Rain drenches pale leaves
dark wood railing, road beyond.
I feel like singing.
I've got haiku on the brain, I'm afraid; the slam people were thinking it might be fun to have a haiku night. Heh. Don't know if it'll happen, but it's got me thinking about haiku again. There is something about the restraint that is so appealing, the bound elegance of the prose. I like writing about exuberance, about intensity, within formal constraints. In some ways, they seem the essence of poetry; to say much, in few words.
To try to, anyway. :-)
Just finished the last Beagle novel (not the last he'd written, but the last I hadn't read), The Innkeeper's Song. Gorgeous, as expected. The back cover is a bit misleading, in that it leads you to expect a certain character to be a protagonist, when in fact, *all* the characters are protagonists in this novel, which Beagle makes evident by switching pov often, and well. I'd love to meet this man...
Also recently read Tanya Huff's latest, Summon the Keeper. A lovely light novel, and just the thing to read when you've been woken up too early by mosquito bites. It's always refreshing reading her books, at least partly because her characters tend to remind me of myself and my friends...
Well, lots of puttering to do today, so I'm off to do it. I may check in later with y'all, if I reach a good pausing place.
It's so nice to actually look forward to working. :-) Happy Mary Anne.
1:00 p.m. Hey, guys. Well, so far, I've churned through a big chunk of e-mail; down to about 20 messages. Faxed a resume to MacTemps; need to start working soon. Wrote half a Sizzle story; I'm finding it harder and harder to write straight porn -- it's just *boring*. It's fun doing the lead up, but the actual sex scenes...sigh. Don't get me wrong -- I'm still totally fascinated by erotica; there's just only so much I can do with character development in a 1000 word porn story. I'm also a little tired of only being able to write straight or lesbian scenes for these mainstream markets; maybe I should try breaking into the gay markets. Would be a nice change, anyway.
Also picked up Real Live Nude Girl again. Really enjoying these essays by Carol Queen -- the last one, "Exhibitionism and the (Formerly) Shy" was really good, ending with a really rocking paragraph, on what happens after one learns to get past one's fears of exhibitionism: "And don't be surprised if you feel more confident out in the world. Who says sex is supposed to be done in the dark, with your eyes closed? You just broke another taboo, and you did it for your own pleasure. There are few things more empowering than that." You go, girl. My only quarrel with Carol's writing is more of a quibble, really; she's just so darn positive about everything, so cheerful. I understand what she's trying to do, but sometimes I think people who are scared might be a little freaked out by someone so enthusiastically cheerful about that thing that terrifies them....well, different approaches, I suppose. I certainly think we need people like Carol out there...
Okay, I'm going to go finish that darn Sizzle story, and try to move through some more of the pieces of paper that piled up in the last month or two...