Terry Odell's Blog, page 232

Friday Field Trip — Hidden Fire

Just wandering around my hard drive. These were from a trip to Northern California, where I had time to research settings for Hidden Fire while Hubster was at meetings at Humboldt State. Readers of the book might recognize a few of these as inspirations for scenes in the book.

Killing Characters

What I’m reading: Paper, Scissors, Death, by Joanna Campbell Slan
First — Brenda Novak’s auction to raise money for diabetes research has started. I’ve donated four of my out of print books. Hope you’ll bid, and not just on my donation. There’s a ton of fantastic stuff, and it’s for a good cause. The auction home page is here.

When I was growing up, I lived in one of the canyons outside Beverly Hills, north of Sunset Boulevard. The route to Beverly Hills included an intersection that struck fea...

What’s Cooking Wednesday — Sweet Beer Bread

Kathy Perry, a member of the book club I belong to shared this recipe. I tried it, and it’s quick, easy, and yummy.

Sweet Beer Bread

Ingredients:

3 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

3 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

12 ounces beer

(the flavor changes with the beer used)

1/4 cup melted butter

Instructions:

Heat oven to 350

Coat non-stick loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients.

Pour in the beer and stir until dry ingredients are moistened. The dough will be sticky.

Pres...

Brain Games: Catching Dreams

Today I welcome Nancy J. Cohen to Terry’s Place. Nancy is the award-winning author of eighteen romance and mystery novels, including her humorous Bad Hair Day mystery series. Currently she writes the Drift Lords series combining Norse myths, magic, adventure and romance in a contemporary setting.

Our brains work in mysterious ways. When I am driving and zone out, thinking about my story, characters, or promotion, my brain takes over and somehow directs me to follow the road. The traffic light...

Readers Helping Authors

What I’m reading: Contest entry #5/5; Silver Serenade by Nancy J. Cohen

As readers, what can you do to support an author, especially one with a small press, or who’s indie publishing? Unless you’re a big name with a big house, odds are, the publisher isn’t doing much to help.

The no-brainer. Buy their books. But there are so many other things you can do to help boost the visibility of an author whose books you enjoy.

Word of mouth is still the best sales tool. Tell others about the book. For exa...

Friday Field Trip — A Dog’s Life

Many of you know we adopted Febbie from the local shelter last July. Somehow, posting her pictures on my Facebook page gets a lot of traffic, and since I didn’t have anything new for this week I thought I’d share some here. She loves running, playing “bring it” and “Timmy’s in the Well” and keeping an eye out for “visitors” to our yard, but today, I’m sharing her quieter side.

Feebie takes a break from her sentry duty to rest in her lookout hole. She’s making sure we’re proud of her efforts.

Ti...

Critique Partners

I’m over at The Blood-Red Pencil again, this time talking about critique partners and beta readers. Hope you’ll pop over and say hello. I was going to write a separate post for Terry’s Place, but I’ll be honest with you. I’ve been busy with the release of Rooted in Danger, and doing double blog posts didn’t fit my schedule. I’ll be back with another ‘writing’ post on Monday.

But as long as you’re reading this, I’ll remind my newsletter subscribers that if they haven’t entered the contest yet (...

What’s Cooking Wednesday — Croissant Bread Pudding

Neighbor Sue Prescott sent me two recipes when I asked, so here’s the second one.

CROISSANT BREAD PUDDING W/CHOCOLATE & CHERRIES

Serves 8

Ingredients:

3/4 cup Sugar

1 1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon — optional

1 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

6 lg Eggs

2 cup Heavy Cream

1 cup Milk — I used 2% but whole would make it richer

12 Croissants — or 16 of the smaller ones

1/2 cup Dried Tart Cherries

3/4 cup Dark Chocolate — 70% cacao

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly butter a 9x13 pan.

In a food processor, combine the s...

In the Interview Room — JoAnne Tucker

Today I welcome artist and writer JoAnne Tucker to the Interview Room. JoAnne has enjoyed art since childhood. She believes in family values and following your dreams.

You can invite anyone, alive or dead, to dinner. Who would you invite and why?

Hitler to ask him questions about his war choices

Where would you eat?

McDonalds

What would you eat?

Double cheeseburgers

What question would you ask?

Why he murdered all those people and what made him so evil

Same question, but invite one of your characte...

Mountain of Authors — Part 2

[image error]I’d thought about doing a post about Rooted in Danger today, but since I don’t like blog posts that are pure promotion, let me leave it at posting another picture of the cover and saying the digital version is now live at most e-stores. You can find the links on the book’s page at my website. I hope you’ll help call attention to the book, because word of mouth (as you’ll see in this post) is still the best advertising.

I found the Publishing panel at Mountain of Authors to be interesting and e...