Tuesday, January 29, 2013

7-7-7

Emm Cole, author of Merminia, tagged me for the blog meme 7-7-7.
Thank you!
What in the heck is 7-7-7?

Seven lines from the seventh paragraph of the seventh page of your current Work In Progress (WIP).

My current WIP is Half Mortal. Okay, I cheated, it's eleven lines. Hopefully, the blog meme police will not come to arrest me!

From Chapter 3: The Golden Orchards

By the time they drew close to the Cathedral Palace, the traffic trickled to non-existent; and the knight’s presence at the tree house had transformed into something ominous in Melia’s mind.

Tatou followed her off the road.

Melia didn’t say anything until they’d reached the break beyond the cherry trees lining the dirt boulevard that led to the palace and the Grand Library where Uncle Raffles was. “Let’s sneak through the orchards,” she whispered.

The pixie nodded.

Melia had always loved the ancient trees’ fruit: abundant golden apples as big as two of her fists. She never walked their shaded paths without crunching on at least one. Today, she ignored their ripe scent as she stalked to the line where the neat orderly rows of trees devolved into a tangled web of leaves and limbs and trunks. It was the place where she and her sisters had preferred to play hide-and-seek when they’d first come to Illialei. She knew it well.

“The news about Plantine must have already crossed the river,” her friend whispered.

Melia hoped that’s all it was: rumor and innuendo that she and Tatou could put to rest with the truth, but apprehension clutched her throat, and it wouldn’t let go. 

Now, it's my turn to tag someone...

Thursday, January 24, 2013

New Beginnings

During my social media organic growth phase in 2012, things became rather sprawling. I ended up with multiple urls that were a challenge--even for me--to keep up with, much less maintain.

When someone suggested that I take a look at this, it took me a bit, but finally, I got her point. Well, after my husband who is a whiz bang system architect and application programmer broke it down for me. Then I realized it was kind of brilliant.

The truth is: It FEELS like I fiddled with my website(s) for an entire year, probably because I did! But towards the end of the year, I figured out these are the things that I love:

Twitter,
Eating Magic, 
my Goodreads friends, and
being an Indie Author.

Facebook…I'm still trying to wrap my head around.

I also figured out this is who I am:

A reader and a writer. A writer and a reader. A reader and a writer. A writer and a reader. Okay, I think you've got the point.

Thus, I would like to welcome you to my new streamlined and integrated website where my Eating Magic blog posts will be intermingled with other stuff. Like new releases, cover reveals, contests, giveaways, blog hops, and all the other potpourri of a wordy person's life.

To celebrate this rebirth I'm hosting an exclusive event for my Goodreads friends!

I'll Tweet Your Link!

Just leave your twitter handle and the link you'd like me to tweet as a comment on this blog post before noon, Sunday, January 27; I'll come up with a zesty tweet and shout it out to my 1200+ followers. And if you follow me, I'll follow you back.

If you don't have a twitter account, I'll still tweet your link, I just won't be able to mention your twitter handle in the tweet.

Have a great weekend!

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

The Finest Dark Chocolate For Your Kindle...

I'm re-reading The Story Sisters by Alice Hoffman. According to Goodreads, I've been doing this since September 14, 2013. Sigh.

Reading a book for the second time is different than reading it for the first time. The first time is sensory, full of questions, the unknown beckons. The second time it's like: Your eyes are wide open. You know what's coming. You know where the tragedies are buried and the sweetness lives. And you're older, too. Maybe just a little bit, but still, you've changed.

Perhaps, this is why my second reading of The Story Sisters has been so halting. I'm feeling different about Elv. She was the dark heroine the first time I read the book, but now it's Claire. She's like a prism, her love for her mother and her sisters and her ama and her dog, refracting a color wheel of light.

Every day after school she went to the cemetery. While other girls were meeting boyfriends, going to dances, working on the school newspaper, Claire was walking through the wrought-iron gates.

Sometimes her grandmother feared that Claire was evaporating. What would be left of her if she kept disappearing into a smaller and smaller world of her own? Her shoes, her hat, her coat. Nothing more.

Customers listened to Claire's opinion. Her small sulky voice forced them to lean close in order to catch her advice. In the end they all understood what she was telling them: Stones were the only thing that lasted.

I think I've said this before: It's a bittersweet read. The finest dark chocolate for your kindle, nook, or iThingy…

Reunina Lee. I came to Rescue You.

Sunday, January 20, 2013

The Cracked Dry Land of My Soul...


When I get to page 327 in Me Before You by Jojo Moyes I decide: I am not going to let this book get to me.

Not gonna' do it.

Thank god I read the last bit of the book in the tub! On page 354 I turn into a weepy, snotty, hiccoughing, slobbery puddle. The water pressure builds all the way through page 361. Well, I get to page 361, toss the book (carefully) onto the bath rug, and let the rest of it out.

So, I've done it. And I feel much better for it.

I do believe in crying. In private. The bathtub, the shower, wandering through the house when no one's home. I do believe, rather passionately, that crying is cathartic. Healing. Rejuvneating.

The cracked dry land of my soul needs these tears to grow.

I am not convinced that you need botox if you let yourself have a good cry whenever you need it. Sigh.

I don't want to spoil the book for you, but I will tell you to read it. READ IT.

And I will also tell you this: If someone you loves is there, at that threshold. GO. Be present with them in that moment. It will transform you, probably at the molecular level.

When I was with grandma, when she drew her last breath, it was like being in the presence of G-O-D.

Friday, January 18, 2013

I'll Sleep in the Box Room


I stop reading Me Before You by Jojo Moyes. Just stop. Louisa and Will--and Nathan--are in Mauritius. I want to hang out with them--maybe forever, but--at least, for a little while.

I love Louisa. She is fantastic. I hate that I am reading a library book. I want to highlight all the good bits and I can't. But I remember this one from early on:

"Jesus Christ," said my father. "Can you imagine? If it wasn't punishment enough ending up in a ruddy wheelchair, then you get our Lou turning up to keep you company."
"Bernard!" my mother scolded.
Behind me, Grandad was laughing in his cup of tea.

If you don't think that's funny, now. Read the book. You will. Louisa Clark is worth getting to know, as Will Traynor finds out.

This story is unexpectedly wonderful. I find myself wandering around my house with a little smile on my face just because of it.

I confess, I am a bit gaga over it.

In fact, if Josie and Bernard will adopt me, I'll sleep in the box room.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

So I Guess I'm not a Fan of Realism


I think about Alma Katsu's The Taker. It has made an impression. I love the beginning; Lanny is so cool. But then she twists and turns into something icy, and flippant, smoking doobies. Ugh. The story descends to a point where there are no heroes or heroines and I feel disappointed. I didn't know I wanted one so much.

But then I remember seeing Farewell My Concubine so many years ago in that funky old theater on West Gray, the one down the street from Birraporettis. Yeah, me and my best friend were into foreign flicks, but we sat through that whole film, I think it was almost three hours, flabbergasted as Cheng Dieyi's life starts out bad and then gets worse and then at the end unbelievably sinks to new lows.

Later when we went to the coffee shop to hang out with the guys who weren't so into subtitles, Estella and I tried to explain to them what we had seen. We looked at each other across the table and laughed hysterically. There were no words for the trauma we had just endured in the name of art.

So I guess I'm not a fan of realism.

Anyway...that is what the Taker felt like. You keep reading cause Katsu's storytelling abilities are pretty wicked, but in the end...you feel like the foulness of that nasty alchemist is hanging in the air all around you and you just want to get rid of it...open all the windows even if its nineteen degrees outside.

There was a time in my life when darkness attracted me. Everything damaged perverse and corrupt had a compelling draw. But it was in that same theater on West Gray, I think I was watching Tous les Matins du Monde, and I realized that period of my life had ended. I wanted light. I craved it needed it wanted to suck it into all the cracks and chasms that some part of life had left broken and shadowed.

Yeah, so now I read The Taker and wonder WTF was I thinking? Putting in a library request for The Reckoning.

I'll have to blame it on Katsu's ability to hypnotize.

Friday, January 11, 2013

There's Too Much Blueberry Jam on That Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich


I read Adair's tale in The Taker as I put down the book I can't help but think of Louis in Interview With the Vampire—a pantheon of overwhelmed men taken by immortality.

It's all so gothic.
So much sex and lust expressed sideways, squeezing out the sides like too much blueberry jam on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
You just want to lick it all off.

Lanny is getting lost in the shuffle, maybe she will resurface.
I hope so.
She's the character I like.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

I have to go read...


I am reading the The Taker by Alma Katsu and I am falling in love. You know. Sometimes that happens when you read. Something happens between you and the words and the story and the characters and that's what it feels like: falling in love. I have to stop reading and all day I am thinking: I want to get back to that story. I am like the doctor. I want to find out what is happening between Lanore and Jonathan.

I think it is Lanore's frankness.
She just pulls you in and you want to know: Where is this going?

I really can't write anymore.
I have to go read ...

Saturday, January 5, 2013

No one has said "Blessed Be" yet...


Spending the last few days of vacation with my nose in a book. More accurate to say my nose pressed against an LCD screen. Experiment. Makes me cross-eyed. You get the picture. Lots of Kindle Swag. Lots of reading.

Right now, I'm glued to New England Witch Chronicles by Chelsea Bellingeri.

One of the first research papers I ever wrote was about Mass Hysteria and the Salem Witch Trials. All those bored, crazy women trapped by long short-dayed east-coast winters listening to ghost stories. Sigh. Who knows what really happened, but I love all the conjecture. And most of the time when I hear Salem Witch Trials, my eyebrows lift with interest.

I peek around the shelves..."You were saying?"

So group psyche and the loss of individuality within the group, well, that's all in my wheelhouse, too,  and Alexandria Ramsey is my kinda' girl. Independent. 

The writing is smooth. It's the kind of writing where you don't know you're reading. None of this drowning in metaphor soup, where you feel like unnecessary words are dribbling down your chin like broth, and you constantly have to wipe them away to keep them from staining your jammies--cause you're reading in bed, right?

I like the pace, the dialogue, and Peter. 
I like that no one has said "Blessed Be" yet.