52-9 A Fruit I Hate and Why

One thing I like about this 52-week writing challenge is the different topics I culled from various writing challenge lists (from Pinterest, by the way). Never in my life did I think I’d write about fruit, but here we go.

Hate is Such a Harsh Word

I can’t say I hate pomegranates. I love the crunchy seeds and that little splash of flavor when you chew them. I don’t hate them; merely, I find them frustrating. As far as I’m concerned they’re unpeelable and getting to the fruity, crunchy seeds is near impossible.

Oh, you say, there’s a special way to extract the seeds. I know. I’ve tried about a half-dozen of them. I’ve watched YouTube how-to videos, read how-to articles, and by the time I’m done trying to get the seeds out, I’ve lost interest.

And, yes, you can buy the seeds already extracted, but they don’t taste as fresh.

The Taste Test

Maybe it’s me, but years ago when I got introduced to mangos in Hawai’i, I thought they were manna from heaven. I had to have a fresh one every morning for breakfast. I even asked the waitress how to pick out a good one at the grocery store fresh fruit department.

Mangos in Virginia don’t take as good as mangos in Hawai’i. I don’t know why. I only know they tasted awful. I thought it was my imagination (actually, that’s what my ex said), but when I returned to Hawai’i a few years later, I had delicious, fresh, juicy, heavenly tasting mangos for breakfast each morning. Back home in Virginia? Meh.

It was the same for me with buying seeds already extracted from pomegranates. They didn’t taste the same. Now, I walk past the fresh pomegranates in my local grocery store with a wistful sigh (I don’t even look at the mangos.) and with only a memory of how they taste, quickly fading.

Do you have a “fool-proof” way of getting seeds from your pomegranates? If so, tell me in the comments, and I’ll try it.

Friday Fictioneers and NaNoWriMo

I’ll make a brief appearance here for Friday Fictioneers, then I’m back to the word count for National Novel Writing Month. I think this year, I’ll pull a paragraph from what I’ve written that day and post it here, and comments are welcomed.

Friday Fictioneers LogoToday’s Friday Fictioneers photo prompt is a little fishy, as in a picture of fishes, koi to be specific, and it brought to mind a hotel I stayed at on the Hawaiian Island of Maui, I believe. The hotel had been around for decades and was surrounded by a moat full of koi. Guests could feed them, and I remember being amazed at the size of them. I don’t know why that surprised me because I know they’re essentially carp, and I’d seen some huge carp in the Washington Channel. At this hotel, when we’d scatter koi food for them, the smaller, younger ones would go into a feeding frenzy while the bigger, older ones swam around the edges waiting for bits of food to get splashed their way. It seems for koi, too, with age comes wisdom.

That memory led to the story “Lure of the Nishikigoi.” As usual, if you don’t see the link on the title, scroll to the top of the page, click on the Friday Fictioneers tab, then select the story from the drop-down list.

Friday Fictioneers–and a Finish!

The first rewrite of my “Tinker Mountain” manuscript is done! Woo-hoo! I worked for the most part of twelve hours the other day and got it in the can. Scrivener has a great tool–Compile–which, after a couple of mouse-clicks, renders a fully formatted manuscript. In my case it came to 398 pages. Oi! Too much for either of my printers, so a quick email to my local Staples, and I had a copy.

Oh, I was so tempted to pick up my red pen and dig in! Patience, though. I want to set it aside for a week or two, get it out of my head, then delve into the line edit. I have some decisions to make: Do I want to show the bad guy (who seduces one girl and rapes another on the same day) exhibiting some redeeming quality? As in, he saves the men in his unit from a German machine gun assault on D-Day? Or do I just acknowledge this as fact and let his egregious behavior stand on its own? Rather than just show another character’s “fatal flaw” (the fact he can’t keep his fly zipped when a younger woman is around), do I include some back story to explain why he is the way he is?

So, those thoughts, and more, will be bouncing around inside my head for the next couple of weeks. I hope they’ll be resolved by the time I sit down with the red pen.

Friday Fictioneers LogoToday’s Friday Fictioneers photo prompt comes from a place I’ve been lucky to visit twice–our 50th state, Hawaii. It’s an incredible shot from Mauna Kea on the Big Island, across the ocean, to the smaller island of Maui. Truly beautiful, and it was very inspirational. I love Hawaii, with the mixture of modern, urban life and native Hawaiian spirituality. And where else can you get up close and personal with extinct and not-so-extinct volcanoes?

I hope you enjoy “Free Flight,” and, as usual, if you don’t see the link on the title, scroll to the top of the page, click on the Friday Fictioneers tab, then select the story from the drop-down list.