NO to NaNoWriMo YES to working on projects

Hey, my pretties! What are you all doing here if you're busy writing those 50K words, HUH? GET BACK TO WORK!
Now to those of you who are not doing NaNoWriMo, gather around... that's right. The fire is just right. Oh, and here's a little kitten to put in your lap. He'll purr for you if you'll pet him...

Awww, he looks like little Peanut!

Well, I have finished my afghan and have started a new one--this one is for my husband. What? I'm not allowed to dabble in arts and crafts? I did have a craft business at one time and did not write a word for 4 years. That was a long hiatus, but I think I needed it.

At the moment I'm knee deep in stuff. Kittens, who are now orphans, are in our care. Mother wandered off into the wilds one night, and never came back. We are pretty sure she became victim to the coyotes around here. Sad, but that's the way things are out this way. We're determined to care for these little guys until they are a little larger and we can give them away. The drama of keeping cats is too much for us. You don't think so, you'll have to read "The Cat Whisperer" when it comes out.

Speaking of kittens and cats, I've finished "The Cat Whisperer". Right now the cover is being worked on and I'm going over the book again, after my formatting bud, John Gill, has worked on it. And then it will be ready for the world.
I'm still working on #8 book in the Sabrina Strong series. But I'm also working on #4 Vampire Caprice, which I hope to get out in January of 2014.
Edits:

It had begun raining as Bill drove toward Denver(How about: Bill drove toward Denver when the rain began.). That was why his mind had flooded with that one particular memory that often caused him pain in his heart to remember. Bill shook his head while making a disparaging growl, trying to pull himself from that very(Ital) old memory. Hell, it had been so long ago. Ninety-one years ago.

His father was very happy(find another word to say this) that he'd found the sibyl—showering him in monetarily ways. But when he kept asking when they would be married, it was difficult to tell him how hard this was. As it was, Sabrina was difficult to seduce. He couldn't keep her with him long enough to get to know him. Lord knows he'd tried every way he knew how. She was beautiful, and intelligent. Perhaps enough to stay away from the likes of him. He wondered if he could fall in love with her, gradually over the years. Certainly not like he had Celeste—who he had instantly fallen for—but perhaps, in time he would love Sabrina Strong, the sibyl. Would she fall in love with him? It might take an act of God—or an angel—but he figured he was up to it. He hadn't quite perfected dating, and wooing. Thanks to Father he was pretty much forbidden from dating anyone but the sibyl. But if he could charm old ladies into believing he was their grandson, he figured he could swing a liberal dose of magic to get Sabrina to begin taking a shine to him. He had already begun working on her. But somebody had put up a super ward on her house, so that even he could neither enter her yard, nor even call her—for the love of angel's wings!

Of course, this didn't prevent him from running into her brother, Randy. And, with a little bit of his mind-bending abilities, he was able to make Randy (whose mind was very easy to bend), invite him over for the Thanksgiving dinner at his house—with Sabrina in attendance.

Cooper had kept abreast of it all, via their communications. But he was also watching developments on another level. A level which even Bill wasn't privy to, and he wasn't even sure how Cooper was able to navigate into that parallel universe which included ley lines and other worlds. Possibly he had operatives who had crossed over. He simply didn't know. It was not entirely impossible to become an Undead, but it was rare. Not everyone who wished to become an Undead could. It was extremely difficult, because basically you had to first die, and then somewhere along the line be able to not become either a ghost or cross into the next stages of death, but actually become a physical being once more and yet not be alive or dead, but actually Undead.

That had been Cooper's report only last night, when he had called him—in the middle of the night, no less—about The Albino, and that he had been tracking Sabrina.

No matter how the news had come to him, The Albino was bad news. Knowing that The Albino had killed the last sibyl in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in Pompeii in order to feed on her soul was especially not good since it had been rumored he himself had caused the eruption.(Way too long-I’m panting) How is anyone's guess.(?) However, that was probably just a legend that had been blown out of proportion. Stories that old often built into monumental fish tales. Bill decided that The Albino simply took advantage of certain situations, waited for the right moment and struck. More than likely, he had probably stalked the sibyl of that era and was in the right place at the right time and then he vanished after having fed on her soul.

The very fact that this Undead seemed to be in the right place at the right time seemed a bit unnerving. He knew that the sibyl—Sabrina—existed, and was now following her as though he knew something might happen to her and he could take her soul. This was all according to Cooper. He wasn't all that sure that the story was made up in order to get him to snatch Sabrina against her will before the Undead did.

However, if any of this was true Bill had to get to her before something did happen to her. She was their people's only hope. Without her, Bill's purpose would be null and void. He really didn't want to wait another 90 some-odd years again to be wed. His mission was cut in stone. He had to get to Sabrina before the Albino did.

Looks like fun, right? Riiiight.

Well, I've been working on this today, and getting my links over on Goodreads changed. I hadn't even thought about this, but people who would hit the link to buy any of my books would find nothing. That's not a good idea. So, I spent about an hour or so getting those changed over. Well, probably longer since I had to reset my password there so that I could get in there and edit out my former publisher's name, and get the ASIN numbers put in.

Now for the fun stuff...
November always makes me think of hot drinks, Thanksgiving meals, the naughty deserts...
What do you think of this time of year? And I don't want to hear how many days it is until Christmas--it's become too commercialized these days. Let me know what your favorite thing is about November. If you're looking forward to snow (Mr. Kendall?), I'll love to hear about it.

A New Thing

It's been a little while since I posted, so thought I'd slap something down for you all.

Been busy with edits on Vampire Caprice (4^th book), and working on something a bit different. My non-fiction work called “The Cat Whisperer”, is coming along, and I hope to publish it this fall.

My dear friend, Carole Gill, happily read through this to catch my mistakes and type-o's. I told her no rush, I knew she was busy. But she went right to work on it, and I got it back today.

She reports, “I LOVED IT!”

I was a little worried about some of it, as I didn't leave much out. This is non-fiction, taken from my journal about the feral mother cat, and the kittens she had, and their growing up and every little emotional blow I had over the things that happened to them.

I worked on it all summer long, on and off, trying to get it to sound natural, and yet not too rag-tag [because it came from my journal, I tend to write w/o worry about tense, punctuation and even spelling].

I've always written in a journal. Since high school (and no, I'm not telling you how long, as it doesn't matter, but it's decades!). Although the majority of my journals are paper, I've now begun writing them into my computer—I've got bins filled with my paper ones. What I'll do with them I have no idea. But there are stories in there, believe me. Some that are embarrassing—for me and maybe other people. This is where you get the memoir, of course. Usually it's about some emotionally-packed incident in a person's life. Well, you know, maybe those people always got on Opra, but I'm not after that. So I went with something safe—no cat will sue me, I don't think. And one would think “how can a story about feral cats be interesting?” You have no idea.

My husband is one of the stars in this book—him being the “cat whisperer”. He's actually always had this attachment toward animals, and a kind heart, and for some reason the animals sense this. However, his starring roll is taken over by one of the off-springs, Half Pint. A tiger-striped cat with (as my husband describes him), Jack Nicolson's eyes. Yeah, they're like half-lidded.

Half Pint was the runt, and yet he was the boldest. Since he grew older, has been the cat in charge, has been able to bring back (to the house), the other two cats after the mother took them out into the wilds. When you meet him, and see how friendly he is, you simply think he's a darling. For being born from a feral cat, this is astonishing enough. It's said you have to make human contact with feral kittens early on, or they won't trust you. They're wild. The first thing I offered Half Pint (the runt) when he was a kitten, was my bare toe, which he proceeded to lick and chew on. Since then he has always liked my bare toes, and I offer them to him on occasion still, careful of his claws.

So, that's what's up next for me, once I get something figured out for the cover. I have no idea how I'll get this done, or what I can do with it. I was thinking of using one of the pictures, but I'm not sure it will work (wish I could share the pictures here, but can't).

I'll let the mss. rest for a few weeks, and read through it for anything else that I might have missed.

In any case, I think cat lovers will adore this story. I'll let you all know when it comes out.

Until then, see you around the usual haunts!

Monday Updates

Well, my pretties, I am enjoying my day off, and posting to bring you all up to date. Nothing huge to talk about, but I post up-dates for those who follow me (yes, all ten of you *waves*).

This past week had me working on my 7th book in series and I got the brainstorm of an ending for it. I worked on a bedroom scene and posted about the differences between urban fantasy and paranormal romance here. If you don't know what the difference is, this will help. The word "romance" should give a big clue, however. Anyone who knows me/my writing knows I am not a romance writer or fan. I'm also not a a fan of erotica. If you want an entertaining read about my view point on this, go head on over to my other blog, but come on back and read the rest of my ramblings.

"Cat Whisperer" is needing a bit of a fluffing. I have to work on some little "side journeys" I call them. This book isn't just about the cats/kittens, it's about my husband. I'm often amazed at how he can control animals. Only this week he had to get Half Pint down from a tree. He had chased Tango up there after the usual loud cat-brawl. He got Half Pint down and brought him back over to the house. Eventually he got the two males to calm down and he petted them while talking to them. I don't know what is is about him, but the cats mind him. Just like he trained dogs--which were not much easier, but he trained them to obey.

It hasn't rained since Friday, I believe. And so I went for a nice walk out in our park. You can check that out here.

I've turned my attention on another back burner. My mystery I was working on, I put down to work on other things, and to let it rest. I was having trouble with the plot. Decided that if I just let it chill a while, I'd come up with a solution, and I did. Not quite ready to work on it. I want to get a few things done first, and maybe I'll work on that one this fall or winter, when I have time. If I do, that is.

The other day (I guess it was Friday), I came home and found that my husband had moved furniture around. Okay. He hasn't done that in a while. He called it our "summer" look. Whatever. I told him no wonder he was complaining of his back having a twinge. But at least he took most of the weekend off. He did have to get on the big mower and do the yard, as it was long. The grass has had lots of rain, and is keeping him busy in the park, which is super good. But he needs a day off. He and I are going to go out tomorrow, browse a nursery, go to lunch and brouse a local antiques place. It's on a farm, and antiques are in their 1839 barn. I got the idea of using the barn (at least mentioning), in a section of my WIP. I can't wait to go and see it again. We have not been there in over a decade, I'm sure.

I haven't heard from my publisher about my books as yet, but I should be hearing from him soon. Surely? I will become an Indie soon, because he is quitting the publishing business of other authors. He was the first one to publish my books, but now it would seem that I should be able to do this myself and make a little better royalties. I'm not going to get rich. I'm not even going to be comfortable. I'll be happy to get a $100 check every once in a while from Amazon.

Speaking of Indies, my good friend Shelly Arkon is giving away free copies for Kindle only of her short story "Partner's Progeny" You'll want to check this out. I'm sure everyone who can download to Kindle will want to check out my friend's book, and you can do that at her site, "Two Fur-Peeps and A Writer"

Well that's all the news and updates I've got. Have a good week and see you in the usual places, if not here!

UPDATES & ANNOUNCEMENT!

Hello, my pretties.

I do have some news, but we'll get to some updates first.

I'm still working on the seventh book, and I'm not rushing this one, folks, because I realized last year I'd written 2 (#'s 5 &6) in the Sabrina Strong Series. I'm still working on the edits of #4, and do need to get back to them this weekend.

Kittens are growing and my husband built a little fenced-in play area, but the bolder ones are determined to break out of jail, and they need a constant watch, they are only about 5-6 weeks old. Too darling. Two steel grays one black-as-coal, and one dark tiger.

We're getting the rain/storms for now. It's very wet out. Wish I could send some rain (not the lightning, though), out to the western states. There's fires all over. I fear Colorado is going up in smoke. A whole town, South Fork, Colorado, is burning to the ground. This isn't an unknown town to movie makers. One of the Vacation movies was filmed here, and "The Lone Ranger" was also filmed in the area.

My next work, I hope to get done quickly, is my memoir about the cats--which began with one and we wound up with 6 in total, and now we've got the next generation. I won't spoil the story, and promise that "The Cat Whisperer" is not just about cats, it's also about my husband who has a tender heart, and has always tended to feed strays that came into the yard, even as a child, and took care of them above and beyond what most people would do.

But, I won't go any further with that, as I don't want to spoil the story for you.

Now to my announcement: I'M GOING COMPLETELY INDIE.

The other day I sent off something to my publisher for his blog to post--I'm required to post something at least once a month. He got back to me telling me he is quitting publishing fiction with all his authors, reverting all our works back to us. Plus his blog site crashed. He seemed to think this was grim news to me. But it was not. I was wanting to strike out on my own, anyway. I didn't want to try and pull away from him by saying I wanted to take these works back. Something told me that things were about to change and change in a good way for me.

He will be helping all of us take our work back and publish into Amazon, etc. I asked if I could use the covers. He said yes. And that was a relief, because I really didn't think I could scramble to find 3 covers that would be as good as the originals.

So, by June 30 these three books, Vampire Ascending, Vampire's Trill, and Vampire Nocturne will no longer be under Copperhill Media, but under my own publishing brand Dark Castle Publications. My hope is at some point in July I will take total control of all three of these works. I'm only going to have ebooks, and I don't know that I'll have them elsewhere, but they will definitely be available through Amazon. I hope to adjust prices to my own needs. The newest work, Vampire Nocturne, will be reduced in price. But this is a few weeks away. I'm trying to come up with some sort of launch. If anyone is interested in hosting me in this indeavor (like welcoming me to the fold of the Indie World, or some such), and I'll try and figure out how to do a giveaway of all three eBooks to one person on each blog I'm on. This would be great for anyone who may have won one and want the rest. How cool is that?

Well, there's my news, my pretties. Do have a wonderful weekend. Again, if anyone wants to host my going Indie and the giveaway, whenever it's convenient, of course, in mid-July, say. Let me know in the comments here.

Lorelei has been crafting stories all her adult years
(yes, too many to count!) Author of the Sabrina Strong series,
"Spell of the Black Unicorn", poems, articles and short stories, and about to go Indie.