I'm going to WisCon; I'll be arriving sometime Friday afternoon, and staying through the Sign-Out on Monday.

I'm on three programming items, all of them on Sunday afternoon.

Let's Build a World

We'll start with some categories (tech level, economic system, climate, races, etc.), get ideas about each of them from the audience, select the best ideas in each category, then watch the panelists writhe as they try to figure out how to make them work together.
Sunday, 1:00-2:15 P.M.
Capitol A
M: Benjamin Rosenbaum
doselle young
Naomi Kritzer
Kristine Smith

Workshops and Critique Groups

What makes for a successful critique group? What should a writer look for in a workshop? Is Clarion worth the time and money? How about the shorter/cheaper workshops, like Odyssey and Viable Paradise? Can you find good feedback online? Or should you follow Heinlein's advice and ignore the advice of anyone who isn't paying you for your story?
Sunday, 2:30-3:45 P.M.
Capitol A

M: Naomi Kritzer
Shweta Narayan
Nisi Shawl
Ada Milenkovic Brown
Richard Chwedyk

Writing and parenting, and writing about parenting

How do you balance your writing and the needs/wants/whims of your children? How do your children inform and inspire your writing -- or do you write about child-free warrior maidens and forget the kids for a while?
Sunday, 4:00-5:15 P.M.
Capitol A

M: Amy Thomson
Naomi Kritzer
Vandana Singh
Doug Hulick
Sara Amis

If you were at Mayday and have photos of me and the girls, please send me copies. :-) naomi dot kritzer at gmail dot you know the rest.

I woke up still sick but less sick than I'd feared. The instructions said to line up at noon, but I ignored them; the parade starts at 1 p.m., we were in the very last section of the official parade, and we weren't doing any sort of group choreography, so there really wasn't any reason we needed to arrive that early. Ed dropped us off at 12:45. I think we finally started moving at 1:35, and we reached the corner of 25th and Bloomington -- the actual beginning of the parade route, as opposed to the blocks where all the sections line up -- at 2.

When I first came to Minneapolis, I spent several years ignoring the Mayday Parade because "parade" made me picture motorized floats with big corporate logos on the sides. This is, in fact, the antithesis of Mayday. The Mayday Parade is pretty much all human-powered (there are a few motorized wheelchairs), and it's an enormous procession of people in handmade masks and costumes, carrying giant puppets, etc., telling a story about the Power of the People to defeat the evil corporate overlords (the specifics vary but that's the general storyline every year).

The final section is always a sort of celebratory, "look, the people will be victorious and all will be well!" sort of section, and this year it had butterflies and mushrooms. The girls wanted to be butterflies, and I decided I'd rather be a butterfly than a mushroom so we put together three sets of wings. To make the wings, you cut wing shapes out of cardboard, cut air holes, used papier-mache to cover the edges, and then painted them. (Alternately, you could use colored paper for the papier-mache and just decorate them that way.) Then you stapled them on to a piece of cardboard to cover your back, and then stapled on straps to make that into sort of a back pack. When I had finished cutting Kiera's wings, I realized that the remaining cardboard could be turned into a set of very nice wings with enormous air holes. I wound up covering my cardboard with fabric and then filling in the open space with netting. They looked really cool until they fell apart midway through the parade, after which I imagine they looked kind of goofy, despite my attempt to hold them together.

The weather was absolutely perfect Mayday weather: sunny, warm but not too hot, and very little wind.

I spotted (/was spotted by) haddayr, batikpuma, eyelid (she was actually in the parade, along with her husband and her adorable little boy in his beautiful pink and purple butterfly wings, which he was extremely proud of), amabaku, various friends who read this but don't have LJ handles, several of Molly's classmates, and if anyone else waved and I blew you off, I apologize very much; we were right near a band so it was hard to hear people shouting, and I was trying to keep track of Molly and Kiera while also making sure we stayed in generally the right spot (with the butterflies, rather than the mushrooms).

One of the things that really struck me this year is how random the parade is. I swear there are people who make a costume at home of whatever the hell they want, turn up on the Sunday of the parade, and look for a section they can just attach themselves to. Our section included Spongebob Squarepants. A homemade Spongebob Squarepants. We didn't have an underwater theme going or anything (last year we were in the "All Life Begins in the Water" section; Spongebob would've made a lot more sense there) so I have no idea why there was a Spongebob, but whatever. Spongebob was accompanied by a pirate and a person in an amorphous pink costume that I'm guessing was Spongebob's sidekick the starfish.

There's a pageant after the parade, but it's honestly kind of a pain to try to watch it with kids; it's kind of long, difficult to hear, and difficult to see if you're arriving late and don't get a good spot on the hill. You also never know when it's going to start. Anyway, we've skipped the pageant for several years in a row now and I think we'll keep skipping it for the forseeable future. We did wander around the park; the girls played on a playground, went for a free canoe ride (there's a group that offers free canoe rides during the festival each spring, and Molly now considers a canoe ride part of the standard Mayday experience), and had corn dogs for dinner. (Because if it's a festival in Minnesota, there MUST be corn dogs. And Molly would like one of the foot-long ones, please.)

Now I'm home, attempting to rehydrate, and feeling utterly wiped out.

The Mayday Parade is tomorrow. Kiera, Molly and I will all be in it, wearing butterfly wings; if you'll be there, watch for us in the last section ("We Are"), near the front. My wings are purple, Molly's are orange, and Kiera's are pink with purple polka dots.

It sounds like the weather may even cooperate.

Unfortunately, I feel like I'm getting sick. It's going to really suck if I have to slog through the parade while feeling like crap.

So, I'm working on a new children's novel; I've written 3,887 words so far.

I needed a name for a country in a made-up fantasy world. In the past, I've frequently used fantasy versions of real-world places, which has gotten me off the hook for the task of making up a name completely from scratch. In this case, I want to avoid even the appearance of any sort of real-world parallel. The first name for a fantasy country that popped into my head was "Rhiannon," possibly because I'd heard the song a few hours earlier. I kind of like it, even though it's the name of a Welsh horse goddess, so that's my tentative pick. But I also need another name that a different group of people uses for the same place. I came up with "Kotelia," which sounds vaguely like sanitary supplies (or else the Hebrew word for the Western Wall), which is unsatisfying, but sometimes you have to just name a thing and move on in the hopes that you'll think up something better later.

I was looking at my font just now, Cambria (I'm using Word 2007) (and I like it, by the way, but I can understand why some people loathe it with the fiery passion of a thousand hot suns), and I thought, "oooh, that's a nice name for a country," so I googled it. It turns out it is a nice name for a country -- Wales, to be specific -- as well as a geologic era. That got me thinking about other geologic eras; were there any that would make good fantasy-world names? Ordovicia works for me as a name for a made-up country. It is also Welsh, or at least Welsh-ish; it's named after a Welsh tribe. Devonia and Permia are OK but not great. There was a supercontinent during the Cryogenian era named Rodinia, which has a nice fantasy-world sound; I could use it (it's gotten much less publicity than Pangaea), but any geologists who read it will snicker.

Back when I was a kid, it was simple: the imaginary world was always named Drinia, with residents called Drinians. I just liked the sound of it.

I suppose I could just embrace the Welsh theme. The thing is, the imaginary world has been engaged in a bloody civil war; it is not supposed to parallel any specific real-world civil war and I don't want people thinking that I'm making specific comments on a real conflict. (Any commentary I'm making should be considered general.) Wales has been pretty calm since (::checks Wikipedia::) about 1415, so it's unlikely people would think I was commenting on events there.

Character names are so much easier than made-up place names.

The first paragraph of the new novel, along with some other details, are below the cut.

( Read more... )

Molly finished Goblet of Fire yesterday. I warned her before she started reading Order of the Phoenix that (a) more people will die, (b) some of them will be people you like a lot, and (c) it gets scarier and more violent generally. She was undeterred.

She complained almost immediately about the size, though. Not the length, but the sheer heft of the book. She tried to talk me into holding it for her while she read it. Maybe she'll build up some arm and upper-body strength carrying it around? She could use it.

Does anyone own a fanny pack that they could lend me for the weekend? The more nerdy capacious the better. I am going to be in the Mayday Parade on Sunday with both girls (assuming the weather isn't so horrible that we bail) and since we're all dressing as butterflies, and butterfly wings get tied to your back, I won't be able to carry a backpack this year. And yet I bet my kids are still going to expect me to be able to readily provide them with water and snacks.

Thank you!

Kiera, like many kids her age, likes to draw on herself. In particular, she is fond of drawing on her stomach, which makes an inviting canvas, I guess. I have never objected to my kids drawing on themselves, provided that it's either washable ink or not on their face (and not Sharpie, but I keep the Sharpies well out of reach). On the stomach in Pilot V5 Rolling Ball black? Whatever.

Here's what I find impressive. Kiera just did a set of flowers plus a person on her own stomach. She drew them upside down, so that they'll be right-side up when examined in a mirror or looked at by another person. I am impressed both that she considered the outside perspective when executing her personal art, and with the fact that she was able to draw this stuff upside-down and have it come out recognizable. (Admittedly, Kiera's people are more symbolic than representational, but still.)

I don't nag Molly to read anything in particular, lest I put her off it permanently, but I have been known to repeatedly point out a particular book in the hopes that she might pick it up. I've also occasionally squirreled away books in the glove compartment of the car as Emergency Back-Up Books for those occasions when she runs out of reading material and is forced to turn to whatever I have available. (Would you like to read A Little Princess, or the manual that came with the car?) Last week, it occurred to me that Molly will sometimes sit down and listen when I read something to Kiera, so I pulled down a book I've long thought would be fun to read out loud anyway: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. (I have all seven in the British editions.) Molly turned up to listen around the time I started chapter two. When I put it down to make dinner, she picked it up, and kept reading.

She finished Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban this afternoon and immediately picked up Goblet of Fire.

One of her classmates objected to her statement that she was reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, but another one thought it was really cool that she had the British edition and admired her copy of Chamber of Secrets when she brought it in to read it.

She has been tearing through these books. Ed has reservations about encouraging her to read #5 through #7, because things get so much darker. I figure I will warn her after she's finished GoF that more deaths will follow, and some of them will be people you like a whole lot more than Cedric. She read The Birchbark House without being horribly upset by it, and it has one of the most distressing and disturbing deaths I've ever run across in a kid's book, so I think she'll probably be able to handle the full Harry Potter series. Although she may get bogged down with the sheer whiny tedium of some parts of OotP.

It is awfully neat to see her discovering something I really enjoyed, though. And I will note that she likes them enough that (a) she didn't even ask about computer time this afternoon because she was too busy reading, and (b) though we went to the library today and she checked out three new Secrets of Droon books, she hasn't even taken them out of the bag. (Anyone who says that you can't get away with writing poorly for children, that they will notice and care, has never read The Secrets of Droon. Or The Magic Treehouse, for that matter. Egads.)

She also discovered Danny Dunn in the last month and has now read every Danny Dunn book the St. Paul library had in stock, I think. I'm not sure how many others might be out there -- she may have finished the series. The Danny Dunn books were kid SF written in the 1950s, so the science is frequently really dated, but they're still pretty fun. (She also read the first three Mushroom Planet books, although she has ten pages left on Mr. Bass's Planetoid, which drives me bonkers every time I notice. Just finish it already!)

The question I am pondering: once she's finished all seven, do I tip her off about the existence of fanfic? (I would need to find a HEAVILY POLICED repository as she really does not need to be reading slash at least until she's started puberty and really, at that point, she should be reading it on the sly if she's reading it at all; that's the kind of thing your mother is supposed to be blissfully unaware of, the way my mother was blissfully unaware of the content of Jean Auel's Valley of Jondalar's Amazing Yin-Yang.)

(Incidentally, I know that you're supposed to keep reading to kids after they learn to read to themselves, but for quite a while Molly was very explicit about wanting to be left to quietly devour books on her own. This past week she informed me that she would like for me to read to her more often, so I will try to accommodate that.)

Kiera, meanwhile, is really a little young for Harry Potter. She found the first part of the book somewhat baffling, and has not been after me to keep reading. On Monday night, Molly wanted more Harry Potter as a bedtime story, but Kiera demanded Alice in Wonderland, even though she's had both Alice and Through the Looking Glass read to her before in their entirety; she wants to hear them again.

Last night was the first night of Passover, and we went to a seder at my parents' house. Tonight, everyone came over here; we didn't have an actual seder, just a family dinner. Ed roasted two chickens, plus he made a Passover cake he found in the Nigella Feast cookbook. We also had tzimmes, made by springbok1, and brussels sprouts.

This was a seriously excellent Passover cake. A lot of Passover desserts are a little on the dry side, but this one was very moist. It was very simple, and in addition to being kosher for Passover, it's gluten-free.

Here's the recipe:

Nigella's Damp Apple and Almond Cake

For the Apple Puree
3 tart eating apples (such as Braeburns)
1 T lemon juice
2 t sugar

For the Cake
8 eggs
3 1/4 cups almond meal (see note)
1 3/4 cups superfine sugar (see note)
1 T lemon juice
1/2 c slivered almonds (the kind sliced the long way into fingernail-looking things)

Garnish
Powdered sugar (optional)
Whipped cream (optional)
Strawberries (optional)

Peel, core, and chop the apples roughly, then put them in a saucepan with the lemon juice and sugar, and bring the pan to a gentle boil over medium heat. Cover the pan and cook over low heat for 10 minutes or until you can mash the apple to a rough puree with a wooden spoon. You should have about 1 heaped cup of puree. Let cool.

Preheat the oven to 350, generously oil a 10-inch springform pan, and line the bottom with parchment paper. (If you have no parchment paper, that's OK. Ed forgot that step and it turned out fine. It is kind of a sticky cake, though; I'm sure it's easier to get off the bottom if you use parchment paper.

Put the cooked puree in a food processor with the eggs, almond meal, sugar, and 1 tablespoonful of lemon juice, and blitz to a puree. Pour and scrape (use a rubber spatula) into the prepared pan. Sprinkle the almonds on top. Bake for about 45 minutes (but check after 35 to see if it's done). Test for done-ness with the toothpick test; it should come out clean.

Cool on wire rack, then remove the sides of the pan. Nigella suggests serving slightly warm, but that requires careful timing, so I'd just make it ahead and serve it cool. She suggests dusting it with confectioner's sugar (the kosher-for-Passover kind). We skipped the powdered sugar, and instead served it with whipped cream and strawberries. It was really good that way, but you know, it would be just fine on its own. This is a really good cake.

My father immediately started trying to work out a way to turn it into chocolate cake.

Note regarding ingredients: Nigella's recipe actually calls for "ground almonds," with the implication being you can grind them yourself. After buying the almonds, I spotted almond meal in the gluten-free baking section of Lunds. It was ground much more finely and evenly than we would have any hope of grinding it at home. Having had mixed results with home-ground nuts in the past, I will go ahead and recommend that you track down almond meal if you possibly can. Superfine sugar is NOT powdered sugar; it's very fine regular sugar and is supposed to dissolve well. Again, I don't know what would happen if you just put in regular sugar, but don't put in powdered sugar; that is really not what's called for here.