Yesterday marked Emilie’s first day with the rest of the gang in the main paddock. I sat down with my camera and kept an eye on everyone just in case fights broke out (they didn’t).
Emilie first sought out her paddock-mate from the last couple of days, little grey Cassie. Cassie wasn’t all that impressed.
Mattie, meanwhile, was more interested in me.Sucking up in progress.
After a while Cassie relented and accepted Emilie’s presence as long as they did not actually touch.
Friends don’t touch friends.
Emilie then decided it was time to explore the other end of the paddock and meet yearling Roxie.
Are you my mum? No, are you mine?Bah, clingy kids.Yes, tell me about freaking clingy kids, Emilie, why don’t you?!I SAID NO TOUCHING!
Fortunately for Roxie, at least Snekja thinks she’s a baby and can get away with acting like one.
Are YOU my mum?
And for the last photo, Vanity decided to make silly faces.
The story I’m currently working on has been tentatively named, “The White Cat”. Unsurprisingly, there’s a cat in it (a white one, at that). Of all the things I thought I’d struggle with researching for this tale, I did not expect cat vision and cat psychology to be the biggest contenders.
Did you know that cats see the world in panorama-view? That they actually do see a hell of a lot better than we do in the dark? That they have absolutely crappy long distance vision?
This is what I love the most about writing. The process will send you researching the most bizarre factoids. Most of them you’ll never actually use. Some will be sprinkled around the story like little Easter eggs. I squeal like a fan girl when I read someone else’s story and realize that like me, they went on a nerdy research spree and slipped their research in between the lines, so to speak. When you can tell that the author may not have decided to use every tidbit, but what’s there is one hundred percent consistent and well researched. When the writing is confident, the author at home in his or her field. When you end up learning something.
A story works for me on multiple levels. Sometimes, a story is just a story. You read it, you toss it away, you forget about it, an hour or two well wasted and done with. Sometimes, you may not recall the story itself later but you remember the things you learned from it. A writer who can teach a lesson and tell a good story at once, that’s a writer who’s managing to balance lecturing, research, and storytelling.
Did you know that in the original Italian version of Cinderella, the benevolent fairy godmother figure was a cat?
If there is one thing I hate about being a writer, it’s being uninspired or stuck. I know my story. I know where it’s going. I know how it’s supposed to get there. What I don’t know is how to get my head to be quiet enough to actually sit down and make it happen.
So many distractions. Facebook and email are easy to ignore. The pain in my back and legs after electro-therapy this morning, that’s bloody persistent. The nagging bad conscience that I have gained weight while Emilie has been sick, that’s not easy to shut up, either.
Insecurities. Writing in Danish is hard, I’m not used to it. Should I write in English, then? And there we go, I’m browsing web pages on how to find an international agent and convince him or her to accept a manuscript. Meanwhile, my novel isn’t writing itself.
The more bothered by pain I am, the easier I get distracted. It’s an established pattern. The mornings I wake up near pain free I get all sorts of creative works done. The mornings I fall out of bed with a groan, well, not much is going to happen. It annoys the hell out of me to be dependent like that on something I cannot control. I ought to be able to overcome, to have some backbone, some self discipline — but I’m not.
I wrote half a page today. It’ll have to do. The rest of today is cancelled, enjoy.
Emilie’s long isolation is finally over. Today, she got to run around with Welsh Mountain pony Cassie and Shetland pony Prins in the outdoors arena. Do you think she enjoyed it? I think she enjoyed it. She started it, but Cassie finished it.
