barbara_hambly

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:19:54 GMT

As always after my long days at school - class in the morning, class at night, work in my office in between, leave the house at 8 am and get home at 11 pm - as always, after I've FINALLY had enough sleep and it's late in the morning, I feel very rested and well.

Soft gloom here, the usual for May and June. At the college, blazing hot day yesterday and summer-magic night, walking through the desert botanical garden after dark, short sleeves, warmth, enchantment in the air.

As promised, the nice folks at Blizzard DID give me a free download of Diablo III (yay!); it downloaded all day yesterday while I was at school, so I got home to some stunning cinematics that I hope I can figure out how to disable so I don't have to watch them every time I want to sign on. (Anybody know how to disable them? Do I just hit the ESC key?)

Birthday-present shopping this morning, a day of peaceful work.

Sun, 13 May 2012 16:01:10 GMT

A beautiful evening at La Boheme. It's one of my two or three favorite operas: love, laughter, friendship, poverty, street theater, parties at the cafe Momus, dying of tuberculosis in a garret... what's not to like? It's like "Friends" with gorgeous music and fatal disease. The woman who sang Musetta (Janai Brugger) was phenomenal. Aunt Mary (who was part of our party) was an opera virgin; she'd never been to one before, and Boheme is a good place to start. Hazel - whose birthday we were celebrating - said that the boys at the wrecking-yard where she works had offered her tickets that same night for a Monster Truck Show and were appalled when she turned them down. ("Hmmn... Opening night of La Boheme... Monster Truck Show... What to do? What to do?")

Sat, 12 May 2012 19:46:34 GMT

A Night At the Opera - not the Marx Brothers film, but an actual night at the Music Center with friends for the opening night of La Boheme. So, losing a few points on sleep but gaining a lot on de-stress. (A migraine yesterday and a DOUBLE migraine this morning - a second firefall starting up just as the first was clearing - indicates to me that I'm stressed and haven't had enough sleep). (The migraines are painless - ocular only - and last 40 minutes on the dot - I've clocked them. But the hallucinations make it hard to see the computer screen).

Coupled with Mother's Day tomorrow, it makes for a LOT of work needs be done today. (Plus laundry. We rapidly approach a Stage 3 Towel Crisis).

New Kitty - the beautiful Cupcake - has made herself very much at home and has learned to hop up into my lap while I work, snuggling and looking adorable. She has a pink nose and little white feet. I REALLY WILL get a Flickr account and transfer pictures there so I can post them here, when I get time. (I'm guessing, June?)

Anybody know anything about how to acquire Diablo III when it comes out? (THIS WEEK!!!) Do you just download it from Blizz, or do you need to buy disks? (I assume the download will be one of those 48-hour endless horrors).

Wed, 09 May 2012 01:04:34 GMT

There's something about dropping back out of Writing World at the end of the day because I'm too tired to go on, that's vaguely reminiscent of falling back into my study chair after being on World of Warcraft for two hours; that sense of WHAM: I'm home. Only I don't go into Warcraft until chores for the day are done. When I come out of writing - very tired and slightly disoriented - there's still a whole evening of school-prep work to be done, plus taking my walk, walking the dog, cleaning cat-boxes, feeding cats, making dinner and starting wind-down procedures in a timely manner so I'll get enough sleep to wake up VERY early so I can get up to school in the morning.

Second draft is much more intense than first.

From my desk I can see, through the study window, the massive cavern of the patio, covered now in red trumpet-vine that is covered in brilliant scarlet flowers in the full-force of gold sunlight, amazingly bright.

Sun, 06 May 2012 18:24:15 GMT

A day to get a running start on the part I love best about writing: Second Draft. The smells of spit tobacco and the crunch of broken glass underfoot, the contemplation of the question, "What's really going on between these people?" The aligning of dates, days of the week, and phases of the moon (when DO they leave New Orleans for Washington and how long will it take them to get there at that time of the year?)

And, later on in the story, the tedious encoding of the coded messages that provide the key to the mystery, and figuring out how much a well-off young Congressional secretary's feed-bill would be for his horses.

Rather like filling a gallon jar with live fleas.

Went back to Prince of Persia last night, only to come up against the most frustrating part of the game (and the reason I haven't played it in weeks) - the length of time between save-points. If I have only 40 minutes to play, that's not enough time to get to the next save-point, so all that leaping over chasms and dodging spike-traps is for naught, since I don't have time to fight a swarm of re-spawning monsters. It's why I've been enjoying Diablo III Beta so much: I can drop in and out of it. Prince - and the equally frustrating Uncharted - requires a committment of about 90 minutes before I can actually save progress.

I suspect they're all going to have to wait til summer... Which is not that far away.

Sat, 05 May 2012 03:08:24 GMT

For some reason it's easier to grade World History exams than US History. That probably has something to do with the density of information in a US History class. As I often do, one of the questions I asked on this exam was a Time Travel question: You're an historian going to do your first study trip to the Middle Ages, what identity would you choose - peasant, lord, cleric - and WHY? And, what subjects would you need to study in order to prepare for your trip? (Thank you, Connie Willis!)

I'm always fascinated with the responses: I ask this less to test specific information, than to see how these people reason within the context of historical information.

And, I must admit, if the student is blanking on the other possible essay topics, this is a topic that most people can do at least SOMETHING on: it's a fallback.

To my gratified surprise, got GOOD work done on the screenplay, which is a work-for-hire project, adapting someone else's graphic novel. Amazed at the difference after putting the project aside. Stuff that seemed excellent 9 months ago, I now look at and go, "Do I really need to say that?" and, "Would she really react that way?" It has a nice, spooky feeling, and I'm pleased.

Tue, 01 May 2012 01:12:25 GMT

In the midst of grading exams, I have acquired a new kitty - currently hiding on top of the linen cabinet in the bathroom. Her foster mom assures me that this is normal behavior for her and she'll come down in about 2 weeks. She is, as far as I can tell, a beautiful, fluffy, year-old tuxedo-cat - LONG white whiskers and little white mitts - and I go in and speak to her reassuringly several times a day. She merely regards me accusingly, though at 4 a.m. this morning she had a long conversation with Gus through the door.

I'll get pictures of her, as soon as I acquire a new camera, the old one (about 7 years old) having ceased to work. When I have time I'll set up a Flickr account and start posting pix here and on Facebook, but now I'm sort of rationing my time and energy for the stuff that really counts: Mr. J Goes to Washington (working title), the screenplay (work for hire), and much grading of exams.

Fri, 27 Apr 2012 01:09:54 GMT

I apologize to one and all for speaking ill of The Thirteenth Warrior. I can only assume that I saw it under adverse circumstances, or that my not liking something (and I don't know what) about Mr. Banderas's acting causes me to remember it poorly. (I know he's a very fine actor, and have seen him in excellent roles. I just don't care for his acting.)

I'm guessing that what Mr. Cage thought when he was handed the script for Season of the Witch was, "Oh, good, something with which to pay the IRS!" And, Cage and Perleman were huge fun to watch together in that - um - epic.

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 16:39:58 GMT

A student asked in class last night, "What film can you recommend for mini-paper #3?" (The mini-papers are, just read an article, visit a museum, read a book, watch a movie that has to do with the time-period we've been covering in this section of the course). This section of the course is Middle Ages and Renaissance. I suggested The Lion in Winter, Name of the Rose - they were delighted to hear that I'd count Holy Grail (SOMEONE in Monty Python - I think Terry Jones - is a serious medieval scholar and did his homework on Grail legends), or any Robin Hood movie including Men in Tights - and from there we got onto the subject of True Medieval Stinkers: The Long Ships, El Cid, King Richard and the Crusaders, The Thirteenth Warrior. (I forgot to mention Season of the Witch, which is right up there...) I said Mongol was definitely okay, and added, "If you want Genjhis Khan, the Worst Movie In The WOrld [except for Showgirls] is the 1951 (I believe) film, The COnquorer, with John Wayne as Genjhis Khan."

It all comes under the heading of History Can Be Fun. (If you can call The Long Ships history...) History can be entertaining. It isn't all dates and awfulness.

I also said, the games Prince of Persia and any of the incarnations of Assassin's Creed are okay, too... I should have mentioned Dante's Inferno as well. Also the mini-series someone made of The Arabian Nights a couple of years ago, each tale set in a different culture of the many-faceted world of Islam, from Western China on through Africa and all stops in between.

They may not remember the name of the last Merovingian King of France or the circumstances of his dethronement by the Carolingians, but they'll remember putting the movie Beowulf into the context of the history class.

Wed, 25 Apr 2012 02:21:51 GMT

Lordy! Spent the day doing the scenes I've been circling for weeks: the whole chase-fight-rescue-redemption that concludes the action of Mr. J Goes to Washington (working title). As sometimes happens, writing who does what to whom, in what order, why, and in what circumstances, has helped me enormously to focus on what is the primary relationship in the book: What is this book really about? Knowing that, I can now start the re-write knowing who of the sprawling Dickensian multitude needs to be portrayed in more detail, who needs to be played-down . And, what scenes need to be added - the equivalent of doing re-takes.

Writing a series is different than writing regular books. SOmeone once told me, "All the good stories are stories of redemption." In a series, it isn't always the central character who gets redeemed (which would get dull and repetetive, like wondering how come Miss Marple's friends ALWAYS drop dead). In a series, it's often one of the guest-stars who gets redeemed, or re-made: the hero just gets run through the wringer, which is his job.

Sometimes this isn't clear until I've nailed the armature in place.

So now I get to put the whole thing down and go teach 2 classes tomorrow... and then I'll be grading exams for a week, o joy.

The Grass is Always Greener...

Mon, 23 Apr 2012 21:57:05 GMT

One of my neighbors, on my usual route of daily walk, has had an artificial lawn installed. Not one of those sod-carpet laid-in-chunks lawns... this appears to be actual artificial grass, finer and less plasticy-looking than astroturf, but definitely artificial of some kind. It's almost papery to the touch and you have to look pretty closely (it was twilight, and I'd have looked silly kneeling and examining), but it's a VEHEMENT shade of green.

Bringing home to me once again that the planet that I now live on is not the planet I grew up on. There's something very Logans-Run-ish about the time and effort that went into making fake grass that looks so real... to say nothing of my recollection of an editorial note on one of my Star Trek books that the floor of the Enterprise bowling-alley was NOT to be made of real wood (presumably contributing to the endangerment of oak-trees?).

Sun, 22 Apr 2012 15:29:01 GMT

In the Houston airport, homebound, checking the magazines (I frequently have trouble reading a book of any kind on an airplane - I think from stress), settled on Cosmopolitan as I often do... On the cover, in big letters, the helpful subtitle: THE SEX ISSUE.

Is there ever an issue of Cosmo that is NOT "The Sex Issue"?

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:17:23 GMT

Prepping for travel Thursday and Friday. Since I teach tomorrow night (Wednesday) it means packing today (Tuesday) - and due to tight scheduling and strange arrival and departure times, I probably won't even be able to get e-mail for two days.

Just as well. I could write entertainingly about New Orleans (or anyway I hope it was entertaining), but I fear this is going to be a plane and a room and a car and a room and a room and a room - a line which was given to Paul's grandfather (Wilfred Brambell) in Hard Day's Night, but which was actually a John Lennon comment that got borrowed into the script.

It's always vexing when I lose something in the house.

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 05:18:36 GMT

The foregoing was an experiment in making a "sticky note"... now let's see if it worked...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 05:17:40 GMT

New Stories About Old Friends: for those who don't know, I continue to write short stories about the characters of my old Del Rey fantasy serieses, available for $5 per download at: barbarahambly.com, in the section of the site called, "The Further Adventures Of..."
Stories are available in pdf, and an assortment of digital formats for Kindle, Nook, and other types of e-reader.

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 15:33:26 GMT

That list, by the way, comes from the Commissioner in Lunacy's report to the State of California on Insanity and Insane Asylums, 1871. (I'm always screaming at my students to cite their sources...)

A beautiful day of WAY too much work, plus laundry and tea. My cold still hangs on. Though I'm up to my eyebrows, probably, in anti-bodies, I need to start taking Airborne in preparation for another two days of planes, trains, and automobiles getting to and from Houston for the Texas Library Association's converence Thursday and Friday. There are so many different types of rhinovirus around, I'm sure my current crop of antibodies for THIS cold won't be anywhere near the DNA spectrum of the ones that'll be on the flights coming and going.

Still working on trying to get enough rest.

Still more adventures in research

Sun, 15 Apr 2012 02:02:25 GMT

My goodness.
I've come to the mad-house portion of Mr. J Goes to Washington (working title) and dug out the massive folder I compiled of photocopied bits from books about Victorian mad-houses, from when I was writing The Emancipator's Wife. (I was able to use bits of it also in Days of the Dead).
Here's a partial list of causes of insanity (in case you were wondering).
Physical Causes: congestion of the brain, nervous irritation, bilious fever, scarlet fever, gout, suppression of hemorrhoids, suppression of perspiration, suppression of secretions (!), ill health (really?), ill health and family trouble, ill health and pecuniary difficulties, ill health and lawsuit (makes sense), mesmerism, sedentary habits, idleness, bathing in cold water, sleeping in a barn filled with new hay, tight lacing, excess of quinine, pregnancy, suppressed menstruation (and how do you do THAT?), excessive labor, loss of sleep, intemperate use of snuff, vice, immorality, and want of exercise (among many other things).
Moral causes: mental labor and excitement, mental shock, mental perplexity, excessive study, study of metaphysics, study of phrenology, politics, excitement of the Mexican War, excitement of visiting (depends on who you're visiting, I guess), preaching sixteen days and nights, reading vile books, blowing fife all night, faulty education, hope, day dreaming, ecstatic admiration of works of art, seduction, bad conduct of children, infidelity of spouse, false accusation, difficulty in neighborhood, avarice, speculation in stocks, speculation in lottery tickets, loss of money, murder of a son, anxiety, home sickness, unrequited love, want of employment (explains some of the politics lately, certainly), want of occupation, mortified pride, ungoverned passion, virulent temper, struggle between the religious principle and power of passion, and Mormonism (among many other things).
So now you know.

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 23:34:43 GMT

Wildly stormy day: thunderstorms and hail. NOT the day I'd want to drive across the West Side and out into the Valley for a faculty committee meeting, but lunch with a good friend afterward considerably mitigated the experience. However, I am again extremely tired, probably the result of the cold that still hangs on.

I've been playing the Beta Test version of Diablo III since February: HUGE fun! Last night I tried to download the Beta Test of Mists of Pandaria, and the sucker won't install. Not sure if this is a game issue or a problem with my computer - the download rate here is glacially slow. And at the moment I haven't the energy to do anything but fix dinner and go to bed.

Next week is the Texas Library Association Convention in Houston: I'm on a panel at the appalling hour of 8 a.m. (Multi-cultural Murder Mysteries, with Paula Samuels Young). It will be a quick trip - an over-nighter - but will make for two VERY long days of travel. I'll have to a) check the weather in Houston and b) make sure I've got my Famous Author Drag put together: respectable-looking blazer and trousers.

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 16:09:40 GMT

So, now that I have a "premium account" for a year, how do I go about posting photographs, and how do I make a "sticky post" which will - I gather - be a permanent notice of the existence of my website?

First day back at classes yesterday, and FAR more tiring than I'd anticipated. Though I'm over the worst of my cold, I still run out of energy fast. Tomorrow and Monday there are Faculty Meetings. I'm sleeping as much as I can.

Amazing cloudy skies last night when I got home. The airport throws up a good deal of light onto the clouds, swift-moving walls of dirty grayish-cream with breaks of the clearest, darkest, wind-swept black-sapphire in between. Taking the dog out for a final promenade in the yard is always a chance to see what the night sky is doing; I saw the crooked sickle of the Great Bear, through breaks in clouds and trees. Chilly wind and the smell of wet grass.

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 17:49:46 GMT

Gilraen2... THANK YOU! I don't know what to say.

On other fronts... I KNEW that getting enough sleep is of benefit. I've actually been able to rest and lollygag for two days of Spring Break (classes start tomorrow, so today will be mostly taken up with prep); taking a walk this morning, found - in the usual imaginary yellow envelope lying on the sidewalk - most of the complete plot to the next Antryg story. Came home, went upstairs to take a shower, thought, "Better write it down before I forget..." Of course, no paper up in the bedroom, so I opened one of the books at the bedside to tear out a back-page and found - in my own handwriting - a one-sentence story-point that was immediately obvious as ANOTHER Antryg story. (No recollection of having written that sentence, but what the hell.)

When I finish two other projects and prep for school tomorrow.

But, it's nice to have it confirmed that lollygagging DOES produce stories - and I'll get these written (plus a John and Jenny story) I hope by June.

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 04:10:10 GMT

A very pleasant Easter with family - a very pleasant Passover with friends. As usual, there were more gentiles at seder than Jews: our hostess (Jewish) suggested that we bring Book of Exodus sock-puppets, so we had sock-puppets of various Plagues (including a very silly Dead Egyptian First-Born), of the Burning Bush (close proximity to the candles on the table almost made this a literal performance). Hazel made a perfect replica of Shari Lewis's "Lambchop" with a long false eyelashes and a bloody paintbrush in hand from painting blood over the doors. I did Edward G Robinson from the movie The 10 Commandments ("Where's your God now, Moses?"). I think the best was the Parting of the Red Sea: blue socks on each hand...

Family Easter was small and excellent - but after a solid weekend of holidays, family, and friends, after everybody was out the door I sat down and played the Diablo III Beta for two solid hours. I was pretty much too tired to do anything else, and there's nothing like a good dungeon-crawl, slaughtering zombies right and left, to restore one's mental and emotional equilibrium.

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 00:55:43 GMT

One of the books I spent my food-money on in New Orleans recently - and which even more recently showed up on my doorstep - was Judith K. Schafer's "Illegal Sex in Antebellum New Orleans" (that's the sub-title - I'm not going to leap up and double-check the title but it's Something Something And Abandonned Women). Fascinating, and FILLED with background detail for the January books: not just bordellos, but laws and court decisions of the 1850s (which is slightly after my time-period, but not much) concerning crimes related to sex and sexuality - how they were viewed (by the newspapers) and how they were punished. (A woman could be arrested and sent to the parish work-house for 60 days for wearing men's clothes - AND would be mocked at in the newspapers, despite the fact that many women did this simply because men's jobs paid a living wage, and women's didn't.)

This is the type of history I love. Not theories of history - which I have several times been asked about on teaching job interviews - but demographics and studies of sources.

Evidently, by the way, sex between whites and blacks was NOT limited to white men keeping free colored mistresses or molesting the slave women. Despite what various historians have indicated (for one reason or another) the newspapers and court records indicate that there was a great deal of black-man/white-woman goings on going on... Either way was illegal, but generally only the white women got busted for it, and they were punished pretty severely. Evidently didn't stop 'em.

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 18:27:21 GMT

Yay again! Last night when I opened the packages that arrived for me while I was in San Jose, I discovered a) the really excellent books I got in New Orleans (including one that has, thank goodness, the floor-plan of the old house that I use as the model for Ben and Rose's place on Esplanade - since it's VERY difficult to get into that house*) and b) my author-copies of The Magistrates of Hell. One of which I of course sat up reading until WAY too late last night, so it's nearly noon now and I have yet to do a lick of work...

The cover isn't how I think of Ysidro as looking, but other than that, I'm just delighted that the book is in print and presumably available through Amazon (or will be soon). One of these days - and it's going to be summer before I have fifteen minutes time off to spare - I'll have to start painting or drawing pictures of the characters of my stories, and posting them. I used to oil paint, when I had time (and intend to go back to it, when I'm not quite so buried in work); probably the best I'd be able to do these days is sort of anime-style drawings. But for every drawing drawn, a dish would go unwashed...

I'll also have to figure out how to post photographs on LJ... unless that's something that would require me to get a paid account?

In the meanwhile, I guess I need to go to Amazon and check whether Magistrates is indeed available... and it looks like it is! (And has a cool scribbly handwriting-font for the title, that I'll have to track down and acquire...)

*Mind you, I did sneak briefly into the yard of the house, because it was being set up for an "event". I should have just waltzed on through and checked around the upstairs again, but they'd have thrown me out**, and anyway, now I have the floor-plan in a book.

**Of course, I've sneaked into stranger places. One afternoon George and I were at Disneyland, in the "Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Three-Hour Line", and on our way out - through that long passageway that has a huge ornamental gate to one side that's usually locked... Well, the huge ornamental gate wasn't locked. So we went through it and found ourselves standing next to a hollowed-out concrete giraffe on the banks of the Jungle Rivers of the World. Had a boat come by - and had we been spotted - I'm SURE we'd have been escorted out of the park, so I hustled the loudly-protesting George back through the gate. But I was pretty tempted to sit on the hollow concrete rock and wave at the next boat by.

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 02:48:21 GMT

Note to self: next time I'm contemplating a 3-day road-trip while getting over a cold, think twice.

Actually, the tail-end of the cold was on the first day of driving up I-5; I felt awful that night, but afterwards was fine. On the way up I passed road-work that had traffic stopped for miles southbound, so I came home via the coast route - Highway 101 - which I haven't traveled in years. It took about 2 hours longer, but is a far more beautiful route - something I don't always care about, but it was lovely and relaxing. I saw in a pasture by the roadside - of all things - longhorn cattle... good LORD those horns on them are long! There was something very dinosaur-like about that kind of armament. The journey also included seeing formations of pelicans flying, and beautiful views of the ocean. Since I'm a lousy photographer - and my camera seems not to work anymore - I suppose I could troll around Google for royalty-free shots of Morro Bay that capture that amazing turqoise color of the ocean...

But I'd much rather just have dinner and go to bed.

Lots of exams to correct tomorrow. And I'm now WAY behind on my Real Work.

But I had a lovely time.

Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:08:16 GMT

An attack of extreme nostalgia last night, missing New Orleans. It was, by the way, Spring Break there. I stayed strictly away from Bourbon Street: when you've seen one drunk college-student, you've seen 'em all. It'll be Spring Break HERE next week (and I'LL be on break after tonight, yay!!!) (except for grading exams), and I'll take a couple of days to go visit my friend Victoria up north.

People say it's sort of a waste that I lived in New Orleans because I don't like jazz, don't drink, and am allergic to shellfish. Since I was traveling alone I didn't go out to the fancy places like Upperline and Commander's - mostly it was jambalaya at Maspero's (which was phenomenal) and red beans at the Gumbo Shop (also excellent). I was recommended to a couple of new places, though: Oceana on (I believe) Conti; and, phenomenally, The Green Goddess on Exchange Alley. Antoine's has opened a little gelato-and-snacks cafe on Royal, which was wonderful. My dear friend Jill (who runs The Chimes, the best b'n'b in New Orleans) took me to a place that used to be my old uptown favorite,Copelands. Copelands is long closed, but has been replaced by a marvelous seafood restaurant (whose name I'll look up later). Best salad of the journey.

But odd, to go to a new place and know exactly where the restrooms are.