Inside The Feather Book Series House!

Hey! So I decided, that with my dad being an architect and all, that I needed to draw out what this house of my dreams really looks like. This was hard! Some of the stuff I envisioned didn’t actually pan out the way I wanted it to when it came to drawing things, to many magical hidden rooms, he he. This is what I always saw, though, while writing, and now you can see it too! I wish my real house was like this, I also wish the house was secretly invisible in a field in the North Cascades, but we can’t all win, can we?

Parade Of Funny Dog Costumes!

Since tomorrow is Halloween, and I love a good holiday, I’ve decided to share some of my favorite costumes! I’ve been watching the Today show, as I do every morning, and felt inspired. Wasn’t a huge fan of the Star Wars theme they decided to go with, seems a little over-done, but at least they did it right with real props from the movie.

 

I just can’t resist a small dog in costume.

 

One thing I can never seem to resist are dogs in costumes. I don’t have a dog, and in fact I am a cat person, but we all know that no cat in their right mind would put up with having a costume on. Heck no.

Poor things, they don’t even know what’s happening! But it’s so funny, all at our expense.

So here we go! Costumes Away!

 

 

 

 

 

Songs That Remind Me of the Feather Book Series…

Extreme Pumpkin Carving!

Last night I saw this guy on TV. I can’t remember what channel it was, could have been the Smithsonian. But this! This is what I was talking about when I say Holidays. Bestselling Author of Extreme Pumpkins, Tom Nardone, as far as I can see, is a pumpkin pumpkin genious! Perhaps you’ve seen some of his pumpkins before, I know I have, namely the puking pumpkin. He uses power tools like the jig saw and dremel to carve his pumpkins, even going so far as to make his OWN tools. You can visit his website HERE. There are a lot of fun videos to watch as well

Now, if my less than stellar pumpkins hadn’t ROTTED four days after bringing them home from the grocery store pumpkin nursery, I too would be carving my pumpkins this way!

My husband and I recently remodeled our whole house, so we have a whole collection of power tools. I hate to buy MORE pumpkins, but I guess I’ll have to…

Book News…

I’m adding a good portion of the new Feather Book Series: Book One, to the blog today, so watch for that and get a taste of what this new release is all about, especially you skeptics out there who doubted I could do this 😉 It just proves that, sometimes, education can come from the most unconventional means. Be sure to check it out!

More Pumpkins!

 

 

For all you mothers, and mothers to be! The P-Section pumpkin! Too much? Perhaps?

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was how I felt while I was sick!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just a Classic. One of my favorites.

Why is it the Holidays come Sooner Every Year?

at least some people know how to do it up right...

I’m watching the Today show right now, and it makes me laugh to think that, yet Halloween is this Saturday, and thanksgiving still seems like a glimmer on the horizon, IHOP is already playing holiday commercials? Tasty Egg Nog Pancakes and red and green sprinkles? Hold It! I want to enjoy my leftover turkey enchiladas first! I’ll admit, I tend to get into the spirit a bit sooner than most, but its October 27th, and I’m just not sure I feel comfortable thinking about Christmas just yet. I decorated with fall decor in the middle of September, but I waited until the first frost, and where I live in a farm town, harvest was over and the fall spirit was a natural transition with bundles of dried corn and wheat.

I was talking to my mother the other morning as she was putting up christmas lights… Isn’t it an unspoken rule to wait until AFTER thanksgiving to ‘lightify’ your abode? I understand that some people get snow rather early in the season, and they want to get the lights on the gutters before Jack Frost comes and makes them slip off the roof to their death.

At least Papa Murphey’s Pizza gets it. They’re making a Jack-O-Latern pizza! I love it! I’m a stickler for their heart-shaped pizzas on Valentine’s day, what can I say!

Some people get way too excited.

Some people just get way too excited about the holidays. Can’t they just wear a pair of secret Santa socks and wait?

I think what really gets people excited is all the food. Why else is weight loss the number one wished for thing on New Years. Loose Clothes! Winter! YAY! Well, not me. I got the flu and lost four pounds…

October for me marked the inevitable race to make as many pumpkin pies and humanly possible. It’s my favorite, but try as I may, it’s just not the same in August.

You know what it really come down to, though? The economy. Retailers know that shoppers will be buying less this year, so they are going to try twice as hard to get people out there… Politics and Christmas… Ahhhhhh, I love the holidays.

Folks! I’m So Excited! Two Weeks!

I’ve gotten a lot of buzz concerning the new re-release of the Feather Book Series. For those of you that are new, I’ve been working on this series for a year now. I made my process public as I released various versions of the book from extremely unedited, to unedited and now, hopefully, nearly perfect! I’m counting down the days until the FINAL release of The Feather Book Series, starting with Book One, Feather. My editor is narrowing down to the end of the book as far as edits go, and then the rest (loading new files and cover art) does not take much!

Thankfully I have a very flexible publisher 🙂

Two weeks, that’s what I’m saying folks 🙂

I will announce here, well and of course I like to talk anyway. A lot of you have been here since the beginning, which rocks! A lot of you have even helped me with concepts and cover art, which also rocks!

If you haven’t read the series yet, hold ya’all’s horses and wait till the re-edited book one comes out, followed by book two, Guardian in about a month and Raven, also in about a month. This time we are going to get the book out in many stores as well, we’re going global with this release!

Other Cool Stuff

Another one of my friends thinks she’s preggo. YAY! I get to be aunty again! Well, it’s not for sure, but still, exciting non-the-less. Every month it seems someone else is pregnant. I’m afraid of babies… is that bad? I want babies one day, but I’ve never even held a baby LOL. They always look so plastic and fragile ha ha. I figure the first baby I’ll hold will likely be my own.

It’s pouring here today! Major flood. It’s nice. though, washes all the nasty leaves downhill to the neighbor’s house 😀

Cat stole my heating blanket and squeezed me out, he’s a big cat, it can happen.

Husband got me noodle soup from the local chinese bakery, so good.

Christmas songs are starting to play on the XM Jazz channel…

Things I need to do before I can release Raven…

There are a lot of things I need to do before I can release Raven and Re-release Feather and Guardian and get back to doing what I do, such as showering at a normal hour, making dinner, actually EATING, finding time to brush teeth, feeding the cats so they quit drinking my cereal milk, etc etc…

1: Finish Covers

2: Finish re-reading Guardian so that editor can have it by early November, along with Raven.

3: Finish with Feather and upload new cover and interior file so that new release can get rolling…

4: give the stinky cat a bath and get him to stop laying on my arms and preventing me from typing.

5: Get over the Flu.

6: Stop watching great movies so that I can focus.

7: Plant crops that take at least three days to grow on Farmville and FarmTown on Facebook so that I quit spending two hours of my life farming on a video game…

8: Quit blogging on my five blogs and concentrate on just one, this one.

9: Motivation, and snow. Snow always gets me motivated… same goes for wine and cheese, good cheese.

Alright, now I have a list so I can get started… I am one thrid of the way finished with reading Guardian for re-edit, by tomorrow night I want to be halfway. Got it? Good…

A.E.

Eureka! The Flu is Gone! … and New Raven Cover…

I am excited to announce that the flu is nearly out the door for me. YAY! Celebrate with myself. I coughed at the pharmacist yesterday, non-stop, the whole time she was filling my prescription. People are freaking out with this Swine Flu thing and so was she, she was trying to get me out of there as soon as possible lol. Now I have to watch for pneumonia, oh goody. While I was sick I took the time to consider some of the cover suggestions and I’ve come up with a new image for the cover of Raven… Thanks in part to the suggestions of Denise Snow…

My Brother, Chris, was the photographer for the door and the field, and I just simply combined the two, making an image of what was always in my mind when considering what Estella and Edgar’s house looked like. Now you see what I always saw! But, What do you think??

Another Rainy Day in WriterVille…

It’s raining rather profusely today and I am still battling the Flu. I shut all the windows and turned on a few lamps and lit some candles, so hopefully this will bring warmth back to my life. I slept on the couch last night because I was sniffling/coughing so much and I didn’t want to bother my husband, needless to say he was angry that I slept on the couch because I am the sick one. The Jazz channel is also playing, that’s always nice. I really wish I could have a whole bottle of wine and forget about the Flu, but that doesn’t seem very responsible…

I watched one of the most disturbing movies yesterday, it was called Blindness. Unless you are into scary epidemics, don’t see it, it will haunt you. I can’t stop thinking about it. It does have a good ending, though. I’ve watched a lot of random movies lately. It seems that in the afternoons they cater to the artistic stay-at-home crowd.

I really want to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs…

Book Covers

I made new covers for the Feather Book Series the other day and shared them with the members of the Fan Club. They gave me some great feedback, so I will likely be changing them from what you see below. I even had some Fans send me fonts they thought were neat LOL. It will be hard to add everyone’s suggestions, but I am going to try. A lot of the Fans that came back with comments to the questions I asked were actually QUITE helpful. I am sure you will see the product of your answers throughout the third book.

 

Editor Progress:

Christina is nearly done re-editing Feather, God love her for it! (She got to go to a private Bon Jovi Concert yesterday, boooooooo, we’re all jealous). Guardian I suspect will go faster because there will be fewer mistakes, and then Raven will rock out just as fast. Right now I am shooting for a December release of Raven, DECEMBER!!!!! By then it will be snowy (for some of us) and just the right season for reading.

Funny things my Editor says about the Feather re-edit…

I read this today while re-editing Feather for the third time… Just couldn’t stop laughing!!!! I love Christina! She was saying this in reference to the part where Estella grabs a ruffled pile of pre-warn clothes to wear for the second day…

“.(Abra – I changed this line b/c I felt like while we get that Estella had a rough first day, do we need her to be smelly and nasty?  She has a hard enough time fitting in…does she need to be the stinky kid too?  lol.  Also, if there is going to be a romance between her and Edgar, she needs to be somewhat appealing to him – and us!) “