Marian Allen's Blog, page 370

Steamy Penguins For Your Sampling Pleasure

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Steamy penguins? you ask. Ex-CUSE me? Back in February of 2011, when Ernest Shackleton’s Scotch supply was discovered, Chuck Wendig of Terrible Minds challenged all comers to write a story with Shackleton’s Scotch as their prompt.

So I did.

The story is part of my collection TURTLE FEATHERS (a measly ninety-nine cents). Here’s a sample, including steamy penguins. Well, one steamy penguin, anyway.

Story with steamy penguins in

For A Few Bottles More – excerpt
by Marian Allen

Pilar Penguin lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring into the frigid air.

This life, she thought. This life is no good. How long had it been since she had seen the sun? Well, six months, obviously, but it had been longer than that. She slept through the days now, weary and bleary from late nights at the cantina.

But what was she to do? Pehuen had put everything they had into the place. She either worked by his side or watched their lives come apart like a calving glacier.

She wiped the bar, flipping the cloth free at the edge so it didn’t freeze to the damp surface. Pehuen would be back soon, and then they would open the doors for the evening and the other penguins would trickle in by ones and twos. Pilar disapproved of guys coming in with their eggs tucked between their feet and their bodies, but Pehuen was right—either they let guys in carrying concealed or they had no customers at all for part of the year.

The door slammed open, and Pehuen slid in. His breath puffed out in steamy heaves that crystalized and fell.

“Pilar!” He staggered toward her, stumbling over his own feet.

“Calm down, mi marido.” She waddled sensuously toward him, offering him the cigarette still warm from her beak. “I am here, as always.”

~ * ~

If you want to read the rest of the story — and you know you do — drop a buck and buy the collection.

Buy it for the Kindle at Amazon.
Buy from Smashwords in all electronic formats.
Buy from Barnes & Noble for Nook.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a story about a steamy penguin.

MA

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Caturday With Katya. Stay Calm.

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Katya Graymalkin here.

Mom is getting antsy, even though I keep telling her to stay calm. The weather seems to be turning less freezing, so she’s looking forward to the Farmers’ Market. Also, now is the time she starts dithering about whether to go into the woods to look for mushrooms. She wants to go early enough to be sure she doesn’t miss any early ones, and she wants to get in and out before the ticks and snakes are active.

It’s also the beginning of convention season, when she drives out to events and stays in hotels to sell her books. Driving makes her nervous. Staying away from home makes her nervous. Talking to strangers makes her nervous. Trying to sell things makes her nervous.

As I said, she’s getting antsy.

So I went online to PicMonkey and made this for her. A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: How do you calm your human?

KG

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Unity In Diversity. What A Concept!

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Unity In Diversity

I’ve been working on putting together the Spring 2014 edition of the Community Unity Educational Resources Committee newsletter, and I’ll be blessed with a feeling of hope for the world — for a few days, anyway.

Community Unity formed in 1999 in Corydon, Indiana when the Klan announced it was coming to town. Visit this link to see what happened. Hint: It was good. The group has dwindled over the years, but it’s still providing support and services, including the newsletter, which goes out to all public and parochial schools, and is available at the library for homeschoolers. It’s also online, although a recent website revamp lost the archives, probably temporarily.

ANYWAY, here are the websites being recommended in this semester’s newsletter. I’m posting them here because I thought they were awesomesauce coolio.

It Really Is Spring

Time to read about butterflies. Mia Wenjen, also known as Pragmatic Mom, has a wonderful website that includes multicultural Children’s and YA book lists, educational games, and articles on education and reading. Check out her list of multicultural butterfly books for spring.

Diversity and Joy in Children’s Literature

Jump Into A Book is a great resource. From her multicultural book features to her posts and guests’ posts about books and accompanying crafts and/or recipes, this is a great place to find cross-discipline activities to make books come alive. The About page says, “Jump into a Book is a site about our love of children’s books and how we can incorporate them into our everyday lives through play, crafting, cooking, movies, games, traveling, and author visits.”

How Does Genocide Begin?

You might not be surprised to know it starts the same way bullying starts. Dr. Gregory Stanton, President of Genocide Watch, might well be talking about bullying when he says, “Genocide is a process that develops in ten stages that are predictable but not inexorable. At each stage, preventive measures can stop it.” The stages are: Classification (defining certain people as different), symbolization (name-calling, identifying something about others that “marks” them, adopting clothing or other signs to express superiority to the classified person or group), discrimination (denying the classified person or group equality, such as excluding them from conversations or social groups), dehumanization (identifying the classified person or group as less than fully human), organization (recruiting others to join one in the campaign against the classified person or group), polarization (ignoring mediators so people in the environment become divided into “sides”), preparation (the formulation of plans to hurt, exclude, or in some way negate the classified person or group), persecution (taking discrimination to a more harmful and direct level), extermination (through bullying, this can take the form of the victim’s suicide or withdrawal from the class or school, or the psychic extermination of the victim’s social withdrawal), and denial (blaming the victim, blaming others, denying wrongdoing).

Black Wings

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum celebrates the contributions of African Americans to the adventure of flight. From the 1920s through the Tuskegee Airmen of World War II to today’s astronauts, the Smithsonian’s Black Wings site provides history, photographs, and classroom resources. Print out posters or access online interactive activities to bring pioneers of aviation into the classroom.

Mighty Girls? Mighty People!

If there’s anything objectionable about the website A Mighty Girl, it’s the emphasis on gender. It calls itself “The world’s largest collection of books, toys and movies for smart, confident, and courageous girls.” With it’s lists of books, music, movies, characters, and parenting tips, it could just as easily claim to be an all-around resource for boys AND girls, even though its lessons feature women and girls of courage and character. After all, isn’t that what breaking gender stereotypes is all about: permitting both genders to appreciate the admirable qualities they share? If you can look past the “this is for girls” attitude of this excellent site, you’ll find a wealth of interdisciplinary resources, like the one for WOMEN HEROES OF WORLD WAR II: 26 STORIES OF ESPIONAGE, SABOTAGE, RESISTANCE, AND RESCUE.

Moving Beyond Stereotypes

The Representation Project began with Miss Representation, a film pointing out how the way women are represented in media shapes how women are perceived by others and how women perceive themselves. With a new film, The Mask You Wear, Miss Representation moves beyond that original purpose to focus the same attention on the damage done to boys and young men by presenting cripplingly narrow definitions of what it means to be a man. “The Representation Project is a movement that uses film and media content to expose injustices created by gender stereotypes and to shift people’s consciousness towards change.” Online tools and resources help start the conversation.

The Better World Club

Better World is a web site, a set of resources, a movement for compassion. You’ll find free resources to download and links to even more resources on over 60 social issues.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Imagine a character getting involved in one of these sites’ projects, and possible story lines coming from it.

MA

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Not Even Past. Not If You’re A Writer

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William Faulkner famously said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” I’m sure reams of pages have been written discussing what he may have meant by that, but I know many of the ways it’s true for me.

All the things that ever happened to me? All the things that have ever been said to me and in front of me? Not even past. All the things I’ve done and said and wished I’d done and said and wished I hadn’t done and said? Not even past.

Even if I don’t remember them, they’re there.

Ben Folds Five says to “throw this book away” in this wonderful song.

I used to feel like that about a lot of my past. I don’t mean my past was so horrible or shameful or painful; I just wanted the past to be the past. Then my sense of thrift took over,  and I started pulling threads out of that bag and weaving them into stories.

Here’s this picture of li’l me with my favorite stuffed animal.

Not Even Past

I called him Tigger. My grandfather brought him to me from Stratton & Terstage, where he got him cheap because he was missing an eye. The tiger, I mean, not my grandfather.

I was sad about losing track of him (still the tiger) for a while, but then I found a small stuffed tiger that was also missing an eye, and I’ve hung onto him. He is also named Tigger.

Now, look closely at that picture of li’l me. See that brick wall with that silver thing on it? That silver thing is a room heater. It had a ceramic lattice in it that heated up. That brick, wall is just a regular wall with brick-flavored wallpaper on it. I used that wall with the heater in my short story “Mr. Farrel,” one of the stories in my collection LONNIE, ME AND THE HOUND OF HELL.

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I could see that the closet wall didn’t fit tight. We had a gas heater like a miniature fireplace in the front room corner; it was set into a little bitty wall that covered the corner where two of the regular walls met. This closet wall would have been right up against that.

I put my fingers into the crack and pulled. The wall was just a thin panel. It warped out a little at the bottom when I pulled on it, and the mice ran in. That was all the hint I needed. I closed the closet door and turned out the light. In the dark, I pulled the panel out a little more. I wiggled in behind it and pulled it back into place as well as I could and just squished myself down, hidden behind that gas heater.

I heard the front door slam open. I heard Mr. Farrel stumbling through the place, roaring for us to come out so he could teach us a lesson we’d never forget.

Mr. Farrel was also based on somebody related to a friend of mine back in the day. When writers start mining the past, not only is it not even past, it’s not off-limits, either. So, you know, beware, right? heh

Now, just in case you want to read the rest of this story — or any or all of the other stories in the collection — here are the buy links for LONNIE, ME AND THE HOUND OF HELL. Or click on the My Books and Collections on the menu and see what else is on offer.

Buy it for the Kindle at Amazon.
Buy it from iTunes
Buy it for the Nook
Buy it in other electronic formats at Smashwords.

Thank you kindly.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Something from a character’s past suddenly comes back to them.

MA

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Macs and Cheese My Way — One Of My Ways

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Macs and Cheese is (are?) one of my favorite dishes, especially since I learned how to make it myself. I have to admit, though, there’s something seductively delicious about that day-glo orange salt-flavored industrially packaged macs and cheese product that has about as much nutritional value as the box it comes in. It’s like hot, gooey Cheetos. Mmmm….

But that’s not what I’m talking about today. Today, I’m talking about MY macs and cheese; specifically, the version I made the other day.

MACS AND CHEESE THE OTHER DAY WAY

First, I used whole wheat macs. Pretty good. Cook those up in salted water along with some fresh baby spinach and drain them.

Butter a casserole dish. Or, if you prefer, margarine one.

Put down a layer of macs and spinach. Sprinkle on some salt and pepper or Mrs. Dash. Sprinkle on enough flour to cover the macs. Put on some grated cheeses. I use Parmesan, Romano, and Asiago. I know, right?

Do another layer, alternating, ending with macs. No flour on the top layer. Butter (or margarine) on the top layer. More cheese, if you like.

Now, standing so you can look down into the casserole, gently pour in milk until you can see the milk rising through the macs. That’s enough.

Bake that puppy at 350F for about an hour. Cover the top with foil to keep it from drying out. Or don’t, if you like some of your macs crunchy.

I like tomatoes in mine and Charlie doesn’t, so I heated the tomatoes separately and spooned them on top of my portion.

Good? I’ll say it was! It’s all gone, too, alas. Guess I’ll just have to make some more!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What’s your main character’s idea of comfort food? Home made, or from the store?

MA

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Pancake of Bookish Goodness

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Today is Pancake Tuesday, better known as Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras. What better way to celebrate than to treat yourself to the fun and excitement of entering a couple of book giveaways? Get a science fiction book, or maybe a whole fantasy trilogy? That would be three books, right, like a book in between two other books, kind of like a book sandwich! Or, you know, a pancake in between two other pancakes, like a whole STACK of pancakes!

Anyway, here’s how to enter:

Goodreads Book Giveaway Sideshow in the Center Ringby Marian Allen

Giveaway ends March 14, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

This next one is really three-in-one, since I’m actually giving away all three books of the trilogy. There are some formatting oopsies and typos in book 3, alas.

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Giveaway ends March 14, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

So hop over to Goodreads and join the bookinatious fun. When I want bookinatious fun, over to Goodreads is where I hop. Get it? pancakes? I hop?

IT WAS SO, FUNNY, SHUT UP!

I’m also posting over at Fatal Foodies today, posting about — what else? — pancakes!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character has an unusual sandwich.

MA

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Julie Lindsey on Cozy Mysteries

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Guess what’s not a surprise? I SCREWED UP!! Today was supposed to be a guest post by Julie Lindsey. So now you get two posts from here in one day. Aren’t you lucky Sweet Little Baby Angels?

So let’s hear it from Julie on the topic of Cozy Mysteries:

~ * ~

I probably don’t have to tell you cozy mysteries are in a class by themselves. Cozy readers are some of the most passionate people I know, but in case anyone out there is stumbling onto the term for the first time, let me tell you the cozy “rules.” Okay, I used quotes because I’m kind of a most-things-are-probably-guidelines girl. Plus, “rules” seems so rude and totalitarian, doesn’t it? I prefer Guidelines. Maybe that’s me?

Cozy guidelines are easy. These lively little mysteries are part of the crime fiction family, but they are also so much more….They’re fun! Cozies always have an amateur, female sleuth. She’s always drawn into the investigation and has to learn as she goes. She lives in a small community where she’s comfortable. The secondary characters are rich and interactive.

Cozies don’t linger on gory crime scene details and they don’t use excessive foul language. They also don’t describe intimate scenes between characters. Ugh, that really does sound like rules, huh?

BUT! Hang in here with me. This is the best part…Cozies are meant to make a reader smile, keep her hooked and hopefully keep her guessing. Cozies can have romance, but it never overwhelms the plot. Cozies are written for quick-witted readers and the storyline moves at a clip. Plus, like any good mystery, red herrings abound! I do enjoy a good bunny trail. Just when I think I know what’s happening, the author yanks the carpet out from under me and I’m reading faster to find out what will happen next! Cozies are a thrill for me. I’m still getting my head around the fact I’ve written one. No. Two!

Many small things come together to form a good cozy, but my favorite aspect of this genre is the humor. I love to laugh and I really really like to make others laugh. A lot. So, when I pick up a novel that can make me smile, it’s a keeper – and it’s often a cozy. If I can make a reader laugh? You can’t see me, but I’m shaking my head. If I make a reader laugh, I’ve nailed it. I win at authoring.

In Murder Comes Ashore, I’ve taken a curiosity-driven island counselor and taunted her with endless amounts of intrigue and obstacles. She’s dealing with body parts washing up on the beach and interrupting her swim, locals worried about their safety, a shark infestation, birders arriving by the busload, money problems and some pretty serious threats on her life.
If that’s not enough, she’s got family drama. Her adoring, hippie parents don’t understand her Type-A ways. Her current love interest doesn’t understand why her ex-soul mate is always hanging around and her ex doesn’t really see the problem. The town’s dividing up publicly on the topic of her love life and hey! They even made shirts.

I think women have the most fun with cozies because we understand the struggle. We juggle the same things, minus the murder, I hope. We deal with family and friends and romance. Community commitments and punch a time clock. Women know all about how easy it is to leave the house wearing two different shoes. We’ve all tried to dial our glasses and put the phone on our nose. Imagine trying to solve a murder too. It’s crazy, but when it’s someone else’s crazy…..so it’s fun to watch the antics unfold.

Car bombs? Shootings? Abductions? Sure. But what about golf cart chases, cat dates and missing eyebrows? Absolutely! In a cozy mystery, there’s no end to the antics an amateur can get herself into while following the clues to a killer. I shudder to think how far I’d make it in a real sleuthing scenario. I’m going to guess not very far.

Are you a cozy reader? What’s your favorite series? Do you think you’d make a good sleuth?

If you’re a fan of amateur sleuth stories or searching for another fun read, I hope you’ll consider my new cozy series. If you do, I hope you will smile 

Cover Art 2014 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited.

Murder Comes Ashore
Patience Price is just settling into her new life as resident counselor on Chincoteague Island when things take a sudden turn for the worse. A collection of body parts have washed up on shore and suddenly nothing feels safe on the quaint island.

Patience instinctively turns to current crush and FBI special agent Sebastian for help, but former flame Adrian is also on the case, hoping that solving the grisly crime will land him a win in the upcoming mayoral election.

When the body count rises and Patience’s parents are brought in as suspects, Patience is spurred to begin her own investigation. It’s not long before she starts receiving terrifying threats from the killer, and though she’s determined to clear her family’s name, it seems the closer Patience gets to finding answers, the closer she comes to being the killer’s next victim.

Amazon       Barnes&Noble       CarinaPress

About Julie:
Julie Anne Lindsey is a multi-genre author who writes the stories that keep her up at night. She’s a self-proclaimed nerd with a penchant for words and proclivity for fun. Julie lives in rural Ohio with her husband and three small children. Today, she hopes to make someone smile. One day she plans to change the world.

Murder Comes Ashore is a sequel in her new mystery series, Patience Price, Counselor at Large, from Carina Press.   Learn more about Julie at :

Julieannelindsey.com

The Murder Comes Ashore blog Tour Continues all month with stops across the web. Follow along and leave comments for a chance to win books and prizes. Blog tour details are here: Murder Comes Ashore Blog Tour!

~ * ~

Thanks for letting me be part of your blog tour, Julie. I do love cozies, especially when they make me smile, so I know I’m going to love your work.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Think up a chase scene in a vehicle that would make you smile to see.

MA

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Closings — Not Closings Like In Court, Like In Stories

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Good closings mean reader satisfaction. At the climax, your main character is faced with the most serious challenge of his or her life so far; the character will succeed and fail in terms of what you have built into that character to begin with, and in terms of what that character has experienced during the course of the book.

Phillys A. Whitney wrote an excellent article called, “Stop When You’re Through,” printed in the 1989 edition of WRITERS HANDBOOK. I want to share with you some of the things she had to say.

What Closings Should Do

To begin with, she says that it isn’t enough to satisfy yourself that you’ve said all you want to say, so you can quit. You must bring your story to a climax, in which your main character is faced with the utter destruction of one or more basic need or cherished goal. “In the climax scene,” Whitney says, “The main character must prove what she or he is made of.”

The climax, she says, “brings all elements of a novel together and leads to a logical solution.” Let’s break that statement into two pieces, taking the last part first.

“A logical solution.” Logical in terms of the plot, and logical in terms of what the characters, as you have created them, might be capable of doing. If you’ve made your characters round, and revealed them as much as you need to, “logical” can mean having them clash and resolve their conflict in unexpected and believably surprising ways. You have to be like a magician: all the elements for your resolution have to be in the book from early on, but you have to direct your reader’s attention away from them so they won’t guess the ending in the first ten pages. John Irving says we should invite the readers to anticipate, but compel them to guess wrong.

That brings us to the first half of Whitney’s statement, that the climax “brings all elements of a novel together.” Along with story line and character, the climax includes the manifestation of your theme — what the book was really about: fair play, true love, man’s inhumanity to man, or whatever. Let me say again; the theme should be evident, but it shouldn’t be stated. It shouldn’t need to be.

In the final chapter of LORD OF THE FLIES, Jack has subverted all the boys into his group except Ralph, Piggy, and Simon, and he or his boys have killed Piggy and Simon. The boys are in murderous pursuit of Ralph, and have set fire to the island in order to drive him into the open, when a ship, drawn by sight of the smoke, turns the savages back into little boys. Nature versus civilization, reality versus fantasy, mercy versus ruthlessness, isolation, betrayal, and leadership run throughout the book and smash together in the climax.

Whitney’s last suggestion is that the ending should come as soon after the climax as possible, and that every loose end should have been tied up by the final scene, with that one important loose end maybe reserved for the very end. In THE FACE OF TRESPASS by Ruth Rendell, the final and most important piece of the puzzle is mentioned in passing in the next-to-the-last paragraph.

There are as many closings as there are openings. You can end with the same sort, or end with another sort. I think the most satisfying ending is one that echoes the beginning, while showing that a change has taken place.

What do you think?

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Look at a couple of your favorite books, that really satisfied you. How did the closings mesh with the beginning? Why were the closings satisfactory?

MA

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Andrin the Waymaster on SampleSunday

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Andrin the Waymaster is, I suppose, a secondary character in the SAGE series, but, like all the characters, he’s essential to the action. Like all the characters, the decisions he makes affect what happens.

After years of being exiled from power, he’s told he has to leave the refuge he’s come to love.

THE CHOICE OF ANDRIN — excerpt
from SILVER AND IRON, BOOK 2 OF SAGE

by Marian Allen

He squinted against sudden sunlight. He stood outside, in the clearing by the river. His cottage and garden were gone. In their place sat a light, two-wheeled cart; his kettle, cold and empty; an ebony box, open to show the casting stones it held; and his sleeping pallet, rolled around bundles of aromatic herbs. Blinking, he turned in a complete circle: the fruit trees that had embraced the clearing had been replaced by ten large books with leather bindings. Chandler, his hen, sat placidly near one of the books and pecked at the cover.

Here were all the things he had brought with him from the castle ten liquid years ago.

“Here are all your treasures,” said his grandmother. “Take as much as you will.”

Andrin walked from one item to another, caressing the surfaces, delighting in the variations of textures. Then he picked up Chandler and tucked her gently beneath his arm.

“My ‘treasures’ were more useful as a cottage,” he said. “But a friend can’t be left behind.”

~*~

True that.

Book 3 – Silver and Iron

Read about it and sample it.

Buy it in print.

Buy for KINDLE.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: If you could only take one thing (not person) from your life, what would it be?

MA

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Caturday With Katya Alone

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Katya Graymalkin here.

It’s the first of the month, so don’t forget to go to Mom’s Hot Flash page and read her new mini-micro flash fiction story.

Meanwhile, Mom is off away somewhere again. She said she’s working, selling books, but I’ve been reading her blog and her email, and I know she’s going to hobnob with friends and drink beer. Here’s where she is:

Meanwhile, I’m here all alone, just Charlie for company. Sure, he feeds me, and he pets me when nobody’s looking, but he doesn’t let me sit next to him and poke him with my claws unless he’s petting me every single minute. So I’ll just curl up here in my chair — my own chair, with my own pillow in Mom’s office — and wait for her to come home.

And wait, and wait, and wait….

A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: Do you have one special person, or will anyone do for you?

KG

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