AmiMaxine

Chocolate

I get personally offended when someone calls white confections ‘white chocolate.’ I don’t mean this in a serious way. But enough so that whenever someone says this in my presence, my friends will look me in the eye and recite, “It’s not chocolate.” Yes, white ‘chocolate’ uses cocoa butter, thereby ‘technically’ qualifying it as suchContinue reading “Chocolate”

Seventeen

If you are thinking of self-publishing and therefore utilizing some print-on-demand options, let me tell you about a recently learned lesson I’ve had: returns. When I first set up my Ingr@mSp@rk (IS) account and started publishing, I set my returns to ‘yes’ and ‘return’ – because many sources said bookshops would be less likely toContinue reading “Seventeen”

Dear Reader: I’m Sorry

I did a thing this week that I’ve never done before. I knowingly kept a library book past its due date. 😬 The book in question is one I was tasked with reading for my SciFi/Fantasy book club. It clocked in at 618 pages. And I had already renewed it twice without issue (as IContinue reading “Dear Reader: I’m Sorry”

First Friday Rec: Horse

Title: HorseAuthor: Geraldine BrooksGenre: Literary Historical FictionPages: 464Publication Date: January 16, 2024StoryGraph* Moods: Emotional, Informative, ReflectiveHow I Stumbled Upon This Book: Assigned for book clubOther Books by Brooks: Fiction – Year of Wonders, March, The Secret Chord, People of the Book, Caleb’s Crossing. Nonfiction – Foreign Correspondence, Memorial Days (Memoir), Nine Parts of Desire: TheContinue reading “First Friday Rec: Horse”

Andy Grammer: One Man Show

Full disclosure, I don’t listen to the radio. I used to, when I didn’t really have a choice (I mean, the first ipod shuffle didn’t come out until 2005 – and even then, it was a few years and iterations before I owned one; I had a Walkman and then a portable CD player whileContinue reading “Andy Grammer: One Man Show”

UW Madison Arboretum

I spent my entire life with no idea that the city of Madison was home to a 1,200 acre arboretum (with an addition 513 acres in outlying properties). It shouldn’t surprise me, given most cities have large parks and my own UW campus houses an arboretum, as well. I’d just never stumbled upon it –Continue reading “UW Madison Arboretum”

Hello, Detective

If you’ve read past posts about my books, then you will know how much thought and time I put into naming my characters. I like the names to mean something – to tell a little bit more about the person they’re given to. When I started writing my murder mystery, I decided to take aContinue reading “Hello, Detective”

Learning my Genre

I’ll be honest – when I first started writing novel-length stories, genre was the furthest thing from my mind. I just knew I had stories I wanted to tell. So I just wrestled them onto the page. But then I started querying and publishing. And suddenly, I had to put my stories into tidy littleContinue reading “Learning my Genre”

First Friday Rec: The Nineties

Title: The NinetiesAuthor: Chuck KlostermanGenre: Nonfiction, essays, HistoryPages: 384Publication Date: January 31, 2023StoryGraph* Moods: Informative, Reflective, FunnyHow I Stumbled Upon This Book: Wandering around B&NOther Books by Klosterman: But What if We’re Wrong?, Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century, Raised in Captivity*StoryGraph also offers content warnings. Description:Continue reading “First Friday Rec: The Nineties”

Writing as a Process

There are so many writers out there who are adamant that a writer must do this or a writer must do that. That someone isn’t a writer unless they XYZ. The most common one I hear is that to be a writer, you must write every day. When I hear things like that, I can’tContinue reading “Writing as a Process”