I am off visiting people at glorious Pennsylvania retreat, where internet is limited, and even if it wasn't I'd not be spending much time on it as there is a lake! For swimming! Still, gmail's inaccessible and it's driving me batty to not get my e-mail, so I'll settle for posting briefly.
I've been reading Dawn Cook's
The Decoy Princess, which is great at subverting tropes and full of enjoyable characters. Not Faulkner, but then I'm in the mood for a light read having re-read
ellen_kushner's divine
The Priviledge of the Sword prior to leaving. I've got my head chock full of thoughts on how Alec Campion is a great champion of women's rights, and when sober, a remarkably useful person to know. There might be a post on that later, full of spoilers for all three books. Then again, that depends entirely on how coherent I can make myself under all the squee.
My own writing is still being beaten into submission. I feel like I've written something that might have a few jewels underneath if only I can scrape away all the dust and annoying bits of forcing the plot to the point where it makes no sense. And rewrite the prologue so it's not a vehicle for all! melodrama! all! the! time! (Yes, I do like my exclamation points today.) Still, it's a process that's helping me immensely, and I like to think is actually simplifying a narrative that will be difficult enough with all the characters and their arcs in there.
But more importantly, swimming!