I pottered around for a few hours writing email, reading a few diaries, and working on my Georgian romance story. It amuses me no end to write it which is the sole reason I'm doing it. I've told myself for several years now that I can't write fiction. A couple of weeks ago I decided that's neither true nor fair, though I lack the ability to plot my way out of a paper bag. My reasons for saying I couldn't write fiction were based on allowing some friends to see an earlier, serious attempt at a Regency romance. It dismayed them so much they couldn't bring themselves to tell me how dire it was. It hurt my feelings very badly at the time, but I am now sorry I let failure stop me from having fun (and I don't hold it against the friends -- discretion is the better part of valor when it comes to friendship). So I'm writing a story, just for me. It's indecently fun to plagiarize Georgette Heyer. And I'm tired of letting failure be a stumbling block. It's two, two, two issues in one!

Around 3 o'clock John and I went to the Peninsula Humane Society to look for a dog. We saw a lovely German Shepherd and had a play session with her. She ignored us. She spent the entire time wandering around the play area sniffing and listening to other people and being distracted by birds. Even dog biscuits didn't get her to give us much attention. I knew she had had a hard life, and was shy, and so forth, but...I need a dog that likes us right away. A dog should want to come see us and lick us and play for a minute or two even during a first, short play session. This poor Shepherd needed a little more work than I felt we could give her. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm lazy, or my expectations are too high. But we didn't take her.

On an entirely different note, since I am no longer pursuing a degree in English literature and don't have to worry about reading things I'm "supposed" to read, I have decided to go back to my former pastime of trying to read popular sentimental and Gothic novels of the 18th century. I long to find a copy of Emmaline (1788) by Charlotte Smith which is at the top of my reading list and is years, not to say decades, out of print. I have already read Ann Radcliff's The Mysteries of Udolfo (1794) which was every bit as "horrid" as Catherine desired in Jane Austen's novel which makes fun of the Gothic craze, Northanger Abbey (1798-99). I should also like to find Radcliffe's The Italian (1797), Eliza Parson's The Castle of Wolfenbach (1793) and Mysterious Warnings (1796), Regina Maria Roche's Clermont (1798), Eleanor Sleath's The Orphan of the Rhine (1796), Peter Teuthold's Necromancer of the Black Forest (1794), Francis Lathom's Midnight Bell (1798), and Peter Will's Horrid Mysteries (1796), all mentioned by Austen in Northanger Abbey. I'd also like to read Charlotte Dacre's Zofloya; or The Moor, published in 1806 at the tag end of the Gothic novel's popularity.

This is my kind of reading program, you see. I have no interest in modern literature unless it's science fiction or mysteries. The 20th century was the age of the fantastic, and I'm a child of the 20th century. Give me a rousing space opera or clever crime novel over yet another tale of disfunctional families any old time, thanks. Oprah is recommending novels I will never, ever be interested in. The New York Times bears witness to the hundreds of books I won't buy. My love of language is for the archaic, not modern, and I want to know who my favorite authors read when they were young. I love to immerse myself in the 18th century.

And now I will go immerse myself in a hot bath. That should knock the last of this shoulder pain right out.

Past Life The Index Next Incarnation