Where I've Been
Sorry to have dropped off the face of the blogging world... Here's where I've been, in a bit more than a nutshell:
- Parents came to visit, resulting in comic attempts to clean house, get new furniture situated, supervise installation of new blinds, etc. Visit was lovely, fantastic, wonderful, and needful of being repeated far more frequently.
- Trip to National Building Museum, parents in tow. The former Pension Administration building is mostly a giant empty space, with columns that remind me of an Egyptian temple. The ground floor is given over to play-space for kids, with giant building blocks, smaller wooden construction tools, etc. The specific exhibit we went to see, drawings by David Macaulay, was less interesting than I'd hoped, but the museum itself was great.
- Trip to Renwick, mother in tow. The "craft" arm of the Smithsonian, the Renwick was hosting an exihibit on quilts and community. There were two types of quilts that I'd never seen before, both created as fundraisers, and both represented by many examples. The first takes names of donors and embroiders them on patches (as petals of flowers or as other design elements); the patches are then pieced and minimally quilted. The second takes name of businesses and embroiders them, often with design elements. There were also some traditional quilts, with some of the most detailed stitching I have ever seen.
- Kirov Ballet's performance of "La Bayadere". For years, I've carped about the endless procession of 32 dancers in the Dance of the Shades, but this production won me over. The company was superb, and I lost myself in this classic ballet. (Not so much, surprisingly, in the Dance of the Golden God - which was good, but not as breathtaking as I've seen it in the past.)
- MAGIC AND THE MODERN GIRL. Final edits are in, in, in. Yea!
- SUPER SECRET PROJECT 2. I am researching like a fiend, and I've started drafting chapters. My agent is leaning on me rather heavily to get him something to submit sooner, sooner, sooner.
- Writer Weekend. I got together with three other writer friends this weekend. One had sold her first novel (go, Nancy!), so we were ostensibly getting together to discuss book marketing and promotion. In reality, though, we ate a lot of food, drank a lot of wine, and talked, talked, talked... I truly enjoyed the company of Maria V. Snyder and Jeri Smith-Ready, and I look forward to future get-togethers.
Edited at 2008-01-28 01:41 pm (UTC)
Now, the questions about genetics, that I've been beaming toward my sister-in-law? And the research on Esperanto? And the review of water nymphs (of the mythological variety)? Those are all part of the SSP :-)
Is it bonkers that giant building blocks sound cool? Legos are...
Very glad to hear that the final edits are in for MMG. Any idea about a release date?
MAGIC AND THE MODERN GIRL will be released October 1 of this year.
The only other time that I'd been in the museum was several years ago, when it hosted the Smithsonian craft show. I definitely plan on going back, with friends who have young kids!
You can't go wrong with the Kirov, most of the time. I think they're my favorite ballet company in the world (of all the ones I've seen).
Glad you had so much fun with other writers, and terrific about the edits.
One of the quilts had been given to a Civil War soldier in the middle of the war; he'd gone knocking on a farmhouse door to get something to help him survive a freezing night. He kept the quilt all through the war, where it was muddied until it was black, but never torn. He took it out to California when he moved west and still had it when he died 75 years later!
I could write a story about that quilt...
(Anonymous)
MAGIC AND THE MODERN GIRL
Tori van Veen
Re: MAGIC AND THE MODERN GIRL
I did not do a lot of research on historic aspects of witchcraft. I recommend that you go to your local public library to see what they have. You should be able to search the online catalog with "witchcraft" as the subject. If you're interested in a particular historic period, you can probably add additional subject matter terms (depending on the specific software that runs the catalog.) For example, most catalogs will let you search for "witchcraft and medieval" to get information about witches in the Middle Ages.
Good luck!