Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Catching up

Finally, some great progress on Deadwalker, which is back to "The Seedling Garden." I got hung up on the ending over the weekend, and when I passed it to John for help, he pointed out that several elements were backwards in the worldbuilding, so I had to switch those around. It was very frustrating, and then I remembered that I've encountered this frustration on every story with different mechanics to the world - and that these mechanics don't always present themselves immediately. Or, now that I think about it, they never do. "The Light Stones" took a dozen (or more) rewrites to hammer itself out. So did Harvester the short. And the ending of "The Seedling Garden" isn't clear yet, but since I spent hours trying to clean it up yesterday, maybe the elements will work themselves into clarity. Here's hoping it will be slow day so I can make that happen. And because I have Lightspeed stories to read, and Fragment crits to do.

Took a break in the writing last night to do my first set of WoW PVP's two-on-two (two's) with John on Rhenza his rogue, and me with Beris my shadow priest. We got our asses handed to us in a few games; all my fault, of course, because I was so nervous and just kind of panicked, and level 85 or not, I'm still new to the game. But I'm starting to learn when do to what - fear, silence, psychic horror, shadowfiend, etc. - and we managed to win enough to cap my points for the week. And now the week has started over, so maybe tonight, too, depending on how much of "The Seedling Garden" I finish.

I finally took away the suitcase Kitty had been sleeping on upstairs, which now has a thick layer of cat hair over it. He simply found a new place.


Last night we had Chinese food and champagne - John got a new job, and finished the first prototype (there will be many, many  more in the future) of Carl the spider, his iPhone game! Very exciting. Sunday night, I went a little gungho with the Appetite for Reduction recipes. We had the Shaved Brussels Sprouts, the Broiled Blackened Tofu, and the Ginger Mashed Sweet Potatoes & Apples. The tofu was fantastic - tasted like chicken, honestly. I went a little light on the smoked paprika, since I don't care for it very much, and I managed to burn the sweet potatoes/apples exactly as Moskowitz says not to do in the book, because I got distracted. The Brussels sprouts were great - mine weren't crispy, but that's probably because I had used frozen, not fresh.


Either way, a fantastic meal. I just wish I had the time to make three things from that cookbook every night. I did order another of her cookbooks, Veganomicon, which I should be getting shortly.

Reading: I'm about halfway through Strahan's Best of SFF Volume 5, and I must admit, it's not what I had expected. It's entirely possible I'm getting more particular in my preferences, since that's the way I've been heading with all the SFF magazines, and creating strong opinions as to what I prefer to read regarding novels. But I've loved Strahan's "Best of" series more than any other out there, and of course every Eclipse anthology of his has just been stunning. This one, however, isn't doing much for me. The stories are very well written, and there's no shortage of excessive creativity, startling, in fact, and inspirational. But none have entranced me so far, which makes me a little sad. Nothing is better than a story that grips you from beginning to end. Doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it, though. The stories are excellent, and I'm sure will speak to others if not me.

We've also started FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, which is now on Netflix. We had watched it online in subtitles as it was streaming back in 2009, and while it's dubbed now, the voices are excellent (albeit different), and the show is still excellent, and highly recommended; it has the typical anime silly moments, but the layering! And there is no attempt to sugarcoat anything. (The seven deadly sins are PEOPLE in this show. Well, homunculi. So go watch.) I had new ideas for the people around Heloise in Harvester the book, and how they're affected by her alchemy. What happens to them when she screws up, and is attempting to make the alloy work. It was very inspiring.

Now I just need more time.

Three more weeks of tax season!

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Update on the reading status: go buy the Strahan antho I mentioned earlier. Maureen McHugh's story is fantastic. I just stared out in space about halfway through, a little shellshocked. I want to write more about it, but don't want to give out spoilers. And Diana Peterfreund's unicorn story is gorgeous - this is why I love YA writing so much. Well chosen.