I finished War for the Oaks in three days after ArmadilloCon. I had the same feeling that I had when I read it more than 15 years ago. I was brought back into this fantastic world of music, magic, fashion, food, where glamour was just around the corner and out of the corner of one’s eye. It was a bittersweet, nostalgic read — I am not the same person I was back then when I first read it. I am older and wiser, a bit sadder, a bit more battered by the world. I’m a mother, and my daughter is entering her 20s, a few years behind Eddi, and the magic of the world is for her and her generation. I don’t know that I believe in magic the way I did back then.
So, bittersweet, yes, and well worth it. I will probably read it again, like visiting with an old friend — it will stay by the bedside for those sleepless nights when I want a comfort read at 3 am, when the world is darkest.
I was going to post a reasoned column about the ArmadilloCon panel on the Elizabeth Moon-Wiscon controversy and have decided not to. I don’t think the panel served any purpose except to make people angry and sad and solidify existing points of view.
Life goes on. After a convention I am re-energized and ready to create. I finished a new short story, and I need to crank out a second draft by Sunday to be able to get it to my writers group so they can read it in time for next week’s meeting. I’m trying to ramp up my creative output. If you are of the mindset that creativity doesn’t happen on a schedule, that is true, yes, but it is also true that while one can wait for one’s muse to strike, it is better to strike one’s muse. I heard that over the weekend. It’s not mine and I can’t remember who said it, but whoever it was is a genius.
Also, and this is strange, but I got a great idea from either my work business blog or another business blog. The idea of “fast fail,” in which you create so many different iterations of a product or campaign, with the idea being the faster and more often you fail, the more you learn…quantity brings a quality of its own. I think this can be very powerful and probably won’t cause me to burn out.
Next week I will be a featured author on another Jane Austen blog — I will be sure to give you all a heads up when that goes up. It’s for this site:
My Secret Jane Austen Book Club
Check it out when you get a chance.
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