Mynx Writes

Welcome to the 12 Blogs of Christmas!  Last year, some of my favorite bloggers and I got together to bring you 12 blogs filled with holiday magic and cheer.  We enjoyed them so much that we decided to share them with again this y ear , so be sure to visit everyone, and enjoy the 12 Blogs of Christmas Redux! Cartoon Classics What is your favorite Christmas cartoon?  When I think of Christmas, I think of those magical evenings leading up to the holiday when my sister and I settled down to steaming mugs of hot cocoa and Christmas cookies while we watched favorites such as the ones you'll find mentioned here.   The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus Marie Patchen Stop-motion animation is one of my favorite formats for Christmas cartoons.  I must have been spoiled by all of the good classics: Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Jack Frost, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and of course, The Year Without a Santa Claus.  Being the huge fan of...

Alex Diakonis I am a writer. After all the years I have tried different things: soldier; linguist; cyclist; barista and more, it feels good to say that I have finally accepted what and who I really am. People can go their whole life not knowing who they are and then, like a bolt of lightning, it hits them. BAM! “That is what I should be doing.” I wish I was one of those stories, I think it would have been cool. Not me though. Ever ignoring my father’s advice, I never make things easy on myself. I’ll give you, dear reader, the beginning of this path and some practices which have worked for me. The year was 1987. My mother had to work and my aunt had a day off, so she was babysitting my younger sister and me. I never was one for Barbies, so I resorted to asking if I could play on the computer. My aunt hesitantly obliged and gave me one of maybe 3 programs available at the time on her Macintosh: word processing. I started out typing things like my name and things like that....

Greetings and hello from the land of tomorrow! *looks off camera, clearly confused* What? You want me to say what now? You sure this isn’t the sci-fi and beer drinkers biannual Spock and Ale convention? Oh dear. *throws away prepared script* Hello there and welcome to my ramblings about my writing career. I have been tasked by our wonderful web mistress here to share with you my experiences with writing and pass along any tips I have to you, the reader. So, as soon as she puts down the whip, we can begin. My writing hobby started with an obsession with wrestling. You can come back now and stop laughing; it's the truth. When I was a young pup, I was enraptured by wrestling. It wasn’t’ so much that I thought it was real (all wrestling fans know it is fake), but the intriguing characters and what they did in and outside the ring. In the 80s and early 90s, it was all about the over-the-top characters and their lavish lives. This made me obsessed with characters and how they coul...

I have been a writer for almost twenty years. By writer, I mean someone who has penned numerous stories and novels, but never had anything published. In 2006 I got tired of hearing from agents that my novel, Nephiim Genesis of Evil was a great story, but they didn’t think there was a market for it. This was before the ebook rage, at a time when the term self-publishing had an even worse stigma than it does now. I had a friend who encouraged me to go on ahead and self-publish the novel. I was hesitant but decided to jump in. I’m glad I did. Here are a few things I learned from that experience. Self-Publishing Was Easier Than I Thought It Would Be In 2006, I had to hunt for a printer to publish Nephilim and I was worried that the end product would look like a self-published book. I was pleasantly surprised that the released book was just like anything you could pick up at Barnes & Noble. I was also expecting to have a harder time getting it into stores and places online...

Insomnia. It creeps up on you and doesn't let you go.  One minute you're so tired that you can't keep your eyes open, and the next minute your brain is on overdrive and you're still so tired that you can't keep your eyes open.  So you lay there and let your brain run rampant.  In my case, last night, it was on full overdrive.  I did everything.  I rolled over.  I put a pillow over my head.  I got up and went to the bathroom.  I got a glass of water.  I even grabbed my phone and tweeted to whoever was awake and listening for insomnia to go away and tell my brain to shut up on the way out. And then, it came to me... Tommyknockers. Not the movie - the book. Have you ever read it?  "Late last night and the night before, Tommyknockers, Tommyknockers, Knocking at the door..." I'm no genius, but this book holds the solution. Stephen King, when he wrote "Tommyknockers", was expressing an idea that writers all over the w...

Last Saturday, some fabulous bloggers brought you the 12 Blogs of Christmas . I've had a lot of requests for the recipe of the cheese ball that I shared at Amberr Meadow's 12 Blogs of Christmas: Tasty Traditions and so today, I've posted it here.  It's been quite a few years now, but an old friend in Pennsylvania shared this recipe with me one Christmas, and it's quickly become one of my favorite holiday recipes, and traditions.  I make it instead of cookies for holiday goodie exchanges, and I also give it out to friends and family.  When the holidays roll around, I have plenty on hand for entertaining - it's always a hit.  Mynx’s Fabulously Simple Holiday Cheese Ball Recipe 2 - 8oz packages cream cheese, softened to room temperature 1 - 5oz jar Kraft Old English Spread (@room temperature) 1 - 5oz jar Kraft Roka Blue Spread (@room temperature) 2 Tbsp cider vinegar (or flavored vinegar – feel free to experiment) 2 tsp garlic salt (or garlic powder) 1 cup c...