Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Well, I have managed to be pretty much the only person to make it out of Heathrow just about when I expected to do so, and even the jetlag is mostly gone after a day or two.Ìý Philly's all right; I think I'll be happier when I get out of the house a bit tonight to have dinner with friends.Ìý Mostly, though, I'm overwhelmed by how much I…frankly kinda don't want to be here, and don't particularly feel at home.

One of the first, if not the first word I learned in Welsh was hiraeth, which doesn't have a good English translation.Ìý The guy who taught it to me admitted that it might come close to homesickness or the feeling you get when you listen to really good blues, but that doesn't cover it.Ìý It's just a feeling of being wrong, subtle but there, as soon as I cross the Severn bridge.Ìý It's inexplicable, and not necessarily painful (maybe because I know I'm going back?), but its' so very much, powerfully, there.Ìý I wasn't expecting that, although I keep meeting people who tell me that I'll feel hiraeth now, essentially, forever.Ìý Wales gets under your skin.

(So does the terrible, terrible history of the country my mother lent me to read, but that's a post for another time.Ìý For now, let's just say that it's pretty rare that I've ever wanted to actually shoot a book.)

Aaaanyway, this all has a slightly funny (I hope) and inappropriate ending, because I was whinging to the patient about all of this, stating that IÌýwanted a mince pie, a sheep, and Alun-Wyn [Jones, of course!], and she pointed out that that scanned perfectly into Bread of Heaven.Ìý So, with abject apologies to everyone, especially the sheep:

[annotations below]

The coach did cross the Severn Bridge

And it was not much fun.[1]

I did not want to go to Heathrow,

And I don't want to be here.

I miss Welsh things;

I miss Welsh things!

Mince pie, a sheep[2], and Alun Wyn[3]!

Mince pie, a sheep, and Alun Wyn!

Don't forget the

smell of Metros[4]

and the violent footy fans!

And the rugby our boys lose.[5]

[1] This could be because it took two hours to drive from Cardiff to Newport.Ìý No, I don't want to talk about it.

[2] Mind out of the gutter, please.

[3] Alun-Wyn Jones, the very lovely forward lock who needs to shave that wombat off of his face.

[4] Metros is this awesome club that's basically located in a basement, and is pretty much the only place on earth that got worse after the smoking ban.Ìý See, because it's underground, the smell of human fug doesn't ever dissipate.Ìý And when it's really full, moisture gathers on the walls and ceilings and drips down on you!Ìý The reek is infamous and no matter how drunk you are, it's like getting slapped as soon as you walk in.Ìý It's my favorite club.

[5] SOB

Hello Cats and Kittens!

Before I begin, I think I should let you have a peek into the exotic life of your average romance writer.Ìý I am sitting here, having completed my chores for the day (including the fastest re-soleing and re-heeling of a pair of boots in the world I love you Timpsons on Queen St!), dying my hair with Lush's henna bricks.Ìý This has many advantages over chemical dyes in that it gives me a nice, auburn shade that's actually found in nature, it doesn't make my eyes water, and my hair is nice a soft and yummy afterwards.Ìý (Also, it lasts more than 4 #$%^ weeks.)Ìý The downside is that I spend five hours with what is essentially a curry-scented cowpat wrapped in an argos bag, covered in a sacrificial towel, on my head.Ìý I SUFFER FOR MY BEAUTY.

(It does force me to stay inside and get work done, though.)

AAAAAAANYWAY, for many of you (I hope!), that deathless prose is your welcome to my blog from the Speak Its Name advent calendar.Ìý My short story is published today as part of their lovely seasonal (and now annual!) gift to the world.Ìý It was great, great fun to write, because it gave me an excuse to research the state of the British Museum in the 1860′s, smack in the middle of the Victorian movement towards education as something that is for the benefit of all, and should be accessible to all.Ìý (Oh the fucking irony, Mr's Clegg and Cameron, the irony.)

See, before the British Museum (and Sir John Soane's museum which is a gem too many people miss), there really was no thought of public access to works of art, artefacts, or representative items, particularly from the classical world.Ìý (Representative items from a community's own history were, of course, Right Out until fantastic museums like St Fagan's started in the 1950′s, and quotidian life began to be preserved and presented by those who had lived it.)Ìý Very, very wealthy people who could afford to go to the Continent, Egypt, or the Classical world did so, brought curious items back with or without permission, and put them in Wunderkammers to show their friends â€� literally, cabinets of wonder.Ìý Of course, these could be genuine cabinets, or they could be whole rooms, and they were so delightful I cannot find the words to tell you how awesome they were.Ìý The Pitt-Rivers museum isn't a million miles away from the photos I've seen, and if you're near Swansea, they've got a kind of wunderkammer room in their city museum that is absolutely worth going to.Ìý (If you're in Philadelphia, The Rosenberg Museum also isn't a million miles away, and is equally worth visiting, and we are now out of cities whose museums I know inside-out and upside-down.)Ìý As much as I adore these wunderkammers and, frankly, want one as soon as I've got a spare room, they were not accessible to…well, anyone, really.Ìý Perhaps if the nobleman was very nice and understanding, and the scholar came from the right sort of people, aforesaid scholar could have access to things, but for anyone else â€� unthinkable.

Until this Victorian movement towards educating the working-class.Ìý The BM has many, many problems, but you've always got to give them this: anyone could visit.Ìý You had to apply in writing in advance, and prove you were of good character and not show up drunk (although I believe they served alcohol there which, frankly, is brilliant and all museums should do so), but you could get in, even if you didn't have a title or a double-barrelled name, or weren't an Oxbridge student.Ìý This was huge.Ìý This is huge.Ìý I can go to museums and do whatever research I like, or enjoy art, or just walk around and absorb whatever I want?Ìý Yes, please.Ìý Yes, a thousand times please.Ìý And anyone else who wants to can do the same; I think this, this access to education and art and culture, was the great gift of the Victorians.Ìý As the song says, one cannot live on bread alone, but one must have roses as well.

So, you can see why I leapt at the chance to write a little love story in amongst some dusty (and, frankly, questionably-sourced) objects in a grand building in Russell Square.Ìý I hope very much that you enjoyed it.

Love,

Me

PSÌý Lee and Daniel were borrowed from a story I started yoinks ago.Ìý Don't think you've seen the last of them!

But way better than a picture of a robin, kittens!

Well, as I try to not freeze to death in my nice, icy flat and wait for the laundry to finish, I shall beg you all to go to , today and every day until Christmas.Ìý They're doing a cracking Advent calendar full of historical goodness.Ìý I am one of the bloggers.Ìý What day, you may ask?Ìý Where's the fun in that?Ìý I'm sure you tried to open all your presents early, too.

(Also, I have yet another novella coming out with Dreamspinner in the spring!Ìý This one's a spec-fic, was partly written in Philadelphia International Airport's departure lounge, and is inspired by a dream I had where I discovered an unknown floor in the Humanities Building that featured a modern art gallery.Ìý More details as they come!)

Hello my very dears,

Well, I've been a good little workerbee (except for Saturday which, if you follow rugby, you will understand why I had to go out with some brand-new just-met-at-a-pub friends and let a bunch of Bokke supporters buy me drinks all night), so I can finally write the post I've been meaning to for absolute ages.

Before I get to the good stuff, though, I should very much like to draw your attention to of Kipling and Camping at Three Dollar Bill.Ìý It's delightful, balanced enough so that I'll believe the good stuff, and just left me feeling very warm and fuzzy.Ìý Thank you, Kassa!

Now then, this is something I've wanted to meditate on in writing for some time, and it seems apropos that I talk about silence, after Remembrance Day and before (hopefully) 4'33â€� becomes the Christmas number one.Ìý That last bit, especially, I'm super-excited about, because it's…perhaps not easy, but it seems natural for silence to fall when we remember and honour.Ìý It forces a self-contemplation, but it doesn't seem particularly radical, which 4'33â€� is and was.Ìý To have silence be a protest to music that is soulless and manufactured, and to have it happen on a day that means celebration and joy will be the most amazing juxtaposition.

Silence is both easy and so difficult to slip into, when it's not a special time.Ìý It's so easy to listen to music constantly (andÌý I'm only just starting to pull away from needing my own personal soundtrack going constantly), or to have noise, or to need to fill the silence yourself.Ìý But in meditation, in walking down the street, in working, it's something lovely to slip into.

Perhaps a lot of this started when I set down my Quaker-esque path.Ìý Because silence is a way of praying, and a way of listening to what you must know, whether you believe that it comes through God, a general Higher Power, your heart, or all three.Ìý That hour of enforced silence at meeting was often soothing, sometimes uncomfortable, usually welcome, and I miss it since my Sunday's changed.Ìý But now I walk around outside with friends, and get to the hear the silence of walking up a hill that's so far above the treeline, spare and sparse and beautiful.Ìý (Okay, silence punctuated by wheezing, but hey!Ìý Same idea!)

It feels twee to call silence a type of prayer, because that feels so limiting.Ìý Being quiet and just listening, or even daydreaming or drifting â€� to have real silence seems like such a treat for myself lately.Ìý I crave it and, unfortunately, after living in a string of cities, it seems to far gone.

I took my two minutes' silence naturally on Thursday, because I was (blessedly!) alone in the lab, working on a ceramic piece that is becoming a labour of love, with emphasis on the labour.Ìý It felt quite right, to work so hard on something so old, and remember and be a little sad, and be a little peaceful too.Ìý Perhaps that's why I like conservation so much â€� it's possible, even easy, to fall into silence as I work, and let that be an act of joy, meditating on something that was made and used and has its own story.

I feel, too, like I can't quite wrap this up â€� not until I can move out of the city, and live where it's quieter.Ìý But right now, on my surprisingly quiet street, it's a silent cold night, and I think I will enjoy what I have.

Love,

Me

Hello you lovers of lovely men (I'm trying out new taglines�),

I seem to have missed another journal entry, as I am sure you have all noticed.Ìý Yeah…get used to that.Ìý Frankly, I'm too…not exhausted to write, but I've got no more brainspace left.Ìý And for the past day or two I've been swanning around feeling down about my writing in general, which usually means it's high time to get over myself, so I am going to do so.Ìý Primarily by throwing myself (further) into my course, getting out of the house and going on walkabout more often, and finding I suddenly have something that is distinctly social-life shaped.Ìý I'm not abandoning this journal at all â€� I've got at least one more publication to announce, from stuff I wrote/rewrote over the summer â€� but ANARCHY SHALL REIGN.Ìý Also, probably a lot more posts about things like vintage clothing, nostalgia, immigration, Let the Right One In (which every one of you must stop what you are doing now and go see it.Ìý I'll wait.Ìý It's one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen, and it's about five shades beyond normal.Ìý And it has the most uncomfortably happy ending you'll ever see.), and whatever else tap-dances across my brain.Ìý And likely a couple of flash fics here and there.Ìý And, frankly, I'm bored with the traditional publishing route, so who knows what I'll come up with?Ìý More fumetti, I hope, maybe a story written in a wiki, maybe something else.Ìý I'm not very good at coming up with unique ideas, but who knows what's ahead?

Anyway, I am now off to put my hair up in pincurls, or at least try to.

Ìý

Love,

Me

My God, am I ever unmotivated.Ìý So much to do, and all I can manage is laundry and lolling about the house.

So you all get a flashfic!Ìý Wrote this right after going to see two weeks ago.Ìý (What game last weekend?Ìý I don't know what you're talking about.)Ìý Afterwards they had an autograph session pitchside, and I almost got sweated on by Alun-Wyn Jones.Ìý It was bliss.

Story dedicated to, in sympathy for events that are about to ensue.Ìý Perhaps the Orange One will love showbiz so much he retires from rugby?Ìý Maybe?Ìý Please?

�

PS:Ìý I have some brilliant news on the horizon.Ìý Once I've got a title for it, I'll announce…

Yeah, not really a WAG. For starters, you've sort of got to be a woman for that, and I'm not. I'm definitely not. Proper Valleys boy, that's me, and those photos of me in the tutu…look, you've never gone on the piss for your mate's birthday before? Thought so.

So, yeah, you sort of have to be a woman. And that's more for football, right? The whole making a career out of someone you date or, in the case of John Terry, have basically any kind of encounter with, because that'll apparently lead to a bit of the ol' in-out? And Matty, he plays rugby.

My boyfriend plays rugby, and that doesn't make me a WAG, for all of those reasons. Also because usually they look really bored � to be honest, some of the lads' girlfriends look pretty bored at the rugby games too � and I love watching him play. Shit, he teases me all the time that I'm only with him because he can get me amazing pitchside seats, and that's not the only reason but I'm not gonna say that I don't appreciate practically being sweated on by Steve Borthwick, which absolutely nearly happened once.

But that's not the only reason, and it's not even the biggest. (It's a nice perk, but of course it is � I was born with this game in my blood, and even Da is okay with me being a gayer, because I'm with someone who has a chance at an international cap with a few more months of development.) Matty's just…he's Matty. Quiet for a rugby boy, one of those big, shy forwards. Nice bloke, can hold his own on a night out, but he's never exactly upset if we stay in and just watch a film and maybe play Xbox. I get angry so easy, but not when Matty's around, and I've got so much better since we started dating. He has a way of laughing at me that doesn't make me angrier, it just makes me laugh too, because why get pissed off at missing a train, or whatever? There'll be another along in a bit.

And we both love the game, of course. Could watch it for ages. I played in school, like everyone does, and was a spectacularly bad centre until a broken leg gave me an excuse to not play again.

Jealous? Nah. Maybe a little. Watching Matty play, it's something special, and of course I wish I had a little of that. Who doesn't want to be good at things? But I don't miss it much, and I'm just as happy sitting right by the pitch, pint and a burger in hand, cheering him and the rest of the boys on. 'Cause that's what's best, really. Watching him run, watching that body drive forward, burst through tackles, make sure a ruck forms maybe a few feet further than it should've. That's what I mean by something special. Watching someone so sure of himself, so practised that it becomes something that isn't just sport.

It was a cracking good game today, really electric, and Matty played the best I've ever seen, hitting ruck after ruck, watching him scythe around, body cutting through the afternoon sunlight under the bluest sky you've ever seen in your life. I screamed myself raw, not caring at the looks the bored girls around me were giving me. He's my man, and we're not exactly the demonstrative types, but I'm proud of him, and he should know that. And the way he looked when he rammed through their defensive line � well, I wasn't getting hard, but I wasn't not, you know?

He had to go do team shit after the game, so I walked home under an early evening sky, enjoying the crunch of leaves over my iPod. Matty'd be along in a few hours; he already said he didn't want to go out, and I was well fine with that. There were some steaks in the fridge, and I'd got The Godfather for us to watch that day, and God was in his heaven and all was right in the world.

I was losing massively at FIFA 11 when he got in, and the kiss he gave me had me wondering what game? What Xbox? What anything but chasing each other up to our bedroom and getting naked together, winding around that impossibly fit body, weaving my fingers through curly brown hair and kissing until one of us got restless enough to take the other, night falling outside our window.

We're not exactly cuddlers, as you may have figured out, but he threw his arm around my waist, laughing at the damp smack it made, and I nudged a little closer to my human furnace.

"Good day?" he asked me softly, his fingers curling around my waist.

"Uh huh. You were amazing."

"It was a good day for everyone," he said, and I felt the shift that meant he was shrugging. "Thanks for coming."

"Wouldn't miss it for the world." Stupid way to say I love you, but we could say things like this easy, and know what it meant.

"Still. Could hear you, sometimes, on the pitch." A warm glow started in my belly at his words. Quiet as he was, everyone noticed Matty all big and muscled and handsome, and so good at sport. I wasn't anything special, on my own or especially in comparison, so pretty much got left alone.

Matty noticed me.

Hello, beautiful darlings!

A little early this week, because I've got the time, and I'm planning on being unfortunately rather busy tomorrow.Ìý So, a few hours early!

I have not forgotten the promise of greek shephard boys and Pan, but this week is something a little different.Ìý For some reason, it's taken me until now to discover fumetti, comics made from photos.Ìý Bliss!Ìý Joy!Ìý Why didn't I come up with this before!Ìý I love, love writing comics, but I have no talent at drawing, so this is a real boon.Ìý It's also a bit of a challenge because I don't really have people to photograph â€� so this two-page story is based around, pretty much, whatever I had lying around my bedroom.

It's a casual, many-years-later followup to my story in I Do Two, called Two Men: A Fugue.Ìý Apparently, if I can change media, I can write about sad thingsâ€�

�

�

Please let me know what you think â€� of the the little mini-story, but also about the layout, the font I used, etc.Ìý It's definitely a quick-n-dirty job (and is probably a little too postsecret-y), but I had so, so much fun doing it!Ìý Definitely have to come up with something fun and sexy, next time.

Oh, and if you were wondering if using my things to represent a dead character's possessions and using my chest to play the role of Adam's new (male) lover is mildly freaky, you're entirely right!Ìý Time to erase my whiteboard!

Hello my very dears,

So sorry about last week â€� classes started up and it was roughly equivalent to getting hit by a train.Ìý Which is why I'm writing this early on Wednesday morning, before I disappear into the lab/library/etc.Ìý And which is also why it might be a bit short Ìý Things are quiet at the moment, though I'm already planning a flash fic for next week â€� for various reasons, I've been staring at Greek vase paintings all week, so I've got a yummy story based on one in which Pan pursues a shephardâ€�

(My favourite is the one where a satyr has an amphora balanced on the tip of his…pride and joy, shall we say.Ìý It's impressive!)

The Great Writing Drought has begun, what with my return to school, so expect to see more flash fic â€� I can't write anything long, but I'm determined to keep up with something this year.Ìý Also, frankly, I feel low enough about things in general lately, I'd like to just accomplish something.Ìý Anything.

And, finally, a little PSA.Ìý Many of you know I'm a rugby fan, and I support the Ospreys.Ìý One or two of you know I have an unhealthy attachment to their fullback, one Lee Byrne.Ìý In a rather lovely turn, he's r for the , part of the Dylan Thomas Prize.Ìý So, submit away!

Well, fart, never mind.Ìý The deadline was aaaages ago, soâ€� I'm quite sure what Lee's supposed to be doing?Ìý Anyway, he looks adorbs in the publicity photo, and keep it in mind if they run it next year, for the 2011 competitionâ€�

(Dear Lee:Ìý You can make it up to me by winning on Friday, k?Ìý K.)

Love,

Me

Hello, gentle readers,

Well, it's the last Wednesday before lectures start up again.Ìý I'll try to keep the moaning to a minimum, as I give my life over to the course for the LASTÌýYEAR!Ìý Michaelmas term* will likely be easier to deal with than in the spring, but I'm determined to keep writing this column every week, with an entry posted by midnight on Wednesday, GMT.Ìý Well, possibly very early Thursday

* I have decided to adopt the older terms because then I can feel vaguely that I go to a classy, studious school.Ìý And then I can go out on Saturday nights and weep for the future of humanity, when I see what's on parade.

I wound up actually giving a modicum of thought to the mechanics of how I write, courtesy a little post from , and doing the last edits on two novellas that are on the very tippy-edge of being completed.Ìý Basically, I have no method.Ìý I have an image, or a rough summary, or even just a character, and the story evolves around that.Ìý Sometimes I have an end and a beginning, but woe be to me if I actually write that end â€� for some reason, I just can't continue with the story unless I write it more or less in chronological order.Ìý This is exactly as annoying as you'd think.

But all is not anarchy, I think; I get the bones of the story, and most of the flesh, and then it's time to go over it, again and again, and fine-tune it.Ìý I'm reading Harvey Oxenhorn's Tuning the Rig: A Journey to the Arctic, which is a rather literary account of sailing on the tall ship Regina Maris, researching whales around Greenland.Ìý He is sometimes (often) irritating*, but he does explain the way sailing works, the emotional guts of it, brilliantly.Ìý This is his description of tuning the rig, wherein one makes minute adjustments to a dizzying array of lines:

"[Lawrence] had found a fracture in the giant bottle screw into which a back-stay fastened.Ìý This was serious, since the counterbalanced tension of the stays is what holds up the mast, like guy wires on a radio tower.Ìý Fran had constructed a steel splint, which Lawrence had then bolted onto the bottle screw.Ìý It would hold for a while.Ìý But it altered the tension on the backstay and made it necessary to adjust th opposing stays (four on each side) by backing off or tightening other bottle screw with a crowbar and monkey wrench that weighted ten pounds.

Only when we had finished with the mizzen did a realize that we had just begun â€� that the mizzenmast, in turn, was connected by other stays to the mainmast, the mainmast to the foremast, the foremast to the jib boom, and so on.Ìý A single web distributed the tension over every inch of rig; no part, even the stoutest mast, stood on its own; the whole thing held together thanks to counterbalanced stress, so that a change in any single part affected every other."

*I should note here that Oxenhorn was sadly killed in an accident the same year that he published Tuning the Rig. So I feel very guilty saying this.Ìý But really, I spent the first 2/3rds of the book despairing over himâ€�

I have decided that this is why I hate making big edits.Ìý Every change beyond a certain level is going to affect every other part of the story, is going to change how a character behaves at certain points, so that every time I fix a cracked bottle screw, I must go through the whole delicate web, touching here and there, making tiny adjustments as I go.Ìý But for the whole thing to hold together and sing true, it's got to be done.Ìý A first draft is a shakedown cruise, and I can see that half my opening page has to be cut, or else I bore myself to death, let alone anyone else.Ìý I don't follow the patterns you're supposed to â€� not consciously, anyway â€� but the rig of a ship I can understand, and maybe it's a better metaphor than anything else, should I ever find myself needing one.Ìý Either way, I suppose it's a fun thought experiment.

Love,

Me

Hello my very dears,

A little frazzled this week from the Haus of Deri-Bowen. I'm desperately trying to find a flatmate before the beginning of October. It's not going brilliantly. My back-up plan is eat a huge rent payment in October, and move in November if I have to. (I suppose this is the advantage of being able to fit all my earthly goods in a taxi � moving isn't the headache it was in Philly!) I'd rather not, but so far no one seems to be interested in the room. Any advice, from...