I was just reading back through the SFF Seven posts this week and taking notes. So much good advice for getting through the cold/flu season so we writers can focus on the thing that makes our magic. That would be, um, writing.
I personally am neither a medical expert nor a particularly effective home-remedy user. If my kids get sick, I take them to the doctor. If my partner gets sick, same. If I get sick... well, the world doesn't stop needing to be dropped off places, so I just plow on through and try to ride it out with a buffet of over-the-counter syrups and pills at the ready.
Wouldn't call myself a big believer in essential oils, necessarily, but inhaling the steam from a bowl of hot water and a couple drops of melaleuca oil seems to help with sinus infections and congestion. Guess you could say I recommend that?
In my ideal world, though, I would handle flu season thusly: From October to March, I would have all my groceries delivered to my home and would venture out of my house only occasionally to soak up a little sunshine in the privacy of my back yard. If you get viruses from other people, chiefly, then what better way to avoid illness than to never encounter another human?
This prescription works best for introverts.
(Like me.)
And people who work from home and live alone.
(Sadly, not me.)
(Pass the tissues? Achoo.)
Wednesday, January 29, 2020
Tuesday, January 28, 2020
It's Plague Season, Now Featuring "Fix It"
It's plague season. The Petri dishes are running amok, spreading their snots and coughs and general oooge throughout the realm. From the first tickle of the throat or the third successive sneeze, we all fear that realization that we too are among the doomed. All too soon we're couch-bound beneath a bankie and clutching a box of tissues. If you've succumbed, dear readers, and are not driving anywhere for 8-10 hours, then snuggle up, Dr. Feel Better is poking around the kitchen.
Some call it a Hot Toddy. Some call it Mercy in a Mug. My family calls it Fix It.
Ingredients:
Caution: Don't add too much booze. The point isn't to get shit-faced 'cause then you'll only feel worse; plus, puking is to be avoided at all costs. Achieving a "nice buzz" is good. Maybe it takes two mugs to get there. You're sick. When that first yawn attacks, give in. Have a good rest. You can make more Fix It tomorrow.
Some call it a Hot Toddy. Some call it Mercy in a Mug. My family calls it Fix It.
Ingredients:
- Honey
- Decaf/Herbal Tea (Flavor of choice, I recommend lemon or orange. If your tummy isn't your friend, pick peppermint. Back away from the high-test stuff unless you want to stay awake, but you're sick, so sleeping is sort of the point.)
- Hot Water (if you don't have tea concentrate)
- Whiskey (Any member of the whiskey family to include: bourbon, rye, scotch, malt, Irish, single malt, etc.)
Caution: Don't add too much booze. The point isn't to get shit-faced 'cause then you'll only feel worse; plus, puking is to be avoided at all costs. Achieving a "nice buzz" is good. Maybe it takes two mugs to get there. You're sick. When that first yawn attacks, give in. Have a good rest. You can make more Fix It tomorrow.
Fantasy Author.
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Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified when I release a new book.
Sunday, January 26, 2020
Dr. Money's Flu Remedies
It's Flu Season, so this week at the SFF Seven we're talking about our favorite tea, soup, or homeopathic feel-better recipe.
As you all may or may not know, I was clever enough to get myself an in-house physician. My hubs, David Money, is a Doctor of Oriental Medicine. As part of his schooling, he learned all about nutrition, herbal formulas, and various supplements.
Really, the best flu remedy is not to succumb to it in the first place. So, if I start feeling under the weather, these are my go-to home remedies.
Vitamin C and NAC
We buy Pure Vitamin C in powder form. I put a scoop of that in some filtered water and take it with NAC (N-Acetyl Cysteine). I also take NAC as a daily supplement, but it's great for kicking up my immune system. The two taken together are like the wonder twins of amping up health.
L-Arginine
If the Vitamin C + NAC isn't doing the job - especially if I'm feeling fatigued - I'll take some L-Arginine. That often does the trick to give my system the boost it needs.
Echinacea
Sometimes, if I'm really feeling like I'm battling a bug, I'll take the L-arginine with some
Echinacea tincture. Mine is literally homemade: I grow my own flowers, use gardening techniques to intensify the plant health, harvest at the optimum time for max potency, and brew the tincture. The stuff I have is powerful!
Gan Mao Ling
For a pre-made, store-bought herbal formula that's great for kicking the flu and other nasties, Gan Maol Ling is our go to. Really, it's great stuff that actually works.
Oscillococcinum®
If none of these are working, we buy some Oscillococcinum®. It's a homeopathic remedy that always does the trick for us if none of the above have worked. It's been a real rescue for me, more than once.
Stay healthy out there people!
Also, since lowering stress is part of staying healthy, I'll mention that I'm teaching a workshop on Taoism at the New England Chapter of RWA in February. Even if you're not a member, you can attend in person for only $5!
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David,
Dr. Money,
Echinacea,
flu remedies,
Gan Maol Ling,
Jeffe Kennedy,
L-Arginine,
NAC,
NECRWA,
Oriental Medicine,
Oscillococcinum®,
Taoism,
Vitamin C
Jeffe Kennedy is a multi-award-winning and best-selling author of romantic fantasy. She is the current President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) and is a member of Novelists, Inc. (NINC). She is best known for her RITA® Award-winning novel, The Pages of the Mind, the recent trilogy, The Forgotten Empires, and the wildly popular, Dark Wizard. Jeffe lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is represented by Sarah Younger of Nancy Yost Literary Agency.
Saturday, January 25, 2020
10 Quotes About Reading
DepositPhoto |
Our topic this week is our favorite quote about books and reading
and why.
Here’s the thing – quotes, like poetry, jokes and geometrical formulae,
don’t stay in my head. I read them, I nod, I ‘like’ it if it’s on Facebook and I
move on. You can tell me the same joke every day and I’ll laugh as if I never
heard it before because my brain doesn’t retain the information. I have a
prodigious memory and always have, but only for certain things.
So what I decided to do this week is go to my favorite
source for quotes, BrainyQuote, and search there. I found no less than 1000
quotes about reading which they curated, so I’ve selected the first ten I found that appealed to me
in some way or another.
There is creative
reading as well as creative writing. Ralph Waldo Emerson
I have no idea what he was thinking but to me it points out
the reader brings their own experiences to a book, a concept which I liked…
Which leads to this quote:
Reading, after a
certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who
reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of
thinking. Albert Einstein
Oh dear, I’m afraid Dr. Einstein and I would have to agree
to disagree. Strenuously. But perhaps a mind such as his (which probably did
retain all kinds of formulae while also making up his own) was too elevated to
merely read. On a side note, I’ve eaten in the Caltech dining room where he used
to sit when he lived there…
DepositPhoto |
Now I do agree with this one:
Any book that helps a
child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing
needs, is good for him. Maya Angelou
I’ve always thought whatever the child wants to read, be it
comics or Nancy Drew or anime or the encyclopedia or whatever, should be
encouraged! Reading is reading and a child can always branch out to other material later.
A rather chilling warning here:
You don't have to burn
books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them. Ray Bradbury
I liked this one:
The reading of all
good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries. Rene
Descartes
Of course I don’t know that people in future centuries will
be reading my scifi romances but an
author can always hope!
One superlatively
important effect of wide reading is the enlargement of vocabulary which always
accompanies it. H. P. Lovecraft
So true!
Personally, I like
reading adventures which really have happened to people, because they show what
kinds of things might happen to oneself, and they teach how to ‘Be Prepared’ to
meet them. Robert Baden-Powell.
I definitely subscribe to this one, probably in part because
of my fascination with the sinking of the Titanic,
and who survived and who didn’t. I remember giving a lot of thought as a child
to what I would have done and how hesitation in a crisis was a killer. My copy
of A Night to Remember by Walter Lord
is too dog eared to read any longer! My daughter bought me a new copy in fact.
I think that entire aspect of my nature – to be prepared (not that I was ever a
Boy Scout, or a Girl Scout LOL!) is an outgrowth of being determined not to be
left behind when all the lifeboats are gone because I dillydallied when there
was still a chance to escape. I love to read about disasters and to think
through what I would have done (or not done)…Inaction can be the worst mistake.
I have never known any
distress that an hour’s reading did not relieve. Montesquieu
So much this ^^^. Losing myself in a favorite book (hello
Nalini Singh and Psy-Changelings) can make any day better. Or becoming
engrossed in a really good new-to-me story.
We shouldn’t teach
great books, we should teach a love of reading. B F Skinner
Because speaking for myself, if I hadn’t already been a
voracious reader at a very early age, some of the BORING awful things we had to
read in junior high and high school just because they were deemed to be
CLASSICS could have turned me off books forever. (Looking at you, Charles
Dickens.)
And I’ll conclude with this:
The unread story is
not a story; it is black marks on wood pulp. The reader, reading it, makes it
live: a live thing, a story. Ursula K LeGuin
Happy reading!
DepositPhoto |
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Veronica Scott
Best Selling Science Fiction & Paranormal Romance author and “SciFi Encounters” columnist for the USA Today Happily Ever After blog, Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything.
Friday, January 24, 2020
Two For the Price of One Quotes
My favorite reading quote wasn't something I'd ever really thought about before now, so it took me a minute to find a way to put into words what I'd valued about reading all my life. It was the place I felt like I should belong, where I could be safe if only for a little while. (Not that I was ever in any kind of danger other than the sort of normal emo danger most kids are in at any time of their lives.) It's just that when it's you getting the jeers and sneers of classmates, a massive fantasy novel behind which to ignore them feels very empowering. So. My two favorite reading quotes:
I've never known any trouble than an hour's reading didn't assuage.
Arthur Schopenhauer
My second favorite book quote:
Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
Groucho Marx
Thursday, January 23, 2020
Reading...it's elementary.
The more that you read,
the more things you will know.
the more things you will know.
The more that you learn,
the more places you’ll go.
the more places you’ll go.
~ Dr. Suess
That’s one of my favorite quotes about books. Like many of you, my love for reading started early on. *Thank You, Mom!* And I have many fond memories of wandering through the bookshelves of my elementary library, inhaling the aroma of aged pages…and the occasionally stinky feet, and to pull book after mind-challenging book down to hold in my hands.
Reading has given me so much, so much more than the oft necessary escape. It’s given me the ability to use and understand multiple perspectives, it’s given me knowledge (yes, my handsome man, even knowledge about made up magic systems counts as knowledge), and it’s given me the inspiration to dream.
So, tell me, what’s your favorite quote about books?
I'm a reader, writer, blogger, musher who pens Sci-Fi as A.C. Anderson and Fantasy as Alexia Chantel. Chronic Disease can't hold me down.
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Books are practical magic
I bet you were hoping for something more profound, hmm?
Truth is, my lived experience is not all that profound. Books were sanctuary for me when I was growing up. I spent a lot of time in the public library, and then I went home and read some more. Books were instructional and safe and dependable. I guess you could say books raised me, so I think of them as a beloved granny maybe, not a magical portal or secret religion. Or, as Oprah Winfrey put it, "Books were my pass to personal freedom."
So in a sense, the truest truth would be to say that books are practical magic.
Tuesday, January 21, 2020
Fav Quote about Reading: There is Nothing...
Decades later, that quote (or some variation of it) has proved true, time and again. Recipes, foreign languages, home repair. Problem-solving, social skills, manners...empathy. That last one is where genre fiction really leads the way. The settings may be improbable, the characters simple or complex, but the interactions are relatable and in many ways prepare us for how to cope/handle/respond to a real-world situation we've never encountered. Books take us out of the echo chamber of our insulated lives and make us think, make us wonder, make us imagine what it's like to not be us.
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quotes,
quotes on books and reading,
Reading
Fantasy Author.
The Immortal Spy Series & LARCOUT now available in eBook and Paperback.
Subscribe to my newsletter to be notified when I release a new book.
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