Working on the United Shifter Force Christmas novella for the anthology! Over halfway done! Coming December 7th, 2021. The cover and title are forthcoming.
So with the updated cover for The Shadow Elf, YA fantasy book, I wanted to proof the book one more time since I would have to reupload everything. That’s what I was doing last night and I’ll be working on today, in addition to the USF Christmas. I’m going with my daughter to the movie theater. Haven’t gone in 2 years, and this one is brand new built near us, so looking forward to it!
And then, it’s back to the books!
Have a wonderful day!!! I’ve really got to get busy…after I make my tea. I have a habit of starting the water and getting engrossed with the book and then having to reheat it…a couple of times before I finally get my tea.
Whoops, forgot to show the model I used from Depositphoto, but these are some of the elements and I have to do a lot more work, but this is some of it.
I managed to get 700 words on the book yesterday, now up to 14K, and I need to finish it. We did workbook pages, painted more suncatcher art work, and swam, and walked, and read stories. So a fun-filled day to be repeated today! I probably won’t get a whole lot done on the book today. So this weekend, hope to get a LOT more done.
Little one will be here any second. I will have a baby swap with big sister this morning, while sister goes to the dentist.
Hope you all have a great day! Mine is going to be hectic, but fun!
I wanted to redo some covers, or buy some artists’ covers if I could find any that would suit a couple of my stories that are already written, but I couldn’t find one I liked for The Shadow Elf, so yesterday I worked on a new one of my own. I had made the first one 11 years ago and I’ve learned a lot about Photoshop and compositing since then!
Now I’ll have to see what else I have that I need to rework! But I’m still trying to finish up USF Christmas. The cover for that one is still a work in progress, but nearly done. I’m hoping I’ll have the United Shifter Force Christmas novella for the anthology finished by Sunday night and can start editing it! Over halfway done! Coming December 7th, 2021
I managed to get 2500 words yesterday on United Shifter Force Christmas so I’m up to 13,500.
At 5:30 this morning, it’s supposed to be 80 degrees and 7% chance of rain. The weatherman needs to wake up and change the forecast. It is POURING. Yay! Love it when it rains.
So I have my granddaughter for the next two days. She’s been missing me since I haven’t had her since last Thursday. Even though I pick her up from school every afternoon, it’s not the same as staying the day with grandma. Her mom made the mistake of teasing her about staying the night with grandma and she had a fit when she couldn’t. lol Grandma was still trying to get word count on the book last night. Today, and Friday I probably won’t get much done at all.
Okay, well I’m up early, so need to get some stuff done before she gets here!
Have a beautiful day! Mine started out fun with a great storm that, according to the weather service, isn’t happening.
It is soooo not cold outside, but we did have torrential rain and thunderstorms which was a welcome relief from the heat. And I managed to write 4,000 words, so I made it to 11,000 words on United Shifter Force, so over halfway done. Yay!!!
So it feels like Christmas. The perfect Christmas present! I would love to get another 4,000 tomorrow. I have kids on Thursday and Friday, so won’t get anything done. It all just depends on if I have ideas tomorrow that will keep moving me forward. 🙂 And then I have to start filling in all the details. When I get to the halfway point, it’s the downhill slide and I need to figure out how to wrap it up! Yay!
Went to IKEA yesterday with my daughter and really enjoyed it.
I managed to write 2,000 words on United Shifter Force Christmas, watched a bunch of videos on cover making and am still playing with the cover for United Shifter Force Christmas, which will be in an anthology first. But when we get our novellas back, we’ll be sharing them separately so I’ll need an individual cover too.
Okay, I’m off to write. I wish books would write themselves, but they really need some help. lol
A very old picture of the dogs my dad took when I was young and I created the composite.
I’m an introvert and so when I was thirteen, my parents got me an Afghan hound and my sister, a silky terrier. The idea was that we would take them to puppy shows to get over our shyness. It was fun and something new to do and it did help! Not all the way, but somewhat.
I adored Tasha, well, Katie too. I love animals. But Tasha was mine to care for and I loved her. She was a crazy dog, chasing us in the backyard and they’re fast runners, so that was no contest for her. She would bite us in the back as if we were her puppy playmates when she was this tall and we couldn’t stop laughing. We would toss the ball to her and one time, it hit her on the nose and she went under the bushes and sulked. No amount of telling her we didn’t mean for it to hit her on the nose made her change her mind until SHE was ready to come out and return to the fun.
Dad was always digging holes for new trees in the backyard, and as soon as he had one in the ground, she would try to chew the sapling as if it were a chew toy. She would rest her nose on her paws and just wait for him to start digging the next hole. He’d give her a steely-eyed gaze, warning her not to touch the tree. She’d raise her furry eyebrows, head still on paws, asking, “Who me?” And then as soon as he got back to work, she was at the sapling. He tried hot sauce on the tree, that was just a, uhm, well, hot and spicy treat for her.
They’re so different from a dog, really, having more of a cat personality. They’ll go with anyone who would take them somewhere, so not at all loyal. At least she wasn’t. But she was so much fun.
We stayed at a family-owned motel on a trip through Tennessee from Florida and the owners sat out with us while we swam and she was tied to the umbrella-covered table and was trying to pull it toward the pool to join us. She was a nut.
She jumped from bed to bed in the motel room, thinking this was the most fun she’d ever had. And she loved riding in the car. We stopped at a scenic outlook in the mountains and took a walk through the woods where way down below you could hear the sound of a bear calling–at least everyone thought so. We came around a corner of the mountain where a man and boy were screaming, terrified, running toward us until they realized Tasha wasn’t a bear and she was on a long leash I was holding onto. lol
Just as we’ll always have that fond memory, they would have too.
But when my dad lost his job at the cape with all the layoffs and cutbacks they had (we had transferred in from the California company and he didn’t have the seniority that the ones who worked for the Florida company had) we moved to Oregon. I couldn’t take my beloved Tasha with me because we were staying with my grandparents. I hated that I had to give her up. But I never regretted owning one cat-like dog that ran like the wind, dared my dad to turn his back on her when he was planting trees, and sulked when she thought we were being mean to her. She had the cutest personality.
Okay, I barely got started on the Christmas anthology yesterday, so off to work on it some more.
I learned something new! The White Cabbage Butterfly has spots, the White Mustard Butterfly does not!
Well, I started the Christmas novella yet again, but it still isn’t want I want. lol. Four different starts. I don’t usually do this. I usually just have an idea, eventually, and run with it and get stuck along the way. *sigh*
So I’m taking care of both kids this afternoon. I need a baby swing. I need some safety scissors for my granddaughter. Her preschool teacher says she needs practice cutting out shapes. Soooo, Grandma is going to practice with her if I’m not walking baby the whole time. lol
We’ll find shapes around the house, trace them, and practice cutting. Maybe work on our rainbow sewing project and paint a giraffe rainbow colors. She loves everything rainbow, so everything she does, she has to make rainbowish.
Okay, I’ve got to get some stuff done before they get here. Hope you all have a fun-filled weekend!!!
I’ve got to figure out this story. I even watched two Christmas movies to try and get in the mood. *double sigh*
It was so much fun seeing all the birds at the birding center, but some of them were actually sitting on the railings of the boardwalk making it the best for picture taking. Except for the busy backgrounds in a couple of them. So I added texture backgrounds. We were able to get really close to them before they moved too.
Well, I finished proofing Silence of the Wolf and SEAL to the Rescue, so will be turning them in momentarily. And now it’s time to write those Christmas stories!!!
*sigh*
I’ve started the novella 3 times. I’m going to pull out the different versions and then just run with one of them.
Hope you all have a fantastic day! I have to start feeling Christmas in July!
When we were walking on the Birding boardwalk, naturally, I was looking for birds to photograph, but then my son-in-law pointed out what he thought was an alligator. Sure enough, I took a picture of it and when I handed the camera to him so he could see it, the alligator disappeared! Just think if you were wading out there! Playing the Jaws’ music here. It’s one of the wild alligators in the reserve.
The smiling alligator is in part of the protected reserve.
The little alligator looks like a stuffed alligator, it was standing so still. They told us they have to separate all the different ages or the bigger ones will eat the little ones. It’s an alligator eat alligator world out there.
Okay, so I managed to get to chapter 20 on proofing for Silence of the Wolf, nearly done with the novel, I think, and then the novella is after that, SEAL Wolf Pursuit. Which means I’m only halfway through this book, 200 pages done, 200 pages to go. I hope to have it done so I can get started on the Christmas books this weekend, though I have babysitting duty on Saturday. The kids are going to see their first movie in 2 years at the theater–and we have a brand new theater that opened in June. Then my daughter and I will see a movie together maybe the following weekend, and daddy will take care of the kids!
Also, You Had Me at Cougar is now available in print! Woohoo!
Man was I tired yesterday. You know how they say you need to have a day break from work after a trip to recuperate from the vacation, well, it’s true! Little one and I started on a rainbow sewing project. She has a cloud, two unicorns, and can’t remember what else to sew. I have to help with it, but she’s loving it. We still have to finish the rainbow too.
I managed only to take care of two things that had come up while I was gone. I need to work on proofing Silence of the Wolf, but with my granddaughter here until late, I just couldn’t manage. So after I get groceries tomorrow, I’ll have to get to work on it. I discovered, when I went to get her some milk, mine had gone bad!
I did work on some of the photos when I had time, so here is a Green Heron and its baby chick. This was at the Birding and Nature Center on South Padre Island. The heron was on the railing of the boardwalk and I had taken several pictures of him/her, momma or daddy, and then saw something small move on the reeds next to the water down below. I captured a couple of shots before the baby moved into the grasses and hid its face. So cute.
I didn’t manage to get to the 5 story tower there, but we walked all over the boardwalks for 2 hours after already having a long day of it at the beach. Just too much fun! And I was in hog heaven being able to take pictures of the birds and alligators, turtles, crabs, and a bunny rabbit. Oh, and barn owl and tortoises. It would have been even better if it had been overcast, but you have to do what you have to do.
Now I want to go to the birding boardwalk we’re supposed to have around here. I’ll have to check into it. But I’ll want to go when it’s not so beastly hot.
Have a beautiful day. I’ve got to get going on mine!
Coming December 7th, 2021. The cover and title are forthcoming.
