It's been almost two weeks. I apologize. My husband is in bar prep. Six nights a week. Plus studying and homework most of the day. That leaves me with my children . . . . ALONE!!! :D
Nah, it's really not that bad, it just means I have very little spare time and what I have has been going into keeping the house on the verge of being squalor. So we do not live in squalor!!! . . . quite.:)
So I am going to steal a page out of James Dashner's blog-book, since he is the world's laziest man (hehe, wuv you!) , and just give you a random list of ten things. Ready? Go!
1.) My mother made me a nightgown. It is gorgeous! It is dark purple and goes from shoulder to just touching the ground. And it has sleeves so that I can get up and walk around in the morning without getting dressed and still be decent since . . . .
2.) My brother-in-law and his wife are moving in with us this week. Yay!! I love having people living with us! I get to cook for more people! But I don't have to change their diapers! It's almost better than having a new baby!! Almost . . .
3.) Spells arcs are starting to be circulated!! They were all over the place at ALA Midwinter this last weekend and so reviews should shortly follow. I am scared. And excited. But mostly scared.
4.) However, to buoy my confidence a little, I got a wonderful, incredible, fabulous blurb from the newly minted NYT Bestselling author Carrie Jones, of the killer pixie novels Need and Captivate!! And because I am super mean and also want to show off my new Spells page of my website, I am going to make you click and scroll in order to read it.:)
5.) My kids are undergoing some rather intense academic testing. I worry for them! But hopefully this will put them in the same school and on the same schedule next year. *crosses fingers*
6.) I found a dark chocolate bar with lavender and blueberries. So full of WIN!
7.)My gym decided to give in and start Zumba classes. I am a happy girl.
8.) I got a P.O. Box. I feel all professional and special now.:D Now I just need to get my business cards printed (with the P.O. Box on them!!) so people will stop looking at me like I am an under prepared amateur when they ask for a card and I don't have any. *puts business cards on the to-do list*
9.) I'm out of wheat. In Utah you can get bulk white wheat at Wal-mart . . . or pretty much anywhere else. (You can probably get it at the corner gas station :)) Here? Not so much. I made my last five loaves of bread today (that's a normal batch) and I expect it to last less than a week, especially with my two new move-ins. I better start doing some research.
10.) I got a new van over Christmas. Did I mention that? It was because our other van died--we didn't actually want to get a new car till the Spring--but I love it and every time I drive it I feel like a spoiled brat. Also, the doors open and close when I push a button on my keychain and my two youngest kids are convinced they open when they yell "OPEN!" at them.:D
And that's me!!
Ciao!
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Chocolate, Chocolate, and More Chocolate!
Just FYI, this has absolutely nothing to do with books.:D
Okay, this entry is a little late, but super picture-laden. One of my very favorite Christmas traditions in the Pike household is making hand-dipped chocolates. I learned the basics from my fabulous mother-in-law, and I've kind of gone overboard with it over the last few years. But hey! No one has complained yet that I made too many kinds of chocolates.:) But Carrie Ryan wanted me to take pictures of the process, so if you find the following totally boring, blame her.:D
I'm going to start with my favorite, which is pinoche. (Pin-oh-chay.) (Lots of people say Pin-osh, and they are welcome to, but the recipe we finally found that we liked the best insisted that the pronunciation is pin-oh-chay, and who am I to argue with the most perfect recipe on earth?) Pinoche is a brown sugar fudge that we make really soft so I actually have to freeze it to get it out of the pan and then re-freeze it after I've cut it in order to keep it from dissolving when I dip it in chocolate. Frozen pinoche looks like this:
Then I dip it in melted chocolate and the irregular pieces look quite ugly. But they are sooooo good.
And once they are dipped and thawed, they look like this, with the soft, brown sugar/mapley centers barely hard enough to not drip out. Mmmmmmmmm.
The next easiest is truffles . . . actually, they are probably the easiest. But I like the pinoche the best, so it gets to be explained first.:D Truffles are actually super simple. I think they are best that way. The key for truffles for me, is to use European chocolate. They really melt in your mouth that way! So in my truffles, I use melted chocolate, scalded cream, and a touch of vanilla. That is it. Period.
Oh, and that bowl on top of a pan? That is me being too stubborn/cheap to buy a double boiler. Works like a charm!So I get those three ingredients mixed and I put it in the fridge until it hardens enough to scoop into balls. I have a teeny little scooper just for this purpose!
Then, like the pinoche, I have to freeze them in order to dip them without them melting to pieces in the warm dipping chocolate.:) (I'll show you a pic of them dipped in a second.)
The really tricky part of making chocolates is making my flavored creams. I make them out of fondant from scratch so there is much boiling and stretching.:D Basically I boil the snot out of a mixture of sugar, cream, sugar, Karo syrup, and sugar. Then I lay out parchment paper in 9x13 pans and pour the boiling hot liquid into them.
Usually this works like a dream. This time one of my pans cracked under the pressure.
Then I have to cool it to the perfect temperature. I can't let it get too cold or it will crack, but if I don't let it get cold enough, it won't set up. I'm finally getting a feel for it.
After it is cool, I plop it into my bosch. (You can do this by hand, but it is way, way hard.)
Then I use my dough kneading attachment and stretch the fondant for about ten minutes, at which point it changes. Seriously, check out this before and after. It always excites me!
Cool huh! Then I flavour and color it and scoop it out into perfect little sherbet looking balls!
Then freezing the centers again, so they can be soft inside the chocolate, but hard when I dip them.
And when they are done they look like this! With all kinds of interesting splatters to differentiate between the flavors!
I also dipped several kinds in white chocolate this year, but totally spaced getting pictures.
So there are my chocolates!!! Wish I could give a few to each of you, but pics will have to do.
Ciao!
Okay, this entry is a little late, but super picture-laden. One of my very favorite Christmas traditions in the Pike household is making hand-dipped chocolates. I learned the basics from my fabulous mother-in-law, and I've kind of gone overboard with it over the last few years. But hey! No one has complained yet that I made too many kinds of chocolates.:) But Carrie Ryan wanted me to take pictures of the process, so if you find the following totally boring, blame her.:D
I'm going to start with my favorite, which is pinoche. (Pin-oh-chay.) (Lots of people say Pin-osh, and they are welcome to, but the recipe we finally found that we liked the best insisted that the pronunciation is pin-oh-chay, and who am I to argue with the most perfect recipe on earth?) Pinoche is a brown sugar fudge that we make really soft so I actually have to freeze it to get it out of the pan and then re-freeze it after I've cut it in order to keep it from dissolving when I dip it in chocolate. Frozen pinoche looks like this:
Then I dip it in melted chocolate and the irregular pieces look quite ugly. But they are sooooo good.
And once they are dipped and thawed, they look like this, with the soft, brown sugar/mapley centers barely hard enough to not drip out. Mmmmmmmmm.
The next easiest is truffles . . . actually, they are probably the easiest. But I like the pinoche the best, so it gets to be explained first.:D Truffles are actually super simple. I think they are best that way. The key for truffles for me, is to use European chocolate. They really melt in your mouth that way! So in my truffles, I use melted chocolate, scalded cream, and a touch of vanilla. That is it. Period.
Oh, and that bowl on top of a pan? That is me being too stubborn/cheap to buy a double boiler. Works like a charm!So I get those three ingredients mixed and I put it in the fridge until it hardens enough to scoop into balls. I have a teeny little scooper just for this purpose!
Then, like the pinoche, I have to freeze them in order to dip them without them melting to pieces in the warm dipping chocolate.:) (I'll show you a pic of them dipped in a second.)
The really tricky part of making chocolates is making my flavored creams. I make them out of fondant from scratch so there is much boiling and stretching.:D Basically I boil the snot out of a mixture of sugar, cream, sugar, Karo syrup, and sugar. Then I lay out parchment paper in 9x13 pans and pour the boiling hot liquid into them.
Usually this works like a dream. This time one of my pans cracked under the pressure.
Then I have to cool it to the perfect temperature. I can't let it get too cold or it will crack, but if I don't let it get cold enough, it won't set up. I'm finally getting a feel for it.
After it is cool, I plop it into my bosch. (You can do this by hand, but it is way, way hard.)
Then I use my dough kneading attachment and stretch the fondant for about ten minutes, at which point it changes. Seriously, check out this before and after. It always excites me!
Cool huh! Then I flavour and color it and scoop it out into perfect little sherbet looking balls!
Then freezing the centers again, so they can be soft inside the chocolate, but hard when I dip them.
And when they are done they look like this! With all kinds of interesting splatters to differentiate between the flavors!
I also dipped several kinds in white chocolate this year, but totally spaced getting pictures.
So there are my chocolates!!! Wish I could give a few to each of you, but pics will have to do.
Ciao!
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Covers, News, and the Year in Review
Wow. What year. Most amazing year of my life! But I'll get to that later. First! Covers!!!!!
An anonymous commenter (I kid you not) left me a link to my Russian cover and it is gorgeous!! I am so stoked by it! Very sexy!
I mean, really. Isn't that awesome!!!!
And then we spotted my first foreign Spells cover this week too!
It has a silver chain for a stem, people! Height of awesomeosity. (Yes, I did just make that word up.)
Long-time readers will know this, but in case you don't, generally authors have little to no say in their covers. Closer to the "no" than the "little." And even less in the foreign covers! So all my awesome covers? I can brag about them endlessly because I had absolutely nothing to do with them. Nuh-thing. Nothing.
But aren't they great!!!:D
In news, I have my first event of 2010 next week! Whoo-hoo! Changing Hands, the illustrious Phoenix Indie, is hosting Yallapalooza! Check it out! No seriously, check it out. It is going to be AWESOME!!!! There is going to be live music! I have never been to an event with live music! And free food. Who doesn't love free food?? Anyway, there will be a ton of us there, including my new author friends Janette Rallison, James Owen, and the inestimable Janni Lee Simner. But the AZ authors are getting with a bunch of L.A. authors I've never met and we are SO going to par-tay! I am so excited! It is going to be amazing! There will be exclamation points! So if you are in the greater Phoenix area, or, indeed, anywhere in the Southwest United States, you should come! It's Saturday, January 9th from 4-7PM, at Changing Hands Bookstore. Seriously, come! All YA, all the time. :D
Anyway, it has been an amazing year. And not just for me! So here is my whole year in review:
January and February saw me on a pre-publication tour. It was my very first event for Wings and also my first time signing books. Yay! This was an amazing experience for so many reasons. I met a ton of librarians, readers, and bookstore staff who just fell in love with Wings. I also had to prick my head with a pin every night as they were determined to blow it up to astronomical sizes. :D
April was my husband's month. After three grueling years, he graduated law school! What a momentous day!! I was so proud. :D
May was Wings month. I spent the whole month traveling, often to places I'd never been before. I also went to BEA for the first time and became a NYT Bestselling author. Whoa. I have never had such a whirlwind month! And even if the release of Spells is exactly the same, this year will still be the most special release, because it was the first time, with everything new and sparkly!
June was my first event with other authors (Supernatural Summer, which I will be doing again this year, yay!). It also was the month I moved back to Arizona, which I have been looking forward too since I moved away from Arizona three years earlier.:D I moved into my gorgeous new house (courtesy of the crappy housing market) and have my own office for the first time and everything is wonderful here!
In July my movie deal was announced and I got to watch my own little media frenzy happen. I was mentioned on People.com, mtv.com, Variety.com, ONTD.com and on the TV segment The Soup on E! It was very strange, and unreal, and exciting!!
In August I finally fell off the list after spending eleven weeks there. Completely unreal. Eleven weeks!! And I promise you this; every week was a gift. Makes for some jittery Wednesdays though.:D
In October I got some really wonderful news I can't share yet, but it was important, so I'm mentioning it.:D
In November I hosted Thanksgiving with fifty people in attendance. 'Nuff said.
In December I kind of pulled away from the world and gathered my family in close and had a quiet holiday. Honestly, it was just what I needed. Because despite the wonderful, amazing things that happened this year, my life revolves around my husband and my kids. And they are what make everything worthwhile.
So, yeah, an amazing year. It wasn't all roses and clover. I cried over my books at least three times, determined I was a hack author who couldn't do anything right. I had someone I thought was a friend stab me in the back. I was separated from my family for almost three weeks when they moved while I was touring and that was really hard. And revisions . . . well, they are always soul-sucking.:D But all of that pales in the face of how many great things happened to me this year and the readers, bloggers, and fellow authors who have joined me for the ride. I got to meet so many amazing people in my travels. And readers. Oh, I love my readers! Especially the teen readers. They have such enthusiasm! I have been laughing at my Google alerts the last couple days as I have been placed on both Best of and Worst of 2009 book lists--because no list is as cool as a thirteen-years-old's sparkling eyes. That's what's important to me.
And you, dear readers, thank you for joining me again this year. It's been a long time since I started this blog in January of 2006. Quite. A. Ride. Thank you for coming with me. Whenever you started.
And buckle your seat belts, because this roller coaster ride isn't over yet!
For your viewing pleasure...
Happy New Year!!!
Ciao!
An anonymous commenter (I kid you not) left me a link to my Russian cover and it is gorgeous!! I am so stoked by it! Very sexy!
I mean, really. Isn't that awesome!!!!
And then we spotted my first foreign Spells cover this week too!
It has a silver chain for a stem, people! Height of awesomeosity. (Yes, I did just make that word up.)
Long-time readers will know this, but in case you don't, generally authors have little to no say in their covers. Closer to the "no" than the "little." And even less in the foreign covers! So all my awesome covers? I can brag about them endlessly because I had absolutely nothing to do with them. Nuh-thing. Nothing.
But aren't they great!!!:D
In news, I have my first event of 2010 next week! Whoo-hoo! Changing Hands, the illustrious Phoenix Indie, is hosting Yallapalooza! Check it out! No seriously, check it out. It is going to be AWESOME!!!! There is going to be live music! I have never been to an event with live music! And free food. Who doesn't love free food?? Anyway, there will be a ton of us there, including my new author friends Janette Rallison, James Owen, and the inestimable Janni Lee Simner. But the AZ authors are getting with a bunch of L.A. authors I've never met and we are SO going to par-tay! I am so excited! It is going to be amazing! There will be exclamation points! So if you are in the greater Phoenix area, or, indeed, anywhere in the Southwest United States, you should come! It's Saturday, January 9th from 4-7PM, at Changing Hands Bookstore. Seriously, come! All YA, all the time. :D
Anyway, it has been an amazing year. And not just for me! So here is my whole year in review:
January and February saw me on a pre-publication tour. It was my very first event for Wings and also my first time signing books. Yay! This was an amazing experience for so many reasons. I met a ton of librarians, readers, and bookstore staff who just fell in love with Wings. I also had to prick my head with a pin every night as they were determined to blow it up to astronomical sizes. :D
April was my husband's month. After three grueling years, he graduated law school! What a momentous day!! I was so proud. :D
May was Wings month. I spent the whole month traveling, often to places I'd never been before. I also went to BEA for the first time and became a NYT Bestselling author. Whoa. I have never had such a whirlwind month! And even if the release of Spells is exactly the same, this year will still be the most special release, because it was the first time, with everything new and sparkly!
June was my first event with other authors (Supernatural Summer, which I will be doing again this year, yay!). It also was the month I moved back to Arizona, which I have been looking forward too since I moved away from Arizona three years earlier.:D I moved into my gorgeous new house (courtesy of the crappy housing market) and have my own office for the first time and everything is wonderful here!
In July my movie deal was announced and I got to watch my own little media frenzy happen. I was mentioned on People.com, mtv.com, Variety.com, ONTD.com and on the TV segment The Soup on E! It was very strange, and unreal, and exciting!!
In August I finally fell off the list after spending eleven weeks there. Completely unreal. Eleven weeks!! And I promise you this; every week was a gift. Makes for some jittery Wednesdays though.:D
In October I got some really wonderful news I can't share yet, but it was important, so I'm mentioning it.:D
In November I hosted Thanksgiving with fifty people in attendance. 'Nuff said.
In December I kind of pulled away from the world and gathered my family in close and had a quiet holiday. Honestly, it was just what I needed. Because despite the wonderful, amazing things that happened this year, my life revolves around my husband and my kids. And they are what make everything worthwhile.
So, yeah, an amazing year. It wasn't all roses and clover. I cried over my books at least three times, determined I was a hack author who couldn't do anything right. I had someone I thought was a friend stab me in the back. I was separated from my family for almost three weeks when they moved while I was touring and that was really hard. And revisions . . . well, they are always soul-sucking.:D But all of that pales in the face of how many great things happened to me this year and the readers, bloggers, and fellow authors who have joined me for the ride. I got to meet so many amazing people in my travels. And readers. Oh, I love my readers! Especially the teen readers. They have such enthusiasm! I have been laughing at my Google alerts the last couple days as I have been placed on both Best of and Worst of 2009 book lists--because no list is as cool as a thirteen-years-old's sparkling eyes. That's what's important to me.
And you, dear readers, thank you for joining me again this year. It's been a long time since I started this blog in January of 2006. Quite. A. Ride. Thank you for coming with me. Whenever you started.
And buckle your seat belts, because this roller coaster ride isn't over yet!
For your viewing pleasure...
Happy New Year!!!
Ciao!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Jacket Copy
One of the things that I always worry about on my books is jacket copy. This is the little bit of text and/or description that goes in the inside jacket flap. This little bit of text, that--second only to the cover--is generally the biggest reason people buy books, is infamous for being written by interns anxious to cut their teeth on new projects. I don't know who writes mine, but for the second time in a row, I have FAB jacket copy!! I've had it for a while but it is now starting to pop up on my google alerts in sale listings, so now I get to share!
"I can't just storm in and proclaim my intentions. I cant 'steal' you away. I just have to wait and hope that, someday, you'll ask," Tamani said.
"And if I don't?" Laurel said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Then I guess I'll be waiting forever."
Although Laurel has come to accept her true identity as a faerie, she refuses to turn her back on her human life--and especially her boyfriend David--to return to the fae world.
But when she is summoned to Avalon, Laurel's feeling for the charismatic faerie sentry Tamani are undeniable. She is forced to make a choice--a choice that could break her heart.
Yay! I love the quote they picked!
In other news of awesomeness, Wings has been selected as one of five nominees for Best YA Paranormal/Fantasy Novel of 2009! I am in the excellent company of The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong, Tempted by P.C. and Kristin Cast, The Maze Runner by James Dashner, and Shadowland by Alyson Noel! You can download the PDF of all the nominees in all categories here! Lots of lovely books in there!
And something I think is cool--though you may not :)--is that Wings is being released in large print in January! As someone who has awful eyes, that makes me happy.:D
Also, my German cover has come up on Amazon!!! I think it is SO beautiful and I am so pleased to share!!
*lesigh* The German edition is expected to hit shelves in March! I'm expecting my friend Jen to take a pic for me. *koffkoff* ;)
Later this week I will take a break from Wings stuff and will be doing a large, picture-filled candy making entry.
You've been warned.:D
Ciao!
"I can't just storm in and proclaim my intentions. I cant 'steal' you away. I just have to wait and hope that, someday, you'll ask," Tamani said.
"And if I don't?" Laurel said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Then I guess I'll be waiting forever."
Although Laurel has come to accept her true identity as a faerie, she refuses to turn her back on her human life--and especially her boyfriend David--to return to the fae world.
But when she is summoned to Avalon, Laurel's feeling for the charismatic faerie sentry Tamani are undeniable. She is forced to make a choice--a choice that could break her heart.
Yay! I love the quote they picked!
In other news of awesomeness, Wings has been selected as one of five nominees for Best YA Paranormal/Fantasy Novel of 2009! I am in the excellent company of The Awakening by Kelley Armstrong, Tempted by P.C. and Kristin Cast, The Maze Runner by James Dashner, and Shadowland by Alyson Noel! You can download the PDF of all the nominees in all categories here! Lots of lovely books in there!
And something I think is cool--though you may not :)--is that Wings is being released in large print in January! As someone who has awful eyes, that makes me happy.:D
Also, my German cover has come up on Amazon!!! I think it is SO beautiful and I am so pleased to share!!
*lesigh* The German edition is expected to hit shelves in March! I'm expecting my friend Jen to take a pic for me. *koffkoff* ;)
Later this week I will take a break from Wings stuff and will be doing a large, picture-filled candy making entry.
You've been warned.:D
Ciao!
Monday, December 07, 2009
Coolest. Picture. Ever.
I have a billboard!!
*runs breathlessly around in circles and falls over and dies of glee*
Okay, how awesome is that!! My agent sent this to me this morning. It is advertising my French copies in Canada, and the foreign rights' agent said they are everywhere!!
Eeeeeee!!!!!!!
Ciao!
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