This pen(cil) really sucks

While I should be writing my novel (I'm a bit behind - need to write 2.5k just to be caught up to the daily goal by the end of today), I simply had to write a post about something different right this instant.

You might know me as a lover of office supplies. I love visiting office supply stores for as long as I can remember and seeing what they have that I want to try out. I needed to pick up a prescription and had $2 extrabucks at the CVS that were going to expire soon. I couldn't think of any usual toiletry/medicinal supplies or even any food, so I thought I'd allow myself to pick something up in the small office supply section.

I spotted the Sharpie Liquid Pencil. "Oooo," I breathed. Sharpie makes great stuff and this looked like a cool idea. So I grabbed it and headed over to the pharmacy. When I came home, I immediately opened the package and started writing with it. My heart sunk with every new stroke.

Simply put, it is an abysmal product. I'm not usually one for such drastically negative words and will try to find some redeeming features of just about anything. It looks like it came out well over a year ago and I'm surprised it's still on the shelves. I Googled around looking for other opionions and found that the majority of the reviews on Amazon are 1 stars. Some other reviews elsewhere are much more positive, even saying that it writes smoothly. Now, it's possible that I've gotten a faulty one, but I will include a photo of the results. I tried different pressures and angles with no success.

Glad I hung onto that receipt. Despite only actually spending a dollar on it, I'm never using it and can't even bring myself to be okay with spending a dollar ...

Writing and reading words (= life)

Today I managed just shy of 2.5k words. I hope to do the same tomorrow and Wednesday and from the view tonight it looks doable but we all know how well life gets in the way of life.

I just realized something that could potentially be disastrous to the story: I switched up something major by mistake. It's so ingrained into what I've written so far it would take a complete rewriting and a very different set of scenes to make it work the way I had planned. But - I won't edit what I've got and from what I can tell, it shouldn't cause any disasters I can't control. Other than that, I feel the story is going much better than the one last year. I did have a couple of scenes that I really liked last year but it remained stilted until it fizzled out sometime early in December.

I'm trusting the advice that the act of writing itself changes the story. Many novels are not completed because they ended up going somewhere the author hadn't intended, when (apparently) where they are going is much better than what was expected of them.

Colin and I started reading "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson in the car. It is one of the few books I've read frequently. I've never read it out loud before, but it is making it easy to see why I've never cared for any of his other books. I've pretty much attempted them all, although I have yet to try out "At Home" which I was given a copy of last Christmas. It is becoming clearer and clearer that if it's a book I read before and we read in the car, something about it just doesn't translate well when being read aloud. Most of Colin's books are great for reading out loud in the car though. *sigh*

Anyway, the main reason I bring the book up is because the whole "It wasn't what I expected" reminded me of it. Apparently, most people that start out hiking the AT and then quit soon, say it was because "It wasn't what I expected." You do have to wonder what they *did* expect. Was it not that hiking with everything on their back all day, day after day, mountain after mountain, would result in tiredness, fewer modern conveniences, and some smelliness?

I think I like going back to it again and again because it is not touchy-feely (many hiking memoirs are full of "searching for my self" and suchlike) but it is also not just pure data (the other half all just keep saying "And the next day I walked x miles from point a to point b. It was still raining."). Simply put, the book makes my feet itch for the trail.

A Novel on my Hands

Looks like the first big story idea I started with is turning out to be a novel. So I'm going to stick with it, see where it goes. I feel like I have a more definite plot idea and a good idea for what to end it on, as opposed to the story last year. Still, I'm not forcing myself to write just this one story so if it gets stuck or peters out, I'm moving on. Speaking of which, I've only managed just over 6k, not quite meeting the daily requirement. Now, it's possible I'll eke out some more words before sleep but today wiped me out.

The gang's all here, from my mom and dad, Grandpa, aunt and uncle, and us. And of course the people who live here - Laura, William, Becca and Daver. We spent quite a bit of time at the cafe downtown, slowly typing out some words for the novel. Then we met up with those flying in and had dinner at the Library (there's a restaurant/brewery with that name in the old public library building - very good). Then we saw Laura starring in the Fuddy Meers play, which I thought was fun and pretty good though I'm sure there's some bias on my part.

Now Colin and I are back in the hotel room, lazing around a bit watching real TV until falling into bed. The saddest parts are that there's no snow predicted for the rest of this weekend even though it's gonna be cold enough at night and that there's an NCIS marathon on Sunday - when we're going to be driving south again.

The rest of the Austin story

I've "restarted" the Nano story. I had started with the main character being in their early twenties but then realized everyone was strangers to me. So I backed up a bunch in the timeline and the fingers are flying. It's annoying though, how much I can't stop thinking about the story and writing more only increases this feverish feeling. I'm up to 4629 words and I have no poem for the day. I might think up one before bed but don't count on it.


I haven't yet finished describing the trip to Austin that happened last week. I had a great time - went to the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum on Monday. That night I didn't feel so great so I bought a box of cereal and some milk for dinner and rested in the hotel room. I took it easier on Tuesday but went to the State Library right next to the Capitol building and found a goldmine on Ashley's relatives in their stacks. Wednesday I finally got to visit the two small house museums next to the hotel - one was the house of Susanna Dickinson, messenger of the Alamo, and the other was a house O. Henry had lived in for a couple of years.

Colin's conference was finally over and we met up with Ashley and Philip, staying with them the rest of the week. However, after a late lunch of Vietnamese sandwiches on Thursday I fell miserably ill and spent the rest of the time laid up. It was probably food poisoning with a combination of really bad allergies and fatigue. I made it back home and I'm mostly over it by now but I'm still having trouble eating much and get tired a lot.

And tomorrow we hit the road again! This time it's northward, on to see my sister star in a play. I haven't seen my family since the wedding so it'll be nice to see them and see how William's adjusting to college life. As an added bonus, I get to see Becca! Again! For the fourth time this year! And we'll be spending sometime together working on our novels, of course.

Nano 2011, here we go

Today marks the first day of a new Nanowrimo season. I debated whether or not to do it this year, and then decided to shoot for it. Last year was a success, but mostly in the "I can write 50k words of the same story in a month" way and not much else. I looked back at what I would like to have done differently last year and the biggest one was: write things I would want to read and share afterwards. I didn't want to get rid of the carefree writing style, though - I just wanted to not be stuck with one story. I also had some ideas that were nonfiction. And, most importantly, I wanted to use the momentum to advance the stories without worrying about word counts. So 2011 is the Year of the Rebel. Rawr!

Additionally, I plan to pen (type) poems and post them here. The one for the day is not related to the story I'm working on in anyway except that I was writing the story while the event took place.

1

Neighborhood feral cat

white on black the night after Halloween

slinks out of the shadows

sits profile wise

and laps from the birdbath

a makeshift neon green shallow dish

then continues

to the other side

of the patio

back into the night.

In Austin, Texas

On Saturday we flew in at 3. When we left the house early in the morning, the first frost was still on the ground. We picked the last of the tomato crop and brought them inside, hoping that the greener ones will be ripe when we get back.

While Colin was working on his presentations, Ashley and Philip took me to the Light the Night event along with a couple of their Austin friends. The walk (more like a shuffle it was so slow) around the small lake with everyone holding blinking lights was pretty neat. There were tons of dogs there. Then we went to eat at a Tex-Mex place where we had margaritas and then good if slightly pricey food. It was very dark and loud.

Sunday morning I scoped out the book festival. I had plotted out an itinerary based on Saturday's events by mistake; I got there and realized that there was no presentations going on yet since the day started later on Sunday. I also found out that the author I'd hoped to see wasn't able to make it. Despite it all, I had a good time. 

I first went to “The Kitchen Counter Cooking School: How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks” about a book with the same title by Kathleen Flinn. Not surprisingly, 95% of those in attendance were women. Flinn is humorous and made me think about a new angle on the concept of food that I hadn't noticed much before.

On the way back to the hotel for (free) lunch with Colin, I noticed some people milling around outside a theatre. It looked like there might be someone famous out front, with the mobs of cameras and the blocked-off area. Well, what do you know – I turned out to be 20 feet from James Franco. So of course I tried taking a few pictures myself, a couple which actually have his whole face in them instead of just an ear or forehead. I didn't push my way in or anything but I wanted to get proof of my first random celebrity spotting.

After lunch I went back for a few more events, two focusing on history. It was very hot out so I took the opportunity to step into a cafe and get an Italian soda to sip while I ran through the list of authors whose books were on sale at the festival. I also tried to listen to the author of “Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain” but it was in the House Chamber where it was very echo-ey. I could tell he (David Eagleman) was very entertaining but had no clue what he was talking about, so I left early on.

I didn't end up getting any books by any of the speakers I heard, but I did get a 2009 Festival shirt (it's prettier and only $10 instead of $25) and a couple other books - “Cleopatra” by Stacy Schiff and a signed copy of “How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe” by Charles Wu. It's been quite some time since I've bought books full price (okay, so they're paperback, but I'm traveling) but an undisclosed percentage of the sales is going toward the Festival which is free and open to the public. And I really needed a book to replace the one, “Liar's Club,” I started on the flights that I don't want to finish. It's supposed to be funny but it's downright depressing and a weird memoir based on events in which the writer relies on other people's memories and her own vague ones of her childhood. Yeah, I'm gonna go read “Cleopatra” instead.

Punkins and Prohibition

The two topics I wanted to blog about aren't related except that they've come into my consciousness the past 24 hours. They interest me, but I know that what I find fascinating would bore others to tears - I hope that this is short and humorous enough to entertain instead.

First, punkins:

I was just wondering about the differences in pronunciation of the word "pumpkin." My grandpa always pronounces it as "punkin." When I tried to search for what might be the reason for the wildly different ways of saying it, I was only able to find a dictionary entry stating that the pronunciation was: 

[puhmp-kin or, commonly, puhng-kin]

Then I found a hubpage made about pumpkins. No mention of how to pronounce it, but the article is educational. My favorite part was the history of how the pumpkin pie came about:

 instead of cutting them into strips and baking them, the colonists cut off the top, scooped out the seeds, and then filled the hollow pumpkin with milk, honey and spices. Once filled, they replaced the top and baked the pumpkin in the hot coals of a fire thereby inventing pumpkin pie

I still am not quite sure what regional differences, etc. there are - I'm open to ideas.

Prohibition:

One of the stranger aspects of volunteering at a church library that has been out of commission for years is finding, for lack of a better word, archaic texts. "Bombs of Infinite Power" which has been "stockpiled" by Allen R. Blegen is merely a long list of short and popular Bible passages. While this can be explained by the publication date, which is 1964, there is no reason to have it in any current library, only in archives. 

Another old pamphlet-sized monograph is titled "To Drink or Not to Drink? A Vital, Personal Problem Facing America To-Day" by James W. Johnson. There is no publication date listed, but it's clear it was after the Great War (World War I) and before World War II, during the Prohibition Era (1920-33). I had expected to see a religious argument but there was very little Biblical reference.

Instead, it started out with a numerated list of reasons drinking should be legal. Not too bad, I give the writer points for attempting to give voice to both sides. However, there are the four pages of both introduction and anti-Prohibition arguments contrasting the 16 pages of why Prohibition is necessary.

The four main points:

1. Liberty
1. PRO Obviously, thinking men and women should be able to have the choice and if they're not thinking, they're only hurting themselves, not others.
2. CON But they're not hurting just themselves; we have a duty to be our brother's keeper. The Law should uphold the moral law. States have to give up some of their liberty to become part of the United States. "The appeal for personal liberty is powerful. The appeal for brotherhood is overwhelming."
2. Old Customs
1. PRO We have indulged in alcoholic beverages for ages. "The abuse of wine was always condemned, not wine used in moderation."
2. CON Just because we've always done it doesn't mean we should continue to do it. Think about polygamy ("Even when practiced under the camouflage of religion the Mormons ...") and slavery.
3. Physical Needs
1. PRO Alcohol can be stimulating and cheering when used in moderation. It is even recommended by doctors in certain cases of physical illness.
2. CON Even for the cases which alcohol can help, there are alternatives which work just as well, if not better. There are far too many negative outcomes ("The alcoholic ward, the crime committed in drunken frenzy, the suicidal act ...") to deny that it is usually tragic for the many.
4. The Social Instinct
1. PRO "In all social gatherings from time immemorial, at feasts, banquets and celebrations, the use of wine has been the custom." And being good social animals is important.
2. CON The saloon is the poor man's club, but "it must be admitted that poverty is increased by drinking." Along with the patriotic duty that calls for every man to be his fittest.

And it goes on to describe other pro-Prohibitionist points, most of which are no big surprise, including the argument that man must be protected from his temptations but that the expressed desire of the majority for the Prohibition will win out in the end. "There may be a return to (previous) conditions ... but such a setback will only be temporary. Because, as Lincoln so tersely said, 'You can't fool all the people all the time.'"

The passage I find most amusing is the one about the "very real difference between the temperament of Americans and the temperament of foreigners." How Americans are intense, high-strung, and keen, which is responsible for excess in many ways. "We cannot even enter into our sports without often suffering more from exhaustion and overplay than we benefit from the relaxation and the exercise. This is especially true of our young men and women. It is not equally true of most foreigners."

Can't you just hear the grumpy old man's voice in your head from 80 to 90 years ago?