"tempered Kiriath steel", "Gallows Gap", "for three Empire-minted elementals the half hour", "treatise on skirmish warfare that the Trelayne Military Academy had politely declined", "would be impassable before Padrow's Eve", "talking about an Aldrain winter", "not much bigger than one of Trelayne's estuary slums", "up the hill where the town petered out against outcroppings of mountain granite", (The Steel Remains)

Finished Devices and Desires by KJ Parker. It's "high fantasy" that is devoid of any magic. At first it was very interesting. Really caught my attention and in fact I did no writing for 4 days because of it. But increasingly it became bogged down in uninteresting details. And the characters aren't very interesting. And the stuff I kept turning the pages to get to... when it finally came was just glossed over, not well done.

A neat idea for the Mezentarians. An engineer society that is highly dogmatic. But still not much depth. And the same with the Vadani and Eremanians(sp). Certainly an attempt at depth was made with the book king Fashion and Lady Reason and much detail about various rituals, but somehow still manages to lack depth. Possible because it has very few characters. The is no description of "the common people". It went way downhill and I have no interest in reading book two or three.

In the interview at the end Parker says, "Basically it's a love story, which is why tens of thosands die, cities are torched, nations overthrown, and everybody betrays everydoby else at least once. It's also a sotry about a very ordianry man who's forced, through no fault of his own to do extraordianry things in order to achieve a very simple, everyday objective.
Furthermoe an exploration of the nature of manufacture, artifice and fabrication--the things we make, the reasons we make them, the ambivalence of everything we create, and the effects on other people of what we make. Ambitious, or what?"

It's not much at all of a love story. Ziani and his lady never even interact the entire book. Valens and Veatrix only exchange some letters. Perhaps just subjectively that's a problem for me. Very seriously not a fan of relationships that consist solely of letters.... Anyway: "or what". Didn't find it particularly ambitious.

Also finished Mythago Wood, which again, lost me in large part because the main character was a buffoon.

I suppose once again, a "hero" motivated by love. I guess that just doesn't work for me and I suppose that could just be me. Yet, certainly Hobb's Fitz very much had a love interest. But his was real. There was substance there. That worked. Valens is just writing letters to someone he liked the looks of when he was young and in heat. Ziani's love interest is a complete blank. The Mythago Wood guy....? I guess it was literally a woman created from his subonscious so undoubtedly there would be a strong "hormonal" based love. Which is meaningless. If he was intelligent enough to have even the slightest understanding of what was going on, it could have been interesting. But he wasn't.

Prince of Thorns was better in that it stuck to plain old revenge, lots of killing. The least relevant/most escapist. Aimed the lowest and didn't fail.

In a good mood. Successfully "bending but not breaking." Work is good. Sort of liking the cold weather. As long as my treadmill doesn't break. Although only running a max of 25 miles a week. Just too many other things to do.... Guess I could really try to do a few more on the weekend though....

I feel as if I have something to look forward to, but not really. The next weekend. The next night out with friends, next holiday. Increasing my cello playing on the weekends, usually. Really working on extended position. Which considering I've been playing for 3 years now I really should be better at.

Sick of football. What junk. Stupid announcers. Really just an all around stupid sport. I'm happier when I don't watch it. It's on right now, but no sound and I don't care about the game....

I'm 80% in to Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock. Love the idea of the subconscious tying into magic. But reading it quite slow and instead turning to The Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. Hero in Mythago is stupid and incompetent. Really, what exactly redeeming qualities does he have? Morals aren't awful. That's it.

Prince of Thorns is simple story of revenge. Lots of killing. The most removed from our reality and most escapist story I guess and the easiest to keep someone's interest. I guess very low brow but the characters, in some ways are far from stupid. Smarter than in the Night Angel. High action. Captivating. Also he's 14, kills people really well, and tortures and like's some fun with prostitutes. Good stuff.

So for 8 or 9 days straight I've chipped away at an outline. This is a first. Very happy about it. It's generically titled "Conventional Fantasy Outline" and may even begin with a youth at a magic school, unless I decide to start after he's failed out. Whatever I personally find most escapist... Will try not to worry that there's been so many wizard schools lately.

So I stopped the long hard run every 4 days. It was actually too hard on me. Can't run that hard for that long a distance that often. And found myself running less then. So now attempting to run most days. "Comfortable", "easy" running. 10.9 minute miles at 2% incline while watching TV. So damm boring. Can't stand even 30 miles a week from boredom. Finishing with hard running for 1 to 2 minutes. On the treadmill the hard running (10mph) was really bothering my lower back (bit of vague, very light burning into butt/right hip). So going to try doing that bit of hard running outside.

Started cello lessons every week.

This means a bit busy. If something has to give it should be the running. But I can see the running eating into the writing without it being very clear.

Quickly fails out. Not ten years of hell. This is escapism. Not necessarily relevant in any way to reality. A bit on enjoyment to people is of far more use than trying to show that this world sucks. Happy memories accumulate in the subconscious.