Still sleepy but feeling compelled to write

Yesterday I spent 1/2 hour in the thermal spring jacuzzi. 15 minutes is the reasonable limit. Never one to respect either limits or the voice of reason, I stayed as long as I wanted. No heart problems or other dramatic body malfunctions, but boy was I tired in the evening. I had to go to bed at 10 p.m., so completely knackered that I didn't even clean my teeth, which is rather disgusting. The boyz had the decency to let me sleep till 6.30.

The effect of yesterday's exfoliating body scrub is somewhat diminished by the mosquito bites adorning my now baby-soft skin. Styrian mosquitos seem to be the worst kind, aggressive and bloodthirsty. Although my flat in Vienna is about 150 yards from the river, I never have those problems there. Probably because I never remove the spiders' nets from the windows until autumn.

Three pages of absolute drivel written on The Bad Day have been cancelled from TSO 27, which is again progressing in a more satisfying fashion. Sometimes, when you're really stuck with a plot, the trick is to make your protagonist express those feelings. Like when I felt I couldn't go on writing book 3, because Snape would never be able to love Nimue the way he has to, in order for my plot to work. So I made him voice his doubts (excluding the plot piece, of course) and suddenly all went again smoothly. Did the same (although in different context) in ch.27, and it seems to have had the desired effect.

If anybody reads this, have mercy and tell me a secret: is there *any* rule determining when to use 'in' and when to use 'un'? Like 'incoherent' and 'unbearable'? Usually I get it right, and it's not a problem when I'm writing, thanks to the spellchecker. But it's quite embarrassing when I'm speaking.

Relieved or disconcerted?

So, all those brilliant people out there don't know the in-vs-un rule either. This should be a source fo profound relief, satisfaction even, but it isn't. My Hermione-ish part is deeply unsettled by the idea that there might be--gasp!--no rule at all. I had a brief inspiration this morning while cleaning my teeth, thinking that it might depend on the word's root: Latin root-->in, everything else-->un. In the beginning, it even worked. Illiterate, insufficient, irresponsible, incompatible... unbelievable, unbearable, untidy... But then, alas, 'unusual' crept up on me, an evil sneer disfiguring its face. And the whole theory was shattered to pieces. It was a beautiful theory, and I hence held a minute of respectful silence in its memory--not too difficult, as the kittens were eating and therefore not speaking, and I was flossing my teeth. Nonetheless, the loss was a grave one.

I'll try our WIKTT Agony Aunt, maybe she can come up with soemething.

Finished Life of Pi and still think it's an utterly amazing book. I've come to the conclusion that to write endings is even more difficult than to write beginnings. A botched last chapter, paragraph or even phrase can ruin a whole book. Martel does successfully what Margaret Atwood screwed up completely in A Handmaid's Tale: a kind of fictitious authentication at the end. Whereas Martel manages to give his story a final twist (which one is true? The tale Pi tells us/the author or the one he tells the Japanese, who can't believe the true (?) story), Atwood's documentation of a scientific conference discussing the Handmaid's account of her sufferings is merely a dead appendix that adds nothing to the story itself.

Now I've started H.G. Wells's Short History of the World, which is quite fascinating. Not something I'd like to read from beginning to end without any 'side dish', though. Unfortunately, I underestimated my reading speed. The only other book I brought is Treasure Island, which I read as a child (in German, of course) and simply wanted to re-read. Hrmph. Will have to ransack Janine's room--she's an avid reader, too, but into different genres.