Ursula Bauer's Blog, page 2

Platform technology and something really usefull

There is a HEAP BIG TON of stuff now on author platform. So I decided, let me check stuff out on my blog and see what platform it reveals. Which lead me to the conclusion my author platform is as follows: Food, booze, monkeyshines, and the occasional foray into weird science and Internet gossip. I am not certain if that is meaningful, but there it is.

I did find something recently that is VERY MEANINGFUL for writers, experienced and aspiring. Or rather something from someone: Kowloon by Night, the site and the blog of editor/writer Adrien-Luc Sanders.

He edits for Entangled Publishing, and on his blog he's posted a raft of his editor tips dispersed via twitter feeds from 2011. You should visit here, and stay a while. Read the whole post collection of tips. It will take a bit but it's so totally worth the time. First, it's funny. Damn funny. Second, it's helpful. Third, it's irreverent and occasionally absurd (the best part).

He also has a fascination with Kowloon, the walled city of Hong Kong and has a great section on it. Also has links to wish list and cattle calls. Check it out, lots to read, and you won't be disappointed.

Mom's Mac-n-Cheese

So many resolutions at the new year center around eating better. Here's a recipe for those who want to eat good. Damn good. Dave's mom makes AWESOME mac-n-cheese. Great for feeding crowds, a 6 qt crock pot favorite. If you're looking for something to stick to your ribs and make you tingle to your toes (in a way that makes you want to dial 911 for cardiac life support), then this is the one you want. (BIG THANKS to Mrs. C for yet another batch of fantastic yummie stuff!)

(Dave's) Mom's Mac-N-Cheese

3 lbs. elbow mac. cook until done let sit in the water do not drain yet.3 lb block of hunter's Cheddar (this is a very sharp Cheddar cheese)
1 lb block of regular Cheddar (this is the mild or regular Cheddar)
1 lb Colby
1/4 lb of butter
flour as needed (see below)

Boil up the macaroni till it's about 3x it size. Yep. Puff it up real good.

Shred all cheese and set aside
Melt 1/4 lb of butter in a large pan, add flour by the tablespoon stirring until you get a flour/butter paste like consistency...add milk and stir until blended, creamy and smooth.

When macaroni is cooked, pour any water that is now left in the mac off, add the cheese and stir in the milk/butter sauce until you get the thickness you want...a little bit towards soupy is ok...pour into baking pan etc. ..cover with MORE shredded cheddar and pepper to taste...bake at 350 until golden brown on top

Optional:
Seasoned or plain breadcrumbs on top.

For group serving:
Crock pot it after you bake. Yum!!!!

Ghost Hunters v. Mediums, round 1 (Insider's view: A Haunting Affair)

Ghost Hunters have a different approach to connecting with the spirit world than psychics. Evidence is gathered in abundance via technologic means and then reviewed, and even then, it's preferred for example, with Audio, to have three independent listeners agree on what they're hearing for the event to be considered legit. (also called 'the law of three').

In the case of audio, older tech is better per some experienced ghost hunters. It's believed that an analog tape recorder provides a better 'medium' for capturing spiritual noise, and that digital, while reliable, somehow falls short. However, today's technology allows recordings to load into a computer program, where background noise can be cleaned up, and sound mapped into visual waves, making it easier to identify alleged spectral communication. It's not unusual to have things show up at subsonic levels that are then manipulated, cleaned, and exposed to the naked eye/ and ear. Documentation of this is then determined proof of life, so to speak, where as the Medium only has their word.

In A Haunting Affair many ghost hunters have already debunked the lodge, however, the owner believes there's still a haunting taking place. The ghost is able not only to communicate to the psychic Emma, but brings on several hair raising contacts not unlike a poltergeist. Just like no two mediums are a like, no two ghost hunters, or hauntings are alike, so it allowed me to bring in a unique angle to the ghostly activities in the book.

Insider's View: Immortal Protector

When life becomes art, or something like that...

Immortal Protector had a lot of action scenes, that including more than a few places getting wrecked.

For one scene, the hero, Gideon, an Immortal Soldier, fights a demon in the heroine's house. For the setting I used my friend's house, a few blocks over from mine. It was a nice little brick cape off the local park and golf course. A slice of suburbia that bit the dust.

I never told her about this, only that I had a surprise for her in the book, but it was up to her to figure out what it was.

She was psyched when she found it and to this day, when out at bars, still tells people a demon and immortal soldier destroyed her first house.

It's a great reader reaction, and perfect sales pitch.

Insider's view: A Haunting Affiar

This is the first of posts that I've had up over the the Kindle Boards pages, all inside peeks into the books I've written. I'll be posting them here on the blog, and I'm starting w/the most recent book: A Haunting Affair
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A Haunting Affair features a psychic with a shady past. For the psychic part, her skills come from using psychometry along with Tarot cards, and an element of spirit communication.

I've read Tarot for over 20 years now, professionally, personally, for charity, and when I owned a metaphysical shop. So that part was easy. Same with psychometry, where you hold an object and pick up the vibrational energy to help stimulate psychic connection. Where I was lacking was the spirit game. Mediums hold purview over that realm, so to mediums I went. I attended a group Medium event with a very popular local Medium I knew professionally, a smaller version of what John Edwards does. I then did some research by reading 3 John Edwards books, and watching a few documentaries. In the end, Emma (the psychic) winds up working for a world famous medium, and is developing spirit connection as the book opens.

Mediums are fascinating, and use a variety of techniques, including spirit guides (spirits who they work with on a regular basis) and acting as a conduit for spirits trying to get through. One of the things I noticed is that the Medium was rarely aware of the meaning of the message when they were the conduit. It seems even working with guides, the dearly departed aren't as cooperative, or logical as we would like them to be. It's something that Emma struggles with and factors into the story through out the mystery's unfolding. What gave me the idea for incongruous communication came from the group medium event I attended, where a friend was given a message so out of context no one could figure how it fit, and all we could assume was that either the medium was making it up, or the spirit was communicating in terms only they understood.

Was it a scam artist con job or a true spirit communication from the great beyond? Hard to tell. And that's the struggle the upright ex-cop Sam has to figure. Sooner or later he'll need to trust Emma if he wants to get to the bottom of things, but trusting a former con artist isn't easy. In the end it will come down to a tough choice and defining moment for a Hero with everything to lose and gain.

Up to no good...as usual

Lately I've been doing mini-trivia kinds of posts over at the Kindleboards, on each of my three books. They're like blogs, so I'm going to post them over the next few weeks, and keep it updated as not everyone searches the kindleboard book bazaar (as I was recently informed!!!!! :-)   ) I've hadreader feedback that folks are really enjoying more of an 'inside baseball' kind of scoop. The posts range from what got me going on the book, to strange facts (like how it was a friends house that was trashed in a demon fight in Immortal Protector and now that's a fav bar tale of the same friend), to the influence of League of the Superfriends and The Mighty Isis. (Yes, it's true. None of this is made up. Some days it would be nice to say fact is indeed not as strange as fiction, but in my life the two seem to be tied at any given moment)

Here are the links to the individual threads if you want to read them in one stop shop fashion. You can save to your favorites to continue following the thread, or just pop back here periodically for updates. I'm not on a particular time table, but I try to shoot for at least every week to two weeks on the boards. I'll be adding the updates over the next week or so to this blog.

A Haunting Affair

Immortal Illusions

Immortal Protector

Enjoy!!!!

Haven - Crazy Lives in Maine

I really like the show Haven. Last year it was a refreshing breath of strange, as opposed to recycled strange, passing strange, and strangely arranged, in that it took small town Americana on a ride to the heart of the twilight zone.


You'd expect no less from a product based on Stephen King storytelling (It's loosely based on a story called the Colorado Kid).Yet it delivers so much more.

It's certainly innovative, I think, but not pretentious, and unapologetic about how it lays things out and leaves things hanging, giving enough finish and enough open ended to keep you coming back for more. Stuff happens, weird stuff, and even beyond weird crazy psycho stuff too, and somehow life perseveres. People gossip and feud, run out family dramas, and commit petty crimes (and large crimes). Life as you know it continues amidst the cyclone of crazy. Plus, it's full of camp & quirk, the kind you can only get in a remote, seaside town shoved along the upper east coast. You have hanging threads that pick up and drop, not like Lost (where it was a cluster-fox trot), but with enough skill to tantalize and tease and make you think about things well after the episodes are over.


Central to it is an enigmatic female FBI agent with a murky past that turned positively pitch black with season two. She's what's missing in television heroines, strong, capable and not a raging bitch. Intelligent, but not too smart for her shirt.

The most recent episode, #3 of season two, called Love Machine, made me look twice at my dryer and all the other electronic devices in the house.

If you have not tried Haven, and want something different to freshen the viewing schedule, give it a try.

Here's the quickie wickie def on it, and it's quite good, but no where near complete.
Shrewd and confident FBI Special Agent Audrey Parker (Emily Rose) has a lost past and an openness to the possibility of the paranormal. When she arrives in the small town of Haven, Maine, on a routine case, she soon finds herself caught up with the return of The Troubles, a plague of supernatural afflictions that occurred in the town at least once before. If that was not enough to draw her in, she also finds a link that may lead her to the mother she has never known.

Available Now: A Haunting Affair

It's official: my third book A Haunting Affair is available on Kindle, Nook and Smashwords.

 When the cold case from hell heats up and the body count rises, no secret is safe, no matter how well hidden - and no heart's safe, no matter how sheltered.

A Haunting Affair is set in a creepy lodge in the Adirondack mountains and is a contemporary paranormal/gothic romance. For more details read the previous blog post or follow the links above.

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Gothic goes Mountain...blurb from A Haunting Affair

Contemporary Paranormal Romance, Gothic tone, set in the Adirondack mountains. No Sasquatch, but does have ghosts, psychics, a high body count and a few hot men. Tentative release date: July 2011

My first indi pubbed release is not too far off, so I decided to post the back cover copy. Yes, I know, still need to update the website and all. Will get there. This is my summer of Island Time, so I'm taking the as it comes when it comes approach.
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Ex-cop turned private security consultant Sam Tyler made a deathbed promise to uncover the truth behind the murder of his friend's wife at a remote Adirondack lodge, and his sense of duty won't let him fail. When he realizes the case is at a dead end, and the lodge is haunted, he fast concludes his only hope of making good on that promise is Emma Bishop, a psychic with a shady past. He's a man who believes in hard evidence and stone cold proof, but with too little of either, he's ready to take his chances with Emma.

Emma grew up with con-artist parents, but went legit when she hit eighteen. She knows the action at Holloway Lodge is a dangerous game, but one she needs to play if she plans to build on her already formidable reputation. Falling hard and fast for Sam Tyler is an unwanted complication she never sees coming. Not only is he a former cop, he's looking for happy ever after, and she sees love as the ultimate liability.

The dead demand justice and she can't turn away, even with a murderer drawing a target on her back. As old secrets and fresh bodies turn up, Emma and Sam race against time to bring the truth to light. Neither plans on the attraction they share kicking into overdrive, but with danger and passion heating to the flash point, life, and love are put to the ultimate test.

My Girls

There are all kinds of witty things I can post on, but I'd rather post on kitties. It's a dreary, rainy Monday, cold for June even in the frigid north east. Kitties are fun and furry and always make the day a little brighter.

Here are my two ladies, recent additions to our house. The orange one is Bizzy (short for busy body kitty, she is the nosiest cat ever, into everything, and our little explorer girl.) The tiger is Val (short for Valentine). She was a feral, named for Valentine's day, and it was a perfect choice: she loves everyone and has an amazingly sweet temperament. (Biz makes up for that).

We adopted them, one on a Saturday and one on a Sunday, at a Pet Adoption clinic, a few months back after our 19 year old kitty passed to the summer land.

Bizzy was marked as 'cranky' and 'danger/beware' on her cage. I think it was the red hair that did it. We are cranky and dangerous too, so figured she'd be a good fit.

Val loves sleeping upside down when she's not trying to love and groom everyone in sight, or beating up the cat toys.
They never fail to make us smile and we're lucky they picked us of all the humans that came by Petsmart that weekend!