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Merry Christmas

Autumn

There’s a decent chance that the children will be the death of me before Christmas. It’s been fun, but there comes a point where you just can’t keep putting off the inevitable. I go with peace.

Lol I wish.

We’re in the homestretch, which means that there’s a flurry of activities to accomplish before the big day, as well as wondering if I’m going to have any chance at all of finally making personalized Christmas stockings this year (probably not). It’s our tradition to decorate gingerbread houses with the kids, and I still have my heart set on making a yule log cake. And, of course, I need to finish sewing Christmas outfits for all the kids.

And the children are increasingly excited as they count down the days.

So I’m signing off to focus on the real world.

Wish me luck.

Photo by Hert Niks on Pexels.com
About Me

Austrian cream cheese bars

Autumn

I jumped on the baking bandwagon.

I don’t actually know if that’s still a thing, or if people have burnt out on it by now.

But anyway, I’ve been baking WAY more than I used to. For the sweet tooth.

I made Austrian cream cheese bars, and thought that it would be fun to take a picture for the blog.

But before I got around to it, my two-year-old attacked them with a chopstick while I wasn’t looking.

So here you go. Yummy.

They’re supposed to have nuts on top, but I didn’t have any on hand.

About Writing

Writing babies

Autumn

One of my pet peeves with fiction is when child characters start out important, then are reduced down to props or are inexplicably absent at the end. A good example of this is from An American Tail, when Fievel’s baby sister Yasha is completely nonexistent for the latter half of the movie.

If you’ve been following my blog this year, you’ll know that I had a baby about six months ago, and that I’m currently working on a fictional story about a woman who had a baby. The silly thing is, having those parallels is actually making it harder for me to write about motherhood.

I spend all day snuggling, kissing, playing with, and caring for my baby, then at night after the older kids go to bed and I settle down to work on my writing, I feel self-conscious about describing all of that. It’s a little too autobiographical.

And it’s bothering me enormously.

I’m going to add in more descriptions of motherhood when I rewrite it, but for now I feel like the first draft has a giant hole in it.

Chalk it up as part of the process.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
About Writing

Why Readers Deserve Happy Endings

Autumn

I have a straight-forward style of storytelling, where I deliver what I promise with no gotchya’s or plot twists. When I was posting stories on Reddit, I’d occasionally get comments from people who were relieved that I ended on a happy note, instead of abruptly implementing, “rocks fall, everyone dies” for dramatic impact.

I confess that my tastes in fiction are quite old school, so I can’t speak with 100% certainty of what’s being done currently, but from what I saw others posting on Reddit, and what I know of popular series like Game of Thrones and Harry Potter, a lot of writers are obsessed with killing characters, plot twist betrayals, and numerous cheap ploys that tug on emotions.

Sometimes I wonder, at what point does it become emotional abuse?

Bear with me a moment here.

As a writer, I have an ego — my decision to make my stories available for other people to read is testimony of that. I’ve spent years practicing, studying, and philosophizing, and while I don’t think that I’ve achieved perfection, I do believe that I’m better than average.

But I don’t think that I command any sort of god-like control over anyone who chooses to read my fiction.

I am not out to deliberately manipulate your emotions.

My goal is to tell a story.

The thing is, if you were in a relationship with someone who was deliberately keeping you off-balance, utilizing your emotional attachments to punish you, and dangling good promises with no intention of delivering, that would be a horrendously abusive and toxic relationship, right?

Well, guess what?

Writer – reader counts as a relationship.

Readers have the power to put down a book at any point for any reason, so on some level Game of Thrones fans are agreeing to be subjected to an endless parade of death, etc. However, the frequent use of manipulative tactics combined with persistent anxiety, makes me think that readers might not realize they have that power.

We don’t have to accept being jerked around so much we can’t enjoy a happy light-hearted story without panicking that something bad is going to happen.

There is a point where enough is enough.

About Me

Giving Thanks

Autumn

The depressing part is, this isn’t the first time my husband and I have tackled making a full-blown Thanksgiving dinner on our own. Heck, we’ve even got it down to an art, too. So, the number one thing that I’m most grateful for is that we have each other and our children.

Pro tip: Make dessert first, a day or two ahead of time. Keep a straw broom handy to chase the children away.

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We’re fostering a kitten, and while I was putting the frozen groceries away, he jumped into the freezer without my noticing and was consequently shut inside. I’m thankful that I heard him yowling while I was putting away the milk, and rescued him quickly — otherwise we would have been in for a very miserable surprise.

Now I get to be super paranoid about the kitten jumping into other appliances.

.

Some people I don’t care for have sold their house and are moving out this week … Shh, don’t tell anyone I said that.

About Me

Ramblings

Autumn

Maybe this is a weird thing to say, but I feel like I’ve been having dreams about 2020 for most of my life.

They were heavily metaphored, of course, so it’s not like I’m having moments of deja vu and declaring myself a precog or anything like that. I don’t know what’s going to happen in the future, but I do have this sense of inevitability, like we’re all caught up in a inexorable dance that started a long time ago, and we must follow the steps to the end. Something incomprehensibly bigger than us is happening.

I have an intensely spiritual side to my personality. I know it hasn’t been shining through lately, but it’s still there behind the scenes. Whatever is going on, it very well might change our lives forever.

That said, I entered 2020 with a good feeling about this decade, and I’m sticking to it.

About Me

Brioche

Autumn

Pro tip:

Brushing a beaten egg on the top of bread dough before baking makes it come out shiny, and therefore more delicious.

As demonstrated on this loaf of brioche.

Not that brioche needs any help in the deliciousness department.

Uncategorized

Tantrum

Autumn

My two-year-old grabbed two hands full of cereal and tried to take it into the living room. I stopped her, saying that it was okay for her to eat the cereal in the dining room, but not in the living room. She dropped to the floor in a full-blown tantrum, and flung both hands full of cereal at me.

I have become such a battle-hardened mama, I didn’t even flinch.

She went straight into timeout.