I visited Georgia Aquarium when I went to Georgia, USA, in 2016. A very nice aquarium overall.
I’ve shared three pictures this time. I previously shared another picture in the February PotM earlier this year.
Picture of the Month — August 2019
Blog
New Options for Reading My Stories AND a New One
I have a lot to tell you all about today, so I won’t be including all the descriptions because that would make it loooong. But I’ll be linking to the book pages on here so you can get the full info, easy peasy.
Let’s start with the new:
Angel’s Demise, a dark urban fantasy short story is now available as ebook that you can buy here.
Tamari Shadow-Wing, guardian angel, watches over and guides Nick Corn. His life took a turn for the worse and he leaned into it.
She tries desperately to convince him to stop his downward spiral, but he isn’t listening.
Can she make him listen or will he become another lost soul?
And from here, I’ll go to Magic and Sacrifice which is finally available as a stand alone short story instead of only in the anthologies Fiction River: Last Stand that I co-edited with Dean Wesley Smith (to find out more about his fiction, go here instead) and Fiction River Presents: Writers Without Borders.
I especially recommend Fiction River: Last Stand—it is full of great short stories—but I’m also glad my short story is out by itself for anyone just interested in that story. On that note, here is the description for it:
Two countries at war. Only a magical barrier between them keeps the fighting to one day a year.
Maora and her husband fights on that one day, fighting for the country that creates the barrier every year.
Bloodied and hurt, they barely keep the tide at bay.
Will they fail and doom their country? Is there a way to end the war?
But there is more! Two new bundles came out this spring and I haven’t had a chance to mention them here on the blog.
Cat Tales Issue #3 included my short story When She Gained Her Soul. As you can probably guess, all stories in this bundle have cats in them. My story happen to be science fiction, but the other stories cover other genres.
So if you are a huge fan of cats (and haven’t picked up my story yet), you can find more info and a buy link here.
Last but not least is the other bundle called Eclectica. It has stories covering a lot of different genres. My story in it is Dear Brother. A mainstream short story about grief.
The best part of this bundle was all the promotion done around it and you can find me showing up in interviews at several places, plus at a virtual potluck put together by Jackie Keswick.
Barbara G. Tarn interviewed me for her author blog. You might recognize her name since she edited the anthology Nightly Bites which I was in.
Then read the interview Sherry D. Ramsey did with me, she had really good questions.
Lastly, the curator of this bundle A. L. Butcher interviewed me for their site Library of Erana.
Full details about Eclectica along with a buy link can be found here.
Before I bid adieu, I’d like to once again thank everyone who voted in the poll about what you enjoy reading on my blog. It really does help me shape what I do here.
I hope you have a lot of nice weather for the rest of your summer (or winter)!
What Changes and What Doesn’t: Poll Closed for What Blog Posts You Enjoy Reading
Thanks to everyone who voted in the poll on what blog posts you enjoy reading. The poll is now closed.
It was really helpful to see what you all enjoy reading.
I always try to reassess what to do about my blog about once a year. I want to be sure I posts things you are interested in reading, and I want to have fun with it. So this poll helped me make some adjustments.
Picture of the Month is the most enjoyed part of this blog so it will definitely keep going! Right now I’m thinking of doing a sort of mini-series inside it.
I’m currently in Japan on a 1-year visa, and I thought I could spend the next year posting one picture from each month I’ve been in Japan on this visa. That means I’d post a picture from April when I run out of already scheduled PotM posts (September would be the first Japan visa post). And then I’d post a picture from May in October and so on.
If this sounds like an awful idea, please comment. I don’t feel strongly one way or the other. What I have been doing is to go through my digital photos and post the ones that are interesting or pretty from across all photos I’ve ever taken.
Second on the poll is updates about my life, including writing, blog, website and other news. I really don’t do those posts very often, but it does lead me into the change I’m planing for my Great Entertainment posts.
I’m basically going to smash together those two. Each month I’ll write about books I’ve read, games I’ve played, movies I’ve seen, places I’ve visited, which I’ve really enjoyed.
That way I’m both telling about what is happening in my life through what I consume (plus this won’t be strict reviews so life stuff will get in there) and I get to share great entertainment that I find.
I’ll also keep doing the release news, but might do like I’ve done the past month (and will do later this month), which is to collect release news together. So the blog might not learn about a release as soon as it happens. For that, sign up to my (monthly) newsletter where I will tell of things the same month they happen.
Also more timely news such as special bundles and sales will only be announced there.
So that is what it looks like for the next year or so, unless any of the changes doesn’t feel great.
Great Movie: Mr. & Mrs. Smith
This series of posts are about entertainment that I recommend when people ask me for recommendations. It also includes place-specific “entertainment”, such as beautiful gardens; it might be stretching the definition of entertainment, but I enjoy myself in the places I recommend.
They are not universal recommendations. I wouldn’t recommend a dark thriller to someone looking for something nice and happy; I’d recommend a romance.
They aren’t perfect or without mistakes.
Art is never finished, only abandoned. ~ Leonard da Vinci
Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt, great action, and a fun (if implausible) story: What more can you ask of a great movie?
This is something of a theme with me. I love a lot of the big Hollywood action movies.
When I heard the plot for Mr. & Mrs. Smith, I knew it would be a blast. Two assassins unwittingly married to each other going through marriage counseling.
Plus I enjoy watching those two actors and several of their movies are my favorites.
I also enjoyed how the story was told. When they switched between different times in the couple’s life and when it went to the counseling.
Admittedly, I really don’t know much about how to make a great movie. Like camera angles, when to cut, how to cut, what to leave out, how to… everything.
All I know is I really loved how they did it in this movie. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Take it or leave, but if you tend to like Hollywood action movies and haven’t seen this one? Go see it. Then come talk to me so we can gush about it (I can hope!).
Which of My Posts Do You Enjoy Reading?
I have a favor to ask you today. I mostly write this blog in advance, as much in advance as I can manage in fact because on a day to day, weekly and monthly basis I’m very bad at remember to write and post stuff on this blog. I’ve now come to a time where I need to write and schedule new posts and I started wondering which posts you, my readers, actually enjoy reading.
I have therefore added a poll below (which closes on July 15th, so please vote before then). If you are reading this in an email, you’ll need to click through to my site to actually participate.
Basically, I’m looking for a feel of what is being read and what is enjoyed. I’ll probably add more of those and maybe completely drop something if no one is that interested. It might also make me change things up.
So please answer honestly about what you actually enjoy reading most of the time. I think I added all types of posts and at least one I divided into two options.
Please comment on this post if you have any additions to your vote whether praise, critique, or an option I missed that you wanted. Also if you have any suggestions for things I could write about on my blog, feel free to add that too.
I can’t promise I will take any specific actions. I thought however that I should ask for your input before I potentially changed things up.
Thank you for your time! <3
Here is the poll:
Obs! The poll closes on July 15, so please vote before then!
Picture of the Month — July 2019
These two photos are taken in May, 2017, right before I started more than a year of travel. The forest photo below was taken at a nature reserve a stone’s throw from where I grew up. (Another photo of the same nature reserve is here.)
