Category: Thoughts

Tasting desserts, for science!

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts

There’s a new brand of pre-packaged desserts available around these parts with one of those names which just challenges you to try them. Can they really be so delicious as to live up to their claims? Since they were on sale, and I have a sweet tooth today, I bought four different treats to try.

First up, I’ve got a berry cheesecake. The berry sauce over the top doesn’t even taste like berries, but there are seeds in it to prove at least once, this contained a blackberry or something similar. The cheesy part of this cheesecake proves to be pretty good. Nice lemony zest flavour going on, and a smooth texture. The cake crumbles for the base are pretty standard and boring, which is a shame because when the cake crumbles on a cheesecake are good, man, then they are my favourite part.

Conclusion: this cheesecake is acceptable, but does not live up to my expectations.

Now onto a tiramisu. I’m already biased here, because we have the best recipe for a homemade tiramisu, and I have only tasted one or two professionally made desserts which can match our own. This one seems to have a lump of chocolate cake, with the coffee cream cheese around it. The creamy mix is, in my opinion, too sweet and doesn’t have nearly enough coffee flavour. The cake is very dark, but doesn’t really taste like much at all.

Conclusion: it’s barely worth finishing this tiramisu, and I would avoid it next time.

Next, I’m getting into the profiteroles in a chocolate sauce. The sauce is super chocolatey and smooth, though not quite meeting the pure melted chocolate consistency you really want. The pastry from the profiterole is surprisingly dry. I’m having a hard time getting at the custard inside without having chocolate sauce all over it, but as near as I can tell, it’s a bland, vaguely vanilla custard. Taken all together, the elements don’t exactly work. Huh.

Conclusion: I’ve had far better profiteroles, but the sauce could be tasty on icecream.

And saving my favourite for last, a crème caramel. I think it’s fair to be a little afraid, considering the previous disappointments. It tastes decent, though the custard is a bit too firm and the caramel sauce is too thin. Nevertheless, the flavour is mostly right. And I’m picky about my crème caramels.

Conclusion: There are two other brands of premade crème caramel I can buy which are better.

Overall, it’s safe to say, there’s absolutely nothing omg! about these desserts, except that they are sad and not super tasty like one is led to believe. Maybe other people would like them plenty; I am particularly fussy about desserts (I’ll eat most, but it has to be something special for me to love it).

Science is disappointed. But I ate a lot of dessert!

~A

The face of an author

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts

Are you sitting down? Alright. Take a deep breath. I have to admit something.
I have bright purple hair. Like, proper bright purple.
I know. Shocking. It’s okay.

I’ve been rather consistently dyeing my hair for the better part of the last five years, usually leaning into the bright purple territory, with occasional deviations into autumnal red and orange combinations, blonde with hot pink, and the odd mix of those if I’m feeling feisty. This suits me just fine, and almost everyone who interacts with me on a very regular basis has commented at one time or another that I wouldn’t seem like “me” without the purple hair. When I’ve left my hair to its natural proclivities (a dark brown), plenty of folks have expressed that I was “back to normal” when I finally re-dyed to, yes, purple.

Needless to say, I have no problems with being myself. And yet…

In a week, I am scheduled to have nice professional portraits taken to use in all official authorly situations. Facebook and Twitter currently display one of my wedding photos, which, I will add, was before I cut off my three feet of natural brown hair. While I do love that photo, it doesn’t represent an accurate “me”, at least as far as current appearance goes. My short hair is just growing out of another pixie cut which is really bright purple.

Again, I’m very comfortable with myself. I’m certain you’ve all figured that one out by now! But the buffer between online-me, and offline-me is about to be blurred further. Of all people, I am well aware of what the instant visual judgement of a person can be like. That’s not to say anyone’s ever been particularly rude or mean about my hair colour, but some people need time to get used to it – and will they take that time to get to know me if it’s through an online medium when they see my photo? It’s all very fast. Click, click, click. Eyes dart to the photo, run over one sentence descriptions, make an assessment of this person in less time than it takes to have another sip of coffee.

What does the real me, the offline-me with purple hair, end up meaning to these nice folks online? I’m curious if offline-me and author-me can occupy the same space, or if they are better off having distinct portrayals. Either way, I have a week to decide if I need to freshen the purple, go over the colour with something more natural, or head straight for black and white photographs and invalidate this consideration entirely.

~A

Snowflaking

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts, Writing

The Snowflake Method is Randy Ingermanson’s brainchild of plotting out stories in very particular detail.

I would say I’m a Pantser, but I don’t think that fully covers the depth to which I imagine my stories before writing them. I percolate information for months leading up to most of the actual writing; scenes are imagined and noted, sub-plots are considered, the lives of the characters outside of the specified story are thought through.

But there’s a lot to be said for being a Plotter, too. I’m definitely not all Plotter, just because I don’t put it all down in nice, neat rows. But the idea is appealing. Some kind of romantic notion about having it all worked out beforehand, you know? Just watch me never do that in my life – but I’ll muse over it all the same.

This Snowflake Method seems promising, to a degree. For the sake of curiosity, I broke down a completed story into the pieces which Randy directs. The single line summary, the paragraph, the character explorations. It worked out alright, though I quit when it got to the longer steps simply because I’ve already written this novel, and if I’m spending that kind of time working, it’ll be on another edit.

What about other stories? I’m only halfway through writing the first draft of SL, and while I have a good idea of where it’s going, there are still scenes missing from my process, ones which I’ll make up on the fly. Could I break this one down and try Snowflaking it? I’m interested in giving it a try.

If I did use a method for these books, how would I then adapt it to suit the over-arcing story? Do I make a wider view Snowflake, encompassing the end plot? Or do I line up the individual notes, one after the other? Maybe by this stage, I won’t do any of the complicated layers for the existing works, and just try building the next few books with this kind of method in mind. It really does seem promising, and a good way to keep an even flow of a long-term series.

Better yet, I can more than easily do all the steps in my favourite novel writing software, yWriter. It appears set up in a pretty similar format, so the important parts should all slot in nicely.

I like the idea of order, I really do. I just live in a natural state of chaos.

~A

A Novel

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Other Writers, Thoughts

I absolutely do not write this in criticism, I am purely curious, and to be honest, a bit confused.

I have been seeing more and more book covers include the text “A Novel”. Why? What is it for? What is its purpose?

Is this an artistic flair that’s catching on? Is it because the cover art is ambiguous as a work of fiction, so it is labelled with “A Novel” for clarity? Is it the counter-point to a novel in a collective including the book-series name (the So-and-So Trilogy, or the Whatsit Chronicles, and so on)?

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the act, though from a personal standpoint, it’s a superfluous line of text on a cover, and I prefer the least amount of text necessary to be on a front cover. But that’s me. The traditional industry likes to include blurbs (as in, a snippet of a quote from someone influential) on the front, or identifying information: “Award winning author of This Other Book”, or “International Best Seller”.

Frankly, I have never cared if an author is an international best seller, or has won awards (except in conversation when I’m trying to drive home the point that an author is kind of a big deal, even though the person I’m talking to has never heard of the writer before). To put that kind of text on a cover just irritates me; it’s wasting space, and often ruins an otherwise well-balanced layout. But that’s kind of off the subject.

I can’t see a reason to have “A Novel” placed right up there on the front. Why did the designer make this obvious statement? The description will indicate that it’s a fictitious narrative. I’ve never bought a novel without reading the description/back cover, so it’s not as though I will misunderstand the book is an invented (or exaggerated) story by the time I’m considering reading it. Also, I’m sure it’s happened, but I don’t recall seeing any which say “A Novella”, or “A Novelette”.

If I write something that’s 300,000 words, can I use “A Hypernovel” on the cover? (The answer to that is no, because if Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke manages to have just “A Novel”, nothing can lay claims to a larger novel classification.)

If anyone has insights, I’d love to know. I may never view “A Novel” as something entirely valid to include, and I probably won’t pass any particular judgement on the book if the label is present, but I certainly notice it. Every time. Thus, I am curious.

~A

Of baby things, part deux

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Crafting, Thoughts

A much-loved second child has added to my friend’s family. As baby number two is born within two week of my godson’s birthday, I’ve been passing on baby clothes. Even for someone who isn’t a mother of any human children, I find baby clothes to be so sweet and, of course, remember how adorable my godson looked in so many of those suits! (The four-legged furry children don’t take kindly to being dressed in clothes.)

A while after my godson grew out of his first batch of baby clothes, I was speaking to his mother about how she had a certain attachment to some of the suits, particularly the special “coming home from the hospital” t-shirt and pants set we’d picked out. I made the suggestion, why not “upcycle” the clothes into something the baby can keep? For those not in the know, upcycling is the trendy term for a kind of recycling, crafting new things from existing materials.

We came to the conclusion that upcycling her favourite clothes into a stuffed toy for the baby would be awesome. At that age, my godson had a fascination with owls (not without a bit of influence from me, of course…), so I sketched out a pattern for a big stuffed owl and spent a couple of days cutting and sewing together panels of his old baby clothes into a toy.


These days, Owl-cush is misshapen and deflated from all the baby love-wrestles he receives.

The belly-panel with the puppy picture, and the pale blue eyes, tufts, beak, and feet are from my godson’s coming home suit. The other pieces were either deemed super cute, like the grey elephants and mint stars, or I picked them for the matching colours. All in all, I discovered baby clothes don’t have nearly enough fabric for crafting with – which is why there ended up being so many sections – and it’s rewarding to make a keepsake which the baby will love, and the parents will cherish for the meaningful inclusions. Plus, no one feels like they’re keeping too-small baby clothes solely for sentimental reasons!

And it gives me more excuses to make cute things.

~A

Judging a good day

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Crafting, Thoughts

I saw a friend after she’d come out of a meeting. I made the light-hearted comment, ‘Must have been a good meeting, you’ve got a smudge on your face.’ And I meant that in all honesty. From my years of being a painter, and being a bit of a grubby outdoorsy type, I often judge an action’s success based on how messy you come out the other side.

I always painted with intent. Specific strokes, painstaking detail, blending colours together with my fingertips on canvas. I love the act of mixing paints, getting the tone you want. Adding just a drop of some colour you wouldn’t expect, if you weren’t experienced with paint, and getting the exact result you were after. I have never been a wild painter, with splashes and swipes. If a picture has paint dribbling through the background, I made each rivulet cautiously.

Regardless of my care, I always ended up splattered with paint, myself. And I wasn’t the kind of person to wear painting clothes or aprons, either, so there are numerous shirts and pants with the addition of a great green splotch or other (acrylic doesn’t wash off fabric). I would get paint through my hair, on my elbow, a spot on the side of my nose or in my eyebrow. And that meant it was a good day. I had painted. All was well.

Going outside and scrambling around often has similar results. Gotten twigs and leaves through my hair, mud over my pants, a scrap or two on my hands? A good day. If I’m all sticky from climbing trees, how could I not associate the mess with the excitement I experienced? Even now, you’ll probably find pen marks on me (how often I catch myself with the pen, or drop it, and get an errant line across my skin or clothes!), and I will feel certain that means I had a good day.

I tend to think some people would take it all wrong, though. Like I was making fun of them if I declare their mess a positive attribute. But truly, if you’ve been doing something that leaves you grubby, or your hair in a tangle, you’re probably doing it right. I like that. We should go run around the beach and get all sandy, or make pottery and get drenched in clay (two of my other favourite pastimes, no less).

We’ll end up dirty. That means we had a good day.

~A