Marian Allen's Blog, page 445

Gnocchi For Slackers

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Okay, yeah, I'm late getting this post up. Hire a lawyer and sue me. Here's a little hint about how that'll go:

Me + Money = Turnip – Blood

Anyway, here is a recipe I found through Pinterest. I made it and Middle-Grade grandson said, "That was delicious!" He asked his mother to get the recipe so they could make it together at home. It's quick and easy, so it's a natural Like for me.

ALMOST INSTANT GNOCCHI

1 cup instant mashed potato flakes
1 cup hot water
1 egg
1 1/2 (about) flour
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup or more cheese (I used an Italian blend of Romano, Asiago and Parmesan)
salted water for boiling

Mix flakes and hot water, stir just enough to moisten all the flakes and allow to cool a bit. Mix in the egg, seasonings, flour and cheese. The amount of flour is approximate. You want the dough to be soft but not sticky.

Distinctive gnocchi look

Divide the dough into two portions. Roll each portion between your hands to make a rope. Cut the rope into bite-size pieces. If you want to be more authentic about it, roll the back of a fork's tines along the edge to make the distinctive gnocchi look.

Drop the gnocchi into boiling salted water, a few at a time. Loosen them, if they want to stick to the bottom. When they float to the top and puff up a little, remove them and keep them warm until all the gnocchi are cooked.

You can dress them with butter, olive oil, pesto, or whatever. I always make a honkin' big bunch of pesto every summer and freeze it, so I used pesto.

The other items on the plate are raw carrots and blue cheese dressing and hummus on the hoof. Here is a link to the Wiki on Gnocchi and here is a link to a more traditional recipe, which is where I got the picture of the distinctive gnocchi.

WRITING PROMPT: Create a juvenile character who will eat foods outside of his or her experience and will want to know how to make it himself or herself. Make the character rounded.

MA

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Facebook Privacy Post

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I usually save my web site recommendations for Friday, but a lot of people are bent out of shape by the Timeline being rolled out for (or should I say rolled over) everybody soon. My BFF, Sean McCreary of Ironclad Tech Services, posted a link to this super tutorial on resuming control of your Facebook privacy, once the new Timeline screws everything up for you.

Me, I love the new Timeline, and implemented it as soon as it was offered, way back when. I wish they had it for Pages. People are all, "I don't want my whole history on Facebook up there!" And I'm like, "You've been putting stuff on Facebook that you wouldn't want made public? Hello? WORLD WIDE WEB? If you don't want it public, keep it to yourself.

Meanwhile, I'm over at Fatal Foodies, posting hummus recipes.

WRITING PROMPT: A character puts something in writing long ago that comes back to bite him or her in the butt.

MA

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Guest Poster Floyd Hyatt on Seminal Series

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Kindle sales seem particularly driven by series sales, with many readers reluctant to buy an author who doesn't have a list of titles for follow-up reading. Many authors are marketing with this in mind, giving away the first of a series in hopes that readers will like it and pay for subsequent titles in the series.

But we've all been series fans. I always looked forward to finding another Freddy the Pig book, then another Nero Wolfe book, then another Lynn S. Hightower Alien Blues book and now another Marjorie Liu and another Jim Butcher.

So I'm very happy to present a series of posts from F. A. Hyatt on:

General Reviews: Seminal Series Works

F.A.Hyatt

It seems as though the trend for the last couple of decades has shifted to serial novels in Fantasy and S/F, although maybe that's just me talking. The time was, when more authors wrote stand alone (or at least not true serial) novels, unless publishing for pulp era magazines.

We stood cash in hand , awaiting the next jaunt of imagination from our favorite Author. Although the serial, the trilogy, the continuing epic, have always been with us, It seems to have taken on a heightened presence in modern publications. It's therefore only proper, that some description of these on-going multi-volume offerings be attempted.

I am going to take a historical approach, and start by looking at a handful of them, mostly familiar to all, that I feel have been seminal in laying the foundations of this trend. When I mention serial, I am talking about books that span more than a trilogy, not cliff hanging parted out stories. This because, donno, what do you call a sixteen book epic? A sesidecimology?

The attempt will be descriptive, and opinion driven, but hopefully of some use to those yet unexposed, who hesitate to begin reading what could be considered a commitment to a long chain of classic purchases. We will be looking at the Genre, Point of view, general topic, and the ability of the writer to sustain a constant sense of development across the span of each series. Can the included works be read stand alone? Is the reading experience consistent across the series? Do the characters change or stay the same through-out? Inquiring minds want to know. This will of necessity be a series of articles: I will start off with light fantasy, so consider this part one of, however many get formatted for blog presentation per time.

Light Fantasy

I have a particularly warm spot in my heart for these efforts. Beyond Robert Howard lies a great body of work that have the power to immerse the reader in the life, environment, or trials of an individual or set of characters. Precursors of Harry Potter and such, they are not juvenile fiction, and the best can take on either aspects of a good involved mystery, follow the growth of a character, or attempt to resolve involving philosophic, or dogmatic struggles.

Next week: The Amber Chronicles

WRITING PROMPT: What was your favorite series when you were growing up? Do you have a favorite series now? Does either series have any influence on what you write?

MA

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#SampleSunday – Witch Woman

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I'm also posting this at Quills & Quibbles. I seem to be all about romance. Must be the February in me.

Witch Woman

by Marian Allen

Everybody in town knew Mrs. Hatcher. My grandmother told stories about daring her brother to touch the old woman's fence one Halloween back in the day.

So she's the one I went to, when Luke dumped me.

I waited until after dark, so nobody would see me. Crept up onto the porch, with the boards creaking and squeaking under my shoes and knocked.

The door swung open and this tiny little skinny old wrinkled-up woman peeped up at me from under a wig of short blond curls. She was wearing blue jeans and a flannel shirt with a sparkly pin on the lapel.

"Yes?" Her voice was thin and high but snappy, like she had something better to do than answer the door. "I don't want any Girl Scout cookies. They give me an allergy."

"I'm not selling Girl Scout cookies."

"What are you selling?" She tried to look around me. "Where are your parents? Children shouldn't be out alone after dark these days."

"I'm not a child. I'm almost thirteen."

"Know how old I am?"

"No."

"You can't count that high. What do you want?"

Before I could chicken out, I said, "I want a love potion."

"A what?"

"A love potion. My boyfriend broke up with me and I want him back."

"Plenty of fish in the sea." She started to closed the door.

"Please! I'm desperate!"

She must have heard the truth of that in my voice, because she opened the door again.

"Okay," she said. "But I can't give you a potion until you're worthy. You have to go through a purification ritual."

"Okay! Anything!"

"You have to get your hair cut, not just a little, but short, and take the clippings–"

"My hair's always been long!"

She shrugged and stepped back, like she was about to close the door again.

"Okay, okay! Cut my hair. And do what with the clippings?"

"Bury them in your back yard, except for one or two hairs. Put them in your target's yard or car or locker or notebook or somewhere close to him, yeah?"

"Okay."

"File all the rough edges off your fingernails so they're nice and smooth. Paint over 'em so they're all one color and you can't see the pink and the white of 'em."

"Okay."

"Come back here in a week."

*   *   *   *

I went to the Clip & Tip the next day and got a cut and a manicure.

You should have been at school the day after that! Pandemonium! You'd have thought I'd had plastic surgery or something.

Luke wasn't the only one who couldn't stop staring at me, and I made sure he knew it, too.

I never did go back to Mrs. Hatcher.

I hope she wasn't disappointed.

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Character Post

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I'm busy working on a short story, so I'm going to let one of my characters post for me today. Okay, guys, duke it out and the winner does the post.

Guess who? Like I would let anybody else do this.

Bud Blossom

Yeah, it's me, Bud Blossom. "MomGoth" is writing a story with ME in it, finally, but she always has somebody else narrate it, so she doesn't need me to be there, just Cosmo's perception of me. She thinks I'm always wanting to be in her stories, but what I really want is for the stories to be about me. Less work, more glory.

If you don't know me yet, I'm kinda-sorta Chinese-American. Own a restaurant on a houseboat on Cherokee Creek in a little midwestern town she made up. Indiana, I think it's supposed to be. Yeah, Indiana. I talk all "no savvy Eengree" — you know, pidgin — when I want to irritate my servers, but really I talk just like everybody around me.

She made me up for "Blossom on the Water", which sounds a helluva lot prettier than it is, since I'm the Blossom in the title. Then Cosmo's mother needed a job in "Tara Incognita" and it turned out she worked for me. After that, MA stuck me into a story here and there. She thinks she's wrestling me to keep me out of them, but the truth is, she's the one who keeps bringing me up. That's because she's bone-lazy, and a strong character is easier to write about.

After she had a few stories about me, some of my employees, their friends and relatives, she collected them into THE KING OF CHEROKEE CREEK and self-published it. Some of the stories she had sold here and there and some of them were new. She could have used one of those for the anthology she's writing for this weekend, but she gets a kick out of me, whether she admits it or not, and she wanted to write a new story. She gets a kick out of Cosmo, too, so he's doing the grunt work and narrating the damn thing. Better him than me.

Well, I gotta get back to work. The staff should be coming in to do their side work for the lunch crowd, and Lonnie's already in the kitchen. No, not that Lonnie. I'm imaginary, not stupid.

WRITING PROMPT: Let one of your characters write a blog post on the subject most on his or her mind at the moment. Him- or herself, for instance.

MA

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Friday Recommends – Sorry I'm Late!

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Slept in until after 7, then got all internetted up and lost track of the time.

Found SO many good places this week!

First, the April A-to-Z challenge is open for signing up. I participated in this last year and met the fabulous Damyanti, who wrote a flash fiction Every. Single. Day. No, I won't be doing that.

2 Little Hooligans is what I guess you would call a "mommy blog", filled with crafting and cooking and fun stuff, like this post on making ice cream in baggies.

I can't categorize Treehugger. It's about alternative stuff like … Well, go have a look. It's all kindsa stuff that makes your dear old MomGoth go into a happy fugue state. Like crab art. Like these transforming tables. Like keeping food fresh without refrigeration. Like this bookshelf/workstation. I mean … .. ! Is it any wonder, I'm late posting today? This is great stuff for my tiny houses stories!

Then there's the awesomely awesome Medieval Castle website. Not just everything you wanted to know about castles, everything I wanted to know.

Finally, spend the rest of the day being amazed at Julian Beever's fantastic pavement art. Wow.

Hope you enjoy my finds for the week.

Oh! I almost forgot– I have a new BFF website this week. It's called Polyvore, and I can put together my very own Pretty Lady Outfits. I find it oddly invigorating in the way of writing. Maybe it gets the creative juices stirred up, or maybe putting together stuff I want to go together gets the left-brain organizational circuits whirring, but fifteen minutes on Polyvore gets me hitting on all cylinders. Whatever works, right?

WRITING PROMPT: A character is walking down the street in a town he or she has never been to, and a pavement artist is drawing a scene from the character's life; something that happened just before he or she left home, that no one witnessed.

MA

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Foggy Thinking

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It's all foggy here this morning, which brings lots of thoughts to mind.

The first thought, of course, is of getting up to a foggy day here in the country when our youngest was little, and her saying, "It's a misty, moisty morning."

Click to enlarge, click back arrow to return to post.

The second is of Charlie and my honeymoon (yes, that is grammatically correct) and our 25th anniversary, both of which were spent at Natural Bridge State Resort Park in Kentucky. Every morning, the fog completely enfolded the lodge, but burned off as soon as things warmed up. I'm talking about the sun, people; get your minds out of the gutter.

Then, if I'm going to have to drive through it, I get creeped out thinking of Ardis Moonlight's "Buffalo Trace" in GHOSTS ON THE SQUARE.

That makes me think how handy an inland lighthouse could be, which brings to mind the Best. Lighthouse. Story. Ever! Ray Bradbury's "The Fog Horn". That story breaks my heart, every time.

But then, me being me, I can't think of the words "fog" and "horn" together without thinking of … You're way ahead of me. Yes, Foghorn Leghorn, the chicken's chicken.

And now, if you–I say, if you'll excuse me, I have to go have breakfast. Cereal, that is. Pay attention, son! You're not–I say, you're not listening.

WRITING PROMPT: What does fog make you think of?

MA

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Food and Update

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It's the first of the month, so there's a new Hot Flash (micro-mini story) on the Hot Flashes page. You might have to think about it for a minute, especially if you haven't had your morning cuppa.

Next, I'm happy to announce I've given birth to a bouncing baby science fiction romance story posted at the Race to the Hugo Award. Mitchell Allen and Holly Jahangiri are both in there working and posting, too. I must have been subliminally influenced by new blog follower Nicholle, because I gave the main characters the last name of Brisbane. My mind is such a rag-bag!

And, since Wednesday is Food Day here, I have a "recipe", if you want to call something so simple by that name.

BOK CHOI AND ORANGE SALAD

bok choi, cut into bite-size pieces
oranges, cut into bite-size pieces
almonds, toasted in a skillet

And that's it. I should have tossed it before I took the picture, because it looks all garnish and no salad. We used Honey-French dressing, but you could use anything you think would taste good with it. An Asian-Ginger would be nice. Rice vinegar and sesame oil would be VERY nice.

Hope your February is as wonderful as February ever gets!

WRITING PROMPT: Make a list of first names and a list of last names and organize them by "sounds like a good guy", "sounds like a bad guy" and "neutral".

MA

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Only in Corydon

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Cold got you down? GIVE IT HELL!

So there's this drug store here, Butt Drugs — yes, the one in the commercial — and one of their features is all these old remedies nobody else carries around here, like headache powders (which my late mother-in-law used to flush her stoma), henna rinse, oil of cloves, and this cold preparation.

You never know what's going to turn up around here. Sometimes I just stand on the sidewalk and go, "Huh."

I've shared the commercial before, but I can't resist sharing it again.

I love this town.

I'm posting today at Fatal Foodies on the subject of veggie seeds.

WRITING PROMPT: What's the weirdest product on your local shelves? Write three different reactions to it. Or feel free to use 666 Cold Preparation.

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Creative Commons – One Man's Use

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Guesting today is the FAH-boo-loos James Hutchings. I recently finished reading James' THE NEW DEATH AND OTHERS, a collection of short stories I can't recommend highly enough. I asked James to share his thoughts and uses of Creative Commons and he shared:

Not James Hutchings

Many writers, whether published or just starting out, are very nervous that someone else will steal their work, whether that be another writer using their ideas in their own stories, or someone making pirated copies of their books. When I put out a collection of my writing, I specifically gave permission for anyone at all to copy my ideas, or even to cut and paste whole stories. I also contacted the Pirate Party, a worldwide network that wants to lessen copyright, and told them that I was giving anyone permission to put my ebook on file-sharing sites. In this post I hope to show why I went against common wisdom.

Creative Commons

I used a free service called Creative Commons. Creative Commons is useful for people who want to give the general public permission to use their work, but with restrictions. In my case I didn't mind people using my work for non-profit purposes, such as posting on a blog, but I didn't want to allow anyone to make money off it. Similarly I wanted anyone who used it to give me credit. I could have just listed these things myself. However I'm not a lawyer, and perhaps I would have worded it wrong so that someone could twist what I said to do more than I meant. Also I could have been unclear about what I was allowing and what I wasn't allowing. Sure, someone could email me and ask, but the whole purpose of having a written statement is so that people don't have to ask.

Creative Commons has a series of different licenses, which give permission to do different things. They're all legally 'tight', and they're all summarized in plain language. So all you have to do is go to their site and answer a series of questions, to get to the license that does what you want. In my case I used the Attribution Non-Commercial License.

Why?

That's what I did. But why? Common sense would suggest that I'm giving something away for free that I could be selling. However I believe that, in the long run, I'll be better off. The main reason is that I've seen how many people are, like me, trying to get their writing out there. Go to Smashwords and have a look at the latest ebooks. Then refresh the page ten minutes later, and you'll probably see a whole new lot. The problem that new writers face isn't that people want to steal your work; it's getting anyone to show an interest in your work at all. If someone passes on a pirated copy of my work, it might get to someone who's prepared to buy it – and that someone would probably have never heard of me otherwise. Even if they don't want to pay for what they read, I might come out with something else in the future, and perhaps paying 99c for it will be easier than hunting it down on a file-sharing site.

Science fiction writer Andrew Burt tells the story of someone who disliked his book, and to get back at him decided to put a copy on a file-sharing site. The effect was that he got a small 'spike' in sales immediately afterwards.

I also have some less selfish motives. Many people would assume that the purpose of copyright is to protect authors and creators. Leaving aside the fact that someone else often ends up with the rights (how many Disney shareholders created any of the Disney characters? How many shareholders in Microsoft have ever written a line of code?), that doesn't seem to have been the intention in the past. The US Constitution says that Congress has the power "to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Note that protecting 'intellectual property' isn't mentioned. The authors of the Constitution seemed to see the point as getting ideas out there where people can use them: almost the exact opposite of keeping them 'safe' and 'protected'.

The original idea of copyright seems to have been a sort of deal: you have an idea, and we want you to get it out into the world where it will do some good. To encourage you to do that, we'll give you a monopoly on its use for a limited time. After that, anybody can use it (it will enter the 'public domain').

A lot of people don't know that copyright used to give a lot less protection than it does now, especially in the United States. In the US, it used to be that works were copyrighted for a maximum of 56 years. Today copyright in the US can last for over 100 years. In fact Congress keeps extending the time. In practice, they're acting as if they never want ideas to go into the public domain.

This is great for the owners of 'intellectual property'. But it's hard to see how this "promotes the Progress of Science and useful Arts," or how forever is a "limited time." In a sense it's a theft from the public. Anyone who publishes work has accepted the deal that the law offers, of a limited monopoly in return for making their idea known. Congress has been giving them more and more extensions on that monopoly, but doesn't require them to do anything to earn it.

It probably doesn't matter that much that Disney still owns Mickey Mouse, or that Lord of the Rings is still under copyright. But remember that these laws don't just apply to the arts. Similar laws apply to science as well. So a life-saving invention could be going unused, because its owner wants too much money for it, or because it's tied up in court while two companies fight about who owns it.

Conclusion

I'm far from an expert on either the law or the publishing industry. However I hope that I've given you, especially those of you who might be thinking about publishing some writing, a different take on the whole issue of whether authors should worry about their ideas being stolen. At least I hope I've shown you that there's a different way of thinking about it, and that that way doesn't require you to just give up on making money; in fact that it might be more profitable as well as better for society.

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bio: James Hutchings lives in Melbourne, Australia. He fights crime as Poetic Justice, but his day job is acting. You might know him by his stage-name 'Brad Pitt.' He specializes in short fantasy fiction. His work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, fiction365 and Enchanted Conversation among other markets. His ebook collection The New Death and others is now available from Amazon, Smashwords and Barnes & Noble. He blogs daily at Teleleli.

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This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License.

WRITING PROMPT: A character steals something and then learns that it was free anyway.

MA

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