Camping, Thursday

Thursday is our nominal lazy day. We decided to not go hiking Thursday; instead, we went up to the next campsite, Horseshoe Cove, which is one kilometer across the lake from Anderson Point, and spend the day at the beach. We woke this morning to scrambled eggs and toast, and discovered a terrible tragedy. One of Yamaraashi-chan's shoes had been cooked in the fire! The first two days had been wet and awful, and the girls' shoes had gotten soaked, so we'd lined them up by the fire. Even though we checked the distance and heat regularly, the canvas sneakers dried out fine but Yamaraashi-chan's leather tops burned. I have to buy her new ones.

I'm started to understand that five days in the wilderness bracketed by one day driving in and one out is about optimal; after that, I start jonesing for the things of civilization. Omaha want to buy camping pillows. Deep Woods Offi has become critical to our survival.

Last night we had left out a plastic bag with muffins in it, and a critter got in and ate some of them and left, uh, evidence of his presence. Damn, what are we going to do now for Saturday breakfast?

Oscar!

We went to the beach and tried to swim in the freezing waters, but only Yamaraashi-chan was brave enough to stay in there for any length of time. I also got my head wet, but decided to get out quickly. We ate egg salad sandwiches and apples and played rounds of UNO. While we were there, I took out my beloved camera and gorillapod and snapped pictures. I could hear this sound, a familiar, annoying sound. From a kilometer away, with the right wind, we could hear that damn weiner dog all the way across the lake! Yap yap yap! And from a kilometer away, I snapped a picture of the beast. He's a little hard to make out by the water's edge and not nearly as much fun as Nessie, but it's a nifty pic.

We headed home with five gallons of potable water from the feed at Horseshoe Cove as well as five gallons of sun-warmed water in my solar shower thing. The shower worked well enough, although the bugs were like "Clean, bare human skin! Attack!" and the girls ran like the wind to the tent to get dressed. It's a good thing the campsite is well-isolated from the others. I still haven't shaved, so I'm scruffy as all heck, but Omaha and the girls insist they still love me.

Thursday campsite.

We had hamburgers and roast corn for dinner, then dipped apples in a mix of brown sugar and cinnamon and roasted the whole thing over the fire. I pointed out to Omaha that tomorrow I could get eggs from the Ranger's store up the way and we could use the leftover dinner bread to make French toast. Problem solved.

I started reading Lady of Mazes by Karl Schroeder and have to say that on the one hand, I'm impressed, and on another not so much. Schroeder puts himself into a bind once in a while and then just routes around by telling you that the hero solved the problem, but not showing or even telling you how. On the other hand, there's one scene in the book that is every writer's dream, an unforgettable scene that makes you sit up and say, "Why didn't I think of that?"

The girls are deep into their own books: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and The Golden Compass. We also played a few rounds of GoFish. Bicycle cards has apparently gone over to doing all licensing all the time, because this deck was themed with Tinkerbell and every card was different (although they were the same across suits; every Queen was the same, just different backgrounds if it was black or red). This deck was almost fanservice! What are the people at Disney doing to Tink? The four is a millimeter away from being a panty shot!

Duane Barry Quote Goes Here

Some of my friends are off to Crown, but I'm not in the SCA. Instead, I got a crown this morning-- two hours in the dentists' chair. Ouch. My whole mouth is numb, and my tongue is already starting to hurt.

Y'know what's most disturbing? When he pulls out the cutting drill and begins working his way through the old tooth, and there's this smell of burning bone in the air. It's horrible. I don't think any other aspect of the experience is quite so bad as that. Not even the octocaine injections.

Yes, that's what it said on the side of the syringe, Octocaine. Now, I'm thinking that it's a terrible pun: confusing the "nov" meaning "new" with the "nov" meaning "nine," but do they really want their product to be considered "one less than novocaine"?

Anyway, the temp is in, and we'll see about the permanent in two weeks. Joy.

New Story: Polly & Tere

As promised, if a day late, here's the next episode in the Sterlings saga: Journal Entry 236 / 06119: Polly & Tere. This is one of those filler episodes TV series do once in a while, just setting the scene for the next episode really. It's nice, but just wait until the next two episodes, when we get to see the ugly side of Pollyana San Tarvo, and what a strange and clever woman does with Polly's head when she figures Polly out.

Be here in two weeks for The Strange, Perverted Zia Tau.

So, Muse and I have come to an understanding

One of the lessons of GTD that I've never quite learned is that in order to meet your own needs about GTD, you need to have a reward at the end of the tunnel, something more immediate than "the pleasure of accomplishment" that encourages you to finish the task before you.

The Muse and I have therefore come to an understanding: On a writing day, if I finish 1000 words of work on Caprice Starr, I'll allow myself to turn my attention to any shiny I have hanging around (and believe me, I've got a lot of shiny). My hope is that Caprice will become shiny enough that she'll start to self-sustain and I'll be able to do the full 2,667 words per day on the Caprice Starr series itself, but in the meantime The Muse is satisfied that the shiny ideas won't get lost in the day-to-day work of writing a novel.

Holding multiple stories and hundreds of characters in my head is pretty easy; I do it all the time, obviously, and keep them all pretty well-segmented. (Some would argue, and I would agree, that I tend to work on classes of characters: This month, my stories are all about neurotic young men placed in alienting environments.) It will be more interesting if can maintain a hard continuity throughout the entire novel and then use that continuity succesfully into the rest of the series.

And lest my friends start to worry that I'm a little crazy, well, yeah: I've had "The Muse" as shorthand for the crazy ideas I get while I'm driving or showering, just out of the blue, like the shiny ones she gave me in the first memo: "Why don't you write a story about a young woman whose father left her and his manservant purposed robot behind when she was very young? Here, it's first person told from her point of view, I hope you don't mind," and "Why don't you write a story about an adult woman who's unhealthily attached to a security 'bot she was given when she was very young? Here, it's third person told from the outside, I think you'll like the format."

And The Muse has a sister, Code Fairy. She tends to bug me in the shower. She's more practical: "You've written six dialogs in the past three weeks; I bet you could refactor a 'create a dialog' class out of that mess."

Omaha is looking for beta testers!

Omaha is looking for beta testers for her new Mac-oriented podcast portal. She needs "beginners in finding, downloading, and listening to podcasts."

If that's you and your, uh, orientation is Apple, please consider following the link and helping her out.