Good Food and Good Reading

 

purchase at https://books2read/Prelude-and-Promises

Now that November is here, I begin thinking of holiday meals and can’t wait to fix such favorites as honey glazed ham, cherry salad, turkey and stuffing, sweet potatoes and all the desserts we’re always too full to appreciate until later. In fact, I was just talking to my son today about what salads and bread he wanted. What is your favorite holiday food? He said I needed to make bulgur wheat bread, for sure.

As a writer, I’m sometimes surprised when reading my rough draft because the question occurs to me, “did they eat?” I write romance, so I pay the most attention to my characters and their relationships, and I sometimes forget they need to eat and dress and go about daily business. These things add detail to the story and make the characters more “alive”, especially if one of them has an aversion or allergy to a food or has a particular way of dressing. However, details such as this are normally background and shouldn’t take over the story. (Example: have you ever read a story with page after page of furniture description and you find yourself skipping over it?)

Once in a while, though, food and/or eating play a fun part of the story, such as in my contemporary novel “Prelude and Promises”. A restaurant--Brenda Kay’s -- is the site for several conversations between Cheyenne and Jake, so while it is story background, it also gives insight into the characters and their budding relationship. To give you an idea of how I use this in my story, here is the cover blurb and some excerpts at Brenda Kay’s.

Blurb:

            Pianist Joseph Donovan was tired of his uncle’s interference in his career. In fact, he was tired of his career, even if it had made him a millionaire. The concerts, recording sessions, and pressure to compose new musical arrangements meant he never had a minute to himself. He left it all behind, using his given name of Jake Smith to hide out on Lockabee Island, trying to be just an ordnary guy. And that worked very well, until his uncle’s executive secretary came looking for him, issuing an ultimatum and deadline for his return home. In the process of negotiating his “capture”, he found himself fascinated with her. More surprising was that the passion he felt inspired him to start composing again.

            Cheyenne knew Jake resented her presence on the island at first, but he soon sparked a passion that made her forget why she was there. When she discovered the real reason for his leaving Chicago, did she still want to convince him to return? As the days and nights swirled together in a symphony of passion, she was torn between her responsibilities to her employer and what her heart desired. If she had to return to Chicago without him, could she survive the heartbreak?

Excerpt 1: (He ran away when she found him and now he is trying to apologize)

“I’ll tell you what you want to know if you’ll have lunch with me.”

“It’s three in the afternoon. That’s too late for lunch.”

“Well, I haven’t eaten.” He put a hand to the small of her back and gently guided her into the restaurant they were passing, which was Brenda Kay’s, his favorite place to eat. She didn’t resist, which he took as a good sign.

Brenda Kay came over to wait on them as he slid into a booth opposite Cheyenne. She was a nice looking, middle-aged woman and had a friendly, outgoing manner. Jake had liked her from the first time they met.

“Hello there, Jake. Ever get that boat of yours running? Harvey thinks he’s ready to go fishing.” Harvey, her husband, had health problems, which was one of the reasons they had retired and moved to the island.

“It puttered clear across the sound today,” he said. “Old Hank wants to fish, too. Maybe I should start a fishing service. Might be able to make myself some money.”

He heard Cheyenne give a choking sound and turned her way, narrowing his gaze. He didn’t think she would give him away, but you never knew what went on in a woman’s mind.

“This is Cheyenne, a…friend of mine. We’ll have the fish and chips.”

“Excuse me, but I think I can order for myself.” She turned to Brenda Kay. “May I see a menu, please?”

Brenda raised a brow at Jake as though wondering where he had found her. He grinned and winked.

“You must be a tourist,” Brenda Kay said as she pointed to a chalkboard above the bar, which contained only three items—hamburgers, barbeque ribs, and fish and chips.

Cheyenne sighed. “Fish and chips will be fine, and whatever light beer you have.”

Jake was sure the surprise showed on his face. He was beginning to understand that the woman sitting across from him was extremely complex, and thought it might be fun to try and unravel and peel away the layers.

To begin with, he couldn’t let her out drink him. “One for me, too, Brenda, but not the light.”

She didn’t say anything until their beers arrived. She took a sip, set it down and stared at him across the table. He had never realized how blue her eyes were; light in the center with dark rims. They were framed by dark lashes.

“Ok. You’ve got me here, now talk.”

“We keep having the same conversation. You tell me why you’re so dedicated to my uncle that you would fly half way across the country to find me.”

“It’s my job, and unlike some people, I take my responsibilities seriously.”

“I have always taken my responsibilities seriously; until I decided enough was enough. Everyone’s entitled to change jobs.”

She sat with her mouth pinched as a waitress brought their food and another round of beers.

“May I have silverware, please?”

“You don’t need it and we don’t have it,” the young girl said. “Nothing served requires it.”

“Are you serious?” She gingerly fingered the brown paper wrap which crinkled as she opened it.

“It soaks up the grease,” Jake told her. “Enjoy.” He tipped his beer bottle toward her in salute.

He bit into a piece of the crisply fried fish and watched her eye the battered fish and golden French fries. She probably never ate fried food. Finally with a sigh she picked delicately at the fish.

“It is flaky and tender,” she admitted.

“Brenda Kay’s is the best around.”

“Sans silverware,” she retorted with a laugh, picking up a piece of fish and finally eating. She licked her fingers free of tartar sauce.

Jake watched her tongue snake out and everything in him tightened. 

Excerpt 2: Cheyenne has found it hard to maintain a professional demeanor around Jake, thus causing a bar fight and a night in jail:

Cheyenne took a last glance in the mirror before heading downstairs when Jake texted that he was waiting. The floral sundress she had purchased fit snuggly across her breasts and flared from the waist to end just below her knees. Her heels didn’t seem quite appropriate so she settled on sandals. She would have worn her linen slacks and cashmere sweater but after his comment about her clothes, she had decided to dress casually. The bright red, blue and yellow flowers suited her, she thought, as she touched up her lipstick, this time a pale pink shade.

She was glad for the sandals when he insisted they walk. She was happy to be casually dressed when he turned into Brenda Kay’s.

“Again?” she asked as they slid into a booth near the back.

“It’s rib night,” he said in explanation as Brenda came to the table.

“Well if you don’t look a sight.” She set water glasses on the table. “Heard there was a ruckus at the Pelican. Damn it, the one night I didn’t get down there, but it was too busy for me to get away.”

“You didn’t miss much,” Jake said and Cheyenne coughed.

Brenda looked at her and back to Jake’s bandaged hand. “I can see that. How are you going to eat ribs with a broken hand?”

“Carefully.” He smiled, then grimaced and touched his bruised cheek.

Cheyenne was surprised by his good nature. Granted, he hadn’t spent the night in jail, but he had been injured and she didn’t know if he had gotten any more sleep than she had. He sported his wounds like a banner, almost as though he were proud of the fight he had been in.

She could only shake her head and shrug when Brenda looked back at her.

“Beer?” she asked.

Cheyenne shook her head again. “Not for me. I’ll stick with water.”

Jake laughed lightly and ordered a soda.

While they waited for their meal, which Cheyenne assumed was ribs whether she had ordered them or not, she studied Jake more closely. The split in his lip looked better, but she could see the fingers on his right hand were slightly swollen. She reached over to lightly touch the scabbed knuckles.

“Does it hurt badly?” She felt so guilty at having caused him injury.

“Cheyenne?” He didn’t say any more until she raised her gaze to his. His brown eyes were intense, his smile gentle. “None of this,” he gestured with his other hand, “was your fault.”

“But I—”

“You were being accosted. Every other man in the bar would have done the same thing. I simply got there first.” Irrationally, she heard pride in his voice.

“Your hands are your life, you idiot,” she said without thinking, but he only smiled wider.

“You have no idea what I am capable of with only one hand,” he whispered across the table and she could feel a blush rising. Honestly, she had never blushed so much in her life until she encountered him.

“Whatever are you thinking, Miss Tucker?” he teased. “I might have simply been implying I was ambidextrous.”

She changed the topic instead of bothering to comment. “Tell me what happened after I was hauled off to the slammer.”

Their ribs arrived, served up on brown paper as had the fish and chips. The waitress set down a pile of napkins, refilled her water and took Jake’s glass to get him another soda. Jake waited until she left before answering her.

“The excitement was over by the time I came to.”

She gasped. “You were knocked out completely? Damn it, I told the sheriff to let me see to you, but he hauled me off like a common criminal.”

He grinned as he picked up a rib. “Well, actually…”

“You know what I mean.” She looked at the pile of ribs, wished for silverware, then with a sigh, picked up the sauce-slathered meat and took a bite. A moan of pleasure escaped. They ate in silence for several minutes. When the waitress brought another serving of ribs, Cheyenne looked at her in surprise.

“All you can eat,” she replied as she set that down along with Jake’s soda.

“One serving is all I can eat,” she said.

Once again, Jake was silent as he cleaned off rib after rib, licking his fingers in-between bites. By the time he was done, he had barbeque sauce smeared all over his bandage as well as his mouth.

She bit her lower lip as he licked sauce off his lips.   

Excerpt 3: Things are getting serious!

Her phone pinged.

Jake: Have dinner with me tonight.

Cheyenne: Come back to Chicago with me.

Jake: It wasn’t meant to be a negotiation. L

Cheyenne: I had to try. ;)

Jake: Please have dinner with me?

Cheyenne: Can we go somewhere that has silverware?

Jake: J See you at eight.

 

To find out whether Cheyenne can entice Jake to return to Chicago, get your copy of “Prelude and Promises” in print or eBook today at: https://books2read.com/Prelude-and-Promises.

Being thankful, today and always,

Barb

http://www.authorsden.com/barbarajbaldwin

https://bookswelove.net/baldwin-barbara/

PS – If you’re in the mood to start your holiday reading, “Snowflakes and Kisses” my Christmas novel, is on sale in eBook format at Amazon! Amazon.com: Snowflakes and Kisses eBook : Baldwin, Barbara: Kindle Store.

 

 

What's In A Name by Janet Lane Walters #BWLAuthor #MFRWAuthor #Names #Characters

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I write in several genres. Lately I've been thinking about naming my characters. When I write contemporary stories, creating the names of the characters is easy. We all know the names of people we know and ones we heard on TV and in the news. The one problem here with naming contemporary characters is having two characters with names that sound similar. This can confuse the reader and sometimes the writer. I try not to have two characters' names begin with the same letter. I also seldom use names like Spike or Belle. I do use these as nicknames for a character. Also things like Liz instead of Elizabeth. A writer also needs to know where the character  lives or was born to find a name to match.

Historical novel names are different and call for research. I made a mistake in one historical novel by having the man named Drew, I should have used this as a nickname and named him Andrew. Also when writing historical novels and naming characters, there are names that aren't frequently used today, like Reginald. A perfectly good name in the Regency or other historical times. Some research is needed to find names that fit the period. Of course, many of the names we use today were common in historical times like George or Mary.

When it comes to fantasy or science fiction, I have a rule. The names must be readable. I remember reading science fiction many many years ago when the alien characters had names often many letters long that I never figured how to pronounce. I often skipped over those names. When writing fantasy, I look to make the names pronounceable and ones that might easily be read. I also try to give them names that almost sound like names we know. In one the character is Kylea. This was taking my granddaughter's name Kyla and changing it a bit. In my current book that's the fifth in the Moon rising series, here's some of the names - Ranal for a male and Amera for a female. Both are easily pronounced.

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 So naming names of your characters can and should take time and thought.

Contemporary or Fantasy Janet Lane Walters #MFRWAuthor #BWLAuthor #Fantasy #Contmporary

Fantasy vs Contemporary

 

I recently finished a contemporary romance and am now working on a fantasy. Bothof these books are either part of a series or part of a trilogy. Been thinking about what happens in my head when I enter these worlds. What changes?

When writing contemporary stories, I’m familiar with the world. Much depends on finding a location for the stories but… I generally use a fictitious town I’ve created. One for each group of stories. I seldom use places that exist. Once I did and that was Santa Fe but I only used enough to give a sense of being there.

When writing fantasies, the worlds are completely made up. Here is where creativity and research comes into play. There are features in ancient civilizations that can be turned into fantasy worlds.

So the difference between the two is working with the familiar and with the imagined world.

The characters’ names and language are things that can be different when going between contemporary and fantasy. I try to make the names sound not of this world but I don’t do what some fantasy writers do and mane the names of the characters unable to pronounce. With the language, I try to make things common to the contemporary world easy to identify. Like choca for cholate and kafa for coffee. My entomology and my foreign dictionary often come into play here. In some of my fantasies, things exist that don’t occur here such as bihorns rather like huge horses or dragons.

So slipping from the modern world to the fantasy world means creating things that are unusual and also familiar to people.

Which comes first? Tricia McGill

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The age old question. Is it the chicken or the egg, or the other way round?

    But my query is, what comes first, the characters or the story? This is a question as a writer I am often asked. I always thought it was my characters as I believe my stories are character driven, but looking back I realize this isn’t wholly true.

    Taking my books one by one. Let’s start with Remnants of Dreams.

    This one was easy as the original idea was to tell my mother’s story. I was last to arrive into our large clan so my early years were filled with stories, related mostly by my eldest sister, of life through the difficult years before and during WW11. Alicia, the main character of course is based loosely on our mum. The last time I can recall her actually cuddling me was when I was really young, perhaps 4 of 5, so this tells you a lot about her character. Cherished by all her 5 boys and 5 girls, she was nonetheless not a woman to shower us with affection. But, she was always there for us and I cannot remember a time when there was not a meal waiting for me when I came home, when the fire was not already blazing in the fireplace when I rose on winter mornings when there was ice on the outside of the windows. Never was a woman so liked by her neighbors and those who knew her. My one regret is that she never talked about her early life or days before she met and fell in love with our father. There was a period when my sister and I even surmised that perhaps they never even got married as we had no tangible proof of a wedding. But we have this picture, which we presumed could have been taken on their wedding day in 1914.

    But I have gone totally off the subject. It was easy to create Alicia. Mathew, her husband, was a figment of my imagination. Based loosely on my father, in that he worked for the gas company and was gentle, kind, and a loving husband, he differed in lots of other ways. There were so many other characters in this book, some bearing similar characters to members of my large family, but mostly created to suit the story line. That proves therefore that the story came first and then the characters—or does it? I’ll leave that one for you to sort out.

    Now Mystic Mountains was definitely story first characters second. I attended a creative writing class years ago when I had barely written one or two full length novels that had probably reached draft number two stage and the tutor at this class gave us a task to create an opening scene that featured a character arriving in Australia in the 1800s after being transported from Merrie England. That one scene turned into one of my most popular books. Bella was the girl transported for a misdemeanor against a man of the aristocracy, so it followed that Tiger would be the arrogant Englishman she detested at first sight who would become her allocated Master.

    Distant Mountains was a follow on. It was supposed to be the story of Bella and Tiger’s eldest son, but somehow Bella’s newly transported brother took over and so it became his story. It follows that his love interest just had to be a woman of quality whose father was a bigot who would never agree to his only daughter marrying, or even socializing with a convict.

    I’ve always loved Time-Travels so thought it about time I attempted to write one. Mine was destined to have a twist as I sent a couple, Andrew and Liz, who had totally opposing personalities back in time to meet The Laird. This Laird bore a striking resemblance to Andrew and so Liz half fell in love with him. Now in this book the story most definitely came first and the characters formed in my mind once the story line was set in motion.

    Travis, the Laird’s story, followed. It just had to as I was also half in love with the Laird, and could not just leave him there in the past without finding out how things panned out for him. But when Liz’s friend Beth ended up back in his time Travis was a changed man from the rogue Andrew and Liz left behind. So, story came first as I had to get Beth back there somehow.

    Now, Leah in Love (and trouble) still has me puzzled. I can’t for the life of me remember where this idea sprung from and can only attribute it to my Muse, who does tend at times to go her own way. Leah’s story is the only one I’ve told in first person, but once Leah had established herself in my psyche, what else was there to do but let her have her own way and tell us about herself and the trouble she gets in. Her real name is Violet and as that is a flower what was her occupation to be but a gardener, hence her eccentric aunt, who taught her all there was to know about flora, was born. Sean, her love interest just had to be a PI or how else would she have been involved in so much mayhem simply by working on his garden.

     A Dream for Lani was characters first. This was another one my Muse took control of. I knew I wanted a shy, introverted woman who has lots of money but not much love in her life. Ryan and his children provide her with all the love she requires—after a shaky start of course.

    Lonely Pride is set in Tasmania. I often holidayed in this magnificent state in my early days in Australia with my Tasmanian friend whose mother was one of those characters that once met you never forget. But, I digress. A few incidents that happened on one of my trips there formed the nucleus of this story. I guess I can say that story came before characters in this one.

    Maddie and the Norseman is another of my Time-Travels. I was going through a Viking phase and absolutely knew I had to set my story back in Viking times, and specifically in the period after they had finished invading, ravaging and ransacking in Britain and were in the process of becoming honest tradesmen and traders. York was the obvious setting as it was one of the first towns settled by them. So, Maddie and her Viking Erik came after the plot line had been established. I do have another Viking story on its way some time soon.

    So, there we are, I really haven’t proved anything. Sometimes it is simply an idea that appears in the first light of dawn and the characters have to then decide how they wish to fit into this plot we’ve decided on, and other times the characters rule and insist on going their own way. Whatever, you can bet we authors love letting our characters show us the way.

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COWBOY KISSES

I discovered there is a restaurant in Mahattan, New York (around Third Ave. and 27th Street), named the Rodeo Bar and Grill. . .Honky Tonk.

Oh, so perfect!  What more could a western contemporary romance novelist desire in a dining experience?

Now that I've set you up with a lovely teaser, it would be darn right unfair of me to keep all those Cowboy Kisses for myself.  Wouldn't it?

Make at home version:


16 jumbo shrimp, peeled and deveined

16 pickled jalapenos, seeded, washed and sliced in half

16 slicces of bacon (Oscar Mayer Turkey Bacon is a good choice, too).
 

Toothpicks Chipotle Dipping Sauce:
1 cup mayonnaise (I favor low-fat)1-2 chipotle in adobo, seeded and minced
1/2 lime, squeezed

Preheat oven to 425F.
Place a shript inside the jalapeno and then wrap woth bacon.  Insert 1 or 2 toothpicks to secure.  Do the same with all the shrimp.

Place in a baking pan.  Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes. Then broil for 2-3 minutes until crispy.

Serve hot or room temperature with chipotle dipping sauce.

For the finished dipping sauce:
Place all ingredients in food processor (I use my blender) and pulse until combined.  You will still have small pieces of chipotle but dipping sauce will turn pink.

Serve with shrimp and beverage of choice.

I will be blogging at Books We Love again in an hour or so.
In the mean time, feel free to follow me on Twitter!  http://twitter.com/connie_vines
or read my culinary blog: www.naughtynibbles4your.wordpress.com
I am also at Pinterest: under novelsbyconniev

Remember Lynx Maddox will be dropping by in a bit for an exclusive interview.
I will also be telling my own personal  'western stories' and shaing photos.

"Courage is fear that has said its prayers." ~ Karl Barth.

Connie

 

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