Month: May 2016

Every Sunday, Peter M. Ball hosts a “Sunday Circle” over on his blog for creative types to weigh in and talk about what they’re working on, what’s inspiring them, and what they’re hung-up on. Typically, I comment directly over there, but this time, I thought I might post it here, too!

I slacked off last week and didn’t post a Sunday Circle, so this week, I’m going to get it up early before I get overrun by Sunday and whatever madness it holds for me.

What am I working on? Finally got to a place in the novel WiP’s extended outline that feels like a wrap for Act I, so I’m hoping to move on to Act II this week. I’m really hoping this next sequence of scenes doesn’t take as long as the first set did, but it’ll take what it takes, I suspect. I also want June to be the month I get “Ribbon & Key” out into the world, so I need to continue the out-loud read-through and smooth things out.

What’s inspiring me this week? Just rewatched Batteries Not Included with the kiddo yesterday for the first time in probably about ten years. There’s this distinctive Spielberg-esque quality about it, and while I’d never say it’s not a flawed movie in some respects, the humanity of it really blew me away. There’s something about this kind of movie (the mid/late 70s/80s SF kid-friendly flicks about ordinary people encountering extraordinary things that underline the ordinary-life problems and theme—particularly quantified by Cocoon, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, or Batteries Not Included) that really resonate with me for some reason. They’re not special people, or beautiful people, or even really “chosen” people to a certain extent. You get the impression that this story could really happen anywhere, to anyone in the right place at the right time, it just *happened* to occur to someone who really needed it to happen to them (maybe more than you needed it to happen to you). The speculative element is central, yet somehow the importance of it is adjacent to the real problem, which is always a human, ordinary problem. The spec fic element just makes it more fun. It’s a style and a tone that I realize I’ve been chasing in my modest attempts at sci-fi, to recreate that NORMAL bumps up against ODD, that’s almost more in the vein of the modern contemporary fantasy or weird fiction, just without the pseudoscience. But I really love it, and rewatching the movie and how much my son (who’s almost 2) enjoyed it, makes me long for more movies like it. I’m not sure there are many being made like this anymore, which makes me a little sad.

What am I avoiding this week? The re-read of the short story. It all feels like a horribly cobbled together Franken-beast loaded with thin imagery and flat sentences and weighted down by a whole lot of Meh. But I know I can liven it up at little, at least, if I just give it the time. Problem is, I just never seem to have much time anymore, and what time I do have, I don’t want to spend sitting around glowering at this particular text. It’s just a matter of giving myself a swift kick in the pants, which I’m pretty sure I can do, and I should have a bit more time in the evenings after Tuesday, so that’s something.

It’s been hot this week, a foreshadowing of the coming summer. Three days where it’s hit 90 (or so close to it with humidity you wouldn’t be able to tell it was 89). We’ve never had air conditioning, but we broke out the window fan and have had it going full blast the last day and a half. It helps a little, and at least at night it cools off tolerably.

It’s late, and Andy’s finally on his way home, so I’m looking forward to an evening of craft beer, chitchat, and maybe an episode or so of one of those goofy, ridiculous, 20 minute shows–Reno 911/Raising Hope, possibly. I got Andy the full series of Reno 911 for Mother’s Day/Father’s Day as something short we can watch even on nights he gets off late (and it’s a show that seriously makes him guffaw, which if you’ve ever seen his stressed-out face lately, you’d know he needs more than anything!).

Writing-wise, it’s been an OK week. I think today I finally kicked down a mental wall I’ve been struggling with on the Act I extended outline for the current novel WiP, and that feel pretty good, anyway, even if I can tell the first chunk is waaaaay too long for an estimated 80k book. Oh well. I’ll worry about that later! At least it’s progress.

Contemplating a blog series, maybe “vegetarian” food oriented (though not necessarily “healthy” food, since my list currently involves S’mores Brownies), or I saw a list of 30 brief writing prompts that might be fun to challenge myself with just for shits and giggles, but we’ll see. No decisions on that yet. I’ll think about it over the weekend and maybe do some brainstorming. I tend to like it when blogs are more casual, like a public journal or writing progress tracking. (I absolutely adore Cherie Priest’s blog, and have borrowed its form before in the past.) So I’m not entirely 100% on the pre-planned, organized posting. But I’ll think about it. An ABC’s of Writing with Kids might be funny after I read Life Among the Savages…

We’ve had a bumpy start to the week here at Chez Slater. The ohpityme’s are out in force for no particularly good reason besides inexplicably chapped lips* and a toothing toddler, which is annoying in and of itself. We’re on Andy’s last week of U-Wards, so life will actually get easier come June, and “The Behemoth Beaches” (out with Apex this past week) has received good reception, so I really can’t complain. Maybe it’s the weather, or the remnants of saying that final goodbye to one of our fluffy friends, or maybe I’m feeling U-Wards coming to an end, and just like at the end of a semester when all of a sudden you get the flu because you’re not so stressed out: wham! Could be. But I’ll try not to dwell on it. :)

*Damn You, WebMD!

I do not regularly check WebMD for any medical advice. One too many times in the past, it’s said that some isolated minor symptom (headaches in the morning, for example) is probably cancer. I knew better than to check it for pregnancy/baby advice (good lord, I definitely don’t need that kind of stress!), and it’s rare I check it for anything now.

But I was searching for info on chapped lips, because–what else does one do when chapstick doesn’t seem to be helping? A WebMD article pops up on common easy treatments. I think: ok. This is probably fine. I mean, seriously. It’s chapped lips.

WRONG. WRONG AND IT’S PROBABLY CANCER. O_O Anyway, lesson learned, Internet. Lesson learned.

 Magical Frozen Chewsticks of Joy

Little Guy has been toothing. It seems like he’s always toothing (or at least, that’s the explanation 95% of people give us whenever he’s being a grouch), but this time, I think it’s for real. He’s drooling, naturally, and chewing on his fingers and barely napping (when he naps at all) and is generally one teeny, weeny straw (say, a Duplo block not *quite* fitting where he wants it) from completely losing his mind in a delirious rage-fest. It’s been a delightful few days.

Today, however, I feel like I just leveled up as a mom. I had noticed he liked carrot sticks, because he could really jam them into the back of his jaw and nosh on them for a while, so using my big adult reasoning skills, I think: hey…what if they were cold? Like, really, really cold? Like freaking frozen so he could nosh on them for a while and get a good dose of chill on those evil, evil back molars? So I tried it. AND IT WORKED. He chews on them and eventually spits out the very well masticated mush of carrot (because he likes chewing things, but not necessarily eating them -_-), and he’s happy as a clam. Seriously, I would have tried this days ago if I’d thought of it then. He’s so cheery! And when he’s done with one, he asks for another, and then he continues to be cheery. In fact, sometimes he just likes holding the mushy carrot in his mouth for…like…an hour. (Gross.) But he’s still smiling this great, orange smile, so WHATEVER WORLD. He hasn’t bitten me all day! HA! #momlifehack

In Which Outlining is Nothing Like a Bullet Train…

Watched this cool video yesterday with the Little Guy about super fast bullet trains in Japan. SO COOL. So fast and sleek and smooth… So very unlike my week’s start to writing. It’s always tough picking up on Monday, the gears just don’t shift out of first like they should, but it was all the more frustrating because I was legitimately excited to get started this week. I had decided on a big cut out of the current WiP’s working outline to even out the tension in the first act, and while I was stoked about it this weekend, when it actually came time to chop it out and fill in the gaps, I ran smack up against a mental wall. Muddled through it a bit yesterday, and then switched to rereading “Ribbon & Key,” which I’m still only about 40% to “I don’t hate it,” so that wasn’t much fun, either, though I did make a little decent-ish progress. I’d love to have it out to markets by end of June, if I can.

Today went smoother–the Little Guy napped for about 45 minutes–and I made some progress on filling in the outline, though it’s still slow going. Ah well, it can’t always be fun and games, can it? At least I got some time, that’s all I’m saying.

OH MY WORD, I also finished reading Trees, by Warren Ellis last night. It is fabulous. Just–the core concept alone is so much fun, and the worlds and characters he paints are incredibly gripping. Definitely worth checking out if you get the chance.

Over and out for now!

Back in 2008, my dad was diagnosed with MS. This is not a pity post, but you need to start there to understand the driving force behind the family’s epic push to find healthier ways to eat. Around that time, and for most of my childhood, my family had eaten pretty well. We always had a salad and another veggie (usually peas/corn/beans of some kind) at every dinner, we ate a broad variety of foods since my mother enjoyed trying flavors from around the world as a way to keep cooking dinner an exciting prospect, and we were moderately active. I think we always assumed we were about as healthy as we could get.

Then came 2008 and the diagnosis. Nothing changed immediately. My dad has relatively mild MS (or “mild,” in that he’s only slowly losing the mobility of one leg and doesn’t have debilitating flareups), so although he still had his “T-Rex Walk” as we called it–the walk he adopted whenever we’d walked more than a mile and he started getting tired–we didn’t see or make a whole lot of changes.

Fast forward to 2012. Dad’s still progressing slowly, but my parents decide to stop his MS medication, because the depression side-effect of the medication he was on (and the general discomfort of every-other-day shots) was worse than his periodic (and still mild) flareups. The depression really took a toll on him. While I worried about the decision to stop the medication, I can’t say it was a bad decision when observing my dad’s drastic improvement in energy, interest, and proactivity. But not taking the medication did mean they felt more responsible for his health. My mother had read The Wahls Protocol by Dr. Terry Wahls, and so around 2013, they started really upping their vegetable intake (I think Wahls recommends 9 cups or something wild like that).

They’ve since moved away from the Paleo idea, but the vegetable increase stuck because it did have unexpected positive health results (which I won’t go into here in detail, but if you know what Metamucil is for, you get the drift). I lived with them while I was pregnant with the Little Guy during Andy’s final away-rotations in med school, so I got the benefit of eating a lot more vegetables, too. There are some notable perks to predominantly eating vegetables (or even just a lot more than usual). Besides the above mentioned improvement, you also have fewer “hangry” moments (which I was life-long accustomed to) because your blood sugar doesn’t drop off so fast after a meal. Yes, as one first starts eating a lot of veggies, you get crampy and uncomfortable, but if you keep eating veggies rather than stopping (as I used to do in college, thinking I was allergic to the industrial salad dressing, etc.), it actually passes completely.

Then came along the Human Microbiome Project and The Good Gut by Drs. Justin and Erica Sonnenburg. My mom really got into this, and for probably six months it’s all we heard about. (To be fair, I also process by talking, so beware when I get fixated on something!) Also pro-veggie-fiber. During this time, my mother also came across some studies (it may be mentioned in Wahls’ book, too) that suggested that dairy protein may be linked to MS flareups, given the similarities between dairy protein and the myelin sheaths around our nerves (a part of our bodies MS drives our immune system to attack). Then came In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, and most recently The China Study, also supportive of vegetable-based diet and (at least in The China Study) low milk consumption.

*GASPS FOR AIR* So. All this long, long, long documentation of how the heck we get to today: I’m not going vegan, and neither is my family. But we are making a concentrated effort to eat a more vegetable-based diet, and reduce our milk consumption. It’s not an easy process, even coming from a family that has always valued making our own food, healthy-eating, and moderation in all things. I’m definitely not convinced that any specific diet is “the key to all health” because that’s nonsense. That said, eating more veggies has done me no harm, and actually has done me some good, so I’m glad to continue experimenting. We don’t “slip up” and eat meat; we do still eat meat occasionally, particularly if we’re going out to eat (which, honestly, we shouldn’t be doing all that often financially, anyway!). But we’re trying to move towards a lifestyle in which we consume meat/cheese-heavy/sugar-heavy products mostly when celebrating big events (birthdays, holidays, etc.), and rarely in between. We’re not there yet, but I am trying out more vegetarian recipes at home, so periodically, I may post something we found tasty that happens also to be veggie-heavy.

So at least for now, we’re going vegetarian-ish, but with a little wiggle room. :)

Since I’ve recently re-embraced my tendency to read multiple books at once (for more on poly-reading, see NPR’s interview with Julia Keller), and because I adore Kathleen Jennings’ Books Read, Things Seen series of blogposts, I thought it might be fun (and, because I enjoy accountability, useful) to periodically check in with what books I’m actively juggling, and how much progress I’ve made on any one of them. I figure this will help me avoid biblio-deadspots, wherein I ignore an “in progress” book for months before thinking “Oh yeah, I should probably finish that one…”

Accountability is useful.

So! As of today, I am currently reading:

Status Update

(Okay, if I’m being honest, I haven’t technically started the graphic novel, Trees, yet, but I intend to–possibly today–so it’s on there for now as “imminently reading.”)

The Glass Sentence — Chapter 4 — I started this one as an audiobook, but for some reason it just did not grab me in that format (and actually, left me frustrated, bored, and angry when I did listen to it), so I’ve switched to reading, and by “switched,” I mean I’ve decided to read it, but haven’t actually picked it up since I returned the audio-copy to the library. I’m not sure what it is about this book that I’m finding to hard to get into. I was really, really looking forward to it (it’s been on my to-read list for over a year), but I’m just kind of meh about it so far. I’m still holding out hope that it’ll pick up soon. [[LIBRARY]]*

Osama — ~5% on Kindle — Just started this one a weekend or so ago after finishing The Devil’s Making, which I also read on Kindle. The Kindle’s great for bathtime reading, but lately, bathtime has been fraught, so I haven’t made much progress. That said, I am IN LOVE with this book so far. Tidhar’s prose is so fluid and simplistically elegant–it just…flows, you know? I have a feeling this is going to bump up to CHOICE READ shortly…

The Buried Giant —  Chapter 5 — I’ve actually been listening to this one for a week and a half, and it’s fabulous so far. It’s a long story, so Chapter 5 doesn’t seem all that far in, but I’m making steady progress on it, and am really enjoying its quiet pace and sense of myth and history. Will have to renew it soon–hopefully I’ll be able to get it again!

A Right to Die — Chapter 8 — I always love me a good Nero Wolfe novel, but this one has been less than engaging. I’m not sure if it just hasn’t aged well (white men dealing with/trying to comprehend the racism of the 60s), or if it feels a bit dialed-in by Stout. Not sure–it may pick up later.

His Captive Lady — Chapter 2 — Just picked this one up last week. I haven’t traditionally read much in the Romance genre (other than once through the first Outlander book), but Anne Gracie comes pretty highly recommended, so I figured I’d give it a shot! I meant to get another of her books, but the library didn’t have it, so figured I’d just jump in. I’m withholding judgements so early on–thus far there’ve been a lot of “devouring gazes,” but I’m open to seeing where it goes. [[LIBRARY]]

How to Suppress Women’s Writing – Chapter 9 — Over halfway through this one, and it is, without question, my CHOICE READ this week. It contains so much food for thought, even in how some things have changed, and others decidedly haven’t, for female authors. The first chapter was a bit of a shock because within pages, I practically wanted to shout “YES! THIS IS MY LIFE!” It’s been very interesting, though there are places I feel like the analysis gets a bit muddled, but nothing’s perfect, I suppose. Still, a very interesting read. I’m hoping to have this one done within the coming week. [[LIBRARY]]

The Cat Whisperer — ~60 pages left — I skipped around in this one, focusing on the cat behavioral issues I was dealing with at the time, so I’m going back now to round-out the experience and read through some of the sections not directly pertinent. I was looking forward to the Aggression section, because Oz often expressed aggression towards Mei, but now without Mei it’s less important. I’ve been stalling on this book for months now, simply because the advice offered in the Peeing-Outside-The-Box section was actually really helpful, so it hasn’t been as urgently front-and-center. (I’m apparently obsessed with dashes-for-extended-titles, too…)

Sputnik Sweetheart — Chapter 5 — This is my other CHOICE READ currently, because seriously, did you think I’d go more than a few months without reading a Murakami novel? HAHAHA, yeah, no. I’m enjoying this one for the same reason I enjoy any Murakami novel–the sense of place, the thoughtful/brooding characters, the cultural references to books/music/etc.–but it hasn’t quite swept me off my feet like 1Q84 or Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki or Kafka or Windup Bird did. It’s also rather light on the weird/speculative element I enjoy in his work, but that hardly precludes it from being an enjoyable read, as always. :) [[LIBRARY]]

So, that’s it for now! I’m sure quite a few of these will be on the list the next time I check in, because the one problem with poly-reading is that it makes me slow to complete things. :) It’s always something, right?

___________

*[[LIBRARY]]–Just an indicator to myself so that I remember which ones I really need to put pressure on finishing, because otherwise I’ll run out my renewals and have to bring it back before I’m ready. The ones I own are probably more likely to suffer a slowdown based on how many library books I’ve got checked out at any one time.

Well, this week has been something of a mixed bag, as you’ll see.

In Awesome, Exciting, Fantastic News

My short story, “The Behemoth Beaches,” is now available for free reading at Apex Magazine! I’m so excited about this finally seeing the light of day (or at least, the light of day for folks like me who can’t always buy an issue of a favorite magazine). This story means a lot to me, written in the throws of sleeplessness at 3AM one night while pregnant with the Little Guy, outraged and inspired. I hope you enjoy it! ^_^

In Awful, Bad, Rotten News

Tuesday night, we had to let go of our sweet, charming, darling Mei. She hadn’t responded to the appetizer stimulant the vet had prescribed, the thyroid test was negative (so no easily treatable issue), and putting in a feeding tube and performing the other tests would have been rough on her. We were all there, though I stepped out with the Little Guy during the final stages, but Andy–whom she loved more than anything–was there with her. He says it was very peaceful. She was a ripe old 18, so she wasn’t a kitten, but we’re still a little emotionally shellshocked that this was the end, and that it came on so fast. She was my muse. She used to sit on my lap quietly while I wrote, only occasionally tilting her head up with a chirp to let me know she was still there, waiting for a kiss on the head. I’d pay my muse’s fee with a peck between her ears, and then she’d be content for another ten minutes before politely requesting another.

We’ll miss you, Mei. There’s a hole in our lives that’s you-shaped, and it aches. Rest in peace, Princess.

One of these days, I’m going to get better at updating regularly. Things have been rather crazy here at Chez Slater, and the crazy’s not over just yet. But the coming of summer is much welcomed, and I’m looking forward to generally nicer weather for the foreseeable future. There’s little I enjoy quite as much as reading in the evenings with the windows open and a cool breeze spilling into the room around me. Mmm, simple pleasures. :)

But, as for the update:

Twin Bullets

So we’ve been having cat trouble lately. Our 18 year old darling Mei started throwing up constantly on Friday, and I took her to the emergency vet that night. They ruled out any blockage or foreign object, but we’re still waiting on some blood tests to see if it might be hyperthyroidism. We’re kind of hoping that’s what it is, because at least that’s treatable and we can *do* something about it. As it is, she’s still nauseated, won’t eat, and is generally sluggish and sad. We’re doing what we can, and we can get her to take the nausea meds and antibiotic the vet prescribed, but otherwise, we’re worried. Obviously, she’s a pretty old lady, and something will eventually get her, but we were kind of caught off-guard by the abrupt change from the Healthy Cat to the very sick one. Poor girl.

As it turns out, in freakish trivia, when the vets took x-rays of her to look for blockages, they discovered that Mei has TWO BULLETS in her body. Just there. Under the skin. Hanging out. WTF?! We adopted her when she was about twelve out when we lived in Oregon, and in the past six years nobody’s ever noticed/mentioned it before, no vets, not the adoption agency. We’re floored, to say the least. And they’re not buckshot or BB gun pellets or anything, either. They’re like .22 bullets. The vet said they don’t appear to be causing her any problems, and that the scar tissue around them is really old, so it probably happened when she was a young cat. We had suspicions that her brother had been adopted off the street (he’s got a clean notch in his ear), but had assumed from the adoption center that Mei had pretty much been an indoor cat her whole life. Apparently not! Poor darling! She’s a warrior princess. The vet pulled up the x-rays to show us, and it’s really one of the weirdest things I’ve ever witnessed. It makes me want to see her pull through even more. :(

Whole Lotta Green

In trivial, less exciting news, we’ve been battling our dirt-hole front yard, and as of this past week we’re starting to see some baby grass coming up at last! It’s been so embarrassing living in a duplex with our half of the lawn looking like total garbage, and every single other neighbor’s house having lovely lawns. I’ve never been one for pesticides/fertilizers, so we’re just doing seeding and watering. I don’t even care if it’s all crabgrass, just so long as there’s something sorta grass-like to mow occasionally. At least then maybe the lawn companies will stop leaving advertisements in our door… >.O

Tearin’ Up the Pages

Not literally, but I was super excited to see that I’ve kept up with (and surpassed!) the general reading goal to tackle five books a month so far this year (since Feb). I’m already over half as many books as I read last year, so I’m stoked. Upping the number of books I read a year has been a major personal goal for me, so I’m thrilled to be making progress on that front. It certainly helps that it plays in well to my tendency to poly-read 8+ books at a time, *and* encourages me to finish them, too! Right now, I think I’ve got six on the docket, but I will say I’ve been eyeing some crime books lately, so who knows. I’ll probably start one of them soon, too. (Though if I was smart, I’d pick something off my own bookshelf which is loaded with “to read” books!) Hmmmm…decisions, decisions…

Also managed to get a start on the YA/fantasy novel WiP extended outline this past week and made some great progress. It feels fantastic to work this way, so I’m going with it full-throttle. Not sure how long it’ll take to get through it, but I’m highly motivated to work on it, which is a delightful change from the more typical slog.

Free Fiction!

SF Crowsnest did a nice review of Apex Magazine #84, and my story, “The Behemoth Beaches,” will be released for free reading at Apex Magazine this coming week (May 19th), so if you haven’t read it yet via mobi/epub subscription, definitely check it out! :D

Every Sunday, author Peter M. Ball hosts The Sunday Circle over on his blog. It’s essentially a spot for creatives of a variety of forms to check in with each other, encourage each other, and it’s a great place to hold myself accountable for personal creative goals. I’m chiming in a little late this week (Peter and the crew are mostly located in Australia, so being way over here on the East Coast means the Sunday Circle for me is more like The Late Saturday Night If I Remember On Time Circle), but here goes!

What am I working on this week?

I’ve been cheating a little this past week, stepping back from a word-pruning project to sneak away into a new novel outline, but I’ve been having a ridiculous blast. And for the first time in weeks, I feel like I’m exploding with ideas! So I’m going to let that energy continue by indulging in the outline process, while also being a responsible writer and getting back to the edit at least ten minutes a day to make progress.

What is inspiring me this week?

Two things, completely unrelated, actually. First, as the warmer weather looks like it’s going to stick around a bit, I’ve been obsessed with lawn maintenance (our lawn is a dirt hole), landscaping (dead bushes), and–in particular–SCRAP GARDENING. Once upon a time, I’d been hoping to have a nice veggie garden, but the financial stars aren’t quite aligning this year for something that ambitious (and, you know, I have about 0 experience points…) So instead of investing in something we’re not even sure we could handle, I’ve been having a ball playing with replanting/regrowing veggie scraps. Our kitchen is now cluttered with various growing things, which is a lot of fun. I’m sprouting a mango seed, a bunch of grape tomato seeds, and an avocado, in addition to regrowing a romaine lettuce head, an onion, and a fistful of scallions (which are doing quite well)!  (Also included a photo of our prolific lemon tree (which currently has about five lemons on it!) It’s just been so satisfying to see things I’d ordinarily throw out or compost coming back to life. Love the green in the kitchen, too!

On the writing front, I spent this past week reading through K.M. Weiland’s Structuring Your Novel, and Outlining Your Novel, which have really gotten the mental cylinders firing. I always take writing advice books with a healthy grain of salt, and there are things–of course–that didn’t resonate with me as much in both books, but I culled several thought-process tools and clarified some structural concepts I’ve struggled with in the past from these books, so I’m happy! Now to see if these new approaches can help me through the next novel draft… :)

Oh! And a third thing: Neil Gaiman’s Ocean at the End of the Lane. I’ve been listening to it as an audiobook, and I’m absolutely in love with the Hempstocks, the mix of realism and magic, and the creepiness Gaiman can conjure from totally unexpected things. I’m enchanted by this story, and it’s been fun to listen to it after picking up a few structure concepts from the other books and seeing how naturally those elements play into the story. Very cool.

What part of my project am I avoiding?

Ugh, the editing project. I’m hitting that point with it where I’m just…bored. I can’t see its potential. I can’t see any of its strengths. It just seems blah and cliche and dull and the writing seems flat, flat, blah, blah, blah… It’s one of the reasons I stepped back from it for a few days (I’m not on a deadline for it, so there’s no rush). Sometimes a little distance is what I need to get energized enough to jump back in. Hopefully starting back up in small doses will help ease me back into it.