Ah, today has been lovely. Rob and I slept in, which is always a good way to start the day. Then Wayne came by and took us out to brunch at Beaterville.
I did a little housecleaning and worked on the puppets, because I finally have my sewing machine back. Thank heavens. It had a broken bobbin casing, but works beautifully now.
The most fun, thus far, came when Susan Marie Groppi of Strange Horizons sent me the edits for Portrait of Ari. That was such a relief to see because I agreed with every one of her edits. Only one presented any problems and that was simply because I didn’t know how to fix it. Tom, my main character, is an art major and tends to think of things in terms of art, even his girlfriend, Ari. So at one point I wrote, “Looking toward the ceiling, Ari raised her arms as if she were Michelangelo’s Notre Dame Pieta.”
Susan said, “On the Pieta–I admit to not knowing much about art on my own, but I did some web searching, and can’t find any relevant Notre Dame Pieta. The best I’ve come up with is that there’s a reproduction of the Vatican Pieta at the Notre Dame des Nieges cemetary, but that Pieta is Mary holding the body of Christ, and I can’t see anything in that sculpture that would be evoked by Ari raising her arms upward. Help?”
Which means that the piece of art I referenced isn’t doing its job and I need to come up with another one. The reason that is a problem is that I’m uncertain which ones are pieces people are familiar with and which ones are ones that I know because I was an art major. Here’s the drawing I referenced, if you are curious.
The line now reads, “Looking toward the ceiling, Ari raised her arms as if she were one of Goya’s martyrs.” Honestly, I don’t know if that is a clearer reference or not. I’ll let you know what Susan says.
And now for the last lovely thing. As an anniversary present, Rob and I have treated ourselves to a massage. At the moment, Rob is downstairs receiving a massage from Kris and I will go down when he is finished for my turn. Then it’s straight to bed.
See, that is a lovely day.
If Strange Horizons is an electronic magazine, then just put in the same link you put in here. If not, then surely the picture is in the public domain by now and just print it. Either way, the audience will be familiar with it after the story whether they were or not at the beginning.
It’s not really up to me, Dad, but I’ll mention that as an option and see what they say.