Friday, December 30, 2011

Fiction Friday - I Resolve NOT

This weeks challenge is dedicated to anti-Resolutions: 10 creative things that we resolve NOT to do in the coming year. Here are 10 of mine:

1. I will not teach my cat to cook chicken with her warm tummy so that she can have that for dinner and I can save a few minutes every day for writing.

2. I will not spend half the year crocheting a full size christams tree complete with all the ornaments and light chords so that I can unroll it and be done with holiday decorations in one step.

3. I will not go to the mall to hire a five year old child to sit at my table every holdiay so that I have an excuse to bake and decorate more holiday cookies and candies.

4. I will not turn into a political activist raising money to persuade Presidential candidates to give everyone a dollar back on their taxes for every plastic bottle they reuse in the construction of a foot rest.

5. I will not invent a means to get food to leap from cans and packages into the oven to become full course home-made dinners.

6. I will not write a six volume collection of recipes and how-to guides for every craft and dish I’ve tried or want to try in my lifetime so that no one will ever have to write a how-to guide ever again and the bookstores can be filled only with fiction.

7. I will not write a billion-dollar smash hit book and movie series guaranteed to make the new generation forget LoR, Star Wars, HP, and Dr. Who..

8. I will not turn the room full of fabric into a chimney-to-basement quilted house cover to pretect the house from every kind of weather and everything else that can go wrong with this old house for the next decade.

9. I will not travel to every country and state on my still-havent’-but-want-to list so that I can settle down at home thereafter and never need to face travel security again in my lifetime.

10. I will not buy the ultimate hand-held computer with all the gee-wiz gadgets and apps, including all the unlimited monthly services needed to make it work, only to find out that someone else has invented the must-have replacement at half the cost.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Where to from here?

I've discontinued posting my science fiction story here while I do some major rewrite, and the fantasy story is heading toward the end of volume two. Along the way' I've gotten the distinct impression that trying to read a fantasy novel one scene at a time over months isn't what readers are really looking for and this one hasn't garnered enough interest for anyone to comment or ask for it as a larger sections, so I don't currently plan on trying to post the next book, at least until I've taken a new look at (I've finally gotten away from it long enough to look at it with fresh eyes) and probably vastly revise and update it.

Would readers be interested in the revision process? Links to book reviews? I do lessons learned and writer's challenges on my other blog, but how about writing props, grammar advice, more basic discussions of writing besides just science fiction and fantasy? Any preferences? I'll probably start playing with ideas as Beyond the Wall winds up. If you can't post comments, you can e-mail suggestions to wyverns @ earthlink dot net

Friday, December 9, 2011

Check the dollar store first

Each 'dollar store' (The Dollar Store, Dollar Tree, Dollar other things... even different stores in the same chain) has its own selection, and quality is a definite consideration prior to purchasing, but for things where quality is less of a concern than that something functional be on hand when needed, a dollar or similar discount store can cut costs by a third with no other impact.

I find this especially true for party things. It's amazing how much party supplies can add up. A good party store is more likely to have exactly what you want for the perfect presentation and a very specific theme (It just has to be dinosaurs), but they often have unnecessarily large quantities and the the dollar-type stores sometimes have plenty that fits an appropriate theme, especially if all that really matters is that the holiday or celebration be right (I's not cool to have "over the hill" balloons for a kids birthday party, for example, or birthday napkins for an anniversary, but maybe it doesn't matter if its Thanksgiving turkeys or pilgrims or just fall colors). They may not have pirates, but they might have bright colors or clowns or something else appropriate for a birthday, and napkins and paper plates to match.

What they most often lack is large quantities. Occasionally they might have several packages the same but there's no guarantee. They are not a store for buying in bulk. Another thing they are good for is storage and presentation containers. When you are giving away cookies, for example, it's nice to give them in a container that the recipient keep, even better if it one they can keep. If they are only for one person, maybe a fancy tin is worthwhile, but if you have a lot of people to give cookies to, and you want them to appreciate the cookies more than the container, a dollar store might offer reusable containers (singly or two or three at a time depending on size and type) as cheap or cheaper than the grocery store disposal containers that have recently become more readily available (to the dismay of "green" supporters and environmentalists). They might not have the exact style you're looking for, but the recipients don't know what you have in mind and the dollar store's are likely to have something in the ballpark of what you need. Let the cookies take their attention. That's where you put the effort.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Shifting things around

I've moved my gardening and cooking notes, especially cooking notes, to my other blogspot blog. You might be able to navigate to my home page but in case you can't, it's at http://enefood.blogspot.com

This week I'm participating in a blog tour for a book - Corus the Champion, a teen/young adult fantasy novel by D.Barkley Briggs. Its Monday through Wednesday and one of the Monday posts has a list of other blog participants if you'd like to learn more about the book and get other opinions. It's posted at my blog that is mostly how I write stories and information for writers - http://home.earthlink.net/~wyverns