I just finished writing Year of the Dog ! It had a massive plot hole that I had to fix which turned out to be more work than I expected. Here’s a snippet: “Hey, Auntie Nell.” He wrapped his arms around her, bussing her on the cheek and breathing in pikake flowers and shortbread cookies. And suddenly he was nine years old again, and her solid presence had made his chaotic world stable once more. “What are you doing here?” He usually took her to dinner on Wednesday nights, but today was Tuesday. The edges of her smile faltered a little before brightening right back up again. “What, I can’t visit my nephew?” She angled around him to enter his home. “Is this your new house? Looks lovely.” Which was a blatant lie, because the fixer-upper was barely livable, much less acceptable to a neat-freak like his aunt. She also left four matching pink and purple floral suitcases on the stoop behind her. Only then did Ashwin notice the cab driver standing slightly to the side of the walkway. “Can ...
I mentioned before that I’m one of the authors in the Miracles of Marble Cove series published by Guideposts. It’s been a lot of fun because the series is heartwarming women’s fiction with a light mystery thread that runs through all the books. For book #17, Steps of Faith , I have a character who is very well-traveled and a bit exotic (Jeff’s mother) who’s being visited by one of the main characters, Beverly, who is not quite so exotic. I wondered what a woman like Jeff’s mother would like for coffee--certainly not plain old coffee. Then I remembered Turkish coffee, which I’d heard about somewhere. I looked it up and decided to write that into the book, but I also had to try it first! I tried with a small regular pot but it didn’t turn out so great. So I got a cheap Turkish coffee/milk warming pot on Amazon and followed the online instructions for making Turkish coffee. I fine-ground the beans and put them in my cezve pot with cold water, sugar, and ground cardamom. I gave i...