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Earth Day '06
Apr. 22nd, 2006 10:59 amThe sun just came out. But everything's still damp from the rain. The trees are sparkling. The brown thrasher is in the rain gutter next door, flinging dead leaves about in search of bugs. Oh, we had baby mockingbird drama yesterday. Three chicks and a very distressed and weary mother mockingbird. I think it's all been sorted out now. But there's a photo, thanks to Spooky. It's not the best photo anyone ever took of a distraught baby mockingbird, but it gets the point across:
I had in mind some sort of Earth Day entry loaded with statistics on global warming, overpopulation, mass extinction, and the like, something along the lines of last year. But I'm beginning to think the numbers don't impact people the way they should, so instead I'm going to post a link to this very informative ecological footprint quiz. I scored a 15. Given that the average for the US is 24, I figure the score a) shows I'm making an effort, but b) there's still a lot of room for improvement. I will also repost the links I posted last year, four groups trying to make things less wrong:
World Wildlife Foundation
The Nature Conservancy
Greenpeace
World Land Trust
Also, I'm given to understand that today has been declared "Blog Against Heteronormativity Day". Sounds good to me.
Yesterday was spent writing and rewriting and rerewriting cover copy for Daughter of Hounds. By four p.m., I had something which managed to convey the gist of the plot, something that focused on Emmie and Soldier. Something that didn't make we want to roll my eyes or wretch. Which is to say, something better than what Penguin had done. Still, any attempt to distill the book down to 150 words (or not much more) is doomed to failure. Synopses are, by necessity, fictions, even when they are synopses of fiction. But all yesterday afternoon I was sitting here thinking, What are the magic words that will sell 10,000 more books than Murder of Angels sold. It's a stupid, petty trap. There are no magical words. Or, if there are, I surely don't know them. My "magical" words will be between the covers. The text itself is the reason the book should be read. Anyway, I have no idea how much of what I wrote will be used, if any of it will be used, but at least I've done my best. Which is all I can ever do.
Today, I go back to work on "Highway 97." Which, after yesterday, seems like Heaven.
A good Kid Night last night. We had slices at Fellini's in Candler Park, then rented two Disney DVDs: Mulan and The Watcher in the Woods. I had no idea that I'd never seen the original ending of The Watcher in the Woods. There are two alternate ending on the DVD, and the second alternate ending is the original from the 1980 test release. It's much better and much darker than the safer ending Disney shot almost a year later before the official release in 1981.
And there were wonderful thunderstorms all evening.
Okay. Gotta go. The platypus wails. Do something good for the planet today. And tomorrow. And day after tomorrow. And, well, that'll be a start...
I had in mind some sort of Earth Day entry loaded with statistics on global warming, overpopulation, mass extinction, and the like, something along the lines of last year. But I'm beginning to think the numbers don't impact people the way they should, so instead I'm going to post a link to this very informative ecological footprint quiz. I scored a 15. Given that the average for the US is 24, I figure the score a) shows I'm making an effort, but b) there's still a lot of room for improvement. I will also repost the links I posted last year, four groups trying to make things less wrong:
World Wildlife Foundation
The Nature Conservancy
Greenpeace
World Land Trust
Also, I'm given to understand that today has been declared "Blog Against Heteronormativity Day". Sounds good to me.
Yesterday was spent writing and rewriting and rerewriting cover copy for Daughter of Hounds. By four p.m., I had something which managed to convey the gist of the plot, something that focused on Emmie and Soldier. Something that didn't make we want to roll my eyes or wretch. Which is to say, something better than what Penguin had done. Still, any attempt to distill the book down to 150 words (or not much more) is doomed to failure. Synopses are, by necessity, fictions, even when they are synopses of fiction. But all yesterday afternoon I was sitting here thinking, What are the magic words that will sell 10,000 more books than Murder of Angels sold. It's a stupid, petty trap. There are no magical words. Or, if there are, I surely don't know them. My "magical" words will be between the covers. The text itself is the reason the book should be read. Anyway, I have no idea how much of what I wrote will be used, if any of it will be used, but at least I've done my best. Which is all I can ever do.
Today, I go back to work on "Highway 97." Which, after yesterday, seems like Heaven.
A good Kid Night last night. We had slices at Fellini's in Candler Park, then rented two Disney DVDs: Mulan and The Watcher in the Woods. I had no idea that I'd never seen the original ending of The Watcher in the Woods. There are two alternate ending on the DVD, and the second alternate ending is the original from the 1980 test release. It's much better and much darker than the safer ending Disney shot almost a year later before the official release in 1981.
And there were wonderful thunderstorms all evening.
Okay. Gotta go. The platypus wails. Do something good for the planet today. And tomorrow. And day after tomorrow. And, well, that'll be a start...
