Marian Allen's Blog, page 391
August 10, 2013
#Caturday Katyapatra
Katya Greymalkin here.
Mom is away today, helping with food prep for World on the Square Family Fun Fair. She’s latched on to a professional chef, Lana Cullison, who humors her and lets her muddle around in the kitchen and do grunt work.
I thought I ought to go, but Mom said that she could just imagine how much help I’d be in a kitchen full of chicken. I said, “If I can’t help cook, I could go to the Egypt booth. The Egyptians used to worship cats, didn’t they?”
She said, “Yes, and that civilization collapsed or something.”
So I made a picture of myself with Cleopatra eyes, and Mom sneaked and made my tail look like an asp. Ha, ha, very funny, Mom!
Katyapatra and friend
Actually, it is kind of funny, but don’t tell Mom I said so.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR CATS: You go to a place where you’re worshipped as a god.
KG
August 9, 2013
Win A #Free #Book !
The dear, good, folks at the Google+ Community of Readers Meet Authors and Bloggers are spotlighting me (or, rather, The Fall of Onagros, Book 1 of SAGE) this month. The Spotlight includes a Rafflecopter giveaway, which you can enter here or on any of the blogs where I’m featured.
So hop over and visit those good folks at:
Life, love and conflict in the hill country
Cool, eh?
ENTER TO WIN! 
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character enters a contest.
MA
August 8, 2013
Little Free Libraries
Mom and I went to the Arts Council of Southern Indiana building to see an exhibit by our friend Ardis Moonlight, and, in addition to that, got the skinny on Little Free Libraries. They have one outside the Arts Council building, so I snapped a couple of pictures.
Here’s the Little Free Library outside the Arts Council building (the ACSI website is down as of this date, but here’s the Google page).
The Little Free Libraries are exactly what they sound like: they’re little waterproof boxes with doors, and they’re stocked with books. People are welcome to take books from them and are invited to replace them with other fair-condition books. Little Free Libraries are all over the world.
And here’s a close-up of that metallic flower sculpture thing above the Library. I love this. I just love it when stuff like this happens in a picture!
In case you can’t tell, that’s the reflection of the house across the street. Crazycakes!
You can follow Little Free Libraries on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and YouTube.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character takes a book from a Little Free Library and finds something between the pages that propels the action of the story.
MA
August 7, 2013
#6WSC Delicious
While my sister from across the sea, Marion Driessen (The DuTchess) is on vacation, I’m carrying on her Wednesday challenge. When she returns, she and I will do it on alternate Wednesdays.
DELICIOUS – Food? Irony? Something pleases the senses or the intellect. And what pleases one is not necessarily pleasing to another — or any other.
Write a tiny little story in only six words (not counting the title).
Here’s a Six Word Story by Ernest Hemingway.
Such an impact and unseen images in only six words…
Publish your Six Word Story on your own website/blog and paste the link to that post in a comment to this one here. Here’s mine:
Trespass
Stolen fruit. Sweet, but costly. Costly.
The next 6WSC at Figments of a DuTchess will be up on Wednesday, August 14th.
MA
August 6, 2013
More #Food for a #Vegan
Oh, dear, oh, dear, if you can’t eat meat, eggs, or dairy, what can you eat?
I’m not a strict vegan — in fact, I’m an omnivore — but we’ve sort of drifted away from meat, eggs (other than our #2 daughter’s free-range chickens’ eggs) and dairy (apart from the occasional treat from local grass-fed cows). It bemuses me, that I still think of veganism as extreme and limiting when I know better from my own table!
Here’s what we had the other night:
That’s refrigerator pickles (cucumbers, green peppers, green onions, and celery in vinegar/sugar syrup), okra baked until it isn’t slimy, roast beets in vegan margarine, pan-grilled green beans and green onions, and cucumbers and tomatoes in Italian dressing.
Yeah, it was good. It was real good.
I’m posting at Fatal Foodies about some more stuff that’s good. Also vegetarian.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Create a character with a food restriction, medical or otherwise.
MA
August 5, 2013
Chris V Answers “Why #Zombies ?”
My guest today is one of my long-term homegirls, Chris Verstraete. She’s been and gone and done writ a zombie book, the mean thing. So I had to ask her about it.
Christine Verstraete is a big Halloween fan who enjoys a good scare or two. Her short fiction has appeared online and in anthologies including Timeshares and Steampunk’d from DAW Books. Her new YA book, GIRL Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie was released August 1. Stop by her website at http://cverstraete.com or blogs, http://girlzombieauthors.blogspot.com and http://candidcanine.blogspot.com.
~ * ~
Marian, thanks for hosting me and you get to be the primo stop for the Book Launch Blog Tour for Girl Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie, which was released August 1.
Synopsis for GIRL Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie:
Sixteen-year-old Rebecca Herrera Hayes’ life changes forever when her cousin Spence comes back to their small Wisconsin town carrying a deadly secret—he’s becoming a zombie, a fate he shares with her through an accidental scratch.
The Z infection, however, has mutated, affecting younger persons like her, or those treated early enough, differently. Now she must cope with weird physical changes and habits no girl wants to be noticed for.
But time is running out… Becca needs the help of her friends and other cousin to fight off hungry zombies and find their missing mothers.
Most of all, she needs to find something, anything, to stop this deadly transformation before it is forever too late…
BUY:
Amazon: *Canada - China – France - Germany – India - Italy – Japan -Spain - US – UK
* Books-A-Million *Barnes & Noble *IndieBound * Powell’s
Q: In God’s name — WHY ZOMBIES?
A: Oh, Marian, you know that I have a dark side, right? heh-heh.
Funny thing, I’ve always liked Haunted Houses at Halloween and reading Stephen King. I wrote a weird little short story a year ago, “The Killer Valentine Ball,” never realizing that was the beginning.
Actually, I blame The Walking Dead. I began watching it and was mesmerized, yeah, disgusted, too, since they did such an icky, realistic job on the monsters, but something clicked. I wanted to write about zombies, but as more than creepy, flesh-eating monsters. Though, yes, you have to have them in there too, but as the “villains.”
Q: I know you, and I know your zombies are not like anybody else’s zombies. Tell me how they’re different.
A: Did you forget that old saying, ‘you never really know someone until you live with them’…? 
Well… I decided to have the virus mutate and have my main character, Becca, turn only part-Z, with all the problems that entails. And as I hinted in some of my other stories, I tried to put some humor (it being subjective, of course) and have some quirkiness. That’s what GIRL Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie is all about.
Q: Did anything from your Real Life wind up in this book?
A: You mean does my eye spin and twirl? No. Do I like eating raw food? Heck, no. And I prefer yellow over pink or purple or even black (though black is slimming, or so “they” say.)
Maybe I did write things in from my subconscious without knowing it – like the time my sister and I thought we were being chased when we were younger (turns out someone played a bad joke on us), so that fear of being out late and getting caught is there when Becca goes out alone to scout out what’s happening beyond just the vigilantes and distrustful neighbors peeking out windows…
Q: Do you plan any sequels?
A: Hopefully. I do have a few ideas. Of course, that’s while I finish a couple other projects in the works, too.
Q: Do you plan books putting the Chris V Special Spin on any other paranormal concepts?
A: Didn’t realize there was such a thing. ha! Oh, the odd ideas I get… Working on a couple strange short stories at the moment. I don’t know where this stuff comes from. Honest.
Q: If you could return to any time in the past and any place on Earth, when and where would it be and why?
A: I was a dinosaur lover as a kid, but I sure wouldn’t want to go back that far.
I think I’d pick the time of Cleopatra. Ancient Egypt was another passion. I’d thought of being an archaeologist growing up until I decided later to go to college for journalism. (Not sure that was necessarily a better career choice with newspapers dying now, but I’ve never regretted it.) But the legend of Cleopatra as the wise and beautiful ruler when men mostly ruled always fascinated me.
I don’t really know why. Maybe it was the hieroglyphics…. or gasp! Could it be that even then I was fascinated by “brains”? You do know how the ancient Egyptians prepared the bodies for mummification, right?
MA: I do, actually. YUCK!
* Be sure to comment for a chance to win assorted prizes. Leave an email, blog or website link to contact you.*
Here are SOME of the prizes!
*** Don’t forget to follow along the rest of the tour! ***
GIRL Z: My Life as a Teenage Zombie Book Launch Blog Tour – August 5-15
Monday, 8/5 – Marian Allen,- http://www.marianallen.com
Tuesday, 8/6 – Armand Rosamilia, http://armandrosamilia.com/
Wednesday, 8/7 – GirlZombieAuthors, http://girlzombieauthors.blogspot.com
Thursday, 8/8 – StraightFromHel, Helen Ginger, http://straightfromhel.blogspot.com/
Friday, 8/9 – Dana Wright, ZombieGirlShambling, http://zombiegirlshambling.blogspot.com/
Saturday, 8/10 – GirlZombieAuthors, http://girlzombieauthors.blogspot.com
Monday, 8/12 – AR Von, Dreamz of Dragons, http://dreamzofdragons.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, 8/13 – B. Swangin Webster, Books, Shoes, Writing, http://booksshoeswriting.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, 8/14 – DB Corey, http://dbcorey.blogspot.com/
Thursday, 8/15 – Wrap-up – GirlZombieAuthors, http://girlzombieauthors.blogspot.com
Friday, 8/16 – Austin Camacho, Another Writer’s Life, http://ascamacho.blogspot.com
Saturday, 8/17 – Winners announced after 12 noon Central – GirlZombieAuthors, http://girlzombieauthors.blogspot.com
~ * ~
Thanks for visiting and sharing, Chris! Best of luck with the rest of the blog book tour. Y’all, don’t forget to enter the rafflecopter thing.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Come up with your own take on a “traditional” horror/mythological idea.
MA
August 4, 2013
#SampleSunday Summer of SAGE week1
Wow! It’s been a great summer for the SAGE trilogy! Reviews are starting to come in, and they’re positive. People are not just putting up with the strangeness, they’re getting it, which makes me all kindsa happy. I’ve had some interviews and some author spotlights, and now readers/authors/bloggers in the Google+ Community of Readers Meet Authors and Bloggers have chosen The Fall of Onagros, Book 1 of SAGE to spotlight for August.
Hop on over to The Bookworm’s Fancy for the kickoff, links to Erin’s previous spotlight of dear old MomGoth (me), links to other participants, and a Rafflecopter giveaway of The Fall of Onagros.
Meanwhile, one of the Spotlighters, Richard Abbott, author of In A Milk And Honeyed Land, has invited me to participate in a Tasty Summer Reads Blog Hop. As my Sweet Little Baby Angels must know by now, as if they couldn’t tell by my happy chubby picture, I am all about the food.
Here is the blog hop general blurb:
Welcome to the Tasty Summer Reads Blog Hop! Each participant invites a number of others to answer five questions about a recent or forthcoming release, and a recipe that fits with it. Links to the participants I have invited may be found in a while, just above the extract and recipe. Their contributions should be in place soon after this, so check out their blogs over the next few days.
Now for the Random Tasty Questions:
1) When writing are you a snacker? If so sweet or salty?
Preferably both. I love sweet and salty together. I try to keep that to a minimum, because people who sit for long periods of time, moving nothing but their fingers and coffee mug, don’t need a whole lotta calories.
2) Are you an outliner or someone who writes by the seat of their pants? And are they real pants or jammies?
I find I can write more spontaneously if I have at least a general outline, so I don’t have to stop and choose a path as I go. Of course, if some interesting alternate presents itself, I stop long enough to figure out if it could lead to a workable conclusion, then follow that branch.
Oh, usually blue jeans, sometimes my monkey drawers.
3) When cooking, do you follow a recipe or do you wing it?
Usually wing it, although I’m more apt to stick fairly close to the recipe the first time I make it. And with any kind of bread, I stick pretty close to the recipe proportions.
4) What is next for you after this book?
I already have the trilogy out, and a science fiction book (SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING). I have a YA/NA sorta-paranormal under contract and in edits. I’m doing some rewrites on a previously published book with a view to republication, and I have a series of cozy mysteries under construction.
5) Last question…on a level of one being slightly naughty and ten being whoo hoo steamy, how would you rate your book?
Minus seven. People apparently have sex, since they have lovers and children, but that isn’t part of the plot, and I figure my readers either know how it’s done, in which case they don’t need me to tell them, or they don’t know how it’s done, in which case my book is not the place for them to learn.
I’m tagging:
K. A. DaVur
Joanna Foreman
Eric Garrison
~ * ~ sample from The Fall of Onagros, Book 1 of SAGE ~ * ~
When he was calm, he rose. According to his water clock, it was nearly his usual time, anyway. He stirred up the central fire, laid on some blocks of charcoal, and filled the three-legged kettle which straddled the fire-pit with water from a jug.
He lit a candle and stood before his herb-cabinet, debating which to choose for the central pot. The taste and scent of it would color his day; so, it must harmonize with the day. Perhaps he should take his vision into account when choosing.
Common sage, to soothe his nerves? Clary sage, to sharpen his vision? He chose the dried leaves of the first, the salted pink-and-white flowers of the second. He carried a handful of each to the open kettle, meditating on their qualities and natures, and dropped them into the heating water.
He folded his blanket and rolled up his pallet and stored them in a cabinet carved with the device of the House of Onagros.
As he performed the exercises which kept his aging body strong and supple, the smells of the sages filled the room; the Common was rich and bitter and astringent, the Clary was camphoric and piney. A strong smell, medicinal, and not entirely pleasant.
~ * ~recipe using sage leaves~ * ~
Take a few fresh sage leaves, the bigger the better. Wash them and pat them dry. Heat some oil in a skillet (nut oil is very nice, but olive oil is nice, too). Fry the leaves in the oil until they’re crisp and beginning to brown. Serve them on top of rice, couscous, chickpeas, or anything that’s good with sage.
Here is the list of people who have participated to date, so far as I am aware:
Christy English
Donna Russo Morin
Nancy Goodman
Lauren Gilbert
Lucinda Brant
Prue Batten
Anna Belfrage
Ginger Myrick
Jo Ann Butler
Kim Rendfeld
Cora Lee
Jessica Knauss
Susan Spann
Patricia Bracewell
Kathleen Rollins
Richard Abbott
Marian Allen (me)
Don’t forget to go over to The Bookworm’s Fancy, and enter the Rafflecopter giveaway.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Someone tries to cook something they find in a fiction book.
MA
August 3, 2013
#Caturday Hello Katya
Katya Greymalkin here.
I have a happy and a cross this week.
I’m happy because Mom didn’t sleep well last night. That sounds mean but, since Charlie won’t allow me on the bed, the only time I get to sleep next to Mom is when she dozes sitting up on the couch. Then I sit on the top of the cushions by her head and pet her with my tail. I like to think my purring helps her sleep.
But, in spite of all the help and care I give her, she thinks this kind of thing is funny:
She even set up a Bad Katya Cafe Press store. But the joke’s on her, because nobody buys anything from it. ha!
She’s crazy about that icky-sweet Hello Kitty. So I tried to get her to make a different store for me. I even made this to get things started.
But Mom says there would be something called copyright infringement. I told her I’m not afraid of lawyers, but she said that’s because it isn’t me they’d come after. She said it’s really kind of creepy, and the more she looks at it, the more she likes it, and it’s too bad the HK lawyers wouldn’t appreciate it.
Speaking of lack of appreciation: I left Mom a perfectly beautiful hind end of a chipmunk, placed conveniently near her chair in the office, and she didn’t even say thank you!
A WRITING PROMPT FOR CATS: What’s the best thing you do for your human?
KG
August 2, 2013
Sarah Glenn Is Strangely Funny
I have a guest today — Well, two guests, actually. Author/Editor Sarah Glenn and Not Nathan Fillion.
Sarah’s Bio: Sarah E. Glenn, a product of the suburbs, has a B.S. in Journalism, which is redundant if you think about it. She loves writing mystery and horror stories, often with a sidecar of funny. Several have appeared in mystery and paranormal anthologies, including G.W. Thomas’ Ghostbreakers series, Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, and Fish Tales: The Guppy Anthology. She belongs to Sisters in Crime, SinC Guppies, the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and the Historical Novel Society.
Sarah edited two different newsletters and was a first round judge in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine’s 2003 “Slesar’s Twist Contest”. More recently, she has been a judge for the 2011 and 2012 Derringers. Interesting fact: Sarah worked the Reports Desk for her local police department, and criminals are dumb.
The interview commences:
I tried to arrange for Nathan Fillion to do this interview with me, but he was unavailable. Instead, Elaine Dysart, one of the characters from my story, is going to ask the questions. She’d rather that Nathan Fillion were here, too.
ED: I’ll start with a basic question: Why did you decide to become a writer?
SG: Every writer loves talking about that, don’t they? Their disappointed relatives keep asking them why they’re crazy, so they’ve worked hard on giving a good answer. In my case: I loved reading from a very early age. More than one person I know had to keep me from walking into traffic with a book when I was young. Reading took me to wonderful places; everything from the jungles of Tarzan to the city of Amber. I grew up wanting to create something just as cool (we said ‘cool’ unironically in that decade). I can think of nothing nobler than transporting others the same way.
ED: With funny stories involving vampires, gargoyles, and at least one naked chicken?
SG: Who says you can’t be noble and funny at the same time? My own story focuses on an old-school writer struggling to catch up to the new technology. I’m sure it resonates with everyone of a certain age.
ED: A certain age indeed. Why did you make the hero a smoker?
SG: I didn’t ‘make’ him smoker. My hero just happens to smoke. Characters often develop traits ‘on their own’. As an author yourself, you know that happens.
ED: But you know how I died!
SG: You’re ethereal now; it can’t hurt you.
ED: I’m allergic.
SG: Not beyond the grave. And you’re wandering off-topic.
ED: Back to business, then. You decided to order the stories alphabetically by author. That’s a bit of a cop-out, isn’t it?
SG: Perhaps. A common practice is to put the ‘strongest’ stories at the beginning and end of the collection, then put the ‘weakest’ story in the middle. I didn’t want to do that level of editorializing, plus the collection has a great amount of variety in characters used and their dilemmas. There’s also the approach of putting the longest stories at the end, but that just meant that people like me would only bother with the first half of the book. I toyed with categorizing the stories under the subheadings of ‘Vampires’, ‘Zombies’, ‘Other Paranormal Creatures’ and ‘Critters I Tried to Google’, but even that wouldn’t have covered everyone. So I looked at the list of stories alphabetized by author and decided that it made for a better blend of so-called ‘strength’ and length. It also put my story in the middle, but I decided to be humble.
ED: On to the next topic. You’re a putative writer. What do you enjoy reading?
SG: I mostly read mysteries these days. I love the Gamache series by Louise Penny, and I’m hoping the CBC movie for Still Life will become available on TV or on Netflix. Currently reading A Test of Wills by Charles Todd, who is actually the team of Charles and Caroline Todd. I also enjoy reading Marian Allen, whose novels and stories are often… Strangely Funny.
THE END
I thank you for the shout-out, Sarah, and for this happy-making interview. I’d love to see Elaine in a cage match with Bud Blossom, but they might decide to tag-team us, and that would be so terrible we’d have to call in Uncle Phineas and the telescope from your ALL THIS AND FAMILY, TOO to help us.
Links:
Links to Strangely Funny:
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A supernatural person or thing IS allergic to something.
MA
August 1, 2013
Fandom Fest 2013 Report
Today is the first of the month, so I have a new Hot Flash for you.
I’m also participating in a Writing Exercise Blog Hop, so I’ve posted my favorite one at the end of this report.
Okay. This is the third Fandom Fest we’ve been to.
Here is the report on the first one. No, really, that stuff really happened! Really!
Here is the report on the second one. A little less dramatic.
So we come to this year.
Last year, the price of parking changed every time one asked, so this year, we got a room and had an extremely kind friend drive us over and help us lug everything up there. It would be so nice to be close to the exhibition hall!
Ha. Ha. The exhibition hall was on the far end of the Convention Center. One could either walk two blocks outside, pushing a cart loaded with books and display stands across two intersections and pavement, or one could walk half a mile through a pedway. Then, when one got to the Convention Center, one had to thread the maze to find one’s way to the exhibit hall.
We got lots of exercise this weekend. Lots and lots and lots and lots of exercise.
We set up with the other Hydra authors at the Hydra book booth. Here is a picture of the awesomesauce Tony Acree, author of Hand of God. Hand of God is a paranormal thriller, set in the Louisville Metro area. It’s about a bounty hunter whose brother sells his soul to the devil and the devil gives the bounty hunter 24 hours to find a certain girl before his brother goes south. Why, yes, I did hear Tony say that about a hunnert million times, why do you ask? 
Tony snapped and posted many, many pictures of attendees.
We all memorized each others’ spiels so we could cover for each other while we did panels or walked around.
Here was my favorite attendee. I chased her down the aisle, shouting, “Abs! Abs! Abs! Abs! Abs!” No, she isn’t the actress who plays Abby, but I don’t know that I like that actress because I don’t know anything about her, but I love Abby and this was Abby. Do you understand me? This lady did.
Here is the second-best Mohawk EVER! The best was our #4 daughter’s, the one that earned her the nickname Spike. I suspect his is like this for the same reason #4 Daughter’s was: If he doesn’t have it sticky-up, it covers all the short bits and looks like a conventional haircut.
The magnificent K. A. DaVur was also with us and has posted a buncha pictures, including two of her incarnations. Yes, she sported a different costume every day! She’s the author of HUNTER THE HORRIBLE, about a bunch of kids who are convinced their teacher is a real, live vampire.
I didn’t get to hang out with any of the stars, alas, because it never occurred to me to try. I did run across Stan Lee in the hall one morning, though, and wished him good morning. He nodded as if he would take it under advisement. I think #4 Daughter wants to have my eyeballs bronzed because they saw him in person. Maybe I’ll leave them to her in my will.
My very most favorite thing of all was Graham Cracker, the cutest mouse inna world. She was running around on an artist’s table, and she let me pick her up after she sniffed my hands a little.
And here are a couple other pictures I loved.
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“Guess what? We’re not really Japanese.”
I understand there were some logistical problems with the festival, and the Fest organizers saw that the Literary Track was hidden with a zeal equalled only to Area 51, but we still had a blast. Stephen Zimmer, the guy in charge of the Literary Track itself, is unparalleled in capability, kindness, efficiency, resourcefulness, and flexibility, and he kept everything together and everybody in Literary in good spirits. We loves him, we does.
If we go again next year, we will NOT stay at The Galt House. Parking = $12/night. Wi-Fi = $5.97/night for up to two devices; if more than 2 devices access from the room OR you access after midnight, the charge doubles. We had black mold in our bathroom, no plastic bags in the trash cans, and one partial roll of toilet paper was provided for three middle-aged women. Not pretty. Not nice. A real coffee pot, which was nice, but no microwave. A “refrigerator” which they must have turned on when we checked in, because it was barely cool when we put our food in, but everything was frozen solid by Sunday morning.
Still, now that it’s over, we’re glad we went. We sold many books, met many nice people, and had many laughs.
For another take, read about Carol Preflatish’s experience, and also the story SHE tells about how she got tossed out of The Galt House when she was a teenager.
MY FAVORITE WRITING PROMPT/EXERCISE: Write down ten things you know about a character you want to write or have written about. Now ask ten questions you don’t know the answers to and let the character answer in their own voice.
MA
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