Category Archives: Uncategorized

Building Tereand

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Building Tereand

This is the first map I ever drew of Nor Vredon back in 2008, The Northwest province of Tereand, which I refer to in my novels (even Madame Bluestocking!) As you can see it’s pretty rudimentary looking and I suck and things like forests and mountains. I made it to keep things straight in me head. That’s something they don’t tell you about world-building when you jump in. You have to take lots of notes.
I later modified this to look more “mappish” and less “school geography project.” I’ll post that later.
In fact I eventually put in notes by 10-year-old Carson and his Form 6 teacher.

How to Juggle 28 Balls at Once…

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After completing the first draft of Linus Book 3 (working title: No Shoes No Service), I realised that it was time to get my head in the author game. That meant opening up accounts on stuff. LOTS of accounts.

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That’s something I’ve always dreaded for a few reasons:

1) I can’t remember most of my passwords (I have a plethora of them)

2) It’s time consuming and takes up time in which I could otherwise be writing or drawing or pretending to do both.

3) Does anyone really need multiple venues to check on me and see how I’m doing?

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Well, I finally took a deep breath and leaped off that cliff for one reason which was more important than the others:

My business life can not be the same as my personal life. The fact that I have a business life is a new and foreign idea to me, and one that happened gradually, but there we go. There’s a very fuzzy line right now between friends and colleagues, and I like that for the most part, but what about the future? I have kids, I have obligations to their privacy and protection. I’m also starting to miss out on business opportunities because I don’t look professional enough. For some reason there’s this funny idea that you can’t talk about family and work in the same place. 

Is it hard? Yes.

Is it time consuming? Hell yes. I had to look up all these Forrest Gump photos!

Does it need to be done? VERY yes.

So there we go. I’ll do my very best not to fall off the posting and update wagon, though I suspect my fervor will peter out. Whether anyone reads these will be the ultimate deciding factor. But I’m nervous/excited/nervouscited about this new step into professionalism.

God have mercy on my soul.

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(Imagaes are property of Paramount Pictures. I do not own the rights to them.)

 

Paging Dr. Flashback

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Sometimes I think it’s not even worth it to plumb my brain looking for inspiration. I obviously haven’t upgraded my OS often enough so I get a lot of “error” messages. Case in point, this morning, I had the house to myself and I was going to sit down and write a thousan words or so on the latest MS. I had a really deep question that needed answering and I was wondering where I was going with the plotline. I thought I would ask my brain, while I mulled over my daily activities in “the room with a sink.”

Here’s what I got:

“Welcome to a land that’s way under Down Under!
The skies’re always yellow come rain or shine!
(Down in Taz-mania! Come to Taz-Mania!)”

Thanks, brain. Thanks a lot. 
For those of you who didn’t get the reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taz-Mania