Friday Random

Random Weather:
This beautiful storm that rolled in just around dinner time Thursday night. The backyard was golden and glowing.... Thunder cracked and there was the storm!

Random Recipe of the Week: Simple Basil Chicken

Splice boneless/skinless chicken breast in half without cutting all the way through, stuff with mozzarella cheese and fresh basil, sauté with olive oil and garlic. When both sides are browned toss in some freshly diced tomato and let simmer on low heat until cooked through. Serve with crusty bread.

Random Progress of the Week: Sad news.... I have more in my slush folder for DoJ than edited in the latest draft. But I do think the draft is improving.

Random Feed Back from Contests: Amusing enough. I can tell who doesn't read sci-fi! But, overall, the feedback for the two pages I put in was good. The emotions are coming across and that's always hard.

Random Realization: I'm a picky reader!
I didn't realize quite how picky I was until I went on a critiquing spree with friends from my online writing group. Good gracious me! I love sci-fi and fantasy... but not all of it. In fact, not even a large portion. What I do like is very raw and rough prose. Not unedited but writing that almost feels jagged.

Books where every paragraph is the exact same length, where the author uses flowing lyrical writing, don't thrill me. I'm not attracted to poetic writing. Which is odd, I like Tolkien well enough. But I think that's because I started with LOTR and love the characters. If I were to try LOTR now I don't think I'd make it past the Fellowship of the Ring.

Random Quote of the Week:
"When everything goes wrong you have no one to blame but yourself."

I think this is the essence of a hero. A hero is someone who does the right thing even when what is right isn't popular or easy. And a hero is willing to take the blame for something going wrong. Heroes don't lay blame.

Note, a hero is not the same thing as a main character. I can think of several books where the MC will blame everyone but themselves for current troubles and problems. But I don't like those books.

I like the books where the hero goes: Aliens are invading! I'm going to do something! Rather than: Aliens are invading! I blame the government, if they'd funded the SETI project better this never would have happened.

This rolls over to daily life too. You can either be a victim and cynic, "It's all X's fault!" "Life is always bad, it will never change." Or you can be the person who gets up each morning and works for what they want. You can wait for free handouts and live in bitter disappointment, or you can approach life like a tactician, plot out each move, fight each battle to the end, and get what you want.

For the writers this means getting up each day and carving some writing time into our daily schedule. It means thinking through snarls in a plot line rather than throwing our hands up in despair. It means working through rejection letters and mistakes until you get where you want to be.

Random Publishing News: Still waiting for feedback on the short story in submission. Hopefully by this time next month but maybe a little longer. At least I finally sent something out.

Random Thing I Didn't Get Done This Week: House cleaning and sewing. I'm supposed to be finishing quilts and it just hasn't happened.

Random Thing I'm Looking Forward To: Finishing draft 4 of DoJ and NaNo. All of November is devoted to NaNo. I can leave DoJ to linger and die. Although I'd prefer to have the silly book done and be working on a query letter when I'm not working on NaNo stories.


So...........What's your random?