Wednesday Words 5/31

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

It’s Sunday afternoon. We’ve had the neighbor kids over for breakfast and cartoons which allowed me lots of time to take care of things. That’s my preferred way to function. If I was outlining the perfect day it would go like this.

Sleep in till 7-730.

Enjoy two cups of coffee while reading a good book. Breakfast, dishes, a few chores.

Maybe a little more reading.

An hour or so on reading and responding to emails and social media.

A nice long work out.

A healthy lunch and then, bam sit down to the computer. Two hours easy of productive writing before nap time creeps up on me.

I am right on track, and the hubs even volunteers to take the kiddo for a bike ride and to run an errand we need ran. Awesome. Thank you, I love you, you are amazing. I am going to work on my book.

Then they come back after 45 minutes because they forgot the bike helmets, ok, it happens. But then they decide on lunch and to accompany the consumption of said lunch the hubs starts blasting metal. sigh. Color me fully distracted and on my way to a headache. So I stop trying to work, I play with the hubs and son for a while. They finally leave, all is peaceful.

I sit back down at the damn spy novel, thinking where was I? When a thought strikes me, a cruise missile out of the blue, a bit of feedback someone gave me months ago, that I still haven’t addressed. Agh. Do I finish the chapter I am currently cleaning up? Or stop and fix it the other problem because it will surely interfere with the changes I am making now. And then I think, this damn thing is so not salvageable. I should just drop it and move on to the next thing.

Seriously, is there anything more irritating?

Book Review: Cut, Crop, & Die

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Why, why do I keep trying to find cozy mysteries that are worth my time. I have 2, count them 2 authors on my list, that write cozy mysteries that never disappoint  me. Maybe this is my own personal 2nd person point of view. LOL

Cut, Crop, & Die by Joanna Campbell Slan was ok. Heavily ok. I’m not into scrap booking, but there wasn’t an overkill of scrap booking description so that was fine. I think, I just never cared about who killed the victim. She was a horrible person. And she died horribly. Seems balanced to me. LOL.

Ok, let me get serious here. There’s some romance. There’s some life can be complicated stuff. There’s some deduction, although definitely less deducting than anything else. There’s some improbable bits. And it’s really clear who dun it, long before the main character figures it out.

℘℘ – Two pages, maybe 2.5. I mostly finished it out of stubbornness and a large dose of boredom. The kiddo was taking forever to do his home school work and since he still wants mom right there, I read most of this while answering which coin is a quarter for the 900th time.

Feast for the Eyes

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 9 Comments

At least I hope you agree the new website is lovely. I’ve finished changing it to reflect where I am now in my writing career and life.

I did not participate in Nano last year. I write year round now. I talk about other people’s books, my life, and my experiments in the kitchen. It was time to move away from a Nano branding to a me branding.

I’ve added pages with my book review and my recipes to make it easier to find what you want.

Enjoy!

 

 

Fiendish Friday: Do looks really matter?

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

Look, I can cook. Seriously, I have mad taste skills. And I bake a few things decently as well. Baking isn’t my forte. I make 2 cookies really well and I just serve everyone those and they are happy. When I try to get fancy with the baking, it goes bad.

Example: The hubs wanted a mocha roll for his birthday. I had tried to make it once before and it flopped but I had done some research since that attempt and thought I was ready to do it again. The secret, I thought, was to roll the cake portion while it was still hot, let it cool, unroll it, fill it, and then when you rolled it back up it wouldn’t crack. Uh huh. Ask me how that worked. No really, ask. When I tried to unroll it, it stuck to the parchment paper so badly I had to scrape it off in chunks. sigh. Tasted damn good though. LOL

So the kiddo, who’s birthday it right after the hubs, wanted an ice cream cake in the shape of a lego cube.

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There it is in all it’s UGLY glory. It’s lavender. Because one of his friends is allergic to artificial colors, so I used natural dyes, and started out with red dye, but it could only make pink. So I negotiated with the kiddo, added blue and hoped for a serious purple. It turned lavender. Sigh.

Add to that, I didn’t have the right shape cake pan, so I had to bake and then cut both chocolate cake and a chocolate chip layer. Fit them into the container and then pack in non dairy ice cream (more allergies). I am told it was mad tasty. It just looked… well… yeah.

So I ask you, do looks really matter?

Wednesday Words 5/24

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 5 Comments

Ok this will be the short version of Wed Words. I am slammed with edits to my spy novel and updating the blog site. I hope you are enjoying some of the changes, more are coming but….

New names for Gareth (his name is too close to another). Spy. Hard core, been in the biz long term, compartmentalizes his personal life to be the coldest, most efficient guy on the job.

Ash

Finn

Turk

Dacre

Ace

VOTE!

Book Review: The One & Only

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 1 Comment

I really like Emily Giffin. I’ve read most of her books. Really liked most of her books. I’ve read books by other authors because she endorsed them and liked those too. But…

The One & Only makes me angry. I’ll explain why but first a bit about the book.

Shea is a college town girl, who grew up loving one thing. Walker football. Her best friend was the coach’s daughter. She went to every game. She went to college at Walker and wrote about them for the school paper. She took a job with the college, in the sports department after graduation. Her life is ALL Walker football. Even her boyfriend at the start of the book used to play for Walker.

But someone influential in her life dies and she starts to think she should make some changes. So she cuts loose her slacker boyfriend, gets a new job writing for a Dallas paper, covering…can you guess…the Walker football team.

She gets a new boyfriend. Starts to repair her relationship with her own dad. Things are really looking up. Of course, the problem is she’s secretly in love with the coach of the Walker football team.

Fine, it’s trite, but ok. Let’s let it roll.

The problem for me is she lies to everyone. Her best friend, her mother, her boyfriend, throughout the whole book. She stays with the boyfriend even though she doesn’t love him, lies and says she does though, because hey, he’s a quarterback of a pro-team, used to play for Walker, and it’s not like Coach would ever like her anyway.

There’s been this trend in books I see on the pop shelves lately, female lead books. The women lie, cheat, use people – and then poof get what they want. I hate it. If books are meant to be our role models then all I am learning is that it’s ok to do whatever you want, to treat people however you want, in the last 2 pages of the book an invisible magic fairy will give you everything you ever dreamed of. I’m tired of it. What happened to actually working for what you want? Women protest for equal rights and then publish books where the man gives the woman everything she wants. The job at the Dallas paper, gift from Coach. And when she gets fired from that job Daddy offers more prestigious jobs.

I won’t give away the absolute end but suffice to say it’s enough to make you want to throw your kindle.

℘℘ – Two Pages. I finished it but I’m angry as all hell. And I might not read any more Emily Giffin if this is the way her books are going to go now.

Sunday Sup: Mother’s Day Cake

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 4 Comments

So Mother’s Day in the US was last Sunday. After a family hike, brunch, a few games…we all sat down to watch The Great British Baking Show. This of course made me want to make cake. But as I am, I couldn’t simply make something with a recipe. I decided to play.

Hence, the Mother’s Day disaster cake was born. I really am not an elegant baker. I focus much more on substance than style. Which I suppose is true for the rest of my life as well.

I took this recipe for opera cake and started there. But this is a large recipe. So from the get go I knew I would be halving it. We’re a family of three. A full opera, serving ten, is way too much for us.

3 egg whites on beat until stiff, added 1 tablespoon coconut sugar, continued beating until glossy.

While that was rolling on it’s own, stand mixers are the bomb, I combined 3 eggs, 1 cup coconut sugar, 1 cup almond flour in another bowl and hand mixed until frothing. I added 1/4 cup gluten free flour blend (TJs) and the zest of one large lemon. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter until just incorporated.

Pour that into well greased pans. Bake at 400 for 10 minutes. I used round pans for two thin layers but use anything you like really and watch the center to be set. Another 2-3 minutes might be needed, depending on your pan. Do not judge based on color as coconut sugar makes the whole thing golden from the get go.

Frosting: 8oz Marscapone cheese, 4 oz cream cheese, 1/4-1/3 cup maple syrup depending on your preference for sweet, the zest of one small lemon, and 1/4 cup lemon juice. If you soften the cheeses for 20 minutes first it will all blend together like a dream.

Raspberry topping: 16 oz bag frozen raspberries, defrosted. Pour into a pan, add 1/4 cup honey, 1/4 cup lemon juice. Bring to boil over medium low. Mash the berries. Simmer over low for 10 minutes minimum. The berries should be completely broken down and the sauce thick. Let cool.

When you cake is room temp, frost between the layers and on top. You won’t have enough for the sides with the above recipe but you could double it if you really want that much frosting. Top each individual slice with the raspberry sauce as you serve it, otherwise your cake will get soggy.

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The flowers are courtesy of my hubs, he even put them in the vase for me. The empty Star Wars glass is courtesy of the kiddo. Welcome to the balance in my life. LOL

Fiendish Friday: Things I wanted to say this week but didn’t

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I am so glad you are comfortable enough here to be the worst version of yourself. Just don’t.
How’s that (liberal/conservative) Koolaid taste now? Maybe we can all stop drinking the Koolaid, detox from the sugar, and start thinking again.
Awesome job on the man bashing. Remind me, how old is your son now? Is his penis going to fall off soon or is he already oppressing you with it?
Don’t you think you should spend at as much time thinking about how to make your wife feel appreciated as you did researching that new cell phone for yourself? Or maybe you just plan to keep the phone longer than the wife.
I think I showed admirable restraint this week, yes?

Wednesday Words 5/17

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

With the editing of others: Blissfully not editing much right now. A little word smithing on the website. A few paragraphs rewritten for the hubs and friends. But that’s it; which is probably why….

With my own writing: I am editing like a maniac. LOL. It’s weird really diving into my spy novel because some of it was written 4 1/2 years ago. It was my first novel and it reads like it. I spend some serious time rewriting crutched sentences. LOL. I’ve edited to a happy place, 2 chapters this week.

Emotionally: I’m on the fence about this writing conference coming in October. Registration opens soon and I keep waffling back and forth between, just go and that’s a lot of money. Part of me knows I need to expand beyond Norwescon. It’s not my genre and I’ve gotten what I can there. I need to jump to a bigger pond. But I am a little afraid. New things make me nervous. LOL

Plus this conference offers the opportunity to sit down with agents and editors. I am both intrigued and horrified by this. Part of me thinks it would be super interesting just to see how the process might go and what they might say. And then part of me thinks, hello rejection.

Topic for debate on my writing: So as I clean things up, I find myself working hard to balance between removing crutch words and phrases and staying true to my voice.

What tricks and tips do you have for balancing this?

Book Review: Scratch

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

I was at the library with four kids, waiting for my friend to pick up her three. She had just arrived and we were chatting quietly, our three minute catch up on our lives, when mid sentence Scratch edited by Manjula Martin caught my eye. It has a big pen on the front. LOL. I grabbed it and took it home, where it lingered unread(unloved) for some weeks while I read other things. What a mistake.

When I finally opened it, I found a magical world of writers. Martin interviewed and persuaded various authors to write or talk about the art of writing. Mostly she was looking to break the silence on how much people actually get paid, when she argues we must talk about or writers will continue to be paid a mere pittance. But what was revealed was so much more.

I could highlight all day. It’s the raw, honest truth behind a public success or failure. Big names baring their pain at being consider a trash writer because they are popularly successful, not literary. That hurts. I always thought being widely read was the make or break for me. Oh well, I’ll wait til I’m in her shoes to make that call.

People I have never heard of sharing how their impossible novel got picked up. I have new books to read now.

℘℘℘℘℘ – Five Pages. I have never read a non fiction book so rapt. I wanted to read faster. I was irritated at distractions.