Network

There was a meeting I was supposed to have organised, for Admin: the LRP purposes, soon after last event, in early June. I finally got around to querying people about their availability on Thursday; we had it late this afternoon; and the result is... several Significant and long-term process changes to experiment with, plus a couple of things we can actually get done now (despite the fact that next event is less than two weeks away) to hopefully make that run smoother? I was expecting this to be an exercise in frustration and I was definitely not expecting any changes to be possible for the event we are approximately 11 days out from, But Apparently??? So good job me for taking a very deep breath and Doing The Thing, and I will be adding this to my personal catalogue of instances in which Actually Everybody Does Not Wish I Would Just Shut Up And Go Away.

Today has also, unrelatedly, featured the Craft Project of Taping Foiled Bubble Wrap To Large Sheets Of Plywood. The plywood has some impressive tan lines from the ratchet straps over the past half-week; those are now hidden demurely beneath a layer of reflective insulation, because the appropriate foil tape A ordered showed up this afternoon. I was already Extremely Pleased with the plywood alone -- if we kept the bedroom door shut over the course of the day the bedroom stayed noticeably cooler than the rest of the flat, where Prior To Plywood it wound up definitively More Warm (it having a southwest facing window). Once we have some better actual data we will probably try to write up what we've done at least somewhat usefully, for all that it's not much use for windows that aren't ground floor.

I am home!

I definitely shouldn't've played as much Vintage Story as I did after I got my computer back together but ehhhhh. It's fiiine. I had a nap when I got home! (Tortilla jumped into my lap and purred on me while I was eating lunch. What ELSE was going to happen??)

Sushi is also being purry, so I am clearly forgiven for leaving, phew! :D

Otherwise, not a lot. Mainly just cleaning and packing this morning, shocking absolutely no one. Did get it all done before anyone got there, though!\

And now to pass the fuck out, yesss.

Flitted past me yesterday something about 'village mysteries what is the attraction' and as it appeared to be a podcast DO.NOT.WANT I scrolled right on past, but did think about the question.

Which also resonated with something I saw on somebody's post about a village-set mystery which was that as a mystery it was somewhat subpar and pretty contrived and one got the impression that actually, the author would have been a lot happier writing about the squabbles of village life without actual mayhem.

And what people say about reading certain mysteries/thrillers/series not such much for the detection/puzzle aspect but for the people/communities/whatever that they are happening among.

Maybe there is no market anymore - or perceived to be no market? - for novels of small community shenanigans and hostile feelings over who does the church flowers and problems with incomers and so on and so forth (?decline of the middlebrow, o, come back, Provincial Lady).

So if some new writer rocks up to an agent or editor and Shows Promise, the agent/editor will make encouraging noises but say, could you not have the village schoolmistress Fight Crime?

I also wondered if this afflicts other genres and people who write sff are being besought to Make It Romantasy. (In bygone days when I was writing sf I got as far as Talking To An Editor and they had Requirements, though at least it was not that.)

*As I commented during my Jane Austen binge-read, she is surely the ancestress of the country-house/village murder-mystery. (Why did no-one bop Emma on the bonce? or put poison in Mrs Norris's tea or push her down the stairs?)