NaNoWriMo Essentials for Noob Pantsers I

In approximately 4.5 weeks I'm going to do NaNoWriMo again, even though we're going to VEGAS to get MARRIED after the first week. Even better, I think I've got Mr. B primed to give NaNo a go as well.

It's crazy talk, and I know it.

Problem is, crisis of confidence aside, NaNo is just plain fun. NaNo doesn't care how you do it; all NaNo wants you to do is sit down, shut up, and write 1667 words per day for 30 days. For no good reason, other than at the end you get to say you've written a novel.

How can that not be fun?

Last year, pre-NaNo, I went looking for guidance. Hell, I had never written anything even remotely like a novel before and I had no idea how to approach it. I found blogs and sites where writers had very generously offered up spreadsheets and forms and guidelines about what needed to be done in preparation. Perfect! All I would have to do is fill out the forms and follow the instructions, and I would have my story laid out for me.

Not surprisingly, it didn't quite work out that way. Really, there's no way it could have worked for me. As much as I am drawn to forms and guidelines and the order they promise to bring to my chaotic existence, I am almost always disappointed by them because there is usually no option for 'it depends', my default answer to almost any question. So I cobbled together what I could and winged it.

During my post-NaNo immersion in all things writerly, I learned about Plotters and Pantsers. Plotters are people who use spreadsheets and word counts per scene and index cards and maps and have the entire story figured out before they write the opening sentence. They have a method and a plan, and they stick to it. There is a LOT of information out there for Plotters because, predictably, Plotters like that kind of stuff.

Pantsers (aka seat-of-the-pants writers) tend to go with the flow. I had found my people! Unlike some brave souls, I couldn't quite bring myself to show up on 1 November completely empty-handed -- I do have an inconvenient aversion to failure -- but, being a non-writer, I couldn't find a lot of advice that I could relate to. It's a lot easier to 'pants it' if you already know something about writing fiction.

So with another NaNo staring me in the face and Mr. B wondering how to prepare, I got to thinking: What's the very least a hesitant, inexperienced, failure-adverse Pantser needs to do to have a chance at reaching the NaNo goal?

As a veteran of one whole successful* NaNoWriMo, I am eminently qualified to give absolutely no advice, but that's not going to stop me. Shut the door, pull up a chair, and I'll share with you my secrets, which have a proven track record of one for one.

NaNoWriMo Essentials for Noob Pantsers, Part I
The who, what, and where of it all

What are your favorite types books to read? You'll probably be happiest writing in that genre. I'm a hard-core contemporary fantasy girl -- I love stories set in the real world but with an element of magic mixed in, so that's what I'm sticking with.

Start with a main character and a main problem: What would happen to this type of person if this unexpected thing happened? Like, what would happen if a young actress discovered she could get any part she auditioned for by (fill in the blank) but eventually it starts backfiring? Would hilarity ensue, or tragedy? Your call.

Consider your character's history, physical appearance, goals, motivations, family, etc. Basing your character on people you know saves a lot of time. Pick a physical feature here, an annoying personality trait there, and you'll have it figured out in no time. There may be a sidekick and/or a nemesis involved and you'll want to know their story, too. Other characters can be created on the fly as long as you know who is going to be center stage.

Figuring out who your main character is and what makes him/her tick will make it easier to predict how s/he's going to react when the shit hits the fan. And the shit will hit the fan because, after all, that's really the point of a novel, isn't it?

Where/when does the story take place? Again, if the setting is real world, modeling it after an area you're familiar with eliminates a whole layer of work. Sounds silly, but it does help to have a rough mental map of where the character's apartment is in relation to the office, etc. Some people draw detailed maps, etc., but as a true Pantser, I don't want to have to work that hard if I'm not going to get graded on it.

If you're creating fantasy/science fiction worlds or beings, you'll probably want to spend a good portion of time thinking about the 'rules' of the planet/culture/beings you're creating. The further removed from our world/time, the more you'll need to think about. Again, it helps you to know what will happen next if you're already familiar with who/what/where/when they are and what they're about.

If you are lucky enough to have a sense of where the story is going to go once the main problem is laid out, even better. It's a bonus to have a rough idea of where you want to end up, even if the target changes as the story unfolds.

OK, you've got a character or two, a problem, a setting, and, if you're lucky, and idea of how it all might come out. Write it down, either by hand or on the computer.

And that's about it. For real. We're just doing this for fun, remember? It really doesn't have to get any more complicated than that.

Last year, once I gave up on the spreadsheets and forms, I ended up with three documents. One contained a brief summary of my main characters, one described the culture, history, and goals (and, curiously enough, the detailed reproductive habits) of the practically-immortal beings that were going to fuck up her life (literally and figuratively, as it turned out), and the third contained a very rough idea of how I thought the storyline might go down. I didn't know for sure how it was going to end, and that kind of freaked me out, but it turned out not to be a big deal. Once I got the story going it really only made sense for it to end one way.

Sure, lots (most) of the things I had figured out ended up changing, but that's OK. When 11/1/08 rolled around, at least I had a feel for who I was writing about and what was going to happen to her that day.

Do you have a story in you? Want to see if the NaNoWriMo thing works for you? Then your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to do a little pre-thinking, a little pre-writing, wait until November 1st, then let go and let your mind tell you a story. All you have to do is write it down.

Oh yeah, be sure to visit the NaNoWriMo site and sign up. They haven't quite fired it up for the 2009 season, but it gets busy towards the end of October so beating the rush is advised. Need encouragement from a master? Pick up No Plot? No Problem! by Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo. It's an excellent guide.

Be sure to let me know, too, and check back next week for Part II. Hopefully by then I'll have figured out what Part II is going to be about.

Sorry, I'm a Pantser.

* Success is defined as writing 50K words and completing the story before midnight November 30th. Quality is not a factor. ;)
 

Brain drain

I admit it. I've been spending way too much time getting into this whole wedding thing. It's really hard not to -- it's a situation rife with opportunities to get run over by the Shiny bus. Viewing the wedding porn (their term, not mine) from the young whippersnappers on Offbeat Bride has not helped, either. It's been all I can do to stop myself from suggesting that we get matching wedding tattoos. I did get my nose pierced, but I can't blame that on them. That's just me, I'm afraid.

Since we're running off to Vegas, one could be forgiven for thinking there's not a whole lot of actual planning to be done, but somehow I am managing to spend a lot of time doing it. The easy stuff got done right away: Plane tickets and hotel reservations were easy-peasy, and I did a pre-screen of wedding chapels on the Strip. We'll pick the best one when we get there. I have my dress & shoes (less than $200 total - ha!) and Mr. B has picked out a suit (much, much more than $200).

What else could there possibly be to fuss over?

Well, I had to design the invitations for the ten people who are meeting us in Vegas. Then I had to set up a wedding blog to fill everyone in on the details, because simply sending out an email is just not cool enough. Someone asked me about a wedding registry (huh? we can do that?) so I set one up on Amazon.com. We're certainly not expecting gifts, but who knows, we might score a few paperbacks off of it.

Rings! We need rings! And they have to be special rings. Had to set up a blog for Mr. B & I to keep track of the millions of interesting possibilities we found on the interwebs. Once we came to a decision, designing the final product and getting bids on etsy kept my lips moving for weeks.

OK, matching wedding tattoos may be out, but what about cool temporary wedding tattoos for the guests? Had to find images to pirate so I could design those, and since my ancient graphics program didn't allow me to curve the baseline for text, I had to go find one that did.

And then there are the flowers. At some point I decided I wanted to do origami flowers. I've identified the style, now I just have to figure out the materials and how to craft them into corsages and boutonnieres.

Dress and shoes are in hand, but what about a necklace? I decided that I must create a necklace out of a brooch Mr. B gave me early on in our relationship. And I must make cufflinks for him out of the matching earrings. Searching for a reliable source of supplies online for those projects has provided hours of amusement. Too bad I won't be able to actually make the thing at my desk. They're pretty lenient here but that might just push them over the edge.

One thing we haven't yet tackled is the ceremony itself. Aren't there are, like, vows or something that we are supposed to come up with? I had originally delegated it to Mr. B but it's safe to assume I am not going to be able to keep my fingers out of that particular pie. At some point we'll need to make an appointment with a bottle (OK, glass) of wine and wade into that one.

When all is said and done, I'm betting Mr. B is going to feel something like this.



Bridezilla. Rawr!
 

Krafty Korner 2

I've got female troubles. My ovaries feel like they are swollen to the size of Vidalia onions and I have a headache that is causing me to not be very patient with my tech support callers. But my buddy Galpal has saved my day! She sent me a link to what may possibly be the quintessential gift for women who have survived the, uh, best that mid-life has to offer.

Behold: The Golden Tampon Lifetime Achievement Award!



This is, in the words of the artist, Laura Mappin, "A decorative work of art to commemorate that you've done your Tampon Time and you're Free At Last!" And it can be yours for $59 plus shipping. I can't think of a better way to commemorate a loved one's graduation to cronehood.

I'll try to spare you TMI, but right now I can only dream of the day I qualify for this.

You should also check out Ms. Mappin's other products. My guess is that if you read this blog regularly, you probably have several people on your gift list who would love this stuff.
 

Desktop Therapy #1

   Sticky notes
+ Tape
+ Paper clips
+ Internet access
--------------------------------------
A few minutes of entertainment and a kusudama flower.
Note to self: Get a glue stick.

Krafty Korner

You guys have been pretty lucky. I haven't done any crafty posts since the Great Plarn Fixation of early 2008, so I feel slightly less guilty dropping this deuce on you.

So to speak.

I try not to blatantly steal stuff from the blogs I read, but this is too good not to recycle. Jessica at Rose-Kim Knits has a weekly feature she calls "Thursdays are for What the Hell is This?", showcasing the most ridiculous knitted and crocheted items she can find on the interwebs. Usually it's guaranteed to be a head-shaking, JFCWTF-worthy good time, but today's featured item had me clapping and squeeing like a little girl.

Behold the ultimate toilet roll cover:


I smell Christmas gifts!

A quick search revealed this is a creation of AuntieElle*. She's promised the pattern is forthcoming. I can't wait! I'll have to cruise through the Goodwill to score some abandoned Barbies. Actually, any action figure would work, but there's something about seeing Barbie pinching a loaf that really makes it, IYKWIM.

Evil Twin has already requested hers in sage green.

* You can see more pix there.
 

Should I stay or should I go now?

Uh-oh, it's coming. I'm seeing the early warning signs, those cheerful, encouraging emails popping up every other week or so.

NaNoWriMo is a scant three months away. What should I do?

About this time last year I came up with an idea for a novel. I spent a couple of months writing brief character sketches and a rough (oh, so rough) storyline. Much fun was had writing random stuff to post here on the blog, to see if I could get my head into 'story space'. November finally came, and I was thrilled to find that once I officially put fingers to keys, words came out. It wasn't pretty, but I was astonished to find that sometimes I could almost see the scene in my head and get lost in it, like I was simply recording what was really happening. At the end of the month I had a 75K word first draft that I promptly put away and haven't touched since.

Because, I decided, I had to Learn to Write before I would be qualified to edit my draft into something readable. I launched into a frenzy of self-education, working through a couple of short online fiction writing courses and joining some forums that offered workshops. One forum even promised to walk me through the process of writing and editing a whole novel in two years!

I'd written one draft, so surely I could do this. Game on! I found another idea, found a few characters, and followed the weekly exercises, examining the setting of the story and the cultures and the personal likes and dislikes of the characters. I wrote some short scenes (OK, mostly I rewrote the same scene several times) for assignments. But I felt like I was tap-dancing around the thing, and no matter how hard I tapped, I couldn't get the story to reveal itself. I had a rough idea of who the main character was and what her problem was, but I couldn't figure out what had to happen.

Meanwhile, I learned there were all sorts of things I was supposed to be paying attention to. The story arc had to be divided into thee acts, with the proper amount of major cliffhangers must be placed just so to keep the reader moving forward. Keep the reader wanting more, every single second! Nothing can be wasted, or I'd lose the reader! The first page has to be flawless or the reader will throw the book aside in disgust. Characters must have internal and external conflicts and goals. Dialog can't really be like real speech, but has to read like real speech. And oh, how to weave in just the perfect amount of backstory? Certainly none of this "Well, as you know, Bob, when I first came to this planet..."

And then what? Well, according to the ever-growing list of blogs by agents and editors and publishers and writers in my Google Reader, I had to craft the perfect query letter and find the perfect agent and get published. But, as they were so quick to point out, publication of a first novel is practically impossible. It was going to be a long, hard, grueling road. I would have to write ten books before I would have learned enough craft to even think about it.

Dag. That's a lot of typing.

I would have to write EVERY DAY, and I would have to write thousands and thousands of words. It was the only way. Writing got more and more complicated. I didn't want to write every day. I couldn't get words down without desperately trying to recall all the rules so that I didn't make any of those laughably foolish newbie mistakes. I rewrote and edited the piddly pile of stuff I did write down to dry bones. The words stopped flowing. And ideas?

<crickets>Uh... hello? Is this thing on?</crickets>

I beat my head against the wall for a month or so, then it got just too fucking hard. In a fit of pique I unsubbed from all the workshop forums and writing/publishing blogs. If I didn't love it enough to hack away at it every day, if I wasn't obsessed enough to carry a notebook around 24/7 to record every snip of inspiration that crossed my path, then obviously I shouldn't even bother. I crossed fiction writing off the list of Shiny.

But the other day I get this email from the NaNo folks, and just for a second I felt that thrill, that sense that the story is already sitting out there, complete, in the Shadow World and all I have to do is find it and record it. And I remembered something I had forgotten: I loved doing NaNo. Abso-friggin'-lutely loved it.

Maybe I could do it again this year, even if I haven't actually Learned to Write. I have some characters already, and maybe I could ditch my old story line and start anew. Can I just write a damned story without fretting over whether it's good enough to become the Next Big Thing? Can I allow myself to so something I'm not competent at, just for fun?

Dunno. But I've got three months to agonize over it.
 

Abandoned projects

One of the unfortunate side effects of having an affinity for the Shiny! is that no matter how much enthusiasm I have for acquiring a new skill, sometimes it just doesn't work out. Best case is the light dawns before I spend hundreds of dollars on equipment/books/lessons and I escape with a little ego bruising. Worst case is I find out after some or all of those expenditures, like I did with running and weaving and patisserie and... well, let's draw the curtain there, OK?

Fortunately, fiction writing seems to have fallen into the Best Case category. I bought some books, but otherwise it has cost me only time and mental energy. Although it is with some bruising of the ego to admit that I've had to step away from it for awhile, mainly because I suck at it.

How bad do I suck? Well, let's just say a Bulwer-Lytton entry isn't out of the question.

What? You've never heard of Edward George Earl Bulwer-Lytton, the man who penned possibly the worst opening line in literature? The one that begins It was a dark and stormy night and continues well beyond reason? You must visit the site forthwith and rectify that grievous oversight. Scroll down to read the history of the contest, and click here to read the 2009 winners.

OK, maybe my stuff isn't quite that bad. I think I'm feeling a little better now.
 

The three Rs

Reduce, reuse, recycle, right? Isn't that what we're all supposed to be doing? Yeah, me too. I'm working on being a little more conscious of what I consume without getting all wacko about it, you know, like the folks using rags for toilet paper. I can't make myself even think about going there, but I feel I'm making progress in my own half-hearted way.

But today I found a site that may well hold the key to putting my conservation efforts over the top:

NetFlix Origami!
Photo from NetflixOrgami.com

Yes, finally, a use for those extra flaps from the Netflix mailers. Apparently the paper is perfectly suited for origami. Is that brilliant or what? They have several cool patterns, including a snack tray to hold your M&Ms while enjoying Napoleon Dynamite for the thirty-fourth time. Not that I would know what that was like or anything.

I threw out a pile in my last move but it won't take long to accumulate another stack. Geez, I'd better get that Battlestar Galactica disc finished up so I can send it back.
 

Obsession

Hot cross buns,
Hot cross buns,
One a penny, two a penny,
Hot cross buns

That was my favorite nursery rhyme from childhood, no shit. Apparently I was a carboholic even then, back when carbs were called 'starchy foods'.

This year I decided I wanted to make hot cross buns for the holiday. I've done some baking -- heck, I've even been paid to bake -- but I've never tackled the HCB. It didn't seem that complicated, and it probably wouldn't have been if I could just once get through a set of instructions as written, without trying to improve the process. Because I know so much more than the PROFESSIONAL BAKERS WHO WROTE THE RECIPE.

The first batch tasted all right, but then again, anything glazed with honey butter is pretty much incapable of sucking. Unfortunately, they resembled not so much hot cross buns as hot cross discs. Oh, and I was too lazy to make the icing for the crosses, so they were just hot discs. And after half an hour they weren't even hot. Just discs.

Since I am nothing if not stubborn, the second batch using my new and improved recipe is already in the works.

How far am I willing to go? How many discs am I willing to eat because I can't bear to throw them away? Well, in the words of Michael Scott, "This is a dream I've had since lunch. I'm not giving up on it now!"
 

Better stubborn than smart?

OK, I'm doing it again -- I'm thinking about... things. I'm not sure how I got to this point, but in the past week I've watched two videos that have made me sit up, brush the Fig Newton crumbs off my belly, and pay attention.

Firstly, this TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love) in which she talks about creativity and genius, and how to get yourself one.



B of all, from Malcolm Gladwell (Blink, Tipping Point), this talk about genius*, and what it takes to git 'r done.

Yeah, they're not what one might call hilarious, but they've got me thinking that I just might be able to fashion myself into a writer of sorts eventually, if I hack away at it long enough.

Got stubborn?

* Couldn't find a way to embed it - sorry!
 

Call me crazy

[We supercede our regularly-scheduled Friday Rocks! to present this Very Important Message.]

No, really. Go ahead, call me crazy. DO IT! Because I'm planning to do something I have no sane reason to even consider.

I'm talking NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. Fifty-thousand words in thirty days of forced-march writing. For someone who hasn't written anything resembling fiction in over 30 years*, that's a tall order.

I've been toying around with the idea since I first heard of it last Dec., just after the 2007 NaNoWriMo ended. I got really wound up about it but figured I had a whole year to get over it. I mentioned it here a couple of months ago, just to see what it felt like to say it out loud. I was pretty sure that by the time October rolled around, the Shiny! would have faded and I would have been distracted by something else.

No luck. I may really do this thing.

And that makes me officially crazy. To meet the goal, I'll have to write an average of 1667 words/day. My longest post to date (excluding my throat-clearing exercises here and here) is just about 1000 words, and even that, thanks to my attention span, took a couple of days to shit craft. Hell, my word count for the entire first year of this blog was only about 60,000. And I dare to think I can spew 83.3% of that in fiction form in a month?

Sure! Why the hell not? No one said it had to be good, or even intelligible. No one else ever has to see it. I've even been preparing, kind of: I was overcome by an unprecedented surge of inspiration a month or so ago and drafted the barest outline of a possible story. I worked on it for a week or two and haven't touched it since, but I think about it almost every day. I've read the official guide, and have even been lurking on the NaNoWriMo forums.

I've also set up a FirstGiving page. See, I'm planning on donating to The Office of Letters and Light**, the non-profit responsible for the whole NaNoWriMo thing, a penny for every ten words on my official word count, which will be updated daily (more or less) over there on the left. I'll probably make my donations at the end of each week. If I meet the 50K minimum, that's a minimum $50 contribution. So yeah, I'll be stressing myself out for a month and paying for the privilege. Can it get any better than that?

Hey, wanna sponsor me***? Meet (or beat) my contribution, or even contribute one dollar, and I'll... send you my eternal thanks. Or something. I'll think of something, I promise.

So how will this latest manifestation of Shiny! affect this blog, Dear Reader? It means that November posts may be heavy on the ranting and whining about my "novel". But I still think it will be a grand adventure. A grand adventure most likely resulting in an epic fail, but that could be spectacular, too.

So pull a lawn chair up to the curb, hold my beer, and watch this!

* Bless Mr. Johnson and Mr. Urbane and their struggles to teach us teen-aged Hoosiers the most rudimentary creative writing skilz.

** Isn't that the coolest name ever?!?

*** Evil Twin already has. The gauntlet has been thrown down!
 

Chicken Chronicles: Rats!

Somewhat sobered by recent events, I sensed the sun might be setting on the whole 'chicken thing'. Hubby had gotten way over it already (probably about the time he had to off the first hen) and even I had to acknowledge that he had several reasons to justify calling it quits.

Unfortunately, the affliction I suffer (caused by my dominant 'Don't Boss Me, Bitch' gene) meant that none of those very valid and compelling reasons were quite enough to get me to throw in the towel*.

Like the feather in the opening scene of 'Forrest Gump', the last straw drifted down from above when we started going through feed at an alarming rate. It was only a matter of time before I spotted a large, well-fed rat noshing at the feeder one evening. We rigged the feeder on a rope strung through a hook on the ceiling so we could raise the food at dusk and lower it in the morning. That seemed to help a little, although remembering to do the raising and lowering was a challenge, especially when it was cold and dark at 4:30 pm. But the feed consumption seemed to level off through that winter: Mission Accomplished! Or so we thought. Until Spring.

With the lengthening days came an increase in the frequency of occasional rat sightings. Even I had to admit that wasn't a good sign. Despite our dedication to the raising and lowering scheme, feed consumption increased, which could only mean that those ballsy mothereffers were hitting the buffet in broad daylight. And flipping me off when I caught them at it.

One evening at dusk, as Hubby returned from hauling up the feed, I could tell as he approached the back door that he was extremely agitated. He burst through the door, his face pale, and in a choked voice uttered the phrase that marked the beginning of the end.

If I saw one rat, I saw fifty!

And not half an hour later we got a very nice but direct phone call from our neighbor over the fence expressing his... concern over the infestation.

A quick investigation revealed the rats had taken up residence in the dirt under the coop during the winter, plotting and scheming and just waiting for the warm weather to launch their plans to take over the world. Which they apparently decided would begin that evening. The battle had begun. My response? Mass carnage. I wanted them dead. Yesterday.

I bought the recommended poison at the feed store. It took a little doing to figure out how to make the stuff available to the rats but not the hens or the dogs or Young Son, but there are some very ingenious contraptions out there. Who knew?

As advertised, within a day or so began our sightings of dazed and decidedly ill-looking rats stumbling around the yard. The sport became finding them and scooping them up before the dogs did. It only took a few days of Dead Rat Patrol for me to finally accept the inevitable. There was no way I could keep those chickens without harboring rats.

Dammit! I friggin' hate it when I'm wrong.

I called my farmer pal, the one who taught me how to molest a chicken. She had a neighbor who would take the lot. And after a hilarious hour spent herding chickens, that was that; the ignominious end of The Chicken Chronicles.

Cosmo continued to stare longingly into the pen for his fluffy prey pals. We continued Dead Rat Patrols until signs of life ceased, although over the next year or so we did continue to find dessicated rat carcasses wedged into the strangest places. My favorite was the one Hubby found in the middle of the huge compost pile. We decided our unwelcome guests must have been the morally-evolved, ecologically-conscious, self-composting rats.

Oh, by the way, I recently scored a dozen farm eggs, finally. And you know what? They were so rich that Young Son couldn't eat them. I'm not so sure I really enjoyed them myself.

Oh well.

* Poor guy. And we were married for almost 30 years. Can you imagine? I know!
 

Chicken Chronicles: I did it!

After a couple of years of chickening, we* decided to adopt a couple of retired racing greyhounds. No, the two events are not connected in any way. I am just random and arbitrary like that. It's the Shiny -- I'm powerless in its grasp.

Greyhounds are sighthounds, bred to chase small game. They are, as you might suspect, irresistibly attracted to motion. Especially racing dogs, where this instinct is honed to a fever pitch during training where they chase the white, furry thing around the track all day long**.

The chickens were kept in the shed/coop at the far corner of the yard, surrounded by a 7+ foot high chicken wire fence. They were, for the most part, secure. Oh sure, there had been a few escapes early on before we realized that a) chickens can fly, kind of (especially the Leghorns), and b) chickens can move an amazing amount of dirt, especially when they scratch too close to the fence and create an apparently irresistible egress***. I guess even a chicken's walnut-sized brain can discern the apparent disparity in the hues of grass from one side of the enclosure to the other. But with a judicious application of chicken wire, plywood, and large rocks, we considered those issues resolved. And, as you can probably imagine, our back yard looked simply fabulous!

Now Cosmo, the male, was the larger dog and therefore the most cowardly. Upon his arrival, I'd taken him out by the chicken yard to see what would happen. He seemed slightly interested and tentatively stuck his nose out to sniff, until one of the chickens fussed, at which time he balked and bolted to the house. Wanda, the more compact hound, was one cool customer. Although she seemed to have a pretty decent prey drive (at least where cats were concerned), she showed no interest in the birds whatsoever.

(I'm pretty sure you know where this is going but I'm pressing on, mainly because I love to hear myself talk... er, type. Whatever.)

One afternoon I look out the kitchen window to see Cosmo tossing something around the yard****. It looked like a white plastic grocery bag. He seemed to be having a good time, but then I realized he'd probably ingest it, whereupon it would block his intestines and cost me a thousand dollars at the vet. I decided I'd best go relieve him of it.

By the time I reached him, he was standing over his booty (Ha! Snort!) with an unmistakable expression of purest and most radiant joy on his face. He was positively beaming with pride. And I swear I saw a thought bubble appear over his head:

' Look! I did it! I caught the white fluffy thing! I really did it!'

No, that was no simple bowel-obstructing plastic bag laying on the ground between his front paws. It was an Ex-Leghorn.

I felt genuinely sorry for him as I swallowed my bile, grabbed his collar, and dragged him away from his moment of glory incarnate. The expression on his face as I shut him in the house was heartbreaking.

Until I had to go pick up the bird. Luckily he hadn't managed to eviscerate her. And did I mention my unreasonable fear of dead animals?

Whitey, safely double-bagged, followed her compatriot to the giant landfill in the sky. Released from captivity, Cosmo stood over the site of his greatest achievement, obsessively combing each blade of grass for any signs of his moment of conquest, to no avail. Was it a dream? But it had seemed so real....

We never did figure out how he got at her. Nor did we figure out how he got a hold of the next one. He must've stood by the fence, willing them to come out with every fiber of his being. Or something.

I tried to deny it, but I realized even then that was probably the beginning of the end of the Chicken Chronicles.

Be sure to check back for the next and final installment, where Hubby utters the timeless quote: 'If I saw one rat, I saw fifty....'

* And by that I mean I.

** Or not. I could be making up that whole paragraph.

*** I was going to say 'glory hole' but that would be inappropriate.

**** Wait for it...
 

Chicken Chronicles: Kicked the bucket

As you may or may not remember, at the end of our previous Chicken Chronicle I had a very ill, freshly-molested chicken slumped in a cat carrier in the corner of my workshop.

(Now there's a sentence you don't get to type very often.)

As the day wore on, it became obvious that the poor hen was not going to get any better. She needed to be put down. By... someone*.

Ew.

Now may I take a poll of city-bred folk out there? If you had to kill a chicken today, would you know how to do it? I mean really do it, as in walk out into your back yard, pick up a chicken, and kill it?

Yeah, me neither. I knew from extensive cartoon watching that you can wring the neck, or lay it on a stump and whack the head off with an axe and chase it around the yard. But we lived in the middle of a nice middle-class development. Animal sacrifice in broad daylight would probably not go over will with the HOA. And then there's the whole wringing/whacking/chasing thing. I just didn't see us* doing that.

So, hmmm, how could I learn how one* should humanely and discreetly dispatch a chicken in the privacy of one's not-so-private back yard? To the internets!

(Safety tip: When using Google to search for methods for offing poultry, be very very careful with your search terms.)

I did find one amusing anecdote about a guy who decided to hang the chicken from a tree and whack the head off by pinning it against the trunk with the axe, kinda pinata-style. That apparently did not go so well, ending up like some sort of tetherball game from hell. It seemed prudent to not try that method.

I finally found what seemed to be a reasonable option: you* lay the chicken out and cover the body with a 5-gallon bucket, leaving the head and neck exposed. You hold the bucket down with your foot and cut off the head with one swift stroke of the axe. This leaves the body safely contained under the bucket to contain any unsightly postmortem thrashing about.

Sounds easy enough, right?

I briefed Hubby on what was going to happen**. We decided to wait until cover of darkness and perform the deed under the deck on the concrete pad so as not to alarm the neighbors.

I wish I could tell you that I was out there with him, but I wasn't. My memory fails at that point, but I was probably cowered in a corner at the farthest end of the house, rocking back and forth with my fingers in my ears, wetting myself.

Now, Hubby had hunted some when he was younger and decided that it wasn't his kind of thing. So while he does not share my pathological fear of dead animals, they still aren't his favorite things to play with. He reported that he followed the procedure and all seemed to be going according to plan... until he took his foot off the bucket.

What the interwebs failed to mention is apparently there's a longer-than-expected delay before the postmortem thrashing commences. He did not end up chasing headless chicken around the yard, but it did scare the shit out of him for a moment there.

Originally, the plan was to raise the birds as layers for a year or two then cycle them out into the freezer. That evening, Hubby laid down the law: We were not eating those chickens. He was not going to do that ever, ever again if he could at all help it.

And I could respect that.

Poor Hen ended up double-bagged in the garbage. I wished there had been another way to see her off, but she was too big to flush and we had raccoons regularly patrolling the area.

Good news: I haven't yet exhausted my cache of chicken stories! Aren't you glad? In a future Chicken Chronicle, you will find out what happens when the greyhound catches the white fluffy thing.

* And by that, I mean 'Hubby'.

** And by that, I meant 'what he was going to do'.
 

Chicken Chronicles: For want of an egg

I'm starting to get a little concerned. For the past couple of months I've been on the lookout for a farm stand that sells fresh eggs.

This is puzzling and a bit disturbing. As recently as two years ago, I knew of four places I could get eggs grown on the premises. Now, I got bubkes.

I've known the joy of a good farm egg, and I also know how much of a pain it is to grow your own. Some four or five years back I ended up with a dozen chickens who, at times, produced a dozen golden-yolked and delicious eggs a day.

The chickens, like many of my Projects-with-a-capital-P, were the result of a severe case of Shiny. I don't even remember what sparked the idea. I had no prior exposure to chickens -- I grew up in the city so the whole farm animal thing was new to me. But my enthusiasm (and the interwebs) would be enough to carry the day, right? After a furiously intense period of research I bought chicks, we built a Chicken Tractor, and eventually turned the shed into a coop.

Things went along pretty well until the day I found one of the Black Australorps crumpled in a heap. I didn't know why but guessed it couldn't be good. I got her into a cat carrier and brought her into the house. But then what? You don't take a chicken you paid less than a dollar for to the vet... do you? (Yeah, I can hear you farm-savvy folks out there snorting your coffee. Told you I was clueless.)

I called a pal with a small farm and in short order I learned more than I ever wanted to know about hens becoming egg bound.

"So what do I do?"

"You stick your finger Up There and break the egg. If you don't, they die."

After my vision cleared, I performed a fairly predictable Gollum and Smeagol routine: "We can do this." "No, we can't it's too weird." "But we must! Think of the poor chicken!" "Eff the chicken! No f'n way!" "Just f'n do it, you pussy!" "Get off my ass, you pushy bitch!" and so on. Luckily I was able to get a grip before it came to blows.

After much pacing and hand-wringing and garment-rending and breast-beating and ululating*, with the chicken sitting in the cat carrier looking catatonic and pathetic and emitting random mournful squawks (brrrrraaAAWwww....), I decided I could do it. But I couldn't do it alone.

I called Hubby and laid** it out for him. I told him I needed him to come home and hold the hen while I tried to break the egg... the hard way.

(cue crickets chirping over stunned silence...)

He came home on his lunch hour and held the poor thing while I shoved a (gloved) finger Up There and felt around for something egg-like. But unfortunately, as much fun as that was, there was no joy that day. I could find no egg to break.

As with most dark experiences in life, there was one positive result from that traumatic episode: Hubby got to tell everyone at work that his wife called him home to molest a chicken***.

Be sure to catch our next episode of Chicken Chronicles, in which our clueless couple tries to euthanize a chicken without traumatizing their quiet suburban neighborhood or themselves.

* Not really.

** Ha! I'm gross!

*** My mission statement: When in doubt, always do what makes the better story. -- A stand-up comedian I can't remember, sorry.
 

Plot twist

Not so's you could tell, but I sometimes read about how to write. Not sayin' I understand it at all; in fact, most of the time I'm hoping that simply staring at the words on the screen might effect some sort of subconscious change that will, someday, transform me into someone who can write.

I know. Hey, I can dream.

Lately I've been very focussed on plotting, mainly because I have not even the faintest idea for a plot. And I have this uneasy sense that might be an issue if I ever try to write a story.

But never fear -- everything can be found on the interwebs, right?

Yesterday I found a cool post on Lynn Viehl's Paperback Writer blog where she describes her Story by Name Game. Here's my quick-n-dirty single-player version:

Pick a random listing in the phone book for a couple and write down their first names. Add a random last name, also from the phone book. Choose a random life-changing event, then a primary conflict, related or not. Add a complication, one that ties the major event to the primary conflict. Finally, decide on a resolution for the story that uses the major event, primary conflict and complication.

Shall we?

Meet Martin & Lisa Donis. Lisa, a hot-shot fashion designer, is newly pregnant. Martin, a cake decorator at the local WMart, freaks out about facing fatherhood and decides to pursue his dream of dancing on Broadway. He packs his dance belt and a tube of chapstick and takes off for Manhattan. He reassures Lisa he'll send for her when he hits it big. Problem: Martin is 5'8", 250 lbs.

Lisa abandons Martin and his delusions, walks away from her big show in Italy, and goes 'off the grid' to live off the land. She sets up housekeeping in a hollowed out giant redwood tree, where she births and raises her child with a wacky cast of anthropomorphic animal friends as her sole support system.

Well? Whaddya think??

...::«crickets chirping»::...

You're right. I ought to stick to tech support.
 

That's enough of that

Whew! I thought July would never end.

Two months ago I found myself at the NaBloPoMo site and, me being me, decided that I had to give it a go*. I mean, posting every day for a month -- how could that be bad? It would be some sort of amazing growth experience; pushing me beyond my self-imposed limitations. It would set me free!

(...crickets chirping...)

Wellll... I stuck with it for two months and I think we can all agree we've had quite enough.

Thank you for your patience during this experiment-gone-horribly-lame. We will now resume our regular haphazard posting schedule, already in progress.

But be forewarned: I'm considering taking on NaNoWriMo in November... be very afraid!

* If you're thinking 'So that's why we've had to endure all those crappy weekend posts,' you're absolutely right.
 

Blogwatch: Cooking the Books

Full disclosure: I'm shamelessly promoting one of my own blogs.

Cooking the Books: The Cook-Through Blogroll is my new baby*. I've been enjoying Carol's French Laundry At Home blog, which led me to this WSJ article about 'cook-though' blogs, which turned me on to even more cook-through blogs... well, you see where I'm going, right?

I couldn't help it. It was too Shiny; I was powerless to resist. I either had to pick a cookbook and start my own cook-through blog, or... make a blogroll of all the cook-through blogs I could find. Guess which one I chose?

Hint: Option B requires much less shopping and chopping. And, oh yeah, cooking.

Anyway, if you're interested in living vicariously through someone who is blogging about cooking their way through an insanely difficult cookbook, visit the Cooking the Books and take your pick. They're all deee-licioussss!

* But you'll always be my first and I love you best. Don't ever forget that.
 

Plarn-a-palooza

After yesterday evening's dinner rush concluded and Young Son was safely engrossed in his pre-bedtime activities, I sat down with a wad of plastic grocery bags and a pair of scissors to make me some plarn.

Last time I engaged in plarn production it seemed to take forever to generate enough to make a bag. But last night, in just over two hours (with occasional interruptions) I managed to cut, loop, and wind a 3 oz ball of plarn. My monster bag weighs only 12 oz.

I may be crocheting before I know it!

As I mentioned before, I'm planning on reproducing the size and shape of a WM bag. But last night as I was cutting, I got the impression that there might possibly be two sizes; perhaps one used by the cashiers and one used at the self-checkout stations. I'll do some measuring tonight and see if I can confirm that. If that's the case, then I shall reproduce the larger.

See? This is what happens when I enter Project Mode. Just imagine what would happen if I spent all of that mental energy on something productive. The mind boggles.

:)
 

Plarn, deconstructed

I've mentioned plarn (PLAstic yaRN) before but neglected to define the term. It's yarn of a sort made from cut-up plastic grocery bags. I didn't invent the idea or coin the term but I'm more than happy to leap on the bandwagon. My guess it's related to the old-school super-frugal practice of crocheting things from plastic bread bags. I have vague memories of seeing doormats made from Wonder Bread bags. Stylin'!

The best use of plarn, as I see it, is for crocheting market bags. Ya gotta admit, making grocery bags from grocery bags is kind of a neat recursive concept. I think of them as "metabags".

I've made three metabags now, and although the shine is starting to dull a bit, I might have one or two left in me. Or maybe it'll be an annual project*. It's turned into a love/hate thing, for sure.

It's fairly labor intensive, with most of the time going into making the plarn. That kind if irritates me, the Queen of the Short Attention Span. It also generates a bit of a mess, what with all the cutting, and of course I started hoarding bags and that got completely out of hand**.

Small inconveniences aside, it's still a shiny enough concept to keep me coming back for more.

Even though my metabag gets lots of interest at the grocery store, there's no way I could (or would want to) make money selling them (see labor intensive discussion above) so I thought I'd share lessons learned so y'all can roll your own.

Here is my preferred method for making plarn. Me being me, I had to research and experiment and fuss to see whether there's a more efficient method. There isn't. Trust me: the loop method is the best I've found. Plarn is going to take time to make, period. I tried cutting each bag into one long strip, but then you have to tie them all together and there are all those knots and short ends sticking out of the final product. We hates it!

The fun part for me is creating the shape. I made my first two metabags by combining elements from a couple of plarn market bag patterns I found online.

My original one, stretched all to hell. Note the knots and ends all sticking out.
Now I try to duplicate any cool bag shape that strikes my fancy. The one below was modeled on this shape.

The "grocery pod" model, a particularly pleasing shape. Not sure how functional -- I need to check with the recipient -- but look how sleek! No nasssty endses sticking out.

For my next shape, I'm going to try to reproduce the original plastic grocery bag shape, complete with some sort of gusset if I can figure out how to make that work.

One safety tip: these things g-r-o-w. My original one has now stretched to the point where it's too heavy to carry when fully loaded with groceries. And the straps are crazy long. I used a fisherman-net-type stitch for the second edition (not pictured) and it stretched way too much in the vertical direction, making it a very long, practically unusable tube unless you deliver a small paper route or need to carry a lot of baguettes around. So if the one you're making*** looks too shallow and the straps too short, have faith. This, too, shall pass. As with the female form, gravity will have its way in the end.

Another caveat is that crocheting plarn is not the least bit gentle on the wrists and hands. If you have carpal tunnel issues or arthritis, this might not be the best medium to work in.

And, for the love of whatever, do not tell people that you'll take all of their plastic grocery bags!

Eventually I want to write up some directions to post on my free patterns page. We'll see how that pans out. In the meantime, here's a pattern to get you started.

You think I've spent a lot of time and mental energy on plarn and metabags? Don't get me monologuing on soapmaking. Or knitting. Or baking. Mr. B's witnessed it. It's scary.

* If you're on my gift list, be forewarned: you may well end up with one eventually.

** Any knitter with a stash knows what I mean. My name is Liz and I'm a recovering fiberaholic.

*** And I'm betting if you've ever held a crochet hook, you will be making one.