Author: John Brown

  • Good Stuff! McDonald’s? Really?

    ByJohn Brown

    McDonaldsCreateYourTasteI can’t remember the last time I emoted over hamburgers.

    Yeah, I’ve been to Smash Burger (way overpriced) and Five Guys (good) and Carl’s Jr. (no scantily clad women to be seen; talk about issues with truth in advertising), In-and-Out (what’s the appeal?), and a hundred other chains and non-chains. Burgers were burgers. Big whoop.

    Of all these, McDonald’s was way down at the bottom. I have never gotten excited about McDonald’s hamburgers. I worked for McDonald’s back in the early 1980’s, and the food wasn’t bad then, but the burgers have gotten progressively uninspiring as the company has turned to various methods of pre-cooking everything. To me McDonald’s has simply been the place you went for filler. Except for the Egg McMuffin, which I’ve always enjoyed.

    But last week my daughter wanted McDonald’s, and since I’m not a totalitarian despot, I took her there. We went to the one by the Layton Hills mall. Inside, to my surprise, I found three, tall touch screen kiosks. I thought, oh, neat, a way to cut the ordering queue. But it was more than that.

    McDonald’s has rolled out a new Make Your Own Burger offering that allows you to select the type of bun, cheese, and toppings you want with a quarter pound patty. And the toppings aren’t just the standard pickle, onion, and ketchup. Oh, no. There are three types of buns to choose from. Three or more types of cheese. You can get raw onions or grilled. Guacamole, sautéed mushrooms, two types of mayo, bacon, and more. The lettuce is a leaf, not some iceberg chop.

    So I selected the artisan bun, sharp white cheddar, sriracha mayo, ketchup, pickle, lettuce, tomato slice, grilled onions, and sautéed mushrooms.

    The results?

    I was shocked. The beef was juicy. The onions were perfect. The mushrooms, perfect. The sriracha mayo gave it the perfect little zing. Folks, it was so good that within the week, I went back for another in Logan. I have never gone back with any sort of anticipation for a chain burger, anywhere. And the second sandwich was just as good as the first. I am now an official McDonald’s make your own burger fan.

    If you’ve become bored with burgers, if you consider them last-resort filler, as I did, or if you’re just wanting to try something new, let me recommend you go to, yes, McDonald’s. You do need to be aware that not all stores offer this new option. So check to make sure the one you’re going to has it (in Logan, Utah you’ll only find it at the south McDonald’s), and then see if you don’t agree that McDonald’s hasn’t finally come out with a great new offering.

  • Awful Intent Update 11/7

    ByJohn Brown

    Today was awesome for writing. First, I got five hours in, and I was in flow the whole time. When you’re in flow, you’re in the scene, seeing it, smelling it, experiencing it. It’s awesome.

    Second, during my review of the first draft, I came to the final battle scene and realized I’d made it much too convoluted. Way too convoluted. When I wrote it, I thought it was great, but coming to it fresh, it was just too much. So I drew a big red line through all those pages and made a note to rewrite it. Today I got to rewrite that section plus a bunch before and after it.

    I have to say I love sheriff Hood, the female character who is teamed up with Frank. The woman is spectacular. And I love this fight scene. I don’t think I’ve ever seen or read a thriller fight scene like this one. Sorry, won’t tell you what it is (no spoilers), but I can tell you I can’t wait to get this out to readers. I’m as pleased with this as I was the snow mobile sequence in Bad Penny.

    Have a great weekend.

  • Awful Intent Update

    ByJohn Brown

    I’m almost 90% done with the second draft. I had planned for this book to be out in August. But life threw me a nice big curve ball this July. And then another in September. However, the man is now back, and we’re humming along. A number of fine folks have volunteered to be beta readers, and I expect the edits for their comments to go smoothly. Frank’s new adventure will be out just in time for the holidays.

  • What Comes Next?

    ByJohn Brown

    At the UAA conference in Springville, Utah this Saturday, I’m going to be sharing two tools I use that help me figure out where to start my stories and what comes next.

    The first is simply a quick and dirty method for figuring out a ballpark estimate of how long my story will be. But the length is not stated in words or pages for the simple reason that stories aren’t made up of words or pages.

    The second is what I call The Story Cycle.

    WhatComesNextbyJohnDBrown

    Everyone always wants a copy of the presentation. So here’s the PDF of “What Comes Next?”: WhatComesNextbyJohnDBrown_Print

    Enjoy!

  • United Authors Association Conference Oct 24th!

    ByJohn Brown

    UAACon1.5

    The United Authors Association is holding a fiction writing conference October 24th in Springville, Utah, and it’s free to the public!

    The conference schedule has some great presentation topics on it by authors who are delighting a lot of readers as well as an editor, agent, and a magician.

    I’m going to be presenting on the fundamental core of story–“Scene and Sequel”–expect we’ll be replacing those two terms right off that bat. Hope to see you there.