Hallsfoot, haikus and waiting for the night

Hurrah, am feeling a bit better today - more like a woman with a cold and less like a walking disease with no human characteristics. I have even stopped grunting and wailing and begun forming actual words. Lord H is delighted. Only one-syllable ones though. I don't want to get overtired. We're really very delicate here in the south.

I've even managed to do another 500 words to Hallsfoot's Battle, thus reaching (so soon!) the magical number of 20,000. Only another 100,000 to go and I might even have the makings of another fantasy novel. Ye gods. I have to think of what the first of the planned four Gathandrian legends is going to be though. It'll have to be something to do with fortitude and lust, as that's my theme for the first quarter of the book. I have to have a theme for these big fantasy stories, or otherwise I can't make my way up the mountain at all. It'll also have to be something to do with song, as Gathandria (where this one is mainly set) is big on song. It'll affect how Simon learns to develop his mind-skills. Even the land sings. Well, when it's not under attack from the mind-executioner, it does. Anyway, it's similar to how the Lammas Lands (where The Gifting has its foundations) is very big on story-telling, and the importance of stories in life. Lordy, but I like to make things difficult for myself. Why can't I just write light romantic fiction that sells? It's a mystery. Best start practising my scales then, and paying more attention when at the opera. Ho hum.

I've also managed to set foot outside the flat - thus breaking my developing reputation as a recluse. Shame, shame, we cry! Mind you, I did feel quite shaky when staggering down the outside stairs, so had to really concentrate. Don't want to give the neighbours a shock at the sight of my blood-stained frame on the concrete after all. (Whoops, I feel a storyline coming on - suppress it at once! I have enough on my writing plate just now ...) They're doddery enough as it is, Gawd bless 'em. Anyway, with Lord H's help, I've sorted the cars out, done the washing and even brushed my hair down from its usual surprised cockatoo style. I actually look relatively normal - a state of being which surely can't last.

Talking of Lord H, while we were eating lunch (yes, I'm eating - double hurrah!) I casually asked him what we were going to do about tonight (leaving unsaid the fact that I was referring to TV, as there's nowt on but bloody rabbits and bloody Marple). Lord H at once put on his best Christopher Lee expression and whispered, in a tone laden with doom: I think if we wait for long enough, the night will come to us ... Indeed yes, I suppose it will, but, my goodness, how the long summer afternoons in Godalming simply fly by, m'dears.

And before we are overwhelmed by existential darkness and the faint humane glitter of the TV, here's this week's haiku:

On this summer day
my throat prickles with winter:
bleak times still to come.


Today's nice things:

1. Feeling better
2. Getting to 20,000 words on Hallsfoot
3. Getting the domestics done
4. Lord H
5. Haikus.

Anne Brooke
Anne's website