Hats, Boots, & Chocolate

    If you're one of the very, very few people who have been here since the beginning of this blog, you may wonder why I decided on the name Hats, Boots, & Chocolate  for it.     Honestly, I've been wondering the same thing for a long time.     The most obvious answer is, of course, that I love hats, boots, and chocolate! I love wearing beanies and my cowgirl hat, and my cowgirl boots are some of the most comfortable shoes I've ever owned. Chocolate is also a staple favorite around here; the very first blog post I ever wrote was a recipe for home-made hot chocolate lumps that store in the freezer and come in very nice, pre-portioned serving sizes perfect for making a rich, creamy cup of hot chocolate.     But I think that's not all--and I think God knew it wouldn't be all from the start. Sure, I initially chose this name because I couldn't think of anything that described me better--I'm a person who likes hats, boots, and chocolate a lot! Today, though,

    I promise I have not dropped off the face of the earth. I have, however, been rather busy. For your information, here is a short list of my adventures:     1. The last two weeks, I've had finals. During which time I had to do a massive overhaul on my research paper for English 2010... in two days. I also had a couple of smaller papers to write for Philosophy, some art to do for my English companion piece, and a Philosophy final exam to complete. Most of it wasn't too hard, but with it all added together I didn't have the brain cells to do all that and blog all at once. :)     2. On the Saturday my English 2010 research paper was due (April 20th), I took my sister to a play she's wanted to see for years as a very late birthday gift. However, on the way there, my car ran out of coolant, overheated, and died. Both the radiator and the head gasket were out, and there were a bunch of other repairs to do while the mechanic had the engine taken apart so we got that done. T

    I have a reputation for being super early. It's not uncommon for me to show up at work 30 minutes before my shift actually starts, or to be in the classroom 20 minutes before my professor arrives, or to show up for a D&D session 30 minutes before everyone else is due to arrive. I am an early bird, and I've caught a lot  of worms.     Tonight, though? Tonight takes the cake.     See, there's this country-themed church dance I wanted to go to. It was to start at 8:30 pm and continue until 11:00, and I didn't decide that I wanted to go until 9:30. For once, I wasn't going to be absurdly early.     ... We're authors around here. We know that it's never--and I repeat, never --that simple.     See, I'm a tiny bit ADHD. I'm also a teeny  bit dyslexic (And I mean that quite unsarcastically). For the most part, my brain functions perfectly!     But tonight? Hoo, boy! Tonight my brain shorted out completely, leaving me wondering how I'd been stood

    Welcome back to the Frustrated Writer Support Group! If you've got anything you want to complain about/celebrate/mention about a project you're working on, a convention you're going to, etc. go ahead and let me know! Who knows, maybe I'll have something useful to say. ;)

    English grammar is a funny thing, especially on the Internet. While you may have noticed that I, and many bloggers like myself, use extremely good grammar as much as we can, comments on blog posts, YouTube videos, and Internet forums often have entertaining grammar slips. Furthermore, at least in Utah, there are even more hilarious mispronunciations of commonly-used words.     Here is a very old blog post on this topic, which is part of the inspiration for the blog post I am writing today--and it's hilarious to boot!     All right. When talking with me, please do not axe any questions. Such treatment is not very good for them, and they usually don't survive. Asking  is a much better way to use questions, as that way you will actually get an answer instead of a sad jumble of broken words. So long as you don't reverse the 's' and 'k' sounds in the word ask,  you'll be fine. ;)     Furthermore, fellow Utahns (I hear this isn't as much of an issue el

    I started a new project last week. If you've been following my blog, you might have seen the Landsong  word-counter on the "My Books" page rising over the last nine days or so, and therefore are aware that it shot from "In Planning Stage" to "14K words" in under two days, then further grew to its current 22K+ words over the course of the rest of the week.     I attribute a lot of this sudden progress to the fact that last week was my Spring Break (and as such am eager to find out what happens when this semester ends and all I have to worry about is work and dance and youth camp and so on).     At the same time, though, I attribute a good deal of that progress to momentum.     Once I got going, the law of inertia said I wasn't going to stop for a while--and I didn't. It was only when I got a really solid night's sleep that the torrent of words slowed down, and even still, I didn't start playing Stardew Valley to recharge my batteries

    Well, folks, I have finally done it--this morning, my mom and I dyed my hair in a jar of hot cherry Kool-Aid. Here's what it looks like:      My hair has a lot of natural red highlights already, so the dye job is very subtle in dimmer lighting, but in the sun as I am here, the color is a lot more noticeable. It also helps that the color has gotten more obvious as my hair has dried.     If you're interested in doing this to your hair, too, here is a link to the instructions we followed. The process works pretty well, just as the author of that post said it does, and I'm very happy with it! Update as of April 15th: For some reason, my hair has started leaking pink onto things. It didn't do that right after I dyed it! So, just a little warning: If you try this method, and it doesn't leak for a few weeks, still be watchful after each shower. Kool-Aid is not  fun to get out of fabric!

    Hi! Yup, three blog entries in one day. Don't be too surprised; I tend to write in bursts when it comes to my blog. In this post, I bring you more of my favorite books! However, because I seem to have lost the file in which I kept my big list of books, my life has gotten significantly more difficult, so we'll see how this goes... 1. The Blue Sword,  by Robin McKinley     This book, like Chalice  from an earlier post in this series, has thoroughly won my heart. It is such  a good book, with a lovely bit of romance, a lot of swordfighting, and horses!  Also, the magic system routinely makes the main characters do things they wouldn't otherwise do, and the results are highly  entertaining. I will admit, though, that I didn't like The Kingdom and the Crown  (this book's prequel) nearly as much as I like this one. It's still good... just not as  good. 2. The Enchanted Forest Chronicles,  by Patricia C. Wrede     Patricia Wrede doesn't just write a fantastic b

    The last presentation I attended at LTUE was all about fear. While it was mostly directed towards us writers and the fears that we face, the information was still really, really good, and can be used in any context.     The presentation was called, "Let Your Fears Disappoint You," and was done by an awesome guy named Matthew Bockholt. Here's what I learned--maybe it'll help you in some way!     Mr. Bockholt's first main point was that fear is natural. It is meant to protect us from things we don't understand.     However, fear has an antidote: Experience.     He told us about a time when he was a kid, when he heard a scratching sound on his window in the middle of the night. Terrified it was some kind of monster, he ran to his parents' room and woke his dad to come chase the monster away. When his dad came back with him and opened the window, though, he revealed that the source of the scratching sound was nothing but a twig on a nearby tree branch, scr

    Welcome back to the Frustrated Writer Support Group!     If you've got anything to say about your current project (be it a success, a failure, a frustration, or anything else), go ahead and put it in the comments below! As always, be polite and kind, and try to contribute to the discussion in a positive way.     I'm excited to find out what you're working on! Good luck!

    Hi!     No, I haven't dropped off the face of the earth, I promise. :) I have, however, been taking an English 2010 class this semester, and as a result I've used most of my writing brain cells working on boring, academic papers instead of interesting blog posts and stories. Let's just say that my writing productivity overall has dropped a lot, and it's taken me a while to figure out what to say around here.     This is the first post in a series that I'll refer to as the LTUE Report--or, in other words, a bunch of blog posts about what I learned at LTUE 42 this year. To start, I want to talk about Medieval weapons, because that was probably my favorite presentation of the entire symposium. The presentation itself was called "Medieval Weapons 101", and it was done by C. David Belt (just to make sure I attribute my sources like my English professor would want).     First, I don't have a lot of specific notes in my notebook about what I learned. I ha

      Are the following images art? That's a debate that exists, but I don't want to get into it. I'm mostly writing today because I wanted to see what a computer program would do with the prompt I gave it, and the results were pretty funny. Does it have the same spirit and soul as human-made art? I guess it depends on your perspective. But at the very least, come and enjoy the goof with me as we explore this bizarre, relatively unknown medium.     And, even better, at the end of this post I'll share two of my own (admittedly pretty amateur) drawings, because at LTUE, I went to about four different presentations by (I think) three different people that all mentioned the concept of a writer's/artist's notebook, and at the presentation on how to use  one of these, I was instructed to expand beyond my normal medium. The two drawings I'll share are the result. :) The Prompt: An ice dragon and a Siberian tiger at lunch in a cozy, herb-themed cafe.      First resu

    Wow. It's been a very long time since I've done one of these. Maybe that's a good thing; I've given out a lot of reading recommendations since starting this blog, and it's hard to read that many books in a short time.     At any rate, I think it's high time I gave you all more books to look up! 1. The Princess of the Midnight Ball  trilogy, by Jessica Day George     Do you like fairy-tale retellings? Well, here's three for you, including retellings of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood. And, better yet, all the themes of books 2 and 3 tie right back in to the events of book 1! Plus, all the characters are realistically affected by their experiences, so the princesses who play the part of protagonist in books 2 and 3 have a reasonable amount of PTSD and emotional trauma from all that they went through in book 1. But I'm not going to give you any more spoilers than that--just know that I thought these books were reall

    Call me crazy, but I am in love with cayenne pepper. It's brutal, but when it comes to herbal efficiency, it's fantastic.     How do I know?     Yesterday, whilst cutting vegetables with a mandolin slicer to make a salad, I chopped the tip of my thumb partially off. Now, to be fair, the wound isn't as bad as that makes it sound--the injury is a flap of skin less than half the size of a dime that would threaten to wobble around on the tip of my thumb if it hadn't sealed itself very nicely after a night's sleep.     What does this have to do with cayenne pepper, you may ask?     In traditional, historical herbal knowledge, cayenne is a useful herb to use to stop bleeding--sources I've read and heard about claim that ingesting it or dumping it on a wound can stop the bleeding from a bad cut in ten seconds flat. If you think to question these sources, let me tell you that my experience with this spicy mouth-punisher fits the anecdotes I've heard. I got the c

    Last time I posted an actual post (FWSG doesn't count because I'm  not really saying anything; you guys are), I talked about perspectives, and how I think perspectives are more akin to the color wheel than they are a sliding scale. Now that it's a new month and I have the brain cells and post space to talk about it, let's discuss how that perspective on perspectives can be applied to writing.     In most books, having a wide variety of perspectives is... (crucial? critical?)... very important. Sure, you can write an okay novel without having a bunch of different views among your characters--in fact, in some stories, you could probably get away with representing only the ideologies of the villain and the hero.     But if you want to write more than mediocre fiction, and you, like me, are not yet a great author who could get away with having incredibly few perspectives in their book via clever machinations, perspectives are probably something you'll want to consid