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| This morning I wrote about 1500 words, which may or may not actually ever make it to prime time, but at least I'm winkling some secrets out of my characters. (They're such liars.) In the meantime, I was trying to tidy up my portfolio and test a theory about view counts, and I ran across an old, old story, one that I had forgotten about.
I still like this story--featuring a family of witches, the 1960s music revolution, and...buttons. |
| Annoyed to realize I may have to actually stop and figure out the plot for this part of the WIP novel, very rude of it to not just proceed based on vibes. (Note: we are at 50k words. This happens every time I get here. Yet every time I am annoyed.) |
| Update: a big injustice has been done. Dogs are reportedly not getting jambalaya, because it is "not good for dogs". According to dogs: this is very bad. |
| It's Mardis Gras, so in defiance of the gray blah of the weather I'm cooking Cajun white beans, shrimp jambalaya, and cornbread tonight. And listening to Lofty's Roach Souffle, one of the underappreciated jazz albums of the world. (Maybe I swap to zydeco later tonight if I need help keeping myself in gear...) |
Raven  - I love my cooking shows. Molly Yen and Girl Meets Farm. And Bree Drummond the Pioneer Woman. They make it all look so easy. |
| Today I sold a short story and also made a lemon meringue pie, which has got to be some kind of record for a lady who also spent a not-insignificant portion of the day arguing with a kid about whether he should put on a sweatshirt, or continue to flop angrily around the cold house. (Spoiler: he felt better after he put on a sweatshirt.) |
Ichabod Crane  - This teen was, I swear, a teen when he was three years old, too. He's been pretty sure his mother needs his expertise since he became aware that she was occasionally doing stuff unsupervised... |
For today's crowd, here's the story I finished yesterday. It's a love story about a cook with arthritis and... well, I think he's more like a genie, really, but the people in the story think of him as a household deity.
This is a love story, and a story about love--two different types of story, but this one is both--and, for those who liked my choice of words the other day ("rapscallion"), this is also the one about the onions. |
With help from Max Griffin 🏳️🌈   's sharp eyes, I finished a story today, about a little deity.
I think it would be stressful to be a deity... |
| Awesome story...with one teenyvminiscule comment from me just to make it a bit tighter...If only I could do that to my stuff. |
| Max Griffin 🏳️🌈 - Your comment made all the difference. I liked the story before, but I really like it now. |
| This morning I polished up a short story, wrote maybe 800 words of my novel chapter-- (and listen, I figured out what was stalling me on this chapter, it's that I don't know why the murderer did the murder, that seems kind of important and it's frankly annoying of my brain that she just was hoping I wouldn't notice) --and I thought about polishing a different chapter in a different novel but got so annoyed by the unexplained murder motive that I couldn't. So for the rest of today, as I go about my tasks, I will roll sociopolitical machinations around in my head and try to figure out why the Bad Guys would want this particular victim dead. (Maybe they're not dead, Raven, did you ever think of that? Yes, but the book really wants them to be dead, so I can only assume they ARE dead, and I just haven't discovered why yet. This writing-by-the-seat-of-your-pants thing is stupid and for the birds.) (Yes, birds, pun intended.) |
| I've been in similar situations. I dislike offering advice, but when I finished reading this newsfeed, one word, a name, popped into my demented noggin: Columbo. That's not advice. Hmm. Actually, it's possibly closer to dementia than to advice. |
| Humble Poet PNG - Well, you see, Raven, ma'am, it's just these little things, they bother me. My wife, she loves your books. Has all of 'em, reads 'em-- but me, I like a story to make sense, you know? So I ask myself, why would an author write a murder if she didn't know who the murderer was? Do you see my problem, ma'am? I have to wonder whether there might not be something else going on in this chapter. Me: well see I have to get these two characters together somehow The Lieutenant: (nods slowly) Yes...yes...that would explain it... Me: phew Him: ...but just one more thing, ma'am. Me: o no |
| For those of you following the saga of Raven's New Kitchen Stove, it has arrived, it has been installed, it has cooked cream of potato soup and grilled PBJ sandwiches. (For some weird reason the family expects to eat three times a day. Rude.) It's a good stove, and long may she preside over the kitchen. I am also trying to revise a couple of chapters of Novel With Something Wrong With It ("Morrowsight"  ), for which lately I've gotten some wonderfully helpful reviews. It's a nice problem to have--so many readers and so much feedback that I have to prioritize which project I'm working on. I'm thinking I may adopt a pattern of "compose in the morning, revise in the afternoon". (Anybody who's curious about "Morrowsight" , drop me an email and I will give you the passkey. What's it about? Well, psychics, murder, corporate malfesance, sentient rocks from space, and a villain that runs what one reader called a "human chop-shop" (h/t to Joto-Kai ) Oh, and also friendship, honor, and whether it's smart to date gamblers. (It's not.) )) |
| Last night I was innocently cooking dinner when my kitchen stove decided to die in as dramatic a fashion as possible, and shorted its wires inside the back cladding. There were sparks and smoke and a horrible burning plastic stench, and I managed to pull the thing away from the wall and get it unplugged before any damage was done to the kitchen. The stove is completely kaput, however, so I spent the morning shopping for a new one. I hate this kind of thing--it feels like we should be able to design stoves that do NOT melt parts of themselves to other parts of themselves, and like someone somewhere has pulled a fast one--not least because this stove had a 10 year warranty and just passed 10 years. Oh well. The new stove will be delivered tomorrow, and they'll take the old one away, and I will get over being mad about it someday. |
| I don't consider yours to be an annoying brain. If your brain went on the fritz when other things go dangerously on the fritz rather than after you've eliminated the hazard, then it might be you who got eliminated. Frankly, stoves are replaceable; not so my friend Raven (whose UN, I can't find, sorry}. Anyway, I'm glad your brain has its priorities straight and protected you during the crisis. My question now is Who's this guy Fritz and how did he get under your stove? If he's your appliance repairman, I recommend firing him and finding a different one. |
| Humble Poet PNG - My username is kadishiraven, which is odd, because it is a reference to a long-ago fantasy world setting I wrote. It works as a unique user name in almost everything, though, so it travels with me from site to site. :) And thank you for the kind words. I have got to get this Fritz person out of my house and away from my cars... |
| Detective - I have thus far lived through everything I've ever experienced, though sometimes barely lived through it. I've little doubt though, that one day my last words will be, "Oops. That didn't go too well." |
| Today I did a BUNCH of household admin stuff, and laundry, and housework, and the supervising of the teens doing the maths, and bought groceries, AND wrote about 800 words, for all of which I'd like some kind of award--but in lieu of that, wanna come over and listen to records? I found this album last year when the artist, Cindy Lee (who is actually somebody named Patrick... it's very arty) released it ONLY via this YouTube video and their ancient-style website. I loved the weird, difficult-to-classify nature of the music, and I thought it was very punk rock of them to thumb their noses at labels and Spotify. I like to own my music in physical form, however--vinyl, specifically, because I'm a curmudgeon--and I was keeping my eyes open for if/when they'd release Diamond Jubilee on vinyl. Well, they did, and today it came in the mail! A very nice pressing, too, and nicely packaged with a lot of art photography. So...wanna come over and listen to records? |
| This afternoon I have to go play piano for a place I volunteer, and then this evening I think I will try to work on my short story, where I have a (possibly immortal? Definitely cranky) rapscallion stealing....something. 1) what are you all working on today? 2) if you had a rapscallion, what would YOU ask him to steal? (Currently I'm thinking a heart. Not in a sweet metaphorical way. Like literally, somebody's circulatory heart. Happy Valentine's?) |
| Humble Poet PNG - you kid, but this story actually does feature onions as a plot point. Think of how much more civilized your life is with onions (and lemons)... |
| Raven - That sounds cool! I definitely want to read that story. Bren & I both love onions (or shallots in certain dishes). One of our favourite ways to eat onions is to dice them up in sour cream and eat them on the edge of a potato chip. Onions are definitely versatile veggies! They go with almost everything except ice cream. Hmm. Or maybe... I like dill pickles with vanilla ice cream occasionally, but I've never tried onions with ice cream. |
| It's a new day, white and cold outside with the pogonip making everything look dusted in sugar. I got the Husband breakfast and sent to work at Nonsense O'Clock this morning. In the hours since I have edited one chapter of the novel that I'm hoping to have ready to hand my agent before....let's be ambitious, and say before school lets out in May, shall we? One chapter per day is pretty good for me; it may slow down, especially if I'm still composing the WIP novel and the occasional short story at the same time. (Alternately, I could decide to just revise hard for like two weeks and let my WIPs just kinda hang out in the meantime? But I like my WIPs and I don't want to quit talking to them.) For the rest of the day I will supervise the teens, do housework, figure out a piano piece, and think about the shape of various WIPs. What are you working on today? |
| Thinking of submitting a poem or three. Hope to finish my 'Small Town Murder'. Figured on about 3000 words when I started. Now at over 3000 words the murder has not been solved yet. Other than that, watch the snow drop. |
| Today I have my normal jobs, and a meeting, and then, hopefully, an open afternoon to work on another unfinished snip of a story that I found while I was digging around. Past Me really needs to learn to save things in some kind of actual system, instead of leaving cryptically named files scattered around various computers like confetti. Learn from my mistakes, kids! Get an external hard drive and back things up! And name them things that tell you what they are! The story I found is just the opener, which is a sullen cook arguing with an even-more-sullen household god, and while I'm sure at some point I had an idea about what she is asking him to steal for her, right now I have none and will have to invent it fresh. |
Raven - My problem is backups. I keep multiple backups. Then I edit one of the backups, but which of the backups should I save the new edit over? Then, the next time I add to a work or edit it, how do I know that I'm about to add to the most complete and recent backup? I'm like a five-taled puppy trying to choose which of my tales to edit!  |
| Raven - I don't mean to be rude or interlope, but "Raven Is Professional" kinda gives me shivers. R.I.P? sorry. I just tend to notice things like that. I know. I'm weird.  |
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luck with the new kitchen stove!
You'll get there. You may just need to write the wrong thing to find the right thing.