Marian Allen's Blog, page 390

Cover Reveal for Rose Candis #memoir

I’m very pleased to be part of Rose Candis’ cover reveal for her memoir, UNDER THE BED AROUND THE WORLD.

Here is a bit about the Author:

Rose Candis lives with her daughter Erica, fiancé Patrick, step-daughter Lucy and two cats in Kentucky. She has a private psychotherapy practice where she specializes in eating disorders and trauma. In 2011, Rose returned to China in search of Erica’s birth mother. Since that time, their story has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Pulitzer Center for Crisis reporting. Rose met with the Executive Congressional Commission on China in DC three times from 2012-2013 to encourage reform for more transparent adoptions in China.

Here is the book blurb:

Under the Bed Across the World, Rose’s poignant account of her journey from incest and addiction into recovery, is both tragic and humorous. Her account of how her sexually abusive Jewish father divided her loyalty between him, her mother, and herself provides a microcosm for how sexual abuse and addiction destroy the human family.  By confronting her past, Rose sheds her loyalty to her abusive relatives and creates her own unique family unit through international adoption.  The memoir raises the question: Can contentment be found after departure from the quagmire of toxicity?

And here, my dears, is one of the loveliest book covers EVER!You can keep up with Rose and news about the release of her book at:

Rose Candis’ website

Rose Candis’ blog

Twitter

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character meets his or her adopted child’s birth parent(s).

p.s. I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies with a picture of the best dessert ever featuring two very important ingredients: chocolate and free.

MA

Reblahg — Middles

Back when the world was young, I had what I called a weblahg, whereon I rambled about this, that, and the other thing. Then people convinced me I needed to be more professional, so I set up this blog and closed down the blahg. And what do I do on this professional site?

Well, I ramble about this, that, and the other thing.

The old weblahg is still there, holding quantities of nonsense, including my fanfic, but also including some usable stuff. Today, for instance, I’m going to reblog a post I did back in 2009 on writing middles.

No, not mine. I wonder if everybody is reading the same stuff I am–how-to blogs about writing the middles of books. People seem to have a lot of trouble with writing middles, and are either looking for help or providing help for others. So I’ll help, too. Yeah, sure I will.

Beginnings and ends are fairly easy to think of. The trouble starts and stuff happens and the trouble ends one way or another. I remember asking my mother what happened on an action-adventure show we always watched and that I missed one week. “The bad guys caught them and locked them up, but they got away and caught the bad guys.” Yeah, thanks, Mom–That’s what happened every week. The fun part was HOW THEY DID IT, and that’s the part she left out. And that’s the middle part.

The MIDDLE of my fantasy, SAGE.

I used to have…. I was going to say that I used to have trouble with the middles of books, but that’s not entirely true. When I didn’t quit when I got to the middle, THEN I had trouble with the middles of books. It isn’t that I couldn’t come up with anything to have happen, it’s that there were too many possibilities. You know–because of quantum, as Terry Pratchett would say. Every action and every character provides endless possibilities for moving the plot in one direction or another. If THIS happens to HIM, his reaction might be THIS or it could be THIS or, if SHE is watching, it could be THAT….

So I started outlining. Yeah, I know–mechanical, restrictive, inorganic…. But it’s a framework I need. I often have the vaguest idea of where I want my story to end. If I don’t pin it down somewhat, the whole book just flaps around like a picnic blanket in a high wind. I start out with the opening situation, which is usually what I have in mind first (don’t laugh–some people start with the outcome, some with the climax). Then I write down a very general ending of ways the situation can be resolved. Then I put the turning points in place–I don’t mean specifics, either, I mean the words “turning point”. Then, as I write the first part of the book, I think about what’s going on, who it’s happening to, and how to arrange meetings, conversations and events to lead the main character to make an important, pivotal decision. That decision automatically whithers all other possibilities, which is sad, but that’s quantum

for you.

The job of the writer is not choosing what to put in, but what to leave out.

MA

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a very brief story, with about six sentences. The first sentence sets up the character and situation, the last sentence resolves it. The other four are the Middle. Do with them what you will. “Once upon a time, there was a princess who was as good as she was beautiful. And she lived happily ever after.” That’s nice, but it’s the middle that makes the story.

#SampleSunday Summer of SAGE Week 3 Dragon and Her Eggs

Yesterday, Patrick O’Scheen’s dragon reviewed The Fall of Onagros, Book 1 of SAGE, and pronounced it better to read than to eat. I promised him The Dragon and Her Eggs, and here it is. This is a story being told by a “praiter”, a storyteller from Istok.

Dragon and Her Eggs

Silver and Iron, Book 3 of Sage — excerpt

by Marian Allen

Long, long, ago (he said), back in the days when there wasn’t much yet to tell, there was a Primarch who was afraid to die. He asked each member of his Council of the Wise how he could cheat death.

The very last one, an old woman, bent and nearly hairless, told him that the remedy was known by only one person: Alith Mayros, the Cook Who Couldn’t Lie.

~*~

This was greeted by sounds of satisfaction. Alith Mayros was a great favorite in the Istok pantheon.

~*~

So Alith Mayros was sent for, and the Primarch put his question.

Alith Mayros said, “Only a fool fears death. Death loves us tenderly and embraces us all, sooner or later. Life is joy, but life is pain, and it often wounds us worst in taking leave.”

If anyone else had spoken so to the Primarch, he would have thrown him in prison, for the Primarch was, indeed, a fool. Alith Mayros, though, had leave to say what he pleased. After all, what is the good of someone who cannot lie if his tongue is tied?

Again, the Primarch asked for freedom from death, and Alith Mayros could not help but reply, “I have heard that one who sits down to a meal of a dragon roasted with her own eggs will never die thereafter.”

The Primarch said, “Cook me that meal.”

Now, at that time, dragons were easier to find. Every settlement had at least one guardian dragon. Every path, every stream, every bog, every woodland, every inch of Istok rested under a dragon’s wing. To harm one, even accidentally, was a disgrace. To kill one was a crime and a sin. To eat one was an abomination, as – of course – is eating a mother in a dish with her young. Yet the Primarch insisted.

“And you, Alith Mayros, are granted the honor of preparing and serving this wonderful meal. Who else would be worthy? Go, then, and return tomorrow evening with my immortality.”

“So soon? I need more time!”

“Every day you fail me brings me another day closer to death. Every day which brings me closer to death, ten people will die. Any ten – it’s all the same to me.”

Alith Mayros left the audience lodge and stumbled across the clearing to the cookhouse, where he sat by the cold hearth and wept.

“Truth is a curse!” he cried up the smoke hole.

~*~

The praitier’s audience shouted the next line along with him, a line which appeared in every Alith Mayros story: “Oh, what I wouldn’t give for one little lie!” When the laughter had died down, he continued.

~*~

Then there was a scurrying in the thatch, a scraping, a dusting of straw, then a plonk, and a blue-tailed lizard no longer than my hand dropped to the floor. It gleamed in the sunlight that poured straight down the smoke hole.

“What are you weeping for?” the lizard asked. “I know what you want, and I bring it to you. Where is the roasting dish?”

Alith Mayros brought the red clay dish and placed it on the floor near the lizard.

“Go fire the oven.”

The Cook Who Couldn’t Lie went out and lit charcoal in the fire holes of the big clay oven. When he came back in, the lizard had lined the dish with bright blue and green scales and gold-yellow thatching straw. There came the sound of wings. A kingfisher dropped through the smoke hole as if plunging into water, swooped over the roasting pan, and dove back into the sky. He left one kingfisher’s egg behind. Another rush of wings, and a hawk passed in and over and out, leaving one hawk’s egg. One after another, ten different birds each left one egg, ten eggs for ten innocents who would die without them. Then the lizard crawled into the roasting dish and made itself comfortable.

“Now, Alith Mayros, put on the lid and seal it. When the charcoal is ash, put the dish into the oven and seal the door. When the Primarch sits down to dinner, break the seal on the oven but not on the roaster. Place it before him and tell him this: If he sends the dish away unopened, he will have a long and blessed life. His people will prosper and he will die gently. If he opens the dish, he will never again have cause to fear death.”

~ * ~ ~ * ~ ~ * ~

If you’ve read many folktales, I think you might be forgiven for suspecting that things may not go well for the Primarch.

#Caturday Cats From Across the Pond

Katya Graymalkin here.

This week, two cats from England are visiting me here on the blog. Mom’s friend Andrea Gilbey is their human. Don’t ask me how cats got across the ocean. Maybe they came in a catamaran.

At any rate, here’s Top Cat.

~ * ~

Hello! It’s T.C. here with my little brother, Thomas, and we’re from England. (Actually, he’s not my really-truly brother, but we’ve adopted the same person, so it works out to the same thing.) We haven’t owned her for very long, but she’s a lot of fun to have around and we like watching her play, though we’ve noticed she has a strange habit in the evenings. After she’s served us our dinner and fed herself we play with her, to make sure she’s tired enough to sleep properly, and then we have a little rest for an hour or so. While we’re resting our Mum gets out a square flat thing and taps on it with her fingers; sometimes there are pictures on it, sometimes just words. She says she talks to her friends on it and shows them pictures of us, and tells them all about us.

One of her friends is Katya’s Mum, Mrs Marian, and she suggested that Katya might let us pay her a visit one Caturday and talk about ourselves. Mum said it would be a bit difficult for us, as we don’t have thumbs, but we’ve watched her when she writes to her friends, and she doesn’t use her thumbs, just 2 fingers on each hand! Easy!

Of course you want to see what we look like! Here we are – that’s me, the handsome black and white boy…

…and here’s Thomas, the little black bundle of fluff.

Mum says he’s a tabby; if that means bouncy and irritating then I suppose he is. He’s pretending to be very well read in this photo, but he really only sits on those particular books because he knows I’m too big to get in there and push him out!

Mum says we have to go to see someone nice in a few days, and they’ll give us something to make sure we don’t get ill. That’s got to be a good day out, right?

I have to go now; Thomas has had Mum’s attention all the while I’ve been talking to you, so I need to go and sit on him for a while. It’s a responsible job being Top Cat.

~ * ~

Thank you for visiting, TC. And, if you can arrange for Thomas to stay with the nice someone who gives you something to keep you well, all the better. Being an Only Cat is the way to go!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR CATS: What’s your best plan for becoming or staying an Only Cat?

KG

 

These Are A Few Of My Favorite Blogs

And NONE of them are about whiskers on kittens! How weird is that?

The first is Michael Williams’ Mythical Realism. Michael doesn’t post nearly often enough to suit me but, when he does, he says something worth saying (except when he posts about Game of Thrones; I don’t watch Game of Thrones, so ~yawn~). But OTHERWISE, he posts great stuff, like this one about faith, refuge, choices, and — always — mindfulness.

Next is Behind Closed Covers, a lovely book review site filled with personal reviews of books the reviewer chose because she thought they sounded interesting. You may or may not agree with her choices or her reviews, but I’m charmed by her openness and clarity of statements. Not a stuffy word on the entire site.

I lubs me some Byron Edgington. I read and reviewed — with as many stars as Amazon allows — his memoir, THE SKY BEHIND ME. He has a blog I follow assiduously (not a dirty word). I recommend Byron Edgington: Author, Byron’s Blog. It used to be called Queequeg’s Coffin, which makes it even better!

The wonderfully named The Diesel-Electric Elephant Company by Ian Huston is one of those blogs you go to, never knowing what you’ll find. I particularly loved this post about people-watching at the hospital and on public transport.

Live Wonderstruck is my latest “discovery”, the blog of author S. M. Hutchings. It’s beautiful, and not in a happy-sappy way. In a true, honest, sometimes funny way.

My beautiful Sister from across the sea, Marion Driessen, has a blog devoted to her photos, which are stunning. Go catch yourself some Eye-Catcher. There might even be some whiskers on kittens there.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Do a Google Image search for butter. Write about the sixteenth picture.

MA

Hummingbird FAIL

I tried to take a picture or a video of my hummingbirds fighting, but the little stinkers are so wee and so speedy the results look like pictures of the feeder.

Here’s a picture I took in an earlier year, when I had a feeder at the window.

Did you know that hummingbirds are aggressive? Well, they certainly are! They’re highly territorial about feeding and breeding, and they’ll whup anybody or anything they perceive as threatening or encroaching upon either.

How do they show aggression? They’re so teensy and cute! What could a bitsy li’l thing like that do? It only weighs, like, less than an ounce!

Well, imagine you’re The Incredible Hulk and you’re eating a sammich and all of a sudden Wolverine jumps on you.

Not so cute, now, eh? To a hummer, another hummer is dangerous. Like a lot of animals, they begin by making threatening sounds.

“Hey! Hey you! Yeah, I’m talking to you! Buzz off!”

“Who says?”

“I say!”

“You and whose army?”

“Why you–!”

And the aggressor dives and chirps a special chirp, like a hummingbird, “Oorah!” If the intruder backs up, the aggressor chases him away and comes back to lie in wait, watching for ruby-throated poachers.

They can fight, as a last resort. They have those long, pointy bills and tiny little talons, sharp as kitten teeth. They could put your eye out! But they don’t often do more than threaten with them. They certainly look dangerous to me.

I’m happy to say that my hummers are used to me, or know I’m the one who fills their feeder, so they don’t attack me. I’m always afraid they’ll run into me while they’re chasing each other around, though.

The Daybreak Imagery Blog says, and proves to me, that the best way to lessen aggression at feeders is to have lots of feeders close together. That makes it obvious to the birds that there’s plenty for everybody. I would have thought that four feeder stations on the feeder would do that, but apparently not.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Aggression occurs over food.

MA

The Dog With 1000 Names

Maybe not that many. But he’s definitely polynomial. –Wait, that’s not right.

ANYWAY, he has lots of names.

We don’t even know how many names he has, because he’s a stray. For all we know, he has a name in every port.

Oh, by the way, here is a picture of him, getting ready to lie down and eat the treat I gave him. I love those liver-colored spots on his white bits. I have lots of treats left over from when Joe was alive, and this little feller is just pleased as punch to mooch ‘em off of me.

So when he first came up, Next Door Grandson wanted to call him Hector, having just finished a unit in school on the Greeks and Romans. But the dog is just not Hector material.

His official name is Bob the Dog (named after a kid’s book character #1 daughter likes), but he’s also called Roamer Bob because it took him a while to settle in and choose this location for his permanent address. His tag says he’s Victor, but that’s because the tag belongs to a late cat of #1 daughter’s, Bob having lost his own.

At his actual house, they usually call him Pup, and my mother calls him Pup-pup. Charlie and I usually call him Roamer Bob, because it strikes us funny, but Pup-pup usually gets his attention.

Speaking of names, I just looked on How Many Of Me, and found that there are 234 people in the United States named Marian Allen. I would have thought there would be more. Huh.

Here are a couple more pictures of him.

You got more treats?
You DO got more treats!!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character has just said goodbye to a beloved pet, when a stray comes around. How does the character feel? What do they do?

MA

Bobo and Me

This weekend, I was sous-chef for world-class culinary artist Lana Cullison, making dishes for World on the Square in Corydon, Indiana.

One of the dishes was Bobó, a Brazilian stew. Here’s the recipe:

It says:

Yucca root, red palm oil, bell pepper, onion, scallions, red chili paste or paprika, garlic, cilantro, Jalapeño, tomatoes, coconut milk, lime or lemon juice, peanuts, coconut.

But Lana cooks the way I do, only well, so we didn’t use quite that. Since so many people have peanut allergies, we didn’t even have peanuts in the kitchen. We didn’t have any yucca root or red palm oil or scallions or red chili paste or Jalapeño.

Here is what the stew looked like cooking:

There’s chicken and fresh green beans and zucchini, onions, tomatoes (red and yellow). We used garlic, paprika and cilantro. That may have been the one we put the green, red, and orange peppers in, but I wouldn’t swear to it. Coconut milk, but no coconut. We forgot the lemon juice so, after the dish was mixed with rice and garnished, I squeezed two lemons over a strainer and poured the juice over the top and just let it soak in. Here’s what it looked like:

I also helped do an African-based stew. It’s usually made with peanuts or peanut butter but, again, we did NOT use peanuts! We used almond butter and garnished it with almonds. The dishes were labelled with their ingredients, paying especial attention to allergens.

This dish I do not know the name of. Lana said the recipe she had called it Halal, but Halal is a category of foods that are clean according to Sharia, so I don’t know what this dish is. It was seasoned with turmeric and fenugreek and crushed coriander, and it was DIVINE! The eggplant was soaked overnight in salt water, then drained and squeezed, seasoned with onion, garlic, salt and oregano and braised. SO good!

All these dishes, with the chicken left out, would be heavenly vegan dishes!

I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies about what I got at the end of my cooking adventure. (Not a cut finger, like last year!)

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character cooks for a crowd.

MA

Enter The DuTchess!

One of the lovely people I’ve met in cyberspace is Marion Driessen, my “sister” from The Netherlands. I tagged Marion with an award, but she doesn’t do awards because she considers us all equally award-worthy. See why I love her?

Nevertheless, since she IS my sister, she kindly answered the questions attached to the award, and here are her answers:

How long have you been blogging?
For over four years.

Why did you choose the topic(s) for your blog?
I didn’t! Beauty and joy is in everything, you just have to know how to look for it. And that I want to share.

How do people find your blog?
People can stumble over my blogs on several social media, but mainly they follow posts through WordPress. (Figments of a DuTchess)

Do you feel comfortable promoting/advertising your own stuff?
My photos, poems and stories are there for anyone who wants to read and see them. So yes

What’s your happiest earliest childhood memory?
My memory is a mess, a black hole, but the love for my family shines throughout my youth. Holidays are more clear than other memories.

If you could have any critter, real or imaginary, as a pet, what would it be?
A cat. Are there others? Hehehe, just kidding. I’d love to have dogs too, and a horse. And chickens.
 
What would you name it?
My cat is called Bandit.

Why would a woodchuck chuck wood?
What else could you do with those teeth?



Vegan, vegetarian, or omnivore?
Omnivore, still dreaming about her vegetarian years. Those darned men demand meat at my house!

What are you reading (not these questions, silly! what book?)?
The Harp of Winds, by Maggie Furey. But after this series, it’s going to be Sage!*

What is your superpower?
Sensing humor in all situations. Except while visiting dentists. Those are immune to humor.

There you have them.

Hugs,
Mar

*SEE why I love her??

Here are all her websites, some in English and some in Dutch:

>> Figments of a DuTchess (EN)
>> Doldriest (NL)
>> Dungeon DuTchess (EN)
>> Photos: Eye-Catcher
>> Photos: Animalia
>> DutchText (NL)

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a character who is immune to humor. Make him or her emotionally appealing.

MA

#SampleSunday Summer of SAGE week 2

I’m the Readers Meet Authors and Bloggers Spotlight Author this month, with a Rafflecopter giveaway of a PRINT copy of The Fall of Onagros, Book 1 of SAGE.

I’ve been spotlighted on these blogs:

The Bookworm’s Fancy

Life, love and conflict in the hill country

1 Book Lover’s Opinion

And here’s how you enter the giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And now, here’s an excerpt:

Andrin Meets the Dragon

The Fall of Onagros, Book 1 of SAGE – excerpt

by Marian Allen

There was a well in the center of the storeroom floor. It occurred to Andrin, although he had no intention of putting the plan into action, that some opportunity for revenge lay in his power. If he drowned himself in the castle’s well he would be out of his misery, and he would create a nuisance or a health hazard, depending on how long it took them to discover his body.

Andrin went to the well. He leaned over. He could see his silhouette in the well’s depths, his features and shaven head picked out feebly by the window’s light.

It was cooler over the well. Andrin put one hand below the rim; it was cooler still. The water would be cold – a most refreshing drink.

He leaned further over, as if he could gulp directly from that pool so far below. The wine he had drunk seemed to sweep into his head, full of air and fire now; his brain fizzed with it.

A voice whispered from the depths, “Careful….”

Andrin pulled back, then leaned over again. His silhouette wavered and broke to bits, replaced by another face, larger than his and bluish-green. Its muzzle was long and rounded; its mouth opened to show a double row of sharp white teeth. Its eyes were large and dark. The creature glowed, faintly, but enough in the black pit of the well to show itself to the Waymaster.

The head rose above the surface of the water, then the long, slim neck, then the front legs, scaled and clawed, and the body came and continued coming, as Andrin scuffled back to give it leeway.

At last the creature was in the storeroom with him. It was three times as long as he was tall including its fluked tail, but no more than twice his thickness at its broadest part. It had four legs, each ending in five claws. It was covered with scales, some smooth and some rough, ranging in color from yellow-green to violet-blue. As Andrin watched, it dried in the storeroom’s air, and its rough scales feathered out until it bore a soft ruff around its head just behind the eyes and a soft crest down its back to the tip of its tail.

~ * ~

Now, I ask you: Is that a dragon you’d like to meet, or isn’t it?

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: If your main character came face-to-face with that dragon, what would he or she do? If you don’t write, what do you imagine you would do? What would Very Special Agent Tony DiNozzo do?

MA