Writing Wednesday - Cooking Shifted from Electric to gas

 

 

So, you may have noticed a new widget at the top of my page. Well that is my novel word count widget. After getting yet another job rejection letter I decided to give myself a bigger kick up the kiester & start making proper progress on my first book. I've set myself a word limit of 50,000 after reading that the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America specifies a word length of 40,000 for the novel category of its Nebula award categories. Okay I'm not expecting to win awards for my story (well, at least not a Nebula as that's for American writers, maybe a BFSA instead... LOL) but it gives me a total to work to.

 

So far I'm bashing out about 1,500 – 2,000 words a day (I get up late & have other minor stuff to do during the day... mainly Sims on Facebook) and have managed to pass the minimum halfway mark. Hopefully this rate will see me finishing the first draft before the end of June. Then it'll be rewrites galore. So far I've discovered my strengths lay with descriptive writing & battle scenes. My weaknesses are forming emotional moments & getting the right there/their (despite knowing full well the difference). Thank heavens for Word grammar check.

Slimming Saturday - A Quick Update

Well I had been doing well on my diet & fitness regime but summer has put pay to that for a while. Winter was too damn cold to use my exercise bike (bedroom = freezer). But, thankfully, the weather improved and I was doing 40mins every other day. I even managed to lose 3kilos! Yay me! Unfortunately, this week summer finally reared its hot fettid head. Instead of sweating away exercising I have been sweating away without having to move. My Germanic genes do not like sunshine & heat.

Hopefully all the water I'm losing will count next time I brave the scales.

Dutch Donderdag - Koninginnedag (Hangover NOT Optional)

I just witnessed my first Queen's Day in Amsterdam... & by “witness” I mean I hid in the flat with the curtains closed, the windows shut & the TV turned up loud. I'm not comfortable in crowds & the Netherlands' yearly celebration is the mother of all orange-clad, migraine-inducing crowds.

So what is Queen's Day? Queen's Day (or Koninginnedag to give it its Dutch title) is the celebration of the Queen's official birthday. Her Madge's birthday is actually January 31^st but I guess as that date is usually accompanied with wind, rain & cold she had to choose another one so the Dutch population can 'party on down' relatively chill-free. Personally I think this is a clever choice of dates as the following day, May 1^st, is when all the May Day protests occur, usually followed by the obligatory May Day riots. Not so in the Netherlands. You try protesting with a cracking hang-over.

So what happens on this most orange of festivals? Celebrations kick off the following evening (aptly named Queen's Day eve) when people head off to some of the other major cities (Rotterdam or Utrecht), wear orange & get drunk. So far, so Dutch. Then on the Day itself the entire population of the Netherlands, in a bleary post-alcoholic fuelled funk, tries to shoe-horn itself into Amsterdam. The streets & canals come alive with hordes of hungover Dutch wearing equally headache generating shades of orange.

Here I'll do a quick digress. Why this shade of orange? Yes I know it's all down to 'William of Orange' but he wasn't called 'William the Neon Orange'. There are many calming, toned-down shades of this colour... why oh why did the Dutch have to pick the one that can bring on seizures?

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes... The population of the Netherlands is now stumbling through Amsterdam's streets in a “party mood”. The population of Amsterdam, in turn, takes advantage of all these ex-hungover-newly-inebriated-brain-fuddled outsiders by setting up stalls outside their apartments... & selling off all their second-hand tat, crap & the occasional over-priced can of lukewarm beer. In effect Amsterdam becomes the biggest flea-market in the developed (& possibly developing) world.

The royal family, in general, shun the crowds to “spend time with family”... except the prince who, this year, spent his day chucking orange painted toilets down a field.... yes you read that right... no I don't know why either.

Eventually, after Amsterdam has been drunk dry & there's no more second-hand rubbish to buy, the Netherlands populous heads off home, ready to nurse its collective hangover the following day at work.

Ha ha!

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Footnote... Yes I'm sure there's a more sensible/historic reason as to why we celebrate the Queen's birthday on April 30^th (or 29^th if it falls on a Sunday). Just check Wikipedia. However, I like my reasoning better.