flavor

Flavor of Travel – from Bland to Hot to Searing

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If you can’t believe the flavor, try again.

I’m not in the restaurant review business, carefully describing flavor, textures and presentation. This is probably a good thing for restaurants as well as for me. I don’t know how restaurant reviewers snap their jeans.

But since I am traveling I have had the opportunity to try several fast food and slow food restaurants.

The common denominator I find is my tendency to take a bite of something, shake my head in surprise, and then try another bite to make sure the flavor was exactly as tasty/spicy/disgusting/delicious as I thought it was.

Yesterday, for instance, I ate at an Indian restaurant. The décor was charming, the waiter attentive and the food did not need a match to light a fire. I took a bite of chicken and my tongue started smoking. Then I said to myself, “Maybe that was a particularly spicy bit. Surely the next piece won’t be as hot.”

Nope. Hotter.

Today, I grabbed a quick meal at a fast food restaurant. The sandwich looked tasty, and a mountain of crisp perfectly formed French fries towered next to it. The sandwich was as good as it looked, but I took a bite of a fry and thought, “This can’t be right. Maybe I grabbed a piece of the cardboard container by accident.”

But did I trust my tongue? No.

It took seven fries before I was ready to believe all the fries in the pile tasted like box.

And it’s not just dining out. Once I decided to try making the equivalent of Poppers at home. Poppers are the breaded stuffed jalapeno peppers one can find in the freezer section of the supermarket. The commercial version is relatively mild. Unlike the homemade Emeril recipe I tried.

They looked beautiful, plump and symmetrical when I pulled the cookie sheet from the oven, much nicer than the commercial variety. But they were astoundingly spicy. And I couldn’t accept that without trying to eat them at least three times.

Nobody likes being ignored or disbelieved, so I imagine my tongue is feeling a bit offended by now. Clearly it needs chocolate. And not the kind with peppers in it.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

vocabulary

Vocabulary Building, One Negus at a Time

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A large vocabulary opens doors. Although not always the doors you expected.

I was just muddling through Wuthering Heights again when I tripped over negus. That’s right, despite my fascination with cool vocabulary words, I never took the initiative to look the word up until now. Hard to believe.

I’m reading Wuthering Heights on my Kindle primarily because it is there and I have nothing to read at present. And there I was watching a character suffering from a shock being plied with negus, presumably as a comforting restorative.

What could negus be, I wonder?

Not gruel. Gruel is used for a similar purpose a few chapters later and I know what that is. And I don’t want any, no matter how comforting it might be.

My Kindle is a new device for me and I thought it might have some sort of word bank. So I tapped the word, hoping I might get the definition. Nope. Although the word “never” is now listed in my vocabulary list.

Negus, pronounced NEE-gus, in case you ever have to ask for it at a restaurant, is a combination of port, sugar, lemon and spices, served hot. Personally, I can imagine far more comforting foods than that.

The pronunciation is important since the same word pronounced Neh-GOOS is the Amharic term for King or Ruler. You can’t order one of those at a restaurant. Or, at least if you are lucky enough to receive one, you will have to wait a long time for him. The wait would probably be worth it though.

Maybe, when he arrives, you can share a nice glass of Negus.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

Grackles

Grackles – The Juvenile Delinquents of the Bird World

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Two  Great-Tailed Grackles just wandered by the window. I hadn’t ever seen any before, so I looked them up online. Apparently Great-Tailed Grackles usually travel in great flocks of black-blue iridescent blur, wreaking bird level havoc on any area they settle into. They eat whatever they can find, make a lot of noise at inconvenient times and can create a two inch thick ground cover of mess when they are in a crowd.

Much like teenagers.

They love parking lots for supermarkets and fast food restaurants, for obvious reasons. Great place to chat with peers, ogle girls and generally make trouble. The excitement of wondering if a customer will drop her bag must be a big part of the draw. I wonder if they take bets. The winner gets first dibs.

All of which makes me wonder about the two Grackles I see hopping through the grass in a park.

Are they trouble makers? The sorts of Grackles of whom their friends would say, “Pete and Marcie always were a little strange. Kind of stand-offish. But I never thought they would have done that.”

Or maybe they are scouts for a larger flock. They’ll go back to the group and report, “Pretty good grass, trees with lots of branches, one lady, no grocery bags. Meh.”

They could be incompetent dissidents:

She: I believe in the individual. All this society living is bad for the soul.

He: You’re right. Plus, being alone gives us a chance to be ourselves without the restrictions of the flock.

She: Absolutely. If our friends only knew how wonderful it is, they would be green with envy.

He: We should tell them.

She: Great idea! We can invite the flock!

Maybe they’re on a date. Or just lost.

Whatever the case, the news articles online have nothing good to say about Great-Tailed Grackles.

Pretty though.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

writing space

Writing Space is a Flexible Thing

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Stephen King talks about the importance of having a dedicated writing space. Specifically he recommends choosing a place which allows the writer to shut the door signaling to others and maybe more importantly to himself that he is ready to focus on writing.

I like the idea. Although most of the people I interact with have opposable thumbs so doorknobs are not much of a barrier. Even my dog learned how to give the door a shove with her forehead, just enough to dislodge the latch. The cat never figured it out but he was clever enough to wait until the dog did it for him.

I’m guessing the second line of defense against interruption in your writing space is a stern glare. I have a good glare, although now my children are adults it has grown rusty from lack of use. But even an excellent glare won’t have much impact on a spouse reporting a sudden geyser erupting from a heretofore placid toilet. These things happen when you work at home.

Life has a way of intruding into writing.

For the first few years after our house grew quiet and emptier, I found it too quiet to write there. So the chatter of a coffee shop was important and useful. Then, one day, when the only available seat in the coffee shop was next to a wild haired snaggle-toothed man who was furiously hissing at the vacant chair across from him, I decided the library might be a better bet.

There is a sense of communal endeavor in the library which makes it easy to want to join in.

 

Today I am not writing at home, nor at the library, nor in a coffee shop. My laptop just fits on a tiny table which hovers inches over my lap. My writing space is 30,799 feet in the air. I am sharing an armrest with my eldest son.

I think Mr. King is not talking about a physical space and door necessarily, but a mental one. Writing space is wherever you make it.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

technology

Technology and the Tools for Romance

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Technology is amazing. And often weird.

I just finished reading about a brand new product, a ring which sits at the base of a condom and measures all sorts of things while the condom is in use. The description of the data generated by this new technology is pretty strange. Why would anyone need to know how many thrusts, how fast or slow, size of girth?

Hell, I’m a romance writer with a lurid imagination and I am mystified at who the target market for this product might be. People who adore statistics? Folks who like to gamble? Men who feel under-decorated when naked?

Can you imagine the pillow talk?

She: “How was it for you, dear?”

He: “Not sure. Let me check.”

For that matter, consider the moment the inventor had his epiphany in his cubicle at Technology Incorporated. Yes, absolutely his epiphany. I don’t have to research this. A woman did not come up with this idea. No. Mr. Inventor came home at the end of the workday, his cheeks flushed with excitement.

Not those cheeks.

“Honey.” He called, as he entered the house. “I’ve created the most wonderful product ever.”

“Hmm?” His wife responded, clicking away on her keyboard.

“It’s sort of like a Fitbit, but it’s going to be way more popular.”

“Good.” She waved impatiently. “I’ll be right with you. Just let me finish this blog entry – ”

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a way to track how often we try different sexual positions? And have a way to gauge how we measure up to other couples in other parts of the world? This device is going to be the best idea since Harry Micklethorpe in the next cubicle came up with an intelligent toilet. He was strutting around the office for months.”

“Uhuh.” She leaned toward the computer screen in a vain effort to regain her train of thought.

“Plus we can share our statistics online with all our friends. But my boss said women might not like it.”

“Sounds like a winner, dear.” She nodded vaguely, replacing one dangling modifier with another.

“Yes!!!” He pumped his fist. “I knew he was wrong.”

By the time his wife looked up from her keyboard, her husband had called the office and ordered manufacturing to begin. Let this be a lesson to those of us who insist on blogging when we ought to be listening.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

 

book

Book Fasts Impact the Entire Globe

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A book fast can make you hungry. Eat a cookie.

I finally know who I am writing for the next romance which in itself is pretty exciting. The hard part initially, at least for me, is figuring out who my main characters are and why it’s imperative I write their stories. And now I’m jittery with anticipation. And I am commencing a book fast.

But the aspect of this writing process which affects you, is the book fast which commences the moment I finish the remaining novel sitting on my library shelf.

“Book fast.” Your brow furrows. “Is there a benefit to reading faster?”

Maybe. Although the pages might catch fire.

No. This is more of a “no book for you until you finish your peas” situation.

So once I finish Sophie Hannah’s The Carrier, part of her Zailer and Waterhouse series which I mysteriously missed in my voracious gobbling of her work, that’s it. No more reading until I am well along into Jock Durrell’s love story.

“So what?” you say. “How does this impact on me?”

Here’s how. A significant shortage of shelf space will ensue in my local library since I will not be storing the usual number of books at my house. A librarian attempting to jam too many books on a shelf will shove too hard and a patron in the next aisle will suffer a sore foot from the books which tumble onto it. He will stomp around the corner and complain to the head librarian.

The head librarian will head out to a café for lunch with her husband but will snap at him when he doesn’t deserve it. Her husband, on his way back to work, will honk angrily at a slow procession of cars in front of him. At the head of the procession, a visiting dignitary who hails from a small pugnacious country, will take offense. He will threaten to bring suit against anyone who writes a novel using his country as a setting.

You see how it goes. Never mind a butterfly sneezing. It’s my not reading which has impact.

More to the point, it means the Wednesday Book of the Week feature will go on hiatus for a while. Instead, every Wednesday I’ll either review old favorites of mine, which might be new favorites for you, or just blather on in my usual inconsiderate way about topics of my choosing.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

 

learning

Learning the Seductive Language of SEO

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Making a living learning. How cool is that idea?

Years ago, in a former life, I read On Studying Singing by Sergius Kagen. At first, I found the book painful. I was new to singing but I knew I wanted to sing for a living and Kagen’s voice was disconcerting and frankly discouraging. It’s a sort of culling the herd book – if you don’t have certain inborn aptitudes (good pitch, good ear, etc.), he says, all the practicing in the world won’t help. You are wasting time and energy aiming for being a professional and should concentrate on learning to be a good amateur.

I did, in the end, earn my living as a singer and over those years I became more comfortable with Kagen’s perspective. He wasn’t being mean. He was telling his truth as he saw it and he also had great respect for amateurs. And, of course, even those inborn aptitudes need to be honed and constantly sharpened.

But what I retained from On Studying Singing was an understanding of the many hidden attributes required to succeed at any full-time occupation. And of the amount of learning one must be willing to undertake.

Writing well is not the same as making a living at it.

To do that requires learning a little bit of HTML and a lot about platform creation. I’m even learning about how to seduce web-crawlers. “Right this way, baby…”

I wonder if web-crawlers arrive any faster if you wear a slinky evening gown and drape yourself over a piano while whispering sweet nothings in a sultry voice.

Next will be marketing both in person and online. Not to mention querying agents about Waiting For You.

I remember every day, the way I felt when I began my first career – driven, frustrated, exasperated, and fascinated in turns. And through it all, a constant thrum of excitement. I can’t wait to see how this story unfolds.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

bees

Bees and Their Plan for World Domination

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Bees are already smarter than some of us.

So apparently bees are capable of teaching each other to use tools. Not hammers yet. But it’s only a matter of time.

In addition, once a bee learns how to use a tool, it can strategize for most efficient usage. I don’t know whether to feel delighted or threatened by the news that bees are more capable than some humans.

There are humans who are not capable of learning and other humans not capable of teaching and probably an overlap of humans who are not capable of either and all of these can be out thought by a six legged, four winged, five eyed creature whose brain is a small part of her 0.00025 pound body.

No, I didn’t just know that. I had to look it up. What do you think I am, a bee?

On the one hand this news has high embarrassment potential. Well, not for bees, obviously.

We humans have lots of tools bees might want to learn how to use. Tools they might use better than we do. I’m not worried about them using drones. They already have those. But what about tools we consider distinctly human? Electric toothbrushes, for instance.

Bees might enjoy brushing off the pollen residue which clings to their tiny legs at the end of a long day diving into flowers. If they decide electric toothbrushes are the way to go, I might find myself standing in my bathroom with my hands up in surrender as four thousand bees waft mine away.

“Don’t forget the-” I would stop mid-sentence as another four thousand bees carry off the charger. See what I mean about embarrassment? How would I explain my lack of dental hygiene to the dentist?

I can imagine those same bees in their tiny house trying out the brush and muttering to each other “Hmm. Alternating current.”

On the other hand, maybe bees’ capacity for tool usage will lead to good things for us, like more honey. Bees might build factories and flood the market with increased honey production. Honey is delicious and even has some mild antibiotic properties.

But it increases the risk of cavities which is a problem since they stole my toothbrush.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

character

Character Depth is an Enviable Trait

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If you envy an author’s character development skills, is that a sign of weak character?

I know. I promised something frivolous. And I had every intention of providing it until the main character in All the Time in the World by Caroline Angell grabbed my heart and wouldn’t let go.

I stand in awe of a writer who can begin a story with death and make it work. In the first paragraph, we are told the mother of two small boys will die and that this death will be exquisitely painful to the survivors and even, perhaps, to the reader.

What was to prevent me from slapping the book shut and saying, “I’m sad enough today, thank you very much”? Unless I had a penchant for misery. Or just enjoyed a miserable sort of predictability.

But that paragraph was so crystalline in its language, I couldn’t close the book without reading just a little more until I was thoroughly hooked.

Novels don’t usually begin with a death and there is good reason for that. In the arc of a novel, death is the big fear. A writer doesn’t often squander that dark moment on the first page. But Angell takes the risk.

It’s an interesting choice because the death of a character one cares about has a way of taking up a huge amount of psychic reader-energy. In a sense, by getting it out of the way in the beginning, Angell is leaving room for the surviving characters to act in context of their loss.

The strength of this book is in its brilliant character portrayals.

Charlotte, the boys’ nanny, who narrates the history leading up to the crisis and its aftermath is utterly believable and consistent.

Another reason I kept reading was to see how Angell managed to write children.

I can’t count the number of adult novels I have read with child characters who are saccharine, perhaps disobedient but only in the most charming of ways.

So I was anticipating failure, dreading it actually. But I shouldn’t have worried. Angell’s children are real children, believably irritating as a regular thing with those occasional moments of grace we learn to treasure as parents, teachers and caregivers.

I am trying to master writing and books like All the Time in the World, are the ultimate learning device. If you are trying to do the same, read this book. It’s an excellent lesson.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.

brainstorming

Brainstorming Alone is a Challenge

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Don’t talk so loud. I can’t hear myself brainstorming.

One character study done. And I’m brainstorming over a messy plot board with some possible ideas. It’s a start.

What is so interesting to me about doing character studies is how well you get to know not only a character but also his back story – infinitely helpful when it comes to understanding the ramifications of a situation you drop him into.

So I know my hero now and I like him. I know what he likes and what he doesn’t like which is going to make his first meeting with the girl of his dreams pretty amusing. Because she is, on the surface at least, totally inappropriate for him.

And the plot board? At first I had a simple rectangle with strips of duct tape to make four acts and I used index cards (oooh, index cards) for each scene. Then I got fancy, thanks to a presentation at the Rhode Island Romance Writers’ meeting. Now I have a couple display boards and a lot of different colored and shaped sticky notes.

My guess is all that fancy stuff will lead me back to duct tape board and the index cards because, let’s face it, nothing beats index cards. But in the interim, all the colors, shapes, and mess gives me a sense of brainstorming even though I always associate brainstorming with being a member of a group of reluctant and resentful seventh graders who have to come up with a plan for a model Lincoln Memorial made out of sugar cubes.

The whole concept implies a group – I’m not sure brainstorming is possible alone.

And the word sounds so dramatic, full of portent and maybe a little dangerous – like watching the volunteer at the science museum demonstration with her hand on the Van de Graaff generator when her hair begins to stand on end.

Somehow it never feels that exciting when I’m trying to come up with ideas on my own. Maybe I should hire some reluctant seventh graders just to set the mood. I must have sugar cubes somewhere.

Rose Grey has written three romance novels and is hard at work on a fourth. If you liked this post, come visit the rest of the blog at www.rosegreybooks.com. Hot Pursuit and Not As Advertised are available as ebooks and as paperbacks online.