Rhubarb cake recipe

If you watched yesterday's Road Trip video, you know I enjoyed some rhubarb cake at a family reunion in Owatonna, Minnesota last Saturday. I don't think I've ever posted a recipe on this blog, but friends have been e-mailing, so I'll just drop the recipe here (Thank you, Gloria!) and point everyone to the link.

I don't know where this recipe originated, so I'm calling it:

Cousin Gloria's Minnesota Rhubarb Cake

1½ cup brown sugar
½ cup shortening
2 eggs
pinch of salt
1 t. vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
1½ cups rhubarb
2 cups flour

Spread in a 9 x 13" greased pan, then mix topping:

½ cup sugar
1 t. cinnamon
1 cup chopped nuts

Add topping and bake at 325° for 45 minutes.

I just got the recipe today and haven't tried it yet, so let me know if I've got something wrong. Gloria didn't say whether she used frozen or chopped fresh rhubarb, but I'm sure either would work.

This is a fairly coarse snack cake, and not terribly sweet. I'll serve it with morning coffee or afternoon tea rather than as a dessert. The rhubarb adds a wonderful tartness.

Road Trip

We just got back from a quick car trip to Minnesota, where we attended a family reunion with our eldest son. Here's a video that might amuse some of you:

See who's reading romance: The 2009 RWA Reader Survey

Romance Writers of America recently posted its (May) 2009 Reader Survey, a web-based survey of romance fiction readers. Here are some facts uncovered by the survey on our favorite genre's current readership:

74.8 million people read at least one romance novel in 2008.

The core of the romance fiction market is 29 million regular readers.

24.6 percent of all American [sic] read a romance novel in 2008, versus 21.8 percent in 2005.

29 percent of Americans over the age of 13 read a romance novel in 2008.

Women make up 90.5 percent of the romance readership, and men make up 9.5 percent.

The heart of the U.S. romance novel readership is women aged 31–49 who are currently in a romantic relationship.

Pop over to the Readership Statistics page of the RWA website for more information on today's romance readers, including purchase behavior and some surprising tidbits like this:

45.1 percent [of survey respondents] were not aware that authors receive no royalty payment for the purchase of used books.

Sunday evening garden tour

Last fall, my hunk o' burnin' love got tired of being my garden slave and started his own garden in the dappled shade of our woodsy backyard.

It's looking pretty good for a first-year shade garden. Today I dragged the teakwood glider over so we can sit there together and watch his hostas, ferns, astilbe, lily-of-the-valley, and coleus grow into lush waves of color and texture.

Speaking of garden seating, the smartest thing we have ever done in our yard and gardens was to scatter plenty of tables, chairs, and benches around. (No, it doesn't have to be expensive. You can scour flea markets for sturdy, inexpensive furniture.) We sit outside nearly every day because everywhere we look, there's an inviting seat. I take my computer out to the patio or to the back yard where I can see and smell flowers, hear birdsong, watch butterflies and bees and hummingbirds and so on while I'm writing.

Have you tried writing outside? It's a change of pace and a treat for the senses that will refresh your writer's spirit. If you don't have a laptop computer, just print some pages to edit outside. Even if you live in a city apartment and "outside" means the fire escape, you can sneak a pot of colorful petunias and a comfy chair out there, right? Make it your summer office.

Back to my husband's shade garden. Here's a close-up, seen through the spray from a sprinkler. Looks like an Impressionist painting, doesn't it? (Click on the pic to see the amazing full-size image.)

Oh, look. A few more sunny days and I can pluck the season's first strawberry. If my husband doesn't beat me to it. He did last year, the rat--and his face took on a blissful expression as he described how warm and tart and sweet it was. The rat!

Here's part of the front garden. I love the red-tipped barberry bushes, but they're getting out of hand. Must cut them back because this garden is supposed to be all about the flowers.

I noticed today that the lilies are budding like crazy. There will be lots of flowers next month... unless the wretched deer come along and nibble off all the buds like they did two years ago.

If you like my garden photos, keep an eye on my Twitter feed, because I've been linking to pictures from there instead of posting them all on this (ahem!) writing blog. You don't have to join Twitter. Just watch the stream (you can also see it in the sidebar of this page) and click the link whenever I post a photo.

And now, I'll get back to writing romance. Here's hoping we all have a fun and productive week.

Should you hire a book doctor?

Today one of my Twitter pals asked if it's worthwhile for an unpublished writer to have her manuscript professionally edited before sending it to a literary agent. At the risk of offending those who make money editing manuscripts for unpublished writers, I must say that paying a "book doctor" to edit a manuscript in the hope that she will transform it into a salable novel is a colossal waste of both money and time.

Self-editing is a huge part of writing well. A writer who has not yet learned how to ruthlessly edit her own work simply isn't ready for publication. Even major tweaking by a paid professional won't turn the lackluster manuscript of such a writer into anything that would interest an agent or a publishing house.

Publishers are used to looking past grammatical and punctuation errors and even awkward scenes dropped here and there. They know all that stuff can be cleaned up because they do it every day. They're always impressed by a "clean" manuscript, but what they're really looking for is a gripping story told by a talented and skillful writer. That being the case, paying a book doctor to make your story more tempting to agents and publishers makes about as much sense as painting a pig's toenails so it will fetch a higher price at the livestock auction.

A published writer is someone who has learned how to edit her own work. She knows how to tell a good story clearly and concisely. She puts words together in such a way that her sentences sing, her paragraphs dance, and her scenes and chapters begin and end gracefully. Some of that ability came from raw talent; the rest she developed through hard work and by paying close attention to the technique of published authors she admires.

Have you ever eaten at a restaurant where the paint was peeling off the walls and the table was sticky but the food was fabulous? If so, you probably went back again and again for the great food. Contrast that with the experience of dining in a scrupulously clean establishment with cloth napkins and sparkling glasses--and ordinary, unimaginative food. Do you go back to those places? Not if you can help it, you don't.

Publishers know how to take a great story told in an engaging way and turn it into a good book. They're not afraid to buy manuscripts that are a little bit awkward, a little bit messy--as long as those manuscripts sing and dance and fascinate.

The bottom line? Depending on your current level of writing skill and how teachable you are, paying a reputable freelance editor might help you learn some valuable lessons about grammar, word usage, and basic story structure. What it will not do is take a story that's not quite ready for publication and turn it into something wonderful.

You will have to do that all by yourself.

Yesterday in the garden

Picked up this jazzy red watering can over the weekend. Just looking at it makes me grin.

Yesterday I sat on the bench in my front garden and stared for a good ten minutes at these shocking blue irises with their bright slashes of yellow. We planted just six last autumn because I wasn't sure they'd do well in this spot. Now I can't wait to get more.

If you're viewing this on a large monitor, you'll notice the patio is all weedy. I like the bits of bright green moss, but the weeds have got to go. (I'll get my hunk o' burnin' love right to work on that!)

I've forgotten the name of this rose, but isn't it a beautiful color?

These delicate blue campanulas just don't photograph well. This is the best I could do.

Welcome, summer!

Memorial Day: Folding the flag

I spent more than an hour over at YouTube looking for a good video to share with you all on this Memorial Day. My selection might surprise you, but I hope it will move you to spend a few minutes giving thanks for those brave Americans who have sacrificed their lives in service to our country.

Near the end of each funeral conducted at Arlington National Cemetery, the American flag covering the military service member's casket is carefully folded into a neat triangle and presented to the next of kin.

"It's done very reverently because...it's the token of gratitude from our nation to [the service member's] family."

A step-by-step guide to enjoying a glass of lemonade on a sunny summer afternoon

It's Memorial Day weekend, so I thought I'd remind everyone how to make and enjoy a refreshing glass of lemonade. Here are the basic steps:

1. Be sure to make your lemonade on a hot, sunny afternoon--especially if you have just cut the grass. (Or if someone has just cut the grass at the park nearest your city apartment.)

2. Don't trust others to make your lemonade. Do it yourself. You will want to be in complete control of fine-tuning the sweet and sour balance. It's perfectly fine to start with a packaged mix, but be sure to use less water to make it extra sour and extra sweet (because you're going to add a whole tray full of ice cubes when you're finished).

3. Forget the ratty old Tupperware thing you've had for three decades and use a glass pitcher. Nothing looks as inviting as a sparkling, sweating glass pitcher full of icy lemonade.

4. Slice and add one whole lemon. This is crucial for reasons of appearance, aroma, and flavor, so if you don't have a lemon, go borrow one from your neighbor.

5. If you grow your own or can buy it at your local market, add several sprigs of fresh spearmint. This is almost as important as the lemon. (Unless you don't like mint--and if you don't like mint, what in the world is wrong with you?)

6. Now fill a tall, clear glass. For some extra zing, add a splash of pomegranate juice and/or some tonic water. Up to you. Garnish with a lemon slice and more spearmint. (I meant to photograph my glass of lemonade for you, but the glass just couldn't seem to stay full long enough for me to aim and focus the camera.)

7. Take your lemonade to a shady spot outside. A bench near some blossoming honeysuckle is ideal.

Or sit next to a splashing fountain.

And now, the last and most important step for enjoying your lemonade:

8. Do not sip it. Gulp it. And allow a sweet, sticky drop to slide down your chin the way you did when you were five years old and your grandma let you drink lemonade until your tummy felt funny.

After that first long pull, be sure to wipe your mouth with the back of your hand and say "Ahhh!"

There. Isn't that delicious?

And aren't you glad you're not a bird? You are able to enjoy an icy glass of lemonade on a fine summer afternoon.

And you don't have to worry about being eaten by the neighbor's cat while you're grabbing a quick drink out of a fountain, either.

Authors: Stressing out over online promotion?

If you're an author who's been feeling pressured to do more and better online promotion, maybe this freshly-posted column of mine at Romancing the Blog will afford you some relief: Taming the Internet Promotion Monster.

I'd love it if you'd share your thoughts over there or even right here.

Like a red, red rose

O, my luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June.
O, my luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I,
And I will luve thee still, my Dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my Dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun!
O I will luve thee still, my Dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' it were ten thousand mile!

Robert Burns

I'm in the mood for love poems today because the winner of this season's first-rose-to-bloom race in my garden was the perfectly-formed, incredibly fragrant Mr. Lincoln, which popped open just this morning. I like white roses best, but this one is my own hunk o' burnin' love's favorite, so it will always have a place in our garden.

Hope everyone out there is having a beautiful weekend.

Tuesday afternoon in the garden

Just grabbed my camera and took a stroll around our little half-acre. Click on the pics if you want to make them bigger.

In this first photo you can see a small wedge of the sun-dappled front garden. Those are pink dogwood blossoms at the top left and a not-quite-ready-to-bloom Zepherine Drouhin rose in the center. The daffodil foliage (in the foreground) is beginning to look a little messy, but it will soon be hidden by the other plants coming up around it.

The copper "sculpture" is actually a spinning sprinkler. And that wave of tiny blue flowers is brunnera, which would take over the whole garden if we let it.

We bought two new rose bushes last night because there's no such thing as too many roses in a garden. Here they sit, waiting for somebody to grab a shovel and plant them.

This is my hunk o' burnin' love's favorite daydreaming spot. That's a pale purple Korean lilac blooming in the foreground.

Bleeding heart is my favorite spring-bloomer. These little pink necklaces are already beginning to fade, but that just means warm weather is on the way. And hot sunshine will bring the roses!

The sun was playing peek-a-boo, so this photo is horribly overexposed, but I wanted to show off these exuberant primroses. Using an old birdbath as a planter has turned out to be one of my better gardening ideas, so when the hot summer sun saps the strength from these beauties, I'll yank them out and plant something else in their place.

I took this photo last week, but the dogwoods are still dressed in this pretty pink. I love being able to see them (and a good chunk of the front garden) from my dining-room windows.

That's it for now. I'm going back out to the garden to pull a couple of weeds and do a little watering...

Napoleon Bonaparte, romance novelist

I just about choked on my tea and toast this morning when I read this in The Guardian:

"I feel numb. Come to me without delay," may not have quite the same ­panting ardour as his famous love letters, but then Napoleon had not yet met his Josephine when he wrote the words.

There's more where that came from, 40 pages more. The first English version of the pieced-together fragments of his long lost novella, Clisson and Eugénie, is due out this autumn, the Bookseller magazine reveals today. Two years ago when the lost first page resurfaced and was identified by Peter Hicks, an English expert on ­Napoleon responsible for the translation, it was sold at auction for £17,000.

Napoleon turned to literature, or at least an early precursor of chick-lit, at a wretched time when he seemed to have stalled his glorious career and lost his woman.

In the years of his power and glory, when he was painted by artists including Ingres as a god-like figure shining in cloth of gold, he kept the unfinished tale of a brilliant young soldier who loves tumultuously, loses, and dies heroically in battle "pierced by a thousand blows". Napoleon wrote it when he was a brilliant, youngish soldier tumultuously in love.

Never having been terribly interested in the Little General, I was unaware that when he died on St. Helena at the age of 51, he left behind the manuscript of a novella. Neither was I aware that it had recently been published in French. So naturally I did a double-take when I read that it will be published in English this October by the London-based publisher Gallic.

Here's more from The Guardian:

Jane Aitken, director of Gallic, insists the book will reveal Napoleon as "an accomplished writer of fiction".

"Although the piece of writing is short, it does cast an extraordinary light on Napoleon, who is someone we all think we know. We in Britain think of him as a ­military man, but here we see the ­romantic side to him."

This is very interesting, non? And I rather like the cover art.

Is that a poem in your pocket?

You probably know that April is National Poetry Month. What you might not have heard is that Thursday, April 30 is Poem in Your Pocket Day, a celebration that will be observed by schools and libraries throughout New York City.

Hey, there's no reason the rest of us can't tuck poems into our pockets on Thursday morning, is there? Imagine the water-cooler conversation at your office. After your coworkers mention what they watched on television the previous night, you could surprise and delight everyone by whipping out a poem (yours or someone else's) and reading it aloud.

If you need some ideas, try the Poem-A-Day page at Poets.org. Or just go with this classic from Ogden Nash:

Sure, deck your lower limbs in pants;
Yours are the limbs my sweeting.
You look divine as you advance –
Have you seen yourself retreating?

For something longer, try Alexander Pope's hilarious "The Rape of the Lock." (Read this study guide first, so you won't miss any of the great jokes.)

Call me sappy and sentimental, but I like Wordsworth. You can find his complete poetical works at Bartleby, indexed by first lines.

If you'd like to carry a hideously awful poem in your pocket, try absolutely anything penned by William McGonagall.

Or this poem, which I wrote a couple of years ago.

Or just make up a poem of your own. Yes, really--go ahead. I mean, how could you possibly be any worse than McGonagall and me?

---

UPDATED Thursday, 8:10 PM

Hmm. I posted this thinking today was Wednesday. So I've been walking around all day without a poem in my pocket.

Does Twittering sell books?

"So. Is Twitter any good?"

"It's turning out to be very good for me," I told my author friend. "But I take it you're talking about the potential for book marketing?"

She was.

"Probably not so good, then," I said.

I've been Twittering for the past ten days, and I'm liking it a lot. What's Twitter? It's been called "micro-blogging," because each Twitter post is limited to 140 characters, which is almost exactly the length of this sentence. If you want to see what one side of a Twitter conversation looks like, check out the right-hand side of this page (scroll down a little) for my up-to-the-minute Twitter feed.

If you want to know how to use Twitter, Google that, because I'm not going to go into it here. But I will tell you why to use Twitter.

Like author websites and blogs, nobody has studied the Twitter phenomenon and determined whether it actually boosts book sales. It's tempting to assume that it must, but unless someone tells you outright that they bought your book because of something you wrote on Twitter, how would you ever measure your Twittering success in those terms?

For me, Twittering isn't about business. It's a break in my day. Five minutes at a time, tops. No, I don't read every single message from the nearly 100 people I'm currently "following" on Twitter. Several times a day I scroll through my subscriptions looking for quips, for surprising and helpful information, for garden photographs, for links to good blog posts, and so on. I've had Twitter exchanges with people I've never met, but who interest me because they're deeply interested in and involved with the world around them.

On Twitter I have connected with a couple of old friends and made a few new ones. I have picked up some useful gardening tips, learned that garlic mashed potatoes can be improved by the addition of some chopped prosciutto, had a few laughs, and had my creativity jump-started by some witty and profound writing quotes collected by novelist James Scott Bell.

But is posting on Twitter going to sell any of my books? Maybe one or two, but that by itself would have been no reason to sign up. I can tell you that yesterday I "unfollowed" (stopped receiving updates from) a writer whose every message strongly hinted that I should buy his book. Twitter wasn't meant to be used as a marketing machine. Twitter is a fun thing, a social thing, and I believe the people who understand that are the people who will get the most out of it.

As a novelist I place a high value on anything that helps me relax, encourages me to learn new things, or boosts my creativity. And in the past ten days, Twitter has been doing all three.