Super Sweet Blogging Award

Special thanks to Crystal Collier for the award. So here's what I have to do. I have to answer five "sweet" questions.

Without further ado, the five questions and their answers.

1. Cookies or Cake? Both?  Um. I'm not much of a sweets person. So how about salt and vinegar potato chips? Or honey mustard pretzel pieces. YUM. (And since this is true confessions, I've bee known to eat salt--but only really good salt, like the pink salt. And it's healthy. Really. All that pinkness is from essential minerals. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

2. Chocolate or Vanilla? Okay, this does hit my one sweet weakness--Chocolate. Dark chocolate. Always. It's a gift from the angels.

3. Favorite Sweet Treat? Coffee. I know this isn't really sweet, but I do put some sugar in it. There's nothing like a mug of steaming, black coffee in the morning

4. When Do You Crave Sweet Things The Most? Chocolate is the panacea for all ills at all times. Depressed? Chocolate with sea salt and caramel. Happy? Chocolate with  black currants. Bored? Chocolate with pear and almonds. Sick? Chocolate with cayenne. Yep, there's a chocolate for every time and need.

5. Sweet Nick Name? Sugar. Weird thing is that no one I actually know calls me this. But when I moved to the South seven years ago, total strangers began calling me "Sugar" or "Baby." When I first moved here, my little Nutmegger heart (people from Connecticut are called "Nutmeggers," don't ask why because no one knows) thought "I'm so not your baby or your sugar." But after seven years, I respond, "Hey, girl." Okay, I don't really say that, but I think it. And that counts.

My nominees for the award. (To fulfill the award, you have to display the certificate, answer the questions, and nominate a baker's dozen--i.e. 13-- other bloggers.) 

1. Julie Dao

2. Alz and Krispy

3. Susan Flett Swiderski

4. Melissa Pearl

5. A.B. Keuser

6. E. Louise Bates

7. Laurel Garver

8. The Golden Eagle

9. Jennifer Shirk

10. Kat Owens

11. Blue Skies and Butterflies

12. Misha Gericke

13. Anne

Indie Life

The second Wednesday of every month is the Indie Life Celebration!

This month, I want to let everyone know about Crystal Collier's blog and her Writerly Wednesdays. Every Wednesday she celebrates a YA writer who writes fiction with a fantastic twist (fantasy in all varieties, paranormal, speculative fiction, horror, sci-fi, dystopian, etc.)

There's always a chance to play a game (two truths and a lie) and win books or other swag.  So check out her blog today, and make sure you go back tomorrow for a chance to play and win.

JOIN US FOR INDIE LIFE!

1.	Susan Kaye Quinn, Author	2.	Steena Holmes
3.	Claudia Lefeve	4.	Author Laura Diamond Lucid Dreamer
5.	ali cross	6.	Katie Klein
7.	Larry Kollar	8.	Faith McKay
9.	Civil War Horror	10.	Ansha Kotyk
11.	Terri J. Haynes	12.	The Open Vein, E.J. Wesley
13.	Secondhand Shoes, A Novel	14.	Eclectic
15.	Lisa M. Buske	16.	Sandra Ulbrich Almazan
17.	J.R. Pearse Nelson	18.	Melissa Pearl
19.	Cherie Reich	20.	PK HREZO
21.	Victoria Escobar	22.	J.L. Campbell
23.	K. A. Last	24.	The Murphey Saga
25.	Tyrean's Writing Spot	26.	Suzy Turner
27.	Laura Pauling	28.	C.M. Brown
29.	Stephen Tremp	30.	Jennifer Writes Things Sometimes
31.	Capri Montgomery	32.	Indiscriminate Writes
33.	C. M. Keller, Screwing Up Time	34.	RaShelle Workman
35.	J.J. Bonds	36.	Why I love the indie life
37.	A First Look at Indie Life	38.	Mary Pax
39.	Notes from the Jovian frontier	40.	L.E. Waters~Fantasy Prone
41.	The Indie Children's Authors Connection	42.	Christian Superheroes
43.	Ellie Garratt	44.	Write Me, Kaye Draper
45.	Can You Make a Living Writing? (Author Nikki Jefford)	46.	Michelle Isenhoff
47.	Catherine Stine's Idea City	48.	The Lina Lamont Fan Club
49.	Donna Hosie	50.	Rinelle Grey
51.	Word by Word	52.	Riann Colton
53.	Strange Pegs	54.	Rachel Morgan
55.	sarabeth burke	56.	Writing, the Universe and Everything Writing
57.	J.L. Weil	58.	Meetings with My Muse
59.	Planet Pailly: Where Science Meets Fiction	60.	Janeal Falor
61.	Michael Pierce	62.	S.K. Falls
63.	Donna B. McNicol	64.	Nadja Notariani ~ An Author's Adventures
65.	Alki Nea	66.	Confessions of a Watery Tart
67.	Nicole R. Taylor	68.	MJ Brodeck - Glitter Writer's Book Blog
69.	Inside the Secret World of Allison Bruning	70.	Talia Jager, YA Author
71.	Hunter Emkay

Literature and Food

A couple of months ago, I was reading an article that discussed bestsellers and the commonalities between them. One of the commonalities that the article discussed was food.

The article didn’t talk about the whys of that, it just noted that many bookclub type books had themes of food. So I began to think about it.

I think it’s more than just our desire to eat that makes food such a common theme in novels. I think in many ways it’s because food grounds us culturally.

Even in the United States there are regional foods. Here in the South, grits is a given. When we moved here, people were shocked that we’d never eaten grits before. When we lived in New England (where there’s a huge Italian population), I served chili to a family that was at our house for dinner. The kids had never heard of chili before. The mom explained that it’s like pasta and sauce, only without the pasta. I’ve also lived in Hawaii, Chicago, Southern California, and Northern California, and each has its own regional foods.

But even more than regions, ethnic heritage comes into play. For me, autumn hasn’t started until we have uien hache for dinner. My husband’s family has been in the US for generations, and though they don’t really have any German cultural sensibilities, every Christmas they have pfeffernusse.

I suspect that the reason food works its way into so many books is because it grounds the reader in the culture. For example, in Screwing Up Time, I made Henry’s mom an organic, tofu-loving, proto-vegetarian because I wanted something very modern to set apart Henry’s experiences in the present from the cultural experiences of the past. That way when Henry visited the Middle Ages, the contrast would be huge. And food was a way of reflecting that. In other words, Henry goes not only from jeans and t-shirts to tunics and wool stockings, but also from tofurkey to a cockentrice.

What about you, readers and writers, do you notice food in books? When my kids were little, they were so fascinated with the foods in the Chronicles of Narnia that I found a Chronicles of Narnia Cookbook and we had a Narnian dinner. Have you ever tried making the foods mentioned in books?

BTW, if you’re interested here’s a recipe for uien hache (onion stew).

Uien Hache

1 lb. stewing beef

butter

3-6 bouillon cubes

Water

4 large onions

Cornstarch for thickening

Simmer beef in 4” of water that has been salted and peppered. Cook thoroughly. Cut onions in rings and fry with butter in a pot. Cut meat in small pieces and add onions. Add bouillon cubes. Simmer for 1 ½ hours. If beef liquid is thin, add some cornstarch mixed with a little bit of cold water. Serve with boiled potatoes. (Mash them with a fork on your plate and then ladle uien hache on top.

I realize that the recipe is a bit vague in terms of the amount of water and bouillon. This is my grandmother’s recipe and her instructions tend to be “add water until it looks right” and “add enough bouillon until it tastes right.” In the end, there should be enough broth to nearly cover the onions and beef. And the broth should be very rich and a bit salty—when you serve it over potatoes it cuts the salt. (3 bouillon cubes aren’t enough.)

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Screwing Up the Future

Ever since I started writing the Screwing Up Time series, I wanted to travel to the future. And I knew Mark would want to travel to the future, but I couldn’t just “joy ride” there without a reason. It wasn’t until I wrote “Screwing Up Mongolia” (which hopefully will be out soon—when file conversion and cover art are done) that travel to the future became a possibility.

Mark and Miranda’s trip to the future to find Nin is only a small part of the text—the majority of the story is set in two ancient civilizations—but writing about the future opened huge possibilities. It was so fun to play there, though I had to restrain myself since the SUT series is not sci-fi and the focus of the novels always has to be Mark and Miranda and their problems.

As I created the future, the one thing I kept in mind was that human history always seems to be a constant struggle through war, disease, and technology. (I know tech seems to be “modern,” but consider the huge impact catapults, cross bows, and battering rams had in their time.) So I kept war, disease, and tech in the back of my mind as I explored how the future might look and feel. And my obsessive love of reading Popular Mechanics and Chemical and Engineering News gave me ideas on the technology in our near-ish future.

So, in book three (which I’m back to working on after a 6 weeks hiatus due to computer problems) be on the lookout for a couple of scenes set in the future and technology like DNA ident keys, toadstool chemical grenades, and camo cloth. 

PS Does anyone have any idea why the font changes in the middle of the text? I've checked the HTML code and it doesn't show a font change. This is driving me crazy. Thanks.

What Did You Do This Summer?

Someone asked me the other day, “What Did You Do This Summer?” I felt kind of stutter-y. Normally, I do a big project every summer. Refinish cabinets, paint, strip furniture, etc. This summer, I wanted to refinish the kitchen floor. But it didn’t happen. And what I really wanted to do was finish book three of the Screwing Up Time series. 

But my computer developed a glitch, and it spent six weeks traveling back and forth & back and forth to a repair facility. Thankfully, it’s fixed now—or pretending to be. But my summer writing schedule is shot. Though I did get eleven chapters edited even without my laptop. Hopefully, now I can get back to it.

Here’s what I did do this summer.

1. Edited eleven chapters of Screwing Up Time, book three.

2. Wrote 25,000 words for a new novel. (Not young adult) First drafts are easier to do without a laptop.

3. Sewed a Shakespeare costume for my son. Click here to see it.

4. Helped my daughter find a place to live—she starts grad school next month.

5. Moved my oldest son—he’s starting grad school too.

6. Mopped up lots of rainwater that streamed in through the roof. Why do warranties expire right before something goes wrong....

7. Opened a computer file and began making plot notes for book four of the Screwing Up Time series. Yes, there will absolutely be a book four and I can’t wait to start writing it.

Don’t forget to check back in the next week or so. I hope to be doing a cover reveal for “Screwing Up Mongolia” (a SUT short story). And now that my laptop is back, I hope to get the story up at Amazon, Smashwords, etc., this summer.

How To Write a Book Review

A 1874 Sholes and Glidden typewriter (the first to use a QWERTY keyboard), photo by Kosmopolitat, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

“Writing a book review or telling a friend about a book is the best way to say thanks to an author.” Everyone has heard that before. But most people I know are uncomfortable writing one. In fact, it’s hard for me, and I’m a writer. So I thought I’d write up some suggestions to help readers who’d like to write a book review, but don’t know how.

1. It’s not a book report. You don’t have to write a page long treatise on the book. In fact, shorter is better. No one reads reviews that are over 250 words. Unless you’re a reviewer for the New York Times, and only people with degrees in English (like me) read those.

2. It doesn’t have to be stodgy. In great reviews, the reviewers often mention their personal reactions to a book. (Even NYT reviewers do this.) It gives the review a chatty feeling, as if your friend is saying, “Hey, read this!” One of my favorite reviews of Screwing Up Time starts like this, “I started reading this at the gym, which was a big mistake because I was howling with laughter on the stationery bike (very bad gym manners!).”

3. It’s not rocket science. Talk about what you liked. Was it the plot (what happens in the book), the characters (the people and their personalities), or the setting?

4. Don’t feel self-conscious. No one is grading your book reviews. Authors are grateful for reviewers—you make their day. (Unless you do something like “I hated this book because it wasn’t romance/sci-fi/erotica/etc.” Um, if you only like one genre, then probably you should only buy that genre.)

5. It's not hard. Amazon will talk you through setting it up. If you prefer, you can write it out in MS Word and copy/paste your review into the review box.

6. Don’t say I’ll write it tomorrow. As Nike says, “Just do it.”

Indie Life: Writer's Block

Welcome to Indie Life. This is a monthly blog hop (every second Wednesday of the month) where the participants blog on anything and everything related to self-publishing. Join us!

Last week, I was struggling with writer's block. I was a quarter of the way into my latest novel's first draft when I hit a wall. I was writing a scene and something was wrong. But I didn't know what. I knew the scene's setting, I knew the characters that had to be there, and I knew what the scene had to be about. It was all there. But the scene was dead. I tried to push through it. I tried polishing the scene. But nothing worked.

So I sat down with a sheaf of notebook paper and a pen. I wrote out questions, asking myself what the scene was about. Not what happened in the scene, but what the scene did for the book. I answered that the scene was supposed to be an echo of two of the novel's themes--confession and forgiveness. And while the scene did echo those themes, it wasn't a quiet echo. It was loud and bombastic. Instead of the ethereal whisper of a violin, it was the subwoofer boom of a percussion backbeat. Strong enough that it was distracting from the plot and themes instead of underlining them.

Then, I asked myself what the scene was supposed to do for the characters. It was supposed to deepen a minor characters, which it did by exposing one of his flaws. But the failing I showed was more of an as-a-writer-I-know-this-character-is-supposed-to-be-flawed-and-I'm-trying-to-make-him-flawed-but-not-too-flawed. And that was the problem, the flaw was half-hearted. It was a speck of lint on black velvet, not a tear ripping through the velvet and the silk lining. I needed a real flaw, a surprise to the reader. I needed to make the reader catch his breath, but still like the character. A much harder task.

Once I realized what function the scene had for the characters and themes, I brainstormed fixes. I realized that what needed to happen was the exact opposite of what I'd written. So I took the scene back to the bones and rewrote it. The words flowed across the page. The scene practically wrote itself. Writer's block was over.

If you're struggling with a scene or facing writer's block, think about the scene/chapter/plot twist's function. Think about the purposes it's serving in terms of advancing plot/character development/themes and ask yourself if those things are all working together in the scene. If not, ask yourself how it's failing those purposes. Once you understand what's wrong, then you can fix it.

So maybe writer's block isn't always a bad thing. Maybe it's just an early warning system, a red light flashing "Hey, dummy, this doesn't work." That's what I'm telling myself.

Other Brave Indie Lifers...

1.	Susan Kaye Quinn, Author	2.	Steena Holmes
3.	Claudia Lefeve	4.	Author Laura Diamond Lucid Dreamer
5.	ali cross	6.	Katie Klein
7.	Larry Kollar	8.	Faith McKay
9.	Civil War Horror	10.	Ansha Kotyk
11.	Terri J. Haynes	12.	The Open Vein, E.J. Wesley
13.	Secondhand Shoes, A Novel	14.	Eclectic
15.	Lisa M. Buske	16.	Sandra Ulbrich Almazan
17.	J.R. Pearse Nelson	18.	Melissa Pearl
19.	Cherie Reich	20.	PK HREZO
21.	Victoria Escobar	22.	J.L. Campbell
23.	K. A. Last	24.	The Murphey Saga
25.	Tyrean's Writing Spot	26.	Suzy Turner
27.	Laura Pauling	28.	C.M. Brown
29.	Stephen Tremp	30.	Jennifer Writes Things Sometimes
31.	Capri Montgomery	32.	Indiscriminate Writes
33.	C. M. Keller, Screwing Up Time	34.	RaShelle Workman
35.	J.J. Bonds	36.	Why I love the indie life
37.	A First Look at Indie Life	38.	Mary Pax
39.	Notes from the Jovian frontier	40.	L.E. Waters~Fantasy Prone
41.	The Indie Children's Authors Connection	42.	Christian Superheroes
43.	Ellie Garratt	44.	Write Me, Kaye Draper
45.	Can You Make a Living Writing? (Author Nikki Jefford)	46.	Michelle Isenhoff
47.	Catherine Stine's Idea City	48.	The Lina Lamont Fan Club
49.	Donna Hosie	50.	Rinelle Grey
51.	Word by Word	52.	Riann Colton
53.	Strange Pegs	54.	Rachel Morgan
55.	sarabeth burke	56.	Writing, the Universe and Everything Writing
57.	J.L. Weil	58.	Meetings with My Muse
59.	Planet Pailly: Where Science Meets Fiction	60.	Janeal Falor
61.	Michael Pierce

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