Marian Allen's Blog, page 415

Monkeys and Freebies

No, this is not a post about the Ikea monkey. Today, boys and girls, is:

MONKEY DAY

Yes, awesomely enough, there is such a day! Wikipedia dates Monkey Day as having begun as a joke in 2000, but I know better. Here is the official 2000-version Monkey Day page, which is filled with legitimate monkey news.

Here is a video showing an annual monkey-only fruit feast in Thailand, where monkeys are divine. This has been going on since long before 2000.

If you know me at all, you know I’m all about Sun Wukong, aka The Stone Monkey aka The Great Sage Equal to Heaven aka The Handsome Monkey King. I just found this super fantabulous Squidoo Lens with everything you ever need to know about Sun Wukong. Here is my Monkey God Festival post from 2011. Here is my Monkey Day post from 2011.

And, because MomGoth loves her sweet little baby angels, here is Big Bad Voodoo Daddy’s Mambo Swing, with lyrics, including, “King of the monkeys”.

NOW FOR THE FREEBIE!!! Just in time for Christmas, LET IT SNOW! SEASON’S READINGS FOR A SUPER-COOL YULE is free for Kindle today and tomorrow (12/14-15). Pop over and pick up a copy. It includes my latest Holly Jahangiri story, “The Pratty Who Saved Chrissmuss”, set on the same goofy planet as FORCE OF HABIT.

This story was loads of fun to write. Holly Jahangiri is a real person who won the “honor” of having a character named after her. I enjoyed the character so much, and Holly was so tickled, and both Hollys turned out to be people I wanted so thoroughly to have in my worlds, I had to write another Holly story. When I was invited to be part of this anthology, a character named Holly just seemed logical for a winter holiday story. Of course, this is another planet, peopled by non-Earth species, so they don’t celebrate Christmas. They are, however, fans of Earth literature, to the point where they have entire libraries of Earth books. A few of those libraries are of talking books — well, living books, actually, who dress in costume and recite themselves. That came in handy for Holly in this story, when her pratty wagon was hijacked by two gangsters looking for her ne’er-do-well cousin.

Did I mention the book is FREE today and tomorrow?

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Invent a holiday, with all the trimmings.

MA

Improv Jazz: Ur Doin It Worng, and Other Thursday Thoughts

As you may or may not know, jazz great Dave Brubeck passed from us this month. That led me to replay, as I often do, the first record I ever owned. When I was just a wee little MomGoth, my mother bought me DAVE DIGS DISNEY. As you also may or may not know, quite a few Disney songs became standards in the jazz community. Mom and I got to hear Dave live twice, and both times, he played a couple of songs from the album.

Okay. Now, the whole point of improv jazz is that you never hear the same piece the same way twice. If a musician plays the same thing in two different performances, he or she isn’t improvising, right? But I’ve played this album so often, so often, so often, I go around humming and bum-bum-ba-ba-ba-pumming the spontaneous riffs and changes as if they were carved in stone. Because I am not an improv musician, and the only way I can fly is to hop a regularly scheduled flight.

Kinda sad, really.

I got into a heated discussion with the head of our church Property Committee at the board meeting last night over our coffee machine, which is broken. He said he’d look into replacing it. I said not that kind, because it’s dumb. He said we didn’t really need anything that big for Sundays, just for soup and salad luncheons and so forth; for Sundays, we just needed a regular household coffee maker. I said two coffee makers, so we could have regular and decaf or coffee and hot water for chocolate and tea. He said one. I said two. He said we might as well get another of what we had. I said what we had is dumb, because you have to use it every day or it doesn’t work properly and we don’t use it every day. He said it wasn’t working properly because it was second hand, that he bought it used from a gun shop. I said if we bought it from a gun shop, it’s no wonder it’s shot. And we laughed.

Meanwhile, I’ll have to bring my own coffee pot, I guess, if I want coffee at church.

p. s. Praying and laying hands on it didn’t help.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Put a character into a situation that includes coffee, improv jazz, church, and an argument.

MA

I Heart Nathan Point Blank

I have a new restaurant recommendation for Corydon, Indiana: Point Blank Brewing Company. It’s owned and run by Nathan Blank, whom I’ve known since he was knee-high to a grasshopper. Not that that gets me any special discounts or privileges. This is small-town midwest America. Almost every adult has known just about every younger adult since he or she was knee-high etc.

ANYWAY, I had to go into town four times last Saturday so, rather than use that much time and gas, I went in once and stayed all day.

I started out in Point Blank’s coffee room, where I could plug in my laptop and access the free wi-fi. Got a mug of plain coffee with a shot of hazelnut syrup for $1.50. And it was a bottomless cup! For my readers in or from other places, to whom that might sound messy, a “bottomless cup” means there’s no charge for refills.

Did some of the stuff I had to do and came back for lunch. You can spend a lot for lunch there, if you just absolutely insist, but you know me. If you don’t know me, let me just say that it is NOT true that the wrinkles never come out of money I’ve clutched.

I got the 6-inch brick-oven-baked pizza. Look at this baby. Mr. Monk would go insane. The dough is fresh, so it isn’t a perfect circle. Get over that. $5.50 for this baby with plenty of cheese, no tomato sauce, and five toppings besides the cheese. I got diced tomatoes, artichoke hearts, bacon, sausage, and … I forget the other one.

NO, they don’t have their liquor license yet. They’re working on it. It’ll be worth waiting for, trust me. The slackers don’t have their web site going yet, or I’d send you there. Just to to Corydon, Indiana, go to the Square, park somewhere around the bandstand, and walk around. It’s where Magdalena’s used to be. (Magdalena’s has moved to Georgetown, in case you’re wondering.)

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Go to a casual restaurant alone and talk to the staff and other customers. Not, you know, in a creepy stalky way.

MA

Zatarain’s Final Score: 1 and 2/2

FULL DISCLOSURE again: Zatarain’s sent me three boxes of product through Klout.

product picture from zatarain.com

It turned out to be a Goldilocks package. The Jambalaya was too mild. The Gumbo was too hot. But the third product, the Alfredo, was just right!

It is WAY NOT vegan, with all kinds of dairy and stuff, and more chemicals than you can shake a stick at, and four kinds of peppery goodness. Just enough bite to cut through the butteriness and pep up your tastebuds.

You can bet I’m using the coupon that came with the package to buy more of the Alfredo Dinner Mix. Um yum!

Meanwhile today, I’m doing my Tuesday post at Fatal Foodies with a recipe for Almost Vegan pancakes.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character peps up an insipid or cloying dish. Or manages to make a zesty dish boring. Your choice.

MA

My Writing Life

When I was little, my mother took me to a re-release of BAMBI. Thumper recited a poem with a funny ending and said, “I made that last part up myself.” I said, “He can’t do that!” Mom said, “Somebody made up this movie. They got paid for it.” I knew I wanted to write.

I already got in trouble for daydreaming. I remember wanting to learn my letters, to connect them into words and sentences and put my daydreams on paper.

By the sixth grade, I was writing stories and giving them to my teacher to read. She sent one to a contest, where it won honorable mention. That began my acquaintanceship with marketing.

In college, I wrote a novel. It started out as a parody of romantic suspense, with deliberately stereotyped characters and situations. As I wrote, I got interested in the characters and they grew. The plot took its own twists and turns. The conversations carried me in directions I hadn’t expected.

When I finished that book, I wrote another. Then another. Then another.

By that time, I could see the flaws in the first one, and it was obvious why I hadn’t been able to sell it. I’ve rewritten it several times since then, each time learning. I still haven’t sold it, but it’s a good book, and it will sell, once I get it right.

My second, third and fourth novels were picked up by early electronic publishers (Access Press, Serendipity Systems, and Echelon Press).

I wrote a fantasy that just got bigger… and bigger… and bigger! Also stranger. After about twenty years of writing, rewriting, unwriting, backwriting, and insideoutwriting, it’s been picked up — as a trilogy — and will soon be published by Hydra Publications. Yes, I’m talking about SAGE.

I’m a member of the Southern Indiana Writers Group, and we publish an annual anthology of members’ work. Writing and critiquing those stories keep our creative and critical muscles strong.

Here’s some advice I gave a young friend who asked how she could possibly succeed as a writer when there’s so much competition:

As for how you can possibly succeed as a writer, ask yourself what you mean by “succeed”. Do you mean “write well”? That’s what I mean by success, and competition has nothing to do with that. Other writers can only teach me things and help me. They aren’t my competition; they’re my colleagues. Do you mean “sell and make money”? My only hope of that is to write as well as I can, with MY imagination and MY voice and MY skills, and to submit and keep improving and keep submitting.

I’ve never known a good writer who wasn’t generous with his or her advice or help. That’s because most writers are readers, and want as many good writers to succeed as possible so they’ll have more good books to read.

Relax. Write!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Find a job or profession you didn’t realize exists and imagine a character who does that for a living. I once dated a guy who calibrated the tools used to measure parts to precise specifications. SOMEBODY has to do it!

MA

#SampleSunday – Work In Progress

I’m working on a sword-and-sorcery short story set in the world of my forthcoming fantasy trilogy, SAGE. Here’s the first bit of the rough draft:

Kinnan who called himself the son of Ada stumbled in the darkness and fell forward. He had wit enough to shield his face with his left arm, but the jagged rocks of the Dragon’s Claws jabbed and cut or bruised him from chest to ankle.

He cursed the rocks, cursed the darkness, cursed Landry, the usurper who had driven him into exile — even cursed his supporters for not being where he wanted them to be.

“We’ll meet you between the northernmost Dragon’s Claw and the next, ten nights after the coming full moon.”

But where between the claws? And what time of night?

Such vague appointments were common among insurgents, but the last bout of violence had left him wounded, and his tumble onto the rocky ground had started his gashes bleeding again. Finding the other rebels had gone from being imperative to being urgent.

He pushed to his knees, then back on his heels, waiting for his head to stop spinning before he levered himself to his feet.

His fall had lost the high, rocky outcropping — the “claw” — he had been following, and all he could see was starlight on rough ground and rope-like weeds. He stood, satisfying himself that his sword and knife were secure. If he followed the incline of the land upwards, he would reach the tree line or, at worst, the cliff. That would give him sufficient shelter from any possible pursuit until it was light enough for him to find his way into cover.

Wearily, he put one boot in front of the other, as he’d done in many another weary state.

He froze, startled, as white forms appeared above and ahead. A moment’s scrutiny and reason told him he was seeing mist racing from between the trees. Heartened in spite of the eeriness of the sight, he hurried to take cover in the mist and the woods.

One thread of mist reached him before the others. It seemed to wrap itself around him, cloaking him in a welcome invisibility.

With one arm up to guard his face and the other sweeping from side to side, he shuffled up the slope and between the trees. All was silent, but for the whispering of a breeze in the upper leaves and the hiss of gathered mist forming drops and falling in an arboreal drizzle.

“This way.”

Kinnan stopped, uncertain if he had heard a woman’s voice speaking or had made the words out of layered sounds and imagination.

Am I getting it? Sword-y enough? Sorcery-y enough? It gets swordier and sorcerier as it goes.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a paragraph or two with the weather-type atmosphere part of the narrative atmosphere.

MA

#Caturday – The Cat and the Christmas Tree

Katya is being good, for once. For some reason, our cats have never been bad with the Christmas trees.

Well, I say never, but that’s not strictly true. Miss Tiffany, the cat I got a year or so before Charlie and I married, decided she was going to climb the first Christmas tree she saw. She got most of the way up before it fell over on her. After that, she left them alone.

And, naturally, only a fool would hang shiny dangly things on low branches, so our trees have been fairly bare in their nether regions.

Tinsel, of course, is very bad for cats to ingest, so we gradually weaned ourselves off tinsel. Just as well, as it saved us the energy we spent arguing over how much to use and how to apply it. One of us thought the best way was to dig a handful out of the package and throw it at the tree, and wherever it caught was where it was meant to be. No, that wasn’t Charlie. No, it wasn’t any of the kids. Let’s see … Who does that leave…?

Speaking of Tiff and Christmas and the kids, they decided to get the cats Christmas presents one year. They got catnip and cat toys and cat treats and wrapped them in pretty paper and put them under the tree with all the people presents. One day, we came back from somewhere, and Tiffany was under the tree with wrapping paper all around her. I am not making this up: She had opened every one of her Christmas presents — and no other ones.

Anyway, here is a rare photograph of Katya being good. I swear, I have neither drugged nor slugged her.

She almost fell off the speaker just after I snapped this shot, but she caught herself in time. Speaker. I said “speaker,” yes. We have these big-ass stereo speakers, so we use them as end tables. IT DOES, TOO, MAKE SENSE! IT DOES, TOO!

And don’t make fun of my Christmas tree. I bought it at the Salvation Army for three dollars, already decorated. As my Grandpa would have said, you can’t beat that with a stick.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A cat makes a havoc of Christmas.

MA

Off-Beat for Christmas

Are you surprised that my favorite Christmas movies aren’t everybody’s? No, I didn’t think so. Some of mine aren’t even ABOUT Christmas; they just have big chunks of Christmas in them.

Here are five shows I love especially hard at Christmas, with links to more information about them, in no particular order:

She Loves Me – a musical set in Hungary around Christmas time. Based on the play “The Little Shop Around the Corner” which was also the inspiration for “You’ve Got Mail”. The old “two people who hate each other in person are, unknown to them, beloved pen pals” schtick, but with enough other stuff going on to make it great. I particularly love the song in which a promiscuous woman rhapsodizes about a pick-up who read to her.

When Wolves Cry AKA The Christmas Tree – All his dying son wants for Christmas is a wolf. A real one. A live one. One of the creepiest scenes ever with the kid, and a great reverse-My-Friend-Flicka rescue. Tearjerker.

Donovan’s Reef – Starring John Wayne, Lee Marvin and Dorothy Lamour, made in 1963, this movie is so full of reactionary attitudes as to be nearly indecipherable to anybody but sociologists and old people with good memories. If you’re young, go watch it; it’ll be like doing dope. You’ll be all, “Wait … What?” It has Cesar Romero in it, who was the hottest man who ever walked the planet IMO. Except, of course, when he was Joker in the old Batman tv show. Here’s a link to a story only tangentially about Cesar Romero, but it’s so funny and has such a great picture of him at the top, I have to share it: The Cesar Romero Story. ANYWAY, Donovan’s Reef isn’t about Christmas, but it has the second-best Christmas pageant ever in it. The best, of course, is The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which I would recommend here if it weren’t already so popular you already know all about it.

Smoke – One of my favorite movies. It’s about the weight of intangible things. It has action, but people are constantly telling each other stories, as we all do. Our stories about who we are or what happened when so-and-so did thus-and-such aren’t just about what happened, they’re about what it means. The best bit IMO is the last, which is based on Paul Auster’s short story “Auggie Wren’s Christmas Story”. It’s a story told, in one continuous head-shot, by the magnificent Harvey Keitel. Get the movie and watch the whole thing, including the song at the end, showing the story Keitel just told in silent visuals.

Early Edition Season 1 “Christmas – Gary’s weasely friend Chuck is tossed in jail as a scofflaw, where a ratty-looking Santa who claims to be the real one talks him into a jailbreak. Meanwhile, Gary is trying to save the city from a bomber. The wonderful M. Emmet Walsh plays the raggedy-butt Santa.

Okay, kids, go and enjoy yourselves. MomGoth needs a martini.

Oh, lest you forget, I have an off-beat Christmas story in the anthology LET IT SNOW! SEASON’S READINGS FOR A SUPER-COOL YULE! It’ll be free 12/14 and 12/15. Meanwhile, it’s $4.99, with all profits going to Superstorm Sandy relief. If you already have it, please read it and review it on Amazon.com. The reviews help!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Come up with an off-beat Christmas story.

MA

Butt Is Better

So I went into Butt Drugs again, and they’d added to the tree decorations.

Yes, you MUST come visit Corydon sometime.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What would you do if you were a business with a name that called up unfortunate associations?

MA

Zatarain’s Burns Me Up

Last week, I told you about the swag Zatarain’s sent me through Klout. I observed that the jambalaya with pasta was disappointingly mild.

Well, this week, we tried the gumbo with pasta. Mild is not what it is. In fact, it’s the opposite of mild. By tug ith thi’ dub — that’s how not mild it is. Charlie, who doesn’t like spicy food, was not best pleased. I, who do like spicy food but have a limit short of self-injury, was also not best pleased.

Our #2 grandson, 12, shoveled it in with both hands and took the leftovers home.

So, if you like your food spicy-hot, Zatarain’s gumbo mix or gumbo with pasta might be just your style.

Be warned.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character eats something too spicy.

MA