Week of July 4-10 (on time for once!)
Jul. 10th, 2004 01:53 pmTwo rejections, one acceptance. That's a decent enough ratio. I would happily do that every week in July, if only editorial beings and postal beings would conspire for it. I did some edits on Thermionic Night and some new work on Sampo, and I synopsized poor DBM. I hate synopses so much. Did I mention that? I think I did.
Today I'm reading Between East and West: Finland in International Politics, 1944-1947, which is so much more interesting than Helsinki of the Czars, I can't even tell you. I'm working on Sampo. I'm playing CDs compulsively to try to keep "Tell Laura I Love Her" from breaking forth, because the movie theater tortured me with it last night when we went to see "Spiderman 2," and given a chance, my brain bleats, "Tell Laura I lo-ove he-e-er" and howls in pain, by turns. I think a good chorus of Liz Phair's "h.w.c." should be enough to get rid of it. Because it's pretty much the most inappropriate song I know, light and folky-poppy and very very bad for me to sing in the grocery store, as I have learned the hard way. (Don't know the song? The chorus goes: "Gimme your hot, white" -- aaaand we're all adults here, you can figure it out.) Anyway, it's the songs you can't sing in public that stick with you. Or at least with me.
I'm also making blueberry pecan wild rice bread. It's very fiddly, and next time I make it I'm going to do 4 or 6 loaves instead of 2, because it won't be any less fiddly that way.
pameladean, if you'd like to try some, it's entirely and accidentally vegan, and then you could have some nice bread, too, when I get around to giving
dd_b the Guinness gingerbread I promised him back in the mists of MiniCon.
(I bet he forgot. I keep very good track of what I've promised to make for, loan, or give to someone else, because in my brain it is no longer mine. The poor battered paperback of Driftglass became Michelle and Scott's the minute they said they wanted it. This gets rather tricky with baked goods, as there are things that only exist in my head and yet are not my rightful property up there. I don't do this with stuff people have promised me. It just goes one way. I also keep much more careful note than others do of when I've said, say, "I'll make you some of that" and when I've said "I should make you some of that." Big internal difference.)
Apparently I'm incompetent at copying out recipes. I got to the kneading stage and had never noted when the veggie oil went in, or half the white flour. Luckily, it was bread, so I could feel what was wrong and knead it in. But I would like to occasionally have a recipe properly copied out so that I can ignore it as it was meant to be ignored and not in some incomplete ignoring fashion. This happened with the Guinness ginger, too. Sigh.
Today I'm reading Between East and West: Finland in International Politics, 1944-1947, which is so much more interesting than Helsinki of the Czars, I can't even tell you. I'm working on Sampo. I'm playing CDs compulsively to try to keep "Tell Laura I Love Her" from breaking forth, because the movie theater tortured me with it last night when we went to see "Spiderman 2," and given a chance, my brain bleats, "Tell Laura I lo-ove he-e-er" and howls in pain, by turns. I think a good chorus of Liz Phair's "h.w.c." should be enough to get rid of it. Because it's pretty much the most inappropriate song I know, light and folky-poppy and very very bad for me to sing in the grocery store, as I have learned the hard way. (Don't know the song? The chorus goes: "Gimme your hot, white" -- aaaand we're all adults here, you can figure it out.) Anyway, it's the songs you can't sing in public that stick with you. Or at least with me.
I'm also making blueberry pecan wild rice bread. It's very fiddly, and next time I make it I'm going to do 4 or 6 loaves instead of 2, because it won't be any less fiddly that way.
(I bet he forgot. I keep very good track of what I've promised to make for, loan, or give to someone else, because in my brain it is no longer mine. The poor battered paperback of Driftglass became Michelle and Scott's the minute they said they wanted it. This gets rather tricky with baked goods, as there are things that only exist in my head and yet are not my rightful property up there. I don't do this with stuff people have promised me. It just goes one way. I also keep much more careful note than others do of when I've said, say, "I'll make you some of that" and when I've said "I should make you some of that." Big internal difference.)
Apparently I'm incompetent at copying out recipes. I got to the kneading stage and had never noted when the veggie oil went in, or half the white flour. Luckily, it was bread, so I could feel what was wrong and knead it in. But I would like to occasionally have a recipe properly copied out so that I can ignore it as it was meant to be ignored and not in some incomplete ignoring fashion. This happened with the Guinness ginger, too. Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2004-07-10 01:27 pm (UTC)I don't feel in any rush about it, but it's nice to think about.
Pamela
no subject
Date: 2004-07-10 01:41 pm (UTC)It's hard to knead, with all the stuff in it. You couldn't give it a good punch without two or three blueberries flying out. Which did get amusing: I mean, projectile blueberries, how often is this a problem?
projectile blueberries
Date: 2004-07-11 09:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-10 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-10 02:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-10 04:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-11 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-07-27 01:49 pm (UTC)Recipe?
Date: 2004-07-10 05:30 pm (UTC)Re: Recipe?
Date: 2004-07-11 05:17 am (UTC)Re: Recipe?
Date: 2004-07-11 06:08 am (UTC)It is most likely though that you did I got it and I'm having a brain burp. :-)
Re: Recipe?
Date: 2004-07-11 05:49 pm (UTC)--I would desperately like to go there, but it ranks behind Finland in the "trips I would take next if left to my own devices," and heaven knows when I will be left to my own devices.
--I've written a YA fantasy novel, Dwarf's Blood Mead, that twists Icelandic culture around the 1000s around into something I felt like writing about.
--I'm going to have some Icelandic-related SF-fantasy, by which I mean that it will be fantasy set in the future and having future non-magical technologies as well as some magical ones. I have a hard time not making this sound lame, but I think it follows quite naturally fromm the books that come before it.
Re: Recipe?
Date: 2004-07-13 07:34 am (UTC)I can't believe that I didn't know that. When did DBM come out? Because that would be something that I would like to take a look at; so this is just post Settlement? Twist how? I wonder if Ben might like it too? He's sixteen if I haven't mentioned that a few thousand times or so. But, his reading does tend to run mostly to memorization of various Magick books at present. I have cards and manuals everywhere in my house. The only thing I have more of right now are dust bunnies. But, I'd be interested in both the books.
I hope to take Ben there for graduation in two years; I figure it's about the only way that he'll get to know his relatives; but that of course depends on saving money (never a given) and world events, and what his life brings. He's going to be done with highschool credits next year, and he's already working this summer http://www.albany.edu/physics/html/research/hepex.html which would be a lot more exciting, I think, if he didn't want to still be an architect, or a professional game designer.
But, I would desperately love to go back. Tons to say but one of the most if not the most sensible and wonderful places I've ever lived, and the light..
*sigh* I guess I should be getting back to work.
Re: Recipe?
Date: 2004-07-13 07:58 am (UTC)Anyway, DBM has not, in fact, come out at all. You're not missing a thing in that regard: it's still sitting on the Very Friendly Editor's desk.
My pseudo-Icelandic world has functional fantasy-type magic and gods who show up for dinner overtly. It also has a slightly more formalized role for women in politics. All of this is a fairly significant divergence in some ways and less of a divergence than one might think in others.
Re: Recipe?
Date: 2004-07-15 05:14 am (UTC)Also, if you have come across or do any books on Island that you think are worthwhile, I would be very appreciative of the rec.
Re: Recipe?
Date: 2004-07-15 10:40 am (UTC)I'm sure there's got to be some Icelandic or Icelandic-influenced fiction that I like. I'm not coming up with it, though. A lot of books in which it's peripheral have used stereotypes of Vikings in place of the actual Vikings. Bleh.
Re: Recipe?
Date: 2004-07-15 07:02 pm (UTC)songs un-sing-able in public
Date: 2004-07-11 03:12 pm (UTC)I just went over to iTunes and played their 30-second sample of H.W.C. I think I may be hooked.
I'm now faced with a probably irresistible urge to put together a playlist of totally inappropriate songs to listen to at work.
Re: songs un-sing-able in public
Date: 2004-07-11 04:30 pm (UTC)Hi. Now you can read locked posts! Yay, lj for Wendy!
That's not even one of the better songs on that album. If you liked it, you probably will like most of Liz Phair's "Liz Phair" and "White Chocolate Space Egg" albums. "Whip-Smart" and "Exile in Guyville" may be more hit-and-miss. Liz Phair is good for songs you can't sing in public.
Re: songs un-sing-able in public
Date: 2004-07-11 04:31 pm (UTC)Re: songs un-sing-able in public
Date: 2004-07-11 04:36 pm (UTC)