Marian Allen's Blog, page 449
December 29, 2011
When It Was Good, It Was Very, Very Good
Don't get excited. I'm talking about a movie.
For the benefit of anyone wandering by who never heard of the nursery rhyme I'm referencing:
There was a little girl
And she had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very, very good
But, when she was bad, she was horrid.
(Obligatory aside to quote Mae West, who changed it to, "When I'm good, I'm very, very good but when I'm bad, I'm better." End of obligatory aside.)
ANYWAY, my mother and I are maybe halfway through a relatively recent remake of an iconic American movie, loaned to us by a friend. So far, the big-ticket items are mightily impressive.
Sets – check – I believe I am where the film says I am
Costumes – check – I believe people wear those clothes, although I do keep flashing on Bugsy Malone.
Characters – Yes, well, here's where it begins to break down. Major characters, yes. Secondary characters, mixed bag. Minor characters, big red X.
The devil is in the details and, while the details of the big-ticket items are meticulously believable, the corroborative details broke the dream early and break the dream often. More about those on Writer Monday, when we will have finished.
I will say this: Halfway through the picture, we've barely glimpsed the biggest ticket item of all, the star of all stars, and he looks PERFECT. This is going to make or break the movie. I don't enjoy picking on a show. I watch a show expecting to fall into it, suspend my disbelief and go along for a ride. So I'm pretty ticked over a major director abusing me in this way. I'll never trust him so completely after this as I did before it, but I won't spit in his eye if he does well by his Star.
Sorry for such a crabby post.
WRITING PROMPT: A detail out of place jars a character out of an illusion.
MA
December 28, 2011
AGAIN With The Vegan?
No, but this was really good! Did you ever go to a dim sum restaurant and have those little yeast buns with barbeque in the middle? For some reason, I got a craving for those the other day, so I made some, using my rice cooker/steamer. Here's how:
Dough: I used the Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes A Day dough. Just pinched off a lump about the size of an orange, floured it up, rolled it out thin and cut rounds with a biscuit cutter.
Filling: Vegetarian "hamburger" crumbles — I used Lightlife Smart Ground. I didn't have any barbeque sauce, so I mixed some taco sauce and Honey French dressing with the crumbles.
Instructions: Put about 1/2 tsp of the filling in the center of a dough round. How much you use will depend on how big your rounds are, of course. Bring the edges up and pinch them together like a purse. Maybe twist the top to make sure it's sealed.
Oil the steamer basket so the dumplings won't stick to it. Arrange the sealed dumplings in the steamer basket, leaving room between them. Put water in the bottom compartment, steamer basket on top, cover, and switch on.
I steamed them for about 1/2 hour.
SO GOOD!
I know: Pictures, or it didn't happen, but we ate them before I could get out my camera. Maybe next time.
WRITING PROMPT: What food does your main character simply inhale? Chocolate? Rare roast beef? Noodles? Everything? Nothing?
MA
December 27, 2011
Missing My Kitty
Miss Tiffany passed away 12 years ago (can't believe it's been that long!), but I still miss her. She was the prettiest cat in the world, and one of the crabbiest.
I got Tiffany from a no-kill shelter, where she was being bullied by the bigger cats. She learned all her bad habits from them. She hated all other cats and most people. She had already been named, or I would have called her something else — Killer or Slash or Bonnie N. Clyde.
My pet name for her was Meanness, so you can just imagine. She was a one-person cat (I was the person) until the baby was born. #4 daughter could do anything to that cat and get away with it.
I don't know why I'm missing Miss Tiff so much today, but I am. Here's a poem I wrote about her. It's one of the offerings in the Southern Indiana Writers' anthology BEASTLY TALES.
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.
WRITING PROMPT: Write about a one-person animal who accepts a second person into its world.
MA
December 26, 2011
Guest Poster Carol Preflatish on Conferences
One of my besties is with us today: Carol Preflatish, a long-time writer buddy. I first read Carol's recipe-and-anecdote book, MASTERS & DISASTERS OF COOKING, which I highly recommend. Since then, she's written and had published two romantic suspense novels, both of which have garnered much praise. The newer one, SAVED BY THE SHERIFF, has such a nifty cover that even I, who do not read romantic suspense, am attracted to it.
But here's Carol, talking about Writing Conferences in general and one in particular.
Writers Conferences, Pro or Con
I want to thank Marian for asking me here today. I enjoy reading her blog everyday and am honored to be a part of it.
Occasionally, I'm asked about writers' conferences and whether I think they can help a writer get published. For me, I'm definitely pro when it comes to conferences. I've attended only three conferences, because where I live there aren't many close by. That means if I want to attend one, it involves a long drive or an overnight stay and as a part time writer with a full time job, getting time off from work can be difficult.
My favorite conference of the three has been the Magna cum Murder Crime Writing Festival held each October in Muncie, Indiana. Magna is not a large conference, which for me, was the appeal of it. The smaller panel sessions afford the attendees the opportunity for more interaction with the panel members, other authors, and readers.
Yes, I said readers. Many of the people attending are not authors, but readers of mystery and potential buyers of your books. However, there's no segregation, everyone mingles with everyone for a great time. I met some wonderful authors at Magna that I had never heard of before and instantly became a fan.
Panels are held on a variety of subjects and I found myself struggling to decide which session to attend. One of the things I really enjoyed about Magna were the perpetual author discussions going on in the glass enclosed pavilion. Authors are scheduled to come and go throughout the conference.
I think attending Magna cum Murder gave a boost to my writing and the encouragement to continue writing mystery and suspense. Finally, I must tip my hat to Kathryn Kennison and her Ball State University staff who successfully put on a spectacular conference each year. I would encourage any writer to attend a conference and especially Magna cum Murder.
* * *
Carol is from southern Indiana and author of two romantic suspense books and one cookbook. Her current release, "Saved by the Sheriff" is available at Secret Cravings Publishing.
You can learn more about Carol on her blog.
Thanks for visiting with me, Carol! Hope to see you at Magna in 2012!
WRITING PROMPT: If you could meet your favorite writer, what would you say?
MA
December 25, 2011
#SampleSunday Sestina
I'm celebrating Christmas today, so I set this up early. Whatever you celebrate this season, or even if you don't celebrate anything at all, I wish you the best of your tradition and mine all rolled up together.
A sestina is a 39-line poem relying on six end-of-line words to effect a sort of rhyme pattern. I cheated a little.
Cedar
by
Marian Allen
Thirty feet tall, eight-foot dripline–the shade
this cedar cast would make a hosta groan
for light. And then, last winter, came a fall
of snow so plumply damp it weighed each branch
with diamond lead. Below, our feet pressed
snow as gossamer and solid as a new-grown leaf.
Each needle of an evergreen–a cedar–is a leaf
pin-slender, massing an impenetrable shade.
The needles die and drop, turn orange-brown; pressed,
they crumble. Wind-raked cedars sway and groan;
snow coats each brittle, close-packed branch–
clings there, given nowhere blank to fall.
An evergreen looks arrogant when fall
brightens, drains, and strips the broad-leaf
trees. A cedar mocks the empty branch
of has-been maple. An evergreen's unyielding shade
chills the ground. The final sigh, the groan
of the dying year, smells of cedar pressed
by frost, like quilts unfolded, wrinkles pressed
and cedar-scented, resurrected for the fall.
Just listen to the hinges of the old chest groan!
Lift out that picture album; turn back each leaf,
name the names you know, tell tales on every shade,
crawl back to history along your branch.
Now forward from the founding trunk, along the branch
that bore you, past the fragile flowers pressed
between the pages (roses and violets, both the same shade
of dust, both with the same faint tang). Let the pages fall
behind them, layer the past upon petal, bud, and leaf;
come, at last, to yourself: An infant. A child. Grown.
Last winter, we heard the cedar creak and groan
beneath its burden. The trunk bent, parallel to branch.
Still the snow fell, accumulating leaf upon airy leaf–
icy mulch, trapped on the tree's surfaces, it pressed
wood beyond endurance. We watched the limbs fall
cracking, watched the trunk snap with just a shade
of pleasure, picturing leaf and bloom in summer, pressed
skyward, sunflowers grown where the gloom of branch
will now no longer fall; blossoms in the vacancy of shade.
WRITING PROMPT: Your main character opens a cedar chest in the attic of an old house. What's inside? How does your character feel about it?
MA
December 24, 2011
TomTom's Dirty Little Secret
[image error]My mother has a TomTom GPS device, which we have, so far, survived. I do TomTom a disservice in singling it out, because it isn't the only GPS device with this secret. I've been afraid they would find out that I was onto them, and I've finally decided that my only safety lies in telling the world.
The GPS directions are programmed by zombies.
That lady (ours is a lady) who tells you in a firm, no-nonsense voice, where you should turn, when you should "go straight on" and when to "take the motorway" has so often steered us away from our destinations, landing us at the end of no-outlets or on crumbling single-lane backroads or in weed-choked, lightless wastelands! One friend, attempting to go to a coffee house, was directed to a (dramatic music) cemetary!
"Turn around when possible." Photo by Timmy Toucan
Just last week, she steered us off our route and took us through the Great Smokey Mountains. At night. With a full moon. Is that a reasonable way to go from Indiana to Georgia? I ask you: Is it?
I carry an umbrella in the back window of my car as a warning to zombies that I'm ready for them. So far, it seems to have worked. At any rate, I still have whatever has been passing for my brains.
And now you've been warned so now you, too, may be on guard. It's us against them, people. Us against Them.
WRITING PROMPT: Does your main character follow directions well, or does he or she suspect directions of always being wrong?
MA
December 22, 2011
Friday Recommends – A Very Vegan Christmas
I admit it. This past week, on Tybee Island, I was not vegan. I was not vegetarian. I fell off the turnip truck so hard, Mahatma Gandhi bounced. So Imma make up for it by taking vegan dishes to Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. That way, I know our vegan daughter will have something she can eat.
What will I make? Well, maybe a bean cassoulet, though not the kind I made before, since I don't have the same stuff in the pantry and fridge. Maybe something else.
I'll have plenty to choose from. I found these nifty sites, great for finding recipes to please the vegan in your family or, if you're the vegan in your family, great for finding recipes to please the omnivores who don't know who good vegetarian food is.
Vegan.SheKnows has a selection of Top Vegan Christmas Recipes
The Veggie Table presents a full menu, with recipes, for a Vegetarian Christmas Dinner
Veg Kitchen has a variety of Vegan Christmas Dinner Recipes
If you're British, or are partial to marmite and such, try the Vegan Family's Vegan Christmas or Yule recipes.
And, if all those fail you, you can't go wrong browsing Vegans Eat Pencil Shavings.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go rummage in the kitchen and decide whether I want to make a lentil and mushroom risotto or maybe a vegetable shepherd's pie or….
WRITING PROMPT: One member of your main character's family has dietary restrictions. How does your main character deal with that?
MA
Happy Solstice!
Today/tonight/tomorrow is the turning of the year from darkness toward light. The longest night and shortest day are past, and winter, although the worst is yet to come, is counting down to spring.
Next month, we'll start seeing snowdrops–the flowers as well as the precipitation. Life in the heart of death, as death is in the heart of life, each giving the other value and meaning.
My church, Corydon Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), is having a Solstice service tonight. Looking forward to it.
WRITING PROMPT: How does your main character celebrate the turning of the year, or does he/she even notice it?
MA
December 21, 2011
Wash Your Hands
When we were on Tybee Island, we went to a few places that wanted to hit us up for a quarter-C ($25) for a jar of Hand Scrub. Today, special just for you, Baby-Doll (Bahamas in-joke for Mom and Sara), I give you a recipe for it. You can get as fancy as you want. This one is my favorite, because I have all the ingredients in my pantry. There are more, more, more recipes at Natural Homeremedies For Life.
Hand Scrub
10 tablespoons coarse Kosher salt
2 tablespoons Baking soda
5 tablespoons extra virgin Olive oil
I might add a drop of vanilla, because I like it.
I'm posting today at The Write Type about Mermaid Cottages' Getaway Giveaway and the importance of a sense of place in your writing. Tomorrow, I'm going to Louisville for my monthly meet-up with the fabulous Jane, but I'll post here before I leave.
Now, if you'll excuse me, Imma go make some springerles and fruitcake. Mmmmm!
WRITING PROMPT: How do-it-yourselfy is your main character? Does he or she know anybody who makes his or her own anything?
MA
December 20, 2011
Eating and Inking
Long-time readers (Hi, Mom!) know there are three things I'm obsessed with: food, turtles and tattoos. Probably more than that, but three will do. So Inlet Breeze, our cottage on Tybee Island, was perfect for me. Go north about a stone's throw and you come to Tybrisia. Turn right and you pass Brass Anchor Tattoo. A block or so past that is the beach, the pier and, to the left, the Tybee Island Marine Science Center.
As always, I did not get, nor did I ever have any intention of getting, a tattoo, but I went in and looked at the flash (the art to be transferred) and talked to one of the guys. He was very kind and patient, and offered to help me find a "badass unicorn with flames coming out of his nose", which I was sorry to decline.
Mah new bestie.
We ate at The Crab Shack, then somewhere else, and were so disappointed with the somewhere else we had to go back to The Crab Shack to get the good taste back in our mouths. I post about it today at Fatal Foodies.
But I'm home, now, and the grocery calls. See you tomorrow!
WRITING PROMPT: IF your main character HAD to get a unicorn tattoo, what would it look like?
MA
