Wrapup and new project

I'm wrapping up Speculation and Skepticism and launching my new blog at simon-mcneil.blogspot.com hope to see you there.

Dormancy

I've been working mostly on paying work lately. And I have something to show for it. I have an article on Wuxia literature up at kung fu magazine that should tickle the fancy of anyone with an interest in speculative fiction, martial arts or Chinese culture.

In other news I am currently corraling my beloved beta readers through Draft 4 of Walking the Radiant Trail Vol. 1 and hope to have a draft polished enough to start looking for an agent by the end of the spring.

I did it

Well, I did it,

I got 50000 words written in the month of November.
I'm going to take a day off now. I reached my goal and it'll give me a chance to decide whether I would prefer to keep working on volume 2 or start draft 3 of volume 1... decisions, decisions...

The Long-dormant Blogger

I know... I know...

It's been over a month since my last entry. In my defence it's been a crazy month.

First off... as my twitter feed suggests... I have been job hunting. Still no luck. Still trying. Seriously considering packing it in and going overseas. Probably will if I get my book published.

That's been the other batch of major crazy. I've finished draft 2!

I have been starting to get feedback from my draft 2 beta readers and have a major revision job to do for draft 3 based on their advice.

A revision job I will start... in December.

There is a reason for that, and it is the third reason why I haven't been blogging lately.
This month is November. November means NaNoWriMo and I am an official contestant. My NaNo is the first 50000 (or more) words of volume 2 of Walking the Radiant Trail. We meet some new faces, get to know some old ones better and discover a few protagonists are really total bastards. As such it's a lot of fun to write and very engrossing. Since November 1 I have written 33197 words. (Actually it's a bit more than that but I went and deleted about 1000 so they don't count.)

I have to say that writing at that continuous level of intensity has only increased my love of the art.

My brother is coming back to London tomorrow. Personaly, and this is just me speaking, if I had escaped the evil vortex of despair which is London, Ontario I wouldn't come back for love or money (at least not a second time). Notwithstanding the extent to which I wish I was in Toronto, Chengdu, Beijing, Barry's Bay (living off royalties in the north country) or basically anywhere that isn't this artless, culture-free, hum drum, well I could go on with the invective forever, anyway notwithstanding the fact that I would personally rather be anywhere else I understand his reasons for coming and look forward to seeing him.

I'll try to be a bit more consistent with blog entries from here on out but still do not expect daily posts in November. Too much novel writing to be done.

Partying with Bryan

My good friend Bryan came into town last week and stopped by to visit with me and man, did I have an awesome time. The entire day was pretty much concentrated excellent.

We collaborated on an excellent dinner which Pam quite enjoyed when she got home.

Then Greg stopped by randomly with beer. Random free beer is always the best. When it's some trendy micro-brew from t-dot that's just bonus points.

Afterwards Bryan and I went out to the bars, Pam had to get up early tomorrow so she had to stay home (cry).

We went to Winks but, because of homecoming, we would have been looking at an hour long wait so we went to Scotts Corner instead. We met up with Chris and Chris and Becky at Scotts, had a beer and then went to the Wrecked Room.

I haven't been in the Wrecked Room in years and it was sort of weird being back. Anyway it was still the same old Wrecked Room, loud, dark, full of goths, full of cheap booze and full of drunk people I've known for a decade.

Things got a little bit drunk out.

But, alas, I am getting older, I was a total wreck on Sunday and accomplished almost nothing except for recovering from staying out getting drunk on Saturday.

Oh well, made up for it the last two days. Got my post-draft 1 edits inputted for the first four chapters and wrote another insert. Oh, and I have the prologue for Volume 2 (working title: Walking the Radiant Trail: The Great Desert) down.

Don't know if I mentioned this previously but the working title for my oft-mentioned book is Walking the Radiant Trail: The Civilized East - look for it on bookstore shelves...

in a few years...

I hope.

Currently reading We - one of the original classics of Sci Fi. Bryan recommended it and, well, I wasn't going to read that Dan Brown novel. :)

It's Time to Unite the Left

I am a socialist.

This puts me to the left of approx. 99.9% of the people in the USA and even to the left of the mainstream left wing in Canada.

With that being said I am disgusted with the left in Canada and the USA and not because they are too far to the right.

My disgust with the left in this country is because the leftists in this continent are letting an ultra-conservative minority dictate the agenda.

We have been trapped in the morass of single-issue advocacy for far too long. People on the right identify themselves as "conservatives". People on the left instead have created a dozen names, a hundred advocacy groups, often acting at odds with each other.

Partly the political parties are to blame. The Democrats are a centre right party. In Canada our most left wing political party is the Bloc Quebecois which only fields candidates in a single province because it, like most of the popular leftist movements is a single-issue movement! The next most left wing party, the NDP, has moved so far to the right that they have lost any semblance of support from the modern left.

It's time for the left to get it's act together. American leftists: organize! I know many of you have anarchist leanings and distrust anything resembling authority but, get this, central organization lets you act more effectively at a mass level. I'm not knocking grass-root activism, it's necessary, but it's also necessary to have organization, leadership, people making sure all the activists are pointing in the same direction, working toward the same goal.

Canadian leftists: we need to organize too. We also need a new political party. We need a leftist party that will work openly with the Bloc and that will remain true to leftist ideals rather than becoming the union face of the Liberal party.

An election is coming. After this election we will either be stuck with a Liberal government (conservative) or a Conservative government (neo-fascist). Our best hope is that the bloc sweeps quebec and the liberals take a minority government with a bloc balance of power.

But now is the time to start organizing, not for the election that is upon us but for the one after that. Canada has a vibrant left wing. It's time they got off their collective asses and started marching together for a common cause - taking back the reins of this country from the tyrants.

Recipe Time Again - Pasta with Olive / Artichoke Tapenade and Roasted Vegetables

As you may have figured out by now I love to cook. Lately I've been working on expanding my repertoire of Mediterranean dishes, particularly dishes inspired by Greek ingredients. This latest dish is a perfect example.

I am providing a vegetarian option this time. If you feel a need to add meat to it just take a small skinless, boneless chicken breast, rub it with salt, cook on a grill brushed lightly with olive oil and then slice and serve on top of dish.

Pasta with Roasted Vegetables in a Olive and Artichoke Tapenade:

Ingredients:

1 large zuchini
1 large or 2 small red onions
1 sweet red pepper
2 portabello mushrooms
40 kalamata olives
2 whole artichoke hearts
4 tbsp of capers
Olive Oil
Red wine
1 tsp lemon juice
salt
pepper

Tapenade:

Halve the olives and remove the seeds.
Wash capers, separate 2 tbsp
combine olives, 2 tbsp of capers, artichoke hearts, lemon juice and 5 tbsp of olive oil, season with black pepper only (result will be quite salty, no need to add salt to this part) in a hand chopper / food processor, chop until all ingredients reduced to a coarse paste. Set aside.

Roasted vegetables:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Cut zuchini and red pepper into pieces between 1/2 the size of thumb and size of thumb. If using small onions cut into 8 pieces each, if using a single large onion more cuts may be necessary.
Combine in a casserole dish.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Drizzle with equal measures of olive oil and red wine.
Toss
Roast for 30 minutes.
Remove from oven, baste, roast 20 minutes more.

Final dish:

Cook spaghetti noodles as needed.
Cut portabello mushroom caps into 1 inch cubes. Combine in a large frying pan or a wok with roasted vegetables. Cover and cook for about 5 minutes.
Remove cover, add tapenade, stir and cover again, cook for additional 5 minutes.
Add reserved 2 tbsp of capers, stir and cook 30 seconds.
Serve immediately as is, with chicken breast or topped with parmesan, feta or ricotta cheese.