by Laura K. Curtis | Feb 21, 2014 | Stuff!, Writing |
Today I am over at Women of Mystery with a long post on numbers, self-publishing vs. traditional publishing, and some of the inherent difficulties with using sales data to make career decisions.
It was also pointed out to me after I Photoshopped myself a pair of crankypants for my last post that I should, perhaps, take advantage of the Cafe Press store to create some actual crankypants. So I did. And I’ve added a bunch of other things, too, just for your amusement (and mine). So head on over to Laura K. Curtis’s Crazy Author Shop to see what I’ve been doing with my insomnia!
by Laura K. Curtis | Feb 17, 2014 | Books, Stuff! |
If only I could clone myself, the other me would, in her copious free time, create a clothing company called “Cranky Couture” so that we could all wear honest-to-goodness cranky pants when we feel like it.
If you’re part of the publishing world, I’ll just say that my current cranky mood is due to being slammed by a Howey’s report over and over everywhere I’ve looked. If you want to know what I think of that report, I will send you two places:
1) To Sunita’s excellent analysis on Dear Author, wherein she mentions all the things I knew, and several I didn’t, that made me distrust the report.
2) To my own post at Women of Mystery, wherein I talk about some of the things you should consider before making your own choice about how you want to publish your current project.
If you’re not in publishing, that won’t mean anything to you. Be happy. Or put on your cranky pants and let me know what makes you want to wear them!
by Laura K. Curtis | Feb 16, 2014 | Books, Recipes |
As many people know, a while back I developed an allergy to gluten. At first, it was ghastly. But time passed and I have found substitutes for almost everything. The two things I haven’t been really happy with are pizza dough and real bread. Sandwich bread is easy enough, and we’ve found that Jules GF pizza dough is delicious, but it takes a long time to make. (If you’re curious, I am working on a Pinterest board of GF pantry staples, things I’ve taste-tested and approved. If you have things I should add, I’d love to hear about that them!)
But real bread, despite all the things I tried, defeated me. Sure, I could get a pretty good one with eggs and milk and all kinds of things that, IMHO, don’t belong in bread. I could spend weeks or months (I kid you not, depending on what you see online) developing a starter from a minimum of five different types of flour. I love bread, but that wasn’t going to happen.
Then I bought Gluten-Free on a Shoestring Bakes Bread: (Biscuits, Bagels, Buns, and More)
. Now, I haven’t made anything from it yet–I’ll let you know how that goes as I try it. It all looks DELICIOUS. But the recipes call for an ingredient I’ve read about before but never been able to find: Expandex Modified Tapioca Starch. I’ve skipped plenty of recipes in my search for gluten free food because I couldn’t find Expandex. The places that had it online wanted WAY too much in shipping and no one had it locally.
However, in the resource section to the book and on her blog, Nicole recommends Montana’s Gifts of Nature. Their website is fairly tragic, to be brutally honest, and to contact them you have to call them. It was about 5:15 on Sunday night my time when I got to the resource section of the book, but Nicole said that one could call and leave a message and they’d call you back. So I called. And Larry answered.
And let me tell you something…that was a super conversation. It wasn’t anything particular that I can put my finger on. But he discussed everything with me from shelf life to shipping costs so I could make the best decision about how much I wanted. When I hung up, despite having had to call, I was really happy with the decision to choose them rather than one of the other two places I saw online that had the product in stock.
It occurs to me that there are very few companies I can say that about. If I had the time, I’d build them a proper website so their products could get the attention they deserve. For now, I’ll just say that if you’re looking for Expandex, it’s definitely worth making the call. And if you’re selling something, take a lesson from Larry and be as friendly as can be!
by Laura K. Curtis | Feb 15, 2014 | Dogs, Romance, Stuff! |
This is my treacherous dog, Philomena. See all that ice and snow? See that nice path we shoveled and blew for her? Well, she doesn’t care. She wants to jump up on top and run around. Which would be fine, except that at 30 pounds or so, she can go about ten or fifteen feet and then she falls through the ice layer and the snow’s so deep she can’t get out.
So today, while trying to keep her on the path we’d dug for her, I managed to fall on my butt, which sent a lovely shock right up my spine to the already herniated disc in my neck. These are things that heroines NEVER have to contend with. Why, oh why, can I not be a romance novel heroine?
by Laura K. Curtis | Feb 6, 2014 | Books, Crafts, Stuff! |
I love notebooks. Love pens. Love everything related to writing. And when my brain shuts down and I can’t write anymore, I like to crochet. Recently, the fabulous Deb Lacy from Mystery Playground asked me to come up with something crafty that was mystery- and book-related. So, since I’ve been on a Doctor Who glom lately, I decided to create a pattern for a pocket-style case for a notebook.
Deb has the pattern over on Mystery Playground so you can crochet your own if you’re so inclined, but you could also win this one! Just head on over and enter (be sure to click the Rafflecopter to enter, don’t just comment)!
