November Pieces Of My Mind #3

Morning view from my room at the Swedish Institute’s writers’ retreat in Kavala, Greece.

• Made a list of the people who have worked in the field with me on my Medieval castles project of the past 3½ years. 50 names! I am such a lucky guy.
• The ancient supercontinent Gondwanaland is simply named for the part of India where many Gonds live: bits of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
• Andy Weir’s excellent new novel Artemis has been sloppily copy-edited. Early in the book he describes the general qualities of his moon base in the present tense while telling the story that plays out there in the past tense. (“France has many good restaurants. I went to Paris in 1897.”) Then this distinction breaks down and almost everything is past tense. (“France had many good restaurants. I went to Paris in 1897.”)
• Oh, how I love my morning cup of tea!
• Ocarina means “little goose” in Italian. The Swedish word, lergök, means “clay cuckoo”.
• There’s this tune that I kind of like except that I can’t get over the phrase “When you have someone that loves you”. Hey guys, there was a reason that musically gifted pop and rock musicians used to employ professional lyricists.
• I just finished writing my 7th book.
• Made up an elevator pitch for my forthcoming book. “Lifestyles at Östergötland’s Medieval strongholds. Slavery, skinned cats, boiled dogs and extramarital affairs!”

Kavala’s Old Town from the east. Note the aqueduct, right, and the snow-capped Mount Pangaion in the rear. “Mount All-Earth”!