still here...

Too much going on last weekend to get a blog post up, and next weekend will be no better. I've done another half chapter on The Ash Spear, which is hanging fire while I do a little research, but I've been too busy to do the reading... The second half of July will be quieter, and then I hope to get more writing (and blogging) done. I also want to start doing random book reviews again... check here or on my amazon profile for ones I've done in the past.

-GRG

Happy Solstice

Today is the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year (in the northern hemisphere, at least), a subject on which I've blogged before. We will be celebrating tomorrow night for various reasons - Saturdays are generally more convenient that Fridays in regards to preparations, and doing it on Saturday evening allows a journey to the Saturday morning Farmers' Market for some of the feast ingredients. In our generic-reconstructed-British-pagan seasonal celebrations, we like to consider what foods would have been available to our ancestors, and this year our meat choice was "birds". So last night involved a hunting expedition to the local Safeway for some game hens. The hunt was successful, and the results are now thawing in my refrigerator. Tomorrow I get to cook them.

Other feast ingredients, assuming the Farmers' Market cooperates, will be new potatoes (yes, all right, I know they're New World...), asparagus, wheat bread, organic strawberries (the small local kind that actually taste like strawberries) and cream. Oh, and the first half dozen fava beans from my garden. Rowen, being the brewer, will provide the mead, and another friend her traditional deviled eggs (if you've done something that many years in a row, it's traditional). And weather permitting, we will have a small bonfire...

On other topics, I've finally finished another chapter of The Ash Spear (see the sidebar for the stats), and am beginning to have something like momentum in my writing again. This will of course be derailed (does momentum run on rails?) by our local Fourth of July camping event, followed all too soon by the Cymdeithas Madog Welsh Course (the poem is about as finished as it's going be, I think, though I'm sure there are still grammatical errors). In the meantime I'm hoping to get one or two more chapters done before July!

Happy Solstice, all!

-GRG

New Book Cover

Last night I did a first cut at the cover image for the next book. The photo of the spearhead was taken about a month ago at the SCA event we attended in South Dakota. I took 4 shots, then lifted this one with photoshop, put it on a black background and added the lettering. I may tweak the title font a bit, but I'm pleased with the results so far. Photoshop Elements rocks!

The spearhead itself is one of the most beautiful pieces I've seen - if you click on the image to enlarge it, you can see the pattern welding in the blade.

-GRG

Still here...

Yes, I'm still here, just busy. Most of the garden's in, a first draft of the Welsh poem is done (though it still needs a lot of work and grammar-checking), and I finally finished another chapter of The Ash Spear. Other than that, not much to report - the rest is just life.

Busy, busy...

This weekend will, I hope, be equal parts of gardening (tomatoes *have* to be planted) and writing, with a little sewing thrown in for good measure. Denver is now well into early summer, and (hopefully) past any danger of frost, through it's only about 10 days since the last time we had snow! I had to improvise a plastic tent over the tomato plants, which are now far too tall to be shut in the cold frame. I finally got the first one planted last night, in a very large pot which usually holds annual flowers, but the rest have to go into the garden one way or another. At least the weather should be mild and pleasant.

No progress on the new book for a couple of weeks now. Last weekend we drove up to the Black Hills in South Dakota for an SCA event we've been attending for several years now. The weekend before... yes, that was half SCA as well, and the other half assorted distractions. Maybe this one will be better.

For those of you interested in Taliesin and the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, some really good posts here and here.

-GRG

Ambition

In the midst of writing another chapter of The Ash Spear, I've been diverted by a new game. The topic for the upper level competition at Cymdeithas Madog's July Welsh course just came out (click on the link and scroll to the bottom of the page to see what I'm talking about).

Briefly, for 31 years now CM has been holding a one-week language class every July somewhere in North America (except for 2000, when we had it in Wales as a special millennial treat!). At the end of the week there's a class eisteddfod (literary competition), subdivided into three levels, the topics to be announced at the beginning of the week. For the last few years, however, they're started to announce the topics for the upper division a couple of months in advance, to allow us the chance to do better work. This year's upper division topic is "Pontydd" ("Bridges") - a minimum of 350 words in either prose or poetry. And of course I had to choose poetry... you see where the title of this piece comes from?

If the result is passable, I'll share it here after the class. In the meantime, I'm having fun.

-GRG

Beltane

Tonight is Beltane, May Eve, the spring fire festival: Nos Calan Mai in Welsh. In my garden yesterday the first apple blossom and the first six or seven cherry blossoms opened, and the first pea flower appeared. Tomorrow we may have snow again, but it will be quickly gone.

We have deferred our Beltane celebration to Saturday night, partly because of logistics, partly because the first local farmer's market of the season is Saturday morning, and we like to shop there for part of the feast. I feel there has been enough calendar reform over the centuries that any time within a few days of the date is good enough.

Last year I posted a description of an ancient Beltane celebration from my book Storyteller. On another blog this morning I read a beautiful description of a small modern celebration. There are many ways to celebrate the turning of the seasons. The main thing, I think, is to be aware.

-GRG

Two Weeks...

Well, I have been busy, but it's really no excuse. A weekend out of town, another involving SCA activities. Welsh class, gardening - including some emergency rose salvage when the empty house next door finally sold and the new owners decided to make a clean sweep of the back yard! - and life in general. No new chapters of Ash Spear, either - but that should change. I've set aside this weekend and most of next weekend for writing. We'll see how far I get!

Now for something different...

Lately I've been enjoying Xcel Energy's webcam link to the pair of eagles nesting on one of their properties. Spring is Colorado can be harsh, and the third egg hatched late yesterday. As of this morning both parents were sitting on the nest together to protect their three small chicks from the snow!

-GRG

Update...

Finally finished another chapter of Ash Spear - figures on the sidebar as usual. A busy weekend, and I'm tired - perhaps I'll post more tomorrow. I still have to explain about the Great Expulsion of Mice...

-GRG