[New Music] Shirley Collins & Davy Graham

I'm not sure what twisted by-way landed me on Shirley Collins & Davy Graham's version of Hares on the Mountain from Folk Roots, New Routes (1964), but I'm fairly certain that the last hundred plays clocked on this song have been due to me alone.

The lyrics make me laugh - as I'm quite certain the "Sally" in question quite thwarted the male in the song:

Oh Sally, my dear, it's you I'd be kissing,

Oh Sally, my dear, it's you I'd be kissing.

She smiled and replied, you don't know what you're missing.

Oh Sally, my dear, I wish I could wed you,
Oh Sally, my dear, I wish I could bed you.
She smiled and replied, then you'd say I'd misled you.

If all you young men were hares on the mountain,
If all you young men were hares on the mountain,
How many young girls would take guns and go hunting?

If the young men could sing like blackbirds and thrushes,
If the young men could sing like blackbirds and thrushes,
How many young girls would go beating the bushes?

If all you young men were fish in the water,
If all you young men were fish in the water,
How many young girls would undress and dive after?

But the young men are given to frisking and fooling,
Oh, the young men are given to frisking and fooling,
So I'll leave them alone and attend to my schooling

[NaNoWriMo] Day #18

30,453. Had a writing jag of nearly 3,000 words in the past two hours - yes! Introducing Harry Breadon to the brew - although I had no intention of doing any such thing three hours ago. Apparently, the plot has begun to morph slightly - now necessitating Breadon and Anne's older brother, Charles, to show up. And causing Anne's brother Achilles to become a sister. Which is good, since I had no idea what to do with him. I will have to do some heavy revising in January.

I greatly enjoyed the verbal wrangling between Harry and his father, Sir Nigel. I even managed to make my Mom laugh over the phone as I read a few lines to her ;) Major victory there. This more than makes up for the last couple of days whereby I discovered I could, indeed, pull blood from a stone.

I also finished Heyer's Black Sheep. Miles Calverleigh is AMAZING. I might have stolen some of his irreverence for Harry - although nothing more. I wanted to get more Heyer from eNYPL, but apparently they only have the one book available - with a waiting list of 100s for the paper copies. *sigh*

[NaNoWriMo] Day #17

27,563 as of tonight. I am 1200 words up on tomorrow night. Wrote most of tonight's installment via longhand at the Laundromat. There are exceedingly creepy people at the Laundromat on Monday nights.

I also started reading Georgette Heyer's Black Sheep. Miles Calverleigh is absolutely hilarious. Particularly when the heroine, Abigail Wendover, accosts him (believing he is someone else) and he bemusedly goes along with her - all the while thinking she might be quite mad.

I continue to maintain it is patently ridiculous that I am writing a Regency (well, Late-Georgian, Early Victorian) novel when I hate Jane Austen. But it was the costumes that lured me in. The nipped belted waists and short skirts. The late 1830s sleeve is also very dramatic - after the leg o'mutton of the late 20s and early 30s.

Since my hold on English composition is quite tenuous at the moment, here is an excerpt from tonight:

*****

“What do you keep looking at out my window?” Cassandra asked, deep in the feather mattress of the room she’d taken near Anne’s. It was just half eleven – close to a luncheon she had no desire to partake of – and her third visitor of the day was decidedly not paying attention to her.

The heavy curtains – parted to reveal the grayish light that constituted sunlight in the Western world – twitched as Anne’s guilty hand pulled back from them. It was apparent that she had thought Cassandra too far gone in her bottle to notice her. Cassandra humpfed, the movement of her head teasing out a feather fluff that danced around her head before drifting off to settle in the heavy curtains – also parted – that thronged the bed. She was clearly waiting for a response. One that seemed to take an inordinate amount of time in coming, which to Cassandra signified evasiveness. And by default that there was something to evade.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Anne said somewhere near the window – trying not to sound found out. “It’s not like watching you groan is terribly exciting fare.” Cassandra could have arched a brow in touché – if doing so didn’t require moving. She didn’t at all think she could move.

“I can purge in the bowl again if you’d like. All you have to do is sit on the bed.” The bed that was suspended on some sort of rope contraption and swung like a sea berth everytime she breathed. Not for the first time, Cassandra wished she’d been the Sebastian of the pair.

“I’m sorry.” Anne offered, noticeably more contrite than a moment ago. “I just seem to be poor sickbed company today.” Cassandra moved her head – slightly, tentatively – to allow herself to actually look at her half-sister and companion. There was something in her voice that Cassandra had never quite heard before. Something that verged on heartsickness. She was on intimate terms with the tone herself, owning to the sensation that still trembled on her heart, echoed in her eyes, whenever she thought of Lucimar, the mother she hadn’t quite mourned for yet.

In the gray light – generously, Cassandra could have termed it silver or watery blue – Anne’s hair had been picked through in whites and blondes. Somehow, she had managed to stand in a ribbon of light without being aware of the way it turned her skin lucent. If she didn’t know better – and Cassandra had had years to know better – she would have accused Anne of purposefully finding the only patch of sunlight in the room. But Anne was no more aware of herself than she was of Cassandra’s assessing look. She never felt the weight of eyes the way that Cassandra did – self-contained in a way that was strange and almost artless. As if standing in a puddle of sunshine rife with swimming dustmotes was the work of all flowers that sought out the sun. Even the hot house variety like the daughter of Ralph Edwardes. Cassandra decided to capture the moment in her head – the way Anne seemed to belong in just such a light, which revealed Cassandra’s skin as interloper. Of course then she’d have to label it Inattentive. “As I am quite sure I’ll not be able to eat anything that Nell is going to bring in at lunchtime, why don’t you do something more productive than listening to me groan?”

“But I’m taking a study of your groans,” Anne quipped, more focused on Cassandra and less involved on whatever was going on outside the window. Not much, by Cassandra’s unfortunately jaded eye. A lot of overgrown grasses, rocks and gray sky. And sometimes a horse. Cassandra hated horses.

“That sounds…lovely.” Cassandra said, turning ‘lovely’ into ‘wretched,’ her breath catching as the two sips of tea she’d bothered with earlier threatened to reintroduce themselves. “You know what I think?” Anne didn’t bother to answer as she knew Cassandra would continue on regardless. They were equally and in turns ill-mannered, but only in the privacy of their rooms. “I think you should go do some area studies for me.”

“Oh?” Anne said, slightly distracted as Cassandra was quite sure now that Bown must be running the horses outside.

“Yes. You should, in my esteemed estimation, get on the mare they borrowed from that Lodge and ride over there to properly thank them.” Cassandra had a leading way of talking that cued Anne into the plots brewing in her head. There was always a plot. “Oh and you can find me something out there to sketch. Like a very large rock or something.”

“I cannot comprehend that this is all you intend me to do. This is sounding positively all above board.” Cassandra had a tendre for schemes almost as strong as her desire to meet the man who had made Anne aware – if only for a moment.

“While you’re there, you will have to make your thanks to Permancie of course.”

“Of course.”

“And then ask after any extraordinarily well-formed gentlemen in his knowledge who might have visited Roseward summers ago.”

“So let me clarify this proposal,” Anne held up a hand to stop Cassandra from further clarification of her own. “I am to ride over to Roseward Lodge in my outdated tweed – and dusty to boot from grousing around after large rocks you wish to draw. Introduce myself to a Baron I met only once and ask him, ‘Do you happen to know of any extraordinarily well-formed gentlemen with a penchant for libraries?’” She had added an extra flourish to the word extraordinarily, imparting in sound the ridiculousness of the entire scenario.

Cassandra scowled. “If you say it like that of course it’s going to sound a little ridiculous.” But she had moved too much, the bed giving an ominous sway, and her face lost all of its color completely.

“That is probably on account of it being ridiculous,” Anne raised the porcelain basin near Cassandra’s bed, looking away in politeness as Cassandra emptied her stomach. When she was finished, Anne drew a scented cloth over her mouth and forehead. “But since my presence has riled you up entirely too much for your health – I will leave you in the capable hands of Nell,” who had appeared with the hot cloth as if out of the woodwork at the first sound of Cassandra’s distress. “And I will enjoin myself to locate the best outcropping of rock to be found in the area. Although the ruins may be more picturesque.” Cassandra scowled. “In the direction of Roseward Lodge.” Cassandra offered a weak smile.

“Expect me back before dinner however. I am not asking anyone after extraordinarily handsome men,” and with that promise, Anne was off.

“If you ask me,” Nell offered, ringing out the hot cloth and settling Cassandra in tighter in the bed, “I would say the most ‘andsome man in the area is Permancie ‘isself.”

“Is that so?” Cassandra asked, scheming. “His Christian name wouldn’t happen to be Robin or some derivative, would it?”

[NaNoWriMo] Day #16

26,388 words. I'm almost better than the postal service these days: writing through vomit, horrific cat maulings and three computer crashes (caused by Firefox, which was strange).

I think in the past few days I have put some of the worst prose known to man - of Bulwer-Lytton status - to the page. Although, despite this, I have decided to sally forth (and I really want to read Pelham). It is, after all, only a first draft. And I want to actually finish it - even if after some 56 pages of single line text I have only had the main female and male protagonists together ONE TIME and haven't gotten to the main mystery facet of the tale yet!

I liken it to the Stephen King phenomena. Whereby I pad my tale with lots of secondary characters who are interesting (to me) but not necessary absolutely pertinent to the story. Like Jeremy "Jem" Bown - although he's going to break his leg soon and instigate the "sashiburi" moment between my main PCs. Or Captain Asing, who is going to marry (in the very distant future) my main PCs youngest sister. Or Mr. Archibald Healey, Anatomist with the Royal Society, who is going to discover who the skeleton in the ground actually is.

I have two more weeks of this madness and I am starting to get a little tired. Mostly because I also spent most of the weekend reading Eloisa James novels and realizing that I actually need to put my protagonists together - sometimes in the biblical sense - if I'm actually writing more than a costume drama. I was up until 3am last night writing about Jem Bown and reading The Taming of the Duke because I COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN. I want to write characters like that!

So I won't bore anyone with prose tonight. But I am going to sleep.

[NaNoWriMo] Day #12

20,601 words. And a new job starting December 1, 2009. How sweet is that?

Listened to Jeff Buckley tunes all day wondering what "intensely personal" meant in terms of the relationship between Buckley and the Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser. This is probably why I need a serious hobby. Although I posted it on Facebook, here is one of my favorite Buckley tunes:



All flowers in time bend towards the sun. I know you say that there's no one for you. But here is one. Here is one.

Here is an excerpt - for Lena who specifically asked me if she could read the draft after I finished it. Robin really does get into some serious hijincks. I think it stems from being entirely too good looking and not nearly intelligent enough to compensate

* * *

“You’ve had a near-miss, Robin,” Harcourt had offered, by way of encouragement. “Surely you cannot think to marry a woman more phantom than flesh?”

“But that is the thing of it. It was her very flesh that I recall best. Where could she have gone? Who could she be that an entire household cannot recall her name?”

“Perhaps she was overlooked,” Harcourt had suggested – noticing that St. Maur had little to offer owning to the mass of platitudes he had cultivated and used in the years following the commencement of Robin’s odyssey. “A maid hired from the village to service Roseward during the party? I have seen accounts of such happenings and there are many new faces about when the Lord is in house.”

“She was not a servant. Her very demeanor gave her away as a woman of noble birth.”

“Then perhaps she was too young for an account. A girl just out of the schoolroom would possibly make no serious mark at a gathering the size of Permancie’s annual house party if there were enough debutantes about.”

“Thomas and Mrs. Goss did mention that a …” Robin drew a hand to the bridge of his nose as if massaging out the information, “a Miss Edwardes had also been in attendance. She was described as being quite fair-haired, although quite plain to the eye and no more than sixteen.”

“What do they mean by quite plain?” St. Maur asked. “Blond hair alone would have gone a long way to making Miss Edwardes more passable than not. The Edwardes are associated with Breadon, are they not? I remember hearing from Jackson that Sir William had made his farewells before I could inquire personally as to his health. He was once a noted scholar of Aquinas. Before he inherited the Tor and its title.”

“If she’d not yet made her come-out, quite plain could have referred to her mode of dress. I know that the younger set are somewhat more relaxed in their dress, not yet sacrificing to the altar of fashion as their elders.”

“I don’t suppose Breadon even leaves Darlington these days?”

“No. I’ve heard tell he hasn’t left Devon nigh on twenty years or more. If he’s been to the Capitol, it hasn’t been since the War.”

“What about Edwardes? Isn’t that the surname for Dowglass?” Robin asked suddenly, as his mind caught on seemingly unrelated information.

“Edwardes with an “e,” yes. I would have to roust out my Debrett’s to tell you anything further about them. Although I think – and you cannot hold me accountable for this – they have some ties to British Jamaica.”

“That would account for the lack of account. If, for instance, the girl was currently ex patria.”

“I think you can stop throwing in Latin, Seymour. We’re not nearly drunk enough to be over-awed by your schoolboy retention.”

“Would you be more impressed with my Brandy retention?” St. Maur signaled for the Club’s man, who filled their drinks. “And your Debrett’s, too, if you can find it.”

“Dowglass,” Robin rolled the name on his tongue. “I’m not acquainted. Where is their seat?”

“I will need far more than a sifter of brandy to pull that knowledge whole cloth if I don’t even know the current Earl,” St. Maur complained.

“No, the County.”

“Somewhere in the North, I should think. Dowglass is almost Celtic, no?”

Robin peered through the waning throng at Brooks through the copper lens of his half-filled tumbler of brandy. “Maybe Scottish?”

“As good a guess as any, I suppose.”

Robin stood suddenly, depositing the tumbler on the table in front of Harcourt and with a crooked smile and a false salute, cut through the crowd with all the native grace he possessed. It was considerable. Harcourt and St. Maur, equally stunned by his abrupt turn about, watched him tack through the room – passing a table of younger members and move directly towards a man of middle years reading a newspaper. His victim – Ramsay, if St. Maur wasn’t mistaken – seemed to feel the approach of so intent a stalker, looking up from his newssheet just before Robin reached him.

“Ramsay.” Robin addressed the man at the same time as St. Maur announced the man to Harcourt across the room.

“Trebick. To what do I owe this unique honor?” Ramsay was piqued, folding up the paper and dropping it on his lap.

“Dowglass.”

“I assume you are referring to the Earls of?”

“You are familiar with them?”

Ramsay extended a well-worn hand, making a see-sawing movement that was interpreted as only marginally. “I was familiar with the late Earl. I have not made the acquaintance of the latest of his line though we are of an age – although I do know he has interests in Jamaica.”

“So I’ve heard. Where is their seat?”

“Thornwhat.” Ramsay laughed at Robin’s puzzlement. “Annandale,” he clarified, “It is the County northwest of Cumberland. Is there any particular reason you saw fit to obtain this information?”

“I was recently made known of a connection between Breadon and Dowglass.”

“Ah,” Ramsay said, grasping Robin’s meaning. “Breadon being a connection to Permancie, of course. You would be speaking of the Edwardes, then. With an “e.” Ralph, the old Earl’s youngest, is quite high up in the Company. A very good fellow. I made his acquaintance – and his son, Charles’ – between sessions about, oh… three years ago now? Charles was just up for Oxford.”

“Jamaica?”

“Actually, no. I remember he explicitly said he was in China. Are you alright, Trebick?” Ramsay asked, reacting to Robin’s sudden loss of color.

“Actually… yes,” Robin offered, not entirely convincingly. “You have been most helpful.”

“As you will,” Ramsay returned to his paper as Robin made his leave.

Returning to his table, both St. Maur and Harcourt were digging through the Debrett’s the waiter had brought over. “They’re a cadet line of Buccleuch and Queensbury. That’s quite impressive.”

“I would amend that to very cadet if they’re associated with the Company,” Harcourt added dryly. “Did you know that—“

“Never mind all that. Who’s up for schoolyard reminisces?”

[NaNoWriMo] Day #11

18,401 for today's total. Still on schedule, but running a very lean word overage.

I blame 21 Jump Street. I remember it fondly from what apparently were re-runs post 1990. In the first episode(s) alone, I have grave misgivings about the American education system circa 1987. Particularly as one of the students was driving to school in a never-ending procession of drug-earned vehicles and was never under investigation by the cops. That might just be sloppy writing.

I have a second interview in NJ tomorrow morning and a mountain of laundry to clean tomorrow night. Only 6,664 words to write to free up for gaming this weekend. I already canceled for Saturday - but I have the last Gotham Gaming Guild (GGG) on Friday night and a RISUS game I put back three weeks on Sunday. I have to decide by tomorrow whether I can do it.

[NaNoWriMo] Day #10

17,115 words. 35 pages of prose. I am up by 500 words or so for the week already, which is a relief. I am a little typed out owning to a day where I clocked a million miles on foot, a doctor's appointment, food shopping, cat puke clean-up and cataloging, so I will offer up a little of today's writing:

For long moments, Robin laid on the deep couch of Roseward Lodge’s library, as intimate with every fiber of horsehair padding it as he was wont to be at a quarter past five in the morning.


The sun had not yet risen - it was, after all, a most unfashionable hour for anything – and the sound of the second floor maid cleaning the grate was the first thing to rouse him from half wakefulness. At the moment, she was unaware of the naked nobleman on the yellow silk monstrosity that had ended up at Roseward as a last resort. But it would only be a matter of time before she noticed the path of last night’s destruction: the sparkle of broken glass, the ink that had probably permanently stained the Turkish rug and the downy path of scattered parchment that had given Robin a paper cut he was only now aware of, rubbing his thumb against the growth at his jaw.


He didn’t have to look to know he had been abandoned by the negligible – but warm – weight of his Lady Unknown. The well of possessiveness that the ironic name stirred in him was both shocking and powerful. Last night, one of Permancie’s guests – a gently bred woman of noble birth suitable to the company of the Baron Permancie – had revealed herself to be a houri of the first water. Unabashed by her nudity, curious under his tutelage – for that was what it seemed to be for Robin – merely the beginning of her prospective education under his wing. Although he’d had no intention whatsoever of taking a wife, if Fate saw fit to throw before him a fallen angel, who was he to deny it’s dictates? Surely he would be counted lucky to have found an innocent with all the tricks of a Magdalen.


Robin’s slow smile facing the beamed ceiling had all the qualities of a cat with a canary. Could he have a ring on her finger by this evening? Her father had to be in attendance. He was, after all, the heir to Permancie: handsome and well-connected and £8000 per annum from his mother’s trust. He could have his valet cut a suitable bit of his hair for a ring – with any of the female servants to plait it into a round.


With his mind otherwise involved, Robin had quite forgotten the predicament of his brazen nudity in the Library – a fact brought home to him the moment the first floor maid saw him and shrieked her lungs out. Tearing up and searching for his discarded shirt – somehow finding its way beneath the desk – he threw it over his shoulders while the girl ran off for aid. What succor she thought to find, Robin was quite unsure of. The moment Thomas saw him, entering the room like an angry bull, his anger fled. “Master Robin. Rosie did say that one of Permancie’s gentleman had lain in wait for her, sir.” Thomas blushed as he qualified, “Unclothed.”


“Well, no need to call a search – I was the gentleman so adequately described. Although you can assure Rosie?” Thomas nodded as Robin tried the name, “that I had no designs on her nor did I intend to startle her. I simply lost account of the time.” Thomas undoubtedly took in the shattered tumblers, the contents of the desk now papering the rug, but said nothing.


“Very good, sir.”


“And Thomas?” Robin started, looking about for his pants.


“Yes, sir?”


“I would be ever so grateful if my father did not hear of this unfortunate incident. I so rarely come to the Lodge that I would hate to have my invitation rescinded until the time I inherit it.”


“Absolutely, sir.”


“And please let Rosie know I will be vacating the premises in a quarter hour. She can make free to sort the place therein.”


“Yes, sir.”


As soon as Thomas made his leave, understanding that he had been dismissed by Trebick, Robin darted towards his pants and the small object that had rolled off his body when he’d stood so suddenly. The pants were a lost cause. There was no way he would be able to get into them without the assistance of his valet. Not for the first time, Robin had wondered at the inconvenience of his own vanities. The object on the other hand was of keen interest. A small ring of milk white jade ran through with a vein of gold. It was far too slender for his hands, even his pinkie finger proved too wide to accommodate the jewelry. He could remember the exotic coolness of the stone on her right hand as her palm had touched his sex, quivering in sympathy with the memory.


Forsaking his pants – his shirt ran to mid thigh, sufficient to wade through the sleeping hallways before finding his own chamber if he was fleet of foot – he collected every stitch of clothing that he had so violently removed before quitting the Library. He had five hours to sleep, bathe and then fit himself for making the acquaintance of Lady Unknown – and then her father, who would undoubtedly be pleased with the match.