What the hell?
Yes, this is the week that Father Vuono dies.
Are you following my mafia story? Thank you if you are! After all these years of helping other people finish their damn novels I am so happy to have someone, anyone reading mine. What do you think?
It’s no secret. I have “battled” my weight my whole life, and I think almost nothing is as fun as trying a food I have never tried before. I’m getting better at accepting my body as it is, but I still want to try that food I’ve never had before. Like this one, pure coconut yogurt.
I might also be called a foodie too, and perhaps a bit of a super-taster, because I tend to like foods with strong flavors, weird textures, and the like. I adore anchovies. I do not find them to be even remotely too salty. I like to treat myself to an occasional can of herring in mustard sauce, or sardines in mustard. I can drink the cold black over-cooked coffee from the bottom of the percolator with not only ease, but even joy (it’s certainly going to kick that migraine!) And, between us here on this blog, I love a all things dairy. One of the dairy things I love is Leyden cheese, cheese that has cumin seeds in it that I call “kitty-cat” (I use another word actually) cheese, because to me it has a certain scent of a woman. Yep. I just wrote that. Dairy, wow. Ice cream and milk don’t agree with me as much as they did when I was a child, which is fine, actually, though I do miss the occasional glass of chocolate milk with something to go with it like a liverwurst and onion on pumpernickel with mustard. I love sour cream, and buttermilk, could eat a tub of one and drink gallon of the other, and I also like plain yogurt. Plain, not flavored with fruit or, heaven forbid, artificial sugar. Oh yogurt! What have they done to you? I also would prefer to live off of animals less than I do, and so when I saw this plain, unflavored, coconut yogurt, I had to try it. I believe I found it at Sprouts, a ridiculously expensive market that I go into (now that I am back in CA) occasionally just to see what new “healthy” delights have been created.
This stuff is delicious. Yes, I think I could throw it on some too-spicy Indian food or put it on a taco in place of sour cream. It has a colder feeling on the tongue than yogurt or sour cream, almost icy, and it has just a slight sweetness to it, very slight, and just a slight sourness to it. So if yogurt or sour cream are too sour for you, you may like this. Sadly I do not remember if it was pricy. It is thicker and smoother than both sour cream and yogurt (and I usually eat the skyr kind of yogurt). There is no wetness to it. Very dry. No jiggle, no glop. It’s very much like kindergarten paste from the 1970s. I didn’t eat kindergarten paste (though I do remember tasting Play Doh. Not bad, salty, but like sweat salt, not my favorite.), but the texture is bang-on: paste. Thicker than coconut cream , which I have made whipped cream and icing out of. I’m guessing you could do that with this too.
This is a four ounce container at one hundred and ninety calories. Not too many calories in what looks to my eyes like a big container; I don’t think I can eat more than half (it is my afternoon snack). BUT, and this is a big but, speaking as a person with a big butt, look at the fat. 18 grams, and 15 of them saturated. That’s coconut for you. Man, I love fresh coconut. If I ate a whole coconut, which I could not but let’s just say I could, I’d be eating 1400 calories and 144 grams of fat. But, I’d also get fiber, 36 grams of it, and over 50% of my daily iron needs. This has only 2 grams of fiber. So, an actual hunk of coconut may be better for you than this. But if you want it for a treat, you could do a lot worse, and I think it’s really yummy.
Tell me, what are you making for dinner tonight? Sometimes I am so inspired, but I have been editing my tushie off the last few days, and I am a bit brain-fried. I just want someone to hand me a meal. LOL.
The above image shows you what it looks like when you go into Kindle Vella (KV) to read. I read on my laptop or my phone. I don’t own a Kindle or an iPad or tablet.
In my opinion, it is a bit strange, because it is trying to mimic a book page, but it ends up being long and thin.
But, I love it. It’s fun getting it ready, posting it. I love creating my goofy polls, which, honestly, no one is taking, but I am trying to make them anyway, just in case, and, also, because they give you a little insight into me.
In many ways, this is not the kind of book me, today, would write. I had the idea, I sadly must admit, quite some time ago, but being an adjunct I never had time to finish it. And that is why I started saying, “Finish your damn novel!” because it is what I say to myself, inside my head, all the time.
This book, frankly, was inspired by the book, The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Bien, and not by The Godfather by Mario Puzo, though I read that too, as a kid, and loved it, but I was under the age of 10, and I haven’t read it since. LOL. No, this definitely was sparked by my O’Brien loyalty. I love that novel, and I taught that novel as often as colleges would allow me to, for over 20 years. O’Brien’s writing is some of the best. I would venture to say I have whole sections of the book memorized. And, of course, I’ve sold many copies of the book for the man.
(Small side story, I wanted to go to the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, but I never applied, because my boyfriend begged me not to. My grad school poet friend applied and got in, and she told me that O’Brien came as a guest lecturer, and she and he were an item. I asked my friend to ask O’Brien to sign my book, but she refused. I don’t know whether or not her story was true, but I know that soon after our friendship fizzled because she would always make plans with me, and then cancel them because she brought some guy home from a bar. “Oh, Baby Di,” she would say, “I miss you, but I need to fuck Jake some more today. Can we exchange those theater tickets for next week?” More or less, she has what I really thought I wanted, a published book of poetry (or two) and a full-time creative writing gig. Her parents could not be persuaded to be interested in their children, and I think we shared that need for attention from some authority figure. In any case, I never got my book signed. I wonder if she got hers signed.)
This is not the kind of book I thought I would write, but have loved writing it and sharing it. It feels so different from me in topic and tone, but I do like my wordplay, and that definite feels like me to me.
I’m going to put in the first chapter here, in case venturing to KV is not your thing, and I’d love to know what you think. My biggest hope is that the book, though on a stereotype, the mafia novel, does not come across as “been there done that.” I hope I have freshened it up a bit.
Will releasing it on Kindle Vella first create any buzz for the eventual paperback? I don’t know, but I really am loving the process, and I hope Simona finds herself some readers.
To see the book on KV, click here.
Last week’s chapter/episode was called “Waking the Dead,” and it was the first chapter where Simona, the mother of Angel (who is, of course, Simona’s son) is alive, and we both see and hear her, the priest, Father Vuono, and Angel’s father, Remo. This week the chapter/episode is called “Waking the Living.” Can Angel get his shit together to do what his boss needs him to do? His Uncle Chickie is sure gonna try to get Angel to do just that.
Aside from world peace and all that good stuff we all want….
All I want for Christmas, purely for myself, is 50 likes!
It feels kinda awful asking, bothering people nice enough to read my goofy blog by asking for likes, but please give me a like!
Merry Christmas to all! (And to all 50 likes? Maybe just to all authors… lol.)
HoLeY mOLeY… thanks to a concerted effort by family and friends, 29 humans have read and liked my first two episodes! Amazing, and I thank you!
THIS is, currently, only available to read on Amazon. You have to sign in to like it, and, Amazon is currently only allowing USA-based folks to read and like. As is usual with Amazon, they want to see if people are interested before they wade all the way in.
I have a new episode/chapter coming out on Friday, 12/9, and I wonder if I can get to an even 30 readers by then!
I am really curious if people will be interested in the book through the whole process, chapter by chapter.
At the end, we’ll publish it as a paperback.
In the meantime, if you want to take a look, please do. Writers like me live and die based on someone exactly like you being kind enough to take a look. Yes, you have to be signed in and in the USA to leave a LIKE, but the first 3 chapters/episodes are FREE to read!
Last week I sent an email to everyone I could think of, and that helped.
And, I have to say, it was super-awkward asking. It is tough to ask people for help and favors. I am very good at doing favors, but very awful at asking.
Are you able to easily ask for help?
Please consider helping me by reading a chapter or two if you’re able, and thank you so much!
Dianne
The poll is at the end of the scroll, and thank you!
It may sound strange, this coming from the publisher at Devil’s Party Press, but I have finally got a book out that is mine, just mine, and no one else’s! Like, not part of an anthology, not me doing the preface; no, the whole darn book is mine!
I actually have three novels, and this is one of them. They are all very different, but I would say that something about the voice in each is similar… to me.
Be forewarned, this one is chock-full of obscenities, violence, and murder. Oh yes! 🙂 All that good Soprano’s stuff. But this one also has girl power!
I will be putting up a new chapter every two weeks until the book is done.
ANYONE (even you) can read the first three chapters for free!
And follow along either here, or on DPP BLOG as I update you on what I find out about Kindle Vella: does it work, what are the hiccups, does it make money, and etc.
