Candles, words, and web sites

It rained today, and I mean heavy rain. It's been very sunny for a long time, and it's right that we had some rain. But today wasn't the best day for it. My husband's aunt and uncle have been visiting Austria and Germany, and they were in our area today. We met them in Nurnberg (which is much more interesting than the town we live in) and wanted to walk them up to the castle, but it was raining so hard that we got as far as St. Sebaldus (which is just down the hill from Albrecht Durer's house) and ran in the church to wait it out. My husband's uncle commented, and I've noticed it before, too--all old churches smell the same. I used to think it was the stones, but now I think it's layers of years of candles and incense. It's a nice smell. Unfortunately, once we'd looked and smelled around, the rain was as hard as ever, so we all went home. But these sorts of days are still nice for curling up in bed with a book, which is what I did with the kids before sending them off to bed. (Flyte, the second Septimus Heap book, which I'm reading with my oldest son in German.)

Actually, it was a productive day for me. Since we were leaving as soon as the kids got out of school (12:15 for the latest kid today), my husband didn't go to his office, and so there were two responsible adults home this morning. I wrote just over 1000 words, so I'm 2/3 of the way through the third chapter of four that I plan to finish this month. It feels great to make progress.

(In case you are wondering, my husband, who is a medievalist,  has a grant to do research and write a book with that research, so he either goes to libraries and looks at medieval book collections, or sits somewhere and writes. More effectively done in a quiet office, true, but also possible at home. I LOVE his schedule. The academic life means lots of moving and stress and little job security (unless you're tenured), and it also means that during the semester you are basically working every waking moment, whether or not you are "at work." It is NOT a cushy job,  which people outside of academia sometimes seem to think. But there are perks, and one of them is being able to decide when and where you do most of your work.)

Finally, I've been perusing authors' web sites as I ponder how to build an effective one of my own. Since I'm still admiring Diana Wynne Jones (possibly the most diverse and prolific writer I know of), I looked at her site--and you should, too. She has some great things to say about writing and books and life. Her autobiography is long, but entertaining (she makes you laugh at the truly horrible things she's experienced), and you can see how so many little details have gone into her books. And hey, she's married to a medievalist, too. There's something good about these medievalists! Check out her site .