Purgatory's Push and Pull

 

The Push and Pull

Of our Textual Tango

Leaves me

Breathless

And Broken

 

You flood

My soul

With so many words

One day

And the Next

Nothing

A Blank screen

Of Disappointment

 

On Your Terms

Those words

Float into my

Periphery

And I am again

Dismissed

Back to Purgatory

 

What penance will

Suffice

How long will You

Cage your consonants

And vowels

 

When will You unleash

The madness

In Your soul

And forgive me

And love me

Again

Hump Day Hunk: That Melts My Butter

Mardi Gras in the United States is fast approaching, but I say we trade the tradition of bead throwing in this year for a different type of debauchery - the kind that involves fist-fighting, pancakes, and butter - lots and lots of butter.

That's right, I said butter. For those of us who can't let the word slip past our lips without thinking of the penitential five mile run on our treadmills we will have to deal with later, butter still sounds like a divine way to sin, I mean gear up for Lent. Apparently, I'm not alone in this thought process. Some of my Slavic heritage must be surfacing because March 2, 2014 is the beginning of Maslenitsa, or butter week in Slavic countries. Russia is where it seems to be where it is most elaborate. According to an article on NPR's site the background of the festivities involve:

Maslenitsa, an Eastern Slavic folk holiday that takes place the week before the start of Russian Orthodox Lent (this year, it starts March 2). Though now tied to the Christian calendar, Maslenitsa has roots in ancient Slavic sun worshippers — it originally marked the end of winter and advent of spring. And, like Mardi Gras, it involves a whole lot of feasting before the Lenten fast — with blinis, a Russian pancake, as the food of choice.Topped with sour cream, caviar, berries or jam, blinis are everywhere, anyway you like 'em. Why blinis? Their round shape and warmth were meant to symbolize the sun. And they're usually drenched in butter (the festival, whose name derives from "maslo," the Russian word for butter, is also known as "Butter Week"). 

It also involves, organized fist fighting.  Devouring decadent thin pancakes slathered in butter while grown men fight each other? Count me in! So ladies, rather freeze your ta-ta's off for some plastic beads or have a man whip up some pancakes and rub them in butter? I know my choice...

Geek Girl Fiction Infographics

This infographic is a snapshot of sort from my writer platform for my New Media and Publishing Class. The one below takes a look at New Adult readership trends.

 

 

Hump Day Hunk: The Dark Knight Rises My Dough

No one can resist someone tall, dark, and mysterious. And for the geek girl inside of us, if he's a certain winged super hero so much the better. While I am still reconciling Christian Bale messing with a comb over in American Hustle to his hot, sexy Batman, this version of the caped crusader doesn't disappoint. Batman to the rescue as I battle that tough pastry dough recipe...

Also, you don't need to send up the Bat signal to get this Dark Knight's attention, just simply do it yourself with great mixer decals from Etsy. With this Dark Knight version your dough will rise. Happy Hunk Day!

In My Life, I Love You More

 

We have textual chemistry, you and I. No matter that we are sort of bits of so much tangled red string right now, we still have this connection that only we can have. Words are the currency of our love. Yes, I used the present tense there, because it’s the truth and no amount of dancing around the issue will change that.  We used to talk without filters, but for the past few weeks we have been carefully handling each other, not wanting to give the wrong impression or get hopes up, or whatever it is we think we are doing.

All the tip toeing in the world isn’t going to conceal how we still feel. How I know you still feel, but won’t say. You guard your heart, you’re cautious with your words, yet everything still bleeds through… like yesterday… you typed song lyrics to me. You only do that when you want to say something, without saying it. Words are the currency of our hearts but music is the currency of our souls. You and I used to talk in lyrical verse to each other all the time. We used music when words weren’t enough.

I stared at the text message:

Some have gone and some remain

All these places have their moments

With lovers and friends I can still recall

Some are dead and some are living

In my life I loved them all.

Tears in my eyes, I texted back:

But of all these friends and lovers

There is no one compares with you

You can try and blow it off as just a random tune, but I know better, and you know that I know. Of course you can’t have known that I wept at my desk for twenty minutes after typing that; and not just because of us; but because my Dad used to sing that to my Mom all the time, terribly mind you, but he still serenaded her. They slow danced in the living room, he held her hand close to his heart and they glided across the soft blue area rug while the record needle threaded out the sounds of the Beatles' In My Life. You can’t have known I would sit in quiet silence on the staircase in the dark watching them so in love with each other, imagining I would someday find someone who made me feel loved like that, someone who I could love like that.

So, my love, you can pretend all you want, you can hide behind the lyrics, but your song selection betrays you, and I feel the same, and I always will -   “in my life, I love you more”.

 

Hump Day Hunk: The Green Monster

No, its not a sexy zombie that turns me on; no offense to fellow Walking Dead fans. What really melts my butter is this sexy, tricked out Kitchen-Aid Mixer. Yes, I said mixer, not man. Who wouldn't want this sexy beast in their kitchen... whipping dessert ingredients into submission?

This one was originally designed by Melissa at Bling Diva Designs for DC Cupcakes. What's not to drool over?

We Always Seem to Be Spooning

CBS Sunday Morning had a feature on about how we as humans crave cuddling so much so that a therapeutic industry has sprung up to fill that void. What we cannot see to achieve in our relationships, we can now pay for. Do you crave that embrace, that stillness, that moment when two heart beats synch their rhythm, and everything seems to make perfect sense? I do. The story inspired me to write a scene for my upcoming novel, and I would love to share it here but its a little steamy, so I will just tempt you with a few snippets:

I crave that touch, that warmth, that embrace from you in the long hours of night when the earth is quiet and blanketed in soft snow. Somewhere in that space between sleeping and dreaming, we always seem to be spooning. 

 I can tell your level of arousal by the harshness in your voice, the way it grates against my ear before you lick a line from behind my ear down to my shoulder blades, ducking to kiss down my back, slowly pulling your hand out of my mouth as I moan an objection at the loss of what was keeping me orally occupied.

Pitch Perfect - The Art of the Elevator Pitch

The elevator pitch is one of the most important elements in promoting your manuscripts successfully. Picture this: you are searching for a publisher, taking an elevator when in walks one of the top literary agents in the country. What do you do? Do you freeze up when she makes small talk or do you knock her socks off with a perfect pitch, snag her business card and score a meeting?

This isn’t a pitch to seal the deal and earn representation right there in that small, confined space. Did I mention elevators are a close second on my irrational fear list behind escalators? I digress. The whole idea behind the pitch is to keep the agent interested. If your thirty to sixty second “tell me about your book” can hook them, it’s accomplished what you’ve wanted it to do.

Chuck Sambuchino, author of Create Your Writer Platform, discussed the idea of perfecting a pitch for fiction. He asserted that to hook your audience, in our case the literary agent inside the elevator, you just needed to offer the narrative arc in the most creative way possible.

Nina Amir who blogs at the San Francisco Writer’s University blog, mentions the following steps Chuck outlined when making your pitch perfect: share details, offer a tag line,  and introduce the man characters, something interesting, the inciting incident, and the hook. Sounds pretty simple right?

I gave it a go for my next two novels and came up with the following:

Manuscript One:

Charlie Flynn wants nothing more than to keep her head down and do her job, but her meddling sister Mikki keeps interfering with her love life. After several ill-fated attempts, Mikki finally gets the match right. Unfortunately Charlie’s dark, domineering, and divine looking perfect date ends up being her new boss, Declan Pearse. She fights her attraction, but Declan brings those feelings out in her that she thought she had long buried, and she falls headlong into a dangerous, dark romance that leaves her bound by her desires. 

Manuscript Two:

All of her life Lana Aherns wasn’t someone who fit in. At twenty-four people often looked at her oddly for spending time in an old man’s diner, for driving an old lady’s car, and for owning a bookstore, but she liked her quiet life. She meets Michael, a handsome, mysterious stranger, and she feels like he is the person she’d been waiting her whole life for, maybe even eternity.  But their happiness is threatened by that very eternity, and Lana has to make a choice in order to be with Michael forever.  

 

Leave a comment letting me know which pitch works better for you.

Music Can Inspire Words

Watching "Later...with Jools Holland" for the first time ever and Florence + the Machine are performing as is Mary J. Blige. Mary's song "Need Someone" is perfect inspiration for a scene in my upcoming novel about other worldly soul mates. Actually so does the Florence + the Machine song, No Light, No Light". Both also remind me of someone special.

I love when music inspires my writing. What about you? Do you write with music in mind or do certain lyrics set your creative fire ablaze?

- GeekGirl

Monday Mouthful: Green Tea Rice with Cherries & Vidalia Onions

Usually for the Monday Mouthful, I feature something about my writing, but today I want to post this terrific recipe that I need to try. We are incorporating more vegetarian friendly recipes at chez geek girl, so I hope to give this a try soon.

This recipe is an original from Amie Valpone over at The Healthy Apple:

Green Tea Rice with Vidalia Onions & Cherries

Author: Amie Valpone

Prep time:  10 mins

Cook time:  20 mins

Total time:  30 mins

Serves: 4

 

Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Soy-Free, Vegetarian, Vegan

Ingredients

• ¼ tsp. sea salt
• ¼ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup long-grain brown rice
• 1½ cups green tea, brewed and chilled
• 1 large Vidalia Onion, finely chopped
• ¼ cup dried cherries
• 2 cups loosely packed fresh baby spinach
• 2 Tbsp. freshly squeezed orange juice
• ¼ tsp. fresh orange zest
• 1 Tbsp. sesame seeds
• ¼ cup finely chopped fresh basil

Instructions

1. In a medium saucepan, boil green tea with salt and pepper. Stir in rice; return to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer; cover and cook for 20 minutes then remove from heat and add onions, cherries and spinach. Set aside, covered, for 10 minutes.
2. Transfer to a large mixing bowl; add remaining ingredients. Gently toss to combine.
3. Serve at room temperature.

Notes

Serving Size: ¾ cup Calories: 115.8 cal • Fat: 1.7 g • Protein: 2.5 g • Carbs: 23.2 g • Fiber: 2.4 g • Sugar: 5.9 g • Sodium: 119.8 mg