Finishing

Though I failed to meet my goal last year of getting better at finishing stories, I think I learned something from the year-end push.

January Collards

My New Year’s collards harvest was a little late this year, but here it is. There was just enough bare ground to walk on to get up the hill and reach that big collard plant under the pear tree. As I climbed, I’m afraid I didn’t see any of the other plants poking out.

Irregular blog is irregular

I see it didn’t take very long for me to miss a day. The best part about forgetting to post is that I get to talk about it the next day, so it’s actually a twofer. Then I predict that I will continue to forget occasionally. Now we’re up to a three-bagger. Best of all, […]

What to nominate?

It’s time to think about Hugo nominations again. When I look over my notes here, I see three stories from 2010 that I liked: “Stereogram of the Gray Fort, in the Days of Her Glory,” “The Red Bride,” and “Iteration.” It’s a while since I’ve really fallen in love with a story, and longer since […]

Lair of the Cave Mouse

So that’s what the evil cat has been staring into — an ice cave just the right size for a mouse. There’s even a couple of leaves to curl up on and stay dry and a carpet of sunflower seed shells. Must have been quite a feast in there. But where’s the mouse? And how […]

Three recipes

This essay by Mark Bittman has me thinking about how I learned to cook. He suggests three basic recipes — the stir-fry, lentils and rice, and chef’s salad — as three basic ways of fixing a meal that lead to endless variation. While I find the actual recipes totally not the way I would make […]

Looking forward in 2011

As I mentioned before my overall writing goal for 2010 didn’t work out so well: I actually finished fewer stories in 2010 than I did in 2009. I got distracted by my desire to let my writing loosen up and express a bit of humor. I love it when a story can get me to […]

Collards alive!

What’s that up on the hill? You know, the green clump at the foot of the pear tree with the plastic grocery bag caught in its scrawny branches. Could it be?

Hopping John on New Year’s Day

I first encountered black-eye peas years and years ago, when a housemate introduced us to the custom of eating Hopping John, or black-eye peas with ham hocks and rice, on New Year’s Day. Aside from the inherent virtue of such a simple dish, I was amazed at how good beans can taste. I’m still amazed […]

Looking back on 2010

My overall writing goal for 2010 was to get better at finishing things. And yet somehow, I didn’t quite say so when posted my goals here. Instead I listed the stories I wanted to finish. Of those, I finished and sold(!) the “Evolutionary Just-So” story, the story with “something wonderful hidden in it” held on […]