Progress on the Home-front

We finally got around to tiling around the other two windows in the studio!  Next week we’ll grout the tiles; but we’ll have to replace the big picture window before we can finish it.

Which won’t be this year.

We used an old sliding glass door as our picture window; the seal around the two sheets of glass has broken (as it also has in the apartment picture window) so it has a streaked film inside from moisture getting between the glass.

I think we’ll probably do a more traditional finish on the picture window, though. It took a very long time to make and mount the tiles.

In the meantime, we’ll just enjoy the new tile work on the small windows.

Applying tiles over the mastic

Applying mastic

And more tiles

We laid the tiles out on a piece of sheetrock to make the process quicker and easier

Setting tiles on the outside framework

The finished job. Ben did all the work; I just took the pictures. After the mastic dries thoroughly, we’ll apply grout. will be helping on that part of the project

Chocolate-Toffee Cracker Brittle

I highly recommend this recipe. It’s quick and easy, but it’s so good it’s hard to stay out of it. The slightly salty crackers add a nice touch to the sweet chocolate and toffee.

 

Ingredients:

24 saltine crackers

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 heaping cup semisweet chocolate chips

4 ounces toffee bits

 

Line a 12” by 9” baking sheet with  heavy duty foil. You’ll want to use a baking sheet with shallow sides, not a flat cookie sheet, since this stuff tends to run a bit in the oven. I strongly suggest using heavy duty foil, not the cheap,thin stuff. This brittle is so much more enjoyable if it doesn’t have bits of foil stuck to the bottom.

Lay the crackers out on the foil.

Melt the butter in a heavy saucepan, add the sugar, bring to a boil for a minute or two until the sugar is melted. You can use all white sugar, but the brown sugar gives the cracker bottom a nicer color and a little better taste.

Pour the mixture as evenly over the crackers as you can, since you can’t really spread it once it’s on the crackers. It starts to soak in and run in between and beneath the crackers immediately.

Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes until the sugar and butter mix is bubbling all across the crackers, not just on the edges.

Quickly sprinkle the chocolate chips over the hot crackers and let sit for a few minutes until the chips are melted. Then spread the chocolate out in a fairly even layer over the crackers.

Sprinkle the toffee bits over the melted chocolate as evenly as possible. I used Heath toffee bits which comes in an 8 ounce package, so I used about half of the package (which means I can make another batch next week!).  Press the toffee bits into the melted chocolate with a flat spatula so they don’t fall off when you break the brittle. Put the brittle in the refrigerator for half an hour or so to let it cool before you break it into serving size pieces.

Breakthrough on Writing

I just finished studying this book yesterday. I have never studied another book on writing that I would recommend as highly as this one.

But keep this a secret.

There are hundreds of thousands of would-be writers that have not yet learned how to write well enough to get published (if you don’t believe me, just join an on-line critique group) and if they all learn what I learned from this book, there will be far too much competition for anyone who isn’t directly related to a high-powered editor to actually get published.

I’m not saying I believe I am going to get my novel published just because I studied this book, but now I have a much better chance.

Stein leaves no doubt that he knows how to write, edit and teach. The pride he has in his personal skills juts up throughout the book like the mountains that surround me.

But the man is brilliant. And with the light of his knowledge, he breathed life into my mummified brain.

I have studied a tall stack of books on writing, books that attempted to crack through to teach my old, stubborn, lazy mind. But of all the authors I have sweated with, recited, and stored notes from, Stein alone knew the value and power of his own words.

Wielding his control of language with stealth, he cut through the tough-as-lead casing around my head, sliced through layer around layer of petrified mush until he found the lone kernel inside my head that can still learn.

And there, with his words carefully on humble, white paper, he planted the seed that sprouted in the well-fertilized soil of my mind. So many other authors of writing books had attempted to help by carelessly tossing a handful of seeds that landed in my face.

 

My introduction to Sol Stein was a recommendation from an article in Writer’s Digest magazine to read his novel, The Magician. When I found a copy on Amazon, I also found Stein on Writing and ordered it at the same time. That weak moment of impulse buying, which I so rarely indulge in, turned out to be one of the luckiest moments of my life.

I read The Magician first. I was not entirely enthralled with the book, though I must say it was masterfully written. It just isn’t my kind of reading material. I’m the kind of guy who likes to read books with a little more fantasy, those in which the protagonist fights against the system and wins. The Magician is about a family who learns to fight using the flaws in our system in order to win, because that’s the only they could succeed.

I suppose, for me, that kind of story is much too real and if I want reality I can follow the news. The book was very popular, though; it sold over a million copies.

Still, I cannot recommend his novel and I doubt I will read any more of his novels. Had I read The Magician before I ordered Stein on Writing, I would never have ordered the latter.

But before I was even finished with Stein on Writing,  I ordered his other book on writing, How to Grow a Novel, which I will begin studying today. I’ll report on it when I’m finished, which may not be for awhile, since I don’t have a lot of time for reading and studying.

 

Just to show you what I learned: I was printing out what I have written of my novel to have a hard copy to use for my latest revision and groaned silently over page after page of drivel. But what I also learned from Stein is that, with extremely few exceptions, every writer’s first draft is “top of the head” crap and needs to be revised or rewritten. The first draft is the skeletal system, so to speak (my words not his) which gives a framework to do the “real writing.”

Anyway, I read the first two sentences of Chapter Six, which is the last chapter I have written, and that last kernel of brain that remains inside my head kicked in as soon as I groaned and said, “Hey, I know how to cure that!” And I honestly had never instantaneously experienced that before.

So here are those two sentences: Suvio roused Kirian as the carriage pulled up to their apartment building. His head was groggy from the long trip and he was hungry.

Definitely “top of the head crap.”

Here’s my quick revision: A gentle nudge pushed Kirian out of a dream that evaporated when he opened his eyes. He blinked the fog away and focused. He frowned at Suvio, then saw that the carriage had stopped in front of their dormitory. He let his head fall back against the seat and groaned as the sides of his stomach grated together, snarling up at him.

It still needs a little work, but I’m actually editing this scene out of the book. I just couldn’t resist revising it since I now have the knowledge to use skills that have lain buried beneath ancient stratified layers inside my head for far too long.