writing update.

Music: Songs for As You Like It, the RSC & Laura Marling.

Tea (pictured): Hot Cinnamon Sunset, with milk and honey.

Word count: 3030.

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Recently I've been writing in the living room, at my father's desk, working on the theory that more work gets done when I'm not in the same room as my bed. And, glory be, I've been making real progress. No, I'm not going to talk (much) here about the project, not at this stage anyway. I'm of the mind that it's possible to jinx a story by writing about it instead of using your energy to just write it. But I will say that it's a short story, it's about Greek mythology, and it's coming along better than anything I've written in ages.

In lieu of prose to share, here's a few literary limericks.

(I know. I spoil you.)

There was a cartoonist called Ware
Who set to all houseguests a dare:
"When you've finished my Corrigan
You'll have the floor again!
Till then it is I who'll declare."

A fellow called Mr. McCloud
Said, "Please dispel this great crowd.
When they've all gone away
I'll draw comics all day,
But with them here I'm terribly cowed."

There once was a Dansker called Søren
Whose reflections were frightfully borin'.
Though I'm reading his work
I still think he's a jerk—
It's just that the rain outside's pourin'.

A lively young person of Porlock,
Suspected of being a warlock,
Replied, “Nonsense, sir!
Such allure I abjure;
I can’t even open this door lock.”

There was a stout carl, one Geoff,
Who wrote poetry up till his death.
But then in his bed
A thought came to his head
And he wrote a prose retraction wherein he sought the mercy of God and repudiated all his vain and worldly verses, repenting of his sinful writing and begging Mary and the saints for grace.

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Note 1: "Gershon Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, held that the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene, and cites similar opinions by Arnold Bennett and George Bernard Shaw,^[6] describing the clean limerick as a "periodic fad and object of magazine contests, rarely rising above mediocrity". From a folkloric point of view, the form is essentially transgressive; violation of taboo is part of its function." The Wikipedia page on limericks is a veritable garden of delights, though as far as I'm concerned the real point of limericks is showing off your rhyming chops. (And your rhythmic chops, to a lesser extent.)

Note 2: I am in fact exceedingly fond of Kierkegaard.

Note 3: Wendy Cope is the master of the limerick. Please enjoy also the OEDILF (Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form).