Bryce Moore's Blog, page 58

Adventures in Juicing

Several years ago, my brother-in-law was out and about exploring our property and came across a huge concord grape vine off in the jungle behind our house. It’s spread across a number of other trees and bushes, and ever since we discovered we had it, we’ve been tinkering around trying to figure out how best to use it. The grapes are delicious, but they have seeds. We thought we could use them for smoothies, but that hasn’t proven popular. (The seeds end up making things too bitter.) We made some simple canned juice from them (put grapes and sugar and boiling water in a can, and seal), and we’ve given some away to friends, but we still hadn’t found anything that really worked.

A friend on Facebook posted about her juicing approach with grapes. She uses a steam juicer to get the job done. After some back and forth with her, it seemed like something I wanted to try. We borrowed a steam juicer from another friends, and last night we decided to give it a whirl.

First, Tomas and I went out to Pick the Grapes. This is more difficult than your standard grape picking experience, mainly because the vine is wild, and you have to really climb all over the place to get all the grapes you’re looking for. That said, after about a half hour, we had gotten two big buckets full of grapes. I would guess it was about 4 gallons of grapes. I have no idea if that’s a lot of grapes or not, but it certainly felt like a lot to me.

The steam juicer is pretty straightforward. There’s a large pan at the bottom where you put in a ton of water. On top of that goes a juice collector with a spigot, and on top of that goes a strainer, essentially: a receptacle for putting whatever you’re juicing into. It’s all capped off with a lid. Once you get the water boiling, somehow that makes the juice all come out and go into collector. I’m personally convinced it’s little demons, but maybe there’s some science involved as well.

We cleaned all the grapes (rinsing them off and taking out the grody ones. We left the stems on.) and put them into the receptacle. Once we had them all jammed in there, all of them fit in one batch. Then it’s just sit back and let the thing steam steam steam. Meanwhile, we cleaned jars and got the lids boiled for canning. We kept the jars in a 250 degree oven, because when that juice comes out, it’s very hot, and you don’t want the jars shattering. (Something I have personal experience, from an earlier canning expedition . . .)

Honestly, it went much more smoothly than I expected. The one trick was just figuring out how best to get the juice into the jars. It took some tilting of the juicer to get the right angle. Definitely a two person job. But the spigot has a clamp so you can start or stop the flow, and now that I know what I’m doing, I don’t think it would be bad to do again. We did notice the juice stains really quickly. I think we permanently stained our countertops. Luckily, we’re ripping them out next week, so that’s not that big of a deal, but I wouldn’t wear anything I was too attached to the next time I do this . . .

The two buckets made 6 quarts of juice, though after we finished, we realized we probably could have let it keep steaming for a while and gotten maybe another quart out of it. From start to finish, it took about two hours (not including grape harvesting). The juice itself is really potent; I had to add some water and sugar to get it just right, though I’ve now heard adding Sprite can really hit the spot.

In the end, it was definitely a success, and I will probably try it again next year.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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 Crisis Averted(?)

Yesterday was Not a Good Day. That bit about the kitchen renovation going off the rails really threw me for a loop. As I talked things over with my contractor, my options seemed to be as follows:

Do nothing. Get the cabinets delivered, and keep them in my living room until the weather got warmer in the spring. This was (obviously) not an option I was willing to consider.Go and buy some junky windows that sort of kind of fit the spaces we needed, have them installed, and then replace them with the real windows when we could. This was also not something I was at all fond of. For one thing, it would be costly to buy temporary windows and then pay to have them installed, uninstalled, and then have the right ones installed. For another, doing all that work around a freshly renovated kitchen was just asking for something else to go wrong. The company that screwed up our order was willing to “loan” us windows until the right ones came, but this wasn’t much better. For one thing, the windows they had available to loan, weren’t the right sizes. For another . . . no.Cut the holes for the windows, but board them over until the right windows came in mid-December. Not a very good option. The kitchen would be like a cave, and my contractor wasn’t sure he’d be able to fit us in over the winter. We wouldn’t be able to finish the outside or inside of the kitchen, putting us in kitchen purgatory for the next who-knew-how long.

Yeah. None of those were viable options in my book, and no matter how much I scoured the interwebs, I couldn’t find windows that would work for us that could arrive before mid-November. That would be much less than optimal, and I wasn’t sure it would work for my contractor, and I’d still have these cabinets for all that time.

So I got more inventive with my searches. I searched local window companies. Local hardware stores. It didn’t matter where I looked: no windows were anywhere. Thanks a lot, COVID.

About ready to give up, I decided to do one last set of searches through Lowes and Home Depot, to see what windows they had available in stock right this second. Limiting my search to only that, Lowes only had really junky windows I wasn’t willing to buy. Home Depot . . . had something I’d missed. I had originally wanted to buy Andersen 400 casement windows. Two of them were 3 feet by 3 feet, and 1 one 4 feet by 3 feet. The one kind of Home Depot window that was available was: an Andersen 400 casement window that’s 3 feet by 2 feet 10 inches.

The exact sort of window I had originally wanted, only two inches thinner for two of my windows, and 14 inches thinner for my center window.

So it became a choice of get windows that are a bit smaller, and roll with the punches, or go back to kitchen purgatory.

Reader, I bought the windows.

This has pushed us back a bit. We’re now scheduled to start a week from Tuesday. But that’s still a ton better than what it was looking like yesterday. These days, we’ll go with that. Thanks for the well wishes in my hour of need.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

Renovation Crisis #1

So. Remember when I said how excited I was about my new kitchen renovation about to begin? And remember how I said I knew problems would come up, because that’s how these things go? Well, I have to admit I didn’t see this particular problem arising. For context, recall with me (if you will) my post about how glad I was I ordered windows six weeks ago, and how glad I was, because it was going to take up to 8 weeks for them to arrive?

We’ve been calling the place we ordered from (Twin Rivers Lumber, for the record), wondering when they’d arrive. They assured us the windows were “in the warehouse,” and they’d be here soon. Until today, when they called to inform me that the windows would actually be here 10 weeks from now. As in, December 9th.

I was floored. From the sound of it, they literally forgot to put the order in, and they just figured that out today.

This is, to say the least, a big fat problem. Step one of the kitchen renovation was to take out the current cabinets, but step two was going to be “redo the back wall, putting in the new windows.” Because we don’t want to be redoing it all when it’s snowing and freezing outside, for obvious reasons. And without windows to put in . . . that all becomes kind of difficult, ya know?

I have no idea what I’m going to do. Right now, I’m hoping Lowe’s or Home Depot has nice windows in stock that I can have rush delivered. Because if they don’t, then . . . I have a ton of cabinets arrive Wednesday (delayed from Saturday, for some reason), and I’ll be stuck with them for . . . all winter? Except I also have a countertop that’s supposed to be coming in December, that they need to measure for in a few weeks.

People, all of my kitchen renovation hinges on these cursed windows. Windows that I already knew 6 weeks ago are in short supply. And now here I am–without them.

I’m just trying to take deep breaths and calm down.

It’s not working.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

And So It Begins

That’s right folks. The kitchen renovation project is actually really definitely going to happen. (I think.) This Saturday, the cabinets are coming. Last night, our contractor came over to look at what supplies he’ll need when he starts a week from yesterday. We’ve ordered and paid for the countertop. I feel like I’m at the top of a rollercoaster ride, staring down at what’s ahead of me, and kind of dreading what’s going to follow.

Once we have that renovated kitchen, it will be lovely. I’m really looking forward to having the extra storage space, kitchen space, counter space, lighting, windows, and more. But getting to the point is going to be very uncomfortable.

One of the biggest discomforts is just admitting that I don’t know what’s going to go wrong, but I know things will go wrong. We still aren’t sure what we’re going to do with our ceiling, because we won’t know what we can do until we rip out what’s there to see what can be done. The same is true with the floor. It’s one level at one spot of the kitchen, and another level at another. How will we even it out? No clue. We can’t know until we know why it changes levels.

The good news is that we’ve waited long enough and saved enough for this that I feel reasonably confident that we can handle whatever this throws at us. (Knock on wood.) We’ve even decided to renovate the downstairs bathroom at the same time, just because it’ll be easier to get it all over with at once, and we have enough stored up that we should be able to swing that comfortably as well. So it’s not like I’m staring at my finances and praying that this all stays at budget. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t want it to go over budget, but at least I know that if it does, it should work out.

With how busy we are this semester, all I can really look at is what I have to do next. For now, I know we have to get the cabinets delivered Saturday, and we also need to empty out all our current cabinets so that they can be ripped out on Monday. Once they’re gone, we’ll also be without a kitchen sink or dishwasher until the back wall of the kitchen is finished (new windows put in at bare minimum. We’ll also need to be painting the outside of that back wall. In all our spare time.

Baby steps, Bryce. Baby steps.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

The Power of Political Unity

Say one thing for the Republican Party right now: you may think many of them are pandering sycophants to Trump, but they have definitely learned the power of banding together to get things done. It’s something I wish Democrats could figure out half as well. There were many things Trump did over the course of his presidency that I wasn’t keen on (to say the least), but his party rallied around him to get even the things they didn’t really agree with all that much done. Today, you still have many Republicans who are so beholden to Trump that they seem to have to see what he wants done before they take any actions themselves.

Of course, it can be argued that the reason they’ve all gotten so good at sticking together is because they’re becoming more and more of a minority with each passing year. In that situation, they have realized that unless they all stick together, there’s no chance they’re going to get anything accomplished for the foreseeable future. Paul LePage is running for governor here in Maine again. He won twice before, each time due to the fact that a third party candidate had come along and split the opposition vote enough to let LePage come out with the W. I am (naturally) concerned that might happen again.

Look at what the Democrats are up to right now in Congress. Biden has an agenda he’d like to push through. They have control of both houses, and they could use the very same shenanigans the Republicans used to get things pushed through when Trump was president. However, they show a consistent reluctance to do anything of the sort. Instead, they bicker about whether it’s too ambitious or not ambitious enough. And in the middle of all that squabbling, nothing ends up getting done at all.

I could pick apart the things they’re trying to get done that I like, and the things they’re trying to get done that I don’t, but on the whole, I’d rather they get something done than just sitting around arguing with each other. Of course, this isn’t to say they haven’t accomplished anything. Many different stimulus bills made their way through during the pandemic, and the third one certainly came under their watch. But as far as making any real lasting changes to pretty much anything, they seem to be laser focused on letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

It just feels to me in many ways like the Democrats think they’re still playing a game of chess when their opponents moved on to boxing a few years ago. And so Democrats hem and haw over moves on the board, even as Republicans just beat them silly with their fists. “Don’t ditch the filibuster!” Democrats cry. “We might need that when we’re in the minority again.” Meanwhile, Republicans have shown a willingness to do literally whatever it takes, including making up rules and guidelines on the fly, to get whatever they want done. Supreme Court vacancy pop up at an inconvenient time? No problem. Just make up a new “guideline” for when you want to consider the new nominees. Is that guideline inconvenient in the future? No problem! Make up a new reason for why you can ignore it.

Of course, the larger concern for me is the seeming inability of our country to have any meaningful compromise around issues that all of us (or most of us, at least) recognize are problematic. Instead, we yo-yo between big conservative talking points and lukewarm Democrat dithering, with the country moving more and more toward the conservative side, simply because they’re the only ones out there who have their act together enough to push for specific changes.

I also want to stress that it’s not just the politicians who have a problem with this. The Republican base is much more organized and unified than the Democrat base is. All you have to do to recognize this is see how many Republicans have been willing to vote for and support a candidate they personally don’t care for at all, just for the sake of getting some of what they want done. If Democrats (the people, not the party) would show a readiness to swallow their own personal agendas for the benefit of “what can we actually get done,” then I think they’d have a lot more success.

Ironically, I think that would also cause Republicans to start playing by the rules better as well. If they know they’re up against a real opponent, then they might be more cautious about making that opponent irate. Instead, we’ve got a playground bully running rampant, and no one’s organized enough to stand up to them.

Anyway. I don’t know that I have any other point here other than to complain. It’s not like I like what Republicans are doing, and it’s not like I’d like more of it to happen on both sides of the aisle. But as long as this is the reality we’re living in, then I don’t see much of an alternative. Any suggestions I’m not seeing?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

The Trick with Multiple Revisions

I’m in the middle of the latest revision of DON’T GO TO SLEEP, and I thought I’d take a minute to discuss how revising a novel is different than the other revision projects I work on. With a normal (non-novel) revision, it’s usually easy for me to keep the entire project in my head. Even when I was working on my 150 page thesis, it was divided into a series of smaller chapters, each of which stood more or less independent from the others. (It also helped that the arguments I was making in the thesis stayed consistent.) Revising a blog post is even easier. You glance over the thing after you’re done, make sure it says what you want it to say, and hit “Publish.”

Revising a book takes a much different approach. For one thing, it’s very hard for me to get the whole of the novel into my head without re-reading it in its entirety. Later on in the process, I just have to have faith that I wrote what I wanted to earlier on, and that the tweaks I’m making now won’t drastically alter anything I did before. (I also have faith the copy editor will catch anything that slips by me.) But when I’m still in the throes of major editing, I have to start out by re-reading the whole novel before I’m ready to start changing any of it.

The biggest problem is that I can’t remember what version of the novel made it into the latest draft. The plot changes with each revision. This is the fourth full draft I’ve done of DON’T GO TO SLEEP. I’ve got different story threads in each of the ones that came before. Maybe a more masterful writer than I would be able to remember exactly what they ended up choosing in their latest draft, but I need to actually go through the whole thing to be sure.

So what happens is my editor sends me an editorial letter detailing the things they think I should change. What didn’t work for them. What was confusing. Where it needs more tension. Where the characters are inconsistent. That sort of thing. I read that over a couple of times, and then I print out the latest draft on paper. I can’t do it on the computer screen, because I don’t know what changes I’ll make until I’ve read through the book, making notes and suggestions to myself as I go. Some of those notes are ways I think of that could potentially do what my editor suggested. Some of them are there for personal things I see that I feel need changing.

Once I’m done with that, I look over all the notes I have and incorporate them into a master list of Things I Want to Change. This is usually a list of bullet points. Some of them might be simple: “change all 7 years to 8 years.” (In my current draft, the main character sometimes says a series of murders happened 7 years ago, and sometimes says they happened 8 years ago. I need to figure that out.) Some of them might be much more complex: “Add more nightmare scenes throughout.” This list of bullets consists of both the things my editor wants changed, and the things I want to change.

With that in place, I can finally start editing. I’ll likely have made some minor edits to wording and grammar when I was reading the book through again, and I’ll put those in as I go generally from the beginning to the end of the novel. I usually end up reading the whole thing again as I go through it making changes, simply because I need to do that to get the context for each of the changes I’m making. Once I’m done with that initial pass, I go through and make other passes that require a consistent approach the whole time. I’ll look at all the nightmare scenes I’ve put in, for example, and decide where new ones should be added. Or I’ll pay attention to the conflict between a couple of characters, making sure the arc works well.

What this means is that by the time I’ve finished a book, I’ve usually read it from beginning to end at least six or seven times. It also means that I often don’t fully remember what the final version of the novel ended up as. In my head, there will be all the different drafts. Did I kill that character in the third version, or did I leave them alive? Where did they end up going for the climax? Darned if I know, but I’ve also worked on the book enough that by that point, I’m not really motivated to read it again.

I’ve got other books to work on. Other drafts to write.

I enjoy the editing process. I like the feeling that I’m improving the book, and I like seeing how far I’ve come as I read through it each time. I’m going through DON’T GO TO SLEEP right now, and I’m really liking it. Good job, past Bryce! And just imagine how much better it’ll be when I get through this next draft!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

Writing Update: September 2021

Someone mentioned to me the other day that it’s been a while since I’ve done a writing update on here, so I thought I’d take a minute and correct that oversight. There was a space of about a month where I found myself (for the first time I can remember) pretty much unable to write. I was feeling really overwhelmed, and I was at sort of a pause point in multiple projects, and so it felt like there was too much inertia to overcome. Thankfully I’m through with that for now, it seems. Multiple different irons in the fire. Let me run down them one by one:

DON’T GO TO SLEEP–A companion book to THE PERFECT PLACE TO DIE. It’s another historical thriller inspired by real life events. In 1918 New Orleans, someone attacked a series of Italian grocery stores, using an axe to kill and maim residents. Years earlier, a similar series of attacks took place. The murderer’s identity remains a mystery to this day. This is what I’m working on right now. My editor has gotten back to me after reading the draft I sent her, and she liked it for the most part. Just a few kinks I need to work out, so I’m feeling quite good about it. I’m actually re-reading it at the moment, and it’s really encouraging to me to see how much I’m liking it. This is the first book I’ve had my writing group’s input on for the whole thing, and I think the impact of that is very noticeable. It should be published next year, so there’s not too long for you to wait.SILVERADO–Before I was working on the current revision, I was working on the second draft of a steampunk adventure story that I’ve codenamed Silverado. My writing group read the first draft and had some major revision suggestions which caused me to largely go back to the drawing board. I’m leaning into horror more with the book, in an Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom sort of way. I’m excited to see where it goes, and I think the second draft should be much stronger. It’s a ways out from seeing anything like publication, though.MEMORY THIEF and INKBINDER–We now officially have the rights back to both of these books. (If you’ll recall, my publisher for Memory Thief was sold to a company that wanted nothing to do with books, which essentially tanked the sequel. We’re about to shop these around to different editors to see who would like to pick them up. Inkbinder was fairly close to being done, though if a new editor bites, I imagine they might want to see changes. Still, it would be great to have the sequel out there. I was very happy with it and lots of people enjoyed the original.MAGIC AT 30,000 FEET & OUR LADY OF QUESTIONABLE MORALS–Both of these books have been sent out to editors, and while I had some positive responses, neither of them ended up in sales. My writing group is going through them with me, and I’m hopeful they’ll have some good insights on ways I can improve them. (Yay writing groups!)UTOPIA–It’s out on submission with editors at the moment. No takers yet, though . . .

So really, my writing schedule’s set at the moment. I’m crossing my fingers that after I get through DON’T GO TO SLEEP, there might be some more books I could write for Sourcebooks. I’d love to find a good niche and just start putting out book after book each year, but that hasn’t happened yet. Hope springs eternal, however. The good news is that THE PERFECT PLACE TO DIE continues to sell well, and I think that increases the odds of future books significantly.

I’m not really worried about coming up with new ideas, but I’d love to have some of these books that I’m really proud of finally see the light of day. The good news is that I’m back in my writing groove, and you should see another book of mine out next year.

Thanks for reading!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

Favorite Birthday Gift This Year

Yes, it was my birthday yesterday, as so many of you noted with your well wishes. Thanks for all of those by the way. I didn’t really do that much to celebrate on the actual day. I considered my trip out to Utah my birthday trip in most respects. (A birthday trip sponsored by my publisher, no less. Thank you, Sourcebooks!) However, we did do a family dinner, and there were a few gifts involved as well.

I’m always a fan of gifts from my kids, as I’m never sure what to expect, and I always appreciate the time they took to figure one out. Last year (or was it the year before?), MC gave me a cardboard xylophone she had made, along with a written piece of music she had devised for it that was the tune of Happy Birthday. I still have it on my desk here at work. This year, she gave me a “Storybook Brawl and Magic Coupon,” which gives me permission to play those games whenever I want to, regardless of what else I have going on. (I have to see if they’re valid with my boss . . .) Again: very inventive. I love the way she thinks.

But I have to say that my favorite present this year came from Daniela. A few months ago, I had decided I wanted to surprise her with a frog stuffed animal. She loves frogs and I remembered Tomas had one when he was little that we had in a box in the basement. I went down early that morning to find the box, and when I did, I discovered that a family of mice had found it long before I had. To make matters worse, it had one of my old favorite stuffed animals in it: Benji (the dog). I’d had him for years growing up, and seeing him in there covered in wood shavings and mouse pellets was really heartbreaking to me that morning. I wasn’t prepared for it. (This is probably Toy Story’s fault. No one wants to see Toy Story 7, where Woody and Buzz get left in a box in Andy’s basement for twenty years, and mice proceed to invade and take over the place. It sounds like a good horror movie, though.)

So instead, I took the box out of the basement, stuck it in the garage, and tried (unsuccessfully) to stop thinking about it. Benji deserved better, but I didn’t have the time to figure out if I could wash him properly, and how to go about doing it. This semester is just too crazy.

Well, fast forward to last night, when Daniela presented me with a fully clean and sanitized Benji. She’d taken the time to figure out all the things I couldn’t, and she’d moved forward and gotten it all done on her own. It was a fantastic present.

My family often talks about how hard I am to get presents for. Anything I really want, I go ahead and get. But the things that I really remember, in terms of presents, are the ones that show time and effort. The ones that signify real love. Benji’s sitting on my side table by my bed again, happily keeping watch over me as I sleep once more, and every time I see him there, I will remember Daniela and what she did for me. Huge props to her for such a thoughtful gift. (And reminiscent of the gift Tomas gave me eight years ago. That’s still on my desk at work, as well.)

Thanks, guys. You’re the best!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

Revisiting Back to the Future

I mentioned yesterday that the movie I chose to watch on the private big screen was Back to the Future. It took me a long time to come to that decision. Part of me wanted to watch something recent, so I could really see what the theater’s sound system could pull off. (I’m not making this up: it had 60 speakers. Two of them are the size of refrigerators and don’t actually make any audible sounds. They’re there just to shake the room.) But at the same time, I’ve seen most of those movies in the theater already.

So another part of me wanted to watch something that I’ve never had the chance to see in that environment. For a while I was going to go with The Legend of Drunken Master, Jackie Chan’s sequel to Drunken Master. It’s widely held as the best Jackie Chan movie, and I never saw it in theaters. On the flip side, it’s not available in 4k resolution (come on!), and I thought I’d really like to see something that looked sharp. After a lot more debating, I ended up at Back to the Future, since it’s recently been remastered in 4k, with corresponding Atmos sound. I thought that would give me a good way to compare the theater with other experiences I’ve had. Plus, who doesn’t like Michael J. Fox?

As I said yesterday, it was so much better than I had even hoped it would be. Why? For one thing, the audio was completely immersive. In the opening clock scene, it really felt like there were clocks all around me in the theater. I caught small details that I’d never picked out before: the fact that you could still hear Huey Lewis on Marty’s headphones when he took them off and was talking to his girlfriend, for example. Small things that (I felt) made the movie that much more real.

The picture quality was fantastic, sometimes admittedly to the detriment of the movie. It was much easier to see the makeup that had been put on Christopher Lloyd to age him. Nothing that really threw me out, but still noticeable. The colors really popped.

And it really helps that Back to the Future is, in my opinion a perfect movie. It works so well on so many different levels. It involves time travel and paradoxes in a way that everyone can easily understand. Its plot weaves layer upon layer of conflicts, until they all pay off in a tremendous climax. Things look like they’re all going to fall apart: Marty’s locked in a trunk, Biff is having his way with Lorraine, and the only person who can do anything about it is George, a guy who seems totally unequipped to handle it. But then George surprises us all and saves the day! Except the band isn’t able to play the song where George and Lorraine have their first kiss, so Marty’s still in trouble. But then Marty fills in, bringing his plot line of wanting to perform in front of a big crowd to a climax. The kiss happens, and Marty’s saved! Except he isn’t, because he still has to get back to the time machine and get back to the future. Which is going fine, until a branch knocks down the power cable. It keeps going like that, and I loved every second of it.

On top of all of that, you’ve got action, humor, pop culture references, and a sound track that can’t be beat. I’m trying to think of things that are wrong with the movie, and all I can come up with is the issue where Marty plays a Chuck Berry classic and then it’s implied that Chuck Berry got the inspiration from Marty. So you could say it was kind of culturally appropriating, but even that was more for humor than anything else, riffing on the time travel plot.

On the rewatch, I gave the movie a perfect 10/10. It does everything it sets out to do, and it does it all so well. Is it High Cinema? No. It’s pure fun, but in my book a piece of art doesn’t have to be deep to score a 10. It doesn’t have to have a theme or message. This movie wants to entertain, and it hits a grand slam.

Now if only I could watch the Lord of the Rings extended edition in that theater . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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 Report Back on FanX

I got a bit quiet on the blog last week, since I was off gallivanting around Salt Lake at FanX. It’s been so long since I was at a con, I forgot a lot of what I needed to do. For example, I showed up without any copies of my books or any business cards or promos. The lack of book copies was the really egregious error, since I had no copies to put out in front of me when I spoke on my panels, and I had two people come by looking to buy older things. Thankfully, my cousin had bought a copy of my book and lent it to me for the weekend, so it wasn’t too bad. But next time, I have to remember to bring all that stuff. Gotta shake off the rust.

The con itself was much better attended than I anticipated. I thought a lot of people might hang back due to COVID hesitancy. Instead, it seemed like a lot of fans turned up because of COVID exhaustion. They haven’t announced official numbers yet, and I might have just felt like there were a ton of people because it’s been so long since I’ve been around that many people, but I’d guess attendance at least at 80,000, probably more. At one point there was a two hour line just to get in. In the past, the event has drawn over 120,000 people, and the show runners said they expected it to be about the same this year, so I’m likely being overly cautious in my estimate.

Masks were required at the convention, and most people had them on, though a ton had them under their nose or on their chin, making them largely worthless. There was no vaccination requirement. I kept my mask on the whole time, and I didn’t really feel unsafe at any point. I’m vaccinated and have no issues that would put me at greater risk, and I’m not really around anyone who would be at risk. But if I weren’t vaccinated? There’s no way I would have gone.

Other than COVID-related issues and me spacing it about things I was supposed to bring with me, the trip out to Utah couldn’t have gone any better. Highlights included:

I was on 5 panels over the course of the three days, and I had 2 signings as well. Overall, I’d guess I presented to 600 people or more. That’s pretty great for exposure, and most of the panels went very well, and none of them were train wrecks. A definite win.I had a chance to catch up with many old friends, both writerly and non-writerly. It turns out publicly posting that you’re going to be at a well-attended event ends up having people who are at said event seek you out. Yay for that.I got to spend time with family.While I was attending the live recording of the podcast Brandon Sanderson and Dan Wells run, I was invited up for a cameo appearance, which was fun to do.I got to eat at multiple restaurants that just don’t exist out where I am. Siegfried’s (for delicious German food), Ruby River (a steak house), Costa Vida (TexMex), and a local bakery. I had the chance to watch a movie on an incredible home theater set up. We’re talking a place that’s better equipped than any other real theater I’ve been to (other than the screen not being as huge, since it’s proportional to the size of the theater). I knew several days in advance that I’d be able to watch something there, and I had to somehow decide which movie I wanted to go with. How do you pick just one? I wanted something I never had a chance to see and appreciate on the big screen, but also something that’s been remastered for 4k and Dolby Atmos sound, since I wanted to see what the theater could really do. In the end I went with Back to the Future, and I’m so happy I did. The movie was incredible. The sound, the picture, the experience. It was perfect.I went to a BYU game for the first time in about fifteen years. It was an awesome game to attend: the crowd played a big influence in the outcome, and BYU managed to pull in the win. It was thrilling.For some reason, renting a minivan was about half as expensive as renting a compact. I don’t understand how that works out, but there it was. So when I’m driving around Maine with my family of five, I’m in a Prius, but when I went out to Utah and drove around alone. I was in a car that seats seven with tons of room to spare. (Also, I’m very used to have a gas pedal that has to go down pretty far to get your car to giddy-up. I peeled out in that minivan multiple times over the four days. Maybe I have a future in minivan drag racing.On the way home, I actually made it to Bangor early. Maybe all my sacrificed emoji goats are finally having an effect.

In any case, it was a lot of fun to be back in the swing of things, and I hope to be able to do some more events in the future. Thanks to all of you who came by to say hello. It was great to catch up!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.