Artsy Bread, True Fiction and a Long Walk

I had a lot planned for last week. Most of those plans didn't get done. However, a whole lot of different things were accomplished. All of this was happening while I was really under the weather. It wasn't the flu. It was some sort of stomach/intestinal thing. All of the lovely food I made last Sunday was no longer a good plan (high fiber and spice). I had to make a vat of chicken stock and revert back to one of my post hospital diets for a while. The nice thing about that was that I had made a big batch of brioche dough. I use a method from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day www.artisanbreadinfive.com/ . The recipes require no kneading and can be kept in the fridge for up to a week. The five minutes comes from the amount of time it takes to prepare the dough for baking. It's really nice to have fresh bread to go with that soup. And toward the end of the week, I had enough of this sweet, rich dough to make some decadent cinnamon rolls. That kind of recuperative menu almost made up for the near debilitating fatigue. I spent a lot of time zonked out on the sofa. Thus, I had to cancel the shoot for Cook Like a Uke, and I barely got done any editing Sean Hepburn Ferrer's interview for The Secret Cancer. When I did get out for the Farmers Market and Happy Hour at the Culver Hotel, I ended up drinking green tea. Admittedly, I did have martinis but nowhere near what I usually have. And I paid for the ones I had. But I digress. A lot of stuff got done despite this set back. Basic details will be in the Update section. For complete details, I'll be referring you to the other blogs. Sorry.

By the way, for more photos from this week's happenings, go to this link: http://dlwarner.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_20.html .

Verisimilitude

I had some very nice comments on my work this week. On the site, All Romance, where I am a bestseller (yes, I like saying that), a reader wrote that she enjoyed all of my work. On a different site, a reader said 'just read all of her work.' That was mighty nice. Yet the most fascinating and fun comments have been about the realism I've managed to put into my books. A reader who went to see Zero Dark Thirty said that the Seal Team Six in that film reminded her of Falcon Squad from the Soldiers' books. I had done some research on special forces units in general. We worked with one on Demon Under Glass. He came to our attention after commenting that it took longer to strangle a man than we shot in one scene. This formidable crew guy found film far more peaceful than the military (geez, he must have had a hard time as a soldier to think that). Yet, he was really affable, laid back and funny in a very twisted way. The actor who played Rik in the short film version of the Soldiers book actually was in such a unit as well. Why do they drift toward film. Beyond that, I interview others who were in a unit or were close to people who were. The freedom about hairstyles and operating outside of protocol were not made from whole cloth. I was very pleased that someone saw my guys in characters that were even closer to the real thing. I was asked if the menu I go into loving detail about in Ensnared is real. The answer is yes. All food I mention in my books are dishes I've had. Often times, I've made them as well. Food is an excellent way to ground even the most far flung of fantasies in reality. I am still working on a cookbook 'written' by Vincent Greven. The current release date is in time for the Writers Romance and Rainbows 2013 Book Fair. Yes, it has a blog now. We'll see.

I'm Walkin' (Yes, Indeed)

I am very pleased and honored to be associated with the lovely people who run Pseudomyxoma Survivor https://www.justgiving.com/pseudomyxomasurvivor , a charity founded by an incredibly brave survivor of PMP. On Saturday, I was invited to join a fund raising effort on behalf of that group that is tied to the London Marathon. No, I'm not flying to London to do a Marathon. If I were flying to London, it would be to go on an epic pub crawl. And I am in no shape to run a marathon other than in a cab. The challenge is to walk or run or crawl the distance of a marathon by the date of the London Marathon on April 21, 2013. We'll raise money as well as support the people running in the marathon for PMP Survivors. Our team, PMP Los Angeles is Jon, me and Craig (who is also our coach) so far. I'm hoping to have more of my peeps here join us. And you don't have to be in LA to join our team! You can walk or run anywhere. We'll be putting up a schedule in a few days of when and how much we plan to walk. We hope you will contribute to our cause. Any amount will do. The funds go directly to PMP survivors. Here is our page: http://www.justgiving.com/teams/pmpmarathonchallenge . Let's raise some bucks and awareness for this cause. Today is the 20 year anniversary of Audrey Hepburn's death and still very few know about this illness. It is often tragically misdiagnosed. That nearly did me in. This is a cause that is extremely important to me. Those who join who aren't in LA will be treated to a motivational speech by coach Craig via the interwebs.

Updates

The Demonspawn fund raising campaign is over. We fell well short of our optimum goal, but that does not mean that there won't be a web series. For details on where everything stands, check out the blog later today (evening-ish) on this link: http://http://demonspawntales.blogspot.com/ . Meanwhile, things are poppin' in the yaoi world. My news page on Facebook has had it's first exclusive interview and is growing by the hundreds each day. The writing is going well, too. I'm back on track with A Soldier's Destiny and making headway on one of my most hard core yaoi pieces for Full Metal Orgasm E-zine. You can catch on all of this later tonight or tomorrow at http://sybpressyaoi.com .

Stay tuned.

Provocative Questions, Saucy Answers and Updates

 BREAKING NEWS! Craig was in my local library today. That was surreal but lots of fun. Apparently, he did usually pull partons over the counter for a big hug while sounding like Elvis. 'Gimme some sugar.' That sort of thing. We also had an earthquake in our neighborhood. According to the maps on the news, we were almost on top of the epicenter. It was fast, but it did feel like the building had been picked up and dropped. Still, I went right back to sleep. We are such Californians.

Reader Questions

I get interesting questions all the time. The theme of the most recent ones have been 'You don't talk about x anymore. Are you still doing that?' I seldom completely abandon a practice or an idea. Usually, when I stop talking about something in the blog, it's because I've hit a dull patch with said activity. I mean, I don't know if my readers want to hear me wine about every time the bread doesn't come out right or how the macarons are mocking me after the many failed attempts. Yes, they are mocking me, especially the supermarket macarons. I am still learning Japanese. Some very kind friends have gifted me with the two major audio learning systems that I use along with the books. The audio has done wonders with my pronunciation. The manga has done wonders with my kanji reading. I'm recognizing more and more on my own. My favorite question from a reader about my learning Japanese was 'Am I tempted to say Anjin-san after I say Konnichi wa (good afternoon). I must admit that I really have to fight saying Konnichi wa, Anjin-san to that poor supermarket clerk at Mitsuwa market. He's just stopped being afraid of helping me. I think that is because he understands the words coming out of my mouth. Okay, folks, that's two pop culture references in one paragraph. No one knew who I was referring to in the blog covering the Green Eyed Monster a couple of weeks ago. The character was a homunculus called Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist. I don't know how you all didn't know that. :) Anjin-san was the name given to Richard Chamberlain's character by the Shogun in James Clavell's Shogun. The upshot is that I'm still studying and practicing and trying to to be irreverent to people who wouldn't get it..

Yoga is another matter. I still do the warm-up exercises, but I didn't take to practice as a whole. I was still dealing with pain issues when I started. Perhaps, due to that, I kept thinking that I was injuring myself even with the mildest of the movement. Tai Chi was suggested to me as an alternative by the clinician providing acupuncture. While looking into it, I discovered that very elderly people with all manner of aliments practice the martial art without hurting themselves. I've seen reports that indicate that Tai Chi can reverse a lot of conditions that cause pain. The I've just begun learning the routines, but I am feeling an impact from just the warm ups.

Dormant Books?

I think the single biggest surprise I've had during the months and months I've been home is that I still have to fight to find time to write fiction. Before I was discharged from the hospital, I was plotting stories and contemplating a very ambitious publishing schedule. Well, that was silly. Even if I set aside all the physical things profoundly slowing my output, there were the hours and hours of phone work to keep my insurance from becoming a mess and other bureaucratic craziness from overwhelming us. Those problems are not  as frequent, but now there are other obligations to my business partners or the people who give me freelance work. Promoting any independent project is a time devouring monster. Spending time with my own characters is very difficult for me to justify on any given day. Today, for instance, I have to finish this blog and move on to a trailer script that I need to get out in a few days.

All of the above is an explanation for why some books I'd hoped would be long out are still in various states of undress as it were. And then, there is a problem common to writers. Characters from one project will be speaking more clearly to me than those in another project. Even though I started one book long before the other, this can happen. It did happen with Ensnared. Lord Darius Galetea is the most arrogant character I have ever written. He is even more arrogant than Simon Molinar which he proved when he shouldered his way past A Soldier's Destiny for my attention. Granted, I was having trouble meshing Simon with my more established characters, Rik and Vincent. But Darius is one of those super hot bad boys that is impossible to ignore. He is still vying for another book. Not right now, milord. I've figured out what was going wrong with the narrative in this Soldier's book. And I have a hard deadline. That helps a lot, it seems. I'm getting a whole lot more fiction out since we decided to get a booth at the West Hollywood Bookfair. I also intend to finish the Vincent Greven Cookbook that I started years ago. I think my problem with writing a cookbook is that I never thought of myself as someone who had original recipes. That has changed markedly since I began that book. I've also been given a great deal of information from cookbook authors and food bloggers on how to attribute a recipe from another cook in my book. This book is a giveaway for people who have purchased my yaoi titles. I am thinking of writing a cookbook for myself, but that's still in the pondering stage.

There is one more project that's been gathering dust for a number of years. That was a script about at Dominant/submissive relationship between a powerful businessman and a woman he had known since she was a child. It's called The Proposal. I began writing it in response to a very bad film about such relationships. The film never found a distributor, so I won't mention the title. However, with all the stuff and nonsense over the idiotic 50 Shades of Gray, I feel that I must respond. My leading lady is as powerful as the Dominant in many ways in this book. I want to show that you can have as hot and kinky a read with a real exchange of power and true informed consent. Irritation and a deadline make for some swift but always thoughtful writing. It also helps that I had a full treatment and half a script. I hope it will be finished. The cut off is four to six weeks before the event to make sure we have print copies for the table. If not, I will provide free sample chapters in a booklet and online.

So the answer is that I have no dormant books. I am working on all of them more diligently. If all holds as it has, I should have most of them published by the end of September. Thanks for the questions. Keep them coming!

Personal Update

Next week, I'm scheduled to have tests to see if I am still in remission. Wednesday is the CT scan which means a long and not so pleasant day. Thus, it's not likely there will be a blog on Wednesday. I should be in full paranoid panic mode by Sunday. It may be sooner. Everything points to my being fine. Panicking is just a thing I do.

Stay tuned.