Alex Washoe's Blog

Today my new novel Simply Connected launched on Amazon. I’m very happy with it and eager for it to be read and successful — as is any author. But of course, that happens (if at all) in it’s own time, not as instantly as I would prefer. So today is really about managing anxiety, and keeping myself from checking the sales rank on Amazon every five minutes (FYI they don’t update that fast.)

I planned to go for a run this morning — I deliberately delayed my usual Sunday long run to today so I could use that as a distraction. When I woke up this morning, though, it was very cold and the sidewalks were slushy. Not ideal running weather. I decided to delay my run until the afternoon and went for a walk with the neighbor’s dog instead. (Franklin, a German shepherd, a great walking companion who doesn’t even mind if I dictate sometimes while we walk.) When I got back home I decided to turn to what is currently my second favorite way of handling anxiety — baking.

I’ve been wanting to try a variation on one of my favorite recipes, the “Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookie” recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. You can find it online, or in their wonderful cookie book.

Just like with writing, I tend to value process over product in baking. The pleasure for me comes in the doing — and in other people enjoying. (Not that I don’t eat my fair share — why do you think I go running?). For that reason, this post is not a complete recipe, it’s just a walk-through of my experiment.

What makes this recipe so awesome is that it improves on the standard Toll House cookie formula in a number of ways. The most important, I think, is that it uses brown butter. Instead of just softening the butter, or even melting it, as most recipes call for, you go a little bit further and brown the butter. Continuing over a medium heat for a couple of minutes, swirling and stirring as necessary, the butter takes on a golden brown color and has a beautiful nutty smell. You have to watch it closely at this point because the line between browned and burnt is very thin and once you cross it, there’s nothing you can do but dump it out and start again.

Another refinement of the traditional recipe is using more brown sugar than granulate sugar, and dissolving the sugar directly in the browned butter. Stir it in and let it sit for a few minutes, then repeat, several times. This allows the butter to totally dissolve and bind with the butter.

Up until this point, it was totally the ATC recipe — they know a lot more about baking than I do. But I wanted to do something a little different today. Their recipe calls for about a cup to a cup-and-a-quarter of semi-sweet chocolate chips. I augmented that with chunks of dark chocolate and a large helping of espresso chips.

Not satisfied, I also added two teaspoons of Hershey’s Dark Cocoa powder and a quarter cup of espresso powder. This darkened the dough a lot, giving it a cool marbled look.

The recipe calls for three-tablespoon balls of dough. Mine were slightly larger than that. I ended up with thirteen cookies instead of sixteen, but they were all the same size, which is what matters. (My dough was a little thicker than it would have been, because of all the “extras” I added.)

Then I made a mistake.

The recipe in the book has instructions for baking the cookies as is, and also for baking them from frozen. (You can freeze the dough balls and take them out to cook them as desired.) The standard instructions call for 10-14 minutes at 375 degrees. The FROZEN instructions call for 30 to 35 minutes at 300 degrees. I accidentally chose the latter, turning them at about 14 minutes and taking them out (because they were obviously done) at about 26 minutes. By that time I had realized my mistake and so I corrected for the second batch, cooking them at the higher temperature for the correct time.

The difference was interesting. The first batch spread out more, and are maybe a little crispier at the edges than I would’ve liked, but they’re still very good. Intensely (almost overwhelmingly) chocolate.

The second batch, which I baked the correct time, are thicker, not as spread out, a little cakier. The taste is very similar, and the difference is subtle. If I put them all together in the cookie tin — which I plan on doing — most people probably wouldn’t notice the difference. But (as with weaknesses in writing that no one else seems to see) I know it’s there.

I always like to finish baking by asking myself what I could do better. Obviously in this case, get the cooking time right, although I think the overall effect on the cookies was small. Also, I think, I would leave out the cocoa powder and accentuate the espresso. And I wouldn’t use such a strong dark chocolate — even though there are few chunks of it, the 100% cocoa is too much, something not quite so strong would work better. But again, these are things I notice. Probably others won’t.

I hope this was interesting. Please check out the ATC recipe if you love chocolate chip cookies. It is quite definitely the best.

As I mentioned at the beginning, my new book is out today. It’s a sweet contemporary lesbian/nonbinary romance (with a smattering of baked goods in it). You can find it on Kindle for .99 cents (until Valentine’s Day). It’s also free on Kindle Unlimited.

If you want to stay up to date on what I’m doing, upcoming projects and releases, you can join my newsletter/mailing list HERE.

Available Monday, July 8th — just in time for Valentine’s Day.

“Meditation is not about being perfect” — according to the calm, soothing voice on the meditation app I sometimes use. “It is the nature of the mind to stray. When you become aware of your thoughts straying, just gently bring yourself back and focus on your breath.” These lapses, the app assures me, are not failures. The endless process of noticing my straying thoughts and bringing them back IS meditation. That’s the whole point.

I am also a runner. And, of course, a writer. These are both activities I have strayed from over the years. In the early 2000’s I ran a lot. My peak was 2008 when I ran a half-marathon. But a series of set-backs starting that year led to a long period of depression and running stopped being part of my routine.

Until about a year ago. After going back into therapy for gender dysphoria and body issues, I finally got serious about losing weight. As my weight decreased my desire for activity increased. I started running again, gradually increasing my times and distances. I ran a 5K in March of this year, and I’m still improving. Running is a healthy, pleasurable space for me that I can’t believe I ever let myself stray from.

The same is true of writing. No other activity has been as constant in my life. I started composing stories before I could write, dictating them to my father, and taking them to school to share with my teachers. I have always written in some form or another. But the seriousness of my commitment has waxed and waned. When I was young, I was devoted to writing, determined to be the next William Faulkner (I grew up in the south) or Carson McCullers. As I got older my models changed but the ambition remained.

As with running though, life got in the way. I got distracted by other things, bad choices, all the business of living. I always wrote, but for years it was just dabbling. It wasn’t until the last ten years that I got really serious again about writing and publishing professionally.

Running for any distance — or writing at any length — has a lot in common with meditation. We face essentially the same challenge, to deal with the mind’s straying nature and constantly bring ourselves back to the original intent. When I start on an afternoon run, I tell myself “just settle in, we’re going to be doing this for the next forty minutes”. And I know that during that time I’ll have a whole cast of thoughts floating through my brain. About the weather, about what I’m writing (or why I haven’t written), health, friends, bills that need to be paid, and every twinge and minor pain throughout my body. Thoughts about the hill I’m running up, how much my legs muscles burn, how hungry I am, what’s for dinner, that time I fell right here and skinned myself up on the sidewalk. I’m tired, I can’t make it, I have to stop, not today.

Any one of those thoughts can stop me. If I latch onto it, buy into it, I’ll stop. I might feel terrible about it or I might feel justified, but I’ll stop. It’s easy, like tossing an anchor out behind the boat.

The same is true of writing. On days when I’m having trouble getting started or staying focused, I often do sprints. Set the meditation timer and start writing. Fifteen minutes, thirty minutes (depends on how hard it is to commit that day). Put your head down and run — type — and don’t stop until the timer goes off.

Then here come the thoughts. I’m tired. I’m sleepy. I’m hungry. This sucks. What am I even doing this for? I messed this piece up in the last paragraph or the last chapter. I don’t even like this anymore. I’ll write later.

Every single one of those thoughts can stop me dead.

The solution — the only solution I know and the one that spiritual and mental health teachers have been touting for centuries — is to just keep bringing the mind back. The thoughts float up and I watch them like TV commercials (unfortunately without fast-forward or mute) and I say to myself, “That’s very interesting. Right now we’re running though.” And keep running.

Or, “Yes I am anxious about how people took that comment I left on Facebook this morning, but I don’t have to check it right now. I’m writing.” And keep writing.

On the good days. Other days, I lose myself in distraction entirely and those days disappear and hardly leave a trace on my memory.

But as soon as I become aware again — I haven’t run this week, I haven’t written in a while — I bring myself back. It took me ten years to come back to running. I’ve spent a lifetime straying and coming back to writing. But the meditation teachers insist that’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s the nature of life. That’s the nature of the mind. If you spend an entire session sitting on the floor, dragging your mind to your breath every few seconds, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to be doing. That IS meditation.

So I used to have a blog. Actually, I had two blogs, “Books and Beasts” which was mostly reviews of books about (I bet you can see this coming) animals. The other was called “Birdland West” which was about birding and related topics. Then I combined both of those blogs into a single writer’s blog and that continued for a while.

And life happened. Distraction happened. I concentrated on writing books, I got caught up in therapy, in coming out … and I didn’t blog very much for a long time. Every once in a while I would remember and I would bring myself back, write a review or a post, and then I’d drift away again.

Now I’m back.

My intention is to blog here regularly. I suspect it will be filled with the things I care about. Pop culture, issues of representation, Queer politics, literature, superheroes, baseball, birds, running, dogs, my cat. What the world looks like through my particular window.

That’s the plan. I’ll keep you posted.

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It occurred to me lately that I possess a blog, which I seldom make adequate use of, and a seemingly endless stream of opinions about pop culture subjects. Since I’m always telling myself I should blog more often, the solution seems obvious.

First off, I’d just like to say — I really like the Cats trailer. I know that hasn’t been the prevailing opinion on the internet, but to me it feels whimsical and fun. And I already know I love the music. The cast is awesome. I’m excited about it.

I saw the play on Broadway many years ago. At the time I was bumming around New York, basically hiding from my family who had gotten it into their heads that I’d be a good fit for the military (it’s like they didn’t even know me) and I had some time to kill so I scrounged up cheap tickets to every show I could see. I saw Bernadette Peters and Mandy Patinkin in Sunday in the Park With George. I also saw Anthony Quinn in Zorba the Greek and Sigourney Weaver and John Hurt in Hurlyburly. But the play I remember the best — even though I can’t name of the cast — was Cats.

I remember that I was sitting on the upper level — not very good seats really — and as soon as the lights went down and the music started, these shadowy figures started to spill out from backstage, running up and down the isles, scurrying through the balcony. Cats — actors dressed as cats — all over the theater. The spookiness and fun of those moments stayed with me every since.

There’s a wide range of opinion out there — a lot more than you’d expect from just a first trailer. (And I understand the irony of saying that as I add to the volume). With any kind of art or entertainment, you expect people who like it and people who don’t — and a whole lot of people in the middle who could care less. This post over by M. Arbeiter over at The Nerdist kind of sums up some of my feelings. Meanwhile, there’s this post at The Mary Sue, by Rachel Leishman — a site and a writer I often agree with — that I don’t get at all.

I’m going to let it go at that, except to throw in one of my favorite meme-quotes:

“Promote what you love instead of bashing what you hate.”

I’m also really excited by the news that Brandon Routh will be playing Superman again this fall. He was the very best part of the disappointing Superman Returns. (Which was still way, way better than Man of Steel). For the past four years or so (actually longer because he originated the part on Arrow) he’s been playing Ray Palmer, aka The Atom, on DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. Routh is one of those actors who just looks like he was born to play a comic book character. His earnest charm and awkward good looks are pure Clark Kent. In Superman Returns, he looks like the ghost of Christopher Reeve. Now we have the news he’ll be suiting up as Supes in the annual Arrowverse cross-over — this time based on the classic Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline. Apparently, there will be two versions of The Man of Steel in the crossover — because Tyler Hoechlin, who already plays the Arrowverse version of Superman, will also be in action.

Can’t leave the Arrowverse without mentioning the biggest news of the season for me. Fall will see the premier of Ruby Rose as Batwoman:

This is fabulous on a lot of levels. Kate Kane — aka Batwoman — is one of the most dynamic characters in the DC Universe, and one not widely known outside the hard core fans. Her backstory, being drummed out of the military under Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell is extremely relevant at this moment in time. Powerful female and LGBTQ representation is vital and this show looks to increase the Arrowverse’s already strong showing. I’m psyched.

I like to share my current writing projects and other topics of interest with my readers. If you want to stay connected, you can join my newsletter here:

You can check out my Westbrook Siblings Western Adventure Series, starting with Book 1 A Land of Iron here.

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LGBTQ fiction too often seems to fall into predictable categories — romance and coming out being the most common. What we never seem to get enough of is genre fiction featuring LGBTQ characters who are living their lives and doing their jobs in a way that is informed, but not defined, by their sexuality or gender identity.

Enter Jinx Ballou.

The hero of Dharma Kelleher’s Chaser is a bounty hunter. Tough, smart and determined to bring her quarry in no matter what it takes.

If it sounds like we’re in Jane Evanovich territory here, you’re right. Jinx owes something to Stephanie Plum and there’s even a thinly veiled nod to the New Jersey bounty hunter early in the book. But Jinx is tougher and grittier than Ms. Plum ever was.

Jinx leads her own team of hunters, having broken away from her boyfriend’s business when the pressures of working together and being in a relationship became too much. She has the respect of her male co-workers, a supportive family — and her hunky Irish boyfriend. When she’s not hunting down criminals, she likes to cos-play as Wonder Woman for local conventions.

But all that changes when an interview with a local newspaper goes bad and the reporter outs Jinx as trans. Suddenly the men don’t want to work with her, the bail bondsmen don’t want to hire her, and she’s in a jam. The only case she can find is a runaway teenager murder suspect, and that pursuit puts her in the sights of human traffickers, bigoted colleagues, and the local police. To survive, she has to smarter and tougher than all of them.

I enjoyed this book so much that I went straight on to the second book in the series.

With Book 2, the Jinx Ballou series really levels up. Book 1 is enjoyable and entertaining because Jinx herself is such a strong character, but Book 2 expands her world, developing her supporting cast, and giving Jinx even more depth and resonance.

In Extreme Prejudice, Jinx rises above just being a bounty hunter, to become a protector of her community and a champion of the vulnerable.

Together these two books are a strong start to what we can only hope will be a long-running series.

Both books are highly recommended.

I like to share my current writing projects and other topics of interest with my readers. If you want to stay connected, you can join my newsletter here

You can check out my Westbrook Siblings Western Adventure Series, starting with Book 1 A Land of Iron here.

Release Date: February 11, 2019

Wyoming Territory, December 1886.

Rebecca Westbrooke journeys
to Cheyenne, desperate to find investors to sustain her fledgling cattle Co-op as
a brutal winter closes in.  Meanwhile,
her brother Lucas is trying to adjust to life on the Owl’s Rest Ranch. After
years of drifting, he’s chafing under the weight of responsibilities he never
wanted to take on. And Jasmine, the former saloon girl Lucas loves, is obsessed
with decorating the house for Christmas – and terrified of choosing between the
person she loves and the home she’s always dreamed of.

But powerful interests have the Westbrook lands in their sights. And hired killers are already on Rebecca’s trail.

Bound by their love
for each other, torn apart by their fears and doubts, the Westbrooke family
must stand together against outside enemies and the betrayal of old friends.

Riding into a storm that will change the face of the West forever.

And don’t miss the first thrilling Westbrooke Siblings Adventure, free on Kindle February 9th through February 13th!

Lucas Westbrooke (born Lucy) walked away from his home and the family who couldn’t accept him, vowing to earn a reputation with a quick draw and a deadly aim. He found freedom in a wider world where no one cared where he came from or who he had once been.

Rebecca Westbrooke
has spent her life caring for the ranch her father built. Refusing to
marry for security, she fights to hold on in the face of a falling
market, sabotage, and pressure from those who would prefer to see her
lands controlled by a man. She still mourns the twin sister she loved
but didn’t understand.

When a dime novelist starts asking
questions about the Westbrooke family and the range war that forged
their empire, Lucas is drawn home to the one place where he can never be
accepted on his own terms. And when those questions lead to murder,
the estranged siblings must work together to unravel the truth about
their father’s death — before they become the next victims.

 Sometimes, certain books come along at just the right moment in our lives.  And sometimes they come along much later.  Not too late, but not at the time we really needed them.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately. When I was growing up in the dark prehistoric ages before the internet — before cable TV even — certain ideas and concepts just weren’t available to my young mind. I read ravenously, everything I could get my hands on, without any real restrictions from my parents, but I knew literally nothing about sexual identity or gender expression.  I remember reading a couple of early news stories about people like Renee Richards, a tennis player who had male-to-female reassignment surgery in the 1970’s — but it was mostly the stuff of punchlines or baffled magazine articles.  One time I tried to talk about one of those articles with my mom — who a vocal feminist and pretty enlightened person for that time and that place (Southern America, firmly inside the Bible Belt).  Her reply was, “Why would anyone want to do that?”

I never heard the words “transgender” or even “transsexual”. In fact, I was a teenager before I ever knew anyone who was openly Gay.  And the depictions of LGBTQ people in the media at that time ranged from non-existent to ridiculous to condescendingly tragic.

It’s hard not to look back and wonder what my life would have been like if I’d had those images — if concepts like gender non-conforming, gender fluid and non-binary had been available to me when I was figuring out who I was. (A puzzle I’ve never even come close to solving.)

So I have quietly been making a list of books and other media that I think of as “Things I Wish Had Existed When I Was A Kid”.

Very close to the top of that list is The Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin.

Riley Cavanaugh is a high school student and the child of a US Senator, from a very conservative district in Orange County. On top of the usual teenage rebellion, Riley (who spent some time in a psychiatric hospital after trying to wash down a bottle of Xanax with booze) is beginning to understand what it means to be gender fluid.  Some days, Riley wakes up feeling like a girl, some days like a boy — and some days neither.

Riley’s father is trying to pass an important new public education bill, and so Riley moves from a private Catholic school (which was hell, but where at least the uniform requirement eliminated the decision of what to wear every morning) to a public school in their district.

Maybe public school will be different, maybe Riley can find a place to fit in and not be the constant target of abuse.  Maybe.  Or maybe not.

But there are new friends to be made: a Star Wars loving Samoan football player called Solo, and Bec, an intriguing girl with a lip ring and lightsaber blue eyes.

On the advice of a therapist, Riley begins an anonymous blog about being gender fluid — and that blog takes off when other teenagers find it and relate to Riley’s struggle.  Suddenly, the isolated outsider has a (virtual) community, a cause to fight for, and (maybe) a girlfriend.

But not everyone is willing to accept Riley on Riley’s terms. And when one of those enemies make the connection between the weird kid in school and the blogger, everything Riley cares about (and Congressman Cavanaugh’s re-election) is put in jeopardy.

The Symptoms of Being Human is a heartbreakingly good book about a main character you can’t help but love and cheer for. A young adult novel that is rich enough for readers of all ages — even for the confused inner children of people who needed books like this a long time ago.

Thank goodness we have them now.

When was the last time a book hooked you so deeply you actually worried about the characters when you weren’t reading?

“I’m writing because I wish these stories had been available for me to read when I was dealing with some tough identity issues, and I want them to be available to other people who are struggling.” — A.E. Dooland

I found Under My Skin sort of by accident.  I was looking for fiction that featured nonbinary/transgender characters and I was drawn in by the fun, playful cover.  I have a weakness for sweet LGBTQ romance stories and that is what I expected here. (I did notice that the book is much longer than most romance novels, and that gave me a moment of pause.) By the time I realized that Under My Skin was a lot more than that — not the breezy lighthearted romance I expected — I was too in love to quit.

Fair warning:  This book disrupted my sleep cycle for several nights running.  I simply could not stop reading.  And it does have its breezy, wonderful romantic moments — a lot of them.  But they’re set in a story about the price of hiding who you really are (from the world and yourself) and the cost of coming out (to the world and to yourself.)

Ming Lee is a Korean/Australian woman living in Sydney.  She has a great job in the marketing department of an international mining corporation, a boyfriend who is almost too perfect, and a comfortable home that she loves.

But underneath the surface, she is restless and unsatisfied. She has extreme body issues, almost no social life, and has been drinking too much.  When she paints a portrait of herself as a man, it sets off a series of events that will change everything in her life.

Part of the power of this novel is the main character.  I was in love with Ming from the start — not just sympathetic or interested — head over heels in love.  Then comes her best friend at work, Sarah, her incredibly perceptive (except where it really counts) boyfriend Henry, and Bree — a troubled schoolgirl force of nature who finds Ming’s paintings on Deviant Art and storms into her life like a hurricane. All these characters quickly became friends that I cared about and rooted for.

And there are a couple I could really hate.

As Ming’s life spirals more and more out of control, there were parts of this novel so intense I had to put the book (ok, the e-reader) down — and then I just continued to worry about the characters and be anxious about what would happen to them until I went back.  It’s kind of a cliché to say a story made you laugh and cry, but this one did — and hit just about every emotion in between.

So, even though this is a long book, I never once felt bored or thought that it went on too long.  I didn’t want it to end.

Which is good because there are two more books in this series.  Flesh and Blood, which is a sequel, continuing Ming’s story, and Solve for ί, which deals with some of the supporting characters from Under My Skin.

I totally intend to read them both.  But I need to catch my breath for a moment first.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.