Gretchen Lovett's Blog, page 2

My First Blog Hop (here we go!)

Back cover:

Hollywood superstar Leo Blake seemingly has it all; he’s a handsome, sought-after movie idol who’s box-office gold. What he doesn’t have is respect, specifically in the form of gossip columnist Kara Ocean, a one-woman demolition team who has made it her ongoing mission to cut Leo down to size.

When Leo’s publicist decides his image could use a makeover, they invite Kara to take a second, and more intimate look. Against everyone’s better judgement, Leo begins to fall in love. But is the connection strong enough to keep them together in the face of unrelenting media scrutiny—a monster partly of Kara’s own making?

Inside:

Chapter 1

“I read your last column,” Kara’s building manager said. “Ouch.”

“He had it coming.” Kara waved her hand to dismiss the other woman’s concerns. She worked for an online gossip magazine, not the one that you would pick up in the supermarket, but the one that got quoted on the evening news.

She had built a career on scathing movie reviews and witty criticisms of stars’ lifestyles. She couldn’t tell which article the building manager was referring to, but it didn’t matter. They were all pretty much the same. At this point, Kara’s heart wasn’t even in it. It was just something she did for a living. She didn’t get excited about seeing the stars anymore because she knew they were just ordinary people.

Her readers, however, were still convinced that the Hollywood set knew something they didn’t. People were hungry for intimate details and Kara just fed them what they wanted. Her writing was a cross between journalism and comedy. She brought the stars down to the level where everyone else could make fun of them, and wasn’t that just what the market demanded?

Take her latest article, a scathing review of Leo Blake’s box office hit. While he was busy romancing the ladies and inspiring the men, Kara had seen through the whole charade. He was obviously on steroids. No normal man paid that much attention to his looks. He had been painted, airbrushed, and starved into a washboard stomach, and he took off his shirt far too many times to be realistic. And why would anyone believe that a car mechanic was secretly a Navy SEAL who had been tasked with policing the docks? It was ridiculous. The whole blockbuster was so full of holes, it deserved whatever smear campaign she launched at it.

That was Kara’s job, to call out the emperor for being naked. And yet, she had done it so many times, that it all felt a little boring. Kara was trying to put in a complaint about her washing machine, and she didn’t want to get distracted by talking about her work.

Linky List:

,http://mfrwbookhooks.blogspot.com

8 Writing Ideas to Change Your Life

Not everyone likes writing; I get it. As often as it seems that everyone is working on a screenplay or selling a book, there's a whole segment of the population that doesn't write. You don't have to pen the great American novel to change your life with the written word. Here are a few ways that a little bit of writing can change your life:

Write a letter to the editor - your local newspaper is eager to publish opinions, so why not yours? I worked for an adult literacy organization a long time ago, and one of our students (a man who had been functionally illiterate before coming to us) wrote a letter to the editor to complain about highway odors. It's a way to connect with people and participate in our democracy. Apply for a grant - if you have a passion or an idea to help people live better, apply for a grant. Many funders require grant recipients to be IRS designated non-profits, but not all of them. There are grants for individuals and grants for small businesses. A chunk of funding from the government could get you started on a whole new career. Write a letter to someone you haven't seen for a long time - reaching out to an older relative, or a friend from high school could open pathways to communication you haven't considered. At the very least, someone will know you care. Enter a contest - There are lots of contests out there that anyone can enter, including the Pulitzer Prize. Did you know all you need is a published book (can be self-published) and $75 to get put yourself in the running? Then you could tell everyone that you were being considered for a Pulitzer. Start a website - Content is king online, and if you spend a little bit of time setting up some relevant posts, you could become the next viral sensation. Write a book - It's not as hard as it sounds. I firmly believe that everyone has at least one book in them. You may not think your life is interesting, but I guarantee that other people would find it so. Whether you take ten months or ten years to develop your masterpiece, once you're done it's one item off your bucket list. Write a no budget screenplay - There is free screenwriting software out there to download and if you take a moment to peruse a published screenplay, you'll get the hang of the format quick enough. To better your chances of having something produced, limit the film to four characters, four locations, no special effects and minimal props. (This is why Zombie films are so popular, they are often made with no budget) Write a cookbook - If you're the chef of your family, take pictures of your meals as you make them. Using Snapfish or some other photobook creator, place a picture of each dish along with a recipe one each page. You can even use pictures of your family or stories from your day to round out the book. Give it to people as Christmas gifts.

DH's Homegrown Hotsauce

These are Ghost Peppers. DH got three different varieties of super hot peppers on the following theory: that he could make tons of hot sauce with just a few peppers. Guess what? It worked! We picked 4 peppers and made 4 jars of sauce.

Ingredients in the sauce: Tomato, sweet pepper, hot peppers (of course), salt, black pepper, cilantro, fennel, garlic, turmeric, paprika.

Directions: Steam for 20 minutes, then blend. If it's too hot, add more sweet peppers.

Magnolia Blossom Publishing

I am excited to announce a new partnership! I will be releasing a new romantic series through Magnolia Blossom Publishing. Romance is something that has always played a part in my life. When I was a child, my mother and her sisters would trade romance paperback books around the fireplace at Christmas. I remember when I went to sleepaway camp for the first time, and my mother let me take one of the grown up books with me.

I started out writing family-friendly adventure novels, but branched out into high heat romance for one of my ghostwriting jobs. I like the rhythm of the stories and the way the conflict grows organically between the two characters. I feel a little guilty for only writing cis-gender, straight characters, but that was what I was contracted to write, and that is what I know. I wouldn't dream of trying to give voice to a person with life experiences that I can't share.

Please click the link below to be directed to the press release explaining this exciting new series. If you've ever dreamed about falling in love with a movie star, a musician, or an athlete, then this series is for you!

Author Gretchen Lovett Signs with Magnolia Blossom Publishing

The Genealogy Experts: My Parents

You know the commercial: a kid curls up with her father around a tablet, listening raptly to the story of her ancestors. "Come on!" I yelled at the television, "Who's really interested in that stuff?" In my opinion, the kid would be more likely to ask for a snack, or a few minutes to play video games.

My own parents are retired, and I decided to figure out what is so exciting about all this genealogy nonsense.

How old were you when you became interested in genealogy?

Around 54 or so.

What are the three best resources when it comes to genealogy?

Ancestry.com is an excellent starting place. They have collected full text of many sources such as passenger lists, military records, and various official records of wills and deeds in a host of state and local databases. It is also the cumulative work of many thousands of genealogists. Though it must used carefully, is not replicated in such detail elsewhere.

Local historical societies often have records, photographs and local histories and family histories. Much of this is not yet online.

On a personal note, we are fortunate in having a great many Quaker ancestors going back to the beginning of Quakerism. The meeting houses kept very good records and very reliable ones. Members of other faith communities might try church, mosque or synagogue records.

What is the most obscure resource you have ever used?

I don’t know if I would call any resource obscure. I might use the word unexpected. You are looking for one thing and might find something else. Happy surprises do happen. I used a Facebook group called Civilian Civil War Closet to date a ferrotype (one of the earliest kinds of photographs) and a cabinet card photo that I found in a box sent to me by my sister. She inherited it from our father who passed almost twenty years ago. So don’t neglect what is in your own attic. By using the date that the Facebook group gave me, and matching that to the timeline I had already developed, I was able to identify the people in the photographs.

How far have you traveled to visit a historically significant family site?

Both of our families have been living in the Delaware Valley since 1680, so our travel had been local. I would say the farthest we have gone is about 60 miles.

How much time do you spend on genealogy in a typical week?

Some weeks a few hours, some not at all. We tend to vary between a concentrated search to solve some mystery and then not doing it for a while.

Rank these pastimes in order:

a. Reading

b. Watching Television

c. Exercise

d. Genealogy

We made our own list based on a typical week:

a. Exercise,

b. Projects

c. Reading

d. Art

e. Genealogy

Genealogy fits in that space where we may have lower energy (like in the afternoons) but we’re not ready to go to bed yet.

Jean, you were a reference librarian, can you tell me what that means? What do reference librarians do?

Reference librarians assist library patrons either in person or remotely to locate the information or library materials that they need.

Are all libraries similar in terms of what genealogy materials they have to offer?

There is significant difference between individual libraries in terms of the genealogical material that they have.

A public library is likely to have information on how to do genealogical research and to have a general collection of local resources as well. Librarians in these libraries will assist you in discovering the location of primary sources, assist you with using the online databases and in many cases offer an interlibrary loan service that can borrow other books for you to use in your public library.

Historical Societies are likely to contain much more extensive information on the local community and may even have primary sources, newspaper articles and locally written family trees. Traveling to a historical library in a location where your family lived can provide very valuable information.

Public Archives exist in most states and often contain the vital records for the area. There is a wealth of information in birth and death records.

Do people have to physically go out to search records or are online searches enough?

In this digital age there is a wealth of information online so that is an excellent place to begin. Many of the genealogical sites such as Ancestry.com, for example, have collected a significant number of actual records including census records, church records, newspaper archives and military records. Historical libraries, archives and public libraries also have posted useful information on their websites, and I would always go there first.

Do remember that not everything has been digitized, and at some point, you are likely to need to go in search of primary sources. Always contact these libraries before planning an extensive trip since each library’s collection is unique and documents can be stored in a variety of libraries.

How do reference librarians help with genealogical research?

Reference librarians are a great resource to point you in the right direction and save you time in your research. Most reference librarians are not available to do the research for you. However, you can usually locate genealogical researchers who will help you do the research. Many local historical libraries will have list of researchers on their website. Also check the website of the local genealogical society for other ideas.

Have you ever found anyone in your history search that reminds you of yourself?

I loved Elizabeth Seller’s letter to Darby Monthly meeting. With all the passion and certainties of a twenty something year old she blasted the meeting for being insufficiently active on the issues of slavery and drinking. I was reminded of the Young Friends (Quaker youth group) impatience over the Vietnam war issue.

It was a pleasure to see a 17th century Marriage certificate that reads identical to ours. The Quaker records allow one to trace important events and circles of friends and relations that give one a real sense of a community.

You mentioned that some things you find on Ancestory.com have to be taken with a grain of salt. Why is that?

The company Ancestry.com isn’t making the family tree entries, individual users are. It is just one of many internet genealogy sites where users create family trees and some people have taken great pains to be accurate. Others, however, have serious flaws in the information they share. It’s like Wikipedia in some ways. According to internet sites, people are born in places that didn’t exist at the time they were supposed to have been born. People are recorded as having two dozen children in four years beginning when they were 10. People have multiple spouses of the same name. So you have to verify the information you are given where possible and try yourself to be accurate.

A lot of times people’s names are misspelled on court documents, or the official records have inconsistencies. How do you deal with these things from a genealogical perspective?

Most of the time the problem isn’t that the names are misspelled. There isn’t a correct spelling because one deals often with illiterate ancestors who never do write their own name and might answer to any number of spellings. It also seems as if consistent spelling isn’t high on the agenda. Your great great grandfather Charles Green Lovett enlisted in the 24th Indiana Volunteer Infantry as Lovett. He later enlisted in the 10th Indiana Cavalry as Charles Lovitt.

Many internet sites will search for names by “sounds like,” or multiple spellings.

The big problem with names is that families tended to reuse given names. For example, in our family, each generation has at least one Elizabeth or three Johns. So the line becomes: William, William, William, John, John, Elizabeth. Keeping track of who is who is a challenge. We began referring to them as 1719 John, 1697 John, and so on.

Are you related to any murderers?

Jean has an 8th or 9th great grandmother, Rebecca Briggs Cornell who was, it was alleged, murdered by her son Thomas. Jean is descended from the son Richard so Thomas would be an 8th great uncle.

“On Feb. 8, 1673, a 73-year-old widow, Rebecca Cornell, was found deceased, burned to death, in front of her bedroom fireplace. Her son, Thomas Cornell, 46, was hung for her ‘murder’ on May 23, 1673.”

We discovered a book titled: Killed Strangely: The Story of Rebecca Cornell by Elaine Forham Crane. The book was an outgrowth of a study on elder abuse in the 1600-1700s in New England. Forham found enough information on the Rebecca Cornell case to write the book.

Mark is related to the saga of the Salem Witch trials through multiple people including John Batchelor, a juror. With the other members of the jury, in 1692, he signed a statement asking forgiveness for the error of their judgement. We also discovered that he is related to John Hawthorne, the judge who found Rebecca Nurse guilty of witchcraft on July 19, 1692. Mary Lovett was accused as a Witch on September 7, 1692 along with her three daughters. She was imprisoned and found not guilty on January 7, 1693.

Are you related to any politicians?

Many relatives were local and state politicians. The best known is William Floyd, signer of the Declaration of Independence from the state of New York.

Are you related to any celebrities?

Who knows? We haven’t set ourselves to find any such relationships if they are collateral to the direct line of ancestors. Of more interest to us is the relatives who came over on the Mayflower, or were among the very earliest to settle Germantown or Jamestown.

You did the 23 and me thing. What made you decide to do the genetic testing?

Curiosity mostly. The price went down and we went ahead. Ancestry insisted it did not sell its database to anyone unlike 23 and me, so we choose that one. The genetics were interesting. It’s autosomal so the inheritance from ancestors is very scattered. My genealogical tree has, for example, many Welsh ancestors. Yet my genetics shows not much Welsh. Not surprisingly I am 50% east European Ashkenazi Jewish. The rest is mostly Scots and Irish with a bit of German and English thrown in. The really interesting and unexpected revelation was 1% Bantu. That translates into an African ancestor (presumably an enslaved person) around the turn of the 18th century.

You recently discovered that some of your ancestors owned people. What did you do with that information? How did it make you feel, and did it change how you viewed yourself and your family?

It showed like many other aspects of the genetics and genealogical tree how much our family has epitomized the story of European settlement in the New World. We have ancestors who help found Germantown, Pennsylvania; Jamestown, Virginia; the Northern Neck of Virginia. Ancestors who came on the Mayflower; ancestors that were among the first Quakers to settle in the Delaware Valley. The branches of Mark’s family settled in the south or moved south often as whole extended families. They came together in the vicinity of Guilford County, North Carolina in the mid 18th century.

We are also illustrative of Quaker society. For most of that history, people could only marry within the Religious Society of Friends. As a result cousins (though not first cousins) were commonly married. Much to our surprise it, therefore, turned out we were 7th, 6th and 5th cousins (pretty distant relationships).

Given that ours is a southern family, some of whom were prosperous, it isn’t really a surprise that some owned people. Given the Quaker background, some were active in the antislavery societies. Gertrude Op den Graaf, our joint 7th generation great grandmother, was a sister of Wilhelm and Jan Streyper and a cousin through her mother of Herman, Abraham and Dirck Op den Graaf, the last two of whom signed the first written protest against slavery in America. William Garrett’s family farm became a station on the Underground Railway.

Interviewer’s note: this discovery bothers me, and I have begun to do some equity related volunteer writing work as a result.

Why (or why not) do you feel it’s important for people to do genealogical research?

I look at it as a hobby mostly. The genetics and genealogy can reveal patterns of inherited disorders that can be important for health. As a pastime it is a way to link oneself emotionally to the past; a way to excite imagination in the research to solve a puzzle.

"The biggest fish in the dumbest pond."

Interview with Jennifer Udden, former literary agent, currently a freelance editor. Hire Jennifer at Marketplace - Jennifer U. (reedsy.com).

How long have you been working as a freelance editor?

Since December 2020, so just under a year.

Did you leave agenting because of COVID?

It was a lot of different things. I was feeling burnt out before the pandemic hit and I realized it wasn’t sustainable for me or fair to my authors. You want your agent to be on the ball, and it was increasingly clear that I wasn’t operating at 100%.

It’s a really emotionally involving job. You are intimately involved in people’s artistic lives. I’ve been enormously lucky, I maybe had one bad experience with a client. The rest of the negativity came from authors who were querying. There is a sense of entitlement, like people have put in all this work, which is great, but then they feel like they are owed something. Nobody deserves a big publishing deal. Maybe you poured your heart into a book and it’s just not commercial. It’s not your fault, but it’s also not my fault.

This is supposed to be a source of fun, entertainment for the reader and a creative outlet for the author. But people get really mean about it.

As an agent, you want to do a good job for everyone. Every publishing professional I know is incredibly burnt out.

How did you get started as a literary agent?

I had no idea what I was doing in college, I thought I wanted to be a diplomat. That aspiration died quickly when I realized, “Wow I do not perform well under pressure at all.” When I graduated, I worked as a fundraiser for a theatre company. Looking back on it, the only thing more stressful than being a literary agent was nonprofit theatre fundraising. The money is even less, and the workload was incredible.

I ended up getting an internship at the Maass Agency. I will never regret being an agent because helping authors bring their stories to life and giving them a platform was immensely rewarding.

Are you in NYC? Are you safe from #hurricaneIda? Did your home/apartment suffer any damage?

I’m in Brooklyn; I’ve lived here since 2008 when I graduated college. Our basement flooded, but the damage wasn’t too bad. We didn’t have hot water for four days because the pilot light on the boiler went out. I grew up in Houston, so I’m used to hurricanes. I saw people walking around in the flood water and I wanted to scream at them, like “Get out, that’s garbage water!”

Can we talk about racism? A lot of agents are asking for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) writers. But it’s my belief that the industry remains mostly white. Is this true or do you feel that agents and publishers are appropriately diversified? Do you feel that the push for BIPOC writers is having the desired affect? Do you think there is anything more that can be done?What I’ve noticed is that there is a sincere desire to level the playing field. I used to joke that I was a statistical average of a publishing industry executive because I am white, I had bangs, and I live in Brooklyn. Seriously, everyone looked exactly like me. But I think there is a sincere desire to rectify the numbers imbalance. For every white guy who is like, “It’s too diverse,” the numbers tell a different story.

For writers, in most genres men are overrepresented, especially white men. In the industry, BIPOC are underrepresented at every level. There are a few exceptional leaders, but the upper levels are mostly white. The people on the bottom are being ground down; every nonwhite professional that I know is very burnt out.

Readers really want good stories to be out there. The idea that the way is closed for some people is disheartening. There are certainly more books by underrepresented authors than there have been in the past. We’re seeing really good sales. It’s clear that the market is there from a purely monetary point of view. And if you publish the books, people are going to read them. It is having an effect, but I’m not sure if it’s enough for it to be sustainable as an industry. We have to make sure that the changes aren’t superficial.

I actually heard the phrase “We’ve already got one Black book.” Like they were going to buy this book and it would be the ‘Black book’ for the year. That kind of racism is unfortunately very much alive.

What was your experience like in NYC during the COVID lockdowns?

Ironically, I wasn’t even here. Very suddenly on March 10, my uncle passed away, (non-covid related) so my sister and I flew to Texas. We were in our parents’ apartment in Houston when the first series of lockdowns began. My dad was like, “It’s going to get bad in New York, why don’t you stay here?” I was able to do my job from anywhere, so I stayed with my parents for seven months. Their apartment is bigger than mine, and they have a pool in their building. Being able to be with my family was great, everyone felt weird and terrible all the time and it was nice to feel weird and terrible together.

The only thing I didn’t like about Texas was that not everyone was onboard with prevention. Here in New York, people are pretty much vaccinated if they can be. They wear masks inside and on the subway.

A lot of people died, and I get very frustrated with the narrative that it’s a hoax. It’s not a hoax; people are dying.

The movie Contagion became my happy watch, because it presented the vision of a competent government dealing with a pandemic. That wasn’t something that I felt we had in real life.

How much are traditionally published authors expected to push their own work?

Increasingly a lot, that was another frustration with the industry. Authors are expected to put in a lot of work on the marketing end, which is not entirely unreasonable. But increasingly it’s like “Who do you know?” Instead of, “Who does the gigantic publishing company know?” Not every book can be a big deal. My advice to authors is to decide what comfort level you have with social media and establish those boundaries early. All authors are asked to share a lot of themselves, but you don’t have to share as much as the publishing company may want you to.

Are you a writer?

I wrote before I was an agent, I wrote fan fiction, and other stuff just for fun. But when I was an agent, I had some strong ethical qualms with also being a writer. I didn’t want to compete against my own authors. Now that I’ve been freelancing, I’ve been dipping my toe back in. It’s been exciting to experience that creative side of things again.

Writing has become over professionalized. Writers think that they have to have a business goal in mind, but sometimes it can be just a fun thing to do. I just want to enjoy it and not put too much weight on what happens next.

That’s advice I gave to my authors all the time: just write, and then you can worry about the fame and fortune afterwards.

What’s a typical day like for a literary agent?

There wasn’t really a typical day, they were all different. But I guess it depended on what was more pressing. I would wake up and triage the email, figure out “What do I have to deal with?” You deal with money stuff first: contracts, payments, and royalty statements. There would be meetings. And finally, if there was any time at the end of the day, I would edit.

I didn’t realize that literary agents edit.

Literary agents edit, yeah. That is one of the reasons I am able to do this now, because I had so much experience as an editor in my previous job. Most of the time, if I read something at the querying stage that was really good, it needed another push. There was just one thing that wasn’t working, and we would work on it for a couple months and then send it to the editor. The author only has the one chance at a first impression, and the manuscript needs to be in good shape.

Wait a minute. The manuscript goes from the author to the agent and then to the editor? Not the editor first?

Basically all of the big five publishing companies, (soon to be big four if Penguin Random House buys Simon & Schuster), only accept agented submissions, with a couple of small exceptions. The agents filter stuff out, and then we send it to the editor of whichever company. The editor will acquire the book if they like it. So that way, the manuscript flows to the editor, but the money flows to the author. I was salaried, but I didn’t get commission unless my clients made money.

If anybody says, “It will cost you $50 for me to read your submission,” know that’s a scam.

As a querying author, it seems like you guys do a lot of work for free.

We are doing a lot of front-end work that pays off in the long run. If you can get an author started, situated in a good editorial relationship, in a good house, hopefully that will pay dividends down the road.

One of the most frustrating things about being a writer are these dreams of grandeur. Do agents & editors go through the same thing, or are you able to keep both feet on the ground?

We all sort of do, but we all understand that authors can have a kind of fame and recognition that we will never have. To be the most successful literary agent is to be the biggest fish in the dumbest pond. Our brand of fame is being someone buzzy who works in the industry. But authors could be so big that my mom knows who they are. That’s the kind of fame that gets you a house in the Hamptons. Everyone knows who James Patterson is, and there are authors who have cowritten a book with him who went on to fame on their own merits. I couldn’t tell you who his agent is though.

--Gretchen Lovett

2020 in the Star Trek Universe

Good news for 2020! We’re right on track for developing into the conscientious, honor bound boy scouts of Starfleet. According to Deep Space 9, we have three years left to divide our population into rich and poor and create walled ghettos in every city. In the episode Past Tense, Parts 1 & 2, Sisko, Dax and Bashir travel back in time to 2024, where they find a polarized San Francisco. The poor are rounded up into ghettos where they are promised jobs that never materialize. The rich live in ignorance, going to cocktail parties and doing their best to avoid conflict in all its forms. Sound familiar?

In Encounter at Farpoint, the series premier of Star Trek The Next Generation, Q reveals Earth’s more distant future. In the late 21st century, so about maybe 50 years from now, our courts have devolved into circus shows complete with dirty, screaming onlookers. All the soldiers in our military are addicted to drugs. Again, not too big of a stretch. And a 2020 plague and civil uprising fit right in.

Starfleet and the Federation are so ideal, so logical and compassionate, there had to be some way to reconcile that vision of humanity with the reality of Cold War America. The Star Trek timeline was always designed to get worse before it got better. But how much worse can it get?

In Star Trek IV, the movie, Captain Kirk went back to the 1990s to rescue extinct humpbacked whales. Spock claims to be able to identify the era based on the pollution content of the atmosphere. So then there is even more damage we can do to our environment and still come out on top. But it does seem like we are sliding closer and closer to the rock bottom of human society envisioned by the series writers.

The Owl and the Rabbits

We first bought the owl because a bird was crashing into our front window. It wouldn’t stop. Again and again it would hit the window, trying to land on some decorative stained glass flowers. We bought a plastic owl to try to frighten the bird into leaving us alone. Eventually the bird came to understand that the owl was fake, either that or landing on the fake flowers was enough of a priority to risk death. We had to cover up the beautiful flowers to get the bird to go away. Then we were left with the owl.

The rabbits were born in our garden. When we bought the house, the previous owner left us with two plots of earth marked out by wooden planks. The kids and I turned the first bed easily, and we planted radishes and lettuce.

“I could start on the second bed.” I told my husband, as we all toiled in the garden.

He looked up from his radishes and nodded.

I grabbed my trowel and set to work turning up the second bed. But this bed was much harder. Roots ran everywhere, thick ones merely an inch underground. There were a few flowers blossoming in the corners and when I went to scoop them up, some sort of white cotton like fiber was in my way.

“What the…?” I exclaimed.

Suddenly baby rabbits erupted from the garden, dashing away from my family, towards the fence. I was so shocked I fell back on my bottom, shrieking. My husband and children jumped up.

“Rabbits!” I said, pointing.

Everyone started to laugh.

It took us two weeks to clear that second bed. The kids and I tried. We circled the bed on our hands and knees, stabbing and scraping and snipping roots. My son got blisters on his hands and I hurt my back. On his day off, my husband went to the hardware store to buy a real shovel. He worked his green thumb magic and by dinner, the bed was transformed into a soft, naked rectangle of soil.

We planted tomatoes, cucumbers and beets, and watered them every day. One afternoon, my husband came to me in a rage.

“They’re eating our beets!” He said.

“Who?” I asked.

“The rabbits.” He said.

He took me out to the garden to show me an empty bed. “See here?” He waved his hand over the soil. “There’s nothing.”

“Maybe you could put a net over it?” I said.

“No.” He shook his head. “Nets are expensive.”

“Maybe we could get a cat.”

He laughed. One of our children is allergic.

Later that week, he was on the phone with his parents. I watched him go outside, pick up the owl and place it near the garden. “My mom suggested I put the owl near the garden.” He said with a grin.

It’s been two weeks now, with our fake owl watching over the growing beets. They’ve been able to sprout without being eaten. It seems that real food is not as important to rabbits as fake flowers are to birds, or maybe rabbits are smarter than birds, or visa versa? Maybe there is no moral to the story, but now my family will get to eat the beets and all the work we put into that garden will go into our bellies instead. That is, of course, if the garden cooperates.

7 Moroccan Scratch Cooking Hacks from the Western Kingdom

I married into a Moroccan family and it took me quite a while to learn the complex cooking techniques every Moroccan woman seems to have been born knowing. As an American, it seemed that many of the steps were unnecessary. Who wants to knead dough for twenty minutes when two minutes is boring enough? Why do I have to core carrots and peel tomatoes? Why does meat have to be cooked until it falls apart when popular recipes call for twenty-minute chicken?

I have reluctantly learned to scratch cook Moroccan food, and some of the hacks I have picked up from my mother-in-law might work for Italian, vegan, and American cooks as well. Here are seven scratch cooking hacks from a real Moroccan kitchen that will save you time without compromise.

1. Pre chop cilantro and parsley

Every single Moroccan recipe calls for both cilantro and parsley. I buy it fresh from the grocery store, a few bunches at a time. Chop it up as soon as you return home, put it in a Tupperware and put it in the freezer. This makes fresh herbs as simple as the dried kind.

2. Pre mince Garlic

Fifty percent of all Moroccan recipes call for minced garlic. You can peel two entire bulbs at once, drop all the cloves into a food processor and mince them easily. Put the garlic in a jar and cover with olive oil. It will keep in the fridge for several weeks, and your next garlic recipe will be so much easier!

3. Pre make tomato sauce

My mother-in-law explained that tomato sauce was made for winter when tomatoes would no longer be available in the stores. Chop two dozen tomatoes, add a bit of olive oil, onion and some spices (I use paprika, turmeric and cumin) salt & pepper. Boil until the tomatoes disintegrate. Put in jars and store in the fridge for a few days. Or put in freezer bags and store in the freezer. This will make your next Lasagna (or Meatball Tagine) much easier!

4. Parboil beans & chickpeas

Want to make hummus, salad or beans, but don’t want to use canned food? You can parboil dried beans and chickpeas until they are just soft. Cool and freeze in pre-portioned bags. That way, the next recipe that calls for beans will be just as fast as reaching for a can.

5. Pre-portion meat

Once you get meat home from the grocery store (or the halal meat vendor), portion it out into meal sized amounts. Freeze what you won’t eat today or tomorrow, that will save any meat from going bad.

6. Use the slow cooker

The slow cooker is not technically an item that my mother-in-law has, but it is worth its weight in gold, in my opinion. I learned how to make beef tagine in the slow cooker, and it saves me hours of work in the kitchen. There are millions of books about slow cooking recipes. I have found that I can approximate Moroccan recipes by frying the onions before I put them in the crockpot, thereby rescuing the flavor.

7. Save stock

Every time you cook chicken or beef, save the stock. Save bones to make stock, boil them in water and add spices (I use, you guessed it, paprika, turmeric and cumin). Use to make your next soup or gravy and toss out that sodium filled can.

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Gretchen Lovett is a freelance writer/stay at home mom living in North Carolina. She helps several wonderful nonprofits apply for grants and ghostwrites ebooks when she is not in the kitchen. She is not on social media. You can reach Gretchen at elhassanigretchen@gmail.com.

How A Day Hike Almost Got Me Killed

When I was 21, I followed a boy out to Oregon. He was in love with hiking, far more than he was with me. His goal was to summit all the mountains in the Pacific Northwest, and he spent his time between excursions shopping for gear and reading hiking magazines. He had an ice pick and crampons for traversing glaciers; he had an expensive backpack, a lightweight tent, wicking clothing, and the finest coat money could buy. I was broke and overweight. I had one pair of sneakers, a few sweaters and a hat.

He left me behind usually when he went on mountain climbing adventures, but one day he suggested we go for a quick hike in one of the foothills. I agreed. How difficult could a foothill be?

“I rented these plastic boots.” He said, opening his car trunk to show me.

They were massive and bright red, designed to go over hiking boots.

“What are they for?” I asked.

“They’re waterproof.” He said. “I thought we could try them out. There’s heavy snow cover at the top of the hill.”

The hill.

“Okay.” I said.

We drove about an hour out of the city, towards Mt. Hood. Pulling off the road, we parked in the late afternoon. I was wearing two of my sweaters, my sneakers and his rented plastic boots. There was no snow at the trail head and I dashed out ahead, pumping my legs up the hill, determined to prove myself. I lasted only a few dozen yards before getting winded and having to slow. The first quarter mile up the trail, crossing back and forth through the forest, was a slog. We finally broke through into a level plain and began to see the first signs of snow.

The path now was marked only with the footsteps of those who had gone before. It was approaching five o’clock, and my head was full of the Starbucks coffee shop we would hit on the way home. Mounting the hill again as the land rose beneath us, I was grateful for the plastic boots that kept my feet warm. I struggled to the top, focused on my breathing. The trees began to thin, and suddenly we were out in the open, looking down on the valley. This wasn’t a foothill; it was a mountain, or it would have been a mountain, in my home state of North Carolina. I could see for miles, how the entire landscape was dominated by Mt. Hood, how the foothills radiated from its cone like tendrils of a sea serpent. City lights were cradled in the valleys. It was approaching dinnertime, and I imagined all those people in their far-off houses sitting around tables together.

“We could just pop down this side of the hill.” My boyfriend said, indicating a landslide of snow in front of us. The path lay in the opposite direction, gentle in its slope. In contrast, the other side broke down towards the valley at a steep pitch. “We could just slide down and be back at the car in a couple minutes.”

“Okay.” I said, because he was the expert.

We launched ourselves at the unbroken snow, expecting to be supported. Instead, we fell through the powder, up to our waists. Moving forward became almost impossible. The boy had to break the crust with his fists before kicking his legs into place a mere half step later. I followed in his wake, unable to forge a path for myself. After ten minutes of this, we turned to look back the way we came.

“Do you think we can make it back to the path?” I asked.

“I don’t think so.” He said. The hill was steep, the path upwards impossible. We had to go down. But the struggle was so hard, and each step we fought for so draining, we covered no ground. “Can you take a shift?” He asked.

I squirmed around him, plowing into the snow with my chest. I got no further than a few feet in what seemed like hours of struggling. After resting for a moment, he took the lead again. The sun dropped to the horizon, spreading bright orange between the trees. We had only moments before dark and had traversed less than a quarter mile.

“If the sun goes down.” The boy said. “We’ll have to stop. We have emergency blankets in my pack.”

There was nothing to say. I imagined the emergency blanket, a foil packet wrapped in plastic, spread over us as we huddled in the snow. I doubted it would lend much warmth, though it might keep us alive.

We continued on, fighting for every inch when suddenly, we heard the trickle of running water.

“Do you hear that?” I asked.

We scanned the landscape and saw a slight groove in the snow cover just meters to our left. The boy punched his way towards the stream, and we broke out of the powder a half hour later. The sun had now completely disappeared, leaving only traces of its light in the sky. Beneath our feet, a tiny stream wound down the mountain. Wearing our water-tight plastic boots, we clomped through the runoff, our limbs free. We followed the stream all the way down the mountain, to the level plain where the snow disappeared. As the last of the light vanished, we found the trail on solid ground.

The boy took out a flashlight, and we made our way back to the car. There was no Starbucks on the ride home, we went straight to a diner and had ourselves a feast. I still love hiking and the outdoors; I am grateful for all the views I was treated to and the memories that remain. But I am an East Coast baby at heart, and would prefer to do my backpacking in a wilderness without snow and ice.

***

Gretchen Lovett is a freelance writer/stay at home mom living in North Carolina. Some of her earliest memories include car camping with her family. She has hiked portions of the Appalachian Trail, participated in an Outward Bound program and seen the sights at three volcanos in the Pacific Northwest. She is not on social media, but can be reached at elhassanigretchen@gmail.com.