she was just a little tacker, and the two of us gave a rendition, enthusiastically joined by most of the other people there), ate, talked, exchanged email addresses, laughed at my mistakes in speaking French, laughed about lots of other stuff, ate some more, and finally drove off, cheered and fed, back to Lille.

Today was our last full day in Flanders; tomorrow we go back to Paris to catch our plane to the U.S. We stuck around in Lille, seeing a few sights we hadn't gotten to yet, including the Hospice Comtesse museum. I was particularly taken with some wood carvings that (as far as I could gather) had been architectural elements:





We also went to the fairly ginormous bookstore Le Furet du Nord, where I bought, among other things, a couple of Jules Verne's books (20,000 Leagues and Around the World in 80 Days) in French, which I'm really looking forward to having a go of reading! (We'll just see whether my French has improved while I've been here!)

I'm going to miss Flanders. I feel very at home here (I was especially intrigued with Ghent; I told our friend Luk that if he ever heard of any grants or fellowships that would support an emerging writer for a few months' riotous waffle consumption in Ghent, he was more than welcome to pass my details on to them....

Ghent/Gent/Gand/Gaunt

The city that's never spelled the same way twice! Another bizarre manifestation of northern Europe's complex and troubled history. Today, though, we had a non-complex and untroubled time.

We met up with our friend-from-long-ago, Luk, after an uneventful car trip from Lilles. International borders are less than a formality in the new EU, and it was an interesting experience to have the only indication that we'd entered a different country being the understated "Welcome to Belgium" sign by the side of the road.

At any rate, our first stop under Luk's expert guidance was a street cart where a very nice woman was selling some of the most fantastic hot chocolate I've ever had. She figured out the recipe herself, and I know for sure it had cinnamon, nutmeg, and chili pepper in it (not sure what else), and it was completely invigorating. I need to try and replicate it once we're home!

Then we wandered around a bit, looking mainly at Renaissance-era churches (St. Bavo and St. Nicholas, the former being the city's cathedral) and the ornate and distinctive Flemish architecture. Here are some shots:

The riverside.

Another batch of architecture, with a thousand-year-old castle in the background.

A bit of the interior of St. Nicholas's Church.

Houston and our friend Luk. I asked him if he minded if I posted this photo on my blog. To which he replied, "Is it a blog, or a blague?" I was so proud of myself that I actually got a pun in French ("blague" is French for "joke").

The castle in all its glory.

The tour of the castle — called the Gravensteen — was fascinating. There wasn't a lot in the way of furnishings or explanatory signs, but the castle itself is amazingly well-preserved, and one's imagination can gallop around visualizing tapestries and servants and long wooden tables near the fire and the sound of armored feet on stone floors and the smell of the (very graphically described) latrines. There was also an exhibit of weapons through the ages, as well as a "museum of torture devices," which I actually didn't end up spending much time in, as I found it more than a little disquieting. The experience as a whole, though, was definitely interesting and well within geek territory.

We also focused lots of our energy on food and drink, these being things that the Belgians seem to do extremely well. We purchased some amazing chocolates — sweet and smooth and subtle — and some assorted other candy (like mango-and-strawberry nougat and honey marzipan), which we haven't tried yet. We ate beautiful, crispy, big waffles with whipped cream. We drank more hot chocolate, this time without the spices but with more whipped cream. We had stunningly good beers (emphasis on the "stunning" — I don't recall what the alcohol percentage was, but it was pretty major). And we ended up getting some very nice celery soup (Margaret had tomato) with croutons and cheese, served with rolls and an apple, for our actual dinner. Ghent really knows how to feed people. (So it's not just France that has the good food!)

Most Belgians speak several languages. Luk speaks four or five, maybe more. Oddly, French isn't as common as I would have thought. As the day progressed, and I spent more and more time just speaking English with Luk and Houston and Margaret, and with shopkeepers and restaurant servers (as I don't speak either Flemish, German, or Dutch), I could physically feel my brain slipping back into English-speaking mode. Tomorrow, when I have to wrench it back into French-speaking mode, may end up being a bit of an ordeal. Hopefully it will be an easier transition than it was last week when we arrived in Paris. (It seems to increase the difficulty that I swap between English and French every 30 seconds or so, whether to translate for Houston and Margaret or just to talk with them. It makes it very hard to get into a French-speaking rhythm and stay there. My brain hurts.)

Just a passing thought....

Being in France has awakened me to the life-enhancing properties of consistently good — really good — food and drink at every meal. It genuinely changes your attitudes toward everything: it all seems more manageable, more full of wonderful possibilities.

Sadly, out of all the places I've been, France is the only one that offers such consistent, life-affirming quality of comestibles. That stereotype, at least, is true. Still, perhaps I can make more of an effort, once I'm back home, to source or learn how to make better food. Not just better-tasting (although that, too), but better in all respects: freshness, nutrition, aesthetic enjoyment. And in France it's all so easy!

Sigh.

In other news....

Check out this guy's private, personal library, and weep with me, weep in longing and admiration, weep!

Many surprises in the north of France.

American (or Australian, for that matter) tourists don't often get to the north of France. For the next few days, we're in Lille (info here or here), a city about an hour from the Belgian border. Everyone speaks French, but the architecture is definitely closer to Dutch (an interesting study in the shifting influences in this part of Europe). Here are some shots: one of the main squares (it seems to have two, actually), and one of the very, very old streets. (I'm not sure how old the buildings are, but the streets are medieval-narrow and medieval-convoluted. There is no such thing as "around the block" in that part of town.)




We also had a look at the cathedral, about which opinion seems to be divided; but I found it beautiful and surprisingly understated, considering it was begun in the midst of the Gothic Revival in the 19th Century. I'm hoping we can get to mass there on Sunday. Here are some shots:





In the crypt, they had an exhibit of some of the most powerful religious art I've seen. It wasn't like the art in Notre Dame, in that it was all contemporary, and it wasn't intended to be part of the liturgically based structure and decoration of an actual church. But each work (and there were works by a dozen or more artists) was deeply thoughtful and reflected an agonized wrestling with the questions of how there can be evil in a world created by a loving God, and whether human nature is essentially good and worthy of redemption, or essentially evil and deserving of sorrow — questions I find myself wrestling with on pretty much a daily basis. One artist's Stations of the Cross was one of the most soul-probing works I've ever seen. (No photos — that would be stealing these artists' work, and I don't want to invite bad karma into my creative life!)

If anything, the people in Lille are even more kind and supportive of my efforts at speaking French than the Parisiens. The food continues to be fantastic. Lille is not only a university town, but a European cultural center*, so we all feel right at home. We brought a bottle of good French burgundy back to the hotel room. Life is good.

*Lille was, essentially, written off in the 70s and 80s as a dirty, defunct textile town with no redeeming virtues. Today, it's a town with historical, artistic, scholarly, aesthetic, and gastronomic charms. It's got tons of educational instutitions (including a conservatory), a major orchestra, professional theatre companies, the largest bookstore in Europe (it's definitely on our list for things we must not fail to see while we're here), students, artists, light industry, good transportation networks, etc., etc. Lille — a study in renewal!

Oui, oui, Paris!

Sorry for the delay in posting about Paris. First, we spent lots more time running around seeing things than we'd planned, and second, the Internet connection in the hotel was dodgy at best. Hélas!

But now, back to the travellogue!

We arrived in France on Sunday (I think), too late to do much except stumble blearily over to the restaurant in the hotel next to ours (ours didn't have one that was open for dinner, and it would not have been particularly opulent if it had). Oh, what an introduction to France was that meal! My order was simple: a shepherd's pie — stewed beef in wine sauce, covered in mashed potato. Its execution, however, catapulted me into Food Heaven. It was...perfect. Perfect. Margaret had the same, and agreed. Houston had the salmon lasagne, and his, too, was perfect. The moral of the story: if you must prioritize your expenditures in France, spend your money on food first, lodging and tourism a distant second.

The next day we started off looking at the Cathédral de Notre Dame. I have never, ever, ever in my whole entire life seen such an absolutely remarkable and astounding conglomeration of religious art — and good religious art at that. I've spent most of my life sitting in, standing in, praying in, singing in, peering into, churches, and I've never seen anything even remotely like this. Here are some shots:









We spent the rest of the day wandering around the Latin Quarter, a district of great antiquity, full of densely packed and complex streets (including some heartbreakingly expensive stationery shops). We also walked a bit on the north side of the Seine, which is a bit less quirky, but also very interesting. I was heartened to find that my French, which has lain almost unused in a musty wooden chest somewhere in my mind for 25 years, is still fairly serviceable, and that it kept getting better as the day wore on. All those semesters slaving away at Georgetown to pass my French proficiency exam were not wasted!

The next day we started on the north bank, paying a visit to l'Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique, a bit of a pilgrimage for Houston (and something that probably qualified this day for inclusion on the Geek's Tour). Right outside the office is a fountain the length and breadth of a swimming pool:




We ate crèpes the diameter of New York pizzas, folded around a thick smear of Nutella and sliced bananas. I thought I'd never eat again (turns out I was wrong). Then it was off to the Eiffel Tower. Big tower. Cold winds. Great view. Crowded elevators. Global icon. What more can I say?




Just to continue a theme, we paid a visit to Shakespeare & Company, the famous English-language bookshop. I know, I know, it's not the original, Hemingway-and-all-that Shakespeare & Company, but it's still pretty famous. It's right by the St Michel metro station, and from its door you look straight across the Seine to Notre Dame, which you need to know, because if you start to ask around as to where it is, you'll get as many answers as the number of people you ask. Particularly if your French is only so-so. (Or, in my case, not even that — more like merely so.)



For dinner, we ventured back into the Latin Quarter (which, after all, is literally just a few steps away) and found a Moroccan restaurant. FABULOUS.

By the way, something needs to be said here. There is a stereotype I've heard repeated many, many times (as stereotypes often are) that Parisiens are nasty to tourists, nasty to foreigners in general, nasty to those who dare to attempt to speak their beloved language. Note to all my readers (and I hope you spread the word): this stereotype is crap. Crap. Yes, there were some brusque and nasty people, but aren't there in every city? For the most part, just about everyone was helpful, compassionate, even indulgent about my not-quite-adequate French. And they were thrilled to hear Margaret have a go at speaking French (which she studied for a few weeks this year at school). They didn't show a trace of irritation when Houston resorted to English. So now you know.