October 22, 2011: Dinners, projects, and Snow Monkeys!

Recent dinners:

Transylvania Flavor with Steve, Jodi, Akemi, and Gemma…

Steve just got back from a big gaming convention in Juarez. What's next? A tech conference in Grozny?

Jodi, also an avid reader, gifted me two SF books for my birthday - one a short story collection from my mother's most hated author, Margaret Atwood!

The platter. A little bit of everything.

Bao Bei with Jacqueline…

Jacqueline really needs to expand her culinary horizons. She doesn't eat chicken feet. Can you believe it?

One of my favorite dishes of the night: lotus root with black bean, Chinese chive, and curry.

Another favorite: steamed buns with pork belly, bean sprouts, preserved turnip, and sugared peanuts.

Bistrot Bistro with Ivon and Sara…

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The steak

The caramelized onion tart

The happy couple!

I spent the greater part of the afternoon organizing my library, ultimately coming to the conclusion that I may have way too many books and not enough shelf space.

Also started fleshing out some ideas for the show(s) I'll be developing with Ivon.  Akemi is VERY excited, for obvious reasons.

As tempted as I am to take part in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), especially since it coincides with the start of work on my planned novel(s), I think it would be preferable to work at my own pace.  I know, I know.  NaNoWriMo offers terrific motivation in the form of a deadline but I honestly think the emphasis on quantity over quality would prove detrimental to the finished product, especially considering I'm toying with the idea of writing not one but two novels.  Unlike my writing partner, Paul, who can only concentrate on one project at a time, I prefer to jump back and forth between projects.  If I get bogged down on one, there's nothing more energizing than taking a break to jump on to another.   And then there's the fact that I've been toying with two ideas for novels, one in the SF genre, the other in the fantasy genre.  Hey, chances are I may not get around to finishing either, but I'm feeling increasingly up to the double challenge.

Signed off on a few more pencil pages of Dark Matter's third issue.  Artist Garry Brown continues to amaze.  I promised my editor, Patrick Thorpe, that I'd write the copy for the advance solicitation of issue #4 by next Friday.  So somebody remind me!

Tomorrow's R.I.P. Stargate fantasy football game of the day sees my Snow Monkeys beat up on Ivon Bartok's Running Dead.  'tsgonna be ugly!

GO SNOW MONKEYS!!!

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