Food: Favourite Food

Changes over time, I find. Favourite foods when I was ten were roast potatoes and trifle. I loved scraping the crusty, gravy drenched potato from the bottom of the roasting pot. Trifle – oh dear, what’s not to like? That hint of forbidden sherry in the sponge cake, and cream. Cream was a rarity in those pre-refrigerator days. The front door of our house had a vestibule behind it with another glass door onto a short passage. Between these two doors, the ambient temperature acted as a great larder for days when lots of food was needed and shops were shut.

Favourite food though has morphed. I’ve written before about spinach soup. Soups in general are among my favourites. Then again, I really enjoy starters. Smoked fish and seafood with a hint of tantalising sauce…

Favourite mains would again be fishy, but I like almost anything.

Cheese – yes, please.

Desserts. Well, as I said above, tastes morph. I now prefer starters to desserts when there’s a choice for two courses. If pud comes along, I enjoy old favourites like steamed pudding, anything with a hint of brown sugar or ginger is very acceptable.

Okay, you say, what is your favourite food?

It’s a smoked salmon paté copied out of the Radio Times magazine many years ago. It was created by two gentlemen whose names are lost in the mists. The secret ingredient really raises it above other smoked salmon patés. It’s staying secret.

Visitors enjoy it, too. If you’re around at one of my book launches, it looks like this

It’s Thanksgiving over in North America and lots of other writers have things to say about food in this blog hop. You might start over on Heidi Thomas’s blog,  http://heidiwriter.wordpress.com/

and then you could try a few others. Maybe they’ll be more generous in sharing their secret ingredients.

http://goo.gl/JjY907 Mariah’s Marriage amazon US

“Oh, Mariah, let us not quarrel. We will be married within the month. At least your papa’s house contains plenty of books. You may practise throwing them.” anne stenhouse

http://goo.gl/UMDvcy Mariah’s Marriage UK

http://goo.gl/7mh8FI Bella’s Betrothal US

 …a solitary figure ahead among some gorse and shrubs. Charles thought she made a beautiful picture in her riding habit with the exquisite hat Jenny Menzies wished to inherit. He thought the girl might get it sooner rather than later if he followed his instincts. At that precise moment, he wanted to shake Bella hard. Then he would lock her in the castle in Strath Menzies and hold her forever. anne stenhouse

http://goo.gl/P3lmzk Bella’s Betrothal UK

https://www.omnilit.com/product-bella039sbetrothal-1312055-162.

html https://www.omnilit.com/product-mariah039smarriage-1173550-149.html

Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/
Judith Copek http://lynx-sis.blogspot.com/
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Skye Taylor  http://www.skye-writer.com/
Ginger Simpson http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.webs.com/
Margaret Fieland http://www.margaretfieland.com/blog1/
Rachael Kosnski http://the-doodling-booktease.tumblr.com/
Anne Stenhouse  https://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
Heidi M. Thomas http://heidiwriter.wordpress.com/
Helena Fairfax  http://helenafairfax.com/
Kay Sisk http://kaysisk.blogspot.com
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/

Not just any old word

The late Margaret McKinlay was my mentor and friend. As the anniversary of her untimely death comes round I find myself considering some of the things she taught me about writing.

A small selection of the novels by EWC members past and present.

The most important was her remark about editor’s or judge’s comments. At this distance in time I can’t remember the exact words, but the gist was this: NEVER dismiss the comment out of hand. A busy person has taken time to read your work and say a little about it. That’s what they believe. Read it. Consider it well. Come back to it when you’ve left it for a couple of days.

Margaret was the writer we’d all like to be. She sold countless humorous articles, short stories and general articles. She tutored for Writers’ News. She mentored people privately. She was an outstanding crime novelist. She also motivated people in ordinary life and was hugely influential in setting up a young people’s centre near where she lived.

I can’t tell you how much I miss her insight when the going is tough.

However, I recently had one of those toughies when a judge’s crit used ‘good’ six times in eleven short lines: but did not rate the story. Instead of sticking pins in anything, I consulted a wiser friend and have read her advice carefully. I think, no more than that, I see where the problem might be. Story amended as suggested has gone off to an experienced ed for consideration.

Every writer needs insightful friends. I have a few and I appreciate them greatly. Thank you all.

 

http://goo.gl/pASdjp Mariah’s Marriage amazon US

“Oh, Mariah, let us not quarrel. We will be married within the month. At least your papa’s house contains plenty of books. You may practise throwing them.” anne stenhouse

http://goo.gl/NxYxj5 Mariah’s Marriage UK

http://goo.gl/PKptQg Bella’s Betrothal US

 …a solitary figure ahead among some gorse and shrubs. Charles thought she made a beautiful picture in her riding habit with the exquisite hat Jenny Menzies wished to inherit. He thought the girl might get it sooner rather than later if he followed his instincts. At that precise moment, he wanted to shake Bella hard. Then he would lock her in the castle in Strath Menzies and hold her forever. anne stenhouse

http://goo.gl/5RBzIm Bella’s Betrothal UK

https://www.omnilit.com/product-bella039sbetrothal-1312055-162.

html https://www.omnilit.com/product-mariah039smarriage-1173550-149.html

 

 

And at the EWC

Edinburgh Writers’ Club now meets in the Wash Bar and we had a cheerful crush of members and guests last night to hear Janne Moller of Black and White publishing talk about Publishing.

It’s always good to hear how it is on the other side and Janne was clear about the constraints and challenges facing today’s publisher.

Her advice to those wishing to submit was equally clear. Don’t send me several pages of your backstory, is rule number one. When an editor is receiving around five mss a day, she doesn’t have time for that. Instead do send:

A short and interesting synopsis of the story and a few sample chapters

Your name and contact details.

A reply won’t come back too quickly and in the pressurised weeks around August – early November when the Christmas market books are going out, it is even slower. A quieter time to submit is December, January and February.

Janne cautioned against sending mss that are not visible in a house’s list. Black and White, for example, don’t publish poetry. This should tell the poet to go elsewhere rather than make him think, “They need me.”

Black and White publish around 45 books a year and about 10 will be fiction. Janne said in reply to a question that she was looking for contemporary women’s fiction with global appeal. As she is the foreign rights sales’ person, she wants to know the story will travel.

She used an expression I haven’t come across but might pin up over the wall behind my pc:

“microcosm within the macrocosm.”

Isn’t that what interests us all? How our individual story or drama sits within the global?