Revelation In The Rain
Mar. 19th, 2012 06:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
madwriterI am still alive, and have been writing--I just haven't been around Live Journal much lately, as I've been busy with other things during the times I'd normally be posting here. I've even missed three Progress Reports, though I think it's probably silly to try catching up on those now. I'll just post for today.
(I didn't actually get much writing at all done last week, but that's only partly due to my new earlier schedule. I spent the lion's share of last week's free time in an unboxing frenzy. I got tired of [1] so many of my books still being boxed up, some having been that way for 1 1/2 years, and [2] living among stacks of boxes in general. I pulled out a lot, but still only a fraction of what builds the cardboard stacks.)
Driving home this past Saturday on the winding back roads that I tend to take, I hit a downpour that cut my visibility to mostly nothing and had me creeping along with an impatient driver riding my bumper. I mention that because it's a little odd (or maybe not, considering that dangerous circumstances often focus people's thinking) that I had the sudden revelation pop into my head: "Are you in the business of printing books, or in the business of writing stories and getting them to as many readers as possible?"
This was the result of me pondering e-books (again) and my love of printed books. That love will never go away, just as I hope (and suspect) that print books will never go away completely, but I did have to laser in what truly mattered to me: I'm not in the book-printing arena, but the one that wants to get my stories read. If that ultimately means primarily (or, gulp, only) electronic copies, then that's what I'll do. If I have to I'll reserve Lulu for print copies, whether it's just one for me or any number for people who prefer print.
PROGRESS REPORT
New Words: 950 on Chapter 3 ("Spirit, Faith, and Reason") of Arizona. After being devastated by smallpox, the Hopi pueblo of Awatovi suffers the further injury of an Apache slave raid--as the Apaches were not only likewise devastated, but blamed the pox on Christians, and they viewed Awatovi as the most Christianized of their neighbors.
Total Words: 91700.
Reason For Stopping: Getting ready for work.
Book Year: 1641.
Mammalian Assistance: Nugget and Vegas vied for the dubious privilege of guarding my lap.
Exercise: Just walking down to campus. Poor Tucker seemed more interested in eating grass than walking.
Stimulants: Dr. Pepper.
Today's Opening Passage: Actually the final paragraph of the previous section...
Solomon stayed with the two survivors to tend them, make certain they stayed warm through the frigid night, and to let them see his face when they finally awoke the next morning. The first words one spoke after he awoke startled Solomon: “Be a chief, Omawtiwa.”
Darling Du Jour: As the Hopi are preparing a retaliatory raid against the Apache...
Miguel waited through the night watching over the eastern roads until he saw Solomon and half-a-dozen other men running along the pueblo wall, each carrying two bows and two quivers of arrows. He stepped into their path.
Then all of the scolding and haranguing he’d prepared in his mind slipped out of reach. Words failed him against the sight of the Indians’ hope and despair and anger. The power of their need made him tremble, until he felt some of that need in his own heart. He knew now that some of the kidnapped men had only been Christian on the surface, that in time of crisis they backslid into the pagan Kachina dance. Yet their souls must still be saved, and the balm of hope given to them after the great dying of the smallpox, regardless of how Miguel felt about their betrayals.
He clasped Solomon’s arm urgently and all but shouted, “What were you thinking?” But the trembling rocked him again, he gasped from the beautiful pain of it—a pain as stark and grand as Black Mesa itself—and he released the arm to grab Solomon’s hands in his own. “None of you…none of you will leave Awatovi until you have prayed for a successful hunt.”
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Farmer; The Eastern Door by David More. Though I'm heavy on the review right now--one for Publishers Weekly and five for the latest Amazon / PW Amazon Breakout Novel Award contest that I'm helping to judge again this year.
(I didn't actually get much writing at all done last week, but that's only partly due to my new earlier schedule. I spent the lion's share of last week's free time in an unboxing frenzy. I got tired of [1] so many of my books still being boxed up, some having been that way for 1 1/2 years, and [2] living among stacks of boxes in general. I pulled out a lot, but still only a fraction of what builds the cardboard stacks.)
Driving home this past Saturday on the winding back roads that I tend to take, I hit a downpour that cut my visibility to mostly nothing and had me creeping along with an impatient driver riding my bumper. I mention that because it's a little odd (or maybe not, considering that dangerous circumstances often focus people's thinking) that I had the sudden revelation pop into my head: "Are you in the business of printing books, or in the business of writing stories and getting them to as many readers as possible?"
This was the result of me pondering e-books (again) and my love of printed books. That love will never go away, just as I hope (and suspect) that print books will never go away completely, but I did have to laser in what truly mattered to me: I'm not in the book-printing arena, but the one that wants to get my stories read. If that ultimately means primarily (or, gulp, only) electronic copies, then that's what I'll do. If I have to I'll reserve Lulu for print copies, whether it's just one for me or any number for people who prefer print.
New Words: 950 on Chapter 3 ("Spirit, Faith, and Reason") of Arizona. After being devastated by smallpox, the Hopi pueblo of Awatovi suffers the further injury of an Apache slave raid--as the Apaches were not only likewise devastated, but blamed the pox on Christians, and they viewed Awatovi as the most Christianized of their neighbors.
Total Words: 91700.
Reason For Stopping: Getting ready for work.
Book Year: 1641.
Mammalian Assistance: Nugget and Vegas vied for the dubious privilege of guarding my lap.
Exercise: Just walking down to campus. Poor Tucker seemed more interested in eating grass than walking.
Stimulants: Dr. Pepper.
Today's Opening Passage: Actually the final paragraph of the previous section...
Solomon stayed with the two survivors to tend them, make certain they stayed warm through the frigid night, and to let them see his face when they finally awoke the next morning. The first words one spoke after he awoke startled Solomon: “Be a chief, Omawtiwa.”
Darling Du Jour: As the Hopi are preparing a retaliatory raid against the Apache...
Miguel waited through the night watching over the eastern roads until he saw Solomon and half-a-dozen other men running along the pueblo wall, each carrying two bows and two quivers of arrows. He stepped into their path.
Then all of the scolding and haranguing he’d prepared in his mind slipped out of reach. Words failed him against the sight of the Indians’ hope and despair and anger. The power of their need made him tremble, until he felt some of that need in his own heart. He knew now that some of the kidnapped men had only been Christian on the surface, that in time of crisis they backslid into the pagan Kachina dance. Yet their souls must still be saved, and the balm of hope given to them after the great dying of the smallpox, regardless of how Miguel felt about their betrayals.
He clasped Solomon’s arm urgently and all but shouted, “What were you thinking?” But the trembling rocked him again, he gasped from the beautiful pain of it—a pain as stark and grand as Black Mesa itself—and he released the arm to grab Solomon’s hands in his own. “None of you…none of you will leave Awatovi until you have prayed for a successful hunt.”
Non-Research / Review Books In Progress: Farmer; The Eastern Door by David More. Though I'm heavy on the review right now--one for Publishers Weekly and five for the latest Amazon / PW Amazon Breakout Novel Award contest that I'm helping to judge again this year.
