Wednesday, December 17, 2008

and everything will be new (except for research. which i guess is as historical as ever)

On gray days, when it’s snowing or raining, I think you should be able to call up a judge and take an oath that you’ll just read a good book all day, and he’d allow you to stay home.—Bill Watterson
(Calvin and Hobbes, There’s Treasure Everywhere... shouldn’t Calvin and Hobbes be required reading? Seriously.)

Okay, it snowed. I’m thrilled, even though it’s a pitiful, tiny, southern Illinois snow, not a massive Grand Rapids blanketing. Still. I’ll take it.

... I’d show you a picture, but my camera has gone mad, so you’ll have to imagine it. Sketch suburbia in shades of grey and brown, top it with white, and you’re there. I especially love our weathered wooden fence, glazed in snow…

It’s a scene from a Robert Frost poem, a view that invites you to fill your teacup and then read about moors and fog, or anything Bronte or Poe or cozy mystery-ish. (Or even Jane Austen, considering that yesterday was her birthday… it’s too dreary for P&P or Emma, but maybe Sense and Sensibility? Northanger? Persuasion? I’m sure I could find something…)

But I spent yesterday afternoon with Lucrezia Borgia and pizza.

(She lived in Italy—I figured pizza was a good choice.)

I have caved in: I am finally researching.

Researching is always the pain in my side: my (unhelpful) reaction to it is always “couldn’t I know this already?” Obviously not. And then I wish for a Matrix-like plug-in that tells me everything I need to know. Could I download some books into my brain and get back to writing dialogue?

Alas, no. So I have been hanging out with Lucrezia Borgia, a book on the rise and fall of Rome, and The Art of War. (If I must research, at least it can be eclectic.)

So, all right, I’m tempted to whine a lot more about research, but it’s really not too bad. And I’m hoping to glean what I need (for now, at least) by next Tuesday. And the reward?

My major Christmas present this year is… a complete room overhaul. Yes. Goodbye yellow walls and old comforters, hello sky blue walls, crisp whites and blacks… yum. I’m hoping to spend the second half of next week painting and changing things around. A fitting way to usher in the next year, yes?—jl

Posted by Jenn Langefeld on 12/17 at 09:51 AM
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