Category: Thoughts

Button Joy Reflected

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Crafting, Other Writers, Thoughts

Amy Rose Davis has Button Joy! She’s been a crafting manic lately, and found a buttony treasure during a big spring clean, spurring my own recollections of Button Joy. Now, I’m a bit of a button hoarder. Nothing serious. I just have a big jar of buttons. And I can blame it all on one person.

I grew up learning to sew from my paternal grandmother, and maternal great grandmother. They are pretty much the reason why I can sew and crochet, and have done so since the time I could wield a needle or hook. My grandmother was an amazing seamstress, and I think it was her careful eye which led me to be able to draft patterns however I want. I’m not exceptional at it, but if I want to make myself a pair of pants or a new skirt, I don’t need to buy a pattern for it, I will just draw one up and modify it as I go.

My great grandmother was an avid crocheter, though. Not only that, but she kept a jar of buttons; the jar which I inherited upon her death. Some of these buttons are very old, gorgeous wooden things or cast metal. Others are newer, some match, some never will. I’ve used buttons from this jar in my sewing for years; anything from teddy’s clothes, to replacing a popped button from a shirt.

But the truly remarkable thing about my jar of buttons is the smell. This seems a common theme among those with Button Joy. Open it up and stick your nose is, and I swear, it smells exactly like my great grandmother’s house, all these years later. It’s surreal and evocative. It’s the scent of a yarn collection, and her endless cooking, and whatever little things made the house so distinctive. Her moisturiser and make-up. Her perfume.

My jar of buttons sits on my computer desk, tucked into the shelf in front of me. It’s just the convenient place to keep it; accessible, yet out of the way. But it’s also a lovely connection to a woman who meant so much and taught me many wonderful things. I like buttons. Treasures from the past.

~A

Sometimes I wonder

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Blogging, Thoughts, Writing

I read a lot online. Blogs, articles, forums, humour sites, random research. I spend a lot of time on my computer, and have for most of my life. Wouldn’t trade that for the world, either, because the kinds of opportunities which come from being on the internet are incomparable.

But sometimes, I’ll be reading something. Often of the writing/publishing nature, since we all tend to get a little obsessive over that at times. And I will think to myself, “Why am I reading this instead of doing something productive?”

I love learning. Acquiring knowledge. The reason I spend so much time online is because there is so much available. I’ve been known to spend days straight consuming a good blog, or disappear a six hour block following links around Wikipedia. Funny enough, while I do check on things like Facebook regularly, I don’t spend a whole lot of time there (unless someone catches me on the chat function while I’m not looking).

But there are little triggers. I’ll read something, and for a myriad of reasons, it will make me wonder why I’m not doing something else. It’s not a guilt complex; everything I do has its reasons, and I’m okay with that for the most part. It might be partly an avoidance technique; I’m in the middle of a lot of things, and what I should work on isn’t necessarily what I’m most drawn to. But really, I suppose I just want to have something tangible for my time and brainpower. Knowledge can’t be tallied like words or stitches added to a project, so even while I value what I’m reading and experiencing, I feel I will have nothing to show at the end of it.

Which is ridiculous. If I didn’t have all this knowledge accumulated, these observations of humans and their thoughts and behavioural patterns, I wouldn’t be able to apply that to my stories. Which is pretty integral.

All the same, I’m going to draw a line this weekend. Get some serious work done and knock out a few of the smaller projects I’ve been dragging my feet over. I will say I have enough information to cover me for those two days, cut off my reading of things until Monday.

~A

Oh, glorious breakfast contraption

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts

Seriously, I want this machine.

Breakfast Station

This wonderful unit is dubbed the “Nostalgia Electrics Retro Series 3-in-1 Breakfast Station”. The entirely rational part of me knows there’s no way this thing could do any of its three functions amazingly; at best, it will work just as well as my existing electric frypan, toaster, and coffee percolator. But my current appliances are not a special machine designed as a full breakfast ensemble!

A part of me really craves ridiculous items like this. Definitely not the rational part. No one in this world needs a breakfast station. Except me. Surely I need it! Breakfast. All-in-one. It’s too fabulous for words.

In my ideal kitchen, I would have this, and a special slushie blender-dispenser, and a hot chocolate machine, and probably give into my lifelong desire for my very own fairy floss/cotton candy maker. I’ll also have a giant sink with a spray nozzle on the end of a hose, and a little dishwasher, a huge walk-in pantry, more cupboard and counter space than I could ever reasonably use!

Needless to say, not all of my daydreaming is spent in the world of my book.

I kind of like the idea of blue in a kitchen, too…

~A

Integral ending

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Other Writers, Thoughts, Writing

I recently read a book. I loved it; a cynical, jaded, altogether unsympathetic main character made through sharp dialogue and subtlety in action into the anti-hero you want to cheer on, even if he’s doing all the wrong things.

Then the ending happened.

I won’t say it was a bad ending. It tidied everything up neatly, took care of all the problems, and set the (remaining) characters off on their way with the right degree of this is completed, but there’s more for these people in life. Still, the ending. It niggles at me as too quick, too wrapped up. It rushed through a somewhat surprising turn and almost seemed to state, “There. All the loose ends have been taken care of. Are you satisfied?”

The answer to my imagined question is, unfortunately, no. Not really. The ended could have, and from my perspective, should have been drawn out further. The final chapter lacked the same wry interaction (largely because most of the characters died), and I felt like the protagonist began acting outside of his normal bounds, without a proper reason. Oh, sure, I know what part of the story was meant to act as the turning point, his trigger to behaving a little more compassionate. But I didn’t believe it.

Just because I can identify the when and why of this character’s motivation doesn’t mean I buy it.

Maybe that’s me being weird. Maybe it’s my background in psychology making the developments ring false. I would probably need to re-read the book, perhaps even several times, before I could pin down exactly what throws me about the ending.

Nevertheless, I’ve learnt something from this story, which I still think is pretty awesome. The ending is actually the most important part of your story. It’s the last taste we get of your characters, and the world they are in. It’s the part which will linger, because it’s the freshest in our memory. A weak ending could very easily ruin an otherwise good book.

Cue writer’s paranoia! Does my ending measure up? Have I made it too obvious and forced that all the pieces are coming together and being taken care of? Does it finish at the right pace?

It’s a wonder I’ve survived being an author as long as I have. Egad.

~A

Messy days

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts

I inspect my hair in the mirror. It’s turning that murky pink-yellow colour on the tips as my usual purple dye fades out again. Time to re-dye! Today seems like as good a day as any, so out comes the bottle, gloves, and cheap conditioner; using it sometimes even keeps the dye from staining my skin.

Now, making a mess while recolouring my hair is no new thing. Specks of dye get on the sink, on me, on the walls (okay, only that one time). I have long since given up any concern for getting dye on myself, giving them a cursory scrub then living with the splotches for a few days until my skin renews itself. I try and be more cautious with the household, and usually manage to clean off any marks before they can cause a more permanent stain.

Once I’m suitably purple, I realise I’m starving! Need-to-eat-immediately-starving. Pancakes are my perfect solution. This is why I keep some store-bought shake pancake bottles in the cupboard, after all. Let me be perfectly clear, here: I’ve made these exact pancakes this exact way dozens of times before. Add the milk, tap the bottle to release the flour mix, shake it for a while then release the gases building up, and shake again.

Today was not meant to be a clean day. Aside from slopping milk down the side of the bottle, on the second round of shaking, the lid makes a faint ppppssssssttttttt noise at me. Then pops halfway off the threads and oozes thick, fluffy pancake mix. I rush it to the sink, taking the lid off to try and cease the eruption, but the goopy batter just keeps flowing. I end up tipping half the bottle into a bowl, but for some reason (perhaps an error in the manufacture), this particular pancake mix has nearly doubled in size. Oh well, more pancakes for me!

With the first tasty round frying up on the stove, I toss some bacon in a pan and get onto the most important part of any morning: the coffee production. But remember, this is some kind of conspiratorial morning, designed for messiness all round. Coffee grinds go on the floor. I spill water on the counter while filling the reservoir in the percolator. It’s a wonder the sugar didn’t go flying across the kitchen!

Since then, I ate breakfast and drank my coffee in peace. No significant mess in that department. But it’s only just on 10:30am, leaving more than enough hours in the day for something else to “go wrong”. Really, I’m not concerned. It’s just a bit of mess. Makes life interesting, you know?

~A

For the love of a good notebook

Posted on by Ashlee Scheuerman in Thoughts, Writing

There are so many reasons to love a new notebook. The fresh paper, the new cover. Clean and crisp, or rough and natural. Gilding, embossing, or just a lovely picture. Notebooks are awesome.

In the last month, I’ve gotten two new notebooks. Both with red covers; one was heavily discounted from damage (which gives it pre-loved character!), and the other an expensive guilty pleasure which I justified with Christmas money. I haven’t written in either of them, yet; all my writing work has gone straight onto the computer. But I have big plans for these, yes I do.

Starting today, I’m using the larger of the two for writing out a lot of world lore for TDM universe. It’s all in my head, and I’d like to have it out on paper for easy reference. Goodness knows, my memory isn’t the best! I always hesitate over the first words in a new notebook. Oh, it’ll turn into a scribbled mess as soon as I get going, but that point where I’m marking the first page…

I am not the only one with an almost obsessive love of notebooks! In fact, there were so many in agreement when I wrote about my appreciation of new notebook number two, a collective was born. We are the Society of Notebook Aficionados. If you share our joy, come and join us on Facebook. It’ll be fun.

Society of Notebook Aficionados | Facebook

~A