Progress report

[pegkerr]

My friend Doug the architect, when I approached him inquiring whether he knew anything about ice palace construction, told me that his firm designed the 1986 St. Paul Winter Carnival ice palace, and he knew both the structural engineer (a rather brusque Russian emigre) and the designer. The first has retired, and the second has moved onto another firm, but Doug thought he could get me in touch with both of them.

I could make Jack the structural engineer and Solveig the architect. And he's making her mad because he keeps trying to do things to change the design of the ice palace which is, after all, her area and not his.

I got on a bus today and thought that the bus driver could pass for Jack. Maybe thirty-five or forty, very handsome, with prematurely gray hair and arctic ice blue eyes. Otherwise I was thinking Jack might be silver blond, with silver-gray eyes. Eh. Either one.

Solveig's daughter is, for the moment, named Ingrid. I have collapsed the generations and think the ex-Princess Kay of the Milky Way will now be Solveig's mother, rather than her grandmother. Ingrid, then, calls her Farmor, then, rather than Solveig. Agnes is a retired professor of Nordic Studies at Augsburg college. I think she's also a talented amateur potter. (Why? I have no idea. Just seems right.) She provides daycare for Ingrid, so that means regular opportunities to throw Agnes, Ingrid and Solveig together. Agnes has been reading the Kay Thompson Eloise books to Ingrid, and so Ingrid now keeps inserting "Eloise-isms" into her speech and has a burning desire to live at the Plaza Hotel. Certainly, Agnes' knowledge of Nordic fairy tales will be significant at some point.

Despite all this encouraging progress in dreaming up story, I must admit some discouragement in that when I have sat down to actually write any of this stuff, the result has been stilted and sparse. Am doing my best to tell the inner critic that is panicking ("you've lost it! Admit it!") to shut up. Not entirely successful, no matter how much I tell myself that I've come so far in the past month, just on brainstorming alone. Tried writing again tonight, with little progress, but must admit I am extremely short on sleep and so plan to sign off and get to bed quickly. I am also vexed in that it seems to be very difficult to both maintain my old writing schedule (blocking out the time between 8:30 and 10:00 pm) and keep up with my exercise goals (which means getting up at 5:15 a.m. to do weight lifting or aerobic step). I just can't seem to do both, because my sleep gets so skimped that for the last several days I have been yawning desperately at work and in fact couldn't even force myself out of bed this morning to work out at all.

Apropos of nothing: am re-reading Kushner's Swordspoint, at the excellent suggestion of ambar, as part of my Smart-Asses 101 reading program. I have read Patrick O'Brian since reading Swordspoint the first time, and I am convinced, this time through, that Alec is a creative descendent of Stephen Maturin. I know Ellen is a huge Patrick O'Brian fan. Do you agree?

Cheers,
Peg

Comments

referring to grandmothers

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Solveig's daughter is, for the moment, named Ingrid. I have collapsed the generations and think the ex-Princess Kay of the Milky Way will now be Solveig's mother, rather than her grandmother. Ingrid, then, calls her Farmor, then, rather than Solveig.

Ingrid would call Solveig "Mor," which is "mother." Ingrid would call Solveig's mother "Mormor," which is "mother's mother."

"Farmor" means "father's mother."

(There's mor and far. Mor's parents are mormor and morfar; far's parents are farmor and farfar. Great-grandparents get longish, but you can always tell where the bloodline goes; farmorfar is always father's mother's dad. And it takes a fair long sentence to explain that in English, and there's a good chance that somebody will roll their eyes at "how complicated that all is." And yet the people who speak the languages with "farmor" and "farmormor" in it seem to take it completely in stride. {insert Elisian eyeroll here, at the way the conceptual habits formed by language are so often and so stupidly treated as ... some sort of natural law or something. Sorry. I shall stop now, lest I sputter about Sapir-Whorff stuff and all that. You don't do that sort of foolish thing, certainly, and I thank you for the reminder of those lovely economical word-constructions, which I have always liked.})


Despite all this encouraging progress in dreaming up story, I must admit some discouragement in that when I have sat down to actually write any of this stuff, the result has been stilted and sparse.

Maybe your writing hasn't, um... warmed up yet? Give it time, give it time. Besides, your angst over this sort of thing has always led to very interesting writing -- although I'm sorry that it's hard on you sometimes. A writer's life. Oy.

Remember what Lois says: "What this book needs is more words!" Or did she get that from Pat?

Re: referring to grandmothers

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Ingrid would call Solveig "Mor," which is "mother." Ingrid would call Solveig's mother "Mormor," which is "mother's mother."

"Farmor" means "father's mother."

You're right of course, and I realized it when I was lying in bed last night, but was too tired to get up and correct my entry. I knew my eagle-eyed readers would spot the mistake anyway!

Remember what Lois says: "What this book needs is more words!" Or did she get that from Pat?

I don't remember whether it was Lois or Pat who came up with it first. But I remember the Latin motto I got from it: "Sola plura verba hic liber requiret." I used it as a sig file on my e-mails when I was finishing up Swans. Guess I should pull that out and start attaching it to my e-mails again!

Cheers,
Peg

[serendipoz.livejournal.com]

Solveig's daughter is, for the moment, named Ingrid. I have collapsed the generations and think the ex-Princess Kay of the Milky Way will now be Solveig's mother, rather than her grandmother. Ingrid, then, calls her Farmor, then, rather than Solveig. Agnes is a retired professor of Nordic Studies at Augsburg college. I think she's also a talented amateur potter.

Is Agnes Norweigan? Her name is not, but Ingrid and Solveig have Scandanavian names.

I like the idea of Agnes being an potter. There are so many excelent potters locally - partially because Warren MacKenzie is a local, but also because his students have stayed and created such a creative area.