Mona Karel Author

 

Do You Fear The Wind

by: Hamlin Garland (1860-1940)

O you fear the force of the wind,

The slash of the rain?

Go face them and fight them,

Be savage again.

Go hungry and cold like the wolf,

Go wade like the crane:

The palms of your hands will thicken,

The skin of your cheek will tan,

You’ll grow ragged and weary and swarthy,

But you’ll walk like a man!

They told us, when we moved to New Mexico, we’d be dealing with wind.  No problem, I said, I’ve always loved the wind.  Hamlin Garland’s poem was a particular favorite when I was a romantic teenager.

Well, there’s wind.  And then there’s WIND as in relocation of top soil from one state to the next. I’m thinking a lot of ours is in Oklahoma. Still, the ‘ahem’ breeze does keep us markedly cooler than Albuquerque and in the summer that’s a huge plus. Sometimes it can get pretty exciting, especially during these dry days when it’s not unusual to see plumes of dust rising up all around.

The property is fenced and cross fenced at five feet. So it was a bit of a shock to come home to this futon mattress I’d put out in the big field for the ‘lukis to lounge on, draped across an outside fence. Which means the wind lifted it over a five foot fence then up against another one.

While I was in Canada, I’m told we had a haboob, essentially a wall of sand propelled forward at a high rate of speed. Not sorry to miss that, though I bet the pictures would have been impressive. When I saw this from a distance, this looked more like a grass fire, far too scary for me. Once I realized I was watching dust racing toward me at a high rate of speed I decided to snap pictures and run inside.

All this wind makes for daily complications. Before planting you need to put up windbreaks. And now that my hair is longer I keep it pinned up most of the time.  Even so, I remember that great poem… “You’ll grow ragged and weary and swarthy, but you’ll walk like a man.”

Not fire, dust

Kristen Lamb’s blog came around at a fortuitous time in my non writing life. Poor me, I’ve been feeling unloved because some people have been {{gasp}} RUDE to me.  Life’s not a chair of bowlies these days and **sigh** it’s just all so HARD. So I read Kristen’s blog Handling Criticism. And I read it again. Especially this observation: “Part of getting a healthy relationship with criticism is learning to discern what’s constructive versus destructive. Some people are just jerks. Nothing we do will please them, so learn to shrug them off.”

Some people ARE just jerks and nothing we do can change that. We can just work very hard not to come down to their level. Not everyone is going to love us, and once we get past that point we can work harder at being our own person, not a reflection of what we think other people want us to be.

As a writer, that means writing the best books I can, dealing with good criticism, ignoring the bad, and learning the difference.  As an individual, it means accepting the people who want to join my life journey, and not worrying about those who don’t. (bet you thought I was going to say pitying those who don’t)

I’m off to write the very best book I can.  How about you?

Don’t forget to mark your calendars for MFRW’s incredible SUMMER CAMP!! where we’re all going to learn how to promote those great books we write

Have you ever noticed how some people are artistic on so many levels? They not only produce great sculptures or

JoAnne Tucker

paintings, they also have a delightful garden and/or cook divinely? Here’s JoAnne Tucker, who not only writes books but also lyrical poetry, and delights the eyes with her paintings. Please help me welcome JoAnne to the Friday blog. Help yourself to the quick yummy, and enjoy.

“Poems About Life, Love, and Everything in Between” is a poetry collection that provides a glimpse into the heart, mind and soul, of its author. It is a heartwarming read, written with love and respect for others. Some poems were written in times of sorrow, other poems were written in times of joyous celebration. Life is like that.

As I mentioned while discussing the amazing chorizo dip recipe for the MFRW Summer Camp, I looked at my favorite party dish recipe with new eyes.  And thought there just might be ways to make it marginally healthier. Not that chili, cheese, and sausage will ever win any culinary awards from the dietary council. But we can at least cut down on some on the processed foods.

So I started with the first component, chili.  Everyone who likes chili has their own ideas about what makes a good combination of meat, tomatoes, and spices. I’ve certainly sampled some fabulous recipes in the past. For grins, I went hunting for a “low carb” chili recipe, to see what I could find.  And I discovered Low Carb Friends, with this great recipe for

Dottie’s Texas Chile

1 pound ground beef
1 large yellow onion – diced
1 can (14.5 ounce) cut diced tomatoes
1 can (8 ounce) tomato sauce
1 can (14 ounce) beef broth
1 cup water
11/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon ground oregano
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Optional: 1 can (15 ounce) black soy beans –drained and rinsed well.
Shredded Cheddar cheese
Sour Cream
Brown ground beef and onions, breaking up well. Drain well. Add spices and continue to cook and blend well. Add the remaining ingredients. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for at least 30 minutes or until reduced slightly. Add beans (if using) in the last 10 minutes, just long enough to heat through. Black soy beans have a softer texture than pinto beans and will break down faster.  Add water or more broth if necessary. Serve hot with shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream.

Great starter recipe. I didn’t go for the bean option., and I decided to use the crock pot. Since I didn’t have beef broth, I

See the tip of the bone?

increased the water, and threw in a couple of beef bones. Then I let it do its simmering thing for a few hours.  Eventually it bubbled into a delicious chili, a bit more watery than my preference but this is just for starters. I poured most of it into a heavy pot to sit for a couple days (refrigerator of course!) and saved out a little to enjoy right now. This morning I had some with my eggs. Meant to take a picture for you but oops ate it too fast!

I also added about a cup of New Mexico Green Chile, roasted, chopped and frozen, to give it that extra boost.  If you want to try something extra good, then add some VERY dark chocolate right at the end of your cooking. Puts that chile right over the top.

Upcoming: I’m going to try a home made version of Velveeta, to continue getting away from processed foods.  So stick around. And you do have those dates blocked out for MFRW Summer Camp, July 12-14 right?

MFRW (Marketing For Romance Writers) is organizing a Summer Camp  in July. What a great time to kick back and learn, learn, learn about promoting the books we’ve worked on since Winter. Some of us are sharing recipes in advance, so we can all be noshing on the same goodies while meeting on line. Naturally I volunteered since I enjoy sharing recipes almost as much as sharing information.

Bet you thought I’d be bringing out a new low carb recipe.  Instead I’m sharing one of my favorite party dips.  I’ll be

The finished dip will look something like this

taking this to Lompoc later in July, where Saluki people gather to show dogs, meet old friends, and in general escape from the summer heat. This is the original recipe, with a few suggested variations

Terry’s Chorizo Dip

1# ground beef
½# Chorizo (a rich sausage, either beef or pork)
1 Can (12 oz) Chili, no beans. I’ve used Wolf brand…look for one without textured vegetable protein
1# Velveeta, cubed Yep, Velveeta
1 Medium Onion, chopped
1 Bell Pepper, chopped (actually I’ve never added the Bell Pepper, though next time through I might, or might add roasted chopped Green Chile)

Brown the Onion, add the Bell Pepper, then the Ground Beef and Chorizo, breaking down the lumps. Drain off the grease.
At this point I go to the slow cooker, if you’re in a hurry you can do it stove top. Pour the drained mix into the cooker along with the Velveeta and Chili. Let it all melt together. Enjoy with the chip of your choice, I’ve seen some people eat as a thick soup. Really.

Possible additions or changes:
You can do the browned part ahead of time, and finish it up later. The recipe does keep well for a couple days in the refrigerator, if you have any left.
I started using Ground Turkey a while back, the flavor is marginally lighter and it’s less greasy. We have a fabulous local restaurant, Los Quatos, with a spicy cooked salsa…I’ve been known to add a half jar or so. Let your imagination run wild.

NOTE: I looked at this recipe for a long time. I know how delicious it is, but I also know it’s contrary to much of what I’ve come to believe about food these last couple years. Velveeta is tasty but processed, and it’s so difficult to find

decent canned chili. Soooo…yesterday I started to look up alternatives. Step one was making my own chili, with fresh ingredients. Then there was the big stumbling block, the extremely processed Velveeta, which is after all a cheese food

Making the chili base, which was yummy on its own

Fortunately I’m not the only one who likes that creamy yumminess but worries about the ingredients. Sure enough I found a recipe for home made Velveeta.  Looks like I have some recipe challenges ahead of me, yes of course I’ll be sharing.

Hmmm, looks like I can even make my own chorizo sausage. Hmmmmm

As exciting as these plans are, they take a back seat to creating new worlds, but there are parallels. Originally the story of Gabriel (Mykhael’s brother from My Killer My Love)was a novella about a gorgeous hunk of an arrogant Atrahasis, who needs to learn humility and in

My Killer My Love

the process meets his future, a woman with her own ideas about life. But, what if…what if instead of using the gorgeous hero/sexy-woman-who-doesn’t-know-she’s-gorgeous heroine, I took away some of that exterior, and made Gabriel in particular more ordinary in appearance though he starts out with the innate arrogance of someone who has grown up beautiful, and also remove his ability to enhance his attraction. Maybe make him less…processed…and more real?

I might be on to something here. Anyone else want to see an experienced seducer fall flat on his well toned rear?

Right now, while we’re all thinking about it, block out July 12-14 for MFRW Summer Camp. You’ll have a blast, and you won’t have to use sun block or bug spray!

Who remembers Dark Crystal…A Jim Henson production, with all the characters puppets? Ambitious, a lot to like, and one of my husband’s favorites.  What I mostly remember were the hunched over characters trudging across the landscape, heading for the convergence. One. Slow. Step at a time.

Progress on Gabriel’s story is reminding me of their journey. One word after another dragged out of my creative self. Which is proving to be something of an advantage since my original thought was to have Gabriel in all his Alpha handsome glory partner up with Clair, my plucky plus size heroine…scratch the plucky part, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be alliterative. Then I started thinking about Gabriel needing to learn humility What better than to send him among humans minus his charisma.  Hmmm.

In the meantime I haven’t been sitting around contemplating the walls, and I’m not even trying real hard to improve my win percentage on Free Cell.  Honest.  Here in New Mexico we have a really short growing season and I have some ambitious ideas about what I want to grow this year.  So I’ve been busy outside.

There’s this chain link dog pen we’d been using as an outside play place for cats. It was set East/West and I wanted it

the old dog pen

North/South.  A 90-degree turn, and that pen had been in place for six years…coming up to

kind stuck into the ground

seven. Yikes.

Needed to dig it out, then start the turn. Since it’s mostly me and the dogs, I decided to try it

SUCCESS

on my own. Dug it out, then inched it around a little bit at a time. Until it was between the posts instead of next to them.

It wasn’t as difficult as I’d thought, just took a bit of time. And of course the dogs were NO help whatsoever.  Their job, they tell me, is to be lovely. My job is to make their world as lovely as they are, when I’m not tending to their every need.

Besides, they don’t much worry about the planting end of our lives, though they’re quite fond of the end result, especially zucchini.  If only we could grow avocados here.  Ah well, those we can get at the store.  Once the pen was shifted around, and the inside rearranged, I started

collecting supplies and starting the process

moving in all the various tubs and pots I’d had stashed around the place.  Those nifty green tubs will probably be used to hold pots instead of planting them directly, and there’s a stack of earth boxes ready to be assembled.

We just might have a garden this year. Even better, the pen can be wrapped in heavy plastic for a greenhouse come winter.

So I have been busy at something. The problem, other than writing blogs and going to the Book Fiesta and dog shows, is the basic distraction of living here.

How to concentrate with this sort of distraction?

Here I am dithering away trying to get myself back into the writing groove after a couple of intense weeks, in both my

Showing Kerovan

writing world and my “dog” world. Neither of which brought me huge immediate success, so it’s not like I can point to euphoria as a reason not to be writing up a storm.  It’s not like I didn’t have a slew of great ideas and it’s not like I don’t think I can put those ideas on paper.  Sometimes I thought so hard about what I was intending to write, I thought I’d already written many words of deathless prose.  Yeah, not so much. And along comes Kristen Lamb with another Suck it Up, Buttercup post and danged if I didn’t give myself a Gibbs slap and get back to work.

What Are the Odds of Success? …Really?.

Kristen explains the true odds.  It’s not me against the world of those who want to be published writers. Not even me against those who are more or less actively seeking publication.  It’s me (or you, or your Aunt Harriet) against those assumptions or fears we’re hauling along with us every time we sit down to write. Or every time we finish a story and immediately think it’s not worth editing. Even worse when we try to compare our writing to anyone else’s.  Because the reader is the final judge and there’s no telling what’s going to appeal to readers.

As long as I can keep offering them the best stories  I can write, then I’m stacking that deck in my favor.  And I can state I am the 5% of the 5% of the 5%…coming down to that small, intense group of writers who intend to become published and stay published. As Kristen says many times  WE ARE NOT ALONE. We’re in this struggle together, and we’re winning.  Yes, we are.

We’re into Day Two of the Book Lover’s Buffet , where you can fill up on goodies to your heart’s content, and never worry about carbs or calories.  Dream time, don’t you think? The link will take you to their phenomenal website, where books are grouped into sub genres.  What an amazing job these wonderful people did organizing this blowout.  Just in time to load up e-books for Mother’s Day, or heck fill your own for a Summer of fabulous reading.

We have supporting blogs telling you more about the available books and at the same time offering an opportunity for writers to share blurbs and information about their books. Kara Ashley has been exceptionally generous, offering several locations to promote Paranormal, Fantasy, Sci Fi, Horror or any other book on the buffet table

I’ve invited the other participants to add information on their books to this post.  Some jumped in yesterday (THANKS!!) and I’m hoping more will come along today.  You have until tomorrow midnight to shop till your fingers drop.  And the weekend to read, read, read.

I’m spending my weekend getting in closer touch with Gabriel so you’ll have his story to read after My Killer My Love

And if you happen to read about Bethany, Jonathan, and Baron the goofy Irish Setter in Teach Me To Forget you might be happy to know Paul’s been bugging me to tell his story.  All these great people populating my life!

Happy Reading