Tag Archives: fantasy

Thanksgiving.

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I have so much to be thankful for this year. Most of my family visited for lunch and it was so wonderful to have the them all over. Baby George was the highlight and he was an absolute angel.

I didn’t get done everything I wanted to do before they came. I had hoped to have my new drapes hanging, but found I had misplaced the hooks to get them on the rods. Ah, on the subject of rods. It is a well-known fact that most men will definitely get something done eventually. I have only been waiting nine years for the rods to go up to finish the drapes as I must have the drop measurement before the tops can go on. So very, very close to success. Now if I can only remember what I did with the hooks in those nine years?

Still, the renos are going along at a steady pace. We got rid of a manky old couch in the fall clean up and also a side table that was supposed to be an antique. Mmms, didn’t veneer stuff like that in the old days and I have always had my doubts. Water damage gave the truth and out it went. Now I have a coffee table and two matching side tables and a new couch matching the new ones in the family room, (downstairs ones courtesy of a Brick snarl up on previous product). It is getting there. The painting of walls is progressing slowly because the sitting room has high ceilings and I am still not100% after my neck injury. I have to do a little at a time, but am just aching to get started on the family room, which will go a lot quicker as the ceilings are normal. Yay!

In other news, Darkspire Reaches is now free on all the Amazons and will be for a limited time around and about the release of Shadow Over Avalon on Halloween. Don’t miss out on this offer. It may not be repeated.

http://www.amazon.com/Darkspire-Reaches-ebook/dp/B00DJE8RP4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1381792927&sr=1-1&keywords=darkspire+reaches

http://www.amazon.ca/Darkspire-Reaches-ebook/dp/B00DJE8RP4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1381793129&sr=1-1&keywords=darkspire+reaches

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Darkspire-Reaches-ebook/dp/B00DJE8RP4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1381793400&sr=1-1&keywords=darkspire+reaches

 

 

Darkspire Reaches ebook free!

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Just in time for the weekend, Darkspire Reaches ebook is free on Amazon.com. I hope it will also be free on the other Amazons soon. It is also free on Smashwords, Kobo and Nook. This is a limited time opportunity and will only run in the lead up to the publication of Shadow Over Avalon and for a week thereafter. Go get your copy now!

TA DAH! Important Announcement.

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My publishers, Kristell Ink, in celebration of the upcoming publication of Shadow Over Avalon on Halloween,  have just released Darkspire Reaches as FREE on Smashwords. Over the next few days this will filter down to Barns and Noble, Nook and finally to Amazon. Can I please ask everyone to let Amazon know when the price on Barns and Noble becomes free? Amazon will then do a price match and it will be for all the Amazons.

I am really excited over how SOA is shaping up with the help of my amazing editor, Zoe Harris. This is a totally positive experience. Does happy dance. As per usual, there will be a few chapters of SOA released for free reading on Amazon when it goes live. In the meantime, I have the prologue and a few snippets up here, on my webpage. These are all previous to editing, although the changes will be minimal.

Come take a peek at my worlds.

Genealogy

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Digging for one’s past can be a two-edged sword. My cousin went to Australia to start a new life and he had a son. This son was unaware of any of his father’s family until his father died and he found a contact. This was not all he has found.

I knew my cousin was a flake for the first water, but I had no idea this extended into his immediate family. The poor boy learned that his father had not bothered to marry his mother, now diseased. It is one thing if a relationship is out in the open and acknowledged for what it is. It is entirely another if it is purported to be one thing and is in fact another. How can a person do that to their own kid? No idea.

What I could do for this young man was to give him access to my Ancestry site so he may know of the origins of his roots. It won’t take away the pain of learning what he did, but it may help knowing the rest of his extended family aren’t flakes and welcome him.  So not impressed with my cousin.

That dreadful moment when …

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The horrendous moment when I realized I had deleted a synopsis that I now want. No, it is not in my recycle bin. I don’t even have to go look. I deleted it from my old laptop before it crashed and the saved data therefore does not contain it. This means I will have to write the wretched thing from scratch. Wails.

Any author will know that writing one of these is comparable to going to the dentist for a root canal or two. I had a decent two page synopsis and I trashed it. Yes, there are working notes. No, I don’t like them. I guess I will have to start over. Face palm.

Tired.

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Bobble heads. Sigh. One would think, in light of various time zone changes across the entire world that it is not unreasonable, or particularly arduous to check which time zone a person might occupy before phoning them. I happen to live near the Rocky Mountains. Those are very large slabs of granite usually covered with snow on the top. They are quite rigid in place, do not move location and the area they occupy is know as Mountain Time as distinct from Pacific Time, when a person may eventually bump into the ocean. Most persons, possessing more than a microbe of grey matter, are au fait with the minor factiod that going west means an earlier time. I am therefore monumentally unimpressed with being woken at dark-o-clock for some piffling update because someone wanted to tell me he was the new office manager. I guess this says a lot for competence.

Diet is working!

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My pants don’t fit anymore, as in falling down. O-O. Still, this is a good thing. The diet is working really well for me and cutting out the starchy foods has made me feel a lot better. I am not hungry, or irritable and I am also not terrible active, yet the weight is falling by the day. Getting on the scales in the morning is now a joyful experience.

Yes, I am supplementing with vitamins. I take selenium, zinc and probiotic capsules. I am also drinking watered down grapefruit juice for vitamin C and eating fruit. I find I really like the coconut Silk as a milk substitute in my coffee, but it is becoming more difficult to get. Still, there is one store in the nearest city stocking it. Yay. Cheese is a protein, so fine in moderation and full of calcium. Oh, and I am allowed one square of dark chocholate a day if I feel the need. I am not a chocholate fan, so this doesn’t really bother me, but some might find this important. On a roll, here.

No calorie counting, or portion control. No special little frozen dinners, shakes or ‘health’ bars. It is a modified Atkins diet/thyroid diet, basically cutting out all processed food. I am also cooking with virgin olive oil, so I suppose there is a tad of the Mediterranean diet in there, too. I honestly expected to gain a few pounds this morning, after a supper of steamed asparagus and a baseball steak, especially after I cheated and put gravy on the steak, but no, I was down two pounds this morning. I admit I couldn’t eat it all. It was too much and I always stop when I start to feel full.

I have hated clothes shopping for a while and now I find I am beginning to look forward to getting something that doesn’t make me look like a zeppelin. Not that I was ever huge, but it is all about body image and I hated mine. My heaviest was 185lbs. Yuk, yuk, yukkity yuk, yuk.  I had gotten to the state where I was eating so little that my capacity was possibly less than a child’s needs. Obviously, something wasn’t right, as the weight was totally undeserved. Here speaks a person who doesn’t much care for chocolate and candy, cookies or desserts. Nor did I browse on unsuitable things like potato chips. I don’t and never have snacked. I think it is all about finding the right diet that is also healthy.

My goal is to look darn good by the time my new book, Shadow Over Avalon, goes live on Halloween. I hope to have dropped thirty pounds by then. This is looking doable.

Very happy camper!

Wordbuidling.

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Someone recently said writing fantasy was easy. Let’s nix this notion right now. In the process of coming up with Darkspire Reaches I created a whole new planet and a variety of very distinct races to populate it. How? Creating fantasy isn’t as simple as calling a bunny a flubbit, or some other strange name. A bunny is still a bunny and recognizable as such to any reasonable and sane person, to misquote Mark Twain.

A new world has to be just a tad off kilter, but still easy to visualize for the reader. Still thinking this is easy to do? A world must have weather patterns and this means a north and a south pole. A world entirely constructed of tropical rain forest would never be possible in nature. Why is this important? When I read a book I need to be able to suspend my disbelief. If this does not happen, I am questioning everything else. A world is therefore built from the bedrock upwards. 

This is just one book, Darkspire Reaches. Shadow Over Avalon explores a whole new world, complete with rules and structure. If anyone else would like to tell me this is easy, they are inviting a fat lip.  

Another great diet item on my menu.

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This is mine. On a bed of fresh and well washed raw spinach leaves, put cooked beetroot cubes, diced, hard-boiled egg, walnuts and diced apples, previously soaked in fresh lemon juice. Serve with a raspberry vinaigrette. The flavor explosion is something else. This is a low cost meal that give a wealth of protein, fibre and a load of essential minerals.