ABNA Finalists

Congratulations to the three ABNA finalists in adult fiction.  I am looking forward to reading the excerpts from their novels.  One thing that quickly came to my attention is that all three finalists have a so-called "platform" whether it is Chinese adoption or growing up along the Calexico-Mexicali border.  I found both the Afghan book and the "border" book appealing, but I'm sure many will find the adoption book likewise  riveting, esp. after the recent publicity about a Russian adoption gone bad.

My so-called platform used to be technology and computer crime, and these have advanced so far since I've been retired(4 years) that it would be hard to claim them.Look ma, no platform. Does suburban life count?Maybe for "cozies" and literary fiction.Not so much for other fiction.

Take a look at the Amazon ABNA award finalists.They beat out a HUGE number of competitors, even with a good platform, you need excellent writing to get this far.

check this out

Sucking It Up Yet Again

In January and February I was a submitting dervish--novels, short stories, memoir, agents, editors. So many envelopes trundled off to the P.O. Hope is always rampant (maybe that should be my motto or crest or whatever: hope rampant) that this will be the year, the month, the week, that something good happens.

Well, not yet. The first bad news is that the agent who had the whole novel and nothing but the novel did not accept it. I didn't even get a personal letter or any feedback. Major aggro.

There's still the OTHER novel, the Amazon contest (I fear I didn't double space) and the various short story submissions, and all the dumb born writing I sent into the world.

I read some of The Shadow Warriors today and wondered if that wasn't the best book yet. Sad, mad, bad thought. The writing contains a lot of energy, zaniness. Can you write your heart out and then everything that follows is just empty words? Dunno.

So I'm still trundling along with In Flight, and the plot seems to me to have a hole big enough to shoot a bazooka through and still not touch anything. It's kind of stopped talking to me. The sagging middle. Send in a man with a gun. Oh yeah. Good idea.

Grapeshot, who made her delicous poppy seed lemon cake this morning and wonders if she missed her calling as a cook.

Amazon's Contest, Authonomy, and the Fish Story

Yesterday morning I got my entry up on Amazon's novel contest. Not only did one need the actual book but a pitch, photo, anecdote (mine was pretty anemic) and all that jazz. It was like---work. https://www.createspace.com/abna

I put another book up on Authonomy, but haven't had a chance to participate in the web site. You read my book, I'll read yours, we'll blurb each other and may the best writer win. We'll see.

Finished the robot fish story. Love that fish. It's it crazy how one comes to love one's little characters, even a robot fish. He seems very real to me.

Now it's back to the novel. Poor old Maxine. She hasn't been given her due lately. It's always hard to get back once you leave a manuscript. Speaking of leaving, we taking a few days of R and R in Washington DC. So far no dinner invitation from the Obama's. Hell, I would even make my to die for pork shoulder tacos.

Yesterday I made cookies, and they're incredibly tasty and not too sweet. Recipes have lately become over-laden with sugar and even the cranberry sauce recipe changed the sugar recommendation from one cup (already on the sweetish side) to 1 1/2 cups. Yucko. I bet the grocery stores who are labelling "healthy foods" will not skip the sweet stuff. Overdosing on sugar is not healthy. The low-fat freaks took out the fat and added sugar and salt. What sense does that make?

I lost my favorite glove at Walmart this morning. Already lost a nice red leather pair this winter, and my good fleece baseball cap. So far it's a bad winter for losing clothing. My warm up jacket is also among the missing. Where does all this stuff go?

Up to the kitchen to make some low-cal rice pudding. What could be better on a snowy winter day? High-cal rice pudding, that's what.

Yeah, it's snowing. Again. We put more suet out for the birdies. Writing group cancelled last night. About 13 people, now and we still have to cancel all the time. Major bummer. All this stuff about hardy New Englanders is bull. Other myths: up North they really know how to drive in bad weather, and up North they keep the roads plowed. I am here to witness that neither is true. Sometime I will make a list of lies. Around here at least, the ground hog saw his shadow and I never remember a spring coming in March no matter what. Yet another lie.

Bah humbug.

Grapeshot

Writing and Other Occupations

I haven't been posting as regularly as I might, because I've actually been getting books ready to send out to agents and editors. In other words, not sucking it up quite as much as usual. Takes a lot of time to re-edit an entire manuscript and print it. Staples had a BOGO on paper this week, so now we have a year's supply. We applied to work on the census, and I wrote a press release for my Toastmaster's club. Had a dinner party. Cooked and then cooked some more. Got ready to enter a novel in the Amazon/ABNA contest. The good thing about having novels backed up waiting to sell is that you really stay busy flogging them. (I love Britishisms) .

It's taking more time to manage my so-called "retirement" than I thought. This would be the stuff of an article were I so inclined.

Today I joined Authonomy and put World of Mirrors (first 6 chapters) up on it. These sites where everyone sucks up for votes and comments, comments, comments make me a little nervous, geeky hermit type that, au fond, I am.

Speaking of au fond, I'm working on my fish story again, and finally found the site for the conclusion. Man, this has been work. Poor Francis. He's been through the mill. I do love my characters, even the non-human ones.

Iris, the Scottish Highland Mama has a big gore in her side. I think the gorer was Maggie. They are both somewhat obstreperous, and Iris has been beside herself since her calf was sent away. Don't know what Maggie's problem is. I climb up on the snowbank and throw the scraps over the fence. We buy cheap bread (hard to find nowadays) and feed the ducks on the way home from the store. Can you believe Wonder Bread costs over three dollars? I was appalled at paying $4.00 for a superior loaf of bread, but maybe that's not even a bad price.

Tomorrow, we will again partake of our tradition of having meatloaf for the SuperBowl. Meatloaf is easy to eat if you're watching TV. Doesn't have to be cut, no messy gravy, you know. Is a ritual also a myth? Inquiring minds want to know. Is a tradition a ritual? I know someone who puts the flag up and has a big rigamarole before every Patriots game. Is that a tradition, a ritual or just foolishness?

So, tradition or ritual, meatloaf it is. I'm not making my complicated meatloaf, but the simple one my mother taught me. I use oatmeal instead of cracker crumbs. Chacun a son gout.

I've been searching through my mom's old photographs and looking at the ones from the summer she went to school at Emporia State Teacher's College. Looks like she and her little gang had a wonderful summer. No TV, No electronics, no booze, no smokes, maybe no guys, but the girls had fun. No city and no sex. Probably a curfew. They almost always wore summer dresses. Not too flapperish, but sorta. It is just so hard to put my 21st century self back to 1926. Young Girls in Flower. Proust had it right.

As ever,

Grapeshot

ABNA Finalists

Best of the best. I haven't read anywhere near ALL of the finalists, but these two are the best so far. Great writing. Good stories.


Knocking Over the Fishbowl - Official ABNA Entrant, an Amazon Shortby David Oppegaard (Author)

http://www.davidoppegaard.com/


The Stars Here Are Mostly Planes - Official ABNA Entrant
Author: Sarah Harris

http://pinkyspaperhaus.com/

Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award

In less than a week, I'll know whether World of Mirrors made the first Amazon cut. If it did, I'll be weaseling around and asking friends, fellow-writers and even my wonderful blog readers who are also Amazon customers (is anyone not an Amazon customer?) to sign in, read my first chapter and write a short review. And do tell the truth. If you think it sucks, I need to know that, too.

This is so demeaning, but of course even more demeaning is if the chapter tanked/and or cratered with the reviewer and was rejected. Right now my self-confidence if at the bottom of the storm sewer with last year's leaves and a few old mouse carcasses. You get the idea.

And I have a cold. I never catch colds. I am blaming it on not eating meat for 2 weeks, and missing all that good zinc and B-vitamins.

We had chicken cutlets with tomatos, capers and wine tonight, ripped right out of the food section of today's Boston Globe. Very tasty, and enough for tomorrow. The tomato and parseley looked so cheery, almost like Christmas was back. It's always a shock when everyone takes down the Christmas lights and the night is so dreary again.

Made reservations for Sleuthfest today, and I continue to tweak the beginning of Promiscuous Mode. I decided it didn't have enough tension and conflict for the beginning of a crime fiction novel. Why did I ever start writing crime fiction? I don't even much like to read it anymore, however, I still want to read Sue Grafton's latest. I don't get tired of her. And then there's poor old Proust who I've been dawdling over for 13 months and 772 pages.

My first readings of Proust, I totally missed all the humor. How is that possible? There is a lot of humor, not in the romantic love parts, but in his descriptions of the daily life of the family. Humor enlivens any kind of writing. Humor enlivens life.

Rant alert! Boston is a dirty town, sad to say. The "T" is dirty--people strew newspapers all over. Sullivan Square was filthy. The sidewalk was a continuous garbage can. Disgusting. We came here from Chicago which was, by comparison, squeaky clean. End of rant.

Another warm day, but rainy, and I didn't walk because of my blasted cold. It's almost worse than having a broken ankle. Onward.


Grrrrrapeshot

ABNA jitters

I entered World of Mirrors in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest. Hope to get somewhere with it, but preparing to suck it up as usual. The Amazon contestants message boards are humming. Exceprts from a few novels have been sighted already, although one should by rights not be able to see anything until Jan. 12th.

In another life, I was part of a team that put up an Amazon store. and I know a little bit about the inner workings, actually more than I ever wanted to know. What was weird about Amazon was that they didn't have a test system, which means that once it's out on Amazon it's "live," and I'm wondering if this is what is happening with the novels. We went totally crazy jumping through hoops to create this store. It actually produced plenty of sales, so that was good, but there were always little glitches and returns were hell on wheels. We worked everything out in the end, or almost. I left the company in the nick of time before more hellacious hoops appeared.

These are things I've purged from my memory and my brain. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to collect all the garbage in your head and dump it to make room for stuff you really need to know like where are the car keys and did I send a Christmas card to so-and-so? Current stuff, rather than the name of your 3rd grade teacher (Miss Slack) that is useless information, or old humiliations and things better forgotten.

Of course, for a writer, things better forgotten are just what you want and need to remember, so it works both ways.

Today, Friday, is cat blog day and the cats have done nothing bloggable, so we can dispense with that. The cows are back in the pasture and finding nibblies by the fence. I have a big bag of fruit and veggie scraps for them tomorrow along with the bulk of a loaf of "stuffing" bread. 99 cents, such a deal.

No more robin sightings today, but we bought 25 pounds of thistle seed so bring on the finches and the chicadees!

Grapeshot

Tanked and Cratered

I just adore colorful slang, which I populate all my books with. Speaking of books, Promiscuous Mode pretty much tanked (or was it cratered) in the Gather Crime Novel Contest. Good comments, but not enough, and for some reason, it was rated VERY LOW the first few days, and never made it back up to nine plus. The gossip bird sings that the judges who pick the less popular but perhaps overlooked entries also overlooked or didn't like PM.

Reading the beginning again, I realize that although there is a murder and intimations of sexual misconduct and plenty of sleaze, along with internal conflict, it is still a rather quiet beginning, without a lot of hoo-hah. This obviously doesn't work these days, and I changed the beginning of Festival Madness, but I think it's going to have the same problem. The implication of violence to come. Well, duh, it's a crime novel, isn't it? And there are no LOL moments, either, just a bit of wry humor.

So I am left sucking it up again, and wondering if the Amazon contest will be the same old do-si-do. One would hope for less a popularity contest than Gather, where having lots of "friends" obviously helped. You could tell from the "awesome" and "excellent" comments without any backup, so to speak, that friends were voting. Other comments were insightful, and there were obviously many decent thoughtful writers on board, so perhaps the grapes are just sour. Fruit salad, anyone?

I have to admit that seldom is heard an encouraging word, except from denizens of this household and my writing group, and does that really count? I mean, the writing group loved the novel that cratered on Gather. And I haven't noticed any agents lapping it up, either.

Whatchagonnado?

Grapeshot

Saturday in Town

Up and about early for a trip to Boston. First a stop in Cambridge at the Micro Center where needed a sex change for a computer connection. No luck, which was real luck because today when we actually inspected the back of the computer where everything plugs in, we found that a flash/thumb drive could be plugged in directly.

Next door, at Trader Joe's the red shopping carts were zooming in and out. What a fantastic store! Reasonable priced cheeses! Just think about that. And two flavors of (cheap) Christmas Stollen, fresh from Germany. And desert honey! Again, cheap. Bargain wines, and best of all smoked trout.

Like canned white asparagus, smoked trout has become rare as hen's teeth, but Trade Joe had plenty, and now I can make my Endive with Smoked Trout and herbed cream cheese appetizer for all the parties next weekend. Look here later in the week for the recipe. All you need is smoked trout--the other ingredients are common.

Of course, we could have bought trout at the fish counter and smoked it ourselves, but kids, the temperature outside is 24 degrees and who wants to tend the smoker in that?

We saw the Napoleon exhibit--mostly stuff from the various periods of the Napoleonic age. What was instructive was that decorative objects began as rather simple designs and over the years took on a lots of gilt and furbelows, if you get my drift.

The empire dresses were so cool, esp. a white one with white embroidery. There was also a black with metallic embroidery that was to die for. Josephine's slippers look like a size 4 AAAA. I don't know anyone with such small feet.

In his early years, Napoleon was very fond of the bee as a symbol, which apparently harked back to early French comquerors. Our friend the bee. Maker of honey in a world that didn't yet know sugar, although the sugar beet came along soon thereafter (250 years ago--you do the math). I thought of the rare desert honey in the trunk of the car.

Desert honey is delicous because the dryness of the climate distills the flavors of the flowers to a wonderful essence. So our recent honey trail has been from Gumbo Lindo honey in Boca, to Sour Gum honey in Georgia to desert honey from (we assume) the Sonora.

We had lunch in the cafe at the MFA. The menu tempted with squash soup and various salads and sandwiches. Yours truly had the spinach and crimini quiche with a lovely salad. S.O. had ham and brie on a croissant with watercress and lentils with dried cranberries on the side. Lentils sounded weird but really tasted good. And the proper beverages, of course. Good people watching in the cafe, but Bostonians do dress rather unimaginatively. And drably. No matter what the Globe style sections say. Or maybe the stylish people go where I don't

We trekked back to the burbs for an open house at the artist studios in Stoughton, and I bought a Christmas present. After wine and nuts and conversations, finally back home where the house felt nice and toasty after our being out all day in the frigid wind.

We broke with tradition and ate in front of the TV while watching the Rockettes. Not their best performance, but some of the numbers were all right where they were actually, you know, dancing. They rode around in a city bus too long, and in the baggy Santa costumes their nice legs were out of sight. The best thing was watching when the camera panned to the faces of kids in the audience.

I tended to my Gather emails and worked on Festival Madness a bit. This Gather contest is a pain in the butt. I hate to troll for votes. Some of the entries are quite good--many of them need some editing and most of them aren't really my taste but I can see some good story lines developing.

On Amazon's contest, the chat groups were still causing lots of noise, and you can always see the cliques developing and everyone agreeing with everyone else, or not, and these contests that seemed like a terrific idea 4 weeks ago are now tedious to the max.

Grump. Grump. Bah, humbug.

Hanging in there,

Grapeshot

Amateur Sleuth - Forsooth!

I've been looking through the entries of the Gather/CourtTV/Borders Crime Fiction Contest. There's some pretty good first chapters, and some mediocre ones, as one would expect. I haven't seen anything that was actually bad, yet, but undoubtedly there are a few of those, too.

What has been instructive, is just how "lame" the amateur sleuth catagory really is. This is a bitch of a realization, because I actually write in that catagory. In case you're a newbie to crime fiction, amateur sleuth is one of the many sub-genres. There's police procedurals, private eye, romantic suspense, true crime, and amateur sleuth, in which the person solving the crime is not a professional crime-fighter. Think Miss Marple. Or Jessica Fletcher in "Murder She Wrote," a series that killed off just about everyone in Cabot Cove, forcing Jessica to travel far an wide solving crimes. Every writer knows what the "Cabot Cove" syndrom is.

Any novel forces a suspension of belief. After all, it is a book, a story, and needs to be larger than life, and certainly with a beginning, middle and end or story arc which life doesn't usually offer. But for a person off the street, so to speak, to be solving murders on her own (amatuer sleuths are usually but not always female), takes a big suspension of belief. And book after book, too, for the knitter, or book store owner or potter or herbalist or (fill in any cutesy occupation) to solve crime after crime requires a mega-suspension of belief.

The other disadvantage is that these stories have to be constructed in a certain way, and it's hard to start off with blood and guts or an explosion or car chase or whatever huge event happens in the small town that stymies the local constabulary but not the amateur, no sireee bob.

Many of these series are dropped by the publisher after half a dozen books, as they fail to build substantial readership. Others remain popular, book after book, but this is the exception.

And the genre gets no respect other than at Malice Domestic and from the women (mostly) who scarft down these books like they're popcorn. Ask Otto Penzler about the genre. He disses it big time. MWA seldom deigns to award the coveted "Edgar" to a woman writing about little villages and cats and nosy neighbors. Doesn't happen.

A sleuth who is a reporter, lawyer, repo man, bounty hunter, or some occupation where one might normally come into contact with bad guys is more realistic.

I have written five of these books, much edgier than the little village with cats, but let's face it, a sleuth solving computer crime isn't really going to come into personal contact with many violent guys. Bad yes, but where are the shoot-outs? The car chases? The explosions, for cryin' out loud? Doesn't one have to have explosions? Serial killers? Torture? Ugggh.

And of the five books, I've only sold one, and that was to an e-publisher who went belly up. First one had stupid plot and I put it on the shelf but it actually generated more interest than the others. Three and four haven't sold. Five I'm still tweaking. It has the best plot, but I don't think the little old ladies in Dubuque are going to go ga-ga over it, nor the guys who want blood and guts and mayhem. Note: I do have one explosion and lots of blood. These aren't cozies but my sleuth is definitely amateur when it comes to solving any crime but computer.

So what happens now? Wish I knew. Back to the Gather contest. The best stuff I've read isn't amateur sleuth and I don't think an A.S. will win. Probably won't win the Amazon contest, either. The prize isn't winning, but getting published, and that's seems to be a hard thing, for anyone without a "name" who isn't writing cozy-cozies or thrillers. Merde.

More sucking it up. Sucking it up really sucks, if you know what I mean.

Grapeshot

Let the Fingernail Knawing Begin

The planets are converging or whatever it is that planets do! Entrants in the Amazon/Penguin novel contest are waiting to hear from Amazon today as to whether they qualified! Then the narrowing and winnowing begins. From what I gleaned from the chat group posts, some submissions will be very good and some very bad. The very bad will be very bad because some entrants submitted first drafts or raced to finish a draft or keyed a hand-written submission into the computer, or don't understand that memoir is not fiction--the usual kind of mistakes that call for the clue gun! Miss Snark where are you when we need you?

The contest accepted all kinds of genres except porn, and again, the message boards have provided some amusement. No kids, the F word does not constitue porn, nor does a sex scene or two, depending of course on the scene and the level of gratuity.

A fantastic amount of fantasy and a mega-blast of sci-fi were submitted, or maybe those folks are just more loquatious than the rest of us. What can one really tell from a message board? Some crime fiction found its way into the contest, of course. What I didn't see too much was plain old mainstream fiction or literary fiction. Maybe no one is writing it. Few mentions of chic lit either, but maybe those writers aren't the posting kind. My analytical mind never stops.

The Gather contest deadline was yesterday. Gather/Border/CourtTV contest was strictly Crime Fiction. Post the first chapter. Now I have to do a major suck up and ask friends to join Gather and vote for me. Same with Amazon should I qualify enough to get into the last 500 or 1000 or whatever BIGNUM it is. Hope I have some favors to call in. It is always so humiliating to ask for things like good reviews and 'vote for me.' I remember my shock in 5th grade to find out a girl had actually voted for herself in the class officer election.

Don't worry. I won't ask my blog readers to vote for me. Some things are sacred. BTW, Sarah Weinman talked about Blogging at the writing conference this weekend. She writes THE crime fiction blog with plenty of good links. Just Google Confessions of an Idiosyncratic Mind. Cripes, hope I spelled it write. Suck It Up doesn't tax anyone's spelling ability.

More anon,

Grapeshot

Suck It Up

The Amazon novel contest has a chat group for authors who have submitted an entry and the message boards have been humming. Lots of authors have been writing for years and years without publishing, even those who are journalists and write for a living can't get their novels published. Everyone is looking for the new Dan Brown and they are either looking him/her right in the eye or looking in all the wrong places.

So it is heartening to know I'm not here alone sucking it up, and disheartening to hear all the stories of writing coming to naught. Someone said they just wanted to publish their novel before they died. Of course writers like to kvetch.

My new web site is coming along very nicely, a showcase to promote me and my writing. Seems so egotistical, to spend all this time on BSP. (Blatant Self-Promotion). That's the name of the game. Really an unnatural act to focus on oneself like this.

Ye gods, I wasn't raised to be 'forward.' My mother frowned on forward girls, but that was never my problem, au contraire. The shy slinking violet was more my style.

Have you ever been introduced to someone three or four times and they never remember you? Get the idea? Maybe loud stories of wild board hunting in Russia and downing vodka with the Cossacks. Maybe throw your glass into the fireplace and scream. I don't know. How does one become memorable? Helps to be drop dead gorgeous. Or known to be filthy rich. Rapier wit? Fur coat in July? Dunno. Haven't figured it out yet.

We had another beautiful fall day in New England, more like early October, really, so I put on my Japanese gardening pants and ventured into the yard to pull the frost-killed plants out of their pots to get the pots into the garage before serious damage occured. Only the basil, the begonia and the nasturtiums had actually frozen. Herbs still fine. I harvested a bunch. Icky worms came into the house on the scented geranium. This is not good. Major pruning and spraying indicated. If I find more worms, the plant t will have to be thrust outside to die. I hate to kill plants deliberately.

I made Swiss steak for dinner. Haven't had it for a donkey's age. Pound a piece a round steak on both sides and dredge in seasoned flour. Brown in canola oil. Remove from pan and toss in some sliced onion and a bit of garlic. Cook for a few minutes and toss in some mushrooms. Add the meat back into the skillet and shove the veggies on top. Add a slice tomato if you like, and fresh or dried marjoram is good. Pour 8 oz. of tomato sauce over all, and sprinkle with lots of fresh herbs. Cover and cook in a 350 degree oven for 1 - 1 1/2 hours depending on how tender you require the meat to be.

Serve with mashed potatoes and a green vegetable or salad. Takes a bit of time but few skills are required and it's cheap.

It's not cat blog day but: I asked Thisbe to go into the basement and bring me back a cold Frappuccino. She gave me the strangest look and set her ears at a very odd angle. I swore she understood and was asking, "Me? You want ME to do that? Moi? Surely you jest!"

And she was right, of course. I said it in jest. S.O. brought me the Frappuccino and it was delicious.

Onward,

Grapeshot

Dumbassification

New word for me today: dumbassification. If you don't know what this means, then you are a) reading too many supermarket tabloids, and b) watching too much TV.

This word came to mind when I was cruising the chat group that Amazon formed for the novel contest. Someone wrote to ask if a "rough draft" was O.K.? In a novel contest? That is a decidedly dumbass question. The wags who answered said, "sure, go ahead, submit a rough draft," obviously thinking a dumbass entry that will be disqualified helps their own chances. Well, sure.

Writers do like to bitch and moan. One can immediately see that some of the novelists have never submitted before, and of course, Amazon has 9 single spaced pages of rules, along with some additional ones on the web. But the $25,000 advance from Penguin is sooooo tempting and even thrilling, and also the fact that a real person will read your book if you get into the top 1000 out of 5000 which almost (I better prepare to eat crow) seems like a slam dunk, with memoir, children's books, first drafts and godknowswhat being submitted. Well, bad writing, as well. Making the cut should not be that hard if one isn't tripped up by some little rule, like not having your name on the manuscript. Eeeek! Mine was on the header, and also the title page. Whoops! And of course any book with a word count greater than 175,000 is disqualified. I know of people who have written more words.

My own humble entry, World of Mirrors, was pared down from 116,000 to 97,000 words with lots of hard work and getting rid of a back story, changing the main characters in fact. You are God when you write. You do what you will.

I sent out a bunch of queries and am waiting for an answer from a publisher, but since I have been flogging this book for hmmmm, how many years, now, it seemed a little optimistic to think that any of these feelers would actually evolve into a sale. Started the book in 1996 or a little earlier. How long ago is that? Over ten years. Blood, sweat and tears. (Submissions began the summer of 2004. More than 3 years ago. Why does it seem like longer?)

We're having an anniversary feast at Fava in Needham, which should be ultra-delicous. I don't want to try the T or a long walk in the city for a while with my bum ankle. Insalata Caprese on the deck with the leaves in the slough turning red and woodpeckers and chicadees attacking the suet and goldfinches on the thistle seed. A glass of white wine to wash things down. A leisurely lunch on the deck always means life is good. Dumbass, maybe, but good.

Grapeshot

Colcannon

Colcannon, according to my old Vincent Price cookbook, is a mixture of mashed potatoes, cabbage and onion with gobs of butter and garnished with bacon. We made it tonight, with butter in modest proportions and the leftover turkey kielbasa from the soup a previous night. This is really good--more peasant food, and we had a green salad with it, and I'll scarf down a piece of chocolate before I retire. Yum!

Hobbled out to the garden and picked more tomatoes today. About 6-8 will be ripe in a couple days, enough for some tomato soup. My last "serious" trip to the supermarket was Sept. 19th, before the party, and we've been living on what's in the fridge and the pantry along with a couple of quick strafe's through Shaw's.

Tomorrow we need a serious shopping trip with a list and everything. I'll have to sit in the front of the store while S.O. scurries around and tries to find the right stuff. He is a better shopper than a cook, so should do all right.

Twenty-one more pages of World of Mirrors before I'm done with the last pass. Made 4 more small chapters. I never know if doing basically cosmetic stuff like that will help or not, but it seemed like a necessary thing to do. I'm curious as to how many entrants Amazon has by now. 500? Who knows.

Started a Ridley Pearson book today, and it seemed like it would be a good read. So kids, back to the editing. Have a bang up Friday night.

Grapeshot

Tortilla Soup, Another Peasant Soup

We are on a soup binge. Yesterday Iwas carrying a load of paperwork downstairs, using the big laundry basket to transport everything, and I missed the last step and landed on my ankle. Ouch! Apparently nothing broken, but a bad sprain, so I am hobbling around.

Soup seemed easy enough, with 5 ripe tomatoes staring at me from the kitchen window, and a big can of chicken broth, onion and garlic of course, last weeks still pretty fresh cilantro, corn tortillas in the freezer, and a seen-better-days jalapeno in the fridge. That's all you need. We added sour cream and Mexican cheese and more freshly fried tortillas to eat with the soup. Make a big batch and we have it again tonight, with a salad to use some more of those tomatoes--four more on the window sill and a half dozen in the garden.

When they ripen, they ripen. I'm thinking tomato bread salad for the weekend and some fresh tomato soup. It's the last of the bountiful harvest. It's a long, long time until July when the garden bursts forth again.

Apropos the garden: all the geraniums need to be brought in, and after the first frost, the annuals pulled up. Or do I just do cuttings? Always kind of sad to see the beautiful colors go. I've had such a riot of reds, purples, yellows, orange, pink and every lovely hue all summer.

All my life, summer has been my favorite season, and it still is.

I'm entering the Amazon novel contest--just about ready with the entry, and all the adjutant stuff. Always a lot of work even if you have the novel ready, but is a novel ever ready? One more pass has revealed just a few things that need fixing. I'm sending off World of Mirrors, which has come close to selling a couple times, so maybe it will do well in the contest, although it's not an Oprah kind of novel or a thriller kind of novel. I hope it's a good story that keeps the reader involved. Can we ever ask for more of our books?

Reading Madame Proust and Tell No One. Kind of a schizoid list, even I admit. Finished On the Road. The Mexico stuff was pretty good, but I got so friggin' tired of Dean Moriarty and his women and his disloyalty and his childishness. It's interesting how books affect you depending on your age at reading. Has anyone ever written about this? Good essay topic, but not for today.

Meanwhile, back to World of Mirrors and the manuscript tweaks.

Grapeshot