In the Interview Room — Irene Bennet Brown

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Irene Bennett BrownToday I wel­come award-winning author Irene Ben­nett Brown to Terry’s Place. Best known for her YA and adult his­tor­i­cal nov­els, Irene has found new delight in writ­ing cozy mysteries.

Plot­ter or Pantser?
I’m a def­i­nite plot­ter. Once I have an idea I’m excited about, I cre­ate char­ac­ter sketches, write a para­graph sum­mary, do research, and then write a 10 to 15 page syn­op­sis which I mark into chap­ters. This helps me cre­ate a first draft, then pol­ished pages, in the same way house plans work for a home builder.

Set­ting: real, totally made up, or based on a real place?
Most often my set­tings are based on a real place with fic­tion­al­ized touches as needed by the char­ac­ters and plot. My Celia Lan­drey Mys­ter­ies are pretty much set in my own back­yard and hometown.

You can invite any­one, alive, or dead, to din­ner.
Who would you invite and why?
Hands-down choice, Gre­gory Peck! I’ve idol­ized him for most of my life. He was so hand­some, gen­tle, and strong; per­fect in every role he played.
            Where would you eat?
Not that I could swal­low a thing, but we’d eat on my deck over­look­ing the San­tiam River. Just the two of us.
            What would you eat?
Say­ing I’m able to, filet of salmon with fresh aspara­gus in but­ter sauce, avo­cado and melon salad, beer wheat bread, with a nice Ore­gon Ries­ling. My own home­made black­berry pie a la mode for dessert.
            What ques­tion would you ask?
I’d ask him about his role as the Depression-era lawyer, Atti­cus Finch, in one of my all-time favorite movies, To Kill A Mock­ing­bird. I’d tell him I hated to miss the mono­logue about his life and career he gave at the Elsi­nore The­atre in Salem, Ore­gon, not long before he died…but how cool it was to walk the same red car­pet his feet walked into the Elsi­nore, when my hus­band and I cel­e­brated our anniver­sary there, com­pli­ments of our kids.

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Pacing — Tortoise, Hare, or Both?

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What I’m read­ing: Run Wild, by Shelly Thacker (Nook)

Tomor­row is the last day to enter the Booklover’s Bench con­test. I don’t think I need to say any­thing more.

tortoise and hareLife moves at its own pace. A minute is sixty sec­onds long; an hour sixty min­utes long. How­ever, we’ve all expe­ri­enced sit­u­a­tions where time flies, or where it seems to drag on inter­minably. Dur­ing the recent fires in Col­orado, it’s almost as if life stops while you wait for break­ing news. Peo­ple who have been in acci­dents or high-stress sit­u­a­tions (such as cops in a shoot out) will say that time slowed down. On the other hand, I con­fess to watch­ing “Chopped” and one thing I hear over and over is how fast the chefs’ time went by. How­ever, their twenty min­utes was really twenty min­utes, no mat­ter how they per­ceived it.

Recently, our “Net­flix Nite” selec­tion was Roman Hol­i­day. It came out in 1953 (and I had a very Old feel­ing moment when the cred­its announced it was “Intro­duc­ing Audrey Hep­burn). It’s billed as a roman­tic com­edy. About fif­teen min­utes into the movie, Hub­ster asked, “When do they find a dead body? When are the explosions?”

He was jok­ing, but “accept­able” pac­ing has changed over the years. We want things to get to the action faster, and move faster once it gets there. While the movie was enter­tain­ing enough (to me, not the Hub­ster), I doubt it would win an Oscar today. On the flip side, too many active scenes can leave the reader exhausted, as well as immune to the grow­ing con­flict. With the pos­si­ble excep­tion of the Hub­ster, most folks would burn out at a movie that was noth­ing but bat­tle scenes and car chases.
First – pac­ing is one of the five pil­lars of Novel Writ­ing. They are:
Pac­ing
Voice
Plot
Char­ac­ter
Description

Today, let’s look at Pacing.

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Friday Field Trip — Hiking in Colorado

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First– as the fires con­tinue to burn in Col­orado, I hope you’ll keep the thou­sands of peo­ple affected in your thoughts. If you want to help, the Red Cross is always on the scene dur­ing dis­as­ters. Locally, there’s the Pikes Peak Com­mu­nity Foundation’s Emer­gency Relief fund.

I met Kevin J. Ander­son, today’s guest, at the Super­Stars Writ­ing Con­fer­ence. He lives in an evac­u­a­tion zone, so I hope you’ll keep him in your thoughts as well. He’s a best-selling author who enjoys hik­ing, so I thought it fit­ting to share his pic­tures today–Colorado is such a beau­ti­ful state, and it’s a shame to see so much of it on fire.

Here’s what Kevin has to say about these pic­tures: I write my nov­els by dic­tat­ing into a dig­i­tal recorder while hik­ing the trails in beau­ti­ful Col­orado. I recently explored North Cheyenne Cañon in Col­orado Springs, a strik­ing area with Helen Hunt Falls, Mount Cut­ler, and excel­lent canyon scenery.  I got rained on, but still man­aged to fin­ish three new chap­ters in my humor­ous fan­tasy novel THE DRAGON BUSINESS.”—Kevin J. Ander­son www.wordfire.com

Cheyenne Canyon: photo by Kevin J. Anderson

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Soundtracks? Theme Songs? Help an Author Out.

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I’m going to be at Thriller­Fest next month, and I’ve been assigned to a panel called, “Is There a Sound­track For Your Book?” For me, the short answer is no but the ques­tion reminded me of a post I did on writ­ing to music a num­ber of years (and books) ago. I’m revis­it­ing it here. At the end of this post, I have a Big Ques­tion for you. Two ques­tions, actu­ally, and I’m hop­ing you’ll help me out.

Every writer has “ideal” writ­ing con­di­tions. Some like crowded, busy venues, oth­ers sequester them­selves in closet-sized rooms. Some want to be out­doors. Some write in the early morn­ing hours; oth­ers can’t cre­ate until well after the sun goes down. Some like a cup of cof­fee, while oth­ers might pre­fer a more potent libation.

I also have my writ­ing music playlist. It runs for an hour, so I know how long I’ve been work­ing when it’s fin­ished. It’s famil­iar, so my brain doesn’t pay atten­tion to it on a con­scious level.

I thought I’d share my playlist along with the ‘why’ of my choices, and how they relate to my work. I found Playlist.com, and gave it a try. I wasn’t able to find one of the cuts from my Clan­nad album, and that’s prob­a­bly the only melody nobody would rec­og­nize, but I’ve embed­ded my writ­ing playlist here. And I’ve listed the songs as well, along with what they inspired.

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What’s Cooking Wednesday — Southwest Stuffed Peppers

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Hubster’s been play­ing in the kitchen again. Here’s his take on a stuffed bell pep­per recipe. (He said if he makes it again, he’d add some jalapenos or poblanos to the mixture)

South­west Stuffed Peppers

Southwest Stuffed Peppers

Ingre­di­ents:
1 c. long grain white rice
1 T olive oil
6 scal­lions, thinly sliced (sep­a­rate white and green)
½ lb ground meat (we used turkey)
1 c. frozen corn
1 4 oz. can chopped green chiles
1 t. ground cumin
4 oz. Mon­terey Jack cheese, grated
S&P
4 large bell pep­pers (any color)
½ c. plain Greek yogurt
salsa (we used green)

Instruc­tions:
Cook rice per pack­age direc­tions.
Pre­heat oven to 375
In a large skil­let, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add the scal­lion whites and meat. Cook until meat is no longer pink.
Stir in corn, chiles, cumin, cooked rice, ½ c of the cheese, ½ t salt, and ¼ t pep­per.
Remove pith and seeds from pep­pers. Arrange, cut side up, in a 9x13 pan. Divide the meat mix­ture between the pep­pers. Add ½ c water, cover tightly with foil, and bake until pep­pers are soft, about 30–40 min­utes.
Uncover, sprin­kle with the remain­ing cheese, and bake until browned, about 5–7 min­utes.
In a small bowl, whisk the yogurt and ¼ c water. Driz­zle over the pep­pers. Top with salsa and scal­lion greens (you should prob­a­bly cut them smaller than Hub­ster did).

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In the Interview Room — Violetta Rand

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Today I wel­come Vio­letta Rand to the Inter­view Room. Welcome!Violetta Rand

Set­ting: real, totally made up, or based on a real place?
The main set­ting for Blind Alle­giance is Tron­de­lag, Nor­way, a west­ern coastal region that very much resem­bles, Alaska. Icy fjords, glac­i­ers, moun­tains, and forest—hauntingly beau­ti­ful. It screams Vikings.

You can invite any­one, alive or dead, to din­ner…
Who would you invite and why?
Jesus of Nazareth – whether you embrace him as the sav­ior or a great prophet, his philoso­phies have changed the course of civ­i­liza­tion for­ever. That alone attracts me.
            Where would you eat?
Jerusalem
            What would you eat?
A tra­di­tional Hebrew meal; fish, fruit, bread, and wine.
            What ques­tion would you ask?
I’d ask many ques­tions… But one really stands out for me. I’d ask him to explain the role women played in his min­istry. Was he truly the first feminist?

What book(s) are on your nightstand/by your chair?
The Bible, The Amer­i­can Patriot’s Hand­book, Pride and Prej­u­dice, Kepler’s Witch, and what­ever book I’m read­ing at the moment. Right now, that’s Fight­ing for Chris­ten­dom, Holy War and the Crusades.

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Coroners — A Workshop Recap

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Colorado Coroners AssociationLast month, our RWA chapter’s speaker was Chris Hern­don, a retired deputy coro­ner. A lot of her talk was about cases she’d worked on, includ­ing graphic pic­tures, which doesn’t really lend itself to a pleas­ant blog post, but she did pro­vide a lot of inter­est­ing facts.

First—if you’re writ­ing crime fic­tion make sure you know whether the state you’re writ­ing about uses Med­ical Exam­in­ers or Coro­ners. They’re not the same. Coro­ners are elected. His­tor­i­cally, coro­ners were tax col­lec­tors in Eng­land, sent to places where peo­ple had died in order to make sure nobody skipped out on pay­ing death taxes.

In Col­orado, to be elected Coro­ner, all you have to be is over 18 and not a felon. Fairly recently, a 40 hour train­ing pro­gram was initiated.

Med­ical Exam­in­ers are appointed, and have med­ical degrees.

Since Chris Hern­don worked in Col­orado, her infor­ma­tion per­tains to this state, and that’s what I’m going to be relay­ing here. If you’re set­ting a story else­where, do your homework!

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Editing Tips, Take 2

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What I’m read­ing: A Study in Sher­lock, edited by Lau­rie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger

Box of Books Contest PrizesFirst – I’m accu­mu­lat­ing more books and they need a good home. I’m going to give a box of them away, but not until I hit 1500 “Likes” on my Face­book Page. If you haven’t already clicked the “Like” but­ton, I hope you’ll take a minute to do so. And if you have, I hope you’ll let your friends know. Once I hit 1500, I’ll have an easy contest.

And, I hope you’ve already entered the con­test at Booklover’s Bench. Prize is a $25 gift card to your choice of Ama­zon or B&N, plus 4 ebooks.

As I men­tioned on Mon­day, I’ve printed my hard copy and have started that phase of the edit­ing process. Although we’re all dif­fer­ent, and nobody’s way is the “right” way, I’m a staunch sup­porter of read­ing in hard copy—I found things in the first 3 chap­ters that were  ‘invis­i­ble’ on the screen.

And another edit­ing tip—using Find/Replace.

One very sim­ple task your word proces­sor can do for you is find all those repeated words. But have you ever looked at the entire menu? I know I was slow on the uptake.

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What’s Cooking Wednesday — Broccoli Raisin Salad

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Here’s another recipe from book club mem­ber Kathy Perry. This one’s for a quick and easy broc­coli salad.

Broc­coli Raisin Salad
broccoli salad

Ingre­di­ents:
4 cups fresh broc­coli flo­rets (1 medium bunch)
3/4 cup golden raisins (Note: I used golden raisins and dried cran­ber­ries)
1 small red onion (about 1/3 c)
1/2 cup Mir­a­cle Whip
1 table­spoon white vine­gar
2 tea­spoons sugar
3 bacon strips, cooked and crum­bled (I used turkey bacon)

Instruc­tions:
In a large bowl, com­bine the broc­coli, raisins and onion. In a small bowl, com­bine Mir­a­cle Whip, vine­gar and sugar. Pour over broc­coli mix­ture; toss to coat. Sprin­kle with bacon. Refrig­er­ate for at least 2 hours before serv­ing.
Yield: 6 servings

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