Foraging

I've posted about my foraging trips many times before. There is a surprising amount of food along our highways and byways. Today was all about gathering something up.

We made a drive last night, three large reservoirs provide a lot of scenic shoreline. It was bright and hot. The air conditioner was well appreciated in my truck. Before we left, I grabbed this photo.

Several of you asked for a shot of the hammered copper hatband my brother made me. After I monkeyed with it, there is some shiny, some aged, and just a tiny bit of green patina. I wanted more green, but the clear coating turned most of it dark.

We spotted a surprising amount of both wild and feral fruit. I keep bags in my truck at all times for just such an event. We pulled over and filled a tiny mesh bag with beautiful blackberries right before the monsoon started. In fact right now, I'm sitting under the awning in the middle of another thunderstorm. I have my prickly pear lemonade beside me. If the awning retracts, I'm making a run for it.

We stashed our blackberries and finished our drive in the rain, making notes of what we spotted and where. We saw deer everywhere. This young mule deer buck stopped long enough for a quick photo. It's one of my crappy iPhone snaps, but you can see his small velvet covered antlers.

We spotted wild elderberries, choke cherries, plums, hawthorns, and the blackberries. I call the other stuff feral, because it isn't native, but there are quite a few loaded apple trees, and for the first time ever apricots. These likely originated from someone's discarded pit or apple core. It's too early for apples, choke cherries, and elderberries. It ought to be too early for wild plums, but it isn't. It ought to be too late for any apricots, but there are some decent ones left.

I learned my lesson long ago about taking home baskets full of this stuff. A jar of jelly is nice, as is the occasional bottle of syrup. Beyond that, I enjoy a few and leave the rest.

I'm intimately familiar with the tiny golden plums. Today I found a red variety I've never seen before. We're on the Oregon border, so it's a bit outside my usual orbit. The red ones looked like cherries, but cherries usually come on a monstrous tree. I thought they might be someone's feral pie cherrie. Nope, plums.

These things are like tiny balls of sugar, with a pit inside. I have to remind myself that the genus is prunus, and they effect me the same was as prunes. Still, a few make me happy. I grabbed a snack sized portion of everything that was ripe.

We stopped at a marina and bought a pint of vanilla ice cream. Those blackberries are headed there. The rest are snacks. Wild fruit isn't green grocer beautiful, and if you want perfect you should stick to your favorite market. It tastes wonderful, and if you're cooking with it, you probably won't care.

I could have filled my truck bed with this stuff, but why? A few snacks are enough for me. If I want a few more, they are waiting on the tree.

I wonder how hard it is to make an Asian plum sauce while camping. Could be the makings of a fun meal sometime.

 

Weekend winding down

My wife decided she wanted to watch the Women's World Cup game. We haven't watched soccer since the last Olympics, but what the heck.

I didn't manage any editing this weekend, and I also didn't work on any short stories. I really wanted to work on short stories.

My son is working in Nevada. We had our daughter-in-law and the kids over last night. All the adults got a small lobster tail, and a large king crab leg. We rounded it out with potato salad and Mexican corn on the cob. The girls picked up some fireworks and we participated in the neighborhood volly to celebrate the 4th.

Some things you just have to do. I can't write all the time. Still, I managed to write out some blog posts and send them to others. I don't have all the dates, but I'm going to be popping up here and there. I also have another guest appearing here this week.

I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to post the PDF images of the paper dolls on WordPress. In the end, I decided to post links to the printable files, and images of what they look like. I really enjoyed this project, and it looks like quite a few people clicked on the PDF files. It would be cool to see a photo of your paper doll wherever you might be. I'll be content when I see Lisa on the International Space Station. Maybe Vanessa-Jane Chapman can have her jumping out of a cake, or something.

This page with the paper dolls also required a post to talk about what the heck I was doing. This post is less than a half dozen “likes” from making it into my top ten posts of all time. I would really appreciate those half dozen likes if some of you have the time. My top ten get read regularly, and they are a decent introduction to what you might find on my blog. In any case, the page with the downloads will remain.

I spent a little quality time on a beta read for a friend, but I have more to do. I also worked up my critiques for the group meeting tomorrow night.

The outlines all creeped ahead in one fashion or another. I have a few months to tinker with them, so they aren't as urgent.

My brother made me a hammered copper hatband for the cowboy hat I bought in Jackson. I spent a couple of weeks letting it patina, but didn't like the look. I touched it up with a little 2000 grit sandpaper and it came alive. The green color remained in the deep hammer marks, and the polished copper held the high parts. I sprayed it with a clear coat, so it wouldn't continue to patina and stain my hat. All the green turned black upon contact with the clear coat. Nothing I can do about it, but it still looks pretty good.

That was my weekend. Some productivity, maybe it could have been more. We're camping next weekend, so I don't know if I'll get anything accomplished. There could be catfish involved, so that's a plus.

How was your weekend? Is anyone out there writing, promoting, researching?

Putting New Work out There

I’m going to try an experiment. I’m going to talk about some television shows, and try to draw conclusions for novelists. This may not work, but I’m going to try it. I’m choosing television, because more of us are likely to have seen the same show than read the same book.

Besides, it isn’t nice to call out a novel, which is the work of one stressed out author. Television is a team event, and it feels safer.

The idea is that new work has to meet certain landmarks. The idea is to keep me interested. This feels the same whether it’s a program or a novel.

One caveat. I’ve made plenty of mistakes. Any of you who read Wild Concept probably noticed a few. I’m not perfect, but I can still talk about this stuff. I’m a sucker for Science Fiction, Paranormal, and Fantasy. These shows all fit that bill in one form or another.

Sleepy Hollow is our first show. Ichabod Crane is resurrected in modern times. He’s the only live character in the show that wears clothing from the 1700s. He’s a nice looking white fellow with a pony tail. His modern day partner is Abby. She’s an attractive black girl. Oh, and the main bad guy doesn’t have a head.

Ichabod and Abby have a cute relationship. He’s way out of date, and as she helps him there is a nice, nearly romantic, tension that gets my approval. There are a few funny bits woven into a darker story line. Most of the lighter parts take place in broad daylight, and the dark stuff happens at night. You would think this would be pretty obvious.

For the novelist here are the points I appreciate. I can tell the characters apart. Black girl, white guy, no head – got it. Nice mix of light and dark, in more ways than one. I like Abby and Ichabod. I will go out of my way to watch this next year.

Authors don’t have the ability to use those kinds of visuals, but we have an advantage too. At least every page or two, we have to write “Ichabod said.” Pretty hard to get lost or confused. We can weave in light and dark moments, along with light and dark settings. The trick is to make our readers like the characters they’re supposed to cheer for.

I don’t give up on a book, program, or movie easily. I used to watch a show called Copper. I gave it about three episodes and quit. The stories were pretty good. I had a hard time keeping the characters straight. They all talked alike, refused to shave, dressed alike, and the actors looked alike. After about the fifth time asking “Which one was that?” I was finished.

Writers can give our characters some quirks. As long as our names are distinct, we won’t have much problem. If needed, one of them can go everywhere with a toothpick or something.

Almost Human is a decent bit of science fiction. It involves a white male cop, John, who has a prosthetic leg. His partner, Dorian, is a black cyborg. These guys bust on each other like actual people. They aren’t marionettes simply following a plot. They each have a quirk that makes them slightly less than everyone else. John is a grouchy old school kind of guy. Dorian is high tech and does some surprising things. Great sci-fi effects here too.

As a writer, putting opposites together might be a good idea. There’s a stress between John and Dorian, but they have a common goal too. They’re willing to go some crazy places with the stories. When Dorian scanned John’s balls it was hilarious. I like these guys too. Likable characters, I want to watch more.

Turn is a new show. It’s about an American spy ring during the American Revolution. The characters are distinct enough. Abe looks vaguely like Tom Hiddleston. It’s easy to tell him from the others. The settings are mostly gloomy, even in daylight. I’ve never seen anyone happy in this show ever. It’s pretty easy to tell that the Americans are the good guys and the British are the bad guys.

Abe ratted out some redcoats. The only one that needed to die, survived. He’s in American hands, but it’s all over for Abe if this redcoat escapes. This particular redcoat is an asshole. This works for me. Tell me who not to like.

There are good points and bad points to this one. Abe has a wife and son. We’ve seen him philandering with the local tavern owner lady. This doesn’t exactly make me cheer for him. It was three episodes before they told me that two brothers were both engaged. Abe was verbally engaged to the tavern lady. His brother, in writing to the other woman. When Abe’s brother died. Abe married his brother’s fiancé to honor the contract. Things like this actually happened in the 1700s.

They needed to tell me this earlier. I wasn’t exactly endeared to Abe when he was unfaithful to his wife and son. I might have turned away and never learned the truth. This story line brings a nice tension, particularly when the wife gave her approval to the tavern lady.

As a writer, I think it’s important to define the villain and the hero PDQ. If everyone sucks, readers might look elsewhere. I’ll give this one a couple more episodes, but I’m not sure.

Salem premiered last night. This looks at the Salem witches as if witchcraft were real. John Alden is obviously the hero here, I just don’t like him. He left his love, Mary to go fight Indians. he didn’t return for seven years. Go figure, Mary married someone else. There is a plausibility problem here for me.

This guy left for seven years, never wrote, and walks in like nothing changed. Mary is the main witch now, of course. Everyone scowls, everyone’s dirty, and everyone’s violent. (Okay, Mary seems to stay clean, and she’s always in black.) I have no reason to like a single person in this show. There is a redhead girl with a charming smile. She’s the only character that smiled in a whole hour. She’s a third tier character, and I’m cheering for her.

They could have taken 30 seconds to show Alden doing something nice. Lift a kid up to pick an apple, pet a dog, something. Lots of scowls, dirt, and grumbling from Alden instead. On the plus side, there were some cool special effects. This includes the coolest place to hide your toad familiar I’ve ever seen.

Not only do the characters need to establish who they are, the concept needs to have some degree of reality. Seven years, and Alden expected Mary to wait for him? He didn’t even write. I’ll give it a few more episodes.

So as a writer, I want to define who the hero is, and who the villain is. I want the characters to be different from each other. I want to use a contrast between light and dark, both in mood and setting. I don’t want to base part of my story on something that isn’t realistic. I also don’t want to withhold some important information that might cause someone to give up on my story. If I can include a bit of humor, so much the better.

So how many pages do I have to accomplish all this? I’m guessing about twenty. I think there’s a need to establish something on every page up to that point. What do the real experts have to say about this?