The Irritable Owl Syndrome

image from JK Rowlings on Twitter

In case you haven't heard, there is a brand new Harry Potter book released TODAY, by it's author, JK Rowling.

Here is a link about the book from People Magazine.

I'll be getting mine whenever the new bookstore opens here in town. I'm a big Harry Potter fan. So much that I want to be 11 or 12 again and get on the train to Hogwarts. I've always lived in a fantasy world (in my head), and it's hard for me to live in the everyday struggles of life. Thus, I escape, either though reading or by writing. Writing has been my salvation from times in my life when I could not cope with family, and life. I escaped through pen and ink.

To all of you fantasy fans out there, I want to direct you to the fact that my book Spell of the Black Unicorn was written by me as a form of fan fiction (I guess that's what people call it these days). After reading a couple of the HP books, I wanted to find a book that had more adult themes in it, but similar to Harry Potter, with crazy characters, and the usual fantasy elements that are found in such books. This isn't to say that I copied anything from the Harry Potter series, this is all my own imagination and all characters are mine.

And here's what I do to people who give me bad reviews. Hermione hitting Draco

Thank you to ALL my fans!

Summer is Half Over!

Jeeze! Where is it going? And now it's gotten hot--most of you already know this!

I've had one week off, but I'm taking another two off beginning of August. My husband and I are not taking a huge trip. But we'll get away somewhere. Do something before we go back to driving these buses around. We are not putting in the hours we have in the past--since, as my husband put it, the government is RAPING our checks. So, why even bother? May as well make less and do with less.

I know that I've told you all that my second novel is with the publisher. And that I've finished a solid first draft of #3.

Well, guess what? I just finished two 1st chapters on #4. And have some more notes that I'm toying with on what's going to happen. I've put together a notebook with new Plotting/character pages that I, myself, made up and put together and then printed. I had some from a site, but I couldn't use them to the fullest, since I didn't understand what some of it was for. So, I just made up my own sheets and they work--and look--great.

Something about these characters, they simply live in my head. Actually, it's as if they do exist. I'm sure all of you have had this happen with your characters. You see them, hear them, know how they'd react to certain situations.

With fantasy--as I'm a fantasy writer, and this series is what I call urban fantasy--the parade of new characters seems endless, and the problems that arise, just continue to pop up.

On Friday, My husband and I are taking the day off. We're going to go to an early showing of HP#7, having lunch beforehand. I can't wait!

I have not had the opportunity to buy many books this summer. I bought one, but it's not that thrilling.

However, I'm about to receive one from an author friend. When I get it, I'll tell you all about it. I can't wait to read it. I owe him one, too, but he's willing to wait for me to buy a couple of copies of my book in August.

I'm a Muggle and Proud of it!

Well, I am. Can't be helped. I do try and make traffic lights change green for me--by twitching my nose like Samantha Stevens, but more times than not, it doesn't really work.

But for a few hours I will be among other Muggles watching Harry Potter movie, the very last installment of these seven books, and I'll probably need a box of tissue the whole time.

The books have meant something very special to me, since I had approached the first one unable to believe what all the hoopla was about. I mean, I thought it was a book for kids. Really. So why were adults lining up and snatching them off the book shelves? Oh, and later on, into the fifth book, or so, Walmart had PALLETS of the books. And they went fast!

I sort of lost my focus, but what I wanted to say about these books, as well as the films, is here in Rowling you have a writer with a very special talent who could create a character who practically popped out of the page and lived in your living room, or wherever, and even in your heart--as did all his friends, and the various different creatures that were likable. You saw the friendships grow, and remain stalwart right to the end, even when there were problems among them at times, they always simply found it again.

Also, J.K. Rowling allowed me to be a child again. This is wonderful. If it was just that, that would be enough. And it is, but it's more, since I'm also a writer. Her books inspired me to write fantasy. It was something I'd wanted to do for a long time, and just didn't have any ideas, or even a notion of how to write something that wasn't an epic. I needed something that was whimsical in a way, and yet more adult in content. And that's what Spell of the Black Unicorn became. My adult fantasy about a sorceress from another planet, stuck here on Earth, hiding from an evil sorcerer, which I self-published in '08.

I, of course, went on and wrote my vampire fantasy, Vampire Ascending. Something else I had wanted to write and publish, and was able to--finally!

So, I owe Harry Potter, and Ms. Rowling a debt of gratitude. Not that they would even know I exist, but I'm putting it out there. I think that's what these books were all about. To inspire in us the better human being and our creativity.

Here is to them and helping me keep the faith in my own writing.

Sumko's Reads ~ Broken Kingdoms

I just finished Broken Kingdoms by NK Jemisin.  I came across this book via a review. I recently signed up for their newsletter and that is how it came to me.  

Here's how this goes:  I skimmed the review and it intrigued me.  They reviewed the second book in a trilogy and I went to Amazon and ordered what I thought was the first book.  But alas - it is not.  I actually ordered the very book they reviewed and I have to say that despite being the middle book of a trilogy where I have not yet read the first book - I enjoyed it very much.  The protagonist is a young woman, Oree,  who is an artist, although blind.  However, she lives in a world where "godlings" walk among mortal folks and unlike most people the one thing she can see is the divine magic that they work.  The city she lives in is on a giant world tree.  I don't think that the entire world is on this tree because she travelled there from somewhere else.  The book begins with the the murder of one of the godlings and with Oree taking in a foundling.  I really enjoyed the world, Oree and her investigation of the events which lead to revelations about herself and her family.  

NK Jemisin's website:  http://nkjemisin.com/books/the-inheritance-trilogy/