Marian Allen's Blog, page 408

And Echo Answered

I don’t have a FAX machine at my house, okay? I think — note that I say, “I think,” I have FAX capability in my computer/printer, or can download a program for that. But you know what? It makes me sweat bullets just thinking about sorting that out.

So, when I had a contract to sign for SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING, I went looking for an electronic signature service. And I found it. Adobe’s EchoSign has a service that ranges from Free (all I need) to Not Free (more than I need). I feel like one of the Cool Kids!

Speaking of SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING, it’s part of my SAGE Kickstarter campaign. If we raise $360 more that we have now, SIDESHOW gets released! Otherwise, I guess it languishes until SAGE sells enough to justify another publication of mine. So spread the word about the campaign, okay? Thanks!

I just lucked onto a blogger/writer who’s new to me: Buzz Malone. He makes me snort coffee out my nose, and I like that in a blogger. He’s written a book which is NOT a comedy, and Imma buy it as soon as the month turns and I have grocery money to embezzle again. He has a Community on Google Plus called Literary Agents Hate Kittens. If you’re on GoogaPlus, look up that Community.

I’ve also been introduced to a blog called Dead Tree Edition, particularly to a post called My Heartfelt Apology to the Publishing Industry. As one who lives in a Flyover State, I love it.

While we’re smacking Big Pub around, let’s see how Lawrence Block gets into the act in his Great Moments in Contemporary Publishing.

Okay, break it up. A bazillion to six is unfair. ~snicker~

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character sees a bunch of little guys beating the crap out of a big guy.

MA

#Knitting A Tiny Turtle

He didn’t turn out tiny, and he didn’t turn out purty. He’s a poor thing, but mine own. I hope the ones that follow will be superior. If you want to try, here’s my pattern.

Oh, for those who don’t savvy the lingo, here’s what the abbreviations mean:

CO = cast on
k2tg = knit two stitches together (decreases 2 stitches into 1)
kfb = knit front and back (increases 1 stitch into 2)
st = stitches (duh)
*blah blah* = repeat the pattern inside the ** to the end of the row
PU = pick up stitches

If there’s any of this you don’t know how to do yet, do what I do and run whining to KnittingHelp.com.

SMALL KNIT TURTLE

Body and tail

CO 3 stitches

knit
kfb, kfb, k1 (you now have 5 stitches)
purl
k1, *kfb* (9 st)
purl
k1, *k1, kfb* (13 st)
knit
knit
purl
knit
purl
knit
purl
k1, *k1, k2tg* (9 st)
purl
k1, *k2tg* (5 st)
purl
k1, k2tg (3 st)
k3tg

Cut yarn, leaving 6 inch tail. Using tapestry needle, run yarn through last stitch and then into the knitting and tie it off. this should leave a stubby little tail.

Cut another length of yarn. using the tapestry needle, run it through stitches on the circumference of the knitting. Pull it closed like a drawstring and tie it off.

If your guy comes out the way my guy did, you’ll have a ridge at one end. I used that as the front of the shell. The front feet need to be placed just behind that ridge, with the back feet a few stitches back from them. The head, of course, is at the opposite end from the tail!

Foots

PU 2 st

knit
purl
k2tg

Finish off, as you did for the tail.

Head

PU 3 st

knit
purl
k2tg

Finish off. You might want to stuff him. You might need to tighten up or sew closed that underside. I’m thinking of cutting a piece of felt and sewing it on.

I hope your guy comes out looking better than my guy did, but I’m proud of him, even though he is kind of raggedy.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character loves something he or she has made, even though it’s seriously flawed. Steampunkers, I’m lookin’ at YOU.

MA

I Heart Bagels

Yes, I know that making something as labor-intensive as bagels is very unlike me, but I do it now and then. I use this recipe from the Sunset Cookbook of Breads.

Here’s how:

EGG BAGELS

2 packages yeast, active dry or compressed
2 cups warm potato water (water in which potatoes have been cooked) (lukewarm for compressed yeast)
4 eggs
1 Tablespoon salt
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/4 cup salad oil
About 8 cups unsifted regular all-purpose flour
Sugar
Boiling water
2 egg yolks beaten with 2 Tablespoons water

Soften yeast in 1/2 cup of the potato water. Beat eggs in large bowl; blend in the yeast, remaining potato water, salt, sugar, oil, and 2 cups of flour. Stir in remaining flour to make a soft dough.

Turn out on a lightly floured board and knead for about 10 minutes, adding more flour as needed to make a firm dough. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover lightly, and let rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk.

Punch the dough down, and knead it for a few minutes on a lightly floured board until it is smooth. Roll the dough out to a rectangle, and divided into 32 pieces of equal size. Roll each piece between the palms to form a strand about 6 inches long and 3/4 inch in diameter.

Moisten the ends, and seal them together firmly to make doughnut-shaped rolls of uniform thickness. Let them rise on a board for about 15 minutes (if the rolls come unsealed during rising, reseal ends before boiling).

Dissolve 2 Tablespoons of sugar in 2 quarts of boiling water in a deep pot. Drop bagels into the water, one at a time. They will rise quickly to the surface. Do not crowd. As the bagels come to the surface, turn them over. Boil for 3 minutes on the second side.

Remove with slotted or runcible spoon and place on greased baking sheets; brush with egg yolk glaze.

Bake in a hot oven (425F) for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the crust in golden brown and crisp.

Makes 32 bagels.

They ain’t symmetrical, but they sure were good!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character makes a labor-intensive dish and the result is less than attractive.

MA

 

Three Little Words

Awe! Some! Sauce!

Wow, did I ever have a great weekend!

First, #4 Daughter took me out for lunch to my new favorite place (Point Blank Brewing Company in Corydon, Indiana). Then, #3 Daughter gave me two beautiful scarves to add to my collection. And it wasn’t even my birthday or anything!

My publisher, Hydra Publications, put up a Kickstarter campaign for SAGE which met its (admittedly low) goal within the first 24 hours! The campaign still has 27 days to go; the further it exceeds its initial goal, the more swag will go to contributors.

I was the Featured Indiana Blogger at the little Indiana blog. I love that blog and its newsletter already, since I love my little Indiana town. Hop over and read the interview. Jessica is so much fun! I wish I knew her for realsies.

And today, Hydra sent me a contract on my science fiction novel, SIDESHOW IN THE CENTER RING, which was published in 1994 and is just longing to be reissued.

I also figured out how to knit a turtle! I’ll post the pattern on Thursday.

So you see why I’m doing the happy dance? Wouldn’t you?

I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies on the topic of pickled mustard seed sauce, which is another awesome sauce for the list.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What would make your main character do the happy dance?

MA

You Can’t Go Wrong With Dragons

My guest today is Dianne Gardner, talking about her new book, THE DRAGON SHIELD. This is book 2 of her Ian’s Realm saga. Naturally, I wanted her to come talk about it because: Dragon.

Dianne Gardner is both an author and illustrator living the Pacific Northwest, Olalla Washington. She’s an active member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and the National League of American Pen Women. She has written Young Adult Fantasy novels as well as articles for national maga­zines and newspapers and she is an award-winning artist.

I asked her:

Why the Dragon Shield?

Good question!

Since The Dragon Shield is the second installment of the Ian’s Realm Saga, with four very important short stories binding the first two books together, (Deception Peak and The Dragon Shield), I’ll try to answer this without giving too much of the story away.

In the short stories The Tales of the Four Wizards, Patriarchs of the Realm you’ll find out the answer to the question that precedes this one…that is:

Why the Dragon?

The short stories Silvio, Meneka, Kaempie and Reuben tell the myths of the Realm, the magical land our hero Ian Wilson and his father stumble into.

In them, you’ll discover where the dragon lives and why the Meneks, a certain tribe of the Northern lands, worship him. You’ll also discover who the Kaemperns are, and why their hope is to someday rid the land of the dragon’s tyranny, and free the Meneks from its oppression.

But the Kaemperns need protection and there aren’t many things that can protect a primitive people from the vicious attacks of a fire-breathing dragon, other than magic. The magic that the Northern Winds carry, combined with the healing powers that the wizard Kaempie once possessed, create the Songs of Wisdom, a power the children of the Realm are keepers of.

The songs that they sing are, in fact, The Dragon Shield.

But the Dragon Shield is stolen, leaving the Kaemperns defenseless.

We’ll find out that not having the dragon shield can be disastrous for these people, and the fact that it’s stolen might be just as disastrous for Ian. For indeed, when our hero returns to the Realm he must struggle to prove to the Kaemperns that he’s on their side. With all that is happening–the forest dying, war raging, a dragon stirring—this proves to be a not so easy feat for Ian, especially when the forces of evil are taunting him.

Deception Peak, The Dragon Shield, and the next sequel Rubies and Robbers are high adventure fantasy stories with a taste of SciFi (our hero does enter a parallel world through a computer portal). Available in paperback or Kindle editions.

Family friendly. Rated 4.7 stars on Amazon!

Here — have a look at this trailer:

Text and Images Copyright 2013 Dianne Lynn Gardner, used by permission.

Whole buncha links:

Publisher’s website:

http://www.hydrapublications.com/shop/deception-peak/

Official book blog:

http://dragontargeseries.blogspot.com/

Dragon Shield Trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c2rm6mGBrM

website

http://gardnersart.com

Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/TheIansRealmSaga?ref=ts&fref=ts

Twitter

https://twitter.com/DianneGardner

Author Central on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Dianne-Lynn-Gardner/e/B0090LIYEO

The Dragon Shield on Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/Dragon-Shield-Dianne-Lynn-Gardner/dp/0615760457

Deception Peak

http://amzn.com/B0090888WU

Silvio

http://amzn.com/B00A3WAA9G

Kaempie

http://amzn.com/B00AYZKIDK

Meneka

http://amzn.com/B00AHG460C

Reuben

http://amzn.com/B00B7RG72U

Smashwords Deception Peak

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/260744

Goodreads

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6473931.Dianne_Lynn_Gardner

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17304505-dragon-shield

Thanks for visiting, Dianne! My dragons say “Rawr!” to your dragon.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Something a character considers a charm against misfortune goes missing.

MA

#SampleSunday – Kick Me, Baby!

My publisher, Hydra, is running a Kickstarter campaign for the SAGE series, with the money to be used for production costs and promotional costs. Contributors to the campaign get stuff like ebooks, print books, and maybe some short stories. I’m very excited! Here’s the link:

The SAGE Novel Series by Marian Allen awesome Kickstarter campaign.

And now here’s another sample from the second book in the series.

BARGAIN WITH FATE, BOOK 2 OF SAGE – Excerpt

Something was on the path, and it wasn’t Brady. It was something ponderous, with a tread that was weirdly light. Elsie couldn’t hear its feet against the ground – she felt its tread. The weight of it – the energy of it – thrummed up the path like a hammer striking a harp string.

Elsie scrambled to her feet, clutching her pack as if she could defend herself with it, feeling the fool as she did it. She slipped off the trail, away from the river, where the trees and the darkness were thicker.

The thing moved in the same direction and came nearer. The trees and stones that blocked and baffled the girl seemed no obstacles to whatever approached her.

Its presence came before it. – No, not its presence. The presence of something Other, filtered through it. The Other surrounded Elsie; the air was thick with it. It held no Good. It held no Evil. It simply and dreadfully was.

The thing approaching held that Other within itself; it was all that kept that Other contained. It also kept that Other focused when It’s nature was diffused, like a dam with a weir that turned water into power.

Elsie could feel the heart of the thing approaching. Its beat counterpointed the beat of Elsie’s own. Its lungs drew her breath and let its breath be drawn into hers – the feeling was heady… delirious.

And the name she gave her response to this was “terror.” “Terror” rejected the thing; its heart and its breath and the Other it barely incorporated. “Terror” freed Elsie to find her way back to the root-knotted path, to feel her way along it, away from whatever was coming.

Softer than a breeze, she heard, just at the level of hearing, “You have nothing to fear.”

It wanted no more than that to trigger Elsie’s panic. She threw herself straight ahead, caroming off trees, stumbling and tripping in a headlong flight that lasted no longer than a minute. Then she whirled into emptiness and over the bank into the Fiddlewood River.

~  *  ~

Dear God, what is that thing???

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character is terrified by something in the night.

MA

#Caturday — I’m RICH!

I was thinking about Captain Kitty, and how much #4 Daughter and I loved it when I used to read it to her. So I looked it up on Amazon, and dang! Thang is worth some dollars! $15 bucks for a 69-cent book? …Nope, not sellin’.

If you’ve never read Captain Kitty, he went to sea one day with a crew of other cats (Pearly and Mew were the crew). They landed on a tropic isle, where the natives (also cats) dove for pearls. (“Pearls! Pearls! Pearls! Pearls!”). They saw some parrots the color of carrots. I believe, if I’m not mistaken, they caught a whale by the tip of his tale and tossed him back into the briny.

We must have read that book a hunnert times. We counted the parrots. We counted the pearls. We crawled inside that book and lived there.

Apparently, I’m not alone. When I did a search for Captain Kitty, I found other bloggers who remember this book from their or their children’s childhoods. One lovely person, Morgan Wills of Australia, has even transcribed the text and posted some of the illustrations. Her blog is Things That Make My Heart Sing, and Captain Kitty will certainly do that. If I could run away and live in a book, this book would be the one.

You come, too, and we’ll eat fish and wear sweet smiles.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character comes across a book he or she loved as a child, and is surprised at who else loved it.

MA

Why We Can’t Eat This Bird

First, allow me to recommend Lee Lofland’s The Graveyard Shift. It’s an awesomely awesome blog of awesomeness, full of cop stuff and links to more cop stuff. Cooking with Cops? He’s got it. Police tools? Got it. Reviews of cop shows? Yurp. Two words: awe and some.

And my second recommendation is like unto the first. Also a Lee Lofland offering is The Writers’ Police Academy. Scheduled for September in Nawth Cahlahnah, it looks SO COOL! Investigation and interrogation! Patrol car ride-alongs! Firearms training simulation! And Rumpole of the Bailey’s favorite: Bloodstain patterns! Now you, too, can solve The Penge Bungalow Murders!

Finally, here is the answer to the perennial question: Why can’t we eat this bird? Do not be alarmed because a video doesn’t show. It’s just audio. It’s an audio clip from one of my favorite movies, Ladyhawke. This bit of dialog is between a very young Matthew Broderick and Leo McKern as a disreputable priest.

So now you know.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What would your main character give up as an exercise in self-denial?

MA

Fingers To Neck

No, that isn’t a flash fiction about strangulation.

Before I took up knitting, I had a fling with finger knitting. Here is an illustrated how-to on finger knitting which I particularly like, because of illustration #2, which is (as of this date: 2/14/2013) a photo of somebody’s happy dog.

So, anyway, the result of finger knitting was a bunch of, like, ropes. Unless you plan to go into business as a monk (or, following up on the strangulation theme, a hangman), there really isn’t a major niche in one’s life for a bunch of woven rope.

Then I learned how to knit, and — whaddya know? — there was all this yarn just lying around eating its head off and doing nothing but being rope. So I unwove it and knitted it up. As a piece of knitting, it ended up being much, much smaller than it was as a piece of … you know … rope, but it was long enough to go around my neck, so I have — TA DA! — another pretty collar.

Please ignore shiny chin. It’s youth serum, not chicken fat.

I fastened it with a beautiful hand-painted wooden pin given to me by none other than my pal Jane. As my late Aunt Ora Mae would have said, “Now, ain’t that purty? Oh! That’s just so purty!”

Happy Valentine’s Day, one and all! I invite you to read my lovely story, Holiday.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character suddenly feels something around his or her neck.

MA

The Stuff That Supper Was Made Of

We had a lot of stuff I could have cooked, but I was in the mood to use up some tag ends. You know what tag ends are, doncha, Steve? Okay, yeah, none of that makes a bit of sense, but I’m on a Bogart roll.

ANYWAY, and speaking of rolls (dragging the post back on-topic), here is what I made. The mushrooms were fresh buys, but I chopped up the last of a head of cabbage, the last of a bunch of kale, and the last of an onion. Also two slices of jowl bacon. Yes, hog jaws.

Diced the jowl and crisped it up. Added the mushrooms and cooked the moisture out. Added the veg and a little water and put the lid on to steam it. When the cabbage and kale were tender, I took the lid off and cooked the moisture out again. Seasoned it with a little Mrs. Dash.

I cut a ciabatta roll into quarters and brushed them with garlic-infused olive oil and broiled them. And that was supper.

We had some of the kale and cabbage stuff left over, so I made jasmine rice last night and served the stuff over it. Yum.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a story with a bird and a whistle in it. If you don’t see the connection between my post and my prompt, you don’t watch enough Humphrey Bogart movies.

MA