Congratulations to Sharon Ashwood for her 2011 RWA RITA: UNCHAINED, the third book in her Dark Forgotten series, won for Best Paranormal Romance. Yay, Sharon!
Currently working on: Another round of editing Mood: Determined
Yesterday was Father’s Day, and since romance novels are all about heroes, it seems only right to take an extra day here to mention the first hero many a kid– hopefully — encounters: a father.
From my dad, I inherited enough engineering DNA to make me a plotter rather than a pantser. I got from him a love of deserts (“eroded dirt” as my tree-loving mother calls them) and desserts. He taught me how to catch garter snakes — and taught me to leave them alone. He passed on to me a hefty dose of his sense of humor which I in turn pass to my heroes.
He also gave me good advice over the years, which I’ll share with you:
“Always pursue your dreams, or at some point your dreams will end up pursuing you.”
Inspiring yet mildly menacing, like all the best advice. It contrasts poignantly with the advice a friend got from his father when we were all in our early 20s: “Fergit yer dreams.” (My friend’s dad wasn’t a hick but he was intoxicated at the time of the advice, hence the slurring.) What kind of bitter sorrow drives a man to say such a thing to his son?
“Success will come with patience and persistence.”
This advice made me laugh because my paternal DNA lacks the chromosome for patience. I wish I’d listened anyway. Persistence is probably the more critical component of success, but patience makes the wait more pleasant.
“We love you and will always be here for you. But don’t move back home.” (Paraphrased)
I figure he saw a nature show about the papa bird kicking the baby bird out of the nest. But really, giving his kids the space to spread their wings and the freedom to fall must be a scary moment for a loving father. But then he gets to remodel the empty bedroom into a home office, so it’s probably worth a few sleepless nights.
“The key is to enjoy life while you work to reach your dreams. That way, the path becomes as rewarding as the objective.”
This is advice I struggle to remember every day. Or at least every other day. Once a week, minimum. Enjoy. Work. Dream. Good balance. Thanks, Dad.
Having a loving, supportive, smart, interested father is a great gift. What’s the best advice your dad gave you?
Currently working on: Unpacking Mood: Contemplative
Today is Memorial Day here. Originally intended as a day of remembrance for those who died in the nation’s service, the three-day weekend also gets used for general remembrances of all departed loved ones as well as for an excuse to barbecue various departed farmyard animals. This year, I used the weekend to attend a cousin’s wedding which was cause for many memories as well.
Memory is an interesting thing. Memory is how we attach meaning and relevance and value to moments no longer in our immediate timespace, and yet memory is a highly unreliable standard, influenced by attention, emotion, presupposition and more.
Memory is even more problematic in the hands of a storyteller.
Lots of stories were told this weekend around the wedding. People sharing stories about the bride and groom, sharing stories about what they’ve been up to since the last wedding/funeral, sharing stories about how they met their own life partners. Silly stories, sweet stories, sad stories.
I wonder how many of them were true. Or “truthy.” Or not true but True with a capital T.
As a semi-professional storyteller, I respect the judicious molding of memory into story. XY often bemoans this vocational hazard of mine.
He says, “That’s not how it happened.” (Or so he remembers.)
I say, “But it’s funnier that way.”
Funnier or sweeter or sadder, depending.
It seems odd to me that poppies are associated with Memorial Day since opium is made from poppies and one of the side effects of opium use is memory loss. But maybe the other side effect (at least according to the Romanticists of the later 18th century) of opium — insight — is ultimately more important than mere memory.
For the storyteller, memory and truth work in service to the story. I noticed this technique in many of the stories told this weekend. I could see the technique best when I’d been part of the original event and got to hear the “story-ized” version told to others.
1. Tell it simple.
Life is complicated. (Nothing like wedding planning to prove that.) The story version of life is simpler. Look for unnecessary complications, redundancies and tangents, and eliminate them. In your stories, I mean. Although I might also try this in real life.
2. Tell it “more.”
Make if funnier or sadder or crazier or whatever-ier. Find the “truth” that the story is telling and bring out the threads that lead there.
3. Tell it again.
While it’s painfully inevitable that some people tell the same story to death, I also see that the best stories get honed to a thing of beauty by regular retelling. I think this correlates to the craft of writing on a couple different levels, whether it’s choosing a familiar and well-loved thematic trope during the brainstorming stage or revising for best effect in later drafts.
Next time you’re at a family event hearing the same old same old or eavesdropping at a coffee shop to strangers, listen to the stories being told around you. What makes them interesting? What makes your attention wander? How can you apply those to your storytelling?
Currently working on: Revising
Mood: Hack and slash and burn and pillage
So it’s the week before Valentine’s Day and all the stores are filled with cheap chocolate and expensive flowers, neither of which will last until February 14 if purchased today.
Okay, maybe I’m sounding a little bitter about sweet, sweet love, but that’s because I’m in the midst of revisions. The characters I loved so much in the brainstorming phase, who I struggled and grew with through the hot draft, now inspire my scalding vitriol as I shriek my frustrations at the innocent computer.
In this way, writing is very much like love is very much like butter cookies.
Stay with me here.
Step 1. Butter cookies come from a cookie press, a glorious device I just discovered (thanks to XY for the wonderful Christmas gift). The disc that exudes butter cookie dough is deceptively pure and simple. It looks like this:
That barely even looks like a heart, does it? See how the first stage of butter cookies is very much like the first stage of love and stories? Pure, simple, easily scrubbed, and nothing at all like you’ll have at the end.
Step 2.
Yeah, Step 2 and it’s starting to get a little messy, in butter cookies, love and the story. You learn stuff you didn’t necessarily want to know: that the loved one snores, the characters snore too, oh, and you forgot to put an egg in the cookie dough mix (which, by the way, in case you were wondering, doesn’t substantially alter the butter cookie recipe; mostly makes it a shortbread cookie; yes, this is personal experience talking).
You can live with Step 2, you think. But no process has just two steps…
Step 3. The raw dough of your love — and your story and your butter cookies — has to undergo (dum-da-DUUUMMMM!!!) The Trial By Fire.
Warning: Don’t actually put your butter cookies in a wood-fired oven. You will not be happy with the results; no, this is not personal experience talking (for once), it’s common sense. Which admittedly doesn’t make as good a story but makes better butter cookies.
Your love and your story WILL go through an actual Trial By Fire at some point. No, strike that, not at some point; it will happen when you are at your weakest point, when you can’t possibly stand it, when it’s impossible.
And just as butter cookies stay raw dough without the time and heat of the oven, love and the story will stay soft and unformed and strangely tasteless.
Step 4.
Because despite all the heartache and waiting and the occasional scorched fingers, it’s worth it.
When I’m in Step 3, it’s nice to have a reminder of Step 4. Which is why I’m making the butter cookie press — super fast and convenient! unlike love and writing — my reminder. Because Step 4 — the glass of cold milk, The End, the kiss as the curtains drop — does get here eventually.
And now I can share a bit of Step 4 love with you, in this week before Valentine’s Day. No, not butter cookies. They don’t ship well. (And, yes, I ate them all.) But I do have a festively Valentine’s pink galley (a large-size Advanced Reading Copy without final copy edits or the real cover) to give away.
So if you’d like a chance to win a copy of VOWED IN SHADOWS, Book 3 of the Marked Souls, coming out in April, leave a comment about love or writing or butter cookies. On Valentine’s Day, random.org will help me pick a winner from comments left on any post this week.
Good luck in love, in writing, and in butter cookies!
And Happy New Year!
Or whatever holiday you cherish!
May your days be sparkly and beribboned!
Silk and Shadows is taking a mid-winter break.
We’ll be back with more posts on Monday, January 3.
We’ll be rested and refreshed.
(And, at least in my case, rocking a new workout routine. Sigh.)
Also, congrats to Estella, who won our holiday week contest.
Estella, the caramel sauce is coming your way!
Happy happy holidays, to all our readers.
Thanks for being with us another year!
Currently working on: Book 5 of the Marked Souls
Mood: Under-chocolated
Christmas, New Year’s, winter solstice, lunar eclipse. There’s so much celebration in the next couple of minutes-days-weeks. And to most of it, I’m expected to bring a dessert.
I don’t mind bringing the desserts. That way, I always have something to eat. But when there are so many parties, it’s hard to find the time to make good, tasty, pretty, fun AND EASY desserts.
Which brings me to my new favorite cookie. (Not to be confused with my 8 lb. buckets o’ cookie dough, which are an eternal favorite.)
Peanut Butter Chocolate Kiss Cookies with Caramel Drizzle
My mom made these when I was a kid, but I’d never made them myself. I stumbled upon the recipe scrawled on the back of an envelope tucked in my overflowing dessert recipe notebook and thought I’d give it a whirl.
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
Cream the squishy ingredients (shortening, pb & sugars) then add the liquidy ingredients (egg, milk & vanilla). Then add the dry stuff (flour, baking soda & salt).
The dough comes together super quick. You don’t have to wait for butter to come to room temperature, and the pb, shortening and sugars creams quickly. I like recipes with short oven-pre-warming-to-satisfaction ratios.
Roll the dough into balls. Not too big; I liked when the cookie was just a little bigger than the chocolate. Roll the balls in sugar; I recommend Sugar in the Raw because the big coarse grains look real pretty when they sparkle.
Bake the cookie balls at 375 for 10-12 minutes. My oven runs hot, so I baked at 350 for about 9 minutes and ate the “ruined” test sheet.
After the cookies come out of the oven, press a chocolate into the middle. And this is your secret weapon:
Trader Joe’s semi-sweet chocolate callets
You can use Hershey’s Kisses (unwrapped) or Brach’s chocolate stars, but TJ’s callets are far superior. They taste better, and their wider, thinner, flatter shape means you get a perfect bite of chocolate with each bite of cookies. Yum.
And for the pièce derésistance (that’s French for “piece of chocolate”):
Caramel de Beurre – French Salted Caramel Sauce
In the picture of the finished cookie above, you can see the drizzle of caramel on top. This was my super-secret weapon. The caramel was a nice sweetness against the stronger chocolate, with just a hint of salt to round it all out. And it looked charming!
For my holiday giveaway, I have a jar of caramel sauce (similar to the jar Monster Girl is protecting in the picture here; you’ll have to provide your own cookies). Just leave a comment sometime this week for a chance to win. By the time I mail it out, you’ll be done with your holiday baking and the sauce is yours, all yours!
Currently working on: Page proofs for Vowed in Shadows (April 2011)
Mood: Amused
We got our tree today. Every year, we go to the same farm outside town because they offer butter cookies and hot cider along with every kind of pine tree an ornament could want. Every year, we wander the rows of trees, looking for the “perfect” tree. XY prefers Charlie Brown trees so our perfect is usually spindly and asymmetrical. But once I get the lights, garland, ornaments, and tinsel on… Beauty!
And really, Christmas trees are all about the fragrance for me. Snipping up a few boughs off our Grand fir to release the oils makes the whole house festive. (Baking something with cinnamon doesn’t hurt either.)
This season is a festival for all the senses. Between the sights and smells of decorating the trees, the taste of the peppermint bark I snack on while working (thanks for the reminder last week, Annette, of how much I love peppermint bark), and the touch of velvet ribbon and cool glass ornaments, I have to have my seasonal music.
This is one of the few times of the year I commandeer the stereo from XY and blast the carols and Bing Crosby. Everybody knows the tinsel won’t hang straight without TransSiberian Orchestra’s awesome instrumentals cranked to 9. This year, my mom sent me one of my favorite musical pieces.
It made the viral video rounds, but in case you missed it, I think this flash mob perfectly embodies the spirit of the season, when it comes out of nowhere (nowhere, in this case, being the food court at a crowded mall), smacks you upside the head with a wall of beautiful sound, and reminds you what it’s all about. Enjoy!
Have you ever participated in a flash mob? The whole idea just makes me grin. I think I’d like to take part in one, just to see everybody’s expression go from bewildered to delighted.
Christmas is my favorite time of year. I love everything about it, even the feverish shopping sprees. But there are few things I put high on the Treasured Items list:
1. Attending my daughter’s Christmas concert. She plays the flute in her school band, and I love listening to her (and the rest of the band!) play. Nothing like Christmas carols rendered by an 80 piece orchestra.
2. Seeing my dog and cat cozied up together. In the summer months they rarely hang out together, but when it gets cold, they snuggle.
3. Family get-togethers and eating my brother-in-law’s deep fried turkey. I love the usual stuffed turkey with gravy, but since my BIL started deep frying the bird, I’ve become a convert. Crispy on the outside, juicy on the inside. It’s to-die-for.
4. Ghirardelli Peppermint Bark. I’ve already eaten two bags of these and it’s barely December. Part of the appeal is that it’s a limited edition chocolate available only at Christmas. Must eat before they are gone!
5. A festive house. The lights, the carols, the smell of warm gingerbread. It’s all fabulous. Naturally, I own a LOT of Christmas decorations. Boxes and boxes and boxes of them. But I sooo enjoy seeing the house decked in holiday cheer. It never fails to make me smile.
When I was growing up my mother hung glass toadstools on our tree. She got them (and numerous other hand blown glass ornaments) when our military family was posted to Germany. One year I spotted these in a store and just had to have them for MY tree.
How about you? Do you have a Christmas decoration that evokes special memories?
The first Christmas lights are up in my neighborhood! When we walked Monster Girl in the coldrainydarkOMGwhowantedtogetadog tonight, one house had an illuminated candy cane lane running to the front door. The big picture window blazed with one of those miniature Christmas villages that make me want to shrink myself down to the size of a silverfish and scuttle through the fake-snow streets.
(I imagine a human-sized silverfish scuttling through the sleepy little village would terrify the carolers and the kid on the sled, but it’s a small price to pay for living in the Land that Christmas Never Forgot.)
This season brings out the kid in a lot of us, I think. The promise of gifts is part of it, of course. Also wearing big puffy coats and pants that make me walk like a snowman inspires seasonal cheer.
But now that I have to CREATE the holidays instead of just revel in them, it can get hard to maintain that child-like wonder. For example, I’m making jewelry for gifts this year and apparently a bead store vomited all over my workspace:
Hmm, looking at this, I realize this is a good visual representation of my creative mind: Pull out everything, scatter it everywhere, see what fits together. Vacuum leftovers. Repeat.
But being creative, creating the holidays, comes with a cost. Much like the marauding silverfish. In the case of beading, I usually shed at least a few drops of blood and the scars linger for days. See:
The combination of sharp wire, sharper Swarovski crystals, Superglue, and black thread (not all for the same project) is etched in my skin, despite multiple showers. What we suffer for our art.
That’s the thing I didn’t get as a kid, that a lot of work went on behind the scenes to create the fantasies that delighted me.
But learning the coldrainydark truth — that somebody expended effort, love and blood to create — doesn’t ruin the fantasy. I’ll just take a moment to pause in my busy night and appreciate how the lights twinkle.
Got any tips for enjoying the holidays with kid-like abandon? Please share.
And check back here at Silk And Shadows. Marjorie Liu — eeee! — will be guest posting with us later in the week and giving away a copy of her latest Dirk & Steele book, IN THE DARK OF DREAMS.
First of all, today is Memorial Day here in the USA. I hope everyone celebrating has a good BBQ, safe travels, and a chance for a quiet moment of remembrance.
Currently working on: Almost release day!
Mood: Whee!
This week’s topic here at Silk And Shadows is “the hardest part of writing.” But I’m hijacking the thread, because this is a celebration week for me. Book 2 of the Marked Souls, FORGED OF SHADOWS, comes out tomorrow, June 1, 2010!
The war between good and evil has raged for millennia, with the Marked Souls caught in the middle, but the new girl doesn’t play by old rules…
Liam Niall never meant to be a leader. Barely surviving the horrors of the Irish Potato Famine with body and soul intact, he escaped to Chicago…where he lost half his soul and gained a wayward band of demon-possessed warriors. Now, as the talyan face a morphing evil, Liam grows weary and plagued by doubt-until a new weapon falls into his hands. Her name is Jilly Chan. To save her demon-ridden soul, Liam must win her to his battle…and his bed.
Waging a one-woman war against the threats to the street kids she mentors, Jilly won’t be any man’s woman or weapon. But Liam-with his hard eyes, soft brogue and compelling hands-is a danger to her rebellious independence…and her heart.
These two halved souls sharing one fierce passion will sear a fresh scar across the city. Who’s in danger now?
“[F]or readers who love J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood, the Marked Souls series will hit the spot.”
–4 Stars RT BOOKReviews
This is only my second book, but so far, it seems to me that release week is one of the EASIEST parts of writing. Because by the time release week rolls around, it’s too damn late. Everything has been done. The story is written, edited, wrapped in a manly chest — or backside, as the case may be — printed, and shipped to the stores (hopefully) to appear on shelves. From thence to fall into book baskets everywhere (again, hopefully).
Sure, there are other things for me to do: Bite my nails, obsessively click refresh on the Amazon ranking page, self-medicate with chocolate syrup (I already ate all the cookie dough). But the story itself is done. All that remains is for someone, somewhere, to read it.
This is the moment (okay, months) of truth for a story. I’ve heard of writers who say they write for themselves, but I write to share. The release of the book into the wild is my chance — finally! — to share.
I sincerely hope you like it.
Tocelebrate, I’m giving away a $25 bookstore gift card this week. Just tell me which of the two beginnings to FORGED OF SHADOWS that I posted in the links above you like better, and you’ll be entered for a chance to win. Tell a friend about this giveaway, and have the friend enter your name in her comment, and you’ll both be double entered for a chance to win. Thanks for celebrating with me!
Currently working on: Unearthing the revised Book 3 from the rotting corpse of Book 3 — phoenix, arise!
Mood: Frankenstein-esque
It’s Valentine’s week. If you haven’t signed up for the Silk And Shadows newsletter (look to the left side of the page) today’s the day. Our next newsletter goes out soon and there are Valentine’s giveaways to be won.
And speaking of Valentine’s… Will I be drummed out of the romance lovers’ league if I say aloud that I think Valentine’s Day is a crock? In college, some women in my dorm donned black armbands on Valentine’s Day, and I wore one in solidarity. One of my roommates (who, yes, had a boyfriend with whom she had a lovely relationship judging from the late-night noises coming from the bunk across the very tiny room) accused me of being bitter and jealous nerd. I said, Duh.
But it seems to me that many of the traditions of Valentine’s don’t feel like any romance I’d want to have. Roses wither in a disturbingly short period of time. The milk chocolate bon-bons pushed on us are a poor, cheap substitute for the real deal. At least there’re sparkly diamonds… Except now we’re told diamonds are just the blood-soaked refuse of terrible Third World conflict.
What’s a girl to do?
Besides read a romance novel, I mean.
What I learned from romance novels that Valentine’s Day got wrong:
1. Love is not a one-day affair. Indeed not. Love is at least a week-long affair with a Sicilian billionaire. Or maybe an eternity with a vampire prince. But definitely not a mere 24 hours in February.
2. Love means having to say… lots.
Words are the measure of the man. Backed up with action, of course. Lots and lots of hot action. But I want more words than fit on 5×7 cardstock even if it has a glittered butterfly and embossed heart. Somewhere between 200-400 pages of words should just about do it.
3. Love is sacrifice. This one Valentine’s Day got right. According to the story, Valentine was a saint who martyred himself for lovers. Romance novels are all about the sacrifice the lovers make to be together. They give up their loneliness, their distrust, their prejudices, even though sometimes giving up their lives would’ve felt easier. And at the end, they don’t always get flowers and chocolate and sparkly jewelry, the love is a given.
Do you have a Valentine’s tradition that you adore? Feel free to create one. We write our own stories here.
Other Posts by Jessa Slade 
And now I can share a bit of Step 4 love with you, in this week before Valentine’s Day. No, not butter cookies. They don’t ship well. (And, yes, I ate them all.) But I do have a festively Valentine’s pink galley (a large-size Advanced Reading Copy without final copy edits or the real cover) to give away.
Peanut Butter Chocolate Kiss Cookies with Caramel Drizzle
Caramel de Beurre – French Salted Caramel Sauce
Hmm, looking at this, I realize this is a good visual representation of my creative mind: Pull out everything, scatter it everywhere, see what fits together. Vacuum leftovers. Repeat.
The combination of sharp wire, sharper Swarovski crystals, Superglue, and black thread (not all for the same project) is etched in my skin, despite multiple showers. What we suffer for our art.
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