Welcome to my post which is coming to you from Post Aransas Texas and is only one of the 65+ posts on this year’s Rave Reviews Book Club Book & Blog Party. You can go here to see the complete lineup.
Today if you will leave a comment on this post you will be eligible to win:
A Ten Dollar Gift Card from Amazon
There will be one gift card given away, but you need to comment to be entered in the drawing. The winner will be announced tomorrow.
I would like to give you a little information about my Books.
The first book in the John J. Cannon Trilogy is My GRL
Blurb: John J. Cannon successful San Francisco lawyer takes a leave of absence from the firm and buys a boat he names My GRL. He is unaware that his newly purchased boat had already been targeted by…
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Vizzini from Princess Bride
One thing I never expected when I set out to become an author was that there would be a lot of waiting. After a decade of designing characters and stories whenever the urge came to me, I didn’t realize how much patience was needed. Here’s a quick list of things an author could wait for:
Patience is definitely important here because you don’t want to rush any of these things, with the possible exception of the Internet. Sloppy editing, forced writing, half-baked ideas, and barely cooked pizza are all disastrous. It isn’t only that you can make a mistake, but you can cause other people to do so and only have yourself to blame. As the author of the book, you set the pace and call the shots. Yet, you also need to adjust for the people you’re working with because they are people. Robots can be reprogrammed to move faster. Try doing that to your beta readers and see how quickly you get tarred and feathered with your own manuscript.
I’m joking around while trying to be serious, but it’s a rather simple piece of the author mosaic. The truth is that this is different for everyone. All of us have our own levels of patience and opinions on this one. So, I’ll open the floor to stories and thoughts on how important patience is to you.
Well, it’s one of the days. My newest book The Experimental Notebook of C. S. Boyack II is now available for purchase on Amazon. It’s a pre-sale, and the books will deliver on August 31st. That is the other day.
I wanted to do a short pre-sale, but Lisa my robotic assistant must have messed up. Let’s talk about the actual book.
This is similar to the first Experimental Notebook, in that it’s a collection of short stories and micro-fiction. It’s also similar in that it’s priced at 99¢.
I decided to make the alchemy wheels into a kind of theme. The first Notebook has one, this book has two, and should there be a third volume it will have three wheels. That way the covers are similar, but also unique.
This book has some science fiction, some paranormal, and one that barely qualifies as fantasy. I love fantasy, but…
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Today, I am very pleased to sit down with prolific author and blogger Yecheilyah Ysrayl. Her blog is one that I look forward to reading every day because of its positive and inspirational message.
She is going to tell us about her work, her inspiration and a bit about herself in this special edition of 20 Questions. Please enjoy.
Q1) When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
I was twelve years old when I first realized I wanted to be a writer. My sister and I went to live with our dad and I don’t remember what I read, but something clicked and I just had this strong desire to write stories of my own and poetry.
Q2) How long does it typically take you to write a book?
It depends on what kind of book it is, but in general it takes me about 6…
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PH Solomon is a frequent visitor of this blog, so it’s with great pleasure that I participate in his 4WillsPublishing blog tour. Haunted by his past. Hunted in the present. Uncertain what is …
Twelve-year-old Amanda Ross finds herself on an elegant riverboat with her bestie, Leah, cruising down the beautiful Danube, passing medieval castles, luscious green valleys and charming villages. When she is entrusted with a valuable violin by a young, homeless musician during a stop in Germany, a mean boy immediately attempts to take it from her.
Back on their cruise, Amanda struggles to keep the precious violin safe for the poor prodigy. Along the way, she encounters a mysterious monk, a Santa Claus look-alike, and the same nasty boy.
Follow Amanda down the Danube, through Germany, Austria and Hungary, as she enjoys the enchanting sounds of music everywhere she goes. She remains on the lookout, wondering just who she can trust.
Excerpt:
The cab dropped them off beside a long, low boat with The Sound of Music written in large letters on the side. The ‘f’ was replaced with a treble clef.
Once on board, they entered an elegant lobby furnished with blue velvet chairs and couches. “This is sooo adorable,” Amanda said. “You love that Sound Of Music movie, Mom, and there are pictures of the von Trapp family all over the walls.”
Her mom’s face lit up when she saw the familiar scenes.
Suddenly, everything went black and Amanda couldn’t see a thing.
“Hiya, Canadian girl.”
Amanda recognized that English accent. She peeled off the hands covering her glasses and turned around. “Leah!” She gave her tall, blonde friend a huge hug.
“We only just got here ourselves. Mum and Dad are putting the luggage in our room. Your room is just across from us.” Leah flashed a wide grin at Amanda’s parents. “I’m so glad you could make this trip. We are all going to have loads of fun. Come, Amanda, let’s explore the boat.”
“See you later.” Amanda barely looked at her parents as she tripped down the narrow hallway behind Leah.
First stop was a large room completely surrounded by windows. Round tables with crisp white tablecloths, set for a meal – without a fork or knife out of place – indicated it was the dining room. Sparkling chandeliers hung from the ceiling.
“Wow! Every table has a view. This will be a fab place to eat.” Amanda looked around. “I hope we can all eat together.”
“Mum has already made sure of that. We got here early so we got to pick which table we wanted for the entire trip.” Leah pointed to a table at the very front of the boat. “Ours is that table for six, the one with the best view.”
Amanda noticed an undone shoelace on her runner and bent down to tie it. Her purse slipped off her shoulder and fell to the floor. As she picked it up, she spotted small red dots sprinkled on the beige and blue carpet.
“What’s this? Do you think someone spilled ketchup?”
Leah bent down to look closer. “Yes, it could be tomato sauce.”
More red spots appeared further along. “Something must have dripped from a plate when they were clearing the tables,” remarked Leah.
“I think it might be… blood.” Amanda followed the spots to a set of stairs.
Leah shook her head. “There goes your overactive imagination again.”
Author Bio
Brought up on a ranch in southern Alberta, Darlene Foster dreamt of travelling the world and meeting interesting people. She had a desire to write since she was twelve and her short stories have won a number of awards. She is the author of the exciting adventure series featuring spunky 12-year-old Amanda Ross who loves to travel to unique places. Her books include:Amanda in Arabia – The Perfume Flask, Amanda in Spain – The Girl in The Painting, Amanda in England – The Missing Novel and Amanda in Alberta – The Writing on the Stone. Readers of all ages enjoy travelling with Amanda as she unravels one mystery after another. Darlene and her husband divide their time between the west coast of Canada and Orihuela Costa, in Spain. She was encouraged by her parents to follow her dreams, and believes everyone is capable of making their dreams come true.
First, I feel like I should mention something even vaguely. This might sound like a rerun, but things kind of fell apart a little over 2 weeks ago. The wife is back to being unemployed for reasons I can’t go into here. An injury in the family has caused a little stress and I’m doing the lawn mowing. Everything built up to the point where my son began acting ‘funny’. Seems he took all of the anger and stress personally, so he’s been having morning anxiety and not eating breakfast. He panics himself to the point where he throws up, so I’ve been worried about that. He’s been good the last few days because we aren’t pushing food and letting him ease into the day. Still, I’m on edge and probably get 3-4 hours of sleep a night. Not even good sleep.
Speaking of the munchkin, summer school ends on Tuesday, so I’ll be juggling him with the usual stuff. My phone still despises the WordPress app, so I won’t be responding to comments that quickly. Not sure how much I’ll be wandering too, but that’s been a problem all year. Been doing a lot of reading and coming up blank with comments because I’m going through the motions of social interaction. Seriously, I feel drained in so many ways and tend to save up my emotional access for writing. I think. All I know is that Chasing Bedlam had some good emotions in there. Path of the Traitors is the next first draft to tackle, so we’ll see what happens.
I did see ‘Suicide Squad’ and enjoyed it. Just going to leave it at that because getting into a movie debate isn’t on my to-do list. Related to this, I really want to get my hands on the ‘Batman vs Superman Ultimate Edition’. Liked it in theaters, but am really curious about what was cut.
*Break to give kid two cookies as reward for eating his breakfast*
Tomorrow might be ‘Secret Life of Pets’ and school supply shopping. That movie is nearly out of theaters, which is confusing to me. Feels like it just showed up. Worst case scenario is we miss it and get it on DVD. My son saw it on a school field trip, so he just wants us to see it. Oh yeah, he also finished his summer reading program this week and did a great job. He has a lot of trouble reading because he guesses at the words and has trouble focusing with the pictures there. Yet, the books without pictures are too difficult for him.
This post is really becoming about him, isn’t it? Then again, I didn’t have any projects this week and focused more on him when he was home. Being the sterner parent, he was aiming a lot of anxiety at me, which was making me feel like crap. I did manage to get the posts for September and October ready. Though the October ones were just the Raven’s Game stuff. I’m figuring out some day posts for that month, which might be another round of Monster Maker. Thursday is going to be an announcement day with Bedlam being used if I don’t have anything. For example, I’ll be doing a blurb test this Thursday and might use the next Thursday to list future Ichabod Brooks stories for people to vote on as the next one.
By the way, I’ve only got 2 more Sunday Promo posts scheduled. If any authors want a Sunday to promote their book then let me know. Summer seems to be insanely slow and quiet again. So every little bit might help.
Goals?
Let me actually mention something in regards to #8. What is with the local library system not having the last volume or 2 of some series? They have most of One Piece and Fairy Tail (just started the anime), but the last 2 volumes of Shaman King aren’t in there and neither is the last one for Negima. There were a few others that I don’t remember, but I can’t afford to buy these things. Don’t even get me started on Toriko and how hard it is to find those. I remember the days when the manga section of a bookstore was huge, vast, and varied. Now it’s all DBZ, Bleach, Naruto, One Piece, and Attack on Titan with some of the others mixed in. I’ve been out of the loop for a while, but I definitely know there’s more out there than this. I’d make a joke here about wishing I could do a Legends of Windemere manga series, but I so lack the skills and contacts to do anything like that. Though I think it would transfer well.
