A Private Tour of Dorian’s Doggy Dog Workshop

Apparently, when Dorian can see the finish line, he sprints.

After our last goop party, Dorian not-less-than-triumphantly declared, “There is an end; I can see it!” After which he has been on a paper mache-ing rampage. I came home from work last week to find one of our rooms (we only have three…) converted to a “Dog Workshop.”

Dorian has, in the last week, used up two (yes, 2!) GALLONS of glue, as well as many “double ply” rolls of toilet paper in the making of goop, and has almost finished covering all seven of our life-sized dogs (from the dogs playing poker painting “A Friend in Need”). Dorian has now moved onto building chairs (a quote from him this morning, “I think my least favorite part of paper mache-ing is the paper mache-ing”).

Below, go with Dorian on a tour of his workspace. All the dogs need now, before painting, are their ears and their paws…which is my job…

How important is it to be “realistic”?

. . . in our young adult novel?  We definitely want to be realistic in the psychology of our characters, but how important is it to have the setting and initial plot-starting problem be realistic?

Well, definitely somewhat important.  But, at a certain point, especially when writing for a younger audience, there is the possibility of a trade of realism/plausibility . . . for magical-ness.

And we have had to try to intuitively gauge how much realism/plausibility to trade for magical-ness, in some aspects of our story.

And, personally, I like the idea of generosity as something that governs a good piece of writing.  You want the piece of writing to seem generous.

And again, especially when writing for a younger audience, a certain amount of generosity seems to entail . . . a certain amount of magical-ness.

Which means (if I may be permitted a double negative): There’s not no magical-ness in our story.

Paper Mache Enslavement…errrr, we mean “Goop Parties”!!

As you may or may not know, we have been working on making a life-sized paper mache replica of Dogs Playing Poker. Unfortunately, there’s only so much dipping paper in glue you can do before you hit some sort of paper mache wall. And we’ve been bumping up against that wall for a little bit, now.

Fortunately, there are other people nearby! People who can be tricked into doing our work for us when we send them emails titled “Goop Party!” and promise it is a fun time and an exclusive invitation.

After having 2.5 such parties, we have come much closer to completing the project. Still not close, mind you, but the end is now in sight. Beyond what we did in the goop parties, we have finished all seven of the dogs’ faces (we’ll post pictures in a separate post soon). The dogs are now about 64% covered in paper mache clay, which is a blended toilet paper concoction that is much more solid than the paper strips we used for our first layer. And 64% is not nothing on life sized models (…by life-sized, we’re talking St. Bernards and Great Danes, yo! I wish the dude had painted chihuahuas…) Now that it seems actually possible to finish this project, we’re feeling much more motivated to work on it!

"goop party" = "please please help us get this done"

We would very much like the following people for being so gullible:

-M. Appel
-P. Thibodeau
-J. Golden
-M. Thibodeau
-T. Runske
-M. Runske
-T. Harper

And keep an eye/ear out. We may be soon hosting a goop party near you. If you’re on our good side and demonstrate other worthy traits (like juggling), you willl maybe, maybe get one of the exclusive invites. Maybe.

Amanda Works Her Butt

Yes, Amanda’s greatest (muscular) weakness is . . . her butt.  And it is that very part of your body that is key in very long bike rides.  Our particular very long bike ride that we have been challenged to do (we are supposed to ride over a river and through some woods to a grandmother’s house…which will be about 130 miles) isn’t coming up tomorrow, or even next month—it will have to be later, when it is warmer.

Yet still, Amanda has her eyes on it.  Just the other day she could be spotted doing something she never does: pedaling away at the stationary bike in the gym.  And, though she was very sore the next day, she knows that it is the necessary step towards biking through three states, a woods, over a river, and all the way to her grandmother’s house in New York.  Which hopefully will happen this spring.

Possibly Obvious Thing Discovered: Writing the second half of a novel is much harder than writing the first

Yes, we have discovered a seemingly obvious thing.  And you already know what it is, because you just read the title of this post.

But still, some details.

With the second half of a novel, you’ve got a much difficult task.  You don’t just have to write half a novel, you have to write a half of a novel that matches another half of a novel!  And I’m not just thinking the plot has to fit together, the second half resolving the problems posed in the first.  You have to make sure characters stay consistent (or believably change).  You have to keep certain themes or “refrains” (gimmicks) going on throughout the story.

Finally (and this maybe is the toughest part) you have to deal with the expectations that come with having already written half of a novel!  If you’re writing the first half, you’ve got nothing to lose.  You can write whatever you want—if it sucks it sucks.  But if you write a bad second half of a novel, you . . . have wasted that first half of a novel (!)—one that you’ve already spent so much time and energy and “emotional capital” (i.e. focus and openness and empathy) into producing.  You raise your hopes with the first half—‘Wow, look, I wrote half of it . . . I’m doing great, all I have to do is finish it . . .’  And then the pressure is on for the second half.

–or at least, so it seems with us.

Still, our young adult novel is coming along.  It’s not done, but we are (as the above passage implies) definitely working on the second half.

 

 

Quickly, and Un-Dramatically, Acts of Kindness Done

Done were the following four anonymous acts of kindness:

1. Someone asked Dorian for bus fair at the Olney transit center and, after giving his automatic cold refusal, took a moment, and thought: ‘Hey, wait a second. Don’t I need to perform anonymous acts of kindness?”

2. Waiting for a late Amanda, Dorian asked a security guard at CCP if he could buy him a drink. A lemonade. The security guard had no problem with receiving another (pink) lemonade. After all, he was almost finished with the one he was drinking.

3. Amanda left a coupon for a sharp discount at the counter of an-unknown-by-Dorian craft store. The coupon was meant to wait there, until a discovery by a costumer, at which time it would save said costumer some dollars.

4. CCP (the northwest campus) is holding a holiday gift drive for old toys. Old toys could be placed in a large bin, whereupon they would be destined for a deserving child. Dorian has placed a kite into this very bin.

Which means, with these four acts of kindness, the “Perform 20 anonymous acts of kindness” challenge is done.

One Assassin or Two? Amanda Vacharat has an opinion

Yes, my introduction was complete when I asked Amanda, “Should I take one assassin, or two?” . . . and she paused, thoughtfully, and then . . . answered! with a relatively informed, relatively interested opinion.

What am I talking about? I am talking about the process through which one selects what type of soldiers will constitute your army in the Games Workshop game Warhammer (yes, I am still embarrassed to write the word).

Think of it like chess—both Warhammer and chess are designed, on some level, to simulate a battle between two armies (both also consist of miniature, model soldiers). One difference, though, is that in warhammer, unlike in chess, you can choose your army. Imagine if in chess you could choose to have four bishops, instead of two bishops and two knights? Or imagine if you can choose to swap all of your pawns, and instead have two queens?

That is how Warhammer works, on some level. When I was asking Amanda about whether or not I should take one assassin or two (think of “assassin” like “rook” or “knight”), I was asking about which models I should include in my army, as opposed to others.

Hopefully, that makes sense, without adding boring explanations. The point is: Amanda was able to converse freely and fluently about the nitty-gritty of (my favorite) Games Workshop game.

And with that, I conclude my portion of the teaching challenge. Next up: Amanda teaches me acting exercises . . . which I think just isolate the most embarrassing, uncomfortable, fear-inducing parts of acting . . . and then make you do those parts over and over. Or something like that.

Anyway, I am ready. Kind of.

-Dorian

Acts of Kindness Numbers 15 and 16

We have reached the 75% way point of our 20 acts of kindness challenge!

Our 15th challenge was a little bit…shall we say…”quirkier.” Namely, it involved parading about in a fluffy feathered chicken costume. In public.

Yes. On Halloween, we dressed up as a farmer and his faithful friend free-range chicken (in sneakers, for running around all that free range), and then went out to eat, in a very public Chipotle restaurant. Because we dressed up in costumes “inspired by the family farm”, Chipotle discounted our meals to $2 a piece.

Wait a minute, you may or may not be thinking, that sounds like Chipotle was doing YOU an act of kindness.

And you would have a point. Except–because we were in costumes, our money went straight to supporting family farms. Without that added incentive (and to be honest, the incentive of writing this post, and moving one act closer to completing our 20), saving $5 probably would not have been enough to convince us to walk around outside looking like poultry.

We backed off on the quirk for our 16th challenge. This morning, while waiting for the bus, Dorian was approached by a man looking for bus fare. Dorian instinctively turned him down, but when the man continued to wait at the bus stop, studying the schedule, he re-approached the man and gave him the money. — A very straight-forward act of kindness, especially compared to some of our earlier ones, but sometimes those actually turn out to be the most helpful.

Winning, Losing, Playing Well, and “Playing the Odds”: What to be Emotionally Invested in When You Play Games of Chance ( . . . like Dreadfleet!)

For our third lesson in how-to-play-Games-Workshop-games, I decided to zoom out a little.  Start from the very, very beginning.  We had a little lesson on playing poker.

Why poker, when I was trying to teach Amanda about Games Workshop games?  Well, here is (in my words) what happened the last time we played Dreadfleet: everything was going fine, Amanda was winning, until . . . she draw a single, unlucky card.  And then she was not winning anymore.

And then she totally checked out, refused to roll dice, tried to take a nap, and was generally in a bad mood.

Now, one thing I frequently talk to Amanda about, relating to the differences in our childhood, is the fact that I played team sports and Amanda did not.  When I say I played team sports, I mean I really played team sports.  (I am not  exaggerating when I say: I am one of the ten most competitive people I know).  BUT, I played team sports.

And, as everyone who ever plays team sports knows, sometimes you play really well  . . . and your team loses.  Sometimes you play really badly, and your team wins.  Winning or losing is one thing (contingent on other players on your team) and how you play is another. 

A person like me, for example, might play a game of soccer, and my team might have won, but I still might have been angry at myself for playing badly.  Or visa versa: I play a game of pickup basketball, play AWESOMELY , but still, it’s pickup basketball (who knows who’s going to be on your team?) and my team loses.  I would be very happy if you met me after that game, despite losing.

Basically (going back to that game of Dreadfleet), it seemed like Amanda lacked this separation, between winning or losing on the one hand, and your individual performance on the other.  She drew a card, and she translated it to herself (emotionally) as: “I did something wrong, I sucked, I am a bad person, etc.”

Poker, or games based on probability (like all Games Workshop games, which are based on dice or cards) have a slightly different separation than team sports.  In poker, you might do everything right, and still lose—not because your teammate did something wrong, but because  . . . .you were unlucky!

It’s that simple.  With poker, you play hand after hand after hand.  It’s a game of iterations.  All you can do is “play the odds”—and that’s what a good poker player is (emotionally) focused on: getting the odds right, making the right play.  If the cards fall the way he wants, then great.  If not, that’s part of the game.  You’re going to play hundreds more hands.  And you did all you can do.

Now Amanda, a person who has played many card games in her life, didn’t—I don’t think—have any idea just how much calculation of odds a really good poker player does, in his head, all the time. We  went through some hands, and calculated some odds: Say you have two high cards in your hand after the flop (this is hold’em).  What are the odds that you will get a pair?  And then, based on that probability, what should your next move be?

Basically, I wanted to open up another zone, a world of strategy and odds, that you can then interact with emotionally.  That is different than just being emotionally invested in what card happens to fall.

And I said at the end is that if you make a bad move in poker (i.e., you don’t “play the odds” right) but you still win—just from luck—what a veteran poker play would do is, not praise you, but come up to you and say, “You are a f—ing idiot.  If you play that way again, you are going to lose.  Don’t ever do that again.”

. . . and finally . . . going back to Amanda, and that last game of Dreadfleet, Amanda did everything right as a strategist.  She “played the odds” right.  But she was unlucky.  She drew a card (and the odds of drawing that card seem to be about 1/50) and she lost.

There wasn’t anything she should have done differently.  She should have been proud of getting to that point.  A veteran player, I think, would have came up to her, after losing that way, and just said, “Good job,” shrugged, and then asked rhetorically, “What are you going to do?”

What are you going to do?

Play again, probably.  If you are at all a competitive person.

Hello Mr. Cutie Doggie Nosies! or… Paper Mache Stage Three

Balloons, hippopotamuses, the word “hippopotamus”, freshly baked oatmeal pumpkin cookies, sledding down a hill with your eyes closed on a giant inflatable tube.

–Those are all undeniably exciting things.

However, none of those things is nearly exciting as what happened last week–which is…

We finally finished Stage 2 of our life-sized papier mache sculpture of Dogs Playing Poker!

Yes, after

1) Building wire and cardboard armatures, and
2) Covering those armatures with strips of glue soaked paper strips,

We have moved on to “3) Covering the glue soaked paper strips with glue-soaked-and-blended toilet paper goo.” We used the recipe found here (though with wood filler instead of joint compound). It allows for much more detailing…such as little noses, and paws, and toes (!)

…which is also very, very exciting.