Weihnachten ins Göttingen

Christmas Eve, some years ago

The uncooked goose

My heroine, Emma, lived and worked in Göttingen in the summer, but she would have loved the Fussganger Zone in the holiday season with the great lights and a dusting of snow.  We spent one Christmas there, and a memorable one it was, too, with real candles on the tree, a Christmas goose and  even some snow.  Fireworks and church bells completed the ambiance.  It was wonderful. Above is my mother-in-law holding the goose.

I never visited Göttingen without at least one visit to Kron & Lanz, which was in a scene in The Shadow Warriors.  Indeed the whole town from the wild pigs (wildschwein) to the train station and everything in between in is the novel.  Another photo from that lovely Christmas below.

Göttingen at night - - Christmas

The Shadow Warriors is now available on devices other than the Kindle:  The novel can be found on the Nook, Diesel, Apple's reader--just about everything but Sony and that's coming soon.  It wasn't much fun to do the Smashwords formatting, but an techie like me can usually figure it out. 

Merry Christmas!  Frohe Weihnachten, Gutes Neues Jahr and forgive my bad German.  I need Frau Eisenach to advice me.  She is one of my favorite characters from the novel.  I mean, how many novels do YOU know that are set in Göttingen?  Probably not that many.  And available on Amazon.de. 

Cheers,

Emma's creator

Formatting ebooks - no job for the techno-ignoramus

For several weeks now, I've been slaving over the old Shadow Warriors manuscript.  I wanted it to be not just on Amazon, where it sits now, but available for Apple, Barnes & Noble, Sony, Kobo, Diesel ebook store and other outlets.   Enter Smashwords.
I've been working on Word since Windows was a toddler, both in business and writing, so I thought myself pretty knowledgeable. 
I didn't know nuthin.'  But I did learn, and once I format a few more manuscripts I'll be the format guru.  Well, maybe.  I'm a detail oriented person (years of computer programming and writing), but formatting details tend to be, well, sort of boring.    Tedious, even.  But ya gotta do it.  Smashwords Style Guide
Last feedback was to get the return characters out of my copyright statement and remove the second chapter 20.  Gee, I wondered why the word count had increased.  Hoping to get into the "Premier Catalog" before the holidays.  Last year, The Shadow Warriors became available at Amazon on December 22nd.  Merry Christmas!  Hope it's earlier this  year.   Whoever thought those pesky warriors  (AKA software agents)  would hang around so long.
A reader found a hilarious typo in a recipe in the back of the book.  Yes, there are a few German recipes.  You get a lot to like with 'Warriors.'  I wrote "white whine" when I meant, well, you know what I meant.  I fixed it of course.  Darn!  It was so funny.  Sometimes fingers do the damndest things.        

If you have a Kindle, buy the book just for the recipes.  All tested for YEARS!    Cheap to make.  Tasty.  Nothing fancy.  End of ad.

In a subsequent post I hope to announce the book is available on all these devices.  If you have a Kindle, you may want to take a gander at this web site:  Kindlemojo

Welcome Italia and Espana

The Shadow Warriors is now available on Amazon in Italy and in Spain.  I'm so excited about Spain after just having traveled there.  We were so impressed with the history, the art, culture, the superb hams and the wonderful paradores.  So much to take in. My feet have just about recovered from the cobblestones.  I've always adored Italy, too.  So cool to walk into a tiny trattoria and when the waiter appears without menu, just say "Lasagne Verde,"  and you will be served lasagne verde.  Hello and welcome to Italy and Spain.  If you read English, you may like The Shadow Warriors.

A few weeks ago, I cleaned out my huge "research" file that I used to write The Shadow Warriors and a couple of other as yet unsold computer crime novels.   Computer research done in the nineties is history, old history,  as old today as when the Moors were in Spain.  I tossed it all, with much ruing and many regretful pangs.  Gone.  Done. Out.

Parador in Carmona

The Burning Man novel,  (unsold) is still technologically current, because I imagined technology that might be around the corner, bleeding edge technology.  The novel I will try to sell now, a woman in jeopardy book,  has a stolen laptop loaded with "LoJack for Laptops."   Nothing else very high tech.  The novel I am currently writing is set in Southern California in 1928.  No technology to speak of.  Talkies coming in, trams everywhere, Prohibition, the Black Bottom, cool old cars.  It's hard to put your head into another place and time, but once you get it, it won't change on you.

Computer crime will read its ugly head as long as there are computers.  How do you like them apples?                      

The Shadow Warriors and Reading Devices

After a certain amount of pain, having to do with cleaning up and formatting the now ancient (2001) manuscript of The Shadow Warriors, that was still in individual chapters.  I came through the process.  Much of it was ugly, like making sausage.  Smashwords has lots of formatting rules, and my original manuscript broke most of them. 

Nothing worthwhile is ever accomplished without work, have you noticed?  Even the roast pork fried rice I'm making from the leftover pork tenderloin  is work:  cook the egg, cook the bacon, cook the rice, cut up the meat, the onion, the ginger, slice the mushrooms, yada yada.   Of course the effort will be delicious, and full of good veggies and flavorings, lean and "nutritionally correct," more or less.  Not that I pay a lot of attention.  So:  work.

I have been slaving over The Shadow Warriors off and on for many years.  Writing and rewriting.  You know what they say.  Writing is rewriting.  So the baby is out there in print, on the Kindle, and now on a wealth of other devices.  Hopefully I will get it into the "premier" catalog.  I downloaded Adobe Digital Editions.  My NCX looks great.  The text version had weird fonts, but here was as way to adjust that was pretty cool.  It's a whole new world out there.  A world where one has to be technical (or rich to hire someone to do the technology ).  I have a love/hate relationship with technology.  Mostly love,  until Smashwords smashes me.  We're friends again.  I guess. 

Buy the book and let me know if you like it.  I think you will. 

Thanksgiving in Gøttingen

Many years ago, a relative visited us in Chicago on Thanksgiving.  The turkey was very impressive, and he said whole turkeys were  expensive in Germany.  The day after (this was before black Friday), we bought a  large frozen turkey at half price.  We scoured suburban Chicago for a stryrofoam cooler, and finally found one at the local hardware store, high on a shelf waiting for spring.

Said relative packed the turkey into the cooler and took it as hand luggage aboard the flight to Frankfurt.  Going thru customs, he was asked for his Meat Importer's License, because obviously so much turkey must be to carve up and sell.  After a long explanation, the customs agent, in very unGerman fashion, threw up his arms and waved him and the turkey through the line.

When we flew over (via London) at Christmastime, we brought  sweet potatoes, pumpkin, cranberries, stuffing mix and the rest of the fixins.  Saw a turkey for $100 at Harrods fool hall.  Yikes.

 It was hard to find ground veal and shallots in Germany in those days (the veal was minced, not ground) but we perservered, and I cooked up a big holiday feast for the whole familyin my mother-in-laws post-war kitchen.  The stove was primitive, but she did have a new fridge that held more than a watermelon and a six-pack.  It was a wonderful time.

Cross-cultural exchanges, even among families can be illuminating, and we should all  try to understand different cultures.  I have been reading Washington Irving's "Tales from the Alhambra" and it is very illuminating apropos the Moors in Spain.  Did you know that in the early Middle Ages, the Jew, Moors and Catholics were able to co-exist in Southern Spain?  How is it that they can't now?  Makes you wonder.  

Happy Thanksgiving to all.  In The Shadow Warriors, Emma, the narrator, makes a Caesar Salad to take to a party with many international students. Someone dances the Lambada.  I always think of that when Lambada comes up on the tape in my aerobics class.  What a crazy world.