Why, oh why are women relegated to subservient roles in history. It doesn’t matter which continent, the result is the same. Could it possible be that a woman always knows her child is her own, while her partner is left hoping his progeny is the product of his efforts? Is this insecurity the reason why women must be strictly supervised? Many religions endorse this belief, elevating men and downgrading women. Why were we classed as air heads?  So unfair.

Women pick their partners and most of them stay loyal. Men? A different story. There is the old adage about people accusing other people of their own short-failings, intent on exonerating themselves. I wonder how many women have died because of this?

I am a very happy camper with the scales showing a downward trend each day. Not for me the calorie counting and the portion weighing, or the bought diet food. Because I am hypothyroid, I needed something else and I found it with a modified Atkins diet. No processed food and this includes bread, pasta, wheat flour and rice, along with beans of the seed variety. I have also excluded milk, going on to a coconut Silk alternative. It works just great in coffee and I am debarred from cereal anyhow, because all of that is processed and contains hidden sugars. Who wouldn’t like to start the day with eggs and Canadian bacon? Oh yum.

I am supplementing with zinc, selenium and probiotic tablets. Grapefruit juice gives me vitamin C and I water it down to give the correct pH balance. Green vegetables accompany every protein dish, although not potatoes, as they are a starch. I can have a selection of fruit and nuts and, if I so desire, one square of dark chocolate a day. Nuts, particularly almonds make for great snacks.

The weight is falling off and I am feeling a lot healthier. This is working and I am not feeling the slightest bit starved. I am now actually eating more than I did before as crazy as this sounds. Note, because of the ongoing struggle with my thyroid condition, I have a very reduced capacity in any case. This might not be the diet for everyone, but it is the diet for me. I is a getting into shape again. YAY!

So I was doing research for a potential new book and looking into pagan practices. Obviously, this entails witches. What suddenly side-swiped me was the reports from the Salem witch trials amongst others.

Bear in mind paganism is the old religion, pre-dating Christianity. Now consider the format for those trials was a belief that the devil motivated these girls and women. The devil wasn’t part of the pre-Christian religion. This is entirely a Christian concept. By extrapolation, these girls and women were found guilty of deliberately going against their own religion as a form of rebellion. Based on this, I can see why every one of them has since been found innocent of misdoing. Much of this was sparked by greed over possessions, as well as a misguided belief in the supernatural.

Real pagans don’t subscribe to the belief in a devil, which is a Christian notion on the afterlife, or want to do mischief to others. This beggars the question of how many innocent women were killed because of misguided notions? Research on Morgan le Fay leads to the inevitable conclusion that she was the whipping girl for a misogynist monk, bent on discrediting her because she was a priestess in the old religion. At that time, Christianity was still battling with pagan beliefs and trampling down all of them. Women were not to have positions of power in this world. They were mere eye candy, without a mind. Ergo, a strong woman of antiquity must have been a very evil woman to fit in with this new concept.  

This is not pie in the sky hypothesis, or wishful thinking on my part. I have delved into the ancient Welsh texts on the legends of that time. It is fascinating to see how history was rewritten to fit with the then modern beliefs. I wonder how much of this philosophy went into the subsequent witch hunts? Anyhow, research for my project is continuing.

Bandit Book Tour Bloggers.

Bandit Book Tour Bloggers.

Blog Tours.

Someone, who will not be named, recently posted on an open web forum about how she though fantasy writing was simple and then went on to state she had never read any.

Sighs. For the record, my upcoming publication, Shadow Over Avalon has eight major threads aside from the primary one. It also has many peripheral threads. World building is crucial in fantasy. Also, what many people do not appreciate is that fantasy and sci fi must be compatable to literary fiction.  Aside from extensive world building,, extensive research went into this project. Is it simple? Just try manipulating multiple threads and tell me if it is simple or not.  As it happens, I went back to the tenth century for data on this project.

Walk a mile in my shoes before you slam fantasy as simple.

A query letter should be so good that it is fit to occupy the back cover of a book. That is the ideal scenario from everyone’s point of view. This is the single most important few words an author can write, aside from their book, and these words are also the hardest. How to encapsulate an entire novel in three paragraphs?

Not easy. Ok, so I didn’t need a query letter for Shadow Over Avalon, but I still needed a blurb, which is the same thing. Yes, I will admit there were dry runs behind the scenes. I came up with one, not my first attempt, that fitted the bill, or almost. My publishers tweaked it just a little to reduce the wordage to fit the back of the book. Loved it. I now have what I consider to be a wicked blurb.

Note, this comes after countless hours spent in workshops trying to perfect a query. This is not the result of getting lucky the first time. It comes with work. It also helps to have publishers who know how to tweak something to make it fit the space available in the very best way.

Totally shitty day, punctuated by bad internet connections, which made me late to deliver on something I had promised. Not impressed. If I had another option that gave me unlimited, I would take it in a heartbeat. Yah boo sucks, Eastlink. You suck big time.

On the writing front, I am totally spinny right now. Things are happening and I can’t concentrate. Maybe I will be back to normal next week.