Because of Good Omens and a friend’s fandom for The Hogfather, I’ve recently been reading some of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld novels. Yesterday, I finished reading Moving Pictures. I won’t write a review or commentary, because (much as Sam Gamgee said when asked what he thought of Elves) Sir Terry is a bit above my likes and dislikes. It doesn’t matter what I think. I will, however, single out a line for praise. It describes the exit of the troll Detritus as he “loped off”:

“His trailing knuckles left two furrows in the dust.”

We often use the word “drag” when talking of knuckles. We write of knuckles dragging the ground or people who are “knuckle-draggers.” But “trailing knuckles” sound like knuckles that were made to glide along the ground behind their owner, not intentionally, like the knuckles of the gorilla who uses them for locomotion, nor semi-consciously, like the knuckles of the stunned athlete who has discovered too late that glory is transient, but artlessly, like knuckles that evolved for millions of years into that position and couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

I also love “left two furrows in the dust” because of the perspective it uses. The phrase creates a visual in the reader’s mind, not from the action itself, but from the action’s effect on the environment–the footprint, not the foot, as it were.

Overanalysis? Certainly. But that’s who I am. I can’t help it.

While Meg is attending the IGMA Guild School this week, I’m taking care of the horse and the chickens. I tried to write a post about the experience, but I’m not really an animal person, so nothing I wrote about the animals was any good. I threw it out.

Chickens made me think about my grandparents, all of whom grew up working on farms. Personally, I don’t mind working all day if I’m writing or designing. It could be software, documentation, fiction, non-fiction… it doesn’t matter. But I’ve never been a fan of physical labor, and because of that, I always felt as if I didn’t quite measure up to my grandparents’ standards. I tried to write a blog about that, but the more I worked on it, the less I liked it. I threw it out.

Then I realized that I had missed an important point: By the time my grandparents were in their early twenties, they had all left their family farms. They didn’t want to spend the rest of their lives working that hard, either. They worked hard at their new careers, but it wasn’t as physically taxing as the farm work. So maybe it’s not so bad that I went into computer engineering and spent my entire working career indoors with air conditioning.

Writing is difficult, but it’s not hard work like farming. The time goes by quickly. Sometimes I sit down and write for what feels like an hour, only to have the clock say that three or four hours have passed. That’s not a bad working definition for “a job that’s enjoyable.”

“Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it.” — Dickens

There’s so much atmosphere in those seven words. They reach out to the reader with an earthy simplicity and economy that is nothing like austerity. I suspect that an entire Master’s Thesis could be written about that single sentence, but my unhallowed hands shall not. It’s enough for me to say that Mr. Dickens (or his shade) is welcome in my home at any time.