Lucky 13s, Geaux Saints and social media discoveries

It's been a busy week! First, and most exciting, I've joined The Lucky 13s blog! It's a blog for children's and young adult authors debuting in 2013. You should seriously check it out - the up-coming books all look fantastic over there! And there's a new post today - an interview with Leanna Renee Hieber, author of DARKER STILL: A NOVEL OF MAGIC MOST FOUL.

This past weekend, Hubby and I took our two oldest sons to New Orleans. It was a fantasy weekend for Louisiana sports lovers with LSU beating Bama and the Saints beating the Bucs. We watched the LSU game in a small restaurant/pub. I felt a little sorry for the lone table of Bama fans in the back corner. But the real reason for the trip was we had tickets for the Saints game. Needless to say, my kids were in heaven.

Look how great our seats were!! Six rows from the field!

Oldest son and middle son just before the game started

And for my social media discoveries - I'm starting to get the hang of it. For those of you that don't know me - I'm a little late to the game but making up for lost time. I'm now on twitter. It was a little overwhelming at first - my phone was making noises every few minutes but I've got an easy rhythm now. So come visit me - I'd love to hear from you.

100 Sentences

How well do you know your characters? It’s a good question. My first answer was: Pretty good since I’m the one that created them! But there’s more to it than that. I ran across this post by Mary Kole, agent with Andrea Brown Literary. The first part of it really caught my eye.

This is just a piece of the article:

 Brainstorms and Tips

This works best with a character or a setting that’s giving you difficulty. Concentrate on  this place or this person and write 100 declarative sentences about her, him or it. Sounds simple, right? Well, it really calls into question how well you know what you’re writing about.

And so to prove to myself that I really know my characters – I took the challenge with the main character of my new WIP in mind. 

The first twenty sentences were a piece of cake.

By the time I got to sixty-five, I didn’t think there was anything else to say about her.

Mary warned me it would be hard, and it was, but I finished– and it was totally worth it. Through this exercise I learned so many things about her. And even though some of the sentences were - Her favorite dessert is Bananas Foster - it was important for me to know that she’s not a single scoop of vanilla ice cream in a cup kind of girl. No, she likes her desserts with a little flair. She likes a dessert that you have to ignite. And through this list making process, several other aspects of her personality showed themselves.

The entire post by Mary is great and has some really awesome tips. I’m moving on to the “Reading Aloud” exercise. I’m sure my family’s gonna love me after that one!   

And since all this talk of Bananas Foster has my mouth watering - I want to share this recipe from the website for Brennan's Restaurant (one of the best places to eat in New Orleans):

This is the actual Bananas Foster recipe from the original source and creator of this dessert: Brennan's Restaurant. In 1951, Chef Paul created Bananas Foster. The scrumptious dessert was named for Richard Foster, who served with Owen on the New Orleans Crime Commission. Richard Foster was a frequent customer of Brennan's and a very good friend of Owen.

BANANAS FOSTER

• ¼ cup (½ stick) butter
• 1 cup brown sugar
• ½ teaspoon cinnamon
• ¼ cup banana liqueur
• 4 bananas, cut in half
  lengthwise, then halved
• ¼ cup dark rum
• 4 scoops vanilla ice cream
  
  Combine the butter, sugar, and cinnamon in a flambé pan or skillet. Place the pan over low heat either on an alcohol burner or on top of the stove, and cook, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Stir in the banana liqueur, then place the bananas in the pan. When the banana sections soften and begin to brown, carefully add the rum. Continue to cook the sauce until the rum is hot, then tip the pan slightly to ignite the rum. When the flames subside, lift the bananas out of the pan and place four pieces over each portion of ice cream. Generously spoon warm sauce over the top of the ice cream and serve immediately.