Yesterday, for the first time since May, I ran an errand – taking myself to the optometrist.
In my steampunk book (set mainly in Australia), I keep describing various bits of bushland as silvery-green, grey-green, dull green and grey, etc. As I drove along gaping at the foreignness of familiar streets, I realised how very wrong I was. There are trees with oval leaves in pale blue, others with leaves pointed like spears, black trunks bleeding red sap, others peeling away like snakes sloughing their skin, wattle bushes with sprays of soft spheres in brilliant yellow. Altogether, bushland (even by the side of the road here in the city) is red, orange, purple, black, green, silver, gold, pale blue and purple.
I’ll be correcting my error in the book shortly.
Canberra is surrounded by hills that are usually blue with distance. In Winter they become sharper, clearer, and full of detail – including hats of pristine snow. For me, yesterday was the first day this year to see that snow.
Tomorrow: Details of my twelve-week ultrasound.
Will be waiting for tomorrow’s post!
W: *smug smile*
I’ve always thought that more books set in Australia should emphasise what a weird place it is. (Speaking of weird, I’d be interested to get your thoughts on the instersection between steampunk and those authors people are calling the New Weird (so, Mieville, VanderMeer, that sorta thing). It seems like there’s an overlap and they’d get lumped in together, but I’m not sure that that’s accurate.)
Joe: I’ve gone the cliche route on weather – it’s boiling Summer with almost no rain (at least in book 1).
Regarding mieville etc – definitely labelled steampunk at the moment, which at least seems to be a label that sells books. Of course, steampunk covers clockpunk, dieselpunk, and them.
That’s interesting. Does that mean that steampunk is anything with a city in it? (Also – a baby appears! Awesome!)
Joe: Pure steampunk is set in an alternate Victorian era. It doesn’t have to have a city in it. The “punk” is the alternate part, which is very often alternate technology (eg steam-powered gizmos).