Worse than I Thought

This is Druid Arch. (Hello, Druid Arch) I found it on-line during a Google search for mystic places of power. Or something like that. I can't remember because it's been well over a year ago. Don't even bother asking me what I had for breakfast because I can't remember that either.

I needed an obscure bit of the world to set the climax of my novel in. So I made it an outlet for magic and used it. Pretty cool, huh?

So I figure that I should go there. I mean, I live in Utah, for crying out loud, and it's not that far away. I was supposed to go this spring, but that never happened. I spent too much time revising my novel like eight times and never got around to getting into shape.

Did I mention that Druid Arch is in the middle of Canyonlands National Park?

Uh, yeah. And it's not like some of the other places where you can drive to within a mile or two and walk a trail to it. Oh no. Don't be daft. I had to pick the arch that lays at the end of a trail that's just over five miles long. One way. Something like 10.9 miles round trip.

Okay, for a whole heap of the world an eleven mile walk is nothing. Sure, whatever, bring it on. Just let me go get a water bottle first. Heck, I could probably make it, but the point of a hike is to enjoy the scenery and to have a good time. Well, that's the point of my hikes. And if I'm sucking wind and having to drag my sorry butt along the bottom of the canyon I am not having a good time.

In preparation for this hike, which is coming up in six-ish weeks, I decided I would do some good walking. Last week I did four walks at forty minutes each. This week I did two walks at forty minutes each . . . plus today. Today I wandered up onto the hill in Bountiful and did 4.6 miles in an hour and a half. Yes, I'm slow. My hiking is even slower, if you want to know the truth. But the cold, hard truth is that my legs started to protest by mile 3.5, and they never stopped complaining after that.

I finished my walk and came home. I stretched, ate and then went off the Kempo class.

Sensei. How does he always know? He decided that today would be a great day to lay down on the ground, jump up, do some jumping jacks and get back down on the ground.

Oh boy, was that fun.

Now my legs really hurt. I hate the first part of trying to get into shape. Even if the shape I want isn't perfect, but simply one that is about twenty pounds lighter than the one I have now. The first few weeks of exercising is the worst. I'll probably have to whine and complain about it a lot.

Sorry.

A Most Dastardly Design

We have a lot of glass hanging out at work. Pretty glass mostly, although what some customers claim is their dream come true in glass would more likely be the piece that I would send off to the DI (second hand) store. To each his or her own, right?

Because of said glass, and all of the “delicate” (although how you can call solid steel delicate is kind of a mystery to me) light fixtures that we make, we have an abundance of packaging materials in the back. The expanding foam is one of my favorites. Wrap light in plastic, put in box, fill box half-way with liquid foam and wait until it expands. Very fun.

Another item we have an abundance of is bubble wrap.

Oh yes, bubble wrap.

Just imagine, taking it in your hands, the plastic, air-filled bubbles caving under your fingers as you search for just the right spot to start. Once you've selected your first victim, place thumb and forefinger on opposite sides of the bubble and then . . . pop!

Or, if it has been a bad day, take the ends of a bit of bubble wrap in each hand and twist. Pop, pop, popopopopopopopopop! Quite refreshing. Ahhh. I feel better just thinking about it.

And yes, there are those great bubble wrap popping games on the web. It's not the same, but it will do in a pinch.

Now, take a look at the photo above. Glance carefully at the bubbles and you will see that they are not individually sealed. No, no, the air travels freely between the pockets.

We received a piece of glass wrapped in this stuff today. One of my co-workers pulled it off, and as he studied the glass I snatched the packaging. What can I say, I go for what I want. :)

Unfortunately, my anticipation of the loud POP (big bubbles here) deflated like a whoopee cushion without the noise as I squished my fingers together and the air simply slipped from my bubble into the three or four or five or six surrounding it.

Naturally I tried again, thinking I'd just got a previously popped bubble. No luck. I finally looked closer and found those irritating little bridges between the pockets.

Who thought that up? Do they have any idea how many people's day they just ruined?

I supposed I could support it if it had been an evil plan from the beginning, but I would have appreciated a warning e-mail. Show some courtesy people!

So harsh, so unfulfilled. I'm going to have to find some of the real stuff tomorrow.

The Amulet of Samarkand

Summary (borrowed)

Nathaniel is a young magician with only one thing on his mind: revenge.
As an apprentice to the great magician Underwood, Nathaniel is gradually being schooled in the traditional art of magic. All is well until he has a life-changing encounter with Simon Lovelace, a rising, star magician. When Simon brutally humiliates Nathaniel in front of everyone he knows, Nathaniel decides to speed up his magical education, teaching himself spells way beyond his years. Eventually, he masters one of the most difficult spells of all: summoning the all-powerful djinni, Bartimeus.

But summoning Bartimeus and controlling him are two very different things—and Nathaniel may be in way over his head.

I picked this up on CD at the library because I heard the author do an interview on a pod cast that I listened to. They guys in the pod cast said the book was funny, so I picked it up.

Now the book is funny. At least the Bartimeus parts. Nathaniel is a whining, sniveling, stupid little boy that I wanted to smack most of the time. He is decidedly not funny. I wanted funny. The djinni is funny. So half of the book is funny because about half of it is from each character's point of view.

The fact that I had to renew the book twice from the library tells me that I didn't like it that much. It just didn't draw me in after Nathaniel's part started. Of course, it's a middle grade book, and I'm not exactly a middle grader, so that could be the problem. If it's not middle grade my deepest apology goes out to Jonathan Stroud.

I'm thinking young boys would love it. There was plenty of action once things got going, and I liked the magic system. Seeing part of the book from the djinni's point of view made things more interesting. And more fun.

Did I mention that Bartimeus was funny?

Stupid Traffic-Cool Machine

This morning I got up early. This is not a terribly unusual action for me, but I do try to avoid it on Saturday morning. However, today was writing group day, so I hauled my butt (along with the rest of me) out of bed, got ready for the day and set off for Orem.

Saturday morning isn't a popular time for accidents or traffic jams. The drive is about 50 minutes long, depending on how I hit the two dozen light between my house and the Orem Library. The freeway doesn't usually have anything to do with the time variable.

Well, except for the time I was listening to the end of an audio book and because the freeway is under some heavy construction they keep changing the exits and what they look like and just having little signs that I apparently ignored and I ended up in the next city. Oops. I blame the freeway for that.

So today, listening to a fantastic music mix, windows down and the cruise control on, it took me a second to figure out that yes, the entire six lanes of freeway were filled with cars that had their brake lights on. Stopped.

In an uncharacteristic quick decision I bolted to the slow lane and got off on the next exit. I should have taken the frontage road one more exit, because when I got back on everyone was filed into one lane going about two miles an hour. Oh boy. So much fun.

And the worst part . . . stuck behind a big truck who was behind a semi.

That's why I didn't get a good look at the crazy machine that came by. Seriously, if I'd seen it coming I would have snapped a picture with my phone. Lucky for me, KSL had a picture. They call it the barrier mover machine. And as it went by I seriously was like, “What the heck? That's so cool!” and I craned my neck to watch it pass—lucky that the truck in front of me hadn't stopped by the time I got finished rubber necking. Basically the cement barriers are hooked together with big hinges (or something) and they're flexible like those dumb snakes you get at the carnival where you hold the tail and the rest of it sort of weaves back and forth. The machine eats the barrier and spits it out one lane over.

Stupid traffic jam vs very cool machine. Almost worth it. Almost.

Didn't See that Coming

Over the past six or seven weeks, I've been working on a new novel. This one is YA Dystopia—sort of. It's a story that I've had wandering around in my head for years. It's one of my oldest, novel ideas in fact.

I used the story as my Nanowrimo in 2009 I think it was. And you know what, when they say you shouldn't use your baby for Nano . . . they're totally right. I got through it, but stopped at 50,001 words because the story wasn't going at all the way I wanted it to. There is action, intrigue, memory loss, awesome sparring matches, jokes and a little love thrown in for good measure.

About 30,000 words into the Nano month I found that the story had moved away from the action and had delved into the emotional, love story.

Ack!

Don't get me wrong, the love story is a big part of the plot. These two characters grow together through hell and back, so it's not like I wasn't expecting some gaggy blah, blah. But it got totally out of control. What was she thinking about him? Was he thinking about her? Would the other guy understand? Who was going to sacrifice themselves for who first?

Ugh. What happened to my very fun romp? The bad guys are scary! The good guys are cool (most of them). How did this hapless love take over my story?

It took me quite a while to pull it out and look at it. Yes, they fall in love, but there are other things going on as well. I think I've said that. Sorry. Anyway, so I pulled it out and read it about eight weeks ago. Messed with the plot, tried to coordinate all those things that are supposed to go into a story and started to write. Type. Whatever.

Type, type, type . . . things are going well. I did have the non-action scene fit right after World Con, but that's gone away, and I got some good emotion out of it. Not me, the characters. I'm still typing like crazy, up to almost 75k at the moment, and the story takes a seriously scary turn to the dark side.

Like, I can't believe that came out of my brain and onto the computer screen for a YA novel kind of dark side.

First love sick story and then the “it may no longer be okay for YA” bit. I mentioned this last week, but that was only the beginning. Since then the story has continued to move in the dark direction.

I'm a little scared. I'll keep going, and who knows where it will lead, but sheesh. What's this all about?

A Personal Pet Peeve

The other day I Googled (I just love Google. Can I say that again? I just love Google.) for best books on writing, or something like that. It's easy for me to get rusty on the finer points of writing, even if I am doing it everyday. And when is it a bad idea to stay sharp?

Unless you're supposed to be blunt, that is.

Some of the best books on writing I've read. I own them. I've underlined in them. Others I've heard of an one or two I started and never finished, for various reasons that I won't get into here. One that came up again and again was a book called Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. I'd never heard of it, so I jumped over to my local library web site and put it on hold. A few days later I got an e-mail telling me that my book was ready to be picked up. Yay, writing book!

I kind of expected a commentary on her life. Especially when the reviews said things like, a great view of writing and life. Or something like that. Okay, fine, I can handle someone's view of writing and life all squished together in an overly wordy book. I'm an author (aspiring) so I can dig it.

And mostly I can. The mistake the author made was to tell me, in one of the early chapters, that the ONLY way to write a good story is to create characters first and then put them into a plot.

This is the only way. She left no doubt about it. She was very firm in her belief.

Hasn't she heard of Orson Scott Card's M.I.C.E.? Or does she assume that the M, I or E stories are all bad. This is a distinct possibility. However, I'm pretty sure some of those M, I or E stories have won awards. Sold more copies than most of us can imagine. Made otherwise plain people quite famous.

Now don't get me wrong. Good characters are essential to a story. As a matter of fact I think my first novel suffers from a lack of character development. I've been meaning to go back and fix that for a while. So I believe! In some of it.

I heard another author/writing teacher earlier this year say the same thing. Not about characters, but about writing. He said you can write any way you like, as long as you follow his formula to the tee. This was after he criticized Stephen King for saying the exact same thing in different words.

Uh-hu. Who are you again?

Sorry, I get a little grouchy when people pull the my way or the highway card. Just write. If the characters come first, great. But don't go beating your head against a wall or stalking people at the Wal Mart to try to get great characters to jump into your mind. (Which isn't a bad idea, by the way) And if the idea comes first, dive in. Don't stand on the shore of a beautiful ocean refusing to take a dip because the surfers haven't appeared yet. Who knows, maybe your story is about a jelly fish.

Just over 68k on the latest novel, by the way.

My Spacing Thumb is Down

It's been a while since I've been to sparring class for Kempo. Sparring always happens on Saturdays, and half of the time I'm meeting with my writing group, and the other half of the time it seems the world is ending and I can't possibly get there in the middle of the day on Saturday. Yes, yes, I am full of all sorts of excuses. Things like:
Family stuff.
Mercy mission for friends.
Work. Yes, it's happened several times over the past few months.
Out of town.
I'm teaching class because Sensei is out on a secret ninja mission.
Hair appointment. Hey, this is important.
I had to take a shower so I could go do (insert activity here) and didn't want to get all sweaty only to have to get ready again for the day.

Okay, I've never used that last one, but I might. Some days the thought of doing my hair twice is about as much as I can take. No idea why. Just not girlie I guess.

So anyway, I don't get to class much. Today not only did I get to class, but we actually sparred. A lot of times we go over really cool drills, but don't get to do full speed sparring. Both are good, I just usually manage to hit the drill days.

In my mind a sparring match goes something like this.

Ugh, it's (insert name here). They're so (Pick one: fast, tall, big, young, old, mean, nice, slow, obsessed with kicking, grabby . . .)

We bow. Get on guard. Sensei says go. I wait.

You see, I'm not a tiger to the throat kind of a girl. I prefer my prey to come to me. Saves energy. Most people classify me as a tiger, because I do fight in a linear fashion usually, but I'm not aggressive enough to be a real tiger. I lean towards a tiger/snake style. Wait until they get close enough (which is pretty darn close considering with my fun sized arms and legs my range is about a foot) hit them in a couple of key places and then back off. Snakes only have one weapon, so they have to make their strikes count. That's how I like to play. And yes, once in a while Sensei reminds me that I have two hands AND two feet I can use to attack. Not just my left hand. Lefty is mean.

Oh, sorry, we were in the middle of a fight. I'm waiting. They get closer. I might fake. They follow it in and if I've got the speed on my side I get them before they get me. I'm okay with my hands. My legs, on the other hand (haha) are pathetic. First they're short, and a lot of people can still hit me as I kick them. You have no idea how frustrating that is. Second, they're heavy and slow, so I don't use them for much but moving around.

Today I got squared off with a kicker. She's tall, thin and all about kicking. I can block kicks. My thumb will tell you all about it. Not that I remember when it happened, but I've got a great bruise going on under my right thumb nail. It went like this:

Ack! Stupid kickers, I hate them.
Ooh, knock that kick aside and jump in there. Go for the head!
Ouch, that hurt.
No blood, no foul.
Eeek, duck. Back up. No, go forward. Punch, punch, punch!
Block another stupid kick. I swear I'm going to elbow her shin next time.
Drat, missed.
Hah! Get her. Freight train her into the corner until she . . .
Darn it, she got another kick in. How is she doing that? Oh, she's running away. Get back here, you yellow bellied (insert favorite insult here)
Hey, why does my hand hurt?

And that's how it goes in sparring class. I've got another nice bruise on the top of my foot, and a couple on my shins.

Still I got a good workout, and sparring someone with an entirely different style than mine is always both fun and educational. And sometimes painful.

Go Ninja Wannabe!