Every Possible Combination

I haven't done a mean post about customers lately. See? I can be good! Except I had one the other day that I just can't resist being mean about.

She came in and let me know she was from out of state, which apparently in her language is code for don't hassle me with my return. (Now now, don't have too much fun guessing what her home state is. Be nice!) Whatevs, it's not like returns bother me unless they're clearly user-damaged and/or a form of free rental. Anyway, she puts a headlamp, like the kind you'd wear in a cave, and a very sticky hummingbird feeder--the easy fill kind--on the counter. "This doesn't work and this leaks," she told me. "I just want another headlamp, but the hummingbird feeder is my mom's and she decided she just wants her money back."

"What's wrong with the headlamp?" I ask, truly and purely innocent.

"It doesn't work."

"Maybe the batteries are dead. Here, let me test them." I start to open it up.

"Actually, I think they put in the wrong ones. Both of them are positive, and it needs one positive and one negative battery."

Luckily she didn't notice my eyes popping out of my head. I put them back in discretely. "Maybe we can try flipping one of them over," I suggest very, very gently, trying not to fall over and roll around on the ground laughing. And I feel bad for wanting to laugh, because seriously, lots and lots and lots of perfectly fine and smart people do just fine without knowing the first thing about batteries and how they work. But ... still. I would have laughed if I wasn't trying to figure out a way to help her without embarrassing her.

"Oh no," she said. "I tried that. I tried every possible combination and it still doesn't work."

"Okay," I said. "I'll tell you what. I'll test the batteries to see if one or both of them are dead, and you can go get another headlamp. Okay?"

"Okay. I'll want to test it first to see if it works."

"I don't blame you. We can do that."

So she leaves and true to my word, I test the batteries. And they are whack the top green, fully charged. I put one of them + side up, and the other I flip over. They're the flat kind with the rough bellies, so the stamp showing what pole is what is only stamped on one side. I close her up, click, and voila! There is light.

It's like magic. Seriously.

I knew then that the hummingbird feeder was perfectly and utterly fine. I bet that when they put it together after they filled it, one of three things happened. They put the gasket and the washer/bar thingie (see? I don't know what it's called but I'm not stupid!) in the wrong order, they misthreaded it when they put it together, or they either forgot to set the bar to 'feed' or put it together in such a way that the feed/fill bar were in the wrong place and couldn't be adjusted.

Was I going to say crap to her? Heck no! That would be truly stupid.

"Hey," I said when she came back. "I fixed it!"

"How'd you do that?" she asked, amazed.

"I flipped one of the batteries over. Do you want to see?"

"No, thanks."

"Did you want the new one instead?"

"No," she said, hopefully pleased that I was giving her power of choice and treating her like the good customer she was, "if it works I want it." She took the headlamp and clicked it on and off several times to satisfy herself.

We did the return on the hummingbird feeder, and she went on her merry way. And that's when I realized that she had said something kinda dumb.

She'd tried every possible combination, she'd said.

Sorry, dear. You should know better.

But again, to her credit, I have this terrible fear of electronic things blowing up if I put them together wrong. She may have been afraid of shorting it out or something if she put one of the batteries in upside-down. I don't blame her.

Still.

Hee.

Weather Whiner

Here I am, suffering at our local McMenamins, eating fish and chips and trying out a new drinkie. (Bourbon Furnace--recommended as a nice alternative to a hot buttered rum or hot toddy if you like hot, sweet drinks with a little zip, which I do.) I've made quite a bit of progress on Confidante and I'm excited about re-releasing Masks with a new cover at the same time Confidante comes out. My DH is reading weird and funny facebook quotes to me. Life is good.

Life is also, apparently, cold. They (and we know they're all liars!) said that there would be some clearing today with an occasional shower. Well. My tomatoes and I are quite disappointed. They're all inside where it's relatively snuggly and warm, though I was shivering most of the day even with an extra pair of socks on, but the lack of light is going to make them all spindly and unhappy.

I know, I know. This is the Pacific NW. The weather doesn't really start to turn nice until June. Also also, we've had some very nice days, for which I should be grateful. I am. But really, isn't it kinda hard when you get a nice atta boy at work and then get yelled at for the rest of the week?

At least the rain doesn't stress me out, and I don't get depressed. But I do get whiny (obviously) and I'm tired of whining.

I'll still do a wee bit more, though.

I wanted to go fishing todaaaaaaay! Wah!

Jay Lake

Just a quick note before I run out of battery power. Jay Lake had an article written about him in the Sunday Oregonian. There's an e-version on oregonlive. This is a great and very personal story about a smart guy and excellent writer. I hope this brings more exposure to his books. They're very strange and often dark, even horrific, but well worth your time if you don't mind fiction that makes you feel a little grimy afterward. But not grimy in a bad way. In that good way, like when I watch Brazil, or read 1984.

I hope the news re: Jay's liver is very, very good. He'll be updating his blog, which is entertaining, challenging at times, beautiful at others, and always readable. You can link to Lakeshore from my sidebar.

Cover Art--I love my tablet!

I love my Bamboo Create. It has hugely improved my ability to manipulate GIMP. And yes, btw, I didn't have to do anything special for the tablet to talk to GIMP. Essentially, the tablet and little pen thingy (I'm so technically advanced!) work just like my mouse and my pad on my laptop and all that. In fact, I can switch between them quickly and smoothly, using whichever gets me where I'm going the quickest and/or the best.

I'm never sure how effective my covers are, but this was definitely the most technically difficult project I've done. The Masks cover (which I plan to redo pretty soon) involved a lot of repetitive, detailed activity, especially with the filigree on the dark half of the mask. This cover had many, many more layers and employed some skills and tools that I simply didn't have when I did the Masks cover.

Anyway, here it is. This, btw, will be an awesome, awesome anthology. It's not available yet. I'm sure it'll be all over Facebook and stuff when it goes live.

Free the Bird!

I have an excuse for not posting in a long time. No, really. And it's not that I've been working non-stop at my day job, although sometimes it feels just like that. I haven't even been sucked into garden-world, though I did rototill a bit during the good weather, opening up some more ground for the planting that will be coming soon (I hope!)

My Bamboo tablet came in, and I'm learning how to play with it. In the name of learning how to work with the stylus, I played a few rounds of Free the Bird. Man, is it addictive. And cute! OMG it's so cute. And in a couple of minutes I'm going to be searching around online to see if there are additional levels available, because apparently ten is not enough for me.

I'm so bad.

Anyway, I haven't tried the tablet with GIMP yet, but I'll be doing that very soon. Really. Just as soon as I find out about Free the Bird.

Because sometimes, ten levels of cute simply isn't enough.

Update: Wah. No additional levels seem to be available. Heart broken. Tears falling. Back to work, I guess. Siiiiiiiiiiiiiigggggggghhhhhhh

From One Life, Many

Yesterday we had clouds but not much in the rain department, so after a morning of writing I went out and gardened a bit.

The rose I'd planted by Lucky's (our epileptic kitty who passed away not terribly long ago) sat askew. Suspicious, I tugged gently and, sure enough, it came right out. The roots had all been gnawed off.

I'm not sure what critter does this, not for sure. Top of my list is the vole. The cute little mouse-like critters are well-known for destroying what would be a relatively large plant compared to the vole itself (they can take out small trees!) in a relatively short amount of time. Their habit of finding something particularly tasty and hanging out eating on it until it's gone, whether it's a tulip bulb (sigh) or a rose, makes them far more destructive than other critters that may take a bite or two and move on.

Anyway, I had a moment of sadness, followed by irritation, and then I had to do something.

I was on my way to the store, so while I was out I snooped around for another rose. Nothing seemed adequate. I did find some lillies, Midnight Mystery and White Pixels, so I got those to plant to one side. And I went home with a plan.

I have rooting powder sitting around the house--gardeners are weird like that--so I put in some cuttings where the rose used to be, and I'm trying to start the rest of the cuttings from the rose inside the house. I also tried--in vain, I suspect--some rooting compound on the stump and set it in seedling mix. At the moment it looks very convincingly alive, if dormant. It seems to be a nicely-pruned rose waiting to be planted out later in the year. I used a clear plastic container on it so that I'll know the moment roots begin to form without having to disturb the rose itself. The normal-sized cuttings are all in peat pots, and if they take I'll put them out when the roots start to poke out of the pot.

If this works, it may become a strangely wonderful thing. The rose killed over my beloved kitty's grave might become many roses, a whole row that may live on well beyond my own lifespan.

The Beginnings of Things

I've been thinking about openings to books and stories lately. One of my favorite recently-discovered openings actually comes from the Miyazaki's adaptation of Ursula LeGuin's Earthsea universe, Tales from Earthsea.

Two main elements make it work for me. First, the spectacle. Two dragons fighting--what could be more awesome? The second was the mystery aspect. The men on the boat watching the dragons are clearly stunned not only by the appearance of these creatures after a long absence, but the fact that they're fighting. The mystery deepens when a good king is killed by his son, who has recently been acting strangely, and the queen's seeming disinterest when servants fear that the prince has gone missing.

The killer--now we go into the prince's pov, and he doesn't know why he's killed his father.

Simply awesome. It makes me want to read the Earthsea Trilogy. I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I've never read it. My daughter owns it. I may have to sneak away with her books when she's not looking ....

Also on my late-to-read list: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Hunger Games. I've actually started The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and I have to say that the opening is much more quiet than I expected, considering all the hoopla. I don't mind quiet openings at all. It's just interesting, not so much to compare and contrast different openings to try to figure out how they work, but to observe that openings might not necessarily be all about functioning as a sort of marketing tool for a book, but that openings must serve the story. They have to be part of it, and stay in character, so to speak. If the reader is interested in that character (and it may be a setting rather than a human character or it may be something even more abstract--I don't mean character in the literal sense) they'll watch to see what happens next.

Anyway, the movie continued to entertain me after the wonderful opening. I suspect that the books will entertain me too. I'd love to be reading them now, but I'm already juggling two books and four would be a bit much.

Seeds and Armor

Two seed trays, three bags of seedling mix, and a bunch of seeds rubberbanded together. I guess that normal people have potting benches out back or do this in their garage. I'm not normal.

I open the seedling mix bag and discover that it's essentially peat moss with a little vermiculite mixed in. Oh well, I'll know better next year. I got myself a soup spoon for a scoop, but that's for later. First, you gotta dump as much dirt into the middle of the tray as you can and then start spreading it out toward the edges. My favorite part is when I lift the tray three times and smack it (gently!) on the dining table to 'pack' the soil down. After I fiddle around with topping off the low cells, I fill the water-catcher tray with about a half inch of lukewarm water and let the cells soak it up. Ideally the cells will be nice and moist with almost no water left in the bottom.

Ah, nice, dark earth (well, peat moss and vermiculite mix--no dirt here) ready for seeds. Some seeds go one to a cell, some of them two. With the more spendy seeds I put in just one and hope for the best. With the less expensive ones I double or sometimes triple up, with the plan of snipping off all but the nicest one in each cell.

Poor things.

And then I put on the tray's 'greenhouse' cover.

I don't like the things, actually. They promote mold, which then has to be combatted with anti-fungals. But I had this worse problem than mold last year ....

And sure enough, after a trip into town, my daughter rats him out.

"Wizard stepped on your seed trays. Sorry, I couldn't stop him."

I lift the greenhouse lid. Victory! With the soil level slightly below the tops of the trays, and the smaller cell size I selected, plus the tough plastic of the clear lid ....

No kitteh footprints here. Yay!

I felt a little bad for starting my tomato and pepper seeds so late, but you know what? It snowed all day, non-stop. I might still be late-ish, but considering the weather, hedging my bets for a later plant-out might not be such a bad thing. I just hope that my indigo rose tomatoes have enough time and heat to ripen. They look soooo kewl!

Diseases and Taxes

My son just picked up his first tax form and booklet ever. I barely remember the 1040EZ, except that it was, well, easy. Hence the name, I guess.

We use a tax service. It just seems too complicated for us, even using software, not to mention the software isn't exactly cheap either. Also also, we can go in any time during the year (for free! We like free) to have them run a wee little estimate so that we know where we're at as far as owing or not owing. When you're running your own business, this isn't just a great idea. Our preparer told us that, as far as small businesses are concerned, we do really well. Too many don't pay enough taxes during their quarterly periods. They end up owing, and put themselves on a payment plan, meanwhile still paying their regular quarterly taxes for that same year. If they can't make ends meet they become tempted to pay a little less on their quarterly taxes then they ought to, and end up with another year of payments after coming up short for that year ... and they never catch up.

A friend of mine has whooping cough. It's going around in our area, and may be spreading around the U.S. in general. Be careful out there. Check with your doctor or local pharmacist and see if it's a good idea to have a vaccination. They don't last forever, so if you had one as a wee babe, it's probably no good anymore. It's especially critical for folks who are elderly, kids in school, and people with infants in the household less than 2 months (who are too young to be vaccinated, and are also the most likely to die if they catch it.)

The world is wonderful and beautiful and all that, but it's also full of icky diseases. Sometimes it's easy to brush off the idea of vaccinations. Medicine seems like it's pretty powerful. But even the bugaboos that we've supposedly 'conquered,' like chickenpox and pertussis (whooping cough) can still kill, and pretty nastily too.

Be careful!

Tom Riddle Update

We had a little more snow today at the house. I hope that whatever it does overnight, it doesn't keep me from work (again.) It's been quite an odd year for snow. We've had it as late as April Fool's Day before, but nothing that stuck for long, never mind kept people at home from work and forced the snow plow guy to come out.

The cats do not approve.

It's very, very pretty, though.

Speaking of cats, our feral/barn cat, He Who Shall Not Be Named aka Tom Riddle (and he is a tom--an unaltered male--with unknown origins that we refused to name in order to keep up the illusion that he's not actually our cat which makes his entire name fun-ly appropriate) had something weird up with his eye. It looked really bad weird, so bad I thought he might have lost it. He'd been missing for three days, which wasn't really unusual, but when he turned up with yellow smeared over his face, one working eye and ribs poking out I thought he might be in real danger of losing his life. We had a plan in place to capture him and take him to the vet, but whatever had been going on with his eye appeared to clear up on its own. He's still very thin, though. We'll keep a close watch on him. The plan is to catch him sometime this summer and have him fixed, so I don't want to move the timeline up (he might not do well in cold weather after surgery, and I don't think we can keep him locked up in the bathroom without the whole house ending up smelling like a meth lab) and I certainly don't like the idea of catching him *twice* for medical procedures.

So, we'll wait. Wish him luck.

Weather Blahs

Rain is predicted for the next long stretch. That's a normal forecast for this time of year, and most locals react to the news of spring rain with a meh, including me.

Except ....

We had such nice weather this year! So now a lot of people going by my counter are complaining. About rain in the Pac NW? Guess what? Me too.

I guess it's true what they say about contrast. You can't appreciate the sun without a little rain. Only, around here, a little rain is a lot of rain. Constant, icy cold, miserable, wind-blown, unrelenting, soaking rain. Did I mention it's cold? It actually feels colder than the snow did. No joke.

And the beautiful flowers at the store? Splotched and droopy, heavy with rain, the blossoms look like someone spritzed them with bleach and then squished them a little bit before spreading them back out. Not attractive. They're fine, of course. But our spring color is drooping, and it feels like winter will never end.

The ducks and slugs disagree. Best. Weather. Ever.

End of a 244 Year Era!

I heard on the radio this morning that Encyclopedia Britannica has published its last print issue this year, and then, no more. We'll still have it online, of course ...

I bet this last year's edition will become a collector's edition, and that they'll sell buckets of them.

It's a 244 year tradition. I look at that number and think, couldn't they have held out for 250? But with sales reported as being around 8000 last year, I don't think they could afford it.

There we have it, folks. A sign of the end of print books? I don't think so, but print magazines, journals, and yes, dictionaries and encyclopedias, may become casualties of this brave new age.

OMG, I really, really need to save my pennies and buy a copy of the Oxford English Dictionary quick, before they stop printing them! I have a beautiful abridged one that I adore. It's huge, with tiny print and thin pages and it has oodles and oodles of wonderful words in it and sometimes I read it for entertainment.

Just like people used to take a random volume off the shelf and read the Encyclopedia Britannica in their living room for entertainment. Alas! But it will continue, only with an ebook and the person's preferred hot beverage set below the screen level to avoid accidents.

Late Snow Day

Our fluffy gray cat, Carey, came in the door trailing snow from her legs, belly and tail. It's deeper than that, but apparently kittehs don't sink as deep into the snow as I do. My knees and the cuffs of my sweater are soaked--the spots that are exposed above the boots and below the hems and cuffs on my leather coat--from trying to clear out the car and driveway to go to work. Ha. I was so optimistic then. The pic above was taken shortly after I cleared the car off good enough so that it was driveable. Now I'm an hour late to work and it's still snowing buckets out there. It's supposed to melt by 2pm today. Maybe ....

In the meantime, I guess I'll have a second breakfast. I had my first at about 6:30 this morning. I'd expected snow, so I got up early so that I could clear the way to the road and get to work on time.

That didn't work out as planned. I didn't expect it to continue snowing, or for the snowplow's efforts to be in vain. The road has to have plenty of black pavement showing for me to safely make it down the hill. Our free tires that we get from the dealership aren't all-weather tires, and they go bald preposterously fast. The pickup and the two other sedans we own are not running. Not a one. My favorite sedan needs a new starter. It goes ziiiiing! when I try to start the car. The pickup needs a new fuel pump. It'll start if I put plenty of starter fluid in the carburetor, but it'll die again right away. We changed the fuel filter to one of those new-fangled clear thingies and you can see there's no fuel getting to the filter at all. And the no-go, I mean Nova, has been down for a long time waiting for me to accumulate enough money to fix it up. I forget what expensive part it needs to have, but it's almost $600 just for the part.

In short, I'm stuck. But it's beautiful out.

The goats and chickens disagree. I fed the goats, who are staying in the barn for today to the point where they wouldn't even poke their noses out the door when I walked up with their grain. They waited for me inside the barn. The chickens sat on the stoop when I opened the door. Beatrice tipped her head sideways, took a long look at the snow, decided naaaah, and went back into the coop.

So there you have it. A snow day on March 13. Kinda nifty, but couldn't it have happened on my day off?

To peep or not to peep

It's almost chick time.

I both love and hate raising chicks. They're a lot of trouble, but they're also a lot of fun, and sooo cute! Too bad that they poop and peep all day and most of the night.

After the various massacres, we have two very good hens left. We guard them very carefully. I could stand to have a rooster again, I think. I still have hopes that one of the hens will turn out to be broody.

For commercial considerations, hens have had broodiness bred out of them. When a hen sits to hatch her eggs, she stops laying, and she's sort of a nuisance because she'll resist any attempt to collect those eggs she's sitting on. So I completely understand why farmers bred it out ... and yet it's a problem for those of us with little bitty farms who would rather have the hens raise the chicks than to do it ourselves. Commercial places that bother with raising chicks do it with an incubator that automagically turns the eggs and keeps them at the right temperature. When the chicks are born they're transferred to carefully temperature-controlled rooms with automatic feeders and waterers and stuff. Me, I've got a heat lamp, a 20 gallon aquarium, and my office (which is tiled--easier to clean up than the rest of the house.) It's a mess.

I'm seriously considering skipping it this year. And yet ... I'd love to have green and blue eggs again, and maybe a rooster. Who knows? Someone in this batch might be broody ... hopefully not somewhere in the field where she and the eggs will get snatched by a raccoon ....

Bark Dust on the Race Track

Working around a farm: does it make you crazy, or are you crazy to begin with? Based on yesterday, I'd have to vote for number two, because I can't blame any animals (well, okay, one small dog) for my behavior yesterday.

Chase runs up and down along the fence, chasing cars every day. Hence her name. Her previous owner used to let her chase cars w/o the protection of a fenced yard to keep her from running under the tires or potentially getting hit by another car coming along as she retreats, dodges, whatever. It's amazing she survived.

But I digress.

Her happy-making activities have created what I refer to as the racetrack. It's a strip of mud about sixty feet long and 2-5 feet wide with rises at each end that swoop up against the fence. She made those swoops. Seriously. If it were shorter and fatter it would look like a skateboarder tube. That's how many times she's run along this track. She's done this enough that dirt she carries on her paws and dirt she scoots when she takes off from the corner has built up about a foot on each side.

That's a lot of running.

In wet weather she turns into a total mudball. Our other dogs remain pristine and dry by watching the rainy weather from the doghouse or the front porch, a total area that's larger than my living room and quite comfy if their behavior is any indication. Meanwhile the little idio--Chase--is out in the rain running up and down this track, getting soaked and filthy. Which results, eventually, in a bath. She gets more baths than any other animal.

I thought, in order to help her out a bit, it might be nice to cover this track in bark chunks. (Actually, all my life we've called it bark dust. Why dust? I don't know! I don't make up the local slang.) The truck broke down on the way back home (of course) and it had to be towed to our house and very inconveniently placed because the tow truck had bald tires and couldn't make it straight out past the barn.

It was an interesting night.

Anyway, we had two short days of sun, and because of the tow truck drama I wasn't able to unload the bark dust on the first day. No problem! I'll just unload it after work on the second day, because I know it'll rain the following day and we all hate working in the rain, plus Chase would turn into a mudball again before we got it out.

So my very patient daughter and I jumped out of the car as soon as we got home and grabbed the shovels and the wheelbarrow. I quickly change into my should-have-been-work-jeans-but-became-waiting-for-the-tow-truck-pants and we start hauling bark dust to the racetrack. It's already getting dark but I'm sure I can see just fine. For the first two loads. Then it gets kind of iffy. I memorize where all the branches are so that I don't poke my eye out on a tree. My daughter is raking in the dark. I ask her to spread it as evenly as she can up onto the swoops and she protests with a "I can't see a d-ed thing!" and I respond with "well, feel around with your hands and do your best."

That's when I realized I'm crazy. I mean, that's when I realized again that I'm crazy. And it's not Chase's fault.

But we got it done! The stars were beautiful.

Animal and Weather Update

Wizard is doing well. The minor injury he sustained under his right front leg is healing nicely, thanks to a long line of stitches. He even spent some time outside today. He loved it. Sunny, warm, mild winds ... everyone enjoyed today, even those of us who had to work indoors at a day job.

I think a lot depends on whatever your local normal climate is, but around here when there's sun, people smile, liven-up, get stuff done, and there's a crazy amount of spring-fever energy in just about everybody. The usual for the Pacific NW is a week or three of excellent weather in February, preceded and followed by storm after storm with only rare sightings of blue sky between the clouds. This year has been anything but that--and the really weird part is that we had so much precipitation in our local mountain range that our snowpack is a little above normal. More sun and more snowpack?

I'll take it, thanks.

The thing that's got me a little befuddled is the worming thing. Goats ought to be wormed in spring time. Along with the flush of nice green grass come icky, nasty worms that can kill if they overload the goat's system too quickly. Usually I hold off on worming until April or May, depending on the average temperatures. This year ... yeah. I think I'll have to worm them on Sunday, and probably again in about a month. Two wormings this spring instead of one. That means an extra miniature rodeo. Since we'll be capturing and saving them from doom against their wills anyway, I might as well trim their hooves at the same time. They really love that.

I hope it doesn't rain on Sunday or I'll be muddy from head to foot. (Actually, muddy and covered in other, less savory stuff.) Yee ha?

Mucking Out the Barn

It always sounds so easy.

"Hey, kids, wanna make some money? Go muck out the goat barn. I'm going to go do some gardening."

At least they've done this often enough that they gear up first. Paint-spattered work clothes. Shovels. Our duct-taped together wheelbarrow with washers and screws holding the barrel onto the handle because the original bolts broke through a long time ago. They forget the rake and/or decide that they don't need it.

I go to the garden to put some new bareroot roses into pots. (I find they do better that way than if I put them straight into the ground.) About fifteen minutes later I hear loud arguing, and then the wheelbarrow bumps along past me to the designated new mound of poo where I'll grow this year's pumpkins.

"Need help?" I ask.

"Yes!"

I take it that they need my help.

I finish potting up the roses, grab a rake which the child insists we don't need, and head out. I'd planned, of course, to just organize things into piles and make sure that they start someplace more sensible than the middle.

Next thing I know I've got them alternating (whoever takes the wheelbarrow out doesn't help fill it) and I'm working continuously, loosening the muck, helping shovel it in, more loosening and raking while the wheelbarrow person takes the poo to our pile and the soon-to-be-wheelbarrow person rests.

After the first clean corner gets straw laid down the goats come to help distribute it by grabbing a mouthful and dancing out the door, as if any of us have the energy to chase them.

We quote lines from Support Your Local Sheriff and get the blamed job done. It's getting dark. I have just enough time to plant a couple of hellebores that have been waiting for months in their little pots, and I jam in some pussywillows near the road. Darkness falls with a splat.

My 'gardening' day is done.

Smashwords Promotion

To celebrate Read an E-Book Month, many Smashwords authors (including me) are offering special deals on their books. To get 75% off of House of Goats or Masks, enter the code REW75 (as far as I know this is case sensitive) before checkout! The coupon is only valid from March 4 (midnight tonight!) until 11:59pm on March 10th, 2012. I encourage you to visit Smashwords to see other great deals. I hear that there will be quite a few books offered for free!

Masks and Website Updates

Masks is finally up on Smashwords and Amazon. On Smashwords you can get the first 20% free. Warning: if Brokeback Mountain made you feel uncomfortable, the romantic elements in Masks is not going to be any more fun in a setting with flintlock pistols, tall ships and manor houses.

I also updated my website and put up a website (finally!) for Wyrd Goat Press. I'm hoping to have the sequel for House of Goats, House of Chickens, written and put up by mid-summer. Steve Perry wrote a wonderful review for House of Goats (thanks Steve!) on Amazon, and blogged about it too.

I think this post holds the record for most links in a single paragraph, at least for my blog.

Now it's time to take Wizard home from the vet. He had to have a few stitches. Apparently he had a close encounter with a barbed wire fence. He failed to mention this (he didn't even limp!) so who knows how long he hobbled around with that one inch opening in his flesh before my daughter noticed. But he should make a full recovery. I'm sure we'll hear him yowling (he hates to be confined) the second we walk in the door. That'll be sweet music to my ears. I worry about our silly kittehs ....

ElizabethandMark

There used to be a wonderful couple living in Portland within easy driving distance of us. Back then our kids were small, and our German shepherd, Nikita, was still a young lady. I remember the first time I visited their home. So full of character, and so full of art. Like the couple. Elizabeth and I talked about wallpaper. My DH and I mingled with a whole lot of people a lot smarter than us. Fantastic food, warmth, smiles all around. And we had a great time, as we did whenever we got a chance to hang out with them.

I think part of the reason we got along with them so well is because they were a strong couple. Mark and Elizabeth. My DH and me. A lot of people talk about my DH and me the same way so many people talk about Mark and Elizabeth, with the names run together. MarkandElizabeth. ElizabethandMark. They held hands. They stood shoulder to shoulder. When they weren't in the same room, they still seemed to draw from each other. Their wedding was a kick. I cheered.

As the years passed we got fewer and fewer chances to get together, but every time we met we sort of picked up where we left off. A few minutes of catch-up and we were the paired friends that got along for every reason and no reason at all. I admired them so much.

Mark passed away the other day and I felt a shatter-shock as if a world made of a perfect diamond had cracked.

And now it's Elizabeth. Elizabeth and the memory. He's right there but we can't touch him. From here I can see them together, but when I see Elizabeth again he won't be there. How does a person recover when they lose half their body? The answer is, they don't, but they just do ....

She's strong and loved and wonderful and beautiful and there was an Elizabeth before a Mark. Now there will be an Elizabeth after Mark. The diamond cracked and reflects light--blinding rainbows, soft glows. I have so many wishes for her. So many wishes. Blessings upon blessings for Elizabeth.

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