My two favorite non-writing activities related to writing are research and building playlists of music.

The current project -- a decidedly time-limited distraction from the novel -- requires an enormous amount of research, a lot of which is difficult. Good difficult. I know I'm getting close to where I need to be because of the dreams I had last night. Saturation dreams, the kind I have when my brain is putting together all the pieces and making sense of a bunch of stuff. It's not totally different from learning a new game (especially a mmporg). It feels strangely like swimming. At the moment I can't touch bottom, but I know it's there now.

The even more fun part for this story was putting together the playlist. I habitually do this for short stories. I suspect it's actually more important for short-form stuff than it is for longer works because short stories live or die by their hold on mood and music is an extremely effective way for me to get into the feel of the time and place. The times and places of this story are extremely particular.

Sometimes my playlists are heavy on music with lyrics. This playlist is largely instrumental, or with chanting. I even fit in a couple of Wimme's solo yoik pieces.

I'm being coy about the story itself because it's for the Haunted Legends anthology and... well, I feel like being coy about what I'm doing. If nihilistic_kid or ellen_datlow want to know what I'm working on before I send it, I'll be glad to tell them. I'm guessing not, though.

Also, I'm at that phase of story ideation here I get superstitious about saying what I intend to do, lest I pin down things that should be mobile.

Do you box up everything because it might be useful some day? Have you been doing so since 1985? Are you a computer and/or gadget freak?

I need stuff from the 1985-87 era. What kind of stuff?

• Sharper Image catalogs
• Issues of Computer Shopper, Byte!, Compute, Computer Gaming World (or any other publication of that variety -- and yes, I'm aware there is a collector's market for some of that stuff; I don't want to collect -- see below)
• Manuals for telephone equipment (consumer or otherwise)
• Any ads for tech stuff from any magazines of the era

I don't need (or even want) actual physical copies. Scans are ideal and they only need to be good enough to be legible. If you can't scan them yourself, I'll happily pay for postage, scan them on my end and return whatever you sent me in the same condition you sent it (or pay you should something evil and postal happen in transit or while in my care). I don't even really need entire magazines. The ads are most useful to me, though reviews of hardware are great too, as well as speculative articles. I am completely aware that in asking for scans of ads and reviews from 1985 era Computer Shopper I am asking for A LOT. I'd be completely happy with a representative sample of just 10-15 pages, preferably covering several different areas of tech (pc, C64, Atari, printers, bulk floppy sales, etc).

Just to make matters easier, you can be enormously useful to me if you've got any of the stuff listed above just by leaving a comment here with some of the following information:

• Prices of floppy disks, tractor feed paper, ink ribbons
• Vendors for above
• Location of users group meetings and what their focus is
• Names of equipment manufacturers, what they make, how much it costs
• Ads for things that sound stupid or impossible

Also, if I'm being completely dense and missing some available public source (or even quasi-public) for that stuff, I'd appreciate being told I'm a bonehead who doesn't know how to google. Providing you also include a pedantic example of how I should have done it.

If you don't have anything of this sort, but know people who might, please send them the link to this page.

All queries should be directed to the comments, where I'll happily arrange whatever variety of transport is required.

Today I wrote a character going to a party, getting some PCP and jumping into the great big swimming pool of radical depersonalization. It was extremely fun to write, but I enjoy taking my characters to places they don't intend to go. Though, to be fair, this character signed up for more or less what she got.

In other news, I've got an art project to finish now. I think if I'm to balance the two impulses, art must come after writing. Doing the pixel-pushing thing is no sweat after I've been writing for a while, but trying to write after using the visual part of my brain for a bit simply doesn't work. I not only forget how to type, but putting words into sentences gets to be an insurmountable difficulty.

But you know what? At the moment, I am loving my novel so much.

I hope I'm not liking my book so much it's making gregvaneekhout angry at his.

I've been hanging out in this park watching the other kids play for long enough that I know there will come a day when I'm certain that the novel I'm working on is made entirely from raw sewage, so I'm just going to bask in the love I feel right now. Also, I am doing art things.

One of the most remarkable foods in the world began in the middle of the fourteenth century when a merchant vessel set sail from Cascais in Portugal. They were headed for the spice markets of Morocco with grains and other goods when a storm blew them off course. The ship wrecked on an island 45 miles west of the rocky shores of Sagres.

The sailors certainly knew of the island. It was said to be the home of devils. Console Dos Diabos they called it in their logs. Others had named it Pedras Gritando, Ventos do Sangue or Árvores Sujas. It was not a popular destination. For reasons lost to history, that group of sailors settled the island despite the superstition surrounding it. They built a small fishing village and a church. The tradition of beard bread followed shortly after. The island is now called Pão do Medo and to this day their unique culture has survived almost unchanged.

The men of the island shave only once a month. Some go to the communal Barbeiro Grande, but most shave at home. No modern shaving products are used there, however. Each family has a set of straight razors that have been passed down through generations, some of which can be traced back to the famous blades of Damascus. Butter is used where others would apply shaving cream. The shaved beards are all brought to the town center, they're organized by hair color and given to the bakeries. Most bakers specialize in a single color but some make mixes. The hair is put into a vat with fermento do homem, a special yeast found only on the island. It's mixed with a bit of spelt, a pinch of salt and some spring water to make a fragrant slurry. Depending on the weather it can take between 45 minutes and 2 hours for the fermento to convert the hair slurry into a workable dough, then the bakers begin their work. The dough is shaped into crosses and wreaths and baked in stone ovens.

All the baked bread is taken to the church and a communal dinner is held after sunset. Most all beard bread smells the same, but each has unique characteristics. Red beard bread is considered to be the finest. It's crust is a beautiful dark copper color. It's taste is difficult to describe, being similar to soughdough but with a distinct steak-like flavor, imparted from the presence of iron. Brown beard bread is more rye-like in appearance and even somewhat in flavor, but its predominant taste is of slightly over steeped black tea. Blond beard bread is very mild in flavor, and similar in appearance to wheat bread. It lacks the bitterness that characterizes brown beard bread. Black beard bread has no real analogs. Its crust is richly black and glossy and its flavor is overwhelmingly bitter. As with any food that comes in such variety, each style has its adherents.

The bread is possible only because of the unique yeast, Aspergillus barbicans. The yeasts used to make regular breads (and many alcoholic beverages) are fundamentally different. Saccharomyces cerevisiae digests the sugars in wheat and potatoes to make carbon dioxide. A. barbicans does the same with keratins, usually a completely indigestible organic compound.

Why does Pão do Medo play host to such an unusual mold? One answer is that is a graveyard for green sea turtles. In late senescence the turtles swim north from African waters and strand themselves on Pão do Medo. Their shells (like all turtles) are made almost entirely of beta-keratin and this in turn is digested by A. barbicans. Further study is needed to learn why the mold is unique to this island.

You might have guessed that beard bread could also be made from other substances. Indeed, though some claim to be able to distinguish between them, it is unlikely that there is any significant difference between beard hair and any other human hair. Nail clippings can be used, but the texture is said to be poor and the flavor musty, like very old pu-ehr tea. Claws can be used, but they must be pulped before they can be fermented and they supposedly taste much like fingernail bread. Some experimentation has been done with silks, but this is expensive. Cooks and bakers around the world are only now beginning to experiment with this unusual yeast. But the future is uncertain.

In 2006 the European Union began investigating a ban on beard bread citing sanitation concerns and fears that it could be a vector for prion diseases. Over the last hundred years the islanders have come to accept boiling the hair to rid it of lice or other pathogens. As long as butter is reintroduced most say the flavor is the same. So far there is no evidence of prion diseases being expressed in hair, though it isn't out of the question that some retroviruses could be transmitted. The World Health Organization has sponsored a research program to study the long-term effects of beard bread. Only time will tell if this traditional food will go the way of ortolan and casu marzu or if it will eventually be available in your local market.

Starting January 1st -- tomorrow -- submissions open for Viable Paradise. I attended in 2006, kirizal went in 2005 (I played was support spouse). As a writer, it was completely life-changing.

Personally, I attended because I wanted to feel like I was a writer instead of an artist with a hobby for words. I got that, and then some. The socializing was great, the lectures were incredibly useful and the access to professionals -- writers and editors both -- was worth more than I think it would be possible to pay. Being on Martha's Vineyard doesn't hurt.

In my case 5 days was enough to realign the molecular structure of my creative impulse. I've got a great deal more energy to spend on writing, and I've got vastly better tools to work on the raw material with.

If you're thinking about attending a writer's workshop of any sort, follow the link up there. It's the real deal.