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.

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

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.

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

High fantasy

On my other blog and on the science fiction and fantasy group on facebook, I and others have occasionally discussed changes in science fiction over the last generation; changes in definition, changes is audience and what's being published and how they impact each other. But as I think about the fantasy story I've been posting on this blog, I realize the same is happening with fantasy, to a degree. Fantasy enjoys far better success (and much of the more successful so-called science fiction is really fantasy in many respects, too) as exemplified by what makes it into tv and movies (and that's what most publishers are hoping for in the novels they choose, because that's where the big money comes in besides the stuff that makes it into the classroom as required reading). In some respects, old classic fantasy (including fair tales) are even staging something of a comeback. But like science fiction, it's all got a new, modern twist, being set in near-contemporary worlds and mixed up with contemporary fiction genre's (Grimm being a cop show, for example). Even Harry Potter is set in modern England, though some who aren't fans see the victorian-era garb and assume it has a historical setting).

I've seen and heard discussions of high fantasy as if it were still popular. It at least doesn't seem to have lost its definition as much science fiction has, but I'm not seeing any make it big. Am I missing something? For awhile, I saw quite a few books that might almost fit into it: pseudo medieval settings of elf-like beings or beings calling themselves elves (though they don't fit either the fairy tale or Tolkein definition that I can tell), but none recently. The closest that I saw get good billing was Dwarf or Dwarves. (The really cool helm on the cover is what sticks in my mind more than the name.

It would be sad if high fantasy slid into the obscure past, another lost genre, just when we have writers that let the women play cool roles in them. Women having cool roles was notably lacking in most of what I had been finding when it was more popular and it remains rare in the newer sorts of fantasy I've been seeing. I hope it's not a trend that every time a sub genre gets cool women characters, it fades out. I was encouraged to believe that women in lead roles was the in thing (since the guys don't seem to mind at all and the women certainly enjoy it). McCaffrey was billed as a trend setter in that regard, and a few other SF writers have had varying degrees of success with female or mixed leads (though none of them stick in my mind the way Menolly, Lessa, and Helva do) but it's not a trend that has made it to media and will only stay a trend if publishers accept it as such.

Christmas shopping lists

There are lots of ways to Christmas shop. I shop all year, finding it easier to find interesting gifts at unfamiliar stores when I travel. Toward the end of the year, though, it's time to be a little more organized and I start matching gifts to recipients, to make sure that I have something for everyone, and to make sure I haven't bought enough for a couple of Christmases. When the budget is tight, I check sooner. Give yourself a budget for gifts and stick to it. A "little extra" adds up rapidly over several gifts for several people.

The other way to handle limited financial budgets (or something to consider if not limited) is to consider whether it might be appropriate to spend time instead of money. Crafters say that the time it takes to make something is worth ten times the material cost of supplies, and the reactions of recipients often seem to prove the point, even for crafts that don't take much skill or training. It's like certain wonderful treats (one of the ones I like is ginger-candied orange peels, but it takes a lot of careful peeling to make a little pile of treats) that you know are a pain to make: you so appreciate the person who went to the bother of making it because it's your favorite! Since I've been doing a bunch of crochet this year, I became aware that crocheted and knitted things have become more rare in the stores, so a certain uniqueness value is added, too. Handmade Christmas ornaments might not get much use, but can be an annual reminder of you and your interest in the recipient, much more so than something purchased at a store. Time is precious. Spending a little of it on a friend or family members can make a great gift.

A Culture of Solitude

Cuani walked without seeing, the countryside around her empty of the people that could give her sight. It was a rare joy. The wind was a warm comfort against her face and set the drapes of her shield mesh dancing across her legs. She pulled the mesh, a shapeless dress of web-thin ceramic beads, off over her head and draped it around her shoulders, realizing that here she didn't need it. Here she was not inundated by the sensations and thoughts of other people. She could feel instead the reality of the nuanen farmland through which she strode.

"Stay on the road til there is no more road, if you really want to walk that far, then turn left. There's a driveway but it's kind of windy, and the house a bit up slope to the right. Hopefully they'll spot you if you can't find the house. It's open enough, but they might not be looking."

That's what the shuttle pilot had told her when she disembarked and asked for directions instead of a ride. The shuttle wasn't allowed in the farmlands, nor motorized vehicles, but buggy drivers could be booked in advance. Buggy drivers and hosts and empaths were all that were allowed. And her. Wherever empaths but not telepaths, wherever telepaths but not empaths, she could go almost always. But she had checked. The exceptions were rare but important. She hadn't bothered with the buggy driver. It was a walkable distance and she wanted to experience it without the encumberance of people.

The sun, she could feel, was already high overhead, warming her hair, her forehead, a little of one cheek. The mesh was keeping the sun from heating her shoulders, an unexpected benefit. Academically, she knew the mesh was a kind of temperature moderator, but that wasn't it's purpose, just a side bonus she forgot about in the already-controlled temperatures of the comm center where she lived and worked. Her legs, lightly wrapped by the thin overalls, were cooled by the light breeze, almost chill despite the high sun and she reminded herself not to pause in her walking. She would want to be there by the time the sun fell. Her luggage had been sent ahead with another buggy rider and she hadn't thought to grab a coat.

She took a deeper, cautious, breath, reminding herself that, though this wasn't the filtered air of the comms center, the odors might be better as easily as worse. She sniffed with her nose, took a deep breath with her nose, smiled her own smile with her own delight. Bread, she thought. Warm bread baked with flower petals and served with honey butter, perhaps, or, no, herbed butter. Sweet and savory herbs eaten on a picnic blanket with crushed grass underneath. She stumbled and laughed at herself with her own amusement. The eyes of people around her gave her sight, and the floors of the comm center were smooth unless someone had left a box or bag in the walkway, but she gladly gave up the sight they offered for the pleasure of knowing she wasn't smiling because someeone else was happy, her own feelings lost and buried by the joys and sorrows and frustrations and amusements of everyone around her.

She paused, made sure she was still feeling the grainy texture of the stone beneath her boots and that she hadn't stumbled because of shifting off to the shoulder or into the fields that would line the road to the farm houses. Yes, still road, and the soft feel of distance presences, the cluster of homes and stores and services around the shuttle dock, remained behind her. She lifted her arms to feel the air more fully, breathed through her nose again, and considered turning around just to dance in the emptiness of it all and the warmth of the sun and the cool of the air, but kept herself from doing so. Keeping to a straight line was relatively easy, getting on the right straight line again not so much. For just a moment she might dance when the hosts at the farm were close enough to sense, so long as they were happy to see her.



Fiction Friday Prompt: Use this phrase or sentiment in your story ” a culture of solitude”

Grimm

Saw it. Liked it for now but we'll see if they can keep it up. A little heavy on the almost-werewolf stuff as opposed to the other story elements of the Brothers Grimm stories, but maybe it will help the transition to have something that has been recently popular, as does the contemporary detective-story-like setting. Not brand new fantasy by any means, nor high fantasy (my favorite) but I'm always happy to see anything with strong traditional elements because it means things that were popular awhile back might become popular again and some of my own writings are not in the current pop themes.

I caught a glimpse of some other show last weekend that I thought was the same series but obviously it's a competitor, with strong similarities and distinct differences (that one seemed to switch between contemporary worlds and somewhere else in a way that this one does not, but I didn't catch enough of it to be sure. Often I've seen stations come out with shows and movie producers come out with movies that have such an obviously shared basis or premise that I wonder if they are two scripts based very loosely on the same book or story, whether someone writes a proposal like a back-of-book blurb and the stories are written based on just that much info, or whether its more like a writing prompt, where a phrase or statement is presented and everyone--at the conference or web site or whatever--is invited to write their own version. I get the challenge, I can see it in series at the same network - hallway chatter? A news blurb passed around the e-mail net that inspires? But when there are so many themes and premises and all out there, can't we get a little wider range of material to choose from?

Don't mix ink and clothes

Especially check pockets to make sure that pens are still not in pockets when the clothes are put in washing machine or drier. They sometimes survive the washer, but rarely the drier, and replacing clothes is always a bit hard on the budget. yeah, personal experience and periodic reminders...

Holiday Foods Cheaper

With the approach of the holidays, my mind always turns to food and menus. I like to try new recipis and experiment though the family doesn't always appreciate it and the bulk of the menu is usually family traditional. Still, the budget has varied and the food with it. Along the way, experiments and all, I've found some good tricks for serving festive and formal meals that didn't have to be expensive. Here are a few tips:

Hors d'ouvers (however that's spelled) always add something to the party atmosphere. They can be as cheap as "dollar store" ingredients or pricy, and it won't matter a whit to your guests: what matters is that you spend a little bit of time putting them together, preferably in several colorful combinations: crackers topped with cheese spread, some with an olive half, some with a quarter sausage slice will do nicely. Sliced hotdogs heated in barbecue sauce and served with toothpicks makes a nice hot alternative and give the host or hostess a chance to mingle with guests as he brings them around, still hot.

Basic foods "dressed up" will also add to the sense that you're giving your guests a treat. We dress up macaroni and cheese or other casserole foods by piling it into a baking dish (lightly oiled). We crush six or eight saltines with a little melted butter, and sprinkle the results on top. Bake for half an hour (forty five minutes if the cassarole was made ahead and is cold) to brown the crackers. Alternatively , dress up a bowl of mac and cheese with a sprinkling of paprika or a pattern of paprika and parsley for a pretty effect. Dress up canned beans by adding slivered almonds. The little added touches turn a common meal into something special.

Cheap meats can serve as well as expensive ones: the main thing is to cook them appropriately. Don't buy a cheap roast and cook it like a steak. The results will be unpleasant in all respects. Instead, cook it appropriately for a roast and present it on a pretty platter. If you do it as a pot roast, take the large chunk vegetables (we usually do quartered potatoes, small or halved carrots, and onion quarters with a pot roast, foil-wrapped baked potatoes with an oven roast, with thinly sliced onions as a flavoring on the roast itslf) and spread them around the side of the meat on a platter. Serve the broth on the side for gravy or save it as a soup base for leftovers and rice.

If you need to make several meals for guests staying over, you can keep them satisfied and your budget in control by stretching a soup lunch with the addition of rice, potatoes, or pasta. Pasta can be added directly to the soup (it will tend to turn it into a cassarole) or cream soups and thicker soups like chili can be served as a generous sauce over the top of pasta for a filling meal.

Jello can be made into an elegant dessert by making it with an extra packet of gelatin, cutting it up when it's firm, and mixing it with whipped topping and maybe fresh fruit. For a large group, use more than one flavor, make them separately, and mix the cubes together for a colorful treat. Alternatively, separate the liquid from a single flavor into two or three separate dishes, one of them them the serving dish or a series of individual dessert dishes. Chill the other parts only part way: whip. Add one to the serving dish in its new foamy state, stir whipped topping into the other third and put it on top of the rest for a three-layer dessert. It's the obvious effort to make it pleasing to both eye and pallat, not the expense of the dessert, that impresses friends and family best. (And a light dessert is all folks will have room for after a filling meal.)

Fiction Friday Drowning Sorrows

What is a sorrow, that it should be able to drown, I asked myself. A thing, surely, if only because it is a noun, but a thought or feeling cannot drown, surely? Yet the universe is a big place full of mysteries and so I set out to find a sorrow that could be drowned, that I could hold in my hand and place in the water or some other liquid and be shut of forever (presuming that was the purpose of drowning the sorrow).

I found sparrows and laurels and yellow things of all sorts, not quite getting the word right. I found memorials and reminiscences and monuments, and walls. Things that could be put into the water many of them, but not readily and only so as to make them wet.

I found sad people and melancholy, rainy wet days and people with their face lifted to the rain. I found people in mourning and people sorrowing for no reason anyone outside their own minds could find cause for.

I found tears and wrung cloths, wreaths, flowers, and spices, herbs and green plants and flowering plants and bight growing things, ease, relief, and cheer.... ooops, not sorrow that, surely, though one came from the prior and led to the next.

I wandered further afield and found empaths that could share sorrow as it suited them, or not, beings who used emotions as energy, troubles and tribbles and purring things offering comfort, soft things to soothe sorrow, and slow smiles and sweet wine, and .... ooops, not sorrow that in the end, either.

So I went home and read a newspaper and found that it was full of sorrows, death, crime, bad decisions, unwise choices, fates and fears and all the things that bring sorrow and I lowered into the sink and pushed it down and watched the soy ink blur, the paper go transparent. I pushed and pulled and the paper became as flakes of ash, fragile and weak and easily crushed and I tore it into shreds with a feather stroke and finally drowned the sorrows into nothing and mixed it into the soil and tucked it around a green, flowering plant and like all sorrows, it waits only a little time to turn it into melancholy and memory to make room for joy.

Okay, that one didn't quite make it into a story but the rules say don't edit, so here it is.

Try cooking again

We laughed at the recent news about food stamps and fast food that suggested fast food could be cheaper than eating in. Not if you are comparing apples to apples, and not if you are paying attention to what you buy! Fast food is cheap food. You can make a lot of hamburgers with a loaf of bread and a pound of cheap ground beef, but you can only buy a couple for the same price. (What, three dollars, maybe as little as two for a quarter pounder, times four for a pound of ground beef, so eight to twelve dollars for a pound of beef and a loaf of bread? Where are these news people doing their shopping? Is it ground filet minon?) You can buy several potatoes for the price of french fries, too.

Now, if you are eating better at home than fast food fare, that's different. In some areas, garden vegetables and even canned and frozen vegetables have gone up in price, but an entire can of green beans, peas, or carrots is still normally cheaper than any dollar menu item, and both healthier and more filling. A 2 liter bottle of soda might cost more than a medium soda but probably less than a large for twice as much. An entire dozen eggs is cheaper than any fast food breakfast sandwich and contains less salt and fat. Yes, fast food is cheaper than a steak grilled at home, but hardly a fair comparison. It's not cheaper than fast food made at home and fast food restaurants for more than an occasional treat aren't a wise choice for anyone on a limited budget or anyone trying to save up for something special.

stats, quilts, and other themes

I can look at some stats on both my blogs and generally do, and try not to let them discourage me. Sometimes they surprise me, like the several weeks that stats showed high readership when I was out of pocket with not means of blogging, followed by a sharp decline starting the day I was able to resume. So they were checking repeatedly to see if I had posted and the real number of readers was the small number, or they gave up just before my return? Lately my numbers on my other blog have been modestly high steadily, then dropped like a rock the last couple of days. Should I blame internet problems, the one day late post, or was it a comment on the theme?

In this case, the latter seems likely enough. I mentioned my 9-11 themed quilted wall hanging I made for a display, just a little thing but I tried to fill it with symbols, maybe a few too many, but collages are like that. Anyway, I know I regularly get a lot of hits from somewhere in the midEast, periodically at least, probably because ene is a word in some Arabic or related language, so maybe the reference didn't go over well. Or maybe some readers had been thinking I was something other than American and were disappointed I wasn't from wherever they thought I was from. But I don't know so I go on and wonder why I keep looking at the numbers. There's always the thought that maybe they will improve tomorrow... and the fact that the news likes to mention big numbers when some site, usually a video clip, goes big, which subtlely conveys the messages that numbers count.

Anyway, I intended to talk about symbology in writing and derailed myself so decided to mention it here. I like using symbols in my quilt and other art projects as occasion permits. i try to be aware when I see it (medieval illuminations are full of it but you need a manual to sort them out and figure out the story as if each mini picture was a hieroglyphic that told a whole story, or a language like they had on Star Trek Next Gen, where they spoke in phrases that were each a reference to a story with the apropriate theme for the message at hand. Sometimes I think the really great writer is the one that can invent such a reference and use it in such a way that the reader not only understands it but is ready to use it in their own natural speech, not even knowing where the word or phrase came from, but I don't think it's the sort of thing you can achieve on purpose.

It is, however, the ultimate sort of metaphor, and the primary way I can think of to build a verbal symbol, especially in a science fiction or fantasy, where presumably the world is different that that of the reader (ignoring magical fantasies and near-future SF set in the contemporary world): a reference to a story that is conveyed to the reader as a small story within the story or described in a sentence or two, an event with a name, a date with a meaning, or a flower or other object that plays a role in one scene to turn it into a symbol of that scene, and its use later. Such symbol goes unnoticed, but if they are there, the discerning reader will eventually appreciate them and they are a way to reward the repeat reader. More subtle ones can be built in with allusions to popular novels and books that the reader might be familiar with even if they can mean nothing to the characters. So, symbols are possible in the verbal arts as well as the visual arts, and like in the visual arts, they might need a translator, but I like to think the stories are the richer, however invisibly, for being there.

What do you think?

battle scene follow up

How was that for a battle scene? I have mostly been posting the story pieces and not commentary on their writing, but battle scenes always take more work than the rest, and I'm never sure they come across to readers as I intend. How was the pace, the feel? Over dramztized, too little tension? Too quick to feel like a battle? One of the typical pieces of advice that is hard to successfully follow is to develop a fast paced scene in fine detail, describing every moment, and generalize for a slower scene. Another piece of advice is to avoid all narration, to provide explanations for anything that needs explaining before or after, but the line between detail and narration can become blurred.

It's not saving if you're spending

Sale's, specials, and package deals often push how much the buyer "saves". In reality, purchasing something on sale is still spending. Saving means putting money in the bank. Sometimes the deals are really good: if you think they are, do the math, consider if you would soon buy it anyway: but if you wouldn't, don't buy. It's still money going out that you would otherwise have kept hold of. The trick with package deals is that they often include something you wouldn't buy normally. If the deal is so good that the things you would buy, ignoring that you get something extra, too, then it might be worth considering, but if you still have to pay some extra to get the extra, there is no savings, only more spending than you would have done otherwise.

Some changes to E-ships

I've been revamping things in E-ships even as I post and now some of the changes are going to impact what you read here. Not a lot, most of the changes are in parts of the story that I haven't posted yet, but Kurgan Brown's name is changing to Kurgan Umbago and the chapter breaks are different so the numbering may be just a bit off for the next post. It's not that any of the story is missing or repeated, just that the chapters have been renumbered.

I've never noticed a set pattern for chapter heading, in science fiction or fantasy any more than other genres, just that some people will do more than one scene per chapter and some won't. I do, generally, and don't like to have 50 chapters in a short book, and that makes it a little more of a challenge to know when to make a chapter break, but when I noticed that various other changes had created chapters that went on for more than 50 pages, I decided it was time to rethink the chapter structure. It's still a tad on the arbitrary side, aiming for 15-20 pages on average and once or twice breaking what would otherwise have been a single scene, but it seemed appropriate at the time.

If this leads to too much confusion, since you won't have the previous chapters to check back against for clarity, let me know and I can send you a copy of the new version of the preceding chapters of the book. More of the changes, however, will be in the flow and polish of the chapters to come and I hope you will enjoy them. Let me know if anything I'm doing makes it worse! Improvement is always a desirable change in fiction writing, never making it worse!

Buy the Right Thing at the Right Time

Often, the right thing to buy is the more expensive one. Food, not so much, unless you need it for something special, like a fancy dinner or a hiking trip where every ounce of weight and every day it lasts is important. We go to the cheapest stores that carry what we need for our every-day meals. but when we buy things that are intended to last, we shop with something besides cost in mind. We've done the cheap route, and for some products, cheap lasts as long as the more expensive and does what it needs to do, but for many things, especially gadgets, cheap can be expensive. Cheap appliances have to replaced more frequently, cheap furniture doesn't stay looking nice for long, and cheap bookcases having sagging shelves shortly for anything but paperbacks. So we looked for quality, too, and if more expensive means better construction, we'll pay the difference.

On the other hand, we don't buy the better one when we have one that works. Chairs wear, but they wear slowly. Only when we see that over time a chair is beginning to wear out and it's not something that can be readily repaired (chairs can be re-apholstered if the stuffing beneath is still good, but sometimes it gets mushed beyond fluffing or decays, or springs give way and start poking through. Then it's time to start shopping, but not necessarily to buy immediately. Watch for stores that have regular or frequent sales. Study the options so that you're buying something you'll like for years, not just something that looks like what you have now or fits the current fad.

If you like brand names, look for brand names with a reputation of reliability and quality, not fashion, double for appliances and tools, which can look identical but are worlds apart in the quality of the metal and other materials and parts. For things that move, look for metal. If plastic is the only option, look for plastic that is strong, with sharper turns and steep angles. Gears and zippers that are rounded and shallow are more likely to become unusable quickly, because they are made that way when cheap, weak plastic is being used to make them.

Periodically, even long-lasting things begin to deteriorate or no longer served the purpose you need them for and expensive purchases will need to be made, but if the purchase is done with thought and care, it will be a long time before you need to do a second time.

I've put the follower button up top of the side bar hoping a few more of my readers will let me know they are out there. I've appreciated the occasionally comment (statistics show that no more than one in a hundred readers will post anything) but on my other blog (about writing, without the stories) I can also see stats, and that gives me a feeling for how well folks are enjoying my posts (or not). If there's a way to do that on this one, I haven't found it, yet, or don't understand what I'm seeing), so the follower button tells me a little, too. When I started, I thought it would be a pain to sign up, but it turned out to be fairly painless, and for me that's saying a lot.

I haven't posted a reminder about the stories, either, lately, so thought I should: I periodically clear out older story posts from the archive only because it's the opinion of some fellow writers that stories permanently posted online are less likely to sell to some publishers, even though the online version is always far different from the final published version and even though it actually helps build a fan base in practice. Still, I realize that some readers are coming in late and I'm willing to send the whole story to date if you'll drop me a line. On the other hand, I've found the feedback of those joining in late without the previous parts of the story to be very valuable: a good story will tell itself even in the absence of prior knowledge, like a sequel, and if things aren't making sense after a scene or less, the scene's probably need some work and clarifying.

More chapters to come!

Easter Egg mystery

Exploring the web is always something I lose patience with as heavy graphics slow things down and graphics are popular. Still, a quick look before I back up to a faster page can provide a lot of information. Today I looked for egg dying methods and opted for onions, but a quick scan showed me lots of options for that, too, including free floating onion skins, different kinds of onion skins, holding them onto the egg with rubberbands, coffee filters, old nylon knee highs, and cheese cloth or fabric (it will dye the fabric too but may not be colorfast). I also came across references to adding shapes and colors with flowers and parsley tyed on the same ways. I'll have to try the parsley sometime, especially.

I opted for free floating, not knowing my family's reaction to seeing nylons in the pot, the kind of onions we had in the house (though the skins are rather pale) and have achieved subtle marbling and pale but pretty ochre for a color, and a question about how eggs are handled before they reach my house. About half the eggs I dyed have two very neat stripes of white circling them at about the third and two-thirds points of the height if you stand the eggs on end. It's kind of the effect, in reverse, I might expect of rubber banding if one were very neat and didn't cross the two rubber bands, but what would cause it in the trip from hen to kitchen? And do I want to know? Anyway, it looks like I went to a little extra work to decorate the eggs, so I'm not complaining.

Green on Fiction Friday

"Looks can be deceiving," Hammer quoted.

"Sure, but they aren't always," Lynn countered. "Look at the man. He's short, thin, green. Green. What else but one of the Visitors?"

"Well that much is obvious."

"What then?"

"I meant like his age," Hammer argued with a dismissive wave for Lynn's question. "You never know with Visitors. Maybe he's a grandfather, maybe barely past puberty. He looks like a forty year old human, mostly. Small but not particularly ugly to us but maybe other Visitors think him hideous. Maybe that's why he's standing in the cosmetics section."

"He's standing in the cosmetics section because it's the one nearest the door."

"So appearances suggest, but he could be heading out, or making a second round of the store."

"And still damp?" Lynn asked.

"Okay, that one's hard to explain. And maybe the green clothes are a fashion statement, so he's handsome, vein, and looking for hair highlights. Or coloring. I don't recall too many with green hair. Not too popular among the Visitors maybe."

"Hair? Oh, yeah, that is hair. I didn't think they had any at all, green or otherwise." Lynn peered at the man between suits on the hanging rack they were supposed to be straightening.

"Oh, yeah, that's why I couldn't think of what other colors of hair they might have. Let's go see what he wants. He doesn't seem to be making much progress in his shopping."

They walked over. Hammer had made the suggestion but he hung back and let Lynn do the talking.

"May I help you, sir," Lynn said to the man, wondering if the green visitor spoke English.

"Hey, yeah, do any of these skin cleaners take off paint? The painters outside just knocked a bucket on me and it's drying fast."


Prompt: the phrase "Looks can be deceiving"

Check out other stories based on this prompt at:
http://writeanything.wordpress.com/2011/04/08/fiction-friday-challenge-202/

OOOh, there are times I'm reminded not to talk to co-workers on topics that even border on politics. One learns things one would rather not. Politics not only come out, but people reveal too much information about other aspects of their life, as if the normally taboo subject of politics opened a door. Among other things, I'm always amazed to find out that people making a decent living at a full time job often still have outside jobs, apparently just to fill their time. I don't get it. Noe if they loved the work... well, I suppose they at least like the work, but to me it often sounds like work, not like writing.

Okay, I know plenty of people that don't get that writing isn't work, that revising can be enjoyable (it is, after all, the core of writing). So I suppose other people are allowed to enjoy things that I find to be work. Still, I wonder how many of them find it to be work, too, and just do it to fill the time, as it sounds. Are they deceiving themselves, unwilling to admit they like it (because it is seen as work and not pleasant by many and are taught to think of it as such). Or do they just really not have things to fill their time? I really can't imagine it myself. If my mind needs a break, I crochet or quilt (the quilting part is fairly mindless, not the designing part). If my hands need a break, typing and revising is less demanding than hand writing. If I get bored (unlikely but it can happen) and have a little energy left, there's always some corner of the house that needs to be pulled apart and cleaned and put back together again. (Did you picture a corner structure of brick or wood being pulled apart and reassembled with mortar or nails? I thought of that interpretation just as I finished the sentence; slang has its place, but it does not add clarity in content)

First Born on Fiction Friday

Fiction Friday challenges/prompts have tended to the contemporary, not always useful for science fiction and fantasy. I've occasionally made an attempt at contemporary stories for the challenge but rarely been pleased with the results. Today's prompt is (a longer version of essentially) famous people and the unusual name of their new baby. Well, the future and aliens have famous people and naming issues, too, so...

"You can't be serious, Kakkemoralin. Your father's name? He's a farmer. 'Jorlie' is the ultimate farmer's name," Jolo said with a chuckle, then rocked back on her nest to stroke the long blue egg beneath her. "Don't worry my precious, hes not serious."

"It was my name, too, and I'm no farmer," Kakkemoralin said, with a jaunty lift of his cockaded head. He straightened a nest twig, preened a colorful wing.

"You changed your name for a reason. If you must go with fathers, go with mine. Hafferolibin Nabarakkel, or Grandfather's name. Smorsa Inthicallicum," Jolo suggested, rolling the egg over before she settled back into place. She smoothed her shawl over her delightfully round belly, to be sure the smooth curve of it was obvious. One never knew when the newsies might peak over the nest box and grab a photo op of a starlet mom.

"You just want a two-part name because it will make him sound like a wide continental."

"We're on the Wide Continent, now. Wideway is the place for stage stars, after all. He should have a name that fits," Kekkemoralin argued lightly.

"Fine, then we'll combine them all, and my Grandfather's, too, Thallam. Take the first letters of each."

"You must be joking. It will be a nonsense name. He'll be a laughing stock."

"It's that or Jorlie. We can still make it a two-part name and everyone will know he belongs on Wideway or Sacredhill."

Jolo sighed, trying not to distort her face too strongly as she frowned over the notion. It could make for hideous photos, and the two of them, sitting together in their nest box should only be a beautiful sight. Besides, she had to admit it would at least be a unique name. No one else would ever have come up with such a combination of letters and think of it as a name. "Okay."

"John Smith it is," Kekkamoralin said with another shake of his proud cockade.

See http://writeanything.wordpress.com/2011/04/01/fiction-friday-challenge-201/ for other responses to the challenge

Ads and blogging

Well, I've taken my blogging to the next level as an experiment and applied for ads via adSense, a Google thing. The descriptions of the payment and pricing have gotten more complex than I remember, but it still promises to aim for ads that are related to my posts somehow, probably key words. In my experience, that probably means that they will be fairly useless. Writer blogs tend to get a lot of ads for vanity press publishing, in my experience, and I really discourage going that route. I've heard one or two people say they had some luck with vanity digital press, but mostly all that does it prevent the collection of hundreds of books that most books stores won't take, from what I've heard.

About the only vanity press type thing I might try is a family cookbook/scrap book affair such that you didn't plan on making money, only to give it as gifts to the family. There are companies that will even assemble the cookbook for you if you provide the recipis, and churches and other groups use them as fund raisers, but you have to watch really close to see how much they'll allow in the way of, fro example, family or other personal pictures, a useful index (some are useless, no more than alphabetized lists of the dish names, so Aunt Mary's cassarole will be right after Aunt Jane's cookies, but there's no listing of cookies or cassaroles except for the table of contents header) and other features that make it a cookbook worth the giving. For more effort on your part and the help of publishing software, you can probably do better on your own at Kinkos.

Anyway, we'll see what happens. I'm not sure how much say I have over size, location and such and I may dump it if its too obnoxious. One of the pages implied that I would have a lot of say or at least be able to select from several options, but I didn't find a place that asks once I started the sign up process so we'll see. I was pleased to see it didn't require a PayPal account or anything because when I checked out their website I found it hard to get any real information. They were so busy trying to persuade people to use their services that they made it hard for those already considering it to get the answers needed to make the final decision. NOT a good way to drum up business, especially for an already well-known dot com/brand. At this stage, they can afford to let word of mouth persuade, and focus on being a good, functional site, don't you think?

writing notes

I was going to post the next scene of E-ships tonight but encountered a problem: big bold notes in the text that say "character description here". I have a couple of characters to introduce and while they have been mentioned, the reader hasn't had a chance to meet them, so I need to write a few sentences to introduce them properly. I'll do that tonight and try to post the scene tomorrow. I've finished the quilting of the quilt I was working on and only need to do the border, which shouldn't take all evening, so it's just a matter of whether I get enough sleep to be conscious in the evening and remember my plans... I sometimes get carried away with writing, or with imagining scenes, that I don't get to sleep as early as I should.

I may have to invent a name, too. Some of my characters have no more than a role or title, like Colonel or Director, and as I introduce them I will invent their names, or at least a step toward a name. The names do change, like other things, but usually in the ballpark of where they started. In this case, the new arrivals on the scene need identifiable sorts of names, appropriate to the nature of the colony, which gives me almost too much variety to chose from, but we'll see. If I get desperate, phone books always have more fascinating names (including great alien names, without much change...) than you would ever guess!

Traditional Hand Quilting tips

These are probably the same tips available in any number of books, but lately books on hand quilting have gotten harder and harder to find in favor of books on machine quilting (typically long-arm machine quilting), and I didn't learn from a book but mouth-to-mouth, so I thought I would share some basic tips and reminders here.

If your thread starts to catch after awhile, use a shorter thread the next time. With tight weave fabrics, even the smoothest quilting thread can get frayed. Looser weaves allow longer pieces of thread.

If you are having a hard time getting the needle through the fabric, find a thinner needle. They are easier to break but work better while they last and a fractional difference can translate to a significant difference in ease of sewing.

Hand quilting patterns can be complex or simple: complex takes lots more time, too simple and widely spaced can lead to bunched up batting:
Cotton battings should be quilted with spacing no larger than about three inches unless they have a strong surface (and those will be stiffer and harder to quilt)
Polyester battings are typically less inclined to bunch but are also poofier and should probably have stitching spaced no more than 4 inches apart.
The spacing need not be even or consistent: alphabets and numbers on baby quilts, quilting that follows pictures are all allowed: just watch for large areas with no stitching and fill with appropriate patterns and shapes.

Shorter needles allow for more closely spaced stitching, especially desirable if stitching will stand out visibly (e.g., white on a dark, plain background, large areas of plain fabric, closely spaced stitched patterns, etc.). On the other hand, if the quilting is simple and merely intended to keep the quilt layers together for the duration, a longer needle will allow more stitches at a time and quicker progress.

Best Wishes to the teachers

Will it be a new era, or merely a minor spat as the citizens of America give up yet another of so many rights that we have lost this decade? Last I heard, the teachers had even accepted the budget changes, all to their loss despite their typically low state government pay (but nice benefits such as every full-time employee should be able to have). What they really want is to keep their democratic rights, collective bargaining, hard won and long accepted as a symbol of the power of the people, now so active in Egypt and its neighbors. To have it snatched away without debate (I smile with delight and offer encouragement to the senators,too, who delay the premature vote and aide the debate their rivals would end unbegun) is not democracy but short sightedness and the loss of yet another freedom in the name of expediency. Power to the teachers and the other state employees. Power to the people and to the remnants of American democracy.

side characters

I enjoyed incorporating the character Karinne into Beyond the Wall. I still have some difficulty in cultivating related characters in science fiction and know it is an inappropriate bias: the future, spece, the world of science, more "appropriately" has strong, intelligent, not-so-feminine characters as those in fantasy, where classic ladies in silk gowns, gentle manners, and all the actionable aspects of lady-like feminin flavor are almost assumed except for the worst or wildest women.

But really, we have some pretty feminine women these days with gentle, good manners, even if they can rarely lay the perfect table, and nervous as well as bold women. Why shouldn't the distant future? The question becomes, where do they fit? Mxyra in E-ships offers something of the question, but she is about as far as it goes in her world as I've built it, at least outside the mountains. In flashbacks, I could offer something of her fellow village women, and there's the Chancellor's daughter... easily sliding into the negative connotations rather than the positive, bright personality of Karinne. Karinne is one of those characters that fits her world well, I think: at least I can't quite picture her handling Mxyra's world very well. I wonder, though, is that a weakness for Karinne, or a problem with my expectations for the future?

Best Wishes to Egypt

I'm not a big news watcher, and these days my first thought is always, how distorted is the news from reality, still, the apparent awakening of the populace in Egypt struck me as classic democracy in action that I felt a desire to cheer when I first heard about it. It's never just the people all getting fed up with an out of date system all at once. There are surely triggers, though nothing necessarily that an outsider would notice or comprehend, but still, the need for change became recognized and thus we have a classic revolution, though it is unfortunate that it has turned to violence.

In some ways, I suppose that it is inevitable, though violence should never be. A man who has ruled for thirty years should be ready to retire, but no one likes to be pressured into change, especially into a change that feels like a loss instead of merely a change. the fact remains that no one can rule effectively for thirty years, even in middle management. The ivory tower at the top or even the upper windows of the corporation highrise, offers too poor a view of what is happening on the ground, and thirty years of memories, even if they are undistorted by time, convey nothing of the changes in technology, culture, attitudes, needs, and expectations. A leader cannot lead effectively a people that they no longer know.

A few years is typical, ten if the leader is a good listener and brilliant, but no one in a position of ultimate power can be effective for thirty years. If nothing else, being effective is typically exhausting unless there is a solid structure beneath doing most of the ruling and maintaining contact with the people. If that were true Cairo, I suspect there wouldn't have been more than a token protest, as a reminder, and the leader would have been more ready to step down to contented retirement long ago.

Names and things

Names are always an interesting challenge with fiction writing, complicated by modern naming practices (I named a character Mandy, thinking it an old-fashioned name, Amanda, but got many people telling me it was not only in common use (about half a generation later than myself) but had a character type in movies, not the association I wanted for a medieval peasant. I like period names, but peasant names aren't well documented, (unlike noble and educated names for which I have many lists to refer to and sometimes use, especially for minor side characters).

E-ships adds an extra measure of complication. SF allows a wide range of possibilities, but also interesting challenges: how do you name a ship with sufficient character to need nick names and unique references? And how do you have space-associated names without being trite (Andromeda has to go, I know, but I haven't settled on a replacement. Eventually I'll do a global replace for the full name and the nick name(s).) I've also named spacial phenomenon (much as planet bound travelers use rivers, interchanges, and other geomarkers as reference for where they go, but also giving names to the phenomenon type that I either made up or don't know a scientific name for), and had to create a pseudo military ranking system (The forces aren't exactly military... but police use ranks, too.)

That leads to another issue of naming - titles and ranks add not-always-desirable length to "full names" and another reference on top of names, nick names, and in this case ship identities. Many characters would appropriately use ranks as much as names so I tend to abbreviate, but I can't use the classic rule in non fiction writing - once spelled out, abbreviate. Readers unfamiliar with even common ranks (lieutenant) are not going to be comfortable with alien variations, so I try to spell out periodically, such as at the start of scenes or chapters. Knowing the right rate of use though... I hope an editor has a handle on it, and doesn't mind if my original pacing isn't quite what they have in mind for the final published version...

How do you handle naming?

short scenes and problem detection

I am always concerned about short scenes, especially when I have several in a row as in my last posting for E-ships. For one, I usually suspect that they are not complete scenes in themselves. For another, I like them to be more clearly stand-alone. The number symbols help, but when they are published, it's often just a line space separation and it has to be clear with the words that the reader has gone from one scene to another, one time to another, one place to another. Otherwise, the bit of dialog should probably be part of a more substantial scene, to incorporate that clarity. It is possible to get all the elements of a scene into a short space, but on rewrite, I will exam short scenes especially closely, and often find that they are missing a key element, such as clarity of character, mood, setting, or change/story progress. In many cases, they hardly achieve one much less all of the needed elements, though the rest were clear in my mind. Getting the writer's image to the reader though... always the ultimate challenge.

The reader may also have noticed that I'm missing some character and place names. I have a name for the chief of the ground crew, but have to look it up and forgot to put it in my list of characters, so that looking it up means scanning a lot of text to find it. The place name I don't have yet, and haven't decided even whether I need a place name or a better topic of discussion. Places that have no role in the story... usually that means the whole reference to them adds nothing to the story and needs to be replaced or dropped. Enough topics within the story are worthy of expansion that every single sentence and every phrase in a dialog can and should add depth, not irrelevancies, even if the reason for using it in a given scene is separate from the content, a means of conveying the nature of the relationship between characters, the nature of the business they are in, or some other element of the culture.