Trace gets a starred review from Publisher's Weekly!

So, this happened; thus providing a kind of validation I hadn't known I wanted.

Yes, I was hoping to get more reviews from more sources before the book came out, but I was thinking peer reviews, advance readers, bloggers & such.

This is really cool.

An "amazing" debut.

Yeah.

 The Curse of Jacob Tracy
Holly Messinger, Author 

Stellar writing and a strong story define Messinger’s amazing debut. After Jacob “Trace” Tracy nearly died at Antietam during the Civil War, he became connected to the spirit world. He tries to hide his ability to see the dead, working as a hired hand guiding wagon trains out West in the late 1880s. When a girl is accused of murder, Trace is lured into using his gifts to protect the innocent, but the cost is high. Messinger’s writing is a clinic on how to immerse the reader in a historic setting (such as his details on how 19th-century newspapers operated) without drowning readers in facts. Psychological and visceral horror mix in set pieces that build to a climax as Trace is forced to confront his fears about his abilities. Trace and his partner, Boz, quickly endear themselves to the reader, bantering and battling in a manner clearly inspired by the old Weird Tales; their interracial friendship (Trace is white and Boz is black) is well written. Though there’s a satisfying closure to Trace’s arc, this should be the start of many more Weird Western adventures. (Dec.)

would you rather...

So last weekend a guy I know was organizing a "great race" kind of relay to raise money for the homeless. One of the challenge stations was sponsored by Schendler pest control, and contestants had to either eat bugs (mealworms, mostly) or answer questions about an essay describing Schendler's company history.

Out of 400 contestants, not one took the test.

Which just goes to show people would rather eat bugs than take a reading comprehension test.

awkward writer situations

Saw this post this morning by Janet Reid about the weird ideas muggles have about how authoring works.

The scenario is both funny and familiar to me, though I haven't had to deal with it in a while. I'm grateful for all the years I went to writer's groups and small local cons and especially being a vendor/cosplayer at Planet Comicon​ because they gave me ample opportunity to build a catalog of awkward-diffusing phrases and responses.

Awkward sitch #1: Someone wants you to write their idea and you split the profits.
Response: Oh, thanks, but I don't do collaborations. I like to have complete control of a project.

Awkward sitch #2: A beginning writer wants you to critique their manuscript.
Resp: Sure, I charge $80/hour for professional editing services. (These days I just say I don't have time, which was true. I do, of course, have an established writer's group and we reciprocate reading/editing favors.)

Awkward sitch #3: A friend of a friend asks you to edit their raw wound of a manuscript that they wrote during therapy and offers to pay you ridiculous amounts of money to make it sellable.
**WARNING: No good can come of this. Do not succumb to temptation.**
Resp: I'm flattered, but I simply don't have time. You want to find a professional editor who can do it justice.

caramel cake

Preheat oven to 350ºF
grease 8-inch sq. pan and line with parchment
bake 35-40 min

beat with mixer:

• 1/2 cup butter (1 stick) 
• 1 c sugar 
• 2 lg eggs 
• 1 c buttermilk 
• 1 tsp vanilla 

Sift together:

• 2 c flour 
• 1 tsp bkg pdr 
• 3/4 tsp bkg soda 
• 1/2 tsp salt 

Add flour in thirds to liquid mixture until incorporated. Spread in pan and rap on counter to eliminate bubbles. Bake til golden & passes toothpick test.

Glaze:

• 1/2 c brown sugar 
• 1 c cream 
• 1 Tbs corn syrup 
• 1 tsp vanilla 

Cook brown sugar over med heat in heavy-bottomed saucepan. When brown and nutty-smelling, whisk in lukewarm cream, gradually at first, incorporating fully so sugar doesn't seize. When all cream whisked in, add corn syrup and vanilla. Pour over warm cake.

that feeling up the back of your neck

So I'm fairly sure I got cased out on the street today.

I was walking through downtown Lawrence, on my way to the coffee shop, about 9 am before all the shops were open. Bright daylight, chilly, very few pedestrians.

I cross the street from south to north, at the corner, and two guys cross from the opposite corner, from east to west. As they cross, one of them goes straight, but the other makes a beeline for me, adjusting to my trajectory so he steps up on the curb maybe two feet behind me, and then lingers there for three or four strides.

 I did a 180 turn, maintaining my stride, looked him in the eye. He, of course, almost steps on me and has to skip to the side, with a grunt as if I were being annoying.

"Excuse me," I said, and kept walking. I figure he's going to either drop back or stride ahead, but he kept pace with me, at the building edge of the sidewalk. We're watching each other from the corners of our eyes.

I have on combat boots, a utility jacket, backpack. He's about my age, six feet, lean, dressed like a clean homeless guy. I check the shop windows but can't see his partner. I keep my hands in my pockets and slow my pace.

My kung fu teacher says, if you don't want to fight, act like you do. And I know from experience that if you act unafraid, they'll wonder what you've got in your hands, inside that coat. In any case, I'm not about to run from a predator when there's nowhere to go, anyway.

I'm pretty sure I bluffed him out. Because after a minute, he said, in a very phony glib voice, "So you up here for school?"

And I said, in my usual cold flat response to idiocy, "I'm not out here for conversation, thanks."

He says nothing. He drops back. I cross the street at the light, keep going. Didn't see them again. My pulse accelerated a bit, but that was all. I'm not entirely sure what happened there, but it was definitely shady.

And I thought again, as I walked home a couple hours later, what a sheltered life I have led, that I have so seldom had to deal with nonsense like that. Wish I'd gotten a better look at his partner.

EDIT: I did call dispatch later that afternoon and they sent an officer to my house to take a statement. Nothing ever came of it but the young officer got a glint of respect in his eye when I used the term "interview" and dropped the name of Gavin de Becker.

fun with racial slurs

At my last writer's meeting somebody questioned my use of the racial slur "cracker," so I got curious and did some new digging; new resources crop up all the time. I knew 'cracker' was pre-Civil War but didn't know it was pre-Revolution.

From www.etymonline.com a/k/a the most wonderful writer's resource ever:

cracker (n.2)
Southern U.S. derogatory term for "poor, white trash" (1766), probably an agent noun from crack (v.) in the sense "to boast" (as in not what it's cracked up to be). Compare Latin crepare "to rattle, crack, creak," with a secondary figurative sense of "boast of, prattle, make ado about."

I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode. [1766, G. Cochrane]

But DARE compares corn-cracker "poor white farmer" (1835, U.S. Midwest colloquial). Especially of Georgians by 1808, though often extended to residents of northern Florida. Another name in mid-19c. use wassand-hiller "poor white in Georgia or South Carolina."

Not very essentially different is the condition of a class of people living in the pine-barrens nearest the coast [of South Carolina], as described to me by a rice-planter. They seldom have any meat, he said, except they steal hogs, which belong to the planters, or their negroes, and their chief diet is rice and milk. "They are small, gaunt, and cadaverous, and their skin is just the color of the sand-hills they live on. They are quite incapable of applying themselves steadily to any labor, and their habits are very much like those of the old Indians." [Frederick Law Olmsted, "A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States," 1856]

Also, the less well-known and southern-specific "buckra"

buckra (n.)
disparaging term among U.S. blacks for "white person," especially a poor one, 1790, apparently from an African language; compare mbakara "master" in Efik, a language of the Ibibio people of southern Nigeria.

Once again, I'm struck by how American slang has about a billion derogatory words for "not-white," and specifically, "black", but not many that specifically disparage whiteness. Another example of how history, and language, are written by the victors.