Travel Kitchens and Cooking Withdrawal.

Every time I eat an apple, I’m reminded how much I enjoy apples and how rarely I eat them. It’s kind of bizarre, honestly.

It occurs to me that the same is often true, for me, of cooking. As I’ve mentioned before, I really hated cooking as a kid & refused to let my mother teach me how. I’m sure that’s the root of this oddball behavior of forgetting how much I enjoy cooking.

Well, let’s be honest, that and the fact that sometimes my house after a cooking binge looks like these photos. Or worse.

And, in further honesty, everything in that post about really tasty food “out.”

But, it turns out, I get antsy with not enough time in the kitchen. I hadn’t really realized that before the last couple of days.… Continue reading →

Updates!

So, here it is the middle of December and I didn’t even tell you all what happened in November. My apologies. Basically, after going so freaking hard in November I crashed, hard, in December.

I’m only just resurfacing, frankly. The shortened days always do a number on me, and it’s been a bit of an odd year overall. But I’m starting to come back up and I realized I should give you all the updates I can think of.

First, I did complete/”win” NaNoWriMo. The goal being 50,000 words in 30 days and I got a bit over 53,000 words. Unfortunately or fortunately, I’m not sure which, this wasn’t in any way the end of the story. So, I kept writing into December a few days, until the aforementioned crash.… Continue reading →

Beer and My Better Half

Hello, everyone. I hope those of you who are celebrating Thanksgiving today are having a great one. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, largely because the point is to be joyous and grateful. To remember what we have in life. Thus, when I got this guest post today from Jeremy over at Subbeerbia about meeting his wife, I realized it was the perfect story for today. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Considering the circumstances of the household where I grew up, the fact that beer, homebrewing, and the industry surrounding them have become such an important part of my life is quite astounding. I won’t get into the details here since I plan to discuss this topic at length elsewhere, but I was raised by a father who abhorred alcohol in any form.… Continue reading →

Holy Cow. I’m Ahead.

Yesterday, I said I didn’t expect to write today. And I surprised myself. I wrote.

Not only did I write, I wrote over 3,000 words today. Just a few over, but still. That’s a lot of words.

Most of them will likely be cut whenever I get to editing this bear. But, hey, that’s fine. Until I wrote them, I had nothing to edit. So, overall, I’m doing better than expected. By a great deal.

I also said this is more than a 50k word story. It really is. I’m over halfway to that goal and just reaching the first major turning point in my plot. The only turning point I’ve planned. From here, I have to follow where my characters lead me. I suspect it’s going to be both fun and miserable, in turns.… Continue reading →

Caught Up.

Well, I promised to keep you guys updated with anything major, and here it is. I’m no longer behind. As of this writing, I’m 35 words ahead.

Tomorrow is Festival of Barrel Aged Beers, so I don’t expect to stay ahead, as I don’t expect to write tomorrow. But at least I won’t be 5k words behind by the end of tomorrow.

The other major development is that it’s abundantly clear this story needs more than 50k words. So, come December, I’m going to have to cut back the pace on the novel a hair so as to catch up with the rest of life. Like this blog! But my hope, at this point, is to have had so much written on the novel that I’ll be unable to stop, even if I’m not tormenting myself with word counts.… Continue reading →