Saturday, April 28, 2007

She Wouldn't Let me Stab the Policeman

I found it incredulous that she got pulled over last night. She was on her way to what I consider a ridiculous job (but she says it's easy money) selling tickets to some loud sporting event (more on that later). She was merely sitting at a traffic light doing nothing. Nothing. The vehicle was not in motion. So how does one get in trouble with the law when one is not doing anything?

Thus my desire to run the sword through the officer who pulled her over during rush hour traffic. I think he just wanted to stare at her chest, which he spent the entire interview doing, which, again, she wouldn't let me stab him for.

Turns out her left brake light is out. So I'll be assisting her in changing a brake light, as if cars in your society are something I have any knowledge of. But she didn't get a ticket for the brake light. She got a "warning." What she got a ticket for is having a seven-year-old moron put the wrong registration on his Camaro so she has the wrong registration on her Saturn. As it turns out, the officer must have been impressed with her chest because he should have had her Saturn towed away on the spot for improper registration.

Interesting turn of events, I'd say.

I'd still like to run a sword through him.

Now. Not only do I get to learn how to change a brake light in a Saturn, I get to stand in line at the DMV (Department of...oh...she tells me you all know that the DMV is the Department of Motor Vehicles) while she gets new registration stickers for both vehicles. Then I get to stand in line at the courthouse while she convinces them that the vehicles are registered properly so she can get the ticket waived.

Your society is pretty screwed up when illegal aliens (why are they called aliens?) can drive with five people piled in the front of a dilapidated pickup truck, none of them wearing a seatbelt, but the girl in the Saturn next to them gets pulled over for having a brake light not working properly. Sandy says it's reverse racial profiling caused by the Liberal Left scaring our Civil Servants into protecting the wrong people. Again, I'm a little confused by it. If I were emperor, I'd have pulled the dangerous vehicle off the road and impounded it. (The correct word is "impounded," right? Oh, look, she's brought me cake again. How kind.)

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Monday, April 23, 2007

She Wants Something


I swear, all women do this, even women authors. They get this 'I'm-so-sweet-and-dear' look about them and smile at you as if they've never said a harsh word to you in their lives and then ask, "Nigel, can I bring you anything while you're working there at the computer?"

I'm not falling for it.

Turns out Sandy Lender wants me to see what's keeping Henry from getting all his interviews done for the character blog he's "managing" over at http://friendsofdragons.wordpress.com. Gee, let me guess. Could it be that he's completely unreliable and if she wanted someone to help her promote Choices Meant for Gods she should have just left it to me? I swear. That is my job when I'm in this society, by the way. I think Henry's job is to chase girls...

Now I'm offended by what she's just asked me. No, I don't chase girls while Sandy Lender is off at work during the day. I sit here and dream up ways to promote the story of my bride, Amanda Chariss. Why would I have any interest in any other girl when I have that gem waiting for me back in my world? I think Sandy's lost her mind.

So while she tries to bring me chocolate cake to repair the damage she's just done with her insipid question, let me just share with you all that Choices Meant for Gods is still available as a hard back from ArcheBooks Publishing at the publisher's website at www.archebooks.com, but also from your local book store (which is, according to Sandy, the most romantic way to buy it), or from the easier http://www.amazon.com/Choices-Meant-Gods-Sandy-Lender/dp/1595071652/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-9089752-5140754?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177387154&sr=8-1 or http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781595071651&itm=1.

Well, would you look at this! She really did bring me cake. See, she's a good author after all. Now, if you all will excuse me, I'm going to go tuck her in because she's absolutely exhausted, and then I have some more blogging sites to check out for marketing purposes.

Have a lovely evening, all of you.

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Sunday, April 22, 2007

She's The Godfather

Sandy Lender's friend Jeni has a blog at http://oldavonladysorders.blogspot.com/ where, today, she's posted an online personality test that gives you a result that matches your personality to a classic movie from this society. Movies are like plays in my society (oh, Sandy says every person reading this post will know what a movie is).

Anyway, rather than get back to work on marketing and writing Choices Meant for Gods materials, Sandy took the time to click through to the test from Jeni's blog and discovered that her personality best matches the movie The Godfather. She found this enormously funny. I have no idea what this movie entails, but Sandy now wants a machine gun to fit her new image.

I can only imagine...

So if you all would like to participate, you can read Jeni's insightful blog post, which Sandy is as pleased as she can be about, and click on the movie test at http://oldavonladysorders.blogspot.com/.

Best of luck to you.

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Thursday, April 19, 2007

She Might be Insane


When I caught her reading in the car again this morning and began chastising her, she reminded me that she's actually safer driving that way because the other motorists avoid people who multi-task. I guess some women don makeup while driving. I've yet to see Sandy Lender attempt such stupidity, thank goodness. (Oh, fantastic, she says you can poke an eye out if you hit a pothole. Well, one must have priorities, yes. I understand completely now.)

Back to my story: When she reminded me that reading in the car guarantees other drivers stay out of your lane, she then gave me one of those ridiculous grins that means she's about to irritate the living daylights out of me and said, "It's what I'm reading today that should send everyone skittering off into the ditches."

It was the car's manual.

A light she described as "squid-like" had appeared on the console and she wanted to know whether or not to worry about it (read: take the vehicle to a mechanic to find out if it signified something requiring money to fix was going wrong under the hood) or if she could just ignore it until the banks finish taking the house this summer. Personally, I'd rather she dealt with the car, but there's no one in this household but me who appears to give a flying...oh...pardon me...I'm being censored.

And now I must explain that the reason I know anything about cars is because the incident(s) with the brakes a couple months ago had me surfing the net to figure out how to keep her from killing herself driving around out there in your insane society. Are you people aware of just how close any of you came to being maimed by her? Rest assured, the brake situation was resolved...finally. She doesn't sound as intimidating when she pulls up to a stop light as she used to.

But the squid on the dash is troublesome...It's a shame she doesn't have someone like Oprah Winfrey (oh, yes, I had someone explain who Oprah Winfrey is and how an appearance on said program would somehow catapult the sales of Choices Meant for Gods into your stratosphere) promoting Choices at the moment because she could sure use the money from your society to get some things solved around here. But I'm under the impression that's every starving artist's plight.

So here's to all the writers getting their 15 minutes of fame with Oprah. I'd just like to see my author get there fairly soon. Until then, you can still get your copy of Choices Meant for Gods at www.amazon.com. (or your local book store)

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

She's Asked me to Promote Some More

Apparently, there's a spider in the house, so I may be called away from the computer suddenly...
I think I've mentioned that the purpose of this blog is two-fold: I am to promote Sandy Lender, which, in some way, promotes Choices Meant for Gods, her new fantasy novel (and the story of my lovely bride, Amanda Chariss). The part of this site that promotes Sandy is what her publisher refers to as the author's journal, but Sandy has this aversion to airing her life and innermost thoughts for the World Wide Web.

Thus I get censored quite a bit. And I've decided that's fine. I don't understand all the inner workings of the female mind - and I surely don't want to.

The part of this site that promotes the fantasy novel needs a little more attention, she told me today. (I think she just didn't want me to post about her screeching over the spider in the house - she's really terrified of these things. Okay, I've been instructed that I must explain the types of spiders she's seen out here in the swamp include black widows and enormous wolf spiders that you can see wiggling their fangs from 10 feet away.) To at least attempt to stay on track, let me state that the novel is great; I like it. The main character, Amanda Chariss, is amazing; I'm madly in love with her. And the novel itself is getting good press.

And I guess Sandy Lender is getting some good press, too. (Is that really how you say it? Good press? What does that mean exactly?) She has appeared on blogs and will appear on more, which I'll alert everyone to, and, tomorrow, she'll be featured in an article in the Naples Sun Times here in Naples, Fla. I guess that's a big deal in your society.

I'll keep you all posted!

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Monday, April 16, 2007

She Will Moderate the Virginia Tech Comments I Make

Because I inherit the school at Arcana, I inherit the responsibilities of keeping the students there safe. And because Sandy has worked in the public relations vice of a university recently, she knows the impotence of suited businessmen pretending to be administrators of higher learning when a crisis grips them. She stated aloud this evening that she can only imagine the full mental lockdown one of those businessmen would have undergone had he been faced with a true crisis such as the one the administrators at Virginia Tech faced at 7:30 this morning...and failed to respond to until 9:30 when they sent their politically correct campus-wide e-mail to a student body already in the throes of tragedy number two.

Because her site, The Dragon, is not built to respond to political trends or pop culture, she won't be responding as blatantly as I am to even something she views as a national tragedy. As she pointed out to me, not even the horror of Columbine High School several years ago took as many lives as this massacre today. What a shame that anything should come along that overshadows that day...

There are some days, more than others, when I am thankful I'm not a part of this society. And then Sandy reminds me that you all have a God who takes everyone home and offers a powerful peace to the families left behind. May the families and friends affected by the shootings today be comforted by that peace.

"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted."
--St. Matthew 5:4 (KJV)

Sunday, April 15, 2007

She's Writing a Letter

So there was this program on television that she actually took the time to watch this evening. It represented half an hour out of the time she should have spent on marketing or writing or blogging or finishing off these blessed press releases so she can get back to writing. No, she sat in front of the television watching some program about sea turtles. Have I mentioned here that she already knows about sea turtles?

Anyway, the program was a boring nature documentary that showed the trials and tribulations of a solitary loggerhead turtle (apparently, there are seven different kinds of sea turtle in the oceans, all endangered or threatened) traveling 9,000 miles to get to her natal beach to lay eggs. Toward the end of the program, Sandy burst into tears because the first turtle that the film makers tracked made it across the ocean almost to her goal...

...and drowned in a shrimp trawler's net.

As Hollywood has trained the film makers to do, though, the editors had a second solitary turtle being monitored by a second crew. That turtle made it to the shore and deposited her eggs. I figured this would make my author happy. Instead, she's writing a letter of "extreme protest" for lessening the impact of the commercial fishing industry and the horrors it visits upon the oceans by delivering a happy ending instead of the original ending.

I swear, her fixation with reality makes me nervous. I really must sit down with her and discuss the sequels to Choices Meant for Gods to be sure she's treating all the characters (particularly Amanda Chariss) as kindly as possible. Sandy Lender may think there are no happily-ever-afters in real life, but I'm lobbying for one in the trilogy.

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Saturday, April 14, 2007

The Neighbors Can't Hear Her Scream

So Sandy returned to the house after dark this evening, which I assumed would be the case because she turned on the porch light before walking out the door earlier. This attracts bugs, which attracts frogs, which she seems keen on. Unfortunately, this evening, it attracted something more sinister than a frog. And I wasn't here initially when she returned...

You think I would know the difference between a "the-biggest-spider-I've-ever-seen-is-blocking-my-path" scream versus a "there's-a-true-threat" scream. (Oh, of course, I'm getting a lecture on that one. "True threat" is in the eye of the beholder? As the teenagers say: Whatever.) I've been a constant resource for her during the writing of Choices Meant for Gods so I've been around for several spider episodes and the "I-cannot-believe-that-freaking-scorpion-just-stung-me" episode and even the "black-panther-at-the-window-one-early-morning" episode (and if you haven't heard that one yet you're in for a treat).

What disturbed both of us tonight is none of the neighbors came to the rescue. It's dark outside and a woman is screaming. Shouldn't that garner at least moderate interest? And it's not that none of the neighbors care. Sandy has a fantastic couple living across the street who are wonderful people who would give the very shirts off their backs to help out a friend in need. This leads us to believe her shrieking went unheard (which boggles my mind). She says this is probably for the best because she's rather embarrassed about it and a Budweiser will settle the whole matter for her.

I'm pretty sure she's joking...

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Thursday, April 12, 2007

She's Such a Good Diplomat



You should see the business cards Sandy designed for me today. They outshine Henry’s, I can tell you that. And they’re being professionally printed. As Sandy is fond of saying, you can’t beat that with a stick.

So now we can hand these out to let people know I have this site to “journal” about the author of Choices Meant for Gods. Also, she’s put Mother’s blog at http://ChoicesMeantforGods.wordpress.com along the bottom of the card to help promote the book. Anything we can do to promote my bride’s story is a good thing at this point. (And I guess that includes mentioning Henry’s stinking interview site at http://friendsofdragons.wordpress.com.)

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Wednesday, April 11, 2007

She Made Business Cards for Him!

I’m completely offended by this. Henry Bakerson shows up here in this society long after I’ve been here helping out, pops in only sporadically to do anything that borders on useful, only has a handful of posts on his blog (all of which Sandy has had to censor heavily—as if she has time for that nonsense—because Henry is a self-professed cad), and she makes business cards for him.

Business cards, I tell you!

She says it’s because people need to get in touch with him for the interviews he does on his blog. (Oh, by the very gods in Mahriket I can’t believe she just asked me to add this.) You can view his blog at http://friendsofdragons.wordpress.com/.

I don’t have any business cards.

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Monday, April 9, 2007

She Wants to Show You the Cover


You may not be aware of this, but Sandy has two artists’ work featured on the cover of Choices Meant for Gods. Robert Gelinas, her publisher, designed the incredible front cover, combining elements to reflect the magic and danger that surround my bride, Amanda Chariss Derdriu. (Hold on a second; I’m going to see if Sandy will let me use Taiman for her last name. Drat. Well, isn’t that unsettling…)

The other artist is Megan Kissinger, whom visitors at The Dragon had the pleasure of meeting during the week of March 26-30. The interview with Megan is in the archives there. Megan is the cartographer for Choices Meant for Gods. She designed the map of Onweald, and you can see the four-color (is that correct?)…you can see the four-color, or full-color, version of the map ghosted behind a few testimonials for the book on the back cover. (Again, don’t ask me what these printing terms mean. I’m trusting the gal with the career in this stuff here.) Then there’s a black-and-white version printed inside the book, but Sandy’s disappointed in the print quality of that one. She says they’ll have a better file plated for the second press run (by the gods, stop with all that jargon). She’s giggling over my shoulder as I type all this nonsense.

Suffice it to say, here’s the cover for ya’ll to look at. (How’s that, you little sprite?)


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Sunday, April 8, 2007

She Says It's a Good Day

Sandy explained this society's variety of religions, particularly the one that brings her peace. She is a Christian and believes Jesus Christ is the son of God. Through Him, people gain salvation, and today, people celebrate His resurrection. The story of His so-called trial (which was no trial; if you read the accounts, you'll see He did nothing wrong) and execution horrified me. But the hope given to the world when He arose afterward is unprecedented. I'm amazed.

So today is a good day. You can see her Word of the Day at www.todaythedragonwins.blogspot.com to join in the celebration.

She says all the crazy drivers from "up north" leave this area after today, as well. That part she hasn't explained very well, but if it means she'll spend less time commuting (look at all this bizarre vocabulary I've picked up in this society - Amanda won't understand half of what I'm saying in the future) and more time writing the Choices Meant for Gods trilogy, then I'm happy about it.

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Thursday, April 5, 2007

She Has Another Testimonial for me to Post

Don't ask me why we're posting this here before she posts it at The Dragon. I think Sandy's trying to be all chivalrous and save me the time of writing a full article this evening. (She has me prepping some items for Henry Bakerson's blog at http://FriendsofDragons.blogspot.com because he's a slacker, which I thought she realized since she's the one who wrote him. No, I'm not complaining on the blog again... She can be so testy... )

Anyway. Here's the next testimonial:

"Lender masterfully weaves multi-dimensional characters and an intriguing plot into her addicting fantasy world. Choices Meant for Gods will keep readers turning pages and leave them savoring the epic tale long after they've finished reading it." -- M.B. Weston, author of A Prophecy Forgotten (which is also available now, by the way)

Sandy just popped in (again) to remind me that I need to tell you all Choices Meant for Gods is rising in its ranking on at www.amazon.com.

Choices Meant for Gods is also available at http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781595071651&itm=1 if you're a member of Barnes & Nobles's savings program (oh, she tells me it's a card of some kind that Barnes & Noble members have).

Choices Meant for Gods is also available at the Borders site if you prefer using some sort of Borders point-rewards-system-thing that I don't understand. You would click on this link: http://www.amazon.com/Choices-Meant-Gods-Sandy-Lender/dp/1595071652/ref=sr_1_1/104-9089752-5140754?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175816810&sr=1-1, but, as you can see, they're partnered with Amazon, so, why not just go to Amazon and save on the shipping because Amazon is running a shipping...she's arguing with me again.

Buy it wherever fine books are sold? That's it? Fine.

I'll post a picture of the cover next time. It's very striking.

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Tuesday, April 3, 2007

She's Floating on Cloud 9

I guess it would be more accurate to say Sandy Lender is floating somewhere above Cloud 9, if I'm understanding the colloquialism correctly, now that she's holding a copy of Choices Meant for Gods. It's heavy for a fantasy book. Solid and substantive, I should say. But don't take my word for it. I'm supposed to be posting testimonials from people for her:

"Choices Meant for Gods is a marvelous read. The action and suspense continue in one easy flow. Congratulations to Lender. She has a winner."
--Lea Docken, FantasyToday.com


So as long as you like epic fantasy in the style of J.R.R. Tolkien or Terry Goodkind, you should be set to enjoy the story of my bride, Amanda Chariss. You can get your copy to judge for yourself at Amazon.com or http://www.archebooks.com/BookIDX/Indexes/Fantasy/CMG/CMGDesc.htm.

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Sunday, April 1, 2007

She Can Barely Move

I actually feel sorry for her this evening. I've done this myself: worked in the fields at Arcana in early spring after being away from that type of work all winter so that you wake the next morning unable to lift your body out of bed. When Amanda started training with Mia (a lesser goddess from Mahriket), she had some "issues", as it were. Now Sandy Lender is bemoaning the fact that she elected to change her exercise routine on the same day that she spent three hours on her hands and knees scrubbing the ceramic tile floor in her house. Because she takes this bizarre (and, from what I understand, dangerous) migraine maintenance medication, she can't just pop a painkiller and lay down until the pain goes away.

It's sort of humorous.

Yet I still feel sorry for her.

So that's what my author is doing today--trying to get things done around her house at half-speed. I've suggested more than once that she could sit at the computer to work on the sequels to Choices Meant for Gods and she wouldn't have to try to move at all...

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