A Non-Food Post - A Tangential Matter

Sundays are beautiful, glorious days of the week. A time for leisure and work, the promise of success and fortune lie right at Sunday's feet.

Anyway, it's almost November. And you know what that means!

Or...maybe you don't?

NaNoWriMo!!! Wheeeee! One month of craziness, scaryashell laughs and fist pounds as me and millions of other writers across the planet try to pound out 50,000 words of unadulterated crap in 30 days.

As if I don't have enough to do. I know. But as Andy Dufresne (played by Tim Robbins) says in The Shawshank Redemption, Get busy livin' or get busy dyin'.

That's about damn right.

I'm on year five, and I've won all previous years (winning = hitting 50k+), so I expect this year to be the same, except...

my genre of choice this year is "Mystery, Thriller, & Suspense", which sounds great, but a.) I've never written a mystery before, and b.) I don't read a lot of mysteries.

But hey, I'm not going to get bogged down in the details.

I'm writing what's called a "cozy" mystery...very little violence (graphic, anyway), a little romance, a lot of funniness, small town setting and characters, amateur sleuth. And - it's taking place mostly at a community college...in a Culinary Arts program...most of the book's characters are culinary students or chefs/bakers.

Write what you know, people, write what you know. And that's what I know. For right now, anyway.

Comments

From Government Regulations to Chicken

So, I really wanted tonight's post to be whippy and biting and highly intelligent...and I've even got the perfect topic - government wine regulations: Europe vs. the US (subtitle: European Governments Seem to Trust Their Citizens A Whole Lot More The US, Otherwise Why Don't French, et al., Wine Labels Have the Surgeon General's "Pregnant Women Should Not Drink This/This Beverage Impairs Your Brain" Warning). But, I realized that to begin a post like that, I should probably know the answer to the question, yes? Why do American wine labels include the warning, when, I don't know, isn't just common sense? A quick search of this very query lands me at Wikipedia, which is good enough for a rude overview, but nothing that indicates why it's a law in the first place. Hence, more reading is required. I hope to get to it soon. It's almost August, two-thirds of this year is nearly gone, and sometimes I feel as I am moving very, very quickly along...

In Which I Suspect I Have Latent Tendencies...Much Like The Hulk, Or Similar

I find in most normally functioning families, the members have a distinguishing role or legacy or skill of some kind. Like, he's the smart one. Or, he's the religious one. Or...she's the glue that helps the fam together. Or, she's the savvy one, so she's the Power of Attorney. In my family, that system went something like this: My dad was The Dad. Cantankerous, crotchety, and especially tight with daughters' curfew times. Also, not a fan of driving in Big Cities. My mom was the long-suffering, patient, reserved one. My brother was the baby, the one who got away with murder, the namesake, and also, Frosty Hoarder. Me? My legacy? The Ruiner of Remote Controls. No lie. Although I've repressed the memories, my parents claim I destroyed at least two remotes in my tenure as Child Under The Roof. Remote #1: milk spillage; Remote #2: applesauce spillage. So, now you see why my younger brother was the favorite. Anyway, t...

And Now, A Literacy Moment...

Brought to you by the sponsors of Mark Twain Literacy Consortium...because after all, "a man who chooses not to read is no better than one who can't." First day back to school/work after ten+ days off. Urgh. You all know how that is, right? Meh. So let's talk about books today, then. On these long breaks, I never read as much as I think I will...and I'm not sure why that is. Well, okay, I'm fairly sure I know why, and it includes doing something in the kitchen, working on something for the Winery or school, playing those damn free 1-hour demo Hidden Object games at www.bigfishgames.com, doing logic puzzles, or watching The Walking Dead or Downton Abbey or Sherlock. Ugh. How did you guys do that? Get me to confess all that, eh? Anyway, I read: Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman. I have read at least three other books by this author, which, for me, is the only criteria needed to be placed on my Favorite Authors List....

To Thine Own Self, Be Food

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