Categories: LIFESTYLE

31 Dec 2009, Comments (1)

Friday Feast: Guinness Chocolate Cake

Author: Lia Keyes

This is one of my favorite chocolate cake recipes EVER. You can make it as a traditional round cake, or as individual cup cakes. The process and cooking time are the same.

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Popularity: 16% [?]

Categories:
Friday Feast,LIFESTYLE
Tags:
cake, recipe

27 Dec 2009, Comments (0)

Sending the Inner Editor on Vacation

Author: Ann Marie Gamble

Much advice about getting words on the page and finishing a manuscript will recommend at some point to “banish your inner critic!” If you’re critiquing or editing as you go, the theory goes, you’re also inhibiting your imaginative self, the parts that will come up with the fantastic ideas.

I’m an editor in my day job, and I do a lot of wrestling with the issue of ignoring the Inner Editor—at this house she’s paying the mortgage, so we don’t want her to go on permanent leave. Eventually, that’s who’s going to convert this shambling bramble pile of a first draft into a fabulous novel, so the trick is to be able to change gears, not banish entirely. Here are some concrete tricks and a bit of theorizing that I’ve used to help get in a creative groove.

First, some analysis: think a bit about what brings out your censorious side. What conditions does your critic like? These may be times of day, a room of your house, certain topics? Is critique a part of your job, part of a particular activity? At this level of combat, do your writing in the opposite of these conditions. If you do editing work in Word, write in Word Perfect. Edit at a desk? Write at a table, or on the sofa, or in a hammock. Until you get good at talking to your Inner Editor, practice avoidance. (more…)

Popularity: 16% [?]

Categories:
Habits and Habitats,LIFESTYLE,WRITING CRAFT
Tags:
internal editor

18 Dec 2009, Comments (2)

Friday Feast: Illustrator Lauri Jon Caravella’s Rum Ball Recipe

Author: Lia Keyes

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Ahhh, rum balls… It must be Christmas! When thickly dusted with icing sugar they look like tiny snowballs, and a few of them nestling in a pretty gift box make for one of the easiest, cheapest and most delight-inducing gifts for the holidays. This recipe was given to me by artist/illustrator and steampunk jewelry-maker Lauri Jon Caravella just a few days ago, and normally you wouldn’t find me scurrying off to the kitchen right away to see if I have the right ingredients (I did) because cooking is one thing I have absolutely no curiosity about. But this recipe was easy enough even for the culinarily-challenged, like me, so I thought I’d share the goodness with you. Straight from this scribbler’s kitchen to yours, with best wishes for the most self-indulgently decadent holiday season ever.

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Popularity: 30% [?]

Categories:
Friday Feast,ILLUSTRATION,LIFESTYLE
Tags:
Friday Feast, recipes

3 Dec 2009, Comments (1)

G’Day from Nicky Strickland, Scribbler Down Under

Author: Nicky Strickland

G’Day!

Yes, an Aussie saying, coming from an Aussie. Don’t get used to it. I’m not one for using the term, and I don’t think I’ve ever uttered the word ‘crikey’. My name is Nicky Strickland, and Scribblerati’s founder Lia Keyes managed to convince me that posting regularly here on the Edge would be a good idea. So here I am.

I’ll admit the fact that I may be the lone voice from Down Under had a certain appeal for me. I mean, while many of you reading this are wondering how cold can it go, I’m wondering just how many unending days of high humidity and temperatures in the mid-30s (high 80’s in fahrenheit) I can survive before having my head implode.

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Popularity: 15% [?]

Categories:
LIFESTYLE
Tags:
Australia

24 Nov 2009, Comments (0)

Why’s The Chocolate Always GONE?!!

Author: Lia Keyes

It’s 1.27 am and the house is quiet. Even my hyper Irish hound is out cold. The cats are snoring ever so softly. No Harleys are thundering past my window, making the glass rattle in its frame. All is at peace. Except my stomach. My stomach craves CHOCOLATE.

Why does it always do that when I haven’t got any?!! Why does the craving always hit hardest when I’m up late trying to thrash out a few more NaNoWriMo words?

Gingerly, I investigate the contents of the fridge, looking for something, anything, to assuage the craving. But all I find is moldy cheese, tired bacon leftovers (I was going to use them in a casserole that never happened) and a shriveled lemon, half wrapped in cling film that’s seen better days. This is not good.

Peanut butter on toast, I decide, my heart lifting. I can do that. But I managed to get suckered into buying the ‘all-natural, organic, old-fashioned grandma’s recipe’ version, and the two-inch layer of oil on the top makes my stomach lurch. “You have to stir it,” said the lady in the shop when I bought it. “Right,” I answered, not wanting to look the stupid Brit. “I knew that.”

But actually, all I know (at what is now 1.33 am) is that I should have gone for the biggest bag of Peanut M & M’s I could find instead. Or a Milky Way Midnight. Then I would have been able to write. Because clearly I can’t write without chocolate. So the fact that I haven’t reached my 3K goal for the day doesn’t matter, right? I’m excused. Yes, that’s right. So I might as well go to bed. “After all… tomorrow is another day.”

Lia Keyes,
Master Procrastinator and admitted chocoholic
www.liakeyes.com

Editor’s note:
Do you know where the quote Lia used comes from? The first person to leave a comment with the right answer wins a prize!

Popularity: unranked [?]