Shar 7: Brokeback Publishing

~ Jenny

We’re rewriting Act Two this week, now that we have all the scenes done, but we’re all exhausted. Krissie’s taking a break until Wed., Lani took yesterday off, and I’m looking at a book called “Stupid Sock Creatures” that came in the Amazon box and thinking that maybe tonight I will watch TV and sew instead of beating my head against D&G again. Crashing a book is okay for publishers, not so much for writers. Brain hurts.

But I did have a break-through on part of the book. I have two characters, Shar and the Goddess Kammani. And I was having a hard time getting Kammani on the page, and then I read an article on How to Be An Alpha Dog and realized that that was what Kammani was, the Alpha Dog. So we’re going to use the Alpha Dog Guidelines for Kammani. Should be fun.

Meanwhile I tried a butter cookie recipe last night that wasn’t anything amazing, and then did a variation with honey instead of granulated sugar which was better but still not D&G-worthy. We’ve been writing about magic butter cookies all week and it was making me crazy, but now I’m sated. And full of honey-butter cookies. Moving on to another recipe . . .

And today Veronica tried to eat my monkey slipper. I don’t know how Milton missed it.

Oh, and the title for today’s post came from a conversation I had with Lani. I told her publishing was like a bad relationship with a hot guy: as long as publishing tells me I’m pretty and gives me money to buy groceries, I’ll stick even though it makes me feel like hell. Lani said for her it was more like Brokeback Mountain, aka “I don’t know how to quit you, publishing.” We’ll be okay again tomorrow. We just need some tea and a cookie.

15 thoughts on “Shar 7: Brokeback Publishing”

  4. Me. A couple of the mods. It appears to be a Yahoo thing and the mods are looking into it. No idea what’s going on, but it’s not you, bookgirl.

  5. Jenny, was the Alpha Dog article in print or online? If it’s the latter, would you please post a link? The puppies are working on their dominance issues. “Working on” is a euphemism for baring teeth, growling, flipping each other over. Gotta admire Pyxi’s spunk. She’s smaller and lighter than her brother, but gives it her all. In the meantime, I need them to remember that I’m the top dog in the family pack. So far, they understand that most of the time. I want to be sure they don’t forget. *g*

  6. Mary Stella, it came as a freebie as part of the offer here:
    http://www.kingdomofpets.com/dogobediencetraining/specialoffer.php
    It’s called SitStayFetch, and it’s a dog training manual, and if you ordered it for download, you got the Alpha Dog pamphlet and three or four others free. The main book, Sit Stay Fetch, was recommended on several sites that I googled, and now that I’ve read part of it, I like his approach a lot. But the Alpha Dog pamphlet–it’s only about eight pages–is going to be great for Kammani. And me. It’s already made a difference, although they’re all looking at me like,”You’re kidding,right, you can’t mean it?”

  7. It makes sense that she’s an alpha dog at heart, because that would explain why the first thing she does in the book is offer classes on how to get other dogs to behave.

  8. speaking of cookies, something that I tried once in DC that was a better version of a butter cookie was called a Hungarian tea cake. It was amazing! It’s served at this restaurant called, “Teaism”. I tried to find a similar recipe online, only to no avail. Here is the closest thing.

    http://www.massrecipes.com/recipes/01/01/hungarianteacake339395.html

    At Teaism, you could definitely taste the nutmeg but no nuts, and the nuts should certainly stay out – interferes with the buttery smoothness.

    Hope this helped.

    Btw, what other recipies are you looking for?

  9. My mom had a Danish Butter Cookie recipe she got from my Danish godmother. It was delish. I know it had nuts, walnuts, IIRC, but I seem to remember a little coconut, too. I remember that it was mostly cookie, not a lot of nuts, but they were in there. I usually don’t like plain cookies like that, but those I loved. Or maybe it was that she only made them for Christmas. ;+))) Anyway, I can look for the recipe if you’re interested. Can’t promise fast service, though, if they’re not in her old recipe box.

    Giving your brain a break is a good idea. With cats it’s much easier to show alpha, just pick them up by the scruff of the neck and flip them on their backs. However, I don’t think I’d try that with your Annie. It took me ages to get my LL to tolerate it, but things are much less fraught around here now that she’s accepted me as alpha…at least sometimes I get to be alpha.

  11. Cookies and tea? Yum. I’m still on a diet, so tea only, thank you.
    Was at Walmart this morning and saw a bin of stuffed animals and in amongst the pile, a dachsund wearing a leather (well actually black vinyl) jacket and dark glasses. It had a rather surly look on it’s face, Milton is much sweeter even if he does gnaw on things.

  12. Contention for dominance among cats is really weird to watch, especially since they don’t normally live in groups anyway once they’re weaned. I wrote about it with my two cats on my blog FluffyCatBabylon (see “My Sister, My Dominatrix”); but really, they seem to take turns, which a cat book I have says is normal. Aliera of the Many, Many Sharp White teeth usually wins the combats; but Sethra the Fluffy Bimbo takes her sister’s food whenever she wants. It doesn’t help matters that she has time to finish her own because Aliera seems to say grace over hers for a very long time…

    I really wonder about the cats next door–mine are sisters and have been together all their lives; but they have five at present (it’s been up to seven) from assorted backgrounds (and owned by assorted people). It’s worthy of a sociological study.

  13. Mine is one of this alpha dogs, too.recognized it when a dogtrainer explained us that puppies wouldn´t walk away from his people, cause they´re dependent on them while, in the same second, mine just walked away… the positive thing is, that she´s really smart(well, Border Collies are all damn smart…)you´ve got a lot of fun with her. the problem is, she´s so smart, you can´t afford any mistake in your behavior as boss. she will notice. She definitely always noticed. at least, it doesn´t bother me anymore. I don´t want her to be all obedient. Would be really exhausting always telling her what to do instead of just watching.and less fun.

  14. Lani is totally my hero. I may have to write down that Brokeback quote. I can just picture her saying it to with her hat pulled down low over one eye.

    I saw that sock creatures book at my local bookstore and almost bought it and then was able to restrain myself- mostly because my credit card is already screaming like a baby.

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