P.J. Schnyder's Blog, page 14
March 22, 2012
Lucky 7: A sneak peek at Fighting Kat
I've been tagged by Kelly Metz and figured, why not? It's been a while since I played a meme.
(And a shout out to her, because I got started on a beta read of one of her WIPs and loved it! I only wish I hadn't had so much life drop on my head over the last 6 months so I could have finished the beta for her.)
The rules:
Go to page 77 of your current WiP.
Go to line 7.
Copy down the next 7 lines/sentences, and post them as they're written. No cheating.
Tag 7 other sadists, I mean writers.
Here's the lines from Fighting Kat, book 2 of the Triton Experiment series:
Normally Kaitlyn worked solo and she liked it that way. Alone, she had the freedom the shift to panther form if needed, based on the terrain and the nature of any adversaries she encountered. For this mission, her panther aspect wouldn't be an option. Even without Dev's warning, she wouldn't risk it with so many soldiers nearby.
Studying Max, she got the distinct impression he was waiting for her answer too. Head skewed to the side, the dog let the tip of his tongue show and the end of his tail brushed the corridor floor once.
Cocky pooch.
"Fine." She spoke directly to the dog, since she hadn't decided if she more than tolerated the handler.
And now to Tag (though I've no idea if they'll play):
March 16, 2012
Character Inspirations: Max
Meet Kx-8775, mostly known as Max. He's a new secondary character for book two of the Triton Experiment series, designed after the concept of K9s and military service dogs.
He's based off of one of my dogs, Kaiser. In fact, Kaiser has inspired several stories and some of them are by other authors. Both D Renee Bagby and Stephanie Burke have been inspired after spending time around him.
German Shepherd Dogs are intelligent, strong willed and loyal. Kaiser, in particular, is responsive, sensitive and very driven to "work." Because of his very strong prey drive, he requires careful supervision around smaller animals, even other dogs. His nurturing side comes out with small humans, though, and he's often trying to play with children. He's a little rough and clumsy, but you can see his mind working, learning what the limits are for each particular child.
Intelligent also translates to sneaky. He can unlock doors, climb 6 ft fences, open refrigerators and generally get into stuff. He's like a velociraptor. The minute I come home, he's back on good behavior, but he's definitely got a mind of his own.
With dogs like Kaiser, you don't command him. You convince him early on that he wants to listen to you. And once you have his loyalty, it's yours forever.
One of the aspects I like to have fun with in the Triton Experiment series is introducing animals and touching on how they've adapted or been adapted for a society with space travel. Max is special because he not only has the particular traits of his breed but he also has genetic tinkering, a commonality with Kaitlyn. Unlike most animals, he also gets to contribute to the decisions about his future. His choice over rules everyone else's, regardless of rank or position.
Dev will have his hands full with a big black and tan dog on board and a crew member who turns into a black panther. And of course, there's Chester too. By the time we get to the end of the story, the ship's captain may lose his calm. We shall see.
March 12, 2012
Sick. I admit it.
Got sick last week. It's the high fever, congested, lose my voice kind of sick. My boyfriend tucked me into bed and fed me soup all weekend. Michael told me not to try to work out because I'd only make it worse. I tried to do a tiny bit of yoga, but some days I was too weak to make it through even that.
Results? I've gained 1.4 pounds (0.3% body fat) since last week
I've lost ground. I can't throw myself too hard into winning it back this week because I've got to take it easy or risk a relapse. It's super frustrating. Still, I'm not gong to suffer inertia. I'll climb back up to where I was and go even farther. 
Personal Trainer and Ifbb Pro Michael Stuart, photo by Luis Rafael
Quote from Michael:
If you're sick don't workout, you will make it worse!
Interested in training with Michael Stuart?
Find him on Facebook or Twitter (@MaxfitTraining1) and tell him I sent you, he'll hook you up with a great training packa
March 9, 2012
Reading Out Loud
Confession: many people have told me to read my writing out loud as a self-editing exercise. I never did it.
I've read an awkward line or two as I struggled for better wording. But I've never read one of my works out loud from start to finish.
Last week, I read my new steampunk short to record audio for the podcast version of the story. (It'll go live sometime in April, I believe.) during the course of the reading, I found several typos, an orphan word or two left behind in the flurry of track changes, and I realized the hero's name changed in Scene 3. None of us noticed, not me or the editors! A beta reader had noticed and I'd thought I'd gone through and made the changes but apparently had missed Scene 3. Whoops.
If it hadn't been for the need to read the story out loud to record audio, I'd never have found those mistakes. And the name swap was a big one. Lesson learned and I'll think about reading my work out loud in the future, a scene at a time.
Recording for audio gave me no small amount of anxiety. To me, I sound like a chipmunk. Since this steampunk short draws heavily on Thai mythology and in fact, is set in Thailand, I figured I sounded like a Thai chipmunk.
To prepare, I listened to the podcasts of the Tales from the Archives Volume One. The podcast productions are quite well done and I wanted to provide audio to match their sound quality. But I've never done podcasts before and didn't have the equipment. On Tee's advice, I kept it simple and clean.
Software: Audacity
Free. (Important!) Cross- platform (meaning it can be for PC, Mac, Linux, etc.)
Simple to use with the ability to record, cut, copy, and splice sound tracks.
Using Audacity for software, I recorded my voice using the mic on my SteelSeries Siberia V2 headset. I could have used the built-in mic on my laptop, but the level of ambient noise would've been much higher and I wanted to give Tee and Pip the cleanest audio I could manage. The mic on the headset captured my voice much better. Additionally, I sat in my closet during the reading for additional sound buffer from ambient noises around my apartment or coming from neighboring apartments.
Finally, I split my files by scene. The shorter the reading, the fewer mistakes in each. Also, splitting by scene kept file sizes manageable.
My final, high quality mp3 files ranged between 11 Mb and 30 Mb depending on length of scene. Some of these exceeded the maximum file size limit on Gmail, so it was a good thing we were transferring files via Dropbox.
Hopefully, these will be the foundation for my podcast reading of "A Swan in Siam" as a part of Tales from the Archives Volume Two, to be released sometime around April.
March 7, 2012
Thai Nam Tok Salad
Ingredients:
2 lbs. meat (beef steak or pork )
salt and pepper
3 to 4 shallots
3 to 4 stalks spring onion
4 to 6 limes
2 Tbsp fish sauce or to taste
1 tsp dried Thai chili flakes
sugar (optional)
1/2 cup roasted, ground rice
1/2 cup cilantro leaves
1/4 to 1/2 cup fresh mint leaves
Roasted, Ground Rice:
Take 1 cup uncooked Thai rice (Jasmine) and add to a small pan. Roast over low-medium heat until aromatic and golden brown.
Remove and place in food processor or well-cleaned coffee grinder. Process until rough ground – just a couple of bursts. Do not process until it becomes powder.
Nam Tok Salad:
Liberally prep raw meat with salt and pepper. Grill beef or pork steak to medium rare.
Note: with pork, it should be cooked through but still very tender and juicy. Hint of pink is not going to kill you.
Let rest.
Finely slice shallots and green onions. Toss in a large bowl with plenty of space for salad tossing.
Add juice of at least 4 limes. Set others aside for possible taste later. Add fish sauce and dried Thai chili flakes. (Optional: add a touch of sugar to take the edge off the heat level)
Note: could use Italian red chili flakes, but the taste won't be quite the same.
Thinly slice cooked meat against the grain and add to bowl. Add juices from slicing meat into the bowl also. (This is important!) Toss meat with all juices, spring onions and shallots. Taste. Add additional lime juice and fish sauce to taste.
Roughly chop cilantro leaves. Add cilantro and mint leaves to bowl. Toss again. Taste again.
Once salad is to taste, add roasted, ground rice. Toss thoroughly. Transfer to serving platter. Serve.
March 5, 2012
Injuries
I pulled a muscle on my inner thigh this week. Not a serious injury but I did need to treat it immediately and find ways to work around it during my workouts to give it time to heal. Was I still able to make progress? You betcha.
Results? I've lost 3.2 pounds (0.5% body fat) since last week for a total loss of 19.2 pounds (5% body fat)
But the important part is that my injury had only minimal negative effect on me because I took care of it properly, right away.
When you first realize you are injured, ice! The best thing you can do for it is get off it and take the swelling down as soon as possible.
Many people say ice and then moist heat. NOT WHEN YOU FIRST INJURE YOURSELF. I apologize for the all caps but this drives me crazy. If you apply moist heat to an acute injury that is still swollen, all you're doing is adding to the swelling and making it harder for you to heal. Once the swelling is down, and depending on the severity of the injury this could be 20 minutes or a couple of days, then cycles of alternating moist heat and ice can be very helpful to loosen the stiff muscles in the area and take down resultant swelling after you loosen them.
Seriously, it's logic. Understand the logic behind your treatment. Apply these things at the right time for optimal results. And of course, if you decide you've always done it a different way and it works for you, feel free to ignore me. Above all, consult your doctor.
Also, know the difference in your pain relievers. I use ibuprofen (which can be Advil or in other brand name over the counter pain relievers). It is an anti-inflammatory in addition to the pain relief so it also helps in reducing the swelling. Acetaminophin (Tylenol) is a pain reliever but NOT an anti-inflammatory. Know what you are taking and what it will do for you.
Also, I know plenty of people who disregard the dosage instructions because they feel they are special and the drug dosage needs to be extra high for them. Consult a doctor if you're going to do it. Besides, aside from level of efficacy of the drug, realize that ibuprofen and other drugs are harsh on your stomach – you could end up burning a hole through your stomach lining if you decide to tough it by swallowing the drugs with no water or taking high dosages. The drugs are made to dissolve in 8oz of water and become bioavailable. If you don't take them with water, all the drugs have to dissolve in is your stomach acid. Really, imagine what that's doing to your stomach lining.
Just because you are injured doesn't mean you have to stop working out. Depending on the injury, get creative and find ways to get your heart rate up without aggravating your injury. A personal trainer can help with this. Props to my friend, Mona, on FB for talking to her cardio instructor and proactively asking for suggestions as to what exercises she could do on not one but two injuries.
Don't let your injury be the excuse to quit your fitness program. Too many people get injured and then "It's sooooo hard to get back into it after being hurt." or "I was doing so well and then I just got out of the habit of working out." or "I've been out of it so long and now I'm too busy to go back to working out." Rest and stay off the injury but don't let it completely take away your momentum.
I call it inertia. Things in motion tend to stay in motion. Things at rest tend to get lazy and quit.
Personal Trainer and Ifbb Pro Michael Stuart, photo by Luis Rafael
Quote from Michael:
Pain is temporary, it may last a day, a month, or even a year, but eventually….it will subside! Remember "The pain you feel today, will be the strength you feel tomorrow" now get off your ass, and do work!
Interested in training with Michael Stuart?
Find him on Facebook or Twitter (@MaxfitTraining1) and tell him I sent you, he'll hook you up with a great training packa
March 3, 2012
Thai Sticky Rice with Fresh Mango
Ingredients:
1 cup sweet rice
1 can coconut milk
1 small cake cane sugar (about 3 Tbsp) – can substitute white sugar
fresh mangoes, peeled and sliced into 1″x3″ pieces
1/2 tsp salt
Soak sweet rice in water for 2 hours minimum before cooking.
Steam sweet rice in bamboo basket over pot of boiling water (or use cheese cloth). Sweet rice is done when soft and semi-clear. Remove from steam and place in large mixing bowl.
Set aside 1/4 cup coconut milk.
Heat the remaining coconut milk in a small sauce pan, adding palm sugar. Stir until dissolved and bubbling slowly. Remove from heat.
In a large bowl, mix the sweetened coconut milk into the cooked rice using wooden spoon.
Taste. Add additional sugar to taste if necessary. The sweet rice should not be too sweet, but should compliment the fresh fruit.
Bring the reserved coconut milk to a simmer in a new small sauce pan. Add salt. Taste, the coconut milk should be pretty salty as a contrast for the sweet.
Serve sweetened sticky rice on plate with fresh mango. Drizzle salty coconut milk as garnish.
March 2, 2012
Social Media Yays and Boos
Social media is a great place to learn, research, keep up to date on a wide variety of topics and become known to a wide audience. However, it's pretty easy to fall into certain trends.
Everyone has their own perception of the Do's and Don'ts of Social Media, but these are my personal delights and pet peeves. What do you think?
Particularly witty comments in under 140 characters.
This requires talent. – Yay!
Continually negative, grumpy and cutting comments.
Once in a while, no problem. I might even sympathize. All day, every day? Not for me. – Boo
Retweeting or reposting my stuff
I'm flattered. Thank you! – Yay!
Responding to my tweet/post with a standard compliment and "You might find my book {insert unrelated title of completely different genre here}"
Methinks you don't really plan to check out whatever I posted. – Boo
Responding to my tweet/post with follow up linkage to related, hopefully entertaining stuff
Let's take it and roll with it. Fun times. – Yay!
Continually tweeting or posting automated "What you are Watching" or horoscope with No Other Content.
zzzZZZzzz – Boo
Properly using hash tags or at least making them entertaining enough they might trend
Again, this takes talent. – Yay!
Posting nothing but book promo tweets/posts or unlabeled links
I'm not likely to click that link or buy that book. – Boo
Noticing I've retweeted/shared your post. Maybe discuss in a few exchanges with me.
Hard to do with everyone, so I'm especially glad when you take the time. – Yay!
Never, ever responding to mentions of you or thanking me for retweets.
I eventually stop doing it. We might even know each other. I'll still eventually stop doing it. – Boo
It all boils down to interesting feeds and nurturing relationships across social media. It doesn't have to be all the time or be a deep relationship, but the occasional reciprocation or acknowledgement helps keep things fun and interesting.
My recommendation? Make a list of your own Yays and Boos. Consider whether you're guilty of any of your Boos. You figure you'll develop connections with people out there with similar preferences.
February 27, 2012
Change things up for Results
Six weeks into this effort and my weight loss is starting to slow down.
Results? I've lost 1.2 pounds (0% body fat) since last week for a total loss of 16 pounds (4.3% body fat)
I'm frustrated. After all, I had good momentum going! And then I had a week where I got sick. Now I'm losing weight but only a bit at a time. It's harder to stick to my diet when I'm not seeing those insanely awesome results.
I must've slipped in my nutritional plan somewhere. Must've, although I don't know where when I look back on what I ate. Sometimes eating at restaurants is really hard because there's hidden calories in even the "healthy" offerings. Perhaps it was cooked in a LOT of olive oil or salt was added for taste that you wouldn't normally have had. Maybe sugar was added to a marinade or they didn't tell you the chicken was marinated.
Or maybe my eyes got too big I need to go back to carefully measuring my portions of carbs instead of guess-timating. (Methinks this is the culprit)
Get too used to something and you don't realize the amount creeps up on you. Check yourself once in a while to see if what you thought was a good portion has actually grown into more.
And it's time to change up the work out routine with more options. The body is incredibly adaptable. Once it acclimates to your workout, you won't see the dramatic results you saw when you first started. Luckily, I went to a Women's Self-defense Workshop over the weekend and got in a bit of mixed martial arts training while I was there.
I'm SORE. The oh so good kind of damn, I kicked my own @$$ kind of sore.
Yah, I'll be adding some of my old MMA drills back into my workouts both because I need to change things up to confuse my body and because this past weekend proved I've slowed down and need to sharpen my skills again.
Personal Trainer and Ifbb Pro Michael Stuart, photo by Luis Rafael
Instead of a quote from Michael today, I'm going to share a highlights video from the Women's Self Defense Workshop I attended over the weekend.
Interested in training with Michael Stuart?
Find him on Facebook or Twitter (@MaxfitTraining1) and tell him I sent you, he'll hook you up with a great training packa
February 24, 2012
Building Skills in an Imperfect World
One of the best parts about having my stories published is getting to meet my readers. I don't think I'll ever get used to the feeling of meeting someone face to face and having them tell me they enjoyed my books.
And yes, you'll see that I work very hard to get to several conventions a year specifically to meet readers, current and potentially new.
But I also wanted to take the time out to get out there for other events. Tomorrow, I'll be at Tri State Martial Arts Academy for a Women's Self Defense Workshop. I believe these seminars and workshops teach important skills for any person, young or old, man or woman.
Yes, it'd be wonderful if we, as a society, could teach our members to never consider attacking one another. But I personally can't see myself raging at someone else's parents or family because they didn't teach that person not to be a rapist or a serial killer. Rather than blaming the world for being unfair, I choose to do my best to prepare myself and not be a victim in the first place, maybe even help someone else if the circumstances require.
Realistically, I encourage people to take control of their own lives and build the skills to survive in an imperfect world.
That doesn't mean turning into a fighter. But in terms of self-defense, it does mean learning all you can about being aware of your surroundings and being able to assess a potential threat. It means learning how best to get yourself out of a potentially dangerous situation as quickly as possible. Those skills can help you avoid ever having a confrontation at all.
Mackenzie of Heart's Sentinel survived a vicious attack by a crazed stalker. She turned to the River Gap Pride to learn how to use her new, unasked for, cougar abilities. She found her strength and her personal power again.
At the Free Women's Self Defense Workshop tomorrow at Tri-State Martial Arts Academy, I'll be giving away a signed print copy of Heart's sentinel to one attendee. I'll also be giving out fun swag to everyone. For people in the NJ/PA area, I hope you'll join us. 
