My Norwescon Schedule

This is my desired schedule for Norwescon. It has a big hole in the middle of Saturday when I'm to take Kouryou-chan out to a friend's birthday party, and obviously the needs of a five-year old and family in general will override any ability on my part to attend even a third of these. Still, I need a place where I can refer to this stuff even if I don't have my laptop with me.

See you all there!

• Thursday
  • 5:00pm: Researching your story (Cascade 9)
  • 8:00pm: Writing Essentials 101 (Cascade 7)
  • 9:00pm: Writing Essentials 105 (Cascade 7)
• Friday
  • 10:00am: Reinventing Genre Fantasy (Cascade 7)
  • 11:00am: Where do you get your ideas? (Cascade 6)
  • 1:00pm: Making Magic Real (Cascade 3)
  • 2:00pm: Too Many Ideas? (Cascade 6)
  • 3:00pm: Bringing Characters To Life (Cascade 6)
  • 4:00pm: Show, Don't Tell (Cascade 6)
  • 5:00pm: Creating Emotion-Laden SF/F (Cascade 5)
  • 6:00pm: What Is A Hook? (Cascade 6)
  • 7:00pm: Wrestling With a Writer's Demons (Cascade 7)
• Saturday
  • 11:00am: Which First: Character or Setting? (Cascade 6)
  • 3:00pm: Animals in Horror (Cascade 6)
  • 4:00pm: Plot, Setting, Character (Cascade 6)
  • 6:00pm: Writing Essentials 106 (Cascade 6)
  • 7:00pm: Character Development for Everyone (Cascade 6) or The Emotional Palette of Horror (Cascade 5)
  • 6:00pm: The Seven Deadly Sins of SF/F (Cascade 8)
  • 9:00pm: How Stories End (Cascade 5)
• Sunday
  • 10:00am: Online Journaling (Cascade 6)
  • 12:00pm: Story-Crafting From Your Subconscious (Cascade 6)
  • 3:00pm: Spiritual or Religious Themes (Cascade 4)

Thursday Night with Kouryou-chan and Omaha

I got home last night to find Omaha in a bit of a bad mood. Apparently, a business meeting that morning had not gone well and she was feeling a bit depressed. Kouryou-chan seemed to be doing well by herself, so I was given the task of making dinner. We've been getting by on mundane things recently: stir fry, baked macaroni & cheese, that sort of thing, but I was oddly in a mood to cook.

I ended up making steak & carmelized onions with a balsamic glaze-- basically, sautee' four medium onions slowly for half an hour, tossing in a 1/4tsp of salt after ten minutes, and boil down 2/3rd cup of balsamic vinegar to 1/4 cup, about five minutes, and broil some flank steak (or London broil if you're cheap, and I was) sprinkled with salt, pepper, and thyme-- and mashed new potatoes with blue cheese, formed into patties after mixing, dredged in breadcrumbs and sautee'd 2 minutes per side-- 2 lbs potatoes, 1/3 cup blue cheese. Yummy. And having some for leftovers surely beats wandering over to Subway!

Afterwards, I helped Kouryou-chan put away her clothes. She's gotten pretty good about doing her chores, folding and putting away her stuff in the dresser, hanging her own shirts and dresses. She was all giggly about it, but she got it done and then it was time for her to bathe and then we read some Mother Goose, from a rather old edition, but she loves it. She read one and I read the next, trading off. She went to bed without much complaint.