Dayle’s Version of Thai Soup, More or Less

Some of you asked for the Thai soup recipe I mentioned here, and it made me laugh and laugh. Do you know me? I’m the one who doesn’t cook. I just flail about in the kitchen trying not to poison anyone. I don’t like recipes. Recipes are like rules, and I really hate rules unless I understand their underlying purpose. (See, e.g., (a) why I don’t like Regency romances and (b) why I feel the need to research the history of any ritual.)

This may explain why it just took me 10 minutes to figure out where I’d saved this recipe on the computer.

This is cobbled together from several recipes I found online,* with my own preferences clearly noted. All amounts are arbitrary.

Dayle’s Version of Thai Soup, More or Less

Ingredients

• 2 containers of that organic vegetable stock. The rectangular cardboard kind, not the cans. You could use chicken stock, too, from the cardboard thingies. Or you could make your own stock.
• 1–2 stalks of lemongrass. The original recipes say to mince them, but I hate hate hate accidentally chomping down on an unchewable piece of lemongrass. So I treat them kind of like bay leaves: I whack them in half, and leave them floating in the soup, and throw them out towards the end when they start to get in the way and annoy me.
• 1–2 tsp chili sauce. I think I used at least 2½ tsp, and it was marginally hot for me. Ken liked it. He doesn’t like things as spicy as I do. I’d probably use 3 tsp if I made it when he was out of town.
• 1 tsp curry powder. Or more, if you like it.
• 4 cloves garlic, minced. Or more. I love garlic. Mmm, garlic.
• 2 cups cabbage. Or more. I’m fond of cabbage.
• green onion. I like green onion, too, so I’ll throw a goodly amount in.
• tomatoes. Chop one or two up and throw them in, to your taste.
• 1 can coconut milk.
• 3–4 Tbsp soy sauce.
• 1–2 Tbsp fish sauce, if you like it. Note: Do not grab the fish sauce when you’re putting in the soy sauce, or the final product will be rather salty. It was still edible and didn’t bother me much, but it might be too much for you. So remember, the fish sauce bottle and the soy sauce bottle look different, and you should pay attention to them.
• 2–3 Tbsp lime juice. The original recipes said fresh-squeezed, but damn those limes are wee and don’t give much juice. The hell with that.
• ½ cup fresh basil, roughly chopped.
• 1/3 cup fresh cilantro, roughly chopped. Don’t add this if you think cilantro tastes like soap, like Morgana does. I like cilantro, so I add it unless I think I’ll be inviting Morgana over to dinner. But why do they sell cilantro in such huge bunches? No matter how hard I try, I can never use it up before it gets all slimy.
• The original recipes called for mushrooms, and if you know me, you can visualize me shuddering in disgust now.
• shrimp. I love me some shrimps. I couldn’t have them during the cleanse, but I’ll add them now. Quantity is unknown due to lack of experimentation. I also wouldn't add shrimp if Morgana was coming to dinner. But I might add chicken.
• tofu. See shrimp. I wonder if I should fry it up first? No idea.
• cauliflower.** Since I couldn’t have shrimp or tofu during the cleanse, I steamed some cauliflower and threw it in, and it was yummy. I don’t know how much I used. Don’t say I didn’t warn you re: not liking recipes and rules.

Directions

• Pour the veggie/chicken stock into a big pot. Add the lemongrass, lime juice, chili, garlic, and green onion. (If you’re like me, you’ll space and add the coconut milk and other liquids here. Not sure why you’re not supposed to, except maybe you’re not supposed to boil the milk. I dunno.) Bring to a boil and continue boiling for 5 minutes, “or until broth is fragrant.” I have no freaking clue what that last part means. It was smelling pretty damn good all along. If you're like me, you'll use this time to frantically chop everything else.
• Add the cabbage and tomatoes, and probably things like mushrooms and shrimp and tofu and cauliflower. I didn’t cobble this together in a coherent fashion, okay? Gently simmer 1–2 more minutes (cabbage should remain on the crisp side, and not go over to the Dark Side. Which is a good rule of life, really.).
• Reduce heat to low and add the coconut milk, soy sauce, fish sauce, and lime juice, unless you were like me and automatically added them earlier.
• Taste it. If it’s not spicy enough, add more chili sauce. If it’s not salty enough (really?), add more soy sauce or fish sauce or a stock cube/powder or salt. If it’s too salty or sweet, add more lime juice. I’m not holding your hand through this, okay?
• Ladle the soup into bowls and sprinkle with the basil and cilantro. Or, if you’re lazy like me, you’ll just throw the basil and cilantro in towards the end. Presentation is for wusses. Just give me my soup.  ::clutches bowl close to chest, slurps, makes omnomnom noises::

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*This is my usual way of finding things to make. I go online and search various websites, and copy several versions of what I want, and then sort of randomly cobble them together into a Word document. My oatmeal chocolate chip cookie recipe (which can also be an oatmeal cranberry cookie recipe) is three different recipes on the same piece of paper. Each time I make them, I try to remember which bits from which recipe I used. So they’re never the same twice. Fun!

**Thank goodness for spell check, because apparently I don’t know how to spell this.

Flash me, baby

I have a rather naughty piece of flash fiction up today at Alison Tyler's blog... 

The lion eschews the fattier wildebeest, or so I'm told

Ye gods, I haven’t really done a proper journal entry here since…July? July is when I remember everything ramping up and then tumbling over like a big ol’ snowball at the top of a mountain, rolling and gaining momentum and size. Pretty much all of it has been good—some of it’s been great—but being busy means stuff seems to fall by the wayside, and that’s bad.

So I’m just going to pick a topic and ramble about it, and hope for the best.  :-)  Let’s go with health.

Towards the end of August, I did a three-week nutritional cleanse through my chiropractor’s office (they’re also licensed nutritionists). Basically, this involved two protein shakes a day, plus food (week one was largely a raw foods diets, week two added steamed veggies/soup, and week three I got to have fish, nuts, and seeds). The goal was to clean out my liver and colon and basically detox my body from the years of processed crap I’ve been shoveling into it. As a side benefit, I wanted to lose a little weight—this wasn’t about losing weight per se, but about getting healthy, but I know that when I start any sort of healthy eating/exercise program, if I don’t see near-immediate results, I get discouraged. Stupid, yes, but it’s how my brain works. So I wanted to do this as a jump-start to being a healthier person.

Was it a success? Overall, yes. I had some setbacks, such as having to rescue Ken from Gila Bend, AZ, just as week two was about to start, which meant not really being able to have shakes and raw foods while driving 7 hours each way towing a bike trailer (because if I were following the plan, I would’ve had to stopped at least once an hour to pee, and when you’re towing a trailer through the desert, finding places you can (a) park in such a way that you don’t have to back up and (b) find an actual place to pee are few and far between). Also…how can I put this delicately? My colon really needed to cleanse, and that made it difficult to exercise every day (where exercise =  more than running to the bathroom on a regular basis).

The hardest part for me was timing. People…food prep takes a hell of a lot of time. I felt like I was spending all my time prepping food, eating food, and doing dishes. (I wasn’t creating a lot of dishes, especially in the beginning, because I wasn’t “cooking,” but I was using the same dishes over and over again, necessitating they be clean for the next session).

But I have to admit, if somewhat reluctantly because it would be nice to go back to throwing a frozen dinner into the microwave for breakfast every morning, I feel better. Dammit, I do.

Now, I need to get on my wee little soapbox here for a moment. I have a problem with the word “diet” in terms of how it’s usually used nowadays. “Diet” is supposed to mean “what you eat.” It does not mean “what you don’t eat.” As in, “the diet of the lion on the Serengeti is gazelle,” not “the lion eschews the fattier wildebeest.” “Diet” is not something you do for a specific span of time to lose weight (which is why I don’t refer to the cleanse as a “diet”). “Diet” is what you eat.

::climbs down off soapbox::  I do realize and acknowledge that when you’re discussing what you eat, you really can’t not discuss what you don’t eat—because sometimes it’s easier. Whether for your brain or for discussion purposes, sometimes you have to say “I don’t eat X.” My point is that I’m not on a diet. I’ve changed my eating habits, and my goal is to have changed them permanently.

To that end, I’m continuing to focus on making veggies and fruit the staples of my diet, with lean meat and other protein included as desired. (I’m also continuing to do one shake a day.) We were never much for eating tons of beef anyway (we use ground turkey for pretty much anything calling for ground beef), so that’s fine on occasion, as is whatever other meat I want. I have no desire to go vegetarian, so I’m-a gonna eat my chicken and fish and enjoy it very much. I’m keeping an eye on dairy—I missed it during the cleanse, but now and again it’s a quite fine thing indeed. Ditto refined sugar—a lemon wafer or a square of dark chocolate really does satisfy me. However, white bread, white pasta, potatoes are right out. Good thing I love brown rice and multigrain pasta, and I’m kinda looking forward to trying out other grains.

And that, my peeps, is about all I’m going to say about the matter. No soapboxes about how awful processed food or refined sugar is. This is my choice, my life. I don’t proselytize about what you should eat or not eat, and I’ll do my best to not be the difficult-to-feed person everyone hates to invite over. If you have questions, groovy, and I’m delighted to answer them; but otherwise, I’m off to make some of that incredibly awesome Thai coconut soup I’ve learned how to make. Omnomnom!

Retro Spec launch party

Anyone need a good workout?

My trainer’s moving back to the area! Huzzah! Even better, she’s going to be flying solo and starting her own business, rather than working through a gym—so her rates are fantastic. She’d like to get a boot-camp class (5 or more people) going on Tuesdays and Thursdays; each session would be a mere $15 (I believe for an hour; I can check on that).

Anyone interested? Please let me know! We don’t have 5 people yet and I really can’t afford many sessions unless we can get a few more folks.

Katrina is a fantastic trainer who will whip you into shape. She’s the main reason I lost 20 lbs a couple of years ago (and her leaving was the main reason I gained ‘em all back…).

Book View Café Publishes Benefit Anthology for Gulf Relief

Book View Café has launched their benefit anthology, Breaking Waves. All proceeds from the sale of this book will go to the Gulf Coast Oil Spill Relief Fund of the Greater New Orleans Foundation.

The collection features over thirty stories by a wide range of best-selling and award-winning authors, including a previously-unpublished poem from Nebula and Hugo award-winner Ursula K. Le Guin, as well as a chapter from Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking book The Sea Around Us. Authors contributing stories of environmental rescue and recovery include Vonda N. McIntyre, Judith Tarr, Deborah Ross, Sarah Monette, David D. Levine, David Gessner, and Lyda Morehouse, among others. Tiffany Trent and Phyllis Irene Radford edited the collection.

The book is available in epub, pdf, mobi, and prc formats in the Book View Café bookstore and will be coming to the Kindle store soon.

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Okay, so why am I mentioning this here? Well, obviously, it's a benefit I believe in, and obviously, there are some major names in this book, so you know it's gotta be good.

But there's another thing.

I'm in it.

Wait. Because I'm still reeling in shock, I have to repeat that. I have stories in this anthology, too.

HolycrapI'minananthologywithUrsulaK.LeGuinandVondaN.McIntyreandJudithTarrandKristineKathrynRuschandIamsoooonotworthy!

Not only that, but I sent them two stories, figuring they'd pick the one they preferred...and they took both of them. I think I'm the only person with two stories in there: A reprint of "The Power to Change the Shape of the Land" (originally in Sword & Sorceress XVI) and a new (older) story called "I Sing a Song of Mourning." (Also known as, the two stories with the longest titles I've come up with.) Both are fantasy, for those of you who eschew the steamier side of fiction.

Please buy a copy, folks. If not for my stories, then for all the other amazing ones in there (look at that TOC!), and for the Gulf. Thanks!

Recommended Reading, July–August

I’m thinking of starting a semi-regular post here (ideally once a month, but it could easily slip) recommending things (books, short stories, possibly even non-fiction) I’ve read and thought were awesome. Of course, I’d love to know if anyone reading this would be remotely interested in something like that…  :-)

I want to make something clear from the outset: I am not a reviewer. I will not be reviewing books. I’m a writer; my job is to write. If I were a reviewer, then I would be honor-bound to talk about things I didn’t like as well as things I liked. I will not do that, at least not in a public forum. I may talk privately (and by that I mean conversation; I’m leery even of e-mails, which can be forwarded) about a book that I personally thought failed. (For example, there’s an award-winning book that I still intend to try again to read, because I want to understand why it’s award-winning, that some of you have heard me rant about because certain details are insanely wrong and I threw the book across the room on my first attempt to read it.) The bottom line is that these are my colleagues, these are people I work with even if I never meet them or engage directly with them in some form. I give them the respect I would hope they give me, as a fellow colleague and writer.

So what this is, is stuff I’ve read that I think you should read because I loved it. If you don’t want to read it, groovy. It may not be to your taste. I’ll try to explain why I liked it. That’s all.

‘kay? ‘kay. Onwards! Here’s what got me fired up in July and August:

“Fair Ladies,” Theodora Goss, Apex Online. Strangely, I had to look this one back up to remember why I loved it. And I was drawn in once again…. Theodora Goss has a way of writing stories that you just believe happened; her details are…believable is the best word I can come up with. It’s a story about a person, and about a country. That’s a difficult balance to achieve; usually stories are small or big, but this one manages to be both.

Arcadia Falls, Carol Goodman. I’ve made my adoration for Carol Goodman’s books clear here, I think. Are they all perfect? No. I’ve loved some more than others. But they all are the type of book I love, and are hard to find. They’re Gothics in the sense of isolation, of thick atmosphere, of mystery, of dread. One might call them supernatural mysteries now, but labels, blah blah blah. Arcadia Falls takes place in upstate NY, not quite as upstate as where I grew up, but close enough to be familiar. I suspect I loved this one for its Arts and Crafts cottage as much as its atmosphere and slowly unfolding truth about the past. Goodman has tread these themes before, to the point that I was figuring things out before I was intended to. But this is the type of book where the journey, for me, is more sweet that the goal. Just because I figured out the secret doesn’t make the immersion into the place and people less compelling. I’ve been reading Goodman’s books from the library, and I think I need to buy them for my own library so I can indulge again and again.

Rosemary and Rue, Seanan McGuire. I read a fair amount of urban fantasy, and while I enjoy it, it’s the type of thing that rarely stays with me. It was a fun ride, but once I’ve finished the book, I don’t remember the characters; in other words, I wasn’t invested in them as real people. (That’s not a negative, per se: the same is true for thrillers. I’m reading them for the wild ride, not for the lasting impact, and that’s okay.) So I was surprise when Rosemary and Rue proceeded to rock my world. I believed in October (Toby) Daye, I liked her, and I cared about her. McGuire doesn’t make things easy for her character; in fact, I gasped more than once at how much shit she put Toby through. Although I knew, given the genre, that Toby would be alive at the end, that didn’t at all mean that Toby wouldn’t be damaged and irrevocably changed by the end. Hell, that happens in the first few pages—and that’s not a spoiler, just an acknowledgement that this book will grab you by the throat from the get-go and not let you off the roller coaster until the end. This series is now on my automatic To Buy list.

Bite Me, Parker Blue. I was pondering a Kindle, and my friend Shanna offered to loan me hers, as it wasn’t thrilling her the way she wanted it to. One of the books she had on it was Bite Me, and it was, of the options, the most interesting-sounding, so I started reading it in bits and snippets when I wasn’t reading everything else that’s piled around here. What I found was that I kept finding excuses to pick up the Kindle and read more (which proved to be a major point in favor for the Kindle, as it was easy to throw in my purse or carry around the house). I’m not a fan of vampire books per se; I’m not against them, but I don’t seek them about because so many of them are been-there-done-that or just outright twee. The heroine of Bite Me is very Buffy-esque (and I loved Buffy, so I was wary), but without the support network Buffy builds around her. Oh, Val starts building that network—my favorite is her hellhound, Fang (you’ve gotta read the book to experience the wonderful snark of Fang, truly!), but she’s young and nervous the way you’d expect and believe a Young Adult heroine to be, even if she’s a vampire slayer. Among other things….

Absolutely safe for work

For those of you who mutter about the fact that all my stories have sex in them, I’m delighted to report that you can now order Retro Spec: Tales of Fantasy and Nostalgia, which contains my fantasy (not erotica, fantasy) story “The Devil Went Down to the Sunset Strip.”

It’s funny. It’s about hair metal bands. What’s not to love?

Just ask the damn question!

The very charming Lisabet Sarai hosted me today at her blog, in which I answer The Question Nobody Asks (But I Wish They Would!).

Can you resist going there and leaving a comment? If you can, don’t tell me, for it will make me weep. Otherwise, see you there!

I saw her today at the reception

Would anyone local like to go to the Writers and Illustrators of the Future Contests awards ceremony and reception on Saturday, August 28? Lots of big-name SFF writers will be there. Did I mention it’s free?

Ken will be out of town so I need a ride and a date.  :-)

There’s also a book signing in Pasadena the next day, although I don’t have details about that as yet.

Pop me an e-mail if you're interested!

A peek inside my brain

Projects I have worked on today (in no particular order):

• continued "quick" read-through of What Beck’ning Ghost (originally completed in 1993 to refresh memory of romantic arc so I can tweak the proposal before sending it out
• phone confab with artist I’ve offered to manage, followed up by an e-mail and some research
• e-mail confab with friend who’s in LA this coming weekend; we’re picking her up from LAX on Friday, spending the day with her and maybe hitting a museum, etc.
• changed hotel reservation for Crown Tournament this weekend (from just Saturday to Friday and Saturday); updated Best Western Rewards Club membership
• made packing list for Crown Tournament and noted things I need to do in preparation for meetings with people there
• back-and-forth phone and e-mail confabs with multiple people about buying Styx tickets tomorrow morning
• phone call to the gentleman making a pair of objets d’art (of a sort) for us—received good news!
• many varied e-mails about writing stuff and goodness knows what else
• watered Eostre (with Morgana's able assistance)
• pondered flights for September (Plattsburgh) and October (Oregon, Florida)
• other things I've no doubt already forgotten

Popcorn kittens, anyone?!

I wish I may, I wish I might...

The always-delightful Alison Tyler interviewed me for her Alison’s Wonderland blog, and you can read it here. I talk about my top three wishes and how I came up with the idea for “The Broken Fiddle,” among other things, and she makes me blush by saying nice things about me.

Also, if you comment on my interview there, you could win a prize. But I’m sure you really want to go there just to find out my answer to the question “Which fairy tale character would you most like to do and why?”

Research help needed!

A friend’s mom has been researching Anne Hughes’ diary for about 20 years, and wonders if there are any sources here in the US to help in identifying photos of two American servicemen.

Where does one go for info on old military photos from WWII? The VA? Does the military keep an historical archive, and if so, whom would be the contact?

This isn’t a time period I’m familiar researching (although I’m going to need to soon for a novel idea I want to pursue), so I’m throwing myself on your collective mercies! Power of the the Internet…activate!


Edited to add: My friend's mom is in the UK, so she'll need e-mail addresses, web links, or phone numbers for places to contact. Thanks!

Blink, blink

[I wrote this part last night, after watching Styx videos with Sara, who was visiting from Phoenix.]

Home from three Styx concerts, which included lifetime numbers 99 through 101. That’s right, I hit my 100^th show…and it was in Ventura, in my own backyard. At the last minute I pulled a completely unexpected front-row ticket to the Orange County Fair show the night before the Ventura County Fair show. I must’ve cashed in a hell of a lot of karma points for that one.

I feel very loved.

I am also rather drunk. Spelling is optional.*

[And this is today.]

It’s 8 p.m.; I got back about fifteen minutes ago from taking Sara to the airport. I’m tired, suffering from Post-Concert Depression (enhanced by the fact that I don’t know when my next concert will be), missing Ken (he’s running a rally and then going to an IBR meet-up), and blinking in confusion and despair at all the things that need doing… Where to start? Concert write-ups, laundry, e-mail, blogs, cat boxes, dishes, writing, general house tidying…

Maybe I’ll just have a glass of wine and go to bed, and pretend it’ll all be miraculously done tomorrow and I’m really about to go on the road for more shows!

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*Spelling was, in fact, optional, and it took me forever to type those paragraphs because I kept screwing things up and having to fix them.  ;-)

Tommy Shaw, Ventura County Fair, 8/7/10

Photo by Ken

By the way…

I’m sorry this has turned into a writing blog; I know there are lots of you out there who’d want to hear what else I’ve been up to. I have a bunch of half-finished posts about our trip, Meg’s visit, etc., but I’ve been too busy to actually finish them and clean them up and post them.

My goal is to have a new one up tonight, because it involves an overdue thank-you, but I have a short story to finish first… Stay tuned!

Cooking questions

I’m planning on making a vat of spaghetti sauce in the slow cooker, and I have a basic recipe cobbled from various ones in the Internet. I want to include a bunch of pureed veggies so it’s even healthier; from what I’ve read, you can’t even taste them.

My question is this: How do I prepare the veggies in order to puree them? Steam them?

Or, since I don’t like cooked tomato chunks, should I just toss in the veggies at the beginning of the slow-cooking process and puree the whole mess at some point? If I do that, at what point in the process would I do it? Because I’d still like some onion chunks, so I'd have to add them later, and I’d need to add the ground meat early enough to get the sauce flavors into the meat.

The potential veggies in question are broccoli, carrots, spinach, green or yellow peppers, and squash (not sure what kind—thoughts?).

Suggestions for other are welcome as well. Thanks!

Party on the high seas!

There are times in your writing career when you feel unworthy. You’ve been plodding along, things are slowly moving forward, and then someone includes in you in a list of “legendary erotica heavy-hitters” and you look around wondering who behind you they’re pointing at.

I’m having another one of those moments.

I’ve been invited to be an instructor on a writing cruise!

(That sentence really needs about a bazillion exclamation points!)

It took me about zero point two seconds to say yes. After I picked my jaw up off the ground.

So, in October 2011, I’ll be hopping on a cruise ship to Mexico and teaching writing (I’m doing a two-hour session on romance and erotica and whatever else folks want to hear me ramble about) along with Kris and Dean (the Kris & Dean Show is worth the price of admission!) and Chris and Steve York (not sure what they’ll be teaching yet) and Michael Bellomo (nonfiction).

The details I already have are below, in case you might be interested. Seriously, the cost is less than RWA (yes, it’s shorter than RWA and has fewer classes, but you’ll be on a cruise ship!)—if I weren’t teaching, I might be tempted to go just because it’s such an amazing deal!

Hmm…time to start working out so I can look hot in a bikini!

<><><><>

Scribes at Sea

Cruise: Long Beach, CA, to Ensenada, Mexico

Dates: October 28–31*, 2011

Cost–Cruise: starts at $327 per person (includes port fees, tax, food, lodging, shows), based on double occupancy. At least one person per cabin must be signed up for the workshops. (So bring your spouse! Or not your spouse! Heehee.)

Cost–Workshops: $400 for four workshops

Ship: The Carnival Paradise (That’s right, Styx fans: I’m cruising on the Paradise—because that isn’t deliciously ironic, is it?!)

Cruise Booking: Contact Loreene Orgoralini, Can I Go Too? Travel, loreene@canigotoo.com. Reference “Scribes at Sea.” $100 per person deposit is due at booking; the rest isn’t due until June 2011.

Workshop Booking: Contact Dottie Papin, dpapin9421@gmail.com. $50 due at registration. Payment plans available with final payment due June 2011.

More info as I get it!

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*It is also not lost on me that the last day is Halloween. I may have to bring my pirate costume.

New sexy cover for Got a Minute!

Ooh! Got a Minute?: 60 Second Erotica has a new sexy cover!

Released!

July has been a stellar month so far, because I’m so very proud of my erotic fairy tales in Alison’s Wonderland and Fairy Tale Lust. But the month’s not over yet, and I have two more releases to announce!

“Lost and Found” appears in Lesbian Lust: Erotic Stories, edited by Sacchi Green. We’ve all had vacations that go bad, especially when our luggage doesn’t arrive. For Lara, it was a working vacation in Hawaii, but she planned to sneak out at least once to take surfing lessons from a sloe-eyed, sultry native. Kinda hard to do that without a suit. Like all my stories, though, this does have a happy ending…

Here’s the full TOC:

The Girl with the Bettie Page Bangs, Sommer Marsden

Reunion at St. Mary’s, Catherine Lundoff

A Midwinter Night’s Dream, Fran Walker

Swollen, Rachel Kramer Bussel

Camshaft Cutie, Crystal Barela

August Crazies, Miel Rose

Lovers’ Moon, Ren Peters

The Office Grind, R. G. Emanuelle

Not Afraid to Get Her Hands Dirty, Teresa Noelle Roberts

Never Too Old, DeJay

Lost and Found, Andrea Dale

Canvas, Kenzie Mayer

The Angel Connection, CB Potts

A Story About Sarah, Cheyenne Blue

The Weekend, Delilah Devlin

Love and Devotion, Jove Belle

Are You Gonna Be My Girl?, Jade Melisande

Danger, Sacchi Green

Not due out ‘til next month, but available early (yay) is Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Orgasmic: Erotic Stories for Women. This one has two stories of mine, actually, both requested by Rachel (she was looking for specific themes, and I can’t resist a challenge!): “All She Wanted” as Andrea Dale and “Paying It Forward” by Kendra Wayne.

Here’s this one’s TOC:

The Waiting Game, Elizabeth Coldwell

What’s in a Name?, Jacqueline Applebee

Chemistry, Velvet Moore

The Chair, Lolita Lopez

Fixing the Pipes, Susie Hara

Share, Dusty Horn

Hurdles, Rowan Elizabeth

Seeing Stars, Louisa Harte

Old Faithful, Sylvia Lowry

Paying It Forward, Kendra Wayne

The Big O, Donna George Storey

Moon Tantra, Teresa Noelle Roberts

Feet on the Dashboard, Rachel Green

Frosting First, Lana Fox

All She Wanted, Andrea Dale

Making Shapes, Lily Harlem

Rapture, Angela Caperton

Belted, Rachel Kramer Bussel

Rise and Shine, Heidi Champa

Taking the Reins, Vanessa Vaughn

First Date with the Dom, Noelle Keely

Animal Inside, Neve Black

The London O, Justine Elyot

Fight, Charlotte Stein

Switch, Jade Melisande

Too yummy for words, both of them!

Finally, this isn’t a new release, but a new format: The above-mentioned Alison’s Wonderland is available at Audible as an audio version! Even better, it's on sale right now! Don’t have time to read these exotic and erotic fairy stories in print? Get the audio version and enjoy them while you’re driving (well, that might not be safe, actually!) or cleaning the house (guaranteed your goal will change to dirty!) or working out (they say it’s good exercise, you know!), or…

Enjoy!

Sales! Two of 'em!

Even though they’re still pending publisher approval, amazing editor Violet Blue says we can announce sales to Sweet Confessions: Erotic Fantasies for Couples, so here I go!

“New Day, New Life” by Andrea Dale and “Sacred Places” by Sophie Mouette (Teresa and I) will both appear in the anthology!

*\o/*

Thank you, Violet!

(This totally makes up for the four rejections I received whilst on vacation.)

Now, back to catching up on the e-mail, filing, etc., that piled up while I was away, so I can get back to writing! (Yes, I’ll post about the vacation and the workshop(s) and visiting friends and everything very soon.)

Heads are spinning, ideas are bouncing

Another workshop under my belt, this one on Mystery Structure. I have a better grounding of what each subgenre of crime fiction entails, and realized that one of my cross-genre novels (which I’m marketing in romance and fantasy) could be marketed as a paranormal mystery. Coolness! And, even better, we got a bonus workshop on the rapid changes in the industry and the numbers involved in epublishing. My head is spinning and ideas are bouncing around like popcorn kittens. (Popcorn kitten brain was something of a theme this weekend!)

To that end, I’m going to get “In Her Hands,” a romantic erotic novella, up in short order, and I’ll be setting a schedule to get a number of other stories available online. So those of you who haven’t been able to get your hands (hee!) on all of the anthologies that I’m in will be able to read more of my work!

Oh my goodness. So many ideas, so many projects, so many wonderful stories to write. I get so jazzed here—it’s all about filling the well, and I always leave brimming, even spilling over. I need to find the elusive trick of how to keep this enthusiasm alive at home, how to fire it up again when it fades.

Plus the people. The amazing, smart, talented, funny, creative writers here. Mystery Structure wasn’t a hands-on writing workshop, so we had time to eat together and take walks and laugh and share and brainstorm ways to support each other. (I’m going to be bartering proofreading/copy editing for cover design, for example.) I wish I could pack them all up in my bike bag and bring them home with me!

Of course, I have the October trip (New Technology Workshop—an extension, really, of what we talked about this weekend—plus a probable Portland book signing) to look forward to.

I have so much to write about here—our whole vacation, really!—but I have an hour ‘til Ken gets here and I really need to work on “In a Handbasket,” a funny, sexy story for a paranormal romantic erotica anthology. More soon!

Fairy glitter and gold

As part of the excitement for the magical Fairy Tale Lust anthology, I was interviewed about my favorite fairy tale, why I chose to write about the Little Mermaid, my writing process, and much more! Check it out!

A dream here, a dash there

So last night I had a stress dream about CP Prize: I showed up hideously late (like, 1 p.m.).

Then I had semi-stressy/mostly weird dreams about the upcoming OWN workshop.

Then I dreamt about my family/upstate NY, not stressy, but weird because I was explaining the geography of Lake Champlain and Valcour Island to someone who should’ve known better, and then I woke up sad because my dad had been alive and healthy in the dream. Although, in hindsight, that’s how I’m happier remembering him.

Now I’m dashing about trying to get a million last-minute things done before we leave for San Diego. Ken, being a god among men, is mending my leine. (Great job, Dayle, remembering your leine needed mending when you went to pack it, as opposed to, oh, three days ago.) On the way down we’re stopping at the garment district to buy the awesome fabric we found for our antique Morris chair (we brought a swatch home yesterday to hold it up to the living room curtain fabric) and somewhere so Ken can buy a GPS. Once we’re in the hotel, I have to work on a soon-due short story (it’s funny! it’s sexy! it’s paranormal!) and read more Agatha Christie and PD James for the upcoming workshop.

Aieeee. Okay, time to resume dashing about!

Welcome to the grand illusion!

I said I was going to talk about this month’s writing goals, didn’t I? And here it is, already the 7^th. (Also known as the 33^rd anniversary of the release of one of Styx’s best-known and best-loved albums, The Grand Illusion. But I digress.)

First, last month:

• get an overdue story to the editor (who kindly allowed me a few grace days) – decided, reluctantly, to let this one go. Among other reasons, the story was insisting on becoming a novella. So now I have an erotic steampunk novella to write at some point!
• get everything done for Out of the Frying Pan and back to Teresa – DONE! Of course, then she got it back to me, and I did more work on it, and we have another confab in an hour…
• do the edits/rewrites for Waking the Witch and get them to the editor who requested them – DONE!
• write Chapter 3 of Seasoned With Danger and submit it to the first wave of publishers – Nope. Never got to this. It’s now scheduled for the end of this month.
• do a brief polish through What Beck’ning Ghost (because I wrote it 20 years ago (holy crap!) and I want to make sure nothing’s extremely dated in it), write a fresh proposal, and submit it to the first wave of publishers – Polish done. Proposal written and sent to a couple reviewers, who sent back the exact feedback I needed, so now I have to rewrite it and get the package out to editors.
• write a story for the Mountain Magic anthology – Alas, no go on this one. Something had to give, and I needed to focus on novels.
• write a story for the Crossed Genres anthology – after some consideration, decided to let this one go, too. A balance of research time vs potential payment…and in the end, novel work won out.
• write a story for Alison’s Bondage anthology – In progress.
• write (or at least start) a story for Kristina’s Dream Lovers anthology – In progress.
• pitch rose beads article to Renaissance Magazine (if time) – Not yet.
• prep “In Her Hands” for Kindle, etc. (if time) – I decided on a cover photograph (with help from some folks), and the file itself should be good to go. I have to design the cover, sign up at Amazon as a publisher, etc.

As I mentioned, we’re doing a fair amount of traveling this month, so my goals are not quite as crazy:

• keep working on Out of the Frying Pan revisions
• finish “’Golf’ Spelled Backwards” for Alison’s bondage anthology (this week)
• finish story for Dream Lover anthology (this week)
• revise What Beck’ning Ghost synopsis (ideally this week)
• finish market list for What Beck’ning Ghost and get the proposal circulating
• write Chapter 3 of Seasoned With Danger and do market research (to mail in Aug)
• write story for Lesbian Cops anthology
• write story for Indecent anthology

I know I’m not going to have time to work on the “In Her Hands” cover or the rose beads article pitch, so they’re officially bumped to August.

Okay, back to work with me!

An embarrassment of reading riches

I have been a reading fiend lately, in large part because I have a list of books to read for the upcoming Mystery Structure Workshop. So far, I’ve read… 

• The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, Alexander McCall Smith
• The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler
• Hark!, Ed McBain
• Black Echo, Michael Connelly
• “The Simple Art of Murder,” Raymond Chandler
• The Moving Finger, Agatha Christie
• The Guards, Ken Bruen (on the “if you have time” list)

 …and I still have to read… 

• A Caribbean Mystery, Agatha Christie (because the assignment was to read a Miss Marple novel, and Miss Marple didn’t show up ‘til the end of The Moving Finger, so I feel like I should read another one)
• Talking About Detective Fiction, PD James
• Tunnel Vision, Sara Paretsky (on the “if you have time” list)
• Death Du Jour, Kathy Reichs (on the “if you have time” list)

 …thankfully I’d already read…

•  A Dangerous Road, Kris Nelscott (although I wish I had time to re-read it)

 …but I’m not going to get to… 

• L.A. Requiem, Robert Crais (because I didn’t realize a different library branch had it, and I don’t have time to wait for the transfer)

 …meanwhile, I’m chomping at the bit to read several other books that are in my hot little hands, but I just don’t have time for yet…

• Under Heaven, Guy Gavriel Kay (I usually buy and read his books the millisecond they come out, so argh argh argh!)
• Arcadia Falls, Carol Goodman (I had it on hold at the library, but it’s a 14-day checkout, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to read it before I left for the workshop. So I asked if I could be put next on the list, and the lovely man checking me out [er, checking my books out for me] said nobody else was on the list, so he let me have an extended checkout, sssshhhh, don’t tell anybody, and I’ll hammer through it once I get home because Carol Goodman’s books are like crack to me and what I really want is to curl up with it and have someone bring me food and not bother me until I’m done.)

Oh, and I also have four other books on hold at the library. And about 200 books on my To Read bookcase. And I know I’ll be going to Powells while I’m in Portland (and then shipping the books home, because they won’t fit on the bike).

I’m comfortable in the knowledge that I won’t die for a very, very long time, because I have so many books left to read.  :-)

My work in a college textbook!

Somehow I missed this the first time it came ‘round (February), and then another writer/friend blogged about it and I tagged it to follow up (June), and now I’m getting around to actually posting the news…

The anthology Frenzy: 60 Stories of Sudden Sex, containing my story “The Heist,” was chosen as a textbook for a college class! Alison Tyler, the editor, posts about it here. Apparently it’s being used at Binghamton University, which is part of the SUNY system (as is Plattsburgh State, where I graduated). Alas, I don’t know what course it’s for…I’m dying to find out!

And I wonder what the students think of my double-crossing bank robbers?  :-)

Braced for the insane fun

Ken and I just spent a few minutes going over calendars and plotting and planning for the busy month ahead. We’ll be away from home for about 13 days total, and will have company for 2 days. Add in packing, unpacking, cleaning, and other projects (curtains for the kitchen, trip to the garment district, new heraldic tabard [that’s really Ken’s project, though], putting my seat back on the bike [also Ken’s project, obviously]), and it’s going to be…fun!

So with all that in mind, I’ve also been putting together my writing calendar for the month. It won’t be quite as aggressive as last month, obviously, although I’m going to a 4-day Mystery Structure Workshop in Oregon that will have me writing like a fiend.

Let’s see. Next weekend is CP Prize, which is down in San Diego. We’re heading down the day before (because we are Very Not Morning People). Not sure if we’ll leave early enough to do anything down there, though. And I can always take the laptop and work in the hotel room Friday night. We’ll get home late Saturday night.

Then, on Monday, we hop on the bike and start heading to Oregon. We’ll stay one night with my sister in Monterey, and arrive in Portland sometime late-ish on Wednesday, with plans to stay with our friends Lev and Gayle on Wednesday and Thursday nights. I’m trying to arrange a joint reading/signing up there with fabulous writer Shanna Germain, but I’m hampered by the distance, unfamiliarity with all the bookshops up there (Lev and Shanna have given me some ideas), and lack of time.

Friday I head off to Lincoln City; the workshop starts that night. Ken is planning to give his BMW talk in Portland and Seattle over the weekend, after working at his client up there on Thursday and Friday. My workshop ends on Monday, and Ken will pick me up in Lincoln City and we’ll start heading south, staying again at my sister’s on Tuesday night.

We’ll get home Wednesday evening and then Thursday head down to Anaheim for Queensrÿche’s Cabaret show, which I am anticipating with an unholy glee. Then a day off to recover, then maybe Lyondemere Anniversary (right now we’re thinking not, because of work and everything, but it’s on the calendar just in case), and then my darling Meglet visits for two days.

Only then do we have a few days “off,” which of course are “Ack! So much work to do!” days. Along with a  hair appt and a dentist appt. The final Saturday of the month is our local Shire’s Pirate Tournament, hurrah! but of course the official premiere of Hard Miles 2, the DVD about the 2009 Iron Butt Rally, is that night in Santa Ana, so we’ll have to leave early, throw on bike gear, and dash down there. Because Ken’s in that DVD, don’tcha know!

Thankfully, August will be a bit quieter. Two Styx shows, including a trip up to Saratoga for my 100^th show (!!!!  *\o/*  !!!!) and a visit from Sara R (she’s going to teach me how to make origami boxes, and we’re going to watch The Breakfast Club, and and and…!).

Other than that, Ken may run a rally or two, and Crown Tournament is in there, too, but it’s not that far away. So August will be back to an aggressive writing schedule.

I’ll ramble about July’s goals later, because now I have to post this and go dig around the sewing room for a few things! and then get back to work.  :-)

What are your plans for the weekend, and the coming month?

Poll results revealed, with commentary and prizes!

The results of my little poll are in, and they’re…as clear as mud.  O.o  At least on the cover side of things.

8 people preferred Photo A and 10 preferred Photo B, and 1 person said neither sucked. 2 people for each A and B would prefer the photo with modifications.

I appreciate that comment, but…wow. I have no Photoshop skills, and a limited amount of time, especially when it comes to putting a bunch of my work up for sale. (I mean, one cover, sure, but 10? 20? Obviously I shouldn’t have divorced the photographer…)  ;-)

I confess I was surprised that so many folks preferred Photo B, because it’s what I hear most people complain about—the clichéd, headless torso that says nothing about the book. Then again, the people I most hear complain about that are other writers…and yet 6 out of 12 writers who took the poll chose it. (5 chose A. 1, as mentioned above, chose neither.)

I think Photo A is incredibly sexy. (And yet I hate the movie Ghost. Go figure.) Plus it looks like she’s sculpting the very body part the main character happens to be sculpting in the award-winning excerpt that opens the novella. But I’m not the buyer of this novel…yet almost half of you liked it.

I have no idea what I’m going to do there. Except maybe give up sleep in order to have the time to learn Photoshop.  O.o

~~~

As for cost, most folks said $2.99 or above, which is a good thing, because after I posted the poll I learned that Amazon gives the better royalty rate at $2.99 or above. If the vast majority had voted for less, I’d’ve had a dilemma on my hands, so well done, ya’ll.  ;-)

~~~

I’ll revisit this project after I get past a few other deadlines. The most important thing is, a humongous thank you to everyone who took the time to comment! You all rock like major rocking things!

To properly thank you, I used a random number generator to pick three comment numbers, and those three people each win a prize! Ghislaine, Tanya, and Morgaine: you each get to pick a promo postcard autographed by me. Your choices are Cat Scratch Fever (UK cover, which of course I can’t find a picture of online), Where the Girls Are, or Fast Girls. Ghislaine, please send me your mailing address, too. Morgaine, will you be at CP Prize or would you like me to mail your card? Tanya, when are we getting together to write again?!)

Guest blogging at Beth Wylde's Yahoogroup

I’m guest blogging/chatting today over at Beth Wylde's Yahoo group, as part of a group chat about Where the Girls Are and whatever other trouble we can get ourselves into.  :-)

Please join me, fellow authors (so far we have Kathleen Bradean, Roxy Katt, Jacqueline Applebee, and Sommer Marsden awake enough to be coherent), and editor D.L. King as we share excerpts from the LAMBDA Award-nominated Where the Girls Are and chat about all manner of things.

Click here to join the group. Warning: the blog is NSFW.

Hope to see you there!


Edited to add: One lucky commenter will win a free copy of Where the Girls Are!

Making the world a smaller and cozier place

You know what makes me happy? Having friends all over the world, and being able to connect with them—and connect them with each other—because of this wondrous modern technology called the Internet.

Example #1: There’s a chewable antacid that’s available only in Britain. I contacted a friend there and asked if she could send me some. The first time, in exchange I bought and shipped some shampoo for her father that’s available here but not in Britain. This time, she noted that the kind he really needs is a combination of the two kinds that are available here…and the combo kind is available in Australia. So I contacted a friend in Australia and asked if she could buy and ship the shampoo to my friend in Britain, and I’d pay her. My friend in Australia countered with the request that I pick up some perfume for her, which is only available in the US. Isn’t this the coolest thing? We all get the item we want, that we can’t get in our home country. We all get to help each other out.

Example #2: A friend commented (on Facebook, maybe? I can’t remember now) that she’d found a great knitting pattern for socks but the site was in Finnish. And I said, yo, I used to live in Drachenwald. Let me ping some SCA folks there and see if they know anyone who (a) speaks Finnish and (b) knits. (I’m sure I met some lovely Finns when we lived over there, but I didn’t keep in touch with any of them.) And then, voila! I got an e-mail from a lovely woman (whose name does sound very familiar) who also happens to be on Ravelry, which my friend is on…so I pointed the two of them at each other.

When it works, it works. I love how it’s made the world a smaller and cozier place. I miss my friends in Britain and Australia as well as all over the US (and other parts of the world), but I don’t feel like they’re quite as far away.