Suzanne Elizabeth Anderson's Blog, page 23

Week-ending: A Commonplace Book

photo credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy





"There Will Be Rest"





There will be rest, and sure stars shining
     Over the roof-tops crowned with snow,
A reign of rest, serene forgetting,
     The music of stillness holy and low.

I will make this world of my devising
     Out of a dream in my lonely mind.
I shall find the crystal of peace, – above me
     Stars I shall find.



by Sara Teasdale

1884 - 1933

Fame or fortune, which would you prefer? Both, of course!

Week Three in the Writerly Chronicles from my Orangeberry Book Tour:







This question reminds me of the old: ‘what would you wish
for, if you had three wishes?’ Well, I’d wish for three more wishes.




Fame and fortune for a writer are both good things, I’d
argue.




Fame means the fulfillment of every writer’s greatest
desire, to not only see their work in print, but to know that many readers are
not only reading the story, but by inference of its popularity, enjoying it and
recommending it to others. (I’m assuming you’ve attained fame via your book’s
popularity, not through other, perhaps less savory means.)




Knowing what great pleasure reading a really good book
brings me, and wishing to achieve the same in my own writing has been one of my
great motivators. Writing a book that gains popularity and is enjoyed by
readers would be a wonderful indication that I’ve achieved my goal. And of
course, that is the caveat of the quest for fame. One would want to achieve it
as evidence of a book’s positive impact on the reader.




The flip side, becoming infamous for something I’ve written
such as James Frey’s evisceration after the revealing of A Million Little
Pieces, is a much less appealing way to enjoy fame. Although one could argue
that Mr. Frey’s fortune from the same book went miles to assuage his
discomfort.




Which brings us to fortune.




Wild riches, perhaps on par with J.K. Rowling, or on a
lesser scale, with a New York Times best-selling thriller writer, might bring a
lot of time-consuming duties that would cut into one’s writing time. After all,
someone has to be found to manage all that money. But, the greatest gift of
fortune, or let’s call it ‘financial independence’ is: freedom.




Financial independence allows the writer the time to write without
the burden of simultaneously carrying a full-time job, while keeping the house
clean, and being the primary caretaker of children or aging parents. It truly
makes ‘a room of one’s own’ possible. It provides the writer with the
psychological and physical space to breathe and think and dream and create new
stories.




I have never wanted to be rich, but I will always strive to
create enough monetary wealth to provide freedom. As for fame…only if it comes
from readers who love my books. As an avid reader myself, that would be the
nicest gift of all.

Perfect Summer Pasta

Last Saturday morning, I was watching Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, one of my favorite chefs on the FoodNetwork. She prepared this simple, Summer Garden Pasta (the link will take you directly to her version).



There is no-cooking involved (outside of boiling water for the pasta) that was so incredibly easy, yet full of flavor, that I had to try it. It is exactly what you want a summer dish to be...simple, light, and full of flavor. Toss the ingredients together in the morning before you head out to the beach. When you get back, you'll have dinner ready to go...boil water, uncork a bottle of chilled wine, take this out on the deck and enjoy!





Summer Pasta ala The Barefoot Contessa



Suzanne's Version Serves two.



Ingredients:



1 pint container cherry tomatoes, sliced in half

12 basil leaves, chopped finely

2 -3 cloves fresh garlic, chopped finely

1/4 - 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

red pepper flakes

pinch sea or kosher salt

freshly ground pepper





Process:



1. Combine all of the above in a small bowl, give a gentle stir, cover, and let stand at room temperature for 4 - 8 hours. (In other words, throw this together in the morning before you start your day, it will be ready at dinnertime)



2. Boil water. Cook whole wheat angel hair pasta, al dente.



3. Dump tomato mixture into a pasta dish. Dump cooked pasta on top. Toss both together. Grate parmesan cheese over top. Serve immediately.



So easy, and light, it's perfect for summer. It even tastes good cold the next day for lunch.

Week-ending: A Commonplace Book

photo credit: http://selfmadescholar.com/b/2009/05/...




Surrender. It seems to happen every time. The moment we come to the point of feeling that we can no longer meet our challenge - that we give up, that we are not invested anymore in doing it our way, apart from seeking God's way-it is in this raw, open humble place that we leave an opening  for God to inspire us. he will help us not to give up, but to get up and begin again-wihout being attached to a particular outcome.



by Rick Moody

found in

INSPIRED: The Breath of God

by Joanna Laufer and Kenneth S. Lewis

A world without books … would be like living in black and white.

Here is the second installment from my Orangeberry book tour adventures...




How many of you remember black and white televisions? Okay,
you’re probably not as old as I am. So, how many of you have watched a vintage
film, such as that Christmas classic: It’s
a Wonderful Life? It’s an amazing film, and the grimy black and white film
perfectly captures the harrowing desperation of the Depression Era. Can you
imagine what it would look like in color?




How about another classic film: The Wizard of Oz. The majority of the film is presented in black
and white, until we reach that climatic moment when the they are in the City of
Oz and the film bursts into vibrant color and the entire film seems to explode
with vitality.




In my mind, that is the perfect before and after of a world
with and without books.




In fact, reading the original series of books that comprised
The Wizard of Oz, is one of my
favorite childhood memories. It was the first time in my life that I
experienced the sensation of becoming so immersed in a book that when I came up
for air I physically felt as if I’d been transported back from the land of Oz.
It was truly a magical experience.




I had a similar experience when I read Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and
experienced the magical realism for
the first time. Through his incredible storytelling, I experienced a South
American worldview in a way that even a trip to South America could not
capture.




Imagine a world without books? Impossible.




Books not only convey information, they are a great a great
socio-economic equalizer. Decades before I stood before an original Degas in
the Musee D’Orsay in Paris, I read a book about Degas and looked at pictures of
his famous ballerina paintings as a child, from my modest home in Florida.




Though I never studied Philosophy in university, I enjoyed a
survey course of the world’s great philosophers, while enjoying the incredible
story of a young girl doing the same, in Sophie’s
World.




Books enrich my religious beliefs, lift me up when I’m
feeling blue, and offer a delightful escape when I need a vacation but can’t
afford to leave the house. They enrich my life by introducing me to people and
places that I might never experience. And best of all, they convey ideas that
enrich my view of the world around me.




What are  your
favorite book-ish memories?

4 Ingredient - Super Easy Chicken Pot Pie

I love chicken pot pie. Unfortunately, the frozen, store-bought variety can be heavy on calories, sodium, and enough dough to  leave you feeling like you've eaten a cardboard box.



I've come up with an incredibly quick, and relatively light, alternative that requires only FOUR ingredients, making it perfect for an easy week-night dinner.



Ingredients:



2 cups of chopped or shredded chicken meat from a rotisserie chicken



2 cups mixed frozen vegetables (microwaved for 1 minute on high to thaw)



1 package crescent roll pastry dough



1 can cream of chicken soup -or- better yet, prepare your own  quick (and easy) béchamel sauce (butter, flour, and milk)





Assembly:



Preheat oven to 350 F.



I used individual oven-proof soup bowls. However, you could also use one larger (2-quart) casserole dish.



1. Layer chicken and vegetables in the bottom of the individual soup bowl or casserole dish



2. Heat cream soup or béchamel sauce, pour over chicken and vegetables.



3. Gently stir soup and chicken and vegetables to evenly distribute.



4. Drape crescent roll pastry over bowl/casserole.



5. Bake for 15 - 18 minutes until pastry is golden.



The result is the perfect comfort food...not too heavy, and  wonderfully delicious. Try this recipe once and it will become one of your family's favorites.



Enjoy!

A Commonplace Book - Weekend Edition

It is so hard for me to remember to pray daily. As a writer, you have such an unstructured life, or at least mine is, so sometimes I stay up all night working, or I get up early and forget. But when I pray, I always try to say, "Please let me do good work in your name." That's the most important thing. If my work is going to be self-serving, I really don't want to do it. The other thing I pray for is that God would reveal Himself to me.



Mark Richard

quoted in:

Inspired: The Breath of God

by Joanna Laufer and Kenneth S. Lewis

If you could change your current story in any one way, what would you do and why?

For the next eight weeks I will share the guest posts on writing that were part of my Orangeberry book tour. Pandora Poikilos, who runs the tour, creates very interesting topics.













MRS. TUESDAY’S DEPARTURE, my first novel, is set during the
tragic, turbulent years of World War Two. Worse still, it’s set in Budapest,
Hungary, one of the countries directly effected by Nazi Occupation and the
Holocaust. For that reason, it was difficult to write a traditional happy
ending that is so satisfying to most readers, myself included.




How many times have I finished a book and felt disappointed
that the loose story ends weren’t neatly tied up? How could any author allow
their main character to suffer and not receive the happiness she so clearly
earned through her many trials? As an avid reader, one who seeks out happy
endings, rather than the tragic Oprah-style dark novel, I understood completely
when readers of MRS. TUESDAY, gave mixed reviews to the story’s ending.




Since the book is self-published, it would be completely
within my powers to change the ending. I’ve even considered it! How nice it
would be to kill off certain characters or perhaps provided a convenient escape
hatch that would have allowed the good guys to live happily ever after and the
bad guys to meet their just reward post haste. For good measure, I could have thrown
in a romance so we might even enjoy a wedding.




I’ve even composed the changes in my mind. In part because
one of the more consistent comments I’ve received about MRS. TUESDAY, is that
readers felt the book was too short. They wanted to see the story go on, the
characters to live the story more fully. And if there were anything I would
change, lengthening the story would be the greatest temptation. But the ending?




 As I did my
research for the novel and read about those war-ravaged years, I found that difficult
decisions were made every day, and while they demonstrated great love and
loyalty, they didn’t always save the hero. Sometimes, terrible sacrifices were
made in the name of love. And sometimes those sacrifices led to unhappy
endings. What about the argument that since this is fiction, I had the choice
to create the ending I wanted, even a happy ending? True. Though as the author,
I also had to create the ending that came about as my characters moved through
the story. And which answered the questions that first inspired the story.




Which is not to say that I dislike the ending of MRS.
TUESDAY. Ultimately, I believe the ending is very satisfying because it
provides a message of hope. And most importantly, it conveys the message of
God’s love and the ultimate sacrifice that He made through his Son, Jesus
Christ. I hope readers will come away from the novel receiving that message and
understanding that even when we go through difficult times, God is always with
us.

A Commonplace Book - Weekend Edition

A man I know once said to another man, "you talk about God as if you know him, as if you could tell me the color of his eyes. Why do people keep creating something to worship? I make it a point not to believe in anything athat always has the upper hand."

"Then how do you explain the world?" the other man said. "How come you're here?"

"Because it happened. Things just happen."

"Well, maybe 'things just happen' is another name for God."



Along these lines, we might say that "things just happen" is another name for inspiration. We often don't know what to call the stirrings inside us that guid and empower us to create, and those stirrings cannot be adequately conveyed or described to others in the way that they are felt and reflected in the work. Yet, if we believe that there is something beyond our human capacities of imagination and sight, then we can call creative inspiration a result of our being in the presence of the divine."



From:

Inspired: The Breath of God

Conversations with Gifted People about Their Faith and Inspiration

by Joanna Laufer and Kenneth S. Lewis

Mrs. Tuesday's New Look - How to Trust Your Intuition

A couple weeks ago I was making some edits to Mrs. Tuesday's Departure, after a friend kindly handed me a short list editorial corrections that I had missed when I proofed the manuscript.



Lesson learned: make sure you have a fresh pair of editorial eyes read through your manuscript before going to publication. Truly. Your own eyes will not catch the words that you left out, but which your author's voice will insist are still there.



But that's for another post.



When I finished editing the manuscript, I made another editorial decision, as you can see above, I decided to change the cover.



Those of you who went through the agonizing two (or was it four?) weeks of endless back and forth about which of a dozen cover variations I would choose, may recognize the above cover as one of those early choices.



Choosing the first cover entailed endless polling of readers and emails to friends. I won't even confess how many 'covers' I printed out and lined up on the dining room table, so I could more easily visualize what they would look like on the paperback version.



And yet.



As much as I thought the cover 'we' chose was beautiful and more practical for the thumbnail view on Amazon.com, I didn't have that 'yes' feeling.



When I decided to change the cover this time, it took me all of five minutes to choose this cover. I consulted no one. Yet I felt absolutely at peace as soon as the decision was made.



Yes, this was my original choice, way back when, which was voted down for various reasons.



And yes, I take perverse satisfaction in going back and finding that I've chosen it all over again. Without reservation or second guessing or consulting another soul.



That is when I really know I've made the right choice. When I feel that wonderful sense of 'yes'.



Which is why this post is really about something much deeper than Mrs. Tuesday's new look.



It's about learning to trust your gut or intuition or simply to trust yourself without a care to what others will say. That's when you will know that you are truly on the right track.



It's an important reminder for me. In the past, I've made decisions where I failed to trust my intuition, failed to act when I heard that internal 'yes'. I let fear, disguised as 'being practical' stop me. 



Now I want to reclaim that place.