Christmas romance short story on sale until December 13th! And a recipe!

On Sale for only 99 cents until 12/13/15 from Muse It Up Publishing!

Yes, it's that time of the year, Christmas reads! My novelette Christmas romance A Crispy Rice Christmas is on sale until the 13th! It tells the tale of a gal whose culinary skills are worse than lacking...

And for more Christmas great reads all on sale visit Muse It Up Publishing! Romance, mystery and more!

Now for the easy childhood recipe we all remember.  This recipe was the inspiration for A Crispy Rice Christmas, because one Christmas I decided to use red food coloring and here were the results.

No one would touch them. And a recipe my main character...well read the story to find out!

Crispy Rice Bars

4 tablespoons margarine, butter or coconut oil

6 cups crispy rice cereal

1 16 ounce bag of marshmallows (fresh mini marshmallows work best)

In a large saucepan, heat the butter on medium heat until it melts. Add marshmallows and stir constantly until marshmallows all melt. Remove from heat. Add crispy rice cereal and stir well. Using a greased spatula, spread mixture in a buttered 15 X 10 inch pan. Cut into bars when cooled.

Okay, now for the variations:
Add vanilla or rum or orange or lemon extract, a teaspoon or two.
Add a cup of nuts, or raisins or any dried fruit, or a cup of chocolate bits (or a third a cup of each!).

Add any spices you like, nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, cardamon.
Add 1/3 cup of cocoa.
Or be daring and trying a bit of pepper and hot sauce to the cocoa! Strange but good if you like it weird and spicy!

Readers do you have any tales of Christmas cookery disasters to share?

 

JQ Rose on Cliches and Deadly Undertaking on my blog today!

Hi Conda, Thanks so much for hosting me today. I’m expressing annoyance with my bad habit of using clichés in my writing.

Writing and Removing Clichés by J.Q. Rose

For some reason clichés are not approved by editors when checking my stories. I don’t know why. It makes writing as easy as pie. These familiar expressions are as good as gold when it comes to taking a short cut in your storytelling.

Instead of writing a paragraph about how bad the storm is, I can just say the rain is coming down in buckets. The reader knows exactly how bad that is. However, after sending this in to the editor, the phrase will appear red-lined in the manuscript and a comment will show up in the margin gently reminding me that is a cliché. But seriously, if you have to describe how hot the weather is in a story, why can’t you say it was hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk? That really does explain the heat factor!

When push comes to shove, a cliché is the way to go for me. For instance, when the coroner arrives at the death scene, why can’t he say the victim kicked the bucket? That’s so much more colorful than saying he’s dead.

It makes me madder than a wet hen when I realize I have used clichés in my writing. For Pete’s sake, I KNOW the editors won’t let me use them, so I try to be conscious about it when I write and re-visit the chapters.

When I was writing my mystery, Deadly Undertaking, I combed through every word, every paragraph, and every page trying to ferret out the clichés. Still and all, once in a while a cliché is missed and once they’re out there, you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube. To tell you the truth, I don’t always recognize them. So I submit the manuscript for editing on a wing and a prayer that I have caught every cliché and I won’t have the editor tearing her hair out when she reads it.

There’s no time like the present to change and recognize clichés in my writing. How about you? I plan to be as sharp as a tack when putting words down on paper so I can make it easier for me and my editor to get through the manuscript.

I’m not trying to pull the wool over your eyes. I am vowing to do better on using clichés. Just notice how much I’ve improved already!

# # # #

Deadly Undertaking

Tagline:

A handsome detective, a shadow man, and a murder victim kill Lauren’s plan for a simple life.

Back of the Book:

Lauren Staab knew there would be dead bodies around when she returned home. After all, her family is in the funeral business, Staab and Blood Funeral Home. Still, finding an extra body on the floor of the garage between the hearse and the flower car shocked her. Lauren’s plan to return to her hometown to help care for her mother and keep the books for the funeral home suddenly turns upside down in a struggle to prove she and her family are not guilty of murdering the man. But will the real killer return for her, her dad, her brother? Her mother’s secrets, a killer, a handsome policeman, and a shadow man muddle up her intention to have a simple life. Welcome home, Lauren!

Amazon http://amzn.to/1Lu6GxI

Amazon UK http://amzn.to/1Gz1utF

Barnes and Noble http://bit.ly/1H72tvV

Books We Love Bookstore http://store.payloadz.com/go/?id=2395820

Kobo https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/deadly-undertaking

Amazon Biography

J Q Rose is an avid reader, photographer, and blogger with blogs about writing and growing a vegetable garden. Janet and her husband are snow birds who spend winters in Florida allowing them to garden twelve months out of the year. Summer finds her up north camping and hunting toads, frogs, and salamanders with her grandchildren.

Bio:

 After writing feature articles in magazines, newspapers, and online magazines for over fifteen years, J.Q. Rose entered the world of fiction. Her published mysteries are Sunshine Boulevard, Coda to Murder, and Deadly Undertaking. Blogging, photography, Pegs and Jokers board games, and travel are the things that keep her out of trouble. She and her husband, Gardener Ted spend winters in Florida and summers up north camping and hunting toads, frogs, and salamanders with her four grandsons and granddaughter.

Connect with J.Q. Rose online at

J.Q. Rose blog http://www.jqrose.com/

Facebook http://facebook.com/jqroseauthor

Google+ google.com/+JQRose

J. Q.  Rose Amazon Author Page http://tinyurl.com/aeuv4m4

Goodreads- http://www.goodreads.com/jqrose

Pinterest http://pinterest.com/janetglaser/

Rafflecopter Information:

Thank you so much for hosting me on the Deadly Undertaking Blog Tour.  Readers, you’re invited to enter the Rafflecopter drawing for prizes during the tour November 12-25. Find the Rafflecopter and the blog tour schedule at the Contest page on the J.Q. Rose blog. http://www.jqrose.com/p/get-in-on-fun-j.html Good luck!

Write Short to Succeed: Quick, easy tips from my upcoming class!

Register here for my The Hows and Whys of Writing Short, Tuesday, October 20th, 7-8 p.m. Or go to www.boiselearns.org and the Personal Enrichment classes for more.

A couple of tips for a sweet taste of my class:

Why write short? Because it's a free class in editing and writing.

 

It's an excellent way to learn to write fiction and nonfiction, both. Because ever short story and article are…short. Which means you can focus on all the elements of the writing, plot, description, characterization, the senses and how, where, who, why etc. You can experiment and play with different genres, ideas, formats, without committing to 400 pages of writing before realizing something doesn’t work. And most of the time it does work and gives you a finished piece to sell. It’s a writing course you’ll get paid for!

How to learn to write short? READ short stories and articles. 

The major way to learn how to write short is to read short. Read a lot, they're short, after all. Read stories in publications you want to be in.  Read a lot in your genre, but not exclusively so. Read magazines, anthologies, etc and published stand alones. Read the classics and the brand new releases.

 

 Want to know more? Attend my class!

Back to School Deals: The Mall Fairies series! (Why you should go direct to publishers)

 Get The Mall Fairies: Exile and my other Mall Fairies titles for 30% off through September 30th!

Here's one reason why I'm a hybrid author. My publisher, Muse It Up Publishing, is having a great Back to School Deal. What did I have to do? Write my Mall Fairies series as well as I could.

And The Mall Fairies: Exile, The Mall Fairies: War and the stand alone short story, A foodie Fairy's First Foray are not the only Middle Grade, Tween and YA reads you'll find for sale, there's lots more (and having read several, I can say these are often great reads for adults too!). 

The reason to go direct to publishers? Two reasons are here: you get an additional 30% off the eBook already discounted sale price and the authors get a bigger royalty percentage of the sales  (as the publisher doesn't have to pay vendors).

Here's the directions and links (or just click on my titles). Enjoy!

The Mall Fairies: Exile by Conda V. Douglas

Save 30% this month during our BACK TO SCHOOL Event

Use discount code MUSEITYOUNG2015 in your Muse cart, save, then finalize the order.

Perfect time to stock up your child’s eReader for the holiday season or begin your pre-holiday shopping before the hustle and bustle begins.

Special exclusive at MuseItUp Publishing $2.99 plus an additional 30% off with code
MUSEITYOUNG2015 until end of September

http://bit.ly/TheMallFairiesExile

One Reason Amazon Rules the Book Publishing World and an Opportunity for Great Free Reads!

Foul Wind by Kathy McIntosh is a humorous mystery set in wacky North Idaho. Want an opportunity to read it for free? Then read on!

The publishing world keeps changing and Amazon keeps coming up with excellent ideas that are part of that change. One of Amazon's newest publishing ventures is KindleScout, in which the readers act as acquiring editors and pick the titles to be published! I think this is a brilliant idea. Who better to pick books they want to read than the readers? And Amazon came up with a great idea to "pay" those readers, if a title you nominate is bought and published by Amazon, you get that title for FREE when it's published! Woot! 

Plus, it's easy to do. Just head over to KindleScout and sign in with your Amazon account. The site is easy to navigate and each book has a cover, a blurb and the first three chapters for you to peruse. You can only nominate three books at a time and they are only up on KindleScout for 30 days so I usually go to "Ending Soon" first and take a look.

Except when I know the book is something I want to read! Foul Wind by Kathy McIntosh is such a book! Here's the blurb: 

Noses wrinkle in Hancock, Idaho, when a foul wind blows from the new wind turbine at a nearby hog farm. When a blackmailer threatens to reveal secrets about the development and its investors, suspicion falls on Feather Sullivan and her sister, compelling their mother to meddle. Interfering moms on a hog farm get messy—and deadly—fast! When the blackmailer ends up murdered, Feather and a mouth-watering PI seek answers while she tries to keep her snooping mother from becoming another victim.

Just my type of humorous mystery, perfect for an cup of tea and cozy chair afternoon. If it's your cup of tea too, head over to Foul Wind soon as there is only 8 days left to nominate this title!

Dear readers, what do you think of KindleScout? Love it? Hate it? Or?

Wedding Horror Stories and a Bridesmaid Short Story on sale!

My honey Bruce and I at our niece's ceremony, fun, but a little damp!

June, the month of brides and weddings, just ended. Whew. We attended my niece's ceremony in a tiny town outside of Austin. A delightful time, although my niece worried because of what happened while the minister was giving the vows. We were out in a large tent and an enormous thunderstorm blew through, emphasizing the minister's words with thunderclaps and great rumblings, as if the skies objected. The rain managed to find every single crack and hole in that tent, dousing a number of people, including the groom! Upsetting to the bride until Bruce mentioned that this would be a memorable occasion and a great story.

In honor of all those June wedding disasters, The Bridesmaid Wore Stains is on sale for only 99 cents until July 4th! Get your copy here.

So dear readers, let me know in the comments your tales of weddings past, present and maybe future?

Carrot Cake Muffin Recipe, A Free Cookbook, and a Link to Bottlecap Jewelry Making! Summer Fun!

Hopefully this kinda unappetizing photo of a Carrot Cake Muffin will give you a smile, for this Smile Power Day! Recipe follows.

It's time for summer fun, so let's start out with what to take on a picnic. These muffins are gluten, soy, egg and dairy free and delicious, I promise! They also travel and freeze well.

Gluten Free, Egg Free, Soy Free, Dairy Free Carrot Cake Muffins

Crusty outside, moist inside

Makes 6 good sized muffins

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups gluten free flour mix (consistency will differ a little depending on mix)

¼ cup dark brown sugar or molasses (muffins will not be very sweet, can add more sugar if you prefer, molasses will make a bit sticky)

2 teas bicarbonate of soda

2 teas baking powder

2-3 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

¾  to 1 cup food processed until fine carrots

½ cup sultana raisins (may be omitted, I always omit these because I don’t like raisins in food)

1 cup nuts, walnuts or pecans (may be omitted)

¼ cup vegetable oil (coconut oil works best)

 2 teas apple cider vinegar or white vinegar

1 cup applesauce plus ¼ cup coconut, almond, cashew or rice milk

2-3 teas vanilla

Directions:

Add the ingredients into a mixing bowl in the same order as listed.

Mix well. Mixture will not be terribly thin, if it is add flour

Place muffin papers in a large muffin pan.

Scoop mixture into papers until well filled. Gently tap down until you have a imperfect “muffin top.”

Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

More easy, cheap and "regular" dessert recipes can be found in The Mall Fairies Sweet Tooth Recipes, along with short stories of the fairies from my Mall Fairies  series FREE today only here.

Bottle Cap Jewelry are fast, cheap and easy to make gifts, here are a few ideas for Christmas ones.

Visit my post on Lois Winston's blog Killer Crafts and Crafty Killers for how to make cheap, easy bottle cap jewelry, great for summer fun for kids and adults alike! Lois is the editor of Bake, Love, Write: 105 Authors Share Dessert Recipes and Advice on Love and Writing. On page 99, you'll find my recipe for Soda Cracker Pie, another easy recipe and cool and delicious for those long hot summer nights!

Enjoy! Celebrate! And what's your favorite thing about summer?
.

   

Rejections, Schmections, They Often Don't Mean a Thing!

The logo for our publishing company, Barbarian Books.

When my partner and I first opened our publishing company, I figured I wouldn't learn all that much about the publishing world. After all, my career spanned decades and I've sold to/dealt with all sorts/levels of publishers.

Wrong, so wrong. It's different being on the other side, especially in terms of truly understanding what publishers actually mean when they say things like, "Rejections shouldn't be taken too seriously." As an author, I'd think, "Yeah, right." As a publisher I think, "Yeah right."

After recently teaching a class about the publishing world, I realized how seriously most authors take those horrid "sorry, but we won't take it," and how desperate they were for "feedback from the publisher so that they can fix the problem."

There's three reasons authors don't get feedback from publishers. I've loosely ranked them from least important to most important (and you may disagree):

1.  Publishers simply don't have time for personal rejections.
Barbarian Books is a quite small publisher, with a very limited focus as we publish genre fiction in eBook format only. We still get 100 to 200 submissions a month, with about 10 percent of those worth consideration, which is a lovely high percentage, but means we're considering as many as 240 manuscripts a year. 
All submissions, 1200 to 2400 a year, must be processed and responded to as well. As one of my author friends noted, "That's a full time job in and of itself." We don't have an employee who only does this job.
We don't have time for personal rejections. There are a few exceptions when we'll send a rejection with some notes about the manuscript. This is always when the submission needs, in our opinion (see the most important #3), a little tweaking, just has minor problems, because... 

2. It's not the publisher's job to teach authors how to write.
This is a hard one for  newbie authors because of the belief that the publishers are a resource in the process of writing, instead of being where an author sells their finished product. Publishers are businesses, not writing instructors. They are only looking for well-written, well-edited manuscripts to sell.
I think part of the confusion is from the oft quoted, "When you have learned how to write, written, edited, and had beta readers critique your manuscript, then submit it. If several publishers comment on the same problem then perhaps you should address that as a problem in your work." Many new authors only hear: If several publishers comment on the same problem then perhaps you should address that as a problem in your novel.
Now, this doesn't mean that you, as an author, should obsess and try to make your work perfect. (The difference between perfect and done is the subject for another post.) It will never be perfect, even when published. And there are a great many pitfalls to even attempting to do so, of which one of the biggest is...

3. Often, it's a completely subjective rejection and there's nothing to fix.
This harkens back to rejections not being taken seriously. If a manuscript is at the level of being well-written, with a writer who knows all the basics and beyond, then most if not all of a rejection is subjective.
For example, I love mysteries. I've always been a reader of mysteries and now write a mystery series. I have very strong likes and dislikes when it comes to mysteries that are completely personal and totally eccentric. So I have "rejected" some mysteries simply because they are not to my taste!

So dear authors, please try to avoid endless angst over the rejections you receive.

Questions? Comments? I'd love to hear what you think!

My Bridesmaid Romance Story on SALE, Plus Happy Rocky Road Day with a recipe!

Now on sale for 99 cents for a limited time only! Get my humorous romance, The Bridesmaid Wore Stains, now here!

 My publisher and I, in honor of June brides, has placed The Bridesmaid Wore Stains on sale, in which will Kat's trademark clumsiness condemn her to a bridesmaid's worst nightmare? Enjoy!

But wait, there's more...in honor of today, Rocky Road Day, here's an easy, fast and cheap recipe for Rocky Road Bites, with how to make it dairy, soy and egg free as well. Who knows, the bride of The Bridesmaid Wore Stains may very well have served this at her wedding! She's that kind of gal.

Rocky Road Cups

These Rocky Road Cups are ooey-gooey delicious and for that reason work best in cupcake or muffin papers. Although licking your fingers is not only allowed but encouraged.

Makes six, may be doubled.

Ingredients:

1 cup milk chocolate morsels or dairy and soy free chocolate morsels

1 cup mini marshmallows, check to make sure they are egg, dairy and soy free

1/2 cup walnuts or pecans, coarsely chopped with fairly big pieces

Directions:

Place large cupcake papers into a large muffin tin.

In a saucepan, slowly melt chocolate on low heat. Or place in a microwave bowl and melt slowly by microwaving for 30 seconds at a time for about a minute and a half, stirring between times. Do not overcook. If in a saucepan, stir constantly to avoid scorching and burning the chocolate. It will turn grainy and nasty if overcooked. Trust me, I’ve done it.

When melted beat until smooth.

Stir in marshmallows and walnuts or pecans.

Spoon by generous tablespoons into cupcake papers. The Rocky Road mixture will be irregular in shape—that’s part of the fun.

Chill to harden. I leave the cups in the fridge or freezer and take out one by one and let soften for a few minutes before eating. Will last for a week to 10 days, I think, in the fridge and longer in the freezer. I say I think because they never last that long! Sometimes it's difficult to wait until they set up!

And everyone, what are some other holidays you enjoy celebrating?