The BS in BSP

A month or so ago I began yet another blog,  The Shadow Warriors  

to promote well, actually, The Shadow Warriors Kindle Version in the U.S. and the U.K.  So far modest sales, but even more modest hits on the blog.   I beefed up the tags yet again, and waited.  Bought Joe Konrath's book for my Kindle and read his and Barry Eisler's long post about epublishing, but hey, it's hard for someone without a name to get noticed.  It seemed like whenever I did PR "stuff,"  blogging, Facebook, the gazillion listservs, that someone would buy the book.  It was like one copy per post.  Not exactly sales to gladden the writer's heart.

I hate this business of self-promotion, and pretty much suck at it besides.  This week has been particularly daunting with lots of posts here and there, with maybe just a short  tagline about my book and no response.  Nada.   Like everyone has seen through the ruse and sneered.  Feeling like the you-know-what in the punchbowl.

Until this morning.  I Googled myself (I know, hang head in shame)  to pick up any chatter and found mentions of moi on the website of the German University where The Shadow Warriors is set, and also some weird site in Asia  showing the Shadow Warriors Kindle along with other technical books.  Of course, no one in in Asia or Germany can order the Kindle version, and I have to figure out if Amazon ever puts English books such as mine on foreign websites.  This certainly would be great  in Germany, where this is practically an Historical Novel by now.  So these tags do help, and of course the book is available in paperback, but foreign shipping is prohibitive. 

The blog?  I'll keep plugging away.  You never know what will happen, maybe even something good.  The BSP?  Oh, by the way, that stands for Blatant Self-Promotion.  My mother always cautioned me about being "too forward."  It was unladylike and people would talk.  Of course self-promotion is all about people talking, even in a not very nice way, so "too forward" is the way to go.  

I'm still querying agents:  10 queries last week.  Big time-suck.  Must be as bad at querying as as BSP.  

I'm going to stomp up to the kitchen and make a cardamon crumb cake, since cooking is part of my skill set.

Let them eat cake  Cardamon Crumb Cake 

Food and Wine Photo of Cardamon Cake-see link to recipe

 

 Have cookies and banana bread in the freezer for next week's guests.  I never corner guests and offer to "read" a few pages to them.  No.  No.  Never read anything except when asked.  That's self-promotion, not blatant. 

How about you?  Are you at ease promoting yourself?  Can you schmooze and booze and not make everyone snooze?  I hope so.  It's an art.

What do Mary Higgins Clark and Gore Vidal have in common?

Ha ha!  Fooled you.  They're both mystery writers.  Vidal wrote his slim volumes (recently reissued) in the early 1950's when he hit a publishing bump, and the result was Death in the Fifth Position (ballet mystery) Death Before Bedtime and Death Likes It Hot. Pretty good titles you must admit.  Slim volumes, nothing big and meaty like his historical works.   His short oeuvres have been reissued by Vintage Crime/Black Lizzard and Vidal's pen name is Edgar Box.  Hmmmm.  Edgar? 

The Wall Street Journal, (WSJ) which has a real kickass section on Fridays with lots of book "stuff," did a huge article on Mary Higgins Clark today.  She is a true legend and sponsors the Mary Higgins Clark Award to a writer who writes in her style, which is to say "Fem Jep" without bad language, sex, and on-page violence.  About Sex and on page violence:  sometimes hints and small gestures are far, far better than being blatant.  How do you like them apples?  Love apples?  Oh well.  Mary Higgins Clark was the grand master of the St. Patrick's Day Parade, a huge event, in NYC.   Her award is always given out at the cocktail party after the MWA Symposium, the Agents and Editors cocktail party, where all the crime writers needing agents come to schmooze and pitch.  I've attended for years. . . what does THAT tell you.  Thinking about going again this year, because I have a new book to pitch and where better?  Remember the title of this blog is Suck It Up.  What does that tell you?  

I need to get crackin' on the edits my friend sent me.  And an alert reader caught something that no one else did.  Never can have two many eyes.  And now, upstairs for a nip of sherry.  So refined, don't cha know.

Grapeshot

Northwoods Shrimp and Vegetable Salad

Right.  So it was snowing here in New England (again!) today.  Not exactly salad weather, but diet menus tend to emphasize salad, and I had 3/4 pound of shrimp in the freezer, so I decided to try this salad with looked so pretty and colorful.

First mistake:  got confused between recipes and I had sooo many vegetables on this week's shopping list that I  forgot to get the  snap peas.  I had organic carrots and a zucchini and some frozen Snopeg corn.  I decided to use the leftover green beans instead of the peas, but forgot and ate them for lunch with some leftover kickass dressing.  O.K.  The broccoli will do.  And it did.

The other dumb thing was not to check the spice shelf for the Northwoods seasoning.  Duh!  Would have bet good money I had it, but alas, a  dig through the shelf today revealed NO Northwoods seasoning.  This or something like this is nothing new in my life.  Once I set off to make chili without enough chili powder, or curry without curry powder.  Get the picture.

Ha ha!  I went online to the Penzey's catalog and looked up Northwoods seasoning.  I had all the ingredients.  What you have to know about lists of ingredients is that they are listed in order of quantity used.  No problemo.  I got out my spices and cobbled together the spices for the dressing.  Cooked the shrimp and veggies substituting broccoli for the snap peas.

The salad was so delicious, and we had some leftover garlic bread which I heated up, and the snow had stopped, yea, almost melted and Significant Other spotted two ducks in the slough and all was well with the world.

Oh  yeah.  Here is a link to the recipe:  Northwoods Shrimp and Harvest Vegetable Salad     No harvest in sight.  It was really toothsome and so perky with the orange carrots and the yellow corn. I served it on a bed on lettuce strewn with baby arugula.  Yum!  The garlic bread  made the meal a little heartier and there was something hot.  Yowza!

Photo from Penzey's web site:  Note the snap peas, not broccoli

Penzeys Spices

Back again: Seven Suspenseful Sentence Sunday

  

The university town of Göttingen was just a great setting for a book.  I stole huge hunks of city landscapes and sometimes I even made up stuff, but most of the scenes were created from real places.  Here is an excerpt from The Shadow Warriors where  Emma and Wayne and their new colleagues have gone out drinking on a Friday night.  Some happens that frightens Emma.

The square was jammed with students, professors, couples pushing baby carriages, old age pensioners, farmers with round peasant faces, and the Turks and Greeks who had come years ago as “guest workers” and stayed on to open restaurants and small businesses.

 We passed a booth selling shots of vodka, each with a fig immersed in it. Wayne pantomimed gagging gestures, but I counted out four marks in change. As I handed the money to the vendor, I caught a glimpse of a face with dark eyes, eyes that were staring at me, but the man with the eyes slipped away into the crowd. It couldn't be. There was no way that the man from the Singapore bus and the Hong Kong Market could be at the Göttingen street fair. I downed the vodka in one hasty gulp, but the alcohol couldn’t burn away that face and those eyes.

Forget not to visit the other 7 Suspenseful Sunday writers.
 

7 Suspenseful Sentence Sunday  

Two kits and the proud mom

Mama with two visible kits.  There are four in the litter. 

I am such a sucker for wildlife, inherited from my Dad--Mom too, who once had a pet squirrel.  This is about the coolest thing ever.  I hope to be able to sneak a peak at the little family soon.  Keep your fingers crossed they all stay safe.  I always worry about everything.  Sigh.

This just in: 4 baby foxes, pups, kits, whatever

New mom with four babies

Nature notes from all over:  my source reports the fox that lives under the stable brought her four young kits out this evening.  Hardly bigger than kittens.  They all looked around in amazement.  What a lovely sight that must have been.  Nature is all around us.  The chipmunks are out of hibernation.  Big hawk in the yard.

Kit Fox smelling (not eating) the daisies

 A friend of our in Riverwoods, Illinois had a fox that came to their yard for handouts.  Brazen as brass.  My fervent hope is that these young kits will live to adulthood.  I see far too many run over in the Boston area.  Two in our neighborhood alone.  Let's hope mama finds enough for them to eat.

The First Spring Day in New England

Spring is sill a week away, and I never dare get my hopes up until end-of-April, but when we drove back from getting a bite to eat at noon, the temperature was 62 degrees and it felt so balmy one needed no coat or jacket, maybe a light sweater, but at Patriot Place there were lots of folks in shirt sleeves.

The winter heath is blooming (the flowers are really too tiny to photograph) but the wild ginger is green and therefore alive, and it looks like the daffodils I planted last fall have thrust their noses above the ground.  The beds are mostly till covered with leaves, and I will leave the leaves alone.  


Birdsong?  Did I mention birdsong?  The seed and suet are all going fast.  We still have a pile of snow in the front yard where the plow deposited it.  I got in there with a shovel to throw it about in order to help it melt faster.  A smallish Christmas tree branch appeared from under the snow  in the front yard, and the neighborhood whippets chewed tennis ball added to the bizarre still life.  Of course some of the curbstone and pavement from the street is lying about the yard, too.

It's going to be the cleanup from hell, but I noticed the chives are 1/8 inch out of the ground.  And some of the oregano close to the ground is green. The first rhubarb appeared in the grocery store.  I have lots of rhubarb recipes, but it's hard to beat rhubarb sauce, just rhubarb, sugar to taste and a very small amount of hot water.  Nothing could be easier and it's a great spring tonic.

I made a dynamite salad dressing last night with spices and oregano, also parsley, oil, vinegar and feta.  Served it over baby arugula and naval orange slices.  This was a keeper.  The spices were coriander and fennel seed, toasted then smashed in a mortal and pestle.  I use a real apothecary mortal and pestle to grind small amounts of herbs.  For larger quantities, a coffee grinder reserved for the purpose of herbs is a good idea.  Do label it! 

A friend sent this picture of a fox who seems to be living in the deserted stable.  He thinks it might be a new mom.  Isn't that bushy tail something?  What a handsome creature.

The Fox from the stables. He/he  likes rabbits.

Pretty dumb

Presidential Material?

I haven't been posting as much as I usually do.  The reason?  I'm getting one novel ready for the Kindle.  I'm getting a second novel ready to query some agents.  A third novel is undergoing who-knows-how-many rewrites.  I've exchanged manuscripts with a friend and I owe her some comments and a critique.  Oh yes, I'm taking a pacing class with homework.  Yesterday I went to a workshop.  In between times, I shower and cook and did I mention I'm working on the Toastmaster's District conference?   Just turned in the tax workbook.  Visits to the gym.  Trips to the supermarket.  That sort of thing.  


No need to mention the new blog to advertise the Kindle book (The Shadow Warriors) or the posts on Amazon and all that rot.  Nope.  Not a word.  I've been tweeting because it's fast but not so much on Facebook.  


However, I do still know the difference between Massachusetts and New Hampshire and I sure as hell know the shot heard round the world was not fired in New Hampshire.  It's a source of appalled amazement that historical illiterates have the gall to run for president.  Maybe there should be a test of basic knowledge one need pass before running for office, the kind of test any high school junior can pass.  A little American history, civics, political science and yea, geography, as in can  you really see Russia from Anchorage?   Maybe a wee knowledge of foreign affairs and other countries.  Man, the candidates would be  dropping like big green flies after a flit of DDT.   

The problem with know-nothings is that they, well, er, know nothing.   The gaffes committed by the perhaps candidates lately have been truly astounding.  And Mitt Romney seems to have forgotten that Obamacare was modeled after Romneycare.  I have never  found stupidity attractive, but apparently some people do.  And most of the candidates are not even blond.  What is their excuse? 

BTW I am a little blond, as in streaky hair by way of foil.  Just so you know.  

Maybe I should have my cats run for office.  They wouldn't lie, cheat or steal and they make no bones about being smart.  Food, water, a ball,  a little catnip and a warm bed.  They know and understand their world.  Hey, what a novel thought!

Grapeshot, musing     

Berkshires Icestorm in the bleak midwinter

Copake, NY - recent ice storm

Winter is not over yet.  Our friend Reiner took this picture from his living room window.  What a view! It's great in the fall and summer, too.  What could be better to contemplate in late winter (the ugliest season)  than a Tanglewood concert and picnic with a bottle of wine and some delicious comestibles.   And the music.  But no James Levine this year, sob. 

We're over the hump, now, with winter, which makes the cold and dreariness so much more unbearable.  Thoughts turn to Florida, and Puerto Rico.  I would love to be in Cartagena this week, strolling through the old city and along the waterfront, wearing a wide-brimmed hat and sunscreen.  Isn't it lovely to contemplate?

Put Your Dukes Up

My aerobics class involves a bit of "boxing" and kick boxing.  If I didn't have old hips, I'd get into kick boxing in a big way.  What I notice is that most of the woman (we're almost ALL women) in the class don't punch like they mean it.  Some of them punch with one hand and leave the other hand dangling daintily at their side.  It seems to be hard for these nice ladies to make a fist.  I actually like to make fists.  I like to punch and kick.  Color me unladylike. 

Back in the day, women were conditioned never to fight and not to show unseemly anger.   An angry woman is a fearsome thing.  How many expressions can you think of to describe an angry man that only apply to males? 
I thought so. 
Here is a list, by no means complete, of expressions that apply to an angry woman. 

Fishwife

Termagant

Shrew

Witch

Bitch

Scold

Virago

Harridan

Battle-ax

Harpy

She-devil

She-dragon

Spitfire

Mad woman 

What is so scary about an angry woman?  Normally, they don't even shoot anyone. God help you if you work in an office and get angry.  There are a lot of things about our culture that I will never understand.   A sarcastic woman is considered rather scary, too unless you are a comic.  Think about that.  

No wonder my classmates flutter and punch like a bunch of bunnies.  I am the one with the fists and the scowl, the one with her dukes up.  Here is an article about the origin of this phrase.  Read it.
put your dukes up

The Writing LIfe and the Plain Old Life

Busy as a one-armed paperhanger.  Actually, I am really fond of the expression, "a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest."  Who thinks up these crazy sayings?

About the writing life, there is the following to say:
1)  Excuse my weird grammar
2)  Sent out memoir (short piece) 3 poems and a short story whew!
3)  Put up a blog for my novel, The Shadow Warriors  (see link)
4)  The novel now has its own Facebook page.  Waiting for "likes."  And waiting.  Hmmm.
5)  Put "like" buttons on a couple of my  blogs (hope springs eternal)  see #4
6)  Taking a pacing course (writing not horses)
7)  Looking at the final edits of a novel to send to an e-publisher
8)  Need to read a book for the class
9)  Finishing the reading of a friend's manuscript
10)  Writing 2 poems for a poem/food contest  

As if that is not enough
1)  Time to do the (yech) tax workbook
2)  May book a cruise (I'm going to need a vacation)
3)  Have to do table topics for Toastmasters on Thursday
4) Bedding and towels to  wash from departed houseguests
5)  Larder is bare.  See #4

6)  Need to lose a few pounds (walking and the gym)
7)  Have to update web site - alas, I have probably forgotten how

Marktplatz in Goettingen, where many scenes from The Shadow Warriors are set

8)  Learn to use new FTP software on my MAC
9)  Get ugly stain off kitchen floor
10) Catch up on "Big Love"

So, of course, I'm meeting a friend for lunch tomorrow.  And feeling a little sleep deprived.  I have to get all this stuff done before baseball season, a hideous, lovely time suck. Red Sox Nation demands loyalty.

Am I the only one who thought that academy awards prologue was kind of cute.  Having a loud sneezing fit

BYE