Thanksgiving

It is upon us! The holiday season is here and I am ready for it! Almost. For Christmas I will be baking cookies, but for Thanksgiving I will be baking bread.
Yes, I bake. You should know that by now, since my last mention of the banana nut bread. It is not a mix, bought from a store shelf, although many of those are really tasty. I mix it from scratch for holidays and for other times when I just feel like it.
My wife suggested a bread machine just the other day and I think it would be a nice idea, on those days I do not feel like kneading bread by hand. Kneading is relaxing in a way, the feel of the stiff dough between your hands, the elasticity growing as you work it and adding the flour, the way the yeast adds to the aroma even before you bake it.
Sourdough is even better, the yeast reaching the pinnacle of glory. The way the bread crusts over in the oven is amazing and so much fun to rip into and devour.
This time my wife asked for the egg braid I have made several times in the past for the holidays. The bread is three kinds, wheat, rye and pumpernickel, rolled into three separate strands and twisted together to form a pleasing pattern and a great taste. I am not sure if the timing is right, since I must work the night before. I work third shift and don't get home till seven A.M. She will be using the oven most of the day, cooking the turkey and that may cause a minor issue. We will see.
Visually, the egg braid is pleasing as well, the three colors forming a checkerboard pattern. Sometimes I add minced jalapeño to one of the strands, since my son and I both like the little peppers.
When my son was still small, he hated vegetables. I would bake and he would descend upon the kitchen like Biblical locusts and the bread would disappear. I would mince broccoli and other vegetables and mix them in with the jalapeño. He ate it without question, the peppers covering everything else.
It was sneaky but he got his veggies.
If you like to cook or bake, then you can understand my feelings toward this and the special feelings for those treats reserved for the Holidays.
I am including here one of my grandmothers recipes here, I think. it's one we had growing up, one of my favorites that make me think of home and the farm.
After all, writing is so much easier when you have a nice treat beside you, isn't it?

Mamaw's Jam Cake 

Three layers baked at 350 until toothpick comes clean. We never had a timer. We did always grease and flour the pans. The lard came from the hogs out back in the old days and Crisco later. We use Pam these days.

1 cup butter
1 cup buttermilk
2 1/2 cups sugar (granulated)
4 (6) eggs
1 tsp baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 (2) tsp cinnamon  (some days my grandmother felt spicier than others and would double the amounts. Suit yourself here)
1 (2) tsp nutmeg
1 (2) tsp allspice
2 tbs cocoa (unsweetened as I recall)
3 (4) cups of all purpose flour (She liked to experiment. I go with 3 1/2)
1 cup raisins
1 cup nuts (chopped)
(1 cup dried cranberries - My addition, not in the original)
2 cups jam (She made her own jam and used raspberry or boysenberry jam)
1 small can of crushed pineapple, drained

 Combine butter, buttermilk, sugar, eggs, soda, powder, and spices. Mix well.
Then add cocoa. Blend in the flour, jam and pineapple. Stir in nuts, raisins and dried cranberries. Pour into pans already prepared and bake until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Frosting

1 stick butter
1 box lt brown sugar
1/2 cup half and half
1 tsp vanilla

Melt butter in pan. add lt brown sugar and let boil for three minutes, stirring occasionally. Add milk, stirring constantly and vigorously (NO splashing! It hurts!) until it returns to a boil. Remove from heat and set in cold water, stirring until it begin to thicken. Add vanilla and stir.
Sometimes Mamaw would beat the frosting to give it a smoother consistency or add coconut to it.

Layer it on thick when it cools enough not to run off the cake.

About ten million calories to the slice.

 No, I didn't write about writing. I did write something, though. Besides, it's MY blog.

A Puzzle

I was talking to someone at work and they mentioned one of the other people there had written a book. I asked who, naturally. Turned out I already knew about it, but I mentioned that I also write. You know, part of the conversation. Not selling anything, just continuing with the flow she had begun.
She looked at me and said, "Yeah, well, anyone can write a book." Then she walked off.
She wasn't nasty about it or angry. She was smiling and she seemed to think it was a normal thing to say. I wasn't sure how to respond so I didn't. I could have asked how her novel was coming along, or how many books she had finished. I didn't. It was at work and we try to get along there, no fighting or arguments, just us folks doing our jobs.
It still bothered me. Why would someone say that? Do they actually believe that writing is so simple? The insurance commercial comes to mind as the caveman sits at his typewriter. So simple everyone can do it.
So why don't they?
I think I know why I write. It's fun, most of the time. I get into the story and come up with how stuff works and why they did this or that. I invent a villain and a hero and a few in between. It's fun creating a world and then populating it.
I also like the idea that people read what I write and like it. Not millions of them, not even thousands. Maybe two thousand so far have downloaded one of my books. I assume they read them. Why would you download a book if it was just going to sit there taking up memory in your reader?
I even make a few dollars every month. I can't quit my night job yet, but I can put a tank of gas in the car every month and have a little pocket change left over.
I can imagine a future where I write and not work elsewhere, but the dates elude me thus far. Probably not this month. Not next month. Maybe next year or the year after. I will keep writing until it happens.
Anyone can write. But how many actually make the effort? Few do and fewer still stick with it to learn from their failures, to improve their skills and to increase their audience. Those few earn great rewards, even if it is only self satisfaction.
NaNoWriMo is going on this month and there are hundreds of thousands of people writing for this contest. Write a fifty thousand word novel (or more) in thirty days. It's a challenge. It's interesting. It's fun.
I'm going to win. Anyone can do it. You just have to start.

The Daily Grind

I've heard of this for most of my life ad I have had many thoughts as to it's meaning. As a child, I was uncertain. Do adults perform some mundane task to turn rocks into sand? Is it how old people seem to shrink, worn away by the passage of time?
Silly, how children think.
As a young adult, I thought it was for older people, something that happened to you after you reached a certain age. It made your face wrinkle and frown lines appear, those red, bloodshot eyes facing you in the mirror each morning. It was the way life ate at you, so unhappy in your existence in that job you were forced to take to pay all those bills.
You take on responsibilities, marriage, children, new car, new house to hold those children and a place to park that car. Those responsibilities force you into a certain path, one which eventually saps you of joy, creativity, diversity, and the opportunity to take risks. After all, one does not risk ones child or ones family, does one?
Young people. What can I say?
Age changes your outlook. Not very dramatic, nor original, as statements go. Lot's of people have said that and know that. But it is still true.
I decided many years ago that the true understanding was much simpler.
Get up.
Go to kitchen.
Make coffee. GOOD coffee. Grind the beans if you have too. Cappuccino machine. Foam the milk. Cinnamon? Vanilla? Sip. Make happy sounds.
The daily grind is good.
Life is good.
Yes, it is simplistic. It may even be silly. I don't care. You see, I believe in the K.I.S.S. principle.
Keep It Simple Stupid!
Life can be that easy. You go to work and face the day. Are you smiling? Why not? Are you expecting the JOB to make you happy? Your co-workers? The customers, God forbid?
No one can MAKE you happy. Either you are and you have found the secret or you are not and you are waiting  for somebody to hand you the secret.
They won't. Stop waiting. Nobody else knows what will make you happy, except you.
Find what makes you happy. It could be right next to you. It isn't. What? It's not the perfect mate/companion/ significant other? It's not making more money? It's not having a bigger, badder, shinier, new toy in the garage?
No. Your companion is someone to share happiness with. You have to find it first, before you can share. Sometimes you can look for it together, which is always nice. Makes it easier to find.
I don't have a garage. I have a carport. In the carport is an older passenger car that runs good and gets good mileage. It needs a bath. Behind it is my death machine, a 150cc scooter. Such a bad boy am I.
So start your quest for happiness.
Step one. Go to kitchen.
Step two. Make good coffee.
Step three. Sip.
Step four. Repeat.

 Ahhh. Happy sounds.

MONDAYS

Dealing with Mondays. Living with the fact of Mondays. Knowing that, at times, there can be several Mondays in any given week.
Do you like Mondays or despise them with a passion that borders on the criminally insane?
Monday use to always be a pain for me. The beginning of something, although, technically Sunday is the first day of the week. Sunday is cool, because we are still in the weekend on Sunday.
Monday begins the work week for many. It begins a challenge that many dread. Facing yet another five days of working at something that is necessary but not enjoyed, something that pays the bills, most of the time, but does not fulfill ones dreams.
I like Mondays. It's just one more day for me to find something to have fun with. For example, I am working on a new book. You should already know this of course since this is a blog about writing. I made up a new cover for it and played with that for several hours. My wife liked it. She said it was the best cover I've done so far.
That is one reason I like all the days of the week. I get feedback, positive most of the time. A cheering squad all for me! Even when the cheering is less than enthusiastic, as it has been from time to time, it is still MY cheering section. It gives me hope, builds my confidence and it gives me a wonderful person to bounce ideas off of.
She would circle that last part, the 'off of'. She would tell me to change it, that isn't proper English, but, I talk like that. We tend to write the way we speak. She would say 'Why did you do this?', and give me an idea to change the sentence or the character or the chapter, just by asking the question.
Sometimes the cheering is indeed muted, like the time I handed my wife the manuscript for 'Emma' to read for the seventh time. She found errors. Again. But she did it, she read through it page by page and word by word. She used her red pen and wrote notes in the margin, circled words and dove into her copy of 'Proofreading for Idiots' again and again.
 Mondays can be fun. Any day can be exciting. Just find someone, anyone, who can be an encouragement to you, to drive you forward, not with a whip or a threat, but with hope and kind words. Occasionally, the use of gentle criticism is needed by all of us. If you have been able to find a person who can do needed, constructive criticism gently, then you are  a most fortunate person.
Find a chat group, another author who needs a friendly ear, get into a forum, join the mad men and women in NaNoWriMo and find more poor souls who are driven to create like you.
Just don't stop because it's Monday.
Mondays can be fun.
See what I did with my Monday?

What will you do with yours?

 How do you write?

My writing, I am told, is done differently. My wife says she can't quite understand the way I do things, which is probably not uncommon. She shakes her head frequently.
There are a lot of tools out there, for writers. Software to organize your thoughts, time lines to lay out the sequence of events and set your characters against the background of the story. Many words of praise have been written for these tools.
I can't use them. My mind doesn't work that way. To me, a story unfolds in my head, as the voices of the characters tell me it should. I hear them speaking, see them acting out their lives and doing all the things they need to do.
They come to me in the shower, while I'm having diner, in the middle of a conversation, or while I'm in the middle of writing chapter five they will say, 'go back to chapter three and change this. I would never do what you wrote!'
It can be disconcerting when they take over like that, but I usually like what they say. Sometimes they move and talk so fast, I have a hard time keeping up with them, especially if they are interacting with one another, brainstorming, if you would. I hate it when they argue though.
Right now, as I type, one of my secondary (sorry Tina) characters is telling me who she wants to marry so I need to hurry up and finish this. She is lonely and wishes to hurry to the nuptials. No, I will not let you peek. The wedding night is a very private matter, although she will talk about it a bit with her friends later.
I do not write porn. I do not share intimate moments between couples although I do indicate that they happen. After all, these are people, and they have needs and desires just like you do. And like most of us, they do NOT like it when their private moments are made public.
You see, to me, these are real people. Just because I invented them, does not mean they do not take on a life of their own. I can't put them on a 3x5 index card. I can't shuffle them like a deck of cards.
I might hurt their feelings.

Banana nut bread survives!

New Novels in the works!

Hi. I'm back, with a massive two days worth of blogging. For those who were concerned about my remarks in yesterdays blog, the banana nut bread is deliciousness incarnate. I knew you were worried.
My wife had a recipe from a friend of hers so I tried it this time instead of my mothers and it is very good. Of course, my mom learned from her mom and so on. I'm not sure where this one originated. OK, enough about the kitchen.

I'm working on three books at this time. I mentioned that NaNoWriMo was in full swing and one is being created at a feverish pace within those hallowed . . walls? Web space?

I'm going to put an except here, after I finish babbling and possibly over the next few days I will put excerpts from the others, just because I can. All three are continuations of existing stories, book seven and eight in Tales of the Triad and book two in Kingdom of the Sky.
At this point book seven is entitled Elizabeth. Book eight is entitled Aelfgifu.
More about those in the next few weeks, as I continue to develop the characters.

KotS. Shorthand. I can not write it out every time. Well, I could, but I won't.
KotS2 is Conquest. For those who have not read the first, (Aprox. seven billion of you) Kent is a perpetual student, dragging out his trust fund to the bitter end. He is into history (shock right?) a re-enactor, has traveled to the United Kingdom for school, Japan for metal working, a dozen different survival schools and any other form of education to meet the terms of the trust fund.
He and a handful of others are violently shoved through a rift between dimensions to a world not unlike our own medieval period. There is a native population who call themselves the children, who are not happy that humans keep showing up on their world.
Kent and the others make friends and try to survive. He has a few words with the local ruler and is invited to take lands far, far, away, taking as many of the Kings less loved subjects with him.
Not sure how much more to say here without giving away the entire book. I had a few nice reviews on it and one person asked where book two was. Naturally, I started on it immediately.
OK. So I lied.I didn't start on it until NaNoWriMo because it was forming so fast in my skull that I just KNEW I could win again this year with that story.

I'm putting the excerpt next. Enjoy!

Chapter 1 – The Trees

Kent beat his horse with the flat of his blade, urging the beast to give it his all. He was aware of dozens of other riders around him doing the same thing. Mara was next to him, her horse at a full panicking gallop as she slapped her hindquarters with the shaft of an arrow.

The animals were covered in sweat and foam, their mouths flecked with blood as they pounded the earth with their hooves ever faster. Fear was their driving force, the beatings scarcely noticed.

Behind them all, rising from the shattered remains of a city was a wall of flame and heat, molten rock and rock so hot it was now an expanding cloud of incandescent gas. It was moving much faster than an horse could possibly run, gaining on them with incredible speed.

Kent looked to Mara as her horse faltered and died, throwing her to the ground. Only with great difficulty was Kent able to stop his horse long enough to leap from his back and run to Mara. The horse did not wait, continuing his mad, futile sprint, prolonging his life for a few seconds longer.

Kent embraced Mara, wanting to shelter her from this death fast approaching yet knowing it to be unavoidable. He put his body between her and the flames, waiting for the pain to begin. He heard her speak. “I love you.” The heat was upon them. Kent could feel his flesh turn to vapor, his bones a few seconds later, joining Mara's as hot gases.

The wave ground on, killing all in its path, turning everything and everyone into gas as it consumed the life on the planet. The crust cracked as the heat grew, the icy waters of the oceans pouring into the great crevasses leading to the core of the planet. The water flashed to steam on contact and the planet blew up, becoming a new asteroid belt.

The three moons, now orphans in the sky, continued around the angry sun amidst the rubble of the world they had only recently orbited.

~~~~~~~

“MARA!”

Kent jerked upright in the bed, screaming her name.

“I am here husband.”

Kent looked to the voice, expecting to see charred bone. He was surprised to see his wife looking quite well, with a worried look on her face and a damp cloth in her hand.

“I am glad you are awake. We were so worried that the fever might take you from us.”

“We are not dead?”

“No husband, we are not. Your fever is less now, a good sign. It will be gone soon.” She turned and picked up a cup from the table next to the bed. “Drink this.”

“More of Horram's nasty medicine, I suppose.”

“Drink.”

“Yes dear.”

Kent swallowed and gagged. Medicine tasted bad no matter what universe you were in. Another constant in an inconsistent world. She held the cup up to his mouth once again and he had to swallow or drown. It was not an easy choice.

“It was bad. Flame everywhere, a wall of heat so vast it covered the world and turned everything to vapor. The world cracked open and everyone died.”

“Was this a dream of your old world?” Mara asked hesitantly.

“No. It was here, on the other side of the mountains at first. Some city further north and east from Grannen.”

“The Galadorn live in that direction. They have a single large city in a burning cauldron of a valley. It is there they offer sacrifices to the demon they worship.”

“Hills all around with a river in at the north and out at the south, lots of steam and fire from vents in the ground around the place?”

“You have seen this?” Mara asked.

“In the dream.”

“We should speak with Horram. He would know if that is indeed the city of the Goddess.”

I am such a terrible person. I set up this blog to talk about books I'm writing and while I have been writing books, I haven't posted a darn thing here. I almost forgot I had started this.
I have actually finished nine books since my first entry, put them up on Amazon and Smashwords, have them available on Sony, Apple, Barns and Noble, Kubo, and Deisel.
I am even making a little money each month on the sales. Not enough to quit my night job, but a little is nice.
I will correct this lack of posting regularly. I will make posting interesting things, tidbits of information, snippets of my books and hopes for my future as a world famous author my FIRST priority.
Right after I finish my next book.
After I get done with NaNoWriMo this month.
And a few more excuses I haven't come up with yet.
My wife just stuck her head in and gave me one more.
I need . . . no. I MUST go bake banana nut bread immediately! The fate of the world hangs in the balance!
Oh well.