Spring at My House: Writing, Baking, Gardening

  I hope and pray you are blessed and healthy this warmer month of March. Here's what's cooking at the Martin house in S.C. The tallest Chocolate Pound cake I've ever baked. Look for the recipe at the end.

Wish I knew what I did differently.    
 

That's not all that's cooking! Here's my book news.

Drum Roll No. 1

Grab Georgia Ann, English Rose, right now for $.99 through March 12.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087YV77P2  (Click the redirect link if it shows up) ( :

Here's a review!

Bunnyhop
VINE VOICE
5.0 out of 5 stars A Sweeping & Majestic Tale
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2020.  Like the first book, which you don't have to read but you should because it's also amazing, this book hooks you from the beginning! It's a majestic tale that takes you to the Barbary Coast to pirates to Tripoli to the Spice Islands to the English rule in other parts of the world in the 1700's and so many parts in between! I could write about this book for days! I loved Georgia Ann and Samuel. What they wouldn't do for each other! The level of sacrifice and love was breathtaking. Slave ships and brother-to-brother secrets plus characters that will endear you or revile you! I just never wanted the book to end! Sometimes you never knew which character was friend or foe. I could easily see this book become a movie because it was so "sweeping" in nature! Spanish Galleons riding the open seas being taken over by pirates and sultans in Tripoli with harems but always, the main characters having a strong faith when they are in terrible circumstances! I loved every word of this book and highly recommend it!

Drum Roll No. 2
The publisher of my first two novels, Summer of Deception and the prequel, In a Pirate's Debt, are honoring their Barrett family connection at a  special sale. Click for your copies March 6-13 at $.99 each. 
https://amzn.to/3bj73zz  (click redirect link if it shows up)

The Barretts of Charleston (2 book series)

Set in the beautiful and historic city of Charleston, South Carolina, follow the Barrett family from the days of Captain Lucas Bloodstone Barrett, a pirate in the 1720s, to his descendant, former Marine Special Ops member Luke Barrett, owner of his family's working tea plantation. Prepare for breathless adventure and romance to make you swoon!

Elva's Tall Chocolate Pound Cake
Set oven to 325 F. Grease and flour large tube pan.

2 Sticks butter (or substitute 1 cup Crisco)
1/2 cup Crisco
3 cups sugar
5 large eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
1/3 cup sour cream
4 cups self-rising flour
1/2 cup cocoa
2 tablespoons vanilla
1 tablespoon almond flavoring

Use large mixing bowl. Mix butter, Crisco and sugar, adding eggs one at a time. Add flavorings.  Measure flour and cocoa and sift together. Add flour mixture a cup at a time and alternate with milk.

Spoon dough into tube pan and place in oven on middle rack. Place a square or cake layer pan filled 1/3 full of water in top right corner. This is supposed to help stop deep cracks in the top of cake, but you see I still had a few, happily not too deep. ( :

Bake at 325 for 30 minutes. Turn down to 300 degrees and bake one hour. When toothpick is inserted in the middle and it comes out clean, the cake is done. 

Let set about 10-15 minutes, then turn out on a bread rack, and I cover with plastic cake topper to keep cake moist while cooling. Then I transfer it to a cake plate. Usually, however, hubby and I take a warm slice while still on the rack! Once completely cool, this cake can be sliced into about 2 dozen slices, individually wrapped in waxed paper, inserted into two freezer gallon bags and frozen with great results. It is still delicious and moist when taken out as needed. 

Here's something I'm watching grow these days--my Lupin flower seedlings I'll plant outside after the last frost. 



Onward into Spring, my fave season!
Elva 

 

My Writers' Coat of Many Colors

by Elva Cobb Martin

Jacob gave Joseph a coat of many colors to show the great love he had for this son.

Contrary to branding principles we're told to follow, I believe Father God has given me (and many of you) a writers' coat of several colors.


I am writing fiction and nonfiction, articles, devotions, and contemporary and historical romance novels. I have written a number of poems and a pourquoi children's story.

 I even have a cozy romantic mystery on the back burner whistling like a tea kettle.

But the latest "color" on my palette is an independently published mini-book, Power Over Satan. Publishing my brief Bible teachings and seminars, a long-time goal, is now becoming a reality. This 40-page book is a primer on the believer's authority and how to discern

and overcome attacks of the enemy. It includes many stories of people who have done just that, including my law officer son who chases criminals using not only his law enforcement authority, but powerful spiritual warfare principles as well. Just released on Amazon in both ebook and print, find it here http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00N28ORG0

I trekked across the Alps and forded many rivers learning how to indy publish on Amazon.

But that's another blog.

What about you? Have you found a single brand, genre or type of writing that is bringing you the fulfillment you are seeking as a writer? Or do you long to stretch your wings and soar over the walls of "specific brand" to new places the Lord might be leading you to and your heart beats faster to even think about them?

Joseph's coat of many colors led him into trouble and red-hot-lips testing. But, as Paul Harvey would say, "the rest of Joseph's story" included fame, fortune and being exactly in God's plan for not only himself, but for his family and a new nation being birthed during hopeless times.

 Thanks for dropping by and please do leave a comment and share on Twitter and Face book if you think this article might not bore others.

May you find joy in all you write! Except for that pesky editing. I pray you find endurance and diligence for that.
Elva Cobb Martin

Guest Blog: THE ACHE

Today I welcome guest blogger Katie DePoppe. Hope you enjoy this delightful sharing of the ache known to all true writers and readers. And I think, especially, to romance readers and writers. ---Elva Cobb Martin

The Ache

by Katie DePoppe

Literature is as old as speech. It grew out of human need for it, and it has not changed except to become more needed. - John Steinbeck

Last week, as I laid in bed with my 4-year-old son, he asked me to tell him a story from when I was a little girl. We’ve discussed that I used to ask my mom the same thing, so while he nearly always chooses a book over the old-fashioned oral story-telling tradition, I jump at the chance when he requests stories from my childhood.

We talk a lot about using our imagination and being creative at home, and he’s great at coming up with his own stories, but when he asks for ideas, I have to admit that I re-live my childhood vicariously in 5-minute heart-swelling increments. I’m not ashamed.

So, on that random evening last week, I was more than willing to share my “stories” with him. Most were just snippets of great memories. One of those: explaining to him how I would wait all week for my mom to take me to the Home Video each Saturday to rent one of Shelley Duvall’s Fairy Tale Theater classics. My favorite? The Seven Dancing Princesses, an old classic complete with mystery, an invisibility cloak, and a secret passage way.

I watched as my little boy’s eyes widened as I told the story.   

“I am so excited,” he said, and then his little face fell for a moment. “I just want to be in the story so bad, Momma.”

I told him I understood. I know that ache. More than he knows.

Over the years, there have been those stories – you know the ones – that affect you. The ones that linger long after you’ve read the last line, a shadowy friend who follows you as you go back to everyday life; the ones that seem to wrap their hands around your shoulders and pull you through the pages and hold you there for a while.

As a child, there was a storybook I spent hours poring through because the illustrations were so beautiful; I decided I wanted to live there and spent hours of my early years trying to draw pictures like those. I still remember, with great nostalgia, my eighth grade self, tucked into bed in the wee hours of the morning, brought to tears for the first time by a novel. And I could write all day about the works that I’ve read as an adult that have shaped my heart in some good way or opened my eyes to a new way of thinking.

What’s the point of this, you ask?

This post isn’t meant to teach or tell you something you don’t already know. Rather, I thought it might be nice to have a reminder interspersed amongst all the well-thought strategies and professional advice – a reminder of why we do what we do.

I hope I write something that will one day put that ache in someone’s heart, that ache I know all too well and which my son felt for the first time at 4. How easy it is to forget that literature has the power to change the world.

For more information on the power of literature and a recent study on the power of fiction, visit http://teachthemdiligently.net/blog/2013/10/power-fiction/

Katie DePoppe is a co-founder and the editor at large for AZALEA, a magazine that celebrates the lifestyle, history, and culture of the South Carolina Lowcountry. She spends her days working in the library basement of a local university and her late nights tinkering with words she hopes will eventually appear on her personal blog, The Southern Apothecary (currently under re -construction), or in the pages of a Southern gothic short story collection. She lives with her husband and son, five dogs, twenty chickens, four peacocks, and a plethora of strays on her grandfather’s land near Charleston. She is a member of Word Weavers International, ACFW-SC Chapter, and is a life-long member of Sigma Tau Delta, the International English Honor Society. Connect with Katie on Twitter @KDePoppe.

What Is Christian Fiction? Is It Alive and Well? PART 2

by Elva Cobb Martin

Can We Define Christian Fiction--in more ways than one?

Novelist and sought after conference leader Ron Benrey in his Complete Idiots' Guide for Writing Christian Fiction lists a spiritual content spectrum for Christian fiction.  

At the high end: The Conversion Scene—you tell a story that shows conversion.

The Middle Ground: Show Jesus at Work—in the lives of your characters or theme.

At the very Least: You show progress in a lead character’s Christian walk.

A few years ago Literary Agent Karen Ball did a three-part blog and survey on “What Makes a Christian Book “Christian?” She posted the results as follows:

■ Written from a Christian worldview

■ Story offers hope

■ Core of the story shows importance of faith in Christ

Worldview is often defined as the core values that determine a person’s outlook on life and, for a writer, how and what they write.

Christy award-winning author and mentor, Rosey Dow, in her novel-writing course, says worldview can be determined by the answers to three brief questions:

1) How did we get here and who are we?

2) What went wrong?

3) What can fix it?

The Christian worldview short answers would be:

1) God created the world and made us in His image.

2) Adam and Eve sinned and brought condemnation upon all mankind.

3) Sin must be punished but God loved mankind so much He sent Jesus Christ as our substitute to take our punishment so we could be forgiven.

The World’s Other Views 

                                                                

I think it is significant as a writer to understand the basic non-Christian worldviews that some of our characters/villains may need to exemplify.

I’ve ran across a text in the Bible where worldviews other than God’s POV are described as three types of non-Christians.

We see these worldviews played out in multiplied popular novels, movies, and television programs, as well as life in general and in politics.

How long will you simple ones love your simple ways? How long will mockers delight in mockery and fools hate knowledge?

(Proverbs 1:22 NIV)

 The simple naively think they can live any way they want without negative consequences.

 The mockers are the defiant and cynical freethinkers who see no place for God in their philosophies of life.

Fools is a term the Bible uses for those who reject the idea that there is a divine being and that such a being, if he does exist, has any interest in the affairs of humankind.

In many powerful stories we see a contrast of characters who have a Christian/loving worldview with characters who embody, overcome, or suffer defeat with a secular/selfish worldview. Scarlet O’Hara and Melanie in Gone with the Wind come to mind. The contrast is what makes the story and the characters unforgettable.

How would you define Christian fiction? How important is worldview? What stories, books, movies, television programs come to your mind that exemplify various worldviews? We look forward to your comments.

Next Time Part 3: How Alive or Well Is Christian Fiction?

Elva Cobb Martin is president of the South Carolina Chapter of American Christian Fiction Writers. She is a former school teacher and a graduate of Anderson University and Erskine College. Decision, Charisma, and Home Life have published her articles. She is currently polishing her second novel, an historical inspirational romance. A mother finally promoted to grandmother, Elva and her husband Dwayne, and a mini-dachshund Lucy reside in Anderson, South Carolina. Connect with her on her web site www.elvamartin.com, on Twitter @Elvacobbmartin and on Face book.

What Is Christian Fiction? Is it Alive and Well? PART 1 by Elva Cobb Martin

As a writer or reader of Christian fiction, what do you look for in a book from a Christian publisher or Christian author?

What do you hope to see?

What do you definitely NOT want to see?


What is Christian fiction?



Last month Colleen Coble, award-winning author and CEO of American Christian Fiction Writers and her friends at Harper Collins sent out a fiction survey asking similar questions.

Publishers, editors, agents, and writers are asking these questions anew today as the Christian fiction traditional publishing industry struggles to prosper or even, in some cases, to survive.

As a writer, I'm sure you’ve heard “Every CBA agency and publishing house has a slightly different idea of what’s okay and what’s not, so study their guidelines.” Does this prove a problem for you even after you research guidelines? If so, you're among quite a few for whom it does.                                                       

Do you have a bucket list of things you would like to do in Christian fiction you write or what

you would like to see in Christian fiction you read? What about a list of what you do not want to write or read?”

Thanks for stopping by! We’d love for you to share your comments as we continue with this series examing Christian fiction and where it might be headed.

Elva Cobb Martin