[Editor's note: I was actually traveling as a Canadian since I don't have a US passport. Thing is, my Canadian Passport still has my maiden name on it, which meant I had to buy the ticket under my maiden name for them to allow me on the plane. So I was traveling as an unmarried Canadian somehow living in the United States. Although for all intents and purposes it didn't matter clearing Japanese Customs & Immigration, wanna guess how much confusion and questioning that caused coming back into the US?]

2:43 PM MST / 5:43 AM JST: There’s no concept of personal space here, especially on trains at rush hour. Horrible night though, felt sick as hell and had no more Dramamine. Kept Shaun up all night and had a minor breakdown. Internal clock is beyond messed up. Fireworks tonight but no yukata I don’t think. Also, they apparently leave the feet on the chicken here at KFC.

[Editor's note: Didn't do so well the first night. Couldn't sleep and wound up feeling absolutely horrible. Finally decided a la Lost in Translation to just let my sleep cycle do whatever it wanted. Things improved pretty rapidly after that.]

2:25 AM MST / 5:25 PM JST: Going to Utsunomiya for the fireworks. Had a good nap and picked up some pressies for me and Rob. Found more Dramamine today as well after some searching. Ate watermelon and bought Cornflakes. Helped Shaun teach an English lesson. The fruit here is insanely huge, massive apples and peaches.

For now though, may I present the first installment of my “Notes from Japan”, taken straight from my travel journal, augmented by stuff I remember now.

11:51 AM MST: Delta Sky Priority is awesome. So is the guy that bumped me into seat 5A.
[Editor's note: I got moved up on my connector flight from Denver to SLC so I could get off the plane faster since it was such a tight connection.]

11:53 AM MST: I think Fred Durst is on my flight to SLC.

12:24 PM MST: We flew over the house, it’s too bright to look out the window.

12:40 PM MST: Rob, you would not fit in these seats. At all. There are mountains in the skies.

1:57 PM MST: Riding a regional jet through a thunderstorm is better than a roller coaster. The other plane didn’t make it so the flight is half empty. I’m by myself.
[Editors note: I barely made my 38 minute connection through Salt Lake City, I was one of the last 3 on the plane and they were holding it for my jet and another. The three on my flight made it, the 33 on the other flight didn't.]

2:02 PM MST: I have a menu which tells me the wine is free. My TV doesn’t work though. {Yellow customs form and white landing card.} Our purser has a sense of humor regarding Blackberries and seating arrangements. 10h56m. [Editors note: Time of flight]

2:07 PM MST: This plane is huge.

2:43 PM MST: Did I mention the wine is free? 10h25m to go. They’re feeding us a lot. I should sleep but I want food. Also. Noise canceling headphones are the best.

2:46 PM MST: Can I pee yet?

2:48 PM MST: Dude I don’t want your feet on my stuff.

3:16 PM MST: Wine, water & Dramamine. Dinner soon then sleep.

3:40 PM MST: Flying over smaller planes is fun.

4:06 PM MST: Lunch time. Orange juice, the free wine made me drunk. I forgot why I’m writing this. Hi mom! Vancouver Island is coming up. I want sleep.

4:10 PM MST: Tired. Feels like a dream. I’ve flown domestic so long that I forgot what a nice plane is like. Randomly, I want a haircut. Lunch was pretty decent. OJ now instead of wine. Need to keep the immune system up. It’s admittedly a little sad how much I enjoyed that food.

7:28 PM MST: Managed to doze on and off from about 4:30, but that’s it for now. We’ll be flying over the Bering Strait soon. Snack time.

11:49 PM MST/2:49PM JST: Slept on and off again. All this flight is good for is to sleep but I got lucky with no one beside me. 1h30m to arrival. I’m hungry and very disoriented. Planes are dry.

I got back in on Friday night and I’m slowly returning to normal after a 15 hour time change and 24 solid hours of traveling by foot, train, plane, and car. People, I am tired. And it was awesome. I have a ton of pictures and stories to share over the next couple of weeks, but being the wiener I am, I’m gonna draaaaaaaaaw it out. Because I can. I also missed Rob a ton so I’m going to spend time cuddling with him while I whine about how tired I am and battle a little bit of altitude sickness.

For all it was an awesome trip it’s also good to be home, I can say with certainty that I don’t do too well on futons unfortunately. The food was amazing, I think I’ve been forever spoiled on sushi, and really overall it’s such a unique place to visit. It’s a trip being basically functionally illiterate as soon as you walk off the plane (this is, mind you, if you can’t read Japanese) and in my case only able to understand maybe 1 in 20 words. Still, it’s a fairly easy country to travel in. Once you get the hang of the rail system and what trains go where it’s easy to navigate, and most of the important signs alternate in English.

I think the strangest thing for me was just the sheer amount of people, especially once you get into Tokyo. People everywhere, it’s a bit of a miracle no one collides with anyone else in the middle of a busy train station or an intersection. I would think driving there would be the most annoying thing just on principle that the road is almost never clear.

Now that I’m back, I need to get back to focusing on real life things that I kind of ignored while I was gone. Changes happening with my store inspired by a lot of the things I saw in Japan, my writing which I (oops) haven’t been keeping up with despite having a coherent plot for the first time ever, ordering the parts for and building two new computers for the release of Final Fantasy XIV on September 22nd, and a couple of other cool things that I need to keep a secret for now because they might not happen.

For now, I need a nap.

Confession: Les asked me to write a guest post on planning a book about… 3 months ago? And I was all, Sure, I can do that! Only, when I opened a new Word document and started to type? Nothing came out.

But it’s not because I don’t know how to plan a book. It’s because I don’t know how I plan a book.

See, a lot of people compare writing a book to building a house. You lay a foundation (premise and characters), you put up the walls (plot and scenes), you paint the walls (subplots and character development), you furnish the rooms (voice, mood, and other such literary things). So with that analogy in place, it stands to reason that planning a book is like creating blueprints for a house.

But I’m the daughter of two architects, and I’m here to tell you, planning a novel is NOTHING like creating blueprints for a house.

Blueprints for a house have to be complete before you can start building. You cannot draw some squares on a piece of paper and say, “I think this will be the living room, and that over there might make a good dining nook. I’m not sure where the door in the kitchen will go, exactly, but don’t worry, it will have one.” If your blueprints are like that, you may as well duct tape some 2x4s and cardboard together and hope for the best.

But when planning a book, that kind of guesstimation is perfectly okay. “Chapter 1: Protagonist journeys to the castle.” Sounds good! You don’t need to know every last detail — “Protagonist stumbles over rock, falls on face, shows up to the castle with two black eyes, and thus is thought to be a dangerous rogue” — although it wouldn’t hurt.

Some writers like to “connect the dots”: they decide on major plot points and then let themselves work their way from one to the next. Many writers like to start with their main character and basic premise and simply see where they end up. And then there are the writers who like to have every last thing planned out. I suppose that for them, planning a novel IS like creating blueprints.

(One thing to note: Even the most dutiful of planners will admit that things may change along the way. Before they start writing, they may feel SURE that their protagonist would never do X, or always feel Y, but then they get 2/3 of the way through and realize they were sort of wrong and have to modify/add/delete a scene or a plot point. That is okay! Plans can change! That’s both the beauty and the pain of writing.)

Bottom line: there is no right or wrong way to plan a book. There is only what works (or doesn’t) for you individually as a writer.

Personally, I’m still learning how to plan, and to what degree. I’ve tried flying by the seat of my pants (often called “pansting”) and I’ve tried connecting the dots, each with varying measures of success. Now I’m really, really trying to be a full-out planner. After all, as the daughter of two architects, it should be in my blood, right?

For some actual tips on how to plan a book (of fiction) check out these great posts:
- “How to write a novel” by YA author Justine Larbalestier: http://justinelarbalestier.com/blog/2006/09/06/how-to-write-a-novel/
- “The Snowflake Method” by Randy Ingermanson: http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php
- “How to Write a Great Novel” (compilation of several authors’ self-reported methods) by the Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703740004574513463106012106.html
- “How [not] to write a novel” by Secret Geek: http://www.secretgeek.net/nonwriter.asp

I leave for Japan tomorrow (Thursday) morning and I haven’t packed a thing yet… tonight’s gonna be pretty busy, gotta make sure I don’t forget anything.

And I have Canadian food. It’s so hard to come by this stuff here. I can order it online, but it costs and arm and a leg… so it’s awesome when people send me care packages like this one I got from Adam!

So, I won’t be posting too much while I’m gone although I have a guest post lined up and I’m sure I’ll post a few pictures, but I’m off to enjoy myself! See you in a couple of weeks!

I can just hear the comments. “You already have two huge dogs! Why do you need a third?” I don’t need a third, I want a third, okay? They’re like potato chips. You can’t have just one. Or two. I would draw the line at three though. I can maybe, depending on the dogs, walk three of them on my own at one time. Not four. Anyway no, I don’t need another puppy.

And I happen to like huge dogs.

There are also funny things you can do with puppies when they’re completely worn out.

I swear, she didn’t wake up.

Spent the day outside weeding and slowly getting some stuff ready for my trip (Thursday!), watching Rob play video games, and doing laundry. Not a terribly eventful weekend but I’ll take it!

And I love pancakes.

Especially dark chocolate raspberry pancakes and real maple syrup.

Especially for dinner.

And I love my dogs.

Even when they’re grumpy they didn’t get pancakes.

Regardless I get a lot of spam on this blog. Some recent examples:

“This web site has surely changed my point of view on this subject. Theres no way I wouldve considered about it this way if I hadnt appear across your weblog. All I was performing was cruising the web and I discovered your web site and all of the sudden my views have altered. Very good on you, man!”

and

“did you vote for obama? be honest”

They give me a good chuckle if nothing else. P.S. dear spam bot, I’m not legally allowed to vote.

So what did I spend this weekend doing? Listing new stuff in the store of course. I have a pile of new tea towels up for sale now, as well as a couple of misfit prints (alignment issues when printing in two or more colors) that are marked down pretty heavily. They’re still way cute, but just a bit off.

I also went out for a date with my husband to Earl’s, and then to Tilted Kilt for drinks. I dressed up, so he decided to take a picture. Again, I’m pretty sure I look like a tool. I swear I don’t look this weird in person, I just take horrible pictures.

Went to a benefit on Friday night that was for two dog rescues in Colorado, but I didn’t get any pictures because I ended up leaving my camera in the car. The light would have been crappy for it anyway, but there were a lot of cool dogs there, including one that looked like Cheza when she was a tiny wee thing. Keep in mind here my definition of tiny is probably very different from most dog owners.

And now I’m trying to make up 3,000 words that I should have written last week. That’s what you get for procrastination, brain.

The really exciting thing? I now get to say that I’m going to Japan next week.

Specifically not when I’m trying to take pictures of things to list. You’re stealing all of my good light.

The rain is good for making flowers bloom though. My little succulent thing that is hiding under a lilac tree out front bloomed, as you can see in the banner photo. It’s also nice to not have to water the grass for a couple of days.

Since I have nothing to say today, here’s a little snippet:

Although warm, she made a face as it passed her lips.

“Bitter.”

It was an effort simply to squeeze the one word out, and her ribs threatened to jab her organs into submission if she dared move. The straw in the mattress rustled beneath her as her weight shifted.

“And a good thing too, too much of it will kill you.” There was a smile in the voice, and after a moment the speaker moved away. She could hear the homely sound of wooden plates clicking together, and the creaking of an iron stove as another log was added to the fire.

“Where am I?” Her tongue was clumsy, sliding over thickened and split lips.

“On the edge of the Badlands.” The voice was further away now, busy with some chore. “How you got there, I don’t know. There’s only one place that leads through that place, and I found you quite a ways off of it.”

“Was I alone?”

“You were when I found you. And be glad it was so, your companions are probably safe.”

“Yeah.” She breathed out, barely forming the word before her brain spun her into a dizzy, dreamless sleep.

I got a decent start on upping my inventory by printing a few completely new items for my store. Didn’t get em listed yet but that’s on the plate for tomorrow!

It’s also time to get back into writing, with a 10,000 word a month quota to fill. It seems easy, just write 1000 words ten days of the month, or 500 for twenty, or some combination that adds up. In reality, it’s kind of tricky because sometimes there just isn’t anything to write. I sincerely hope I don’t have too many of those days.

July was an… interesting month for me. I spent most of it being hurt and angry, and completely mentally exhausted myself. This month is going to be sort of a priority reset so I can hopefully get back to enjoying the little things in life again, and return to being motivated. Yeah I’ll probably still be hurt and angry for a bit, but I’m slowly coming to the realization that I’m above all this crap. I’m better than this and it’s time to just get on with life and leave the stupidity behind for other people to deal with.

August also brings my trip to Japan in seventeeeeeen days! Y’all will be sick of pictures of Japan after I get back.

We got 6 new windows put in the house last week, and while I love them, they make the rest of the house look like crap by comparison. It needs a paint job pretty badly (I’m thinking gray with white trim and red shutters and doors). This is what the new windows look like.

and

They also make me want to repaint the walls a different color. Hm.

We still have a few more to replace but they’re going to have to wait for a little bit. For now I need to get busy sewing up some curtains that satisfy both my need for something pretty, and Rob’s need to black out the entire living room blacked out when he wants to play video games.

There’s usually more – a blanket over the patio doors and one behind the couch as well. My aesthetic senses are somewhat inflamed.

I also need to sew up a new duvet cover for the bed, and several other things.

The biggest thing I got around to doing this weekend was prototyping up a bag that I plan to take with me to Japan as my laptop/plane/camera/day/lootbag. If it holds up, I’m gonna start selling them in a few different sizes and configurations. Here’s a sneak peek:

and

and

Don’t mind the fact that I look like a bit of a tool, I hate having my picture taken.

Hope everyone had a happy weekend!