Comfort foot: Barbecued beans

Moriah

There’s nothing special about this and there is no weird story behind it like yesterday’s; it’s just a childhood favorite I haven’t made in years. However, we had a block party Saturday and thus I bade Dude to purchase the dreaded pork’n’beans.

64 oz. pork & beans
hot dogs or sausage (sliced)
2 large onions, chopped
1/2 c. brown sugar
2 Tb. molasses
1/2 c. barbecue sauce (I use Gates. Do NOT use Bryant’s!)
3 tsp. liquid smoke
bacon
 
Combine all ingredients but bacon. Put in a 13 x 9 and cover with bacon. Bake at 350 for 1 hour.

Comfort food: Trouble salad

Moriah

Okay, it’s really macaroni salad and about as ubiquitous as can be, but there’s a story behind the title.

It was 1980. In Kansas City. In the summer.

The 1980 United States Heat Wave was a period of intense heat and drought that wreaked havoc on much of the Midwestern United States and Southern Plains throughout the summer of 1980. It is among the most devastating natural disasters in terms of deaths and destruction in U.S. history, claiming at least 1,700 lives and because of the massive drought, agricultural damage reached US$20.0 billion (US$55.4 billion in 2007 dollars, adjusted for the GNP inflation index). It is among the billion-dollar weather disasters listed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. [ … ] In Kansas City, Missouri, the high temperature was below 90 only twice and soared above the century mark (100 °F/38 °C) for 17 days straight [ … ]

Read more →

Creepy collective consciousness is creepy

Moriah

It appears I’m not the only writer with her knickers in a twist over The Book That Shall Not Be Named, and not only that, but it appears the writerly collective conscious had gotten its knockers knickers in a twist somewhere between Sunday night and Monday morning. Usually when the twist in my knickers gets too tight, I simply avoid the source. In this case, I can’t. It’s everywhere, including my snail mail box after my 70-year-old aunt in Salt Lake took the time to cut an article on it from Deseret News and drop it in the mail to me. I can’t get away from it.

Between this and the incessant banging on the marketing drum, I’ve pretty much had all I can take of the business side of being a writer. (Note: Being a publisher is an entirely different thing.) Read more →

“A book a year is slacking.”

Moriah

This sentiment got some traction in writerland a couple of weeks ago, but since the beginning of this digital publishing surge, it’s been a (sometimes unspoken) maxim. No, actually, it’s been around a long time. Way back in the day when I was a member of RWA and went to all the chapter meetings (MARA), there were two prolific category writers in my chapter. They worked for both Harlequin and Silhouette and put out three titles a year minimum. Then you have the James Patterson-type book mills wherein a team of ghostwriters is assigned to an idea and a title and off they go. I now know of many writers, especially erotic romance and erotica writers who espouse this view. Read more →

Men who hate women

Moriah

A still shot of Rooney Mara in THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO. She has a very short black haircut with a straight line of bangs, and piercings on her face. She's wearing a black scarf and jacket.The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

Dude and I went to see this movie for his birthday. I haven’t been interested in reading the books because a) I’m not a thriller/mystery fan and b) haven’t had time to devote to sampling genres I’m not usually interested in. I’m still not interested in reading the books, because I either read the book or see the movie, but not both. (I got burned in the Bonfire of the Vanities.) I am interested in seeing the Swedish version. Read more →

Monsters! Mormons! Not necessarily synonymous!

Moriah

The cover of MONSTERS & MORMONS, in oil painting impressionist style, with two women in skirts/blouses, with knives, fighting off purple tentacles.My editor and partner, Theric Jepson, who runs Peculiar Pages alongside my running of B10 Mediaworx, made some sort of joke on Twitter (don’t remember the joke), and Wm Morris of A Motley Vision (a MoLit blog) had an idea. And the idea was to skewer the 19th-century literary tradition of using Mormons as stock villains in pulp fiction by turning the Mormons into the protagonists instead of the antagonists.

Plans were being made. I felt no compunction to submit a story to this anthology of pulp fiction because a) I don’t read pulp fiction; I read trashy romance novels aka porn for women and so b) I didn’t feel qualified to write anything for it. But then Wm posted an update on AMV saying, “I’d like to see X, Y, Z, and A, B, and C.” Well, I thought. I could do Y, Z, and B. So I did. Read more →

A story

Moriah

Uh oh I Get in Trouble

by Tax Deduction #1
(3rd grade)

Chapter 1

Uh oh I get in trouble for drawing on the walls. “[FIRST MIDDLE LAST]!” Mom yelled really loudly. “WHY DID YOU draw a little dot on the wall!” “[FIRST]!” my dad snapped. “You are not going to have chocolate chip pie for 1 month.” “Ha. Ha, ha, haaaa, ha, stinky head!”* said [Brother]. “You are not having apple juice for 3 months.”

*do not say this to your mom or dad

 

Chapter 2

Now after 2 months I am getting bored. “When is my grounding over?” I asked. “After another two months,” my mom said.

 

Chapter 3

It’s been 4 months and I am not grounded anymore. “Hurray!” I shouted.

Early adopter rage

Moriah

[2025-07-24: Blackbird Pie plugin no longer exists, nor do the tweets. Text pulled from backups.]

Dear Berkley, I was all set to buy INDIA BLACK on my Kindle, but it was $9.99. No Effing Way.
twitter.com/#!/MoriahJovan/status/22156474088169472

Dear Big-6 Publishers, it’s not that we’re not buying books. It’s that we aren’t buying YOUR books.
twitter.com/#!/MoriahJovan/status/22157961505800192

Journal entry: February 3, 2007

Moriah

I used to be a writer.  I wrote lots of stuff.  It never got published and I gave up.  I just … stopped … one day.  Sometimes I read what I wrote and I get a charge from it, and I catch myself wondering how the author would have finished it if she had finished it.  I suppose I’ll never know.

(I started writing The Proviso in August 2007.)

How to destroy a brand in one easy (lazy) step

Moriah

So most of us DIYers out here are trying to brand ourselves. We spend our time on Twitter and Facebook and message boards and whatnot trying to build an audience and a fanbase.

Then the midlist authors come along and digitize their backlists, and everybody’s happy because they already have a brand and they’re simply supplying a product that people want. Yay.

And then there are the midlist and higher-up authors who self-publish new stuff. That’s kind of an interesting experiment. I like watching it all play out even though, well, their brand trumps my brand and I have to work harder at establishing my brand. Read more →

Fiction takes you places

Moriah

Cover of William Golding’s LORD OF THE FLIES, with a yellow-tinted mass of jungle vegetation.A fan I tweet with regularly told me my books mess with her head and take her places she doesn’t want to go, but she goes there anyway.

I regularly hear the arguments that reading fiction can teach you empathy or give you a peek into someone else’s world. In other words, fiction is good for you. Like eating your vegetables is good for you. Read more →

People watching

Moriah
Three iguanas lounging on three tiny purple velvet chaise lounges.
Every breath you take and every move you make; Every single day and every word you say, I’ll be watching you.

Yesterday I had surgery for the first time ever (not counting wisdom teeth). It was elective and went well, so everything’s fine.

Anyway. I very rarely go out. I’m a serious hermit. When I do go out, I avoid people like the plague. I don’t care to be touched or talked at by total strangers. I’m very conscious and protective of my personal space. But.

I watch. Read more →

Mommy, why don’t you smile anymore?

Moriah

My son said this to me a couple of months ago and I’ve been guilting over it ever since.

Well, it’s because I’m stressed. My work life kind of exploded some time last summer when I decided to escape the (dying) industry I’d been in for the previous seven years in favor of the formatting work that was falling on top of me. I kept thinking I could do less work for more money and spend time with my kids, but … That’s not the way it worked out.

Is it ever? Read more →

NetGalley

Moriah

For whatever reason, NetGalley has decided to start putting tighter restrictions implemented publishers’ tightening of restrictions on who gets free eARCs (electronic Advanced Reader Copies).

So what.

Here’s the thing: NetGalley charges what is, to me, a micropress, an astronomical amount of money to give away books. That’s right: I would be paying to give my product to people in exchange for … very little in the way of a quantifiable return.

NetGalley is not in business to lose money. It’s in business to make money by providing a publishers’ colony. However publishers decide to define their ROI (return on investment) is how NetGalley’s going to be bringing in the money.

Follow the money.

When all other explanations fail, just follow the money.

Printgasm BINGO

Moriah

I totally don’t blame Scalzi for being sick of the arguments for self/digital publishing. I self/digital publish and I’m sick of the evangelizing, too. (Because most of the arguments are just shitty logic.)

HOWEVER.

There’s another side of the Electronic Publishing BINGO card: Printgasm BINGO, for those who believe that reading ebooks is just one step away from civilization sliding back into the primordial ooze.

“Printgasm” BINGO card. Text: “B1: I can dog-ear the pages. B2 [in various colors]: I can highlight passages in books in color. B3: I can write margin notes in a book. B4: I can put a Post-It note in a book. B5: I can use pretty bookmarks. I1: I like the feel of a book. I2: I like the smell of a book. I3: Books are prettier than electronic files. I4: I can show off the cover to strangers. I5: I can look at books on shelves. N1: I can read books in the bookstore while I drink my coffee. N2: You’ll pry my print books from my cold, dead hands! N3: I’ve never read an ebook, but I hate them. Nya nya nya. HATE! N4: I like to see the books in my TBR stack. N5: I don’t need a machine to read books. G1: Books keep printers employed. G2: I can buy books used. G3: I can re-sell my books. G4: I can lend a book. G5: Books don’t have DRM. O1: I can burn a book for emergency fuel. O2: I can take a book to the beach. O3: I can use pages for emergency toilet paper. O4: I can read a book in the bathtub. O5: Books won’t break if dropped or sat on.