The fine line

There's sometimes a fine line between slapstick and just plain crude. The scene I just wrote in chapter 20 may cross that line—in the wrong direction. Oh, but it was such fun! I may have stepped on something slick and slimy and landed on my literary butt, but I shall press on. That's what revision is for, right? For cutting out those things you just couldn't resist at the time? (Because upon reevaluation, they're rarely worth keeping, if you're being honest with yourself.)

I was reminded the other day of a book I greatly admire, Kage Baker's fantasy The Anvil of the World in which the characters go through adventures but don't start out on the Big Adventure until quite late in the book. I was somewhat comforted by this, as maybe it means that the balance isn't off on my novel after all. Maybe my worry over that is just another aspect of Late In The Book Jitters. Maybe I need to stop worrying and learn to love the bomb.

Or maybe the balance is off. Can't tell until I've finished and gained some perspective. But that's something only gained with time, and getting older.


Random quote of the day:

"Instead of working for the survival of the fittest, we should be working for the survival of the wittiest—then we can all die laughing."

—Lily Tomlin

Unpoetry month

Here's one I've always loved. It kept reverberated through my head as I took a walk around the building.


Spring and Fall

to a young child


MÁRGARÉT, áre you gríeving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leáves, líke the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Áh! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you wíll weep and know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s spríngs áre the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It ís the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

—Gerard Manley Hopkins. 1918.