You see, this week I got a program called QDos that enables me to do mass file handling better. Your mother will tell you all about that sort of thing, if you give her a quarter of a chance. I like the program very well; in fact I discovered when I used it that my chapter about “Little Blood” was way too small, and I looked at it and found that only the first paragraph was there. I had the whole 15,000 word thing on my backup disk, so I could restore it, but that gave me a scare. If I had erased that backup disk, thinking I had it on the hard disk, I could have been in a week’s worth of trouble, after calling your mother an idiot for doing similar. She would have done a dance of fiendish glee. So I’m glad to have QDos, that tells me the size of the files it lists, so I can see if anything is wrong. I installed it on my upstairs system, with the color monitor, and lo, it addresses color, and I had all manner of pretty colors of print and lines and such. Then I was showing someone how I could change the color in my word processor, Sprint, too, all except the actual page of print, when lo, I hit a different button and the page changed color. I can change that too! So I wasted an hour or more, foolishly, changing colors, finding out exactly what I liked best. Now I have yellow print on a red background, and bold shows up in bright white, and underline in dull black, and highlighting in white with a blue background, and so on. If you have a chance to get a color monitor, do it; you’ll have endless fun playing with the colors, even without a paintbrush program. You could type a fiery red letter when something upsets you, for example.
Well. Now I’m downstairs on the backup system, no colors (sigh), but because QDos makes things so easy, I made a JENNY directory with 20 letters: 14 Jennys, 4 Mothers, and 2 Altons. This is the 21th letter for it. I used QD to move into it—with that program I can call up a “Tree” and travel along that tree by moving the cursor, and when I touch I’m in the directory the cursor is on. It’s like climbing a real tree, only easier, and fun. I can copy or move files the same way. So there I was in the JENNY Directory, with all the Jenny letters piled up around me. I set up for this one, and hit my “letter” glossary entry to get my address and the date and all in one swell foop—and it balked. It said there was no such entry. So I used QD to check the glossary file, and that entry was there. So I tried it again, and it still said it wasn’t, and furthermore my “jenny” glossary entry wasn’t either. I hauled in my wife and showed her. Apparently it couldn’t read those entries from the subdirectory. So I went back to the parent directory, which is LETTERS, and tried again. Still no go. Growr! Finally I reset, and tried it, and all was working. I went back to the JENNY directory, and now everything works. Apparently the computer just decided to get me, for no reason. That’s the way computers are, as I told you. Did your mother tell you how my disk-reading technique saved her hash, for no sensible reason? When you’re dealing with nonsense, sometimes you can handle it by inputting nonsense.
Otherwise, how are things? Well, it’s our anniversary today; my wife and I have been married 33 years. And I’ve been having good runs. Remember how my run last week was the fastest for this year? Well, the next run was faster yet, and broke my record on this track. The one after that was breaking that record through two miles, then pooped out and came in second. Today was slower again; these things don’t last. It was a good series, anyway. So what’s the moral? Oh, you thought you could get away without one? No such luck! Here I am, still knocking seconds off my runs for no good reason except that I do them, and I try as hard on the slow runs as I do on the fast ones. My body varies in performance, is all. I’ll never come close to the seven minute miles I was running before I turned 50—soon I’ll be turning 55, and I’ll tell you my birthday if you’ll tell me yours—but I still do the best I can. Okay, so there you are, in your boards and straps and things, and somehow it seems that you’ll never get back to where you were before. But there’s no certainty of that. You could stop where you are now, or you could keep on improving until it’s as if you never were in any trouble. We don’t know how it will turn out. But you can make a big difference. So just as I hope I am promoting my health by running, I hope you’re promoting yours by doing those dull exercises. Even sessions that seem to be making no progress, or to be worse than before, may be improving you in ways that don’t show, so that somewhere down the line you will improve a lot. Keep it in mind.
I’ve been meaning to tell you of some of the other songs I sing when I’m taking my shower after my run. Today I sang a couple I think you would like. I like forests, you see, and romance, and animals, and happiness, and music—am I boring you? Oh, you mean you like these things too. Sorry, I guess I misread the signal. So I like songs about these things, and I always did, because I memorized these songs back when I was your age, which was some time ago. One of them is titled “The Happy Plowman,” and it goes: “Near a house near the wood, with a horse very good, a poor young farmer smiled as he stood. Looking down at his plow, in his heart was a glow, and he sang as he plowed the row: High-ho, my little Buttercup, we’ll dance until the sun comes up! Thus he sang as he plowed, and he smiled as he sang, while the woods and the welkin rang.” The second verse is about his helpmate in the house, who is lovely and good, and she echoes his song while the pots and the kettles ring. You know, I always thought Buttercup was the horse, but suddenly I realize that he may be thinking of his wife in the house. The other little song about the forest I like even better: “To the Woodland.” It goes: “To the woodland longs my heart, longs my heart forever; there my heart will always be, this no man can sever; in the woodland far away there lives my darling loved one.” Then the second verse: “Though the path is dark and long, rocky steep and narrow, though the wood is cold and dark, this brings me no sorrow; cares will vanish when I go to see her on the morrow.” Now isn’t that romantic? Well, you’d agree if you could hear it; it’s a pretty melody, with a lot of feeling. Love in the woods—what could be better than that? We shall have to get together sometime and sing some songs.
So what else is new? Well, today I received a plaque for the Phoenix Award, which I won in 1980. Only nine years late. It was awarded at DeepSouthCon, and I never received the plaque. So finally I have it, and it’s nice. I halfway agreed to go to a convention in Atlanta next Mayhem, so maybe they are encouraging me.
Meanwhile, I’m doing research for my novel Tatham Mound. You say you don’t care about that, just Xanth? Sigh, okay. Yesterday I had a call from the editor at Avon; he had received Isle of View but hadn’t read it yet. He was calling about a chapter of For Love of Evil that they will include in Man From Mundania, a teaser to encourage folk to buy the other novel and maybe increase my sales. But while I had him on the line, I asked whether Avon would be interested in having an Elfquest cover—that is, one done by Richard and Wendy Pini. I’m thinking of Jenny Elf with Che Centaur. I think it would be a cute cover. We’re also pondering whether to do a limited hardcover edition of that one, for which the special cover might be nice. Avon will think about it. But I don’t know yet whether the Elfquest folk would want to do such a cover. So this may come to nothing. But if it should work out, you just might wind up on the cover of the novel. Or did I say that before, too? Sigh again. Why didn’t you stop me before I repeated myself?
Now may I talk about Mound? Okay, if I keep it short? Sigh. You know the girl is only nine years old at this point—oh, you’re interested after all? You see, the main character is a fifteen year old Indian male who gets wounded by an arrow and is being pursued by the enemy. He hides and drags himself to an old burial mound, a sacred place, where he passes out. He has a vision, wherein he talks with Dead Eagle, the spirit of the mound, and the spirit tells him he must find the Ulunsuti, the—what? Oh, I told you about that last week? Sigh; I get so forgetful in my dotage. Everything I try to tell you, I’ve told you before! Anyway, the spirit also takes away his fear, and he heads off, looking for that magic crystal so he can save his people. On that trip he meets the little girl, called Wren because she’s so small, but actually her name
is Tzec and her mother was Mayan. A scene I thought I wrote two years ago, and evidently didn’t, I put in today: they find a rattlesnake in the canoe, and he takes it in his good hand and helps it out, so it can slither off into the bushes on land. The Indians were more afraid of rattlers than we are, because they don’t dare kill them, because the snakes' spirits would return to destroy them. So everyone is staring, and then he realizes that the spirit really did take away his fear. What he doesn’t know is that he’s going to marry that girl—in fifteen years, when they meet again. So it’s a romance, but they don’t know that at this point. The spirit of the mound knew, though. Now admit it: wasn’t that interesting? There’s more to life than Xanth, you know. Maybe not a lot more, but some more.
Would you believe: I received a letter from the National Institute of Dyslexia. Someone there had read some of my novels, and concluded that they had a dyslexic flavor about them. They want to nominate me for an award for doing well in life despite dyslexia. As it happens, I do have a dyslexic daughter, and I did take three years to get through first grade, and even my friends admit there is something strange about the way my mind works—but I don’t think it’s dyslexia. So I told them that I probably wasn’t eligible. But it seems that dyslexics do succeed in life. Keep that in mind, in case you had any doubt.
Your mother’s letter of the 12th reached me Saturday the 17th, after I had mailed my last letter. So I’ll comment on it now. She enclosed two pictures, of you and your cat sweater. You do look like a clown, or like a butterfly, pinned to your board. When you get closer to walking—I realize you aren’t there yet—I wonder whether they have those walkers the old folk use, that are like chairs that sort of plant themselves down, and you hold on to the top part and can’t fall over? If your arms were strong enough, you could walk with one of those even if the rest of your body were made out of cooked noodles. She also enclosed a satiric column on hunting with semiautomatic weapons. In one of my Incarnations novels I arrange for magic so that the deer could shoot back; I have nothing but disgust and loathing for folk who like to gun down harmless creatures for the “sport” of it. Oh—and tell your mother I had a letter from Andrea Alton, and have answered it. She thought I had misunderstood parts of her novel, but I hadn’t.
Some enclosures, some of which are for your mother. The ones for you are Curtis, and one about girls who broke into a home and wrote praises to God on paper there. The police probably won’t put them in jail: they are ages four and six. Another is about a test—no, don’t turn off your mind yet!—that a newspaper published. It was a statewide high school achievement test, and copies of the answer key had been stolen, and students were buying them. Now you know what that means: the cheaters would make high scores, and the honest ones would not do as well. That sort of bothers me. So the newspaper bought one of those stolen copies, then published it on its front page, so everybody would have the same advantage and the test would be fair. So what did the school authorities do? They canceled the test, and threatened to sue the newspaper. They weren’t bothered by the cheaters, just the newspaper that stopped the cheating. Don’t go to a school system like that! Which reminds me: I’m reading myself to sleep on a book about Scientology. If you haven’t heard of that cult, you’re lucky. Scientology was started by a science fiction writer, which goes to show that even science fiction writers can’t always be trusted. Reading this book is like turning over rocks and watching the bugs underneath. So don’t join any cults, either. Not even ones that promise to save the world.
Now I have to handle a couple of business letters and get back to the chore of checking and signing contracts. You never saw anything as complicated and messy as those contracts! It took so long to get them straightened out that I wrote the whole first novel meanwhile: that was Isle of View. So it’s a pile of contracts for four books, four copies each, about eight pages each. What a mess. Of course there’s a whole lot of money involved. Still, I’d rather just be writing. Maybe you better not grow up to be a novelist. You can be an artist instead, or a mathematician—not funny? Sorry. I’ve put my foot in it so many times in this letter that maybe one more doesn’t matter.
Tomorrow your mother’s next letter will arrive, as the Post Orifice takes four days to deliver it. The PO is nearly as bad as a computer when it comes to messing up connections. Meanwhile, have a halfway decent day, Jenny, and a better one if you can manage it.
Jejune 30, 1989
Dear Jenny,
I just finished a four page Family letter—I do one each month, and this time Family Letter Day and Jenny Letter day came together. No, you can’t have four pages; I’m pooped out. No, that’s not a bad word, so stop sniggering.
I understand you have a new roommate, called Cathy. Hi, Cathy! Just don’t stay awake all night giggling, you two. I remember when a neighbor had two daughters whom my daughter Penny liked, called June and Cathy. One day I went by and called “Hi, Juney! Hi, Cath!” Just wait till the nurses get confused and call you two Jenthy and Cathny. Don’t tell her about the nitrogen—you say you already did? Ouch!
Okay, to business: sure enough, your mother’s letter arrived just after I sent my last. Her next one arrived yesterday, but it didn’t tell me what I wanted to know: when’s your birthday? Somewhere recently she mentioned about doing something when you were 113 and she was 134; from that I suspect that if you haven’t just turned 13, you are thinking of doing it pretty soon. I could probably even figure out your mother’s age, if higher math weren’t so difficult. Here, at any rate, is a birthday present from my wife. She has been slowly working on a cushion for you, with your name and a Xanth motif, and last month she completed the stitching, and this month she got it blocked out and assembled. Her initials are on it, XXX (we’re in Mundania, remember; when she’s with me at a convention, folks call her Mrs. Anthony, but there is no such person in Mundania), so you know who made it. Harpy Birthday, Jenny!
Something not really related: yesterday I got a half hour video tape called Nothing But Zooms, which is an animation of the Mandelbrot Set. Remember, I told you about it some time back? Your mother went crazy trying to find an illustration of it, but I don’t think she succeeded. Well, this starts with the glowing original “Bug” (I don’t know what they call it, but it looks like a tick to me) and slowly zooms in on its edge, so that you see finer and finer detail. It starts again, from another angle, and shows another aspect. It just keeps doing this, taking you through a wonderland of weird and lovely forms. Jenny, you don’t need to do any math for this; all you have to do is appreciate beauty when you see it. Are you able to watch a video tape? Surely they can connect one to your TV set. I want to get another copy of this video and send it to you so you can watch it. If it bores you, then you don’t have to watch it again, but I suspect you’ll find it as fascinating as I do, and will want to watch it over and over. Then, when you’re done with that, maybe your daddy will sneak in a video of Indiana Jones or something, and you and Cathy can watch it in secret, once you have the video cassette player in your room. Let’s face it: you don’t get a whole lot of fun, this year, and you might as well get what you can while you’re recovering.
Tell your mother that that essay I wrote for THE WRITER, that mentions you, is now in print in the AWGhost issue. But they typoed Elfquest, so now it reads Elquist. I see I had typoed it myself, leaving out the “f” but they worsened it. What will Richard and Wendy Pini say? Oh, dread.
Meanwhile, things have been interesting here. After we mailed my last letter to you, the power failed, and it was 21 hours before they got it restored so it stayed. It seems that lightning struck at the edge of our line, and blew out all the breakers so that the neighborhood for miles around was dark. The repairmen said they’d never seen such a blast before. Our most-of-a-mile-long underground line blew out in three places; they had to trace it down and use a giant backhoe to dig it out and repair it. We used oil lamps and candles. It was the day after our 33rd anniversary, so we went out to RAX to eat and called it a cel
ebration of the occasion. Do they have RAX in your area? It’s ideal for vegetarians, because they have everything in the salad bar, including wonderful cream of broccoli soup and bean stuff so you can make your own burritos, as well as all the vegetables. I always pig out on three kinds of pudding: chocolate, butterscotch and vanilla. Yes, I realize you can’t go there just yet, and that you’re not eating that way yet, but you’re going to, right? Once you get back to regular eating, and you get to go home, then you can go out to a place like that and pig out on pudding. Anyway, such was our weekend, while we waited interminably for our power to return.
Yesterday someone called into a rock radio station and told them he was me. Growr! I don’t even listen to rock music! A friend of my daughter’s heard it, and inquired, and my daughter asked me. We tried to call in to tell them it wasn’t so, but their line was continuously busy and we couldn’t get through. Stop snickering. How would you like it if someone called in and told them it was you? It may happen, after Isle of View is published.
Remember how I changed the colors on my computer? I finally settled for yellow print on a brown background: vanilla and chocolate.
I was going to tell you about our horses. First let me tell you about the turtle: one of our big gopher tortoises was in the dog yard, banging the fence to get out. We don’t want it to tunnel under the fence, because then the dogs might say “You can do that? We’ll do it too!” So I picked it up and carried it out, its four legs scrambling. When I put it down, it headed off in the direction it was going without a word. They’re like that. Today it or another walked by the front of our house, eating the grass. I went out to see where it was going, and a bunny bounded away. Do you think the tortoise and the hare … ?
Okay, now the horses. When Penny got old enough to know what’s what, at about age six, she wanted a horse. “We can’t have a horse here in town!” we protested. Then we moved to the country. “Well?” Penny demanded. Sigh. So we got into horses. Now I was required to ride horses in first grade at boarding school, and those monstrous animals went where they wanted, and it was a terrifying experience. For the next thirty years or so I stayed away from horses. But when we got one for Penny, I discovered I liked horses after all. We wanted the perfect horse: one who could teach Penny what she needed to know. So we got Sky Blue, who had been a harness racer in her youth, but was now an old hackney mare of twenty. She’s a small horse, fourteen hands tall; below that they are classed as ponies. Blue had raised her former owner from age ten to age fifteen, and now was taking on Penny at age ten. Blue was an ideal horse, perfectly trained and gentle. She’s registered, with papers, and is black, with white socks on her hind legs. She’s thirty one years old now, having raised Penny up to college level, and her socks are falling down around her hooves, but she’s still spry. She’s a talking horse: she calls out to me “Fee-ee-ee-ee-eed!” and I’d better get to it. She served as the model for Mare Imbri the night mare, and also for Neysa the Unicorn in my Adept series.