Wrap Up: Vanilla Ice Cream Edition

The thing I was absolutely most excited to receive when I got married (aside from, obviously, the husband), was a high-quality ice cream maker. I'd wanted one for ages but being budget-conscious, never quite could justify the money. So when we got engaged and decided we could include one expensive, completely-unnecessary dream item, the ice cream maker was it.

Best. Decision. Ever.

I've been lax with the maker, but this week I finally broke out David Lebovitz's classic recipe-book, The Perfect Scoop. Yesterday I made my first batch: classic French, custard-based vanilla. Ohohohhoh man...

Smooth.

Creamy.

Knock-out punch vanilla.

It's gonna be a good summer.

I'm sure you all will enjoy some ice cream this lovely Memorial Day weekend, but before you head off to your picnics and barbeques, here are this week's blog posts:

Mary Kole discusses the difference between confusion and mystery and how you can introduce some questions into your story without leaving your readers scratching their heads

Nathan Bransford had several excellent posts this week. The first talked about something we always hear: how much of an impact does social media use have on book sales? He also chimed in on the attitude some self-publishers take towards traditional publishing, and, later in the week, continued to talk about why the idea of self-pub vs traditional pub was a mistake

Rachelle Garnder discusses a topic that always gets authors excited: what to expect from your advance. She also broke down how the editing process works

K.M. Weiland uses The Ten Commandments (the movie, not the actual commandments) as a guideline for how not to abandon your characters in the third act. She also talks about the pros and cons of building a series

At Pub Crawl, Joanna Volpe explains what debut authors can expect to do as far as publicity and promotion (hint: start a blog)

This is something I think about a lot: the myth of "overnight success"

Via Rachel at Dystel & Goderich: photos from New York's Underground Library (this makes me extraordinarily happy and brings back so many lovely memories of reading on the subway every morning and afternoon--two of the nicest times of my day)

Have a great long weekend!