Damon Alan's Blog, page 13

Friends

My wife worked on Thanksgiving, so we had the problem many modern families have on holidays. If we celebrated it on the day of, we’d not be together.

So we arbitrarily declared Dec 5th to be our Thanksgiving this year. And the good side of that is that we get to invite friends over to celebrate with us who had their own family celebrations on the actual day.  It’s a win/win.  We bought a gigantic rib roast, we’re having some smoked turkey (it is Thanksgiving, for us anyway) and mashed potatoes that are to die for. With lots of butter.

 

I’ll share the recipe just to be nice.

Boil potatoes cut into 1″ cubes until they are soft enough to split when you poke them with a fork.  How many you boil depends on how many you want to feed, of course.  I like to use two medium potatoes per person.

Drain the potatoes, dump them into a large bowl.

Salt and pepper to taste.

Most people then use milk to partially liquify the potatoes. No. It’s expensive, but use heavy whipping cream. This is one of the secrets.

Dump the whipping cream into the potatoes as you are HAND mashing them. Slowly add more until they’re close to where you want them.

At this point I sometimes add in chicken broth as the liquid until the potatoes are precisely the consistency you want.

The potatoes are delicious whether you use the chicken broth or not, but the chicken broth takes away a bit of the sweetness from the heavy whipping cream.

The result is a bowl of mashed potatoes that are perfectly spiced, light, and ready to hold gravy on a plate.

So we’re having a delicious meal with friends. I’m so looking forward to it. The important things in this world are friends and family, and I can only hope that you get to enjoy yours. Holidays aren’t about being precisely on the date. They’re about who you’re with.

Something to remember this season as we find ourselves surrounded by merchants trying to get our money and year-end deadlines trying to get our time.

Enjoy your holidays. Relax. Savor the moments.

Merry Christmas.  Happy Hanukkah.

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Space Opera. And covers!

I work in leaps.  And sometimes the bounds just don’t happen.  I’ll write 15-20,000 words in a few weeks, then nothing for two months. Sometimes I beat myself up for that. Not a space opera beatdown, but still, I’m tough on me.

“JUST SIT DOWN AND WRITE!”

The next character’s story is even in my head.  But if I don’t want to write it yet, then I won’t do it right if I do.  Turns out that to be good at something you have to sort of be into it at that moment, or get paid for it.  And I’m way in the whole when it comes to $$$ for my writing, mainly because I spend money on advertising and I tend to give a trade paperback away now and then… and order posters. And banners with my cover art… you know, writer stuff.

So I’m not sure when the bug is going to hit me next.  Eris Dantora needs to get into trouble and break Peter Corriea’s heart with the unfortunate turn of events that follows.  Shuttle engine trouble can be so hard on relationships.

The story is in my head.  I work on it each night before I go to bed as I lay on my pillow.  I swear. But getting it to paper is going to happen only when it’s the right time, I suppose.

Not to say all of my time is wasted. I have a rough cover design for my 3rd book in the series.

BOOK COVER ART:

 

Those bad guys. Why do they keep bothering us?

 

That cover might clue you in a bit about something that goes down. What’s military space opera without at least a little radiation? Not all of science fiction is necessarily violent, and indeed, most of my book content isn’t violent directly. But some of it is needed to move the good guys into motion, right?

Alright. Time for bed. Got to work on Eris’s horrific fate in my head.

Cards

I’ve posted before that writing novels isn’t the only hobby I have.  I say hobby because art, writing, and card game design have yet to make a red cent once any costs are figured in.  Which is fine.  I’m here for the adventure, let’s say.

So I have finally wrapped up the card game All or Nothing. The graphics are done unless my friend looks at them for me and says, “Ummm, what about…” and I realize he’s right.

I can’t wait to get these off to the printer.

My wife is the business lead on this, I’m just the creative brain. She’ll have an Amazon Reseller’s Account and the game will be available there. The plan is to buy about 400 decks and see how those sell.  If they start going fast, we’ll buy 1,200.  Then 10,000 decks.  That’s a big if, the “if this thing takes off” part.  Not because the game isn’t great, it’s a blast.  But because the market is so flooded with choices it can be hard to be seen.

Here are three different cards from the deck.  The back of the cards is the first image, the NOTHING card is the second image, and the 10 of clubs is the third.  This game has no face cards or aces, but does have a 1 of clubs.

 

 

 

Fun for the family, fun for you. Do not let this one pass you buy if you’re into any trick taking games like Hearts, Spades, or Oh, Hell.

 

 

 

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Finally back up!

The search for a quality host is over, I am now with Dreamhost.com

The reason is because the last two hosts I had weren’t committing enough resources to my site. The page loaded slow, and sometimes, with Arvixe, failed to load at all. I hate to mention names, but bad results should be shared as much as good, I think.

So expect me to work on this to refine the details in the next few weeks, and hopefully start posting up once in a while.  There is a lot going on in the world, and plenty to talk about. The least of which might be my new cover for book 1, but I really like it.

So I’m going to share it to celebrate the rebirth of my web presence.

 

The New Cover

The Old Cover

I think it’s an improvement. I hope you do as well.

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New is not always better, especially in Microsoft Windows.

I run Windows 7 Ultimate on my machine. I had my finger on the trigger to install Windows 10 today. Instead I cancelled the install. My machine runs like a champ, I have no reason to tempt fate. And I remembered, just in the nick of time, that installing anything from Microsoft is tempting fate. […]

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