Merry Christmas!
May each of you have a joyous holiday as we celebrate the greatest gift, and may your new year be bright with plans for your future. Merry Christmas!
Guest Post: Counting Down to Giftmas
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oday is my turn to host in the Giftmas Blog Tour, and I bring you author and editor Rhonda Parrish. Rhonda has written and edited a bunch of things, but readers of this blog will know her as the editor of Fae, Corvidae, and Scarecrow. Please don’t forget to enter the contest for free books and stuff! You’ll find the entry below the post. Catch the whole tour here. Thanks, and in case I don’t catch you tomorrow, Merry Christmas!
Counting Down To Giftmas
Growing up my family had holiday traditions, traditions that I carried on even after I moved away from home. Then, when I moved in with my husband fourteen (!!) years ago he had his own holiday traditions and we (my husband Jo, daughter Danica and myself) had to find a way to try and mesh our traditions together into something that worked for us. One of Jo’s traditions which I was super happy to adopt was advent.Guest Post: Counting Down to Giftmas
Roast Chocobo – Geek Feast Blog Hop
Today I am participating in J.L. Mbewe’s Geek Feast Blog Hop, sharing fandom-inspired recipes. As we are presently between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when oven-tender fowls are traditional fare, I thought I would share a time-honored family recipe for chocobo. (Don’t miss the contests below and the fundraiser, as 100% of So To Honor Him royalties this week go to charity!)
Sephiroth’s Favorite Roast Chocobo
As the holiday season of marathon eating begins, we think not only of the loved ones no longer with us (all of them, from Aerith to Zach) but of the family and social gatherings where we will gorge ourselves on our favorite recipes. One which has been a repeated hit is Sephiroth’s favorite Roasted Chocobo.
Roast Chocobo – Geek Feast Blog Hop
So To Honor Him charity promotion
When So To Honor Him released last year, all the initial profits went directly to support International Justice Mission, an organization fighting modern-day slavery.
In 2015, we’re doing it again.
100% of the profits from all copies (paperback and ebook) sold December 14-18 will go directly to IJM. Click here to purchase and feel free to share with your friends!So To Honor Him charity promotion
ACPL Author Fair this weekend!
Don’t forget, I (and others!) will be at the Allen County Public Library Author Fair this Saturday.
I’ll be speaking on self-publishing, with others. I’ll have a table with books and shirts and stuff, and I’ll be happy to sign or help you pick Christmas gifts (shop early!) from my table or another author’s table, and just talk about your favorite fiction.
Details below. Please stop by!ACPL Author Fair this weekend!
Halloween Candy & Risk
So in Orphan Heirs & Shades of Night, Robin reflects upon the real and imagined dangers of Halloween, including the popular fear of tainted candy. However, Robin says, the risks are actually quite low, as there has never been a confirmed case of Halloween candy poisoning.
Every year, parents are lashed into a panic by hyberbolic warnings of trick or treating dangers. Alternative candy-grab events are promoted, at shopping malls or store parking lots. (I’m really not sure how accepting candy from a stranger at a shopping mall is significantly safer than accepting candy from a neighbor on your street, but whatever makes you happy.) But the risks are somewhat overstated. Let’s look back on this last Halloween and see how we did.
Halloween Candy & Risk
Autumn & Halloween books!
Okay, scarecrows aren’t limited to autumn, but somehow they’ve become associated with fall decor, so there you go. And Robin Archer works year-round in Indianapolis, but this cover has a cool jack-o-lantern, so there.
The point is, you’ve got book deals.Autumn & Halloween books!
Orphan Heirs & Shades of Night – a new Robin Archer tale
This isn’t a real release.
Not really. It’s not a big splashy thing and it’s not a full collection of stories. It’s a novella, the next tale about Robin Archer. I’d like to do a whole series of short stories and novellas about Robin, a whole Circles & Crossroads series, and then release them in one set, but that’s not ready yet. But in the meantime, I’d like to share a new one with you, just because people have liked Robin so.
It’s a Halloween tale and takes place in Irvington, an Indianapolis neighborhood boasting the oldest and largest Halloween festival in the country. (I’ll be doing posting about some of the local scene soon.) When children begin to disappear from the festival, Robin and Jimmy offer to help search, and Robin recognizes a crime out of time.
Books traditionally release on Tuesday. But because this isn’t a real release, just a story for Robin fans, it hits virtual shelves on Friday, halfway around the week from Tuesday. That seems an appropriately Fae-like way to do it.
Orphan Heirs & Shades of Night – a new Robin Archer tale
Wordless Wednesday: Skeleton
I made the mystery trail/maze as promised, but I uncovered a significant hole left by some bank robber retrieving his stolen loot. As the trail is walked in the dark, this was a real hazard, so it had to be marked. So we enlisted McCoy. McCoy (Star Trek fans… Wordless Wednesday: Skeleton
More Mowing & Murder: Autumn Maze
I’ve mentioned previously that I cut an annual autumn maze. What I didn’t mention is that the last couple of years, I’ve used a secret theme.
It’s hard to invent a wholly new labyrinth each year without being repetitive, so one year I chose an usual word from a book title, a word I figured no one would recognize, and used it as the basis for my maze. It seemed to work pretty well, the maze was reported properly twisty — the word was kitsune — and no one realized they were actually walking through connected letters.
That became my private joke. Half of the maze was bizarre swirls and winding paths, meant to draw out the younger kids but not lose them, and half was a series of interlinked passages based on some personal literary reference. But last year, I was found out, thanks to Google Earth. My mother, who with my father owns the field in which the maze is cut, was looking up her property’s aerial view for some reason and realized the map had been updated after I’d done my maze.More Mowing & Murder: Autumn Maze