New Release! Perilous Chance

Posted on December 25, 2012 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

cover image for Perilous Chance If only Mama were well. If only Papa were . . . not like this.

Clary needs a miracle, but wonders rarely step forth to solve life’s problems.

While her mama lies wearily abed and her papa spends the day . . . elsewhere, Clary struggles to look after her younger sister and their baby brother. And longs for more than making do. If only.

Then, one spring morning, Clary and Elspeth visit the old bramble-grown quarry to pick wild cabbage leaves. Hidden within the rock’s cleft, Clary’s miracle awaits. But this miracle sports razor-sharp talons, world-shaking power, ravenous hunger, and a troll-witch to guard its sleep. When it cracks the egg, will Clary survive?

Something wondrous this way comes!

Perilous Chance is available in electronic bookstores.
Amazon I B&N I Diesel I iTunes I Kobo I Smashwords

Bandanna Gift Wrap

Posted on December 20, 2012 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

four packages wrapped in bandannas Bandanna gift wrapping came to my household through sheer desperation. It was the middle of November several years ago, and I’d just ripped the cartilage in my hip joint. I could not stand without pain. Walking was even more difficult. How was I to do all the holiday prep needed to make our winter celebration a celebration?

The gifts were largely already acquired. I’d started early. And my husband, with his background of restaurant cooking, took over both daily meal prep and holiday meal planning. But I’d always been the gift wrapper, and the regular wrapping deal was not going to work this time.

I decided to throw money at the problem: reuseit.com stocked some really festive cloth bags with ribbon closures. I’d seen them and coveted them, but refrained due to their pricey nature. Now, I would refrain no longer. (Although, since these would envelop family presents, they could be used again and again. So the short-term expense would likely be a long-term savings.)

I purchased a bundle of them, winced at my total at checkout, and clicked the finalizing button.

And my solution working excellently. I merely popped each gift into its bag, tied the ribbon, and safety pinned a tag on it. Done!

The ease and simplicity spoiled me for gift wrapping from then on. I didn’t want to go back to paper. The cloth bags were prettier, easier, and didn’t contribute to our overfull landfills. But . . . eight dollars or more per bag? Ouch!

I perused the reuseit site again. Was there anything less expensive? No. There were only more expensive options! But one of them gave me an idea. It was a beautiful wrapping cloth derived from Japanese heritage. The how-to video showed the simple method by which one secured the cloth around a gift. And I thought: why not use a bandanna? I can get those for a dollar each!

I never looked back. Birthdays, anniversaries, housewarmings, hospitality – all these occasions feature bandanna-wrapped gifts from me. Since we have winter holidays approaching as I write this, I want to show you how I do it. Maybe you’d like to try it yourself!

First, gather your supplies: bandannas, gift tags (I use small white paper circles that I cut myself), and safety pins.

bandannas, tags, safety pins

Next, place the gift on your chosen bandanna and wrap the the cloth around it.

photos of wrapping bandanna around gift

Then gather the two pointy ends in your hands, bring them together, and tie a knot. Arrange the folds of cloth to look good. They will stay put, especially if you make the knot snug.

Now pin your tag onto the bandanna. I usually put it to one side of the knot, to make it easy for the opener to untie the knot.

hands poised to pin tag on gift

And there you have it! No cutting – and cutting too small or too big. No taping and then taping it again when the paper starts to unfurl. Just fold the cloth around your gift and tie.

photo of gift wrapped in bandanna

Bonus tip: last year we had some really bulky gifts. I bought fabric at a sewing store, used pinking sheers to prevent the edges from unraveling, and ribbons to secure the ends (like a giant toffee). No need to abandon my cloth habit, just because bandannas weren’t big enough!

Update: Videos showing wrapping with cloth here!

For more on green living, see:
Waste-Free Lunch
Green Housekeeping
Great Soap & Etcetera Quest

Cover Copy Primer

Posted on December 13, 2012 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

cover copy for Troll-magic I’m a writer, but I’m also a reader. I’m going to don my reader cap for a moment.

How do I choose my reading material?

When I’m lucky, a friend recommends something that’s right, but my voracity has exhausted most of my friends’ reading lists. (Grin!) More often, I must browse the shelf of new books at the library, check what my favorite authors are reading (because I’ve read all their stories), or fish among Amazon’s recommendations (which are still very hit-or-miss for me).

All these methods, however, eventually confront me face-to-face with a book cover (I’ve blogged about cover design here) and cover copy. Sometimes cover copy might more properly be called web copy, but it’s the same stuff. That cover copy – even on the tail of a friend’s recommendation – must get me to either buy the book outright or flip to the first page of the story. (Which must then make the sale, but story openings are another blog post!)

How does the cover copy do its job? It has an underlying structure. Let’s examine it.

To do so, I’ll doff my reader beret and put my writer fedora back on. How do I write cover copy that lets my readers know this is the story for them?

It isn’t easy. Marketing folk spend years in school learning this skill. But, as an indie publisher, I must manage somehow. The better I communicate the essence of my story, the more of my fans and potential fans will realize they want to read it.

Several months ago I blogged about the two most essential elements of cover copy: theme (not plot) and active verbs. If you missed that post, you’ll find it here. But what about the nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts of writing such copy? Theme and active verbs are necessary, but not sufficient for the job. What about the rest?

At the same workshop where I learned to aim for the story’s heart and to avoid all forms of the verb to be, I also learned six questions to ask myself before I sat down to create cover copy. Read on!

What is the theme of the story, and what are the repercussions of this central idea?
This is the big reason a reader wants to read! Is the story about star-crossed lovers, mistaken identity, catching a dream, or what? Spell it out, but don’t descend into your plot. Stay with the big ideas; avoid the finicky details.

Who is the story about?
Readers are people, and people relate to people. Even if your setting is as spectacular as Niven’s Ringworld or your plot as dazzling as Willis’ time travel stories, it is your protagonist who will lead your reader into and through the magic of your creation. If your story has multiple points of view, pick the character who will best snag your reader’s interest.

What is the initial conflict?
Again, do not list plot details. What is the heart or essence of this conflict? Focusing on theme helps you avoid spoilers. You want to give a sense of the story without revealing elements best encountered within it.

Where is the story set?
Ground the reader somewhere. In Chicago’s loop, Virginia’s Blue Ridge, or the troll-infested North-lands. (Grin!) Imagine your reader as a helium balloon: tie his or her string to something. One word might be enough. Other stories will require a phrase or an entire sentence.

What is your tag line?
Developing tag lines probably deserves its own blog post! You’ll need a tag line for your cover copy, and it should possess zip or else drench your reader in evocative images. It usually appears at the end of the cover copy, but sometimes works better at the beginning. Either is fine. When I’m developing a tag line, I try to express the essence of the story as concisely as possible and then pair it with its opposite. I’ll give examples below.

What is the hook?
A hook provokes tension in the reader; it’s often a question. Such as: how can he convince her, when she won’t even talk to him? Will her gift for improv poetry be enough to catch the god’s eye? Can he run fast enough, leap high enough, drink deep enough to surmount the walls of Olympus?

I follow this outline each time I must write copy for an upcoming release. Occasionally I become fired with inspiration after tackling just a few questions and dive in. More often I need four or five answers complete before I start wrestling. Cover copy remains a challenging arena for me! It doesn’t come naturally. I trust continued practice will help!

With that caveat (you’ll want to better my performance), I’ll lead you through my exact progression of thought as I wrote cover copy for four of my stories. I need concrete examples myself, so I’m providing them for you.

cover image for Troll-magic What are the themes in Troll-magic?
Dreaming big dreams. Looking beyond your origins. Stretching for more, even when you don’t know quite what more is.

Who is the story about?
Lorelin, a seventeen-year-old growing up in rural Silmaren.

What is the initial conflict?
Lorelin’s family wants her to settle down and commit to life on the family farm. Lorelin wants more, but she’s not sure how to do something different from what her parents have done.

Where does the story take place?
The primary location is Silmaren, the cool northern country where Lorelin lives and where Kellor is imprisoned. The story visits other locations in the North-lands, but only for short periods of time.

Tag line?
Lorelin has dreams – dreams of playing her flute every day, dreams of a larger life. Mandine, the antagonist, is a nightmare come true.

nightmare versus dream
Fighting against a nightmare
Fighting for a dream

Fighting against a nightmare pales beside fighting for a dream.

Hook?
Lorelin doesn’t know what to do, because she can’t see clearly. Her friends and family cannot help her, because they don’t know how either. Her father actively undermines her. And once she’s in the palace, everything goes wrong. It seems there’s no hope left.

Cover Copy

Fighting against a nightmare pales beside fighting for a dream.

An accursed prince and her own longing for music challenge Lorelin to do both.

But tradition and a hidden foe stand squarely in her way.

How do you make dreams come true when vision fails, allies undermine you, and all roads toward hope twist awry?

Can courage, honor, and loyalty prevail against a troll-witch’s potent curse?

Set within her enchanted North-lands, J.M. Ney-Grimm’s new take on an old Norse folk tale pits distorted malice against inner wisdom and grit.

The Troll's Belt Theme for The Troll’s Belt?
Avoiding full responsibility for yourself by avoiding self-honesty.

Who?
Young Brys Arnson, a 12-year-old, who lives with his father. (His aunt and uncle, right next door, help out.)

Conflict?
Brys means well, but he’s taking short cuts. The result of his dishonesty and skimming out of chores: he gets grounded. When grounded, he cheats again and becomes inadvertent bait for a troll.

Setting?
A lumber-focused hamlet in the frontier lands west of settled Silmaren, where the pine forests and chains of lakes go on forever.

Tag line?
cheat – cheater
trick – trickster – trickery
devour
honesty

Inspiring example from Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones: A new witch learns old magic. Tension of opposites: new/old

Ryndal pretends to be friendly. Brys pretends to be trustworthy and responsible. Brys pretends to be strong after he finds the belt.

One pretense too many
When strength is one pretense too many [problem: is]
When stolen strength is one pretense too many [there it is again: is!]

borrowed belt, stolen strength

When wriggling out wriggles you into a heap of trouble.
When a greater cheater traps a lesser, there is no wiggle room.
Wriggling out wriggles Brys into a whole heap of trouble.
Wriggling out – from chores, from losing, from consequences
Wriggling out means wriggling in – to consequences.

Some mistakes are water under the bridge. Other mistakes
A short cut becomes the long way home. [There’s that pesky verb to be.]
A troll and his hunger turn a short cut long.
Short cuts + mistake + one troll = trouble
Short cuts, pretense, and wriggling out yields . . . trouble.

Childish deceit sprouts grownup trouble.
Minor deceit sprouts major trouble.

Young deceit sprouts timeless trouble.

Cover Copy

Motherless Brys Arnson digs himself into trouble. Bad trouble.

Grounded for sneaking and sassing, he makes bad worse.

Now he must dig for courage and honesty to deliver himself and his best friend from his mortal mistake.

Tricked by a troll in J.M. Ney-Grimm’s richly imagined North-lands, Brys must dig himself and his best friend back out of danger. But that requires courage . . . and self-honesty. Traits Brys lacks at depth.

A twist on a classic, The Troll’s Belt builds from humor-threaded conflict to white-knuckle suspense.

Cover image for Livli's Gift Theme for Livli’s Gift?
How to manage cultural change.

Who?
Livli, a young healer in the Hammarleeding spa.

Conflict?
Thoivra wants less contact with the Hammarleeding men and fewer visits between the sister-lodges and brother-lodges. Livli wants exactly the opposite.

Setting?
The Hammarleeding culture in the Fiordhammar mountains of Silmaren. Specifically, Kaunis-lodge, a sister-lodge that is special due to its healing hot spring.

Tag line?
Sometimes letting go spells defeat – sometimes it harnesses power.
Can letting go harness power? Or does it spell defeat?
Does letting go spell defeat? Or does might it harness power?
Does surrender spell defeat? Or might could letting go harness elemental real power?

Must surrender spell defeat? Or could letting go harness real power?

Hook?
Working toward what she wants, could Livli lose everything instead? While Livli pushes forward, one influential sister pushes back.

Livli, being a pioneer in the healing arts, wants change elsewhere as well, in all of living. But her desired change is too big, too much, too fast for her sisters.

Cover Copy

Livli heals the difficult chronic challenging injuries among patients of pilgrims to Kaunis-spa. Its magical spring gives her an edge, but Livli wields a possesses a special gift achieves results that others cannot achieves spectacular cures mainly because she refuses to fail.

A pioneer, she hopes to match new ways of living to her new ways of banishing illness her new ways of banishing hurt with new ways of living.

But her the sisters of Kaunis-lodge fear rapid change. While Livli pushes the new, one influential sister pushes the old. What precious things might they lose while tossing old inconveniences?

Livli pushes forward the new, and one influential foe pushes back. Kaunis-home will keep its revered traditions, even if Livli loses almost everything.

Everything . . . and the one thing she absolutely cannot lose.

Livli seeks an answer in the oldest lore of her people, something so old, it’s new. But mere resolve against failure meets an immovable counterforce this time. Victory requires more.

Must surrender spell defeat? Or could letting go harness real power?

Cover image for Star-drake Theme for Star-drake?
Rebirth and redemption.

Who?
Gefnen, a troll-herald for a greater troll-lord, Koschey the Deathless.
Emrys, brother to the king of a small island realm.

Conflict?
Gefnen is hunting the life force of a youngster to feed his master, who requires it to hold death at bay. The boy at risk is defended by his friends.

Setting?
The wild moors west of Silmaren (in the North-lands).

Tag line?
redemption – victory – loss

What will victory look like? And to whom will it come?
When does victory mirror loss?
Gefnen hunts victory, but a different victory – redemption? – hunts him.

Gefnen seems to be winning until the star-drake seizes him. Then he seems to be losing. Ultimately he is reborn, and his deep descent into evil will permit him to offer redemption to others. He will know, because he has been there.

possess – hold – mirror – own

Victory mirrors loss until
Boy versus troll versus redemption’s champion.
The stars foretell victory – the night behind them brings something else.
Hunting victory, accepting something else.

Gefnen hunts victory, but victory hunts him.
When victory arrives
Gefnen hunts victory, but a different victory hunts him.

Gefnen hunts victory, but a darker victory hunts him.

First Draft

Gefnen is hunting [pesky to be] hunts life.

Not deer, not pheasant, not game [reserve for later] meat for the table. His master eats choicer fruits.

When the piercing scent of youthful life exuberance tingles in his troll deformed twisted senses, Gefnen tracks focuses the his chase. The boy His prey lacks guardians strong enough to best a troll.

But Gefnen But other seekers than Gefnen tilt the chances in this game. The spirit of the storm, the poignant memories of a seolh-prince, and the vast powers of an ancient star-drake define the shaping looming conflict.

What will victory look like? And to whom will it come?

[You’ll note I have a decided and unfortunate tendency to gild the lily. Luckily I wield a red pen with enthusiasm.]

Cover Copy

Gefnen – troll-herald and hound for Koschey the Deathless – hunts life across the moors of the far north.

Not deer, not pheasant, not meat for the table. His master eats choicer fruits.

When the piercing scent of youthful exuberance youth tingles his senses, Gefnen focuses his chase. This The prey – a boy – lacks guardians strong enough to best a troll. Gefnen readies for Swift victory [reserve for later] triumph awaits.

But other seekers tilt the chances of this game. Spirit of storm, poignant memories of a sea-prince, and something more ancient than memory or the wind shape the looming tumult.

Gefnen hunts victory, but a darker victory hunts him.

* * *

Are you a reader? Have you ever chosen a read purely because of its cover copy? What book was it? I’d love to read it myself and learn.

Are you an indie author? What methods do you use to generate effective cover copy? I’d love to learn anything you’d care to share!

For more discussion of cover copy, see my earlier post – Eyes Glaze Over? Never! – on the subject.

Test first, then conclude!

Posted on December 5, 2012 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

For over a century, from the 1860’s to the 1960’s, common wisdom said that eating too much bread and too much dessert would make you fat.

What caused us to change our minds?

Is it really true that pasta and cereal are the health foods we currently believe them to be?

Consider that in 1960, 12% to 14% of the United States population was obese. Today, that figure’s over 30%. Yet we eat less dietary fat than ever. Fifty years ago, 45% of American calories came from fat; now, less than 35%.

photo of butter pat on toast Gary Taubes chronicles in Good Calories, Bad Calories how this sea change came about and how very little of it stemmed from solid research.

The story starts with Ancel Keys, who ran the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene at the University of Minnesota. According to Keys, his lab would “find out why people got sick before they got sick.”

It was a praiseworthy intention, but what is it the adage says about the road to a very hot place? It’s paved with praiseworthy intentions. And Keys’ abilities as a scientist were questionable: he was wrong more often than he was right. Despite that, he possessed great strength of will and a desire to make things happen, no matter how unpleasant he had to be to do it.

And do it, he did.

Keys’ epiphany occurred in 1951 in Rome. A colleague from Naples stated that heart disease in Naples was not a problem. There was little of it. Keys visited the city to investigate this alluring circumstance and concluded that the general population was indeed free of heart disease, but not the rich. While dining with wealthy acquaintances, he noted that their table featured hearty meat sauces, parmesan cheese, and roast beef. In contrast, the tables of the Neapolitan workers were spare, lacking the meat that was so expensive in the post-war years.

Keys’ conclusion: fat in the diet causes heart disease.

Keys pushed this doctrine relentlessly. He was in a good position to do it, endowed with plenty of prestige and clout. His scorn for research results that challenged his could do real damage to a colleague’s career. When his own research results challenged his belief, he cited “conflating” factors that had yielded the unexpected result.

Keys made a fatal error. Good science starts with a hypothesis, with a question. Is it possible that this is true? Next comes carefully designed research to test that question. And, usually, after that, new questions related to the original, along with yet more research. Really complex questions – like those of diet and metabolism – can take decades and the work of a generation of scientists to understand. Only then may a conclusion with a fair degree of accuracy be reached.

Keys started with his conclusion!

That’s a recipe for bad science, but Keys followed it with passion and dragged all of us along with him.

What Keys missed on those wealthy Neapolitan tables: the ice cream and the pastries. Just as expensive as meat in post-war Italy was sugar, and the working class didn’t have it.

There were resisters to the dietary-fat-equals-heart-disease creed. And there was a significant body of evidence against it.

Some of the most compelling evidence came from the doctors working in missionary hospitals in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. These men treated native populations for decades and were poised to observe what happened when the foods of civilization arrived and spread. The process was remarkable wherever it transpired.

Albert Schweitzer arrived in West Africa in 1913. The conditions he treated initially were overwhelmingly those of communicable diseases and infections: malaria, sleeping sickness, leprosy, tropical dysentery. There were no cases of cancer. But as the forty-one years he spent there rolled by, cancer victims began to appear and grew ever more numerous.

Samuel Hutton in the arctic in 1902 had a similar experience. He treated Inuit patients, and they fell into two categories. Those eating the traditional Inuit diet of primarily meat and fish, had no appendicitis, no asthma, and, most strikingly, no cancer. Those who had adopted the European “settlers’ diet” – tea, bread, ship’s biscuit, molasses, and salt fish or pork – suffered all the European maladies and more, being more prone to scurvy and fatigue, lacking robustness, and birthing children who were “puny and feeble.”

Many other physicians of the colonial era in other spots of the globe witnessed this same transition. An isolated native population displayed amazing health and vigor. Then the foods of civilization arrived, inevitably including carbohydrates which could be transported around the world without spoiling during the journey or being eaten by rodents: sugar, molasses, white flour, and white rice. As the new foods were incorporated into the native diet, the “Western diseases” would appear: obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, cancer, dental cavities, appendicitis, ulcers, gallstones, and more.

Taubes carries his readers through this more distant history and then up through the research of the last half century on heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. He intersperses the dry science with more entertaining anecdotal nuggets.

One such gem is the diet of the sumo wrestlers of Japan in 1976. The wrestlers comprised two groups: the elite and a less accomplished lower echelon. The elites ate 5,500 calories a day of chanko nabe, a pork stew. The stew was both very high-carb (57% of the calories) and very low-fat (16% of the calories), yet the young men weighed over 300 pounds. Wrestlers in the lower echelon consumed 400 fewer calories, but their diet was even higher in carbohydrates and lower in fat: 80% and 9%, respectively. They weighed the same as their elite colleagues, but were significantly less muscular and more fatty. Could it be the carbs that made the necessary over-consumption possible?

From research on disease, Taubes passes on to research into “unusual” diets, where the tenacity with which the researchers cling to certain myths causes them supreme frustration. Why did subjects eating 800-calorie diets of fat and protein feel satiated, but then grow ravenous when 400 calories (of carbohydrates) were added to their daily rations? Why did obese patients eating 2,800-calorie low-carb diets of fat and protein lose weight, while those eating 1,200-calorie low-fat diets not lose weight?

“It is better to know nothing . . . than to keep in mind fixed ideas based on theories whose confirmation we . . . seek, neglecting meanwhile everything that fails to agree with them,” wrote Claude Bernard in An Introduction to the Study of Experimental Medicine. Indeed!

Maybe “a calorie is a calorie is a calorie” isn’t true after all!

The answer lies in metabolism. Turns out that cardiology researchers weren’t talking with diabetes researchers who weren’t talking with obesity researchers who weren’t talking with endocrinology researchers. But the endocrinologists knew some critical facts for all of the above.

The hormone insulin is a top player in regulating metabolism. When insulin is released into the bloodstream, it signals that glucose is available, and the body then uses glucose for fuel. With glucose to burn, it does not withdraw fatty acids from fat cells for use as fuel. Only when insulin is low (signaling that glucose is in short supply) are fatty acids pulled out from fat cells and burned as fuel.

In addition, when insulin is present (signaling that glucose is present), the body packs any extra calories away as fat. As people age, the sensitivity of fat cells to insulin grows. It takes ever less insulin to trigger the fat cells to fill with more fat. Part of this fat-packing process is the creation of triglycerides (a proven risk factor in heart disease). Cardiologists, are you paying attention?

Worse, fat cells stay sensitive to insulin long after muscle cells become resistant to it. This means that when the muscle cells stop taking in glucose, the fat cells take in even more (glucose transformed into triglycerides). Obesity specialists, are you here?

When the muscle cells become resistant to insulin, the pancreas puts out more of it. Eventually, under this tide of extra insulin, the fat cells become insulin resistant as well. Diabetes specialists, are you listening?

By the mid-1960’s, these facts were well established:
1) carbohydrates prompt insulin secretion,
2) insulin induces fat accumulation,
3) dietary carbohydrates are required for excess fat accumulation, and
4) Type 2 diabetics and the obese have abnormally high levels of circulating insulin and a greatly exaggerated insulin response to carbohydrates in the diet.

Unfortunately, insulin resistance is measured on a whole-body level. And carbs temporarily make fat cells (but not muscle cells) more sensitive to insulin. So high-carb diets seem to temporarily relieve diabetes. Thus they are recommended for diabetics. But over the long term, the high carb diet increases the insulin resistance of even the fat cells, and the diabetes worsens. Plus the temporary illusion of diabetic improvement comes at the cost of greater obesity.

And then along came Ancel Keys and the McGovern Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs. The men who insisted that carbohydrate restriction was merely calorie restriction in disguise (and rarely, if ever, treated obese patients) won the political battle. The doctors who actually treated obesity and found carbohydrate restriction to be the only effective tool lost.

As funding for research projects, laboratories, and entire academic centers shifted to the food and pharmaceutical industries, good unbiased research grew harder to pursue. How can researchers consulting for the makers of Coke®, M&M®’s, and Kraft crackers possibly look honestly into the effects of sugar and high-fructose corn syrup and white flour? It is “scientists” such as these who routinely declare low-carb diets to be mere fads.

Taubes states near the end of Good Calories, Bad Calories that when he began work on the book, he had no idea that it would change everything he believed about nutrition and health. He believed the modern conventional wisdom along with the rest of us. Then he set out on his trail of investigation, trying simply to follow the facts, and learned that there were precious few supporting said wisdom.

He concludes that the “exchange of critical judgment” necessary to science is nowhere to be found in today’s “study of nutrition, chronic disease, and obesity, and hasn’t been for decades.” Today’s researchers in these fields may call themselves scientists, but they are not. They borrow the authority and the terms of science when they communicate to the public, but the beliefs they communicate merely masquerade as such. Their entire enterprise functions as a cult.

Taubes’ hope is that his book will start public discussion about the nature of a healthy diet that includes questions about the quantity and quality of the carbohydrates it contains. And with questions might come a call for honest research.

Taubes’ investigations turned his own ideas on nutrition upside down. As I read his account, my ideas flipped upside down. I urge you to read Good Calories, Bad Calories yourself and see if it turns your paradigm topsy turvy!

If what Taubes reports is true (and I think it may be), there’s a vast array of better choices open to us all!

Good Calories, Bad Calories on Amazon

Good Calories, Bad Calories on B&N

For more posts on my continuing nutritional education, see:
Thinner and Healthier
Yogurt & Kefir & Koumis, Oh My!
Butter and Cream and Coconut, Oh My!
Why Seed Oils Are Dangerous

The Suppressed Verses

Posted on November 29, 2012 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

Selection from Kay Nielsen illustration Mandine de la Royaume has pulled off an almost impossible feat: suppressing the utterance of part of a curse. Curses require the channeling of a substantial torrent of power, more than the safe magic of the North-lands — patterning — permits. A curse is incantatio, and its casting causes the curser to become a troll.

Mandine had been a troll for decades before her troll-disease stole her sanity, and her skill as an incantatrice has only grown. Her curse is potent, but even potent curses have loopholes. Hers is no exception. Nornally these loopholes must be specified in the doggerel poetry that comprises the waste (in addition to searing orange light) accompanying incantatio. The latter half of Mandine’s curse was swallowed by her will and her strength. Her cursee, Prince Kellor, must seek his freedom by guess, since he has heard no more than a snippet of the conditions for his release.

If you have not read Troll-magic, read no further in this blog post! Spoilers follow. But do come back after you finish the novel. How Kellor seeks his solution is fully explored in his tale, but the suppressed verses themselves do not appear. Kellor’s courage and ingenuity are much more relevant to the story than the arcane magic that creates his challenge. Thus the appearance of the swallowed stanzas here in my blog: a treat for the loremasters and aficionados of appendices among us!

A bear no more, speak the last words that are thine.
Bid thy maiden farewell, she has cause to repine.
When an hour is done, search the sky for my sign:
My chariot arrives, thy will now is mine.

The maiden has failed, thy will’s bound to my need.
Can the curse be unraveled, the prisoners freed?
Seek the ways out of bondage, take heart and take heed:
My throat strangles freedom, swallows all in greed.
Yet a path lies open, awaits song and deed.

Excavate and reveal the corpse without breath,
Merely wood carved in likeness of chilly death.
Bring the children before their mother’s gagged wrath.
They call, “Mama!” She speaks and leaves the Lainkath.
Her escape heals her mate, pacing his split path.
Sundered soul and flesh rejoin in this aftermath.

East of sun shall maiden seek, and west of moon,
Cair Seila, lost palace, the site of my tomb.
To Cymbre she shall give three gifts, ask three boons:
Gold apple, awareness, heart of choice in life’s loom;
Gold carding comb, sorting — order prevents ruin;
Gold spindle for spinning, shaping her life’s doom.
For each gift: one visit, dawn to stroke of noon,
Chances to preserve thee from thy fate as groom.

Wedding pomp and splendor fling chapel doors wide:
The maid plays music, thee walks toward Cymbre’s side.
Tears drown the player’s cheeks, loss and sorrow’s tide.
She cedes all claim on thee, weeping beyond pride.
Hears thee speak thy vows to take Cymbre as bride,
To love the troll-daughter, as her husband to bide.

Cymbre speaks her vows: no words thee looked to hear,
No promise of love, no oath to hold thee dear.
Unforeseen reprieve! She breaks the bonds of fear,
Not spouse, not betrothed, mere brother free and clear.
Saved by her gift along with all thee name peer.
No prisoners remain: Mandine’s curse barren, sere!

For the spoken verses, see Mandine’s Curse.

For more about the world of Troll-magic, see:
Who’s Who in Troll-magic
Families in Troll-magic
Bazinthiad’s Fashions
Bazinthiad, A Quick Tour of the City
Magic in the North-lands
Magic in Silmaren
Radices and Arcs
Mandine’s Curse
Character Interview: Lorelin
The Accidental Herbalist
What Happened to Bazel?

Mandine’s Curse

Posted on November 22, 2012 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

Kay Nielsen illustration from East of the Sun and West of the Moon Magic is perilous in the North-lands. Draw too much power through your radices, and you have left the safe byways of energea. You are using incantatio and have embarked on the road to troll-disease. It’s a fine line to walk, especially if performed under stress!

Mandine, the troll-witch in my novel Troll-magic, has crossed that line. And she has lost her sanity. As her cruel plans come adrift, she resorts to a curse to achieve her victory. A curse is the most extreme form of incantatio, requiring tremendous power. As in most incantatic magic, the better part is wasted, vented as acrid light and doggerel poetry. The greater flow of energy results in a greater flow of waste as well: thus the lengthier verse below.

The stanzas of Mandine’s curse appear in Troll-magic as fragments. I present them here in their entirety. If you haven’t yet read Troll-magic (what are you waiting for? go read it!) you may wish to skip this blog post. (Grin!) It reveals few details, but it does outline the extent of the hero’s challenge.

I curse thee now: take the beast’s shape!
Wild fur so white;
Ebon eyes, keen sight;
Razor claws, such might;
Fanged jaws, iron bite.
North-bear by day, yet a man by night.
Labyrinthine thrall, just one veiled escape.

Not ’til a maiden shall freely chose
To share thy bed with never a ruse,
One year and a day. No time to lose,
Thee must wake each morn to rise and woo.

Spiral out the curse to light and hold
Thy friends, my foes, who thwarted me of old.

Lock motherly healer in Lainkath deep,
Silently serving on quiet feet,
Voicelessly present, the halls to keep,
Hidden from sight, mere breezes to greet.

Graveside be false flesh, corpse unbreathing,
Simulacrum pure, truth concealing,
Buried in state, her children weeping.

Split fatherly patterner, flesh from soul,
To wander pale, ghostly garbed, unwhole;
His flesh to pace Mandine’s north atoll,
His soul to walk his own homely hall.

Yet if the maiden who shares thy days
Should leave the task but done partway,
Or if she who bides thy sheets by night
Should see thy man form in some strange light,
Then thy doom be surely sealed; thy fate:
A bear no more, but Cymbre’s mate.

Curses are comprehensive in nature and include any loopholes or escape routes in their descriptions. This is inconvenient, to say the least, for the curser, but handy for the accursed. Mandine’s curse is no different. However, she managed to achieve something unusual through sheer determination: silencing the utterance of the verses describing the loopholes in her curse. Kellor (her cursee) has never heard them. Next week, you may read the suppressed verses here!

For more about the world of Troll-magic, see:
Who’s Who in Troll-magic
Families in Troll-magic
Bazinthiad’s Fashions
Bazinthiad, A Quick Tour of the City
Magic in the North-lands
Magic in Silmaren
Radices and Arcs
The Suppressed Verses
Character Interview: Lorelin
The Accidental Herbalist
What Happened to Bazel?

Going Up Like Smoke?

Posted on November 15, 2012 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

photo looking out the front door Think of your house as a chimney.

Cold air seeps inside under the front door and the back. Cold air creeps through any breaks in the insulation on the outer walls. Cold air gathers atop the foundation wall where the floor joists rest.

Once within, the cold air warms and rises. Rises to the ceilings, rises up the stairwell, and then soars out the attic fan or the gable vents. Whoosh! There’s a draft, a current, to pull more chilly air in at the bottom. Which warms and rises and leaves.

That’s how a house without air sealing works! It’s not the way to stay warm in winter. Sealing the leaks in a building’s envelope is more critical than beefing up its insulation. A house with no leaks and little insulation will stay warmer than one with lots of leaks and lots of insulation.

(Yes, it’s late fall as I write this, and today was cold, so I’m focused on heat. But air sealed houses retain their cool air in summer better, too.)

My house was built in 1949 and featured lots of leaks when we bought it. Heating it in cold weather cost a fortune! My husband and I added insulation to the crawl spaces under the roof, and that helped the rooms immediately under the roof feel cooler in summer and warmer in winter. But our utility bills remained high.

We signed up for a mini energy audit offered by our electricity provider and learned both why and what to do. More than anything our home needed air sealing. And there were some simple ways to improve its leaky state.

photo of air sealed fan The first step was closing off any upper escape hatches for warm air. Without that suction, less cold air would be drawn into the house. For us, this was the whole house fan at the top of the steps. All the insulating in the eaves had also air sealed them. We just hadn’t finished the upper level job when we left the fan as we found it. And that one opening was ample as a chimney top! Whoosh!

There are expensive covers you can buy to seal off whole house fans, but we opted for the cheap solution: insulation panels of rigid foam secured by painter’s tape. Not elegant, perhaps, but neat and functional.

photos of air sealed leaks The next steps involved locating all the undesired air intakes. All our exterior doors featured gaping cracks between door and threshold. The water and gas supply pipes displayed daylight shining through their holes in the basement cinderblocks. The dryer vent, likewise. And all the electrical outlets on the outer wall acted as conduits of cold air from outside to inside.

We used sprayable foam to seal the pipes.

We used calk to seal the dryer vent.

The front, back, and basement doors received bottom sweeps. Plus the front door, cut extra high off the floor by the previous owners to clear what must have been a very plush carpet, is reinforced by a sort of “pillow” designed to block draughts.

photos of air sealing an electrical outlet We sealed the electrical outlet boxes like this:

1 • Flip the circuit breaker for the outlet to off (or remove its fuse, if you have a fuse box). If your screwdriver should slip, you don’t want it slipping into a live socket!

2 • Remove the old cover.

3 • Place a special insulation pad over the gaps around the outlet. These may be purchased in a hardware store. Don’t jury rig your own with styrofoam trays or something else which might be flammable. Live electricity is close to the pad – don’t risk a fire!

4 • Replace the standard cover with a child safety cover. The sliding protectors not only keep little fingers out, they stop airflow!

Our energy auditor also recommended we seal the gap that most older houses have above the foundation wall. The floor joists rest there, and only one thin 2×8 separates outside from inside. Sealing the joist area is more involved than all the other projects I’ve described, so it’s still on our to-do list. I sealed one of those cold-air pockets this afternoon, and took photos, so you can see how the project goes. It is something a home owner can do him- or herself.

photos of the process 1 • Gather your tools: utility blade, old bread knife, goggles, gloves.

2 • Gather your materials: rigid insulation, paper for a pattern, spray foam.

3 • Use the paper to make a pattern. I merely folded and taped mine, fairly roughly. Then I traced it onto the rigid insulation.

4 • Cut 2 rectangles of rigid insulation and check the fit. Mine were initially too large, so I had to trim them. Twice! You definitely don’t want to be trimming after you’ve started spraying foam. The utility blade worked fine for my first cut. Zoop! Snap! Done! It kept catching after that and giving a very jagged edge. The old bread knife worked really well. (Really! Weird, huh?)

5 • Put on the goggles and your gloves. I wondered if I really needed all the protective gear. I did! All the photos I’d seen of the procedure in a DIY book made it look neat and tidy. And the spray can featured a lovely trigger. How messy could it be? For a non-pro: very messy! The foam emerged from the nozzle in unpredictable spurts. It dripped and occasionally went wild. The nozzle fell off once between spraying sessions, and I had to attach the oozy straw to the dispenser. I ended with spray foam all over my gloves, some on the wrist cuff of my new sweatshirt, and one far-flung gob on the drawer of the tool chest! Wear the gloves and the goggles. The foam is not benign on the skin or in an eye!

6 • Spray the corners of the “box” at the end of the joists with foam.

7 • Place the first rigid insulation rectangle; the foam will harden in a few minutes and hold it in place.

8 • Spray the edges of the rigid insulation where they meet wood.

9 • Place the second rectangle of rigid insulation and spray its edges.

10 • Keep going with the next joist over! The spray foam is best used all in one session of DIY. It clogs the dispenser, if it sits unused for more than 2 hours after the first spray. And once it clogs, it’s done.

This afternoon’s sealing session went pretty smoothly, despite the mess. My photos show that my work is definitely not neat. But it’s not a Jackson Pollock painting either! I’m thinking we should move the complete project higher among our priorities. It might take a weekend, but it won’t be hard.

In the meantime, how is our house performing? Are our energy bills still going up like smoke? Well . . . no. Or, at least, not right now. The cost per BTU may keep shooting for the moon, but the January bill after our air sealing was $100 less than the previous (un-air-sealed) January. And it wasn’t because the weather was warmer. That particular month delivered extra snowfall and extra chill. So even the simplest air sealing projects paid big dividends.

Have you tackled any energy-efficiency projects on your home? Were they challenging? Easy? Did your bills go down? I’d love to hear about your experiences.

For more on green living, see:
Green Housekeeping
Grass Green
Permaculture Gardening

The Carrot Un-Recipe

Posted on November 8, 2012 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

photos of the whole process I love raw carrots, but I like cooked carrots even more. I didn’t eat them often, because of all that slicing and then all that standing over the steamer on the stove top. A few months ago, my kids’ liking for cooked carrots inspired me. If they’ll eat their veggies without complaint, by golly, I’ll cook carrots. But there had to be a better way.

The trick, for me, was bite-sized chunks (not coin-sized slices) and oven baking instead of stove top steaming. The result . . . I find I prefer them to the steamed variety! The flavor is more intense, less watered down.

Baked Carrots

10 large carrots

1/3 cup butter

7” x 11” glass baking dish

Scrub the carrots well, then peel them. Carrots, unlike many other vegetables and fruits, do not store the majority of their nutrients in the skin. Good stuff spreads bountifully through the entire root.

Cut off the tops and discard. Slice the carrots into bite-sized chunks. This goes so much faster than slicing them into coin-sized rounds. You’ll be amazed.

Use a small pat of butter to grease your baking dish. Toss the remnant in with the rest of the butter stick and melt. Place the carrots in the baking dish and drizzle the melted butter over them, coating their surfaces well.

Cover the dish and place in a 350F oven.

Bake for 1 hour.

Be careful removing the cover. The steam contained within is very hot and can burn you.

A Word About Butter

Old-style margarine was chock full of transfats. We now know that transfats are so injurious to the human body that there is no known safe level for eating them. (Talk to the actual fats researchers. They know!)

Enter new-style margarines with “no” transfats.

But . . . there is a big but. Actually three but’s.

First, if the amount of transfat in the margarine is below a certain level, the manufacturer is allowed to claim zero transfats on the label. But that legal “zero” is not what you and I mean by zero. And given how harmful the transfats are, I want that zero to mean literally none at all. It doesn’t.

The second problem is more obscure. It has to do with polyunsaturated fats. (Margarines are made from polyunsarurates.) Until the modern era, humans ate very few. They occurred naturally in grains and cheese and meat and fish, but constituted less than 4% of of the calories ingested.

The process by which we switched to eating nearly 30% of our calories from polyunsaturated fats owes more to corporate greed (a lot of money to be made in corn oil) and political interference than good research. Political correctness may demand we consume corn oil and safflower oil and such, but this political correctness does not dovetail well with good health! Our bodies weren’t made to handle the load.

The third issue with polyunsaturates concerns the manufacturing process. The oils are processed at very high heats. Because polyunsaturates are very fragile, they break down easily. Becoming rancid under the high factory heat, they smell and taste so awful that no one would put them anywhere near the mouth! So the manufacturers must then use harsh chemical scrubbers to remove the odor. Some residues of the chemicals remain in the oils.

Do yourself a favor: cook with butter and extra-virgin olive oil.

More Recipes
Sauerkraut
Sautéed Eggplant
Coconut Salmon

Star-drake is Live!

Posted on November 3, 2012 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

Dragon profile against starry night sky Gefnen – troll-herald and hound for Koschey the Deathless – hunts life across the moors of the far north.

Not deer, not pheasant, not meat for the table. His master eats choicer fruits.

When the piercing scent of youth tingles his senses, Gefnen focuses his chase. The prey – a boy – lacks guardians strong enough to best a troll. Swift triumph awaits.

But other seekers tilt the chances of this game. Spirit of storm, poignant memories of a sea-prince, and something more ancient than memory or the wind shape the looming tumult.

Gefnen hunts victory, but a darker victory hunts him.

Star-drake is now available in electronic bookstores.
Amazon I B&N I Diesel I iTunes I Kobo I Smashwords I Sony

Mistakes, Missteps, Shady Dealing, & Synchronicity

Posted on November 1, 2012 by J.M. Ney-Grimm

Four more of my favorite fiction reads by four of my favorite authors.

profile with battle scene Does one small error in judgment lead inevitably to worse? To the worst mistake of all? On home ground, Barrayar, Miles Vorkosigan learns of loss, redemption, and the resilience of the essential self while tracking a wily traitor through a maze of smoke, mirrors, and memory.

Memory at Amazon

Memory at B&N

Bren Cameron, the paidhi, and his elite bodyguard, Jago Two species – humans and the native atevi – share a world: uneasily, ever on the brink of war, never with the resilience to weather abrupt changes. A special mediator – the paidhi – serves as interpretor for all communication between the two cultures. When the space craft that originally left the human colonists on the planet unexpectedly returns to the skies, it disrupts the fragile status quo.

Will human arch-conservatives ally with the ship folk to prevent atevi access to space? Will atevi conservatives start a genocidal extermination of the human colony? Will the ship captains play both planet-bound factions against one another? Bren Cameron – the current paidhi – must rise above mere linguistics to interpret essential truths between all three sides. Can he keep the peace without betraying his own humanity?

Invader at Amazon

Invader at B&N

Space yacht amidst balloonists Captain Heris Serano and Lady Cecelia Marktos team up again to ferret out corruption – this time at the highest levels. Their threat to state secrets triggers swift reprisal and a desperate confrontation with the vulnerable essence of being human. How much can one lose and still retain it? And when the one oppressed by the many fights back, how much of the universe will she change with her perseverance?

Sporting Chance at Amazon

Sporting Chance at B&N

Chaos theory image of butterfly plus blond tresses Sandra Foster works in R&D at HiTek studying fads. HiTek management wants to know how to start them to make scads of money. Sandra would prefer to know how to combat them: why do people forsake the brains nature gave them to follow the Pied Piper of fashion, folly, and prejudice?

Interdepartmental meetings and sensitivity exercises mix with mis-delivered mail and a million-dollar grant to generate break-through’s both scientific and personal. With unique wit, Willis ridicules corporate culture, pop culture, and human blindness while exploring individual integrity and the notion that losses combine together to generate ultimate gain.

Bellwether at Amazon

Bellwether at B&N

For more of my favorite reads, check these posts:
Beauty, Charm, Cyril & Montmorency
Duplicity, Diplomacy, Secrets & Ciphers
Courtship and Conspiracy, Mayhem and Magic
Gods & Guilt, Scandals & Skeptics