Avocados to Autism

I had the perfect avocado the other day. I do not award an avocado with the status of perfection lightly. I'm an avocado connoisseur. Or, more accurately, I eat a lot of avocados. (Thank you, Chile, for shipping this glorious fruit to Costco all year long; and I apologize, Planet, for not eating locally.) The last few batches of avocados have been crap. Brown and stringy, off-tasting, or just plain rotten. But not this one; this one was perfect.

A Minor Victory

There is nothing quite as satisfying as having a tough scene finally break open and start writing! Today, the conversation I've been writing and rewriting worked. It was too pivotal of a plot point for me to leave a note and pass up; the way the characters responded and behaved here determines events later.

I didn't finish the conversation or even the scene. That's okay. It's starting to flow. I'm happy with today's results.

Dialog: My Archenemy

This morning's writing session was an exercise in frustration. It should have been easy. The entire scene is basically a conversation. But it's one that shifts a few people's perceptions and reveals character growth only hinted at before this. This isn't just characters chatting; this is emotional translation.

Facebook Domination

On October 3, 2010 I finally succumbed to peer pressure and joined the Facebook community. Initially, I was overwhelmed. Then I became addicted. It was only in December that I realized it had become something of a problem for me.

Since joining Facebook, my blog posts dwindled to nigh nonexistent.

The Dreaded Slump

Every novel I've written has one: a point in the process where I can't remember why I'm writing this piece. I call it the slump. Maybe it should be The Slump. As obstacles go, it's worthy of the proper-noun capitalization. The slump is when the excitement of new characters, new settings, the whole story has been worn away from hours and days of familiarity, and the story has stretched in my mind. It's no longer a series of key points on a storyboard; now it's 100,000+ words of events and dialog and decisions and characterisations to keep track of.

Succulent Redo

Sadly, the succulents from my birthday did not survive me or summer (though probably it was me). One by one, they withered, wilted, and died. With each death, so died my hopes of ever getting anything to survive on this sun-baked balcony of my apartment. For several months, I have resisted buying new plants, hardening my heart against their cute greenery. From my office window, I have gazed out at the empty plant holder and thought, I'm doing the right thing. Nothing else need die at my hand.

A Book Collection as Personalized Art

I love a good home library. It shows, too. Our moderate-sized apartment is packed to the rafters with bookcases, so full that we have to have bookcases behind our couch (and there's no room left for walking between them, so the bottom shelves are, unfortunately, covered). I look forward to getting a house for many reasons, but not far from the top is to have a library or at least more wall space to press bookcases up against.

Books Read in 2010

The last half of December was vacation time for me. I took a few weeks off work, a week off writing, and checked out of pretty much everything but fun for a while. It was wonderful!


What did I do with all my free time? See friends, family, and an delightful amount of Metroid: Other M. I also spent an inordinate amount of time playing with my Excel chart of the books I read last year.