A ranking of the various hot sauces in our house:
- Sweet Chili Chicken Sauce – A nice, sweet heat
- El Yucateco Red Hot Sauce – Perfect. Adds heat, makes your nose run, doesn’t kill you
- Smokin’ Hot Sauce (part of a 4-pack of Valentines Day hot sauces) – Got bite. Made Dan sneeze.
- After Death Sauce – One drop is enough. Seriously, I kid you not. Any more and it will kill you.
Things I can’t find in the grocery store:
- Any frozen fruit other than “citrus blend”
- Sorbet (other than “citrus” flavor)
- Konjac noodles
- Scent-free laundry detergent
- Will power
Things I’ve read in the past month:
- Johannes Cabal the Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard
- The Burrowers Beneath, by Brian Lumley
- Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King
- Wings of Fire: The Hidden Kingdom (MG Graphic Novel) by Tui T. Sutherland and illustrated by Mike Holmes
- Wings of Fire: The Lost Heir (MG Graphic Novel) by Tui T. Sutherland and illustrated by Mike Holmes
- Sunny Rolls the Dice (MG Graphic Novel) by by Jennifer and Matthew Holm
- 30 Days of Night (Graphic Novel) by Steve Niles, illustrated by Ben Templesmith
- A literal crap-ton of news, AITA, and Not Always Right
Things I like about editing:
- Feeling the story come together with every little change I make
- Pulling small threads, inserting scenes, and tweaking dialog to strengthen themes and character arcs
- Cutting out EVERYTHING that doesn’t need to be there:
- Scene doesn’t move the plot forward? Gone
- Sentence doesn’t ring quite true? Gone
- Sentence duplicates a thought or feeling I’ve already expressed, and isn’t needed for rhythm? Gone.
- Filler words (just, really, that etc.) Gone
- “could see”, “could feel” – replaced with “saw”, “felt”
- Watching that word count go down
Things I dislike about editing:
- I’ve been doing it non-stop since November and I REALLY want to work on my new project now! Please? Can I just work on my new novel?
Quarantine Cats!
Stay safe!
Ghosts, Zombies, and other Fun Things 