I meant to write today

[julian_griffith]

 but there were a million interruptions, and I really NO FOOLING had to get a chapter of billing & coding coursework done, and seriously it just was NOT HAPPENING. Though I might get a bit in after this post.

But I still have exciting writing-related things going on! I sent back the edits on "Your Most Humble and Obedient Servant", the femdom lady pirate / English naval captain story I wrote for the Turning the Tables anthology, and, even better, gehayi is just about done with the edits on Love Continuance and Increasing. I ought to get them back from her in a day or so.

Let me tell you how awesome it is to have an editor I already know. Let me tell you how awesome it is to have an editor who'll go to bat for me on some of my quirks that don't fit the stylebook.

I GET TO KEEP MY BRITISH SPELLINGS, FOLKS.

This was so important to me! I didn't realize how important until I faced losing them, and had the sinking feeling as if asked to cast the movie of my book with actors who'd speak in American accents. It would have been THAT WRONG.

I got word that I was being allowed to keep them because it WAS set in England in the early 19th century, and otherwise it would have been no, but that's why I ASKED for it - I wouldn't have done it for a contemporary American story. I also wouldn't be writing a contemporary story set in the UK because there's just too much I don't know. I can research well enough to sustain an existing contemporary UK setting for a medium-length fanfic. There is no way I'd manage it for an original. I wouldn't try.

I also get to use "grey" instead of "gray". I don't get to switch back and forth between them, alas - I still contend, and gehayi agrees with me, that the two are DIFFERENT COLORS, and "grey" is lighter and softer than "gray", but the price of getting "grey" is that I have to be consistent.

This is bearable. If they'd insisted on "gray" I would have had to go back and change Caroline's eyes to GREEN. Because they are NOT GRAY. They're grey. It makes a difference!

gehayi also made me very happy by commenting that some of Thorne's idioms and grammatical lapses sound very like her grandfather, who came from a coal mining village. Which...means I've made him sound northern, which is right for the actor's voice I was hearing in my head, but not right for the character's specified birthplace, unless the idiom carries over to other rural areas. Well, I can almost guarantee most American readers won't know the difference, and I hope I haven't made him entirely implausible for UK readers! I should make the next lot extraterrestrials. Lots of planets have a north!

So, I need to get back to Julia and Mary, but the certification course has got to take a certain amount of priority. And then I want to see if I can do a story for the Uncommon Valor (m/m, WWII) anthology call at Storm Moon, and then... VERY exciting... Storm Moon is really eager for trans* fiction, and I have a perfect hook for that: a female-assigned-at-birth soldier in Rockingham's regiment! Oh, there is SO much I can do with that! So, looking to start that in August.

Meanwhile, I'm pretty well set to get through the first heat wave of the summer. I knew it was coming, so the last couple of days I prepped ahead, and I made a batch of gazpacho, and one of cucumber-yogurt soup, and a big bowl of pasta salad, and a few deviled eggs (I left the others hard-boiled without fussing with them), and a batch of lemon-dill butter, and I have veggies cut up for green salads, and basically all I have to do for a while is RAID THE FRIDGE. I'm good with not having to put ANY thought into cooking for a while.

I've had at least two quarts of iced tea today. I have a funny feeling I won't sleep for a while.

Maybe I'll be able to write.

Comments

[anne]

I feel that gray is slightly more blue-tinged than grey. They're definitely different colors. Grey is fog, gray is storm clouds.

[julian_griffith]

YES EXACTLY. Grey is fog and mist and pearl and dove; gray is storm clouds and gunmetal and battleship and charcoal.

[recessional]

*laughing* I have EXACTLY THE OPPOSITE associations.

[julian_griffith]

You're the first so far to say so! Isn't it weird how that works?

[recessional]

For me it's honestly a synaesthetic thing - I hear the two slightly differently in my head, and "ey" is a sound that is always a more solid/deep colour than "ay", which has high transluscence and glow.

So, talking different colours, "bey" is the red of blood when it's been exposed to oxygen for thirty seconds, where bay is a bright early summersky blue.

[julian_griffith]

I think for me it must be either a visual mapping of how the letters look on the page, or the way I handle vowel sounds, but "ey" is lighter and higher-pitched than "ay".

[mswyrr]

It's this way in my head. "Ey" is soft and light. "Ay" is deep and thick.

#brains are strange

[clare_dragonfly]

I am so delighted to find more people who think "grey" and "gray" are different colors :D Gray is darker and warmer!

Also I love your planning ahead for the heat wave. I wish I'd thought of that. We did have one lovely cool day for cooking beforehand...

[julian_griffith]

Up until... last year? Two years ago? Anyway, for QUITE a few years we didn't have any A/C here, until my parents said "this is ridiculous, we'll pay for a couple of window units." So I had to work up a hot-weather repertoire. I can also make sushi rice but we were running out of room in the fridge. When we eat up the pasta salad I'll make some.

Most of the hot-weather make-aheads didn't even involve cooking, except for boiling the pasta and the eggs. But I knew that when the heat arrived I wouldn't even want to cut things up, so they're sitting there in the fridge as Convenience Food. It's all pretty healthy, too, until I start drowning my salad in dressing or mixing up sour-cream dip for the carrot and celery sticks.

The winter version of convenience food is the Big Pot of Soup.

[mswyrr]

So happy to hear editing is going well for you! <3 It seems like you're keeping things spinning really well. As soon as you have new words on anything, I am glad to read them.

[kittygamble]

Yay edits! And British spellings.

I've been meaning to do another pass on the short story, but Susie and Percy are EATING MY BRAINS. Though even though I'd planned to write today and I wanted to, I wasn't quick enough starting and I'm leaving to visit a friend soon. Since I'm about at the place where Thomas comes home it's best if I wait until Sunday to start all that anyway. Though that is hard, because I've been filling in Thomas' side in what will be missing scenes. They don't fit in the story because that's all Susie and Percy's POV, but I want to know how they're all reacting. It's AWFUL. They're fighting a bit and Cornelius is stuck in the middle and all uncomfortable and I know they'll be okay but MY BABIES. D:

But that soldier story? DO WANT. OMG. That sounds amazing.

[julian_griffith]

I plan on trying to make some new words of my own this evening, after I finish my coursework chapter, but if the words are dragging I'll take that punctuation pass through Victorious War, Beauty Ashore.

SMP is desperate for trans* fiction. And now I know why I was reading all that following-the-drum stuff for Polly when Publishing the Banns than I only outlined was supposed to end before she went to the Peninsula. Obviously Tim is going to get killed (I'm thinking either Ciudad Rodrigo or Badajoz) and Polly will remarry (because how's she going to live otherwise? Getting home is problematic so she has to stay on the strength) and of course she'll marry Jack Rowe. (Or Jack Monroe. Not sure which variant of the ballad I want to call out, though said ballad is not a perfect match.) And it's JACK who comes home & is one of Rockingham's gardeners after.

So yes. JACK. And Polly. Jack is going to be much more interesting to write about than Tim, who never made it past a cipher in my mind.

[kittygamble]

No pressure on the grammar pass - I still have lots of time.

*flails* SO awesome. I can't wait to read it! (and more Julia and Mary as well, obviously).