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Watch. Dogs.

Allow me to digress from the topic of writing, if you will, and share with you some amazing gameplay footage.

…this is me, and probably all of r/gaming right now.

Because of this:

Oh.  My.  Glob.  Right?

The setting (Montreal?!), the little details (trash blowing in the wind?!), the swagger of the main character (last time I played a character with that distinct of a walk, I found myself waiting for busses with my hip cocked out, waiting to tip my hat at passing cowboys).

My biggest excitement, though, is caused by, what looks like, much more realistic NPCs.  It’ll be a huge step up for immersion when games can get NPCs right, and this game looks like it’s taken a pretty good stab at it.   A woman running back to her friends to solidify plans?  That guy trying to save his wife in the car crash?  People doing anything other than standing around: huge step up for realism.

And on top of all this, the concept of Watch Dogs is HUGE.  Being able to connect with all the electronic devices around you, gather information, control things- this could be good.

I’m always hesitant to get excited for a game, but this one… this one had me at hello.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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Cowboys and Werewolves

Well, my day is off to a rousing start.

Q: When is a kitty’s fur the softest?

A: Apparently at 4am.

Gosh, Echo, you’re so darn cute… Can’t blame her for waking me though, she was sick and was out of food.  :/

So!  Today: Cowboys and Werewolves.

I’m working on a piece for Mystichawker Press, a fledgling listing.  They know what they want.

I decided to to a google image search of “Cowboys and Werewolves” for inspiration, and, well…

So I’ll just try to forget I did that, and stick with my original plan: write the rootin’est tootin’est, gunslingingest, cross genrefest I’ve ever penned.

So far we’ve got space cowboys sent to a recently colonized planet to hunt… alien werewolves.

If you’re thinking this

meets this

but with -spoiler alert- multiple moons…

…you’re basically bang on the money.

I’m using characters I’ve written a bunch, trying them on in some sci-fi roles again.  I love switching up genres and settings for characters I’ve written and want to write again.

I’m having great fun with it.  Hopefully their editors will as well.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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Adventures in Anemia

I suddenly understand the Boiling Frog Story.  The way you’ll sit in water as it heats to boiling, because you don’t notice and the change isn’t sudden enough…

So over the past few years I’ve been getting more and more lightheaded.  I noticed it more when I drank coffee and was dehydrated.  I’d stand and my vision would go black around the edges.  Lately I’ve been woozing, to the point where I grab the bathroom doorframe in the morning after getting up.  Big problem, right?

Turns out it isn’t, if it happens gradually enough.  Darn it brain, we’re supposed to be on the ball for shit like this.

But that’s just it; my brain hasn’t been working great either.  I’ve been sluggish.  Can’t focus, can’t concentrate.  Can’t think half the time.

I got some blood tests done (hurrah for finally having a family doctor!) and they called me in to discuss the results asap (cancer oh god it’s cancer, said my stupid brain).  Nope; anemia.

Iron levels are normally from 50-500.  Women start to feel tired at 30.

My iron is at 10.

I bought iron pills.  I’m taking 100-150mg of elemental iron a day, starting today.  I actually took a bit more than that to kick it off.

I have been an avid blood donor.  Turns out I kind of need that blood.  Hopefully I can get my iron up and be able to donate again, but in the mean time, popping iron twice a day, and vitamin C to help uptake.  At least it’s an easy fix.  And spinach, steak, edamame, and other iron rich foods will be eaten more.  Wait, who am I kidding, my diet is pretty iron rich already.  What the heck, body?

Well, we’ll see.

Glad to have that sorted out.

Sharing health things is a little iffy; I only wanted to because this crept up on me so gradually, and my brain was getting more sluggish and too stupid to realize there was a problem, that perhaps if I had read all the symptoms I’d had, I may have been able to put it together.

So I guess, iron: we need it.  Do you have enough?

Ho ho ho, a little iron humour.

And now I’m thinking about Iron Man again…

Isn’t that gorgeous?

Speaking of…

But enough of that.  The artist that did the above painting is Sam Spratt.  Eh kills aliens and doesn’t afraid of anything.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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My Journey to Becoming an Entomophage

I’m going to just go ahead and post this.  There’s a huge negative bias towards eating insects in our western culture, but the reality is that they are nutritious, packed with protein, and, as I recently discovered, *delicious*.  Over 80% of the world are Entomophages!

Would you like to know more?

So, below is my journey to becoming an entomophage.  I hope you’ll be inspired to take the plunge; if we can get over our squeamishness, the whole world can benefit from eating insects.

My package arrived after being held up with Canadian Boarder Services.

I put my grasshoppers in a container and froze them.

I was making tortillas, and decided it was a good time to take the plunge.

I fried them up with butter,

heated up my tortilla with some cheese,

and added the Main Event!

Tortillas assemble!

After everything was ready I dug in.

If my face is confusing, it’s because this is perhaps the most conflicted meal I’ve ever eaten…  It was a mix of “oh god this is good” and “oh god dont’ think about what you’re eating.”

It was delicious!  The hoppers tasted nutty and nice.  The texture was a little… different.  It was a little crunchy, but not in the hard or sharp sort of way.

The biggest thing to get over was that I was eating bugs.  I was a little squeamish, but I got over it pretty quick when I tasted how good it was.

My husband, Aaron, and our friend Matthew came home shortly thereafter from a workout at the climbing gym.  I told them of my adventure, and Matthew was pretty enthused about it.  I cooked up another batch of hoppers, and he tried a Grasshopper Tortilla too!  He really liked it.

…Aaron is not there yet.  He tried one grasshopper hot out of the pan, and liked it.  But it goes against his “not eating things with faces” guideline.  We’ll see.  Matthew’s boldness and subsequent enjoyment of the dish was really an inspiration.

Hope you get to try some some time; it was a neat experience I will be repeating.

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Chopin’s Blooddrop Sonata- and the super prolific author who is editing it

Working on a piece for a horror anthology featuring classical music.  I hope something from the early Romantic period counts, because Chopin’s Raindrop Sonata has always been mind fodder for terrors for me.  It’s such a journey; one of my favourite pieces I studied while taking piano.

Chopin doesn’t look like a scary guy, right?  *Swoon*

Working out the logistics of a werewolf who becomes a poltergeist is interesting; do they change into an etherial werewolf on the full moon?  (Yes.)  Can someone be bitten and infected by such a werewolf?  (Yes.)  Fun stuff.  So far the musical aspect of my story is the most creepy; my protagonist wakes up playing the piano, when she’s never played before.

(Insert scary ghost noises here!)

So, DF Lewis, I hope you dig Chopin, because he can be one scary, scary dude.

Whoa whoa whooooooaaaaaa- what do you mean you had 1,500 short stories published while I was slacking off aging from 1 to 15!?  Holy smokes, this guy is a machine.  What an inspiration!

He must know the craft pretty well; hopefully he digs my classical-pianist/werewolf/poltergeist silliness.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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Procrastination can be productive too!

I’m all over the place lately.  Working on a short story again after tinkering with my books.

Today I brought out the half-finished game I made recently.  I’m pretty excited about it, and actually want to take a shot at getting it published.  It’s been through several playtests, with various groups of various sizes.  It’s been a fun challenge to balance it and try and get it to a place that’s good enough to take to a developer.

“Tinker, Tailor” is the working title, though I won’t be crushed if I have to change it to “Tinker, Taker”; it is a game about spys, and finding moles within your agency (see where the name might run into some problems?).

If you’ve played a lot of games, I can tell you it’s like if Munchkin and Battlestar Galactica had a baby, and it grew up to be a spy.  It’s super fun to play.

It was giving me some issues with balancing the different agents (each player has a different agent character, with unique abilities), but I think I’ve got it now.

Now just to re-print the latest edition and playtest it with more people!

My workbook and the pieces I’m working on:

Also this week, I bottled a few brewing projects I’ve been waiting on.  My Welches’ Red Wine turned out rather heinously, but it might make an OK sangria.  Also, my Pumpkin Pie wine, which popped its corks while we were on our honeymoon, has stabilized, and I managed to salvage 14 bottles out of the batch.

Let’s see, what else, what else.  Oh!  My Auntie Pam gave us awesome wild rice as a wedding present.  I like taking pictures of food; this one turned out neat.

Well, that’s all for now folks.  I’ll be hard at work on my latest short story, for a horror anthology that features classical music.  Chopin’s Raindrop Blooddrop Sonata, anyone?

Summer’s here, and it’s nice to see the sun while I write.  🙂

Cheers.

Thanks for reading.

Heidi out.

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Word Clouds: Silly and Enlightening

I enjoy playing with word clouds.

I made one for a recent short story, “The Darker Paths”:

Word clouds are fun.

But did I really use “Max” and “Brian” *that* much?  Gosh.  Something to keep in mind when I’m crafting.

My next project, “Blood Drop Sonata”, is for a horror anthology featuring classical music.  I’m having good fun with it.  I’m starting to mesh monsters with wild abandon; werewolf poltergeists are a thing, right?  Well, now they are.

And just so I’m clear,

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Warning: Ceasing Production of Short Stories Will Result in Vivid Nightmares

I haven’t had this many vivid dreams for quite some time.

I’m wondering if it isn’t a byproduct of ceasing to write short stories, after a year of fervent crafting.

When I finished my first book, I found that I had a ton of creative energy to let loose, and I channeled it into the best sketch book I’ve ever produced.  It was interesting to ‘come down’ from writing a book, and I ended up with some excellent drawings from it.

But now; I’m not certain if the dreams are a direct result of my lack of writing.  If so, I’m not entirely opposed.  Certainly it would be an interesting side effect.

I will keep my descriptions of dreams to a minimum, I think.  Several of my previous posts note them, because those ones were notable.  I used to keep a dream journal; for a whole year I wrote down every single dream as soon as I awoke.  It led to noticing some interesting patterns.  For instance, I dream of bears more than any other animal, and I find myself shopping and choosing between items a surprising amount.

‘Weapons’ and ‘being shot’ is at the top of a list of extremely rare occurrences.  So is ‘fictional characters’.  So you see, the past few entries are of some note, having documented a whole year’s worth of dreams.

We’ll see what hounds of hell my mind lets loose this night.  As for just now (I just woke up), seeing London under twenty feet of water was most distressing.  I’m glad Scully was there though, we managed to get eachother out alive.

Your confused and shaken writer,

H.G.