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Celebrate Laughter!

I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with April Fool’s Day. A lot of the humor of the day always seems at least slightly mean-spirited, aimed at getting a “Gotcha!” moment more than an actual laugh that’s shared all the way around. But on the other hand, a day dedicated to laughter and joking and celebrating all things funny isn’t really a bad thing, is it? So try to find some laughter, if you can. Here are few funny things, and remember to take time to laugh today!

Somewhat profane:

And finally:


Laugh it up, folks!

(Note to self: Make arrangements to get a pie in the face soon….)

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Something for Thursday

I don’t know about you all, but in my neck of the woods, it’s gloomy and rainy and I’m not finding motivation or oomph easy to come by, so here’s a bit of pick-me-up music: the Light Cavalry Overture, by Franz von Suppe.


OK, that helps!

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The Host who can Boast the Most Roast

So I saw an article last week someplace, maybe Facebook, about a recipe that had somehow gone viral: “Mississippi Roast”. The recipe is insanely simple:

1. Spray your crockpot with cooking spray.
2. Throw in a chuck roast, around 3 to 4 lbs.
3. Sprinkle directly onto the meat 1 packet of gravy or au jus mix, and 1 packet of Ranch dressing mix.
4. Put a stick of butter on top of this.
5. Scatter 8-10 pepperoncini (banana peppers, pickled in a jar) around the top of the meat.
6. Cook on LOW for eight hours.

That’s it.

I read the article with fascination, and then I asked people on Facebook and elsewhere if they’d ever heard of such a thing (they had), and I Googled it to see if this was real (it is). I have to admit that I was skeptical. I’m a sucker for recipes of the “Throw a small number of ingredients in the crockpot, wait six to eight hours, and eat the resulting deliciousness,” but this was pushing me a little far.

But not far enough to try it.

So I did.

Here’s what it looked like before I put the lid on and turned on the crockpot:

And here’s the result, served alongside some roasted potato wedges:


Oh yeah babe. #yum #mississippiroast


It was amazing. I always find that pot roast needs some help in the seasoning department, but somehow this seasoning turned out perfect. The only downside? After we each had two servings of the meat, there weren’t many leftovers left, and you want leftovers when the meat turns out that good. You know, sandwiches and stuff.

Next time, I’m doing two roasts.

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Updates and a Quick Trip around the Writerverse

Time to bring you up to speed on my progress, and highlight some other writers’ goings-on!

Writing at the Reinstein Library. #amwriting #overalls #vintage #Key #HickoryStripe #scarf #r2d2

One: I wanted to publish GhostCop in July, but I’m pushing that to September because I’ve been mulling things over and I realize that I want/need to tweak a few things. It’s all minor stuff, but stuff I need to address so as to make the book more resonant (I hope). I’ll tackle those revisions (shouldn’t take more than a few days) after I finish first edits on Forgotten Stars III.

Two: Hey, what about Forgotten Stars III? Well, I’m a bit behind where I wanted to be by now, but I still hope to get the book to beta-readers by mid-April. I hit a mini-slump last week (in general writing terms), and I had consecutive chapters that were, shall we say, a bit problematic. These chapters required a bit more editorial heavy lifting than I’m used to. Luckily, as I write this, I have moved past that particular obstacle! Huzzah!!

Three: Lighthouse Boy continues a-chugging along. This book is going to be enormous, so I’m leaning toward breaking it into two books anyway. The draft is currently at about 175,000 words, and there will likely be another 25-30K before the draft reaches a logical break point in the story, so I’m probably going to call BOOK ONE done and and start writing a GhostCop sequel.

Four: Oh, did I mention that I have the title for GhostCop? No? Well, I have the title for GhostCop. I’ll announce that later in the summer, when my plans for that book’s release start to ramp up.

Five: What’s after that? Well, I’m planning on a break from the Forgotten Stars series after Book III. I’m actually planning a second series of space operas that will take place in the exact same universe, but they won’t be a part of the Forgotten Stars story at all (in fact, they may not even take place at the same time as those books) and they’ll have a more adult tone. I’m thinking a mashup of James Bond and Firefly. We’ll see. I already have ideas for these, and I’ve even started character sketches (which is something I rarely do, but I thought I’d give it a shot this time).

Six: There is no six. That’s about it.

And now for some goings-on with other writers I know and love!

::  Writer Jenna Woginrich has posted an excerpt from a book she’s writing about her relationship with her horse, Merlin. Woginrich is one of my favorite online personalities, and she’s a damned fine writer. Her dream was to live on her own farm and being a part of a farm community, and she decided some years ago to do just that. If you’re in want of inspiration for tenaciously grabbing hold of the life you want, check her out.

I still remember parking it on my parents’ wrap-around porch and telling it, no, promising it, that I would write about it someday. There on the slate-blue paint leaning against a white railing I promised a bike from Kmart that I would write a book about her. So that’s what I’m going to do. Kind of.

Let’s hit the wind.

::  Ksenia Anske on being denied her brain:

Because I was born a woman, I was the second sort from the moment I got out of my mother’s womb. I was abused. I was underfed. I was neglected. I was dismissed. I was told I was wrong, no matter how hard I tried to please. But worst of all, I was denied my brain.

Powerful stuff.

::  I have to admit that I am long past the point where I find inspiration in the rejection letters of big-name writers. But hey, check out JK Rowling’s rejection letters from her Robert Galbraith novel, if you like that sort of thing.

::  All-around fab person Briana Mae Morgan wrote a play called Touch, and she posted it, one scene at a time, on her blog. Here’s Act I, Scene I. (It’s in two acts. I can’t vouch for it because I haven’t read it yet, but Briana’s awesome, so I’m sure it’s fine.)

::  Sara Letourneau on the astonishing masterpieces that are the three scores to the Lord of the Rings films, by Howard Shore. She names favorite cues and everything! Good stuff. That music is amazing and makes for great writing music as well. (That reminds me…write a post about music and writing….)

That’s all for now. See you around the Galaxy!

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Pre

I’m not a huge fan of Buffalo News sports reporter Bucky Gleason, but he writes a nice article today about Steve Prefontaine, the great track runner who died in a car crash 41 years ago. I’m not entirely sure of the chronology, but I think we were living in Oregon at the time. I would have been all of three years old and some change, so I had no idea about any of this, but Prefontaine worked at a sports business that went on to become Nike. I do remember something of the rise of Nike — when we moved to Western New York in 1981, Nike was just beginning to become a national company, and I remember people around here saying “Nike” as if it rhymed with “bike”.

Anyway, check out Gleason’s piece.

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Some Links….

A few things!

:: The tale of an awful pizza customer. Oddly, I remember a guy who was just like this! He’d stand at the counter and offer his constant input as to how his pizza should be made, and then, when leaving the place, he’d tilt the box on its side. Every friggin’ time he came in. Unbelievable.

:: Archaeologists have unearthed evidence of an enormous battle that took place in the Bronze Age in northern Europe. Since it predates written history, we have no idea who fought whom and why. How much history is there that we know nothing at all about?

:: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese has changed…and nobody knew about it. Interesting stuff. (Yes, I do still like this stuff.)

:: Jason ruminates on William Shatner.

:: Finally, John Scalzi on the use of personal pronouns — i.e., referring to people by the gender they wish.

When someone asks you to refer to them by a particular set of pronouns and you’re reluctant to comply, are you being disrespectful? Yup! Self-identity is important, and refusing to accept someone else’s identity for your own reasons will be taken to mean that you dislike or disagree with their choices about who they are. And this is your right, but it means you’re saying that your choices in this regard are more important than the choices of the person who has to live with their own identity every single moment of their lives.

Read the whole thing. We need to be making the world better.

Later, folks!

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Symphony Saturday

Antonin Dvorak spent several years in the 1890s in the United States, including a time in a community of Czech immigrants in, of all places, Spillville, Iowa. I once drove through Spillville, and it’s tiny — less than 500 people live there. And yet, one of the greatest composers of all time lived there one summer, and some of his experiences there played into the music he composed while living in our country.

Dvorak felt that American music at that time was mainly concerned with echoing the Germanic symphonic traditions, with little attention paid to what he considered the true folk music of America, namely the chants of the Native Americans and the spirituals of the African-American population. He attempted to capture some of the character of those melodies in his Ninth Symphony, but what he mainly did was create new melodies based on the pentatonic scale, which does tend to be common to many aboriginal cultures of the world. There is nothing specifically American in this symphony, despite its being called “From the New World”, and Dvorak himself would later insist that the symphony is a purely old-world work, composed in the old-world rhythm (particularly with regard to the use of Czech folk rhythms, something Dvorak would do his entire life), and more intended to convey the emotions Dvorak felt as a European seeing the great expanse of America for the first time.

None of that really matters, though — whether one hears America or Prague or some blend of the two in this work, Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony is one of the enduring works in all classical music, and with good reason. It is loaded with wonderful melodies (particularly that spellbinding second movement), to be sure, but it is also a superb work of musical craftsmanship as well, with every idea in its place and some of Dvorak’s finest orchestrations. Here is Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World”.

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The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer

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