Friday, December 11, 2009

Elidith and the Empty Frame

Canadian writer Seraphic is on another fiction spree at her current blog, Seraphic Goes to Scotland. It's called "Elidith and the Empty Frame," and has a lovely tone inspired by, but not slavishly imitative of, P.G. Wodehouse. (Think Bertie & Jeeves, only female and in Scotland.)
The sunbeam, hitting me at that particular moment and at that particular angle, had all the force of an atomic bomb. With a shriek, I threw a pillow over my pulsating head. My first thought, of course, was that Edinburgh had been vapourised. But, since cogito ergo sum still seemed to apply, I attempted speech.

“Eilidh?”


“Good morning, Lady Bramble.”

“Are we dead?”

“It would seem not, Lady Bramble.”

“That bright flash did not, in fact, betoken a catastrophic event?”

“Och no, Lady Bramble. It’s a bonny day, aye.”

I had a dekko around the pillow. The girl was clutching a velvet curtain in her hand and looking out upon Moray Place with a pleased expression not unlike that of old Angus Bàn, my grandpapa’s factor, when sitting down to a new-cooked trout.

“It’s bloody early for it to be day,” I said. “It strikes me as rather unfair.”

“But, Lady Bramble, it is nine o’clock.”

That put a different complexion on things. I removed the pillow.

“Good heavens,” I said. “Is it really? Whatever was I up to last night?”

To read all of the chapters, click on the Elidith label at the bottom of chapter 1. Then scroll down. Since they are on a blog, the chapters are in reverse order.

I am following it avidly though I fear that she will break off the narrative at some point -- either because she decides that it has no future, or because she suspects that it does and wants to make us wait until it's published.

BTW, Seraphic has a book coming out this spring from Novalis based on her original blog, Seraphic Single. It's called Seraphic Singles: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Single Life. I plan to pre-order as soon as it shows up on Amazon.

Monday, December 7, 2009

A Little Off-Topic Nepotism

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blogging to bring you a spot of nepotism:

Every year I try to get a new Christmas CD, and this year's is The TJR Christmas Card featuring my brother TJR who plays and sings neo-classic rock. I'm a Medieval/Renaissance girl myself, but I confess to being impressed by the virtuoso fingering my brother displays in these instrumental interpretations of eight traditional Christmas carols. And I was particularly charmed by his original song, "Christmas in California." It's Southern California's reply to "White Christmas," and hearing it will stir feelings of nostalgia in any Californian transplanted to the frigid Midwest or East Coast. The CD is packaged in a cardboard case which doubles as a Christmas card. And if you buy five or more of them from his website they're only $5.00 apiece, making them a reasonably priced and easily mailed gift. Single copies of the disk will soon be available from CD Baby. For now you can download the complete album or individual songs. (By the way, that little snowman at the beginning of my post was done by my son Filius for the cover of the CD.)


We now return you to our regularly scheduled programing.

(Update: There is an expanded version of this post on my quilting blog, Quilting Bibliophagist in which I natter on about music I'll be playing while sewing my Christmas quilt.)