Random Neural Update

Hallos! Just thought I'd do an Everyday Here's What's Up post.

WEEDING!

I've started clearing out parts of my mother's yard, for eventual sale. This part of BC is rainforest, so man does that yard GROW. If something gets left in the grass, the rainforest reclaims it. The vines and weeds grow in between and twist all around the object, and layers upon layers of vines grow over top. I feel like Indiana Jones excavating treasure! (It's a big yard, and the back corner used to have a greenhouse, so there's all sorts of strange things that were left behind and grown over.)

So then I got all interested in invasive plants. We have some thistle, some dandelions, but the real invaders are:

Buttercups! Adorable but they're EVERYWHERE.

Blackberry - Look at those spikes! We have them as high as my face, so I have to cut those down first so I don't get scratched up when I clear the ivy.

English Ivy - Holy crap this stuff grows and GROWS. It creeps across the lawn, sucking in everything in its way. It's beautiful but man! Takes forever to find where the plant starts!

Luckily we do not have (though it's common in this area) Giant Hogweed. The juice and pollen get on your skin and when expose to sun starts burning and bubbling, getting worse every hour. And that same spot will burn in the sun for years afterwards. When hogweed is spotted the city ropes it off, and you have to wear hazmat or similar  clothing to take it out. Neat! It's so Star Trekian!

So you can see I'm having a fun time. I like novelty.

SUNBURNING!

In Montreal I lived in an apartment and never went out--I need a yard in order to venture out. And my balcony gets invaded by yellowjacket wasps almost the entire summer--they won't leave me alone! So here at mum's, when sunny, I sit out and write or weed. But I'm not a good sunblock applier. Lack of experience I guess.

First I burned my face and top of my head. Not too bad, you can see I just look like the ruddy Anglo-Saxon I am.

Then I burned an exact triangle on my chest. It's fading now.

Then a patch on my right shin, but it's hard to see now.

None of these hurt. But today I was weeding from 2 PM - 5 PM and didn't realize my skin was poking out between my t-shirt and yoga pants. So now I have a real burn, the ouchy kind.

It's all très cool.

WRITING!

In the evening I watch some TV with mum, then go upstairs to the little attic apartment. With its sloping ceiling, and my foamee bed, I feel like a real artist. I sit on a chair with my feet on a loveseat* and sometimes put my laptop on my purple suitcase as a table. It's weirdly comfortable.

Behind me Chino the cat naps away. (I used to have the two foamees piled on top of each other, but when the cats started sleeping with me I separated them so that there's more room for everyone.) Sometimes Mystery comes up. I feel like a Real Writer, working away in my garret with a bed on the floor, living out of suitcases. I am so bohemian. No wonder my word count's going well!  ;-)

"They call me Mista Nails!"

And JJJ's WillWriteforChocolate challenge continues, super fun. It's starting to take on the feel of a writing community. And more people keep joining including a reader of my blog! I am so humbled. 

PROCRASTINATING!

I start by looking up legitimate research on the nets, like Paris in the 1920s, and then end up everywhere else. Here's my browsing history from yesterday.

* Here's me looking at photos of Michael Jackson's kids! Procrastination is weird shit.

* The actual research...

So. Things are going along peacefully enough. Do you guys garden? Procrastinate on the net? Live in an attic?

____

* I can't sit with my knees above my hips, or most of the time it will trigger a headache. The loveseat is too plushy, I sit too low.

It's a Saturday, yo

Heard this as I flipped past Jimmy Fallon. By the way, if you want to buy this song it's called "Lippy Kids" not "Build a Rocket Boys" or even "Build a Rocking Horse." Just a little tip for ya.


I got an ipad. I don't normally buy new toys before everyone else--I just got my first cell phone too, if that tells you anything. The excuse was that it's to help for work. An actual excuse, cause I wasn't planning the ipad plunge for years. But I'll take it off my budget for a new computer. ANYway here's the #1 thing you need to know about ipads:

Cats can barely keep off them!!

This is my friend's little guy, JR. He's flopped over the back of the sofa, staring at the ipad. Usually he's trying to walk on it--he loves the reflections he sees.

Minion was also inexorably drawn to it when I got it out of the box. Not watching reflections, but just determined to walk on it no matter where I put it.

 "Oh this is teh new toy, eh? (yawn)"

"But what's that?"

"Ho now Mahmmy that's a toy."

Happened to catch the American Prime Suspect premiere. I like a lot of the male actors, the show was pretty good, but I found Maria Bello bland. Tough, but not at all gritty. She's not a mess. She's got this beautiful apartment and hot boyfriend and wears her cute little hat... Jane Tennyson as a Barbie.

Caught the last 10 minutes of The Sweetest Thing. It's not *a good movie* but I remember enjoying it because it's a movie with funny women, like Bridesmaids. Not Sex&theCity type, not run of the mill rom com humor, but funny like Stupid Boy Movies. Willing to embarrass themselves, act like idiots.

I also rewatched Return to Me, which I remembered liking. I'd forgotten how funny the side characters are, all of them. Both the scenes with Bonnie Hunt and Jim Belushi, and the ones with the oldies acting like matchmakers. Really, really funny.

I tuned out the Oprah channel for awhile cause there was only one show I loved and I'd seen most of the episodes--the one where they profiled successful people. The Jay-Z, Maya Angelou and Oprah ones were excellent. But this year they've got two new shows that interest me. One is Visionaries, that follows around famous creative people (Tom Ford, will.i.am); and another where Oprah talks about lessons learned on her old show, using clips etc.

It'll be like the Best Parts version of her old show.

   

Random Neural Meepings

I wrote a sad-sack catch-you-up post yesterday. I don't think I'll post it.

 Minion sitting on me yesterday when I wrote my sad sack post.


Instead, some random neural firings...

* Enjoying my Storywonk class: Making Magic. (I've linked to the cache cause I think they're updating the page now that the class has begun.) Did I mention this class? Lani Diane Rich gives this and another class called Discovery that are related, and that focus on writing aspects not usually covered in books and courses. I paired up with another Betty and got the classes half price. Making Magic is about filling the inspiration tank before you start writing, so that the whole thing flows, you hit less dry spots. Eg. Having a soundtrack of about 20 songs that represent your characters, setting etc., that you can listen to both when planning the book, and if you stall out while writing it.

So that's what I've been working on this week, on and off. Well, I've always had soundtracks--you may have noticed I listen to a lot of music. ;-) But I hadn't yet collected a lot of music for this one. Just general atmospheric--pow wow music, francophone songs, etc. But now I'm trying to pin stuff down, and at the same time pin down my protagonists. My heroine remains elusive. I hates her.

By the way, Writers' Digest sells their back issues as digital downloads (and print of course). Thought I'd mention that for the writers out there. I had a good issue from the library and didn't want to scan the whole stupid thing--just bought it instead.

* Watched Palm Beach Story. It was entertaining, but terribly plotted. What was Preston Sturges thinking? lol

* I'm finally going to get a cell phone. Can you believe it? I've always told people: The idea that I can be reached at all times horrified me! But only a prepaid one. I'm not that committed yet.

* I'm going off Topomax, so I won't have anything to blame Life on anymore. I'm down from 6 pills to 2 and pretty happy about it. It didn't make a big difference to my headaches, and it's had the worst side effects of anything I've tried. They would have been tolerable if they had a big result on my headaches, but otherwise they stank. The fatigue was terrible. I was taking 4 pills before bed, and 2 during the day. And even before taking the day ones, I was ready to go back to bed after 9 hours of sleep.

...On the bright side, I would fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. I missed that last night when I had a lot on my mind. Most of my life it's taken my an hour min. to fall asleep, and now I've got to re-adapt! Huff. Elavil (which I'm still on) used to put me to sleep, but I guess my body's used to it. However, better that than Rip Van Winkleism.

What I'm really looking forward to is NO MORE PINS AND NEEDLES in my feet! Holy mother of a sainted dog that was driving me out of my frikking mind!!! I couldn't leave my foot in the same position more than 5 minutes without getting the nastiest p&n you can imagine. I'd taken to wearing crocs all the time

because the bumpy soles helped the p&n go away, but I hate wearing sandals all the time, and it didn't prevent them, just made it less severe. (I even got p&n in my knee caps. That is the weirdest feeling.) And what was I going to do in winter? I was planning to order croc liners for my slippers, that's what. But that's still cold. >:-(

* Visited with friend Onthatmidnightstreet, who was in town. One of my few in-life writer friends, so she's that's one reason she's fun to talk to. Also, she's very funny. And we had zee girl talk. Not the goofy frivolous kind, but... well, we try to keep our senses of humor even as we moan about terrible weather conditions (cf. The Brönte Sisters, below.)

* Finally finished the first book of Louise Rennison's new teen series. Her first series--about a British teen who can't dampen her loud personality and just has to learn to appreciate it, and her insane cat, and insane little sister--was brilliant. Funniest thing I'd read in ages. This series has a less eccentric heroine, and there was no plot for the first half of the book, so it was slow. But in the second half she starts finding herself as an artist and the book flew by with the usual Rennison speed. Once again the theme is about accepting one's own oddness, of which I approves.

It takes place at an arts school in Yorkshire, so there's lots of good Yorkshire jokes, including a moody boy named Cain (cause it's the moors, there has to be a moody boy). I don't usually root for the bad boys, but he's hilarious, I hope she ends up with him. He's in a band of course and sings songs like "Shut Up, Mardy Bum" (mardy bum is my favorite new expression), and "Girlfriend in the River, I Know, I Know It's Really Serious."

I decided I am going to really observe Cain and base my Heathcliff on him.

...Cain hit the microphone. He kicked the stand. He pointed at people. He even kicked Bob's special speaker with "Wizard" written on it. Bob went and stood by it with a broom.

At the end, Cain came forward and said huskily, "That's it, leave us alone."

...And then they all went off fighting.

Amazing.

From the book's glossary: The Brönte Sisters - Em, Chazza and Anne. ... They wrote Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and loads of other stuff about terrible weather conditions and moaning.  dunderwhelp - A polite Yorkshire way of saying: "You are an absolute disgrace of a person. Look at your knees."


* Connie Willis won the Hugo award. Her 11th. She won the Nebula earlier this year, and the Hugo is the fan voted one (these are the two top sci fi fantasy awards.) She's a history nut, but also a total sci fi geek, completely versed in the classics. When I went to Worldcon (the big convention, which was luckily held in Montreal one year) a photographer (and Neil Gaiman-Amanda Palmer buddy) was taking photos of science fiction fantasy fans. And she presented herself at his booth! She's lovely.

My hubby made me get a picture with her, cause I would have been too shy to ask without him. You see the stunned look on my face? (My t-shirt is from my brother, it says: Chewie is my Co-pilot.)

From the Guardian:

Connie Willis's gripping portrait of London during the Blitz has won the American author a remarkable 11th Hugo award.

Willis's two-volume time travel sequence, Blackout and All Clear, was voted winner of science fiction's most prestigious prize by members of the World Science Fiction Society. With 10 Hugos already to her name, Willis beat a female-heavy shortlist which also featured Lois McMaster Bujold, Mira Grant and NK Jemesin, with British author Ian McDonald the only male writer in the running. Her win means the Hugo best novel prize has now been won by a female writer 16 times in 57 years.

Opening with a quote from TS Eliot's Four Quartets, "History is now and England", Willis traces the stories of a group of time-travelling historians from Oxford. Polly goes to London, to evaluate the lives of shopgirls during the Blitz, Mike to Dunkirk, Merope to the countryside to observe evacuees. Armed with their future knowledge of when and where bombs will fall, they should be entirely safe – but then, one by one, they discover they are unable to travel back to the future. "It's hard to know what to praise more," wrote the Washington Post about Blackout. "Every detail rings true. Still, all of Willis's knowledge is subsumed in her bravura storytelling: Blackout is, by turns, witty, suspenseful, harrowing and occasionally comic to the point of slapstick." In May this year, the novels also won Willis her seventh Nebula award.

"I consider you all my family," she told the convention of science fiction authors and fans. "You have welcomed me into your hearts from the time when I was very young and you have been nothing but kind and accepting and supportive of me through my entire career and my life. I can't think of a better place to have spent my life and I am so happy about this."

Random postings

Just cleaning up my blogging folder if you don't mind. They're all pics--you can click them to see them at full size.

A cartoon posted by Friendpaul on facebook.

A friend who's newly working a desk job was asking about how to stop neck and shoulder pain. I don't think about it much anymore because of being a writer since childhood. I was firmly planted at a typewriter/computer from teen years onward, and experienced my first really sharp, awful neck pains around grade 9.  

I found exercises like these in a magazine or something and they really worked. Took awhile, but the pain went away over time. I still use them. #14 also helps against carpal tunnel (I have another set of exercises for that.) 

And I do some of these too for my back, shoulders and wrists. ...Thought I'd share since many of my online-ee friends are writers. :-) If I find my book, I'll try to scan the carpal tunnel ones one day. I'm always misplacing it.

 And then, totally at random again... some illustrations from a graphic novel series. I read book 2 then realized book 3 isn't out yet! And not anytime soon!

But no wonder, look at the detail in these! (It's about an English teaching assistant in a Japanese village.)

My library also doesn't have the rest of the Aya series. And I'm about to read book 1 of a series, that they don't have book 2 for. Hm. Hm!

    

Random Neural Firings post

Kinda tired today, been an odd week though in a good way. Got a headache though so I should go to bed before it gets worse.

This week a ginormous hunk of concrete tunnel roof collapsed in a Montreal tunnel. And everyone's fussing because the opposition leader had to take a break cause his cancer is back and his interim leader used to be a member of the Bloc Quebecois. And all summer the Parti Quebecois' been in turmoil but the English news hasn't been tracking it really, so I haven't a flying notion what's going on and haven't gotten into finding out yet--other than some members defecting. Basically there's all kinds of craziness and I'm all "Wha? Wha??" And meanwhile half the western economies are collapsing...

I'm mad about this infrastructure BS though. We pay a lot of taxes in Quebec, and where the eff does it go? There's so much corruption, everyone's pissed.

Aw frak it all, I'm off to bed.

      

Random Neural Firings

I'm sleepy so no real post today, though I'm mostly ready to put up my pow wow post.

I haven't been on the internets much this week and last week. I've had to do lots of stuff for my Real World self which I can't all talk about here. Part included practicing my French--I started watching another series called Les soeurs Elliott (The Elliott Sisters) that's free on my pay per view thingy. And I'm still reading French graphic novels--still so much new vocabulary that I run into.

In the meantime, I've been bearing down hard on the plot of my novel. It's coming along, but the magical moment of Yes still eludes me. I prefer to stay off the time-suckitude of the internet, and work on that intstead. I only hop on at the end of the night (errrr early morning) to update my blog, and usually chose one friends' blog at a time to catch up on.

When I've been too overwhelmed by life, or have the TV on in the background, I either watch mysteries and romantic comedies I've taped, or the lesbian romances the movie channel's had on for gay pride month, or French movies. (My IMDB list for July!)

Okay I'm sleeeeepy. What have you guys been doing?? Bye!!