My Cure for Homesickness

I'm a homebody. Though I have traveled here and there over the years, I invariably get homesick during the course of any journey. Lately, leaving my elderly father causes me considerably anxiety. However, I have discovered that my cellphone offered an antidote for my malady. For me, social media has alleviated a great deal of my apprehension.

I spent time texting and posting this past week while we were in Florida preparing to relocate my mother-in-law to NJ. I called my father everyday. I chatted with Daughter #2 and #3. Daughter #1 sent photos of my father and we sent text messages back and forth. Friends responded to my posts on Facebook.

The distance between me and NJ did not feel like an impossible chasm. Though I was 1,100 miles away, I was always in touch. While there are those who abhor social media, I think it's terrific. There are many who find it refreshing to get away from technology, I know I would suffer agonizing withdrawal if I turned off my cellphone.

How about you? Can you leave everything behind without any worries? Or is your cellphone your lifeline?

Strength

The saying on this t-shirt is not accurate, though there are those who believe all residents of NJ are brash and obnoxious. Since I have lived in New Jersey all my life, I know there are an abundance of kind people with helping hands here. Yet, despite the bold statement on the shirt, it is one of my favorites. I wear it so frequently it may become a rag in the near future, which will be sad.

The shirt has a history. I bought the t-shirt five years ago at Newark Airport. It was ridiculously expensive, but I bought it anyhow. My sister was with me and she bought a blue version of the same shirt. The two of us went to the airport to pick up our sister-in-law, our brother's widow--a woman who grew up in Texas and lives in South Carolina. She had flown to NJ because my mother was dying. While we always kept in touch over the years, visits were infrequent due to distance, scheduling, and other responsibilities. The last time I had seen her was around the time our daughters were in grade school.

I was worried she wouldn't know what we looked like anymore, with our chubby middle-aged bodies and our colored hair. So I made a sign, just a simple one like the limo drivers use. Of course, it was neatly lettered because I am my mother's daughter. :-)

It turned out I didn't need the sign. The moment our sister-in-law stepped out of the gate, she saw us and recognized us. And we recognized her. The years in between didn't matter.

It was a great comfort to have her with us. We survived that sorrowful time, not because we come from NJ, but because our sister-in-law and many others were there to support us. There were friends and relatives who sat with my father through my mother's last hours while hubby and I made funeral arrangements. There were many who came to the wake and the funeral to pay their respects.

When I wear the shirt, I remember those who strengthened me by reaching out with their concern during that time. I thank them with all my heart.

Liberty Hall Museum

Inspiration is everywhere, but for me old houses have a way of sparking story ideas. So this past week, hubby and I visited Liberty Hall Museum in Union, NJ, on the campus of Kean University. Hubby simply wanted to go on a day trip because the weather was nice, but I was   hoping to feed my muse. :-)

William Livingston built Liberty Hall in 1772. Originally, it had fourteen rooms. Livingston soon became the first elected governor of New Jersey. Over the years, additions were made to the original structure. It now has fifty rooms and an extensive collection of antiques. Our tour guide claims the family never threw anything out, making it a treasure trove of artifacts.

The Livingston/Kean families were the movers and shakers of their times. They had lots of money, though they were not ostentatious about it. Nevertheless, they went on many trips and brought home an array of souvenirs. 

There are plenty of unusual antiques all over the house. There's a monstrous gas dryer in the basement unlike anything I've ever seen. There's a fantastic Victorian era dollhouse. There's a linoleum floor, which was originally in one of the children's rooms. The linoleum has a map of the United States on it with all the capital cities. There's a pair of three-wheeled roller skates. 

Beautiful gardens surround the house. There's an orchard and a boxwood hedge.

At the back of the house is an enclosed porch. For a $40 reservation, anyone can enjoy tea on a Wednesday afternoon in the enclosed porch. 

Weddings and other events can also be held on the grounds. 

And yes, there is a ghost story--of sorts. One visitor wrote about it at http://www.hiddennj.com/2011/11/was-that-ghost-i-saw-bogus-haunting-of.html. She claims the tour guides don't mention it anymore, but our tour guide did. :-)

Visit Liberty Hall online HERE. Then plan your own visit. You might get some ideas for a story. :-) 

Format for the Nook

That's Dad looking at my Nook. We were sitting in a doctor's office and I showed it to him. Even without his glasses, he could see the print because I made it large enough. :-)

Yesterday, I loaded my newly contracted book, PATRIOT'S PRIDE, into my Nook. I must check for errors before I send it off to the editor again. I've found that I never catch everything when I'm reading it on the computer screen. It is helpful for me to switch to another type of reading mode.

I've been fixing the story as suggested by the editor. In addition, I spellchecked the manuscript and discovered I had consistently misspelled hiccupped and unmistakable. :-(

To load the manuscript into the Nook, it is best to use an epub format. The Nook will not display anything properly in a pdf.

I downloaded Calibre (http://calibre-ebook.com) onto my Mac. Then I took out the page numbers on the docx file and saved it as an rtf. I loaded the book into Calibre and converted it to epub. Then I sent it to the Nook.

It looks good including italics and paragraph breaks.

I started reading and found I had used the instead of to in the first paragraph. Grrrr.

So I'll be doing more fixing on this manuscript--but it should be released in June. I'm sure it will go through more editing before that.

Keys

When I was cleaning out my parents house to sell it back in 2011, I found these keys in my parents' basement in an old coffee can. Obviously, my father and mother saved every key they ever owned. There were keys from cars that had long since rusted away. There were keys from houses they moved out of. I was amazed at the collection because hubby and I toss keys into the trash whenever they are no longer of any use. But my parents had enough keys to melt down and make a large ingot. Some of the keys are quite lovely. In the not-so-distant past, most tools had some sort of decoration. Today, utilitarian objects are often sleek and boring. Car keys have evolved into amazing electronic gadgets, and there are plastic cards to open hotel rooms.

I like the old keys. I kept them, in the same coffee can, but now they reside in my basement. Sometimes, I take out the can and reminisce about the cars we drove and the suitcases we carried.
Someday there won't be any keys at all.

Maybe then I'll have a treasure in my basement.

I've Been Interviewed by Jackson D'Lynne

That's an empty nest. My nest is not empty. Jackson D'Lynne found that out when she interviewed me.

Head on over to her blog and find out all my secrets. :-)

Ask an Author with Penelope Marzec -- Patriots, Heroes, and Familial Distractions

Do You Want To Sleep Like A Baby?

That's me, age two, sleeping peacefully. I love to sleep like a rock. Although there have been times when traumatic events and other difficult issues have kept me awake, I learned early how to handle the problem. For me, the best thing to do when sleep eludes me is to pick up a book. In fact, I regularly read in bed before I turn out the light.

I've found there are others who agree with me on this issue. A Huffpost article lists seven reasons you should read books, and one of those seven reasons is that reading may help you sleep better. Check out http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/12/health-benefits-reading_n_4081258.html

How about you? Do you read before bed?

The Popularity of Free Books

After the Storm was written as a round robin by six of the Prism Book Group authors. From the first, it was offered as a free promotion for Prism Book Group. It is the second story in a series of round robin stories. The first book in the series is Lightning Strikes. The last book is A Blizzard Wedding.  All can be found at http://www.prismbookgroup.com/freereads.html

Currently After the Storm has 112 reviews on Amazon. (Most of them are favorable.)

It is #1,153 in free Kindle books. It is #2 in Christian Collections & Anthologies. It is #9 in Kindle Short Reads. According to the Kindle Sales Rank Calculator, 55 to 100 copies of the book are downloaded each day.

If I sold that many copies of any of my books, I would be rich. Unfortunately, there are plenty of people who read free books but are loath to pay for books. Publishing is a tough business. Writing books is not a sure fire way to become wealthy.

Nevertheless, I wonder how many of the people who downloaded After the Storm have ever purchased any of the books from Prism Book Group. Those statistics would be interesting to see. :-)

Off to England--In a Book

That's me. I went to England and Scotland many, many years ago. My friend, Liz, went with me. It was a two week tour--one week in London and one week in Scotland. Obviously, Liz took this photo. It was fuzzy. I tried to fix it. :-(

I enjoyed visiting England and Scotland. Everybody spoke the same language--sort of. I drove a little Hillman Avenger all over Scotland--quickly adapting to being on the left side of the road instead of the right. I wish I could have stayed longer. I came home with a tea set and little English teaspoons (so cute and small!).

I decided to write a book so I could take myself back to England for an extended stay. Yesterday, I signed a contract with Prism Book Group for PATRIOT'S PRIDE. The story is the sequel to PATRIOT'S HEART. While Patriot's Heart was Agnes's story and set in New Jersey during the Revolutionary War, Patriot's Pride is about her sister, Margaret. She sails off to England after her grandfather has passed away. It's an exciting voyage and one you won't want to miss, especially if you read Patriot's Heart. :-)

I hope you'll save room in your Kindle for Patriot's Pride!

Impossible Broccoli Quiche with Curry for a Crowd

This is my take on a classic recipe. A little curry spices up this dish just enough to make it a true crowd pleaser. It's quick, too, which is always a plus for a busy writer. :-)

IMPOSSIBLE BROCCOLI QUICHE with Curry for a Crowd

2 10 oz. packages of frozen chopped broccoli
2 tsp. dried minced onion
2 c. sharp Cheddar cheese, shredded
6 eggs
2 tsp. curry (I used Jamaican Curry)
1 tsp. salt
2 c. milk
1 c. Bisquick baking mix

Grease 9 x 13 inch rectangular baking pan. Thaw and drain broccoli and place on bottom of pan. Sprinkle onion and grated cheese over broccoli and then mix everything together lightly in the pan. Next, place milk, Bisquick mix, eggs, salt, and curry in a bowl and mix well with an electric mixer. Pour this mixture over the broccoli, cheese, and onion. Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 35 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean and top is golden. Let stand 5 minutes before serving.

Kindle Text-to-Speech on iPad

It can be done, although it took a while before I understood the process. (Triple click, swipe with TWO fingers.) You can have an entire Kindle book read to you by a computerized voice. Personally, I enjoy reading with my own two eyes better. But for long commutes or when I am involved in a monotonous task (like folding laundry) this feature on the iPad is great.

Another Social Network

I joined Instagram. One of my painting friends in Grace Graupe-Pillard's painting workshop, told me how much she enjoys Instagram. She had set a goal for herself of doing a sketch a day, which she would post on Instagram each day. Using Instagram, she inspired herself to continue sketching and posting her sketches. She enjoyed the ease of that particular network. She collected followers and likes from people from all over the world.

Since I already belong to Pinterest, I thought joining Instagram would be redundant, but eventually my curiosity got the better of me and I signed up. I did one sketch of Daughter #2, posted one of my paintings, and some photos. But, of course, the lure of any social network is followers. 

I started exploring. I found plenty of my author friends. :-) But there are photographers, too, and artists, and some very clever people who do amazing things with their Instagram account. Breathtaking stuff. 

It is different than Pinterest. I love Pinterest, but I limit myself to browsing through it because I know I can easily lose all sense of time. Pinterest allows each user to have categories. Instagram doesn't. But like Pinterest, Instagram allows its users to share with other social networks. 

In addition, Instagram offers various filters along with editing software to enhance photos. Therein lies some of Instagram's magic. An ordinary photo can become an extraordinary photo layered with emotion. 

If you are on Instagram, please follow me. I like looking at pictures since each one is worth a thousand words. :-)

Can you throw out your precious words?

We all digress. That's why authors need editors. Long before I hand my manuscript over to an editor, I find sentences, phrases, even whole paragraphs that need to be cut. Sometimes, entire pages become useless. If I don't cut those unnecessary passages, the editor surely will.

Writing is all about rewriting. Focus and clarity form a stronger book, creating a story that will hook readers and keep them turning the pages. It doesn't matter whether a manuscript is 60,000 words long or 100,000. Authors need to avoid going off on a tangent. Every scene should advance the plot.

There are some authors who have digressed, including long passages in their manuscripts that they could have left out. For instance, Victor Hugo in Les Miserables really should have written a separate nonfiction book about the sewers of Paris. :-)

I tend to wander away from the plot, too. It's easy to do, especially since I love writing narrative.

Since I hate to toss out my precious bon mots, I make up a special document for them. Each of my books has a corresponding file labeled SCRAPS. As I trim my manuscript, I cut out the parts I don't really need and paste them into my scrap document. There they remain, safe and sound.

Often, after the book is published, I'll go back and revisit the scraps I saved. I'll have a good laugh and delete the file.

Not every word is precious.

No Writing Last Weekend

I didn't write last weekend. Instead, I made stuffed cabbage. My mother used to call stuffed cabbage halupki, but hubby's family calls them gowumpki, which is actually spelled golabki. In Polish the l  has a slash through it indicating that it should be pronounced as a w. No matter which language you use, it's the same thing.

My mother never gave me the recipe for her halupki because she didn't have one. She told me she had to feel the mixture to be sure it had the correct proportions of rice and meat. However, she did teach me how to boil the cabbage and peel the leaves off the head carefully and in one piece.

When hubby and I were married, his mother gave me a Polish cookbook immediately. I suppose she didn't want her son to starve to death. The stuffed cabbage recipe in that book is quite similar to the one my mother made, so I've used it over and over again. However, making stuffed cabbage involves a lot of time and effort, so it's rare that I set aside the time to do it. But since we celebrated Father's Day, I thought the special meal would be appreciated--and it was.

Of course, now that I have a larger slow cooker, one part of the task is much simpler because once all the cabbage rolls are prepared, I put them in the slow cooker and forget about them until it's time to eat.

Since there are hundreds of recipes on the web for stuffed cabbage, I am not going to include mine here. Everybody does something different. Some precook the rice, some don't. Some add lots of spices and some don't. Some add eggs. Some use tomato soup for the sauce, some use beef broth.

There's a great deal of variety. Check out the recipes online and you'll see what I mean. Pick the one you like.

I put together a huge batch of stuffed cabbage. We are still eating them and nobody is complaining.

I did a little bit of writing yesterday--mostly cutting out some sections in the beginning of the story. I always tend to put too much narrative in the beginning. Sigh.

I should be able to snatch more time for writing today since I don't have to worry about what's for supper. :-)

Plotting Using a Calendar

This is a detail from the calendar I used when I wrote A RUSH OF LIGHT. I started off being neat and typing in the scenes. Then, as I built up momentum, I started scribbling in the details and using initials, because sometimes I write by the seat of my pants. :-) For me, using a calendar to sketch in scenes is essential. I cannot write without a calendar. It keeps me organized.

I make up my own calendars in Word using ordinary 8 1/2 x 11 size paper. I still have plenty of scribbling room if I write small. Here's the one I made for my current WIP, reduced in size to fit nicely into this post.

Of course, I could use two sheets of paper and make a bigger calendar, or use bigger paper, but this works for me. When the book is finished, I have a very basic outline of what happened and when. It is useful when writing a synopsis. 

I cannot guarantee this method would work for every writer, because nearly every writer seems to have a different approach. In the end, it's not about how a writer got the job done. All that matters is a finished manuscript and a good story. 

You can watch the book video for A RUSH OF LIGHT below.  

Conquering the Giant Slide

Hubby and Daughter #1 enjoying the ride.

Me clutching Daughter #2.

Many, many years ago, there was a Giant Slide at the Keansburg Amusement Park. It was huge--very tall and very wide. I haven't seen any other dry slide in the area quite that big. Eventually, it was taken down, but we got to enjoy it for a little while while our daughters were young.

At first, I was terrified getting onto that slide. Gravity pulled me down faster as I neared the bottom and on the last few hills, I was actually airborne.  Hubby loved it, but he likes roller coasters, too. However, after a few successful runs, I became used to the Giant Slide. I conquered my fear and learned to enjoy the ride.

I could make up analogies comparing the Giant Slide to life or to writing--but I won't. The ride was exhilarating once I figured out I wouldn't get hurt. I felt stronger for having overcome my apprehension.

But I still refuse to go on a roller coaster.

How about you? What amusement rides terrify you?

Buy at Amazon!

1740's Bestseller

I read PAMELA, by Samuel Richardson. I read it because it was a bestseller after it was published in 1740. I read it because it was the first novel of its kind. As a romance writer, I was curious about it. As a writer of historicals, I wanted to study the style of the language of that time.

I can't say it was easy to read. The characters and the plot are too contrived. The hero was such a rat, I had a tough time believing he would ever turn around. Since the story is told through letters Pamela has written to her parents, it is also difficult to believe she had so much time to write everything down, in minute detail, including conversations. Pamela does go through quite an ordeal and her firm moral beliefs and religious faith buoy her up through her hardships.

For the book's historical significance, this was an intriguing read, a look backward into time, and for that reason I recommend it.

One Hundred Acres

When I started doing research for PATRIOT'S HEART, I discovered American patriots were offered one hundred acres for their service when they signed up for the Continental Army. Unfortunately, not all received their reward. There is an interesting chronology of the inducements offered for service at http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/libsrc/benefits.htm. Joseph Martin wrote about his time in the Continental Army and there's an in-depth review of a book about his memoirs at http://www.miwsr.com/michiganwarstudiesreview/2009/20090105.asp which includes the mention of those elusive one hundred acres.

Blacksmiths were exempt from service during the Revolution, but the heroine's father in PATRIOT'S HEART longs for the promised one hundred acres. So Agnes, the heroine of the story, runs the forge in his absence.

You can read an excerpt from the story at http://prismbookgroup.com/PatriotsHeart.html

Would you have signed up to serve in the Continental Army with the offer of one hundred acres?

Teach Your Children Well

I live in New Jersey. The beach is not far away. When I walk on the beach--which is often--I pick up shells. Until I retired, I taught young children and I used to save the shells and put them into a big box. I brought the box to school to use the shells for projects with the kiddies in my class. I did that every year around this time. Without fail, every year someone would ask me, "Where did you get those?"

That anyone who lives here would ask this question never ceased to amaze me. True, some of the shells were picked up on Sanibel Island and a few other Florida beaches. However, the majority of them came from the local beaches right here in NJ.

The kiddies all knew they were seashells, but none of the kiddies knew the names of the different types of shells. They could not tell a moon snail from a mussel--which I think is very, very sad. My own daughters grew up with Golden Nature Guides and Audubon Society Field Guides. They knew the names of various trees, birds, flowers, as well as shells.

Even a five year old can learn the difference between a scallop shell and an oyster shell. Sadly, many of the parents didn't know the difference either--and worse--they didn't care. How many future scientists never got a chance to blossom because Mom or Dad didn't have a field guide?

Pick up a shell. If you don't know the name of it, look it up. Show your children how to do it. Today it is even easier with the internet. You don't have to own a field guide.

The world is full of variety. Get to know the intricate, delicate, beautiful world you live in.

Sign Up For My Newsletter

This is the newsletter I sent out yesterday. I send out newsletters on a quarterly basis--or sometimes less than that. I usually include a photograph I've taken, contest news, my upcoming talks, or book signings.

In addition, there's always a recipe or a tip about my latest Do-It-Yourself project.

I include book news as well. Sometimes there's a scene from one of my books or a short story.

I strive to entertain, but I like to keep it brief, too. Everyone is busy these days. :-)

If you would like to receive my newsletter, please sign up at my website from the link below:

http://penelopemarzec.weebly.com/sign-up.html

I'm hoping to hear from you.