Summertime and the livin’ is easy…

For those of you who have read Appalachian Gold, or at least viewed the cover, you might surmise that I enjoy wine.  It's true, I do enjoy a good glass of wine.  Normally I prefer a good, solid red wine.  However in the summer, particularly on a warm afternoon, I enjoy a refreshing glass of white wine.  The picture of the wine glass on the cover of Appalachian Gold came from a picture I took last October in Blairsville when I set a glass of white wine on the railing of our back deck and saw the fall colors reflected in it.  I grabbed my camera and the rest is history.

 

A number of people like to drink white wine chilled.  It can be difficult to keep it cool when sitting outside on a warm afternoon so I'd like to share a little trick my wife and I use.  We buy seedless grapes, both red and white, remove them from the stem, and then freeze them on a cookie sheet.  Once frozen we seal them in ZipLoc freezer bags and keep them in the freezer.  When serving wine to guests we put a handful of the frozen grapes in their wine to keep it chilled without diluting it.  When they finish the wine they can eat the now thawed grapes.  It always ends up being a good conversation piece and most people resolve to do it themselves when they get home.  Some people like red wine chilled, particularly sweet red wines, and that's where the frozen red grapes come in.

Another thing I like about the warmer weather is the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables at local farmer's markets.  The tomatoes and other veggies we get this time of year are head and shoulders above what we normally are able to get at supermarkets.  Nothing tastes better than a traditional Margherita pizza that has been grilled on the BBQ.

Our traditional BBQed Margherita pizza with fresh tomatoes and basil

We cultivate basil and rosemary ourselves because we love fresh spices.  We grow them in containers on our back deck.  Despite our efforts to use it we always have prolific amounts of both left over as the growing season ends.  So here's another trick so you can use them all year round.

I harvest either the rosemary or basil and then put the leaves in a food processor and puree them with olive oil, fresh garlic, black pepper and a little salt.  It's kind of like a pesto without the nuts.  I like to get it to a pasty texture, not completely liquid, but yet smooth.  Then I put it into muffin tins and freeze it.  When frozen I remove from the tins and vacuum seal the individual "pesto muffins" using our FoodSaver.  That way I have them available year round since I usually manage to have enough frozen to last us until the next summer's fresh crop comes along.

I use the rosemary "pesto" as a marinade for grilled chicken breasts and rotisseried pork loin.  I recently tried putting a tablespoon or so of it in my sourdough rye bread and it came out really tasty.  Of course the 53-year old sourdough starter that I've fed and tended for the last 28 years also helps!  I mix either the basil or the rosemary pesto with ground beef before grilling hamburger patties.  No other spices are needed in the meat.  Or I thin the basil "pesto" with extra virgin olive oil and then brush it on the pizza dough I grill on the BBQ. I then add cheese (fresh mozzarella, parmesan reggiano, peccorino romano), grill it until the cheese is melted, and finally add fresh tomatoes for a unique and delicious Margherita pizza.

  Our unique Margherita pizza grilling on the BBQ

I guess this writing has been making me hungry and thirsty judging from the content of this edition of my blog.

I'll be happy to provide detailed recipes and instructions if anyone is interested.

Do you have any tips for summer food or drink you'd care to share?

Writing is like hiking

Today my wife and I went on our first hike of the season.  It has been so rainy the past month or two we could never find the right time get out.  During the hike I thought how much writing is like hiking.

The Best Time

We started on our hike at 1:30 in the afternoon with the temperature around 90 degrees.  For us it probably would have been better to start our hike in the morning when the temperature was around 70 degrees.  Like hiking, there is probably a better time than others for you to write.  Is your creative energy better early in the morning, in the afternoon or late at night?  Try writing at different times to see which one gets your creative juices flowing.

Know Where You Are Going

When I start out on a hike I know where I am going.  I research the trail so if I come to a fork I know which leg to take to stay on the trail.  Writing is the same way.  Many writers, myself included, write a detailed outline of the path their book will take.  Other writers write a simple outline while others seem to just fly by the seat of their pants.  But all writers have a “map” of where their story is going either in their head or detailed on paper.  This doesn’t mean you can’t explore the other leg.  If it feels right you can and should.  With your “map” you can always find your way back to the main path of your story.

Look Beyond The Trail

When we are hiking we love to take pictures along the trail.  Because of this we are on the lookout for what we might find as we hike.  Once we found a turtle in the middle of the trail, well, that was kind of hard to miss even if we had our eyes glued to the trail.  Another time it was flowers in bloom.  Susan even saw a bear bound across the trail in front of her.  Today we saw lots of fungus in all shapes and colors.  All these things add depth to the experience of hiking.  If we just kept our eyes on the trail and didn’t look around the hike would still be nice but we would have missed a lot of things.  The same way with writing, don’t just keep yourself focused on the outline or path you had set your story on.  Look around, stop and listen to your characters and try to hear what they are saying or see them in a different light.  Maybe they are trying to tell you that their actions aren’t true to their character or your story.  Maybe one of your characters is shouting out to be heard; he or she was mentioned once but then never heard from again.  What are your characters are up to?  Like when hiking, look a little beyond the path you set, you may discover more depth in your characters.

Know When To Stop

Today’s hike was a fairly steep and hard one, especially for Susan.  About 1½ hours into the hike she said, “Sorry to be such a wuss, but I need to turn around and head back.”  With writing, know when to say “enough.”  There is no sense in just staring at a blank screen if the words won’t come.  Stop, then “turn around” and come back to it another time.

I have always loved the outdoors; it clears my head and rejuvenates me.  Today was no different.  Now that I am back home I can once again tap into that creative energy and continue writing Blue Ice, the second book in my Colors of Alaska trilogy.

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Good-bye Moloko

Sometimes things happen in life that interrupt our creative process.  That happened yesterday as I lost my writing companion. 

Susan and I made a hard decision and had our cat, Moloko, euthanized.  Not only was the decision to have it done difficult, it was extremely hard and emotional to take him to the vet for the procedure.  Susan said her good-byes at home while I drove him to the vet’s office.  I must commend our local veterinary staff, particularly David, for providing support and comfort to us throughout this unpleasant decision and process.  His kind words and hand on my shoulder as I prepared to leave meant a great deal.  It was a tearful drive home for me.

On the days Susan was off at work Moloko would keep me company while I wrote.  I prefer to do my writing in our loft area and he would often curl up by my feet or try to climb in my lap to help me.  His purrs and affectionate head butts were pleasant to receive but in all honesty I cannot say they helped me focus on my task.

Moloko was a relatively new breed called a Foreign White.  They were bred from the Siamese strain in England a number of years ago to create a pure white cat with striking blue eyes.  His name, Moloko, is Russian for milk.  Most naturally occurring white cats with blue eyes before this breed was developed were born deaf.  Moloko was what I term “selectively deaf.”  If he wanted to respond he would, otherwise he pretended he didn’t hear you.  The most frequent exception to his “selective deafness” was when we were rattling dishes or opening food containers.

Moloko was 14 and we had him for the last 12 ½ years of his life.  He was a well-traveled cat, and logged nearly 17,000 miles with us in our RV and many more miles in cars.  Unlike a lot of cats he was a good traveler and seemed to enjoy it.  We towed a 5^th wheel trailer with our F-450 pickup and would put his cat carrier in the back seat with a cushion on top and the door open.  Once we started moving he would emerge from his carrier and sit on top where he could look out the windows.  Whenever we stopped and I turned the engine off he would get back in his carrier and wait to be taken inside the trailer.

Moloko in our 5th wheel, Homer, AK

 Despite how much we loved and cared for Moloko, I doubt if Susan and I will ever have another pet.  Our lifestyle now involves a different type of travel that is not conducive to bringing a pet.  We are still toying with the idea of moving abroad,  right now Ecuador is still our top choice, because we’d like to experience what it is like to live in a different culture.

Regardless of where we may end up in the future, Moloko will always hold a special place in our hearts and memories.

Goodbye, Moloko.

Happy 4th of July

Today I just wanted to wish everyone a very safe and pleasant holiday weekend.  I hope you are taking the time to celebrate what it means to you.

According to Wikipedia, “Independence Day, commonly known as the Fourth of July, is a federal holiday in the United States commemorating the adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, declaring independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain.”

Although many consider it just another day off from work, today we are actually celebrating the freedom we won and enjoy today. And as we all celebrate, let’s also remember that even today men and women are dying to ensure that freedom.

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.”

John Fitzgerald Kennedy

“Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.”

Louis D. Brandeis

“Democracy is the government of the people, by the people, for the people”

Abraham Lincoln

“You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4, not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers who file by the White House in a show of strength and muscle, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness. You may think you have overeaten, but it is patriotism.”

Erma Bombeck

“This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave.”

Elmer Davis

“It is easy to take liberty for granted when you have never had it taken from you.”

M. Grundler

“Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.”

Dwight David Eisenhower

What does the 4^th of July mean to you?

Pictures of Alaska

My wife, Susan, and I just got back from an AWESOME Alaskan trip where I was doing some research for the second and third books in the Colors of Alaska trilogy.  We cruised from Vancouver to Whittier and then spent 9 days visiting Alaska and our son.

Today I just want to share with you our trip to Alaska through some of the pictures we took.  I hope you enjoy them.

Our fist stop was in Ketchikan.  This is Creek Street.  Creek Street is built along the shores of Ketchikan Creek. It was built over the water because it was simply too difficult to blast away the rocky hills surrounding the creek.  Creek Street is known as Ketchikan’'s old red-light district. In the mid 1920’s there were over 20 bawdy houses on Creek Street alone!

Our next stop was Juneau.  Juneau is the capital of Alaska and the only access is by water or air.  There are no roads that connect Juneau with "the outside world".

Our third stop was Skagway.  Here we are coming into Skagway.  We docked behind that ship on the right.

The next day we cruised Glacier Bay.  I will be showing you a picture of glaciers later so I wanted to give you a different prospective of Glacier Bay.  All those white specs are ice floats.

The next day we cruised College Fjord.  The fjord contains five tidewater glaciers (glaciers that terminate in water), five large valley glaciers, and dozens of smaller glaciers, most named after renowned East Coast colleges (women's colleges on the NW side, and men's colleges on the SE side).

After docking in Whittier, we took a train ride from Whittier up to the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge.  This is the Turnagain Arm (an arm of Cook Inlet) which stretches from Portage, AK to Anchorage, AK.  As you can see, the tide was way out.  Tidal fluctuations in the main body of Cook Inlet, while not as extreme as the shallow and narrow Turnagain Arm, regularly reach 25 feet and exhibit currents in excess of 5 knots (9.3 km/h) at full tidal flow.

This was the view from our room at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge.  Since we had already been to Denali on a previous trip we decided to just relax and enjoy the scenery.

The next day we went to the McKinley Princess Wilderness Lodge about an hour's drive from Talkeetna.  We decided to go into Talkeetna, a quirky and eclectic small town, to have pizza.  This is The Mountain High Pizza Pie restaurant.  Walking in we felt as though we had walked through a time warp and were back in the 60s and 70s.

This is the Kenai River at Cooper Landing, AK on our drive from Anchorage to Homer.  The water is a more vibrant turquoise blue than this picture shows and is truly beautiful.  For those of you who have read Black Diamonds, this is the view Meagan would have seen as she sat on the deck at the Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge.

This is Homer, AK from the hills above the city.  It is beautiful with the bay and snow clad mountains surrounding it.  There is a spit that goes out into the bay about 4.5 miles that offers all sorts of activities.  For those of you who have read Black Diamonds, this is where most of the story takes place.

On our way from Homer to Anchorage to catch our flight home we stopped at Portage Glacier to take the boat tour.  It couldn't have been a more beautiful day.

EAGLES AND MOOSE AND BEARS oh my!

The wildlife was incredible.  We saw Eagles on the beach, in trees, on buildings and in flight.  We saw lots of moose and even a mother with baby twins ...and this bear.  We were on a bus tour when we came across him.  The bus driver stopped so we could watch and take pictures.  The bear was scratching and tearing at the bark and when he had had enough, just just got down and sauntered alongside the bus for about 5 minutes as we drove slowly along the road.  He then tired of the show he was giving us and lumbered off into the woods.

I hope you have enjoyed a little of the Alaska we love and that it may pique your interest in reading Black Diamonds as well as the next two books in the trilogy, Blue Ice and Green Skies, which should both be out by the beginning of 2014.

Finding Inspiration for Characters

People ask me where I find inspiration for my characters.  One only has to look around to find all the inspiration they need as "characters" are everywhere.  Traveling is the perfect opportunity to observe people and find characters.  They may be a composite of several you see or meet or they may be a total one-of-a-kind person you meet.

My wife, Susan, and I are in Alaska now doing research for the second and third books in "The Colors of Alaska Trilogy", Blue Ice and Green Skies.  Yesterday we took a bus ride from the McKinley Princess Lodge into the small town of Talkeetna.  On the bus ride we sat next to your stereotypical "rich Texan" or at least one who wanted to be.  He was friendly but boastful of everything he had from fancy cars to the big house he was building.  The town of Talkeetna is acknowledged to be eccentric, even by Alaskan standards.  The character that stuck out most in my mind and will probably end up in one of my books is a waitress at the Mountain High Pizza Pie restaurant in Talkeetna.  She is 29 and a total throwback to the 70's.  She lives by herself in a tent in Talkeetna and is full of life and stories.  The Mountain High Pizza Pie restaurant fits her perfectly with its psychedelic feel.  Regardless of the appearance, the pizza and Alaskan Amber Ale were great!  

 Mountain High Pizza Pie restaurant

Mountain High Pizza Pie restaurant sign

Punctuation -- A road map leading the reader through your story

In a few days my wife, Susan, and I leave on an Alaskan cruise aboard the Island Princess along with a 3-day stay at two of the Princess Wilderness Lodges.  Our itinerary is the same as the one described in the opening chapters of Black Diamonds, my first book and the the first in the "Colors of Alaska Trilogy". We will also visit our son, who fell in love with Alaska and moved to Homer after visiting us while we were there in 2006. 

During this trip I will be working on, Blue Ice, the second book in the trilogy, which I hope to have out in September.  The title, Blue Ice, represents the awe inspiring blue of the glaciers.  I know I will find inspiration for my book every moment of the day on this once in a lifetime trip.  I will be posting more frequently during this trip to share with you the beauty of Alaska and hopefully pique your interest in Blue Ice.  Below is a picture taken while on our trip to Alaska in 2006.  Although nothing can capture the incredible beauty of the glaciers and the blue ice found within, hopefully this gives you a glimpse of Alaska and have you wanting to come back for more.

As much as I enjoy coming up with an interesting and compelling story, a good story alone isn't the only requirement in writing a book.  If the author misuses grammar and punctuation or hasn't checked for misspelled words, the reader can quickly lose interest.  It is especially critical that punctuation is used correctly.  Punctuation is the road map that leads a reader through your story.

Below is an exercise I came across many years ago that illustrates how important punctuation is. 

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An English professor wrote the words, "Woman without her man is nothing" on the blackboard and directed the students to punctuate it correctly. 

The men wrote: "Woman, without her man, is nothing." 

The women wrote: "Woman!  Without her, man is nothing."

A slight change in punctuation can dramatically change the meaning of a sentence.  Above, you can see that the same few words with slightly altered punctuation rendered two entirely different meanings.

Here are 10 quick EzineArticles punctuation tips

1. Spacing after punctuation: One (1) space only is required after every punctuation mark (period, exclamation mark, question mark, colon, semicolon, commas, etc.), including bullets and numbers.

2. Never use excessive punctuation!!!!! This will not create a greater sense of urgency or strong emotion, especially in formal writing.

3. Periods and commas always go inside of quotation marks.
Example: "I think you're great."

4. There is never a space before a period or before a comma.

5. When doing this "..." you should use only 3 dots.

6. When using dashes, use two in a row.
Example: Punctuation -- 10 Rules

7. Use no spaces on either side of a hyphen.
Example: We need twenty-five boxes.

8. Use a question mark only after a direct question.
Example: Can I ask you a question?

9. Use parentheses to enclose words or figures that clarify.
Example: Use only one (1) space after a punctuation mark.

10. If the last word in a sentence ends in a period, do not follow it with another period.
Example: I know that C.E.O. He is my boss.


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