It’s HERE!

My contributor’s copy of FANTASTICAL VISIONS IV arrived Monday! It’s a lovely little book. I’m so proud to be a part of it. ^_^

Writing Stuff:

Not much to report, at the moment. Still working on the edits for the “Dystopic SF” story, and trying to untangle the mental knots of the UNTITLED NOVEL. Actually, since Monday, I’ve banned myself from writing fiction until tomorrow at noon. I was getting so worked up and so frustrated with myself–the evil editor in me was throwing a royal tantrum about EVERYTHING–that my brain was set to self-destruct unless I pulled the plug for a while. So I banned myself from writing for three days.

It’s working brilliantly. I’m thinking, but my hands are tied, so I can’t rush into anything. The fact that I “can’t” write makes me want to, which is a nice change from earlier this week when I was banging my head into a wall.

Note to self: I need a spiral notebook and some index cards. I’m hoping that’ll be a little Rx for the mental wall I’ve built for myself.

Long story short, the number of chapters I peg this month is going to be much lower than I wanted. Next time, I’ll make sure I have a better idea of what I *actually* want to accomplish, and specifically *where* in the story I want to get to. Will do my best to untangle the knots thus far and hopefully that will put me on course for next month.

 

Day at the Beach

So here are the afore-promised pictures from our trip to the beach on Sunday. Didn’t get a whole lot of writing done (which was the plan), or submissions done (which were finished up today), but it was a great trip and a lot of fun. 

Andy is not a daywalker, so he hung out in his tent most of the time. I think he got more work done that way, though. ^_^ 

Finished the latest batch of novel submissions today, which was good. That was something I was going to work on Sunday, also, but the beach beckoned, and how could I refuse to heed its call?

OH! Almost forgot: Apex’s Community Board is now up and running! I’m already making a general nuisance of myself, so do feel free to drop by. ^_^

Writing Stuff:

Two from-the-top attempts at Chapter 2 for the “UNTITLED NOVEL PROJECT”. Decided I need to go back to the drawing board in order to establish the kind of confidence in this sequence I need. Got some stuff in mind, will see how it goes. Changed the WTDL to reflect the need to spend some time planning.

 

Making the Time

So I’ve always heard that you’re supposed to exercise for at least an hour three times a week. For those of you who know me, you are likely to know that I’m a pretty sedentary person. It’s not always by choice: at work, I sit at the front desk and do computer work all day; during my lunch break, I write fiction (on my laptop, and therefore sitting down again); when I get home, I have submissions to do or email to check or general internet-based things to do; I play video games (sitting, no Wii yet); I blog; I read; I paint (at least this I do standing up); I cook (again, standing); and then I go to bed. There’s barely enough time in the day to get done everything I want to get done, much less make time to exercise. I’ve been at least temporarily blessed with a really high metabolism, so weight-loss/weight-control hasn’t really been a motivator. It embarrasses me when I go for a hike and realize how out of shape I am, but when do I have the time to be otherwise?

Well, at 5 in the morning, apparently. That’s when Andy and I haul our butts out of bed to go walk. Now, I recognize that some of you may scoff at “walking” as exercise, but my 80+ year old grandparents have always been dedicated walkers, not gym people, and they’re in great shape. My grandfather is a speed demon. It’s also a lot easier on my knees to do really brisk walking than to jog. Besides, I’m looking for some general stamina; I’m not planning on running any marathons, thanks very much. I’m talking about being in basic good shape.

So we’ve started walking bright and early, first thing in the morning. I’ll probably switch to something indoors when winter rolls around again, because it’s only due to the notable sunlight that I can even budge from bed this early. But I’ve already noticed a huge improvement. I feel more awake, more conscious, and more healthy overall. It may all be in my head, but I don’t particularly care. I’m getting more exercise now than I usually do. ^_^

 Writing Stuff:

 

Silver Falls Trip

Today we took a trip with Kaku to Silver Falls State Park just outside of Salem, Oregon. We’d been planning this trip for a while, but the weekend weather and other plans always seemed to get in the way. But we planned ahead this time to make sure the weather was good and that we were all free. 

It was a great trip. The weather was perfect, and the hike was pretty easy. (I say “pretty easy” because I’m horribly out of shape, and one of the up-hill patches was a little tough for me. Resolution: get in shape.) First, we headed to the South Falls. Before we got there, however, we took a brief detour to Frenchie Falls. As you can tell, Andrew and Kaku were far from impressed by what they called “The Surrender-Monkey Falls”:

 

 

 

The South Falls were a little more in size with what we wanted to see. It had a nice path that lead behind the falls, and on that path, you could see all the erosion “chimneys” where water had worn away at the rock.

 

 

 

We followed that path and joined up with the Canyon Trail, which we took to the Lower South Falls. The Lower South Falls are a little shorter, but much wider than South Falls. The walk behind this falls was pretty flooded, so we had to do a little jumping to get by. 

Then we hiked up Maple Ridge Trail back to the parking lot and from there drove over to North Falls. If we’d had more time, we might have hiked it, but since we didn’t get to the park until about 2:30, and still wanted to get home for pizza-making, we decided to utilize our modern amenities. Didn’t bring my camera for North Falls, which is too bad, because it was nice and tall. It reminded me of Richenbach Falls in Switzerland.

And now we’re back, making pizza! Later, we’re going to head to The Wooden Chicken for some cocktails. ^_^

 

I like the sun, too

Now that’s what I call a sun worshipper. Just can’t get close enough. ^_^

Speaking of cats! Went out last night with friends for gelato at Staccato Gelato. I don’t know if I’ve ever had real gelato before, so I thought it was pretty tasty (especially the zingy Blood Orange flavor! Mmmm…), though Andy says he likes more ice creamy gelato, and this was a little more icy than creamy.  Still, the fruity flavors were yummy in my tummy. ^_^

But as for the cat! There’s a random cat who hangs out at Staccato Gelato. He’s such a sweet, lazy cat, and is totally unfazed by all the people around him. It’s like the shop is his own personal little kingdom, filled with all his admirers. And he’s certainly not short of admirers! ^_^ I wish I’d had my camera… And isn’t that *why* we got a little snapshot camera in the first place?

 

Human Rinds: It’s a buncha-muncha-cruncha human.

Made vegetarian “sushi” today for dinner! Check it out:

Also, the STAR TREK movie review will be up on the Apex blog tomorrow.  

Writing Stuff:

Measly 200-odd words on the “UNTITLED NOVEL PROJECT”. Seems like just writing whatever scenes hit me is working better than trying to force it in a linear motion, though I would like some semblance of order in the long run. Maybe I’ll try flash-card scenes this time, so I can write the individual scenes randomly…

 

Painting is fun!

So I finally got myself some brushes/paint/etc. to start trying to oil paint. Figured it’d be cheaper than therapy as a way to relieve stress, lol. Haven’t done much art in a while, and I was chomping at the bit to get going, so yesterday I got to it! This was my first attempt:

The picture is a little blurry, but I couldn’t use a flash. >.< Sorry about that. I was pretty happy with it, considering I’ve never oil-painted before. Still have a ton to learn (like more drastic differences in shadow/more realistic face structure/etc.) but I feel like this first attempt at least gives me hope that I might actually be able to paint more realistic people someday, with a lot of practice. Figure I’ll move on to portraits/full-body portraits next from pictures.

So today, I wanted to give it another go with some different styling. The day before I’d painted one half of the long canvas a reddish-purple, and wanted to try a portrait over it. I was originally shooting to create a likeness of one of my Thief characters, but the colors I selected (going more dramatic this time, to practice shading/face-structure again) and the facial structures (no sketch behind it this time) ended up creating a semi-David-Bowie/vampire look. Still, overall I’m really pretty happy with it. Will have to work on the translation of what’s-in-my-head to what’s-on-the-canvas, but still–for a second attempt, I’m content. ^_^

And for some other random pictures I’ve been meaning to post: Maple-Whiskey Salmon I made a week or two ago, and Mei and Ozzy on our bed.

Also, looks like I’m staying on at work for at least another month! YAY! So mid-January I’ll find out if I’m staying more permanently or if the temp job is going to end. At least I’ve got cash flow for the holiday season! ^_^

Now, off to do submissions and other Apexy work!

Writing Stuff:

 

Kittehs!!

We got them toys today. Toys and catnip. Yum. ^_^

 

Halloween and Other Angst

Finally finished out the first week of FT employment. Luckily, ended on a high note rather than a low note, as had occurred earlier in the week. I’m hoping we continue this upward trend. I also hope I get more training, so that when people ask me to do things, I can actually help them. That’d be nice. ^_^

Still trying to figure out the whole weekly schedule thing for keeping up on the household stuff. Did managed to get the whole house tidied up, vacuumed, and mopped today, plus got the dishes all done, so hopefully I’m starting off the week on the right foot.

Halloween was actually pretty quiet for us. We still don’t know the area all that well, so we didn’t really know where to go or what to do. We did get candy just in case the neighbor kids decided to come around, but they didn’t–so now I’ve got 2lbs of DumDums. Mmmmm. Yummy! ^_^ We did watch The Ghost and Mr. Chicken yesterday, which was fun. Plus watched Muppet Treasure Island.

Edit: Andy put up our pictures. ^_^

Writing Stuff

 

Portland’s Japanese Tea Garden

So today we went to the Japanese Tea Garden! We’d been meaning to check it out for a while, and since we went to Pinocchio’s and India House for Andy’s birthday, that meant we had to do something for mine. So when we read that this weekend would be warm enough, and sunny enough, we figured we’d better take this opportunity.

It’s a beautiful garden. Really makes me want to study the aesthetic of this style of gardening, because I’d love to have one of my own someday (not this big, naturally, though that’d be dreamy!). Every detail is so carefully thought out–even the rocks laid into the path are deliberate. And everything is so neat and tidy. Made me feel rather slovenly for letting our apartment get so cluttered. (I cleaned when we got back.) Everything was just stunning. My only complaint (which can’t really count, due to its nature) is that I wish I could have been there without the crowds. I don’t suppose that’s really possible, but it felt a little like no one could truly appreciate the garden to its full extent when we’re all moving through.

Andy took lots of pictures at my request, and he did a marvellous job of it too!:

Writing Stuff