Online Class - Pioneering Women of the West

Pioneering Women of the West

By Anna Kathryn Lanier

Fascinating Women – Fascinating Lives

 

September 4-30, 2011

Hearts Through History RWA’s Campus

www.heartsthroughhistory.com

Register here: http://www.heartsthroughhistory.com/pioneering-women-of-the-west-3/

The West was discovered by men looking for adventure and fortune.   But it was civilized by women who brought families, schools, churches, and stability to the area.

In PIONEERING WOMEN OF THE WEST, you’ll learn about the western movement, the treacherous journey hundreds of thousands people took and of the lives of specific women who helped shape the West, intentionally or not. Some women went looking for a better life; others followed their man into the wilderness. 

There will be three lectures a week, with time for questions and answers and additional research on the participants’ part.

Schedule: 

September 4-9: Introductions; Syllabus; Western Movement overview

September 10-16: Who Went; Westward Ho!: Getting Started; Keturah Belknap

September 17-23: The Women: Mail-order Brides; Teachers; Doctors

September 24-30: Off the Beaten Path: Makers and Shakers; Miscellaneous 

Bio:

Anna Kathryn Lanier fell into the Western Movement by accident, but just like those mountain men and brave women of the 19^th Century, Anna Kathryn was bitten by the Western bug, too.  Research naturally followed her interest and though she doesn’t claim to be an expert, she knows just enough to get her into trouble.

 

Anna Kathryn is published in both contemporary and historical Westerns with The Wild Rose Press.  Visit her at www.aklanier.com and http://annakathrynlanier.blogspot.com/.

Wednesday's Chow - Rocky Mountain Oyster

by Andrea Dowing

This week's guest offers a very unique recipe.  I'm not telling you what they are if you don't know already, lol.  You'll figure it out...

And check out Andrea's blog from Monday, if you haven't yet, What's in a Word.

ROCKY MOUNTAIN OYSTERS

In my book, Loveland, I have a scene during spring round-up when the men are eating Prairie Oysters.  Better known today as Rocky Mt. Oysters, they are still served after spring round-up—and I should know, because this year I was at the Cottonwood Ranch in Wells, Nevada (http://www.cottonwoodguestranch.com/) for their round-up.  Amber Scholl is the wonderful chef there, and after the roping, branding, ear-marking, vaccinating, and final snipping to make would-be bulls into hefty steers, Amber’s work takes over.  Here’s her recipe and instructions for Rocky Mt. Oysters which I can personally vouch are delicious…if you don’t think about where they came from!  My deepest thanks to Amber for sharing this with us.

1)       Take the testicle and make a long incision vertically, just to remove the first membrane. Cut all remaining parts until membrane is completely separate. Wash or soak for an hour in cold water.

2)      Get your batter ready:   approx. 1 cup of flour, 2 tbs. of garlic powder (the more the better), 1 tbs. salt, 1 tbs. pepper, 1 tbs. seasoning salt (optional)

3)       Heat 1 cup of peanut, vegetable, or canola oil in your frying pan. (Amber prefers cast iron pans and peanut oil).

4)      While your oil is heating, remove the second membrane from the "oyster". To do this, you make another incision in the membrane until you can squeeze the meat out. It will naturally separate and then goes directly into the flour mixture.

5)      Once fully coated, add to oil, and cook until brown and crisp, maybe 8 minutes or so.

6)      Serve with fry sauce, ketchup, or anything else you prefer.

 

Amber told me there are many ways to cook these but this is her favorite. Mine too!

WHAT’S IN A WORD?

by Andrea Dowing

A while ago I received an email from a friend which began, “I’m flying low today…”  Concerned, I wrote her right back and said I hoped she wasn’t feeling ill.  She, in turn, replied that, that hadn’t been what she meant—she meant to say she was busy and had a lot of things to do.  Then we both googled the expression and were amazed to find that it actually was meant to be a polite way of telling a gentleman his fly was unzipped! So this got me thinking, and  worrying about how what we write may be misinterpreted by our readers.  In sending an email we often put in an emoticon if we need to make the point of what we are saying and how it should be read.  In writing dialogue, we use tag lines that should tell the reader how the line is meant.  But what happens when the tag line fails?

In my novel Loveland I have the tag, “she added acerbically.”  One friend complained that the adjective ‘acerbically’ took her right out of the book and, seeing it now, I’d have to agree.  Yet at the time it did seem the right word, a better choice than perhaps ‘sarcastically’ or ‘bitterly’.  But what was going on in my head at the time of writing and what goes on in my reader’s head at the time of reading may be two very different things.  And I am one solitary writer, but my readers are (hopefully) numerous and varied!  The best thing I can do is aim for the common ground.  In my WIP one critique has had me change ‘perused’ to ‘surveyed’ and I do think that’s an excellent choice.  What the heck was I thinking when I wrote ‘perused?’

Then there is the worry of dialect, especially in an historical western.  The original mss. for Loveland had a plethora of “cain’t”s and a sprinkling of “this a-here”s amongst the “reckon”s and “if’ns”.  As a reader, I find the overuse of dialect one of the most invasive devices; it simply kills my enjoyment of a book.  On the other hand, as a writer, I had to differentiate between my characters via their dialogue, especially between the English and the cowhands, most of whom had come up from the South to Colorado.  A happy medium had to be reached, a little dash of dialect for atmosphere.  I hope I’ve achieved that.

My other, very personal, problem is to be sure to be rid of my English expressions—unless of course I am writing the dialogue for an English character.  Having lived most of my life in the U.K., writing a Colorado or a Texan character is quite a stretch at times.  In Loveland, one helpful friend pointed out that Jesse would never say, “Why ever not?” but simply “Why not?”  Uh-oh!  I let that one slip.  Then, back to my WIP, my critique found a number of English words that had to be wiped from the mss:  ‘windscreen’ instead of ‘windshield,’ ‘cattle guard’ instead of ‘cattle grid,’ ‘ring’ instead of ‘call’ or ‘phone.’  For some reason, as I had moseyed on through life back in NYC, no one had corrected any of these to date.  Yet the converse was also a problem.  I have my English heroine in Loveland pointing out to her brother that she was never very good at “maths.”  Yes, in England it has an “s” on the end of it.  My editor pointed out to me that most American readers will believe it a typo. I had to reply that it was better for Americans to think it a typo than for English to think I didn’t know any better.

 In addition to individual words, there were expressions of the vernacular with which to deal.  As Professor Higgins sings in “My Fair Lady,” in America they haven’t used (English) for years! In my WIP I had one character saying, “…he’s real good with people, is Jake.”  Apparently in the good ol’ USA it should be, ‘Jake is.’   Maybe the British see the “he” with its modifiers as the subject—or  possibly it is pure and simply the turn of expression.  Add to this the local sayings like, ‘keep your powder dry’ or ‘keep it between the ditches’ and you can tell what sort of problems I faced.  And there’ll still be American readers saying I don’t know piddly from a possum princess!

 

 

 

Blurb:

When Lady Alexandra Calthorpe returns to the Loveland, Colorado, ranch owned by her father, the Duke, she has little idea of how the experience will alter her future. Headstrong and willful, Alex tries to overcome a disastrous marriage in England and be free of the strictures of Victorian society --and become independent of men. That is, until Jesse Makepeace saunters back into her life...

Hot-tempered and hot-blooded cowpuncher Jesse Makepeace can’t seem to accept that the child he once knew is now the ravishing yet determined woman before him. Fighting rustlers proves a whole lot easier than fighting Alex when he’s got to keep more than his temper under control.

Arguments abound as Alex pursues her career as an artist and Jesse faces the prejudice of the English social order. The question is, will Loveland live up to its name?

 

Excerpt:

 

As the round-up wound down, the Reps took their stock back to their outfits, and soon the men were back at headquarters or at the camps. Alex knew word had more or less got out and found the punchers were gentler now around her, had a sort of quiet respect for her, and she hated it. She tried to bully them a bit to show them she was still the same girl, jolly them into joshing with her as they had before. It was slow work. At the same time, she yearned to see Jesse, to speak with him, to try to get life back to the way it was before the argument at the corral, and before he saw the scars. The opportunity didn’t present itself. She would see him from a distance some days, riding with the herd, sitting his horse with that peculiar grace he had, throwing his lariat out with an ease that reminded her of people on a dock waving their hankies in farewell. Hoping to just be near him, she slid into one of the corrals one evening to practice her roping. The light was failing and the birds were settling with their evening calls. Somewhere in the pasture a horse nickered. She sensed Jesse was there, watching, but she never turned as he stood at the fence. She heard him climb over and ease up behind her. He took the coiled rope from her in his left hand and slid his right hand over hers on the swing end, almost forcing her backward into his arms. She thought of paintings and statues she had seen, imagining his naked arms now, how the muscles would form them into long oblique curves, how he probably had soft downy fair hair on his forearms, how his muscle would slightly bulge as he bent his arm. His voice was soft in her ear, and she could feel his breath on her neck like a whispered secret.

“Gentle-like, right to left, right to left to widen the noose, keep your eye on the post—are you watchin’ where we’re goin’?”

He made the throw and pulled in the rope to tighten the noose. lex stood there, his hand still entwined with hers and, for a moment, she wished they could stand like that forever. Then she took her hand away and faced him. For a second he rested his chin on the top of her head, then straightened again and went to get the noose off the post while coiling in the rope. She looked up at him in the fading light and saw nothing but kindness in his face, simplicity and gentleness that was most inviting. A smile spread across her face as he handed her the coiled rope and sauntered away, turning once to look back at her before he opened the gate. Emptiness filled her like a poisoned vapor seeking every corner of her being, and she stood with the rope in her hand listening to the ring of his spurs as his footsteps retreated.

 

Buy now: The Wild Rose Press,  Amazon, Barnes and Noble

 

Andrea Dowing

 http://andreadowning.com

 

Wednesday's Chow: Hungry Jack Beef Casserole

This week's guest, Paisley Kirkpatrick shares an easy recipe great for family gatherings or potlucks.  On Monday, Pasiley dicussed listening to your inner muse.  Check out her blog if you haven't read it yet!

Hungry Jack Beef Casserole

 Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef

¼ cup chopped onion

3/4 cup KRAFT barbecue sauce

1 tablespoon brown sugar

16 ounce can pork and beans

¾ cup (3 oz) KRAFT shredded natural cheddar cheese

 Directions:

Heat oven to 375 degrees.  In a large skillet, brown ground beef and onion; drain.  Stir in barbecue sauce, brown sugar and beans; heat until bubbly.  Pour into 2-quart casserole.  Separate dough into 10 biscuits; cut each biscuit in half crosswise.  Place biscuits cut-side down in spoke fashion around edge of casserole.  Sprinkle cheese over biscuits.  Bake at 375 degrees for 22 to 27 minutes or until golden brown.

Paisley Kirkpatrickhttp://www.paisleykirkpatrick.com/http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1272262167

Drawing from Your Inner Muse

by Paisley Kirkpatrick

William Blake (1757-1827) (English poet, painter and engraver) is one of the earliest and greatest figures of Romanticism.  He emphasized individual, imaginative, visionary and emotional creativity.  He privileged imagination over reason in the creation of both his poetry and images, asserting that ideal forms should be constructed not from observations of nature but from inner visions.  He declared in one poem, “I must create a system or be enslaved by another man’s.”

When I read William Blake's statement it rang true with me. As authors we draw from our inner vision, or as we refer to it, our muse. Our imagination gathers information from which we draw our ideas and create our plots. People often ask where I get my ideas. I really have no idea. They just seem to pop into my head and I put them on paper.

I started writing to accomplish a dream -- to write a story. All of the rest has been the cream on top. I am now on my fifth story, and much to my amazement and delight my first story will be published on the 21^st of August. Yes, with a lot of hard work and a bit of help from fate, dreams do come true. Mine just happened to have happened on Christmas Eve last year. I always thought I would scream and dance, but no, I sat frozen instead. All I could say was "WOW" in stunned amazement. My husband was asleep, and we never wake a sleeping bear. My critique partners live across the country from me and would probably have been happy to be awakened to hear my good news, but I just couldn't do it at 2:30 a.m. on Christmas morning. Now that I think back on it, having those special moments to myself might have been a good thing. It gave me time to reflect over the last years of working toward this moment.

A blurb on my story Paradise Pines Series: Night Angel

Sassy Amalie Renard, a poker-playing saloon singer, shakes up Paradise Pines, a former gold-rush mountain community by turning the saloon’s bar into her stage. Her amazing voice stirs the passions of the hotel owner, a man who anonymously travels tunnels at night providing help to the downtrodden as the mysterious Night Angel. Declan Grainger agrees to subsidize the building of a music hall to fulfill Amalie's dream, but a bounty for her arrest could spoil his plans. Distrust and jealousy stir flames of malice and revenge threatening to destroy their town. Drawing from past experiences, Declan and Amalie turn to each other to find a way to save the community.

 Paisley Kirkpatrickhttp://www.paisleykirkpatrick.com/http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1272262167

Wednesday's Chow: ANZAC Biscuits

By Margaret Tanner

In 1915, these biscuits were baked by mothers and sisters and sent in food parcels to troops serving on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey and also to France and Flanders.  The soldiers were members of an expeditionary force, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZACS). As my novel, Daring Masquerade, is set against a background of World War 1, I thought readers might be interested in this recipe.

Note from Anna Kathryn:  I love ANZAC biscuits. My Girl Scout troop had Australia one year for a Round the World Day activity and we made these 'cookies' for our snack.  I have since lost the recipe, so I'm glad to have it given to me now! ANZAC biscuits were popular with the troops because they 'traveled' well.  Thanks for sharing with us, Margaret.  By the way, if you have not read Margaret's Monday post on Roses: The flower of love, please do so now.

ANZAC biscuits

Ingredients:

125g (4 oz) butter

1 tablespoon golden syrup

2 tablespoons boiling water

1 ½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda (baking powder)

1 cup rolled oats

¾ cup desiccated coconut

1 cup flour

1 cup sugar. 

Method:

Melt butter and golden syrup over low heat. Add boiling water mixed with bicarbonate of soda.  Pour into mixed dried ingredients and mix well.

Drop teaspoonfuls of mixture on to greased baking trays, leaving room for spreading.

Bake in pre-heated slow oven (150C/300F) for 20 minutes. Cool on trays for a few minutes, then remove to wire racks to cool.

Store in an airtight container.  Makes about 45. 

DARING MASQUERADE

By the time Ross Calvert discovers Harry Martin is in fact Harriet Martin she has fallen in love with him. Realizing she has failed in her final effort to protect her shell-shocked brother, she puts a desperate proposition to Ross. Marry her and she will give him an heir.

Ross accepts.  However, he is tormented by the betrayal of his former fiancée Virginia.  On his honeymoon he meets her again and is still infatuated.  With the army recalling him to the trenches of France, he faces a terrible dilemma. Taste Virginia’s passion before he marches off to war, or keep his marriage vows to Harry.

 

Buy DARING MASQUERADE here.

 To put myself in the same position as my heroine, Harriet (Harry) in Daring Masquerade, who was thrown into jail for a crime she did not commit. I visited an old jail and went into the little stone cell, and although it was a hot day, inside the cell it was bone chillingly cold. I wanted to know what it was like to be incarcerated in such a place, so I could relate to how Harry felt. Pregnant, alone, the fear and the physical discomfort and the absolute hopelessness of her situation made worse by the hatred of her fellow prisoners who thought she was a spy. And if that wasn’t bad enough, her husband was fighting in the trenches of France, and she didn’t know whether he was alive or dead.

Margaret Tanner
Poignant, Passionate Wartime Romance
2011 EPICON FINALIST
2010 BEST HISTORICAL ROMANCE AT READERS FAVORITE
http://www.margarettanner.com

Roses: The Flower of Love

by Margaret Tanner

Roses are my favourite flower. My husband thinks I am obsessed with them.  I always wear rose perfume, Bush Rose, Musk Rose. The Yardley (English company) Rose is a lovely perfume, as sweet and fragrant as its name sake.

I have to confess that my garden is full of roses. Hubby hates them with a passion because he thinks they deliberately jump out and stick their prickles into him.

I love the old fashioned roses the best. They may not be quite as colourful as the modern day varieties, but they always have a gorgeous perfume.  Just Joey, a beautiful large bloomed orange rose with a delightful perfume is one of my favourites.  Another favourite is a blood red rose named Oklahoma, the perfume is as heady as wine.

It amazes me how often I seem to put a flower in the title of my romance novels, or describe garden scenes. It must have been an instinctive thing because I don’t recall actively trying to do this.

One of my published novels was titled The English Rose. It was revised and published by The Wild Rose Press (TWRP) as Frontier Wife. Holly and The Millionaire is another of my novels. The heroine, Holly has a daughter called Lilly. Daphne is the name of my heroine in A Mortal Sin, published by Books We Love. I have also written a short story Call Of The Apple Blossom.  I have a novel with TWRP going through the editing stages. It has a title of A Rose In No-Man’s Land.

My latest release from Books We Love is Savage Possession, and there is of course, a rose mentioned in this story. The Bonnie Prince Charlie rose, which was a symbol worn during the Jacobite rebellion. In English history, there was also The War of the Roses.

Can you see a pattern here? I love flowers, particularly roses.

 

SAVAGE POSSESSION

In colonial Australia it took hard men like Martin Mulvaney to tame a harsh land.

A sweeping tale of love's triumph over tragedy and treachery in frontier Australia.

A mistaken identity opens the door for Martin Mulvaney to take his revenge on the granddaughter of his mortal enemy.

An old Scottish feud, a love that should never have happened, and a series of extraordinary coincidences traps two lovers in a family vendetta that threatens to destroy their love, if not their lives. 

Buy SAVAGE POSSESSION here.

Margaret Tanner
Poignant, Passionate Wartime Romance
2011 EPICON FINALIST
2010 BEST HISTORICAL ROMANCE AT READERS FAVORITE
http://www.margarettanner.com

Wednesday's Chow - Champurradas

This week's guest, Paty Jager offers us a South American treat, drawn from research for her newest book Secrets of the Mayan Moon.  Read Paty's blog on Switching Genres While Sticking to What you Know.

I’ve not made this recipe. I borrowed it from my friend Cynthia Rothwell a Guatemalan who helped me with my book Secrets of a Mayan Moon. She has a wonderful blog where she reveals interesting information about her country. http://blog.guatemalangenes.com

Champurradas are under the category of what we call 'Pan de Manteca'. For breakfast a snack people say let's get pan de manteca and under that category fall various types of bread, cortadas, batidos, conchas, conchitas, batidas, besos, etc, and hojaldras, champurradas, etc, the latter group being 'pan de manteca tostado' (toasted). I knew that basically all are done with the same dough variations mainly on the shape, topping and time in the oven. The name Pan de Manteca should have hinted that the main ingredient is manteca (lard, shortening)....

Champurradas

Ingredients:

5 ounces of shortening

5 ounces of sugar

A handful of soft flour (not the normal gold medal kind)

Sesame seeds

Directions:

Mix the first three ingredients, make a ball and flatten the ball to the size and thickness you want the champurrada to be. Sprinkle with sesame seed.

Bake for 25 minutes at 350°F. 

This can be eaten with beans or dunked in coffee.

 As you can imagine, Cynthia was a wonderful resource for me while writing my book. She also read the book and helped me with the Guatemalan dialog.

I have the characters eating local fare and enjoying the fruit of the country.

Blurb:

Child prodigy and now Doctor of Anthropology, Isabella Mumphrey, is about to lose her job at the university. In the world of publish or perish, her mentor’s request for her assistance on a dig is just the opportunity she’s been seeking. If she can decipher an ancient stone table—and she can—she’ll keep her department. She heads to Guatemala, but drug trafficking bad guys, artifact thieves, and her infatuation for her handsome guide wreak havoc on her scholarly intentions.

DEA agent Tino Kosta, is out to avenge the deaths of his family. He’s deep undercover as a jaguar tracker and sometimes jungle guide, but the appearance of a beautiful, brainy anthropologist heats his Latin blood taking him on a dangerous detour that could leave them both casualties of the jungle.

Excerpt:

“The duffel on the seat has food.” Tino’s attention remained on the road as they wove their way through shacks made of anything the occupants could get their hands on to keep out the heat and rain.

Isabella focused her attention on the food in the bag rather than the hungry-looking children. Her heart ached to roll down the window and dole out the food to the unhappy faces. Her father always found fault with her generous—though he called it tender—heart.

Her fingers wrapped around a warm foil package. She pulled out the foil, then bananas, mangoes, and avocadoes she found nestled together in the duffel.

“Keep digging. There should be queso fresco wrapped in a banana leaf.” Tino’s gaze strayed from the road to the pile of food she’d placed on the seat beside her.

“There’s enough food in this bag for the town.” She found the leaf bundle. Her fingertips grazed something cold and hard. Curious, she ran her fingers over the object.

A hand gun.

Shivers slithered up her arm and centered in her chest. If Tino was part of the group who used her to transport passports, he wouldn’t have allowed her access to the bag with his weapon, would he? She shot a glance his direction as her heart raced. He was relaxed, unconcerned about her rummaging in his bag and finding the gun. In the jungle, it made sense a guide would have a gun. Her racing heart slowed, and she chastised herself for thinking he was anything other than the guide Virgil hired.

His voice registered as he reached toward the bag.

Isabella jerked the bag back, but not before he plucked a banana. Air squeezed out of her lungs. She didn’t know which would have been worse, him reaching for the gun or finding her clutching the weapon.

“W-what?” She worked to focus her mind on what he said and not the unhealthy direction her thoughts had spiraled.

“We need enough food to get us from here to the dig. It could take two to three days depending on the rains.” He stared at her, one dark brow raised in question.

Could he tell she’d found his weapon? Should I just come out and ask him about it? Bravery had never been her strong suit, but directness—she had that by the boat load. She slipped her hand back into the bag and withdrew the gun.

“What is this for?”

Secrets of a Mayan Moon is available at Kindle, and Smashwords.  

www.patyjager.net

www.patyjager.blogspot.com

Switching Genres While Sticking to What you Know

Well, let's try this again!  Paty Jager was a guest on my blog last year, and I accidentally reposted that blog again!  Yikes.  So, I've deleted the wrongly posted blog and now have the correct one. I am sorry about that readers and, especially, Paty.

Here's the correct post:

Anna Kathryn, Thank you for having me on your blog.

I typically write westerns both contemporary and historical, with a paranormal twist tossed in sometimes. My latest writing adventure is an action adventure with romantic elements that came about while riding back and forth to a writers retreat. My friend Julie who writes suspense with romantic elements and I were hashing over some books we’d read and I commented on how I was disappointed in a book toted to have a female Indiana Jones. I’d read the book with expectations that the book would be set outside the U.S. only to find  a chapter in the beginning and one at the end were set outside the United States.  And I hadn’t found the action all that adventuresome.

This is the discussion between Julie and I.

Julie: Why don’t you write one?

Me: I can’t write action adventure and I’ve worked hard at branding myself. I write western or Native American.

Julie: So make the heroine have something to do with Native American studies.

Me: I guess that would work. (here my brain started kicking into overdrive)

Julie: Where would you set this story?

Me: South or Central America.

Julie: Why?

Me: I could use the heroine’s studies of Native American Indians as her reason for traveling to countries with drug problems.

Julie: Why?

Me: Because the hero would be with the DEA

And that is how Secrets of a Mayan Moon became a kernel of an idea in my head and is now the first of a three book series about Doctor Isabella Mumphrey a woman with a genius IQ who finished her doctorate in anthropology at the age of twenty-two and is passionate about her studies because she feels the quarter Hopi blood in her veins is pushing her to discover all she can about the people who inhabited the Americas before it was discovered by Europeans.

Blurb

Child prodigy and now Doctor of Anthropology, Isabella Mumphrey, is about to lose her job at the university. In the world of publish or perish, her mentor’s request for her assistance on a dig is just the opportunity she’s been seeking. If she can decipher an ancient stone table—and she can—she’ll keep her department. She heads to Guatemala, but drug trafficking bad guys, artifact thieves, and her infatuation for her handsome guide wreak havoc on her scholarly intentions.

DEA agent Tino Kosta, is out to avenge the deaths of his family. He’s deep undercover as a jaguar tracker and sometimes jungle guide, but the appearance of a beautiful, brainy anthropologist heats his Latin blood taking him on a dangerous detour that could leave them both casualties of the jungle.

Excerpt

She deposited her backpack on the floor at her feet. The horn handle of a twelve inch Guatemalan blade protruded from the side pocket. Tino’s curiosity spiked another notch.

“I have a reservation. Dr. Isabella Mumphrey.”

Tino snapped the paper down and stared even harder at the woman. This was the frumpy, old anthropologist he was to guide? His gaze scanned the length of her one more time while tuning in the conversation.

“Ahh, Dr. Mumphrey, Dr. Martin said you were to get the finest room, no?” The clerk acted like a simpering fool giving the doctor her key and expounding on all the wonders of the hotel.

“Gracias. May I borrow a paper and pencil? I need to make a list for the taxi driver.”

The clerk handed her the items. She stepped to the side of the counter and began writing.

Why would she make a list for a taxi driver? Curious, Tino folded the paper and strolled to a spot beside her. So intent on her list, she didn’t even acknowledge his presence as he leaned, reading the items. Army knife, candle, braided fishing line, hooks, swivels, 24 gauge snare wire…

“You are planning a trip into the jungle, no?”

She started at his voice. Deep green eyes rimmed in gold stared at him from behind wire-rimmed lenses. She blinked, focused on him, and narrowed her eyes.

“Didn’t your mother teach you manners? You don’t look over people’s shoulders to see what they’re doing.” She picked up her list and held it to her damp shirt.

“Mi mamá did teach me manners, no? I am Tino Kosta, your guide to the dig at Ch’ujuña.” He held out his hand waiting for her to shake.

Her gaze traveled from his extended hand up his arm to his face. She squinted her eyes and glared at him.

“You’re not of Mesoamerican descent, so you can’t possibly be my guide. Are you in cahoots with the disgusting little man who stole my property?” She bent toward her backpack, giving him a good view down the front of her blouse.

Si, she didn’t wear a bra. The nipples peaking through her clingy shirt sat atop a palm-sized mound. Now, being a man who liked his hands filled to overflowing when it came to handling a woman—

“¡Carajo!” The pointed end of the large knife that had been tucked in the doctor’s backpack waved inches from his nose. “What is this about?” A woman who ran around without undergarments shouldn’t be offended by a man viewing her body.

Secrets of a Mayan Moon is available at Kindle, and Smashwords.

Please visit me at:

www.patyjager.net

www.patyjager.blogspot.com

The 2012 Lone Star Writer's Conference

***PERMISSION TO FORWARD APPRECIATED ***

The 2012 Lone Star Writer's Conference
http://nwhrwa.com/writers-events/lonestar-conference/

Presenter: Best-Selling Author JAMES SCOTT BELL
Topic: Plot And Structure

Attending Editors: Chris Keeslar, Boroughs Publishing Group
Liz Pelletier, Entangled Publishing
Deborah Gilbert, Soul Mate Publishing

Attending Agents: Elaine Spencer, The Knight Agency

Location: Houston Marriott North at Greenspoint
Date & Time: October 13, 2012; 9 am to 5 pm (registration and breakfast 8:30 - 9:00 a.m.)
Cost: $130.00 (includes lunch and coffee breaks)

James Scott Bell presents…
PLOT & STRUCTURE: In this day-long workshop, you'll learn techniques and exercises for crafting a plot that grips readers from start to finish, including:

• Dazzling dialogue
• Plotting for perfect structure, every time
• •"Jump off the page" characters
• Power revision for next-level novels
• Stronger scenes for stronger manuscripts

Register Today!

** 2012_Registration Form_Lone Star **
http://nwhrwa.com/writers-events/lonestar-conference/

Accommodations:

Houston Marriott North
255 N Sam Houston Pkwy East • Houston, Texas 77060 USA
* $79.00 – For Room Reservation Click Here *

*Permission to forward is granted and encouraged*

Wednesday's Chow - Robin’s Super-Secret Chile con Queso

Hmmm, this week's guest, Robin Badillo is sharing her super-secert recipe....I don't know, Robin. I'm thinking it's not so super-secret any more.  Thanks for sharing and if you haven't stopped by Robin's blog "The Nose Knows" stop by for a chuckle on ereaders.

Robin’s Super-Secret Chile con Queso

Ingredients:

1 box Velveeta cheese cut into cubes

3-4 Roma tomatoes - diced

1 small onion - diced

1 cup chopped cilantro

1 jalapeño, finely diced (cut in half lengthwise and scoop out seeds to lessen the heat)

milk

Directions: 

In large microwavable bowl, add milk to Velveeta cheese cubes. (Do not add too much or cheese will be soupy. Usually a cup or so will do.)

Heat in microwave on high until cubes begin to melt.

Remove and add tomatoes, onion, cilantro and jalapeño (more on less depending on desired heat level)

Mix well and resume heating, stirring occasionally until cheese is completely melted.

Serve with tortilla chips.

If you would like to check out Robin's blog/website, please do…just be sure you’re over 18.

Learn more about Robin at:

Website: http://www.robinbadillo.org
Friend me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/robin.badillo
Like my Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorRobinBadillo
Check out my books on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Robin-Badillo/e/B004R7M2JY/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1343538410&sr=1-2-ent