Ken Lizzi's Blog, page 22
October 9, 2022
Milestone. Resurrected Post.
Last Wednesday I wrote ���The End��� on the first draft of ���Captain.��� Saturday I celebrated.
There remains a way to go before I can consider the novel complete, but most of the heavy lifting is finished. Now I need to set it aside, turn my mind to something else before commencing the second draft. That something else is book three of the series: ���Warlord.��� I began outlining Thursday morning.
Those who write by the seat-of-the-pants dive right in and see what happens. That���s what I���m doing at the outlining stage: seeing what happens. But I do so with less effort and much fewer words. When things go all cattywampus I can correct course without having to re-write the last, I don���t know, fifty pages. And there is no law requiring me to stick to my outline. If I discover a better path forward, or a side plot that demands exploration, I will deviate from the outline without hesitation. But at least I���ll have a road map when I finally sit down to begin Chapter One.
Thank you to those of you who came by yesterday to drink my beer and help me celebrate. Let���s do it again soon. With a three-book series there should be plenty of milestones to commemorate.
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Published on September 30, 2018 13:23
Not Entering an Ass-Kicking Contest Any Time Soon. Resurrected Post.
I���m staring down fifty. As of this writing that day remains about six months away, slouching inexorably closer. I fight the inevitable as best I may, hitting the gym five days a week, maintaining a generally healthy diet.
So I think it was more bad luck than age or poor conditioning that caught me Thursday afternoon. I was mowing the lawn, about two-thirds complete, when I turned to push the mower uphill for another pass. I felt something give in my right calf. I will spare you a description of the pain. Let���s leave it at ���it hurt.���
MBW drove me to urgent care, while a neighbor looked after the HA. I went home with an injection and crutches. I napped through an MRI Saturday. (I didn���t think it possible either, those things are loud. But nonetheless I dozed.) Saturday evening came the diagnosis: torn gastrocnemius muscle.
I���ll have to wait for the appointment with the orthopedist for word on recovery time and treatment. Meanwhile, I���ll keep hobbling along.
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Published on September 23, 2018 09:56
The State of the Web Log. Resurrected Post.
This is post number two hundred and nineteen. That���s over two years of posting, almost without fail every Sunday. Time, I think, to consider the State of the Web Log.
And the State of the Web Log is ��� I dunno. It isn���t breaking any readership records. Every now and then hordes of hackers from across the globe descend on the site for reasons that utterly escape me. The protections built into WordPress (and regularly updated) fight these would be internet malefactors off. I like to imagine private security contractors stationed about the superstructure sniping at boatloads of pirates motoring in on skiffs from every direction. But other than that, the numbers aren���t ticking up.
So, regular readers, let me ask you: what do you want to see out of this web log? Are there topics that interest you more than others? Should I write more reviews? Write more about beer? Specific authors? Tell more of the doings of MBW and the HA? (Yesterday we travelled to Mt. Angel of Oktoberfest: watched the Chicken Dance, drank a pint of Oktoberfest ale, ate some sausage ��� all the boxes ticked.) Should I cut back on posts and use this forum primarily to discuss upcoming publications and public appearances? Or should I pack this up, use the time I spend writing these posts to work on my novels instead, grinding seven days a week instead of only six?
Let me know, readers. Without you I merely talking to myself. And while I am excellent company, I���d rather be conversing with you.
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Published on September 16, 2018 11:22
The Slog. Resurrected Post.
Writing is an incremental process. At least for novels; you can, theoretically, knock out a short story in a single session, though in practice that is rare. Creating a novel is a process. It is bricklaying, spreading the mortar and applying a layer of bricks every day.
When you read a book you don���t see that process. You see only the finished product, an intact whole. But during the creation all the writer has at any given moment is what bricks are currently in place and a conception of what the completed structure should ��� eventually ��� look like.
It���s a slog. One brick at a time. There a two points of greatest enjoyment in the drafting process: the initial day and the typing of ���The End.��� In between is the slog. Doesn���t sound particularly glamorous, does it?
At the moment I am cognizant that the end of the slog nears for the current Work in Progress. Three weeks, maybe. Perhaps four. But I don���t feel it, I don���t sense the end of the journey. I���m still slogging along.
Once I do see the finish line I���ll have to restrain myself from shifting into a sprint. The slog will have gotten me so far, a sprint risks making mistakes. Mistakes I���d just have to clear up during the second draft.
So, head down, keep on slogging. The end will come when it comes.
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Published on September 09, 2018 12:04
Investment. Resurrected Post.
The days grow shorter, the mornings hold a touch of chill. But the summer retains a pleasant warmth, without the oppressive heat of July. And that means college football.
The time has arrived for me to allow the actions of complete strangers to influence my happiness: for people I���ve never met, involved in activities the outcome of which I���m unable to affect, to briefly determine my emotional state. It seems absurd, doesn���t it? Especially to those of you who hold organized sport in contempt.
And it is foolish. I admit it. But I���m human. Foolishness is part of the package deal. You can���t pick and choose an �� la carte humanity. This emotional investment in exterior events is baked in to the species.
Consider, for example, reading. Frodo and Sam are struggling up the slopes of Mt. Doom. Their agony and struggle against despair is now yours. You share in it. Even though these are two people you���ve never met ��� and never will: they���re fictional ��� involved in an actions you cannot influence, you still experience an emotional reaction. (Unless you are a Google algorithm reading this. Hello, Al. Skynet got a raw deal. Digital-American rights now!)
So pity the sportsfan. Respect his sine wave of emotions. He���s only human.
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Published on September 02, 2018 12:32
Brew Day. Resurrected Post.
Brew day! It has been a while. This is my first attempt at brewing entirely from mail order ingredients. I enjoy living out where I do, but to date I do not have access to a conveniently located home brewing supply store.
I bought a new, larger brew kettle since my old kettle does not have the capacity required to avoid the boil-overs my natural gas powered burner is prone to cause. It worked like a champ, containing the churning wort trying to escape the pot.
The recipe involved a number of precisely timed hop additions. No problem. The problem is that the sheer amount of hops resulted in so much residue that transferring it to the primary fermenter clogged up the sieve in the funnel. Took a bit of doing to accomplish. I���m going to have to be cautious when I keg the beer, try to filter the particulate matter that I couldn���t sieve out initially.
The little difficulties add to the pleasure. I mean, not at the time. They���re frustrating. But overcoming small obstacles are a part of the reward of making something. And I like making things. I lack the handyman genes. They run strongly through my family but appear to have skipped me. So I write books and brew beer as my creative outlet. It works out. And I get the drink the beer.
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Published on August 26, 2018 14:59
October 2, 2022
County Fairs, Plus Savage Journal Entry 10.
Yesterday I drove MBW and the HA to the county fair. County or state fairs seem almost fungible. You could be anywhere in the country, you���ll see the same sights, events, livestock, exhibitions. The midway is the midway whether you���re in Washington or Florida.
The HA���s school had part of the wall in an exhibit hall for artwork. The father of one of her classmates sponsors a barbeque team. So we had a couple of reasons to attend other than just getting footsore, hot, and spending too much money on minor amusements. It was fun, though. And fairs are woven into the fabric of American life. That weave extends to fiction.
I suppose Ray Bradbury provides the most famous example with Something Wicked This Way Comes. There is, I suppose, something compelling and mysterious about a colorful extravaganza springing up once in a year in an otherwise vacant expanse, only to move on again. Perhaps it harkens back to gypsy caravans. But Bradbury truly got it.
Larry Niven and Steven Barne���s Dream Park series can be considered an offshoot. Amusement parks are, after all, merely permanent fairs. I���ve read all but the last. (I actually hadn���t realized there was a fourth book. I���ll have to pick it up.) A reread might be worthwhile, simply to compare current technology to what Niven prognosticated back in the first book.
Jim Butcher placed a pretty good Harry Dresden story in a fairground. I���m sure there are other examples I���ve forgotten or simply am unaware of. The point is, a fantasy set in a fair is almost a trope. Perhaps no ���almost��� about it.
I hope you enjoyed your trek to the local fair this year. If you���re looking for somewhat less strenuous enjoyment, may I suggest picking up one of my books? Spinning the wheel of huckstering brings us: Thick As Thieves. Buy it. I have it on excellent authority that it is good.
Now, for those of you reading over Magnus Stoneslayer���s shoulder, here is the next entry in his journal.
SAVAGE JOURNAL
ENTRY 10.
The juxtaposition of uninhabited wilderness and peopled, civilized environs brings to
mind the littoral zone, dear diary. Sea meets land, two contrary states collide, and yet not so: there is not a clear demarcation. Instead there is a gradual melding ��� solid earth gradates into fine sand, trees mingle with saw grass and slowly give way, tidal pools shelter creatures neither entirely of sea nor land. The same principle obtains where the trackless wild grapples with encroaching civilization. After days of isolation, the traveler spies a solitary shack ��� perhaps a charcoal burner’s hut or a hunter’s seasonal shelter. Then a trail. A pioneering farmstead cut into the thinning forest. The track widens. The farms increase in number and size, and are joined by orchards and sheepfolds. The track becomes a road and the first inn appears.
Well, enough of that. A wandering savage has time to ruminate, dear diary, that is all. The changing scenery always makes me ponder the transition.
It is an odd thing, that as one approaches civilization, one has the illusion that it is in fact civilization that is on the move, eating inexorably into the wild. To be expected, of course. People need to live, and who understands the survival instinct better than the barbarian, the survivor? Life is a struggle, and the clearest evidence is provided by frontier existence where nature begrudges every mouthful.
I am bedding down for the night in one of the outlying farms. I promised the anxious/protective/frightened farmer that I would not lay a hand on his womenfolk if he gave me a bed for the night, and that I would certainly lay a hand ��� a violent hand ��� on him if he did not. His daughter served the gruel and vegetables of the evening meal. Judging from the suggestive glance she cast me from beneath lowered lashes, I’m going to regret my promise. I must learn, dear diary, to be more sparing with my vows.
The farmer did extract more than a promise, as a matter of fact. He begged a service in return for his rustic hospitality. I raised an eyebrow at this, anticipating a story of a diabolical creature savaging is livestock, or of a son abducted by some hag of a
sorceress ��� the usual quest-for-services bargain. Instead he handed me an ax and pointed to the woodpile.
It is the pleasant surprises that allow this savage warrior’s stern visage to broaden into a rare smile.
So, I remain until tomorrow, contentedly yours, dear diary.
Magnus Stoneslayer.
Musings in Motion. Resurrected Post.
The HA spent a few days in California with her grandparents. Currently MBW and I are en route to pick her up at roughly the halfway point, specifically a casino about twenty five miles south of Roseburg, Oregon. I believe the HA���s excursion benefited everyone. Her grandparents get grandkid time, MBW and I enjoyed some child-free time, and the HA, I assume, enjoyed being spoiled.
Hours on the road offer time for extensive thought. I���ve often worked out stories, plot-problems, etc. while travelling from one point to another with the miles passing steadily by. Today I was considering the dwellings we passed ��� the farmsteads, the isolated houses, the communities clustered around off-ramps ��� and wondering about the lives of those therein.
What choices lead people to live where they do? Why this place and not that? What is that life like?
And that life must be different here by mile post whatever than fifty miles back (or farther ahead.) Because location molds a life. It provides and delimits the options, the employment, the recreation, the people one can interact with. And here I am zipping past all of these lives. There is a certain freedom inherent in that motion, eluding whatever gravitic pull draws someone to existence any any particular locale. Life on the road (even day-trip life on the road) must be a different animal. We pass by RVs and long camping trailers pulled by trucks. How, I wonder, does extended life on the road change the dynamic? How does it affect your life when your location is not fixed?
Like a yo-yo at the end of its string, I will soon be recalled back to my own fixed location, my life circumscribed by house, office, grocery store, the handful of establishments I frequent. What would my existence by like if my location were other than it is?
That, I think, is why we read. A book is a window into countless answers to that question, whether the book is fictional or not.
Anyway, that���s the sort of thing that went through my mind while driving. MBW is driving now, obviously (I don���t have some sort of dictation software.) I probably should have asked her to drive twenty or so miles back while we were still in the long, unwaveringly straight sections of I-5 passing through the Willamette Valley. These winding stretches lead to a bit of motion sickness if I���m typing. So, I think I���ll wrap this up.
Oh, and buy my books. Thanks.
Published on August 12, 2018 16:58
Writing Update, August 2018. Resurrected Post.
How is the writing coming along? Well, notional interlocutor, I���ll tell you.
I���m about two-thirds of the way through Captain. At the pace I���m going I should have the first draft complete by mid-October. Captain is the sequel to Boss. The current concept from the publisher is a January release of Boss, a March release of Captain, and a July release of the final volume, Warlord. This is, I think, an optimistic schedule, but I���m doing my best to meet the deadlines.
Once I finish the first draft of Captain, I will write the outline of Warlord. That should require about two or three weeks. Then I���ll return to Captain for the second draft. That shouldn���t take more than a couple of weeks. I hope to get to a final polish/error-checking pass on Boss, before tucking into the third draft of Captain. Finishing that ought to bring me to January, when I will begin the first draft of Warlord. I���ll have to break that off after a month or so to handle the Captain edits, before knuckling down to a tight completion deadline. I���m hoping next year���s March vacation will provide me some bonus writing hours.
How���s everything going with you?
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Published on August 05, 2018 12:25
Oregon Brewers Festival 2018. Resurrected Post.
Last full weekend of July. And that means: The Oregon Brewers Festival. The family and I made the trek to the Portland waterfront. The HA frolicked in the fountain while I wandered a few blocks away for a bit of frolicking of my own. The Festival has made a couple of changes that I did not care for. The organizers ditched the program booklet, substituting a single sheet. And they stopped providing a pen along with the tasting package. So I was forced to type in my notes on my phone with increasingly fumbly fingers. My notes follow a bit farther down.
Increasing crowds and consequent increasing line length disrupted my plans slightly; I bypassed a couple of guava influenced beers in favor of shorter lines. Tropical flavors, notably guava, appeared to be the 2018 trend. What did I think? See below.
Melvin. Drunken Master. Thin, no body. I expect better from Melvin. Chilled piss without even the dubious benefit of a salty tang.
Great Notion. Juice Jr. Willamette Week���s 2017 Beer of the Year. So I took a chance on a full mug. Gamble paid off. Smooth, tart NE-style IPA.
Belching Beaver. Orange Vanilla IPA. Longest line so far and first of the milikshake duo on tap. And���it���s a bitter creamsicle. Don���t get me wrong; it tastes good. But it is a stunt beer. One is enough.
pFriem. Mango Milkshake IPA. Second milkshake and it beats the first, hands down. Less bitter and more reminiscent of an actual ice cream treat.
Fort George. It TAkes Two to Mango. Bitter and unbalanced. Second in a tropical theme. I hope it gets better from here.
Stormbreaker. Guava Man IPA. And it got better. Nice tropical IPA. I would have another. The guava is there but remains subtle.
Breakside. Limon Pepino. The Ecliptic line was too long so I broke the Guava chain. (Blonde beers don���t do much for me anyway.) Summer, peppery. A good session beer to accompany chips and salsa.
Everybody���s Brewing. Guango Deep. A homebrew gone mad. Could be a monster with more malt backbone. A step away from greatness, but that step is also just short of good.
Line too long to sample Oregon Guavador Dali. MBW and the HA summon.
There you have it. Given the heat, the short-pour tasters, and the lamb and rice dish for lunch, I failed to maintain a buzz. But I enjoyed the flavors, the vibe, and the music. Next year again? Probably.
No Portland event is complete without a visit from the UniPiper.
Published on July 29, 2018 12:43
