Scribbling without a Pen

Notes to Self

2009-10-19T00:40:00.000-07:00

or Scene Help try advancedfictionwriting.com Is this worth it: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/18345/how_to_win_writing_contests.html

****

UH OH: 4 dogs in the house tomorrow. Combined weight=280lbs. We don't have enough insurance for this.

****

George is slowly loosing it. He came in quiet as a mouse, now he's a barking lunatic. Thank God he's still house broken.

****

New favorite quick comfort food: hard boiled egg, spaghetti noodles, garlic granules, sun dried tomato, olive oil, salt, black pepper . . . could dress it up with: gratings of a dry smoked cheese, fresh basil or roasted peppers.

****

About JenDeng. I think it's like this. We're all on a bus in Tampa and half the bus wants In-N-Out animal style burgers and the other half of the bus wants Maidrites with cheese, ketchup and mustard. The new bus driver is like all for In-N-Out, but he says we can pick up a bunch of Maidrites because Iowa is on the way to California. And the whole bus is like totally happy because they are going to get really good food soon . . . like if you call three days soon. But that's okay because all the old bus driver gave them was stale potato chips. That was kind of okay with the Maidrite crowd because thems like their food soft, but I think deep down everyone knew that those chips weren't really that good. Even kinda gross. And like everyone is hungry for change--you know, something new. But the thing is, even though the new bus driver knows about good food, he doesn't know how to use his GPS to get to the good food. He just keeps heading west. And there's like this one lady on the bus with one of those expensive GPS watches. She keeps telling him where to go to catch the freeway to the 80. But he tells her that he's the driver and it's not her job and that the road ahead is long and hard, but they'll get there eventually. And she should just trust him already. Because doesn't he know about good food? So he drives for like four years. And they end up in the ocean. The end.

****

Must learn more about aggressive dogs and formulate a theory. Ideas of note:

1. City does not have breed-specific legislation, but if a dog has ever bitten or attacked another domesticated animal or a human the owner must carry a $100K insurance policy towards dog bites, have a special permit and muzzle the dog at all times while in public. Failure to comply will result in the dog being taken away and the owner barred from dog ownership for 5 years. A second offense will result in the owner being barred from dog ownership permanently or while they still live in the city.

2. Russian geneticist Dmitri Belyaev spent about 30 years breeding the least aggressive silver foxes that he could find in an attempt to prove that early man's goal in breeding domesticated dogs was based on temperamental attributes, rather than physical. The resulting "fox" retained volpe DNA but had much lower blood adrenaline levels around humans. As a result, they showed "doglike" behavior when caretakers were near: begging for belly rubs and licking human hands. These foxes were also physically different from wild foxes: their faces were more puppylike--almost like a chihuahua, their fur was not mottled nor as dense and their tails were not as fluffy and instead of hanging like a GSD, they curled like spites. Belyaev theorized it was the hormonal profile of the wild foxes that gave them their unique physical attributes and to change the hormonal profile resulted in a very different looking animal. That's amazing. But what really got me is the way a species can make a complete 180 in 30 years. Since female silver foxes are only fertile once a year, that's only about 30 generations. Probably less because DB started the research in the 1950's and died in 1985. His results were already published by the time he died. 10 years after he died there were 700 of these domesticated foxes. . . . . . . . I think this shows how different dogs can become over short amounts of time.

3. Laura Ingalls' brindle bulldog (probably a pit bull mix), Jack, may have been great with kids, a good swimmer and able to keep up with a wagon traveling cross country. But everyone seems to think that he's an Australian Shepherd because there's no way that a modern day "bulldog" would be up to any of this.

Below are links to a English Brindle Bulldog, an Australian Shepherd and a American Stafford shire Terrier aka pit bull. The Australian Shepherd is definitely the cutest, but doesn't fit the part.

http://www.desmoinesriverkennel.com/English_Bulldogs.html
http://www.catalinakennels.com/
http://www.bulldogbreeds.com/americanstaffordshireterrier.html

4. Why every big dog person doesn't want a GSD or a GSD mix is totally beyond me. I am totally prejudiced, though

Emergency situations

2009-10-16T13:01:00.000-07:00

I have to disabuse you of the notion that you'll ever really need those year old ketchup packets in your glove compartment.

6 potatoes + 1 bag mushroom=

2009-10-16T13:00:00.000-07:00

3.5 liters of soup that I have no jars for

1lb carrots+ginger+apples+potato=

2009-10-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

3 jars soup and 2 big Tupperware containers because I ran out of jars

Two Leaks + Eight Potatoes=

2009-10-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

Four jars of soup.

Well done, me!

I think I finally understand concept art

2009-10-13T00:00:00.001-07:00

http://www.regretsy.com

I'm kind of disapointed . . .

2009-10-12T16:40:00.000-07:00

. . . that it's not Columbo Day instead of Columbus Day.

G-ddog or Porridge Head

2009-10-12T16:18:00.000-07:00

Egon has a sleep over friend until the 20th. His best buddy. Our dog thinks it's his birthday.

Must make potato and leek soup with bacon and deal with broccoli. I don't know why we keep buying it--the broccoli. It's always on the brink of nastiness before we start using it.

Went apple picking yesterday. Fresh apples are heavier than store apples. 3lbs=8 apples.

But they taste better. Amazing!

I'm 700+ words over my word goal for Wandering April. I'm not happy with the actual text, but the pacing and the plot are great. I need more scene, characterization and story telling. Think: build suspense, curiosity, character love, exhilaration.

Jalapeno corn bread muffins yesterday . . . so good.

Krusteaz Honey CB Mix
3 Jalapenos, onion, sun-dried tomato & dried orange (maybe lime?!) . . . sauteed
garlic powder, cumin
yogurt
egg
olive oil
Havarti cheese sprinkled on top

New Discovery.

2009-10-09T16:27:00.000-07:00

A woman's racer back tank top fits the dog perfectly when worn backwards.

Sneaking Books and Size Zero and ASTs

2009-10-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm almost on track to make a 10/27 deadline for Wandering April and the Little Yellow Parasol. I'm not really happy with my work, though. Too much of it is plot rather than character oriented. There's also a lot of telling rather than showing. But I think if I finish, I'll have a plot in place. Maybe then I can go back over it and rewrite the narration as scene.

And, you know, I really think it's going to be a really fun, cool book if I can nail those scenes. I'm already in love with the plot. But sometimes I question my own taste and judgment though . . .

I love the idea of middle grade books that children secretly check out from the library or buy with their own money without telling their parents. I love the idea of books that children switch the book jackets on (oh--ah this? It's Anne of Green Gables. Yeah, that's it, Anne of Green Gables.) or read with a flashlight under the sheets when they are supposed to be in bed. I love books that kids snicker over in the far corner of the playground or that inspire a brand of inside joke that would only get them in trouble if anyone actually knew. I love the books that kids read while they are pretending to play video games.

Every kid that does these things is totally giving the finger to censorship. And I love that.

But is this wise? Really, really popular books seem to have a high level of parental approval. I believe that parents are still the driving force behind their kid's reading habits. I mean, there's a reason why none of the other eighth graders in my class were reading The Painted Bird and The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty. Just because my habits weren't monitored then doesn't mean that most kids don't feel the heat these days.

Outside of writing, I've been in turmoil. My husband and I watch two dogs once or twice a week and these dogs . . . are not Egon (See Below). One of these dogs has a great deal of potential, but the other--yeah, let's just say that I'm in turmoil.

Well yesterday, the other dog clamped on to this little dog and wouldn't let go. We were pinching her jaws, yelling, screaming, the other dog was freaking out, the whole neighborhood was there yelling . . . it was a bad, bad scene. I am completely shaken up.

And it's happened before. Many times. Not with us. But it has happened before. The dog is a habitual clamper.

And a habitual escape artist.
And a habitual rabble rouser.
And a habitual dog park ganger upper.

So after this happened, I did some research on the behavioral problems common to this dog's particular breed. By research, I mean that I clicked on and read the first seven links from Google. They all pretty much said the same thing.

No dog parks. No contact with other dogs. Exercise and train the dog as much as you can, but limit stimulation because this dog does a piss-poor job regulating adrenaline.

I could kick myself. I've noticed these things. She only drinks 10x more water when she's around Egon. She only pees the floor 60% of the time when she sees a bowl of food. And on a leash . . . she's beside herself. Every time she sees another dog she's pretty much ready to hang herself on her harness.

I think Google is right. Her owners are big advocates for treating her like a normal dog, with a normal ability to regulate adrenaline and pouring water on her head when she can't deal with normalcy any more. This is a bad idea on so many levels. Google is right.

This got me thinking about humans. Not that I think there are people out there that bite other people with jaws of death, but like how many people out there might have trouble regulating adrenaline and need a major normalcy intervention once in a while.

I mean, take advertising. Advertising is a normal part of modern life. Some people, even children and other highly vulnerable people, can ignore it or simply forget about it, but others . . . there are people that just CAN'T handle it. They go into debt and eat nothing but junk food because they are literally being assaulted on a daily basis. I know that a lot of people out there would attribute these negative consequences to a lack of self-control . . . but after dealing with this dog . . . I almost wonder if there's something going on with the nervous system of ad-vulnerable people.

And that makes me think about weight loss and genetics. I'm a size 0/2 and so is my sister. My mother was 85 lbs (@ 4'11") when she came to the US at the age of 27. So you would think that being thin is a family trait. Maybe.

My dad on the other hand is 6'2." Both of his parents had heart disease (and not just heart disease, wicked heart disease that started in their forties) and weight, along with cholesterol and blood pressure, seems to be a real issue in his family.

About a two years ago, my dad's doctor told him that he had to lose weight or that he would die. And guess what? He dropped more than 80 lbs in a year.

No gimmicks. Really.

He bought the Atkins diet book and grossly misinterpreted it. But instead of misinterpreting it to mean that he should eat nothing but bacon, he read it to mean No:

cookies
cakes
chips
soda
ice cream
candy
pie

And . . .

He started going to the gym 3x+ a week.

He still eats tons of fruit and white rice. He still eats bread, but it's high fiber and high in whole grains. And he still eats potatoes.

But what struck me about all of this is how well (I won't say easy because I don't know if it WAS easy) but how WELL he did all of this. And it also makes me think--hey, my grandmother also did a great job quitting smoking when she was in her 50's.

And when I was 18, I gave up soda without even thinking about it. When I was 21 I gave up TV. When I was 25, I cut out MSG. And strangely . . . there aren't any trans fats or high fructose corn syrup in this house at all. We don't even have table sugar. And come to think about it, we eat about one serving of meat a week.

And none of this was really that big of a deal. Really. I'm not suffering.

Well, not true. I'm in turmoil over a dog. But it's not like I need or want a soda at the moment.

So I was wondering if maybe it is genetically easier for some people to give up things that are bad for them. Maybe some people don't experience as much stress because they can't have something. It's like their nervous system can handle it better or something.

So you can try to stimulate them and advertise to them as much as you want. And it doesn't kill them.

But for other people, giving something up is a huge upward climb because it's like their whole body is fighting them on it.

And maybe . . . the dog's whole body is fighting her when it comes to being good. Maybe, because of her breed tendencies, her body just won't LET her be good.

So where does that leave any of us?

Vote for Egon

2009-09-29T23:27:00.001-07:00

This is my dog, Egon. He's competing at Greenwala.com to become the cutest eco pet. Click on the picture to see his entry. You don't need to sign up with Greenwala.com to vote. Just click away.

Career Suicide

2009-09-29T22:24:00.000-07:00

I guess if I hope to get published, I probably shouldn't discuss any particular details of what I'm writing or where I'm submitting. I hear it's unprofessional.

Those are standards I guess that I can adhere to. But I'm not sure why they exist. Spoilers, maybe?

So I guess I'll keep it mum.

Time to belly flop?

2009-09-29T22:07:00.000-07:00

Nanowrimo is in November. One month away.

This is my third year participating. I won both times.

Neither novel was publishable. Plot problems galore. After a while, I just didn't know where I was going.

Don't get me wrong, I loved my characters and I loved the premise of both novels. But fifty thousand words without a detailed outline translates to a couple hundred tangents. Many of which are pretty scary. Sick scary. Almost like performance art when you don't actually know that it's performance art.

So, I'm rewriting both novels.

Novel number one is a transitional middle grade fairy tale called Wandering April and the Little Yellow Parasol. I'd like to complete it this October before the fun of Nanowrimo starts. Goal: 37,000 words.

Then in November, I want to complete two Nanowrimo projects at 50,000 words each. One is called Like the Illuminati With Knee Socks and the other is called My 13th Life. Both will be intended for young adults.

Hopefully, I will survive.