Rose and some other things

Last summer, two dry periods killed off almost all the container plants in my garden, including the rosemary and natives :( Four plants survived, a thyme that I can't remember what is (either T. vulgaris or officinalis), soapwort and my two "old world" roses.

If I'd made a list of which plants would survive a bad dry spell, soapwort and roses would not have been on it. That encouraged me to buy another one, so this spring I added Madame Hardy, which rewarded me with three flowers and more to come. Not bad for a new container grown rose.

( Three photos )

Not my garden :) That's my mother with her Echium but it was a bit past its peak when I had my camera out there.

On male protags, or females realy

A year or two ago, I'd told cassiphone I'd write a post on why I tend to write male protagonists. At least I think it was her. It was so long ago I'm not sure. I put off writing it because, well, when I thought about it, it became complicated.

The simple reason, as I was growing up, I usually found female protags annoying, so why would to write one?

Second reason, when I write it's usually to explore a character in a situation and, well, I'm familiar with female attitudes/approaches/attitudes having put up with them all my life and I want something different when I write :)

The third reason is interesting, and I only noticed it recently. See, most of my stuff is fantasy set in a world based to some degree on some time in the past. That'll be the starting point for my world-building. Now every novel length story I've written like this has a male protag. As of this month, I've written two set in the present and both had a female protag. I also have two set in the future, on other planets. One has a female protag, the other because the nature of the story has male protags. But with both these worlds, there seems to be a genetic problem associated with the Y-chromosome because they both have more more female characters than males among the supporting and minor characters.

So I'm thinking this is a reflection of how I view these cultures. Past settings are usually male-dominated so less opportunities for females characters so I have less. I don't care for the FC who goes out and pretends to be a male. I like my FCs to, at least start off in, roles that appropriate to their society. Then they tend to be more real to me, and therefore more interesting. Whereas in the future, the appropriate roles are broader.

(Having said that, I do have a potential story set in 1830s VDL with a female MC that I'd hoped to do for Nano this year but although I had interesting characters and situation, they wouldn't give me a plot. Until the werewolf turned up last week and brought a plot with him. I can't see me maintaining interest in it for another 11 months though.)