Echoes in a Hollow Space

Without our social context, without our human constructs, who are we, what are we, where are we?...

Though there had been subtle signs of slippage, his social identity had been held in place by a host of people who knew [my father,] Ray Cunningham—the grocer, the pharmacist, the neighbors, the fire chief, the parishioners at the church where he was still rector emeritus. After the move, all of that life, along with the memory and mention of my mother, fell away. Yet some essential core of him remained, wandering in a dream desert, speaking in metaphor about the train he was riding or how rivers get confused when they near the sea.

I've started reading Elizabeth Cunningham's blog. It's a rich weave of philosophy, humor, poetry, dream, spirituality, life. I've made a feed if anyone else is interested: elizandmaeve

I've added a feed for Lyons Literary LLC, Jonathan Lyons blog:

lyonsliterary

...for thems what cares:

editorialass

meljean_blog

I've added the feed, if anyone's interested (because I'm a lazy swine and want all my shopping in one place):

storytellunplug

And if you haven't already, check out Sarah Monette's excellent post on worldbuilding:

http://www.storytellersunplugged.com/2007/08/five-things-i-know-about-world-building.html

For entirely selfish reasons, but with the hope that some of you may also be interested, I've added a feed for the steampunk blog, brass_goggles.

News of the day: I've syndicated Agent007 On Publishing if anyone's interested. agent007feed

Quote of the day:

"In choosing your god, you choose your way of looking at the universe. There are plenty of gods. Choose yours."

—Joseph Campbell, Reflections On the Art of Living

Writing business of the day: The novel's just over 112k.

I have a habit of writing scenelets when the ideas/inspiration strike me and sticking them at the end of the ms. Sometimes I use those scenes, sometimes I don't, but I count those as part of the overall word count because, eventually, they might be. Since I'm closing in on the end of this thing, I realized a number of them had been overtaken by events, so I deleted them today. That got me back 1000 words, which I really need at this stage of the game. I still think it's going to take about 120k to finish. (Oh, but I would be sooo glad if it took less.) (And oh, I'm so afraid it will take more.) I'm hoping to whittle it down considerably in the rewrites.

Book report of the day: I'm liking Isaac's Storm, but I'm forced to the inevitable conclusion that like rust, bureaucracy never sleeps. It coats everything in its path. Certainly, it was as central to adding to the death toll in 1900 Galveston as it was to 2005 in New Orleans.

We never learn from our mistakes. At least, it seems, on a societal level.