Whoah! How have I gone so long without posting? I haven't shared the heartbreak of Fiona's last week of school (who knew a kid could cry so much about finishing kindergarten?); the humor of Skinny Bitch, the most refreshing diet/vegetarianism book I've ever read; or the madcap adventure of a Father's Day celebrated in Sandy (no, Joe's Donuts is not the best donuts in Oregon, but the Goodwill in Gresham is a treat).
Good times.
This is short because I've got some editing to do. I didn't make my usual list because I didn't do any reading today, and the most notable thing I ingested was actually a delicious coffee cocktail my sister whipped up while I was hanging out at her house. Yumm. Boooooooze.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Tuckered
Reading: Lost Boy Lost Girl by Peter Straub
Coffee: Enough to give me both a headache and a stomach ache.
Notable nibbles: Tasty sandwich.
Writing: Back to the Linnea grindstone.
It's amazing how an hour and a half of revision can leave a girl so worn out! It's intense, wearing work. Every word weighs on you. Every character looks suspicious, like a potential trouble-maker that must be watched over, kept in line.
But I get the night off to play games with my sweetie pie and some ZS pals, so it's a good reward!
Ohhh ... and I've set aside the 2008 Nanowrimo in favor of the 2007. Why? Because I'm a dork. That's why. I just can't commit to anything. I have the hope that I will get out of this revision panic and be able to finish something. I don't know if it will pan out, but that's the dream!
Coffee: Enough to give me both a headache and a stomach ache.
Notable nibbles: Tasty sandwich.
Writing: Back to the Linnea grindstone.
It's amazing how an hour and a half of revision can leave a girl so worn out! It's intense, wearing work. Every word weighs on you. Every character looks suspicious, like a potential trouble-maker that must be watched over, kept in line.
But I get the night off to play games with my sweetie pie and some ZS pals, so it's a good reward!
Ohhh ... and I've set aside the 2008 Nanowrimo in favor of the 2007. Why? Because I'm a dork. That's why. I just can't commit to anything. I have the hope that I will get out of this revision panic and be able to finish something. I don't know if it will pan out, but that's the dream!
Monday, June 15, 2009
A fog of writing panic
Reading: Yoga Journal
Writing: revision for "One Lost Soul"
Coffee units: 3?
Notable nibbles: Sunny Blueberry Muffins (recipe from Vegan with A Vengeance)
Got about 900 new words put into "One Lost Soul." I am more than a little worried that the original draft will be unusable. The more I read, the worse it gets. I just hope I can write enough to get it done before November! I can't believe how quickly Nanowrimo is coming up.
Had a friend over for brunch this morning. She is a fellow veg-head and very into animal rights. It always recharges my vegetarian convictions to hang out with her!
I originally planned to have a super-muffin feast for our brunch, but the first batch of muffins (corn & chile) turned out horrible, with this nasty metallic aftertaste that made me want to scrape my tongue off. The awesome thing is that I put one out by the bird feeder and some plucky fellow made off with it! I now plan to save the bad muffins in the freezer and put slices of them out in the suet feeder when it gets low. The crows and jays go crazy on the suet, and that stuff gets kind of spendy!
Writing: revision for "One Lost Soul"
Coffee units: 3?
Notable nibbles: Sunny Blueberry Muffins (recipe from Vegan with A Vengeance)
Got about 900 new words put into "One Lost Soul." I am more than a little worried that the original draft will be unusable. The more I read, the worse it gets. I just hope I can write enough to get it done before November! I can't believe how quickly Nanowrimo is coming up.
Had a friend over for brunch this morning. She is a fellow veg-head and very into animal rights. It always recharges my vegetarian convictions to hang out with her!
I originally planned to have a super-muffin feast for our brunch, but the first batch of muffins (corn & chile) turned out horrible, with this nasty metallic aftertaste that made me want to scrape my tongue off. The awesome thing is that I put one out by the bird feeder and some plucky fellow made off with it! I now plan to save the bad muffins in the freezer and put slices of them out in the suet feeder when it gets low. The crows and jays go crazy on the suet, and that stuff gets kind of spendy!
Monday, June 08, 2009
One slow train
Reading: The Bitter Taste of Time, by Bea Gonzalez
Writing: revision for "One Lost Soul"
Coffee units: 2.5
Notable nibbles: orange-carrot-banana juice
I'm feeling much more confident about this revision that previous attempts in the revising world. I've got my notebook and I'm USING it, which is a pretty good trick. It's so easy to become absorbed the details, ever so many of them, that the goals of the project get swallowed up in them. I have to keep going back to the book and pinning myself down. What am I doing? What is supposed to be happening? Who the heck are these people?
Not that this is going to be easy. The project is getting a major make-over. I wanted the piece to have an ominous tone and feature some scary supernatural activity, but in my Nanowrimo haze, the scenes I produced are much more chirpy fantasy than supernatural. The bad guys got over-explained and under-experienced and I was very disappointed when I got done.
Despite all that disappointment, when I picked up the manuscript last month, I was impressed with some of the stuff I had written. There's a lot of great stuff in this project, and I am hoping to dig it out and shore it up.
Of course, I'm working slowly. I am still tired after last week's adventures in food poisoning. Hopefuly this little train will kick it up a notch and really get this project done quickly!
Also, after almost a month, the animals have finally found our bird feeders! So far we have only gotten sparrows, crows, jays and a squirrel, but they are all so cute I don't even care. Virtual pets! Hooray! And I owe it all to the suet feeder. That thing is popular; it's like critter crack. In fact, I hope we don't go broke keeping it full!
Writing: revision for "One Lost Soul"
Coffee units: 2.5
Notable nibbles: orange-carrot-banana juice
I'm feeling much more confident about this revision that previous attempts in the revising world. I've got my notebook and I'm USING it, which is a pretty good trick. It's so easy to become absorbed the details, ever so many of them, that the goals of the project get swallowed up in them. I have to keep going back to the book and pinning myself down. What am I doing? What is supposed to be happening? Who the heck are these people?
Not that this is going to be easy. The project is getting a major make-over. I wanted the piece to have an ominous tone and feature some scary supernatural activity, but in my Nanowrimo haze, the scenes I produced are much more chirpy fantasy than supernatural. The bad guys got over-explained and under-experienced and I was very disappointed when I got done.
Despite all that disappointment, when I picked up the manuscript last month, I was impressed with some of the stuff I had written. There's a lot of great stuff in this project, and I am hoping to dig it out and shore it up.
Of course, I'm working slowly. I am still tired after last week's adventures in food poisoning. Hopefuly this little train will kick it up a notch and really get this project done quickly!
Also, after almost a month, the animals have finally found our bird feeders! So far we have only gotten sparrows, crows, jays and a squirrel, but they are all so cute I don't even care. Virtual pets! Hooray! And I owe it all to the suet feeder. That thing is popular; it's like critter crack. In fact, I hope we don't go broke keeping it full!
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
I, Anonymous
Here's the comment someone left about the last post:
"Too bad you spent your time in the wrong places. Spend time where the real locals do in Bend, and you might enjoy it. Try not to be so closed minded."
What could that last little dig be about? I understand the first couple of lines--hey! You missed out on a bunch of great stuff!--but the last line? I don't get it. And whoever wrote it left it anonymously, you just have to imagine they put it in to be pissy.
Suggestions or a nice travel guide (with a map, and maybe some directions) could have made this a wonderful comment. Could have given me the tools to become a real Bend lover. But an anonymous pissy comment? LAME.
"Too bad you spent your time in the wrong places. Spend time where the real locals do in Bend, and you might enjoy it. Try not to be so closed minded."
What could that last little dig be about? I understand the first couple of lines--hey! You missed out on a bunch of great stuff!--but the last line? I don't get it. And whoever wrote it left it anonymously, you just have to imagine they put it in to be pissy.
Suggestions or a nice travel guide (with a map, and maybe some directions) could have made this a wonderful comment. Could have given me the tools to become a real Bend lover. But an anonymous pissy comment? LAME.
Monday, June 01, 2009
Goody's redeems the city of Bend
Reading: Floating Dragon, Peter Straub
Writing: submitted a story to an e-zine; tons of editing (2 projects) ahead
Coffee units: 4
Notable nibbles: salad made with my own veg.
Bend sucks. Sisters makes it look pretty good by comparison, though.
Central Oregon is one of the most beautiful and interesting places on the planet. The scars of tremendous volcanic activity, little scathed by the brutal forces of water, reveal themselves at every turn. There are beautiful caves and mountains. There are fantastic rapids and waterfalls in those places water has eked out for itself. And then there are the high desert forests, smelling sweetly of pitch, vanilla and orange rind.
Too bad people live there.
I realized, returning to the pseudo-town of Sunriver after exploring downtown Bend, that Central Oregon is the place where the middle class goes to party and white trash goes to live. Then we drove through Tumalo and Sisters, where cookie cutter mansions, bloated faux-log monstrosities that repeat themselves across an irrigated landscape--and I realized that Central Oregon is where the rich keep their second homes. I thought I might puke. Then I realized I was just suffering from a sugar-induced coma, inflicted by the sweetness of the faux-Western fronts of the buildings in Sisters.
I felt bitter as we drove over the McKenzie Pass (missing out on the Dee Wright Observatory due to a road closure, perhaps fire-related). Fortunately, we had to stop in Detroit to pee and buy ice cream. There is a tiny shop called KC's there. It's in a small pink house. The ladies who own it are normal middle-aged ladies, and the ice cream is delicious, the coffee is acceptable, and the bathroom is adorable, in the way a bathroom becomes when decorated by two quirky ladies with a lot of burlap coffee sacks on their hands.
So despite the cute ground squirrels, the amazing birds and butterflies, the wonderful High Desert Museum, and the cheap rental with a hot tub, I doubt we'll be headed back to Sunriver anytime too soon. But of course, we will go back. I still want to see Big Obsidian, and even if Bend is an armpit, it's still an armpit with an old fashioned soda fountain. God damn, that chocolate coke with cream was good!
Writing: submitted a story to an e-zine; tons of editing (2 projects) ahead
Coffee units: 4
Notable nibbles: salad made with my own veg.
Bend sucks. Sisters makes it look pretty good by comparison, though.
Central Oregon is one of the most beautiful and interesting places on the planet. The scars of tremendous volcanic activity, little scathed by the brutal forces of water, reveal themselves at every turn. There are beautiful caves and mountains. There are fantastic rapids and waterfalls in those places water has eked out for itself. And then there are the high desert forests, smelling sweetly of pitch, vanilla and orange rind.
Too bad people live there.
I realized, returning to the pseudo-town of Sunriver after exploring downtown Bend, that Central Oregon is the place where the middle class goes to party and white trash goes to live. Then we drove through Tumalo and Sisters, where cookie cutter mansions, bloated faux-log monstrosities that repeat themselves across an irrigated landscape--and I realized that Central Oregon is where the rich keep their second homes. I thought I might puke. Then I realized I was just suffering from a sugar-induced coma, inflicted by the sweetness of the faux-Western fronts of the buildings in Sisters.
I felt bitter as we drove over the McKenzie Pass (missing out on the Dee Wright Observatory due to a road closure, perhaps fire-related). Fortunately, we had to stop in Detroit to pee and buy ice cream. There is a tiny shop called KC's there. It's in a small pink house. The ladies who own it are normal middle-aged ladies, and the ice cream is delicious, the coffee is acceptable, and the bathroom is adorable, in the way a bathroom becomes when decorated by two quirky ladies with a lot of burlap coffee sacks on their hands.
So despite the cute ground squirrels, the amazing birds and butterflies, the wonderful High Desert Museum, and the cheap rental with a hot tub, I doubt we'll be headed back to Sunriver anytime too soon. But of course, we will go back. I still want to see Big Obsidian, and even if Bend is an armpit, it's still an armpit with an old fashioned soda fountain. God damn, that chocolate coke with cream was good!
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