Thursday Thoughts: Universal Wake-Up Call

Posted on April 12, 2018 by Silver James

When walking through the valley of a creative desert–which happens to writers far more than we like to admit, it takes a wake up call sometimes. I’ve been that particular trek for the past month. Words come hard, and they sound brittle like taffy boiled too long so that they crack and shatter when they splatter on the page. Well, the screen. Some days, I think I should drag out a yellow legal pad and a pen so I can scribble the words, rip out the page, wad it up, and toss it into an overflowing trashcan.

Sometimes, it’s hard to be creative when it’s a job. I know a lot of authors who manage it very well. I have lots of ideas, so many characters clamoring for attention that I’ve made them form a line, so it’s not a lack of creativity. Not necessarily. It’s a matter of not having creativity on the current project that is a big part of my job. And therein lies the problem. Job = Loss of creativity. *sigh* I know. It’s all in my head. Which is why I really needed this wake-up call from the Universe.

Wake up, Silver! Remember what excites you! Think of these things, those friends, and the adventures that can be yours! Focus. Care. Fantasize. Imagine. It’s all so near. Speak as if you’re ready. Paste new pictures in your scrapbook, on your vision board, and around your home and office. Physically prepare for the changes that you wish to experience in your life. You’ve done this before. You know it works. You’re due for an encore. It’s time to amaze. That’s why you’re there.

And it’s why I’m here,
The Universe
© http://www.tut.com ®

Wake up, Silver! Remember! Do what you know to do! It’s all so near!

See what I mean? The Big U has a tendancy to pop in with the right message at the right time. This is what I need to do. The question becomes, will I do it? Yes. Because it makes sense. Because this is how I write. Because it’s my job. So…another cup of coffee then it’s time to walk away from the water cooler, head into the office, put my butt in the chair, my hands on the keyboard, and reconnect brain, imagination, and fingers so that the words flow like they should.

What do you do when it with writer’s block? If you aren’t a writer, how do you get around the work-day blues?

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Wednesday Words: Tax Day

Posted on April 11, 2018 by Silver James

Another Wednesday, another theme for #1lineWed. With April 15th (Tax Day here in the States) looming, it’s fitting that the theme is **TAX/TAXES/TAXING** for today’s inspiration. To set things up, this is from the current WIP, Red Dirt Royalty #9, Cooper’s story and tentatively titled THE TYCOON’S TORNADO TWINS. Because…why not?!?! 😉 Anyway, our intrepid hero is performing rescues during the floods after a hurricane. The heroine, “Stormchaser Britt,” was doing the same when she got stuck and is rescued by said hero. Also, they rescue a huge black cat. If you like Harley the Newfoundland from REDEEMED BY COWGIRL, you will totally enjoy Lucifer. But I digress. After being up all night, Coop takes Britt to the Barron Exploration office in Beaumont, Texas where his RV is parked and where employees are camping out in trailers, campers, and tents. They set up makeshift showers and that’s where Britt has been–showering because getting dunked in swamp water? Uhm…yeah. Also, this is a first draft so ignore any typos or mistakes. Please and thank you.
****
Ten minutes later, Britt peeked out from behind an opaque—thank goodness—shower curtain. A colorful beach towel hung on a hook next to the temporary wall and a stack of clothes, topped with a pair of flipflops sat atop a metal stool. She’d gotten into the shower with her clothes on and used the bar soap in the stall to clean them and herself. She’d also found shampoo and conditioner. Still exhausted but feeling better—amazing what being clean could do for a girl—she wrung out her clothes, dried off, and pulled on a way-too-large T-shirt and sweatpants. She rolled the pants several times at the waist even though she’d tied the drawstring as tight as it would go.

Stepping out into the gray light of the cloudy morning, she noticed that more people were stirring. The few women smiled and nodded to her. A couple of men eyed her speculatively and just when she was about to ask about Cooper, she heard the distinctive yowl of a disgruntled cat. Following the sound, she found the black cat planted in front of the door of a fancy RV—the kind singing stars and rich people paid more than most folks paid for a house to travel around in. This one didn’t have a fancy paint job though. It was a metallic gray with a black stripe down the side. A red and white logo was plastered to the side but from her angle, she couldn’t read what it said.

The cat yowled again. She looked down. They exchanged a look. They both yowled, Britt breaking into giggles while the cat continued to serenade the door. It popped open and Coop’s disgruntled face appeared.

“Seriously?”

“Hey, I wouldn’t have known where to look for you without Obi Wan Catnobi here. He must be part bloodhound.”

Cooper stepped back into the RV and Britt made a grand gesture, sweeping her hand and arm toward the door, indicating the cat should precede her. The cat stared at the two steps then turned to stare at her. She stared back. And broke first.

“Fine.” She grabbed him around his middle with both hands and hefted him inside. “We wouldn’t want you to tax yourself, Tubbo.”

Rolling his eyes, Coop shut the door behind her. “You’ll spoil him.”

She favored him with a black look. “Uhm…cat. By definition, he’s spoiled.”
****
So who’s already sent in their taxes? Who’s putting them off to the last minute? Who has taxing words to share?

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Tuesday Treats: Santa Fe Chicken Casserole

Posted on April 10, 2018 by Silver James

Mother Nature is getting a little schizophrenic this spring so I thought I’d share this recipe. It’s a great transitional meal–spicy and cheesy for chilly nights but not so heavy that you can’t serve it on a warmer day.

Prep Time: 20 min.
Total Time: 40 min.
Servings: 6 servings

Try a Santa Fe Chicken Casserole, layered with bold flavor. Shredded chicken, black beans, tortillas and cheese are great in our Santa Fe Chicken Casserole!

What You Need
1 tub (7.5 oz.) PHILADELPHIA Cream Cheese Spread
2 Tbsp. (about half of 1-oz. pkg.) TACO BELL® Taco Seasoning Mix
2 Tbsp. milk
3 cups shredded cooked chicken breasts (I use Tyson’s Grilled and Ready Pulled Chicken for this)
1 can (15.5 oz.) black beans, rinsed
1 can (14.5 oz.) no-salt-added diced tomatoes, drained (And I don’t use the tomatoes because…allergic)
2 green onions, sliced
3 flour tortillas (6 inch)
3/4 cup KRAFT Mexican Style Finely Shredded Four Cheese
Note: We like it spicy so I add a small can of sliced jalepenos that is not part of the original recipe.

Make It
Heat oven to 375ºF.
Mix cream cheese spread, taco seasoning and milk until blended. Combine next 4 ingredients in large bowl. Add half the cream cheese mixture; mix lightly.

Spread 1/3 of the chicken mixture onto bottom of 9-inch pie plate; top with 1 tortilla, half the remaining chicken mixture and 1/4 cup shredded cheese. Cover with second tortilla, remaining chicken mixture, 1/4 cup shredded cheese and remaining tortilla. Top with remaining cream cheese mixture and shredded cheese; cover.

Bake 25 min. or until heated through, uncovering for the last 5 min.

For full nutritional information CLICK HERE to go to Kraft Recipes. And believe it or not, this recipe (with my additions) is a favorite of Tait “Shooter” McCord the hero of BROTHERHOOD PROTECTORS: MONTANA MOON. Tait says it’s easy enough even he can make it. It’s a one-dish meal for him and yes, he eats the whole thing. “Hey! I’m a Wolf. We have a fast metabolism. And it has chicken so it’s healthy, right?” He dumps sour cream and salsa on the top, too. We like it with a dollop of sour cream on each serving.

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A Way With Monday

Posted on April 9, 2018 by Silver James

Who wants to do away with Monday? *raises hand* Which is sorta dumb because then Tuesday would be the new Monday. And poor Tuesday is sort of the poor relation of the week as it is. Think about it. Everyone bemoans Monday. Wednesday is Hump Day and people celebrate because they’re on the downhill slide to the weekend. Thursday is the day before Friday. And Friday is…well…TGIF! Saturday and Sunday need no explanation, unless you work retail and are stuck in the store those days, which means your whole week is messed up and I’m sorry. And then there’s Tuesday. It’s just…Tuesday. Anyway.

So, we had snow, sleet and ice Saturday. In Oklahoma. During a month when we normally have thunderstorms, hail, and our share of tornadoes. Go figure. It was a good day to stay home, read (or listen to) a book, snuggle under the covers and nap. Which meant I needed to work yesterday. Which I did. Some. I’m working on the first sexy scene, which happens in Chapter Two. The H/h don’t waste any time.

There was baseball this weekend. My poor Cards are up and down. And Yadi got into it with the Diamondbacks’ manager. It was ugly. The manager was tossed, the home plate umpair was doing his best to calm Yadi down so he didn’t get tossed. See? I told you it was bad. Still, makes for an interesting game. Cards lost though. That puts them back to one game back of .500. 😦

I finished Jennifer Ashley’s Shifters Unbound series. New book comes out the end of the month. I’m glad because there’s a bit of a cliffhanger in the overall plot arc, though RED WOLF came to a satisfactory end for the H/h. I enjoy her writing. I moved on the Shelley Laurenston’s HOT AND BADGERED, which is set in her shifter world. Lord but she’s funny sometimes and I do love the honey badgers and the bears. I’m just over 1/3 of the way through the book and I keep grinning and laughing. Traci Odom is doing an outstanding job of narrating.

Live PD was back live this weekend. I totally ❤ the show and Sgt. Sean "Sticks" Larson from the Tulsa PD Gang Unit, who's become something of a regular studio commentator. They do a segment on missing people and a viewer actually called in to the Center for Missing and Exploited Children with a sighting of a little girl they featured a couple of weeks ago. She's now been recovered. LUCIFER is getting…tense. THE ALIENIST has run it's course. So I'm doing lots of baseball and listening to books.

And that's pretty much the sum total of my life at the moment. Saturday's weather negated Only, Stormageddon and I getting together for lunch. Baseball Boy's tournament was canceled so they stayed in. Lawyer Guy's meeting went ahead as scheduled but he didn't go. Like the kids, we stayed in, even though late afternoon turned out okay once the sun came out and the wind died down. Still felt like January rather than April. Today, I'm going to work really hard to finish up the proposal. I need to stop jacking around and just do it. I have way too much on my writing plate this year to procrastinate, no matter how much I want to.

So, on that note, I'm off to work, right after I get one more cup of coffee. What are you going do today?

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Thursday Thoughts: BOOK BIRTHDAY!

Posted on April 5, 2018 by Silver James

It’s always fun to celebrate when a new book comes into the world! My latest, BROTHERHOOD PROTECTORS: MONTANA MOON is now live on Amazon. Part of Elle James’s (no relation but a good friend) Kindle World, I get to introduce her readers to my Moonstruck world and not only to Wolf shifter Tait McCord, fans of the Wolves will get to touch base with some old friends, as well as meet some new ones. In addition, my readers will get to meet characters from Elle’s BP world, and I hope y’all will check out Hank, Kujo, and all the members of the Brotherhood Protectors.

The good news is, Amazon priced the book at $1.99 even though it’s 40K words of shifter goodness! You can also read it free if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription. Want to read it? Click on the cover pic! What’s it about? Here’s the blurb:

A lone Wolf doing a favor…
When Tait “Shooter” McCord, Wolf shifter and former SEAL, agrees to repay a debt by tracking down a woman in trouble, the last thing he expects to find is a curvy bundle of femininity who drives his inner wolf wild. Man and beast have one goal in mind—protect their mate from the enemies chasing her tail.

A lone woman on the run…
Lauren Reilly is exceptional at her job as a historical archivist at the Pentagon. Except her mad skills lead to discovering files so top secret that her life is now forfeit. That old joke “If I tell you, I have to kill you”? Yeah, turns out it’s not so funny when it’s real. After an attempt on her life, she reaches out to a friend of a friend for help. When assistance arrives in the form of a hot bodyguard from the Brotherhood Protectors, Lauren is so far out of her comfort zone she wants to turn tail and run.

Discover they aren’t alone after all.
Under a Montana Moon, a moonstruck Wolf can depend on friends old and new to help rescue the woman he loves. Even if they have to burn down the world saving her from their enemies.

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Wednesday Words: April Showers

Posted on April 4, 2018 by Silver James

I have to admit, I’m starting to like Wednesdays for something more than being Hump Day. Playing #1lineWed over on Twitter is a great way to skim through my WIPs to find the overused words and the awkward sentence structure. Since today’s snippet comes from MONTANA MOON (which releases tomorrow!!), I’m pleased to say there’s nothing I’d really change. Oh! I need to tell y’all today’s theme, don’t I? The words is SHOWER. And yes, my characters seem to take a lot of them. 😆 To set the scene, after a short prologue, this is the opening to Chapter 1. I hope you enjoy and I hope you’ll snag your copy tomorrow when it goes live!
****
The phone rang and rang and rang. Tait thrust an arm dripping with soap and hot water out of the shower to grab the damn thing. He checked the caller ID before turning it off. He’d already emailed a partial report. The rest of the debrief could wait until morning. He dropped the phone back onto the counter and retreated under the scalding water pouring from the shower head. He’d been back from the retrieval Hank Patterson, his occasional employer at Brotherhood Protectors, sent him on for all of thirty minutes. Two spoiled rich kids decided to hit the road in Mommy’s Mercedes. He caught the brats on the other side of the Mexican border, minus the Mercedes and in the hands of a cartel far more interested in human trafficking than was good for the two teen-aged girls. Despite saving their lives and other things, they’d bitched at him all the way back to a multi-million dollar log mansion in Aspen, where the father of the car thief handed over a cashier’s check with lots of zeros.

What the hell was wrong with young people today? Tait snorted and pictured himself in a rocking chair on his front porch shaking a cane at those young whippersnappers. Laughing ruefully, he leaned his hands on the granite tile lining his walk-in shower, head bent so the steaming liquid sluiced across his neck and shoulders. He was beat, as he was going on close to 72 hours with no sleep. Back in the day when he’d been running special ops with the SEAL teams, that had been a walk in the park. Even his wolf half was tired. The critter wanted a rare steak, the man a six-pack of beer, and both about 24 hours of curling up in front of the fire and snoozing. Sounded damn fine idea.

Tait “Shooter” McCord was a Wolf. He carried the lupi versi pellis gene on his Y chromosome and that weird little DNA anomaly gave him the ability to shift from man to wolf and back again. He never got sick, healed faster than normal when injured—and considering he’d been a SEAL for almost 20 years, he’d needed that special kick more than once. Tonight, though, he was feeling his age—emotionally if not truly physically. He’d come back to the Crazy Mountains in Montana to lick his wounds after that last mission in Bumfuck, Afghanistan. The operation had been a Charlie Foxtrot from the git-go. They’d only lost two men but the entire unit had been shot up, with half of the team sustaining career-ending injuries. Had he been human, his injuries would have resulted in a medical discharge. He’d received the Navy Cross, the Silver Star, and the Purple Heart. All three medals made him feel like a fraud. Getting his teammates out wasn’t heroic. It was part of the job. So he’d retired and returned to a place that had been home once upon a time.
****
Things are about to get crazy for our intrepid hero. So what about y’all? Any shower words?

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Tuesday Treats: Creamy Turkey Noodles

Posted on April 3, 2018 by Silver James

Since Mother Nature isn’t convinced it’s time for spring, I thought I’d share this warm and gooey dinner idea. It’s great for pot lucks, feeding a family, or for making and freezing portions for later. You don’t even have to cook the turkey! How’s that for easy peasy?

Prep Time: 30 min.
Total Time: 1 hr.
Servings: 16 servings, 1 cup each

As the fine folks from the Kraft Kitchens say, “Our Creamy Turkey and Noodles is an easy way to feed a crowd. Get out the frozen mixed veggies and the bow-tie pasta, and we’ll show you how.”

What You Need
1 pkg. (16 oz.) farfalle (bow-tie pasta), uncooked
1/4 cup butter
1 onion, chopped
1 pkg. (16 oz.) frozen mixed vegetables (carrots, corn, green beans, peas)
6 Tbsp. flour
2 cups milk
2 pkg. (7.5 oz. each) OSCAR MAYER CARVING BOARD Oven Roasted Turkey Breast, chopped
2 cans (10-3/4 oz.) reduced-sodium condensed cream of chicken soup
1 cup BREAKSTONE’S or KNUDSEN Sour Cream
1 pkg. (8 oz.) KRAFT Shredded Three Cheese with a TOUCH OF PHILADELPHIA

Make It
Heat oven to 350ºF.
-Cook pasta as directed on package, omitting salt.
-Meanwhile, melt butter in Dutch oven or large deep skillet on medium heat. Add onions; cook and stir 4 min. or until crisp-tender. Add frozen vegetables; cook 4 min. or until thawed, stirring frequently. Stir in flour until blended; cook and stir 1 min. Gradually stir in milk; bring to boil. Cook and stir 2 min. or until thickened. Remove from heat. Stir in turkey, soup and sour cream.
-Drain pasta. Add to sauce; stir until evenly coated. Spoon into 2 (13×9-inch) pans sprayed with cooking spray; top with cheese. Cover.
-Bake 30 min. or until heated through, uncovering for the last 10 min.

For all the nutritional information, CLICK HERE. Even though Lauren Reilly, the heroine from my upcoming release MONTANA MOON, is a single woman working in the wilds of Washington D.C., she’s big on cooking a big batch then freezing single serve portions for quick defrost/heating in the microwave. And she’d NEVER eat an entire turkey, though she LOVES turkey so the Carving Board turkey is perfect for her. No buy links today because her story doesn’t release until Thursday. Or maybe tomorrow because sometimes Amazon Kindle Worlds sneaks in the roll out of titles! I’ll be posting buy links all over the KW page here on the website, FB and Twitter when it goes live.

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Monday Fools

Posted on April 2, 2018 by Silver James

It’s Monday. I don’t have a whole lot to say so this is going to be a bit of a ramble. 😆

Yesterday was Easter and April Fool’s Day. I can’t quite wrap my head around that.

I watched “Atomic Blonde” Saturday night. I couldn’t quite wrap my head around that either. I’d been looking forward to seeing it ever since I saw the first trailer. The soundtrack is sublime. I’ll admit I LIKE 80’s music and one of my all-time favorite songs was featured: George Michael’ “Father Figure.” As Lawyer Guys said, it had all the feel of a graphic novel without the obvious trappings, a la the Sin City franchise. I remember so well the night the Russians and East Germans lost control and the Berlin Wall came down. That features in the movie about Cold War spies. And the whole movied was a total mind f#*k. I sat there after it was over and stared at LG and kept saying, “WTF?” Over and over. If you get the chance, watch the movie.

My Cards finally won a game yesterday, after dropping 2 games to the Mets. I’d like to think it was because of the weather change and it took them four days to get acclimated.

Is basketball done yet? And what’s the deal with the way the NHL picks the teams going to the play-offs? I need to Google/Bing search what’s up with that.

It’s freakin’ cold. What happened to spring? And yeah, I figure last nights freeze pretty much ended any chance my wisteria would bloom this year. Ah well.

Haven’t watched much TV but I am blowing though Jennifer Ashley’s Shifters Unbound series. I don’t remember how many books in I am but she’s yet to repeat herself and that says a lot about her talent. I’m currently on book 7.25 but it’s like the 11th or 12th actual story. Something like that. Anyway, I’m enjoying listening to them. That said…

Vacation is over. Today is a full day of writing. No. Really. It’s crunch time. And speaking of writing–or publishing, actually. MONTANA MOON releases this Thursday! I’m part of a FB launch party and my takeover time is around 5 o’clock central, Thursday afternoon. I think. I probably should double check the sign-up sheet, huh?

And…I think that’s all the rambling randomness I’ve got for today. What about y’all? What’s random in your life?

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Friday Sinema: Romance in the Air

Posted on March 30, 2018 by Silver James

It’s Good Friday and Sunday is Easter so I went in search of something Easter-y. Found nada. So then I just started clicking on various videos and ended up with this one. I am soooo going to use this scenario in one of my books. 😉 Enjoy your weekend!

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Thursday Thoughts: Universal Rhythm

Posted on March 29, 2018 by Silver James

There are times I feel like I’m tapdancing in a minefield. Others, it’s all 3/4 time as I waltz through the day. And what is that old saying about angels dancing on a pinhead? The Universe decided to weigh in on this…

Indeed, anything is possible. Anything and everything, Silver! Yet it takes wisdom to understand that the potential for all things happening is not equally distributed.

Life has a rhythm; there’s already momentum. The world has needs and expectations as do you, creating some likelihoods that are vastly more predictable and smaller in number (though still infinite) than others. And for those who see this and work within these “likelihoods,” dancing to their own beat within life’s greater rhythm, heaven shall appear at their feet and abundance shall come as easily as breathing.

Alakazam,
    The Universe
© http://www.tut.com ®

No, Silver, I meant “heaven” metaphorically.

Just like life, writing also has a rhythm. There’s easy-going or snappy sentence structure, the ebb and flow between dialogue and narrative, the pacing of the plot. Characters act and react, grow and change, their fictional lives a well-choreographed ballet orchestrated by the author. There’s also a rhythm to the way words translate from the brain to fingertips to keyboard (or pen and paper if one prefers) that translates into word counts. There are times when the words pour from the imaginantion, the story flowing like a well-rehearsed Broadway musical. Then come the times when the words are like a shy girl sitting in the corner at the high school dance–hoping someone will come ask her to dance but not making it easy for any potential suitors. Lately, my words aren’t only wallflowers, they stayed home to read a good book. I need to lure them out with a good Argentine Tango, or even better, a foxtrot because I have thousands of words to write between now and then.

What dance are you doing today?

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