I was saddened to learn today that Castle Miranda (also known as Château de Noisy) in Belgium was slated to be torn down this month. Back in 2012 I stumbled across the gorgeous pictures from PROJ3CT M4YH3M of this heart-breaking, beautiful, decaying castle. The ceilings especially inspired me to put pen to paper and write the scene in my novel Glimmer of Steel where Jennica comes to terms with her fate while staring up at her bedroom’s ceiling.

Since I don’t own any of the copyrights for the images I saw back in 2012, nor have I paid for licensing rights, I have the next best thing… links to the owners’ sites so you can hop over a view them yourself.

The first link is for a website (in German) with historical photos/drawings of the Castle in its original state. http://www.lipinski.de/noisy-historical/index.php

The second link is from Ian Moone’s and PROJ3CT M4YH3M’s website page that covered their first visit to Castle Miranda in 2012: 

Urbex: Castle Miranda aka Château de Noisy Belgium – December 2012 (Part 1)

The third link is from Ian Moone’s and PROJ3CT M4YH3M’s second visit in 2014:

Urbex: Castle Miranda aka Château de Noisy Belgium – May 2014 (revisit)

So just as I’m getting ready to release Glimmer of Steel to Kindle Scout this month, and I’m looking for Castle Miranda pictures to share as an important visual inspiration for my writing, I learned the castle is being dismantled. Pascal Dermien recently photographed the start of the demolition and shared his photos on YouTube. You can see former turrets cast upon the ground, including the weather vane that used to spin atop the highest peak. Only the blogs, and photographs, memories, videos, and the occasional book will live on.

We all know every writer started as a reader. Recently a writer friend of mine shared that the book she read in middle school that kicked off her interest in writing for children was E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web. I agree that book is a serious favorite of mine too. I named my first two-wheel bike Charlotte after all. But for me, if I have to narrow down from all the books I read as a kid, (everything from To Kill A Mockingbird to Salem’s Lot) the one book that inspired me the most was Watership Down by Richard Adams.

The blurb from Sparknotes does not do this novel any favors:

Watership Down is the tale of a group of rabbits in search of a home. Fiver, a small, young rabbit, has a gift: He can tell when things are going to happen and he can sense whether they will be good or bad. Fiver foresees great danger to the rabbits’ home warren.

 

Bunny Metaphors Abound. Photo credit Irina Blaski 2016.

The book is So. Much. More. Maybe part of my affection stems from the fact that my favorite teacher in middle school passed along her personal copy to me, encouraging me to dive deep within its pages to find the story beneath the story. Shout out to Mrs. Monroe @Summit Hill Junior High for lighting the fire within this little girl. Honestly it took her a couple weeks of pestering for me to give this book a chance just because the back cover blurb was so lame.

Once I started, I couldn’t put it down. And so began my love of reading and writing stories that are more than what they seem on the surface, stories with nuance that warrant a second, and third reading.

Richard Adams wrote Watership Down in 1972. From his Amazon Author Page:

He originally began telling the story of Watership Down to his two daughters during a long car journey, and they insisted he write it down. When Watership Down was finally published, after many rejections, it sold over a million copies in record time in both the United Kingdom and the United States. Watership Down has become a modern classic and won both the Carnegie Medal and the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize in 1972. To date it has sold over 8 million copies and been translated into many languages, including Finnish, Hebrew and Chinese.

Adams reads from Watership Down at a 2008 exhibition of Aldo Galli paintings, Photo Credit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Adams

One of my favorite interviews with him is from The Telegraph, originally published in 2014, in which he tells us that when his publisher accepted the manuscript (after rejections from seven other publishers) “This blew a trumpet in my heart.”

Great line, right? It’s the same feeling I get when a four or five star review for any of my work hits Goodreads!

Another of my favorite Adams quotes is from an interview with Alison Flood of The Guardian just last year, where he said, “I do not believe in talking down to children. Readers like to be upset, excited and bowled over.”

Nothing wrong with a little heart-pumping excitement or a good, cleansing cry while turning the pages of a book.

Which book started your author journey? Share in the comments!

So there I was getting gas one day and I saw this . . .

Live near Rockford? Got electronic junk? Take it here.

AND THEN, I saw this . . .

Big pile of big TVs

All you have to do is drive your electronic junk out to Kelley’s Market, on S. Main and Hwy 20 and drop it off in their big blue bin (or off to the side of their big blue bin, like in the photograph above). Old TVs, computers, VHS players, radios, and so on, they take it all.

Kelley Williamson Mobile teamed up with United Recycling Technologies (URT) and the partnership has been going strong since 2013. There’s a second bin at East State Street and Lyford Road. Between the two bins, millions of pounds have been collected. URT handles all kinds of e-waste to make sure it doesn’t wind up in a landfill where the corrosion of electronics can leak lead and hazardous chemicals into the water table.

So go ahead and clear out the basement. You’ve got a place to take that ginormous TV that blew up while you were watching American Ninja Warrior.

Photo © Phrysphotos

Sure, getting your kid to wear a hat is the first line of defense, but unless they’re wearing a sombrero, from their shoulders down will still be exposed. Like most people I see at the beach, I sprayed my kids down with waterproof sunblock from a can or slathered on some name brand SPF 1000–the higher the number the better right? Nope, the experts recommend no lower than SPF 30 and no higher than SPF 50.

Then I happened to read about the toxicity of the chemicals found in common sunscreens. BreastCancerFund.org tells me “octyl-methoxycinnamate, which is estrogenic and has thyroid hormone-disrupting effects, is found in over 800 sunscreens.” Great. Since my kids were babies I’ve been diligently disrupting their hormones…

Well, when I know better I try to do better, thank you Maya Angelou.

http://www.sunprecautions.com/ product/84300

But what would be an effective replacement? I could cover them in protective clothing, but then I’d never get them out of the house. Long sleeves at the beach? Maybe in fall and winter. But July?

“You want me to wear what? No thanks Mom, I’ll just stay in the air conditioning and play video games all day.”

So this summer I decided to get the kids involved in a little research test. We would try out a few of the “healthier alternative” sunblocks that we could actually afford and see which one(s) we liked.

Our criteria included: EWG rating, SPF, packaging, price, ease of application, feel of product on skin, color of skin after application, time before reapplication, water and sweat resistance, smell, and finally, did it prevent sunburn?

Our three test products:

Three sunblocks chosen for a summer-long comparison

When and Where we tried them out? Summer Camps, Sports, Swimming, Beach, Gardening, and Outdoor Fairs all summer long…

Our family gives Burnout 4.5 out of 5 stars

Our first Sunblock is BURNOUT OCEAN TESTED PHYSICAL SUNSCREEN

1. EWG rating: 1 (the lower the better)
2. SPF: 30
3. Packaging: Easy to get the product out of the tube, fits in a purse, beach bag, back pocket
4. Price: $13.99 for 3.4 OZ on Amazon
5. Ease of application: Easy to put on and rub in
6. Feel of product on skin: Doesn’t feel tacky or sticky, light, non-oily
7. Color of skin after application: Pale gray at first, slight sheen later
8. Time before reapplication: one hour
9. Water and sweat resistance: water beaded up, sunblock ran into eyes when daughter played tennis, rubbed off on clothing very easily, washes off hands with soap and water
10. Smell: no unpleasant smell, neutral
11. Did it prevent sunburn: Yes!
12. OVERALL RATING 4.5 out of 5 stars

Our second Sunblock is BARE BELLY ORGANICS MINERAL SUNSCREEN

Our family gives Bare Belly a 2.5 out of 5 stars

1. EWG rating: 1 (the lower the better)
2. SPF: 30
3. Packaging: Easy to get the product out of the tub, fits in a purse, beach bag, but not a back pocket
4. Price: $17.95 for 4 OZ from Bare Belly Website
5. Ease of application: Difficult to put on and rub in
6. Feel of product on skin: Gritty, thick
7. Color of skin after application: Chalky White, strong sheen later
8. Time before reapplication: one hour
9. Water and sweat resistance: water beaded up, sweat resistant, rubbed off on clothing, washes off hands with soap and water
10. Smell: smells like lard
11. Did it prevent sunburn: Yes! but my kids and I could not get past the consistency and smell of this stuff.
12. OVERALL RATING 2.5 out of 5 stars

Our family gives Badger Kids a 3 out of 5 stars

And finally BADGER KIDS SUNSCREEN CREAM

1. EWG rating: 1 (the lower the better)
2. SPF: 30
3. Packaging: Easy to get the product out of the tube, fits in a purse, beach bag, and a back pocket
4. Price: $13.50 for 2.9 OZ from Amazon
5. Ease of application: Easy to put on and rub in
6. Feel of product on skin: Doesn’t feel tacky or sticky, light, non-oily
7. Color of skin after application: White at first, slight sheen later
8. Time before reapplication: half hour
9. Water and sweat resistance: water beaded up, sweated off after 30 minutes, rubbed off on clothing, washes off hands with soap and water
10. Smell: Dreamsicles, you know the orange and vanilla popsicles? Smells just like them. I loved the smell, but so did every bug within a 30 ft radius.
11. Did it prevent sunburn: Yes! but if your the type of person that naturally attracts bugs this will only enhance your attractiveness, so you better wear bug repellant too.
12. OVERALL RATING 3 out of 5 stars

So this little non-scientific study was how I got my kids to wear sunblock all summer! Hands down BurnOut was the winner. Keep in mind these three sunblocks are all “barrier” types, so it’s best to compare them against each other and not against the chemical- based sunblocks most of us are used to. Also, these descriptions and ratings are from my family based on our own unique experience. We were not compensated in any way and I purchased the products myself.

Have you used a barrier sunblock before? Which ones do you like?

Photo © Phrysphotos

Sure, getting your kid to wear a hat is the first line of defense, but unless they’re wearing a sombrero, from their shoulders down will still be exposed. Like most people I see at the beach, I sprayed my kids down with waterproof sunblock from a can or slathered on some name brand SPF 1000–the higher the number the better right? Nope, the experts recommend no lower than SPF 30 and no higher than SPF 50.

Then I happened to read about the toxicity of the chemicals found in common sunscreens. BreastCancerFund.org tells me “octyl-methoxycinnamate, which is estrogenic and has thyroid hormone-disrupting effects, is found in over 800 sunscreens.” Great. Since my kids were babies I’ve been diligently disrupting their hormones…

Well, when I know better I try to do better, thank you Maya Angelou.

http://www.sunprecautions.com/ product/84300

But what would be an effective replacement? I could cover them in protective clothing, but then I’d never get them out of the house. Long sleeves at the beach? Maybe in fall and winter. But July?

“You want me to wear what? No thanks Mom, I’ll just stay in the air conditioning and play video games all day.”

So this summer I decided to get the kids involved in a little research test. We would try out a few of the “healthier alternative” sunblocks that we could actually afford and see which one(s) we liked.

Our criteria included: EWG rating, SPF, packaging, price, ease of application, feel of product on skin, color of skin after application, time before reapplication, water and sweat resistance, smell, and finally, did it prevent sunburn?

Our three test products:

Three sunblocks chosen for a summer-long comparison

When and Where we tried them out? Summer Camps, Sports, Swimming, Beach, Gardening, and Outdoor Fairs all summer long…

Our family gives Burnout 4.5 out of 5 stars

Our first Sunblock is BURNOUT OCEAN TESTED PHYSICAL SUNSCREEN

1. EWG rating: 1 (the lower the better)
2. SPF: 30
3. Packaging: Easy to get the product out of the tube, fits in a purse, beach bag, back pocket
4. Price: $13.99 for 3.4 OZ on Amazon
5. Ease of application: Easy to put on and rub in
6. Feel of product on skin: Doesn’t feel tacky or sticky, light, non-oily
7. Color of skin after application: Pale gray at first, slight sheen later
8. Time before reapplication: one hour
9. Water and sweat resistance: water beaded up, sunblock ran into eyes when daughter played tennis, rubbed off on clothing very easily, washes off hands with soap and water
10. Smell: no unpleasant smell, neutral
11. Did it prevent sunburn: Yes!
12. OVERALL RATING 4.5 out of 5 stars

Our second Sunblock is BARE BELLY ORGANICS MINERAL SUNSCREEN

Our family gives Bare Belly a 2.5 out of 5 stars

1. EWG rating: 1 (the lower the better)
2. SPF: 30
3. Packaging: Easy to get the product out of the tub, fits in a purse, beach bag, but not a back pocket
4. Price: $17.95 for 4 OZ from Bare Belly Website
5. Ease of application: Difficult to put on and rub in
6. Feel of product on skin: Gritty, thick
7. Color of skin after application: Chalky White, strong sheen later
8. Time before reapplication: one hour
9. Water and sweat resistance: water beaded up, sweat resistant, rubbed off on clothing, washes off hands with soap and water
10. Smell: smells like lard
11. Did it prevent sunburn: Yes! but my kids and I could not get past the consistency and smell of this stuff.
12. OVERALL RATING 2.5 out of 5 stars

Our family gives Badger Kids a 3 out of 5 stars

And finally BADGER KIDS SUNSCREEN CREAM

1. EWG rating: 1 (the lower the better)
2. SPF: 30
3. Packaging: Easy to get the product out of the tube, fits in a purse, beach bag, and a back pocket
4. Price: $13.50 for 2.9 OZ from Amazon
5. Ease of application: Easy to put on and rub in
6. Feel of product on skin: Doesn’t feel tacky or sticky, light, non-oily
7. Color of skin after application: White at first, slight sheen later
8. Time before reapplication: half hour
9. Water and sweat resistance: water beaded up, sweated off after 30 minutes, rubbed off on clothing, washes off hands with soap and water
10. Smell: Dreamsicles, you know the orange and vanilla popsicles? Smells just like them. I loved the smell, but so did every bug within a 30 ft radius.
11. Did it prevent sunburn: Yes! but if your the type of person that naturally attracts bugs this will only enhance your attractiveness, so you better wear bug repellant too.
12. OVERALL RATING 3 out of 5 stars

So this little non-scientific study was how I got my kids to wear sunblock all summer! Hands down BurnOut was the winner. Keep in mind these three sunblocks are all “barrier” types, so it’s best to compare them against each other and not against the chemical- based sunblocks most of us are used to. Also, these descriptions and ratings are from my family based on our own unique experience. We were not compensated in any way and I purchased the products myself.

Have you used a barrier sunblock before? Which ones do you like?

Photo © Andrew Taylor

Also known as HOW I SPEND MY SUMMER VACATION

If you know me, you know I don’t get out much during the school year. 60-hour work weeks and a house full of kids and pets keeps me from indulging in extracurricular activities, including watching all the TV shows that everyone talks about.

So during the summer when I’m not chauffeuring the kids to camp, or cranking out my next novel, I binge watch. Come to find out, I actually prefer binging to the weekly sample size. Enjoying a season or two, or five, within a week is . . . fun! And since none of it moves into long-term memory, I can binge some of my favorite series more than once!

My Top Ten TV Series for Binge Watching

1. Firefly, followed by the movie Serenity
2. Game of Thrones
3. The Walking Dead
4. The West Wing
5. Outlander
6. The Good Wife
7. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
8. House of Cards
9. Lost
10. True Blood

For extra credit I like to binge watch Movie Series. Some of my favorites include:

• 4 Indiana Jones movies
• 3 Lord of the Rings movies
• 7 Harry Potter movies
• 2 Kill Bill movies
• 3 Dark Night movies
• 3 Star Wars IV-VI movies
• 8 Police Academy movies (don’t judge)
• 4 Jurassic Park movies
• 2 Bridget Jones’s Diary movies (with a 3rd on the way)
• 3 Iron Man/ 2 Avenger movies
• 4 Sharknado movies (come on, lighten up)
• 3 Godfather movies
• 3 Matrix movies
• 3 Toy Story movies
• 13 Star Trek movies (best broken into sets by cast: 6/4/3)
• 3 Back to the Future movies
• 3 Spiderman movies (the ones with Tobey Maguire)
• 4 Superman movies (the ones with Christopher Reeves)
• 5 Alien/Prometheus movies (with a 6th on the way)
• 7 Fast & Furious movies (with an 8th on the way)
• 5 Pirates of the Caribbean movies
• 5 Terminator movies
• 3 Naked Gun movies
• 5 Die Hard movies
• 4 Spy Kids movies (OK my kids love them and I love hanging with my kids, so, yeah, I watch these too)

Have I left off any of your favorites? Put them in the comments below!

Spinning discs at WJMU circa 1984-85

I’ve always identified with the Cowardly Lion. Courage does not come naturally to me. I cannot recall a time when I was truly fearless. Everything from meeting someone for the first time to standing on a ladder can send me into a nervous refrain, “I can’t do this. Something horrible will happen. I will make a fool of myself.”

In high school I had a teacher write me a note and tell me that he thought my naturally sweet disposition was keeping me from achieving my goals. Not exactly, Teach. Anyone who knows me, knows I can be just as *itchy as the best of them. No, there’s only one thing that keeps me from my goals:

FEAR

Sometimes, it’s paralyzing.

Those meet-n-greet dinners at the beginning of a conference? I avoid them at all costs, and when I can’t, I spend an inordinate amount of time in the restroom and leave completely exhausted. It’s taken me three days to work up the nerve to call HughesNet to advocate for a bill reduction. Even at the-job-that-pays, getting up in front of a classroom of college students on the first day of a semester is both exhilarating and terrifying.

Introversion, social anxiety, timidness, it’s probably a mix of the three. So how have I managed to accomplish anything without an arsenal of pharmaceutical assistance? Strong friendships with courageous people have certainly helped. Turning off my people-pleasing instincts and smothering the associated guilt works to some extent. Easing back on perfectionism, check. Routines, meditation, visualization help too. However, in college I hit upon one question that propels me forward:

If I do XYZ “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” and it’s follow-up question, “Can I live with that?”

It’s worked something like this…Freshman year in college, I hear my Resident Assistant on the college radio station and I think to myself, that sounds like a lot of fun. I would like to do that too. Then the anxious voice takes over and says, what are you kidding? You will be horrible, people won’t listen, you will lose listeners and embarrass yourself and the station. But after thinking about it for a while, I realize is embarrassment the worst thing that could happen? And if it is, can I live with that?

Yes, I can live with that.

So I took the broadcaster course and passed my FCC test and got my broadcasting license. After a semester on the air I was running the morning drive program. After two semesters I was helping to run the station in the summer. After a year I received the station’s best new DJ award.

And yes, I embarrassed myself.

But this new mantra helps me move forward. Sometimes it’s all that gets me out of the house. It’s what keeps me employed. It’s what keeps me writing and submitting and self-publishing. It’s what I tell my students to do when they’re considering a life change.  It’s what I tell my children when they want to try something new.

Millikin University Homecoming Court 1986. Me, first row, far left, maiden name, big hair. It was the 80s, what can I say? Absolutely terrified but so glad I did this for myself.

My mantra has motivated me all the way to Russia, Singapore, and Finland. It’s given me the guts to put myself out there singing, speaking, and writing. It’s not easy yet, and it probably never will be, but it’s working for me.

Millikin University graduating class of 1987. Uh oh, now you can figure out how old I am…

How about you? What gives you courage?

For now, my kids are still into dying eggs for Easter. Usually we cover the kitchen table with newspaper, hard boil the eggs, and rely on Paas for all our egg-dying needs.

But when Easter falls in March and your March looks somewhat like this…

We are not driving anywhere today…

Driving out to Walgreens to pick up egg dye just isn’t the best use of your day.

So we improvised.

Bad tasting but makes a great dye.

Earlier in the month my daughter needed packages of sugary water flavoring for a school project. Long story but, since the dollar store didn’t have Kool-Aid, we bought some FlavorAid instead. At 99cents for a pack of twelve it looked like a great deal. However, there is a reason FlavorAid is so cheap. Imagine the worst fake fruit flavor ever, multiply that by 100x and then sweeten it up with twenty tablespoons of sugar and you might come close to the flavor of Flavor-OMG-this-tastes-awful-Aid, (named for the fact that the flavor needs help?)

Cherry FlavorAid made the egg speckled red

Needless to say we had a lot of it left over. So that’s what we used! Dissolved in a cup of water and three tablespoons of vinegar, it made a fine egg dye. Some of the eggs came out speckled too, which was an unexpected, but not unwelcome effect.

The Kiwi Watermelon flavor made green eggs. The Lemonaid flavor made yellow eggs. For some reason the Grape flavor made brown eggs, but they kinda looked like chocolate, so we didn’t mind. The longer the eggs stayed in the dye bath, the darker they came out.

It took a little while for them to dry and until they did, they were susceptible to smears. So if you do this project, expect some finger color transfer.

Now there’s a nice looking Easter egg.

My youngest had the idea to wrap some of the eggs in rubber-bands before submerging them into the dye cups and those eggs had great results! I think the rubber-band trick would work with any type of dye.

We’ve gotten similar results marking up the egg with a white crayon or a wax candle, but the rubber-banding was less labor intensive.

The blue coloring came from the Berry Punch FlavorAid.

Also, the colors did not seep through the shell into the egg itself, which sometimes happens when using regular food coloring.

Would we do it again? Yes! FlavorAid + Egg Dying = Project Success.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking? If this stuff can color eggs, what’s it doing to your body if you drink it?

Photographs © Karin Blaski, 2016

I am truly blessed to have parents who plan their own vacation around my once per year Spring Break excursion to North Myrtle Beach. They move into my house, and together, my mom and dad take over my parenting role, which involves everything from doing laundry, making meals, chauffeuring the kids to school and activities, helping with homework, playing games, and making sure no one burns the place down while I get the week off.

I am a lucky girl indeed. Here’s how I traditionally enjoy my six days:

Walking the wide expanse of white sand beach on gorgeous cool and sunny days interacting with very few humans.

Look at this day! Low 70s and a slight breeze. Perfect.

When I’m not at the beach, I do a little bit of this:

Jigsaw Puzzle Southern-Style

Stop and smell the flowers…

Writing, eating, visiting family, binge-watching HBO and Netflix, shopping, touring the gardens, working on puzzles, reading, visiting the aquarium, weaving, doing my nails, bike riding…

It’s not all fun of course. I usually bring about one hundred or more assignments/reports to grade. I just make sure I shake out the sand before I pack up to leave.

I would be a much nicer person if I could put my feet here once a day.

My daughter brought The Hunger Games home from school this month. I told her she could read it since she was “almost thirteen” and I couldn’t locate my own copy for her to borrow. We’ve talked about the kid-on-kid violence in the book and the love triangle cliché. But there are themes and issues I think she’ll gain insight from: heroism in the face of oppression, the non-violent resistance expressed by characters like Cinna and Peeta, Haymitch’s PTSD. Besides, it’s a great read, written well.

No, the book’s not the problem.

The problem is the cover of the edition she brought home. This picture does not do it justice.

It’s pink and sparkly!?!

The Hunger Games is not a pink and sparkly tale. It does not warrant a fairy-tale princess cover with Dr. Seuss lettering. What are these publisher’s thinking? It’s a “girl’s” book so it needs a “girl’s” cover? Every twelve-year old girl in America has read this book so now we need to open up the market to six-year-olds? Call me crazy, but a pink cover with sparkly green lettering and the title The Hunger Games makes me think the book is a spin on Cupcake Wars.

I suppose they could use this technique on all sorts of “dark” books to trick readers into thinking they’re in for a lighter read. Word War Z with zebra stripes? The Kite Runner with a smiley face on the kite? The Shining featuring Frosty the Snowman? Too bad Amazon previews don’t take a sample from the middle of the books…

You’re off to the Hunger Games…”Today is your day…” to kill off some kids…”So…get on your way!”

Quote extremely modified without permission from Oh, the Place You’ll Go by Dr. Seuss.

The Force Awakens

You’ve all seen it right? Maybe a couple times by now? Know the dialogue by heart? Even if you haven’t seen it, you’ve heard all about it. Read reviews. Glimpsed the Facebook chat and Twitter feeds.

What? You live on Tristan da Cunha you say?Well, if you haven’t seen it, turn back!!! Spoilers abound. I’ve waited a couple months to post this, and frankly, I can’t wait a moment longer.

My review: I hated it. I loved it. I hated it some more. I hated myself for hating it. I hated myself for loving it. It disappointed on so many levels, but then there were occasional bright and shiny moments that made me feel very, very happy.

It made me pop in the DVDs and rewatch the first three (no not those other three, I pretend they never happened).

TOP FOUR FIVE EIGHT, ok TEN REASONS I HATED IT, but I’ll stick with FIVE for now…

1. Desert Planet. All those Imagineers at Disney and all they can come up with is another desert planet for the primary setting? Tatooine meet Jakku, Jakku meet Tatooine. What? You’re the same planet and we just don’t know it yet? Well, that explains everything.

Hero on harsh desert planet

Heroine on harsh desert planet.

2. Death Star 1, 2, and yep, there’s another one. Really? Years of advancement in space weaponry and what do we get? A Supermassive Black Hole devouring everything in sight like a giant space PacMan? A genetically-engineered army of creatures that feed on both technology and flesh? An insidious space vapor that once inhaled makes the brain compliant to all Empire commands? No. We get a third Death Star. With the same weaknesses. Obviously The Empire has a short memory.

3. The Angsty, Misunderstood, AngryTeen with Parent Issues and a Big Light Saber.  Kylo Ren isn’t a villain. He’s a thug who throws a tantrum when he doesn’t get his way. Does he cooly dispatch dissenters with the wave of a hand? No, he whines about them and then orders others to do the job for him. Does he fight his father in an epic battle to prove his superiority? Why, no. He might as well have murdered him in his sleep. Boo. Just boo. I would’ve rather seen a Disney Villain take down Han Solo. Yeah I’ve joined the hatin’ on Ren bandwagon. BTW, he should’ve taken his helmet off for the first time on the catwalk with dad. BBTW, why does every death star have to have a catwalk over a vast abyss?

4. Oh Where Oh Where Did the Chemistry Go?

Look at these two. You know there’s still a fire burning here.

Maybe if Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher had gone out for a candle-lit dinner a couple times before filming they wouldn’t have seemed like a couple of dead fish in a sack. Han and Chewie still had that ease you love to see when two people “get” each other, but it was no wonder Han and Leia weren’t together any more (even before you-know-what happens to Han). When Leia says, “As much as we fought, I hated it when you left,” she might as well have been saying, “Don’t you have somewhere else you have to be?” And no, age didn’t kill the chemistry. If you think you can’t be old and hot at the same time then you must’ve missed Katherine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier in Love Among the Ruins, or Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin in It’s Complicated.

5. Who’s in Charge Now?

via GIPHY

The Empire? Well how did that happen? Wasn’t the Empire defeated in Return of the Jedi?  Maybe a little backstory to set the political stage would’ve been helpful. ‘Cause if the Empire’s in charge, what’s The FIrst Order trying to accomplish, and if they’re not in charge, why is The Resistance called The Resistance?

So with all these flaws, why does this movie have a place in my heart? Well, that’s a subject for another post, but one reason is:

Doesn-t everyone have one?

First Try Perfection © Mihail Orlov

If only I could spin a perfect yarn as quickly and efficiently as Miss Spider spins her web. Now don’t get me wrong. I can crank out a few thousand words a day just like any other red-blooded writer. Maybe not as many as Rachel Aaron. I still have my day job. But on a good Saturday when The Spouse takes on chauffeur duty and I’m left with My Muse, a cup of tea, and a quiet house, I can hit 3,500- 5,000 words easy.

Mr. Kitty, Writing Muse

Quantity is easy. Quality is hard work.

One of my recent editing endeavors involved rewriting a Young Adult Sci-Fantasy novel from third-person past point-of-view to first-person present and back again. I honestly don’t know which version I like better now, but I can tell you the “new” third-person version is far more intimate and thoughtful simply from going through the process. So painstakingly, for the last few months, I’ve taken a Middle-Grade Dystopian that I wrote a couple years back and I have edited and re-edited, written, revised, and re-written, gutted and reassembled, stacked, unstacked, and re-stacked, until this,

The mess before the magic

Became this,

The middle is looking a little light.

Became this.

The beauty of organization.

First try perfection is definitely not my thing. Revising and editing? That’s when the magic happens. Now enough writing about editing. Time to get the job done.

SOURCE WWW.REDDIT.COM

Spreading holiday cheer is worth the time and expense.

“Christmas cards are a thing of the past.”

“Don’t you care about trees? Send an e-mail.”

“Facebook is the new delivery system. Post your message there. That’s where all your friends and family are anyway.”

“Who has the time? Don’t even bother. They just get thrown away.”

“Postage is expensive. Don’t forget about your carbon footprint.”

I know all the arguments. Hear them, read them more and more every year. According to Eric Garcia at MarketWatch the number of paper cards delivered in 2014 dropped by 30%. But you know what? I like Christmas cards. I like sending them out and I especially like getting them. My name and address handwritten on an envelope is especially cool because (duh, dun, duh) it hardly ever happens! Makes me feel like a kid, oooh something’s in the mail for me and it’s not a freaking adult-world bill. They’re pretty, they’re filled with joy and family pictures and messages of love. They make me feel good.

The Christmas Card Wreath. Now isn’t that festive?

Sure I care about trees. It’s why I hug them regularly, donate money to grow new ones, and take good care of the 400+ year old ones in my yard. My bookshelf honors their sacrifice. Why not send an e-mail instead? Really? Does e-mail make me think of holiday cheer and settling down with a nice, hot cocoa in front of a roaring fire? NO. It makes me think of work, work, work, work, work. I get thousands of e-mails a day, and delete 70% of them. Don’t make me sift through my e-mail to find a link to to your animated Jesus gif. Yes, that’s a thing.

Ah yes, much better than reading e-mail.

What about Facebook? I do put holiday messages from both my family and my company out on Facebook and Twitter. My friends and customers hang out in those places. I hang out in those places. But just like my enjoying a good ebook does not preclude me from enjoying the weight of a solid hardcover in my hands, the sound of a page turning, the smell of fresh print . . . I digress. Anyway, not all of my friends and family use social media. Some are intentionally modern luddites. Yeah, that’s a thing too.

It does take time to find good cards to send, purchase said cards, look up mailing addresses, stuff and address envelopes, pay for and affix stamps, journey to the post office, open the mail slot . . . when you could be doing something else, anything else. Isn’t that the point though? I have chosen to take time away from my daily routine to do this small gesture because I care to do it. I also bribe my children to help. My twelve year old has very nice printing and my ten year old can stick a stamp like nobody’s business. I can get an easy hour of child labor for a couple candy canes.

Once I release those cards into the world if the recipients choose to throw them away, well that’s completely up to them. Free will I say! We like to save ours– especially the pictures– the others will most likely forge a new life cut up and put into some crafty kid’s project. Yes, repurposing Christmas cards is also, a thing.

The price of a stamp has risen! In the grand scheme of spending, a stamp is still pretty cheap. In a society that has no problem handing over $4.65 for a Venti Teavana ® Oprah Chai Tea Latte at Starbucks— Yes. Thing– spending 49 cents on a stamp is a matter of perspective. Got 100 cards to send? Well there’s some real money. That’s when you weigh your priorities. If food on the table, medical care, and heat in the winter top your list, then of course, Christmas cards and Chai Tea Lattes shouldn’t even be on your list. But if you’ve got an entertainment budget that includes The Baby Mop . . . unfortunately, a thing . . . you can splurge on a few stamps.

The dreaded carbon footprint could be holding you back, but you could do what I do: stop at the post office on the way to or from work. You’re out and about anyway. By the way, if your carbon footprint is the reason you don’t go out and about then why on Mother Earth are you using electricity to read this blog? Better yet, get your stamps from your mail person who comes to your house most days and once stamped, put the cards in your mailbox with the flag up. The post office is already doing its part to promote good stewardship.

So, no, I don’t think Christmas cards are a thing of the past. I still send them and receive them with happiness in my heart and I will continue to do so right up until the zombie apocalypse. Not a real thing.

Photos by Karin Blaski © 2015

The checkerboard table. Fun for the whole family, but make no promises as to when this project will be completed.

Okay, okay. I admit I move slowly in the summer. Turtle slow. Any “side” project without a deadline gets put aside so I can meet more immediate needs: running my business, weeding the garden, driving the kids somewhere, writing/revising, making meals, playing Bubble Pop… Then once school starts and the teaching schedule hits full force, I’m lucky if I can scratch out fifteen consecutive minutes to take a shower, let alone work on something non-essential.

Which is why that great light-bulb-moment idea I had in July to turn my square coffee table into a checkerboard took me nearly three months to complete. Truly the only reason I finished is because I needed to clear out the work space in the garage in order to park the van. Once the weather cools all the trees in my yard start vomiting leaves and berries and sap and acorns. Anything left out in the driveway is quickly doused with an autumn explosion of sticky. Starting in October, I had to scrub wipe down my van’s windows before I could see through them to drive. This ten minute morning ritual served as a nice reminder that I needed to get that #$^%!* (special) project done.

So here is my little table painting project, in picture steps, just in case you ever have a square table and some time on your hands. I’m sure you’ll finish much faster than I did.

Step 1: Sand the table so it’s as smooth as . . . [insert appropriate noun here].

The square table, once covered with child graffiti, now sanded to pristine perfection.

Step 2: Using painter’s tape, mask off a border. My table had a built-in border with a groove, so I masked to the inside edge of the groove.

Blue painter’s tape is magic on a cardboard roll. Use it to create clean, straight paint edges.

Step 3: A standard checkerboard is eight by eight squares. The size you choose for your squares will depend on the size of your table. In a perfect world the size of your table will evenly divide by eight. Mine didn’t. It was off by about 1/4″. So I found the center point of the table and with a yard stick and a pencil I divided the table into quadrants, then split those in half, and then half again. As a result my center squares are just a little bit smaller than the ones around the edges, but the difference is so small, no one but you and I will ever know.

Note to self: Pine wood is soft. Don’t press too hard when drawing lines with a pencil as gouges may result. More cursing sanding will ensue.

Step 4: Now here is where I used a lot of painter’s tape. I placed the outside edge of the tape on the outside of what would be the red squares in the first, third, fifth, and seventh columns. To remind myself which squares I planned on painting I marked them with a scrap of tape.

Press the tape down securely so the paint doesn’t seep underneath and ruin your edges.

Step 5: I painted three coats of red, drying at least two hours (to two weeks) between coats. I used a flat finish water-based paint with primer already in the mix. I cleaned the paint brush after each coat (with soap and water) and made sure the paint brush was completely dry before proceeding to the next coat.

Only paint the perfect squares (marked with a scrap of blue tape–pull off the scraps as you paint).

Step 6: When the first set of red squares was finished, I removed the taped edges. Then, I taped again on the outside edge of what would be the red squares running in the second, fourth, sixth, and eighth columns. I repeated the entire process: painting three coats of red, cleaning up and drying between coats. After the last coat of red dried, I removed all the tape, except the outside border (see below).

It’s September and the red squares are done!

Step 7: Now on to the black. I used a flat finish water-based paint and repeated the taping/painting process for the black squares making sure I taped the outside edge each time. I painted the even columns of black squares first, and then the odd. Three coats were used for each square.

When painting, always have your brush strokes go in the same direction as the grain of the wood.

Step 8: After the last coat of black dried, I removed all the tape, except the outside border. Using a yard stick and a black permanent marker (medium chiseled edge Sharpie) I smoothed any rough edges caused by paint seeping underneath the tape.

When the black squares are done, remove the tape. Tidy edges with a black permanent marker.

Note to self: If you leave your project in the garage for more than a month, household members will start putting things on top of it, including the remote control for the TV in the garage. Any flat surface is at risk.

Step 9: I removed the inside border tape and re-taped the outside of the border to protect the red/black grid. Then I painted the border. I used three coats of black.

Step 10: I painted a thin line of silver metallic craft paint into the groove on the inside edge of the border. I used three coats of the silver, a small, thin paint brush, and a steady hand.

Step 11: I applied six coats of a flat polyurethane, drying between coats, lightly sanding with steel wool between the third and fourth coats. I let the last coat of polyurethane cure for one week and brought the table into the house.

Next up, the winter project. Sewing and stuffing red and black checkers. Six red checkers done . . . check back in three months.

Checkers anyone?

Extra tips: Use a paint that already has primer in the mix, otherwise you’ll have to prime the surface before painting. I painted a pine table with knots so coverage was important. You might not need so many coats. Follow instructions on the paint and polyurethane regarding drying times. For example, the polyurethane I used required an extended drying time after the second and fourth coats. Advice from the Home Depot paint guy who sold me the paint: Don’t shake your can of polyurethane. Ever. Always stir. Shaking puts bubbles into the medium which are next to impossible to remove.

Questions about this project? Ask in the comments and I’ll try to help.

Farm Camp Summer 2015

Every summer I sign up my kids for camp. They’ve done hockey camp, horse camp, art camp, clay camp, theater camp, cooking camp, and camping camp. This summer, I packed them off to farm camp at Angelic Organics. I signed up through the Rock Valley College Whiz Kids Program which made the camp more affordable for us. Only then did I realize I’d committed myself to a 50 minute drive there and back, twice a day, every day, for fifteen days. Since chauffeuring is not my favorite summer activity, I wasn’t sure I’d made the best choice. I’m taxi-mama during the school year after all!

Once camp started I completely changed my mind. My daughters started teaching me about sustainable, organic farming. Plus they learned new skills, like how to:

• milk goats
• make butter and ice-cream
• hold a chicken
• collect eggs
• clean coops
• bake zucchini bread
• feed livestock
• can pickles
• groom a horse
• water the cows
• harvest vegetables

They came home smelling like they’d rolled in manure all day, their clothes covered in everything from chicken pee to horse slobber. In short: they had the time of their lives.

Goats love to eat burdock.

Kids love to hold chickens.

The best part? They went to bed early and exhausted.

The drive? Well that’s what audio books are for.

Kroozin Kooler comes when you call!

This summer I had one of those BIG BIRTHDAYS. You know, one of the ones that end in “0”. My kids thought it was a big deal, even if I was in denial. “Who me? I cannot possibly be that old. Must be a clerical error.”

Alas, my mother confirmed, I was indeed that old. She insists she was there at my origination.

After briefly considering accidentally dropping my drivers license into the shredder, I decided to embrace my inner child. What better way than to gorge on ice-cream? And rather than imbibe in the dark, alone, with a quart of double fudge brownie delight and a very large serving spoon, I scheduled the Kroozin Kooler and invited my neighbors to join me.

The Kroozin Kooler?

Yep.

I’m old enough to remember when ice cream trucks drove around the neighborhood twice a week in the summer time. My brother and I would turn off the sprinkler and dash, dripping wet, down the street with hands full of change. Our goal?

The Bomb Pop.

The Bomb Pop

Now that I live in Rockford, I can just call up this local company, Kroozin Kooler and schedule an ice-cream truck to come to my house. My ice-cream lady carries the good stuff too.

Some of the selection

I love this idea. A fleet of ice-cream trucks ready when and wherever you are. I love this company. The drivers are cheery. The trucks are bright and clean. The music is nostalgic. The product is divine and the price fair.

Their website: http://www.kroozinkooler.com/ Their phone number: 815-708-1558 Their event request form: http://www.kroozinkooler.com/event-request.html and Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Kroozin-Kooler-Frozen-Treatz-106807652815/timeline/

You know you want one right? No matter what your age, your orbitofrontal cortex will thank you.

The open road. North Carolina. Photo © Nic Blaski June 2015

Summers are made for road trips. My family and I embarked on our annual road trip to South Carolina in early June. The northern Illinois deep freeze had ended and the ice had finally melted off the highways. Gas prices were at an all time low. Our van hadn’t entirely succumbed to the rust spreading along its once sleek exterior. Why not load up and head out?

Funny how six states seem smaller when looking at them on a map.

Observations (by state) along the way:

1. Illinois has two road conditions: icy or construction.
2. Indiana is a very tall state. Driving from the top to the bottom takes ALL DAY.
3. Kentucky bluegrass is green in June (and not native to Kentucky or even North America BTW)
4. Tennessee is pretty.
5. North Carolina is pretty too. And a fun drive. Hills, turns, tunnels, and falling rock.
6. South Carolinians drive fastest in the rain. Not kidding. Sunshine=fast driving; cloudy=faster driving; raining=fastest driving ever. 90 MPH and they can dodge the drops.

Three days later we arrived at our destination.

North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Photo © Karin Blaski June 2015

Thank you SIRI. Sand, surf, and smorgasboard awaited. We partook. A good time was had by all.

Oh and before I forget, while we were in Myrtle Beach we did this with the kids:

“Aargh Ye Matey ‘Tis A Pirate Ship I See.” Pirates Voyage Dinner & Show, Myrtle Beach, SC, photo © Karin Blaski June 2015

Which was “incredible fun for the whole family” and highly recommended. If you have a ten year old daughter, be sure to splurge on the Pirate Makeover (there’s a Mermaid Makeover if she’d rather not get the five o’clock shadow).

Then, on the way back home, we went here:

The Biltmore Estate, Asheville, NC; photo © Nic Blaski June 2015

Which was amazing enough for its own blog post for a later date.

So another successful road trip came to a close. Three cheers to the 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan which continues to carry us safely from point A to point B and every point between. The only thing that raised a few eyebrows on our trip was this:

SW stands for Sweltering, Photo © Nic Blaski June 2015

It was worth it though when the view looked like this:

North Carolina mountains, Photo © Nic Blaski June 2015

Mother’s Day was a couple weeks ago. Since that day also happens to correspond with my end of the semester grading frenzy, I didn’t get a chance before now to post this lovely poem that my 12-year-old daughter wrote for me:

MOM
a business teacher
a pitch perfect singer
a writer of astonishing books that I love to read
a cook of marvelous foods
AND she cleans like a pro

MOM
a helper with homework
a stay up late worker
She is head shopper for birthdays, Christmas presents and other stuff

MOM
is patient (ish)
stylish
and cool (ish)

But the best thing about my mom is that she loves me
and
that’s the best
I could get.

Irina
2015

Yeah, I cried.

Photograph © Mamz

Nunzio’s Restaurant, Loves Park, IL

It’s been a while since I wrote a “What’s to Like About Rockford” post. During most of 2012-2013 I was in the habit of posting one feature per month about my favorite places unique to the city I’ve called home for the last fifteen years. Rockford tends to get a bit of bad press and since, for the time being, my family has planted our roots here, I thought spreading some optimism was warranted.

So why did I stop writing these feel-good posts? I’m thinking it had something to do with my serving jury duty on a horrific murder trial and listening to the testimony of a dozen or more local police officers. Yes, I admit I was a bit jaded about my home town afterwards. My posting habit was broken.

Yet, there I was at Nunzio’s last Saturday night, enjoying the food, the service, and the conversation with my gal pal about everything writing (she’s one of my critique partners) and everything wedding (she just got married), when I realized, “Hey, I really like this place. I should write about it on my blog.”

So in the spirit of revealing Rockford’s gems rather than ruminating about my beleaguered city, I offer up Nunzio’s as another entry in the “What’s to Like About Rockford” series.

Nunzio’s is a family-owned restaurant that has been in Rockford for over thirty years. Their menu features Italian cuisine from pizza to pasta to pork chops. It was certainly the go-to place last weekend. We had a long table next to us that seemed a bit grim when they were first seated, but they loosened up after a few cocktails, and left in a very good mood right before us a mere 3-1/2 hours later. Prom goers sat at most of the other surrounding tables and there was enough sparkle to steer a ship through a fog bank. In other words, there was an awful lot of this:

Sequins, sequins, everywhere

But the real star of the night was the food. My friend Jen and I both had the famous Steak Sinatra, a char-broiled New York Strip, covered in De Jonghe butter and crumbs, baked in an oven, and then bias cut. It comes in two portion sizes, 14 oz and 20 oz.

Steak Sinatra, the smaller one ;)

One half of this meal for dinner, and the other for breakfast!

If you’ve never been to Nunzio’s you should give it a try and if you haven’t been there in a while, well what’s keeping you? Check out their menu here and their website here.

Photos of Nunzio’s by Karin Blaski; Photo of sparkle © Jessie Eldora Robertson

North Myrtle Beach, S. Carolina

I actually do take a stack of grading to the beach with me. I pull out a report. Start reading.

Is that a dolphin? Oooo it’s two.

Look down and try to find where I left off. Jot down a comment.

Oh look. A gull landed so close I can touch him. “Hey guy. How you doing?”

Look down again. Read the same paragraph.

This would be so much better if I took my shoes off, and you know, squish my toes in the sand.

Set report aside. Take off shoes and socks. Dig feet into sand. Dig for a long while. Pull out report. Read the same paragraph.

Oh the heck with it. I’ll grade on the plane.

A while ago, a friend of mine posted a link on his Facebook page for a mini Myers-Brigg test that would reveal your animal personality. Myself and several FB friends had some fun taking a minute out of the day to conduct our self analysis. And, yes, I am the INTP owl (Introversion, Intuition, Thinking, Perceiving) with the Meerkat as a close second. Funny, yes, since owls eat rodents.

The test that started as a simple distraction got me thinking about characters in story-telling. Using animal comparisons is a fun way to describe a character and his actions, and if you’ve assigned the animal based on the Myers-Briggs, you’ve got a nice tool to focus your efforts.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/summeranne/whats-your-animal-personality-type#.ovblRlDoz

Of course you need to avoid the stereotypical anthropomorphism: The owl who is a professor for example. Or even the zoomorphic counterpart, the owl-like professor. Hmmmmmm.

Photograph © Adrian Jones

YOUR MIND WHILE LISTENING TO A BOOK

I have always loved reading books aloud. When I was a teen I spent an awful lot of time on the phone. Actually talking . . . it was a landline phone. And it was in my room. With unlimited local calling for $17 a month. I held down a few babysitting jobs so I could afford that phone and one of the magical things I did on it was read books, aloud, to my friends.

I know right? I have great friends. They would humor me as I did different voices for all the characters. I remember reading Stephen King’s Night Shift to one friend in particular, story by creepy story, until one night my friend casually asked, “How about you read something that won’t prevent me from sleeping after we hang up?”

Reading aloud continued through my adult years except my new captive audience was my kids. From Sandra Boynton to EB White, I was the one who had a hard time stopping so the kids could finally go to bed. My oldest, bless his heart, let me read the entire Harry Potter series to him, even though the last book was published the year he turned eleven and he was fully capable of reading it on his own. BTW, I do a horrifying Voldemort and a kick-butt Hermione.

Now I have a new reason for reading aloud beyond the entertainment factor: EDITING my own WRITING. There is nothing so powerful as stumbling over your own words to make you realize more polishing is required. Reading aloud forces my mind to slow down and see each and every word. When I read silently, I miss typos, grammar errors, and missing words becuase my mind will fill in the gaps– it just hums along without recognizing I just had my protagonist pee around the corner instead of peek around the corner.

Even better, is listening to someone else read your words to you. My very first novel, the one that garnered me two offers of representation and an agent, was read to me by my son. He would stop and tell me when he didn’t understand something so I could put it into simpler language. I would stop him when I heard a sentence fail and fix it before he went on. It was a great partnership, but alas, he is eighteen now and has a life.

However, I have discovered how to let my computer read my words to me. Granted, my lovely Macbook can’t put the emotional nuance into the words that a human being can, but hearing someone else’s voice (Okay, someTHING else’s voice) read my work back to me continues to be eye opening. And I have become very fond of “ALEX”, especially when he reads one notch above Normal speed.

This is how you do it on a Mac:

1. Open the system preferences
2. In the System grouping, open SPEECH
3. Click on the Text to Speech tab
4. Choose your system voice with the drop down arrow, male or female (I prefer Alex or Kathy depending on if I have a male or female POV)
5. Choose the voice speaking rate
6. Test your choices with the Play button and alter as needed
7. Click the check box for “Speak selected text when the key is pressed”
8. Click the set key button to set up a keyboard command, I use Command + H which means to get Alex talking I press the Command key and the H key on my keyboard at the same time, but you can choose any combination of keys that makes sense for you that isn’t already in use, you know like CTRL + P which sends your work to the printer…
9. Click the OK button
10. X out of the System Preferences window and you’re good to go

Now when you have your book open in Word or Scrivener or whatever program you use, you’ll need to highlight the text to be read (click your mouse button at the top of the passage, hold the mouse button down, drag through the selection, release the mouse button) and then press Command + H.

Oh, make sure your speaker is turned on too!

What are the directions for doing this on a Windows-based computer? Why would you want to write a novel on anything but a Mac?

Photograph © Ruslana Stovner

Taking a bit of a blog break so I have time to enjoy the holidays with my family. I’ll pick up again in January. Wishing you much joy and great reading. See you again next year!

Photograph © Johanna Goodyear

Last year my adult scifi short story DUST was published in the December/January Issue 9 of Plasma Frequency Magazine. If you didn’t get a chance to read it, it’s now available free on the Plasma Frequency Magazine Website.

Just click on the link http://www.plasmafrequencymagazine.com/Issue9/I9S5_Blaski.html and enjoy!

Plasma Frequency Magazine, Issue 9, December 2013/January 2014

Recently a fellow writer asked for me to share my writing playlist, which for those “in the know” is the music soundtrack or score that we writers listen to while writing. It’s the music that sets the tone, or evokes a mood, that we can use to help write a scene. Not to be confused with a playlist we might assign to a novel or story once it’s complete. Or a playlist we might assign to a particular character to showcase that character’s tastes.

I’m pretty particular about the music I listen to while I’m actually putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard, mostly because I get distracted by heavy beats and lyrics. I need music that can run in the background of my subconscious, otherwise I’ll spend too much time listening to the music, and not writing.

So with that in mind, my writing playlist includes but is not limited to:

George Winston, Enya, Sade, Yoko Kanno, Loreena McKennit, Secret Garden, Aaberg-Friesen-Silverman, John Barry’s Out of Africa soundtrack, Elisa, R. Carlos Nakai, Ludovico Elnaudi, and Brian Crain.

This is a completely different set of artists than who I listen to while I’m grading; a post left for another day.

Happy writing.

Photograph © Alptraum