Michael J. Allen's Blog, page 6
February 10, 2017
Reblog: 43 Words You Should Cut From Your Writing Immediately by Diana Urban
January 17, 2017
B.J. Craft returns in Imaginary Frenemies
The Adventures of B.J. Craft: A reader molded story.
B.J. Craft returns in his second reader molded episode. Special thanks to Scott R. for helping out with his comments.
Soft leather and strategic feathers almost covered dark skin easily Spanish, Native American or Mayan. Thick hair fell across her bare chest, hung with gold and silver trinkets that matched biceps cuffs and bracelets.
“Very unprofessional, BJ,” She repositioned the fold of her arms for maximum coverage. A mixed accent slid from amused lips like exotic silk. “Dressing me in nothing and hoping my hair might expose even more? It’s adolescent.”
Read the whole episode here.
December 22, 2016
Grandma’s Best Rum Cake Ever
The holidays always mean good food around my house. The house is a little emptier than it used to be, so without an audience I don’t do as much cooking. A friend of mine asked my advice about preparing something for a potluck for her new job. It’s a much better job than she’s had in the past, and she really wanted to make a good showing. So I started digging for something simple that would still wow her coworkers. I found an old hand-typed cookbook my Grandma Wanda gave as a wedding gift to my then cooking-challenged wife-to-be. It’s a treasure trove you can’t imagine filled with recipes , anecdotes and old conversion charts. I’m looking forward to exploring it with my daughter with the intent to share it on the website, but for now I knew there was one recipe that might be useful during these oftentimes stressful holiday. I’ve copied it word for word from the original. Enjoy!
The Best Rum Cake Ever
Ingredients:
1 or 2 quarts Rum
1 teaspoon Sugar
1 cup Dried Fruit
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
Brown Sugar
1 cup Butter
2 Large Eggs
Baking Powder
Lemon Juice
Nuts
Instructions:
Before you start, sample the rum to check for quality. (Good, isn’t it?)
Now go ahead. Select a large mixing bowl, measuring cup, etc. Check the rum again—it must be just right. To be sure rum is of the highest quality, pour one level cup of rum into a glass and drink as fast as you can. Repeat. With an electric mixer, beat 1 cup butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add 1 teaspoon sugar and beat again.
Meanwhile, make sure that the rum is of the finest quality. Try another cup. Open second quart, if necessary. Add 2 large eggs, 2 cups dried fruit and beat until high. If fruit gets stuck in the beaters, just pry it loose with a screwdriver. Sample the rum again, checking for tonscisiticity. Next sift 3 cups or pepper or salt (it really doesn’t matter). Sample the rum again. Sift ½ pint of lemon juice. Fold in chopped butter and stained nuts. Add 1 tablespoon of brown sugar, or whatever color you can find. Mix well. Grease oven and turn cake pan to 350 degrees. Now pour the whole mess into the oven and make. Check the rum again, and go to bed.
November 28, 2016
Introducing the Adventures of B.J. Craft
The Adventures of B.J. Craft: A reader molded story.
Join B.J. Craft’s adventures, but as more than just a spectator. This project is intended as an episodic offering where reader participation shapes each new episode much in the tradition of the old Choose Your Own Adventures stories.
The new antagonist glared up at BJ, blinking the cursor in irritation. He—or perhaps she if the tapping cursor were any indication—refused to come to life on the page. Behind him, another foot tapped in synchronized impatience. “This is supposed to be our vacation. Can’t you leave that damned laptop alone for even one day?”
“You should know by now that inspiration happens when it wants to,” BJ said.
“That doesn’t look like inspiration. That looks like writer’s block.”
“She’s being stubborn.”
Morgan rolled her eyes. “I swear, you pay more attention to that laptop than you do to me. You promised this cruise would be just us—not you, me and your mistress.”
Read the whole episode here.
November 24, 2016
Happy Thanksgiving
“Gratitude can transform common days into Thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessings.” – William Arthur Ward.
Thank you to all my readers and supporters, it’s you the make every hour of work a joy well worth the effort. Have a safe and joyous Thanksgiving Day.
October 13, 2016
A Candle Guttering in the Dark : a #HoldOnToTheLight post
Darkness pressed against me. The palatable wall thickened. It forced itself closer, trying the consume me, trying to smother my light. I reached down, pulled more strength from my wick, trying to burn hotter. The darkness refused to relent. Liquid wax pooled just beneath me. It rose as blackness forced my heat to retreat. Candle edges, easily dealt with only moments before, refused to melt. Darkness closed. Molten wax rose. Panic set in. I couldn’t get enough oxygen. I couldn’t breathe. Without breath, there was no flame. I looked to the other candles far across the darkness. They burned hot, not mere pinpricks. Their candles melted. Darkness didn’t smother them. They burned bright.
What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I? The answers came as wax reached for my throat and darkness covered my head. I’m useless. I’m weak. I deserve to be smothered.
Depression and Anxiety.Depression and Anxiety. I’ve been haloed by them my whole life. It took me years and ultimately becoming a writer before I started to even comprehend the darkness and rising wax around the people that I loved. From a distance, their flames burned, perhaps flickering more than mine, but life’s breezes hit us all in different ways, right? I’m a listener, an encourager and a bit of a goofball by nature, so I listened and they brightened. I illuminated their victories and they brightened. I clowned it up, and they brightened.
I didn’t know what I was doing. I did it on instinct, much as I do as a discovery writer (pantser.)
Life separated me from some of those guttering candles.
Some found other listeners.
Some snuffed out their own lights.
One—my father—let the darkness take him only a handful of days from now back in 1989.
A candle flame appeared at my side. Its brightness quelled the darkness. It leaned close enough for its warmth to hug my own, our flames joining a moment to melt away the wax ridges.
“So, you lit the candlebringer’s proposal,” it said. “How incredible was it to light that moment for them? Did she accept? How did it feel? Tell me everything.”
Suffering Depression
To those that suffer depression—almost always accompanied by anxiety if not even greater burdens—life feels much like the candle flame above. The brightness of day hides their troubles. Darkness circles their mind in a spiral of negativity feeding off itself to grow stronger. When they most need others—need listeners, they isolate themselves. They may even stand right next to us, doing the things they love most but not glowing with their normal joy of it.
They may not feel they deserve help. They may not feel they deserve your notice. They may be embarrassed to reach out, not wanting you to think poorly of them. They need you to notice anyway. Quiet your inner three year old demanding attention and listen. Really listen so they can vent those feelings out into a safe place. Problems often seem huge and insurmountable when we’re staring at them with tunnel vision. Distract their attention from the rising wax. If they’ve sat in the same chair, telling you about the eighteenth crushing darkness about to smother them this year, you can still encourage them. Ask them about the previous incident. Remind them that they survived it. They succeeded. Encourage them that perhaps even if this incident is different, they can succeed again. Remind them that they’re not alone. They have friends.
Be that friend—the kind of trustworthy friend that doesn’t care what time it is and never shares their secrets.
Listen. Distract. Encourage.
Buy them the time to step away from that darkness, then encourage other kinds of help. Encourage them to keep an honest journal on their thoughts and feelings at that moment, something they can use to look back at their victories—not to mention distract themselves from the depression while they accomplish a journal entry. If they’re anxious around crowds, be the body that separates them from a room full of convention goers so they can be part of what brings them joy but feel safe.
Your three year old self can have attention when everyone is better.
Understanding Depression and Anxiety:
It’s my good fortune to have met and befriended a former president of NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness.) He teaches classes on mental illness awareness and was happy to discuss my experiences and point out the ways that I’d helped without realizing it—even clarify the approaches I listed above for others. Apparently, he’s never tried to get anyone to understand how it feels to be a candle flame in his classes, but he offers an analogy most US Adults can comprehend.
He associates the feelings of depression with those stuck in the upper most floor of the Trade Center Towers. Imagine smoke filling our office with heat driving you to those high windows. Flames lick your ankles, rising toward you. The smoke chokes you, squeezing your chest. You don’t want to jump out that window. It seems there’s no way to survive the fall. The flames rise higher and higher leaving you unable to find any hope, any other choice but a hopeless jump.
I think the candles are a bit less gruesome, but apparently some people are afraid of enchanted castles.
Learn more about Depression, Anxiety and ways you can help:
http://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Depression/
http://www.nami.org/Learn-More/Mental-Health-Conditions/Anxiety-Disorders/
About the campaign:
#HoldOnToTheLight is a blog campaign encompassing blog posts by fantasy and science fiction authors around the world in an effort to raise awareness around treatment for depression, suicide prevention, domestic violence intervention, PTSD initiatives, bullying prevention and other mental health-related issues. We believe fandom should be supportive, welcoming and inclusive, in the long tradition of fandom taking care of its own. We encourage readers and fans to seek the help they or their loved ones need without shame or embarrassment.
Please consider donating to or volunteering for organizations dedicated to treatment and prevention such as: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, Hope for the Warriors (PTSD), National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Canadian Mental Health Association, MIND (UK), SANE (UK), BeyondBlue (Australia), To Write Love On Her Arms (TWLOHA) and the National Suicide Prevention Hotline.
To find out more about #HoldOnToTheLight, find a list of participating authors and blog posts, or reach a media contact, go to http://www.HoldOnToTheLight.com and join us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/WeHoldOnToTheLight
October 5, 2016
The Gamers: Episode 1
The Gamers: Episode 1 “The Shadow Menace” starts filming this month. Why am I excited? Why do I care? Well, besides Dead Gentleman Productions and Zombie Orpheus Entertainment continuing one of my favorite franchises, there’s something extra special about this episode.
This:
An autographed poster of the Murder in Wizard’s Wood cover will appear somewhere in the show, letting me in some small way be part of this fantastic franchise.
*happy dance*
September 14, 2016
Reblog: Writer Wednesday – Take Care Of Yourself #WednesdayWisdomForWriters #amwriting #wellness | Author Jennifer Allis Provost
Bellatrix Press Author, Jennifer Allis Provost, discusses the importance of self-care for authors and how to avoid the dreaded con crud. #SelfCare #WednesdayWisdomforWriters #WriterWednesday
Recently, I was discussing con crud with a writer friend. What’s con crud, you ask? I assure you, it’s just as gross as it sounds.
This ailment got its vivid name because it tends to pop up among conference and convention goers a few days after the event in question has ended. Typical symptoms include congestion, cough, and a general feeling of malaise. I know, makes you want to sign up for even more conferences, amiright?
For years I thought that con crud was the inevitable result of being packed into a hotel or other public facility, breathing in the same recycled air as hundreds if not thousands of others, subsisting on stale coffee and cookies, and sleeping less than usual. Many anecdotal cures promise to cure the crud, ranging from taking high doses of vitamin C to eating raw garlic. They never worked, at least not for me.
But…
Author Jennifer Allis ProvostRead the whole article at its source: Writer Wednesday – Take Care Of Yourself #WednesdayWisdomForWriters #amwriting #wellness | Author Jennifer Allis Provost
September 13, 2016
Cobbler of a Different Shape
Blackberry cobbler. Hot, sweet cobbler filling the house with a steamy aroma from your modern kitchen all the way back to wagons on the trail west. What might surprise you about this delicious treat is that what you pictured wasn’t what everyone else did. It surprised no one more than me.
Years ago when I came to the south along my wanderings from the Pacific Northwest, I heard the word spoken with delight at a covered dish dinner. My mouth watered immediately. I’d wandered long from home and the thought of that homemade goodness filled corners I didn’t know were empty. I rushed to the dessert table and found…half a pie, but no cobbler.
I asked after the cobbler, hoping if the dish was empty there was another lurking somewhere. I was directed to the half a pie. It seemed in the south a cobbler was a pie without a bottom crust, nothing like the cobbler I’d grown up enjoying. I’m a cook so I solved my cobbler craving on my own, but the half a pie bothered me.
Where I grew up cobbler was something trappers and lumberjacks wrapped in a handkerchief and took with them into the woods. Frontierman carried it with them or made it in a campfire skillet. When I discussed it with my southern friends I had to start calling it frontiersman cobbler so they didn’t come to dinner looking for half a pie.
Great Grandma Allen’s Cobbler was just one of many variation that evolved from a concept of flour, fruit, fat and sugar over the centuries – mine most resembling a hybrid of dump cake and buckle.
The recipe for her cobbler (and my diabetic variant) awaits below!
A Little History
Cobbler journeyed to our country and out onto the wagon trails from much earlier origins. Gallete’s – essentially free form pies – originate back to before Egyptian Pharaohs. The tomb walls of Ramses II included images of these early pastries. The Greeks took over the tradition, reportedly developing a flour-water paste wrapped around meats to seal in juices while baking. Rome took the recipes when they conquered Greece – and probably much earlier. The wealthy and educate Romans included meat in every course (even dessert: secundae mensa). They encapsulated seafood and other meats in Roman puddings in a next evolution toward our modern pies. Roman roads and conquering armies carried these contained dishes throughout Europe. From Europe it eventually spread to the New World.
Use of cobbler to name the dish – rather than a person who repairs shoes – may have originated as slang term suggesting putting something together clumsily. It may also hav referred to it resemblance to cobblestone streets rampant in colonial America.
Cobbler Cousins
The Brown Betty: A popular colonial dessert of fruit, usually apples, laid between buttered crumbles and baked. Similar to French apple Charlotte or British bread pudding.
Buckle: a single layered cake with berries folded into the batter – very similar to a muffin in taste and consistency – and topped with a streusel. Alton Brown’s Blueberry Buckle
Cobbler: A deep dish of fruit, sugar and/or honey topped with a drop biscuit crust.
Crisp: Sliced, tart fruit such as applies or cherries topped with a loose mixture of butter, brown sugar, flour and/or oats.
Crow’s Nest Pudding: a bowl-shaped crust filled with pudding and cored apples filled with sugar.
Dump Cake: Often prepared in a dutch over either in modern camping or back on the wagon trail, dump cake is created by adding essentially a cake batter atop a selection of fruit, adding butter atop the folded concoction then baking. Chuckwagon Blueberry Cobbler Dump Recipe.
Dutch Babies: This 20th century dish derived from the German Apfelpfannkuchen reverses the cobbler in a similar fashion to modern galettes.
Galettes: Named like its Egyptian ancestor, the galette refers to a French dish composed of flat, free-form and/or round crust cakes topped with savory meats, vegetables or fruit.
Grunts or Slump: An early colonial adaptation of English steamed pudding, a grunt (Massachusetts) or slump (Vermont, Rhode Island or Maine) offer a simple dumpling-like pudding prepared atop a stove.
Pandowdy: A deep-dish dessert of molasses or brown sugar sweetened fruit – often apple – topped with a crumbly biscuit which is later pushed down into the fruit to absorb the juices.
Sonker: An Appalachian dish, popular in the Carolinas, featured during the annual Sonker Festival held the first Saturday of October in Lower Gap, North Carolina at the Edwards-Franklin House. This deep-dish pie/cobbler features a wide variety of fillings from common peach and cherry to sweet potato or strawberry.
Frontier Cobbler Recipes:
Great Grandma Allen’s recipe:
1 Cup Flour
1 Cup Sugar
1 Cup Fruit
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ Cup Milk
3 Tablespoons butter.
In a bowl, mix dry ingredients. Gradually add milk to the dry ingredients. Stir to blend. Melt butter. Add butter and fruit to batter. Stir slightly to combine fruit. Pour in 8″x8″ pan. Bake at 375 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool 5 minutes (should settle into a slight indention.) Serve warm with vanilla ice cream or pour on cold milk (preferred).
My diabetic variant:
Instead of 1 cup of sugar, use 1/2 cup of sugar for crystallization and 1/2-2/3 cup of splenda or a similar not-sugar. The lower the sugar amount, the more the cobbler seems to balloon. It’s not bad at 1/4 sugar & 3/4 not-sugar, but I prefer a smaller serving with the higher sugar because of the way the top crystallizes.
Enjoy!
September 7, 2016
Scion Giveaway Extension
I’m having so much fun giving away Scion of Conquered Earth, I just don’t want it to end. Click the DSI Library to download it in mobi, ePUB, and PDF.
[You might need a free google drive account]
Rather have it from a specific retailer or don’t want a google drive account, here’s where it’s available.
FREE
FREE
FREE
FREEFREE
FREE
$0.99
