The Dastardly Dungeon of Deliciously Devious Drinks

Guys, I did a big ol' silly thing. I started reading a book and my Cambridge English accent has become a southern u.s. American draaaaaawwwwwlllll. But I can't put the trice damned book down!!

Aggy, you incredible monster!!

Damoclian said:

Guys, I did a big ol' silly thing. I started reading a book and my Cambridge English accent has become a southern u.s. American draaaaaawwwwwlllll. But I can't put the trice damned book down!!

Aggy, you incredible monster!!

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Hahahaha.

(Del's voice is hard to shake, isn't it?)

Aggy, my work here is done

Goodnight, Cantina.

Afternoon, Cantina. According to the head of our church's children's ministry department, next year our little 1st grade class will most likely have 20 kids attending regularly. This is in contrast to the 8 and sometimes less kids attending regularly this year. Ahahahahahaha-*faints* Thankfully, she also says she's also going to be able to give us some extra helpers she can give us and even has some people wanting to volunteer who would like to teach as well. It will be a HUGE load off my mom and me if we could share the teaching role with some other people, so this is very, very good.

I will definitely do werdz today. I'm feeling encouraged by the progress I've made on the outline so far and I think I can do more. Here's hoping when I get to that point in the story where I don't know what happens next I'll...figure something out.

I also just got finished downloading some better ringtones than the pre-installed ones to my new phone. Most of them currently being Hobbit or LOTR related. Of course. This also means I'll be writing while marathoning the Hobbit and LOTR sountracks because the ringtones got me in the mood for the music again.

Religion0 said:

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This...This scares me.

I can't stop staring at it, I think it's eating my soul! 0.o

jallenecs said:

Weather forecast says we're looking at 93 Fahrenheit (that's 34 Celsius) and 80% humidity today. Gonna be a bit warm..

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Similar forecast here. I don't need no stinking curling iron, I just need humidity! High enough humidity and my hair not only frizzes, it curls right up!

*does the frizzy hair dance*

Damoclian said:

Guys, I did a big ol' silly thing. I started reading a book and my Cambridge English accent has become a southern u.s. American draaaaaawwwwwlllll.

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Welcome to my world.

Religion0 said:

Goodnight, Cantina.

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Nighty night, Relly Rel Rel.

Finished word count for today. can't seem to write when B and oldest are wandering around the house. So no words for me yesterday.
Word count for the week was 11357. Not too shabby.

Now to work on supper, more house work, then freelance stuff.

Meh. Drinking cheap wine and working on the Epic Not Fantasy. Watching it grow while I look for the spots I'm pretty sure I can cut stuff down.

Maybe I'm worrying about nothing. Maybe all these words won't be an issue for a publisher because they'll be so thrilled with this book. But it's hard not to see all the little voices saying "No more than 110k words as a debut author."

:/

Also, this wine is cheap. Not completely undrinkable, but this is why I don't normally let Mr. Aggy buy anything other than beer or the really hard stuff.

Aggy, meh

I'm eating ginger snaps. Want one? Don't know how good they'd taste with wine...

E.F.B. said:

I'm eating ginger snaps. Want one? Don't know how good they'd taste with wine...

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Can't taste any worse.

Everything was going fine until my back started acting up.

grabbing the heating pad back out of the closet.

Shadow, please tell me y'all are having rain? We could use a nice thunderstorm to cut the humidity.

jallenecs said:

Shadow, please tell me y'all are having rain? We could use a nice thunderstorm to cut the humidity.

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Not yet today though there's a chance for it. Looks like 50% and above chances all week. There goes me having a yard sale Thurs-Sat.


The humidity is horrible this week. Temps of 100+ and another 10-15 F in heat index just makes you melt no matter how used to it you are.

Holy cow. Our heat index this weekend has been in the neighborhood of 125F. That's 52C. Wowser.

Aggy B. said:

Can't taste any worse.

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You're eating the wrong ginger snaps, then. I go for Yates' Gluten Free chunk ginger cookies or their slightly crispier gluten free knockoff from Trader Joe's: cut up chunks of soft candied ginger in a chewy brown sugar cookie liberally dosed with ground ginger and butter. Divine with chai tea.

I baked pecan butterscotch blondies and vodka marinara ricotta shells tonight, by dint of opening the upper floor windows and letting the oven rip. We're currently living in our basement, because that's the only cooler that's working, la la la. For a week. Hopefully we'll get it fixed this week.

No real words this weekend (needy Mr needing companionship, which I totally understand). But while watching movies and podcasts, I got a bit further on on the ridiculous $200 scarf. I am a contrary sort. In addition to baking when we have a heatwave and a busted cooler, I apparently must work on a fuzzy scarf in the middle of summer. But oh, it's going to be lovely: 80" strips of recycled linen and bias-cut cotton, sewn into a loose 1"x3" grid, washed and frizzed to release the Fluffy, then sewn at the intersections with small, flat rectangular mother-of-pearl beads. It's fuzzy, but somehow sophisticated. It glimmers in just the right way. I have absolutely no place to wear it, maybe even in winter...and I don't care.

Filigree said:

Working my courage up to enter the SFF mms in Pitch Wars, I think. I'm not going to jump into self pub before November, at least, and if I can get accepted into Pitch Wars, I'll have some strong feedback on perfecting this damn story. Waiting on word now if I even qualify.

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What is this Pitch Wars thing? I keep seeing it mentioned on Twitter but can't figure out what it actually is.

Aggy B. said:

Maybe I'm worrying about nothing. Maybe all these words won't be an issue for a publisher because they'll be so thrilled with this book. But it's hard not to see all the little voices saying "No more than 110k words as a debut author."

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I'm not sure how hard and fast that rule is these days, especially in SFF. My books look skinny as hell next to most of the other debuts I've seen them shelved with!

Junely,

It's raining!

Morning all. I said last week I wanted to get up earlier, but maybe not this early. LOL Could use a couple more hours of sleep but oh well. Back is still achy so I'm going to take things easy for a bit before I get stuff done. *glares at pile of laundry.

Religion0 said:

Sounds... Exhausting. Sure you haven't deserved a celebratory cookie?

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Nope. Low-carb means celebratory sashimi, not cookies.

Sunday, on the other hand, was pure veg. I played Civ V all day while working on a beading commission (a wedding hair comb with white and silver beaded flowers), and binge-watched ALL of Season 2 Outlander.

Aggy B. said:

But it's hard not to see all the little voices saying "No more than 110k words as a debut author."

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Diana Gabaldon's debut book, Outlander, was a best-seller, and now a TV series - at over 250K words.

Soooo sleepy. Aaaarg.

My wordage yesterday was mainly writing a review on Goodreads. I swear I take way too long to write those, but I don't always have that much to say when I finish a book, even if I liked it. So, when I do have something to say, I just try to go ahead and get it down before I lose it and make sure it's coherent and understandable and I express myself properly.

I started it late afternoon and it was evening by the time I finished. I *should* have gone in and worked on the WIP like I usually do Sunday evening, but both my mom and I were itching for a Hobbit movie marathon so we watched AUJ and I shut the computer off and I worked on a necklace instead. Technically the necklace did actually need working on, so at least I feel I was being a little productive while indulging my inner geek.

Today I'll make up for the wordage before I go to the orthopedist for my tennis elbow this afternoon. It's just not healing up so I need to go see someone who can help it get better and I can get back to knitting and crochet.

Filigree said:

You're eating the wrong ginger snaps, then. I go for Yates' Gluten Free chunk ginger cookies or their slightly crispier gluten free knockoff from Trader Joe's: cut up chunks of soft candied ginger in a chewy brown sugar cookie liberally dosed with ground ginger and butter. Divine with chai tea.

I baked pecan butterscotch blondies and vodka marinara ricotta shells tonight, by dint of opening the upper floor windows and letting the oven rip. We're currently living in our basement, because that's the only cooler that's working, la la la. For a week. Hopefully we'll get it fixed this week.

No real words this weekend (needy Mr needing companionship, which I totally understand). But while watching movies and podcasts, I got a bit further on on the ridiculous $200 scarf. I am a contrary sort. In addition to baking when we have a heatwave and a busted cooler, I apparently must work on a fuzzy scarf in the middle of summer. But oh, it's going to be lovely: 80" strips of recycled linen and bias-cut cotton, sewn into a loose 1"x3" grid, washed and frizzed to release the Fluffy, then sewn at the intersections with small, flat rectangular mother-of-pearl beads. It's fuzzy, but somehow sophisticated. It glimmers in just the right way. I have absolutely no place to wear it, maybe even in winter...and I don't care.

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Both the cookies and scarf sound very nice.

Filigree: I was referring to the wine, not the gingersnaps. (I used to make them all the time, but they are hard to bake without burning the edges and I'm afraid to try them now because I may have lost my touch with them.) At one point I had altered a soft molasses cookie recipe to be a ginger cookie, but I don't know if I still have the proportions around anywhere. (Powdered ginger is not always forgiving if you get the measurements wrong.)

GreenDragon: Yeah. There are exceptions, but it is a fine line between being bold and being naive.

(My agent is cautious about a really long book. He said it needs to read like a runaway train or be right in the 120k word range. And I wouldn't care so much but he's been working hard to sell three different novels I've given him and still no dice. Which makes me sad and also feel bad for him because I feel like I keep giving him duds. >_< )

Ah, Monday. Feeling angsty and stabby by turns. Fantastic.

Aggy, should maybe try baking something

I do stress baking when I can afford it. I can keep the stress shopping to reasonable limits as long as I do it at thrift stores and keep to a strict budget and value hierarchy (ie. how much is it now, how much is it worth, and how much can I sell it for later).

Pitch Wars is this long, drawn-out contest whereby unagented authors pick up to 4 'mentors', apply to them starting on August 3-5, and if they get accepted by a mentor, spend until late October honing their already finished mms. In early November a new query/synopsis/first chapter will get uploaded to Brenda Drake's blog for agent eyeballs.

Positives: it's another chance to hone a novel with already published and in most cases agented mentors. It has some proven success stories. It's not as much a popularity contest as I'd feared at first glance.

Negatives: out of some 26 mentors listed, there are 4 mentors interested in Adult epic science fiction and fantasy. And none of those are particularly interested in romantic subplots, which throws my mms into question. Which mms has already been pitched to and been rejected by about 95% of the applicable US agents in my genre. The mms can always use more noodling, but I have reluctant rejections from four agents basically saying 'This is lovely and so publishable, but it's not quite in my wheelhouse/comfort zone.'

I've tweeted for clarification, and am waiting on the word back. If I do attempt it and don't get in, I will have only delayed my Big Five query round by a couple of weeks. If I make the cut and snag a mentor's interest...I'm set back until mid November, with only the hope of a more polished novel to go on. I can't send out any more queries until the contest is done.

Hence, my waffling.

Good morning, Cantina!

Plans for today include more writing as I have developed a routine now and maybe some cursing the general direction of the heat.

How goes everyone's day so far?

I just discovered that Slacker (the online streaming radio station) can do a 'favorites' mashup - mixing all those 'favorited' songs in ALL my stations, be they from the 80s rock, Celtic, Movie soundtrack or comedy stations. That is a good thing!

I should look into online radio or something. The rock station in Ottawa I always listened to turned into a pop station, and sigh.

Also, now that Camp NaNo is 75% over, I've written 10% of my goal! ratygyu;

I've been having fun putting my on-line radio show together as well as DJ'ing. (I hadn't done that since the late 70s/early 80s.) Been doing it for about a year now and I have a small, but dedicated, following. Mostly doing Classic Rock, but I'll slip in everything from Cab Calloway and John Hooker up to Nightwish or P!nk or Fall-Out Boys depending on my mood. It's fun trying to find which songs go together well and I "try" not to play too many of them in consecutive weeks. I figure I spend about three hours prepping my show and then three hours performing it from 7-10pm EST on Tuesdays.

And, heck, it gives me an excuse to go out and buy more music. I see that as win/win.

So, if you're bored some evening, I can be found at the "Green Dragon Tavern" on http:\\phoenixradio-fm.net

Hey! I belong there, evidently