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dr_pretentiousNow that I have less than three weeks to go before the baby's due date, I'm cramming books into my head as if for some kind of exam. And not just pregnancy and child-rearing books, either. I'm on a big web design and podcasting reading kick. If the baby doesn't do my tired body the kindness of arriving early, my consolation prize will be having time to record a couple of stories as podcasts, and maybe time to set up a proper website. For years, I've been trying intermittently to register www.sarahavery.com, only to find that some domain squatter was holding it--there's a minor television actress who has the same name I do, and I suspect the domain squatter was holding the domain name hostage just in case the actress made it big. Anyhow, the squatter's given up now, and that other Sarah Avery off in Hollywood missed her chance. So did the Sarah Avery who writes newspaper columns in local papers in the Carolinas, and all the other Sarah Averys (the other Sarahs Avery?). It's my domain now! Mine, mine, mine! Bwahahahaha!
I'm not sure when "The War of the Wheat Berry Year" will be appearing in Black Gate, but the deadline I've set myself is that I have to have the website presentable and a sound recording of the story tidied up in time for that issue, whenever it comes out. I also need to listen to some poetry podcasts and decide if I want to do the Persephone Sonnets. How the Grail Came to the Fisher King is kind of a long shot--it would have an audience, even if it would take me a lot of takes and editing to get through it. The Rugosa Coven novellas would work well in a serialized format, but it looks like something might finally be happening with one of those, so I don't want to complicate the rights in any way right now. (There's nothing I can announce yet, but keep your fingers crossed for me.)
The thing is, the first time I gave any thought to podcasting was around the same time George started getting into it. A poetry journal I'd published in wrote me to ask me to make a sound recording of the poem they'd taken, because they were putting together a big podcast to celebrate some anniversary--their 20th or 30th year of publication, I forget which. George and his family were making a project of setting up a podcasting studio in their house, and I figured this would be a good excuse for us all to get together some evening. Only George had just been diagnosed with cancer, so our get-together would have to wait until his doctors told him how bad it was. Well, he was better, then worse, then better, then worse, for so long. I missed the poetry deadline, I was so determined not to admit that George might not get well enough to teach me a little of what he'd been teaching himself. Whenever I saw him in his various hospitals, he had a stack of podcasting manuals he was reading, and he had Big Plans for the podcasts he was going to do once he was recovering at home. When friends whose work schedules didn't allow them as much freedom as I had to get into the city for visits would ask me how George was doing, I'd say something like, "Well, the surgical wound is still not healing right, but he's still got Big Plans." And we all felt like his Big Plans were somehow predictive of an eventual recovery. His Big Plans so often came off spectacularly well--he had a really enviable track record. Right up to the last week of his life, when I tried to concentrate on hope for George's recovery, my mental picture of hope still looked like Dan and me bringing a big casserole out to Turtle Hill and the whole bunch of us playing around with microphones after dinner.
After December, it was a while before I wanted to think about podcasting again.
Anyhow, here we are, coming up on the first Samhain since he died. And I've kept myself waiting three years to try my hand at podcasting. Waiting any longer would mean missed opportunities that could actually matter for my writing career, and if George could tell me anything now, it would be not to put off my Big Plans.
I'm not sure when "The War of the Wheat Berry Year" will be appearing in Black Gate, but the deadline I've set myself is that I have to have the website presentable and a sound recording of the story tidied up in time for that issue, whenever it comes out. I also need to listen to some poetry podcasts and decide if I want to do the Persephone Sonnets. How the Grail Came to the Fisher King is kind of a long shot--it would have an audience, even if it would take me a lot of takes and editing to get through it. The Rugosa Coven novellas would work well in a serialized format, but it looks like something might finally be happening with one of those, so I don't want to complicate the rights in any way right now. (There's nothing I can announce yet, but keep your fingers crossed for me.)
The thing is, the first time I gave any thought to podcasting was around the same time George started getting into it. A poetry journal I'd published in wrote me to ask me to make a sound recording of the poem they'd taken, because they were putting together a big podcast to celebrate some anniversary--their 20th or 30th year of publication, I forget which. George and his family were making a project of setting up a podcasting studio in their house, and I figured this would be a good excuse for us all to get together some evening. Only George had just been diagnosed with cancer, so our get-together would have to wait until his doctors told him how bad it was. Well, he was better, then worse, then better, then worse, for so long. I missed the poetry deadline, I was so determined not to admit that George might not get well enough to teach me a little of what he'd been teaching himself. Whenever I saw him in his various hospitals, he had a stack of podcasting manuals he was reading, and he had Big Plans for the podcasts he was going to do once he was recovering at home. When friends whose work schedules didn't allow them as much freedom as I had to get into the city for visits would ask me how George was doing, I'd say something like, "Well, the surgical wound is still not healing right, but he's still got Big Plans." And we all felt like his Big Plans were somehow predictive of an eventual recovery. His Big Plans so often came off spectacularly well--he had a really enviable track record. Right up to the last week of his life, when I tried to concentrate on hope for George's recovery, my mental picture of hope still looked like Dan and me bringing a big casserole out to Turtle Hill and the whole bunch of us playing around with microphones after dinner.
After December, it was a while before I wanted to think about podcasting again.
Anyhow, here we are, coming up on the first Samhain since he died. And I've kept myself waiting three years to try my hand at podcasting. Waiting any longer would mean missed opportunities that could actually matter for my writing career, and if George could tell me anything now, it would be not to put off my Big Plans.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 07:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 12:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 12:29 am (UTC)I've had energy to do things with, but for the past few months, I've had a serious case of what Buddhists call Monkey Mind. After years of boasting, with justification, that I have the longest attention span you'll meet anywhere outside a Buddhist monastery, I've actually found Monkey Mind weirdly refreshing. I've been making lots of progress on various things, but not the kind of decisive, get-massive-projects-finished progress I'm accustomed to from myself. From talking to other writers who have had kids, I gather this is a pretty normal pregnancy experience, and that I'll get to trade it in for a whole different set of challenges once the baby comes.
no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 01:48 pm (UTC)http://www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/mom/pcos.html
no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 02:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-02 06:02 pm (UTC)Good Fortune with it all! :-) I shall look forward to hearing and reading, etc.!
And yeah, it's a harsh thing to learn that tomorrow sometimes doesn't come, no matter the Will involved. Fwiw, *hugs*.
-Katrina
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Date: 2007-10-02 06:07 pm (UTC)Glad you are doing well! (I like the poem series a lot!)
no subject
Date: 2007-10-03 02:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-04 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-05 04:15 am (UTC)Which they haven't, so far, but they didn't lose their pattern until about noon, either. So I think I've hit the point beyond which no advance plans can be made until after the Nubbin finally gets born. We'd love to see you, but considering how long a trek it would be for the three of you to come see us, a post-partum visit is probably wisest.
And hand-me-downs are always welcome!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-05 12:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-07 04:05 am (UTC)Congrads on getting the web address you wanted so long.