Month: March 2013

Spring Fever and Cookies!

~ Shara ~ 10 Comments

So some of you eagle-eyed readers may have noticed I’ve been quiet lately. Quiet, and if the two-weeks’ lack of progress reports is any indication, not writing. You’re right on both accounts. I’ve been feeling utterly blah and uninspired, unable to muster even the tiniest amount of motivation for anything at all, including work.

I spoke to a friend of mine last week who rightly called it Spring Fever. A funny thing to have, given the weather. I’m not located in one of the many parts of the US that’s been lambasted by snow, but today, the outside looks like a furious snowglobe, and while nothing is sticking, it lifts my spirits.

Weirdly — and I say this is weird since I’m not a domestic housewife by any means — the only thing satisfying lately is cleaning and baking. The former is weird because I like to put off cleaning until it’s absolutely necessary, but Saturday I woke up, stripped the bed down to the mattress, and washed every damn thing that goes on the bed that I could. Which doesn’t sound very impressive, but when you have a mattress pad AND an allergy cover (it covers both the mattress itself AND the mattress pad), you’ll understand I was in for a long day of laundry. I also vacuumed the bejeezus out of the bedroom, so hopefully, my allergies will thank me. Because they certainly don’t thank me when the cat sleeps on my head.

Baking is a running joke in my family because I don’t cook. I can screw up the most simple of instructions (seriously: I once tried cooking a Hot Pocket without its pocket, and it wasn’t like I didn’t know better!), but I really have a soft spot for baking. As long as the recipe isn’t too intimidating, I’m happy to try it. My hips and waistline aren’t so happy, so I have to be careful.

But this weekend, I tried the whole wheat recipe in the bread machine, and that was… disappointing. I think there were a number of factors involved, namely it missed one of its kneading cycles because the dough got stuck at the top of the pan and away from the kneading blade, and I didn’t catch that until the first cycle passed (not my fault that I couldn’t observe the cycle, and I won’t go into why). The bread itself turned out rather lopsided and really dense and, well, wheaty, so I think next time, I’m going to add more butter. Possibly more brown sugar. I like my bread sweet. Sue me. 🙂

However, I did have a baking triumph. Giraffe Days posted a recipe yesterday for Andes Mint Cookies, and once I read the instructions, I knew I had to make them ASAP, as I am a lover of Devil’s Food and Andes Mints. 🙂 Today, I picked up my ingredients and whipped up a batch right after dinner, and I must say: they are yummy! If you’re like me, and prefer easy recipes and don’t require everything be made from scratch (the devil’s food mix came out of a box, yo), then you’ll be really, really happy with these. I know I am. They’re fast and easy too, which means this recipe will be my go-to if there’s an event I need to bring something for.

As for the rest of my apathy, I’m hoping I’ll shake out of this mood soon. Writing-wise, the apathy deserves its own post, so I’ll wrap it up here with a simple HUZZAH for successful cookies!

Facebook Withdrawal

~ Shara ~ 2 Comments

The title of this post is misleading. That’s rather intentional, but I’m trying an experiment and I’m officially on day two with total success.

That experiment? No longer checking Facebook on my iPhone.

Some of you will read that and immediately understand why I’m doing this. For those of you who don’t, let me explain:

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The Call of (Jury) Duty

~ Shara ~ 7 Comments

It’s over. Thank God.

I’ve never done jury duty before this week. I’d been summoned back when I was in college, but because I attended college out-of-state, it was an easy thing to get out of, because I wasn’t even going to be in town. But when I got my summons last year for this year, I swore a blue streak. On principle, I didn’t mind the idea of serving on a jury. I minded the interruption to my daily routine and the hassle it was going to take to make sure that my job didn’t suffer in my absence.

I’m not going to talk about specifics of my case, but I am going to talk about the process and the TYPE of case it was, as well as the verdict. I will say this, though: if you ever have the opportunity to serve on a jury and it doesn’t pose a financial hardship to you, do it. Seriously. Yeah, it’s an interruption and it’s stressful depending on the type of case you have to hear, but it’s utterly fascinating and educational. I’m not a patriot or anything, and I’ll be the first to tell you, when it comes to civic duty, I’m pretty ambivalent. But having an inside view of how the justice system works, to be a part of it, is really, really important. It gives you a new perspective on your community and law enforcement. It can reinforce already held views, but really, it made me feel a part of a the community in a way I never imagined. So while I’ll still grumble about speed traps and photo surveillance of traffic, I have a new appreciation for what the police force has to do when a crime’s committed and what the legal system goes through to follow up.

Yeah, I was on a murder trial.

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Middle School Moment

~ Shara ~ 2 Comments

The following post will be put behind a cut (or, for you email readers, you’ll have to click through to read the full post) for the sake of the squeamish, particularly men. The following post is not graphic in any form or fashion, but it does discuss the visitor women get every month, so even though the story I’m about to tell is funny in a “thank god that wasn’t me” kind of way, if the existence of how a woman’s body functions (or how my body functions) grosses you out, stop reading now (especially if you’re reading this on a feed).

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Progress Report: 3/10/2013

~ Shara ~ 12 Comments

It’s been a hard week. Work’s been busy and stressful for not just me, but those in my immediate circle, which affects me. Writing was often the last thing on my mind, which is making me wonder if I shouldn’t go back to the page-a-day method that got me through Magic Elves, even if I’m not posting said page daily for my accountability readers. We’ll see. This week has the potential to be thoroughly interesting, but not fun and not conducive to a good head-space for writing.

Project Code Name: Space Vampires
Word Count This Week: 1,512 words
Total Project Word Count: 3,057 words
Status: Chapter One is almost complete. It’s a crappy dump of info, but it’s a necessary dump of info, and I have to remind myself that in the first draft, this is okay. Revision is the time to iron that stuff out and make things subtle. Right now, it’s just important to get the story on the page.

Other Accomplishments: the hubby and I spent Saturday running errands, and we picked up a new toner cartridge for my printer and a few reams of paper. We’re going to attempt to print out Telepathic Soulmates ourselves. Which shouldn’t sound like an impressive endeavor, but we’re going to try to print DOUBLE-SIDED on a printer that only prints SINGLE-SIDED! If that doesn’t work, I’ll take the file to the local print shop, because I really want a hard copy for editing. The tentative plan is to have that sucker out the door and begging for agents by the end of April. We’ll see.

Cat on My Head

~ Shara ~ 9 Comments

My cat has a few pretty regular habits.

He almost always gets on my lap when I’m reading at lunch.

He almost always gets on my lap when I’m reading before bed.

He almost always lies on my head while I’m asleep.

The latter is one of those things that truly tests whether or not you’re a cat person. As long as he does this while I’m asleep (in other words, he doesn’t make a beeline for my pillow while I’m trying to fall asleep), I’m good with it. The problem I have is when he wakes up and decides to start biting my hair, or sticking his wet nose in my ear or on my face.

The bigger problem is that he’s a BIG cat. 17-18 lbs worth of cat. And if I wake up in the middle of the night and want to readjust my position, getting my head out from under those 17-18 lbs is difficult. And sometimes, I lose my pillow in the process.

Last night was one such night: woke up at 3:30 am with a migraine (yay, sinuses!), and I knew I needed to take something. So I did. And when I came back to bed, the cat was completely sprawled all over my pillow, with a leg hanging off the edge of it. It was rather cute, and I proved my cat person-ness: instead of forcing him to move (and therefore meow in protest, and therefore waking up my husband), I simply hauled myself to the living room, grabbed an extra blanket and a space heater, and tried to sleep off the migraine on the loveseat. I halfway succeeded.

I love my cat. 🙂 But here’s hoping that he spends tonight beside us on the bed, rather than on my pillow (and therefore my head). 🙂

Progress Report: 3/3/2013

~ Shara ~ 8 Comments

So I promised my two readers that I would start some sort of project in March. I decided on Space Vampires. Unlike last year, where I was writing Magic Eaters by the seat of my pants and sending them at least a page daily, I’m going for a more prepared focus. Instead of a page-a-day, I’m going to send them chapters. Ideally, I’d like to do a chapter a week at minimum, so we’ll see how it goes.

Every Sunday, I’ll do my best to post some kind of progress report on whatever writing-related activities I’m doing.

Project: Space Vampires
Word Count: 1,545 words
Completed: started the prologue on Friday, finished on Saturday, but let it sit before sending it out. Was in a hurry on Saturday to write, and thinking things over is a good thing: a minor, technical detail that was alluding me on Saturday became clear, so I was able to iron out a few things before sending it to my readers.

And that’s that! Hopefully, this coming week will have more to talk about, perhaps even on multiple projects!

Once Upon a Vine

~ Shara ~ 5 Comments

Tonight, a friend of mine is hosting a wine-tasting party. Each person/couple is to pick up a two bottles of one wine they’ve never had before, and those two bottles will be used for the tasting (the point of the two bottles, I think, is to make sure there’s enough to go around).

I drink wine, but I’m no connoisseur. I’ve ordered white zinfandel at restaurants and have had people cringe, because I’m not sophisticated to drink reds or some kind of white. It’s a good thing those same people don’t see me picking up strawberry wine: it’d probably give them a heart attack! But short of a chardonnay or a moscato, I haven’t yet developed a taste for many whites or reds, and while I like something sweet, experience has taught me if it’s too sweet, I won’t touch it.

Last night, the hubby and I went to the liquor store to figure out what to bring. I wanted to find something that I wouldn’t necessarily try on my own, and then I discovered Once Upon A Vine. I’d heard of them before, simply because of their delightful labels. You’ve got The Big Bad Red Blend, the Lost Slipper Sauvignon Blanc, the The Fairest Chardonnay, and then lastly, the Charming Pinot. The liquor store I went to didn’t have the blanc: I think I would’ve gone for that if they had. Instead, I decided on the pinot. The guy working there said it’d be a good red to try for someone like me, someone’s whose trying to develop a taste for reds and doesn’t want to be overwhelmed.

Label-wise, I prefer the Big Bad Red Blend, but I’m gonna hold off and see what develops. The Fairest Chardonnay is definitely one I’ll probably like, but that’s something I can safely pick up the next time I need to get wine for a meal.

Has anyone ever tried any of these? If anything, these bottles are worth picking up for the labels, because they’re so delightfully designed. 🙂

But I do want to say:

Dear Once Upon a Vine:

Your labels are utterly wonderful. Your website is utterly boring. Please hire the designer who did your labels and have them redesign your website. Your wines deserve better!

Sincerely, Calico

Beautiful Lie

~ Shara ~ 4 Comments

When I finally finished the very first draft of Telepathic Soulmates in 2007, I was in trouble and lots of it. The sucker needed WORK, and in order to graduate, it required an extensive rewrite. The good thing is, sometimes you don’t really understand how to write a book until you’re already finished with it, so I knew what I needed to do.

One of my biggest weaknesses was (and still is, generally speaking) setting. I had a vague, generic setting for the first draft, and I needed something to fix that. Honestly, I don’t remember if I was leaning towards what I settled on before I saw the below video, but I do know that once I saw this video, I knew my setting couldn’t be anything different.

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