Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,
Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,
Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between
Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration
Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze
Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,
Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

And I, what fountain of fire am I among
This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed
About like a shadow buffeted in the throng
Of flames, a shadow that’s gone astray, and is lost.

The Enkindled Spring, D H Lawrence

Another day of gardening . . . . I finished the big clearout of the junk that had piled up beside the shed, and found a little area with potential . . .

Possibly, I am the only person who looks at this little scrap of wasteland and thinks ‘A-ha – magic spot for a fairy-den’, but I can see that it would work with a woven living hut – I’m thinking lilac rather than the conventional willow or hazel, because I already have lilac there, and just think of when it blossoms . . . . – and the ground carpeted in moss and with ferns and other woodland lovelies.

Of course, the compost bin will have to move, but that’s no great shakes.

So that will be my project for this year, I think. Which is good, because that means that the Great Lawn Battle can go into ceasefire for another year. We have a constant tussle, t’o-m & I, regarding the lawn. I think it’s a waste of space, and that the effort needed to maintain the thing far outweighs its benefits. He sees it as a necessary recreational element in the garden. We’re more or less in equilibrium on it – he does the heavy work, and I nibble away at the edges, guerilla fashion, coralling small areas around the edges into other uses. After spending a good part of today raking leaves & scarifying the wretched thing, I’d like to get rid of it all. Of course, I can see that with the children needing the space to rush about in, it will stay with us in some shape or form for the foreseeable future, but its days are numbered, mark my words . . .

One of the fascinating things is that, without any prompting, the children have already subjected the new area to a thorough exploration, and it is now opened ground for games and a new route for expeditions. In itself, that is well worth the effort of hoiking out all the old rubbish.

That clearout and scarifying the lawn took up most of the day, but I prefer to spend more time and get things done properly, than to rush through it just for the sake of ticking things off the to-do list.

And because gardening frees up my mind to do other things whilst my body is occupied in manual labour, I remembered how gardening helped me out of the big pity-party I threw myself when I was diagnosed with Aspergers . . . back then, I couldn’t see any benefits or advantages to it at all, I just saw a big fat label sitting on my social incompetencies confirming the view I held of myself as a total freak. Only by excavating and rebuilding a derelict garden did I come to realise that the obsessive detailing, systematising and compulsion to stick out a task until it’s done to perfection was actually a great strength, something that differentiated me from others (who got bored and abandoned the job) and that I could use to my advantage.

This came back to me whilst I was hand-weeding the miniscule weed seedlings springing up in the brassica beds. Anyone other than me would have picked off the bigger ones and left it at that, but I had to make sure I got every last one of the little swine. And found it interesting, comparing this year’s crop of weeds with last year’s.

We have three perennial nuisances in this garden: brambles, dandelions and bindweed. I know I will never eradicate either, so it will always be war. What is interesting is that we have a different ‘new’ weed invading en masse each year. In the first year, meadow buttercups – everywhere, until I rooted them all out. The year after – nettles. The year after that – willowherb. We still get the odd one or two strays of each, but nothing like the epidemics we faced in their ‘year’ of tyranny. This year, it looks like it’s going to be vetch – I have pulled monstrous handfuls of the little swine out already. I’m hoping I’ve got to it early enough, though I suspect that this is just the first wave.

Anyhow, with the sprinkling of early colonisers wiped out, and the beds given a light hoeing over (very heavy clay soil here, and though I’ve been improving it year on year, it’s still unworkable at this time of year), the brassicas are all looking very happy and healthy, though I noticed that something’s been snacking on the larger leaves. Will need to investigate that and put a stop to it.

This early in the year, it can only be slugs and snails. In part, I know I bring it on myself, because I persist in viewing the fallen leaves as a mulch to keep the worst of the frost off the tender early shoots so leave them on the flower beds, but I equally know that those same leaves are a nice cosy winternest for the dreaded pesties. A bit of a catch-22 situation, but I have a solution: nematodes.

Slimy things of my garden: you better run, because there will be nowhere to hide.

I have only got one bed left to weed and clear down in the back garden, and then I need to sort out the front garden. Now there’s a place that tempts me . . . our gravelled drive is the devil itself to weed, and I appall myself by dreaming of taking a blowtorch to the weeds and obliterating them for good and all. But we don’t do things like that round here, so I’ll be down on my knees picking them out one by one again this year. Sigh.

But on the up side, I planted some cauliflower seeds this evening. More to come tomorrow . . .

The sun does arise

The Sun does arise,

And make happy the skies.

The merry bells ring,

To welcome the Spring.

From The Ecchoing Green, William Blake (Songs of Innocence & Experience)

We have had the most glorious day today, and there was no way I was ever going to anything but work in the garden. Such a fresh and bright day to blow all the cobwebs away, and it stunned me, given that we had snow on the ground a couple of weeks ago, how far along everything is now.

Next to the pergola on the patio, the lilac has leaf buds, as does the tree peony. I’m thrilled, because that was a new acquisition last year, and I wasn’t convinced it would survive. The big rose (Generous Gardener) is covered in leaf-buds, all flushed and swollen, and there a little sheaths of garlic spearing up around its base. Walking off the patio, the apple tree is in bud, and its companion blackcurrant bush has tender red buds up its stems. The redcurrant is a little behind it, still dormant. Poking through the grass beneath the apple tree are the sharp green blades of daffodils and the feathery spikes of crocus leaves. The anthriscus and angelica seeds that didn’t germinate indoors last autumn . . . I saved the trays, so I just dusted them into the ground around the apple tree, and we’ll see what happens – they might be happier, tho I’ll admit it’s a long shot. Still, nothing to lose, and we’ll see how it goes.

The early raspberry canes either side of the pergola-path down the garden are showing buds, and the garlic is up  amongst the raspberry canes as well. The first whorls of aquilegia are fragile grey-green sparks against the dark earth, and we have pale tight buds nestled into the thick, fleshy leaves of the primula.

And there is pussywillow on the Kilmarnock . . .  showed them to Rumpus and he went wild for the softness and stood for ages, stroking them as if they were little kitten-tails.

Down at the bottom of the garden, it’s almost as exciting. Underneath all the leaf-litter, there are signs of life – the first shoots of lily-of-the-valley, anemones and more primroses, and then the horseradish and rhubarb are just poking themselves up out of the ground. The artemesia I thought was dead has got a couple of tiny pale-green leaf-buds, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed it will make a comeback.

In the raised beds, the onions and shallots have overwintered well, and despite my concerns about how damp and cold it has got, their doesn’t appear to be any lasting damage. I’m a little disappointed that I have no spring onions – I’m not sure whether I had a duff batch of seed, or if I’ve got a bigger pest problem than I thought at first. I fight a constant battle against the demon slugs, so they are prime suspects, but I don’t usually lose en entire crop. The same goes for the carrots I tried to force overwinter – despite cloching and fleece, they didn’t make it. I am wondering if I underwatered . . . . Sigh. I have cheered myself up by planting the first succession of this year’s carrots – Artemesia – in raised bed box #1 – it’s nicely fleeced and cloched for the next couple of weeks, and I’m going to nematode the whole zone tomorrow evening . . .

The weeds always seem to get a headstart on me, but hopefully they’re not too out of control just yet. I’ve been around the garden and uprooted the brambles making their first invasion attempt. Sometimes, it is demoralising to realise that this battle will continue for as long as we live here, given that I encourage them on the other side of my fence. Is that NIMBYism taken too far? I just love the fruit, but I can’t have them taking over inside the garden. I had to face my annual mora dilemma – it always seems criminal to me that I have to grub up and throw away so many oak saplings every year, but given we are surrounded by four big old oaks, I’d be overrun if I didn’t, and attempts to give them away in previous years to *anyone* who will have them have never been successful. So. Into the bonfire pile they go.

I did the first bonfire this evening – I always have an internal struggle as to whether or not to burn the rubbish or not, and usually end up doing it despite my anxieties about carbon emissions (& I don’t care who says bonfires are caron neutral, I don’t believe them!). I split the leaf litter between the bonfire and the compost heap, but there’s always so much else that just doesn’t compost well at all – phormium leaves & bamboo leaves are a disaster in the compost heap, and because we hacked out the monster grapevines last year, I’ve got all of those to deal with as well. Most of the bigger stuff we’re using in the woodburner (no better than the bonfire I know), but there’s still a fair amount that will just end up getting torched. I console myself that at least the nutrient-rich ash will get worked back into the earth from which it came.

The shed got a good airing out, and I’ve cleared the sunnyside shelf ready for planting (one day, I *will* have a greenhouse) and cleaned and prepared the seed trays.

It looked a bit of a daunting task to start off with, but it seems that the decluttering indoors has just resulted in a pile of random articles being piled into the shed by way of storage. Those will be cleaned up and freecycled when I get a moment, and the worst debris will be tipped. I was surprised that I only filled one old-compost-bag’s worth of proper rubbish – I expected there to be more, but then I didn’t do a full shed tidy – just the bit I needed!! (It is a task that needs to be attacked, but I didn’t have the energy today).

The mound of nets and canes that got dumped alongside the shed at the end of last season is no more - the canes are in an old bucket with the bottom knocked out, buried in the ground to stop it toppling over. The nets – still need to be unpicked of dead leaves etc and folded and mended for this season, but that’s one for tomorrow. The bonus was that I unearthed a pile of old seed trays (I *knew* I had more than I found in the shed!) so I dumped the spent compost into the big compost bin, cleaned them up and now they’re in the pile ready for this year’s seeds.

Today’s *ewwwwwwww* award went to a plastic storage that had been left outside all winter and was full of rainwater and decomposing leaves. A part of me was tempted to sink it into the ground and make a mini-pond of it, because I was convinced that it must already be a mini-eco-system, but I’m afraid the smell was just too vile so I dumped the lot. I’ll clean *that* mess up tomorrow.

All in all, I got about half-way round the back garden yesterday. The forecast is that the weather will hold tomorrow, so that should get me around the rest of the back garden, and then we’ll be all set and ready for the planting season.

And then, I will have to tackle the front garden. It’s an evil job, but someone has to do it, otherwise I’ll have nowhere to put my pear-trees when they arrive in March. And that’s a very exciting prospect . . .

Serpent of Colchis – edit update

I finally knuckled down, after much skirting around the edges, and got to work on the big edit.

And, as with all such things, it’s not as painful as I thought it would be. Also, and this makes me feel much, much better, the novel itself is not as bad a mess as I remembered it being.

I’m using Holly Lisle’s one-pass method, it’s one that works really well for me (once you get over the tedium of printing off 350-odd pages on a teensy inkjet) as it clearly sets the story’s parameters & themes up front, before you start editing. Having firmly nailed colours to the mast, it makes for a powerful tool in terms of defining what stays and what goes, what needs strengthening and what needs dialling back.

I’m into the manuscript slog, and I’m working approx 4 chapters a session – doesn’t sound much, but we’re talking really 8 days to whack through and annotate and identify changes. I’m not sure I’ll hit target of completion by end of Feb as I still have to type up the changes once I’ve got it all noted, but I don’t think it’s totally unfeasible at this stage.

So.

13 chapters in, and I have a number of issues I need to address:

1) The intensity of Dema & Jace’s relationship is a major driver for the decisions and actions they take, so I MUST bring across the all-encompassing, intense, obsessional aspects of the relationship – emotional and physical – for this to be convincing. However, I do not want to end up confining myself to the adult, erotic markets with this novel, so I need to find a way to bring this across without being pornographically explicit in some of the scenes.  I shall be revisiting Jaci Burton’s ‘Left Behind and Loving It’ workshop sessions on “The anatomy of Sex Scenes” to pick up some pointers (well, you might as well get it from the writer that leaves you breathless and little bit hot under the collar, eh )

2) Even given point 1, I have created a main character (Dema) who is deliberately emotionally cold, guarded and morally ambiguous. I am significantly worried that this will disengage readers, because they won’t like her enough to want her to ‘win’ (even if ‘winning’ is a pretty destructive event, when it comes down to it). What can I do to create more connection with her? An overriding moral imperative that trumps all other considerations? Giving her the opportunity to crack a little and show some vulnerability? I guess both of those are options. I think I might need to spend a little time on some character interviews to really get to the bottom of her, to find her voice fully, and if I can do that, then maybe, just maybe, I can get the reader close enough to her that she will be as fascinating to them as she is to me. Sigh. That’s looking like hard work, right now.

3). There’s an element of heist involved in the action in this Act I. Because Dema is such a high-level insider on the job, I’m concerned that there is insufficient doubt about the success of the venture to pull enough tension into those chapters. I need to look for other sources of tension, or for areas where I can double-cross the insider angle, because I’m not sure (even with a 4-player game on) the uncertainty on the ‘who-can-I-trust’ factor is enough to carry it. I need to track down a good resource on the suspense genre, and how the cross & double-cross scenarios get played out. I’ve been considering whether my pov options are correct, and I think I’m making the right choices each time in picking the most ignorant player in any one scene to focus on, but it’s not enough. I need to rethink that strategy, or work out how I can get it tighter. I don’t think shifting either all or part of this into first person is an option. Likewise, I don’t think I could sustain 3rd person present tense over a whole novel, and I think it would be too demanding/exhausting to read. These techniques are not, I feel, the answer and will not disguise the fundamental flaws driving such ideas. I need to face it head on, and work out where the conflicts are – just manufacturing stuff to up the movement (as opposed to action) will not improve this story.

Hey well. It’s half-term as of tomorrow and we’re away for almost a week. I’ve promised t’o-m no writing & no laptop for the week . . . tho I suspect I’ll renege on the laptop front, and that my editing notebook might just “fall” into the packing . . . . asking me not to write is like asking me not to breathe.

Restless mind

Wherever the mind wanders,
restless and diffuse in its
search for satisfaction without,
lead it within;
train it to rest in the Self.
Abiding joy comes to those
who still the mind…
they become one with God.

- The Bhagavad Gita

Here I am, about to delve into “the manuscript slog” on Serpent of Colchis -  a little later than I planned to start, but there we have it – and I find myself struggling to concentrate, my mind sliding away from the task in hand, distracted by external factors – music, tv (I never watch tv!), sewing, even tidying up, suddenly seem much more attractive, and of course there’s the endless fascination of Twitter and Forward Motion to keep me from actually starting the work.

To paraphrase “the cat in the hat” – this mess is so big and so deep and so tall I can not sort it out, there is no way at all! Sadly, there is no cat to come in and do a magic trick or two to sort this out, there is only me myself & I, and I am the one who has to wade through this lot.

So. I need to still my mind, switch off from all the internal and external distractions and allow myself to sink into this book and let my muse guide me through it (in the absence of God). I have the high level understanding of what and who it is about, and I know what I need to do to take the sodden lump that it is now and remould it into the book I want it to be. There is just the awful realisation that there is a long way to go and a lot to do to get there. Perhaps I am workshy? I don’t think so, it’s just a rather daunting task ahead, HOWEVER, this is the first of the big milestones on my task list for the year, and I don’t want to welch out before I’ve even started. If I fail on this, then I’ll struggle with everything else. I shall bring my two guiding words into mind – COMPLETE and ENJOY. I need to complete this novel because I enjoyed writing it in the first place, and I want to enjoy the finished article. *THAT* is motivation enough.

I have one big change to kick off with. I need to introduce a character who features in part III here and now, and by doing so I can externalise some of the conflicts in the opening chapter to a greater degree – it also gives me an opening to bring the various storylines to a complete & coherent close – *this* novel is a standalone, and there will be no sequel.

And on that optimistic bombshell, I’d best get to work . . . wish me luck?

A winter-storm of discontent

The last week has, in any terms, been pretty crappy and I’ve ended up getting totally derailed in so many ways and on so many different fronts it has been a real act of bravery to remind myself what it is that I’m doing and WHY it is that I’m doing it.

Last Monday, I started a pain in the junction between my neck and shoulder. Initially, I thought I’d slept on it  funny, but as the day went on it got progressively worse, so that by the time I’d got the kids off to bed I was a whining, snivelly shell of a woman, stinking of self-pity and wearing my misery like a leper’s bell. Paracetamol and wheatpacks just didn’t cut it in the pain-relieving stakes, and my general sense of wellbeing was further eroded by the news that some evil bastard had nicked my name, address and credit card details and was quite happily ordering stuff for themselves and billing it to me. So, on top of all the pain, I had all the stress of contacting the company concerned and telling them to cut off this putative Ellsea, cancelling my card and all the associated CIFAS aggravation. I am sure it must have been online somewhere that it happened, but having virus checked the laptop and computers here AND checked back through my transaction histories the last couple of months, I’m totally stymied, which is a real worry, because now I don’t know which of my regular purchases I can’t trust.  I hate stuff like that, people taking advantage and using me to get what they want. It’s a real invasion of privacy. I’ve had to work for what I’ve got, why the bloody hell can’t they? Scum.

On Tuesday, the pain was much, much worse. I couldn’t turn my head or move my neck without enduring total agony, and I had arranged to drive to London (I know, total lunacy) to see my sister and brand-new nephew, delivering several bags of baby clothes and other gubbins in the process. I should have known the fates were against me when I hit a traffic jam on the way out of the village where the children go to school and sat there for 30 minutes making little-to-no progress. When we finally got moving, I bless the satnav makers who provide me with such goodness as trafficmaster and detour planning, because it took me backroads and put me on the A3 literally 100yards ahead of the accident that was causing a tailback as far as the junction I usually would get on at. Euphoria shortlived, because of course as soon as you get past Roehampton, you’re effectively into London and driving becomes a teeth-grinding test of nerve and endurance. I’m a pretty relaxed driver, I like to go fast when it’s safe, but I’m not competitive and I like to be courteous. So, of course, I’m like a lamb to the slaughter in London traffic. I have *never* been so scared in my entire life. The levels of stress, aggression and risk-taking associated with driving in London, the lack of space, the snarl-ups, the lack of proper signalling, road positioning and other standards that ensure a smooth and safe journey are so enormous that I honestly think that driving in London ought to be a certifiable action. I mean, you’d have to be mad to do it on a regular basis, or else it is something that would make you insane? And then there’s the parking. Now, I know that it’s a cliche, and it’s been said so many times before, that the parking permit and traffic warden (except they are now called Civil Enforcement Officers) system is purely and simply a revenue generating exercise for councils, but in cliche there is often truth, and in truth there is always mileage. So. I acquire my one day visitor parking permit. I scratch out the necesary boxes, careful to scrape all and only the appropriate ones. I fill in my reg nr etc, check I’m parked in a bay relevant to the permit, check that I’ve displayed the thing in the appropriate place. As I’m getting Bellaboo out of the car, one of these CEO’s watches me, I see him looking at the permit, I ask him if it’s OK. He’s noncommittal (perhaps they are only allowed to talk if they are issuing a ticket?), so I take this to mean that there is not a problem – otherwise he would have told me, right? (yeah, right). And off I go to visit my sister and the delightful baby, who is very cute and still at that all-curled-up newborn stage (but man, when he’s hungry, he knows what he wants!!) Bellaboo was very sweet with him & kept kissing him on the head and was generally intrigued, and since we came back has been carrying around Honey’s little Baby Bjorn and kissing it a lot and pronouncing ‘babby’ very proudly. Ahhhhhhh. ANYWAYS. We get back to the car after a lovely, lovely visit and lo and behold: A BLOODY PARKING TICKET. Apparently, my permit was invalid. In what way? I have no idea. Now I have a couple of choices. I can appeal. Who knows how long that will take, which puts me in a  quandary regarding the fine. If I pay within 30 days, it’s £40, but it doubles to £80 if I take longer. If I appeal and lose and it takes longer than 30 days, I have to pay £80. Which makes it tempting to sod it and just pay the fine, which I guess is what they are counting on. I don’t want to pay it, and I don’t think I should pay it, but I’m not sure I have the energy to tackle any further bureaucracy at the moment, because on Wednesday . . .

I received my Child Tax Credit award notice. And I immediately notice that I have acquired two children under the age of 1. Now, I know I don’t have twins, and that’s the only way it ought to be physically possible (though I guess mathematically it could be done, it’s just not something I want to contemplate). So, I have to phone the tax office to correct the erroneous dates of birth. Great. I just *love* hanging about on phone lines waiting to talk to someone. I honestly have nothing better to do with my time. (NOT!). I phone up, and start to jump through the hoops of security questions. My bank is quite happy with 2 questions, as are most other on & off line service providers. Not so the Inland Revenue, who want to know, it seems, my last recorded weight, height and hair colour before they will talk to me. Tellingly, the one piece of information I have to provide is the number and dates-of-birth of my children. I tell her, and explain very nicely that this may not coincide with their records, because they have incorrect information on their systems for those same dates of birth (this information is not shown on the form they have sent me, so I don’t know what they have input). The woman on the phone apologises and tells me that she is now not allowed to talk to me because I can’t correctly answer the security questions. I point out, very politely, that I have answered 5 other security questions correctly, and that I can’t give her the information she wants because I don’t know what her co-worker input erroneously into the system. Again, she apologises and says she can’t talk to me any further. I ask to speak to a supervisor, but am told that I will get the same response. I ask if I can write, and am told that they only accept phone correspondence and will disregard a letter. So I ask her how I am meant to solve this problem, and she again apologises and tells me that she is not allowed to help me. If it wasn’t for the concern that at some point in the future I am doubtless going to get shafted by the IR for providing false information on this subject, I’d think it was the most hilarious farce. Coming on the back of everything else, it is just annoying and bloody typical of the faceless bureaucratic bullshit that is rife in this country. Personal responsibility and accountability and autonomy dissipates in the face of enormous inflexible computer systems. In my mind, this has just strengthened my internal conviction that we should give the database state a huge heave-ho. Imagine if that had been the entirety of my personal records, and I was completely unable to access them? Coming on top of having my identity hacked (I refuse the word ‘victim’, I don’t like it. I will not be made into a passive receptacle of someone else’s vitriol), this is particularly worrying.

Actually, the rest of the week started to pick up, insofar as no fresh annoyances crawled out of the woodwork to plague me. The pain in my neck and back, however, showed little sign of letting up and turned me into the most dreadful whiny creature, and it was so bad I couldn’t write and couldn’t exercise, so all those goals started to slip, and I even struggled with sewing because looking down hurt. So, with everything slipping away, I fell into the awful vicious circle of pain-stress-misery-comfortbiscuiteat-guilt-stress-pain-misery-comfortbiscuiteat-guilt-misery-stress-pain-comfortbiscuiteat-guilt- (you get the picture) and it crippled me far, far worse than the actual pain did. I was trapped in this cycle and just drowning (or perhaps wallowing?) in this sea of awfulness. It made me realise just how quickly and how easily I could slip away from the path I wanted to be, when I had felt so up and good and empowered, into this black void of depression – and I could feel it sitting there, waiting to jump on me.

I think I got lucky this time. Some timely advice from twitterific friends (thanks @Sally & @TrevorMendham) got me onto icepacks and voltarol pain relief gel and reducing the pain helped me get focus back. I’m still clinging on by my fingertips a little, but in the last couple of days I have caught up (finally) on my How to Think Sideways coursework, AND finished a short story that ended up breaking the 20k barrier (and my o my is that going to need some major editing!) AND finished a couple of refashions – a black wrap with embroidered purple border to go around Bellaboo and I when she’s in the sling and a cute little tunic top for Bellaboo – AND I saw an advert for “power pramming” which looks like it could be good fun AND good exercise, AND I did a major declutter of our loft, AND read Anne McCaffrey’s Crystal Line (and enjoyed it, too).

So, despite the potential for derailment, I did manage to get a lot done in the week so I feel like it hasn’t been wasted. I guess the BIG learning points for me are:

1) Shit happens, deal with it and move on

2) Plans are not set in stone, I need to be flexible and change things around as and when needed

3) I should acknowledge and value what I have done, instead of dwelling on what I have not done

4) As long as I keep my key words – COMPLETE and ENJOY – as my guiding lights, I’ll stay on track

Point 3 is a huge step for me. I am always far too quick to step up and give myself a kicking over the things I have not done. Based on looking over the list of what I *did* do (and that leaves out all the normal, house-and-family-daily-maintenance activity I handle), I can’t even begin to describe last week as a waste of time or opportunity. I used my time in a slightly different way to how I had planned it. That doesn’t make it (or me) a failure.

I feel lucky. This is the second set of events that could have set me off into a massive downward spiral, but I’ve managed to pull myself. I know I need to get more on top of my personal health and fitness – not exercising has had a big negative impact on me, and I know I neglect myself, and particularly that my diet suffers horribly, when I’m miserable. *That* is something I will need to get to the bottom of, but I’m holding it off for now. I don’t think I’m ready to go there just yet. I don’t think I’m going to like what I have to deal with. And yes, that is a head-in-the-sand approach, but it feels right for now. (Terminally chicken? Damn straight).

The big task for this month is the Serpent of Colchis edit. And guess what? Serendipitiously, over at ForwardMotion, there’s an edit dare. I am *so* in that. I have a little crit-and-submit catchup to do, but I’m pretty much back on track. It’s looking possible.