I took the fish picture at an aquarium in Omaha. It’s amazing what you can find in a fishy world when you’re really looking! I have mermaids and mermen in my World of Elves series and in my Magic of Inherian series.
I’ve been removing Christmas lights and putting away all the Christmas decorations, so running late on everything!
Hope your day is fantastically great! I’ve got to get back to the book! Oh, wait, tonight is New Year’s Eve. Are you having fun?
I’m writing and later, I’ll play some more of Hero U: Rogue to Redemption. I do much better as a paladin, a warrior, even a ranger. I’ve already stacked up 40 demerits. At 100, I get kicked out of school. Let me explain, though. You have to wear the school uniform, but I can’t afford the school uniform. Which means I have to sneak by the mean guy all the time, and sometimes I manage, and sometimes, I get caught. Besides the random: giving demerits for stuff I have no control over. Aww, come on. You’d think he hoped I flunked out. Well, he does. At least I passed my first two rogue tests. (I had to start over because I failed them both the first time around and I had 65 demerits. lol)
The game is like the old Hero’s Quest games, so it’s fun. But addictive. I’m only going to play for an hour. Only. An. Hour. I have a book to write.
Right. Then I’m back at it. Okay, have a great day!!! Before it’s all gone!! And Happy New Year!!!
Okay, not really. These are summer flowers still blooming! Whoever heard of a sunflower coming out in winter? And the marigolds are just as vibrant. In fact, even the milkweed are regrowing their leaves. But they will get a rude shock soon. The temps are dropping to freezing, but then up again in the 60’s. Even the honeybees were back, all over the roses yesterday, and I’ve seen more monarch butterflies and one of the yellow ones!
I’m still working on edits on Claiming the White Bear before I finish writing scenes. Moving a couple situations earlier in the story really made a mess. But I think I’ve about got it all sorted out.
I’m excited about the possibility of going to England. I’d LOVE to see the English castles and gardens and the countryside. I have a good friend whose husband may be working there for a couple of years, so I told her I’d love to visit if it works out! We were supposed to get together in NYC for a conference in July, but she was afraid she’d be in England. I’m not sure where they’ll be and they won’t even be going until spring, but she said that would be great!
I’ll be going to Hawaii this year for my son’s wedding…and I’m planning on signing books at the Barnes and Noble and visiting the zoo. I just can’t wait to write a few pages while listening to the waves and the wind blowing through the palm trees. If I could, I’d stay a month!
But coming back to earth, I’ve got deadlines to write for and pictures to send to my daughter of Christmas so that she can make her Christmas thank you cards, so I’m off and running.
We had storms all day yesterday and I stayed off the computer and edited pages I had printed out. Then at 4:30, I got a phone call and on my answering machine: Tornado warning!
So forget about sleeping. And the storms started up again.
That means, I’m really not raring to go like I usually am first thing in the morning. I’ll get there. Maybe. Later. Hopefully.
At least the tornado watch is no longer in effect, like they predicted through 11 am and it stopped raining and I rushed my garbage out!
Have a great day!!! I’m still trying to get mine started
Christmas is over and it’s time to begin thinking about the new year.
Drinking until late into the night? Forget that! Early to bed, early to rise…and welcome the new year in right! I’ll be puppy sitting, so there’s no sleeping all day anyway, even if I could!
So two of my cougar stories have New Year’s themes, one, at the beginning where she goes to an old ghost town looking for answers about criminal activities as she’s in law enforcement on New Year’s Eve, nothing better to do, and ends up in a gunfight and meets the cougar who will change her life forever. And the other ends with New Year’s Eve, and New Year’s Day, and the trouble they have to deal with before they can get on with their lives in the new year.
A new year promises so much, to undo all the bad habits (ha!), and to make new ones (uhm, good habits, not new bad habits), to make new memories, to accomplish goals that have been put off, to start all over and make this year the best, or just to plug along and do what you’ve been doing all along, only having more fun along the way.
The new year can be daunting. For me, it means the beginning of having to write more deadline books, what do I write about now that’s new and different???? More teddy bear orders. They’re stacking up. And I haven’t finished writing Claiming the White Bear. *sigh*
But it’s also a time to take a breather or two and have fun. Hopefully, no category 5 hurricanes this year. We had snow too. Really bizarre for the Houston area. But great for pictures!
So Christmas is over, we had a really lovely time, and I’m ready for spring! Have a lovely day!!! I have to write!
Last minute preparations for Christmas Eve dinner! What are you doing?
I found this interesting article about Shyamalan and his ups and downs in his works and wanted to share.
Excerpt from Rolling Stone, Brian Hiatt:
“On a wall in Shyamalan’s production company is a printout of the names of all the execs who said no to The Visit. Most of them, he says, have since lost their jobs. “That list meant different things to me,” he says. “It first meant the obvious, ‘I told you so.’ And then it morphed into something else and as one name after another on the list disappeared, you don’t hold on to that feeling of I told you so. . . . When you’re looking at it like you’re trying to get approval, that’s unhealthy. There’s nothing wrong with the people on that list. My job is to inspire them.”” https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-features/m-night-shyamalan-glass-interview-771063/
As a writer, I can relate! And I love how he dealt with all the rejections. What did he do? Give up? Nope, he kept trying until he made the story a success.
For me, everyone turned down Heart of the Wolf, except Sourcebooks, who gave me a chance and voila, it made Publisher Weekly’s Best Book of the Year. Only five were chosen. And the series has grown into 26 books with 2 more coming next year, and 3 the next, and 5 jaguar shifter stories, with another coming next year. Over a decade of sharing wolf stories that endure and endear.
One of Shyamalan’s supposed failures was Lady in the Water, yet I really liked that movie! Quirky characters and the mystery that needed to be solved and the way the critic knew nothing would get him. I love twists and turns in stories.
Never give up. Never surrender.
Okay, so the corned beef and all the trimmings are in the slow cooker for Christmas Eve dinner. House is clean. Now I need to get back to editing Claiming the White Bear! Before it’s time for a break and more Christmas merriment.
I feel like I’m flying backwards as I take a meaningful step back and revise Claiming the White Bear yet again, and again, and again. What is the issue this time? Too much narration in the first chapter. So I moved the narration to another chapter and turned it into dialogue. She doesn’t tell the hero about something he should know earlier on either. So I move that to earlier in the story and argh, the two changes will make for a lot of ripples in the beginning of the story. But it doesn’t matter. It’s all good. It makes the story so much better. So I printed out the first 4 chapters last night again and was editing them until 1:30 am and finally gave up before I read chapter 4. I’m sure after I make the changes, I will have to reread and revise again. But, at least it’s a start. And the good thing is that I think it was by chapter 5 that she had told him the news, so it won’t affect the rest of the book once I make the revisions to these chapters.
So tomorrow is Christmas Eve and I’m having more of a traditional Irish dish–corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and carrots at my daughter’s request. I ended up buying a bigger crock pot because mine is only 2.5 quarts and when I go to make corned beef or brisket or pot roast, it’s just not big enough. This one is another of the original Crock Pot, not the fancy stuff with all the electronic gizmos. I like the ceramic “bowl” that the food is cooked in. It seems indestructible, plus reviews on the fancier stuff had good and bad reviews. I was glad they still sell the original. The only thing I hated was with the original, I had the best cookbook I used for recipes and in my move, I lost the book. This one has a few measly pages included with the directions, about the size of your hand. Blah. And yes, you can look up the stuff I’m sure on the internet, but I like to have my book sitting there to use when cooking.
I’m off to write! I only got about 500 words written yesterday, the rest was all moving content, and editing. *sigh* But! I’m excited about the changes and I’m off to make more.
Oh, and about the blurry birds in flight, I’m getting better about capturing some things in flight that aren’t blurry. My granddaughter for one, who is on the move constantly. And the butterfly that looks like it was still? It wasn’t. It’s a yellow swallowtail and they move constantly. But the blurry ones are kind of fun too because they show the birds’ movement. Did you know you can blur things to create movement? lol So that’s what I did. On purpose. Did I mention I tell tales???
Okay, so some of my stories are all fantasy, whereas some are contemporary fantasy–as in werewolves that live among us, and the fae have their own world, but come to ours to create havoc. But in my fantasies, I have the traditional fantastical creatures, including centaurs, unicorns, dragons, and some creatures made up. The three girls are coming of age and they have all kinds of ordeals to prove their mettle and worth as they battle through the kingdoms to save their kind. I still need to write the third book! They have a warrior dwarf who tags along, disagreeable and lovable.
The Magic of Inherian: Scepter of Salvation, Book 1
Princess
Talamaya turned 18 in the human kingdom of Damar, just like her twin
brother. Only when she comes of age, she must wed the king’s choice.
When her brother comes of age, he’s allowed to sit on the council. But
everything changes when a wizard pits beast and man against each other
in Inherian–all because of the loss of the Scepter of Salvation and she
must return it to their kingdom.
Princess
Talamaya and her friends, Lady Kersta and Lady Mexia, must retrieve the
Scepter of Salvation when her brother is poisoned.Visions plague
Talamaya of a world beyond her own, of a destiny she has to fulfill.But
the barbarian king is also after the scepter, and the black-hearted
wizard who is trying to gain control will do anything to keep them from
retrieving it.
She must free a knight from his madness.
Help a female dwarf escape from the dwarven mines.
Aid an Amazon fighting the Dark Elves.
Rescue even the barbarian king.
Save a crusty old dwarf from the wolves of Elan Pass.
And outwit the dark wizard once more.
Above all else, she must always take the path of righteousness.
Which is much easier said than done.
Amazon
An apprentice of the mage they had destroyed earlier, now
threatens Inherian once again. But when Mexia arrives at Langdon to
become school trained, she learns the school will not permit a woman to
attend. But she must destroy the mage’s apprentice, and she cannot do so
without the training. She must use the magic she has learned to
discover a way to defeat the apprentice before it is too late.
Mexia has already
done much more than most school- trained mages when she and her
companions had gone in search of the scepter of salvation. But now one
of the apprentices of the evil wizard they had destroyed, has stolen his
spell book and plans to take up where he had left off, and she has to
try and stop him.
Mexia believes the only way for her to defeat the mage is to become
school trained like he was with the eventual goal of becoming a high
wizard–the first of her kind in Inherian. But the current headmaster
denies her entrance because she’s a woman. Though if she can get the
former headmaster’s recommendation, she may attend.
And that’s the beginning of the trouble.
First, there’s the wizard.
Then, the immovable headmaster.
And then, the circle of misfortunes.
It all goes downhill from there… Amazon
I just received the signed contract for 3 more books, due in in 2019 and due out in 2020, but I also have to write the novella for the 10th anniversary release of Legend of the White Wolf!
So these are the books that each will have a new novella, 10th anniversary releases and new covers. The new cover for Destiny of the Wolf is beautiful, but I don’t have the cover to show off yet (book release 2019 fall). And I’m looking forward to a new cover for Legend of the White Wolf since the cartoonish version doesn’t fit with any of the rest of my covers (book release 2020). They haven’t created it yet. The publisher was new in the field of romance when I signed on, so their art department was learning how to make really fantastic covers. Now they have their own model shoots and no more headless guys. Yay!
Publishers Weekly’s Best Book of the Year
His heart holds a secret only she can unlock.
Arctic werewolves in a romantic suspense.
Now that I have a contract in hand, it means, no more procrastinating. Not that I am, mind you. I’m still trying to finish up Claiming the White Bear and I wrote 3,000 words on it yesterday. Only 14,000 words left to go. I also received the request for promo blogs for my next release: You Had Me at Jaguar, and I’ll be getting edits in for other books that I’ve written for 2019. It’s a Neverending Story, but a good one! I’m excited! I just need to finish up this book that I started last Christmas.
And yet, Christmas is coming shortly! Which means no writing that day. Oh, and instead of babysitting, I’m going to be dog sitting again. And…sigh…I keep thinking I HAVE to write another Highlander story. I LOVE them, have covers for them, but just need time to write my next one.
I’m off to get writing. Oh, have you ever gone to the grocery store and got everything on your list and then come home to realize you forgot more things because they weren’t on your list? I’m fixing a Christmas Eve Irish feast (corned beef, cabbage, carrots and potatoes), and a roast for Christmas. But I went to make a turkey sandwich last night (I get the small turkey breast and roast it and then I can still enjoy my turkey from time to time during the year) and realized, horrors! My mayonnaise jar is still running out, the bread is too, and my milk expired. Huh. When did that happen???
Hey, you know how you were always told that Goldilocks was guilty of breaking and entering the three bears home? Broke furniture, ate their porridge, was caught sleeping in baby bear’s bed? Well, did you know that they were shifters?
See? Goldie was pleading her case to the bears and I’m not sure they were buying it. Maybe if she gave baby bear her teddy bear, they’ll let her go with a stern warning.
Okay, shockingly enough, I managed to play with baby AND finish creating a cover for the print version of Woodland Fae, and finish formatting it, and sent it for preview. And it’s now available too. And the ebook is available at Barnes and Noble.
Woodland Fae
Letta is a scorpion fae, pretending to be a woodland fae, since her own kind had practically annihilated their own. She’s come of age and must leave her kind behind to make her way in the world. Taking refuge in a cave during a storm in wolf fae territory, she’s attacked by a wolf shifter fae and saves another’s life, who happens to be the pack leader’s sister. But now Letta has a new problem. The bite she’d received turns her into a wolf shifter also, but will the wolf fae pack accept her or scorn her for being one of the deadly scorpion fae if they learn the truth?
Simon is the pack leader for the Wolf Mountain pack and he’s unsure what kind of fae Letta is, not having heard of a woodland fae before. Yet he’s attracted to Letta like he’s never been to a she-wolf before. That causes dissent among some of his wolves who believe another wolf should be his mate and he must prove to his pack that he has what it takes to lead.
And I worked on Claiming the White Bear edits. Now I just need to finish writing the story! Trying to focus on that today and NOT on the next Silver Town wolf story that I need to write!
