Yearning to shilly-shally

Remind me next time to work harder earlier in the year, so that I am not finishing a book during the holidays. All the baking and decorating and shilly-shallying I am not able to do right now is paining me. And it's not just the pain of cookies crying out for their right to exist, or the overwhelming sudden need to sew weird little creatures (which I am valiantly resisting), or the need for a Christmas tree, or to knit some gifts, and shop for others. It's also. . . the movies. I really want to go see Atonement, and I Am Legend. As for The Golden Compass, deadline-shmedline. We're seeing it on opening day. Can't wait.

But, mostly I am behaving. I did get a little decorating fun in when Alexandra and I made our annual pilgrimage to my parents' house to decorate my mom's toy cupboard. The toy cupboard is an antique pie safe that gets transformed once a year by a collection of toys and santas and sugar plum garlands and such, and my mom lets Alexandra and I, in the absence of local grandchildren, do the fixing. We're like kids. I'd show you a picture, but Alexandra is as unable as a cat to resist blinking from a camera flash, and she has vetoed the usage of half-lidded zombie-eyed pictures of herself. So I'll just show some toys instead.

This is the evil elf king. He's on top, guarding the sugar plums, of course.




And here, at home and looking like she needs a Santa hat, is Persephone, my knitted alter-ego, with the calendar. I've cut off the December page and posted it up next to my writing bench for an ever-present reminder of D-Day. It is funny, as the day approaches, how the definition of a satisfactory day's work is changing. Usually, a 3,000-word day is A-okay. Not so much now. 6,000-8,000, that's okay -- of course, I must stress, this is not all new writing, but some pilfering from earlier drafts too. Still: exhausting. Yesterday, Magpie did something that made me laugh out loud. That was fun.
Speaking of shilly-shallying, Alexandra has begun sending daily writer's inspirations via email, and the first one, from yesterday, is on that theme:

Alexandra's Daily Inspiration:
"A migrating bird is like an author writing their novel. Both must have faith in their ability to reach their destination. Of course sometimes a random bird eyeballs a Taco Bell down below and swoops down for a quick burrito- and maybe nachos- and decides to give up the flight, and thats okay, just like its okay for an author to eat burritos and nachos if thats what they really want instead of finishing their novel. Everything is okay. The bird is okay, the author is okay, and the world is okay."

p.s. thank you, dear Blue Poppy, for such a lovely review of your reading experience of Blackbringer. This means so much to me!