A Life of Crime and Chocolate

I have had a busy time - getting ready for a waste of time craft fair and submitting a job application. I would really like the job - it is working in a local museum. I have a feeling though that there will be loads of applications for it. I worked really hard on my application so maybe . . .

HeyJude, so happy you got through the storm - hope the rain stops so you can enjoy your disney trip. *does a king canute on the rain clouds*


Shakes, that museum job sounds great. Go for it! We're all rooting for you.
IMHO crafting something is never a waste of time if it gives you pleasure to make it. What kind of craft do you do?

Gail I make embroidered wall plaques of trees and made up plants. I just draw straight onto the fabric and then embroider the pattern. I'll see if I can get the pics and post them here. It was not my work that was a waste of time but the fair - there were loads of people but they came to listen to the bands playing, eat and drink. Some of the bands were good, actually one out of about four or five! The friend I did the fair with is a music teacher and she winded at some of the 'music'. The publicity for the event was good and did say that it was a craft fair but there were very few craft stalls - those that were there were selling jewellery, head massages and plants.

I craft words.

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pfft! Sorry, couldn't do it. Too hard to keep a straight face.

My first love is music, so I suppose I could say I craft songs. They don't look so good on the mantelpiece, though.

On the subject of music, I was visiting some friends the week before last and they had their neighbours round for dinner and drinks. I got involved in the conversations and one of the women was shocked to learn that I like heavy metal (the week before I'd been at Donington for the Download festival, which used to be called Monsters Of Rock).

Apparently her son is a metal fan, and she - not unsurprisingly - finds the whole thing incomprehensible. This is not an uncommon reaction, and one I've faced before. What shocked her was that I am a fairly normal guy. I have no piercings; I am not (visibly) tattooed; I don't even have long hair (oh, to have hair at all). The fact that we'd previously been having a reasonably erudite conversation about books just added to it. Normal people don't like metal, do they? We spent much of the rest of the night with me trying to help her understand some of the things that her son might enjoy about metal, and basically reassuring her that it is creative, it's not "bad" for him, and that she should basically chill out about the whole thing. (She's a nice person, btw, despite this negative portrayal). It made me think that perhaps I should write "The Parents' Guide To Heavy Metal*"!

Anyway, yesterday she befriended me on Facebook and mentioned that she'd told her son all about me, and apparently he's looking forward to meeting me and hearing some of my songs when we next come down to visit in August. Of course I have been very polite and said that I am looking forward to it (which I really am). The problem is that none of the songs are finished!

Recording is a bit more of an iterative process than writing. Though the songs are written, I still need to record various parts, fix those up, and mix them all together before I can present them as even rough demos. It's like promising someone that they can read your first draft when you only have half of it written, and the rest is on post-it notes that keep slipping off your fridge. But I like these people so I'm going to do my best. Long story short, I have a lot of work to do in July to get the songs ready - as well as keeping up with my WIP!


* other possible titles or chapter headings:
- The Parents' Guide To Heavy Metal, Or How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love Blastbeats
- No, It Doesn't Mean They're Going Straight To Hell, Although That Is A Kickass Song
- Congratulations! Your Kids Are Not The Same As You
- Would You Be This Worried If They Were Into Salsa?

Our esteemed moderator is going to be gone all today? (Furiously makes plans to be very, very bad.)

I've let my crafting fade away. I have a curtain hanging next to me that's fine embroidery of my own design that I did about 5 years back. I used to do counted cross-stitch at 32 per inch, but my eyes won't take that any more. The pictures sure do turn out purty at that resolution, though. I used to sketch.

Like OSG^ I do music more than handicrafts nowadays.

Embroidery, cross-stitch or free-style is magical! I'm into any kind of needlework and bead work.

Post some pictures, Shakes, Lorna. We want to see!!!


Onesecondglance, I stunned my kids (when they were teens) by hauling out some of my Deep Purple and Uriah Heep albums. Okay, they're on vinyl, which my grandson thinks is hilarious - "Why didn't they just put it on a CD?" <- This from a 10 year old.

But have you listened to Deep Purple's Rockin' the Philmore or Deep Purple in concert with the Royal Philharmonic? Brilliant stuff. I just have to turn the volume down a bit now. (Must be getting old.) BTW. Love the book titles. Rock Music - for parental dummies?

GailD said:

Embroidery, cross-stitch or free-style is magical! I'm into any kind of needlework and bead work.

Post some pictures, Shakes, Lorna. We want to see!!!

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Low-tech Lorna has no digital camera or smart phone. I'm sure your grandkids would think I'm just this side of relying on smoke signals (and maybe they'd be right!)

GailD said:

Onesecondglance, I stunned my kids (when they were teens) by hauling out some of my Deep Purple and Uriah Heep albums. Okay, they're on vinyl, which my grandson thinks is hilarious - "Why didn't they just put it on a CD?" <- This from a 10 year old.

But have you listened to Deep Purple's Rockin' the Philmore or Deep Purple in concert with the Royal Philharmonic? Brilliant stuff. I just have to turn the volume down a bit now. (Must be getting old.) BTW. Love the book titles. Rock Music - for parental dummies?

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Ritchie Blackmore is a total fret wizard. He's pretty hard to take seriously since he started thinking he's an actual wizard, but the man's still got some skills.

lorna_w said:

Our esteemed moderator is going to be gone all today? (Furiously makes plans to be very, very bad.)

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I'm telling! Oh, wait...

Cross stitch makes me nauseous. blech.

Music - Yardbirds - 1963-68 - best ever music, mostly lovely blokes. Sigh ... thems was the days . . .

Tossing up old bands: Can (the German guys), Velvet Underground. And for guitar, Townshend, baby.

Glad I'm being watched...couldn't think of an interesting way to be bad anyway!

*pokes head in*

Hi, guys. I'm kind of somewhat new to the M/T/S, as far as writing it. (The trunked WIP in my siggy is a Suspense, probably a very poor one but Suspense nonetheless). Right now, I'm working on an Urban Fantasy WIP for the second half of Nano, which ends on Saturday I think.

Anyway, I do like a lot of M/T/S and Romantic Suspense. Um, I do tend to suffer from foot-in-mouth syndrome from time to time. So,.....yeah. Nice to meet you guys. *waves*

Allo Silver-Midnight. As long as you like chocolate the foot-in-mouth syndrome will, in all probability, be tolerated. So... c'mon, fess up - what sort of chocoholic are you? Just don't mention nuts . . .

Shakesbear said:

Allo Silver-Midnight. As long as you like chocolate the foot-in-mouth syndrome will, in all probability, be tolerated. So... c'mon, fess up - what sort of chocoholic are you? Just don't mention nuts . . .

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White chocolate is pretty good. I'm not big of a chocoholic. I'm not that big of chocolate fan. *ducks everything that gets thrown* I do like caramel though.

Silver-Midnight said:

White chocolate is pretty good. I'm not big of a chocoholic. I'm not that big of chocolate fan. *ducks everything that gets thrown* I do like caramel though.

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Won't throw anything - in a state of shock that you don't like chocolate! Or is that f-i-m syndrome at work?

*Wanders away muttering about the strangeness of the world . . . thinks . . . is this extreme evolution, not liking chocolate? Or is it regressive evolution? Stunned . . . *

Shakesbear said:

*Wanders away muttering about the strangeness of the world . . . thinks . . . is this extreme evolution, not liking chocolate? Or is it regressive evolution? Stunned . . . *

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Or Both! Dun Dun Dunnnn!

hey silver-m! Good to see you here. I love a good romantic suspense novel; if it has comedy, also great. Elizabeth Peters, the possibly underrated Susanna Kearsley, CS Harris, the late Ariana Franklin. Please tell me you'll be the next one of their ilk. Ilk. Ilk. (Suddenly thinking how strange a word this is. ilkilkilkilkilk. having one of those moments. Does every writer have those? Ilk. Illlllk)

Chocoholism is not required. If you hate all sugar, all crunchy snacks, all cheese and caffeine, that'd be a little odd.

Hi folks. Nothing to add, nothing to offer, just been too long since I piped up in this forum and this thread seems the most active right now.

So.... Hello!

Hi Mark of the terrific website. Any news on the book? Does release date seem impossibly far away?

Hello Everyone.

lorna_w said:

Hi Mark of the terrific website. Any news on the book? Does release date seem impossibly far away?

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Hi.

I'm getting some blurbs in (got one from Jeff Abbott, which was cool) and generally working on marketing stuff, but October does seem like a million years away, to be honest. You coming to Austin for the release party?

heyjude said:

Silver! Glad you're here!

We're taking a brief break from the madness that is Disney. People are rude!

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Never thought that Disney could be rude. All a matter of mind set I suppose.

Hallo Mark!

lorna_w said:

hey silver-m! Good to see you here. I love a good romantic suspense novel; if it has comedy, also great. Elizabeth Peters, the possibly underrated Susanna Kearsley, CS Harris, the late Ariana Franklin. Please tell me you'll be the next one of their ilk. Ilk. Ilk. (Suddenly thinking how strange a word this is. ilkilkilkilkilk. having one of those moments. Does every writer have those? Ilk. Illlllk)

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Cool. I don't know if I'll live up to that. I'm still new. You have given me some more authors to check out in Romantic Suspense though, which is a good thing. (I had to look up the word 'ilk'. )

Chocoholism is not required. If you hate all sugar, all crunchy snacks, all cheese and caffeine, that'd be a little odd.

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Oh no. I like sugar. I like it a lot.

heyjude said:

Silver! Glad you're here!

We're taking a brief break from the madness that is Disney. People are rude!

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Hi.

MarkEsq said:

Hi folks. Nothing to add, nothing to offer, just been too long since I piped up in this forum and this thread seems the most active right now.

So.... Hello!

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Hi and welcome.

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Thanks for the warm welcome guys.