Tuvela Two-Step

Weather is interesting to me. And, I think, most people. Weather affects a lot of our day. Most people check the weather before leaving the house in the morning. We used to tune into the Weather Channel, but now it’s weather apps. I have the standard weather app that allows me to easily check my local weather and the conditions near loved ones. I also have Windy that lets me look in more detail at several forecasts, radar, satellite, wind speed, etc. I love it and I’m still learning what it can do.

In the past, I’ve not had to worry about hurricanes. Those were things that happened hundreds of miles away. At most, I’d catch a little extra rain and wind from an outer band. We’re a couple hundred miles from the coast now, but significant impacts are possible, so I’ve been watching the named storm, Debby, closely. It’s frustrating when the best the weather people say is “we don’t know”.

The storm is moving slowly and that means parameters change in the meantime. It reminds me of Jurassic Park. Ian Malcolm studied chaos theory. Explained in short: small changes make a big difference in outcome. Debby’s slow progress makes for constant small changes in the pressure systems and water temperatures off the coast of Georgia and the Carolinas. And weather is chaos.

I do enjoy “Tropical Tidbits“, a Youtube channel that goes active during hurricane season. The forecaster gets deep into the details of what different computer models show. If you’re in a hurricanes projected path, I highly recommend tuning in. Dr. Cowan is easy to understand and is passionate about his work.

Our house shouldn’t be in any danger from Debby regardless. We may get some extra rain which my garden will be happy for.

It seems that cucumbers that are left on the vine overlong become yellow or even orange. I took a swing at turning these into refrigerator pickles. I’ll do a taste test tomorrow and see how they turned out. I did peel them and scoop out the seeds. They were ugly before peeling, let me tell you.

Also, I cooked steak for dinner tonight. Steaks on a spitting hot cast iron pan. Tasted good. No leftovers of the meat, just a little spinach. Maybe I’ll mix that with my eggs in the morning.

Worthy Opponents by Danielle Steel

I’m trying to read books by authors I haven’t before. I picked up a Danielle Steel at a book sale this summer.

I don’t know if this is representative of her writing or not. It’s not one of her most popular novels, so I won’t generalize my thoughts on this book to her work in general.

Fifty pages of backstory open the tale. Fifty pages. Five-zero. It’s backstory covering multiple generations of the female main character’s family. Then, there’s a few more pages of the male main character’s personal history.

Y’all, I nearly cried. I wanted to finish the book for the sake of finishing it, but I didn’t want because I was bored.

Backstory is great to have, in your notes. You can even have your characters discuss pertinent life events and work it into the story that way.

The novel improved from there. It didn’t exactly motivate me to read anything else by Danielle Steel. Should I give her another try? Is this just one bad book? What would you recommend?

OR

Are they all like this?

No. Not the kind of presentations that involve a slide show on the screen behind you. Packing for my trip to Imaginarium was different. Every trip I’ve gone on in the last couple of decades (give or take) has involved packing for myself and others or preparing them for my absence.

It allowed me to coordinate outfits and accessories. As I packed, I gave some thought to how I would present myself. I wanted to be comfortable and put together. I gave some thought to business casual and I’m glad I didn’t go that direction. This Con, and I imagine others, would have looked at business casual as too stuffy. I settled on a t-shirt, jean shorts, necklaces, and hair accessories. I have long hair, so hair sticks, fancy barrettes and such are all well within bounds for me. I went big on the jewelry and accessories: nice chunky pieces.

I’m not going to say the implementation was perfect. I got some nice compliments which is a great ego boost. I kept the makeup simple: eyeliner, mascara, and a long-lasting lip color. And concealer, because I’m human.

Having done all of this, it was interesting to see how others dressed for the Con. Some stood out for their choices. And this is where it can go horribly wrong OR right.

Hillbilly of Three Ravens wears an olive drab tactical vest with a variety of patches ironed on. As the nickname implies, he has a down home vibe. And the olive drab gives a suggestion of military experience. I have the impression that given a barn, machine shed and a few hours and he’d be fully prepared for a zombie apocalypse.

Cajun, on the other hand, wears a brocade dress vest over a long sleeve button down shirt. the impression is that he’s a southern gentleman in the best usage of the term: A man who says ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and would tip his hat to the ladies.

How you dress affects those first impressions every day of your life. We all know this to be true. Even if you hate the thought of that, you can learn the game.

I called an audible on Saturday. I found a t-shirt with a fun graphic on it, that I loved. But the shirt was a yellow. A color I’ve long considered to be off limits for myself. However, I called over to Kortnee (who happened to be sitting nearby) and asked for a thumbs up or down. It seems, if I have a sufficient tan, yellow is a color I can wear. Yay!

It’s well worth it to learn what colors and shapes look best on you. There are a gazillion articles on this and I’m no expert. Look it up. Take a friend shopping with you to get feedback. Dressing for a con isn’t quite like dressing for an interview even though this is a place where you are trying to learn, network, and promote your writing. There is room for self-expression. You can make a statement. Just make sure that statement gels with your brand and persona.

I attended a Con in Louisville, Kentucky this past weekend. I learned a little, hung out with some fun folks, and connected with the usual suspects of Raconteur Press.

Learning:

There was a full schedule of panels. I stuck to the writing panels, because I do this thing and I’d like to get better at it. The best ones that I attended were by Dianne Mills and Devon Eriksen. Dianne had several over the course of the three days. In one panel, on The Art of Character, she encouraged writers to put a lot of thought into the past journey of those characters. As a pantser, this is a challenge for me. My characters tend to tell me who they are as we progress through the story. That’s fine for a first draft, I think. It would be worthwhile to build a psychological profile once the story has developed. I attended only one panel with Devon on perspective and tense. He’s a new author with one book out. He has put a great deal of thought, however, into the use of tense and viewpoints in writing. It will be interesting to see how his career unfolds.

Hung out with folks:

I hung out a lot with Richard Cartwright, Becky Jones, and Kortnee Bryant. It was a busy weekend, but I kept running into them and we shared dinner a couple of times.

The Usual Suspects:

I’ve written mostly for Raconteur Press. I’d met some of the crew before, but the crew has grown as the press has. It was great to put faces with names. Rac Press has been very ambitious and continues to be. I was also able to pitch an idea for their Pogue One anthology and the idea was well received, so I may devote some time to developing the concept. I thought it was a little outside the parameters, but I was encouraged to write it. Huzzah!

I’m headed to Imaginarium 2024! It’s my first convention as an author. I’m looking forward to spending time with my peeps from Raconteur Press.

Please pray that I am not inflicted by saboteur squirrels, extensive detours, or general unluck.

All the best, Tuvela.

In temporary housing. We are under contract on a lovely little house. This is, I suppose the “wait” part of “hurry up and wait”. We’d been looking at houses online for months (ahem, for myself, I must say a year), so, when we got here, we had a darn good idea of which we wanted to see.

The best looking house online, was kind of a bust in person. The floors were wonky. I was reminded of the show “Mad About You” in which Jamie and Paul had a running gag about sloping floors in their New York apartment. But they never could agree on which parts were sloped.

Another house that had looked promising and I wanted to like had a really awkward layout. It was fine until you started looking for a master bedroom. And don’t give me guff about saying ‘master bedroom’. It’s not a reference to slavery. Anyway, there wasn’t a large bedroom with en suite and a big closet. It was just really awkward and they were asking too much for us to come in and have to do renovation.

The house we decided on looked better in person than it had online. It’s an older home, which doesn’t bother me. Actually, I’m delighted. There is lots of space for storage and two fireplaces. One of those is wood burning, which I love. And we plan to have a guest room. An honest-to-God guest room is a novelty for us. Even in some of the really big places we’ve had in the last several years, we weren’t set up for that.

We’ll have a little challenge putting in a fence due to overgrown hedges on one side of the property. But we’ll need a fence for the dog we plan to get. We had a dog for over fourteen years. After she passed, we decided to take a break from having a dog for a couple years. Mostly because it’s really hard to import a dog to the US from ‘high-risk for rabies’ countries. The CDC made new rules during 2020 for the importation of canines. It’s almost like the Centers for Disease Control was bored during 2020, like there was nothing else going on in the world that might concern them. We were tempted many times by strays in our travels, but we had to turn away. We’ll gladly take in a shelter dog in a few months. Heck, we might even get a little crazy and go for a puppy. That would give me writing fodder for months!

I’m basically spending days exploring and trying to learn more about our area and recuperating from the move and stress of living in a region that is unstable. I applied to a regional author exposition that will take place in January. At the least, I’ll be able to attend and meet other authors. (Ooh! I need to make business cards for that!) At best, I’ll have a table to meet people and be able to sell books. I hope to have a self-published novella out by then!

You know, when LawDog issues a challenge, sometimes fellow writers get… enthusiastic. Like when he asked for short stories about Malta, thinking he wouldn’t get enough for a single anthology. I think his publishing house, Raconteur Press, will finish out the series with four volumes. Four. We still tease him about that.

Now, when he asked his authors to write for this anthology, “Your Honor, I Can Explain”, he insisted that each story must contain a character by the name of Andrew Spurgle. Spurgle must be self-centered, self-important, and completely lacking in competence.

And LawDog says his authors “ran” with the idea. I snatched that kernel of guidance and pelted down the hall like a cat with 2am zoomies. Landry says it’s the funniest story I’ve ever written.

I might have had a bit too much fun writing it. But it still dovetails into my urban fantasy. It’s a cautionary tale for those who seek power at any cost… on a budget.

Hi Mom,

The kids started school on Monday. I was thinking of you because Constance has to collect insects for school. She brought home a cricket. She says they’re supposed to either freeze them or use alcohol fumes to kill them. I think I would just get odd looks if I asked for ether at the pharmacy. So, the way you dispatched them in college is out.

I told the kids about the time my apartment was infested with some black and yellow striped insects. I brought a dead one home to you and you pinned that sucker, pulled out your bio texts and identified it. Yellow jackets are tough little boogers. It was fun to see you flex those muscles that you hadn’t gotten to use in a long time.

We’re buying a house, finally. I think you’d like the front porch. It has room for sitting and plants. I have plans to hit up Craigs List and yard sales to slowly populate it and the back patio. I want to have lots of cascading petunias in different colors out there. And hanging baskets with trailing ivy coming down the sides. I wish you could see it. We’ll even have a dedicated guest room for once. I can put some of the furniture which you left me in there.

Love you. Always and forever.

Flying out soon-ish. Not that I’m counting the days or anything. I’m at relieved to be returning to a country English is the native language. A place where I understand the culture and norms. But I do get these hard pangs of stress and panic. Still so much to do. And things that we will have to do after we arrive: buy a car, buy a house.

I usually enjoy looking at houses online. It’s practically a hobby. But after this weekend and narrowing down to a shortlist…. I’m sick of looking at houses. Having lived in apartments or houses that are usually assigned to us has taught us a lot about what we can deal with. Now we need to find a house that we actually want. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around the need vs. want. Granted, it still has to fit our needs. And with a family of five, that can be a challenge. They’re not little kids anymore and need space.

In one house, we had the girls sharing a room that was probably 10 x 10. We had a play area for them in another area of the house: an awkwardly long dining room. It worked out, their toys went on one end and the dining table on the other.

That was ages ago. That was before we had Nerdling. Joy and Constance were small and sharing a room to sleep brought comfort. They’re sharing a large room now and it’s going well. Brilliantly, actually. They really enjoy each other’s company. However, I know it may not always be that way. I’d like for them to have their own space, so that if there is a spat, they can cool off separately.

The other thing is that this house will be our home for five years. And that’s a long time. The girls will be official adults, or nearly so, by then. How on earth will two of my kids not be kids anymore??

Right. Where was I? Oh, yeah. Five years. House hunting. I’m sick of it, but I really need to work on it. Wish us luck!