And that wraps up the haiku poetry from 2019!
Brought to you by the Smashing Meals Foundation.
Need a healthy idea for lunch today? How about trying smashed chicken breasts! That’s right, you heard me: smashed chicken breasts!
And how does one prepare this culinary delight? Well, first you cook up a mess of chicken breasts, seasoned as you like’em in your crock pot (’cause you’re efficient that way) and then you store them in your refrigerator until you’re hankering for some chicken.
Once said hankering strikes, you put your precooked, chilled chicken breast in a baggie and then you smash the bejibbers out of it with your fist. That is correct – smash those bejibbers right out! Smash away for as long as you need to, until all those bejibbers be gone from your chicken breast(s). You can use a different blunt instrument of your choice, if the fist is not sufficient to eradicate those pesky bejibbers.
Afterwards, you can either heat up your freshly smashed chicken breast (sans bejibbers) in the microwave, or you can eat it cold. You can use proper utensils, or just stuff that scrumptious protein straight into your mouth with your bare hands. It’s your prerogative, my friend.
Just make sure that you chew the chicken thoroughly before you swallow. We can’t have you choking on your food. 🙂
This recipe was brought to you by the Smashing Meals Foundation, courtesy of my stomach. Stay tuned for other “smashing” recipe ideas – guaranteed bejibbers-free!
Yes, I just paraphrased Star Wars: A New Hope. So sue me. I love that movie. It inspires me.
In any event, I think that I am finally getting somewhere with Wyldling Snare!
As I mentioned in a previous post, this novel is to be the first installment of a five or six book series – all of which will have “Wyldling” in the title. I had a large part of this series already written in a ponderous tome entitled The Grand Illusion, but I felt that I needed to rework that behemoth into a series of separate books. This is the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth century. No one wants to slog through my rendition of Tolstoy’s War and Peace (no, I haven’t actually read it – although I have read Anna Karenina.)
Right now, I am still in this writing/reworking phase. My goal is to have the first draft completed by the New Year – and I believe that this is an attainable goal. There, I defined my goal. I set a deadline. I even wrote it down and shared it with other people…in this blog. Hooray! I made a few baby steps toward accomplishing something! Even if it turns out to be utter malarkey!
If I had to quantify my progress, I would have to venture a guess. Three-quarters done? Perhaps even more, since much of the book is already written. Five out of roughly twenty-five chapters left to rework, and one earlier chapter that requires additional prose.
I suppose I have to ask the question: technically speaking, is this a first draft or a second draft that I am currently working on? Part of me responds “who cares?” but another part of me likes to be accurate and precise. I could call the manuscript a second draft in the sense that much of it was already written. However, it is a first draft in the sense that other eyes have not yet critiqued it.
Mea culpa! I am guilty of trying to edit and revise simultaneously as I craft the story -which is a big no-no for a writer who actually wants to finish a novel.
My advice: write everything down – without judgment! – and then go back to revise it. You are your own worst critic. Stop listening to that nasty, paranoid voice and just WRITE.
Even if it ends up sounding like utter malarkey.
I decided that it was time to post something, so here is a possible cover for my first novel.
This is what I was doing on Saturday morning: the Color Run at the Alliant Energy Center in Madison. The run is not timed, so half the participants were walking instead of running. I alternated doing both, because I am woefully out of shape. It was a lot of fun. You get colored powder thrown at your white T-shirt along the course, giving rise to a tie-dye effect. Sadly, all of the colorful powder washed out of the shirt when I washed it. However, I got a UNICORN medal for finishing. Which was all I really wanted, anyway.
