The end is nigh

Crazy woman that I am. after getting home from a long day I decided to bake a carrot cake. Been jonesing for one for awhile and was planning to make it this weekend past, but made a banana chocolate-chip bread for the boy instead.

Anywho, cue ::cravings:: Even though I can barely keep my eyes open I'm so exhausted, I mosey into the kitchen and start baking.

This one isn't being made from scratch. Just used a box of Betty Crocker SuperMoist Carrot cake mix, added in a cup of freshly grated carrots, some golden raisins and... a tablespoon of Wray & Nephew Overproof Jamaican white rum. (The fumes were so strong, I was expecting the oven to explode at any minute).


The cake is cooling now and I'm about to make the cream-cheese frosting. yum.


Project: Ass Expansion about to commence...

Library Haul

Bad blogger, I know. I was going to blog about the book that broke my recent (fiction)reading slump, but we'll leave that for when I have more energy.

So... I'll post the books I got from the library yesterday. The library is directly across from the supermarket & bank. How sweet this that? I've never gone grocery shopping down there without dropping into the library first.

C.J. Box's Blood Trail.



I first came across the author via a newsletter (publisher or writer's org) in either case there was a link to an excerpt and ever since I've had it in mind to check out their writing. This is my first try.

Synopsis found on Amazon:

When an elk hunter is shot and gruesomely gutted in Box's solid eighth Joe Pickett novel (after 2007's Free Fire), Wyoming governor Spencer Rulon assigns Joe to the investigative team headed by Joe's nemesis, game and fish director Randy Pope. The authorities suspect a group led by antihunting activist Klamath Moore, but Joe thinks an enigmatic clue near the body points to a serial killer. As usual, Joe stands alone against official protocol, placing his career and life in peril by following his hunches. He persuades Rulon to release his pal, iconoclast Nate Romanowski, who's awaiting trial on spurious charges, to help him on the case. Writing beautifully about the mountain West and its people, Box takes care to present both sides of the controversial issue of hunting. The narrative alternates between the searchers and the killer, whose identity will keep readers guessing up to the surprising climax.




Nadine Dajani's Cutting Loose.



It was the spine that caught my eye on this one--the publisher, color and photo/image. I haven't read one of these woman fiction following 2 or 3 protags in awhile, but particularly like that all the women are from varying ethnic backgrounds (Saudi Arabian, Palestinian and Honduran).


Synopsis found on Amazon:

Dajani's engrossing second novel (after Fashionably Late) chronicles the overlap in the lives of three dissimilar women working at a Miami magazine. Upon realizing that her husband is gay, pampered Ranya Hayek flees her situation and, after a chance meeting with smitten millionaire Georges Mallouk, finds herself working for the first time. Georges and his brother, Joe, own Suéltate, a successful magazine geared toward Latinas and helmed by the brash Rio, who works nonstop to make it a top publication. Rio has the occasional tryst with Joe and is wary of Ranya, who has both brothers mooning over her. Also disdainful of Ranya and Rio is Ranya's childhood schoolmate Zahra, who is intelligent but socially awkward. After having made a mistake that destroyed her beloved life in Boston, Zahra took a corporate position with her old friend Georges, whom she still holds a torch for. Dajani seamlessly flits from character to character, embodying each woman and pitting her observations against her misconceptions. Though the unfortunately pat happy ending seems lazy and unlikely, the novel works nicely.




Eden Bradley's A 21st Century Courtesan





I've one other Bradley book. I liked it, but it was BDSM --really BDSM, not just window dressing for the story. It was done really well. Great writing/characterization, but ultimately I'm not that into reading BDSM so haven't really read anything else by her because I had the impression that's mostly what she writes. I almost didn't bring this one home because I"m not in the mood for erotica, but... I love the whole intriguing sexy stranger at the opera set up.

Synopsis found on Amazon:

She lives in a world of silk sheets, imported champagne,
and endless erotic delight.…

She fulfills the deepest fantasies of the most powerful men in the world. Sensual, seductive, and discreet, Valentine Day is a high-class call girl, pampered and adored by her exclusive clientele. But Valentine has a secret. Always in control, she’s never experienced true pleasure outside of her work. But all that is about to change.… Now the woman who’s spent a decade pleasuring others is about to embark on an erotic journey of her own.

It happens one night at the opera. Seated next to her in the dark is a stranger. As the music swells so does the sexual tension. Gorgeous, sophisticated Joshua Spencer invites her for a drink, and soon she’s fantasizing about taking him home. When they finally come together in the most tender and intense lovemaking Valentine has ever known, she’s hooked. But suddenly Valentine is questioning everything. Joshua has no idea what she does for a living. Can she risk everything—including her hard-earned freedom and one final, shattering secret—for one man? And would he still want her if he knew the truth?

Lloyd Jones' Mister Pip.



I remember the buzz on this one when it was short listed for a bunch of awards/prizes. What really made me take this one home is an short excerpt from the book on the back:

"You cannot pretend to read a great book.
Your eyes will give you away. So will your breathing.
A person entranced by a book simply forgets to
breathe. The house can catch alight and a reader
deep in a book will not look up until the wallpaper
is in flames"

A bit of an exaggeration, but I don't know how many times I've ended up on the other end of town because I was so immersed in a book I was reading I missed my train stop. 'K, it hasn't happened all that often. *g* But when it has it's because it was a damn great book I was reading.


Synopsis found on Amazon:

A promising though ultimately overwrought portrayal of the small rebellions and crises of disillusionment that constitute a young narrator's coming-of-age unfolds against an ominous backdrop of war in Jones's latest. When the conflict between the natives and the invading redskin soldiers erupts on an unnamed tropical island in the early 1990s, 13-year-old Matilda Laimo and her mother, Dolores, are unified with the rest of their village in their efforts for survival. Amid the chaos, Mr. Watts, the only white local (he is married to a native), offers to fill in as the children's schoolteacher and teaches from Dickens's Great Expectations. The precocious Matilda, who forms a strong attachment to the novel's hero, Pip, uses the teachings as escapism, which rankles Dolores, who considers her daughter's fixation blasphemous. With a mixture of thrill and unease, Matilda discovers independent thought, and Jones captures the intricate, emotionally loaded evolution of the mother-daughter relationship. Jones (The Book of Fame; Biografi) presents a carefully laid groundwork in the tense interactions between Matilda, Dolores and Mr. Watts, but the extreme violence toward the end of the novel doesn't quite work. Jones's prose is faultless, however, and the story is innovative enough to overcome the misplayed tragedy.

Southern Fried Chicas

I'm over at Southern Fried Chicas today.

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Blue Rodeo's Bulletproof

I woke up with this song in my head and I've been humming it all morning. It's one of my favourites by this Canadian country rock band. It's sort of bittersweet song. I've posted the lyrics also below.





Tell me one more time again
Just like I didn't hear you
Like I don't know what's going through your mind, I do
I play the same game too
You know it's hard to stop
Even when you want to

Now the moon lights up your face
And I can see you're crying
You never liked me to see you cry, it's true
I've done some crying too
You know the hardest part about it
Is trying to hide it from you

It would be great to be so strong
Never needing anybody else to get along
But we're so scared of the silence and the tricks that we use
Oh We're careful and we're cunning, but we're easily bruised
I don't want to lie about it
I'm not bulletproof

Well I finally found a way
To hide from all your glances
Til the waiting game we play is through
I can, but what's the use
When all I really want to do is hide out with you

It would be great to be so strong
Never needed anybody's help to get along
We're so scared of the silence and the language that we use
Oh we're careful and we're cunning, but we're easily bruised
I don't want to kid about it
I'm not bulletproof

Tell me one more time again
Well I guess I didn't hear you
And I don't know all the secrets that you keep inside
I tried the same thing too
But they all come pouring out of me when I'm talking to you

Well it would be great to be so strong
Never needing anybody else's help to carry on
But I'm not waking up each morning with forgiveness I can use
Oh I'm careless, and I'm cruel, but I'm still easily bruised

I'm so tired of lying about it
I'm not bulletproof
Oh and I'm not going to lie about it
I'm not bulletproof

You Just Can't Make This stuff up

A friend emailed this to me recently. lol.

In Stuttgart, Germany, a court judge must decide on a case of honorable intentions in a situation where a man hired his neighbor to get his wife pregnant.

It seems that Demetrius Soupolos, 29, and his former beauty queen wife, Traute, wanted a child badly, but Demetrius was told by a doctor that he was sterile.

So, Soupolos, after calming his wife’s protests, hired his neighbor, Frank Maus, 34, to impregnate her. Since Maus was already married and the father of two children, plus looked very much like Soupolos to boot, the plan seemed good.

Soupolos paid Maus $2,500 for the job and for three evenings a week for the next six months, Maus tried desperately, a total of 72 different times, to impregnate Traute.

When his own wife objected, he explained, "I don’t like this any more than you. I’m simply doing it for the money. Try and understand."

When Traute failed to get pregnant after six months, however, Soupolos was not understanding and insisted that Maus have a medical examination, which he did.

The doctor’s announcement that Maus was also sterile shocked everyone except his wife, who was forced to confess that Maus was not the real father of their two children.

Now Soupolos is suing Maus for breach of contract in an effort to get his money back, but Maus refuses to give it up because he said he did not guarantee conception, but only that he would give an honest effort.

The Never-ending story revisions

I’m still working the revisions. You might have noticed the word count for the HotH revisons hasn't moved. That's because I'm adding as much as I cut so the net word count of the manuscript as a whole (existing plus revisions/new scenes) hasn't increased.

*sigh*

I thought once I settled on which new scenes to keep that I’d just skim/zip through the stuff already existing till I came to the next part of the story I want to flesh out with a new scene, then skim through to the end where I plan to add several more scenes. The new ending is probably going to be the easiest part [Famous Last Words. TM] before I won’t have to worry about ‘fitting’ stuff in.

So what’s the hold-up? Why haven’t I just jumped to part of the story I want to add the next new scene?

1. That ‘fitting stuff in’ thing I mentioned. As I’m going through the existing story, I’m trying to layer elements from the new scenes at the beginning into the story, making sure those new threads continue on, and don’t just disappear.

This applies to characterization as well, which means dialogue changes, but the dialogue was done a certain way to begin with because of plot/character. I have to make sure any changes still make sense within the context of the scene.

2. Repetition concerns. The new scenes for the most part are based on some inferences the characters had made to past occurrences in the original manuscript.

Now that I’ve shown some of those instances on the page, I’m more aware of the existing references veering into overkill. Have to nip them in the bud, but those references might have been part of dialogue, or internal reflection that worked as a transition from one paragraph/event to the next. So again, have to be careful everthing still makes sense. (Nothing is ever as easy as it would seem.)

3. Language. Ugh. I initially wrote this story (very much of a first draft quality) years ago. Never finished it at that time because I could see it deserved more development but had too much on my plate then. My writing has changed (improved?) since then. The language/style I used then is not the style/language I’d used now.

I do think that enough of what I wrote then is effective (emotional intensity/sexual tension, etc--and there are a lot of 'my darlings' in there also--so I don’t want to chuck it wholesale. But I can’t leave the clunky, overwrought stuff in there. Especially when it clearly isn’t the voice/tone of the characters.

Related to character tone: the hero’s buddy with the potty-mouth? His love of ‘mutha-effer’ only showed up in the scenes I wrote to complete the story the first time round. Now that I’ve written the new beginning scenes, he’s having the mutha-effing time of his life. lol. I figure if it sells and the editor wants me to tone it down, I’ll do it then.

The sad thing is, I cleaned up this tortured language stuff the first time when I decided to finish and submit the story. Obviously it needed more work.

I’m making this sound like I’m working on a freaking literary masterpiece. lol. Not! It’s just an entertaining story that I really want to make the most of. In for a penny, in for a pound, etcetera, etcetera

Adam Lambert's First Release

Honestly? I expected my eardrums to start bleeding about a third of the way in once he started screaming hitting the high notes, but surprisingly he kept it at a decent decible all the way through.

I really like the song. (Is this really for the 2012 movie?)


Time For Miracles

Adam Lambert | MySpace Video

You Feeling Me?

I got in a bit of a rut reading-wise recently. Nothing I picked up held my attention for long, and it wasn’t just romance, it was all genres of fiction. I turned to non-fiction, magazine articles, etc and found myself enjoying reading again.

Could be what I chose to read--books like The Outliers, Freakanomics, or things in general that were about finding balance in your life, thinking outside the box etc.

But, just because I’d taken a break from reading fiction, didn’t mean I’d stopped buying them. So it happened that one day on my way home from work I realized I’d left the non-fiction book I’d been reading in another bag. Luckily I’d purchased a romance on my lunch break, based on a recent review.

I immediately got drawn into the story, the author had a fairly engaging voice and I liked both characters. It took about 2-3 days to finish the book but I wasn’t even half-way through the story before I realized I wasn’t buying that the characters were in love.

I really love the Plain Jane wins the Handsome Prince trope, but it was not working for here. She was absolutely not his type and I didn’t not believe the attraction. That is, the author didn’t show me why this woman who was not his type would attract him regardless.

Except for the part where he was constantly lusting over her various body parts.

And it was never anything as poetic as the shape of her mouth, or her lovely eyes (I didn’t find out the color of her eyes till almost the last chapter in the book and that was through the internal pov of a secondary character). The hero’s attraction to the heroine was strictly of the T&A variety.

During the first love-scene for the first time ever I felt that she could have been any *body*, he might be grunting and humping over.

It just happened to be her particular body during that period of time. There was no emotional connection that I could see/feel. No moments of vulnerability that even the most romperlicious moving-body-parts erotic romance would have delivered.

I could see what each character would find admirable in the other, even what the other party brought to the table that they would need in their life (stability to balance out impulsiveness, etc). But, Love? Nope didn’t feel that at all.

I know I’ve seen peeps complain about this before that they didn’t believe in the HEA of a romance because they didn’t see what the H/h saw in the other party. I’ve even read a couple of those books, except I did believe the HEA because the author had rendered the complexity and range of feelings that comprise the emotion of ‘love’ so well, that even though I didn’t see the progression/growth, I still believed that it was real love the characters were feeling for each other.

Now I'm trying to think if I every read a book where the author *showed* the development of the romance, yet I still didn't quite buy into the HEA. A situation like that would probably be a combination of character and circumstance.



Yes, I do drive myself crazy. Why do you ask?