'16, So Far

I’m one of those people who makes New Year’s resolutions. My old standard, eating healthy and losing weight, usually falls off before the end of the first week. I’m consistent, if nothing else.

This year I switched things up a bit. I definitely wanted to promise myself I’d write every day, and I have. Good for me, and good for the progress of the book. I found that the more time I spend with my characters the better I get to know them. That and the fact of daily work helps move the story forward. You can’t go back if you’re constantly striving forward.

I also resolved to read at least six Pulitzer Prize-winning novels in 2016. I really have no idea where this one came from, except that I wanted to shake up my TBR pile. While searching online for a book on the history of the Prize I came across Josephine Johnson’s Now In November (1935) and decided on a whim to make it my first selection.

Sometimes I read a prize winning book and wonder why it won an award but Now In November completely knocked me out. The story of a Depression-era farm family, it’s the story of love, loss and the destruction of a family and in a sense, a way of life. The prose is exquisite, moving and lyrical. The characterizations were amazing. Here is the book's opening paragraph:

     Now in November I can see our years as a whole. This autumn is both an end and a beginning to our lives, and those days which seemed confused with the blur of all things too near and too familiar are clear and strange now. It has been a long year, longer and more full of meaning than all those ten years that went before it. There were nights when I felt that we were moving toward some awful and hopeless hour, but when that hour came it was broken up and confused because we were too near, and I did not even quite realize that it had come.

I have only ever heard about the Depression from the point of view of city dwellers and to be so immersed in the life of a farm community was illuminating—-and heart-breaking. As they say in the reviews, “highly recommended.”

Up next: Willa Cather’s One of Us.

Keep writing,

Karen

PS  The Great Backyard Bird Count was last weekend. Birds are pretty scarce around here nowadays. Early in the afternoon I heard two calls I could not identify, but at about 4:00 p.m. my little flock of Titmice came back. I counted six but there might have been more. They flit and fly around so quickly it’s hard to keep track. The Florida hummingbird count is always the same weekend of the GBBC, but hummers were zero in my yard this year. If the weather stays warm I can imagine having feeders out in the next few weeks.

In Memorium

While the world mourns Robin Williams, and fans stand on desks in tribute, quoting Walt Whitman's O Captain! My Captain! I think of Williams as Patch Adams, the doctor who treated illness with humor and death with dignity (and mooned the crowd at his medical school graduation).

At his beloved's grave site Williams, as Adams quoted Pablo Neruda's beautiful Sonnet 17 of 100 Love Sonnets, often referred to as "I do not love you."

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms,
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

There will never be another like him...Neruda, Adams or Robin. Rest in peace.

Sweet Jasmine-scented Air

Nature has decided to give me flowers in the backyard instead of a vegetable garden, so this spring I'm blessed with some lovely Confederate Jasmine.

Now when I read (or write) a romantic scene where the air is filled with the scent of jasmine, I'll know exactly what that's like!

Happy writing!

Notes From Outside

Taking the day off from writing to mow the back yard (HOA takes care of the front) and noticed a couple of things:

Hummingbirds get really annoyed when you put the sprinkler too close to the feeders.  They feed in the rain, so I'm not sure what the problem is.  Hummer experts, please explain.

Skinks are harder to catch than anoles.  You can wear out an anole by chasing it, but the skinks just wiggle and freak out.  Best bet?  Use a piece of mail from the recycle bin to urge them toward the door, then flip them out into the grass.  Be careful they don't wiggle and freak out and come back inside.  Mission accomplished.

Never saw butterflies mating until today.  Fascinating.

Note:  You'll have to wait until next week to hear the carrot story.  I ate them.

Happy day off from writing, and of course, happy Mothers Day to all of you out there, including Moms of pets!

The Garden That Wasn't

Last fall I wrote about the garden I'd planned.  I had lots of big ideas about the crop I'd plant using the square foot gardening system--about all the wonderful fresh thing's I'd grow and how I expected to enjoy eating them. 

The title of this post accurately describes how that project went.

Oh, the seeds germinated and sprouts came up, but as for harvest, it just didn't happen.

The zuchinni blossoms were lovely.  Unfortunately, no zuchinni followed.

I should have taken  my friend Jennifer up on her offer to show me how to stuff and fry them.

Green beans?  Oh, yes, there were green beans.  Five of them.  Two in the first "harvest," three in the second and last.  I ate them raw.  They were delicious!

There just weren't very many of them.

The sugar snap peas germinated and sprouted but were too fragile to grow with out sun.  Did I mention that last fall was the cloudiest, gloomiest fall I've ever seen in Florida?  Well, it was.  I have the lack of crops to prove it.

The beets never got more than two inches high.  It didn't help that the squirrels decided the beet bed would be a marvelous place to bury acorns.  Now that I think of it, the acorns didn't sprout either. 

One of the red pepper plants I sprouted last September has held on and is now a respectable 12 inches high.  Possible blossom sighted at top pair of leaves.

Of course, all this goes back to Julia, protagonist of A Trick of the Light, and the garden she grows.  She moves into the barn in late August, too late to plant, and, in the words of Blanche DuBois, counts on the kindness of strangers to get her through that first winter.  She plants her inaugural garden the following spring and after a rough start, begins to produce enough to live on during the summer with some to preserve for the fall and winter. 

What if her garden failed like mine?  What would she do then?  Julia is incredibly stubborn and wants to be self-sufficient.  Her friends want to help her.  I see a conflict in her future, along with some yummy garden gifts.

Next time: How long would you be willing to wait for a carrot?

Till then,

Happy writing!



Happy New Year!

May 2013 bring you love, happiness and peace.

Happy writing!

I'm a Winner!

I just came away from the NaNoWriMo website after having validated my 2012 NaNo novel.  It came in at 50,225 words.

If you recall, I'm a NaNo Rebel this year and instead writing a new book I decided to add some real estate to the book I've been working on this year, A Trick of the Light.

A Trick of the Light is now at 87,074 words, and I'm not finished with it yet!  I'm expecting to top out at 100,000 words, easy. 

As for yesterday's Fast food for Writers, who can eat when you're writing for glory!  Get something from the frozen section, if you must.  You won't regret it!

Happy writing!

Fast Food For Writers, part 3

If you've got 20 minutes, you've got spiced pecans!

Actually, you'll need 20 minutes and some pecans, cinnamon and sugar.  Ready?

Spiced Nuts (Betty Crocker Cookbook)

1 T egg white

2 cups pecans or walnuts (I like almonds, too)

1/4 cup sugar

1 T ground cinnamon

Heat oven to 300 degrees F.  Mix egg white and pecans until pecans are coated and sticky.

Mix sugar and cinnamon; sprinkle over pecans, stirring until sugar mixture completely coats pecans.  Spread on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake 20 minutes.  Yield: 2 cups.

Cool on newspaper covered with parchment paper.  Be sure to set the timer, but keep your nose on duty, too.  There are few things that smell worse than burned pecans.

Enjoy!!!



NaNo News

Forging ahead!  Ten out of eighteen days I've clocked over 2,000 words.  Of course, there was that one day my magnificent total was 147.  Didn't stay in that neighborhood for long!

By the end of my writing session tonight I plan to be at 34,000+.   Better get to it!!!

Happy writing.

Fast Food for Writers, part 2

With NaNoWriMo taking up so much of my time I completely forgot to post on Monday.  I was determined to post today with the second of my fast and easy dishes for others who have their noses to the electronic grindstone, aka, their computers.

I've had this recipe for almost thirty years.  It was given to me by a friend in Bardstown, Kentucky, and it has spread throughout my family, undergoing many subtle changes.  Here's my favorite version.

Creamy Baked Chicken Breasts (also known as Chicken and Cheese, Cheezy Chicken and That Chicken Dish).  This is a great pot luck dish.  It can be multiplied with no loss of deliciousness.

Creamy Baked Chicken Breasts

4 small (or two large chicken breasts, divided into 4 portions)
4 slices swiss cheese
1 can Campbell's Cream of Chicken Soup
1 can milk
1 cup Pepperidge Farm Herbed dry stuffing mix
4 T melted butter or margerine

Spray 9 inch square or other baking dish with release agent (Pam is good).  Season chicken to taste with salt and pepper and place in dish.  Put a slice of Swiss cheese on top of each chicken piece.  Mix soup and milk and pour on top of cheese.  Sprinkle with stuffing mix.  Drizzle with butter.

Bake at 350 for 1 hour, or until chicken tests done.

Serve on rice, brown or white.  Green beans are soooo good with this dish.

Note:  My sister-in-law substitutes 3/4 cup cooking sherry for the milk and her dish turns out mighty fine.  Of course, she is one of the South's best cooks, so she could probably put swamp water in it and it would be good.  Not that I'm suggesting you put swamp water in this recipe, but, I'm just saying.

You can put this dish together in the time it takes for the oven to pre-heat, so you won't use up that much of your writing time to get it in the oven.   Be sure to set the timer, though, if you're one of those who gets lost in the story.  Like me. 

Happy writing!

Fast Food for Writers, part 1

My favorite old-timey saying is "Eat dessert first."  So, for the first edition of 2012's Fast Food for Writers I've brought you my favorite spiced pear recipe, Honey-Baked Pears.  Yummy.

Honey-Baked Pears

Prep: 12 minutes
Bake: 25 min.
Serves: 6

2 T lemon juice
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup water
1 cup crushed graham crackers
1 T sugar
1 t apple-pie spice
4 T unsalted butter, melted
3 pears (about 2 pounds) peeled, cored and cut in quarters, or cubed

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.  Stir lemon juice with honey and 1/2 cup water in a small bowl until blended.  In a separate bowl, blend graham cracker crumbs with sugar and apple-pie spice, then stir in melted butter.

Layer pears in a 11 x 7 inch baking dish and sprinkle with half of crumb mixture.  Pour honey mixture over pears and sprinkle with remaining crumb mixture.  Bake about 25 minutes, untiil pears are tender when pierced with a knife, topping is golden brown and juices are bubbling.  Serve warm with ice cream or let cool, cover and refrigerate to serve cold.  Good luck with that...at my house they're gone before they even reach room temp.

Note:  Low-fat cinnamon graham crackers are a good substitute for the regular grahams.   If you use the  cinnamon, reduce apple-pie spice to 1/2 t.

Another note: this recipe came from the October 23, 2009 issue of AllYou magazine.  Thanks, AllYou! 

So, take a break and enjoy!  Your manuscript will be right where you left it.

Happy writing!

P.S.

While I was typing the recipe, this happened:

NaNoWriMo Update, the first

Five days, 10,387 words.  I'm flying!!!

Stop by on Wednesday for a slammin'  Spiced Pears recipe.

'Till then,

Happy writing

If This is November...

It must be NaNoWriMo.

Yes, National Novel Writing Month has come again.  This year I'm a NaNo Rebel, which means I'm continuing work on my current project instead of starting something new.  Today was a good day, even though I have a stiff neck from writing for four hours straight.  My day one word total was 2,460, well ahead of the average 1,667 words that will get me to the end of the month with a nice round 50,000 words.

The fridge is stocked with lots of wonderful Instant Black Bean Soup (you can find the recipe here).  My shopping list contains items easy and quick to cook.  How clever of my favorite supermarket to put Mac and Cheese on sale this week.  The tanker truck carrying the Diet coke is expected tomorrow.

I'm still planning to pull out some fast favorites for Wednesday "Fast Food For Writers" special editions, so I hope to see you around the blog as I write and cook.  Hopefully the writing and cooking will be equally magnifique.

Till then,

Happy Writing

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Though not officially autumn, September has always signaled the beginning of fall to me.

It was a tough summer here in Florida. It was miserably hot, as was much of the country. We were fortunate to get more than our share of rain but the humidity that came with it didn’t exactly feel like a gift.

I bought more roses and watched them die, planted lettuce and watched it die, put purslane in the pots by the front door and although they lived, they made a mess as the flowers bloomed, then fell off.  It seems the green on my thumb is mold, not mastery.

Then I went to a class on square foot gardening and heard with my own two ears what my mind has been trying to tell me for years: you can’t grow squat in Florida during the summer. Fall gardening is the way to go.

As I research my work in progress I continually put myself in the place of my protagonist, Julia, who lives in a barn. She has water from a pump and a pot-bellied stove for heat. She’s thirteen at the beginning of the book, too young to get a job, and yet stubbornly determined to take care of herself. She struggles through her first winter but as soon as she catches that first breathe of spring she starts a garden that she hopes will sustain her for the coming summer, fall and winter.

So, with that in mind, I’ve planned a garden of my own. One tomato, two boxes of lettuce, as well as zucchini, sugar snap peas, green beans, cucumbers (bread and butter pickles, here I come) carrots, beets and red peppers. Sounds like a lot, but I’m growing all of it in one flower pot, two window boxes and a bed that’s 2’ x 6’ (outside measurements). I’ll be trellising the viney things and leaving the front row of my bed to the carrots and beets.

I’ll keep you posted my progress, as well as the story the garden inspires.

Happy writing.

Suddenly...summer

Summer arrived in Central Florida in a raincoat, but welcomed nonetheless.  Watching the  occasional sunbeam peek through the wet green leaves of the woods was no hardship--a welcome sight, actually.

Spring was taken up with continued research for A Trick of the Light, including learning the words to "Barbara Allen" and the Great Lettuce Experiment (more about that later).

If you're compiling your summer reading list consider including Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer and Animal Dreams, both works of staggering beauty.  If you've never read Wendell Berry, try his Port William novels.  Hannah Coulter is a particular favorite of mine.

Whatever you do this summer, make every minute count!

Happy writing.

Quote for the Day

I'm a great lover of quotes of all kinds.  Here's one I received through email--it's Gretchen Rubin's Moment of Happiness for today.

"Let us decide on the route that we wish to take to pass our life, and attempt to sow that route with flowers."
— Madame du Chatele

Happy writing!

Banned Book News

I ran across this information in an issue of Publishers Weekly online and thought it might be of interest.

"The ALA has released its list of the Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2011. The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom received 326 reports regarding attempts to remove or restrict materials from school curricula and library bookshelves. The most challenged books were as follows:

1. ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle (offensive language; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group)

2. The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa (nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group)

3. The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins (anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence)

4. My Mom's Having A Baby! A Kid's Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler (nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group)

5. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie (offensive language; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group)

6. Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (nudity; offensive language; religious viewpoint)

7. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley (insensitivity; nudity; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit)

8. What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones (nudity; offensive language; sexually explicit)

9. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar (drugs; offensive language; sexually explicit)

10. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee (offensive language; racism)."

I'm glad to see To Kill a Mockingbird still in there, mixing things up and making people THINK!  It's my favorite book of all time.

As a public librarian I always encouraged parents to read the books their children are reading, preferably before their children read them, so that they can provide guidance if need be.  I once had to tell a mom that just because her 10 year-old could read on a college level that didn't mean she was ready for Twilight!

The Daily Beast published a terrific interview with Lauren Myracle, author of ttyl, ttfn and l8r, g8r here.  Moms, if your daughters are reading these books for instruction instead of entertainment, it's probably because you're not talking to them.

I encourage you to read banned books and to talk about publishing and censorship when and where ever you can.  Your mind will thank you for it!

Happy reading.

Tidbits

I'm back on my feet--or I guess I should say, my seat--and writing again.  Still not as one with my desk chair, though.  It has a hard spot right where it meets my tailbone (ouch!) so I'm wandering around the house, trying to find a good spot with a view of the back yard. 

The porch was great until I let a mosquito in from the yard and in a matter of seconds I had several painful bites on my right leg.  Based on the amount of Hot Shot I sprayed around out there, that sucker should be dead by now.

While I was on the porch this morning I started thinking about cutting down the Magnolia that hosts the bird water station and the Hummingbird feeder.  Right at that second a Ruby Throated Hummingbird flew up and fed.  It's been back two more times.  I haven't seen a Hummer for almost two months (okay, I was flat on my back for part of that time, but I did manage to keep the feeder clean and filled) so I have to admit to being completely confused by Hummer behavior.

I got the new squirrels I was expecting--two babies.  Saw one of them taking a sand bath the other day.  It was cute but still annoying.  I'm not sure where the tipping point will be.  The squirrels are messy and eat so much more than the birds it's hard to keep seeds in the feeder.  I've asked the squirrels nicely to go away and they just ignore me.  It's illegal to shoot them.  It's a puzzler, alright.

I missed a month of CFRW's 250 words-a-day challenge, so I've got some catching up to do.  I spent my off-time reading and enjoyed some books on homesteading, small-scale farming and eating locally.    Barbara Kingsolver (another Kentucky writer) wrote an amazing story of her family's year of eating locally in Animal Vegetable Miracle.  Kristen Kimball's A Dirty Life was fun, but neither book made me long  for the farmer's life.  I wouldn't last a day once the bugs started biting.

So, I'm still not sure if A Trick of the Light's young Julia will learn how to cook on her pot-bellied stove or not.  She will definitely be gardening, though, and growing flowers (because I adore flowers...).  I'm not Julia, and she isn't me, but if you're going to write a book you should be able to sneak in a personal passion every once in a while, if you want.

Happy writing.

Fast Food For Writers: special report

Hummus, where have you been all my life?

I dragged myself out of bed last week to have lunch with my friend Jennifer.  She shared her White Bean Hummus with me and I thought it was out of this world!  I took her left-overs home with me and enjoyed them for another two days.

On an excursion to the grocery store the other day I found some chickpea hummus in the deli section and brought it home.  At a salad bar I always put chickpeas on my salad, so I figured they'd make pretty good hummus, too.  Boy, was I right.  I sprinkled some chili powder on it (because that's what they did at the restaurant) and ate it with blue corn tortillas and red pepper strips.  Yum.  Six gorgeous Florida strawberries on the side and I called it lunch.

Hummus.  It's fast and delicious.  Try it, you'll like it.

Happy writing.

What I'm Reading

Resting up from an episode with my back (do they still call it "slipped disc"?) and unable to sit up the past five days, I've had a chance to catch up on some reading. 

While browsing downloadable e-books available from my library I saw one of Linda Lael Miller's cowboy books and borrowed it immediately--A Creed in Stone Creek--and was hooked by the characters, settings, story lines...everything that makes a great cowboy book.  The other books in this mini-part of the larger Creed series are The Creed Legacy and Creed's Honor. 

This led me to the McKettrick series and McKettrick's Luck and McKettrick's Pride.  McKettrick's Heart is being reprinted in May and not available at the library (like I could get there to borrow it...).  There is a vast backlist of Miller cowboy books I look forward to diving into, but I'm just as eager to get back to my own writing.

Can't resist a backyard update:  I had my first Hummingbirds of the season last Sunday--a gorgeous Ruby Throat and a female.  I had to cover my mouth to keep from squealing.  I was so excited and pleased to see them at my feeder.  It's dreary and rainy here today, no one at the feeders but squirrels.

Happy writing (and birdwatching)!