Bryce Moore's Blog, page 56

Don’t Go to Sleep Copyedit: Done!

Not much to say here other than to pop in and let you know I finished the copyedit for my next book: Don’t Go to Sleep. That means that the books is pretty much locked in and good to go for its publication next summer. It’s a book I’m particularly proud of at the moment. I wrote the bulk of it during the pandemic, and getting through that writing and doing it all on time wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve done. (The past while, my writing has pretty much shut down as I try to just barrel through the next few weeks. I’ve never taken a break this long from writing before, so that might give you and idea of just where my headspace is right now.)

The book has come together very nicely. If you didn’t know, it’s based on a series of unsolved axe murders in New Orleans during the 1910s, and it takes place at the height of the Spanish Influenza in the city in 1918. I didn’t pick the time period because of the pandemic, though it was April of 2020 when I settled on it. I only realized the overlap once I was into the writing. But as I wrote it, it was a good way of dealing with the current crisis: looking back at how big of a crisis the country went through a hundred years ago. Very surprising to see how much stayed the same between then and now. Technology may have changed a great deal, but people still are people.

It was also a nice switch to be able to write about something historical, but which has many more holes in the history. When people have criticized The Perfect Place to Die, it’s usually been around the fact that they knew who the murderer was before they picked up the book. (I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I tried to approach that book like James Cameron approached Titanic. We all know the ship goes down at the end. What ends up mattering is how the characters interacted with that tragedy. They didn’t know the ship would sink, just as the people in Chicago back then didn’t know the identity of a mass murderer.) With this next book, no one knows who committed the murders, so there’s more room to explore. (Also, the book isn’t so much about finding out the killer’s identity as it is about stopping them.)

I’ve seen the cover and the back cover description, and I think you’re really going to like them. I can’t wait to share them, but for now, I’m just happy that I’m still on target with the book, despite COVID’s best efforts.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Overrated Movies: 2001

I know there are some movies out there we’re just supposed to like because of where they sit in the history of cinema. And I get that there are also movies that are supposed to be good because they’re more of an art than a standard film. 2001 definitely falls into both of those categories. I watched it with Denisa and Daniela over the weekend. It was my second or third time watching it, and I have to say, I did not enjoy the experience.

This is the 88th best movie on IMDB. It’s got an 8.3, which is an outstanding score. So perhaps I’m just not cultured enough to appreciate it. But then again, I think I’m a pretty well-watched individual. I can appreciate movies for a lot of different reasons, and I enjoy a wide range of genres. True, “art film” isn’t high on my list of favorites, but I’ve seen art films that I’ve enjoyed.

2001 failed in pretty much every category. The plot was scattered at best. I had chalked this up to it being an adaptation of what might be a strange book, but I’ve now read the book, and the book was excellent. I thought that perhaps now that I’ve read the book, the movie would make more sense. It doesn’t really. It takes a compelling science fiction novel and turns it into this thing that’s inapproachable at best and irritatingly confusing at worst. Yes, there’s the bit with HAL, where the plot actually makes sense for a brief window, but then that goes away, and we’re back in who-knows-what-ville.

To me, this feels like an Emperor’s New Clothes movie. Everyone says they love it, but they only love it because that’s what everyone says. True, I did find some of the shots impressive. For a movie that’s as old as it is, it had some great space scenes, and you can see its influence on other, later movies. But it felt much like Citizen Kane did to me when I finally watched it. I could see in theory how it did a lot for film-making, but I just couldn’t bring myself to like it.

I suppose I’m just not an art film sort of guy at heart. I like my media to entertain me or to make me think about things. 2001 just made me remember what the original book was like, and how I wished I’d spent my time re-reading it instead of watching that movie.

But I think more people should be willing to stand up and speak out when they don’t like something everyone else says they love. (See my review of Parasite, for example.) If you’re out there and you loved 2001, let me know. Tell me why I’m wrong and what I missed. I’d really like to see why someone loves the film. Maybe it would make me see it in a new light and help me broaden my horizons.

Until then, I’m giving it a 3/10 and moving on.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Kitchen Update: November 12

The kitchen renovation is plodding forward. I don’t want to say the end is in sight, but I’m willing to go so far as to say the concept of “the end” doesn’t seem that ridiculous anymore. Denisa has gotten really good at making meals with a hotplate and an instantpot, though the biggest pain right now is just the dearth of horizontal surfaces to do any prep work on. We’ve got a slew of cabinets, but they’re all missing tops. We took our kitchen table out of the house now as well, since an island will be replacing it. So we end up doing a lot of balancing acts and moving stuff around to make things work. (Honestly. You don’t realize just how much you use horizontal surfaces until you don’t have them any more.)

Where are we with everything in the renovation?

The outside of the house is complete! The windows are in, the clapboards are up, the trim’s installed, and it’s all painted. I even went by yesterday and reattached the cable for our internet again. (Don’t want that getting stepped on or cut somehow. If we lose internet in all of this, I think the family will go all Lord of the Flies.) That’s great to have done, since it’s getting cold, and we didn’t have much of a window left to get the paint on. (Paint doesn’t like cold temperatures, you know.)The walls of the bulk of the kitchen are ready. We completely swapped out the back wall, of course, but we also ended up having to build a new wall along one side of the kitchen, since when we ripped down the old siding we discovered one of the main support beams had a four foot chunk missing. (There was a door right next to it, and a wall on the other side. It seemed a safe assumption the beam had enough support to keep things fine, except the wall was in the wrong place, and the door hadn’t been framed properly, so it wasn’t really supporting anything. Yikes.) The biggest hangup at the moment is the electrical. The electrician who had been scheduled to come last Wednesday rescheduled to this coming Monday, and then rescheduled to “never.” Apparently a much bigger job came in, and he couldn’t pass it up. I get it. We’re a small job he was going to squeeze in. Even if we vowed never to use him again, he’d still be better off keeping a larger job happy. However, this leaves us without an electrician. Not sure how we’re going to fix that. Electricians are few and far between at the moment.Once the electrical work is done, then the insulation can go in. (We discovered on Wednesday that getting the sort of insulation we wanted was (naturally) more complicated than usual. We ended up having to pay more for something that could be delivered sooner. Waiting at this point isn’t really an option I want to explore. Though maybe I’ll have to, because of the electrical work?)Once the insulation is up, the drywall can go up.Once the drywall is up, the cabinets can go in.Once the cabinets are in, the sink can get hooked up. (Assuming we can get a plumber. We’re also in need of a heating person to come move some of the baseboard heating around . . .) We can also put some plywood down then to use for makeshift counters until the granite comes . . . eventually.

We also need to finish off the ceilings, and redo the floor. And take down another wall, and build some window seats. And swap out two more doors. And frame out and build a mudroom. And get around to renovating the downstairs bathroom. Do you see why I say the end isn’t really in sight? I thought writing it down might make me feel better, but . . . not really. We bought flooring though. That has to count for something, right?

Any and all good thoughts would be appreciated.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

My Take on Typos

Okay, folks. Time to get real for a minute, because I realize this is a topic that’s near and dear to many people’s hearts, and I just want to get my thoughts out there. This is largely spawned by a random Tweet aimed at me last night (though it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, off and on.) Last night as I was about to go to bed, I saw I was mentioned in a Tweet. When I went to check it out, it turned out to be a page of my book with a line with a typo highlighted in yellow, along with a plug for the Tweeter’s copyediting services.

Ahem.

(Before I talk about typos in general, an aside about the absurdity of this person’s approach. This is their business pitch? Pointing out in public a mistake in my book and somehow assuming I’m going to decide to use that as a reason to hire them? They also @’d my publisher and my agent. This is not the way.)

I get it. My books have typos in them. Some of them are worse than others. Multiple people have mentioned to me and in reviews on Goodreads about how there’s a date in PERFECT PLACE TO DIE that’s written as 1993 instead of 1883. This is their exhibit A for why they didn’t like the book or were disappointed in shoddy editing. And if that’s going to kill a book for a person, it is what it is. I’m not here to tell people how to read and how to evaluate quality. But I can definitely give my take on it.

By and large, I just don’t care.

If we do a second printing of the book, I’d love to have it fixed, sure. I mean, I’d rather there were no typos than any, but I also don’t let a thing like a typo get in the way of me and a good book. I realize that anytime you’re dealing with an entire book of prose, you’re going to get some errors in there. Some of this is because of the editing process itself. In the case of the “1993” typo, that was a scene that was added very late in the process, so not many people had a chance to review it. Sometimes when we’re doing track changes on a document in Word, things can get funky with what’s written and what we think is written. When you accept the changes, something can get screwed up in the process.

It happens.

I have typos on this blog all the time. I just don’t have the time to go through and reread everything I’ve written two or three times to catch them all. And I’m okay with that. I’m much more concerned with the thoughts and story behind the words than I am with making sure every little i is dotted and t is crossed. I realize that might rub people the wrong way, but . . .

I just don’t have it in me to get that worked up about it. Life is too short to get irked by things as small as mixing up there and their. Now, if the author makes the same grammar mistake through the whole book, I might start to notice and get irritated, but here and there? Nah. I just keep reading.

So if you’re ever tempted to point out to me a typo or a grammar mistake in something I’ve written, know that I’ll smile and nod and say thanks, and if I can, I’ll likely even fix it. But inside, I’m just mentally shrugging.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Kitchen Renovation Progress

Lest you think I’m just paying for all the work on my house at this point and doing none of it myself, my Saturday would like to have a word with you. (My Thursday and Friday afternoons would, as well.) We’re still doing what we can to reduce the cost of the renovation and be of some use in the process. So Saturday Denisa and Daniela could be found outside painting clapboards so that they’re ready to go up on the house this week. This isn’t anything terribly difficult: just setting the clapboards up on saw horses and then painting them and letting them dry. But it takes time, and time is money when it comes to a renovation.

Meanwhile, Tomas and I were inside working on removing some of the old flooring to prepare the area for an upgrade. Working with an old house, you never really know what you’re going to get. This part of the house had felt a bit soft over the last while, so we wanted to be sure not to build over anything that might cause us problems in the future. I got to work with a crowbar early on Saturday morning, and I quickly became discouraged.

The part of the floor I was trying to remove turned out to be a fair bit more complicated than I had assumed. To make it level, someone had screwed down multiple strips of plywood, one on top of the other, putting screws in a pattern I couldn’t discern. Apparently to give it more nuance, they included asphalt shingles in between some of those strips, sometimes one, sometimes as many as eight. This made finding the screws even more complicated. They they laid down plywood over the whole lattice work, and screwed the plywood to the strips. They spread a layer of glue on tip of this and then put some vinyl tiles on top of that.

You still with me?

The bottom line was that to remove all of this, I had to first chip off the vinyl tiles and hope to find the screws attaching the plywood to the slats. Some of those could be unscrewed. Some of them had gotten glued in place. For those, I had to use a crowbar to rip them out. In the end, I took a circular saw and cut long lines in the floor on either side of each slat. Then it was a bunch of prying, unscrewing, and frustration, but Tomas and I finished it (about 150 square feet) in around 9 hours.

I’ve definitely done things I’ve enjoyed more in my life, but it saved me having to pay someone else to do all of that instead. It didn’t really require much knowledge, just time and an aching back.

The back wall of the kitchen is mostly done, and the new floor should be in today or tomorrow. (Not the actual flooring–just the plywood it’ll all go on. Wednesday the electrician’s supposed to come, and once the outlets and everything is in, then we can start putting up drywall and cabinets.

Just as long as there are no more asphalt shingle surprises . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

An Ounce of Prevention . . .

The kitchen renovation keeps chugging forward. The back wall is now swapped out, and the new windows are in place. We’re getting things ready for the electrician to come next week, and once that’s done, then the new cabinets can go in. As part of all of that, we’ve been lugging lots of stuff out to the dumpster we rented. Stuff that’s full of screws and nails and various sharp objects.

Perhaps you can see where this is going, but perhaps not.

Yesterday I went out to my car to drive home work, and the back wheel was totally flat. A screw had punctured it. I feel particularly boneheaded because we have a magnet on wheels specifically to help with cleaning up loose nails. I had thought multiple times that I should run it around the driveway some, but I kept letting it slide because I was “too busy.”

Well, now that I took the time to swap out the tire with the spare, then bring it in for repair today, and I’ll have to pay for it all, I’m definitely regretting not taking the basic step that I knew I should have done anyway. (I ran the magnet around last night when I got home, and I picked up around 20-30 nails and screws. (If you’re doing any renovation on your house, I strongly recommend buying one. They cost less than $100, and they can save you loads of time and wasted money on tire repairs . . . I have one that’s very similar to this one.)

Anyway. I’m just taking this as my regular reminder (that I apparently need) that taking some time for needed measures is always a good idea, and will save you time in the long run. Whether that’s things like regular dentist visits, or time off to relax, or just running a magnet up and down your driveway, it doesn’t really matter how busy you think you are, you’ll discover you had the time when you’re stuck wasting it on swapping out flat tires.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Don’t Forget to Vote! 2021 Edition

Just got back from a quick jaunt out to vote in my local elections today. Actually, this year’s ballot was pretty light, all things considered. There were only 5 things on there that I was voting for, and no elected positions at all. That said, I still think it’s important to vote and make your voice heard, regardless of how big or small the issues are. And if you’re wondering what’s on the ballot this year in Maine, allow me to give you a brief rundown, along with how I personally voted.

First, there’s the very contentious question of the CMP corridor. If in Maine, you’ve likely heard tons about this, much of it confusing. If you’re not in Maine . . . I’m sorry. It’s a wonderful state. Either way, it boils down to this. Central Maine Power wants to build a line connecting hydroelectric power from Quebec to the power grid in Massachusetts. It was all going swimmingly until a strong contingent came out against the movie. From there, it devolved into local politics. I’ve found the ads purposefully manipulative and confusing, trying to draw in all sorts of other issues to muddy the waters around this single one. Personally, I voted NO on this item, which means that I’m in support of the CMP corridor being built. It came down to a few basic issues for me. First, a ton of the corridor already has been built. The debate is over the remaining 53 miles of it. To me, the cows are out of the barn already, and if people wanted to have it differently, they should have debated the need for doors before the cows left. Beyond that, I’m in favor of greener energy coming to New England. There’s the big debate that not enough of it is coming to Maine, and that Maine isn’t being fairly compensated for this whole thing, but again: water under the bridge. Towns agreed to it before they decided they weren’t getting enough money, and then things got ugly. I’m sure there are many of you who disagree with me on this. I don’t feel strongly enough to fight you, since all I really care is that the issue is over and done with.

Second, there’s another bond issue to let the state raise $100 million for transportation upgrades, which would then let the state leverage an additional $250+ million in grants and federal aid. I voted YES, because that seems like a good deal to me, and I imagine this one will pass, since almost all the bond issues pass in Maine, year after year.

Third, the last state-level item is around amending the Maine constitution to make it a right to grow and raise your own food. This seems like a pretty basic level thing, and I admittedly didn’t know that much about it going into it. I voted YES, because . . . why would I begrudge people growing their own food? It looks like (reading up about it now) there are arguments against because the wording is too vague, and because Big Agriculture doesn’t like it. Having read about it, I still would vote YES. If the law turns out problematic, we can define it more. But whatever.

Fourth, there’s the county question of whether or not the county treasurer should be appointed by commissioners or elected, as the position currently stands. This stems back to a fight over the pandemic, where the current elected treasurer wanted to work remotely due to COVID risks, and the commissioners didn’t want to allow that. Things get muddy from there, with the two sides justifying what they wanted to do and why, but to me, it all comes down to this position always having been elected before, and it smells strongly of local politics and grudges to suddenly want to change it now. I voted NO, so that the position remains elected. This is related to the next question:

Fifth (and last), is the question of whether we should start having 5 county commissioners (which is what the constitutionally mandated redistricting in 2019 supported (with bipartisan support) or if we should keep the status quo of 3 commissioners, which our current 3 commissioners have been trying to do. (They declined to make the switch in 2019, so legislators passed a law that required them to bring this issue to the voters now.) The idea is centered around there being better representation for all people across the county, and the fact that our commissioners are suddenly playing around with the state laws and how they want to enforce them once again smells strongly of local politics and I just don’t want to get into it. I voted YES, because something seems awfully fishy with what our current set of commissioners seem to be up to, and I’d rather more representation instead of less. (Didn’t we kind of fight the whole American Revolution about this? You’d think it would have been decided by now . . . )

In any case, that’s how I came down on things. If you happen to agree with me, great! Go vote! If you disagree with me? Fine! Go vote! Elections matter, regardless of the size. Often, smaller elections matter much more than bigger elections, in terms of what your life is going to look like right around where you live.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

A Few College Essay Tips

Tomas is in the middle of writing his college application essays, and as I’ve been going over them, it reminded me of a number of basics I think would help most people in the same boat. And since I assume many of my friends might be in the same boat, I thought I’d jot some of the ideas down here. As with any writing tips, take them or leave them. It’s up to you. Writing’s different for everyone, and some things work for some people and don’t work for others. That said, I’ve done a fair bit of writing and a fair bit of revising, so I’d like to think I have some experience in the area.

First off, I think the topic selection is huge. In many ways, I think most essay prompts are traps. Students are asked to write about a time they failed or a time they learned something important, and they inevitably want to go to the times that stick out first in their minds. That usually boils down to experiences that end up falling into the same categories. The Big Game is a great example. Students will write about the game or race or match that they ended up winning or losing, and then try to shoehorn as much meaning and Learning Experiences into it as possible. Hollywood is to blame for a lot of this, since it’s become such a well-established trope.

But think about it this way: a university can have thousands upon thousands of applicants. That means admissions staff are reading a whole ton of essays. Once you’ve read enough Big Game essays, they all start to blend together. There’s just not a ton of variation in what can happen in sports. They mean a lot to the people who are personally invested in them, but if you’re not? It’s hard to connect. That isn’t to say it can’t be done, but it’s very difficult to do well, and even more difficult to make your particular essay stand out.

So instead of going with the first topic that comes to mind, I encourage applicants to take the time to really think about things that have had a big impact in their lives. Events or activities that have a lot of meaning. Many times it’s the small things that change us the most, and the great thing about those small things is there’s a whole lot more variety in them. The time you went camping and almost fell off a cliff. The time you tripped in the middle of a marching band performance and crumpled your trombone. Tell a story like that, and you’ll both stand out because of the topic, and you’ll give a much better example of who you are as a person.

Next, there’s the time old adage of “show don’t tell.” If I tell you that I love my wife, it doesn’t mean much to you, even if it means a lot to me. On the other hand, if I talk about some of the specific things I’ve done that show that love, you will likely walk away thinking, “Man. He loves his wife.” Easier example: which is more impactful? “I hate carrots,” or “Every time I smell stewed carrots, I can’t eat for the next five hours.” When you read the second, not only do you understand the writer hates carrots, but you understand just how much he hates them.

This trickles down to all levels of an application essay. Read over what you’ve written, and mark down every time you’re telling something. Making a statement that someone who doesn’t know you would have no way of knowing. Remember: the application staff *don’t* know you, and when you make an unsupported claim, it’s easy to doubt it. “He says he loves his wife, but does he really?” You can get away with a few instances of telling, but not many. Use them wisely, and typically only after you’ve done enough showing to justify them.

Related to this is the recommendation to be specific. Provide specific examples of things, not generalized statements. If you’re going to talk about how hard football was at the beginning, talk about a specific time that exemplifies this. How it felt. Who was there. Where it was. You obviously don’t need a ton of details (since word count matters), but a few good specifics help ground the rest of the essay.

Finally, remember the real reason for the essays. They’re there to supplement the rest of your application. Don’t waste the opportunity by repeating something that’s already in your application elsewhere. You’re looking to give the applications committee more reasons to decide they need to have you come there. Vary the topics so you’re not saying the same thing in two different places.

Anyway. Pulling it all off can be tricky. I’m not here to say it isn’t. Doing all of this and making it fit the word length takes a lot of hard work. (Especially for BYU’s applications. 2,000 characters per essay? Are they insane??) But if you take your time and do multiple drafts, it’s very doable.

Good luck!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

On Music Composition

My Bach class is finished now, and I have to say how much I enjoyed it. Yes, it made my Tuesdays insanely busy for five weeks in a row, but I got to learn about things I didn’t know a whole lot about previous to the course, and learning is something I really like.

In addition, it turns out that the lab part of the class was focused on composition. I’ll be honest: in the lead up to the class, I didn’t really pay any attention to what it was going to be about other than Bach. I like Bach. That’s all I really needed to know. The public lecture portion was going to be $150, but I could take the full 1 credit class for a $50 fee, since I get a tuition reduction as an employee of the university. $50 is less than $150, so . . .

I took the full class.

We would learn about different composition concepts: counterpoint, chords, and modulation being the three I focused the most on. For our homework, we had to take the concepts we were learning about through Bach and apply them in original compositions. I haven’t really done much in the way of music composition, so this was a really new thing for me, and I discovered I really enjoyed it. I looked forward to the assignments: trying different things out. Seeing what I liked. What clicked for me and what didn’t. I have no idea if they turned out well by anyone else’s standards, but the results were good for me. I was happy with them.

We used a platform called Flat to record them, so I thought I’d share them with you, now that the class is over.

Our first assignment was to take a simple melody and make a variation of it somehow. I did one for Winnie the Pooh.From there, we focused on counterpoint: having two lines that are both melodies, which fit together. I ended up writing a basic canon.Next, I wanted to figure out how to modulate from one key to another, so I came up with a new piece to do just that.Finally, we were asked to dabble in chords. For that, I put down eight chords pretty much at random, and then worked to get a melody that would make those chords sound intentional.

Will I keep composing? No idea. It was a lot of fun, but I’m also very busy, so we’ll see if I make time for it. But the class itself was a blast, and I hear they’ll be teaching a new one on Jazz next semester. I’d say it’s very likely I take that one, if my schedule matches up . . .

Take it with me!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

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Eating without a Kitchen

Okay, people. We’ve been down a kitchen now for almost a week, and I’ve discovered that cold cereal, while generally awesome for me, doesn’t quite cut it for the family day after day. Especially when it’s getting colder out, and people want actual hot meals. But Denisa has also discovered that cooking without a kitchen is . . . difficult to say the least. Right now, she’s got a set up with a hot plate on a card table. There’s not much in the way of prep surfaces, and perhaps the biggest problem is trying to clean everything in a bathroom sink.

(As far as the renovation goes, it’s proceeding well. We almost have all of the stuff out of the kitchen now. We have to replace the entire back wall, since it’s not really providing the structural support it’s supposed to, and what’s the use of a wall that’s not supporting anything? That’s going to add on a few days or a week, depending on how long it takes. We also still don’t know what we’re doing for flooring, or how we’re going to handle some of the ceiling. But progress is being made, and that’s encouraging. Now if it would only stop raining . . .)

So anyway, I’m trying to think of healthy alternatives to real honest to goodness home cooked meals. (Or at least, as healthy as possible.) We almost never eat anything that goes in the microwave. No frozen foods. No prepackaged things. So we don’t have much experience trying to feed a family with that. However, I realize that there is this whole world out there of microwave dinners. (Or at least, television has told me there is.)

Are there healthy versions of all of that? I’m really a complete idiot when it comes to any of it, so don’t assume that I even know the basics. If you had to eat healthy, but you couldn’t do a full meal prep, and you didn’t really just want to eat out every night, what would you do?

Remember, hot pockets don’t count . . .

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.