Travis Erwin's Blog, page 7

Chef Boy-r-T

How do you follow a post about bathroom fixtures? With one about food of course.



But rest assured I washed my hands thoroughly between the two.



My love of all things meaty is no secret. And I'll go ahead and say it, I know how to handle my meat. This carnivore can cook some animal flesh. Smoker, BBQ grill, crockpot. Regardless of the means, I can hold my own. And no, that is not a reference back to the urinal post.



And believe it or not. I'm not talking about tossing a hunk of beef on hot grates and calling it good. Though there are times when that is exactly what needs done. But I am capable of getting a touch fancier with my meals. But sometimes my boys are skeptical and do not want to try new things. So I reinvent them.



Case in point -- Pirate Chicken



Now this is one of my favorite summertime meals. In truth it is coconut lime chicken, but when I called it that my boys wouldn't eat it. The next time I served it up I called it pirate chicken and they tore into with happy little taste buds.



Here is how it's created ...



Take 6 to 8 boneless skinless chicken breasts put them in a glass baking dish. 

Pour in coconut rum until there is a thin layer of liquid covering bottom of dish.

Cover the top of each breast with cream of coconut.









Bake in over at 325 degrees for around 30 minutes. (I can't tell you exactly because I like to sip the remainder of the run during this process and we all know how time flies when you're having rum.)





 



Heat up your grill.



Take breast out of oven and and place on hate grill. A few minutes on each side does it. While its cooking brush on a thin layer of cream of coconut and sprinkled shredded coconut on top. 



Once the chicken is browned pull it off and squeeze fresh lime juice onto the breast pieces. Sprinkle sea salt and fresh ground black pepper to your taste.



I highly recommend you pair this with a Shiner Ruby Red.





 



Okay, I know it may have shocked you to realize 1)I don't always eat beef, 2) I actually recommend squeezing the juice of something green onto your food, and 3) I touted a beer brewed with grapefruit juice so let me get back to some good Texas beef with this next one.



My boys won't eat roast. Or so they think. They claim roast is bland and tasteless. So when I make it I spice it up and call it Mexican Brisket.



Pick a roast that will fit in your crockpot. (pot roast, rump roast whatever kind is fine by me. I like them all and go for whatever I can get the best price on.)



Get some Fiesta Brand (salt free) Fajita Seasoning. It looks like this. (most stores, at least around here carry it)







Rub the entire roast down with the seasoning. Just enough where it sticks to the meat and covers it like freckles on that red headed girl you knew back in grade school. Yes, that is a genuine cooking term. thanks for asking.



Next pour in Worcestershire Sauce into your crockpot until it thoroughly cover the bottom of the pot. Add in couple of tablespoons of liquid smoke . Place roast inside and pour a cup of salsa on top. I use Old Tascosa myself and consider it the best.







But it is made right here in Amarillo and not widely distributed outside the region so unless you go here to their store and order it, or live nearby you are going to have to substitute some other brand. Y'all know I don't eat vegetables in their natural form but in liquid form such as hot sauce, pizza sauce and ketchup they are not nearly as evil.



Back to the roast. Put the lid on and cook that sucker for 6, 7, even 8 hours on low. I usually start this on in the morning, go to work and come home ready to dig in. The meat usually shreds easy and is quite tasty inside a flour tortilla. My boys eat it and even have said, "This is so much tastier than roast."



There you go folks. two of my favorite recipes that go beyond a hunk of animal flesh over a fire. Try 'em out and let me know what you think.

Taking a Stand

So there I was, standing, conducting my business when it struck me just how unoriginal and predictable we men are.



How else to you explain the word urinal.







Urinals are manly domain. I suppose a daring woman could perfect a leaning hover move and use one in certain circumstances but their back would get wet at the very least. Now we men are quite proud of our ability to stand and piss at the same time, but our multitasking ability seems to end there. Apparently, we are unable to use our brains as well. Perhaps we simply are incapable of thinking while holding our junk.



How else do you explain an asinine term like urinal. Sure it beats the urinator, but not by much.



The word urinal certainly does not compare with toilet, loo, bidet. And your regular unisex plumbing fixture carry a plethora of nicknames crapper, the head, porcelain throne, john, privy, the can and so forth. But if there are other terms for the urinal I'm unaware. (In recollection I did once hear a drunk man call one a piss trough but that was on relation tot he thing below and not what I'd call a true urinal)







I could diverge here and wax on poetically about the joys of gathering with a variety of drunken sports fans to piss together into a glorified bathtub, but I'm not. You men have already experienced this brand of camaraderie and you women will only shake your head. Come to think of it that is the final step in the prcess for men as well.



Moving on.



I am still baffled that we can have urinals like these ...























... and still not have a better word.



Sad thing even as a writer my imagination fails me at the moment.

Long Time Forgotten

Once upon a  time this blog was my oasis. It was where I came to vent, rant, commiserate, and meet up with my friends. Not sure how many friends I still have who subscribe or bother to check this blog but not that I FINALLY finished rewrites on what I hope is going to be my next book I felt compelled to revitalize this blog.



I'm not sure if I'm getting lazier or life truly is getting that much busier but wow do I miss the good old days when I wrote this blog on a daily basis, as well as 2K-5K words of fiction each and every day.

Since my last update I've turned 40 so perhaps I'm just getting lazy in my middle age.



I had hinted at a big announcement in the last few post I wrote. At the time it had seemed I was about to embark on a huge endeavor. Sadly, my faith in that endeavor ever happening is not what it once was. I can;t say much as I did sign a confidentiality clause but the "big announcement" had something to do with TV cameras and me living with a group of strangers in a competitive setting. I would use the word reality but at this point after many hops and much effort the reality is I'm not very confidant its all going to come together.



So moving on.



A plethora of my friends have published books as of late.I won't inundate you with long flowery praise for these folks but I guarantee you there is a book or three on this list for all tastes so if you are looking for a good read check out a few of these. Most are available as both e-books and print editions.



THE RAINBIRD WAR by ALEX KETO -- When Richard Goodwin returns to Kenya after 15 years, he’s shocked to
see that the peaceful colony he left as a child is gripped by bloody
rebellion: the vicious Mau Mau are murdering settlers, burning villages,
and slaughtering livestock in their bid to take back the land. Swept
into the ruthless fighting as the killings mount, Richard wonders if he
has another enemy, too—an insider who somehow knows his unit's location
and wants him dead. Is it someone among the decadent, drug-addled
settler aristocracy, or one of the two women he’s in love with? Amazon.com Widgets



FORSADA by PETER DUDLEY -- Lupay isn't afraid of fighting, but what can one girl do against an army?Thousands
of Southshawans, whipped into a war frenzy by a fundamentalist
demogague, are poised to sweep in and crush her home of Tawtrukk, and
Lupay is powerless to stop it.


Or is she?

Driven into
hiding and pursued even into the depths of the mountain, Lupay and her
friens do their best to resist. But resistance won't withstand the
onslaught forever, and ultimately Lupay must choose: flee into the
radioactive barrens of the Desolation, or rise up and fight fire with
fire, like the legendary Tawtrukk warrior queen, Forsada.

Forsada
is the second book in the New Eden series, which begins with SEMPER.
You can get SEMPER at Amazon here: bit.ly/semperbook  Amazon.com Widgets



FLICKER by MELANIE HOOYENGA -- Biz is a perfectly normal teenager except for one minor detail: she uses
sunlight to jump back to yesterday. She takes advantage of flickering
by retaking Trig tests, fixing fights with her boyfriend (or reliving
the making up), and repeating pretty much anything that could be done
better. Trouble is, flickering makes her head explode from the inside.
Or feel like it anyway.

No one knows about her freakish ability
and she’s content to keep it that way. Guys don't stick around because
she refuses to let them in, but all that changes when Cameron, her best
friend, starts looking oh-so-yummy. Suddenly she's noticing his biceps,
his smile, and the cute way his eyes crinkle when he—gah! This is her
friend!

But the butterflies come to a screeching halt when little
girls start disappearing, then take a nosedive when the police link the
kidnappings to Cameron's sister, who vanished years earlier. As the
police grasp for clues, Biz photographs a strange man lurking in the
shadows and realizes that her flickering can help more than just
herself. Amazon.com Widgets



FOREST OF THE FORSAKEN by JOANNE BROTHWELL -- Forbidden love. Buried secrets. The ultimate betrayal.

Following
her mother’s death to cancer, Meg’s world crashes in around her. Her
father re-marries within weeks of their loss, her step-mother is cold
and rejecting, and her new step-brother, Joey, has some rather unusual
sexual preferences. Meg’s only hope is to move away and leave her father
and the dark memories behind.

When her father forces her to
attend his honeymoon with this new and unwanted blended family, Meg
finds herself in the remote wilderness of the Rocky Mountains, miles
from civilization. Meg begins to see things in the forbidding
forest—strange, unexplainable things she believes are the result of
compounding stress. But when her father and step-mother disappear,
leaving Meg and Joey to fend for themselves, lost and without supplies,
she realizes her terrifying visions are not merely her imagination after
all.

Will Meg and Joey find their way back to civilization? Or will they submit to the darkness within the Forest of the Forsaken?

In this eerie, erotic adaptation of Hansel and Gretel, the fairy tale ending may be far from happy. Amazon.com Widgets



BUCK and TANGEE: THINGS THAT HAPPENED by JON ZECH -- I thought when I finished this book, I was through writing. My editor
thought otherwise and said I had to write something for the back cover
to sort of sum up what the book was about. I guess that makes sense,
and I figured it would be easy. It wasn't. Every time I tried to chop a
forty page section down to two or three sentenses, it sounded stupid.
Look:
The first section is about how my brother, Roy, and I tried to
start a men'sonly, beer allowed, version of one of those PlastiQueen
kitchenware parties. It didn't go well. There. See? Does that sound like
a story you'd want to read? Maybe.

And the second part, about
how four buddies and I took a trip out to Vegas in a reconditioned,
forty-year-old school bus. Lots of things happened, but I can't cut any
of them down to just a few words. Okay, here's one: When we pulled in to
our very first overnight campsite, we had no idea we'd wake up in the
morning, axel deep in.... No. I'm just not going to spoil it.

Then
in the third section, Tangee got a job and I wrote this book. There,
right? Not fair. Look, buy this book and read it. Then email me and tell
me how you would have squashed it all into two hundred and fifty words. Amazon.com Widgets


I'm going to call it good for today with these five but I will include others in upcoming posts.

Today's sample has some Historical Fiction, Young Adult, Erotica, and Comedy. Please check them out.

Albu-Quickie

Happy Labor Day.



Yeah, I know I'm a might early but I
have a busy weekend. You see half the Erwin clan is headed to
Albuquerque, New Mexico for some exciting U10 soccer action while the
remainder of the family is staying home.



I can only hope this trip to The Q leads to me getting more sleep than the last time I was there ...




Taking One For The Team*


Last
night me, my wife, our two boys 4 and 6, and the 13 year old daughter
of some friends girl stayed in room 220 of the Old Town EconoLodge here
in Albuquerque. An ex-cheerleader with
singing ambitions occupied room 219.



You know that song Rehab by Amy Winehouse the one where she sings No, No, No
over and over? Well the gal in room 219 had the lyrics all wrong. She
sang Yes, Yes, Yes for half the night and let me be the first to say
Simon Cowell would never let her go to Hollywood because not only did she struggle
to hold a key but sometimes she sang loud and at other times her vocals
sounded more like a moan.



And then she would fall back into her
cheerleader routine. Urge the home team on to victory.

And let me tell you that cheerleader's room was furnished different than ours. I mean our room just had your standard everyday clock radio but I guess her room had a deluxe jumbo model because all night long that cheerleader raved about the BIG CLOCK. Why every few minutes she shouted to whoever was staying there with her to give her that BIG CLOCK.



This went on for a good long while before Jennifer nudged me. "Wake up," she whispered.

"I've been awake." I answered. "How could I not be?"

"They are going to wake up the kids,you should do something," my wife said.



"What do you want me to do," I whispered back. "I don't think he needs any help. Besides," I said. "As the cheerleaders rah rahs reached a fever pitch, "They are winding it up."



Truth is I'd been contemplating intervening. I thought about banging on the wall but figured that would wake the kids up even faster. ass would exiting the room to pound on their door. The front desk was an option, but truthfully I was taken aback by the duration of the cheering session. Their stamina was down right impressive



The ol' boy finally scored and boy you should have heard that cheerleader shout.



My kids were too young to know what was going on but I hoped that our friends daughter had slept through the ruckus. That hope died when morning finally dawned and I asked her how she slept. the sudden discoloration of her cheeks told me she'd been privy to the impromptu game in the room next door.



Of course I had my own fun that morning as we packed. I guess it was the lack of sleep that made me clumsy but for some reason I couldn't stop accidentally banging the wall between the two rooms. Once I even got confused and knocked on the wrong door. Yeah I was probably just tired, but then again, it could have been CLOCK ENVY. 



*A version of this post originally ran here on this blog on August 25th 2007.

School Daze

School starts tomorrow in many places. My youngest still attends the private elementary where my wife teaches started last Wednesday. Here is a shot of him look oh-so-excited.







My oldest begins anew tomorrow morning. Not only is he making the leap from private school to public but he is also moving up to the ever dreaded ... Middle School.





No, my son will not be attending the middle school they named after me here in Amarillo. Okay fine, so it's namesake is actually William B Travis formerly of the Alamo but still it's a cool name. ;)





My son isn't fully aware of it ... but he is leaving behind bathroom stalls with doors on them and nice soft toilet paper for a world where a boy can;t take a dump in private and is forced to wipe with funky little squares of tissue paper that are too flimsy to remove poop but tough enough to chap your ass.



he is going from class sizes of fifteen and halls where everyone knew his name and his mom was right downstairs to jam packed hallways full of kids that think the only way to make themselves look good is to make the next guy look bad. Tarek is a big kid. A strong kid. So I'm not worried about him physically in any way but I fear that is too-trusting nature and every-one-is-my-friend/or-soon -will-be mentality will take a hit.



But it's gotta come sometime and what is middle school for if not for teaching painful life lesson and unabashed humility?



All this school thought has me recalling my school days and the stuff I thought was dumb then and in retrospect ... I still find asinine.



Like door-less stalls in the boys room. Come on it is school not prison. And how much trouble is a kid gonna get into behind a stall door that he isn't going to find someplace else anyway? Life is full of intrusions and every parent will tell you there are times when that brief respite atop the porcelain throne is the only peace and quiet to be found. Let kids shit in private.



And how many of you remember those pathetic paper straw they used to make you use in school. I'm pretty sure they were created from the same crappy (pun intended) paper as the toilet paper. Halfway through your carton of milk the damn things collapsed and clogged up like a fat man's arteries.



And the soap? Remember that white chunk of calcified perfume? you had to turn a little handle which ground up the block of soap and dribbled white powder into your hand. It was more of a workout to get a handful of soap than it was to climb that frigging rope in PE. And the stuff never produced any lather and yet you could skin a dead skunk and still smell the scent on your hand afterward.



And speaking of powder, remember the titty pink puke powder they used to spread atop the pile anytime some poor kid vomited int he hall. you could smell the stuff three wings over and why did they just sprinkle he stuff atop the upchuck rather than cleaning up the mess right away. I can recall times when the pile of powder topped puke sat there for hours before it was removed. WHY?



And here in the Texas panhandle we used to have tornado drills. Which consisted of all the classes gathering in the hall or a bathroom and bending forward so that our faces were between our legs.





If I'm going to die in a whirlwind of flying debris Id just as soon my last sight not be my own hairy ass. Of course in those days my backside was still follicly free but you get my drift.



The photo above is of my 6th grade year. Back then we stayed in elementary for 6th grade. I'll leave you to guess which one of these kids is me, but trust me when I say those days were far from my best image wise.



The good ol' days?



More like good ol' daze?

People, Pints & Pedals

I'm a competitive guy. By competitive I don't necessarily mean driven. At least not driven in the way that makes people get up at the ass crack of dawn and run 82 miles before work. Or hop on a bike and ride to Timbuktu and back just to say they did.



No I mean I am competitive in a ... Oh yeah watch this kind of way. A ... hold my beer a second kind of way. Or better yet, in a ... beer on one hand/ horseshoe in the other kind of way.



My friend Aaron "It Tastes Like Dirt" Sage is similarly competitive, but he also happens to be one of the aforementioned driven folks of this world as well.



Just recently Aaron celebrated a birthday. He's a few years younger than me so unlike me 2012 does not mark his 40th year on earth, but he's close enough to that number that you wouldn't think his idea of birthday fun would be to hop on a bicycle in 103 degree Texas heat and ride across the city of Amarillo. Yeah you'd think that, but you'd be wrong.



Now I like to think of myself as a good friend, but when Aaron and his lovely wife Kim first suggested we do this very thing to celebrate his birthday I thought they were both batshit crazy. The one saving grace was they wanted to ride from bar to bar. Which meant many beers along the way and let's face it, every absurd idea is easier to swallow with an alcoholic chaser.



Somewhere in the discussion I discovered this notion wasn't just some hair-brained idea Aaron had cooked up in his mind. No it was an organized event. a fundraiser for Ambucs put together by the fine folks over at 575 Pizzeria. (If you go, I suggest THE BENDER. You won't find a better, meatier pizza)



So I reluctantly agreed, and last Saturday I made the harrowing ride.



The event is called P3-People, Pints, and Pedals.







We listened to some reggae tunes while sipping a few beers in 575's parking lot before embarking.







I partook in a Shiner Bock (tasty as always), an Oskar Blues G'Knight Imperial Red (way too hoppy for this dude), and some kind of English beer that I can't recall the name. (but it was a tad too sweet.)







So then we (somewhere around 300 of us) hopped on our bikes and pedaled to THE GOLDEN LIGHT. Now here is where I point oput my wife was not riding a bike becasue her doctor has not released ehr to do so after her ACL surgery back in the spring. You see, his fear was she would fall. So what happened after she drove her minivan to the Golden Light after sipping on ONE, I repeat ONE Corona in an hours time. Yep, She tripped on the curb out front of the Golden Light and fell anyway.



At the Golden Light we had several pitchers of beer. Pabst Blue Ribbon (because Craighead, another sucker riding friend is a cheapskate), a pitcher of Shiner, and I think a pitcher of Coors Light aka Colorado piss water.







Then we departed for Crush in downtown Amarillo. and yes I will confess to nearly getting ran over by a big black pickup while pedaling across a busy street. I was still sober so I'll blame the sweat in my eyes for not seeing the truck when I dashed across the street.



At Crush I had a Stella Artois (a fine Belgium brew) and then I sampled my wife's fancy martini because it had coconut rum in it. And despite being green it proved quite tasty so then I partook in another one myself







Did I mention it was 103 outside?



From there we rode to the Amarillo Art museum where we at pizza catered by 575 and checked out the George Rodrigue exhibit.



Despite my reservations going in I not only survived, but had a good time. The 7.1 miles we rode seemed like much less broken up as it was and given we had an hour or so of boozing time at each stop.



But I still feel obligated to dish up a wriggling bite of revenge upon Aaron for attempting to make me exercise. Those of you who have read my book THE FEEDSTORE CHRONICLES might have noticed Aaron "It Tastes Like Dirt" Sage was mentioned in the acknowledgements. He was listed because he had read an earlier version of the book and provided valuable feedback. (By the way Amazon is selling the print edition at 50% off for a short time)



For the first time, I'm going to reveal the origins of his nickname. It was a fall evening. October I do believe. A few beers had been consumed when Aaron began ranting about the grub worms ravaging his lawn. One thing led to another and someone challenged him to dig one up and eat it. A round of negotiations ensued. A $20 price tag was agreed upon and Aaron quickly swallowed one of the fat white wrigglers. But sadly the guy who challenged him had ventured off to empty his bladder, so Aaron ended up eating a second grub. he did so with a smile and the words, "Not too bad. It just tastes like dirt."

Pin The Tail, On That Smiling Donkey

It strikes me that yesterday's post may come across as angst filled whining. And I really am going to try and post more often, so I decided to revisit an old spot about happiness that first ran on this blog nearly four years ago to the day.






Happy Happy, Joy Joy


I've often heard people say ... "It was the happiest day of my life."


I've got a confession. I can't designate any particular day or event as the "happiest of my life."

I
can rather easily tell you when I was my angriest, saddest, proudest,
or most scared. Matter of fact, for just about any emotion you come up
with I can tell you the date, time, and place of my most extreme
emotional output -- except for happiness. And I'm not sure why.

It's
not that I'm not capable of happiness. Actually I am happy 99% of the
time. I tend to be a glass-half-full kind of guy who doesn't let the
small gunk of life cloud my view.


If anything I'm guilty of being too certain something good is just a
stone's throw away. I'm quite the Polly Anna in that fashion.

I
know a lot of parents will say that the births of their kids count as
their ultimate moments of happiness, and I do cherish both of my boys,
but confession time again. Their actual births were nerve racking
affairs of futility for me. I hate to worry, but that is all I did those
days.

Both boys were C-sections. The second planned, the first
not. Being a life long hunter who processes his own meat, the blood and
what not didn't bother me, but watching a doctor dig in my wife's
innards isn't exactly a zen moment. And then trying to check on
her, tend to a squalling bundle of placenta covered joy, listening to
her doctor's instruction, the boys pediatrician, the nurses, ... all
while family and friends chimed in ...

Well it was stressful as
hell for me. I count the days and weeks later when it was just my family
at home, when the boys cooed softly or opened the eyes to stare up at
them as I fed them, or the first time a soft baby fist reached up to
brush my stubbled cheek. Those are all much happier times than the big
event everyone else seems to describe as wondrous and miraculous and the
happiest day of their lives.

Yeah, I know as a dutiful husband I
could say my happiest time was my wedding day. But I'd be lying. I love
my wife and will forever consider myself lucky to have found a gorgeous
and intelligent woman blind enough to overlook my many faults, but again
the stress and pressure of that day keeps it from being my definitive
moment of joy. The demands of trying to talk to every family member and
friend I have, while decked out in fancy but uncomfortable duds, smiling
for a thousand pictures many from an extremely irritable photographer,
while waiting for everyone to go home so ... well I won't go into that.

Anyway I have so many fond memories with Jennifer that I couldn't possible designate one as my most happy time.

There
was my big plan to propose at the top of a mountain, but halfway up she
was out of breath and gasping from lack of oxygen, as was I, so my
vision of the sun reflecting off her diamond ring atop a majestic
mountain peak, actually became a yes under the shadowy pine covered side
of a mountain slope.
There are the thousands of whispered
conversation we've had and still continue to have each night as we lay
in bed and talk about our day.There are the trips we've taken
together, to New Orleans, Vegas, the mountains, to beaches. The many
songs that remind me of her for a jillion different reasons. The memory
that I ate spaghetti for supper every other day for the first month we
were married. Not one of those memories overrides all the others.

Maybe
my most happy moment is yet to come. Maybe I'm holding out for it.
Maybe I'll never be able to define it. But I'm not complaining. If this
is as good as it gets then I'm still pretty damn lucky, whether I have
that one spotlight moment of happiness domination or not.

So how about all of you? Can you define your happiest day?

Wonder How You Say We in Canada **

Yep, I'm still alive. Despite the longest hiatus I've ever taken in more than five years of writing this blog.



My absence wasn't necessarily planned and I've thought of posting often, but one thing or another has kept me away. That and the fact I STILL cannot talk about what I really want to talk about so to keep from saying too much I've said nothing.



If I've learned anything from the nearly 13 years of writing it is that waiting is the norm. And of all the skills one must possess to make it in this business I believe patience is the most vital.



We must have patience for the stories and characters we write. That small seed of an idea must germinate and grow or the story and its inhabitants will be as stale and tasteless as a bowl of lettuce.



We must be patient through the process of writing and editing. We must learned to step away from the computer on those days when every plot point, every character and every sentence seems like a waste of time. the delete button is deadly to a disgruntled writer, but trust me, premature ejectulation will only increase your disappointment.



When we are finished we must be patient with the editing process and remember it is not a race to send your manuscript out in the world. We must take TIME honing the perfect query.



And perhaps hardest of all, we must be patience once the manuscript is submitted to agents or editors.



Then if we are fortuitous enough to see out work published we must be patient for readers to find and discover our babies. We must be patient in reminding ourselves a writing career is a process not an event.



And as that process grows we must remind ourselves about non-disclosure contracts and the importance of continuing to write ... to dream ... to believe.



We must be patience and remember some things, perhaps even most things are beyond out control. We must remember why we started writing in the first place.





** PS. I'd like to explain how the title of this post relates, but yep, you guessed it -- I'm not allowed.

Touching My Root(s)

My first novel was a romance novel.



I never intended it to be when I first sat down and began writing the story some 12 odd long years ago. I was just telling the story that filled my head. Being the voice of the characters that spoke to me.



I'd spent my life reading and had read a wide variety of books of many genres without being a particularity devotee to any of them. At the time I was enrolled in my very first true writing class. (Oh I'd taken creative writing as a college freshman, but that was about acing assignment, not achieving publication.) My instructor in that calls was RWA Hall of Famer Jodi Thomas. And when she read the beginning of that novel she said, "It feels like a romance, but it's structured more like literary." Because of that and the input of other I for years called it -- Women's Fiction. But like Jodi said at it's heart the book was and is a Romance Novel.



I wrote a second book which was more of a love story than a true romance. Then a third that was pure romance. 



And then I strayed.



All of those novels nearly found homes but for a variety of reasons they are still unpublished.



I went through a time thereafter where I started and stopped 3 or 4 new novels. Romances, women's fiction, and a dark literary work, but still heavily invested in affairs of the heart.



Then I started this blog. Began to write more humor. Penned my novella Plundered Booty and began work on The Feedstore Chronicles. 



I won't speak for all writers, only myself but I think most of my brethren would say something similar.



Writing for publication is hard. It is fraught with rejections, failures, and long hours, months, and years of disappointments. So much so that even the tiniest of successes is like salve to a wound.



When this blog found an audience and began to grow (back when lots of folks would read blogs meaning BEFORE FACEBOOK), and people I really respect began to praise my humor voice, and I began selling humorous works I believe I was only a humor writer. I abandoned my more emotional writing and somewhere in there I kind of lost myself as a writer. And only recently have I started to migrate back to where I want to be.



Don't get me wrong, I think the comedic stuff I've done has merit but I think it lacks soul at times. Heart even. What I hope to achieve is both funny and emotional. There are times I pulled that off in The Feedstore Chronicles and times I did not.



Another thing about we writers. We worry and fret about things we shouldn't. Our carts are often way ahead of our horses.



I'm still not allowed to share things I really want to share but things are evolving in regards to my career. Well not so much as evolving as coming back around. There is something big, HUGE, LIFE CHANGING, on my horizon that will bring me back to those romance roots. I have been worrying and fretting that my only real writing presence in the marketplace is a comedic coming-of-age memoir. While it is a love story in the end, The Feedstore Chronicles certainly is no romance novel.



The fine folks at TAG Publishing that released TFC have been working with me and we've discussed many a follow project. They truly are interested in helping me build a career so  after much discussion we have decided it would be best for my next release to be something of a bridge between Feedstore and my romance/women's fiction projects which certainly appear to be my future.



 Hello Plundered Booty!



Long time readers will remember that is the name of a short story, turned novel, turned novella I wrote a number of years ago. The Novella was published in the Deadly By the Dozen e- anthology but I have recently been revamping to story.  I am getting closer to finishing it up and I'm really happy with what I have at this point. Comedic in nature it is a tale of modern day piracy set mostly in the fictional town of Red Dirt Oklahoma. It is chocked full of derelict car salesman, love, lust, and men thirsty for more than Caribbean rum.



I'm not sold on Plundered Booty as the title but that is where I'm at in my writing ventures. I'll update y'all as I can.

Super Cells, Bacony Smells, and Horny as Hell

I've had a productive writing week so rather than drone on here I'm going to share a few of the many pictures I've collected recently on my cell phone. All of these shots come from in or around the Texas Panhandle.





Last year was terrible hot and dry but because we've had more of these this year ... 







we actually have some green foliage and wildflowers. 















 Hope that trend continues through the summer but I certainly do not want it to ...









After all the cows need something to eat.







And so do I.







Whether it be beef or pork.



















 Used to be these Horny Toads were everywhere but they are kind of a rare site these days. 

 





I wish this picture accurately showed the size of these wind turbines, but it is hard to capture. (At the base of the nearest turbine is a bobtail trailer you might be able to see by clicking on the photograph.)







I would explain this shot but I better not.





 Again, you might have to click to see it, but that is Amarillo's skyline out there on the horizon. Okay, so it's not New York or Chicago, but it is home to me.







I'd just finished mowing the lawn and my hair was sweaty so when I ran my fingers through it this was the result. My 9 year old told me I looked like Wolverine so I struck a pose.







This paperback wouldn't quit frowning at me. 








See ya on down the road my friends.