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My niece's eyes are too new to make sense of pictures, so reading to her goes more or less like this:
Captain Nemo led us through a dark gallery whose gentle slope brought us down to a depth of about three hundred feet. That's a very long way, Kate. Among the coraline branches, I saw other polyps that were no less strange: melites, iris with very visible feelers, a species of seaweed hardened into a crust by their calcareous salts. Naturalists, after many discussions, have finally and definitely relegated them to the vegetable kingdom. Well, we wouldn't want to be relegated to the vegetable kingdom, would we, Kate? We like it right here in the animal kingdom. Still, I think Uncle Jules spends way too much time describing fishies, don't you? Too many fishies! What was he thinking?! What does he need? Hurgle? No, sweetie, he doesn't need hurgle. He needs more girl cooties, that's what he needs. Even his own characters say so. Check it out. What an indescribable spectacle! If we had only been able to communicate our feelings! Why were we imprisoned behind masks of metal and glass! Why were we prevented from talking to each other! If only we could have shared the life of all those fish that swarm in these crystal waters! See how many exclamation points Uncle Jules uses? He'd really like more girl cooties. He just doesn't know how to get them. Or better still, share the life of those amphibians which, for hours at a stretch, romp at will in sea and on land!
Never let it be said I'm not doing my bit on behalf of future generations of geekboys.
In other news, my cellphone finally keeled over due to a manufacturing defect. It took Verizon rather longer than it should have, but they replaced the phone free of charge and managed to transfer my address book into the new one. If you've been trying to reach me or waiting to hear from me since Sunday, that's what the delay is about.
Today, I split Vol 1 Part 2's chapters into separate Word files. I'd been avoiding thinking about the length of the Rildis chapter I've been struggling to fix for the past couple of months. It's too awful to be named. Why, why must it be so long? Why, why must it be so difficult? Why can I not share the life of those amphibians who romp at will in sea and on land?
Because Rildis wasn't the central character in the first draft of the manuscript, but she's certainly Vol 1's central character now. And if she's the central character, and the first volume of the series ends when she flees the city, then this chapter's the crucial set-up for that flight and the calamity that sends her running. This is the heart of the book.
Oh. Well, I guess that's all right then. Bring on the girl cooties.
Captain Nemo led us through a dark gallery whose gentle slope brought us down to a depth of about three hundred feet. That's a very long way, Kate. Among the coraline branches, I saw other polyps that were no less strange: melites, iris with very visible feelers, a species of seaweed hardened into a crust by their calcareous salts. Naturalists, after many discussions, have finally and definitely relegated them to the vegetable kingdom. Well, we wouldn't want to be relegated to the vegetable kingdom, would we, Kate? We like it right here in the animal kingdom. Still, I think Uncle Jules spends way too much time describing fishies, don't you? Too many fishies! What was he thinking?! What does he need? Hurgle? No, sweetie, he doesn't need hurgle. He needs more girl cooties, that's what he needs. Even his own characters say so. Check it out. What an indescribable spectacle! If we had only been able to communicate our feelings! Why were we imprisoned behind masks of metal and glass! Why were we prevented from talking to each other! If only we could have shared the life of all those fish that swarm in these crystal waters! See how many exclamation points Uncle Jules uses? He'd really like more girl cooties. He just doesn't know how to get them. Or better still, share the life of those amphibians which, for hours at a stretch, romp at will in sea and on land!
Never let it be said I'm not doing my bit on behalf of future generations of geekboys.
In other news, my cellphone finally keeled over due to a manufacturing defect. It took Verizon rather longer than it should have, but they replaced the phone free of charge and managed to transfer my address book into the new one. If you've been trying to reach me or waiting to hear from me since Sunday, that's what the delay is about.
Today, I split Vol 1 Part 2's chapters into separate Word files. I'd been avoiding thinking about the length of the Rildis chapter I've been struggling to fix for the past couple of months. It's too awful to be named. Why, why must it be so long? Why, why must it be so difficult? Why can I not share the life of those amphibians who romp at will in sea and on land?
Because Rildis wasn't the central character in the first draft of the manuscript, but she's certainly Vol 1's central character now. And if she's the central character, and the first volume of the series ends when she flees the city, then this chapter's the crucial set-up for that flight and the calamity that sends her running. This is the heart of the book.
Oh. Well, I guess that's all right then. Bring on the girl cooties.
