First Cup of Coffee - April 9, 2019

Talking a bit today about the advice in writing "if occurs to you to delete it, you should." Also updates on progress on The Fiery Citadel, interesting birdsong, and a grumble about people with stupid opinions. 

Transcript

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Good morning everyone. This is Jeffy Kennedy. I'm here with my first cup of coffee. Little bird right outside my window singing for you. Let's see, today is a Tuesday, April 9th. It's a lovely day. In fact, I already have the door open. I can just walk through without making a match annoying. Jackson's already on his harness stalking the bird that was singing the lovely song. Didn't work out so well for him, so that's good. I'm not sure what it that might be a cedar wax wing that was singing. If any of you identify the bird song well. Is that a different bird? I saw the cedar wax wing. I don't see this one that's singing. What are you? He's on the other side of this bush to me. Pretty song. Unusual one, not one we normally hear around here. I'm gonna try circling out. I can't see him. Spooky bird. Like me looking for him. Well, if any of you know bird calls, you can tell me what it was. See, we have all sorts of things here in Jeffy's first cup of coffee. Bird song, ranching, raving about books. It's funny, um I meant I was gonna go on to Goodreads and put in my review of Maria Vale's left wolf that I raved about on the podcast yesterday, and then got distracted and ended up not doing it. Those birdies are doing their mating dance. And uh move this mic down. That's probably a little loud having it up that high. Move it down here. It's a little better. I got some schmutz on there. Probably soy milk foam. But anyway, I saw that uh she's got a lot of reviews and uh a lot of good um high high test review sites. So apparently it was just me. I just like missed this book, which isn't surprising. I think it's funny how you know I can always be so sure that I have my finger on the pulse of, and uh, but I clearly don't. Not so much. Anyway, I totally missed that book. And uh, you know, the second book's already out, and I'm half well, not halfway through, but quarterway through it. A wolf apart. And it's fantastic too. I'm just loving it. But um anyway, I you know, it does that funny thing. I think I've complained about this before because I have Goodreads connected to my paperwhite. If I finish a book, you know, it'll pop up that page at the end that says, you know, write this book. And I don't do it then because I don't want to try to type up a review on my paperwhite, even if I could. So, you know, I'm always like, no, go away, leave me alone. And I go on book bub and goodreads later and do it. But on Goodreads, once I pass that page, it takes it out of my you know, my uh, you know, on that dashboard, I whatever it's called, you know, the currently reading. So I have to go hunt it down, which is annoying. So anyway, on Goodreads, I went and hunted it down and saw that the book has something like 794 reviews. And this was part of how I got distracted because I saw there were a bunch of one-star reviews. And so I was looking at the one-star reviews, and one of them was I can always tell that this is going to be a bad review, and the avatar and name implied that the person was a guy. So this didn't surprise me either, but started out by saying this is a bad book because the author didn't really think things through. And I don't know why is that always the promise of somebody who thinks that they're smart and isn't. So anyway, he was really upset because he said that it made no sense that the wolves, so you know, I talked about this some yesterday. I thought that it was a really cool premise that the people sort of live out in the wilderness and they change back and forth between being people and wolves. But in human form, they only eat vegetables because they consider dead meat, you know, packaged meat or you know, cooked meat is carrion, um, and they won't touch carrion. They eat meat when they're in wolf form when it's something that they've killed, something freshly dead. And I think that this makes perfect sense because wolves really won't eat carrion if they can help it. And he was like, well, his whole premise was that the author didn't think this through because vegetables were just as dead as meat. And why would they eat vegetables if they wouldn't eat packaged meat? And it was like, okay, so this is someone who clearly understands nothing about nature and biology. But then I always think of the uh the scene in Notting Hill where the prospective girlfriend is a fruitarian, you know, and only eats fruits that have fallen naturally from the from the tree, and they and they're all looking at the plate of cooked carrots on the table, and they're like, so these carrots and she said have been murdered. I was like, yep, you're taking things to an absurd degree. Oh, now Jackson's gonna have himself wrapped around this table like. Come here. Cats love to go through things, so given the opportunity, they will go in between a something, like a chair leg, rather than go around. And it causes problems when you have something that's a closed loop, like this one chair we have out here, because he'll go through it on the one side and then out the other. He won't retrace his exact steps. I'm sure that's part of cat psychology in some way. All right. But you know, like they'll always skirt the edges, they'll always go between a thing if they can. Sorry. Sorry about that. I actually accidentally um yanked out the microphone plug from the phone and got it caught on Jackson's harness. That's actually a special cat wrangling today. So, anyway, that was my thing about I thought about replying to him, but of course it wouldn't do the author any good and wouldn't all do is give this guy attention, which he doesn't need because he has stupid opinions. I figured the best way to deal with people who have uh okay. I'm having tech issues today. The best way to deal with people who have stupid opinions is to simply not pay attention to their opinions. Like can have all of them that they want. And then if they have something interesting to say, I can uh I'll pay attention then. So um things are going well. I got good words on Fiery Citadel yesterday, um, flowed nicely. I got more than 3,500 a little bit past. So yeah, that was great. Things are falling into place now, and I realized I forgot to tell you all that on Friday. For those paying close attention to this, um, the tracking process. On Friday, I did go back and insert that scene that I had been talking about. I've been mentioning that it kept bugging me, that I didn't have this particular scene, and I didn't really see a place to put it. Or I kind of knew where it was, but it kept bugging me. And I almost never ever do this. I very rarely go back and insert scenes, and so I resist doing it because I think there's a reason why I didn't put it in the first time through. It just doesn't match the flow, it doesn't work. Um, but with Orchid Throne, I did end up doing this sometimes, you know, and what they are is there are scenes that have to do with battle planning and structuring the strategy, and maybe I I started thinking about it that maybe I don't put those in not because the story flow isn't demanding it, but because it's just not the sort of scene I think about putting in. So anyway, I uh on Friday I did go back and I inserted that scene and then revised forward from there, and now I you know, so I ended up, I think I mentioned before that I got you know enough to keep me on track on Friday, but not the full 3500. That's part of why, because I went back and inserted that scene. Um, and now I now it's on track. I think it's working now. I think I I'm hitting the part where I need the stuff that I set up in that scene. So just shows to go, yeah. What what lesson do we take from this? One is that our process is ever changing, um, that and that I need to be open to doing things in different ways. Um I suppose another is that like when something keeps occurring to you, it's it's worth listening to. You know, there's a reason why you keep thinking maybe I should do this. Someone once told me with revising or editing, it's kind of with the whole kill your darlings idea, but somebody said, if it occurs to you to take something out, you should do it. Because you know, sometimes we agonize over taking things out. And I'm not sure that that's perfect advice because it occurs to me to do a lot of things that I don't necessarily do. If I did everything it occurred to me to do, I don't know, I would be a hot mess. But I do think that if something occurs more than once, then that's something to pay attention to. And I know that, especially like with taking stuff out, sometimes I'll put something in and I'll think, eh, maybe I should take it out. And I don't. But then when I come back on revision um and trip over the same thing again and think, eh, maybe I should take that out, then that's a sign that I should. Especially once you hit the magic three. The third time really means, yeah, time to take this puppy out. So the fact that I kept thinking about that I needed that scene in there, even though I felt like I was wedging it in structurally in that place, it makes for kind of a long chapter. I think it needed to be in there. So I'm trying to think of what else. I did finish nice and early yesterday. I finished by about two o'clock, which makes me happy. And then David and I went and ran some errands. Went and got my stepdaughter's birthday present, so that's on its way. And we went and got a few things for the pond. We got some lilies and an iris. Um, and I bought a pretty basket of flowers that I will post a picture of. Dave, it's funny because when I'll see a pot of flowers like that, I'll go, Oh, isn't that so pretty? You know, so fragrant and lovely. And he'll say, Well, you should probably just get it. And I said, No, because it's too soon to plant put the plants out. We're supposed to get snow again this weekend. Woohoo. Um, and he said, Well, you know, we could just bring it inside. He said, But you should probably get it now. And I said, No, that's all right, I'll come back and get it later. So we got our things, we got our pump, and so we could set up the fountain in there, and some gravel for the bottom of the pond, and um the the lilies. And then so we're standing in the checkout line, and the lady in front of me has a pot of those flowers that I really liked. And I said, Look, she has those same flowers I liked. I said, Clearly, everybody is attracted to these flowers, and he's like, uh-huh. And I said, Okay, so I went and got one for myself, and so we got that. That was really nice, and it was and then the lady who came into line behind me was looking at she goes, those are such pretty flowers. I said, I know, and they're fragrant too. And she goes, Oh, I like those so much. So it's kind of funny. Have to uh have them get them while they're uh while they're available. Because David knows perfectly well that if I didn't get them, then I would go back later and they'd be gone and I would complain about the fact that they were gone. So nice hearing the bird song. Having our little bird parents nesting away love baby soon. Alright, I think that must be all I have to say today. Alright. Hope you all have a fabulous Tuesday. I will attempt to blog tomorrow. Um might be a disrupted morning though, because they're coming to fix my treadmill, right? Yay. So have a wonderful week and I will certainly talk to you on Thursday. Bye bye.