So you filled your hands

Jury's still out on what I think of the music, but the video is so visually interesting it's okay.

Stone of Destiny: A Story of Lady Macbeth: "The true story of the life of Lady Macbeth, who ruled England for 17 years with great success."

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: A Sketch: "Chastened and stifled by her marriage of convenience to a man twice her age, the young Katerina Lvovna goes yawning about the house, missing the barefoot freedom of her childhood, until she meets the feckless steward Sergei Filipych. Sergei proceeds to seduce Katerina, as he has done half the women in the town, not realizing that her passion, once freed, will attach to him so fiercely that Katerina will do anything to keep hold of him."

Lady Macbeth: "Lady Gruadh, called Rue, is the last female descendent of Scotlands most royal line. Married to a powerful northern lord, she is widowed while still carrying his child and forced to marry her husbands murderer: a rising war-lord named Macbeth. Encountering danger from Vikings, Saxons, and treacherous Scottish lords, Rue begins to respect the man she once despised–and then realizes that Macbeths complex ambitions extend beyond the borders of the vast northern region. Among the powerful warlords and their steel-games, only Macbeth can unite Scotland–and his wifes royal blood is the key to his ultimate success.
Determined to protect her small son and a proud legacy of warrior kings and strong women, Rue invokes the ancient wisdom and secret practices of her female ancestors as she strives to hold her own in a warrior society. Finally, side by side as the last Celtic king and queen of Scotland, she and Macbeth must face the gathering storm brought on by their combined destiny."

Lady Macbeth's Daughter: "Albia has grown up with no knowledge of her mother of her father, the powerful Macbeth. Instead she knows the dark lure of the Wychelm Wood and the moors, where shes been raised by three strange sisters. Its only when the ambitious Macbeth seeks out the sisters to foretell his fate that Albias life becomes tangled with the man who leaves nothing but bloodshed in his wake. She even falls in love with Fleance, Macbeths rival for the throne. Yet when Albia learns that she has the second sight, she must decide whether to ignore the terrible future she foresees—or to change it. Will she be able to save the man she loves from her murderous father?  And can she forgive her parents their wrongs, or must she destroy them to save Scotland from tyranny?"

(As far as the last one goes, its tagline, "The daughter Macbeth might have had, if Shakespeare had thought to create her..." is, well. Well intentioned, but we see pretty clearly in the text that the Macbeths had a child ["I have given suck..."] and it died. But never mind that. </canon purist, which is a little hilarious, given the givens>)

So yes, it's important to accomplish actual writing more or less every day, but often it can be awesome just tooling around and doing the useless stuff too. Like changing up your icons. I just did, and I absolutely love them. This totally counts as writing-related. It's nesting.

I woke up late today. Granted, I went to sleep at 2, then woke up at 7 and slept until 10:30 (and had very odd and vivid dreams, which started out with an audition, featured my mother looking more vampy glam than I'm sure she's ever dressed, and ended with me performing in a mostly dark outdoor theater as one of a trio of young owls). But now that it's nearly 1, and I have commitments starting around 7... Well, you know. The day shouldn't feel this gone. Six hours is a long time, self. A lot can happen if you just take a shower and, you know, leave your apartment.

I'm debating starting one of those 30 Days of Writing memes. When I first started this journal, I made an effort to post every day, just to get into the habit of posting. This could be good for getting into the habit of talking about writing more, rather than simply bookmarking faces and quotes that I like.

( The questions )

First, some retro tattoos, and not retro the way you think, probably. ( I think she's my favorite. )

Next, the aftermath of the Great War in England.

( A natural companion to 'Over There' )

Um. Jesus.

( Hello, Macbeth. )

Truly great art transcends its 'objectness' and becomes a vessel.
Whether it is a vessel of emotions, philosophy, visual stimulation, etc. is left to the artist.

Not sure of the status of my agreement with that statement, but it is an interesting one.

Right before I woke up, I had an anxiety dream in which I was looking at the Amazon reviews for the ebook of The Falling Woman. The formatting wasn't entirely Amazonesque -- it looked more like AO3 or Dreamwidth -- but all of the reviews were disappointed and negative. I was desperately trying to figure out how to say to them, "It's just a first draft! I don't know how you got it! I'll take it down and make it better!"

I laugh now, but let me tell you, I flew out of bed when my alarm went off!

I am a sucker for the Huffington Post. It's a great timesuck, especially when you're looking for some way to escape that last hour or so before the workday ends. (Not that I'm not a conscientious employee.) I had to laugh when I saw this list of the 15 most overrated authors in contemporary literary fiction. Even though I recognize that the reviewer is pretty much just spitting out personal vitriol at an industry that he can't seem to escape, it sort of reconfirms to me why I like genre writing. (Although I will speak up in defense of Everything Is Illuminated. I thought I would loathe that book, given that wunderkinds [wunderkinder?] set my teeth on edge, but it turned out to be one of my favorites.)

I'll say this, reading this screed actually makes me want to try experimenting more with style. Often I write with a pretty straightforward narrative voice. It couldn't hurt to push myself in terms of form too.

Note to self: The Online Writing Workshop for SF & F

The Emergency Peace Federation, a hastily assembled pacifist organization, had in early March summoned to the East its champion platform speaker, David Starr Jordan, retired president of Stanford University. During the last ten days of March, Jordan stumped from Boston to Baltimore on behalf of peace. On Sunday, April 1[, 1917], the eve of Wilson's war address, a Baltimore mob of nearly a thousand persons stormed the building in which Jordan was speaking, and started to rush the stage. The pro-peace audience sang "The Star-Spangled Banner," compelling the zealous patriots to stop and stand at attention in mid-aisle long enough for Jordan to slip away.

I've officially made my first purchase for researching State Lines. It claims to be a look at American society during WWI, which I imagine will help in writing a Midwestern rail town in 1920. Earlier this week I printed out my draft of The Falling Woman, with a three-ring binder and everything, and varying attempts to get some reorganizing done have gone not very far, which makes me think I need to move on to something else for a while. Hello, myth and Americana.