Tag Archives: Sword of Shadows

Busy, busy.

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So I have been quiet and busy over the last little while. What have I been up to you may ask? Today I have been drooling ecstatically over the finished cover of my soon to be published book, Sword of Shadows. Yes, I have got it in my hot little hands and no, I am not posting it when it will be live in days. That is when I will make a splash.

Just a mention that Shadow Over Avalon, the first book in the Shadow series, and yes, it is officially the Shadow series, is still at 99c U.S.D. It is available on all platforms including this one.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/shadow-over-avalon/id735615772?mt=11

What else? I have been learning to tile with my bathroom reno. It is nearly done and I expect to do the grouting and last of the painting tomorrow. Maybe the baseboard goes back over the weekend. The jury is out over that one as we are babysitting one of the little guys while his parents go to a party.

It is like being transported back in time to be around the little guys. I think what gets me most is the little arms reaching  and tugging on the pant legs because someone small wants to be picked up. The difference this time is the tricks are so transparent when they do something to get mom’s attention. I am just waiting for the quiet smile when they win. In that respect, little boys are no different from little girls, both utterly adorable.

Not a lot of action.

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It  was a bit of a nothing day. Very hot and with a storm ever looming, my office was not the most comfortable place to be sitting after 9.00am. This is part the reason why I get up so early. Anyhow, got another drape made and just in time to stop the sun shining in and heating the place up. I have a sun repellent lining on my drapes so they don’t fade and shut out maximum rays. I was working on the last one, in between scooting up to sit in front of a fan to cool down, while I waited for the roofing guy to turn up.

No Limit Roofing out of Devon did an amazing job of supplying us with a new lid for our house. We were starting to get curly shingles with the old one and the roof looked a tad wavy. Yep, nine new sheets of decking had to be laid on the rafters. We are good to go.

Funny thing about a neighborhood, but if they are all built at more or less the same time, then they all need new shingles in unison. Yes, there are quite a few that need new lids around and about.

Writing? A friend posted about killing a character and how that affects an author. Oh boy, yes it does. While I might not be George Martin in my murderous intentions, I do occasionally have to kill a character and it hurts. I will cry for hours over something that never existed. If I really need to kill a character, then so must it be, however sad and upset I am. I have only ever unkilled a character once. I am not saying where and it probably won’t happen again. It was brought to my attention that I had pissed off just about every beta reader in no uncertain terms. After due reflection, I realised the character had more life in them and more story to tell. I then suffered a creative hernia unkilling that character. I say it won’t happen again as I am now a lot more careful of my characters. Oh and yes, I know I didn’t say him or her. Maybe it will be in the book coming in September?

Happy Canada Day

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And to celebrate, how about a competition? Lets make this fun and simple. How about we find the best recipe for lasagne? Who doesn’t like lasagne? Any takers, there is a corner over there and a paper bag to pull over your head while the rest of us play. 

Rules. It has to be good. It can be out of a book, but in that case, please give credit to the author. It can be traditional Italian, or otherwise. It can be vegetarian. So we post a recipe here and people try it out and rate it from 1-10 with 10 being high. 

I think this will have to be a competition lasting until Thanksgiving as people will need to try out different recipes. Oh, and because there are two Thanksgiving dates, lets go with the American one in November and not the Canadian one in October. 

Prize? How about a copy of one of my ebooks for the recipe with the highest score? I will have another one out by the end of the competiton, so there will be a bigger selection. 

Anyone like to start? Please post here in the comments. I will put my favorite recipe tomorrow.

Dreams.

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I fully admit I get my best book ideas from dreams, but not this latest one. This was a no no from the get go.

Imagine a very nasty resort in a very swampy region with very unclean water. Now add nasty ‘things’ just below the surface with bodies like giant slugs that are dangerous and will eat people. Add to that filthy, dirty cabins and no fun things to do for tiny kiddies. This would be us and our daughters and they would be five to months old at the time. For some strange reason, only logical in dreams, we had taken the baby’s wooden cot with us. Now add a black, mist like presence to haunt the cabin and us trying to get the aforesaid cot out of the cabin so we could pack the car to leave early from this nightmare vacation. 

Nope, not one I will be using. It fails, not from the yuk factor, but because it has no ongoing plot or structure, aside from the factoid that I never write about real people. 

On the flip side, as there always is one, my next dream, after I woke from the nightmare and drifted off again, gave me the plot for the fourth book in my Shadow series. I have the main character and all the whys and wherefors. I have these written down now. 

Nope, I will not be working on this any time soon. I have the finishing touches to put to the third Shadow book and also I have Serpent of the Shangrove to finish as a sequel to Darkspire Reaches. Added to that, I am working on a very dark science fiction stand alone book I would like to finish before I start on any new projects. Shadow three, probably entitled ‘Chalice of the Shadows’, although that does depend on what my publisher thinks as to the title, and Serpent of the Shangrove, ditto,  are high priority. I am working on the three at the same time as I can get more wordage out.

 The good news is I am told Sword of Shadows is set for release in September of this year. Yay!!!!!

Themes.

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My new series, the Shadow books, are based on the tarot. The first book, Shadow Over Avalon, out now on all ebook platforms, is the first one and runs with the mystic of the wand. How does magic feature in a futuristic dystopia? How does Merlin figure in all this? You will have to read it to find out. In the meantime, there are small snippets on this site and a larger helping on Amazon. The next book, Sword or Shadows, is self explanatory. This is due out in 2014 from my publishers, Kristell Ink, an imprint of Grimbold Books.

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.

Crazy Times.

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So it starts. I had a phone call from my electrician first thing this morning and he was most apologetic for the hour, but he needn’t have been as I was up and about two hours before he called. He was scheduled to come wire in my generator on Monday, but now wanted to come tomorrow. One doesn’t mess with one’s contractor, and he is a good one. No, it is not very convenient, which I didn’t tell him, but I will work around it.

Late tomorrow night, Kid 1 arrives from Vancouver Island to stay with us for the wedding of Kid 3 on the 27th.  Fortunately, we have three vehicles, so she gets the use of her choice. I thought she was coming in just before the wedding and that I had more time. I was going to redecorate my guest room. I guess this isn’t going to happen.

Kid 3 wants me to go through the family pictures again to find a picture of her and her granddad for her slideshow at the wedding. Gulp. I don’t know that I have any that aren’t on slide and I don’t have a slide projector anymore.

Publishing stuff needs to be done, but my Publisher is being very nice about my busy time. All the same, I need to get stuff done. Not because I am being pressured in any way, but because I really want to participate and this is my choice.

Will my grandbaby stick to his/her due dates and arrive on September 7th? I doubt it from the appearance of that adorable child on his/her latest ultrasound picture. The mom to be cooked early and I think she might have inherited the same oven. In which case, this already well-developed baby might well put in an appearance with a very respectable weight at eight months. Time will tell.

Satisfaction.

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There is a certain buzz that is indescribably from getting all the chapters of a book in order and ready to be formatted. This is especially the case with the current book in editing stage as I had misplaced some chapters and have only just found the disc containing them. Heaves enormous sigh of relief. Yes, there will be one more pass as I format but the major overhaul is done. Yes, I do ‘rest’ books between edits. I find this is needful for me so I can see the wood for the trees.

This book happens to be the second book of the second series. It does occur to me how much space I will have on my pc once these two have gone out the door. Ok, so I am a pack rat and save anything and everything. Still, it will be nice to put all this info on discs and have all that lovely space to fill up with new stuff. And yes, I know what my next project will be already and it is mostly written.