Work and People

[e_moon60]

Although I had two very sticky days with the book this week, I made my words goal with some spare change--just over 12,000.

And I must remember that some nice email/comments showed up.  On the other hand...so did some not-nice ones.

Naturally, it's easier to talk about the latter than the former, in part because telling the audience that I got a

Comments

[catsittingstill]

My sympathy on the bad week. I'm glad you are feeling better.

And I appreciate your analysis of the triangular communication.

[e_moon60]

Thanks for the sympathy...always welcome.

Today has brought my Dragon*Con schedule, forwarded by my agent, who probably had the sense to look it up on the website, unlike me. Yippee! Nicely busy but not insanely so. Perfect!

And last week's massacre of the stray socks (that were stuffing the sock drawer...and only a few of their missing partners have turned up this week) has reduced sock numbers to the point where half the drawer can be used for T-shirts. Another Yippee.

Now to take a long hard look at the kitchen cabinets, and the former coat-closet-turned-pantry, and see if I can find more convenient (and large enough) places for the pots & pans. Having to move everything (two iron skillets and a big iron griddle) out of the oven whenever I want to bake something is a nuisance.

[gotica]

Oh dear, I'm sorry to do this to you but here is another picture I prepared earlier... ties in nicely with your stray socks (its also my little boy).

http://cheezburger.com/gotica/lolz/View/3836024320

[e_moon60]

SNORK!!!

[warriorofworry]

Wow. Here's hoping for a better week.
I was stunned by the article you linked; what arrogance! and bitter animosity, with a sprinkling of misogynist "yr doin it rong". There's nothing wrong with literary criticism, or pointing out weaknesses in an author's work, but - but - speechless. I think I'm going to beg Gotica for a small slice of pie, and you for a small bowl of that lovely "Metaphor Soup' to wash the taste out of my mouth.
I am wryly amused by your description of TPP. In my world, TPP is almost always compounded by the fact that the TP is family - my mother, in fact - which makes it impossible to stop her at the critical point, because it's packaged as news about other family members. The advantage, though, is that all of us know she does it, and after years of playing to her drama, we just sign "whatever" - most of the time. Good energy your way.

[e_moon60]

I read the guy's interview of a writer he claims to like, a guy in Austin. His interviewing style is one with that essay: he has in mind what he thinks the guy should say, and is trying to maneuver him into saying it, but the writer seems a much nicer person, who doesn't let himself be herded anywhere he doesn't want to go.

A lot of us learned the TPP thing in a family...but my nuclear family had only the two of us, so I was not subjected to it there. I saw it done in friends' families, where there were enough people around to make even very large version possible. And of course in school. One amazing version was a woman who came to visit my mother--who had died about a half hour before--and told me in that so-not-good-moment that "everybody in town" thought I was a bad mother.

Soul of tact and sympathy. Not.

[warriorofworry]

I see you met my grandmother. :-0 I hope you were able to blow that off, as difficult as the situation must have been for you.

here's to lemon cookies

[peneli]

Well, I think you're awesome and Doin It Right, so ignore those other people. :)

Also, the fact that multiple people think you stole things from D&D is just confusing to me. One of the reasons I adore Paks World is that it includes so many "standard fantasy" things (elves, dwarves, paladins, etc) in totally non-standard and non-D&Desque configurations.

Re: here's to lemon cookies

[e_moon60]

That's sort of my feeling. And besides...I was 35 or 36 before I knew anything about D&D, and had spent considerable time studying history, mythology, anthropology, and so on.

Anyway--thanks for your comments.

Re: here's to lemon cookies

[peneli]

Absolutely - I have never thought that anything in the Paks universe was anything like the way D&D did it. I found it delightful and refreshing, thoroughly well-developed. No copying or borrowing here!

What I spotted immediately (having had a small taste of military life myself, and being at least rudimentarily acquainted with history) was that Elizabeth Knows Her Stuff. :)

~Gretchen S.

[ndozo]

For me it's best to avoid reading those faux-intellectual cyber-tabloid stories.
That was an appalling article. I don't know a lot of the authors he was gassing off about, but Junot Diaz's book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, is a favorite of mine. Mr. Shivani's parents should have taken more care when naming him. (Or maybe they saw something in him early on.)

Lemon zest on watermelon. Surprising and tasty.

Every time you write about cooking, I get hungry. I wish you would write a cookbook.

[e_moon60]

I can't write a cookbook because I don't do recipes well.

Mine would be much like the old "Impoverished Student's..." one with a few personal quirks that aren't in there (after all, consider when it was written.) Ro-Tel is a basic food group. Wine, garlic, onions (and shallots if you can afford them--I plan to plant some this fall so I can), mustard, olives, and limes do surprising and wonderful things when applied at the moment your nose says "Why not?" Not being an impoverished student anymore allows me to cook with much better wine, and the friends with a ranch make it possible for me to have a couple of mama cows and have range-fed beef.

[moonsinger]

I'm not a cook, but I do like good food that lemon-rosemary roast chicken sounds yummy.