Thud.

[rushthatspeaks]

Significant amount of pre-writing on the New Thing today. Given that said pre-writing involves mad research of the sort that makes one desire a trained research monkey or a personalized graduate student, and that I have a nasty cold for the second time this month, I'm pretty happy.

I tend to sit there chortling to myself over the New Thing anyhow, because it's on my mental list as 'just too crazy a project to ever possibly go anywhere so I can do whatever the hell I want with it'.

Because honestly, can you see a story based on a detailed exegesis of Dylan Thomas's 'Altarwise by Owl-light' sonnet sequence as turning out to be anything other than ravingly incomprehensible? Me neither, but I've managed to drag in both Machiavelli and pelicans, and am bracing for the inevitable advent of the neo-Platonists (who seriously turn up in everything I write, so it's only a matter of time). So far the best method of figuring out what the hell might be going on in these poems is to look up every single word in the OED, find the single most obscure definition, and free-associate like whoa. Occasionally I actually stumble across what I think he may have actually meant, and large stretches of the sequence are starting to read to me as though they were written in English or something, which is a little disturbing, but I'm having a lot of fun.

Word-count today: 3 single-spaced pages of research notes and plot-scribbling = got through one sonnet's octave.

Fun Fact of the Day: An heraldic depiction of a pelican tearing at her breast with her beak in order to draw blood to feed her children in time of famine is known as a 'pelican vulning'; if the young are shown the term is 'a pelican in her piety'. A pelican in her piety appears in the official seal of the State of Louisiana. There's a variant story in which the mother pelican, having killed her own chicks for attacking her, resurrects them with her own blood after three days, but the version with dead chicks doesn't seem to have made it into heraldry, more's the pity.

Plot-pondering of the day: Is it possible for me to have a character who is killed and then resurrected after three days via the use of blood *without* having the segment become either a Christ allegory or something involving vampires? And if so, can I sneak it in such that people don't notice it really could be either of those? Hmm.

Comments

[erzebet.livejournal.com]

I want to read the the New Thing. *pouts*

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Workin' on it. Will let you know when it's readable.

[gwynnega]

So far the best method of figuring out what the hell might be going on in these poems is to look up every single word in the OED, find the single most obscure definition, and free-associate like whoa.

This sounds like fun! (And any excuse for some quality time with the OED is always good...)

[larryhammer]

Sounds as fun to read as to write.

---L.

[weirdquark]

Whee!

If you manage to come across anything that isn't in our condensed version of the OED, let me know and I can look things up in the online verion for you.

Also, you said "like whoa." Your evil plot has been foiled.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Damn. I shall have to try again with that one in a few months. You're good.

And thank you-- I'd totally forgotten that you had online OED access.

[shahnasa.livejournal.com]

"ravingly incomprehensible"

I love having you on my flist.

Also, you're good, but I have my doubts that you can manage to resurrect them after three days without people thinking of Christ. I couldn't even help thinking about Jesus with the pelicans, for heaven's sake. Is the number three necessary to your plot? What about a week, or a year, or something?

Hope this helps.

[sovay]

I've managed to drag in both Machiavelli and pelicans

That's some terrifying heraldry. I want to read.

either a Christ allegory or something involving vampires?

Yes, but I still think a vampiric pelican messiah needs to make an appearance somewhere in the text, if only in a footnote.

[eredien]

There's a small poem somewhere in Machiavelli and vulning pelicans, but I can't seem to catch it. Something about ink.

Also, I just really like the word "vulning."

[cija.livejournal.com]

Is it possible for me to have a character who is killed and then resurrected after three days via the use of blood *without* having the segment become either a Christ allegory

1. yes.

2. unless it's a pelican. Then, centuries of iconographic conditioning take hold and make the association unavoidable.

4. but you should still write about the resurrected pelicans, Jesus-symbols or no.

[shewhomust.livejournal.com]

What cija said.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Now I've got Lal Waterson's uncanny song runing through my head:

We who dreamed young and were silent this autumn,
In the last throes of an upstart old crow,
Saw the flight of the pelican...

The "old crow" here is Thatcherism and the vulning pelican's the left; it ends "your children's children's rights have gone."

Nine