Diane Chamberlain's Blog, page 6

Story Weekend: Bathrobes

I’ve never been a bathrobe kind of person, but a few months ago I was in Bed, Bath and Beyond and saw a display of bathrobes at a very reasonable price. On a whim, I bought one. Now I wonder how I ever lived without my big, soft, fuzzy pink robe. During this frigid winter, it was the only thing that got me out of my warm bed in the morning. Well, that and two impatient dogs with their ice-cold noses.

So what’s your bathrobe story? Maybe that word conjures up a family member or an ancient robe you’ve had half your life. Tell us about it in under 100 words.

If  you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve contributed. As always, there are a few “rules”:

▪   The story must be true

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge. Happy writing!

 

The post Story Weekend: Bathrobes appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.

Can We Talk? Should I or Should I not Publish Private Relations (Revisited)?

June will mark the 25th anniversary of the publication of my first novel, Private Relations, which has me pondering–yet again–whether or not to release it for my 21st century readers. I’ve had this chat with some of you before, but I need to have it again. I need your help in making the decision.

I receive a couple of requests each week to bring this book back to life. I began writing it in 1981. Writing was then a hobby that turned into an obsession, which ultimately resulted in a manuscript of many hundreds of pages. With lots of editing, ditching of certain characters, increasing the focus on the romance, it turned into an actual book that landed in bookstores (remember them?) in June of 1989. I’m proud of it. Yet there’s no way around it: this is one heck of a dated story.

I’ve turned five of my other early books into e-books, and the response has been so absolutely, totally, staggeringly wonderful. Who knew that those old dead books would find a new set of readers? Somehow, though, those books seem to have a more ageless quality. But Private Relations (and my second novel, Lover and Strangers) feel ancient.

Let’s look at a few of the problems, shall we?

It’s a romance. It didn’t start out that way, but the editors who kept rejecting it said the story would be stronger if I focused on Kit and Cole rather than the slew of other characters I’d introduced.  It’s an unusual romance, to be sure, which I believe is why it won the RITA award for Best Single Title Contemporary Romance of 1989. I knew nothing about writing romances, and I think that worked to my advantage in creating something that was, at that time, fresh and different. But, it is a romance, and while I know many of my readers love romances, I think I have just as many who don’t.
Here’s a snag that stopped me in my tracks as I reread it: Kit, our heroine, goes to Cole, our hero, as her gynecologist. I mean, really? She doesn’t even question the awkwardness of this or consider finding a female GYN. (They are not involved at the time, but are living in the same house with a bunch of other. . . oh, it’s too complicated to explain!). At the time I wrote the book, I was a social worker in a maternity unit. Out of the gazillion doctors in that unit, only two were female, so the story seemed to make a little more sense back then. I’m glad those days are over! But do you see what I mean about dated?
During the course of the story, Cole gets angry with Kit and actually slaps her. What was I thinking?? That would be it for me. You lay a hand on me, Buster, and I’m out the door. Or rather, you are.
There are no twists, which my readers have come to love and which I adore writing. It’s a very straightforward story. It’s not badly written, though. If a reader can get past the gynecological exams and slapping, there’s a good chance she might actually be moved to tears.
Oh, and it’s juicy. Not erotic by any stretch of the imagine, but it’s juicy enough that when my parents read the manuscript (which I allowed them to read shortly before publication), they said they wouldn’t tell any of their friends about it. (To their credit, they changed their mind once it was published, deciding only to keep their priest in the dark). I hear regularly from readers who are pleased at the un-juiciness of my books. They must be kept away from this one!

I think if I do decide to publish Private Relations, I would have to add something to the title that warns the readers of its “differentness”. My fear is getting a bunch of “I love Diane Chamberlain’s books, but this one was really weird!” reader reviews.  How to word that warning, I’m not sure.

I would say it’s now or never for Private Relations. I don’t expect to be around for its 50th anniversary, so this is it. Can you help me decide? I look forward to your thoughts.

The post Can We Talk? Should I or Should I not Publish Private Relations (Revisited)? appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.

Story Weekend: Favorite Job Ever!

What was yours and what made it so special? I’ll start it off with my own story this week.

If  you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve contributed. As always, there are a few “rules”:

▪   The story must be true

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge. Happy writing!

 

The post Story Weekend: Favorite Job Ever! appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.

Why this Box Made Me Cry (and a Give-away)

 In the days before e-books, here’s how it went for most authors: you spent a couple of years pouring your heart and soul into a book, which was then published, sat in the bookstores for a few months and then quietly disappeared forever. This was a typical scenario for most novels (and still is for the print version of most books). Secret Lives was first published in 1991. It didn’t do well. Although it was my third novel—absolutely the book of my heart—and it received beautiful reviews, I wasn’t well known (understatement) and it sort of tanked. And that was it. The end of Secret Lives.

Or so I thought.

Fast forward to 2010, when authors discovered they could make their backlist books available as e-books. I decided to give it a try starting with Secret Lives, teaching myself how to format it for the various e-readers. After publishing twenty+ novels, I was better known by then, but I was still shocked when the sales started rolling in. Well over 100,000 sales and 150 five-star reviews on the US Kindle site later, I knew Secret Lives had finally found its audience.

Still, it hadn’t been in print book format since 1991. That is, until now, thanks to my publisher in the United Kingdom, Pan Macmillan. As of today, it will be available in print in the UK. When I opened that box and saw my ‘baby’ back in print . . . well, it got to me.

Can I tell you a little about this book’s early road to publication?

I had the idea for the story (more about that in a moment) and it was all I could think about. It was a bit of a risky idea in a few ways (no spoilers here!) and I was passionate about it. I attended a writers’ conference where I had an appointment to sit down with the editor from a publishing house and ‘pitch’ my story in the hopes she would want to take a chance on the as-yet unwritten novel. I desperately wanted to convey to her the wonderfulness of my story. I was still a nervous newbie writer, though, and I was such a wreck as I told her the story that I had trouble breathing and had to excuse myself in the middle of the meeting to go outside and gulp air (I am not making this up. I’m sure she thought I was insane). When I was done pouring my heart out to her, she said something like “I can see you feel strongly about this story, but I don’t think it’s for us.” (typical publisher rejection language). I was crushed, but not surprised after my performance as a crazy woman.

Once I’d written the novel, though, it sold to the first editor who saw it (I will always be grateful to Karen Solem, then at HarperCollins and now with her own agency. She really ‘got it’). But as I mentioned, despite editorial enthusiasm, Secret Lives slid quietly into oblivion. . . until its rebirth in 2010.

Even though I’ve written twenty novels since Secret Lives, this story will always hold a special place in my heart and I’d like to tell you why.

I loved my first two novels, Private Relations and Lovers and Strangers, but I didn’t truly discover my “voice” as a novelist until Secret Lives. With Secret Lives, I began to understand how important structure, pacing and revelations are to a story. They can make the difference between a slow-moving novel and a book that’s hard to put down.

As is often the case with my books, this story has its roots in several different areas. First, I read a newspaper article about an old acquaintance of mine who had been accused of molesting his young daughter. Having worked professionally with him, I couldn’t imagine the accusations were true and I assumed he was being set up by an angry ex-wife. But it started me thinking. How could you ever be sure about a man who’d been accused of something like that? How could a woman—a woman with a young child and a lot to lose—ever completely trust him? I knew that dilemma would be part of my story.

Around the same time, I visited the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. On a hike, I stumbled across an archeological dig and was quickly caught up in the tales the archeologist told me about his findings. The characters of Kyle and Ben were born that day as I listened to the archeologist speak. On that same trip, I visited the Luray Caverns and was mesmerized by their beauty and mystery. I knew from the moment I set foot in the caverns that I wanted to use them in the book. I was determined to make the cavern a character in its own right and by making it the “home” of the quirky children’s author Kate, I think I succeeded in doing that.

I fell deeply in love with my characters, particularly Kate. Kate’s chapters are written in first person, since they’re all in the form of journal entries. Although I often write in first person these days, that was new to me when I created Secret Lives and for the first time I discovered how incredibly close I could feel to a character by putting myself so deeply inside her heart and mind.

Another reason Secret Lives touched me was Kate’s agoraphobia. I didn’t set out to make her agoraphobic–she simply became that way over the course of the book. I, too, suffered from agoraphobia as a child and young adult, which is another reason why I related to her so strongly. I understood Kate very well.

I chose not to update Secret Lives because Kate and her journal belong to a specific era. The contemporary portion of the story takes place around 1990, which is why there are no cell phones or personal computers or iPods…and definitely no e-book readers! But the novel is full of the one element that’s crucial to any good story—human emotion. That has never changed and I doubt it ever will.

I’m giving away four copies of the print version of Secret Lives. It doesn’t matter where you live. Just leave a comment below and on Friday evening at 10 pm, EST, I’ll use a random number generator to pick four of you to win. I hope you enjoy the story!

Note: Although Secret Lives is not available in print (yet) in the US, it is available as an audio book and e-book.

The post Why this Box Made Me Cry (and a Give-away) appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.

Recipe of the Week: 10 Minute Ginger Shrimp and Rice

This is the extremely easy cheating version of a recipe I posted last year. It loses a bit of flavor in the rice, but saves you time. The only thing that bugs me about this recipe is that I can’t find frozen snow peas that are stringless. Do you have a favorite brand? If I want to make this for company, I use fresh snow peas so my guests don’t have to pull strings out of their teeth. But then it’s no longer a ten minute recipe.

Here we go…

Ginger Shrimp and Rice

2 servings

Ingredients:

- 2 cups cooked white rice (to make this in 10 minutes, I use the microwavable jasmine or basmati rice. I know, I know. That’s really cheating but you can’t beat 90 seconds in the microwave.)

- 12 ounces large shrimp, peeled and deveined (I use frozen peeled and deveined shrimp and thaw it in a colander under cold running water for  about five minutes)

- 1 microwavable bag of frozen snow peas

-1 1/2  T cornstarch

- 1 T diced fresh ginger (I have a tiny food processor that’s perfect for this. Just peel a chunk of ginger, slice it across the grain into a few pieces and pop in the processor).

- splash of whatever oil you like for stir frying

- 2 large cloves garlic, crushed (see my fab new garlic crusher here. Or just drop them in that little food processor and let it spin.

- salt and pepper

- half a lemon

Directions:

- pop the bag of snow peas in the microwave and set the timer for about 5 minutes.

- Mix the cornstarch, salt and pepper and ginger in a bowl. Add the thawed shrimp and stir to coat with the cornstarch mixture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

- heat the oil in a large frying pan

- toss the shrimp and garlic into the frying pan. Stir fry it for about four minutes, turning it with tongs. Be careful not to overcook

- while you’re making the shrimp, the timer on the microwave should go off. Take out the peas and let them sit in the bag while you nuke the rice for 90 seconds.

- divide the rice between two bowls or plates. Top with the snow peas and the shrimp. Squeeze a little lemon over each bowl.

-Kick back and enjoy all that time you saved!

 

The post Recipe of the Week: 10 Minute Ginger Shrimp and Rice appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.

Story Weekend: Foreign Language

John and I plan to travel to Tuscany with some friends in the spring. I grew up with an Italian surname (Lopresti) but  my Italian immigrant grandparents wanted their children to be American through and through, so no Italian was spoken in their home and my father had none of the language to share with us.  A friend is letting me borrow her Pimsleur Italian CDs and I’m determined to learn “Help! I’m lost!” if nothing else. I’m having fun with it.

How about you? I intentionally left the title of this Story Weekend open-ended so you can write about whatever the words ‘Foreign Language’ mean for you.

If  you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve contributed. As always, there are a few “rules”:

▪   The story must be true

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge. Happy writing!

The post Story Weekend: Foreign Language appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.

Recipe of the Week: Parmesan Baked Salmon

I spoke to my neighbor Joyce’s book club a few years ago and she served this amazing salmon dish. She’s given me permission to share it with you. Hers was served in a large rectangular baking dish, since she was feeding a crowd, so I honestly don’t know how the amounts translate here. You’ll have to experiment, but that’s half the fun of cooking, right? How often do you eat salmon? I could eat it every night. Easiest thing in the world to cook. I admit the mayo in this recipe sort of negates the health benefits of the salmon, but every once in a while, we need a treat. Here goes:

Joyce’s Parmesan Baked Salmon
Ingredients:

-Salmon filets (or you could use cod or orange roughy)

-1/3 cup mayonnaise

-2 T grated Parmesan cheese

-2 T snipped chives or green onions

-1/2 t white wine Worcestershire sauce (I use regular Worcestershire since that’s always on hand)

Directions:

-Rinse fish and pat dry. (If I’m making a small amount for just the two of us, I sometimes skin the salmon. It’s a pain, but I prefer it skinless. There are videos on Youtube to tell you how to do this.)

-Lightly oil baking dish.

-Stir together mayonnaise, Parmesan cheese, chives and Worcestershire sauce. Spread mixture over fish.

-Bake uncovered in a 450 oven for 15 minutes (check middle of fish to be sure it’s done if fillet is thick. In my oven, it takes 20 minutes to cook, but I have a wonky 1980s oven).

-Enjoy!

 

The post Recipe of the Week: Parmesan Baked Salmon appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.

Story Weekend: Gym Class

What did they call it where you grew up? Gym Class, Phys Ed, P.E.? How I loathed it. I was one of those Always-Last-to-be-Chosen-for-Any-Team kids. Whatever  gym class was called where you lived, I bet you have some stories to tell about it. I I hope you’ll share one of them here.

If  you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve contributed. As always, there are a few “rules”:

▪   The story must be true

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge. Happy writing!

 

 

The post Story Weekend: Gym Class appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.

Recipe of the Week: Pork Chops and Fire Roasted Tomatoes

Have you figured out yet that I’m a lazy cook? And this recipe is designed for the lazy cook. It’s also delicious and I make it often. You can make it more complicated with wine and mushrooms, but it’s great just like this. Here’s the one warning: only use Muir Glen Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes. I’ve tried other brands and they are not as good and one was really horrid. I can’t find Muir Glen in every store, so you might have to check around. (If you find another brand you love, please let me know).

Okay. Ready for some easy cooking?

Pork Chops and Fire Roasted Tomatoes

Serves 2 (easy to double for 4)

Ingredients:

-1 T olive or vegetable oil

-2 thick boneless pork chops, trimmed of fat (you can use any pork chops, but we get the big gorgeous ones from Costco and I freeze them two to a package to have on hand. They are considerably thicker than the ones in this picture. If you use thinner chops, adjust the cooking time)

-1 large onion, sliced in rings (optional)

-1 14 oz can of Muir Glen Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes

-s & p

Directions:

-heat the oil in a medium saute pan, preferably non stick.

-brown the chops on both sides, about 4 minutes each side; remove from heat if using onions.

-saute the onions (if using) until almost translucent. Add a little more oil if needed.

-Put the chops on top of the onions and pour the can of tomatoes, undrained, over it all

-bring to a boil; then reduce heat to a low simmer and cover the pan for about 30 minutes. At 20 minutes, start checking to see if the chops are done. I’ve really gotten into my meat thermometer. Before, I used to cut so many slices in my meat as I tried to figure out if it was done that it looked like it had been tortured during cooking. Consider getting an instant read meat thermometer if you don’t have one. For the chops, cook to 140-145. They should still be a bit pink.  More than that and they will be dry. Trichinosis is killed at 137. It’s not the worry it was when many of us first learned to cook.

-salt and pepper to taste if you must

-Serve the chops with mashed potatoes or egg noodles and some yummy vegetable on the side.

-Eat up!

The post Recipe of the Week: Pork Chops and Fire Roasted Tomatoes appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.

Story Weekend: Oh Those Remote Controls!

Sitting here in my living room, wondering what topic to pick for Story Weekend, when my eye landed on the five remote controls on the coffee table. I only understand one of them, and not completely. I bet a few of you have a good remote control story to tell, don’t you?

If  you’re new to Story Weekend, here’s how it works: I pick a theme and you share something from your life that relates to that theme, however you interpret it. Thanks to all of you who’ve contributed. As always, there are a few “rules”:

▪   The story must be true

▪   Try to keep it under 100 words. Embrace the challenge! That’s about six or seven lines in the comment form. I want others to read your story, and most people tend to skip if it’s too long. I know how tough it is to “write tight” but I hope you’ll accept this as a challenge. Happy writing!

 

The post Story Weekend: Oh Those Remote Controls! appeared first on Diane Chamberlain.