I'm Here!

              And okay, I’m late again as I’ve been much too often these days. My excuse? Editing and plotting as well as doing other stuff in my life such what I’m planning for later this day.

            What’s that? Well, there’s going to be a neighborhood meeting about planning for, and dealing with, any fires. It’s been okay here in LA for a while, but the rains have stopped again and I don’t know when any more is expected. That means yes, it’s dry again. The potential for fires has returned. So yes, I’m going to that meeting.

            And our older pup Cari has had some medical issues—nothing bad, fortunately, but I had to take her to the vet and give her pills and take her back to the vet for another blood test. And Roxie isn’t happy at all that she’s not getting all the attention.

            But I have been spending time at my computer. Writing and plotting, yes. And trying to deal with the fact that my usual email account, on Yahoo, has been what they call upgraded to a new version. I had a choice about using it before, but all of a sudden it forced me to use it, so I’m still learning how.

            Anyway, I hope you’re all enjoying February. And will I be late next week? Hope not, but we’ll see.

Coffee!

 It's raining, chilly and definitely coffee weather. Really all weather is coffee weather to me.  My mother was Swedish and it was always coffee time at our house.  In those days it was a percolator. I think coffee goes with writing, at least for me. I drink it straight full of caffeine. 

 So when my electric coffee pot died the other day, it was a big deal.   

I had to pull out a French press pot I have to make coffee to think about how I was going to replace the electric one. It happened that Costco had a Ninja pot on sale that offered the best of everything.  It could make a pot of coffee, a single cup with a filter and grounds and also had the option to make a single cup with a pod.  

My dead pot was easy to use.  A filter and some grounds. Push brew and that was it.  A few minutes later there would be coffee in the pot.  It didn't really work making a single cup and I had been making four cups at a time.   Their four cups was more like two mugs.

I was warned online that the sale coffee pot at Costco was in low supply.  I felt like a winner already.  The box was big and cumbersome and I hoped that it was mostly packaging as there is always a battle for counter space with everybody here all the time and I'm the only one who coffee with a priority for coffee.

The size was okay and just a little wider than my dead coffee maker.  And then I looked at the instructions.  Like everything else, making coffee had gotten more complicated.  It took a while to make sense of the instructions.  There is a whole art to writing instructions.  I know from writing the patterns for my books.  The new coffee maker came with adapters to use when making coffee with grounds and something when pods were used.  It had choices about cup sizes, brew strength and whether or not to have the warmer plate going.  Then there were a lot of instructions about maintenance.  Descaling and some tool that clears clogs.

And before any of that, the pot had to be primed.  I always laugh when I think about how installing something used to mean plugging it in.  After several readings of the instructions, I did the priming  and left it ready to make my morning coffee the next day.  It turned out not to be as complicated as the instructions made it seem and made sense when I actually saw how it worked.  

And just like that I was back in business.  I'll deal with the maintenance when I have to.  But for now I can enjoy a nice mug of freshly brewed coffee.  How nice on this rainy morning, then at midday  and afternoon and maybe even later while I go through the galley pages of MURDER BY THE HOOK.

Plotting!

         As I mentioned before, I’ve been working on an idea for a potential new mystery series, reading some books among other things for research. Not sure it’ll go anywhere, but the research, and plotting in my mind, have continued to be enjoyable. Oh, yes, I’m plotting. I’ve several ideas of where to go with this series, but not sure if any of them will work out—or it’ll be something new! But that’s part of the fun of being a writer. We rely on our minds, and that usually works out well. Even if it doesn’t, it’s worth the effort of thinking and scheming and developing people and more on our computers and in our heads—and sometimes fictionally killing off those people!

            And I will soon put together the final draft of that first story in my new Harlequin Romantic Suspense series before sending it to my editor. 

            Happy Valentine’s Day in advance, everyone!

O-Live

 Already time seems like a whirlwind.  It feels like one of those movie scenes where there's music playing and the sheets of a calendar keep getting torn off and disappearing. The days are appreciably longer. It's a lot lighter inside because we had a trees trimmed last week.  I didn't even realize there was more than one tree outside the window of the room I write in.  It turns out there were three that had grown so dense , it seemed like one.  Suddenly I can see the evening sky and the roof of my neighbor's guest house.  The best part is that I don't have to turn on the light in there during the day now.

I sent in the copy edit of MURDER BY THE HOOK.  I had thought about not including a pattern or recipe.  They don't show up in the audio version.  But at the last minute I decided to put them in. I already knew the pattern was for a crocheted scarf similar to the one Elsbeth wears on the show.  The cake was a chocolate cake made with olive oil because a lot of the story involves parties at a ranch that has an olive grove.  The cake is a mainstay of the food offerings.

Writing the pattern is dizzying, so I did that first.  Someone is always in the kitchen at my house and I like to cook with nobody bothering me.  I had to find a time when I could be sure no one was going to interrupt. Some of my earlier books had old family recipes, but now they are all new ones.  I always test them and let my family be the tasters.  It's the only part of my writing they really are interested in.

The cake was actually easy to put together.  It's hand mixed  and it's pretty much put the dry ingredients together in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another.  Then mix. The batter was pretty stiff so that was a challenge, but at the end you add boiling water and viola, the batter got thin.  It's baked in a loaf pan.  I cooled it and added shifted powdered sugar on the top as a garnish.  And then I left it for them to help themselves. I had taken a taste first and it was everything I hoped for.  Moist and chocolatey, but not too sweet.  

They devoured the cake and started pushing for me to make another one.  I took that it was a success. 

I had never appreciated olive oil or olives until I thought about writing a series about an olive farm.  My agent nixed it, but I had already done a lot of research.  I went to an olive farm and read about olive oil. I tasted different kinds of olives. Who knew they were related to cherries. They are both drupes.  Ever since then I have come to love olives and olive oil.  I love the grayish green slender leaves on olive trees. 

I was glad to finally find a way to use olives in a book.