Mollie Cox Bryan's Blog, page 9

Mollie’s Folly: Who’s Got Buttons?

A few weeks back, my publisher asked me to write up either some crafting tips or a craft project for a new promotion they are doing. This gave me a great excuse to do some crafty exploring. I turned to buttons and felt for a few reasons—the biggest was I happened to have them on hand.

I’ve been in a cleaning out mode for what seems like forever. Between my two best friends moving the area (along with all their stuff) and my-laws getting ready to move to a retirement home, I’ve been thinking about “stuff” and how I really want to use what I have or give it to someone who might. Besides all of this, I live in a small house with two teenagers, a husband, and a dog. Space is an issue.

This brings me to buttons. I’ve been collecting them for a while. Truthfully, my daughter started me on this path because when she was a toddler, she loved buttons and would sit for hours and study their colors and designs, lining them up, making mosaics with them. So we bought several jars of them at yard sales and my mother-in-law and mother both donated to the cause. My daughter outgrew her fascination—I did not. Which must be why they continue to hang around my house.

I decided to make bookmarks with them and paper clips. I LOVED making them. I really find working with my hands to be a soothing meditative experience. I posted this photo on Facebook and people loved them. Now, I’m selling them on Etsy for $8 each. The buttons in my Etsy shop (Mollie’s Folly)  are only samples, but if you order one that I don’t have I will attempt to match its style with other buttons I have. This pictures don’t rally do the buttons justice—some of them have this lovely translucent quality to them and I just can’t capture it on my iPhone camera.

Here’s a good sample of what I’m doing and what’s available:

I really like crafting where I’m using what I have on hand. These days, they are calling this upcycling. I like the word. How about you?

Five things I thought about during my morning run:

1. This weather is A-mazing. Cool enough for a run in late morning. In late July.

2. This is how you say goodbye to a dear friend who is moving: YOU DON’T. You say : “SEE YOU LATER.”

3. Emma and her babysitting gig. What a blessing.

4. Hubs is off this week and we are sorting, cleaning, and purging. Prepping to paint the girls bedrooms.

5. So much road work and utility going on in my town today that is was a little difficult to get around earlier. Wondering waht’s going on.

 

Five things I thought about during my morning run:

1. I’ve been running outside so much this summer. The mornings have been so beautiful.Can’t make it to ZUMBA on a day like this!

2. Exercise is my sanity. True–but sometimes it’s just not enough. I’m very down these days.

3. I hope that Tink’s flea dip and my treating the house have gotten ridden of the fleas! Not sure I can take much more!

4. Next week I’m heading to “Navigating Your Writing Life,” to sit on a mystery writer’s panel and teach a workshop.

5. Had to take a little break and make a new friend this morning:

Five things I thought about during my morning run:

1. Gorgeous day for a run. Cool, but not cold. sunny, but not hot. Low humidity. Perfect.

2. The field of wildflowers I try to run by with each of my runs. Shades of green, purple, pink, and gold. A poet could take a lifetime and just write about the field. which reminds me of a Jane Austen quote I sort of live by as a writer: 3 or four Families in a Country Village is the very thing to work on,” she said.

3. Legs, don’t fail me now.

4. Mornings this week are a bit odd for us. One kid going to Charlottesville. The other babysitting in Waynesboro.

5. I think I could run longer this morning, but I’m pressed for time. Thirty minutes is good.

Scrapbook Expo was AWESOME!

I’ve been back a few days now from the Scrapbook Expo. It was amazing! Scrapbookers LOVED my books and bought all of the ones I had to sell within the first day.  I only wish I had brought more books AND that I had time to shop!

Here’s a few pictures I took. Cheers!

Embellishments everywhere!

So much shopping going on!

Line forming at 7:30 a.m.

My daughters came to help me. I could not have done it without them!

Funny t-shirts!

What a happy display!

Five things I thought about during my morning run:

1. It’s a perfect morning for a run. If only my legs agreed. Meh.

2. One foot in front of the other anyhow. Music helps.

3. The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender” by Leslye Walton. I’m living in that world in my head.

4. But in the real world: I am finishing the fifth book of my scrapbooking-themed mystery series. Changes ahead for me.

5. Also, personally. Too many changes to count. Friends are moving. My daughters are growing. Change is the only constant in our lives.

Guest Post: Nikolas Baron on Cooking and Writing

 By Nikolas Baron

The other day, I contrived to cook this Michelin starred 5-course meal for my family to show off some of my unmatchable caliber in the kitchen. I’m not sure what I was trying to prove, but that’s beside the point because it ended in a doozy of mismatched flavors and forced nods to my questions on palatability. After that extraordinary (trust me, it was extraordinary) show down, I resigned to my rightful place behind the screen instead of breaking countless porcelain plates in the kitchen where I don’t belong.

Upon reflection, I realized where I went wrong. The whole approach to cooking was erroneous; I was looking at it all wrong. From a writer’s point of view, writing with the intention of impressing can only end up in an unsalvageable mess. It has to come from deep within, from the core of your being. I sound so cliché here, but hear me out — I think I’ve came up with some groundbreaking parallels between culinary and writing.

1. Embrace the Flavors

A dash of this here, a dollop of that there, some sprinkles, a pinch of seasoning and voila! True chefs follow their gut instinct. I’ll be damned to see the head chef of Noma reign the helms armed with a measuring spoon and a weighing scale. Just like any piece of writing, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all for any dish. You just have to go with the flow and let your intuitions lead the way. The important point to note here is to embrace the flavors, get good ingredients, and let them do the talking. Put down that phony artisanal jam displayed in the window; it’s just frozen fruits, sugar and an oddly shaped glass jar. Likewise, employ the use of impactful words and solid ideas, leaving out the pretentious verbiage. We want people to understand you in the most effective and concise manner as possible; we don’t need the universe heaped onto your plate.

2. Try New Things

Great chefs are never afraid to experiment with new ingredients, which is precisely how food trends are born. If Gordon Ramsay stuck to his classic British/ Irish snobbery, we’d still be fascinated with mushy casseroles and fish & chips. The same approach applies to writing. Don’t be that sad one-dish wonder people used to talk about, experiment with different styles and genres to expose yourself to the varied skills needed in each category. If it doesn’t work out, it’s not the end of the world! Take J.K. Rowling for example, Harry Potter was undoubtedly one of the best series of all time. Fast forward a few years and her tease into adult fiction Casual Vacancy was probably not such a great idea. However, she didn’t venture into the unknown, how would she ever know that she should stick to the magical world and just satisfy her raging fans with an 8th book (just saying)?

3. Taste Test Everything

Undoubtedly, the most important role in the kitchen is the Expeditor. The Expeditor is the last professional chef in contact with the gorgeously plated food before it heads out of the kitchen and fed to the sharks. Each plate is inspected for thumb prints, imbalanced garnishes and missing ingredients. The Expeditor takes a sniff here, puts the shebang through a taste test there, and everything must be checked to impeccable standards. In writing, we call this proofreading and editing. Never let any word scurry pass your scrutiny; pick out any word that doesn’t compliment the rest of the text and change it. Just like any award winning kitchen that recruits only the best staff, having the right tools at this stage in your writing will also make a world of a difference. I always rely on the help of a trusty program such as Grammarly to grammar check my work to the T, and to give me the peace of mind that all my ducks are in order (pun intended).

With these new insights, it’s time to try my hand at cooking again. Maybe this time, I wouldn’t be half as bad.

By Nikolas Baron

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Bio:

Nikolas discovered his love for the written word in Elementary School, where he started spending his afternoons sprawled across the living room floor devouring one Marc Brown children’s novel after the other and writing short stories about daring pirate adventures. After acquiring some experience in various marketing, business development, and hiring roles at internet startups in a few different countries, he decided to re-unite his professional life with his childhood passions by joining Grammarly’s marketing team in San Francisco. He has the pleasure of being tasked with talking to writers, bloggers, teachers, and others about how they use Grammarly’s online proofreading application to improve their writing. His free time is spent biking, traveling, and reading.

 

 

Authors, Publishers, and Scrapbooking, OH MY: My Adventures in BEA Land

I was thrilled to attend Kensington’s BEA (Book Expo America) party again this year. It was wonderful to see some of the people the behind the scenes who work so hard for the books I write. And you never know what other writers you’ll get a chance to chat with—and that always a good thing. This year, among others, I met the fabulous New York Times bestselling author, Rebecca Zanetti, author of the Dark Protector Series from Kensington, the Sin Brother Series from Grand Central, and The Maverick Montana Series from Entangled. (Yep, three series, with three different publishers. A-mazing.) I also met Amy Reade, who is a debut author with a new book coming out July—”Secrets of Hallstead House.” (I have already asked my editor for a copy, dontchya know. The book looks very, very, very good!)

Last year, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride as I listened to Steven Zacharius, Chairman, President & CEO of Kensington Publishing speak at the party. I did this year, as well. I am honored to be a part of an independent publishing company now celebrating 40 years. No small accomplishment in today’s publishing arena.

I also loved catching up with Martin Biro, my editor. Here’s a photo from last year.

The next day, I wandered around the Javits Center where Book Expo America is held. The Book Expo used to be exclusively for industry people from my understanding. It was and is the place where book sales are made, international rights are sold, and publishers push their newest rising stars. But they’ve become reader-friendly and actually have a day designated for readers. But speaking of rising stars, my friend Lori Rader-Day was there signing books. Her new book THE BLACK HOUR is fabulous. Take it from me—I’m reading it right now. (Click on her name to find out more about her and her new book.)

 

Also fabulous was the Mystery Writer’s of America booth. They had quite a line-up of mystery writers signing FREE BOOKS all day long. It was hopping every time I walked by.

 

I ran into bestselling mystery author Tonya Kappes and bestselling romance author Nancy Naigle, who had a fabulous booth full of colorful giveaways. (Click on their names to go to their websites. You won’t be sorry!)

 

Tonya has just sold her  extremely successful self-published series to HarperCollins. Nancy was on a panel that I moderated at the Virginia Festival of the Book. So this is the second time this year I’ve actually shared space with her. Check both of them out.

I was happy to see this at one of the booths. Yes, scrapbooking, dear readers. You know, how I feel about that.

Looks like fun, right?

Speaking of scrapbooking and books, have you downloaded your copy of SCRAPPY SUMMER?

 

Five things I thought about during my morning run:

1. These mornings have just been perfect for a run. Just cool enough, just warm enough. Sunny. Blue skies.

2. Well, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I started working on Book #5 again.

3. Speaking of work. SCRAPPY SUMMER is published this week and I’m having a giveaway on my FB page. Click here–if you’re interested.

4. I have no idea where that dog came from. A different dog than I saw the other day. Hmm.

5. Excited about my NY trip. Very. It will be brief–but I can’t wait.

Guest Post: K.A. Laity on “What is Noir”

By K.A. Laity

You can Google the term and come up with a bunch of answers, but as librarians will ask you, are you sure you have the right one? I always say I’m a ‘duck test’ sort of person — an out-dated Americanism for recognising ‘communists’—viz. if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s probably a duck (though Senator McCarthy might have been wise to have looked into more stringent methods).

Most people who like the mystery subgenre of noir will point to the films with their bleak cityscapes, inky shadows and sudden gun shots. Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart frown with worry, Lauren Bacall and Gloria Grahame show their gams, while Farley Granger looks lost. In novels, Patricia Highsmith’s slippery Tom Rippley worms his way into people’s lives while keeping his intentions hidden, or Dashiell Hammet sends the Continental Op to a seedy location and the blood spills red down the walls.

When I think of ‘noir’ I tend to think of women who don’t see the options and men who make bad choices. The very gendered split of that thought is what led me to thinking about Drag Noir (an anthology I’m editing for Fox Spirit Books) and how people might play with that divide. In the noir world, people invest in the gender divisions because it brings them some certainty in an uncertain and dangerous world.

Buddhists say desire is the beginning of suffering: noir is all about the suffering. And the desire — whether it’s for money or sex or something less certain. Fred MacMurray lusting for Barbara Stanwyck: we know the Double Indemnity story so well. Sex is a straightforward equation. But what about Lily Dillon in Jim Thompson’s The Grifters? Especially as embodied by Anjelica Huston in Frears’ film, she’s hungry and restless as a shark, but nothing really fills that empty well for long. Sometimes there’s a hunger that can’t be fed.

Yeah, that’s noir.

So what happens when you mash it up with the fantastic, a genre more associated with triumph and champions? In White Rabbit I do it just to throw in another level of confusion and doubt. My protagonist, James Draygo, is a disgraced former detective who works as a fake psychic.

Except he’s not a fake.

Which makes things worse when a prospective client gets gunned down at his tapping table. She’s the trophy wife of a media mogul on her way to divorce. There’s conspiracies, drug deals, powerful men and persuasive women—and a whole lot of mystery.

What if? All stories spring from those words. What if a boy and girl fell in love, but their families were feuding? What if a horse could tell us its life story? What if we saw a murder but we can’t tell who did it? All stories begin in mystery; finding out what happens next is what keeps us turning the pages. Reading is detective work. We can walk those dangerous streets for a little while and wrap the darkness around us.

K. A. Laity is the author of the supernatural noir novel White Rabbit, the sexy thriller series Chastity Flame and as Graham Wynd, author of the noir collection Extricate/Throw the Bones. She can be found at her website, on Facebook and on Twitter.