Friends

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The day has finally arrived! Twisted Fairy Tale Anthology is now available in print and as a pdf file. Here is a list of the amazing authors that are a part of this incredible anthology: Isabelle Rose, Cassandra Lee, Jennifer L. Miller, Leigh Dragoon, Dave Rex, Charlotte Emma Gledson, John H. Howard, Jeff Ezell, Jessica Lynne Gardner, and Rachel Ayers.

Here's an excerpt of one of the stories you will find inside TFT:

Natalie's Garden by Jessica Lynne Gardner

For more information please visit our website www.tftanthology.webs.com .

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http://stringtheory.nfshost.com/comics/chaptertwo/page-two/

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Kinda skimping on the background detail today, but honestly, when you’ve got a lot of dialogue background detail can clutter a scene. This is the excuse I am telling myself!

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SLUGGO FINALLY PICKS A SIDE

IN THE GENDER WAR

from Tip Top #221 (May-July 1960)

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It’s raining again.  Still.  Forever.  It is raining, in the glorious British metaphor, stair-rods.*  I was out last night . . . er . . . this morning at about one a.m. tipping out the saucers that most of my outdoor potted plants sit in (again), this time turning them over, and setting the pots on the resulting tiny daises.  There’s a pond in front of the steps to the front door of the mews.  There’s a lake at the bottom of the valley where the main street meets the old park avenue that leads to the Big Pink Blot** that Peter’s little house is part of the mews of.  The steep cul de sac my cottage is on is a rushing torrent.  I don’t quite have to tuck hellhounds under my arms to prevent all of us from being swept away but if this bloody weather keeps on it may come to that.

            We did manage to have a proper hurtle on our second try this morning, but the first time we went out it was stair-rods all the way.   I dragged them on a quick round the block—but we have had a crap! they wept.  Take us home!—So you can pace like caged lions and demand endless amounts of gooey-tennis-ball throwing*** and tummy rubbing?  A few stair-rods never killed anyone.  Keep walking—and then we all went down to the mews so we could ruin Peter’s day too.  Comfortable indoors with a cup of steaming tea and a newspaper?  Sic ’im. 

            So we finally got out for our necessary hours, but it’s ankle deep all over town.  The new footpath† has a slow sheet of water moving thoughtfully over it, looking rather like a modern-art installation, and watching hellhounds trying to keep all eight feet off the ground simultaneously is good for a little mild entertainment, except for the fact that the rain is rendering my glasses opaque.  And when we got home again yesterday’s towels are still wet.  And there isn’t anywhere left to hang wet towels.  We’re presently ruining the finish on Peter’s banister.††

            And then as if this was not enough, I frelled my piano lesson today.  Well, sort of.  It was not a full frelling, but it was definitely ungleblarging on a day that was already pretty ungleblarging. †††  We, Oisin and I, are burning through the Capriol Suite in our three-and-a-half handed way ‡ and the bits I’ve been playing for several weeks now should, in theory, be getting relatively . . . stable.  There’s a chord progression in Basse-Danse which is kind of a ratbag, but I’ve been wearing little hollows in my hundred-and-ten-year-old ivory keys practising the sucker, and I thought I had it pretty well nailed.  In, you know, both hands, even if there was going to be someone else playing with me.  Wrong.  Blah.  And having frelled it once, then I couldn’t get it back, of course, because  There Was Someone Else in the Room and in fact sitting next to me at the frelling keyboard, and trying to play more notes.  Gah.  This is one of the serious drawbacks to duets—I quite like having The Other Person in the Room at least semi-distracted by the necessity of playing his own music, but it means that I can’t get away with any evocative if unscheduled rallentandos ‡‡ because here’s this other set of fingers dragging me on at the marked tempo.  It’s as bad as singing with an accompanist. ‡‡‡

            At least I made it to bell practise tonight.  What with the PEGASUS deadline§ and the ME playing killer badminton with me as the birdie §§ lately I have a discouraging habit of being splay-feathered and squashed by ringing-practise time.  I didn’t ring brilliantly but I rang. 

            And so to conclude a day that could have been much more cooperative and fulfilling, I think I’ll finish destroying my negligible self-confidence by listening to someone else singing Che Faro.  Gods.  Spoilt for choice:  Marilyn Horne.  Janet Baker.  Maria Callas.  Teresa Berganza.  Shirley Verrett.  Rise Stevens.  Brigitte Fassbaender.  Kathleen Ferrier.  Christa Ludwig.  Approximately every mezzo who ever lived.  There are even a couple of blokes.§§§

            . . . Sigh. ¤ 

* * *

* http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/298200.html

I Twittered yesterday about the fact that it’s raining so hard you come indoors not merely wet but bruised.  Stair-rods would explain this.  It perhaps also explains the extraordinary noise the water butt by the greenhouse makes as it overflows.  It sounds like the water roaring into your breached hull.  Or stair-rods falling. 

** Long time readers may recall that the Big Pink Blot is the local big house—big enough to have an avenue leading to it, and a mews—which has been turned into cooperative flats.  They chose this colour.  Recently they had it repainted.  The new version is worse. 

            A year or two ago one of the flats went up for sale, and I had a look at it, not because I seriously thought I was going to sell up the cottage and Third House to move into it, but because it would actually be nice to be neighbours with my husband, and it seemed to me irresponsible not to have a look.  In the first place . . . turned out I’d have to sell the cottage, Third House, and the czarina’s diamonds to afford it, and in the second place . . . ewwww.  It’s just not a good pink.  I wouldn’t even wear that pink.  And furthermore . . . communal gardens.  They’ve got a gardener.  I am aware that there are advantages to this system, but . . . I like the Stuffed Look.  The Can’t Get Another Allium Sphaerocephalon^ in If I Tried (but I’m Going to Try) Look.  And there are hardly any roses.  And, for that matter, not a single carnivore.^^  Carnivores are fun.^^^  

^ http://www.avonbulbs.co.uk/allium-sphaerocephalon_26_30.htm   Trust me.  There’s always room for an allium sphaero.  

^^ http://www.hantsflytrap.com/

Flytraps keep dying on me but I have three Sarracenias that are starting to move into world domination mode.  

^^^ And it’s nice to see something really enjoying this weather. 

*** Generously productive of rucked-up rugs and misaligned furniture. 

† The Warlock Gate footpath 

†† There are no stair-rods, just in case you wanted to know. 

††† I got porned on Twitter.  How gross is that?  

‡ My left hand has a habit of falling out of the race and diving for cover 

‡‡ http://www.thefreedictionary.com/rallentando 

‡‡‡ I’ve mentioned that I’ve decided I don’t know how to practise singing, haven’t I?  I mean aside from the fact that I feel I spend the week between lessons unlearning any/everything that Blondel tried to get over last time.   With a piano you at least have a direct, provable relationship between the marks on the pages and the keys.  This mark means that key.  Plonk.  As a bridge and translator you may suck, but at least you know what you’re trying to do.  This singing deal is arcane. 

§ Got a well-meaning but seriously misguided email from my editor wishing me a ‘good weekend before the deadline.’  Are you kidding?

 §§ Er . . . tweet. 

§§§ Feh.  I know Orpheus was a bloke.  Gluck’s Orfeo is a mezzo role.  Say I. 

¤  Had someone write to me about a fortnight ago asking if she could send me a book to sign for a friend’s birthday.  She had to write me twice because I didn’t answer the first time.  The second time I said no, I’m tired of the Great Atlantic Postal Dragon eating them, but I’d send her a signed bookplate if she liked.  She said yes please.  I said, email me again in a few days to make sure it GETS DONE (it’s for a birthday in December).  She emailed me today and I had the EXTREME AND UNUSUAL pleasure of being able to say I’D ALREADY PUT IT IN THE POST.  I told this story to a friend For Whom I Am Somewhat Notorious For Getting Stuff Not Put in the Post in a Timely Manner, adding, Maybe I should put that on the blog. . . .  And she emailed back:  Yes, indeed.  Such an extraordinary event must needs be chronicled.

            Sometimes I set myself up for bad days.

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