Random Thoughts

Spreading the Love

2012-01-31T08:00:00.001-05:00

Noteworthy posts:

Rattles Flash Fiction has a new picture prompt up. Check it out – you have until March 16 to submit a story of between 800 and 1000 words.

John A. Betcher, at Self-Publishing Central has the results from his free book promotion. If you’re self-published or thinking of self-publishing, you should really read this.

Chuck Wendig has 25 Things You Should Know About Story Structure. Helpful stuff!

Don’t forget to check out Tuesday Tales. Some of these are stand alone stories, many of them are works in progress and it’s worth taking the time to check out the back links to read the full stories. :-)

Looking for something fun to do? Try the A to Z Challenge. It’s not until April but there’s already over 300 people signed up already.

Inky Girl has some great comics and helpful advice for anyone attending a writer’s conference for the first time. Yes, I know it’s geared to the SCBWI conference, but it can apply to any writing conference.

Blogs and Websites:

Language is a Virus
This site has so much cool stuff I don’t know what you should check out first. Oh, wait. Yes I do. Click on the “Writing Games” tab on the upper left and have some fun.

One Word
Feel like writing but you don’t know how to start? Try One Word. It gives you a one word prompt and 60 seconds to write whatever pops into your head. Great way to get the creative juices flowing.

Africam
Seriously, this is the coolest webcam ever! I’ve seen a bunch of different animals, but you have to be patient. :-)

1000 Words A Day
If you need a challenge to get your writing done, sign up here. It doesn’t have to be 1,000, you can set your goal lower if you like, but it will still give you a boost.

Microphagous Monday

2012-01-30T08:00:00.001-05:00

microphagous ~ feeding on small creatures or plants

I noticed on Saturday that I had a lot document files sitting on the screen of my laptop, so I decided it was time to back them up. I’ve been a little slack in the backing up department lately. So I pulled out my trusty USB key – actually I pulled out five of them – and realized they were utterly disorganized. So . . . I set about organizing them. This will be the subject of a special post on Thursday (on Random Writings).

One of these keys is just for my writing and it occurred to me that not all of my writing was backed up onto it. I had a bunch of document files still on floppy disks (that’s the 3 ½ inch floppies). So I fired up my ancient computer (which sounds like a lawnmower when you turn it on) because it has a working A drive. Then I spent the next few hours transferring files from 60 (yes, that’s right 60!) floppy disks onto a USB key. And the sad part? It was a 2 gig key and I still had a gig of space left when I was finished. Boy how times have changed!

Pictured below is my box of disks and the USB key I copied the files onto in front of the box. And yes, that is a sonic screwdriver to the right of them, with a Grumpy mug behind it. :-)

Anyway, one of my projects for the coming week(s) will be going through these files and organizing them. I took a look at a few of my old writing files and found a really cool idea I had for a contemporary novel written in three points of view. Who knows what other treasures I may find?

Other than the reading I did for my editing, I only read one book last week, Mercenaries by Angela Knight. Yummy!

My posts all got written last week, although my instalment for Shades went up much later than I expected. I don’t know what happened there, but it was a real struggle to get it written. I’ve really got to try and start these things earlier in the week.

I actually confused myself last week, which led to a series of late nights. Tuesday I was thinking about the post I had to write for Wednesday, but I kept thinking it was supposed to be the instalment for Water. So, when I finally got a chance to get writing, it took my mind a while to adjust to writing the instalment for Shades. Then Wednesday I was thinking about my posts for Thursday and I forgot that I moved my poetry to Fridays, so I got my poetry post done before I started working on Water, which made for another late night. At least that meant I was ahead of the game on Thursday night. :-)

What’s Up This Week:
The schedule is up on the side bar, so I’m just giving the highlights here.

TuesdayMore blog posts and website suggestions to keep you out of trouble.

Wednesday (on Random Writings) is the next instalment for Shades, in which hopefully Jessica figures out what to do next. And don’t forget the Hump Day Hunk (on Random Thoughts).

Thursday will be Chapter Three of Water (on Random Thoughts) where we find out what’s the matter with Nereida. And On Random Writings I’ll be doing a post on the importance of taking your time when backing up.

Friday I keep forgetting to set up some poet interviews, so you’re stuck with more of my poetry on Random Writings. On Random Thoughts it’s Flash Me Friday and I’ll probably be doing another picture prompt.

Flash Me Friday

2012-01-27T08:00:00.002-05:00

For my prompt this week I opened up a book of quotations at random, closed my eyes, and point. The quotation I landed on was this:

The "kingdom of Heaven" is a condition of the heart - not something that comes "upon the earth" or "after death." ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Houses in Heaven

Cindy was dry eyed as she stood outside her mother's house, her house now. It looked exactly the same as always. Loreen's death didn't seem to touch it at all. Unlocking the side door she smiled faintly. Even now she didn't use the front door, the door reserved for special occasions and guests. She couldn't even be sure the lock on it would still turn.

The kitchen still smelled faintly of fresh bread and cinnamon. On baking days the entire house would be redolent with fresh scents - apple and spice, bread and pastry. Cindy hesitated on the threshold, half-expecting Mama to be busy at the stove wearing one of her enormous, white, frilly aprons. Instead, the door burst open behind her and her three boisterous children tumbled into the kitchen.

"Mama, Pauly won't push me on the swing!"

"I'm tired of pushing her!"

"Mama, can we go to heaven?"

"Quiet, all of you," Cindy's voice rose above theirs. "First of all, shoes off in the house, you know better than that."

"But Grandma isn't here, why do we have to take our shoes off?"

"Because I said so! Paul, you three came with me because you promised not to get under foot."

"But Mom ..."

"You three play in the backyard for a bit, then I'll fix lunch."

"What about heaven?"

"After lunch we’ll see."

Cindy smiled as the three raced back out the door. Her smile faded as she looked around the kitchen. Everything was in its proper place, but coated with a thin layer of dust. Mama would have had kittens. Dust was her personal enemy, her nemesis.

"A house never looks unkept if you keep it dusted," she'd say. "It doesn't matter how many newspapers are left on the table or whose toys are lying around. It's dust that makes a house unclean."

Cindy shook off the memory and went back to the car for the boxes. She was only taking a few things, mostly pictures and mementoes. Everything else was to be sold at public auction, for which she would not be staying.

The first thing that greeted her in the living room was her graduation picture on the mantel. Next to it was her wedding portrait.

"You're a woman now," Mama told her that day. "You'll have children of your own someday."

Mama had never doubted, even when it took five years for Cindy to conceive. Loreen told her to have faith, God would know when the time was right for a baby. She was there for the birth of her grandson, laughing and crying right along with Cindy.

A shout from outside had her glancing out the window. Paul had the twins both in the tire swing. He pushed until he could run under the swing, laughing as the girls screamed with delight. He was such a blessing.

Cindy's smile faltered. And to think she'd almost lost him to the carelessness of a drunk driver.
It was a day she'd never forget, the day she opened her door to a white-faced neighbour who told her Paul had been hit by a car. Cindy couldn't remember the frantic race to Paul, but she'd never forget the sight of the still little body, his life leaking slowly out onto the road.

She thought the tears she shed then would never end. She cried at the scene of the accident, she cried in the ambulance, she cried in the waiting room of the hospital. Then Loreen arrived, a tower of strength, and told Cindy to stop crying. Pauly was going to be all right. And Mama never lied, not even when it was what you needed to hear.

Paul Junior recovered but their joy was short-lived. Just after that Paul Senior died. Cindy shed her widow's tears in private, but the floodgates opened wide just after the funeral when she found out she was pregnant again.

Again Loreen came to salve the hurts, to comfort and console. But after the twins were born and Cindy was on her feet she left, saying it was time Cindy learned to walk alone.

Mama had always been a tower of strength, even in the face of Death. She had been diagnosed with cancer three years ago. The best the doctors could offer was a chance of prolonging her life, a cure was out of the question.

Loreen had drawn herself up proudly and said it was God's will and she wasn't going to let some doctor stick her in the geriatric ward in the hospital, just so he could make her last days miserable. She'd die as God willed it, and in her own bed, surrounded by her family.

Though the doctors and even some of the family tried arguing with her, she'd gotten her way in the end. Just as it should be.

She was right of course.

Cindy sighed as she realized she was curled up in her favourite wing chair, clutching her wedding picture. She glanced at her watch. Almost time for lunch and so little had been accomplished.

A light summer breeze wafted in the window as she stood at the counter in the kitchen making sandwiches. Cindy closed her eyes. She could smell freshly cut grass, and a mixed perfume from the garden. Summer beckoned.

"Why not?"

She wrapped up the sandwiches and dug around under the counter for the old plastic picnic bag. Sandwiches, apples, paper plates, an old blanket ... what else? Opening the fridge she discovered a tetra pack of apple flavoured drink boxes.

Hefting the bag over her shoulder, she stepped outside.

"Come on, kids, lunch is ready," she called.

"What're you doing with that old bag?" Paul asked, first to reach her.

"I thought we'd have a picnic."

"In heaven?" Merry asked, ever hopeful.

"In heaven," her mother agreed, smiling.

Heaven was located just up the street. The day after they'd moved into this house, Cindy and her mother went on an exploring walk together. They followed a path just down the street from the house, up a wooded hillside. At the top stretched a broad, flat meadow, covered with sweet peas in full bloom.

They had spun around and around until they were dizzy, and laughing fell into a cloud of blossoms.

"This is heaven!" Cindy declared, and heaven it remained.

Cindy felt her mood lift. Countless bad poems had been composed amidst the flowers of heaven during the angst of her teenaged years. Hundreds of bouquets had been picked, until her mother had pleaded, laughing, for her to stop before people mistook their house for a florist shop.

The children skipped on ahead. The woods were cool and peaceful, filled with the scent of cedar and pine. Cindy started up the hill slowly, savouring the anticipation of the meadow.

"Mama, mama! There's houses in heaven!"

Cindy was just about bowled over by the twins as they raced down the path towards her.

"What are you talking about?"

They began tugging her up the path. "Come see!"

She did indeed see when she got to the top of the hill. All life's pleasure seemed to drain away as she stared at the churned up earth and the framework of several houses.

The fledgling subdivision spread out over the entire meadow. Heaven was pushed back to a small strip of land at the edge of the wooded hill. A large sign in the centre of a bare patch of earth declared: "Welcome to Vistaview Estates".

Debbie tugged at Cindy's sleeve. "Is grandma going to live in one of those houses?"

"What?" Cindy asked, startled.

"You said grandma went to heaven, which house is hers?"

"Oh, baby," Cindy knelt and drew her daughter close.

Small fingers touched her face. "Mama," Merry whispered, "Why are you crying?"

Cindy pulled her other daughter close too. They were still young enough to hold in the security of her arms.

"It's because they're digging up heaven, isn't it?" ten-year-old Paul wisely declared.

"It's because I love you all so much," Cindy said softly.

The girls wriggled in her arms and she let them go. One day, she'd have to let them go for good, just as her mother let her go. But that day was still in the future. Today they had each other, and the sun, and a picnic to devour in what was left of heaven.

"Can we pick flowers after lunch?" Debbie asked.

"Yes," Cindy agreed, "We can. We can go put them on grandma's grave. She'd like that."

"Can we come back again?" Merry asked.

Cindy started to shake her head in denial, then hesitated. Not all changes in life had to be bad, or abrupt.

"We'll come back again in the fall to collect some seeds," she said. "Then in the spring we'll find a spot at home to plant them and make our own heaven."

"Would grandma like that?"

"Yes," Cindy said, smiling. "I think she would."

Water - Chapter Two

2012-01-26T08:00:00.002-05:00

This serial is presented in draft form and will be updated each Thursday. Your comments are always welcome!

Prologue ~ Ch 1 ~

“Today we are going to discuss some of the changes your bodies are going to be going through,” the teacher told the class. “This is not just the changes you will be going through as your bodies mature, but it will also prepare you for what to expect when you undergo your tespiro.”

“Where’s Sior?”

Ravi craned his neck to see who had the nerve to ask the question that was on everyone else’s minds. A ripple of murmurs went through the class before the teacher rapped sharply on his desk with his cane.

“Silence!”

The teacher glared at them while the boys straightened up in their seats, eyes front. It had been a year since the boys and the girls had been segregated in the classroom. Though Ravi missed sitting beside Nereida, he still got to see her at meal times and when they exercised. And of course they were never truly apart, joined as they were through their minds.

“Now I know some of you have heard rumours, the One only knows how they got started, but the simple truth is, Sior was not found worthy to become an Elemental.”

“I heard he blew up,” an anonymous voice said.

“He did not blow up! He entered his tespiro earlier than anticipated and did not survive. He was not strong enough to become a true Elemental and so he returned to his element. This is why we are going over these things now, so you will be prepared when your time comes.”

Ravi tuned the teacher out. Are you getting the same boring lecture we are? he asked his sister.

Our teacher is talking about what happened to Sior. Gaea is really upset. She hoped to one day be mated to Sior.

She shouldn’t have let herself get so attached, she knows she won’t have a choice.

“Kairavini!”

Ravi suddenly became aware that the teacher had been talking to him. “I – um – I . . .” What was the question? he asked Nereida, hoping she’d been paying attention.

What’s one of the first signs of approaching tespiro, she answered promptly.

“Um, disorientation and a fever?”

“Lucky guess,” the teacher said with a glare meant just for him. “I suggest you pay closer attention, you might not be so lucky next time.”

Maybe we should save the talk for later, Nereida suggested.

Fine, just remember to save me a seat in the dining hall.

Ravi tried to pay better attention to what the teacher was telling them, but the man had a monotonous voice and it was getting warm in the classroom. He spent most of the remainder of the afternoon fighting to stay awake.

“I wonder what it’ll be like,” Zepherin said as they were dismissed from the classroom.

“Wonder what what’ll be like?”

“The breeding.” Zepherin lowered his voice. “Weren’t you paying attention?”

“Not really,” Ravi admitted.

“They’ve lowered the age for males to participate in the breeding program. Now it’s down to just two years after we pass our tespiro.”

How had he missed that little tidbit of information?

Because you were daydreaming, brother.

I was not!

Yes you were, and I can’t say as I blame you. Your teacher is really boring.

Maybe I should try eavesdropping on your lessons for a change.

Laughter rang out in his mind. You’d better say something quick to Zepherin before he thinks you’re ignoring him.

“What about the girls?” he asked, picking up the thread of his other conversation.

“He never mentioned them. Doesn’t really make any difference, It's not like any of us have a choice. We live to serve.”

They’ve lowered the girls age to eighteen, Nereida whispered at the same time.

They reached the dining hall and the buzz of conversation was louder than usual. Picking up their trays, Ravi and Zepherin made their way to their age-group section where Nereida was saving a table for them.

“Sounds like everyone’s talking about the changes,” Ravi said, out loud for Zepherin’s benefit.

“Which changes?” Jori, the fourth at the table asked. “The one’s in our minds or our bodies?”

“How about all the changes in our lives?” Zepherin suggested. “Separate classes, lowering the breeding age . . . who knows what’ll come next?”

“If they had the space, I’ll bet we wouldn’t even get to eat together,” Ravi said. “What do you think Nereida? Nereida? Are you okay?”

She sat at the table rubbing her forehead, a frown on her face. Her plate lay untouched in front of her. “I feel so strange . . .”

Hump Day Hunk

2012-01-25T08:00:00.001-05:00

Anybody notice he's wearing a ring? ;-)

Spreading the Love

2012-01-24T08:00:00.002-05:00

Noteworthy posts:

If you’re still unsure about the whole Amazon KDP Select issue, The Open Vein has a well done post on the subject. You can read Part I HERE and Part II HERE.

Don’t forget to vote for me on You Gotta Read Covers. Actually, credit for the cover goes to Heidi Sutherlin, artist extraordinaire, but please vote all the same!

Sarah Bella, from She Likes It Verbal has some great tips for creating character bios.

Lone Swing posted a piece I found interesting on accepting criticism. I have a pet peeve with people who ask for my opinion and then argue with me about it.

An interesting post on the importance of characters from Antagonists Needed.

Fantasy Faction is running a short story contest. If you’re a writer of fantasy, you really should check it out.

Blogs and Websites:

Mithril Wisdom
For the hard-core fantasy lover, you don’t want to miss the reviews on this blog.

Astronomy Picture of the Day
The great thing about this is, if you miss a day they have an archive so it’s easy to catch up. I’ve saved a ton of these pictures and currently have them set as a desktop slide show on my other computer.

Think Geek
Where do I begin? Yeah, I come to this site every year to make out my Christmas wish list. :-) They’re currently sold out of the vanishing Tardis mugs, but they still have the Tardis tea mugs with the lids . . . Just sayin’. ;-)

Mount St. Helen’s Web Cam
What? You mean no one else has a thing for volcanoes?

Snow Days
This one’s just for fun. If I can’t get snow the regular way, I’ll do it one flake at a time. :-)

Mugwump Monday

2012-01-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

mugwump ~ one who is neutral politically

Gong hoy fat choy!

Today is the Chinese New Year, heralding the Year of the Dragon. As many of you know, I have a soft spot for dragons – I’ve been collecting them for years. Little ones, big ones, medium sized ones . . . made from glass, ceramic, wood, plastic, pewter . . . yeah, it’s a pretty extensive collection. :-)

I always wished I’d been born in the Year of the Dragon, but alas, I was not. I was born in the Year of the Dog (which doesn’t come around again until 2018). For the longest time I thought I’d been born in the Year of the Boar, but that’s because I was following the westernized version of the Chinese Zodiac, which is very different from the real thing. So if your birthday falls in January or February, you may want to check out THIS LINK to find out what Chinese Year you were actually born in.

And a note to my sceptical friend Jamie, according to the Chinese horoscope, you were born in the Year of the Tiger and not only are Tigers very compatible with Dogs, one of the best career choices for them is “writer”. :-p

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Last week went pretty good until Friday, when I missed my poetry post. Sorry folks, but it just wasn’t happening. I did start one. I was going to recycle a post about everyone’s favourite, the Haiku. Only a funny thing happened when I started working on it . . . it started to turn into a rant. I’m very much a traditionalist when it comes to poetry forms. Some forms have rhymes schemes, some have syllable counts, some have both, and some include a specific tone or subject you need to keep in mind when writing your poem. Such is the case with the Haiku, a fact that very few people seem to be aware of; hence, my post that turned into a rant. I didn’t want to offend any lovers of Haiku so I’ve abandoned my post until such a time as I can un-rantify it.

I hope you caught the first chapter of Water last week. Despite the fact that I sort of set the tone with the prologue, I still didn’t know where I should start the actual story. Should I continue on with them as infants? Should I skip their childhood and get right to the good stuff? I actually started out just before their mother dies, and about halfway through I realized that’s not where I wanted to start. Nor did I want to skip their childhood completely, because growing up in the compound is integral to the story. So I compromised and made them 10 years old.

I got lots of reading done last week, but nothing that can be added to my reading challenge list. I got a sneak peak at the stories for the next issue of Rattles Flash Fiction. Who knew an Old Sofa could be so inspiring? I also got a story delivered to my inbox that needs editing. You know, this is one of the perks of being an editor – finding out how something ends before anyone else. :-)

You may (or may not) have noticed my absence from Twitter and Facebook last week. My sad old lap top really doesn’t like Twitter and only barely tolerates Facebook. *sigh* And yes, I suppose I could use the desk top computer, but I don’t have my bookmarks on it and I can’t sit in the recliner with it and watch T.V. while I do so. And the screen doesn’t face the right way for socializing. Yes, that’s right. I don’t like facing the wall when I’m socializing and because the monitor on the desk top is one of those thin jobs, it’s set up against the wall in my office so the cats don’t knock it off my desk. So, to make a long story short, it sucks to be me. LOL

What’s Up This Week:
The schedule is up on the side bar, so I’m just giving the highlights here.

TuesdayI’ve expanded my Sharing the Love segment. Sometimes I come across a noteworthy website, not just a single post, so I thought it only fair to include a few of them as well.

Wednesday (on Random Writings) is the next instalment for Shades, in which we accompany Jessica on a tour of Castle Ghren. And don’t forget the Hump Day Hunk (on Random Thoughts).

Thursday will be Chapter Two of Water (on Random Thoughts) where we find out a little more of what life is like in the compound for the twins before bad stuff starts happening to them (probably next week).

Friday I am killing two birds with one stone. The “poemwork” for this month from my poetry group was to write a Burns Sonnet in honour of Robbie Burns day. So I’ll be talking a little bit about Robbie Burns and his interpretation of the sonnet on Random Writings. On Random Thoughts I thought I’d try something a little different for my flash fiction prompt. I have a book of quotations and I’m going to pick one at random and then base my story on it. I’d pick the quote right now, but the book is in my office some where and I have a cat curled up on the end of my recliner. :-)

Flash Me Friday

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

The Thirteenth Day

“What are you doing?”

Gihar squeaked and just about fell off his perch. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that!”

Meniha shrugged, unrepentant. “Maybe you shouldn’t be so focused on the view that even a clumsy child could approach without you being aware.”

She sighed as she realized she’d already lost his attention again. “What is it you find so fascinating?”

“Down there,” Gihar pointed. “Do you see?”

Meniha peered over his shoulder. “I see the forbidden lands and the wizard’s tower, same as always.”

“Look closer. Do you see them?”

Everything looked the same to her. The same stretch of beach, the same abandoned tower that had withstood gods only knew how many seasons of neglect. She was about to tell Gihar so when she saw them, two forms wheeling gracefully in a circle around the tower.

“What are they?” she asked in wonder.

“I don’t know, but this is the third day they’ve appeared.”

They watched together, in silence, for a time. Meniha finally stirred. “We need to tell the elders about this.”

“No!” Gihar grabbed her arm as she stood to leave. “You can’t tell anyone. Promise me!”

Meniha had known Gihar all her life and never once seen him so desperate. Fear curled in her belly like a snake. There was a wrongness to this that she couldn’t put a name to.

“All right, I promise,” she told him. “I won’t say anything. But you are not the only one who ventures near the forbidden places, the elders will find out eventually.”

She waited for him to say something, but his attention was already back on the strange creatures circling the wizard’s tower. Shaking her head, she made her way slowly back to the village.

The creatures appeared for three more days, and for three more days Gihar crouched in the opening to the forbidden place, a gaping hole left in the forest wall where a tree had been uprooted, Meniha by his side.

Though at first she couldn’t understand Gihar’s fascination with the creatures, Meniha soon became as captivated as he by the sight, perhaps even more so. She wondered what it would be like to stand in sunlight that wasn’t dappled by the leaves. She wondered what it would be like to soar over the vast stretch of water. When she began to wonder just what was in the wizard’s tower, she knew she was in trouble.

On the fourth day they waited in vain for the creatures to appear. They did not appear on the fifth day either, and on the sixth day Meniha waited alone. With the creatures gone, Gihar no longer felt the pull of the forbidden lands. Such was not the case with Meniha.

On the seventh day her obedience to the laws warred with her desire to have a closer look at the wizard’s tower and see what might be in it. Why was it called the wizard’s tower? Why was it so tall and round, unlike their own homes set in the trees? Why was it forbidden to set foot outside of the forest?

The desire to see the wizard’s tower grew stronger with each passing day. On the tenth day Meniha was joined by one of the tribal elders.

“It is said that in the Long Ago there dwelt a wizard in that tower,” he said, standing beside her where she crouched. “A fearsome creature was he. He wielded power over life and death, creation and dissolution. It is said he created our kind.”

That caught her attention. “Truly?” she asked. “What happened to him?”

“It is said he died, as all things must die, and his bones lay bleached by the sun on the top of his tower. We are creatures of the dark forest,” the elder said. “The light is not for us.”

He let his words sink in for a bit and then melted back into the forest, not comfortable even looking out onto the forbidden lands. Meniha was not even aware of his leaving, her focus was once more on the tower.

If she climbed to the top of the tower, would she be able to see the creatures that had circled it so gracefully? Were they more of the wizard’s creatures, come back to their home? Questions and always more questions, and never an answer. If she sought out the answers to her questions would she be punished? Banished? Worse?

On the eleventh day, Gihar came to her. “Come away, please Meniha,” he begged. She paid him no mind. “The wizard’s tower is a cursed place, it has you in its thrall. How can any good come of such a thing?”

Meniha paid him no mind. His words were like gnats, buzzing around her head.

“I curse the day I first came to this place!”

On the thirteen day, Meniha stood, knowing what she had to do. Placing one foot carefully in front of the other, she walked out into the sun.

Water - Chapter One

2012-01-19T08:00:00.002-05:00

This serial is presented in draft form and will be updated each Thursday. Your comments are always welcome!

Prologue~

Ravi . . .

Kairavini . . .

Ravi, please wake up.

In the boys’ dormitory there was a stirring in one of the beds. What is it? came the sleepy reply.

I can’t sleep, Ravi.

Nereida, there was a heavy mental sigh. What is it this time?

I had a dream about mother again. In the girls’ dormitory, Nereida was curled up on top of her bed, hands wrapped around her knees, hugging them to her narrow chest.

Mother’s gone, Nereida. She’s been gone for a long time.

Our sister’s gone too, but not the same way.

What do you mean sister? We never had a sister.

Yes we did. Mother died giving birth to her.

How do you know that? Kairavini was wide awake now.

Nereida gave the mental equivalent of a shrug. I don’t know, I just do.

Do you remember anything about mother? he asked, mental voice softening.

Not really. Just feelings, mostly.

I remember her telling us to never forget. That we’d always have each other. I think that was right before she died.

I wish I could remember, Nereida said wistfully. I asked a nurse today about talking to someone in your head and she didn’t know what I was talking about.

Why would you do that? a trace of fear leaked through the annoyance filling their link.

I was curious. I think we’re the only ones who can talk this way. Do you think there’s something wrong with us?

No, I don’t. Maybe it’s because we’re brother and sister.

I think it’s because we’re twins. Nobody else is twins. There was a hint of smug satisfaction in her mental tone.

Nereida, we really should go back to sleep now . . .

I heard Sior didn’t make it through his tespiro. They’re going to be sweeping him out of his room for weeks.

I didn’t know he was earth.

Yes, common as dirt, she said with a mental grin.

Kairavini groaned at the bad pun, both mentally and physically. Neither of them had liked Sior much. Go back to sleep, Nereida.

Good night brother. She sent a wave of love down their mental link.

Good night sister.

Though he could sense when his sister finally fell asleep, sleep was a long time coming for Kairavini. He lay in his narrow bed in the dormitory and stared up at the ceiling. A sister . . . He had no doubt about Nereida being right about that, that there had been a sister, but he had to wonder at her cryptic comment about her being gone but not in the same way.

As far as he knew, no other siblings were able to speak as they could, mind to mind. In fact, most of the other boys did not know if they had siblings and couldn’t recognize them if they did. That was Nereida’s gift.

They hadn’t told anyone about it, of course, but she was able to sense family links. She knew who was related to whom, even though keeping family ties was forbidden. The only time they saw each other was during lessons and the exercise periods, and even then they had to pretend ignorance of their bond or else they’d be punished. They’d learned that lesson all too well by the time they were five. Now they were twice that and secrecy had become second nature.

Hump Day Hunk

2012-01-18T08:00:00.002-05:00

Now there's a couple of snow balls for you. ;-)

Spreading the Love

2012-01-17T08:00:00.000-05:00

Noteworthy posts:

From the Write Stuff, an interesting post on Networking Know-how

For those who are self-publishing, here are 7 Steps to Make Your Self-published Book Look More Professional

Sarah Makela had a guest poster who share some tips for Revising by Post-its.

Mooderino has an informative post on The Joys of Rewriting

The Great Publishing Review blog has 20 Economical Book Marketing Techniques

Irrational Propensity has a great post on Procrastination

Luke Romyn talks about the Path of the Writer

Don’t forget to go to You Gotta Read Covers to check out my book cover. You may have to scroll down a bit – I’m number 15.

Recommended blogs:

Marian Allen
I like Marian for the variety of post topics as well as the fact she gives a writing prompt at the end of each post.

From Sarah, With Joy
I’ve only been following this blog for a little while, but I find Sarah very entertaining.

Tea On Tap
Who knew there was such an amazing variety of teas out there?

Jo and the Novelist
I like Jo’s pithy posts. :-)

Journal Addict
Do you keep a journal? Ever thought about keeping a journal? Then you really need to check out this blog.

Mirabiliary Monday

2012-01-16T08:00:00.002-05:00

mirabiliary ~ miracle worker

The edits are done! The edits are done! Woo hoo!

At least they are for now. We’ll see what my dream team has to say when they’ve read my book and sent it back to me.

And, um, I’m talking about Book II of the Ardraci Elementals, An Elemental Fire, just in case you were wondering. :-)

For all I felt like I was a slacker last week, I got a lot done.

Blog posts:
Serial #1, Shades of Errol Flynn is moving right along.
Serial #2, Water, had its debut instalment.
A new poetry form, the Sevenling, was introduced.
A new flash piece using a photo as a prompt was up on Friday.

As well, I finished my submission for Rattles Flash Fiction and got it sent off just under the wire. It took me a little longer than I planned on because the story took a different turn than I’d planned on and I had to re-read Dragonwyck, by Anya Seton, to find out what the name of the plant was the villain used to kill his wife.

And did I mention I finally got the edits finished on Fire? It was the journal entries that were holding me up. When I serialized Fire on my blog, I started each instalment with a journal entry, making 56 journal entries. When editing, I was using two instalments per chapter, making 28 chapters. I thought it would be a simple matter of doubling up on the journal entries at the beginning of each chapter, but that’s not the way it happened. Over half of them had to be re-written, and the first and last ones were totally new.

What’s Up This Week:

The schedule is up on the side bar, so I’m just giving the highlights here.

More interesting posts from last week so check out tomorrow’s list.

Wednesday (on Random Writings) will see Jessica paying a visit to Castle Ghren. And this week’s hump day hunk (on Random Thoughts) is inspired by our (finally) seasonable weather

Thursday will be the second instalment of Water (on Random Thoughts) and I have no idea what’s going to happen because I haven’t written it yet. ;-)

Friday will have something poetic on Random Writings, and again, at this point I have no idea what, and a new flash written from another picture prompt on Random Thoughts. I like pictures. I have a big collection of them, both on the computer and ones I’ve cut out from National Geographic and put into files. I figure it’s about time I started using them for something, hence the flash fiction using picture prompts.

Flash Me Friday

2012-01-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

This picture is of the Neversink Pit in Alabama. It's fascinated me since the first time I saw it, although I don't think I'd like to try descending into it. You can click on it for a larger view.

The Voice of the God

It was beautiful.

She stood on the edge, looking downwards, and her breath caught at its splendour. The sunlight only penetrated a short way of course, but it was enough to make out the moss covered rock, the ferns and flowers clinging tenaciously to the sides.

There was a face in the rock. She could see it quite clearly – it looked like a man’s face, a man with shaggy hair and a drooping moustache. The Wise Man of the Depths. The god who could grant dreams . . . or take them away.

A cool breeze, fragrant with the smell of moss and violets, wafted up from below. The god’s breath. She’d heard of this, but never thought to feel it herself. She shivered as she stood there in her thin white robe, unadorned save for the waterfall of long, blond hair.

The breeze circled the mouth of the god, but gently, softly. If she focused her attention, she could almost see the others who had come before her. They stood in a circle around the rim of the mouth of the god, watching and waiting. Were they waiting for her to succeed, or fail?

Such fancies. She shook her head as though to dislodge the worthy thoughts.

Further down in the mouth she could see the mist. It was said the swirling mist below was made up of the souls of former priests and priestesses, that the god swallowed their spirits, mingling them with his own essence before exhaling them again.

Inside the mouth of the god all was green and damp, while just a few yards behind where she stood the land was ravaged by a drought. This is why she was here. To ask the god to save their land.

Taking a deep breath she moved closer to the edge, peering downwards. A tendril of mist rose up, wreathing her in white, and she shivered again.

Only the purest, the truest of believers could hope to see the images in the mist, to determine what must be done to save what was left of the village. It was no small thing to be able to interpret the words of the god.

To be a Voice was a solitary thing. She had been sequestered for days and now stood alone on the rim. It had been a long time since a Voice had been required; she was too young to remember who had been the last to be honoured or what had happened to them.

Best not to think of such things, she told herself firmly. There was nothing to fear, the god was both kind and wise. The village had been turning to him for answers in times of trouble for generations.

She inched forward again, concentrating on the swirls and eddies below. There was a pattern, she was sure of it. There, just below the surface – was that another face she saw?

Stepping forward just another inch her foot slipped and she fell headlong into the god’s mouth. It happened so fast she didn’t even have time to cry out.

The god had spoken.

Water - Prologue

2012-01-12T08:00:00.002-05:00

This serial is presented in draft form and will be updated each Thursday. Your comments are always welcome!

Dr. Uri Arjun stood over the straining woman, glaring down at her in displeasure. “Let me know when she delivers,” he ordered. Spinning on his heel, he left the room, stalking down the long corridors to his office. The few people he passed in those corridors took one look at his face and quickly found some other place to be.

The doctor did not stop until he was in his office, slamming the door behind him and flinging himself into the chair behind his desk. Twins! Why had he never thought to check for twins? For her sake one of them had better be a viable candidate for the program or there’d be hell to pay. He couldn’t afford a weak gift slipping into the gene pool, the pool was shallow enough as it was.

Five years they’d been on this world and he was only slightly closer to his goal than he was when he started. If only the other ships hadn’t been lost! When they’d fled the Ardraci home world there had been five ships, all filled with equipment, personnel, and breeders. His had been the only ship to reach this world. The others were lost, or worse, captured by the Ardraci/Illezie ships following them.

This world had not been his first choice for landing, but they’d been low on fuel and there were no other habitable worlds in the system. This was an agrarian world, and worse than that, they had a charter that clearly stated that to settle here you must agree to eschew all forms of technology, the exception being the single space port. It had taken a fair amount of wrangling with the council to be allowed to build the compound out of components stripped down from the ship. As far as Arjun was concerned, the council did not need to know what was inside the compound.

Picking up the record tablet, he began scanning the contents. His frown deepened. Perhaps he should concentrate on expanding the pure lines before continuing with his crossbreeding. Of course that had been what sent him fleeing the Ardraci homeworld in the first place – trying to purify the four elemental lines.

His goal was to create a more powerful elemental, and to do that required only the purest of elementals for breeding. Each Ardraci was born with the potential for all four elements, but one was always stronger than the other and would dominate when they reached maturity. By breeding only water with water, air with air, fire with fire, and earth with earth he sought to make the dominating gene even stronger.

At first the Ardraci scientific community had been behind him, after all he was working with volunteers. But then it somehow got out that he was working on a way to suppress the lesser elements and he was brought before the Tribunal. If it had not been for his loyal followers he would not have escaped, but they had been prepared, the ships already loaded and waiting.

There was a tap on his door, breaking into his train of thought.

“Come,” he called.

The door opened for one of the midwives.

“Forgive the interruption, doctor. Namir has delivered her babies. Both are healthy and strong.”

“And?”

“The male child is clearly of water. The female . . . we will need more time to determine her gift.”

Dr. Arjun was pleased enough with early signs of a gift, a sure indication of power, that he decided to let the female live as well. If it turned out she was not a viable candidate for the breeding program they would find some other use for her. But the male, he was third generation water. His program was working!

He’d show the rest of Ardraci and he’d show those damned Illezie. By the gods, he’d show them all!

Hump Day Hunk

2012-01-11T08:00:00.000-05:00

Time for a little "relaxing". ;-)

Spreading the Love

2012-01-10T08:00:00.002-05:00

My top picks for this week come from a variety of sources. Some are blogs I visit on a regular basis, some are links from Facebook, and a few are links from Twitter.

First we haveWriting With Shelly and Chad, and I’m sorry to say I can’t remember whether I got this link from Facebook or Twitter. But for all you Mac users out there, the best Self Control aid ever! I only hope that they come up with a version for PC users soon!

Then we have a quick look at Moody Writing where you can always find some interesting advice

Next up is the most cheerful person I know Tara Tyler. She’s got an amazingly positive attitude and she always brings a smile to my face. But watch out, she’ll be tempting you with various blogfests and challenges. :-)

Don’t forget to check out Jamie DeBree’s new flash prompt on the Variety Pages. And if you want to see what she came up with last week, all you have to do is scroll down a bit. A very thought provoking story!

Chuck Wendig had an interesting piece up last week called 25 Things You Should Stop Doing to Yourself that you should take a look at. Heck, just go ahead and bookmark his main site, and visit often.

The Huffington Post had an interesting article trying to figure out Are eBooks Too Cheap?

Looking for some great, on-line reading? Go visit Neither Here Nor There and check out the tabs at the top. (My personal favourite is Serverus the Rogue)

If you crave something a little darker in your reading, I highly recommend Raven Corinn Carluk.

And if you’re looking for some awesome on-line serials, look not further than
Alex Westhaven’s thriller Animal (updated each Wednesday)
Jamie DeBree’s romantic suspense Falling In Public (updated each Friday)
Or her latest Fantasy Ranch story, The Minister’s Maid (updated on Tuesdays)
And for something a little spicier, try Trinity Marlow’s latest Working Stiffs story the Paramedic (updated on Thursdays)

Myristicivorous Monday

2012-01-09T08:00:00.001-05:00

myristicivorous ~ feeding upon nutmegs

Well how about that. Not only did I get all my posts done last week, I got them up in time as well. :-)

I made a start on my long-term goals, specifically figuring out where all my time goes during the day. And actually, because I was keeping track, I found I didn’t waste as much time as I normally would have. I’m slowly settling into a routine which includes spending a lot less time on the internet, which I’ve found to be the biggest time sink. I’ll still be checking my e-mails in the morning, and a quick check of Facebook, but I want to try and cut back on my gaming/socializing/surfing during the day.

As promised, I got the page up on Random Thoughts to keep track of what I’ve been reading, and I finally updated my What I’m Working On page on Random Thoughts. Now I just have to keep them updated.

Reading wise I re-read a couple of my favourite Charles de Lint books last week, and a bunch of stories I downloaded for free onto my kindle. The stories are not going to get put on my reading list unless they’re in an anthology. The list is for full length books only.

I was an editing machine last week and all I have left to edit on Fire is the journal entries, which I should have done in the next day or so and I can send it off to my readers. Be warned guys – it’s coming. ;-)

What’s Up For the Rest of the Week:

The schedule is up on the side bar, so I’m just giving the highlights here.

I’ve found some really interesting posts last week so check out tomorrow’s list.

Wednesday (on Random Writings) I think it’s time to see what Paran and Thackery are up to again. They’ve been kind of random in the serial, but I have big plans for them when I get to the edits. :-)

Thursday will be the first instalment of my newest serial, Water (on Random Thoughts).

Friday will have the poetry form of the Sevenling (Random Writings) and a new flash written from a picture prompt (Random Thoughts).

Flash Me Friday

2012-01-06T08:00:00.002-05:00

Welcome to a new feature, Flash Me Friday. Each Friday I’ll post a new flash fiction piece – sometimes using a picture prompt, sometimes using a word prompt, sometimes just using my imagination.

The prompt for this piece came from the Absolute Write horror forum. In a nutshell, there had to be a preternatural evil involved and your character could only have one sense – sound, touch, taste, or smell. They were not allowed to have sight.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

A Touch of Darkness

She awoke in silent darkness, unable to see, unable to hear, unable to move.

Where was she? How did she get here?

She couldn’t remember.

Sensation returned slowly. Her tongue felt too thick for her dry mouth. Her arms and legs tingled as feeling began to return to them. She was aware that her chest rose and fell as she breathed, but she could see nothing, hear nothing. She could feel, but she couldn’t move.

It was like being in a sensory deprivation tank. Wait . . . how did she know that? What else did she know? Her thought process was jumbled, it was hard to think.

She could tell she was lying on her back, in the dark and the silence. There was a feeling of space around her. A warehouse? A cave? Beneath her was . . . earth. Packed earth. A cave then, or some place underground. But she still had no idea how she got here, unable to move, unable to see, unable to hear.

Holly. Her name . . . her name was Holly. Her memory was starting to return. Her name was Holly and she was a reporter. She’d gone to the park to investigate the strange disappearances that had been going on for several weeks.

There’d been no witnesses to the disappearances. Police were baffled. The hookers and drug dealers faded into the background, unwilling to get involved. No one else was talking. But people were going into the park and not returning.

Mostly she’d interviewed street people. Their stories ranged from government conspiracies to vampires and werewolves. All except that last man, the wino, only he’d been stone cold sober when he told her that what was taking those people was far worse than any government, more ancient than any vampire or werewolf. Then he’d warned her to stay away from the birch grove in the park and she’d laughed . . . until his eyes began to glow.

She shivered in the dark. The old man had done something to her, pulled her in with his eyes. The world around her had spun, faster and faster until her only anchor had been the light of his eyes.

* * * * *

Cool air kissed her skin causing goose flesh to rise, making her aware again. She was naked. Naked and alone in the dark and the silence. Was she alone? Was there something out there watching her? She opened her mouth to speak, but there was no sound. Was her voice stolen, or just her hearing?

She was sure she could feel another presence nearby, maybe she wasn’t alone. Maybe there was more than one – she couldn’t see, she couldn’t hear, there could be thousands of people or creatures staring at her. She could feel their eyes on her. Or maybe it was just her imagination, running in circles.

No, there it was again. The heat of another body, moving, circling her. She could feel the faint vibration of its steps. Did it know she was here? Was it able to see her? She might have whimpered, but she couldn’t be sure.

Her body jerked involuntarily as a tongue rasped across her skin, hot and moist. Human? Animal? She had no way of knowing, could only quiver in fear. Tears leaked from her eyes as the tongue rasped again, this time across her breasts, then again, lower.

Two tongues now, touching her, tasting her fear. No, wait. The second one was dry and scaly, like a reptile. It moved across her skin sinuously, like a snake or a . . . tail. It slithered across her legs and up onto her belly, resting just below her breasts.

The fiery tongue licked the sides of her face, tasting her tears. There was a writhing sensation as something, many unidentifiable somethings, worked their way into her hair, holding her head fast. The tongue rasped across her eyes, its touch abrasive.

Panic set in. She could feel her heart race, threatening to burst out of her chest. Her mouth opened and a scream ripped through her, but there was no sound. Just implacable, utter, silence. She strained against her unseen bonds, but there was no escape.

Why is this happening to me?

It was her last coherent thought before the pain boiled through her and carried her away.

Introducing Water

2012-01-05T08:00:00.002-05:00

Starting January 12, the third instalment of the Ardraci Elementals begins, this time featuring Water. In Fire we were introduced to the evil Dr. Arjun and his quest for building a better elemental through his breeding program. We only had a brief glimpse of life inside Arjun’s compound, as our story was about a handful of children who’d been rescued from the breeding program and who had grown up with no idea of where they’d come from.

Water tells the tale of what it was like to grow up inside the compound. It’s a darker, grittier story than the other elemental stories. This is the story of AE-03-89-05 – aquatic elemental, third generation, eighty-fifth result, power level five. The children inside the compound are not given names, only designations, although AE-03-89-05’s mother calls him Kairavini in secret.

From birth, through growing up, through being introduced to his role in the breeding program, we follow the path of Ravi’s life. And before we’re done, we’ll watch as he falls in love, and how it affects his future.

Each Thursday a new chapter, in draft form, will be posted. Be sure and stop by.

Last Chance

2012-01-04T22:41:00.000-05:00

This is your last chance to read the on-line, draft version of Fire. I’ll be removing it on Sunday to make way for my new serial, so read it while you still can or you’ll have to wait until it’s published – hopefully in February.

Ch. 1~Ch. 2~Ch. 3~Ch. 4~Ch.5~Ch. 6~Ch.7~Ch. 8~Ch. 9~Ch. 10~Ch. 11~Ch. 12~Ch. 13~
Ch. 14~Ch. 15~Ch. 16~Ch. 17~Ch. 18~Ch. 19~Ch. 20~Ch. 21~Ch. 22~Ch. 23~Ch. 24~Ch. 25~
Ch. 26~Ch. 27~Ch. 28~Ch. 29~Ch. 30~Ch. 31~Ch. 32~Ch. 32~Ch. 33~Ch. 34~Ch. 35~Ch. 36~
Ch. 37~Ch. 38~Ch. 39~Ch. 40~Ch. 41~Ch. 42~Ch. 43~ Ch. 44~Ch. 45~Ch. 46~Ch. 47~Ch. 48~
Ch. 49~Ch. 50~Ch. 51~Ch. 52~Ch. 53~Ch. 54~Conclusion

Hump Day Hunk

2012-01-04T08:00:00.002-05:00

Now that's what I call a fresh start to the New Year! ;-)

Spreading the Love

2012-01-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

Okay, here’s the deal. The idea was to take Tuesdays off from blogging and use the time to visit other blogs, then recommend some of these blogs to you. In reality, I do my posts the night before, so I’m really visiting blogs late Monday night. At least I did this week.

In any case, I’ll still be spending the time on Tuesdays visiting other blogs, but I’ll be reporting on them the following week. And on any other interesting posts I stumble across in the course of the week. In the meantime, here’s a sampling of the blogs I visited last night:

My first stop was at Poetry and Persistance. I’m not even sure how I stumbled across this site, but I keep coming back for the poetry.

Next I just had to pop over to Neither Here Nor There to see what Ralfast came up with for the No Kiss Blogfest. :-) I’ve participated in this blogfest in the past, but none of my characters wanted to participate this year.

Then I checked A Low Profile to see what trouble MikiSquirrel has been up to lately. There was nothing about the squirrel, but my favourite roofing author did a review of the new Sherlock Holmes and Mission Impossible movies.

Next up was The Variety Pages to see what the Monday flash prompt was. Jamie DeBree has come up with 52 prompts for the year, which will result in 52 stories. I can’t wait to start reading them!

I also checked out an interesting post by Holly Lisle entitled, Do You Support Slavery.

And of course no blogging day is complete without a visit to Dean Wesley Smith. You could spend days on this site reading everything he has to offer.

Then I stopped by Writer Revealed to check out the latest instalment of Dolly Garland’s series, Bookshelf Snooping. Dolly always comes up with great ideas for interview series!

This being the start of a new month, I stopped by You Gotta Read Covers. Each month, from the 1st through the 20th they feature a new book cover each day. After the 20th you get a chance to vote for the cover you like best. I’ll be revisiting this site a few times and I’ll let you know when it’s time to vote. My book’s cover is up on the 15th. :-)

Welcome 2012

2012-01-02T08:00:00.001-05:00

First of all, if you’d like to read the draft copy of my latest Ardraci Elemental book, Fire, you have until the end of the week. This weekend it will be removed from my blog. And to make it easy for you, I’ll even provide the chapter links:

Draft Serial Novel - Fire
Ch. 1~Ch. 2~Ch. 3~Ch. 4~Ch.5~Ch. 6~Ch.7~Ch. 8~Ch. 9~Ch. 10~Ch. 11~Ch. 12~Ch. 13~Ch. 14~
Ch. 15~Ch. 16~Ch. 17~Ch. 18~Ch. 19~Ch. 20~Ch. 21~Ch. 22~Ch. 23~Ch. 24~Ch. 25~Ch. 26~
Ch. 27~Ch. 28~Ch. 29~Ch. 30~Ch. 31~Ch. 32~Ch. 32~Ch. 33~Ch. 34~Ch. 35~Ch. 36~Ch. 37~
Ch. 38~Ch. 39~Ch. 40~Ch. 41~Ch. 42~Ch. 43~ Ch. 44~Ch. 45~Ch. 46~Ch. 47~Ch. 48~Ch. 49~
Ch. 50~Ch. 51~Ch. 52~Ch. 53~Ch. 54~Conclusion

Now, let’s get down to the nitty gritty. A new year means new changes, and I’ve got a new blogging schedule to share.

Monday – Weekly recap and goals. This post will be posted simultaneously on both Random Thoughts and Random Writings.
Tuesday – Spreading the Love on both blogs. I’m taking Tuesdays off blogging to visit a few of my blogging buddies, and I’m going to posts a short list of blogs I think you should visit. If you’re lucky, I might even tell you why.
Wednesday – Hump Day Hunk on Random Thoughts; Serial post on Random Writings
Thursday – Serial post on Random Thoughts
Friday – Flash Me Friday on Random Thoughts; Poetry on Random Writings. I used to write flash fiction on Fridays and I’ve been thinking for a while now I’d like to get back into it. As for the poetry, it may be a form, it may be a random poem, it may even be a guest poet.

Don’t worry, I don’t expect you to remember all that. In the next day or two I’ll put it up on the side bar. :-)

The new year also means a new set of goals, which are as follows:

Writing
1. Organize my days
2. Publish three books
3. Get more involved with the business of publishing
4. Do more self-promotion
5. Find a writing schedule I can live with and stick to it
6. Websites
Personal
7. Eat healthier
8. Exercise more
9. Crafts
10. Read a better variety of books

1. Organize my days
A couple of weeks ago I thought about keeping track of what I did during the day and how much time I spent doing it. Well, this week I’m going to actually do that. By this time next week I’ll have a good idea of where my time goes and I can set up a schedule of sorts to get myself organized. I might even post the results of my tracking.

2. Publish three books
The first will be Fire, the second is science fiction adventure romance called the Faery Heart, and the third I’m hoping will be Shades of Errol Flynn, which is about half done at this point.

3. Get more involved with the business of publishing
Yes, I have a novel published. But I’m very confused as to the whole process of how it was done. Writing it was the easy part. Editing it was a little more difficult. The rest of the process is a complete mystery and it’s time I learned what’s what.

4. Do more self-promotion
This means being more pro-active on Twitter and Facebook, especially when it comes to my writing, and seek out other venues for promotion. I’d also like to start doing author interviews a couple of times a month, so if you have a book you’d like to promote, let me know at carolrward(at)gmail(dot)com and we can arrange a date.

5. Find a writing schedule I can live with and stick to it
Once I’ve got the whole schedule thing worked out, I need to set a daily word goal for myself. Something less than NaNo but more than most days currently. I'm also going to select a specific project (or two) and work on it until it is finished. Progress for said project will be recorded on the Random Writings blog on the Works in Progress page.

6. Websites
I have a business called Creative Expressions. It used to have a website that was not that great, so I wasn’t sorry when the hosting ran out. I really need a new website. And an author’s website wouldn’t hurt either. Websites are easy, so I’m told, and if I don’t find them easy, there are lots of people I can call on for help.

7. Eat healthier
Due to health reasons (ie. being diagnosed with diabetes) I need to pay better attention to what I’m eating. I’ve made quite a few changes actually, but there’s always room for improvement.

8. Exercise more
I started walking at the end of the summer and although my stamina has improved a bit (I walk the same distance but take less time) walking doesn’t really get me into shape. I need to supplement my walking with other forms of exercise. I’ll be trying out a few different things to see what kind of exercise best suits me.

9. Crafts
I made about a dozen snowflake bookmarks to give as Christmas presents this year, and as I was crocheting them I realized it had been a long time since I’d sat down and worked at any of my crafts. I have a lot of crafts. More to the point, I have a lot of craft supplies. I need to either start doing something with all these supplies, or start getting rid of them. My craft closet is a hoarder’s dream come true.

10. Read a better variety of books
It’s pretty much a given that I’ll be reading a lot. I signed up for Dolly Garland’s Reading Challenge, but this year I dropped my goal down to 75 books for the year. The reason for this is that I want to read a greater variety of books. To this end, I would like to read one classic book a month and one non-fiction book every two months. AND to keep track of this, I’ll be adding a page to Random Thoughts with an ongoing of what I’ve read. As well, I’ll be keeping track on Goodreads as well.

So there you have it. My plan for the year ahead. Of course anything can happen, so you’ll want to check back often. :-)

2011 Wrap-up

2012-01-01T08:00:00.001-05:00

So . . . here we are at the beginning of a New Year.

Okay, yes, I said last week that I wasn’t going to post until January 2, but I was planning on doing my wrap up post separately from my 2012 Goals post, and if I waited until Monday for this post, then my goals post would be Tuesday, and even though I’m not sure what, if anything, I’m posting on Tuesday, that would throw my whole schedule off.

Still with me? Good.

Last year was a real roller coaster for me with all the ups and downs. Yeah, I had some really bad stuff happen, mostly health-wise, but I had some really good stuff happen as well, so I refuse to look back and call it a bad year.

As this is the wrap-up post, let’s start with last year’s goal. I was pretty easy on myself as far as goals went at the beginning of the year:

1. Do better on my goals than last year.
2. Use the database I created.
3. Stay on top of my poetry.
4. Be amore productive writer.
5. Lose weight.
6. Make good use of the social networks.
7. Read judiciously.

Let’s see how I did.

1. Do better on my goals than last year.
Hmm. Maybe we should leave this one for the end.

2. Use the database I created.
This was definitely an epic fail. The database in question was one I created in 2010 to catalogue my books. Not only did I not make use of it, I forgot all about it. I might even have lost it. Oops!

3. Stay on top of my poetry.
While I did not stay on top of keeping my poetry organized I did put together a chapbook to have ready for sale for my September reading. For a while I had a separate blog for just my poetry, but since I was just duplicating posts that were on my other blog, I didn’t see the point.

4. Be a more productive writer.
This is definitely a win. I published my first novel; I published a chapbook of poetry; I completed the NaNoWriMo challenge once again; and I have not one, but two serials on the go. If that’s not progress I don’t know what is.

5. Lose weight.
This was a kind of up and down thing. I’d lose a little, just to gain it back again. In August my health took a downward turn which forced me to start taking care of myself. I managed to lose 10 pounds in the fall, but I was a real slacker in the month of December and gained 5 of it back. *sigh*

6. Make good use of the social networks.
I’m still a little intimidated (okay, a lot intimidated) by Twitter, but I’m working on it. When it comes to tweeting the spirit is willing but the lap top is weak. For some reason my lap top slows down to a crawl when I’m trying to tweet. It’s so frustrating! So I’ll keep trying, but I probably won’t be an avid twit until I can afford a new lap top. Facebook is much easier for me to handle. I even have an author’s page there now: Carol R. Ward, Author

7. Read judiciously.
Last year I took Dolly Garland’s reading challenge and had a goal of reading 80 books in 2011. I ended up reading 110 and kept track on Goodreads (look me up as Carol R. Ward and be my friend!). So, I’d call this one a definite win.

Which brings us back to Number One. I had to check back to see how I did on my goals in 2010 to see if I did better. Over all, I’d say I definitely did better at reaching my goals than last year.

To see what this year’s goals are, come back tomorrow.

Morosis Monday

2011-12-26T08:00:00.001-05:00

morosis ~ pathological feeble-mindedness

So . . . how was everyone’s Christmas? Was Santa good to you? Yeah, me too. Of course the best gift is the fact that it’s all over. :-)

Can anyone tell me why is it that we can spend so much time cleaning the house for the holidays, only to have to clean house after the holidays as well?

Anyway, I’ve decided that as a holiday treat to myself, I’m taking this week off from blogging. I’ll see you again on January 2nd.

Happy Holidays!

Christmas Music

2011-12-22T08:00:00.002-05:00

To get you into a Christmassy mood for the weekend, I'm sharing a few more of my favourite Christmas songs with you.

I love Celtic Woman, and the Carol of the Bells is one of my favourite carols, so I feel very lucky to have found a video of them singing it.

Even if you don't like Elvis, I'm sure you'll like hearing his rendition of this old favourite. The video only has his voice, not his image, but you can't have everything.

This is another all-time favourite, and I love the little lead-in to it at the beginning. :-)

For some more Christmas music, tomorrow you can check out my other blog Random Writings for some Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

Hump Day Hunk

2011-12-21T08:00:00.002-05:00

Ho ho ho! I think Santa has a present for you under that hat! ;-)

Miscellanarian Monday

2011-12-19T08:00:00.001-05:00

miscellanarian ~ writer of miscellanies

Well, the tree is up and I even managed to decorate it. I’m finding it real hard to get into the Christmas spirit, what with all the rain we’ve been having lately. Twice last week I wore my spring coat for my morning walk. I’ve pretty much given up on a white Christmas this year.

Managed to get all of my out of town presents in the mail last week. I suspect a couple of them will be a tad late, but it couldn’t be helped. Anyway, better late than never, right?

Didn’t get nearly as much writing and editing done as I’d have liked to last week. It was just one of those weeks . . . Not only did the grey, dismal, rainy weather depress the hell out of me, I ended up with a series of migraines. ‘Tis the season. *sigh*

What’s On For This Week:

Tuesday: As I write this (late Sunday night) I’ve got nothing. If I figure something out by Tuesday, I’ll post it. If I don’t, I won’t. :-)

Wednesday: Another Christmasy hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Thursday: Tis the season . . . for more Christmas music!

Friday: Chapter 54 of Fire. This is the end. However, the chapter ran a little long so part one is Friday and part two is Saturday.

Random Thoughts

Monday: Part 8 of the parts of speech. This final part is the Interjection.

Wednesday: Chapter 32 of Shades of Errol Flynn. Uh,oh. What did Jessica do now? :-)

Friday: More Christmas music to get you in the holiday spirit.

Also this week:

The new prompt is still up over at Rattles Flash Fiction. The deadline has been extended to January 13th so you have plenty of time to come up with your thousand words for The Old Sofa.

The previous two anthologies are now available in print as well as e-format. At the Water’s Edge is available through Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, , Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. As well, you can find In A Dark Place at Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. The electronic version is only .99 cents while the print version is only $5.99 (+1.25 shipping & handling). Pick up your copies today!

I have a poetry group meeting tomorrow night, and I’m determined not to miss it. If I get my gingerbread made today then I might even bring a little treat with me. If not, they’ll only get a poem. :-)

I really need to update my Goodreads soon. The books I’ve finished are starting to stack up.

I’m not doing a lot of baking for Christmas this year, just some gingerbread and the kid requested pinwheel cookies (which are a pain in the butt to make). And I’ll have to do peanut butter squares for my sister. And if I do them for her, I’ll have to do them for the hubby as well. Maybe I’ll give shortbread another try as well. I haven’t tried any since I got my new oven (several years ago) so maybe that will make a difference. I remember my mother’s shortbread – it was so white, and light and fluffy . . . Mine turn out flat and greasy, no matter how many recipes I try. And trust me, I’ve tried out just about every recipe there is.

I started catching up my journal on the weekend and I’d like to finish catching up and then start making entries on a regular basis. If nothing else, it makes it much easier to write snail mail letters to my sister.

On the 21st, I will have a guest post up on Writer Revealed. The lovely Dolly Garland has a really cool series on Bookshelf Snooping. In fact, you don’t have to wait until the 21st, check it out ahead of time to see what the other participants are reading. And you don’t want to miss her post on Blog Commenting either.

And that’s about all I can think of for my week. How about you? Are you ready for Christmas?

Spreading the Joy

2011-12-15T08:00:00.002-05:00

You know, there are a lot of Christmas vidoes out there, but these are a few of my favourites.

Mistletoe and Holly – Frank Sinatra

O Tannenbaum – Nat King Cole

I was disappointed I couldn't find a video that shows Nat King Cole singing this, but at least you get to hear his angelic voice.

Where Are you Christmas - Faith Hill

Hump Day Hunk

2011-12-14T08:00:00.000-05:00

What's Christmas without a little candy cane? ;-)

A Christmas Parody

2011-12-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

A Visit From the Computer Tech
by Carol R. Ward

’Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, just the optical mouse;
The cords were all strung to the PC with care
In hopes the technician soon would be there.
The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of interwebs danced in their heads;
The wife couldn’t take any more of this crap
So she went to bed while I took a nap.
When there on the screen there arose such a clatter
I sprang from the chair to see what was the matter.
Away to the keyboard I flew like a flash,
Grabbed up the mouse and gave it a bash.
The monitor gleamed with a brilliant blue glow
The sight made my eyes tear as I shouted, “No!”
And what to my wondering eyes should appear
But a security warning that made my eyes tear.
With an attack on my drivers, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment my computer was sick.
More rapid than eagles the popups they came,
And I whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;
“Now Trojan, now Wormy, now BankerFox vixen!
A technician’s coming, my computer he’s fixin’.
By installing protection ,a blocker, a wall!
And then he’ll delete you, delete one and all!”
And then, in a twinkling, I heard it oncemore,
A van pulling up, then a knock on the door.
I opened the door with a feeling profound,
And into the house came the tech with a bound.
He was dressed all in blue from his head to his toe
And his jacket was covered with a sprinkling of snow.
A box full of tools was grasped in his hand
And he looked like an angel, come down to land.
His eyes, they were bloodshot, his face was unshaven
From his pocket he pulled a business card graven.
He was balding and old, and I think he had fleas,
And I said to him, “Sir, this way, if you please.”
He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And in a few moments pulled the plug with a jerk.
“The mother board’s fried,” he said, shaking his head.
“And the rest of your hard drive looks like it’s dead.”
Then he packed up the tower and picked up his tools
“Gotta watch these old ‘puters, they’re stubborn as mules.”
He walked to his van, my computer in hand
And I had to admit, this did not go as planned.
And I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
“Happy Christmas to all, no more surfing to-night.”

Maximalism Monday

2011-12-12T08:00:00.001-05:00

maximalism ~ uncompromising adherence to extreme demands

The Super Mega Death Cold From Hell is still hanging in there, and the hubby’s got the cough part of it back, which means it’s setting up camp in his lungs. At least mine is only in the sinuses, but it’s still causing mega headaches.

We went Christmas shopping on Saturday and knocked off over half our list, including all of the kids. Go us! Then Sunday the hubby braved the wind and the cold to get the outdoor lights up and the (undecorated) tree is sitting in the living room.

I felt a little lost last week, with no NaNoing to do. Granted there were still a few holes that need to be filled in my NaNo novel, but it’s just not the same.

I’d like to thank Heidi Sutherlin and Jamie DeBree for allowing me to interview them last week. I guess I don’t suck at interviews quite as badly as I thought. This is something I’m considering for the New Year, starting to feature an author once or twice a month, but it will be over at Random Writings. Don’t worry, I’ll make announcements here and provide links for when it happens.

Yesterday I ~~bulldozed~~ ~~shovelled~~ cleaned off my desk again. It’s amazing how quickly “stuff” accumulates when you’re busy writing 55K words. Now my office is all nice and neat again. Okay, it’s dusty as all get out, but at least it’s neat. :-)

What’s On For This Week:

I really should have spaced out my two author interviews last week so I could feature one of them this week, but *shrugs* hind sight is always 20/20.

Tuesday: A Christmas poem. My parody of A Visit From St. Nicholas

Wednesday: Another Christmasy hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. Maybe even two because I have an extra and I can’t decide which to use. ;-)

Thursday: Tis the season . . . for Christmas music!

Friday: Chapter 53 of Fire. Jeez, isn’t this thing ever going to end?

Random Thoughts

Monday: Part 7 of the parts of speech. This week it’s the Preposition.

Wednesday: Chapter 31of Shades of Errol Flynn. So what’s this Well of Power, and what’s with the pointed look Ewan gave Jessica? :-)

Friday: More Christmas music to get you in the holiday spirit.

Also this week:

The new prompt is still up over at Rattles Flash Fiction. The deadline has been extended to January 13th so you have plenty of time to come up with your thousand words for The Old Sofa.

The previous two anthologies are now available in print as well as e-format. At the Water’s Edge is available through Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, , Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. As well, you can find In A Dark Place at Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. The electronic version is only .99 cents while the print version is only $5.99 (+1.25 shipping & handling). Pick up your copies today if you’re looking for some inspiration or just a good read.

Yeah, so the schedule thing I keep talking about? I’m not going to worry about it until the New Year. Seriously? There’s too much other stuff going on with the coming holidays that I wouldn’t normally be doing, so trying to figure out a schedule is pretty useless.

Even though Fire’s not finished on my blog, I’m starting the edits for it this week. And there’s a lot of them. ;-)

As much as I hate the thought of it, I need to spend some time cleaning out the guest room and my work room, just in case my sister and her family make up their minds and come visit at Christmas. I suspect I won’t hear anything for sure until right before they arrive, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Speaking of sorry . . . my plants are a little sorry looking right now, so if I have time I’m going to try and give them a little TLC. I did water them on the weekend, so a couple of them are looking perkier, but my Wandering Jews need some clipping/repotting. I think this is my last chance with them. If I can’t take better care of the ones in the pots then I’m going to stop potting them. I’ve got a couple that are growing hydroponically, and they’re doing great.

And that’s pretty much my week ahead. How about you? Are you ready for Christmas?

Interview With Jamie DeBree

2011-12-08T08:00:00.001-05:00

Sit back, relax, and have a cup of tea. This is going to be a long post, but the subject makes it well worth the reading. They say that variety is the spice of life. If this is true then my guest today must be spicy indeed! She’s a writer, a blogger, a wife, a web-mistress, a tea connoisseur, and she even makes her own dog food, and she does it all with long, beautifully made up nails. Her latest book, Angel Eyes, puts the 'thrill' back in thriller, and will keep you up nights, shivering in bed with the lights on.

When psychologist Jake Werner is called to the hospital in the middle of the night, he’s shocked to find that one of his interns has been attacked, and her eyes have been cut out. The closest thing she has to family at the time, Werner is automatically a suspect. After his alibi checks out, stone-cold Special Agent Kate Paige asks for his help in profiling the person responsible. The monster they eventually discover is far worse than they ever could have imagined...

Angel Eyes is available at Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords.

For those who aren’t familiar with my blog and haven’t heard me go on and on about how awesome you are, tell us a little about yourself.

Leave it to a writer to ask another writer to come up with a new/different bio on the spot. I mean, shouldn’t you be saving the torture for your characters? ;-)

Hmm…well, I live in south central Montana, which is the high plains side of the state, not the wild mountainous side that everyone wants to visit (Yes, we have an airport. No, I don’t own horses, and haven’t ridden one since high school.). I sleep around 4.5 hours per night because my brain likes to keep busy, and I have far too many interests for my own good. I read a plaque when I was in high school that “The best way to know life is to love many things.” (I forget who that’s attributed to). I took it to heart. My personality type is INTJ – that’s 100% introvert and one of the rarer personality types. Basically it means I think a lot, I don’t do well in large groups (prefer one-on-one interactions), and I’m very direct. I’m not right or left brained, but tend to use both halves equally, which also makes me an odd duck. Too analytical for many creative people to be comfortable with, and too creative for the purely analytical.

And that’s probably more than you actually wanted to know…

Did you always want to be a writer? If not what did you want to be?

I’ve wanted to be a great many things – a fighter jet pilot, an astronaut a doctor, a lawyer, a professor, a librarian…you’ll note that none of those has anything to do with sports. The one thing I never wanted to do was to be a programmer like my dad. And that’s what I ended up doing for my day job, though I program web sites, which is vastly more entertaining than the kind of work he does.

I’ve wanted to be a writer since high school, but being the practical person I am, with parents who encouraged me to find a “real career” to support my “writing hobby”, I never dared to think I could someday make a living as a writer until just recently. Now I dare to dream…but we’ll see. I am glad to have a decent day job to pay the bills while I pursue the writing career.

Where do you get your ideas?

Everywhere. Watching people (anyone I don’t know – I can’t write about people I know, and they don’t even inspire me), a piece of art, a song, a photo…it doesn’t take much to plant the seed of a plot in my head.

Do you ever get writer’s block? If so, how do you get past it?

Nope – I don’t believe in writer’s block. If the story feels like it’s not working one way, I just look at where my characters are and where I’m trying to have them go, and then do the opposite. Normally they know better than I do what’s supposed to happen next, so I follow their lead. Basically it’s not me that’s blocked, it’s that I’m not trusting and following the characters closely enough.

How long does it usually take you to write a book, from the original idea to finishing writing it?

That’s a very good question. Because I serialize most of my drafts, and because I publish my own work, I don’t hold myself to any specific word count. So I start writing with the general idea in mind, and when the story’s done, I stop. Some novel ideas I’ve had turned into novellas, some short story ideas I have run far longer than I’d planned. It takes as long as it takes – as much as I might want to rush it, I try to let it play out the way it needs to.

I write around 500-800 words per day 5 to 6 days per week…so if I were to work on one novel (50k words) every day, I’d have the draft finished in about 2 months. I never work on just one draft at a time though, so it takes several months to draft a novel/novella, and around 6 -8 weeks to write a novelette/short story.

Which of your books were easier/harder to write than the others?

I don’t know if I can say any of them were easier or harder – they are what they are, and every book is different. My last erotica novelette this year has been difficult, but it’s because I need to pin down some pretty interesting emotional motivations, and all the chaos in my personal and work life makes it tough for me to get into that mindset sometimes. Well, and Desert Heat, one of my romantic suspense novels was hard because the main character isn’t all that likable – but it’s who she is, and the way she needs to be, so I didn’t have any choice but to write her that way and hope that while most wouldn’t like her, some would empathize with her.

Do you have a favourite out of the books you have written? If so why is it your favourite?

Nope. The one I’m working on at any given time is always my favourite ... and then when it’s done, I’m tired of it and ready to move on to the next shiny new idea.

Do you have a favourite character from your books? Why is he/she your favourite?

Not really…though I am rather morbidly fascinated with the antagonists in my thriller stories. I think it’s the complexity…I’m most interested in characters with complex or dual personalities.

How much reading do you typically do?

At least a little every day on my lunch break. When I’m on a reading “binge”, I can read a book a day or even a couple. When I don’t get reading time in, I get pretty crabby. I normally have several books going at once, so I can choose according to my mood on any given day.

Which is better, ebooks or print books?

For me, it depends. I love collecting old hard cloth-bound books – antiques, normally of the classics. And the old etiquette books I have just wouldn’t be the same on screen. But for everyday reading? Ebooks, hands down. No need for storage, easy to read one-handed (important, since I’m normally eating or hanging onto a tea cup while I read), and far easier to carry around than paperbacks. I hate actually *reading* a hardcover…so I never buy modern books in that medium. If not for my husband who still reads print, I’d buy all my books in digital format. As it is, we buy thrillers in paperback so we can share.

What are you reading right now?

“Seized by the Sheik” by Anna Voss Peterson (Harlequin Intrigue)
“The Donzerly Light” by Ryne Douglas Pearson (suspense)
“The Big Sky, By and By” by Ed Kemmick (true local color stories by a local journalist)
“A Walk in the Snark” by Rachel Thompson (I can’t decide what it is…but might be a bit snarky for my personal taste, so aptly named)
“The Role of a Lifetime” by Jennifer Shirk (sweet romance)

How many blogs do you have?

Seriously? You’re going to make me count? *sigh*

Fine – total blogs (writing and not): 11 (though one of those is a Halloween blog only updated a few months of the year)

Aside from all those blogs to maintain, you also have a day job, a publishing business, a husband, two dogs, and a home to take care of. How do you manage to juggle all of that? Or have you mastered the art of cloning?

Not well, at the moment. LOL I’m drowning right now, but I can’t bear to give any of it up, so I’m working on finding that balance with several changes I’ll be making in the new year. I may not be able to have it all, but dang it, I’ll have as much of it as I possibly can…

What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to an aspiring author?

Write what you want to write. Don’t worry about who’s going to read it, or how you’ll get it published, or any of those extraneous things until you have several pieces of work under your belt. Trust your characters to show you the story, and be open to wherever that happens to lead, even if it’s uncomfortable to you. That’s where the gold is.

What can we expect from you in the future?

In terms of books? More romantic suspense, more erotica, and more thrillers. I haven’t lined out next year’s publishing schedule yet, but it will be another busy one, for sure. I’m currently working on the second book in my Fantasy Ranch romantic suspense series, a stand alone romantic suspense, a really creepy thriller novella and I’ve got the theme for next year’s erotica collection and the first story all plotted out. I have enough ideas to last me well into the future.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

I think I’ve probably gone on long enough, don’t you? ;-)

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

I’d like to thank Jamie for taking the time to answer all my questions. Check out her website at Jamie DeBree or connect with her on Twitter or Facebook.

She currently has four serials she updates on a weekly basis. In order of update, they are:
The Fantasy Ranch series, updated on Tuesdays. The current novel here is the Minister’s Maid, a romantic suspense.
Writing as Alex Westhaven, check out Animal, updated on Wednesdays. This is a thriller that will keep you on the edge of your seat.
If you’re looking for a Naughty Encounter, try her alter ego Trinity Marlow. The current story in the Working Stiffs collection is The Paramedic, updated on Thursdays. Caution, these stories will melt the ice off your mukluks, and are definitely NSFW!
Can't get enough romantic suspense? Have a peek at The Variety Pages. The story featured here is Falling in Public, and is updated every Friday.

And think I was lying about the tea and the nails I mentioned at the top of this page? Check out Tea on Tap and Nail Art Tuesday.

Hump Day Hunk

2011-12-07T08:00:00.000-05:00

Jingle bells indeed! ;-)

Interview With Heidi Sutherlin

2011-12-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

Heidi Sutherlin is a woman who wears many hats. In her own words, she’s a: “Blogger, Graphic Designer, Cover Artist, Crafty Wench and general Girl About the Universe.” And as if that weren’t enough, she’s also a writer – and what a writer she is! Her debut novel, Brothers In Betrayal, is a fast paced, action packed, romantic suspense that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Elite Pacific Northwest software designer, Grace Mason is not the criminal that Special Agent Noah Jeffries expected to find.

Unaware that she's a suspected accomplice in an arms smuggling ring, Grace struggles to cope with the mysterious and disturbing changes in the company that she helped to build. When the danger begins to escalate she has no choice but to place her life in the hands of a man who threatens her control and makes her want what she promised herself she'd never take. Grace couldn't have known that falling for the sexy FBI agent would make her the focus of a dead man's vendetta.

Now Noah must uncover more than the details in a smuggling case as a betrayal from his past threatens the future of a woman he never meant to care for.

Get your copy now at Brazen Snake Books. It’s also available in e-book or print form at Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble.

You’re a graphic artist by trade, what got you started writing?

I've been writing...well...always. My mom is a wonderful writer and always encouraged me to write. I was a part of and later the editor of my high school newspaper, and started college as a journalism major. I may have changed my major to Graphic Design, but never stopped writing. I didn't seriously think of writing a novel until just a couple of years ago, and the rest is, as they say, history.

What kinds of things do you write?

I write fiction novels. Romantic suspense, paranormal romance and category romance are the genres that I'm currently working in. However, I have a deep and enduring love of classic scifi, cyberpunk and steam punk and plan to take the plunge into worlds of my own sometime soon.

Where do you get your ideas?

They sort of germinate on their own. Some come in snippets from personal situations or social vignettes that I witness. Others come at me all at once. For instance, while sitting in the stands at our local rodeo last year the idea for A PICKUP MAN FOR KATE just washed over me. I sat there as the entire story unfolded for me. By the time the dust had settled and we were packing up our stuff, I had an entire, ready to sit down and write book. True, it's evolved a bit, but that's how it was born.

Do you ever get writer’s block? If so, how do you get past it?

I don't, actually. I don't sit down to write religiously every day. I'm a binge and purge writer. So, if the build up of words isn't ready, I just don't attempt to write any. I've learned that if I do, I simply cause myself more grief in the end. I do all of my plotting and character building in my head and when its ready I sit down and write it out in one go. So, putting it off only costs actually writing time, but the work is still being done as the stories evolve on their own.

How much reading do you typically do?

I read every day. Every day. I don't sleep a lot and tend to read a book a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. I'm a fast reader and use it as my comfort, my therapy, my sanity saver and my endless supply of happy endings.

Which is better, ebooks or print books?

Tough question. I choose print books with ebooks as a close second. Personally, I see them both working in harmony. Neither one really replaces the other, as they each have their own uses and virtues.

What are you reading right now?

I just finished Nora Roberts' CHASING FIRE. It was excellent, by the way. I'm just starting to read Lisa Jackson's LOST SOULS.

You own your own business, tell us a little about it.

My Creative Pursuits, is the culmination of years of not taking orders well. I decided to start my own boutique graphic design business and while I handle all types of graphic design projects from print business (brochures, logos, business cards, etc) to web sites, my focus is cover art for independently published authors. I wanted to provide professional cover art to the indie author community that would compete with the bigger publishing houses on a budget that is small publishing friendly. I've had the opportunity to work with some amazing authors and make quite a few friends in the bargain.

Aside from running your business, you also have a four-year-old (and a black lab) to wrangle. How do you work writing into the mix?

I only write at night. As a night person and a mommy, this makes the most sense. Luckily, for all involved this works out well.

What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to an aspiring author?

Don't judge your writing midstream. Just as in art, stopping to pass judgement on a project before it's done is not only foolish but needlessly damaging. Just keep writing until the end and then remember that all projects are inherently liquid in nature. Ever changeable, always malleable, they shift and alter to what they need to be easily. If you can't look at something favourably, then put it away until you can. In other words: It's all good.

What can we expect from you in the future? More books of the same genre? Books of a different genre?

With every genre I read I think to myself, "I want to write one of these." A dangerous thought, but it definitely implies that at some point I could write anything from regency, to sci fi, to the cyberpunk that I adore.

The near future, however holds the next book in the series I began with BROTHERS IN BETRAYAL, hopefully to be available this spring. I have five other books in process which include three romantic suspense, a category romance and a paranormal romance. So many words, so little time.

Is there anything else you’d like to say?

Only a very big thank you for having me, Carol. It's such an exciting time, the release of my first book as definitely held up to the hype. Thanks for helping me share it!

Thank you Heidi for agreeing to be my ~~guinea pig~~ first interview!

Look for Heidi on the net here:

Twitter: twitter.com/heidisutherlin
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Heidi-Sutherlin-Author/234235414813
Blog: http://heidisutherlin.blogspot.com/

Macroscian Monday

2011-12-05T08:00:00.000-05:00

macroscian ~ one with a long shadow; one who inhabits polar regions

So . . . the big news for last week is that I won the NaNo challenge for the 4th year running. This means I now have four unedited NaNo drafts sitting on my hard drive. Or maybe that should be USB key – I don’t trust my lap top enough to leave the only copy on its hard drive. I think next year my NaNo should consist of 30 days of straight editing. :-)

Imagine my surprise when I look back over last month and realize that despite NaNo I got all my blog posts written and up in time. Of course I wasn’t doing my Tuesday non-fiction series, and the poetry’s on hiatus, but still . . . Okay, I was pretty late with last week’s instalment of Shades of Errol Flynn, but it did get up there eventually. And I was pretty much in a hermit’s cave as far as the social networks went so when it was time to emerge from the cave it was pretty much: “Where’d everybody go?” Hmm, maybe getting a handful of blog posts done wasn’t that great of an accomplishment after all.

I still have the Super Mega Death Cold From Hell. Doesn’t seem to matter whether or not I take cold medicine for it, so I only take it before bed now so I can sleep.

And I have no hat yet (you know, my reward for completing NaNo). I went shopping for one yesterday, but the only store to the East of where I live that might have had it, is gone now. *sigh* So this week my search will take me to the West. And if all else fails I can order my hat on-line.

What’s On For This Week:

Something different for this week, I’ve scheduled in a couple of author’s interviews.

Tuesday: Author’s interview with Heidi Sutherlin.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. And in keeping with the spirit of the holidays, the next few hunks will be Christmas themed. ;-)

Thursday: Author’s interview with Jamie DeBree

Friday: Chapter 52 of Fire. You know, having Pyre blow up the planet is a legitimate option. Just sayin’. ;-)

Random Thoughts

Monday: Part 6 of the parts of speech. This week it’s the Conjunction.

Wednesday: Chapter 30 of Shades of Errol Flynn. Okay, Jessica made it onto the horse. The question is, will she be able to stay on it? :-)

Friday: NaNo’s over people, so no more excerpts. Instead I’ll be posting some of my favourite Christmas songs to show I’m not really the scrooge I pretend to be.

Also this week:

The new prompt is still up over at Rattles Flash Fiction. The deadline has been extended to January so you have plenty of time to come up with your thousand words for The Old Sofa. I finally got an idea for it myself so I’ll be working away on it this week.

The previous two anthologies are now available in print as well as e-format. At the Water’s Edge is available through Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, , Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. As well, you can find In A Dark Place at Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. The electronic version is only .99 cents while the print version is only $5.99 (+1.25 shipping & handling). Pick up your copies today if you’re looking for some inspiration or just a good read.

I still need to come up with some kind of schedule for myself. Now that it’s post NaNo I can start by writing down what I do all day, when I do it, and how long I spend doing it. Sort of like keeping a food diary when you’re dieting. Then on the weekend I can map out some kind of schedule and hopefully get more accomplished during the day so I can have my evenings free for social networking, reading, and maybe the odd craft or two.

There’s still a bit of work to do on my NaNo novel and I’d like to continue to plug away at it this week. I had to skip over a couple of parts because they weren’t coming to me fast enough and I’d really like to mark this story as finished (except for the editing).

And that’s pretty much my week ahead. How about you? What will you be up to?

NaNo Report - Wrap-up ORThings I’ve Learned From NaNo

2011-12-01T08:00:00.002-05:00

I don’t know what it was this year, but I just didn’t feel the same buzz. In the past, even when I joined reluctantly I eventually got caught up in the whole NaNo spirit of things, that pull that keeps you going no matter what. But this year I really had to force myself to get the words out. At least until I got sick near the end.

But, as usual, I still managed to learn a few things about myself and my writing. So here are my pearls of wisdom, in no particular order:

Just because you kill a character off in the beginning, doesn’t mean they can’t become part of the story.

Sometimes it pays to be stubborn, sometimes it doesn’t.

Writing a NaNo novel is NOT like writing a serialized novel.

I do not get inspired by staring out the window at the endless November rain. It should be snow, damn it!

No matter how far you fall behind, if the spirit is willing you can still catch up.

Next time I want a hat, I’m going to just go out and buy it, instead of torturing myself for it.

Star Wars marathons on the television are almost as good for background noise as Star Trek marathons.

If my characters want to have sex, I might as well let them or else they start doing really kinky things.

Stride “Spark” gum works better than coffee as a pick-me-up. And it’s cheaper, too!

Sometimes, 50,000 words is not worth putting your life on hold for.

It is possible to type from a reclined position when your sinuses won’t stop dripping.

I get more writing accomplished in my office than the living room – even when I’m sick.

Hump Day Hunk

2011-11-30T08:00:00.000-05:00

Cleanliness is next to godliness. ;-)

Multivious Monday

2011-11-28T08:00:00.000-05:00

multivious ~ leading in many directions; offering many different paths

Is any body else going to be as happy to see the end of November as I am?

I was just barely keeping a cold at bay all week, which means I didn’t get much accomplished other than my blog posts and words to the NaNo. I tried a new strategy for catching up . . . staying off the internet. It worked pretty good, too.

Missed both my Scribe’s meeting and my Poetry meeting, but did take a break and went out for coffee with a friend on Wednesday (well, she had coffee; I had tea).

After a mediocre week, I had a spectacular day on Friday. I wrote over 6,000 words on my NaNo, took care of a few things around the house I’d been putting off, and started reading a new book (as a reward).

Then Friday evening the cold starting getting the better of me. And Saturday morning I woke up with the Super Mega Death Cold From Hell. Which is really kicking my ass, no matter how much cold medication I take.

What’s On For This Week:

Tuesday: The NaNo report has been moved to Thursday, and in its place I have a couple of announcements.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Thursday: My last NaNo report of the year – What I Learned From NaNo.

Friday: Chapter 51 of Fire. So what’s Pyre up to that has E.Z. so concerned?

Random Thoughts

Monday: Part 5 of the parts of speech. This week it’s the Pronoun.

Wednesday: Chapter 29 of Shades of Errol Flynn. So Jessica’s going horseback riding. This ought to be interesting. :-)

Friday: The last excerpt from my NaNo novel. If you missed the other ones, you can catch week one’s HERE, week two’s HERE, week three’s HERE, and week four’s HERE .

Also this week:

There’s a new prompt up over at Rattles Flash Fiction. The deadline has been extended to January so you have plenty of time to come up with your thousand words for The Old Sofa. At the Water’s Edge is available through Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, , Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. As well, you can also find In A Dark Place at Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble if you’re looking for some inspiration or just a good read.

Anyone want to take bets on whether I’ll reach the finish line for NaNo or not? As I’m writing this (early Sunday evening) I still have about 10,000 words to go. The spirit’s willing but the body is achy, the sinuses are plugged up, and the head is fuzzy from cold medicine. It’s anyone’s guess at this point.

I seriously doubt if Twitter or Facebook will see much of me until I get ahead of this cold. Right now even checking my email seems like a lot of effort. But one thing I’d want to do once NaNo is finished is to start catching up with some of my favourite blogs. I’ve been sadly neglecting my blogging friends this month.

I need to come up with some kind of schedule for myself – X amount of time for blog surfing, X amount of time for writing, X amount of time for editing . . . Maybe I’ll start by keeping track of what I’m doing each day and for how long. I suspect I’m wasting far more time than I realize.

My husband suggested that I have only one goal for the week – Finish Nano, order hat. Works for me! :-)

So there you have it. My week ahead. What’s in store for you?

Happy Thanksgiving to All My U.S. Friends!

2011-11-24T12:20:00.000-05:00

Hump Day Hunk

2011-11-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

Now that's what I call buns of steel! ;-)

NaNoWriMo Report – Day 22

2011-11-22T08:00:00.001-05:00

Well, my mental state has improved, but I’m not sure if it’s in time to save my NaNo. I’m still plugging away though.

At one point I was a whopping 7,000 words behind. I’ve been trying to make up for lost time, but I’m still around 5,000 words in the hole. I’ve had a few really good days, but they seem to be interspersed with a few not so good days.

I made some good progress on the weekend when a character I killed off at the very beginning came back as a ghost and is now firmly entrenched in the story, but then I got distracted by some reading.

It’s funny how things change over the years. I can remember my first NaNo win . . . I got most of my writing done late at night while watching Star Trek movies. Now I’m finding the television is too distracting. I get more writing progress done in my office.

To finish on time I need to write 2,300 words a day. Can I do it? I guess we’ll find out next week.

Misericord Monday

2011-11-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

misericord ~ ledge in church to lean against while standing; forgiveness or mercy

I gotta tell you. November has really been kicking my ass.

I’m still behind in my NaNo, but the rest of my writing and whatnot is going well. In fact, I even got my serial posts done in a timely fashion last week. I just wish I knew why I couldn’t get that to happen the rest of the year.

I was so proud of myself for getting last week’s NaNo report written ahead of time that when it came time to posting it I forgot all about the NaNocats to illustrate it! I even had them all picked out and sitting in my folder. I’ll try not to forget them this week.

People all around me are enjoying colder temperatures and in some cases even snow! Here in my little corner of the world it’s been unseasonably mild. So mild, in fact, I noticed dandelions coming up in the park I cut across on my way home from the post office last week. They were also putting up Christmas lights in the town park that day, which seemed so wrong when I’m walking along carrying my spring coat because it was too warm to wear it.

Environment Canada has been promising a cold and nasty winter, so in anticipation of that I changed to flannel sheets on the bed. AND a warmer blanket. Now I’m way too warm at night, even with the window in the bedroom open. *sigh*

We went to a family Christmas dinner on Saturday. It was for my mother-in-law’s side of the family. Originally there were nine siblings, but now it’s down to only three of them. Representatives from each of the extended families were invited and I believe the total headcount was twenty-four.

I read a couple of more books during the week, trying to use the reward system to get more words out for my NaNo. I don’t know how effective it was for upping my word count, but I did enjoy the books immensely!

What’s On For This Week:

Tuesday: the NaNoWriMo report for Day Twenty-Two.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Friday: Chapter 50 of Fire. Will the three elementals be able to stop the lava in time for the rescue?

Random Thoughts

Monday: Part 4 of the parts of speech. This week it’s the Adverb.

Wednesday: Chapter 28 of Shades of Errol Flynn. Yes, I know some of you aren’t happy with last week’s reveal about Alexandre’s sexual orientation, but it’s necessary to the plot. Trust me.

Friday: Another excerpt from my NaNo novel. If you missed the first three, you can catch week one’s HERE, week two’s HERE, and week three’s HERE.

Also this week:

There’s a new prompt up over at Rattles Flash Fiction. You have until midnight (mountain time) on November 30 to come up with your thousand words for The Old Sofa. Don't be shy, send in your stories today!

The latest Rattles anthology, At the Water’s Edge, is available through Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, , Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. You can also still find In A Dark Place at Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble.

I have a Scribe’s meeting tonight, but I suspect I’m not going to make it. We’ll see how many words I get done for NaNo today. If the writing’s not going well, then I can’t justify the time spent away from writing. On the other hand, if the writing’s going well, I might not want to break my momentum.

There’s a poetry group meeting tomorrow night that has a better chance of seeing me, but again, it depends on how the NaNo is going. At one point last week I was behind by 7,000 words and although I’ve been catching up, I still have a ways to go.

Guess since I’ve been reading books I should think about updating my Goodreads before I forget which books I read and how awesome they were. :-)

There’s lots of little stuff to be done this week too, but I’m sure you don’t want to hear about it. :-)

So there you have it. My week ahead. What’s in store for you?

Hump Day Hunk

2011-11-16T08:00:00.000-05:00

That's right, hands where we can see them!;-)

NaNoWriMo Report – Day 15

2011-11-15T08:00:00.000-05:00

After catching up on my words last week, even leaping ahead by a whopping 250 words, I am once again behind in my NaNo. Seriously behind. This is what happens when you don’t write for three days in a row.

I have no one to blame but myself. I let myself fall into one of those funks where I’m doubting every word I write and wondering why I’m wasting my time. I know what should go in there, I just can’t seem to get it from my head to the keyboard. I’ve become seriously un-motivated.

Friday I just wasn’t “feeling” it, and let myself be distracted by other things. I tried working on something else for a while but although I got lots done on that project, I wasn’t any more stirred to get working on my NaNo.

Saturday I still couldn’t get into it, even though my friends Jamie and Heidi helped me come up with a name for a villain. I thought maybe a reading break was in order, so I read a romantic thriller, but afterwards I was no more motivated than I was before.

Sunday I started to have self-doubts about my story. I liked the beginning and the ending well enough, it’s just the stuff in the middle was turning out darker than I’d expected. So my characters stepped up and my MMC thought maybe he should tell the girl he’s an undercover agent, and my FMC decided to let me in on her back story as to why she got into writing erotica in the first place and her own sordid past. However, the bulk of my day was taken up by the Santa Claus parade and by the time dinner was over I remembered that I had posts to write for Monday.

Yesterday I finally started to hit my stride again, but I’m going to have to really lengthen that stride if I’m going to catch up.

Today is the halfway point of NaNo and I’m about 6,000 words behind.

I’ll keep plugging away and we’ll see what happens. Completing NaNo at this point is really more a question of concentration and motivation than anything else, and right now I’m seriously lacking in both. And boy doesn’t that line give me a sense of déjà vu.

Meiosis Monday

2011-11-14T08:00:00.002-05:00

meiosis ~ understatement of size or importance for rhetorical effect

The big news for last week was that: I haz books! I had a nice big box of books delivered to me on Friday, and they all have my name on them. :-)

Last week started out strong, but kind of petered out by the end. In fact, starting on Friday I had the most unproductive weekend I’ve had in ages. There is serious question of me finishing NaNo this year.

Made it to the Scribes meeting on Monday and to be perfectly honest, my time would have been better spent at home writing. There were only five of us there, only four of whom actually participated (the moderator/leader never participates in the prompt writing). The reading of our flash pieces took maybe fifteen minutes. The rest of the time was spent discussing current news and a particular newspaper columnist.

Thursday several poets from my poetry group were invited to one of the local highschools to give a talk on poetry. This was the second time I’ve participated in this. It was a lot of fun, the kids are really great. I read my Blitz poem, which they enjoyed, and left handouts for the teacher so they could give it a try themselves.

Despite finally finding a name for my villain (thank you Jamie and Heidi!) I have fallen woefully behind in NaNo. More about that in tomorrow’s post.

I took a break on Saturday and read Holly Lisle’s romantic suspense Night Echoes. It was the perfect book to read on a grey and miserable day/evening.

What’s On For This Week:

Tuesday: the NaNoWriMo report for Day Fifteen.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Friday: Chapter 49 of Fire. Looks like the mountain is about to blow and they’re cut off. Now what are they going to do?

Random Thoughts

Monday: Part 3 of the parts of speech. This week it’s the Adjective.

Wednesday: Chapter 27 of Shades of Errol Flynn. So, will Jessica be able to help Ewan?

Friday: A another excerpt from my NaNo novel. If you missed the first one, you can catch it HERE and the second one HERE.

Also this week:

There’s a new prompt up over at Rattles Flash Fiction. You have until midnight (mountain time) on November 30 to come up with your thousand words for The Old Sofa. At the Water’s Edge is available through Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, , Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. You can also still find In A Dark Place at Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble.

At the top of my list for this week is finishing a letter to my sister. It’s a good thing she’s patient ‘cause I’ve owed it to her for a very long time. Yes, we do e-mail each other, but she made me promise when she first got her hotmail account that e-mail would never replace snail mail.

I need to come up with another form of exercise to supplement the walking. I freely admit I have been slacking off on the walking the last couple of weeks, and not just because the weather’s been bad. I have a couple of DVDs on yoga I might try, or there’s always working with weights. And no, I’m not talking about pumping iron! I’m talking about body sculpting with hand weights.

And there you have my week ahead. What about you? What will you be up to?

Hump Day Hunk

2011-11-09T08:00:00.002-05:00

This one is for Trinity Marlow in honour of her current erotic serial, The Paramedic. If you're not already reading it, check it out HERE. She posts a new chapter twice a week . . . usually. ;-)

NaNoWriMo Report – Day 8

2011-11-08T08:00:00.002-05:00

I sat up on October 31, waiting as the minutes ticked away. At the stroke of midnight I was poised, ready to start writing. After much internal debate, I had settled on an idea. I knew how it began and how it ended, and a lot of what was going to happen in between. What I did not know, were the names of the characters. So, I went to my favourite baby naming site and asked my husband to pick a letter at random. After finding my hero’s name, I went through the same procedure for my heroine’s name. My villain is still known only as X.

There were several different places to start this novel, and I dithered for quite a while over where would be best. Finally, I just picked one at random, knowing I could go back and change it at any time. Actually, I’ve got a few paragraphs bracketing the beginning that could be turned into alternate beginnings.

So, needless to say, I got off to a slow start. In fact, for the first few days I was falling further and further behind. The writing was coming in fits and starts. I was spending copious amounts of time just staring blankly at my screen. By about day four I was something like 2,900 words behind.

Then a miracle happened. My characters decided to have sex. I wasn’t going to let them do this until they were safely on the spaceship, but my FMC told me bluntly that if I thought she was going to have sex for the first time on a spaceship with a man who had kidnapped her, then I had another thing coming. She wanted to have sex with him for the first time in her own bed. So I agreed, and started catching up on my word count.

Then I remembered that this was NaNo, not a serial, and I didn’t have to write everything in a linear fashion. I could jump around if I wanted. So then I wrote a rather lengthy scene that takes place near the end and again, my word count continued to climb.

And then, I added in a scene towards the end where my MMC has himself put on trial for supposed crimes against the FMC and she goes into the courtroom and proves that he’s just being a noble jack ass. And now I’m pretty much caught up on my NaNo word count.

Next week, I probably be worrying that I’ll run out of story before I run out of words. :-)

Mazy Monday

2011-11-07T08:00:00.002-05:00

mazy ~ dizzy; confused; labyrinthine; convoluted

Despite last week being the first week of NaNo, I still managed to get all my blog posts written and up in a timely fashion.

And . . . that’s about all I did last week. My regular stuff and NaNo, which I won’t discuss here because it gets a post of its own tomorrow.

Just so you know, it goes against my nature to leave an empty space here.

I feel like I need to fill it up with something.

Um . . . we had some really nice weather last week . . .

Looks like this week will be pretty good too . . .

*sigh*

I give up.

What’s On For This Week:

Tuesday: the NaNoWriMo report for Day Eight.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Friday: Chapter 48 of Fire. Just how imminent is the eruption? Will they have time to get to the ship? And what about Taja and Ravi?

Random Thoughts

Monday: Part 2 of the parts of speech. This week it’s the Verb.

Wednesday: Chapter 26 of Shades of Errol Flynn. Think Jessica will take Howard’s advice and stay out of trouble?

Friday: A another excerpt from my NaNo novel. If you missed the first one, you can catch it HERE. The scene includes a prime example why amateurs should never attempt cover art. I make no excuses – have a laugh on me. :-)

Also this week:

There’s a new prompt up over at Rattles Flash Fiction. You have until November 30, midnight (mountain time), to come up with your thousand words for The Old Sofa. At the Water’s Edge will be available in e-format on November 12. I’ll post the links when they become available – and in the meantime you can still find In A Dark Place at Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble.

You know, this whole website thing is starting to be either a minor irritation or a joke. I’m not sure which. In any case, I’m tabling the websites until after NaNo.

I have a Scribes meeting tonight, and as per usual I don’t have my 150 words written yet. Would you believe me if I told you I find that measly 150 words harder to write than a longer piece?

I may have to check my records 'cause it's been changed so many times, but I believe this thursday is the day my poetry group is meeting with a group of local high school students for a seminar. We did this last year and had lots of fun, so I expect more of the same.

And there you have it, my week ahead. What are you going to be up to this week? How’s your NaNo going?

Hump Day Hunk

2011-11-02T08:00:00.001-04:00

Maybe he should use both hands to shade his head. What do you think? ;-)

NaNoWriMo – Day One

2011-11-01T08:00:00.001-04:00

What do you mean you’ve never heard of the National Novel Writing Month? Go HERE and sign up. Right now!

That’s okay, I can wait.

*musical interlude*

Tall and tan and young and lovely
The girl from Ipanema goes walking
And when she passes
Each one she passes
Goes – Ahhhh.

*end musical interlude*

When I worked in the call centre I used to sing this whenever I was on hold. Used to drive my co-workers crazy. ;-)

Okay, now that you’re signed up, find me and be my buddy. My NaNo name is Lady Cat. It’s a long story, but that’s the name I signed up with many years ago and if I try and change it then all my NaNo stats would disappear, so I’m stuck with it.

Yesterday I promised an explanation as to why I’m doing NaNo if I don’t expect to reach the finish line. It’s for the hat. Not just any hat, THE hat. Every year I have something to give me incentive to keep going – the official travel mug, the t-shirt, the hoodie . . . I have them all. This year there wasn’t any NaNo merchandise I wanted, but one thing I’ve always wanted is a hat. And not just any hat, an Australian leather outback hat.

So. Even though I’ve got two websites to get up and running, and even though I have lots of editing and writing to get done for myself, and even though I’ve got lots of editing/transcribing to get done for other people, I am doing NaNo this year.

It’s all about the hat.

Malvaceous Monday

2011-10-31T08:00:00.000-04:00

malvaceous ~ of, like or pertaining to the mallow family of plants

I have been sadly neglectful of my blog friends these last few ~~days~~, ~~weeks~~, months, for which I apologize profusely, but I’m here to tell you that it’s probably not going to change any time soon. At least not until December. And why won’t it be changing any time soon? Because I’ve decided to throw my hat into the ole NaNo ring.

Am I crazy? Probably. Am I expecting to reach my 50,000 word goal by the end of November? Not really. So why am I doing this? I’ll tell you in tomorrow’s post. :-p

Let’s see . . . what did I do last week, aside from massive amounts of editing, that is. Maybe I’ll start with what I didn’t do :
I didn’t get my websites started
I didn’t get my cell phone situation straightened out
I didn’t even get my grammar post up on Saturday over on Random Writings.

I did make it to my poetry group; we had a huge turn out for a change.
I did get my submission written and sent to Rattles Flash Fiction.
I did have lunch with a friend
I did remember to go to my doctor’s appointment
I did get crap loads of editing done for myself and others.

I went with a friend to the dump last week, which might not seem real exciting, but as we were on our way home she asked, “Where does this road come out?” I replied, “I don’t know, it should hit the highway eventually.” So of course we decided to take it. It was a nice, scenic (if not long), drive, and yes, we did eventually reach the highway, way north of where I expected to.

What’s On For This Week:

Tuesday: Since the Natural Wonders of the World wrapped up last week, I think I’m going to use this space for my NaNo updates for the month of November which, coincidentally, starts on Tuesday. :-) The first post will be why I decided to do NaNo even though I have no expectation of succeeding.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Friday: Chapter 46 of Fire. I guess Pyre’s control isn’t so perfect after all. Think Rayne will get out in time?

Random Thoughts

Monday: I’m moving Grappling With Grammar to this day and given it a new name, just because I can. :-)

Wednesday: Chapter 25 of Shades of Errol Flynn. Looks like Jessica isn’t as much in control as she hoped. I wonder what trouble she’ll get into next?

Friday: A scene from my as yet undecided NaNo novel. Hopefully I’ll decide on my idea by midnight tonight. :-)

Also this week:

There’s still time to get your story in to Rattles Flash Fiction. You have until midnight, mountain time. This month’s theme is At the Water’s Edge. And while you’re at it, check out the first edition of the Rattles monthly anthology, In A Dark Place. You can find it at Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble.

Despite the onset of NaNo, this week I’ll finally be getting to work on my websites – my business website and my author’s website. The cell phone situation will just have to wait for now.

No meetings this week. Technically the Scribes should have been meeting tonight, but it’s Halloween and most of the scribes preferred to stay home. Go figure. ;-)

Barring the unexpected, which I’ve learned now to always expect, that’s my week ahead. What are you going to be up to this week? Are you going to give NaNo a try?

Hump Day Hunk

2011-10-26T08:00:00.002-04:00

Now that's what I call a Halloween costume! ;-)

Seven Wonders of the Natural World - Part Seven

2011-10-25T08:00:00.001-04:00

Victoria Falls is one of the most spectacular sights of awe-inspiring beauty in the world. Known by the local tribes as ‘Mosi-oa-Tunya’ – the Smoke that Thunders – it’s 1,708 metres (5,604 feet) wide and drops between 90 metres (295 feet) and 107 metres (351 feet) into the Zambezi Gorge and is considered to be the largest curtain of water in the world.

Located in southern Africa on the Zambezi River between the countries of Zambia and Zimbabwe, it’s believed to have been first sighted by Scottish missionary and explorer David Livingston. He named the falls after Queen Victoria.

The Zambezi’s course is broken up by numerous islands, increasing in number the closer to the falls the river gets. Upstream the river flows over a level sheet of basalt; there are no mountains or valleys, only a flat plateau extending for miles in all directions. The falls are formed as the full width of the river plummets in a single vertical drop into a crosswise chasm carved by its waters along a fracture zone in the basalt plateau.

The spray from the falls typically rises to a height of over 400 metres (1,300 feet), and sometimes even twice as high, and is visible from up to 50 kilometres (31 miles) away. During the full moon, a "moonbow" can be seen in the mist, much like the rainbow that is seen during the day.

The depth of the chasm, called the First Gorge, varies from 80 metres (260 ft) at its western end to 108 metres (354 ft) in the centre. The only outlet to the First Gorge is a 110 metres (360 ft) wide gap about two-thirds of the way across the width of the falls from the western end, through which the whole volume of the river pours into the Victoria Falls gorges.

There are two islands on the crest of the falls that are large enough to divide the curtain of water even at full flood: Boaruka Island (or Cataract Island) near the western bank, and Livingstone Island near the middle — the place that David Livingstone first saw the falls from in Zambia. At less than full flood, additional islets divide the curtain of water into separate parallel streams. The main streams are named, in order from Zimbabwe (west) to Zambia (east): Devil's Cataract (called Leaping Water by some), Main Falls, Rainbow Falls (the highest) and the Eastern Cataract. ~ Wikipedia

Over at least 100,000 years, the falls have been receding upstream through the Batoka Gorges, eroding the sandstone-filled cracks to form the gorges.
The river's course in the current vicinity of the falls is north to south, so it opens up the large east-west cracks across its full width, then it cuts back through a short north-south crack to the next east-west one. The river has fallen in different eras into different chasms which now form a series of sharply zig-zagging gorges downstream from the falls. ~ Wikipedia

A famous feature is a naturally formed pool known as the Devil's Pool, near the edge of the falls, accessed via Livingstone Island in Zambia. When the river flow is at a safe level, usually during the months of September to December, people can swim as close as possible to the edge of the falls within the pool without continuing over the edge and falling into the gorge; this is possible due to a natural rock wall just below the water and at the very edge of the falls that stops their progress despite the current. ~ Wikipedia

There are two unique and distinctive views of the falls, one through Livingstone, Zambia, the other through Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. The best way to view the falls is to take a helicopter tour, which provides a breathtaking and spectacular aerial view of the falls and surrounding area. Another and almost equally impressive view is from the foot path and foot bridge trail that follows alongside the falls. This unique trail allows visitors to see the falls at eye level, and from only 200 feet (60 metres) away.

Activities that gained popularity in the area include whitewater rafting in the gorges, bungee jumping from the bridge, game fishing, horse riding, kayaking, and flights over the falls.

Microtome Monday

2011-10-24T08:00:00.000-04:00

microtome ~ instrument used to cut very small sections of something

Last week I not only made it to my Scribes meeting, with my 150 words written, but I made it to the poetry reading as well. I was down right sociable last week, which is amazing when you consider how miserable the weather was all week. Yesterday we got a faint hint of sun, and this week it’s supposed to be back to miserable again.

Summer is officially over. I know this because I finally removed the remnants of the bright nail polish from my toenails on the weekend. It made me sad, so I’m thinking about finding another cheerful colour to paint them again. Even if I have to wear socks and shoes this time of year, I can still smile at the thought that under those socks I have colour. :-)

Has anyone noticed the changes I made over on Random Writings? I like that it looks less messy now, but it makes my posts look short because the space is wider. Just no pleasing me I guess. I’m contemplating make some similar changes over here (not the colours, just the format) but it’s still just in the thinking stages.

I wish my weekends could be as productive as my week days. Unfortunately, weekends seem to get filled with errands, and housework, and family obligations . . . and let’s face it, I get struck down by an acute attack of laziness. Weekends are supposed to be for relaxing, right? My body seems to go into full relaxation mode whether I want it to or not.

What’s On For This Week:

Tuesday: Part seven of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World is Victoria Falls.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Friday: Chapter 46 of Fire. Think the rescue will go off without a hitch?

Random Thoughts

Wednesday: Chapter 24 of Shades of Errol Flynn. Just how far is Jessica’s magic lesson going to go?

Saturday: I’ll be reviving my Grappling With Grammar series. I had some inspiration last week and some new motivation. :-)

I’ll probably do a little more tweeking to look of the blog, but I think it’s more or less the way I want it now.

This week I’ll also be busy with:

Once again I’d like to remind you that there’s a new prompt up at Rattles Flash Fiction. This month’s theme is At the Water’s Edge. Check it out and submit a story. I’m hoping to get my story finished this week. And if you’d like to check out the first edition of the Rattles monthly anthology, In A Dark Place, you can find it at Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble.

This week I’m finally hoping to get working on my websites – my business website and my author’s website. I might even see if I can do something about my cell phone situation, like take it to Telus and see if I can turn it in for something I can actually use. And if they’re as helpful as they’ve been thus far, I can always give Rogers or Bell a try.

There’s a meeting with my poetry group on Tuesday night, and I even have my ‘poemwork’ done already. I don’t have any new poems to read, but that happens some times.

Barring the unexpected, which I’ve learned now to always expect, that’s what will be filling up my week, along with the usual editing and writing. What are you going to be up to this week?

Hump Day Hunk

2011-10-19T08:00:00.000-04:00

This one's for Jamie. Don't forget to get a little rest on your holidays. ;-)

Seven Wonders of the Natural World - Part Six

2011-10-18T08:00:00.004-04:00

Paricutin

Although it’s not surprising to find a volcano listed under the Wonders of the Natural World, I had to do a little digging to find out why this particular volcano was listed:

The eruption of the Paricutin scoria cone from 1943 to 1952 marks the first time scientists were able to observe the complete life cycle of a volcano, from birth to extinction. Geologists from many parts of the world came to study this extraordinary volcanic event. The knowledge gained by these scientists greatly expanded our understanding of volcanism in general, and of scoria-cone formation in particular. ~ How Volcanoes Work

Paricutin is situated about 200 miles west of Mexico City, in the state of Michoacán, Mexico. It’s a cone volcano that grew out of a corn field. The type of eruption which happened at Paricutin is called a Strombolian eruption, which means it gushed basaltic lava, and exploded from a single vent. The worst of Paricutin's volcanic activity, took place in 1943, with its lava rising to about 50 feet below the crater's rim. Nearly 1000 people died following one of its last major eruptions in 1949.

“Strombolian pyroclastic activity began at the fissure on the day it was discovered by Dionisio Pulido. Within 24 hours the eruption had generated a 50-m-high scoria cone. Within a week, it had grown to a height of 100 m from the accumulation of bombs and lapilli, and finer fragments of ash were raining down on the village of Paricutin. The eruption became more powerful in March, generating eruptive columns several kilometers high. Occassionally, the volcano would exhibit vulcanian-type activity, with large canon-like explosions separated by short periods of silence. On June 12, a lobe of lava began to advance toward Paricutin village and people began to evacuate the village the following day. The larger village of San Juan Parangaricutiro was evacuated a few months later. By August 1944, most of the villages of Paricutin and San Juan were covered in lava and ash. All that remained of San Juan were two church towers that stood above a sea of rugged lava.

The Paricutin eruption was unusually long for a strombolian eruption, with several eruptive phases occurring over a 9-year period. After about two years of mostly pyroclastic activity the pyroclastic phase began to wane, and the outpouring of lava from the base of the cone became the dominant mode of eruption over the next 7 years. Although no people died directly from the eruption, three people died after being struck by lightning generated by the pyroclastic eruptions. The eruption ceased in 1952. The final height of the scoria cone was 424 m.” ~ From: How Volcanoes Work

Today the volcano stands 1,345 feet high, which is 9,210 feet above sea level. You can see Paricutin by taking the 12 mile round trip journey to the top of the volcano. Most people make the journey by hiking or on horseback. Along the way you will see the lava fields, buried homes, and the remains of the church of San Juan.

Meconomancy Monday

2011-10-17T08:00:00.001-04:00

meconomancy ~ divination using sleep

Last week started out with the perfect fall weather, then quickly segued into Winnie the Pooh’s Blustery Day. Only our blustery day lasted three days. I actually like the wind. I love the sound of it when I’m warm and safe inside, I love falling asleep to the sound of it, and I even love being out in it – at least at this time of year. In another month it’ll be a whole different story. ;-)

After a slow start last week, things started to pick up speed rather quickly. And of course as I get busy with other things I tend not to spend so much time on the internet. Which in turn means I didn’t get to visit or comment on any blogs, I barely kept abreast of my email, and I flitted in and out of Facebook like a drunken butterfly. This week does not bode to be any better.

Got the first five transcripts for the Living History project spiffed up and sent to the archives. It would really help if I had Word 2007 to work with, but I’m having to make due with 2003. *sigh* Of course I could buy an upgrade, but the only one available now is Word 2010, which is a pain in the butt (not the program, the fact that I can’t get 2007).

Although I didn’t miss the struggle to get an example written, I did sort of miss doing the poetry post on Thursday. I’m toying with the idea of having guest poets fill in until I’m ready to resume my forms . . . what do you think? Maybe I’ll set up a poll since people seem to be too shy to actually comment. :-)

One thing about the overcast/windy/stormy weather – it may not be conducive to writing, but it’s great for editing. Got a major amount of editing done near the end of the week. Of course my weekend wasn’t nearly as productive as I would have liked, but then they seldom are.

What’s On For This Week:

Tuesday: Part six of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World is the Parícutin Volcano (Volcán de Parícutin).

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Friday: Chapter 45 of Fire. Looks like everyone’s in place – time for some action.

Random Thoughts

The only thing I can say for sure that will be going on over here this week is Chapter 23 of Shades of Errol Flynn.

I’m going to be making some changes – maybe a new template, maybe a couple of new features. A lot will depend on how much time I have to spend on it.

This week I’ll also be busy with:

Once again I’d like to remind you that there’s a new prompt up at Rattles Flash Fiction. This month’s theme is At the Water’s Edge. Check it out and submit a story. I’m hoping to get my story finished this week. And if you’d like to check out the first edition of the Rattles monthly anthology, In A Dark Place, you can find it at Brazen Snake Books, Amazon, Smashwords, and Barnes & Noble. It's a real bargain - six stories for only 99 cents!

This week bodes to be insanely busy for me. I’m hoping to finish the edits on the book I’m currently editing (for someone else) today so I can sink my teeth into the edits for a really big book I’ve been waiting (and waiting, and WAITING) for. ;-)

I’ve got the changes I’d like to make to Random Writings, and maybe a change or two over here. I’m also going to get my business website up and running and apparently, because I’m an author now, it has been suggested I need an author’s site as well.

I also have a Scribe’s meeting tonight, and there’s a poetry reading Thursday night.

And let’s not forget I still have lots of transcribing to do for the Living History project.

As the saying goes, there’s no rest for the wicked. I must be very wicked indeed! ;-)

So, what have you got in store for yourself this week? Busy week? Slow week? Inquiring minds want to know!

Hump Day Hunk

2011-10-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

He needs to straighten up, don't you think? ;-)

Seven Wonders of the Natural World - Part Five

2011-10-11T08:00:00.008-04:00

Aurora Borealis

The aurora borealis, also known as the Northern Lights, are naturally occurring lights that create spectacular displays in the night sky. Often it is nothing more than a diffused glow on the horizon, but it is truly amazing when it appears as waves across the sky. Though most frequently seen in the northern hemisphere, they have been known to appear in the south as well. The best chance to see the northern lights is between the months of March to April and September to October.

I have been lucky enough to have seen the aurora borealis twice in my life. Once when I was a teenager taking a night time walk on the beach I saw streaks of green in the sky over Lake Ontario. The second time I saw them from my backyard. It was such an impressive sight I even woke my daughter up to watch them with me.

But what exactly are the northern lights?
They’re much more than just a pretty light display in the sky. They’re actually caused by collisions between electrically charged particles from the sun entering the earth’s atmosphere. Variations in colour are due to the type of gas particles that are colliding; the rare, all-red aurora is caused by high-altitude oxygen. The displays may appear in many colours, although usually they’re green or pink.

More interesting (to me, anyway) are the many myths and legends surrounding the Northern Lights:
An aurora was thought to be a sign of good will from Nanahboozho by the Ottawas of Manitoulin Island (in Lake Huron).
Many native tries believed the northern lights to be dancing spirits.
In Siberia, the Chuvash believed it was their heaven god helping women in childbirth
The Inuits of Greenland, however, believed the lights to be the spirits of children who died at birth.
The Lakota Sioux believe just the opposite – that the lights were spirits waiting to be born.
The Fox Indians also believed the lights were spirits, however in this case it was the spirits of their slain enemies who wished revenge.
Many Eskimo groups believe the northern lights to be spirits playing ball with a walrus head or skull.
The Vikings believed the lights to be reflections from the shields of the Valkyrie as they left the battlefields, leading the honoured dead to Valhalla.
In China it was believed that the lights were made of the fiery breath of a dragon.
The Makah Indians believed the lights were the fires of a tribe of dwarfs in the far north.
In Scotland the lights are called “merry dancers”. It’s believed if the dancers moved slowly and gracefully you’d be in for good weather.

The best places to watch for the northern lights are areas that are not subject to 'light pollution'. Smaller communities in the north tend to be best. The display peaks almost every eleven years; the next peak should occur in 2013.

If you want to see more of this natural wonder, try the Aurora Webcam.

Macerator Monday

2011-10-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

macerator ~ a person who fasts and becomes emaciated

So Macerator is definitely the opposite of what I am right now. This is the Canadian Thanksgiving, and like a lot of people we did the big family dinner yesterday. My husband comes from a large family and it’s been expanding so fast that my in-laws have found it easier to rent a small hall rather than try and fit everyone into someone’s house. It works out pretty good – the kitchen’s huge with lots of work space and a double-sized fridge, there’s plenty of room for the kids to run around, and there’s lots of washrooms so no standing in line. ;-) And as far as the food went . . . all I can say is there’s too many good cooks in the family!

Did everyone get out to enjoy the weather last week? I don’t know about where you are, but here in Southern Ontario it was just fabulous! The perfect fall weather – crisp and clear and sunny during the day, temperatures low enough at night to need a quilt on the bed. I wish it could be like this all year round.

What’s On For This Week:

Tuesday: Part five of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World is the Aurora Borealis, also known as the Northern Lights.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Friday: Chapter 44 of Fire. Just what does Chaney have in mind, and will it work?

Random Thoughts

Today is the annual NaNoWriMo debate. You don’t want to miss it. ;-)

Wednesday: Chapter 22 of Shades of Errol Flynn. I promise it will be better than last week’s chapter. Really!

This week I’ll also be busy with:

Once again I’d like to remind you that there’s a new prompt up at Rattles Flash Fiction. This month’s theme is At the Water’s Edge. Check it out and submit a story.

I’m checking my calendar and I believe there is a poetry reading on Tuesday night which hopefully I will have the chance to attend. Even though I’m taking a hiatus from my poetry posts, that doesn’t mean I’ve forsaken all things poetical. :-)

I didn’t get around to making any changes to my blogs last week, but hopefully I will this week. I notice on Random Writings I have some progress bars that need updating and I definitely need to add a link to my book.

It seems like a kind of short week, but I’ve got lots to do besides working on my blogs. I have editing and writing, and there’s still lots to do on the Living History project. Plus, if it’s as nice out this week as it was last week, I’ll be trying to spend a little more time outside.

So how about you? What are you doing this week?

Passion For Poetry

2011-10-06T08:00:00.001-04:00

When I started this series on poetry forms, it was in the aftermath of completing the PAD challenge (Poem A Day) offered by Poetic Asides in April, 2009. I was high on the energy of all that poetry and had a new-found interest in poetry forms which I thought would be fun to share on my blog.

My goal wasn’t just to write poems in these forms, it was to share these forms in such a way that it would encourage other poetry lovers to give them a try as well. I used a variety of sources for the research of these forms and tried to distil the explanation each week into something even beginners could follow. Sometimes it was like pulling teeth to find enough information about a form, but as long as I found enough information that someone else could give the form a try, I was happy with it.

It was not my habit to cite my sources. I spent a great deal of time, probably more than I should have, researching these forms and no, I didn’t always think to keep track of where I was getting my information from. For me, it wasn’t the research or the source of the research that was important, it was the poetry itself, which is why I always cited the source of an example if it was not my own.

There are a few people out there with a love of research as large as my love of poetry who believe that credit should be given where credit is due and in retrospect I can’t disagree with them. When using exact information from another site it probably should have been in quotations. In some cases it was, but unfortunately sometimes I was in a hurry to get the post finished and I got careless. My bad.

I would like to point out that this poetry series a just a very small part of one person’s blog. It was for entertainment purposes only. I got nothing out of this except the joy of sharing poetry with anyone who wished to visit this site on Thursdays. Unfortunately, recent events have sucked that joy right out of poetry for me. So until further notice, my poetry series on forms will be on hiatus.

Hump Day Hunk

2011-10-05T08:00:00.000-04:00

All right, hold it right there. Hands in the air! ;-)

7 Wonders of the Natural World - Part Four

2011-10-04T08:00:00.002-04:00

Mount Everest

The tallest mountain in the world, Mount Everest lies in the Himalayan mountain range along the border of Nepal and Tibet. It was first named Peak XV by Sir George Everest, who was the first to record its location in 1841. After his dead, in 1865, it was renamed Everest in his honour. In Tibet the mountain is called Chomolungma (mother goddess of the universe) and in Nepal it’s called Sagarmatha (goddess of the sky).

While doing my research for this wonder, I came across many interesting facts:
The height of Everest is 29,029 feet (8,848 metres)
Shifting tectonic plates continue to push Everest upward at 1.6 to 3.9 inches (4 to 10 centimeters) per year.
The first people to successfully climb Everest were Edmund Hillary of New Zealand, and Tenzing Norgay of Nepal in May of 1953.
The first woman to climb Everest was Junko Tabei of Japan.
The temperature of Everest at the summit is typically 100°F below zero.
If you want to climb Everest, you must pay the Nepalese government $25,000 for a climbing permit.
As of 2009, more than 4,000 ascents to the summit have been made by over 3,000 people.
A typical expedition will last about two months with the first month being a gradual acclimatization to the cold and thinner air.
There are a total of 18 different routes up Mount Everest but the most popular is the Southeast Ridge.

Click for a bigger image.

And if you'd like to see what it's like to stand on the summit of Mount Everest without having to climb it first, check out this panoramic view

Millionocracy Monday

2011-10-03T08:00:00.000-04:00

millionocracy ~ government by millionaires

After spending the better part of the weekend spiffing up the house for the property assessor (sent by the bank regarding our mortgage), I’m ready to sit down and get some writing done this week. And editing. Lots of editing.

One of the things we did, or I’d better say the hubby did, was to finally put doors on the large closet in the upstairs hallway. It’s a double wide closet and we’ve been using it for storage but there hasn’t been any doors on it. Now there is. And not just any door, but a sliding door that goes from one side to the other and is covered with a mirror. :-)

The weather was really up and down last week, which of course meant my moods were really up and down. You’d think with all the advances in medicine they could come up with something to help with this. And the migraines that go along with it. Friday was the worst, so needless to say I didn’t get much done, which is also why there was no serial chapter.

My book launch was a little anti-climatic because people were already buying it before it was officially out, but you won’t find me complaining! It’s still a thrill to have a book out there. I’ll need to shift things around on the blog a bit to include the cover and a link to where you can buy the book.

What’s On For This Week:

Tuesday: Part four of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World is Mount Everest.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Thursday: This week’s poetry form is the Sevenling.

Friday: Chapter 43 of Fire. For real this time, I promise!

Random Thoughts

No rant today ‘cause I did a semi-ranty post on Saturday and I just can’t think of anything rant-worthy right now. Of course as soon as this post is up I’m sure I’ll get all kinds of ideas, but just not right now.

Wednesday: Chapter 21 of my on-line serial Shades of Errol Flynn. So . . . I wonder what kind of “lessons” Alexander is going to give Jessica.

This week I’ll also be busy with:

I’ve run out of things to edit again. Jamie? Heidi? I’m talking to you two! Don’t make me have to edit my own work again!

And speaking of Jamie and Heidi, they have a new prompt up at Rattles Flash Fiction. This month’s theme is At the Water’s Edge. Check it out and submit a story.

I have a Scribe’s meeting tonight, which is always a good time. I think I missed one some where along the line . . . *shrugs* Oh, well. I’ve got my 150 words all ready to go for tonight.

It’s that time of year where I’m contemplating changes to my blogs. They’re starting to feel a little cluttered and I’m considering changing to a two column format instead of three. I’ll probably play around with Random Writings first, just to see how much of a pain it will be, so this one is safe for now. But you never know what the future may bring. ;-)

And that’s pretty much my week ahead. How about you? What are you up to these days?

Time For the Official Announcement!

2011-09-30T08:00:00.000-04:00

I did it! I crossed the line from aspiring author to author. My first novel, An Elemental Wind, is now out there for all the world to see . . . and better yet, to purchase! :-)

Special thanks to Jamie DeBree of Brazen Snake Books for her tireless work in making my dream a reality. I also want to thank Heidi Sutherlin of My Creative Pursuits for the awesome cover – once you’ve read the book yourself you’ll see how dead on she was in depicting the main character – she’s so accurate it’s scary.

Cuaderna Vía

2011-09-29T08:00:00.000-04:00

The Cuaderna Vía (frame way) dominated most of the serious Spanish poetry for the 13th and 14th centuries until the 15th century when it was replaced by the Art Mayor. The Cuaderna Vía was the introduction of syllabic verse into Spanish poetry. This stanzaic form is known for its rigidity of form - syllables are counted carefully. In addition to the rigid meter, only true rhyme is allowed.

The Libro de Alexandre, an anonymous 13th-century Spanish account of Alexander the Great holds an important place in Spanish literature as the most substantial and probably first work in the Cuaderna Vía verse form. Pedro López de Ayala, Spanish poet and court chronicler, is chiefly remembered for his Rimado de palacio (c. 1400), one of the last works in Cuaderna Vía, an autobiographical satire on contemporary society.

Schematic:
Written in any number of quatrains.
Lines are 14 syllables, divided into hemistiches of 7 syllables each, often broken by caesura. The syllable count must be adhered to.
Lines are mono-rhymed. The rhyme must be a true rhyme - no slant rhyme, assonance or consonance.

I found this form a little on the difficult side to work in. For some reason I kept wanting to write it in 7 syllables to the caesura, and then five syllables. And I found the “true” rhyme to be a little intimidating, so I stuck to one syllable words. I also have to admit that although I held to the syllable count and the rhyme scheme, the poem doesn’t really flow well. I don’t know if it’s the form itself, or just my example. :-)

Dark Thought

In the darkness dwells a thought, a thought that should never be
It ghosts through the subconscious, seeking the elusive key
Biding its time patiently, keen to escape, to be free
Madness lurking in its wake, waiting for its chance to flee.

The thought was there from the start, just hidden so very well
Poking though the mind at will, infecting each minute cell
Turning bad good intentions, as though invoking a spell
Leaving wicked residue, on its crossing o’er to hell.

Hump Day Hunk

2011-09-28T08:00:00.002-04:00

Today's one of those grey days that's just perfect for lounging around in bed. ;-)

7 Wonders of the Natural World - Part Three

2011-09-27T08:00:00.000-04:00

Harbour of Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro Harbour is located on the south-western shore of Guanabara Bay and spans an immense 88 miles in length. The Harbour is surrounded by gorgeous granite monolith mountains that include the famous Sugar Loaf Mountain at 1,296 feet (395 m), Corcovado Peak at 2,310 feet (704 m), and the hills of Tijuca at 3,350 feet (1021 m). It was formed by the Atlantic Ocean which eroded the soil and rocks along the coast.

Portuguese explorers named the Harbour of Rio de Janeiro as “the River of the First of January” because they were convinced that they had reached the mouth of a great river, when they glided toward a narrow opening in the coastline on the New Year’s Day, 1502. The large waterway was not a river; it was an island-studded bay stretching 20 miles inland, containing a tropical wilderness teeming with tapirs and jaguars. The Tamoio people had named it Guanabara or the “arm of the sea.”

Europeans called the smaller bay of Botafago, under Sugarloaf, a "lake"; the Tamoio themselves named Guanabara Bay's eastern edge Niteroi, meaning "hidden waters." Guarding the entrance to the bay, the naked and lopsided mountain the Portuguese called Pao de Acucar evoked the sugarloaves fashioned on the island of Madeira. They called the highest mountain Corcovado - "the hunchback" - for its humped profile.

The Harbour at Rio de Janeiro as we know it today was colonized in the 16th century, and modernized in the 20th century. Yet the actual structure of the bay has been around for millions of years, gradually being eroded by the waves that come through Guanabara Bay and hit the land behind it.

The Atlantic Ocean that surrounds this area of Brazil that is responsible for this erosion; a process which earned the harbour of Rio de Janeiro its prestige. The erosion occurred in such a way that if you look at the bay from different angles, it can look like a river mouth, or even a lake. Evidence of the harsh sea conditions that caused this kind of formation can still be seen today from October until March, which is the start of Rio de Janeiro’s rainy season.

Unfortunately, the Bay’s vastness has been shrinking. With usable land at a premium, landfill has twice altered Guanabara Bay's contours. In the 1920s and again in the 1960s, small hills that had once been home to Rio's earliest settlers were sluiced through pipes to create bayfill. The new land now anchors an airport, a six-lane highway, parkland and beaches, the city's modern art museum, and other 20th-century landmarks. Where this expansion and development will lead is unsure, but one thing’s for certain; the shape of Rio de Janeiro’s harbour is changing fast.

The best way to see the Harbour of Rio de Janeiro is to get above it. This can be done either through helicopter or for the more adventurous through the use of a hang glider.

The most common way of seeing this wonder is to travel to the tops of the surrounding peaks. Sugar Loaf Mountain and Corcovado both offer panoramic views of the harbour and surrounding landscape. Sugar Loaf Mountain is actually in the harbour and provides views back over the city and into mountains. Additionally, visitors will have great views of the beautiful beaches that line the harbour.

Corcovado peak is much higher and looks east over the harbour and back towards Sugar Loaf Mountain. Corcovado peak also offers visitors with an opportunity to see the famous monument - Christ the Redeemer.

Macaronic Monday

2011-09-26T08:00:00.005-04:00

macaronic ~ muddled or mixed-up

Coming September 30

Nakeisha Windsinger has been chosen to represent her planet to the Pan-Galactic Council of Worlds. She and her mentor, the Ilezie E.Z., must travel in secret to avoid their enemies, but when her mentor is killed, she loses control of her element, the wind, as she takes vengeance on those responsible.

In doing so, she crosses paths with the crew of the Burning Comet, a ship with a secret mission of its own. A reluctant guest, Nakeisha struggles to control her element, a task made more difficult as she fights her growing attraction to the ship’s navigator, Chaney.

As their enemies close in, Nakeisha and Chaney spin a fragile web of trust between them, finding that fate has a way of interfering when you least expect it and love can destroy - or rebuild - worlds.

The cover art is by Heidi Sutherlin of Creative Pursuits. Isn't it gorgeous?

If you can’t wait until Friday, you can buy an advance copy directly from Brazen Snake Books. And while you’re there, take a minute to check out some of the other books that are available.

There’s still time to get your flash fiction in to Jamie DeBree at Rattles. Heidi Sutherlin has provided an intriguing picture for the prompt. The challenge is open to all comers to write a story between 800 and 1,000 words using the picture as inspiration. The best stories will have a chance to receive $25 and a chance of publication. Submissions are open until midnight, September 30. You don’t want to miss out!

What’s Up This Week:

Tuesday: Part three of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World is Harbour of Rio de Janeiro.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Thursday: This week’s poetry form is another Spanish form, the Cuaderna Via.

Friday: Chapter 43 of Fire.

Random Thoughts

Today’s Rant: Parking.

Wednesday: Chapter 20 of my on-line serial Shades of Errol Flynn. Thank God the boots were saved!

No grammar this week. To be honest, I’ve run out of ideas for it. I have other ideas for an end of the week post, but they’re still percolating.

This week I’ll also be busy with:

I’ve been promised a story to edit this week and I’m looking forward to it. Is it weird that I find editing relaxing?

And speaking of stories . . . I want to get my offering to the Rattles flash prompt finished.

Work has been progressing steadily on the transcribing and I need to polish up a couple of these interviews to submit them to the client to make sure they like the format. If they like them I’ll be continuing with more transcribing. If they don’t, I’ll be making changes before continuing with the transcribing. :-)

Now that my book is out there I have some red tape to wade through for tax purposes. I always knew in theory that actually writing a book is the easy part, now I’m finding out just how true that is in practice.

Over the weekend I did something that is guaranteed to make me more productive. I put up the cork board in my office. Now I just have to start tacking up notes about stuff that needs to be done.

There’s a bunch of other stuff I need to get done this week, but honestly I’m too tired to remember what. As I write this post it’s 1 a.m. and I have to get up at 6:30 a.m. and there’ll be no chance for napping tomorrow ‘cause I need to take my son-in-law to an appointment in the morning, and my other in-laws to Toronto in the afternoon.

No rest for the wicked! ;-)

So how about you? Anything coming up that you’d like to share?

Wayra

2011-09-22T08:00:00.001-04:00

Sometimes I find it difficult to locate information about a poetry form, and this week it was the Wayra. What facts I did manage to ferret out agreed on a few basics. The Wayra is a short verse form originating in South America. The name means "Wind" in Quechua, one of the traditional native languages of Incan culture. Written in five lines, it has syllable counts of 5-7-7-6-8 and is unrhymed.

This gives us a structure as follows:

1. xxxxx
2. xxxxxxx
3. xxxxxxx
4. xxxxxx
5. xxxxxxxx

After writing the first example, I thought the form was short enough that I could take the time to write a couple more. This being a South American form, I chose to write the remaining two examples with a South American theme.

Cold

Dark of night descends -
Wolf howls on autumnal winds.
The chill that is in the air
Has so little to do
With the coming of the winter.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Inca

Now the time is here
Come you all from Cay Pacha*
Celebrate the festival
Of Inti the sun god
And Mama Quilla of the moon

*Cay Pacha, the outer earth where humans live.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Chocolate

Ka’kau’, the god’s gift
Hot and frothy, bitter spice
Poured, back and forth from a height
Mayan secret spirit
The cacao god, Ek Chuah

Hump Day Hunk

2011-09-21T08:00:00.000-04:00

Summer's come to a close. You have to get those last few days in the water where you can.

7 Wonders of the Natural World - Part II

2011-09-20T08:00:00.000-04:00

Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef in the world. It’s made up of over 2,900 separate reefs, stretching over 1,600 miles (2,600 km). The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland in north-east Australia. Larger than the Great Wall of China, it is the world’s largest single structure made by living organisms and is visible from space.

The Reef is a site of remarkable beauty and variety, containing the world’s largest collection of coral reefs, with 400 types of coral. It also holds great scientific interest as the habitat of species such as the dugong (‘sea cow’) and six of the world’s seven species of sea turtle.

The variety of life along the Reef's vast expanse is immense. The Reef's unique biodiversity of species and habitats make the Great Barrier Reef and surrounding areas one of the most complex natural systems on Earth. Its great diversity reflects the maturity of an ecosystem which has evolved over millions of years on the north-east continental shelf of Australia. The site contains a huge mixture of species including over 1,500 species of fish, about 360 species of hard coral, 5,000 species of mollusc, and more than 175 species of bird, plus a great diversity of sponges, anemones, marine worms and crustaceans, among others.

The reef system, extending to Papua New Guinea, comprises some 2900 individual reefs of all sizes and shapes covering more than 12,500 square miles (20,000 square km) including 760 fringing reefs, which range in size from under 1 hectare to over 10,000 hectare and vary in shape to provide the most spectacular marine scenery on Earth. There are approximately 600 continental islands including many with forests and freshwater streams, and some 300 coral cays and sand cays.

Two main classes of reef structure may be defined: platform or patch reefs, resulting from radial growth; and wall reefs, resulting from elongated growth, often in areas of strong water currents. There are also many fringing reefs where the reef growth is established on sub-tidal rock of the mainland coast or continental islands.

The site includes major feeding grounds for the endangered dugong and nesting grounds of world significance for two endangered species of marine turtle, the green and the loggerhead, as well as habitat for four other species of marine turtle. Given the severe pressures being placed on these species elsewhere, the Great Barrier Reef may be their last secure stronghold. It is also an important breeding area for humpback and other whale species.

A wide range of fleshy algae occurs, many of which are small and inconspicuous but which are highly productive and are heavily grazed by turtles, fish, molluscs and sea urchins. In addition, algae are an important component of reef building processes. 15 species of sea grass grow throughout the reef area forming over 1,800 square miles (3,000 square km) of sea grass meadows and providing an important food source for grazing animals, such as dugongs.

Because of its natural beauty, both below and above the water's surface, the Great Barrier Reef has become one of the worlds most sought after tourist destinations. The weather is tropical, and is fairly consistent being neither extremely hot nor extremely cold. The summer temperatures range from 73 to 91 degrees and the winter months range from the upper 50s to the mid 70s. The rainy season occurs from November through May which accounts for over 75% of the annual rainfall during this period.

Probably the best way to see the Great Barrier Reef is through the lens of an underwater mask. Snorkelling or scuba diving provides an up close view of some of the most vibrant fish, coral and marine life. Visitors can select from a variety of boat or cruise tours that include single day trips, extended stays and varying boat sizes. A helicopter tour is an excellent way to get above the Great Barrier Reef and witness the size and expanse of this spectacular marine natural wonder.

Mulm Monday

2011-09-19T08:00:00.000-04:00

mulm ~ organic sediment at bottom of an aquarium

Last week was both busy and productive.

First and foremost, did you see my book cover on Friday? Isn’t it gorgeous? Heidi Sutherlin is amazing! If you missed my cover, you can still catch a glimpse on Brazen Snake Books and you can download the first three chapters of An Elemental Wind for free. And while you’re there, take a look at the other books available. I promise, you won’t be sorry!

I had a wicked bad toothache Monday, so I only stopped in at the Scribe’s meeting long enough to drop off some handouts and a quick PowerPoint presentation about NaNo. There are only two of us in the group that have done NaNo and we’d like company this year. :-)

The ISBN for my poetry chapbook arrived Wednesday, just before I was spirited away by a friend for a road trip so I didn’t get started on printing my chapbooks until Wednesday evening. Between paper jams and empty toner cartridges, my laser printer and I are no longer on speaking terms. However, despite many setbacks, I had my chapbooks done in time for my reading, which went very well.

I am still managing to keep abreast of my e-mails . . . mostly.

Did not get any brochures printed out – see above paragraph about running out of toner. At the price of the cartridges for the laser printer, it’d be just as cheap to buy a whole new printer – maybe even cheaper.

This Week’s Schedule:

Tuesday: Part two of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World is the Great Barrier Reef.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Thursday: This week’s poetry form is the Wayra. Yes, I know it was supposed to be last week’s form, but I presented my own form instead.

Friday: Chapter 42 of Fire. So, E.Z. has a plan, does he?

Random Thoughts

Today’s Rant: Under Where?

Wednesday: Chapter 19 of my on-line serial Shades of Errol Flynn. Do you think Jessica’s finally going to get up out of bed?

Saturday: This week’s Grappling With Grammar is Spelling.

Elsewhere in my week:

There’s still time to get your flash fiction in to Jamie DeBree at Rattles. The amazing Heidi Sutherlin of Creative Pursuits has provided an intriguing picture prompt. The challenge is open to all comers to write a story between 800 and 1,000 words using the picture as inspiration. The best stories will have a chance to receive $25 and a chance of publication. You don’t want to miss out!

Tuesday I have a poetry meeting, which is always a good time.

I spent quite a bite of time on Sunday shovelling off my desk and generally going around the house to get rid of some of the clutter. I think I’m going to dedicate a couple of hours each day to getting rid of more clutter. I really am way too attached to all my “stuff”. And most of it is pretty useless stuff at that. Time to start purging. At the very least I’d like to shovel off the table in my work room.

Now that the poetry madness is over with, I need to get back to work on the transcriptions for the Living History project. The interviews are actually a lot more interesting than I expected, which makes typing them out go quicker.

I’m between editing projects at the moment, so this would be a good time to get a few instalments ahead on my serials. At the very least I’d like to get a bunch of entries to Wynne’s Journal done for Fire.

Over the weekend I started getting a few ideas for the next book in the Elemental series – Water. It will start out by overlapping the end of Fire, but of course from the Water Elemental’s point of view.

Write a letter to my sister. I’ve owed her one for month and she’s expecting it to be waiting for her when she gets home on the 28th.

Do an album on Facebook of the pictures I took during my road trip last week.

I think that’s enough for me for one week, how about you?

Special Announcement

2011-09-16T08:00:00.002-04:00

As you may have noticed, this isn’t the next instalment for Fire. This week’s chapter is moved to Saturday. Mainly because I had a poetry reading and the launch of my poetry chapbook last night and I was too freaking tired to come up with the required energy (or brain power) to get the instalment written.

But also because I wanted to save this space for a VERY SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT.

I'm thrilled to announce that Brazen Snake Books will be releasing An Elemental Wind, my debut novel on September 30, 2011. It will be released in ebook format on September 30, with a paperback to be released on October 14th.

An Elemental Wind

Nakeisha Windsinger has been chosen to represent her planet to the Pan-Galactic Council of Worlds. She and her mentor, the Ilezie E.Z., must travel in secret to avoid their enemies, but when her mentor is killed, she loses control of her element, the wind, as she takes vengeance on those responsible.

In doing so, she crosses paths with the crew of the Burning Comet, a ship with a secret mission of its own. A reluctant guest, Nakeisha struggles to control her element, a task made more difficult as she fights her growing attraction to the ship’s navigator, Chaney.

As their enemies close in, Nakeisha and Chaney spin a fragile web of trust between them, finding that fate has a way of interfering when you least expect it and love can destroy - or rebuild - worlds.

If you’d like to read the first three chapters, go HERE.

What else can I say, except . . . SQUEEEEEE!

Xenolith

2011-09-15T08:00:00.001-04:00

People have been telling me for quite some time now that because I love poetry forms so much I should invent one of my own. So I did. :-)

When I started out I had no idea what I wanted to do for my form, other than I wanted it to be unique. Once I decided base my chapbook on poetry forms following the letters of the alphabet I knew the name of my form had to start with the letter X. Why X? Because no one else has done a form starting with the letter X.

After consulting several dictionaries, I finally settled on a name for my form – Xenolith. A xenolith is fragment of extraneous rock embedded in magma or another rock. I kept coming back to this while I was playing around with syllable counts and rhyme schemes – a rock within a rock. How about a poem within a poem? And so my form was born.

The Xenolith is a 15 line poem. Seven of the lines have twelve syllables per line and are mono-rhymed. Eight of the lines have eight syllables per line and are written in rhyming couplets. You can separate the 12 syllable lines from the 8 syllable lines and have two complete poems.

Schematic.

1 xxxxxxxxxxxA
2 xxxxxxxB
3 xxxxxxxxxxxA
4 xxxxxxxB
5 xxxxxxxxxxxA
6 xxxxxxxC
7 xxxxxxxC
8 xxxxxxxxxxxA
9 xxxxxxxD
10 xxxxxxxD
11 xxxxxxxxxxxA
12 xxxxxxxE
13 xxxxxxxxxxxA
14 xxxxxxxE
15 xxxxxxxxxxxA

No Guarantee

A poet does not always use his eyes to see
The beauty in a thought or deed.
Inspiration is found wherever it may be -
Beauty to make the heart concede -
Whether moonlight reflected on a midnight sea,
The white curl of the ocean spray,
The glitter of a summer’s day.
Or, with the deft touch of the poet’s master key,
Reshape the mind into a lie -
Show instead a new path to try.
Like cobwebs dim, clear from the mind the soul’s debris,
Invite in the beauty unseen
And unveil imagination’s dark devotee
To keep the questing mind e’er keen.
I know now a poem, like life, has no guarantee.

12 syllables, mono rhyme

A poet does not always use his eyes to see.
Inspiration is found wherever it may be
Whether moonlight reflected on a midnight sea
Or, with the deft touch of the poet’s master key,
Like cobwebs dim, clear from the mind the soul’s debris,
And unveil imagination’s dark devotee.
I know now a poem, like life, has no guarantee.

8 syllables, rhyming couplets

The beauty in a thought or deed,
Beauty to make the heart concede -
The white curl of the ocean spray
The glitter of a summer’s day . . .
Reshape the mind into a lie;
Show instead a new path to try;
Invite in the beauty unseen
To keep the questing mind e’er keen.

Hump Day Hunk

2011-09-14T08:00:00.000-04:00

Here's something a little intellectual for all you college students out there. ;-)

7 Wonders of the Natural World - Part I

2011-09-13T08:00:00.002-04:00

The Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon is known for its visually overwhelming size and its intricate and colourful landscape. Geologically it is significant because of the thick sequence of ancient rocks that are beautifully preserved and exposed in the walls of the canyon. These rock layers record much of the early geologic history of the North American continent.

Located in the state of Arizona, the Grand Canyon is 277 miles (446 km) long and from 4 to 18 miles (6.4 to 29 km) wide. Nearly two billion years of the Earth's geological history have been exposed as the Colorado River and its tributaries cut their channels through layer after layer of rock while the Colorado Plateau was uplifted. Recent evidence suggests the Colorado River established its course through the canyon at least 17 million years ago. Since that time, the Colorado River continued to erode and form the canyon to its present-day configuration.

The Grand Canyon is considered one of the natural wonders of the world largely because of its natural features. The exposed geologic strata rise over a mile above the river, representing one of the most complete records of geological history that can be seen anywhere in the world. Geologic formations found at the bottom of the Canyon date back 1,800 million years.

The entire park area is considered to be semi-arid desert, but distinct habitats are located at different elevations along the 8,000 foot elevation gradient. Near the Colorado River, water vegetation and sandy beaches prevail. Just above the river corridor a desert scrub community exists complete with a wide variety of cacti and warm desert scrub species. A pinyon pine and juniper forest grows above the desert scrub up to 6,200 feet, while between 6,200 feet and 8,200 feet ponderosa pine is abundant. On the North Rim at elevations above 8,200 feet, a spruce-fir forest tops out the park.

Before European immigration, the area was inhabited by Native Americans who built settlements within the canyon and its many caves. The Pueblo people considered the Grand Canyon ("Ongtupqa" in Hopi language) a holy site and made pilgrimages to it. The first European known to have viewed the Grand Canyon was García López de Cárdenas from Spain, who arrived in 1540.

More than 200 years passed before two Spanish priests became the second party of non-Native Americans to see the canyon. U.S. Army Major John Wesley Powell led the 1869 Powell Geographic Expedition through the canyon on the Colorado River. In the late 19th century, the promise of mineral resources—mainly copper and asbestos—renewed interest in the region. The first pioneer settlements along the rim came in the 1880s.

Early residents soon realized that tourism was destined to be more profitable than mining, and by the turn of the 20th century the Grand Canyon was a well-known tourist destination. In 1901 the Grand Canyon Railway was opened from Williams, Arizona, to the South Rim, and the development of formal tourist facilities, especially at Grand Canyon Village, increased dramatically.

It was first afforded federal protection in 1893 as a forest reserve. President Theodore Roosevelt visited the Grand Canyon in 1903. An avid outdoorsman and staunch conservationist, he established the Grand Canyon Game Preserve in 1906. Roosevelt added adjacent national forest lands and re-designated the preserve a U.S. National Monument in 1908. Grand Canyon National Park was finally established as the 17th U.S. National Park by an Act of Congress signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on February 26, 1919.

Today the Grand Canyon can be explored on foot through traditional hikes, day hikes, or extended backpacking trips. You can also explore the canyon on the back of a mule. This provides a unique experience of the canyon while allowing the mule to carry the load. The floor of the canyon can also be explored by taking a white water rafting trip. There are a variety of trips offered depending on the type of experience someone is seeking and their rafting skill level.

Micrograph Monday

2011-09-12T08:00:00.000-04:00

micrograph ~ instrument used to write on a very small scale

I have to admit, last week really got away from me. I don’t know if it was the holiday or what, but I felt like I was a day behind all week. This week doesn’t look like it’s shaping up to be much better – I lost one of my weekend days to family obligations and I’ve got a heck of a lot on my plate this week.

Despite all the stuff I have to get done this week, I spent a couple of hours yesterday writing a poem. Not the final form I needed for my chapbook, but a new poem for my reading this week. I like to end my readings with something humorous, and this one has been flittering with my brain for a couple of weeks now.

Got caught up on my e-mails (knock wood) although apparently I still owe one of my sisters a snail mail. :-)

The poems for my reading are printed out and sitting in a folder waiting for me to go over them.

The brochures got side-lined again for more important things, but I did get the final edits of An Elemental Wind sent off.

You notice there’s no status update on MSN Patchworkz!? I think I’m pretty much over that game. Now it’s all about Fishdom 2. LOL

This Week’s Schedule:

Tuesday: The first instalment for the 7 Natural Wonders of the World is the Grand Canyon.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Thursday: This week’s poetry form is the Wayra.

Friday: Chapter 41 of Fire. I have to wonder what Pyre’s going to think of Dr. Arjun’s plans for Rayne . . .

Random Thoughts

Today: Words For the Wise.

Wednesday: Chapter 18 of my on-line serial Shades of Errol Flynn. Jessica wouldn’t abuse her privileges as an “honoured guest” would she?

Saturday: This week’s Grappling With Grammar is an editing checklist.

Elsewhere in my week:

Still waiting on the ISBN for my chapbook, but I’m going to go ahead and get some made up anyway. I can always print the numbers on a clear label and stick it in the right spot if I have to, and if I don’t get the number in time then at least I’ll have the books made up.

There’s still time to get your flash fiction in to Jamie DeBree at Rattles. The amazing Heidi Sutherlin of Creative Pursuits has provided an intriguing picture prompt. The challenge is open to all comers to write a story between 800 and 1,000 words using the picture as inspiration. The best stories will have a chance to receive $25 and a chance of publication. You don’t want to miss out!

Tonight I have a Scribe’s meeting and Thursday is my poetry reading. If anyone’s in the Cobourg, Ontario area on the 15th, stop in at Meet at 66 King. Admission’s free and the treats are tasty (but unfortunately the treats aren’t free). Come and hear me read and buy one of my chapbooks. :-D

And that’s how my week is shaping up so far. How about you? What are you up to now that summer’s over?

Jagati

2011-09-08T08:00:00.000-04:00

Like the Ushnik, the Jagati is a Hindu verse form. Hindu literature is divided into two main periods—the Vedic (c.1500–c.200 B.C.), when the Vedic form of Sanskrit generally prevailed, and the Sanskrit (c.200 B.C.–c.A.D. 1100), when classical Sanskrit (a development of Vedic) predominated. Sanskrit had, however, become the standard language of the court by 400 B.C., and its early literature overlapped the Vedic. The word Sanskrit means "perfected," and the language was adopted as an improvement of the Vedic.

The first part of the Vedic period (c.1500–c.800 B.C. was a poetic and creative age, but afterward (c.800–c.500 B.C.) the priestly class transferred its energies to sacrificial ceremonial. Vedic meter is measured by the number of padas (lines), and the number of syllables in each pada.

According to the Bhaktivedanta Veda Base:
Thereafter the art of literary expression, uṣṇik, was generated from the hairs on the body of the almighty Prajāpati. The principal Vedic hymn, gāyatrī, was generated from the skin, triṣṭup from the flesh, anuṣṭup from the veins, and jagatī from the bones of the lord of the living entities.

The Jagati is written with 4 lines or padas to a stanza and 12 syllables in each pada. The Jagati is not only characterized by the number of syllables but also by its particular sequence of long and short sounds. This heavy-light or guru-laghu pattern of the lines is language specific and almost impossible to duplicate in English. Needless to say, I didn’t even try.

Disconnection

A cool white moon, shining high in the midnight sky
Keeping silent vigil o’er an uncaring world,
Pacing across the heavens in an age old dance,
Seeking the perfect partner that does not exist.

A lost god, winging his way across the heavens
Forever in pursuit of the truth, of the way,
Fruitlessly searching for the vision gone astray -
Steadfast, the mission to find a forgotten past.

A rising sun, red on the distant horizon,
Herald for a new day of unanswered questions,
As eternal and enduring as time itself -
Archaic habits cannot be changed on a whim.

Hump Day Hunk

2011-09-07T08:00:00.000-04:00

Hmm, he looks like he could use someone to help dry him off. Or maybe he's better wet - what do you think? ;-)

More Wonders of the World

2011-09-06T08:50:00.000-04:00

Last week we wrapped up the Seven Wonders of the Industrial World so it’s time for a new list.

When I first started this series I thought I’d be stopping with the original list of Wonders. However, I discovered there’s a whole pile of wonders out there, so I kept going. Now I think it would be interesting to keep the series going until I’ve covered seven different lists of 7 Wonders of the World.

We’ve already explored the Ancient Wonders of the World, the Medieval Wonders, and the Industrial Age Wonders. Next up are the Natural Wonders, followed by the Underwater Wonders, then the Modern Wonders, and finishing with the “New” Seven Wonders (based on voting from around the world).

The Seven Natural Wonders, a not-for-profit organization created to protect the natural wonders of the world, was created in 2008. The mission is to help people discover and explore the natural wonders of the world, to teach them about the wonders and the things that threaten their existence, and to inspire them to create a philosophy and practice of conservation.

Their list of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World was compiled through a global poll and is as follows: The Grand Canyon, the Great Barrier Reef, the Harbour of Rio de Janeiro, Mount Everest, the Aurora Borealis, the Parícutin volcano, and Victoria Falls.

We start next week with The Grand Canyon.

Mutivity Monday

2011-09-05T08:00:00.000-04:00

mutivity ~ tendency to alter

It’s nice to be back on-line. I never knew how much I ~~was addicted to~~ enjoyed the internet until I was without it for a couple of days. However, it was all to the good. I got lots accomplished.

No internet meant no games, so it forced me to do other things instead. Like reading, and working on my writing and . . . did I mention the reading? :-)

Wednesday I went on a short road trip with a friend. We were following the directions from a road trip brochure she’d picked up at the local tourist office, and the directions left much to be desired. I’m not sure we followed the actual route faithfully, but we didn’t get too lost and our route involved poutine for lunch, so it was all good.

I ended up having some major formatting issues with my chapbook, but these have all been taking care of and I have a proof copy finished. Looks pretty good if I do say so myself. I just need an ISBN number for it, finish the “X” form and come up with something for “About the Author”. The cover came out better than I’d hoped for and the hand stitching looks good.

Missed Saturday’s Grappling With Grammar post, through no fault of my own. Which means I was using my lack of internet and lap top as an excuse not to write it on the other computer and put it on a USB key to upload from someone else’s computer.

Still haven’t got my brochures done. *sigh*

This Week’s Schedule:

Tuesday: Time for a new set of Wonders. This time around it’s the Natural Wonders of the World.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Thursday: This week’s poetry form is the Jagati.

Friday: Chapter 40 of Fire.

Random Thoughts

Today: A rant about upgrades.

Wednesday: Chapter 17 of my on-line serial Shades of Errol Flynn. So, is Jessica’s father going to mount a rescue?

Saturday: Grappling With Grammar this week is all about active versus passive.

Elsewhere in my week:

Back to answering e-mails. I was just about caught up when I lost access to the internet last week. I should probably catch up on my blog reading too.

Get my brochures designed and printed out. This will be moving to the top of my priority list, I think.

Get the edited version of An Elemental Wind sent off.

Print out the poems I’m going to read later this month and start practicing.

And in case you missed it last week, Jamie DeBree has a new blog called Rattles. Check it out. There’s a very interesting picture by Heidi Sutherlin of Creative Pursuits. The challenge is open to all comers to write a story between 800 and 1,000 words using the picture as inspiration. The best stories will have a chance to receive $25 and a chance of publication. You don’t want to miss out!

And that’s it for me this week, barring any unforeseen disasters like last week. How about you? What are you up to now that summer’s winding down?

the Flarf

2011-09-01T08:00:00.001-04:00

The term Flarf was coined by the poet Gary Sullivan, who also wrote the earliest Flarf poetry. "I found the word flarf online on a police blotter where some stoner had described marijuana as flarfy," says Mr. Sullivan, who appropriated the term for the new poetic style.

His description of a Flarf is as follows:

1. Flarf: A quality of intentional or unintentional "flarfiness." A kind of corrosive, cute, or cloying, awfulness. Wrong. Un-P.C. Out of control. "Not okay."

Flarf (2): The work of a community of poets dedicated to exploration of "flarfiness." Heavy usage of Google search results in the creation of poems, plays, etc., though not exclusively Google-based. Community in the sense that one example leads to another's reply-is, in some part, contingent upon community interaction of this sort. Poems created, revised, changed by others, incorporated, plagiarized, etc., in semi-public.

Flarf (3) (verb): To bring out the inherent awfulness, etc., of some pre-existing text.

Flarfy: To be wrong, awkward, stumbling, semi-coherent, fucked-up, un-P.C. To take unexpected turns; to be jarring. Doing what one is "not supposed to do."

The Flarf is an internet dependant form that combines unusual phrases from Google searches. It takes its raw material from a search involving wildly different terms, like "anarchy + tuna melt" or "exquisite + corpse." A poem is created by cutting and pasting words from the search results page (none of the website links are followed).

The Farf aesthetic is irreverent, inappropriate, and deliberately discomforting. It is a poetry created from the entrails of the world wide web, preserving all the slang and messy syntax of its source material.

“Flarf is a hip, digital reaction to the kind of boring, genteel poetry” popular with everyday readers, says Marjorie Perloff, a poetry critic and professor emeritus of English at Stanford University. “You used to find it only in alternative spaces, but it has now moved into the art mainstream.”

Flarf verse has appeared in America's pre-eminent poetry magazine, Poetry.
So far, at least sixteen books of Flarf have been published—a flurry of them just in the past several years. Since 2006, the Bowery Poetry Club in Manhattan has held an annual three-day Flarf Festival that features poetry as well as "flarfy" music, theater, and film.

The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis and the Whitney Museum in New York have held Flarf readings. Two Manhattan theaters have showcased Flarf poets. In April, New York City's Whitney Museum of American Art hosted its own Flarf reading. And in November, Washington, D.C.–based independent publisher Edge Books will release a four-hundred-page anthology, Flarf: An Anthology of Flarf, featuring the work of twenty-five to thirty poets.

I have to admit, I got a little carried away when it came to examples. I did two using the traditional Google search, but when I discovered that the Flarf has blossomed into an anything-goes style no longer restricted to Google searches—so long as it is novel and edgy—I did a Flarf based on Twitter, and one based on Facebook. But to read them, you’ll have to go HERE.

Search terms: Apocalypse + Kittens

Kitten Apocalypse

Kittens are the new ninjas.
Check out this vicious cat killing spree!
Meet Hiromi, the shy artist;
her cat Vince, who has a secret;
her best friend Kitty ...
MEOW - YouTube
Its the kitten apocalypse!
under judgement. this is adult.
Animated zombie kittens!
Why the hell are you still reading?
Oh, hai!
Sorry for yesterday's absence.
What with the impending doomsday
tonight at 6:00pm.
Apocalypse warning,
kittens involved.
A sign of the Apocalypse.
If you see these,
you're probably screwed.
Zombie apocalypse knowledge:
Bears are the Devil's kittens.

Search terms: Earth + Apocalypse

Fallen Earth

Earth is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
Tunguska centennial revives calls
for finding earthbound asteroids before they find us.
No kidding, one in three children fear earth apocalypse . . .
There's a new bogeyman lurking in the closet,
and this one isn't imaginary.
Welcome to the apocalypse.
Shocking accounts from ancient legends -
stunning scientific data reconstruct the details.
Earth under fire: Humanity's survival of the apocalypse.
Presenting astronomical and
geological evidence for cyclic cataclysms .
Apocalypse? Or, Earth rebirth?
Things that want to be . . .
Have any news that seems apocalyptic in any way?
Find the many faces of the apocalypse;
will the dead rule the Earth?
Livin' for the apocalypse.
People are completely delusional.
Or they're the people we'll be bowing down to.

Hump Day Hunk

2011-08-31T08:00:00.001-04:00

This one's for Jamie DeBree and Heidi Sutherlin. Wouldn't he make a great cabana boy? ;-)

7 Wonders of the Industrial World - Part VII

2011-08-30T08:00:00.000-04:00

Hoover Dam

A National Historic Landmark, Hoover Dam stands tall as an engineering marvel high above the Colorado River. Originally known as Boulder Dam, it’s a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River, on the border between the US states of Arizona and Nevada. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression and was dedicated on September 30, 1935, by President Franklin Roosevelt.

Its construction was the result of a massive effort involving thousands of workers. When it was completed, it was the largest dam of its kind in the world, standing at more than 725 feet above the Colorado River. With 17 generators producing 4 billion kilowatts of electricity a year, it also is one of the country's largest hydroelectric power facilities. Operation and maintenance of the facility are solely supported by revenue from power sales.

* ~ * ~ * ~ *

In 1922, the Reclamation Service presented a report calling for the development of a dam on the Colorado River for flood control and electric power generation. Originally the dam was to be built in Boulder Canyon, but Black Canyon was found to be more suitable. Despite the change in site, the project was still called the Boulder Canyon Project.

President Coolidge signed the bill authorizing the dam on December 21, 1928. Officials decided on a massive concrete arch-gravity dam, which would be thick at the bottom and thin near the top, and would present a convex face towards the water above the dam. The curving arch of the dam would transmit the water's force into the abutments, in this case the rock walls of the canyon. The wedge-shaped dam would be 660 ft (200 m) thick at the bottom, narrowing to 45 ft (14 m) at the top, leaving room for a highway connecting Nevada and Arizona.

Soon after the dam was authorized, increasing numbers of unemployed converged on southern Nevada. Men came from around the country, many bringing families and hoping for employment. The site of Hoover Dam endures extremely hot weather, but the summer of 1931 was especially sweltering, with the daytime high averaging 119.9 °F (48.8 °C).

The first step was to divert the Colorado River. The riverbed had to be dredged clear of deep silt and sediment to expose a bedrock foundation for the building of the dam. The process of digging four diversion tunnels through canyon walls to divert river flow around the dam site was tedious. High scalers worked on the canyon walls, removing loose rock to make sure the walls were smooth so the dam’s concrete would adhere. After a year, the river was routed through the tunnels, and the main work began.

The first concrete was poured into the dam in June of 1933, 18 months ahead of schedule. A total of 3,250,000 cubic yards (2,480,000 m3) of concrete was used. In addition, 1,110,000 cubic yards (850,000 m3) were used in the power plant and other works. Two batch plants onsite were created to produce the concrete that was transported on railcars in large four and eight cubic yard buckets. An overhead cableway system lifted the buckets and lowered them to the forms. At peak production, one bucket was delivered about every 78 seconds. Overall, there is enough concrete in the dam to pave a two-lane highway from San Francisco to New York.

The dam was built in interlocking blocks, and concrete. More than 582 miles (937 km) of one-inch steel cooling pipes were placed within the concrete to offset the chemical heat generated by concrete setting. There was an ammonia refrigeration plant that cooled the water and was capable of creating a gigantic 1000 pound ice block every day.

Once the cement hardened, the cooling pipes were back-filled with concrete to create added strength. The massive water pressure of up to 45,000 pounds per square foot at the base of Hoover Dam, is held back by gravity. The arch-curved structure against the lake reservoir dissipates that pressure into the canyon walls equally on the Arizona and Nevada side.

The dam is named after America's 31st president, Herbert Hoover, who played a large role in bringing the nearby states into agreement about water allocations, settling a 25-year controversy. The dam has been called Boulder Canyon Dam as well as Boulder Dam, but Hoover Dam was reinstated as the official name by Congress in 1947.

Ninety-six men were killed in industrial accidents while building the dam. Several dozen others died from the heat or carbon monoxide poisoning while on the job, and hundreds of other people, wives and children of the workers, died from heat, polluted water or disease.

Hoover Dam was the largest federal project of its time. The Boulder Canyon Project Act appropriated $165 million for the Hoover Dam along with the downstream Imperial Dam and All-American Canal. Building the dam was hot, dirty and often dangerous work, but more than 20,000 men were happy to be working on the Hoover Dam, the biggest dam project in the world when it was completed.

Because of Hoover Dam, the Colorado River was controlled for the first time in history. Farmers received a dependable supply of water in Nevada, California and Arizona. And Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix and a dozen other towns and cities were given an inexpensive source of electricity, permitting population growth and industrial development.

Matripotestal Monday

2011-08-29T08:00:00.000-04:00

matripotestal ~ of, like or pertaining to the power of mothers

Despite the fact that we’re not supposed to feel the effects of Hurricane Irene (I guess it’s tropical storm Irene now) yesterday was overcast and incredibly windy. I actually like the wind, but this was a little much even for me. Especially since we spent the better part of the day at the cottage. It was cool enough that I, the person who is perpetually too warm, even wore my Nano hoodie.

My posts all made it up last week, although I was a little tardy with my poetry post and very tardy with my grammar post. All I can say is, it’s Harry Potter’s fault. :-) Yes, that’s right. I was so desperate to get the Harry Potter monkey off my back that I neglected everything else so I could finish reading the series. Now it’s done and over with and I can go on to reading other things. I mean, writing, much writing. ;-)

I have no idea what level I’m on with MSN Patchworkz! I think this is a good thing. It means I haven’t been playing as many games lately. I’ve been really tired, and games just make me more tired. So I’m getting into the incredibly good habit of writing first, games after (if I have the energy).

I’m still walking, but I haven’t managed to get that upper body workout worked into my routine. I have a couple of hand weights that I’m going to dust off and try out. We’ll see how it goes.

Still need an ‘X’ form for my chapbook . . . When I went about selecting the forms to use, I finally settled on the forms that had the best written examples. Unfortunately, these are often more obscure forms that require a bit of explanation.

Did not finish the edits on An Elemental Wind, nor did I get my brochures done.

This Week’s Schedule:

Tuesday: Part seven of The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World. This week’s wonder is the Hoover Dam.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Thursday: This week’s poetry form is the Flarf.

Friday: Chapter 39 of Fire. Just who’s this guy visiting Rayne and what does he want?

Random Thoughts

Today: A double rant – people and barbeques.

Wednesday: Chapter 16 of my on-line serial Shades of Errol Flynn. So, what’s next for Jessica?

Saturday: Grappling With Grammar this week is all about active versus passive.

Elsewhere in my week:

Answer the e-mails I have piling up. Sorry people! Blame Harry Potter and . . . um . . . I guess he’s the only excuse I’ve got, other than sheer laziness.

Design the cover and get a proof copy of my chap book finished. ISBN numbers are free, so I’m going to send for some.

Get my brochures designed and printed out.

Continue with the walking and add the weight training for upper body workouts.

Nap. I figure I might as well add it to the list ‘cause I’m going to do it anyway.

Finish the final edits on An Elemental Wind.

Choose the poems I’m going to read in September.

Start working on my flash piece for Rattles. This is a new blog started by Jamie DeBree of Brazen Snake Books and Heidi Sutherland of Creative Pursuits. Essentially, they’re inviting you to write up to 1,000 words on the picture prompt in the upper right corner. The best stories will be published in an anthology. Be sure and check it out.

And that’s what I’ll be doing this week. How about you?

Ochtfochlach

2011-08-25T07:54:00.001-04:00

The Ochtfochlach is an Irish verse form dating back to the 1200s. It consists of an eight-line stanza with a consistent but unspecified length and meter. The rhyme scheme is AAAB CCCB.

Though many of the Irish forms were complicated, the Octfochlach was a brúilingeacht, a style which used simpler rhymes, and was considered óglachas, or 'apprentice work', a less formal style often used by amateurs.

The Ochtfochlach is:
1. a poem in 8 lines.
2. can have any number of syllables, but should remain consistent.
3. has a rhyme scheme of AAAB CCCB.

I think what I enjoyed most about this form was the fact it was more lyrical than some of the others I’ve been exploring lately. It’s very short, for an Irish form, but I have seen a couple of examples where the poet has continued for additional stanzas. However, when this is done it appears the ‘B’ rhyme is consistent throughout. Some day I just might add stanzas to my example – it seems a little unfinished as it is.

The Contest

I stand within the bardic hall
The audience is in my thrall
My voice fills up the giant hall
With words of power to enchant.
The contest’s run for many days
Where poets speak their words of praise
Only the strongest spirit stays
In hopes the favoured to supplant.

Hump Day Hunk

2011-08-24T08:00:00.002-04:00

Talk about flower power! ;-)

7 Wonders of the Industrial World - Part VI

2011-08-23T08:00:00.001-04:00

Panama Canal

The Panama Canal was one of the largest and most difficult engineering projects ever undertaken. It is a 48 mile (77 km) international waterway that allows ships to pass between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, saving about 8000 miles from the journey around Cape Horn on the southern tip of South America. From the Atlantic side, the trip first takes you through a 7 mile (11 km) dredged channel in Limón Bay, then proceeds 11.5 miles (18.5 km) to the Gatun Locks. This is a series of three locks that raises ships 85 feet (26 metres) to Gatun Lake. The route continues south for 32 miles (51.5 km) to the Culebra Cut, which is a channel 8 miles (13 km) long and 492 feet (150 metres) wide. At the end of this are the Pedro Miguel Locks which lower ships 31 feet (9.4 metres) to a lake which takes you to the Miraflores Locks which lower ships an additional 52.5 feet (16 metres) to sea level in the bay of Panama in the Pacific Ocean.

The earliest suggestion for a canal across the Isthmus of Panama was made in 1534. After realizing the riches of Peru, Ecuador, and Asia, and taking into consideration the amount of time it took the gold to reach the ports of Spain, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain ordered a survey for a route through Panama that would make the trips shorter. A working plan was drawn up in 1529, but never used.

Several surveys were made between 1850 and 1875 and showed that only two routes were practical, one across Panama and another across Nicaragua. In 1876 an international company was organized and two years later it obtained a concession from the Colombian government to dig a canal across the isthmus. The international company failed, and in 1880 a French company was organized by Ferdinand Marie de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal.

The contract for the canal’s construction was signed on March 12th, 1881, and it was agreed the work would be carried out for 512 million French francs. De Lesseps opted for a sea-level canal based on the construction of the Suez Canal. He believed that if a sea-level canal worked when constructing the Suez Canal, it must work for the Panama Canal.

During 1882 the excavation of the Culebra Cut was started. As work proceeded, the worry of landslides and what slope should be adopted to avoid them became a major concern. In 1883 it was realised there was a tidal range of 20 feet at the Pacific, whereas, the Atlantic range was only about 1 foot. It was concluded that this difference in levels would be a danger to navigation. It was proposed that a tidal lock should be constructed at Panama to preserve the level from there to Colon. This plan would save about 10 million cubic metres of excavation.

Eventually, in 1899 the French attempt at constructing the Panama Canal was seen to be a failure. However, they had excavated a total of 59.75 million cubic metres which included 14.255 million cubic metres from the Culebra Cut. This lowered the peak by 102 metres. The value of work completed by the French was about $ 25 million. When the French left, they left behind a considerable amount of machinery, housing, and a hospital.

In 1899 the US Congress created an Isthmian Canal Commission to examine the possibilities of a Central American canal and to recommend a route. In June 1902, the U.S. Senate voted in favour of pursuing the Panamanian option, provided the necessary rights could be obtained.

The United States, under President Theodore Roosevelt, bought out the French equipment and excavations for $40 million. The first American steam shovel started work on the Culebra Cut on 11th November 1904. By December 1905 there were 2,600 men at work in the Culebra Cut.

John Frank Stevens, Chief Engineer from 1905 to 1907, successfully argued the case against the incredibly massive excavation required for a sea-level canal like the French had tried to build and convinced Theodore Roosevelt of the necessity and feasibility of a canal built with dams and locks.

Constructing the Panama Canal with locks still required the excavation of an enormous volume of material and was envisioned by Stevens as a massive earth-moving project using the Panama Railway as efficiently as possible. The railroad, starting in 1904, had to be comprehensively upgraded with heavy-duty double-tracked rails over most of the line to accommodate all the new rolling stock of about 115 heavy-duty locomotives and 2,300 dirt spoils railroad cars.

Peak excavation within the Culebra Cut exceeded 512,500 cubic metres of material in the first three months of 1907 and the total workforce exceeded 39,000. More than 4,000 wagons were used for the removal of the excavated material. Each wagon was capable of carrying 15 cubic metres of material. These wagons were hauled by 160 locomotives and unloaded by 30 Lidgerwood unloaders.

In 1907 there was a major slide at Cucaracha. The initial crack was first noted on October 4th, 1907, then without warning approximately 382,000 cubic metres of clay, moved more than 4 metres in 24 hours. The Cucaracha slide was to become a problem again in 1913, when it crossed the cut until it reached the opposite bank. The steam shovels excavated the slide as it was moving and eventually won the battle.

The building of the canal was completed in 1914, two years ahead of the target date of June 1, 1916. The canal was formally opened on August 15, 1914 with the passage of the cargo ship SS Ancon. Coincidentally, this was also the same month that fighting in World War I began in Europe.

Almost a hundred years since its opening, the canal continues to enjoy great success. Even though the ships for which the canal was built are long gone, the canal is still one of the most highly travelled waterways in the world, handling over 12,000 ships per year. The 51-mile crossing takes about nine hours to complete, an immense time saving when compared with rounding the tip of South America.

Myoxine Monday

2011-08-22T08:00:00.001-04:00

myoxine ~ of, like or pertaining to dormice

I’m not sure where last week went, is it possible I missed a couple of days somewhere? I know my weekend certainly didn’t go as planned, but then it seldom does.

Before I get into what I did (and didn’t) accomplish last week, I have a treat for you all. Remember last week I mentioned a couple of books I thought were really good and I provided links so you could download them? Well, the author of The Candle, Shawn Michel de Montaigne, contacted me and not only offered me a free copy of his latest book, Melody and the Pier to Forever, but extended the invitation to all of you as well. The link is HERE and the download code is BY77V. Don’t wait too long, the offer’s only good until August 31. And in case you missed it, you can download The Candle HERE.

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

I got all my posts up last week except for Grappling With Grammar. I honestly couldn’t come up with a topic Friday night, and then Saturday I thought of something and came up with two more while researching the first one. Unfortunately, I spent so much time researching that I didn’t get any of them written.

I broke Level 1,000 on MSN Patchworkz! over the weekend. *sigh* I don’t know what I was expecting – rockets going off, a ticker tape parade, a cash prize . . . . What I got was the chance to go on to the next level, which I did. Now if I keep playing it’ll be more out of curiosity to see how high I can go.

I walked five out of seven days last week. My walks are about the same distance, but I’m finishing them sooner and my recovery time is quicker. So I guess that’s progress. :-)

I’ve got my poems picked out for my poetry chapbook, but I have not finished developing my own poetry form.

I managed to get to both my Scribe’s meeting and the poetry reading last week, although I went empty handed to the Scribe’s meeting. And if you’re looking for a little online reading to go with the above book downloads, you can find the second edition of the Northumberland Scribes E-Magazine HERE. If you’re looking for my contribution, click on Contents on the left. I contributed to Cobourg Noir and the last piece on the list is also mine. :-)

Did not finish the edits on An Elemental Wind, nor did I get my brochures done.

About the only thing I did get done (besides most of my blog posts) was reading the next three Harry Potter books, and fix the USB turn table so we could record vinyl records again.

This Week’s Schedule:

Tuesday: Part Six of The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World. This week’s wonder is the Panama Canal.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. ;-)

Thursday: This week’s poetry form is the Ochtfochlach.

Friday: Chapter 38 of Fire. Finally, they’re on their way. It’s about time, don’t you think?

Random Thoughts

Today: A rant about careless drivers.

Wednesday: Chapter 15 of my on-line serial Shades of Errol Flynn. So who are these mysterious strangers who rescued Jessica?

Saturday: Grappling With Grammar this week is all about verb tense.

Elsewhere in my week:

I’ll make this list short and sweet:

Get my brochures designed and printed out.

Organize my chap book and format it for printing.

Design the cover for my chap book – decide whether or not I want an ISBN number on it.

Continue with the walking – maybe add some upper body workouts.

Finish the final edits on An Elemental Wind.

Choose the poems I’m going to read in September.

And that’s what I’ll be doing when I’m not doing other stuff. :-) What are you going to be up to this week?

Rimas Dissolutas

2011-08-18T08:00:00.001-04:00

The Rimas Dissolutas comes to us from the French troubadours, developed as an alternative to the strict rhyming that classic poetry had embraced. Instead of rhyming within the stanzas, there is an external rhyme – each stanza rhymes line by line with all of the other stanzas. The result is a lovely subtlety to the rhymes. They dissolve, but they're there.

The poem may consist of any number of stanzas. Stanzas may consist of any number of lines, but the number of lines must be consistent in all stanzas. If you have three lines in the first stanza, then every stanza thereafter must have three lines. There is also an optional envoi, shorter than the other stanzas but rhyming with the latter part of them.

Traditionally, this form is considered a syllabic one, meaning that each line would usually share the same number of syllables. This tradition, however, is not always followed and I have seen several examples where it is not.

The Rimas Dissolutas is:
Stanzaic, written in any number of uniform length stanzas.
In keeping with most old French forms it is syllabic - all lines have the same number of syllables, with the number of syllables being at the discretion of the poet.
Lines are unrhymed within the stanza.
Lines are rhymed between stanzas.
Sometimes written with an envoi which would be half the number of lines of the stanzas using the rhyme of the later lines of the stanzas.

Example of a Schematic:
Stanza 1
x x x x x a
x x x x x b
x x x x x c
x x x x x d
x x x x x e

Add'l Stanzas
x x x x x a
x x x x x b
x x x x x c
x x x x x d
x x x x x e

Envoi... (if used)
x x x x x c
x x x x x d
x x x x x e

You will notice in my example I chose not to use an envoi. I have nothing against envois, I just felt it would take away from the pattern. I’m not sure whether I like this form or not. I kept wanting to rhyme when writing it and keeping within the syllable count makes it, to me at least, seem a little choppy.

Phantom

My story’s told without a word
I weave my tale another way
Still my meaning is understood
And my story is passed along

I sketch, no charcoal is preferred
Sometimes I sculpt, but without clay
I carve without the use of wood
And still the image comes through strong

I have a melody unheard
No instrument attempts to play
Yet has the tune though time withstood
Listen, and you can hear my song

The poem is writ, the pen deferred
The metered form has no display
And yet it’s ne’er misunderstood
You cannot take the meaning wrong

Hump Day Hunk

2011-08-17T08:00:00.001-04:00

I wonder what he's thinking about? ;-)

7 Wonders of the Industrial World - Part V

2011-08-16T08:00:00.000-04:00

First Transcontinental Railroad

The First Transcontinental Railroad (originally known as the "Pacific Railroad") was built between 1863 and 1869 by the Central Pacific Railroad of California and the Union Pacific Railroad. The line was popularly known as the Overland Route after the principal passenger rail service that operated over the length of the line through the end of 1962.

Talk of a transcontinental railroad started shortly after steam powered railroads were invented in Great Britain and began to be introduced into the United States. The rail line was an important goal of President Abraham Lincoln, fostered during the early portion of his term and completed four years after his death. The building of the railroad was motivated in part to bind California to the Union during the American Civil War. It accelerated the populating of the West by white homesteaders and freed slaves, while greatly contributing to the decline of the Native American culture in the regions it served.

Pacific Railroad bills that proposed to grant lands, subsidies, and even as much as 90 million dollars towards the construction of the railroad were periodically introduced in Congress but none of them passed because a route could not be decided on. Congress was split along geographical lines; northerners wanted a northern route and southerners wanted a southern route.

Congress sent five surveying teams out in 1853 to explore possible railroad routes to California. California desperately needed railroads to replace the mule teams, stage coaches, and steamboats on which the entire economy was dependent and so began their first railroad (the Sacramento Valley Railroad) in 1854, with Theodore D. Judah as its chief engineer.

The railroad surveying teams finished in autumn of 1854. The results of their research were reviewed by the Secretary of War, Jefferson Davis of Mississippi but still no decision could be made due to a split in Congress between Northern and Southern interests.

In 1861, the Southern congressmen left Congress as a precursor to Southern secession, at which point action and funding progressed immediately to begin work on the Northern route. This decision hinged greatly on analyses of how use of the Railroad would impact the impending Civil War, which had just broken out.

The route followed the well established Oregon, Mormon and California Trails. The new line began in Omaha, Nebraska, followed the Platte River, crossed the Rocky Mountains at South Pass in Wyoming and then through northern Utah and Nevada before crossing the Sierras to Sacramento, California. Additional track was laid to connect Denver, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah and other cities not directly on the route.

The Central Pacific laid 690 miles (1,110 km) of track, starting in Sacramento, and the Union Pacific laid 1,087 miles (1,749 km) of track, starting in Omaha. At first, the Union Pacific was not directly connected to the Eastern U.S. rail network. Instead, trains had to be ferried across the Missouri River. In 1869 the Hannibal Bridge at Kansas City was built and allowed connection to the Kansas Pacific Railway. The Kansas Pacific then linked with the Denver Pacific Railway via Denver to Cheyenne in 1870. In 1873, the Union Pacific Missouri River Bridge opened and directly connected the Union Pacific mainline to the East.

The majority of the Union Pacific track was built by Irish laborers, and veterans of both the Union and Confederate armies. Brigham Young, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, wished to see the railroad support emigration and the population centers in Ogden and Salt Lake City, Utah. As the track approached Utah Territory, he sought a labor contract with the Union Pacific. Under this completed contract, workgangs made up almost entirely of Mormons built much of the Union Pacific track in the Utah territory including the difficult section requiring extensive blasting and tunneling through the Weber River canyon.

The Central Pacific's grade was constructed primarily by many thousands of emigrant workers from China who were commonly referred to at the time as "Celestials" and China as the "Celestial Kingdom." Even though at first they were thought to be too weak or fragile to do this type of work, the decision was made to hire as many as could be found in California (where most were independent gold miners or in service industries such as laundries and kitchens). Many more were imported from China. Most of the men received between one and three dollars per day, but the workers arriving directly from China received much less. Eventually, they went on strike and gained a small increase in salary.

Most of the work consisted of the laying of the rails. The track laying was divided up into various parts: one gang laid rails on the ties, drove the spikes, and bolted the splice bars; at the same time, another gang distributed telegraph poles and wire along the grade. Almost all of the track work was done manually, using shovels, picks, axes, black powder, two-wheeled dump carts, wheelbarrows, ropes, mules, and horses, while supply trains carried all the necessary material for the construction.

In addition to track laying (which typically employed approximately 25% of the labor force), the operation also required the efforts of hundreds of tunnelers, explosive experts, bridge builders, blacksmiths, carpenters, engineers, masons, surveyors, teamsters, telegraphers, and even cooks, to name just a few of the trades involved in construction of the railroad.

Six years after work began, laborers of the Central Pacific Railroad from the west and the Union Pacific Railroad from the east met at Promontory Summit, Utah. It was here on May 10, 1869 that Governor Stanford drove the Golden Spike (or the Last Spike), that symbolized the completion of the transcontinental railroad.

Visible remains of the historic line are still easily located—hundreds of miles are still in service today, especially through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and canyons in Utah and Wyoming. While the original rail has long since been replaced because of age and wear, and the roadbed upgraded and repaired, the lines generally run on top of the original, handmade grade. Vista points on Interstate 80 through California's Truckee Canyon provide a panoramic view of many miles of the original Central Pacific line and of the snow sheds which make winter train travel safe and practical.

In areas where the original line has been bypassed and abandoned, primarily in Utah, the road grade is still obvious, as are numerous cuts and fills, especially the Big Fill a few miles east of Promontory.

Completion of the railroad was one of the crowning achievements in the crossing of plains and high mountains westward by the Union Pacific and eastward by the Central Pacific. The Transcontinental Railroad established a mechanized transportation network that revolutionized the population and economy of the American West.

Mathematicaster Monday

2011-08-15T08:00:00.000-04:00

mathematicaster ~ minor or inferior mathematician

After reading two e-books that I had a hard time putting down, I’ve started reading the Harry Potter series in hard copy. The first book, “The Candle”, by Shawn Michel de Montaigne was just amazing. Don’t take my word for it, you can get your own copy for free HERE. The other one, “Thoughtless”, by S. C. Stephens was also amazing, but in a different way. It was long, and I was never sure whether Keira was going to get her HEA or not, which was one of the reasons I couldn’t read it fast enough. You can also download it for free, HERE.

For anyone who’s keeping track, I’m now up to level 856 on MSN Patchworkz! It’s starting to get a little tedious . . . I think I’ll quit when I reach level 1,000 LOL

I also did better at going for my walks this week. Not perfect, mind you, but better.

Here’s how my week usually goes: Sunday and Monday I’m all fired up and get lots of writing done – usually my blog posts for the week; Tuesday I start losing steam but I still manage to get some writing done; Wednesday my ambition starts slipping away as I put the finishing touches on my weekly poem; Thursday I’m starting to struggle, cursing myself for not starting my serial instalment earlier in the week; Friday I just want to read and nap . . . and then I remember I still have one more post to get done for the week; Saturday I check to make sure my post went up on time, check my e-mail, and then pat myself on the back for making it through another week before shutting down the lap top.

Do you see the pattern here? The problem is, I have too much time on my hands. At the beginning of the week I have all these blog posts to write and it’s full steam ahead. But as the week progresses I have fewer and fewer words that I have to write and I slow right down. You’d think I’d fill in the excess time with all my other writing/editing, but that’s not the way my mind works. I have to get the blog posts done, I have a schedule to keep and bad things will happen if I don’t. But with my other writing . . . well, there’s really no deadline unless it’s self-imposed, and I have self-motivation issues (read, I’m a lazy slacker when it comes to my own work). This is a big problem that needs to be fixed, but I have no idea how to go about it.

This Week’s Schedule:

Tuesday: Part Five of The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World. This week’s wonder is the First Transcontinental Railroad.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure. This guy’s really hot, you won’t want to miss him! ;-)

Thursday: This week’s poetry form is the Rimas Dissolutas (sounds like a magic spell from Harry Potter, doesn’t it?).

Friday: Chapter 37 of Fire. So just what is E.Z. going to do to Pyre to help him with his element?

Random Thoughts

Today: A rant that’s been building in me for a while now on editing (or lack thereof) when it comes to independent e-books.

Wednesday: Chapter 14 of my on-line serial Shades of Errol Flynn. Is Jessica going to make it to the top of the cliff? Will she end up having to swim for it? Will the boots be okay? :-D

Saturday: Grappling With Grammar – I have no idea at this point what I’m going to talk about here. If you’ve got a suggestion for me, PLEASE e-mail me or leave me a comment!

Elsewhere in my week:

I’ve decided I’m tired of being broke so I need to be more aggressive with the advertising for my business. The work is out there, I just have to let people know I’m available. My inner perfectionist has screwed up my website royally, so I’m back to square one with it. But I decided I don’t need a website to drum up business locally. All I need is a good brochure (actually, there’ll be three separate ones). So that’s one of the things I’ll be doing this week.

I have about half the forms picked out for my chap book, now to settle on the other half. People have been telling me for a while now that I’m so into forms I should invent my own and I’m in the process of doing just that. All I can tell you at this point is that it will start with the letter X (the only letter of the alphabet I’m missing LOL).

I need to learn how to be more productive with my own work. In case you missed it, see the fourth and fifth paragraphs of today’s post. :-D

This week I’m shooting for walking every day, rain or shine, walking partner or not. I need new ear buds for my iPod though . . . the ones I’ve been using had foam over metal and the foam has eroded or torn or something and I can’t get them to stay put.

Finish the final edits on An Elemental Wind. No more shilly-shallying. Time to get moving on this sucker so I can get to work on my next book.

I also have a Scribe’s meeting and a Poetry reading to go to this week. I’ve had some health issues lately that have involved adjusting to a new medication, and I’ve been missing out on my literary activities. Hopefully, everything’s settling down now and I can exit the hermitage.

And that’s what my week has in store for me. How about you? How’s your summer going?

Urjuzah

2011-08-11T08:00:00.000-04:00

Urjuza is an Arabic verse form, consisting simply of rhyming couplets in the rajaz metre. The rajaz metre calls for lines of 24 syllables, divided into two hemistichs (or half-lines) of 12 syllables, with a caesura (or break) between them.

The verse focuses more on the details of content leaving the poem "devoid of stylistic elegance and poetic beauty". The poem served several functions, for example camel drivers’ songs (known as al-ḥidā ), was utilized for verbal display, and other types of didactic and even obscene poetry.

The Urjuza is:
Written in any number of couplets.
Monorhymed or written in rhymed couplets - either aa aa aa etc. or aa bb cc etc .
Written in rajaz meter
The rajaz meter calls for lines of 24 syllables with a caesura at 12 syllables

Once of the sources I checked referenced the UK band, Camel (70s progressive rock), who made an album called Rajaz. They had a very eloquent description of the Rajaz metre:

The music of poets once carried caravans across the great deserts.

Sung in a simple metre of the animal's footsteps, it transfixed weary travellers on their sole objective... journey's end.

The poetry is called 'rajaz'.
It is the rhythm of the camel.

You can check out their Rajaz site HERE, and for those curious about such things, the band’s official website can be found HERE.

Writing 24-syllable lines was a bit of a challenge, and I have to admit that it took me forever to write my example (I’m sure it had nothing to do with the time I spent on Twitter) but I actually enjoyed writing in this form. Unfortunately, I was not able to indent the second part of each line without changing the html coding for the whole blog, and I didn’t think it was worth the trouble for one poem so you’ll have to use your imaginations for the formatting. :-D

Desert Storm

A desert wind blows across the skin of my dreams,
winding its way across dunes of lost words and deeds.
A desert sun sets fire to my imagination,
burning away reality until it bleeds.

A desert day can burn itself into your mind,
until you no longer see what the pen has wrought.
A desert rain can sweep the landscape of changes,
dark words scudding across the sky in clouds of thought.

A desert night will cool the burning of the soul,
with sibilant whispers of things that could not be.
A desert night can rain down stars of poetry
sweeping the landscape in a storm you cannot see.

Hump Day Hunk

2011-08-10T08:00:00.000-04:00

Look what the tide brought in! ;-)

7 Wonders of the Industrial World - Part IV

2011-08-09T08:00:00.000-04:00

The London Sewerage System

The word sewer means "seaward" in Old English. London's sewers were open ditches sloped slightly to drain human wastes toward the River Thames, and ultimately into the sea. The city of London housed hundreds of thousands of people in crowded conditions and the situation was deteriorating daily. Epidemics of cholera, typhus, "consumption" and other undefined maladies plagued the city over at least four centuries. Sewer ditches quickly filled with garbage and human wastes, which overflowed onto streets, into houses, and into marketplaces throughout London.

With a low population, the waterways were able to absorb the pollution without any serious detriment to the health of the populace, who continued to use the streams and rivers not only as the means of disposing of waste of all kinds, but as a source of drinking water. As London grew in size, however, these waterways became increasingly unable to cope with the associated growth in the flow of sewage, and the sanitary problem became a serious danger to health.

By 1810, the one million population of London was served by 200,000 cess-pits. When cesspits filled to overflow, they were built to drain to the street by means of a crudely built culvert to a partially open sewer trench in the center of the street. The nauseating stench permeated even the most elegant of homes. Indoor odours were often worse than of the garbage- and manure-filled streets.

Methane (swamp) gas generated by cesspits caught fire, exploded and brought instant death to those trapped in sealed homes. Hydrogen sulphide gases overwhelmed victims as they slept, their lungs paralyzed by the gas. Cesspit wastes often soaked foundations, walls, and floors of living quarters. Culverts were frequently blocked causing sewage to spread under buildings and contaminate shallow wells, cisterns and water ways from which drinking water was drawn.

In 1834, John Martin proposed that two intercepting sewers be built below the banks of the river, to terminate at the Tower on the north, and at the Surrey Canal on the south. Two immense receptacles were to be provided, to convert the sewage into manure, and the gas was to be burnt off by huge fires, thus assisting in forced ventilation.

In 1847 the newly-formed Metropolitan Commission for Sewers published a survey of London's sanitary arrangement above and below ground. Amongst other results of this survey was the banning of the use of London's cesspits and the provision of flushing devices to the sewers which carried their contents, untreated, into the Thames. Since drinking water continued to be extracted from the Thames, now converted into an open sewer, typhoid fever and cholera became the two principal scourges of Victorian London.

It is estimated that several hundred thousand Londoners perished from typhoid, cholera, plague and pestilence before it was understood that the city was dying from its own filth.

Part of the problem was due to the introduction of more the modern water closets, or flush toilets. While these were a step forward from the chamber-pots that most Londoners used, they dramatically increased the volume of water and waste now being poured into existing cesspits. These often overflowed into street drains originally designed to cope with rainwater, but now also used to carry outfalls from factories, slaughterhouses and other activities, contaminating the city before emptying into the River Thames.

The crisis came to a peak in the 'Great Stink' of London in 1858. The combination of an unusually warm summer and an unbelievably polluted Thames created a stench of mythic proportions. It was so bad that the curtains of the House of Commons were soaked in chloride of lime in a vain attempt to protect the sensitivities of MPs. A bill was rushed through Parliament and became law in 18 days, to provide more money to construct a massive new sewer scheme for London, and to build an embankment along the Thames in order to improve the flow of water and of traffic.

In 1859, the Metropolitan Board of Works approved a system proposed by its own chief engineer, Joseph Bazalgette to cope with the sewage problem. Constructing this system was a stupendous undertaking, involving 318 million bricks, 880,000 cubic yards of concrete and mortar, and the excavation of 3.5 million cubic yards of earth. The price of bricks in London rose by fifty per cent while it was being constructed.

Eighty-two miles of brick intercepting sewers were built below London's streets, all flowing by gravity eastwards. These were connected to over 450 miles of main sewers, themselves receiving the contents of 13,000 miles of small local sewers, dealing daily with half a million gallons of waste.

Six main interceptory sewers were constructed, some incorporating stretches of London's 'lost' rivers. Three of these sewers were north of the river, the southernmost, low-level one being incorporated in the Thames Embankment. The Embankment also allowed new roads to reduce traffic congestion, new public gardens, and the Circle Line of the London Underground.

The pumping mills, used at various point along the Victorian London Sewerage System, were (and still are) mostly house-like structures where people would work to keep the sewage flowing in the right direction. The sewers were designed to largely run using gravity, but the pumping stations ensured that in areas the needed it, the water and sewage levels were raised to keep it flowing towards the east.

There was no attempt to treat the raw sewage: Bazalgette believed that the drainage of the low-lying land in London was more important than cleansing the Thames. There were, of course, other regulations made concerning the supply of clean water to London at this time, but without Joseph Bazalgette's magnificent scheme, these would not have begun to deal with the essential problem - the appalling contamination of the River Thames. The success of these measures can be gauged by the fact that there was just one final outbreak of cholera in London in 1866 - just one year after the pumps were started at the opening ceremony.

Considering that the system was built during the wettest summer and the coldest winter recorded in the nineteenth century, it was an astounding achievement, even for Victorian civil engineers.

Malabathrum Monday

2011-08-08T08:00:00.001-04:00

malabathrum ~ dried leaf used in ancient times to make perfumed ointments

Last week was . . . strange. I think I slept more than anything else, but I still managed a respectable level of productivity.

Just when I thought it was safe to climb down off that fence I was sitting on in regards to what WIP I should work on, I got a SNI (Shiny New Idea). It’s actually pulling together a couple of old ideas I had, but in an interesting way. At the very least I’ll have to take the time tor write it down.

For anyone who’s keeping track, I’m now up to level 683 on MSN Patchworkz! I’m starting to slow down, which can only be a good thing. LOL

I downloaded Calibre so I could convert a bunch of e-books that were in the wrong format for reading on George. And of course once they were converted I just had to read a bunch of them. :-)

I had a blog catch-up day on Monday where I managed to read a lot of my favourite blogs to visit and even comment on most of them. It felt really good, but it was also really time consuming. How do you all keep up with the blogs you follow?

This Week’s Schedule:

Tuesday: Part four of The Seven Wonders of the Industrial World. This week’s wonder is the London Sewerage System.

Wednesday: Another hump day hunk for your viewing pleasure.

Thursday: This week’s poetry form is the Arabic Urjuzah (Rajaz metre).

Friday: Chapter 36 of Fire. If these people have a plan for rescuing the children from Dr. Arjun I wish they’d let me in on it! ;-)

Random Thoughts

Today: Oops, I did it again. I’m giving you something humorous instead of something ranty. I promise to be properly cranky next week, for sure! :-D

Wednesday: Chapter 13 of my on-line serial Shades of Errol Flynn. So what happened to Jessica? Did Howard’s experiment work?

Saturday: Grappling With Grammar – a Punctuation Cheat Sheet.

Elsewhere in my week:

I have a dilemma when it comes to choosing poems for my chapbooks. For the first one it’s going to be all about forms. My dilemma is, should I go with familiar forms or unusual forms? Familiar forms would be carried by the strength of my example, but unusual forms would tend to be carried by the form itself. So, do I want to showcase my poetry or the forms?

Back to walking this week, rain or shine. I was a real slacker last week in the walking department and must rectify this. It might be easier if it was a little cooler outside, but I go early enough in the morning that that’s really not a legitimate excuse.

I got An Elemental Wind back from my last reader who, for some strange reason, only had good things to say about it. In fact, my other readers agreed with her. This means I have some corrections to make, a very few changes to make, and then I’ll have to . . . do something with it. *sigh* Like . . . send it out into the world as a finished novel. Scary stuff!

And that’s pretty much it for my week. How about you? How's your summer going?

Clogyrnach

2011-08-04T08:00:00.001-04:00

There are 24 codified meters in Welsh poetry, divided into three categories: the Englynion, the Cywydd, and the Awdl. The Clogyrnach (clog-ír-nach) is the 16th, an Awdl, that is rarely used by today's poets. In ancient times the Awdls were the territory of the chief or master bard.

The Clogyrnach contains thirty-two syllables in a six-line stanza. The first two lines have eight syllables each; the second two, five; the third two, three. The last two lines may be written as a single, six-syllable line. There are only two rhymes per stanza, and there can be any number of stanzas.

Technically, it looks like this:

x x x x x x x a
x x x x x x x a
x x x x b
x x x x b
x x b
x x a

If you join the last two lines together to make one six-syllable line, it's important to keep the rhymes in place, so if you do that your last line will have the b rhyme in the middle:

x x x x x x x a
x x x x x x x a
x x x x b
x x x x b
x x b x x a

Of course I used the traditional format for my example. I found the five syllable lines to be the most difficult, especially following the eight syllable lines – I kept wanting to write four syllables or six syllables instead.

Dreamscape

An earthen sky of amber hue
A canvas on which dreams may brew
A zephyr blowing
Past rivers flowing
Unknowing
You pass through.

A stormy sea of hopes and dreams
Where nothing is quite like it seems
Reality skewed
Sanity unglued
Changing mood
Endless themes.

No order to the chaos here
Where wisdom’s just a thin veneer
Passions are higher
Truth is a liar
Misfire
Wake from here.