The Eyes Have It -- writing tip

You might want to watch how you use eyes. I have seen printed stories, where eyes "slid up and down" someone else's body, "dropped into a coffee cup," and "rolled around the floor." Good editors catch such phrases, as with few exceptions eyes, of anatomical necessity, remain inside one's head. People with little compassion and a mean sense of humor make cruel fun of "wandering eyes." Sometimes you can substitute "gaze," "glance," or "look."

Second print galleys going out today for

the following books:

Berardelli DEMON CHASER

Malarsky MAGGIE'S MIRAGE
Also,

Elena Bowman's TIME RIFT will be reposted to Create Space ONE MORE TIME, today. My regrets, Elena. I thought the files looked pretty good, but CS still is unhappy with them.

Shelley is working on a number of books at her house and I am typesetting

FROM JESUS TO HEAVEN WITH LOVE by Barbara Garro. Non-fiction books are complicated to typeset, but this one should be worth the effort.

arline

National "Read an E-book Week" March 7 to 13

Get a free e-book to celebrate National E-book Readers Week.

To honor e-book readers everywhere we will be celebrating here at www.ebooksonthe.net by handing out free PDF copies of any e-book title on the site this week (one to a customer) if the recipient will e-mail me the title and ask for their free copy. Just e-mail me at arline@mail.com with the words FREE BOOK on the subject line of your e-mail.

This offer is good until March 13 only and will only be publicized on this blog, or by word of mouth from its members. Yes, it's okay to tell your friends, or to post this information on lists, but the information must start from here :)

arline chase, publisher

Catching UP and FW Best Sellers

Print Galleys will go out by this weekend on the following titles:

DEATH ON APPEAL. by Shel Damsky
CHESAPEAKE VISIONS, by Terry L. White
DEMON CHASER, by David Berardelli
KISS OF NIGHT, by K.S. brooks
OZARK WOMAN, by Terry Piper

Best Sellers* on Fictionwise this week
*only for Write Words, Inc., not for the whole site!**
are listed as follows:

BEST SALES
1. MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES, by Agatha Christie
2. THE SECRET ADVERSARY, by Agatha Christie
3. TRAVELER, by David Yates
4. FORCED PARADISE, by J. C. Compson
5. LOVE AND WAR IN TEXAS, by Jack Lyle
6. MINDER'S OATH, by Nina M. Osier
7. HIGH PLACES, by Nina M. Osier
8. EXILES AMONG THE STARS, by Nina M. Osier
9. THE LITTLE PRINCESS, by Frances Hodgeson Burnett
10. THE ODYSSEY, by Elena Dorothy Bowman

HIGHEST RATED BY READER RESPONSE
1. THE LITTLE PRINCESS, by Frances Hodgeson Burnett
2. CAPTAIN BLOOD, by Raphael Sabatini
3. GHOST DANCER by Arline Chase
4. MYSTERIOUS AFFAIR AT STYLES, by Agatha Christie
5. BODILY HARM, by Arlene Stadd
6. THE SECRET ADVERSARY, by Agatha Christie
7. LADY LIGHTKEEPER, by Nikki Leigh
8. DARK ELF: Red Knight Chronicles, Vol. 2 by Ray Morand
9. SLOW DANCING WITH THE ANGEL OF DEATH, by Helen Chappell
10. BLEEDING HEARTS, by Josh Aterovis

** Please remember that these ratings are based on sales from our small company and not for the whole site. Reader response ratings are based on ratings given by buyers after they have read, however.

Banana Bread - Recipe

Dean Hinmon’s Super Healthy Banana Bread

2 1/3 Cups flour - I use whole wheat
1/8 Cup sugar
1/4 Cup chopped walnuts (optional, I sometimes throw in some roasted, unsalted soy nuts)
1 Cup raisins
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
7 large bananas pureed in the blender.
1 teaspoon vanilla

Notice that there is no oil, eggs, butter, and only a few grains of sugar in this recipe. Super healthy, yet delicious!

Thoroughly mix the dry ingredients, then blend the bananas, add vanilla and mix banana mix with dry ingredients. Pour into an oiled loaf pan and cook at 325-F or 163-C degrees for an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. Depending upon your altitude and attitude.

Eat a slice and then you can leap tall buildings and fly at the speed of a bullet. Feed it to insensitive people and they suddenly take on the caring personality of guardian angels.

The banana bread has other uses. It can be used as a door stop, an anchor for the boat and can be attached to a steel pipe for weight lifting. It can be used as a step for reaching into a high shelf in the cupboard. There is a case reported recently of the woman who killed her husband by beating him over the head with a loaf and then hid the murder weapon by eating it. Generally, this use is not recommended. You can't make banana bread while incarcerated.

The banana bread IS recommended as a cure for all diseases known to man and woman kind, but for athletes foot, contrary to logic, it should be taken internally. One man applied the banana bread to his toes and an army of ants ate off his leg right up to his hip in the short time it took him to smack his lips after downing the remainder of the slice. There is a case reported in the AMA Journal of a woman in the last stages of terminal cancer who ate a fourth of a loaf of this banana bread and did not die from the cancer. She died from indigestion– only kidding, this bread is healthy and delicious.

Contributed by Dean Hinmon, author of The Fate of Haile Selassie’s Great-grandchildren... When foreign correspondent Mitch Hanley lands in Ethiopia he thinks that the game of death will be the same as in Vietnam and every hot spot he has covered since. He is wrong. In Addis Ababa he becomes a central player, in trying to save the lives of five children, caught in between the Marxist assassination squad and an unknown killer--an unnamed fellow correspondent who might well be the young woman with whom he is falling in love.

***

Be Concise - Writing tip

I remember when I couldn’t write “Hello” without using 500 words and there are those who still call me long-winded. But it’s real good discipline and will serve you well in the future if you can learn to write short. Hemingway once bet someone he could write an entire short story in six words.

According to some, he was very drunk at the time and the other writers who hung around at Sloppy Joe’s Bar in Key West were certain they would win.

“You need plot, a character who changes, and a resolution,” they warned, naming the elements necessary to every story. Hard to do in six words. Everyone agreed it couldn’t be done and put a lot of money on that. Hemingway who had been telling someone with writer's block that he could find stories anywhere, pointed to the classified section of the newspaper — and he collected his bet.

The ad said, “For sale. Baby shoes. Never Used.”

Nancy Madison's Potato Puff - Recipe

Nancy Madison's Potato Puff

8 ounce package of cream cheese
4 cups of mashed potatoes (about 3 large bake potatoes)
1 beaten egg
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
1/3 cup drained, chopped pimiento
1 teaspoon salt and dash of pepper

Soften the cream cheese, blend with mashed potatoes. Add the beaten egg, finely chopped onion, drained, chopped pimiento, salt and dash of pepper..Bake in buttered 1 quart casserole 350-F or 177-C for 45 minutes. Serve at once.Serves 4.

Contributed by Nancy Madison, author of What the World Needs Now and Clues to Love ...Investigating a murder, DCI Nick Connor concludes Kate was the intended victim....While Nick struggles to find the elusive killer, he falls in love with Kate, in spite of his vow to never love again. Can Nick catch the killer before the killer catches Kate?