Blog Soup

A bit of this and that: Independence Cake experiments, weekend writing recap, upcoming in-house writing retreat, WriteOn Joliet's second anthology, and upcoming events.

Got coffee beside me, here we go!

Independence Cake:

Munsonville Inn would also sell a frosted loaf, popular in Thornton, known as Independence Cake, and Bryony longed to try this food from a land so far away.

            More than once, she and Susan read the advertisement in the window, boasting it was "flavored with wine and brandy," as well as "rich with nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, mace, and citron," and "heavily speckled with currants and raisins."

You wouldn't think I'd get so obsessed with a piece of cake, but I've wanted to try it ever since I wrote this passage last year.

Here's the original 19th century recipe: 

Twenty pounds of flour, fifteen pounds of sugar, ten pounds of butter, four dozen of eggs, one quart of wine, one quart of brandy, one ounce of nutmegs, three ounces each of cinnamon, cloves, and mace, two pounds of citron, five pounds each of currants and raisins, and one quart of yeast. Frost it, and dress it with box and rose leaf.”

No baking instructions. Rebekah scaled it back and made a couple of adjustments. The result was heavy and dry, with mace overpowering the taste. The nineteenth century frosting she adapted wasn't a smooth covering. Timothy played with it for an hour last night, and the final results were just "OK."

Hence, no Sue's Diner post yesterday.

We may fiddle with it one more time. Either way, I'll post results on Wednesday.

This weekend and Before the Blood

Finished chapter 17 of the fifth novel (word count 18, 109) and chapter 19 (word count 5,691). I'm sure being too hot to exercise outside contributed to my productivity.

As we you can see, word counts in the chapters in this five-novel prequel vary greatly. 

The longest are probably chapter 5 of the third (26, 835) and chapter 6 of the fourth (26, 745). 

The shortest is probably the first chapter of the fourth (744). The remaining chapters have everything in between.

Also, I've written parts of every chapter in novel No. five, a fact I keep forgetting when I wish I could speed up the process. Which brings me to...

In-House Writing Retreat

I'm using some vacation days to work on BTB No. five. I have a few scattered engagements but mostly I will be writing. 

The goal is writing one chapter a day and editing one chapter a day of novel No. three, but until I sink into those chapters, I have no way of knowing if that goal is realistic and doable. But with five vacation days and two weekends, I can make significant progress.

The overall goal is to complete writing and editing by Labor Day weekend, hand five novels off to my editor, and have one ready for publication by early 2019. I want her to read all five before we edit and release since inconsistencies in one book will affect the others.

My original release goal was Christmas. That might be good for sales but not for readership, and I'd rather have the latter. When January looms gray and depressing, I want to offer a good book.

Besides, I'd rather holiday sales focus on the anthology.

Which brings me to...

WriteOn Joliet's Second Anthology

Submissions are now closed for this second book. I'll be spending my Fourth of July holiday editing and formatting. 

The book will be available by early November, and I'm targeting a release party for mid-November. More information to follow as it become available.

And speaking of events...

Events:

All kinds are in the works, enough for their own blog post: self-publishing workshop, author marketing roundtable, an open mic night of sorts (where attendees can hear me and other writers read from our works), monthly Gothic book club meeting, an exhibit and reception featuring the works of four local artists who created for the BryonySeries.

For more information, visit https://www.bryonyseries.com/fetes-and-feasts.

Illustration by Kathleen Rose Van Pelt for "Bryony."