Repeating words is so repetitive

I don’t know about you, but I’m guilty of using repetitive words and phrases in my novels.  I didn’t realize how glaringly obvious they were, though, until a few betas pointed them out to me. I would have comments such as “Jen, you just used the word glare.  Try another word.” Or “I counted the word ‘jump’ six times in the last two pages.  Can David leap, bolt, haul ass anything but ‘jump’?”  (I chuckled at that one.)  Somehow, VanHalen popped in my head, but I digress.

Ugh.  I knew I needed to clean up my manuscript, but I didn’t know I needed to de-contaminate if from the rafters to the basement.  It seemed like on every page I found those dratted repetitive words staring back at me with quirky little grins on their lettered faces.  But I fixed them with a sweet little program called AutoCrit Editing Wizard.  How in the heck did I get through life without this software?  It has really made my hunt and destroy mission much easier.   Now onto the additional edits I need to make to my novel.  Hmm.  I wonder if there is a program out there that yells back, “Enough with the editing, and send the damn thing out already!”

Formatting your manuscript – Part 2 – Line Breaks and Paragraphs

Happy Monday, everyone.  Today I’m going to talk about formatting your page breaks and paragraphs for your completed manuscript.  You can find Part One on how to format your manuscript here.  I wish I had a video to go along with this, but alas, I haven’t progressed that far technologically for me to provide one.  I hope you can follow along.

In addition, the information that follows is for those of you who have a finished manuscript and you are now trying to clear up the formatting before you send it out to agents/publishers/editors, etc.  I only use Word, so these instructions will not apply to you if you use a different word processor (though I’m pretty sure they all work about the same).

Okay.  Formatting page breaks.

Lots of folks like to space down to add the next page.  Others like to hit ‘space/enter’.  I’m going to show you how to format correctly and clean up all those irregular formatting codes.

Formatting page breaks

Place your cursor at the very bottom of your title page, go up to insert menu, click insert/break/page break and ok.  In Word 2007, just click on insert/page break/ok

An easy way to make sure your chapters are on a new page, click on the edit menu/find and type in ‘Chapter’/find next.

Place your cursor in front of each Chapter and click insert/break/page break and ok (or, for shortcut nuts like me, control/enter).

Keep doing this until all your chapters are formatted correctly and each chapter begins on a new page.

Formatting paragraphs.

Because you don’t want to change the formatting of your title page, go to the first page of your manuscript and place your curser at the top of page one.  Hold down control and hit ‘end’.  This will  highlight your entire manuscript, minus the title page.  Now you are ready to format your paragraphs.

Right click on your mouse and click ‘paragraph’.

Make sure the following boxes have the correct information:

General alignment – left

Indentation – .5

Spacing – double

Leave the other boxes empty as you don’t need to mess with them.

Click ok

Search for all tabs that may be hiding.

Sometimes when we type, we add tabs that don’t need to be there, especially in front of paragraphs.  The best way to find and delete these is to turn the paragraph mark on in your document.  It looks like this ¶ in your menu bar.

Click on ¶

In the edit menu, click on find/more/special/tab character/find next

Click on ‘Replace’ and in the replace text with nothing

Click ‘Replace All’

A little box will show up that says how many tab characters were deleted.  Click ok.

Next thing you want to search for are paragraphs that have an extra space.

Again, click find/more/special/paragraph mark with a space after it/find next

Click “Replace/special/paragraph mark without a space

Click ‘replace all’

Box comes up to show how many you found.  Hit ok.  Click replace again just to make sure you got them all.

Last thing you want to do is check for line breaks

Click edit/find/special/manual line break/find next

Unfortunately, you will have to delete these from your manuscript manually, or you will mess up your entire document.

Click ‘Delete’, then ‘Enter’

Make sure you look for all extra spaces while you’re at it just to make sure you go them all.

And, there you have it.  I know it seems silly to have to post this sort of thing, but I can’t tell you how many manuscript edits I’ve done for folks where the formatting was all over the place.  Trust me.  Take the time to edit properly.  Your future agent/editor/publisher will thank you for it.

Formatting your manuscript – Part 1

Today I thought I would try to answer a common question that keeps coming up on writer’s’ blogs and writer’s groups I attend.  I’ve done tons of research into this topic and hopefully I can shed some light on this subject.

First, contrary to popular belief, there is no one single correct format, nor one single correct typeface to use when formatting your manuscript.  However, after reading many, many submission pages on many, many agent/publisher websites, the following are pretty much industry standards for manuscripts, both fiction and non-fiction.  As always, familiarize yourself with your targeted agents and publishers, and read their submission guidelines.  If they want their manuscripts submitted in bold, purple 15 pt Alien Galaxy, I suggest you find where you can get the font.

You can choose to format your novel before or after you have written it.  I like to format ahead of time, that way I don’t have to worry about it later.  It’s just easier for me.

Standard page format:

Margins -  1.5 inch on all four sides.

Font -  Times New Roman, however, you can use Courier, Courier New, or any other clean mono-space serif font in 12 pt.

Line spacing - Double-space

Paragraph indent - first line, .5 pt.

Header - right justified, contains the following information:

Last name/ TITLE/ page#.

It is also acceptable to type your last name/title on the left side of the header and the page number on the right, whichever feels more comfortable for you.

Note:  A header does not belong on the cover page. Start headers on page one of the actual manuscript.  There are many sites online that can teach you how to do this if you don’t know how.

Title Page:

Contact information — Name and address, phone number, and e-mail address in the top left corner of the page, single spaced, left-justified.

A little note here:  make sure your e-mail is a professional one.  Remember, writing is a job.  Submitting your manuscript is no different than sending out a resume.  Refrain from using cute little names like cutiepatootie@_____.com.  This will give the impression you are not serious about your craft, and if you aren’t serious, the agent or publisher will not take you seriously.  Believe it or not, many agents and publishers have complained about writer’s making this mistake.

Title — centered, just above the middle of the page

by — centered and one double-spaced line beneath the title

Name and pen name — centered and one double-spaced line beneath the word by.  My experience has shown it is best to place your true name on one line and if you write under a pen name, place it in parenthesis beneath your name.  The agent/publisher wants to know the real you and if you are signed on, they’ll  need to know your name to write out the checks.  :)

Genre and word count — centered and rounded to the nearest thousand, one double-spaced line beneath your name or pen name.  Note:  It is also acceptable to place this information just below your name and address at the top of the page.

If you are agented, format the cover page as above and include the following, left-justified, single-spaced on the bottom of the page: agent’s name, business name, mailing address, phone number, e-mail address of agent (get permission from agent),

First page:  Note before we continue (for  Word users only):  Make sure you are using “Normal Style”.

Header — should be in the upper right-hand corner of the page, and page number should be 1.

Chapter header — can be anywhere from one to six double-spaced lines down from the top of the page, and can be centered or left justified. You can title your chapters, or just write Chapter One or Chapter 1.

Body text — drop down two double-spaced lines to begin your story.

Scene breaks — drop down two double-spaced lines, insert and center the * character, drop down two more double-spaced lines, and begin your new scene.  Note:  Other formatting sites will say to use the # mark to separate scenes, however, my Kindle pros have warned me that Kindle doesn’t recognize the #, but it does recognize *.  To save yourself from headaches later, you may want to use the * mark to begin with.

Subsequent chapters — start each chapter on a fresh page. Keep chapter formatting and titling consistent with your first chapter.

Bolding, underlining, italics, highlighting:  Do not bold or underline anything in your manuscript.  Industry standard does accept italics for internal character thoughts.  Also, make sure there is no highlighting in your manuscript.   I sometimes will highlight sections because I want to revisit them for various editing reason before I send off the manuscript.  If you use this method, you want to make sure you take the highlighting off.

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss page breaks and formatting paragraphs.

 

When listening to other opinions are bad for your health

I recently submitted my re-written manuscript to two brand new and one return beta readers to get  a fresh perspective on my novel and to find out if I’d fixed the issues a publisher pointed out to me in their amazing, red-lined critique.  One beta came back with overwhelming praise and a few minor niggles to correct.  The return beta came back with a somewhat harsher review but overall, I understood his points and I am considering them before I send the novel out to my last 2 betas.  The reviews from the third beta, however, broke my heart and reduced me to tears.  I didn’t eat well for two days, I snapped at my kids and my hubby, and quite frankly, felt horrible – like sick-to-my-stomach horrible. Not good.

What ground me to a halt and put me in such a state?  The following are just a few of the comments I received.

“I have never read such driveling nonsense.”  ”The only fantastical thing I found in this book was that I actually finished it.  There were too many times I almost didn’t.”  ”I felt cheated.  Why haven’t you thrown David and Charlotte together?  Are teens these days really so goody-goody? I think not.  You are obviously detached from today’s conundrums.  Get with the teen scene.  Charlotte’s comment to David to not look at  her boobs is ridiculous. Girls these days are all about showing off their boobs and getting as many guys to look at them as possible.  I felt like I was reading a D-rated fantasy novel from the 1950s.”   “I would not submit this to my English Lit teacher.  No offense but I think you should try your talents at something else because Tolstoy you are not.”

And the negativity kept coming.

I knew when I first read the comments (that also offered no hints as to how to make the  novel better), I should put it down and let it go.  It wasn’t beneficial.  It offered no constructive criticism.  Yet it was this review that stuck with me the most.

Why?  Why as artists, as human beings, do we allow the bad to outweigh the good, at least at first?  What is it about our psyche that makes us almost want to believe the bad?  Do we truly believe deep down we are terrible writers (insert hobby/job) and this stranger sees through the facade?  Why do we focus on those things that hurt us instead of those things that lift our spirits?

I wish I knew the answer.  All I know is I spent a lot of time over the past few days trying to figure out what was so horrible about my novel instead of what was so great about it.  After hours of shedding tears, and barking at my husband and my kids, I realized I was letting a stranger dictate my emotions.  A stranger.    Someone I will probably never meet.  Someone who hasn’t been with me on my journey.  Someone who may have had a bad day when he wrote his comments.  Heck, maybe he is just a negative person all the time.  How dare I let this stranger guide my emotions?  He’s not my husband, my children, my closest friends.  Why should I care what he thinks?

It’s ingrained, I guess.  I do care what others think, which is my problem.  I want to please everyone all the time and I forget to please me first.  I supposed that’s what comes with being a wife and mother for 27 years.  But it’s time for all that to change.  It’s time for me to be proud of me, of all I’ve accomplished, and to believe in myself and my writing.  My novel is not a D-rated novel from the ’50s.  It’s here, it’s now and I know there are good kids out there who are not focused on sex and drugs that will love my novel.

I therefore make a vow that from this point on, to take all comments with a grain of salt.  I will listen to all opinions, consider all critiques, however, I will first and foremost listen to my heart and the wonderful Spirit that gave me my voice and ability to write.  I have to please me and my family first.  And in the end, that’s all that matters.

What about you? Do you let critiques of your writing (or hobby/work) affect your moods and your health?

Can you hit a perfect pitch contest

The fabulous Brenda Drake is at it again with another fantastic contest.  This time the grand prize is a request to read more of your novel by the amazing agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette.

Here are the details, as copied from Brenda’s site:

Here’s how the contest is going down …

On January 15th post a two sentence pitch (no more than 35 words) along with the first 150 words (if it falls in the middle of a sentence, go to the end of that sentence) of your finished Young Adult orMiddle Grade manuscript to your blogs. From January 15th-16thhop around each others’ blogs and critique or praise them. Revise your entries, if you want, and post them by 8:00am (EST) January 17th to the official entry post. DO NOT POST THEM TO THIS POST. If you want, you may skip the blogfest/critique portion of this contest and just enter the contest.  I will have the official post up, along with details on how to format your entries, on January 15th so that you can start posting when you’re ready. To participate, sign up on the linky below.You want to know the prizes? The prize (or prizes) is a request to read more from agent, Ammi-Joan Paquette. I’m crossing my fingers for all of you. Have I told you how much I LOVE LOVE LOVE this agent? Okay, well, I can’t say it enough! I totally <3 her!

***

Here is my entry:

Title:  In the Shadow of the Dragon King

Genre: YA Fantasy
Word Count: 87,000
Pitch:     A seventeen- year old boy is thrust into a magical world, awakens an evil threat and sparks a war.  His salvation:  embrace his destiny, even if it means risking the life of his best friend.

First 150:

David Heiland sketched the final details on the cat-like eyes staring back at him.  Just like in his nightmares, the dragon clung to the castle’s battlement, a body clutched in one talon. Small horns jutted from the top of the creature’s head and two leather-like whiskers protruded from both sides of its snout. Crouched in the shadow of a turret were a man and a woman. Their arms were raised like shields above their heads, terror etched into their eyes and mouths.

Charlotte leaned in from behind, her arms folded across his shoulders. “Wow, talk about a major creep out.  I can’t get over how real it looks.” She kicked off her shoes and climbed into the center of the carved, four-poster bed. “Who are the people?”

“My parents,” David said, examining his work.  “You know, it’s funny.  When I was little, all I ever dreamed was for them to be alive, and someday they would walk through the door and all would be right with the world.”

***

Good luck to everyone!  What a great contest.

When hopes, dreams and prayers are not enough

I know an aspiring author with hopes and dreams of becoming the next James Patterson.  Every day he prays that someone will see his work, fall in love with it and offer him a contract.  I’ve read some of his work and it’s good…really good…and I would love to see him get that contract, too.  There’s just one problem.  All he does is hope, dream and pray.  He doesn’t write.

He has several manuscripts in the works (like most writers, I think), but he can’t seem to finish even one of them.  He says he’s afraid that no one will like his work.  He’s afraid of failure but he’s even more afraid of succeeding.  After all, if he becomes successful, his life will change.  He’s not a change kind of guy.  He likes his life on a smooth, even keel.  He also has admitted he lacks confidence in his writing and he’s always over-working his story to make it better.  (I’m guilty of the last one).

He also gets frustrated, unsure of how he wants to finish his novels.  He tosses ideas out at the writers’ group.  He is a member of some online critique groups, but it takes him forever to heed the advice and write and revise.  Instead…he plays video and computer games and thinks about his manuscript.

Sorry, my dear boy, your novel isn’t going to be seen by anyone that way, I don’t care how much you hope, dream and pray.

Writing is a solitary art.  It requires dedication, perseverance, time and focus, if you want to be published.  Otherwise, writing becomes a hobby.  Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with it being a hobby, but if you dream of being published, you can’t play video games and expect the book to write itself because you hope, dream or pray for it to happen.

As writers, we have to decide in our minds if we’re going to be hobbyists or authors.  Is it for fun or do you really want to be published?  Once you decide what kind of author you are, then you must take the proper steps to become what you want to become.  If you know you are a procrastinator like my friend, try setting reminders and alarms on your phone.  Set aside some time every day to just write.  It could be 30 minutes, 2 hours, or all day, but don’t stray from the schedule you’re comfortable with.  Eliminate all other distractions.  If you write on your computer like I do, get all of your Facebooking and Tweeting and game playing out of the way before your writing time, or do it afterwards.  Retrain your mind to focus and remain dedicated during that time to your writing only.  The first few times you do this, you may stare at the screen and your fingers and brain may lock up.  Stick with it.  Don’t give up.  Keep trying.  Before long, your fingers will fly across the keyboard with fervor, and thoughts and dialogue will come pouring out of the recesses of your mind like ants out of a kicked-up ant hill.

Above all, never lose your enthusiasm and belief in yourself.  If you’ve decided you want to be published more than anything in the world, don’t look at writing as a laborious job you go to every day.  This is your passion.  It is your hope, your dream, but no amount of praying without doing the work will make your dream come true.  You just have to believe in yourself.  I do.

Are you a procrastinating author?  What keeps you motivated to write?

 

Girl Appeal – Does your YA novel have it?

Over the past year, I’ve queried In the Shadow of the Dragon King to six agents and four publishers. I’ve also participated in countless blogs, entered contests and won critiques with agents and publishers to find out ahead of time if my novel has the umph it needs to appeal to my target age group. Up until the last publisher, I received rejections. The main reason, when one was given, was ‘not enough girl appeal’.

I scratched my head, confused to say the least. My novel wasn’t intended for girls. This was strictly a guy thing. War, guns, kick-A mages, evil sorcerers, despicable dragons, wanna-rip-their-hair-out villains. Throw in a few beheadings, my own fantasy creatures – wedras, the shime and sestras – a few sword fights and the boys were eating out of my hand. My teen beta boys loved it and asked for more. (they also gave me great ideas for the remaining two books in the series). I thought I’d done it. I thought I’d appealed to my target age group.

The pros didn’t think so. I needed ‘girl appeal’.

What did that mean? If that’s not my target group, why do I need girl appeal?

The answer is simple and it made complete sense after the most recent publisher requested a full, then returned it with their comments. Basically, it comes down to this…teen girls, not boys, buy books; therefore, YA books must have girl appeal.

My first gut reaction was if there were more books that appealed to boys then perhaps more boys would buy them. What teen guy wants to read a romance book? Not many, and the ones who do would never admit it to their teen friends.

On second glance, I began to evaluate my novel from an unbiased view (which is very hard for an author to do). I had a secondary lead character, Charlotte. She’s the MC’s best friend and works almost like his conscience. She didn’t have a huge role in this novel because the story wasn’t about her, it was about David, a wealthy kid who has everything he could want at his fingertips, then finding himself in a life-threatening situation where none of the luxuries of life are at his disposal. He has to rely on his ingenuity, strength, survival instincts and faith to get him through, things he’s not used to having or using. It is a story of a boy trying to figure out who he is and what is his purpose in life.

Still uncertain how to come at my novel from another angle, I began to read some of the top YA novels to find how the best-selling authors handled this issue. Most had too much ‘girl appeal’ for my story, but I gained a better understanding about what I needed to do with Charlotte.

I received the publishers comments in August 2011 with a request to resubmit should I decide to make the changes. After several months of reading and evaluating their well-thought out comments, I think I have figured out what I need to do. It has taken me some time to fill in the blanks and give Charlotte a much bigger role. She’s quirky, sensitive, independent and loves to speak her mind. I have to admit, the story is much better because of her.

In my search for ways to improve the story, I also improved myself as a writer. I realized I could have a boy story with girl appeal without compromising the masculinity of the story. Charlotte’s all girl but she’s also a tomboy who can tag along and play like the boys. The story is more vibrant, more dimensional, and all it took was for one publisher to point it out, explain it and let me figure out the rest.

The massive re-write of my novel is almost complete, and you better believe I’m popping this sweet baby back over to this amazing publisher. I’ll keep my fingers crossed they love it as much as I do.

So, does your YA novel have girl appeal? If it doesn’t, you know what to do. Don’t be afraid. Go for it. You’ll be glad you did.

Kreative Blogger Award!

I normally don’t post two blogs in one day, but I had to post this one.

The wonderful and lovely Amy at The Literary Mom gave me a Kreative Blog Award today. Whoo Hoo!!  *throws confetti*  Thank you, Amy!  I’m honored that you presented me with this award.  I’m all giddy now.

As part of receiving this award, I have to (1):  Share 10 things about myself that readers might find interesting, and (2) nominate 6 others for the blog award.  So, here goes:

Ten things about me:

1.  I was born in Neu Ulm, Germany, adopted by a US Army couple and grew up moving and traveling everywhere.

2.  I’ve been writing stories ever since I could hold a crayon (or so it seems).

3.  My short story, The Passing of Millie Hudson, was my first published short story.

4.  I’ve worked as a retail clerk, data entry clerk, an administrative assistant, and most recently a paralegal.

5.  I am the biggest animal lover in the world. I’d adopt every stray and every homeless four-legged creature if I could.

6.  I was hugged and kissed on the neck by the oh-so-awesome Kevin Richardson of the Backstreet Boys on December 1, 1999 in Orlando, FL at a fan conference.  I still have the newspaper article from the Orlando paper.  

 

 

 

 

 

7.  I can never eat enough lobster tail, king crab legs, shrimp and cheese cake.  I’m addicted to vanilla and or chocolate flavored coffee (Godiva is to die for) and International Delight vanilla creamer.  I love Martini and Rossi Asti Spumanti and Arizona Green Tea (but not together).

8.  I love to travel.  There are so many places on my bucket list to see.  The Grand Canyon, Seattle, Washington and Vermont in the fall top the list.

9.  My favorite book of all time is Great Expectations.

10.  I hate any kind of creepy, crawly bug like roaches or crickets.  I freak out and simply can’t kill them.  The crunch they make sends shivers up my spine.

2.  The lucky six bloggers to receive the award are:

1.  Jennifer Eaton’s blog.  She is an amazing author and I love her posts.  This aspiring author has an amazing future ahead of her.

2.  Kana Tyler.  She’s a freelance writer, she’s funny and has some really insightful things to say.

3.  Talin.  Her blog is beautiful, and inspirational. She’s a writer who also loves to cook.  She posts recipes all the time, all of them really, really good.

4.  I cannot sing enough praises for this Commuting Girl’s writer’s site.  Great posts and she’s as addicted to YA novels as I am.

5.  Lori Freeland at http://www.lafreeland.com/.  Lori is amazing and I’ve gotten a lot of great ideas from her site.  She’s an author, inspirational writer, wife, and mother, among many other things.  You can’t go wrong with her blog.

6.  Brenda Drake.   Brenda is always  hosting contests and blogfests with agents, professional editors, etc.  She has a huge following and her blog is fun and dynamic.

Honorable Mention:

Emi Gayle:  fantastic author and I love her book reviews.

Do I do it for me or my audience?

There seems to be a great divide among authors whether they write for themselves or to an audience.  I’ve spoken to many authors who claim they will never write for an audience.  They write because they love to write and it doesn’t matter who or if anyone wants to read it.  Over the years I’ve found that, as a rule, these authors are not in the business to make money.  They don’t long to be on the top of the best-seller lists.  They don’t care if there are action figures made of their characters.  In fact, I’ve found that an overwhelming majority of these intellectual authors find it disgusting that other writers would even consider selling out their craft to become commercialized.  Many authors feel this need to please a target audience has lowered the bar for what should be, first and foremost, fantastic writing.  In essence, many of them believe commercial fiction writers are hugely responsible for the ‘dumbing down’ of our society.

On the other hand, commercialized writers have a completely different look on the  matter.  They are marketers, whether they want to agree with that or not.  They study their audience, they know what their audience likes, and they write accordingly.  They see and study other authors in their genre, reading everything they can to see what formulas work.  I have found from talking to these types of authors that many of them long for the action figures (they make money).   They live for the idea that someone may want to make  a video game or movie from their book and they keep that in mind as they develop and unravel scenes, create characters and define tension and plot.  They don’t see their writing as ‘dumbing down’ anything, but rather giving the audience what they want and crave.  Does this for make bad writing?  Sometimes, but  not always.

If you ask me, it’s all subjective.  I’ve read books that I thought were horrible and didn’t know how the author found anyone to publish the thing.  However, someone else I knew read the book and found it to be the most fantastic piece of literature they ever laid their eyes on. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is one such example.  I hated it.  I couldn’t get anywhere near to the middle to ‘wait for the exciting stuff to happen’.  I was so bored and just couldn’t muddle through.  Other people loved it, and now it is a movie.  Was Stiegg Larsson thinking movie deal when he wrote it?  I’m not sure.  I doubt it, but many will now lump him into the commercialized author category because it is now a movie.

My advice to any aspiring author…write from your heart.  If your heart leads you down the path where you just want to write and you don’t care if anyone reads it, then go for it.  If all you can think about is writing a best-selling book with eventual movie rights, go for it.

I personally fall in between the two.  I write because I love it.  Writing is as important to me as breathing.  To go more than a few hours without writing something is torture to my soul.  It’s insane.  My main dream is to be published.  Period.  Just knowing I have a published novel out there in the universe where other people can read it would just make me feel all gooey inside.  But don’t get me wrong.  I would LOVE it if a big movie studio came to me and said, “We want to make a film out of your novel, and by the way, we’ll need to make video games and action figures to be released 3 months before the movie.”  Can someone say SWEET!

Would accepting such a deal make me a sellout?  *shakes head*  I think it would make me a savvy businesswoman.  I mean, come on.  Let’s face it.  I don’t care what anyone thinks about Stephenie Meyer.  She wrote a series of books from her heart that gripped the hearts of young girls all over the world.  The Twilight series may not have been intellectual or exquisitely written, but they did touch the pulse of the world.  She wrote something she was passionate about, and that passion came through in the books.  She knew her audience, she knew herself, and wrote accordingly.  Pretty dang smart if you ask me.  Does that make her a commercialized writer?  I don’t think so.  She had a passion, got off her bum and wrote her heart out. She got lucky, filled a void, and became a very wealthy woman because of it.  The same can be said for J.K. Rowling.  The Harry Potter series is the most lucrative set of books, EVER.  Heck, there’s even a theme park devoted to the stories.  No one else in the world can claim that.

So, I’ll continue to write from my heart and pray and believe I will be one of the .005 percent of authors who break into the top 100.  I truly believe In the Shadow of the Dragon King is a great novel and would be purely spectacular as a film.  And just between you and me, I would really love to have Trog and Einar action figures. That would make me squeal with delight.  :-)

As Yoda said, “Do or do not.  There is no try.”  I plan to ‘do’ and I strongly suggest you do the same.  Follow your dreams, no matter what they are.  Let others think as they will.  You only have one person to please in the end, and that’s you.  Make it count.

So what kind of writer are you?

Apple Dumplings = kid and teenage fun

I’m always looking for ways to get my kids to help me out around the house.  Sometimes that means not just helping me with chores but with cooking, too.  Thankfully, both of my boys (16 and 20 respectively) love helping me out in the kitchen, especially when there is food involved (when it’s cleanup time, however, that’s a different story all together). Typical young adults.

This year the treat to make was apple dumplings.  I really love this German recipe and hope you will, too.  If you have kids, grab them in the kitchen to help you make them.  It’s a lot of fun and they are oh, so yummy (especially with a dab of ice cream at the end).

So, here’s the recipe:

1 1/2 c sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
2 c water
1/4 c butter or margarine
2 1/4 c all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2/3 c shortening
1/2 c milk
6 small apples, peeled and cored
1/3 c sugar

For Syrup:

In a saucepan combine 1 1/2 c sugar, 1/4 tsp of cinnamon, 1/4 tsp nutmeg and 2 c water.  Bring to boiling. Reduce heat and cook for 5 more minutes.  Remove from heat.  Stir in butter and set aside.

Combine flour, baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt.  Cut in shortening until it resembles course crumbs.

Add milk all at once; stir just until moistened.  Form into a ball.  On a floured surface, roll out into an 18×12 inch rectangle; cut into six 6-inch squares.  Place an apple in center of each square.  Sprinkle apple generously with a mixture of 1/3 c sugar and the remaining 1/4 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp nutmeg.  Dot with butter.  Moisten edges of dough, fold corners to center atop apple.  Pinch the edges together.  Place in a 13x9x2 baking dish.  Pour syrup over dumplings.  Bake in a 375 degree oven for 45 minutes or till apples are tender.

Bon Apetite!

(note:  I only made four squares because I had big apples.  Adjust accordingly).