Gaslight Steampunk Expo 2019 pictures
I had a blast. Here are a couple of pictures I took. More pictures will be added as I get them developed in the digital darkroom.









I had a blast. Here are a couple of pictures I took. More pictures will be added as I get them developed in the digital darkroom.
As an introvert I try to get the point across in as few words as possible. That doesn’t do much for my word count.
My third book is getting close to 70,000 words. That is amazing.
My first book I had to struggle, slave, and take long cuts to make it to 50,000 words. I needed 50,000 words to call it a novel. I ignored repeats, excessive descriptions and other bad writing tropes to get it to 50K words. And if you have ever seen my writing you know I will repeat words, groups of words and the character’s name over and over again, often in the same sentence. It comes naturally to me.
During the latest re-edit of the third book I am cutting words, redundancies left and right. I’m also cutting cliches, but I don’t think I’m making much of a dent in them. Still the word count is going up. I must be doing something right.
They tell writers, again and again, that you have to kill your darlings. Do you know what that does to my word count? Doing that could turn my novel into a short story. And it hurts, and not just my word count. It’s hurts so bad. I don’t know where the darlings come from, but they sound so good and the words that replace them sound so flat. I want my darlings. But I warn you, they bred, like crickets, and sound about as bad.
Recipe of the week
Bacon Egg Foo Young
What means breakfast more than bacon. Egg Foo Young is eaten for breakfast in China. This fusion recipe makes for a great omelet or burrito.
Ingredients
2 eggs
1/2 Pound bean sprouts (a small hand full) course chopped
1 or 2 green onions chopped
1/2 cup of bell pepper (or 1/4 of bell pepper) chopped
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
2 strips of turkey bacon chopped
Directions:
You can add to mixture, before cooking;
Brown Onions
Mushrooms
Garlic
Ginger
Sesame oil
Stay strong, write on, and have a good breakfast. Your writing depends on it.
Professor Hyram Voltage
Home made chocolate chip cookies are not that unhealthy. They are not loaded with extra chemicals. But they do contain lots of sugar and fat (butter). But that’s what makes them taste so good.
Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies
Professor Voltage style
Ingredients
1 cup butter (2 sticks) softened*
1 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
½ cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract (plus a little bit)
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt (optional)
3 cups oats (regular oats (rolled) not instant)
1 cup nuts (Walnuts or Pecans)
1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips
Tools needed;
Medium bowl
Electric mixer with large bowl
Measuring spoons set
Measuring cups; 1 and 1/2 cup sizes
Spatula with wooden handle*****
3 Cookie sheets (make sure they fit in oven)
Timer
Gallon size plastic food bags
Dry Measuring cups
Directions;
Pre-soften* the butter, take the sticks out of the ice box at least an hour before starting. You can let the butter sit on the table over night.**
Heat oven to 350 degrees F. (Before turning oven on check inside of oven for baked potato or other odds and ends from last night. Check oven temperature, the knob marking are often way off.)
Line a medium bowl with a one gallon plastic food bag.
Place flour******, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in bag. Close and secure top of bag leaving large air space at top of bag. Message and shake bag to mix ingredients. Set bag aside. Cream butter and sugar with electric mixer in large mixing bowl. That’s cook speak for beating the butter until air is mixed in and then slowly adding the sugar.
Add eggs one at a time without getting any egg shells in the mix.
Add vanilla; beat well.
Add flour mixture, slowly and gently or flour will be billowing everywhere**** and mix well. Remove mixing bowl from electric mixer.
Using spatula stir in oats, nuts, and chocolate chips; mix until there are nuts and chips in very spoon full.
Drop rounded teaspoonfuls onto un-greased cookie sheet. That means scoop up a spoon full and turn the spoon over and dough falls onto the cookie sheet, most of the time the stuff acts like it is part super glue. Use spatula to scrape dough off spoon and try dipping teaspoon in cold water after each drop to keep dough from sticking.
Bake 10 to 12 minutes, measured with timer not smoke alarm, until golden brown. Cool 1 minute on cookie sheet then remove cookies to paper plate.
Makes about 4 dozen.
To make one huge cookie, press dough into bottom of un-greased 9×13-inch metal baking pan. Or make huge cookie shape on baking pan. Make cookie shape one half inch thick. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes.
Stay strong, write on, and bake well.
Professor Hyram Voltage
At CoKoCon I attended a panel on Branding. It was not what I expected.
It boiled down to showing videos of your cat (or dog) on your blog. One author on the panel was a fan of The Great British Baking Show and her blog is about cookies and other bake goods.
So as a bribe to get you to visit this site here is an old family chocolate chip cookie recipe.
From; Professor Voltage’s Book of extraordinarily DANGEROUS Cooking
Chocolate Chip Cookies
Old family recipe
Ingredients;
2 1/4 cups all-purpose floor (un-shifted, just scoop it out without compressing the flour and strike off with back side of butter knife so the flour is level with the top of the cup).
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 heaping teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup butter (two sticks)(softened, see tips)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoon Vanilla
2 large eggs
2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped walnuts
Directions;
Guest of honor artist Gilead. Took a lazy line and turned it into a dragon.
Steampunk Panel
Steampunk Audience
Guests of Honor
From Professor Sparks show
Not so old Tesla Coil
But it makes good sparks.
It was a great convention. Of course Phoenix was hot, it is this time of year. We did get some rain and strong wind Sunday afternoon.
I went to many of the writing panels. Didn’t do so well with the page that I submitted to the editor’s panel. I repeat myself, I don’t handle characters well, and keep repeating their names over and over, and they wanted the location of the warehouse closer to the front.
The trouble is I’ve heard this before, on the same piece, from my critique partner.
I’ve tried to do better, and fix the piece and other pieces, but I’m not getting them fixed.
Then I went to the panel on Critiques and one author mentioned that there writers out there that never get better or fix their problems. Now I’m worried that I’m one of those writers. Doomed, doomed, I tell you, to make the same mistakes over and over again.
The show put on by Doctor Sparks was worth it. He had some of the props from the original horror movies. Sparks with ozone, in person.
Phoenix traffic was as bad as I remembered it. No one does the speed limit on I 17 through Phoenix. If I wanted traffic this bad I would’ve stayed in Los Angeles.
We did take some time out to visit Bookmans used book store. Not that far from the convention. Also went through the Brass Armadillo. It is also only a couple of blocks from the convention hotel.
There were panels on moon exploration, bad movies, Filking, AIs, Star Parties, and poison gas.
Pictures starting with Authors
Book Sellers and good people