Christmas Molasses Spice Cookies

I was at Christa's house last night because she invited me over to bake cookies, and I got an extra surprise because Bryn was in town for a visit too. Rayne was working a night shift, so all of us ladies sat around the kitchen chatting and laughing while the snow fell outside and carols played from the stereo in the family room. It was pretty magical. You should have seen the house! It's a pale yellow Victorian with a wrap-around veranda, and twinkling with swags of white Christmas lights. With the light snowfall we got yesterday, the place looked like something out of a Christmas card. Christa's got three trees done up, one decorated entirely with baseball ornaments, and the inside smells like fresh cut cedar boughs she took from her yard and made into a garland on her banister. Her border collie-cross Jake was running around with his reindeer antlers on, and loving all the attention we gave him.

While we baked we got to talking about Bryn's story (Cover of Darkness), which is coming out the end of February. I don't want to give any spoilers away, but Bryn seems pretty happy with it so I was tickled pink. But I have to tell you, she's not much of a cook. Or a baker, for that matter (don't you dare tell her I said that, because I'm actually a little bit afraid of her). She pretty much supervised and finished off a bottle of wine while Christa and I did the work until I made her do some of the measuring. We made four different kinds of cookies and a batch of sinful rocky road brownies, and then Bryn gave us all a belly dance class workout. It was a blast!

My favorite recipe follows, which Christa graciously gave me. She's a real sweetheart, and looking forward to getting married next November. I can't wait either!

These cookies are great fresh from the oven, but they're just as good up to a week later if you keep them in an air tight container. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas from Christa, Bryn and me.

Christmas Molasses Spice Cookies
Ingredients:
2.5 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
0.5 tsp salt
2 tsp ground ginger
1 heaping (and I mean heaping--heck, just put in 2) tsp ground cinnamon
0.5 tsp ground allspice
big pinch of cracked or coarsely ground black pepper (don't wimp out on me, it's worth it!)

1.5 sticks (0.75 cup) room temp butter
1 cup packed light brown sugar
0.5 cup molasses (not blackstrap!)
1 large egg

0.5 cup sugar for rolling the cookies

Method:
-preheat oven to 350
-combine flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and pepper
-using a mixer, beat butter, sugar and molasses until smooth and creamy
-add egg and beat for 1 minute
-add dry ingredients and beat slowly until flour and spices disappear (make sure to scrape bottom of bowl to get everything evenly combined)
-dough will be very soft, so divide in half, wrap each piece in plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour
-put "rolling" sugar in a small bowl
-using one half of dough at a time, cut/break into 12 pieces and roll each into a smooth ball between your palms (Bryn wanted no part of this step!)
-roll each ball in sugar and place on parchment/Silpat lined baking sheet (Christa and I both use Silpat sheets and we love them, FYI). Don't put them too close together because they'll spread out.
-dip bottom of drinking glass (wine glasses in our case :)) in sugar and press down on each ball of dough until they are between a quarter to a half inch thick
-place sheet on center rack of the oven and bake 12-14 minutes, or until tops of cookies are set, then transfer to cooling rack and cool to room temp if you can wait that long
-the cookies will be crunchy around the edges and chewy in the middle. Yum!

Whirlwind weekend

This weekend was action packed for us. We finished the outside decorations, and I'm a bit scared because my hubby has been bitten by the decorating bug. Give him a couple years, and our house will be visible from space :)

Saturday night was my hubby's staff party, and the whole group of us went curling. I used to be into that pretty heavily (just as serious as ball, but I think I was even better at curling), but since my knee surgeries it's not very comfortable for me. The last time I played was a year before I got pregnant with my first born, so it's been a while since I've been on the ice. We all had a pretty good time though, and the newbies stopped making fun of the sport real fast. It's way harder than it looks, trust me!

Yesterday I hosted our Vancouver RWA chapter Christmas party, and had a great time. The house was all sparkly and smelling like homemade mulled cider, and hosting a big group like that always makes it feel more like the holidays. Our meetings don't leave a whole lot of time for socializing, so it was nice to mingle with everyone and talk about the writing industry from people "in the know".

Bad news is I burned the back of my left hand late last week. I was pulling the lid off my potroast in the oven and the steam got three of my fingers and my knuckles. I yelped and let out some choice words that had my little guys running into the kitchen with wide eyes, and I kept expecting the skin to bubble and peel off right then. I rarely (if ever) drink, but I'm telling you I was eyeing the rum in the pantry pretty closely. The pain was unreal. I didn't sleep much that night, and the next morning I thought my hand would look like a piece of blackened meat but it was just kind of mottled and swollen. Jeez, did I feel like a wimp. No bleeding, no blisters, nada. Of course, there is now. The burns are kind of a rusty red color and itching like crazy now that the skin is getting ready to peel away. And I've got a patient tomorrow night booked for an hour treatment. Should be interesting!

On the plus side, I've now got the final pesky plot details worked out, so now I can finish off my draft of Turbulence. Good critique partners are a godsend, I tell ya!

It's a Small World

Connections are strange and wonderful things sometimes. For instance, my current project features female aviators and Pararescue Jumpers, and the book is set in Afghanistan. Books and Internet research are great starting points, but I wanted to go a step further and talk to people who have walked the walk, if you know what I mean.

It occurred to me that an old ball playing buddy of mine (We were on the Canada Games team together, but she went on to the 2000 and 2004 Olympics. She's one of those naturally talented athletes that the rest of us would just have to hate if she wasn't so damn nice) used to be married to a special ops pilot. I remember having an in-depth conversation about Navy SEALs and their training one of the last times I saw her when she came home from the States. You gotta admit, that's not a common thing to talk about, especially for women--and Canadians at that, eh? :) Plus, who else would have cared, let alone understood what the heck I was talking about? Love you, Jackie!

She had made many connections in her years stateside, and is now a firefighter in New Mexico. Anyhow, I shot her an e-mail asking if she might be able to put me in contact with someone who could share some insider knowledge about flying Black Hawks, and Pararescue Jumpers. Less than a day later she responded saying, "I work with a retired PJ and a retired Black Hawk pilot." Holy hell, talk about a small world!

The information I've garnered so far is invaluable, plus I love getting an inside scoop from service members that have been out in the field. This makes me odd, I know, but I have two stacks of books on my bedside table: special ops non-fiction, and romances. What can I say, it works for me. Just last week my hubby was in bed next to me reading his Sports Illustrated (unless there's a baseball article, I'm not really interested). He looks over and sees me reading a text on SERE training and says, "You're weird." Yeah, I guess I am.

This past weekend I also met with my dad's flight instructor and a retired Canadian Navy helo pilot who was involved in a crash to get a realistic feel of what that would be like for my heroine, Devon Crawford, a medevac pilot. Both meetings were incredibly interesting.

I'm having a great time researching this, almost moreso than writing it! Who knows who I'll meet next in my research travels? I can't wait to find out.

Out of Her League Wins First Place!

I'm thrilled to announce that Out of Her League has won first place in romantic suspense category of the 2009 Volusia County RWA Laurel Wreath contest.

It beat out entries from several highly accomplished authors, but what tickles me the most is that the judges chose an e-pubbed book as the winner for the category. Sometimes it feels like e-pubbed authors don't get recognition or respect from other sectors in the publishing industry, so it was nice that my entry (and my publisher) was taken seriously. And, they liked it! They really, really liked it :) I greatly appreciate their support.

Plus, two fellow Greater Vancouver RWA chapter mates placed along with me. Susan Lyons placed second in the long contemporary category with her erotic romance She's On Top (Kensington Aphrodisia), and Mary J. Forbes won the short contemporary with Their Secret Child (Silhouette).

Suck It Up Princess

This was one of my best coach's favorite expressions. Admittedly, we were a pretty hardcore bunch of ballplayers. We trained and played eleven months a year, and in season it was rare to have more than a day off a week. Whenever someone got hurt, this same coach would undoubtedly ask, "Are you hurt? Or are you injured?" Meaning, if we don't need to cart you off to the hospital, quit whining, suck it up and get back out there.

We got used to his tough love routine pretty fast. I still hear him sometimes in my head when I'm staring at my blank laptop screen wondering what the heck to write next. "Suck it up, princess." And he's right. As Todd Stone wrote in his book Novelist's Boot Camp, you can whine or you can write, but you can't do both.

Writers have to write, and if they want to succeed, they have to write constantly. They can't sit around waiting for their muse to show up, and they can't wait for inspiration to strike. Not all of as are as hardcore as Nora Roberts, who writes eight hours every single day--including Christmas, I'm told. Wow. Now that's a level of dedication I can't even aspire to, because I know it would never happen. I need my downtime to recharge my batteries, and I could never work on Christmas!

Here are some ideas for the less militant among us that have worked for me. Set a page or word count and a schedule you--and your family--can live with. If possible, pick the time of day when your creative juices seem to flow the best, and make it part of your routine. This is the only way my family has learned to respect what I'm doing. The schedule thing seems to make my hubby happier, otherwise he grumbles about me being attached to my laptop all the time. I write in the morning for an hour or two, then when hubby puts our little ones to bed. If I get an extra bit of time in between someplace, bonus.

My point is, even if it's not as much time to write as I'd like to have, at least it's something. I've got to make that window of opportunity work. No one's going to hold me accountabale but me. No one can make me quit but me. No one's going to do the writing for me. Yes, writing is hard. If it was easy, everyone would be doing it! But that's no excuse. Just write. No whining. You can't fix a blank page. Get the words down, and even if they're awful, you've got something to work with when you go back and revise.

Okay, I'm hopping off my soapbox now. And as promised, here's a picture of me on my way out for trick-or-treating on Halloween.

Happy writing! No whining.

Remembrance Day Reflections

I'm prouder to be a Canadian on Remembrance Day than on any other day of the year. When I was 12, my parents took my best friend and I over to Europe, and my dad made sure we visited some of the most important Canadian WWI sites. I've never forgotten that trip, or how I felt standing on those battlefields and in the cemeteries. Humbled and awed, and incredibly sad that so many young men died in the war that was meant to end all wars...but didn't.

A month ago my best cousin and I traveled to Europe, and visited Normandy, France. Our first stop there was to Juno Beach, where the Canadians landed on June 6th, 1944 for their part in the D-Day invasion of Operation Overlord.






















A few days before arriving there, I happened to learn a very interesting fact. To give you a point of reference, my father was president of Ritchie Brothers Auctioneers for a long time, and worked as the right hand man of the CEO, Dave Ritchie. The Ritchies are from Kelowna, a small city in the interior of BC.

Turns out, Dave's eldest brother volunteered to fight during WWII, and was killed at Juno Beach. My father says Dave remembered his eldest brother marching through the streets of Kelowna on their way to war while the crowd cheered them on. Dave ran after him, and his brother told him to go stand with their parents. That's the last time Dave ever saw him.

On the way to Normandy from Paris, my cousin and I passed a Ritchie Bros. yard on the main highway. I didn't think much of it at the time, except to point it out to my cousin. We visited Juno Beach and the visitors center, then went to the Canadian cemetery and found Dave's brother's grave--not forty five minutes' drive from where the yard now stands. It gave me goose bumps to know the eldest brother had died liberating France, and because of him and his fellow soldiers turning the tide of the war, sixty years later his baby brother was able to set up part of his empire there.






















So this Remembrance Day I'm thinking of Corporal William Ritchie, and the ultimate sacrifice he made. I wonder if he knows the part he played in helping his little brother.

Warrior Writer: Reflections

Got back last night from Bob Mayer's Warrior Writer workshop, and during the drive home mulled over what resonated with me the most.

The first day was a writing workshop where we focused on the main story idea and conflict, plus reviewed critiques of our opening pages from the other participants. Except for my critique partner (who you can't have--she's mine! All mine!), all other criticism I usually have to read and then put away for a day or two before coming back to it. Otherwise I get too stuck on the negative things pointed out, and get down on myself. You know how that goes, right? Instead of thinking, Aha! I see how I can improve this, and I'm so glad someone pointed this weakness out, we wallow in the abyss of self-pity. Instead of seeing it as constructive criticism, we hear people saying, "You suck, and somebody should take that keyboard away from you because clearly you shouldn't be using it", or "I would rather stab something sharp into my eye than have to read another word you write". Yeah. Feeling like people hate your work (or worse, you) can cripple a writer.

Bob put it perfectly, saying that writers are a different breed, and it's usually that one "aw, shit" that wipes out the ninety-nine "atta-boys" that came before it. That's why I always let the feedback marinate a while in my subconscious. I'm always better off that way. Of course the comments are just opinions, but if there's something constructive I can work with to improve my writing, I'll at least take a hard look at it. And let's face it, when NYT bestselling author points out weaknesses in your work, you'd better sit up and pay attention and then work to improve your craft/story.

After day one, I was suddenly left questioning my entire plot and main characters for the WIP I've been struggling with. The good news is that my subconscious already knew there was a problem with the story, but I couldn't put my finger on it. After mulling it over this weekend, I think I've got a few ideas up my sleeve to make it better.

I learned from Bob that most writers are introverts by nature. We kind of have to be, since we hole up in our little cocoons and type on a keyboard for hours on end, day after day. Month after month...Yikes, year after year even. That's why most of us are not very good at promotion. We're more comfortable being in the audience than on the stage. We tend to get discouraged easily, either because of negative feedback, or because of the way the business is set up. That's why so many writers give up before they get published, and why others give up before they've attained their dreams. Bottom line is, nobody can make you quit except you. And nobody's going to do the work for you. It's up to you to figure out how you want your career to be, and then keep writing until you turn out a product that publishing can't say no to.

Here are a few thoughts to ponder about your current project:

-How can you make your main story idea more special and so unique that it grabs the agent's/editor's eye right away in the query letter? You want something that can knock their socks off and set you apart from the other fifty manuscripts with a similar plot already sitting in their inbox.

-What attribute(s) can you give your main characters to make them different than any other character ever invented? Make them so interesting and riveting that no reader, agent or editor could ever forget them.

-How can you up the stakes of the conflict so that your protagonist is the only person on Earth fit to take on your antagonist?

-Do you have at least two layers of conflict in every single scene? Verbal, emotional, physical, psychological.

-You should write in the point of view you enjoy reading the most.

-Study authors and books that you love. What is the POV? What is it about the characters and story that draws you? What have those authors done that you haven't?

Finally, the biggest thing I took away from the weekend is that pretty much everything is fixable in a manuscript. It just takes the willingness to change and a lot of hard work. But above all, you only get one chance to hook an agent or editor, so make sure you only put your best work in front of them, and never ever give them an easy reason to reject you. Make it really hard for them to say no.

I challenge you to put these ideas into action. See if you can really push the envelope with your plot and characters. I'm looking forward to watching how much life it injects into my current work.

Remember, style and craft can be fixed, but in today's writing market, it's the story itself that has to be brilliant.

Happy writing!
Kaylea :)