Last Friday I made beef liver for the first time. I had had it before, but I remembered it tasting awful. I was younger then and I think my dad fried it up right from the package. I found a paleo recipe online with the word ultimate in the title as I figured ultimate was probably a good sign. It was a bit complicated and involved marinating for 8 to 24 hours in lemon juice (I did closer to 24 hours). The raw product didn't smell great even after marination. It had the hint of farm smell. I wasn't looking forward to eating it at all.
I had things to chop and slice like figs, bacon, and onions. My mushrooms were pre-sliced, which was awesome. I only cut myself once while slicing the onions.
With all the different flavours, it was delicious. It was like an ultra tender steak. It even reheats well in the microwave. I didn't believe the recipe when it said that, but it's true.
I'm glad it turned out, because I bought a few packages before knowing if it was good. It's an inexpensive and healthy meal that takes a bit of work to make. Next time I'll do more prep the day I marinate it and save time on the day I cook it.
I started a guitar class on Saturdays at the Shenkman Arts Centre in Orleans. It was a little hard with cutting my left pinky finger the night before. We played Green Day, The Beatles, and Simon & Garfunkel. This week we will be learning some Pink Floyd and Ed Sheeran. I love the course already. The teacher is cool and she gives us tricks like the easiest ways to play a chord like G without the pinky finger. She talked about teaching us easy chord progressions that will let us play hundreds of songs. I'm excited. I feel like I'm learning what I really want to be learning. The Coursera course I took was theory based and we didn't play any music other than what the teacher wrote himself. We also covered things so fast that I found it hard to play at the level that was expected.
The Art Centre is a beautiful building filled with paintings. I'm looking forward to checking those out soon.
My taxes have been filed and paid. That's one less thing to worry about. Next year I'm going to get an accountant to do mine. I figure it will be easier.
I've been having intermittent Internet issues for a while now, and even when it's been working, it hasn't been working well enough to properly stream video. I plan to change my service and hope that will alleviate the problems. I have no issues with my provider as I've had them for many years without problems. The phone lines in my building are rather old and I believe that is why I continue to have DSL issues. I'm hoping a switch to cable Internet will be an improvement. It's not terrible having the Internet down at times as a writer for it forces me to write rather than surf, but I'd like to stream video without constant downtime, especially during the playoffs.
I've revised my short story The Blood Waitress Club a couple of times now and am waiting for further editing suggestions from my writing group. I think it's good to use a short story to learn where your problems are as a writer. It's helping me learn to edit. I used a lot of "ing" words and was using some filter words. I was also fighting with myself over which tense I wanted it to be in. That's common for me. I prefer living in the present.
Because my story is about a vampire roller derby team, I'm unsure of the market as far as contests and anthologies go. I can either sit on it until the perfect anthology call comes or put it up on Amazon and/or Kobo. I'm thinking of doing the latter. Part of the reason is that the few contests I've found all want to keep the rights and it doesn't sound like it's just for a year or two...
This takes me to covers. I know people that pay a lot for covers and don't make the return on the investment. I'm considering DIY Book Covers because it's between paying a lot or going really cheap and having something that many other authors have for covers. Everything ahead is new ground for me, which is exciting and a little scary.
Tonight I'm meeting with a member of my writing group to go over my novel, The Page & The Magician, and discuss what major issues it has. Hopefully he doesn't want me to cut everything I've written out :)
Ciao,
R~
I had things to chop and slice like figs, bacon, and onions. My mushrooms were pre-sliced, which was awesome. I only cut myself once while slicing the onions.
With all the different flavours, it was delicious. It was like an ultra tender steak. It even reheats well in the microwave. I didn't believe the recipe when it said that, but it's true.
I'm glad it turned out, because I bought a few packages before knowing if it was good. It's an inexpensive and healthy meal that takes a bit of work to make. Next time I'll do more prep the day I marinate it and save time on the day I cook it.
I started a guitar class on Saturdays at the Shenkman Arts Centre in Orleans. It was a little hard with cutting my left pinky finger the night before. We played Green Day, The Beatles, and Simon & Garfunkel. This week we will be learning some Pink Floyd and Ed Sheeran. I love the course already. The teacher is cool and she gives us tricks like the easiest ways to play a chord like G without the pinky finger. She talked about teaching us easy chord progressions that will let us play hundreds of songs. I'm excited. I feel like I'm learning what I really want to be learning. The Coursera course I took was theory based and we didn't play any music other than what the teacher wrote himself. We also covered things so fast that I found it hard to play at the level that was expected.
The Art Centre is a beautiful building filled with paintings. I'm looking forward to checking those out soon.
My taxes have been filed and paid. That's one less thing to worry about. Next year I'm going to get an accountant to do mine. I figure it will be easier.
I've been having intermittent Internet issues for a while now, and even when it's been working, it hasn't been working well enough to properly stream video. I plan to change my service and hope that will alleviate the problems. I have no issues with my provider as I've had them for many years without problems. The phone lines in my building are rather old and I believe that is why I continue to have DSL issues. I'm hoping a switch to cable Internet will be an improvement. It's not terrible having the Internet down at times as a writer for it forces me to write rather than surf, but I'd like to stream video without constant downtime, especially during the playoffs.
I've revised my short story The Blood Waitress Club a couple of times now and am waiting for further editing suggestions from my writing group. I think it's good to use a short story to learn where your problems are as a writer. It's helping me learn to edit. I used a lot of "ing" words and was using some filter words. I was also fighting with myself over which tense I wanted it to be in. That's common for me. I prefer living in the present.
Because my story is about a vampire roller derby team, I'm unsure of the market as far as contests and anthologies go. I can either sit on it until the perfect anthology call comes or put it up on Amazon and/or Kobo. I'm thinking of doing the latter. Part of the reason is that the few contests I've found all want to keep the rights and it doesn't sound like it's just for a year or two...
This takes me to covers. I know people that pay a lot for covers and don't make the return on the investment. I'm considering DIY Book Covers because it's between paying a lot or going really cheap and having something that many other authors have for covers. Everything ahead is new ground for me, which is exciting and a little scary.
Tonight I'm meeting with a member of my writing group to go over my novel, The Page & The Magician, and discuss what major issues it has. Hopefully he doesn't want me to cut everything I've written out :)
Ciao,
R~