Bali Day One

My fiance and I just spent a week in Bali, Indonesia. This is from the travelogue that I did not keep past the first day:

After 30+ hours of travel, we arrived on Sunday night to the Bali airport in Denpasar to broken ATM machines and difficult decisions about whether to declare Gabe's oranges. For brief moments I was terrified we would spend the week in Bali without a way to get cash. But we found a working ATM and for probably the only time in our lives, we got to view bank balances in the tens of millions. After an hour and a half drive to Candidasa, we did little more than pick at the delicious traditional Balinese meal, then fell into a hard bed in sticky heat with only a single three-blade fan to cool us, and had the best sleep of our lives.

Ryan warned us we would wake with the sun, around 6:30am, and his prediction was vindicated, for me at least. Gabe was still deeply asleep beside me as I rose, found the villa's promised yoga mats, and padded outside to the postage stamp lawn. The sun rising to my left, I faced the ocean and practiced five rounds of sun salutations. It was the most peaceful and beautiful I have felt in so long.

It is impossible to write about the events of today without overshadowing them with our accident. John, Ryan, and Gabe rented scooters. I was too afraid, as is usual for me, but rather than stay at home, my compromise was to wrap my arms around Gabe's belly and ride on the scooter behind him. I was terrified at first, but seeing Gabe's pleasure and exhilaration at driving gave me pleasure and exhilaration. Driving in Bali is nerve-racking for so many reasons, and the rain--which I assume we will face daily (as it is the rainy season)--exacerbates them all. After riding many hours to visit the Taman Ujung Water Palace and the Water Temple at Tirtagangga,  we were mere meters from home, when, having missed what we thought was our turn, Gabe attempted a turnaround on a slick incline out of a parking lot. The bike slipped out from beneath us and sent us skidding over the gravel.

Immediately, we were surrounded by people who wanted to help. They got us to our feet and aimed hoses at the dirt that stuck in our wounds. Gabe had landed squarely on his shoulder and suffered a deep contusion, but thankfully no dislocation or breakage. He had a deep, large scrape on his elbow and is already proud of the scars he will undoubtedly grow. I was not as injured: a big scrape on my knee and cuts on my right hand, with minor scrapes on my elbow, arm, and shoulder. Gabe seemed to have a tear in his eye when he told me how thankful he was that I wasn't badly hurt. I knew the feeling.

The Australian owner of the Bayside Bungalows took good care of us, strangers. He sent one of his staff for iodine at a nearby "dokter," then sent two more to see us home: one to drive us in a van and a second to follow with the fateful rented scooter. Our brains mush from the accident, we mumbled apologies to the driver as we stared desperately, trying to remember where we were staying in this new town that had not even known us 24 hours. Finally, we were relieved to find our road, which Gabe will attribute to me, but what was really a lucky accident of our driver. We paid the scooter owner 100,000 rupia for the damaged bike (about $9USD), then limped home to Villa Nilaya.

This was our first day in Bali.

One Year; Year One

It’s been a long time since I’ve written something very personal on this blog. I feel the urge today. Perhaps it’s because I’ve developed a recent addiction to reading personal essays by women. Perhaps it’s because I’ve always had an affinity for dates and anniversaries. Perhaps it’s because autumn makes me introspective. Perhaps it's because September 17th, 2012 was the beginning of the rest of my life.

One year ago today, a significant aspect of my life was flipped upside down. I know it was today because I wrote it down in my writing journal. “September 17th, 2012, ----- --------- broke up with me.” It was a single line in the margins between notes about the book projects I had in progress at the time.

My “partner” of 6½ years, with whom I had been living for almost 2 years, unceremoniously broke off our relationship one Monday morning. It was the first day of a week I had taken off work to dedicate to my writing. We'd had a fight the previous night when he came home too late and lied about who he was with. He woke up in the morning, showered and dressed for work, came out to the living room where I was lounging in my pajamas with a book, leaned against a piece of furniture, and told me it was over. He didn’t even sit down to tell me this.

I put “partner” in quotes because that’s never truly what he was to me. It was only what I called him. I started using that term in our sixth year together, when “boyfriend” was too young an expression and “husband” was something we agreed he would never be. (One of many compromises I made was that marriage and children were off the table.) We had a formal domestic partnership in place so that he could be on my health insurance. I had replaced romance with paperwork, thinking I would take what semblance of permanence and commitment I could get. He never used the term. I’m not sure what word he used to refer to me. I’m not sure he ever referred to me at all. I found out several months ago that his boss at a job he’s been at for years didn’t know I had written a book. He was a photographer who only took my picture a few times, an apt metaphor for our relationship. But despite the many problems, it's hard to overstate the effects being in a near 7-year relationship can have on a person, and even harder to overstate the effects of its sudden end. 

We lived passively together for the next 5 weeks, while we worked with our landlord to find someone to take over the apartment, and I tried to find a new place to live. Our life together was shockingly similar to the way it was before the breakup, a fact that made it easier to swallow the reality and the necessity of the situation.

The immediate effect of the breakup, aside from the traditional cycle of grief (which seemed to spin on an endless loop those first few weeks), was a deep introspection and a consuming need for intense self-care, which I had let lapse for years. I planned a trip to Colorado in an effort to reconnect with my semi-estranged sister, my relationship with whom had been strained in large part because of my ex. I emailed another friend with whom I had been estranged for years; he was ecstatic to hear from me, and we forgave each other for past wrongs. I wrote love letters to my friends. I called everyone I loved and made plans with them. I scheduled every day for a solid month to do something, anything. I dedicated myself to a new [semi]-minimalist lifestyle and gave away, sold, or trashed a significant portion of my possessions. I found a beautiful studio apartment in a neighborhood that scared me; I knew living there would make me grow. Moreover, it was somewhere I couldn’t live with another person, so I knew I would have 18 months of living alone—and that was essential for me.

In the midst of all this, as well as being sad and angry and confused, I reconnected with someone else from my past. He was a would-be suitor from a foray into online dating 7 years earlier. We’d run into each other on Facebook in December 2011, when my book came out, and had been “friends” since then, but one or the other of us had been involved. This was the first time we were both single, and to say I began to notice him is a gross understatement. By the time I was in Colorado, we were texting with each other every day, for almost the entire day. We had our first date on November 3. I threw up that morning because I was so in love with him, and we hadn’t even met yet. That date lasted 2 days. Today, we already have plans for a weekend away for our 1-year anniversary, and are planning a trip to Asia. I could write a book about what meeting this man has done to my heart, soul, and mind. We agree it’s a blessing we never went out those 8 years ago; we needed these years to become the people we are, the people who were meant to be together. I lamented the time “wasted” with my ex and he the time wasted on his own dating foibles, but we reminded each other that we are who we are because of what—and who—has happened to us. It truly feels like my whole life was spent in a run-up to meeting him, again, and having him meet me, and then falling in love with each other.

To spend time thinking about what else the past year has brought is not to minimize my new relationship. It is by far the most important thing to happen. But there has been so much more. Indulge me while I take inventory, in no particular order. 

• I attempted—and failed—to learn French. Relatedly, I learned that learning is harder when you’re older, and that I am not, in fact, good at everything.
• I turned 31 and threw myself a rager of a birthday party to make up for the failed 30^th birthday that had gone forgotten.
• I gained—and subsequently lost—18 pounds.
• My football team won the Super Bowl.
• I put out the second edition of my novel, finished the booktrailer, and threw the most glorious book reading for the best of my best friends and family.
• I gave away almost all my art supplies in a conscious decision to focus my free time on my writing.
• I bought more art supplies so I could draw my first comic. I drew my first comic.
• I decided one day to stop texting my ex first, just to see if he would ever contact me. He never did and we haven’t spoken in 7 months. I deleted his number from my phone. I’ve seen him once, across the street at a festival. I don’t think he saw me.
• I learned to love my body, instead of feeling like it is always a work-in-progress. I started to feel truly beautiful for the first time in years.
• I cut out sugar and grains and have subsequently learned to cook some really interesting foods, like greenola and spaghetti squash.

• I started practicing yoga at a studio.
• I allowed myself to grow out my hair because I like it that way.
• I started wearing more makeup because I want to.
• I tried on bikinis instead of one-pieces. (I did not, however, buy one.) I started wearing shorts on the regular for the first time since childhood.
• I decided that I would like to be heavily tattooed, and scheduled 9 hours of tattooing over the next 3 months. I hired an artist to design a tattoo to commemorate my first book.
• I put over 20,000 miles on my car.
• I took my bassoon out of its case, put it together, and attempted to play it for the first time since June 1999. It belongs to my nephew now.
• I reconnected with my sister and spent excellent quality time with my niece, who is becoming an adult faster than I can bear.
• I started spending my money on things that make me—and my loved ones—happy, instead of squirreling it away in paranoia and anxiety. I bought art. I bought pretty dresses. I donated to Kickstarters. I bought plane tickets to Bali.
• I remembered how much I love to walk. I climbed a mountain. I regularly hike through Baltimore just to be sure I am truly noticing all the people and the things there are to see. I replaced driving with walking whenever possible.
• I started bicycling. I am terrible at it, but getting better.
• I took up feminism.
• I realized I DO want to get married and I DO want children, and that I had deluded myself out of those desires because of a man, and fuck that forever.
• I neglected this blog, but I started tweeting like crazy.
• I started listening to more music and less news. I listen to hip-hop without feeling embarrassed about it. In fact, I listen to whatever I want without feeling embarrassed about it. I pretty much stopped feeling embarrassed, because people who make me feel embarrassed don’t count.
• I took a class in religion. I discovered Buddhism and Unitarian Universalism, and started going to church sometimes. These may very well be the answers to the spiritual questions that have been haunting me for a decade.
• I realized I might still like to be a minister some day, and I started looking into it in earnest.
• I decided I don’t need a Master’s degree to feel like a whole person.
• I cut down on drinking alcohol from nightly to once per week, or none at all.
• I finally got over my fear of the dentist and got my teeth fixed. I FUCKING FLOSS NOW.
• I learned that I can’t do everything myself. I learned to let people help me. I learned that the way it makes me feel really awesome to help people is the way it feels for other people when they help me, and it’s only fair that everyone gets to feel that.
• I tried to smile and say hello to everyone I saw on the street. That ended when I realized how much street harassment I was facing. I realized I don’t owe it to anyone to smile at them, so I stopped. I feel very ambivalent about this, but I have become very outspoken against street harassment.
• I went to my 10-year college reunion.
• I networked. Like an adult.
• I go out to eat or to concerts by myself sometimes—not because I can’t find someone to go with me, but because I realized I am friends with myself.
• I Instagram my meals and my cats with abandon because fuck the haters.
• I have more, better sex than ever, and I realized I am no less than one half of that equation.
• I make a concerted effort to see at least one of my friends every week. Depending on your personality, this may not seem like a lot, but it’s a significant change from the way I used to live my life.
• I remembered what it’s like to enjoy things with abandon. I remembered what real happiness feels like. I stopped thinking it was cool to be aloof or critical. I stopped giving energy to people or situations that make me feel bad.
• I’ve made new friends. My boyfriend has made friends with my friends. I’ve made old friends into new friends. I’ve made acquaintances into best friends. I’ve made best friends into family. I got rid of friends-in-name-only. I will never again neglect the people who will never leave me.
• I fell into a deeper, truer, more perfect love than I could have dreamed possible.

There’s more. So much more. What a year it’s been. 13’s always been my lucky number. I guess it figures that I’d be age 31 in the year ’13, and it would be the best fucking year of my life. It took a major shaking up to wake me out of the fog I was living in. It felt like a knife at the time. Now it feels like a gift. 

A Visit to Fairgos

Have you checked out the book trailer yet? Don't forget to check out the revamped www.warmastersdaughter.com as well!

Pictures From the Release Party

Thank you again to everyone who made this a success. Please do yourself a big favor and check out the work by my amazing readers, Laura Bogart and Matthew Kabik. Laura read from her novel-in-progress, and Matt read from his story "The Long Waiting Noise," recently published by Cease Cows. 

This Is Joy

I told everyone last night I had only one goal for the evening: to not cry.

More or less, the goal was met. I choked up for a moment at the beginning, but it quickly subsided, laughed off in jocular self-awareness. This evening, however, as I lay on my couch and stared across the long length of my apartment, I began to weep.

Last night was the celebration I feel like I've been waiting my whole life to have. I published The War Master's Daughter in December 2011, right before my 30th birthday. In the whirlwind of getting the book out, then celebrating my birthday, getting through the holidays, and everything else that life throws one's way, I never got around to having a book release party. It is one of the milestones on every aspiring author's mental wish list: holding the first copy in your hands, getting your first royalty check, getting reviewed, signing copies . . . sipping wine and eating stinky cheese at your release party. Last night, I finally threw the party, pinning my tardiness conveniently on the release of the second edition of the book and the debut of the book trailer, on which my friends and I have been working for over a year.

The party was slated to start at 7pm. At 6:30, my chores complete, I stood aimless in the middle of my apartment, fully dressed, fully made-up, full of anxiety. Would there be enough chairs? Were people going to buy books; would there be enough? Baltimore has been facing a brutal heat wave; would my tiny A/C unit be able to keep 35 people cool in my old, drafty apartment? Was the excerpt I chose too long? Could these people--even though they are my friends and family--stand 17 minutes of my voice, of my own crazy ideas writ down in my own crazy vernacular? I wondered if I was being self-indulgent, grandiose, throwing myself another party. I worried my dress was too tight, my lipstick the wrong color. I worried I hadn't written a proper thank you speech. Oddly, I didn't really worry about fucking up the reading, because that's the kind of thing I'm pretty good at.

But I did worry I would cry.

Last night, I was surrounded by my family and the best of my best friends. These are the people I love the absolute most in this world. They were here with me, in the home I had built for myself after my life was unexpectedly flipped upside down last autumn, and they were giving me the opportunity to thank them for things I can barely put into words. I thanked everyone for being there, of course. I thanked them for the wine and hors d'oeuvres they brought, asked them if they had any trouble parking. I thanked my friends who made the book trailer by reading from the Acknowledgments of the new edition because I didn't trust my emotions to an off-the-cuff speech. I thanked the intimidatingly talented Laura Bogart and Matthew Kabik for sharing their incredible work with my audience. However--and I'm sure no one knows this, because I hardly knew it myself, as full as I was of anxiety and adrenaline and wine--but what I was really thanking them for was for loving me, for allowing me to be a part of their lives, for being my safety net when I thought I would fall forever, for being proud and never jealous, for being there at that moment instead of somewhere else, and for being there at all moments when I needed them. For letting me love them back.

Tonight, I lay on my couch, stripped near bare on this steamy July day. All the furniture is still pushed out of the way, and an echo hangs on the rare words I speak aloud. I look at this space I created, this home that's mine, and I can feel the love that has filled it up. It lingers on the air like the smell of Sunday brunch in the kitchen, or honeysuckle near the mailbox of the house I grew up in. I felt it wash over me and I began to sob tears of joy. I am overwhelmed.

I am overjoyed.

This is joy. This is happiness. This is what you've given to me. If I can give back just the tiniest fraction of this feeling, it will be the only thing I hope ever to accomplish in my life.  

A Thousand Times Yes.

What I have to Offer from Eliot Rausch + Phos Pictures on Vimeo.

El Libro Que No Puede Esperar

"Books are patient objects. . . . That's okay for books--but not for new authors. If people don't read them, they'll never make it to a second book."

FREE Summer Read

Need to upload something fresh to your e-reader before vacation?


The War Master's Daughter has been included in Smashwords' July Reading Promo. Use code SSWIN at checkout to get the e-book in the format of your choice for FREE.

If you choose to take advantage of this great offer, please take a moment to leave a review of the book on Amazon or Goodreads. If you really enjoy the book, you can get a signed copy of the paperback to keep for posterity by ordering through SMLX Books.

Happy summer reading!

iBooked!

TWMD has been iBooked! Search iTunes or the store in the iBook app to find your copy.

iBook Update

The War Master's Daughter has officially shipped to Apple! It should be available as an iBook about one week from now. I will keep you posted right here.

If you can't wait for the iBook, don't forget that today is the last day to get the eBook from Smashwords for 67% off! Use coupon code SK65L.

This Book is Top-Shelf

I just got the exciting news that The War Master's Daughter will be included in Smashword's Premium Distribution Catalog. This increases the book's availability to a variety of outlets, including 32 foreign countries. But most exciting is that it will be available as an iBook as soon as next week! Having recently succumbed to the siren's call that is the iPad, I know this is a market I want to be in. TWMD eBook may also soon be coming to a library near you! Make sure to request it at your local branch.

But in the interim, the eBook is available in a variety of tablet-friendly formats, including for the Kindle Reader. And if you download from Smashwords, you can get your copy for 67% off the list price--this week only! Use coupon code SK65L.

The Intellectual Pleasures of Draw Something

My coworker told me, “Download Draw Something and watch your next 3 hours disappear.” I did exactly that, marveling that anything save heroin and cigarettes could be quite as addictive as purported. Like 14 million other users, I was immediately and almost irreparably hooked on the game, which is a colorful, capacitive-screen update of the classic Pictionary.

At first I was rather rudimentary in my drawings—turning out good-enough hieroglyphs for friends and strangers to guess. Then I took a turn with an especially creative friend who rendered me a werewolf with more character than you see on a CBS sitcom. Then on tumblr, I stumbled upon some truly inspired Drawn Somethings. I suddenly realized this game could be so much more. To paraphrase a statement I read online but cannot readily source, “Draw Something is like commissioning tiny paintings from my friends.” Once I got an iPad, I reveled in going completely overboard to render something simple.

My hours on Draw Something have yet to rival Angry Birds levels of obsessiveness, but I admit to spending more than a healthy amount of time playing. All this time has got me thinking about why this game fascinates me so much. Its addictive properties are well documented, but my brain has been tickling: Does the game get in touch with something deeper about our minds and our culture? And why do I like it so darn much. So here is some of what Draw Something represents to me.

The Psychology of Symbolism

I’m a classically trained artist. The number one rule drilled into my head during my decade and a half of arts education was not to symbolize. In other words, draw what you see not what you think you see. Eschewing symbolism was tremendous for my ability to render from reality, allowing me to excel in portraiture.

But symbolism is exactly what makes art so communicative. It’s why we can communicate with images that are not photographs—paintings, cartoons, and Draw Something doodles alike. Our brains combine information from various sources to create a unified interpretation of an image, even if we have never seen that image before. Certain shapes, colors, objects, etc. signify meaning within and among cultures.

Much of this symbolism is learned, through experience, education, and acculturation. This aspect of Draw Something fascinated me because it emphasized how I share intellectual and cultural development with other people (more on this in a bit). But even more fascinating to me is our shared ability to interpret symbols even beyond what we are taught. For example, it takes just three marks to make a face.

:)

It doesn't look anything like a face; however, the signifier is undeniable. But it’s not something we’re taught, like the Pythagorean Theorum; it’s actually a skill we’re born with. Babies can recognize faces (as distinct from non-faces) at just 3 months old. Moreover, studies demonstrate that humans have a unique, inherited, genetic ability to recognize faces where none should reasonably exist.

Intellectually, we know this

  looks absolutely nothing like this

But our evolutionary instincts take over and translate the symbol—in case, you know, that face is someone trying to steal your food or kill your young. It’s also why all three of these examples work equally well to convey meaning:

In a strange way, I feel like Draw Something is letting me connect with other people on a more basic level—while also connecting with them on a more complex level, which brings me to:

Personalities, Predilections Revealed

When symbols are not hardwired in our brains, diversity in interpretation becomes the challenge, with varying degrees of severity. Symbols have vastly changed over time. Think about the cross, which was once a symbol of a terrifying death, or the Nazi swastika, which once symbolized peace and harmony. With sharing-propelled pop culture, signifiers changes even faster. And that’s part of the fun.

Playing Draw Something with a diverse group of people can make the lowest common denominator of symbol rise to the top. Take the clue “Easter.”  It’s interesting that most of my teammates drew a bunny and eggs. One friend drew the stone rolled away from the tomb. The word “wreck,” as another example, is a free-for-all.

The interpretation a person chooses tells so much about their personality that couldn’t quite be seen any other way. It’s a peek inside the way they interpret words, and moreover, the way they think you interpret words. It’s a melding of the mind, like Stephen King’s “mind-reading trick” in On Writing.

Going the other way, you have to know your audience. For me, a big part of the fun is choosing an interpretation that will hopefully provide a big of amusement for my partner, as well as get a correct guess. And I definitely tend to land on the “obscurer the better” end of the spectrum. I am proud to have friends for whom I could draw something like this and get a correct answer:

For others, it would look a lot more like this:

I recently realized through a number of contextual clues that one of my DS partners was likely British. A brief mental retrospective over our 72-turn streak made me wonder if I would have drawn anything differently if I had realized that earlier. Then again, I probably don’t even know what he might not know. I like to have to second-guess what I may lazily consider universal; it reminds me that the world is a lot bigger than I am.

The Absence of Words

I mentioned above that I have substantial art training, but by trade I am a writer. I read and manipulate words all day long, nearly every day. A forum, no matter how small, where I cannot use any words at all to communicate is like a tiny brain oasis.

Definitely part of the fun for me is eschewing ALL letters and numbers in favor of images and symbols only. It’s the absence of language, which is at once uniting and dividing. Remove language, and you remove a lot of the barriers to communication. In my professional life, I write business proposals and we strive to convey as much information in graphics rather than in words for the very simple reason that graphics are more efficient for communicating certain types of information.

Of course, part of the point of Draw Something is that it’s inefficient. While there are no documented rules, many hardliners pooh-pooh any use of words (or actively call it out). For my part, I never use words, letters, or numbers, but I won’t quit a game with someone just because they do—unless it’s seriously blatant. Because what’s the fun in this?

The second part of the joy I get in the absence of words is that communication is absolutely reduced to the task at hand—at least until the latest update. Previously, your drawing had to speak for itself. And the only praise you got was a correct guess. If you felt really compelled to applaud your partner for a particular mini-masterpiece, you could squiggle out an awkward “Awesome!” with your finger, then trash the drawing and get onto the task. But that was it. It felt elementary—rudimentary and joyful as finger painting. But in the days of the like button, endless streams of comments, and retweeting, I think we’ve all gone a little too far in our hunger for e-validation. Draw Something was a little respite from the constant approval mongering. Which brings me to…

The Joy of Creating in a Vacuum

If I spent a lot of extra time drawing a really special “Lennon” for you, it was because I wanted to do that—for you and for myself. Because it was hopefully a little highlight to both of our days. Sure, I may dash off a quick “bride” before I go to sleep. But in large part, I try to spend some time on my little doodles. There’s no countdown clock, no extra coins for getting done faster. In a world where everything seems reduced to its most streamlined 140 characters, where every task seems multitasked, it’s nice for me to slow down while I’m drawing for you—and for you to slow down while you watch me draw it.

More than that, the drawings used to disappear as soon as they were sent. Sure, you could capture a screenshot (and many have) but that wasn’t really in the spirit of things. For the most part, the “tiny paintings” were a fleeting pleasure, shared between you and your DS partner. I was disappointed that the update not only lets you save your drawings, but has buttons for sharing them on the social network. The small pleasure of creating in a vacuum, just for the sheer joy of doing it, has been reduced like so many other things as a means to get attention.

The changes brought about by the update  didn’t surprise me—especially after the OMGPOP CEO showed his true colors, comparing DS to Information Age behemoths AOL and Facebook. His true motive (not that I blame him) is to sell as many apps as possible to demanding consumers who have had their tastes cultivated for them by the prevailing social media, not to preserve a neat little microcosm of culture—pop and otherwise. 

But I still love the game, and I’ll still play for all the reasons cited above. But I’m keeping it between you and me.

No Such Thing as Bad Publicity?

I stumbled across this gem of an article today. It is a take-off of a feature article about me and my book that ran in my high school newspaper, The Cry of the Hawk. As a friend pointed out, it appears to have been translated into another language, then translated back into English through an automated app, like Google Translate. I wonder if this is a technique employed by spammy sites like Online-Degree-Diploma to drive traffic to themselves, while skirting outright plagiarism?

I don't quite understand. However I am beyond amused. There is indeed some poignant wisdom in this weird translation, sort of like a bad fortune cookie dictum.

Writing a main division is a severe try for some determined author, as well as Zupko’s put confidence in was no different. In Apr 2011 she submitted to thirty agents, athwart twenty of them returned a mean form of rejection. Zupko said, “If a solitary chairman is starting to confirm a predestine of my book, it is starting to be me.” She did have it chance.

In the words of another friend, "When a content farm bot is translating and then untranslating and then republishing your high school newspaper's article about you, you know you've made it." 

New Review for TWMD

A beautifully written and insightful review of The War Master's Daughter has just been posted over at The Action Prose, a great in-your-face writing and life blog by @RanceDenton.

"To suggest that Elly Zupko’s The War Master’s Daughter is merely a historical fiction novel would be to ignore a great number of its evident strengths.  Simultaneously, pigeonholing the novel into any specific genre would be to discredit its willingness to step outside its comfort zones. The greater part of The War Master’s Daughter is confused about what genre it may actually be, but that doesn’t draw away from the novel’s overall quality.  Zupko’s book is a fantastic independent offering the intense strengths of which outweigh the few moments where its footing occasionally wavers.
..."[read more]

It's the End of the World As Wayne Knows It

Since I've done almost nothing but rant and argue and complain for the past eight posts, here's something on the lighter side.

My friends and I--team Liquid Squid--participated in the 48-Hour Film Project last year. I encourage you to check out the organization and read about the details of the contest. It basically boils down to:

• Friday = beer and pizza fueled screenplay writing, constrained by contest-wide parameters including a specific character, prop, line of dialogue, and genre
• Saturday = coffee and doughnut fueled acting and filming, constrained by location, available equipment, and daylight
• Sunday = adrenaline fueled editing, constrained by flagging energy and a looming deadline

The result is a short film that may or may not be coherent. But damn did we have fun--and we won "Best Use of Prop"! This was our entry, It's the End of the World As Wayne Knows It. 

The Pumple Cake Experiment

My friends had a party this weekend. Not just any party, but a grand bacchanalia of food. It was the annual "This is Why You're Fat" party, a celebration of all things, buttered, battered, deep-fried, married with bacon.

This was my first year attending, and being the competitive person I am, I wanted to make a play for one of the prizes: "Best Meat Treat" or "Best Sweet Treat." This led me to the Pumple Cake (or "pake"). I can't take credit for inventing it, but I will take credit for my own unique spin on the recipe and the hours of difficult, risky work that went into baking it. My Pumple Cake was:

An apple pie inside a spice cake

A pumpkin pie inside an apple caramel cake

A middle layer of coconut-pecan frosting with candied bacon

All covered in cream cheese frosting

Every step of the way was a chance for disaster. Thankfully everything came together (albeit a little lopsided), and the results were decadent and delicious. I took home second place "Sweet Treat." The prize was a gallon of Mrs. Butterworth.

With its wonderful combination of spicy autumn flavors, and its consummate over-the-topness, this dish would be perfect for Thanksgiving--if you can find the 5.5 hours of oven time it takes.

Here's the process:

Since the Pumple is labor intensive by itself--as well as a huge gamble--I went for pre-made ingredients. The pies were Marie Calendar frozen pies. The cakes were Duncan Hines Spice Cake and Apple Caramel Cake. I doctored the cake mixes by adding half a box of instant butterscotch pudding mix to each, and subbing in buttermilk for the water.

I used Betty Crocker coconut-pecan frosting and Pillsbury cream cheese frosting. Neither of these was very good. They had that chemical-y, preservative-y, crappy bake sale taste. I think the single thing I could have done to make the Pumple even better would have been to make the cream cheese icing from scratch. Next time...

Rounding out the ingredient list were the maple bacon, brown sugar, and bourbon for the candied bacon middle layer. Sure, this was indulgent and unnecessary, incongruous even, but for "TIWYF," bacon is almost a prerequisite.

I baked the pies the night before, so that they would have a chance to cool completely overnight for easier de-tinning. The pies each took about an hour and the aroma in our apartment just about made me insane.

The next morning, I jumped in with making the cakes. Mixing the first cake batter proved to be the easiest part of a long, hard road.

I'm not much of a baker, so I had to buy a new cake pan just for this project. My friend recommended Calaphon, and I sprung for the springform. I figured, the less I had to handle the cakes, the better. I think the pan made the process a lot less complicated than it could have been.

After buttering and flouring the cake pan, the next step is to put a layer of batter on the bottom of the pan. With the addition of the pudding mix, the spice cake batter was really thick, so it more like putty than batter. It was a good foundation for the very heavy apple pie.

The Marie Callender apple pie was almost too big to fit in the cake pan. Getting it into the pan was really tricky and seriously got my adrenaline pumping. But with a quick, brave flip, it splatted into the pan and fit with a sliver to spare. The other half of the batter gets spread over the top and sides of the pie.

Baking the "pake" was another big challenge. The box cake mix said it would take about 35 minutes. But 35 minutes in, it was clear this cake was not going to be done anytime soon. An hour in, the edges were getting awfully dark and I was afraid they would burn, but the middle was still gooey. I know others have ruined their pakes with overbaking. But I did some quick research and discovered the trick: I covered the top of the cake with foil, lowered the temp to 300, then let it bake away until it was done. It took almost 2 hours, but it didn't burn.

The springform pan allowed for easy removal. I don't think I could have gotten the cake out any other way. It weighed about 5 pounds, and I was worried the weight of the pie would make it fall through the bottom. But thankfully I could remove the outer ring and slide it onto the cooling rack. In the picture below, you can see the pie crust peeking out through the side of the cake.

While the apple pake was cooling in the fridge, I moved onto the pumpkin. The pie was smaller, lighter, and more structurally sound, so it was far easier over all.

After the pumpkin pake was done and cooling, I moved onto candying the bacon for the middle. I par-fried the bacon, then put it on a parchment-covered baking pan. I mixed a teaspoon of maple flavoring with a couple tablespoons of bourbon, and sprinkled it on each piece. Then I covered each piece with brown sugar. I baked then in a 400-degree oven for 10 minutes a side. they got a little dark, so I'd probably bring it down to 8 minutes a side next time.

This stuff was GOOD. I highly recommend it, pumple or not.

Between the layers, we spread the coconut-pecan frosting and added the bacon bits. I had been leery of the bacon and went back and forth and adding it. But in the end, I'm glad I did. The smokey sweet flavor was a perfect counter-note to the sweetness, spice, and caramel in the rest of the dessert.

Getting the pumpkin layer onto the apple layer was another anxiety-inducing moment.

We frosted the outside of the cake with cream cheese frosting, then decorated the top with a dollop of coconut-pecan frosting, candy pumpkins, a sliced gala apple, and a square of candied bacon.

I added it up: The final Pumple Cake has over 13,000 calories. And every bite was worth it.

Under Cover

I just re-read my last post, and I feel that I must wrap up the loose end I left about how I would feel after signing the paperwork to license the cover photograph for Secernere. I signed the contract late last week, paid the fee, and downloaded the final high-resolution TIFF from the lovely and talented photographer (who I believe is also the model in the photograph).

I tell you I did not feel one single twinge of regret. Not one pang. The only thing I felt was a fluttering heart, much akin to the feeling when one receives a note from a new lover. Owning the rights to this perfect image has solidified Secernere in my mind as more than just words on a page, as more than a manuscript. The paperwork, the signature, the out-shelling of money, the filed-away invoice as a statement of business expense: this was my first real move down the independent publishing road.

Over the weekend, I finished the layout to my cover, including the spine and the back, on which I posted draft sales copy and an exorbitantly laudatory (fake) blurb. And I am so happy with it. It's this perfect little decoration that I will wrap around my interesting little story and turn it into this nebulous idea called a "book."

On the Awl yesterday, I read a quote from Mark Jude Poirier that summed it up so well: "The cover of your first book is like your wedding dress if you’re a woman: You want it to represent who you are, but you want it to make you look much better than you normally do."

Now I'm not all that into weddings, and I don't put much time into daydreaming about a wedding dress, but my first book cover is shaping up to be a pretty good goshdarn stand-in. Timeless, classic, simple, muted but memorable. (Too bad it probably won't make my mother quite as happy.)

But oh my gosh, I can't wait to share it! Stay tuned.

Cover Art

I am going to keep this short, because I am a few glasses of vino in... :) But I couldn't wait to share the news:

I just got a reply from an amazing photographer that she is willing to license me a piece of her work for the cover of Secernere, and at a very workable price. I am so stoked that my heart is actually beating faster!

I will have final cover art soon, and I'll post it here first!

A Glimpse of the Future

One of my beta readers, Jes, loaded up her Kindle with the draft of Secernere and sent me this shot last night. It makes me giddy to see myself in print--well, in e-ink anyway!

Ahh! Bag Monsters!

This has a little of everything I love: random public art, trash recycled as awesomeness, monsters.