Remember that when you’re making your mom an omelette–she’ll love it, shells and all!
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So, kids have been released from the Star Wars mania and the votes are in on the new family favorite. But I want to know what you think! Which was our greatest success of the day, and which could be safely left behind on Tatooine with that nasty goop Luke refuses to eat? The pasta that tried.
Ignore the noodles being all the wrong shape and the sauce being nonexistent. Focus on the lovely tomatoes and crispy bits of chicken. That’s got to make up for a bit of fudging on the name, right? Alongside our pseudo Boba Fettucine was a favorite fruit, which as you can see has been carved into a major planet-destroyer.
But we all know what happens to the Death Star!
I think this gets a few votes just for keeping things lively. Finishing of the ‘sensible food’ were these lovely bites of fried goodness!
They went over so well the plateful was rapidly disappearing and I almost missed getting a pic. However, they don’t look terribly Star Wars-esque, so their lack of theme umph might knock off the points they gain for crunch. And finally, the desserts. By now we were getting stuffed and also tired of washing dishes, so we made cookies. Only the cookie cutters had been misplaced, and I had to shape them freehand. I think I did alright, but someone said that one of them looks a bit like the hind-end of a pig.
Can you guess which one? Hint–it’s kind of spelled like bacon! Lastly, we have our Wookie Cookie…in bambino form.
I’m sure Chewie would groan and hide his head if he knew we posted his baby pic, but I think it’s cute! What do you think? Galactic success? Or Wookie moan? I made it–I’m in! Many thanks to the awesome coaches who’ve put this contest together for us! I can’t wait to work with these fabulous ladies over the next couple weeks! Brenda, Cupid, Krista, Monica–you’re the best! For my friends who haven’t been waiting with their fingers in their mouth to see if I got in, this is a writer’s contest based on The Voice. The prize if we win is being selected by one of the delightful ladies above to be on her team and be coached by her. The selected team players will then work with their coach to polish their entry, and their queries and snippet will then be posted on the coach’s blog where–gasp–participating agents will bid on them! So, pop those fingers out of your mouth and wish me luck! Query: Dear Ms. Chicken-Loving Agent, I’m hoping to interest you in my middle grade, NINCHICKS. Complete at 30,000 words, NinChicks will appeal to readers of Chihuawolf and Hank the Cowdog. I have written it as a standalone, but the ending is open to a sequel. For hundreds of years humans have agonized over the great question of life: Why did the chicken cross the road? The answer has remained an aggravating puzzle–until now. Trained in the heritage of the ancient ninjas, chickens participate in a Crossing the Road ceremony upon becoming a NinChick. The training is grueling, the missions dangerous, but our hero, Jackson, is sure he is up for the task. Until Sensei, Master of the NinChicks, turns him down cold. Determined to prove himself, Jackson sneaks off with a pack full of forbidden NinChick weapons and a few lethal chicken jokes. Soon he’s in over his head—literally—and swinging upside down from a trap, while his best friend is hauled off by Brutus the Coyote. Worse, he discovers that Brutus has plans to bring down the entire chicken society. But even as he fumbles an egg grenade and chomps down on acid-poop paste, he begins to wonder if he had it all wrong—maybe being a hero has less to do with his ninja moves, and more to do with his heart. And proving he’s not chicken shouldn’t be his goal at all. I am a martial artist with a black belt in Chung Do Kwan Tai Kwon Do. Add to this the barnyard full of show quality silkie chickens which look to me for food and entertainment, and this book was a no brainer. I am a member of SCBWI, have attended Orson Scott Card’s literary bootcamp, and have published a dozen or so short stories in ezines and anthologies.
First 250 Words: “Hey, Jackson,” Opus says eagerly. “Ever hear the one about the rooster that crossed the road? Wanna know why he did it?” I sigh. Opus and his jokes—right now I’d rather listen to mites crawling in my ears than hear a single-nother-chicken joke. I mean, we are chickens, so why doesn’t he tell jokes about cats, or even humans? Opus, Commander Pent and I are just finishing our afternoon Grunt Guard patrol, hiking up the pebbly road leading back to the Ravencroft main barn. In the trees to our right a blue jay screams, ‘All clear! All clear!’ “Don’t you wanna know?” Opus asks again. He doesn’t wait for me to answer. “The rooster crossed the road because he wanted to cock-a-doodle dooo something!” He busts up laughing like it’s Saturday night at the chicken festival and he’s the funniest thing on the stage. I adjust the wing strap of my supply sling. “You’ve told me that one before.” “Have I? Well, here’s one you haven’t heard,” Opus says. He tries an excited hop but he’s so big it’s more of a shuffle. “You can’t have heard this one—it’s new. Never been told before.” Translation—he made it up himself and it’s not going to make any sense at all. I nod absently. Tilting my head, I sift the wind through my poof of inky black crest feathers, picking up all the small sounds of the grassy roadside and surrounding woods. The toads are calling their mates—‘Me now! Me now!’
I get asked every once in awhile why I write funny stuff. Do I really have a brain that still chortles over chicken jokes? Am I trying to say poop jokes are sophisticated humor? Well, yeah, actually. I am and they are! But there are myriad ways I could channel my juvenile side and I’ve had some success with ‘serious’ adult stuff, so why have I settled on the funny? Well, let me tell you a story. Yesterday we needed to get the newly hatched guinea keets out of the hatching bator, and put them in the brooder box. Simple, right? No excitmenet, no stimulation, just pick up the itty-bitty baby and put it in the box! Well, it wasn’t so simple. When people talk about guineas, they usually find themselves using words like crazy, nuts, and psycho. You get the drift? So when I lifted the top off the hatching bator, the guinea keets went from 0 to 60 and attempted to launch themselves out of the bator. And they nearly managed it. I started shrieking, and covered the hatching bator with my arms and body. I couldn’t reach back down and get the top without losing babies, but it was only a matter of time til one of them found their way past my arms and threw their tiny newborn baby body off the 3-4 foot drop onto the floor. Can you say splat? My hubby already had a chick in his hands (chicken chick, not a crazy keet) which he quickly passed off to our daughter. Then he and I attempted to push all the keets back toward the center of the bator while simultaneously lifting the bator off the table and setting it gently on the floor. We almost made it. On the way down, a little lavender keet got past us and threw himself over the lip of the bator. He landed with a bounce, and we both yelped in horror, but by the time we had the bator settled on the floor he’d jumped to his feet and run off to pick a fight with the dog! I kid you not, he really did! And while he measured himself against the dog’s nostrils (the dog was stretched out on the floor, trying to catch a doze and ignore the circus) we dealt with popcorning keets. They were truly popping up and out of the bator faster than we could catch them and put them in the brooder! Thankfully the fall was now only inches, but how did they know that? They didn’t. They were determined to toss themselves over that edge, all the same. What does all that have to do with my writing humor, you ask? Well, I’m a bit like a guinea keet. We all are. We’re here, living this life, and we generally have no idea if the choices we’re making are going to work out anything like we want them to. New job, exciting new offer? Maybe the company will be bankrupt in two years and you’ll go down with it. Adorable new car, bought at a steal? The brakes are shot, and there’s a deer waiting to redesign the car’s front end on the way home. Happy picnic in the park? You’ll get bit by a tick while you’re there and spend the next ten years trying to recover from Lyme’s disease. And those aren’t even the really tough choices! The thing is, my life has included a fair amount of pain. Some emotional, some physical. I’ve experienced upheavel, bullying, devastating loss and betrayel, and the ongoing fight against chronic pain from my arthritis. Plus that annoying and life-threatening peanut allergy, of course. And there’s something I’ve figured out from all this: Life can be lived more bravely when it’s faced with humor. I’m not saying that everything should be laughed at. Some things are sacred, and other things are too painful to touch. But I recently found myself laughing my head off with a fellow adolescent at the irony of my brother–who used to play with his matchbox cars by lighting up a can of hair spray, pulling out a hammer to get realistic dents, and the judicious application of his nose bleed–being killed in a car accident. Once you get past that initial shock that he was killed, you must admit that his going in a major smash-up car accident is incredibly funny! And with humor comes healing, at least, it does for me. Acknowledging the funny side requires that I step outside myself, look past my pain, and reach beyond the moment. It requires that some part of my soul acknowledge that no matter how terrible or traumatic or even just damned annoying this incident is in the here and now, it is not the end of the world. And I don’t mean that in a callous or cruel way. I mean, it is quite literally not the end. That the sun will rise tomorrow, life will go on undefeated, and there will one day be a day when I have to remind myself of this moment. To deny this possibility is to deny healing and maturing from our life experiences, and it all begins with humor. So, popcorn guinea keets, which thankfully all survived their kamikaze leap into the unknown, and laughing at the funeral. That’s what I’m all about, and that’s why I write humor. Yesterday was a strange day. On a personal level, there were new tires to be purchased and placed on our car, taxes to be filed (with money owed), and the ever-present awareness that three years ago on April 15th of 2010 I recieved the phone call telling me that my brother just younger than me had been killed in a car accident. Side by side with that, I noticed the blossoms have burst on our apple trees, enjoyed a walk to Duke Gardens with my dear hubby, and brainstormed with him about where I’m going with my NinChicks books. We also welcomed a whole passel of new chicks–and I reminded myself that I can’t keep them all. Around and in the middle of the flowers and walk, the memories and taxes, there were the headlines of the bombing, and the anxious wait til I’d heard from my Boston and racing friends to hear they were all okay. An attack of this magnitude always reminds me of 9/11, and my fear on that morning as I waited for my husband’s call. This time, I’ve mostly avoided watching news footage because I’ve learned how long these images can haunt me. I’m grateful that many were spared, but ache for the loved ones of those who weren’t. I know exactly what it feels like to get that phone call. If I could give them a hug and slip a note in their hand, it might say something like this:
We send our love, every one of us. The Queen of Burned Fingers, that’s my new title. But, I’m okay with that! I’ve decided I’m also okay with Monday alarm clocks and impossible looming deadlines. Have I gone crazy? Well, judge for yourself. It started with the blister, but since that’s not very pretty and it is thankfully quite small, I’ll give you a pic of my reason for smiling while I burned myself.
Snazy, don’t you think? They’re new hair clips for my daughter, which she and I made together. For Christmas I gave her several new clips, but they were snowmen and winter flowers, not something she’d want to wear in the summer. As the weather’s warmed up her thoughts have turned toward the beach and pool.
I think the sun is cuter, but the sandcastle is my pride and joy since it was harder to draw. Delivering on my three-months-ago promise involved lots of patience on my part, and of course the burned fingers ’cause heaven forfend I come near a hot glue gun without getting at least one blister. But it was such fun to listen to her deliberate style and texture, and carefully consider the different colors she wanted. When we were done, I felt the finished project was well worth any trouble or burned digits. This morning when the alarm went off way too early, I reminded myself of the same thing. You can’t have spring flowers without the showers. I know this. But sometimes I forget. I want a world where things flow freely and easily, where I can sleep til I feel rested, and where the joy of a new life doesn’t bring with it any shadow of death. But since that world just isn’t possible and probably wouldn’t suit, anyway, I’ll try to remember instead that it’s worth it, and that even the most onerous things can bring unexpected friendship.
I’ve never been a huge fan of southern cooking, so I was a little wary of trying any restaurant that was too authentically southern. No grits, livers, or fried okra for me! I like my food to fall into categories I would roughly describe as identifiable and, um, within a stone’s throw of “normal”. Anyway, I didn’t think I was missing much. With a nice French restaurant like Vin Rouge close at hand, a delicious Mongolian BBQ joint like Bali Hai, and our favorite fast food Chinese takeout, we didn’t need anything else. Except Firebirds, of course, for extra special occassions, and maybe something more interesting when we attended world festivals. I knew there was a chance I was misjudging the food, but what could a southern restaurant offer by way of mood and atmosphere, anyway? I had that question answered for me on Friday, and got to swallow my ignorance while I was at it. Called The Blue Note Grill, this place is steeped in the south. In addition to a really fun atmosphere the place has bands in every night, so far as I can tell. While we were there the Duke Street Dogs played and had us clapping, tapping, and wishing there was more room to dance.
They were joined for part of the night by Chris Turner, a truly amazing harmonica player. This is a quieter, slower snippet of Mr. Turner, but it shows you what he’s capable of. I never knew the harmonica could make music like that! It was amazing, it really was. And the food wasn’t bad, either. I little on the fried side, maybe, but that’s what we ordered.
This pic doesn’t show the ribs, ’cause they didn’t last long enough for me to grab a pic. They were all you could hope for in ribs, and reminded me of what the south does so well. The onion rings were good, too, and you’ll notice we even ordered fried okra. I thought it was slimy, but hey, you can’t overturn all a girl’s perceptions in one night! We went out comet-watching again tonight and finally–finally, finally, finally–we saw it! And I got a pic!
Not easy to see, but I’m thrilled all the same! I’ll give you a minute to search the pic and try to spot it, then I’ll give you a couple hints in case you need them. …letting you look…no need to rush… Maybe I’ll have an oreo while I wait. The oreos are supposed to go into an oreo pie for pi day on Thursday, but we needed their energy tonight so a couple of them came along to fuel our comet-watching. Okay, ready for the first hint? It’s not the bright light just above and to the right of the moon. You’re looking again…and you see it! Or, maybe you don’t. Here’s your second hint–otherwise known as scaring yourself silly in the dark: Imagine the silhouette of the trees is a normal hillside, except that there’s a giant furry creature with two dark rounded bear-like ears just poking his head above the horizon to peer down at you. The moon is to his left, and the comet is directly above his right ear. See it? It’s a tiny patch of light just to the left of the photograph’s center, right above the trees. Isn’t it beautiful? With the binoculars, we could see its tiny tail and see its little glowing ball. Such a lovely comet! And just think– –in only a million years we’ll get to see it again! lol I’ve got questions, and I’m hoping you’ll help me out with the answers! My ‘official’ pitch is due for the Luck ‘o the Irish pitchfest over at Writeoncon by the end of the week, so let’s do this! First the questions:
Okay, now for the pitches. This is my last chance to tinker before the contest, so take aim and sling a rotten tomato at anything you don’t like! Updated, latest and greatest pitch:
Original pitch:
Don’t worry about the lack of bio, genre, word count, etc. This is just the pitch portion of the query and I’m not supposed to include that info here. Just tell me what you think. Would you read this book? And what about it would make you want to? And you may already be infected! The Atlantic: How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy
The article is on the long side, but even if you just skim it’s well worth reading. Crazy stuff, and of course even crazier when you realize that you’re only resisting the research because protozoa have taken over your brain.
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