I wrote an ending** and I printed it out–20 pages, double-spaced.  Very exciting!  And then I had to reprint parts of it, because the printer ran out of ink and was printing too faintly.  *sigh*

There’s a lot left to fix.  There’s one scene that needs to be rewritten, because the wrong things happen in it, and I didn’t figure that out until after I wrote it.  And all of the other scenes need things that I haven’t identified yet.

In fact, there are several things about this story that aren’t quite right, aside from basic prose.  The main character is about as interesting as a cardboard box***, and I can’t figure out how to fix her.  The situation is really interesting, but on some level it could be happening to anyone.  So why her?  The setting–a high-tech future hospital–is relevant and important, I know it.  But I haven’t figured out how.  Or rather, I haven’t figured out how to emphasize it.

So today at the gas station I had a thought–what if the MC is just in the wrong position?  She’s flat and dull because she’s not where she needs to be… or maybe she’s just not the MC.  I have an idea for someone in a better role to be the MC.  But of course, that would mean rewriting quite a lot of it.  Possibly all of it.  If she ends up having a personality that would be a really good thing.  But… rewriting the whole story, from a whole new perspective. :-/  That sounds more complicated than my last crazy idea.

I’m going to sleep on it, and see what I think tomorrow.

—

* Ok, I actually declared it last weekend.  I’m a little slow.

** I didn’t end up adding in the complications I was thinking of in my last post.  They didn’t make sense after all, and I decided to simplify and just finish the damn thing.  Also, I’m pretty certain it’s not the ending.  But … it’s better than no ending.

*** A friend in my writing group described her first version of a main character as having the personality of a coffee table.  Mine’s less solid than that.

Mood:  accomplished

Today I figured out how to do that, but it requires adding in a whole nother character, probably 2 more scenes, and reworking several of the others.  (But see, since I haven’t “finished” it yet, I haven’t rewritten those scenes yet, and they were going to need work anyway.  So, it wouldn’t exactly be a waste.)  But I’ve gotten rather attached to the parts of the ending that I’ve already written, and I’m afraid it wouldn’t happen quite this way with this extra plot point.  Which would mean that this great scene I wrote, that I totally love, may not make as much sense.  I might have to kill my darling*. *sniffle*

But would this plot addition overcomplicate things?  Can I accomplish the same thing–or something better–in a simpler way?  I’m also concerned that if I do add this plot point, it could change the tone pretty drastically, and by adding another character it would shift the balance of the story.

And furthermore, then I’d have to write two more scenes, and do the work to integrate that into the whole rest of the story–which isn’t very long.  This is major surgery, on a story this short.  Is it really worth it?

Maybe I’ll sleep on it, and come up with something even better tomorrow.  (“Speedy” hasn’t exactly been my name so far.  Have you noticed that it’s August already?)

—

* Good explanation of the phrase here: http://wendypalmer.com.au/2008/09/25/writing-rules-misapplied-kill-your-darlings/

Mood:  contemplative

I haven’t written it yet.  I’ve been thinking about it for three weeks, since I managed to connect the chronological parts of the story up with the almost-last scene that I wrote two months ago.  (Yay! One chronological story!)

One of my goals in this story has been to end it with an ending.  Since I’m so bad at finishing things (not just stories), I figure that endings are the part of story-writing I need the most practice at.

The problem with endings is that they’re really beginnings.  “And they lived happily ever after” is the beginning of the whole rest of their lives.  I wrote a short story last year that was really a prologue to a possibly-novel-lengthed story about a human child who was stolen by fairies.  I wasn’t ready to write the novel yet, but I had this idea about the fairies taking the infant to a shop that sells wings, to have wings put on it.  The fairies want to make it seem that the child is a hybrid, not a full-human.  But the ending wasn’t satisfying–it was really the beginning of the rest of the novel.

I can’t decide how the vampire story should end.  It’s a short story, not a lot of mass to it, so there’s no one obvious direction it’s been going in for chapters.  The way it ends will determine the theme of the story.  The point.  Whatever ending I pick, it will translate into just one summarizing statement that will describe the whole story.  And I can’t decide which statement that should be.  What will be a powerful ending that won’t make the reader want to throw the story against a wall?  (For example, killing the MC* would definitely make my readers want to throw it against the wall.)  What will be the powerful ending that doesn’t obviously lead to a whole rest of the story?

To this end, I’ve limited how much back story is relevant, how many characters are involved, and the time span covered.  I’m now at the point where I know how long is left (about 10 minutes, I think), and I know several ways it can go.  I need to know which way its going before I can revise, so that I can make sure the ending feels surprising-but-inevitable… so I need to pick an ending.  No, I need to pick the ending.  The best one, which has high impact and translates into a theme that matters to me.  And doesn’t feel cheesy, or like a cheat.

And then I can call this draft done.

—-

* Main Character

Uglies, Pretties, and Specials, a trilogy by Scott Westerfield.  I devoured these.  Well, I devoured each one individually, though I gave myself at least a week between each one and insisted that I read something else.  You know, to let myself savor them for longer.    They are YA, a dystopic future earth where everyone undergoes surgery on their 16th birthday to become Pretty–that is, to be surgically reformed to be a more attractive and more resilient version of themselves–and then they party and have fun for years.  At some age later in life (not specified), all people undergo another surgery to become “Middle Pretty”, which means they are made to be wiser looking, distinctively older, and at that point they get jobs.  When they are older still, they have a third surgery to become “Old Pretty”, or “Crumbly”.  The main character is Tally, who in the first book is still “ugly” and wants nothing more than to become pretty.  But when her friend runs away from The City to avoid the surgery, secret government officials force Tally to follow her, or else she’ll never become pretty.  And what happens when she realizes she doesn’t want to betray the run-aways?  You should read these.  They’re fun, and I love the questions they ask.  (Incidentally, there is another book in the series that I haven’t read yet, called Extras, which seems to have a different MC.)

—-

Soulless, by Gail Carriger.  What happens if you take horror, romance, steampunk, Jane Austen’s manners, Oscar Wilde’s satire, threw in urban fantasy, and set it in Victorian London?  You’d get a fun story about a woman (who doesn’t have a soul) who inadvertently kills a vampire in the first chapter, causes trouble for a werewolf in the second chapter, and gets mixed up with a scientist in some later chapter.  In short, you’d get Soulless, which I thought was great fun, easy to read (once I got used to the semi-Victorian language), and promises an exciting sequel.  (Changeless, which is already out, and Blameless will be coming in September.)

—-

Ok, there are still a whole bunch more.  I’m sure I’ll remember to post about them soon…

Mood:  cheerful

This problem has been sitting in the back of my mind for most of a month now, and I’d pull it out every so often and kick it around.  I tried to get Ben to brainstorm with me, but he thought my constraints were too limiting, or didn’t make sense.  (They make sense in the big picture, I swear.)  Last night I tried getting my writing group to help, but mostly they just said “watch halloween 2!”, which didn’t help me at all.

Today, I came up with a plan.  I’m not sure if it’s good, but it’s not dumb.

I think it was low blood sugar that finally jarred my brain into functioning.  I haven’t eaten much today, a piece of coffee cake, a bunch of chips and salsa, and a little bit of chocolate.  And caffeine, of course.  (Yeah, it’s nearly 6pm.  I know, I know.  You can kick me later.)  The last big breakthrough I had was in the middle of the night when I’d had too much caffeine and couldn’t sleep.  If my brain isn’t careful, it might just teach me that it functions better when I’m mean to it.

Sometime soon (when I’m not at work) I’m going to implement the plan on the page.  And sometime soon thereafter, I’m going to have a finished first draft.  Yay!!!

(You didn’t think I was going to tell you what the plan is, did you? )

Mood:  excited

I’ve been really bad at sitting my Butt In the Chair.  I find good excuses—other things to do in the evening, too tired, home too late—but in aggregate they’re just excuses.  Today I decided I was going to sit down and finish this dranglefarbing story, so I sat down and spent several hours on it.  I decided to step back and look at the big picture.  Who are the characters, what’s important about them, how does it fit together.  Mostly these were things I knew, but I found a few important nuggets, without which I wasn’t going to have a coherent story*.  Of course, I didn’t finish it, but I deleted a scene, wrote a different one, and figured out what comes after that.  Unfortunately, now I don’t know how to get from that scene to the last scene.  :-/  I don’t expect there to be any other scenes in between so… I really need to get that figured out.

And once I’ve finished it, I have to go back and fix the beginning, which is a mishmash of PoVs and ideas because I didn’t know where the story was going yet.

And I want to get all this done by next Sunday.

—

* Of course, I still might not have a coherent story.

Mood:  accomplished

We were inspired to go up because our neighbor said he was throwing his wife a surprise birthday party at this particular hotel, and if we wanted we could stay one or both nights at a discounted rate. Ben and I looked at each other and said, “hell yeah!”  What a nice excuse to go on a little vacation.

We decided not to push ourselves too hard, so we went up late Friday, missed all the traffic, and took it easy.  We made it there in about an hour, by 9:30.  The hotel, the Water’s Edge, is right on Main St. in downtown Tiburon, right on the water’s edge (go figure ).  It’s a funny combination of rustic elegance, modern elegance, and pure utilitarianism, which doesn’t really fit together well.  The ceiling was high with wooden beams and wooden pillars, but the wood had been spackled and painted to look like … wood.  So, almost rustic.  The furniture was largely modern, Scandinavian Design looking, except for one lamp with a wicker lampshade.  They clearly went out of their way to be elegant, with a down comforter and down pillows, a comfortable arm chair and a high-end flatpanel tv.  But there wasn’t a microwave, or a fridge, or a coffee pot.  There was just one hanger in the closet-nook (no door), so only one of us could hang up a jacket at a time, and the sink was your basic hotel-room sink, no better than I’d expect from a Holiday Inn.  The tub was big and oval, very inviting… but it was about a foot shallower than I’ve ever seen a tub before.  The whole place was just a little odd.

Saturday morning we took it slow, meandering out of the hotel around 10 and wandering a block to the Morning Cafe, where we only had to wait about 15 minutes to be seated outside (we could’ve sat inside immediately, but it was such a lovely day).  All I can say is, their eggs benedict (I had the vegetarian with avocado on it) was delicious.  I ate both eggs and was utterly stuffed.

The hotel’s guidebook said there’s a historical church and botanical preserve just half a mile away, called Old Saint Hilary’s Historical Preserve, with a map indicating approximately where it was, but of course Ben and I didn’t remember to take a picture of it.  I had my pocket oracle (aka google maps on my iphone) which helped us remember where we thought it was (it didn’t show up on the map and I couldn’t remember what it was called) and then figure out how to walk there, but we didn’t want to walk along the streets.  We kept looking for paths, and since Tiburon is so hilly, we found several staircases going between properties, leading from one street level to the next up the hill.  Of course, while we were walking past people’s gardens, we had to peer in and see how they were doing it.  Lots of terracing, and I think every single yard we saw was well maintained with beautiful flowers.  Being spring-time helps, but … they must all keep gardeners.  Everyone, in the whole town.§

Finally we happened upon an open clearing, and noticed a plaque* by the road, and Ben said, “hey that might be it”, even though it didn’t look like much more than an empty hill.  Well, it was an empty hill full of native plants and a teeny old Catholic church with a steeple.  So we wandered down the path, noticed they were also growing native rocks there, and were very impressed to notice poppies, little yellow daisy-like things, and even some blue-eyed grass in among the brown grass.  At the bottom of the hill, there was the church, with a big ol’ sign next to it.  I read the sign, and we found out that it had been built in the late 1800s, deconsecrated in the 50′s (why? they didn’t say), and then made a Historical Building in the 60′s.  (What did it do in between?)  I wanted to go in, but it was closed and the sign said it was only open from 1-4pm, Saturdays and Sundays.

But the sign (the first sign) said there was more native preserve down below the church, so we wandered down that way, admired the rock paths, the rock benches built into the terracing, and the little trickle of water seeping through one of the terrace-walls.  A nice old lady asked us if we were from around here, and we struck up a conversation with her about the natives and the church, and we discovered that she’s a docent for the local historical spots, including this one.  So she told us a bit about it, and that we should visit the Train and Ferry Museum by the shore.

Then we looked up and noticed, hey the church doors are open, we can sneak in!  Apparently there was going to be a wedding in just 15 minutes, but in the meantime we could wander through and see the inside.  Our own personal tour!  It was a lovely, small, old church, and the pews had cushions with covers that had all been hand cross-stitched since it had become a museum, four of them by the docent herself, and they all depicted native flowers.  While we were there, she gave us a flier showing where the other historical points are, and recommended that we go see them.

Then Ben and I wandered back down (the short way, which we hadn’t found going up) to Main St., wandered up to the train & ferry building, which was still closed, and went back to Sam’s Anchor Cafe**, which is just next door to our hotel and very well known.  Clearly so, because the wait for a table for 2 on the deck (overlooking SF bay) was over an hour.  :-/  Then we thought… wait, we’ve been wandering outside for a few hours, getting way too much sun… wouldn’t we rather sit inside?  Why, yes!  There was no wait to sit inside, where there were only two occupied tables.  So we got food faster, and were happier.  :)

Then we rested for a couple of hours, and I had stomach troubles , so we were late for drinks on the deck for the birthday party, but no one minded; and we met people, drank a bit of wine, and had a nice time.  Dinner was wonderful at Guaymar’s, which is a mexican restaurant (not a taqueria).  I had tamales with plantain and some kind of mild pepper.  They were sweet, a little more sweet than necessary, but had a yummy sour cream (with something extra in it, but I’m not sure what) to go with them.  We drank too many margaritas, and then went for a walk just after sunset.

Which meant that this morning we were dragging pretty hard, and didn’t leave the room until 11.  Ben was tired and didn’t want to do anything, but once we made it out even he agreed that it would be nice to go for another walk, in the other direction this time.  We happened upon the China Cabin, another Historical Building, which from the name I figured must be a little rustic thing that Chinese people had lived in.  Right?  Well, no.  It’s the cabin from the deck of the SS China, a wooden steamship built in New York in 1866 for the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, which then steamed between San Francisco and Yokohama and Hong Kong.  When it was decommissioned***, it was sent to Tiburon to be burned, but some local guy saw the cabin and said “dude, I want to make a house out of that!”†  It’s teeny outside, but amazing inside, with pocket (frosted glass) windows and pocket shutters over the window-openings, each of which easily slides into the wall next to it.  One or both can be open or closed.  And beautiful moldings and gold (is finials the right word here?) all over the walls and ceiling.  It was amazing.  And a chandelier, of course.  So, we got there long before it was supposed to open (also from 1-4; apparently that’s when all of the historical sites are open), and were reading the sign and staring at the outside, saying to ourselves, “wow, it’s awfully small, how do real people fit in there”§§, when along came an older gentleman (apparently the local Landmark Society is primarily staffed by retired volunteers) who said, “I’m just here to set up and I’ll be back again at 1, but if you want a quick look now, you may come in with me.”  And again we said, “hell yeah!”  So we got our second personal tour of a historical site.

After that we wandered around, trying to understand where the lagoon between Tiburon and Belvedere gets its water from.  There’s SF Bay all around Belvedere, and Tiburon has its little marina and the San Francisco Yacht Club (which therefore isn’t in San Francisco), and then there’s this lagoon.  Which should connect the marina and/or yacht club on one side of SF Bay with the SF Bay on the other side, but there’s no access for water to get between.  We never did figure it out, but we wandered†† into Belvedere and found more of the little staircases between roads§§§, many of which have names like Corinthian Lane.  And beautiful houses, with amazing views, and we watched two gaggles of little boats†††, clearly youth sailing programs, learning to go round buoys.  I was highly entertained.

We also made it in to the Railroad and Ferry Depot Museum, which had an amazing scale model of the railroad tracks that used to be where downtown Tiburon now is.  Other than that, though, we were tired, and it was full of tourists, and we left pretty quickly.

The other bit of good fortune was about my fork.  We’d brought some leftovers Friday night for a snack, and a fork to eat them with, and then left the fork in the bathroom (drying in a glass from having been washed) during the day on Saturday.  This morning I couldn’t find it, and thought, “uh oh…”  Ben hadn’t moved it, I hadn’t moved it… Yep, it had been “cleaned up” by housekeeping.  Oops!  So when we checked out this morning I wandered toward the sounds of dishes clinking, and found a guy whose English was just good enough to help me.  We looked through the clean forks, the dirty forks… didn’t find it. Then we looked through the leftovers from breakfast, and lo!  There it was!  My fork had a nice tour of some other guest’s room (and mouth…) this morning!  I was very glad to have it back.‡

I took a few pictures, but I haven’t uploaded them yet.  So… you’ll have to wait for pictorial proof.

—

§ Well, Tiburon is a very nice town.  Which is to say, very expensive.  Presumably they can afford gardeners.

* There are plaques on nearly everything in Tiburon and Belvedere.

** Not to be confused with Sam’s Chowder House, which is just down the street from us.  While our Sam’s serves chowder, we were sad to discover Tiburon’s Sam’s does not serve anchors.

*** Seems to me that decommissioning is not all that different from deconsecrating.

§§ Turns out it’s taller on the inside, because it has a popped-roof, which wasn’t as obvious from the outside.  So, it really does fit normal-heighted people very comfortably.

† Yes, he said it just like that.  You think I’m making it up?

†† They looked like El Toros, but not quite… google tells me they are called Optimists, and seem to be just a bit shorter.  A web ad selling an Optimist says there are hundreds of thousands in existence and are very popular learning boats, but the El Toro International Yacht Racing Association website claims that El Toros are the most popular boat on the SF Bay.  Despite the fact that the SF Yacht Club is using Optimists.  I learned to sail on an El Toro.  Horrid little boats, just like bathtubs, but they really are good to learn in.

§§§ Incidentally, Ben-the-tired was the one to suggest the first staircase we tackled.  Once we were out and about, he felt much better and we had lots of fun exploring.

††† With all this wandering we did, I’m very glad to have used plenty of sunblock and a brimmed hat, and so I don’t seem to have gotten at all sunburned.  Whew.

‡ You have to understand that this is a fork from the utensils that I grew up eating off of, so I’m particularly attached.  And we don’t have many place-settings, and I’m not sure that they’re available anymore, and we use forks more than any other utensil in our house.  So, I’m very glad we got it back.

Mood:  happy

Flesh and Fire by Laura Anne Gilman (suricattus), Book One of the Vineart War.  I ordered a copy from Amazon as soon as it came out, because I’ve liked her books before and this one sounded different-and-interesting.  And then before it arrived, I went to World Fantasy Con and got a free copy in my book bag.  Which I then had to keep, so I could get her to sign it, because I didn’t have my copy yet. *facepalm*  I started reading it immediately, and enjoyed it immensely, but then got distracted (as I do) and didn’t finish it until this year.  And now I’m sad that I did, because the next book isn’t out yet, and I want to know what happens next.

The awesome premise is that magic comes from wine.  Or from grapes, but isn’t usable until it’s made into wine and then the wine is turned into magical wine.  The Vinearts are the men who have this ability, basically they’re vintners with extra magic.  (Can’t tell me there isn’t already magic in turning fruit into the strange thing that wine is.)  The main character, Jerzy, is a new apprentice, and in this book we follow him learning how the magics work, as Weird Dangerous Things start happening in the world, affecting him and his master.

The main thing is that I just wanted to follow Jerzy and find out what happens next.  He’s an adorable character.  I read a review somewhere (of course I forget which one now) that complained that nothing happens in this book, and while I can see where they got that opinion, I don’t quite agree.  Things build in this book, and they’re just starting to come apart at the end.  This is clearly the first part of a multi-book story arc, not a series of standalone novels, and while I wouldn’t have minded a little more resolution at the end of this one, it stopped at a good breathing point.

Quatrain by Sharon Shinn.  Ok, you may have noticed that I read all of her books, and generally like them all.  Yep, it’s true, and this is no exception.  This one is four novellas (hence the title), each one set in one of her worlds.

The one set in the world of Archangel was wonderful and satisfying, with a middle-aged main character who has already messed up her life and learned better, long before the story starts.  It takes place just a year or two before Archangel, and while the main characters aren’t mentioned in Archangel (that I recall), another character is key in that one.

Then I skipped to the last story, which is set in the world of the Thirteen Houses, because I remember that series well.  This story takes place before the first book (Mystic and Rider), but doesn’t quite cover the chapter that I think is missing from the beginning of that book.  :-/  Still, it was fun and interesting, showing Senneth before the whole group get together.

Summers at Castle Auburn and Heart of Gold were both standalone novels, and I read them years ago and never re-read them.  So, I vaguely rememeber that Summers was about a girl and is fantastical, while Gold is about a world with gold-skinned people and blue-skinned people who have serious issues with each other, set in a city where the two races both live and must interact, and is sci fi.  And that’s about all I remember.  (If I’d been keeping track of what I read back then, maybe I would’ve written more here to jog my memory.  Alas.)  Still, my mom convinced me that I should read the two stories set in those worlds, even though I didn’t remember the original books well enough.

She was right.  The stories totally stand on their own, explain just as much of the world as they need to to be very readable.  I’m reasonably certain that if I remembered any character names I would get references to the characters from the original novels, but the main characters in these stories are new to these stories.  The story set in the world of Heart of Gold was wonderful and powerful, about a man in a difficult society who has grown up to be strong and well-mannered despite his childhood, who meets a woman who completely changes his idea of how people are or should be.  Or can be.  I didn’t want it to end, but I was satisfied by the ending.

The story set in the world of Summers at Castle Auburn is about a teen-aged girl who goes through an experience that ought to mature her, yet somehow doesn’t.  At the end she is just as self-centered and flighty as at the beginning, and she comes out on top through no fault of her own.  Now, it’s not her fault that she can’t save herself, but … it just wasn’t as gripping of a story because the character does things that aren’t the right things, over and over.  She doesn’t learn anything, and at the end I felt like she wasn’t deserving of what she got.  :-/

So the stories I liked best were about grown-ups dealing with grown-up issues.  The one about the girl dealing with girlish issues just didn’t do anything for me.  And the one about Senneth… it wasn’t a bad story, but it wasn’t as gripping as the others.  (No characters fell in love in that one, so maybe that’s the issue.  Also, it’s about a main character we already know, whereas the others are all about new characters.  Maybe *that’s* the issue.  I’m not sure.)

Finally, I read a manuscript by one of the people in my writing group.  It’s the second in a series, and the first has been published recently.  Since I can’t tell you about the new one (except that it was great fun , I’ll tell you a bit about the first.  Frost Moon by Anthony Francis is about Dakota Frost, the best magical tattoo artist in the southeast.  She’s tall and imposing, with a mohawk and long leather vest, sleeveless to show off the tattoos all over her body, which she can set in motion and even detach from her body.  Dakota is both edgy and normal–her childhood and early adulthood aren’t that different from any real person’s life.  It’s set in Atlanta, a city I don’t know at all, but where Anthony lived for many years, and he’s written it as a period piece set in 2006.  Every detail is as accurate for that city in that year (and month, even) as he could make it.  Except, of course, that magical tattoos, were-creatures and vampires didn’t really exist in Atlanta in 2006.  (Or did they…? :p )  There is a serial killer who’s been killing magical people, and Dakota gets pulled into the investigation.  It’s Urban Fantasy, along the lines of Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series, but Dakota starts out less experienced in death and mayhem than Anita, but she feels more worldly and down-to-earth.

Ok, this has gone on forever, and I’m going to make sure it’s behind a cut (or two or three).  But hey, I’m caught up now.    (I have started several other books since then, but haven’t finished any of them yet.  Because I’m like that.)

Mood:  accomplished

Well, none of the tourists believe me, either, and all the attractions (Barbara’s Fish Trap, for example) are very crowded.

The sky is blue, the air is warm, I’m wearing a tank-top.  Ben and I went for a walk at the Point, and I took my fleecy off.  I *never* take my fleecy off while walking up there, it’s too cold.  So this, today, is one of the five beautiful days we get per year.  In a month it’ll be foggy and cold, but for now the flowers are amazing (we counted 30 different types of flower blooming in our backyard), the sun is warm, and it’s just like summer.

We had Ben’s family over for brunch today, and we had all different yummy food.  We decided to make all the food ourselves, not do a potluck, so we picked yummy simple things.  Homefries, a frittata* (gruyere, mushroom, and scallions), braised greens (chard** and kale), a fruit salad (strawberries, mango, orange, and grapefruit), a bean salad, and something Sunset Magazine calls an “apple oven cake”, which I’ve made several times now and is super yummy (butter and brown sugar, apples and a little cinnamon, with an egg/flour/milk mixture to hold it together).  It was all a big hit, but the apple stuff was the biggest hit, and was definitely the easiest to make.    Oh yeah, and mimosas.  Except a bunch of us had orange juice-free mimosas, aka champagne.  Mmm, it was good.

We managed to prepare a lot of stuff last night, and get everything chopped and ready this morning, so we could just compile everything and cook it at the last minute when they were here.  The homefries took longer than we expected, and we were waiting for them to finish before starting everything else, but everything came together perfectly for us to sit down with all of the food ready (except the frittata, which was a little slow, so I guess it was only nearly-perfect).  It was so yummy.  And even though it seemed like a lot of food, everything was finished off except the homefries and bean salad. And the ingredients for a second apple oven cake.  So we’ll have those for breakfast tomorrow!

None of Ben’s family have been over since Ben finished my office, so I straightened it all up (no extra papers or boxes anywhere in sight!) and we showed it off.  It’s so nice and comfortable in there.  Everyone was very impressed with Ben’s handiwork.

Last night Ben and I thought to pull out the two of my mom’s paintings*** that I have, and we discovered that one of them looks wonderful in the room, so we’re going to hang it up.  The other is too dark (lots of black), so I think maybe I’ll trade it in for a different one, because there’s plenty of space for two on my wall.  And it’ll be nice to have Mommy art hanging in my office. 

Other than that… I started writing a vampire story the other day.  I don’t do vampires, but I had a title that included vampires, so it had to be about vampires.

Recently I’ve noticed that I have trouble distinguishing between “I must continue working on story x so that I’ll finish it some day” and “I must only work on story x, to the exclusion of all other stories or writing”–the latter of which is incredibly stifling to me.  And then I wonder why I don’t want to write.  So, I’m trying to ease up on myself and write whatever I want… while keeping in mind that I have Story X which I’d like to be working on if I’m so inspired.  In other words, I must write in order to write.  BIC.

—

* How do you spell that? Firefox doesn’t like fritata, frittata, or fritatta.  How about frittatta? No, that can’t be it.  Google + wikipedia tell me it’s frittata.

** I’ve discovered I really like braised chard, whereas kale tends to be more tough even when braised.

*** You can see her art at her website, but neither of the two I have are up there so I can’t show them to you specifically.  My mom is so prolific that the website doesn’t even contain a tenth of all of her art. If we included all of her drawings, it might not even be one percent.  So, the likelihood of me having one of those is pretty small.  :-/

† And with a new update, WordPress + LivePress will properly cross-post daggers (†) to LiveJournal, so my footnotes should go more smoothly.  Yay!

Mood:  cheerful

I was trying to paste in a radar picture from weather underground, but I seem to be having issues with firefox recently.   Is it just me, or is the latest firefox update crummy?

So, since my last post (which was what, 2 months ago? ack.), I’ve concluded several things.  First, there’s nothing wrong with my story, as such.  I simply had an important piece of information be revealed too early (on page 2) instead of later (oh, a few chapters later at least).  Changing that simplifies things a lot.  Second, the theme I was using doesn’t work anymore if I move that piece of information.  This is just as well, because the story wasn’t going to work as it was (I was going to beat myself up, not helpful).  Which leads to the third thing, which is that I need a new theme.  I haven’t figured out what it is, and I don’t think I need to have it figured out yet, but without a theme I’m having trouble figuring out which details need to happen and which are extraneous.

Just write.  Make these decisions later.

Yeah, that’s not working so well for me.  :-/  But it’s the weekend, so maybe I can make time for writing actual story, not just writing about the story.

ETA: ha, I got it to upload! I win!

Mood:  cheerful