Marian Allen's Blog, page 376

Sexy Geeks And All

Geeks are Sexy. You knew that, right? If you didn’t, don’t take my word for it. Go read the Geeks are Sexy blog. Katya loves it.

Here’s another drooly recipe blog. The ads are intrusive, but The Daydream Kitchen has some seriously delicious offerings.

I met JM Guillen on Twitter. He was advertising a pre-owned velociraptor, and we entered into negotiations, but the sale fell through. Alas.

Never to be mine. Alas.

Someone on Facebook pointed me to the Dylan Meconis Official Temple of Commerce, specifically to these handy grammar correction labels, which I could certainly use. I’m getting carpal tunnel syndrome from writing edits on other people’s signs.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character corrects somebody else’s sign.

MA

Same Old SIDESHOW, New Pub

SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING is a comedy of bad manners, which may explain why it’s been through so many publishers. Or maybe not.

SIDESHOW was first published — electronically only — by Serendipity Systems in 1994. Then it was picked up by Echelon but was released before publication. Then it was picked up by Hydra but was released before publication. Then it was published IN PRINT by Per Bastet as a favor to me by the fabulous T. Lee Harris.

Now, at last, it’s be issued in print AND electronically by Three Fates Press, the same publisher (I’m one of the partners) who published SAGE.

The cover is the same. The text is the same, but the formatting has been redone. You might not notice much difference, but I do.

I want to be sure to express my deep gratitude to ALL previous and potential publishers. I can’t tell you how much it’s meant to me that so many people have believed in this book. It wasn’t through any disagreements or unpleasantness that the road to final publication has been so long and winding. This happened and then that happened — you know how things do. It’s the same with publication as it is with anything else; sometimes, it’s just complicated.

SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING is available in print and for Kindle. When it’s available at B&N or other places, I’ll add the links in the sidebar and on the SIDESHOW page.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Bad manners ruin an opportunity.

MA

A Picture PLUS A Thousand Words

My church got new stained glass windows this week. Here’s a picture of one of them.

Each one is different. They have the same colors, but in different groupings, and each has a different color ribbon running through the pane.

Each also has a different picture. This one is the Tree of Life.

That got me thinking about writing (yes, everything gets me thinking about writing — everything is about writing). Although I have no figures to back this up, I venture to say that most people in the world know what a tree is. Most people know what a deciduous tree is, and that it drops its leaves in the fall, goes dormant, blooms in spring, and bears fruit (or, at least, drops seed). Most people know that a tree sends down roots and sends up branches and puts forth leaves to collect moisture and sunlight. Most people know that animals and birds shelter in trees.

Long story short (too late?), most people can look at a picture of a tree and auto-load rafts of associations, most of it positive for most people.

There are lots of objects or figures like that, which come accompanied by big bulging satchels full of associations. One way to enrich a book or story is to use the human tendency toward association to layer your meaning.

Charlotte Brontë did this in JANE EYER. As Shmoop.com says:

The day after Rochester proposes to Jane under “the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard,” that same tree gets “struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away” (2.8.119). It can’t be a good omen to have something that’s whole get violently split in half right after two people sitting beside it decide to unite themselves.

Too right!

p.s. It doesn’t have to be trees.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a paragraph centered around a cat — SHUT UP, KATYA! NOT A CAT! centered around a … damn, now I can’t think about anything but a cat. Okay, a cat.

MA

#SampleSunday Bud’s Romance

Here’s an excerpt from “Blossom On the Water,” the first story in my collection THE KING OF CHEROKEE CREEK.

“Blossom On the Water” — excerpt
by Marian Allen

I went away to college, and I worked at Bud’s during the summers. I fell in love with Meredith DeLint from my History of Science class, and she turned out to be from just over the county line, and she came home with me to meet Mom and Dad, and we took her to Bud’s for dinner.

And Bud fell in love with her, too.

Meredith was a beauty: Straight black hair she kept cut shoulder-length, clear pink skin, dark eyes, petite but…you know…built.

I was used to guys looking at her like they wished she had come in alone, but when I saw that same look on Bud’s face… It made me sick. It was almost as if I’d seen it on Dad.

He came over and greeted us, which he almost never does, and took Meredith’s elbow and led her to a table, smiling and moving close to murmur in her ear, as if he didn’t want to shout over the other customers’ voices.

When he seated us, he flashed me his teeth like… not like a challenge, because we both knew he didn’t see it as a contest. It was like he was saying, You know what I’m going to do. Do you really think you can stop it?

I looked him over: about 5’6″, slim, looking like a wimp but, I knew from seeing him with his shirt off, tightly muscled; flat black hair and bright black eyes, skin a dark gold, perfect teeth. Deep creases at the corners of his eyes and mouth, but girls go for a “face with character” sometimes. I took Meredith’s hand.

“No PDA’s.” Dad growled it so I’d know it was half a joke.

He meant Public Displays of Affection. Forbidden on school property. It was in the manuals and everything.

“This isn’t a PDA,” Meredith said. “This is first aid. His hands are like ice.”

I don’t think they warmed up all evening. Bud didn’t hover or do anything obvious. Mom and Dad would have commented if he’d been too obvious–everybody in the restaurant would have. It’s a very small town; we know one another’s surfaces like we know the fronts of the stores on Broad Street. But I knew Bud below the surface–far enough below it, anyway, to see him turning something on I’d never seen him use before. And I could see Meredith responding, unaware.

~*~

THE KING OF CHEROKEE CREEK is one of four self-published collections of short stories, available for Kindle, at Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes for $0.99 each.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A mentor hits on a protégé’s sweetheart.

MA

#Caturday Katya On Cold

Katya Graymalkin here.

Mom is a little bit mad at me because I gave her a cold. I didn’t exactly mean to do it, but I had one, and she got in my face, going, “Ooza mamma’s widdle kitty-woozie,” and that kind of thing, and I sneezed.

It was only a cat-sized cold, though, and Mom is so much larger than cat-sized that the cold turned out to be relatively mild.

But that isn’t what I want to talk about today.

It’s cold where we are, and getting colder. Here is a picture of me with a view of the snowy outdoors. This, dear readers, is the proper relationship between a pet cat and the snowy outdoors.

Some cats live outdoors by choice, and some live outdoors because there are more cats than there are indoor spaces, but if you have a cat you love (or, I guess, a dog), make sure it has some shelter, even if it’s just an old Christmas tree propped up against another tree.

Here’s a post by the Tails Media people quoting the ASPCA’s 10 tips for keeping your pet safe in cold weather.

My friend Jane is Mommy to a whole pod of wild and partly wild cats, and she has a “Princess House” and lots of sheltery places for them. She makes sure they have food and melted water. Mom says Jane shows her pictures of her outdoor cats, and they’re all healthy and have kitty friends to snuggle with. Her indoor cats have lots of places to curl up and be warm.

I don’t have my own cat bed, but I don’t need one; I sleep on the people bed most of the time, and on the couch the rest of the time. That’s what I would do, even if I had my own bed. ha!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR ANIMALS: You’re outside and it’s cold. What do you do?

KG

Food and Frogs

Not a post about French cuisine.

It’s cold and snowing, so NATURALLY I’ve been huddling over a warm computer looking at food porn.

Here’s a recipe that combines three of my favorite edibles: beefiness, vegan food, and stout. About.com has an AWESOME collection of vegan/vegetarian food, and this mock-beef Guiness stew looks dee-vine. I know how to make seitan, so now all I need to do is drop by Point Blank and pick up a bottle of Guiness.

Here’s another one that looks luscious from Cupcakes And Kale Chips: Cauli-Tots — like Tater Tots, only WITH CAULIFLOWER! Which we LOVE!

Joanne Eats Well With Others looks a little fancy-schmancy for me, but I enjoy fantasizing that I might actually toast pita croutons and stuff, and the pictures are GORGEOUS.

Finally, there’s Alberta Ross’ delightful blog, did you ever kiss a frog? especially this post about her approach to gardening.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go look at more food. OM-nom-nom-nom!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Does your main character like to look at food? Jane, I KNOW Callie does, especially if it’s handsome. ~grin~

MA

First Needle of the New Year

I started this in November of last year, but it’ll be the first knitting project I finish in 2014. It’s a variegated yarn, which makes its own pattern. Or, you know, not.

I cast on 27 stitches, knit five rows, then do each row k1, p1. Every so often, just at random, I do a row of straight knit to break things up.I’ll do five rows of knit at the end, too.

I don’t know how long it’ll end up being, since I only have one skein. If it isn’t long enough to be a scarf, it’ll make a nice collar. I like those.

Our microwave died at the end of 2013, so we began the new year by doing our least favorite thing: consumer spending. We got one on sale, smaller than the last one, and with a timer, which the last one didn’t have. Isn’t this a fascinating post? You’d think it was a Facebook Status Update.

ANYWAY, happy 2014.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What are your main character’s goals for the new year?

MA

It’s 2014! Three Rousing Sneezes!

Yes, I’m ringing in the new year with a sore throat and the sniffles. If Facebook is any guide, I’m not alone. I wanna know who at the NSA came to work contagious and spread it around to everybody else.

ANYWAY, it’s not only the first of the year, it’s the first of the month, so there’s a new Hot Flash on the Hot Flashes page.

Please allow me to remind you that each year’s Hot Flashes–between 2002 and 2007, at any rate–has a Cafe Press store. Visit the Shop link on this web site to find out more.

MA’s Monthly Hot Flashes: 2002-2009 are…is…available in electronic formats–for Kindle (text-to-speech enabled) at Amazon and in many other formats, including text and .rtf at Smashwords, as a Nook book and at iTunes. Price = $0.99

Now, since this is also Wednesday, which is food day on this blog, I will give you a recipe for the soup I made yesterday.

Yesterday’s Soup

1 can navy beans, rinsed, drained, and kinda mashed1 cup frozen vegetable soup mix3 cups water1 vegetable bouillon cube1/4 cup pestochopped cabbageleftover veg and pasta from fridge (optional)

Cook.

It was very good, even through a cold.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: When your main character has a cold, does he/she hunker down or work through it?

MA

Farewell, 2013!

As the year draws to a close, I’m tempted to say, “Good riddance.” A lot of super things happened to us this year, but I’m ticked off at 2013 for not seeing my Mom recovered from her dysphagia. Poor showing, 2013. Shame!

On the up side, tests show she does NOT have COPD or lupus. Or, come to that, Housemaid’s Knee. So that’s good.

Bidding adieu to the year put me in mind of the first political satire television show, possibly ever, That Was The Week That Was, also known as TW3. It started in England and moved to The United States. Tom Lehrer wrote for the show and recorded an album of songs from it: That Was The Year That Was, an album which I still own.

I was delighted to find that one of my favorite comedy routines, “The $65 Funeral,” originally appeared on that show.

You’re welcome, and Happy New Year.

I’m posting at Fatal Foodies today about New Year’s foods.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character runs afoul of or engages in deceptive advertising.

MA

Authors! Authors!

The card game Authors was invented in 1861, and I think I’ve been playing it ever since. I certainly don’t remember a time when there wasn’t at least one pack in the house. The pictures on this post are scans of the actual cards and box of one of our packs.

I grew up playing the game. #4 Daughter grew up playing the game. We’re both authors. Coincidence? You decide.

There are lots of different Author packs now (American Authors, Children’s Authors, Woman Authors), and packs featuring composers, artists, whatevers. But this was the original.

The Last of the Mohahas
by James Fenimore Chickencoop

The authors in the original pack were: Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, William Shakespeare, Henry W. Longfellow, Charles Dickens, James Fenimore Cooper, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sir Walter Scott, Alfred Lord Tennison, and Washington Irving. The last five were given our own versions of the venerated authors’ names, which generated much hilarity at the time.

Robert Louis Purplehair

I don’t know why those five were christened with private names and the others weren’t. I know we tried to think some up for the others, but they just didn’t “take.”

At the time Authors was invented, only Shakespeare had died more than 30 years prior; all but four of the eleven authors were still alive, and Washington Irving had died only two years before.

You play Authors the same way you play GoFish except (when we played it, anyway), if you ask for a card and your opponent doesn’t have it, the opponent doesn’t say, “Go fish,” but says, “Go to the library.”

Sir Walter Puppy-Dog-Eyes

Here’s something else we do: When the game is over, the loser must say, “Congratulations!” The winner must say, “Maybe you’ll win next time.” Then we all hang our heads and say, in Eeyore voices, “Thanks for noticin’ me.” Why? I have no earthly idea. But we do, and then we roll around on the floor, cackling with mirth. Have I told you we live in the country, and have relatively little stimulation?

We kind of had a crush on Sir Walter Scott, even though he had white hair. Hey, at least it wasn’t purple, right? We each tried to collect all the Sir Walter Puppy-Dog-Eyes cards, and took them from each other at every opportunity. A cut-throat mother-daughter rivalry over an old dead white man. There’s a book in that, somewhere, but I don’t want to know about it.

Alfred, Lord Tennisnet

Alfred, Lord Tennisnet was NOT our imaginary authorial boyfriend.  The only thing he had going for him was a name we could make fun of. He looks very serious and very fierce, and not at all as if he could write the beautiful poetry I know he wrote. Alas for Alfred!

Washing and Ironing
author of Rip Van Wrinkle

But our favorite — even better than James Fenimore Chickencoop, author of The Last of the Mohahas — was this guy. Washing and Ironing. You know Washing and Ironing, don’t you? He wrote Rip Van Wrinkle.

Okay, maybe it isn’t the best way to inculcate a knowledge of and respect for revered authors, but it’s far from the worst.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Give your character a favorite card or board game he or she played as a child.

MA