2/28/2013

Crawl in Bed With Jinni James



Crawling Into Bed With Jinni James
And a Good Book

Important things first, are these sheets silk or cotton?

With these freezing temps lately the sheets are definitely cotton.


What are you wearing?

 A t shirt and come boy shorts, those cotton sheets mixed with a husband it gets hot


What are we snacking on in bed while we read tonight?

A box of Dove chocolates and a glass of wine.

If I open this nightstand drawer, what will I find?

Books, my Kindle, a few pictures, and maybe some handcuffs. ;)

Do you roll up in the blankets like a burrito, or kick the covers off during the night?

I roll up in the blankets.  My husband throws his covers off so I take them all. Yes, I'm a sheet hog.

Can I put my cold feet on your calves to warm them up?

Only if you want me to kick you out of the bed! lol

What are we reading?

 We are reading book 1 in my Manhattan series, Business and Pleasure!








2/27/2013

Pigs in a Blanket


Recipe Theme of the Month: Nostalgia Tweet This
Hey there! I've been thinking a lot about recipes my mom used to make, that I loved as a kid but never seem to serve as an adult. This isn't quite what she made, but it has the same flavor. My mom's version resembled cabbage burritos- with the meat and veggies as the filling, the cabbage as the wrap, and the sauces over top. This casserole version is put together a lot more easily!

CABBAGE CASSEROLE  
1 lb. ground pork sausage
½ c. diced onion
½  c. diced green pepper
½ c. diced carrot
4 c. chopped cabbage, 1/2 head
1 c. uncooked regular white rice
1 can (15 oz.) tomato sauce
1 can (6 oz.) tomato paste
2 c. water
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 bay leaf
1 t paprika
Brown pork in large skillet, stirring to break up meat. Add onion, green pepper, cabbage, carrot and white rice. Stir in tomato sauce, tomato paste, water, and seasonings. Heat mixture to boiling, reduce heat, cover and simmer about 25 minutes or until rice is tender. Stir once or twice. 

2/26/2013

Sage Advice #2


Oh! I am so guilty of this!

See?

Things to work on. What are your writing foibles?

Here's a few of mine:

1.  Ellipses. I am addicted to them. Scatter the things like confetti, or ants at a picnic. Need to cure that habit.

2.  Typos- I have two major, consistent typing errors that recur. One is flipping the o and r in from. Yeah. At the end of every first draft, my first revision step is to do a search and find for "form". I still miss a few, as I'm sure my editor tell you.

3.  Double spacing after a sentence. It was drilled into me in Typing 101 back in high school, on an old model electric typewriter. Apparently, now that we're all computerized, that's not the way things are done. Hard habit to break, that is, but I'm getting there!

4. See that up there? Exclamation mark. Bastard snuck right in. They always do.

What are some of your writing foibles?

2/24/2013

Top Five Writing Quotes


      “Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish.”
 John Jakes quotes

    Of all the writing quotes there are, this one is my absolute favorite. First of all, I do love John Jakes and his resplendent Civil War saga, The North and The South. But that's not all. The themes and observations he imparts about human nature, about good, evil and indifference, about courage and despair, are timeless. And this quote for me, encompasses the means he used to get to that end. 

“I put all my genius into my life; I put only my talent into my works.”
 Oscar Wilde      TWEET THIS                                                  

Cocky bastard, eh? To have that level of self-confidence is something we can all only wish for. Still, it amuses me when I'm having doubts about my role in the greater scheme of things, to remember I don't have to be a genius if I use my talent for writing.  

      “The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean”
 Robert Louis Stevenson                                                   

 Boy, how many times have I read back over what I've written and said wondered what I meant? Working on it, though. Putting the words together in the right way, to capture every nuance of the image in your head...I agree with him. It is a challenge. 

     “I love talking about nothing. It is the only thing I know anything about.”
 Oscar Wilde      

Uh huh. It's a big club. 

      “Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.”
 E. L. Doctorow                                                  

 Perfect. Like having a bucket of legos and creating whatever you want. It starts as a house then evolves into a space ship, or a robot, or a whatsit. 

     “Write without pay until somebody offers to pay”
 Mark Twain quotes
                                                            
*Sigh* 
Wise man, Mark. 

Be Yourself

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~e.e. cummings, 1955
The Romance Reviews