Happy 2016!

I know, I know, I'm a week late :)

Forgive me?

My right arm (the more dominant one) has been slightly 'out' of the rotary cuff for approximately 7 weeks, which makes typing quite painful, so I've been limiting my computering (yes, that is totally a word in my dictionary :p) to the essentials.

AAAAAAAAND, since my last post, there's been a lot of essential computering :)

Today/this weekend I'm hoping to finish the last fiddly bits of editing (3rd round! So fun!) on TRoRS before it's "done".

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that... like, one small part of my brain tells me, "hey, this is a big deal, you should be freaking out or jumping around or something..." and the rest of my brain goes, "yeah, but SELKA & SIKKA, and JAY & KELL, and... and... and OTHER STORIES THAT I WANT TO WRITE!!!!!"

...and then I start watching documentaries on the Arctic Circle and make notes on things like white sturgeons* and the hibernation cycle of ground squirrels...

...Oh yeah, I have managed to restrain myself from starting the story that is not a story yet. It's still locked in a small corner of my brain because it will take a CRAZY amount of research so I can get things right and not piss anyone off.

(The 'shoe' story)

...and I'm not sure if 'the shoe story' would be considered YA because it does involve the world history of alcohol...

I am absolutely going to finish 'Afraid of the Dark' & 'Scarlight' before I start anything new. And, I would LIKE to re-work/finish the MG story I started writing, 'Left & Right'. I stopped because I wasn't confident that the voice of it was MG, but this year I've read several really excellent MG books written in a slightly more mature voice which gives me a boost of confidence that I can pull this off.

Other things I've been up to... Oh, I donated my hair again! Last time was 2 years ago, so.... yeah, I did link a picture here. One of the very few pictures of me online... Generally, when it's cut off, it looks similar to that linked picture. Longer at the front, about 1-2" long at the back, (because they pull it into a ponytail, tie it off, and then cut, so you get a reverse-bob) but THIS time, my usual stylist was out of town and... let's just say, I am NOT inclined to post a picture until it grows out. When it's straight, it looks suspiciously... mushroom-shaped... so I've been letting it just go all crazy/curly, and the first thing my nephew said was... that I look like a sheep.

Nice thing is, I have a large collection of hats I can hide it under ;)

Best part about short hair? It looks insane in the morning! Like, I stayed at my parent's place Christmas Eve and everyone started killing themselves laughing when I walked into the kitchen on Christmas morning... it defies gravity and I kinda love that :p

So, other exciting things for 2016?

Hmmmm, I'm planning a trip to Montreal at the end of May (which might now involve meeting an online writing buddy for the first time ever!!!). The next internationally-attended PAC (Porcelain Artists of Canada) Convention is there, and thankfully, since it's on the other side of the country, I have not been involved with the planning/running of the convention :) If you recall, the 2014 convention that was in Vancouver pretty much sucked up a year of my time since I started out JUST handling all the registrations, then got asked to handle more and more responsibilities until I ended up as Vice-Chair. It was fun, I enjoyed it, but I didn't get to see any of the workshops because I was running around the whole time.

And speaking of PAC, and responsibilities, something similar has happened in that, after the 2014 convention, I got asked to help out with the photoshop work for the magazine, which snowballed into doing ALL the photoshopping, then taking care of the national website, and now I'm the Membership Director for the 2016-2018 term, which means I'm in charge of all the Provincial & International reps and handle all the membership stuff that they send me and compile/organize it all.

It's fun, I like the work, but I do need to learn to say 'no'. I'm probably just going to take on the position for the one term so I can re-do all the old forms/organizational stuff that they've been using for years, and set up a PayPal account so it's easier for International members to pay, 'cause right now, it's all done by cheque.

Generally, that's what I'm good at. Taking things apart and making them more efficient. It's a dyslexic-advantage ;)

...and probably why I often get asked to help on various projects like that.

(all joking aside, it's really flattering that they like me, and the work I do, to this extent)


Hmmmm, I was going to post something on my Bailiwick site when I got my new place all done/organized, and haven't done that yet because I've decided I want to do some more renovations. Some I'm going to do myself... like, I'm going to put stone around the fireplace, and all the way up to the ceiling. As part of that project, I am going to visit this place and get some cool wood to build shelving, and maybe rip out the existing tiled mantle & put wood there. Or I might do some framing/drywalling first... we'll see.

I also want to build a.... very unique lighting system/design feature that's going to involve cutting down a couple small trees on my parents' property (yes, I have permission, this won't be something I do under cover of darkness). I have thoughts on the actual lights too... remember how I played with coating actual maple leaves in resin? They were meant to be throw-away experiments, but 2 years later, the leaves haven't rotted and still hold their green colour. Anyways... let's just say resin & paper & leaves might play a part in the design for the lights ;) Oh, and maybe origami? We'll see :) Experimentation is the spice of life :)

One reno I may hire-out for is, I eventually want to remove the crappy laminate flooring from the ground floor AND the carpet from the upstairs and I'm thinking about a heated resin floor for the ground level, and that's not something I can put in myself. I know, I've researched it ;)

But, that's a design-choice I'm not 100% sure if I like or not. Would love an excuse to rip out the existing baseboard heaters because I wouldn't need them with in-floor heating, and it's super durable (with my crazy beagle tearing around) and it's super clean/modern... but maybe TOO clean/modern. I may go the opposite direction and put in distressed hardwood flooring, which I could do myself.


And a couple smaller things, I'm planning at least one snowboarding trip (end of Feb), and will definitely be up at the cabin as soon as possible... maybe late March, early April (yes, yes, I WILL avoid accidentally-on-purpose giving myself hypothermia again) because it's my absolutely favourite place in the world to write :)


So, those are a few things I'm excited about in this coming year :) How about you guys?



* By the way, there's kindof a funny white sturgeon thing... Another story idea that is not yet a story involves a white sturgeon, and a white sturgeon shows up (briefly) in AotD... so a writing buddy of mine joked that I should write "The Great Sturgeon Tales"... maybe do another one set in South America or something.

...so, kinda like how a character with a 'J' name always shows up in my stories... or vomit jokes... or cat references... or... or... uhh, yeah. I will seriously not start putting white sturgeons in all my stories, I promise.

Weird thoughts, story ideas, & insomnia

I go through random bouts of insomnia which are almost always fuelled by too much information packed into my brain.

It generally happens after I've spent a concentrated amount of time devouring books or watching an eclectic/unrelated horde of documentaries.

Last night, my brain linked up "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea", "1001 Nights", "Jaws", and a some random fable/tale I vaguely recall, but don't know the origin of, involving whales... and one of the flash fiction snippets I wrote last year on my Skullduggery site.

Me thinks this means my brain is tired of edits and is stretching its muscles in preparation for new writing.

Me also things I am insanely tired this morning and 2 cups of coffee is merely lubricating my creaking neurones, not actually jump-starting them.

...and this is also probably why my story ideas are often a little off the beaten path.

...like Project #7, the "shoe story" involving a consignment store, world mythology, alcohol, and magic shoes.

I'm not sure which is weirder.

But for now, I think I'll stick this new strange idea into a dark corner of my head and let it sit there for a while, either to fade-out, or to gobble up new ideas/thoughts until it's a behemoth that demands it be written.

Starting to feel like normal :)

Well, since the court-date has passed and it seems like everything is on track for my divorce to finalize in June, I feel like things are starting to get back to normal and I don't have to censor my online life anymore.

SO, pages (at the top) are up again, as well as the ability to navigate old posts via archive & labels are back...

And a couple new things have been added:

One of the reasons my blogging has been a little less... frequent is because I've been dipping a proverbial toe into the twitter-universe.

Best/worst part about it? Having actual evidence of the number of dyslexic errors I make since I don't have the ability to really edit, unlike here :) You're welcome to come laugh at me :D

Also, I sortof put up a small website. Still playing around with what I want. I was going for a look that suits my personality... laid back, a little bit silly/fun, but all relevant information is accessible & clear.

Suggestions/corrections are always welcome :)


Well, that's what I've been doing... how about you? Anything new/interesting to report?


...I know one of my long-time buddies is graduating today!

CONGRATS, J!!!

Time to take over the world with your giant, beautiful brain :D

Descriptions of colour, and a runaway tangent about eggs

Okay, now this is hilarious...

Now I'm curious to go back through old stories/writing and see if I've used any weird food references...

Since I'm not big on physically describing characters, the only story I can think of with (potentially) problematic descriptions is SCARLIGHT, but since I have decided on a pallet of colours for him to see the world in, if I have fallen prey to any food-comparisons, at least finding a substitute will be easy :)

Personally (in that linked article) I was hoping for a description using uncooked egg whites as a comparison... which, I feel, are one of the more disgusting things a person could eat. Actually, eggs in general I find a little creepy.

By the way, did you know that blood can be used as a substitute for eggs? Seriously... this IS going to end up in a story someday... I've been toying with AotD as an appropriate medium...

And yes my head is full of weird facts. This makes me useless at 'proper' small talk, yet it's incredibly useful at driving away people I don't want to have a conversation with.

Really? You want to tell me about the latest celebrity-fad-high-protein-diet you're on? Well, let me tell you an interesting fact about eggs and blood...

Works every time ;)

Quick change

FYI, I changed the 'comment' settings because I was getting 300+ spam comments every day.

If you're having any problems commenting, please email me and I'll switch them back.

1000th(dot)monkey(at)gmail(dot)com

I don't have bad habits...

...I have idiosyncratic character traits.


During this past month, I've gone through the archive of posts and done something I've been planning to do for a while, but had never gotten around to:

Yup, it took a while.

Some stuff is still there, like when I did a series of nerdy posts last summer as kind of a 'this is how/why I write first-drafts the way I do', and I left all the flash fiction and (the long extinct) Six Sentence Sunday stuff since that particular story (Project #2/aka Simon's Oath) will be heavily rewritten when I get around to it.

One of the small reasons this took me so long to do was my arm was so bad there was no way I could hold a pen/pencil, and I wanted to post a fun little image as a consolation prize, like the Dead Monkey Day pic, and a few others I've posted.

As part of my re-hab/physio, I'm now at the stage where I'm 'allowed' to either write (with a pen) or draw for 1/2 hour every day to re-strengthen the muscles and get the blood flowing since my nerves are no longer as restricted.

...and since even I can't read my own handwriting, it makes a lot more sense for me to draw silly cartoons instead of scrawling out pages of unreadably scratchy sentences. They'll probably appear sporadically on Bailiwick in the future, and they won't involve more than 10 minutes of cleaning up/throwing colour on in Photoshop. These are very basic sketches. More for practice at controlling my hand than anything.


As a fun little fact, though it's nearly impossible to read, the text in the image is from a fairy-tale I wrote, which was part of the mythology of Project #1 (the 'near-pemanently-retired' trilogy that was so incredibly dark I found it suffocating to work on).

And yup, my hair is getting pretty long, actually it's nearly touching my shoulders. It was only an inch long at the back when I donated it back in November, and was about nose-level at the front. Since it's past chin level now, I guess it's grown about 5+ inches?

Questions that might make interesting prompts

What is the most tactful way of answering the question, 'what is it about me that drives people to drink?'

How does a retired spy make out in assisted living? Bridge, cribbage, or bingo? Would telling true stories about pre-retired life be taken as senility?

Would a gambling addict do the least damage in pharmaceutical development, money management, or the government?

If time really is money, what currency would it be? Personally, at today's rates, I hope it'd be the British pound.

I get why the old woman swallowed the spider to catch the fly, and swallowed a cat to catch the bird, but why would she swallow a cow to catch the goat, since both are herbivores?

If you're dehydrated too much water can also make you lose electrolytes, but you're supposed to drink half a gallon per day, although more than a gallon is dangerous because it washes out all the salt in your body and causes water intoxication, isn't it safer to stop drinking coffee and hard liquor altogether and just stick to beer which is approximately 92% water, so it both dehydrates you and rehydrates you at the same time?*




*Train of thought not at all influenced by the fact that today is St. Paddy's Days and I'm 1/2 Irish...