by Christine | Writer Wednesday, Writing
I’m re-launching Writer Wednesday, and am so happy to introduce Teresa Noelle Roberts to you! The first time I met Teresa, it was WAY early in the morning (or WAY late at night) and she was one of my roomies at RWA National Conference. Four of us crammed into one hotel room for several days – and we had a blast.
The lovely Teresa, beachside on the east coast.
Here’s Teresa, and here’s the interview!
- What made you decide to write a novel? Because the voices in my head don’t give a choice? The serious answer is that I started dictating stories to my mother before I’d learned to write, got a subscription to Writers’ Digest for my twelfth birthday, and started my first (aborted) novel in junior high. Story-telling is in my blood.
- What genre do you write in, and why? I write romance, erotica, and some fantasy. Cougar’s Courage is an erotic paranormal romance, which combines all three of my favorites.
- Is this a series or standalone book? If a series, what is the name of this series, and how many books/short stories do you have planned? Cougar’s Courage is numbered as book 3 in the Duals and Donovans: The Different series. Confusingly, there are currently 4 published books in the Duals and Donovans world, but one, Fox’s Folly, takes place before the series timeline. I’m currently wrapping up what will be the last book in the series. I may set more books in this world, but the big conflict of the series will wrap up with my WIP so I’ll need to find a new antagonist.
- Where would you live, if you could live anywhere in the world? That’s a tough question. Definitely near the ocean. Possibly coastal Maine, but there’s so much of the world I haven’t seen yet!
- Name 3 simple joys in your life. Sharing daily life with my husband. (He’s hardly simple, though!). Cooking. My big, lazy, loving cats.
- If you could give just one piece of advice to a writer starting out, what would it be? Write, write, take a break to read, then write some more. Lather, rinse, repeat. Education, be it degree programs, workshops, or online classes, is valuable, but nothing beats the act of beating your head against the blank page.
- What do you do when you’re not writing? Do you have a Day Job? When I’m not writing, I’m often cooking, gardening, or doing something else vaguely homesteader-ish. I’m between day jobs at the moment and am loving it far too much. Past day jobs have ranged from field hand at a winery (my favorite ever, though the pay was just above minimum wage) to development/fundraising officer.
- Name one thing your fans would be surprised to learn about you. This crunchy, hands-in-the-dirt woman went through a phase of wearing 4-inch heels and red lipstick no matter what the occasion. I still yearn for sexy heels, but my knees and back will never forgive me for years of abuse, so I stick to flats even when heels would be appropriate. (Still love deep red lipstick, though.)
- Is there anything else you’d like to talk about? To celebrate the release of Cougar’s Courage, I’m running a contest on my blog—the prize is an e-book of Cougar’s Courage and a print copy of the first book in the series, Lions’ Pride. (Or an e-book if the winner is outside the US.) Comments on my blog count as entries, but check my site for details.
Thanks so much for stopping by, Teresa, and best of luck on the novel! Off I go to download…
FIND TERESA HERE:
www.teresanoelleroberts.com
https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTeresaNoelleRoberts?ref=hl
https://twitter.com/TeresNoeRoberts
Amazon page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0047V74PC
Blurb: Toronto cop Cara Many-Winters Mackenzie is still reeling from her fiancé’s
murder when her orderly life takes a turn toward the weird, complete with voices in her head and phantom bleeding wounds.
This violent awakening is the rise of her Different gift—a chaotic, Bugs-Bunny-on-crack magic that she must learn to control before it destroys her. There’s only one place to get help: her mother’s ancestral village, and a mentor who seems to have stepped straight out of the smoke of her erotic dreams.
Cougar Dual Jack Long-Claw reluctantly agrees to take Cara under his wing, though he’d much rather take the beautiful city girl into his bed. As he guides her through a crash course in shamanic magic, sparks fly—some sexy, some snarky. But when an ancient enemy attacks the village, they must work together to hone a magical weapon against certain destruction.
Common sense tells them it’s a terrible time to fall in love. Their spirit guides have other ideas. And shamans who don’t listen to their spirit guides are dead shamans…
Warning: Hot shape-shifting feline hero. Strong but shell-shocked heroine. Snarky, meddling spirit guides. And lots and lots of sex: angry sex, crazy sex, magical sex, and just plain sexy sex.
Amazon US/Amazon UK/Kobo /Barnes & Noble Nook/Samhain
Bio:
Teresa Noelle Roberts started writing stories in kindergarten and she hasn’t stopped yet. A prolific author of short erotica, she’s also a published poet and fantasy writer—but hot paranormals and BDSM-spiced contemporaries are her favorites.
Teresa enjoys belly dance, yoga, medieval re-creation, playing in the ocean, cooking, and growing more vegetables than she and her husband can possibly eat. She shares her home in southern Massachusetts with her husband, a Leo who works in law enforcement, and two overstuffed cats, who deserve their own shout-out as inspirations for her works. She and her husband often plan vacations around food, history, and/or proximity to water. Next up, Rome, Florence, and Venice!
~oOo~
Remember, Teresa has a contest going – check out her page for all the details!
by Christine | Life, Observations, Writing
I’ve been a stress puppy, instead of a sleepy kitty. (I prefer to be a sleepy kitty, in case you were wondering.)
Zaphod, snoring.
A total stress puppy. I’m getting snappy and snarly at work and at home, and I’m not loving it.
And then this happened.
My head exploded.
Yep, my head totally exploded. Okay, so I was coughing (but I didn’t have a cold!) and that kicked off my gag reflex, but still. Head. EXPLODED.
Artist’s interpretation of the pain close up.
I could barely breathe, it hurt so bad. Like someone had taken the back of my neck and tried to stretch it to my nose. I haven’t hurt that bad since brain surgery. So, I went to the doc, and got myself diagnosed with a post-nasal drip, plus an ergonomic stress headache. Fix the body, fix the stress, lose the headache but, in the meantime, here’s some muscle relaxants.
What has the hubby been saying to me for the last month? “Get your cough checked out. Sit up straight at the computer.”
Tom Ashworth, Self Portrait 2008 (?)
So, yeah, he’s been saying “I told you so” and nagging in a loving way ever since. (Please note – I am sitting up straight and my shoulders are down as I type this.)
And now I’ve got more stress coming (in a good way) – The play development group I’m with, Fierce Backbone, is doing a full reading of my play tonight. Gulp. And I’m on muscle relaxants.
- Title page to Cassandra Cries.
My two actors were supposed to meet to rehearse – one couldn’t make it the first night, the other couldn’t make it the second night. My leading lady now has an interview at 6pm tonight – which is when they were going to get together to get a quick rehearsal in. And I’m still not sure if I have a narrator (but I’m assured I do). We’re supposed to start by 7:30pm tonight. I’m on muscle relaxants and I’m still somewhat of a stress puppy, but at least it’s a “good” stress. (???) And a milestone event!!!
So, in order to celebrate this milestone, Hubby made cuppy cakes. CHOCOLATE cuppy cakes. Which we shall take with us tonight to bribe everyone. Along with some red wine.
CUPPY CAKES!!! Unfrosted, true, but still…CUPPY CAKES!!!
As I look back at the last two years and three months since I started this new Day Job, I realized one thing – I haven’t had a vacation. I’ve taken time off, but that was always to go to writer’s conferences, not to sit in the Mammoth mountains and chill out for ten days. If I had, maybe I could have missed out on this little stress headache adventure. Because writer’s conferences ARE NOT VACATIONS. They are work days. Fun? Yes. Stressful? YES. I wouldn’t have missed them for the world, but…sigh.
My advice? Vacations. Take them.
Big Squishy Hugs to you ALL!
by Christine | Observations, Writing
What Do I Want?
In August, I had the pleasure of going on a writer’s retreat with the East Valley Authors chapter of Romance Writers of America. The speaker that day was the talented Shannon Donnelly, and her focus was on storytelling (which also included writing well-rounded characters).
What really stuck with me was something that I’m using in my personal life now. As I get older, and as the family dynamic around me changes, and as I spend more time getting comfy with the hour of 2 am during bouts of insomnia, I find myself dissatisfied with certain areas of my life; so Shannon’s story question became personal for me.
I asked myself the question. What do I want?
Insert Superficial Answer Here
When I ask myself that question and I’m at the Day Job, and it’s almost lunchtime, 99% of the time my answer will be the Beef Panang from Vic’s Thai. No, seriously. It’s THAT GOOD.
But when I stuffed myself with Beef Panang and asked myself the question again, I came up with a different answer. And it got deeper (the way it’s supposed to) when I applied Shannon’s method of divining character motivation.
What do I want? – A life free of day-to-day financial worry. (And Beef Panang from Vic’s Thai.)
What do I Really want? – The ability to travel to foreign countries with my husband.
What do I Really, Really want? – To hit all the bestseller lists with my novels.
What do I Really, Really, REALLY want? – A successful career in writing that enables me and my family to live without the day-to-day financial worry, whether that career be in novels, playwriting, writing for the movies, or TV.
Of course, there’s a second part to this. Who am I willing to kill What am I willing to do to get what I want? But that’s a post for a different day.
~oOo~
What about you? What do YOU want? Sound off!
by Christine | Observations
I have lots of summer memories – great ones that I’d like to share.
Frolicking dogs on the beach.
And this one…
Saturday’s Tomato harvest – the small yellow ones are the lemon pear tomatoes, the small red ones are the cherry tomatoes, the two green and yellow striped ones toward the back are the Green Zebra, and the orangish one at the front right is the Mr. Stripey (but without stripes).
Plus this…one of these days, Brenda Chin, we ARE going kayaking. This is a promise! My coast or yours, doesn’t matter.
Kayaks, and the garden. Two of my favorite things…
And I can’t forget this! The little dog would curl around the man, then trot out to the end of the kayak, then back to the man – but he was a real good little sea doggie.
Just taking the dog for a paddle…lol!
I really hate to say goodbye to summer, so I’m not going to. Especially since I believe we’ll get hot temps into October.
Fight! Fight!
And one of my most favorite memories from this summer. The seal.
Isn’t he gorgeous?
As August winds down and September looms, may the memories you cherish implant themselves into your heart.
From me to you, with love.
~oOo~
Until next time, be good to one another!
by Christine | Cooking
…Leads to Dried Tomatoes
At least, at my house this weekend, it did! There are, after all, only so many tomato salads you can eat without getting burnout. I’m not thrilled with canning in this heat, and while it may seem that having the oven on in the heat is the same as canning, let me say that an oven at 250 degrees is not as bad as bending over a hot, boiling pot of tomatoes and canning water.
So – dried tomatoes.
Fresh tomatoes, still warm from the sun. Picked 8/25/13.
I looked for recipes online, but a lot of them seemed like a lot of work. Well, okay – they called for scraping out seeds and pulp, leaving just the rind and the flesh attached. I like my dried tomatoes with heft, and I didn’t want to do the scraping. So I kept looking for a recipe that would suit me.
The sun-dried tomato recipe looked interesting, but I didn’t have screens I could use, didn’t want to worry about bugs, and didn’t want to be drying tomatoes all week. I had just the weekend.
Martha Stewart to the Rescue!
I found the recipe I was looking for at a Martha Stewart site. Not only did it explain how to make the tomatoes, but it also showed how to store them – in a jar, with olive oil and herbs. (I didn’t have any fresh basil, though – mine is all too little. So I used dried basil.)
So, I picked tomatoes, washed them, dried them, cut them in half (large cherry tomatoes, mostly, and then lots of tiny cherry tomatoes). Then I sprinkled sugar, dried basil, pepper and salt over them, popped them in the oven, and let them do their drying-out thing.
Ready for the oven! These are the bigger tomatoes, not the cherry tomatoes. Pretty, aren’t they?
As the afternoon went on, my house started smelling like yummy, professionally-made tomato soup. Rich and meaty and tomatoey – oh my! Totally delightful. After several hours – 5 or 6, I don’t remember – I took the trays out. They were browned on the edges, but ooh – tasted like a blast of tomato in the mouth and a little crunchy. Totally addicting. I believe the hubs ate a full quarter of the smaller cherry tomatoes that I’d done.
Not as pretty afterwards…I decided I’ll never dry the bright green tomatoes again. Red is so much prettier! These are sliced, by the way, not halved.
I did two – or heck, maybe three? – batches yesterday, and I’ve done one batch so far today (with the other batch still in the oven). I’ve got four jars of tomatoes put up, with more to come. And LOTS more tomatoes still on the vine!
Baby tomatoes in pint jar, waiting for its fellows.
Considering how expensive sun-dried tomatoes are in the store, I think I know what I’ll be doing every summer that we grow tomatoes.
On one of the sites I checked on yesterday (I think it was the Martha site, not sure) a commenter said they let the tomatoes cool, then froze them on the tray singly before putting the frozen tomatoes in a zip lock baggie. She said they were great to use in stews and sauces (plus you don’t get the oily taste if that’s not what you want). But the hubs wanted that olive oil. I used a Mediterranean mixed olive oil that’s available at Costco – we buy it by the gallon I think, so I have a lot of it, and it’s not super expensive. But I’m willing to bet that after several months, the oil will taste divine, with tomato, pepper, and basil flavors. A terrific base for a salad dressing.
My jars of tomatoes. I’ll be getting two more jars done tonight before I sleep.
But now, after so many dried tomatoes, I feel the need for something fresh. Like a tomato tart. So as the sun goes down, I’m off to the store for some puff pastry – because that’s something I doubt I’ll ever have the patience to make at home.
~oOo~
Do you like sun-dried tomatoes? Have you ever made your own? What is the most yummy thing you have ever made with tomatoes?
Until next time, cheers – and be good to one another!
