I'm something of a rice pudding fanatic. Ever since I read a historical fiction book about american pioneers as a wee tot (can't remember the name for the life of me) my favorite breakfast treat has been rice pudding. They talked about rice pudding being the best breakfast food so often I'm 99% sure I was delightfully brainwahsed into it as well.
I've been trying to perfect the recipe througout the years, and only tonight do I think I've gotten somewhat close to the perfect one!
1 cup white sugar 1 cup rice (any kind, though white works best, and sticky rice is even better.) 2 pinches salt 2 eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (I usually get vanilla beans and scrape out the insides the old fashioned way because I'm convinced it tastes better, but extract works great when you're not neurotic like me!) 4 cups milk
Stir together milk, sugar, and rice over medium low heat. When it's all evenly mixed, set to low. Whisk together eggs, vanilla, and salt. Turn rice up to medium and stir in egg mix. Turn up to medium high and stir constantly for the next five minutes or until milk is sufficiently evaporated.
You're aiming for the consistency of very thick smoothie, maybe a little thicker. As a good judge, you should be able to see the individual grains of rice very slightly. Refridgerate overnight and sprinkle cinnamon and raisins to taste before serving. It's great to eat hot, too. I used golden raisins, but any type of dried fruit works awesomely. This is also a great way to get rid of leftover rice you know you'll end up throwing away later!
Here's the finished product! Forgive my crap skills at taking yummy-looking food shots.
I wish I could make a metaphor about rice pudding being like the halfway points in new WIPS, but I can't think of one.
I think I enjoy the point when a WIP starts to take on a life of its own. There's a point where you start writing, and you build the blocks, and at some point the story stands on its own two legs, jumps up from the playpen, and runs around screaming; "HI I'VE ARRIVED". You get this weird sense of pride, and love, and a million other positive feelings that are almost like getting drunk and falling in love all at the same time. It's this big swirl of everything good about life; rain, tea, happy tears, the smell of fresh sheets and sun on the water.
Those moments make the tough pains seem a little less horrifying. Of course you'll suffer while writing. Of course you'll get frustrated and feel like quitting when you compare your work to someone else's, but those tiny moments of true accomplishment fill up the flask of the muse bit by bit.
Meaning, of course, I haven't written an entry in like...four days. Terrible. I can feel the lack draining me mentally! I can also feel my abilities of sarcasm slipping away as we SPEAK.
Today I'm going to talk about improving. Ooh, scary, I know. Tres scary. Scarier than the first time you watched The Shining and didn't know what happened at all until it happened and you went OH GOD IS THAT AN AXE.
Writing a whole new book definetly helps me improve as a writer, personally, but its sometimes hard to try new things or throw in a new curve in an prolonged work like an entire book. You generally start out with an idea and style in mind and then run with it to keep consistent. By the end of the book you might've improved a bit, and that's great!
For me, real improvement comes during writing short stories. I write articles for a living and stories for pleasure (right now, anyway, but one day-!!) and sometimes I just get burned out on writing in general, which is where short stories come in.
It's important that you write what you love. If you wanna write that goddamn Buffy fanfiction, you write it. If you wanna write a haiku about your love for smoked gouda (I LOVE SMOKED GOUDA!!!!!!) then write it! The pace and tone might surprise you. I've been making little drabbles and liking them a lot. There's no pressure to make a great book that will grab agent attention, live up to expectation, and then sell like hotcakes. There's no angsting of 'is this the right genre', or if the character is 'believable' or 'unique' enough.
It's hard to remember why we love writing in the first place, and it can get lost in the little details and the desire to publish. I'm reminded of why I first started writing when I take a breather and write little blurbs free of restrictions or worry.
Sometimes I think of writers like conducters of orchestras - meting out what tone should be louder and which should be softer, and keeping the beat overall, and the feel of the piece is communicated through every tiny movement of your hands. It's our job to weave the sounds together in a way that transmits many different feelings.
Which explains why I stand up and motion wildly in the air when writing sometimes, right?
Uh, so this new draft is romantic. I don't like it at all, but I like it in a way where I'll never admit it, except, you know, just now.
I don't especially know a lot about romance. I suspect I am mostly jaded, but I don't know it for sure. I could just be feeling detached for a few weeks (years). This is a point that has been pointed at by several people lately; Do boys really matter that much to me anymore?
And it's funny, because the people (you! and others!) in my life will all seem to nod at once in a metaphysical way at each other and agree to ask me similar questions of similar topics all around similar times. This principle already having a name; Murphy's Law, made by some guy named Murphy who was Lawful (good? neutral? evil? The mystery remains, but I'm thinking evil).
Do boys really matter to me anymore.
I think the bigger question is this; Did boys ever really matter to me at all? Did love in itself ever really matter to me at all?
I think they/it did, to both those questions! I think it did matter, at some point. But all good things must come to an end. Magic doesn't happen until it happens, and forcing or faking it is stupid. (People build it all the time.)
The other side is thus; quit waiting for magic. I'm not waiting for anything. That's just it. The fact that people call it waiting when I'm doing nothing of the sort irritates me. I'm not waiting, goddamnit, I'm just not doing anything. I'm not saying yes or no, I'm just moving on without a steady boyfriend or string of one night stands. I am neither extreme.
I think I just don't care enough.
It (the big It) always has been this strange feeling I've never quite fully grasped, or have been given the chance to embrace. Maybe I was given the chance, and I just didn't take it, but either way I've never had it. Sometimes I can stare out a window and look at the light on the trees and the spirit of it will hover just above my eyes. Someone else is there, flooding me with their experience and feelings. Most of the time I don't even feel the person, the feeling just hits sharply and strongly and I get a little wistful. All of a sudden I can understand, for the briefest moment, what warm, surging affection means.
For those few seconds, I'm in a relationship with someone I don't know, but know intimiately.
Crazy talk.
But then it goes away and I'm normal again. And I have pancake flour on my face.
So. I'm not the cuddly type. Or, correction. I'm mostly only the cuddly type when I'm drunk. I don't like touching people, or being excessively close to them. Hugging was, and always will be, a little weird for me - I'm only just now learning to take it in stride.
Where was I? Play me off, keyboard cat. No! I remember. Romance. I have no idea what it is. I assume it's made of candles and nice thoughts, and quaint things that shouldn't be romantic at all but are because humanity thinks romantic irony the most romantic ever. This is due in part to their desire to stand out, and for completely unrelated things to come together as a chaotic (therefore fair and true) spiritual hint that they (or their connection) means something to the universe.
When in reality all the universe wants you to do is fuck.
So being cuddly when you're drunk is okay, I guess. I used to only drink with people I liked and knew, and so I could cuddle on anyone I wanted to without severe reprecussions, but now that's all out the window. I don't know the people I drink with now, but one or two of them are okay. I search the crowd when I first walk in the house and pick which one won't try anything devious or will accept me without too many annoying questions. This equates to me either A. Picking a girl, B. Picking a young kid, or C. Hanging with the outcasts of said party, who are a little ways away from it and not REALLY outcasts, they usually are just out for a smoke and happen to find nice, isolated places to sit.
The problem with A is that people start egging you on to make out with her, the problem with B is that the kid gets way too excited and his boner starts becoming obvious and from there it's all shades of awkward, and C is difficult because the outcasts smoking usually smell like smoke (which I have always disliked), or are too 'detached' and 'cool' to let some random girl lean on them.
And drinking messes with my ability to write honestly, so I've really actually given it up. (We will see how true I stay to that this Saturday, hohohoho)
I don't know anything, but I am learning all the time.
