The writing isn’t working at all the last few days. I’m about to give it another shot tonight, I have a little more prep work in place for the next section of Gordian Knot v2. But in the mean time my blog presents:

The quick and dirty way of making your own pizza.

But first: the even quicker even dirtier way of making your own pizza.

The EQ&ED Way of Making your own Pizza:
1) procure desired toppings (except those excluded by step 3)
2) procure frozen pizza from supermarket (pretty basic type will do)
3) drop any toppings already present on frozen pizza, mainly cheese most likely
4) unwrap frozen pizza, drop on extra toppings, put in oven as specified on box
5) set alarm for time mentioned on box
6) take pizza out of oven and eat

And now for something completely different: the regular Q&D way of making your own pizza.

First we have to have dough. The formal way includes all sort of stuff about yeast and such, but this wouldn’t be quick and dirty if we bothered with that. Instead we just take self-raising flower. Between 100 and 200 grams (anything really, depends how big you want your pizza). If you want to be fancy here you can chuck other stuff in, salt, pepper, maybe a little sugar, but you don’t have to.

Next we add milk. If you like you can put in a little olive oil as well. If you’re putting in a little olive oil you can probably get away with just using water, rather than milk, but I wouldn’t recommend using just water without the olive oil. After adding the first of the fluids, start working it through keeping an eye on the consistency of what you’re mixing. I use an electric mixer with special “dough kneading” attachments, but you can do this with a fork, or if you have food processor you could probably use that. Just keep adding the fluids until the stuff is in fairly thick lumps, but not yet one ball, possibly with a little small stuff left. Then go in with your hands and start kneading, this should turn the dough into one ball. Keep working it for a while, possibly adding a little more fluid, if it’s too thick, or more flower if it’s too wet and sticky.

Now we have a nice ball of dough. We’re going to have to flatten it out. Get a clean flat serive in your kitchen, and sprinkle flower on it to make sure the dough won’t stick. Then sprinkle flower on the dough so the rolling pin won’t stick. now roll the dough. Try to keep it pretty round.

Once you have a flat, round, disk of dough you have to make sure it won’t rise to high in odd places. You can do the traditional thing and prick though it (except the crust) with a fork, or you can score it gently with a knife. If you use the knife, my current technique, be sure not to press through the dough all the way, just about half way should do.

Now put the disk of dough in the oven and bake it for about ten to fifteen minutes, about 180 degrees C. I like to make a slightly more special sauce then strictly quick and dirty demands at this point, since I have ten to fifteen minutes anyway. Basically I get a saucepan, put in a little bit of olive oil, and then quite a bit of ketchup. After the ketchup I add some sugar, some dried herbs (oregano and basil) and some salt and pepper. Then I leave the thing on the fire to reduce down a bit, so I get quite a thick tomato sauce with the seasoning in it.

Once your base gets out of the oven, spread your sauce on it. If you don’t use the recipe above use ordinary tomato paste, or even just ketchup. Now add toppings and put the stuff back in the oven. Another fifteen minutes should probably do it. If it looks ready after fifteen minutes take it out, then eat and enjoy.

I finally managed to clear the last of the difficult re-write scene today. That means the next writing on Gordian Knot (v2) will be new material, not in the first draft. I sort of cheated by belatedly moving the next scene to a different place in the outline. But with the new subplot I’m about to inject it was just giving away stuff too early. Of course it will now be hell to get it in the right POV without breaking the “one POV per chapter” target I’ve set myself, but that’s for later. Right now I have half a dozen characters to invent.

One point of interest about the upcoming subplot: I plan to write one chapter of it from the black-hat POV. I don’t often do this, but in this subplot it’s probably best. Besides we’re talking traitors here, which means I do get to keep the POV within one space-ship crew. I like to keep the POV characters in a clearly defined group.

Finally the fact that I slept badly last night is manifesting itself in interesting ways. For example my eyes seem to be very sensitive. I’m typing this while wearing a pair of sunglasses. Even though sunset was nearly two hours ago. But they make my screen more tolerable, and with a mild head-ache already present I definitely don’t need any glare. Unfortunately my favourite blue sunglasses are currently elsewhere (I’ll retrieve them this weekend). For some reason I often write better while wearing blue sunglasses – go figure.

It appears that for the last few days my writing/re-writing mode has been switched off, and my worldbuilding mode has kicked in. I’m struggling to make any words on the re-write I have in progress, but the worldbuilding for my possible NaNo project has really taken off. I’m currently doing basic designs for a space ship, working out a few centuries worth of future history, and mapping out some complex social taboos.

To an extend I’m actually pleased that the situation has balance. If the worldbuilding were going as poorly as the re-write I’d get really depressed about writing. As it is though the re-write ought to have priority, to my mind, but can’t seem to get the words that go with that. Possibly I have to work out in a little more detail who has to say what in the scene I’m now working on. It’s one of the tough scenes: it falls between a section rewritten to the point where it’s unrecognisable, and a section that will be inserted entirely new. I have to connect those two, convey the sentiments originally in the scene AND add a new level of complexity to one of the sub-plots.

Anyway I’ve called it a day as far as actual rewriting is concerned. Only a little over 450 words on the new version today, and probably close to twice that in worldbuilding for Tech Runners. I’m going to try to do some planning for the new section ahead in the rewrite before I go to sleep. I’m going to need half a dozen new characters, split pretty evenly in white and black hats, to carry that one off.

What would you do if a podcast you liked interviewed an author who, glibly, mentioned that her publisher is AuthorHouse? For those not in the know AuthorHouse is listed as “Not recommended. A vanity publisher.” over at Preditors&Editors and has been described on the AbsoluteWrite Bewares and Background Checks board as “…the worst possible printer you could go with. Well, second worst.”

I won’t name the podcast or the author, but a few more relevant specifics include the facts that:
1) The podcaster seemed to treat her as legitimately published, even mentioning the possibility of other (older) writers being envious of her.
2) The book, looking at the sample pages, starts with blatant “As You Know Bob” style info-dumping (ref Turkey City Lexicon). Which doesn’t bode well for the quality of the work in my mind.
3) The “publisher” was recently forced to pay damages for libel even though it claimed that it “cannot read every book cover to cover,”. Aside from the damages this does not bode well for the editing qualities.
4) Even the author acknowledges, in the podcast, that the book is available form book stores only if you ask for it. In other words, there is no distribution chain to any physical stores in place, a typical situation for a vanity press.

So what would you do?
Leave a comment on the episode, to get buried among hundreds of others? The count is over 600 already so it won’t help, but you will have done your civic duty.

Contact the author, which probably serves little purpose as such. Either you end up shattering her illusions, which could get messy, or she’s in the denial phase and it won’t have any effect.

E-mail or voicemail the podcaster and point out the evidence (maybe just link to this post and have done with it).

Let it slide, the author’s heart doesn’t seem to be in the wrong place and the podcast will have a normal, not vanity-published, guest again next week. My lazy side, and the cowardly side of me that wants to avoid confrontations, are much in favour of this option. But there’s a nagging feeling that everyone who’s aware of them should help spread the word about vanity publishers. And in the long run leaving the author in the dark, assuming she is in the dark, about how publishing actually works probably isn’t doing her any favours either.

I guess I’ll decide in the morning. Right now I still have about 600 words to go today and the section I’m working on needs lots of editing. About a third of it, or more, consists of info-dumps that have to be trimmed or dumped entirely.

I noticed it again tonight. About three minutes before I starter writing this in fact. A pretty word count can just about stop me dead. Take tonight. I’ve finished work on Gordian Knot v2 for now. Partly because I made my current daily goal, 1000 words, but mostly because I finished at 8844 words.

If I hadn’t made 1000 for the day already things might have been different. I can usually keep going when I have to. But every time something pretty greets me when I as for the word count there is a temptation to just stop for a while. To enjoy seeing the pretty count preserved in my daily word count sheet.

Sometimes I think I must be nuts, at times like this I’m sure.

Well call me old-fashioned but I thought I’d get back to the true subject of the blog this time, how’s the writing going. Well, technically I’m not sure whether it’s writing or editing. I’m calling it editing, but when I compare it with the old version I don’t think many sentences escape untouched, and I am retyping everything from scratch. Re-write may be a better description.

Whatever it’s called, it’s doing quite well. I had a somewhat slow start, I’ll grant, but now I’m starting to hit my stride. Yesterday was actually a below average day with some 750 words. Today I made up for it, 1290 to get the average for the past two days back to over 1000. The next section will be more difficult than the one I’ve almost finished with. I’m dropping in two new sub-plots and probably half a dozen extra characters.

I’ve had an ache in my upper back the last few days. Fortunately it hasn’t interfered with my writing as much as it has with other things. It makes it more difficult to really focus on anything, but writing takes a slightly different form of concentration it seems. Of course changing the way I sit every few minutes does slow things down. Still with 1290 today I can’t really complain.

… lightly turns to thoughts of November. Yes the first official warning has come, NaNoWriMo will descend upon us again this year. Time for those of us who are insane enough – quite possibly bitten by a few rabid dogs as well as the writing bug – to turn our thoughts to plots and world-building all in preparation for this great event.

The first thoughts are always tentative. I have an official candidate plot/world in mind for this year. I’m actually worried I may be over planning. Last year’s world congealed in the final days of October, the plot in the first week of actual writing. That strategy carried me for 104,505 words, more than twice the victory limit of 50k.

Of course I didn’t just think up stuff late October last year, so I may be okay. Some of the world-building/concepts that made up Flame Dancer (finished up at 127k January 31st) had been knocking about on my hard-drive or in my mind since 2003 or 2004. And Flame Dancer was a fantasy world, my current candidate, Tech Runners, is science fiction. That means I need more technology worked out before I jump in and start writing, bitter experience has taught me that once already.