Mild West Mysteries on SALE 3 days only! .99! Audio out too! And a GF, dairy free, egg free easy recipe!

In honor of the release of the audio book version of Mild West Mysteries, the eBook version is on sale, only .99, through January 8th!

Woot! Now Mild West Mysteries is out in all formats! Enjoy!

And here are some cookies to munch on while you read/listen to Mild West Mysteries. These are gluten, dairy and egg free!

EASY QUICK CAKE COOKIES (mildly sweet and nutty)

Ingredients:

1 cup cashew, almond or peanut butter

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup oatmeal flour + 1/2 cup oatmeal flour

1/4 cup potato starch

3 teaspoons Xanthum gum

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 tablespoons Vegan Egg in 1/3 cup cold water

Nutmeg and/or cinnamon to sprinkle on top

Directions: 

Place rack in center of oven. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix flour, potato starch, sugar and Xanthum gum together. Add liquids and stir well. Dough will be stiff. Roll into balls and press on cookie sheet until 1 to 1/2 inch depth. Sprinkle with nutmeg and/or cinnamon. Bake 15 to 20 minutes depending on thickness of cookies (thinner cookies will be crunchier, thicker more cake like). Flip cookies half way through baking. Cookies should be lightly brown both sides.

Again, enjoy! And pick up your on sale copy of Mild West Mysteries, just .99 through January 8th.

Three Awesome Books for a teaser of Book Sale coming August 6th!

Fun, Fun, Fun!

There will be over 20! authors selling their books at the Book Extravaganza this August 6th. A wide range of genres and styles will be represented, enough for any reader to find much to read! 

Many will be on sale or offering other specials. Here's three to tease.

Register to win a FREE copy!

Finding hope in all the wrong places.

Rebecca is a well published author. In her Christian romances she demonstrates why. 

And all her titles at the book sale will be ON SALE for only $10 each! Plus you can register to win a free copy of her latest work, Winds of Change. Find out more about Rebecca and her wonderful writing at her Amazon author page.

One Brick at a Time, a heart wrenching and heart warming biography you won't want to put down.

One Brick at a Time is Elaine Oostra's life story. She shares her fond and sometimes humorous memories of childhood as well as the struggles and pain of growing up with a mom who suffered from mental illness. 

Want some fun, fast reading? Mild West Mysteries abounds in thirteen cozy mystery short stories of the West as never seen before. 

Also, I'll be running a Buy One Get One of Same or Lesser Price HALF OFF with all my four titles: Starke Naked Dead, Mild West Mysteries, The Mall Fairies: Exile and Write Short to Succeed. 

For more about me and my wacky Idaho adventures, visit my Amazon author page.

Hope to see you Saturday!

Successful Writing Secret: Conflict in Description

My newest title, Write Short to Succeed inspired by my class: Hows and Whys of Writing Short, click on the link above to sign up for the next one night class on May 3, 2016.

We authors are always learning and stretching our writing muscles. So when I attended a conference recently, I was surprised by how many new authors struggled with a particular concept:

Conflict.

Conflict needs to be in every part of an author's work. This includes description. Description? Yes, description. Ummm, I can hear new writers saying, isn't description just describing stuff? Nope. Or at least it's full of conflict if it's a success for the author.

Easiest way to explain this is to provide an example using a very well known cliche: 

It was a dark and stormy night.
Okay where is the conflict here? Well, in the fact that dark and stormy nights are difficult and dangerous. However, it's much better to not rely on such obvious elements to create the conflict. Instead, how about:

It was a warm, bright, sunny and horrid day.
The twist with "horrid" creates a conflict. It raises the question of why the day is horrid.

It was a warm, bright and sunny day. Despite the warmth, she couldn't stop shivering.
Can you spot the conflict? That "she can't stop shivering" is a contrast that raises questions?

Or how about:

It was a warm, bright and sunny day. She hated such days. Too pleasant by far.
Her emotional response creates conflict. And perhaps a touch of characterization.

Or a different type of description:

No conflict:
She was a pretty woman. Everyone always told her so.

Conflict:
She never knew how pretty she was. When people told her how lovely her face, she never believed them.
Again, her emotional response raises questions, why won't she believe how pretty she is? This creates conflict and some characterization.

Conflict raises questions, makes the reader wonder why there is this conflict and makes the reader wonder how the conflict will be resolved. Conflict keeps the reader reading!

An exercise:
Spot the descriptions in other author's writing. Read through them with an eye to whether or not they possess conflict. If not, why not? How could a description have more conflict? Or if it does have conflict, how?

Authors, questions? Answers? Are you conflicted?

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!

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

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!

Memorial Day Memories and a New Recipe Book with Old Fashioned Recipes

A Virtual Bouquet for Memorial Day

Memorial Day, a perfect time to remember...and here's one of my favorite memories and the recipe that came from it!

My mom was raised during the Great Depression by her British-born mom. So growing up, I got used to many of her recipes being from cheap ingredients. And quick and easy to prepare, as my mom worked full time and then some in our art gallery, the first in Sun Valley. Slumgullion, the Scots-Irish word for mixed up leftovers, was my mom’s favorite dish to prepare, despite inedible disaster often being a result. She hated to “waste” food, no matter what the state the food happened to be in, including that of waste. This is why my dad always said that nothing ever came out of our refrigerator unless it crawled out on its own. In self defense, I learned very early on how to cook and bake. Nowadays I often thank Mom for her terrible cooking.

            One of the things I learned early on is that there are several ways to make slumgullion without it tasting (and immediately being) garbage. If you just follow a few simple rules then you might find yourself making a delicious slumgullion often and well! And saving food, time and money!

Dear Readers, what are your Memorial Day memories?

 

Yummy Slumguillion!

SLUMGULLION RULES

Think of like with like and ingredients you'd use together in dishes. For example, I often take leftover chili (steak, chili sauce, and tomatoes), leftover Mexican casserole (hamburger, corn, chilies and carrots) and leftover pasta and combine. I promise it’s yummy, although may look odd...as illustrated above.

If you have a lot of one leftover and a little of another, but not quite enough to make a meal, consider another item that would combine well with your ingredients. I might add beans or some spaghetti squash to the recipe above. Or add a side dish too, a salad perhaps.

Avoid mixing too strong of flavors, sweets and sours, for example. If my character from my Starke Dead mystery series, Aunt Maddie, was making the chili/Mexican/pasta slumgullion above, she'd add apple pie! Okay, an extreme example, but Aunt Maddie is pretty extreme herself. Also avoid too many different added spices. Both these mistakes will make the food taste strange and murky and possibly not like food at all.

If you have "simple" leftovers, such as cooked vegetables and chicken, consider which spices to use and try different ones for a "refreshed" dish. (I might use coriander, thyme and pepper for the vegetables and chicken, for example.)

Avoid mixing tomatoes, vinegar or lemon juice with peas, green beans and/or broccoli as the green vegetables will turn brown and bitter.

One last trick: You can always pour gravy over everything, yum, or use the gravy as a base for a refreshed slumgullion soup, yum!

Readers, questions, suggestions, tales of culinary disaster?

A flyer for a booksigning of Family Recipes from the Snake River Plain, which includes my slumguillion recipe and other great recipes from great cooks, fry sauce, dream cake, zucchini rounds, but you can get a copy today here! Enjoy!