Hank Quense's Blog: Hank Quense's Blog, page 95

Saving Time

One of characters, a wizard who wants to remain anonymous for now, created spells to clip small chunks of time and save them in a time vault.  The chunks can be removed from the time vault when needed and used to add time to an event under way.  After I threatened him with a hideous death in my next story, he revealed the spells to me.

Clipping time is quite easy to do, especially during the boring moments in life: waiting at a red light, watching never-ending TV commercials, on a treadmill...

Chow Mein

An excellent way to use up left-overs.  This is not an authentic Chinese recipe because Chow Mein is an American recipe (according to a Chinese cook book I own)

Serves: 3-4

Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups shredded cabbage
½ cup bean sprouts
½ cup sliced mushrooms
1 med onion, sliced
½ cup celery cut into thin sticks
1 cup of cooked meat (chicken, turkey, pork)
2 tablespoons corn starch mixed with 4 tablespoons water
oil for cooking

Sauce:
2 tablespoon sherry
5 tablespoons soy...

New Writing Contest

Visual Arts Junction has announced the next writing contest.  The deadline is June 30, 2010. Go here for a complete set of contest rules.

New Interview

Today, I'm interviewed by Sheila Crosby on her blog.  We talk about my novel Fool's

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Fool's Gold Cover

Gold. Sheila is an author and a photographer.  She's also a Brit ex-pat living in the Canary Islands.

New Interview

Today, I'm interviewed by Sheila Crosby on her blog.  We talk about my novel Fool's Gold. Sheila is an author and a photographer.  She's also a Brit ex-pat living in the Canary Islands.

Following a grandkids's orders

My eight-year-old granddaughter is going away with her mother for a few days during her spring break[image error] from grammar school.  She told me to log onto Facebook on her mother's account, go to the Farmville

application and feed her puppy, Cuddles.

To make sure I got it right, she wrote out a set of instructions (including sketches).  I pasted the instructions below.  I programed my cell phone to send me an alert.

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Subplots

The following short essay is taken from Chapter Six in Build a Better Story.Unless a story is very short, a single plot will have difficulty holding a reader's attention.  If the story drives from the beginning to the end in a straight line, it lacks complexity.  If the story line zigs and dips and otherwise detours from its goal as secondary issues are explored, it increases the reader's interest.  That is the purpose of subplots: to defer the ending of the story and increase the reader's...

Winners of the Visual Arts Junction Bedtime Story Contest

Here are two short short stories that won this contest.  Enjoy reading them.Professional Category: Donny's Friend by Salvatore Buttaci

If Donny could've somehow unraveled the wires in his brain so that thinking came easily, he would have eventually forgiven them.

All those barren years they had prayed for a child, until finally in disgust Donny's father had decided, "No more prayers.  What's meant to be will be. No more knocking at Heaven's door." If Donny could have, he would have taken pity o...

Sandman Slim: Richard Kadrey:

This entertaining book takes place in Los Angles a unusual world filled with monsters and bizarre creatures.  They come from earth, Hell, Heaven and elsewhere.  All trying to take over control.  One angle is a big shot in Home Land Security.  Sandman Slim is a human who survived eleven years in Hell without first dying.  He has been returned to Hell.  He believes Satan sent him back to do something, but he doesn't know what it is but he's sure it involves killing someone or something...

Iphones and Grandkids

These just go together naturally.  I have five grandkids from 8 1/2 to 2 and they all play games on my Iphone.  The 2 year-old will come up to me and yank on my pants, then say, "play game."  He sits son my lap (I hold the Iphone!) and we play a few games I downloaded.  In one of them he has to match shapes.  Another teaches him numbers and colors.  My four-year-old granddaughter loves a game called Cookie Doodle.  She rolls out the dough, cuts it with a cookie cutter (the game has dozens of ...