Two things for a Monday

First of all, the splendid benjamintate has a guest post on my website about his new books, Well of Sorrows. My copy just turned up a few days ago and I'm really looking forward to it. Go check the post -- and the book -- out at www.karisperring.com.

And secondly, from the department of weird dreams, the night before last I dreamt that a group of us were on a diplomatic mission to a new alien race. Our scientific officer was lil_shepherd, who, on our arrival was heralded as the incarnation of a local goddess. She was wearing black-and-white, which signified huge social upheaval, and all attempts at diplomacy went out of the window as we tried to deal with the effects of her walking through the crowd.

Metrics and memeage

New words: 547 (Short, but every little helps).
First new line: I see.’ Hyfaidd’s tone suggested he was tiring of this topic.

Gwgan wants a favour; the abbot is tactful, and Owain is awaiting explosions.



Writing meme, day one: 1. Tell us about your favourite writing project/universe that you've worked with and why.

Well, this is an easy one, in a way, as I have a fairly small corpus of fiction and have, to date, only written multiply in two backgrounds -- the world in which Living With Ghosts and Grass King are set, and the Alchemical city, where I've set two stories (only one of which is out as yet). The world of LWG gets to be my favourite as I've lived with it for so long. I was 16 or 17 when I first started thinking about it, I think -- back then it was two 'worlds' occupying the same space, one lived in by endogamous clans of shapechangers and one inhabited by elemental forms and such like -- living rocks, if you like. The first story was inspired by the hypothesised story of Gawain and the Fairy Mistress, which wa sput forward by the scholar Jessie Weston and had a otter shapeshifter find and fall in love with a woman who was actually a waterfall. (this went under the title Illuris. I never finished it, but the world hung around, and changed and developed, and my early ideas became back story. I like this environment because it's my stuff, mostly -- my symbols, my sets of interests and obsessions and influences, my set of misty, allusive, malleable, greeny-ghostly images, my space to wander and build and learn.

Skirt of the day: black crinkle cotton