The Woodsy Writer's Life
Mark Twain
I read a lot of true crime and watch some of those true crime shows such as “Disappeared” on the network ID.
The other night, I watched a show about a woman who disappeared from New Orleans in December 2001, but her family didn’t realize she was missing until after her body was discovered after Hurricane Katrina in the fall of 2005.
How could this be, you might ask.
According to the program, her family, which included her sister and father, thought she had made good on a dream, having “gone to Europe to write her memoir” all that time.
The show, while terribly sad — also illustrates something that sometimes annoys us writers – the misconceptions of how difficult it is to actually get to the point of making a living from writing and the misunderstanding of what the writing life is really like for 99 percent of us that aren’t best-selling authors.
The fact that a poor woman could go missing for almost four years with her family believing that she had just picked up and moved to Europe to write her memoir with no experience and very little money is symptomatic of what some people envision is the writer’s life. Where did they think she was living? How was she supporting herself, given she hadn’t actually sold that memoir and had no prior writing experience?
A writer’s surroundings may provide us with our muse, but it will not provide us with the means to be there or the experience or talent if we didn’t have it before.
Tomatoes, Rats and Other News from Our Little House
Our cherry tomato plant started getting buds about a week ago.
This week, those buds morphed into teeny-tiny tomatoes.
I’m very pleased, but a little surprised. Although we put our container garden in about one month ahead of schedule due to the unusual warm
weather, I really didn’t expect buds and tomatoes this soon.
Particularly since it turned cooler the past couple of weeks. There were even a couple of nights I threw a sheet over them just in case of a frost.
In other news from the Party Deck this week, we’ve had to resort to exterminating some mice ad wood rats that have taken up residence in our basement and around the house.
Exploring old Tastes that are New Again
Photo courtesy of Brette Sember, No Pot Cooking
I wrote last week about getting my husband to try Beer Butt chicken, although I know he is not a roasted chicken fan.
This is actually the third thing in as many months Dale said he didn’t like that he ended up liking.
I think this is the beginning of a wave of things I might get him to try and I have the Cookbook Goddess Brette Sember to thank.
Her book, “The Parchment Paper Cookbook” (some recipes from the book are now available on Kindle for .99!) opened up this world of new tastes for Dale. Her recipe in the book on Brussels sprouts, which she blogged about on No Pot Cooking, was what got him hooked.
When I read the first line of her blog, “I’m married to a man who doesn’t much like Brussels sprouts…” and it ended up that her husband liked this recipe, I knew I had to give it a whirl.
Beer Butt Chicken Triumph
Beer Butt Chicken doesn’t really sound too appetizing, this is where you place a chicken over an open can of beer and cook, but I have been yearning to try this for a long time.
I’m a big chicken fan at Our Little House, especially roasted chicken.
You know how sometimes people say a girl finds husbands who have similar traits of their fathers?
Dale has more than one trait similar to my dad’s and one is a mutual dislike for chicken. We rarely had the bird at home when I was growing up.
Dad grew up on a farm in Arkansas where his mother literally rang the bird’s neck, defeathered and dressed them herself.
Somewhere along the line, Dad found he had an aversion to feathers – maybe grandma didn’t get them all plucked – and always said he could “taste” the feathers anytime he ate chicken.
This came from a man who, upon finding a hair in his food or hearing any childish talk of vomit, poop or even animals, would slam his fork down and get up and leave the table.
For a tough guy, he was pretty squeamish when it came to his food and this limited table conversation.
