Wednesday Words #2

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 7 Comments

With the editing of others: I finally finished editing that 105K word fantasy novel and broke the sad news to the author that genre standard for a YA fantasy is 80K, with a 90K max. She didn’t cry. I was impressed. She did start sharpening her hatchet though. I am going to assume that was so she could slash her word count…

With my own writing: I haven’t written too many new words on my novel. I am however operating like I am a functioning author. LOL. I’m getting reviews, doing interviews, participating in promos.

Emotionally: Great question. I think what it comes down to for me is this. The idea of not writing makes me sadder than not being read. Eventually people will read will me. Or maybe they won’t. Maybe I will always have just over average book sales.  I think I can learn to live with that. Maybe.

Topic for debate on my writing: To serialize or Not?

I’m considering serializing my spy novel to my blog as opposed to publishing it. I have two reasons for doing this. A) I feel like it will give me a deadline on my editing. Gotta make my post. B) I get to short circuit the whole, I published and no one cared issue.

Would you serialize, self-publish, or traditional publish? Why?

Fun little Interview….

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 1 Comment

I did a quick interview with Dan Alatorre as part of the promotional for his Word Weaver contest. Check it out….

your humble host Occasionally on the blog we will talk with one of our author friends, gaining valuable insights into their behind the scene world. Today we meet again with the AMAZING T. A. Henry, a terrific writer with sinister deep, dark secrets we, the writing world, simple need to know. Probably. (T. A. has braved […]

via Author Interview: 10 Questions With T.A. Henry — Dan Alatorre – AUTHOR

Book Review: No Baggage

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 6 Comments

It was date night, so of course the hubs and I were swinging by the library. Yes, we are that geeky. I found myself wandering down the non fiction aisles looking for something new. No Baggage by Clara Benson caught my eye.

This is a supposedly true story of Clara meeting a man on OKCupid and a month later taking off to Europe with him for a 21 day trip with no baggage. And she doesn’t mean just nothing checked in. Only the clothes on their backs.

Let that sink in for you. Only the clothes on their backs. Granted he has a toothbrush stuffed in a pocket and she has 3 pairs of underwear in a small purse. But no toiletries, no spare outfits to even wear while they do laundry.

They fly into Turkey with no plans, no hotels, no reservations, until they are set to fly to England at the end of their trip and then from England home.

It’s a pretty interesting tale. Their relationship. The people they meet. The experiences.

There are plenty of picture of them in the same clothes in all sorts of places. And the way she describes some cities, I actually got up and added another white peg to my world map. White is places we still want to go.

But I am left with the vague feeling of dissatisfaction. Like it was a pretentious stunt and traveling that light is really more than necessary. I get the idea of figuring out how little you really need, been there and done that myself but….maybe I am just too old and settled for that sort of flight of fancy.

℘℘℘℘ – 4 pages. Very enjoyable. Well written. Certainly an unusual take on things.

 

Sunday Sup: Apple Cake

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Greeting and Salutations! I am vastly hung over this morning. Nothing helps with a hangover like junk food. Of course at the end of the day I still want to feel better not worse so this is moderately healthy junk food. LOL

The original recipe came from my Mother-In-Law. It’s a traditional Dutch plum cake that my hubs grew up eating. I have messed it a round a bit and I change up the fruit routinely depending on what I have in the house that is super ripe. LOL.

Apple Cake

Preheat your oven to 350.

Weigh three large eggs. Do this in grams, makes it easier to be precise.

Add them to a large bowl.

Weigh an equal amount of coconut sugar. Add this to the bowl. Whip for a bit. If you use regular cane sugar the eggs will eventually get fluffy. If you go the coconut sugar route, they will thicken up and whole mess will lighten a shade or two, to a golden brown color.

Weigh an equal amount (to the eggs) of almond flour. (or regular flour). Add to bowl. Add 2 teaspoons of baking powder. Blend.

Add 1 stick (8 tbsp) of melted butter. Blend.

Pour into a 9×13 dish greased with butter.

Add cut fruit to top of the dish. If you use apple slices, just nestle them in together. If you go the plum route, cut the plums in half, remove the stone, and lay the fruit cut side up in the batter. Pears do best when sliced. Anything really big should be sliced. Anything small, apricots would be another example, should be cut in half and laid cut side up.

Sprinkle a bit of cinnamon on top.

Bake for 35 minutes. The center should still jiggle when you pull the cake out if using almond flour. It will firm slightly as it cools. Regular flour users should not have much jiggle at all when pulling the cake and should reduce time to 30 minutes.

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Fiendish Friday: I am too old for this sh…

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

This last weekend my hubs and son flew to another state for a family reunion. I stayed home. My FIL was pretty difficult about the timing, I would have had to cancel two of the classes I teach and so I opted out.  At the time I thought, woot, girls weekend. I called an old friend I hadn’t seen in a while and suggested she come visit. She couldn’t do it.

Ok, weekend to myself. I’ll make plans with local friends and hot yoga a lot.

Then the week before said weekend, my girlfriend calls. All three of her kids had the stomach flu, one at a time, then the youngest got it again, and then her dog had kennel cough and would throw up with every coughing bout. She needed a break and was coming out. Sweet!

First night I invited a bunch of local friends over to drink, eat, and make merry. Stayed up til after one doing so. Ouch.

So ok Saturday morning hurt a little. 6AM the alarm goes off. I stumble out. (Side bar: I am on a mission to get up at 5AM so I can hot yoga twice a week in the AM and write for 90 minutes the other 3 days. I’m in the process of rolling back my wake up.) Coffee. Which we drink for 3 hours before walking the dog. Shopping all day. Wine tasting. More drinking at home watching The Martian. (Matt Damon is getting old. I prefer his Bourne/Oceans 11 look.)

Sunday we hot yinyasa. It’s this cross Yin and Vinyasa class. New teacher. The class is all yin, almost no vinyasa. Damn, I was hoping to work off a few of those alcohol calories. But that doesn’t stop us from going to Cinebarre and drinking more with another movie. She lives in a state where you would never be able to get a real drink in a theater. LOL.

All this said. I hurt. All the sugar in the alcohol is killing me. My muscles are aching and cramping as all the water my body was holding to process said sugar is recycled out. I still haven’t caught up on my sleep.

So to remind myself why I don’t drink or eat sugar….I am cleaning the house to get ready for my next friend who is arriving in 5 days. This friend and her hubs probably top the list of people the hubs and I consume the most alcohol with. I NEED a big reminder. LOL. Wish me luck, I need it.

Wednesday Words

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 11 Comments

Norwescon was last weekend. It stirred up a lot of thoughts and emotions for me this year. I’ll go into that in a moment but I also decided I was ready to talk about writing again on a regular basis. So Wednesday Words, this is your (re)birthday.

With the editing of others: Working on a book for a young woman in my writing class. 90K plus words of pure fantasy. You may have noticed, I don’t read fantasy, that’s because I don’t like fantasy. LOL. But she’s my student so I slog on. And yes before you ask I am being careful not to suggest she should remove things that are appropriate to fantasy while not appropriate in other genres.

With my own writing: Still rewriting the first chapter of my spy novel. I don’t have a lot of writing time, but I am working towards increasing that. I have been steadily moving the time I wake up back in 15 minutes increments. So the time available is actively growing. LOL

Side note: This is my 500th post to WordPress. Get on with me productive self.

Emotionally: Super conflicted about my writing right now. I feel like last year was such a let down. To publish a good solid book and have it go completely unnoticed by the world at large was painful. I was depressed a good chunk of the year (help along by some other personal issues). I don’t want to publish my spy novel, which is 4.5 years in the making, and feel the same. Which makes me wonder if I am emotionally cut out for the life of an author.

Topic for debate on my writing: To sex or not to sex. 

Most thrillers, which a spy novel is considered one, don’t have sex scenes. They have fade to black of various levels. Mine currently has two scenes and a fade to black. I tend to get one of two responses to this. Either A) MORE SEX! or B) Why is there sex in this book?

Should I buck the no overt sex in thrillers trend or change my scenes to a sooner fade to black option?

Another Positive Review

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I knew my book was not your typical romance, which is why I went the self publishing route. Check out this great review from Kelly to see why….

4 STARS Historical Fiction Copy provided for an honest review. Goodreads Blurb: “At loose end in post World War II London, Lady Margaret Leighton chances upon a movie poster showcasing the young soldier she gave her heart to while serving as a military nurse. Desperate to reconnect with him, she uses her wits and newly […]

via Scripting The Truth by T. A. Henry (Book Review) — Kelly’s Book Blog

Book Review: Big Little Lies

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Holy crud batman. I picked up Big Little Lies by Liane Moriarty totally expecting to hate it. After all it’s been made into an HBO thing with Nicole Kidman, and I can’t like anything with Nicole Kidman in it. (Don’t ask.)

Almost 500 pages long and I found myself silently chanting, read faster, read faster, oh mi god, read faster. It is clear from the first chapter that someone is going to die, be murdered. And it takes almost 450 pages to get there. To get to Zero hour. I kept finding myself thinking oh no, blank is going to die, please don’t let it be blank. And then some chapters on I would think oh no not blank, blank so deserves to be happy and is just getting there. 450 pages and I did not know who was gonna die, let alone who was going to do the murdering. Flipping miracle that.

The bread crumbs are just enough to make you desperately wish you had the whole cake. Beautifully written. Every character is well drawn and behaves in a believable manner. It is a murder mystery but only in part, perhaps because the murder is the conclusion. It’s about how little things in people’s lives all come together into a big action that really had been going for months. The beginning is so much further back and so much more complicated than people realize.

℘℘℘℘℘℘- 6 pages. I really don’t think I can say enough. I’ve read so much lately that just hasn’t lived up to it’s own hype. This does and then some. I can’t wait to get back to the library and get something else she’s written.

Sunday Sup: Experimental Muffins

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 2 Comments

I bribe my students. I do. If they share an opinion about the reading or vocalize an answer to the homework, I toss them candy. I teach Junior High and High school students at a very small school.

But some of my students are all about the healthy. And some of my students are allergic to everything under the sun. So…I decided to bake them treats. I’ve made this recipe many times with less substitutions and they come out beautifully. The substitution ones worked as well although the texture was a touch off, the taste was superb.

Carrot Pineapple Muffins (Cupcakes)

These have no gluten, no refined sugar, no nuts, and no eggs. I don’t know where the original recipe came from, it is out of the binder of recipes on bits of scrap.

Preheat oven to 350.

In a large bowl, whisk 2/3 c gf flour ( I like Trader Joes’s blend), 1/3 c coconut sugar, 1 tsp baking soda, 3/4 tsp baking powder, 3/4 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground cloves, 1/4 tsp nutmeg, 1/4 tsp allspice.

Melt 1/3 c butter and add to dry ingredients with 1/2 c cinnamon apple sauce. Stir to combine.

Gentle fold in 1 c shredded carrots and 1/2 c chopped pineapple. Chop finely if putting in muffin pans.

Pour into silicone muffin pan, each cup 2/3 full. This makes about ten muffins. Bake 20-25 minutes. Cool in the pan, then they pop right out.

Now you can adjust this recipe several ways.

1/ The original calls for 1 c chopped walnuts. Add this if you like. It does add a nice flavor and texture to the muffins.

2/ You can also use 2 eggs in place of the apple sauce. If you do that, add 1 tsp cinnamon instead of 3/4 tsp.

3/ You can also bake this as a loaf cake. Or pour it into a train shaped pan. (Kiddo’s first birthday.) For a loaf pan the bake time goes up to 50 minutes.

4/ You can also substitute 1/3 c coconut oil for the butter.

5/ If using real flour, the amount stays the same. If using cane sugar however, increase to 1/2 cup.

Now then, to covert muffins into cupcakes you need frosting. I will give two recipes. Both are tasty it just depends on your life style choices.

Simple: 8 oz block good cream cheese, by which I mean NOT philly. Read the ingredients on that some times. It’s all chemicals. So buy a cream cheese made of cream and milk please. Let it sit out a bit so it’s easier to mix. Add 1/4- 1/3 c maple syrup and blend until smooth.

Complicated: One 8 oz block cream cheese ( see above diatribe), 5 tbsp soft butter, 2 tsp vanilla, beat until combined. Add 2 c powdered sugar.

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Fiendish Friday: I’m Fat

~ tahenryauthoress ~ 10 Comments

This morning while prepping my next few lessons I was caught by the oddest thought that just thrilled me. I am normal fat.

As in, I can see past my stomach to my thighs.

As in, normal people stores carry sizes that fit me.

As in, my belly doesn’t hang to the sides past my hips anymore.

These are really exciting things.

I know they sound terrible. And if you’ve never been truly fat, I understand why you would be confused.

But imagine being so fat you almost can’t shop in the fat girl stores anymore.

Imagine being so fat, people don’t even make fun of you for being fat, they pretend you don’t exist.

Imagine being so fat, your diabetes is so bad, your kidneys are being damaged and if you don’t do something to reverse the rate of damage your kidneys will fail in the next 2-3 years. Oh and you are not a candidate for the transplant list because you are so fat.

Imagine thinking forget seeing my grandkids, I won’t live to see my child graduate high school.  I won’t live to see my child get to high school.

After all that, being normal fat, is super exciting. Actually saying I still have 50 pounds to go, and it not being a lie, is super exciting. Knowing I need a plan for home schooling the kiddo through to college, super exciting (and scary but that’s another post for another time, LOL). Making plans to move to Europe in a few years, because I’ll still be ALIVE, is super exciting.

Yes, I’m fat, normal fat. Go on make fun of me. I’m here. And I will be for a good long time.