Wednesday, 11 December 2019

I've got questions...

Okay, this is what's been playing on my mind.

1> I had a book published once already━The Freedomers 1: Zephania's Chance━and before I find a new home for it. I'm wondering a couple of things.

Q> Is it okay to change the sex of some of the key players (at least 3). I would like to change the three female siblings to male.

2> In The Connelly Chronicles 3: Because of You, I've hit a roadblock. This is my problem.

Q> How badly would you freak out if you found out you were kidnapped as a baby?

3> In Wardens of the Guild 3: Heartstrings I actually have two questions I need answered.

Q1> Is Heartstrings meant to be one word or two (Heart Strings)?

Q2> Daven is old and set in his ways━I mean he really likes things done his way because Eric used to pander to his needs when Eric was his day warden. now Gabe has the job. Gabe has just spent a couple of centuries trying to kill his first two charges. he and Dav clash often because in Dav's eyes Gabe is nothing like Eric. What one good thing Gabe could do (not sexual━even though he and DAV end up as mates) to change Dav's mind?

Tuesday, 10 December 2019

Example Character Profile


Series Title: The Lines of Marsden.

Books: Fist line.

Name: Michael Alexander Marsden.

Age: 22 (at time of turning).

Species: Vampire (King).

Realm: SE Queensland, Australia.

Hair Colour/Type/Length: Dark brown almost black (in book one it is just past his shoulders in book 2 onward it is cropped short like in this picture except the fringe is a lot shorter like he has it shorn close to his scalp).

Eye Colour/Shape: Purple (shade varies depending on his moods).

Skin colour Type Pale, never was prone to tanning.

Scars/Blemishes: Facial scars - small one between the nose and the top lip and one that runs the length of his jaw on his left side, (due to his cousin Geoffrey tripping him into a barbwire fence when in high School – they hate each other).

Height: 5 feet 9.

Weight: 90 Kg.

Clothing preferred: Jeans, dress shirts. Though after meeting pack and the English vampires he does start wearing t-shirts.  He does have a lot of clothing with Dragons on (bought by Gypsy mostly black).

Mannerisms: At first Michael’s kind of shy and unsure of himself. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Michael once comfortable, with who he is, makes the best damn leader (He’s destined to be king). Michael’s a jump in there all or nothing type of person. Not really an over-thinker, and gets frustrated when the others need to talk and think through everything. Probably why he ends up in trouble so much of the time. Once he sets his mind to something there’s no way he’ll give up until he has completed/mastered what he has set out to do. He’s compassionate up to a point. Hurt him, or who he claims as his, and your life isn’t worth living.

Favourite Colour: All shades of blue.

Favourite Food: Chicken Kiev and Salad

Favourite Drink: Coke/ Bourbon (even though Booze really has no effect on them—he just likes the taste)/ and Christian gets him hooked on green tea.

Favourite Band: He likes it all he’s pretty eclectic in his tastes

Favourite Book: David Eddings the Elenium series

Favourite Movie: Chronicles of Riddick.

NOTES: Siblings are Gypsy his twin sister in this lifetime and Benj from their original lifetime. He has three children with Doyle who was originally known by another name (Carleah)—children are Raphael who has been kidnapped by Venetia, and still missing, or rather hidden away are Michaela and Vladimir who will be introduced in future books. Michael always only ever wanted to live his life. But soon realised that words said in haste to piss someone off often have a way of coming back to bite him in the arse, and turning him into the king of a whole legion of beings, all looking to him for the answers.

Monday, 9 December 2019

Character Inspiration

Wardens of the Guild 3: Heartstrings
Gabriel Gillis━Human/Day Warden

Daven Banks━Vampire/Guild Member

Artemis Kohen━Fey 

The Connelly Chronicles 3: Because of You
Nathan 'Nate' Burkhart━Girly's brother

Daniel Marshal━Viv's brother

Sons of Evenmore 3: Fear the Scarlet Moon
Phoenix Lunos━Vampire/Challus Coven Leader

Linkin━Arctic Wolf/Ollun

Cooper Norton━Human

Sunday, 8 December 2019

Finished and Submitted


 Sons of Evenmore 3
Fear the Scarlet Moon

The story is finished.
The blurb is done.
The synopsis has been written.
The story has been submitted. 
Where: MLRPress.

Saturday, 7 December 2019

It's all in the details...

Eye Colour & Shape
Advice>
Choose your eye colour for characters and make a note of what it is. I can't count the number of times I've chosen one colour and then forgotten and had to fix it up in edits... Or worse had a reader tell me I'd switch halfway through a story. Nothing more embarrassing I can tell you. But, at least I'm getting better. I also remember to take the same time to take write out the shape of the eyes... so when I'm describing family traits I can look back at my notes for reference.

Lip Shape

Choose the lips your character is likely to have. Because the shape of the lips determines the way they smile. The way they kiss. I think the Lips on some people are extremely beautiful. Especially, when a character is described as having kissable lips. But honestly, what's kissable to me, might be completely different to someone else. My character Grayson from Admetus Gaea has Wide lips━because that is how I have always seen him. There was never a doubt in my mind.  I'll have to find the picture my niece and I drew of Grayson when we were younger and you'll be able to see what I mean.
Face Shape

The shape of your face will determine the shape of some of their other facial features. I'm a bad one for forgetting the shape of a person's face when I write a book. Even when I do take notes. I just really suck at the face shape part of it. I'll quite often change the jawline. I must admit that once I did forget one of my characters had a beard until I got right to the end of the story and had to go back through and put it in. A little snippet here, and a little snippet there. A lot harder than you would think.

Nose Shape



A character's nose is probably one of their defining qualities. Is it straight, is it broken? Is it long, short, bent, flat? My nose has never been broken, so it's pretty straight. Though in saying that my family has a tendency to have rounder bottom. My daughter has the same nose. Where we differ is she has had her nose broken at birth, so she has the tell-tale bump in her nose. My son-in-law has a hooked nose so my poor granddaughter has a mixture of both of them. I think she's beautiful anyway.

Hand Shape
I love a person's hands. because most often than not they tell how a person lives their lives. People with roughened hands, you could surmise might work outdoors. Like cowboys, construction, landscaping. They say people with long thing fingers are usually artistic. I don't know whether that's true or not. But it makes you wonder. I have large hands... but I have long fingers and I'm pretty talented.

Body Shape
Everything all needs to go together and that's where you need the body shape. I don't know why the same shapes are different for men and women but they are. I must admit this is the hardest thing for me to choose. Because I don't tink all the people in my books have to be necessarily perfect. I don't mind if they have a bit of extra weight around the middle. I know the pain of a woman having big boobs. I can relate. I'm also a big believer the characters should dress comfortably, and for their body shape. I've read  one too many books where the character's just dress like sluts because their skinny, twinkish, and gay. Though I have had character's change dress styles during a book series. Chris does that in The Lines of Marsden, but it was done intentionally━but I digress.  We are talking about body shape... My best advice is to take notes. Notes will save your arse in the long run.

Friday, 6 December 2019

All the pretty things

Okay, so really it's just my cats: 

Oliveris the black and white━he's the oldest. He just turned 7. He is the mellowest of all cats that's out there.

He likes to have a bit of a cuddle beside me every day━never on my lap. Oliver is my rescue cat from the Toowoomba RSPCA. I got him to cheer up Willow after her brother Droogie passed, but alas Willow didn't take to him and died of a broken heart (vet's words not mine) a few short weeks later.

Robsonis the youngest he's just about to turn 3. He was gifted to me by the local Gatton Vet. He's the polar opposite of Olli. Robby loves climbing all over me (and anyone else in the house). I believe he thinks we are his own personal jungle gyms.


Robby basically thinks he rules the roost. He's forever bringing me in presents from the garden such as flowers, live lizards, live snakes (eastern browns━according to my brother 2nd deadliest snake in the world. Thank god he only brings me in the babies to deal with), Cockroaches, moths, though normally it's leaves he's ripped off one of the plants, (my side garden is one huge cat enclosure━my brother and I built it before I moved in. So they have the safety needed to go outdoors without the danger of getting run over or attacked by other wildlife).

Daisy only comes to visit every now and again as she is Grace's cat, but when she does her and my boys get on like a house on fire. Especially her and Robson, they chase each other all over the house playing tag. Olli just likes to sit back and watch. (I get to look after her whenever they go away on holiday or for family stuff that requires them from being away from home for more than a day or so. It's just easier to bring Daisy over to my house).


The other animals who have enjoyed time in our home have been loved every bit as much as the two we have right now. (I no longer have pictures of all the neighbour's animals who used to come for, but trust me I had cows at least 3, a pig, a rooster, 4 chickens, a turkey, about 120 ducks (though to be honest I believe they were wild ducks), 2 dogs, 2 possums (also wild), a family of plovers, a family of magpies, a family of crows, a family of Tawny Frogmouth owls, wild hares, 3 tortoises that live in the damAll of this was when I lived on 5 acres in the bush, and didn't really have fences and the animals would just wander in).

1) Andy CappDied when he was 14. He was attacked by a dog up the streeta Rottweiler named, Clyde. Who belonged to my friend Warren. (I got him when I was 4-years-old. I wanted to name him Dwayne after the guy down the road, but my dad made me name him Andy Capp instead. He was one of the smartest dogs I knew. If I was in plainclothes he followed me everywhere, but the second I put on a uniform he would sit and wait for me at the front gate).

2) SoxWas literally our first cat. (We adopted him from an RSPCA in Tassie. Strangely, he hated kids, so he wasn't any good to have around Emily who was only little, and he had to end up going to live with my sister up on her farm. he was a beautiful cat though. He loved eating cooked potato. Apparently, he liked to bring my sister live tiger snakes as presents).


3) Alexander:  Mr big boy pusselcatDied after being bitten by a king brown snake... he saved me from being bitten... (Alex came to us because I rescued him f some jack-arses up the road who had tied stuff to his tail and set their dogs on him━he took refuge in my niece's house━we lived next door to each other, and Alex looked so much like her cat Steerpike that at first, we didn't realise there were two cats).

4) MilsieActually he was cat-napped by a neighbour when they moved. I later heard he was one spoiled cat. (Milsie came to me when someone cut his legs and threw him out the window of a moving car and into the driveway of the flats I was living in. my husband at the time said you are not rescuing another catas we still had 3...Alex had just died━then no sooner had I agreed when all of a sudden he's the one out there feeding and tending to the cat. Milsie
was a tiny thing. he never grew much at all. Milsie was just a tiny little black bundle of fur who loved to hang with his adopted brother Nathan).

5) NathanDied aged 26+ (by the vet's calculations) after being bitten by a white-tailed spider. I never want to see that ever again. seriously so scary and so sad. (Nathan came to us because an old man up the road died and when the family cleaned the house out the cat ran away into the bush. It took me three months to coax that sucker back out. he was a beautiful dark orange colour and loved to be brushed. I loved that cat).

6) TobyDied from a stroke aged 16 (Toby came to us after my nephew's grandmother gave the kitten to him, which he named Phoenix... and then my mother gave my nephew $20 for the kitten and renamed him Tobyhe was always a shit of a cat who thought he should be boss of the house... though he did love him some cuddles. We also named him the million-dollar cat because he was always at the vet getting something fixed━and yes, that is a younger version of Emily in the picture. she'd like you all to believe that poor Toby who was on his death bead was photobombing her, but we all can see it was the other way around).

7) DroogieDied age 17 from a stroke. This is the cat I miss the most because he was my cat. and one of the first cat's I ever got. (Droogie came to us when ys sister thought it would be hilarious to give my daughter and me a kitten each for our birthdays. She gave my daughter said kitten's when I wasn't around. That cat would follow me anywhere then dump himself on my feet so I would carry him if he got tired of walking). He was one crazy bugger but he was my big boy. Though, in all honesty, I think Oliver might be a little larger than Droogie. They both have the same nature and remind me so much of each other.
8) WillowDied age 17. She belonged to Emily but always lived at my house. Emily was allergic to her. (See Droogie's info on how we got herYou can blame my eldest sister, Catherine Walker, for turning me into the cat lady that I am .today).

NOTE:I lost my last three fur babies all within 9 months. first Toby, seven months later it was Droogie, and then a few weeks after it was Willow. I suppose after 17 years together she couldn't go on without her brothers. Droogie was her littermate and Toby was adopted, but still... a lot of years to be together for it all to be over. Which amazed me when I got Oliver who was already 5 and then brought Robson home as a new kitten and they bonded instantly. And then to periodically throw Daisy into the mix and they all get along so well.

Thursday, 5 December 2019

Em's Turn



Songs that get stuck in my head
& I can't get rid of them
sometimes for days on end
Enjoy!