Friends

The clumps are significant on leaves and branches, and details of the topography have all been smoothed to pure white softness. Tiny icicles, even, like crystal ear drops. Freshly fallen snow is stunning in its beauty, but I can see how trying to function in it would get toilsome and wearing.

Many thanks to those who answered my question yesterday. I expected a division, but what I got was another division among those who are okay with subscribing to serials--but save the whole until it's complete.

So! Time to get to work, but first, have a couple shots out window panes at the front side of the house:

So we have been snowed into very pleasant surroundings. Each morning I make tea and fill the gigantic bathtub, drop some essential oils in it, and soak and sip tea. These past two mornings, this is what I look out at:



I relish every moment, with a deep gratitude for how lucky I am. Though I'm aware of a residual guilt, though I have done nothing wrong. It's the sheer selfishness of my enjoyment--because of early conditioning, the very word 'selfish' connoted imminent fire and destruction, well deserved. Because I am not the fastest with a clue, it took me over fifty years to comprehend the difference between the selfishness that robs others, or glories in others' hurt, and the selfishness that does no harm.

Our first day here, the snow all melted in a crashing thunderstorm. We stayed in the cabin below the main house for the duration, playing with the cats as a fire leaped in the fireplace. I did some yoga while thunder and rain poured all around.

Yesterday I woke to snow. As well as today. We walked out yesterday, trying to get the feel for walking in it. Here I am in the winter coat I've owned for a number of years, but till now it's lived in my closet, only coming out when I travel back east:



I took a video of today's snow, which I won't put up as Dreamwidth has a truly awful media platform--it's awkward and time consuming to upload photos, and one is limited to a small amount of bandwidth to store them. I think a single vid would max me out--and of course snowfall would be no delight and wonder to most of North America, save my corner.

So I'll put up a picture instead:



Everything, everything is made beautiful by a lacy coating of pure white shading subtly to blue here and gold there. The landscape transforms, familiar landmarks changing or vanishing entirely. I can't tell where the road bends. The snow makes a subtle squidgy sound underfoot, not wet and mushy as it did yesterday.

Leading to another observation: it is always changing. There is no still like the photos: clumps drop continually out of trees, or shower down. The temperature rises and the snow changes shape, or turns to water, creating myriad little streams. Or, during the night, it turns to ice--which is why we haven't gone anywhere. None of us want to attempt mountain roads if there is ice.

So . . . back to writing projects, reading, and slowly watching, and loving the endgame of The Story of Minglan, which is simply phenomenal.

Yesterday rachelmanija and I had a lovely drive (once we got out of LA . . . it took almost three hours to cover the forty miles to her place) up to her parents' place in Mariposa. Snow in the distance, and then as we climbed into the mountains, it lay everywhere, glistening white and magical.

We're here on a writing retreat--no interruptions except looking at beautiful scenery.

Second whoop, I was sent the cover art for A Sword Named Truth, which is slated now for June. They said that the copyedit is coming, which means this is more likely to be a real pub date!

We have had such a wealth of rain, and delicious cold weather! It's been wonderful as I hunker here in the bunker trying to get this story wrapped up*. Sometimes it's been so cold here at my desk I can see my breath, and I keep fixing hot tea in order to warm my hands. And loving getting to wear long sleeves!

I know summer will be coming soon, but there is slightly less dread because I'm looking forward to going to Quincy, MA, for Readercon (Rates going up soon, if you're thinking of coming) July 11-14, and the fiftieth Mythcon Deets here) the first weekend in August.

A friend and I have worked up some discussable possible panel topics to suggest to Readercon (and I sent in one or two myself); I can hardly wait to see what richness others come up with. Re Mythcon, I still remember the frantic joy and anticipation before the first Mythcon. I've missed a lot of them over the past couple decades, but I always love going back. Mythcon, like Fourth Street Fantasy (which alas I have to miss, sob), has its own shape, with certain events you don't get at any other con. It really is a mixture of academic and fun, and, like Fourth Street, it's mostly book talk and less media. There are more papers presented at Mythcon, but there's also more playful stuff. Readercon--at least the two times I was there, many years ago--has very little playful stuff, and that seems to be right at the beginning, but its real draw is a fantastic program, which spins off great discussions.

*have written 40 k words in the last three weeks, not including one redraft. Only two major set pieces to go, once I get the current one in the bag.