A Tea Party for One–Musings From a Writer’s Brain

Tags

Author Catherine Castle blog, British tea, Chai tea, hibsucus tea, Irish tea, Musings from a Writer's Brain, Tea, tea collections, tea inspiration, teaparty

 

Photo by C .Castle

January was Hot Tea Month and before we get too far away from the celebration I want to share some of my favorite teas with you.

I’ve always been a tea drinker. When I was a teen, my mother would brew me a hot cup of black tea, heavily sweetened, with a dollop of milk and boil an egg for my before-school-breakfast. As I grew older I added more tea varieties than the old standby of black tea to my cupboard—more than I care to admit to.

One thing that inspires my tea collection is reading about fictional characters and the tea they drink. Years ago I read a story about a heroine who was in Ireland and was served Irish tea, strong, sweet, and with lots of cream. It made my mouth salivate. Then one day, while shopping in the English import section of a local store, call Jungle Jim’s, I discovered a box of Taylor’s Irish tea. I snapped up the box, rushed home, brewed a cup, and doctored it up just like I remembered the novel heroine did. I fell in love with the cuppa. For many years, Irish tea was my go-to brew.

Then Starbucks and Panera came to town and I fell for their chai teas. Loaded with sugar, they are a rare treat for me, but I discovered varieties I could brew at home and doctor with artificial sweetener and low fat milk. Not quite the same but do-able.

Another tea inspiration is our bi-annual trip to Disney World. I love going into the Epcot Twinings store (pronounced Twin-ings, not twine-ings according to an English friend of a friend). On my last trip there I bought some pumpkin chai—two of my favorite flavors.

In an Italian restaurant in Epcot we had pizza and a Harney and Sons iced tea, from England, that was so sweet naturally that I needed no sweetener, and that’s saying a lot for me, since I love sweet tea. Back home, I hunted in the English import section of Jungle Jim’s and found a canister of the coveted tea.

Photo by C. Castle

I’ve also come to love hibiscus tea, mostly because it helps keep my blood pressure under check so I don’t have to take as much medicine. The taste is fruity enough that I can get by on a minimum of sweetener, too. Right now my favorite hibiscus tea is The Republic of Tea’s Watermelon Hibiscus.

Currently, my favorite of all is Downton Abbey’s Mrs. Patmore’s Pudding tea. Labeled as a dessert tea, it has the taste of chai, with a hint of caramel. Similar to chai, but different. It’s as good hot and is it cold. I’m especially fond of it with a splash of spiced latte creamer. I also like Downton Abbey’s Bates Blackberry tea, which has a wonderful scent and a natural sweetness that doesn’t need any sugar.

I skip the cookies with my tea, but if I ate them I’d choose a buttery shortbread. I didn’t have any shortbread on hand for the headline picture, so I put my second favorite, oatmeal raisin, on the plate. Yum.

Now, my taste buds are raging, so I’m off to brew a cuppa.

How about you? Do you have a favorite tea?

Musings From a Writer’s Brain–Backward Humor

Tags

Author Catherine Castle blog, backward writing, Musings from a Writer's Brain, National Backward Day, palindromes, wierd holidays, writing humor

 

Today, January 31, is National Backward Day. According to various websites, National Backward Day is all about doing things backward. You can reverse your habits or your direction or even the order in which you eat dinner. Frankly, I’m all for the last activity. I mean, who doesn’t like dessert first? Sometimes my husband and I will eat lunch for breakfast and nosh on cereal for dinner. That usually happens when breakfast is so late it’s even beyond calling it brunch.

I have absolutely no idea how this quirky holiday got started, but it sounds like fun, especially if you’re a kid. Imagine going to school with your clothes on backward, walking to classes backward, sitting in your desk facing the rear of the room, although I think the teacher might take issue with this.

My mother celebrated Backward Day even when it wasn’t the official holiday. She always read her magazines from the back to the front. I could never figure out how she made heads or tails—or should that cliché go tails or heads?—of what she was reading.

Before cars had seatbelts, my sisters and I used to sit backward in the rear seat, sometimes with our legs crossed, other times kneeling or standing, while we waved and made faces at the drivers in the cars following us. Once Daddy had an accident while we were seated that way, and we all ended up on the floor behind him and Mom. Nowadays, they would have hauled my parents to jail for child endangerment had they discovered me and my siblings unseated on the floor. If you believe the authorities, we should have died numerous times from our unsafe childhood practices, yet here I am, still alive and kicking.

I often practiced writing my letters backward when I was a kid, and I didn’t even know about Backward Day then. Back then (no pun intended) I also didn’t know I was following in the footsteps of the great inventor and artist Leonardo Da Vinci, who not only wrote his letters backward but wrote from the right to the left. I learned that tidbit sometime during my college days. I was still practicing backward writing then. It was fun.

In the Sixties I remember playing Iron Butterfly’s rock song “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” backward in an effort to hear the hidden message supposedly embedded in the record. I can’t say that I ever heard any message, though.

We used to play old home movies backward. My husband’s mother filmed him and his dad as they dug a basement under their house and piled the dirt next to the foundation. It was great fun watching the dirt fly from the pile onto Dad’s shovel.

One thing I never do is look backward while walking forward down steps. I used to do that a lot, until I fell down a flight of steps because I missed one I didn’t see… because I wasn’t looking where I should have been. I basically body skied, on my chest, down the entire flight, which included a right-angle landing midway down. Miraculously, I didn’t break a single bone, but, man, was I bruised up.

Writers are often encouraged to edit their manuscripts backward. Being a blonde, I always had trouble figuring out how one would do this. I’m a great speller, and I really know my homonyms—backward and forward. But when I read the sentence “After all, there are very few words that are spelled the same backward as they are forward.” and reverse the letters, I see “drawrof era yeht sa drawkcab emas eht delleps era taht sdrow wef yrev era ereht, lla retfA” What the heck does that say?

Now, if the manuscript used the words racecar, radar, madam, civic, and kayak, nun, noon, peep level, or the sentences “Stop! Murder us not, tonsured rumpots!” or “Madam, I’m Adam.” I could figure that out, because those words and sentences are the same backward and forward. Because the only sure way to know if a word you are reading backward is spelled correctly, is if the word is a palindrome and spells the same thing forward as it does backward.

I’ve written some backward humor to celebrate National Backward Day and maybe taught you something new about backward writing. What are you planning to do to celebrate this day?

P.S. I eventually figured out the way to read your manuscript backward. Look at each word as it’s written forward and check the spelling, because when you edit that way you are basically looking for spelling and repeated words, not sentence structure. I was just yanking the chain on your writer’s pen today. ☺

Happy National Backward Day!

 

Wednesday Writers Welcomes J. Lynn Rowan

Tags

Author Catherine Castle blog, book excerpt When In Rome, Catherine Castle Wednesday Writers series, Chick Lit, Italy, J. Lynn Rowan, Rome, Sweet romance, Sweet Somethings series, The Eternal City, The Spanish Steps, When In Rome

Today, Wednesday Writers welcomes J. Lynn Rowan, author of When In Rome, book 2 in her Sweet Somethings series, to the blog. Lynn’s description of how her setting was chosen made me want to run off to Italy with my man for some amore. Read on and see if you agree.

 

Rome, In Love

Kate Miller, the heroine of my second contemporary romance release, WHEN IN ROME, was a hard person to place. When she first showed up in BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE, the first in my Sweet Somethings series, she came across as something of a… well, it rhymes with witch, and let’s leave it at that.

But Kate had a vulnerable heart. As the author, I knew it. As the character, she knew it. Despite her best efforts to keep it hidden, that vulnerability needed to be shown.

I knew from the get-go that Domenic, the hero of WHEN IN ROME, would be the one to take on Kate’s passionate but often querulous nature. The question then became: where would she let down her guard and let her heart take some risks?

The answer came from my real life love story.

Rome.

In the spring of 2007, my then boyfriend, now husband, took me on a trip to Italy during my spring break from my first year of teaching. We were young, in our mid-twenties, and honestly hadn’t been dating that long. Seven months, in fact, and we’d started planning the trip when our relationship was barely three months in.

I never thought I’d make it to Rome. But that Easter weekend, I found myself in the middle of The Eternal City. Our trip was filled with amazing sights, delicious food (including lots of gelato!), and the sweet, slow feeling of falling in love.

For a long time, I imagined how wonderful it would be to draw on my personal experience in Rome when it came time to write a love story. When Kate Miller and Domenic Varezzi popped onto my storyboard and outline, I knew Rome would be the perfect setting for their romance.

Many of the locations featured in WHEN IN ROME are described as I remember them from my 2007 trip. Just like Kate, we wandered the Roman Forum. We ate gelato on the Spanish Steps. We laid on the hills of Villa Borghese. And when Kate and Domenic travel to Taormina, Sicily, the sites she sees, at least most of them, echo what we experienced. The Greek Theater. Views of Giardini-Naxos from the cliff-side plaza. Castelmola. The ruins at the beach of Mazzarò.

And of course, there was love. The beautiful, crazy, blossoming of love.

WHEN IN ROME

By J. Lynn Rowan

Love isn’t always picture perfect . . .

Atlanta-based photographer Kate Miller doesn’t believe in fairytale romance or relationships of the forever kind. She’s determined to build her own happiness through hard work and professional success. So, when the opportunity arises to join an exclusive fashion photo shoot in Rome, she jumps on the chance to gain international recognition. But she’s not counting on an instant attraction to the charismatic, sexy, and irritatingly arrogant director of the shoot.

World famous, Domenic Varezzi is used to calling the shots. His clients trust his instincts and they’re willing to pay for the best. But while his career is thriving, his personal life has been lackluster at best. Hoping Kate could be the answer he’s been looking for, he’s determined to win her over. Every challenge she sends his way drives him to break through her tough-as-nails exterior to reach the vulnerable heart that matches his own.

Surrounded by the beauty and magic of Italy’s “Eternal City”, a foundation begins to form that could lead to a lifetime partnership, both in business and in love. Until Domenic’s past comes back to haunt the present and threatens to destroy everything.

EXCERPT

“Let’s get moving,” Domenic says, taking the boarding passes from Joe. “Pilot wants to be cleared for takeoff in twenty minutes.”

The team lines up, toes tapping, as he thumbs through the boarding passes and starts calling out our names. “Corrine. Rafe. Dave.” Each person steps forward to take their passes and heads toward the gate agent. “Lauren. Joe. Miranda.”

Then it’s just me. Domenic and me, staring at each other steps away from the jet bridge. He holds my boarding pass out to me, and a little surge of indignation heats my face. I want to hear him say my name, the way he said everyone else’s, like it’s validation for my spot on his team. My brows lower and my mouth tightens. I stride toward him, close enough to take my boarding pass.

But I don’t.

I glare at him.

Waiting.

A little coil of something hotter than indignation winding through my core at the amusement shining in his emerald eyes.

He thinks this is funny. My discomfort and impatience is a freaking joke to him.

“Well?” I grind out.

Slowly, he extends my boarding pass toward me. A half-grin pulls at one corner of his mouth as I continue to wait. Something else appears in his eyes alongside that irksome amusement.

My stomach flips.

“Kate.” His voice is low and sonorous, just loud enough for me to hear.

The flip, and the simmering annoyance that’s been building over the past three minutes, explodes into an eruption of raging butterflies. Dizziness threatens the stability of my stance, and my cheeks are on fire. Short of breath, I snatch my boarding pass from his artistically elegant fingers and march myself down the jet bridge.

Want to read more? WHEN IN ROME PURCHASE LINKS

 

About the Author

Lynn Rowan started writing stories as a small child, usually starring her favorite cartoon characters. Most of her work through middle and high school was filled with typical teenage angst and melodrama, and usually mirrored the books she loved to read. But eventually she found her own author’s voice and decided to seriously pursue a writing career.

Historical fiction remains J. Lynn’s “first love”, but she has enjoyed the journey to becoming an author of romance and chick lit. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, the Central New York Romance Writers, and the Historical Novel Society. She is also a teacher who tries to instill a love of learning, reading, and writing in her students.

When she’s not writing, J. Lynn enjoys travelling, gardening poorly but enthusiastically, studying various topics in American history for her own expertise, and channeling Julia Child every time she steps into the kitchen.

A native of Oswego, NY, she now lives in Charlotte, NC, with her own Romantic Hero of a husband and the most adorable baby on the planet.

Learn more about Lynn at: Email: Website: Facebook: Twitter: Pinterest: YouTube:

Goodreads: Amazon

Book 1 in the Sweet Somethings series BETTER THAN CHOCOLATE  is available at Amazon

 

 

A Writer’s Garden–Through the Garden Gate with Nelle Cooper

Tags

A Writer's Garden--Through the Garden Gates with Nelle Cooper, Author Catherine Castle blog, Favorite Garden things, Garden blog, garden memories, Ghost Garden, hostas

Hostas, Ghost Gardens, and Favorite Gardening Things

 My smallest garden was a three-foot area under the back porch at an apartment. I planted impatiens and they bloomed all summer. The landlord was a gardener and understood my need for soil and plants. He offered an area of his garden where I could bring some plants from my former garden. This was very meaningful as so many of my garden plants came from the centennial home of my childhood. To save a few brought me joy. My favorite thing about gardening is the memories recalled when the plants bloom.

When I was four years old; my older brother sent cereal box tops in for some double begonias. When they arrived he dug up a shaded area near my playhouse and we planted them together. He also split some stones and made a stone walk.

Now, my gardens include a herb garden, a green and white garden, a lily garden, Victorian garden, shade gardens and two perennial gardens that cover approximately 2500 square feet, and surround a forty-foot arbor with grapes, honeysuckle, clematis and Cardinal vines.

Our trees include a Tri color Beech, Hickory nut, Black Walnut, Catalpa, two Mulberry Trees, Tulip Tree, Red Maple, Cherry Tree, Ginkgo tree, Japanese Zelkova, two yellow maples, two Linden trees and assorted flowering bushes. We enjoy the fruit of the mulberry trees, red currant bush, blackberries and red raspberries bushes. Our vegetable garden flourishes in the former barnyard with rain fun off from our centennial barn. We have enjoyed participating in two local garden walks. For refreshments we served our guests tea and homemade mulberry tarts with lemon curd.

My favorite spot in the garden is where ever I happen to be weeding. I prefer to work on my knees. I pray and thank God for the physical ability to enjoy the smell and feel of the earth. I am a farmer’s daughter. I work out personal concerns, develop characters for my historical novels and create short stories that I present at storytelling events and speaking engagements. Much of my writing is done before I approach my computer.

 

My favorite plants are variegated green and white plants with leaves of various textures and design, i.e. Hosta, ferns, and astilbe, white Bleeding heart. One garden I am still working to create is a green and white garden. This came after reading the quote by Lady Alice M. Martineau, 1924, she writes of the current fashion of Ghost gardens where “water lilies are placed in a marble basin sunk into the cool green turf, the water reflecting the early moonbeams, for no one walks in a ghost garden except in the evening”

 

My favorite gardening book was a gift from my husband’s daughter Karen, a signed copy of Deborah Kellaway’s book “The Virago Book of Women Gardeners”. I have spent many hours reading and rereading this lovely book. In Winter or Summer, I can prepare a cup of tea and enjoy time with these ‘friends’ of soil and seed.

 

Nelle Cooper has been gardening and writing stories all her life. Her favorite thing about gardening is the memories recalled when the plants bloom. When she’s not gardening she’s a spinner of fibers and a weaver of stories. You can connect with Nelle at http://nellecooper.com/

 

 

Ryan Jo Summers back on Wednesday Writers

Tags

Author Catherine Castle blog, Book exerpt from When Clouds Gather, mystery suspense romance, Ryan Jo Summers, setting in books, When Clouds Gather

Ryan Jo Summers is back on Wednesday Writers again with a new book. I’ve asked Ryan to talk about a particular piece of the setting of her newest mystery/suspense romance release When Clouds Gather and tell us how it evolved in her story. She’s chosen to write about Bed and Breakfast that her heroine runs When Clouds Gather.

Welcome back to Wednesday Writers, Ryan Jo.

I had already completed most of the first draft to When Clouds Gather when I took some time off to meet and have lunch with a friend. She had recently returned from a trip to see the kids and grandkids and attend her high school reunion and I was eager to hear the latest and see the photos.

She had a montage of photos in a frame of various shots taken around the town of Grafton–I’m pretty sure that’s in MA. Just places that meant something to her. I was immediately struck with a picture of a tall building, in a Colonial or Greek style, with a white cupola on top. It was awesome! It screamed to be in Clouds.

I already had a clear picture in my head how Darby’s Bed & Breakfast Inn, The Brass Lamplighter, looked. I already had a huge Victorian with a widow’s walk, black chimneys and wisteria vines growing up the sides. This photo added the crowning grace.

How could I incorporate a cupola onto it? As I stared at the photo, of what my friend explained was the Grafton Inn, with a much storied and long past, I had to use that cupola.

My friend by now was sure I was insane but she was accustomed to me finding story bits in odd, random and obscure places. One Valentine’s evening while driving  home late , I discovered a bouquet of roses and baby’s breath still wrapped in cellophane lying in the middle of a two lane residential road. The possibilities intrigued me and that simple scene later became the driving force behind a short story I wrote, entitled Glimpse Eternity, that would also have some autobiographical pieces interwoven through it. It was almost therapeutic for me to write, all because of an abandoned bouquet of Valentine’s roses.

Now, back to Clouds and the cupola that captured my imagination. I went home, pondering the Grafton Inn. I rewrote part of my introduction to the Brass Lamplighter to include the crowning cupola. Then I wrote an entirely new scene in which the hero, Sam, has a fight up on the rooftop and around the cupola. It is a nice scene, of which I am proud of, and one that would not have happened had my friend not taken the photo, framed it and I chanced to see it.

In part of the book’s dedication, I dedicated that scene, now known as ‘ the widow’s walk scene’ to my friend.

Thanks for this interesting insight into an important part of your book’s setting, Ryan Jo. Here’s a peek at the scene Ryan’s talking about.

 

When Clouds Gather

 

Sucking in a breath, Sam expected the mutts to whirl about and mount an attack on either him or Darby. He watched as they tore past, moving straight for the storage shed. Instinct had him reaching for his weapon with one hand and pushing Darby behind him with the other as a dark shadow burst from the corner of the shed. Racing for cover, the dogs hot on his heels, the figure was little more than a dark-clad blur. A full-sized adult human blur.

Streaking away, trying to outrun the dogs, the dark figure fired a shot at them, the bullet sailing way off course.

“Oh my! Sam!” Darby threw her arm around his waist.

He’d already drawn a bead on the target and squeezed off two shots, feeling Darby shudder with each report. “I think I winged him. Stay here.”

The clouds and enveloping darkness were not his friends as he tried to find the target. The dogs raced to the house, barking and clawing near the north side, trying to climb up. A figure on the second floor balcony yanked at the French doors to one of the bedrooms. Finding them locked, he grabbed the trellis and started for the third level balcony.

Of course. What a great way to gain access to the house. If anyone knew of Darby’s habit of leaving doors and windows unlocked, it was an easy in.

Hoping and praying each door and window was still locked, Sam stalked across the lawn, aware that Darby was still pressed to his side. “Go inside and lock every door and window you can. Don’t open them for anyone. Call the police. Then stay near the kids.”

Reaching the ground floor wisteria vine, he grabbed hold of the trellis with one hand, giving it a sturdy shake, still holding his weapon in the other hand. That guy could shoot down easier than he could shoot up. Expecting that Darby was following his orders, he started up, aware the dogs were still barking, whining and clawing at the side of the house.

Reaching the second story, he swung onto the balcony, leaning out for a good look up. The guy was on the widow’s walk. Rats! Grimly, he grabbed the next trellis and headed for the third level.

Now that his opponent was on more solid ground, he turned and fired. Sam climbed, bullets raining down around him. Luckily, this character, whoever he was, had a lousy aim. Except he wasn’t really in any position to return fire and there was Darby and the kids inside to consider too.

Reaching the third level, he wondered where the perp was now. Leaning out, he saw him still on the widow’s walk, moving toward the white shuttered cupola that crowned the rooftop. Grimly, he grabbed another handful of wisteria vine and headed up again. It was like trying to scale the face of Mount Rushmore, he thought with disgust.

And what was waiting for him once he reached the top of it?

Grabbing the railing of the widow’s walk, he hauled himself over the edge, landing on the mist-slick shingles. At the cupola, the perp crouched, his gun held out. Swinging his weapon up, Sam fired blindly, ducking the shots coming at him. The walkway was narrow and slippery. Gripping the railing, he squeezed off another shot then dropped to his belly. With nowhere to roll, no place for cover, he was back up again, charging forward to the nearest chimney.

It wasn’t much, but it was all the cover he would get.

Cursing the poor location for a shoot-out, he fired again, then cursed when he missed. The moon sailed out from behind the clouds, casting alabaster light on the rooftop.

Buy Link:

 

About the Author:

 

Ryan Jo Summers has always been a reader, having a great interest in books. She wanted to be an author since age ten when she wrote her first story complete with illustrations. It has taken a long time to find and perfect her niche- contemporary romance with a twist. She still likes to write short stories, novellas and poems when inspired for the challenge and therapy they offer.

 

When not busy writing, Ryan Jo likes to spend time with her menagerie of pets, hang out with friends or lounge in nature’s majesty. She also likes to cook and bake, travel, tinker around with houseplants and yard plants. Her favorite hobby is another creative outlet; painting. She creates full sized carousel horses from children’s spring rockers, paints ceramics and canvas and dabbles in cartoons.

 

Ryan Jo lives in the mountains of Western North Carolina where the scenic vistas provide constant inspiration and tranquility, keeping her creative batteries charged. Her biggest problem is finding enough time to give life to all the creative endeavors she wants to pursue.

 

Where to connect with Ryan Jo:

Social Media Links:

Website:   www.ryanjosummers.com

www.facebook.com/pages/Ryan-Jo-Summers-author-page/312875648810797

WHISPERS IN HER HEART–November 2012 Black Lyon Publishing SHIMMERS OF STARDUST–September 2014 Soul Mate Publishing WHEN CLOUDS GATHER–November 2014 Soul Mate Publishing