Bryce Moore's Blog, page 306

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Ice Fish

Amusing Bryce anecdote ahead, detailing one of the many ways I am occasionally (or frequently) stupid.



So let me set the stage for you first. I was planning on going out ice fishing yesterday morning with TRC, despite the sub-zero temperatures. I'd had fun the first day, and I wanted to do it again, dagnabbit. So I got out everything I needed the night before. Hats, gloves, snow pants, scarves, mittens--you name it. Everything was set. I got up early in the morning, did my writing for the day, and then packed everything up.



I'm a punctual person. I like to be where I'm supposed to be when I'm supposed to be there. I was ecstatic when I was heading out the door with two minutes to spare. I was going to be right on time, and I'd gotten TRC ready to come with me as well (with lots of help from Denisa, of course). Everything was set. On the way out the door, Denisa asked, "Do you have your license?"



I called back that of course I did. What sort of a ninny goes driving without their license?



Two miles down the road, I realized that she was talking about my fishing license. My fishing license which was on the kitchen hutch. So I flipped a U-turn and went back to the house, disappointed that I'd be a tad late, but still feeling pretty on top of things.



Problem: the license wasn't where I'd left it. Ensue frantic 15 minute search through the house, blazing through piles of paper and every nook and cranny known to man. I'm getting increasingly upset, since I'm now both very late and think I'm losing my mind. There was a group of people waiting for me to go, and I couldn't get in touch with them. I tried to print my license again, but the computer decided to crash.



It wasn't a good 15 minutes.



At last I call the wife of one of the guys I'm going with and get directions to the pond. I reboot the machine, fix it and print off the license. In the end, I made it to the pond before the people I was going with did--they'd waited for me, which had put them back some, and my house was closer to the pond than the place they were waiting.



It all worked out, but I still wondered where in the world I'd put my license.



When I was getting change last night, I found the license.



In my jeans pocket, where it had been all along.



I also discovered that in my rush to get out to the pond, I'd ended up leaving my wallet behind.



What sort of a ninny goes driving without their license?



Me. I am that ninny.



So in the end, I'd turned around to go home and leave my driver's license there (the very thing I'd thought Denisa had been warning me against), just so I could get a second copy of my fishing license. I should have just not turned around and gone straight, arriving punctually as planned.



And people wonder why one of my goals this year is to cut down on clutter and be more organized . . .

Book Review: The Passage

The Passage by Justin Cronin



My rating: 3 of 5 stars





A vampire book that isn't your typical vampire book. A more realistic take on the genre, with viruses and genetics and rational explanations and plagues and guns and danger and everything else you can stuff into a thick book. Should be great, right? That's what I thought, at least. And it certainly was intriguing. The first act of the book was really good--I was reading at a fast clip, and it was getting more and more engrossing. Then act II hits, and I stopped.



Not a brick wall sort of a stop. More slowed down in molasses. The book was still good, but I wasn't reading it very quickly anymore. I had to sort of force myself to keep going. I don't want to say exactly why, because I don't want to spoil the book for anyone who might be thinking about it, but suffice it to say that I think you need to be very careful about alienating your readers by the way you treat your characters as an author. Readers build up a relationship with characters, and there's a fine line between being predictable and going too far.



I'm not saying Cronin passed that line. After all, I still finished the book, and I enjoyed it, more or less (although it did commit the heinous sin of deciding to be book 1 of a series without alerting me of the fact). Even so, Cronin definitely looked over the edge of the line on numerous occasions, and that's all I'll say about that for now.



What was good? It was certainly of epic proportions, and you couldn't accuse it of being predictable. There were character pieces in it that were very moving and hard to read. What was not so good? Sometimes there's such a thing as too much of a good thing. Lots of characters in this one--lots and lots. It's hard at times to feel really invested in any one or two, because as a reader you're scared Cronin is going to make those story lines irrelevant. And he arguably does. Be warned.



That said, the book was good. Not great for me, but good. It's done all right for itself, so clearly it's great for some people. Just not me. I'd love to hear from someone who's read it--am I off base? What did you think? Do share . . .







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Movie Review: Kelly's Heroes--Clint Eastwood + War Movie + Heist Film = Awesome

I had a half day yesterday due to the blizzard we weren't supposed to get (2 inches of forecast snow turned into a good ten or more inches, plus gusts up to 40mph--the weather people responded by saying, "Oops."). So Denisa and I took advantage of a slow Wednesday to watch Kelly's Heroes. I had to do some cajoling to get her to go along for the ride, a process which had been made more difficult by her failure to be impressed with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (a movie I absolutely adored--four stars and perfect in every way, if you're me. If you're Denisa, it's a lame mishmash of video game references and special effects. But come on--how can you not love a movie that was thought up as a musical, but instead of the characters breaking into song and dance numbers, they break into fights. Awesome!). Then again, she had gotten us to watch Young Sherlock Holmes, which was kind of lame (more like 1.5 to 2 stars), so in the end, Kelly's Heroes won out.



Very glad it did. Take The Dirty Dozen, add in some Ocean's 11 and a dash of The Italian Job, and then let it stew with A Bridge Too Far for a while, and you end up with Kelly's Heroes. It's a war heist movie, where Clint Eastwood leads a rag tag team of US soldiers to go steal 16 million in Nazi gold from a French bank behind German lines. Donald Sutherland, Eastwood, and Telly Savalas do a great job mixing action and comedy, and it's 2.5 hours of good zany fun. Denisa thoroughly enjoyed herself, too.



If you haven't seen this one, stream it on Netflix tonight. It's even in HD, so it looks great. Not to be missed. Anyone else out there with me on this one? Speak up!

Family Newsletter, Snow Day, and Mailing the Contract

Care to sample this year's Christmas newsletter that we made? It's kind of a beast to make print copies, so we didn't send one to a whole lot of people. Also, the print version has a special "Buttersby Saves Christmas" short story that I don't really fancy having kicking around the internet, so it's been removed from this copy. But other than that, it's all there in its original glory.



Enjoy.



Now if you don't mind me, they've called a half day at work due to the snow, so I'm going to pack up, go home and celebrate the fact that I'm sending back my contract to Vodnik on the way home. Signed it on the auspicious 1/11/11 date, so at least it'll always be easy to remember when I signed my first contract. :-) Editorial letter should arrive here soon, at which point I'll go back into revision mode. For now, I'm almost 20,000 words into Tarnhelm, which is what I decided to write while I was waiting. I'm about 10,000 words farther than I thought I'd get. Actually thoroughly enjoying it. The protagonist is hugely different than any I've written before, and it's been fun to have a change up. Often I choose to write about main characters that are fairly clueless. This one (Harvey) actually knows what he's doing, more or less. Nice.

Photographic Evidence of Fishing Fun

And here are the promised pictures from the fishing expedition. Once again, different from Facebook.



It's a little known fact that camp chairs are allowed in all Olympic events




Getting jiggy with it.




I once caught a fish /------this------\ big




Fish. The other other white meat.

TRC and DC Pictures from Christmas and New Years (Different from FB Pics)

Because I realize some of you who read this blog aren't friends of mine on Facebook (not for any lack of me trying to get you to be), here's a picture post of my kids from the last holiday break. And because you Facebook friends already saw some uploads by me this morning, I chose different pictures this time. Aren't I nice?





There was a cheetah attack right in the middle of a nativity reenactment. Thankfully, the cheetah was friendly, and no one was mauled.




Our little angel. She only tried to eat the necklace two or three times that night.




Princess Cinderella




Celebrating the New Year in Style

Things Learned During My First Ice Fishing Expedition

If you follow my Twitter feed, you no doubt are aware that I went ice fishing for the first time this weekend. Despite what many people say up here (namely that "ice fishing" is code for "ice drinking") no alcohol was involved. I do have photographic evidence of my trip, but I don't have the cable to hook up my camera at work here, so you'll have to wait for that. In the meantime, here's a rundown of the experience.



We went to Lukfin Pond up past Philips, Maine. It's not particularly big, but it's not exactly pull up with your car, get out, step on the lake and start fishing. It's more drive for a while until you get lost (thank goodness for guides!), park, walk through the woods for a ways, find the pond, and then trek across it. Still, lots of exercise--always a good thing. And I wasn't there to just sit around doing nothing. I wanted the whole experience to see if I liked it or not.
Still have to get a fishing license, even to do it in the snow. $27 in Maine for the year. Not bad at all.
Bring ice skates. TRC, DC and Denisa had a lot of fun skating all over the place. I was very impressed with how much skating TRC has picked up and retained from last year. He fell down quite a bit, but as he explained it to me, "Falling down is all part of the fun." Wise words. DC isn't really skating yet, but she had a fun time being dragged.
Taking a 2 year old girl to the bathroom when it's 15 out and she's bundled in snow clothes--not so easy, and not so much fun.
Drilling through the ice by hand is even harder than you'd think it would be--especially  if you have librarian/author arms. The ice was about 10 inches thick right now--I'm told it gets much thicker later on in the season. That should be . . . interesting, although I was also told most people use machines to drill.
You can either use traps (baited lines that have a little flag that goes up when a fish bites) or jig (use a short pole with a lure at the end that you bounce up and down to make it look like a live fish). We used both. I caught my 19.5 inch, 3.75 pound smallmouth bass using a jig, and I caught it about 5 minutes after I got to the pond. Beginner's luck in action. We caught a total of 4 smallmouth. Mine was the biggest, but only barely. We had four jigging holes and 10 trap holes out, and we only caught fish at one of the jigging holes. Nothing else anywhere. I'm told that was a slow day.
It's cold, but as long as you dress warmly, it's not bad. If you get too cold, you can always drill another hole. :-)  Some people have huts out on the ice, or tents. Seems to me if you're going outside to ice fish, you might as well be outside and not in a little hut.
Lake/pond ice can get really slick, especially in windy spots. Blows snow just grinds away all the ripples, and it's like a sheet of glass, except there are bubbles in it. Pretty cool.
Every now and then, you'll hear a huge booming sound that you might think was thunder, a gun shot, or a bass drum somewhere in the woods. It's actually the ice expanding. You see all these fault lines criss crossing the ice, as the water beneath freezes, expands, and pushes the ice farther out.
Hot chocolate is a plus. So are home baked cookies.
Filleting a smallmouth is much different than cleaning a rainbow trout. And (although I'm still not that in to fish) I prefer smallmouth to rainbow trout. Fried. Not too bad.
To conclude, ice fishing is much more fun than you might expect. I had a blast, and I hope to get out again next weekend. It's an excellent excuse to go outside, do something different, talk some, and it doesn't require too many gadgets to be able to do. Highly recommended.

Book Review: Boneshaker

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest


My rating: 4 of 5 stars



If you haven't read much steam punk (and I haven't), this seems like a good intro to the genre. It takes place in Seattle. Not the Seattle we know today, but the Seattle of an alternate post-Civil War era, where a huge tunnel digging contraption (the Boneshaker) drilled through the main part of the city, opening up a seemingly endless pocket of toxic gas that turns people into zombies.

So, zombies and steam punk. A match made in heaven.

The story concerns a young man whose father was the pilot of that disastrous Boneshaker. He's out to prove his father's innocence. His mother is out to keep him from killing himself. A good premise, and the book sustains the action well throughout. There are airships, triple barreled shotguns, and everything else you could want from a steam punk book. The characters aren't perhaps as rounded as I'd like, and it all feels a bit off from perfect, which makes me wonder if I were more familiar with the steam punk genre, if I'd still be giving this 4/5 stars.

But I'm not familiar with it, so oh well. Any of you out there read it? Am I off base? What are some better steam punk books to start with? Do share, please . . .





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A Controversial Post on Government

One of my loyal Facebook followers brought to my attention this morning that I hadn't posted anything controversial in the past while. She's right. What's the point in having a blog if you can't annoy people every so often? So enough with the movie reviews (even though there are some really good ones I'd like to post about) and updates on my writing philosophy.



Let's talk about govment. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (picked for a quote because of the recent idiotic decision to release a bowdlerized version of it--see my comment on that post for my thoughts on that matter), Pap has this to say about govment: "Here's what the law does: The law takes a man worth six thousand dollars and up'ards, and jams him into an old trap of a cabin like this, and lets him go round in clothes that ain't fitten for a hog. They call that govment! A man can't get his rights in a govment like this. Sometimes I've a mighty notion to just leave the country for good and all."



We've got change a'brewin in government these days. Lots of people are up in arms, either talking about how the country is doomed or salvation has arrived. Up here in Maine, a Republican took the governor's office for the first time in 16 years. I've heard plenty of both sides in local politics recently, that's for sure. I haven't really gotten into it one way or the other, although I'll admit I've allowed whoever was talking at the moment to assume I agreed with them. I just don't have the energy to regularly try to explain my feelings on the subject.



Case in point. Governor LePage, our new Grand High Poohbah, just signed an executive order removing the "sanctuary state" status of Maine--in an effort (according to him) to make sure that Maine tax dollars go to Maine residents, not illegal immigrants. Being married to an immigrant myself, I have a thing or two to say about immigration. I've also posted in the past my feelings on welfare.



Remember--I'm now officially a Bryceocrat. I endorse neither party. I see both sides to this. Both sides have good arguments. On the one hand, you have the desire to help out people in need of assistance. On the other, you have the desire that people shoulder their share of the burden. It seems to me that these days, much of the political realm is a lot like the temperature in my office. It gets freezing, so someone turns the heat to full blast. In not too long, it's sweltering, so someone turns it to full Ice Cube. Wouldn't it make sense to just leave it in the middle somewhere?



Yes, it would. But that's not how you get elected these days. More's the pity.



As a non-Mainer, I have no doubt my views will be dismissed by many life-long residents. But I still have them, and as long as I pay taxes to this state, then by golly, my views are just as valid. I think Maine is far too much of a welfare state. I think too many people rely on the government for too long. If I ran my family the way the state (and country) has run its government, I would be bankrupt and in jail. If you don't have the money for something, you can't buy it. That's rule number one of budgeting. Even if what you want is fantastic--even if it would cure all sorts of troubles in the world. You need to cut something else out so that you can afford the new thing. If all of your budget is sacrosanct, then that new thing can't be bought, no matter how "necessary" it is. (See my post on When Does Compassion End for further thoughts on this.)



You want my opinion of LePage? I think he's foul mouthed, often ill-tempered, overly blunt and sometimes shows very little in the way of tact. He's done and said some bone-headed things, and his way of handling the press needs some serious work. That said, he won the election. And there are things I like about him. What do I like? I like the plan to iron out the budget mess--even though I work for the state of Maine and that ironing out may well affect my job. I like the plan to cut back on welfare and put time limits on it. People were up in arms that he refused to have poetry readings and choral numbers at his inauguration. I'm okay with that, even though I'm a writer and lover of the arts. If LePage manages to institute some sort of fiscal responsibility and wrangles the Maine welfare program into submission, then job well done, in my book. He earns himself a "swear at the press all you want" card, signed by yours truly.



If, on the other hand, he fails to live up to those promises, then give him the boot. Fine.



I quoted Pap at the beginning of this post because I think he exemplifies many people's attitudes toward government right now. They want it just how they want it, and who cares about everyone else. Well, we live in this thing called a democracy. If the majority vote for a guy or a platform, and that guy wins, then let's at least give him the benefit of at least a week or two in office. If you don't like what he's doing, use the system to change it. Vote him out. Write letters.



Just don't gripe to me.



And as long as I'm on my soap box, allow me to say that immigration to this country is a real pain in the rear to do the right way. I am 100% against illegal immigration. Anyone who got here illegally and who wants to now become a citizen can go to the end of the line and wait like everybody else. I'm sorry if there are people coming to Maine or the US hoping to get help from the state. I'm sorry there's pain and hunger and war in the world. But if we don't have enough money to adequately serve the needs of people here legally, then how can we justify serving people who shouldn't be here at all? I read over the new rules LePage reinforced, and I'm not worried about my wife suddenly getting picked up and thrown out of the state. She's got a US passport. Before that, she had a green card. We paid $2000 at a time when we were starving college students so that she could be legal.



For every person who points out that we're a country of immigrants, I say back "legal immigrants." People came to America at a time when all were welcome. We're a bit full up right now with troubles of our own, if you haven't noticed, so Uncle Sam lit up the "No Vacancy" sign--or at least "Limited Vacancy." Do I wish immigration laws were simpler? Without a doubt. But them's the rules right now. If you want them changed, change them.



To quote the great Phil Connors, "You make choices, and you live with them."



Anyway--I'm out of lunch break. Not sure how entertaining this post was, and who knows if it was inflammatory enough to quell the clamor for controversy, but it's all I've got in me right now. It's Friday, folks. Enjoy your weekend, and stop worrying so much. Life goes on.



And now, in case I haven't entertained you enough, and as a reward for making it this far in this rambling post, here's a cool YouTube video that splices together all sorts of movies from the past year. Enjoy!

Writing Under Pressure

So the new novel continues to go well (another 1,000 words under my belt this AM), but I wanted to post about a feeling I'd had when I started writing again over the winter break. Since I'd found out about my book deal, I'd been busy with many different things, but none of them was new material. I'd done revisions, plotting, looking at old stuff I'd written, more plotting--all writing-related, but nothing new. There's a big difference in new stuff and everything else, at least to me. It's sort of like the difference between blazing a new trail through the wilderness and driving down the road to visit another town. The first is full of adventure and who knows what. It's kind of dangerous and thrilling. You don't know what you might find next. That's the good part. The bad part is that you don't know what you might find next. Maybe you're making great progress, only to suddenly find an enormous ravine between you and where you want to go. You try going down it, but it proves too steep, and you end up having to do some serious backtracking before the journey resumes. Sometimes it's traumatic, often you want to pull out your hair in frustration, but it's always an adventure.



Revision--driving down the road to another town--is a different beast. The path is much smoother. Sometimes you take a wrong turn and have to reroute yourself, but there are rarely huge obstacles that pop up in your path. You're basically trying to find the best way to get to that town. The drive that's the fastest, the prettiest, the most pleasant and enjoyable. You're smoothing the road. It's work, but of a different sort.



So anyway, with Vodnik on its way toward publication, I now had the chance to stop doing the driving and start doing the rugged exploration again. The thing was, I discovered that doing that exploration had become a lot more difficult.



I was afraid.



(I'm now letting the exploration metaphor die a quiet death.) I'd first been afraid back in my beginning writing class in college (a class that was taught by Dave Wolverton and had Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells in it, by the way.) I was so worried that what I was writing wasn't going to be any good, that I had to force myself to write at all. Over the years, I got over that fear. Now, it was different. Vodnik had done well enough to get the interest of an editor and agent. But by that point in my writing, I had started to say to myself that what I was doing was for me and me alone. If I didn't sell a book, it didn't matter--it was the act of writing that I enjoyed. That's the excuse I could give myself, at least. But writing, knowing that what I was writing would go to my agent when I was finished, and then potentially go to an editor and on to publication . . . there was suddenly more stress involved.



The closest thing I can compare it to was when I was in district orchestra in high school. I'd had to try out to get in (note to kids--if you play the bassoon, it doesn't really matter how bad you play in your audition. They need the instrument in the orchestra, and if there are only two who audition and they need two bassoons . . . you do the math). Anyway, my audition had been terrible. I was so worried about doing poorly, that I messed up. A lot. But once I was in the orchestra, practicing was fine. No nerves at all. It was fun.



Then I had to perform for the concert.



The nerves came back with a vengeance. The first chair bassoon (Brittnay Lineberry, my music teacher's daughter) told me something that's stuck with me since: it's okay to be nervous during the audition. What you do can affect you then. The nerves are bad, but they're understandable. Once you're performing, though, it's your time to set nerves behind you and show what you can do. You proved you could get where you were--now do what you can do best. (Note to Brittnay: when the only reason someone got into the orchestra in the first place was because there was no other competition, this advice doesn't quite work as well, which might be why I played a wrong random note--loudly--in the middle of that flute solo.)



Anyway--I'm not letting the pressure get to me. My experience in writing is that when you think things are going bad, just keep writing. You get through it, no matter what. It's been the case before, it was the case this time, and it'll be the case again. I just thought it was interesting that once things were going really well for my writing, I found out I still could get pretty darn nervous about writing new material.



Anyone else have that happen to them?



*Note--the book is a cookbook I got Denisa for Christmas to go along with her new pressure cooker. I'll have to do a post on the wonders of pressure cookers sometime soon. Happy happy happy with it. Think slow cooker on steroids. Illegal steroids. Anyway--very good cookbook, should you be looking for pressure cooker recipes.