Marian Allen's Blog, page 480

April A-to-Z

I signed up to participate in the April A-to-Z Challenge. Like, ooooooo, scarreee, post every dayyyyyy. Which I already do, BUT–Wow, that's a big butt. Who you talking to?–You talking to ME? …Er, um, I mean HOWEVER, part of the challenge is that participants blog each day on topics beginning with subsequent letters of the alphabet. Immediately subsequent. Beginning with A. You know: A on the 1st, then B on the 2nd…. And so on…. A could be asinine and B could be boring and C could be criminitly and D could be duh and so on.

If you would like to sign up, click on the badge that says, "Click to join." If you want to know who else is in on the challenge so far, you can find that by clicking the badge or by clicking on the April A-to-Z Challenge tab here on my blog. You will perhaps be happy to hear that part of the challenge is to keep posts extremely short.

Meanwhile, I'm posting at Fatal Foodies today. I'm still going on about that rabbit.

WRITING PROMPT: What signals Spring to you? To your main character? Write a paragraph in which that trigger happens.

MA

Not Here Today

I'm posting at The Write Type today about loglines and why you need them. Like, for instance, if everybody hates your title and didn't tell you until after the book was published….

WRITING PROMPT: Read the articles linked to at The Write Type and write loglines for books and/or stories, yours or someone else's.

MA

Sample Sunday, from "Undivided"

The Southern Indiana Writers Group had a great time at That Book Place yesterday. We had a buncha our anthologies, Ginny Fleming brought KEYS OF ILLUSION, her paranormal romance, T. Lee Harris brought CAT TALES, an anthology with one of her stories in it, Joanna Foreman brought GHOSTS OF INTERSTATE-65, her collection of ghost stories, and I brought SWORD & SORCERESS XXIII, an anthology with one of my stories in it. T also brought WINTER WONDERLAND, her mystery novella, and I brought — yes, of course, EEL'S REVERENCE.

Here is a sample from my story "Undivided" in SSXXIII. Another sample is here.

Pimchan jumped from the wall, landing lightly, and followed. She bore no weapons except her dagger, but a Warrior was a weapon, capable of turning anything to destructive or defensive use against clubs, blades–even, with luck, spears and the new foreign firearms.

The phantoms became more difficult to see as they passed through real carts and real people. Pimchan raised a hand, palm out, at belly level and muttered a string of syllables she had been taught by a very old man in a cold desert cave. The shapes she followed took on a yellow nimbus. She growled–dark blue would have been better in this bright sunlight, but the Glow colored itself arbitrarily. One of the drawbacks of accepting someone else's spell in payment instead of cash.

The second-hand spell fizzled and died in the sunlight and high traffic of the marketplace. Just before the glowing cart entered the turbulence of buyers and sellers, the driver looked back and Pimchan caught the gleam of spectral teeth, as if the shade expected her to try to follow and expected her to fail.

Her quarry gone, she became more than peripherally aware of her surroundings.

Lek, the chestnut seller, with his bags and brazier and bamboo fan, hunkered down at the corner. In a moment, she stood beside him.

Lek raised a heavily wrinkled face and squinted at her as she described the invaders and the generalities of their vehicle. Lek had once served in a Warrior's household, and had no more fear of a Warrior than he did of any of the many other people more powerful than he was.

"I saw a woman in clothes like that with a scratch on her chin driving an old wagon down this street and into the market." He pointed with his fan. "This wagon was painted black, but the paint was peeling. Is that the one you mean?"

"It could be. Tell me more."

"Well…." He scratched his thin beard with his fan. "The grain sacks were white with red catfish on them. The oilcloth was brown, but not the same brown as her clothes. Her clothes were like…. Like your skin, if you forgive the familiarity."

Pimchan glanced at her bare arms: the red-brown of roasted fowl. A difficult color to reproduce in dyed goods. That and the red leather boots pointed to a wealthy household. The disrepair of the wagon and age of the boots pointed to bad times.

Lek went on. "The oilcloth was the color of this dust. Pale."

"Have you seen her before? Or the wagon or the clothing? Or the symbol on the grain sacks?"

Lek shook his head. "But there are a lot of farms and estates and enclaves tucked back in the passes and down in the foothills. They don't always send the same people to town, or the same carrier."

Pimchan bowed her thanks.

"Did they take anything?" Lek's voice sounded concerned, but Pimchan knew he was eager for details. Even the priests' quarters were more open than Warriors' compounds, and any crumb of information would be worth a free drink or even a bowl of rice.

"A purple orchid blossom. They tried to take a white one, as well, but they were stung and gave it up."

"A precious blossom?"

Pimchan shook her head. "One of many. They just wanted a trophy, I think, to prove they won a dare. I hope it was worth it to them."

Even if this had been the harmless prank she had invented, the taboo against entering a Warrior's domain without permission could not be broken without punishment. The outrage that had actually been committed demanded worse than death, and only a Warrior's domestic impenetrability would keep the revenge from being as public as possible. Instead, it would be an open secret, communicated by whispers and facial expressions and nodded understandings, unspoken horrors that would enforce the taboo on impressionable young minds so it would be less likely to happen again.

This was not a prank. It was not even a crime. It was a gambit–a move in a game that had yet to be announced.

WRITING PROMPT: If you could buy a spell that would work once, what would it be?

MA

Saturday Ramble

Today, I'm in Madison, Indiana with the Southern Indiana Writers Group at That Book Place's 5th Anniversary Book Fair. I'll have some copies of Marion Zimmer Bradley's SWORD AND SORCERESS XXIII because I have a story in it.

I just hope I don't spend more money than I make, and come home with more books than I take.

Another St. Patrick's Day has come and gone with me forgetting to watch DARBY O'GILL AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE. When the kids were bitsy, we watched it often, even though the wossnames–banshees–scared us spitless. Scared me, anyway. Had some wonderful bits in it, very funny, lovely stuff. Not Sean Connery's singing, though. That was almost as scary as the banshees.

Well, I must be off. Be good while I'm gone. You never know if I might check in from my laptop in faraway Madison.

WRITING PROMPT: Does your main character like to read? If so, what? If not, why not?

MA

Friday Recommends 3-18-2011

This is turning into a regular feature. Imma hava date 'em.

What with one thing and another, the Southern Indiana Writers Group meeting last night turned to the subject of funerals. Member Ginny Fleming said, "My funeral is the one you want to go to. It's gonna be on the beach, with Jimmy Buffett music and margaritas and mojitos."

We were all like, "Cool! I can't wait! –Oh, did I just say that out loud?"

Which, today, has me thinking of the Chad Mitchell Trio's song, A Dying Business. Here's the only video I could find of it. The visuals leave something to be desired, but it's the song, anyway.

Well, that was tasteful, wasn't it?

On a related note, are you tired of vampires who are just misunderstood sadpeople? Dave Anderson, author of Killer Cows, is. He's written an uncharacteristically dark dystopian apocalyptic vampire short story.

If you're into eBook publishing or just want a peep inside the whole business to see some of the things involved in do-it-yourself marketing, I recommend E-book Endeavors, a blog by fantasy author Lindsay Buroker. Lots of good stuff there.

WRITING PROMPT: What kind of funeral would you die to have?

MA

Not Bugs

In honor of the late Bubbles White Schmeltz, and because Holly Jahangiri mentioned Jugged Hare in that post's comments, here are some columns I wrote at various times for World Wide Recipes. I no longer write the Culinary Chronicles for that publication, but Karlis Streips does the honors now. I recommend it and him to your attention.

Anyway, here goes me:

JUGGED HARE

My mother and I love reading British mysteries, and our current one mentions jugged hare. The earliest recipe I found was dated 1747, by Mrs. Hannah Glasse in her Art of Cookery. The "jug" is a tightly covered earthenware casserole with a swelling middle and narrower mouth, not the drinking jug we incredulously imagined. Some recipes marinate the hare in red wine and juniper berries, some don't. Some brown the joints before "jugging", some don't. Some put the "jug" into a hot water bath and stew the hare, some bake it without the water bath. Some suggest making beef gravy, some insist on gravy rendered from the sweet little bunny's head, innards, bones and "thick blood". It may or may not be surprising that Science Daily reports, "Less than 2 percent of the young people surveyed [in England recently] had heard of jugged hare and 70 percent said they wouldn't eat it even if they had." Except for the icky bits, my mother and I think it sounds like a pretty tasty dish.

~I posted on another date about rodentia, and two people wrote to correct me. It turns out that a rabbit is not just what a squirrel would look like if it stayed on its meds. Rabbits and hares are, in fact, lagomorphs.

A HAPPY DAY FOR HARES

Ah, these are proud days for rabbits and hares! Two fellow Recitopians have emailed to tell me that rabbits and hares are no longer considered rodents, but have been promoted to the order of Lagomorphs. I don't know if members of the order get to wear ribbons and medals on special occasions, but I like to think they do. Hare bones in prehistoric kitchen middens show the hare to have been eaten all over the world: New England, Russia, Africa and Rome. The Romans thought eating hare seven days in a row would cure ugliness. The Greeks thought it would cure insomnia. The English thought it would cure melancholy. Unlike rabbits, hares haven't been domesticated. Perhaps it is for this reason that wild hare, as a meat, is held in higher regard by some gourmands than hutch-raised rabbit. My mother is quite fond of the occasional dish of "sweet little bunny", though we haven't had it since the kids got rabbits for pets. As Lewis Carroll said in ALICE IN WONDERLAND, you can't eat anything you've been introduced to!

~Having written about hares, I had to give rabbits equal time.

RABBIT

Rabbits, as we all know, are lagomorphs, a family which includes hares and pikas. Although hare is regarded as a dish fit for royalty, rabbit has traditionally been considered lower-class fare. Rabbit can be hunted, snared or bred in captivity. Sometimes hunters sneak up behind them and whap them on the head, which is where the term "rabbit punch" comes from. Rabbit meat tends to be milder and more tender than that of hares. Rabbit milk is said to be high in protein, but I don't believe I could milk enough rabbits to make it worth my while. Personal experience assures me that the Wikipedia assertion, "Rabbits are very good producers of manure", is, if anything, an understatement, but I have no way of verifying the claim that rabbit urine increases the productivity of lemon trees due to its high nitrogen content. Rabbits, the same entry says, are unable to regurgitate, a fact which might turn out to be useful sometime, under a somewhat bizarre set of circumstances.

~So now you know.

WRITING PROMPT: Read a random Wikipedia article and see what surprises you.

MA

The Sad Song of Bubbles White Schmeltz

I'm writing this in tribute to a brave individual, who ventured too far from those he could trust and reckoned too highly on his own abilities. Let us all read and learn from his tragedy. This happened yesterday, in my own front yard.

THE SAD SONG OF BUBBLES WHITE SCHMELTZ

by Marian Allen

He was only a little white rabbit

With eyes of a delicate red.

He broke with his safety and habit

And now he is probably dead.

His mistress obeyed not her father

Who, when she ignored Bubbles' needs

Because they were just too much bother,

Turned Bubbles out into the weeds.

At first, Bubbles stayed on the Schmeltz grounds

Enjoying his freedom at home

And played with the Schmeltz cats and Schmeltz hounds

But then he decided to roam.

So Bubbles came up to the Allens'

Where things were not safe and not sweet,

Where cats have sharp teeth and long talons

And dogs think a rabbit is meat.

In spite of the Allens' best trying,

The DOG was seen, mouth full of white.

Poor Bubbles was probably dying

And gently went to that good night.

But let us not call Bubbles "hero".

He went where he oughtn't to go.

The score is DOG-one, BUBBLES-zero

Which I am down-hearted to know.

Oh, heed me, thou little white rabbits!

Remember poor Bubbles, too free!

Stray not from thy homes and thy habits

Lest this fate should happen to THEE!

Mom and I are pretending that Joe carried Bubbles into the woods and released him, and he went home. Other people's dogs bring their kills to their Mistresses for praise, in which case I might have been able to save a wounded rabbit or at least deliver the remains for burial, but NO, Joe wasn't about to answer my calls. He flat ignored me. I am not best pleased with him. See if I share my next kill with him!

WRITING PROMPT: Did your main character have a pet as a child? Or a child as a pet?

MA

Wilkie Collins Broke My Heart

I've just finished reading Wilkie Collins' THE WOMAN IN WHITE. I suppose the time will come when I'll stop singing the title to this tune, which I invite you to enjoy, if you have 10 minutes to spare. It has in it, so that's a plus.

I posted about one disappointment in the book at Fatal Foodies today. The other, I can only hint at, in case you would like to read the book yourself, which you can do free from Project Gutenberg. I can only say that one of the main characters is named Marian. And now I'm wondering if that's where the name got into the family.

WRITING PROJECT: What's the story behind your name? Your main character and/or villain's name?

MA

The Awesomest Prize EVAR!!1!

Mom and I went to a charity event to benefit HEART Humane Society. They had a silent auction of gift baskets and a live auction of "celebrity" cakes, meaning cakes baked by, around, in spite of or at the behest of local business people (mostly men, for maximum amusement, as it still amuses many people to think that men might cook well). Mom and our friend Peggy discovered, after Mom won a spirited round of bidding, that they had bidding against one another. One of the drawbacks of doing an auction with little paddles with numbers on them rather than voice calls, as Mom and Peggy had been sitting NEXT TO EACH OTHER during their unconscious duel.

I won the only silent auction item on which I bid. I still can't believe it. It is totally the best basket ever. Even Katya thinks so, and she isn't impressed with anything. It was called a Writer's Block basket and contains:

all occasion cards
envelopes
book owner stickers
3 20-pack invitations
bookmarks
photocards
Christmas stationary (I think they mean stationery)
Magic tape (looking forward to seeing it pull a rabbit out of its hat)
index cards
glue
eraser
highlighter
finepoint marker
Zebra ballpoint pen (zebra not included)
notepads

Isn't that the best basket ever??? Index cards? marker? pen? notepads? highlighter? bookmarks? ~danse danse, danse danse~

I use index cards a lot in my writing. They're great for writing out plot points and arranging them for best effect. They're great for abstracting chapters so I can lay them out and see how the story arc is doing. I use them to organize my submissions: each story gets an index card with title and word count on the top. Date sent out and market on a line. Date bought or rejected on the same line, then I move on to the next line, if necessary. Easy to alphabetize, easy to arrange by word count or title or date submitted.

So I have a brand new pack! And a pen! and a highlighter! and more!

WRITING PROMPT: What makes you do a happy dance, as a writer?

MA

Sample Sunday – Foxing Uncle Phineas

Uncle Phineas is a "reaver priest" in a seacoast area known as the Eel. Reaver priests are in it for the money, but the reavers in the Eel have formed a coalition and use armed "churchwardens" to enforce attendance and tithing. The elderly Aunt Libby, a true priest from another area, has wandered into the Eel unaware of the Coalition's illegal activities. A family of true believers has given her shelter–or have they taken her prisoner? When Uncle Phineas shows up at their door, they stash Aunt Libby in a carefully prepared hideaway in the basement.

Excerpt from Chapter 5 of EEL'S REVERENCE

Clare led me to the back wall and pushed open a door I hadn't noticed. "Here's the room," she said.

It was plain, but pleasant, and lit by smokeless lamps. Bowls of flowers couldn't quite conquer the riot of odors from the produce outside.

"Just help yourself to whatever's out there," Clare said. "If there's anything else you need—"

"Clare," Hilda called sharply.

"Coming!" Clare closed the door behind herself. I heard a brief gurgle and the sound of a broom. Dampness seeped an inch or so under my door and, with it, the heady smell of malted barley.

At the same time, from the cracks in the ceiling, sifted feathers of brownish-green. Fresh dill.

They were certainly taking no chances. They had scented my shoes and the hem of my cassock with mint and masked my presence with dill and beer. It seemed a bit extreme.

Why would they need to—

I could hear sounds from upstairs, muffled but audible. A heavy tread and a scrabble of wolves' claws raised the hairs on the back of my neck. No one would even know I was here? Was I hidden, or trapped?

"Good afternoon." Uncle Phineas' brassy voice fell like hot metal through the cracks of the floor.

"Good afternoon, Uncle."

"My, it smells lovely in here," Uncle Phineas said. "Dill, isn't it?"

"Sure, it's the dill," said Isaac. "I wondered. The wolves usually sniff around whenever they come in with you."

"But, today, they can smell nothing but dill," said Phineas, as smoothly as his husky voice could sound.

"We've been pickling," said Hilda. "We'll be sweeping up dill weed for days. It won't hurt the wolves, I hope."

"No, my dear lady, a transitory disablement only."

"Won't you sit down, Uncle?" Clare said. "Have some tea?"

"Thank you, no. I've come to baptize young Evrard."

"Oh," said Hilda. "We thought you told us to bring him to the temple this evening."

"Now I can spare you the trouble."

"Thank you, Uncle. Here he is."

I wondered at her nerve. She would have to hand her baby into those monstrous arms, have to hear those beautiful words hacked to bits by that saw-toothed voice, watch those flaccid, liver-colored lips press her child's forehead, and she would have to pretend to be sweetly moved. She must have an enormous capacity for deceit.

Of course, so must Uncle Phineas. I had no doubt he knew this charming family was lying in their teeth. He wanted them to believe they'd foxed him; he could catch them out more easily if he put them off their guard.

The wolves must have led the reaver to me again. Now what would happen, with no Reynold to tell what Uncle Phineas knew? If Uncle Phineas had had an impulsive tad beaten and a generous woman burned out of all she possessed with the eyes of Port Novo on him, what would he do in the depth of the woods, with only his wolves to witness?

EEL'S REVERENCE ($2.99 – cheap at the price) can be downloaded directly to your Kindle from Amazon. It's available at Barnes & Noble for Nook and at OmniLit in other electronic formats.

WRITING PROMPT: If you needed to hide someone, where and how would you do it?

MA