Tag Archives: science fiction

Resolutions for 2014

I am ashamed to have to admit I have five half finished books. This is not good. Must work harder. 

1. Finish one book off every month. This is possible. 

2. Work on house renos. With daylight increasing I should be able to get stuff finished. Artificial light means I miss bits. Sigh. 

3. Work on weight loss. I have lost 14lbs but then I hit a plateau. Nothing gained back, which is good, but I need to be more active. This means using the treadmill. I can do this. 

4. Work on a better way to promo my books. 

5.Start working on artwork again. Maybe I haven’t got the fine control I once enjoyed, but I can still gain joy out of this hobby. 

6. Get my act together and get moving on the quilting projects I have planned. I have the materials, so there is no excuse. 

7. Plant seeds for the growing season to come. I can’t do much, as I don’t have the space, but I can get the early starters going. Maybe I will have another Claude, the petunia this year?

8. Get out to do the yardwork very early in the morning before the new neighbors, the ‘mumbles’ are out and about. I really don’t need my creativity mangled by the site of a seventy year old woman in a crop top and low cut shorts. Shudders. I wouldn’t wear anything like that in public view. 

9. Get some quality time in with my little grandson. He is such a good baby and he is growing so fast. 

Now I am committed. 

Ginger is bad?

Not in my books. I hadn’t really thought about it, but then my characters come through fully developed. I find I have three gingers in Shadow Over Avalon and two of them are red hot hunks. A guy is a guy and it is what is inside him that makes him interesting. Hair color is totally incidental. Character is everything and my guys rock. 

Does accuracy matter in fantasy?

I happen to believe it does. This is why I devote many, many hours into intensive research. It doesn’t matter to me if the product of my research is a part of my physical book or not. This is ground work that to my mind, must be accomplished. I need to have a take on the culture and the setting of a world to make it come alive and to do that, I have to make sure I have my facts correct.

Yes, it is really easy to get stuff off the web, but how accurate is this? Mostly not. Nothing beats the real live investigations with impartial informants. Will my physics work? I ask my dear husband, who is one of those people at the cutting edge of technology. He will tell me straight off it this will fly or not.

With history, or religion, it is important to understand how politics of the time comes into play. People are persistently guilty of projecting the politically correct version of events. It is therefore necessary to dig really deeply to get to the source from many different angles. This produces some very surprising results. Temporal and religious institutions have taken it upon themselves to rewrite history to present themselves in a good light, or to revile others in order to look good. Nowhere is this more apparent than the dark ages, where women did have power and were people in their own right. Moving on a few hundred years or so, this was not the thing. These women of history must be reviled to level down the effect of felinity, currently not the flavor of the month. Historical lies are then manufactured to promote the supremacy of men.

Nope, I am not a feminist. I am an equalist. Each compliments and supports the other. This is how it was meant to be. I abhor how women were put down in history and I abhor how men are now being sidelined. Note to book cover artists. Men are naturally hairy. This comes with testosterone. Producing covers with chest bald individuals is promoting all body waxing products. Did you really want to do this when you are not getting a cut in the profits?

Actually, a very high percentage of the witch hunts were as a result of greedy men wanting to acquire the possessions of women. Anyone, who is tortured enough, will say whatever it takes to make the pain stop. The definition of witches is also interesting from a Christian perspective as it is the antithesis of Christianity. In reality a pagan is not someone who is anti Christian. A pagan is someone with no interest in the Christian belief and who does not follow the concepts of that faith. A pagan follows a far older faith with no roots in Christianity. From historical texts, it is not an antithesis of Christianity, it is something else entirely.  Again, accepted religion and politics come into play.

Shadow Over Avalon live for Halloween

Shadow Over Avalon

Fortune twists in the strongest hands. This is no repeat; this is what happens next.

A man, once a legend who bound his soul to his sword as he lay dying, is now all but a boy nearing the end of his acolyte training. Stifled by life in the undersea city of Avalon, Arthur wants to fight side by side with the air-breathing Terrans, not spend his life as servant to the incorporeal sentient known as the Archive. He is determined to help the surface-dwellers defeat the predators who are determined to ensure their own survival, no matter the cost.

Ashira, War Maid princess of the surface-world, is ready to sacrifice her life to defend her kin, but when she is betrayed and cast out of the life chosen for her, she must choose whether to die with honor or become one of the creatures her kinsmen fear and loathe.

Following two threads of time, CN Lesley’s new incarnation of the Arthurian tales of old delivers the perfect blend of science fiction and fantasy.

http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Over-Avalon-ebook/dp/B00GAN6HMG/ref=la_B00DJS9QP0_1_2_title_0_main?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383139556&sr=1-2

Pinterest pictures showing Shadow Over Avalon settings and other stuff.

Shadow Over AvalonWith the release of Shadow Over Avalon coming up in just twelve days, I though I would share some pictures of the settings used in this book and also some of the more fantastical elements. Dinosaurs? In an Arthurian book? Oh yes and there is a good and valid reason for this. Pictures of Earthrise from the moon? Yep, it comes into play. Rare Blue John stones? They are needed. Merlin? You will have to see for yourself.  This is a science fantasy story fittingly being released on Halloween. Prepare to go to the next level of scared and thrilled. This is something entirely different. http://www.pinterest.com/cnlesley/shadow-over-avalon/

Thanksgiving.

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!

That dreadful moment when …

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.

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.