Anne Gracie

Dancing shadows

2012-01-15T17:37:00.000-08:00

In one of the rooms of my house there are two large windows with holland blinds as their only covering. The holland blinds are old, a bit worn and tatty and deeply unfashionable, but I love them.

The reason I love them is that every morning they give me wonderful shadow pictures, dancing silhouettes of the leaves outside. It reminds me of a book from my childhood, with wonderful illustrations.

Mine are not quite as decorative, but I think they're beautiful, nevertheless, especially since they dance and move constantly in the breeze.

Gives me a smile every morning.

Where do I get my ideas?

2011-12-29T17:13:00.000-08:00

I'm blogging at The Romance Dish today, about where my ideas come from, and specifically, what sparked my new book, Bride By Mistake.

Where do you get your ideas?
It's a question often asked of authors, and most writers hate it. Not me. I get ideas for stories all the time - there's no shortage. They come from all kinds of places — a snippet of overheard conversation, an image, a scene in movie or a book where I think, "No, it wouldn't have happened like that," and an idea is sparked.

(This image is from http://parchmentplace.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/dreaming-about-books.jpg )

But most often stories come to me just as I'm drifting off to sleep, or just as I'm waking in the morning. A scene starts rolling in my head like a movie and depending on my state at the time, I'll either scribble it down into the exercise book I keep beside my bed, or stagger out to the computer and type it up. If it's a scene from my current novel, I'll head for the computer, but if comes out of the blue, I usually use the notebook.

I always write it down, because if I let myself drift off to sleep, I know I'll forget it. I've learned that the hard way, waking in the morning, remembering that I'd thought of a really good scene, but with no memory of what it was, except that it was The Best Idea Evah! ...
Read the rest of this blog here, and leave a comment to be in the draw for a copy of BRIDE BY MISTAKE.

'Twas the Lull after Christmas. . .

2011-12-27T23:14:00.000-08:00

Here's a little poem I composed for that period after Christmas.

'Twas the lull after Christmas

And all through the house

Not a creature was stirring

Not even a spouse.

Leftovers are placed

On the fridge shelves with care

With instructions that

"You all can just graze from there."

"Please do not disturb me

Unless there is blood.

'Tis my time for reading

'Bout a fictional stud."

"Just leave me alone

With my books for a while

I'm a much nicer person

With the TBR pile."

Read the rest of the post that goes with this poem here, at The Season for Romance.
And if you go there, scroll down to the post below mine— they're giving away a kindle.
(That's not my TBR pile, by the way — I borrowed it from www.morbid-romantic.net)

I Visit the Ballroom with my latest hero, Luke. . .

2011-12-27T23:01:00.000-08:00

As you know, I'm on a blog tour to launch Bride By Mistake — see below for the dates of each blog.
I've decided to post the beginning of each blog here, so if it appeals, you can click over to the site I'm visiting.

This is The Ballroom Blog, and my hostess is the wonderful Katharine Ashe. She says...

Today I’ve donned my prettiest gown, new kid gloves, and a pair of antique pearl earrings I borrowed from one of my heroines. I’ve even dabbed lavender water behind my ears and on my wrists. Why the extra primping? Because it’s my first time bringing an author as a guest to the ball, and I’m feeling celebratory!

And what a guest! Anne Gracie – author of deliciously emotional, sexy, captivating stories – enters the ballroom with me. She’s dressed in a flowing purple gown and is wearing a string of glittering beads and a turban with peacock feathers.

Read the rest of the post here.

Blog Tour

2011-12-21T19:50:00.000-08:00

I'm doing a Blog Tour to launch BRIDE BY MISTAKE.
Here's the schedule. I hope you can join me. Each blog is individual to that site, so you shouldn't get bored, and at each place I'm giving away a copy of the book.
19th Dec — the Affair de Coeur blog

22nd Dec — the Ballroom Blog
27 Dec — The Season for Romance
27 Dec — WordWenches (Christmastide mini Blog)
29 Dec — The Romance Dish
3 Jan — SOS Aloha
4 Jan — WordWenches (Christmastide mini Blog)
5 Jan — Jaunty Quills
5 Jan — Tote Bags 'n Blogs
6 Jan — MaryJo Putney interviews me about the book
8 Jan — Risky Regencies
9 Jan — the Goddess Blogs
10 Jan — Fresh Fiction
11 Jan — Regency Romance UK
12 Jan — Berkley Jove Author chat 9pm ET (USA) 12 noon (Aust'n Eastern states)

13 Jan — WordWenches

19 Jan — Writerspace
27 Jan — Catherine Hein foodie Friday

Listening to writers

2011-12-16T18:07:00.000-08:00

Last night I went to see Tom Stoppard and Neil Gaiman talk.

(This is Neil Gaiman in the pic)

The event was put on by the Wheeler Centre and was 2 separate talks/interviews. The old Athenaeum Theatre where they had it was packed. It was first come first served seating, though we'd all paid weeks before, and for Tom Stoppard I was in the middle of the stalls about half way down, which I thought was great, but then they made us all leave in the interval while they did a sound check for the next part, so the scrum was on for seats again for the second half.

I've been an admirer of Tom Stoppard most of my adult life. (I remember arriving in London aged 19 after a 23 hour flight and going to a Tom Stoppard play (Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead) that same night and, not knowing about jet lag, I ended up staring down at the stage from my seat in the gods, holding my eyelids open with my fingers, thinking, this is brilliant, this is brilliant, don't fall asleep. )

It was such a treat, listening to this grand old man of the theatre talking about his life and his work and his insights into writing and acting, and all with such a lovely dry sense of irony and humor. He was particularly incisive when talking about actors "interpreting" his words and his attitude to workshopping scenes and doing improv "to see where it takes us"w as pretty funny — just speak the words I wrote, he said.

So, back to the Athenaeum, as I said, we had to hang around for an hour in between the two sessions and queue for seats again, which wasn't much fun as it was crowded and airless and hot, but all of a sudden this young woman jumped up onto the bar bearing a ukelele and started performing this brilliant song about ukeleles. It's a bit of a blurry pic, I'm sorry, but I was at the back and had to hold the camera high.

It was Amanda Palmer, Neil Gaiman's wife. At first some people thought she was just some ratbag exhibitionist, and were scowling and muttering but then they listened to the lyrics and soon started smiling and laughing. It was fun and unexpected and generous of her - a real treat — and in the end she'd charmed the whole crowd, and we'd have happily waited another hour.

The song lyrics and her singing it are here.

So then it was back inside to grab a seat for Neil Gaiman and this time I was about four seats from the front, and it was great —I could see every expression. He was witty, frank, very warm and appealing and acerbic and funny and brilliant.

He fielded a lot of questions from the audience, but before the Q&A started he fixed the audience with a gimlet eye and explained that a question was a short, interrogative sentence, not an invitation to give some long-winded opinion. The audience applauded, me included. And it did have an effect. So often at these things you get some opinionated person trying to impress, rather than asking a question, but this time most of the questions were okay.

The only fly in the ointment for me was a couple in front of me who were recording the interview on their i-pad, holding it up and passing it back and forth, so that it was like having a TV screen between me and Neil Gaiman. Soooo annoying and distracting. I don't mind people taking photos — I took some myself at the beginning (with no flash) but having this lit-up screen floating around and occasionally blocking my view of the stage throughout the entire interview, was extremely irritating.

I noticed, too, that all around me people were tweeting on their phones. That wasn't too distracting, but I did wonder why people can't simply be in the moment and listen and absorb what's happening.

But in general, it was a lovely night — a real treat all around, so thank you Tom Stoppard, Neil Gaiman, Amanda Palmer and the Wheeler Centre.

Paper earrings for Christmas

2011-11-29T04:05:00.000-08:00

A friend sent me a link to a photo of some folded paper Christmas trees, and they seemed pretty simple so with a little experimentation, I worked out how to make them, and with some cut out red ads from a catalogue I made some little ones, just to see if they worked and they did.

It's very easy -- just a circle folded in half then folded back and forth. But light and fun.

Then I found some double sided colored paper, so of course I had to try it with that, too. I snipped a shred away from the top layer of each fold to show the color beneath, and attached earring wires.

Then I made the ones below with a music print and I tried slipping in a slightly larger red semicircle between the fold, and that worked a treat, I think.

They'd look lovely, I think, hanging in a line on a string but here they are just as small ornaments to hang.

And someone just sent me this link, so I can also send you to a pattern.

She's used semicircles for her cards, but I used circles folded in half — it makes for a more dimensional earring or hanging ornament, I think.

The Secret of Babaganoush

2011-11-19T01:07:00.000-08:00

I've probably spelled it wrong, but you probably know what I mean -- babaganoush, the middle eastern dip made with eggplant (aubergine) and tahini and lemon and garlic.

When I first started cooking, back when I was a student in a share household, we'd developed a taste for middle eastern food from the many cheap and delicious Lebanese restaurants along Sydney Rd (in Melbourne.) For a few dollars we'd order the "dips and salads", which started with a large basket of Lebanese bread hot from the oven and a dozen or more little bowls of various dips and salads — at the time the number of little bowls seemed endless.

It was enough for a meal in itself. If we were feeling extra hungry, or it was a celebration, we'd order the set menu, and the many little bowls of deliciousness were then just a prelude for the main course that followed, of various grilled meats, rice and salad, followed by sweet pastries and tiny cups of thick, strong, sweet coffee.

Of course, I wanted to make these dishes at home, and most of them I was able to reproduce quite nicely. but not babaganoush, never babaganoush. Mine was always too bland, tasteless, dull. I tried various recipes and followed each one faithfully, but was never happy with the result. There was something missing from the recipes, some essential ingredient.

Enter my friend Mae, Lebanese heroine and fabulous person who, before a party one night, offered to come around and show me how to make proper Lebanese babaganoush. Fantastic, I said. I'll provide everything. I made a list and she checked it twice.

So she arrived. All the ingredients were laid out at her fingertips, as well as a cool glass of white wine — it was a warm summer night. I had the griller going for the eggplant, and in case she preferred the oven method, I had the oven preheated, too. These were the two methods recommended in every recipe I'd ever seen.

"We won't need those." Mae turned off the grill and the oven. She lit a gas burner on the top of the stove and plonked an eggplant on top of it. Flames licked at the hapless vegetable's naked skin. Not high flames, low and even. Slow charring, not instant conflagration.

"Won't it burn?" I asked.

"Yes, that's the idea." Mae sipped the wine as the smooth shiny skin of the eggplant crumpled, then blackened. It hissed gently from the cracks. From time to time she turned the eggplant so it charred evenly. The kitchen smelt of burnt skin of eggplant, oddly attractive.

Finally it was done to her satisfaction and she took it off the heat and placed it in a bowl. "Too hot to handle yet."

I poured another wine and we waited. When the poor sad, crumpled blackened eggplant had cooled enough, she picked off the charred skin. The inside flesh was soft and well cooked. She mashed it with a fork, then stirred in garlic, lemon juice, tahini, salt and a drizzle of good olive oil, mixing it well but not thrashing the life out of it. She tasted it then pushed the bowl toward me. "Try it," she said.

I tasted. It was fabulous. Perfect. The exact flavor I'd fallen in love with at the restaurants and hadn't been able to replicate. I'd had all the right ingredients all along. What was missing was the smoky flavor that had come from cooking the eggplant directly on the flame.

For me, all those years ago, it was the Secret of Babaganoush and I think of my friend Mae every time I make it. I've seen that method of cooking the eggplants show up in recipes since, but a distressing number still talk about cutting the eggplant in half and baking it in the oven or under a grill, which is what I'd been trying all those years ago. Useless!

It's even better cooking them on a wood fire barbecue, BTW, and utter bliss is to slow roast/char peppers the same way. The most popular peppers to roast are red bell peppers, but for my money, though they're fiddlier to handle and have less flesh, the most delicious are the long yellow peppers — sweet or hot. I strip off the blackened skin and chop them into chunks with my kitchen scissors — inside with seeds and all — add lemon juice, crushed garlic, salt, olive oil, and the juice of the peppers and let cool. Absolutely delish!

Kerry Greenwood's Corinna Chapman books

2011-11-14T00:06:00.000-08:00

I've been on a Kerry Greenwood reading binge lately. It started when I went to SheKilda, the Sisters in Crime conference a few weeks ago, and browsing through the bookstore, I spotted a series of hers I hadn't read. I've been reading her Phryne Fisher books since the first one was published in 1989 — and there are currently 19 in the series. (And by the way, I'm interviewing Kerry over at Word Wenches right now, and she's giving away a book to someone who leaves a comment.)

But I hadn't read the Corinna Chapman series at all. So I bought the first one at the conference... and ended up buying and devouring all 6 in the series.

They're cosy contemporary mysteries set in the heart of Melbourne — in the laneways/arcades area of central Melbourne, an area I happen to be very familiar with, especially because I've taught at the CAE and also done some courses there myself. The main character, Corinna Chapman is an accountant turned baker, and her shop is on this very lane.

Corinna lives above the shop in an elegant eccentrically designed Roman-themed apartment building, a lot like the one below.

It's a very foodie-friendly area, with all kinds of small coffee shops and restaurants, all of which are pretty good because the area has so many eateries the competition is fierce. Apparently these days it's also become a place for tourists to visit and take photos of the vibrant grafitti that abounds in any unused space. They also eat and shop.

There's also a wide variety of choices, for eating and shopping -- from the funky little places like the ones pictured above, to the timeless and elegant Block Arcade, which has been a popular destination for shoppers and eaters since the 1880s.

Part of the ritual of coming up to the city from the country when I was a kid — if you'd been good — was having morning or afternoon tea at the Hopetoun Tea Rooms — still a gorgeous place to visit and just as popular now as it was when it opened in 1892. You can see why — and there are more delights inside...

So it's the perfect setting for mysteries that also feature yummy food (it's not recommended that you read the series while dieting) a cast of quirky and interesting other characters, a gorgeous ongoing romance, and some delightful cats.

A friend of mine who lives in another state altogether loves this Kerry Greenwood series, too. "For me, it's got a very Melbourne vibe," she told me, "but it might not ring as true to a Melbournian."

But it does to this Melbournian, completely. The books are a lot of fun in themselves, but you don't need to know the place to enjoy the books.

Though I have to admit it's fun knowing the places where Corinna and her Daniel visit. It's a rare pleasure to read a book set in a place you know well.

What about you — have you read any books set in your home town?

What is Popular Fiction?

2011-10-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

I'm thinking about my forthcoming trip to Queensland — I'm teaching in Brisbane on the 22nd October and in Rockhampton on the 23rd — running workshops on Writing Popular Fiction, and I've had a few questions about it, so . . .

Popular fiction isn't simply fiction that aims to be popular — every writer wants that. Popular fiction includes genre fiction, such as crime, action adventure, romance, mystery, sci-fi, fantasy and so on, though it doesn't have to be a genre novel as such. It includes the kind of books you see in airport bookshops, the books that make you laugh or cry, and take you away — and not just in a plane. The prime aim of popular fiction is to entertain readers and keep them turning pages far into the night because they can't put the book down.

One of my favorite quotes about popular fiction is this:

"Readers of "serious" fiction expect to be challenged and like to be entertained; readers of popular fiction expect to be entertained and like to be challenged. They're often the same readers in a different mood." Daphne de Jong.

And here's another one I like:
"One of the problems, it seems to me, is that we have got it into our heads that books should be hard work, and that unless they're hard work, they're not doing us any good." Nick Hornby

Every genre has its own conventions, and this workshop will show you how understanding these conventions can make your story more exciting, satisfying and marketable.

We'll look at how to make a story compelling; from crafting an opening that intrigues readers, to deepening the conflict that forms the spine of any good novel. We'll focus on how to make readers care about your characters and want to spend time with them, and how you can sweep a reader into the world of your story, and keep them there.

I'm really looking forward to it - I love talking craft-of-writing with like-minded souls, and I love teaching. And it's a huge source of pleasure to me when new writers get published.

I'm also looking forward to catching up with writer friends in Brisbane and the Gold Coast and seeing a bit more of beautiful regional Queensland. I was up in Bundaberg in May, teaching writing, and I guess word has spread because I think the Rockhampton workshop is already full. Thanks, people.

Green Tea

2011-09-25T18:41:00.000-07:00

I've never been much of a tea drinker — coffee is my hot beverage of choice: strong, with a good splash of milk, no sugar. My family were always tea drinkers, also strong, sometimes with a dash of milk, mostly not.

It wasn't until I drank Chinese tea that I realized I liked tea. So now, when tea is offered I ask for weak, black, no sugar, and it's fine. Then I went on a health kick and decided I should drink green tea. I found it bitter, nasty stuff. I struggled with it a while, then gave up. It wasn't for me — or so I thought.

Enter Keri Arthur, who's become an inveterate drinker of green tea. At a conference earlier this year, she offered me a cup of green tea. I pulled a face. "No thanks, too bitter for me."

"Then you're making it wrong," she told me. "Don't make it with boiling water — wait a few minutes to let the water drop below boiling point, then make the tea. And don't let it steep too long." And she made me a cup and I liked it.

Since then, I still start my day with a lovely strong cup of coffee, but for the rest of the day it's green tea, nothing fancy -- tea bags from the supermarket. I have less patience than Keri - after the kettle boils, I add a dash of cold water and pour straight away.

And I drink my tea from the very special mug pictured above, a gift from a friend in memory of the time a bunch of romance writers sat down to order a meal. The gorgeous French waiter ran through the specials. We gazed up at him attentively — and took in not a word. The looks, the accent — who cared what was on the menu? This is the coaster that came with the mug. It shows the full picture.

Movie: Beginners

2011-09-17T17:16:00.000-07:00

I saw a movie recently that completely charmed me. It's called BEGINNERS and stars Ewan McGregor and Christopher Plummer as a father and son, and also Mélanie Laurent— and a very cute dog.

I'm not going to tell you the story — it's about a man and his father and a young woman he meets — but I will say the movie wasn't quite what I expected from the trailers I'd seen. I thought it was going to be all about the son and father relationship, and that's partly true, but it wasn't the way I expected. It's really about love in all its aspects, and there's also a lovely romance... well, two, really.

It's about acceptance, and being open to love, and living in the moment, and learning. My friend and I emerged from the cinema with smiles, and we went for dinner and kept throwing up thoughtful comments about the movie long afterward.
It's a life-enhancing movie, and definitely worth seeing.

Buttons

2011-09-08T20:28:00.001-07:00

I wrote a post about buttons on Word Wenches a short while back and I searched everywhere for some entertaining/interesting and copyright-free pics of buttons. I ended up tipping out the old button jar and taking some pics of those buttons, but wouldn't you know it, a short time later I bumped into a friend of mine and she was wearing this gorgeous button-decorated top.

Too late to put the pic up on WordWenches, but not too late to share it here. Isn't it pretty?

Through Visitors' Eyes

2011-08-31T22:40:00.000-07:00

Recently I had some friends visit Melbourne, my city, and we went wandering for a few hours down Brunswick St. I've been wandering that street for years — it's very close to my home and I know it really well. But seeing it through my visitors' eyes was so interesting, and I appreciated it all over again.

We poked through the tea house, sniffing, and tasting so many gorgeous teas and admiring tea pots, teacups, tea-glasses and all sorts of tea-making paraphernalia.

We browsed in a leisurely way through the various book and gift shops, and found a fun book for a romance writer.

My visitors became fascinated by the variety of different sculptural signs that adorn many of the Brunswick St shops. Some signs proclaim businesses that no longer exist, like the cow over the former Charmaine's, who used to make the most wonderful ice-cream. My favorite was chocolate-chilli ice-cream, a taste sensation. Charmaine's, I do miss you.

There are lots more, and I like the idea of them, even though not all the sculptures appeal to me aesthetically.

We sniffed our way through Kleins, the shop of amazing scents and giggled a bit at some of the labels for the scented candles. This one reads "Trianon. Flourished Smell of Marie Antoinette Dream." We decided she was having a good dream, not one that reeked of guillotines.

We stopped at one of the many restaurants for lunch and ordered some green refresh-and-revitalizer drinks, having no idea what they were but being intrigued and, after the previous night, in need of revitalization.

When the drinks arrived, they looked exactly like a healthy drink should look, sludgy green and unappetising. Spinach juice? Essence of compost?

But they were, in fact, delicious and fruity and I'll definitely order them again next time.

The green stuff is spirulina, a healthy algae weedy thingy, but the drink tasted of the other fruit juices that were in the drink. It didn't taste green or weedy at all.

We all loved Flowers Vasette, my favorite flower shop in all the world, a cool dim cave of gorgeousness —banks of the most glorious flowers, arranged in shades of colour, and scented like a dream. Of the Marie Antoinette good sort. Better actually.

Then we shopped and wandered some more, and finally whizzed up to Carlton to Brunetti's and some hot chocolate and possibly a cake. If we could fit one in.

All in all, a sleepy, indulgent afternoon.

We finished up eating delicious Vietnamese food at one of my favorite restaurants in Victoria St, Richmond.

Even though all these places are so familiar to me, showing them to visitors make me feel like I'd viewed them with fresh eyes. It's good to play tourist in your home town.

Spontaneous Poetry

2011-04-24T19:33:00.000-07:00

My habit most mornings, during my coffee break, is to read something from the pile of books on my bedside table.

This morning I opened Natalie Goldberg's WRITING DOWN THE BONES at random and found a piece where she'd written poems on demand at a stall, like a school cake stall. Any topic, a page of poetry, no crossings out, for 50 cents a poem.

It was amazingly popular, she said. People queued up to buy her poems all day — kids, men, women, old and young from all walks of life. The next year she did it again and charged a dollar.

Years later she got a letter from a man who still carried the poem she'd written for him around in his wallet. It and some photos of his family were the only possessions he took with him when he joined the coastguard service.

What a beautiful idea, selling spontaneous poems at a stall.

And how brave. Half the time I can't think what to write when someone asks me to sign their book.
But maybe I'll try it some time.

My favourite Easter picture book

2011-04-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

I made some paper earrings for a friend the other day and the colours reminded me of my favourite easter picture book when I was a kid, The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes. It was my mother's book, and I have it still.

The story is very sweet, and with a nice moral to it — mother rabbit, despite having 21 kids and living in the backblocks of the country, still gets plum job over noisy show-off buckrabbit boys and frightful snobby city rabbits. Basically by using her kids as slave labour.

The story is about being selected to wear the magic gold shoes and being one of the five Easter Bunnies who deliver the eggs to the children of the world. It's a huge honour, of course, and everyone wants it. But when the country bunny Cottontail says that one day she will be an Easter Bunny, the others laugh at her.

So fast forward and our Cottontail is a mother of 21 little rabbits, but she applies for the job and again she's laughed at for dreaming foolish dreams. Even the wise old rabbit who does the choosing asks her gently if she shouldn't be home looking after her kids. But our girl has the kids well trained. Working in pairs they do everything that needs to be done, from cooking and cleaning to dancing, making music and painting cheery pictures.

The illustrations are lovely, aren't they? They're simple but quite detailed and with a limited palette of colours, and quite unusual colours, at that.

For me then and now, they're entrancing, but more than that, the story is quite touching.
The job of being the easter bunny is hard and exhausting and little Cottontail doesn't have an easy time of it. After all her deliveries are done, there's still one more job for her — to take an especially beautiful egg to a far-distant mountain where there is a sick little boy, who is very good and never complains. She travels far, over high mountains, and is climbing the last, highest mountain when she falls... but saves the egg. But it's almost dawn. How can she ever find the energy to climb the mountain again, in time.

Then the wise old rabbit appears and tells her she's not only wise and kind and swift, but she's brave. And he gives her a pair of magic gold shoes. And suddenly her aching feet are no longer tired... and she takes the beautiful egg to the sick little boy and is soon home... where her house is in perfect order, and all her kids are still asleep in bed.

It's a gorgeous book, and even though it's older than me, it's still in print, which goes to show that I'm not the only person who loves this story.
Happy Easter. Do you have any favorite Easter stories?

On ducks...

2011-04-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

I found these ducks in a box of my mum's things and thought they might be nice for a small Easter post.

Mum was an infant teacher and made and collected teaching aids all her life and she didn't often throw things away. These ducks are probably older than me. Anyway they got me thinking about the ducks of my childhood.

My folks were into self-sufficiency -- a kind of pre-hippy thing, and we had loads of animals, and among the various kinds of poultry, we had white muscovy ducks and lovely browny Khaki Campbell ducks, and I bet you can guess which ones I liked best.

Yep, the Khaki Campbells. They seemed somehow gentler and more friendly than the other ducks. They were my dad's favourites, too. There's something about ducks. They make me smile.

I especially loved the ducklings, little balls of cheeping tortoise-shell fluff. Sometimes not all the eggs of a nest hatched, but the mother and ducklings had moved off. In those cases my sister Jan used to hatch them herself, wrapped in old woollen jumpers and placed in the electric frypan on the lowest setting.

When the orphaned ducklings hatched, they used to follow us around, cheeping like mad. The best day was when they first discovered water. They took to it like... yeah, that. Absolute joy and delight.

These days people are coming back to self-sufficiency, but though many of my friends grow their own vegies and some fruit and some keep chickens, nobody I know keeps ducks. It's a shame. Joyful creatures, ducks. Though possibly a bit messy for suburban back yards.

What about you? Any experience with ducks? Grow your own? Yearn after a little self-sufficiency? Or do you prefer your ducks roasted?

The power of gratitude

2011-04-18T21:26:00.001-07:00

I came across this wonderful little video. Sometimes the simplest things can be the most life-changing.

365grateful.com from hailey bartholomew on Vimeo.

A splash of scarlet

2011-04-14T05:45:00.000-07:00

My study looks out on a fence that's usually covered by Virginia creeper and each autumn it really comes into its own. I love this time of year when one by one the deciduous plants —which are all exotic species in Australia — change color.

I particularly love the way the Virginia creeper twines through other plants, leaving a splash of scarlet — in this case over the bronzed green leaves of my self-sown tree fern.

The Virginia Creeper is always the first. Now I'm waiting for the Japanese Maple.

What about you? What signs of the new season — autumn down under or spring in the Northern Hemisphere — are you looking forward to?

Spider and bee

2011-04-06T17:53:00.000-07:00

When I recently went away for couple weeks, I left a matching small and large spider sharing a web near my front door. When I got home there was only the bigger spider there. It's doubled in size and is quite lovely -- in a creepy sort of way, with a velvety grey abdomen, a black and white speckled thorax and a little black heat. And the web is delicate and simply gorgeous in the misty rain. I'll try and get a photo if we get some rain or mist later.

I photographed it this morning in the process of devouring a bee. You can see the bee hanging in the web at the bottom of this pic. It's been there for at least a week.

Today, as I was watching, the spider made its move, gathering in the nicely ripened bee.

And the poor old bee is now history.

I'm wondering how large the spider will get. And also whether the smaller web-mate that was there went the same way as the bee...

And whether the spider, only a foot away from the path to my door, will deter door-to-door sales people. :)

Or maybe my friends. :(

Would you wear these?

2011-03-15T17:29:00.000-07:00

I watched a movie on TV last night, and because I like to do stuff while I'm watching TV, I tried making some paper earrings out of my book covers. Each one only takes a few minutes. They're a miniature version of the paper decorations I made for Christmas one year.

I thought they might be fun to give away at the ARRA convention I'm attending in a couple of weeks time.

Can you identify the books they're from?

Here they all are together, hanging off a coffee mug.

What do you think? Should I take them to ARRA? Is it a dumb idea?

Would you ever wear something like this?

Leave a comment or match the earrings with the books, and I'll pick someone to receive a pair of earrings made of whatever cover you want.

Post script: After Trish Morey's comment, I made these from her book covers and some for another author friend. I gave my earrings away at ARRA and they were such a hit I might make some to take to New York in June.

A Quick Interview

2011-02-20T00:09:00.000-08:00

I've had a slew of emails recently, asking me about this or that, but since I'm on deadline and have not a lot of time to write detailed emails, I'm recycling a quick interview I did for a magazine. It covers some of the basics.

Why romance?

Originally I thought it would be a way to fund my literary ambitions, but the more I learned and the more widely I read, the more I grew to love the genre. It’s character driven storytelling with a feel-good ending – what’s not to love? And there’s such variety within the genre -- unlike the urban myths about romance, I have complete freedom to write the stories I want. Plus there’s a vast international market for it — I have translations in 16 languages so far, including Japanese print and manga editions.

There are hundreds of romance novels on the market at the moment. How do you come up with an original story?

It’s easy. Original characters make for an original story, and there is an endless variety of settings and situations and problems to overcome. It’s like music – there might be only eight notes, but the combinations are endless.

What was your big break into publishing?

When my first novel was shortlisted for a RITA in the USA – that’s the romance equivalent of an Oscar nomination. My books got a lot of buzz as a result and were published in the USA.

Tell us something we don’t know about being published.

I’ll tell you three things:

1) that romance writers are the best, most supportive mates you will find anywhere in the writing world.

2) that when you get published, it’s just the beginning of a whole new learning curve.

And 3) that writing doesn’t get easier; each book is a fresh new challenge. In fact sometimes it’s harder because you’re more aware of the market.

What are three reasons why romance manuscripts get rejected by publishers?

1) The writer has assumed romance novels don’t have the same features as all good fiction.

2) Clichéd, unbelievable or unsympathetic characters

3) Lack of emotional punch – people often confuse emotion with sex.

How has having deadlines from publishers changed the way you write and the way you think about writing? Does it ever get to be a drag?

It used to be something I did for fun, and now it’s my job, so that changes things. It can be difficult sometimes, usually when the book isn’t working, but then you’ll come at the story from a different angle and suddenly it’s all flowing again and it’s the best job in the world.

Other people dream of being a full-time writer. What does a full-time writer dream of being?

In a clean, tidy, well-run house. ;)

A quick Tasmanian escape

2011-02-12T17:35:00.000-08:00

Last week I took the opportunity to get away to Tasmania for a few days. For part of it I holed up in a hotel on the east coast, and wrote without interruption. It was a wonderful experience, and I wish I hadn't had to come home so soon.
I hired this little car. Cute, eh? It made me smile. I named it Cedric, after the car in the David Parker/Nadia Tass film, The Big Steal. (If you haven't seen this lovely movie, rent it out - it's fab!)

As Cedric and I wound through the hills, we drove through this... Cool, temperate rainforest.

I stopped for lunch and wandered down this path...

...and walked along this beach. I shared the entire stretch with one woman and two little girls.

I drove on and found a hotel for the night. This was the view from my room.

And this, in the other direction, taken on a misty, moisty, drizzly day.

I ended up staying there several nights, writing and walking and writing some more. Got loads done.

Every morning and every night I walked along the beach, scrambling over rocks (which I love) or sinking my toes in sand and small waves. This beach was right across the road from the hotel.

At night I sat quietly on the rocks and watched tiny fairy penguins, so sweet and shy and dauntless as they clambered and waddled over rocks and up the hill to their burrows, where we could hear hungry chicks cheeping imperiously. I didn't take theses photos; I didn't want to disturb them with a flash, and I didn't have a good enough camera to take pics without.

On the last day, I continued down the east coast. I ate my lunch on this beach and collected broken shells for a jewellery idea. I always collect shells and stones and bits of driftwood from the beach. Can't help myself, even when I know I'm flying home with only walk-on baggage.

I stopped here just to stare at the view...

And had a coffee here...

This old cowshed must have the best view in the world, I think — cowshed-wise.

I came home with a firm resolve to organize a writers' retreat here one day.

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T20:40:00.000-08:00

A Happy New Year to you all. I'm hoping 2011 will be better for me than 2010. It's started in a promisingly magic way, with a garden full of rainbow lorikeets.

Rainbow lorikeets are brilliantly colored Australian native parrots, and I feel lucky whenever they visit. A few months ago they visited my flowering gum (eucalyptus) until the flowers were finished, and at the moment the attraction is my plum tree laden with ripe red plums, so my day starts with the sound of noisy chirruping and squawkling as they feast happily on the plums.

You don't think squawkling is a word? Listen to this, which is a recording of rainbow lorikeets, and tell me these birds don't squawkle. It's part squawk part chortle and full of joy.

It's been a bit tricky to get a photo of them -- the moment I open the back door, a bunch of them take to the air in a flurry of bright colors, and only one or two little pirates remain right at the top of the tree, feasting boldly. You can just make out one here:

I'll try and get a clearer shot to show off their brilliant colors but in the meantime, here's one from the Wikipedia entry about them. Magic little birds, I think, and with real personality.

May 2011 bring you joy, peace, health and happiness. And a touch of magic.

food as gifts

2010-12-05T14:31:00.000-08:00

Every month or so I lunch with a bunch of authors in the city. They come from all around Melbourne, countryside included, and we've been doing it for years. When I was a newbie author, and just joined the group, there were five of us. Now there are sixteen.

The only time all sixteen of us come, however, is the end of year Xmas lunch, so it's always an event, with lots of talking as we catch up on everyone's news. We have a Kris Kringle, too, and the rule is a gift costing about $10. We used to make it something edible and home made, but now it's expanded to include something writing related or edible —home made or bought.

I like to try out different things each year, and this year decided on beautifully decorated gingerbread cookies. (Have you spotted the flaw in my plan yet? No? Read on.) This is the kind of thing I had in mind.

I searched out a recipe that looked promising, mixed it up, chilled it, rolled it out and cut out dozens of beautiful little cookies in the shapes of different kinds of stars, hearts and also gingerbread people. The house smelled magical as they were baking and they came out perfectly.

Next step, decorating them. The first problem came when I found that my old piping bag had disappeared. All the other pieces were there, not the bag. So I tried using a plastic bag and a piping nozzle. Splat. Giant icing blobs attack gingerbread man.

No problem, I thought. I'll make my own icing bag from cut out circles of baking paper. I've seen TV chefs use them all the time. So I cut out a circle of baking paper, formed it into a cone, filled it with the icing mixture and snipped off the tip.
Splat! Dribble! Blob! Squelch!

I tried half a dozen and decided there was no way I could give this as a gift. Yes, they'd taste lovely -- if you like gingerbread and some people don't -- but they looked terrible.

So... thinking cap back on. Some years back my local organic greengrocer used to sell cocoa dusted almonds that were simply delicious. The grocer moved away and the shop is now an art gallery, but maybe I could make the almonds myself. I prowled through various recipes on the internet and found spice dusted recipes, but no cocoa. But the principle would be the same, I thought, so I tried it.

Dead easy. Whip up an egg-white, and mix in spices, some sugar and cocoa, then coat the nuts in the mix and roast them. Again the house was redolent with the scent of roasting nuts and spices — I decided on spiced cocoa nuts. I have to say, they turned out beautifully. They were delicious -- not too spicy, and not too cocoa-ey (mainly because I'd only had a little cocoa left in the packet and couldn't be bothered driving to the 24 hour supermarket - it was getting pretty late.)

But then the more I looked at them, the more I thought it was a pretty average KK gift -- a jar of nuts. So I fell back on my last year's KK and made mendiants. These are so simple, yet yummy. A blob of melted chocolate, and on it a collection of nuts and dried fruit. I used spiced cocoa almonds, macadamia nuts, pistachios, candied ginger and dried figs, and the chocolate was Lindt dark chocolate. This is the label I made to go with them - because traditional French confections with monkish connections are so much better than a blob of chocolate with nuts and dried fruit on it, aren't they?

Mendiants are traditional French confections composed of chocolate disks studded with nuts and died fruits. Traditionally, the nuts and dried fruits used refer to the color of monastic robes — raisins for the Dominicans, hazelnut for the Augustins, dried fig for Franciscans and almond for Carmelites. Now a Christmas tradition, recipes for this confection have embraced other combinations of toppings.

So that was my KK — a jar of spiced nuts and a box of mendiants. I'd make both of them again, too, in fact I'm planning on making some more of the nuts a bit closer to Christmas. I've already given the first batch away.

And on my list for Xmas? A piping bag. And maybe some lessons in how to use it. :)

Quick, fun Halloween craft

2010-10-29T22:14:00.000-07:00

We don't really do Halloween downunder. My first ever sight of a carved pumpkin Jack O'Lantern was in Scotland when we lived there for a year when I was a kid. I loved them, longed for one, even butchered a hapless pumpkin in my 8 year old fervour for one. A desperate failure, I suspect and I've never had one since.

The country where they really go all out for Halloween activities is the USA. And influenced by US TV, the kids here are starting to pick it up. What's not to like about dressing up, scaring people and the legalized taking of sweets from strangers? The only problem is that when the local kids go trick-or-treating and knock on doors, they often get blank looks. Or a diatribe about it not being our tradition and watching too much American TV.

A couple of years ago I was heading off to the supermarket and I saw a small gang of kidlets down the end of my street dressed as ghosts and ghouls and pumpkins, clearly going trick-or-treating, and though I kind of agree with the "not-our-tradition" folks, it's a bit of fun for kids, and these kids had gone to a lot of trouble and looked really cute, so I bought some chocolates and lollies for when they got to my house.

I was only gone half an hour, and it was still light when I got home, but my door got nary a knock.
So there I was with a small pile of the sort of stuff I try not to buy or bring into the house. What to do with it all? Oh, the dilemma!

Anyway, since I enjoy crafts, and in my neck of the woods we're in for a long, wet weekend, I thought I'd share a few easy, kid-friendly halloween crafts. They're all in paper, so cheap, fun and easy is the theme.

If you have any littlies who want masks, there are some good, simple ones here.

You might want to make a lovely Halloween decoration — collect a bunch of interesting twigs, spray paint them black and hang the paper decorations below from them. Easy, gorgeous and cheap.

The decorations below are printable and downloadable free from the craft ideas site. There are lots more good ideas on this site.

Here's a downloadable paper origami cat that comes in black or marmalade — just print it off, cut fold and glue — dead easy. (pun intended, heh heh) I've made these and I really like them. Tammy Yee, the designer, has other animals that are print and cut out, too, including bats, and some really beautiful owls.

The hanging paper pumpkins below are both elegant and amazingly easy. All you need is orange and green paper, scissors and glue or a stapler and some cotton to hang them. They're a variation on some Christmas deco designs I've made before, and it's all about strips of paper that are different lengths.
A different, just as easy and elegant design is here.

So whether you celebrate Halloween or not, enjoy the evening and don't scare the kids too much.

Farewell Eva Ibbotson

2010-10-23T18:27:00.000-07:00

Eva Ibbotson— one of my favorite writers in all the world — died on Wednesday and I'm feeling very sad.

Many people know and love her children's books — Which Witch, The Secret of Platform 13, The Journey to the River Sea and many more, but I first came to Eva Ibbotson through her adult romances. They were well out of print when I discovered them, but I hunted them down on the internet until I had a full collection. I didn't care that I'd paid quite a bit of money for battered old library editions; the contents were gold.

However last year they were reissued— as YA books for some odd reason — and it was great because the books found a whole new audience, and also because I was able to press her books on friends without risking their non-return. I did a Word Wench interview with Eva last year, when she was 84.

She left behind her a brilliant legacy — these are books that will live on, as Georgette Heyer's books have lived on, but one of her stories that might not live on is a small piece she wrote in support of public libraries, and it's one of my favorites.
It starts:

I was eight years old when I came to Britain as a refugee - and was not particularly grateful. Mostly this was because after years and years of being a sheep coming to the manger, or a grazing cow, I had at last landed the part of the Virgin Mary in the nativity play at my convent school in Vienna.

And then ... Hitler. read the rest here.

You can listen to a podcast interview with Eva here.

Eva said once in an interview that she thought of her books as a present for readers.
They are indeed a gift she has left to the world.
Vale Eva Ibbotson.

The Delicate Art of Critique

2010-10-05T21:48:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging on RomanceAustralia about the critiquing process — what to talk about when you're past the beginner stage. Any suggestions?

The hardest part of the critique process comes after the beginner level is past. Often people are at a loss when they read someone’s work, especially if problems are few and far between. What if there are no typos, no grammar mistakes, no head hopping, no obvious problems? Where do you go then?

I think one of the most important things is to respond to a piece, not correct it.

Read the rest of the post here.

Where my ideas come from...

2010-10-04T22:37:00.000-07:00

I'm celebrating the release of my book THE ACCIDENTAL WEDDING and blogging on WordWenches today about what is probably the most common question an author gets asked - Where do you get your ideas?

When an author first gets published, people who don't know her — and sometimes people who do — assume that if the events and characters from her books don't come from history books, they must come from her life.

I can't speak for other authors, but for me, this is far from the truth. Not one character I've ever written has ever existed outside my imagination. And my life hasn't been nearly as exciting or adventurous as that lived by most of my heroines. And, alas, the heroes that walk my pages are not hanging around my house. Even the occasional dog that appears in a book wasn't one of my dogs. Really, I often just dream up scenes and stories and I have no idea where that comes from — I only know it's not from history books and it's not from my life.

What I do often take from life, however, are the small details that "furnish" the book, the things, for instance that evoke a scene and a mood. The scent of herbs drying or bread baking, of new cut grass, or of damp dog. The fragrance of a wood fire, the crackle and hiss of burning wood, the settling of coals and the dancing of shadows on the walls when the only light is firelight.

Read the rest of the post here...

Dorothea Brande and me

2010-09-30T17:08:00.001-07:00

Today I'm a guest on Joanna Bourne's wonderful blog, where I'm talking about my version of Dorothea Brande.

Dorothea Brande was a writer and writing teacher in New York in the 1930's. She wrote a book called Becoming a Writer which is now a classic and is still in print. It was the forerunner to books like Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way" and others.

But Dorothea isn't the slightest bit new-agey. Her book is small and slender, her advice practical and quite pithy. The writing style is spare, elegant, and a little old-fashioned in places. Dorothea is as romantic about the writing process as a dog trainer is about training dogs — with good reason; she's on about training your muse to perform on command. But she also acknowledges there is magic involved — and that you can teach it to come to you. And it’s true.

I can't do justice to her whole philosophy here, but this is my own nutshell version of Dorothea, which I've used on and off for more than ten years.

(read the rest of the post here )

Paper beads

2010-09-08T18:00:00.000-07:00

One of the ways in which I unwind of an evening, after walking my dog, is to watch TV, but I seem to be like my mother in that I can't just watch TV without doing something. What I do varies according to my interest or needs at the time. I go through cycles.

A while back I had a spurt of making paper beads, and as usual, inflicted some of the results on my long-suffering friends. Paper beads are very easy to make and the results can be surprisingly attractive. The first ones I made were from a free local magazine and I cut the triangles in random widths. They turned out rather well, so I strung them into a necklace and made a pair of earrings as well.

I had an old calendar picture whose colors I liked, so I decided to turn it into beads, too. It had wide white borders, so rather than cutting them off or having white beads, I drew stripes and squiggles on the borders with a permanent black marker. This is the result, the paper beads teamed with copper-colored freshwater pearls. (BTW, the safety pin you might have noticed is attaching the two tiny earrings to the necklace so they don't get lost— it's not part of the design. ;)

My next inspiration was to turn a couple of friend's book covers into beads. I printed the covers out on glossy photo card. This book cover became the necklace and earrings below it. I chose pinks and greys because they're colors my friend often wears.

I wanted to inflict--er, make another lot of beads with another friend's RITA finalling cover and she said, how about a bracelet? So since she wears red really well, I experimented with a few variations on the bracelet design.

And at the conference a few weeks ago I gave to the HeartsTalk people some paper bead necklaces and earrings made from pages of HeartsTalk, the Romance Writers of Australia monthly magazine, which is printed in black and white.

I've made rather a lot of beads now and am moving back to other pursuits. (Friends in various parts of the world heave audible sighs of relief.) Here's a handful of my beads that a friend of mine took a photo of.

If you're interested in making paper beads yourself, there's an on-line tutorial here. It's fun, cheap and the beads can be pretty. I'll probably do another batch as Christmas approaches and make strings of them for the Christmas tree.

At the Craft Market

2010-08-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

I've just got back from the St. Kilda craft market. I'd been a bit upset about the loss of my favourite brooch, my silver brolgas brooch — I'd last worn it two weeks ago in Sydney at the Romance Writers of Australia national conference, and when I'd taken my jacket to be drycleaned, the brooch wasn't on it. I phoned everywhere I'd been in Sydney, but no luck, and since I'd bought it some years ago at the St. Kilda craft market, I thought I'd see if I could get another one.

I was almost ready to leave when I went to put on my earrings, and lo! there was the brooch, in the bowl with my earrings. I must have removed it on auto-pilot when I got home and not recalled it at all.

Still, the morning was brilliantly sunny so I decided to head down to the market anyway. My time at the beach in Sydney had spoiled me and I wanted to see the sea again — I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky — she says, channelling Dad, who used to quote poems at the drop of a hat — that one's Sea Fever by John Masefield, one of his faves.

Despite the bright sun and brilliant blue sky, it was chilly -- 10 C -- and I got there early enough for most stalls to be just setting up so I wandered off and bought a coffee at the The Europa Cafe — St. Kilda is renowned for great cake and coffee shops in the European tradition— where I resisted the delicious fragrance of fresh-baked cakes and chocolate and stuck to one small coffee.

I took it to the beach and basked in the sun with the sound of waves on one side and seagulls and rainbow lorikeets in the palm trees above me. Seagulls are noisy, pushy brats, but I love lorikeets. They cluster in my flowering gum tree every morning chirruping and squawking happily, and each summer they descend on my plum tree and steal my plums, but I don't mind. There's something magical about them, and I'm not sure whether it's the drought or the bushfires or simply a result of more people planting native trees and bushes in the city, but I've been seeing a lot more lorikeets and other native birds lately.

Anyway, back to the market. It's a mix of crafts, some junky and not to my taste, others beautiful. Prices range from a few dollars to thousands — I saw one gorgeous silver bracelet for $1200 and a beautiful pair of gold sea-urchin earrings for more than $1000. I shopped at the cheaper end of the scale. I bought a couple of lovely pewter brooches and a pair of earrings, and despite my intention of not buying anything for the house — I'm planning to renovate and am supposed to be getting rid of stuff, not acquiring it — I was also tempted to buy this gorgeous glass dish. I congratulate myself on not buying one of the hand-turned wooden bowls — I have a weakness for beautiful wooden bowls and spoons.

I do love markets, especially craft markets that sell lovely things. Do you?

At Coogee

2010-08-21T21:46:00.000-07:00

I'm just back from the Romance Writers of Australia conference in Sydney. This year it was at Coogee Beach, a location I'm very fond of. My writing group have been on retreat there for the last two years, and we've come to love it. I blogged about our retreat last March on WordWenches, so if you want to read more, go here. Mind you, it's not hard to love Coogee — a gorgeous beach, lovely accommodation and dozens of good restaurants and eating places.

The hotel is just over the road from the beach, and I had a balcony room, high up, so this was my view.

Even though it was winter, it was so warm I slept every night with my big glass sliding door wide open, and I fell asleep to the sound of pounding surf, and woke to this.

The second day the surf was spectacular, with waves crashing on the rocks and spurting upward. I had only a cheap pocket camera with me and couldn't catch the splashes, but even so, some of the photos give you an idea of what it was like.

I'd started brainstorming with my friend, Barbara Hannay, but the warm, fresh, blowy weather lured us out and we walked up to the bluff, almost to Clovelly. Barbara has a slideshow on her blog.

This is the view looking back toward the hotel. The hotel is the big white building in the top right-hand corner of the picture.

One of the nicest things happened on our last night at Coogee. Up until that point, we'd eaten virtually all meals at the conference, or at a place chosen by our publisher (thank you Harlequin Australia) but on the last night we organized whoever was left to go to our favorite Italian restaurant, La Spiaggia, for dinner.

We love it for two reasons — firstly, the food is excellent and it's a really friendly place. Secondly, the first time we went there, two years ago when we were doing our first Coogee writing retreat, Jess, our waitress, turned out to be a writer, too, and we bonded. The second time we went back, there she was again, and we talked about agents and things like that, so we were hoping she'd be there again, and we could catch up on how things were going for her.

This time when we went in, we were a bit disappointed to see she wasn't there, but the food was fabulous and we had a lovely meal anyway. Then the barman came over and asked if I was Anne Gracie. Bemused, I admitted I was, and he said Jess would like to buy us a drink. She still worked there, but not on Sunday nights, and the guys had phoned her to let her know we were there. Even better news, she'd sold the book she'd talked to us about in March! Isn't that wonderful? We were all so thrilled. It was the final fabulous touch to a great meal and a lovely weekend.

Thank you Jess! My first taste of Sambuca, and it won't be my last. And I can't wait to buy the book. We'll be back to Coogee and La Spiaggia, and next time we'll be buying the drinks.

The Mysterious Affair of the Mouldy Cake

2010-06-23T00:16:00.000-07:00

I'm borrowing another friend's email again here (with permission--and the names changed.) Writers are often born story tellers and my friend is no exception —this story is too good not to be shared. The images I've used are from the web.

Just had a small marital win. My husband is a car-neat-freak. He changes to a new car every 20,000 kms, courtesy of his work, so it always smells new. He washes it once a week, vacuums, checks for scratches, wipes away fingerprints, you name it.

Me, I work on the assumption that if I remove the spiderwebs my ancient car may not stay together. The dog and kids and I go to the beach - often. We collect sand. And stuff. To say my husband and I are polar opposites in the car department is an understatement. But our differences mean whenever I drive his car he checks it and sighs - loudly - and fetches vacuum.

He's been away overseas for two weeks. My sister was here at the weekend, she's also a neat freak so I drove her round in my husband's car.

So his first day home, he went out and checked it all over - deeply suspicious. Then in he came, looking appalled, carrying a cake container he'd found under the front seat. Full of... horror of horrors.... mouldy cake!!!!

I was still in bed when he brought it in, and it was like all his deep dark suspicions about who I am were finally confirmed. His whole body was vibrating with accusation...

But it had me bemused. Contrary to popular belief, I don't actually stow mouldy cake under car seats - the dog and I eat any cake down to the last crumb. I looked at it from all sides - definitely mould - definitely a lot. I recognised the container. I took a deep breath and opened it to investigate.

It was the chocolate cherry yule log I'd made for my husband to take to his staff morning tea last Christmas. He'd asked me specially to make it. It took me ages and I was really proud of it. He'd obviously put it under the front seat and forgotten it, and it was only because he was suspecting - horrors of horrors - sand!!! that he'd finally checked under there.

Shoulda seen his face.  I reckon I could go on a holiday to Hawaii on the strength of this.
Heheheheh

Marion Lennox & seals

2010-05-23T18:51:00.000-07:00

My friend, Marion Lennox, who writes fabulous romances, occasionally sends emails that are just too good for an audience of one or two, and since she doesn't blog, I decided to hijack an occasional email. So with her permission, I'm going to share her latest, about her weekend, with photos.

Gorgeous gorgeous day, lovely enough to entice me out to Port Philip Bay where the seals are enjoying their new Chinaman's Hat. FYI the old Chinaman's Hat was a bell buoy the seals loved.

It eventually fell to bits and everyone including seals were so sad they built them another one - the seals then ignored it until it started to rot. Now it pongs and it's wonderful.

We went out in the boat, it being one of those amazing milliseconds of time when nothing's fallen out, over, in, it's not on the hard getting its bottom scraped, nothing desperately needs sanding, the tender's motor's working, the tender's not leaking, we can find the life jackets, someone remembers the thermos, hundred dollar bills have stopped for one moment being used to paper the deck, the weather's fabulous, we're all free, no one's seasick, and even the seals are doing their thing. This may never happen again in this lifetime but for yesterday we're truly grateful.

I loved this pic of a seal family, with two females looking on as the big bull seal snores in the sun, and the cheeky youngster climbs all over him.

A curious seal swam up to investigate...

...took one look at the strange creatures in the boat and flipped away back to the seal colony.

Thanks, Marion, for sharing such a lovely event.
Marion's books nearly always have animals in them, whether they're dogs, cows, frogs or twin baby alpacas. I wonder if we'll ever get seals...

Anyone here have experience of yachties? I was just a kid when my brother-in-law built his first small boat ( a mirror) in my dad's garage. It started something and over the years my sister and her family had some wonderful experiences with their various yachts - mostly built by my brother-in-law. I still remember the letter she wrote to me while they were sailing the Whitsunday Passage. Just fabulous.

ANZAC biscuits

2010-04-23T17:55:00.000-07:00

ANZAC biscuits (ie cookies) are an Aussie tradition. They're also the most common biscuits I bake -- not that I bake biscuits all that often, but when I do, these are the quickest and easiest and I nearly always have the ingredients to hand. They're also delicious.

ANZAC stands for Australia New Zealand Army Corps and these biscuits were invented during World War One by the wives and mothers of soldiers away fighting on the other side of the world. The 25th April is Anzac Day, a public holiday in Australia that commemorates the role of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps in the dreadful Gallipoli Campaign of 1915. During this long and bloody campaign a spirit formed among the soldiers, a tradition of mateship forged under fire and in impossible conditions. It's still part of how Australians see themselves today. (That's my grandfather on the far right, by the way, standing holding the rope. He wasn't at Gallipoli -- he fought in Flanders, also horrible.)
If you want to learn more about ANZAC day, visit the Australian War Memorial Site. I'm really only talking about biscuits here.

Australians are pretty big on sweets and cakes and biscuits. An old cookery book of my mother's, about 250 pages long, devotes the first 50 pages to soup, meat, and vegetable dishes, the next 50 to puddings and desserts, the next 50 to cakes, and 20 to sweet biscuits. And then there's jams and jellies, and confectionery.

I suppose it was partly about country cooking and hospitality -- with no refrigeration, sugar is a natural preservative, and heaven forbid visitors arrive and you have nothing to offer them with their cup of tea. My grandmother, an excellent country cook, would never be caught short, and invariably had two or three sweet treats to offer visitors - usually some kind of cake, plus scones, and biscuits. And country men devoured them and burned off the sugar in hard physical work.

Soldiers at war lived on army rations -- basic, boring, usually stale , and often weevilly. They used to joke about the flat "ships biscuits" that cracked teeth -- "army tiles" some called them. So women back home racked their brains to find something to send their boys that would last the 2 month journey and still be tasty.
(The picture above is of my grandparents taken on leave during WW1. Romantic, eh?)

What emerged was a biscuit (cookie) made of ingredients that most women would find in their pantries : oatmeal, flour, sugar, coconut , butter and golden syrup. No eggs, because they would go bad on the long journey. Oatmeal was a staple -- porridge was a staple breakfast food. Coconut is a commonly used ingredient here, no doubt because it's grown here. And golden syrup is a by-product of sugar production -- a kind of light molasses -- a golden brown colour, lighter than treacle, which is almost black -- and we have a large sugar industry, so like people in the southern states of America, we use it in our cooking.

These biscuits, placed in an airtight container (often old tea tins like the one on the right) lasted the two month trip easily and were still delicious to eat. I don't imagine they lasted long after the tins were opened -- they'd be shared around -- a little taste of home to boys and young men fighting in a foreign land.
At first they were simply called 'soldier's biscuits' but as people back home became used to hearing reports about "the ANZAC boys' they were soon called ANZAC biscuits.

So here's the recipe. It's very user friendly and adaptable. I'm also giving you my lazy girls method, where you mix the whole thing in a saucepan. Less washing up ;)

INGREDIENTS
1 cup rolled oats (I've used all sorts, even microwavable oatmeal)

1 cup plain flour

3/4 cup desiccated coconut (dried coconut)
1 cup sugar (white, raw or brown)
125g (4oz) butter
2 tablespoons golden syrup (see note above)
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1 tablespoon boiling water

1) Preheat oven to 150C (300F)

2) Melt butter and golden syrup together in a large saucepan. Remove saucepan from heat.

3) Mix soda with boiling water and add to melted butter and syrup. It will foam up a little.

4) Mix oats, flour, sugar and coconut into the wet mix.
5) Place walnut-sized lumps of mixture (about 1 tabsp) on greased tray (allow room for spreading).

6) Bake in a slow oven (150 C or 300 F) for 20 minutes. They will look golden and toasty

7) Loosen while warm (they come out very soft) and cool on trays.

The number it makes will depend on the quality of the ingredients used, which will affect how much they spread in the baking. If you overbake them and you find them too hard and crispy, crumble them up and use them as topping for icecream. They will soften with age, too.

If you make them, write and let me know what you thought.

Easter

2010-04-02T23:37:00.000-07:00

It's Easter. In the northern hemisphere, Easter means spring; here it's autumn. Not that my plum tree knows it. Confused by the hailstorms and the unexpected rain and after clinging to life through thirteen years of drought, the poor thing has reverted to its northern hemisphere instincts and is trying desperately to put out new leaves and blossoms, when the rest of the non-indigenous plants in my garden are just beginning to turn gold and crimson.

I love autumn leaves. In Australia, only the exotic species have autumn colour, most of the native plants remain grey-green throughout the year, and only the new growth on the gum trees is crimson. I remember a glorious autumn in Scotland the year we lived there when I was 8, and I ran about catching coloured leaves as they fell -- I'd read in a story that to catch a leaf meant a day of good luck, so I wanted 365 leaves to give to my mother. I got them, too. I expect it gave Mum one day of good luck at least -- a child fully occupied the entire day and exhausted at the end of it.
One day I'll be in eastern North America to experience the full glory of deciduous Fall. But it won't be this year.

For me, Easter means barbecues in the bush, in particular the north east of Victoria, where we lived before we started moving every couple of years. The foothills of the Snowy Mountains. I wrote about it here once. No barbecues this year, alas. I'm working through the Easter break. Everything is very quiet - most of my neighbours have gone away because it's the last break before winter.

And I'm not buying chocolate eggs -- I'm buying bulbs instead. Lilies, hoop petticoats, tulips, more freesias -- can you ever have too many freesias? I have them drifting across the front garden, naturalized in the grass and spread by seed. The fragrance is divine -- one of my favorites, and I've decided to have more in the back garden and hope they fill the lawn one day.

Buying bulbs on line is not quite as much fun as driving up to the bulb farms in the Dandenong Mountains, an hour's drive from here, but still, such a pleasure to plant papery brown things or small waxy lumps and a few months later a tentative gorgeous spike or two of green and then... flowers.

Have a fabulous Easter.

Seasons Greetings

2009-12-19T19:13:00.000-08:00

I'm popping in briefly to apologize for the lack of posts for such a very long time. A lot has happened in the last six months and I'm only just starting to get back on top of things.

I'm head down, and finishing a book so this won't be a long blog. I just thought I'd share some of my "between scenes" activities — the fiddly fun stuff I do with my fingers while my brain is dreaming up the next scene in the book. And at this time of the year it's decorations and ornaments.

I love Christmas. I normally have a real Christmas tree — mostly a seedling or a branch from the pine trees that my dad planted many years ago. I don't care about falling needles,

I love the smell of fresh-cut pine sap and to me, Christmas isn't the same without it. But those trees are a 90 minute drive away and I'm slaving over a hot book and can't afford the time. I know I could buy one, but this year in particular I'm feeling a bit sentimental and if I can't have Dad's pine trees, I don't want any, and I'm working all through Christmas anyway, so I'm going minimalist.

On a recent dog-walk beside the creek, I picked up some lovely fallen eucalyptus twigs and sprayed them with chrome paint, which comes out shinier than silver spray paint. And on them I've hung home made paper ornaments.

Now I'm no origami guru -- I've never even made one paper crane, let alone a thousand. But trust me, these are easy. And made with beautiful paper and a couple of beads they look stunning, even if I do say so myself.

The beautiful colored bells are made with 5 inch square Japanese orgami paper and are amazingly easy except for the last tricky bit, which takes a little fiddling until you get it — it's easy after the first time. You can see someone making it here on youtube, but she rushes the fiddly end part, so go to Ann Martin's wonderful blog which shows the fiddly part best. I added a few beads and an occasional tassel to mine. I've also made some tiny bells, too, as you can see from the pic on the left.

Some people hang them the other way up, which gives you a variety of shapes.

Then there are these beautiful pinecone mobiles, which are so easy -- just cut and thread along with some beads, then hang and watch them catch each little breeze. I made this with good quality textured wrapping paper, but the first one I made with photocopy paper and it's lovely, too.

I loved this little wreath. I like tiny things, so this is half the size of the pattern here. I used white note paper and the lining of a very

pretty envelope for an alternate pattern.

If you're snowed in and have kids to entertain, I blogged about crafts last year on Word Wenches (and will do again this year) so click here if you want more fun and easy things to make.

All the best for the holiday season — stay safe and happy, and may the new year bring peace and safety for all.

On being read to...

2009-05-12T15:33:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, on the way down to see my mother (just over an hour's drive on the highway) I started listening to the audio book of Sue Monk Kidd's "The Mermaid Chair."

Lovely book. When I got home last night I was reluctant to stop, I wanted to go driving on into the night, being read to.

It's been years since I was read to. I used to love it when I was a little kid, but the moment I learned to read that was it — I

wanted to read everything myself. Pure impatience. I could read much faster than people could speak it.

But so

me years ago I discovered audio books. I was facing yet another weekend of scraping wallpaper and paint off the walls of my entryway/vestibule. It was the devil's vestibule — every time I'd tackled it, I got sick with the 'flu or a bad cold. That vestibule just didn't want to be fixed!

For some time I tried to bluff that my decor for it was the "distressed look" but it had gone from being distressed to being in downright agony and shrieking "torture!" and it was time to bite the bullet again. I'd already spend several weekends on it and this was a long weekend — Monday was a public holiday. Everyone else I knew was going away on the last long weekend before winter, but my only plans involved getting this wretched job finished, if it killed me

There were 3 or 4 layers of wallpaper, and each one had been painted over (why???) at some stage and then papered again. (again

why???)

So using the steam machine didn't hav

e the magical results it did when I'd taken the 1970's glowing metallic medallion featu

re wall off the lounge room wall, or the 1960's frolicking donkeys off the study. Believe me, I'd tried everything the guys at the paint shops could suggest. I don't know what they'd put on those walls over the years, but it was made to stay. The only way to get rid of it was the endless peeling and scraping of shreds. And when that was done, the wall needed to be sanded back and the many cracks and holes filled and then an undercoat put up before I could paint. So a long weekend of drudgery stretched before me.

I made my usual visit to the library during the week and the audio book section caught my eye. There was a book by a favorite author on it that I hadn't read. I checked the catalogue, and all the books by her were out, so I looked at the audio version and thought, why not?

Smartest th

ing I ever did. On Saturday morning I started the scraping and when I stopped for a morning coffee (feeling as though I'd already spent half a day at it instead of just a few hours) I remembered the audio book. I dug out my portable CD player, put the first cd in and resumed scraping. By the afternoon, the book finished and I looked around and was amazed at how much I'd done. And so painlessly — the time had flown. So I jumped in the car, belted back to the library before it closed, and grabbed a bunch more audio books to get me through the rest of the long weekend.

By the end of the weekend, the vestibule was all done, and I'd even managed to wash down the wall in preparation for the undercoat of sealing paint. And although my arms and shoulders were aching, I didn't feel as though I'd passed a weekend in endless drudgery, I felt instead as though I'd been naughty and spent an entire weekend reading. It was wonderful.

The following weekend I listened to more books as I painted. The surface was still so bad a normal coat of paint would show up every faint pock mark, so I ragged it (painted on the paint roughly and while it was still wet, blotted it with a rag) and I really loved the textured result. That's it behind the tulips.

The most fantastic thing was that the nasty, dreary job not only had a great outcome, but that I'd felt like I'd been given a treat by having all those books read to me. And because the selection isn't huge in my library, I tried some authors new to me and found some I really liked.

So now, whenever I have a mundane household task to do — cleaning out cupboards or regrouting tiles or whatever, I grab an audio book. My hands are perfectly capable of carrying on and getting the job done while my brain is in the world of the book.

And lately, as I've been driving down to see Mum more often, the stories not only make the time fly, they're a comfort. These days I'm not so impatient and it's such a treat to be read to.

So what about you? Do you like to listen to audio books or have someone read to you? Or if you still prefer to do it all yourself, where's your favorite place to read?

Procrastination is not a dirty word...

2009-04-27T16:26:00.000-07:00

So, I've been thinking about procrastination recently. I'm an expert procrastinator. I put things off until the last minute. I never arrive anywhere early — I'm not late, you understand — I just squeak in at the nick of time. Usually. (I think I just heard my editor sniff. ;)

I make lists compulsively. I even include on the lists things I've already done, just so I can cross them off and start off with a feeling of achievement. Sad, I know.

Anyway, my procrastination often takes a creative direction. It might be that I join Twitter and in the same breath start a blog. It might also be that I take up beading while I watch TV at night. I go through phases of doing little fiddly projects, and while my fingers are busy on one thing, my mind is working on another. In the past I've made cards, things for dolls houses, tiny clothes for tiny dolls -- at the time I was babysitting a friend's little daughter on a regular basis and the dolls house was an ongoing obsession project. And if I'm not doing craft stuff I'll make soup — all that repetitive chopping of vegies sets the story spinning afresh as well.

The beading started when I attended a pearl knotting workshop, to learn to knot pearls correctly - research in mind, not procrastination. After I'd done the class projects I made this little bracelet from some leftover freshwater pearls and jet chips I had after I'd pulled apart a 3 strand necklace and made it into two longer strands. And as a result of the pearl knotting course, I also discovered wholesale bead and semi-precious stone suppliers, which are so much cheaper than ordinary bead shops. So then I really got hooked.

I got a bit carried away in the wholesale suppliers, and I also dug out a lot of old beads, broken necklaces I'd bought in charity shops, and some of my mother's old beads, and I started making necklaces. Years ago I used to make earrings but hadn't done anything like that for ages, though I still had some of my old bead supplies, so it was fun trying different combinations.

There's no real skill involved -- it's actually a bit kindergarten: threading beads-- but lots of fun. And some of the results are very pretty, I think.

This is the first necklace I made, with misshapen freshwater pearls and green glass beads. Green is one of my favorite colors and I liked the combo of the straight-edged glass beads and the knobbly freshwater pearls. Cultured freshwater pearls are amazingly cheap, and yet they're still real pearls.
Do you know how to tell real pearls from fake? I'd read a squillion times in books that you rub them against your teeth and that real pearls felt rough, not smooth. But I'd tried it a squillion times and never felt the difference.

But all these years I'd been doing it wrong. You rub the pearls gently along the sharp, biting edge of your teeth, not against the front of them, as I'd always done. It feels distinctly different, and it's nothing to do with the actual surface texture of the pearl. Real pearls and fake both feel smooth to the fingers. But rub real pearls along the biting edge of your bottom front teeth and they feel ever so slightly gritty. It's to do with the composition of the nacre -- the substance a pearl is made from. Have you ever eaten a souvlaki (gyros) and accidentally bitten down on some foil? Feels weird. It's a chemical thing, not a texture thing, and my guess is that pearls are like that.

Anyway, enough of the pearl lesson. This necklace was made from the remnants of a broken shell necklace of my mother's. I remember her wearing it when I was a child and I loved the tiny pinky shells. With the shells I used misshapen freshwater pearls (I love the odd ones so much better than the perfect round ones) plus some antique drop shaped semi-opaque glass beads that I'd had for years and never found a good use for them, and some small cubed metal beads. I'l probably never wear this — I hardly ever wear pink, but I like how it looks.

I'd had these blue-green stone beads for ages, but wasn't sure what to team them with. In the end, I chose mauve and green quartz chips and aqua-colored fake pearls from an old broken necklace, and I was pretty happy with how it turned out.

But even though all of this is a form of procrastination, I know, it's not necessarily a waste of time. I find when I occupy my hands with small, fiddly things, my mind roams free. Half way through a project I'll put it down and head for the computer or my notebook and write down an idea for the next or a future scene of my book. It's as if the fiddly manual nature of the activity has set free my imagination or subconscious to roam.

At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Do you have a hobby, a craft, or a favorite form of procrastination?

Inaugural post...

2009-04-25T23:02:00.000-07:00

This might be a big mistake, but I've just bitten the blogger bullet and this is my first blog on my own account. Inspired partly by Sherrie Holmes enticing me onto Twitter and my friend Carol Marinelli embracing the net and blogosphere in one hit!

Who am I? I'm Anne Gracie and I write historical romances set in the regency era for Berkley. For more about my books go here.

I already blog twice a month with the word wenches, but this is a less organized, more frivolous and more personal blog.

I have a dog, an Australian Kelpie (cattle dog) called Chloe, and if you think it's cruel that I make her wear a red feather boa, well, here's some other pics from the photo shoot, showing just how miserable she wasn't. If ever there's a dog that likes dressing up, it's her.

I used to try and put cats in dolls' clothes when I was a little kid. I wasn't much interested in dolls, mind — just animals, but people kept giving me dolls and clothes (hoping ladylikeness would take) and I did like the clothes. We had dogs, a horse, cows and goats and everyone was cooperative about wearing old pullovers, scarves and hats and garlands (the goats used to eat the garlands, which was a little disheartening), but the real doll's clothes were all perfectly cat sized, but would the cats cooperate? No way. I still bear the scars. It was most annoying when they were the only doll-sized animals I had. But then cats always are perverse and independent creatures -- that's a huge part of their appeal. You feel so flattered when they deign to sit on you.

After I grew up I never used to be in favor of dressing up animals but a few years ago we had a Christmas party at "dog park" the park area that runs along the creek down the back of my place. It's an off-lead dog walking area and over the years the regulars have become friends. Chloe's affair with accessories started there, at that Christmas party.

One woman, Jane, owner of Chockie and Oscar, dogs who always wore stylish bandanas, turned up with 50 Christmas dog bandanas that she'd sewn herself. So I broke my rule and tied one onto Chloe — and to my amazement, she loved it. Next day she saw it in the car and got all excited and nudged it with her nose and as soon as I put it on her she sat up, proud as punch.

So then the next Valentine's day I took a photo of her with a red feather boa for my website. Most dogs would rip the boa to bits, but not this one. Nope — as you can see, she posed.

That was several years ago and the boa is still in one piece. And why do I have a red feather boa? I have several — are they not required wearing for a writer of romance, after all? LOL.

This particular one was a gift from Harlequin, when we had an author dinner at a romance writers conference in Melbourne, and every author was given a red feather boa. So it's truly a Romance Boa.
And if you want to read another boa story, from that same conference, go here.