The Final Countdown…But Not The End of Change

Progress since the previous has included acquiring an outside “can” to add to the mesh network and make service at the other house (was my mother’s house)  (will be installed on a pole today.)  Clearing up software glitches/inconsistencies in the new hardware, double-checking that new security software is actually installed, not just ‘on the list,” (my fault),  recovering function on the old netbook (memory can’t be TOO faulty since I remembered its password!), moving the red table from my study into the middle BR, getting nearly all the yarn into two 45 gal. bins, a lot of T-shirts, winter shirts, etc. into another bin, filling up yet more feed sacks and finally big heavy black sacks with Stuff Not Worth It,  thus clearing {some} floor space in three rooms and converting unsorted piles  into sorted boxes, for later fine-sorting (IOW, everything in one box is in one category.)   The closet in the study is now accessible (nothing in front of it or impeding the sliding doors.  Closets in both bedrooms are 1/4 clear.  One is pretty clear but one door is off its track AGAIN (it’s always had a tendency to jump off), and the other is still impeded by stuff on the floor.  K-  leaves next Thursday.   With Sunday off, and next Wed. off to pack and rest up, we have three days left to work together and a lot of the planned stuff to do.  Once she’s gone it’s up to me to keep at the Grand Plan.  Sort, discard, package, etc.  It’s about time to call in the library that signed up to have my papers later and dump the drafts and dead manuscripts on them, as I really do not have the space for that much paper stuff.   Until the “manuscript” pile came together in the living room, I had no real idea what those  novels in all their developmental forms added up to in cubic feet….they were scattered here and there among other things.

So I’d better get to it ASAP.  Our work schedules overlap, rather than match (innate stuff: I wake with daylight, for instance.  No one else in the houses does.)  I need breakfast EARLY and am then at peak energy until shortly after noon, when I crash.  Pushing for afternoon work time (K is going strong then) is very difficult for me and everything disappears about 4 pm in this season.   I have used the early hours to mess with the current story about an hour/day and that’s been coming along nicely now, after being smacked into shape several days ago.  Writing euphoria then powers the early afternoon a little.  Off to move the car so the new outdoor thingie  can be plugged into the other house carport outlet….see y’all on the far side of Kate’s visit and *immense* help, both on the tech side and on the organizational side.

 

6 thoughts on “The Final Countdown…But Not The End of Change

  1. Wow – I am intrigued by your gifting of preliminary writings to a library – I presume so future graduate students can write their thesis on your thinking processes. But I do think it is important – I have enjoyed reading your works ever since Paks left her home to be a soldier. And good for cleaning of the house – I have started to get very serious myself.

  2. I’d love to be one of those grad students tracking your thought process …or even have a chance to read their work. But unless the library which will be blessed with your manuscripts has a super fast cataloger/archivist I’ll probably just continue to dream about reading it.
    I did see an older short article on line in which an interviewer had discussed your collaborations with Anne McCaffrey. interesting that all those ‘collaborations’ with other women writers were to help them get exposure. I really liked those books and they were indeed my introduction to your work. I had long wondered about how you did it, and I have to agree with the interviewer’s assessment that you are the better writer.
    Your attack on chaos is impressive, as is your early morning writing, and I wish you all the best.

    1. I have to laugh at the thought of anyone “tracking [my] thought process” without access to all the things I’ve ever read and certain personal experiences and realizing that my thought process runs silent at high speed or in recursive mazes when slow enough to observe. That’s all I know about it. I can explain how I arrived at “grange” and “barton” for the places Girdish people in Paks’s day meet, worship, practice weapons skills, listen to instruction, etc. That was slow and careful consideration while exploring both my thesaurus (Roget’s, a HS graduation present in ’63) and the Compact OED and some books on medieval agriculture. Some of the other “specialist” language came via a friend whose first language was Latvian, and the Latvian/English dictionary she gave me, along with (as we discussed it) her suggestions for what I needed. Kuak is Latvian for oak, gan (or the root gan) is carer, shepherd.

  3. Thank you so much for that note on the Latvian language roots for the kuakgan. So lovely (for a beginning memorist/writer) to find out how everything is grist for the mill.

    1. Thank you for your appreciation. Yes, everything in your life–every experience, every scrap of knowledge you acquire–will, and should, find its place in your writing somewhere, at some time.

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