Saturday, November 25, 2017

The warmth of writing

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Here we are in the chill of late November. This cold weather in Toronto has me thinking back to my Alberta days and “warmth food.”  This is not just to warm up the body. It also calms me and makes writing easier.
My A-list includes the classic, lasagna. A must, with lots of hot cheese and to make it a true treat for the tastebuds...spicy Italian sausage. All bases covered in the heat departement.
A Close second is an addition from my Ukrainian heritage. Good old borscht. It has both amazing flavour and the makings of an excellent Scrabble word if you are short on vowels. Yes, I’ve tried meatless, but it doesn’t have the as much meat on the bone as the classic recipe.
My favourite body-warmer is a recent addition to the culinary cavalcade of comfort cuisine. About fifteen years ago I was introduced to NongShim Shin Ramyun Noodles. In several words, they are amazing. Be aware that they are spicy. Add the packet of noodles to a pot containing 2 cups of boiled peas and you have a piping-hot meal. Each spoonful is a flavourful experience.
The one we pulled out of the oven this evening is officially accompanied by snow flurries and ice skating on the shore of frigid Lake Ontario. Brrrrring on the cabbage rolls. OK, I make “lazy cabbage rolls. We actually like them better. Kind of a casserole effect. More importantly, it takes 20 minutes to make rather than 2 hours. FYI, cayenne pepper is a must.


Honourable mention goes to perogies (especially fried),  beef stew, and New England Clam Chowder.
Stay warm.

Friday, November 24, 2017

Holiday Traditions? Plus Exclusive Excerpt of Secret: At HL Woods



Happy day-after Thanksgiving to all who celebrate this holiday, and for those who don’t, Happy Friday to you and yours: ) The weather is turning colder in Southwest Michigan, good for campfires, which I had today with my grandson. Always good times when sharing moments with family; )




So, tell me, are there certain family traditions you follow on this special day?

I’m always curious about traditions. I grew up with them…but things changed when I had my own family. I didn’t want to deal with traditions, things we do the same every year, but little did I know that I was actually making my own traditions. LOL Like celebrating the holiday on the Friday after:)

~.~.~.~

There is an amazing dish that my mom-in-law made for the holidays – Apple Pie Slices, which my brother-in-law named Pink Sh*t – because of the pink frosting on top. It’s like apple pie flattened onto a cookie sheet and topped with frosting – s-o-o-o yummy! We haven’t indulged in this dish for a number of years, but this year I made it for my family. I guess some traditions hang on whether you want them to or not – they become part of who we are.
~.~.~.~

So tell us about your favorite tradition for the holiday/s? Who knows, maybe it will become a new tradition for someone else.

~.~.~.~

While you’re here, I’d like to share a short excerpt from my soon-to-be-released book - Secret: At HL Woods – YA Paranormal Romance scheduled for release January 2018.

Unedited Author Excerpt - 1st part of chapter one:

“What the—? Ugh!” Air exploded out of my lungs as I face-planted in musty dirt and leaves. A little fur-ball chipmunk had scurried across my path and should be a smear on the bottom of my tennis shoe, but I’d dove over it like diving off the raft. Air wheezed back into my body on gulps of mortification.

“Holy crap. Kyle, did you see that agile ballerina move? It’s none other than the dark witch-girl, Bri Lancaster. You know, the very one that unveils morbid goth clouds wherever she goes.”

Max. My worst nightmare. No, no, no. Don’t look. Do not raise your head. I did, coughing and sputtering dirt from my mouth. Kyle, the guy that lived next door, ran full bore toward me, while Max struck a pose, laughing. A deranged hyena came to mind. What the heck were those two doing this far into the woods? They’d never been in this area of the forest, at least not for the past three months I’d been jogging here.

“Are you hurt?” Kyle kneeled next to me and extended a hand.

I got to my feet on my own, brushing dirt from the front of my T-shirt. “I’m fine.” I glared at Max, who was still a distance away laughing his butt off. How mature.

“Max. It’s not that funny.” Kyle unfolded himself to stand beside me. His ice-blues twinkled from the sunlight filtering through the tree branches. “Are you sure you’re all right? That was quite a tumble.”

Stop staring at him and respond. A slap on my shoulder shoved me into Kyle. I nearly knocked him to the ground. Somehow he righted both of us.

“Get a grip, Goth-girl. He’s not into you.” Max jerked me away from Kyle and completed my humiliation. “You kissing the dirt made a perfect Snap Chat expose, my evil one.” He flashed me the picture on his phone. “Today we get to enjoy black spiky hair tipped in fluorescent fuchsia. What happened to your eyebrow stud?” He blinked his eyes and grinned, most likely for effect.

As if on auto-mode, my hands curled into fists with a deep-seated urge to punch his face. My hair wasn’t spiky, just short, and how he got his phone to grab a close up of me on the ground was beyond me. I hate him.

Grandpa’s words about hate rifled through my head, “Don’t hate the haters, it’s normally a traumatic experience that created their outlook, or exterior programming from parents that went through the trauma. Not their fault.” Well, I didn’t see anything but red whenever I looked at Max’s smug face.

Without a word, I ran toward the mound of wild rose vines and thistles, where Kyle and Max had stood a moment ago.

A black man and white woman shimmered into view beside it, arms around each other, both staring at me.

I stopped so abruptly I almost lost it again. Apparitions.

“Martin, look at her. She’s seein’ us.” The woman’s distinct southern accent caught me, but what set off my cursed paranormal spidey-sensors was their clothing…straight from the 60’s, according to some of the old romance books I’d read from Mom’s stash.

“By damn, she does see us.” He stepped closer to me with the woman at his side. “You can see us.”

“I can, yes.” Holy crap, I just said that out loud. My whole body tensed. I glanced over my shoulder to see if Kyle and Max still roamed face-plant alley. A shiver shook through me. They’d left.

“We need your help, Missy.” Martin’s brows arched, his head tilted. “Please tell us you can help us.”

The woman turned to him and patted his cheek. “It’s gonna be all right, sweetie. We ain’t botherin’ this fine woman with our problems.” She turned to me. “It’s okay, darlin’, you never mind us.”

“Why are you both here?” Wherever I saw spirits of the dead, it usually meant they were connected to something in the area. I considered the mound, seeing something metal and rusty underneath all the greenery. “You should have crossed over, into the vortex of light…unless you’re meant to go to the dark plane.”

The woman gasped and clung to Martin.

Maybe I’d said too much. I yanked some of the vines away, getting scratched and poked from the effort.

A car, green, ancient. No wonder it was tough to see.

“We want justice, but we aren’t able to leave this spot. Something’s holding us here, like some kind of barrier.” Martin’s lips pinched together, his head nodding. He looked at the woman as if to confirm. She nodded also.

I scanned the area thoroughly to make sure Kyle and Max weren’t lurking behind a tree to get a shot of me talking to air. I’d dealt with Max enough during school to last a lifetime; his nasty pranks didn’t need to scar my summer too.

Thankfully they’d really left.

“You fancyin’ one of those boys?” The woman smiled.

“Gloria, now don’t you be puttin’ on with this little lady. She won’t want to share her life with the likes of us.” Martin embraced Gloria, kissing her forehead.

I chuckled at considering either Kyle or Max as anything more than what? Simply guys in my grade? No one knew me here and I liked it that way. Moving from Marshall before the end of my junior year was the worst thing to happen in my life, well besides Dad leaving once we settled into the house here. Plus, Luke lived in Marshall. I shook my head. “No. Neither of those guys is into me, and I’m definitely not into them.”



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DK Davis writes YA sci-fi, supernatural, and fantasy with a good dollop of all the relationships woven in between. When she’s not writing, editing, or reading, she’s hiking, RV’ing, fishing, spending time with grandchildren or her favorite muse (her husband) in Southwest Michigan.




BWL Publishing Inc. Author Page: http://bookswelove.net/authors/davis-dk/  



Wednesday, November 22, 2017

You Just Gotta ask Yourself, What If?





You Just Gotta ask Yourself, What If?








You Just Gotta ask Yourself, What If?

The first ever Chilliwack Independent Film Festival was held this weekend, organized by Taras Groves, originally from London, England. A film director whose movie “Nowhere” took me by surprise. A short film about a down-and-out street bum, yet when he speaks, eloquence flows from his mouth. And I think; what made this man the way he is, and how? Someone who has nothing in his life but goes out of his way to help another soul in distress. These are the things a writer should think about and ask themselves.
So many of the other short, low-budget films did the same. The film about shoe-shiners made me realize they are people with hearts and souls; the story of a man alone after the holocaust who seems to go insane and I wonder if that atrocity would do the same to me. Or a film about a young girl, an only child with parents that fight all the time, who finds a scruffy toy to befriend. A rich kid, from the feature film RAW, that has wasted his life with drugs and must now pay the price if he is to grow up. These films raise issues, make me ask the age-old question that as a writer I always ask, the question that made me a writer and I’ll never stop asking it. What if?
What if this man in the movie didn’t make those decisions? What if he doesn’t help another person when he has nothing? What if the rich kid doesn’t make the right choices?
Then my mind begins to roll and the pen doesn’t sleep.
If a film or a book does that, then it has done its job for the writer. If the same film either makes people laugh, cry or wonder ‘hmm’, then it has done its job to entertain. If a book does the same, it has also done its job. There is a great thrill internally for me and, I would think, all writers, to know they’ve lived up to their soul’s driving need. But the true gift, the return for all the hours spent making the book as perfect as we can, is to have someone say you made them laugh or cry, or made them think of something they never thought of before or take a different look at life. Yeah, that’s the payback for me.
As for me, it made me walk up to a young man I’d seen nearly every weekend for the last year or so, playing his guitar. He’d sit in the strip mall beside the restaurant my wife and I frequent. He plays beautiful ballads, has a wonderful singing voice and smiles, even on the coldest day. It dawned on me I didn’t even know his name.
I learned he is Rain August, part native, part Norwegian. Yes, there’s a whole new possibility for a character there.
So next time you get a chance to go to a film festival or some local artistic event, do it. Let it entertain you and make you think or ask that age-old question. What if?
Then the internal magic takes over.






And maybe you get a chance to get on the red carpet

With the Festival's Director, Taras Groves

With Canadian Film Producer, David Strasser, his Featured Film, RAW






The Stillwaters Run Deep Series: Canadian West Coast Urban Fantasy At Its Best.


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