Bloomsday and Marriage

Today is Bloomsday. OK, some of you are scratching your heads and maybe even checking your calendars seeing that there is no Bloomsday referenced on the calendar page. But, nonetheless, it is Bloomsday. Bloomsday celebrates the day that the protagonist of James Joyce's "Ulysses" is set. It is also the day when the author, James Joyce, met his future wife Nora Barnacle. Now I don't know if you're a fan of Joyce or even if you have ever read the book "Ulysses", but any good excuse for a party, right? It is celebrated world-wide. So, why not take a bit of time and raise a glass to James Joyce.

This statue of James Joyce stands in Dublin, Ireland.  

Why else think about James Joyce? Well, earlier this week a discussion arose about stream of consciousness writing. But here's a thought too, and one which I've read in many teachings. I paraphrase..."James Joyce has a single sentence of 4000 words without any punctuation. It was written to be a stream of consciousness for the female character in Ulysses. But you (and me, of course) are no James Joyce. Use punctuation and shorter sentences.





I know several people both in real life, as customers, and in cyber-friend space, who have children getting married today. So I send a targeted "blessings to you at the start of your new lives together" to each and every one of these new couples. Marriage is an amazing thing. It joins you to another individual in ways that you don't really conceive until you have signed the paper and listened to whatever words you consider appropriate. Most of all, it changes your thinking from "me, myself and I" to "we, ourselves and us". It is not easy, but nothing good ever really is. I think the rewards more than pay off, though, and hope that each of these young people, looking at their futures together with such hope, have the opportunity to live the life that they are dreaming of. Mazeltov!

What I Learned - Sparks and Steel

One of the two classes I took last week at the Bead & Button Show was how to make tools from tool steel. Now, for those who only know me through my writing, my characters play with fire (a lot) and do glass and enamel art (as well as more traditional forms), but metal is rarely mentioned. It's there, but implied rather than brought front and center. But I love metal as much as my glasswork and I had wanted to know how to work with tool steel to make what I needed on the fly for a long time.

I love seeing the sparks fly when I put tool steel against a grinding wheel!  Fun!  

So I had this wonderful class that gave us a length of tool steel stock, taught us how to cut it into smaller pieces and then use grinding wheels, vertical sanding belt sanders, and polishing discs along with fire (because what in my life can be fun without flame) to make tools. And I loved it. But what was really fun was using them the next day.





I made tools that were similar to these in the pic, although these aren't a photo of my actual tools. They are used in an artform called "repousse" - in other words pushing a sheet of metal into a dimensional shape. We made repousse hearts the next day in Melissa Manley's class. The metal was pushed into a plexiglass form using heat (yes, flame again - LOL) and pressure from tools and a hammer. Voila! I had my own tools from the day before. And they worked beautifully. And then...best of all...we used fire again to fire enamel onto the surface. I ended up with two REALLY UGLY hearts (because I used enamels that I would NEVER normally have chosen) but I loved using my tools, so I was VERY happy. And....I got to play with fire. (Sigh of total contentment - LOL.)

One Down, On to the Next

I'm going to start out by wishing my country, the USA, a Happy Flag Day. On this date in 1777 the "Stars and Stripes" were officially adopted as the flag of our nation. Through good times and bad, good decisions and very questionable ones, this flag has flown proudly. The US may or may not be the best nation on earth in your view. All I know is that I am pleased to be living here and consider myself lucky that I was able to.



So, on to more mundane things. I finished the final edits on my LOTR Community Story and turned it in yesterday afternoon. I missed the html codes for one italic and I'll have to edit it when it is made public tomorrow, but I'm pleased with how the story developed. Because I was alone in the house I had the chance to read it aloud as a final edit and once again, that was extremely helpful. It's hard for me to do that on most days, but Wednesdays lend themselves to more freedom of expression. So, one mountain peak photo to celebrate the attainment of one peak (goal).



I then had a chance to spend time and catch up with my beta duties. I got the next chapter done for my friend and sent it on to her. She might be on vacation now also because I haven't heard back from her, but whenever she gets a chance to review - it's no rush. I've been working with her now for 2-1/2 years and we've worked out a good give/take. So, one more mountain peak because I accomplished another goal for yesterday.



So now I can dive back into my AinA story. I love writing to a challenge, it usually spurs me on to spread my wings and broaden my horizons. My only concerns with any fic swap of this nature is the potential for disappointing the end receiver. So I am reading and re-reading to do my best to write a story that she will be happy to receive. And isn't that the goal of writing stories and novels anyway? Happy Thursday to all of you!

Can I Have More Vacation?

I was determined to knock my "Longest Day" story into shape, after all, it's due on Thursday. But I am addicted to Chef Gordon Ramsey and his two shows that are on now - Hell's Kitchen and Master Chef. They are scheduled for Monday and Tuesday nights and I spend too much time turning around in my chair and watching the action/reaction of these aspiring chefs instead of writing. Add to that the fact that my DH walks down to the computer room to "schmooze" about the shows with me multitudes of times (more than 15 times last night) and it's no wonder that by 9:00 pm I had only managed to do the final edit of pages 1 and 2. Argh!

Chef Gordon Ramsey is great fun to watch. I think I'm an addict!

I spend the 9pm-10pm hour with DH. It's part of our agreement that gives me some writing time at night. But, since I had accomplished little in the editing area earlier I gritted my teeth and went back to the computer screen at 10pm. It took until 11pm to finish the story and I still have to give it another read-through before sticking on the header and sending it off, but at least I'm done and any additional changes will be minor. That's great. The icky part of this is the fact that I got less than my usual 5-1/2 hours of sleep last night, so I feel like a zombie today. I'm very grateful that it is my day off, but my list of things to do is a mile long.

Master Chef stars L-R Joe Bastianich, Gordon Ramsey and Graham Elliot.

It is a contest for amateur chefs only and is wonderfully fun.

Edits on this story ran a huge minefield. They started with a total change of the POV of the story, and ended up with fine tuning. I maintain that I got very lucky with my assignment, I loved it and was able to work with it. The story will be among the batch released on the 16th and I hope my f-list enjoys it. In the meanwhile, I'm back to working on other things including my classwork which has fallen behind. More vacation please..... LOL.

Catching Up and Editing

I'm almost caught up from my short vacation. Good grief! I can't imagine how horrific catching up would be if I had a real vacation of a week or more. In just five-and-a-half days I had more than 1000 emails, etc to take care of. But I'm finally almost caught up with those. I am doing a serious edit of my LOTR Community story. I have come to the conclusion that I am a rather rough first draft writer. What I write is not unreadable, no, but it needs serious editing to bring all of the stream of consciousness junk into better order, eliminate the duplicate words and repetitions, and catch stupid errors that would totally sink a story. I am a heavy-handed editor, though. I delete whole paragraphs, move things around mercilessly, and in this particular story, I changed the POV completely and am much happier with the story as a result. I wanted to get a fair amount done last night, but this kind of editing comes slowly so I will have to continue working on it tonight.

The story has a stream with fish....

My story mentions a waterfall, so I thought a couple of nice waterfall or stream pictures might be restful for today. My day started at 3am today so that I could catch up and I'll be exhausted by tonight, but I have Master Chef to watch (at least to listen to) and I need to get my own work out of the way so that I can beta for my friend's next chapter.

At the end of the valley is a waterfall. The characters don't get to see it from this perspective, 

only from the top, but this was such a pretty picture.

So...stream of consciousness is allowable in my blog. I jump around, flit from point to point, decide to push in X, Y or Z. All permissible. But not in a story that will be posted for reading. No, no and again...no. That's why I've been working on my technique with my Creative Writing course. What amuses me is that the information and suggestions are identical in many aspects to Man, Oh Man by Josh Lanyon which has been my reading materials for several days. I've been working my NookColor's highlighting feature to death in this book. I must have well over 100 parts highlighted. Such a valuable book for me, and it dovetails so nicely with my more standard coursework that I've been laughing with every new chapter. More tomorrow!

I'm Baaaaack......I'm Broke......

I had a fantastic vacation in Milwaukee, saw lots of friends and got lots of hugs. I spent a wonderful extended afternoon/evening with Zhie and her DH talking Tolkien and other things and Tolkien and writing and Tolkien and research and Tolkien. Basically SO much fun. I walked a ton and ate a lot of food that was everything BUT good for me (time to get back on my diet and eat regular food again) and I attended events and meetings and more. In other words - it was a glorious, highly-packed four days.




I did get a lot of writing done. I had my laptop and got some intense writing done in my hotel room, but I also had my NookColor and great WiFi most places, so I used that a lot and got tons of writing done that way. I had barely started my LOTR Community story for June (due in a few days) and wrote the entire thing on my NookColor while bopping between hotel lobbies and the Convention Center sales floor. It still needs heavy editing, but that's OK. The words are down and the story is complete, it just needs refining - a lot of it.




I still downloaded and worked through my class lessons for my Creative Writing course, and I also worked on my Ardor in August piece a bit, although I admit that my energies were spread in a lot of different directions. My classes were so fun! I'll talk more about them tomorrow or later in the week, and the drive to and fro was great because I was listening to Lynn Flewelling's "Luck in the Shadows" audio book. I don't think that drive has gone so quickly in years. I'm afraid to look at my credit card balance, but have to get some paid on that account by mid-week so I'll have to. I know I spent too much, but I'm already planning to go next year - it's just too much fun not to go. Call me happy....

Vacation Alert

So this is my last blog post for a week. I will still have my laptop and be keeping up with LJ posts etc, but I won't write in my own blog while out of town. If anyone reading my blog drops by the store while I'm out playing at the Bead & Button Show, please be kind to my employees. It will take them a little longer to get your merchandise, but they're good people, of course!




I am somewhat packed. My easel and sketchbook, pencils and clothes (probably too many clothes) are all in the suitcases. My tools will be gathered at the shop this morning and I'll collect whatever jewelry I've decided on for the trip tonight. I've packed my Nook with all sorts of wonderful things to read including a very hard to find e-pub of Josh Layton's Man Oh Man which has been so highly recommended by so many of my f-list friends that I had to find it. Knowing that my DH would never tolerate a paper copy of a book like that hanging around, I had to find it in an e-version. It took quite a bit of digging into some alternative book websites but I finally found it. If you are also looking for a copy, I found mine on Fictionwise e-books.



My Nano is also filled and ready for the trip. I'm in the process of listening to Lynn Flewellen's Nightrunner series. Although the audio isn't as good as what Ellen Kushner came up with for Swordspoint (which was an exceptional audio book), it's still a delight to listen to the books and means that I don't have to be finished with the series quite yet. I am completely through with all of the e-books though, and if I didn't have other books in my "I want to read this" queue, I would happily start reading the entire series again.



Oh, and I also have writing to do while out of town. A lot of it actually. I've been so focused on my AinA story that I haven't even started my LOTRO Community story and that's due in by the 14th. So I will shift my efforts and get farther than the three paragraphs I have already started. And my Creative Writing course will have two lessons ready for me to print. I'll have to check and see if my hotel has a business center so that I can print things out instead of just reading through them on-line. So...I'm primed to be busy with my own things as well as seeing old friends from the beading world and newer friends from the writing world. I return home on Sunday and will pick my blog back up on Monday. So have a great week, everyone!