Towse: views from the hill

Backstory (Where authors share the secrets, the truths, or just the illogical moments that sparked our fiction. Brought to you by M.J. Rose) has an interesting premise. The blog posts are from writers explaining the stories behind the stories they write.

e.g.

John Lescroart’s Backstory:
How I Came To Write THE HUNT CLUB begins thusly.

I’m extremely fortunate in that my terrific publisher, Dutton Books, has been asking me to hand in a new book every May 1st for the past six years. The way it works is that I hand in my latest manuscript on that date, and then start thinking about what I’m going to write next, and the outline for that next book is due on September 1st. Some writers don’t like that kind of regimen, but fortunately for me, it seems to work.

So, in general, this is how The Hunt Club came about, too. But in another way, this book was very different, right from the beginning.

Click the link above to continue Lescroart’s story. Check out the rest of the blog too.

Debbie Ridpath Ohi’s weekly Will Write For Chocolate cartoon and column today are on dealing with rejection. As usual, she includes links to other useful sites filled with related information and tips.

In addition to the relatively-new Will Write For Chocolate, Debbie’s been writing Inky Girl: a weblog for writers for the past (gasp! I just checked!) three years now. Check it out. Debbie writes about other writing-related blogs, writerly sites, more. She has a section full of pointers to writing jobs. Archives are sorted by subject and by date.

Standard disclaimer: I used to work for Debbie when she was the wunderkind who started and ran Inkspot.com, one of the best online resources for writers (now, sadly, defunct). …But I’d read her blogs even without that connection.

His nibs brought me home a bottle of pisco last night that he found at Beverages and More. (Is he sweet or wot?) He said BevMo had three varieties of pisco on the shelves — two priced about $17 and the other about $30. He bought one of the $17 bottles because why buy the fancy kind when we were planning to like use it for a mixed citrusy drink, duh.

So … I took out the blender. Dropped one egg white in and whisked it up. Took about eight ice cubes and put them in a plastic bag and whacked them until they were little bits, because we just don’t have an ice crusher to our name.

Squeezed two lemons and poured the juice into a glass to measure.

Added the lemon juice, the ice, and twice as much pisco as lemon juice (using the glass I’d used for the lemon juice to measure) to the blender container with the whisked egg white.

Added 1T of powdered sugar. brzzzng! brzzzng!

Tasted. Whoo. Boy. Tart. Added another T of powdered sugar. brzzzng! brzzzng!

Tasted. Hoo! Still too tart. Added another 2T of powdered sugar. brzzzng! brzzzng!

Tasted. Still tart but not too tart, and I was worried that if I tried adding more sugar I’d get to the point where the whole thing tasted like a lemon drop or a Sweet Tart (not that there’s anything wrong with Sweet Tarts).

Poured the result into two bar glasses and dropped some Angostura bitters on top. Who knew we had Angostura bitters in the bar cabinet behind the single malt scotch and cognac? I don’t think I’ve ever in my life used them before. I was prepared to use nutmeg, which is what Destino uses, but was delighted to have Angostura bitters, which I think I like better.

The pisco sours tasted swell. We finished up the contents of the blender container and decided that maybe next time (February 5th is National Pisco Sour Day!) we would use only the juice of one lemon and, therefore, half as much pisco and, maybe, only 2T of powdered sugar.

Good thing pisco sours are a multi-step process (if you’re making them at home) or expensive (if you’re buying them at Destino). It’s as dangerous to know how to make them as it is to know how to make old-fashioned almond brittle and its brethren.

Writing and Public Speaking. Must the twain meet? I’m reminded of a library fundraising event I went to onceuponatime with Tony Hillerman as the guest speaker. Seems the event organizers had asked Robert Campbell if he’d be the event’s draw and he’d said (paraphrased), “I’m a writer. I enjoy writing. If I enjoyed public speaking, I probably would be in a different job.”

Campbell was, however, friends with Hillerman, who is nobody’s shy violet, and talked him into coming out to Monterey, CA, to speak in his stead.

Karin Gillespie over at Southern Comfort blogs about public speaking and encourages writers who are loathe to speak before groups to get with the program, or on the program or in the program and promote their books.

Here’s a collection of links from public-speaking.org that she includes in the blog post.