Z is for Zucchini Bread

Z is kind of a hard one, isn't it? But anyway, everyone who's finishing the challenge or stuck around here this long, it's time to give yourself a treat. And this is one of the best treats there is. The recipe is from AllRecipes.com Hope you enjoy! (p.s. Today is the last FREE day for XO: From Turner Syndrome and Me, so if you haven't picked up your copy, swing on over. Blog reviews and Amazon ratings are good too *hint hint). Anyway, pick up your free book and make some yummy bread and enjoy your Monday.

INGREDIENTS:

3 cups all-purpose flour 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon baking powder 3 teaspoons ground cinnamon 3 eggs

1 cup vegetable oil 2 1/4 cups white sugar 3 teaspoons vanilla extract 2 cups grated zucchini 1 cup chopped walnuts

DIRECTIONS:

1.	Grease and flour two 8 x 4 inch pans. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
2.	Sift flour, salt, baking powder, soda, and cinnamon together in a bowl.
3.	Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in a large bowl. Add sifted ingredients to the creamed mixture, and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts until well combined. Pour batter into prepared pans.
4.	Bake for 40 to 60 minutes, or until tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove bread from pan, and completely cool.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2012 Allrecipes.com

W is for Wasting Time

It's all a waste of time.

Writing a novel that might never be published, that no one may ever read. Starting another one.

Jumping on my parents trampoline. Taking my seven year old sister on our usual date: movie, In'n'Out and a stint at Barnes and Noble with the only other person I know who wants to stay as long as I do.

Staying up until two, okay three in the morning, kettle corn and peach Fresca on my nightstand, catching up on Downton Abbey or Sherlock or Person of Interest because I Just. Have. To. Know. I have found myself alone in the middle of the night watching Vertigo or The Notebook, neither of which is probably a good idea for an alone at night movie. I cried. A waste of time.

Sitting at my window, late at night again, listening to John Coltrane and watching the moon and cars go by.

This blog post. Watching John Green YouTube videos. Playing on Pinterest.

Auditioning for plays I probably won't get cast in.

Watching Chopped with my mom until one in the morning. A bowl of fruity pebbles with my brothers before bed.

Looking for jobs. Aren't all jobs a waste of time? What about teaching at my old school? Coming in to the classroom at lunch where the little boy in the Cars sweatshirt shouts "Sarah bearah!" sounding more like "Thawa beewa!"

Who was the first to say time is a thing that can be wasted? If I watch Frasier and write never-published poetry while you go on dates or to business meetings does that make my time more wasted--less valuable--than yours?

That's the thing about it all. Eating churros and funnel cake while saving spots for Fantasmic on the cobblestone streets of Disneyland. Buying five-dollar movies at Walmart, watching the Biography channel documentaries of Johnny Depp and Andre the Giant. Reading novels.

It's all a waste of time.

Maybe.

V is for Vlogging

So I feel like I've put up a lot of videos lately, and I apologize if that's annoying. But I'm going to do it again today, although I'll try and back off for the next few posts at least :)

Anyway, anybody else do a vlog? See, the thing is, YouTube has made video sharing incredibly easy. And if you look at site usage, YouTube is growing and growing in popularity, while blogging is on a downhill slope. I still love blogging and don't plan to change anything there, but in trying to do whatever I can to make a writing career, I figure one may as well use every tool available that we can. And YouTube is one of them, and besides, it's fun.

Besides big potential marketing power, it's also just fun to connect with people in this kind of visual, more personal way. Actually seeing their face and hearing them talk brings a whole new type of connection. One worth trying for, I think.

If you're looking for stellar examples of phenomenal YouTube vlogs, my first stop no question would definitely be Vlogbrothers by John and Hank Green. They are hilarious, generous, and incredibly, incredibly smart. Another vlog I would highly recommend is by Jackson A Pearce. She is also awesome and sweet and funny and smart.

With that, here's me doing what I can. My vlog is called Dear Muse, and I try to give tips and story ideas to get the muses back to work. If any of you are YouTubers, I would love to connect with you. (Subscribe/comment, hint hint!). Anyway, the latest installment of Dear Muse, more soon to come:

Hope you enjoy :)

Sarah Allen

U is for Unspoken

I like to think of really great writing as words that successfully say what words can't say. I mean, when you think of poetry, it's saying things with words, but it's really saying so much more.

Here are some quotes whose words add up to so much more than the sum of their parts:

"If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence." -George Elliot, Middlemarch

"Eventually all things merge into one and a river runs through it." Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

"Serve God, love me, and mend." William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing.

I think when language works as well as it does in these examples its meaning is too much for words, and so the words have to mean something more then themselves. I know its kind of abstract and convoluted, but does that make sense? It accesses something close to a Universal Truth that hits chord deep inside us, even when we can't comprehend the full meaning of the words in our heads.

How do you put something like this in words?

And here is one of the greatest scenes ever shown on television, all about the "unspoken." I mean, the words 'I love you' already carry such a complicated web of meaning, there is absolutely SO much that Niles is saying in just three words.

What do you think? Do you think writers can try to use words to say what words can't say, and how do we do it?

Sarah Allen

T is for timing and taking yourself seriously

Timing is sometimes a difficult beast to deal with. I keep thinking I've sort of figured things out and then I haven't. My life is pretty awesome, I'm not saying otherwise, but I sometimes feel like I've been working and working towards something for a long time and can't catch a break, and granted I have a lot of work still to do, and I'm going to do it and it's totally worth it, for sure, but sometimes it feels a lot like slogging and banging against brick walls, especially compared to friends and family my age who appear to be jumping ahead with their lives in easy leaps and bounds.

I'm not complaining. Even the people who I think are moving forward quickly have problems, and I wouldn't want what they have anyway. I have different goals, that takes a different kind of work and timing. The point is that everyone has their own timing, whatever their goals are, and trying to compare one life and it's timing to another is just ridiculous.

So I'm not going to lie and say that my little sister going on a mission and my other little sister getting married in the next little while doesn't have anything to do with feeling like I'm somehow comparatively behind. I know I just said comparing is ridiculous, and I know that in my head, but it's still hard not to do it sometimes, isn't it? And like I said, I don't want to go on a mission or marry the guy my sister is marrying (even though he's great), so it doesn't matter. I want different things, I am working for them, and they will come. I absolutely believe that, it's just hard to remember sometimes.

Even without the comparison thing, the other uncomfortable thing is trying to BE a writer without having a book out. BEING a writer is my Goal, the thing I'm working towards that will come eventually, and this is just a phase we all have to go through. But it's still kind of awkward trying to balance the desire to work towards and do as much as possible to create a writing career as soon as possible, and the discomfort of feeling like you're trying to push yourself onto people without anything really to push. It's all about creating friendships and relationships anyway, and everyone has their own story and things to say, but somehow I don't feel quite validated yet. I find myself wondering why people read this blog anyway when I'm just another wannabe not-yet-published writer.

The thing is, nobody is "just another." We're all unique. Everyone has their own story and things to say, we just have to let that show. I don't know if I can truly get rid of this not-yet-validated feeling short of getting published, but the key is to not let it stop me in any way. I have a very bad habit of talking down my writing and myself, because I'm scared of people thinking I'm some lame untalented wannabe, thinking something like, "Ok Sarah, you have fun living in your cardboard box with twenty cats writing terrible novels." But I have to have confidence in myself regardless of the mean voices in my head. If I take myself seriously, I will be taken seriously. Every dog has their day.

My life is pretty darn awesome, and I hope this isn't too ridiculously me whining about myself type of thing. I'm only trying to be honest here, and using myself as an example because I know for certain I'm not the only one who sometimes feels this way. That in fact a lot of people/everyone feels this way at some point. We feel like we're not quite grown into our superhero costume yet, we're scared of people laughing at us because maybe our muscles aren't fully grown. But they will be one day and the work will be worth it. That's all I'm trying to say here, for anyone who feels the same way. Because like C.S. Lewis said, "We read to know we're not alone."

Sarah Allen