Terry Odell's Blog, page 3

Friday Fotos – Time To Eat

Friday Fotos – Time To Eat

Birds Eating. I’ve been processing images from my recent birding photography workshop on Lido Beach, Long Island, New York. Our shooting site was home to skimmers, terns, and oystercatchers. We had 2 shooting sessions each day: one around sunrise, and one before sunset to avoid the heat. I enjoyed watching the birds feed, and especially the skimmers feeding their young. Check the last image. The chick is swallowing a fish that’s almost as big as it is!

Young gull with ...

WCW – Crock Post Mississippi Chicken

WCW – Crock Post Mississippi Chicken

Adapted from a NYT recipe. The Hubster declared it a keeper. Makes 6-8 servings.

Crock Pot Mississippi Chicken

Ingredients

1 yellow onion, diced
2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
8 whole pepperoncini, stemmed and halved, plus ½ cup liquid from the jar.
*Adjust as you see fit for your preferred spice level
4 garlic cloves, minced
¼ c unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
*original recipe called for ¾ c of butter. Up to you.
1 c chicken stock
¼ c  soy ...

Back From Birding

Back From Birding

I’m back from the birding trip to Lido Beach, Long Island, New York. Aside from the heat and humidity, things I was all too glad to leave behind when we left Florida 15 years ago, everything was great.

Almost everything. Despite being associated with a major hotel chain, our accommodations were 50s motel standard. Its biggest selling point was being within 15 minutes of our shooting site, as opposed to 45 from beachfront hotels. Prices were considerably better, too.

Some “featu...

Off To Do Some Birding

Off To Do Some Birding

Oystercatcher with chick. Photo by Jason P. Odell

I’ll be heading to Long Island for a photography workshop led by Jason Odell, where we’ll be shooting (with cameras!) nesting shorebirds on Nickerson Beach. I’ll be lying prone in the sand, hoping I’ve mastered enough of the camera and new lens to get some decent shots.

I’ll post pictures if and when I have some to share.

Meanwhile, Terry’s Place is on blogcation until early August.

New! Find me at Substack with Writings a...

Writing Is Rewriting. And Then Some

Writing Is Rewriting. And Then Some

Image by Zoltan Matuska from Pixabay

On Friday, I mentioned I’d be sharing my latest challenges with the current wip, so here goes.

I’m not much on plotting, which should come as nothing new to readers of this blog. I like to let things unfold, and for the most part, it works pretty well. Things were moving along quite nicely. True, there were a lot of plot threads that had to be kept up with, but I had my chapter summaries (for a change, I was doing these as ...

Friday Fotos – Loch Ness and Urquhart

Friday Fotos – Loch Ness and Urquhart

Forgive me, but I’m busy, busy, busy working to get the next Mapleton Mystery written to meet my editor’s requested “can I have it by?” date. To complicate things, I’ve had to do a lot of ripping, rewriting, moving things around … more about that in another post.

So, I going back to 2019 and sharing the pictures I took on our cruise down Loch Ness to Urquhart Castle. I know I have some new blog followers since then, so these pictures will be new to some.

And...

The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You

The Nearest Exit May Be Behind You

Keeping readers turning pages is a big thing for authors. Who doesn’t love a message saying “I stayed up all night reading your book”? One of the things I look at on my read through is how I end my scenes. Will a reader be invested enough to turn the page? Even though I’m writing novel number thirty-something, it’s a piece of the craft I have to revisit every time.

I’m a “self taught” author. That’s not to say I never took classes or workshops, but I was a Psyc...

Friday Fotos – Lens Practice

Friday Fotos – Lens Practice

I’ll be setting off on a birding photography workshop at the end of the month. I got a new lens, and I’ve been practicing using it. My camera’s relatively new, too, so I’m learning that, too. With a long lens and so many things to think about–aperture, shutter speed, depth of field, histograms to name a few–it’s a whole new learning curve.

My main goal is to be able to get a subject into the frame, and that takes practice too–especially if the subject likes to hide ...

WCW – Low Country Coleslaw

WCW – Low Country Coleslaw

Coleslaw usually conjures up images of a mayonnaise-based dressing. Here’s a recipe, again modified from one from the NYT, that takes a different approach.

Ingredients

5 c chopped green cabbage (½-inch pieces)
2 c chopped purple cabbage (½-inch pieces)
¾  c chopped sweet onion
½ c finely diced carrot
½ c finely diced red bell or other sweet pepper
1 large clove garlic
½ T salt, more to taste
1T minced ginger
⅓ c rice vinegar
½ c olive oil
Juice of 1 lime
Salt and fres...

What Could Go Wrong?

What Could Go Wrong?

When I learned that it would be better to have my Triple-D Ranch Series published before my scheduled BookBub Featured Deal on July 9th, as I mentioned in an earlier post, I set the wip aside while I created the ebook. No worries. I’ve done this many times before. What could go wrong?

I had the manuscript put together and used Draft2Digital to create the epub. I downloaded it, and it looked fine, but wanting to make sure I had some time to make sure it was really ready, I sc...