M.J. Scott's Blog, page 21

Sunday Snippet – Lawless in Leather #5

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Making like Cookie Monster

Or maybe not. Cookie Monster just eats the cookies, whereas I spent last Saturday learning how to make them look pretty before eating them.

Now I may be ageing myself but when I was in high school in year 8 and 9? (that’s second and third year of secondary school for US types) you could do various elective subjects. Metalwork, woodwork, home economics. More power to the school that everyone, regardless of gender got at least one semester of metalwork, woodwork and sewing and more like two years of home economics. But after first year, you got to start picking some stuff to do. Now, I remember cake decorating being a thing but for some reason I never did a semester of it, even though I thought it would be interesting. Probably because I did sewing instead. Baby fabric nerd even then. But I always sort of regretted not doing any cake decorating. These days I have a couple of friends who are GUN cake decorators so I am unlikely to take it up now when I can pay friends cash to fix me up should I need a cake of glory. However, I am also a Pinterest user and its impossible to avoid falling over pretty pictures of cakes on Pinterest. And also, pretty cookies.

Cookies. Smaller. Simpler (perhaps). Appealing to my inner baker and desire for a quicker fix. I was intrigued. But also time poor. I did buy some cool cookie cutters because I like to make gingerbread in weird shapes (yes, I’m three, ninja and dinosaur and octopus gingerbread amuses me).

A few Christmases ago, I decided to try the decorated thing and made some royal icing but because I knew nothing about piping or royal icing it didn’t exactly result in a masterpiece. So I made a mental note that at some point, I probably should watch some videos or take a class or something (I learn craft/stuff involving using the hands better by watching than just reading). And then life got busy. But then a few months ago, one of said cake decorator friends and I were talking about cookies for some reason and I must have said that I’d like to know how to decorate them. Because she promptly told me about a Melbourne cookie decorator who was about to start giving classes. Who turned out to be the lovely Julia of Miss Biscuit. Who makes cookies of glory and is in my hometown. So I signed up for a beginner class. Because I am a short class fiend. And because cookies plus sort of art = combining two favourite things. Win.

So I toddled along last week and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Julia is a good teacher and the class was very well organised and we all managed to make some pretty gorgeous cookies even with zero piping skills to begin with. (Piping is trickier than it looks, people.) Royal icing is a form of meringue so getting the consistency is key. So a class is well worth it to see how it’s all done. Also Julia’s cookie recipe is delicious. I haven’t tried the gingerbread one yet but am definitely going to. So I’m going to keep practicing and maybe do another class down the track. In the meantime, here’s a few snaps of the day (note to self, one day need to find a food styling/photography one day course for fun).

 

 

Anyone a cookie fiend? Or tried royal icing decoration? Any tips to share?

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Favourite things – podcasts

Another shortish post (sorry, but deadline). I am a big fan of audiobooks for commuting but in the last year or so have also become a more regular podcast listener. Interesting people talking about interesting things with far less ads than radio. Which you can download to your phone/computer/iPod like gadget and listen to whenever it takes your fancy. Win.

Here, in no particular order are some of my current favourite podcasts:

1. No Such Thing As A Fish: The researchers from the very funny QI talk about the favorite facts they’ve stumbled across that week and are amusing in the process.

2. Chat 10 Looks 3: Leigh Sales and Annabel Crabb talk about books, life and cooking. Their tastes in book is a bit more literary inclined than my own but always entertaining.

3. The Pen Addict: A podcast mostly about fountain pens but also about ink, notebooks, journals etc etc. Aka the podcast that is very dangerous for your bank balance if you are a stationery nerd.

4. Welcome to Night Vale: An ongoing serial that’s part horror/part sci-fi/part sheer weirdness and all good. Hard to explain, good to listen to.

5: Alan Davies As Yet Untitled: As far as I can tell this is an audio snippet of Alan’s TV show of the same name that is on UK pay TV plus some of the stories that don’t make it onto the show. Basically four English comedians plus Alan each week telling stories about weird things that happen to them.

Anyone got some good podcasts to recommend?

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Music fix: P!nk

P!nk is one of my favourite singers of all time. Cool voice, sounds great live and puts on awesome shows, takes no crap, stands up for women and is a pretty amazing athlete as well as a singer (and very very brave to do some of the acrobatic and aerial stuff she does in her shows). Yay for P!nk. Something about her voice gets my muse going too, so she often turns up on my book soundtracks.

Here is a current fave

And an older one

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Sunday snippet – The Shattered Court #4

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Bookworm thoughts: Stage Dive series

I am a music fan. Played in the school and local orchestra growing up, am always listening to music and love me a musical guy. I’ve long thought rockstars should be a thing in romance but they seemed to be on the taboo list for some reason (possibly having to do with groupies and the likelihood of a HEA but whatevs because of course a romance hero rockstar isn’t going to pull such shenanigans). So no rockstar romance for me. Until the brilliant Kylie Scott started her Stage Dive series.

Now I first met Kylie (I think, sorry Kylie if I am remembering wrong) at an ARRA signing. I think it was early 2012. We have the same last name, therefore we sit next to each other at signings. At the time I think my third Kin book had come out and Kylie had a couple of post apocalyptic zombie type romances out. But the first book in the Stage Dive series, Lick, hadn’t yet been published. So we sat and chatted a bit and signed the odd book/bit of swag and were nervous relatively newbie authors at a signing together and I thought she was a cool chick.

The next year (or later in 2012), Lick came out and it turned out that like me, there were just a few (aka many many many thousands) people who felt like me about hot rock star romances. The rest as they say as history. Kylie is now a very deserving best selling author (and still a very cool chick). Her writing is smart and funny and sexy and her heroines are imperfect and real and hilarious as they tame their rock gods. I’ve re-read each of the books a few times since I first read Lick and am impatiently awaiting the release of Deep on March 31st. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be the first book I read once I’ve handed in Playing Hard.

So if you haven’t read any of the Stage Dive books yet, get your hands on these three bits of gorgeousness, fall in love with them, and then be very happy that you don’t have to wait very long for number four!

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March writing update

Is going to be short and sweet. Playing Hard is due in April so I am knee deep in wip wrestling.

Please send

 

And



And

I shall emerge from writing fog in April just in time to start reminding you all that The Shattered Court is out April 28 and Lawless in Leather on May 5.

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Giselle and writer brain (aka dead girls in white tutus)

On Saturday I went to see the Australian Ballet perform Giselle. As I’ve mentioned before here, I go to the ballet four or five times a year as my mum and I and a couple of her friends subscribe. I love the art of classical ballet but sometimes, my writer brain takes issue with the plot. Either I get annoyed when the story stops so everyone can have their multiple solos (even while appreciating the dancing I want some story, dammit) or I get annoyed with the actual plot.

 

Now Giselle, is one of the latter ones. One with a kind of dumb plot. It falls into a category of ballets that can be summarised as dead girls in white tutus. It’s very beautiful and has some amazing dancing (and was danced beautifully on Saturday) but the plot was written in 1841. And it was written, like a lot of ballets, by a man. Apparently back then women dying was very romantic (operas have a similar problem). Hence lots of gorgeous dancing in long tutus but lots of women dying as well.

These days, part of me gets a bit huffy with fridging the girls so the prince/duke/hunky male can have emo man pain (as much as I appreciate a tortured hero in tights, I’d rather he was tortured for reasons other than the woman he treated badly dying). I do better with happy ballets (hey, I’m a romance writer, I want my happy ending). So when we watch the sad ones I quite often end up re-doing the story in my head.

The story of Giselle (and forgive me but it’s been around for 180 years so not so much spoilers) is that Giselle is a happy peasant gal, who loves to dance but isn’t supposed to as she has a weak heart. A hunky Duke comes to town and decides to woo her (she also has a jealous hunter suitor lurking around), presumably because hey, she’s cute and looks good in a tutu. What he conveniently forgets to tell her is that he’s already engaged. When Giselle finds out (thanks to the jealous hunter suitor spilling the beans because he’s a jealous suitor), she loses it and basically dances herself to death and is buried in a forest. A forest inhabited by the Wilis who are vengeful spirits of women jilted by their lovers at the altar who take revenge on the men who do such things by making them dance themselves to death (go Wilis!).

Giselle’s spirit is summoned to join the Wilis (who need a cooler gang name). The Wilis dance the jealous hunter suitor to death (fair enough, he’s a jerk and Giselle doesn’t like him even before he spills the beans on Dukey, so yay Team Wili). When the now full of man pain Duke comes to visit Giselle’s grave (midnight grave visiting being a Thing, it seems), the Wilis try to do their thing again but Giselle intervenes and saves Dukey by dancing some of the time. Between them, they dance until dawn comes and the Wilis have to go. The Duke survives to go emo elsewhere. And I for one, can never quite believe that she saves him. I mean, he was cheating on her, let the Wilis have him (did I mention Team Wili? The Wili Queen is no one to mess with.). But apparently happy peasant girls with weak hearts also have no backbone and she still thinks he’s dreamy even though she’s now dead in a forest (unless she’s uber happy that she gets to be Team Wili but that doesn’t seem to be the gist of it. Nope, she’s just saving Dukey McDreamy Tights who rocks his black velvet and silver ensemble because he’s him). In romance terms, she’s teetering perilously close to being a TSTL heroine.

What would make far more sense is if when it’s revealed the Duke is engaged, he and jealous hunter boy fight and manage to kill each other and when Giselle goes to the forest to put flowers on their graves because she’s nice that way (seriously, who goes to the forest to a graveyard at midnight anyway), and the vengeful boy equivalent of the Wilis try to get her, the spirit of the Duke saves her. Because he, quite rightly, feels badly about the way he treated her. Gender swapped ballet plots with happier endings. Might be my new thing. Someone get on that.

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Sunday Snippet – Lawless in Leather #4

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Farewell, Sir Terry Prachett

I had a different blog planned for today but Terry Pratchett died last night. He was one of my all time favourite authors, whose books I’ve re-read too many times to count. So funny, so brilliant, so wise and human. I’ve spent endless hours with his words and know he’s made me a better writer and a better person. So thank you, Sir Terry and I hope wherever you are, you are whole and healthy once more.

That picture only shows about 1/4 of the books of his I own and love. I know there’s one more book to come but I think it will take me some time, like it did with Diana Wynne Jone’s last book, to be able to read it, knowing it is the last. And knowing we could have had many more if not for a horrible disease.

I’m sad I never got to meet him in person and tell him how much I loved his books. So today I figure is a good day to tell an author (or anybody you admire) that they make you happy and, if you have any cash to spare, perhaps donate some to medical research. I think there’s an official request for donations here  but I’m sure he’d approve of donations wherever.

PS I hear people say to skip the first couple of books in the Discworld series if you start reading it. I disagree. The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic are funny and a bit silly and light. Perhaps more farce than satire but they are early works and the books that started it all. And if you read from there, you can see how he kept just getting better and better as he went along. Plus it gives you two more Pratchetts to read.

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