May 27 2014

F is for Fairies or Flowers or Both

Hmmm, I seem to have a few too many stream of consciousness ideas for my letter “F” in my ongoing attempt to work through the A to Z challenge!

Let’s start with fairies though, since that came to mind first and I had fun playing with a set of Schleich figurines to illustrate this post! They could be fairies or elves or Other, not sure and the company just says “fantasy”, which covers it all, I guess. I take my grandson to the local toy store to get him dinosaurs and other animals for his pretend zoo that lives in my spare bedroom, waiting for his visits. Sometimes I do succumb to the temptation to pick up an interesting item or two myself. (Never mind the three dragons and a fairly aggressive griffin on the side table…..we writers must have our action figures!)

Once, long ago, I gave into the temptation to order a set of three Flower Fairies from an ad in a magazine. They were lovely. Imagine my surprise when – not having read the fine print – I discovered I had ordered the series of charming Flower Fairies, who showed up at regular intervals, three to the box, at an incredible lofty price until I managed to get the order cancelled (which the company is question did not make easy). We have a few of my favorites remaining now but they tended to be fragile and didn’t transport well whenever we moved.

I love flowers and buy them for myself at the grocery store pretty often. Why not? The one thing I do miss, living in a condo rather than my own house these days, is having a garden of roses and iris. Those are the only two kinds of flowers I can grow successfully, for some reason. They must be very hardy!

But a flower has to have fragrance to make me happy. Nothing worse than a gorgeous rose that has no scent.

May 14 2014

E is For Egypt

Ancient Egypt of course, given the paranormal novels I write, which are set in 1550 BCE.

Here’s what I said last year in a post on world building for Here Be Magic:

The Egyptian civilization has almost 3000 years of recorded history to work with, beginning over 5000 years ago. They believed in a pantheon of gods and goddesses with authority over every aspect of life, many of whom have multiple origin stories and attributes. The Egyptians were lusty and loving, devoted to family and home life, while also building a rich, powerful nation, all things centered around the bounty of the Nile. Despite their endless fascination with preparing for and ensuring a satisfactory afterlife, they were quite practical, yet poetic, in their daily pursuits, leaving us fragments of poems and songs and science, math and medicine, tales of battles and magic and pharaohs.

As a writer, I couldn’t ask for a more wonderful setting.

So far I’ve written four novels in this connected series, with many more ideas queued up in my brain, waiting for me to have time to sit and write.

I keep this gentleman on my writing desk, as a stand-in for my Pharaoh Nat-re-Akhte, the anchor character in my novels. He sends people hither and yon, fighting to protect Egypt.

Found this neat quote from Ray Bradbury: “A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.”

So this was my latest entry in the A to Z challenge, which I’m going through at the rate of one letter per week!

May 6 2014

D Is For Dragon Definitely

There’s no other word that pops up in my head for the letter “D” right now other than dragon! I love dragons and it always makes me very happy to have been born in a Year of the Dragon, according to the Chinese Zodiac.

This imposing fellow to the left is named “Morte” because the moment I saw him, he seemed fierce and take-no-prisoners. He’s a Windstone Dragon from a line by Artist Melody Pena…I have several in other colors and poses but Morte is my favorite. And he’s purple/blue!

My favorite dragons in literature are from the Dragon Riders of Pern series by Anne McCaffrey. I show a few in the photo but I have all of them squirreled away in the bookcase. “All the Weyrs of Pern” is my favorite, although discovering the first one, “Dragonflight” and its heroine Lessa of Ruatha, was one of those amazing moments in life. My favorite story from the entire series is a short story “The Littlest Dragon Rider.” I stopped reading them when her son began writing them, or co-writing them, or whatever it was supposed to be. I gave it a chance – two books with his name on them – and then I was done. The series was over for me, but I still go back and reread the originals.

I’ve come to enjoy Smaug, in Peter Jackson’s “The Hobbit” movies, as he slithers around and through and under the mountains of gold, uttering gorgeous dialog in Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice. I don’t care for the fact that he’s so bad though.

And if you asked my grandson, the best dragon of all is Toothless from the a animated movie “How To Train Your Dragon.” Having watched this movie a number of times with GS, I wouldn’t necessarily disagree. There’s a certain very lovable catlike quality to Toothless!

More A to Z challenge next week! (Yes, I know everyone else in the world finished theirs in April but I’m marching to my own drummer….Dragon here!)

Apr 29 2014

C Is for Cat Mostly

Still working my way through the A to Z Challenge at my own speed and now we’ve reached the letter C, which my immediate first reaction is Cat. Probably a flashback to elementary school and learning my ABC’s, but also because I’ve always had cats. This sleepy guy to the left is Jake and the semi-grumpy, camera-shy Keanu is on the right.

Of course, being me and endlessly fascinated with ancient Egypt, I’ve added some Egyptian type cats…The cat lady is a Margaret Le Van “Alley Cat” figurine, which I prowled for on eBay…

I haven’t actually used the cat goddesses much in my novels to date, although Sekhmet the lioness does take an active part in some of the action in the most recent, MAGIC OF THE NILE.

C could also be for carousels, which I’ve loved since I was a little girl. One of my earliest memories is from around age 3, going to ride the merry-go-round somewhere near Phoenix, NY, with my Dad. That’s probably also where my love of horses started (although we’re not to the letter “H” as yet). So I managed to combine the cat theme and the carousel idea in the photo below. There’s also a wonderful series of novels by Sharon Lee entitled “The Carousel Tides”, which I recommend if you enjoy a different take on fantasy, carousels and Maine.

Yes, I do have a lot of knickknacks to dust….mostly when I want to photograph them.

And finally, anyone who ever had toddlers who watched “Sesame Street” endlessly knows “C Is for Cookie” (but with my ubiquitous Egyptian theme going on!):

Apr 22 2014

B is for Beatrix Potter

Continuing on with my own slow version of the A to Z challenge, this week is the letter “B” and the first thing that came to mind was Beatrix Potter, author of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” and countless other charming stories of life in the English countryside as enacted by darling animals in Regency dress. Our family’s copies of the books are very well loved!

She’s firmly fixed in my mind now as Renee Zellweger, since I saw the 2006 movie version of her life, “Miss Potter”. The tagline for the movie said “Her life was the most enchanting tale of all.” Well, no spoilers from me, but I’m not convinced, folks. Parts of the movie were very happy, however, and I was fascinated at how she managed to become a published author. She left a rare legacy for all of us to enjoy. The actress Emma Thompson has been commissioned by the copyright holders to write a new tale for wily Peter. You can read a fun interview with her here on how she was asked to take on the task and how she went about writing the book.

I have a large, LARGE collection of Beatrix Potter figurines, which I’m happy to share a few photos of today. My favorite is Timmy Willie Sleeping.

But I’m also very fond of the various mice ladies, the cats, Mrs. Tiggywinkle the Hedgehog…not so fond of the pigs but I’ve acquired a few…

I also have some Bunnykins and some Brambly Hedge figurines which you may have noticed, mixed in with the Beatrix Potter but I think they all go together pretty well.

And one or two more:

Apr 16 2014

A Is for Alas Babylon

Every year I’m so tempted by the April A to Z challenge. I love the idea of writing a post about every letter of the alphabet but there’s no way I can cram that into 26 days straight, not with the day job and all the other stuff. I give huge kudos to those who can manage it!

So I decided this morning that there was no reason I couldn’t do the challenge anyway, but on my own terms. So here I am with my letter “A”. Now the thing about me, which you probably know by now, is that I’m very stream of consciousness when it comes to posts. If you read my Word Whores posts on Saturdays over on their website, you’ve seen this facet of me in operation! Unless I have a very specific topic with enough aspects to inspire me to outline and provide a structured discussion, I kind of bounce. I also love the test-taking theory of put the answer that comes to mind first.

Accordingly, the initial thing that the letter “A” inspires for me is the book Alas Babylon by Pat Frank. It was my first exposure to the whole idea of the manmade or natural apocalypse in one form or another and the life a person would have to live afterwards. The book was one of my Dad’s favorites and I devoured it. I still reread it from time to time and have the original paperback (much thrashed) in my bookcase. Of course the words live on my kindle now. I thought I was alone in my passion for this novel until one day I looked it up on Amazon and discovered how much of a classic it is. SPOILER ALERT – I always want Randy Bragg’s brother Mark to be alive, somewhere, and I always wish they could save Malachi. I LOVED the TV series “Jericho” because it felt so much to me like a modern take on Alas Babylon, at least in the early episodes, before things got all conspiracy-complicated. (And Skeet Ulrich is very easy to look at….but I digress.)

“A” is also for amber in my idiosyncratic illustrated alphabet. My favorite piece of amber probably isn’t real – that would be John Hammond’s giant chunk of amber from “Jurassic Park,” adorning his cane, with a prehistoric mosquito chock full of dinosaur blood forever trapped inside. (“dino-sawer” as that narrator from the Park’s video says). We saw the props from “Jurassic Park” at Universal Studios, back when this kind of exhibit hadn’t really been done before. Somehow we took a wrong turn at the theme park and got into the back door of the ehxibit (my mistake, I swear) so we had the area to ourselves for a few minutes. Then of course the crush of people came in but it was still an amazing experience to see the recreation of the kitchen where the velocipraptors stalked the kids and touch the triceratops as she laboriously breathed in and out and watch the egg incubator turning big eggs.

I have my own little mini collection of amber, mostly in rings. No trapped insects though!

And there you have my kickoff post in the alphabet challenge! (I’m either 113 days behind the rest of the world on this series of blog posts or 352 days early LOL. You can decide!). Next week I’ll arrive at Point “B”….