Rachel Neumeier's Blog, page 284

Ready to be a writer?

At Bookview Cafe, a post by Alma Alexander: Five Things to Do With Your Life Before You’re Ready to be a Writer.

Here’s something true: before you can write about life, at least adequately, you have to have lived it. In some way, shape or form. And I don’t mean vicariously on Facebook, or even online at all. … Here are five things to do with your life before you’re ready to be a writer. There are more than five things, of course. But these are pretty broad. Feel free to add in your own subcategories, or nuances.

1) DO SOMETHING DANGEROUS.

Know what an adrenaline surge REALLY feels like. You cannot possibly write about one without that visceral knowledge. And “dangerous” is huge – you can fit in a lot of things under that umbrella – do something that your mother might have warned you about, or something that society considers “unsafe”, or something simply exhilarating.

The other four things are … let me see …

2) Travel

3) Feel real grief

4) Feel real anger

5) Fail

Interesting, interesting. Let’s think about this. Is it possible to get through childhood without doing something that feels dangerous? Even in today’s perhaps over-structured and over-supervised childhood? I vote No. It’s hard to imagine any kid who can’t look back on rules broken and dangers survived. Anybody? Speak up!

I mean, I had a pretty safe childhood, but still, I messed around with bonfires, climbed around on the roof, climbed big trees, walked down spooky alleyways, explored attics, climbed on and jumped around on the rocks at Elephant Rocks …

I spent a day and night alone on a little island once, on a month-long canoeing trip in college. Not that this was scary or dangerous. Boring, mostly.

Is it possible to grow up without the odd adrenalin rush? Or live your adult life without the occasional brush with death? Think of the last time some moron just about sideswiped you in heavy traffic and you came within an inch of dying in a huge pile-up on the interstate. I mean, you should have been there that time a guy passed me at 90 mph on the shoulder of a major highway, with the shoulder about to disappear as we went over a bridge. Whoa, seriously, that was quite something.

I flipped my car over once when a guy ran me off the road. He didn’t have insurance and he was driving on a suspended license. Not that that matters; I’m just saying, if you’re going to have a serious accident, it’s nice if the other guy is clearly at fault and you are clearly pure as the driven snow. I was fine, btw. Got a tiny little cut on my hand somehow. Let me add that I’m still grateful to all the drivers who stopped to make sure I was okay, and the one guy who loaned me his phone, and the cop who got there so fast.

Early training in wearing seatbelts: take note, if you’re a parent, that’s a good habit to instill in your children.

But isn’t that kind of thing just inevitable? Along with real anger, and failure, and grief. I personally have not experienced “real grief” in the sense of having a child of mine die, say. Nor (yet) any first-degree relative. I don’t think this prevents me from imagining the grief and fury of, say, Lisette in Wein’s Rose Under Fire. Far from it. Actually I think it’s true that reading literature (I’m including genre fiction) instills empathy, most likely even in the absence of personal experience.

Travel, eh. I can’t help but notice that Emily Dickinson wrote all her poetry based on a virtually cloistered life. And how about Elizabeth Barrett Browning? Famous examples come to mind, but I’m sure there are plenty of non-famous writers who didn’t travel.

Well, it’s a thought-provoking post.

The lives of the very rich and the very happy seldom make for good story fodder – because these people can be seen as insulated from failure. Everything is handed to them…

I don’t know. I don’t think anyone has an easy life. Not anyone. Some easier than others in material ways. Some easier than others in emotional ways. But no one has such an easy time that you couldn’t tell a compelling story about them. The burdens people must carry are different, and more or less obvious to outside observers, that’s all; and the writer’s job is therefore different for different kinds of protagonists.

I’m tempted to take a stab at writing a happy-by-nature YA protagonist just to illustrate the point. Maybe I will. And I wouldn’t make her less complicated or less deep than an angst-ridden teenage YA protagonist, either.

No, I expect the general thesis of this post falls somewhere between False and Overstated. How about you? Click through and read the post if you have time, and then agree or disagree.

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A Charming Post at BookRiot

Here’s a particularly charming post over at Book Riot — The thirty most entertaining and uplifting quotes from Anne of Green Gables.

Something about her irrepressible optimism paired with her wholly original view of the world makes me love coming back to her when life gets overwhelming or frightening.

Um, shall I admit that I never read Anne of Green Gables? Nor do I plan to, because I suspect it’s one of the books you need to read when you’re a kid. Even so, I like this post.

“Here sat Marilla Cuthbert, when she sat at all, always slightly distrustful of sunshine, which seemed to her too dancing and irresponsible a thing for a world which was meant to be taken seriously.”

That’s delightful. A good many of these quotes are delightful. Maybe I should rethink my plan not to read Anne of Green Gables after all.

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Giveaway

The one-month anniversary of MOUNTAIN’s release seems a good time to run a giveaway, so if you don’t already have a copy, click through to enter the Goodreads Giveaway that will be running for one week.

(If you do already have a copy, thanks! And enter the giveaway for a chance to win one for a friend!)

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The Goodreads Choice Awards —

The Goodreads Choice Awards are certainly the award that is most purely for popularity! Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I voted in many categories, but didn’t feel very strongly about most of them. Let me see, let me see … here’s a useful list of the winners via File 770:

Fiction: Truly Madly Guilty by Liane Moriarty

Historical Fiction: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Nonfiction: Hamilton: The Revolution by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter

Memoir & Autobiography: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Fantasy: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany

Mystery & Thriller: End of Watch by Stephen King

Horror: The Fireman by Joe Hill

Humor: The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo by Amy Schumer

Science Fiction: Morning Star by Pierce Brown

Graphic Novels & Comics: Adulthood Is a Myth by Sarah Andersen

History & Biography: Leonard: My Fifty-Year Friendship with a Remarkable Man by William Shatner

Science & Technology: Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? by Frans de Waal

Food & Cookbooks: Cravings: Recipes for All the Food You Want to Eat by Chrissy Teigen

Romance: It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover

Debut Goodreads Author: Rebel of the Sands (Rebel of the Sands, #1) by Alwyn Hamilton

Young Adult Fiction: Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Young Adult Fantasy: A Court of Mist and Fury (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #2) by Sarah J. Maas

Middle Grade & Children’s: The Hidden Oracle (The Trials of Apollo, #1) by Rick Riordan

Picture Books: The Thank You Book (Elephant & Piggie, #25) by Mo Willems

Poetry: The Princess Saves Herself in this One by Amanda Lovelace

For me, author and subject were more important than the actual books because I had read so few of the nominees. I voted for Underground Railroad in Historical because I’ve always loved stories about that, as who hasn’t. Surely every grade school child loves Harriet Tubman from their first introduction to her.

I voted for the Frans de Waal one in Science and Technology because I have a lot of his books and love them. He hits exactly the kind of topic I’m most interested in, like discussing the evolution of empathy and things like that.

I’m pleased to see Rebel of the Sands because I have that on my TBR pile. And I’ve enjoyed other books by Ruta Sepetys.

Other than that, I don’t know enough about the winners to comment, probably. But click through and check out the winners if you’re so inclined.

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Cookies cannot be too thin or too rich

Or too chocolately, but that’s a different story. I like to mix up a cookie tray, providing at least one non-chocolate cookie for every type that contains chocolate and a good assortment of crunchy-chewy-cakey-crisp types.

Of course I like all kinds of cookies, but those of you who agree with the header above might particularly want to check out these sesame cookies, which are extremely easy to make if you just follow my advice.

Important advice 1: Do not double this recipe.

Benne Wafers

6 Tbsp butter, room temp

3/4 C brown sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/2 C plus 2 Tbsp flour

1/4 C toasted sesame seeds

1/8 tsp baking soda

Now, are your sesame seeds toasted? No? Then toast them first. Heat a dry skillet over medium heat, add the sesame seeds, and stir or shake the sesame seeds for five minutes or seven minutes or ten minutes or until they look nicely golden-brown and smell good. Pour them into a shallow bowl to cool.

Beat together the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Combine the flour, sesame seeds, and baking soda. Stir that into the creamed mixture. You will have a batter rather than a dough.

Important advice 2: do not drop by 1/4 tsp onto a parchment-lined baking sheet. Instead get out a decorating bag — I use disposable bags — and a big round tip. Or snip the corner off a plastic ziplock bag.

Pipe the cookies onto the parchment-lined baking sheets. For heaven’s sake, use parchment paper. You will totally regret it if you don’t. (Ask me how I know.) (I was a much less experienced baker then.)

Make the cookies about, oh, the diameter of a quarter. Space them fairly widely apart, maybe an inch and a half. Piping will take next to no time and using a spoon will take the next thing to forever, so follow my advice about this.

Bake the cookies at 325 degrees for 8-12 minutes, until brown around the edges and set in the middle. Check after five minutes and rotate the cookie sheets if necessary.

Important advice 3: Cool the cookies practically completely on the parchment paper. They will lift or even slide right off when cool. Just leave them alone until they’re ready to come off.

This recipe will make about 100 little wafer-type cookies. That’s why I said not to double it even though it doesn’t look like you’re using a lot of ingredients. But hey, if you want 200 cookies, go right ahead and double the recipe.

These aren’t super-fancy, but as I say, they’re very easy and will look nice scattered amid the other cookies on a plate.

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Good News Tuesday

Okay, here’s a roundup of a few things that caught my eye over the past week:

Scientists Believe They Finally Have The Cure For The Common Cold

… [A]fter decades of research, the fabled cure for the common cold could be on its way in the form of a nasal spray called SynGEM, which is the brainchild of a Dutch biotechnology company. … After successful tests on mice and rats (yes, they get colds too), 36 human volunteers at London’s Imperial College are now trying out the spray, which is hoped to kill off a cold before you’ve even had time to buy that family pack of tissues. … “It’s very hard to find a vaccine that would work against all or a treatment that could work for them all. But I think we’re on the verge of it, I really do,” Peter Openshaw, Professor of Experimental Medicine at Imperial College London, told the Daily Mail.

I’ll believe it when I see it! But it would be very nice if this panned out.

Alabama researchers announce positive findings of Cannabidiol study

About two-thirds of patients enrolled in a UAB study of marijuana-derived Cannabidiol oil for seizure treatment experienced major improvements in symptoms, according to a presentation this weekend at the annual meeting of the American Epilepsy Society. … After one month of treatment with the oil, which contains traces of THC, the psychoactive compound in marijuana, 68 percent of patients experienced a 25 percent reduction in the frequency of seizures, according to a press release. More than half of them experienced more than a 50 percent reduction in the number of seizures and 9 percent became seizure free over the course of the study.

I hope this pans out, too!

Gigantic underground oceans could be full of ‘aliens’

Steve Jacobsen, a researcher at Northwestern University in Illinois, said a part of Earth’s core called the mantle could contain several oceans’ worth of water. .. The underground oceans are unlikely to resemble any lakes or seas found on the surface of the planet, with the water bound within rocks which soak up the liquid like a sponge. This means it is unlikely to be home to any large organisms that are known to science. However, tiny microbes might just be able to survive in the hidden oceans. … Some scientists believe there is a “biotic fringe” in Earth’s core, which Live Science described as a “boundary where current knowledge predicts that no living cells persist” because the temperature and pressure are too high.

Well, it’s not like discovering REAL aliens. But it would be cool! Given the extremophile bacteria we already know about, I wouldn’t bet against this.

Decades of attempts show how hard it is to land on Mars – here’s how we plan to succeed in 2021

Europe has been trying to land on Mars since 2003, but none of the attempts have gone exactly according to plan. A couple of months ago, the ExoMars Schiaparelli landing demonstrator crashed onto the planet’s surface, losing contact with its mothership. However, the mission was partially successful, providing information that will enable Europe and Russia to land its ExoMars rover on the Red Planet in 2021. … Now European research ministers have finally agreed to give the mission the outstanding €400m it needs to go ahead. With the best of human endeavour, we must learn, try again and not give up. As leader of the international Panoramic Camera team on the rover, which will among other things provide surface geological and atmospheric context for the mission, I am one of many scientists working very hard to make it work. PanCam is one of nine state-of-the-art instruments which will help us analyse subsurface samples.

Good luck to them!

And this last one is not “good news” or even exactly news, but it’s pretty snazzy:

Google Timelapse lets you see how any location on Earth has changed in 32 years

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A never-before HG Wells story finally sees print

Check this out: Long Unseen By Readers, H.G. Wells Ghost Story Finally Debuts In Print

[HG Wells’] long-unpublished story “The Haunted Ceiling” is making its way into print for the first time. In its new issue, The Strand Magazine is publishing the story — which features a man driven mad by the image of a dead woman, with her throat slit, appearing on his ceiling.

The magazine’s managing editor, Andrew Gulli, says he found the manuscript among the tens of thousands of pages of works by H.G. Wells at the University of Illinois.

“It’s been there for a very, very long time — yet for some reason, nobody knew anything about this story,” Gulli tells NPR’s Linda Wertheimer.

I can’t say this story sounds like quite my kind of thing, but certainly good news for fans of HG Wells and ghost stories!

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Finished! Again, for a while. Plus, cookies!

Whew, what a weekend. I thought I might wrap up the latest draft of No Foreign Sky on Friday, but no way. I finally tied a bow around it at seven AM this morning and sent it off to Caitlin just now. I do think it’s better — she was dead right about this one particular plot element being repetitive — and it is certainly shorter. I cut three chapters entirely, which of course required a good deal of adjustment to the remainder. Then I tried to trim 500 words per chapter. Didn’t quite manage that, but the finished draft is down to 143,000 words. I believe the longest draft was, what, something like 180,000 or so.

Anyway, I’m pretty pleased with this draft and I hope and believe Caitlin will agree it’s ready to send out now. Then will come months of not knowing whether it will find a home, probably. Crossing my fingers!

I find the best thing to do at these moments is put the manuscript completely out of mind and work on something else. I’d like to have the third Black Dog novel, Shadow Twin ready to go sometime in January, so that’s one thing. Hopefully Navah won’t have MAJOR suggestions for The Dark Turn of Winter, but this would also be a good time to work on that.

Meanwhile, Christmas preparations! Gotta bake a lot of cookies. Here is one recipe I adjusted substantially and now like a lot. The original recipe is from Bon Appetit and looks pretty much like this:

Chocolate-Nut Rugelach (by which they do not mean traditional rugelach, which are a pain to shape, as you may know. These slice-and-bake cookies are easier).

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

¼ cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking powder

2½ cups flour

¾ cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces

2 large egg yolks

⅓ cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 13-ounce jar Nutella

1½ cups finely chopped pistachios, divided

2 tablespoons demerara sugar, divided

1 teaspoon flaky sea salt, divided, plus more

1 large egg, beaten to blend

Pulse cocoa, brown sugar, kosher salt, baking powder, flour in a food processor to combine. Add butter and pulse until largest pieces are pea-size.

Beat egg yolks, sour cream, and vanilla extract in a small bowl until smooth. With the motor running, stream sour cream mixture into food processor and process until dough forms a ball around the blade. Turn out dough onto a surface and knead until smooth. Divide in half and form into two ¾”-thick disks. Wrap in plastic and chill until firm, about 2 hours.

Roll out dough to a 12″ square on a lightly floured sheet of waxed paper. Spread half of Nutella over dough. Sprinkle half of nuts, 1 Tbsp. demerara sugar, and ½ tsp. sea salt over Nutella. Roll up dough to make a log. Repeat with remaining dough, Nutella, nuts, 1 Tbsp. demerara sugar, and ½ tsp. sea salt.

Slice logs 1″ thick and transfer to parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing 1½” apart. Brush tops with egg and sprinkle lightly with more sea salt. Bake rugelach until centers are set and tops are firm to the touch, 25–30 minutes. Let cool.

Now, I followed that recipe last year and sort of liked the result, but several things struck me as needing improvement. The cookie itself was not sweet enough, for one thing, all the sweetness coming from the Nutella; and I hated the salt; and I am not a big fan of pistachios. So this year I adjusted the recipe, thus:

½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

¾ cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon baking powder

2½ cups flour

¾ cup chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces

2 large egg yolks

⅓ cup sour cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

Some milk, about a quarter cup

Almost an entire 26-ounce jar Nutella

1½ cups finely chopped walnuts, divided

2 tablespoons demerara sugar, divided

1 teaspoon flaky sea salt, divided, plus more

1 large egg, beaten to blend

Pulse cocoa, brown sugar, kosher salt, baking powder, flour in a food processor to combine. Add butter and pulse until largest pieces are pea-size. For some reason, the butter refused to be chopped into tiny bits so I poured the contents of the food processor into a deep bowl and used a pastry cutter. That won’t happen to you, probably. I’ve never had it happen to me before as far as I can recall. Anyway, moving on:

Beat egg yolks, sour cream, and vanilla extract in a small bowl until smooth. With the motor running, stream sour cream mixture into food processor and process until dough forms a ball around the blade. Add enough milk to get this to work if the mixture turns out to be too dry, as it probably will. I believe I added about 1/4 cup of milk, but honestly I’m not sure. Turn out dough onto a surface and knead until smooth. Divide in half and form into two ¾”-thick disks. Wrap in plastic and chill until firm, about 2 hours.

Roll out dough to a 18×8″ rectangle or something approximately like that on a lightly floured sheet of waxed paper (the change in dimensions is to give smaller cookies when you slice the roll, which is a personal preference). Spread a good bit of Nutella over dough. Sprinkle half of nuts and 1 Tbsp. demerara sugar over Nutella. Roll up dough to make a log. Repeat with remaining dough, Nutella, nuts, and 1 Tbsp. demerara sugar. Chill or better yet freeze the rolls because that will make them easier to slice.

Slice logs about 1/3″ thick — again, I was making smaller cookies than the original recipe aimed for, but a whole inch seemed way too much to me — and transfer to parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing maybe half an inch apart. Bake until centers are set and tops are firm to the touch, maybe 15-20 minutes. Let cool. Remove to racks and cool completely.

I didn’t measure the nutella, but there wasn’t as much left as you might think after I made these cookies. Unfortunately, since I’m quite happy to eat Nutella straight out of the jar. But the cookies are very good, are not too Nutella-heavy, and are definitely going on my every-year list. You should definitely try them if you’re a Nutella fan — with or without the salt. Frankly I can’t see the salt, but I know many people are a fan of sea salt for desserts.

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Second try at back cover copy

Thank you all again for your advice! Here’s the new, hopefully improved, version:

—-

In a world subject to indifferent Gods and immanent spirits, where many-headed dragons ride midwinter storms across the land during the dark turn of the year, the ambitions of power-mad kings seldom present the greatest threat to peace and prosperity.

Even so, they don’t make comfortable neighbors.

When Kehera, princess of the peaceful land of Harivir, finds her country threatened by the ambition of the Mad King of Emmer to the north, she resolves to take any steps necessary to protect her people. But she never expected to find herself a pawn in a power struggle between enemies she hadn’t even known existed. Abducted and powerless, she must find a way to forge new alliances or see her homeland fall.

Innisth, infamous Wolf Duke of Pohorir, has long wished to break from his king and establish an independent kingdom of his own. When Kehera unexpected falls into his hands, he immediately sees how he might use her to achieve his ambition at last. But he never expected to care for her. Even as triumph seems within his grasp, he finds himself torn between grim ambition and the hope of winning something more.

As midwinter rushes down upon the world, Kehera and Innisth must find a way to work together, or they may both lose everything to a common enemy that is more dangerous than either of them had ever suspected.

—-

I’m not quite sure I like every detail of this, but I do think it’s an improvement. Shorter, too.

You do understand I’m leaving out a ton of important stuff, right? I just am not going to try to work in all the important bad guys, or for that matter all the important good guys, because this is a big, complicated novel and there’s just no way.

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Writing advice: How to start your novel

This post caught my eye this morning: Your Novel’s First Scene: How to Start Right.

It snagged my attention for two reasons:

A) Looks like halfway decent advice, and

B) Could easily be interpreted in such a way as to make it terrible advice.

Here’s part (A):

Start with the scene that introduces your story idea. Or, start with the scene that foreshadows your story idea. Or, start with the scene that sets up your story idea. Also, beware of too much too soon. But, and this is the kicker, the post finishes with this advice: Turn to page 50.

For many writers, their story’s warm up lasts about fifty pages (or around the 15,000-word mark). That’s why I say to writers whose openings are slow, boring, obtuse, or otherwise unengaging: What happens on page fifty of your story?

Writers Guide to BeginningsPage fifty is where many stories truly begin. Turn to page fifty in your story, and see what’s happening there. What’s your protagonist up to? How does that relate to your story idea? Don’t be surprised if this is where your story really begins. And don’t be reluctant to toss out those first forty-nine pages of stretching if that’s what it takes to get your run off to a good start.

And while this may be true . . . sometimes, for some writers . . . it sure reminded me immediately of this post I linked to recently: Stupid Writing Rules: 12 Bad Writing Tips New Writers Give Each Other. From the comments on that post, we see:



The most destructive to me was hearing “Delete the first fifty pages.” The author of that piece of advice assumed that everyone was writing 50 pages of back story. I wasn’t doing that, so it caused me to start the story in the middle of the book instead of the beginning — Linda Maye Adams on November 20.

So there you go. Gotta be cautious with writing advice, and the more dogmatically advice is given, the more caution is called for. Advice can go from “Many writers may find” to “God handed this commandment down on a stone tablet” in nothing flat. And there are very, very few commandments when it comes to writing.

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