rocking horse publishing « Robin Writes

Like I said last week, you have to prepare for you and your family. It does no good to have a lot of extra stuff, like food you can’t stand. Of course, we’ll all have to make some sacrifices when SHTF, but you may as well try to make things as easy as possible.

Let’s start with breakfast:

For our family of three-plus, granola is a big staple. It has oats, sugar, protein, and fruit. And it keeps really well:

Robin’s Granola Recipe

3 cups rolled oats (regular oatmeal, not instant)

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

3/4 dry roasted peanuts

1/2 cup honey

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup dried fruit

Mix oats, brown sugar, cinnamon, and peanuts. In separate bowl, mix honey, oil, vanilla; pour over oats, mix thoroughly.

Spread evenly on cookie sheet and bake at 300 degrees for about 30 minutes, until toasted, stirring halfway through.

When done, remove from oven and sprinkle with dried fruit. Do not stir. Allow to cool, then scoop into container.

I keep mine in a freezer bag, stays fresh for about two weeks or longer. When you get down to the crumbs, you can eat it just like cereal.

This makes about 4 cups, which is roughly 8 servings.

So, in order to feed my family breakfast—using only granola—for three months, a standard supply, it would take about 32 batches. Sealed properly, granola could last a long time; I’d suggest freezing, which is fine unless the power goes out, or oven canning. I watched a video on this other day, with crackers, and I’m sure it’d work with granola too. In a 225-degree oven, it took 20-30 minutes.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not sure my preference would be to eat granola every single day for three months. I would, I could, but let’s look at other options:

I buy bacon on sale and freeze it; there is also shelf-stable bacon available. Love bacon! You can, of course, do the same with other breakfast meats. You can also can meat, although I haven’t tried that and not sure I’d want to . . .

As long as you’re buying oats for granola, you could also just prepare oatmeal. Don’t forget the items you eat ON your oatmeal. And, of course, skip the sugary, flavored varieties. That goes for cereal, too.

Bread, coffeecake, and other baked goods can be prepared and frozen. Learning to bake from scratch is important—what happens when the grocery store shelves are bare?

Whatever you do, prepare for three months—and this usually isn’t gathering and cooking and preserving for three months and stopping. You have to rotate, so foods don’t go bad—since you’re now cooking without preservatives, the commercial kind, some foods don’t last as long. But that’s a good thing! It’s much better for you. So you have to keep it up, on a regular basis, for many items.

Look at packaged foods and see what the recommended servings are. For example, two pieces of bread make a sandwich, so for three people I’d calculate six slices per day. There are about 10 servings in a loaf of commercial bread, so for my family of three I’d need 40 loaves of bread for three months—assuming we eat bread every day, which we usually do not. Let’s guesstimate a total of 26 loaves instead, or two-thirds.

Now, I’m obviously not going to bake that much bread and leave it in the freezer, even given the rotation schedule and assuming I had enough space, but if you know how to bake, you can always bake—even without gas or electric power.

I suggest getting started!

Last Saturday, I spoke at a writers’ conference in Columbia, Missouri, on a publishing panel. There were about 20 writers in the audience, at all career stages, and they asked some good questions. The question I pose here is “should you attend writers’ conferences?”

Absolutely!

There are many great things about writers’ conferences: you get meet other writers, you get to pick up bits of wisdom and best practices and great ideas, and you get to socialize with others just like you. Plus, you make contacts that might be of help to your career, if not now, later.

You might even sell some books!

This can be a sticky point.

You could sell one or two. Or twenty—but that doesn’t happen often. However, if you have other material, like bookmarks or business cards, people can pick those up and might go online to buy your books. Just remember, people often buy your books because you’ve made a personal connection—so get out of your shell and TALK TO PEOPLE.

I know, that can be scary, but folks won’t flock around your table if you’re sitting there in silence . . .

On the subject of book buying, a real danger at conferences is coming home with a ton of books—I know, I know, you love books, the more the merrier, right? But if your intention is to sell books, and you buy as many as you sell, you’re not really making progress.

By all means, buy a book if you’re interested in that book. But not because someone bought YOUR book.

Money can be an issue when it comes to conferences, as well as travel expenses. This is something only you can decide, for yourself. Some conferences will cost around $40, some edging close to $200. Think about value for your money, such as how long the conference lasts, who is speaking, who’s attending, and distance.

And then decide how it affects your career.

Conferences aren’t going to hurt your writing career, and they can be very, very beneficial—just don’t become a conference junkie. You need to spend your time on the things that move your career forward, and that’s a business decision that only you can make for yourself.