Technical Difficulties and the Oscars

Let's get one thing perfectly clear before I go on this short diatribe: I love living in Maine. I love how few people there are here, and how most of the ones who are here are friendly and open and willing to help a stranger or say hi to you on the street. Maine is great, and it would take an awful lot to make me want to move.

However, just as "with great power comes great responsibility," with few people comes some crappy technology. My internet speed tops out at 3 mbps as far as a reliable speed goes. That puts me on the very threshold of HD streaming. Sometimes at night, the speed bogs down, something my ISP assures me they're working on fixing. As you remember, I cut the cord to my satellite subscription a year ago, so I get all my TV through the internet or over the air. Of course, if I lived somewhere with a real population, I'd be able to get CBS, ABC and NBC pretty easily with an antenna. Where I am, I can get none of those. Naturally, the Oscars were on ABC last night. I thought I had things rigged up so that I'd be able to watch at home, but about an hour into the telecast, everything went haywire. My computers stopped working and wouldn't reboot (both laptops), by iPad was behaving strangely, my internet bogged down.

I didn't get to watch the Oscars.

I gather from Twitter and live blogs and the like that I didn't miss much. Sounds like the hosts were snoozeville, and the show in general was boring. But you know what--I love the Oscars. I want to be the one complaining about how boring it was, not the one reading about it. You see the difference? Of course this morning everything's working fine, but when I need that technology to work, it all died. And right then, I was pretty steamed at my part of the country.

Why can't I live where there's a better internet connection? My brother in DC gets something like 30mbps for the same price that I pay for 3. Why can't my TV reception be better? Why is it difficult to get to any real store that doesn't start with Wal or end in Mart?

But then I remember: it's sort of an either/or situation. If all those amenities were here in Western Maine, there'd probably be a slew of people using them. So which is more important to me--a fast, reliable internet connection, or a wonderful place to live?

Still, next year I think I'll arrange an alternate viewing setup. Because no one should have to be without the Oscars two years in a row.

Oh--and I won the Oscar pool, meaning I get to keep the Oscar the Grouch Hat of Victory.

Why I Don't Review Bad Books

I review a lot of things. Many movies, some books. But you might have noticed that I generally don't post many reviews of bad books. I don't shy away from stating my mind about movies I don't like, but when it comes to books, am I just nicer? More forgiving? Less discerning?

Well, no. At least, I hope not. But when it comes to movies, I don't have much to do with them, career-wise. I feel like I can say whatever I want, and it won't ever come back to bite me. I don't anticipate directors ever really caring what I think. Authors . . . it's a bit of a different story. I'm coming to the dinner party, and I don't particularly feel like being a jerk even before I arrive. I don't know when I might be approaching an author for a cover quote, or when what I write might end up getting to an editor I hoped to work with--who then will hold a grudge against me, since I lambasted one of his/her books. Know what I mean?

So I take the line of "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all." I do read books I don't like. I just don't promote them in any way shape or form. You don't hear about those experiences--not in a permanent, archived format, at any rate. In the past two weeks, I read two separate books--finished one, started the other--that I didn't care for. The first one (the one I finished) had a lot going for it, but the execution didn't sit right with me. The second was so awful I couldn't get past the first 20 pages (and I usually make it a rule to give a book at least 50).

What didn't I like about the second, to make me put it down in disgust?

It was extraordinarily condescending to YAs. It was written by a bestselling adult author (no one I know personally, and not a friend of any friends--that I'm aware of), who was "convinced" by "fans" that she should write for YAs, too. I interpret this to mean that she decided to cash in on the YA market. It was poorly paced, overly simplistic, and just plain boring. And that irritated me. So off with its head.

Anyway--it's Friday, and I'm done editing for the day. I think I'll go watch a movie . . . Oscars this weekend!

Skiing at Saddleback

Took a break from editing today to drive up to Saddleback and go skiing. TRC has been taking ski lessons, and I'd say he's pretty much better than me by now. (Not that that would be terribly difficult). Denisa has been teaching DC, and by the end of today she was skiing with the help of a harness. (DC was--not Denisa.) DC thought it was the coolest thing in the world, and she was clearly very proud of herself--even singing as she skied. (The tune to Elmo's World. I have no idea what the connection there was in her head.)

In any case, there were only a few spills (one scary one when TRC and I fell down getting off a lift. I thought for sure he'd broken something for a bit there, but he got over it. Thank goodness). Saddleback has some fun little moguls and trick areas on the easy slopes, and TRC had a great time going off those. It's been about two years since I went skiing, and it was a blast to do it again. Now that our kids are getting bigger, I'm hoping we'll be able to go as a family more regularly, especially since it's so inexpensive up here in our neck of the woods. We paid $58 total for this trip today. For Denisa and me to go to the movies and dinner and get a sitter, we'd pay about the same. Very nice. It helps that we all have our own skis, and that kids 6 and under ski free at Saddleback.

Anyway--I'm home now, and the time has come to go back to the edit. Cut an entire chapter this morning. Thwack. Whole thing. Gone. Saving it for the extended edition. :-)

Happy Thursday, everybody!

How I Managed to Lose Track of Which Revision I was Working On

If you've been following my Twitter or Facebook feeds for the past day or so, you've no doubt noticed that I've been frantically trying to iron out exactly which version of Vodnik I was editing. Since it's hard to describe the problem in 140 characters of less, allow me to give a rundown for you of exactly what went wrong.

For starters, realize that I'm an electronic hoarder. I despise giving up information, and so when I work on a book, I keep each draft saved separately. I mean, digital information takes up no space, so why not hold onto it? I save the drafts according to revision number. So I have Lesana 1.0 (that was the original codeword for the book, before it had a title), Lesana 2.0, Vodnik 3.0, Vodnik 4.0 and now Vodnik 5.0. (As I've said before, I might have missed a draft in the Lesana to Vodnik name transition, so it might be that I'm working on Vodnik 6.0 now. But who's counting?)

I was true to this pattern until last September, when suddenly changes were coming in as I worked frantically to revise Vodnik and get it ready for potential purchase by Tu Books. I had my third draft and various copies of the fourth draft--each of them saved by date. Vodnik 9.28.10, Vodnik 9.30.10. Add to that the emailed files and edits Stacy (my now editor) was sending me, and there were a whole lot of Vodniks flying around. Some of the emailed edits were just for the first three chapters, and so there were partial files, too.

Nice.

Anyway, cut ahead four months. Stacy sent me a printed copy of the manuscript with her notes on it. I read that copy and made further notes on it. I took those notes, opened up Vodnik 4.0 on my computer, and started editing. Five chapters in, I realized there were a few passages in my electronic version that didn't match Stacy's printed version.

Not good.

I looked at Vodnik 9.30.10, Vodnik 4.0 emailed, Vodnik First Three Chapters--Bryce's Edits. All sorts of Vodniks. And I compared them to Stacy's printed version, but they just didn't match up. Some versions had some edits but not others. Others had different edits. Some edits I couldn't find in any of my electronic copies. It didn't help that it had been four months since I worked on the book, so it was all murky in my mind.

Four hours later, I've finally identified the problem.

Vodnik 9.30.10 was the most recent draft of mine. I failed to save it as Vodnik 4.0 to make it the final draft. However, the first three chapters were further edited, and I failed to incorporate those edits into Vodnik 9.30.10. The final twist was that the version Stacy sent me didn't incorporate those final edits to the first three chapters, either--they just incorporated her edits to my draft. I'd made edits to those edits.

Clear as mud?

Yeah. Now you have an inkling of how I've felt for the last two days. Now imagine this: you've discovered the error, you've figured it out, but you've already now made extensive changes to an old draft, and it's going to be almost impossible to turn back the clock and figure out what other changes should have been made to that draft before you started changing it in the first place. Sheesh.

Thankfully, Microsoft Word has a very nice "compare" feature, and with a bit of electronic wizardry, I've ironed it all out. All is right with the world, and I can continue on my edit in peace.

Sick of hearing about this yet? Well you're in luck--I'm sick of writing about it. Have a nice rest of your Wednesday, all. Back to the editing room I go . . .

Thoughts on The King's Speech and Historical Accuracy in Hollywood

Just got back from an afternoon date with my wife. We went out for lunch and then to see The King's Speech. Hence the late post here. (I'm taking the week off from work, so you might see me online a tad less than normal. I'm sure you're heartbroken.)

Thoroughly enjoyed the movie. A fantastic story, well executed, without too much schmaltz. Is it historically accurate? No. Do I care? No. What is 'history'? In the end, it's an agreed upon story. It's impossible to recreate it, and if you did, it would be insanely boring. Any time any film is made of history, it automatically won't be accurate by default. It'll be limited to a few points of view.

If you ask a room full of people what happened at a place and time last week, you're bound to get a room full of different answers. Is any one of them more 'accurate' than the others? History is tinted by our perceptions of it, and one of the worst reasons to watch a Hollywood movie is to get a history lesson. Movies tell stories. Film strips and documentaries take stabs at history. Stories require pacing, characterization, drama, plot, conflict--at all parts of the story. That's the lifeblood. Lose those elements, and you lose your audience. So to make a successful movie based on history, you need to condense some parts, create others--even fabricate events at times.

In the end, I'd say this movie seems pretty close to history, but it's taken liberties. It doesn't matter. If it makes you curious to find out more, you can. Don't be disappointed when 'reality' is different than what you watched. If you had seen reality first, you might well have not been interested to find out more.

In any case, I loved the movie. Four stars for me, and I'll not be displeased at all if it wins Best Picture on Sunday. Of course, I haven't seen The Social Network, so I can't say one way or the other who I want to win.

Anyway--back to my edit . . .

Presidents Day Edit: Slash and Burn

And so the edit begins. It took me three hours today to get through the first three chapters. That's not a terribly good sign, although I guess now that I look back at it, that's just an hour per chapter. It felt like a lot more. Then again, I have 36 chapters, and 24 writing days (I don't do Sundays) until my deadline. Once I'm done with the more global changes, I'd like 6 days or so of writing time to look at some smaller level issues--switching up word choice, tightening descriptions, etc.

There's a lot still to be done. Kind of scary.

The trick at this point is that I'm really familiar with the material. It gets pretty tricky to know if I'm cutting too much or not enough. I know what I want the final product to look like--what sort of a feel it should have, what sort of pacing. But how do I tell if something is really boring, or if it just seems slow because I've read it so many times now?

You can always cut more information from a story, just like you can always add. If you keep cutting, Lord of the Rings turns into "Some small furry creatures didn't like jewelry." If you keep adding, "Why did the chicken cross the road?" turns into War and Peace. So what you choose to put in a story is just as important as what you keep out.

That said, in my read through of Vodnik this time, there were still chapters that thoroughly entertained me. I know those are working. I'm still quite pleased with the ending, and I'm strengthening plot lines in ways that I think will make it even better--strengthening the weak parts in the middle and tying the story together more. But none of that happens here at the beginning. Right now, the main problem is that the book takes too long to get to the good stuff. It needs to go faster. I started with 6600 words and ended with 5100. So about 23% cut, which should hopefully end up making that beginning whir along speedily. I'll need to set it aside for a while and then read it again to see if it makes sense.

But then that'll be my sixth time reading the beginning. When you start to doubt your doubts, you've gotten way too meta.

It's at times like these that I'm really glad I have an editor.

And a wife who hasn't read this book yet--so she'll be able to read the beginning, and we can talk about it. Fresh eyes are always a bonus.

Anyway--enough. Today is a vacation day, after all. I'm heading over to a friend's house to play Axis and Allies and eat too much food. Happy Presidents Day, all!

Book Review: The Warded Man

The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'd been hearing a lot about The Warded Man for the past few months, and I've finally had the chance to give it a read. I'm really glad I did--the book was absolutely fantastic. Fast-paced, great world building, intriguing characters and good mysteries to drive the story on.

The setup is simple: the book takes place in a world where demons come out at night to terrorize humanity. Centuries ago, humans knew ways to fight the demons, but today, all they have is the knowledge of some basic runes that will repel the evil. If the runes fail--if they're not drawn correctly, or if they're obstructed somehow--then the demons win. Each night, they lie in wait outside, constantly testing the runes, always looking for weakness and easy prey.

One boy on the fringes of society sees humanity cowering and is infuriated. He loses his mother to the demons (corelings), and vows to fight back any way he can. There are rumors of ancient runes--runes that give better defense or actually allow humans to go on the offensive. Arlen dreams of finding those and taking back the night for humanity.

In the meantime, there are two other plots going on--one focused on a girl learning to become a wisewoman, and the other on a boy who aspires to be a jongleur. I found all three plots captivating, and I breezed through the 416 pages in no time. Really, I think that's the best gauge of a great book. If a book is good, I'll finish it eventually. If it's great, I'll finish it as fast as humanly possible.

The Warded Man is a great book.

View all my reviews

Marital Rating Scale from the 1930s

I got a kick out of this "scientific" marriage rating scale from the 30s. A researcher interviewed 600 husbands and 600 wives to find out what traits were important for their spouse to have to keep them happy. He then gave each trait a certain weight according to an approximate 100 point scale. Some traits are positive, so earn you points, while others are negative--so you lose points. You go through, add up all the points and get a final rating. 0-24 is a failure, over 76 is Very Superior.

Naturally once I saw this, I had to take it for Denisa and me. (Of course, since I was evaluating myself, I'm guessing I rated myself higher than Denisa would have.) I ended up with a 106, and I gave Denisa a 90--although it seemed to me while taking it that there were more total points available to the husband than to the wife (likely because husbands would be appalled if their wives outscored them on something). Denisa--what do I get when you take the test? What do you get? It'd be interesting to see. (There should be a new positive trait for wives: read husband's blog. 5 points.)

Anyway, there you have it: scientific proof for why Denisa and I have a happy marriage. She doesn't do dope, and I don't smoke in bed. :-)

So here's the challenge, readers--take the quiz for yourself and your spouse, and post your results. It would be interesting to see a test like this done for today's generation. Why is red nail polish a demerit? What about purple? Or blue?

Edit Update

Not a lot of time for me today--too deep in the throes of library work for me to find much time to post. However, I wanted to let you know how the edit of Vodnik is going. I've been rereading it, making notes on the copy my editor sent me (which she had made extensive notes on already). One thing jumps out at me:

There's still so much I want to change.

How is that possible? I'd just edited the thing less than half a year ago, and I was really happy with it then. And that was the fourth major edit of the book! So how is it that my pages now have so much purple (her notes) and red (my notes) scrawled all over them?

I'd always heard authors talk about how they didn't like reading their old books, because they'd see so much they wanted to change, and I hadn't really understood that. I think I might be catching a glimmer of it now, though. I'm sure there will be pieces of this that I just don't like once it's printed, but in a way, I think it's like a house. When Denisa and I saw our new house, we loved it. There was just so much to like. But once we moved in, we started noticing the things we didn't like. The details that we wanted to fix. We can go on fixing and tinkering for years to come, but that doesn't change the first impression the house makes on people. That first impression is still largely the same, because an outsider doesn't see the details--not right away.

To someone reading my book for the first time, they'll just have that first impression. The little details and bumps that are hopefully all that's left to annoy me by that time won't stand out to them. The goal is to get as many of them out of the way as I can before it's published.

Anyway--I'd guess I have about three or four more days of reading and making notes, and then I'll start the actual writing again. I have until the 21st--plenty of time.

Famous last words, right?

Christmas Present Reviews: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

So Christmas has come and gone, and it's easier to look back on all the presents my family got and tell which ones seemed to be worth the money, and which ended up being big duds. (Note: Boxes are never duds. Often, the Amazon box something came in ends up providing more entertainment than the toy itself.) I provide this list mainly because I know what a jam it can be to try and find presents for birthdays and such--maybe this list will give you some ideas for an upcoming special occasion. (And as always, if you happen to click on one of these links and buy it through Amazon, I get a cut. Just sayin'.)

So, what were the best gifts? TRC definitely liked Snap Circuits a ton, and I love it whenever he plays with them. Basically it's a collection of electronics experiments that teach how circuits work. So he learns, is occupied for a while, gets to build things and have fun, all at the same time. Definitely a great toy.

Denisa got a pressure cooker, and that's been a huge success. She had been really reluctant to get one, since it sounds like she'd had one growing up and was scared to death of the thing--never knowing when it might just explode. This one is electronic and has none of the random hissing and spitting of a traditional pressure cooker. You just plug it in, punch some buttons, and let it go. Beans go from dry to done in about 15 minutes. Incredible. Denisa uses it every week, often multiple times in a week. Big time good gift. This cookbook has been a good one, too. They go well together.

The Pyrex storage dishes are also a favorite. Much better than the standard plastic ones. They microwave great, store things in the fridge great, don't stain. Good stuff.

TRC's Beyblade set and Bakugan figures were popular for a bit, and he still plays with them, but I could take them or leave them. It didn't help that some punk kid at school swiped a part to his Beyblade, so now they don't work. Sheesh.

TRC and I play Magic the Gathering together a lot now--he really gets into it, and it's been a lot of fun. The theme decks are a good place to start, it seems.

The spy gear comes in handy for TRC from time to time, but not as much as I thought he'd play with it. Still, he does take it out fairly regularly and enjoys being sent on secret missions.

Creationary, which the family got, is a fun game, but you could probably homebrew this one pretty easily, assuming you have some Legos on hand (and if you have a young boy, then I'm betting you do.) Just make up some cards with different objects on them and take turns drawing cards and trying to build what comes up. It's really simple, but fun.

DC plays with her dress up sets a lot, but doesn't do much with her dolls. Maybe she plays with them up in her room--I'm not sure. Haven't been up there in a bit to find out. Who knew that a collection of different pairs of shoes would prove to be so popular? (Note: that's not the exact thing she got. Close enough.)

I still haven't played Ghostbusters 3 yet. There was a time when any new video game I got would get a lot of playtime. Buying presents for me was easy--video games and movies. Now that I have apps on my iPad which costs a few dollars each, and Netflix . . . I just don't need those things anymore.

The pretend kitchen set is used a lot--and I made a small "oven" out of a cardboard box and duct tape, which is also popular. I don't think splurging on a whole toy kitchen would be worth the space it takes up in your house or the expense. Cardboard boxes, my friend. Cardboard boxes.

I also use my bluetooth keyboard for my iPad quite a bit--makes typing on the thing much easier and faster, and it's small and easy to store.

Actually, in looking back on the haul, we did pretty well. There's nothing we got that I feel like was a total waste, and almost everything is used and enjoyed. That said, we could have stood to save a bit more than we did. I get caught up in the Christmas spirit (the one that involves TOYS!!!!), and get carried away each year. Not hundreds of dollars carried away--more like tens of dollars. But still--tens of dollars add up over time. :-)

How about you--any toys you've really liked? Any suggestions to make to others? The floor is yours, folks.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight: A Salute to High School Jazz Band

Some of you might not know this, but I'm a bit of a music junkie. That's right. In addition to my addiction to movies, I love me some songs, too. And not just listening to songs--playing them. I'm no expert on any of these, but I've tried my hand at piano, guitar, bass, accordion, saxophone (tenor and bari), bassoon and oboe, with a very brief stint on trumpet. I've played piano since I was about 5 (I can sight read easy stuff, but I get all fumbly if it gets more complex than about three fingers at a time), played oboe for 3 or 4 years, bassoon for 8, sax for 6, guitar for 3 or so. Currently I'm probably best at sax, with guitar and piano tied for second.

Anyway.

Back in my high school days, I was in a plethora of bands. Marching band, symphonic band, orchestra, Dixie band--good times, that. I never got into chorus, and I wanted to do jazz band, but drama conflicted with it, so that never worked out, alas. I've recently gotten my tenor out again and started playing, and it's brought a lot of memories back. Dixie band was a monster--there were probably around 20 of us, maybe more. Three tenors, two tubas, a bevy of clarinets, trumpets, trombones, drums. Most of our shows were to nursing homes, where we'd descend en masse. The people there loved it, and if it got too loud, they just turned down their hearing aids. I miss that. Forget high school reunions. We should have a Dixie reunion. Dan--Tammy--Wade--Jill--Lisa? You out there? You reading? Dixie reunion. We'll tour all the nursing homes. We'll record Youtube videos for the ages. It'll be the feel good story of the century.

This is all just a long way of introducing you to a song that's been in my head since high school. Jazz band played it--and it was fantastic. I've been wanting to hear it since, and my good pal Dan Nosheny (who was Snooky way before Snooki--I ought to ask him what his feelings are about Jersey Shore, come to think of it), tracked down a recording of it. The song's by Lyle Mays, and to the best of my knowledge, it hasn't been recorded professionally. (If someone knows of a copy that's actually purchasable, please let me know!)

Of course, our high school jazz band's production was much cooler, since instead of a piccolo/bass duet at the end, we had a piccolo/tuba duet. But this is a close approximation to the ditty I remember so fondly. So enjoy, people. Have a happy Tuesday.

Bands - 3 Sir Gawain and the Green Knight-- Lyle Mays

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For Valentine's Day, Why Not Watch Something Less Schmaltzy?

This Valentine's Day, you could watch your typical romantic comedy. Or maybe some snooze-fest of a drama. But why not turn back the clock a few decades and watch Hail the Conquering Hero, instead? It came out in 1944 and was directed by Preston Sturges, the same genius who brought you Sullivan's Travels and The Lady Eve. And yes, it's not your typical romantic comedy, but that's in its favor, right?

The story's simple: Woodrow always wanted to be a hero like his father, a Marine who was killed in action. He enters the Marines . . . and gets discharged for hay fever. Too ashamed to go home, he sends letters home instead, telling his mom all about the action overseas that he's not really involved in. He desperately wants to go home, but he can't bring himself to--until a group of real Marines finds out about him and force his hand. They tell him to lie and start pulling strings for him, then accompany him home personally.

Hijinks ensue.

And of course his hometown sweetheart is engaged to another man, because Woodrow wrote her and told her he had fallen for someone else--another lie. And so of course who knows if he'll get her back or not.

Really, the movie is just a delight. The only discomfort for me was wondering whether he would continually lie his way out of tight spots, or whether it would all turn out well in the end. I think you'll enjoy it more knowing that you'll like the ending. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Also nice to see a movie where the Marines are presented so favorably. After A Few Good Men, Born on the Fourth of July and Full Metal Jacket, anything positive is a nice change.

Anyway, I'm at the library this evening, and Denisa worked this morning. Not much of a Valentine's Day for me--not that I'm a big fan to begin with. If you like it, more power to ya.

Birthdays, Thumb Sucking and Skiing: A Bryce Family Update

Hard to believe that three years ago today, we had our family increase from three to four. DC has been looking forward to today for the last six months or so, continually asking when her "Happy Birthday" was going to come. This morning, she was head over heels with excitement that it was here at last.

So what is DC up to these days? Denisa and I are currently trying to get her weaned from sucking her thumb. So far, it's been successful. How do we do it? The same way we did it with TRC. We'd tried everything with TRC--the fingernail paint, bribes, admonitions. You name it. Then one day I decided to try giving him a "special glove"--a sock that we put over the offending hand and then safety pinned on to his pajamas so he couldn't take it off. It stopped him cold turkey (although he now claims he still sucked his fingers--he just did it through the glove. Possible, but it still got him out of the habit.) We're now doing the same thing to DC, although she needs two special gloves, since she's been using both thumbs interchangeably. She looks a little funny, walking around on her way to bed with two socks on her hands, but hey--whatever we can do to help her have fewer teeth problems later, right? There's a carrot at the end of the stick, too: now that DC's stopped sucking her thumbs, Denisa has gone to get her nail polish at the store. Purple nail polish and a happy birthday, both on the same day? The girl's going to explode with excitement.

She's a very outgoing three year old. She loves to jump and play with her brother, and above all, she insists on equality. If TRC gets a piano lesson, then so does she. If TRC can read books, so can she. If TRC gets to play on my iPad, she does too. She loves watching movies, although more for the treats involved than for the movies themselves. (Her list of scary movies includes Follow that Bird, Elmo in Grouchland, Carebears, Beauty and the Beast, Princess and the Frog--pretty much any movie.) She usually comes out of her room around 6:30 each morning when I'm writing, and I send her off to Denisa to sleep some more. She puts anything and everything down for a nap (swaddling channel changers is a first for me), eats anything and everything sweet, and is overjoyed that she's been able to watch Sesame Street each day now.

And did I mention that Denisa has already started taking her skiing? Tuesday she went down the bunny hill five times. TRC, meanwhile, has already been down his first blue slope. We were going to go skiing this afternoon as a family, but it's in the single digits with the wind chill right now, so we decided to pass. (We're dedicated winter enthusiasts . . . but we're not that dedicated.)

In any case, we're very happy to have DC with us. This evening's agenda is some sort of dinner (her choice), flower cupcakes, probably a movie (with popcorn), and presents. She's getting a pink marble run, a pink doctor set (she loves to chase TRC around with anything remotely pointy, screaming "Flu Shot! Flu Shot!" (well, more like "Fu Shot!") over and over. I figure the doctor set--with a pretend syringe--should go over very well) and a sippy cup for her dollies.

Girl toys--a new field of research for this author/librarian. When do Barbies start?

Happy Birthday, DC!

Die, Polar Bear, Die!!!

I was running early this morning, so I thought I'd go get an extra errand done on the way to work. Maine winters mean lots of salt on your car, so what better way to spend a few extra minutes than by stopping by the car wash. I merrily gave it my credit card and punched in the options, pulled forward when asked to do so, and waited while the wonders of science cleaned my car.

But wait, I thought. The wonders of science have also taught me that it is Wrong to leave your car on when you're not driving anywhere. It wastes gas, and it kills polar bears. And while I"m sure a polar bear would kill me on sight if I ever bumped into one, I try to take the high road in these situations.

So I turned off my car.

The car wash finished, and I went to start the car. Click click click click click. A half-hearted lurch or two, and then nothing. I'm in the middle of the car wash, there are now cars behind me, I have a ride to catch in 15 minutes to go to a meeting in Augusta, I'm supposed to open the library before I go, and my car won't start.

Why in the world did I decide to have a car wash this morning, and why didn't I just kill those darn polar bears?

I get out of the car and stare at it for a bit, then get back in and try starting it again. Ladies and gentlemen, we now have confirmation that my stare isn't enough to bring cars back from the dead. So I get out of the car again and go to the guy behind me--the one wondering what in hades' name I was doing getting out of a car in the middle of a car wash when it's about -5 outside. (On a side note, if and when you need to get a car wash in Maine, don't do it when it's about -5 outside and your car isn't warmed up first. The water freezes right to the car. I won't charge you for that tip.)

Anyway--guy behind me agrees to help me push, and we the car out. I then call my mechanic. It sounds like a dead battery, but maybe the car wash froze a line somewhere or something. I mean, I *just had it running*, so how could it be the battery? A quick game of 20 questions later, and it's confirmed: it's almost definitely the battery. So the next call goes to Denisa: HELP! She agrees to troop the kids out in good ol' Tatonka (our second car). I make call #3: the library to see if someone can open for me and to get the number for my ride to Augusta. Call #4 is to the ride asking them to wait. Denisa shows up, the car gets jumped, we caravan over to the mechanic, then she drives me to work, then I go off to Augusta.

Long story, I know. It was a bad morning. But hey--I still made my meeting, my mechanic confirmed it was a battery problem, he replaced it for cheap, and I'm up and running again. It could have been worse. It could have died after one of my night shifts, or on the way down to PA one time. I mean, as long as it was going to just up and commit seppuku on me, it might as well have been at a time and place where I managed to work everything out.

But hey--my car's clean, and the polar bears get to live a few more seconds longer, so I guess in the end, everybody wins.

Until next time, when I'm gassing the heck out of those lousy Coca Cola swigging overgrown quadrupeds.

My First Thoughts on the Vodnik Edit

The Vodnik edit came in the mail yesterday. What does this mean? It means that I got a copy of the book with my editor's handwriting all over it (in purple, not red ink). For those of you wondering, that's 282 pages of text right now (1.5 spaced, I believe). Vodnik clocks in at around 102,000 words (Microsoft Office word count). How much ink was on the pages? Enough that it probably increased the shipping weight.

Seriously--most pages have something on them, and some pages have a lot of somethings. Before I got this edit, I was kind of nervous to see what it would be like. Were we talking about huge global changes that would take days of struggle for me to work through? Would I read it and weep for the amount of work that was ahead of me?

The answer is (thankfully) no and no. For those of you who have done writing groups (or been in one with me), this edit is comparable to a very thorough read through by an extremely good reader. Stacy noticed things that not one of my other gifted readers had picked up on. Things like character motivations that shift from one scene to another, or facts that contradict earlier facts. Some of this is due to the fact that we're working on a fourth draft here--there's been plenty of changes from draft one to now, and I didn't catch all the changes all the time, and some of the changes cause problems elsewhere that I also didn't catch.

But still, as I paged through the edit last night, I was relieved more than anything else. This was something I could do. It's something I've done before. It won't be a walk in the park--one of the things Stacy pointed out is that the book is too long right now. I agree. I've been wanting it to be around 75,000 words, and unfortunately each edit has made it longer, not shorter. I debated just cutting out every fourth word, but something tells me that might make it not quite as smooth. So how DO I cut it down? She noticed--and I agree, as have many of my readers to this point--that the first third of the book is slower than the last two thirds. That's a place that's prime for trimming, but I need to sit down and figure out what can go, what can be rewritten, what needs to stay.

When my friend Brandon Sanderson is rewriting, he likes to cut 15% from each chapter on a pure word count basis, meaning he does a word count before the edit, then one after. If he's gotten to 15%, then he's good to go. If he hasn't, he tries to keep cutting. I've tried this approach with some of my writing before, and I'm not sure how well it works for me. I feel like my voice is a particularly chatty one--conversational. That means that a lot of the time, I certainly *can* say things more succinctly, but I'm not sure if it makes it any better. The one book I tried this with across the board didn't feel appreciably improved at the end, although it was shorter.

*EDIT*

Wow. Check that. Reverse it. While I was writing the above paragraph, I was trying to remember for the life of me which book I'd cut by 15%. Turns out it was Vodnik. I'm actually on draft 6, not draft 5. Draft 4 had been trimming the story from 112,000 to 96,000 words. Draft 5 was me then revising it madly last September, and now here we are at draft 6. Looking over journal entries, there's a whole long road this book has gone down, and it will be interesting one day to sit down and trace its path. But today is not that day.

In any case, what this means is that maybe my writing *does* get better when I hack it back some. I'm going to have to reevaluate my world view now. :-) What it also means is that it won't be all that easy to just do a 15% trim on this current draft--a lot of the fat got chopped already. So I need to be looking at scenes, examining them to see if they're pulling their weight, and then trying to see if I can accomplish the same thing in an easier way.

That's actually first up on my plate--I'm summarizing what each chapter in the first third of the book accomplishes, then seeing if there are ways to condense that, and if each chapter is necessary. I won't cut just to have something shorter--it'll be as long as it *needs* to be. But I'm sure there are things that can be streamlined.

Should be interesting. No worries--I'll keep you all informed as this goes on. Wish me luck!

As Promised, A Picture of Me Wearing the Oscar the Grouch Hat

Don't anybody say I don't follow through with my promises, even when they involve public humiliation. So you might recall from my post on the upcoming Oscars that I'd made a request from you, my faithful readers. I wanted the Oscar the Grouch hat you see at the top of this post, to use as the yearly trophy for my Oscar party. (Not content to just do March Madness pools, I do Oscar pools, too. Hey--I like to swim.) I promised that if someone bought it for me, then I'd take a picture and post it here. I had made the plea pretty much jokingly--I hadn't even thought to look to see what sort of size the thing is. I have an enormous head, and most hats don't fit me, but I didn't think of it at the time, mainly because I didn't think anyone would take me up on the offer.

Well, the trouble with having your mother read your blog is that she's got plenty of experience when it comes to you and embarrassing pictures. She bought the hat and sent it to me, and now I have an Oscar trophy.

And you have this. Warning--what has once been seen cannot be unseen.

Don't say I didn't tell you.

Oscar party, here I come!

Writing a Murder Mystery

So the Groundhog Day Murder Mystery went off Friday to great success. Our Phil Connors was, unfortunately, down with a bad case of the flu, so I ended up having to play the part of Ralph the Drunk while also offering key bits of information Phil had told Ralph over a round of drinks. Other than that, it was a really fun evening. Great food, fun times, lots of laughs.

I've had a couple of people ask me about how I chose which murder mystery party game to use, and the answer (for those of you who missed it) is that I made my own. It's easier than it sounds. Back when I was still in Utah, Brandon Sanderson wrote a great Harry Potter murder mystery that we did with friends, and that was a lot of fun. Here's an old pic of Denisa and me in full homemade Slytherin regalia:

So we'd had a blast doing a homebrew murder mystery, and I'd been toying with writing one of my own, so I thought what better occasion than Groundhog Day? In the end, it's pretty simple. Step one is to decide how many guests you want to have. I'd suggest at least 6, but no more than 8. Step two is to pick a theme. If you use a well-known movie or book, then your guests will already have an idea who their characters are before they arrive, and it makes it much easier to dress up.

Once you've got the guest numbers down and the theme, then it's just a matter of plotting out a murder mystery. You make it so that each character has things to hide, and then you have at least one other character have noticed certain facts during the investigation that prompt them to inquire about the things that character would prefer stay hidden. Give everybody a motive, mess around with alibis and where everybody was when, and you're on your way.

You print up booklets for each attendee. These booklets include a summary of the crime--so that everyone knows the mystery ahead of time--a character description, suggestion for how to dress and act, and a summary of how the night will be run. Throwing in some pictures of the character they've been assigned to play helps, too. After that introductory material, there are sealed sections for each round you want to play.

I divided the night into three rounds. Each round has two categories in each player's booklet ("Things you'll share freely" and "Things you'd rather not discuss.") People can say whatever they want--but they can't lie. You unseal each section at the beginning of its corresponding round. People read over their categories, and they start asking each other questions. You play each round until conversation starts to peter out, making sure that everyone's shared all their "Things you'll share freely" tidbits before you move onto the next round. At the end of each round, you let people make a stab at who the culprit is. The winner is the person who guesses the right culprit the most times.

Other than that, you can give out awards for best costume and best acting (to encourage people to actually put some effort into it). I ran it as a pot luck dinner. Denisa and I did the main course and a side dish, and our guests brought a salad, appetizer and dessert. Round One happened during appetizers, Round Two during dinner, and Round Three around dessert.

As long as you invite people who aren't afraid to look stupid or foolish, you can't go wrong. The main goal is to have a fun time and do something different than what you usually do. It took some preparation, but I'd do it again. I plan to, actually. Thinking about a Princess Bride Mystery . . .