Day: December 31, 2013

The evolving story.

I started in July with a goal to write every day.  After the first three days, I started writing word counts.
 
I kept it up in August,  minus the four days I took off for Cindy’s wedding.  On the 15th I realized my plunge-in-and-write style wasn’t working and did some character development.  Then work started and I had no time to write.
 
I took a writing class in October, and resolved to return to outlining, as that had worked well in the past for me.  My goal was 500 words per day.  I was very good at meeting this goal.
 
Except for a few days, I kept it up in December, too.

Onward to January.  Will I finish my first draft by 1/31/14?  Stay tuned.

What I’ve been up to: collecting rewards and making bread.

I feel like I haven’t been taking very many pictures of late.  Although I’ve written over 475 posts for this blog alone this year, so perhaps a short break is in order.  But here’s what I’ve been up to, aside from reading, writing, watching movies and blogging.

I didn’t realize I had backer rewards coming, but here they are.
 

I made some bread.  It’s from Laurel’s Kitchen Break Book, which is the best book to pick up if you are thinking of taking up whole-grain bread baking in the new year.  This is the milk bread recipe and made two very nice loves.  The book itself teachers you step-by-step what to do to create excellent all-whole-wheat flour bread.  Most “whole wheat” recipes use a bit of whole wheat and a goodly amount of All-Purpose Flour.

Bread making is a good skill to have if you want to save money and control your ingredients.  It’s also kind of magical.  This started as two cups of milk, a quarter cup of honey, some yeast, flour and salt.  A bit of mixing (with a mixer) and a few hours of rising and deflating and shaping and there is delicious bread waiting for me to eat.

Two tips should you embark on the bread journey:
1) Buy some vital wheat gluten (Bob’s Red Mill carries this product) and add 1 tablespoon per cup of flour.  It makes all the difference.
2) If you don’t have a warm place for rising (our house is mostly pretty cold) turn the oven to 170 and when it comes to temperature, set the timer for 10 minutes.  Then shut off the oven.  The heating turns the oven from a cold cave to a warm environment and if you turn on the light to the oven the temperature will be maintained.

Three sentence movie reviews: Platoon

This movie was released just as I was starting to pay attention to what was going on in the world, so I remember the buzz, but there was no way I was going to be allowed to watch it due to violence and my parents’ ambivalence about the Vietnam War.*  Fast forward twenty-seven years and I can now say I understand what all the fuss was about.  I realized I’m coming late to the party and all y’all have probably seen it, but this had everything a great picture should have:  acting, setting, plot, a warts-and-all view of the war itself, as well as a smattering of war porn.**

Cost:  free from library
Where watched:  at home.

Thanks to Jan and her Best Picture Movie Project.  Without her watching this, I never would have motivated.

*For a long time, I thought my dad was too old to go, but when Bill Clinton ran for president, I realized my dad joined the National Guard to avoid the draft.  This was something that was not really loudly proclaimed, especially since so many people made fun of Clinton for what was essentially begging to be in the National Guard.  Though now that we’ve had a president who joined the National Guard and didn’t even bother to show up, I can proudly say that my father actually did his National Service to get out of going to a crappy war, unlike a certain member of the Bush family.
**Because who wouldn’t want to die in such a dramatic movie fashion as Willem Dafoe?