First Loaf of the Season

October 5, 2008

Because of the heat of summer and the business of the beginning of the Fall semester is so busy, I haven't started up the weekly ritual of baking bread. My bread baking passion started in graduate school. I lived in a town without a good bakery, and I was really interested in learning how to make the kinds of breads that I devour whenever I get to a town of a certain size (bigger than the one I'm currently living in.

When my wife and I married and moved to our first apartment in Utah, I started a French levain, which is a kind of mild sourdough. With just a dash of yeast and a bunch of smashed grapes and flour, I nurtured a colony of local yeast, which I have kept actively going for just about seven years (just about the length of time I have been working on my novel).

During the summers, when I'm not actively baking, I keep the levain active by changing it out at regular intervals.

I make one large boule, like this one, and two small baguettes. The first one we usually devour with butter and jam, which we did yesterday. The other baguette made it until today, when my most excellent wife handed me a turkey and blue cheese sandwich on the rest of the second baguette. I ate it slowly, and that is the treatment it deserved.

The big boy, pictured above will accompany the butternut squash soup, which is on the menu for the evening. Match that with some fresh made apple cider mixed with sparkling mineral water and an apple pie (apples from the backyard) and you have the best kind of meal, simple, fresh, homemade.

Posted by todd at 3:04 PM | Comments (0)

In The Seventh Year

September 7, 2008

The school year is underway, and I am getting myself ready to dig into edits on the second half of my novel, Rift, which I'll be submitting to my editor sometime between Christmas and the New Year. I made a huge push on it this summer, rewriting significant parts of the opening 50 pages. This was based on some great advice I got from Alan Mitchell and Andrea Hallstrom, who were the judges who gave Rift the Marilyn Brown Award.

The big issue for me and this book has been the opening. It has gone through the most vigorous rewriting. The problem with big changes like this is that once you start chopping things out, you notice how connected they are to other parts of the manuscript. A novel is less of a modular creation and more of an ecological one: you pull out one part and way later in the story, you find the dead branch that you have to prune out. Take that out, and somewhere else you discover another dead patch.

This kind of detail work can get maddening, but it's also what makes me feel most like a writer. Lots of people have said something like this, but writing when you're in the flow, isn't writing. It's something else, something that is also good, but it's not the same as that thing you make yourself do out of discipline or love for the project or the craft or your editor. It's something else entirely, and I love it. Now that I am surrounded by little kids and a wife launching a successful career as an art teacher, I have had to set aside a lot of that flow-writing.

Life is a little too busy right now to get into the mood; however, I can do the detail work because it is so task oriented. I find that I really enjoy the way this work fights against the chaos of things as they normally are in my life right now. I'm sure that some time in the future, this kind of chaos will become some other kind of chaos, but for now, this is the joy.

Soon, I'll be embarking on the second half of my revisions. I had an absolutely spot-on read from William Morris (gentleman and scholar) of A Motley Vision fame. He reviewed Long After Dark in a way that is still almost embarrassingly generous. William is one of the most gregarious and thoughtful readers I've met in a long time. I subscribe to his Good Reads feed, and I'm amazed weekly at the breadth of his reading.

In any case, William made some great suggestions for the second half of the novel. He saw some patterns and loose ends that I have missed, and I'm excited to get into the work and develop some of the thematic threads I lost track of as I fought along through the drafts, trying to just get myself finished.

The long and short of it all is this: I'm feeling more and more like the project is coming to a close, for me. That's how it is with a book, once I'm done, then its on its own, which is the really exciting and nerve-wracking part. I've lived with this project since the fall of 2001, when I moved to Utah and started teaching at Southern Utah University. If you would have told me then, that I'd be spending seven years in a single project, I'd have kicked you in the belly. But here were are, in the seventh year, the sabbatical year. Hmmm, no rest in sight.

Posted by todd at 9:03 PM | Comments (0)

This Chart is Saving My Life

September 4, 2008

It's pretty hard to say no to people. And I have needed a way to make sure that I can keep my projects in line. So, I decided to make a flow chart. At first I thought it was silly, but I like fiddling around in Illustrator, so I kept at it. I've now got people asking me for copies, and it's made me a lot clearer on my own priorities. Click on the image to see it big.

I'm going to print up copies and hand them out like tracts. Props to Merlin Mann of 43 Folders for his work with the Qualified Yes.

Posted by todd at 9:21 PM | Comments (0)

Like Wind Blowing Through Holes in My Brain

September 1, 2008

I just finished my fifth year Leave Rank and Tenure report, which is also my application for rank advancement. If I should pass this review, I'll be advanced from Assistant Professor to Associate professor.

I think this means that I will now be able to associate with the professors rather than just assist them. It also means a little bit more money (in reality, something like 1/8 of a run of the mill NBA bad sportsmanship fine).

But that doesn't matter. The document is finished. Holes punched. Arranged artfully in a 4" three-ring binder. Ready for submission (I'm laughing that it's always due the day after labor day — nothing like a performance review to spice up a barbecue!).

Now there is a lightness and freedom in my mind. It feels cool, like the wind blowing through holes in my mind. Perhaps I'll reward myself by going to see Tropic Thunder.

Posted by todd at 9:47 PM | Comments (1)

Captured Conversation

August 4, 2008

My next door neighbor is hilarious, and I think he knows it. The other day we had my sister-in-law visting with us. She lives in Lagos, Nigeria and she gets over to our parts once a year or so. We were taking a walk and we introduced her to the neighbors, who were out in the front yard tending some irises.

ALISA: Hi, this is my sister, Josie.

NEIGHBOR: She looks like a sister. What brings you up here from Oklahoma?

JOSIE: Actually, I live in Nigeria. In Lagos.

NEIGHBOR: So, do we have you to thank for all the internet money schemes?

JOSIE: No, that was someone else.

Truth is stranger than fiction, and I love it.

Posted by todd at 9:08 AM