Terry Odell's Blog, page 6

WCW – Nutella Pudding Cake

Nutella Pudding Cake

This makes an indulgent dessert for one or two, and comes together in a jiffy. We shared it at our house.
(Recipe adapted from NYT Cooking)

Ingredients:
¼ c (75 grams) Nutella
1 egg, beaten
¼ t baking powder
Whipped cream, ice cream or yogurt (optional toppings)

Instructions:
Mix the egg and Nutella until smooth.
Sprinkle baking powder over the top and blend well
Place mixture in a microwave safe bowl, leaving plenty of room for expansion.
Microwave for 40-60 seconds. Edges ...

The Challenges of Writing a Series

The Challenges of Writing a Series

First, what’s a series? Genre plays a part. A big part. In romance, although I call my books “series,” they’re really connected books featuring an ensemble cast of characters, with different ones taking center stage in each book. In mystery, series tend to feature the same protagonist(s) across the books. Thus, Danger Abroad (which is out in the world, and has been getting good reviews, which is always heartening) is part of my Blackthorne, Inc. series, althoug...

Danger Abroad! It’s Live!

Danger Abroad! It’s Live!

It’s Release Day for the digital format (that’s e-book, in case your terminology is different) of Danger Abroad. For those who prefer print, the paperback format is available, too. Find your favorite store here.

If you preordered it, you should have it on whatever device you use to read e-books.

I had fun revisiting my trip to the Faroe Islands and Copenhagen while writing this book. I hope you’ll enjoy your little peek at what I saw and did. Of course, I didn’t have a...

Sticking With a Book

Sticking With a Book

Image by Georgi Dyulgerov from Pixabay

I read somewhere that readers should stick with a book for a certain number of pages, based on the following formula: Take 100 and subtract your age. That formula breaks down when it’s a book club choice.

I’ve been reading a book for book club—not my choice of the offerings, but I always accept the majority decision. I’m really not liking it. At all. Not because of the writing, which is fine, as is the historical accuracy. The book is b...

Friday Fotos – Unboxing Danger Abroad

Friday Fotos – Unboxing Danger Abroad

Not much in the way of pictures today. I’m not one who’s going to do a step by step video (or even stills) of the entire unboxing of author copies of new releases. But I did take a couple of shots, so I guess this is “Unboxing Lite.”

For those who like to hold a book in their hands, you can get the print version here.

The ebook releases on April 17th.

In other photo-related activity, I’ve updated the Photography section of my website with new galleries: Th...

Friday Non Fotos

Friday Non Fotos

This has been a week filled with technology—or my lack thereof. I don’t have pictures to share today, and this is going to be a short rant loosely connected to photography.

March 31st was World Backup Day. I decided that I should copy my Photos folder to the cloud. I did, and as I was dealing with still other computer issues, I didn’t think a lot about it. Until I got a message that I couldn’t do something I needed to do because I was low on storage space on my C Drive. I disco...

WCW – Oven BBQ Pork

WCW – Oven BBQ Pork

I’ve had some computer issues lately, so this is a repeated recipe from my “old” blog from years ago. We’re in for some typical Colorado “Spring” weather, so we’ve got snow in the forecast (which began arriving today), so this oven BBQ Pork recipe isn’t a “springy” dish.

Oven BBQ Pork

I found this recipe under the label of a pork butt (which is really a shoulder of the pig, not the actual “butt”—but who cares?). I’d originally had other plans for the meat, but this looked wo...

Customer Service From Chatbots?

Can Chatbots Give Customer Service?

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

I’ve been spending far too much time with “customer service” (read, chatbots) lately. Technology and I live in alternate universes, so I often have to resort to getting some semblance of “help” when things go wrong, or when I don’t understand why something isn’t working the way I expect it to.

Some of my likes and dislikes:

Computer issues are my most frequent reasons for my needing help. Knowing this, I alwa...

WCW – Not a Waffle

WCW – Not a Waffle

Our old waffle iron called it quits, so we got a new one, which included this recipe. The Hubster wasn’t sure they were waffles, since there were no normal waffle ingredients like flour, milk, etc. (or his favorite, New Hope Mills mix), but he gave them a try and we declared them very good. Because there are only two of us, we halved the recipe.

Ingredients
2 20-oz package of shredded hash browns
3 eggs (to halve this, we used 1 egg and some Egg Beaters substitute, but you ca...

My Writing Process

My Writing Process

There’s no right or wrong writing process. Every author will do what works. Jeffrey Deaver spends 8 months outlining. James Scott Bell plans his “mirror moment” and signposts. Often, what works for one book might not work for the next. So, what’s my writing process? The answer is, It depends.

Left Coast Crime is behind me. Danger Abroad is ready for release. I took time off, but the writing itch needed to be scratched. What would be next? I decided there were plenty of threads...