It’s All In The Numbers

October 11, 2012October 11, 2012 Monica La Portabig accomplishment for an obscure indie author, indie author life, indie publishing journey, indie publishing stories, my Amazon author rank2 Comments

In z all wildly-vast domain of the Amazon publishing world, I’m ranked 200k as an overall author and 1k and something as a scifi author. For someone like me, it’s an amazing accomplishment. And since I believe in the internet adage ‘pic or it never happened,’ here is the screenshot. Let it be noted how cool the number is: it contains the digits from 1 to 4. First and last number in the right order, while second and third have exchanged places. I find it poetic.*

*As of yesterday when I took the screenshot.

Gluten-Free Dairy-Free Peach Crisp

October 10, 2012 Monica La Portacoconut oil recipe, fresh peaches gluten-free dairy-free cake recipe, gluten-free cake mix, gluten-free dairy-free peach crispLeave a comment

I see fresh, succulent peaches everywhere and crisps and cobblers come to mind. But I’ve already sinned for this week—I must confess I had half Costco bagel with cream cheese earlier last Monday—and so I had to try my best not to sin again.

What I had in the Pantry:

For the base

Half cup of Gluten-Free Pantry Old Fashioned Cake & Cookie mix

One quarter cup of Nutiva Extra Virgin Organic Coconut Oil

A pinch of salt

For the filling

4 Peaches

2 Tablespoons of cornstarch

Half a cup of sugar

For the crust

1 Cup of rolled oats

One quarter cup of Tablespoon of brown sugar

2 Tablespoon of coconut oil

2 Tablespoon of gluten-free cake mix

How I made the peach crisp:

Mixed the gluten-free cake mix with the pinch of salt and coconut oil and layered the cooking pan –previously greased with the smallest amount of coconut oil—with it. Cleaned and cut the peaches, coated with the cornstarch and sugar, and poured on the base. Prepared the crust by working with my fingers the rolled oats, coconut oil, flour, and sugar until they blended completely. Finally, I topped the peaches with the crust mix, leveling it carefully. Baked in the preheat oven at 325F for 40 minutes (time and temperature are a mere suggestion, since my oven doesn’t normally do its job,) let it cool for a few minutes, and then devoured. Mind you, I did have a light dinner to honor the cake. Finished with my husband the morning after for breakfast. Was good even cold. Already missing it dearly.

Make Your Own Fairytale #6

October 9, 2012October 9, 2012 Monica La Porta#tuesdayphotomanipulation, dandelion flower and seeds, Italian countryside landscape, make your own fairytale, Paint.NETLeave a comment

In twelve years living in the Northwest I’ve never experienced a Fall as beautiful as this one. The warmth and the quality of the light remind me of the Italian Autumns of my youth and those afternoons when I spent hours playing outside with my friends inventing stories…

Monday Drawing #8

October 8, 2012 Monica La Porta#MondayDrawings, a drawing every Monday, agrestic landscape, artrage, dandelion flower and seeds, drawing representing lightness, Italian hamlet, light blue sky, wacom tablet6 Comments

Lightness is my word of the day. The state of being when you feel everything is possible, because there is nothing anchoring you down. For you, A. E.

Dente di Leone

Friday Snippet #21

October 5, 2012 Monica La Porta#FridaySnippets, friday snippet, small excerpt from a dystopian YA, writing just for fun, writing once a week2 Comments

Fall in full bloom in my neck of the woods, the sun shines over reds, yellows, and oranges. To celebrate, I dyed my hair accordingly and added more purple, because there isn’t enough purple in the world. My vitamin D level to the roof, I’m experiencing a moment of exuberant creativity or maybe it’s the dye trickling down through my hair follicles. In the past, absinthe was used to reach such level of artistic nirvana. I believe in style.

From X:

Allegra lead them to the front door, stepping over the marble staircase with reverence. “I used to play with Mirko and Carina, running up and down these steps, imagining they were an astral portal.” She saw herself and her brother and sister laughing breathlessly. One deep sigh stuck between her aching heart and her throat, Allegra moved them forward toward the entrance.

“Hi.” Julius waved his free hand in a salute; he did that every time he had a glimpse of her. The wooden door, big and polished to mirror-like shine, reflected their images back to them. A tall, elegant boy, and a much shorter and diminutive girl.

Details of their faces were fuzzy, but she knew any other moment he would have accompanied the salute with a big smile. He was always happy to see her. He had just done it to make her happy now. “Hi.” She waved back at him out of habit, then freed her hand from his. “Just a sec.” She looked for the right key among the ones dangling from the ring and once she recognized it she went for the lock.

Julius gently wrapped his hand around her wrist. “Never told you, but I’ve always hoped you’d be paired with me.”

Zero Calories Sweets

October 4, 2012October 4, 2012 Monica La Portafelt chocolates, felt craft, felt goodies, japanese felt technique2 Comments

Would you eat those chocolates?

I don’t remember how, but a few years back I discovered the incredible world of Japanese craft. The wondrous discovery sent me on a buying frenzy on eBay. Not knowing the language didn’t discourage me in the least. I bought several books about felt craft and then I proceeded to study the pictures and interpret the instructions by looking at the images. One of the funniest project was decorating the Christmas Tree with felt goodies. I found working with felt relaxing, because it’s easy, fast, and the rewards are immediate.

Quick Artichoke Aioli

October 3, 2012October 3, 2012 Monica La Portadairy-free dipping sauce, gluten-free dipping sauce, light and quick artichoke aioli, quick low in calories artichoke aioli dippingLeave a comment

Tonight, it was one of those nights when it’s late—it was curriculum night—and you don’t have time to prepare anything that doesn’t come out of the microwave, but you still want to eat something good and possibly light in calories.

What I had in the pantry:

1 Can of artichokes

2 Tablespoon of Trader Joe mayonnaise (I must insist on the brand because it’s the one that comes closer in taste to the Italian mayonnaise)

1 clove of garlic

Habanero salt

1 Turkey patty burger

How I made the artichoke aioli sauce:

I already said it was one of those nights… I threw the artichokes, mayonnaise, garlic, and habanero salt into the blender and blend them I did. That’s it. I even cooked the Turkey patty in the microwave. I drowned the burger in a liberal amount of sauce and greatly enjoyed every bite of it. It was delicious and I have leftover sauce to spice up sandwiches and tramezzini.

Make Your Own Fairytale #5

October 2, 2012 Monica La Porta#tuesdayphotomanipulation, a landscape made of pastries and lattes, artrage, digital art, images and words to create a fairytale prompt, make your own fairytale, Paint.NET, photomanipulation of a drawing, wacom tablet, whimsical landscapesLeave a comment

I couldn’t help playing with yesterday’s image, too yummy to let it go. Have fun with your story!

Monday Drawing #7

October 1, 2012 Monica La Porta#MondayDrawings, a drawing every Monday, artrage, landscape made of teacups and pastries, wacom tablet, whimsical landscape2 Comments

The following drawing is a good example of what happens to people who try to stick to a gluten-free and dairy-free diet, they dream of cappuccino and pastries.

Cappuccino Heaven

From Concept to Cover: The Journey of A Ripple in Time

September 29, 2012September 29, 2012 Monica La Portaartrage, collaboration between a cover artist and an indie author, dandelion flower drawing, dandelion seeds, digital art, from concept to book cover, photomanipulation, photoshop, time travel alternate reality cover, wacom tablet4 Comments

At the beginning of the summer, I had the great pleasure to meet a fellow author on the twitverse, Julia Hughes. Julia was running a promotion for her novel A Ripple in Time and I was immediately intrigued by its blurb: “After one hundred years, the Titanic has a new love story.” Julia and I started tweeting, also thanks to a common friend, Randall Peterson who was promoting her book and mine. A friendship was born out of 140 characters at a time. Later, Julia saw my drawings and asked me if I wanted to work on the new cover for A Ripple in Time, which meanwhile had had more than twenty thousand downloads in mere five days. I was flattered that my naïf art had caught Julia’s attention. Her proposal arrived at an odd moment for me, I was leaving to go back to Italy for a long stay due to family reasons. My mind was stretched in several directions at once, but Julia assured me she was in no hurry. Nevertheless, I don’t like to have people waiting on me when I accept to work on a project, and so once Julia told me what she wanted on the cover, I started playing with my tablet. One of her requirements was that the cover must have dandelion flowers and seeds. I had never drawn a dandelion flower before and I scouted the web for good images I could use as reference. It turns out, I love drawing dandelions and dandelions seeds. Below are my first and second mock covers and the banner.

Once the backdrop was done, I asked my cover artist and dear friend, Alessandro Fiorini to come onboard. I gave him the specifics of what Julia wanted on the cover: a sundial, a winged figure, and of course the Titanic.

Alessandro told me he was going to give it a try and contacted me a few hours later with this:

I thought it was a solid work and sent the image to Julia. Once we received the okay from her, Alessandro and I started working on the details. Despite a particularly hot Italian summer, internet failures, and life in general, a few weeks later we were able to send Julia the final cover. Below is one of the final tries and the banner.

Working with Alessandro is always a treat and Julia is one fabulous patron of the arts and it was an absolute pleasure to create a cover for her imaginative novel.