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Welcome to My Official Web Page!

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Curing Boredom in Ancient Egypt

Wealthy ancient Egyptians had plenty of leisure time and definitely knew how to enjoy themselves. On informal occasions men and women would eat together, but for formal occasions the sexes would be separated (a little detail I haven't always stuck to in my book). At banquets both genders could, and did, drink. One wealthy woman in a tomb scene commands a servant to, "Bring me 18 goblets of wine!" **

Wow.

Of course, after eating the usual singing and dancing would take place. Men and women danced, but were typically separated. Musical instruments from the New Kingdom included oboes, lyres, flutes, and harps. Sistrums were a sort of hand rattle that kept time for the musicians, an ancient sort of metronome.

All of that was for the upper crust, but the lower classes had their entertainment in the form of local inns which stayed open all night for drinking, eating, and mingling. Young men could be catered to at brothels, something I doubt any civilization has ever been without.

**Swiped from the Legacy of Ancient Egypt by Charles Freeman

Saturday, September 26, 2009

An Ancient Egyptian Banquet


Over the years I've written a lot of ancient Egyptian stories and one thing that pops up a lot is food. And as I'm a huge fan of eating (thank goodness for running!) I thought I would share with anyone interested what those poor Egyptians had to eat. (What?! No Nutella? Egads!)


It's a good thing Atkins wasn't around in the ancient world because the staples of the ancient Egyptian diet were bread and beer. Bread for the poor was coarse and often contained sand so most adults would have had pretty worn down teeth. Of course, the average life expectancy was somewhere around 35 so who cares if you're losing your teeth at 20?

Workers on monumental projects were actually paid for their work with bread and beer as ancient Egypt was not a cash-based economy. The fellahin diet was supplemented with onions, (priests were forbidden to eat them due to their aphrodiasic qualities), garlic, leeks, and dried fish (Ummm... ick!). The poor rarely would have had the occasion to eat any other meat. The royal house, the rich, and the temples would have had access to beef, but that's about it.

Veggies eaten included celery, radishes, cabbage, endive, cucumbers, and papyrus roots (those mostly eaten by the poor). Fruits included grapes, watermelon, apples, pomegranate, mulberry, and date palms. Pears, peaches, cherries, and almonds were introduced by the Romans. Tiger nuts, olives, lentils, peas, and other beans were also eaten, although the Greeks once reported that Egyptians refused to sow beans because they found them unclean. They have been found in numerous tombs so perhaps that's just another case of Herodotus being off the mark.

The rich would have enjoyed access to beer, wine, much finer breads (no sand!), water fowl, melons, raisins, dates, figs, onions, lettuce, and other veggies. Their foods would have received such spices as dill, coriander, cumin, cinnamon, and rosemary. Honey was also very popular as a sweetener and vinegar was also used in cooking.


Whew! There you have it- tons of foods to populate any future eating scenes.

Anyone have some papyrus roots I can munch on?

Friday, September 25, 2009

Big Kahunas


I have succumbed.

I went to the book store today and bought Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. Typically I avoid the trendy books on the market, at least until the storm has died down. I didn't read Twilight until this summer and I still haven't read any of the Harry Potter books. I said I wasn't going to buy The Lost Symbol, but a co-worker today told me it was full of Egyptian and Greek history.

I'm feeling a little cheesy today so to steal from Stephenie Meyer, that's my own personal brand of heroin.

So we'll see how it goes. I also bought Stephen King's On Writing so I guess today I'm just supporting the big kahunas of the writing world.

I swear on the next trip to Barnes and Noble I'll only buy the little guys!

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Eternal Optimist


I love a good list.

There's something about putting those little checks in the boxes that makes me feel like I've accomplished something. One day when I'm old I plan to take up birding just so I can check off more boxes. 'Cause I'm super cool like that.

Now, I love my job twisting the minds of America's youth, er... teaching high school students American history, but it's awfully hard to get much done when you have to go work for eight hours a day. Hence my inability to blog every day or even every other day.

My wishful thinking to-do list today.

1. Go to work. (This at least gives me one check!) CHECK!
2. Go to the library with my daughter. CHECK!
3. Clean bathrooms. Ummmm...
4. Catch up at Panhistoria. Right...
5. Post on blog. CHECK! (A little preemptive since I'm not done yet, but whatever.)
6. Edit 10 pages in MS. Was that a pig that just flew through the window?
7. Go for a run. CHECK!
8. Finish reading Killer Angels. Huh?

I'm going to be an optimist here and say that my list was halfway successful. Of course, all the ones I didn't finish today will roll over to tomorrow. But then it's the weekend! Huzzah!

Saturday, September 19, 2009

I Love a Good Ending


All books need great hooks to draw their readers in, but a good ending is also critical. There's nothing worse than investing the hours required to read 400 pages or so and then getting to the last page and thinking, "That's it?"

My time is valuable!

Two of the books that I've read with outstanding endings are Life of Pi and The Time Traveler's Wife. I read Pi almost a year ago and the ending still has me thinking. The TTW has an ending that is simply perfect. I almost put the book down about 100 pages into it, but kept plugging away and I'm so glad I did. The conclusion was definitely worth it.

A couple others I can think of are both by Thomas Hardy- Tess of the D'Ubervilles and Jude the Obscure,. Hardy's style is to start out painfully slow, but once you're past the halfway mark the action never stops. Both of those had shocking endings I still remember. I was even flabbergasted by Jude when forced to read it in high school so that's pretty darned impressive. If an old white dude could write something to shock a jaded, hormonal teenager you know it's good.

So, which book endings have made an impression on you?

Monday, September 14, 2009

Egyptian Happy Dance!


I know you can't see me right now so you're going to have to take my word on something.

I'm dancing.

A super happy dance. I would go so far to say that I'm doing an Egyptian happy dance (rare and hard to quantify in words). What has brought this rush of crazed dance fever on?

I rewrote my ending. As in totally rewrote my ending.

It hadn't been sitting well with me since I wrote it, but I'm okay with being messy in a first draft. And boy howdy, but it was messy. I like to remember something I read in an interview from Sue Monk Kidd (love her!). Kidd said she doesn't stick with her first instinct when writing because it's usually the third idea she comes up with that's best. Well, I tweaked the ending in little ways, but it still tasted bad. The thing that bothered me most was that my characters didn't seem like themselves any more. And then my husband read it (intrepid explorer that he is!) and agreed that it was off.

If my biggest cheerleader says there's a problem I know there's a problem.

But I'll be darned if I couldn't get the thing right. But then, as I was brushing my teeth two night ago, a solution dawned on me. Of course, it's the simplest solution, but for the life of me I couldn't see it. The new ending ties everything together and allows my characters to be true to their natures.

So now the conclusion feels perfect, like coming home after a long day's work.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Word Count Quandry


Here's a question for all you published authors out there. And agents. And editors. Really, anyone who knows more about writing than I do which is just about everyone.

Which word count formula should one really use for a query letter?

Granted, I'm not at the querying stage just yet, but the writing conference I just went to threw me for a loop. We were told by an agent that the maximum word count for historical fiction is 80,000. I had always heard 100,000, but I figure there must be a range. Either way, my finished WIP was at 120,000 words and is still being trimmed.

However, the waters get even murkier when one takes into consideration the fact that word count will vary wildly depending on how you count it. According to Word, my WIP currently sits at a cozy 107,000 words. But if you use the 250 words per page that many agents mention, it right under 100,000.

So if I were done could I just say 100,000 and call it good? Please? :)

Friday, September 11, 2009

Search and Destroy!


It's amazing how you can edit the same passage a kazillion times, but when you go back and read it one more time you find more glaring errors. I've been pondering the ending of my WIP (already written, but there's something missing) and going through the first few chapters nitpicking.

There are a lot of search and destroy words that are only now jumping out at me.

That.

It was apparent.

I can't remember the others. But they're out there. But instead of this being a painful process, my twisted cerebellum has turned it into a ridiculous little game. Each time I find one of those sneaky words or phrases I get this little twinge of demonic glee, like I've secretly discovered some pesky little bug and smashed it to smithereens.

Actually, I try to release most bugs into the great outdoors, but if I were into bug-smashing that's how I'd imaging it might feel. Like when I was kid. I liked to smash bugs then.

But I digress.

With the right mindset editing can be fun!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Reading Blitzkreig


I have to admit that I'm a little behind the times on what's in my reading pile. Until this summer I felt like I hadn't read in almost three years- no one tells you when you spawn that the little darlings are time suckers.

Seriously, I adore my princess-clad monkey. :)

But there are only so many hours in the day and all of my free time after she was born (when I had any) was devoted to writing. So reading fell by the wayside. But I'm getting back into the groove, especially after my summer reading blitz.

So all those bestsellers from the last three years? I'm just now reading them. But I'm super excited for Gary Corby's book due out next year. If you're a fan of ancient Greece you must check it out!

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Help!

So I found this uber-cool new layout for my blog (not that I don't love the brown, but I want something a little jazzier), but encountered technical difficulties yesterday when going to upload it. Apparently, because the set isn't from Blogger it wants to delete all my widgets, including my followers.

Ack!

Does anyone know if I can put that back in once it's been deleted? I hate HTML- it makes me want to hurt small children and fuzzy animals when I have to deal with code. I just don't want to delete everything on the left sidebar if it would permanently disappear into the ether. But I really want my purty new background.

Anyone out there know the answer? A quick fix?