More Whining about Outlines

I stink.

I've been sick (nasty sick) for the past 24 hours or so. The sort of sick where having oatmeal for dinner was a big accomplishment. I'm pretty sure that it was food poisoning, but that's a trickier thing to diagnose than most people realize.

I'm feeling much better now, after having slept all day. I may even take a shower. The idea of going back to bed makes me tired (heh) but if I don't, my sleep schedule will be even more messed up than it already is.

All that aside, I had a fantastic time at Radcon. I was able to hitch a ride with the amazing and talented Sara Mueller. We spent the entire time talking while my poor daughter listened to the music loop over and over because we weren't paying attention to the CDs enough to notice when they'd gone back to the beginning. And then, after a good lunch at the Atomic Pub, we got to be on a panel together.

To Outline or not to Outline: We had a huge number of panelists, and still the non-outliners outnumbered the outliners five to one. Seriously? Being a non-outliner, I wasn't surprised ... which is directly opposite to my point. My point being that it's harder for me to find those little surprises when I outline. Good outliners find their twists and shockers in the outline. Bearing in mind that I don't know a large enough group of writers to call my observations in any way definitive, scientific, etc. and also bearing in mind that my stints with outlining have been brief ....

Outliners who struggle often run into the following situations:

The story moves from scene to scene in a very linear, logical fashion such that the reader will see the ending coming a mile away. This isn't a huge problem if the story is incredibly entertaining, and the characters are fun to watch. A good sign that the story is working even if everything is fairly predictable is that the author is having a ball writing it. If you're having fun, chances are the reader will have fun too.

The writer skips around the book as s/he writes, planning to fill in later. After all, it's all planned out, right? Why not write the scenes that you're excited about writing and get to the others when you have a really good idea on how to approach them? I've noticed two pitfalls here. The people I know who write this way have a much more difficult time finishing the project. They never get around to writing those harder scenes. Also, there's often a flow issue. When scenes are written in order, they often lead into each other naturally, even when there's a pov switch. Our brilliant subconscious has a great sense of word and tone choice that can subtly connect one section to another. This is less of an issue if there are radical jumps in the storyline. Interestingly, I've heard many writers who write multiple points of view or who employ time travel or make a story of characters who are in different parts of the world and never meet often write the whole story of each character/setting/time and then carefully break these up and fit them together like a puzzle. Very kewl!

Outliners also sometimes spend so much time outlining that it gets in the way of their actual writing. Why not put off putting words on the page when it's so easy to delay in favor of tweaking the complicated and scary middle game portion of the book?

I tried using the Snowflake Method. Developed by writer and engineer Randy Ingermanson, I found it to be an incredibly helpful tool. If I were to outline, this is the method I'd use. Having said that, if I went much past step five or six, the project began to languish. I lost a lot of the sense of excitement of discovery, and I became reluctant to write the project. It felt like it had already been written, if that makes sense. When I write, I'm telling myself a fun story. I like it when things pop out at me from nowhere, and I love it when I realize what's really going on (which sometimes forces me to go back to the beginning and change and add a few things.) Snowflaking necessarily took away that feeling in process. The surprises all happened in the outlining stage, and it became less interesting to actually write the dang thing.

Having said all that, there are many fine outliners out there writing great books. Also, different books require different approaches, and different styles of outlining. If I were writing a murder mystery, I wouldn't dream of going in without some sort of over-arching plan. I'd have to know whodoneit at minimum, and preferably have an idea of what sort of clues might be available. Maybe I don't write them in part because it would take so much effort and planning on my part. Writers who can write these books may be able to write them without an outline because their brilliant minds are geared for it. But I will say that of the mystery writers I know, at least back in the early days, they wrote with a plan. With experience, a plan may become less necessary--or their ability to outline effectively becomes so honed that it just becomes part of their genius.

It's worth it to try to outline once or twice if you've never attempted it. It can be a fantastic tool, and there's no way to know if it'll enhance your writing or not until you give it a go. It didn't work for me, but it might work great for you. Also, don't be afraid to bubble diagram or use any other creative development tools out there. They exist because they work. When I get stuck, I sometimes doodle around with bubble diagrams, but usually I do better with a hot bath or taking a walk.

I may write about the rest of the panels later on. You know me. Sometimes I get to it, and sometimes the chickens get out of their yard and I have to tell y'all about chasing them around the garden for an hour. Until next time ....

Is it just me or is it awfully quiet around here?

I've been quiet lately, mainly because my DH and I are working daily on putting the house back together. Yesterday I finished all but one door transition, and I filed away a bunch of paperwork.

Two writers generate a lot of paperwork.

And then I have the writing projects, and book covers, etc.

Enough excuses.

Speaking of quiet, our house is very quiet. The new laminate floors have made it less quiet--sound travels easily across that slick surface--but there's not a lot out here to make noise. We don't have a lot of cars go by, for example, and there's not enough traffic for anyone to honk at anyone else unless they're being particularly dicky. Our animals make sounds, but usually not all day. The chickens sometimes get into spats, or they'll make noises after they've laid an egg. The goats only bother to make noise if they see us and suspect that we'll bring over some food. We don't keep the tv on. Not that it's actually a tv tv--we don't get any reception out here and I don't want to buy a big antenna, so we just plug in a dvd (no commercials, yay!) when we want to watch something. We might watch 2-3 hours a day. Sometimes I have the radio on for half an hour, but that's not even a daily thing. Once a week, at best.

It's so quiet that when my DH grinds coffee, it sounds really loud. When I'm in bed and he needs to grind some, he muffles it with a dish rag. We can hear our refrigerator cycle on and off. The fan on my computer is the loudest sound in the entire downstairs unless a badly tuned truck races by or one of our dogs walks over for a drink of water near my window.

When we first moved here, I loved the quiet, but it took some to get accustomed to it. I still wake up at the sound of slight noises sometimes. I wouldn't want to go back to more white noise, though. I like being able to hear the jays across the street at my neighbor's vacant property chatter to each other on the way to our bird feeder. I like being able to close my eyes and hear the faint sounds of my family doing breakfast stuff. I like that I can hear our postal carrier pull over and drop off mail. Sometimes I even hear the click of the mailbox shutting.

I wonder what our ancestors experienced, with few or no walls, no modern insulated windows, nothing, really, to soften the silence. Was it beautiful, or empty ... maybe both ....

Gardening with Friends

It's seed ordering time!

Yep. It's that time of year when I stop leafing through seed catalogues and actually go downstairs, get online and order what I want.

I've got about an acre of veggie garden, and I still don't have enough room to plant every single seedling that comes up all viable and beautiful from each one of those packets. If you've got gardening pals, you might consider putting together a group order. Everyone puts together a wish list, brings it to a seed meeting, and negotiates with everyone else so that they can split up packets as much as possible. It costs less, and everyone will have more than enough. Why bother? How about this: Maybe you have only enough space for five tomatoes. Seems kind of silly to buy 25 seeds, and be stuck with just that one variety, when you and your friends can pick your three favorites and everyone gets a few seeds of each.

An alternative is to learn about seed storage. I do okay in the seed storage department, but it's a real science. The more you learn, the better chances you'll have of seeds not just sprouting but actually becoming thriving plants. There's still the issue of having to buy in to whole packets of each variety of thing, which can be expensive, but at least you'll be able to have the same sort of garden each year and learn more about how to grow it better. Of course if you chose your varieties poorly, that may mean making the best of an iffy thing. Or you can toss the loser seeds and keep the best ones.

But it's more fun to garden with friends. Check out your local gardening clubs. I found a whole bunch of them in the newspaper without even trying. And Google is your friend, as always. Even if it doesn't seem like your sort of thing, it doesn't hurt to do a little snooping around. You never know. You may discover that there's a local turnip society. It can be nice to know that you're not the only person in town who loves turnips.

My Dream Farm

This is a special message to those of you who dream about having a little acreage with a few animals and maybe a small garden in which you can grow bountiful and healthy (and hopefully heirloom) produce with no chemicals--

Today, in the rain and snow:

* Started my work day with my work shoes in a bag because I had to walk through a really deep puddle to get into my car

* After I got home, before dinner, shut in the chickens for the night so that the raccoons won't get them, hoping the rat won't hurt them

* Went downstairs and found out water was coming into my office. Again. Put on my boots, went to the shed in the rain and dark and slush (there's spiiiiders overwintering in there!!), got a shovel and began to divert the water coming down the driveway toward the house (again) with no real clue as to whether I was doing any good whatsoever and praying I wouldn't hit the phone or electric line (I think I know where they run ....)

* Found out that the internet was down. Called tech support. The new guy on the other side had no idea what to do with dialup accounts. He tried to look up some phone numbers for me. I fixed the problem myself in the meantime. But he was very supportive! Go him!

* Cats are whining because I won't let them out in the storm where they might get eaten by coyotes

* Checked the garden and discovered that the semi-perennials I planted and nurtured and then mulched against winter weather appear to be dead, and yet I still have hope

* Read an article about winter cleanup in the garden after a storm--picking up broken branches, pruning dreary-looking perennials, snipping off damaged branches and going after dormant insects. All fantastic advice but all I could think of was yeah, right, me and what army will do that over our two acres in the mud, assuming the rain ever lets up before June

* Put cowboy hat on my shopping list because my DH's did a way better job in the weather than my own hats did when I had to drive in the snow to get to work the other day (hmm, could it be that they're designed well for the conditions we have rather than being just a western fashion statement?)

* Start of work day, 7:30am. End of work day, 11:21pm. Time to take a bath and soak the mud ground into my hands by the shovel handle, maybe read a little, hopefully write a few words on my novel, and then sleep. Wake up time tomorrow, 7:30am to go to my day job.

And you know what? I love it, even if it makes me a little crazy sometimes. If this doesn't scare you, then live your dream. If it sounds like a hassle, dream on. Just dreaming is a lot less messy than the real thing.

This public service message is provided to you by your local crazy farm girl.

After

Sometimes I think about lonely things, especially after someone dies. After Lucky died, along with the sadness and loss I also felt relief for his sake, because dying of kidney failure was no fun. Now that the grief has settled I've had lonelier thoughts. If we really have souls, we're separated from the living. Is his soul afraid? Needing contact? Is there danger? Is there anyone or anything that cares for souls like his?

Sometimes it's not the greatest thing to be introspective. I wrote about stuff like this in a book that hasn't seen the light of day. Maybe it's time to start working on it again (in my copious spare time, of course.)

Not Quite a Cliche'

It's been snowing buckets. We have a pretty severe storm system passing through (actually, it's probably several storms) and the cold air is helping mitigate it a bit by having it fall as beautiful fluffy frozen stuff. When we warm up the wind will pick up and suddenly we'll have those torrential downpours that sometimes flood my office.

Please not this year, please please no flooding office this year ....

I had fun driving in it (so far--I may not drive tomorrow and call in to work (we'll see.)) I had to leave early and still ended up showing up at the same time at work as always. In my haste to depart I couldn't find my hat and gloves, so I borrowed some, which resulted in:

K driving down the slushy, snowy road in a big blue pickup truck wearing a brown cowboy hat with a tiger-eye chip band and purple sparkly gloves (no, really, seriously) listening to 80's pop on the radio in four wheel drive, bouncing on extra-tight shocks.

Did the same going home, of course. I saw lots of tire tracks in the snow fish tailing all over the place, often crossing the centerline or venturing a few inches into the ditch. Driving up our road in snow ain't for the faint-hearted, that's for sure. But me and my pickup truck did just fine, thank you very much, with Twisted Sister on the radio. Heh. I would have preferred country, but my knuckles were a little white gripping the steering wheel ....

All but finished, and begun again

I finished the floor upstairs. Well, finished might not be perfectly accurate. I have three transitions and the baseboard thingy/stuff to do. Then I'll be done. We still have to put the ceiling up downstairs, and we have to finish our front porch, but the upstairs will finally be homey again. It's a really good feeling. It'll be an even better feeling when I can sweep and mop the last of the sawdust away. I've gotten about 90% of it, but it'll keep shaking off of furniture and we'll be dusting it off of all the horizontal surfaces for a quite a while, not to mention I have to get all those bits and pieces leftover out of the house and the tools (all sawdust covered, of course) returned to their proper owner or put away. Thanks again to our friend D. for loaning us his very kewl chop and table saws.

I'm writing on the third book in the Masks series again, tentatively titled Innocence and Silence. So far so good, at least as far as I can tell. Writing in series is always a chancy proposition. There are all those details to keep track of, and there's a higher chance that the story will run away in directions that won't work either forward, backward, or worst of all, both. I'm trying not to let it distract me. The most important thing is to tell a good story, right?

Oh, and it snowed today. There's enough on the ground that the steadily rising temperatures aren't enough to melt it. I had that magical feeling waking up with everything white. I don't think that feeling will ever go away, at least as long as we're on the warm side of the mountains.

So it's been a productive, snug, brandy and hot chocolate sort of day. Tomorrow it's back again to the day job, assuming the road conditions are good enough for me to get down the hill. Right now I'd say it's probably fine, but if it keeps snowing all night or the temperature drops, turning the slushy underbelly into ice ... yeah. We'll see. If I can't make it I won't be too sad, though. I'll just spend the day writing.

Housework as Art

We've been working around the house pretty hard and it's starting to pay off. It's really wonderful coming home to a place that's clean(er) and (more) organized and warm.

It makes me think about the art of home-making. For a long while it became almost derogatory--someone being a homemaker was a person who didn't have a life of their own. It still has that taint. I'm not sure how that happened. Maybe because of it's association with wives and women. That's a really awful idea, that something that becomes associated with the feminine is diminished and derided and considered irrelevant or even frivolous.

My DH has been putting in just as much work, if not more, into making this house a home and now that we're seeing serious progress there's just so much pride and satisfaction in it. It's not just pride and satisfaction, though. It's a form of creativity, with emphasis on the create part. Anyone who has finished writing a book or a painting or has watched a flower bed blossom after all the preparation and hard work understands. And yes, these things are never really completed. Projects aren't finished so much as they're abandoned, or revisited in another form at another time. Just as the cells in our bodies continuously divide and process and breathe, the environments we create are never static. They grow and change and breathe too. With effort, they flourish. With neglect, they decay and die.

Our house is very alive right now. It's beautiful, even with all the dust and ongoing battles with clutter that doesn't have a spot to settle into (yet.) Will we ever finish? I'm sure we'll have breaks from the wall painting and edging and organizing. But I won't sit still during those time periods. I'll have another way of putting my feet up--putting up outbuildings, relaxing while lazing about weeding in my garden beds, eating tomatoes fresh from the vine.

Yep, it's almost that time of year. Mid-February I'll be starting those earliest of seeds. Yikes! That's in about a month. That's all the time I have to polish the work indoors.

I'm already full of anticipation--the garden in our future, the livable house that soon will become present, the sawdust piles and scrap pieces of flooring that will be in the past.

It's a great way to begin 2012. I think it's going to be a fun year. The art of it will be all around us. We'll be living in it, eating from it, and resting within it. It's living as art, and art as life.

Oops

Just a quick note from my favorite Wifi spot, Papa's Ice Cream. We had a wee accident at the farm a couple of days ago and my office has no power. No animals or people (which in our house are pretty much animals too) were harmed in the making of this accident.

I'll be online only sporadically for the next few days.

House of Goats

House of Goats by Tammy Owen is up on Amazon and Smashwords.

Tammy's working on the sequel, House of Chickens. It's one of those things where more life has to happen before the book comes together (and yes, it's all based on truth, truth being weirder/dumber/crazier/fill-in-your-adjective than life) but there's enough for a whole 'nother book by now. Pretty sure there is, anyway. Like pound cake, not just made from scratch, but with hand tools. There's a reason why people bought appliances like crazy when they came out. Seriously. And farm wives with big shoulders happens in part because of things like pound cake being mixed by hand. Because, damn, batter is heavy.

I'm still working on how to put more books out more efficiently. My DH is helping a ton with that. I'd like Wyrd Goat Press to develop a reputation for good books, though I doubt people really care about what publisher puts out what books. Do you know who published your favorite books?

In other news, the Mega Floor Project is almost finished! I have the sore knees to prove it. I have about twenty four square feet or so to do. Hopefully I have enough left in the boxes I have. If not, I may have to run to the store and get one more box. Either way it's good. Soooo much better than white carpet. White carpet+farmhouse=sad/disgusted me. Hopefully I'll be able to post pics soon of a fabulous shiny entryway, living room and dining room.

There might be more writing news soon. It just depends on scheduling stuff on their end. I've been waiting a long time to make an official announcement. I hope to make it sooner than later.

Don't Lose Time

I have a very good friend who sometimes talks about how people wasting his time is a form of murder. Our time is limited. From our perspectives we usually aren't aware of it because we seem to have so much of it.

I didn't always have that feeling of 'almost forever', though. I remember having this fear that the world would end at the end of 1999. That feeling was so strong that even though I doubted anything would happen, I shivered more than once as the year 2000 approached. I had calculated what age I'd be in 2000, and promised myself that I would do everything I wanted to before then so that I'd have no regrets.

I was only 12 years old, but I think I was wiser in that respect than I am now.

Our beloved Lucky, the epileptic black kitty, passed away from kidney failure the day before yesterday. He had about a decade of life. In that time it seemed that he sensed that there simply wasn't enough love in the world, and he craved it more than anything. Epileptics sometimes report a strong sense of impending death just before they black out into their seizure. I think he had that feeling too. He had a seizure just before he died, and I wonder if he thought damn, I've been down this road so many times ....

I had snapped awake about 5:30 am knowing something was wrong. I found him on the floor. Somehow he'd crawled out of the bed we'd made for him. From that point on he got constant love, the thing he wanted, the thing he desired above all other things throughout life. My DH and I took turns holding him in our laps. We gave him what we could, and as he'd always known, it still wouldn't be enough. But it was all the time he had to get attention from us. Death clicked the stopwatch and the race was over.

None of us have enough time to do everything. For Lucky, he didn't want everything. Just one thing. I think that focus gave him the kind of life he wanted.

Do you have one thing more important than the others? Lucky would, if he could, suggest that you pursue that one thing. And if there isn't one thing for human beings, maybe there's at least a concept like I had when I was a child of living life and accomplishing a certain amount in the time that we have. If you had only a decade from now, what would you want to accomplish before then? Chances are if you're reading this, you've already had more than Lucky. Have you used your time wisely, as he did?

If Wishes had Plans ...

Sometimes I wish I was working full time for myself. Wishing isn't worth much all by itself, though. I wish for stuff all the time. I wish I was healthier, slimmer, stronger, that I'll win the lottery, etc.

I can make the working full time for myself work, though. I have a plan. Tomorrow I'll have some time to work on that plan.

A plan makes all the difference. It's like budgets in finance. Want to be rich but living from hand to mouth? Have to start with a budget. It can suck. Adding up expenses and subtracting them from income sometimes points out just how far we're in the hole, but you know, you're in that hole whether you know it or not. I'd rather know it. From there it's just a matter of figuring out how to work with the income you've got and then formulating a plan for decreasing unnecessary expenditures (sometimes that's impossible if you've cut to the bone already) and formulating another plan for increasing income if it's needed (usually it's needed but not always.)

Before I can work totally freelance I have to (on average) have an income of my wages plus benefits. The benefits are the tough things to match right now. I 'make' more in benefits than I do in wages.

But there's that number, and so I can set up a plan and adjust as needed once I put that plan into action. You'd better believe step one is not quit my day job. Good thing I (mostly) like my day job! Step one mostly involves using my free time to the best of my ability, while maintaining sanity. I had a sanity day recently, so tomorrow is a work on my self-employed job day. If I can get eight solid hours in, that would be good. Holiday shopping doesn't count.

Have you got a plan for your wishes?

Music

My DH will have a DVD coming out soon. One of the questions we got from the producer involved the kind of music he thinks would work well with the DVD.

That's a huge question.

I have these soundtracks I listen to sometimes when I'm writing or as a prep before writing to help transport me quickly back into that world within the story. A lot of people I know have soundtracks for their lives, just like the commercial says. Some songs are so intensely popular that they're used in multiple movies, or sometimes aren't in the movies themselves but are in the trailers. "Ordinary World" is a hugely popular example.

But a bunch of favorite songs is not what a non-fic DVD needs. I'm sure the producer will take our ideas (or leave them) and come up with something practical. As someone who occasionally does creative stuff for other people, I understand the blessing that is a launching point.

I'm so, so curious about the entire DVD but now I'm especially curious about how music fits in. Music can turn a perfectly good instructional DVD and make it corny or unlisten-able. One of my favorite workout videos has such boring, awful music that I turn it way down and listen to my own techno and pop mix instead. There's a lot of pressure placed on the background that we don't think about. Music covers white noise, microphone crackle, and turns those dramatic pauses into, well, drama as opposed to someone standing around while the lights hum.

Which actually all plays into writing (as all things do.) Description is often background. When it's just a dry list of things present in the room and people gesturing, it's substance without the music. Description needs flavor, life, action. Think about it. Why were Tolkien's settings so rich? Because they were alive. They had music.

I'm going to go write some music now, while I eagerly await the DVD rough cut, coming soon (I hope) to a tv near me.

Be Awesome because it's fun!

Here's me waving to my readers and apologizing if I haven't responded to comments lately. I'm hardly ever online anymore, and when I am I check my email and run away to work on projects.

It's cold out here, but my knees are warm because our bulimic anger management issues kitteh is sitting between them, purring. I have a kneeling chair, which is supposed to be good for your posture but it doesn't work for me--I've just learned to slouch a different way. Isn't that horrible? But she's happy, and I'm happy and now I'm sitting up straight again because I'm all self-conscious about it now.

It's been a while since I've posted about customers. Lately I've been having few to no issues. Everyone's been splendid. There's changes afoot. People aren't as stressed. I see more people smiling. Maybe they've just adjusted to their hardships, or maybe things are actually getting better. Either way, it's been wonderful working retail with upbeat customers.

My favorite is G. He's got a close friend who always comes in and says "hi, I'm G's friend. He's on his way in," so I don't actually know his name. He of course likes it that way. Anyway, G. was in a serious car wreck, as in the paramedics found him dead at the scene and managed to revive him serious. He fights like hell to walk, to remember (he suffered a brain injury, among other things) and to take care of himself but he effing gets it done. That impresses me. Not that impressing me means anything, but I do think that there's a lesson there. Not to go out of your way to impress people. A con artist can do that. But to fight hard to the point where anyone would be impressed if they heard about it. For your own sake. Screw that--do it for humanity's sake. That's what keeps the human race alive and vital. Striving, fighting, excelling is what keeps us strong. The wild critters have constant pressure on them from disease, predation and the elements. We've reduced that pressure greatly. It's still there (I find it a little creepy that our biggest predator pressure comes from ourselves) but it's not what it once was. That's kewl, but doesn't that mean that we need to push ourselves now that clear and present death isn't breathing in our ears whispering that it's coming for us at any moment? If the cheetah doesn't motivate the gazelle to run, won't the gazelles lose their gazelle-ness and become less awesome?

Consider being awesome, not just to prep for a disaster that may or may not come, or to overcome a catastrophe like G. did. Become awesome because you have the freedom to become awesome without a car wreck or a cheetah or cancer or war or your crazy cousin Irvine showing up on the doorstep with a shotgun ready to take you and your whole family out. Do it for fun!

Which reminds me, they found three bodies and positively ID'ed the shooter as well and truly gone, reduced to sooty bones. Unfortunately he shot the twin sisters, one of which was his wife. A family, gone. Details are here (though I noticed that, weirdly, today's update from the paper edition isn't there yet. And yes, I'm one of those people who read the actual print newspaper.)

Fire and Gunfire and Smoke

All morning I've heard reports and rumors and everything else about a fire and gunshots just a few blocks from my workplace. It's sobering, standing at my station, watching to see if something drastically changes, listening to gunfire.

And weirdly, I could see getting used to it. Not liking it, but figuring I have to eat, I have to shop, I have to work ... and going to work while blocks away people are shooting at each other, be it armies, religious sects, gangs, whatever. What if there's nowhere you can move to? People are struggling everywhere to make house payments or rent, looking for work--if your neighborhood exploded with violence, could you move? Would you?

Because I won't. Obviously I have the fair assurance that this won't happen again, and that after today it's unlikely that I'll hear gunfire and see plumes of smoke and flames and police, or worry about a crazy man somehow sneaking through a cordon and coming into my workplace. But even if I did think this would happen again, would I move? Would I leave work, with little assurance of finding another job ... and where would I go where this couldn't happen?

Because it could happen anywhere. Today it's happening here.

Weird how normal my day is. Weird how I'm having lunch at my second favorite place to have lunch because the first one is closed for everyone's safety. Or maybe not so weird. It's here today, and it'll be somewhere else in the world, maybe several somewhere else's, tomorrow.

I just hope that the wife and sister are okay. The man ... he's in charge. He'll be okay if he wants to be, and apparently he doesn't want to be. Today he wants fire and gunfire and smoke.

The Joy of Interrupted Writing

I used to get so peeved when I'm writing and there's an interruption. It still gets to me, especially if it's something quick and unimportant that someone else could have handled, but I try to remind myself that my family/friends/job/etc. are more important than writing. If I write well enough, maybe someday the job can be taken off the list as writing will be my full time job. But for now, paying the bills ... yeah.

Today, the interruption in writing proved to be full of awesome.

I write during lunch on workdays whenever I can. When it's time to stop, I have to stop no matter how well it's going. I grumbled (silently) as I closed up my laptop and locked it away.

Fast forward two hours later and I have this genius idea about the scene I've been writing. I obsessed about it whenever I had a no-mind-required moment at work, and now I can sit down and write something much better than what I'd had in mind. Yay! So thank you, job, not just for health care and wages and keeping my family fed and happy, but for the timely interruption. Because if I'd kept on a'goin', I'm sure I wouldn't have thought of this idea.

Wyrd Goat Logo

We have a great person, T, visiting us so that's my excuse for not posting as much as I'd like. Seriously, when did it get to be so hard to post on my blog every day?

Anyway, it's not finished but I've made some progress on the Wyrd Goat logo. Specifically, the neck's proportions aren't there yet and the horns aren't done and there's no beard yet (gotta have a beard!) but I figured y'all might be curious about what I've been obsessing over the past few. I have to say that working in digital media is pretty fun. I really, really want a tablet, though. I'm doing all this with the track pad and a mouse I got for my laptop. Yowza, it's hard on the hands and wrists! I also don't have as much control as I'm used to.

But!

If I make a line I hate, I just delete it. No mucking about with covering or removing pigment or there's even a technique where you can remove the top layer of paper if you're working on something durable like vellum ... None of that. Just a click of the mouse and it's gone.

Sweet!

Home Town

My DH mentioned yesterday that I connect our family to the community at large simply by seeing the same people every day. I don't always know their names, but I recognize them at the grocery store, the hardware store, at the Christmas tree stand, and I often say hi when I have time if they don't look too busy.

I want to say that this is important, but is it? Maybe in an emergency a person who recognizes me might be more likely to stop and help, but even in that unlikely situation I think a good person would stop and help regardless of whether they're a friend or a stranger.

Is it important for people to know their neighbors, or at least recognize them?

I don't think there's a clear answer. I just know that I enjoy living in a place where I can go to the post office and small talk about the new building going up with my vet and the person who bags my groceries and the person I helped with a return the previous day.

For my fellow Nanoers--have you backed up your Nanowrimo project? Don't put it off!

Nanowrimo Final Count!

Last night's total word count was at 59,339 words. I probably could have snuck up past 60,000, but I had a really hot bath and realized that I had a better idea than the one I was working on. So I'm going to unwrite some stuff tomorrow and continue on this new, more exciting track.

In other semi-writing news, I'm reworking the Wyrd Goat logo and putting more serious work into the Wyrd Goat website. I'll let y'all know when it goes live. Hopefully it'll be a fun website with lots of wonderful books, links, and other nifty stuff. Advance thanks goes to Lisa the Awesome who is helping me figure out GIMP while doing some serious heavy lifting with some graphics I need. Yay Lisa!

In other, other semi-writing news, Masks will soon be ready. I have a first reader going through it now.

Tomorrow, more work on the floor in the morning, which may lead to finishing the upstairs which in turn may lead to dancing. I don't know! This may be too much fun in one place. Anything can happen ...

Nanowrimo Count Up--58297 words!

I gained some weight, but I ended up with about 58,297 words (final count will be posted tomorrow) for Nanowrimo this year and I didn't neglect my house or family as much this year as previous years. I ended up in the perfect place in the book for Nano to end--I'm in the muddle in the middle. Anyone who's written a novel knows that the muddle in the middle can be pretty brutal. The writing can be slow going, or worse, you're doing fine until you realize that you've lost track of everything that's going on and you've dropped three of the eight balls you've been juggling and now you have to backtrack because the character couldn't possibly be on that side of town ... yeah.

Not that I've ever done that, but if I had, I would scream just like this: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!

Congratulations to all my buddies that crossed the Nano finish line!! Validate sooner than later, because the validator will probably be pretty busy the closer we get to midnight in the various time zones.

Have a cookie. You can always hit the treadmill sometime in December, or if not, January is the traditional time to do that sort of thing, and that's not too far away.

Ack! Is it really closing in on 2012? Time seriously flies. I'd better get back to writing. Until next time ....

Nanowrimo Count Up: 50,536 I Win! and Happy Thanks Day

Our Thanksgiving celebration is mostly over already. We had a wonderful visit in Bend, OR with family and friends. I drank too much wine (for me, that's 2 glasses) and then after everyone except my DH and I went to bed, I wrote until 2am. (He did too. We're a little bit sick that way.)

Signet is now at over 50,000 words. I've made my Nanowrimo goal! Of course the fun doesn't stop there. I doubt I'll finish the book by Nov. 30, but I'm going to give it the ol' writer's try.

In more serious news, my good friend over at Whiskey Tango Foxtrot is going into surgery. It's my understanding that although this is a serious surgery, his doctors don't believe that his life is in danger at this time. All surgeries have risks inherent to them, so I'll be thinking about him and his lovely and talented wife.

Also, RIP Anne McCaffrey. She created wonderful worlds that I as a young person and many people around the world of all ages loved to explore. My condolences to her family, in particular to Todd.

I have so much to be thankful for this year. My sister-in-law (I love you K!) hit the nail on the head when she mentioned that we're fortunate to have good health. Family, friends, food on the table, a roof over our heads, health insurance, our kids are doing great, and we live in the wonderful Pac NW ... I have no doubt that things can get better than this, but if they stayed the same (which things never do) I would be content.

As soon as the floor upstairs is finished, that is. :P

I wish you and yours a wonderful holiday. If you're going shopping on Black Friday, be careful out there. And remember, it's only stuff. Don't let the crazy people grabbing stuff out of your cart make you crazy too. Their actions and that stuff they need so desperately that they're willing to grab it from your hands will not make them happy, and that stuff can't really make you happy either. There are so many ways to express love that it's not necessary to cling to the idea of one object given to one person or to hoard something in your house in order to feel fulfilled.

With that or some other more wise wisdom-y thingy in mind, it's possible to have a lot of fun on Black Friday. I'll be working, of course, but I might stop by the store before my shift and check out the deal-iest of the deals. Happy Thanksgiving!

Nanowrimo Count Up--45000 words!

Day five of six days in a row of work. Yes, I'm grateful to be working. Still. Always. But I'm tired, and I won't be any less tired tomorrow.

In writing, I've recently had to remind myself to use all five senses as often as I can. I just had my characters cross a huge common area. Guess what I forgot? Sound! Yeah, I didn't do taste or smell either. I did do a little tactile stuff. But the sound would be as important as the sight. Sound will define what sort of crowd this is, and what the general mood is. Angry crowd give anyone the creeps? Does me! Laughing singing dancing crowd make you want to join in or wonder what the celebration is all about? Busy noisy cranky crowd suggests a typical day in downtown, right? So there we are, and there in the story we weren't. Going generic will allow the reader to create their own stuff via their imagination, but a few specific things will help lead them in a potentially more interesting direction and can suggest culture stuff in the process.

Back to the keyboard-y salt mines. If I don't post before then, I wish everyone a very happy Thanksgiving Day. Drive safe.

Nanowrimo Count Up--41032 words!

I'm hitting a weird point in the book where I feel like I'm racing toward the end, but I'm only halfway, if that.

The ending came to me during a bath. I'm not sure what it is about hot water, but it works for me. Anyway, now that I know the heartbreak and joy that comes at the end, I can't wait to get there. My word count has shot up as a result. I hope to reach the winning count, 50,000 words, by this Friday. And I really hope, though I doubt it'll happen, that I'll actually finish the whole book before the end of the month.

My poor DH has to suffer through me explaining bits and pieces of plot when I finish a particularly exciting scene. He made me happy today by letting me know that he enjoys listening to me talk about my book. Of course he had to tease me after that remark, but we're like that with each other. We like to tease, and tickle, and play. We have a wonderful relationship that keeps us both writing like crazy. Maybe someday we'll both be full time writers. I think that would be awesome. I wouldn't have to guard my writing time so jealously anymore, and when he invites me to go somewhere to Wifi, I won't want to say no so that I don't lose writing to travel, which is followed by feeling lonely and wishing I was with him. And I won't feel harried or like I've wasted my time if I say yes, and we won't play that not-so-fun game where we're lingering longer than we like and trying to find useful things to do while the other person finishes up their latest thing they started when the other wasn't done ... yeah. That can be crazy-making after a couple of rounds.

Oh, and about that flooring project ... what flooring project? I was going to try to finish the living room today, but instead I'm at 41,032 words.

Totally worth it. But the floor needs to happen, so I'll work on it really soon. Not sure when, but soon.

OryCon 33: Word Count 33652

This OryCon I did more socializing than I have in a long time, and it was glorious. I didn't care that my @ss had flattened from sitting so long or that I wasn't making much headway with my novel.

Free samples:

Dreams and nightmares ... the sensory advantage fiction has over film, though film has some great advantages in pacing and visuals. Also, how kewl is it that although someone can be distracted from a movie and miss part of it, if someone becomes distracted from a book, they pick up where they left off or even go back and reread something to get back into it? Prose is a fascinating medium. And our brains are even more fascinating. You can have lucid dreams, faulty dream paralysis, teach yourself to fly, speak to the dead, have repeating nightmares, dreams with plots, and dreams that are so boring you're glad you can finally stop looking for the darned olives at the grocery store when you wake up. Thanks to Jason Brock and a dedicated audience at a very late panel that wasn't even listed for a fascinating conversation/panel on the subject.

Early attempts at writing fiction ... OMG. Does anyone remember their first efforts at storytelling? I had this thing for long, straight black hair that goes down to the waist (why did it have to go down to the waist?!) and purple eyes and chainmail bikinis on bodies that drove men mad with love. Lust was sort of an abstract idea at the time. And I adored the Monkees (who still perform from time to time--a coworker went to a concert of theirs a few months ago) but not as much as horses, which they would chase through various environments and then the wild buckskin would save Davy Jones' life. Karen and I laughed so hard I'm sure people were giving us dirty looks but we didn't care. I'd tell you her stories but they're so awesome she has to tell you herself. I didn't even get to tell her about all the Battlestar Galactica episodes I made up and then later was convinced that they really aired, only to find out that my favorite episodes never actually existed. Darn it! I think I might have hurt myself laughing. We're still telling silly stories, but now I'm not afraid to share them. Plus, I now know about copyright and won't make the (deliberate) mistake of using someone else's creations to carry my stories.

And I don't care if they're cliche'. I still think amethyst eyes are awesome. I just won't prance a violet-eyed warrior princess riding a black unicorn across any of my stories unless I'm writing a spoof. (Sadly.)

What Violence Smells like, Looks like, Feels like, you get the idea like ... you'd think that this panel would turn into a gross-out contest, but the panelists dug deep and revealed things that were painful and nightmarish to them on a personal and professional level. I was so honored to be there while they shared all that with us. I forgot to ask a question so later I cornered Rory Miller and asked him if he remembered what being tasered tasted like. He said 'it tasted like pain.' We laughed, but you know, it's intense stuff. We're made of meat, all of us, and we're all mortal and sometimes you have to laugh and cry and let it out and let it go if you can because the alternative is to curl up and shiver until you die.

Autism ... I liked when the panel started talking about education, because I don't think our education system is serving anyone right now, bright, challenged, bored or plaid ... our kids aren't learning as well as they could. I have high hopes for remote schools, but change is slow and change may not be for the better if we don't figure some stuff out. My kids are out of school, so I don't have horses in this race anymore, so to speak. But I care about the world's future, and kids are it. What do we do? Pay for more studies? I don't think so. Studies are horrible, and they tend to ask leading questions that have no purpose but to suggest narrow political answers. Aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!

As far as I can tell the boy and the girl had a blast as well. And I missed so much. Filk concerts. The masquerade. Heaps of panels that I wanted to go to. The art show. The art show! I can't believe I missed the art show. I only breezed through the dealer's room. And I didn't get a triple penetration chocolate donut from the Voodoo Donut van. I had to settle for a (yummy) chocolate frosted chocolate cake donut. I'd say waaaah, but you know, it was a tasty defeat.

Lots more but I'll probably blog about something else next time.

Oh, and I can't forget! In sad fuzzy housemates news, Veronica has made a full recovery, and Finn's scalp wound is starting to heal nicely. It was looking very, very iffy there for a while (I think Brian 'helped' by licking the wounds a bit too much) but the next day Finn had everything scabbed and sealed. And Veronica (Poop!) gets to go outside again, so she's happy.

All in all, a good time was had by all. G'night!

Nanowrimo Count Up--22413 words!

I have another day off tomorrow, so I'll be working on the floor, and writing.

On a more serious note, Veronica, aka the Poop, is not feeling well. She stopped eating and drinking. I'll call the vet tomorrow. She's moving around super-slow and is sleeping lot, which implies to me that she got beat up by another kitteh and is sore and possibly has a mild infection brewing somewhere. I admit I'm worried, but we've been through this with Wizard a couple of times before. She's young and strong and will probably bounce back without any interference, but I'd like the vet to assess her for dehydration, and it would be nice if she were prescribed something to alleviate the soreness (if memory serves, they usually give a steroid shot) to get her moving and eating again. I'm sure they'll prescribe antibiotics if she has a fever.

Poor kitteh ...

And also (why is there so often an also!) Finn scraped his head up pretty good. We're not sure what happened, but it doesn't look like a bite from the other dogs. Quite a bit of hair is missing around the scrape, and we know it wasn't there last night. Trapped under the porch? Got his head jammed under a tree root while digging? Ran under a low branch? We have no idea. We called the vet, who said to watch to make sure it doesn't get worse/icky/full of pus and basically treat with neosporin. Check, check and check. Unlike the Poop, he seems fine, though his head looks alarming with so much scabby stuff and missing fur.

Sheesh.

Nanowrimo Count Up--13994 words!

I should be writing my novel ...

My DH and I spent a lot of time working on the floor upstairs. We're now almost done with the living and dining rooms. Seriously. As in, single digit number of feet left to go. Then we get to start on the entryway.

It's an amazing transformation. Already the house looks better, even though everything is in a state of utter turmoil. Even the kitchen looks nicer. Okay, granted, part of that is because my DH hugely cleaned it up. But it's also because of the floor coming up to the kitchen. The cupboards now look like they belong. Before they looked too dark and kinda grungy. I think it was the too-sharp contrast of everything else attempting to be off white, including the carpet, and then the dark cupboards kinda stuck out. Same with our furniture. The roll-top desk I adore now looks almost like it was chosen so that it looked good with the floor. Fabulous!

I have tomorrow off, so we're going to spend part of the day writing and part of the day working on the floor. Hopefully we'll be able to finish things up, if our former-contractor friend D. has time to help us with the transition by the sliding door.

I'm so, so excited! Word count, and house beautification. There's something really wonderful about accomplishing difficult projects. Yes, it's daunting, and yes, it's possible to fail, and yes, yes, yes, it's hard and time-consuming and seems to be a huge distraction from what appear to be more important things. But those more important things often turn out to be busy work. So which is the huge distraction, really? The answer depends on your dreams and goals.

Nanowrimo Count Up--1846 words!

Yep, it's that time again. Nanowrimo: NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth. The goal--50,000 words by the end of the month, which is about 1667 words a day.

It's always good to get a head start. Stuff happens. Thanksgiving is stuck in there (and for those of us who work retail, Black Friday is shot too.) Offices flood (happened twice during Nanowrimo in the past ten years.) The point is to write every day, and for the days that you know you'll miss, to write extra either before or after so that you make your goal.

For many, this is a fun exercise, and a chance to finally write that book that they've always wanted to write. For a lot of pros it may be a non-event. They may write 50,000 words in three days. (Stephen King wrote a 200,000 word novel in the time it took you to read up to this point in my post.)

Some fun facts:

*Some people clear 250,000 words during Nanowrimo. No kidding. Some of them are even first time novelists. (ooos and aaaahs from the audience.)

*Nanowrimo is organized by the Office of Letters and Light, a charity that does awesome things like provide books for the needy.

*A 'standard' (double-spaced, 12pt. font, 1 inch margins) page has about 250-275 words, depending on writing style. This can vary quite a bit, with some dense pages approaching 300 words, and spare pages with a poetic or spare structure coming in well under 100. These standard pages give an editor a very good idea of how thick the spine on the novel will be.

*Most 'mainstream' novels fall between 80,000 and 110,000 words because traditional paperback and hardback publishing finds that this length satisfies the reader, has ample spine on which to print necessary info like the novel's title, and doesn't have so much content that it requires lots of extra (expensive) paper and ink and binding to produce even if they make the font really, really tiny.

*Lots of incredible books are shorter than 80,000 words and much, much longer than 110,000. Really big ones over 200,000 words are sometimes referred to as door stoppers or tomes.

*Shorter books are often printed with bigger fonts, lots of pictures, or with lots of empty space around the print so that there's enough spine on which to print the title of the book in a visible font. Conversely really long books may be printed on thin paper, in smaller fonts, or have smaller margins. Compare sometime a copy of the complete works of Shakespeare or Stephen King's The Stand with War of Art or Michael Pollan's 64 Rules for Eating Well. (Yes, I really meant War of Art, not Art of War, although that's another book that is often filled out, though more often with commentary and lots of prefaces.)

*Although Nanowrimo seems to be held at a weird time of year and shouldn't offer any tangible benefits, the energy that comes from attempting Nanowrimo has inspired lots of people to meet or exceed their goals year after year. I've tried a year-round goal of 50,000 words, and have also tried it during a more 'sane' and quiet month. Nada. This is the time, the place, and these are the people.

I hope some of you will join me in trying to write 50,000 words (or more!) in November. It's not too late to start! If you do, feel free to buddy me. I'm kzmiller.

Too Much of a Good Thing (again, or is it still?)

My DH and the kids are coming home tomorrow after a nice vacation on the coast. I so, so wish I could have gone too, but I was at work. Again. Still. Thankfully our store has everything I need. Canned food, microwaves and dishes to cook with, sleeping bags, ammo and firearms, tools, pillows, toilet paper ... everything. I could even keep the animals there, though the goats would eat an awful lot of bags of bunny food. I could set up baby barricades (which we have right at the store!) to keep them penned on certain aisles where they'd in theory do the least amount of damage, or maybe I could keep them in the warehouse area. And of course the kittehs and dogs could roam free, as could the chickens, though it might be a pain to clean up after the chickens. Anyway, I guess I wouldn't actually have to leave work, like, ever. I just prefer to, you know, spend some time at home.

It would save on commuting, though. Hmmm ....

Nah. No comfy chairs.

Oh, wait, we totally do! I forgot! That's hilarious. And we have a futon! But I'd have to move them to be near an outlet so I can type on my laptop.

I am looking forward to having a whole two days off in a row soon. It'll be a little weird, but I think I can adapt somehow.

Not complaining! I am very, very grateful to be employed.

But still. Five days on, one day off, five days on, one day off, and now I'm in the middle of four days on ... then finally, finally, two days off.

I might even get some work done around here. Dishes? I have dishes. I just wash what I need ....

The End!

I've hit the end of Masks. Now to go back and add a couple of minor details, update some maps, finish the cover, and I'm done!

done done dunny done done I'm done! I'm done I'm done I'm done. Done done done.

Okay, now done looks like it's spelled wrong. But I don't care because I'm done!

I may have to put together a writer's clock. I'm thinking about something like this:

5 Why oh why?

10 I'm crazy

15 OMG, Fun!

20 What are dishes?

25 Out of underwear

30 Screeeeeech

35 Lost ... need ... map ...

40 Researching ...

45 Flying in the dark

55 OMG, Done!

12 Zzzzzz

Too Much Work

I'm a bit overwhelmed at the moment. Masks is eating my brain and I don't want it to stop until every last cell is gobbled. I've got to get the water sealing problem fixed on the sliding door while the weather holds--when I have no idea because it'll be almost dark when I get home and I can't do it now because it needs to be cleaned up under there first. I have to work on House of Goats, I have to get two book covers done, and I haven't touched my Wyrd Goat website (I have the domain but I'm still working on the bones of the actual content.)

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

I wish I could call in sick but I'm too ethical. Okay, that's totally untrue. The wishing part is untrue, not the ethical part, because wishing for it would be wishing that I was unethical, and I don't. Argh, I'm confusing myself! Help meeeeeeeee

There's only one cure. Soup for lunch. Soup for lunch makes it all better. I'll go pack some into my snapware container that I use for hot lunches and just focus on day job work.

Maybe I'll take my laptop with me to work and get something, anything done during my lunch hour. Yeah ....

What do you do to cope when you have too much to do and not enough time?

Masks Update

My DH is home! He was just gone for a weekend, but it always feels like a long time when he's away, whether it's a day trip somewhere or 14 months in a foreign country.

I keep discovering new things about the universe I'm writing in. Often I'll go back and insert hints and make changes, but sometimes I have to leave those details in my head, ready to unveil at an opportune moment.

One time in my mid-teen years I overheard my father complimenting me. He didn't know I was close by enough to overhear him. What he said astonished me. At the time I thought of my writing as a game, a diversion, something fun that was for my amusement alone. Every so often I'd have an excuse to write something creative for school, and I had a lot of fun with that. I had no idea that my father had read any of it, though I often deposited my papers on the kitchen table in order to show my parents how I was doing academically. What he said to his friends that evening was that my stories were like a flower with lots of petals unfolding.

Boy, I sure would like to live up to that compliment. Anyway, I think what he saw back then was an effect of my writing process, where I race forward and then go back when I get a fresh take on something so that everything is consistent and carefully (I hope) foreshadowed.

I spent much of last night, late into the night, doing just that with a particularly cruel truth that Mark, the pov character, will discover far too late to prevent a tragic confrontation.

I love writing. It's fun. I think the only difference now is that I do think about how I can best help a reader in on that fun. It requires a lot more work, since the reader can't know what's in my head. But that's fun too. I can keep secrets, and then pounce with them.

Floor Hiccup

I was cruising along, minding my own business, taking bad sections out of the subfloor and replacing them with new particle board when suddenly (dun dun duh!!) I found dry rot. It hadn't worked all the way through the plywood under the particle board, but dang ...

So I have to seal the sliding door inside and out, and fill that depression in the plywood with 20 year caulk just in case the sliding door isn't the problem ...

It's pretty dry there, so it might have been damage from the original door. Just in case, though, I have to do all this stuff because if there's water coming in, even at just a slow drip, it needs to be fixed. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, if more water does come in, it will probably mess up the laminate there pretty badly. Fortunately because I'll know to keep looking for the root of the problem, unfortunately because then of course I'll have to tear up the floor there (again) and replace it.

Ugh.

In other news, Masks is coming along fast and furious. I'm really excited. I have a really good feeling about this book. It's been tempting to spend the entire day writing, but I really do have to go shopping for caulk (ugh ugh ugh!) and various other flooring supplies so that I'm prepped for doing more stuff on Thursday. That's when D. will be over early early in the morning to help me out some more.

Ugh. Whose genius idea was this anyway?

Huh?

Huh?!

sigh

Floor Progress

The floor is patched. Finally! I've made progress toward the fireplace/hearth, at which point my fabulous retired contractor friend D. will help me figure out how to mate a rhino with a lobster.

This is where super-long movies like Om Shanti Om (highly recommended, btw, and don't let the whole beginning half fool you--it's an intense love story that even my jaded DH enjoys) and the Lord of the Rings trilogy really come in handy. I've seen them so many times I don't have to really watch them. Listening transports me. I do stop and watch favorite parts, like the Pain of Disco. (Seriously, you have to watch Om Shanti Om.) But other than that I can listen to the music and the dialogue and be there while still paying attention to important things like power tools.

I've gotten far enough now that I'm starting to get that feeling that I'm actually doing some good rather than just ripping the house apart chasing a dream. Oh, and the carpet? It's outside killing grass for me so that I can expand the garden space near the house. I have so much pasture grass (far harder to deal with than tame lawn grasses) that it overwhelms the large sections of garden I've managed to create from blackberry zones. Finally connecting the garden to the proximity of the house will do magical things to the way the garden appears overall. It'll also be easier to manage.

That carpet stinks to high heaven, and the rain has actually improved it by rinsing out the worst of it. I'm once again reminded why I loathe carpeting. Seriously, it's disgusting stuff. Unless you have the money to replace it fairly often, like every five years or so, it just becomes a haven for dirt, dust, dust mites, fleas, stains and general filth. No amount of steam cleaning will get that stuff out. I know. I kept up on the steam cleaning, and it was still vile underneath when we pulled it up. Ten years of grime percolating down through the pad, permeating every layer in between, will do that.

I'm glad to be rid of it, but boy is it a lot of work to go to laminate. It's worth it. The house is tons better already, and we haven't even got a tenth of the surface area covered yet.

Okay, maybe it's over a tenth now. I've got two empty boxes, and three mostly empty ones out of thirty-ish.

And now, I must go back to work. Part two of Fellowship awaits!

Floor Drama

It's such a simple little thing.

You know how you'll be plugging along on a project just fine until you have to stop and do something you haven't done before in order to continue, and you resist because you have to get a bunch of materials, and then you finally get them, but then you have to read the instructions and they sound okay ...

... and before you know it three days have gone by and even though you know what to do because the instructions are simple, you feel like you have to prepare yourself and you just don't have the emotional energy after a day of work ...

... even though you figure it'll take you a half hour at most ...

... and you can't get back to doing the thing you know how to do really well until you do this little thing?

Yeah.

Day four today. Patch a dip in particle board. Really similar to stuff I had to do to prep for tiling, with similar materials but suitable for use on subflooring.

Should take a half hour or less, including mixing it with water.

Is it done?

Of course not!

Will I do it tonight?

For pity's sake, I hope so.

If not, I've got the whole weekend.

But how much more productive would the weekend be if I just got this

one

little

thing.

Dammit.

More Flooring

Here are my kids, helping with the never-ending parquet. It's everywhere! It's in my kitchen under the linoleum. It's in the bedroom under the carpet. It's in the closet. (Seriously.) Everywhere we pull up flooring upstairs, there's more parquet. It's kinda creepy, actually. Parquet isn't easy to install.

I'm sure it looked fantastic back in the day. Unfortunately it doesn't look very fantastic today. Mysterious stains, bleaching, water damage and odors that have permeated what little finish remains on it have made it pretty icky. Maybe the stuff in the bedroom isn't too bad, but I'm not about to pull up the carpet in there to find out. The bedroom carpet is in halfway decent shape. At this point I'm all for the if it ain't broke don't fix it philosophy.

After all the prep (which is ongoing, btw) I finally got to lay down a wee bit of floor with D's help. He did all the brainy stuff, and I just kept going after the hard part was done. And I hit my first milestone. First empty box! Awesome, but scary. Will I have enough of this stuff to complete the project? Did I measure everything right? The conflicting info online and other places is crazy-making too. Everyone insists on poly film of various grades over cement. Everyone also insists on a vapor barrier in crawlspaces under the house where you're putting in floor 'at grade level.' But this is neither. This is my upstairs, with only downstairs rooms beneath all the upstairs rooms. In addition there's alarming warnings pertaining to putting film over wood, as it will cause mold and mildew problems.

But nowhere does it say what specifically to do in my situation. Seriously, people, who wrote the technical manuals for these things?

If I have to I will pop the floor apart and put plastic under it if the 800 number people tell me so when I have a chance to talk to them on Tuesday. But I have a feeling that they'll say it's not necessary.

Is that so hard to say, folks, in your very, very brief instructions in the teeny, tiny print?

So I'm in a holding pattern for now. But it's a pretty holding pattern. And the kitties love it. I have a feeling they'll love it a lot less, though, when they go charging up the (carpeted) stairs and hit that first stretch of slick new floor.

Weee!

Upstairs floor redo ... ongoing stuff

All my great plans are shattered, but in a good way.  It turns out, after consulting the amazing D., that I don't have to tear out a bunch of stuff to put in my new floors.  Just a little stuff. 

Unfortunately that little stuff breaks up into little pieces.

So I'm yanking up all the parquet floor after all instead of pulling up the particle board underneath and replacing that.  It's sort of satisfying, in a violent OCD kind of way where I rip out exactly 3 rows and then sweep and I try as much as possible to rip out each 4x4 section whole.  (It's not possible as often as I'd like it to be.)  D. suggested that pulling up the parquet will go about as fast as I can get pissed off, but I just can't seem to get pissy enough for it to go really, really fast.  At least it's happening in a relatively clean fashion.  The floor isn't pretty, but I can walk around without it going crunch crunch crunch.

The best news in all this is that the floor will be done much sooner than expected.  Way before Christmas.  Hopefully before Thanksgiving.  Possibly (!) before Halloween.

We'll see.  

D. said something awesome that's keeping me excited about this project.  He said his father told him that when you complete something like this, it makes a house more into a home.  You'll always be able to look at it and say to yourself, I did this, and it's beautiful.

I'm really, really looking forward to the first time I see and think that.

I'll try not to look in the direction of the new hole in the wall so that moment can come sooner.  I didn't do it!  And I don't want to know who did it.  I just hope nothing broke when it happened.

Argh.  Construction.  Argh argh argh.  But it will be over sooner rather than later.  Yay!

Farms are Fun!

There are some things about owning animals, especially farm animals, that people don't think about.  

The goats don't just graze endlessly in a picturesque manner in their pasture, and you don't just pet them over the fence.  You gotta get in there.  I posted fairly recently about giving them wormer.  The other day I had to trim hooves.  At one point Snowflake had the girl down on the ground (ground covered in goat poo, I should point out) and the girl was yelling "I'm okay, I'm fine, keep going!"  It's like a funny little rodeo, but icky.

Chickens can be incredibly cute.  Again, you don't just toss scratch grain to them at a distance while they peck at the ground in a picturesque flock.  You have to walk (carefully because they get underfoot just like cats do at feeding time) among them to change water and to fill the feeder and find eggs.  Sophie is particularly cute.  She knows that treats come from human hands, and she doesn't mind being petted.  When I bend down to pet her she isn't sure what I'm going to do so she spreads her wings a little (she squats low and spreads her wings to get petted and when she gets picked up) but keeps her neck stretched as long as possible and twists her head around hoping to spot something yummy among my fingers.  When I pull my hand away she does a cute little leap toward my hand hoping to find grain there.  Leap!

Too many cats ... it's normally a good thing to have cats all over the place to keep the rodent population down.  (It's also awesome to have a little dog like Chase to kill rats because only a few cats are tough enough to take on an adult rat, though they bring home babies from time to time.)  But you'd better not get caught near the sliding glass door.  Think it's a chore to let one or two cats in and out all day?  Try five or six.  It's the worst in the morning on a rainy day.  The whining begins as soon as the alarm goes off.  I let them all out, and then some want to come in again five minutes later, and another ten minutes later and by that time one of the ones I let in wants out again, and the barn cat Tom Riddle sees me and freaks out and sprays to mark his territory.  I retreat, but inevitably I pass by the sliding glass door again and there's a kitty out there in the rain with its ears folded down and the silent meow, and one of the ones inside sees me heading for the door and races to be let out ....  All.  Day.  Long.

Dogs and coyotes.  Ah, the eerie and beautiful sound of coyotes in the distance.  Guess what?  The dogs hear them too.  The leader of the pack begins with rapid-fire barks.  The little one yips and runs up and down along the fence, then races to the back, back to the front, bark bark bark.  The leader slows down just about the time the big back-up base starts in with his steady, monotonous barks.  Oh yeah, eerie and peaceful and off in the distance.  Not!  At least our dogs don't howl when they defend their vocal territory, though sometimes I wonder if it might not be better than the barking.  There's something about that staccato that's a little like getting jabbed with a fork at the base of your neck every second or so at 3am when you're trying to sleep.  Besides, if our dogs howled I'd probably join in.

Maybe just the first thousand times.  Then it'd be back to me stumbling to the front door, ripping it open, yelling "Hush!" and then shutting it again before they can all charge into the house and fill it with fluff.

I think living on a farm is a lot more fun than most people realize.  It's just not the kind of fun they imagine.  It's somewhat like having kids.  Before you have them, you have all these dreams and a pretty good idea that it'll be hard too.  Then you have them and wham--it's everything and nothing like you expected, and so much more.

I Wanna Be a Loose Woman

Sorry it's been so quiet (too quiet.)  I've been working, writing, reading, and practicing brush calligraphy.

Boy does brush calligraphy reveal in painful and obvious detail my shortcomings in brush control.  Yikes.  And I'm not talking about control in the normal sense.  Artsy stuff requires looseness and relaxation.  Anyone who's practiced a signature knows what I mean.  There's a point where your brain  has it down auto-magically and you relax and just sign.  I aspire to that with brush calligraphy, not because I want to achieve a zen state or anything.  I just want the letters to flow so that it looks natural.  Right now most of the letters have at least one awkward point.  When it's the same one, I can work on that section by itself, but most of the time the awkwardness wanders, like an awful conversation that you desperately want to go well.

Anyway, I've been listening to music and watching dvds (thank you, DH, for the Castle Season 3!!) and practicing with the brush, hoping that when I look at my collection of letters the next day I'll think wow, that's the one.  That's the keeper.

And then I'll put it on the cover of a book.

Speaking of books, I'm on a couple of serious deadlines, so I'd better get some done before I crash tonight.  Gotta write every day a little bit.  

Moments of Happiness

I'm catching up on paper-worky stuff, and I got about 3000 words written today.  

But the really, really good thing that I did today was go for a walk with my DH, my daughter, and our dogs.

We have two big white dogs (Brian and Finn) and our recent adoptee/ranawayfromotherfamilywhodidn'twantherback (Chase) and they are quite the pack.  Brian and Finn take up the entire back seat, which makes things a little crowded for our daughter.  I don't know how she survived.  And fluff, white fluff! was flying everywhere.  We had our window rolled down and the fluff was blowing thicker than Colorado snowfall.  Seriously.

But we managed to get to the river despite my DH having to drive in whiteout conditions.

At the river ... (skipping the part where we were all tangled up in dogs at one point)

Brian and Finn, being veterans of this thing called going to the river for a walk, waded right in and picked a direction to walk.  It was even the same direction.  Meanwhile, Chase was frantic.  They were in the water, the danger water!  She didn't dare stick a toe in.  Hilarity increased when she discovered the true evil lying in the depths (3 inches) of the evil water.  A stick!  A stick with algae and mossy-looking water weed on it.  Oh. My. GAWD!

And then, suddenly, something in her snapped, as if the string that kept her high-strung stringy snapped.  She pranced in, lifting her feet excessively high at first.  Next thing we knew she was darting in and out of the water with the other dogs, and the darting became casual wading in and out as the mood took her.

The dogs calmed, we turned around, and we started walking the other way and we had one of those incredible moments.  Soft breeze, soft sunshine, sparkling river, the dogs calmly exploring at the water's edge, and we were together in a time and place of complete peace.

It didn't last, but these things aren't meant to last.  Three days from now I probably wouldn't remember the herons, one circling and one waiting patiently in the mud, unless I wrote about them.  It wasn't a big deal.  But that's part of what made it beautiful.  

On the way home Chase sat in my lap, all tuckered out.  She rested her chest and neck on my arm for a while, while I cradled her body with my other arm.  And then she lifted her head and rested against my chest like a child, her soft ear tickling my cheek, her chin on my shoulder.  I wondered if she had moments at her other home like this.  It doesn't matter anymore, I suppose.  But I hope so.  I hope she had, and always will have moments of happiness wherever she may be.

I hope we all do.  We need them.  Just for the contrast, you know?

Finished a Book, Wrote a Lot. Good Times.

I've been writing for most of the day.  This is a good thing, but it's physically demanding for someone who is accustomed to standing for the length of a working day.  It's also really, really not good for me.  I've been snacking more than I usually do, too, which does not help.

In the new stuff category, I read a really kewl book.  And yes, I know, it wasn't on my reading pile but I sometimes add to my reading pile without finishing what I've got.  (Ahem.)  And start reading the new stuff before I finish the old stuff.  (Ahem ahem.)

Highly recommended:  Food Rules:  An Eater's Manual.  One of my DH's awesome friends gave him a copy.  Don't let the mere four star out of 320 reviews fool you.  I'd give this one five stars.  And yes, I may quibble about some of the minor details, but they aren't important.  What is important is the message and the way that message is very easily digested.  Unfortunately it has more than five ingredients, but remember, moderation in all things, including moderation.

I'm working on a book cover as well.  I think I've got more than two full time jobs going here.  Will the universe kindly slow down so that I can finish some stuff and gain some ground on my to-do list?

You will!?!  Really?!!  Sweet!!

I'm going to get some work done while the getting is good!

Sickly

I called in sick today.  I very rarely do that ... and then I overthink it and wonder if I do really very rarely do that, or if I only think I rarely do that.  I don't want to be the person who's always calling in sick and screwing it up for everyone else.

Calling in sick causes problems for my employer.  It's a small enough place (35 employees-ish, with quite a few of those being part-time so that we have considerably less than that working on a given day) that losing one person really mucks up the schedule.  It's most likely that the bookkeeper will have to fill in my spot at least for some of the day.  Not good.

There's the possibility too that I won't be the only one calling in today.  

Business will be done, and the customers probably won't notice except maybe in the form of longer waits, but my fellow employees will really feel it.  Since I like my fellow employees a lot, I don't want them to end up harried and stuck in spots doing work that I ought to be doing.  On the other hand, I don't want to spread this plague, assuming it's contagious.  A couple of people have already called in sick this week, and what I'm feeling now sounds something like what caused them to go to work thinking they could pull off another day and then sent them running to the restroom followed by leaving work sick.  On the other, other hand, since it's already going around, my showing up or not probably won't affect who will get sick.  The plague is in the building ... it's all up to everyone's individual immunity now.  And of course on the other, other, other hand, I have to think about our customers, some of whom are elderly or in poor health.  They definitely ought to be protected.

So I'm staying home, even though at this point I think I can push through without emptying the non-existent contents of my stomach on them.  (Breakfast may or may not get eaten today ... water is an iffy proposition at this point.)  I don't like to call in sick.  It makes me feel like I'm letting everyone down.  I hope my coworkers don't have a really crummy day because of me.  And I hope I didn't unwittingly spread this yucky feeling to others yesterday.  I sterilized my whole area with wipes.  Twice!  I'm sure the bookkeeper will do that again today.  And I hope my previously-ill coworkers are feeling better, not just for their own sakes but because that makes it likely that I'll be back at work that much sooner too.

Stay well, everyone, and have a good day.  

Twins and Other Surprises

We had a few surprises over the last week. First came the cute little twin tomatoes. So adorable, and tasty too! They weren't just attached by the green. The skins were connected too.

Then we had a double yolker egg. These actually happen pretty often. Grandma House (my mom) got a double yolker in the last batch of eggs we sent her. Young hens tend to make mistakes like that while their bodies learn how to make eggs. When Chihiro laid her first egg, she forgot to put the yolk and the shell on it. The result looked like a weird white waterballoon. The membrane was really tough, strong enough to bounce on pavement without breaking. The second egg was better. Still no shell, but it had a yolk.

And now she appears to be sharing a nest with our best egg-hider, Sophie!

We were looking for the hens. We lost our rooster to a predator (probably a raccoon but it might be the return of the super-bold coyote) and we were worried when the hens didn't come running up for their mealtime. I don't usually go all the way to the NE corner of the pasture because I can see pretty clearly if there's a chicken there, but this time I went to see if the predator had dug a hole under the fence.

And that's when I found thirty eggs all cuddled up together in a chicken-sized nest.

The girl, when she put them all in a basket, found that some of the ones on the bottom were actually partially buried and had to be dug out.

Sometimes living on a small farm can be painful, sad, frustrating, and even scary.

But some days, a lot of days actually, it's a lot of fun. I'd even go so far as to say hilarious.

I love living on a farm.

Now, the girl and I have a lot of eggs to float-test.

(If you're not sure about how good an egg is, just submerge it in water. If it lays flat, it's fresh. If the nose tips up a bit, it's good to hard boil. Super fresh eggs don't hard boil well because the whites stick to the shell. If the nose points straight up, it's iffy. I might still hard boil it, but I'd probably give it to the dogs all chopped up rather than feed it to a human being. And if it floats--run away! If it bobs on the surface of the water, don't even run. Just carefully--very, very, very carefully--pick the egg up and dispose of it somewhere where the evil smell when it inevitably breaks won't foul up the whole neighborhood. Yech!)

Rage at Work

I had a horror movie moment at work today.  The customers usually stand pretty close to the counter, and I have to use the lower part of the counter to do paperwork.  So there I was, paperworking away, while the customer was talking to me, when bam!  I got splashed in the eye by a tiny ball of spit.  Tiny though it might have been, I felt changes going on inside of me.  And I thought, this is Rage.  Soon now, the zombie virus will take over and I'll be infected.  I'll have to take out as many of them as I can before they come after me with baseball bats!

I paused, considering my first move.  

My fingers

twitched ...

But then the moment passed and I realized I wasn't infected with Rage.  I was just grossed out.

So I completed the transaction.

Of course, I might simply be resistant.  Perhaps, over time, the virus will overtake me and then, at my next day at work, I'll start making strange noises and grunt at the customers.  And then, savagely, I will feast!

Feast I say!

On the paperwork that inspires such Rage in me.

The horror ....

Moving On

I'm not-so-secretly transferring my accounts out of one of the big banks to a credit union because there are new scary headlines about those big banks every day.  I know that those scary headlines won't affect my personal accounts at my branch (or so I hope) but they are constant reminders that I don't like the way the big banks have been doing business.

I like the way this credit union does business.

Hence, I move my stuff.  No one will care.  No one will be sad that I'm no longer a customer there (except maybe for the two totally awesome employees I've gotten to know over the years that work there.)  But I'll feel better about where I keep my money, and how that money is looked after.

In case you're wondering, yes, the only reason this is noteworthy is because I'm one of those sad cases that hangs onto a certain amount of loyalty when it comes to doing business.  I don't change banks often, and I usually visit the same businesses over and over.  I get to know the people that work there, and I learn what they do well, and what they stink at, and conduct my business accordingly.

So although this isn't a huge deal, it's still something that goes a little deeper than doing the paperwork and jumping through the hoops.  It's an emotional step as well.  Big bank used to mean big safety to me.  Now it feels like a big risk, not necessarily because the banks are in any real danger, but because I don't think they're dealing with their customers in a professional manner.  I don't need to be taken care of.  I do require some frickin' standards, though.  Maybe even a little pride.  Sadly, I fear that the line staff doing the jobs of four people each don't have time for pride.  They're just trying to survive.  Is it a management issue, or just more fallout from risky behavior?  I have no idea.  Knowing the answer won't change my decision.

Bye bye, big bank.  Hello local credit union.  I have a feeling we're going to get along just fine.

Currently On My Bathroom Bookshelf

What I'm reading right now:

The Godforsaken Sea

I've just started this gem of a book, partially for research but partially because I'm just a wee bit obsessed with the sea and sailing.  If I was really, really obsessed I'd be sailing right now and hardly anyone would hear from me, but I'd rather be writing and gardening (though doing those things near enough to the ocean to go play in and on the waves daily would be ideal.)  Anyway, the author is doing a great job so far of trying to explain to landlubbers why the Southern Ocean is so friggin' dangerous.  I've never been very far from the shore--out of sight of shore, but still pretty darned close.  I've also sailed in a notorious boat-eating area where we lost a kayak we were towing to some pretty powerful wave action.  So I have a basis of comparison.  I'm not sure that someone who hasn't been on a boat small enough to be overshadowed by a waves and completely surrounded by water with no sign of land can get it.  If you're one of those folks, I'd be curious to hear if this book would do it for you.  He's already referred to my favorite-est book on the subject, Heavy Weather Sailing.  Wee!

The Murderer Next Door

I'm poaching when I read this book.  I have a habit of picking up stuff that my DH is reading and then getting sucked in.  Every time I read a book about crime and human nature that starts to break the barriers between what we think criminals think and do vs. what they actually think and do, I can't help but get the feeling that our legal system is screwed up.  I think the checks and balances work okay, but the actual laws and stuff--it's like trying to run a space program using only Newtonian physics, a 1950's machinist shop and a bank of calculators.  You can hobble along, but it becomes impossible and overwhelming very quickly.  Anyway, this book is no different in that regard.  Where it is different from other books I've read on this stuff is how it connects murder back to me, personally.  Some of the insights so far are depressing, but most are extremely enlightening.  This might end up on my list of highly recommended books.  We'll see how it pans out.

Lieutenant Hornblower

'Cause I need some salt sea in my veins.  Always good to remember each ship is a small community connected to a larger community of many ships, and that gets political fast, and that's without taking the navy stuff into account.  I'm loving the way the author uses characters to describe his protagonist in extremely immodest ways.  After reading more subtle prose for a long time, it's a lot like having someone shout in my face that I must love this character he's so awesome!  I don't care, though.  The story is good, and besides, reading prose like this is it's own fun.  Just like I enjoy a really broad range of music, I enjoy a broad range of writing styles.

The Vegetarian Myth

Talk about courage.  A former vegetarian (20 years of the life choice, so we're not talking someone who dipped their toes in) exposes her throat and her research on what plant-based dietary choices actually do to the planet, with an occasional mention of what it does to the human body long-term.  (I had no idea there are doctors that specialize in treating former vegans.)  I know that just the idea of this book will earn her death threats and the undying hatred of lots and lots of people, and yet she wrote it.  Bravo.  Also, unbelievably fascinating.  I haven't checked up on her research so I can't comment on that, and sometimes her feminist views set me back on my heels a bit (and I consider myself a feminist--but yowza!) but I'm not caring about the details and whether she's right or wrong on a given point.  I'm not trying to save my friends, or even save the planet, though I care deeply about both and take care of them the best I can.  Nor am I trying to prove or disprove anything to anyone.  It's just an incredibly entertaining book.  It can be mind-bending, in a good way, to read a call to arms in the name of environmentalism to start eating responsibly-raised meat.  It's also a scathing criticism of current agricultural methods, including so-called organic agriculture.  Another potential book for my list of highly recommended books.  

I've also got a couple of technical manuals on gardening that I'm paging through, a book on architecture through the ages, and a dictionary of architecture.  I read them, but I'm not reading them end to end like a regular book, so I'm not technically counting them.

That reminds me, I need to pick up that Acorn book again.  I got sidetracked by other stuff.

So many books, so little time ...

Money Growing on Trees?

We had a fun time at our local fair. One of my favorite things was the Pirate Parrot Show. If they show up at a fair near you, be sure to go.

I totally have to train my animals to bring me money like this.

Totally.