Hi everyone,
Together with a bunch of other Indie Romance Writers, I contributed to one of the Nook prizes on Brenda Novak’s Auction to raise money for Diabetes Research.
Here’s the link to the site:
http://brendanovak.auctionanything.com/Home.taf
Browse through the site for some great items and, when it opens, please place a bid or two. There’s something for everyone!
Inspiration
What makes a person trust enough to risk everything? I never understood the meaning of that word until I applied to law school. I couldn’t afford the application fee or the LSATs (which cost nearly $1000 dollars). But I knew it was my rescue. I was living in a trailer park in South Tucson barely scraping by and too proud to ask for help. The night before, I fell asleep to bullet spray.
This was not my life. This was not my destiny. This was not who I was meant to become. In pouring rain I stood shivering in the Admissions Office at the University of Arizona’s Law School hoping to speak to the director. She didn’t have to see me. She didn’t have to accept my application. She asked me why I wanted to become a lawyer. I thought of my college philosophy class—the professor asked one question of us: “What is Risk?” and the student next to me scribbled on his paper, “This” and handed it in. I handed the Admissions Director my essay. I told her I believed everything happened for a reason, even this. She smiled and I turned to leave knowing she was my last chance. I really needed her to believe in me, a stranger. I needed her to trust me. A clap of thunder rattled the windows. “Are you signed up for the LSAT?” she asked me. With my back to her, I shook my head, ashamed that money could derail me.
“There’s one extra spot, it’s yours if you think you can do it.”
I was about to protest, but I can’t afford it …then I listened to her words. She never asked me if I had paid the fee or if I had studied for the exam. She asked me if I thought I could do it. She offered me a chance to change my life’s direction. She saw something in my eyes—not desperation not sadness, but fierce determination. She believed in me. She inspired me to aim so high it hurts to breathe.
Here’s Kerrie’s latest book
Every once in a while, you just have to knuckle down and do it. You know what I’m talking about. Stop pretending you don’t. No, I’m not talking about writing the Redaction Sequel, I’m talking about cleaning closets, garages, sheds and under the bed and getting rid of all the stuff you don’t use.
Yes, it is Spring Cleaning Time.
The stuff of nightmares.
Mine at least. And so it is with some trepidation that I look forward to my weekend. The garage beckons. So do the things that live in the garage (but that’s another post). Tomorrow with my hubby at my side (okay, I’ll actually be pushing him so he’s sacrificed first), we’ll venture into that forbidden territory where even our cars fear to tread (pun intended).
Now, I’ve heard of people who actually can park in their garages and I’ve seen, with my own two eyes, that some of them are organized, but I’m pretty sure these are the stuff of urban legends and hallucinations. A clean garage is like Never, never land–a complete fantasy.
My garage, even after it’s yearly clearing out, is done in the style I refer to as organized chaos. And it matches the rest of my house and my personality. It is the planet of my birth, the jam in my sandwich and the chocolate to my life.
So anyone offering to send an organizer to my house should know that I will visit a thousand plagues upon you for such sacrilege.
Wait! Where was I?
Oh, yes. Cleaning out the garage. There in the bowels of the room that shall not be entered unless armed with a flashlight and a sturdy pair of boots is a washing machine that will be repaired and restored to it’s proper place in the house, a broken TV that will along with a mattress set and recliner will be hauled to the curb for the city folk to pick up. There are 24 gallon bins of toys that the kids throw into the room so their rooms look clean. Then there are the stuff that I’ll finally decide I don’t need after ten years of collecting dust and will donate it to someone who will refurbish it and make me wish I kept it.
I will sort all the tools and for one day everyone in the house will know where to find them and I’ll realize I have a collection of 35 Phillips head screw drivers. Of course, when I go to use them, they’ll be gone–except for that skinny one that doesn’t work in any screws used in the US. And don’t get me started about all those spare parts that are just lying around, but I’m afraid to throw out because I’m sure I’ll need it someday. Those stay–don’t judge.
Just thinking about it makes me wish it was Sunday night:-)
Sewing machines, like people, don’t like to be ignored. When I sat down to finish piecing the quilt tops, it had been almost a year since I last used my machine. To express its displeasure at my neglect, my machine began dropping stitches. Not one to give up, I gamely sewed each seam twice–figuring that between both the stitching would hold
Then I took my machine into the shop, or sewing machine spa.
It had been 8 years since I’d last had it serviced so I really shouldn’t complain. But still it was a bit of sticker shock to know that the cost for oiling, vacuuming the lint/dust out and cleaning the thing went from less than thirty dollars to one penny short of seventy.
Egads, talk about inflation.
I hope the shop massaged the thing and read it love sonnets for that price.
Either way, it is now home in the corner waiting like an overeager puppy for me to notice it again. Of course, it’s been sitting there for a week and I haven’t even taken off the cover–don’t want to mess up that 70-dollar detail.
When my parents came over for Easter dinner, my mother wanted to know if I’d used it yet. Um, no. What about the baby quilts you promised to make? Hmm, I’d only told her and my hubby (and of course blogged about that so everyone knows technically) so it’s not like anyone would know I planned to make them a baby quilt but didn’t (Plan B)
Alas, some people talk to other people who don’t read the blog and the news of the quilts has spread.
So, this weekend I will be using it to see if I can machine quilt the first of 3 baby using a walking foot I got from my mother. It should be fun (where is a sarcasm font when you need it?).
Oh and about those vintage dress patterns that I thought I’d get out of sewing… Yeah, my daughter noticed the Joann’s ad that I get in the mail and asked when we can go pick out fabric for her clothes.
I think that is the sewing machine’s revenge. Still… At least I’ll get my money out of it and it still works after 24 years.
Apparently, I ‘ve been living under a rock for the last five years. There’s this website that has these 17 minutes talks on all kinds of science topics. It’s called Ted Talks and can be found at http://www.ted.com/talks
The presenters are from everywhere in the world and are the tops of the fields but the information is presented so that everyone can understand it (and have a laugh or two).
I found the site because Netflix has been adding a pathetic jumble of new content. Netflix groups the lectures by topic but the website is easy to navigate and I can’t wait to spend a bit of time everyday learning something new.
Already I have the seeds of a few new books
Another relic housed in Munich
In the Middle Ages, at least three different locations claimed to possess the severed head of John the Baptist. If such a claim were made today, we’d witness an immediate outcry and investigation. CNN would have a field day. Anderson Cooper would be in his element.
A lone medieval scholar, John of Salisbury, did note that two of the claims must be wrong, but most medieval people were not remotely bothered by such issues. Because of the distances involved in travelling to those three places, they didn’t have to deal with the problem of John the Baptist having three heads (or the problem of the church propagating untruths). Divine Providence explained everything. Things were as they were because God had determined it. For them the real threat was the Devil.
Agents of the Devil were to be found everywhere. In my novel, Passion in the Blood, the hero, Robert de Montbryce glances out the window of his castle in Normandy and sees a flock of crows flying overhead. Foreboding sweeps over him that something evil has happened to his heroine, Dorianne de Giroux.
Celtic speakers were often shunned as agents of the Devil. The persecution of the Welsh 
Celts by the Normans is a central theme in several of my books. My latest release, Defiant Passion, is the story of Celts and their struggle against the Norman invaders. I will gift a copy to one lucky commenter today.
Superstition ruled people’s lives. They had no understanding of the laws of physics, nature, nor even how the human body worked. In their minds, anything could happen—there were no limitations. Sorcery really did work. An astrologist should be consulted for advice on when to take medicine or when to take in the washing. Lead could be turned into gold.
There was widespread belief in prophecy and, difficult as it might be to believe the acceptance of some of the political prophetical works, sometimes works of science and philosophy were even more outlandish.
Here, for example, is a famous passage from Roger Bacon, a 13th century scientist and philosopher:
“Ships may be made to move without oars or rowers, so that large vessels may be driven on the sea or on a river by a single man, and more swiftly than if it were strongly manned. Chariots can be built which can move without any draught animal at incalculable speed…Flying machines might be made in which a man might sit, turning a certain mechanism whereby artfully built wings might beat the air, in the manner of a bird in flight. Another instrument could be made which, although small, will lift or lower weights of almost infinite greatness…Again, instruments might be made for walking in the sea, or in rivers, even to the very bottom…bridges might cross rivers without pier or prop.”
Hmmm!
In health matters, medical knowledge was based largely on astrology, herbology, religion, philosophy, hearsay and desperation. A priest at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital at the end of the 14th century—John Mirfield—recommended the following procedure:
“Take the name of the patient, the name of the messenger sent to summon you, and the name of the day on which the messenger first came to you. Join all their letters together. If an even number result, the patient will not escape. If the number be odd, he will recover.”
They believed the entire universe was made up of four elements: fire, water, earth and air, which were mirrored in the four basic humors of the body: choler, phlegm, black bile and blood. Sometimes doctors did not actually see their patients, basing their diagnosis on the position of the stars, the colour and smell of the patient’s urine and the taste of his blood.
Magic was tolerated, even encouraged. One of my villains, Morwenna, has as many sickly customers from the village for her hexes and spells as the heroine, Rhonwen, a healer known for her skill with herbs, salves and potions. (Defiant Passion)
Magic was one thing. Heretical magic was another. In 1324, an Irish gentlewoman, Dame Alice Kyteler, and her companions, were accused of renouncing Christ, making sacrifices of living chickens to demons, cursing their husbands and creating unguents from the intestines of the chickens. They had, it was claimed, boiled these intestines with worms, dead men’s nails, various herbs and the garments of unbaptized dead children in the skull of a beheaded thief.
Unfortunately for the “heretics” these claims were made in Ireland. Had they been made in England, they would probably have been hung. As it was, Alice and her companions were burned alive.
As Ian Mortimer states in his book, The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England, “the past is a foreign country”.
Or is it?
There are at least two sites in the world today that still claim to be the repository of the skull of John the Baptist. Where is Anderson Cooper when you need him! Do you shudder a little when you see a mass migration of crows? Seen “The Birds” recently? Maybe I should ease off the husband cursing for a while! And flying machines? Don’t make me laugh!
Did someone say Feng Shui?
Anna has very kindly offered to give away one free copy of her book. So leave a comment to be entered in the drawing.
I like growing things. I like to plunge my hands into the soil and sift it through my fingers. It does, of course, go without saying that I love food–good food. It is this obsession that results in $80 tomatoes.
You know what I mean. By the time you invest in pots, soil, seeds/plants, water, fertilizer and time, your harvest is pretty expensive.
Naturally, I’m talking about those of us who live in places where the soil is reluctant to support anything that is not native to the area. Since I grew up in the Valley of the Sun, I understand what it takes to condition the soil to make it grow vegetables. The picture is of the cherry tomato plant growing outside. It is one plant that we’ve had to tie back and use two cages to keep the branches off the KoolDeck least the thing reach the pool. For scale reference, the window behind it is 10 foot wide.
I also spent plenty of summers in Baltimore (where I was born) marveling at how anything seemed to grow there. Then there is the torture that is a PBS gardening show.
Honestly, how do people live surrounded by so much green!
Whoops! I’m a bit OT (off topic, not something less flattering). In previous years, my husband and I have spent time bringing our clay and cement dirt into a soil that would support something other than weeds. This involves a tiller, a ton or so of sand, vermiculite, manure, compost, and assorted fertilizers. Then it gets grinded up in the tiller, mixed some more by hand, then the beds are surrounded by walls of dirt to keep the precious water inside.
I’m sure a few of you more experienced souls are wondering about planting in pots. I do that for my herbs–which are dragged under the porch. They are sheltered from the 120F temperatures (in April) but they require so much water (2X a day) or they look like a brownie from an Easy Bake Oven after a week.
Back to the crypts, er, planting beds. Since last year we had a horrible infestation of ants, I decided to try something new. Many a time, I’ve been stuck in the waiting room watching TV3’s garden guy, Dave Owens. I’ve liked what he had to say and marveled at his success through the long, hot summer. So I purchased his books and read them. Finally, I decided to try it his way.
Off my husband and I went to the Home Depot. Usually, we shop at Lowes but today there
was a Home Depot closer so in we went. Unlike the pool fixing episode, I knew exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted it done. My husband looked at me like I was speaking Venusian, so I figured my talk of doohickeys and thingamajigs confused him. Regardless, he got that wood must touch ground and told me I could only get two kinds–gnarly looking treated with God knows what wood or cedar.
Given what i planned to do with it and how much I planned to spend constructing my boxes, I went with the ugly wood.
My husband was still arguing with me when I told the HD guy to cut the 4×8′ sheet into 16″ planks. I had at this time drawn a diagram of my plans for my husband which seemed to make him happy. Then again, it could be that I told him he could say “I told you so” if I couldn’t produce what was in my mind.
Fat chance of that happening.
So the boards were ripped into three, I bought brackets and ugly posts and checked out at the register. Total for ugly wood and metal=$243. The next day, I cut three of the planks in half then I did the same thing with the posts. (ooooh, power tools) Finally I began assembling. The first one went up in 20 minutes until my cordless drill charged enough for me to use it. Having assembled the box of one, my husband immediately caught on and off we went. The next two were done in 15 minutes total. Then we hammered the posts in place inside the beds (for stability) and used orange plastic netting (left over from when someone drove through our block fence) to hold up the bean plants as they grew. NOTE: the garden guy’s book, Extreme Gardening, has the posts on the outside and using metal fencing for stability.
So the last thing on the list was to buy soil, compost specifically. Calling around, I found prices from $22.50 to 30.00 for a cubic yard, plus a $91 delivery fee regardless of how much you bought. Given how much I spent on the wood, I was loathe to fork over another 200+ for sh!t, even if it is organic.
Then I remembered passing a sign offering compost for $15.00 at Rovey dairy not too far from our house. Surely this merited checking out. So off my husband and i went. They sold it by the cubic yard like above, but their price was $10.00 for all that we were willing to load into our truck. Or they would take their backhoe and dump as much as we could carry into our truck for $30. I asked the typical questions–is it turned, how often, etc (the last thing I needed was flaming plants).
Since, neither of us particularly relished shoveling the stuff twice we opted for them loading and us unloading. Alas, the truck gate is broken so it doesn’t open, but we managed to unload the compost then with a makeshift ramp and a rake that kept falling apart, got all the soil into the planting beds. Total cost=$60 for soil, $12 for gas. (I have a half ton truck, ergo the two trips.)
Next, we planted the heirloom seeds we purchased online from Annie’s. And all that is left is to watch our garden grow:-)
Thanks to everyone who posted a name for the sequel. Here’s what I have:
Redaction: Hope for Humanity (Michael Fisher)
Walk of the 0.1% (Nancy)
Redaction: The Melt Down (Dian)
Thanks to your help, all three will of you will receive a copy of the ebook a week before it gets published. And I think I’m going to base the titles on your suggestions.
Now, for the update. The first Redaction book has been sent to my military friends to make sure I cleaned up the boo-boos I’d originally made regarding the saluting and sirring. I’ve added 5K words to the newest version but some of the smallest changes relate to the new book.
And speaking of the sequel…
I’ve added one brand new character, Audrey Silvester to the cast. She and the people with her will be left behind when the military bugs out. We’ll follow her path because she’s with the group that will be important in the 4th book (set 100 years in the future). She’ll add another dimension to the survival layer.
Plus, she’ll mix it up with Trent.
As for the next big change, I’ll be entering the point of view of either Falcon or Papa Rose to tell another part of the story. They’ll volunteer to keep the nuclear rods under water to buy time for Manny, Mavis, David, Sunnie and Trent, plus the other survivors to get to (relative) safety.
I debated whether to add the new characters as my personal preference is to limit the number to a handful but each of the new ones represent a different part of the story that must be told.
Once I get the comments back from my Army vets, I will make the recommended changes and while it’s off to the editor, I’ll post the last 4 chapters of Redaction on my blog hopefully beginning the 16th. These are the chapters where the most significant changes have been made (and one is brand spanking new).
Then I’ll begin posting the chapters from the sequel.
And if I can find the widget, I’ll have a page counter so you can see where I am in writing the new book.
Here it is the first day of the new quarter and I thought I do an update of my goals for 2012.
1.) Publish the first book in my urban scifi/fantasy Blue Manuever
Done!
2.) Finish the Valentine’s Day sequel to Some Enchanted Autumn and the Christmas Village by the Ides of March and submit it Zumaya Publications for publication in 2013
Done! This was submitted March 22nd. Now all I have left is to schedule the edit sessions for October.
3.) Finish writing the sequel to Redaction and try not to actually kill real, live human beings while plunging to the horrible depths I now that story is going to take me. Oh, and, keep the book under 200K works while finishing it before September.
Okay, I just started this–look for an update on Wednesday.
4.) Complete the publishing process for my scifi novels with romantic elements–the Syn-En Solution and the Syn-En: Culture Clash before April.
This is off to an editor. I should have the first book back this month. Now I just have to work on cover and back blurb.
5.) Finish scrapbooking the year 2010 (don’t judge me)
I finished Christmas, Halloween and Thanksgiving. Hmm so that leaves the rest of the months.
6.) Finish those quilts I started in 2010 (I said don’t judge me)
I did finish piecing the quilt tops for my son and daughter. I started hand quilting my daughter’s queen sized quilt and am about 15% done. Slow going as I’ve forgotten how to rock the needle and then there’s the fact that I now have to have a light with a magnifying glass to see the stupid thing. And bonus, I’ve added 3 baby quilts to the list as a niece and 2 nephews are expecting.
7.) Write the second book in the Urban fantasy/scifi Blue series.
Yeah, this isn’t going to happen. Instead I’m going to focus on writing the next 3 Redaction books.
8.) Schedule a blog tour to support my new Urban scifi/fantasy series
Done and finished. Looking at doing two more. One for the SciFi Romance series when I finish and the second to promo the last Victorian ghost story to be published this summer by Zumaya Publications.
9) Make the retro dresses my daughters want me to sew for them.
Daughter is now deciding what she wants or doesn’t want–ie Mom no longer has to sew the clothes. Probably will be a summer project anyway and I’m eager to do it since I just got my sewing machine repaired.
10) Help the with end of the world-not! anthology my publisher wants to put out next year as well as write a short story for it.
Volunteered but so far, this doesn’t sound like it’s a go. Might write the short story anyway and bundle it with some of my other short stories.
11) Begin work on the New Years themed sequel to the Christmas, Halloween and Valentine’s Day book (potentially writing a short story tie in)
Not due to Zumaya until Thankgiving of 2013 so I won’t be writing it this year but next. See note about Redaction books.
12.) Start my new organic garden
Ha! Got this one done. It will be a blog post on Friday.
Now, if this had been a true resolution list, I would have already busted it. How depressing. Instead, I’ve just reprioritized things as the publication schedule has changed.
Oh, I will be writing a novella for Zumaya to be published I don’t know when, but I’ll turn it in around the holidays. I’ve thought of 3 great new apocalyptic books to write and I will write the Atlantis one I’ve been kicking around for over a decade (next year) plus a sequel to the SciFi books and the urban SciFi for next year. Plus I decided to try a few historic, ghost-story, romance novellas for next year. Hmm, maybe I should stop planning for next year.
Right now, I’m editing on line with my editor for the paranormal romance novel due out this summer (when google docs works). Until July when I’ll have another update.
Please welcome Stephanie Queen today. I love her book the Throwbacks and guess what? She’s offered to give away a free ebook copy to one person who leaves a comment.
Recently I was inspired by some pictures in Home & Garden Magazine, and I thought, “Hmmm, do I need to makeover my writer space?” I just love those before and after pictures. They suck me in every time.
Before
Here’s a picture of what my writing space looks like now, approximately:
After
Here’s what I’m aiming for my new writer space to look like, approximately:
I can definitely picture myself sitting at that desk—when I’m not lying on one of the pink velvet divans scattered about the room.
And the Chandelier! It can double as an interrogation lamp on steroids if I have any trouble with research subjects, er I mean, those people helping me with research. Especially when I’m writing a thriller.
Although I’ve never written a thriller, I fully reserve the right to do so.
So, let’s say I’m writing a thriller, or at least an action adventure. Okay, maybe it’s a romantic comedy mystery with some action adventure called The Hot Shots. And lets say it’s going to be released this summer. Then let’s say it’s going to be made into a movie shortly after that—a movie better than One for the Money and starring someone better than what’s his name in the hero’s role. Here’s who I picture to play the hero in the movie version of The Hot Shots, approximately:
He looks like he’s just escaped from my office before it was re-decorated.
But seriously, don’t you think pictures are wildly inspirational? (Not that I’m remotely wild, but I am a writer.)
Stephanie Queen’s books include Between a Rock and a Mad Woman, a romantic political intrigue, The Throwbacks, a romantic comedy mystery and Playing the Game, a contemporary romance about sports and love in the big leagues.
Stephanie Queen lives in bucolic New Hampshire where her two sons visit when they’re not away at college learning how to run the world. Writing happy, snappy romances takes most of her time, however she does force herself to go to the gym on occasion so that she can continue to fit through the door. You can also find her watching UConn football and basketball games whenever they’re on TV, and sometimes even in person. Right now, she’s busy writing her next book, The Hot Shots, of course. You are invited to visit her website to learn more at StephanieQueen.com. Connect with Stephanie Queen on line at Twitter or Facebook.
Linda Andrews 