Words    Words    Words

Off to Austin for Armadillocon.  Hope to see some of you there!

We’re looking for some bands to help us engage in some viral marketing .  Are you in a band?  Do you have a friend who is in one?  Post a link to your music here, or else send it to Kit at dreamcafe dot com, and we’ll give it a listen.  Ideally this should involve good publicity both for our project and any bands we end up working with.

Thanks.

Yet again, I have to start a full rewrite before finishing the first draft.  This is unusual for me–I like to get to the end before doing major revisions.  But all of a sudden PLOT showed up in the book, so what can I do?

The good news is that this is a much less significant rewrite than the last, and involves mostly a lot of cutting and pasting.  In draft form, I’ve finished chapter 14, and I suspect when I get finished with the rewrite, I’ll probably be in about the same place, only this time with a clear view to the end.

So, we have this bread-making machine, used by Kit.  In an LJ post by Txanne, we learn that many believe that using such a machine produces bread that isn’t as good as hand-made.  I’m curious.  Is there actually a reason for this?  I mean, a reason that Alton Brown would find reasonable?

There are three sorts of ice cream cone: the cup cone, the sugar cone, and the waffle cone.  Let us ignore the waffle cone, because they didn’t have them when I was a kid.  The cup cone has two advantages: you can set it down, and it is better for holding soft-serve ice cream.  The sugar cone has one advantage: it tastes good.

The conundrum: why can’t they make a sugar cone in the form of a waffle cone?  Is it because something in the process of making the sugar cone requires flat sheets that can be rolled by not shaped?   I have been wondering about this as long as I can remember.

The first time I walked into Poking You Tattoo, about three years ago, I was impressed with how clean it was. Today that was reinforced. While I should be raving about the skill of the artist, Derek (and he really is an exceptional artist and easy to work with), the thing that blew me away was how much care he took with cleanliness. I’m serious–the use of gloves, everything wrapped in plastic, disinfectant, the sink with the foot-pedals so you don’t have to touch the faucets. Some might think that’s a weird thing to notice, or even that it doesn’t go with the sleazy tradition of tattoo shops, but to a noob like me, it was remarkably reassuring.

As for the rest of the experience, well, it hurt a lot, but only because I’m a wimp. As I said, Derek is really easy to work with. My original idea was to have him on my shoulder, but Derek seemed to think he’d look better on my back, and I felt inclined to put myself in the hands of the artist. One advantage to this location is that by moving my shoulders I can make his wings flap. Hee hee.

The results? I’m totally geeked. Here are our first photos — click on them to see. The redness will fade when they aren’t quite so, ah, fresh; and we’ll post a couple more taken in sunlight and when fully healed.

I really like to plow straight through the first draft, however often the plot suddenly turns on itself and surprises me, figuring to fix it in the rewrite.  Sometimes, however, there are just too many unexpected changes, and I have to stop and get things in line before I got on.

Iorich just did that, around chapter 11.  The rewrite is complete, and now there’s a chapter 12 to go with it.  So things progress.

Matthew Klahn was the 17th entry.  Thank you to all who offered.

(Now I have to read the thing, and I hope get some of the answers I need for the my next project).

Just wanted to mention that I still haven’t gotten 17 emails.  A signed personalized copy of Jhegaala will go to the 17th person who offers to send me a copy of Colin Turnbull’s The Forest People.

Google fails to turn up the chord progression for “Spoon River” by Michael Smith.  Does anyone reading this know it?