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“Things Every Southern Woman Should Know How to Make”

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Alice clicked on the headline, mildly curious about what yet another stranger thought should be in her kitchen repertoire. Pictures of China plates mounded with crispy fried chicken, greens, cobbler, and a pile of biscuits a mile high flooded the screen, all set off with a pitcher of sweet tea beaded with condensation. The table was set; an apron draped off to the side next to a box labeled “Gramma’s Recipes” in fine calligraphy. She closed the browser and put away her tablet. She was born a Georgia peach, but she couldn’t make a cobbler to save her life. Did that mean she wasn’t southern? Or maybe just not “Southern.” For Alice, there was no recipe box full of family traditions. Her younger years were filled with rental homes in different states and her father’s voice coaxing her toward a text book rather than a cookbook. Metalworking and fabrication held more interest than learning to flambé or sauté. Did it make her less of a woman that her cooking skills consisted of fresh salads...
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Cover Reveal!! Tamara Mataya's JUST BREATHE

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It is with great pleasure that I get the chance to participate in another cover reveal for the kick-ass Tamara Mataya! And since I'm all about content over beauty, let's check out the insides of Tamara's JUST BREATHE.     Twenty-one-year-old Elle Granger’s boyfriend broke up with her like a coward. He moved to another city without so much as a "goodbye." Devastated and embarrassed, Elle told friends the break-up was mutual and she endured the heartbreaking split without support from the people she's closest with. Instead, she embraced her librarian job as therapy and spent her nights medicated by a thick cloud of pot smoke. With her lungs, and heart, screaming for a break, Elle quits smoking cold turkey. Just when she's about to ask for support from her friends, and let them in on the truth of Jason's humiliating betrayal, her best friend moves to Spain. Enter sexy-as-hell library patron Dominic, who literally knocks Elle off her feet duri...
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Cover Reveal! Stacy O'Neale's THE SHADOW PRINCE

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Hello, all! Today, I bring you another exciting But, before we get to the gorgeousness that lies below, let's learn a little about what's inside. Every sacrifice has consequences. Sixteen-year-old Rowan has spent most of his life living among the mortals—learning to control the element of fire, impatiently awaiting the day his vengeful mother, Queen Prisma, will abdicate her throne. When he finally returns to Avalon for his coronation, his mother insists he must first prove his loyalty to the court by completing a secret mission: Kill Kalin, the half-human, half-elemental daughter of the air court king. Willing to do anything to remove his mother from power, he agrees to sacrifice the halfling. He returns to the mortal world with his best friend, Marcus, determined to kill the princess. But as he devises a plan, he starts to question whether or not he's capable of completing such a heinous task. And what price he will pay if he refuses?   ...
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2014: Skyrim, Rocksmith, and Words

Hello, all! First off, I hope the new year is going well for everyone. I sort of fell into a blog black hole toward the end of 2013. I’m back now, and I hope to keep a better schedule, but no promises. Last year, I mourned the death of my old PS3 and, thanks to my lack of home internet, the loss of my save data. I bought a new PS3 and piddled around with some games, but I just couldn’t get back in the groove. Well, I’m once again traversing Skyrim with my bow, sneaking up on bandits and shooting down dragons. The nonlinear play of Skyrim and the vast number of missions has kept it from being too repetitive. Not to mention, I now have the Legendary version, complete with all the download expansions. (I’m ridiculously excited to build my own house.) I’m also starting Rocksmith 2014. I’ve always wanted to play guitar. Once I’m done cursing the tuning section, I think it’ll be a fun way to learn. Assassin’s Creed 4 is on my to-do list…after I finish AC3. Not all my free...
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COVER REVEAL! THE BEST LAID PLANS by Tamara Mataya

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Fangirl Time! I love raving about things that excite me, and this is definitely one of those things! The lovely Tamara Mataya   is revealing her debut novel, THE BEST LAID PLANS, coming soon from Swoon Romance!  Before you scroll down for a look at the shiny cover, find out about the awesome story of Malcolm and Jayne!   Jayne Griffin isn’t looking for Mr. Right. She’s looking for Mr. RTFN and a toe-curling good time. She’s got the brains, the powerful job as a futures broker, and thanks to a makeover and a thin book of dating advice, the confidence to turn any man’s head.                         Malcolm Black notices his high school crush, Jayne, from the stage of her company’s work party. His adolescent feelings for her died beneath months of abuse at the hands of bullies. Abuse that was Jayne’s fault. Though this scorching hot studio m...
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Writing Ramble: My Adventures in Plotting

I am a hardcore pantser when I’m writing. I know a mood and a general direction I want to go in, and I write. But that’s not working for this one particular WIP. My general roll-wherever-the-words-take-me method worked for about twelve pages. Then I got stuck. I knew where I wanted to go; I even had the basic plot written down. However, I couldn’t see the details within the picture. It was like trying to do a connect-the-dot puzzle with only two dots. (The thing’s supposed to be a bunny, y’all.) So, I did the thing I never thought I’d do. I made an outline. Yes, an orderly, structured, numerated document of information to guide me along my way. The thing I never wrote in school until I’d already finished my paper. And once I had it nice and neat, I saved it as a separate document, and I added details in subsections until the dots started looking somewhat bunny-shaped. It’s terrifying and so unlike me. My critique partner thinks I’ve been replaced with a pod person. B...
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That Time I Tricked My Creative Nonfiction Classmates into Thinking I Was a Dude

I think I've mentioned somewhere on here that I used to be part of a sword fighting club back in the day. Well, once many years ago, I took a creative nonfiction writing class in which I wrote about it. That particular assignment called for anonymity. After the critiques were done, we had the option to claim our works. To the shock of many of my classmates, the following story was indeed not written by a dude. Warmongers   We were mighty.   We were a band of warmongers, at times forty strong, battling to the death with swords of PVC pipe, padding, and duct tape.   We were the UCA sword-fighting club, and our battleground was Old Main.   Our founding father and great leader was Steven.   With a sharp eye and careful hand, he fashioned weapons for those of us that recently joined the ranks.   With the help of the veterans such as Cyrus and Matt, he kept us in line and trained us in the laws so we didn’t get thrown off campus.   Our rule...
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Ramblings of a Casual Gamer: Final Fantasy X Epiphany

Since the death of my 60GB PS3, I’ve been a little burnt out on games. None of my newer games have been able to pull me in. Trouble was, I wanted to play something. Anything. But the God of War games my new machine came with just couldn’t hook me. So, one day I thought, Why not an old game?   I switched on my old-school PS2. And I popped in Final Fantasy X. It’d been just long enough since I’d played it that I forgotten enough about the gameplay for it to be interesting. It took a bit to adjust my vision to the lower graphics, but then I was off, immersed in the story and enjoying some turn-based battle. As I played, I started thinking about the reasons I was enjoying FFX so much more than I had newer Final Fantasy games. Here’s what I’ve come up with:   Random Encounters They can be annoying as hell when you’re rushing across a map to reach a destination, but they add a sense of danger that non-random encounters lack. Random Encounter—I’m just gonna stroll ...
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