7/30/2007

Mm, mm -- now that's Writin' Rations™

Date Pecan Bread
  • One packet/envelope of yeast
  • Two, maybe two-and-a-half cups (or so) of filtered or bottled or otherwise non-chlorinated water, just warm to the touch
  • Two cups (or so) of whole-wheat flour
  • Three cups (or so) of plain white flour
  • A teaspoon of salt
  • Two or three tablespoons of sugar
  • A cup of chopped pecans
  • Two cups of chopped dates

Combine the water, salt, sugar, yeast, and one cup of the white flour in a big bowl (terra cotta or the like is better than metal; if you're using terra cotta/ceramic, you might want to warm the bowl first with some boiling water for two or three minutes, then dump the water into whatever dishes you're soaking in the sink -- no need to waste it).

Stir the stuff in the bowl gently, and then let it sit for about 10 minutes.

Add everything else and knead it with abandon for about 10 minutes. (I just leave the lump in the bowl and knead it right there -- much less messy.) If it's tough and crumbly, add water by the tablespoon (or cautious splash); if it's gooey and can't hold its shape, add flour (either more whole wheat or more white, or alternate them) by the half-cup.

No, really. The ten minutes aren't up yet. Keep kneading.

All right. Now cover the big bowl (foil, plastic wrap, lid, whatever). No matter what everyone says, there is no real need to coat the lump of dough with oil. That just makes it, the bowl, and your hands slimey, and who wants that?

Let it sit for TWO HOURS. Yes. Two hours. I never said this was fast food.

Form it into a loaf on a baking sheet (I find the use of baking paper makes detaching the loaf from the sheet when it's done much, much easier).

Put the bread in the TURNED-OFF oven (or a similarly draft-free place) for ANOTHER HOUR.

Take the bread OUT and start pre-heating the empty oven to about 175C or 350F, although precision of temperature is not mission-critical. Just somewhere in that neighborhood is fine.

Bake the bread until it's quite, quite brown and makes a slightly echoing tonk when you tap the top with your fingertip.

Let it sit for 15 minutes or so on a cooling rack before you slice it.

The very, very best thing to do with this bread is to put butter on it while it's still warm from the oven. The bread, that is, not the butter, why would you put butter in the oven?

Note: If you have a bread machine, you can use that to do the mixing and kneading. But bake it in the oven, on a baking sheet, in a beautiful I-made-this shaped loaf.

7/27/2007

Extreme squealing!

"The Salad of Success", my short play, has been selected for production as part of Wollongong Workshop Theatre's Workshorts 2007 program! Eeee! Eeeee!

My goodness, I just looked at the production dates, and the first night of the program is my birthday! Wouldn't it be COOL if my play was on that first night -- a premier on my birthday!

So many exclamation points!

7/26/2007

Clichés and what to do about them

The remarkable blog 101 Reasons to Stop Writing has a more-than-usually remarkable entry on clichés. The entry includes not only a rather well-written rant, but a list of sites where you can, masochistically, look up all sorts of clichés and moan in shame because you recognize them all, all, from your own oeuvre.

Self-knowledge is a painful, yet precious, thing....

7/17/2007

Oldies are goodies (particularly when they're free)

Project Gutenberg has The Island of Doctor Moreau available for free. I realized I'd never actually read the original, and it's a short work, tolerable to read on-line. There's a reason some stories become classics of spec fic. Moreau was creepy, action-packed, full of wonderful turns of phrase, and laden with things to ponder about the nature of, well, human nature.

I have a desperate fondness for that stilted, Victorian-style of adventure story. Something, perhaps, about the contrast between the extraordinarily careful language and the wild goings-on in mysterious colonial outposts where different systems of perception war for supremacy. Or maybe they're just cracking good reads.

I should mention that our State Emergency Service headquarters is a hundred yards or so from the municipal dog pound, and every once in a while one dog in extremes of grief will set the whole place howling. Last night was one of those nights, and I, being in the midst of reading Moreau, found it more than usually disturbing.

7/15/2007

I LOVE this!

Interactive street literature in real time and real space. I absolutely love this.

7/13/2007

Wistfulness

Right now, what I'd like to be doing more than anything, anything, anything is to sit down in a nice brewpub at a table that can magically accommodate all my worldwide friends and we can all still hear each other, and drink lots of very fine beer and have lots of very fine conversation for many, many, many hours and, again magically, nobody would have to drive home because there would be jinns on magic carpets who would take us all home and make sure we were warm and safe to drift off into a beer-calmed sleep and nobody would have a hangover the next day.

Wouldn't that be nice?

7/11/2007

Colbert University

Colbert University

I'm studying hard; you can too! ("Truth comes from the soul, not from books." Words to live by.)

Need more info? Official show site and main fan site. There's also a Colbert site for Catholics.

(Note to those who have not yet joined the Colbert Nation: there are two Stephen Colberts: the character, and the actor who plays him. A subtle but profound distinction.)

7/10/2007

Dark night of the authorial soul

Don't ask.

7/08/2007

Tea is a transcendent thing.

Enlightenment involves cradling a mug of hot tea on a chilly, gray day. I haven't reached enlightenment yet, but I'm sure I'm closer with the tea. I know this because I feel like I want to write some more, which can only mean progress toward satori.

I had to put the tea down to type this. So if you'll excuse me....

7/06/2007

I done bought me a domain name.

And I done put up a web site. Not much there yet, but it makes me feel like a Real Writer™.

For those who wish to go see, it's at (predictably) lauragoodin.com.

7/05/2007

Back to the mystery/adventure novel

Since I've just finished a story and sent it and another piece out to seek their respective fortunes, I gritted my teeth and took up my mystery/adventure novel after a hiatus of many months. I thought it would be painful, largely because I was embarrassed at letting the novel languish for so long, and facing one's inadequacies is always gruelling. But even though I didn't write much today, it wasn't nearly as humiliating to get back to it as I had feared. The Writing Demons scurry from the light like cockroaches.

7/04/2007

Milk-snorter from LeGuin

Reportage of the death of genre fiction seems to be premature, according to the remarkable British SF newsletter Ansible. (For the record, I spotted this at Talking Squid. Also for the record, I used to read Granta absolutely every month.)

Hm. I'm dubious about the wisdom of this.

From the semi-horse's-mouth Doctor Who news feed:
"The official BBC Doctor Who website has announced that comedienne and actress Catherine Tate, who guest starred in the 2006 Christmas episode The Runaway Bride, is to return to the role of Donna Noble as a full-time companion of the Doctor throughout the fourth series of Doctor Who in 2008."

I wasn't real thrilled with that character. Ah, well, I wasn't sure Tennant would be as good as Eccleston, and I was quite soundly proven wrong on that one. Perhaps all will be well.

I think I may possibly be investing this with too much meaning.

7/02/2007

I guess there is such a thing as a good rejection.

Received from an editor today:

"While the story amused us on the first read through, the more we thought about it, and on second reads, it just wasn't as satisfying. We hope you find a good home for it, though, and we would love to see more from you."

The good news is, my writing made it past the first cut to their full editorial board. And they "would love to see more from [me]".

Alas, the bad news is, they still didn't buy my story. But maybe the next one....