hobbies – One Thousand And One Parsecs

Back from unannounced hiatus

Wow, it’s been forever since I last blogged. One of my real-life friends even asked me why I never post anything anymore. That’s when you know you’ve fallen off the face of the Earth.

In truth, there’s not a whole lot to report. I’m plugging away on Heart of the Nebula, making good progress. My goal is to finalize this draft before the new year. After that, it’s off to the first readers, who should be pretty happy to see another Gaia Nova novel. It’s been far too long since I’ve written one of those.

As for Friends in Command (Sons of the Starfarers: Book IV), the first draft has some problems that can only be fixed by throwing in another viewpoint character. For that reason, I probably won’t be publishing it until February or March. I could drop everything and try to push it out by the end of January, but I want to make sure that I’m putting out the best possible book that I can. Besides, there are other pots on the back burner that I need to stir.

Speaking of pots and back burners, while I was at my sister’s for Thanksgiving, we got to talking about all the cooking and gardening that I’ve been doing recently, and she suggested in jest that I start a homemaking blog. Well. I have to admit, it sounds like fun. I’m going to write it under a pseudonym, so I don’t want to say too much about it, but it’s going to be about the intersection between homemaking, emergency preparedness, and self-reliance.

Of course, I’ve got a lot of other work to do before I can afford to spend much time on a hobby blog. So at this point, I’m just trying to keep my head above water. With the holidays coming on, there’s a lot of publishing stuff that I need to get done, on top of all the writing. But don’t worry, I’ll still find time to post a thought or two on this blog. And I plan to run a few more Goodreads giveaways in the future, so keep an eye out for that!

A cast iron birthday!

So my 30th birthday is this month, and my parents gave me what may quite possibly prove to be the best birthday present ever: the family’s old cast iron skillet! These things are AWESOME for cooking–they heat evenly, hold warmth for a long time, have a better non-stick surface than teflon (if you care for it properly), can be used on anything from ovens to electric stove tops to campfire coals, and are virtually indestructible. I can’t wait to start using mine!

As you can see from the photo, though, it needs quite a bit of work. There’s a lot of old gunk and rust that needs to be scraped off, and it needs to be tempered and seasoned. Tempering is the process where you heat up the iron to let the oil soak into the pores, so that when it cools down, you have a thin layer of oil bonded to the surface. That’s what gives it the nonstick properties and keeps it from rusting. If you wash a cast iron skillet in soap, it scrubs off that all-important layer of oil, leaving it exposed to water which makes it oxidize and rust. That’s what happened here.

Fortunately, these things are so indestructible that a little bit of rust isn’t going to ruin it. It’ll take some work to get it cleaned up and functional again, but I could use a fun side-project to keep me busy. Besides, I have a writing buddy down the street who can help me out with it. He’s a pretty interesting guy: he has a 3D printer, grows most of the food he eats, worked on film sets for a few years, does some gunsmithing on the side–like I said, he’s an interesting guy. I believe the Grantville Gazette has bought a couple of his stories, though they have yet to come out in print. We’re thinking about collaborating together, or maybe starting a podcast.

In any case, this is going to be an AWESOME project that I’m sure will keep me occupied for the next long while. I can hardly wait to fry some bacon in this thing! Bacon, and baked beans, and cornbread … mmm!