Thursday, September 28, 2017

No News is Good News

Well, sort of.

I've been pounding away at this draft of "The Professor and the Siren" and passed the 110,000k mark yesterday. Exceeding my monthly wordcount goal again this month, despite having several days of low word counts but extended editing time. And also despite having a very nasty and debilitating headache and overwhelming fatigue. Season change is no joke, y'all!

But it's actually fall, for real, and though I don't relish the shorter days coming to Minnesota, I'm ready to move from gardening back to sewing. I haven't done much sewing this summer and I miss it.

My husband and I have been binge-watching Arrow. It is my second time through the show, but his first watch for seasons 1&2. Hard to believe that it's been four years since I first watched the series! I'm surprised at how much I've forgotten. Definitely feel that the show has come a long way in doing better combat scenes!

The binge-watch was inspired in part by the fact that we finally finished off season five. The first half of season five was SO SLOW that we gave up about halfway through. "This isn't worth watching with commercials and poor CW player streaming," we said. "We'll wait until it's on Netflix." Of course, as soon as we started watching again, the episodes picked up in pacing and we loved it. Go figure. Here's hoping that they get the pacing back on track in season six. All the CW superhero shows start coming back on October 9th and we are psyched! (I'm such a CW junkie. Oh boy.)

Somehow our social life has expanded to include three RPG groups! One is weekly in person, one weekly online, and one semi-weekly as we can manage it, in person. It's just such a fun way to chill with friends! Plus, Star Wars, Harry Potter and X-Men...great load of geekiness in regular doses! I'm actually GMing the X-Men group right now, with my first foray into the Fate Core system. It's been a bit of a learning curve after four years of playing the FFG Star Wars system (and D&D before that) but I'm enjoying the simplicity of the central mechanics. For those of you who are into RPGS: What systems have you used and which do you prefer?

We also completely redecorated our bedroom. That was a massive but extremely rewarding project. I've posted some photos of it on instagram, but will be doing a complete write-up on it soon here.

Mateo continues to be a constant source of joy for us. He recently got to hang out with some friendly cats and totally adored them--I almost had to bring them right home. Poor pup doesn't really care for other dogs (to put it mildly) despite our best efforts at socialization. No other anxieties though, he adores people and isn't scared of much (though he is tremendously cautious).



I'm not a computer gamer by any definition, but I have recently gotten addicted to this little game called Mini Metro. And by addicted, I mean that I play about 20 mins a day. Nice little brain puzzle to transition from one part of the day into another. It's extremely streamlined, with nice simple graphics, but very cleverly structured to keep you pushing yourself. Well, me. Nathan has a new game he's playing about every week. The fact that I play ONE game, over and over, for MONTHS, drives him crazy. (But then he's super proud when I get on the worldwide leaderboards so whatever.)

All of this probably makes it sound like I've been crazy productive, but that's not true. Sure I've gotten a lot of projects done (at least, for a chronically ill person), but my house is a mess and I'm way behind on food preservation. Not to mention that I've had almost no time to work on Whimsical Kitchen all summer. Plus, the lack of sewing. Man, I gotta sew...

And blog. More posts coming up soon!

Tuesday, September 5, 2017

Why Daphne's Hair is Blonde

Writing confession time.

I've been thinking a lot about hair color in book heroines lately. Mostly because none of them ever seem to have my color (light brown). I've often told my husband that I love his hair and as a little girl that was exactly the shade I wanted.

I blame books for this. Heroines all had dramatic colors: raven black, chestnut brown, fiery red, or golden blonde. Whenever anyone had medium brown hair, it was usually described as "mousy" or "plain." Rarely did one see a yummy or exciting descriptor like "caramel" or "bronze."

Okay, those descriptions veer a little close to the edge of purple prose. And honestly, my hair color has taken on more depth as I've gotten older, so perhaps the adolescent dissatisfaction with the color that comes through in the novels is fairly accurate. Unfortunately, it becomes a reinforcing cycle. Most girls that I know with hair color similar to mine keep it permanently dyed one shade or the other of a more 'exciting' color. (Me too, I tried several in my early 20's).