2011 Roundup / 2012 Goals

Christmas is done and I've eaten far too much chocolate. It's been a peaceful year, and in response to blog feedback for more about cockroaches, here is your Christmas cockroach of the year:

Ash eats his Christmas dinner

It's actually a little early for rounding up the year, as there's some time to go. I'm sure you'll survive. I didn't actually write out a goals post last year, but I'll fill in some of my goals as I ponder whether I made them.

Reading Books

In previous years, I've set the goal of reading one book published in the year (rather than always being lagged at least a few years). This year I wanted to read a good selection, so I could make Nebula nominations. I didn't keep count of exactly how many I read, but it was a lot. I won't have any issues filling the novel category this year.

I do have one more 2011 book set to arrive (Zombie Tag, by Hannah Moskowitz). But that's delayed because it's only just come out and Amazon haven't shipped it yet. That's what I get for being cheap on the shipping...

But anyway, I read a lot! I'll aim to do the same next year.

Writing Books

Though last year, I thought I'd be finished on the novelling front before now, I was being overly optimistic. During this year, I ended up ditching the end of my urban fantasy and rewriting it. The current status is that most of the rewritten book is done, has been critiqued and then edited. I have a couple of chapters left, which should be done before the year actually ends.

Which means it'll be on to my superhero novel in the early part of 2012.

Next year's goal will be querying the urban fantasy.

Writing Shorts / Poems

It was a quiet year for short stories, as I was focusing more on novels. But it wasn't without any success. I had my third pro sale and became an active member of SFWA, and I sold a story to the Fish anthology (Dagan Books), which'll be out early next year. I also sold a poem to Strange Horizons, which is a market I've been sending poetry to for some years.

I hope to balance up novels and shorts a bit better next year, as I'd like to get more shorts out there.

I also plan to have my picture book portfolio ready by the end of the year (I'm aiming for ten polished manuscripts). I haven't really decided what I'm going to do about picture books, but getting the stories ready is the first step.

Other Goals

I've always enjoyed art, but I don't have any formal training in it. Next year, I'm taking a beginner's course thingy. This goal is already underway, as I've signed up already.

Turning up is the theoretically easy goal, but my plan is to put any nice stuff I do from the course on my website. My art section hasn't had an update in a awhile. So by about the middle of the year, there should be new stuff.

I hope 2011 was fruitful for everyone else. Have a good new year!

Supermarket Product Swaps

As I drift around the supermarket, there are a few items out of place. Someone picked it up, saw something else they wanted, and realised they couldn't have both of them. Sometimes it's obvious - they left a similar product, because the other was on special offer. But every now and then, there are substitutions that make me wonder...

• Hello Kitty Toy for Beer - You don't usually think of beer drinkers as dedicated Hello Kitty fans (mostly because Hello Kitty fans tend to be too young to buy beer), but apparently, this one was. Not such a dedicated fan that they placed the toy above the beer special offer, but there's always another day for buying Hello Kitty.
• Bacon for Bread - The ultimate dilemma for fans of bacon sandwiches. If you can only have one part of the sandwich, what's more important... the bacon or the bread? Personally, I'd go for the bacon, even though this person went for the bread.
• Brussels Sprouts for a Giant Lindor Truffle - I can see this one. They don't like sprouts anyway, so might as well spend their last cash on chocolate. (The truffle is a lie however... it's a large plastic round thing filled with little truffles, not the mega truffle it looks like from the wrapping. I want a real giant truffle, so I can eat the filling with a spoon. And then I want a lot of space to run off the sugar rush. Lots and lots of space.)
• Potted Plant for Toilet Roll - Maybe they planned to grow the plant up, harvest the stems, pulp them and turn them into toilet roll. But then they saw the toilet roll and thought, "What was I thinking? I'll buy the ready-made stuff.... it has a puppy on the packet."

The customers aren't the only ones to blame. The shop decided to shelf mini marshmallows, to go in hot drinks, in the detergent aisle. The sweets or the hot drinks sections would have been too obvious. And it's one of the mysteries of the universe why shops think putting poisonous cut flowers next to vegetables is a good idea. You'd think edibility would trump being planty.

But the difference is those corporate decision makers aren't in the shop with me. When it's my fellow customers, there's always the chance that one day, I'll catch them at it and the mystery will be solved.

Strong Gingerbread / Vanillabread Recipe

I planned to bake some gingerbread men this year, as my gift to the family. The only thing in the way was I couldn't find a gingerbread recipe that fitted what I wanted - a version that was very strong, for the person who likes ginger sprinkled on their ginger; and a version with no ginger, for the ginger hater.

So I made the recipes up. As these recipes are mine, all mine, and not copyrighted to anyone but me, I'm posting them for the world (and if you thought I was joking in the blog tagline about random tangents, now you know it's for real... though this is the first time I've posted a recipe). It's a pretty standard gingerbread recipe, apart from the seasoning. But still, I can feel a certain amount of yayfulness for making it up and it working.

(In the end, I preferred the vanillabread men to the strong gingerbread men, but the family were split on which they preferred, so I take that as success).

Strong Gingerbread Men / Vanillabread Men

Most of the recipe is the same for gingerbread and vanillabread, other than a few exchanges of ingredients. Where the vanillabread differs, the difference is in square brackets, like so - [VM: Only do this for vanillabread!]

Makes about 12-15 biscuits, depending on the size/shape of your cutters. Don't forget to buy some stuff to decorate them afterwards.

• 175g (6 oz) black treacle (molasses) [VM: Honey instead of treacle]
• 115g (4 oz) soft dark brown sugar [VM: White sugar instead of brown]
• 1 large egg
• 25g (1 oz) unsalted butter
• 450g (1 lb) plain flour
• 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1 pinch of salt

GINGERBREAD MEN SEASONING:

• 1 tablespoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

VANILLABREAD MEN SEASONING:

• 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1. Mix the treacle, sugar, butter and egg together. This is easier if you get the butter out a little bit before, so it has time to warm up and soften. [VM: Also add the vanilla extract here.]

2. Sift the dry ingredients together (flour, bicarb, salt and dry seasoning).

3. Add dry ingredients to the soggy ingredients. Everything should now be in the mixing bowl. If the mix is too dry, add a splash of cold water. The final mix should be firm, smooth and difficult to stir... you don't want it runny, so only add enough water to mix in the ingredients. (For reference, the strong gingerbread needed half a cup and the vanillabread only needed a splash. This may vary depending on the exact ingredients you've used.)

4. Cover and put in the fridge for an hour.

5. Once cool, the dough should be reasonably firm. If not, add a little more flour.

6. Roll out to about half a cm (1/4 inch) thick and cut out shapes. Make sure to dust the surface and the rolling pin with flour, or it'll stick.

7. Place men on a tray - either lightly greased or covered in non-stick baking paper (I used paper, as one sheet will last for all the batches and it's easier to remove the cooked biscuits). Cook for 10 minutes in a preheated oven at 180 C / Gas mark 4.

8. Place on a wire tray to cool.

9. Decorate when cool with whatever you want. I used icing, sweets, crystallised ginger and edible silver spray.

Strong Gingerbread Biscuits (Left) and Vanillabread Biscuits (Right)

TASTE TIP: Strong gingerbread tastes slightly bitter, and isn't like the stuff in the shops. It can be a bit surprising if you're not used to it. If you want a less extreme basic gingerbread, swap the treacle out for some sort of light syrup/honey, and cut down the ground ginger to one teaspoon. You can also swap the dark brown sugar for light brown sugar or white.

ZOMBIE TIP: It comes out of the oven soft, but hardens as it cools. Don't cook for longer than 10 mins as it'll cool so hard you can use it as ammunition in the event of a zombie apocalypse.

PHOTO TANGENT: If you see a recipe claiming to include treacle and dark brown sugar, and the gingerbread is light golden brown, it's a stock photo or they didn't really use treacle. Treacle gingerbread comes out dark, as pictured here, because treacle is black. Always beware following a recipe no one has actually tried...

NaNoWriMo Hibernation

No More NaNo

I neglected to post a non-Nano post during the week, but this is the end... so you're free of NaNoing until next year anyway.

I hit the goal of four stories that could be polished and sent out. One is actually already out, as it was done earlier in the month. The rest will be edited and sent out soonish. So you can play the game of seeing if I sell them, here are the titles and with the rough genre/topic:

• By Means of Clockwork Selection (Steampunk - Robot Ponies!)
• An Abundance of Geometric Shapes (Steampunk)
• The Rules of Safe Duck Keeping (Duck Farming)
• The Road to the Beach (Surreal)

I did some other bits and pieces, including some notes for a new novel. I won't be starting that until the current novel is out and about, but it's good to have something prepared to move on to.

I didn't win, which is the usual. I'll finish on January 4, 2012 if I continued (I will continue writing, but not recording anything). If you took part, I hope you got something out of it, whether you won or not.

Nebula Reading

The end of NaNo also means the end of the Nebula reading posts. If you've found them useful/interesting, feel free to say. The next Nebula post will be early next year, when I'll finalise who I'm going to nominate.

Trance - Kelly Meding (Novel) At the end of the war between the superpowered Rangers and the villainous Banes, the remaining meta humans have their powers striped away by an unknown process. Fifteen years later, Trance's powers suddenly return. Realising this means the Banes will also have their powers back, she heads out to find her old teammates.

Wolf Mark - Joseph Bruchac (Novel / Norton) 17-year-old Luke has moved around constantly due to his parents working as spies, but now that his mother is dead and his father retired, he's hoping for a relatively normal life. Until his dad is kidnapped and he discovers his family's supernatural secret.

Chime - Franny Billingsley (Novel / Norton) As long as Briony Larkin remembers to hate herself and keep her secret - that she's a witch - she thinks all will be well in the Swampsea. But when Mr. Clayborn and his son arrive to drain the swamp, everything starts to unravel. Briony isn't the only one keeping secrets.

You may want to read a sample to see if the dialect throws you. A number of reviewers appear to have found it difficult to understand. I didn't think it was anything unusual, but I'm English.

The Freedom Maze - Delia Sherman (Novel / Norton) In 1960, Sophie is sent to stay with relatives at the remains of the family plantation. She meets a Creature in the hedge maze and wishes for a time travel adventure. The Creature obliges, sending her back to 1860, where Sophie is taken to be a mixed race slave. The longer Sophie stays in the past, the more real her life as a slave becomes.

I can't say I enjoyed the book as such. Some of the issues were too close to home for me, so I found it depressing. But that doesn't take away from the fact it's well written and engaging.

Like Origami in Water - Damien Walters Grintalis (Short Story) When Johnny starts to disappear, one body part at a time, his partner makes Origami animals to keep his spirits up.

Absinthe Fish - M. David Blake (Short Story) A surreal story about hypothetical fish and Schrodinger's cat. Published in the Spring 2011 edition of Bull Spec. And no, we're not related.