Marian Allen's Blog, page 439

G is for GODZILLA, Naturally!

Best. Monster. EVER!

I'm talking about the real Godzilla, of course, not the Matthew Broderick one. Although the Matthew Broderick one did have . Not that I make a fool of myself over Jean Reno, but my oldest grandson did give me a yellow taxi because he couldn't find a French Insurance Investigator action figure.

Here is the best Godzilla movie ever made, all 1:30 of it. I had a lampwork glass artist make me a glass statue of the final frame but, alas, it has become broken and discarded. The joys of life are transient, and we should not invest our hearts therin.

I am guesting today at That Book Place blog, where I'm interviewing myself. Tomorrow, I'll be posting for #SampleSunday, though the A-to-Z Challenge rests on the Sabbath.

WRITING PROMPT: Zombies! Attack! Godzilla!

MA

F is for Figure It Out

I have a guest today: Camille Minichino, AKA Ada Madison! She's talking about puzzles and her latest mystery. Take it away, Camille!

"It's a Puzzlement," Yul Brynner, c. 1956

Lucky me, being hosted on a blog site with puzzle pieces as a banner!

I've been a puzzler (some say, I've been "puzzling," and that may also be true!) all my life. It started with math, where every day's homework was a puzzle. For algebra: If one train leaves a station in Chicago going 30 miles an hour . . . For geometry: Given two sides of a triangle . . .

I loved those problems, which to me were just games and puzzles. My newest protagonist, Professor Sophie Knowles, feels the same way. She teaches math at a small New England college, creates puzzles for magazines, and, by the way, solves one or two murders per book.

We often hear that mysteries are like jigsaw puzzles, that writers and readers enjoy putting the pieces together, ending up with a satisfying solution, much like turning 1500 jagged pieces into a reproduction of Monet's Water Lilies.

In a way. But mysteries have to be like challenging puzzles, not the easy kind where all the pieces are piled before us with one brisk dump from the box, and what's required is simply to sort them by color or shape and fit them together to match the picture on the cover of the box.

Are mysteries like crossword puzzles? Sort of. In a regular crossword, all the clues are there in a couple of columns. In most cases, there are black squares that are cues to word length. We fill in the blanks and enjoy a sense of accomplishment when every square is filled in.

Again, good mysteries are more challenging than that. 

In a good "whodunit" mystery, there are many sets of clues that unfold: some are hidden in plain sight, some are subtly presented, some not; some are within the character profiles and arcs, the setting, or the plot. These mysteries are solved not by simply putting a given number of known pieces together, but by first sorting out the pieces that matter from the ones that don't. Maybe there are a couple of red herrings; maybe there are no herrings of any color. 

I've seen jigsaw puzzles where the manufacturer has deliberately included extra pieces that don't belong in the scene. Similarly, there are the crossword puzzles that are diagramless. No black squares give us the word length; we have to figure that out ourselves.

Those puzzles are more like the great mysteries, where the clue is that the dog did not bark or the answer has been in the letter on the mantel all along.

Sometimes I worry that I'm wasting time with the morning acrostic, or the Sunday NY Times crossword, or the countless word games I find in print and online.

Is it enriching my life that today I located 40 Beatles songs in a word search grid?

I take my answer from no less a puzzle figure than Erno Rubik (b. 1944), sculptor, architect, and inventor of the Rubik's cube (patent, 1975). He has this to say: "The problems of puzzles are very near the problems of life, our whole life is solving puzzles."

Some of us get more practice than others.

Camille Minichino is a retired physicist turned writer. 

As Camille Minichino, she's the author of the Periodic Table Mysteries. As Margaret Grace, she writes the Miniature Mysteries, based on her lifelong hobby.  As Ada Madison, she writes the academic mysteries featuring Professor Sophie Knowles, college math teacher. "The Probability of Murder" was released March 6; "Mix-up in Miniature" was released April 2.

Soon, every aspect of her life will be a mystery series. 

LOL! Thanks, Camille! Math was never my strong subject, but I think I would have done well, with a sleuth as a teacher.

You can find out more about Camille and her works and her ways at her blog, Camille Minichino. There, you will also find links to the other stops on her blog book tour. You can find buy links and a discussion of THE PROBABILITY OF MURDER at Goodreads.

WRITING PROMPT: Make a list of all the occupations you've had and think of how those occupations involve knowledge and abilities of detection.

MA

E is for Entertaining Edible

Here in the country, we take our fun where we find it, and yesterday I found it in the produce section of the grocery store. It was in the form of what Terry Pratchett would call A Humorous Vegetable.

"Quack, quack," says the sweet potato!

My life is either very dull or, depending on how you want to look at it, filled with wonder.

Let me remind you that, at midnight tonight, Pacific Standard Time, TURTLE FEATHERS will be free until 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time. It will be free Every Friday of April.

WRITING PROMPT: The duck talks. What does it say? Other than, "Quack."

MA

D is for Dairy-Free Dump Cake and a Deal

Some people are vegan and some people are lactose-intolerant and some people are watching their cholesterol and some people just Don't Do Dairy. Well, this is a Dessert you'll find Delightful and Delicious.

Dump Cake is something we used to have, a family tradition, like chili mac and fish from St. Cecilia's on Friday. Back in the day, we made it with butter, of course, but now we use vegan margarine so our vegan daughter can have some. Please feel free to use butter, if you prefer. Or coconut oil. Or lard, I don't care, suit yourself. I'm not the shortening police.

Dairy-Free Dump Cake

2 cans of fruit and/or fruit pie filling
1 box yellow cake mix
1 stick vegan margarine
nuts of any kind, if you like

Butter a square cake pan. Dump in the contents of the fruit/pie filling. If you use two different kinds of fruit (many prefer pineapple and cherry — ick), dump in one kind and spread it around, then dump in the other kind and spread it on top, trying not to stir them together. Then dump the cake mix on top. Cut the butter into slices and cover the top of the cake mix. The nuts can be dumped anywhere in these layers, from the bottom to the top.

Bake at 350F for one hour.

How easy is that? Way, that's how.

Now the Deal: Every Friday of April, I'm offering a free download of TURTLE FEATHERS, my new collection of animal stories. The giveaway begins at midnight Thursday night and ends at midnight on Friday. For your convenience, you can read excerpts from every story in the collection by clicking here.

WRITING PROMPT: Write a 100-word piece using the words turtle, feathers, and deal.

C is for Cats, Of Course!

Today, a reprint of my poem about Tiffany, my late and still lamented cat. She died at the age of 16, 12 years ago. She still gives me delight when I remember her. Not a sweet cat. She came with the name, given her at the rescue shelter. I would have named her "Killer". Still….

The first fight my husband and I got into was over the cat. His kids had a couple of cats who lived outside. He said it was only fair that my cat (I had her before we married) should also live outside, although she had been an indoor cat all her life. For the sake of being fair to the kids, I agreed. One of their cats put my cat up a tree. Charlie came home from work to find me sitting on the stoop by the tree, angry and crying. I told him it was his fault, for making her live outside. He wanted to know if she was more important to me than he was, and I said, "I've known her longer than I have you!" He still mentions that remark now and then, and I still stand by it.

The Styrofoam Kitty

by Marian Allen

After sixteen human years of life

Miss Tiffany

— cat of the silent meow –

had no heft, no weight, no mass

except on stairs.

There, by force of will,

she mimicked elephants.

Or, when I napped on the couch,

she stepped

down

from her higher perch,

passing a cosmic pressure

through one small foot

into the space between two ribs.

I'm also posting today at Fatal Foodies, on the subject of cyanobacteria or why polar bears are green.

WRITING PROMPT: A character gets into a fight over an animal.

MA

B is for Butterfly. Okay, and Burglar.

I took this photograph of a Beautiful Butterfly in our Back yard (I WILL NOT write back       yard as one word, and you can't make me!!), next to the asparagus Bed.

When #4 daughter was wee, she became enchanted by small blue-and-black caterpillars. She pretended there was only one, who got around a lot, and she named him Bluey. Then, when she saw little blue butterflies, she decided those were Bluey after he came out of the cocoon. I never see a little blue butterfly without getting just a little bit excited and thinking, "Look! It's Bluey!" She was a fun kid, and she's a fun grownup.

Guys, I actually met Sue Grafton, author of B IS FOR BURGLAR and the other Kinsey Milhone. I know, a lot of people have met her; she's a very friendly and approachable person. She was the keynote speaker at Magna cum Murder one year. If you ever get a chance to hear her speak, do. It's a treat and an education.

But the Best Burglar Book I ever read was James Kirkwood's P.S. YOUR CAT IS DEAD. Kirkwood writes strange, strange books, y'all. And he does it very, very well.

WRITING PROMPT: Your character catches someone in the act of burgling his or her home or place of business.

MA

#SampleSunday AND 1st of Month AND A-to-Z Blogfest!!!

This is the first day of the April A-to-Z Blogfest, the day all participants are supposed to post on a subject beginning with the letter A.

It's also the first of the month, so I have a new Hot Flash for you.

Aa-aa-and, it's Sunday, so I have a bit of writing. We're supposed to keep these 'fest posts short, so I have a wee little poem today, and the title begins with the requisite letter:

A.M.

by Marian Allen

Leaves flutter like wings

Of birds who

Swarm the trees

Like bees to honey.

Warm and golden, light

Drips from everything.

Can yesterday have melted

Into this?

WRITING PROMPT: A character wakes to a day much better than the day before.

MA

Tomorrow, The Challenge BEGINS!

I'm talking about the April A-to-Z Blogging Challenge, wherein bloggers attempt to blog every day (except the Sundays after the 1st). Every day. You know, like I do anyway. So I guess my challenge is to make my daily posts actually worth reading. Good luck with that.

Don't forget that TURTLE FEATHERS is now available for Kindle at a low, low 99 cents, free for borrowing if you're in the KDP Select crowd. I'll be doing a couple of days of free downloads, possibly to celebrate the end of this grueling month of daily posting, so wait for that, if you like.

See you tomorrow, when I will also have a new Hot Flash, as I always do on the first of the month.

WRITING PROMPT: A character is given a task he or she expects to be easy, but finds it difficult.

MA

Friday Bonus 'Cause I Forgotted

I signed up to participate in a blogfest today: the Sad Songs Blogfest. I'm supposed to post about songs that are sad but make me feel better. Here are five.

1.  IMAGINE – John Lennon. I'm not sure if this is a sad song that makes me happy or a happy song that makes me feel sad. It's prime, anyway.

2. Song Sung Blue – Neil Diamond. He says it isn't a sad one, but it's a song about singing sad songs to feel better. Yes. That. That's what this fest is all about, right?

3. Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue – Crystal Gayle. This was popular during one of my many breakups and I shed many tears on the way home from work listening to it. I always felt better after hearing this beautiful voice. I can't even remember the guy's name, now, but I'll never forget the gift of this song.

4. Blue Eyes Cryin' In The Rain – Willie Nelson. My music boyfriend. Anything I listen to Willie sing makes me feel better.

5. The granddaddy of 'em all, the ultimate "wish I were dead, think I'll drown myself and then sing about it" piece,

Die Schone Mullerin – Franz Schubert and Wilhelm Muller. A young man becomes an apprentice at a flour mill, falls in love with the miller's daughter who only has eyes for the local huntsman; the heartbroken young man is welcomed into the comforting arms of the brook.

Thanks, Diane, for this fest!

WRITING PROMPT: What does your main character do when he or she feels blue?

MA

Friday Recommends – Food and Flicks

I've been all around and about this week and found some good stuff.

While poking for my post at Fatal Foodies on hummus, I came across this lovely site with recipes for Middle Eastern food.

Found a couple of excellent book review sites for deciding what to read next or, if I'm wearing my author hat, for getting a book reviewed: The Book Boost Blog and Darlene's Book Nook.

If you don't feel like reading, try one of these movies I had never heard of before I found them at the library or had them loaned to me. I LOVED these off-beat wonders:

Inkheart – Brendan Fraser. Andy Serkis without CGI. Need I say more?

Let It Ride – Richard Dreyfuss as a sad sack who has a special day at the races.

North – Elijah Wood as a little kid and Bruce Willis in a pink bunny suit. What could go wrong?

Everything is Illuminated – Elijah Wood again. Hated the novel; didn't finish it; loved this movie. I saw this before I saw Lord of the Rings.

The Burbs – Tom Hanks. Bruce Dern. Carrie Fisher. Corey Feldman. BROTHER THEODORE.

I'll leave you with five. Hope you find them, and hope you enjoy them. They all make-a me happy.

WRITING PROMPT: What movie or public entertainment makes your main character happy? OR have a character unexpectedly charmed by a piece of off-beat entertainment.

MA