Tea and Other Curiosities

So, I lied.

I recently looked back at my last post and realized I had promised to post Hearthsinger audio clips by early April. So I guessed that slipped past me. I have no concrete theme for today's blog post; my life has been so hectic lately, so I guess I'll just share a bit of what I've been up to with you all until I have time to sit down and write a nice fat post about the audio process with Hearthsinger.

Figment News:

Most exciting news is, Default Sweater is almost done! I can't believe it. I'm scanning my "Chapter Progression" word doc and counting remaining chapters. I'm already planning edits for the second draft and I'm just so excited. Finishing a story, even a first draft, is funny, because I'm simultaneously so excited to have this brand new story there for people to read, and sad to let it go. Writing TDS has been such an adventure, and it's taken me through more twists and turns than I ever expected. But more on that later. :)

My post-TDS plans are exciting, too. Although what's posted on my figment account right now is just a first draft, I'm feeling the need to step back from the story for a little. My plans as they stand right now are to return and keep writing Lilla & the Tower, which I'm totally excited about. It's fun to switch back to fantasy for a little while after working on TDS, which has no magic to speak of.

Well, except perhaps the magic of manly eyes. Manly eyes in droves. I'm realizing I need to go back during rewrite time and count mentions of eyes.

Also, TDS has no girls locked in towers, feuding queens, or possibly glass slippers. All things I'm hankering to write.

In the meantime, I'd like to talk about something else. Namely tea.

I like tea. I think about tea a lot. In the past year, I've read two figment works which consistently mention tea (namely Waxflower Wood, formerly Nattie & Finn, by Anande Sjöden, and Birdcage Girl, by Kimberly Karalius). The tea mentioning was not a central plot point in either of these, but I'm a tea kind of girl, so I noticed.

My family has actually given me tea for Christmas before. So my next goal, as soon as Default Sweater is finished, is naturally also tea-related. I guess it was perfect for me to write a story set in England, a place I've never actually been.

When I was little, we lived in the frigid Siberianesque state of Maine. I was seven when we left, so while we were there, I went through a merciless strengthening of my immune system....e.g., I was sick ALL THE TIME. My mom isn't a big one for medicine, unless it's cough syrup or aspirin, so often, I was left to fight through it with more natural remedies, like vegetables, chicken soup, blankets.....and tea.

I drank it like an Englishman, with milk and sugar. When I was sixteen, I lived in Fichtenberg, Germany for six months, and encountered more tea-drinking, of the milk-less and sugar-less variety. Germans have a national distrust of "flat" water--e.g., non-fizzy water, and, like typical Europeans, a love for frequent tea, coffee, and cigarette breaks. My host mother used to make a pot of tea in the morning. Whatever we didn't drink before catching the bus for school, we'd drink with dinner that night.

So I'm a big tea drinker. My father thinks I'm nuts. He's a typical southerner, so "tea" to him implies black tea, boiled with sugar, then left to cool and be drunk with breakfast. He kind of regards me as some sort of European hipster who drinks unheard-of herbal concoctions and doesn't like "real tea"--cold and sweet.

Okay, this one is coffee. But it was delicious. The cookie, too--already had a bite out of it before I took out my camera.

My tea fascination obviously comes out in Default Sweater, and my next goal is to count mentions of tea just for fun. The next chapter's going up soon. Thirty-three down, three to go. WOOT WOOT.

Off for a cup of tea and Chapter Thirty-Four. It's eighty-five degrees outside, but I defy you, stars.