Following the Trail of Crumbs

The first bread I remember baking was a pizza, fresh out of the oven of my junior year college apartment. It wasn’t right. Something about the dough tasted raw, underdeveloped. We ate it anyway.

I kept making pizzas after this, with similar results. But the desire to get it right persisted. The experience with the dough led me to attempt loaves of bread. I would follow each recipe to the letter, and still that incomplete flavor would not go away. It didn’t matter if it was a whole wheat loaf or regular white bread.

Should I have quit? Bread is easy enough to get, even the good, crusty loaves that go well with the kind of cooking I mostly do. But every time I’d look at the ingredients for something that should be fundamentally simple, I’d get all fired up to do it myself again.

To find the first successful dough I can recall making, we have to return to the pizza. This time, though, it was a deep dish. Finally, the underdeveloped flavor wasn’t there. The crust was nicely browned on top, crispy with olive oil on the bottom. And here’s one of the mysteries of this journey. I have no idea what I did differently.

If I’d been approaching this scientifically, there would’ve been notes on the past successes and failures. Perhaps I was using different ingredients, or paying attention to different aspects of the process. I will never know, and that’s okay. This is a journey that plays out with each piece of bread, living in the moment.

Once the deep dish pizza was working, I started to push the envelope. How about a large hamburger, but the buns are individual deep dish pizzas? Yes, I made it. But only once, on a New Year’s Eve.

Hawaiian Style Rolls (made in a deep dish pizza pan)

With this confidence in hand, I turned my attention back to individual breads. Focaccia. Rustic Tuscan loaves. Pan de mie. It was starting to work.

Japanese Milk Bread

But it’s never a guarantee. Even with this experience, every time I mix the wet into the dry, I’m not sure how it’s going to come out. In that way, it’s a lot like writing. Sure, I’ve done it before, but this time might be different because each dive into the process is unique.

Lately, I’ve had success with the no knead method bread devised by Jim Lahey. The recipe is online, as well as in his book, My Bread. If you have a dutch oven and a desire for a crusty round of bread, this is the way to go. The biggest challenge with this method is the timing (the first rise is 12-18 hours). I’ve found that if I can get it started by around nine at night, the fully cooked loaf will be ready for dinner the next day.

No Knead Bread

I keep a challenge list of recipes I want to try. I think the next up will be English muffins. But what’s really looming over me is sourdough. It’s been on the list for years, untouched. The idea of keeping a starter alive, then developing part of it into something usable for a loaf is intimidating. Which is exactly why I should do it.

So do you bake bread? Is there a recipe you’ve always wanted to try? Or is there a recipe you want to challenge me with?

Nico Rosso writes the award nominated romantic suspense series Black Ops: Automatik for Carina Press and can be found on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and his Website.

Romantic Times Convention 2107

Hello, Everyone!

I'm just back from the Romantic Times (RT) Convention in Atlanta where I had a productive, fun and awesome, if not exhausting, time! Since some of you might not have been able to attend, I wanted to share a few photos with you and let you know some of the activities that go on at a large conference the size of RT.

The following narrative outlines my week at RT in a nutshell (actually in a blog, but I digress). Here are some of the activities an author (well, at least THIS author) undertakes at a conference such as Romantic Times.

First of all, you meet up with friends, such as fellow Not Your Usual Suspect blogger and author extraordinaire, Toni Anderson.

You attend theme parties, like the 1920's Flapper Party, with Toni and another fellow Not Your Usual Suspect blogger (and my sis), Sandy Parks.

You meet with other awesome authors like our roommate and romantic suspense author, Gennita Low.

You participate in a panel on writing called Sequels, Series and Spin-Offs, because the conference is all about business, right?

You take time to do research at the Center for Disease Control and stop to visit author Margaret Mitchell's house (remember Gone With the Wind?) because...well, it's Atlanta!!!

You meet hot secret agent guys. :)

You do three (3) book signings because ... well, this is all about books, right? :)

You meet with awesome fans, friends and amazing readers! (This is, by far, my favorite part!)

 

 

And maybe, just maybe, you get a teeny bit crazy, not that I'd ever tell... :)

So, that's a wrap on another fun conference. I think I need to sleep for six weeks to recover. Hope sometime I'll get to meet YOU at a conference, too!! ~ Julie oxo 

Book Festivals

Photo courtesy of Laura Orsini.

As a reader, the thought of spending a weekend surrounded by books and fellow lovers-of-books absolutely thrills me. As an author (and an introvert), it's not always thrilling to talk about my own books for hours on end. Still, interacting with readers can be a fabulous experience, if you're prepared.

On March 11-12th, I attended the Tucson Festival of Books at the University of Arizona to man a table. Well, half a table. This was my second year at this event, so I went in with a bit of experience, but I always learn something new. I thought I'd share my takeaways (note that these will be mostly from an author's perspective, rather than a reader's).


PROS:

I've attended many signings at conferences where readers can be numerous or few, but the experience in Tucson was different. Not necessarily better or worse, just different.

I definitely met people! Boy, did I meet people. The festival's website claims the attendance is somewhere around 130,000 book-lovers each year. Some just wanted to stop and ask directions to a booth or to food, but others wanted to talk about their writing projects and still others wanted books. I found some new readers, and gave away a ton of excerpt booklets and links to my free download.

The crowd consisted of a wider variety of ages and interests than the romance-genre crowd I'm used to at specialized conventions and conferences. Everyone from young children to older people, with interests from kids' books to nonfiction (especially history) to fiction, walked the UofA mall that weekend.

I met some new-to-me authors as well as got to catch up with friends I knew from previous events.

Because we shared a booth, the cost of the table for two days was minimal compared to some venues. Only about a couple hundred dollars.

The event held many draws for readers, and the lines to attend speaking events and workshops were very long, so the events were well-attended.


CONS:

LONG days! It was a two-day event, and we were at our tables from 9:00 a.m. until 5:30 p.m. each day.

While you never know what the weather will be like when you book the event several months in advance, this is an outdoor event and it turned out to be pretty darn hot. (Especially because I'm used to mountain weather and was coming from 40-degree temps to the high 80s.) It didn't help that my table was situated so that I had the afternoon sun from about 2:30 onward.

Our tent was a mixed bag of books. While all of our tent's authors were, of course, fabulous, we were a combination of many genres, from science fiction to paranormal to cozy mysteries to romance. And the label on our tent wasn't clear about who we were. Maybe because we didn't have a clear identity. We were the "Desert Dreams" group, which reflected our dreams of writing and being published but at least a handful of visitors wondered if we analyzed dreams and such. I had to wonder how many readers didn't approach, or didn't find us at all, because they didn't know who we were.

Parking was a challenge. Well, I should say that the long walk from the university's parking garage to the tent, while loaded down with a suitcase and additional bag of books, was a challenge. It helps to have an assistant. Several authors had hubbies or friends to help with the load, and to bring them refreshments. I highly recommend this. Unfortunately, my husband had to stay home with the kids, hundreds of miles away.

Sales stuff. I detest "selling myself." Promoting myself just isn't me. But I learned a lot by watching those around me and hearing their "hooks" and pitches. While I avoid any kind of high-pressure salesmanship, I can appreciate the way it worked for some. You have to do what you're comfortable with.


THINGS TO NOTE:

A rolling suitcase or other manner of toting books and promo items was immensely helpful. (Finding a husband or other willing family member or friend to help seemed to work best for many authors.)

Bring water! Stay hydrated. And if you're an introvert like me, water breaks had the added benefit of providing a few minutes of quiet time to stretch and get away from the crowds.

Having a bookseller on hand was useful in that I didn't need a license to sell (requirements may vary by state), but there was a commission deducted for this service, so be prepared to forward some of your royalties to the person managing the cash. (In this case, it was thirty percent.)

Finally, I can't stress enough the importance of going into something like this with a good attitude. For this introvert, the weekend was a marathon and mentally and physically exhausting. Plus, it's tempting to compare your sales to your fellow tent-mates' but I highly recommend you turn a blind eye to how other authors are doing. Instead, I tried to focus on making each person I met feel "heard" and responded with a bright smile to everyone who approached. This helped the introvert in me cope. ;)


How about you? Have you attended a book festival? If so, where, and what was your experience like? What tips did you learn, either as a reader/attendee or a signing author?

You're Among Friends Here

So, how many of you know when the Not Your Usual Suspects blog launched? You might be surprised to know it was on December 13, 2010. That means our blog is nearing our sixth anniversary! Wow! It seems nuts that it's been that long, but it has.

Oh, and guess who wrote the very FIRST post which started: "On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me …a super cool, hip, new blog to share with fans, family and friends?"


Yep, that was me. Since then our blog has grown to encompass several more wonderful writers. While we've lost a few along the way for one reason or the other, surprisingly, our numbers have mostly grown. Most of the writers whose blogs you read here have gone on to become wonderful friends of mine. One of them is even my sister (Hi, Sandy Parks!).

I had no idea when I wrote those opening words to the very first Not Your Usual Suspects blog that several of the women and men of this blog would go on to become such cool friends who would share the many ups and downs of my publishing career. But they did and I'm ever grateful for it. Some I've yet to meet in person, but we still support each other virtually. I can't tell you how much I appreciate that!

For the past several years those of us who are able to make the Romance Writers of America annual conference make an effort to meet and talk about our past year's publishing experience. This year was no different. In July, five of us NYUS bloggers met over breakfast to share insights to the business and share our successes and frustrations. I look forward to it every year.

Below is a picture of us (left to right): Sandy Parks, Sharon Calvin, Anne Marie Becker, me and Dee Adams. Just ignore the glazed looks and dark circles under our eyes from a weekend of little to no sleep. We didn't mind a bit because we were among friends. And now that you're here -- so are you!