Friday, November 25
Ah, Thanksgiving. The holiday of gastronomic excess. My family loves this holiday.
And you know you have celebrated well when someone puts a tin of chocolates on the table and we all stare at it wistfully but no one takes more than one or two, and it's chocolate, but damnitall, there's just no room.
This was a somewhat different Thanksgiving for us; Dan and his parents were both there, which meant that my kitchen was the only one big enough for the Family Feast, which meant that I hosted my first Thanksgiving ever. It went well. Nobody broke anything, none of the dishes turned out to be inedible, no one commented on my poor housekeeping skills, and there are truly insane amounts of leftovers in my fridge. Dan's parents got on well with my family, although they were very worried later that we thought them rude for not speaking much. It wasn't that they weren't interested, his dad explained, it was just that we were all speaking English so quickly. I told him that a) even fluent English-speakers have trouble understanding my family, which is very tight-knit and has a sort of family-wide version of twinspeak that we all use, and b) the only thing they could do that would actually offend anyone would be to not eat. Not speaking is fine. Picky eater? Doom.
The couch met with much approval, especially from my brother, who is plotting his new career as my couch throw. He was just going to steal it, but his car is too small.
And oddly, with all this, I'm still getting writing done:
NaNoWriMo:
Today's Progress: 741 words yesterday.
Comments: I am definitely not the hare. But hey. Slow and steady....
Snips: This is actually my second-favorite bit:
Timmain dug in the latrines for the next five hours with fairly good humor. Hayn was being punished as well, after all. More to the point no one had stepped up to help him beat Timmain; Timmain's bruises were from Hayn alone. To be beaten by one man rather than ten counted as a victory.
My favorite bit is a one-liner that you'd need to have read the story so far to understand. But still. I like Timmain so far. He's doing typically stupid teenaged things but he's still got his head screwed on right.
And you know you have celebrated well when someone puts a tin of chocolates on the table and we all stare at it wistfully but no one takes more than one or two, and it's chocolate, but damnitall, there's just no room.
This was a somewhat different Thanksgiving for us; Dan and his parents were both there, which meant that my kitchen was the only one big enough for the Family Feast, which meant that I hosted my first Thanksgiving ever. It went well. Nobody broke anything, none of the dishes turned out to be inedible, no one commented on my poor housekeeping skills, and there are truly insane amounts of leftovers in my fridge. Dan's parents got on well with my family, although they were very worried later that we thought them rude for not speaking much. It wasn't that they weren't interested, his dad explained, it was just that we were all speaking English so quickly. I told him that a) even fluent English-speakers have trouble understanding my family, which is very tight-knit and has a sort of family-wide version of twinspeak that we all use, and b) the only thing they could do that would actually offend anyone would be to not eat. Not speaking is fine. Picky eater? Doom.
The couch met with much approval, especially from my brother, who is plotting his new career as my couch throw. He was just going to steal it, but his car is too small.
And oddly, with all this, I'm still getting writing done:
NaNoWriMo:
| |
12,280 / 50,000 (24.6%) |
Today's Progress: 741 words yesterday.
Comments: I am definitely not the hare. But hey. Slow and steady....
Snips: This is actually my second-favorite bit:
Timmain dug in the latrines for the next five hours with fairly good humor. Hayn was being punished as well, after all. More to the point no one had stepped up to help him beat Timmain; Timmain's bruises were from Hayn alone. To be beaten by one man rather than ten counted as a victory.
My favorite bit is a one-liner that you'd need to have read the story so far to understand. But still. I like Timmain so far. He's doing typically stupid teenaged things but he's still got his head screwed on right.
Wednesday, November 23
Urm. Brief update.
My mother's birthday was Friday. It was cool, although she's moaning around about being fifty now. But both she and I think it's kinda cool that I'm exactly half her age at the moment. (I'm also exactly the age she was when she got pregnant with me, but I'm trying not to think about that.)
My brother has confirmed that he'll be leaving in January to live with his girlfriend in Atlanta. This is not at all cool, considering that we're still shorthanded even with him, but probably better for all in the long run.
We have a bean-bag couch now. It is also cool, even if it still looks a bit like our living room has been invaded by the Giant Grey Mutant Potato. As long as Giant Grey Mutant Potatoes stay this comfy, I won't care. We're also getting a normal couch from my family as an early Christmas present, but it won't arrive for two weeks.
Dan's parents are coming for Thanksgiving and will be arriving tonight. As long as I can get the rest of the cleaning done this afternoon, this will also be cool.
And the book continues:
NaNoWriMo:
Today's Progress: 566 words yesterday.
Comments: No way in hell will I make it for NaNo. But I am averaging between five and seven hundred words a day, nice and steady. Considering how much else is going on here I'm cool with that.
Snips: See? He can be sensible too:
Siurn was, of course, the god of death and the Red, but he was also a powerful god, and in the Mordun they considered life hard enough without bringing the wrath of the gods down upon them. Far more sensible to burn incense to him, and consign to him their dead, and tell no stories under his light but stories he might enjoy. Timmain had no wish to associate himself with men who taunted gods. It was too likely to be a brief association.
***
In other writing news, my first agent query went out last week to the agent I Really, Really Want. Cross your fingers for me.
My mother's birthday was Friday. It was cool, although she's moaning around about being fifty now. But both she and I think it's kinda cool that I'm exactly half her age at the moment. (I'm also exactly the age she was when she got pregnant with me, but I'm trying not to think about that.)
My brother has confirmed that he'll be leaving in January to live with his girlfriend in Atlanta. This is not at all cool, considering that we're still shorthanded even with him, but probably better for all in the long run.
We have a bean-bag couch now. It is also cool, even if it still looks a bit like our living room has been invaded by the Giant Grey Mutant Potato. As long as Giant Grey Mutant Potatoes stay this comfy, I won't care. We're also getting a normal couch from my family as an early Christmas present, but it won't arrive for two weeks.
Dan's parents are coming for Thanksgiving and will be arriving tonight. As long as I can get the rest of the cleaning done this afternoon, this will also be cool.
And the book continues:
NaNoWriMo:
| |
11,133 / 50,000 (22.3%) |
Today's Progress: 566 words yesterday.
Comments: No way in hell will I make it for NaNo. But I am averaging between five and seven hundred words a day, nice and steady. Considering how much else is going on here I'm cool with that.
Snips: See? He can be sensible too:
Siurn was, of course, the god of death and the Red, but he was also a powerful god, and in the Mordun they considered life hard enough without bringing the wrath of the gods down upon them. Far more sensible to burn incense to him, and consign to him their dead, and tell no stories under his light but stories he might enjoy. Timmain had no wish to associate himself with men who taunted gods. It was too likely to be a brief association.
***
In other writing news, my first agent query went out last week to the agent I Really, Really Want. Cross your fingers for me.
Monday, November 07
Well, I'm back from World Fantasy.
To describe the whole thing would take too long: suffice to say that there was much good panelage but more good people. It was grand to hang out with old acquaintances (cristalia, matociquala) and equally grand to meet new ones (arcaedia, sosostris2012, katallen, abennettstrong). There was much alcohol, and lusting for necklaces, and fun. A grand total of five people have told me I look like Tilda Swinton, which is odd but kind of cool. If I ever have reason to dress up for Halloween I think I'll try for the Angel Gabriel.
And that party that got shut down? The cheese-tasting, perfume-sampling, chartreuse-drinking, reading-bad-sex-scene-aloud-until-breathless-with-laughter party? I know nothing. I was never there. Honest.
NaNoWriMo:
Today's Progress: 1,488 words since Wednesday
Comments: I'm mildly surprised that I got any writing at all done at WFC, but still, some catching up to do. That's life.
Snips: Poor little fourth son looking for a home:
"You will find a place someday," she said at last, so softly he could barely hear it. "You will make your own place. But I would do you no service fitting you to mine. I'm sorry, Timmain."
To describe the whole thing would take too long: suffice to say that there was much good panelage but more good people. It was grand to hang out with old acquaintances (cristalia, matociquala) and equally grand to meet new ones (arcaedia, sosostris2012, katallen, abennettstrong). There was much alcohol, and lusting for necklaces, and fun. A grand total of five people have told me I look like Tilda Swinton, which is odd but kind of cool. If I ever have reason to dress up for Halloween I think I'll try for the Angel Gabriel.
And that party that got shut down? The cheese-tasting, perfume-sampling, chartreuse-drinking, reading-bad-sex-scene-aloud-until-breathless-with-laughter party? I know nothing. I was never there. Honest.
NaNoWriMo:
| |
3,346 / 50,000 (6.7%) |
Today's Progress: 1,488 words since Wednesday
Comments: I'm mildly surprised that I got any writing at all done at WFC, but still, some catching up to do. That's life.
Snips: Poor little fourth son looking for a home:
"You will find a place someday," she said at last, so softly he could barely hear it. "You will make your own place. But I would do you no service fitting you to mine. I'm sorry, Timmain."
Tuesday, November 01
There were no trick-or-treaters at our house last night. This made me sad. I've lived in the boonies all my life and there aren't too many kids willing to brave our mile-long driveway for candy, so I saw real live trick-or-treaters as one of the perks of living in town. I bought candy. I was really looking forward to it.
Come to find out that the city of Galax, in its infinite wisdom, had planned an "alternative to the traditional trick-or treating". I didn't get the newspaper and didn't know (thus my sad Monday night candy vigil).
Why exactly Galax found it necessary to do this is not made clear in the article, but I'm assuming it's one of three things:
1) It's Satanic. We get these idiots every now and then, when there's a bit of a lull and they start loosing congregation because they're not providing them with enough things to fear and hate. Right now I think the homosexuals are giving them a full house, but hey, maybe they're going for broke and tearing up Those Satan-Worshipping Kids again. How would I know?
2) It's Not Safe For the Children. See all the stories about poisoned Halloween candy (false), razor blades in halloween candy (true, but almost always the work of another child inspired by the "warning tales"), and the typical American fear of madmen in back alleys and darkened doorways. I regard this with a certain amount of disgust. First off, kids are almost always accompanied by parents or at least other kids. Second, this is a town of ten thousand, for Christ's sake. Which is not to say it's paradise - in fact we have a distressing amount of violent crime - but randomized violent crime remains, by and large, the possession of cities. People turn on those they know. In the meantime, Dan and I leave our front door hanging open all day and come home to an untouched house. Four times.*
3) The Kids Are Not Safe For Us. See the article's reference for a curfew for under-sixteens. This is just sad. It's the lingering eu de Columbine, I suppose, that makes us fear who our kids are and what they might do, and it's ever so much easier to treat our young like potential criminals than deal with the root causes. (Like, y'know, unemployment, rampant teenage pregnancy, the worst drug problems in the state, underfunded public schooling, and an interpretation of religion which allows for no middle ground or forgiveness and stamps the sinner indelibly with their sin....)
I know this happens everywhere. I doubt it's any worse here than anywhere else. But it's sad. It's sad that we don't trust each other or our own kids. It's sad that I didn't get to see kids dressed up and begging for candy because the adults deemed it "too dangerous". It's sad that the kids are drinking in that distrust with every breath they take and every metal detector they walk through, learning the lesson we don't realize we're teaching.
*****
Oh, well. Aside from that it was a pretty good birthday. I have swag, most of it readable or cookable-from, and some of it cashable, which will be a big help on my happy-birthday-to-me trip to World Fantasy. My cake was briefly stranded in Atlanta, along with my brother and his misbehaving car, but that was sorted out with minimal pain and suffering on all sides. Which is good.
* Because we're idiots.
NaNoWriMo:
Today's Progress: 1,858 words
Comments: Hmm. One day in and I'm already modifying the outline. This is why I need a computer program that allows for dynamic outlines... it's also starting very, very slowly, for a variety of reasons, but I'm trying to convince myself that this is okay.
Repeat after me: "Not all stories start with bombs and dead bodies."
Snips: And so the story begins:
The spring of Timmain's fifteenth year was a bad one. The winter had been hard, and the Green was too ragged-edged to turn out the goats on the traditional day; there were rumors of war to the west; a new star had appeared, moving rapidly across the face of Siurn; and the first ulog of the year was born two-headed and dead.
"Bad omens," said the village omener, and cut the beast open to read doom in its entrails.
"Bad blood," said Timmain's sister Sula, and went to negotiate a trade of stock with the herder three villages over.
Come to find out that the city of Galax, in its infinite wisdom, had planned an "alternative to the traditional trick-or treating". I didn't get the newspaper and didn't know (thus my sad Monday night candy vigil).
Why exactly Galax found it necessary to do this is not made clear in the article, but I'm assuming it's one of three things:
1) It's Satanic. We get these idiots every now and then, when there's a bit of a lull and they start loosing congregation because they're not providing them with enough things to fear and hate. Right now I think the homosexuals are giving them a full house, but hey, maybe they're going for broke and tearing up Those Satan-Worshipping Kids again. How would I know?
2) It's Not Safe For the Children. See all the stories about poisoned Halloween candy (false), razor blades in halloween candy (true, but almost always the work of another child inspired by the "warning tales"), and the typical American fear of madmen in back alleys and darkened doorways. I regard this with a certain amount of disgust. First off, kids are almost always accompanied by parents or at least other kids. Second, this is a town of ten thousand, for Christ's sake. Which is not to say it's paradise - in fact we have a distressing amount of violent crime - but randomized violent crime remains, by and large, the possession of cities. People turn on those they know. In the meantime, Dan and I leave our front door hanging open all day and come home to an untouched house. Four times.*
3) The Kids Are Not Safe For Us. See the article's reference for a curfew for under-sixteens. This is just sad. It's the lingering eu de Columbine, I suppose, that makes us fear who our kids are and what they might do, and it's ever so much easier to treat our young like potential criminals than deal with the root causes. (Like, y'know, unemployment, rampant teenage pregnancy, the worst drug problems in the state, underfunded public schooling, and an interpretation of religion which allows for no middle ground or forgiveness and stamps the sinner indelibly with their sin....)
I know this happens everywhere. I doubt it's any worse here than anywhere else. But it's sad. It's sad that we don't trust each other or our own kids. It's sad that I didn't get to see kids dressed up and begging for candy because the adults deemed it "too dangerous". It's sad that the kids are drinking in that distrust with every breath they take and every metal detector they walk through, learning the lesson we don't realize we're teaching.
*****
Oh, well. Aside from that it was a pretty good birthday. I have swag, most of it readable or cookable-from, and some of it cashable, which will be a big help on my happy-birthday-to-me trip to World Fantasy. My cake was briefly stranded in Atlanta, along with my brother and his misbehaving car, but that was sorted out with minimal pain and suffering on all sides. Which is good.
* Because we're idiots.
NaNoWriMo:
| |
1,858 / 50,000 (3.7%) |
Today's Progress: 1,858 words
Comments: Hmm. One day in and I'm already modifying the outline. This is why I need a computer program that allows for dynamic outlines... it's also starting very, very slowly, for a variety of reasons, but I'm trying to convince myself that this is okay.
Repeat after me: "Not all stories start with bombs and dead bodies."
Snips: And so the story begins:
The spring of Timmain's fifteenth year was a bad one. The winter had been hard, and the Green was too ragged-edged to turn out the goats on the traditional day; there were rumors of war to the west; a new star had appeared, moving rapidly across the face of Siurn; and the first ulog of the year was born two-headed and dead.
"Bad omens," said the village omener, and cut the beast open to read doom in its entrails.
"Bad blood," said Timmain's sister Sula, and went to negotiate a trade of stock with the herder three villages over.
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