That Comeback Album That Sinks Without A Trace (Also, Adventures in Eating)

Has it really been since May? Shoooooot.

I've been playing a lot of music in two bands, a process that derailed a bit when both drummers had to depart. We've got leads on drummers for both bands, including my new favorite guy ever, who brings me pumpkins and compares Pawnbroker to Edie Brickel.

I have a story forthcoming in Beneath Ceaseless Skies, culled from my long, long, long-suffering Crusades novel. That is, it's the Crusades if the Muslims were telepaths and the Christians shapeshifters. Now if I could just finish writing the damned thing... This particular character, Roach, is a slight analogue to an Ismaili Assassin. Except, y'know, telepath. I've been working on this story for years and BCS was always my first choice market, so yay!

Version 5 of this novel is my NaNoWriMo this year. I'd like to blog sometime about the ever-growing cultural appropriation debate, but I'm going to skip that in favor of...

Adventures in Eating!

I'm gluten-intolerant. Have been ever since I was four. Celiac sprue is a rather nasty food intolerance in which certain simple storage proteins in wheat, rye and barley tear apart the workings of the small intestine. The storage proteins are generically referred to as "gluten," but it's a misnomer as that's a catchall phrase for storage proteins in general, which is why "corn gluten" is a food additive.

Because I wasn't careful enough and now my intestines have suffered a bit, I'm experiencing some bad side effects of prolonged gluten exposure. I'm lactose intolerant as well and I have trouble regulating my blood sugar, probably because of intense sugar cravings partially brought on by malabsorption, leading to some signs of prediabetes. Yeah. Sucks. I am glad my kids have more warning than me for celiac, and we have a wheat-free house.

Food additives are terrible for celiacs, though. Ever seen the phrase "Modified Food Starch?" That's gluten. MSG and all its various aliases, like Hydrolized Protein? Generally gluten. Oats? They are gluten-free on paper, but absorb gluten during processing, so unless they specify wheat-free, all oat products are out.

After the last few years of dairy sickness and sugar shock, something must give. So I've embarked on a quest to cut down sugar consumption and eat more whole food. Breakfast shall be fish and greens, lunch a raw tomato, etc. I'm looking for hidden sugars in a lot of food I eat, which means less bread, for one, but also means I must confront the most delicious thing ever with a skeptical eye.

My first, and most treacherous companion:

Trader Joe's Mediterranean Hummus. It is so good. And it's because of sugar.



Sugar isn't listed in the ingredients, but dextrose, a form of glucose, is. It's a convenient way to hide sugar in additives. It's also one of the bases for citric acid, which is in the hummus as well.

Weirdly enough, US troops in World War II received dextrose pills in their K-rations. It was to help keep up blood sugar, and dehydrated Marines on waterless Pacific atolls went through a lot of it.

I make my own hummus a lot, but it's generally a different animal without additives. Raw garlic, pure lemon, etc. It's good, but the after-breath tastes like you've eaten a sunflower. I went a quest to make mildly sweet hummus that was still full of lemony garlic goodness.



Experiment 1: Prep everything in the olive oil. Get the olive oil simmering and add lots of garlic, onions and spices. (Sorry, this is a stock photo since our cameras are broken.) I didn't have the oil popping, but it did get to a nice roiling boil. Once the onions and the garlic were semi-translucent, I tossed them in the food processor with the lemon juice, tahini and salt.

The result was a very nice mild hummus, but it was a bit too mild. It was a sweet in a very natural, baked-onion kind of way, but it was missing the bite of that citric acid. I'm thinking of adding more lemon zest next time. Or some other crucial acid. Ideas, Internet?

Hello, People of Earth!

Musing on the word "mother****er."

Why is it that casual references to incest are, well, casual? Who decided that having sex with your mother made for a rather common term? Who wrote the book of love?

I think the answer is forty-two.

It is counterproductive to blog when you only want to vent. Sorry guys. But I'm a little bugged. Feel free to skip next part:

I am still writing-blocked. It's been a stressful week. Adia has pneumonia. We have a perfectly nice houseguest but we CAN. NOT. handle a houseguest and a kid with pneumonia at the same time. I had to drop out of an editing project I was excited about because work dumped a lot of stuff on me. It all combines with me being sick with her pre-pneumonia virus and working a lot. The singer in my band has the same virus, so we missed her keys and vocal skillz at practice. Also, my keyboard is still in the shop. And despite having a real job, I'm still a little broke. You see, food is expensive without food stamps and student loans are expensive once they make you pay them back.

Wah wah wah. Poor white middle-class me.

But the writing. It is tough with two kids. Having one kid was kind of like having a pet. When she was distracted, we had lots of time. When she needed love and attention, we had plenty to give. It's hard to split love, attention, lack of sleep and general parental skillz between two kids.

It adds up to this: when I go back to the novel I need to rewrite so it stops stinking up the house, I don't feel up to the job. This novel is, by my non-writing eyes, funny and brilliant. I love it.

[Those of you who skipped can start here.]

Other news I haven't blogged:

My band's recordings: reverbnation.com/pawnbroker.

An interview with me on the subject of music and spirituality, with some explanation of said band's lyrics: http://www.linescratchers.com/

My first pro sale (yay!), still up at IGMS: http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com/cgi-bin/mag.cgi?do=issue&vol=i21&article=_002

The antho with me in it, sharing once again a TOC with the amazing Cat Rambo. I love her work and you should too, and you'll get me in the bargain: http://www.amazon.com/Human-Tales-Jennifer-Brozek/dp/0983099332/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1305472639&sr=8-1

I actually read Things Fall Apart while I was sick, and that was great. I've never read it before. I will blog more about it and my ongoing reading project, but let me just say for now: wow. I have never read a book that worked on so many levels. It will survive because it juggles the contradictions of tragic character and tragic setting, and includes not a sense of right and wrong, but a sense of the inevitability in real tragedy.

Finally, my good friend ericjamesstone is up for a Hugo. You can read his really great story here:

http://www.ericjamesstone.com/blog/stories/that-leviathan-whom-thou-hast-made/

Grrrr

I'm feeling blocked. Somehow I've vomited out all the word vomit I had in me, to the tune of 76k, and there ain't any more. Tired? Wha? No, not me.

On a related note, why do little kids kicked and thrash around so much while they sleep? Are there demons possessing them? Are they trying to get away from faeries who wish to replace them with changelings?

Have you ever thought about how Santa's elves are kind of like the faeries that steal away little kids?

Maybe all the naughty kids are just androids that the elves are testing out for the eventual takeover.

Maybe I don't even HAVE children. Just elfdroids.

I Am Not a Rock Star

But I used to be. Our first rule was Never Tune Your Instrument.

I finished NaNoWriMo in fifteen days this month. Blahhhhhrhghlghglhgh.

I'm way less confident about my writing than I used to be. Nowadays, it's quite common for me to write a draft, scrap it, write another draft, handwrite a draft to incorporate into that draft... and then throw it all away again. NaNoWriMo is kind of a nice hearkening back to when I was a teenager and I thought that Robert Jordan imitations that dripped from my hands at 1800 words a day were pure gold.

Now I'm cutting, chopping, reworking... I've probably written 70,000 words total this month, but the draft just won't get past 60k, and I know I'm going to throw away the first three chapters.

For fifteen days, writing this mad, passionate whore of a novel, I was dripping gold again.

Adia fell on her face yesterday and scraped her nose, so she has been wearing a Band-Aid on her face.

I drilled her on what to say. "Adia, if anyone asks where you got that Band-Aid, what do you say?"

Adia: "I don't talk about Fight Club!"

At preschool, one of the other moms said, "Did you hurt yourself?"

She shoved her fist in her mouth and remained silent. For shame, Adia.

Thoughts For Vets' Day

I was searching around for something to say about Veteran's Day and appreciating the troops and war is hell and and and... anyway, this is it.

"My memories of the last war haunted my dreams for years. Military service, to be plain, includes the threat of every temporal evil; pain and death, which is what we fear from sickness; isolation from those we love, which is what we fear from exile; toil under arbitrary masters, which is what we fear from slavery: hunger, thirst, and exposure, which is what we fear from poverty. I'm not a pacifist. If it's got to be it's got to be. But the flesh is weak and selfish, and I think death would be much better than to live through another war."- CS Lewis.

Amen, Jack.

My father has, for the last few years, been working in a military hospital as a psychologist. I used to look at veterans and simply think they were courageous, and wish I could be as proud of something that I did as they might be of what they did.

Now I'm both horrified and in awe. The stories my dad has told me have made me wonder how anyone could keep their sanity after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's not just the horror of seeing your buddies die. It's knowing that any kid who asks you for candy could be wired with an IED. Knowing that any child who "accidentally" wanders out in front of your moving tank could be preparing to blow it up and himself in the process. Seeing those children die, for the lies adults have told them. Knowing that the opposition actually believes that it is worth it to murder these children and other civilians, all in order to take you out. Knowing that your very presence attracts these things, and yet knowing that you must do your job or more innocents, and more of your buddies, will die.

I don't wish I had served in the military anymore. My admiration for veterans, though, has grown by exponents. The vets of Iraq and Afghanistan have fought and died to try and restore some kind of justice, however misguided the original government intentions. I hope I can make the world they fought for better in my own way.

If This Is Word Vomit, I Must Have Had One Hell of a Word Drinking Night

NaNoWriMo Day 1: 10,055 words. Brain: no.

My Hot Wife

I subscribe to Dave Wolverton's Daily Kick in the Pants, which is a motivational email about writing. He wrote one the other day about writerly spouses. We are supposed to read the letter to our spouses. It begins thus:

"I’ve been a writer for thirty years, and I just realized that as a writer, for ages I’ve been trying to deal with a problem that I don’t have much control over: interruptions from my spouse.

If you’re married or have children, or if you’re in business, you probably have this problem, too.

With me it’s little innocent things. I may be writing, and my wife will come and ask, “So what do you think we should do about this problem?” It could be anything: Should we get the cat neutered? What do we do about our daughter’s tattoos? Do you like the new dress that I bought?"

Dave goes on to beg spouses to be supportive, which means being quiet.

Well, Dave...

Let's take a moment to talk about how awesome Chrissy is.

Not that she never interrupts me, or won't call me home from the library or coffee shop where I have camped out to write. And I must admit, when we were first married, she would sometimes test my commitment to writing by dressing... um, let's change the subject and keep this blog PG.

But Chrissy really doesn't interrupt save in case of emergency. Sometimes she puts Sam in the room with me, in a baby toy-thingie, and asks me to keep on eye on him, but she'll take him back if he cries too much. We have two kids. Someone is always crying. She deals with it while I'm writing, because she wants me to do it.

When we were first dating, Chrissy went through my room and stole all of my writing that she could find. She loved one particular story, and gave me a suggestion on the story that vastly improved it. Once I implemented her suggestion that story got me into Western, went on to be a finalist for Writers of the Future and then won me two hundred bucks in another contest.

Right after we were married, she read about Dave Wolverton's writing workshop in Salt Lake. "You're going," she told me, and when I asked her about the cost, she said, "I'll pay it. It's worth it."

At that workshop, I met Eric James Stone, who was almost as crucial as Chrissy in setting me on the path to a writing career. He showed me these strange things called "writer groups" and "cons." He became my Obi-Wan Kenobi. I guess that makes Chrissy my sexy Yoda.

Chrissy continues to read most of what I write. Now, it's a lot harder for her but she will still do it, as long as I can wrangle the kids while she does so. Her suggestions are almost always the best ones I get, because she knows what makes my writing work and what my major pitfalls are.

I can't imagine a better spouse. I love you, sexy Yoda.