Sugar & Spice & Everything Nice by Amber Leigh Williams

This week, my daughter turned one. Initially, she was supposed to be born at the end of April. April 29, to be exact. I remember this because it’s the same date I was due to be born thirty years ago. I made my mother wait two more weeks to be born two days before her own birthday in May. (The hub is also a May baby.) Last year as we closed in on this due date, I had a feeling our wee one was going to choose to follow family footsteps.

It was a close call. The Braxton-Hicks contractions started mid-April and seemed to gather in strength as the countdown to May progressed. Like most pregnant women in their third trimester, I was all too eager to meet my baby girl sooner rather than later. The weekend before April 29, my doctor informed me he would be out of state for a wedding and that I shouldn't have my baby until Sunday evening at the very earliest. When Monday rolled around, the hub announced that he and his fellow crew-mates would be setting trusses on a house and he needed me to hold the baby in until they were completed. Tuesday my mother, who works full-time and who I had tagged to assist in the delivery room, said was no good for her because it was her day to do pay-roll at work. When I expressed my frustrations to the hub over all this waiting, he said, “Saturday. Saturday would be best. Tell her to come Saturday.” As if it were a simple matter of conversation between myself and our fetus. “Don’t hold your breath,” I told him.

We tempted fate a bit. When April 29th did indeed lapse, we celebrated the first day of May by taking our son to the beach. The hub brought his surf-fishing gear and proceeded to catch several pompano for us to sup on later. However, as the sun shrank from the high point in the sky, our little guy began to wander away from the sand-castles and the seashells. In the impish way of toddler boys, he began to test the boundaries of our campsite, giggling as he watched my ungainly form waddle after him. The hub was busy reeling in his latest catch when the boy made a break for it. He headed due west down the endless white beach at a charging run. I sucked in a breath and ran after him.

There was no one on the beach that afternoon. Nothing and no one was there to intercept the little guy. I wound up running a half mile down the beach before he finally looked back at me, giggling like a field, and tripped over his own feet. I didn’t so much catch him as crumble next to him in relief, grabbing hold of his ankle so that he didn’t try to make another break for it. I held him there until the hub finally reached us. He slung the boy over his shoulders and dragged me out of the sand. In truth, he carried us both back to camp. On the way home an hour later, the Braxton-Hicks contractions reached fever pitch. That night, I was so uncomfortable, I didn’t sleep.

Believe it or not, we did make it to Saturday. We began to think we would make it to Sunday, too, when afternoon rolled around and still there was no sign. When my son, the rascal, nodded off for his afternoon siesta, I gratefully laid down on the couch and did the same.

I woke up feeling funny. Labor pains were a new thing for me since my son was induced and I was heavily medicated for most of his birth. I immediately asked the hub to use the app on his phone to time the contractions. We came to the conclusion that I was actually—finally—in labor.

My son was scheduled to go to his aunt and uncle’s house for the duration of our hospital stay. They live a town east of our house. We drove him over with his little bags, gave him plenty of hugs and kisses then departed quickly. I didn’t tell the hub how close the contractions had gotten because I didn’t want him to rush. He rushed anyway, pulling NASCAR-worthy maneuvers through heavy weekend beach traffic as we sped back east. It’s normally a forty-five minute drive from our house to the hospital. Thanks to the hub’s Richard-Petty-esque driving, we arrived in half an hour just before sundown and were admitted promptly.

Our daughter was born just before sunrise the following morning. She weighed eight pounds, eight ounces. Since then, we have watched her grow into the happiest, bounciest, spunkiest one-year-old we could possibly have imagined. We suspect she’ll be a real spitfire. With a mischievous older brother showing her the ropes, how could she be anything less? Here's to the miracle of daughters and the (busy) month of May!  

Amber Leigh Williams is a Harlequin Superromance author who lives on the Gulf Coast. A southern girl at heart, she lives for beach days, the smell of real books, and spending time with her husband and their two young children. When she’s not keeping up with rambunctious little ones (and two large dogs), she can usually be found reading a good book or cooking up something new in her kitchen. Amber is represented by the D4EO Literary Agency. Find out more about Amber and her writing at www.amberleighwilliams.com!

The Truth of Tides & Mockingbirds by Amber Leigh Williams

Gregory Peck and Harper Lee

The literary world has lost a couple of icons over the last few months. As a girl, I spent several years with my family on a quiet street in Monroeville, Alabama. It is known as the literary capital of Alabama because the late, great Harper Lee herself was born and raised there.

Before she wrote her southern gothic and Pulizer-worthy novel, To Kill a Mockingbird (published in 1960), she went to Huntington College in Montgomery before attending the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. (My grandfather later coached basketball at Huntington and went on to earn his doctorate from Alabama.) She became close friends with fellow author Truman Capote. Both fashioned a fictional character after the other. She also befriended actor Gregory Peck who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Atticus Finch in the film adaptation of Mockingbird. Peck’s grandson was admittedly named after her and his son tells the story of how Peck wore a pocket watch that belonged to Lee’s father and was later gifted to him by the author the night he won the Academy Award. (Many scholars hold that Lee’s father, a lawyer, was the inspiration behind Atticus Finch.)

After Mockingbird’s success, Lee widely withdrew from public life and didn’t publish another novel until the recent sequel Go Set the Watchman in 2015, though she did write several articles and essays in between. In 2007, she was awarded the highest civilian award in the United States, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2010, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts. In a letter to Oprah Winfrey in 2006, Lee wrote, “Now, 75 years later in an abundant society where people have laptops, cellphones, iPods and minds like empty rooms, I still plod along with books.” If the literary world could coin its own patron saint, this lady would be on the short list. 

I often wonder if I ever sat down to dinner in a restaurant with my family in Monroeville and Harper Lee was only a few tables away. Or if I ever accompanied my mother to the grocery store where Harper Lee, too, was shopping. It seems likely. To this day, Monroeville maintains more of a small town than a city feel. When I read To Kill a Mockingbird in 8th grade, Lee quickly became one of the many authors I admired. Knowing she, too, started life in Monroeville helped encourage me to one day pursue my dreams of publication. If Harper could do it, why couldn’t I? Although I never knew or met her, her death in February felt personal.

Last month, the news of Pat Conroy’s death also came as a blow. A poignant, leading voice in southern literature, he had a turbulent childhood, developed an early love of sports, and became a teacher, much like Tom Wingo, the lead character of his fifth novel, The Prince of Tides (published in 1986). In 1998, he married author Cassandra King, his third wife, who he lived alongside in Beaufort, South Carolina until his passing at the age of 70.

After hearing of Conroy’s death, I consulted my dog-eared copy of The Prince of Tides, much as I had turned to my To Kill a Mockingbird paperback the month before. While I remembered Mockingbird and vividly how I felt about it, The Prince of Tides was another story. I tried to understand why I had no real memory of what its pages held or whether they had impacted me positively or negatively so I decided to give it another go.

At first, The Prince of Tides somewhat mirrors another favorite book, Boy’s Life by Robert R. McCammon. Both take place in the south. Both tell of turbulent events in the small town life of young boys. Both are written in beautiful hands. Conroy's writing in particular took my breath away for the second time. The first chapter of The Prince of Tides flowed through me and I was easily gripped by the story. However, gripping quickly became heart-wrenching. I couldn’t stop reading, but I remembered why I had forgotten it—or chosen to forget it. It’s painful—a deeply, deeply painful rendering my former adolescent self was clearly not ready to endure. Hence, the blocking out process that followed....

It occurred to me after finishing The Prince of Tides that most of the books I read in high school were along the same vein. I ruminated over this with my sister as we counted up the novels and plays that had come to us via our state education. For starters, as freshmen, we read ill-fated Romeo and Juliet. Then we progressed onto The Crucible, Our Town, Death of a Salesman, Les Misérables, The Count of Monte Cristo, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, All the King’s Men, The Scarlet Letter…. We noted there were a few light-hearted romps in between. Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, for instance. But as early as jr. high, my reading list included heavy subject matter the likes of The Diary of Anne Frank, Number the Stars, The Hatchet, and Farewell to Manzanar. While I enjoyed a great many of these books, looking back, it’s really no wonder that I lavished Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility when I encountered them in 12th Grade Literature 0r that I turned to the lovely escape of romance novels in my free time.

However, while my friends and I very often grumbled about how little our public school educations were preparing us for the reality that was set to befall us after graduation, I realize now in light of all this that perhaps we were wrong. While, yes, the art of balancing a checkbook has become somewhat archaic and the painful Algebra III and Pre-Cal courses I endured (with tutors) have done me little good thus far, the literary requirements are another story. By large, these tales of misfortune and woe were a subtle training ground for the more hard-hitting realities of life as well as a glimpse into the complexities of human nature.

As a child, school taught me my love of books and words. Through these books, I grew to understand more about the world than anything else until I entered into adult life. Thanks to those bright, wordy stars like Harper and Pat's, I began a lifelong love affair with all things literary and this is my toast to them. Cheers!

Amber Leigh Williams is a Harlequin Superromance author who lives on the Gulf Coast. A southern girl at heart, she lives for beach days, the smell of real books, and spending time with her husband and their two young children. When she’s not keeping up with rambunctious little ones (and two large dogs), she can usually be found reading a good book or cooking up something new in her kitchen. Amber is represented by the D4EO Literary Agency. Find out more about Amber and her writing at www.amberleighwilliams.com!

Adventures of a Food Nut by Amber Leigh Williams

I fell in love with food at a young age.
Cooking was another story....

When I married, I had never cooked for myself. Toasting bread for breakfast was challenge enough. The hub had been cooking for himself for years and so tried to teach me the basics. How to boil eggs, fry bacon, brown meat, peel potatoes, etc. I say tried because I didn’t have much inclination to learn. There was always take-out, right?

When my son was born, I realized I didn’t want him to grow up eating freezer meals. I wanted him to have the same wholesome, home-brewed memories I did around the dinner table. I read Julia Child’s My Life in France and grew hungry. I joined Pinterest and grew even hungrier. Finally, I decided to satisfy my appetite while challenging myself to learn to cook just as my mother had. Last summer, I began to blog about these cooking exercises every week on Facebook with my Toast of Tuesday feature. I’ve gathered all my favorite Toast of Tuesdays together for you. Here’s a peek into my kitchen as well as my adventure in becoming a foodie….

My first cooking experiment was a strawberry cream cheese confection, a decadent gift for the hub on Valentine's Day 2013. He cooked me a big steak dinner. I made him dessert. We rolled out a quilt on the living room floor, lit candles, dressed up and ate until we couldn't eat anymore. The icing of the cake was messy and a teensy bit clumpy since I didn't let the cream cheese reach room temperature before spreading it, but the cake was every bit as yummy. That original recipe has been lost but I’ve found one pretty similar at Cooking Classy.

This was the recipe I was trying out when I nearly set my kitchen on fire. Word of advice: use a deep fryer if one is available, not a pan on the stove with hot oil. Prior to my near brush with the fire extinguisher, I was determined to master the art of home-style fried chicken because my mother made her own and it was one of my favorite dishes when I was little. Coupled with lima beans, mashed potatoes, and sweet tea, there are few dishes that taste more southern. This recipe from Jo Cooks so far is my favorite...aside from the part of the instructions that involve a pan on the stove. I make it with garlic mashed potatoes and I'm working on the perfect blend of sweet tea....




Teaching Young Skywalker to make ice cream....

Bragging on another family favorite, requested at least twice a month here at Chez Williams: Rosemary Mustard Chicken. This recipe is surprisingly easy with few ingredients. I double the sauce to make the chicken extra juicy and flavorful (and for leftovers). The Like Mother Like Daughter recipe calls for Coleman's mustard but I have trouble finding that brand at my grocery store so I just use regular mustard and it still turns out yummy-licious every time. Whenever there's a special occasion and I need something with little fuss to make for dinner, Rosemary Mustard Chicken is my go-to recipe. (I serve this dish with carrots glazed in honey and lime juice.) 


Long before I began my foodie adventures, the hub was the cook. One cool fall day we were craving something warm and filling but had only an odd assortment of food in the fridge and pantry - eggs, sausage, yellow rice, and peppers. He decided to improvise, giving us what is now Jake's Fried Rice. A few years ago, I bragged on this original family recipe with author Anna Kathryn Lanier at her blog. I'm bragging again 'cuz Jake's Fried Rice is on the menu tonight here at mi casa. Dinner cannot come soon enough!

It’s soup season! When the wind picks up and the leaves start falling, my first foodie instinct is to make soup – particularly if somebody’s sick. And speaking of sick days, there’s nothing better than a warm bowlful of Creamy Chicken Noodle Soup to fill your belly when you’re feeling under the weather. I’ve made this version from Cooking Classy for two winters. Whether the hub and I are suffering from seasonal allergies or cold toesies, there’s nothing more healing than this blend of herbs, chicken, and vegetables (served with soda crackers and hot tea)….

$3.99

Years ago, I was going through my mother's recipe tin when I found a wrinkled, yellow type-written page crowned with the words "Hash Brown Potato Casserole" and initialed by my paternal grandmother. I got really excited because this was one of my favorite comfort foods growing up. It's warm, it's hearty, and it's classically southern. I copied it down on a legal pad and snuck it into my own recipe box. I attempted the recipe many times. It was well-received, but to my taste buds there was something missing - a small thing I couldn't quite define. Finally, I brought my frustrations to my mother who admitted that through the years she had secretly swapped one of the ingredients for one of her own. (She's sneaky and brilliant like that.) When the heroine of my second Harlequin Superromance novel Married One Night needed an edible pick-me-up, I enlisted the help of my fictional foodie, her cousin Briar Browning (from A Place With Briar), and Hash Brown Potato Casserole. Enjoy with a slice of Texas Toast or two, with breakfast in lieu of quiche or as a side dish for dinner....


$3.99

Hash Brown Potato Casserole
Ingredients:

 2 1-lb packages of frozen hash brown potatoes (the cubed kind make the best texture), partially thawed

 1/4 cup chopped onion

 1-1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese

 1 stick butter, melted

 1/2 tsp. pepper

 1 carton of sour cream

 1 can cream of mushroom soup

For the topping:

1 cup crushed Ritz cracker crumbs

1/2 stick butter, melted

Instructions:

Mix all casserole ingredients. Pour evenly into a 3-qt. oblong casserole dish and pack down. Top with Ritz crumbs. Pour extra butter evenly over the crumbs. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Do not cover while baking. Serves 10 to 12.


For more foodie adventures, join me on Facebook every Tuesday for The Toast of Tuesday. The fun doesn't stop there! At Super Authors, I blog about various kitchen disasters. Here's Kitchen Disaster Log 1  (with my infamous Broccoli & Cheese Soup) and Kitchen Disaster Log 2 (where I explain that near-kitchen-fire with fried chicken).... 

Do you have any  personal foodie adventures? Please do tell! as the entrees and it was a huge personal triumph. It made me a foodie and the process of assembling it made me fall in love wi

Making & Breaking New Years Tradition by Amber Leigh Williams

 

Okay, confession time. I don’t have a New Year’s resolution. When it comes to resolutions, I’m strange. The year before my son was born I vowed to learn how to cook. One year, one bouncing baby boy, and another chorus of “Auld Lang Syne” later, I finally got around to that cooking business. This year, I studiously ignored the whole New Year’s resolution thing and decided to do something different….

Years ago when I worked in my local bookshop, I had to work the New Year’s Day shift. I was re-shelving misplaced titles in the children’s section when I saw a fellow employee wearing day clothes instead of work attire, surrounded by her young children. I greeted her and noted “Of all the places you come on your day off, you bring your kids to work?” She told me something I’ve never quite forgotten. She told me about her New Year’s Day superstition – that every year on New Year’s if you did the things you loved most, you would do them for the rest of the year. Instead of working through New Year’s, she took the day off to spend more time with her children. She brought them to her place of work because reading is something she wanted them to do every day.

I thought this theory was sound. Even if you don’t believe in superstition, doing what you want to do for the rest of the year on New Year’s Day can be healthy and habit-forming. It sets the tone for the next day, the next week, the next month, potentially the whole year. This New Year’s, I finally decided to put this practice to the test by doing everything I loved doing and wanted to continue doing in 2016.

Sleep

It seems simple, but these days sleep is a foreign concept here at mi casa. While 3-year-old Young Skywalker has mostly settled back into an appropriate sleep schedule for someone his age, he’s still occasionally wakened by night terrors. Or his baby sister’s two o’clock holler makes him fidget himself awake, throwing him and the rest of us off the sleep grid. Our eight-month-old Baby Ewok recently went through a growth spurt which meant fussy days and restless nights. I write between the hours of eight p.m. and two a.m. with a seven o’clock alarm clock in the form of early-rising Young Skywalker. This makes for some bleary-eyed mornings and heavily caffeinated afternoons. The hub being off work for the bulk of the holidays helped tremendously. He rose early with Young Skywalker while me and Baby Ewok tried to sleep in. On New Year’s Day, however, me and the boy slept in until ten in the morning. This never happens. Not only did I wake up feeling completely rested, even rejuvenated (a rare thing), he was able to stay awake all day without a nap, leading to more play.

Play

“Be present. Be here now.” These words are vital nowadays. Case in point: at the New Year’s Eve party we attended, I saw two teenage girls sit in the same chairs at the kitchen table from seven to twelve. They hardly spoke to one another though they sat hip-to-hip. They didn’t associate with anyone else. Their smartphones were in hand the entire time and their eyes were glued to the screen, their thumbs tapping and swiping almost in unison. Another example comes from our first 2016 family trip to the park. The weather was in the forties so there weren’t too many parents or children on the playground. There’s always that one mom or dad sitting on the bench while their children play, completely removed from the youngsters’ actions or anything else on the playground, for that matter, because he or she is completely engrossed in their tablet or cell phone. As a hands-on parent, this is so terribly frustrating to witness. I’ll admit that even as a hands-on parent, it is easy to get caught up in the rush of technology, the necessity of it. I don’t go anywhere without my smartphone. My work revolves around my computer and often my tablet which I use to communicate with my agent, my editor, my readers via Twitter, Facebook, and email. So one of my chief goals for New Year’s Day was to Be Present. Be Here Now in the moment with my children. And it was as simple as getting down to their level, copping a squat on the floor or in their playroom and engaging in whatever captured their interest. My son ended the day surrounded by both me and the hub, playing Construction Site with MegaBloks. This was after a long day of catch, keep-away, coloring, and other indoor activities (solely because it was too cold and wet to play outside). When the hub asked him if he was ready for bed, he did something he never does. He grabbed his Mickey Mouse and a bedtime read, took the hub’s hand and led him to bed. Parenting isn’t easy. Rarely do you squeak through a twenty-four hour period without the typical fuss, whine, tantrum, even throwing and/or yelling. It’s difficult to know for certain whether you’re doing it right, particularly with your firstborn. When the hub returned from putting Young Skywalker to bed, we both sat on the couch and glowed a bit because it was one of those rare nights we felt, as parents, we couldn’t have done better.

Laugh

Again, so simple. It’s easy to take something as basic as everyday laughter for granted. I set out on New Year’s Day to laugh much more. Whether through tickle fights with the kiddies or teasing the hub, our house was abundant with laughter. The belly-deep kind of laughter that turns faces flushed and brings on toothy grins and a twinkle in the eye. New Year’s Day was the first time I’ve made both of my children laugh simultaneously. If that’s the lone takeaway from the first day of the year, I’ll tuck it away in my memory box and hoard it for a lifetime.

Learn

This was more to do with the kiddies than us adults since the hub and I spent much of the day unplugged from our routine devices. Through bathtime sing-song, Young Skywalker began to croon his “ABC’s,” something new and exciting as he’s only just recently begun to memorize familiar tunes and mimic them. He began including the number four in counting again after several months of “One, two, three, five, six, nine.” He even did something so grown-up, I woke up the following day convinced I’d dreamt it. He used an adult potty for the first time. It’s been a struggle to get our tough guy potty-trained, mostly because communication was difficult for him until Baby Ewok’s birth. Not only did he potty and flush, he acted very grown-up about it indeed, as if it were an everyday occurrence. Not that he refused the Skittles we offered him afterward....

Cook

Ever since that delayed resolution from 2012, cooking has become something that I look forward to. Nothing pleases me more than feeding the mouths of my family, immediate and extended. Going back to the superstition part of New Year’s Day, I think it’s good luck to eat from your home pantry on the first day of the year. After sleeping in, I cooked a full brunch with bacon, eggs, and toast. Later that night, I browned and seasoned meat for our favorite bi-weekly meal tradition: Taco Night! The hub made his yum-yum hummus. Simple meals, full happy tummies. I recently came across this quote. It resonates:

Centuries of secularism have failed to transform eating into something utilitarian. Food, the act of eating, is still treated with reverence. A meal is still a rite - the last natural sacrament of family and friendship, of life that is more than 'eating' or 'drinking.' To eat is something more than to maintain bodily functions."

- from "For the Life of the World" by Alexander Schmemann

Read

Young Skywalker’s favorite book is a tattered old version of I Spy I received as a gift from my fourth grade teacher twenty-er-some-odd years ago. I love it because it’s not something he prefers to flip through himself. He brings it to the hub or me, pointing out objects, searching for others, counting like items, and tracing shapes. Another reason I like it is because he enjoys it so much when he’s done spying, he turns to other books looking for the same wonder and excitement I Spy gives him. Baby Ewok mostly likes turning board books pages, but she’s growing attached to a recent library addition, Touch & Feel Farm, a sensory play book that uses different textures to show how farm animals feel to the touch. Fluffy chicks, furry doggies, wooly sheep, even bristly piglets. With a new set of deadlines approaching coupled with the demands of the holiday season, it’s been especially hard to find time for my own TBR pile. The hub sneaked around online for Christmas and bought me a hard-to-find title I’ve been rattling on about wanting on my shelf forever. When the kiddies hunkered down to sleep, I stayed up with a mug of hot tea and a blanket and read to my heart's content!

Write

I broke the no-working rule on New Year's. Writing isn't just my occupation, though. It's something that I love. (And did I mention those deadlines??) However, instead of turning on my computer and burning through the midnight oil, I turned to the oldest, most comforting writing form - pen and paper. I wrote notes on an old passion project, the book of my heart as I finished off my tea.

 

Quality Time

There’s no better time than New Year’s to appreciate those around you. I had lovely conversations with both my mother and my father. The hub and I spent the entire day inside with the kiddies. The quality family time was wonderful, but we saved our cuddles until after both kiddies went down for the night. We watched a new movie, very rare for us indeed, and we talked. Really talked. It’s easy to get swept away in the busyness of everyday life. It’s our goal every day to take at least ten minutes to reconnect, to hold each other, to converse while making eye contact. It may sound simple again, but we’re convinced if more people did this with their partners, their parents, their friends, their children, they could solve problems more easily. The world might even be a better place for it. As he began to nod off after a while and I started to reach for my book, it hit me. I gasped in horror. He jerked awake. “What? What? What?” he asked. “Oh no!” I cried. “I FORGOT TO MAKE BLACK-EYED PEAS!”

Those Trusty Black-Eyed Peas

We have a tradition here in the south. In my family, it goes back further than I can remember, before I was born. Eating black-eyed peas on New Year’s Day is a requirement. It’s good luck. Why black-eyed peas are lucky, I have no idea. In recent years, I’ve forgotten to buy black-eyed peas and the year’s gone by just fine without them. I do know that for most of my life, I ate them once a year, January 1st. If I turned my nose up at them as a willful child, I was forced to eat them anyway, even if it was just one bite. This year while shopping for Christmas meal staples, I passed by the legumes. The black-eyed peas sat on a shelf at eye level. They stared at me. I stared back. “What the hey?” I said, tossing them into my shopping cart. On New Year’s Eve, I spotted the bag in our pantry and instructed the hub, “DO NOT let me forget to cook those tomorrow.” We made a plan to do them with tacos. We then quickly forgot this plan on New Year’s Day until ten p.m. The hub went into the kitchen to boil some water. “How long could it take?” he asked. “We’ll eat a bite before bed and the rest tomorrow.” He grabbed the peas from the pantry. His face settled into a frown. “Babe. You bought hard peas.” My experience with peas is limited. If they aren’t canned or frozen, I don’t know what to do with them. So my response was, “Yeah, so?” He groaned. “These are going to take hours.” He read the packaging and laughed. He laughed loud and sour. “These are going to take FOUR HOURS.” “What!?!” I snatched the peas from his hand and read for myself. After consulting with my mother the next day, I learned belatedly that the best way to cook black-eyed peas is overnight in a crockpot. “Oh, no,” I said again, head in my hands. We clearly weren’t having black-eyed peas on New Year’s—again. I should note that the hub think superstitions in general are ridiculous. He was raised in Alabama just like me, but he doesn’t believe in voodoo, juju, wawa, or anything outside reason. He believes in ghosts. He might even believe in aliens. He likes reading conspiracy theories. But other than that he’s a trusty cynic fixed in his ways who’s slowly learned to live with my more open-minded approach to all things luck and superstition. He saw how disappointed I was about this culinary misfortune. He tore the corner off the bag of hard peas and shook out a small handful. He handed me half and stuffed the rest in his mouth. It was like chewing rocks but still. We ate our black-eyed peas. Or, as the hub so eloquently put it, “If the year sucks, it’s not our fault. We’ve got luck now, right?” “Mm hm,” I agreed, still chewing. “And no teeth.” He smiled, close-mouthed, and said, “Happy New Year.”

It’s your turn, Rose readers! What’s your favorite New Year tradition? Here’s hoping 2016 brings you much joy and many blessings!

Essentials from The Writing Room by Amber Leigh Williams

Before I joined the ranks of professional writers, it was easy to picture my favorite authors doing what they did best – cozied up to their typewriters (Yes. Typewriters.), dressed to the nines, evening gown and high heels, a glass of sparkling water sitting at the wayside and a cat curled in a snug circle on their lap.

Now that I am an actual writer (and know a good many others), this picture has shifted a bit. Okay, a lot. Writing isn’t nearly as glamorous as I imagined. Neither is it cozy. (Anybody else familiar with that deep neck ache that likes to creep up the back of the head? How about cringe-worthy desk shoulders?)

Recently when asked what my go-to essentials are for the typical writing session, I thought about a good many things. Like my pajamas. Something comfy so that I’m not worried about my clothing. The less uncomfortable I am, the better. This helps me go beyond the physical and submerge myself in the world of my characters. I'd rather worry about what they're wearing, what they're saying and feeling than what I am. That's my job, at least.

I also thought about my trusty computer. It’s several steps up from a typewriter. I can take it practically anywhere I go. It even has this nifty feature that helps me resist procrastination by cutting off my Wi-Fi options.

A throwback to my first office shelves.
Things have changed a wee bit since - aside from
the clutter....

I thought about my keeper shelf where I store books that have inspired me through the years. Whether they’re great works of fiction or real life love stories or books on writing or life, simply being in the same room with these books gives me a motivating boost on those days when writing doesn’t come easily.

Here are a few other essentials that get me through the day (or night)….

Burt’s Bees Lip Balm

The kind with the pomegranate is my favorite. Once, I was the nervous sort. I constantly bit my lower lip or tugged at it with my teeth. Chapped lips plagued me from dawn to dusk. Through the years, I’ve thrown away lipstick choices for lip balms of all varieties. I guess you could count them as my chief beauty essentials…as well as one of my favorite writing ones. When I’m up against a deadline, that old lip-biting habit often comes back to haunt me. I always have a tube of Burt’s Bees at the ready to stave off this pesky problem.

A Hair Tie

Ever read the books in which the main character constantly finger-combs his/her hair when they’re pensive or frustrated? People actually do this. These are my people. At the writing desk, this habit peaks like no other. By the end of a decent writing session, I’ve been known to look like anyone from Chewbacca to Albert Einstein. Glamorous, right? Now that I’m growing my hair out again, it’s easy to sweep ye ol’ mane into a high bun to keep it from getting out of hand.

Just one example of my long-hand plotting style....

Notes

A common fixture at my side during writing sessions is a trusty spiral-bound notebook or two. There’s something about writing long-hand. I hold a firm belief that it is a dying art form, just like old-fashioned letter-writing and calligraphy. Nothing makes the ideas spout when it comes to plotting or free-writing like a blank piece of paper and an ink pen. Even when I’m writing at the computer, I usually have my notebooks spread open around me so that I can keep track of my plot points and myriad character details I wrote there as the story was initially coming to me. (Whoever said an idea you have to write down to remember isn't worth remembering doesn't know those of us humanoids who sometimes forget to put on shoes when we leave the house....)

Caffeine

I’ve always been a night-writer, but now that I have two young children, it’s even more difficult to squeeze in a decent writing episode during the daytime hours. After I’ve put BabyCakes down for the night and the hub whisks our preschool rascal off for his beddy-bye routine, I can try cracking down on my daily writing goals. Caffeine is a strong ally at 12:30 at night when words start to blur together and the idea of my memory foam pillow becomes more and more seductive...zzzzzzz.

Longhand. The cheapest form of writerly therapy....

Music

Something else that helps keep me motivated during those late-night writing sessions: my tunes! Tastes range depending on my current subject, characters, or mood but mostly I like to listen to motown hits, ‘90’s alternative bands, big band swing, epic instrumentals, or something modern and bouncy if I really need a swift kick in the rear to keep me going. Everybody else is sleeping by this point so earbuds are a must.

Readers, I’d love to know what your essentials are for a binge-reading session! Rainy afternoons? Fuzzy socks? A cuppa tea? A big, thick blanket? Feel free to share and happy reading!

My Favorite Villains by Amber Leigh Williams

Last October, I counted down my favorite monsters. This year, I decided to do something similar and just as fun – counting down my favorite villains!

There are different categories of villainy: 1) Villains I love to hate, 2) Villains I somehow wind up rooting for even though I know I’m not supposed to, and 3) the villains that give me the serious, creep-fest heebie-jeebies no matter how many times I read and/or watch them….

VILLAINS I LOVE TO HATE

Jane Austen Antagonists…
Lady Jane is great at many things. You hear much about protagonists like Lizzie and Darcy, Mr. Knightley, and Miss Elinor Dashwood, among others. You hear even more talk about her revolutionary style – the wit, the irony, the dialogue. Those are the things that keep us coming back to her novels time and time again. But one of my favorite things about a Jane Austen book? There will always be that one character (or two…or three) that I want to rap over the head with a walking stick. Chief among these is Lady Catherine de Bourgh from Pride and Prejudice. While the main antagonist of the book is the manipulative Mr. Wickham, Lady Catherine runs a close second…with Mr. Collins and his winding rhetoric bringing up the condescending rear.

Dolores Umbridge…
While Tom Riddle comes to mind when anybody brings up Harry Potter villains, there’s another name that occurs to me and that’s Dolores Umbridge. Umbridge first appears in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. At first glance, the squat little lady underneath the pink hair bow might not appear too threatening. Midway through the book, however, it becomes clear that Umbridge is another kind of villain altogether – that of the psychological variety. To say readers love to hate Dolores might be the understatement of the century.

The Queen of Hearts…

“We’re all mad here.” Indeed. But maddest of all might be the ill-tempered monarch who reigns the climax of Alice in Wonderland. As a girl, I loved to hate the Queen of Hearts…even if I sometimes chased my little sister around with a red crayon yelling, “WHOOOOOOO PAINTED THE ROSES RED?” Looking back, it’s still easy to hate the Queen of Hearts. She’s pretty much just a brat in big girl britches with a penchant for beheading her own subjects.

Cersei and Joffrey Lannister…

Technically, Cersei and Joffrey from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire (otherwise known as Game of Thrones) series count as two separate villains but seeing as one went a long way toward creating the other, I thought they’d be best lumped together. The character of Cersei Lannister steps onto the scene as the stone-faced yet beautiful queen of Robert Baratheon. However, readers soon learn she’s an incestuous adulteress whose children, Joffrey included, are the byproduct of her relationship with her twin brother. She’s the grand architect behind her husband’s death and Joffrey’s rise to the throne. And that’s just the first book. As far as Joffrey is concerned, the apple doesn’t far from the tree. The tree and the apple are both rotten, by the way, and pretty much beyond redemption.

Dimitri Chernenko…

The Bronze Horseman is one of my favorite works of historic fiction. That being said, I spent much of the book wishing that the character of Dimitri who serves as both friend and foe to hero Alexander would find some way to disappear. It’s not often you see a coward as a villain. Dimitri uses what he knows about Alexander’s past to blackmail him to get him out of Russia. He shoots himself in the foot to avoid combat. He parades the heroine Tatiana around under Alexander’s nose (knowing the latter is in love with her yet is unable pursue his feelings for her). What becomes of Dimitri is almost disappointing in lieu of what readers WANT to happen to him by the end of the book. Personally, Dimitri is a character that is easy to hate because he’s terribly realistic.

 

VILLAINS I ROOT FOR (EVEN WHEN I SHOULDN'T)

Severus Snape…

Another Harry Potter antagonist. The books are written almost entirely from young Harry’s perspective. Because of that, the sneering, hook-nosed Potions master is tragically misunderstood from the onset of the series up to its near-completion. Not that he helps matters much. He antagonizes Harry for his lack of know-how in class. Also when you dress like a bat, continuously dock points from Gryffindor House and bemoan the hero’s resemblance to his mischievous father, it’s easy to get lumped into the bad guy category. Interestingly enough, Alan Rickman refused to play the character on screen until J.K. Rowling told him in confidence that Snape is actually a good guy in disguise.  

The Grinch…

His brain is full of spiders. He has garlic in his soul. He’s a mean one, but for those who’ve read How The Grinch Stole Christmas, it’s not hard to love this baddie. The king of sinful sots might ruin Christmas for those poor Whos down in Whoville. However, in one of the most beloved plot twists in children’s literature, he comes to regret his dirty deeds and grows himself a proper (termite-free) heart. It doesn’t matter how many times I read the book, I always root for that scurvy green Grinch.

The Wicked Witch of the West…

She started out as a static character in L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but through the years The Wicked Witch has morphed into one of the most beloved villains of all time. All the lady wanted was her sister’s shoes. And Dorothy did drop a house on said sister. Even if you don’t love the original version of The Wicked Witch, it’s hard not to root for her in author Gregory Maguire’s Oz reboot, Wicked, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. Maguire reveals the real story behind The Wicked Witch, AKA Elphaba. Bullied for being different from her peers, feared for the sheer magnitude of her magical gift, it’s easy to say that Elphie is just another one of those deeply misunderstood characters. (Maguire’s Wicked, of course, became a wonderful Broadway musical by the same name.)

The Joker…

“I don’t hate you ‘cause I’m crazy. I’m crazy ‘cause I hate you.” He’s absurd. He’s creepy. He does terrible, terrible things. He’s got a vendetta for Gotham’s caped crusader. Those who have seen Jack Nicholson's portrayal of The Joker, however, might have a hard time actually hating him. I don’t think I’ll ever forget sitting in a silent movie theater the night The Dark Knight opened and being absolutely riveted by Heath Ledger’s turn as the super-villain. The actor’s death should have foreshadowed the film yet the performance spoke for itself. As despicable as his version of The Joker was, it even made the audience laugh on occasion. A bad guy with a sense of humor? Twisted, yes, but difficult to loathe entirely.

Darth Vader…

Cue the John Williams overture. Darth Vader started out seeming like the typical, cardboard cut-out villain. But with The Empire Strikes Back, it became apparent that Vader’s character is a little more complex than all that. Now that Vader’s history as Anakin Skywalker (father to the Luke and Leia of the original series) has been unveiled in its entirety, we know that he is a complex character that with a bit of brainwashing and the influence of real series villain, the emperor, went from very good to very bad in a very short amount of time. Vader is rightfully redeemed in the end so we no longer have to hate him. And next time you’re nervous or lacking confidence in a social situation? Sing “The Imperial March” in your head while walking into a room. I dare you not to feel like the ultimate badass!

Captain James Hook…
Hands down, my favorite villain. Before the captain of the Jolly Roger was a kooky Disney character, he was (in the words of the man who created him, J.M. Barrie), “not wholly unheroic.” He might spend a goodly amount of time trying to kill a (albeit immortal) child. But the kid did feed his hand to a crocodile. Some interesting facts about Hook? He’s originally described by Barrie as “the handsomest man I have ever seen, though, at the same time, perhaps slightly disgusting.” Aside from the crocodile who pursues him, his chief fear is the sight of his own blood. He’s a master of diction and can play several instruments with skill. Hook might be one of the most re-created fictional characters of all time. I love Dustin Hoffman’s take on Neverland’s captain opposite Robin Williams’s Pan in the movie Hook. Though my favorite reincarnation of Hook might be that of Colin O’Donoghue in the TV series Once Upon A Time.

 

VILLAINS THAT GIVE ME THE WILLIES

Jaws…

It doesn’t matter how many times I watch Spielberg’s film. That fish gives me chills every time. Sharks might attack humans when they need a nip, but they aren’t vengeful creatures. I know this. Yet when I hear that Jaws theme song and see that big, gray fin break the ocean’s surface, my heart starts pumping ninety-to-nothing. As far as thrillers go, you can’t beat Jaws. And you definitely can’t beat a classic villain like a blood-thirsty great white.

Injun Joe…

Even as an adult, Mark Twain’s Injun Joe gives me the creeps. As a child reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, it’s all-too-easy to get scared when Huck Finn overhears Joe plotting Widow Douglas’s mutilation. If that weren’t enough, he murders Doc Robinson in cold blood and frames poor Muff Potter for the crime. You won’t find a more sinister villain in children’s literature.

Lash…

J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series features a merry-go-round of chill-inducing villains, not least of which is the ultimate, omnipotent baddie himself, The Omega. The villain that gave me the willies, however, didn’t surface until midway through the series when the character of Lash took a turn for the worse, going from simple-minded bully to heir of The Omega himself. Maybe it’s because I love the character of John Matthew so much, but in Lover Mine when Lash’s deeds go from bad to worse to…even worse than that, I need the light on the keep reading.

The Man In The Green-Feathered Hat…

One of the best books I’ve had the pleasure of reading is Robert R. McCammon’s Boy’s Life. Like Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, Boy’s Life cannot be classified by one genre alone. It’s a thriller. It’s historic. It’s a coming-of-age story. It’s real. It’s fantastical. It’s tragic, lyrical, ironic, humorous… Summed up, the story revolves around a 1960’s small town as seen through the eyes of twelve-year-old Cory Mackenson. In the first chapter, Cory and his father witness a murder. Cory then sees the silhouette of a man in a hat with a green feather, the unidentified murderer, watching from afar. The man disappears but the hat reappears throughout the story, haunting Cory and his friends and leaving clues for them to unravel the mystery behind the crime. Like Injun Joe, this mysterious villain is just as creepy from an adult’s perspective as it is from young Cory’s.

Black Jack Randall…

Speaking of Outlander… Aside perhaps from Hannibal Lecter, there has never been a more despicable literary foe than Jonathan “Black Jack” Randall. A sadist by definition, he leads by instilling fear in his subjects and becomes obsessed with the protagonists of the book, Claire, and her husband, Jamie Fraser. Using his rank as an officer as well as his status as a gentleman to hide the more loathsome parts of his personality, Black Jack molests both the bodies and minds of his victims. Suffice it to say, there’s no redeeming this bad guy. If I had the choice between facing down a hoard of zombies or Black Jack Randall…I’m pretty sure I’d pick the zombies….

There you have it, readers! My Halloween-inspired Favorite Villians list! Now chime in with your own. What villains do you love to hate, what villains do you root for, and what villains would you never hope to meet in real life?

Follow my virtual book tour for my latest Harlequin Superromance novel, His Rebel Heart, all October long! Find more details on my website at www.amberleighwilliams.com!