Lemon Butter Bundt Cake

   My mom used to make the most wonderful cake when I was a kid. It was a butter cake and had a sticky glaze that you poured on while the cake was still hot in the bundt pan, where it would absorb into the cake. It was wonderful and a few years ago, I found the recipe in an old cookbook my mom was about to throw away.
   But it didn't solve my problem today. I needed a recipe to use up some of the Meyer lemons from my tree. So I adapted the recipe from my childhood to make a lemon version. I must say, it was delicious. I did overcook it a bit, so I have revised my recipe accordingly.

                                                     Lemon Butter Bundt Cake

There's more where these came from, too.

 Cake Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1-1/2 tsp lemon extract*
• 1-1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup 2% milk
• 1 tbsp grated lemon peel

Sauce

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup butter
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tsp vanilla

     In a small saucepan over low heat, combine sauce ingredients; cook just until butter melts, stirring occasionally. Do not boil.
     In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in extracts. Combine flour, baking powder and salt; add to creamed mixture alternately with milk, beating well after each addition. Stir in lemon peel.
    Pour into a greased and floured 10-in. fluted tube pan. Bake at 350° for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean.**
    Make the sauce. With cake still in the pan, pierce the cake all over with a fork then pour the hot sauce over the warm cake. Let stand 5 minutes, or until sauce is absorbed.
    Turn out onto cake plate. Enjoy!
*  I didn’t have lemon extract, so I used 1/3 cup fresh lemon juice, and reduced the amount of milk by that amount. I also added a splash of orange extract and almond extract.
**  Check after 45 minutes. This overcooks easily.

Lucky Number ’13

    My New Year’s resolutions are eight days late. This might not be a great sign, if I had included something about breaking my procrastination habit. But fortunately, I plan on continuing to procrastinate. At least, in all things unrelated to my writing (and work, because income is nice).
    So with no further delay, here’s what I want to focus on in 2013.    
1.   Keep a monthly word-count calendar
    Not really a necessary resolution because something about seeing the numbers add up inspires me to keep writing. Plus, this is an easy one because it involves using my new-and-improved word-count calendar/spreadsheet. I changed it slightly this year so I will be getting more accurate counts for each month and I’ve already clocked in with more than 3,000 words so far. And it’s only Jan. 8! So far, so good!
2.   Finish and edit TMIAL
    This is the project formerly known as the novella. My intermediate deadline for this resolution is Feb. 14 — because Valentine’s Day seems like a good a day as any to finish writing a romantic story.
3.   Finish draft of PDT
    I have a finished outline and about 20,000 words of the first draft and I’m really excited to get back to this world. It’s a romantic suspense/crime novel set on the California coast, an area I know very well. Writing this is my reward for finishing TMIAL.
4.   Finish You, Again
    It’s three-quarters finished and I know who did it. There’s no excuse. But I’m still putting PDT ahead of this because, well, surfers.
5.   Submit something
    A leftover from my 2012 resolution. It can be anything — a writing contest, a query to an agent, submission to a publisher. Just put something out there to show what I can do.
6.   Professional development
    It may be time to network. Meet more authors. Join RWA or attend a conference. This isn’t so much a resolution as a reminder to take writing more seriously.
7.   Write something in first-person POV
    After reviewing my reading lists for the last two years, I realized that most of my favorite reads were in first-person point of view. But all of my writing has been in third-person. This year, I’m going to try writing something in first-person POV and see how it goes.
8.   Outlines for next WIPs
    I’ve got some preliminary outlining done on two sequels to TMIAL. I wasn’t sure until this year if I was an outliner or a pantser or something in between. It turns out, I’m an outliner. I think. We’ll see how it goes when I start writing PDT from the outline. But, in the meantime, I’m resolving to write the outlines for Fiona’s story and then Jude’s story. 
    So those are my plans for 2013. It’s a lot, but it doesn’t feel like a chore. And that’s got to be a good sign.

2012 Resolutions — Final Results

     Last year, I made a list of five things I wanted to accomplish in 2012 when it came to writing. I feel like this was a very productive year for me in that area. I wrote more than 138,000 words, completed a fairly detailed outline for a future project, and am close to finishing the novella project that turned into a full-fledged novel. I read several great books on writing, listened to writing podcasts and exchanged chapters with my critique partner. I feel like I learned a ton of technique from all of that.
     But how did I do on the specific tasks I listed last January? Not as good as I'd like. 

2012 — The Year In Review

    First, let’s tackle December’s writing numbers. December was a pretty good month for writing, especially considering how much time the holidays festivities consume. I had some time off, the crush of my autumn schedule let up, and all of that gave me more time to write and helped get my total up.
    I wrote on 11 days in December and managed to add 4,510 words to the Project Formerly Known as the Novella. Because I was trying to finish the damn thing, it was the only project I focused on last month.
    Did I finish it? Well, no. But more on that later.
    First, let’s look at my year-end recap. The good new:  I wrote 138,389 words in 2012, a good jump over last year’s total of 105,984 words.

2012 – Reading Roundup

    It’s one of the nerdiest things I do, but I keep a spreadsheet of the books I read during the year. This would make sense if I were a book reviewer or had some other reason, but I basically do it because it lets me use my spreadsheet program. I do love my spreadsheets.
    Anyway, I’ve done this for three years so I feel like I can now spot trends in how I read. I was a reporter for several years, and as every journalist knows, if you have three similar events, you've got a trend.
    What I’ve learned is that I’m remarkably consistent in my reading patterns. In 2012, I read 51 books – the same number I read in 2011 and just one more than I read in 2010. I seem to have found a pace that I’m happy with.
    What did change this year is that I read far less nonfiction this year than in previous years – only four books in 2012, compared with nine in 2011 and six in 2010. Of the four nonfiction books, I have two favorites. The first is Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir) by Jenny Lawson, aka The Bloggess. So hilarious that I had to stop reading in bed because I kept waking up my husband by snort-laughing.
    The other was Griftopia by Matt Taibbi. The author is mad as hell about the financial crisis, as we all should be, and this book should be required reading for anyone who thinks the recession was caused by that those irresponsible people who bought a house they couldn’t afford. I had to read this in small chunks because I could feel my blood pressure rising as I turned the pages. I highly recommend both books, but for entirely different reasons.
    My fiction reading consisted of mostly contemporary romance and romantic suspense, heavy on the suspense and mystery subcategories. I read more novels and fewer novellas and shorts this year. My favorite was probably In the Bleak Midwinter by Julia Spencer-Fleming. I loved the writing, the characters, the setting, the story. The author did such a beautiful job building the connection between Clare and Russ. I haven’t read the next in the series yet, but I will and probably very soon.
    This year I also revisited Amanda Stevens’ series that started with The Restorer, one of my favorites from last year. The Kingdom (book 2) and The Prophet (book 3) were excellent and among my favorite fiction reads this year, too. This is an author I will add to my auto-buy list. In fact, she’s the reason I created an auto-buy list.
    Also on that new list:  Liliana Hart. I loved Whiskey Rebellion and Whiskey Sour and am anxiously awaiting the next in that series. Also, I binged on the MacKenzie family series. Then this month, I discovered Dirty Little Secrets, another series with a smart and smart-ass heroine, which I also loved. Thankfully, there’s a sequel in the J.J. Graves series, so I have something to keep me happy until there’s another Whiskey book out.
    What stands out the most from my reading habits in 2012 is that most of the books that I marked as my favorites were told in first-person POV. This was the same in 2011. I have always thought that I preferred third-person POV, but I really need to reconsider this. My own writing projects are all told in third person, but I am thinking about whether this is the right fit for me.
    So maybe that’s another benefit in keeping track of my book consumption. I think I’ll be adding a new item to my 2013 resolution list – to give first-person POV a try in my own writing.

Holiday Greetings!

   The holiday break is here and just in time. I was starting to feel like these Christmas tree lights -- tangled, half-burned out. A little dim.
   Now my office is closed until January. The tree is up and lit. There are presents wrapped. Packages have been mailed. Cards addressed and sent. Cookies were baked. Then eaten. And then more cookies were baked because those were supposed to given to other people.
   I'm also writing and working toward my goal of finishing one of those unfinished projects by the end of this year. Nothing like a deadline to inspire.
   Should you be in need of your own inspiration, I recommend a Tom & Jerry. That's an old family recipe that I've shared before. Works wonders. Enjoy the holiday season!

Resolutions – November Update

    I didn’t participate in Nanowrimo this year because I spent the month mired in work. So. Much. Work. I did manage to get some writing done. I’m still not sure how, but my spreadsheet shows that I wrote 5,623 words in November.
    I wrote on eight days last month, which is very few — but still surprised me, since I worked at least one day every weekend last month. Somehow, I was able to escape into my imagination in the middle of a stressful, busy time at work.
    The bulk of my writing was on the project formerly known as the novella — 3,718 words. The former novella now stands at 73,000 words. I think it’s time to find a new nickname for it. I also wrote a short scene for the eventual sequel to that project, adding 878 words. And I wrote 1,027 words on last year’s Nano project, which I would love to complete next year.
    I am now at 133,879 words for this year. Last year at this time, I had written 100,769 words. In November 2011, I wrote 15,479 words, which was my late entry into Nanowrimo.
    But despite the excellent word-count, the number of WIPs completed in 2012 stands at zero. We’re closing in on the end of 2012, so I’ve decided to focus on the former novella. I had a goal of 85,000 words for that project, so I’m only about 12,000 words shy of that. And since my chapters run about 3,000 to 4,000 words, I’m only about three chapters from the end. My characters are arcing, my plot threads are ready to be tied together. It’s so very close.
    And that is where I will be for the next four weeks — focusing on wrapping up the last chapters of this WIP so it will be complete by the end of the year. That was, after all, one of my New Year’s resolutions for 2012 — finish something, anything.