Below are the 5 most recent journal entries recorded in 1minnesotagirl's LiveJournal:

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008
3:28 pm	French as vacation   J`étais au Université de Quebec À Trois Rivieres.    I`m at the University of Quebec at Trois Rivieres for three weeks of French immersion.  It seemed a good idea at the time, as a way out of my semi-isolation after the divorce.  Ce la Vie!  This is the second week and I`m catching on, though my French dates from my years at Ohio State, which required _two_ foreign languages for graduation at the time; French was my second.  I went from almost-no-speaking of German to conversing at parties in German as if it were English in three weeks with St Olaf in Germany.  Perhaps I can improve equally here, though that won`t take me to the same place in fluency.     Though I`d post to indicate I`m still alive and beginning to function again. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, April 21st, 2006
10:07 pm	site is gibberish I can't stay logged in, and when I do get to my Journal, it's in HTML or something else that shows every bone of its layout, and no viewable journal text. Talk about frustrating! Current Mood: stressed Current Music: Rutter's "Es Surentes" (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, March 13th, 2006
4:07 pm	Delays (and DeLays) Long silences on the journal match, unfortunately, long silences in the creative department. There are lots of excuses -- the nasty political climate, especially in Texas, which affects the politically sensitive; the pack rat I live with whose packs have reached the unbearable point (which may be eased by Austin's we'll-pick-up-anything-week coming in 10 days), and, worst, a struggle for more than a month with my Windows computer. I updated to Windows XP because my older son, a computer-security expert at UPS, said XP was so much more secure than 98 that i _must_ install it. Only XP doesn't play nice with _any_ other program, leading to refusal of performances (all my printers), screen lockups, keyboard lockups, mouse malfunctions, touch-pad malfunctions . . . and then a VIRUS. Or so my virus scanner thought. I freaked. No computer I've owned has _ever_ caught a virus. So I, on the advice of one of the three high-grade computer smarties I know, I downloaded several virus and spyware programs. Found lots of spyware -- 90% in microsoft programs -- but NO virus. I mentioned this puzzlement to one of the other two smarties, who thought, because of its name, that the "virus" wasn't a virus at all, but an HTML something that had gotten "stuck" in my browser. Sigh. And then there's the email problems. I had to change my email address, because I changed ISP's, but I changed to my account at sff.net, which has bounced most of it back to the senders. INCLUDING MY REQUEST FOR HELP from SFF.net tech support. And Sffnet has not telephone number on the site, or street address, and the earthlink account most people had has expired and . . .. And SBCYahoo DSL only allows outgoing mail from Internet Explorer, which is a security leak waiting to happen -- and which, after only 10 minutes use, left _2500+_ "temp" files in my trashcan (one of my computer smarties called that "seriously lazy programming") -- or Apple mail. Not Safari, not Netscape, not Opera, definitely not Thunderbird. Just I.E. and Apple. But I _have_ a finished chapter outline, and I _have_ cleared off half a long table, which means that tomorrow I can lay out a looooooooong piece of paper and plot where and when all the main characters in the book are, which will make "seeing the events in the story much easier. Current Mood: frustrated (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 31st, 2005
11:17 pm	Live Journal process puzzling So, I started out all eager about the novel and liveJournal, then came the massive garage sale, and the enormous mess that preceded and follows it, so instead of working on the novel, I'm managing junk -- and even at that I'm procrastinating, because the wantads I'm supposed to be writing for the remainders from the sale have yet to be done, and the sale's been over for a week and a half already. Sigh. Then I try to post a comment to wordsofnorway and get directed to "add this to memories" instead, which I did _not_ want to do. So I'm feeling stuck in a lot of ways. Tomorrow will be better, right? (Comment on this)
Thursday, April 14th, 2005
12:59 am	research and plotting intersect It's been a long, long, long time since I worked on my Viking novel, so I've been going over all the data I've collected on historical events and characters, the landscape of Yorkshire East Riding and York, Anglo-Saxon and Viking cultures, Ionian and Roman Christianity, military details (battle scenes and feelings, weapons, tactics), 9th century medicine and diseases (my female lead is an herbal healer), etc. I updated my chronology, sticking in the historical characters as they were present at events, then the fictional characters. Today I was rearranging the chapter outlines to fit better with what I learned in my review. It's exciting to look at a map and see which of the ancient sources is correct about the path the Great Army took on its march from York to conquer East Anglia; or to find a historical or saga detail that can be a plot point or promote a character's change -- I have a separate files of "Jiggles," ideas that prod plot or character development -- and today found another reason why the Vikings converted so easily to a new religion. Religion is important in this world. How do I show this in my own time, in a country split by fundamentalism, centrist religions, and irreligion? Do I show belief in spirits, and astrology, and FATE from the modern rationalist pov, or from the 9th century point of view, and if I use the 9th century view, how do I make it convincing? Some modern people actually see ghosts or the future or other people's ailments, though the ultra-rationalists don't believe that. Is it enough that the characters believe? (1 Comment |Comment on this)