kblincoln

Baby Kale and Broccoli Sprouts: 2 items you should be putting on your salad

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 06:30:00 GMT

I've been noticing Baby Kale in our "regular" grocery store these past few months, but Trader Joe's just one-upped them by selling a pre-washed, bagged Holy Trinity of nutrition: baby kale, baby chard, and baby spinach.

You now officially have NO excuse not to get a metric bum-load of nutrients and cancer-fighting phytonutrients in your diet.

Also, watch this 2 minute video to see what eating a half cup of broccoli sprouts does to estrogen-receptor positive breast cancer cells.

Yeah. Got get some now, I tell you.

Besides, baby kale is twenty million times easier to eat than adult kale. (It just seems wrong that cooked kale works better than raw kale as according to this research, but whatever) Try chopped baby kale in chili or tortellini soup or quiche or sauteed with shrimp, garlic, and red pepper flakes or on pizza.

My kids sometimes will eat "kale chips" (oven roasted kale with tons of salt and garlic pepper) but it's a hit or miss thing. They'll eat baby kale in spaghetti if I chop it finely and add it to the boiling noodles for the last ten seconds in order to blanche it (ditto for mac and cheese.)

This Week's Musical Crush: Kishi Bashi

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 08:05:00 GMT

This week's Musical Crush: Kishi Bashi.

He's a bit like Andrew Bird in that he records layers of tracks in his performance (vocal, violin, etc) to build up music layer by layer. If you want to see him doing this in action, check out this video where he plucks and bows his violin, does bass and weird high-pitched syllables and it all WORKS to create a cool song. (plus he bops around with his violin like crazy).

This video, Bright Whites is just so whimsical and fun, with a slight dark undercurrent. Very cool.

Two speculative YA authors casting light into darkness

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 06:34:00 GMT

As I've said often before, the greatest thing speculative fiction can do is use the fantastic to cast light on difficult parts of the human experience.

And here are two YA authors who do that by using familiar tropes of fey and bargains and ghosts.
Sarah Beth Durst:
I came upon her book, Ice, quite by accident and was immediately pulled into a frozen world both physically and emotionally, and greatly enjoyed the delicately painful thawing out process the heroine endures.

What sets Durst's work apart in my mind is that she pulls off that difficult balance of casting quite adult themes (love, loss, grieving, sacrifice) into YA books that make them bearable and approachable for young readers while maintaining the greater depth of complication and emotion adults need.

And the writing is lovely and imaginative, and on occasion, quite funny. There's a kind of mad charm to Drink, Slay, Love's vampire heroine.

Both Goodreads and Amazon have been recommending Brenna Yovanoff's The Replacement to me based on my reading shelf for ages. I finally read it. And then I went out and got Paper Valentine as well and devoured that one overnight.

Where Durst puts a lovely, naive shimmer on dark themes, Yovanoff grabs awfulness by the ears and butts your head up against it.

Her protagonists are floundering in loss, simmering with angst, and slowly, slowly learning how to live with broken-ness.

There is no white-washing or delicate phrasing here. There is pyschopathic taking of life, evil for evil's sake, unbearable feelings of guilt and anger, and always in the end, a feeling that while the wounds will scar forever, that the greatest gift we can give eachother is honest acceptance .

And the voices of her characters ring true.

Go out and read both if you're looking for a little bit of healing in a world full of difficulties.

Tiger Lily on LeeWind.org

Wed, 6 Feb 2013 08:10:00 GMT

LeeWing.org (I'm here, I'm queer, now what do I read?) is the website of Lee Wind (Writer, Blogger & Speaker Out to Empower GLBTQ Teens and their Allies.)

Lee graciously posted about Tiger Lily today.

While I didn't set out in the first place to write a book specifically aimed at GLBTQ, I do hope that the book is one that adds to the visibility of GLBTQ youth in literature in a positive way.

Fiction is Dangerous

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 06:26:00 GMT

I became aware of the way fiction influences people in college. When I started becoming aware that the white world of tv and novels I'd been reading were only a small slice of the reality pie. That authors as diverse as Toni Morrison and Barry Hughart could transport me to places I never knew existed.

Then I married a Japanese man and had children. And then the concern about how United States media portrayed minorities (or didn't portray them) became up close and personal.

What I heard/read/supposed was one of the most important factors contributing to children who are "different" (culturally, linguistically, ethnically, ability) in growing up with a positive self-image was seeing positive versions of themselves.

When you see a Japanese-American doctor or firefighter or author or slam poet, that means you can picture yourself there (if you're Japanese-American). If all you see are white slam poets, then how would you know you could do that, too? How would YOUR PARENTS or your neighbors know that Japanese-Americans can be slam poets, too? And if they don't know that, can you become a slam poet while enduring surprised expressions, platitudes, and ignorant comments when you voice your desire?

Fiction is Dangerous. There are studies about how our very brain chemistry changes when we read stories, almost chemically forcing us to undergo emotions from the story as if we are enduring it ourselves.

And so, apparently, can fiction influence our moral beliefs.

"In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. Studies show that when we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up. We are critical and skeptical. But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to make us rubbery and easy to shape."

Just take a look at some of the hoopla surrounding BBC's Downton Abbey and think about the number of people invested in watching, thinking, talking, and ruminating about that show and the morals/decisions of the characters within. The story of Downton Abbey acts as a glue binding diverse groups of people together to focus on common ideas about love and family.

How CAN'T that be influential? A large part of my self-identity is defined by being both a reader and a writer, and so I wonder sometimes, if I am living up to my responsibility in telling stories.

Three melancholy folk music songs about a lover left behind

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 06:30:00 GMT

I wish I could read a novelization based on each of these three songs from the British Isles Folk Tradition. Strange how a 4 minute song can weave such a strong sense of character.

Each one has a romantic tale at the heart about someone who left a lover behind with a touch of mystery somewhere in the lyrics. Beautiful.

Seth Lakeman's King and Country
"`Tis I my love who fell for you,
After twenty five months no more.
Now mark that spot from whence I came
It's for king and country I`ll come back
again."

Paul Mckenna Band's Lambs on the Green Hills
"So dig now my grave, both long wide and deep
And sprinkle it over with flowers so sweet
And lay me down in it for to take my last sleep
For thatâs the sure way to forget her"

Kate Rusby's Version of I Roved Out
"As she turned around, the tears fell from her
Saying, False young man, you've deluded me.
And the diamond ring I behold I gave to you,
A diamond ring to wear on your right hand.
But the vows you made, love, you went and broke them
And you wed the lassie who has the land"

40,00 words just in the nick

Sat, 12 Jan 2013 14:33:00 GMT

My deadline for the next 10,000 words was January 14th. Of course I was hoping for 10,000 words in 15 days, but you know how little things like Christmas and New Year's sometimes gets in the way of writing.

Anyway, I'm at 40,205 on The Straw Doll Cries at Midnight: A Tiger Lily Novel.

Strangely enough, or maybe not strange at all, I even have an outline of where this novel is going to end up. I'm usually a total pantser. However, this story has enough characters, motivations and secret alliances that i had to start writing stuff down to keep track of it.

Because, yo konw, my brain is a sieve. I'd give anything not to have to look up, like every two days, how long my character's hair is or what color their crest is, or how old they are......

I might break down and start keeping notecards for each character, like I've seen other authors describe. But that would be organized, and then I'd have to give up my pantser badge.

Writerly Tools: Tiger Lily

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 09:03:00 GMT

There's a bunch of websites I find myself going back to again and again when I'm writing about medieval Japan.

I have a degree in Japanese Studies, but that was Lo These Many Years ago and I when I find myself typing something like "She put rice balls in lacquered boxes" I then have to go research if Lily, as a peasant, would have eaten rice and if the lacquered boxes were in use back in the Ashikaga period of Japanese medieval history, etc.

Not to mention some other writerly tools.

#1. Youtube
For getting in the mood to write! For the Tiger Lily sequel, Straw Doll Cries at Midnight, I've got a playlist with Rin (a now disbanded lovely group of japanese girls who play traditional instruments), Chitose Hajime (Okinawan popular singer,) Phillip Phillips, Jason Mraz, and a choir singing Lauridson's Lux Aeterna.

I can't tell you how useful it is for someone, like me, who has random bits of time during the day to write to instantly get myself in the mood.

#2 Thesaurus
I have a paucity of vocbulary I'm able to use actively. I'm much more of a passive vocabulary type person. So when I find myself using "dark" for the hundredth time in three minutes.....

#3 The Samurai Archives>
For character names and confirming certain historical alliances.

#4 The Metropolitan Museum of Art
For Visual Inspiration

#5 The Emotion Thesaurus
Because I tend to use "His dark eyes looked" waaaaaaaaay too much

#6 On the Art of No Theater: the Major Treatises of Zeami, translated by J Thomas Rimer and Yamazaki Masakazu
Because one of my characters is Zeami himself :)

This is Self Publishing: She will Spank You

Mon, 7 Jan 2013 07:30:00 GMT

Blogger/Indie Writer Elle Lothlorien waxes funny and sage in the introduction to a series on self-publishing that promises to be very down-to-earth.

Her First Thing: Asking the Right Question is a great start, but, may not be entirely safe for work as she kind of riffs off of Fifty Shades of Grey in her article.

The question, of course, isn't HOW do I self-publish, but SHOULD I self-publish.

After watching several authors (one traditionally published, one entirely self-published, one agented but decided to go Indie anyway) go through the process, I decided that my dreams of becoming as successful as JK Rowling were not realistic.

I also decided that I wasn't willing to put in the work required (emotional or timewise) that I would require (not everyone, just me) to be successful in snagging an agent and a traditional book contract.

I also wasn't about to give up writing and wanted someone other than my beta readers to have a look at the novels I'd put so much time into writing. Not to mention that writing takes time away from work, family, cleaning, exercise, etc, and if I was making money from it, even if it was only a little, that it would be justified to take that time in my own mind.

So I jumped in with Tiger Lily in 4/2012.

And I'm pleased that I answered "yes" to the Should you self-publish? question. (I'm still submitting other manuscripts to agents, I'm of the opinion that successful writers will be ones with fingers in ebook, traditional, and audio pies)

Here's some results for 2012 with one novel:
Books Sold/Borrowed through Amazon KDP Select: 200
Books Given Away through Freebie Promotion: 6756
Royalties paid so far by Amazon: $489.44

Money I paid to artist/copyeditors in order to selfpublish, buy business cards, attend writer conference: 283.00

Net Profit: $206.00

It's not the biggest slice of the pie, but its a slice of pie that satisfies me without making me crazy over the making of the pie.

Okay, so maybe a bit tangled in my edible metaphors here, but what I mean is, I am satisfied with this amount of money/readers because it lets me balance volunteer work, being a mother to two elementary school-aged kids, doing an almost full-time job with and ESL testing company, and getting to play Band Hero with my husband sometimes.

But obviously, it's not the path for everyone.

YA Indie author Elle Casey says some wise words about the state of fiction publishing

Sun, 6 Jan 2013 14:00:00 GMT

Elle Casey recently had an online conversation with an agent about the state of fiction publishing.

The entire thing is a bit long but kind of comprehensively states issues about accessibility, gate-keeping, and rights management in a clear way.

The most interesting parts for me were the way she concretely identified the three tracks to publishing I had been noticing in a kind of off-hand way:

"First, we have the traditionally published writer (TPW) who will always be with a traditional publisher. We have the Hybrid Traditional to Indie (HTI)--someone who started out as a traditionally published writer and then either bought rights back to self-publish or wrote some new books and self-published them. We've heard some big names going that way. Barbara Freethy has sold 2.6 million books using rights she bought back, and she's not selling at 99 cents! We have the Hybrid Indie to Traditional (HIT) --someone who wrote a self-published book and then was picked up by a traditional publisher. And finally, we have the Indie, someone who has only self-published. "

And then, finally, the way she focuses on how Traditional Publishing can sour a successful Indie writer's book publishing due to old ways of thinking about pricing:

"This is why you as an agent feel justified in thinking that we still need agents and editors as gatekeepers for what people should read. Publishers do not get the pricing issue at all. And how can they? They have overhead to pay. They're pushing high price instead of volume, ignoring the fact that many of these authors are selling millions of copies of their work because they have it priced reasonably. $2.99 or $3.99 may sound like peanuts to a publisher, but to many readers, it's the sweet spot--the place where they can find great reads over and over again. A publisher who thinks it can take a book that was selling a million copies at $2.99 and then jack the price up to $9.99 or higher and have the same results is insane. You don't even have to be a college grad to know this dog won't hunt."

I was just talking with my mom last night about how the way you buy ebooks is totally different from the way you go about buying paperbacks. I think from a reader's point of view, I'm less likely to spend more than 4.99 on an ebook, even if its an author I like. I get those books from the library. When I buy ebooks I'm willing to take a chance on Indie authors as well as buy a first book in a series that's priced lower.

Mixed Review of Tiger Lily in Blackgate

Sat, 5 Jan 2013 06:59:00 GMT

Donald Crankshaw has thrown some support behind self-published novels by offering an open submission to indie fantasy authors to be interviewed in Black Gate.

I of course, queried.

He gives a mixed review of Tiger Lily.

I appreciated his frank and candid opinion. Hopefully in the sequel I'm writing now Lily won't come off as so passive.

Addictions in Salads

Fri, 4 Jan 2013 12:40:00 GMT

I am currently addicted to putting Trader Joe's smoked almonds and Giant White Beans (gigantes) in my lunch salad.

That smoked taste satisfies my "I'd rather be eating french fries" salt yearning and the creaminess of the giant beans satisfies "I'd rather be eating a whole pound of butter" craving.

At least temporarily.

You might also add cheese. Dill-Havarti is especially nice :)

30,000 words and a compelling YA SF Austen retelling

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 15:32:00 GMT

I'm at 30,000 words on Straw Doll Cries at Midnight...and it didn't take me a month and a half!

Well, okay, I had serious wordage from my Japan trip that hadn't gotten typed into the document yet, but still. This time it took only half a month.

The real test of my new-found resolve is to see if I can maintain this pace even without handwritten pages of first draft scribbled in Tokyo bread shops.

Also, if you are always on the lookout for speculative retellings of Austen (if you like Bronte you should already have picked up Tina Connolly's Ironskin-- retelling of Jane Eyre) then do I have a treat for you.

I'm caught up in the first 2/3'rds of Diana Peterfreund's For Darkness Shows the Stars and it's a very, very absorbing, interesting take on Persuasion. It's YA, it has an interesting post-apocalyptic world where only the descendants of people who refused genetic engineering really survived unscathed. Not only is it true enough to Persuasion that half the fun is identifying characters, but the emotion-strumming angst of regrets and societal restrictions are also perfectly cast.

I recommend it for lovers of the Hunger Games.

I had read Peterfreund's first novel, Rampant, and wasn't entirely enthralled. However, For Darkness Shows the Stars had me reading way past my bedtime.

Country, Barenaked Christmas

Thu, 6 Dec 2012 23:32:00 GMT

I am amused by my own preference for the Pandora Internet Radio channel that has Christmas music mostly sung by Barenaked Ladies (can't beat their God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen featuring Sarah Machlachlan) and country singer renditions of holiday classics.

(Today I was absolutely mesmerized by Josh Turner's The First Noel ...the deep timbre, the twang, the sappy, heart-felt pathos...)

Last year I was all Canadian Tenors and The Piano Guys (who are still awesome, by the way).

What's up with me jonesing for such hoky Christmas?

The Garlic Walkers: A short story now available on Amazon

Tue, 4 Dec 2012 18:10:00 GMT

The Garlic Walkers is a short story now available on Amazon.

It is summertime in Gilroy, California, and the garlic fields permeate the air with a biting, earthy smell.. A young English teacher discovers ancient magic when one of her migrant worker students is assaulted.

A 3000 word short, contemporary dark fantasy