Triumph!

April 25, 2006

I have just submitted the proposal for the fourth Strongbox Chronicle, along with a seven-page document full of title ideas for the trilogy. Tonight, in celebration, I am going to watch the rest of season one La Femme Nikita while I eat the insanely-yummy-smelling soup that Ted is currently preparing. If I had made bread today, I would have a piece of yummy homemade bread while I did this. (Maybe I’ll make biscuits or something. Or CORNBREAD. Except I have no cornmeal. *Damn*. Must remedy that.)

I am taking tomorrow off. I am going into Cork tomorrow; I am going to a movie; I am going to send my artist some money; I am going to do some shopping. This is how it will be. I am pleased.

I have not yet gotten the revisions for HEART OF STONE. This means I have the rest of April to work, guilt-free, on the Chance beatsheets and second script.

I find this *completely* astonishing.

I still have vague hopes of getting the HoS edits before the end of the month, so I can get them taken care of before I write HOUSE OF CARDS. I have this idea it’d be useful to know what Matrice said before I launch into that book. (Jenn, do you think getting you to nudge her would be more effective than nudging her myself has been?) Projected start date for HoC is either the 1st or the 8th, at the moment. If I get the beatsheets and the script done, I will have actually accomplished 3 of the 5 things that were on my schedule, and of the remaining two, one was the CAULDRON BORNE proposal, which wasn’t really going to happen, and the other is HoS revisions, which I can’t do until I get ’em, so.

On other topics: earlier today I was talking with , who watched “Supersize Me” last night, which led to me saying I hadn’t eaten at McDonald’s in a decade (not since my last year of college) and that I hadn’t eaten at a fast food joint (excepting PizzaHut; does that count?) in at least one year, possibly two. I can’t remember anymore. Anyway, was astonished, and perhaps moreso when I admitted I had eaten at McDonald’s a countable number of times in my life. (I do not know the number. It is more than twenty, but not much more.)

This reminded me of ‘s students, growing up in the Bush, in villages of a few hundred, who are overwhelmed when they come into town and are brought to somewhere like McDonald’s. They simply freeze, because there are *so many choices* they just don’t know what to do.

Speaking from experience, you don’t have to grow up in a village of 700 to have that happen. I was 11 the first time I went into a McDonald’s (in Anchorage; there wasn’t one in Kenai until I was about fourteen), and I flipped the hell out. I had *no idea* what to do. The people I was with (other junior high students) got impatient with me. I just stood there staring at the board in panic. Eventually I ordered a Big Mac, because it was the only thing I’d heard of (two all-beef patties special sauce lettuce cheese pickles onions on a sesame seed bun).

I did not like it at all.

19 thoughts on “Triumph!”

  1. I can’t remember that I’ve ever had a Big Mac at all. But the bigger fast-food burgers never did appeal to me; I always just ordered the plain ol’ hamburgers. Or the fish sandwiches, or the chicken nuggets.

    Though it’s been quite a while since I’ve last eaten at a fast-food place at all myself. Part of it was Supersize Me (which I never actually saw but which I’ve heard enough about to have the gist), but part of it’s also that I’ve found that if I don’t do fast food for a long enough period, it makes me feel icky when I do eat it, so.

  2. So, is cornmeal one of those things that has infiltrated Europe, or does it go in the care package with the empty root beer bottles and the handful of chocolate chips I just couldn’t fit in my stomach?

  3. I donno! I haven’t *looked* for cornmeal yet. I’ll let you know tomorrow. (Dude, if you’re not careful I’m gonna make you send me a care package. I’m almost out of Crisco.)

  4. Deirdre and I gave up eating at fast food places about four or five years ago, and certainly don’t miss it.

  5. Let’s see…I can save some space by pouring the cornmeal into the root beer bottles…the Crisco I guess will have to stay in its container to keep the chocolate chips from getting slippery…

  6. This amuses me immensely because last night in my Computerized Legal Research class we got on the subject of trademarks and how companies have to defend them in order to keep them and then we were talking about how some are just so insanely recognizable. Anyway, the point being our professor than launched into the “Big Mac” jingle you just recited. =)

  7. I remember the first time I saw a McDonald’s too – I was about 9 years old, I think. It was probably some time after star wars.
    But when I first came to the US, I had a similar moment of freeze when I went to a supermarket for the first time. How can so many types of cereal exist?

  8. Despite the info on http://cemurphy.net/wip.php#wip, I’m having trouble keeping up with all of the stuff you’re working on! Geez; I just wanna read everything!

    Ah well. Thunderbird Falls and Firebird Deception are imminent; I guess that’ll have to do for now…

    Signed,

    Raving fanboy :)

  10. *checks the WIP page* At least that’s mostly accurate. :) I do need to update the actual WIP part, since COYOTE and PHOENIX are off to the editor now. :)

    Signed,

    Delighted author :)

  16. Humm would a local ‘Chipper’ be considered fast food?
    If not, remind me to bring ye to KC’s and maybe the Golden Fry. Both are family run fish and chip places that have v. good standards.
    If so, then i’ll have to bring ye there to show you the true meaning of fast food.

  17. Nah, I’m talking about the commercial giant food chains when I talk about fast food. :) But I wouldn’t mind being brought to the local cippers!

  19. Pretty soon, I’ll be forced to get by on nothing but my personality. I don’t think anyone wants that… ;)

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