Top 5 Recipes (and how they relate to my writing) by Amanda Meuwissen – Guest Blog

Long and Short Reviews welcomes Amanda Meuwissen

Top 5 Recipes (and how they relate to my writing)

Cream Corn Chili

1 lb. hamburger
1, 8 ounce can of tomato paste
1, 10 ounce can of Rotel Diced Tomatoes (with habaneros recommended)
1/3 of an 8-ounce block of Philadelphia Cream Cheese
1, 15 ounce can of corn (no salt added recommended)
1, 15 ounce can of black beans (no salt recommended)

Brown hamburger. Drain beans and corn. Add paste and tomatoes to hamburger. Melt cream cheese into hamburger mixture. Add corn and beans. Stir well. Simmer to desired softness of beans. Serve with sour cream or plain.

I love ‘normal’ chili, which of course can be whatever anyone wants it to be. There are chili cookoffs for a reason, spanning heat level, base ingredients, and sometimes specifically looking for out of the norm recipes. I guess I’ve always been out of the norm with my writing, tackling issues and characters not everyone does, but it’s always a ‘delicious’ experience going off the beaten path.

Best Ever Rhubarb Pie

4 cups fresh rhubarb
2 cups sugar
4 tablespoons flour
¼ teaspoon salt
2 eggs, beaten
¼ cup milk
½ teaspoon butter
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2, 9 inch pie shells, unbaked

Preheat oven to 400. Press 1 pie shell into a lightly greased pie tin. Cut rhubarb into small pieces. Mix together sugar, flour, and salt. Beat eggs. Add milk to eggs. Add milk and egg mixture to flour mixture. Add rhubarb. Pour into unbaked pie shell. Use second pie shell to cover the top of the pie, pinching the edges together and adding slits to the top to avoid spill-over. Dot top with butter and cinnamon. Bake at 400 for 15 minutes. Reduce to 350 and bake for another 45 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream. Also good cold.

I do not have a sweet tooth. I need a potato chip after too much sugar to cleanse my palette. But sometimes nothing is as fulfilling as dessert. I often laugh at how, when I consume certain fiction, such as movies or TV shows, I wish they’d focus less on romantic relationships, yet at the end of the day, my own writing is all about sweet romance for that slice of ‘dessert’.

Perfect Zucchini Muffins

2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
2/3 cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 cups finally shredded zucchini (usually 2 medium-sized zucchini are perfect)

Preheat oven to 375. Grease 12 muffin cups. In a mixing bowl, beat oil with eggs, sugars, and vanilla. Combine flour, soda, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Add to wet ingredients. Stir until blended. Fold in zucchini. Fill muffin cups. Bake for 20 minutes. Makes 12.

Don’t be fooled by the vegetables in this meaning you’re being healthy or that they won’t taste incredible. But there’s still some nutritional value. Right? Right…? Sometimes we need indulgence at all times of the day (I usually eat these for breakfast) just like how I write not only every day but often all throughout the day at little needed intervals.
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Saucy Potstickers

Sauce:
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1/2 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon minced Thai basil leaves
2 green onions, minced
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 cup mirin
2 tablespoons oyster sauce
1 teaspoon Sriracha
1 tablespoon freshly minced mint leaves
Filling:
1 pound ground pork
1 tablespoon freshly minced cilantro leaves
1 green onion, minced
1 tablespoon oyster sauce
1 tablespoon hoisin sauce
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon finely minced ginger
40 round gyoza wrappers
2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil

Combine all sauce ingredients and mix well. Cover and refrigerate until time to use. Combine all filling ingredients and mix very well using your hands. Once filling is made, set aside. Line a large cookie sheet with parchment paper. Take a gyoza wrapper and put a dollop of filling in the middle. Start pinching in the wrapper all the way around the dumpling to close it up. Arrange the finished dumplings on the cookie sheet. Add oil to a large nonstick skillet. Start adding the dumplings to the pan and turn the heat to medium-high. Brown both sides of dumplings, about 2 minutes each. Reduce heat to medium, add the sauce, cover the pan and steam for 2 minutes. Repeat on other side. Uncover pan and turn over dumplings to coat with sauce. Transfer to a serving dish and enjoy.

This recipe takes patience and time and is generally better with assistance. That’s writing in a nutshell, because even if you’re not an outliner, there is planning that goes into your work, a lot of patience, and the end product is always better with multiple editors and eyes for review.

My husband’s homemade pizza

Yeah sorry, you don’t actually get this recipe, but it is one of my favorites. I can’t give it to you because I don’t know it. It was passed down to my husband from his father, and is a closely kept secret, but we have converted many a nonbeliever that this is some of the best pizza anyone ever has (whatever toppings they might request—except pineapple; that’s unacceptable). Sometimes when writing, you have to hold back, either with your prose or with certain details to be revealed later, making the journey that much more enjoyable.

Mmm… now I’m hungry.

Love is easy once you learn the steps.

In the competitive world of dance, Teddy was a flawless performer and hardass choreographer who students feared and admired in equal measure. But hip surgery ended the glamour and drama, and now Teddy is recovering at his beach house, lost and listless.

Until he meets Finn, his neighbor, who is too perfect, gorgeous, and kind to exist—but very ill timed. In a seaside town as small as theirs, they can’t avoid each other, especially since Finn is also Teddy’s new physical therapist. But Teddy isn’t the man he used to be, and though Finn flirts shamelessly with him, Teddy can’t believe a has-been dancer is worthy of someone so young and full of life.

Finn’s sunny smile is also hiding heartache. Pursuing Teddy challenges both his professionalism and his self-preservation, but if he can convince Teddy to trust him, maybe they both can heal.

About the Author:Amanda Meuwissen is a primarily gay romance writer, as well as Marketing Operations Manager for the software company Outsell. She has a Bachelor of Arts in a personally designed major from St. Olaf College in Creative Writing, and is an avid consumer of fiction through film, prose, and video games. As author of the paranormal romance trilogy The Incubus Saga, the superhero romance duology Lovesick, and much more, Amanda regularly attends local comic conventions for fun and to meet fans, where she will often be seen in costume as one of her favorite fictional characters. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband, John, and their cat, Helga.

Website | Goodreads | Tumblr | Facebook | Twitter

Buy the book at Dreamspinner Press or Amazon.

Infuse Real Life into your Writing by Amanda Meuwissen – Guest Blog


Long and Short Reviews welcomes Amanda Meuwissen who is celebrating the recent release of her newest book A Model Escort.

INFUSE REAL LIFE INTO YOUR WRITING

In my recent release, A Model Escort, one of the main characters is a data scientist, someone who works with predictive algorithms to determine future behavior.

You’re probably most familiar with this technology when on sites like Amazon and Netflix, which take your past behavior over long periods of time to recommend what you’ll likely want to buy or watch next.

Scary how often they’re right or influence you into your next decision, huh?

I work with this technology in my day job too, a marketing automation platform for auto dealers that does this same type of thing to better individualize emails dealers send to their customers. None of us want generic spam anymore; we want a message tailored to us.

I also know people in other industries who use this technology, but one stood out to me and stuck in the back of my mind—a forensic scientist working on predictive models to determine where crime is most likely to happen to better plan distribution of police officers throughout the year in the most needed areas.

I took that concept and applied it to my protagonist for this story, using it as the catalyst for why Owen Quinn, socially awkward data scientist, uproots his life and starts over. He has other reasons than a new job in a new city, but this theme connects to multiple elements throughout the book—predicting outcomes.

Like one of my favorite lines, no one can predict everything, but still: Meet every surprise in life like you had a plan all along.

I doubt I would have made this connection or chosen that profession for Owen if I had been in a different place in my life when I wrote the book, but I never shy from infusing elements of now into my writing.

The aim of the company is to continue reading this now order cialis overnight provide its products globally. Some themes you’d consider: 1) SEO tips and tactics 2) sildenafil price in india Dating and romance 3) Conspiracy theories bordering on the unbelievable 4) PC optimization 5) Online business techniques 6) Offline business ideas 7) Adsense marketing 8) Affiliate marketing 9) Hobbies When choosing a theme, make sure you’re knowledgeable and passionate about it. Indoors cycling is much less hazardous as the seat is levitra generika 10mg properly adjusted. But in the end they end up practicing natural remedies and techniques such as Yoga, Tai Chi, acupuncture, hypnosis, cialis professional india massage, and aromatherapy. This tends to be true with a character’s favorite song—maybe one I’ve been in love with recently—or a beloved movie, or some ridiculous event that happens based on a story I heard from a friend. The start of my YA novel, Life as a Teenage Vampire, begins with the two main characters blowing up a teddy bear, which happened with my husband and a friend during high school.

When you think of something in the moment, it tends to make itself more alive as it transitions onto the page, and then becomes something not only based on reality, but uniquely real and robust about that character.

I’m diving into my next project about an aging choreographer falling for his young physical therapist, and in chapter two I have him picking up string cheese as a terrible vice when normally he eats healthy—all because my father was staying with me for a few weeks and picked up string cheese as a snack, harkening back to my childhood and giving me a human personal touch to add to a new character.

My advice is to embrace those moments where even something that might seem silly at first can actually be what brings your characters to life.

What’s the value of love?

Shy data scientist Owen Quinn is brilliant at predictive models but clueless at romance. Fortunately, a new career allows him to start over hundreds of miles from the ex he would rather forget. But the opportunity might go to waste since this isn’t the kind of problem he knows how to solve. The truth is, he’s terrible at making the first move and wishes a connection didn’t have to revolve around sex.

Cal Mercer works for the Nick of Time Escort Service. He’s picky about his clients and has never accepted a regular who is looking for companionship over sex—but can the right client change his mind? And can real feelings develop while money is changing hands? Owen and Cal might get to the root of their true feelings… if their pasts don’t interfere.

About the Author: Amanda Meuwissen is a primarily gay romance writer, as well as Marketing Operations Manager for the software company Outsell. She has a Bachelor of Arts in a personally designed major from St. Olaf College in Creative Writing, and is an avid consumer of fiction through film, prose, and video games. As author of the paranormal romance trilogy The Incubus Saga, young adult novel Life as a Teenage Vampire, the novelette The Collector, and superhero duology Lovesick Gods and Lovesick Titans, Amanda regularly attends local comic conventions for fun and to meet with fans, where she will often be seen in costume as one of her favorite fictional characters. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with her husband, John, and their cat, Helga.

Website | Goodreads | Tumblr | Facebook | Twitter

Buy the book at Dreamspinner Press.

From Video Games to Paranormal Romance/Fantasy Stories by Amanda Meuwissen – Guest Blog and Giveaway


This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Amanda Meuwissen will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to wee the other stops on the tour.

From Video Games to Paranormal Romance/Fantasy Stories

I am a lifelong geek and gamer, which I think had a huge impact on my love of fantasy and paranormal stories over the years, to the point that it’s very rare that I write anything strictly contemporary and tend to always have a little magic in my novels.

1997 was my introductory year to RPGs (role playing games) and what a year! That was when Metal Gear Solid, Diablo, Final Fantasy VII, and Xenogears all came out, which to this day are some of my favorite games and the ones I played the most—to say nothing of their lasting impact and popularity among gamers.

I don’t have as much time as I did when I was a kid, but there are certain titles I will always make time for – Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Star Wars, God of War, and anything new and exciting that has a fun element of character creation and choice to make a game your own.

No surprise coming from an author, right?

I remember how thrilled I was when Stars Wars: The Old Republic came out as someone who had enjoyed World of Warcraft once upon a time but wasn’t so much the mass raid, end game player. I wanted to be able to enjoy myself playing alone as well as be able to hop on with my husband and a few friends.

SWTOR answered that call with fully voiced characters and such engaging stories and gameplay to immerse myself in. I fully completed four main character runs from start to finish, and began many others besides, and had a blast with each one, making those characters my own both in appearance, choices, and romance.

Video games today are so different than when I played Mario Bros in my earliest days. Now, I can cinematically enjoy a story like the best book or movie, as well as be part of crafting some of my favorite stories the way I do when I take pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard more often). It’s invigorating and continues to inspire me and drive my creative process.

For anyone who thinks playing video games is a waste of time or a creativity killer, over 20 years later since my first RPG where I discovered how much story a game can have, I still give credit to many for why I love fantasy, as well as rich characters and plotlines, to the video games in my life.

In fact, there are a few inspirations from video games I might explore in future novels – like an idea spurred from Dragon Age: Origins about a male desire demon (since they were always shown female) that could make a wonderful original story on its own all because my husband had an idea and bounced it off me born from the sheer enjoyment of playing the game.
Fiction has many forms to enjoy, especially where fantasy and paranormal stories are concerned. Never count video games out.

Not even a Titan can always stand up to a God.

Malcom Cho is in over his head, wrapped up in a love affair with his superhero nemesis Zeus, who most people in Olympus City only know as Detective Danny Grant.

Lovesick Titans begins where Lovesick Gods left off, after a heist gone wrong that ended with a museum guard dead and Mal and Danny beaten and exhausted from their fight with the new threat in town, Cassidy Ludgate—Hades.

Unaware that Ludgate’s true motivation is revenge for the death of his father at Zeus’s hands, Mal wants only to keep Danny close, while Danny races to solve the cases surrounding Ludgate to stop him from whatever he has planned for them next.

What Mal doesn’t know is that Danny didn’t pursue him with the purest of intentions but sought to break his heart in retaliation for not being there when he needed him in the fight against Thanatos. Even though Danny no longer seeks that end, the lies between them loom like a shadow about to descend upon them both.

And Hades has only begun to toy with them…

Enjoy an Excerpt

Danny let Mal hold his hand in place on his arm, while his other hand strayed, drifting down to Mal’s hip and resting at the edge of one of his larger scars. Mal had many, from years of abuse and a hard way of living. Normally, when Danny touched one, he pushed on with confidence, but tonight, the raised scar tissue made him snap to his senses like he’d been in a trance.

“Sorry,” he said and pulled both hands away.

But Mal reached for them, hung onto them, and brought Danny’s hands back to his skin. “It’s okay. Broken bottle one night when Dad got drunk. Now I get to add another knife wound to the collection.” Mal smirked as he nodded at his bandaged arm.

Danny smiled with him, but it was a sad, shattered expression. He teased the tips of his fingers over the scar tissue. “Are all these really from…” With a startle, he tried to pull away again as if he’d said something he shouldn’t.

“My father?” Mal said, refusing to let him go. “Not all. Most though. Some are from prison. Some dumb mistakes. Fights like tonight. But most…yeah, they’re his.”

Taking Danny’s hand still resting on his hip, Mal drew it upwards, guiding it across his bare chest until he reached his shoulder and the faint circular scar tissue near his clavicle.

“Freezer burn. From his powers. Because I broke my leg when I was eight and I cried. He wanted to teach me a lesson. Teach me how to keep pain in and never let anyone see it. So he held the tip of a frozen finger there until it burned.”

Danny’s brow furrowed with indignant anger.

Mal trailed the hand lower to a particularly bad scar across his stomach—his worst and the one he remembered the clearest. “First knife wound. Caught me with a boy in my room. Would have killed him if I hadn’t stood in the way. I took the brunt of it. Let him run off. Never brought a boy home again, not ‘til Dad was gone. Brought a couple girls home,” he shrugged.

“Girls?” Danny asked with a touch of humored skepticism bleeding through his concern. He splayed his hand flat against Mal’s stomach, warm and intimate in his touch.

“Occasionally. Not as often.”

Danny nodded but his smile quickly faded, his eyes trained on the scar and the affectionate way he traced it with his fingers. “Sometimes…I think my dad hates me because…” he trailed and the motion of his hand slowed. “There’s something I never told you. About the night I killed Thanatos.”

The smile dropped from Mal’s lips as well as he waited for Danny to continue.

“He killed my mom.”

About the Author: Amanda Meuwissen has been writing and posting online for many years, including maintaining the website and blog for the software company Outsell. She is an avid writer and consumer of fiction through film, prose, and video games, and is the author of the paranormal romance trilogy The Incubus Saga and young adult novel Life as a Teenage Vampire. Amanda lives in Minneapolis, MN, with her husband, John, and their two cats.

Amazon Author Page | Website | Tumblr | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter

Buy the book at Amazon.

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Lovesick Gods by Amanda Meuwissen – Exclusive Excerpt and Giveaway


This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions. Amanda will be awarding a $25 Amazon or B/N GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.

The elements touch everyone on Earth—Fire, Water, even Light—but every so often someone becomes more attuned to their elemental leaning and develops true power. When an evil Elemental known as Thanatos arrived in Olympus City, it saw the rise of its first hero—Zeus. But the death toll caused by defeating Thanatos changed Zeus, who by day is young detective Danny Grant.

It’s been six months since Thanatos terrorized the city at the start of Lovesick Gods. Danny should be used to his duty behind the mask, but the recent past haunts him. His girlfriend left him, he snaps at the barest provocation, his life feels empty—he needs an outlet, any outlet to pull him out of his depression.

Enter notorious thief Malcolm Cho, the Ice Elemental Prometheus. There was a time when Danny welcomed a fight with Cho, filled with colorful banter and casual flirtations that were a relief compared to Thanatos. Even as a criminal, Cho had recognized the threat Thanatos posed and promised to help Danny stop him, but the day Danny needed Cho, he never showed. Cho was the reason so many people died that day—including Danny’s mother.

Danny decides to teach the man a lesson and fan the fire of their attraction into something more. At worst, he’ll get some no-strings-attached sex out of the deal and finally blow off steam; at best, he’ll get Cho to fall in love with him and then break his heart to spite him. Danny doesn’t expect to fall for Cho in the process, and he certainly can’t predict the much darker threat on the horizon.

Enjoy an Exclusive Excerpt

Dropping his hands to the collar of Danny’s jacket, Mal pushed it from his shoulders. Danny wouldn’t release his hold on Mal, so the jacket caught at his elbows and Mal reached for his jeans instead. As soon as his fingers brushed the skin of Danny’s stomach, the hand at Mal’s head and the other dipping low along his backside started to spark with a tingle of electricity.

Mal startled. It should have hurt, should have shocked him like a jolt of static on a cold, dry day—he’d felt Danny’s lightning offensively before, and it was not a pleasant experience—but this was different.

Automatic reactions out of self-defense or eruptions from extreme emotion were one thing, but usually only children who’d just Awakened had trouble controlling their abilities. Though, to be fair, Danny had been an Elemental for only a year. Mal never would have allowed his powers to get out of hand like that, but even as he thought the reprimand, his ice seemed to stir in response, wanting to creep over his skin like frost and seek Danny’s lightning out.

Fighting to hold his ice at bay, he was still intoxicated by the tingling sensation from Danny.

“Sorry!” Danny jerked away once he realized what was happening and reined his sparks back in.

“No,” Mal said, already missing the strange, enthralling buzz. “Do it again.”

Danny’s puzzled expression made him look so young as he stared back at Mal, but when those words caught up to him, he grinned.

About the Author: Amanda Meuwissen has been writing and posting online for many years, including maintaining the website and blog for the software company Outsell. She is an avid writer and consumer of fiction through film, prose, and video games, and is the author of the paranormal romance trilogy The Incubus Saga and young adult novel Life as a Teenage Vampire. Amanda lives in Minneapolis, MN, with her husband, John, and their two cats.

Website | Tumblr | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter
The book is on sale for $0.99 during the tour at Amazon.

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