Almostgotit.com

Right now: 

read it again!

Look what I’ve got.  NEW BOOKS!  James Viscosi sent them to me… plus also, he wrote them, too!

Here’s what it says on the back cover:

When Mercenaries invade her lair and slaughter her hatchlings, T’Sian the dragon embarks on a quest for revenge that takes her across the continent and plunges her deep into a human culture that she has always scorned.  Recruiting unexpected allies and facing surprising foes, the dragon ultimately finds herself caught up in a struggle to save humanity from its greatest threat: Itself.

I bought them for gifts, but I’ve long-sinced learned the trick every compulsive reader knows:  how to read someone else’s book without breaking the back to give yourself away!  So excuse me, blog time is over as I have some, erm, LAUNDRY to do…

This must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Douglas Adams

And God said, ‘Let there be light’ and there was light, but the Electricity Board said He would have to wait until Thursday to be connected.
Spike Milligan

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.
Jeff Raskin

Guest Post by Emily Anderson

Anyone with a gift for words and access to a pen or keyboard can be a writer, and anyone who is a writer will write. If by ‘break into writing,’ however, you mean ‘write and get paid for it,’ you’ll also need an alchemist’s brew of talent, humility, luck, and perseverance.

Creative Commons photo by Rita Banerji

If you’re serious about writing and getting paid for it, Rule #1 is ‘Don’t be so arrogant as to think you have all the good ideas.’ To break in, you have to be willing to try any number of genres you think you might be able to handle, then run with the ones that work, whether or not you’re particularly interested in them. If you have your heart set on sports commentary and someone offers you a job plotting Web murder mysteries, go for the mysteries. If you think biography is your forte and you get a chance to write television ads, write as many of those suckers as you can.

Why so callous an approach? Rule #2. The sad truth about writing is this: ‘If you’re not writing for pay you’re not likely to get paid for writing.’ You have to finagle your way into the field, then manage to stay here, all the while constantly cultivating your contacts. If you don’t know someone or know someone who knows someone who needs a writer, you won’t get the job. If you don’t know someone or know someone who knows someone with the power to get you published, you won’t get published.

There are a number of ancillary rules, of course, like ‘Don’t whine,’ ‘Never miss a deadline,’ ‘Never turn down a gig, no matter how slammed you are.’ In the end, though, it all comes down to this:

Writing, as Annie Savoy said of baseball in the Ron Shelton classic film Bull Durham, ‘may be a religion full of magic, cosmic truth and the fundamental ontological riddles of our time, but it’s also a job.’ And for a working writer, it’s the best job on earth.

—–

Emily Anderson is the author of All-American Comfort Food and The Pursuit of Happy Results: Barry Spann and the Making of Twenty-Seven Landscapes.  Emily writes for television and the Web and is on the staff of Paris Notes.

Emily’s blog: The Rocky Road of Love and Other Great Recipes.

—–

Wouldn’t you know.

No sooner had I decided to post about Karen Burns’ new book (I’m so proud!!)  than I heard about another new book, also about the world of work, and also available by pre-order discount.

(( Subliminal message: Buy, Buy, Buy!! ))

Plus also,  I’m related to one of the authors. That’s (part of) him in the photo, holding an advance copy.  Woo hoo!

Wired to Care: how companies prosper when they create widespread empathy even has its own website.  Including — OMG — a review by my absolute hero, Malcolm Gladwell.

Way to go, Pete!  And congrats to my dear friend Kathy, who happens to be his mother.

While trolling for spiral-bound cookbooks in my favorite section of McKay’s Used Books, I found Ernest Mickler’s White Trash Cooking II: Recipes for Gatherins, and had to find Volume I.  Had to order it from Amazon, in fact. 

 It arrived two days ago.  And what a gorgeous thing it is.

So gorgeous that the author of To Kill A Mockingbird, no less,  wrote of it:

I have never seen a sociological document of such beauty — the photographs are shattering.  I shall treasure it always… Now that it’s harder than ever to identify the genuine article on sight — with two generations of prosperity white trash looks like gentry — we’ve long needed something other than the ballot box to remind us of their presence:  White Trash Cooking is a beautiful testament to a stubborn people of proud and poignant heritage. - Harper Lee

It is funny, oh yes: Mock Cooter Stew.  Russian Communist Tea Cakes. Mama Leila’s Hand-Me-Down Oven-Baked Possum.  But the humor is the best kind of all, stemming from a deep and genuine affection — and yes, even respect — for the mamas and aunties who did the best they could, mostly with very little indeed. 

Never in my whole put-together life, writes the author,

Could I write down on paper a hard, fast definition of White Trash… But the first thing you’ve got to understand is that there’s white trash and there’s White Trash. Manners and pride separate the two. Common white trash has very little in the way of pride, and manners to speak of, and hardly any respect for anybody or anything. But where I come from, you never failed to say “yes ma’m” and “no sir,” never sat on a made-up bed (or put your hat on it), never opened someone else’s icebox, never left food on your plate, never left the table without permission, and never forgot to say “thank you” for the teeniest favor. That’s the way the ones before us were raised and that’s the way they raised us in the South.

… But rather than runnin’ around willy-nilly telling stories (which I could do all day long), it might be quicker to get to what I mean by White Trash cooking if, as Betty Sue says, we go straight to the kitchen and “get it did.”

While the Almostgotits aint got much call for fried squirrel in our own Southern household, here’s a coupla good recipes from the book, just in time for the holidays.  If you want more recipes than these, though, you’ll have to order your own copy of White Trash: Amazon sells ‘em used, too!

Plain Ol’ Potato Pone

• 1 cup milk

• 3 medium-size sweet potatoes

• 1 cup of molasses

• 2 teaspoons cinnamon

• 3 eggs

• 1/4 stick of oleo

First bake your sweet potatoes, or use some left from supper. Take off the skins and mash them up.  To the potatoes, add all other ingredients.  Mix well and put in an iron skillet and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.  Now this is a real pone.  Dig in and make yourself at home — if you ain’t, you oughta be. This is another one of Betty Sue’s favorites. (from White Trash Cooking)

Fancy Sweet Potato Pone

• 4 cups raw sweet potatoes (grated)

• 1 cup syrup

• 1/2 cup sugar

• 1 cup milk

• 1/2 cup butter

• 1/2 cup chopped nuts

• 1 cup raisins

• 3 eggs, well-beaten

• 1 teaspoon allspice

• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

• 1/2 teaspoon cloves

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Add well beaten eggs, sugar, spices, and nuts to grated sweet potato. 

Melt butter in heavy iron frying pan; add potato mixture; Stir all on top of stove until very hot.  Cook in same pan in moderate oven for 45 minutes, stirring from bottom several times.  Serve with whipped cream.

Raenelle said: ‘This is my recipe but Betty Sue added all the extras, so it’s hard to tell it’s the one I gave her.  She’s always changin’ things.’  (also from White Trash Cooking)

Almostgotit takes a deep breath and plunges into Monday…

• How sad I was at the news of Paul Newman’s recent death. Newman’s greatest Hollywood accomplishment, of course, was his 50-year marriage to fellow actor Joanne Woodward. Playboy magazine once asked Newman if he’d ever been tempted to stray. Newman’s swoony response: I have steak at home; why go out for hamburger?

• Karen of Working Girl recently posted about a talk she’d given on the two “secrets” to getting published. I found her words about handling criticism particularly brilliant:

Helpful criticisms are ones that, when you hear them, seem familiar to you. You will feel a flash of recognition. Maybe a little voice in the back of your head says, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you all along!” Helpful criticisms feel “right.” Helpful criticisms spur you to do more of whatever it is you do, and to do it better.

• The political, literary and social commentary on Korrektiv has been particularly fun lately. Almostgotit.com commentors Quin and Rufus are both part of the Korrektiv team. Bad Catholics, indeed!

• Congratulations to blogging buddy James Viscosi who has been very successful with his new blog, the wonderfully funny Dennis’ Diary of Destruction. Nor am I just saying so because James and his dog Dennis (who has been leaving his own comments of late on Almostgotit.com) recently presented me and MY dog, Jerry, with a Gold Paw Award. As I so rarely receive awards of any kind, I’ve since posted the Coveted Gold Paw right here in my own sidebar.

Badly. James is also an IT person who seems to have invented his very own kind of HTML…

Whist led to bridge-whist, which led to auction bridge, which led to contract bridge, which led, according to bridge historian Jack Olsen, to murder, divorce, suicide, mayhem, and other social evils.

- Maggy Simony, The Bridge Table, forthcoming

Since some of you have asked:  Cyn Mobley and I have been helping an 88 year old woman in Florida who is writing about the history of “ladies bridge clubs” (along with the gender food menus they created) from the 20’s to the 60’s. There are indeed murders, scandals, revolts — and also recipes. It’s quite funny. Would make a terrific play, actually…

The author plans to publish in early 2009, and I promised her I’d give her coverage on my blog.   Stay tuned!

Cyn Mobley doesn’t love me at all.  She just wants a plug, and guess what?  I’m totally going to give her one, right here on this blog!  Because I am too busy to write anything else!

Cyn is looking for local (ish) writers and artists  for her upcoming Christmas Anthology.  Cyn is a best-selling author!  Who has her own press!  And last year’s Anthology sold very well!  So click on this link right now to find out more.