What stories would a peaceful world tell?

I'm wondering about the fiction of the future. If we get to the kind of future I'm hoping for and working towards -- one where conflict is resolved through talking, not fighting -- will they still enjoy the stories we write today? Or will our plots and characters strike them as distastefully violent and conflicted, the way the unexamined racism of much 1930's pulp fiction grates on our ears today?

The barest skeleton of plot is: problem, resolution. Our best-selling novels pile one problem on another -- the lead character sets out to solve one problem, and then things get worse. And worse. Until finally everything is resolved, usually quite close together, in the last small portion of the book.

Would this look stilted, tortured, and unnatural to a world of peaceful people? Will they make some breakthrough and look back at us as though we all lived Idiot Plot lives? Future readers might pick up our novels and say, "Hey! This guy's violating the 3rd law of How to Get Along! And there his love interest goes violating the 4th law! And now they're both breaking the first law! Are they both idiots? Man, I just can't relate to this. Why'd anyone read this stuff, anyhow?"

See, maybe the future will be better, because people will learn something that seems simple and obvious to them -- even though we don't know it yet. The way it seems simple to us to wash our hands before eating. Or that the world is round. And then, when they look at how we ignored this glaringly obvious principle, they'll find it hard to empathize with our problems.

And maybe -- since I'm postulating peaceful people -- the whole idea of problem, resolution -- will just not interest them all that much.

You know, I have a belief that my life is not very interesting. To others, anyway. I enjoy many daily small interests -- the weblogs I keep up with, the games I play, my studies in self-improvement and poker, insights I have while writing my other journal by hand. I would never bore you with the two pages I spent considering whether I'd learned anything from discovering I had different expectations of friendship than Catherine. Or with the consideration of how rotating an asymmetrically patterned piece of origami paper can have a different effect when turning it into one of the 170 Fuse boxes I recently made. I don't expect you to want a box by box commentary through 170 boxes.

Did you see Beyonce performing at the Oscars? I found myself thinking -- how many love songs has she sung in her life, and isn't she tired of overemoting basicly the same lyrics again and again? How can any of that expression be meaningful if you apply it to all the songs?

I don't have a defined audience and subject matter. Penny Arcade does -- gamers and games -- and they have been very successful with that. I don't have glamour brought from celebrity in another field -- like Wil Wheaton or Neil Gaiman -- that brings people in to be captured by the excellence of the writing. I don't have the scheduled reliability of Topic or the gonzo iconoclasm of David Brin or J. Perry Barlow. In fact, I may not have the excellent writing to hold you, should you happen to come by.

And yet.

When Wil Wheaton writes about events that in other hands might seem small, I care. So the subject matter I have to offer need not be inherently boring.

And I _can't stop_. Late, infrequent, trivial -- I still find myself wanting to write here. So, read or not, watch out WWW, here I write.

And hey, maybe the excellence will come later. As Marion Zimmer Bradley used to say, every writer has a million bad words to get out of the way before the good ones come.

I've now made public an intent to add comments to this blog. I hope to get to it soon.

First, though -- I'm having a bad day. I received a call reminding me I had work for my charity group to attend. I am really in resistance to this. I hate having my own projects interrupted to attend to the commitments I was pretty much tricked into.

The story goes like this: the leader of the group at the time asked if I could take the Associate Conductress position in our local Amaranth group. I had been a member for a few months. She said, watch what the current AC does, and see if you can do that. It was not too tough. I agreed.

THEN I find out that accepting AC means starting the line -- four years of ever larger commitments within the meetings, AND additional work that goes with the positions outside the meetings. I've done my best. I have one more year to go in the line, and I have gotten some good things done, and supported our excellent cause diabetes research. BUT...

After the call yesterday, I slept badly. Today, my stomach is queasy, and I have lines of pain flaring along my muscles. And this happened the last time I suddenly found myself dealing with extra Amaranth work, too.

All my philosophy, all my apparent goodwill to do the work, to do the best I can for our group, betrayed as not fully what I wish by the clear physical symptoms I develop when I need to do it. There I go. It's just too much. I hurt.

So, anyway. Though I'd like to spend the morning researching how to add comments to this blog, and the afternoon earning money, I will instead be setting tables and serving a meal to 120 people, developing forms to help the other members of the group, and making phone calls to remind members of the meeting Saturday and find the necessary volunteers required by group bylaws. None of which I enjoy, even when I don't feel sick to my stomach and achy all over.

I keep thinking there's some way I can adjust my attitude and do this work without pain. But I haven't been able to find it. And I'm not willing to break the commitment (even though it was given under false pretenses) and blow the whole thing off. So I'm suffering.

The best I can manage is: this too, will pass.

More small improvements to the site this morning. I found a copy of HTML Visual Quickstart Guide at a local used bookstore, and it has really been a lot of help.

Used books are good. I had credit for trading books there, so I paid $4.50 for it. It's always pleasant to get a bargain. And right now, I'm feeling very motivated to live frugally and pay my debts down to Zero. In about fifteen months, my Mom has invited us to share a week in a condo in England. I'd really like, as long as we're crossing the Atlantic, to spend an extra week or two on the continent. Maybe we could get to Italy this time. So, all the money I'm putting to debt, I'd like to throw into savings, and really have a good time. First things first -- pay off that credit.
Then plump up the savings, then La Dolce Vita!

It's the La Dolce Vita part that's motivating. Credit or debt is like plain numbers on a page to me -- I have a certain indifference to it. I can only get excited about things I could do with the money, not the money itself. And that's fine.

So I'm thinking of long, warm evenings drinking wine, surrounded by Roman architecture and women wearing fine Italian shoes. The scent of garlic, and antipasto, pasta, entree, tiramisu parading to my table to savor while having long conversations with Doug. See, that's the kind of reward that's worth a little belt tightening!

Ciao, all.

You wouldn't believe how pleased I am with myself for recent HTML victories on this site. I was able to place my ads just where I wanted them and retrieve my title from under the search bar. I'm really tickled pink.

Well, best not to make any promises about further improvements just now. Best to all, and wish me luck.

Spent a good portion of this morning making barbecue sauce. Surely you've heard that the map is not the territory. More interestingly, the recipe is not the sauce.

I do know cooks who follow recipes very closely. I generally look at them more as inspiration. And in this case, I made up the recipe myself, so it's clearly a work in progress. Nothing to cling to there.

So -- I started a few years back to develop a barbecue sauce recipe. I knew it should have tomatoes and spiciness to it. A bit of vinegar tang. And I more often bake items with a sauce than actually barbecue over smoke. So a little smoke flavor could certainly help.

So one day, I opened a can of chipotles, took a sniff, and thought -- this smells like barbecue! Aha! Now I know how to get the smokiness and the heat into my sauce! Excellent!

I had a look at other barbecue sauce recipes. None had chipotles in them. Tomatoes, vinegar, sometimes mustard -- there's a lot of variation in them. I wanted one with relatively little sweetness -- no added sugar or corn syrup. I wanted one with a complex flavor. And I wanted to make it from ingredients I could keep on hand.

Onion is always good with meat. Many good recipes start: Saute an onion. Seemed like a good place to start. Butter always tastes rich, and I love garlic, but didn't want it to dominate. So, I started by sauteing half an onion and 2 cloves of garlic in 2 T (tablespoons) of butter. That softened them up nicely, the better to spread them on the meat, later.

In my first iteration, I tried adding some tequila here. Plenty of BBQ sauces seem to have bourbon or the like in them, and I prefer tequila. Didn't seem to add enough flavor to be worth the extra time. I dropped that step in the third trial or so.

Next, tomatoes. Since I wanted my sauce to be thick, and I wanted to make it from the pantry, I used canned tomatoes. Quite a few -- these add the most volume to the sauce. One 16 oz can was convenient.

Next, the chipotles. I didn't want fire alarm hot -- just a nice, tongue-tingling spiciness. Two chopped chipotles and two T of sauce from the can seemed about right.

Vinegar -- helps the sauce penetrate as well as adding flavor. Tasting bit by bit, I found 4 T about right.

Taste again. Tangy enough, but not sufficiently complex. Also, too bright a red -- barbecue sauce needs a dark, mysterious look. Taste -- hmm, do need a little sweetness. 2 T of molasses darkens it some, adds interest, and is ample sweetening for my palate. Still a little too bright, too simple.

So, I looked through the recipes some more. A lot of them called for Worcestershire -- something I don't keep on hand. I do have soy sauce -- aha! 1 T of soy, and I've hit it. This sauce will absolutely DO.

In a sudden excess of whimsy, I gave it the name Oregon Pantry Worcestershire we don't need no stinking Worchestershire Oven Barbecue Sauce. Far too long. Mostly goes by Oven Barbecue Sauce now.

Then -- I had to simmer it until all the pieces softened and the sauce thickened. Long periods on my feet, stirring -- has to be a better way. Blend it! But still too thin. So, I doubled everything but the tomatoes, and traded two 16 oz cans of tomatoes for a 28 oz can of tomatoes and a 7 oz can of tomato paste. More success!

But then -- what was I going to do with those leftover chipotles? They're pretty good chopped and scrambled with eggs. But wouldn't it be more elegant to use them all in the sauce recipe?

So, today's iteration -- tripled most ingredients, one extra garlic clove because they smelled better than usual -- two 28 oz cans of tomatoes and two cans of tomato paste, just because -- and the entire contents of the 7 oz can of chipotles, nicely minced.

It smells and tastes wonderful, and I'm giving it its final trial on some beef short ribs this evening. I can hardly wait.

Did I ever make it quite the same twice? Who knows! It's been good every time.

OK, new review here: Paradox World Reviews I started this on the date listed, but only published it today. More to come soon.

Had a sore throat for a couple days. It has been a stressful couple of weeks. Applying the usual remedies.

In my case, the usual remedies include tea, hot wraps on the throat, and gargling with antiseptic. My antiseptic of choice at the moment is Don Crispin fake tequila, mixed half with water. We picked it up a couple years back in a Puerto Vallarta tourist trap. The bottled liquor is harsh, smoky, and although an agave distillate, created in the wrong area of Mexico to be tequila. Seems like the samples they gave us when selling it tasted better. In any case, it's undrinkable, and doesn't make a good Margarita, either. Mixed half with water, though, it still tastes better than Listerine, and seems equally effective on bleeding gums. Why would you want to use a mouthwash you're carefully warned against swallowing?

Doug and I are going to our local book club this afternoon. This month, we're discussing one of the books we presented for the group's consideration. I'm interested to see how they will like it. I didn't care for last month's selection. Rereading Expendable, by James Alan Gardner this month, I liked it even more than the first time. Festina Ramos has a distinctive voice, she starts cynical and becomes more effective, and I'm completely jealous of the idea he had about how a multi-species galactic civilization might work. One simple rule -- murder a sentient being, and if you travel into interstellar space, you will yourself die. Enforced by Arthur C. Clarke axiom means -- that is, it's probably technology, but it's so advanced it looks like magic. It's one hundred percent effective. This is as brilliant a story seed as Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. Most of the other set-ups for meeting other intelligent species had become a bit tired. The most common is that we're the best, smartest, and fastest out there, or in some other way critical, so that we have an edge. Another is that they are all hostile, so once we get out there, we'll be in one fight after another. It is tricky -- it doesn't seem likely that all other intelligences will be inferior to us. So, if they are vastly more advanced than us, what is to keep them from wiping us out? James Alan Gardner's solution to that conundrum is simple and brilliant. They're civilized, and some of the really advanced ones enforce that civilization on all the rest. There you go -- we can be the new kids on the block, and still have a chance to play.

He's continued the story into a fair number of sequels now. I may just reread the entire series. I had already reread Vigilant. Its vision of a political system that has a system to purge corruption and forsee the consequences of any governmental action felt comforting to return to recently. It's a fast-paced adventure story with Heinleinian social thought in it, too.

I feel some inclination to get the reviews area of this site back in action. I'll link to it here if that inclination becomes reality.

Here is an urgent and meaningful defense of the right to free speech. It seems quite applicable to our own country, though the author is writing from Scotland. I urge you to consider the arguments at The Woolamaloo Gazette.

I recently read Russka -- or the first part of it, anyway -- for a book club. I found the viewpoint of a character who seemed glad to style himself "the slave of the tsar" completely alien. Much weirder than a Klingon, Vulcan or Ferengi. Why would you want to yield your individuality to an autocrat? The tsar in question, Ivan, went on to kill vast numbers of his own people, as Stalin would do later. Which comes first -- being willing to accept a bad leader, or getting one?

Yes, there are situations in which it is right to follow. But how many people who have posted those "Freedom isn't free" bumper stickers have realized that we must equally resist our own government when it is oppressive as fight against other nations who threaten us. The American Revolution _was_ a resistance against our own government at the time. It has taken popular action at personal risk to obtain the civil freedoms we hold dear. And it may require a price for us to continue to enjoy them.

We had been letting Pike out on the second story balcony. It seemed to give him a taste of the outdoors without giving him a chance to get into another cat fight. All good, right?

Guess not. The other night, we let him out, and he went into his defensive posture when Doug opened the door to call him back in. Doug tried to talk him down, but Pike had seen another cat. Pike shot into the yard, squeezing between the rails and stretching down the wall, to land with a yowl and chase the other cat to the fence.

I said, "Bet he got an intimidation bonus for that."

Doug replied, "Initiative, too. Stupid beloved maniac cat."

Just goes to show, Tycho's not the only one framing his life in gaming terms. See this strip from Penny Arcade. Even though I haven't played a live game in years, I still think in gaming metaphors.

And I'm glad about it. Whether you get your initial skills by roll of the dice, as in Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, or by allocating points, as in GURPS or Call of Cthulhu, you learn something useful. Not everyone has the same strengths and weakness, and a party of mixed skills is the best road to success.

And then there's experience and leveling up -- always my favorite part of gaming. As you accept challenges, you gain abilities, becoming stronger and stronger. What a great way to look at life!

Anyway, Pike didn't take any injuries. Maybe the threat of 13 pounds of cat falling from heaven like a meteor will get around the neighborhood and discourage trespassing into our yard. Not that we really need our yard defended, Pike!

And he's not going on the balcony after dark any more.

Last night, I added an episode to my long running dream epic about defending the family home. My real family home was demolished in the late 80's. In my dreams, Dad has built another house there, but the city, motivated by avaricious neighbors, has condemned it. Every couple of weeks, I dream I visit Dad back in the town where I grew up, and find some demolition crew preparing to tear the house down, or actually prying boards off of it, or flattening our fence with a bulldozer, and with derring do or clever rhetoric, I fend off the attack, and delay the demolition -- at least until the next time I dream the whole story again.

At least it's an improvement on the series of "I didn't really graduate from high school" dreams. Attend your graduation ceremony! Reassure your subconscious before it's too late!

The houses are interesting in these dreams. Generally two stories, with rich wood, and slightly slapdash. There's a large dining room near the front where we all have a family dinner once the developers are thwarted for another day. And we can sleep in unfinished bedrooms upstairs.

Nanowrimo has ended, and I produced only about 4000 of the desired 50,000 words. Besieged. Maybe next year. They are interesting words, and I'm happy to have written them. Now, I expect I'll drop back to earlier in my heroine's life, and finish the first book in her series.

Take care all,
Anna

More of my Nanowrimo novel can be seen here: Oh No! Not Again!

Put on some music and immediately felt better today. That's something to remember.

I have an earbug -- the words "Don't have to feel like a refugee" have been reappearing in my mind for multiple days, maybe weeks now. I remember nothing else of the song that line comes from. And if I'm trying to send myself some sort of message, it's garbled. I'm pretty unclear on what application that lyric might have to my life.

Passed the 4000 word mark on my Nanowrimo novel. Wow, one-twelfth done on the halfway time mark. Oh, well. I'm just not able to shut off my internal critic and write large quantities of iffy words. I seem also to be unable to disregard my to do list and place myself in front of the page enough hours a day. These are very important lessons. I intend to keep adding to the novel to the end of the month, regardless of the daunting distance to the finish line. That, also, I want to learn from.

So, on it goes.

May all your projects reach fruition,
Anna

Here's a cause we could surely all agree on: an election system above suspicion. See A Stolen Election? from The Nation for a balanced view of possible voting irregularities.

This site: On The Third Hand : For those in anguish over election results. offers links to both conservative and liberal commenters pleading for more tolerance after this election. Worth reading.

It has been hard to go on. Even my normally sanguine and much-beloved husband has found this election a heavy weight. It doesn't help that there are some irregularities: See this article. Do we find ways to resist? What could we if the system has been stolen?

David Brin, as usual, has some worthwhile advice here.

Meanwhile...

I'm up to what I'm usually up to. Trying to run my small patch of ground for as low an environmental impact as possible, cultivate my own garden, run my relationships with respect and integrity. There's a reason so many turned their attention to local action.

And, I remind myself, we still have progress. Private groups build spaceships now. It's still illegal to deny work on the basis of color. We have the marvelously democratic, flexible and ungovernable internet.

And maybe, just maybe, we will rise to the challenge. We can remember and press for non-partisan virtues. How about integrity -- carrying through on what you say you will do. Accountability and transparency -- allowing the light of public scrutiny to fall on the actions of both government and business. Respect -- the true belief that all people, even one's opponents, act for reasons that are worthwhile to them. And compassion, even compassion -- true action to relieve the suffering of others.

Please, let's find what we can agree on, and act on that. Too long have we pushed our differences instead of our many, human common causes.

Wow! I am getting a lot done!

Too bad so little of it is writing.

My Nanowrimo novel is progressing very slowly. This year, I've decided to "Never give up, never surrender" and not quit until the final day, no matter how bleak my prospects of finishing look. After all, I recently won a 127 entrant online poker tournament when I hit a lucky hand, only 3 away from the blinds, with scarcely enough to cover them. So I may yet prevail.

The election results were frankly depressing. It's hard to believe that more than half the voters think W. is doing a good job. They have what they wanted -- the remainder of us will muddle through as best we can.

Then my cat Pike took a wound in a cat fight. I was very leary of taking him to the vet -- last time, he had a panic attack and developed a heart murmur. He took it a little better in stride this time. We've been engaged in a battle of wits and wills, since he wants to go out and I want him to stay in. It was close for a while -- I controlled the doors and windows, but he was gaining ground on sleep attrition. He's started letting me sleep through the night now, and I think my victory is assured.

The organizational meeting for our book club went well yesterday. We have a small and interesting group of readers. Doug and I sold three of the four books we offered well enough to have them voted into the year's reading list, and the other choices are broad and appealing. We have meeting places chosen for the first 6 months. This will be an adventure.

Also getting lots of housecleaning done. That happens a lot when I have a writing deadline.

Take care, all.
Anna

I'm creating a separate blog in which to write the novel. Like sausage-making, novel writing may be one of those activities best not observed by those who wish to enjoy the end product. However, if you have a strong stomache, you can watch me flail at Oh No! Not Again!.

Suddenly, writing a novel in a month sounds like a really good idea. It's probably temporary insanity. If you'd like to join the madcap fun, point your browser at National Novel Writing Month. And hurry! the follies start tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I've spent most of October feeling overwhelmed. September's 4 fundraising events really took it out of me. Everywhere I look around the house, I see something I haven't done. There's the magazines piled by my bed, the laundry overflowing the baskets, the mail overflowing my in-box, the dishes on the counter ever since I made full press beef broth 13 days ago. But hey, I promised the writer's group I'd have something to read Thursday. My invention muscles need the workout. Why not write a novel in a month?

Hey! I just had an idea about what to write, too! Too cool!

It's far too bleak a prospect to spend all my waking hours on maintenance, and none on creation. I'm overdue for a deadline, time to treat fiction as an urgency. I may write something cool. I may flame out dramatically. Either one sounds a heck of a lot more fun than not even trying.

Time does go slipping by. I ran four fundraisers in September. I hope I never try to do that again. It's really good to have time to myself again.

I really care about this election. I don't really care about John Kerry. There's a good essay by John Perry Barlow about that here. For those of you consulting this site later, it's the Oct. 3, 2004 entry.

Meanwhile....

I keep considering a complete update of this website. A reorganization would do it a lot of good. As the most active page, this should be the homepage. Better indexing, more design. But as I also have small avalanches of reading material to catch up on, that may be long delayed. Priorities, priorities.

Am I fooling myself as I hope that good attention to my daily routine will lead to better health and an hour or two daily of energy for tasks beyond that routine?

Well, it remains to be seen.

I'm currently reading The Progress Paradox. It is in some ways a sloppy book. I'd rather he had only included the strong, well supported arguments, instead of a kitchen sink collection of strong and weak arguments. Still, he has massive data to support his thesis, and a few weak examples do not disprove the rest of the material.

See the excellent review at David Brin's site. David Brin is my favorite futurist. He sees problems, and believes optimism can best take us to the rich, diverse, peaceful and fascinating future we'd like.

In a nutshell, The Progress Paradox argues that things are getting better -- in fact, much better -- and we don't notice it. I was startled at much of the evidence he mustered for improvement in the world. Successes remain unreported. Who knew war, hunger, poverty, crime and pollution were down? Can this be true?

I'll report more when I finish it. Happy world, all.