Yesterday I was doing the Stuart Smalley and trying to make myself feel better about my dismal homebrew comp results. Well, today I have some pretty damn good news. Indian Summer, the saison I entered, won second place in it’s category (that’s category 16c for all you non-beer nerds)! Aw, yeah! Now that I’m famous I’ll expect all of you to bow down before me and tremble. And all of you who got free beer, that’s over! The price just went up commensurate to the perceived quality of the product and my desire to buy new things. I think a starting price of $9.99 a bottle is fair, don’t you? For anybody wondering, here’s what Indian Summer is all about:
Indian Summer is quintessential Cleveland in a bottle.
Named for the best baseball team in the world and quirky Cleveland weather, Indian Summer is best enjoyed after cutting too much lawn. Doing so with a lazy dog at your feet and a cheap transistor radio tuned to a Tribe game by your side only enhances the flavor of the Grains of Paradise, Ginger and Cascade hops used to brew this exceptional ale.
So, tell your wife you’re going “out back”, open a Collinwood and relax. Na zdravje!
Now that Strangeness is for sale and (mostly) off of my mind, I’ve been trying to relax. It’s sorta working. I will admit that I bought Strangeness and after looking at it once, went back through and changed a ton of stuff. It was all about paragraph indents. As in, there were none. Apparently, KDP doesn’t recognize return and space bar as a new paragraph. I can’t get too mad though, as there is a preview button when you publish. I guess we live and learn. And speaking of living and learning, I did get to brew a couple beers during my vacation week. I brewed the aforementioned Emma’s Brown Ale and tossed a pound and a quarter of toasted (roasted?) hazelnuts into the mash and racked it on top of another 3/4 lbs of nuts when I transferred it to secondary. It smells great and it looks… brown. Perfect! The second brew is Terminal Tower, which is gonna be Collinwood’s IPA. That one didn’t go so great but it did, which is weird. For the not -so-great, I ended up with about three gallons of 1.088 wort. So, I figured add top off water to get five gallons. Which means I ended up with a 1.034 wort. Not good. I didn’t even know there were formulas to determine how much water to add. See?, live and learn! But then today, when I racked it to secondary I took a SG reading and drank/sniffed the sample. It tastes great and smells crazy good! I only used two ounces of hops (one oz of Warrior for bittering, a 1/2 oz of Cascade @ 20 mins and a 1/2 oz of Cascade @ 5 mins) but the aroma is wonderful! Very, very hop forward which is exactly what I was going for. Since most of you won’t get any, crack open a Great Lakes Burning River Pale Ale for comparison (Terminal Tower started off as a BRPA clone) and then imagine it has less alcohol. Even though my gravity was all jacked up, I think TT may be the best beer I’ve brewed with the color and aroma being spot on. Of course I won’t know for sure until it’s totally done but initial samplings are positive. And since no one bothered to guess what D.C.S. stood for, I get to drink it all myself.
*I mentioned too how I entered a homebrew contest just for the hell of it. I didn’t go to the judging and I haven’t heard back from any organizers so I think it’s safe to assume I did not win, place or show. But I know for a fact that if I hadn’t entered I definitely wouldn’t have won anything.
Because I’m on vacation and my beer ingredients aren’t here yet, I’ve got some free time. Obvious to you because I’ve posted quite a bit lately. Which is good, right? I say yes! Because Hi Strangeness is official (And that’s what I came up with for a cover up there ^). Yay! I’ve just come from the Kindle Direct Publishing place after completing my Kindle Direct Publish. Strangeness isn’t live as of this writing but it may be by the time anyone else in the world gets around to reading this. There is a cost to purchase it but hopefully not too much. I figured most people who can afford a Kindle can afford two dollars and ninety-nine cents. At least I hope they can. Otherwise I’ll be the only person buying my book. So here’s a link to my Amazon author page. There’s no Strangeness yet but hopefully soon. And then the big bucks will start rolling in! Right? Right? Hello?…
*If you are concerned for my homebrewing, don’t worry. I thought the water would be inaccessible for three days but the septic man set me straight. It’ll only be three hours. So I may get to brew after all.
Posted in Writing
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Tagged novel time
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As promised I put a full court press on it, as my dad used to say, and finished up my revising for Hi Strangeness. So, for better or for worse, I’m done. I spent most of today changing stuff and, when that was done, I spent the rest of today looking for public domain pictures to use for the cover. The last two chapters that I’m putting up are numbers five and six, both of which are live. I don’t know if you want to consider the end of chapter six a cliffhanger but I think it should leave you wanting for more if you’ve read the book up til this point. And if you don’t like it, too bad. I am a slow writer. I usually don’t sit down to create unless I have the whole story in my head from beginning to end so I don’t know what’s gonna happen with book two. Or even if there will be a book two. I did enjoy writing about Edward Fisk and am grateful that he decided to take me along on his case so his future looks bright. I still have the Strange/Flyer Intermission and I like what it promises. That being said, the story that I started writing as the sequel (Hi Flyer) has stalled. Not really in a bad way, though. What happened was, as I wrote it, I realized that there were two different cases going on. I hate the subject of the one story (vampires) but it seems interesting. The subject of the other (either a lost kid or a lost parent. the parent is lost right now but I don’t know what to do with the kid) breaks my heart but isn’t ready to be told yet, I think. So, who knows? Meanwhile, I continue to think of weird shit that would make a good short story because I haven’t forgotten about the Aeon Award or my destiny to win it.
*As soon as I get all the Kindle stuff squared away I will get the link to Strangeness up and will let folks know what I want for it. And yes it will be more than $.99.
My life is perfect and that’s no lie. Well, maybe it’s a little lie. Yes, I’m blessed with a good job (full benefits, pension, good money, etc), my family is healthy (except for daughter, who always complains that she has a rash), and my neighborhood is safer than it ever has been (except for Hot Rod). I even have a new house. And, bonus of bonuses, the people who sold me my new house are paying for a totally new septic system. And that’s where the not-so-perfect begins. Cause it’s my vacation week dammit! Wife and daughter are off to the rotten apple to visit people, I just got paid and I have two new beers to brew (one of which is this one because this is not a good thing for any kid to suffer through). Right now you’re thinking to yourself “Wow, man. You’ve got it all! Why so pissed?” Remember that septic system thing up there ^ that I mentioned? It takes three days to do it. During which time you may not use the toilets, sinks, water, immersion chiller, shower, dishwasher, washing machine… You get the idea. And on last Friday the septic man calleth and sayeth “We’ll be there Monday to start digging up your shit.” But it’s my vacation week!
*falls on floor and has a hissy fit*
Okay, I’m better now. I promise. It’s not all a bad thing though. Hopefully. God has chosen to hit NE Ohio with some biblical flooding over the last few days and my yard is so muddy now that a lawnmower gets stuck in it (it’s true. our lawnmower actually will sink into the ground to the point where the deck is the only thing keeping it afloat. And it’s not a riding mower either) and the septic man said the yard must be dry for his equipment to survive the trip across the back yard. So here’s hoping. Because it’s my vacation week, dammit!
If you’re a relatively regular reader of the site (or, if you know me at all), you will know that I love homebrewing beer. Don’t ask me why, cause IDK. There is a certain satisfaction in brewing/creating. And the need for equipment (much of which can be made by the brewer) satisfies my need to tinker, but that isn’t the whole story. I haven’t been brewing for a year but I find myself needing to brew if I go without for too long. Which brings me to today. I didn’t brew but I sent off a couple of my beers for entry into a homebrewing contest. The second annual MAGMA homebrew competition. I entered a Saison that I call Indian Summer and a Robust Porter that I have dubbed The D.C.S. (I will send beer to the first person that guesses correctly what D.C.S. stands for. Honest. Unless I’ve told you already, in which case you’re probably already gonna get beer from me.). I’m excited about this. It’s my first competition and at the very least I’ll get some feedback from a BJCP judge so it’s all good. Also, I feel that entering the competition goes right along with my catharsis involving Hi Strangeness. So, wish The Collinwood Brewing Company Good Luck and look for us at a store near you.
I’ve always prided myself on my ability to look inward; to realize that I’m not the best looking or the richest or the most skilled at anything. So, I’m sorta pissed at myself right now. I’ve been blaming my lack of revising and editing on my work and family. It’s true enough that revising a novel is a lengthy process. And that getting said novel published can take years. But this is just getting ridiculous. My novel is finished. Yes, it needs some grammar work and general cleaning up but it is done. Right now the page count stands at 236 or so. A good length, I think, for a first book. Is the story perfect? Absolutely not. Is it amazing to me that I wrote a book? Absolutely. All of this means that you may be reading the book in it’s entirety very soon. My number one goal has always been to go the “traditional” route regarding publication. You know: find an agent, get a publishing house interested, have my book made into a movie, live like a king. The American dream and all that. And then my focus turned toward self-publication. More specifically, Amazon’s Create Space. And then I realized that I never have more than about a hundred dollars to my name at any one time. Then, just recently, I remembered Kindle Direct Publishing. Which is free. KDP, while it is a digital only format, will still allow me to publish my book at a later date in the physical form with Create Space and more importantly, will allow me to move on. You see, Hi Strangeness is haunting me. I know I should be revising and editing and publishing and rejoicing. But the fear of failure has me handcuffed and making excuses. But no more. My revising and editing has reached a new fervor and as soon as it is done this time, I will be digitally publishing Hi Strangeness. If you’ve been reading along on the site then I’m sorry, you’ll be left with a cliffhanger unless you buy the book. Fortunately, if you don’t have a Kindle, there is a free app for the PC, Blackberry, iPhone, iPad and other electronic devices. In other words, Strangeness will only cost you the cost of your digital copy, which will be considerably cheaper than if I had published with Create Space. Until then, you can still read what is posted of Strangeness and check back soon for that cliffhanger I mentioned.
Posted in Writing
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Tagged catharsis
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The Indians are on the left coast so I have a while until the first pitch. And, as I sit here and allow my liver time to process a pint of Fuller’s ESB and a couple pints of my own Polka King Boheme Pils I am reflecting upon life. My reflections have to do with one of God’s overlooked creatures, the barn swallow. Because I work in a barn now I get to observe tons of swallow action, much of it awesome. To just stand and watch is awe inspiring as the swallows swoop and dive and jive and juke. And then they perch and start chirping and sound like little dinosaurs. I think birds are disgusting creatures but even I find the swallows to be pretty cool. And like I said, I see a ton of them. But now I’m fascinated by one family that’s nesting in our barn. There are four chicks and a parent. The chicks eyes are open as of this week and now, when I walk under the nest, they peer down at me as curiously as I peer up at them. All of this life still makes me sad though. Because of the weather being so hot last week we had the ceiling fans on in the barn. And, unfortunately, all of the maneuverability in the world couldn’t save the swallow who flew into one of the fans. We came back from putting some horses in a pasture and the swallow was laying on the ground, dead and with one missing wing. I don’t know if the dead swallow was the female or the male of the pair and I don’t think in the long run that it matters. What matters to me is that a living being has lost it’s life, a lover has lost it’s mate and four children have lost a parent. Yeah, that’s sappy and all but life is a precious thing, regardless of what is living it. All I keep thinking about is whether or not the other swallow knows what happened. It’s still doing what it needs to do, feeding and protecting the chicks, but is it wondering where it’s partner is? Or, is the life of an animal so uncertain that the swallow knows something has happened but realizes that it must still carry on? I don’t know. All I am certain of is that I feel blessed to be able to witness this remarkable instance of life finding a way.
You would think that, because I haven’t written anything on this site in such a long time, I would have some sort of major literary announcement to make. Well, keep dreaming. The novel is complete but still not finished, if you know what I mean. The editing has, due to my work situation, been effectively stalled. No, work isn’t horrible nor do I regret ever going mounted. I’m just tired. I mean tired tired. If I may be totally insensitive, I am as tired as a slave at harvest time. Everyday is literally a workout and my body has not gotten used to it yet. It might have something to do with the fact that I keep getting hurt at work. I’ve sprained both hands, I’ve been rope-burned, I have a nasty bruise on my back from when I fell off another horse, both of my ankles have bruises from my feet slipping too far into my stirrups, I have a bruise on my right forearm from when I got bitten by a horse, I think I still have dirt in my eyes from the last time I fell off (face first and that’s three falls for those of you keeping score), I have blisters between my fingers from holding onto the reins and I did something to my left ring finger so that now I can’t get my wedding ring off and I can bend the end of my finger sideways. All of that means I hurt on top of my tired. And I work up to seven days in a row before I get a day off. I have a bad feeling that I’m destined to break something. But before you think that all is doom and gloom, there is good news. Beer is flowing in my house. My whinging has finally convinced wife to allow me to kegerate. Never mind that it’s not the awesome under counter set-up that I wanted. It’s also not a keezer set-up. Nope. It’s just our old fridge, sitting in the garage, with a keg and a CO2 cylinder inside. Considering that my whining took four months to get results, I say a win’s a win. So, look upon the picture and tremble because now I can self-dispense my favorite medicine.
The keg in the back is empty (for now) and the one in the front has an extract pilsner that I brewed back in February and naturally carbonated in the keg. It’s damn good, too. It starts off malty but it’s balanced nicely with hoppiness (Saaz and Sterling) and a touch of dryness at the finish. Right about now you’re probably thinking that I should have used some of my whine-energy for editing. Well, you’re wrong. The End.
