After the latest flamenco video session, we did our usual selfies and photos routine. Jonathan said “flip your skirt” – so I did.

Last Monday, sitting in Balzac’s Coffee Shop on Market Street across from Gemma Files, I finished the shitty first draft of the the Witch Novel. Cue the celebratory noisemakers and confetti. (Sadly, there was no champagne for me as I’m doing dry January.)

I know shitty first drafts are the thing but I struggle with them. My first drafts of my first three novels were all good. I had to rewrite a few sections and add some elements my publisher felt were missing but that was it. No matter how many times I tell myself that this shitty first draft is just fine, it’s a thing, it’s normal, I still find it very demoralizing.

Of course, what I thought was shitty one year seems quite competent when I read it the next year (which happens when one takes seven years to write a draft) so either I’m too hard on myself in the past or my standards have slipped in the present.

My plan is to leave the Witch Novel alone until March and then print all 296 pages of it to start the review and revisions. In the meantime, I’ll go back to the Glass World Thing and see if I can figure out how to make it work.

In the meantime, Yay me! And in February, there will be champagne.

Just before Christmas, I worked on a second video with two other students from the Arte Flamenco school. They both look fabulous and me, well, I did ok. It’s nerve-wracking in a different way than live performance is, especially if you’re going after two other performers. We’re aiming to get a third one done by the end of January.

Unfortunately, WordPress doesn’t seem to want to let me embed it, but you can check it out at the link below. I’m in Episodes Seven and Four.

https://www.arteflamenco.com/flamenco-fragments

This year’s total, give or take, was 126 (not counting some rereads and some physical books for which I can’t use the library’s lending history as a substitute for my lousy memory). Of these, 60% were fiction and 40% non-fiction.

My favourites for the year as listed below.

FICTION

Strong-minded Old (and oldish) Women, mostly nuns and witches

Learwife, J. R. Thorpe

You Let Me In, Camilla Bruce

Matrix , by Lauren Groff

Lolly Willowes, by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Italian Classics

Lampedusa, by Steven Price – which is about the writing of

The Leopard, by Guiseppe di Lampedusa

Comfort Reads

A Psalm for the Wild-Built, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, and To be Taught, if Fortunate, all by Becky Chambers

Sarah Hall (her own category)

Burntcoat and Sudden Traveler

Fascinating Structure

Trust, by Hernan Diaz

Extravagant Language and Imagination

Popisho, by Leone Ross

Bad Fairies

Siren Queen, by Nghi Vo

NON-FICTION

War (I had clearly read a Twitter thread of recommended war books)

With the Old Breed, by E.B. Sledge

Street Without Joy, by Bernard B. Fall

Recent Russian History

Second-Hand Time, by Sveltana Alexievich

The Future Is History, by Masha Gessen

Sheer Outrageous Fun (Sex, Music, Novels, Alcohol, Broadway, Bad Marriages and more)

Shy: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers, by Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green

The World Is an Amazing Place

An Immense World: How Animal Senses reveal the hidden realms around us, by Ed Yong

Artists are Assholes

Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, An Address Book, A Life, by Brigitte Benkemoun

Grief and Love

Lost & Found, by Kathryn Schulz

The Past Is More Complicated than You Think

Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings, by Neil Price

Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs, by Camilla Townsend

You are More Complicated Than You Think

Being You: A New Science of Consciousness, by Anil Seth

Book I hated the Most

What we Owe the Future, by William MacAskill

Filmed our second flamenco video last night. I feel as if I made a different mistake on each take but that’s dancing, I guess. I’ll post the video once the best take (i.e. the one each of us made the minimum of mistakes in) is chosen and edited. In the meantime, here is the obligatory selfie and action pose.

First up, Nanowrimo. I set the usual goal of 10,000 words and managed 10,095 despite being away for a few days. The usual caveats apply: I don’t know what I’m doing, half of the words will/should be cut, blah, blah, blah. My goal for December is to nail down the mechanics of the ending and, with luck, actually write it. Then I should have an acceptably shitty first draft done.

On to less fraught topics – what I’ve been reading since the cottage trip. Here are some of my favourites.

FICTION

Lampedusa, Steven Price. I loved this book, which is a fictionalized account of Guiseppe di Lampedusa’s life while he’s writing his classic novel The Leopard. Beautiful prose, fascinating characters, the angst of writing, the angst of life. It’s wonderful.

The Leopard, Guiseppe di Lampedusa. Well, of course, I had to then read the book itself. I quite liked it, despite some initial trepidation. It’s beautifully written and slyly funny. I found myself reading particularly droll passages aloud to my husband, which is always a good sign.

Siren Queen, Nghi Vo. Silver Screen Hollywood as run by the fey. Maybe. I was particularly impressed by how subtly she revealed the existence of magic and the nature of the bargains made by the studios for power.

Learwife, J.R. Thorpe. The string of “my God, this is soooo good” continued with this one. I was so blown away by the prose that I actually had write some of the most incredible passages down for inspiration. The narrator is bitter, clever, raw, cruel, loving, and altogether unforgettable. I admit that I also have a weakness for cantankerous old women in convents, so this was definitely my thing.

The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes, Cat Sebastian. On a lighter note, this historical romance romp was pure pleasure.

You Let Me In, Camilla Bruce. Yet another cantankerous narrator and great prose. A successful but reclusive writer disappears and two years later her heirs must read the memoir she leaves them and decide if they want their inheritance. Were all violent, tragic deaths in her past the result of her lifelong relationship with the fey or is she just mentally ill? Another one that impressed me.

NON-FICTION

SHY: The Alarmingly Outspoken Memoirs of Mary Rodgers, Mary Rodgers and Jesse Green. Composer of ‘Once Upon a Mattress’. Writer of ‘Freaky Friday’. Daughter of famed Broadway composer Richard Rodgers. Funny and honest, Mary spills the dirt on bad parents, lovers (good and bad), husbands (good and bad), music (a bit of both), sex, life in the New York theatre world. With appearances by Stephen Sondheim, Hal Prince, Carol Burnett, Leonard Bernstein, and anyone who was anyone at that time. Collaborator Green weighs in with footnotes to provide more information and sometimes corrections.

An Immense World, Ed Yong. I told everyone I met to read this. It explores the senses that animals use to understand the world and how they compare to our own. Completely fascinating and a timely reminder that the world is a complex and marvelous place that we need to protect.

What We Owe The Future, William MacAskill. After reading an article about Effective Altruism and Longtermism, I figured I should try this book to get a better understanding of it. I remain unconvinced that the happiness of billions of people who could in theory exist in the future (in computers! in space! Hey, it’s the Singularity!) is more important than the lives of people who exist right now. Also, the argument that wild animals live short lives of danger and hardship (gee, Will, did you ask them? Or ask Ed Yong?) and therefore we shouldn’t worry about them because they’re not adding to the net happiness of the universe is ridiculous.

Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina, Bernard B. Fall. Sometimes books show up from my library reserves and I’ve completely forgotten why I put them on the list in the first place. This was one of those books, but it turned out to be a fascinating book from the 1970s about the disaster of the French war in Vietnam and how the Americans promptly made all of the same mistakes. I’m pretty sure I got the recommendation from Twitter, which is another reason I’ll miss it if it implodes.

Or perhaps the mid-month slump. I’m on target for my NaNoWriMo goals but definitely feeling like I’m tap dancing like crazy and waving my jazz hands in an attempt to conjure up something meaningful to write.

To take the dance from metaphor to reality, I’m also working on my piece for the next flamenco video and my footwork is … to be blunt … quite awful.

And it snowed.

Bah!

I’m starting NaNoWriMo this year by … going away for a few days. Aiming for 10,000 words and a possible end of the first shitty draft of The Witch Novel.

Going to try to avoid the black rocks to prevent being drowned by the waters of despair. We’ll see how it goes.

I’ll no doubt curse myself by actually writing this but what the hell, let’s live dangerously.

I’ve had a reasonably productive year (for varying definitions of productive). I alternate writing months with planning, plotting, exercise months and just came off writing 5,000 words for September. I’ll sign up for Nanowrimo for November, with a target of 10,000 words. If everything goes according to plan, I should end up at almost 40,000 words this year.

The Witch Novel is very close to having a complete, if shitty, first draft. I know that shitty first drafts are a thing but until COLD HILLSIDE, I’d never actually written one. I still find it depressing and it’s hard to soldier on when you feel as if everything you write is possibly the worst combination of letters ever penned by human hand. That being said, and acknowledging that there are still several VERY large problems to be solved, the shitty first draft could actually be finished by the end of the year.

The Glass World Novel, Take Two, has progressed somewhat this year as well, though most of the scenes are past/flashback ones, which always leads me to question exactly which story I think I’m telling. I’ve already abandoned the contemporary romantic version for the alternative 1920s/1950s magical version so I’m not sure I’ve got a lot of variations left to try. Maybe a short story…

Of course, once the first draft is done, it’s time for revisions. I am NOT going to be rewriting the entire thing from scratch (as suggested in Matthew Bell’s REFUSE TO BE DONE). Nope, nope, nope, not happening. Let’s hope.

Yes, September is the month in which Nancy goes to the rental cottage. Cookies are eaten, swimming is done, walks are walked, wine is drunk, some words get written, and books get read. Fewer books than I previous years, I admit, but then we did have guests for part of the time.

FICTION

Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner. I absolutely adored this. Downtrodden spinster decides she needs to remake her life, so obviously she must become a witch. Dry, funny, strange, and beautiful.

Bellweather Rhapsody, Kate Racculia. A book that manages to be a plausible depiction of “band/musician kid” life (I assume, given that the writer was herself a band kid) and a weird tale featuring sociopaths, disappearances, crushes, and several hat-tips to movie version of The Shining.

Raisins & Almonds, Kerry Greenwood. I continue to work my way through the Miss Fisher series. As usual, there are beautiful young men, fabulous clothes, and some semblance of a mystery. This one has to do the added heavy lifting of portraying early 20th century racism in Australia in a way that doesn’t make a 21st century reader a bit worried whether the writer can stick the landing. Still not sure.

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, Becky Chambers. Her second novella about Monk and Robot, in which they venture back into society and try to determine if it fits. Warm and hopeful, which is nice is these decidedly unhopeful times.

Descendent of the Crane, Joan He. Fantasy novel with Chinese influences. Entertaining, if not entirely my thing.

Interference, Sue Burke. The second book in the Semiosis duology (which I think more trilogies just just admit that they are). Both books focus on the challenges of communication across species. I quite like the sentient plants, though I’m not quite persuaded by the first person narration from their POV.

The Golden, Lucius Shepherd. I haven’t reread this since it came out in 1993. I’d forgotten how strange and baroque it is, and how deeply unlikeable all the characters are. I mean, they are vampires, but still….

To Paradise, Hanya Yanagihara. A friend lent me her physical copy of this. It is 708 pages and I’m on 93, so no verdict yet. However, I’m enjoying the alternate 1893 New York in which arranged marriages are common and can apply to homosexual as well as heterosexual unions.

NON-FICTION

Difficult Men. Behind the Scenes of a Creative Revolution: From The Sopranos and The Wire to Mad Men and Breaking Bad, Brett Martin. I found this very interesting, despite the fact that I have not seen any of the shows in the title (don’t judge me). There were difficult men behind the cameras as well as in front of them, which should come as no surprise.

The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis, Christiana Figueres. See my note on the Becky Chambers book above. I wish this one had made me feel hopeful but it didn’t.

Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted, Suleika Jaouad. The author’s life is interrupted when she is diagnosed with a dangerous cancer in her twenties. She chronicles the challenges, victories, and losses she experiences over the next few years, including the unexpected difficulty of finding her way back to life after coming so close to death.

Butler To the World, Oliver Bullough. Lays out the author’s contention that Britain has becomes a malevolent “Jeeves” to the world’s rich and predatory “Woosters”. If I’m ever in London, I’ll definitely try to go on one of his “Kleptocrat” tours.

If Venice Dies, Salvatore Settis. I love Venice and we’re planning to go back as soon as we can – but there’s no question that the tourist love for the place is toxic to life in the city itself. Settis, an archeologist and art historian, looks at the meaning of places to their inhabitants, the value they offer the world, and a few ways the tide of destruction can be slowed.