Leftover Brisket = Taco Tuesday!

Briskets, as I mentioned in last Friday’s post, are a big slab of meat. Unless you’re serving a large group, you’re going to have leftovers. We had 12 people and still had leftovers actually.

So, after you cook enough of them, you get really good at figuring out what to do with the leftovers. Brisket hash, sandwiches, omelets, and various types of Tex-Mex dishes are common alternatives to plain leftovers. Tacos are exactly what we did earlier tonight.

Tacos are a really easy option. All I had to do with the meat was trim the fat and cut it into small squares, then I warmed it up in a pan with some Hatch Chile sauce to give it even more flavor and put a little moisture back into it:

We buy our shells pre-made and the cheese and lettuce pre-shreded, so aside from washing the lettuce, prep work was a breeze. End result; some really tasty Tacos:

On the small chance anybody noticed and is jealous of my Le Creuset cookware, the patent is apparently up on their designs. Crock Pot makes a clone that’s almost impossible to tell from the Le Creuset originals. The pot above is authentic, but most of our cookware is Crock Pot brand clones that work and clean up just as well. All for a third the cost. Although now that Le Creuset has competition, I expect their prices will start dropping a little also. Then again, Yeti still charges a fortune for their coolers…

After Brisket Report!

I’m a bit late paying this one off, but I was exhausted after babysitting the brisket 16 hours and cleaning house, etc… Overall the brisket turned out pretty good, but was probably my least successful yet. It was still far better than anything I could buy at a restaurant here. It reached 210 internal temperature and was a little on the crumbly side. Flavor was there though and it was moist too.

• 

Major smoke ring as you all can see, but I’m a perfectionist with my cooking. I’d give it an 8 out of 10.

4 Hours Down…

12 to go…  What am I talking about?  My writing distraction for the day.  We’re having dinner guests who have all but demanded my brisket:

But 16 hours?!? I hear some of you saying.  A good brisket is slow cooked over wood to give it maximum smoke flavor and tenderness.  Beef brisket and pork ribs are weird critters anyway.  To get to a proper Texas competition tenderness and flavor, you have to cook them to a higher internal temperature than something like a steak.  Ribs are done at about 185.  Brisket can be anywhere between 195 and 210 depending upon the individual piece of meat.  When slow cooked properly, both should hold together but the meat should tear with a gentle pull and still be tender and juicy.  Something like this:

That lovely red around the outer edge is a smoke ring.  The darker the better.  🙂

Oh and another reason a brisket takes so long; a full “packer” cut of brisket starts at about 14 pounds.  You can count on having to trim a couple pounds of fat away though.

I’ve been told by Texas competition BBQers and judges that they like the look of my brisket.  I’ve been told by other Texans that mine is the best they’ve had since leaving Texas.  DivaQ eat your heart out, hehehe.

And for those of you who don’t get the Texas references, brisket is solidly a Texas thing, and they take it serious.  You can talk bad about a Texan’s momma before you badmouth their brisket, LOL.

So yeah, a little food bragging to take my mind off the neighborhood, the way nobody listens anymore, and having to clean house for tonight.

Oh and since I’m bragging…  Remember I said I bake too?  Here’s a Goo-Goo Cluster cheesecake I made last year:

Now, as far as offering any Brisket lessons; just check out Aaron Franklin’s youtube channel or get his book “Franklin Barbeque; A Meat Smoking Manifesto”.  His BBQ is so good people line up at his restaurant at 4am for a noon opening.  He’s free with his secrets too, unlike many professional chefs.

What Writers Can Learn From Comic Books

Payoff for something hinted at a couple days ago. 🙂

Some of my readers may still think of comic books as a kid’s media.  Reality is, that started going away in the 60s.  They deal with all kinds of social issues and topics that would be considered more mature.  They just also do it in a grandiose setting much like ancient myths.  I’ve read them for decades, and I’ve seen the good and bad in the work.  I believe there are multiple lessons for other writers to take away from them as well.  So, here we go:

1. Begin with the end in mind: I know about half the writers out there at least partially fly by the seat of their pants.  That’s OK, BUT, know the direction you’re heading.  If you have an outline (mental or written) of how that final chapter is going to go, you will have an easier time getting your characters to that point.  For better or worse, this is one thing the comic companies are good at doing.  We have a 12 issue story arc that will end with X being defeated this way.

 

2. Think About the Long Term Implications of the Story’s Events: This is mainly for authors writing sequels.  You never know when that one shot story or novel will inspire you to write more however.  You may have fans push for a sequel also.  This is something the comic companies have done very poorly since the 80s, hence all the reboots.  Actions have consequences, even in good fiction.  Destruction will cause public insecurity and backlash.  Captured doomsday devices are potentially going to end up in wrong hands again, etc…

My favorite example here it Geoff Johns unleashing a whole rainbow of different Lantern rings on the DC Universe.  It was pretty clearly, “oh this is cool, let’s take it a step farther” thinking with no thought for the impact on the story universe.  So we went from Sinestro having a yellow ring, to him recruiting an army of yellow ringed psychos terrorizing the universe with the yellow rings.  Then there were Red Rings based on rage, then came Blue rings based on hope, and Violet rings based on passion (not love), Indigo rings based on Compassion, an Orange Ring based on greed, White Rings based on Life, and Black Rings based on Death that reanimated dead characters as zombie black lanterns…  By the time all was said and done, DC had the universe overflowing with various lanterns running amok.  They had to go back and destroy most of the rings to restore some semblance of balance to the story universe.  Recently, not having learned, they started doubling down and introduced non-visible light spectrum rings for hidden emotions like shame.

Learn from this.  It doesn’t matter if it’s a spy story and the bad guy discovers our secret agent’s real name and that they have a family.  There’s long term implications there of the bad guy repeatedly coming after the family, and selling the information to other villains so they can do the same.  It’s OK to do that, just have a plan on how to handle it long term, like the family being relocated with new identities.

 

3 Every Character Should Have A Purpose:  The comic companies have gotten big the last decade or so on throwing out new characters in the hopes of appealing to new readers.  On the surface, that may seem logical.  It’s really trying to side step the fact that the story telling is suffering.  It’s treating a symptom, not the cause.  The characters are frequently introduced with little though and poor or no backstories also.

Principle characters should have a decent backstory to define their motivations and goals.  It can be as simple as the heroine works with the hero because they’re childhood friends and she has a secret crush.  It’s a reason for them to be there, then all you need is what skills, observations, connections, etc… do they add to the story, and how those will come into play in the story.

Even minor or cameo character should have a reason for being there.  The co-worker passed in the hall tells the protagonist about an event, etc…  If they’re just there to show the office has a staff, they’re not needed in the story.

Note that major characters / the protagonist should have as much depth as possible also.  Stan Lee talked about how what made Spider-Man successful was that it wasn’t his powers that let him win the day so often, it was Peter’s heart and scientific knowledge.  The more clearly the character is defined, the easier it is to avoid that Mary Sue ending where the protagonist is simply better than the antagonist at their game.

4 Make your heroes actually be heroes and your villains be villains: A major failing of almost all mass media anymore.  There’s precious little difference between protagonists and antagonists in so many TV stories, movies, etc…

A villain with depth is great.  Magneto from the X-Men being a classic example.  He has a cause, and a reason why he goes about it the way he does.  At the end of the day though, he’s still a villain.  The irony of the character that’s lost on many modern readers is that he was oppressed by Nazis so he feels justified in using the same logic and ideology as Nazis to protect mutants.

Nowadays, everything is moral relativism though, and some try to justify that as realism.  It’s about as realistic as saying there’s no difference between a peace loving Muslim and a suicide bomber.  Think about all the best selling books and movies in recent memory also.  Every one of them had a hero that was standing up for what was right.  Everything from Hunger Games to Avengers.  The heroes may be flawed, and should be to some degree, but at their core, they’re still heroes.  Likewise no matter how the villains try to justify themselves, or how tragic a character they might be, they’re still villains.

5 Do NOT Get Overly Preachy with Social Messages: Something the Twitter crowd doesn’t understand.  You LOSE and outright alienate more readers this way than you gain.  Comics have gotten BAD about this the last decade also.  It’s the same kind of mentality that led Jussie Smollett to do what he did, with the same result that less people are going to be willing to listen to similar issues in the future.

Social issues have had a place in story telling since the dawn of time.  Comics started with them in the 60s.  They did a fine job up until the 90s also.  My favorite old example is a Captain America storyline where the government tried to compel him back into gvernment service.  It was a great story about the meaning of patriotism.  Steve ultimately told the government to stuff it, and that while he believed in the country and the American Dream, the government had no right to control a citizen’s life.  It was a good story that acknowledged the good and bad of patriotism and loyalty in general; how there had to be common sense and balance.  Compare that with today how everything is about how horrible the West is while more and more of it’s critics flee TO the West.

Even when part of a story is racism or sexism; things with no upside…  Don’t aggressively beat people to death with it, or portray any group as all bad.  Yes, there are sexist men out there, but labeling every straight male in your story as a rapist is unrealistic and will alienate the average reader.  Strive for a rational portrayal of social issues and you’ll reach more people.

 

OK, long post.  Took forever to write also.  Hopefully I gave some of my fellow authors some food for thought however. 🙂

IF…

OK, trying this one more time since it didn’t format worth a damned last time…

Anyway, some advice from Rudyard Kipling via PoetryFoundation.org

If you can keep your head when all about you   
    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
    But make allowance for their doubting too;   
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   
    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
    And treat those two impostors just the same;   
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
    And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   
    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
    If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   
    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

My Mind Was Blown Last Night

This one is going to be an odd mix of writing, movie review and spirituality, so be warned if it seems random, LOL.

Last night we finally went to see Aquaman.  Great movie.  The only recent DC movie that’s as good is Wonder Woman.  There MAY be hope for DC movies after all.  As a side note, I’m amazed that movies can turn second rate heroes like Ant-Man, Aquaman and the Falcon into real, butt kicking heroes with star power while they continue to largely languish as second stringers in the comic books.  I don’t get the creativity gap.

Minor spoiler: The general plot of the movie focuses around Aquaman’s quest for the trident of the first king of Atlantis.  It’s a vastly powerful weapon and is needed to prevent a war with the surface world.  That’s as close to a spoiler as I’ll get.

What blew me away is the origin story for the trident and the story behind it being missing.  It was 80% similar to past life memories I’d had years ago of living during the end of Lemuria.  The similarities really rattled me.  I tweeted about it once I got home also, and doubtless weirded out my pack or twitter followers, LOL.

Because of that, I wanted to explain a little.  Past lives, like most things that fall into spirituality, are things that can’t be proven.  I’ve also seen people become utterly unhinged studying the paranormal.  More oft than not actually, it seems.  ERGO, I never take anything at face value.

Past lives are a great example there.  The easiest explanation is that it’s your subconscious trying to tell you something important and other ways of getting your attention have utterly failed.  Standard psychology answer there.

Another common potential explanation among new agers is you’re picking up leftover psychic energy from that event and “seeing” things through a participant’s eyes.  There are several other theories I’ve heard.  The bottom line for me though is to stay grounded in reality.

I think it helps me that I have no spiritual “sight”.  I just get weird premonitions and, in the case of past lives, things come back to me like a forgotten present life memory that’s triggered by something.  They feel very real, but again with no real world proof or connection.

I asked my subconscious / higher self about the whole Lemuria thing and the answer I got was “write, and the answers will come”.  If nothing else, at this point I know I have to start that spiritual blog now.  It’s needed to help me finally come to terms with this weird, uncannily accurate intuition I have and the ability to pick up and be influenced by others’ emotions.

As for Lemuria…  I still have NO real idea if this is some strange parable that my subconscious or the universe / God is trying to get through to me, something that I possibly did experience, or what.  After that movie though, I’m more than intrigued and ready to try to find out more.

For what it’s worth, after I get that blog set up, I’ll only post this kind of thing there.  I realize much of the spiritual community isn’t interested in erotica, and that erotica fans aren’t  always interested in conspiracy theories and such.

New Story – Lost Memories

This is a rework of an OLD piece of City of Heroes fan fiction that I wrote.  It stands alone on it’s own now, and I doubt a reader unfamiliar with the game would even recognize it as fan fiction without my confession.

17 year old Nancy Winters, AKA Miss Deadshot was a heroic archer along the lines of Hawkeye or Green Arrow when she was abducted by the sewer dwelling mutates known as The Lost.  In the aftermath of the event, Nancy finds herself developing mental powers, yet is still learning to full control them.  Two weeks after being rescued by her friend and teammate Danger Rose, Nancy finds herself having memory issues along with a strong compulsion to return to the site of her rescue.

Lost Memories

Will she find answers?  Will she regain her badly shaken self-confidence as well?

Be The Light…

I’m sure I’m confusing people on twitter with my moderate’s disdain for the political extremes running amok there.  I’m grateful that some people seem to get it though.

My “No Politics” post didn’t make things as clear as I’d have liked.  I have TWO big problems with politics and the way people talk to others:

 

1) Issues are NEVER as simple as the extremists and demagogues on either side make them out to be.  For example, gangs are just one good reason for a border wall, BUT we have to overhaul our immigration system as well and allow good people a chance at the American Dream, take an honest look at what we may be doing to contribute to problems in Latin America, and see if we can do things to help them help themselves.

2) These extremists not only shut down thinking and discussion, they spread hate and poison.  There’s a principle of metaphysics that says hate only attracts more hate and conflict.  It doesn’t matter how righteous you THINK your cause is, if your answer is trashing and threatening violence against those you disagree with, you are part of the PROBLEM, not the solution.  You are also actively working to make the world a DARKER place.

I keep saying be more like Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr, Mother Theresa, Jesus, Buddha, etc…  I have a perfect story that illustrates the point also.  The Christmas Eve service is the one time this heathen is guaranteed to turn up at church.  The closing part of the services; the same every year, are exactly why:

The Pastor talks about the need to carry the Christmas Spirit into and through the new year, and how the world is a dark place if everybody withholds their love, compassion and caring from the world.  To illustrate the point, the lights are turned off in the chapel.

Now, everybody is given a candle entering the service.  They’re all being lit as the Pastor speaks.  He tells everyone to keep the candles low at first also; withhold their light from the world metaphorically.  Then he starts talking about how people can be the light, and make the world a better place.  Then all 3000 people (It’s a big church) hold up their candles.  It’s beautiful and amazing the difference it makes

Bayside Church Candle Lighting & Silent Night

Afterwards everyone sings Silent Night and the service are over.

Watch the YouTube video through to the end and see if it doesn’t have the same impact on you as it did me.  It’s alot of light, and it’s people wanting said light to better the world, NOT burn it down.  THINK about that. Remember the people you disagree with are human beings with legitimate reasons for feeling and thinking the way they do.  If you actually talk to them like human beings, you will PROBABLY find out that you have more in common than you realize once you get past artificial labels.

Think win-win and you can probably also find a solution that’s not perfect, but works for both of you.

BE THE LIGHT

My Take on Writing a Thinking Villain

I’ve been fairly vocal in my criticism of DC and Marvel comics lately, especially on Twitter.  I dislike the way that their movies and comic book stories only introduce yet another, darker overpowered villain with more special effects.  They seemingly don’t know how to write intelligent villains who can out-maneuver heroes.

Over a decade ago, I had a villain character in the game City of Heroes that could do just that.  On top of being strong, a highly skilled combatant, and able to turn invisible, he was a liar and manipulator par excellance.  I typically brought him in to keep heroes off balance via manipulation of public opinion and politicians.  I have to admit, at the time I thought he was a little Marty Stu with what i let him pull off.  I see the media  and government nowadays though and wonder if I went far enough, LOL

Aftermath: Major Arachnos Steps Up

Most of you won’t be familiar with the game or the characters, but that won’t be a problem.  All the other characters had bit parts in this story.  I also added a modest info dump at the top of the page for those who want more info.

I originally had this on my group’s website.  Major A was hated and begrudgingly respected.  When I posted it on the City of Heroes main forums, the story was very well received as the right way to write villains.  One reply called it a Master Class.  I don’t know if I’d go that far, but I do think I did a good job.

Writing Rules???

So, this is one I’m actively soliciting feedback (comments) on from fellow writers, particularly if you’ve self published on Amazon or similar, or have been professionally published.

I’ve read the guides about showing not telling, no adverbs, and ideally no or minimal adjectives also, avoid long drawn out descriptions, etc…  I can’t help but wonder how much validity there is to some of it though.  Clearly some, but how much in the modern era?  There are top selling professionally published books out there that seem to break multiple rules.

50 Shades of Grey being my favorite example here.  Plenty of tell instead of show, there are long involved descriptions of things like the wood of the bed frame, which really doesn’t serve to advance the plot or characters in a major way, etc…

Show don’t tell is probably the really tricky one.  Don’t tell us a character is mad, have them show it in their words and actions.  That was one example in a book.  Western culture generally seems so pacified and non-confrontational anymore that I wonder if having a character slam a door and yell at another character can even be taken as plain anger as opposed to the character being wrongly seen as unhinged.  To some, I’m sure that may seem a silly exaggeration, but I live in a very politically correct area.

Plenty of self-published stuff on Amazon and B&N that seems to ignore the rules even further and sells modestly well.  Of course, none of us want tosell only “modestly well”, right? 

Now that I’ve rambled on in my sleep deprived state, how do you all avoid brain lock worrying about the rules?  What are your personal opinions on their level of validity nowadays?

Note here: I DO have comments set up to be screened, but only to filter spam and comments on the level of “you’re a whore for writing smut”.  Anything intelligent and constructive, agreeing or not, gets posted here.