Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Scrubbing lavendar exterior latex off my hands.
  

    

why?
  

    
'Cause why would I want to keep it on my hands?
  

    

You see how you are?
  

    
When I look in a mirror I do.  The rest of the time, I can't see much more
than things like my hands, which I'm noticing still have some paint on them.

It's the Habitat for Humanity site around the corner, where I've been
pitching in to build two buildings, four homes, since about February.  The
dedication was last Sunday, but there's a ton of work left to do, and
volunteers are scarce in the Christmas season.  In fact, yesterday
afternoon, when I stood on the next-door roof and painted a swath of our
siding, was the first time I was able to drag myself in this week (okay, I
went Tuesday, but no one else was there so I went home), and today will be
my last opportunity this year.

As a painter--well, I get there.  That's pretty much how I am with
everything constructionwise: slow, but I get there, and I'm careful.
  

    

well, brava, girl!  what color did you say?
  

    
Lavender she said.  Now that's a San Francisco house color.

Say, Martha, I was imagining you painting away on a ladder, with lavender
all around you, and I wondered if you get story ideas while you paint.  Do
you have some stories in gestation right now?

Or do you think of something completely different, like drip-prevention?
  

    
I'm trying not to think about anything but housebuilding while
housebuilding.

Does this make sense?  Dunno.  But I'm taking a small vacation from guilt--
as best I can.

You're absolutely right that there's plenty to think of already while
painting.
  

    
Yeah.  So do you set up special time just for getting story ideas?  Or do
they just sneak up on you?
  

    
Any way a story wants to get to me, I won't say no.
  

    
Heck, some story ideas ferment for years before they're ready to decant.
  

    
Alas.
  

    

Does'nt paint fume help?
  

    

So, Martha, I recently heard an amusing anecdote about a bungee-jump at
the Queen Mary and an observation made by the editor of Asimov's Science
Fiction Magazine about said jump...would you like to relate the story?
  

    
Oh.  Well, a couple of Nebula Award Weekends ago when the ceremony was held
on the Queen Mary, Jenna Felice and I decided to collect money from the
assembled members of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and
use that money (mostly a dollar or two apiece) to jump off a bungee
platform.

Really from way up there, thinking "This is a really odd thing to be about
to do" and "But there are all those little skiffy writers down there waving
and yelling, and it would be embarrassing to give them all those dollar or
twos back", I couldn't make out the words of any individual, even magazine
editors with penetrating voices.  I just jumped is all.
  

    

You did really? You jumped on a bungee cord?
  

    
Well, that would have been hard to do, with it attached to my ankles and my
ankles bound to it.  But I jumped _with_ the bungee cord.

Actually you don't so much jump as plummet.
  

    

I don't even want to think about this. Martha!
  

    
And yet, perceive: I narrate this, and I am living.
  

    
You call this living?
  

    

that is the scariest thing I ever heard.
  

    

what plum said!
  

    
Waita minute.  I thought there was a PUNCHLINE to this story!
  

    
Whatever soukup, must come down. 
  

    
Gardner Dozois is said to have got off a line: and when does he not?

I could describe the event more fully, if it would allay any anxiety.