Marian Allen's Blog, page 421
October 15, 2012
5 Things I Learned At WordCamp
When I set this post up yesterday, it was “10 Things I Learned At WordCamp”. Then I tried one of the things I thought I learned and broke the web site. That’s why it was down most of yesterday. :/
So now here’s 5 things:
The reason newspapers and magazines continue stories from one page to another is to optimize ad impressions.
When you set up a new WordPress site, don’t use “admin” as your user name. It’s like going on vacation and putting a sign on the door that says, “Gone for two weeks. The key is under the mat.”
You can register with Google Webmaster Tools and they’ll let you know if there are any security issues with your site.
There’s a really cool interactive infographic called The Evolution of the Web.
I don’t know very much.
One thing I already knew but had confirmed: The folks at BlueHost are magically amazing! For what was broken has now been fixed.
Whaddya mean, “For what that’s worth”? Shut up!
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character breaks something that’s important to somebody.
MA
October 14, 2012
#SampleSunday — Don’t Blame Me
This story is totally the fault of Kat French. She has a story starter on her blog. Click on the link and it throws up three elements to combine for a story. So I clicked yesterday and this is the result. It’s Kat’s fault. And on a Sunday, too!
Superheroes
copyright 2012 by Marian Allen
Illustration courtesy of Tattoo Johnny.
“Here we are,” Talitha agreed.
She wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans.
“Nervous, Baby?” Mason turned the bolt on the motel room door and hooked the chain. He closed the curtains and the heavy drapes. “Don’t be.” He coughed up a laugh. “Not like it’s your first time, is it?”
“No,” she said. “I’m just excited. I always am.”
“That’s kind of sweet.” He traced the curves and points of her tribal tattoo up her bare arm to her shoulder.
She shivered.
“Let’s get this show on the road.” He pulled her toward the bed. “Don’t take anything off. Not even your shoes. Not even that pretty, pretty scarf around your pretty, pretty neck.”
Talitha’s heart pounded. This one always did them fully clothed, always with pieces of their own clothing: a scarf, a belt, a purse strap.
She fell back onto the mattress, feigning eagerness to mask her tension.
“Yeah,” Mason said, contempt creeping into his voice. “You’re all alike, aren’t you? Dirty girls, making a dirty world.” He reached for the lamp switch.
Kind of sad, Talitha thought, in that slowed-down moment before she gripped the handle of her blade. Two people, each one with the same goal: taking out the bad guys.
The next few minutes would tell which one was on the suicide mission.
Time snapped back into focus as the light clicked off.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Try Kat French’s writing prompt generator.
MA
October 13, 2012
Caturday — How Not To Tread Stealthily
This doesn’t really have much to do with cats, but I have the song stuck in my head and I thought I’d pass it on to as many people as possible.
I, like so many others through the years, am a Gilbert and Sullivan addict. There is no known cure. Operettas Anonymous doesn’t help; I went to a meeting once, and we all ended up singing “I’ve Got A Little List” from The Mikado.
This song in my head now is “With Catlike Tread”, which squiggles it in under the wire on Caturday. It does here, anyway. It’s my dang blog, and what I say goes, right? Right.
If you want to listen to The Pirates of Penzance, from which this video comes, transferred from 78 rpm vinyl records, click on this link to Archive.org. If you want to know more about Gilbert and Sullivan, hit The Gilbert And Sullivan Archive. To learn more about the Kevin Kline (sigh) version from which this clip comes, check out the Pirates of Penzance page at the Internet Movie DataBase. If you want to buy a copy of this or another version, check out the Amazon Pirates of Penzance page and go from there.
And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you “With Catlike Tread” from The Pirates of Penzance.
You’re welcome.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character wants someone to be quiet but gets no cooperation.
MA
October 12, 2012
I’m Going Camping!
Ha ha ha ho ho! Or, as we used to say in my younger days, “That’s so funny, I forgot to laugh. That’s about as funny as a screen door in a submarine.”
But I really am going to camp tomorrow — the kind I like — the kind that happens in a hotel and has computers in. I’m going to WordCamp Louisville, where we learn how to make our WordPress blogs sit up and do tricks. Knowing the limits of my ambition, I doubt you’ll see any change here, but I’ll know how to make changes. That’s the important part.
The talk I’m most interested in is one on how to make WordPress fast. Mom is on dial-up, and she can’t always load my site. I’ve unplugged some of my plug-ins, but it’s still pokey for her. I hope I can rectify that, or at least ameliorate the problem. See, I’m already talking smarter!
If you can’t make tomorrow’s Camp, but you’re interested in hitting one, go to WordCamp Central for a list of Camps scheduled and planned but not finalized.
Finally, my eternal thanks to fellow author Red Tash, who first put me onto WordCamp. Red, you’re the greatest!
October 11, 2012
That Awkward Moment
Know Your Memes.
That’s a website that’s been around for a while, but I’ve just started visiting it, which officially makes me NOT one of the Cool Kids. The Cool Kids don’t need to visit it, because they already know them. The Way Cool Kids don’t just know them, they start them. The Hipsters are like, “Memes are so last week.”
I went to Know Your Memes to look up the meme That Awkward Moment. I suspected — correctly, as it turned out — that I’ve had a few lately.
That Awkward Moment when you meet some old friends in a line and hug them and the guys behind them join the conversation and you don’t know whether or not the guys are with your friends and you should shake hands or what.
That Awkward Moment when you ask somebody to repeat what he just said and he laughs because what he said was a statement about people who don’t hear as well as they used to and he thinks you’re playing off of it.
That Awkward Moment when you realize you’ve reached an age that it’s no longer creepy for old guys to flirt with you.
And, of course, That Awkward Moment when you have to look up a meme to make sure you’ve got it right.
p.s. That Awkward Moment when you forgot you were trading posts with another author. I double-posted yesterday because I forgot Chris Redding was here, and I nearly forgot I’m at Chris’ blog today! Come visit!
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Give a character a socially uncomfortable moment.
MA
October 10, 2012
Charlie’s Best Sweet Potatoes
Sorry to be so late in posting, but our internet was down from about this time yesterday until Just Now.
Anyway:
I went to the grocery yesterday, and came home to the most heavenly aroma. Charlie had decided to fry some sweet potatoes.
Yes, fry. He peeled them and sliced them lengthwise, very thin, and fried them in butter at low heat. He sprinkled them with sugar and cinnamon, too.
He said they cooked quickly and would scorch if you weren’t careful. When they first came out of the pan, they were a little crispy, which was nice. After they cooled slightly, they were soft, which was also nice.
If you’ve ever been to a restaurant that serves sweet potato fries with a side of cinnamon butter, this is like that, only better.
Also, our #1 daughter made some caramel popcorn and brought us some. She’s promised to give me her recipe, and I’ll share that when I get it.
Meanwhile — sweet potatoes! Yum!
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What’s your favorite root crop and why? Give that to a character.
MA
Guest Post — Chris Redding
Chris has been my guest here before, and I’ve visited her blog. Today, she has an excerpt from her novel, Blonde Demolition. Great title, eh?
This is food day, and, although the excerpt mentions a beer truck and family dinners, it isn’t about food. So let me just say that some of the best food I ever ate was cooked by a firefighter. Firehouse cooks are kinda famous for doing it right. To prove it, here’s a link to The Firehouse Chef, where you can get and share recipes, find firehouse recipe books, and use their leftover database to find stuff you can cook based on that.
Let’s go!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
A bomb.
One with a timer and wires and all the parts necessary to blow up the beer trailer and all in its vicinity. Including all of her fellow firefighters at the Coleville Volunteer Fire Company.
Mallory Sage had seen too many bombs in her former life with Homeland Security. Her heart raced and anger streaked through her.
“Jesse, get out,” she said to her chief..
She wouldn’t lose him. Not now. Not this way. She would not have her lover blown up.
Jesse Moran licked his lips and moved in her direction. He stopped and backed away from her as if he couldn’t make the decision to leave.
“Get out of here, Mal.”
Even in the face of a bomb, he was willing to protect her. Her heart sank. She might never be able to return that loyalty.
She clenched and unclenched her fists, her breath coming out in pants. “Not without you, Jesse. Mark, call 911. Tell them we need the bomb squad,” she said, still looking at the chief.
When Jesse reached her, she yanked him out. He had one hundred pounds on her. She had surprise on her side. “Get me some wire cutters.”
Jesse looked at her as though she had three heads.
“Do it.”
He shook his head. “No, you don’t know what you’re doing. You’ll blow up.”
She made eye contact with one of the bystanders. “Get me wire cutters and clear everyone out of here. Someone make sure no workers are on the fairgrounds.”
The last thing the struggling fire company needed was to lose this fair. It was their sole method of raising needed funds. No jerk with a penchant for bombs would do that to them. Not to the guys who missed dinners and family events to put out fires.
Amazon: http://tinyurl.com/7olwvhs
Amazon in print: http://tinyurl.com/87qdaam
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Thanks, Chris! Sounds like a tense and exciting book. Check it out, folks!
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Someone wants to protect someone else from his or her job.
MA
October 9, 2012
Joe — Just. That. Good.
We do have a dog, right? So the other day, #1 Daughter was visiting, and she pointed over my shoulder, and there were two deer not 10 feet from where we were standing.
I tried to take a snappy, but I had to try it through the window, and then I tried to make it more visible in The Gimp, so I hope you can see them.
Deer sensing the dangerous presence of the mighty hunter, Joe.
Where’s Joe? Well, see, he’s like a ninja. Silent. Invisible. Creeeeeeping up on his prey with nobody even realizing he’s there.
Yeah.
After a few minutes, when nobody came out and shot their mothers or anything Disney like that, the deer got bored and wandered back into the woods.
Deeply impressive, Joe. Deeply, deeply impressive.
I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies on the subject of a soup of which I’m strangely fond. No, not venison stew.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Explain the strange case of what the dog did in the night-time. Or didn’t do.
MA
October 8, 2012
Guest Post — Juli D. Revezzo
Juli is one of my fellow authors in Dark Things II: Cat Crimes, so I’m delighted to introduce her to you. She’s agreed to submit to my interview, so settle back and see what she has to say.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Juli D. Revezzo
MA: Can you say how your main character first occurred to you and how he or she evolved from that first spark to a full character?
Juli: When I first conceived the story, I had the idea to have an artist obsessed with her work, and her husband worried about it. So, originally Caitlin started life as a man. Then when I began rewriting the story, I thought it would work better from a wife’s point of view—how would I feel if this were my husband? What would I do? So it made the switch almost a no-brainer.
MA: Did you choose your subject, or did your subject choose you?
Juli: I chose the subject. I have a soft spot for artists (and an art history degree) so it seemed concentrating on the artist, and the dark side of art, was a natural thing to do.
MA: How do you work?
Juli: Usually, an idea will form and I’ll chew it over a little while, make some introductory notes on the main character, the world and what he or she might be facing. Then I’ll create a little more background for them, who or what they might put at risk by doing what they’re doing. If there’s some sort of real-world history involved, I’ll spend time doing research on that. By this point in the game I’ve probably got at least a working idea of where the character’s headed. After that I fill in the blanks.
MA: Are you involved with email lists and/or social media? Why or why not?
Juli: Yes I am. Your readers can find me on the web at http://julidrevezzo.com and on Twitter and Facebook. The majority of the email lists I belong to are writer based. Why I’m on those… information and connectivity is necessary in this day and age and I must say lists are cheaper than long distance phone calls to all my friends and colleagues.
MA: If you could have an evening with one fictional character, your own or someone else’s, who would it be and why?
Juli: Oh! What a fun question! Let’s see… I think I’d love to bop around King Arthur’s court for a night. Think of the activity of a medieval dinner. Wouldn’t that be fun?
If not him, I’d like to spend the evening with my Cait. She seems like she’d be a good hostess.
Who’s she? Oh, the heroine of my book The Artist’s Inheritance:
Settling into their new home in Gulf Breeze, Florida, Caitlin finds strange changes coming over her husband Trevor. He seems obsessed with a beautiful chair he’s carving.
When the nightmares deepen and ghosts begin lurking—she knows something’s not right, and not just her new-found precognitive abilities. It’s the damned chair, she’s sure. Could it be just what it seems: a mundane piece of furniture? If so, why is it attracting dark forces—the forces she suspects drove Trevor’s siblings to insanity and suicide?
Before the same happens to Trevor, Caitlin must convince him to sell his art. But armed with only a handful of allies, and little experience of the supernatural, she must proceed with caution against the hellish forces besieging her family.
If she succeeds, she will break the ancestral curse. If she fails, she may lose forever the one thing she cares about most: her beloved Trevor.
Called a “dark and creepy fantasy” by Kathy Carmichael, author of Your Magic Touch.
It’s available for Kindle at Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Artists-Inheritance-Antique-Magic-ebook/dp/B008XL82IU/
and Smashwords for other e-reader formats:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/220457
About Juli D. Revezzo
Juli D. Revezzo has long been in love with writing, a love built by devouring everything from the Arthurian legends, to the works of Michael Moorcock, and the classics and has a soft spot for classic the “Goths” of the 19th century, in love of which she received a Bachelor’s degree in literature from the University of South Florida. Her short fiction has been published in Dark Things II: Cat Crimes, The Scribing Ibis, Eternal Haunted Summer, Twisted Dreams Magazine and Luna Station Quarterly. She also has an article and book review or two out there. But her heart lies in the storytelling. She is a member of the Independent Author Network. The Artist’s Inheritance is her first novel.
Juli D. Revezzo’s site links:
http://harshadpassion.wordpress.com
on Twitter: http://twitter.com/julidrevezzo
on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/JD-Revezzo/233193150037011
on Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/111476709039805267272/posts
On Good Reads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5782712.Juli_D_Revezzo
Thanks for having me, here today, Marian! I always enjoy visiting.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Thank you, Juli — and nice segue into your book description! As for enjoying a Medieval feast, allow me to link to to The Society For Creative Anachronism. Tell ‘em Lady Maude McEwan sent you. That and a gold coin’ll buy you a flagon of mead.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character becomes obsessed with an old or antique object, either literally or just fascinated by it.
MA
September 25, 2012
YES, I’m Talking AGAIN
The terrific Mysti Parker interviewed me the other day and posted it yesterday. Here’s the link to my interview on Unwritten, in which I talk about the Southern Indiana Writers Group, writers groups in general, my work, and SAGE. ~happy dancing~
I’m also posting at Fatal Foodies today about A Homemade Life by Molly Wizenberg, a book I just discovered and about the crowds of people in our kitchens when we’re alone.
A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Think of a recipe you got from someone else or a recipe you make all the time. What memories are associated with it, in or out of the kitchen?
MA
