Yes,January 1 is the last day of the year end book sale over atSmashwords. So if you haven’t checked it out, now is definitely the time.
Is everyone ready for the New Year? What do you have planned for the weekend? We’re just going to hang out with the cats and enjoy the quiet of the countryside.
But if you’re looking for something to read, head on over to the sale. And for tonight and tomorrow only, you’ll find aspecial discount on all my books for the last hurrah of the season.
Hope your Christmas holiday was great and wishing you a wonderful, magical new year.
From all the folks on Gambler’s Folly, Esperance, and the Cote d’Or
But it’s also the season for the SmashwordsEnd of Year Sale! Thousands of books all on sale during these last couple weeks of December. The sale begins today and lasts through Jan. 1, 2022.
And all my books, by both Mellie Miller and Sultonna Nadine, are included in this sale! So if you love ebooks, or have started a series and want to read more, now is the time. If you’re like me, this time of year can get a bit tedious. Right now we have rainy weather, which makes it uncomfortable to take a walk. The holidays are here, but you might not want to go visiting just now. Sometimes family can be overwhelming.
But you want to go somewhere…
Why not take a fantasy trip to another world?
And I have three to choose from!
Esperance is more of a frontier world, with not much in the way of technology. But when it comes to psychic abilities, they have it in spades. Ruled by multi-talented First Lords, this is a place where technology is replaced by psychic abilities: telekinesis, telepathy, teleportation, energy healing, and abilities I don’t even have names for.
Gambler’s Folly is a futuristic world, a pleasure world where you can find anything you’d like. The vacation spot for the galaxy, our cast of characters work for the Special Division of Interpol. Composed of agebts who are shifters of various sorts, follow them as they search for contraband and find their soulmates.
Master of the Fleet is written uner the name Sultonna Nadine and is a stand alone book. In a world where magic is real, Richard LeMarnier is a weather shaper and master of the fleet for his family’s merchant fleet on the northwestern coast of what we know as America. He thinks he’s found the woman of his dreams, but she never intends to marry. For Anne-Marie, he is just another rich mark to be taken for all she can get before she moves to greener pastures. When her temper gets the better of her, they find themselves bound not only by marriage vows, but by a blood oath. Can they find a happily ever after?
So take a virtual trip to another world. And if I don’t meet with you again before the holidays, have a safe and wonderful holiday!
Yes, it is that time of year for celebrations. Thanksgiving has just passed here in the US, and all the other holidays people celebrate are coming up quickly.
Our big celebration when I was growing up was Thanksgiving. Everyone went to my grandmother’s house for Christmas, but our house was the place for Thanksgiving. We would normally have several other families over to help celebrate. Each would bring a favorite dish to add to the table, so there was plenty to share, to send home with people, and to keep us fed for a week after.
Which holidays do you celebrate? And what makes them special to you?
Some of you will be buying gifts this time of year. If there are readers on your list, check out my books on Amazon. I have recently published all of them, both series and Master of the Fleet, in hardcover editions, perfect for gift giving.
I have several people already asking about them.
Stay safe out there. Things can get a little crazy this time of year. The roads are busy, sometimes snowy or wet, and it only takes a second for disaster to strike.
Best of all to you, if I don’t get back before New Year.
Before I get started on a rant, let me tell you the news.
For my thank you to all my readers, and those who follow me, I’m having a book sale.
Starting today and running through November 26, all my books on Smashwords will be available for 0.99 each. So if you’ve been waiting to try one, or aren’t sure, now is the time to take the plunge.
I mean, you can’t go wrong for less than a buck. Right?
Want an excerpt? Click on the Excerpt button at the top!
Not interested in e-books? If you prefer paperbacks or hardcover, go on over to Amazon! All my books are now available in both those formats as well!
Anyway, I think winter is making a comeback, so it is time to sit by the fire, with the cats, and have a nice read. Maybe a nice cuppa to go along with it. Just lean back, get comfy, and go to another place or time–or both!
If I don’t talk to you again before the holiday, have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
This question always comes up when someone hears I’m an author. And the answer isn’t necessarily a simple one. It depends on the book.
I’ve been told by some that I channel my stories. I don’t know exactly how that would be different from how anyone else writes, but once I get an idea, I just sit down, put my mind in neutral and go for it. And usually what I think is going to happen goes in some other weird direction I never would have thought of.
Jareth, First Lord began as a recurring dream. Not the beginning scene of the story, but somewhere down in chapter 1. When it wouldn’t leave me alone, I sat down and wrote it out. But how did we get to this point in the story? And where do we go from here?
Viviane was simply the second part of this story, so there was no problem there. But Morgan was a secondary character in Jareth. I liked Morgan and wanted to know more about her, so I sat down and began to write. I knew she’d come from Clan Belfort, but why had she come? And where would she end up?
Gambler’s Folly started from a song–South Coast. It’s an old song, but it tells about a man who won his wife in a card game. Now how could that happen today? As my mind turned this question over during the day, it began to spin me this tale of a pleasure world away from Earth, where anything could be won or lost in the games. And Gambler’s Folly was born. How the rest of it came about is nearly as much a mystery to me as it is to anyone else.
Dante’s Angel, the second book in the Gambler’s series came about much like Morgan did. He was a minor character I really liked and wanted to know about. And so I let my mind go and began to write. He turned out to be quite a character, as did his soul mate.
But The Russian was born from someone I saw in a video. A Russian rapper by the name of Geegun just looked like a werewolf to me. Probably with dire wolf blood. Now, how could I write him?
At various times in various places, I’ve been a member of the Society for Creative Anachromism–SCA. My persona was named Anne-Marie de Villehardouin, from 13th century France. One night, for some unknown reason, I dreamed a scene at one of the feasts. We had planned a sketch as part of the entertainment, run it by those in charge and had it approved. It involved a couple who started arguing at the table and escalated into her trying to stab him with a dagger. When that doesn’t work, and she loses the dagger, she grabs a sword and the two of them fight in front of the high table.
Now, this was not possible for real, at the time. But I thought it would be fun to do. As I turned it over in my mind, the thought came that it would make a good scene for a story as well. Only instead of it ending as part of the entertainment, it should end with a forced marriage.
Maybe he was a wizard of some sort as well as a swordsman…
I know. My mind is a very strange place. I can assure you, you wouldn’t like to visit.
I was just getting used to it being September, but then there was so much going on in September, I’m not a bit surprised. Between two weddings and a birthday, plus all the usual things going on around here, I felt like the Red Queen in Through the Looking-Glass last month.
So far,October has been a little slower, if a little more frustrating. Due to a fall in a parking lot, I’m now wearing this fashionable splint because of a fractured patella. I don’t think the break hurts as much as all the traumatized muscles and abrasions. Once I’m up for a little while, I do pretty well. But after I’ve been sitting down for a little while, all those muscles complain as loudly as they can at being asked to work again.
But what about writing, you ask. I’ve been working on Unwilling Soulmates, as far as writing, and we’re up to 91,000 words. All I have left to write is the wedding scene, which shouldn’t take too long. And then the first read-through before the editing begins.These two have been quite a challenge, and have very specific ideas about how this story should go, starting with one who didn’t like his name…
And now I have a question for you.
What would you like to see in my posts? Little snippets of my work in progress? Bits from already published works, aside from teh excerpts on the other page here? More about my writer’s life?
Drop me a comment and let me know what you think. I’ll probably be doing a little more writing while this knee and I sort out our differences.
Does anyone else have trouble believing the summer is almost gone? Here we are in August already. Where has the time gone?
I’ve been working on a couple WIPs. One for each of my series. They’re going well, though I’m not sure where we’ll all end up. My characters tend to have ideas of their own and take off without informing me beforehand. So I try to keep and sort it out to a happy ending. Trevor and Theresa, on Gambler’s Folly, are no exception.
Do you prefer e-books or paperback?
My personal preference is for paperbacks, but these days they can cost quite a bit. And if we’re traveling, I can take a whole library with me in e-book form. But there’s something about the feel of the pages in a physical book, the smell of the ink, or the scent from an old book which has seen a lot of the world.
What is the oldest book you own?
I have a book I bought when I was in high school at a Goodwill store. It was priced at twenty-five cents and I loved it. It has travelled with me for years and about once a year, I retrieve it from the bookcase and read it one more time.
Copyrighted in 1909 by Arthur Hornblow, By Right of Conquest is a turn of the century romance. While it is pretty tame for today’s readers, it nonetheless gives us an insight into the written word as it was over 100 years ago, as well as life in society at the time.
So share your books with me in the comments below.
While I doubt any of my books will last as long as By Right of Conquest, I have fun writing and sharing them with you.
Check them out at Amazon, Smashwords, or any major bookseller. The first two books from the Esperance series are available from Audible as well.
Of course, it’s raining here in Georgia, so I think the barbecue is off for the afternoon. But at least my guy made it home for the weekend. We can cook indoors and watch a movie with the cats. They are, of course, pointedly ignoring him for being gone.
Hope you’re all having a wonderful Father’s Day. Give that guy a hug while you have him here. You never know when his time on earth will be over.
No, not like that… I mean as in Vocal.Media, the online place for those of a creative bent to share their work.
I’ve had a few things up on Vocal.Media for a little while now. Sometimes I write about events in the news, or things on my mind. Sometimes I create short stories to share with others.
Either way, it gives people a chance to check out my work without buying one of my longer novels, and for free at that!
Looking for a short fiction work?
How about The Reward, Warrior Priestess, or The Walk?
Maybe something more down to earth…
There’s Diabetic and Confused, What’s Different, and The Digital Age.
Go over, check it out, and if you like it, leave a tip.
Want an excerpt? Here’s something from The Digital Age.
I know many of you have grown up in this digital age, where everything is available online, on your phone, or on your tablet. And I will admit, it can be extremely convenient when doing research, especially thinking back to all the hours I spent in the library before this digital age. College papers would have been so much easier if I could have researched them online.
The thing is, though, that we are now dependent on all things digital. At the moment, I’m having a real problem.
WordPress has recently offered the option of turning blogs into podcasts, so I decided to give it a try.
What do I talk about? My books, the series, this writer’s life.
Who has a lot of time to read these days? Sitting down with a book in the evening is one thing, but reading all the different blogs which interest you can be time consuming.
So, if you can listen to them in your car while you drive to work…
A much better solution. Am I right?
I currently have five podcasts available and will be adding more as the cats allow. They will try to help…
