Housecleaning Led to Dreams of Dragons

I actually got quite a lot of cleaning done yesterday, the bulk of which was half of the bathroom cleaning finished and a serious clean of my dragon shelving and my glass display top scattered around my living room. I love my dragons - although there is only a single dragon mentioned in "Lord of the Rings", there are dragons mentioned in "The Silmarillion" and I've always been fascinated by them. In fact, one of my published stories was entitled "Dragon Seeks a Wife", so I guess I'm a bit dragon-crazy. That said, I have a wall of dragons in my house. 

This guy looks a bit coy - like he's tempting
you to just get a little bit closer before
banging you with his tail and eating
you for lunch. 

Aside from the dragon calendars, the fact that my laptop is named "FrakenSmaug" and features a picture of a small dragon reading a spell book, and the variety of plaster dragons that perch on the shelf over my computer in my study, I have a wall of dragons. These molded and assembled dragons number more than 40 and were a complete set, purchased over time. Each dragon is distinctly different with wonderful personalities, designed by Todd McFarlane and sold between 2005 and 2008. I'm not sure if I have a complete collection, but I have most, if not all, of them. (Want to see the complete set? Follow the link here.) 

I'm just going to add photos of some of the incredible
dragons in the series. Here, the young lady is
being "rescued" by the knight. She seems pretty
well protected by the dragon, however. 

I have them displayed in a set of assembled glass cubes that make up a half-wall between my living room and the upstairs hallway. When I first purchased the house this space was an array of plastic ferns (pausing to shudder at the extreme ick-factor of plastic ferns). I would have ripped them out immediately, except my cat Muffy delighted in jumping up, snuggling into the ferns, and playing "jungle kitty". After she passed, though, the plastic ferns were history. 

Each dragon is distinctly different, and there
is a large range of sizes too. Here the woman
has tamed the forest dragon. 

The cubes sit two high and seven across with open space above the top for my larger pieces. Yesterday each beastie was removed, each cubicle was cleaned - top, sides and bottom, and the dragons were replaced once again, sometimes rearranged from cubicle to cubicle. I noticed some sculpts that need repair and others that are close to needing some. Guess I'd better pull out the good glue and get to work on this over the winter. I'd like my dragons to take wing proudly once more. 

I love the water dragon from Series 3. It floats
above the coral nodule as if swimming past. 

On that note, I'll drive by the Fairgrounds today and traffic will be heavy, the scents of greasy food will be starting to waft over the general area, and the sounds of music, conversation and crowds of people will fill the air. The State Fair opens today and I'm so happy. Chickie will be there today with her friends from Alberta, Canada and I won't be there until next weekend, but I can enjoy the thought of a footlong hot dog and a Guinness at O'Gara's in my future. 

Do you see the head just peeking out
from under his wing? I've always
loved the concept and coloring of
this sneaky dragon. 

Happy Thursday. I'll be working hard for the next few days since I'll be missing Chickie, but I'll get my revenge next week when it's my turn to desert her - LOL. Have a great day and I'll be back tomorrow. Now it's time to get to the pool. 

Beading and Reissues of Some Older Writings

My day off is today and after I finish with my errands, I'll settle down with my beadwork and bead, bead, bead. I have been afraid to check the absolute deadline for my piece, but I know I'm pushing into November and it's due relatively early that month, so I'm really hauling to get this done. With several hours today, I should be able to get quite a bit accomplished (along with the shopping, laundry, and cooking dinner aspects of a normal Wednesday). I also have a repair that needs to be completed by the end of the week. I need the money that will bring to me, so I'll be taking a closer look at it today and try and whip it together tomorrow morning.

This is another piece from the 2013 Challenge. This small
handbag was beaded by Hannah Rosner. 2013 was the third
year of the Toho Bead Challenge and the first year I signed up
to participate. I was unable to finish last year, so I'm determined
to finish this year. 

I got notification from one of my craft publishers that an old project of mine is one of a dozen chosen for a new holiday e-book they'll be putting out soon. Happy me! It's a Holiday ornament cover that I designed to go over a shining Christmas ball. In fact, I have one upstairs,since I gave one to my mother-by-marriage and inherited it when she died. I designed it so that if the ball broke, the cover could be easily removed and put onto a different ball (I had cats at the time I designed it). Anyway - a few more small royalty payments for me when they release the e-book in a week or so. Yeah!

When I was still teaching classes, I designed a Christmas Tree ornament
each year. This one I submitted for publication and it was accepted. It's
been popular ever since. I wanted a Victorian look with a no-muss,
no-fuss cover that could be replaced on a different ball in case of accidents. 

And also on the re-release end, "Dragonthology" is available at no-charge through Amazon until the end of the month. It's a special "Halloween" offer that my publisher arranged. I won't get any royalties from this one since it's for free, but if you were ever interested in reading my story "Dragon Seeks a Wife" or one of the other stories in the anthology, it's a great time to pick up an e-copy.

I was thrilled to have my little story accepted in Dragonthology and
even happier that many of the reviewers loved and mentioned my
tale. It was fun. It's not the best publisher in the universe, but
hey - it looks great on my short resume - LOL. 

Not much else to say today, just trying to figure out my schedule and the best way I can accomplish maximum errands in minimal time. My usual Wednesday conundrum. I'll be talking with Aearwen later today and I'm sure we'll be talking about NaNoWriMo and writing in general. She's signed up for NaNo this year. Are you? If you are, shoot me your NaNo name and I'll add you to my buddies. It always helps to have another cheerleader and NaNo buddy.

Once again I'll be diving into NaNo. Every year I approach it with fear and
hesitation, but I always figure that at least I'll get something written in my
novel and something is an improvement over nothing. Thus - once again I
step into the breech. 

So, on that note, as the days get shorter and colder, fall seems to have moved in and winter is perched on the doorstep. Chickie's birthday is next week and we'll be celebrating with a fantastic dinner at one of the local Mexican restaurants. It seems that everyone from my end of town wants to ride with me. Oh well - at least we'll all be late together - LOL. But that's upcoming, not today, so I'll bid you all a wonderful Wednesday and I'll be back tomorrow.

Face Off Season & final contestants were, Dina Cimarusti, Cig Neutron and
Drew Talbot. Of course, one of these three won, but I'm not going to spoil
it for those who may have missed the finale. It was a great show, though,
so catch it on on-demand or re-run. 

Oh - and I'm SUPER HAPPY that my favorite makeup artist on "Face Off" won it all. I liked him/her from the very first episode and couldn't be happier. Great work and a great season! (How's that for being murky enough that no spoilers can arise from my words - LOL.)

Return to the Pen (or Keyboard)

I got my first royalty payments from Dragonthology yesterday. Whoot, whoot! I'm laughing as I look at the small amount - if J.K. Rowling ever started this way it is a wonder to me that she continued trying because this amount certainly won't pay for a lot. Then again, it is more than I've received for most of the blue ribbons and show awards that I've gotten for my artwork and beadwork over the years so that's a plus. Still...I certainly don't feel rich - LOL.

It's been fun having a story printed and read, and the
reviewers generally enjoyed my little tale. I probably should
keep submitting things for publication.

But it is pushing me back to writing after taking a couple of weeks away from serious work to deal with family issues. The family problems aren't going away - as those of you who read my blog regularly know. And I didn't stop writing, I was still writing, only really short and small pieces. But I have to get going on a commitment that I made for a fic exchange called Sultry in September (SinS for short) and I finally figured out a framework. I bounced my idea off Aearwen when we talked on Wednesday and she thought that the twist could be very, very good. I sat down with a yellow tablet and began charting things yesterday and I think it can work. So, now I want to try and get things going on this. I may need to ask for a small extension of time because my father-by-marriage's death and the subsequent requirements that we have as executors of his estate forced me to shelve my writing for a while, but I would rather come in on time with a polished and interesting story.

Cold Fusion by Gusti Boucher. My plot and  characters are starting
to pull together into a really interesting fusion.

So now I'm running through characters and reactions in my head, correlating actions and plotlines through the time frames requested by my fic recipient, and working out dialog. All of these wheels in my head that moving so slowly, one cog at a time, and were rusting up from disuse are now starting to move again and gaining momentum and speed. I'm hoping to be fully into the construction and writing of this story by Monday morning - earlier if I can grab any appreciable time. I am almost there with knowing how things will work and the plot will fall together. It's so nice to be excited about my SinS story after more than a month of "argh" about how it was not working for me.

It's the weekend. I have to work today, but tomorrow I'll be back at my father-by-marriage's house and talking with the woman who will be holding the estate sale in a bit more than a month. That should be very interesting. The kids have taken a lot of the items that were in the house, and we have also taken some. Some of the furniture will be gone and - well, I know that she needs to make a minimum amount or she won't conduct the sale. I guess I'll know a lot more once I have had a chance to speak with her on Sunday.

Have a great weekend!

Ostara and Day's Planning

Good Ostara to all of my friends and readers. Those of you not familiar with the Celtic name - Happy Spring Equinox. Yes, Spring is finally here and when I look out of my window I see growing/budding plants, birds flying together in pairs, and I see bunnies hopping across my front lawn. NOT!!!!! No, I see snowpiles of more than four feet high, grey skies, and ice patches everywhere with a temperature that will be lucky to hit 20 F (-6.66 C) for a HIGH today. Ostara? Well, it's a nice astronomical mark but my personal Spring is still a month or two away.

Good Ostara to all of you.

Today, after coloring one last pic for CB's story, I'll begin the pencil and charcoal work on her final original piece. I'm really looking forward to playing with drawing again - it's been too long since I've set up my easel. I have a ton of errands to do all over town today also, and have to remember to drop by Target to pick up some essentials plus (after all, I'll already be there...) the video of The Hobbit. DH said we could go ahead and get this but no additional copies until the combined set of all three in Director's Cut become available. I can live with that and it's at a good price for the full combined version.

I use a portable tabletop easel similar to this (not quite
as nice, though) and it's wonderfully useful.

Next week will be the final episode of this season's Face Off and I like all three of the final contestants. I won't put spoilers here, but it will be a hard-fought finale and any of the three could end up winning it all. The designs that have been constructed through the season have been mind-blowing and some of the painting skills of these artists - I want to just learn airbrushing techniques from them. Truly amazing talent.

The Face Off logo splash-screen features the hostess being
transformed into an avian of some type. Beautiful coloring.

I'm continuing to focus on artwork because I haven't found any writing that has jogged me lately. Yes, B2ME is ongoing, but I am not enamored with the format that is being used this year. But on the original fiction front, I'm pretty happy. Dragonthology is doing well as an e-edition (available as a NookBook and e-pub on March 31st) but even more exciting, it has now been issued in print now and is available at major book retailers including Barnes & Noble and Amazon. I received my author's copy in the mail a few days ago and it's a lot of fun to see and flip through the pages. One baby step to a novel of my own. If you have a desire to do some original fiction, Untold Press is still accepting stories for consideration to be included in their next anthology - Happily Ever Afterlife. If you're interested in finding out more, click the link, write a story between 5000 and 10000 words and send it to them (formatted properly). Who knows? You may be the star of the next anthology.

Dragons Are Among Us - A Stop on the Tour

Dragons - the word evokes large beasts with unfurled wings and spouting flame. The word can also the Oriental dragons; sinuous snake-like beings riding among the clouds, treasuring pearls and bringing the rain. Dragons, or the tales of such beasts, are found throughout the world. Personally, I have always been on the side of the dragon in most stories. Looking at pictures of Saint George slaying the dragon, it was always the dragon that evoked my pity. It gave me great pleasure to submit a story to Untold Press for their short story collection, Dragonthology.

My story, "Dragon Seeks a Wife", takes the format of a traditional fairy tale similar to those spoken in verbal storytelling traditions world-wide for centuries. The storyteller, in this case an elder of the tribe, tells the tale of a feathered green dragon whose blood had been joined with an ancestor of the King of their land while Dragon searched for the wife he had to have. Because I wanted a different spin than standard European or Oriental dragons, I placed my dragon's tale in the highlands of Central America, a land of pyramids, blood sacrifice and witchcraft and the home of yet another dragon type - the feathered serpent, Quetzalcoatl. It was an occasion of great joy for me when my story was accepted and I am proud to join the six other authors and stories in the pages of Dragonthology. I invite those reading my blog to purchase the book (available in e-book format from Amazon) and to register to win a $25 Amazon Gift Card which will be awarded on January 25th.

Here's a breakdown of the seven stories appearing in Dragonthology. Please visit Amazon, log in and click the "Like" button for the book, and spend $3.99 for a day of wonder wandering through the world of winged creatures of legend as interpreted by myself and six other talented authors.

Enter the pages of the Dragonthology. No single story has ever been great enough to contain the mystical, wondrous creature known as the dragon. We assembled the greatest draconian tales and put them between the covers of a single tome to satisfy your hunger for everything dragon. Seven magnificent stories, ranging from science fiction to mystery, await you within.

The Case of the Bloodstone Dragon by G.L. Jackson

A washed up has been, Private Investigator Clark is down to his last $100. That is, until the night a mysterious femme fatale walks through his door weaving a tale of intrigue in hope of recovering an artifact steeped in mystery and danger. What follows is a raucous ride through a little known human and dragon history, played out on the streets of New York City.

Unto the Breach by Jason Andrew

Jonathan Heller uncovers an unusual secret during one of the bloodiest campaigns of World War One in the middle of horrific trench warfare. Can he convince an ancient dragon that humanity is worthy of life during their darkest hour?

The Dragon of Sullivan Hall by Marian Allen

A dormitory full of fun loving female students, an angry red dragon with a litter full of hungry whelps, and a particular student of Irish descent. This won’t end well for the dragon.

Egg Hunt by Jay Wilburn

A lonely smuggler must make decisions he never dreamt possible in the darkness of space to elude capture and protect his precious cargo of dragon eggs. When one of them hatches, it threatens to damage his ship. Can a person change enough to save a ship, a dragon, and himself?

The Clan by Troy Lambert

Dragons return to the earth and humanity enslaves them with the last remnants of technology of their dying race. Now the technology of old is fading. Will the dragons be able to rise again? Will the humans declare war, or will a peaceful solution be found? It all rests in the hands of an ancient dragon, and a lowly shepherd and his clan.

Dragon Seeks a Wife by Sandra Graves

What happens when a dragon falls ill and is told he will die in a year and a day unless he finds his one true love? The only thing a dragon can do. He sets out on a quest to win the hand of the perfect mate for a dragon–the daughter of the king. Aided by a Quetzal bird sorcerer, he begins his quest. An old fashioned fairy tale with a Meso-American twist.

Darkness Taken by J.A. Campbell

In a land where children are warriors and the only adults are mythical creatures, all are called to fight the Darkness. Til and her dragon partner, Heliodor, complete the perfect Welcome Ceremony, but their joy is short lived. The Dark has slain a unicorn and taken her foal back to the Darklands. Can Til and Heliodor venture where none go and rescue the young unicorn?

Now it's time for me to get back to writing the novel I've been working on for the past few months. I hope to meet all of you again when that one gets published within the next year or so. Now...treat yourself to reading these wonderful seven stories and don't forget to register for the Amazon gift card. Something for nothing is always a plus!

Shout Out at the New Year - Dragons Walk the Earth

So did everyone have a good New Year's Eve and first two days of 2013? I took the time off - such a rarity - so I didn't even post my blog although I did do some writing and some beta work. I also worked out the image I wanted for one of my shoes and got that printed out onto Frisket, ready to begin cutting it out soon. Such fun! I also had the first chance to have a nice long conversation with Aearwen for several weeks! I was having withdrawal from our weekly phone talks, so I'm ever so much happier today - I had my friend fix for the week - :D

Dragonthology has now been published. You can find it here, on Amazon. If you visit the site, please click the "Like" button, the more we get and the faster we get them, the higher we'll go in the rankings. Also, we're looking for reviewers, blog sites that might like to feature the book, and readers in general. It's not expensive, so give yourself a treat of seven unique looks at draconian life.

I'll be featuring the book on my blog on the 9th, and also will be setting up a webpage on my personal website to promo the book. Many of the authors, including myself, are also available for author interviews and the publishers have a blog tour going on (information here) and the publishers are giving away several $25 Amazon gift cards in conjunction with the promotional activities and interviews. You can find out additional information about that by following this link.

If you're a member of Amazon Prime, you can borrow the book at no charge from Amazon, but please click the "Like" button and please leave a review. We (all of the authors and the publishers) would appreciate your help in making Dragonthology a success.

So, back to normal? Well, at least back to work today. I'll spend the day getting the store un-Christmas decorated (in many ways a more satisfying activity) and sweeping up after the sparkles that will scatter the floor after the garlands have been removed. I have some new lighting to put around the front windows, but I'm not sure I'm energetic enough today to do that. But I'll write at the coffee shop with my coffee and oatmeal, and if the muses cooperate, I'll have my S-V story completed and ready for the editing process. I hope you have a fabulous day, and please check out Dragonthology - it's really a fun book!