Unexpected Directions

Alien Clown ConeOne of my earlier bios included this line:

A combined anthropology and creative writing degree continued that focus, but a healthy dose of science fiction and fantasy warped it in ways most of her teachers would never have imagined.

I never considered just how true it was until recently when at the buffet after a friend’s wedding.

I like to savor food and always have, a trait not well suited to my love of ice cream. My childhood memories are filled with endless struggles to balance enjoyment between the endpoints of ice cream headache and dripping down my sleeve. Cones became a bit of a bind for me, the traditional ice cream offered children, and one I was ill-suited to enjoy. Though that didn’t stop me from trying.

I can’t remember when I first met the clown cone. Farrell’s was famous for it, but many ice cream shops came to the same conclusion. With a little bit of ingenuity, the wonderful crunch of a sugar cone could be separated from the trials of impending melt. The ice cream, in case you haven’t seen them, sits in a bowl while the cone perches on top, available as more than just a decoration as it can become a crunchy spoon as well.

What does this have to do with wedding buffets and bios?

Well, I’ve also developed a like for mini M&Ms. Not as much now as originally when they were intended for cupcake decorations and so were the first “dark” M&Ms out there (semi-sweet rather than dark). I like my chocolate as pure as it can get, without the softening of milk, but finding dark chocolate outside of fancy chocolatiers I couldn’t afford wasn’t easy until more recently. At the same time, the baking aisle could be counted on for a variety of semi-sweet options at a reasonable price.

These two aspects came to a head, along with my own warped perspective, at the wedding buffet mentioned above.

I requested a scoop of ice cream for dessert, it a cup with a cone. The gentlemen serving put the two together in a perfect clown face pose.

As is true of most ice cream bars, I had my choice of half a dozen toppings. I zeroed in on the mini M&Ms though I knew they were probably milk, not semi-sweet. In seconds, I had my own version of the clown cone, an alien version with many eyes.


On a different note, I have an apology to make. Apparently in setting up the directions for the contest, I got confused over the giveaway email so your instructions were incorrect. You still have time to join in. Simply join my newsletter and your welcome email contains the corrected directions. I will be sending a reminder with the correction to the existing newsletter subscribers as well.

A quick reminder: My first official contest (hence the process bugs) is for one eBook copy of Beneath the Mask, my Regency romance, and two eBook copies of Curve of Her Claw, a dark fantasy short story. Should you win and already own, or not be interested, in either of those, I’m offering a mystery prize alternative, an eBook copy of my next release. Hint: it falls in the fantasy genre.

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