Title to be read in the same vein as ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place’. I’m going to blog quick today because I want to actually squeeze in a little bit of time to actually write (imagine that!). But I also just picked up Writing the Breakout Novel by Donald Maass at the library. (Thank you for recommending, Sara!) So now I’m once again torn (as I was with Self-editing for Fiction Writers) whether to read the book first or intersperse reading it with writing. Because what if what I’m writing is addressed in the book as ‘what not to do’? What if my afternoon of writing turns out to be a thorough waste of my time, the product of which will removed with a couple clicks of the mouse and the delete button?

It’s killing me, I tell you!

P.S. My name is Alyssa Goodnight, and I have a library addiction.
I came home today with three fiction books (all pretty weighty) and a non-fiction writers’ manual. How on earth am I going to fit those in with the two books I still have from last week!?! It’s a sickness, I tell you.

Well, thanks to everyone who posted. The cake actually turned out okay…(I let my mom try it first) hee hee hee. After having heard about my escapades, she scooped up a big spoonful of the frosting, and proclaimed it perfectly fine. We both had a piece oozing with frosting. What a relief. It’s such a shame when you make a special trip to the store, buy all these special ingredients, and then cook/bake something that doesn’t turn out. Nevermind that I wouldn’t have had a cake for my mom… I’m quite relieved.

So I had the mini party at my mom’s, which put me a little bit behind again. I pretty much don’t write if I’m not at home. I write on my computer (which is not a laptop) and write new stuff while revising/rethinking the writing from the day (or week) before. So, at least on the current book I’m working on, I can’t use the AlphaSmart I got last Christmas. I have so much of the book already written I don’t want to just start shooting out entire new pages or chapters (who says I’m not optimistic?). So no work on the WIP Monday or Tuesday (unless I work on it tonight). Ah…but tomorrow certainly has promise. And Thursday is the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!! so I’ll only have one little boy to distract with something…

Well, Friday went exactly as planned. I actually ended up with about four and a half hours of writing time (interspersed with blog/internet/email breaks), so I was really pleased. Then on Saturday I had a couple of hours more, so I didn’t feel so bad when I didn’t write at all on Sunday. Instead I finished Diana P’s book SSG–loved it! and started on the book about the history of fingerprints.

Today I’m taking the boys up to visit my mom for one last summer visit. Her 60th birthday was on Friday, so I decided to bake her a cake. German Chocolate Cake is one of her favorites, so I figured it was a good choice. It’s turned into a little bit of disaster. First, I decided to use a cake mix since I think they always turn out better than homemade cakes (at least the homemade cakes I make). So I dump in the mix, add the eggs, water, and oil and then realize I added twice as much oil as the mix calls for. Luckily I didn’t add more than that! I thought the box said 1 1/2 c. oil (which had my eyes bugging out), but I added the first cup and checked again–just to be sure. I had been supposed to add 1/2 a cup. So I spent the next five minutes trying to siphon the extra oil off the top of the pre-mixed batter. I used a measuring cup to monitor my progress, but who knows if it worked…

Then I set about making the homemade frosting…with the sugar, butter, coconut, pecans, and evaporated milk. The recipe called for 1 c. of evaporated milk, but those little cans only have 5 oz. or something so I had to pull another one out of the pantry. It was a little thicker, but into the measuring cup it went. Cooked it all up and set it aside to cool while I was cleaning up. Picked up the ev. milk cans to clean them out for recycling and saw that the inside of the second can looked a little different, smelled a tad different too. Flipped the can over and, sure enough, the expiration date (who knew?) was Oct. 2004 (!!)

So now I have this questionable cake and even more questionable frosting. I’m just going to take the whole mess (cake separate from frosting) up to my mom’s and see what she thinks we should do with it. Happy Birthday, right? Good grief.