Yesterday we went to the first of two parties we have in the works for the Labour Day weekend. This one was a dinner party at my parents' house. A couple of very old friends came into town and we had Estofado de Cerdo (Cuban Pork Stew), drinks and conversation.
Today is, in theory, rest day for us before tomorrow when we are going to another party, the previously mentioned Mahjong and hot pot party with Mark and Jasmine. Of course we still have stuff to do so it's not going to be an entirely restful day.
Reading Simon R. Green's "Daemons are Forever". It's an entertaining enough book, though rather derivative. The primary antagonists of the novel are 'Loathy Ones' who look like, act like, and are occasionally referred to as Kandarian Demons.
One of these days I will get to Evil Dead: The Musical and I will have front-row seats. Just not any time soon as it has left Toronto and is unlikely to ever tour through London.
Hopefully I can get some more editing done today. I didn't get any work done yesterday, with preparation for the party and all, and it is unlikely I'll get much, if anything done on it tomorrow.
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Friday, September 4, 2009
Copy-Editing Day 2
I got two more chapters copy-edited yesterday.
Copy editing is just about the dullest, most gruelling, most painful part of the writing process. It's also entirely crucial. Even if you only have one error on every three pages that's one more error than a manuscript submitted to an agent should have.
It seems a universal piece of advice from agents and publishers alike that once somebody stops editing for content and starts copy editing you may as well forget the content getting edited at all.
And so it falls to the author to take a break from the fun parts of writing to slowly scan page after page of text, not to actually read in any cohesive way but just to search for typos, poor word choices and bad grammar.
The good news is that I am averaging 2 chapters a day. That means I should be finished editing all twenty chapters well before the end of the month.
By then I hope to have had a few of my wonderful, awesome, crucial beta readers give me feedback and I can start on draft 2.
Well... actually that's not true... I've already started on draft 2. I started when I wrote the insert text for the primary that I sort of dropped. But what I mean is that I can get really started on draft 2.
I picked up the most recent issue of The Writer today. If you are trying to start a career as an author I can not stress enough what a good resource this magazine is. Seriously, I have learned quite a lot since I started buying this magazine four issues ago. I haven't had a chance to read this issue yet so no highlights.
Copy editing is just about the dullest, most gruelling, most painful part of the writing process. It's also entirely crucial. Even if you only have one error on every three pages that's one more error than a manuscript submitted to an agent should have.
It seems a universal piece of advice from agents and publishers alike that once somebody stops editing for content and starts copy editing you may as well forget the content getting edited at all.
And so it falls to the author to take a break from the fun parts of writing to slowly scan page after page of text, not to actually read in any cohesive way but just to search for typos, poor word choices and bad grammar.
The good news is that I am averaging 2 chapters a day. That means I should be finished editing all twenty chapters well before the end of the month.
By then I hope to have had a few of my wonderful, awesome, crucial beta readers give me feedback and I can start on draft 2.
Well... actually that's not true... I've already started on draft 2. I started when I wrote the insert text for the primary that I sort of dropped. But what I mean is that I can get really started on draft 2.
I picked up the most recent issue of The Writer today. If you are trying to start a career as an author I can not stress enough what a good resource this magazine is. Seriously, I have learned quite a lot since I started buying this magazine four issues ago. I haven't had a chance to read this issue yet so no highlights.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
The Post in Which I Say Something Controversial
I am not a fan of religion.
I think that religions are, in general, crazy, dangerous, divisive and harmful. Notwithstanding that I understand that many human beings have a need to throw an imaginary friend between themselves and the big empty and so I just try to avoid religious debate.
However there is one group that consistently manages to stick up my craw; Evangelical Christians. I was involved, briefly, in a discussion in which an Evangelical Christian was claiming that Emanuel Swedenborg was a satanist!
Now for those of you who don't feel like reading Swedenborg's wiki page he was an influential Swedish (go figure) mystical Christian theologian. He was actually quite conservative and met with abject scorn from William Blake in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell for rather convoluted philosophical reasons.
So why was he a satanist according to this Evangelical?
He rejected the notion of salvation through faith alone. Certainly he thought you needed to believe in the Christian God to get into the Great VIP Room in the Sky but you also had to do good works. How dare he suggest that you have to do good to be treated as a good person! Clearly anybody suggesting that it was moral to do good works rather than throwing yourself blindly into your faith must be a servant of the devil.
Eurgh.
I am not a fan of Swedenborg. I rather side with Blake and found The Marriage of Heaven and Hell to be one of the more interesting writings on early Romantic era philosophy and religion. However I find myself nearly speechless in disgust at the base intolerance that would brand an individual a servant of evil for promoting doing good!
It just makes me shake my head.
Of course this same person was promoting a website that labels Unitarian Universalism a cult.
Because, you know, a non-credal religion founded upon the precepts of a benevolent god who lets everybody into heaven is so much more cult like than these guys.
Anyway, enough on the crazy religionists.
I got a bunch of copy-editing on my book done. Fifty pages checked for typos, misplaced punctuation and all the other joys of the Author's craft. It's truly the most drudge-like part of making a book but it is definitely a necessary step and gives me something to do while my readers are reading it and commenting on it.
If you want to read it let me know in the comments section and we'll talk.
Pam cooked supper tonight, Ochos Rios, a dish involving beans, rice, hot peppers and cocoanut. It is very, very delicious but I'm not posting the recipe because I don't know exactly how she makes it.
I think that religions are, in general, crazy, dangerous, divisive and harmful. Notwithstanding that I understand that many human beings have a need to throw an imaginary friend between themselves and the big empty and so I just try to avoid religious debate.
However there is one group that consistently manages to stick up my craw; Evangelical Christians. I was involved, briefly, in a discussion in which an Evangelical Christian was claiming that Emanuel Swedenborg was a satanist!
Now for those of you who don't feel like reading Swedenborg's wiki page he was an influential Swedish (go figure) mystical Christian theologian. He was actually quite conservative and met with abject scorn from William Blake in the Marriage of Heaven and Hell for rather convoluted philosophical reasons.
So why was he a satanist according to this Evangelical?
He rejected the notion of salvation through faith alone. Certainly he thought you needed to believe in the Christian God to get into the Great VIP Room in the Sky but you also had to do good works. How dare he suggest that you have to do good to be treated as a good person! Clearly anybody suggesting that it was moral to do good works rather than throwing yourself blindly into your faith must be a servant of the devil.
Eurgh.
I am not a fan of Swedenborg. I rather side with Blake and found The Marriage of Heaven and Hell to be one of the more interesting writings on early Romantic era philosophy and religion. However I find myself nearly speechless in disgust at the base intolerance that would brand an individual a servant of evil for promoting doing good!
It just makes me shake my head.
Of course this same person was promoting a website that labels Unitarian Universalism a cult.
Because, you know, a non-credal religion founded upon the precepts of a benevolent god who lets everybody into heaven is so much more cult like than these guys.
Anyway, enough on the crazy religionists.
I got a bunch of copy-editing on my book done. Fifty pages checked for typos, misplaced punctuation and all the other joys of the Author's craft. It's truly the most drudge-like part of making a book but it is definitely a necessary step and gives me something to do while my readers are reading it and commenting on it.
If you want to read it let me know in the comments section and we'll talk.
Pam cooked supper tonight, Ochos Rios, a dish involving beans, rice, hot peppers and cocoanut. It is very, very delicious but I'm not posting the recipe because I don't know exactly how she makes it.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Bloggers at the Black Shire
It turns out that many of the local bloggers actually have a once-a-month meeting at my local pub. So I had a fun night out and got to meet a bunch of interesting people.
Anyway, got my hands on the latest issue of 'Skeptical Inquirer' today. It has some very good articles in it. There is an exceptional article discussing the flaws with research into correlations between violent media (particularly video games) and aggression.
Now my position is that violent media has been with us as long as media. The earliest extant written work in the English language, Beowulf, involves a graphic depiction of a troll getting his arm ripped clean off. Three of the four classics of Chinese literature contain graphic violence.
Shakespeare, the Bard himself, didn't shy away from the blood when Henry V exhorts his men into the breach even if they rebuild the wall with the bodies of the dead.
Now most video games are not Shakespeare. Even games based on classics of literature (Dynasty Warriors, I'm looking at you) tend to have... sub-standard... plot and dialogue. However the mass nature of the media does not change the fact that the violence is really no different.
Our stories should reflect the human experience, the love, anger, boredom, wonder, sex, violence, fear and joy of life. Censoring a medium, trying to restrict the stories we tell each other says much more about the would-be censor than it does of the people who consume the medium.
There was also an interesting article about the dreaded death-by-cellphone-rf issue. I have never subscribed to this particular fear even before I saw the science behind why this is a non-issue. Now that I have been exposed to said science I see that my lack of fear was well founded.
Speaking of fear...
We must all tremble because fake-rock-fabricator turned pyramid-power author Wayne Herschel is talking to the non-existent moderators of Wikipedia to get me and my shadowy cabal of manipulative manipulators banned. I'm really scared now...
Editing my book is going slower than I would have hoped. Copy-editing is the worst part of the writing process. To bad spell-checkers and grammar-checkers suck.
Anyway, got my hands on the latest issue of 'Skeptical Inquirer' today. It has some very good articles in it. There is an exceptional article discussing the flaws with research into correlations between violent media (particularly video games) and aggression.
Now my position is that violent media has been with us as long as media. The earliest extant written work in the English language, Beowulf, involves a graphic depiction of a troll getting his arm ripped clean off. Three of the four classics of Chinese literature contain graphic violence.
Shakespeare, the Bard himself, didn't shy away from the blood when Henry V exhorts his men into the breach even if they rebuild the wall with the bodies of the dead.
Now most video games are not Shakespeare. Even games based on classics of literature (Dynasty Warriors, I'm looking at you) tend to have... sub-standard... plot and dialogue. However the mass nature of the media does not change the fact that the violence is really no different.
Our stories should reflect the human experience, the love, anger, boredom, wonder, sex, violence, fear and joy of life. Censoring a medium, trying to restrict the stories we tell each other says much more about the would-be censor than it does of the people who consume the medium.
There was also an interesting article about the dreaded death-by-cellphone-rf issue. I have never subscribed to this particular fear even before I saw the science behind why this is a non-issue. Now that I have been exposed to said science I see that my lack of fear was well founded.
Speaking of fear...
We must all tremble because fake-rock-fabricator turned pyramid-power author Wayne Herschel is talking to the non-existent moderators of Wikipedia to get me and my shadowy cabal of manipulative manipulators banned. I'm really scared now...
Editing my book is going slower than I would have hoped. Copy-editing is the worst part of the writing process. To bad spell-checkers and grammar-checkers suck.
Just for Clarification
Just to be clear, the spelling mistakes in the block-quotes from Mr. Herschel were not me mistyping. They were copied and pasted directly from the source and were his own.
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Next Thing They'll Be Saying I'm a Member of a Shadowy Cabal
So that guy that I mentioned yesterday, the self-published author whose name I couldn't remember, yeah, he's named Wayne Herschel and I guess I've got him pissed.
He says on Dan Brown's Facebook wall (yes, that Dan Brown), and I quote:
WIKIPEDIA FRAUD W.HERSCHEL PAGE NOW READS JIBBERISH - DELETION IMMINENT
Previously, Herschel said:
If there are any wiki subscribers out there we need numbers... some have tried to help already but the manipulators there will not allow two important uploads complete the page to be an accep...table author page.
Now here is what is so funny about this: this malicious group of manipulators is... well... me and like three other guys who frequent the Fringe Theory noticeboard. The malicious manipulations in question were just deleting references and clarifying statements drawn from Mr. Herschel's own bio material. I guess he's grumpy we didn't just copy it whole-cloth. I suppose nobody told Mr. Herschel that Wikipedia isn't prlog.org and nobody there is interested if he touts his silly mars-face book.
Anyway, I responded to these crazed complaints in the only reasonable way I could... I posted a link over here to my blog on my Wikipedia user page.
Anyway, as I try to contain my booming guffaws at Mr. Herschel's invective I think I'll change to some other, less frivolous subject.
I am a cyclist. Bicycling is environmentally friendly, promotes a healthy lifestyle and is mostly sufficient for the urban life I currently lead. I also live in a city where, as a cyclist, I am nearly run over once a week.
So it was with some shock and horror that I saw this story over at CBC.CA:
Now I'm not saying that the cyclist was necessarily entirely in the right, regardless of what happened, but if an angry guy on a bike is grabbing onto your car you call the police; you don't run over him with your car. There is absolutely no excuse for that.
Ok, now that I've dealt with frivolous Wikipedia tempest in a teapot and the most awful provincial level news I've heard all month one last thing:
Made Apple Flaske for dinner tonight. Recipe has a few innovations of my own and I wanted to share it.
Ingredients:
4 pieces cured pork backs rolled in corn meal (canadian bacon)
4 small apples.
1.5 red onions
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Salt
Black pepper
A tiny bit of water with 2.5 tsp of corn starch suspended in it.
Side dish was boiled potatoes in lemon dill butter
4 potatoes
1 sprig dill
Juice from 1/2 lemon
butter
So you cut everything and make up the lemon dill butter by blending the sprig of dill and the lemon juice together with about 2 tbsp of butter.
Sprinkle some lemon juice on the cut apples so they don't brown.
Then you start lightly frying the pork, adding spices to taste. When the pork is becomes light pink on both sides add the onion. When the onion begins to soften add the apples.
Drizzle on some maple syrup and toss the dish thoroughly
Add the corn starch water and cook until apples are thoroughly cooked.
Serve immediately.
For the potatoes boil until cooked and then toss with lemon dill butter. Serve immediately.
Well... that does my random musings in for the day. Until tomorrow...
He says on Dan Brown's Facebook wall (yes, that Dan Brown), and I quote:
WIKIPEDIA FRAUD W.HERSCHEL PAGE NOW READS JIBBERISH - DELETION IMMINENT
I am absolutely appauled with what is going on at wikipedia. the page is so manipulated it is now worthless. The whole carfully presented article with almost two pages of referenc...es has been reduced to one paragraph of jiberish saying I claimed findings on some other idiots work, (who was known to have generalised poor correlations long before the work of Bauval)... and say that I claim the grand meaning to be Stonehenge!
No reasoning no explanations, my two periodical references they asked to be place today have been removed by a mass attack of people on wikipedia.
Added to this... the discussion page has someone saying I only have 300 google hits to my name when there are many times that amount and they say I put most of them there! absolute madness.
I throw in the towel here because if i put it all correct ... the next day it will say I claim to have invented the wheel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Wayne_Herschel\
Previously, Herschel said:
If there are any wiki subscribers out there we need numbers... some have tried to help already but the manipulators there will not allow two important uploads complete the page to be an accep...table author page.
I have just been talking to Nirman... and he tried uploading my bio and periodical references as the wikipedia page requests and some malicious group is deleting them.
1)The two periodical references are on record here:
http://www.thehiddenrecords.com/press_release.htm
2)Biography text
http://www.wayneherschel.com
There is a full barage there of people (discussion page) manipulating the uploads that wiki are saying they need... any wiki members out there please can you intervene if possible. I am so tied up trying to save my book as well... I am not managing at all with this crazy stuff.
HERE IS THE CRAZY DISCUSSION PAGE... WHO CAN FIGURE A WAY TO FIX IT?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Wayne_Herschel
Now here is what is so funny about this: this malicious group of manipulators is... well... me and like three other guys who frequent the Fringe Theory noticeboard. The malicious manipulations in question were just deleting references and clarifying statements drawn from Mr. Herschel's own bio material. I guess he's grumpy we didn't just copy it whole-cloth. I suppose nobody told Mr. Herschel that Wikipedia isn't prlog.org and nobody there is interested if he touts his silly mars-face book.
Anyway, I responded to these crazed complaints in the only reasonable way I could... I posted a link over here to my blog on my Wikipedia user page.
Anyway, as I try to contain my booming guffaws at Mr. Herschel's invective I think I'll change to some other, less frivolous subject.
I am a cyclist. Bicycling is environmentally friendly, promotes a healthy lifestyle and is mostly sufficient for the urban life I currently lead. I also live in a city where, as a cyclist, I am nearly run over once a week.
So it was with some shock and horror that I saw this story over at CBC.CA:
Former Ontario AG Bryant charged in cyclist's death
Now I'm not saying that the cyclist was necessarily entirely in the right, regardless of what happened, but if an angry guy on a bike is grabbing onto your car you call the police; you don't run over him with your car. There is absolutely no excuse for that.
Ok, now that I've dealt with frivolous Wikipedia tempest in a teapot and the most awful provincial level news I've heard all month one last thing:
Made Apple Flaske for dinner tonight. Recipe has a few innovations of my own and I wanted to share it.
Ingredients:
4 pieces cured pork backs rolled in corn meal (canadian bacon)
4 small apples.
1.5 red onions
Cinnamon
Nutmeg
Salt
Black pepper
A tiny bit of water with 2.5 tsp of corn starch suspended in it.
Side dish was boiled potatoes in lemon dill butter
4 potatoes
1 sprig dill
Juice from 1/2 lemon
butter
So you cut everything and make up the lemon dill butter by blending the sprig of dill and the lemon juice together with about 2 tbsp of butter.
Sprinkle some lemon juice on the cut apples so they don't brown.
Then you start lightly frying the pork, adding spices to taste. When the pork is becomes light pink on both sides add the onion. When the onion begins to soften add the apples.
Drizzle on some maple syrup and toss the dish thoroughly
Add the corn starch water and cook until apples are thoroughly cooked.
Serve immediately.
For the potatoes boil until cooked and then toss with lemon dill butter. Serve immediately.
Well... that does my random musings in for the day. Until tomorrow...
Whoops!
Pam was trying to follow my blog but apparently I was signed in and so now I'm listed as following my own blog. That was silly.
Update: Fixed it.
Update: Fixed it.
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