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26 Sep 09 – The LiveJournal Post
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This is the post where I apologize that I haven't blogged in a while.
As usual, it's not because I've been terribly busy. I have been busy, but I can usually blog when I am.
It's the normal problem I Have with this blogging: I can't come up with a consistent schedule of content that continues to inspire me, so I write about neat stuff for a while, then...forget. It lapses. Like anything.
Perhaps this means I should be more diligent about it, like I've been with writing. Or that I should relax and be okay with an erratic schedule.
But an erratic schedule doesn't feel right.
Anyvay. I'm at the New York Anime Festival this weekend, which greatly intrudes on blogging time. Moreover, I haven't been keeping good track of my expenditures for the past couple weeks, and I'm not quite done with my current book (Stanislavski's An Actor Prepares, which to be fair is 295 pages long).
Meanwhile, I've...actually got a lot to blog about, now that I think about it. Like my new baking business. Hmmmm.
I guess you can expect more blog posts soon!
17 Sep 09 – Bird By Bird
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The toughest part of writing is to keep writing.
It's easy to type merrily away when inspiration strikes. Ideas flow! Characters pop out of one's forehead, full-formed!
The question is, will you write the next bit tomorrow? And more the day after? And again next week?
An 80,000-word novel is a Frankenstein's monster of tiny parts added every day. Another five hundred words one day, maybe two thousand words the next. But this is accompanied by horrific surgery, as large sections are gutted and replaced with another few hundred words pulled from this bin over here, then carefully massaged and sewn into place.
So, a real writer writes. Every day.
I've heard of some writers who only write, say, once a week. I don't quite believe it. There's too great a chance you'll miss a day. Besides, this is like saying that, instead of running for an hour a day, you'll just run for seven hours every Saturday. The muscles atrophy, whether they're physical or mental.
How to find time to write? You make time. I set aside 9:00pm every day to write. If I'm laying in bed at eleven o'clock or midnight and realize that I forgot about it, I get up, go into my studio, and write.
I wish there were shortcuts. I wish it was easier.
But every day, I write. And I'm now several thousand words into this novel, and I have a grip on it. I can move forward.
15 Sep 09 – Making Things Talk
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Making Things Talk is intended for a specific audience, but one which I wish were bigger. It's aimed at folks who want to wire up stuff.
Stuff like motion-sensing stuffed animals. A doorbell that chimes every time someone visits your website. Real-world, physical objects.
But without all the hassles of soldering.
Enter Making Things Talk and the Arduino module, which you can plug into any computer with a USB port and program using a simple language. The book—written very well by O'Reilly—explains how.
If the above description fired off an idea or two for something you've Always Wanted To Make, this is the book for you. It starts at the very basics, assuming you're intelligent but uneducated about electricity, electronics, etc.
You'll need to spend a fair amount of time fiddling with small parts, of course, and a bit of basic equipment. Which is why I bought Making Things Talk as part of the Advanced Arduino Starter Kit (US $115), which comes with most of that basic equipment.
If you're willing to put in the time, you may find this to be a fun hobby—one that I've only begun to scratch the surface of—which provides a satisfying sense of accomplishment. At the end, you have something you can literally carry around and show off to your friends.
And there's a lot to be said for controlling and inventing your environment.
14 Sep 09 – Weekly Expenditure Adventure: Week 5
A month into my experiment in spending less! Let's see what this week totals:
| Saturday | $0.00 | ||||
| Sunday | $5.50 | Snacks | |||
| Monday | $114.23 | Candles, bird seed, plant bulbs, groceries | |||
| Tuesday | $17.42 | More groceries, cookies | |||
| Wednesday | $3.47 | Milk | |||
| Thursday | $10.07 | Dinner | |||
| Friday | $0.00 | ||||
| Total | $150.69 |
To be fair, I was at a wedding last weekend, so I didn't have to spend any money there.
What I find most interesting here is the large amount of money I spent on Monday, just on a $15 candle, $44 of groceries, and $53 at Home Depot. Without those, I would have spent practically nothing this week.
I'm also surprised that, for me, a day without spending money is rare.
8 Sep 09 – The New Thing
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The idea leapt into my brain and grew rapidly.
I've no idea, even now, where it came from. I do remember tweeting about it on 27 August.
As is usual with ideas, it was a synthesis of several things I'd seen recently and several things I like. I imagined a character like Max in The Road Warrior--serious, driven, quiet, living in a harsh world. I crossed that with Vampire Hunter D, which I'd read the first few issues of a couple months ago—a serious, incredibly skilled man thrown together with a fiery girl.
Which gave me the idea for a story.
I did what I've learned to do as soon as I have an idea: I write it down. In this case, in a text file on my laptop. I have probably two dozen ideas in there now, collected over the course of the past two years (a small number, really, by most writers' standards...but then, I've written little new in the past two years).
As I wrote down the idea, I fleshed out a few of the ideas that begged for detail. The man is a vampire, living in a post-apocalyptic world. The girl is a vampire hunter, initially, though she quickly passes the limits of her abilities, and the vampire protects her.
In other words, it's a manga. But written. It's a cross between Mad Max, Vampire Hunter D, and Twilight.
That makes me gag a bit, even just writing it out.
But it's the best idea I've got at the moment, and it's tugging at me to be written. So I'm writing it.
More to follow, God willing.
5 Sep 09 – Weekly Expenditure Adventure: Week 4
Here's what I spent on various expenditures this week:
| Saturday | $26.72 | Tea, flower bulbs, lunch | |||
| Sunday | $10.00 | Lunch | |||
| Monday | $0.00 | ||||
| Tuesday | $22.05 | Movie ticket, food | |||
| Wednesday | $12.01 | Dinner | |||
| Thursday | $46.89 | Gas | |||
| Friday | $26.00 | Lunch and checking a bag | |||
| Total | $143.67 |
Excellent! Much less than the previous week, even with the huge gas fill-up on Thursday.
1 Sep 09 – How To Cook
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I am a minimalist.
This is especially so in the kitchen. I haven't bought a new pot, pan, or kitchen utensil in 5 years. I just don't need to. I know the basics.
I have a slightly more eclectic approach to cookbooks. I believe in learning how to cook things in general. I don't follow an omelette recipe; I know how to make omelettes, and will incorporate whatever ingredients are handy and/or interesting to me in the moment.
As such, I recommend cooks buy The Joy of Cooking, and concentrate on that for their first few years.
But. An unusual cookbook can inspire the cook, and introduce an unexpected flavor or texture combination. A treasured few can do that, while beautifully illustrating methods of cooking that may be a bit too briefly covered in the venerable Joy of Cooking.
Such is the case with Delia Smith's How To Cook. I confess that I stumbled on this large hardback in a nearby cafe-cum-bookstore, just after sampling a deliriously delicious coconut cake. As luck would have it, this book had a recipe for just such a cake, and even better, it was on sale. So I bought it.
It's a lovely BBC production, a companion to a TV series, and the pages are laid out in an admirably clear, downright artful structure. It really shows you how to make an omelette, and roast a chicken, and prepare fish, and many other common kitchen projects, in addition to its many recipes (all lovingly photographed).
I'm trying not to lead up to a "you should buy this" finale. Does everyone need this book? Of course not. But it is beautiful and useful.
And of how many things in life can one say that?