#103: Hug the Internet
If I ever want to REALLY waste time, there are two places I love – tvtropes and cracked.
Warning: NOT suitable for children (but probably okay for most young adults – a lot of very unpleasant things get mentioned, especially on cracked, and some rather MA stuff is shown on occassion).
Warning: You will be sucked into a never-ending vortex of informative hilarity.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AirplaneOfLove
And from geekologie.com (which I highly recommend), another killer robot:
How zombies feel
ie hungry for braaaaaaaiiiiiiinnnnsss
I’ve finally begun my brave attempt to recover the healthy weight I’d reached before the epic schmoozefests of August/September. Today is day three. The hunger pangs began at 11am on day one, and the blacking out (when I stand up from sitting or lying down) started yesterday, and will continue for a few days. The stumbling with fatigue began today. Yep, it’s a typical diet. My self-esteem and sense of purpose is lifting fast, so – assuming nothing at all breaks my concentration – all is well.
I don’t know how much weight I gained as I held myself together by sheer force of chocolate for weeks before and after the conference. I’ve said five kilos elsewhere, but I know it was probably more than that. I don’t dare weigh myself, at least not until I know I’m doing a little better.
In two weeks and two days I’ll be going to visit my sister. There will be a LOT of chocolate for those eight days. I’m glad to have this window of opportunity to regain some ground – and seeing my sister is far less stressful than paying loads of cash to try to suck up to people I don’t know (which I won’t have to do again as an unpublished supplicant for several years, if ever).
I do feel like curling into the fetal position until then, but that just shows I really am losing weight. Here are two pictures that say everything that needs to be said. The first represents what I was eating every single day for weeks. The second (diet coke and a corn thin with avocado) represents my daily snacks at the moment. My meals remain exactly as they were.
And that, for me at least, is how it’s done.
S#91: Signature Cocktail
“Pull all the liquor bottles out of your cabinet and line them up on the bench. Now, go to the fridge and pull out all the liquids and fruits. Do the same with the pantry. Now, line up all your shot glasses and start mixing! You’re searching for the perfect signature cocktail. This involves lots of taste-testing. Be daring, be crazy. Give your drinks a wacky name.” -steffmetal.com
Here’s what I found:
Alcohol: Cask cooking wine (red), butterscotch schnapps, blue curacao, and a rather strong ginger dessert wine.
Mixers: Milk, lemonade, diet coke.
Good ideas: Lemon juice, vanilla essence, honey, cinnamon, nutmeg.
Bad ideas: Custard powder, sweet soy sauce, glucose syrup, 3/4 dodgy banana from several days ago.
I screwed my courage to the sticking-place and started with the red wine – mostly because I don’t like it.
Step one: Taste wine. Result: Still don’t like it.
Step two: Add butterscotch schnapps. Result: instant stomach cramps.
Pause.
Step three: Add lemon juice. Result: Coughing, sticking out of tongue as if to scrape off the taste.
Pause.
Step four: Carefully heat glucose syrup (the stickiest substance known to man) in a small dish until it’s actually a liquid.
Pause.
Sigh.
Step five: Realise putting glucose syrup in the delicate wine glass will almost certainly result in destruction (or glucose highlights to every future drink from that glass). Instead, as the glucose re-thickens (highly reminiscent of the Terminator, fyi), pour the wine over it and mix as well as can be hoped.
Sigh. Roll eyes. Wrap the resulting mixture around the end of a spoon and eat it.
Result: Very like a sour lolly with 90% of the flavour surgically removed.
Conclusion: I don’t drink. . . wine.
Name of creation: Savignon Blerg.
After a brief recovery period, I moved on and blended together the banana, milk, custard powder, and more schnapps – with a sprinkling of nutmeg on top. It was like drinking a banana milkshake, eating a butterscotch lolly, and enjoying a flour-top bun, all in one harmonious mouthful (it’s the raw custard powder that gives it the sense of a flour-top bun).
Conclusion: This was a win.
Name: Naughty Picnic.
I moved on to my next adventure, which I’d already named “Black and Blue”. See what I mean?
Step one: Try some blue curacao. Result: It tastes of blue. Like really, REALLY blue. Sweet and fake as a girl you pay to be your friend.
Step two: Feeling tender, you add vanilla next. Vanilla goes with everything, right? Result: Wrong. So very wrong. One extra iota of sweetness was more than Miss Blue could handle. I like sugar, really I do, but this tasted like sugar after it had been thrown up for being too sugary.
Step three: Hastily add coke. Coke will make it better. It has to. Result: It did. Who knew? Coke – especially diet coke – has such powers of disgustingness that it can absorb almost anything. Bizarelly, I think it tasted better with blue curacao and vanilla essence in it, as if they filled in the blanks taken out when it became a diet drink. Odd.
Ah, if only the tale ended here.
Step four: Add sweet soy sauce. Result: The drink suddenly has a meatiness to it, as if it wasn’t quite solid before. The soy sauce, while adding to the cloying sweetness, gives the drink a dark and brooding presence, much like Sauron’s enormous burning eye in Mordor. . . watching. Waiting. Killing.
In this metaphor, the vanilla essence represents the friendship of the fellowship (the one small good thing), the blue curacao represents the false/fragile goodness of the parts of Middle Earth where the killing hasn’t started yet, and the diet coke represents Sauron’s power – omnipresent, all-consuming, and Just Not Right.
Finally, I moved on to arguably the riskiest endeavour of the night: the ginger wine.
Step one: Gird loids.
Step two: Taste ginger wine.
Step three: Feel manly for not coughing this time. Congratulate self. Wish CJ had been in the room to see.
Move on.
Step four: Heat honey in microwave until it’s very runny. Mix with the ginger wine. Result: Just like that, the sucker punch of the ginger wine appears to be neutralised. It’s more like those lemon and honey concoctions grandma made when you had a cold. Realise you put in too much honey. Move on.
Step five: Add lemonade. Result:
Pause.
Step six: Sip it again. And again. And a bigger sip.
Pause.
Smile.
The darn thing’s delicious! It’s like ginger beer! The experiment has yielded a positive result!
Yay for ginger winebeer. I have a friend called Lee, so I named it Ginger Lee in her honour.
Step seven: Sprinkle cinnamon on top. Result: Meh. Better without, but it’s still delicious.
Step eight: Call CJ. Smile ominously as he tries everything. Smile proudly as he enjoys the Naughty Picnic and Ginger Lee.
Conclusion: Win and win.
I apologised for putting too much honey in the Ginger Lee.
“It IS like ginger beer,” he said happily. “Made by bees.”
I put more wine and lemonade in it, and he drank some more, but said he really liked the honeyer version. Then he discovered more honey in the bottom of the glass.
In more ominous news, I saw “Predators” last night (I say “saw” – in reality I watched perhaps half of it, and had whispered conversations with CJ about what was going on the rest of the time). It was quite stressful, and I was quietly impressed.
Then I came home, and it was night, and I had to take the rubbish out.
I moved the wheelie bin near our front door for easy access, glad that we recently replaced the sensor light out the front.
I went and gathered all the rubbish.
I opened the front door – and RIGHT THERE BEFORE ME was an animal face looking at me from pure darkness; pure black pupils and white fur and silence.
Darn cat sat on the darn wheelie bin waiting for me until the darn sensor light turned itself off. (But WHY?!?!)
And with that thought, here’s today’s killer robot, and yes it really is from geekologie.com (a site I now love – go look at them and you’ll see why):
S#34: Krieg up your wallet
It was steffmetal.com that inspired the project of awesomeness you see before you. Which is interesting, since Steff Metal is primarily a heavy metal blog, and this. . . isn’t.
However.
Here we are.
To this day, I’m not entirely sure what krieg is. (Perhaps, given my musical taste, that’s the point.) But I have a notion Tim Burton is krieg.
So here’s my new wallet (and some daisies. Are daisies krieg?)
And here, celebrating another day in the life of everyone’s favourite killer robot cat, is something from geekologie (I think – I really should check that), that is krieg, brOOtal, and trOO):
Maybe being krieg has more going for it than I realised.
“Killer Robot Cat” story so far
1
My new cat Fi finally arrived. It’s amazingly cute and fluffy considering how long it took me and the house PC to put together.
Fi has a bell (even though it’s programmed not to hunt), so when it fell down the stairs just now I heard, “Tinkle, thump, fizz.” All good.
Fi fetched a piece of junk mail for me. Good kitty! My phobias prevent me leaving the house, but it’s okay now my house is so high-tech.
2
I woke up last night to see two glowing red eyes. Fi must have thought I was ill, since she was pawing at my face like she was concerned.
Just think – if I’d stopped breathing, Fi would have known right away! How reassuring. As soon as I woke up she went and ate her din-dins.
3
I started wearing Fi around my neck as a white and tortoiseshell scarf with my yellow dress. It nibbled on my neck and purred. How cute!
More junk mail, so Fi went again. I always feel sure that a horrid monster will jump out at me if I walk to the box. Silly, right?
4
My postie, Bec, brought this week’s personalised mail over – she knows about my condition. Fi wound around her legs and almost tripped her.
Bec scowled: “I don’t like cats.” “It’s not a real one – it’s a robot. It’s so realistic it even eats meat!” “I don’t like robots, either.”
5
I laughed as Fi stalked a magpie outside. Then she climbed the tree and ate three baby birds. I ran to switch her off. My PC said, “No.”
I yelled, “What do you mean? Switch off the cat – it’s malfunctioning.” “You’re not well,” my PC said, “and the cat and I are here to help.”
OK. My cat is a killer and my house is a patronising git. I swear there was an override program somewhere. In a minute, I’ll remember where.
6 – SWITCH twitter and facebook!!!
Logged on to twitter with my USB and found out the house had posted a death notice for me. Oh, that can’t be good. But facebook is still OK.
7
Woke up with two fluffy paws across my mouth and nose. I punched the cat across the room and it didn’t stop for a second. It wants me dead!
I grabbed a shoelace and dangled it until Fi’s cute files took over and she batted at it. When she rolled on her back to play, I ran.
I’m in the bathroom. The electronic lock refused to work, so I wedged a chair against the knob. All I have is my laptop and USB modem.
8
Every so often Fi walks past (tinkle tinkle) and scratches at the door with her reinforced-steel claws. I know my days are numbered.
It’s just toying with me, like a cat playing with its. . . oh. Its food. Robot cats still enjoy feasting on the flesh of their victims.
9
I had an idea, and turned on all the taps. Perched on the toilet, I called, “Here, Kitty Kitty Kitty. Come see what I’m doing.”
Fi didn’t respond. I found an email in my inbox: “We’re not stupid, meatwad. Love, your automated home care centre.”
I left the taps on, hoping. But after three hours, I slipped and fell. With all the electronics around, the shock knocked me out.
10
I awoke sopping wet, with a badly burnt foot. The PC had been kind enough to cut off my water supply. Good, but uh-oh. I needed food, too.
I heard purring, and was almost certain it was the soporific purr of Fi in napping mode. So I crept from the bathroom to the kitchen.
I grabbed as much food and water as I could, then tiptoed back. Suddenly my PC turned my ipod on. I ran. Fi smacked into the door behind me.
11
I saw Bec pause at the mailbox as usual. She always glanced at the house as she put my mail in, daring me to get it myself before Saturday.
This time she didn’t look up. She put a large parcel in the box and rode off without a wave.
Bec knew – and she’d given me something. All I had to do was get it. I began to shake just thinking about it. Plus I’d have to get past Fi.
12
Bec dropped a postcard at my mailbox. I noticed the back of her bike was empty of mail. She was ready for me to leave the house – to flee.
I didn’t go. It wasn’t even the fear that stopped me. I was mad. My cat and computer had taken MY house, and I was going to take them down.
13
I waited until I heard Fi’s sleeping purr. She couldn’t change her programming – but I could change mine. I climbed out the window.
The grass tickled my feet and I almost laughed aloud. It was strangely comforting to know that a monster really could leap out at me.
I got the parcel and crept back, squeezing through the window. Take that, robots! Then I hyperventilated until I passed out.
14
Still shaking. I hoped the box could tell me how to shut down Fi and my home PC network. It didn’t feel like books, though. And it sloshed.
I ate raw two-minute noodles and beef jerky. Fortified by my meal, I opened my parcel. It was matches. And petrol. Lots of petrol.
15
I woke up smiling, and it took me a moment to realise why – robots can’t smell. Suddenly I wasn’t shaking any more.
I spent all day planning how to burn down my house. I soaked toilet paper in petrol, and soaked that into the walls.
Fi scratched on the door without stopping. She wasn’t playing any more.
16
I saw the crack in the bathroom door the instant I woke up. Time was running out. Fi was purring loudly, watching me as she clawed the door.
I poured petrol on Fi’s head. She shook herself, and almost bit off my finger. I just hoped she didn’t wash herself like other cats.
[much later]
The door broke. I kicked Fi against the wall and ran, making for the living room. We charged around the living room, kitchen, and hall.
17
I stomped and kicked and hurled myself away from Fi’s snapping jaws, growing more exhausted each hour. My strength faded fast.
Fi collapsed. One of her eyes blinked red, and I realised she was low on battery. She was wireless, so I didn’t have long.
I barricaded myself in my bedroom as my ipod played reproachful country and western. When the door was wedged tightly, I collapsed.
#200: Documentary
I’m still working my way through Ben’s suggestions of awesomeness. I’ve chosen to interpret this one as requiring any visual media – not necessarily film. So I have created the following two pictures, which I call: “The Writing Life”. It really tells you everything about my daily life.
1. Morning.
2. Afternoon/Evening.
In other news, I’m almost ready to send “The Princess and the Pirate” to Publisher D, which means I have no urgent writing to do (I estimate they’ll give their final yes or no in 6-12 months, given I’m only sending the first chapters). My only polished book not on someone’s desk is “Farting My ABCs” and the publisher I want – H – is currently closed to submissions. So I can slack off now, if I want to.
It’s been almost two weeks since I arrived back from the recent schmoozefests, so I’m pretty well recovered. From tomorrow, I’ll be eating properly again. It’s good timing in terms of my womanly cycle, how much stuff is happening with work and family and friends (ie not much), and my writing (I write MUCH less without chocolate). I’ll be visiting my extremely pregnant sister in early October, so that’ll ruin everything, but fluctuating weight is better than a continuing increase.
I rarely get nightmares from my writing (one reason I don’t write much horror). But I had one the other night about a giant Japanese robot spider. Then Ben sent me this, from http://xeai.com/public/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/l08_5072.jpg
Nixed
For those who don’t want to look at the nuts and bolts of writing, here’s a funny and informative look at an acquisitions meeting (I LOVE this blog entry): http://cba-ramblings.blogspot.com/2010/09/behind-scenes.html
Also, here’s a random picture of a bird on a train:
There are some very mild spoilers in the following (spoilers on theme and on the first few chapters only).
I just started reading “Sabriel” by Garth Nix for the second time this week, analysing it like crazy to understand how a master of storytelling weaves his spell. It’s a little odd to be studying “Sabriel” (400 pages for young adults) while editing “The Princess and the Pirate” (40 pages for kids) but some principles do transfer.
I’ll ignore the prologue in this analysis, having talked about it two days ago. It’s interesting to note, however, that the first paragraph of the prologue isn’t action – it’s setting. It’s a “slow burn” opening, which is the right choice because (a) having used a prologue, the chapter one opening must be involving from the first sentence, which means a “slow burn” opening will no longer be an option, (b) the setting is quite difficult to grasp – two completely distinct lands exist side by side – one magical, and one more like 1920s England. So it needs to be mentioned up front, and re-mentioned several times in the next few chapters. (And of course, that one paragraph of description sets the mood for that scene.) And even though Sabriel is barely born in that scene, she is still the centre of it – she even manages to be an active character.
And on with the first chapters.
The very first paragraph is a truly eerie image of a white pet rabbit, freshly bathed – and freshly killed. The dichotomy of innocence and horror is a constant throughout the book (Sabriel is 18 – literally a schoolgirl). Sabriel raises the rabbit from the dead before its young owner arrives. TV tropes has a section on “pat the dog” – establishing a hero’s goodness by their kindness to an animal. This scene is a fantastically macabre (and frightening) “pat the dog” – with a twist. The twist is that Sabriel’s calling is to make sure the dead (including this rabbit) stay dead – her compassion is a flaw.
This ties in to the main plot, not only because the school (and its innocence) becomes important later, but because Sabriel faces a similar temptation at the climax.
It also makes us love her instantly – that is the primary function of the scene (the character hook is her compassion, plus her own fear of her frighteningly creepy job, plus the unique pain of compassion being a flaw). And it shows us a little more of the mechanics of her job (which are important many times in the book – the realm of Death has its own rules and challenges).
After that there are 3 pages of quite straightforward exposition – by now we care enough to find it all interesting.
Then a literal incursion of horror into a dorm filled with 11-year old girls (girls Sabriel is responsible for). A dead thing enters, and Sabriel runs to fight it (we see she’s brave, but also see her authority over the dead – even the Magistrix of the school clearly sees Sabriel as the most competent person to deal with it). It is a terrifying scene – but that’s not the primary purpose. The primary purpose is to deliver a message from Sabriel’s father (aka Mr Macguffin) – effectively saying a garbled, “Help!” It’s a brilliantly dramatic way to deliver a message, and also shows more about Death that is important later.
And the plot is set: Sabriel must find her father (who may or may not be beyond help). The plot later builds to become, “Sabriel must find her father and save the kingdom” but the emotional heart is exactly the same.
Now that the plot and character are established, chapter two and three are relatively action-free (except for a brief misunderstanding – that, admittedly, could have gotten Sabriel killed if it had gone the wrong way). There’s a lot of setting detail, more info on the stakes (including a 14-day ticking clock for tension), and more on Sabriel (mainly: she shows humanity as she struggles to carry a load of skis and stocks and backpack, she shows off cheekily to an annoying beaurocrat, and a father figure is deeply concerned for her dangerous voyage, but respects her enough to help her on her way).
Chapters 4-7 are an epic and terrifying journey, with quite a bit of setting detail (journeys are handy for that, particularly since Sabriel hasn’t travelled that path since she was 4), some bad news on the big bad (via a pile of corpses), and a brief moment of joy when Sabriel meets her dead mother’s spirit (which just makes us more sympathetic, since her mother is dead and rarely reachable – even this meeting is cut short). Sabriel kills a dead thing, but flees from another – which shows her competence, while also showing that This Is Serious Now.
And then there’s a period of physical and mental recuperation before she continues on her way – this time, with a Mysterious Companion (who is sort of evil, but also extremely helpful, and a great source of humour throughout the book).
Here’s the way Garth Nix deals with the challenges of opening a novel:
1. Instant hook: The image of the rabbit is compelling.
2. Setting: He describes Sabriel’s school uniform (including her prefect’s badge), and the iron school gate, which says “established in 1652 for Young Ladies of Quality”. That tells us everything we need to know about her boarding school, and thus all necessay setting for the first two scenes. (The dichotomy of this “country” with the magical one 40 miles away is also mentioned – not for the first or last time. Chapter two and three are set entirely in the area between the two locations.)
3. Characterisation: The fast hook is her compassion, magic, and that her compassion is a flaw. We then quickly see her courage and intelligence – reinforced by the way both children and adults come to her for help.
4: Instant action: Within a page, we have a problem (the Bunny’s young owner is fast approaching), and Sabriel goes into the risky world of Death to do something about it.
5: Plot hooks: It’s not until the dorm room scene that we know the main plot.
a. Finding her father, who may or may not be dead.
b. Sabriel needs to get better at her job (keeping the dead dead). Will she turn evil?
c. In chapter two, it becomes clear that more lives are at stake because of her father’s helplessness.
d. After the big action sequence, Sabriel keeps a wary eye on her companion (and soon gets another, who is also mysterious – and has several private conversations with the first). Each companion is utterly vital at the climax, and their secrets are relevant.
6: What characters look like: Since it’s in third person, everything is described in a fairly straightforward manner.
7. How the magic system works: As in “The Princess and the Pirate”, the basics are shown by immediate action, and more is revealed as it becomes relevent (again, through action).
8: Link to prologue: We all know Sabriel is the infant of the prologue – and the plot soon makes it very clear that a character we love (Sabriel’s dad) is in mortal danger. (And, since he’s not the main character, we know he really could die – causing pain to Sabriel, who has suffered enough.)
So that’s how it’s done: Exciting stories within the greater, more exciting story.
I’ll be sending off “The Princess and the Pirate” in the next few days (unless CJ spots a fatal flaw when he reads it tonight). I recently met three people from Publisher D (two of them the most relevant two people I could have hoped for). Publisher J specifically recommended Publisher D, so this is my shining new hope. Sadly, I’m only sending the first three chapters, so I won’t have a final answer for 6-12 months (and that’s assuming they’re prompter than the silent Publisher B).
The main lessons I’ve learnt from Nix this week are:
1. A Mr Macguffin needs a prologue – but your chapter one opening has to be a killer.
2. Some character-establishing exposition is fine, once you’ve earned it.
3. Repeat, repeat, repeat your main plot – all the way through the book (and the other plots/motivations too).
#40: Steal Flowers
If there’s anything this blog has taught me, it’s that crime is awesome*. Technically, this item on my pre-existing list read “pick flowers” but since I own exactly 0 flowers at present (some of my plants are dead, and some. . . sleeping), I chose theft once more.
I’m still recovering from schmoozing in Melbourne and Brisbane, and I’m still physically recovering from Indonesia in January (and a vitamin D deficiency). It’s reasonably difficult to get up in the morning, or be enthusiastic about. . . well, anything.
And this is where crime comes in. I stole these flowers from five different locations (my friend Ann may find the daffodils eerily familiar, but the other victims of my crime spree were all neighbours and/or strangers), generally leaving my car running to assist in the fastest possible getaway. I inadvertently collected several ants (both large and small) in my guilty haste, but since none bit me and the fuzz hasn’t come a-knocking, I feel I can confidently declare that crime pays.
And, it’s fun.
My heart rate is up, my house is all pretty (I put some in every single room), and a smile is tugging at my lips.
In other news, I took these two photos of my cat Ana spying on our neighbours (neither was posed, and the look in the second picture was a response to my picture-taking – after which she went back to work. . . watching. . .). I also had a nightmare about a killer robot last night. That was odd.
I call this second one, “Here’s looking at you, meatwad.”
*There’s been fountain frolicking, herb hustling, and guerrilla gardening thus far.
S#40 and #82 – Silly hats for the deaf
s#40 is to learn sign language.
#82 is to wear a silly hat.
There are a lot of different sign languages, so I learnt the Australian sign alphabet. The vowels are the easiest – you just touch your right index finger to each finger of your left hand – “A” is the thumb, “E” is the index finger, and so on.
Play along at home: If your name is Ioueueoa, you already know how to say your name! Great work!
You’ve seen this silly hat before, but I think this is the last time I’ll wear it this year. I was invited to a picnic by an optimist (you can tell they’re an optimist, because they invited me to a picnic in Canberra in September). The weather was like this:
There was also an icy wind.
Now, my beanie is famous on three continents, but on this particular day I was outdone by a sheep/monkey suit, as you can see:
Kids these days.
And here’s today’s killer robot, from (I think) geekologie:
There’s more writing stuff today and tomorrow at https://felicitybloomfield.wordpress.com.
