milk11

I went to the beach with Ted, Dantzel, John and James earlier this month. We grabbed take-out Teriyaki and drove down by the water. The tide was mostly in, but after lunch we found a strip of sand to explore for a bit.








This picture makes me start playing the FF8 opening theme in my head.

In baking news, earlier this week I bought two large naval oranges for a dessert I plan on completing this weekend. I carefully separated the fruit from the peel and started preparing the only part of the orange that I really care about.


Mmmm delicious.

Then I had to figure out what to do with the boring inside part.



I ended up making fresh squeezed orange juice. Two large oranges only gets you 1 cup juice! Seems like a pretty big waste to me.

In gardening news, my pallet is starting to fill out nicely.



The sunflowers are doing really well, but the top two rows of flowers are taking their time sprouting. The rest of the pallet is looking pretty great. One confession though - the strawberry bulbs I planted earlier this spring never sprouted, so I bought and planted the healthy looking ones on the left side of this picture. The biggest bonus to buying them fully grown is that they started sprouting fruit right away.

I don't mind telling you that these tasted fantastic.

A few weeks ago I mentioned my attempt to replicate the vertical pallet garden that's been making it's rounds across the internet. I'm happy to say that I have achieved the first round of success! The process was a moderate pain but I'm more or less done with the hard part, and I'm pretty happy with its progress so far.



Sanding that sucker started out with the dream of rounded corners and polished slats, but quickly settled to just turning it from a splintered nightmare to a slightly less splintered nightmare. This model of pallet is pretty thin, but it still holds an inconveniently large volume of dirt, so planting was not exactly easy. But the plants are starting to settle in nicely. My balcony is east facing, but has a solid front, so I planted shade-loving flowers on the bottom two rows. The middle rows are ground-cover that should spread out over the next few weeks, and the seeds I planted on the top two rows are just starting to sprout. The pallet spent a week layed out while the dirt and roots settled, but I've got it fully propped up now, and completed it with a row of sunflower seeds on top a few days ago.

 A few days ago I was perusing the nearby thrift store when I spotted two nearly new springform pans (the ones with the removable sides used for cheesecakes). I looked up several ideas for what to use them for, and lo.

My sister asked me why I never update my blog. I think the real answer to that question is that I put too much emphasis on quality posts or something like that. I obsess over wording and what to include or not include, so that I can present the best possible posts about how I wrapped my Christmas presents? My life is not glamorous enough and my subjects not narrow enough to warrent blah blah blah here's a post.

I had really awesome weekend plans that got hijacked. I was going to spend yesterday finishing my pallet garden. Earlier this week I picked up the required pallet, and was going to spend time sanding it down a bit. Then I I just needed dirt and various plants to stuff it with. But Friday I started to feel sickish and by that night was full on diseased. Saturday morning I sat around for a while, then thought I felt a little better and managed to get dressed and go to Dantzel’s baby shower. After that i was going to gather the required dirt, etc and get started but changed my mind and spent the evening playing more Portal 2. I still don’t really have the energy to do anything except huddle in front of my computer playing video games - the one week where those wasn’t actually my weekend aspirations.

Super quick life recap: Last month Ben and I moved across town for cheaper rent. I've been taking social dance classes on weekends. Last week I went to Sakuracon, which was a lot of fun. I got some good cosplay photos which you can see here, and I wrote down some general thoughts on it here. End life recap. 

Well. Time to go unlock some more Portal 2 ‘chievies.

In one of very few holiday traditions we've manage to retain for several years, during the week after Christmas my family gathers all the magazines in the house and attempt to cobble together posters symbolizing our goals for the upcoming year. Sometimes it's difficult to find pictures specific to the resolutions you've already set, but we often we find it much more entertaining to work in reverse - find a really great picture and hastily add it to our list so we can work it into the poster, such as "dump a bowl of salad on someone's head this year," or "put a picture of an octopus on my resolutions poster" (true stories). Near the end I'll usually just do an image search for the rest of the goals I want to add. I clipped most of my poster while on vacation but just finished pasting together the last bit of it. Presented, without comment.

 Hooray! January! The holidays are over! How were yours? Mine were pretty great, to be honest. In addition to a sweet vacation, I learned a lot of deep and important lessons, which I will now dispense.

A) Fog is weird.

If you were to rank bad weather like you rank D&D monsters (as I so often do), slick icy roads would be like a lvl 12+ dragon. Snow a lvl 8 pack of wolves, Rain lvl 5 giant spider-crab. Light fog is like a lvl 1 sewer rat who dies of being really impressed when you karate chop it in the head. 

That being said, Fog is still pretty creepy to drive through when there are no other cars on the road. Weirder still is how all it all the sudden lifts and then thickens wherever and whenever it wants to, like letting a kid play with a dimmer switch for the first time. But if you're going uphill and manage to break out of the top of the fog, that is the weirdest. It's very suddenly clear, and behind you is this big wall of white, billowing around like it owns the joint. Seeing a giant white lake behind you, and then realizing it's not actually a lake, is one of those moments where mother nature blows your mind. But let's be honest - if I was water and could choose to form airborne ice crystals that float around and defy the laws of gravity, I'd probably rub it into everyone's faces too.

I grabbed these not-very-good shots of the lake-that-isn't-a-lake on our roadtrip from Washington to Idaho. Trippy.



Moral: Fog can easily scale up to like a lvl 6 monster if conditions are right.

B) The true meaning of Christmas Economics.

I used to think that Christmas lists were lame, and that if you really truly knew a person well, you should be able to just get them the perfect gift that they didn't even know they wanted but would really really love. But economists has proven me wrong! Every year the economy loses millions of dollars in value during the holidays. If you spend money on a present someone doesn't really like, your money is out of your wallet and no one is benefiting from what you got in exchange. Even though the purchase stimulated consumer spending, a loss of value is still pretty detrimental to the economy. The Planet Money Podcast did a whole show and article on the subject, available here.

The moral is: Embrace the Christmas list, and don't feel bad about exchanging that thing you don't need. For the good of the global economy!

C) Just call me MC Philosophy cause I am a master wrapper.



Close-up! Pew pew!



Martha Stewart would be so proud.

The moral is: All this work has already been torn to shreds. But that's why I own a camera.

D) Resolutions (are) for Dummies

Of course I have New Years resolutions. Really awesome ones. But there were two items I stumbled across during the selection process that caught my attention and helped me pare them down a little bit.

Merlin Mann of 43 Folders has always hated New Years resolutions (I propose that, just as Scrooge and Grinch have becomes names synonymous with Christmas curmudgeons, Merlin becomes the name of those who refuse to get into the spirit of New Years. I.E., "Bob refuses to wear these stupid plastic 2011 sparkle glasses. What a Merlin he is"). He wrote another tirade on the subject this year, using Seinfeld quotes and pancake metaphors. The gist is, stop being so depressed that you always fail at your resolutions. Set modest goals and keep resetting as often as you have to. This is pretty good advice, but I still think New Years resolutions are fun, and that Mr. Mann is being a total Merlin.

Right in line with Merlin's advice was this delightfully simple "How To" guide to forming new habits by BJ Fogg of Stanford University. I ran across it on the Planet Money blog. Looking back, most of my (few) good habits were picked up by accident through this process. I'm prepared to try it out consciously this time and see if I can't streamline the process any.

The moral: If at first you don't succeed, don't worry. The world is going to end in Dec 2012 anyway.

Guess what my brother and I bought at Big Lots? A really lush and vibrant faux christmas tree? No, we bought this instead.



It's certainly not the worst tree I've ever seen, but you should have seen it before we had any ornaments on it. Depressing.

Current Word Count: 52,676

It's been a bumpy road, and a bumpy novel. But I made it! 50,000 words in one month.

I started this project with absolutely zero aspirations towards publication. I didn't even plan on coming up with a bit of prose worth sharing, but truthfully I'm actually kind of proud of my rough draft! I'm taking a break in December, but I'm certainly planning on editing the thing in the future. I'm toying with the idea of releasing the whole book at once sometime next year, or maybe weekly serial chapters as editing progresses. The time to beg me not to is now.

There are lots of things that turned out better than I though they would, like how much I ended up liking my leading lady, Valerie. When I first started, she was a little lacking in the personality department, but it developed pretty solidly over time. The same is true of Gregor, who I was worried was going to really annoying me as a cocky son of a gun, but become a solid character with plenty of quirks and weaknesses pretty quickly. Also he made for a great dude in distress near the end there.

Some of the passages I started writing with no clear outline turned out pretty exciting, and I discovered that I really love writing action sequences. There are still tons of stub paragraphs and notes for things that I need to go back and change eventually, but it's great to have so much of the brain-to-paper done. The editing towards a final, coherent draft is going to be a lot of work, but I think I'm up for it.

I've grown so fond of the idea of having a rough-and-tumble creative goal for the month, that I've started a new blog dedicated to such foolish future projects. It came about due to several different merging thoughts I've had recently, and realizing I was going to dominate Nano this year was the catalyst that inspired the solution.

Jack Artist 

(If the design of the site annoys you, you are not alone. I'm looking to change it immediately Meh, the new on is ok for now I guess.) I've already posted a few extra excerpts from my story over there, so if you found those entertaining check it out. I also plan on posting a more in-depth look back over there in a day or two. Feel free to bookmark it, but I'll probably put up a notice here whenever a major post goes through over there. This blog will continue to house random junk re: my life.

For the rest of you who pariticpated in NaNo this year, how'd you do?

The word count has finally caught up with me. At the halfway point in the month, my novel is 23374 out of an expected 25000 words. I've been doing my best the past few days to catch up, or at least not fall too far behind the curve, but I've had to resort to all kinds of trickery.

I'm finding that what started out as simple narrative is fracturing faster than expected. I had a lot of the basic story elements mapped out before I started, but as things flesh themselves out, I've got a lot of loose ends hanging. I'll write plot element A, and then plot element B, and then get to plot element C and say "oh shoot this only makes sense if I tweak A, which means I'd have to alter B slightly. But I like B, so maybe there's a better way to structure C?" Occasionally I'll think up some brilliant plot advancement, only to realize it came after an hour of analyzing character motivations and researching ventilation systems online, for a grand total of 150 words per hour. I don't have time for this junk, man! I have to keep writing!

On top of that, I keep hitting exposition sections I just don't want to do. Basically everything that's not an action scenes, dramatic reveal, or romantic tension. I finally started burning through them by writing "narrative" paragraphs that are basically summaries of stuff I eventually want to go back and write. I've also gotten in the habit of writing myself author notes before or after a scene - comments about what needs to have been extablished by this point, or clarifying actions or character traits I probably failed to convey. It lets me stream-of-consciousness my way though short burst of writers block, which is nice. I admit it's a little cheap to add them in the wordcount, but eventually all of those exposition paragraphs and notes will (potentially) be tranformed into full-on words that will take up more space. But for now I have this kind of thing scattered all over the middle section of my book:

Note to self: This entire scene needs to be reworked. My original vision for the scene had people running, and most importantly, alarms buzzing. Valerie is like “don’t leave me here dude” cause she knows she is surrounded by untrustables. Maybe he is all like “I’ll send <spoiler> to find you! :D” and she is all “D:”

"My original vision." Wow.

But between it all, i'm still fleshing out honest-to-goodness scenes with details and dialogue and everything. Not GOOD scenes mind you, but something. Let's see... shall I leave you all with a random unpolished excerpt of something I wrote recently? I DON'T SEE WHY NOT! 

She wondered briefly if it would be a breech in etiquette to use Gregor’s shower, and if she wouldn’t be better off running back to her apartment, but she quickly decided she didn’t care enough tonight to worry about it. Gregor’s apartment was empty, and truthfully still a little creepy, but the hum of the thermostat and the sound of Gregor’s breathing in the next room was enough of a difference for tonight. Tomorrow she’d worry about reclaiming some personal space.

She showered quickly. She’d finally felt a little relaxed when she woke up, but the stillness of the room was making her nervous again. After wringing out her hair and putting her pajamas back on, she returned to the hallway. The door to Gregor’s room at the end of the hall was open, and she inched her way towards it. He was asleep, face up on the full-sized mattress. One arm rested above his head, but the other was turned down clutching the sheets, as if he was trying to catch himself from sliding off the bed. His breathing was low and even. She found the sound soothing, but felt uncomfortable just standing there staring at him. He swallowed loudly and turned his head to the side, as she backed out of the room and made her way back to the living room.

With nothing else to do, she sat on the couch and unlocked Gregor’s phone, poking around his contact list and phone features. She wondered if she’d be able to dig up any embarrassing information on him, but he didn’t have much in the way of social apps or government secrets that she could find - just a small folder of games, which she played for a while before drifting back to sleep.

 I know none of you asked me to post more excepts from my terrible NaNoWriMo entry. You're all too nice for that. Not wanting to put pressure on the budding young genius. I appreciate it. But I have heard your silent wishes and have decided to force upon you another selection of raw talent. You can thank me later by asking me to autograph your printed copies.

Writing action sequences is hard! But also a lot of fun. With a clear picture of where the scene is going, it's easy to breeze through a few thousand words. The problem though is all the action. Though they tend to be awesome in movies, action sequences are some of the hardest parts of novels for me to follow. I didn't want to overdescribe things until it was impossible to keep up, but I also didn't want it to come across sounding like "Steve ran into the warehouse, set up the bomb, and then it exploded." I re-edited the below selection a lot before posting it in an attempt to make it make any kind of sense. Success = hopefully?!

We join the story already in progress, as one of our heroes finds herself alone and in a desperate situation on the rooftop of her apartment building!

As the Running Man yanked her head backward, she brought her arm around with all her force, stabbing into his left bicep. The knife didn’t piece far, but the attack had caught him off guard and he let out a loud yell. He instinctively flung her away, causing the blade to slash through the wound, and blood began to flow. She hit the ground on her side and the knife fell from her hands. Clutching her stomach, she pulled herself up to a kneeling position, but he recovered faster.

As he staggered to his feet and stepped towards her, the sound of a gunshot rang out clearly. Valerie watched as Running Man clutched his right shoulder and screamed, then slumped back down to the ground as blood began pouring from the wound. Behind him, Gregor stood in front of the rooftop’s open doorway.

Blood was visible on the side of Gregor's face. He lowered his gun and rushed forward, saying something to her as he neared, but the sound of the helicopter was deafening and she couldn’t make it out. He held out his hand and she took it. She stumbled as he pulled her to her feet and he reached out to catch her, but before he could she let go of his hand and pushed away from him.

After catching her balance, she turned away. Spotting her gun near the edge of the roof, she made her way towards it, limping more than slightly. The helicopter spotlights flashed on as she picked it up, blinding her. As the noise grew and blood continued to pound in her ears, the feeling of exhaustion returned. She leaned forward, placing her hands on her thighs, trying to catch her breath.


Current Word Count: 14,162