Marian Allen's Blog, page 409
February 12, 2013
A What of What?
So I left Mom’s house the other night, got in my car (yes, she lives next door and yes, I drive to and from there after dark — shut up! — there are possums out there!), and turned on the headlights.
And BOOM! Rabbits everywhere! It was like freakin’ Stonewall! It was like the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago!
I told Mom the next day, “And I turned on the headlights and there was this whole … this … there was this … big bunch of rabbits.”
Well I knew that was wrong. So I looked it up. The collective nouns for a big bunch of rabbits are Colony, Warren, Bury, Trace, Trip. It wasn’t a Colony or a Warren or a Bury, because they weren’t underground. It wasn’t a Trace, because I didn’t see a trace of them, I saw a big bunch of them, unnerstan’? So it must have been a trip.
In fact, it was very trippy. If there’s anything trippier than turning on the lights and seeing a big bunch of rabbits, I don’t know what it is, unless it’s a big bunch of rabbits dancing in a line like the Rockettes.
If you’re interested in more collective nouns, just check with The Almighty Guru. I think he’s kidding us, though. A rhumba of rattlesnakes? Really? Really, Almighty Guru?
Tuesday. Fatal Foodies. Sous Vide.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character sees a big bunch of rabbits.
MA
February 11, 2013
Prossia Intrigues Me
My guest today is Raphyel Montez Jordan, artist and author of PROSSIA.
His bio states:
Raphyel Montez Jordan grew up in a household sensitive to the creative arts. As a child, his hobbies were drawing favorite cartoon and video game characters while making illustrated stories. This passion for art never left and followed him all the way up to his high school and college years.
It wasn�t until college when he underwent a personal �renaissance� of sorts that Jordan took his interest in writing to another level. When he was 19, he started writing a novel for fun, taking inspiration from the constant exposure of different ideas and cultures that college showed him while staying true to the values he grew up to embrace. However, when the �signs of the times� influenced the story and the characters to spawn into universes of their own, he figured he might possibly be on to something.
Even though his novel is not necessarily a religious book, Jordan utilizes his Christian faith by urging people to encourage, not condemn, in his story. Best known for ending his PSFC newsletters with �Unity Within Diversity,� he hopes �Prossia�’s� success will inspire people to consider and support the positive outlook in the difference human kind can share, whether it be race, religion, or any other cultural difference.
See why I’m intrigued? Not to mention he’s gorgeous obviously intelligent.
Now for an excerpt:
“Where are you going, Aly?” Gruago asked as he watched the Goolian walk away.
Lord Juazi
Click for full-size image.
“Either my pappai, Lord Juazi or Gurthyrus are going to come over here with the intent of rolling heads off some shoulders,” she answered. “I’d rather not be in the company when it happens, thanks.”
Gruago shrugged and gave his attention back to Cy and Catty.
Aly headed off ahead so she could catch up with the elders since they wouldn’t be too far away. The grass was getting up to her waist the more she pushed on, and the sound of music behind her grew fainter. The more Aly walked, the less confident she got in heading back towards the elders since she didn’t see any sign of them yet. She stopped and made sure she was still heading in the right direction by checking the fungi growing on a nearby tree.
Catty’s ears suddenly twitched, and she moved her hips away from Cy. She and the two masters saw Juazi sprinting as fast as she could towards them seconds later. The Argutain skid a little as she shouted, “Music Off!”
The speakers stopped playing, shrunk, and flew back into one of Gruago’s pockets.
“Are you lot out of your mind?!” Juazi hissed.
No one besides Cy had enough courage to speak up to the elder.
“No need for worries, ma’am,” Cy insisted. “We were just having a lil fun, is all.”
“Dammit Cyleroa! You above all else should know better!” Juazi said between her teeth. “Every time you make a sound, you’re giving off our position! Now enough toying around and get your asses back with the rest of the squad double. . .where’s Alytchai?”
A sound to Aly’s right made her ear twitch and she had her rifle in her hand before her mind even knew she had grabbed it. She saw some grass rustling in an opening where the sunlight was able to beam down through the trees. There were intense red flowers growing right in the sun’s rays, and a tiny reptile scattered away when it noticed someone was looking at it. Aly sighed and laughed at herself before she headed over to the opening so she could get a closer look at the flowers. She took one step out into the opening, and another creature did the same from the other side.
Aly gasped, the Cyogen that was drawn by the music and flowers gasped, and neither budged a muscle. Aly still had her weapon in hand, and the Cyogen only had to raise his gauntlet and fire. The Goolian tried to hide her fear, but to her surprise, the Cyogen looked even more terrified.
Waiting, waiting. What were they supposed to do? Aly felt a stream of sweat run down the side of her head. The Cyogen felt his hands shaking. Waiting, still waiting. Both were trapped and looking at death.
A flock of birds broke the silence, and Aly’s instincts took over.
“Wait!” she heard the Cyogen yelp.
Too late. One single shot in the nose, and the Cyogen’s face pulled away into molten flesh before he dropped to the ground. Aly staggered back into a tree and covered her mouth. She wiped the sweat from her head and switched the blaster into pistol mode and waited.
~ * ~
Not just an alien-setting shoot-em-up, is it?
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Prossia-ebook/dp/B00403N7B2
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/prossia-raphyel-m-jordan/1100385862?ean=9781453508688
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8925131-prossia
Author website: http://www.raphyelmjordan.com/
Novel Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Prossial-Novel-Page/130106780371024?fref=ts
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RaphyelMJordan
for books, $25 Amazon gift certificate, Prossia swag!
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character is faced with Aly’s dilemma.
MA
February 10, 2013
#SampleSunday – Nerissa Keeps House
I’m doing the final edit on BARGAIN WITH FATE, BOOK 2 OF SAGE, and this is where I am in the process.
Nerissa Keeps House
Bargain With Fate, Book 2 of SAGE – excerpt
The day Nerissa began keeping “house” for Tartarus, he woke her soon after dawn with a nudge of his grubby foot. The lean-to door was open and Nerissa could see the painful glinting of the sea, though the shed was still in shadow.
Tartarus loomed above her, bare from the waist up, tall, thick, hook-nosed. “You look like a fright in the morning, young runaway. Ever hear of a comb?”
“I could ask you the same.” She glared at the stringy black tangles streaming from his head and face like dirty water.
“Pert talk for a little girl.”
“I told you last night – I’m ten. Maybe eleven.”
“Look more like eight. Of course, you look like a plucked chicken, yet you claim to be human, so can I trust your claims?”
Nerissa thrust herself out of the tattered blankets Tartarus had thrown to her the night before, pointedly ignoring him.
Tartarus went back to his own nest of rags and rummaged in them. He fished out a sleeveless shirt and drew it on and left it unbuttoned. He scratched at whatever of his grayish-brown skin he could reach.
“Start the day with a little fruit.” His guttural voice sounded immensely smug, as if he had invented this precept. He dug a small, hard, wrinkled apple out of a dirty canvas bag and tossed it to Nerissa.
She bit into it. It was dry and sour, with only a faint hint of sweetness. She ate it, though.
“Tasty?” Tartarus asked.
“No. Hungry.”
“Toss the core in the fireplace,” he said, although he had eaten his apple stem and all. Nerissa had choked a bit at seeing him, afraid he would expect her to do the same.
She had been too tired last night to register much, but this morning – perhaps because of a draft pulled down the chimney and out the open door – she was aware of a familiar scent. Now she recognized it as the smell of old food and rubbish rotting in a mixed pile. The fireplace would be the first thing she cleaned – if she didn’t run away.
“I’m going out to fish, girl. Keep a sharp ear and a sharp eye, and if you see or hear anyone coming – anyone – close and latch the door and don’t open it on any persuasion. Might be a slaver or a slaver’s informer. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“An informer might be anyone, even somebody you think you know. Somebody you think is a friend. Understand?”
“Yes, I understand.”
“Sometimes slavers even use an animal to hunt out escaped slaves. Like a bird.”
“A bird?”
“I’ve seen men use birds to fish for them, to hunt other birds for them, even hunt rabbits for them. Why not people? You can’t be too careful.”
All the same, Nerissa knew she trusted her bird more than she trusted Tartarus by an immeasurably wide margin.
Book 1, The Fall of Onagros, is not yet available in print, but it’s available electronically at Amazon’s Kindle Stores and at Smashwords.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Someone obviously untrustworthy warns a character against someone the warned character trusts.
MA
February 9, 2013
#Caturday Riddle
As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven sacks.
Each sack had seven cats.
Each cat had seven kits.
Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?
The answer will be posted here in the comments tomorrow. Meanwhile, see if you can answer the riddle. Correct answers will be run through a hopper for a modest prize.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character meets another character who has what appears to be entirely too many animals.
MA
February 8, 2013
Blogs, Books, and Beginning
I’ve discovered some terrific blogs this week and want to share them.
First, Michael Ignacio’s Imagination Ignited is a new blog, but a strong one. What makes it strong? Partly it’s that, although there isn’t much content yet, Michael has set up what he intends to do and is clear about what to expect as he fills out his pages. Partly it’s because, since the content is still germinating, he’s using his blog to promote his fellow writers. Generosity is an attractive quality, in a person and in a blog. Visit him for solid introductions to some writers who may be new to you.
Jo Robinson is a new Google+ friend whose blog, africolonialstories, is a new favorite. Jo lives in Zimbabwe and has just come through a serious bout with malaria. I was like, “I’m so sorry you’re ill — but OMG I KNOW SOMEBODY WITH MALARIA!” Most people I know have stuff like sinus drainage. I mean malaria! How cool is that? Anyway, visit her blog.
La Vonda R. Staples doesn’t write bitty blog posts. She writes beautiful, elegant, moving, and sometimes angry essays. They are worth every minute of your time. She calls her site, “A blog on history, cultural commentary, and my reflections on society.” Go. Read. Grow.
Where Writers And Authors Meet should be called Where READERS And Authors Meet. It’s a site and app devoted to bringing authors and readers together. A cool thing they do is post information about an author and invite questions. The author has a week to answer the questions, then the answers are posted. Yes, Imma be on there. In July, I think. Long time from now. That’s how popular the feature is.
Now, you know I’m learning to knit. A friend (Dani Greer of Blog Book Tours) suggested KnittingHelp.com, and it has, indeed, been a great help. Thanks, Dani!
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Interview one of your characters. If you need to practice first, interview your favorite character from somebody else’s writing.
MA
February 7, 2013
#Knitfail FTW
I told you last week that I bought one skein of yarn for a project that turned out to require four. I was like, “Why didn’t you say that on the OUTSIDE of the package, you goo-gog?” So I cast on half the number of stitches the project asked for and did a simple knit stitch until all the yarn was gone.
The finished whatever-it-was ended up being about 3 1/2 feet long — SO not long enough to be a scarf or a wrap.
Click for bigger picture.
So here’s what I did with it. I wrapped it around my neck, turned part of it down for a collar, and fastened it with a scarf pin made out of a bunch of copper bangles and a something-or-other that you stick through things. It worked out pretty well. Looks like I meant to do that all along.
Pretty durn slick, eh? And, if anybody gives me any grief about it, I have a long, stiff, pointy thing easily to hand. ~insert evil laugh here~
I’m posting today at Echelon Explorations, inviting writers with a speculative fiction element in their books to post blurbs and links. Come see if you find anything you like, or leave your own.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character has to make do with something that is woefully inadequate.
MA
February 6, 2013
The Happiness of the Beer
We had lunch at Point Blank Brewing Company. Yeah, yeah, food good but OMG THE BEER!
Point Blank isn’t just a restaurant that calls itself a brewpub ’cause it sounds cute. Here are the tanks. The TANKS, my friends, the TANKS. OF. BEER! They really really grind the grain and do all the grainy, beery things necessary and cook it and all, and somehow, magically, BEER issues forth.
They gave us a menu with a few items on one side — the brews on draft — and many, many, MANY items on the other side — the brews in bottles. I would have loved to have something from the small menu, but those only came in pints, and I wasn’t sure I could do a pint. Or should.
So I got this. Ladies and gentlemen, please allow me to introduce my new bottled boyfriend, Bell’s Double-Cream Stout. This was so good, so rich, so smooth, so not-bitter, so delicious, I was very sorry, indeed, it didn’t come in pints, quarts, gallons! Looking at how dark it is, you would think it would be so bitter it would make your — you know, those glands just below the corner of your jaw that ache when you eat sour pickles? — parotid glands, thank you — you would think it would make your parotid glands pack their bags and leave home, but you would be wrong. This beer is sheer heaven.
Only because this beer was so good, I plan to try a different one the next time I go to Point Blank. I want to find some more wonderful surprises.
Oh, and we had some highly excellent French onion soup, too.
I’m being interviewed today on Michael Ignacio’s blog. Come visit. 
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character tries something new and is pleasantly surprised, to the point of embarrassing herself. I mean himself OR herself. Not talking about me and this post.
MA
February 5, 2013
What IS It With Firefly?
A little over ten years ago, the tv series Firefly premiered. It was on a cable channel, so we didn’t get it. I’ve since seen it. I’ve since been given the DVD set of the all-too-few episodes. I’ve since watched them several times.
Mom and I have been catching up on the early seasons of NCIS before we started following the show, ordering the disks one-by-one from Netflix. This last time, in between disk deliveries, I said, “You want to read something, or watch a movie, or we could watch Firefly again.”
Just hearing the name of the show settled the question. No contest: we would watch Firefly again. 
So what IS it about that show?
Part of it is the wonderful cast. From the first episode, they worked beautifully, singly and together. The feeling of a history between the crew characters, of experiences shared, of interpersonal dynamics explored and balanced, was there from the start.
The writing is mostly wonderful. Me, I could do without the creepy blue-handed guys and the whole River’s brain thing. Yeah, I know it’s major, and I know it’s what drives the movie, Serenity, but I hated the movie Serenity, so there you go. OTHER THAN THAT, I loved the writing. I could totally watch endless episodes that were just episodes, with no series-long plot arc.
I love the costumes and sets. Kaylee’s ratty paper parasol and her overalls with the teddy bear applique. Jayne’s arsenal and his knitting project on the corner of his bunk. Inara’s hair and makeup and clothes. That rawhide string Zoe has tied around her neck. EVERYTHING about the look of the show is … just … great.
If you don’t know anything about Firefly, Here’s a Wiki about it. But don’t watch it. I warn you, you’ll be hooked.
This being Tuesday, I’m posting at Fatal Foodies on the subject of what to do with a dead biscuit.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What is your main character’s favorite tv show, or other form of entertainment?
MA
February 4, 2013
DRAGONTHOLOGY FREE Feb 4-6, 2013
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Dragonthology-ebook/dp/B00AVLQZ6G
Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Dragonthology-ebook/dp/B00AVLQZ6G
Amazon IT: http://www.amazon.it/Dragonthology-ebook/dp/B00AVLQZ6G
Amazon CA: http://www.amazon.ca/Dragonthology-ebook/dp/B00AVLQZ6G
Amazon DE: http://www.amazon.de/Dragonthology-ebook/dp/B00AVLQZ6G
‘Nuff said.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Someone frees a dragon.
MA
February 3, 2013
#SampleSunday – Who Is Bud Blossom?
Bud is never far from my mind. He thinks I have a crush on him, but it’s more that “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” thing. I’ve featured Bud on this blog before, but I realized I’ve never excerpted the first mention of him, at the beginning of “Blossom on the Water”.
I collected a book full of Bud stories, to which I might add the latest, which appeared in the multi-author anthology, THE CORNER CAFE: A TASTY COLLECTION OF SHORT STORIES.
Anyway, here’s about Bud:
~ * ~
I knew Bud from the cradle up. Of course, everybody knew Bud–only Chinese guy in a town the size of Shepherds, Indiana–everybody’s bound to know him. Had the best restaurant in town, too, though I guess that’s not saying much.
Bud wasn’t really Chinese, of course. I mean, he looked Chinese, but he was an American–at least, we all guessed he was: He dressed like an American, and he talked like an American, and you know what they say about ducks. His name was Bud Blossom, and us kids thought that was pretty funny.
He said his real name was Chinese, but it meant something like “bud” and “blossom” and if you laughed he’d tell you what your name meant. That was okay if it was, like, “manly” or even “ruler of the home,” but if it was “bald” or “pea field”–well, we got to where we left him alone about his name.
I asked my Dad once how long Bud had been around, and Dad said, “He come down here from New York in 1957. They said he walked into the bank with a wad of cash on him that would choke a mule. Never said where he got it. We always figured he stole it. Thought somebody might come after him for it, but they never did, so we stopped thinking it. He opened that place of his on Cherokee Creek, and he’s been here ever since.”
Cherokee Creek ran right through town–if you can call 5,000 people a town. The “creek” was nearly a river, a tributary of the Ohio; it was too wide to jump and too deep to wade, especially above the reservoir east of town. Bud’s restaurant was on a houseboat up at the docks, with some tables inside and some tables outside under a red-and-yellow striped canopy.
It was named The Golden Lotus, but everybody called it Bud’s. My Mom and Dad had their first date there. After I was born, they took me with them. It was that kind of a place–a little bit ratty, so it didn’t matter if your kids chewed on the booth backs. Sold chop suey, chow mein, fried rice, egg rolls, fried chicken, steak, slaw, fish, baked potatoes, and hamburgers.
Lots of times I would walk up there after school if nobody was going to be home and kill some time with Bud. He’d work me while we talked, but I didn’t mind working for Bud. Sometimes we’d fish, dropping lines over the side of the restaurant.
“Freshest fish possible,” he would say at least once while we were reeling them in. “Caught off the side of the boat they’re served in. Can’t get fish fresher than that.”
“That’d be true, if you served ‘em now, but we’re going to clean ‘em and freeze ‘em. Might as well have ‘em flown in from China or Mexico.”
He never would admit to that–always claimed his fish was fresh caught. That was Bud.
~ * ~
THE KING OF CHEROKEE CREEK, folks. One thin dollar and a little less than one other thin dollar. $1.49, in other words, for six stories, including some about Bud, some about his employees, and one about a dragon.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Two characters go fishing.
MA
