Archive for April, 2009
Dark Embrace is nearly here!!
She wanted vengeance. He didn’t want a wife. One bite changed everything…
Maria Ravensford is a woman on a mission.
A mission of vengeance. Determined to avenge the death of her young
sister at the hands of Rogue vampires, the petite Dhampir takes to the
streets to hunt them. Unfortunately things don’t go precisely to plan
and it’s only the arrival of Marak, a darkly handsome Vampire Warrior,
that saves her life. Trouble is, the bite that saves her life also
takes her fully into the world of the Kyn… where Marak is waiting to
claim her.
Pretties… just because!! And a guest blog!!
Sorry… couldn’t resist. When things like this appear on the net, they really need sharing.
So, what does it for me about this picture? Well, apart from the fact I think Jensen Ackles is the one of the prettiest, sexiest men out there? In this one it’s the laughter. Somethings obviously tickled him pink there and I dunno, a smile from anyone is attractive isn’t it?
Anyway, pretties aside, I’m guest blogging over at You gotta read Reviews today, check it out!
http://yougottareadguest.blogspot.com/2009/04/so.html
Chain Mail!!
Not always!!
Byzantine Bracelet Kit
Byzantine Chain is a classic chain maille weave. It is extremely versatile: smart,
casual, distinctive, eye-catching - everything you want it to be! This easy and enjoyable
chain maille kit is suitable for all levels; it also makes a great first chain maille
project.
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I’ve been looking at chainmail jewellry for a while but it was all getting the right size rings and whatnot and very confusing. So when I saw this late one night whilst mooching about the net I ordered it on a whim.
And now I’m hooked!! They’re great fun to do and it turned out pretty much exactly as you see it there. This is my version (excuse crap photo here…)
Now he wants one in copper 
He wears a copper bracelet because of his hands (too many years using powertools at work) but he doesn’t like the designs as they can be too fuddy-duddy for him. But he really likes some of the weaves for these so I’m doing him a byzantine like this silver one here with an eye to another weave, Jens Pinds Linkage, when I have more practise.
What a weekend!
It was one of those ‘I’ll settle in and get everything done I need to get done’ weekends. Or it was meant to be.
Did it happen?
Did it buggary!!
I can’t even remember what happened on the different days other than I it was chaos and I now have far more grey than I did before. Here’s the round up…
I screwed up my laptop. Pure and simple. I was installing a program and it went ‘Urrrk! Not having that’ and died on me. Did the ‘boot up, windows did not shut down properly, start windows normally?’ milarky. Only it didn’t start windows, normally, abnormally or any other bloody way. Twenty four hours and three failed recovery attempts later and I called it quits and it’s now in the repair shop getting stripped and vista *hiss* reinstalled.
So now I’m back on my old XP machine, which has had all the rubbish programs stripped off it and pretty much just contains word, photoshop, firefox and IM. My base necessities so to speak, although at a pinch I can get by without photoshop for a while. But not at the moment, since I have a cover to complete in the next couple of days.
On the plus side, this particular little rainstorm came with a silver (or at least pewter) lining. In an attempt to do something else I dragged out an OLD OLD laptop. It’s a compaq presario 2100, about six years old. It looks like a brick and it’s got under 200mb ram. I’ve only kept it because it was my first laptop and I was kinda sentimental. It’s battery is useless so it only runs on mains power and because the power got cut it screwed windows as well. Now, I’m not going to pay to have something that old stripped and rebuilt buuuuuuuut…
In the midst of my ‘oh hell, what do I do to get this back?’ nightmare with the big Vista laptop (which could eat this one for breakfast seriously) I came across a mention of something called ‘Puppy Linux’ which is a whole operating system which boots from a CD or USB. So, I thought what the hell. It’s useless as it is and this thing says it won’t alter anything on the pc anyway. I didn’t have anything to loose so I downloaded it and burnt it to disc (fairly simple, burn the iso to a disc, make sure it’s bootable).
It works!!
It’s so simple it’s unreal. Booted first time from the disc and there’s a little bit of setup – basically asking you what mouse you have and what keyboard layout you want – and it was there. The interface is a little clunky compared to windows but hell, it’s running at lightening speeds on something out the ark!! Amazing.
I’ve not played a lot with it yet but the basic install has enough toys to get you up and running on basic officey type tasks. It has a word processor and a spreadsheet program. It EVEN connected to my wireless set up here using a real dodgy old BT voyager card – all with the minimum of fuss.
To say I am impressed is an understatement. It removes the – if my pc screws up how am I going to get to the interwebz or work? – issue. I’m still a windows person because there are no alternatives to word and photoshop for what I need them for (that I’m aware of) but hell, this has definately made me think about these things and look more into alternatives. And the fact that they can run on old kit impresses me (part scot so I don’t like throwing ANYTHING away).
Even better Mr C – who is the biggest technophobe out there – LIKES the interface. He cannot work windows but this one? He was off and playing happily within a few minutes. Sure all he wants to do is look at youtube but he has his own mail now AND he can get to it. You never know he might actually do more than look at porn one day.
So, Puppy Linux is over here if you’re looking.. http://www.puppylinux.org/
Okay, moving on now we have the PC dealy out the way….
Dark Diva Reviews gave Rockstar 4 delightful divas
“…the heroine, Zette Mathews, was the Rock star. She’s not an arrogant character but one that I could identify with, sexy, talented and unspoiled. In addition, I was thrilled that Zette wasn’t a perfect model thin type but had curves like most women… A little blackmail added some nice tension and a jumping off point for the story. The sex scenes were enticing and had the right mix of physical and emotion… J.J succeeded in being a better man to get his woman and I was glad to see a happy ending.
Overall, I would recommend Rockstar for a fun read about a strong heroine.”
Four divas I’m off doing the tigger dance again to day and after the weekend, that review was wonderful. Em Epe also mentions Logan, who is one of the secondary characters in Rockstar. She mentions that she’d like to see a story about Logan *grins happily* I’m really impressed with that, that Logan caught the imagination as he is the hero of ‘Playing with Fyre’. I know it’s not done to request reviewers based on comments they’ve made in reviews but when Fyre comes out I’m kinda hoping Em Epe reviews it as well. Would be cool to see what she thought of it and whether it lived up to expectations.
Dark Embrace has a release date! It’s on the Cobblestone Press release schedule for 1st May which is this friday!! My heads all in a whirl at the moment but it’s all good So friday night will be party night. I’m fairly sure there’s a release day chat on friday night. I’ll gather more details and post them up before then!
Black Ice
We went to see AC/DC on the Black Ice tour last night.
One word. Awesome.
Now, if you know me, you’ll know I very, very rarely use that word. But there is no other way to describe it. It was quite literally amazing. It was a rock concert yes, so it was loud. But this was beyond loud, it was music experienced on a physical level. There were banks of amps like you wouldn’t believe and the sound reverberated through your body with each beat.
The atmosphere was fantastic and the sheer diversity of people? Again, amazing. There were the guys like Mr C. with the old tour tshirts on. The guy sat next to us was proudly proclaiming that the tshirt he was wearing was older than the brother in law who was accompanying him. Mr C’s tshirt was from the Razor’s edge tour so was approximately eighteen years old. Me, I wore a boring black tee, and switched to a tour shirt after a quick visit to the merchandise stand.
That being said… I have a gripe. Large is NOT a bloody size 12-14. Unless you’re a twig. Com’on! That’s gotta be medium surely? I’d love to know what model they size these bloody things on! I brought the large and well, I couldn’t have brought a smaller one because it wouldn’t have fit in a-hem, certain areas. I’m not that busty either, but hey, it was a new experience having my bust addressed instead of my face. At first it was a novel experience but the novelty soon wore off. By the end of the night, I could cheerfully have swung for people over it.
So, back to the show. The supporting act were ‘The Answer’. Good band, sounded good. Will check them out on itunes later. Cute guitar player.
But AC/DC… words fail me. At first I hadn’t realised they’d come on stage. This kid ran on, and as there were a lot of kids dressed up in the Angus schoolboy uniform, I actually thought one of them had gotten on stage. It was only when the rest of the band followed him I realised it actually WAS Angus. He’s tiny!!
The stage show was out of this world. There was a HUGE train to start with. With different effects for different songs, like for TNT, there were flame jets. Whole lotta Rosie was of course accompanied by a massive blow up doll doing something entirely inappropriate with her hand.
Not that Brian got to sing for the start of that song, or for some of the others. It must be extremely flattering for any band to have the audience know every song, practically from the first chord or two, which was what was happening. And with Rosie, Johnson didn’t actually sing into well into the song. At first he was waving the crowd on and the noise level was immense with us all singing. Then we all just carried on and he was laughing (could see him on the big screen) and had this look on his face like ‘well, I can’t actually get a word in edgeways here so carry on’.
Overall, there was much singing, Mr C and I are both absolutely hoarse this morning, my legs hurt from jumping up and down like mad for two hours and my ears only stopped ringing about an hour ago. I will no doubt go on and on about this for DAYS now. It was literally that good.
Joyful morning
see more Lolcats and funny pictures
This is how I feel at the moment. We are initial coffee-hit this morning. I have a cold. I slept in and I have waaaaaaaaay too much to do to sleep in.
WE HAVE AC/DC TONIGHT!!
*HUGE Grin* We’re going to the NEC, Birmingham to see what I think is the last show of the UK leg in the Black Ice tour. I’m so excited (or I will be after the caffeine hits)
Oh noes!!!!
I am turning into my mother in law!!
Bizarre statement to make but it’s true. You see, everyone associates my mother in law with food. The kids (brat and my niece and nephew) seem to view ‘nanny’ in terms of the stuff. They arrive, they browse the kitchen, have a little graze in the fridge and head in to sit down. Mr C does it too. Many times I’ve caught him making sandwiches whilst half buried in the fridge and I have to remind him to ask his mum.
Brat, when asked if she wanted to go to Nanny’s for the day said, ‘Nannys? Dinner? wif Custard?’ which kinda says it all. To Minkle nanny is the provider of custard. But anyway, i digress…
Recently I have found myself doing that. When people come around, I automatically make food! Sandwiches, whatever is on for dinner in larger portions, cakes. Why I do not know! It’s a new thing for sure and I don’t know why I’ve picked the habit up.
Someone stop me before I start wearing an apron or something!!
Testing, testing, testing…
I’m lazy. And because I’m lazy, I like things that make my life easier. Which brings me back to blogging. I have a lot of blogs across the different networks for writing. And buggared if I can remember the passwords half the time to the damn things, which tends to make blogging difficult at times.
But I found this addin for firefox, Scribefire, which I’m testing out now to see if it works!!
May have posted this before…
… I found it hidden in my notepad files and I can’t see where I posted it, if I did. I have a habit of half writing blog posts on notepad and they forgetting about them!!
So… here it is. Shout if you saw this before!
***
So, I’ve been thinking about sex scenes. More specifically writing them. Lots of my reviews seem to comment on the steamy and erotic nature of my stories which surprised me since I don’t tend to write out and out kink. Added to that, a few people have asked how I do it, and said they can’t write them, which also surprised me since I tend to view them pretty much the same as other scenes.
Like in my last WIP, a joint project with a freind. The scenes I have trouble with are the more technological ones (it’s a scifi) but the actual sex? Not so much a problem.
So as I’m writing one now, I’ve been thinking about it as I write and I think I may have found the answer (no, it’s not 42. Could be 69 but not 42). They say ‘write what you know’. I know about emotion, I know about the touch of skin on skin and things like that and that’s how I write. I’m very much a believer that a sex scene shouldn’t be shoved in there because it ‘needs’ sex. I always try to make sure there is an emotional reasoning / change occuring for the character, a reason they want to do what they’re doing. Perhaps a little soul searching thrown in there for good measure. The actual mechanics? Wrapped up in the emotion, or at least that’s what I try for.
But then there’s writing it. When I first started I got embarrassed a lot. Now believe me, I am not a prude by any stretch of the imagination. But writing something like that, the sort of thing I have no problems reading, is weird. You sit there crippled with thoughts like ‘people will see this, what if they think I’m weird?’
People will not think you are weird. Most readers can understand this is fiction and just because you write it, doesn’t mean that’s you yourself. Writers make stuff up (unless it’s real life stuff in which case they research like made THEN make stuff up to go around it), it’s fiction.
Ignore those thoughts, along with the ‘doubt rocks’ (as in that manic thought when you just submitted something ‘OMG, what am I DOING? ROCKS write better than I do!!’) and just write what YOU like to read. Maybe push the envelope a little. Then don’t read it not until you come to edits. Just carry on writing, and it gets easier, I promise.
