Links to Think About

After a month long hiatus, in which I've been rather busy, I'm returning with a few lists that I've found helpful and interesting.

22 Websites Every Writer Must Use

( http://www.thecreativepenn.com/2010/05/13/22-websites-every-writer-must-use/ )

This post lists websites by category. Some of the more useful categories are: Research and Drafting, Revision and Editing and Getting Published and Protecting Your Work. Each categories has a few links and a wealth of information.

6 Reasons I Stop Reading

( http://www.annastan.com/2010/05/6-reasons-i-stop-reading-and-how-to-avoid-them/ )

This is a fantastic list of not only what makes a reader put down a book and never return but also offers solutions for writers on how to avoid the pit-falls of each scenario.

8 Places to Find Inspiration

( http://victoriamixon.com/2010/06/16/8-places-to-find-inspiration/ )

This blog post offers eight different ways to get into the heads of your characters and to help develop more depth of emotion.

Review: Rattlesnake Crossing

Rattlesnake Crossing is the sixth book in JA Jance's Joanna Brady Series. The mysteries that Sheriff Brady has to deal with this time around are the murder of an arms dealer (and his missing inventory), a sniper shooting farm equipment and cows, and a murderer who scalps his victims.

The mystery in this novel is both unique and compelling. I love the way that Jance builds suspense by putting us in the point of view of Joanna Brady and only giving the reader the information available to the Sheriff. It makes the revelation of the perpetrators that much more interesting.

In this book, the far more compelling plot lines are the personal lives of the characters. In particular, Pastor Marianne's storyline is particularly heart-wrenching. I also love the interactions between Butch and Joanna.

Rattlesnake Crossing was yet another fantastic addition to the series. When I was done, I felt the need to hurry and locate the next book!

Recipe: Slow Cooker Pork and Apple Curry

This recipe combines several of my favorite things: Slow cookers, pork roast and fruit in curry! Like all slow cooker meals, it is quick and easy to get started and it tastes fantastic!

Recipe: Slow Cooker Pork and Apple Curry

Adapted from Taste of Home Light & Tasty February/March 2004

Ingredients:

2 pounds boneless pork loin roast, cut into 1-inch cubes

1 medium tart apple, peeled and chopped

1 small onion, chopped

1/2 cup orange juice

1 tablespoon Hot Curry Paste

1 teaspoon chicken bouillon granules

1 garlic clove, minced

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 tablespoons cornstarch

2 tablespoons cold water

Hot cooked rice

Directions:

In a 3-qt. slow cooker, combine the first 10 ingredients. Cover and cook on low for 5-6 hours or until meat is tender. Increase heat to high. In a small bowl, combine cornstarch and water until smooth; stir into slow cooker. Cover and cook for 30 minutes or until thickened, stirring once. Serve over rice if desired.

Review: Skeleton Canyon by J.A. Jance

Skeleton Canyon is J.A. Jance's fifth book in her Joanna Brady series. This time the book is centered around the disappearance of a pretty and popular teenager. Her father is an influential man and threatens to make life difficult for Joanna as Sheriff. Her boyfriend is a Hispanic young man who she never told her parents about, fearing their disapproval and bigotry. The girl's body is found by two hikers and the investigation kicks into high gear.

At the same time, the Sheriff's department is investigating a smuggling operation with the help of everyone's favorite DEA Agent, Adam York. Slowly but surely the threads of the two cases begin to intertwine.

Skeleton Canyon is another fabulous addition to the Joanna Brady Series. The mystery is engrossing and helps to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the recurring characters. I find that to be one of the strengths of JA Jance has as a writer; her ability to make the characters engaging and to show their growth and development. I love the interpersonal relationships between the characters especially Joanna and her friend and pastor, Marianne. Finishing this book only made me more eager to read the next one!

How to Save Your Privacy from Facebook

If you've been paying any attention at all to Facebook's Privacy changes, you may have noticed that Facebook has been shifting things so that more and more of your information is publicly available by default. It used to be that Facebook privacy settings were simple and comprehensive.

Here's a graphic from the New York Times depicting the current myriad of privacy options that must be set individually:

"The new opt-out settings certainly are complex. Facebook users who hope to make their personal information private should be prepared to spend a lot of time pressing a lot of buttons. To opt out of full disclosure of most information, it is necessary to click through more than 50 privacy buttons, which then require choosing among a total of more than 170 options."

Nick Bilton from Price of Facebook Privacy? Start Clicking

Since Facebook's privacy settings can be tricky, here's a tutorial to help you save your privacy from Facebook:

Step one:

Step one is optional but if you play Facebook games and add people for those games, it is highly recommended. On the Home page, click "Friends" on the Left hand side bar. Along the top of the page is a button, "+ Create a List". This will allow you to set-up of lists of friends. If you play Facebook games then you should create at least one list with all the people that you don't know and wouldn't want to see certain types of personal information.

Step Two:

Go to the Facebook header: Account>Privacy Settings. It should give you the screen pictured below. This is the home base for your Privacy Setting needs.

Step Three:

Go to "Personal Information and Posts". The default setting for everything is that your information is visible to "Everyone". Since this is your personal information, I would recommend that you set everything to "Friends only" or "Friends of Friends".

Step Three A:

On the "Personal Information and Posts" page click the "Photo Settings" buttons. You should definitely set your photos to "Friends Only". If you add friends for games I would use the "Customize" option and hide the photos from the list(s) containing those friends.

Step Four:

Go back to the "Privacy Settings" page and click "Contact Information" which should give you the page shown below. This is another page that you should set to "Friends Only" at the very least. For maximum security, you can choose not to provide any of this information to Facebook or use "Customize" to set the information to "Only Me".

Step Five:

Return to "Privacy Settings" and go to "Friend, Tags and Connections". This settings on this page are less critical so set the restrictions here depending on your level of comfort. There are a few settings that I would recommend that you are more careful with: Hometown, Education and Work, Friends, and Family.

Step Six:

Go back to "Privacy Settings" and go to "Search". Set the "Facebook Search Results" to whatever setting you are comfortable with. If you have your other settings tight enough there should be very little to see on the Facebook search. The "Public Search Results" option makes your basic profile information available to search engines like Google. Uncheck the box if you don't want your Facebook profile to come up in searches.

Step Seven:

Return to "Privacy Settings" and go to "Applications and Websites". I'll go through most of these separately but there is one setting to change on this page: "Activity on Applications and Games Dashboard" which can be set according to your own preferences on who gets to see what applications you use.

Step Seven A:

Click "What you Share" and read what it has to say. As a summary: it says that every application that you add gets access to any information visible to everyone and other basic information. I would recommend going through the list of applications that you've added and remove the ones that you don't use.

Step Seven B:

Return to "Applications and Website" and click on "What your friends can Share about You". This sets what the applications that your friends have added can see about you. I would recommend unchecking everything on the page.

Step Seven C:

Return to "Applications and Websites" and click on "Instant Personalization Pilot Program". The instant personalization automatically connects your Facebook profile to some sites when you visit them and shares your information. I recommend unchecking the box and going one step further and blocking the Facebook applications associated with those sites.

Step Eight:

This step isn't so much a privacy step as it is a security feature. Go to "Account Settings" under the drop down menu in the header. Under the section "Account Security" click change. The account security allows you to set the option to monitor when your account is accessed from a computer or mobile device that you haven't used before. Naturally, Facebook has this lovely security feature set on an opt-in basis.

Once you reach this point, your account should be both more private and a bit more secure. You can check your privacy settings by going to "Privacy Settings" and clicking "Preview Profile". This will allow you to see how your profile looks to other people.

Zealous Love: Human Trafficking

I started reading Zealous Love: A Practical Guide to Social Justice by Mike and Danae Yankoski this weekend. I was a bit surprised by the set-up of the book. Having read and absolutely love Under the Overpass by Mike Yankoski, I was expecting something similar which goes to show I should have read the summary more closely. Zealous Love is a look at several key social justice issues and what's being done about them with essays/reports from multiple organizations. Due to the nature of the book, I'm going to read about one issue every week and post a reflection or response.

Issue #1 : Human Trafficking

I remember when I first learned that slavery still existed in the world. Given my upbringing in a middle class neighborhood in the United States and the narrowly focused school curriculum (a rant for another time), it really wasn't too surprising that I assumed that the abolition of Slavery in the United States meant that there weren't anymore slaves. When I was sixteen, I attended an international youth conference. One of the speakers (the only one I remember, really) was a man who had been a slave. At that point my world was shaken and I was absolutely heartsick. Underneath that sickness though was a simmering anger that my education had been so ethnocentric that I was completely unaware of such a major human rights issue.

Over the years, I've learned of more of the ways that human beings are stripping away each others basic rights and there were many causes that captured my attention and my heart. One of the first social justice initiatives to snag me was Invisible Children. The movement took the initial form of a documentary depicting the use of children in Uganda as Soldiers and the struggles of children trying to stay safe in an unfriendly environment. Invisible Children still creates documentaries to showcase the difficult time in East Africa but they also have volunteers on the ground rebuilding schools and providing scholarships. From there, I developed an interest in the Sex Slavery found in many major cities in the world. I never did connect with an organization but it is an issue that is close to my heart. Most of the essays in Zealous Love deal with the Sex Trafficking industry rather than any other Human Trafficking issues.

Steampunk Cakes and More

Here's a few Steampunk tidbits that I've come across during the past week:

First up is the results of a Steampunk Cake Contest hosted by CakeCentral.com

This is the first place winner of the contest designed and made by Artisan Cake Company. There were some awesome cakes in the winner's circle including a Steampunk Venus de Milo cake!

Next up are some lovely Steampunk Short fiction pieces written in response to T.S. Bazelli's Author Aerobics: Plot Challenge at Ink Stained.

The Challenge:

In 1000 words or less, write a piece of fiction that includes all the elements of the 3 act structure, including at least one crisis in the rising action. To make things more interesting use the word "zeppelin" somewhere in the story.

There is only one rule: set a time limit.

There were two lovely responses:

The Last Flight of Lord Winstead's Vigilance by Stephen Watkins

The Metal Girl by T.S. Bazelli

You should also check out the fantastic blog post by Steampunk Scholar on Defining Steampunk as an Aesthetic. Here's a small snippet to hopeful pique your interest:

Steampunk is an aesthetic: it is a look, or a style. It is not a genre, because within the literature, there is no recurrent narrative element that one can point to which appears in all, or even most of the books.

Finally, if you haven't checked it out yet, the Great Steampunk Debate is currently running and has some great insights into Steampunk. There's lots of information and perspectives from all over.

Review: Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich

In the tenth installment of the Stephanie Plum novels, Stephanie and Lula happen to be at the wrong place at the right time and spot a serial robber in action. Stephanie even gets a good enough look to identify him. Unfortunately, the robber is part of a gang and they aren't happy with her! This novel also includes some small time bonds feature a reunion with transvestite, Sally and a woman who held up a Frito-Lay truck.

It was an enjoyable read though not one of the better books of the series. I loved the return of Sally the transvestite, and I think that the highlight of the book was definitely when Sally saved the day in a School Bus with an Uzi.

The emotional turmoil of Stephanie bouncing between Morelli and Ranger which started off the be fun and interesting but is now beginning to get tedious and annoying. It's getting a bit painful to watch a character make worse and worse choices in her personal life in each book.

It wasn't my favorite book in the series, however the sample chapter of the next book has made it impossible for me to give up on the series.

Recipe: Dalmatian Cupcakes

I made these this week and my friends declared them the best cupcakes ever. I think it mostly says that my friends are Chocolate addicts...

Recipe: Dalmatian Cupcakes

(Adapted from Betty Crocker's Cupcakes, Cakes and More April/May 2010)

Ingredients:

- 2 packages (3 oz each) cream cheese, softened

- 1/3 cup Sugar

- 1 egg

- 1-1/2 cups miniature semisweet chocolate chips

- 1 box devil's food cake mix

- 1-1/3 cups water

- 1/2 cup olive oil

- 3 eggs

- 1 bag (11.5 oz) white chocolate chips

- 1 container vanilla frosting

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 (325 for nonstick or dark pans). Prepare muffin cups with paper baking cups (silicon baking cups also work well).

In a medium bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, and 1 egg until smooth. Stir in 1 cup of the semisweet chocolate chips. Set aside.

In a large bowl, beat together cake mix, water, oil and 3 eggs on low speed for 30 seconds. Beat at medium speed for two minutes. Stir in the white chocolate chips. Divide batter into the baking cups: 1/4 cup of batter in each baking cup. Top with a heaping teaspoon of cream cheese mixture.

Bake 17-27 minutes or until tops spring back when touched lightly. Cool 10 minutes in pan. Remove cupcakes from pan gently and cool completely.

Frost with frosting. Sprinkle with remaining chocolate chips.

Review: To the Nines

The ninth book in Janet Evanovich's mystery series centered around Jersey bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum. This time Stephanie isn't chasing one of Jersey's many criminal elements, but instead she is locating a man who turned up missing a week before his visa bond is called into question.

Stephanie chases leads to his (and his fiancé's dog's) location all around Trenton and then finally Las Vegas. All the while she is fending off a mysterious stalker and bouncing between Joe Morelli and Ranger. Also, instead of destroying a whole slew of cars, this time around, Stephanie is taking down bodyguards left and right.

This is one of the better books in the series. I found the structure to be unique and the concept behind the murders to be fresh and engaging. The family situations for both the Morellis and the Plums are still fun and funny. I also loved the multiple diets featured in Lula's quest to look like a supermodel!

Like all of the Stephanie Plum novels, this one starts with a description of Joe Morelli and their first sexual encounters. It was a neat look into their early interaction the first few times, but after nine books, I'm tired of the story! I'm also less than appreciative of the way she portrayed the nerdy character but it didn't detract from my enjoyment of the book.

I had a lot of fun reading To The Nines and definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoyed the previous books.