Apr. 8th, 2009

lauraanne_gilman: (meerkat coffee)
Brain never really engaged on Tuesday, so after taking Pandora to the vet, I gave up and dealt with a lot of small pending things. Y'know, filing, cleaning, laundry, answering e-mails, culling the pile of magazines TBR, figuring out what wines I'll be taking with me for the Seder Thursday night....

Also had some back-and-forth with Madame Editrix about the cover for Hard Magic. At this point, urban fantasy has a look that seems as carved-in-stone as Scottish romances, but there really is such a thing as too much over-identification, and I asked, rather plaintively, if we couldn't get away from the overt trappings, just a bit?

Some ideas were bandied about, and a compromise that I rather like was floated, but it will all depend on Voices Other Than Mine having their say. In a perfect world, the cover for Hard Magic would be a shot of Bonnie working a la the opening credits of CSI, only with a swirl of magic replacing whatever technical apparatus they were using, and No. Leather. Anywhere.

Also; no tats, midriffs, or high heeled anything. In the books, she is far more likely to be wearing cargo pants, engineer's boots, and a long-sleeved baby tee.

We'll see, the author said dubiously and yet with a spark of hope somewhere deep in her withered soul...

Thankfully brain staged a comeback Tuesday night, and another 2 chapters were red-marked and retrofitted. There are portions of this book I really like, and portions that are scaring me for what they're trying to do. That's a good combination, I think. But there's something rising out of the mess, slowly.

Like all books, this one's teaching me something new I didn't know about process: I'm still finding things my lizard brain left there for the mammal brain to pick up and work into the revised narrative, but the actual timing and results of that are...changing. I'm still not quite sure how. Updates as I figure it out.

And thinking about story-building let me to some more thinking about Monday night's episode of Castle -- some spoilers here )

And now, coffee, writing, and, um, more writing. And some red-lining and possibly some headdesking, kicking of walls, and whimpering.
lauraanne_gilman: (peevy short chick)
I don't hate the human race as a whole. Often I think it has immense potential to actually do something worthwhile someday.

I do, however, hate an awful lot of individuals.


The state police and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals took over the farm of the prominent New York thoroughbred breeder and owner Ernie Paragallo on Wednesday, saying he had neglected more than 170 horses under his care.

Multiple charges of animal cruelty are pending against Paragallo in Greene County; each count carries a punishment of up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.


The rest of the article will break your heart. This isn't some fly-by-night operation, or a household unable to care for a horse or two -- this is a Big Name, a going corporation, and a hundred and seventy animals, including twenty-five mares in foal. I know times are tough, grain costs are high, and racing is a business. But I don't give a damn if an animal is going to be raced, petted, or eaten -- they deserve humane treatment.

Or maybe we should come up with a better term, since "human" doesn't seem to go into "humane" quite the way it should.

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