The Journal of his Delights

I’m in a Japanese language class that meets every Wednesday, and last Wednesday was a “field trip” to a cafe. It was a fun night, and you can see some photographs taken by Yumi-sensei here.

And yes, that’s CC enjoying the huge parfait.

Many thanks to the folks kind enough to critique “First Among Mindys”. Lowie, Kim, Carrie - you’re the best. I took into account the feedback today, and polished up the story a little more. It’s amazing how much time can get sunk into 1100 words.

Next step is another critique - this time through the Critters Workshop, an online critiquing group. After that, one more round of revision and then I submit it for publication.

In other writerly news, I am almost to the end of writing the “chapter cores” of Milo the Dreamer. Just another five or six more chapters and I can start going back and fleshing out the story. And cleaning it up/polishing/revising as I go. Wow - it’s kind of weird to think about actually.

In a conversation with Lowie, she asked how long before I thought I had a novel that I could submit. My answer? Nine months, and that includes a couple of revision passes. That might be overly conservative, but given that I’ve never done this before (or at least nothing on this scale), I don’t want to set up any unreal expectations.

Weird, weird, weird. This is really happening. It’s been something I’ve dreamed of, ached for, for years, but it looks like I finally have the discipline and clarity to make the attempt and maybe pull it off. Nothing is guaranteed, of course. And I’ll still need a job to pay the bills. Very few writers actually make their living writing. But if I can pull it off… oh, that’s the stuff dreams are made of.

I had my first job-hunting anxiety dream last night. I was applying for a job teaching English at one of the big language schools, which is all well and fine, except they wanted to send me to Hokkaido, which is in the far north of Japan on the opposite side of the country from Fukuoka. There was also an exam with geometry, which I don’t particularly understand how it could have been relevant. Oh, and apparently, I couldn’t stop blowing my nose, and was… er… making a mess of my goatee.

Well, I suppose I should be grateful that I wasn’t also naked.

Practically speaking, in real life, the job hunt is proceeding. I’ve sent out five or six resumes this week, and I have one lead to follow up on tonight. (A phone call.) I’ve contacted all the major language schools, as well as three of the junior colleges. I did check into two of the major universities in Fukuoka, but one wasn’t hiring and for the other’s open position I wasn’t qualified. (They wanted a PhD.)

Hopefully one of these seeds will bear fruit, but in the meantime, I keep looking…

The other day, I completely and accidentally stumbled across a small religious procession, and then later that night, also accidentally, wandered into the Nakasu Shrine which was celebrating the same religious holiday. The shrine in Nakasu is one of the major shrines in Fukuoka and where the Yamakasa Festival begins.

I looked afterwards was totally unable to figure out the holiday. In any case, I was very happy to run across both, and made photographs, which you can find at Flickr. You’ll note that I’ve created a second slideshow for Fukuoka. That’s probably the pattern I’ll use from now on, i.e. just adding slideshows so that regular visitors don’t have to slog through the old pictures to see the new ones.

Sample images are below:

I just came across this comic, and I absolutely love it. How original, geeky, and funny! Check it out, especially if you tend to wander off the beaten path. It’s frickin’ awesome! Here are three samples on a theme…

http://www.xkcd.com/150

http://www.xkcd.com/308

http://xkcd.com/291

This is also as awesome as awesome gets…

One of the benefits of being a foreigner in Fukuoa is that, unless he/she is very outgoing, the people who hand out flyers/leaflets on the street mostly leave you alone.

Oh, and just in case I haven’t talked about food enough, apparently Canal City, on the top floor, has a Ramen Stadium! Something like 15 different ramen restaurants serving versions of ramen from the different regions of Japan. Just how frickin’ cool is that?!

(Thanks to Lowie’s friend, Yumiko-san, for letting me know about it.)

I think this is a ramen from the middle regions of Japan. This is based on an impression from the pictures, so I could be terribly wrong. Above are hard-boiled eggs to be enjoyed with the meal. To the right, Pao Gyoza. That’s assuming I read the katakana correctly, of course.

So interestingly enough, Dumbledore is gay. So said the author herself at a reading from the latest book during the question and answer period. It certainly makes what happened in his youth with Grindelwald so much more interesting. It’s a shame there wasn’t more in the text to hint at it, but given the genre and fanbase of the books, I’m not surprised.

Oh, and by the way, I did enjoy the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows along with the rest of the series. Not say the critiques aren’t valid. The books are somewhat repetitive, and there are other writers who deserve just as much attention. But, and here’s the critical part, Rowling was able to succeed in the most important thing a writer can hope to do - connect with the reader. That’s not something you can put in a box. More power to her for it.

In any case, you can find a link to the Dumbledore story here.

Just a quick note to say that work on Milo is continuing, and it’s going in a surprising direction which is fun to see. I’m really enjoying the process of telling this particular tale. I like the characters so much - it feels like a treat getting to spend time with them.

In any case, the way I’m writing the story as also changed. I no longer feel like I’m writing chapters, but instead the cores of chapters. I think what that must mean is that internally I’ve decided on a longer version of the story. Short novel maybe? It means more work, but like I said, I really like these characters, and I think they deserve a proper vehicle.

Also, I just finished a draft a very short story; only 1,000 words. If anyone is interested in critiquing it to help me make it better, just let me know.

If it sounds like I’m doing a lot of writing, well… I suppose I am. What’s different is that I’m being more structured about, i.e. scheduling writing appointments. So far, it seems to be working.

Not to worry, though, I’m still actively looking for work. I’m not neglecting that part of my life. In fact, on the advice of CC, I’ve just compiled a list of junior colleges in Fukuoka and will following up see if any need instructors.

One of the cool features of having friends in far flung places (including cities you’ve recently moved to) is that they can introduce you to all the local places with the really delicious food. For example, just other night, Lowie took me to a local nabe restaurant. Not quite a hole-in-the-wall, but close. It’s one of her favorite places - partly for the food and partly because of a friendship developed with the head chef.

It truly is a local place. No gaijin other than us - just neighbors and business people. The staff was kind and helpful. And the food… well, it was terrific. Nabe is a one pot dish, often a soup or stew. Usually it’s eaten in winter, but in modern Japan, it can be eaten at any time. It’s also a communal dish, so the company you keep is very important.

This particular nabe was heavily influenced by Korean flavors. It included meat, dumplings, vegetables, and a huge mound of mushrooms. So good! And then later, they added Korean style noodles. I was a happy, happy man.

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The boy’s been getting in touch with his inner geek this past week.

First of all, the coolest of cool is the ability to run Windows on my MacBook. How is that possible you ask? Parallels Desktop lets me run both the Mac OS and Windows XP (or Vista, but I don’t like Vista) simultaneously. Woohoo!

That means I can run Human Japanese, a very nice Japanese language software which is Windows only, on my Mac.

The other bit of geekiness is Star Trek: New Voyages. (Thanks Jeff!) “But there is no new Star Trek show.” Is that what I hear? Oh, but you are only half right. It’s a new Star Trek show, but created by fans. Yes, that’s right. A TV show created by fans. Okay, so the acting isn’t that great, and the editing in the first episode is… well… shoddy. But it slowly gets better, and the special effects are good and there’s something heartwarming about hearing those odd beeping noises and other sound effects from the old show. Ah, I forgot to mention that New Voyages is an extension of the original series with fan actors portraying Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the rest. They even have some of the original actors coming back for reprisals. Hehe…

Okay, so it’s not art, but you’ve got to give them credit. They obviously love the show, and they’re getting to live their dreams of playing the characters. There’s a lot of work put into it, and if you take it for what it is, it’s a lot of fun.

So if you’re a fan of the original Star Trek, boldly go forward and check it out.