Happy Halloween!

Are you a Halloween ghoul? Or a denier?

In my experience, people seem to go all in, or ignore Halloween completely. During my walks around the neighborhood, I encounter displays of giant spider webs, headstones with clever names (Ivan Churblood), ghosts, witches, and a host of other decorations. Me? I'm lucky if I remember to take out my haunted house candy holder (shout out to my crafty sister who made it for me!) Outside decorations? I'm boring. I don't even put out a pumpkin anymore.

I enjoy the spooky movies - not the slasher flicks, but the ones that rely on your imagination to scare the poop out of you. Which brings my to my newest binge watch - The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix (thanks, Stephen King, for the recommendation). I was a fan of the original black and white movie (the remake, not so much), and while the series does introduce tangible ghosts (which is less scary), it's an interesting interpretation of the book. Another of my favorite old time scary movies is The Uninvited.

And then there are the spooky books (insert EPITAPH series plug here - although my ghosts are less scary than the people they haunt). The book that scared me to read was The Amityville Horror. Couldn't have it in the same room with me when I finished (although I was fairly young when I read it). I recently saw a funny Halloween post where someone said their mother-in-law had read the Exorcist and had a similar reaction, threw the book into a lake. The person who posted thought it would be funny to buy another copy, soak it for a day, and put it somewhere her mother-in-law would find it. The book that wouldn't die!

What are your favorite Halloween traditions? Reading? Decorating? Binge watching? Or nothing at all?

The Epitaph Series

Small town charm(s)

Every town has it's "thing." I grew up in the "Lilac Village," where they have a park filled with lilac bushes and tulips and every May they have a lilac festival when the flowers and bushes are in bloom. They have a parade and, while I was growing up, they also selected a lilac queen and her court. 

I recently visited a village founded post-WWII where their claim to fame is their chimney charms. 

For $10, you can walk around and look at the different decorations on everyone's chimneys. From Angels (#MyLifeIsAMusical, can you hear me singing Amy Grant's Angels Watching Over Me?) to Mickey Mouse, to firefighter boots and badges, to frogs and beyond. No, I haven't done the tour yet, but I fully intend to! In fact, a book or two ago, while I was thinking about what comes after The Epitaph Series, I was inspired by the row houses built for the returning vets, alongside free-standing houses. The neighborhoods are grouped together by alphabet - "I live in the D's" or "I live in the F's" - where all the surrounding streets start with the same letter. There's a statue of Normal Rockwell sitting before an easel in the downtown area. A fountain dedicated to Eleanor Roosevelt. A little girl statue twirling an umbrella.

What is your hometown famous for? Or where was your favorite "famous" spot to visit?

Christmas books?

All my usual book newsletters are sending me Christmas book recommendations. Now I am a big fan of Christmas, and I do love holiday-themed books, but it isn't even Halloween!

I suppose it isn't long before it's time to get in the holiday spirit, but I'm not ready! Should I add them to my TBR list in anticipation? For me, it's a "not yet."

I have a similar problem clothes shopping. The stores are always so far ahead of the seasons that I don't know what to buy. I want something I can wear "now," not in another month or two. Most likely, by the time we get past Halloween, those holiday reads will be harder to find. What's a reader to do?

I'm still looking for spooky reads, Halloween ghosts and witches. Give me another week and then I'll look for a Christmas read. Which brings me to recommendations. Are you looking for a ghost story? Checking out my Epitaph series. But if you're looking for that holiday read, Mist on the Meadow is my kooky way of incorporating a holiday into a book -- Christmas traditions, romance, and a mystery, too.

I'm working on the final installment, the last Benson, in the Epitaph series. This author wants to hear from you. Time for a new series. More ghosts? More romance? More mystery? Or something completely different?

Writing Romance in the MeToo Era

I have to say the headlines, especially in the last couple of weeks, have impacted me quite a bit, to the point where I questioned the wisdom of trying to write romance in a fractured world. I've heard several other romance writers express the same frustration, the same crippling sense of helplessness in a world of male entitlement that makes bringing two people together a challenge. I want to share with you what one of my friends told me, something that has helped me move forward. She put it so eloquently, I had to share.

"In contemporary books with strong female characters like yours, it's important to give women hope and an escape from the news... Imagine how sad our world would be if women gave up on the hope of a beautiful romance in their lives.  Your last book ... showed a woman surviving what so many women go through and coming out stronger on the other side with the help of a man who truly loves her. There will always be ups and downs in every romance, be it fictional or true life, but ... I think it's important to write those stories. I hate to see a woman's choice become all or nothing."

 Thanks, Jennifer. Me Too.

The perfect apple

A couple of years ago, my son took us to an apple orchard in Wisconsin. It's just a small place, not like some of the mega-farms and orchards where they have mini-carnivals and a shop full of overpriced accouterments and mixes and what-have-yous. They sell apples, and make cider donuts, and have other apple related food -- and yes, they have a couple of the mixes and what-have-yous. I sampled some of their apples and bought some. Nice texture (not chewy or mealy), nice flavor (not too tart, not too sweet but definitely flavor). 

This year, on an excursion north, DH and I stopped at the orchard again and I got more apples, and I remembered why I liked them so much. The problem is I only bought one pound (for $1.00 a pound!). I checked the grocery stores around my house for that variety and came up short, so I went to our local pumpkin farm and bought a peck of apples I thought would be similar in taste. BOY was I wrong. Nevertheless, I was eating them. Then I stopped at a grocery store I don't frequent very often and discovered - MY APPLES! So I bought three pounds (for $2.49 a pound). Brought them home and they were .... mealy. More disappointment.

Last weekend, we took another excursion north and stopped at the orchard. Oh wait. I already have a peck from the pumpkin farm and three pounds from the grocery. (counting on my fingers - how many apples is that?) But these are the GOOD apples. So now what do I do? I bought a five-pound bag. 

I've been eating the apples from the orchard first (obviously), but I don't want to waste the others. So I started looking up recipes and found one for apple rings. Perfect for the chewy apples, I'm thinking (and I was right!) So I thought I'd share the recipe with all of you!  Happy October - happy autumn!

Spiced Apple Rings

Apples (My baking sheet fits about two apples, so you can plan accordingly for how many you want to make)

2 Tbsp Cinnamon

1 Tbsp Ginger

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp cloves

Preheat oven to 200 F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Wash and core the apples, slice them thin and place them in a single layer on the baking sheet (you might prefer to eat the ends raw rather than bake them).

Mix the spices together and sprinkle over the apples (I use an empty salt shaker to keep the spice mix). 

Bake the chips for an hour and a half. (Your house is going to smell heavenly while they're baking!). Remove them from the oven and flip them to the other side, sprinkle some more, and bake for another hour (up to an hour and a half). Check the crispiness for how you prefer them and cook them longer or turn the oven off. Leave the apples in the oven while it cools down. That allows them to get crunchier.

Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.

  A | BN | iB | K  

  A | BN | iB | K  

Life in the Big City - Chicago

As part of the day job, I frequently make trips into The Big City of Chicago. Some people love the city, and I'll admit, there are days I look forward to the adventure, but it's a long commute, and most days, its "the Big City." I'm not a city sort of person. Give me the wide open spaces. With that being said, there are lots of things you see in the city that you don't see in the suburbs or those wide open spaces.

YUM!

Frequently, man-on-the-street marketers hang around the train stations at rush hour handing out free
samples. Most recently, they handed me two milk chocolate Lindor balls. How can you go wrong with chocolate? And Lindt? My Favorite! Those fine people started my day off with a smile.

As I continued my trek over the bridge that crosses the Chicago River, I encountered a busker playing bagpipes. I didn't stop to take a picture because, contrary to the picture I'm showing you here, he was NOT wearing a kilt or any sort of traditional garb (or blowing flames from his pipes), but he was very good, and he was playing Scotland The Brave. With chocolates in hand, he made me smile and want to cry out "Wha-Hae!" (but again, I didn't.)



via GIPHY

There are often buskers, from the Bucket Boys who pay plastic buckets like drums, to violinists, to saxophones to trumpets and beyond. I have yet to hear one that isn't impressive. There are festivals and open-air markets, and you never know who you might see walking the streets. These are the things that make going to the city an experience, things that make you smile rather than clutching your belongings tightly and putting your head down.

At the end of my day, I frequently encounter a woman sitting on the bridge reading a book. There are also veterans outside the train stations, down on their luck, many of them missing limbs. They are a stark reminder that we have much to do to help those in need.

The city. An adventure any day of the week. I may not be a "city person," but I am proud to call Chicago and the surrounding area my home.

Writing as Therapy

One of the reasons I started my writing journey is because it was cathartic. I could escape from life for short spans of time and let my imagination run wild. Make up an alternate reality. There were years when I didn't write, when I was exploring who I was going to become when I finally grew up, but I always came back to writing. It has always been a part of me.

On the flip side, there were times I couldn't write, during those peak stress times in life. Some of the more popular stressors - Buying a house. Changing jobs. Death. Getting married/divorced. The birth of a child.

There's a delicate balance. While I often use writing as stress relief - an escape from the pressures and stress of the day job, I have discovered there are certain stresses that require a different outlet. Like walking, or exercise. Some distractions demand more "head space," which crowds out the imagination required to write. This is where discipline kicks in.

As an author, I try to write every day. Create habits. It's a job, and it needs to be done. There are days when it's impossible to write depending on where life decides to insert itself into my schedule, and like exercise or sports, when you don't do something regularly, you get "out of shape." The key is to not get too lazy, to get back into the routine as quickly as possible.

So what's this all about? DH and I have been trying to buy a new house, and I've been through a week of offers and counteroffers and -- hello? -- buying a house is a major life stressor. I'm also trying to write the final Epitaph installment, a book I have a thin outline sketch for but I can't seem to get off the proverbial runway. I have all the information I need to dive him and write like a fiend, but the words aren't working the way they're supposed to! Every book has its idiosyncrasies. I didn't think I'd finish THE SCULPTOR as quickly as I did, but those words practically flew from my fingers to the page. (Hey, did I mention that book released yesterday?? Do you have a copy yet? I personally think it's one of the best ones in the series.) Yes, this book will get written. Routine means I'm putting words down, even if they aren't the best words. It's okay to write crap in a first draft. I'll clean it up later, when my focus is back. The important part is to keep the discipline, not to break from the routine.

Now! In case you didn't know it, the first in the Epitaph series has been free all summer, but that's going to end soon. If you don't have a copy, now is the time to go get it! And as my final hurrah to summer, I've teamed up with a bunch of other authors of small-town steamy romances. Two lucky winners can win a HUGE collection of books (my contribution is THE SELKIE), and we're giving away an ereader to a grand prize winner. If you subscribe to my newsletter, you got this information in your mailbox. Enter the contest by clicking here: http://bit.ly/steamysmalltowmrom-sep18. Good luck!