Devilishly handsome -- and he cooks!

Have you met my pal, Joe Barkson? He’s the chef formerly known as … The Chef. He’s the Emperor of Recitopia, and the publisher of World Wide Recipes, the best darned recipezine in the whole darned universe. If you’ve read my short story collection LONNIE, ME AND THE HOUND OF HELL or the Southern Indiana Writers Group’s anthology NOVEL INGREDIENTS, you’ve read my short story “Dog Star”, which is a tribute to The Chef and his Power For Niceness.

Many long years ago, I wrote the Culinary Chronicles column for WWR, a job which is now handled much better by the international foodie Karlis Streips. Every so often, I plagiarize my own columns for Fatal Foodies or this blog’s food Wednesday. I ain’t proud.

World Wide Recipes is also on Facebook, so if you’re a FaceCracker, go Like the WorldWideRecipes page and get a free recipe every day. Or subscribe to the email free edition of the recipezine and get bunches of recipes every day. Or subscribe to the paid Plus edition and get even MOAR stuhf!!1! You’ll be glad you did.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character leaves a job and becomes a fan of his or her replacement. I, of course, am moderate and appropriate, as I always am in every circumstance — to hell with anything unrefined — but feel free to take yours as far as you like.

MA

Last night, I dreamed my mother wasn’t feeling well. I gave her a red necklace and some chicken soup and put her to bed.

This morning, Mom called me. She had swallowed a pill wrong the night before and coughed until her throat was sore. She was canceling our plans for the day and going back to bed. With a sore throat. Like red around the inside of her neck rather than the outside.

I’m used to having that kind of connection with #4 daughter, but this is the first time it’s happened with Mom.

Okay, that’s officially Weird.

Speaking of weird, I’m posting today at Fatal Foodies about my Cousin and Cheerios.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character experiences an extra-sensory connection with a relative he or she hasn’t seen for a long time.

MA

Every day, I post a writing prompt based on my post. Why? Because everything is about writing.

Everybody you meet has a back-story, and innumerable possible back-stories. You know the bag-boy at the grocery belongs to your best friend at church, but he could come from a dysfunctional home and be struggling with how to be “normal” without a childhood model of what “normal” means.

Everything that’s said has many possible meanings; you usually know what’s meant from context, but take away the context and the meaning could change. You know that “I could kill her” means “I’m aggravated”, but in a different context it might be a seriously contemplated option.

Event A has nothing to do with Object B, but what if they were part of the same thing?

Go to my sidebar and hit the archives at random to pick a prompt. Or use the one on this post. Then grab a random book or periodical or cereal box and pick three words at random. Write or outline a story, using those as inspiration. If you lose all of them in the process, that’s okay. A prompt is a prompt because it … you know … prompts you to do something.

Have fun!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: From a book or periodical, take a sentence. Look around and outside and pick an object. Put them together.

MA

In honor of the day, here’s a link to a story called “Per5ona1 355ay – My M0th34″, which I have to misspell here. I also had to change the address to Not Your Homework, because I was getting so many hits on it from people looking to scrape it for a class assignment. As you can see from the title of this post, they were either disappointed or flunked.

The story is in my latest collection, TURTLE FEATHERS, 99 cents and cheap at the price, available at Amazon. As soon as the 90-day exclusive is over, I’ll also have it for other formats. Meanwhile, please follow the link in the paragraph above and enjoy. The story, perhaps I need not say, was prompted by the sight of myself in the morning mirror.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Take a mythological person or creature and put him, her, or it into an everyday modern situation.

MA

Day before yesterday, I wrote a post and scheduled it — I thought — to post yesterday morning, but it posted that night, instead. So I had two posts on one day and no posts yesterday, which is Monking me out. That’s Adrian Monk, not the Monkey King.

But, as they say, life is ever thus.

Today, if this is Saturday, I begin by meeting our dealer at the Farmers’ Market at 8:00 to pick up our stuff. Vegetables and fruit, that is. He promised us kale, lettuce, and strawberries. Then I rush home and pick up Mom and take her to The Book Box, the Friends of the Library’s book sale room. Then we rush home for a visit from #4 daughter, who got STRAIGHT A-PLUSSES in all her freshman college classes!!1!

In other “news”, I installed a new 512mg memory stick in my desktop and backed up all my files (again), so I’m ready to install the new OS. I guess I’ll give the Linux Mint another try, with the Mandriva 2011 as a second choice.

Your eyes are glazing over. Wake up! This is NOT boring! It is NOT!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character is talking about something he or she finds fascinating and realizes that the person to whom he or she is talking is bored stiff.

MA

Okay, so I still need a new title for The Book Formerly Known As EEL’S REVERENCE. People are telling me they zip past it because they don’t want anything to do with anything with eels in the title.

When corrupt priests, greedy merchants, and local revolutionaries try to use Aunt Libby to enflame one side against another, they all learn that an old woman and a young mermayd make a serious stumbling block to their plans. Libby and Loach race against time, before the sea of the Eel runs red with blood.

Here are some suggestions I’ve gotten elsewhere. If you like any of them, please say in the comments. Feel free to add your own suggestions.

1. The Priest Who Preyed
2. Bound In Shallows
3. The Mermayd War
4. Faithful Tide
5. Death in Priest’s Clothing
6. Anointed in Blood
7. The Price of a Mermayd’s Soul
8. A Holocaust of Mermayds

Helllllllllp meeeeeeeee!

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Help me name my book!!

It was Jane’s birthday, but SHE gave ME a present. That’s just the kind of hairpin she is.

She knows, as do all my regular readers (hi, Mom!), that I am all about The Stone Monkey, Sun Wu-kung, The Handsome Monkey King, The Great Sage Equal To Heaven. Click that link to read up on him at Godchecker.com. So, when she saw this stone, she bought it for me. I’ve messed with the contrast/brightness to try to make the image clear in the photo; it’s quite clear in Real Life.

It’s a depiction of The Great Sage on the job in Heaven. He was given the job of guarding the Peaches of Immortality so, being Monkey, he ate them.

Oh, Monkey! Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?

No. No, he isn’t. And that’s why we love him.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: A character is given the job of guarding something valuable.

MA

You never heard of Walsh Salad? That’s because “Walsh” is a family code word. We have these wonderful friends named Walsh, who were growing their own produce in their back [space] yard (I hate backyard — HATE it) before it was cool. So, if we have a salad made entirely or mostly from our own produce, it’s a Walsh Salad.

Here’s a picture of this one. It’s mostly lettuces and baby spinach and green onions and asparagus from our garden, so it qualifies. It also has organic red peppers from the store, black olives and artichokes from cans, all slightly wilted with vinegar, sugar, and hot bacon grease from local organic bacon.

Not bad, children. Not too shabby.

Other beloved acquaintances and their eponyms (words derived from their names):

Ora Mae: To wash dishes inadequately. Example: I sure Ora Maed that spoon; put it back in the sink and get another one.

Mary Ann: To clean something and put it back in the box after every use. Example: I Mary Ann the waffle maker and rice cooker because I don’t have room for them on the counter.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Is there something you do or say or eat that reminds you of a particular friend?

MA

Couldn’t resist.

I loves me some interwebs, children! I wanted to post this picture of a rose in our back yard, and I thought, “What is WRONG with that rose? It doesn’t look at all well.” So that made me think of William Blake’s poem “The Sick Rose” and I went browsering. That’s my new word for browsing the internet. I know, I know: they call the program a browser because you use it to browse the internet. But browsering amuses me.

ANYWAY, I did find the Blake poem at The Poetry Foundation:

The Sick Rose

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

Pretty hot, eh? Speaking of which, I also found out that Johnny Depp played a character named William Blake (no relation to the metaphysical poet) in a movie named DEAD MAN. You’re welcome.

Meanwhile, I’m over at Fatal Foodies posting about a word that’s fun to say.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: What’s in your back yard? Or out your back window? Or on the street parallel to yours?

MA

We haven’t had a post from Mr. Hyatt because I was doing the April A-to-Z Challenge, but that’s over and he’s baaa-aaack.

Space, the Languishing Frontier
By F.A.Hyatt

Are you a disaffected Science Fiction buff? A true-believer, losing faith in the trek? Perhaps you are just awaiting something. Something like:

Advances in the science of Avarice.

Some professional commentary is now directed to the disappearance of ongoing manned space programs. As if hitting a wall, Government programs are being retired at an accelerating rate. While the retirement of the space shuttle system was more directed at its failure to deliver a less expensive system for orbital insertion, other efforts looking towards planetary missions or outpost engineering have also suffered cuts, including basic planning.

Part of this is for budgetary reasons, part because bio-research has uncovered greater challenges facing manned exploration. There is no denying our peeks into the cosmos have uncovered more issues than a need to engineer for more thrust and lower mass. That said, I feel the real issue lies in our progress towards less obvious developmental sciences. I group these together as an alternate taxonomy, The Science of Avarice. The issue being not how to get there, but what can be done profitably when we arrive.

Frontiers have always been explored in minor ways driven by a wish to advance pure science, but the major thrust has always been profit: the search for gold, trade routes, ranching opportunities, and other plunder. Travel has, throughout history, always been expected to yield significant, relatively immediate, return. There is a moon of Jupiter that hoards more liquid fuel than exists, or ever did, on Earth. We are talking here lakes, oceans, of combustible fuel. A place that literally rains the equivalent of liquid Butane. Some small asteroids floating beyond Mars contain more platinum than the Earths entire reserves.

These resources are almost uniformly at the bottom of relatively minor, compared to Earth, gravity wells. The sciences needed are the sciences of Avarice. How to get at them and retrieve them profitably and in reasonable time. If not retrieve them, get at them and do profitable on-site manufacturing with them, that makes other endeavors less expensive and more profitable. The realms are material, energy, robotics, AI, and power-based science. The advances needed are dispersed throughout the scientific system of inquiry, and comprise “the first steps” that need to be taken for a new explosion in development and exploration to begin.

Science fiction has always spurred the imagination, even driven entrepreneurs and scientists to follow the life paths they chose. Well, folks, here is a clear and needed vision to write about.

After having sent me this post, Mr. Hyatt immediately followed it with a link to this post called Is James Cameron launching an asteroid mining company? Food for thought.

A WRITING PROMPT FOR YOU: Write a paragraph from the point of view of someone who thinks the exploitation of extra-terrestrial resources is a great idea. Write a paragraph from the point of view of someone who thinks it’s a terrible idea. Just for fun, feel free to make one or both of these narrative points of view belong to an extra-terrestrial being.

MA